Ficlet: Just Believe
Mar. 10th, 2025 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Just Believe
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Jack, Ianto.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 675
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Jack sometimes wonders about what’s real and what isn’t.
Written For: Weekend Challenge at
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
1_million_words, using this lyric from This Mus Be the Place by Talking Heads.I can't tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born
If someone asks, this where I'll be, where I'll be.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Set in my Through Time and Space ‘verse.
Sometimes, Jack found himself wondering and worrying whether all that he was experiencing was nothing more than a fantasy he’d made up in his own head. Perhaps in reality he was locked away somewhere, mad from grief, imagining the future as he wished it could have been. Or maybe he was still buried alive beneath what would someday be Cardiff, in which case all his team, his friends, might still be alive and he’d see them again when he was finally dug up, whenever that might be.
In his darker moments, it crossed his mind that he could still be aboard the Valliant, dying over and over, finding comfort inside his own made-up world, picturing adventures and disasters, joys and tragedies, something to hold onto through the endless pain and suffering, but he preferred not to dwell on that idea. He wanted to believe that the Doctor had set everything to rights, defeated the Master, reversed the paradox, restored the earth to the way it ought to be. The alternative was simply too dreadful. Not that the other possibilities were much better.
Nights like this, with Ianto sound asleep beside him, Jack went over everything in his mind. Had he found Ianto again, or had Ianto found him? He’d had so many dreams over the last few hundred years that there were times he wasn’t sure he remembered the sequence of events correctly. He knew he could ask the TARDIS, but if this existence was nothing but a figment of his own imaginings… How could he trust anything he was told if it was all coming from his own subconscious anyway? He’d just be telling himself what he wanted to hear.
“You’re thinking again,” Ianto murmured sleepily, draping his bare arm over Jack, a solid, warm, believable weight. “Why d’you keep doing this to yourself, worrying about what’s real and what’s not? I feel real, don’t I?”
“Yes,” Jack agreed, snuggling closer to his husband in their bed, in the bedroom of their suite of rooms aboard their TARDIS. “You feel real. Everything feels real, it’s just that sometimes it seems like no matter how real it all feels, it can’t be true.”
“That’s because there’s a part of you that thinks you don’t deserve to be happy, that still wants to punish you for everything you think you’ve done wrong in your life, everyone you think you’ve failed. Which is nonsense, but brains are weird.”
“I know, and I want to believe it’s all real, but…”
Ianto shifted then, opening his eyes to look at Jack. “We exist, Jack, we’re together; how or why matters less than the fact that we ARE.”
“Even if we’re not real?”
“Maybe especially then, because what if the whole universe is just imagining itself? If nothing is real, then everything can be as real as it believes itself to be.” Propping himself up on one elbow, Ianto leaned over to kiss Jack. “I love you. I believe in you, and in me, and in our TARDIS, and in the universe. I believe everything existed before we were born, and there’s a good chance that something will still exist even after time runs out and the universe ends, because I can’t imagine everything just vanishing. Where would it go?”
“Perhaps at the end it will have just… never existed in the first place.”
“Then what would be the point of it all?” Ianto asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Whatever is or isn’t real, Jack, there’s nothing either of us, or anyone else, can do to change it, not really. But right at this moment, we’re here, we’re together, and I for one wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, or with anyone else.”
“Neither would I.”
“Good.” Ianto flopped back onto his pillow. “Now that’s settled, go to sleep, and stop worrying. We’re right where we’re meant to be. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.”
Jack thought Ianto’s logic was a bit shaky, but maybe he was right, maybe that wasn’t important. Real or not, this was where he belonged.
The End
In his darker moments, it crossed his mind that he could still be aboard the Valliant, dying over and over, finding comfort inside his own made-up world, picturing adventures and disasters, joys and tragedies, something to hold onto through the endless pain and suffering, but he preferred not to dwell on that idea. He wanted to believe that the Doctor had set everything to rights, defeated the Master, reversed the paradox, restored the earth to the way it ought to be. The alternative was simply too dreadful. Not that the other possibilities were much better.
Nights like this, with Ianto sound asleep beside him, Jack went over everything in his mind. Had he found Ianto again, or had Ianto found him? He’d had so many dreams over the last few hundred years that there were times he wasn’t sure he remembered the sequence of events correctly. He knew he could ask the TARDIS, but if this existence was nothing but a figment of his own imaginings… How could he trust anything he was told if it was all coming from his own subconscious anyway? He’d just be telling himself what he wanted to hear.
“You’re thinking again,” Ianto murmured sleepily, draping his bare arm over Jack, a solid, warm, believable weight. “Why d’you keep doing this to yourself, worrying about what’s real and what’s not? I feel real, don’t I?”
“Yes,” Jack agreed, snuggling closer to his husband in their bed, in the bedroom of their suite of rooms aboard their TARDIS. “You feel real. Everything feels real, it’s just that sometimes it seems like no matter how real it all feels, it can’t be true.”
“That’s because there’s a part of you that thinks you don’t deserve to be happy, that still wants to punish you for everything you think you’ve done wrong in your life, everyone you think you’ve failed. Which is nonsense, but brains are weird.”
“I know, and I want to believe it’s all real, but…”
Ianto shifted then, opening his eyes to look at Jack. “We exist, Jack, we’re together; how or why matters less than the fact that we ARE.”
“Even if we’re not real?”
“Maybe especially then, because what if the whole universe is just imagining itself? If nothing is real, then everything can be as real as it believes itself to be.” Propping himself up on one elbow, Ianto leaned over to kiss Jack. “I love you. I believe in you, and in me, and in our TARDIS, and in the universe. I believe everything existed before we were born, and there’s a good chance that something will still exist even after time runs out and the universe ends, because I can’t imagine everything just vanishing. Where would it go?”
“Perhaps at the end it will have just… never existed in the first place.”
“Then what would be the point of it all?” Ianto asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Whatever is or isn’t real, Jack, there’s nothing either of us, or anyone else, can do to change it, not really. But right at this moment, we’re here, we’re together, and I for one wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, or with anyone else.”
“Neither would I.”
“Good.” Ianto flopped back onto his pillow. “Now that’s settled, go to sleep, and stop worrying. We’re right where we’re meant to be. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.”
Jack thought Ianto’s logic was a bit shaky, but maybe he was right, maybe that wasn’t important. Real or not, this was where he belonged.
The End
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-13 05:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-13 06:30 pm (UTC)Thank you!