Ficlet: Not Letting Go
Feb. 12th, 2026 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Not Letting Go
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 565
Spoilers: Sort of Children of Earth. Fix-it.
Summary: There is nothing Ianto wouldn’t do for Jack, and nothing Jack wouldn’t do to keep his lover by his side.
Written For:
ravenlilyrose’s prompt ‘any, any, nothing I wouldn't do’, at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Ianto would have followed Jack into the fires of Hell, and a few years ago he had, after a fashion, having sent Jack to another planet to live out his days as a slave only to have second thoughts and dive through the portal after him, determined to save him and bring him home. Back then, he hadn’t known about Jack’s immortality of course, hadn’t understood that he’d almost condemned Jack to an eternity of slavery, with no hope of escape. Later, when he’d understood the full truth, he’d been horrified, all but falling over himself to apologise for something Jack had already forgiven.
Since then, they’d had their ups and downs, Ianto had betrayed him yet again, been forgiven, been left behind when Jack had run after the Doctor, but then Jack had come back to Cardiff, to Torchwood, and most importantly, to Ianto… They’d been ticking along nicely, building something between them, something good, when they’d lost both Tosh and Owen in a single, horrific day, and since then, they’d clung even tighter to each other, because who could say when Ianto’s time would be up? They hadn’t wanted to waste a single moment of however long they might have, knowing the clock was surely ticking. Life expectancy in Torchwood was always too limited. Few agents lasted beyond their early thirties, if they even survived that long.
Then, a few days ago, children around the world had begun chanting in unison, and a black ops squad sent by the government had tried to take Torchwood out of the picture, to keep them from interfering with the Prime Minister’s plan to give the aliens everything they were demanding.
That wasn’t something Torchwood could allow, especially once Jack had realised he was the one who’d started the whole mess by handing children over to the 456 decades earlier. He’d been following orders he should have refused, and this time he was determined to stand up to both the aliens and the government.
With that decided, he’d gone to confront the emissary for the 456, tell it no dice, they weren’t getting a single child, and there’d been no way in Hell Ianto could have let his lover go into Thames House alone. Jack had needed someone at his back, someone he could trust, and Ianto was the only possible choice, no matter how risky it was, no matter how dumb Jack’s plan was… As it turned out, it really was the dumbest thing either of them had ever done, as evidenced by the fact that they were now both dying from a fast-acting alien virus, and… Well, Ianto had long ago decided there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Jack, and apparently that included dying, but…
There was nothing Jack wouldn’t do for Ianto, including doing his damnedest to breathe life into his lover while they were both dying. If that didn’t work, Jack intended to find a way to stay dead as well, even though the Doctor had told him he was a fixed point, and nothing could be done to change that. He would drag Ianto back into life or die trying, because if Ianto was willing to die for him, he should be willing to live for him too. Jack had lost too many lovers already, and he wasn’t about to let it happen again, no matter what he had to do…
The End
Since then, they’d had their ups and downs, Ianto had betrayed him yet again, been forgiven, been left behind when Jack had run after the Doctor, but then Jack had come back to Cardiff, to Torchwood, and most importantly, to Ianto… They’d been ticking along nicely, building something between them, something good, when they’d lost both Tosh and Owen in a single, horrific day, and since then, they’d clung even tighter to each other, because who could say when Ianto’s time would be up? They hadn’t wanted to waste a single moment of however long they might have, knowing the clock was surely ticking. Life expectancy in Torchwood was always too limited. Few agents lasted beyond their early thirties, if they even survived that long.
Then, a few days ago, children around the world had begun chanting in unison, and a black ops squad sent by the government had tried to take Torchwood out of the picture, to keep them from interfering with the Prime Minister’s plan to give the aliens everything they were demanding.
That wasn’t something Torchwood could allow, especially once Jack had realised he was the one who’d started the whole mess by handing children over to the 456 decades earlier. He’d been following orders he should have refused, and this time he was determined to stand up to both the aliens and the government.
With that decided, he’d gone to confront the emissary for the 456, tell it no dice, they weren’t getting a single child, and there’d been no way in Hell Ianto could have let his lover go into Thames House alone. Jack had needed someone at his back, someone he could trust, and Ianto was the only possible choice, no matter how risky it was, no matter how dumb Jack’s plan was… As it turned out, it really was the dumbest thing either of them had ever done, as evidenced by the fact that they were now both dying from a fast-acting alien virus, and… Well, Ianto had long ago decided there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Jack, and apparently that included dying, but…
There was nothing Jack wouldn’t do for Ianto, including doing his damnedest to breathe life into his lover while they were both dying. If that didn’t work, Jack intended to find a way to stay dead as well, even though the Doctor had told him he was a fixed point, and nothing could be done to change that. He would drag Ianto back into life or die trying, because if Ianto was willing to die for him, he should be willing to live for him too. Jack had lost too many lovers already, and he wasn’t about to let it happen again, no matter what he had to do…
The End
