Ficlet: Can’t Go Home Again
May. 1st, 2026 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Can’t Go Home Again
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 653
Spoilers: Post CoE. Set in my Through Time and Space ‘Verse.
Summary: The whole of space and time is Ianto’s to explore, but there’s one place he can never go back to.
Written For:
catgiri’s prompt ‘any, any, and i can go anywhere i want / anywhere i want / just not home’, 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’s life had changed beyond all recognition since he’d died, twice, and been resurrected as an immortal very much like Jack. When he’d been fading away on the floor of Thames house, lying in Jack’s arms, he’d had no reason to think that wasn’t the end of his existence, and while he hadn’t been happy about meeting his end in such a pointless fashion, he’d been resigned to his fate. He’d told himself that if he had to go, at least he’d been able to say his goodbyes to Jack, but now…
Now he had to appreciate the fact that he’d died when and where he had, on both occasions, because if things hadn’t happened the way they did, he would most likely be permanently dead, no do-over, no future, just gone into the blackness that Jack claimed was all that came after life.
But here he was, decidedly NOT dead, and all things considered, he had no complaints, or none that were worth mentioning. The universe, all of time and space, was wide open to him now that he had this TARDIS. She wasn’t so much a possession, an object he could lay claim to owning, it was more that she was an equal, a travelling companion, a partner in adventure.
To his delight, she was just as eager as he was to learn, to explore, and to discover all the wonders and mysteries of alien worlds, alien cultures, alien people, the kinds of things no one else from earth had ever seen, and most people from his time would never get to see. There were no limits for him now. He could pick any star and go there, see if it had any planets in orbit around it, land on one, if it was safe to do so, take a look around, meet the locals… Any world, anywhere at all, except for one place, because he couldn’t go home.
He could return to earth, yes, but not to a time when he, or even his parents, were alive, not even to a time after he died, when his sister and her family still lived. He was cut off from what was left of his family, his few remaining friends, anyone who’d ever known him. All of that, and the city he had come to view as home, were off limits thanks to a space-time bubble effect generated by two explosions in close proximity to the Rift: the one that destroyed the Hub, and the one at the House of the Dead, that closed the Rift for good.
Ianto knew it shouldn’t bother him, because his sister believed he was dead anyway. She would have buried his original body, or at least he hoped that would have been permitted, and with Jack no longer on earth, Ianto really didn’t have any reason to stay. There was nothing left for him there any more than there was anything left for Jack except for painful memories, and yet…
For some reason, perhaps nothing more than a nostalgic yearning, it still hurt that he’d never again stand at the railings above Mermaid Quay, looking out across Cardiff Bay while the sun went down. He’d never again go home to his cosy little flat, or spend the night with Jack in that ridiculous cot in the bunker beneath his lover’s office. He’d never again potter about in the Torchwood Three archives, sorting out and cataloguing the myriad weird and wonderful objects that had fallen through the Rift. Never again take a walk through Bute Park in the spring rain with daffodils blooming everywhere, or run through the streets and alleyways chasing Weevils, or have dinner with Jack at their favourite restaurant, playing footsie beneath the table.
There was so much he was going to miss, and only now that it was forever beyond his reach was he at last realising how much he’d taken for granted.
The End
Now he had to appreciate the fact that he’d died when and where he had, on both occasions, because if things hadn’t happened the way they did, he would most likely be permanently dead, no do-over, no future, just gone into the blackness that Jack claimed was all that came after life.
But here he was, decidedly NOT dead, and all things considered, he had no complaints, or none that were worth mentioning. The universe, all of time and space, was wide open to him now that he had this TARDIS. She wasn’t so much a possession, an object he could lay claim to owning, it was more that she was an equal, a travelling companion, a partner in adventure.
To his delight, she was just as eager as he was to learn, to explore, and to discover all the wonders and mysteries of alien worlds, alien cultures, alien people, the kinds of things no one else from earth had ever seen, and most people from his time would never get to see. There were no limits for him now. He could pick any star and go there, see if it had any planets in orbit around it, land on one, if it was safe to do so, take a look around, meet the locals… Any world, anywhere at all, except for one place, because he couldn’t go home.
He could return to earth, yes, but not to a time when he, or even his parents, were alive, not even to a time after he died, when his sister and her family still lived. He was cut off from what was left of his family, his few remaining friends, anyone who’d ever known him. All of that, and the city he had come to view as home, were off limits thanks to a space-time bubble effect generated by two explosions in close proximity to the Rift: the one that destroyed the Hub, and the one at the House of the Dead, that closed the Rift for good.
Ianto knew it shouldn’t bother him, because his sister believed he was dead anyway. She would have buried his original body, or at least he hoped that would have been permitted, and with Jack no longer on earth, Ianto really didn’t have any reason to stay. There was nothing left for him there any more than there was anything left for Jack except for painful memories, and yet…
For some reason, perhaps nothing more than a nostalgic yearning, it still hurt that he’d never again stand at the railings above Mermaid Quay, looking out across Cardiff Bay while the sun went down. He’d never again go home to his cosy little flat, or spend the night with Jack in that ridiculous cot in the bunker beneath his lover’s office. He’d never again potter about in the Torchwood Three archives, sorting out and cataloguing the myriad weird and wonderful objects that had fallen through the Rift. Never again take a walk through Bute Park in the spring rain with daffodils blooming everywhere, or run through the streets and alleyways chasing Weevils, or have dinner with Jack at their favourite restaurant, playing footsie beneath the table.
There was so much he was going to miss, and only now that it was forever beyond his reach was he at last realising how much he’d taken for granted.
The End
