Memories in the Park 1/1
TITLE: Memories In The Park 1/1
Pairing: Jack/Ianto. Jack, RhiannonSynopsis: Jack and Rhiannon have things to talk about
SPOILERS: COE - 4&5
A/N - this is a therapy fic with a hopeful message. (can also be seen as a prequal to One Thousand Years)
Rhiannon stood in the park waiting with a flask and a box. It had been six months sine Ianto had gone, but she still had something to do. She waited patiently and stared up at the stars, the stars that Ianto had always dreamed about, and wrapped her coat around her to hold off the cold. This had been the place she had seen her brother last, the only day that he hadn't hugged her goodbye and kissed her cheek. She missed that. She sat down at the table and wished she hadn't come, but it was what Ianto would have wanted.
She waited for him, the one she had first tried to contact six months ago. He was late, but she knew he would come. And after thirty minutes, and when she was almost going to give up, she saw him. A handsome man in a greatcoat that billowed in the wind; he hung his head as he got closer and when his face came into view his eyes had nothing behind them. He managed a smile, and so did she, but neither really felt it.
“You must be Jack,” she said.
“Rhiannon I presume.”There was no emotion in his voice, just an even American drawl.
“Yeah.” she gestured for him to sit down. “You look different that I imagined you would be.”
“I do?” Jack sat opposite her at the picnic table and looked at her. “And what did you imagine?”
“Ianto wrote so many diaries and I read them. He said you held yourself proud and had a glimmer of life that never wet out. He said there was always a smile lurking on your lips.” She looked at him. “He was wrong.”
“There used to be.” Jack's sad eyes met hers and the covering of tears gave way, letting a slow tear roll down his cheek. He had cried so many times, but the pain never stopped. “Then he went and part of me left with him. I'll never get it back and I don't want it, I don't deserve it.”
“You loved him.” she said. “Tell me that you loved him like he loved you”
Jack nodded his head and took her hand across the table. “I really did.”
“Did he know?” she asked. “when he died, did he know you loved him?”
“Yes.” His voice came out as a whisper. “I never said it, but he could never have doubted it, could he?”
“He knew.” She didn't know if it was a lie or not, but she couldn't break Jack's heart any more.
Jack smiled for the first time. “I'm glad.”
“I just wanted to see you, to look at you and ask you some things.”
“Go on.” Jack's voice broke.
“You were with him when he died, Gwen told me that. What were his last words?”
“No.” Jack shook his head. “No, I can't.” He stood up and turned away from her, looking up into the night. “I won't relive it again. I'm sick of thinking. I' dead from thinking.”
“Please.” Rhiannon put her hand on Jack's shoulder. “There's so much of his life missing that nobody will talk to me about. His last days are so guarded and secret.” She ran her hand down his back, touching the fabric of the coat that her brother had always written about so fondly. She tried to hold back her pain as it seeped out from her eyes, but couldn't. “I know you can't die, he wrote about that in his diary, and my heart breaks for you so much, but I need to know that things he couldn't tell me.”
Jack closed his eyes. “He died in my arms. He told me he loved me. He begged me not to forget him, with his very last breath he told me that I wouldn't remember him and the last words he heard were a promise.” Jack turned around to face her and took her head in his hands. “I never make promises to anyone else but him. I kissed him with my last breath and I loved him with every piece of my broken heart.”
“What was he like with you?” she asked, clinging to Jack's writs as he touched her face. “At work. Who was he?”
“He was brilliant.” Jack smiled. “He was brave. He was a better man than me. He feared so much but never let it stop him fighting. He was my inspiration.”
“I always thought he was a wimpy sod.” She cried and laughed at the same time. “When he was a kid he used to run away from spiders, or moths, or anything like that. Creepy crawlies frightened the hell out of him.”
“He was still scared of spiders.”
“They're like...”
Jack smiled. “Creepy, crawly and suspicious.”
“You really did know the daft git.” She wiped away her tears. “He'd be ashamed of me, crying like a baby over him. He always said I fussed too much.”
“He loved you very much.”
“I know that. He made sure I knew that. He called me and told me the day that he--”
Jack wiped away her tears this time. “He was never one for speeches, but he said what he had to say.”
“He didn't even need to say it, that was the thing.” She moved away from him. “Sit down. I have something for you.”
They sat down at the table and Rhiannon put the flask down and opened it. The smell of coffee filtered out through the cold air and Jack inhaled it deeply, then closed his eyes to savour the scent.
“His favourite blend,” she said, “he always gave me it at Christmas in a red tin box. I never drank it, it was too bloody strong for a start. Jonny always said it made him feel a little sick.”
“It reminds me of him, not that I could forget it.”
Rhiannon took out some cups from her bag and Jack stopped her before she could pour it. “I don't drink it.”
“You too?” She smiled a little, running her fingers over the metal box beside her. “God, if he could see us now.”
“He'd hate this.” Jack poured the coffee out and held the cup to his lips, but couldn't drink it. “He hated good coffee going to waste.”
Rhiannon sighed and put a box on the table, then put an envelope on top of it. “I found this in his flat when I was sorting through his things.”
“What is it?”
“It was with his diary. This letter is for you but I can't find a key to the box to open it.”
Jack took the letter.
“I'll give you a minute to read it. Some time alone.”
“No.” Jack grabbed her hand. “Read it to me.”
“What?”
“You wanted to know him, so read it to to me.” He handed her the letter. “Please.”
“I can't.” She shook her head. “He wrote this for you, I'm not reading it. It's private, it's personal. There might be things I don't need to know in it. No.”
“But I don't know how to deal with this on my own.” Jack held her hand with both of his. “I have lived so many lives on my own. I was fine with that, it was all I knew for so long. I thought that I had finally found a life where I wasn't and now it's gone.” Jack closed his eyes, and when he reopened them was blinded by his tears. “What do I do now without him?”
“I'm so sorry.” She touched his face and tried to wipe away his tears. “He wouldn't want you to be like this.”
“I begged him not to leave me, but he slipped away, and it's all my fault.” He looked at her, his eyes turning cold, “I didn't deserve his love.”
“Ianto never gave away love easily. Never. If he loved you then you bloody deserved it.”
“I just want to die.” He looked Rhiannon in the eyes. “I've died every day since he left me. I've tried everything to be with him, but I'm cursed and he's too far away now. How can I live knowing that I will never see him again.”
Rhiannon leaned over the table and stood up, holding her weight on her hands. “Then how the hell do you think I feel? He was my brother!”
“I know.”
“I loved him. I cared for him for longer than you ever knew he existed. When he came home from school with blood on his face from the bullies that got him on the way home I cleaned him up and watched him cry in pain. When my dad pushed him and pushed him to be better I watched him break under the pressure.” She wanted to hit him, but resisted. “You can't even begin to understand how I feel.”
“I'm sorry I--”
“He was my blood!” Rhiannon was shouting now, shouting in the face of Ianto's lover, but she couldn't stop. “You have no idea what I have lost, so don't sit there and make me feel sorry for you when you haven't lost anything close to what I have.” She shoved the letter into Jack's chest. “Now read your fucking letter and be happy that you got a goodbye!”
Rhiannon pushed herself away from the table and walked away, slumping down on the swings in the park. She covered her face with her hands, collapsing into tears she never knew she still had inside.
Jack stared ahead for a moment and wiped his tears away, then stood up. He picked up the letter and the box and walked over to the swings. He put the box and the letter on the swing beside Rhiannon and stood in front of her; Jack couched down and put his hands on her knees.
“Ianto meant something different to both of us. We both loved him. But do you really think that this is what he would have wanted? You and me fighting?”
She shook her head. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. I probably needed to hear it.” He took her hands away from her face. “Should we read this letter?”
“He wrote it for you.”
“I don't know if I can read it. I need a Jones.”
She smiled a little. “Everyone needs a Jones.”
“You're the only one I've got.” Jack gave her the letter then sat beside her on the large sling swing. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her head onto his shoulder.
She opened the letter and took a breath, feeing safe in the arms of Jack. “Dear Jack. I know the day you read this that I will be gone from the world. I'm sorry about that. I never wanted to die, I wanted to be with you forever but that was always something out of my reach. I'm not one for long speeches, not much of a talker, but I always make sure that I take care of loose ends. One thing haunts me when I think of dying, and it's not the darkness or the fear of the pain, but that you will one day forget that I even existed.”
Jack tightened his grip on Rhiannon and she held him back, reversing their position so that it was Jack that rested on her. She touched his face, stroking the wet skin of his cheek, and kissed his head. “I know that one day you will forget, and that's okay, but I would really rather you didn't. I have left you some things for you to take with you when you eventually leave this planet to find another life. You know how to open the box, and if you don't then maybe you never knew me at all. I love you, and think you knew that, but loving you was the hardest thing I ever did. I want you to live whatever life makes you happy, but please come home once in a while. Visit Rhi, I know she would love you, and she'll make you fishfingers and chips and mushy peas. It was always my favourite. Talk about me and remember me. Tell her everything. Forever your Ianto.”
“Thankyou.” Jack didn't move.
“He never called me Rhi,” She said, “not since dad died.”
“He always called you Rhi.”
“He talked about me?”
Jack smiled. “All the time.”
“You know he was the only man he ever loved. You confused him, scared him a little.”
“I confuse most people.”
“But he really loved you.”
Jack ran his fingers over the letter. “He really did.”
“So, can you open the box?” She asked.
“I don't know.” Jack stood up, picked up the box and looked at it. He smiled. “Yes.” Jack took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and found the smallest one.
“That's it?” she asked. “A key?”
“Ianto was a simple man deep down.” Jack put the Box on the ground and sat down as he opened it. “He may have been all suits and lines from the outside, but inside he was classic and simple.”
“He was bloody simple all right.”
Jack opened the box and looked at the contents. Two objects; a stopwatch and a Black pebble.
“I always wondered where that thing went!” Rhiannon Picked up the stopwatch. “God he's had this thing forever.”
“He has?”
She nodded. “My dad used to go to the car boot in Newport every Saturday, I didn't like it, but Ianto always loved seeing all the old things, all the junk. He bought this when he was seven for a quid. It didn't work.” She ran her fingers over it. “It took him ages to fix it.”
“Would you prefer to keep it?”
“No.” She handed it to Jack. “He meant this for you. It's a symbol of who he was. Ianto could fix up anything, and if he didn't know how to fix it he would find a way.”
“That sounds like my Ianto.”
“He went to the library and found books, he read up on it until he could fix it. That's the thing about Ianto, he read himself smart.”
“He always had a solution.”
“Ianto was one of the kids that was never meant to come of anything. He was supposed to end up like everyone else on this estate. He had no real eduction other than the one he gave himself.” She laughed a little. “He even trained himself out of his accent.”
“Oh he had his accent. Beautiful welsh vowels. When he was angry or upset or--” Jack couldn't find his words. “well, when he was-- when we were-- and he was--”
“Do I want to know?”
“Not really.” Jack looked at her. “He was proud of who he was,”
“Then why did he hide?”
“He built up walls to protect himself.” Jack took the stopwatch and clipped it to the chain at the end of his waistcoat. “I'll keep this forever. I promise.”
“Don't lose it,” she said, “he'd go mental. He'd come back fro the dead just to moan about it.”
“I won't.” Jack picked up the other object and looked at it. “Now this, this is a story not so different.”
“It's a pebble.”
“No.” Jack turned it over and pressed a button disguised in the surface; it let out an aroma of coffee mixed with aftershave and something else that he could never quite describe. “This is Ianto.” Jack closed his eyes and inhaled the scent; he saw him in his memory.
Rhiannon opened her eyes. “How--?”
“We found this at the bottom of the bay last year, I always wondered where it went. It's kind of like an alien picture frame. I have no idea how it works but it works with the owners' DNA to create an everlasting picture of them. The way they made you feel, the smell of them, their face in your mind.” Jack held back the tears that started to threaten his eyes. “He really thought I would forget him.”
“And you won't?”
“No.” Jack shook his head and put the pebble into his pocket. “I wish I could.”
“What do you do now?”
Jack stood up. “I'm going away for a while, I have nothing to stay here for.” He looked at his watch. “In fact I have someone to meet.”
“What about your fish fingers?”
“Another time. Goodbye Rhiannon.” He turned around and walked a few steps before he heard a voice.
“And that's it, is it?” She ran behind him and turned him by his shoulder. “You just walk away?”
“I have to.” He touched her cheek. “I'm sorry. “ Jack wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly, then kissed her cheek. “Remember he was a hero.”
She let him go, and as he did she watched him walk a few steps further away. “And what about his body?”
Jack turned around quickly. “What?”
“How long do we have to wait until we can bury him and let him rest?”
“You don't have it?”
“No. You lot have it, bloody Torchwood, you signed it out yourself the day after he died.”
Jack turned and smiled as he walked away. “Then I must be coming back.”