Leaves crunched behind him, and Jack turned to see a woman approaching across the cemetery grass, scanning the horizon. As she drew closer, she noticed Jack and adjusted her course to come toward him.

"Captain Harkness!" she called. "I didn't expect to see you here."

Jack nodded a greeting. "Sarah Jane Smith. It's been a few years."

"It has, hasn't it? Though considering the circumstances under which we tend to meet, I suppose we should be glad. At least it means the world hasn't been in grave peril lately."

"Yeah, I'll forego the class reunion if it means there are no Daleks on the planet." He tilted his head at her. "So what are you doing here?"

Sarah Jane held up her wrist. The face of the watch was open, revealing the extraterrestrial device beneath. "I was in the area and picked up some alien readings. I know Wales is Torchwood territory, but I thought I should check them out as long as I was here."

Jack smiled faintly. "I'm not sure we have a territory anymore. Torchwood isn't what it used to be."

"I'd heard rumors to that effect, but I'd hoped they weren't true." She tugged her coat collar higher as a breeze rustled around them. "So, have you found anything so far, or…?" Her eyes went to the stone in front of Jack, and her eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought… I didn't realize you were here to visit someone."

"It's all right. I was just about to leave." He nodded toward her wrist. "And I don't think you'll get any more readings. There was something here, but it's gone now."

"Ah." She closed the top of the watch, and looked down at the gravestone again. "Ianto Jones. He was one of your colleagues at Torchwood, wasn't he?"

Jack shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "He was a lot more than that."

Sarah Jane looked up at his face, then placed a hand on his arm. "Oh, I'm so sorry, captain."

"Just Jack is fine." He gazed at the stone, scarcely seeing it. "I had a chance to save him. Just now, I was offered the chance. I knew it was a bad deal. I knew it, but I couldn't help it." He tore his eyes away and stared up at the sky. "I almost destroyed the world, just for a chance to see him again."

"But you didn't, Jack. The world's still here."

"Kinda wish it weren't."

"I know." She linked her hand through his arm. "Did you see him, then?"

"Sort of. In a timeline that never existed." He scuffed his toe at a clump of grass. "But it didn't fix anything. I made the same mistakes then that I did the first time. I still couldn't tell him… what I wanted him to know."

"You know we can't ever change what happened in the past. Not really."

Jack laughed humorlessly. "I ought to know that, but I let myself forget it a little while ago."

"That sounds familiar. The Trickster?" He nodded, and Sarah Jane sighed. "He's very convincing."

"It won't happen again. Not now." Jack looked away. "In that world, I had to do things… make decisions that…" He broke off with a shudder.

"I take it… someone died?" she asked softly.

Jack nodded. "Two," he ground out. "Both my responsibility."

Sarah Jane squeezed his arm. "You never actually did any of those things, Jack. That timeline was erased."

"Erased or not, I still made those choices." He closed his eyes. "It was my finger on the trigger."

"But remember who put the gun in your hand. The Trickster forced you to choose, using the scenario he created. That's his way of manipulating people. Even when you do the right thing, he makes you feel like it was your own decision to kill the ones you love. But it's not your fault."

The ghost of a memory possessed Jack, and for an instant he was cradling a frail body in his arms. It's not your fault, Ianto murmured. You didn't choose the circumstances. I forgive you for doing what you must.

"But I'm the one who has to live with the memory," he whispered. He wasn't sure which of them he was answering. "And the things I really did—the decisions I had to make, in reality—they were no better." His throat threatened to close, but he choked out the rest. "I've done so many horrible things."

The cold wind knifed against them, and Sarah Jane leaned closer, an aura of warmth against his side. "Sometimes we have no alternative," she said quietly. "Sometimes it doesn't take the Trickster for everything to conspire against us. But even when there is no right answer, we just have to do the best we can in the circumstances we're given."

The memory loomed again. Jack pushed it away, but an echo returned. I forgive you for doing what you must.

"I know it's hard to let go of the guilt." Sarah Jane witnessed his struggle with eyes full of sympathy. "The Trickster did the same thing to me, you know."

Jack nodded, relieved to move the focus away from himself. "Your parents."

Her eyebrows rose. "You know about that?"

"You told me in the other timeline."

"I see. It happened with my parents, too, but that wasn't the only time the Trickster targeted me. I was actually thinking of my husband—" She shook her head. "Well, I can hardly call him that; we were only married for a few minutes, in a reality that no longer exists. In the timeline we restored, he died before we ever met." She looked down at her hands and traced a line over her left ring finger. "It seems silly sometimes, mourning for someone I never actually knew."

"It's not." Jack slung an arm around her shoulders. "You still have those memories, and he was your husband. You loved him, you married him. You're allowed to miss him."

She nodded. "I could never forget him. I did love him. And that's what counts, isn't it? The very fact that the Trickster targets those people in order to change our past shows how much they shaped our lives. Quite literally, we wouldn't be the people we are now if we hadn't loved them. They are an inseparable part of us. That's what really matters."

"Yes," Jack murmured. Through his mind flew images of Ianto—a thousand fleeting moments in time, yet each one distinct and essential. Ianto, with his loyalty and unwavering belief and selfless love, had shaped Jack in so many ways. Through everything, Ianto had supported him. Guided him. Trusted him.

Forgiven him.

He caught his breath as the memory of Ianto's words returned again. Ianto had granted him absolution long ago; perhaps it was time Jack allowed himself to accept it.

Jack gazed at Ianto's name, carved indelibly into the stone. The pain of loss still probed at his raw soul, but its edges had softened, salved by the memory of all they had meant to each other, and what that would continue to mean to Jack. "Yes," he said again. "That's everything that matters."

- fin -

Author Notes

Were you expecting a happy, fix-it style ending? Well, the great thing about fragmenting timelines is that there can be more than one of them! Check out the alternate ending, posted as a separate story titled Splinter - Alternate Ending (or copy/paste the link: s/12364279/1/Splinter-Alternate-Ending)

Ever since reading about the original story plan for Series 2, in which Ianto was meant to die at the end of Reset instead of Owen, I've wondered how Jack and Ianto would have dealt with that scenario. One factor that intrigued me was the loss of physical intimacy, which has always been their primary means of processing tragedy (mutual consolation was the whole reason they got together in the first place, per Broken). I wanted to explore the relationship through the lens of a major crisis that also deprived them of their default coping mechanism.

I chose the Trickster as the catalyst for this event not only because rewriting the past is what he does most of the time, but also because the Trickster was (at the time) the only alien enemy to feature in every New Who series, and using an established villain seemed more plausible than creating an original menace. (The Trickster is in Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures. He does not appear in Class, but that series had not yet aired when I wrote this story.) The Reapers are also a Doctor Who enemy, though they do not appear in the spinoffs.

I did take a few liberties: Jack does reference the Trickster in the 1920s flashbacks in Miracle Day, so technically he should have known about the Pantheon of Discord before Sarah Jane told him in this story. But since Miracle Day was a complete train wreck when it came to internal consistency (Jack somehow knows he's a fixed point in time eighty years before the Doctor explains it to him? Jack wears a WWII coat a decade and a half before WWII begins?) I felt totally justified in hand-waving that fact.

I hope you've enjoyed the story! I'd love to know what you thought, so feel free to leave a comment with your impressions or feedback. Thanks for reading!