Title: Pocket Sized Memories

Word Count: 2704

Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen.

Spoilers: Most prominently for Exit Wounds and Adam, but a basic understanding of the whole two series helps. A knowledge of the events of COE would also serve to make this more poignant.

Warnings: Some angst, and blatant references to a same-sex relationship (which, basically, if you have a problem with, it is advisable to toddle off to another fandom).

Summary: There's one thing Jack fears more than the deaths of the people he loves – forgetting the people he loves.

A/N: I started writing this about two months ago, after watching Adam and Exit Wounds in quick succession (they are two of my favourite episodes), but it was put on hold because I ran out of inspiration. However, after the devastation that was COE, I realized that I simply had to finish this, if only as a cathartic measure to deal with my own grief at events that took place.

Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood. That now rather unfortunate position belongs to RTD and the BBC.

Pocket Sized Memories

"I cannot say good-bye to those whom I have grown to love, for the memories we have made will last a lifetime and never know a good-bye"

Anon

Ianto knocked gently on the door of Jack's office, waiting only a few brief seconds before pushing the door open and entering Jack's domain. As usual, it was cluttered with unusual artefacts and bits of paper, some of which looked alarmingly old, all catalogued in Jack's own unique system. It was a system which Ianto was sure worked for Jack, but that he had personally never understood; he'd long ago resigned himself to the fact that there was a lot more than just Jack's cataloguing systems that he would never understand.

The sound of gentle breathing came from the hatch that lay tucked away in the corner of the office, and Ianto contemplated turning away and leaving Jack to himself. There was part of Jack that was impenetrable, that fended off comfort and closeness with a fierce stubbornness that Ianto found it hard to break through. However, any notion of turning on his heel and leaving Jack alone was quickly dispelled when he heard the slightest of hitches in the gentle rhythm of his breath.

It didn't take him long to make his way over to the hatch, the lack of light in the small bunker Jack had sarcastically christened his "Man Hole" leaving the view shadowy and uncertain. As he peered forward, the first thing that struck him was the lack of privacy; Jack had not bothered closing the hatch to his room, as if he was subconsciously crying out for someone to be there, to hold him, even if his consciousness refused to voice it. Ianto could even make out the ever so slightly trembling silhouette laying on the bed hands gripping so tightly onto the sheets that he could almost see the shaking of his wrist and the whiteness of the knuckle. That was all he needed as encouragement to take those final few steps, down the ladder and into Jack's own private world.

Silence was something that had not really ever been a problem for them; most of the conversations they had were conducted through looks and physical contact. Neither of them were talkative people, and they had never tried to break that barrier; the lack of words in their relationship had never been something they were ashamed of. What was unsaid echoed louder than the words that did pass; there were much greater abnormalities woven into their connection to each other than their silence. So Ianto leant against the edge of the ladder and waited.

"I can actually feel it going," Jack finally whispered. "It's like water slipping through my fingers...I can't catch it. Their voices, their faces...God, even the way they smelt when they walked past..."

Ianto slipped off his suit jacket and kicked off his shoes, sliding onto the bed behind Jack, who was curled facing the wall protectively. Ignoring any rational thought his brain was capable of, he instinctively slid his arm around Jack's waist, holding him flush against his chest. Instinctively, the older man inched backwards into his touch, leaning back his head so that Ianto could rest his chin against his shoulder, their cheeks brushing together ever so slightly.

Seeing Jack this vulnerable was a shocking. Jack was the eternal hero, always ready with a quick jibe, a shining smile or a flirtatious, innuendo laden quip at the expense of any adversary. Witnessing such a crack in the mask tore at Ianto's heart, like a hand plunging deep beneath his rib cage and squeezing cruelly. Jack's grief emanated from him with as much physical power as those pheromones Ianto found so irresistible, and both he and Gwen could feel it straining like a heavy weight from their own shoulders.

Jack's hand went to his chest, lacing his fingers softly with the Ianto's so that both of their hands were rested over his heart. The vibrations from that never-ending muscle traveled through Jack's skin, resonating through the calloused hand of the Welshman; Ianto felt the older man leaning back, pressing himself into his warmth in a search for whatever miniscule comfort he could find.

"I don't want to forget them…" the words were spoken so quietly that, had Ianto not been so closely pressed against him, they would have been completely inaubible.

"You won't."

"How do you know that?" Jack spat, frustration creeping into his voice. "I forgot my own family. I forgot my mother, my father. I forgot Gray…how do you know in a hundred, two hundred years time, that I won't have forgotten you as well?"

Pulling himself forward towards the wall that rang parallel to the bed, Jack unlaced his fingers from Ianto's hand, attempting almost pathetically to push him away, to make him go, to leave him to the fear and guilt which swamped his mind and bogged down on his heart. Before the Welshman's eyes, the heroic Captain seemed to shrivel in on himself, the corners of his façade curling inwards and engulfing him in a blanket of darkness. Every tensing of Jack's muscles told Ianto one thing: Go.

But Ianto was sick of leaving Jack to his misery.

Gripping Jack's forearms, Ianto forcibly turned him around, noting the half-hearted nature of his struggling, so that they were lying face-to-face. His hand reach up, gently cupping Jack's cheek so that his thumb ran ever so gently along the ridge of his well-defined cheekbone. The eyes of the older man were glistening with tears, and Ianto felt his throat burn with a fierce fire as he struggled to contain the helpless sob which threatened to force its way out of him.

But this was Jack pain, and Ianto knew that it was a hundred times greater than his own. Jack grieved for a thousand losses that had been, and a thousand losses yet to come, and the burden it had on his heart. Jack was already mourning the death of his younger lover, even though the life still sang loudly through his veins. Ianto couldn't even begin to compare his own agony to that of this man. This man that he loved. So he swallowed the pain, bit back the tears, and locked his gaze on Jack's deep, blue eyes.

"You won't forget," he whispered softly, his free hand trailing down the edge of Jack's arm to take hold of his hand. "I promise."

"But how do you…" Jack was cut short in his protestation as Ianto moved forward, gently taking hold of Jack's lips in his own. The eyes of the older man slid closed as he relaxed ever so slightly under Ianto's deliberately tender touch. This was something unusual for them; their relationship was defined through fierce passions and an almost primal longing to grasp onto something akin to a connection. They were both fully aware of how short time could be, and the fierce, hungry nature of their coupling was evidence of the unspoken but accepted knowledge that sparked like an electric current between them.

Ianto let his own eyes slide close, having initially been unwilling to break his intense gaze on Jack; it had felt as though his lover was slipping away from him for so long, lost and drowning in the sea of guilt and unable to stop the waves from breaking over him. But now he allowed himself to lose himself in this impossible man, pressing against him so that not an atom of air separated them. He remembered the almost brutal actions of the night of Tosh and Owen's death, of every night that they had had sex since then; bruising, fierce, gripping onto one another, pushing against each other, each man wrestling with the other for a sensation that could block, if only for a few precious moments, that unspeakable numb throbbing that had taken hold of their lives.

Trailing his fingers over Jack's, Ianto gently brought his hand up to his chest, holding the Captain's palm flat against his sternum to feel that thump-thump-thumping of his heart alongside the gentle rise and fall of the breath in his lungs. His eyes opened, and he looked directly at Jack through their kiss, who seemed to sense Ianto's gaze and raised his own eyelids.

Pulling back from Jack with a smile, Ianto pulled back his hand from Jacks (which he noted still remained firmly held against his chest, perhaps urgently seeking some evidence that he hadn't gone just yet) and reached into the pocket of his waistcoat. Jack craned his head to try and follow his movement, but Ianto kept a firm hand pressed against his cheek, using the tip of his finger to tilt his chin back upwards and catching his lips in another deep kiss.

By the time he broke away, forced away from their contact by his own unfortunate need for oxygen, he had pressed his hand back against Jack's, slipping something cold and metallic in between the fingers that rested tenderly against the material of his shirt. Responding to Ianto's coaxing, Jack curled his fingers around it, bringing up his hand to rest on the pillow by his head so that he could see what he had been presented with.

"Ianto…" Jack licked his lips, his eyes flicking from the object to Ianto, a mixture of the grief he was struggling to contain and the curiosity that would always be embedded in his veins. "What is it?"

"It's alien tech," the younger man let a small smirk creep onto his features at the flash of disapproval that swarmed Jack's features. "Croxxyan storage device. Highly durable, lightweight, basically indestructible, almost unlimited memory – kind of like an alien version of a memory box or time capsule." Jack's eyes flicked questioningly from the unassuming little silver device and the now grinning Welshman who lay stretched out next to him.

"Memory box?" he ventured, testing the words on his tongue, letting his lips curl around the syllables as if they were a foreign language he had yet to master. Ianto watched attentively as a light seemed to dawn in Jack, those dark irises beginning to sparkle just a little; not as brightly as the Jack he was used to, but a step towards the familiar twinkle that he had fallen for in the first place. Suddenly, those eyes shot downwards, fixing in on Ianto's gaze and refusing to break away.

"Ianto…" his breath hitched ever so slightly, a tiny breakage that encouraged Ianto to lay his hand over Jack's, pressing closer so that their foreheads rested lightly against one another.

"It was Gwen's idea," he explained. "I found the technology. With a little help from Tosh and her oh-so-wonderful little computer pop-ups…" a low, sad, yet endearing chuckle from Jack as he remembered the genius of Toshiko Sato and her preparation for any situation. "…we managed to get it working. Salvaged everything we could – every photo, record, even a bit of CCTV footage – and put it on there. For you." He inched forward just a little, brushing his lips tenderly against Jack's.

"So you're stuck with us, for as long as you go on and as long as you have that with you."

A sad smile flickered across his face, and he raised his hand to wipe away the solitary tear that had trailed itself silently down Jack's face. The lips of the older man were clenched together, the muscles of his cheeks clenching and unclenching, trying desperately to find some way to reply. Ianto traced the lines of his face, imprinting them so deeply onto his memory so that, even in death, he felt he could not forget them…and he waited.

Eventually, Jack leaned forward, pressing his trembling lips against Ianto's.

"Thank you," his whispered against Ianto's mouth, curling his body around the strong frame of the younger man, feeling him respond eagerly until it was uncertain as to where one of them ended and the other began. There was no sex, no lust, no carnal desire – just the mutual need for warmth and comfort.

A small capsule of serenity and calm and comfort and peace in a world which very rarely afforded them such luxuries.

Hours later, fresh from questioning the latest recipient of alien technology, Gwen entered Jack's office shyly, suitably concerned at the behaviour of both men that any worries of intruding on any elicit activities was pushed to the very back of her mind. The darkness that had descended on Jack following the deaths of their comrades had spread into both her and Ianto, severely affecting their own ability to cope with the grief that seemed to hang in the air around them, always on the forefront of their mind and never pushed away.

The intimate nature of Ianto's relationship with Jack worried Gwen; she had always felt an almost protective sensation for her younger countryman, recognizing that, even at five years her junior, he had seen more pain and death than she could ever imagine. And Ianto would always be there to take the weight of Jack's grief onto his own shoulders. Whilst Gwen had Rhys to escape to, Ianto only had Jack – and what that might mean for him in the long run terrified her. She didn't want to lose Ianto to the same darkness they were losing Jack to.

Hearing the sound of gentle breathing, the Welshwoman deduced that she would not be mentally scarred by venturing further, so she sheepishly stepped forward, dropping quietly to her knees to peer into the bunker of the Captain.

What she saw both surprised her and made her stomach flip with a happiness she had not had the luxury of feeling for a very long time.

Ianto was lying on his back on Jack's bed, his cheek resting peacefully against the pillow as the tense muscles his face were loosened in the serenity of sleep – without the furrowed forehead and facial tension, Gwen noted just how young he really looked. His arm was curled around the older man next to him, his fingers interlinked with those of the hand which rested across his waist. Jack's body was pressed closely, searchingly against that of his young lover, and even though the scene held no hint of sexuality, Gwen noted how Jack had somehow managed to push open Ianto's waistcoat and shirt, laying his head directly against the skin of his bare chest. A smile pushed against her lips as she watched Jack's head move calmly up and down along with the breathing of the younger man, a peaceful look spread across his face as if lulled into sleep by the gentle heartbeat beneath his cheek.

My boys, she thought, pushing a lock of hair away from her eye and feeling a gentle tear sliding down her cheek as she struggled to tear her eyes away from the almost hypnotic sight before her. She would happily have watched all night, but the gentle vibrations of her phone disturbed her reverie, and reminded her that her own slice of peaceful normality awaited her in the arms of her husband.

Reaching into her pocket to hurriedly switch off the phone, she turned her head away for a moment, and when she raised her eyes again for one final glance at two of the three men she loved more than life itself she was met with the deep blue irises of Jack Harkness. His head had not moved from its stoic position on Ianto's chest, but his eyes fixed onto Gwen, a small, genuine smile settling on his face for the first time since Tosh had died in his arms. His eyes flicked from Gwen to his hand, the one which was clasped in Ianto's palm, and the Welshwoman quickly realized she could see a flash of silvery metal resting between their fingers.

Thank you¸ her impossible boss mouthed silently, obviously unwilling to wake Ianto and disturb the little piece of serenity they had created. All Gwen could do was smile through the tears that threatened to spill over onto her cheeks and nod in reply. Watching as Jack's eyes slid closed again and he buried his face once more into Ianto's pale skin, Gwen turned on her heel, her smile widening as her oh-so-persistent husband caused the phone in her back pocket to vibrate once again.

Everything was going to be alright.

For now, at least.

To tie in with the new inspiration, I was planning on adding an epilogue in which Jack watches the message Ianto leaves him during this fiction, but I felt the ending tied itself up on its own without that being needed. However, if anybody wants me to write said epilogue, I would be all too happy to oblige.

Reviews are love and would cheer me up greatly in this not-very-nice time for the fandom.