Chapter 15: The end

Ianto Jones was numb. For the second time in less than a year his world had been so thoroughly shaken by the person that he loved that he just couldn't feel any more. With Lisa he'd been on a massive high, and had spent weeks barely being able to contain his happiness at the renewed hope for their future which Dr Tanazaki brought. Then she was gone and he had hit rock bottom, it had taken him a long time to dig his way out of the depression he felt after that day but he had found a friend in Jack. Jack understood how it felt to lose someone because he had lost everybody he had ever loved. Slowly at first, their friendship had grown into something more and Ianto had fallen pretty hard for the man he once called a monster.

Then Jack and Tosh had been pulled back through the rift to 1941 and Ianto thought that he'd never see him again. Selfish and irresponsible as it was he wanted to use the rift key to bring them back but he hadn't had to, Owen had done it for him.

After that Ianto had a whole week where he spent more time with Jack before the disaster that was Abbadon. At least for the first two days that Jack had stayed dead he had too much work to do to be able to collapse with grief like he wanted to: he had to RETCON half of Cardiff and deal with the bodies of everyone caught in Abbadon's shadow. By the third day Ianto was physically exhausted and had nothing to do but grieve. He refused to go down to the morgue, no matter how much Tosh told him that he needed closure, he didn't want to kiss Jack's cold unresponsive lips and say goodbye so Ianto had stayed away. He drew the blinds in Jacks office, breathed in the scent of his coat and wished like a child on Christmas morning for the man he loved to come back.

Jack's return from death had been yet another loop on the emotional roller-coaster he had been on for the last few weeks. Jack had kissed him in front of everyone and that night Ianto took a chance:

"Jack?" he asked, propping himself up on one elbow so that he was looking straight into his lovers eyes

"Yeah"

"While you were gone I..." Ianto was adorably nervous, his ears had turned red and he could no longer look Jack in the eye "I didn't like it, I need you here Jack. I think I'm in love with you"

Jack was surprised that Ianto had come out and said it and he knew that his confession had been difficult so he pulled the younger man back down next to him and started tracing patterns down his back with one hand; he pressed a gentle kiss to Ianto's shoulder then answered

"I'm not going anywhere"

"Promise?" Jack sat up, the sheet that covered them pooling around his hips as he groped around in the bedside drawer for a second, Ianto thought maybe he'd said something wrong but then Jack turned back to him, cocked an eyebrow suggestively and held up a pair of silver handcuffs

"If you want to make sure?" for effect he waved them in front of Ianto for a moment but the Welshman wasn't interested in tying his lover down. They were both free to make choices about their relationship and Ianto was still over the moon that his confession hadn't been flat out rejected, rising up to meet Jack he captured his lips in a kiss and whispered "I trust you"

And he did, however foolish that might have been. Less than twenty four hours after Ianto confessed his love for Jack and he had promised to stay the man had left him. The only information the team had was a five second clip of Jack running across the plass to meet a strange blue box which had parked on top of the invisible lift. Ianto had re watched the footage a dozen times and the thing that struck him was the look on Jack's face - it was a look that Ianto had seen when erasing CCTV evidence of their games of naked hide and seek. This 'Doctor' who Jack went chasing after was obviously more than a friend and Ianto was surprised to find that while Jack's leaving hurt him, the fact that he had left to chase after somebody new didn't make it worse. Jack was immortal so Ianto could never give him forever and had come to terms with the fact that eventually Jack would move onto someone new. Honestly he hadn't imagined that it would be so soon though.

The fact that he could accept Jack's decision didn't mean that there wasn't a hole in his heart that he didn't know how to fill. And that night as the rest of the team left work to go back to their lives he was left standing in an empty HUB with no idea what to do with himself. It was barely 8pm and Ianto Jones was ready to go home to bed out of sheer boredom. Until now Ianto hadn't realised quite how much time he spent with Jack - his complete lack of a life outside Torchwood was actually quite pathetic now that Jack was gone and Lisa was dead and he had nothing to do on a Friday night.

At home Ianto had cleaned his flat, alphabetised his DVDs, made a huge meal that he had no interest in eating and was about to go mad with boredom when his doorbell rang.

"Iantooooo!" it was Tosh, and she sounded drunk "lemmee in! I'm cold" he buzzed her in to the building but five minutes later when she still hadn't made it to his third floor apartment he went to investigate. He didn't have to go far and found his usually straight laced colleague completely hammered sat on the floor in the lift having a conversation with the light fixture about waves and particles. Ianto took one look at her and decided that he had seriously underestimated just how drunk his friend was.

"Come on" he picked up his friend and deposited her in his living room where she promptly threw up on his freshly cleaned floor and announced that she was sleepy, kicking off her shoes and curling up on the large couch. He tried to convince her to move into the guest room but she simply switched into Japanese and refused. Too tired to argue with a drunk, sleepy Japanese woman he picked up the blankets he kept for such occasions, covered Tosh then cleaned up the puddle of sick and went to bed himself.

5am saw Toshiko squinting at the half light of Ianto's living room, cringing at the alcohol stained clothing she had slept in and cursing Owen for taking her out clubbing then abandoning her to shag some nineteen year old in the toilets. Standing up and wearing her blanket like a cape Tosh felt like a child climbing into her parent's bed. That was how she felt when she stayed with Ianto, all of the safe, warm feelings that come from such close human contact with none of the complications thrown in by sex. Standing in the doorway of her friend's bedroom she was surprised to see that Ianto lay sprawled across the entire bed with the blankets tangled around him, it was weird because every time she had stayed here he had always been a very still sleeper, perhaps when he was alone he slept differently. Tosh curled Into his side and allowed her eyes to close, the pair got another hour's sleep before Ianto's alarm sprang to life and informed them it was time to get up for work.

By that night Ianto was feeling much more optimistic than he had been yesterday. In the morning he had given an extremely hung over Owen a bollocking for abandoning Tosh in town and had informed the snarky medic that as punishment he was on Decaf for the rest of the day. Tosh, who was still a little drunk from last night, had nearly fallen over from laughing at this.

In the afternoon (while Tosh slept off the hangover which had her cursing the inventors of Sambuca around 1pm) Ianto had spoken to Gwen - who had assumed command of Torchwood 3 in Jack's absence - about setting up a gym/ physical training area downstairs on the Torchwood account as a way of giving them something to do when it was quiet. She had agreed and now Ianto was happy to have a project to keep him busy during work hours. He didn't have to worry about having nothing to do after work either as he had agreed to go clubbing with Tosh every so often.

Ianto was so busy thinking of all the good things he had to look forward to that as he walked home he failed to notice that he was being watched, he didn't hear the click of a pen as his stalker made notes on his movements and he didn't see the flash of a camera. Ianto Jones was excited about starting a new phase in his life, making a few changes, he had no idea just how huge those changes were going to be.

AN/ well, this is the last chapter of Let's start again. the story is not over, in fact it's going to be so long that I'm splitting it into five sections. The sequel "Let's Make a Change" is being posted now. It can be found by going through my profile. Part 2 will follow the team through the three months Jack was gone for and we will also find out who is following Ianto and what they have in store for him.