Author's Note: This story represents a lot of firsts for me. It's my first TW fic, the first time I've written any form of male/male relationship, the first time that I've written from the point of view of the main character in any fandom (usually I stick to the lesser main characters)... Anyway, I'm not really sure where this idea came from, but it literally wrote itself. It's very angsty, just to warn you, and there's mentions of Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys and (according to my sister) some Gwen/Jack. I couldn't see the Gwen/Jack myself, but then, I am a little biased, and she knows nothing about TW so it's entirely possible that to the un-biased eye there are some undertones of Gwen/Jack.

Enough of my rambling. Hope you enjoy the story!

Left Behind.

The cemetery was quiet. There were a few people, here and there, all paying their respects to their lost loved ones. With a sudden outburst of noise that cut through the stillness, two young children raced over the grass. Their parents hurried after them, embarrassed and furious.

This was a normal visiting day for some people. This peacefulness and tranquillity was where they came to think about the precious lives that were no more. It was a haven, for some people.

For Jack Harkness, this place had all the glories and terrors of a completely new territory. Cemeteries were not things that he visited on a regular basis, and he had only been to this one once before. Death was something that haunted him even as he walked, and he tried his best not to dwell on the deaths of those that he had lost. If he did, he would go mad from the memories.

He remembered the way perfectly. He had been planning this day for a long time, mapping out the routes that he would take in his head, rehearsing the words that he would say.

It did not come as a surprise, then, when he saw that the spot by the small plaque was already occupied. He had expected this. He had planned for it. The other man, merely a shadow of who he used to be, seemed to have expected this meeting too. He didn’t look up as Jack approached.

They stood there in silence, both just looking at the plaque, absorbing it.

“I hated you,” Rhys said, still not looking at Jack, his gaze fixed firmly on the words before him.

“I expected no less.”

“Before you came, she had a normal life. I blamed you for everything.”

There was a pause, as if Rhys was expecting Jack to reply. But Jack had nothing to reply with, because the things the other man were saying were the same thoughts that had been plaguing him these last years.

“I thought you should know that I don’t anymore. I understand.”

No, Jack thought. No he didn’t. But he appreciated that Rhys was trying.

“Thank you.” It seemed the only appropriate response. The most sincere response.

Rhys gave him a small nod, still without looking at him.

“They say she went down fighting.”

“That’s true.”

“I know. That’s the part that I believe without question. The rest is more complicated.”

Jack turned to look at Rhys for the first time, and could truly see the anguish on the other man’s face. Every cell in his body felt sympathy for this man: so in the dark about his own wife’s death. There were rumours flying around, rumours that Torchwood itself had circulated, to make the real explanation seem the most ludicrous one. No-one really knew the truth, though. Not even Jack himself.

And Rhys didn’t even have her body to mourn properly. That was locked up in the Hub, per Torchwood protocols. No matter how they had tried to convince themselves otherwise, there was no doubt that Torchwood had stripped away every inch of Rhys Williams’ life.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, wondering if it ever would be possible to make any of this right.

There was a silence, as Rhys took this in. Eventually Jack came to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to respond to that. He turned his gaze back to the plaque in front of him.

“Why?”

The question was so unexpected that Jack could do nothing but stare at the other man.

“Why what?”

There was another pause, a shorter one this time, before Rhys turned to face him for the first time. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes, but there was a small, bittersweet smile on his face.

“Why are you sorry? She wasn’t.”

Jack let out a breath, feeling his eyes sting with stubborn tears as Rhys continued, now looking back to the plaque.

“She died saving the world. That’s my Gwen.”

With those words, Jack watched as this broken man began to cry, his tears falling silently down his face.

“Did you hear that, Gwen? You saved the world.”

There was nothing that Jack could say. How did you comfort someone whose grief was so deep and yet so accepting of the inevitable? Cautiously, very aware that he had never been very high on Rhys’ list of favourite people, he moved forward slightly and rested his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

He was never sure how long they stood there: he, mourning a friend; Rhys, mourning the loss of his reason for living. Eventually Jack took a step back, knowing that time was pressing on.

“Goodbye Gwen,” he whispered, and then turned to walk from the cemetery without looking back.

There was an eerie similarity between the gardens at Providence Park, and the cemetery. The quietness, occasionally broken by a patient screaming and yelling and begging. With a shiver, Jack realised that people visited the patients here for the same reason that they walked the grounds of the cemetery: to think about the lost lives of their loved ones.

There were a few other people in the reception as he told the woman at the desk which patient he was there to see. She gave him a brief, appraising glance before nodding and informing him which room to go to.

Jack had never been able to find an affinity with this place. It reminded him of a hospital, but with elements of a retirement home. The only thing that particular mixture spoke to Jack about was death.

As he traced the path of the corridor, there was a scream from a room on his left. Nurses and doctors hurtled past him, and one of them swore under his breath as a scream rose up from the next room too. There was a frantic feel to their actions, as they tried to subdue the patients before any of the others could get worked up.

Nothing could have contrasted more with the stillness and tranquillity of the room he entered.

It was a homely room, looking out over the gardens. A desk, in the corner, was littered with writing pads and paper. Beside the bed, a small table held an assortment of photographs that Jack quickly looked away from, his eyes stinging. A bookcase housed a shelf of recent books, along with two shelves of older, antique ones and a collection of black-and-white DVDs. Jack absorbed the details of the room, but his focus was on the man, the occupant of the room, who was standing gazing out the window. He hadn’t acknowledged that Jack was there.

For a long while, Jack just watched him, his familiar, and yet so distant, form. A hand was gripping the window sill hard, while a walking stick was gently propped up against the wall. The other arm hung loose and ineffective at his side. He was thin. So much thinner than he had been when Jack had last seen him. The jeans that he wore seemed to swamp him, as did the jacket that Jack could have sworn he recognised.

He took a few cautious steps forward, still stopping a fair way away from what was left of Ianto Jones.

“Five years.”

Ianto’s voice was quiet and listless. Jack closed his eyes, and willed himself to stay strong, to not turn and run.

“I know.”

For a brief second, Ianto turned around and looked Jack in the eye. Jack stared at the familiar eyes, and winced at the lack of life in them.

“You could have stopped them.”

“I know.”

The last time he had seen those eyes, they had been full of shock and the fury of betrayal. All of it directed at him. He would take even that in exchange for this brokenness.

Ianto turned back to the window, and Jack took that as a signal that he could approach him. He stopped just behind, lifting his hand for a fraction of a second, as if to touch the other man’s shoulder, but let it drop back to his side.

“They think I’m mad.”

“I know.”

Jack was beginning to wonder if he had lost the ability to say anything else.

“I waited for you.”

Once again, Ianto turned around to meet Jack’s eyes. This time, a small, ghost of a smile flickered across his face as he saw Jack opening his mouth to say ‘I know’, closing it before anything could be said.

“I knew you’d come eventually.”

He turned back to the window, and this time Jack moved to stand beside him.

“I’m sorry.”

A stronger smile graced Ianto’s lips this time.

“I wouldn’t have believed you, once upon a time.”

Jack turned so that he was facing him.

“But you do now?”

“Yes.”

The answer was so lifeless, that Jack realised he wished it had been a ‘no’. Even Ianto not believing him would be better than this flat acceptance.

For a while they stood, in silence, one looking out over the garden, the other contemplating the man beside him with tears in his eyes.

“Are you here to retcon me?”

“I’m here to offer you a choice.”

For the first time, a flicker of interest, of curiosity, sparked in Ianto’s eyes. A brief glimpse of the Ianto that Jack had known.

“You can forget it all. Everything.”

Ianto’s ‘no’ cut across before the words were even out of Jack’s mouth. Through his shock, Jack registered the first sign of real, raw emotion on the former Archivist’s face. The premature lines, which had made him seem older than his years, dissolved briefly, and he looked, just for an instant, exactly like the man that Jack remembered.

“I don’t want to forget any of it.”

Jack nodded, as Ianto turned his gaze back out the window. The silence this time went on until it became uncomfortable, and he realised that Ianto had been dismissing him.

Briefly, he touched Ianto’s hand that swung, still useless, between them, before turning and walking quickly across the room.

He was almost at the door when a soft ‘Jack’ stopped him in his tracks. He turned and watched as Ianto somehow managed to fit a small, brown parcel in the hand that was gripping the walking stick he now leaned on. Slowly, painstakingly slowly, he limped his way across the room, and Jack felt like closing his eyes, shutting himself off from the state of this once so agile man.

Except that he owed it to Ianto to face this pain, as Ianto was so bravely facing it himself. So he merely watched, the tears building up in his eyes, as Ianto approached him.

He pushed the parcel into Jack’s hands, their fingers brushing. On an impulse, Jack grabbed Ianto’s hand, and squeezed it firmly, just once. Ianto glanced down at the hand, and then back to Jack. His previously lifeless eyes now shone with tears. He swayed a little, and Jack reached out, holding him upright. The one good hand reached up and touched Jack’s cheek, before pulling him in for a kiss.

Jack could have thought of so many ways to describe that kiss, with all the desperation, the hurt and betrayal that was poured into it. The reality was that it wasn’t a kiss. It was, like it had been with so many others over his life, their very last goodbye.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” he repeated the words over and over again as they drew apart.

“I know,” Ianto said quietly.

There was another pause as they stood there, before Ianto gestured for Jack to pick up the forgotten walking stick. Only once he was standing up by himself did he talk again.

“Goodbye, Jack.”

Jack took a step backwards.

“Goodbye, Ianto Jones.”

He turned and left the room, hearing the door click shut behind him.

It was only once he returned to the quietness of the Hub that he opened the parcel that Ianto had given him.

The sight of the gleaming stopwatch brought a bittersweet smile to his face, but it was the other part of the gift that took Jack’s breath away.

It was just a simple photograph, but one that he didn’t remember being taken. They were there, all of them. His old team, sitting together at a table in a bar. Smiles on their faces, drinks raised in some sort of toast.

Owen. Tosh. Gwen. Ianto.

His fingers ghosted over the picture; his heart ached for their company.

“Take me with you,” he whispered, “Please, take me with you.”

But there was no reply. And there never would be. He was still here, left with only the memories of those souls which had brought such light to his life.

Once again, he was left behind, with no chance of following.

And it hurt more than his words could describe.