Title: Horse and carriage
By: catelfemma
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Summary: Set after Something Borrowed, Ianto asks Jack if he's ever been married.

***

"So, have you ever been married, Jack?"

Jack pauses and there's sudden moment of tension between them. Ianto regrets asking, but why should he? Chances are a 150-year-old immortal would have tied the knot at some point in time, if only out of boredom.

Jack rests his elbows on his desk, and Ianto rescues a coffee cup teetering on the edge. "Yeah," he says eventually. "Just the once."

Ianto refrains from asking how many times Jack thinks is normal.

"She loved me, I guess. Talked myself into believing I loved her too."

"You didn't?" Ianto asks carefully. The porcelain of the coffee cup is growing clammy in his hands and he realises this is on the verge of becoming a personal conversation. Normally, when that threatens, Jack shags him just to avoid telling him anything more.

Today, he carries on talking.

"No. She was Victorian… a suffragette." He sighs. "I forgot how good it felt, fighting for a cause where you could change something for the better. I loved her passion, her commitment, her enthusiasm. But I didn't love her."

Passion might as well stand for loyalty, or reliability, Ianto thinks, and then banishes the idea.

"So I supported her, I lived with her, I tried to stop her being so damn prudish about everything…" He laughs, sadly. "And I didn't love her any more after five years than I did when I first said 'I do'."

"What happened?" Ianto asks.

"She died. TB — so stupid." His hand clenches into a fist. "I might not have loved her but she was wonderful, and it was such a stupid, human thing. Dying pointlessly of some disease when there are so many other things out there to die of."

Ianto wonders if he should put his hand on Jack's shoulder, try to comfort him somehow, but knows it wouldn't help.

"I was a dutiful husband, in the end." The laugh is bitter now. "Her mother told me that when I carried the coffin at the funeral. I wasn't, though. I made her happy, maybe. But there's more to a marriage than that." He looks at Ianto. "Isn't there?"

"I wouldn't know, sir, I've never been married." He doesn't know how the 'sir' slipped out — he hasn't called Jack 'sir' in weeks. The distance makes the question seem more comfortable.

Jack leans over to kiss Ianto, softly, sweetly. "Thanks for asking," he says.

Something flashes on a monitor and both men jump to their feet. Ianto grabs Jack's coat from the stand. One day, the conversation might come to a natural conclusion, but Torchwood is going to make sure that doesn't happen any time soon.

***