Title: So Much Time
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ianto Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, letter100
Prompt: 45, Time
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Ianto Jones, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

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Dear Doctor,

It still feels strange to know that I'm immortal. For so long, before I met you, I envied Jack for havng his immortality. I wanted to live forever, even though back then, I had no reason to. And now that I do have that reason, I question what I've become.

When it seemed that time was flying by far too quickly, I wanted more time. Now, all I have in front of me is time. And that thought frightens me. It's literally scary to think that I have so much time to fill, and that I don't know what the future will bring.

Nothing but time. No, I should take that back. I have so much more than time. I have the love of my life here by my side, and the knowledge that I'll be with him always. That's something I'll always be grateful for, and something that I"ll never forget.

When you think that your time is limited, you want to pack as much living as you can into a short amount of time. But when you realise that you have more time ahead of you than you ever thought possible, you still want to do as much living as you can.

I don't know why that is. I suppose it's because now I know that I have so much time. It's as if I've suddenly been given the gift of a clean slate, a whole new life, so that I can do everything I've ever wanted to do without fear of running out of time for it all.

There's so much time now! Time to do all the things that I've always wanted to do. Time to live out my life without having to be afraid that I'll miss something. Time to be with you, to have you in my life every day of a very, very long existence.

I'll be able to wake up next to you every morning, and fall asleep with you in my arms every night. I'll be able to hear your laugh and see your smile, and never have to worry about there being a time when you won't be here by my side.

That's been my biggest fear since we first became a couple, you know. That I'd be gone far too soon, and that you would have to spend the rest of your life alone. I didn't want to condemn you to that, love. You deserve to have someone who can be with you forever.

I couldn't bear the thought of my going into the next realm and leaving you. I worried about it all the time, even though I tried not to, and I tried to keep those worries from you. But they always managed to sneak into my mind, even when I tried to hold them back.

There never seemed to be enough time before. Time to tell you everything in my heart, all that I felt for you. Time to be with you, to immerse myself in your presence. Time to say all the things that I wanted to say, do everything that I wanted to accomplish.

Now there's time for everything -- and more. It still hasn't really dawned on me that I'm immortal. I'm not going to die. I have enough time to do everything I've always wanted to do -- and I'll be sharing that time with you, throughout eternity.

It still seems unbelievable to me, Doctor. The fact that you aren't going to regenerate into a completely new body, and the fact that I'll be able to come back from death in the same way that Jack does. It's still on the level of fantasy for me. It's hard to wrap my brain around it.

I know that I should just be able to accept the fact, but after spending so long trying to convince myself that I would have to eventually leave you, and that I wouldn't have enough time for everything I've always wanted to do .... well, immortality is a hard concept to grasp.

That's not a hard concept to understand when you read about it in a novel. When it's happening to someone else, a fictional character in a book, then it's perfectly understandable. But when it relates to you and the life you're living .... it's a little more complicated.

When immortality is a concept that you have to apply to your own life, then it feels as though reality has gone flying out of the window. It doesn't seem like something that can possibly happen to you; it feels like a dream, something that you'll wake up from with a start.

But this isn't a dream. This is reality -- this is my life. The life that I share with you, that life that I want to share for centuries to come. This is the life that I've always wanted to have, but that I'm almost afraid to accept because it doesn't seem as though it can possibly be true.

This is true. I've almost had to pinch myself several times since all this began, just to be sure that I'm not dreaming and that this is the life I'm living. To be sure that I really do have all this time ahead of me, time to live my life with you.

So much time. Time for us to grow even closer than we already are, if that's possible. Time for us to love each other, and to share every moment of our lives. It's hard to believe that there can be so much time in one life -- and if not for you, I wouldn't had had so much time.

Without you in my life, I would have been nothing more than a garden-variety human, leading a life that any human on Earth could have led. Well, since I was working for Torchwood, maybe not everyone could have led my life. But it wouldn't have been extraordinary.

I'd have had relationships here and there, I suppose. But nothing would have been the way that you and I are. No one would have touched my heart and soul in the way that you do -- and no one would have been my destiny, the one person who I've always been meant for.

I believe that you would have eventually found me one day, Doctor. We would have been together. I don't think that a love as strong as ours could ever have gone unnoticed, that we would have both lived out our lives without finding each other.

We would eventually have come together, I'm sure of it. And even if this hadn't happened, and we didn't have all the time in the world to be with each other, we would still have savoured every second of the time we were allowed. I don't doubt that for a moment.

It's gratifying to know that I have so much time ahead of me. Time to do all the things I've wanted to do in life -- and to share them all with you. I'm looking forward to the future, love. And to sharing every moment of that future with you.

Eternally your

Ianto

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