Title: This Ain't A Love Letter This Is Goodbye
By: Bry-Jack
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack, Ianto and mention of Gwen
Warnings: Angst, Character Death
Word Count: 1,352 words
Disclaimer: This is a fan fiction. I do not own the characters, BBC does. No profit was made from this fic.
Beta'd: Saiyan_Bride
Summary: Five unsent letters.

***

Dear Jack,

When I was a child my parents made me go to a therapist. He told me a lot of things that made me believe he was talking out of his arse. But one of his suggestions was to write down what I'm thinking or feeling, that's why I keep a diary.

Another thing he suggested was that I write letters. So that's what I'm doing. I'm writing you a letter that I'm never going to send and that you're never going to read, just so I can get past this and start feeling something.

I hate you.

I hate that you can just up and leave without as much as a goodbye, after kissing me like that. And I'm angry that everyone is falling apart at the seams because you left and it won't stop until you come back or it's too late. I hate you for making me promise not to tell anyone about Flat Holm and leaving me to deal with it all by myself. I hate that you made me so dependent on you, without my noticing. I hate you because you made me believe that we had something more than a passing fling.

And I miss you.

I miss the way you are with Myfanwy when you think no-one is around. I don't miss the way that you try and help me with the putting away of files. You never could get a hang of the alphabet. I miss the way that you pretend to be asleep next to me. I even miss your crazy stories. I miss the way you smell. And most of all I miss the way that you hold me close.

Sometimes wish I could just swallow a pill and erase all my feelings, and my memories of you. But I'm not like you Jack, I'm not selfish enough to run away from my responsibilities no matter how much I wish I was.

But no matter how much I hate you or don't I wish you hadn't left. I wish you would come home.

Love,

Ianto

***

Jack,

I don't know why I'm even bothering writing to you again. It isn't as if you're ever going to read it. Even if you do it won't make any differentness.

I'm sick and tired of being second best. No, I'm not even that, am I? I'm more like 4th or 5th thing on your list of priorities if I'm lucky enough. I doubt that I'll get any higher than that, more likely I'll get put further and further down it until I'm not even on it any more. And you want to know the real kick, Jack? I won't even know it until it's too late.

What does she have that I don't? What can you see in her that makes you treat me like dirt while she can do no wrong? Where must be something, but I can't see it. I just can't. You look and touch her like she is the only one for you and you still have time to flirt with everything that has a pulse and to come home to me when the mood hits you.

Is it too much to ask that you act like you love me? Even a little? I just want the illusion that I've been loved and I haven't been wasting my time, my life falling in love with you.

Ianto

***

Dear Jack,

Did you really hear me, Jack? Did you hear everything that I said or just that line? I daren't ask you for what you might say. I just don't think I could deal with that whole conversation- not being that much of a talker. But as you can see I have no trouble writing my thoughts and feeling to you, especially when I know that you'll never read them.

I don't really know why I'm still writing you these letters when I could just as easily write all this down in my diary. Maybe it's the feeling that I'm talking to someone not just a bit of paper.

About what you said upstairs, did you mean it? I want to believe it so much that I almost... I almost don't care if it's true or not because… I want to be more than just a blip in time for you, Jack.

But there's this niggling little doubt right at the back of my head, and it makes me wonder what makes me stand out. Because I can't even begin to imagine all the places you been, the lives you've lived, the people you've loved.

Maybe when you're an old man you'll remember something about me. Some young thing that looked good in a suit or made real good coffee or a hundred other things. And you know what? I would be alright with that. Because that would be more that I could hope for.

Love,

Ianto

***

Jack,

I love you.

I wish that I could have found the strength to tell you. I wish even more so that I hadn't been scared that you wouldn't say it back or that you would have laughed it off. I somehow thought that I would have the time to tell you. But it's slipping through my hands faster than I can catch it.

I don't know how this is going to end or even if this is the end but I may never get the chance to write to you again. I had always thought that I would die much younger then I am and that I would be alone because you had run off again. But I'm glad that I'm wrong and just for once I didn't know everything.

I want you to know that I don't regret any of the things that we did for a minute. My time with you maybe wasn't the simplest at times, but it has been wonderful. So thank you for showing me so many things.

I love you and goodbye,

Ianto

***

Dear Ianto,

It has been a long time since someone has written me love letters. And even longer since I received a letter half as passionate as yours are. I wish you had sent them, instead of me stumbling across them by accident. I would have told you how wrong you were and that there was nothing to be worried about. But that's to late now because you've been gone for so long. But I have to tell you somehow and I can't think of a better way than how you told me.

I love you.

I never found the strength to tell you, but that doesn't mean that I didn't feel that way. I was trying so hard to show you what I was feeling and I thought you understood what I was telling you. But I see now that I should have tried harder to say the words not just show them.

I'm sorry that I left you and the others like that and even sorrier that I made you go through all that, Ianto, but I had to know what was wrong with me and there was only one person that could help me. But it wasn't worth it. Not for what happened to you or me.

I never should have made you feel like you were fighting for my attention or that you were on some sort of list because that couldn't be any further from the truth.

You never could be a blip in time, Ianto. You were so much more than that and I wanted to tell you that, but I knew that you didn't want to talk about it. I wish I had pushed it.

Our time together could never have been enough for me, not even if we spent a thousand years together. I've lost people before and there has always been some sort of hole left behind but you became such a large part of my life that I'm lost now that you're gone. And I don't know what to do to make this all better.

I love you, and I'll never forget you, Ianto Jones.

Jack

***