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Current music:	Fanvid "Coin Operated Boy"

FIC: Mistakes and Misconceptions
I meant to post this a month ago, but rl kept me so busy that I kept forgetting about it whenever I was sitting at my own computer (instead I always remembered at work where I didn't have the file on me) - sorry for that.

Title: Mistakes and Misconceptions
Author: JE/ immortalje
Rating: FRT/PG 13
Request: Past Jack/Ianto - When Jack comes back, Ianto refuses to accept him back. Believing Jack had left because they were through, he's moved on.
Requestor: i_want_2
Beta: nobody - just the word spellchecker
Spoiler: slight for 2x01 Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Words: 601
A/N: This is written for Jack's PoV and I'm not sure how close I came to the prompt as I did intend to write more (and actually intended to be less sympathetic to Jack), but nothing would come...

Mistakes and Misconceptions

Jack had come back, knowing that he had moved on. For years – decades really – he had hoped and imagined a magnificent reunion with the Doctor. It hadn't been magnificent, more hurtful even to find out that the Doctor had very well known about him surviving instead of thinking him dead. To his surprise, that news and the Doctor's action weren't as hurtful as he had thought they would be. No, the reunion had shown him one thing he had always ignored as something impossible. He had moved on and every part of the journey – during Utopia and on the Valiant – he had missed Ianto. For all the problems they had in their relationship, Jack had committed himself without even noticing it. As such, his decision to stay in the linear life he had lived hadn't been a difficult one to make.

Coming back showed the flaws in his plan. None of them were happy about his return, but upset that he left at all and didn't really care about whys or whatever and despite Ianto's initial warm greeting, things were off. For once, his plan to make things right this time didn't work out. The offer to go on a date – to do anything Ianto wanted to do – was declined and any other suggestion he made suffered the same fate.

As a matter of fact, any attempt to talk about this change of mind – if you wanted to call it that – was ignored. The only thing Ianto had said was that he had moved on and something about getting the clues when Jack had left. Jack just didn't have any idea what kind of clues Ianto was talking about and it bugged him. Even having lived through the last century, he was still lost pretty quickly when it came to certain things.

Really, it was he who left, obviously giving Ianto the wrong impression and he knew that his behaviour hadn’t been the best beforehand. Despite knowing all this, he still didn’t know what (aside from leaving) gave Ianto all those impressions. There was no doubt that he was to blame for this. After all, he did have a century to figure these things out, but never really bothered with the little things in actual relationships since he tended to avoid them and if he was honest – a part of him did go about this the way he would have before he was stranded in linear time.

~***~

It wasn't until several days later when he sorted the papers on his desk that he found the answer to his question. The answer came to him in the form of a tearstained letter in Ianto's meticulous handwriting.

Frustrated, he leaned back in his chair after reading the letter, wondering when he screwed up his relationship with Ianto so bad, that the other man would assume his leaving had anything to do with their relationship, wondering when his hopeless endeavour to find the Doctor was so obvious that it disguised anything else.

How could he have so foolishly taken things for granted and not realised how insecure Ianto was about his feelings.

One thing he was sure of – the punishment for his blindness and rash behaviour was fitting. He would not only have to live with knowing he had screwed up one of the most important things in his live, but he would have to see Ianto happy with someone else and listen to tales he would have loved to play a part in. Truly, a just punishment for making Ianto believe he was worth so little and the cause of his flight.

The End