Title: Hope Dies Hard
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3, letter100
Prompt: 32, Hopeful
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own Ianto Jones or the Tenth Doctor. Please do not sue.

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Dear Jack,

I wonder why I'm writing you this letter. Even as I'm sitting here making the pen fly across the paper, I don't know why I'm bothering. I doubt you'll read it anyway, or pay any attention to what I'm saying. You never care what other people think.

Or how they feel. I knew that from the beginning of my involvement with you, but I didn't let go. I suppose that at the time, I couldn't. I thought I needed you -- I even thought I loved you. Maybe I did, in some ways -- but it wasn't real love.

It was more of an infatuation than anything else. I can't say that I regret the time we spent together -- that time gave me an invaluable insight into who I am, and made me comfortable with myself, more so than I'd ever been.

And, of course, if it wasn't for you, then I'd never have met my soul mate, the man I really love, the man I've always been meant to be with.

Does that sound cold, that I can so easily turn from you to him? It wasn't that easy, not at first. It's a good thing that I didn't know him when I was still involved with you, or I might never have realized my true feelings for him.

That terrifies me, do you know that? The thought of having you be the man I went through life thinking I should have been with. Because I know how that would have made me feel, and the kind of life that I would have led.

I always knew that it was inevitable you'd break up with me -- yet expect me to keep working with you as though nothing had happened between us. I knew that you weren't capable of being faithful, that you love no one but yourself and your own ego.

You might as well face it, Jack. If you keep on in the way you're going, then you'll be nothing more than a selfish slut all of your life. You'll just keep using people in the way that you used me, throwing them away when you're done with them.

How many years of your life are you going to spend using people and then moving on to the next one? Having an unlimited amount of time to do that must make it easy; but that doesn't excuse the fact that you're a selfish bastard who revels in hurting people.

And I actually loved you. I might as well admit it, as much as I don't want to. I did. I made myself believe that you could feel the same way about me, that I could be the centre of your life in the same way that you were mine.

But deep down inside, I knew that wasn't true. I should have steeled myself for that, made myself less vulnerable, backed away a little at a time.

But I didn't. I couldn't. I held on to that hope that you might one day feel the same way, that I might hear those three words from you. I lived for those words; I wanted to hear them more than I'd ever wanted anything. I knew I wouldn't hear them, but hope dies hard.

I never heard them, but you know that. And that made my love for you die all the more quickly, even though I can grudgingly say that we now have a kind of friendship. That friendship will never be an easy one, though, and I'll never be able to fully trust you.

The funny thing is that I'm with a man who feels the same way about you. He loved you once too -- he held on to the same hope that I did. And he was let down just as much as I was in the end. I don't know which of us you used more.

What does that feel like, Jack? Does it give you a feeling of superiority to use another person and know that you're tearing them apart inside? Does it make you feel powerful? Is that what all of your so-called "relationships" are, nothing but power trips?

It doesn't matter any more. I've found the true love of my life, and what I felt for you has crumbled into ashes. But I can't help being resentful at all the tears I wasted over you, all the time I spent in hopeful anticipation of a dream that would never come true.

I've found my dream now. The Doctor was even more of an impossible dream than you were -- but he's the dream that I always should have had. In a way, I'm grateful to you for the opportunity to find him. If not for being at Torchwood, it might not have turned out this way.

Though I do believe that he would have found me. The bond between us is too strong for him not to have been led to me eventually.

He and I belong together, in a way that you and I never could have. What I have a hard time even trying to understand is how you could have been heartless and cruel enough to hurt a man like him -- how you could have lied to him when you said you loved him.

But as I've already said, that's in the past. He's with the person who truly loves him now. If he was still with you, he would still have so much heartache ahead of him -- heartache that I wish he could have been spared by never being with you at all.

We've both been through that. We've both been scarred by you. But we've transcended those scars, and we've risen like two phoenixes from the ashes, in each other's arms. That's where we both belong -- where we've always belonged, and always will.

I feel sorry for you, Jack. You'll never know what it's like to be in the arms of someone who you really love, because you'll never love anyone completely. Your life will always be empty. And you have only yourself to blame for that.

When I think of him, I think of light and love -- and hope. The hopeful feeling that I had in my heart when he and I first met was fulfilled in a way that I'd never have dreamed possible. Maybe one day, someone will hope like that with you again -- and you won't crush that hope into dust.

Though I'll be honest -- I'm not holding my breath for that.

Ianto

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