Title: Just One Look
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ianto Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, letter100
Prompt: 65, First Glance
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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My dearest Ianto,

I could just as easily tell you this as write it in a letter. But you know how emotional I get when I try to talk of my feelings for you; I cry far too easily, and the emotions are so strong that sometimes they get in the way of the words themselves actually coming out.

I know that you've heard me tell you how I feel about you over and over again. And I've heard the same from you. But I can never say those words enough. It's as though there's a part of me that's afraid you might forget that I've said them.

That's terribly paranoid of me, I know. A psychiatrist would have a field day with me, wouldn't he? I have all sorts of abandonment issues, that's perfectly obvious. But given the nature of who and what I am, I suppose that's not too surprising.

How many times have I told you how much I love you? Too many to count, I know. And you'll probably hear that over and over again, until the day of our final parting in this realm. Then when we're reuinted in another realm of being, you'll hear those words yet again.

From the very first glance between us, you captured my hearts. I tried to deny that to myself at the time -- I was under the impression that there was still something between you and Jack, though he quickly set me right on that score.

And then I was terrified of what could happen if I fell in love with a human -- Jack was the only human I'd been in that sort of a relationship with before, other than fly-by-night romances here and there that never lasted more than a few days, at best.

I couldn't think of anything but all of the reasons why we shouldn't be together. The fact that you're human and have a shorter life span; that I'm a different species, silly things that don't have any real meaning when two people love each other.

I wanted you. I knew that I was falling for you, regardless of what I tried to tell myself. But I didn't think it was possible for you to feel the same way about me. I was sure that if I let my feelings show, if I let them come to the forefront of my mind, that I would be doomed to disappointment.

And then you began to leave me those love notes and roses in the Tardis -- and everything changed. Of course, I didn't know that it was you doing so at first -- but when I found out, you insinuated yourself into my soul so completely that I knew you had always been meant for me.

I'll admit, it was a bit of a shock to find out that you were the person leaving those notes and flowers. I never would have expected that, because I had so thoroughly managed to convince myself that you couldn't possibly be interested in me.

I had planned to leave Earth the next day, knowing that I wanted to take you with me, but also knowing that you wouldn't come along. So imagine my surprise when you came into the Tardis that night and I caught you red-handed with that rose and love note!

That was when I first began to open my hearts to you, and to realise that I didn't have to hide what I felt. It was a revelation to me that you felt the same; I had worked so hard to convince myself that you didn't that I had almost made myself believe it.

But there was always the memory of that first glance between us, that look that went directly to my hearts and wrapped around them, that wouldn't let me go. No matter what I tried to tell myself, deep inside I knew that I had been meant to be with you.

It wasn't easy for me to admit that. I was afraid to give myself over to your love at first; I wanted to sink into it, to wrap myself in it until I felt that it would drown me. But it took a few days for my hearts to convince my mind to take that irrevocable step.

Once I did that, I had no regrets. I never could. I wish that I would have listened to my hearts from the very beginning, rather than taking those few days to push aside my doubts and fears and become completely immersed in the wonder of being in love.

I've always been an optimist -- you know that. And even now, when I know that the two of us will be parted physically at some point because of our respective life spans, I know that you'll be waiting for me in the next realm that I'll eventually cross into.

I'll never have regrets about falling in love with you, Ianto. There might have been those on Gallifrey who would tell me that I'm making a mistake, that I can never be happy with a human, but I know better. You've made me happier than anyone else possibly could.

My mother was human, you know. And my father loved her to distraction -- so much so that he could never look at me in the same way again when she died. I was too much like her, he said. Not only in my looks, but in my personality.

It only took one glance for the two of them to fall in love -- and that's exactly what happened to me with you. Just one look, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had found the one man who I wanted to spend all of eternity with.

Falling in love at first glance must be something that runs in my family. My mother often told me when I was a child that she only had to see my father once before she fell for him. Their eyes met across a crowded room -- and they each knew.

That was exactly the way I fell for you. Not across a crowded room, but in that room at the Hub, a place where I didn't feel at my most comfortable, but where you were right at home. And in that moment when our eyes first met, I couldn't have cared less where I was, as long as I was with you.

With that first glance, I knew that I wanted to take you out of there and into the stars with me. I knew that I wanted you by my side forever, in my hearts, in my arms, in my bed. And I was lucky enough to have that desire turn into reality.

I'm going to end this now, and leave it on the table by our bed for you to find when you wake up in the morning. And I hope that what I've written will make you smile -- just as you did when our eyes first met and we both knew that we had found exactly where we belonged.

Eternally your

Doctor

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