Title: The Longest Hours
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ianto Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, letter100
Prompt: 29, Hours
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's still taking me some time to get used to being here on the Tardis with you, even though it's been a while now. My mind keeps taking me back to those days that seemed to crawl by, each second feeling like an hour and each day like an eternity.

Even when I was still working at Torchwood and I had plenty of excitement to fill my days, the time seemed to go by so slowly. There were days when there wouldn't be much to do, and I'd sit there staring at the clock willing the hours to go by.

Then when I went home to my flat, I'd sit by the window, looking up at the night sky and searching the stars. For some reason, I kept thinking that if I looked at them enough, I'd somehow manage to get a message to you, and you'd come back to me.

That didn't happen, of course. I couldn't send you a message; all I could do was hope that you would be back in my arms soon.

Even now, when I'm here with you on the Tardis and you hardly ever leave my side, there's still a part of me that feels that same clutching at my heart when I wake up and you're not beside me in bed, or I don't know where you are for a few moments. It's a frightening feeling.

I know that you would never leave me. You'd never go out of the Tardis without letting me know where you were -- and you'd more than likely take me with you. There are some situations where you might not want me to come along, but I always will.

I belong by your side, Doctor. I always have, from the first moment I looked into your eyes and fell into those dark depths. I've known since that first glance that you were the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

The hours that I spent away from you when I was still staying behind on Earth were the longest hours I've ever passed in my life. I don't want to live through times like that again; it would only remind me of the fear I always had in my soul that you wouldn't come back.

I always knew in my heart that you would come back to me. The only way you wouldn't have would have been if you were killed -- and I knew that wouldn't happen.

But I was always so terrified that you would come back to me a different man. That you would walk out of the Tardis in a new body, with a new personality -- one that didn't feel the same about me. In a body that I couldn't make myself love.

That's not something that I want to talk about. It's a strange feeling, to know that you could regenerate into someone else entirely. You would still be you -- but you wouldn't be my Doctor. You wouldn't be the same man I fell in love with.

Again, not something that's worth talking about. I'm here with you now, and that isn't going to happen. If it does, at least I'll be there to witness it -- and if I have to sacrifice myself to stop it form happening, if things come to that, then I won't hesitate to do so.

That's a subject I should avoid -- I know that it upsets you. And it wasn't what I meant to talk about when I began writing this letter. But it's one of the things that I spent hours thinking about when you were out here in time and space, and I was left behind on Earth.

Those hours went by more slowly than I know how to put into words. There isn't any kind of verbal way to describe how agonizingly slowly time passed for me without you.

All those hours that we've wasted, Doctor. All that time that we could have been together, loving each other, no matter how aimless whatever we did might have seemed. I would have been happy to just spend that time gazing into your eyes.

I can't see you wanting to do something like that; you're more restless than I am, always wanting to get up and go, to see new sights, to discover new places. But I believe that I've managed to calm that sort of restlessness in your soul, at least partially.

There have been times when I've spent hours by your side without you knowing that I was observing you; you've been asleep in bed beside me, a small smile curving those beautiful lips, and I've gazed at you and wondered what you were dreaming about.

Those are the best hours of my life, I think, the hours when I can look at you without being disturbed. The hours when I can gaze into your face, and tell myself how lucky I am that I have this life with you, that I'm the man you've chosen to give your hearts to.

I try not to think of all the hours I've had to spend away from you, hours when I could feel everything in me reaching out to you. Those hours are gone, and they'll never come again.

That's a time of my life that I don't want to ever be repeated. I don't ever want to sit by a window gazing up at the thousands of stars in the sky, searching amongst them in vain for some glimmer of where you could possibly be.

I know that sounds rather melodramatic, but that's what I did for so many nights. I don't blame you for any of that time; I think it helped me to become a much stronger person, to know that I could keep going on nothing more than my faith that I would be with you again.

If you had been in my place, would you have done the same thing? Would you have sat there searching the stars, wanting nothing more than to receive some sign that I was thinking of you? I believe that you would have; you would have reached out to me in the very same way.

Those hours are in the past, and they'll never come again. I can put all of that longing and loneliness behind me, where it belongs. I know that I'll never have to watch the stars for you again; instead, I'll be right by your side, knowing exactly where you are. In my arms, and in my heart, where you belong.

Your loving

Ianto

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