Title: Misplaced Faith
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 2, letter100
Prompt: 21, Flirty
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own Ianto Jones, the Tenth Doctor, or Jack Harkness. Please do not sue.

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Dear Jack,

This might sound strange, but now that we're back together, I feel far more comfortable with you than I ever could have when we were first together. I still feel as though I'm in a new relationship, rather than trying to rebuild from the ashes of an old one.

I've found from bitter experience that it's never a good idea to try and make an old relationship work again. It's never the same, no matter how much you hope that it will be and try to make it so. You always end up slipping back into old habits, old ways of thinking.

But with you, it's not like that at all. This has been so different, right from the start -- and it's been me, not you, who's had a problem with falling back into my old suspicions. I supposed I can use the excuse that old habits die hard, but that's not quite true.

The truth is that I found it hard to completely trust you, even after you came back to me. I kept thinking that you were the one who was going to fall into your old ways, that you were going to flirt with any slightly attractive person who presented themselves.

It was wrong of me to think in that way, Jack. I apologise for doing it. I know that you've grown and changed, and that what we share means more to you than any shallow flirtation. It's just that I'm used to you being so different, and I know how hard it can be to change.

That sounds as though I didn't love you before you changed your flirtatious ways, and you know that's not true. I've always loved you, Jack -- in spite of that one fault you've always had. I knew that you weren't the right man for me at the time, but I still loved you.

I should rephrase that, I suppose. You were the right man for me -- if you could have been faithful. I know that your faithlessness is in the past, and that you'd never dream of being like that now. But at the time, it was an integral part of the person you were.

Maybe you simply needed to sow the proverbial wild oats -- but to be honest, I think you'd had quite enough time to do that already. I always had a feeling that the real reason you were unfaithful was that you were afraid of having your emotions deeply involved with anyone.

What we shared was so strong, so intense, that it frightened you away. I don't blame you for that; there were times when my feelings for you scared the hell out of me, too. And I can imagine what it must have been like to be on the receiving end of that sort of intensity.

You may have felt at the time that the way to combat that intensity was to push me away from you, to flirt with other people and make me jealous. And that may have worked, for a while. But it didn't make me stop loving you, even though it probably should have.

It only made me feel inadequate, even though I'm sure that wasn't what you wanted. But it did have one effect that I think you were after. It pushed you away from me, and made you think that you had to run away from me completely for that intensity to cool down.

The problem is that it never did. I still felt the same about you, even when we were apart and I didn't think that we could ever return to what we'd had before. My feelings never changed, Jack. I was hurt and angry, but I still loved you with all of my hearts and soul.

I shouldn't say that I hoped we could return to what we were before, because that relationship was riddled with flaws. I think that, in a way, it was doomed to failure because of who you were at the time -- and the fact that I couldn't accept you as you were.

I'll be honest with you -- if you were still like that, flirting with anyone who you thought was attractive that happened to fly across your orbit, then we wouldn't be together now. I still can't accept that. But now, I realise that I don't have to.

Before, when our relationship was in the first throes of desire and discovery, I thought that I did have to accept that kind of behaviour if I wanted to be happy with you. That wasn't true. I should have known that I could never be happy as long as you went after other people.

We were doomed to go our separate ways for a while -- and I never would have thought that you would confess to making a mistake when you left me. That floored me, and I don't mind admitting it. I would never have dared to dream that you'd come back to me.

I would have thought that you would still be the flirty, fly-by-night man you were when we first met, that being the leader of Torchwood would give you carte blanche -- as well as a built-in excuse -- to not be involved with anyone in any sort of a serious way.

But I've underestimated you, Jack. You've grown up a great deal in the time that we've been apart -- and in some ways, I suppose that I have, too. I think that our time apart may have done us some good, given us the perspective of experience and added wisdom.

I won't question why we're back together, and I won't worry about whether we could fall apart again. I've told myself that since the first night you were with me again, and I mean to stand by that resolution. I'm going to simply take each moment as it comes, one day at a time.

If your flirting becomes an issue again, then I can't lie, Jack. I won't want you here. But I don't think it will. That isn't going to be something that comes between us in the future, because I think you're past that. I'm putting my trust and my faith in you.

I know that faith isn't misplaced. I can't let it be. You have my trust and my love, Jack, from now until the end of time. I just hope that you'll be able to put just as much trust and faith in me -- and that neither of us will find that it's been in vain.

Eternally your

Doctor

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