Title: Waiting To Be Made
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ianto Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: 2, letter100
Prompt: 49, Treasure
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Tenth Doctor or Ianto Jones, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

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My dearest Ianto,

I don't think I've ever told you before what a treasure you are, have I? If I have, then I'm going to tell you again. It's something that I don't think you hear often enough, and there are times when I feel ashamed of myself for not telling you constantly how much I love you.

In those moments when you died, before you brought back to me, I was sure that I had lost everything that could ever possibly matter in my life. Without you, I felt like an empty shell, a husk of who I had been, good for nothing and waiting only for death.

I believe that I would have taken my life if you hadn't been brought back. I know that it wouldn't be what you'd have wanted me to do, and I know that it would have been the coward's way out. But I simply couldn't have faced living on without you.

I know that taking my own life wouldn't be a solution, but at the time, it seemed as though that was the only way I could be with you again. And I seriously considered it -- the world might not be a better place for my loss, but I would be happier to not be here without you.

A world without you would be a world that I wanted no part of, Ianto. I couldn't imagine living without you; I thought about that quite a bit when you were still mortal, and wondered how I was going to deal with the eventuality of losing you to death.

Even if we'd had many, many decades together, and you died a very old man, I would still be devastated by your loss. I would never be prepared for it; I know that now. Having lost you once, even if only for a few brief moments, I know how losing you would tear our my heart and soul.

I can't live without you. I know that now. I've always known it, really, even when we first met, before our bond developed to the strength that it is now. I've always known that you were the other half of me, the better part of me. The part that I need to survive.

Some would probably say that it's terribly weak and co-dependent of me to say that I couldn't make myself carry on without you. Those are people who have known what it's like to love, to give their hearts and souls completely to another person.

Love is not co-dependency. I may not be able to enumerate exactly what it is without going into a very long rigmarole that would stretch on and on into an entire stack of notebooks, but even though I can't put it into words, I know what it is to be in love, and to be loved.

Never, in all the years of my life, in all the regenerations before I met you, did I ever think that I would have such a treasure in my life. I've had companions that I cared for before, of course, even lovers. But no one has ever been what you are to me, Ianto.

No one cold ever be what you are in my life. It's only once that one meets the person who was meant to be their soul mate, the one puzzle piece that fits where all the others were never quite the right shape. Only once in a lifetime. In my case, once in several lifetimes.

What would I do without you here by my side? If I had never known you, or if you and I had only been the proverbial ships that pass in the night, it wouldn't seem like such a loss not to have you. Yes, I would be sad over losing you, but it wouldn't cut soul-deep.

Now, I know that it is to have that perfect love, that priceless treasure that nothing and no one could ever replace. And a life without you, without that love .... that's something I don't want to contemplate. It would merely be an existence. Not a life.

You've brought so much joy to me, simply by being here with me and loving me. Even if we were only the sort of companions that I've known in the past, I would still have that joy, and the memories of the happiness we shared with each other.

But with you, I have so much more. You were more than simply a companion, right from the first. Even if we hadn't been lovers in truth, I believe that I would have loved you -- fiercely, possessively, with the kind of love I've never felt for anyone before you.

I treasure you above anything and anyone else in my life, Ianto. I probably don't need to say that, but I want to. I know that you're aware of my love for you -- but I don't believe that I could ever put into words how intense, how expansive that love is.

You are everything in the world to me. To say that you mean more to me than life wouldn't be exaggerating. You're the center of my world -- and you know what a big universe I exist in, how many different worlds there are in it. You are at the center of them all.

Without you, I would be a completely different man. I doubt that I would have the same outlook on life; I'd still be terribly lonely, even if I had a companion with me, because I wouldn't have found my center, my heart, my soul, the other half of me.

Perhaps it sounds maudlin, or far too romantic. But you're my world, Ianto. You always have been, from the moment we met, and you always will be. A world without you would be a world that I couldn't exist in; without you, I would cease to be.

I treasure every moment that we've spent together, every kiss, every touch that we've shared. Each and every second of time with you has been precious to me, and will continue to be so, until the end of time. We have so much of that time left, so much ahead of us to explore.

Our time together is only just beginning, my love. We have so many more decades, even centuries, to make more memories that we can both treasure. Those memories are waiting to be made -- and each one of them will be a treasure to me, just because I've shared them with you.

Always your

Doctor

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