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Jack is numb.
He has been for a few days now.
Yesterday, he watched the small white child's coffin containing Steven's body disappear into the earth from the back of the crowd. Alice didn't speak to him, and he hadn't expected her to, and when Steven's family, his friends had left, he sat at the open grave and cursed his own numbness that he couldn't even cry properly, that he could only sit and try to swallow the lump in his throat and rub at his red eyes, but that the tears wouldn't come, and after he finally got up, night already falling around him, he saluted.
Jack is numb.
It's the guilt eating away at him, leaving nothing but emptiness in his chest, a black hole that threatens to swallow him from the inside and it takes every last bit of energy that he has to get up when Gwen knocks on the door to his newly rented flat the day after. She is wearing all black and behind her Rhys is standing, clad in dark jeans and a black suit jacket. Funeral attire. Jack feels even more guilty that, if they hadn't shown up on his doorstep, he wouldn't even have gone to Ianto's funeral.
Jack is still numb when he sits down in the last row in the church that Ianto's sister, Rhiannon, has chosen.
Jack hadn't gotten an invitation. Rhiannon doesn't even know him and she throws suspicious glances at him first and then at Gwen and Rhys when they enter after him and sit down next to him, but she seems glad that more people than just her own kids and husband and the six other people sitting at the front have shown up. Ianto is the first member of Torchwood Three to get a funeral, now with the hub and the morgue gone, and Jack is glad, but you really don't get to have many friends when you work for Torchwood. Still, at least Ianto is going to have a headstone that Jack can visit. That is more than Owen and Tosh got.
During the whole service, Jack is numb.
Jack isn't Christian, isn't religious at all, but he's gotten used to this over the past hundred years and while he still doesn't get the whole 'God' thing, he likes the tradition of it, likes to sit in a church and think and pay his last respects, even if to him the religious aspect doesn't make sense.
Today is different, though.
He can't focus, the numbness taking over his mind, and only when he feels Gwen's hand on his arm, he realizes that he has tensed up. He relaxes, pushes a hand into his coat pocket to feel for the tie tucked neatly away in there. It's Ianto's tie, the one he'd worn the day he died. Jack took it after him and Gwen had finally been able to stop crying at Ianto's dead body. He doesn't know if he wants to keep it, but right now the smooth silk between his fingers feels nice and puts a halt to the gnawing in his gut and with his box of memorabilia burnt in the explosion, Jack is even more grateful that he still has something that belonged to Ianto.
(He has a few more things from Ianto. There's Ianto's diary in Jack's bedside drawer. Jack had sneaked it from Ianto's flat before Rhiannon and Johnny started sorting through Ianto's stuff. He has one of Ianto's Bond films, too, and a framed photo of Ianto and Jack. (He knows that in the long run he will only keep the photo and maybe the tie. As sad as it is, he can't afford to keep more.))
When Jack helps Rhys and Johnny and who Jack assumes are the neighbours carry the coffin out onto the cemetery, he is still numb.
He steps back from the grave after they have set the coffin down, finds his place at the back of the (much smaller than yesterday's) crowd, and listens as the priest speaks a few words. Just like the day before, he watches the coffin disappear into the grave and watches flowers and handfuls of soil get thrown into it as well and when it's finally his turn to step forward, after Gwen and Rhys, he stares down into the grave for half a second. The soil stands out from the light wood and Jack can feel the air draining out of his lungs as he chokes up, and he throws his own handful of soil before he steps back, tears in his eyes. He stands in front of the grave for what could have been seconds or minutes, ignoring the stares from the other funeral guests.
Gwen and Rhys leave after the service.
Jack doesn't.
He ist still numb as he waits for everyone to leave.
Then he sits at Ianto's grave like he sat at Steven's the day before. Again, he doesn't really cry, just rubs his redrimmed eyes and thinks and stares at the simple grey headstone, until he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns his head. It's Rhiannon. He hadn't noticed that she stayed back, too.
'You were his boss.'
It's not a question. Jack still nods.
'Yes.'
'And his boyfriend.'
Jack nods again. (He's only just gotten used to being called someone's boyfriend again. To being Ianto's boyfriend. (They deserved so much more time.))
Rhiannon sits down next to him. He sees her shivering and takes off his coat and drapes it around her shoulders. She forces a smile.
'I don't even know your name,' she says after a while.
'Captain Jack Harkness.'
His name, usually said dripping with cockiness or confidence or sometimes even both, sounds almost as numb as Jack feels.
'Rhiannon Davies,' she responds.
Jack doesn't tell her that he knows her name, that he knows that she lives on the same estate that Ianto and her grew up on and that Ianto hates (hated) so much, that he knows about their mum's early death and their dad's alcohol problem and that he knows most of these things only from Ianto's file or from him talking in his sleep during nightmares, because Ianto didn't talk about his childhood.
It's silent for a few minutes, the numbness threatening to consume Jack, before Rhiannon speaks again.
'Did you love him?'
'Yes.' Jack's voice is hoarse and he hesitates, before he adds, 'Never got to tell him.'
Rhiannon looks at him.
'God, I'm sorry.'
'I'm sorry, too.'
He smiles a sad smile and his fist clenches around a tiny stone he has picked up from the floor and then he says, 'I should have taken better care of him.'
'It's not your fault.'
'You don't know that now, do you?'
Jack's voice sounds harsher then he intended it to sound, and he wants to apologize, but then Rhiannon places a hand on his and he throws her a glance. Her gaze is soft and she is looking at him intently and although Jack knows that Ianto's death is his own fault, he can see that Rhiannon doesn't think that.
'They told us he died of a deadly virus released by whatever was controlling the children. That doesn't sound like it's your fault.'
Jack doesn't answer. It's too complicated to explain the details and Rhiannon doesn't need to know and it wouldn't change anything about the guilt. He hates himself for being too numb to care about Rhiannon having the right to know the truth.
Jack is so fucking numb.
There's a feeling of responsibility, too, the duty to take care of Ianto's family, and just for a second it seems stronger than the numbness, so Jack tries to hold onto it.
'How are you doing?,' he asks.
'It's - difficult. He was so young and I didn't think that -' A suppressed sob interrupts Rhiannon's sentence. She takes a deep breath. 'I promised our mam that I would take care of him.'
Jack can hear the pain in her voice. Two sad, even pathetic creatures they are, sitting at an open grave, wallowing in regrets and long gone opportunities and past mistakes. Jack's arm wraps carefully around her shoulder.
'Hey,' he says.
Tears are glimmering in her eyes and then they fall onto her cheeks, and when Rhiannon starts crying, Jack can feel himself cry, too. He's glad that he is finally able to cry, and he feels guilty for being able to cry for Ianto, but not for Steven, and then he feels guilty for thinking of Steven when he is sitting at Ianto's grave, holding Ianto's sister and looking at the tear blurred image of his headstone.
'I failed him,' Rhiannon says after she has wiped her eyes and blown her nose with a tissue Jack had offered.
'Me, too,' Jack responds, because he did fail Ianto, failed him when he had left to travel with the doctor and failed him when he wasn't able to say that he loved him and when he didn't fucking save him.
Jack is numb again.
Almost an hour of silence later, Rhiannon offers him to come round for dinner and he agrees. He stands up and helps Rhiannon up and then turns to the grave again and raises a hand in salute. The declaration of love on his lips is almost inaudible, but he does say it, and when Rhiannon leads him down to the estate, he is still numb.
Later that night, early morning, really, Jack raises a gun to his temple. He knows he will wake up again, and he knows he will be alone, no Ianto to hold onto while he takes the first gasping breath.
He knows this won't change anything.
He still pulls the trigger.