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d8rkmessngrAuthor: d8rkmessngr
Pairing: Jack/OMC, Jack/?, Jack/Ianto eventually, het and slash
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He left Jack on the game station. Abandoned. But then…he came back…different. An AU look on what happens if things happened differently. Doctor Who 'verse with Torchwood later on.
Warnings: Please read each chapter's individual warnings. Some parts down the road may briefly mention non-con, abuse, and/or violence. Dark in the beginning. Please note there are some dark thoughts as my boys are broken…for now. Each chapter will be labeled for your convenience.
Author's Notes: Note that "the Year That Never Was" was suggested that it wasn't fun. I took it as a challenge to somehow still find a way to instill comfort in it. If it didn't work, I'm sorry. I suck. LOL.
Disclaimer: RTD and BBC owns them. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Warning For This Chapter: SAP! LOL.
Notes For This Chapter: Note there are events/dialogue here that was referenced in DW's "Last of the Time Lords" and TW's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang".
Prologue + Ch , Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31, Ch 32, Ch 33, Ch 34, Ch 35, Ch 36 Ch 37, Ch 38, Ch 39, Ch 40
Master Fic List: here
Epilogue
Act I
Week One, Version Two
Coming back to the Hub was strange, very strange. The information centre looked like how he vaguely remembered it and the stack of pamphlets he'd set out to be sorted for a concert that was performing in a week—he read it a few times before he was able to convince himself the year printed was the correct one—was still by the mug with the ceramic lid Jack had given him for Christmas.
Ianto didn't know why, but he felt ridiculously pleased to find the stoneware piece intact and waiting for him. Silly thing. Jack technically didn't give it to him. It was lost in 1941 and Ianto bought it for himself. Somehow though, its non-traditional origins oddly reminded him of Jack.
After they had teleported back to Cardiff during the year that never was, Ianto had tried to come up to the surface and into the office but it had collapsed during the time they were away. Even the hatchway in the vaults area was too mangled to try to squeeze through. Owen had said it was stupid to try to salvage a bunch of outdated pamphlets and maps. Gwen said it was too risky; the Toclafane patrolled the Plass all day. So Ianto opted not to say anything but whenever he could, he'd tried to poke and move some of the debris away from the ladder but he was never able to climb up into his office again.
The hour at the pub was bittersweet; they all saw faces they had never known until Saxon. Most had died in the year that never was but were resurrected when the year was voided. It grew to be unnerving to be drinking in a room slowly filling with people who were previously dead. Afterwards, Owen and the others had gone straight for the invisible lift while Ianto opened up the office. The routine, after having not followed it for so long, felt alien. He stood by the pamphlets that weren't outdated anymore, by the fern that was no longer dead but still needed watering, holding the ceramic disk that had lost its mug mate decades ago with both hands. Ianto was a statue in front of his computer, clutching the pottery until Owen rang him up on the mobile, yowling that despite the year having been reversed, the coffee machine still didn't work.
Ianto heard them ring up the Valiant every few hours, talking to UNIT, sometimes to Jack. The number of people they needed to retrieve and debrief was staggering. Saxon had collected a huge personal army when he was minister and they were mixed in with the UNIT troops forced to work in exchange for their families' safety.
Each time Jack came on the phone, Owen or Tosh looked at Ianto questioningly but he would shake his head. Talking to Jack right now would only make things worse. For whom though, Ianto wasn't sure anymore.
Ianto slipped his hands under the shirt and felt the firm muscles tense and expand under his palms. Lips nibbled at his throat as fingers undo his flies and gingerly pull him out with humbling care and reverence.
"Yes," Ianto breathed as fingers squeezed him and pulled with long leisurely strokes. "Yes." Ianto pressed into the knowing grip as more fingers brushed tenderly at his entrance, silently seeking permission.
Ianto opened his mouth to a seeking one, sighed when he felt firm yet soft lips—always a contradiction—seal over his mouth. Ianto deepened his kiss…
And woke up.
His skin still felt flushed in the spots where he thought he could feel Jack’s touch. Ianto stared up at his ceiling to try and maintain the dream but already it was dissolving into the sleepy confusion of the awake.
Ianto muffled a sob into his pillow, curled around Jack's side of the bed and fell back asleep.
"You're being stupid, you know," Owen announced on the third day they were back. He stood by the gurney while Ianto buttoned up his shirt. True to his word, Owen was putting Ianto under every scanner and X-ray machine available to him. Then again, everyone else suffered the same attentions. Owen declared that they all needed physicals and dispensed vitamins like it was water to everyone. It would have been touching if it hadn't interrupted Ianto's hoover session in Jack's—no, it is just the main office now—office. God, the dust that had gathered there was deplorable.
"What have I apparently done this time?" Ianto sighed. Owen had already given him a lecture on not doing the physical therapy for his shoulder frequently enough.
"Ignoring his calls," Owen said around a generous bite of chocolate HobNob. "It's not going to make things easier, you know. You're just confusing the hell out of our Captain."
"I won't influence his decision," Ianto bit out as he did his cuffs. "Whatever Jack decides, it has to be of his own choosing, not stemming out of some sort of…gratitude." He glowered at Owen when he heard a loud munch. "At least use a napkin," Ianto snapped. Damn Gwen for indulging Owen. Did she really have to buy one of each flavor for him?
Owen made a face, crumbs and all, and popped the last morsel into his mouth.
"Gratitude?" Owen scoffed. "What makes you think Jack owes you anything? The sex wasn't that good, was it?"
"Owen!" Ianto growled as he was sprinkled with HobNob dust. He wasn't sure if that irked him or Owen's comment.
Owen rolled his eyes. He made a show of wiping his mouth with Ianto's tie before handing it to him.
Ianto made like he was going to strangle Owen with it. Harper was unimpressed.
The silk neckwear dropped to his lap. Ianto stared at the striped pattern and realized he had automatically put it on because it was Jack's favorite.
"Jack might feel a sense of duty to stay with me and the last thing I want is to let that make the decision for him." Ianto's face gave a little before he screwed it back to the one he had worn since their return.
"His life was taken out of his hands far too many times already." Ianto twisted the tie around his left hand. "Whatever he decides…I won't be the one to do it for him."
"All right," Owen conceded. "He might not have had a choice when he went with Saxon and whatever that bloody Master did, he didn't have a choice then either but with you? You and Jack shagging—"
"We weren't like that," Ianto interrupted because the description simply rankled him. "Jack and I. We weren't…like that."
To his surprise, Owen didn't retort or scoff or even laugh; he just nodded his head.
"Think that time he made his own choice there, mate."
Ianto bit his lip and ducked his head. Owen exhaled sharply.
"Cor, you two can drive a man to drink with all your dramatics," Owen groaned.
"What was your excuse before?" Ianto joked weakly. It earned him a scuff to the back of his head by a hand dusted with mocha HobNob crumbs.
Ianto sobered. "He waited so long, Owen. Back then, I didn't understand why he would for such a man but that was because it was Saxon, but this one…" Ianto idly swung his legs. The tie wrinkled and knotted in his hands.
"This man could take him to the stars. The things I think they must have seen before…I don't know how long his lifespan is but it has to be a lot longer than…" Ianto made a rueful smile, "…us mere mortals."
Owen was scribbling something on Ianto's medical file. He grunted.
"Didn't seem to bother Jack before to be with us mere mortals," Owen muttered as he scratched his pen against his chin.
But it did, Ianto thought with a pang. Jack always feared Ianto had been wasting his life with him, but in hindsight, Ianto wondered if it wasn't also for another reason.
"You seem to think for sure he'll decide to go with that ruddy police box," Owen observed, his lips pursed.
Ianto shrugged but there was a lump in his throat.
"Well, I still think you're an idiot." Owen gave him a slap to the back of Ianto's head that nearly unseated him off the gurney. "If you hadn't told the bloody Doctor to lie…" Owen shook his head, muttering.
"Think of how much he'll lose if he stays here with us instead," Ianto murmured. His shoulders slumped. "We'll all eventually leave him." Ianto worried the tie again. "It might be better if he did stay with the Doctor."
Owen stopped writing for a moment. He squinted at Ianto.
"Wasn't there some sort of nauseatingly sloppy saying about 'better to' whatever and 'lost' and shit like that?"
Ianto grimaced. "A little more eloquently put, but yes. I don't think—"
The pen wagged in front of him.
"That's your problem, mate. All you do is think." Owen scribbled something more. "Bloody irritating if you ask me." The pen clicked shut and Owen closed his file with a snap. "This kind of touchy feely shit isn't stuff that requires thinking. Doesn't work that way." He whacked the file on Ianto's knee.
"Now off. Cooper's next." Owen popped another HobNob in his mouth, this time a caramel one. It was disturbing, really, how much sugar the medic could consume.
Ianto made a show of sweeping crumbs off his lap and hopped off the gurney. He was halfway up the stairs when Owen stopped him.
"You're so worried about letting him make his own choice," Owen called out. "But doing nothing and ignoring him so he's got to make a decision—isn't this the same thing you're trying to prevent?"
Ianto stilled and gulped. Ianto twisted around, but Owen was already snapping off his gloves and getting a fresh set of syringes out. He stared at the back of Owen's head for a long time before he went back up the stairs. There was still cleaning to be done.
"I'm sorry," Ianto whispered as he arched into the hands slipping around his back. "I just wanted to make things easier for you."
Silent, the shadow merely pressed his face to Ianto's chest. Ianto hissed when he felt teeth grazing a nipple, laving it until it hardened.
"I want to ask you to stay," Ianto groaned as he thrust his throbbing erection against a strong thigh. He whimpered when a matching heat brushed against him in a sly, wordless challenge. Ianto growled as he curled his hands around broad shoulders and ground his hips against him. Ianto felt the body on him shake.
"I want to ask," Ianto whispered as he felt both their releases combine and cool on his belly. He reached up and stroked the cheek in front of him. Ianto moved to cup the back of the other's neck and pulled him in.
"But I need to do the right thing for you," Ianto murmured as he pulled the head towards him. Their lips met halfway and the exhale on his mouth beckoned.
"I'm sorry," Ianto whispered just as he kissed him. "I'm sor—"
His mobile rang and Ianto started. The bed was empty again but he forced himself to concentrate on locating his mobile instead.
"Ianto?" Gwen's sleepy voice woke him further. "Sorry, love, but Tosh was on the overnight shift and she just got a Weevil alert. I know it's late but could you met Owen and I—"
"Ten minutes," Ianto said as steady as he could. He levered himself off the rumpled bed. He stood at the foot of his bed, his throat tight. Ianto closed his eyes and pivoted away.
"Oh, I wish I could have seen it," Tosh sighed on the fifth day. She sat back on the couch with her hands wrapped around her favorite mug. Her glasses were pulled back to rest on top of her head.
"Gwen said it was quite a show. Every single one of those Toclafane dropped." Tosh toed off her heels and stretched out her legs on the tiny coffee table in front of them. Unlike everyone else who always managed to kick up a mess, Tosh took very particular care her crossed ankles didn't upset the neat piles on the table.
"With the year undone, there'll be no readings either," Tosh mourned. "God, I would have loved to have sees even just a spark!"
Ianto sank back on the couch as well and remembered a time when Jack threw pizza crusts up in the air and their pterodactyl swooped in and ate them up. He could still remember those teeth snapping up the leftovers. He remembered how warm Jack was when he pressed against him, an automatic reflex to seek shelter and Jack had seemed, at the time, the most logical choice. Ianto smiled to himself. He'd always wondered if Jack had done it on purpose.
"Owen's right," Tosh suddenly said. She studied Ianto over the top of her mug.
"You are being an idiot."
Ianto swallowed back a sigh. "Tosh—"
"You should have seen him," Tosh cut him off. "When we thought Saxon had shot you. He absolutely flipped, Ianto. Nothing reached him. I…I'd never seen him like that before." Tosh hugged the mug to her chest and gave a shiver. "And when he saw you again…" She sniffled.
Tosh pulled up her right leg and nudged him with her foot.
"If you ask him to stay, he would, you know." Tosh smiled as she took a sip. "I think it's pretty clear by now how he feels about you. Vice versa, I'm sure."
Ianto felt a lump in his throat. It was hard to speak around so he just pulled his mug up to his lips.
"Ianto—"
"I know! I know if I ask, he'll probably stay. That's just the way Jack is…" Ianto stared into his mug. He had tried to make tea but it wasn't the same, he'd put in too much sugar and there was still a leaf floating like a twig in a pond on top.
"But?" Tosh prodded gently.
"But is he staying because I asked him or because he wants to?"
"Oh." Tosh waved off his concern. "Why wouldn't he want to? The Doctor—"
"Even when it was Saxon, Jack still waited and he would have kept waiting even if it took another hundred years!" Ianto bit his lower lip. His head dropped low to his chest. "Sorry. I-I didn't mean to snap. It's just…"
"I want him to stay," Ianto confessed, "but staying might not be the best thing for him."
"We're not that bad." Tosh paused. "Well…maybe Owen. He did shoot him, after all."
They shared a strained chuckle.
"He's calling for another update in an hour. He's been asking how you were doing," Tosh said quietly. "Does that sound like a man who doesn't want to stay?"
Ianto sank down into the couch. Tosh slipped back on her shoes, kissed the top of his head and went back to her computer when it began beeping. He sat there for a long time. When the phone rang an hour later, Ianto went to do a check on the vaults. He told himself, as he wandered the archives without a flashlight, that he wasn't hiding.
"You're right," Gwen said, later that night, as she read the reports Ianto had received from UNIT.
Startled, Ianto stared at the top of her head. "Pardon?"
"About Jack." Gwen made a face as she sorted through the pages. "I can't believe all these people joined voluntarily," she muttered as she held up one list to squint at it.
Ianto waited for as long as he could but when it looked like Gwen wasn't going to continue, Ianto asked slowly. "What about Jack?"
Gwen sighed and set the papers down on her workstation. Ianto was careful about which of Jack's usual paperwork to pass along, the ones Ianto knew Jack would have been comfortable with if he was here. Her desk simply wasn't built for the regular workload. Her own work was left in a dented carton, shoved under her feet.
"I know we've all been pushing you." Gwen shrugged. Gwen touched his left arm briefly. "Sorry. We should be more supportive. You're right. This is Jack's decision. If he wants to stay, he'll stay."
Ianto swallowed and forced a smile on his face. "Precisely."
"I mean," Gwen continued as she grimaced at one form, "if he stays because you asked, we wouldn't know if Jack was going to leave us again one day."
The smile faded. "Right," Ianto whispered, more to himself.
"Especially since…" Gwen heaved another sigh. "Jack was going to leave us anyway." She bit her lower lip, her eyes downcast. "He was just biding his time with us until the Doctor arrived."
Ianto couldn't form a response around the lump in his throat.
"Oh bollocks," Gwen swore as folders slipped off her desk one by one. "How does he deal with this everyday? Five different departments want five different versions of the same answer!"
Ianto bit back a smirk. It was close enough to what Jack used to bemoan about. "He usually just ignores them until they tire of asking. That's how we were never integrated into Archangel. Jack never signed off on it."
Gwen snorted. "Saved by administrative grace. Good to know for future reference." She made a face at the mess on the floor. "I thought Owen was joking when he said it was my turn to be in charge."
Ianto crouched down and picked up the folders. As he straightened, the office in the back caught his eye.
"You could…move desks if you want. It's…there's more room," Ianto nodded towards the back. He held the folders to his chest. After an initial straightening up, Ianto had not gone back inside since.
Gwen stared at the back office, at the generous mahogany desk. She averted her gaze to her station.
"Nah," Gwen replied in an overly bright voice. She began attacking her keyboard with a little too much enthusiasm. "We spent so much time in there that year, I'm a little bored of it, you know?"
"Of course," Ianto murmured as he set the stack at a spot behind her monitor.
"Besides…" Gwen slouched and pulled back her hands from her keyboard. "It would just feel too strange." The gap in her teeth flashed quickly. Almost immediately though, Gwen sobered and faced her keyboard again.
"Still feels like his office, you know?" Gwen shot Ianto a guilty look.
Ianto exhaled and dropped down in a chair next to her. "I know."
Gwen slipped her hand over his and squeezed.
It was becoming harder to sleep in his flat. Ianto woke again, his face still flushed from kisses and touches that he wished left marks on his skin but didn't. He lay on the bed, disturbed to find he was sleeping on one side, his favored side. It made looking to his left and the empty spot next to him all the more painful.
Ianto ended up on his couch by dawn, watching Star Wars over and over again until he fell back asleep. He dreamed about Jack standing on a sand dune against a setting sun.
On the seventh day of a year that should have past, a UNIT lieutenant came into the tourist office, saluted sharply to Ianto then curtly told him to sign on the X on his clipboard. He left Ianto with a poorly wrapped brown paper package that was tied with a piece of…shoelace?
Ianto sat back and stared at its contents. He closed his eyes briefly before he reached in and took the item and stroked it absently like it was a sleeping puppy. "You can't send this to me, Jack," Ianto murmured to himself. His eyes burned.
The leather band gleamed from its recent care, supple and warm. It felt sleek under his finger when he ran it across its surface. Ianto opened the device face and brushed a finger carefully across the buttons. Each one of them gleamed as if someone had polished each one. There was a piece of a yellow post-it over one button with an unhappy face on it, which Ianto could only assume was the equivalent of skull-and-crossbones on a medicine bottle.
Ianto held the wrist strap up to his nose and thought he could smell Jack's skin pressed into the leather. Slowly, Ianto wrapped the strap around his right arm and the weight felt like a familiar hand curled around him.
By the time he realized he was walking, Ianto was already in the lift, his right hand tucked securely in his suit pocket, his shoes tapping as the lift made its slow descent. His steps were hurried by the time he reached the cog doors.
"Is that the Valiant?" Ianto called as he neared Tosh, her index finger on her earpiece. Gwen and Owen were huddled over her and when they looked up with similar bleak expressions on their faces, Ianto halted in his tracks.
"Oh," Ianto mumbled. Suddenly, he felt foolish standing on the metal pathwaywith Jack's wrist strap on his arm. "W-when did it leave?"
"An hour ago," Tosh said, low as if she was afraid to raise her voice. "But Jack did tell us they were going to take the TARDIS into the vortex to make repairs if it took too long. When they're done, he'll…this doesn't mean anything."
"Course not," Owen declared loudly as he tugged at his lab coat and strode to Autopsy. "Doesn't mean a bloody thing. Oi, narco boy. Coffee?" Owen didn't wait for a reply. His feet stomped loudly down the metal steps.
Gwen's expression as she approached him made Ianto inwardly cringe. She looked like she wanted to cry but she was making a tremendous effort not to do so. It was the attempt that made it hard to look at.
"He found his Doctor, love," Gwen murmured as she drew Ianto into a hug. He didn't resist, his right hand still in his pocket, his eyes still on Tosh trying to dab her eyes dry without anyone noticing. "It's good."
"Yes," Ianto mumbled. His right hand curled slightly in his pocket.
"It is."
Act II
Week Two, Version Two
A routine, even if it was a reluctant one, eventually falls into place when it was repeated enough times. Get up, shower off the ghostly touches of Jack's kisses on his cock, dress, make breakfast then drive to the Plass. Make coffee, feed the Weevils, make pleasantries, go home, make dinner, dream. Repeat.
If done in enough repetitions, everything would eventually be completed without another thought. Automation got him through Lisa in the basement, when his family was torn apart when they lost one and all the things that served to upset Ianto Jones' world.
Routine was his way of survival in the past. Ianto hoped it would be what carried him through waking every morning tasting Jack's damp skin and the feeling of fullness when Jack entered him. There were places that ached that never ached before and Ianto wasn't sure how he was supposed to move on from that. It was mind-numbing routine that prevented him from realizing so many times that he'd put on the vortex manipulator again as he dressed. No one ever noticed though. If they did see it peeking out from his sleeve, no one ever said. Not saying anything became a routine as well.
Gwen stubbornly stayed by her workstation even if the space around her expanded with the boxes of files that surrounded her. Owen nearly broke his ankle tripping over a box of week old police reports, but he just kicked the box under her station with a savage look and stormed back into Autopsy. New routine there: Owen usually stayed in the medical bay unless another Rift alert rummaged him out of his hole.
It worked for a little over two weeks until Ianto caught Gwen and Tosh, their heads close together with a large white box sitting between them on Gwen's chair.
"I don't remember signing for that," Ianto mused as he set down their coffees from the shop above. The machine was still broken; it needed a part Ianto hadn't the heart to replace. It was left to idle in the kitchen area, a big, ornate machine of stainless steel and brass.
Gwen started and she stared up at Ianto with huge eyes.
"Oh," she stammered, "Coffee? Oh good. I wanted a cup."
Tosh's nose was already buried in her mug with a sudden thirst.
Ianto frowned. "What?" He tilted his head and considered the box. His brow knitted when he noticed the stamp branded on the box.
"The Valiant?"
Gwen's shoulders slumped.
"I went to get it when someone from UNIT called," Gwen admitted. She settled her hands on the box, her fingers twitching as if they wanted to drum on the surface. Ianto wanted to swat her hands.
"They could have just sent it to me," Ianto murmured, confused. "You didn't have to make the trip." At Gwen's nervous glance to Tosh, his gut clenched. "What is it?"
Gwen, despite Tosh's murmur of protest, opened the box lid.
"…Oh," Ianto muttered. He locked his knees to fight the urge to sit down. "I…I'd wondered where it had gone."
The dark blue greatcoat looked ill-placed folded and tucked securely into the box. Bloodstains still marred the lapels and the buttons dangled from threads that were slowly fraying.
"They found it in one of the private chambers," Gwen said quietly. Her hand settled on the collar and Ianto caught her giving it a pat before she closed the lid over the greatcoat. "They tracked down that it had belonged to…well, UNIT thought it best if it was returned to us."
Ianto's fingers rested lightly on the box.
"Well," he found himself saying quite calmly, "they were right. This should be archived in case…in case he comes back for it." Ianto smiled sadly at the box. "He was fond of this coat."
Tosh made a noise. "I could—"
"No. Archives is my department. Remember?" Ianto pulled the box out of Gwen's grip and tried not to hug the box to him. "It's all right," he told the girls' stricken faces. "I'll take care of Jac—it. I'll take care of it."
Ianto's knees shook as he forced himself to walk slowly as he brought it upstairs. But in the relative privacy of his office, the sign outside was flipped to "Closed" and Ianto held the greatcoat on his lap for hours, his fingers running lightly across the wool.
The buttons were far too stained and chipped so Ianto snipped them off their threads. He brought the greatcoat home, brushed the wool to break up the crusted stains of blood and other things Ianto didn't want to try to identify. Then, Ianto cleaned the fabric by scrubbing slow circles of suds over the soiled spots.
Done, Ianto hung it, button-less and smelling of wet wool and soap, outside his closet and he fell asleep staring at it silent and still on his wardrobe.
That night, he dreamt of Jack in a land of nothing but dust, no sky, no other living being around and his Jack, God, his beautiful, beautiful Jack was slumped facedown on the floor, abandoned once more and now completely stranded, his body slowly turning to stone.
The scream ripping out of his throat hurt when Ianto woke. He jerked out of sleep, gasping because of the vise around his chest. He could still taste the ash that was collecting in Jack's throat and his skin tingled with the increasing lack of circulation.
Jack's vortex manipulator sat on his nightstand like an accusation; left behind by its owner, a time traveling piece left to a man firmly anchored to Earth in the twenty first century. Jack's arm was empty of the one thing that had saved him before from a graveyard in space.
Ianto spent the rest of the night in the Hub, on the camp bed that still smelled like Jack, curled under the threadbare afghan and greatcoat.
Epilogue 2/2
Additional Notes: Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
soullessminion for betaing this chapter. And trtmx for her magic trick that saved my sanity! LOL.
Pairing: Jack/OMC, Jack/?, Jack/Ianto eventually, het and slash
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He left Jack on the game station. Abandoned. But then…he came back…different. An AU look on what happens if things happened differently. Doctor Who 'verse with Torchwood later on.
Warnings: Please read each chapter's individual warnings. Some parts down the road may briefly mention non-con, abuse, and/or violence. Dark in the beginning. Please note there are some dark thoughts as my boys are broken…for now. Each chapter will be labeled for your convenience.
Author's Notes: Note that "the Year That Never Was" was suggested that it wasn't fun. I took it as a challenge to somehow still find a way to instill comfort in it. If it didn't work, I'm sorry. I suck. LOL.
Disclaimer: RTD and BBC owns them. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Warning For This Chapter: SAP! LOL.
Notes For This Chapter: Note there are events/dialogue here that was referenced in DW's "Last of the Time Lords" and TW's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang".
Prologue + Ch , Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31, Ch 32, Ch 33, Ch 34, Ch 35, Ch 36 Ch 37, Ch 38, Ch 39, Ch 40
Master Fic List: here
Epilogue
Act I
Week One, Version Two
Coming back to the Hub was strange, very strange. The information centre looked like how he vaguely remembered it and the stack of pamphlets he'd set out to be sorted for a concert that was performing in a week—he read it a few times before he was able to convince himself the year printed was the correct one—was still by the mug with the ceramic lid Jack had given him for Christmas.
Ianto didn't know why, but he felt ridiculously pleased to find the stoneware piece intact and waiting for him. Silly thing. Jack technically didn't give it to him. It was lost in 1941 and Ianto bought it for himself. Somehow though, its non-traditional origins oddly reminded him of Jack.
After they had teleported back to Cardiff during the year that never was, Ianto had tried to come up to the surface and into the office but it had collapsed during the time they were away. Even the hatchway in the vaults area was too mangled to try to squeeze through. Owen had said it was stupid to try to salvage a bunch of outdated pamphlets and maps. Gwen said it was too risky; the Toclafane patrolled the Plass all day. So Ianto opted not to say anything but whenever he could, he'd tried to poke and move some of the debris away from the ladder but he was never able to climb up into his office again.
The hour at the pub was bittersweet; they all saw faces they had never known until Saxon. Most had died in the year that never was but were resurrected when the year was voided. It grew to be unnerving to be drinking in a room slowly filling with people who were previously dead. Afterwards, Owen and the others had gone straight for the invisible lift while Ianto opened up the office. The routine, after having not followed it for so long, felt alien. He stood by the pamphlets that weren't outdated anymore, by the fern that was no longer dead but still needed watering, holding the ceramic disk that had lost its mug mate decades ago with both hands. Ianto was a statue in front of his computer, clutching the pottery until Owen rang him up on the mobile, yowling that despite the year having been reversed, the coffee machine still didn't work.
Ianto heard them ring up the Valiant every few hours, talking to UNIT, sometimes to Jack. The number of people they needed to retrieve and debrief was staggering. Saxon had collected a huge personal army when he was minister and they were mixed in with the UNIT troops forced to work in exchange for their families' safety.
Each time Jack came on the phone, Owen or Tosh looked at Ianto questioningly but he would shake his head. Talking to Jack right now would only make things worse. For whom though, Ianto wasn't sure anymore.
Ianto slipped his hands under the shirt and felt the firm muscles tense and expand under his palms. Lips nibbled at his throat as fingers undo his flies and gingerly pull him out with humbling care and reverence.
"Yes," Ianto breathed as fingers squeezed him and pulled with long leisurely strokes. "Yes." Ianto pressed into the knowing grip as more fingers brushed tenderly at his entrance, silently seeking permission.
Ianto opened his mouth to a seeking one, sighed when he felt firm yet soft lips—always a contradiction—seal over his mouth. Ianto deepened his kiss…
And woke up.
His skin still felt flushed in the spots where he thought he could feel Jack’s touch. Ianto stared up at his ceiling to try and maintain the dream but already it was dissolving into the sleepy confusion of the awake.
Ianto muffled a sob into his pillow, curled around Jack's side of the bed and fell back asleep.
"You're being stupid, you know," Owen announced on the third day they were back. He stood by the gurney while Ianto buttoned up his shirt. True to his word, Owen was putting Ianto under every scanner and X-ray machine available to him. Then again, everyone else suffered the same attentions. Owen declared that they all needed physicals and dispensed vitamins like it was water to everyone. It would have been touching if it hadn't interrupted Ianto's hoover session in Jack's—no, it is just the main office now—office. God, the dust that had gathered there was deplorable.
"What have I apparently done this time?" Ianto sighed. Owen had already given him a lecture on not doing the physical therapy for his shoulder frequently enough.
"Ignoring his calls," Owen said around a generous bite of chocolate HobNob. "It's not going to make things easier, you know. You're just confusing the hell out of our Captain."
"I won't influence his decision," Ianto bit out as he did his cuffs. "Whatever Jack decides, it has to be of his own choosing, not stemming out of some sort of…gratitude." He glowered at Owen when he heard a loud munch. "At least use a napkin," Ianto snapped. Damn Gwen for indulging Owen. Did she really have to buy one of each flavor for him?
Owen made a face, crumbs and all, and popped the last morsel into his mouth.
"Gratitude?" Owen scoffed. "What makes you think Jack owes you anything? The sex wasn't that good, was it?"
"Owen!" Ianto growled as he was sprinkled with HobNob dust. He wasn't sure if that irked him or Owen's comment.
Owen rolled his eyes. He made a show of wiping his mouth with Ianto's tie before handing it to him.
Ianto made like he was going to strangle Owen with it. Harper was unimpressed.
The silk neckwear dropped to his lap. Ianto stared at the striped pattern and realized he had automatically put it on because it was Jack's favorite.
"Jack might feel a sense of duty to stay with me and the last thing I want is to let that make the decision for him." Ianto's face gave a little before he screwed it back to the one he had worn since their return.
"His life was taken out of his hands far too many times already." Ianto twisted the tie around his left hand. "Whatever he decides…I won't be the one to do it for him."
"All right," Owen conceded. "He might not have had a choice when he went with Saxon and whatever that bloody Master did, he didn't have a choice then either but with you? You and Jack shagging—"
"We weren't like that," Ianto interrupted because the description simply rankled him. "Jack and I. We weren't…like that."
To his surprise, Owen didn't retort or scoff or even laugh; he just nodded his head.
"Think that time he made his own choice there, mate."
Ianto bit his lip and ducked his head. Owen exhaled sharply.
"Cor, you two can drive a man to drink with all your dramatics," Owen groaned.
"What was your excuse before?" Ianto joked weakly. It earned him a scuff to the back of his head by a hand dusted with mocha HobNob crumbs.
Ianto sobered. "He waited so long, Owen. Back then, I didn't understand why he would for such a man but that was because it was Saxon, but this one…" Ianto idly swung his legs. The tie wrinkled and knotted in his hands.
"This man could take him to the stars. The things I think they must have seen before…I don't know how long his lifespan is but it has to be a lot longer than…" Ianto made a rueful smile, "…us mere mortals."
Owen was scribbling something on Ianto's medical file. He grunted.
"Didn't seem to bother Jack before to be with us mere mortals," Owen muttered as he scratched his pen against his chin.
But it did, Ianto thought with a pang. Jack always feared Ianto had been wasting his life with him, but in hindsight, Ianto wondered if it wasn't also for another reason.
"You seem to think for sure he'll decide to go with that ruddy police box," Owen observed, his lips pursed.
Ianto shrugged but there was a lump in his throat.
"Well, I still think you're an idiot." Owen gave him a slap to the back of Ianto's head that nearly unseated him off the gurney. "If you hadn't told the bloody Doctor to lie…" Owen shook his head, muttering.
"Think of how much he'll lose if he stays here with us instead," Ianto murmured. His shoulders slumped. "We'll all eventually leave him." Ianto worried the tie again. "It might be better if he did stay with the Doctor."
Owen stopped writing for a moment. He squinted at Ianto.
"Wasn't there some sort of nauseatingly sloppy saying about 'better to' whatever and 'lost' and shit like that?"
Ianto grimaced. "A little more eloquently put, but yes. I don't think—"
The pen wagged in front of him.
"That's your problem, mate. All you do is think." Owen scribbled something more. "Bloody irritating if you ask me." The pen clicked shut and Owen closed his file with a snap. "This kind of touchy feely shit isn't stuff that requires thinking. Doesn't work that way." He whacked the file on Ianto's knee.
"Now off. Cooper's next." Owen popped another HobNob in his mouth, this time a caramel one. It was disturbing, really, how much sugar the medic could consume.
Ianto made a show of sweeping crumbs off his lap and hopped off the gurney. He was halfway up the stairs when Owen stopped him.
"You're so worried about letting him make his own choice," Owen called out. "But doing nothing and ignoring him so he's got to make a decision—isn't this the same thing you're trying to prevent?"
Ianto stilled and gulped. Ianto twisted around, but Owen was already snapping off his gloves and getting a fresh set of syringes out. He stared at the back of Owen's head for a long time before he went back up the stairs. There was still cleaning to be done.
"I'm sorry," Ianto whispered as he arched into the hands slipping around his back. "I just wanted to make things easier for you."
Silent, the shadow merely pressed his face to Ianto's chest. Ianto hissed when he felt teeth grazing a nipple, laving it until it hardened.
"I want to ask you to stay," Ianto groaned as he thrust his throbbing erection against a strong thigh. He whimpered when a matching heat brushed against him in a sly, wordless challenge. Ianto growled as he curled his hands around broad shoulders and ground his hips against him. Ianto felt the body on him shake.
"I want to ask," Ianto whispered as he felt both their releases combine and cool on his belly. He reached up and stroked the cheek in front of him. Ianto moved to cup the back of the other's neck and pulled him in.
"But I need to do the right thing for you," Ianto murmured as he pulled the head towards him. Their lips met halfway and the exhale on his mouth beckoned.
"I'm sorry," Ianto whispered just as he kissed him. "I'm sor—"
His mobile rang and Ianto started. The bed was empty again but he forced himself to concentrate on locating his mobile instead.
"Ianto?" Gwen's sleepy voice woke him further. "Sorry, love, but Tosh was on the overnight shift and she just got a Weevil alert. I know it's late but could you met Owen and I—"
"Ten minutes," Ianto said as steady as he could. He levered himself off the rumpled bed. He stood at the foot of his bed, his throat tight. Ianto closed his eyes and pivoted away.
"Oh, I wish I could have seen it," Tosh sighed on the fifth day. She sat back on the couch with her hands wrapped around her favorite mug. Her glasses were pulled back to rest on top of her head.
"Gwen said it was quite a show. Every single one of those Toclafane dropped." Tosh toed off her heels and stretched out her legs on the tiny coffee table in front of them. Unlike everyone else who always managed to kick up a mess, Tosh took very particular care her crossed ankles didn't upset the neat piles on the table.
"With the year undone, there'll be no readings either," Tosh mourned. "God, I would have loved to have sees even just a spark!"
Ianto sank back on the couch as well and remembered a time when Jack threw pizza crusts up in the air and their pterodactyl swooped in and ate them up. He could still remember those teeth snapping up the leftovers. He remembered how warm Jack was when he pressed against him, an automatic reflex to seek shelter and Jack had seemed, at the time, the most logical choice. Ianto smiled to himself. He'd always wondered if Jack had done it on purpose.
"Owen's right," Tosh suddenly said. She studied Ianto over the top of her mug.
"You are being an idiot."
Ianto swallowed back a sigh. "Tosh—"
"You should have seen him," Tosh cut him off. "When we thought Saxon had shot you. He absolutely flipped, Ianto. Nothing reached him. I…I'd never seen him like that before." Tosh hugged the mug to her chest and gave a shiver. "And when he saw you again…" She sniffled.
Tosh pulled up her right leg and nudged him with her foot.
"If you ask him to stay, he would, you know." Tosh smiled as she took a sip. "I think it's pretty clear by now how he feels about you. Vice versa, I'm sure."
Ianto felt a lump in his throat. It was hard to speak around so he just pulled his mug up to his lips.
"Ianto—"
"I know! I know if I ask, he'll probably stay. That's just the way Jack is…" Ianto stared into his mug. He had tried to make tea but it wasn't the same, he'd put in too much sugar and there was still a leaf floating like a twig in a pond on top.
"But?" Tosh prodded gently.
"But is he staying because I asked him or because he wants to?"
"Oh." Tosh waved off his concern. "Why wouldn't he want to? The Doctor—"
"Even when it was Saxon, Jack still waited and he would have kept waiting even if it took another hundred years!" Ianto bit his lower lip. His head dropped low to his chest. "Sorry. I-I didn't mean to snap. It's just…"
"I want him to stay," Ianto confessed, "but staying might not be the best thing for him."
"We're not that bad." Tosh paused. "Well…maybe Owen. He did shoot him, after all."
They shared a strained chuckle.
"He's calling for another update in an hour. He's been asking how you were doing," Tosh said quietly. "Does that sound like a man who doesn't want to stay?"
Ianto sank down into the couch. Tosh slipped back on her shoes, kissed the top of his head and went back to her computer when it began beeping. He sat there for a long time. When the phone rang an hour later, Ianto went to do a check on the vaults. He told himself, as he wandered the archives without a flashlight, that he wasn't hiding.
"You're right," Gwen said, later that night, as she read the reports Ianto had received from UNIT.
Startled, Ianto stared at the top of her head. "Pardon?"
"About Jack." Gwen made a face as she sorted through the pages. "I can't believe all these people joined voluntarily," she muttered as she held up one list to squint at it.
Ianto waited for as long as he could but when it looked like Gwen wasn't going to continue, Ianto asked slowly. "What about Jack?"
Gwen sighed and set the papers down on her workstation. Ianto was careful about which of Jack's usual paperwork to pass along, the ones Ianto knew Jack would have been comfortable with if he was here. Her desk simply wasn't built for the regular workload. Her own work was left in a dented carton, shoved under her feet.
"I know we've all been pushing you." Gwen shrugged. Gwen touched his left arm briefly. "Sorry. We should be more supportive. You're right. This is Jack's decision. If he wants to stay, he'll stay."
Ianto swallowed and forced a smile on his face. "Precisely."
"I mean," Gwen continued as she grimaced at one form, "if he stays because you asked, we wouldn't know if Jack was going to leave us again one day."
The smile faded. "Right," Ianto whispered, more to himself.
"Especially since…" Gwen heaved another sigh. "Jack was going to leave us anyway." She bit her lower lip, her eyes downcast. "He was just biding his time with us until the Doctor arrived."
Ianto couldn't form a response around the lump in his throat.
"Oh bollocks," Gwen swore as folders slipped off her desk one by one. "How does he deal with this everyday? Five different departments want five different versions of the same answer!"
Ianto bit back a smirk. It was close enough to what Jack used to bemoan about. "He usually just ignores them until they tire of asking. That's how we were never integrated into Archangel. Jack never signed off on it."
Gwen snorted. "Saved by administrative grace. Good to know for future reference." She made a face at the mess on the floor. "I thought Owen was joking when he said it was my turn to be in charge."
Ianto crouched down and picked up the folders. As he straightened, the office in the back caught his eye.
"You could…move desks if you want. It's…there's more room," Ianto nodded towards the back. He held the folders to his chest. After an initial straightening up, Ianto had not gone back inside since.
Gwen stared at the back office, at the generous mahogany desk. She averted her gaze to her station.
"Nah," Gwen replied in an overly bright voice. She began attacking her keyboard with a little too much enthusiasm. "We spent so much time in there that year, I'm a little bored of it, you know?"
"Of course," Ianto murmured as he set the stack at a spot behind her monitor.
"Besides…" Gwen slouched and pulled back her hands from her keyboard. "It would just feel too strange." The gap in her teeth flashed quickly. Almost immediately though, Gwen sobered and faced her keyboard again.
"Still feels like his office, you know?" Gwen shot Ianto a guilty look.
Ianto exhaled and dropped down in a chair next to her. "I know."
Gwen slipped her hand over his and squeezed.
It was becoming harder to sleep in his flat. Ianto woke again, his face still flushed from kisses and touches that he wished left marks on his skin but didn't. He lay on the bed, disturbed to find he was sleeping on one side, his favored side. It made looking to his left and the empty spot next to him all the more painful.
Ianto ended up on his couch by dawn, watching Star Wars over and over again until he fell back asleep. He dreamed about Jack standing on a sand dune against a setting sun.
On the seventh day of a year that should have past, a UNIT lieutenant came into the tourist office, saluted sharply to Ianto then curtly told him to sign on the X on his clipboard. He left Ianto with a poorly wrapped brown paper package that was tied with a piece of…shoelace?
Ianto sat back and stared at its contents. He closed his eyes briefly before he reached in and took the item and stroked it absently like it was a sleeping puppy. "You can't send this to me, Jack," Ianto murmured to himself. His eyes burned.
The leather band gleamed from its recent care, supple and warm. It felt sleek under his finger when he ran it across its surface. Ianto opened the device face and brushed a finger carefully across the buttons. Each one of them gleamed as if someone had polished each one. There was a piece of a yellow post-it over one button with an unhappy face on it, which Ianto could only assume was the equivalent of skull-and-crossbones on a medicine bottle.
Ianto held the wrist strap up to his nose and thought he could smell Jack's skin pressed into the leather. Slowly, Ianto wrapped the strap around his right arm and the weight felt like a familiar hand curled around him.
By the time he realized he was walking, Ianto was already in the lift, his right hand tucked securely in his suit pocket, his shoes tapping as the lift made its slow descent. His steps were hurried by the time he reached the cog doors.
"Is that the Valiant?" Ianto called as he neared Tosh, her index finger on her earpiece. Gwen and Owen were huddled over her and when they looked up with similar bleak expressions on their faces, Ianto halted in his tracks.
"Oh," Ianto mumbled. Suddenly, he felt foolish standing on the metal pathwaywith Jack's wrist strap on his arm. "W-when did it leave?"
"An hour ago," Tosh said, low as if she was afraid to raise her voice. "But Jack did tell us they were going to take the TARDIS into the vortex to make repairs if it took too long. When they're done, he'll…this doesn't mean anything."
"Course not," Owen declared loudly as he tugged at his lab coat and strode to Autopsy. "Doesn't mean a bloody thing. Oi, narco boy. Coffee?" Owen didn't wait for a reply. His feet stomped loudly down the metal steps.
Gwen's expression as she approached him made Ianto inwardly cringe. She looked like she wanted to cry but she was making a tremendous effort not to do so. It was the attempt that made it hard to look at.
"He found his Doctor, love," Gwen murmured as she drew Ianto into a hug. He didn't resist, his right hand still in his pocket, his eyes still on Tosh trying to dab her eyes dry without anyone noticing. "It's good."
"Yes," Ianto mumbled. His right hand curled slightly in his pocket.
"It is."
Act II
Week Two, Version Two
A routine, even if it was a reluctant one, eventually falls into place when it was repeated enough times. Get up, shower off the ghostly touches of Jack's kisses on his cock, dress, make breakfast then drive to the Plass. Make coffee, feed the Weevils, make pleasantries, go home, make dinner, dream. Repeat.
If done in enough repetitions, everything would eventually be completed without another thought. Automation got him through Lisa in the basement, when his family was torn apart when they lost one and all the things that served to upset Ianto Jones' world.
Routine was his way of survival in the past. Ianto hoped it would be what carried him through waking every morning tasting Jack's damp skin and the feeling of fullness when Jack entered him. There were places that ached that never ached before and Ianto wasn't sure how he was supposed to move on from that. It was mind-numbing routine that prevented him from realizing so many times that he'd put on the vortex manipulator again as he dressed. No one ever noticed though. If they did see it peeking out from his sleeve, no one ever said. Not saying anything became a routine as well.
Gwen stubbornly stayed by her workstation even if the space around her expanded with the boxes of files that surrounded her. Owen nearly broke his ankle tripping over a box of week old police reports, but he just kicked the box under her station with a savage look and stormed back into Autopsy. New routine there: Owen usually stayed in the medical bay unless another Rift alert rummaged him out of his hole.
It worked for a little over two weeks until Ianto caught Gwen and Tosh, their heads close together with a large white box sitting between them on Gwen's chair.
"I don't remember signing for that," Ianto mused as he set down their coffees from the shop above. The machine was still broken; it needed a part Ianto hadn't the heart to replace. It was left to idle in the kitchen area, a big, ornate machine of stainless steel and brass.
Gwen started and she stared up at Ianto with huge eyes.
"Oh," she stammered, "Coffee? Oh good. I wanted a cup."
Tosh's nose was already buried in her mug with a sudden thirst.
Ianto frowned. "What?" He tilted his head and considered the box. His brow knitted when he noticed the stamp branded on the box.
"The Valiant?"
Gwen's shoulders slumped.
"I went to get it when someone from UNIT called," Gwen admitted. She settled her hands on the box, her fingers twitching as if they wanted to drum on the surface. Ianto wanted to swat her hands.
"They could have just sent it to me," Ianto murmured, confused. "You didn't have to make the trip." At Gwen's nervous glance to Tosh, his gut clenched. "What is it?"
Gwen, despite Tosh's murmur of protest, opened the box lid.
"…Oh," Ianto muttered. He locked his knees to fight the urge to sit down. "I…I'd wondered where it had gone."
The dark blue greatcoat looked ill-placed folded and tucked securely into the box. Bloodstains still marred the lapels and the buttons dangled from threads that were slowly fraying.
"They found it in one of the private chambers," Gwen said quietly. Her hand settled on the collar and Ianto caught her giving it a pat before she closed the lid over the greatcoat. "They tracked down that it had belonged to…well, UNIT thought it best if it was returned to us."
Ianto's fingers rested lightly on the box.
"Well," he found himself saying quite calmly, "they were right. This should be archived in case…in case he comes back for it." Ianto smiled sadly at the box. "He was fond of this coat."
Tosh made a noise. "I could—"
"No. Archives is my department. Remember?" Ianto pulled the box out of Gwen's grip and tried not to hug the box to him. "It's all right," he told the girls' stricken faces. "I'll take care of Jac—it. I'll take care of it."
Ianto's knees shook as he forced himself to walk slowly as he brought it upstairs. But in the relative privacy of his office, the sign outside was flipped to "Closed" and Ianto held the greatcoat on his lap for hours, his fingers running lightly across the wool.
The buttons were far too stained and chipped so Ianto snipped them off their threads. He brought the greatcoat home, brushed the wool to break up the crusted stains of blood and other things Ianto didn't want to try to identify. Then, Ianto cleaned the fabric by scrubbing slow circles of suds over the soiled spots.
Done, Ianto hung it, button-less and smelling of wet wool and soap, outside his closet and he fell asleep staring at it silent and still on his wardrobe.
That night, he dreamt of Jack in a land of nothing but dust, no sky, no other living being around and his Jack, God, his beautiful, beautiful Jack was slumped facedown on the floor, abandoned once more and now completely stranded, his body slowly turning to stone.
The scream ripping out of his throat hurt when Ianto woke. He jerked out of sleep, gasping because of the vise around his chest. He could still taste the ash that was collecting in Jack's throat and his skin tingled with the increasing lack of circulation.
Jack's vortex manipulator sat on his nightstand like an accusation; left behind by its owner, a time traveling piece left to a man firmly anchored to Earth in the twenty first century. Jack's arm was empty of the one thing that had saved him before from a graveyard in space.
Ianto spent the rest of the night in the Hub, on the camp bed that still smelled like Jack, curled under the threadbare afghan and greatcoat.
Epilogue 2/2
Additional Notes: Many thanks to
soullessminion for betaing this chapter. And trtmx for her magic trick that saved my sanity! LOL.