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galadriel1010) wrote2010-10-12 02:03 am
galadriel1010) wrote2010-10-12 02:03 am
Entry tags:
Transcending Torchwood: Chapter 1
27.11.61
Pain cascades across every nerve ending, bright and hot. He tries to scream, convulsing with the agony, but even the tiniest movement sends waves of white-hot pain shooting through him. He's drowning in the noise and light and pain, all awareness of what's around him subsumed.
A fog starts seeping through him at last, pushing back the fire and tumultuous silence. Someone is with him, and he can't even struggle against them. There are voices too loud, too close, too harsh, and he surrenders to the summoning darkness that rushes towards him.
~~~~~
When he returns to consciousness, reluctantly and as slowly as he can, he finds himself surrounded by the cool white, gentle noises and clinical smells of a hospital. He flexes his fingers on the coverlet experimentally and finds them stiff and unresponsive. A bone-deep ache weighs heavily on him and fills him with lethargy.
The walls and linen are lit by soft sunlight that filters through pale curtains across a wide window. Across from the end of the bed is a simple cabinet, and next to it is a comfortable-looking visitor's chair. Neither look to have been used recently.
Struggling to sit up proves too much, but as he falls back against the pillows a nurse comes to his rescue and helps him to lie down again comfortable. "Easy," he chastises. "You've been badly hurt. Try not to move." Once he's safe and breathing evenly again, the nurse fetches a cup of ice chips and feeds them to him slowly.
The ice chips help and he's soon able to swallow without pain and ask, "Where am I?"
"You're at Torchwood," the nurse tells him, whilst he uses a towel to wipe stray droplets from his cheek. "Someone will explain everything when you're stronger, but you're safe."
He smiles tightly in response to that; he'd not been in any doubt that he was safe. The remnants of the painkilling drugs that had knocked him out and saved him are still fogging his mind, leaving everything just beyond the cusp of understanding. He allows them to pull him under again and drifts away whilst the nurse is still talking.
28.11.61
The next time he wakes, it's dark and still. Only a hint of silvery moonlight slips through the slim gap between the curtains and the wall, and the lights on the equipment are dimmed and suffuse the room in a lighter darkness.
He sits up whilst there's no one there to tell him not to and swings around until his bare feet touch a worn rug. No alarms scream at him, so he gets to his feet to explore the room. The dresser contains a few sets of formless, impersonal pyjamas like the ones he's wearing, and, in the bottom drawer, a pair of disposable slippers wrapped in plastic. Lacking any alternatives, he unwraps the slippers and pulls them on, and goes in search of answers, food and coffee.
The slippers flap against the tiled floor of the corridor, echoing behind him however hard he tries to walk quietly. He passes empty rooms as well as occupied ones. Each room is the same, varying only in the medical equipment tending to the residents, and the presence of the occasional protective visitor.
Rounding the corner brings him to a nurses' station at the intersection of two corridors. Three nurses are seated at the desk, cradling mugs, and the older of the three slides into action as soon as she sees him to guide him back to his room. "You shouldn't be out of bed, and certainly not at this time of night. Is there something you need?"
"I need to know what's going on." He holds his ground and looks around the corridors. "The nurse said that this is Torchwood, but I don't recognise it." Her eyes narrows so he shakes her off fully and carries on the way he had been going. "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, and I need to speak to the director."
~~~~~
The nurse shows him into a smart, tidy office and sits him down in the seat in front of the desk. The plaque on the door had indicated that this was the office of Diana Holbourn, an Institute medical director with a string of qualifications and an apartment off her office so that she was available night and day. She emerges a minute or two after he arrives, with dark smudges under her eyes and auburn hair shot with silver pulled back into a messy pony tail. Her handshake is gentle, and she looks him over closely before she releases him to sit down again. He leans forwards in his chair and glares at her. “If I’m at Torchwood, why will no one tell me anything? You all clearly know who I am!”
“Captain... look.” She sighs and pulls her chair around the desk. “You were taken by the Rift, as you know. It brought you back safely - the first person to survive it, actually - but fifty years later.”
He sits back and stares at her. Ten, even twenty years he could have coped with - there was a chance that Ianto and Alice could be alive still, but fifty years... “I missed them. My family, I mean,” he explains when she tilts her head. “They’ll be gone.”
"I'm sorry for your loss, Captain," she tells him. "Temporal displacement is never easy to deal with, especially when it’s so close to your own time.”
"Yeah." He sighs and forces himself to focus on her again.. "There might be some left but... I'm not ready."
"I understand." She leans forwards with her elbows on the desk. "When you are ready, Torchwood will be here, and you'll find them."
He rips into a sandwich and avoids her close scrutiny. The clock on the wall ticks reassuringly and lulls him into calm, away from having to think about what he's left so far behind. "The Rift opens onto a battlefield," he says when the quiet becomes too deep. It draws him into the past, into pain he doesn't want to but needs to talk about. "It's desolate, razed by fire and shrapnel. Nothing can survive there."
"No one else has," she confirms. "You barely did, and yet here you are. There's not a mark on you...” He refuses to even look at her, but he is aware of her settling back into her seat with a resigned sigh. “The Director will be here to talk to you very soon, and then you should sleep. In the morning a counsellor will be in the building, if that would help you. You seem pretty independent, though."
"Talking has never helped. Not with just anyone." He closes his eyes and forces back the loss. "Too many years."
The office door opens behind him, but he ignores it for a moment to pull himself together again. Torchwood is once more all he has, and his future hangs on the trust of the current director.
Diane stands from her chair and rounds the desk to stand next to him and rest a hand on his shoulder. Silent communication passes above him, culminating in Diane squeezing his shoulder and stepping back. "I'll leave you to it then, sir," she says with a warning bite to her tone. "Captain, my door is always open if you need anything. Drop by, I'll share my cake with you."
He smiles at her and turns to greet the director. All the breath leaves his lungs in an instant and he clings to the chair to stay upright. "Ianto?"
"Welcome back to Torchwood.” Ianto closes the door and leans back against it with his hands in his pockets. Even in the small hours of the morning he is immaculately turned out, cool and unflustered and the exact opposite of Jack in that moment. “I didn’t have you declared dead, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear. And of course there is always space for you in Torchwood.”
“I...” He stared up at Ianto and, once he was sure his legs wouldn’t give way, stood up to face him. “This isn’t how this conversation is supposed to go.”
“Then how is it supposed to go?”
Ianto is implacable, and Jack hesitates with his hand halfway to touching him. “I thought you died,” he whispers. He brushes his fingertips against Ianto’s cheek and freezes when Ianto immediately recoils. “I thought you were dead until just this moment. And it’s been fifty years?” He shakes his head and drops his hand. “And yet, you’ve barely aged. That.... that’s not possible.”
“I have aged.” Ianto turns his face away. “I don’t look it, but I feel it.”
Jack sinks back into the chair and laces his hands together between his knees. “Fifty years. Did you miss me?”
The clock ticks between them, stretching the seconds into space and pain. Jack closes his eyes and accepts it, but a moment later Ianto’s fingers brush his cheek, and when he opens his eyes Ianto is in front of him, hand outstretched and hovering. “Every second,” he whispers. “I missed you every second, and now I don’t know if I know how to stop.”
20.9.11
Fog wound through Cardiff, clinging to clothes and hair and leaving everything damp and clammy. Barely a breeze stirred the first few fallen leaves that lay in the gutter between puddles and rivulets from the rain that had fallen in the morning. Ianto tightened his grip on his crutch and leaned on it, waving Gwen and Rhys off. "I'll be fine. I can actually walk, when I'm not milking it for the sympathy."
"Not saying you can't, mate, but we couldn't get closer than the back car park." Rhys clapped him on the shoulder when he nodded in weary surrender. "You two sit and natter, I'll bring my charger to your rescue."
"Our hero." Gwen kissed his cheek. "You've got the keys?"
"Yes, I've got the keys. Transport and logistics, that's me. I'm always your man when you want something shifted." He extricated himself from her grasp and walked around the side of the building, still muttering to himself.
Gwen returned to hovering over Ianto and helped him back to the bench by the door, where a little old lady clutched her bag on her lap and glared at them. He ignored both of them and manipulated his injured leg into the most comfortable position, stretched out in front of him and resting on the slightly raised edge of a flower bed.
Although he tried to hide his discomfort, Gwen spotted it and touched his shoulder. "Are you alright, sweet?" She smiled down at him and chucked his chin. "I worry about you being on your own. There's plenty of room if you want to stay with us, and Rhys would love it."
He smiled back and gestured down at his leg. "I think having children underfoot is more than I can manage. I need some space after living in a goldfish bowl for so long."
She looked doubtful. "Are you sure? There won't be anyone there if you get hurt..."
"I'll be able to call if I need help," he pointed out. "And I'm going to have to get used to being on my own."
A bus pulled up in the lay-by in front of them, and the little old lady got up and tottered to the curb to get on it. Gwen immediately took her place and wrapped her arms around herself. She left a space between them, and it filled with bitter silence whilst they waited. Their lives were too different for empathy now, and Ianto had had more than enough sympathy since he woke up in hospital in Edinburgh. Some days - most of them - he wished they'd kept him in the induced coma.
Rhys arrived with the car and he distracted Gwen with loading Ianto's cases into the boot for long enough that Ianto managed to get into the passenger seat and settle his leg without her help. She looked pleased when she noticed, although she clucked at the fact that he'd left her with the back seat. "Doctor's orders," he pointed out. "Rhys will agree with me."
"No way. I'm staying on her good side." Rhys waited until Gwen was strapped in in the back before he he pulled away from the curb under the suspicious gaze of a smoking patient. He filled the journey around to the Bay area and Jack and Ianto's flat with a blow-by-blow account of the repair work that had clogged up the bypass for three months, and the journey passed faster than Ianto expected.
Before he was ready they arrived in front of the converted warehouse he'd lived in for most of the last five years. It had barely changed since he and Jack had rushed out of the door to head to Edinburgh, cramming toast into their mouths because they'd stayed in bed too long and Tybalt had been asleep on Jack's car keys. Something should have changed, but only he had.
He took the lift up to the top floor, grateful that Gwen and Rhys were there to help with his luggage and so that he wasn't alone, and fumbled the key into the lock with shaking hands. He got the door open before either of them could offer to help and was immediately assailed by a very affectionate cat winding around his ankles and apparently determined to trip him.
"Hello Monster." He crouched awkwardly to stroke him and tried to ignore the way Tybalt kept looking past him towards the door. "I hope you missed me as much as I missed you."
Gwen had set the bags she had brought in down by the sofa and came over to help him up again. "Ianto," she sighed. He gave her a dark look that probably didn't cover his distress and she relented. "He's been like Greyfriars Bobby. Always looking out for you coming to fetch him from ours."
"Sorry, Tyb." He made it to the sofa and sat down, and Tybalt immediately leapt into his lap. "I’m home now.” The cat looked at the doorway again, and rubbed himself against Ianto’s chest. “It’s just you and me now, Monster.”
23.01.12
Ianto strolled down the Plass towards the boardwalk and came to a stop by the water tower. He very rarely came down here since they had moved the Hub closer to the centre of Cardiff, but he still visited when he could to eat in their favourite restaurant and people watch. It was as familiar as his own apartment, and he knew when something was different. This time something was making his spatial awareness scream, but he could see nothing. He prodded out with his cane, usually unnecessary - finally - but a wise precaution in weather this wet and icy, and smirked when it touched something and the familiar tall, blue police box had suddenly been there all along.
Excitement gripped him with a flash of hope and he stepped closer to knock sharply on the door. He barely breathed whilst he waited for it to open. Long moments later he came face to face with an unfamiliar figure who peered at him through gold-rimmed goggles.
"Hello there." The figure pushed the door open fully and beckoned Ianto into the TARDIS. "What happened to you?"
"Doctor?" He followed him in and closed the door behind himself. "I walked into an explosion."
"That wasn’t very clever. Why did you do that?"
"I didn't see it coming." He hung his stick over a railing and leaned back next to it. "Doctor, tell me you've brought Jack home."
"Jack?" The Doctor lifted the goggles to look at him properly. "I haven't seen him since that sea monster in the Bay; that was fun. It's not every day you meet a sea monster who just wants chips. Where is Jack?"
"He was taken." Ianto covered his face self-consciously and swallowed hard. "A Rift opened in Edinburgh, spewing bombs and soldiers over the city. He was one of twenty who didn't come home."
"Oh. I'm sorry." He twisted his hands in front of him and whirled back to the console. "He can look after himself, though."
"I just want him home," he said. The kernel of darkness that always hovered at the back of his mind rose to the surface. "I need to know he has the choice."
He hoped that it would pass without comment, but the Doctor peered at him and came back around the console. "You say that like you think there’s somewhere else he'd rather be."
"No!" he insisted, but he wasn't even fooling himself. He touched his face again and tried to hide the gesture by running his hand through his hair. "Things have changed. Me, for starters."
"Ianto... Jack chose to come back. He’s stubborn, refuses to change his mind - you know that." He came across the room and caught Ianto’s hand before he could cover his face again. "Does it bother you?"
"It's not knowing," he admitted, answering a different question rather than facing the Doctor’s. "No matter how long it took, I would wait for Jack. But he will always be... Maybe he's better off without me."
"He won't be." He smiled at Ianto and pointed at him. "You just needed someone to say it."
"I think I did." His hand dropped to his side and he smiled back at last. “Now, can we go and find him? You once said that you always know where Jack is."
The Doctor froze and started flicking switches slowly. "It's more complicated than that."
"Can you find him?"
He sighed and leaned forwards on the console. "It's a big universe, Ianto. If I could find where the Rift opens, follow it to its opening, I could find him from there but..." He turned and saw Ianto's expression. "I'm sorry. He’s a fixed point, but that means hat there’s billions of traces of him across time and space, everywhere. Even if we searched all of your life, we may still never find the right one.”
Ianto closed his eyes and leaned on the console. The universe span around him, and he felt it stretch out, impossibly vast. "I'll get him back one day," he said quietly. “I’ll find him.”
"You will. But for now... One adventure? You need to get away from Cardiff, don’t you?" He waited for Ianto to come to a decision and nod his consent, then wrenched a handle that launched them into the vortex with a grinding scream.
Ianto inhaled deeply, relishing the feeling of his lungs inflating fully and being able to see clearly once more. After having resigned himself to being prematurely old, the sensation of youth and health flooding through him was like walking on air. They had landed in the street outside the Hub, and the TARDIS was taking up a disabled parking space.
"Cardiff two thousand and twelve. Home sweet home." The Doctor rubbed his hands together and looked past Ianto. "Isn't that your Gwen?"
He turned and grimaced when he spotted Gwen hurrying towards him from the Torchwood Hub, but, rather than telling him off like the worried parent she so often was, she slowed to a stop and covered her mouth. "Ianto?" She peered at him and then glared at the Doctor. "When did you kidnap him from?"
"Just yesterday morning... I think. What date is it?" He wrenched his wrist around into a position that must have been painful and peered at the complicated device he’d bought at a market on their travels. "Yep, yesterday."
"It wasn't kidnap either." Ianto closed the gap between them and hugged Gwen tightly. "I borrowed the Doctor for an adventure."
"I was so worried," she said, burying her face against his chest. "When you didn't show up for work I went to your flat. Tybalt isn't speaking to you."
The Doctor started backing away towards the TARDIS. "It was good to see you Ianto. If you need anything..."
Gwen whirled on his and stabbed one finger at him without releasing Ianto. "You aren't going anywhere. You need to find Jack and bring him home."
"Gwen..." Ianto tried.
She cut across him fiercely and put herself between him and the Doctor as if protecting him. "No, he can find him. He has a time machine, he can go forwards and find out where he was and then back and get him."
The Doctor waved the idea away. "I can't cross my own timeline like that. Time travel movies have a lot to answer for."
Gwen looked like she was about to launch at him, but Ianto held her back and told her, "We tried."
That took the wind out of her sails and she turned back to him; her eyes glistened with tears she was refusing to shed. "There has to be a way..."
"All we can do is wait." He hugged her close again and closed his eyes against the Doctor's approach. "Will you keep half an eye on Edinburgh, Doctor?"
"I'll give it a whole eye," he promised. When Ianto smiled weakly he started fumbling through his pockets. After pulling out lengths of string, a harmonica, a toy dog and more spoons than Ianto could count, he finally found what he was looking for and held an ancient, battered mobile phone out to Ianto. "I've modified it a bit. It will never lose signal or run out of battery, but it'll only call me... Sorry." He took Ianto's hand and wrapped it around the phone. "You need me, you call."
Ianto saluted him with the phone. "Thank you, Doctor. I had fun."
He smiled back and tilted his head like a bird. "People always do. Take care, Mrs Cooper, and take care of Ianto."
They watched the TARDIS disappear before they turned back to return to Torchwood. Gwen looped her arm through Ianto's and leaned on him. "So... Magic healing? Want to tell me about it?"
He glanced up at the leaden sky and smiled. "Well, there was a nanotech hospital and a plot to spy on the royal family..."
17.12.18
The heavy curtains blocked out most of the light from the too-bright afternoon sun, save for a chink where they curved over the radiator that let a tiny sliver of light in to play over the wall whenever a breeze stirred them. Ianto watched the light appear and disappear over and over again, his mind tumbling between it and the irregular splash of water on porcelain in the bathroom. Soft footsteps on the wooden floor of the hall added to the cacophony and he clung tighter to the duvet, drawing it over his face as a shield.
Across the room the door opened slowly with a creak, and light from the hall draped across the bed. He huddled deeper into the covers, turning away from the invader and choked back the hysterical noise that tried to escape.
“Uncle Ianto?” The figure resolved itself into Jack’s grandson, swinging a rucksack absently from one hand and peering through the gloom at him. “Are you alright? You weren’t at the station, and then when I got here the door was unlocked... Do you need me to call someone?”
He resisted the urge to curl up even tighter and bawl, and instead unfurled himself from his cocoon, wiping one hand across his face roughly. “Fuck,” he muttered. Once he was untangled he turned back to Steven and raised his voice. “I'm sorry I wasn't there to pick you up. I should...” He stopped and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. It's a bad day.”
“I can call someone,” Steven suggested again. “Rhiannon, or someone from work. I could call Gwen?”
“No... no, she's...” He choked again and buried his face in his hands. “She died. Gwen died yesterday. I'm the last...”
Steven made a distressed noise, too high compared to his normal speaking voice, and crossed the room in two strides. Ianto blinked up at him through red-rimmed eyes and let Steven hug him, still wrapped in the duvet. “I'm sorry.” He'd grown tall and lanky over the last two years, but since Ianto last saw him he'd filled out with muscle, and it was so close to being back in Jack's arms that the ache of Ianto's loneliness intensified even as he embraced the comfort. “What happened?”
“She was poisoned,” he whispered. “Some stupid alien hedgehog poisoned her, and I couldn't save her. I should have known what it was, should have done something.”
“Done what?” Steven asked. “I know you like to think that you know everything, but you can't save everyone. You do everything you can; no one could ever doubt that. But you're still human and sometimes... sometimes everything we have isn't enough. It is not your fault.”
“It's always the same.” He pulled away and leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands. “Jack would have known what to do. And now I have to tell him that I failed her... and him.”
“Jack will not think that you failed him. He will feel terrible that he isn't here for you, but he will be so proud of you.” Steven patted his shoulder awkwardly and got up from the bed. “I'll put the kettle on, make you a cup of tea.”
He nodded shakily and curled his fingers into the blue cotton he still clutched in his hands. Steven left the room and his place on the bed was taken by Tybalt, who was completely unconcerned by Ianto's state and fell asleep in the warm space he'd left. Ianto got to his feet and hung the shirt back up in the wardrobe. It was creased now and really needed ironing again, but that would wait. It wasn't like Jack would need it any time soon.
The drip-drip of the tap had wormed its way through his oblivion and become a constant irritation, so he stopped off in the bathroom to splash cold water on his face and turn the tap off fully. His eyes were bloodshot and framed by the beginnings of lines that shouldn't have been there yet, and his lips were bitten red and cracked. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and growled, gripping the edge of the sink tightly.
The flat was eerily still now, and the sounds of Steven opening the sticky drawer rang loudly. Ianto followed the noises through to the kitchen and pulled out a seat at the table to sit down. Steven was pouring the water from the kettle into the big blue teapot that normally lived on the top shelf of the cupboard, and he'd also managed to find a loaf of bread and produce a plate of doorstop-thick peanut butter sandwiches. He smiled when Ianto entered and poked a teaspoon into the swirling water. “I didn't know if you'd eaten, but since all I could find was peanut butter and bread, I thought it was a pretty good bet that you haven't. We're going shopping this afternoon, whether you want to or not, because there isn't enough food in.”
“It's okay, there's a Tesco delivery due in...” He craned around to check the clock. “An hour. Shit, I really am sorry.”
“I think a lawyer would call it extenuating circumstances.” Steven set the teapot down on the table and fetched the jar of honey and the bottle of milk from the counter. “You're having it hot, sweet and milky, whether you like it or not. And then, when the Tesco delivery has come, we're going to go out and buy you something greasy and terrible and a couple of bottles of red wine and you are going to get completely plastered and tell me about her, and we'll drink to her memory. And stuff.”
Ianto laughed softly. “Do you know who you remind me of?”
“Uncle Jack?” Steven asked with a heavy sigh.
“No.” He watched Steven pouring the tea and smiled. “You remind me of me.”
“Well, I can think of worse things.”
18.12.18
Car headlights flashed across the ceiling above them and Ianto followed each one with his eyes, their rapid pace making him dizzy. The empty bottle lay heavy and cold against his side, but moving his hand to remove it was too much effort. “We're all mortal,” he pronounced carefully during a break in the traffic. “I have to accept, I'm never going to see him again.”
Steven was still in the armchair, picking at the dregs of the bucket of fried chicken, and shook his head firmly. “You'll see him. You promised you'd wait for him, and you will.”
“I can't beat time,” he said mournfully. “Tick tock goes the clock. If Torchwood doesn't take me, time will. He'll come back, and I'll be gone. You... you'll look after him for me, won't you?”
“Ianto...” He dropped off the armchair and left the bucket behind, bringing the last bottle of wine over instead to poke Ianto with. “You're not that old. You can wait for him.”
“I'll be old and grey and ugly. And dead.” Ianto reached for the bottle and caught it on the second attempt. He propped himself up on one elbow to drink, momentarily stymied by the bottle top, and gestured expansively with it. “Could have been me, yesterday. Could have been me that the stupid hedgehog bumbled past in the dark. And now I'd be dead. You wouldn't have known. Jack wouldn't have known.”
Steven patted his leg clumsily and looked up at him through wide, unfocused blue eyes obscured by his mop of blonde hair. “You're not allowed to die,” he said simply. “I won't let you.”
He stroked Steven's hair back. “You're my lega... legacy? That's the word. Legacy. No one can stop death. Even the Doctor can't keep me here.”
“I'll tie you to something. Then you can't escape.”
“Yeah...” He stared at the flashing lights until the thought at the edge of his mind presented itself fully, and then he scrambled to his feet and stumbled across to the desk. He knocked over a pot of pens and a stack of letters before he found the phone at the back of the desk, under a catalogue. His hands shook on it and he fumbled it over, stabbing at the buttons with clumsy fingers. “The Doctor can keep me here. He can fix this, fix me...”
“Uncle Ianto?” Steven sat up and stared at him. “You just said he couldn't.”
“I was wrong.” He held the phone to his ear, barely daring to breathe whilst he waited for it to be picked up. “Doctor? Doctor, I need you.”
The phone fell from his grasp before he could hear an answer, and Steven collected it up and held it out to him. “Will he come?”
“He'll...” Wind rushed through the flat accompanied by a fierce roaring. Ianto smiled slowly and faced the wind. “He came.”
The wind died down and left their ears ringing, and the door opened slowly. The Doctor who stepped out was familiar, and holding a flip phone in his hand as if he thought it might explode. “How did you get this number?”
Ianto took the other phone off Steven and held onto it protectively. “You gave it to me.”
“You mean I will give it to you?”
“Yes.” He glared. “Can't you do anything in the right order?”
The Doctor rubbed his ear and pulled a face at the ceiling. “Apparently not? So...” he stepped back as Ianto pushed past him into the TARDIS. “What's wrong, anyway? What's Jack got himself into this time?”
Ianto pushed him against the door and growled. “Jack is missing, and you should know about it. If you'd come in the right order, you would know.”
He was held away with gentle force and pushed towards the seat on the other side of the console. “Ianto, tell me what happened.”
“The Rift took him.” He pushed the Doctor's hands away and wrapped his arms around himself. “It stole him like it steals people from Cardiff, and I can't go and save him because I can't find him, but I'm going to be here when he comes back, when he makes it back to me, and you're going to help me.”
“Ianto...”
“You have to make me like him,” he continued, ignoring the warning tone. “You have to fix me, because otherwise I am going to die, and I don't want to put him through that. Not when he's already been hurt so badly. I hurt him. I won't again.”
The Doctor glared at him. “Ianto, you're drunk.”
“I am. I have wanted this for ten years, though. It's not the alcohol talking.” He got up again and started pushing buttons on the console. Nausea curled through him and his heart ached with longing. “I want him back, Doctor.”
“And you'll get him back, but this isn't the way to do it,” he insisted quietly. “There is nothing I can do. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
“Don't.” He slammed his hand down on the console and shook his head. The pain was getting worse, so bad he could barely breathe. “Don't do that to him. He deserves better. He deserves better than me,” he sobbed.
Steven clattered over the grating and hugged him fiercely, glaring past him to the Doctor. “Make this better,” he demanded. Ianto tightened his grip on Steven's wrist and he turned his attention back to him. “Uncle Ianto? You really don't look well...”
“I'm not,” he groaned. “I'm having a heart attack.”
“What?” Steven helped him to sit down and patted his shoulder carefully. “You can't be having a heart attack. You're too young!”
“It's my second.” He glared past Steven at the Doctor. “Four years ago, my first. Turns out that Canary Wharf,” he paused to gasp air desperately, “Canary Wharf and Torchwood, didn't do me any good at all.”
A golden light began to suffuse the TARDIS, and the Doctor's eyes widened. He flailed across the console and waved one hand at them. “Don't look at the light. Whatever you do, don't look.”
Steven buried his face in Ianto's shoulder, but Ianto's attention had been caught by a growing sliver of gold. He stared into it, and as the music wove through his mind the last thing he heard was the Doctor shouting.
Chapter 2
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I love the emotion you evoke, made me feel really upset with Ianto, bless him.
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