Timelord!Ianto Change 6
Jul. 16th, 2011 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galadriel1010Title: Trials of a Timelord
Chapter Title: Change of Place 6
Challenge/Fest: LongLiveIanto Bingo
Prompt: Borrowing the TARDIS
Rating: G
Dedication:
Summary: The Doctor shows up and Jack and Ianto leave for a while
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Owen, Doctor, Martha.
Contains:
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its environs, occurrences and persons belong to the BBC. The original characters have disowned me.
Jack leaned on the back of Tosh's chair and studied the Rift readings with her and Ianto. “It looks stable,” she was saying, peering over her glasses at the figures, “more stable than it's been in the last few months, actually. It's as if opening it like that has released some of the pressure. Look, these are the results we were getting from the Castle the day before yesterday, and this is today's. They're well below average.”
“Do you think we could do controlled openings like this in the future and prevent splintering?” Jack asked.
“Too early to tell yet,” she looked back and up at him. “And it's not something we want to experiment with.”
“It was worth a shot.” He squeezed Ianto's shoulder and straightened up behind them. “Good work, Ianto. We'll have to keep a watch on Bilis, because I bet he won't leave it at this. He wants something.”
“Maybe he just wants to split us up,” Ianto suggested. “Scatter us through time.”
“Maybe he does. But...” Whatever he was thinking was lost under a rhythmic roaring that ripped through the Hub.
“What the hell? Jack...” Gwen rose out of her seat and reached for her gun, just as Owen appeared from the autopsy bay. “Jack, it's in the Hub.”
A tall blue box appeared between the desks, and Jack took a hesitant step towards it when the howling stopped. Ianto reached out for his arm but was shaken off, and Jack gave him a reassuring smile. “It's okay, I know what it is.”
“It's a police box,” Gwen called over to them. “Nineteen sixties, I think. They've got one at the police museum. What's it doing in the Hub? Did it come through the Rift, Jack?”
“No. Well, not exactly. Gwen, put down your gun. If you shoot it the bullets will ricochet off the shielding and could go anywhere, and I really mean anywhere.” He raised his hands to warn them all back and looked back over his shoulder at Ianto. “If this…”
“It's him, I know.” Ianto didn't take his eyes from the TARDIS. “What’s he doing here?”
The blue door swung open at last and a skinny man in a brown suit, with scruffy hair and trainers stepped out and looked straight at Ianto. His expression was one of shocked delight and he seemed to struggle for words. “Hello,” he said at last. “I don't think we've met...”
“No, we haven't,” Ianto answered quietly. “You didn't hang around at Canary Wharf long enough for me to introduce myself.”
He was taken aback by the venom in Ianto’s tone. “You were at...”
“Thanks to you, I was...” He caught himself before he could give too much away in front of the rest of the team and nodded. “I was there.”
The Doctor looked around again and narrowed his eyes at the others. “Do they know?”
He shrugged. “How could I tell them? Jack knows, though.”
“Right, yes.” He shifted his gaze to Jack reluctantly and inclined his head in greeting. “Jack.”
“Doctor. Good to see you at last.”
He looked between them and stepped back into the TARDIS. “I think you'd better come in.”
Ianto smirked and followed him. “Yes, I think we had.”
A young woman was hovering in the console room and glared at them both, apparently on principle. “Who's this, Doctor?”
The Doctor closed the door behind them carefully before he looked between them. “This is Jack and...”
“Ianto,” Ianto introduced himself, but his attention was on the TARDIS. “I thought the rumours were just, well, rumours! You actually stole a Type 50 TARDIS from the museum?”
“Yeah.” He drew the sound out and rubbed his ear, smiling dopily. “I prefer to think of it as rescuing her; terribly boring places, museums. Well, not for a visit. They can be quite interesting for a visit, but Martha here had to rescue me from becoming a museum exhibit not that long ago, didn't you Martha?”
“I did, yeah.” She smiled at them and indicated him. “Last of his species, quite a find for any museum. If you're prepared to clean up after him.”
“What do you mean, the last of his species?” Ianto asked, incredulous. “There's an entire planet of us.” The Doctor's silence was guilty, and Ianto took a step back. “Doctor, what happened? There can't be... It's not possible.”
“There was a war with the Daleks,” the Doctor explained gently, “and they all died.”
He shook his head and backed into Jack, who rested his hands on Ianto's arms and rubbed gently. “That can't be.”
“I'm sorry. I'm so, so...”
“Don't,” he snapped. “Because if they're gone and you're here, that means... What did you do?”
“Come to the kitchen with me, and I'll explain everything.” Ianto geared himself up for another snarl and the Doctor held his hands up defensively. “I promise, I'll explain everything, but not here.”
Ianto rested one hand on one of Jack's and eased it down his arm, but held on to it. “Will you look after Martha whilst we're talking? Stay here.”
“Yes, sir.” Jack smiled softly and squeezed his hand. “I'll be here when you get back.”
He nodded and slipped away from Jack to follow the Doctor through the door at the far end of the console room. The corridors were modular and a dull, gritty colour, not like the smooth, panelled curves of his own TARDIS. Before long the corridor forked and one was stopped by a sliding door across the whole of the corridor, which opened before them. Inside was a cluttered kitchen, tiled in bright, mismatched colours and with a battered table against the wall to the left of the door. The Doctor gestured towards the table and hurried into the kitchen area, where he clattered through one of the high cupboards. “Cup of tea? I always feel better with a cup of tea.”
“Coffee, if you have it.” He smiled tightly, glad to have stopped the Doctor's running commentary. “Black, with a teaspoon of honey or two of sugar. Thanks.”
“Oh... right.” The clattering continued, although the monologue didn't, and then the Doctor brought two mugs over and sat in one of the other chairs. “So you survived the Time War.”
Ianto reached for his coffee carefully. “So did you. We have that in common.”
“It’s a start. How did you do that...” he paused and raised his eyebrow in question, waiting for Ianto to fill in his name.
“Ianto, I told you.” He sipped his coffee thoughtfully and then set the mug down. “I was Torchwood's prisoner. They created a damping cell that was supposed to stop me communicating, and stop you knowing I was there if you ever came back. Oh, it wasn't designed for me,” he explained when the Doctor opened his mouth to say something. “It was designed for you, Doctor. Torchwood was created to find and stop you. But they got me instead. Twenty three years I was their prisoner and you never looked back, did you? You never stop to wonder what your actions have done.”
“That's not fair.”
“Really?” He shook his head. “I thought 'not fair' was being imprisoned for someone else's crimes because they didn't hang around long enough to explain themselves, again. I thought 'not fair' was growing up in the aftermath of someone throwing your world into chaos, again. Doctor, you have always been too powerful to carry on the way you do, leaving chaos in your wake.”
“But it would be so much worse if I stayed; don't you see that?” The Doctor gestured around the room. “This is what I have, this is my domain and this is all I have power over. I bring people into this world and then they leave, and I can't ruin their lives any more. If I stayed...”
“If you even looked back, how much easier it would be for those you leave behind. Did you even think about Jack after you left him?” He paused to watch the Doctor fail to meet his eyes. “So you did. You knew that you'd left him behind, and what you'd left him with.”
“Earth was razed by the Dalek attack,” the Doctor explained harshly. “The human population was decimated and leaderless. They had been living under the thrall of reality TV for a century... I knew I could trust him to rebuild the world and protect the human race.”
“And you couldn't stand to look at him.” He shook his head and clutched his mug. “You haven't changed, have you? The way Jack talks about you, he makes you sound like a hero. I thought you were different, that you'd grown up, but you're still a coward.”
“And where were you when Arcadia burned?” the Doctor snarled. “Where were you when time lashed out and worlds were consumed? Where were you…” He trailed off and dropped his gaze to the table top again. “I saw it, Ianto. I saw the fires raging out of control and I sealed them away where they couldn't hurt anyone else. That's why I'm still standing, because someone had to be there to stop it and it had to be me.”
Ianto closed his eyes tightly. “They're gone? Truly gone? I thought the silence was... I thought it was just me.”
“I'm sorry, but it's just you and me. A coward and...”
He sighed and inclined his head, prepared to give the Doctor that much. “An archivist.”
“Oh, really?” The Doctor frowned. “Which one?”
“This one. I'm only on my second regeneration,” he explained. “How many did you know?”
“Oh, three at one time. Pretty common name.”
“Like John.” Ianto hugged his mug and felt the reality of what he'd been told washing over him. “I need to go and find Jack.”
He got up and made for the door, but the Doctor stopped him by asking, “How do you know Jack?”
“Torchwood got to him before they got to me.” He tipped his head back and sighed heavily. “So he was there to pick up the pieces, and I joined him. We're both Torchwood now, Doctor.”
He followed the corridors back to the console room, where he found Martha and Jack sitting on the ratty sofa against one of the walls. Jack had his arm around her when Ianto came in, but he pulled back and gave Ianto all of his attention as soon as he noticed his arrival. “Did you get your answers?”
“Enough. Too many.” He rounded the console and sat in Jack's lap unselfconsciously, ignoring Martha's startled noise. Jack tugged him in to a more secure hold tucked against his chest, and wrapped his arms around him loosely. “I'll... I just need some time.”
“Do you want me to go?” Jack's arms tightened despite his offer, and Ianto smiled. Next to them, Martha got up and crept away, and Jack waited until she had gone down the corridor towards the kitchens before he spoke again. “He'll give you space to deal with it, and it'll be good for you to spend time with another Timelord after so long. If you don't want me to come with you I'll wait here for you, for as long as it takes.”
Ianto framed Jack's face in his hands and kissed him. Once again, along with the soft warm pressure of their lips sliding together, Ianto felt the glow that spread through his entire consciousness. “I'm not going anywhere without you,” he whispered against Jack's lips.
“Oh, sorry!” Martha was tugging the Doctor by the hand and marched him through the console room. “We're going to replenish the TARDIS kitchen, and then we'll all go for dinner, if you like?”
“That would be nice.” Jack held Ianto tighter and looked up at him, then back to Martha. “Tell the team we're just taking a minute, will you?”
“Sure thing,” she laughed.
The Doctor and Martha closed the door behind them, and Ianto slipped from Jack's lap to go to the console and pull one of the screens around. Jack stayed where he was and rested his elbows on his knees. “They'll never believe we're not having sex now,” he pointed out.
Ianto grunted and shrugged one shoulder. “Why does it matter? We know what we are or aren't doing.”
“It seems to matter to you...”
“No, what matters to me is that they're trying to make me into something I'm not, and bringing you down to do so.” He sighed and braced his hands against the console. “It's what we are that matters.” Jack was looking lost, so Ianto held his hand out. “Can you fly this TARDIS?”
Jack stood and crossed to the console quickly. “Yeah, easy. It's mostly wishful thinking, though...”
“I know.” He wrenched the lever and sent them tumbling into the Time Vortex. “The best thing about this model is their free will. She knows what we need, and she'll take us to the best place to get it.”
“We're stealing the TARDIS?” Jack gaped at him and then swung around to the far side to activate the stabilisers. “And where's the noise?”
“We're borrowing it,” he corrected. “And do you mean the noise that she made when they arrived?”
“That one, yes.”
“Oh.” Ianto rang the bell for the sake of it. “That was the noise a TARDIS makes when you travel with the hand-break on. Now...” he held his hands out to Jack. “Want to see where we are?”
“With you all the way.” Jack took Ianto's hands, and let himself be led to the doors.
Next chapter
Chapter Title: Change of Place 6
Challenge/Fest: LongLiveIanto Bingo
Prompt: Borrowing the TARDIS
Rating: G
Dedication:
Summary: The Doctor shows up and Jack and Ianto leave for a while
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Owen, Doctor, Martha.
Contains:
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its environs, occurrences and persons belong to the BBC. The original characters have disowned me.
Jack leaned on the back of Tosh's chair and studied the Rift readings with her and Ianto. “It looks stable,” she was saying, peering over her glasses at the figures, “more stable than it's been in the last few months, actually. It's as if opening it like that has released some of the pressure. Look, these are the results we were getting from the Castle the day before yesterday, and this is today's. They're well below average.”
“Do you think we could do controlled openings like this in the future and prevent splintering?” Jack asked.
“Too early to tell yet,” she looked back and up at him. “And it's not something we want to experiment with.”
“It was worth a shot.” He squeezed Ianto's shoulder and straightened up behind them. “Good work, Ianto. We'll have to keep a watch on Bilis, because I bet he won't leave it at this. He wants something.”
“Maybe he just wants to split us up,” Ianto suggested. “Scatter us through time.”
“Maybe he does. But...” Whatever he was thinking was lost under a rhythmic roaring that ripped through the Hub.
“What the hell? Jack...” Gwen rose out of her seat and reached for her gun, just as Owen appeared from the autopsy bay. “Jack, it's in the Hub.”
A tall blue box appeared between the desks, and Jack took a hesitant step towards it when the howling stopped. Ianto reached out for his arm but was shaken off, and Jack gave him a reassuring smile. “It's okay, I know what it is.”
“It's a police box,” Gwen called over to them. “Nineteen sixties, I think. They've got one at the police museum. What's it doing in the Hub? Did it come through the Rift, Jack?”
“No. Well, not exactly. Gwen, put down your gun. If you shoot it the bullets will ricochet off the shielding and could go anywhere, and I really mean anywhere.” He raised his hands to warn them all back and looked back over his shoulder at Ianto. “If this…”
“It's him, I know.” Ianto didn't take his eyes from the TARDIS. “What’s he doing here?”
The blue door swung open at last and a skinny man in a brown suit, with scruffy hair and trainers stepped out and looked straight at Ianto. His expression was one of shocked delight and he seemed to struggle for words. “Hello,” he said at last. “I don't think we've met...”
“No, we haven't,” Ianto answered quietly. “You didn't hang around at Canary Wharf long enough for me to introduce myself.”
He was taken aback by the venom in Ianto’s tone. “You were at...”
“Thanks to you, I was...” He caught himself before he could give too much away in front of the rest of the team and nodded. “I was there.”
The Doctor looked around again and narrowed his eyes at the others. “Do they know?”
He shrugged. “How could I tell them? Jack knows, though.”
“Right, yes.” He shifted his gaze to Jack reluctantly and inclined his head in greeting. “Jack.”
“Doctor. Good to see you at last.”
He looked between them and stepped back into the TARDIS. “I think you'd better come in.”
Ianto smirked and followed him. “Yes, I think we had.”
A young woman was hovering in the console room and glared at them both, apparently on principle. “Who's this, Doctor?”
The Doctor closed the door behind them carefully before he looked between them. “This is Jack and...”
“Ianto,” Ianto introduced himself, but his attention was on the TARDIS. “I thought the rumours were just, well, rumours! You actually stole a Type 50 TARDIS from the museum?”
“Yeah.” He drew the sound out and rubbed his ear, smiling dopily. “I prefer to think of it as rescuing her; terribly boring places, museums. Well, not for a visit. They can be quite interesting for a visit, but Martha here had to rescue me from becoming a museum exhibit not that long ago, didn't you Martha?”
“I did, yeah.” She smiled at them and indicated him. “Last of his species, quite a find for any museum. If you're prepared to clean up after him.”
“What do you mean, the last of his species?” Ianto asked, incredulous. “There's an entire planet of us.” The Doctor's silence was guilty, and Ianto took a step back. “Doctor, what happened? There can't be... It's not possible.”
“There was a war with the Daleks,” the Doctor explained gently, “and they all died.”
He shook his head and backed into Jack, who rested his hands on Ianto's arms and rubbed gently. “That can't be.”
“I'm sorry. I'm so, so...”
“Don't,” he snapped. “Because if they're gone and you're here, that means... What did you do?”
“Come to the kitchen with me, and I'll explain everything.” Ianto geared himself up for another snarl and the Doctor held his hands up defensively. “I promise, I'll explain everything, but not here.”
Ianto rested one hand on one of Jack's and eased it down his arm, but held on to it. “Will you look after Martha whilst we're talking? Stay here.”
“Yes, sir.” Jack smiled softly and squeezed his hand. “I'll be here when you get back.”
He nodded and slipped away from Jack to follow the Doctor through the door at the far end of the console room. The corridors were modular and a dull, gritty colour, not like the smooth, panelled curves of his own TARDIS. Before long the corridor forked and one was stopped by a sliding door across the whole of the corridor, which opened before them. Inside was a cluttered kitchen, tiled in bright, mismatched colours and with a battered table against the wall to the left of the door. The Doctor gestured towards the table and hurried into the kitchen area, where he clattered through one of the high cupboards. “Cup of tea? I always feel better with a cup of tea.”
“Coffee, if you have it.” He smiled tightly, glad to have stopped the Doctor's running commentary. “Black, with a teaspoon of honey or two of sugar. Thanks.”
“Oh... right.” The clattering continued, although the monologue didn't, and then the Doctor brought two mugs over and sat in one of the other chairs. “So you survived the Time War.”
Ianto reached for his coffee carefully. “So did you. We have that in common.”
“It’s a start. How did you do that...” he paused and raised his eyebrow in question, waiting for Ianto to fill in his name.
“Ianto, I told you.” He sipped his coffee thoughtfully and then set the mug down. “I was Torchwood's prisoner. They created a damping cell that was supposed to stop me communicating, and stop you knowing I was there if you ever came back. Oh, it wasn't designed for me,” he explained when the Doctor opened his mouth to say something. “It was designed for you, Doctor. Torchwood was created to find and stop you. But they got me instead. Twenty three years I was their prisoner and you never looked back, did you? You never stop to wonder what your actions have done.”
“That's not fair.”
“Really?” He shook his head. “I thought 'not fair' was being imprisoned for someone else's crimes because they didn't hang around long enough to explain themselves, again. I thought 'not fair' was growing up in the aftermath of someone throwing your world into chaos, again. Doctor, you have always been too powerful to carry on the way you do, leaving chaos in your wake.”
“But it would be so much worse if I stayed; don't you see that?” The Doctor gestured around the room. “This is what I have, this is my domain and this is all I have power over. I bring people into this world and then they leave, and I can't ruin their lives any more. If I stayed...”
“If you even looked back, how much easier it would be for those you leave behind. Did you even think about Jack after you left him?” He paused to watch the Doctor fail to meet his eyes. “So you did. You knew that you'd left him behind, and what you'd left him with.”
“Earth was razed by the Dalek attack,” the Doctor explained harshly. “The human population was decimated and leaderless. They had been living under the thrall of reality TV for a century... I knew I could trust him to rebuild the world and protect the human race.”
“And you couldn't stand to look at him.” He shook his head and clutched his mug. “You haven't changed, have you? The way Jack talks about you, he makes you sound like a hero. I thought you were different, that you'd grown up, but you're still a coward.”
“And where were you when Arcadia burned?” the Doctor snarled. “Where were you when time lashed out and worlds were consumed? Where were you…” He trailed off and dropped his gaze to the table top again. “I saw it, Ianto. I saw the fires raging out of control and I sealed them away where they couldn't hurt anyone else. That's why I'm still standing, because someone had to be there to stop it and it had to be me.”
Ianto closed his eyes tightly. “They're gone? Truly gone? I thought the silence was... I thought it was just me.”
“I'm sorry, but it's just you and me. A coward and...”
He sighed and inclined his head, prepared to give the Doctor that much. “An archivist.”
“Oh, really?” The Doctor frowned. “Which one?”
“This one. I'm only on my second regeneration,” he explained. “How many did you know?”
“Oh, three at one time. Pretty common name.”
“Like John.” Ianto hugged his mug and felt the reality of what he'd been told washing over him. “I need to go and find Jack.”
He got up and made for the door, but the Doctor stopped him by asking, “How do you know Jack?”
“Torchwood got to him before they got to me.” He tipped his head back and sighed heavily. “So he was there to pick up the pieces, and I joined him. We're both Torchwood now, Doctor.”
He followed the corridors back to the console room, where he found Martha and Jack sitting on the ratty sofa against one of the walls. Jack had his arm around her when Ianto came in, but he pulled back and gave Ianto all of his attention as soon as he noticed his arrival. “Did you get your answers?”
“Enough. Too many.” He rounded the console and sat in Jack's lap unselfconsciously, ignoring Martha's startled noise. Jack tugged him in to a more secure hold tucked against his chest, and wrapped his arms around him loosely. “I'll... I just need some time.”
“Do you want me to go?” Jack's arms tightened despite his offer, and Ianto smiled. Next to them, Martha got up and crept away, and Jack waited until she had gone down the corridor towards the kitchens before he spoke again. “He'll give you space to deal with it, and it'll be good for you to spend time with another Timelord after so long. If you don't want me to come with you I'll wait here for you, for as long as it takes.”
Ianto framed Jack's face in his hands and kissed him. Once again, along with the soft warm pressure of their lips sliding together, Ianto felt the glow that spread through his entire consciousness. “I'm not going anywhere without you,” he whispered against Jack's lips.
“Oh, sorry!” Martha was tugging the Doctor by the hand and marched him through the console room. “We're going to replenish the TARDIS kitchen, and then we'll all go for dinner, if you like?”
“That would be nice.” Jack held Ianto tighter and looked up at him, then back to Martha. “Tell the team we're just taking a minute, will you?”
“Sure thing,” she laughed.
The Doctor and Martha closed the door behind them, and Ianto slipped from Jack's lap to go to the console and pull one of the screens around. Jack stayed where he was and rested his elbows on his knees. “They'll never believe we're not having sex now,” he pointed out.
Ianto grunted and shrugged one shoulder. “Why does it matter? We know what we are or aren't doing.”
“It seems to matter to you...”
“No, what matters to me is that they're trying to make me into something I'm not, and bringing you down to do so.” He sighed and braced his hands against the console. “It's what we are that matters.” Jack was looking lost, so Ianto held his hand out. “Can you fly this TARDIS?”
Jack stood and crossed to the console quickly. “Yeah, easy. It's mostly wishful thinking, though...”
“I know.” He wrenched the lever and sent them tumbling into the Time Vortex. “The best thing about this model is their free will. She knows what we need, and she'll take us to the best place to get it.”
“We're stealing the TARDIS?” Jack gaped at him and then swung around to the far side to activate the stabilisers. “And where's the noise?”
“We're borrowing it,” he corrected. “And do you mean the noise that she made when they arrived?”
“That one, yes.”
“Oh.” Ianto rang the bell for the sake of it. “That was the noise a TARDIS makes when you travel with the hand-break on. Now...” he held his hands out to Jack. “Want to see where we are?”
“With you all the way.” Jack took Ianto's hands, and let himself be led to the doors.
Next chapter
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Date: 2011-07-17 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-17 11:14 pm (UTC)Gxxx