Satelite 5

Jack looked up and his smile lit up his face when he saw who it was in the doorway, “Hey Yan, Jazz finally let you go?”

His young lover returned his smile as he settled into his chair at the other desk in the office, “Finally, confirmation that’s it’s not just my coffee you smile at. Yeah, she’ll be after you in a minute; I caught sight of her expressions as she got her first look at your report.”

Jack pretended to quake in his boots, then grinned like a child at Christmas, “What did she look like?”

“Well…” He looked back up from the report on his desk which had been the focus of his attention for all of three seconds and looked up at the ceiling, a grin dancing across his face as he refused pointedly to look at Jack, “It started out interested, then slightly confused, then amused, then back to formal, then she got more and more annoyed.” Now he looked at Jack, in whose eyes mischief danced, “What did you put in that report?”

”Chapters.” A file dropped over Jack’s head onto the desk and Ianto chuckled at the surprised look on his lover’s face, “He wrote the damned thing in chapters.”

“How much trouble am I in?” He still didn’t look at her, and she still tried to hide her grin

“She reached for the pencil of Dooooom.” Ianto deadpanned. Said pencil was flicked at him across the room and bounced off the window, “Not as much trouble as me I think.”

“That’s a relief.” He laughed and reached behind him to tickle Jazz. She dodged his hand and slipped up behind him, resting her arms on his shoulders and watching Ianto over the top of his head, “Did you miss us?”

She hummed and smiled, “Course I did, we all did. Did you miss us? And before you lie, remember that I’ve read your report.”

“We did miss you!” He turned around and rested his hands on her waist, looking up at her for a change, “Just not Torchwood, not really. We enjoyed the chance to get away and arse around, just enjoy each other.”

“I know.” She bent and kissed his forehead, “But I’m here to talk shop. You’ve been gone a month, we’ve got a lot to catch up on really. Most important really is the thing that got us into the mess in the first place.” She backed away to lean on the desk and Ianto came around to lean next to where Jack was sitting, arms folded, “Have you any recommendations?”

Jack shook his head, “It’s like the rift: We can see when someone’s been taken, but can’t prevent it. All we can do is monitor for similar readings and get them back if it happens again. Ianto and I are going to train as Jurisfiction agents so we can do that.”

“OK.” She nodded and stood up, “I’m going to do a full debrief and rebrief, is that the word? Anyway, one of those in about an hour.” The girl hesitated a moment in the door and her eyes scanned the desk, “Who’s not drinking coffee?”

“Me.” Jack explained, “It’s a sort of… Detox, taking a couple of months to get rid of several hundred years worth of chemicals.”

She eyed him sceptically, “That’s bollocks.” When he only shrugged she rolled her eyes and vanished.

The two men’s eyes met and they smiled shyly at each other, “Do you want to tell them before or after the fact?”

“I think we should know the fact first. Find out if… If you can drink coffee again, shower.” Ianto smiled softly and laced their fingers together, “We could…”

Jack smiled, “I stole a pregnancy test from Martha’s drawer earlier. We’ve got an hour, it only takes three minutes.”

Commander Jasmine Donovan, Head of Torchwood and CSI level 2, banged her hand on the table and swore, “How the hell do I do that every time?” She rubbed her hand, “Anyway, anyone listening to me?”

“No darlin’.” Her boyfriend chuckled and threw a peanut at her, “Why would we listen to you?”

“Erm… Because I’m your boss?” She glared at him and rolled her eyes

“And what will you do, fire me? I don’t work for you, you know.” John rested his feet on the table and looked up as Jack and Ianto entered, sharing a secret glance before they sat down in their traditional seats, side by side at the head of the table. He declined to even consider what was going through their minds and being shared in that glance, “And now the lovebirds have joined us, maybe we can start.”

Jazz cuffed him playfully, “Grow up you. Now, where were we? OK, first things first, John and I return to Vegas in three hours. I’ve been called back to deal with a case, and John’s coming with me. We’re going to have a shotgun wedding in Vegas whilst we’re over there. That’s more our style, as you know, but we will be having a party to celebrate when we get back.”

There were congratulations and hugs from all round the table and she grinned, “I know I’m not the only one who never thought we’d see the day, but there we go. Next up is the Fforde affair, you’ve all seen Jack and Ianto’s preliminary reports on that, their completed report is, I hope, going to be edited slightly and filed tonight?” They nodded, “Good, which, I believe wraps the matter up completely. We’ve got Ianto back; thanks, of course, to Jack’s blind idiocy, sorry bravery. And your recommendations on the case?”

“Monitor for activity, then retrieve if anything happens. We have alerted the book world to the possibility and they know what to do to return them. If retrieval from inside the books is required then we can go in.” Jack explained, one hand behind his head as he leaned back and one hidden beneath the table.

“Good.” Jazz flashed him a smile and turned to Mickey, “How’s the rift looking Mickey?”

“Stable for the last week, apart from the storms and three isolated spikes we attended there were a further four spikes which didn’t require our attention, no unusual spikes or activity.”

“Very good. Sightings this week Martha, anything still to be dealt with?”

“Nothing outstanding, internet scan this morning came up clear.” The medic sighed in relief and looked across at Ianto, “I’ll be glad to hand that job back to you Yan.”

“Back to normal life: aliens and general weirdness.” The young man chuckled

Jasmine ticked things off on her fingers, her lips moving silently as she went through a mental list, then dropped her hands to the table again, “I think that’s everything covered, anyone else got any news?”

Jack took Ianto’s hand on the table and smiled at him, eyes radiant with love, “We have an announcement to make, actually.”

Everyone looked at them expectantly, “You’re getting married?” The Doctor asked with a teasing grin

“Done that one.” Ianto pointed out, squeezing Jack’s hand and asking silently for permission, “We’re actually moving on to the next stage, we’re starting a family.”

“I’m pregnant.” Jack finished for him, not looking anywhere but his partner’s eyes, which were locked with his own.

Stunned silence greeted the announcement for a moment before Gwen leaned over to hug him with a squeal and the other team members and family followed, “Oh my God, congratulations!”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking Captain, but how the f**k are you pregnant?” Mickey asked in confusion, “I mean, you’re a bloke. Definitely a bloke.” Everyone at Torchwood knew that, some mornings there was no escaping the fact

“Fifty-first century male.” Jack pointed out, “Our biology is, shall we say different? Physically I’m male, when it comes to reproducing, I guess I’m Mum. But until now, I’ve been kept infertile by the Oestragen in the rain.”

“So a month in the book world, where there are no chemicals like that in the rain…” The Doctor realised

“Hence no coffee.” Jazz realised, glancing at the mug in front of him, “Until now.”

“It has no impact once I’m pregnant, it would just impact my ability to get pregnant. And with no obstacles…” His face lit up and he shrugged, “We’re going to be dads.”

He looked at Ianto again and they grinned at each other, their happiness clear to see, “Go on!” John half teased, “Kiss for the camera.” They didn’t bother to ask ‘what camera’, they just did it.

“So, do you know how far along?” Jazz asked with a broad smile, now settled in John’s lap after a round of congratulatory hugs for the fathers to be.

“Nope, just that it’s positive.” Jack looked down at the table, focussing on his hands entwined with Ianto’s, “We… We already know, really, who we’re getting, don’t we?”

“You know,” Gwen commented, sucking her teaspoon clean as she paused, “I always thought I’d be the first off on maternity leave.”

“So did I.” Jack laughed, “And believe it or not, Torchwood does have a maternity plan.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, we’ve had several generations of the same family working here, it was quite a family thing at one point. Looks like being so again.” A shadow crossed over his face as he thought of babies he’d seen born, watched grow, fought their recruitment and then buried. So many, too many. And the baby inside him, just a collection of cells at the moment, but already a person he knew, someone else he’d bury; hopefully after he buried his partner, he’d hate for Ianto to feel that pain. “But Torchwood’s always been a family. We look after our own.”

“Certainly do. I guess this means that I need to get someone trained up to go to Vegas for me, we need an immortal on the rift, and whilst you’re up the duff, you can’t die.”

Jack saluted her, “I had no intentions of dying.”

“You never do.”

“True, but less intention even than normal. I’m going to pull out from fieldwork completely in three months, stay in the hub for four months after that, then stay at home and play Mum.” He grinned, “I have a really bad nesting habit when I’m pregnant.”

“OK.” She laughed, “Well as long as you’ve got that sorted, just give me a yell when you want me. Doc, can you see to John’s Vortex Manipulator, I’m not using it again until it stops time shifting all over the place. Honestly, I sent him for a bar of chocolate last week, he bought it three years ago.”

The Timelord looked at her sceptically over his glasses, “I’d rather disable it completely.”

“I need it for the commute, it’s either that or I borrow the TARDIS for a year or two.”

He held out his hand for the wrist strap, “And, if you want, I’ll give you a lift back to Vegas, save you the flight?”

“You’re a life saver, mean we can stay long enough to deal with that rift flare.” Jazz groaned as everyone moved into action, letting Jack slot back into the centre of the action, with Ianto right beside him, right where they belonged.

“Mrs Dashwood!” John swept towards a well dressed lady who appeared to be directing the servants in laying out pastries, cakes and tea and coffee urns in preparation for the meeting. The central hub of Jurisfiction operations was the ballroom at Norwood Park, a beautiful and elegant room cluttered with heavy dark wood desks, comfortable sofas, book cases and generally books everywhere. It actually looked much like a Restoration styled version of most of the offices at Torchwood London, where Jasmine’s open-plan designs left everyone free to work pretty much where they liked, to the extent that two of her girls were invariably found sitting on their desks and the youngest member of the team worked from the top of a filing cabinet. It seemed to work here as well as it did there; there was a sense of bustle and productivity and at the same time relaxation.

Mrs Dashwood looked up in surprise as John, ever more confident and outgoing and with a rapidly thickening American accent, bore down on her an bent low to kiss one of her hands, treating her to his first truly Jack grin, “Mrs Dashwood it is a pleasure to see you, I do hope we are not late?”

Gareth rolled his eyes sympathetically at the amused and slightly stunned woman and she smiled back at him warmly, “No dear, you are not late. Although I notice that there are rather more of you than I expected.”

“One of you is more than I expected.” A voice grated from behind them and they looked around into the eyes of PC Andy Davidson, but a clearly fictional version of him, “I heard you’d got into trouble with Big Tony John, I was just about to report your demise to Jurisfiction and hope I could get one who can stick to the plot this time. Unless these are your replacements?”

Ianto stopped Jack from stepping into the altercation so that they could let Gareth and John deal with it, John was fuming and placed himself between his lover and the man he was supposed to be with, the man he was written to be with, the man he had never wanted anything to do with. “It’s got nothing to do with you. As long as I can pretend to love you for the first three chapters then anything we do in the back-story, anything we do here doesn’t matter. And unless we get a plot, none of it will matter anyway.”

Andy’s jaw clenched, “I’m going to talk to Thursday about this, you don’t care about the plot, you don’t care about anything but yourselves.”

“We care about each other.” Gareth corrected him, “Something we wouldn’t expect you to understand.” He’d stepped forwards to take John’s hand and they faced the other man shoulder to shoulder. Jack and Ianto couldn’t see their expressions, but from the familiar tensions they could tell that they were scared of something.

The man glared at them a moment longer before turning on his heel and stalking off. Mrs Dashwood had disappeared rapidly, probably to get someone to smooth things over, and the two couples were alone in the antechamber. John sighed as he turned around, “It’s…”

“This is getting ridiculous.” Gareth burst out, “They can’t keep replacing us because of the way we’re written, not when we’re unpublished. The book’s only been in progress for a year and we’re the fourth set of John and Gareth’s there’s been.”

”What do you mean?”

He growled, but at the situation, not at Jack who had asked the question, “We’re written to be in love with each other eventually, we know that and we know that we want to be together. Hell, we’re in love form the start, but we have to pretend we’re not for the first few chapters. After that we can be together as Jack and Ianto, but not as Gareth and John and then by the end of the book we can be together in every way. But outside the plot, it doesn’t matter what we do, but three times our characters have tried to change it so that they can be together from the start, and they’ve been replaced and separated. And we couldn’t stand if that happened to us, so we put up with it and shut up, but Andy’s starting to insist that John be with him in the back story as well as when the plot’s on them.”

“He hasn’t got a leg to stand on guys, don’t worry.” Thursday’s voice drifted across the room to them as her footsteps echoed of the intricately decorated walls, “As you say, you’re unpublished and soon it won’t matter.” There was a hint of warning and sadness in her tone, but she moved on from the topic and approached Jack with a smile, “Glad to see you made it Jack, and this must be Ianto?” She greeted them both with a handshake, “You’ve had an interesting trip I understand?”

“Very.” He laughed, wrapping an arm around Ianto’s shoulders, “Ianto, meet Thursday Next. Thursday, my partner, Ianto Jones.”

”I would never have guessed.” She smirked, “You coming to the Jurisfiction meeting? We’ll be considering your apprenticeships by the way guys.” The last comment was directed at John and Gareth, “I have it on good authority that it will be approved though.”

They grinned at her in relief, “Thanks Thurs. We… Oh you know.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ll sort something. No matter what happens I’m not going to let you be split up again.” She took a deep breath, “God, I’m getting sentimental in my old age. Come on, let’s get this meeting started.”

It droned on, and on, and on, about matters that went straight over Jack’s head most of the time. He and Ianto had resorted to spotting their favourite characters around the room and were currently trying to decide if that really was Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. They knew it was, but it didn’t stop them arguing the point. Finally a prod from John brought them back to the point in hand, “Item twenty seven, I’ve been asked by Thursday to bring this up especially. It’s a current work in progress that is posing serious problems at the moment, but apparently shows great potential. Now she, and some of its occupants, believes that it can only be saved by a major reworking.” John and Gareth’s faces paled, they hadn’t really let themselves believe that the case was so desperate. “Now, Thursday, what are your proposals?”

She stood up and her voice rang out clearly, “I propose an internal reworking. No outside influence, apart from that they request.” She spared Jack and Ianto a smile, “I believe they have the best possible help to make this a successful novel and provide us with at least two, if not a whole team of extremely able Jurisfiction agents.”

“All in favour of that proposal?” It was simple and required little intervention, so it was passed almost unanimously. “OK, Thursday, you’re nominally in charge. Good luck. Next item, related, proposed apprenticeships of John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd, from the book in discussion. Proposer for John?” Thursday raised her hand, “Good, and seconder?”

“Here old chap.” It was Commander Bradshaw

“Excellent references there John, welcome to the team, you’ll be apprenticed to Miss Next. And for Gareth, same again?” The Commander and Thursday nodded their assent and the Bellman rang his bell with a note of finality, “That’s sorted then, and you’re OK to take them both on as apprentices Thursday?”

“It would be a pleasure.” She grinned across at them

“Any objections?” Andy made a move to raise his hand, but seemed to think better of it when no one else did. He scowled at them as the Bellmaker smiled a greeting at them, “In that case, would everyone please welcome the two newest members of our team, John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd, and best of luck to the pair of you in getting your novel sorted out.”

“Next, item twenty-nine. The National Novel Writing Problem, affectionately termed NaNoWriPro. Once a year, several hundred thousand people all descend on their computers and start novels, most of which end up not fully developed and very, very few end up moving up to the Library proper. Now, the number of novels being constructed at this time of year is getting to the stage, in fact has reached the stage, where we cannot sustain it all at one time. Any proposals?”

“Construct through the year and keep them in storage?” Someone suggested, “Deliver as plot bunnies in advance.”

“That’s one good idea, but we still need more builders. St Tabitha’s constructors course has just produced its first graduates, but there aren’t enough generics taking the course. Can we ask minor characters to do apprenticeships in plot building?”

The matter was approved, the next was set aside for future discussion, and so the meeting went on. Jack had zoned out completely by the time John grabbed his arse to get his attention. “You were miles away.” He laughed

“Yeah, just a bit. Do that again and you will get jumped by the way.”

“You think I’ll complain?”

They both glared at Ianto and Gareth, who had burst out laughing, “OK, so we think the same, we look the same…”

“I just want to find out if he shags as well as you.” Ianto commented

The conversation was stalled by Thursday’s arrival, “Come on guys, we’ve got a plot to reconstruct, remember?”

Two days later:

Noise and light blared from one of Cardiff’s many nightclubs as the figures ran through the door. One of them stopped by the door, calling out in an American accent, “Get back all of you.” Shots rang out down the street and most of the revellers were eager to follow his orders.

One of the bouncers stopped him with a hand and a glare, “What do you think you’re playing at?”

Captain Jack Harkness was in no mood to argue, “Chasing a weevil. Tall thing, leather skin, sharp teeth, really bad dress sense.” He said the last thing as if it was the most important, but as if it had only just occurred to him, or was confusing him.

“The heck are you?”

“Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood.”

“Gwen Cooper,” a woman approached putting something in her back pocket, “We catch aliens.”

“Ianto Jones,” said a second man, dressed inexplicably in a suit, “And we need to catch this one before…” he broke off and stared in the direction of the screaming that had just started.

The woman set off running with the others close behind, “Over there, by the fire exit, come on!”

The American called out over the screaming of the crowd, simultaneously trying to elbow his way through the crowd to the weevil and get them away from it. He was in the lead as they burst through the fire exit, looking both ways down the street, trying to find the escaped alien when his phone rang, “You two carry on.” He called to Gwen and Ianto, acknowledging their replies with a nod as he answered the phone, “Hello?”

By the bar, two men sipped their drinks and smiled to themselves as their protégés launched into their first story; a true story, but not one that anyone would believe. Well hopefully anyway.

They finished their drinks in the peace and quiet, enjoying each other’s company in a familiar place, unable to deny their longing for home. It was time to leave. Before very long the team slipped back into the club and got themselves drinks, toasting a successful start to the novel whilst Gareth, now Ianto, ordered the flights on his PDA. “You’re off then?” John/Jack asked with a smile

Jack nodded sadly, “Yeah, we have to get back to our Cardiff. Our team are waiting for us.”

“We are your team.” Gareth pointed out

“One of them.” Jack put his glass down and stood up, Ianto following him. The others followed too and no one seemed very surprised when he pulled Gareth close and kissed him gently, “But not the same.” He did the same with John, who groaned into the kiss and laughed, “A man after my own heart. Look after him John.”

“And you.”

Jack nodded and took Ianto’s hand, pulling out the sheet he’d written so long ago that it seemed like a dream. “It’s time to go home.”

“The Hub was never silent; computers whirred and beeped constantly, watching over the world from this underground base in Cardiff, and water dripped in the base. On the upper level, glass walls separated Jack’s office, the hot house and the boardroom from the main Hub. Vegetation pressed against the walls of the hot house, shielding it from prying eyes, a fact that he and Ianto had used to their advantage on more than one occasion. His office was more open, but still offered some security and sanctuary when they wanted to be alone together. The boardroom was completely exposed, sheet glass all the way from floor to ceiling with the Torchwood logo printed in the centre.

Metal railings ran around he edge of the walkway connecting the three upper rooms and the small kitchenette, set back into the very structure of the Hub, and ran on, almost meeting but not quite. On the lower level, the huge, metal pillar and its water filled basin formed the focus, with the Rift manipulator attached. Around it stood workstations with computers humming to themselves, papers in various states of disorder and photos of family and friends dotted around. The cog door was sealed half a level below the workstations, its lights and sirens inactive and half a level above the stations the lift was at its lower position.

At the far side of the Hub, two sets of stairs descended. One led to the autopsy bay where the table was clear and sterile and the instruments were set tidily aside. The drawers were all closed and neatly labelled, those little paper ones that slipped out and back in whenever they needed to be changed, which was frequently.

The other set of stairs led to the lower levels, the archives, laboratories and cells of the centuries old organisation. The vaulted brickwork passages stretched for miles under Cardiff bay, full in places of records and in other places completely empty, just echoing, echoing tunnels.”

The looked around and hugged each other tightly, they were home.

“Hey, who the hell are you?!” Jack’s voice echoed from behind them and they swung round in astonishment to be greeted by the sight of Jack approaching them. “Who are you, why do you look like me and what are you doing with my boyfriend?”

Ianto’s eyes boggled, this man looked just like Jack, he sounded just like him, he was identical, apart from the almost unbelievable levels of campness, “Excuse me?” He stuttered it out in shock

“Gareth, this is me, the real me. I have no idea who that is…” He pointed in disgust and there was more than a trace of panic in his tone, “But he’s an impostor.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stated, gripping tightly to Jack’s hand, but my name’s not Gareth, it’s Ianto.”

“And he’s my husband.” Jack practically spat the word, “Now I’m Captain Jack Harkness, who are you?”

The stranger gave them an incredulous look. “Don’t be stupid.” He folded his arms in a way that was totally Jack and yet not remotely Jack, “Captain Jack Harkness is fictional, he’s the character I play.” His eyes widened in shock, “Oh. My. God! Are they creating a spin off? They are, aren’t they? I can’t believe they didn’t tell me, we should be the first to know!” Then another realisation seemed to sweep over him and his face fell, “Oh God, they’re probably going to give up on us, we’ll be consigned to the well and destroyed.”

Their heart went out to the Jack-a-like, strange though he was. Jack himself stepped forwards, although he hesitated before touching the fictional version of himself or not himself, he squeezed his shoulder comfortingly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but we’re not from a spin-off. We’re from the outland.”

He shook his head sadly, “You’re mad. And…”

“John!” A thick Welsh accent hailed from down the corridor and the fictional man turned towards it, tears starting in his eyes, “John, what are you doing here? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. What’s up?” The newcomer was like Ianto, but not like Ianto. He was bigger, ‘built like a brick shit house’ as Ianto’s mum would have said, probably a rugby player judging by the Wales shirt and the solidity of his build, and his accent was actually so thick that you could have cut it with a spoon

“I…” John looked between the couple and, presumable Gareth, and shook his head, “I don’t know.”

The younger man glared at the hand resting on his boyfriend’s shoulder and Jack removed it as though burned, “Who the Hell are you?”

“We’re outlanders.” Ianto jumped in, subtly placing himself between Jack and the look-a-likes, “We’re lost in the book world, and we look like you, which is making more sense to me by the moment.” He turned back to his lover with a half smile, “You remember that book Mark was writing, Mark in London?”

Dawning realisation lifted Jack’s countenance, “Oh. The one about Torchwood but not… Jazz was keeping an eye on it.”

“Making sure it’s not too accurate, but he’s bright enough.” He grinned, “I didn’t realise he’d got any further than a general idea.”

“He hasn’t.” Gareth interrupted with a voice that was pure acid, “We’re still in the development stages, but John’s already tipped to knock Zhark off his pedestal.” There was pride evident in his voice, although he had yet to touch his partner, “That’s if we ever get published. At the moment it’s stalled and there’s talk of it being stopped completely.”

“What’ll happen if it doesn’t get published?”

Gareth’s tone was bitter, “The book will be destroyed and we’ll be sold off, probably separately.”

”We might get the alternative they’re talking about.” John suggested timidly, a brilliant smile lighting his face when Gareth finally took his hand, “Then we could still be together.”

His partner shrugged but pulled him closer, “I doubt it will happen, John, I really do. It’s all hot air.”

Ianto’s heart bled for them; unlike Jack he had read every single one of Jasper Fforde’s books, “When we get home, I’ll write the damned book myself if I have to. I’ll have a word with Mark…” He shook his head, “We’ll help you, I promise.”

“There’s nothing you can do.” John said miserably, “Thursday’s tried even, but she can’t do anything with the plot. Or with us, we’re just too two-dimensional.”

“Well I think we can definitely help there.” Jack flashed his doppel-ganger a grin, “I’m full of ideas me.”

“You’ve only just met us though.” Gareth asked suspiciously, “Why would you want to help us?”

“Because we’re Torchwood, and you’re cute.”

“Jack…”

“What?” He shrugged, “He looks like you, do you expect me to think any differently, really?”

Ianto grinned, “Maybe not, gentlemen, I think we should find a pub. We’re good in pubs.”

Gareth led the way into the small, dark, smoky establishment and did his best to ignore the looks being sent their way. He and Ianto went to get the drinks and John explained quietly, “The book world’s a bit… Closed.” He shrugged sadly, “A lot of people think that because we’re gay and the main characters, our book should be consigned to the LGBT section. Or just not published at all.”

“Yeah, a lot of people are like that outside too.” Jack agreed, “All we can do is believe in ourselves and try to prove them wrong.”

Gareth and Ianto returned to their table with the drinks and settled down next to their respective partners. The fictional man seemed reluctant to show affection in public, but when Jack slipped his arm around Ianto’s waist and the young man leaned into the embrace he seemed to relax slightly and took his own lover’s hand, entwining their fingers on the tabletop. John seemed endearingly and almost painfully surprised by the action. Jack watched the interaction with subtle interest, “So, what’s your story, how do you get together?”

“Well, we’re actors.” Gareth explained, “The story starts out with me getting a part on this new sci-fi drama series as the leader of a government organisation. I meet John at the first get together for the cast and he’s one of my employees in the series, a tech wizard really. His character’s straight, but mine’s bi and I fall for him and seduce him, quite forcefully at times. In real life though, he’s gay and I’m straight and I find myself falling for him whilst we’re filming, but he wants nothing to do with me because he’s spoken for. Eventually though he can’t deny the attraction and with us spending so much time together, and kissing and stuff, on set…”

“We get together.” John finished for him, “And, well… I quite look forwards to the getting together bit each time.”

“What’s your other half called?” Ianto asked with dawning amusement and astonishment

“Andy, he’s a police officer.”

“And you say you’re having problems with…”

“With everything.” Gareth finished for him bitterly, “The only thing that works is the sexual tension between us because we so badly want to get into each other’s pants. But we can’t fake disinterest.”

“So what you really need is a plot that allows you to have sexual tension and be together…”

“And still have a plot that can’t be consigned to the GLBT shelves?”

“We need the impossible, basically.” They looked thoroughly miserable

Ianto grinned, “I need to kick Mark’s arse, I’ll tell you that. But I think we can help.” He proceeded to tell them his and Jack’s story, leaving nothing out and he could practically see the cogs turning in their minds, “So, what do you think, can we help you?”

“You know…” Gareth started, but he was interrupted by a barmaid putting a hand on his shoulder and whispering something in his ear. His face paled and he clutched John’s hand tighter, “Oh shit.”

“What’s up?” Jack looked around, suddenly alert

“You won’t see him.” Gareth swallowed, “It’s Big Tony.”

John looked terrified, Gareth was only slightly better; Jack and Ianto just looked confused and alert, “Who’s big Tony?”

“No, Big Tony, with a capital B. He’s… He rules the Well of Lost Plots with an iron paw.”

“Paw?” Jack looked endearingly perplexed

“Paw. He’s a cat. But a big cat.”

Ianto reached for his gun before remembering that it was in the outland, he shook his head, in the real world, “When you say big, are we thinking tiger?”

“Bit bigger than a tiger…”

“Elephant?”

“Big elephant.” Gareth drained his drink and stood up, “We need to get back to our book, and you need to get out of here.”

“We’ll come with you, for the moment anyway.” Jack insisted, “We’ve got a plot to sort out.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“We’re good with dangerous.” Ianto reassured him, “Now let’s get going.”

John hesitated a moment, just long enough for Gareth to push past him and lead them towards the lifts, “Come on then floor…”

“Negative B?” Ianto guessed, “The author’s a friend of mine, and I am going to kick his arse seriously when we get back.” He swatted Jack playfully when the older man chuckled, “What?”

“You.” Jack laughed, “I love you.”

“I know.”

John and Gareth had stopped in their tracks ahead of them though, terror radiating from them as they clutched onto each other tightly. The outlanders also stopped, their senses heightened as they scanned for threats. There, ahead of them, a large cat watched them. “That’s Big Tony?”

“No. No it’s not. Big Tony is… bigger.” Gareth whispered, “And more dangerous. And more threatening. And generally more…”

“We need to get out of here, properly out of here.” John turned to them, “Carrot, we need to find Carrot.”

“As in Carrot form the Discworld?” Ianto asked

“Yeah, that Carrot. He’s pretty much the only person who Big Tony fears who we could easily find.” Gareth backtracked and took Jack’s hand, pulling out his travel book. “Do you trust us?”

”Yes, completely.” Jack looked up at the cat, who was now twitching his tail angrily. “He doesn’t look happy.”

“He’s not…” John agreed.

Ianto slid into the room as quietly as only he could and surveyed the scene with quiet amusement. Jack, Ford and Zaphod were sprawled across the table, glasses and bottles surrounding them. The young man crossed to his partner and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, bending to kiss it tenderly. When he pulled back the immortal was blinking at him blearily, so he pulled him so that his head was resting against his chest. Jack wound his arms around Ianto’s waist and sighed with contentment as the feel of Ianto’s fingers in his hair and a steadying hand on his shoulder drifted through the fuzziness in his brain, “How much did we drink?”

The young man chuckled softly but didn’t move, “Everything I think, are you OK?”

“Mmph. No, but it’s my own stupid fault.” He groaned softly as Ianto’s fingers rubbed gently at the back of his neck, loosening the cramp he’d got from falling asleep with his head on the table, “I don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve a hangover.”

“Got one of those.”

“Good, I get to look after you for a while.”

He tugged Jack puright and held him steady for a moment, frowning with concern when Jack swayed against him and had to rest his head against the younger man's shoulder as a wave of dizziness swept him, "Jack, you're starting to worry me now, are you alright?"

He shook his head against Ianto's strong shoulder and held him close, "I'm older than I was when I sed to drink that much regularly, I haven't been sleeping properly without you and the last couple of days haven't given me the chance to catch up really, I'm just... I'm an idiot for drinking that much is the simple truth of the matter."

"You're still drunk."

"And hungover, not a fantastic combination by any stretch of the imagination." He groaned and just wanted to sink back down again, but finding a bed and curling up in it with Ianot seemed like an infinitely preferable option, "I think I need to lie down."

"Do you think you're going to be sick?" Ianto was seriously concerned, he'd never seen Jack throw up, but then again he'd never seen him this drunk either

"No, had an implant thing years back so I don't throw up. Don't ask me how it works, I can't remember." He raised his head, "God Yan, I love you so much."

"Is that the drink talking?"

"Possibly, but it's true anyway, you know it is. I love you so much that I can't live without you, I just completely fell apart when you were gone. What it's going to be like when..." He stopped and sobbed and Ianto suddenly, belatedly, realised what he was thinking, icy hands gripping at his heart as he did so.

"Don't think about it Jack, don't ever think about it. I promise you this, if there is any way I can stay with you, any way at all, I will stay with you forever and ever. I never want to leave you. But I will always be here," he rested his hand on Jack's heart, aware that they were both crying freely, "I will always be here with you, in here."

"Ianto, you can't give up your mortality for me, you can't. I never, ever want to lose you, but I wouldn't wish this curse on my worst enemy, even less so on the man I love more than anything else." Jack had raised his head and they gazed into each other's eyes, "I want to spend a lifetime with you and not have to go on without you, but I can't face eternity without you and I couldn't face myself if you had to see immortality because of me."

"Jack, immortality's only a curse if you're alone. As long as I had you, I'd be able to face anything."

Jack dropped his head again and sobbed into Ianto's shoulder, "But it's all academic, isn't it? It's not possible."

The young man shook his head sadly, tears rolling down onto Jack's hair and sank into the chair, pulling Jack into his lap as he reached for a half full bottle of Scotch on the table, the only alcohol still available, and took a swig, feeling it burning down past his alrady pained heart, "Jack, I can't leave you, I don't ever want to leave you."

The captain clung to him tightly but managed a chuckle, "And this is the last time I ever get drunk."

"That's a lie and you know it." He took abother swig from the bottle, frowning first in concern when Jack took it from him and then in annoyance when the captain merely set it on the table, well out of his reach, "Hey!"

"No, we're too miserable, alcohol is for havign fun, not for being miserable. And that stuff rots things you don't even know you have, it's not good."

"Were you drinking it earlier?"

"Me, no. Them, yes. Besides, my rotted insides grow back."

Ianto was sceptical as he eyed the bottle, "How do you kow, have you experimented on destroying your liver?"

His partner nodded heavily, "Died of liver poisoning three times in the ealrly twentieth century. Never did me any harm; not long term anyway."

"Why did you get so hammered last night?" Ianto asked with a heavy sigh, "What brought it on?"

"Good alcohol, good company. They're a riot, almost as much fun as the real things were. Not got the stamina or the ability to hold their drinks though, I admit."

"Come on." Ianto nudged Jack up off his lap and also stood up, taking the older man's hand to tug him out of the room and down the corridor to a room he'd got organised earlier. "You, me, a warm bed and sleep, for as long as we need. Trillian says we've got a couple of days before we reach Magarathea and then... Well we can go from there. What happens to the ship?”

Jack shrugged, the warm bed was much more important, “I dunno, well until the Krikitmen steal the Heart that is, so we’ve got a while.”

“You need it, you daft git.” Jack tried to go left but Ianto pulled him right and into a silver and black room with a huge king-sized bed. The young man pushed his lover down to sit on the bed and bent to unlace and remove his boots; the captain laughed and squirmed when Ianto’s fingers brushed against the soles of his feet and he looked up in amused delight, “You’re really tired, you’re never ticklish.”

“Yeah, I’m exhausted, but it’s worth it.” He started to unbutton his shirt and smiled more when Ianto stood up again and pushed his hands out of the way to do it himself, removing Jack’s shirt almost absentmindedly.

He turned away to fold the shirt neatly onto a shelf, trying not to make it obvious that he was enjoying the touch and the scent of his lover on the shirt. Now he had the real thing back it felt silly, but before Jack found him he would have given anything for one part of Jack to cling on to. He returned to his partner, whose eyes were closed but opened when he ran his fingers through soft, silky hair. “Hey you.”

“Hey gorgeous.” Jack smiled dozily up at him with eyes so full of love it was overflowing from him and filling the whole room, “Whatcha doing up there?”

Ianto smiled down at him and kissed the top of his head, trailing his fingers down the older man’s toned chest and smiling when his breath hitched, “I missed you so much.”

The captain reached up to tug at the T-shirt Ianto had borrowed somewhere smiling happily when the young man got the hint and removed it, “I missed you too.”

Ianto straddled his waist and tilted his head up to kiss him softly before pushing Jack back onto the bed and crawling in after him, spooning up against his back and wrapping his arms around his waist, feeling his heart kick again when Jack laid strong arms on top of his own. “Sleep Jack, I’ll be here in the morning.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Arthur Dent woke slowly, then more rapidly as a smell reached him. He swung himself out of the capsule-like bed that he’d created for himself and grabbed his trusty dressing gown, sloping sleepily down the corridor to the control room. He grunted a reply, more out of habit than any actual point, to the door’s cheery ‘good morning’ and flopped down into the seat next to Trillian, across from where Jack and Ianto were cuddled together drinking coffee. The dark haired woman shrugged at him resignedly, “They won’t tell me where they got the coffee, just that I should ask if I want some. You try.”

“Will it work?” He asked Jack with a yawn

The captain shook his head and laughed, “It’s Ianto’s secret, not mine.”

“And my lips are sealed.” The Welshman grinned, “But there’s plenty more in the pot if you’d like some.”

“It’s real coffee, not Neutrinomatic rot?” Ianto’s disgusted face was enough of an answer for him and his eyes lit up, “I would never say no to proper coffee.”

Whilst the young man disappeared off to wherever he’d hidden the coffee pot, Arthur looked across at Jack. The man looked content, awake, not remotely hung over, unlike his drinking companions of the night before, “I checked in on Ford and Zaphod on my way down here.”

“Oh? Get all the blackmail evidence you require?” Jack grinned at him over the top of the coffee mug and looked round as Ianto reappeared in the room with two mugs. As soon as he’d given them to Arthur and Trillian he sank back into the sofa and Jack’s arm went straight around his waist.

The Englishman filed that away for future reference and nodded, “Oh yes. How much did you drink last night?”

“Everything?”

“And you’re not hung over?”

The captain grinned, surely that grin should be illegal, or at least not in this section of the library, “Ianto’s magical hangover cure, a good night’s sleep in the arms of the man I love and his special brew, can’t beat it.”

“That’s… You two are sickeningly sweet, you know that?” He almost glared at them, but not quite, “People would kill for a relationship like yours.”

“You?”

“Hell no, too much hassle, you have to remember things. I still end up with a daughter, don’t I? And she’s more trouble than she’s worth.”

“Arthur!”

“She keeps trying to kill me. Admit it, Random wasn’t written likeable. I love her to bits, because she’s my daughter, but it doesn’t mean I have to like her.” He shifted uncomfortably as he was complaining about a daughter he didn’t want in the company of two people who probably did want a child of their own and couldn’t have one, “Sorry, family issues get a bit weird once you’ve had the same argument over the same watch several hundred times.”

“Groundhog Day?” Ianto suggested

“Yeah, something like that. Anyway.” He took a sip of his coffee and groaned deeply, “Good coffee.”

“I do my best.” Ianto smirked, ‘good’ was always an understatement with his coffee.

“So, not trying to get rid of you but thinking plot wise, how long are you thinking of stopping?”

Jack shrugged and leaned back against the arm of the sofa, his hand trailing across Ianto’s back to rest on the small of his back, “We thought maybe later today we’d head for the Library. I want to tell Thursday that we’re out safely, say good-bye. Introduce Ianto to Melanie.”

“Sounds like a plan. Have you got Library books?” They shook their heads, “OK, Trillian and I will jump you back then, that’s the easiest way. We’ve got bit of time before we land on Magarathea.” He looked down at his mug and smiled, “You’d better put some more of this on, we need Zaphod and Arthur sober for this afternoon. Well vaguely sober anyway.”

Ianto laughed, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Jack sighed, blissfully happy, and stroked Ianto’s side gently, relief and love filling every part of his being. The young man was sprawled across his torso with his head pillowed on his chest, where the reassuring thudding of the immortal’s heart had lulled his younger lover to sleep. Ianto’s breath tickled warm across his chest and their entwined hands, which were clasped close to Ianto’s face. Jack stretched a long, lazy finger out to stroke at kiss-swollen lips, feeling his body respond as the moist air ghosted across his hand when Ianto’s lips parted slightly. Ianto’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips and investigate the intruder and Jack withdrew the digit hurriedly, not wanting to wake his sleeping lover.

He looked young and innocent, his hair was soft, springy and sex-mussed, his face was still flushed and sweat beaded across his forehead whilst his lips curved into a soft, pouting smile. Jack’s heart swelled with a comforting wave of love and protectiveness; he would do anything for this wonderful, amazing man who was at the same time young and old beyond his years, strong and vulnerable, innocent and mature. He was bewitching, entrancing, captivating, and Jack was caught; he couldn’t get away if he’d wanted to. Sometimes Jack was scared by his total devotion to the young man, by just how much his life revolved around their being together, but that quickly passed in the security of Ianto’s arms. The thing that really, truly terrified him, the thing that kept him awake at nights, that sent him running to a lonely rooftop where he could cry his heart out to the darkness, was the thought that one day this would all be gone, everything he lived for would be gone and he would be alone with no escape…

No! He wouldn’t go there, not now, not today, not ever again. Burying his face in Ianto’s hair he promised that he wouldn’t face the future with fear ever again. They had today, they would always have today, and that would have to be enough.

Their room, in an old house in the fourth level of the city, was dark; a single torch in the street below the window and two candles in sconces on the walls shed the only light, and a slight breeze coming through the open window made the candle flames dance and set the shadows flickering and quivering. The bed and the few other pieces of furniture around the room, a chest and a desk against one wall, a bookcase and a cabinet against another, were of the same wood and style; sturdily built out of a dark, heavy wood with fine, light carvings. The bed was covered in thick, comfortable covers in a light silvery-blue colour, but they only covered the couple up to their waists as they snuggled together.

Ianto snuggled further into Jack's side and looped his arms further up across his waist, moaning slightly as he did so in protest at something, although Jack couldn't work out what. Still, the older man smiled and reached down awkwardly to pull the covers up over them more, resting his free hand on top of them on the back of Ianto's neck, rubbing gently with his thumb and playing with his hair. He let his eyes slide shut and tuned his ears in to the sounds of the city at night, few and far between, just the occasional passer by and the sound of water running in the fountain in the courtyard, and the low sound of Ianto's breathing and his heartbeat, although the immortal was sure he was just imagining that. Before very long he felt the soft tug of sleep and let it claim him, secure in the knowledge that he had Ianto again.

Ianto blinked and tried to regain his bearings, wondering for a moment how and why he was in bed with Jack when he was lost in a strange world; also why they were in bed in Middle Earth, or had it all been a very strange dream? When he raised his head slightly he could see the white stone walls of a house across the street from them and hear the sounds of the city coming to life. It must be a couple of hours after dawn at least, and although this was a quiet part of the city, his hearing had always been good and was finely tuned by his Torchwood experience to hear the slightest noise. As the memories of the last day returned to him he smiled and laid his head gently back against Jack's chest, which rose and fell with strong, steady breaths. It had all worked out, or maybe was working out. They were together again at last, facing their problem together, but they were still trapped inside a book.

There hadn’t been much talking the day before, not really. Once they’d realised they had an audience (OK, once they started caring that they had an audience. Fortunately Aragorn and Rhodwine had been amused. Mostly.) Once they started caring, anyway, they had greeted their friends and done the introductions and Aragorn had got the house prepared for them. As soon as it was ready they had fallen into the bed together and not done much sleeping. Closing his eyes he snuggled into Jack again, kissing his chest gently and placing all his trust once again in his partner. Truly he didn’t care if they got home, not right now, not here. As long as he was with Jack, as long as they were together, everything else could go to hell; he could be on the moon, as long as he had Jack he would be over the moon.

Jack woke slowly and fuzzily, aware first of a hand resting on his chest over his heart then, when he opened his eyes, of Ianto’s affectionate, piercingly blue gaze watching him. He smiled, not his matinee idol full grin, although it lit up his whole face and the whole of Ianto’s being in the same way, but a softer, warmer one, full of love and total adoration, and reached up to pull Ianto closer to him, kissing him softly on the lips, “Good morning.”

Ianto seemed to consider this comment before a stunning smile lit his face and he leaned over Jack to kiss him fiercely and passionately, trailing down his chin and down to his neck, “It is now, with you it’s a very good morning.” He reached under the covers and stroked down his lover’s body, squeezing him gently and grinning when he gasped, “We don’t have to be anywhere, do we?”

“If we do…” He pulled him closer and kissed the hollow of his neck, “We’re not going to be there. The only place I need to be…” He kissed him again, “Right now…” And again, “Is right here, with you.”

“I love you Jack.” Ianto blurted out as the older man’s teeth scraped across his collar bone, “I love you so much.”

“Feeling’s mutual.” Jack smiled at him brilliantly again and Ianto’s world melted into Jack’s arms and eyes.

Aragorn looked up from the map spread across the table and smiled at the slightly confused and very relieved lo

oking couple approaching them across the marble floor, “Jack, Ianto, I did wonder when you’d come to find us.”

The younger man rolled his eyes but smiled affectionately at his partner to take the sting out of his words, “We’d have been here a while back if asking for directions wasn’t a completely alien concept to one person in this room.”

“Hey!” Jack let go of Ianto’s hand only briefly so that he could hold both hands up in an expression if supplication, “I thought I knew where we were going. And besides, I’m good at alien concepts.”

“Just not navigating.” Ianto pointed out without rancour, rolling his eyes and avoiding Jack’s hand teasingly with a laugh at his pout, “We did have a nice walk around the city I will admit, it was extremely pleasant. Definitely improved by the company as well.”

Jack shrugged and finally caught his hand, squeezing it gently, “OK, so we got very lost, but we made it, didn’t we?”

Aragorn cleared his throat before the ensuing mushiness could get started, smiled internally at the ‘you know already’ look that Ianto gave Jack and the glow that the captain gave him in reply, “So, gentlemen, what exactly is it that brings you up here? Not that we don’t want to, I’m just…”

“Surprised.” Eomer finished for him with a leer in their direction, “We thought you had better things to…”

“Do.” Legolas suggested with a smirk that was dirtier than Eomer’s leer, “Like…”

“Yes, thank you Legolas.” Jack sighed, “They call me Captain Innuendo at home, and you could really do with some lessons in subtlety and, maybe not tact, because what’s the fun of tact, but at least… Ianto help me out here?”

The young man snickered, “I think Jack means that we get the idea, and ellipsis can often be funnier than the actual word. Less is more sort of thing.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant. He’s better with his tongue, words I mean, than I am.”

Aragorn rolled his eyes, “Delightful and informative though this conversation is, what are you doing here?” He was both surprised and pleased to see them

“Oh, did we not say?” Jack smiled and released Ianto’s hand to wrap his arm around his waist, “We don’t belong here, we’re in the way and… we’re leaving.”

Aragorn nodded, “I suspected as much. Where will you go, where will you go?”

“We haven’t decided that yet, haven’t really talked about it.”

“There were more interesting things to do.” Ianto smiled at him and Legolas snickered

“Like each other?”

Ianto rolled his eyes and Jack’s face went carefully blank, only his eyes betraying his amusement, “You know, you’re almost getting the idea.”

Legolas pouted, and then looked around the room shiftily, “I’m the oldest person in this room, aren’t I? And I’m acting like a child.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Well I’m over two thousand years old.” Jack explained, “It’s complicated and I try to pretend it didn’t happen, but it did. So nuh, I’m older than you.”

“Yeah, but I’m crown prince of Mirkwood, so I outrank you.”

“I’m the third highest ranked official in our world.”

“Children!” Ianto laughed and grabbed Jack’s arse to shut him up, it worked very well as the captain’s eyebrows shot up into his hair, “We were thinking, maybe, of not going straight back there. Of getting around a bit.”

“Seeing the book world.” Jack was clearly deep in thought, “Maybe sci-fi, something almost us but not quite.”

“Do you have a library of sci-fi books?” Ianto asked, and was clearly surprised when they answered in the affirmative.

Jack added one more book to the pile and crouched next to it, looking up and down the pile, wary of it collapsing, “So, where do you fancy? I hear Dune’s nice at this time of year.”

Ianto snickered, “I’m Welsh Jack, I wouldn’t cope with the heat. How about I Robot? Or maybe not anything with cyborgs, come to think of it…” Jack reached up to squeeze his hand reassuringly and he smiled at him, “Sorry.”

“Ianto…” Jack stood up and sat next to him on the sofa, smiling in surprise when Ianto pulled him so that they were both lying down with Jack’s head on Ianto’s shoulder, “You know you don’t need to apologise for anything to me.”

Ianto kissed him softly and nuzzled their noses against each other, “Then thank you. For everything.”

“And thank you.” They stayed there in silence for some time, enjoying the shared warmth and the company that they had missed during their time apart. Finally Jack sighed, “Of course, there’s always the blindingly obvious.”

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you?”

“I suspect so.” He pulled himself upright and pulled the book from the top of the pile, the last one he’d added, but the first one he’d thought of, “You ready for this?”

“With you, I’m ready for anything.”

Jack stood in the prow of the boat with his arms wrapped around his torso. Few who knew the charismatic and garrulous captain would have believed it was him from his pose; never before had the Torchwood leader and saviour of the world looked so lost and helpless, so alone. He’d been alone most of his long, long life, but never like this. Ianto had been so close, just a day away from their being reunited, and he’d followed his duty to Aragorn, rather than his duty to his husband. Guilt wracked through him and he knew that he deserved every second of pain; he’d brought this on both of them. A secret, dark, suppressed part of him hoped that Ianto was as hurt by the prolonged separation as he was, but a considerably larger part of him knew that the young man was hurting and wanted to take all of the pain for him, hating himself for his stupid decision.

The darkness was impenetrable, only occasional fires along the riverbank and the burning city of Minas Tirith shedding any light and showing their way, but behind them a stiff wind was already blowing raggedly at the blanketing obscurity. He gripped his sword as a presence approached him and turned, relaxing and offering Aragorn a grim smile. The ranger returned it and joined him leaning on the rail as they looked towards the burning city, “Today is a good day to die.”

Jack shook his head and his face cleared as he looked towards his captain with almost his usual grin, “It’s a better day to live.” He looked forwards again and spoke to the darkness, “It’s always a better day to live.”

They stood together in a tense silence, both reflecting on past mistakes, present pains and future choices, destiny and narrativity. Before long they were joined by Legolas, Gimli and Halbarad who watched with them, all eager for the coming battle.

Jack shifted uncomfortably, his mind full of the same worries that plagued Ianto; the what ifs. What if he wasn’t immortal? What if he died and left Ianto stranded here? What if he survived and Ianto didn’t?

The wind blew them ever closer to the battle, so close now that even with the wind in the wrong direction they could hear the cries and clashing swords, smell the fires in the city and the blood on the field. They exchanged impatient and, from the original characters, bored glances and drew their swords; as soon as their ship touched solid ground, Aragorn leapt from it to lead the victory.

Ianto looked across at the burning city and felt a thrill of excitement and fear run through him, as powerful as any adrenaline rush he’d felt whilst working with Torchwood. In front of and behind him, the army of Rohan slipped through the fire pits and defences in a long line, as silently as they could; out there was a fierce battle, and before long he would be in the middle of it, fighting for his life as well as the future of this world. He had to concentrate on staying safe, on getting back to Jack. Jack…

“Bloody idiot.” He made a sound that was half laugh, half sob and brushed a couple of stray tears away angrily, trying to concentrate on what he had to do, putting thoughts of his absent lover as far from his mind as he could; not very far apparently. “And if I die in the battle to come let this be my good bye. Now that I know that you love me as well it is harder to die. I pray that God will bring me home to be with you, pray for your Marius, he prays for you.” The young man sang softly to himself, a smile lighting his lips as he remembered a trip to a local amateur youth theatre production with Jack, before everything with Gray, before two more chairs were added to his empty table. Without having to think about it he manoeuvred through the fires with the line, turning to face into the slight breeze that, he hoped, carried his lover ever closer to him.

He couldn’t be angry with Jack for choosing that road, he never had been. Jack was so used to being responsible, for carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, that he drew a distinct line between personal and important, to the extent that he often chose the option that hurt him the most, because experience had told him that doing the right thing hurt. Ianto knew, no matter how much he wanted Jack to be able to put them first, he couldn’t; he wouldn’t let him try even, even when there had been a gun pressed to his head.

He felt a stab of pain and guilt as he remembered that occasion; the aftermath of the Space Whale incident had been their first almost-argument, and it had been Ianto’s fault. After the intense emotion of the day, the highs and the lows and the gut-wrenching fear, Jack had let Rhys leave with his memories intact and Ianto had accused him of favouritism. Jack had been hurt and, even though he’d done nothing wrong, he’d been the one to apologise, to beg for a second chance, willing to do anything not to upset Ianto, the one to cry on the sofa in the Hub from the moment Ianto stormed out until he fell asleep wrapped in Ianto’s arms again many hours later. Looking back, Ianto could see that no matter what Jack had done he would have argued, because even though the lack of contact and concern he showed whilst they were at work was at his own instigation, it still hurt him when Jack stood by and did nothing when he was threatened, then just sent him into another potentially dangerous situation.

Later, he’d been able to see how much having to do that had hurt Jack.

It couldn’t be called a fight, because Jack didn’t fight back, just apologised and begged Ianto to listen to him. He’d refused, saying that he couldn’t hear him out when he was that upset and left to clear his head. When he returned he’d realised how thick and hurtful he was being and was all set to apologise, but the words were blown from his mind when he found Jack. The always strong, ever fearless captain had clung to him all night in the darkness of his bunker, crying all night with guilt and relief, and Ianto cried with him, clinging on just as tightly.

He realised he was crying again and shook the recollections from his mind, focussing instead on the muster and the battle and finding his way back into Jack’s arms.

Jack parried, sliced and cut through the Easterling army, getting as far away from Aragorn and the plot as possible. Out here the battle was a mass of seething, repeated mini-skirmishes, and somewhere out there was a young man who didn’t belong there. He skirted around a mild war going on between some Easterlings and orcs over (apparently) who stole whose stapler, then found what appeared to be a fierce game of rugby between some of the more developed rohiric warriors. After a couple of dubious tackles (he’d lived in Wales for over 100 years, there was no way he could have escaped the game for that long, especially not after he’d moved in with Ianto) they spotted him. One grinned in recognition and pointed towards the city, “Ianto went that way. He fights under the banner of the Westfold.”

He grinned back, “Care to tell me what that looks like?”

Ianto dodged a sword blow and returned with one of his own, killing his opponent with one blow. It was getting dangerous around here, the orcs had by now fled in the light, but Uruks and Easterling remained fighting, scared and dangerous. Like Jack, although he didn’t know it, he had distanced himself from the plot and was fighting his way towards the rugby game across the field. A sword came towards his head and he parried it, kicking out at the Easterling to get free again. Fighting for survival became his only priority as a squad of Haradrim warriors found him.

Jack’s eyes widened in horror as he spotted a familiar head of short, dark hair ahead of him, even as his heart skipped a familiar beat. Ianto was hard pressed but dealing well. He had the advantages of being on horseback and the spark of originality that written characters lacked. Jack surged forwards faster than before when Ianto’s horse fell beneath him and let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when the young man rose again to dispatch his final opponent.

Their eyes locked, finally, and they took a long moment to get over the shock, waiting for their hearts to right themselves again, then they moved forwards again towards each other. Ianto had eyes only for Jack, but the captain, trained by years of combat, sensed more than saw the Uruk approaching his lover from behind. With a yell he threw himself the lest short distance and knocked Ianto out of the way, feeling the sword bite through his chest where Ianto had stood moments before.

Ianto was stunned as he hit the floor, but emotionally rather than physically. Clinging to his composure he rolled, reached up and killed the Uruk, then dropped his sword and turned back to Jack, cradling the older man in his arms and holding him close. Jack’s eyes were fading and his breath came in fast, painful busts, and Ianto knew he was beyond help. Hot tears poured down his cheeks and landed on Jack’s forehead, mingling with sweat as Ianto cradled his head in his lap and ran his fingers through his hair.

“You found me.” He sobbed, fear overtaking him.

Jack raised his hand weakly to Ianto’s cheek and smiled as the young man covered it with his own, moving it to his lips to kiss it tenderly, “Always.” He coughed painfully and Ianto’s fingers tightened around his own, “You’ll be waiting for me… when I get back?” His eyes closed and he clung on for Ianto’s answer

“Always, I’ll be here.”

Jack smiled, “Love you Yan.”

“I love you too.” Ianto gasped as Jack’s hand relaxed in his own and his chest stilled, blood pouring from it.

Aragorn watched the strange man in concern; it was clear to everyone around him that the other outlander was more than just a friend. The ranger was keen eyed and hadn’t needed Legolas to point out that the two men wore matching rings on the same fingers, although it had been the perfect opening to discuss the matter with him, “You believe they’re married?” he asked quietly, just far enough away that Jack wouldn’t hear them but close enough that they could keep an eye on him; to say that he’d taken the news badly would be an understatement.

“I do, or if he isn’t they should be.” The elf frowned, his beautiful brow creasing as he too watched his new friend

“Unless Ianto doesn’t feel the same that is, which would be a tragedy in itself.”

Erkenbrand had approached them without their noticing and looked over their shoulders, “Oh he does, it was so clear when he heard that his captain was looking for him. Any man should love his captain so much that he would die for him, Ianto loves him so much that he wouldn’t, he would rather live with the guilt and grief than have the one he loves feel it.”

They studied the captain for a while, trying to process this new information. Aragorn was the one to break the silence, “Where is the young man now?”

“With the remainder of my men I would suspect, although I cannot know. He will likely meet us when we return to Edoras.”

“Via Isengard.” Aragorn pointed out, moving forwards to shake his friend’s shoulder softly, “Captain, we need to move on. Theoden king rides to Isengard in one hour, will you ride with us.”

Jack looked up at him in surprise and mentally shook himself harder than Aragorn had been able to, “Do you mean on a horse? And please call me Jack.”

The ranger laughed, “Yes, Jack, I mean on a horse. Do you not ride?” He asked, suddenly serious

“I can ride… I just choose not to. I don’t need to and the last time I rode… let’s just say it wasn’t the best day of my life.” He had hesitated, tempted to reveal his secret, but there was that question burning in his mind, what if he wasn’t immortal here, what if he could die? What would have happened if he’d died in the battle?

“Will you ride?”

He seemed to consider it for a moment before sighing heavily, “Yes, I will ride. For him, I’ll do anything.”

“You’re besotted laddie.” A gruff voice came from closer to the ground and he raised an eyebrow, “We can all see it.”

“Yeah, well…” He rubbed the back of his neck as he stood up, “He is my husband.” Jack didn’t know what he’d expected after that declaration, but he’d never expected the ‘I told you so’ grins or the way Eowyn grumpily handed her brother something subtly so that he wouldn’t notice; not in Middle Earth at least. “Am I really that obvious?”

“As plain to read as the song of the wind.” Legolas assured him, then recognised the looks he was getting from the others, “OK, maybe that was a bad analogy. Yes, you’re fairly obvious. You were terrified when you thought he was here, then even worse when you found out he wasn’t and you’ve just been miserable since you found out he was safe but not here.”

“Oh.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here. The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll reach Edoras and the sooner you’ll be back with him.” Eomer pointed out, leading the way from the fortress to the stables.

==Flashback==

As soon as it was safe in the narrative frame, Jack hurried to the group in the main room of the fortress, fear easy to read in his troubled countenance. Erkenbrand forestalled his questions by asking one of his own, “You’re Jack?”

He could only nod wordlessly, trying to keep himself under control

The Marshal nodded a greeting to him, “Ianto speaks highly of you, do not worry, he is safe.”

“Just not here.” Eomer clarified, feeling guilty for worrying his new friend, “There was a medical emergency in the town before they left. Ianto was the best qualified to deal with it, but when the time came for them to leave he still could not leave his patient.”

“He and the remainder of my men will join with us later.” Erkenbrand informed him, “Are you really outlanders?”

Jack sighed in relief, fighting off the loneliness and the desperation to just sink into Ianto’s arms and never let go as he would after a day like this at home, not possible here, “Yes, Ianto disappeared nearly a week ago. For four days I had no idea where he was, now I know… It’s just a matter of catching him.” He managed a strained and lopsided smile, but a smile none the less. “I will be relieved to have him back.”

==End flashback==

“So, Captain.” mer had ridden up beside him and startled him from his reverie, “You ride well, especially for someone who doesn’t ride often.”

He shrugged, “I used to ride a lot, it’s something you never forget I think.”

The young man smiled at him, controlling his own horse effortlessly, as though he’d been born in the saddle, “I’ve never had the chance to forget.” They rode in a companionable silence for a while until Legolas and Gimli joined beside Jack. Legolas smiled at him brightly, too brightly, ”So, Jack, how did you and Ianto meet?”

He was silent for so long that they thought that he hadn’t heard him, but eventually he looked up at the horizon, “He stalked me until I gave him a job, lured me in with a Pterodactyl and a bar of chocolate.”

“A what say?”

“Never mind.” He sighed, “I’m his boss, he’s been working for me for… Not as long as it feels like actually. We’ve only been married two months though.”

“Tell us about him,” Legolas asked, “We only met him very briefly.”

Jack shrugged and smiled softly, thinking about his lover, friend and partner, “Words couldn’t do him justice. He knows everything, he’s beautiful and he’s mine and I’m his. I’m not great with words.” He confessed, “Especially when it’s about him.”

“You so sweet.” Eomer teased him, “Now come on, before we fall behind.”

Jack stood silently, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something seriously metaphysical was going on, because when Ianto had left the book behind, he had brought it with him, so he was following the plot closely, scanning for any reference to either him or Ianto. His friends objected when he read what was happening to them at that time, but just ahead of where they were was fine. So far there had been no serious rewritings, a fact for which he was grateful. It was two days since the battle began, over a week since he had last seen Ianto, and all hell was about to break loose. Pippin was in a state of paralysis, having just stared into the Palantir, and Gandalf was making preparations to ride to Gondor with him. Sighing, the captain readied his horse, knowing how long it would take him compared to the others, and was ready to leave when the Nazgul soared overhead, chilling the hearts and minds of all those who weren’t as numb as Jack was. An air of inevitability had descended over him; he was inside a novel, which meant that narrative causality was driving his life. He was on a quest, and he wouldn’t be able to complete it easily. Damn fiction and damn the author.

Aragorn sought out his friend with a heavy heart. Jack stood at the top of the road, looking down at the silent encampment and the steady, still slow stream of arrivals. They watched in silence for a while until Jack spoke, his tone as heavy and broken as his heart, “He won’t come in time.”

“You don’t have to come, you can stay here and await his arrival.”

The captain shook his head and offered a smile to the future king, “You and I know, Aragorn, destiny is calling. Either that, or the narrative. I’m with you until one of our stories ends.

Aragorn placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, “I blame the author.”

He huffed out a laugh, “I was thinking the same myself.” With a heavy sigh he turned away from the view and blinked away a tear, “I just have to hope that our story has a happy ending. When do we ride out?”

“Two hours; get some rest.”

Ianto looked up at the twisting, twining road leading up to the mountain refuge of Dunharrow. He had a bad feeling that he hoped was just down to the dark place and the dark day, but something told him it was more than that.

With Faewine and Rhodwine he turned his horse and they climbed the twisting track, growing gradually dizzier as they did so. As they reached the top a guard emerged from the shadows to stop them, but allowed him, and only him, to pass. Word of his arrival appeared to spread quickly and before he’d finished rubbing his horse down he became aware of a presence behind him. Hope sprang unbidden within him, but was crushed almost instantly without him turning around; if it were jack he would have known about it before he even arrived.

He composed himself under the guise of finishing the rub down and finally turned, biting back a cry of surprise as he saluted Eowyn, Lady of the Mark. She waved him down with an expression of sympathy and apology, “We’re not in the story now, it’s good to see you again.”

He nodded in agreement but dropped his eyes, unable to hold her scrutinising gaze, “He’s not here, is he?”

She sighed and held out a letter, “He asked me to let him explain, he took the dark road with the Lord Aragorn.”

“I knew he would.” He whispered, more to himself than to her, then met her eyes again and accepted the letter, “Thank you Eowyn. I hink I will be riding with you when the time comes.”

They shared a look of understanding and she withdrew, leaving him to his thoughts and fears. Ianto studied the folded letter, his name written across it in Jack’s neat handwriting that was almost calligraphy; he made his way to the tent that had been prepared for him and sank onto the pile of blankets and furs where he could read and, undoubtedly, cry, without anyone seeing him.

“Dearest Ianto,

Please forgive me for going on without you. Destiny (or possibly the narrative) draws me on; I cannot leave Aragorn at this stage (I’m actually starting to think like he talks, for which I apologise profusely).

If you feel half as bad without me as I do without you then I am so sorry; you know that I would do anything in my power to keep you form any pain. I can’t begin to tell you how shit I felt when you went missing. The moment I realised that you weren’t there with me, that you could be in danger and I had no way of knowing or protecting you, I felt like my heart was being ripped out (literally, and trust me I know what that feels like), and the pain hasn’t diminished. I know it won’t until I have you back here with me, once I do I will never, ever let you go. Wherever you are now reading this letter, wherever you have been and wherever you will go, you carry my heart with you, and have done for a long time; and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love you so much Yan, you are my everything and I can’t wait for the moment when we’re back in each other’s arms. Please, please forgive me for prolonging the wait for that moment.

Forever yours, Jack”

Jack had been crying when he wrote the letter, and Ianto’s tears now joined his on the page. He set it aside carefully to protect and preserve it and cradled his head in his hands, sobs wracking his whole frame. He felt sick to his stomach with dear and longing for his partner. This was fiction, he didn’t need to eat or sleep like in real life, maybe other things were different too, maybe Jack’s immortality wasn’t the same. Every time Jack fell he felt the fear that this would be their final parting, and this time his lover was taking a dangerous road without their usual guarantee. The other end of that road was in Minas Tirith, and there was only one way for Ianto to join him there.

Jack took a moment to look around him again, eyes traversing the tall book cases and long corridors easily as he took in every detail, then turned fully to Thursday, “Pleasure to meet you Ma’am, I’ve read so much about you.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, “Who are you and what are you doing in the middle of a scene?”

“Erm… My name’s Jack, I’m looking for your help, should I…”

She was looking at him oddly, “We don’t get many visitors… You’re not from the book world are you?”

“No, I’m an outlander.” He was getting confused, “Are we actually in the book?”

“You’re in a version of the book, not the original thank God, or you’d be messing things up completely. What do you want?”

“Well,” he began, “My husband’s trapped in a copy of Lord of the Rings, and I need to get him out.” He shifted uncomfortably and looked around again, feeling out of place and almost scared. Everything hinged on this moment, if Thursday said it couldn’t be done… If he were trapped in here as Ianto was trapped in there, would he ever see his lover again? He swallowed back the fear and looked to Thursday and was surprised to find that the Cat was now behind her, watching him with the same grin he always wore. It was quite scary, disturbing almost.

Thursday seemed to have come to a decision because she nodded and turned to the Cat, “Cat, you need to go to the original, I’ll take Jack to the original library, you bring original Thursday to the statue, we’ll meet you there. She can deal with this.”

“Gotcha Thurs.” The Cat’s tail twitched and vanished one ring at a time before the Cat himself faded from view, the grin the last thing to go as always.

Jack shuddered, “That’s a bit creepy… And trust me, I’m good with creepy.”

“Are you ready?” Thursday asked, brushing over his thought trail, “We should go. Take my arm and I’ll jump us to the original, then Original Thursday can take you from there. Have you got the copy that he’s trapped in?”

“Yeah, big pockets.” He pulled out the worn copy of Lord of the Rings and traced a finger down the spine gently, “Is it possible, can I get him back.”

“Buggered if I know.” She replied bluntly, “Now come on.” He linked arms with her and felt a sensation like water rushing over him and they were suddenly standing…

Exactly where they were before. Jack blinked; they were in a long, dark, wood-panelled corridor lined with bookshelves that reached from the richly carpeted floor to the vaulted ceiling. The carpet was elegantly patterned and the ceiling was decorated with rich mouldings that depicted scenes from the classics, each cornice supporting the marble bust of an author. High above them, spaced at regular intervals, were finely decorated circular apertures through which light gained entry and reflected off the polished wood, reinforcing the serious mood of the library. Running down the centre of the corridor was a long row of reading tables, each with a green shaded brass lamp…

“Hang on.” Jack looked around and ran the description through his mind again, “I just read that. That was the last bit I remember reading before I was here, or there… Have we moved at all?”

“Of course we’ve moved, we’re in the original now, so you have to be more careful. And yes, this is where you came in; it’s the standard description of the library, really easy to jump into even with no experience.”

“Oh, OK… So what are we doing here?”

She strode ahead of him and led the way to one of the spiral staircases, running her left hand down the balustrade as they descended to one of the lower floors, “We’re going to find the real Thursday, the original Thursday if you like. We’ve never had real outlanders before, just fictional ones. Are you sure you’re not fictional?” She swung round and glared at him

“I’m real, or at least I’m fairly certain I’m real…” He shook himself, “You’re making me doubt now, stop it. I’m real, I’m definitely real.”

“Suit yourself.” She turned and continued

“You know, you’re really reassuring.” He snapped, worried about Ianto and annoyed by her cold attitude, “So what should I do?”

“Wait here. Cat will be here soon, I’m going back to my book.” And with that she was gone, fading back to her home.

Jack sighed and looked around. She’d left him at the foot of a statue of an open book where a stonemason was carving a name into the page. It was a surreal place and a surreal experience, even for a man who had seen as much as Jack had.

A familiar female voice hailed him and he thought that Thursday had returned, but he realised that this was a different Thursday. She was more detailed, more solid; more real almost. It was like the difference between the first library and this one, the difference between a photo or memory and the actual thing; a perfect copy, but a copy none the less. He remembered the Doctor’s words, ‘a fluctuation in reality’, hadn’t he said that?

Original Thursday reached him and he set aside his thoughts for the moment, extending a hand to her, determined to make a strong impression, “Captain Jack Harkness, Miss Next. Or do you prefer Parke-Laine?”

She smiled warmly but grudgingly and shook his hand, “Thursday’s fine Captain.”

“In that case it’s Jack. Has the Cat told you why I’m here?”

“Yes, your husband’s in a book. And you need to get him out.”

”Yes I do.” He nodded again and pulled the book from his pocket, reflecting that if he’d come in the clothes he was wearing, then Ianto had probably come in the clothes he had been wearing, which was…He swallowed back the memories and focussed on Thursday again, “He’s in here.”

“This is surreal, may I?” She took the book and sniffed it, then opened it to the page where Ianto had appeared, skimming quickly through it. “This is serious, really serious. Lord of the Rings is a dangerous novel, as dangerous in the back-story as it is with any of the main plots. We’ll have to make sure the original’s not been compromised but… Come on, floor 19.”

They practically ran up the spiral staircase to the T section where Thursday hurried to an entire row of shelves devoted to the works of J.R.R. Tolkein. Countless reprintings, reissues, and rewritings of the legends of a fictional world in ink and paper, reaching several feet above his head and for yards in either direction. He gaped in open astonishment t the array of books and she smiled, “One of the biggest sections in the library because of the huge number of redrafts he did, not to mention the different pressings and things. This is the first text,” she pointed to a bright manila wallet standing at one end of what appeared to be the definitive shelf, “That’s a scrap of a story he wrote when he was twelve years old. And this,” she pulled out a huge, leather-bound book that looked like an old bible, complete with embossed gold writing, “This is the final version as it would have been if he’d finished it.”

“And this version?” He held Ianto’s copy out and realised that there was an entire shelf of identical copies the row above his head, “Oh, bugger.”

“Yeah.” She grabbed a ladder and climbed up, running a finger along the pristine spines, “What’s the ISBN number?” He read it out, recalling the incident with Susie (the second incident with Susie) as he did so, drawn from his retrospection by a cry from above, “Gotcha!”

She slid down the ladder to the ground and they both pulled chairs up to one of the reading desks. Together they flicked through the library copy, relief evident on their faces as the story continued as intended, “The original’s safe.” Thursday leant back and watched him, “I didn’t think it would be compromised, but there’s always a chance if he’s got a strong enough personality.”

She was worrying her lower lip and he sighed, “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Thursday nodded, “If he’s just in one copy, it’ll revert after one reading and he’ll be boojummed.”

“Pardon?”

“He’ll get lost in the back story and have to live the rest of his life in there. The back story in middle Earth is so large that that’s possible, if we don’t get him out before the story ends then he’s got over one hundred years until the mythology finishes, at least, some novels end at the end. Middle Earth goes on and on and on, and we’ve been developing the back-story to make it a more realistic experience… If he got lost in there, I don’t know how we’d ever get him back.” She tugged her ponytail out and put it back up slightly higher up on her head, “Add on to that the fact that he’s in the middle of a war…”

Jack’s face paled and he felt sick, a common occurrence at the moment, “I have to get him out.”

“Yeah. We need to think about the best way to do this.” She scrambled back up the ladder to return the library copy and rejoined him on the floor, “Come on, we need to find Commander Bradshaw. I just wish Lady Havisham were around still, she’d know what to do.”

“You fill me with confidence.” The captain sighed

Mrs Bradshaw set a tray of tea things down on the table and smiled warmly at Jack. She liked him instantly because he hadn’t even batted an eyelid when introduced to her, merely pointing out, when asked, that he was, by many definitions, an alien searching for his husband and had no room to comment, even if he’d wanted to, on the fact that Mrs Bradshaw was, in actual fact, a gorilla. “It’s all relative really.”

Jack took a sip of the tea and returned her smile. The room was full of Jurisfiction agents attracted by the mystery and Melanie’s cakes. “Thursday old girl,” Commander Bradshaw began, “I propose a three-three formation, three to search the back story and three to follow the plots. Current information indicates that he has been separated from the plot at Eomer’s arrest, so the back-story team should start there. If we do that we can hopefully eliminate the possibility that he’s been executed before sending agents into a dangerous situation.”

“Is that a possibility?” Jack asked in horror

“There is a war on old chap, but I doubt it.” The Commander reassured him, “I would recommend a preliminary scouting party of myself, Thursday and Mrs Tiggy-Winkles to sounds out the back story and hopefully locate him. Once that’s been ascertained we can develop a further plan.”

Thursday forestalled Jack’s objections with a raised hand, “Sorry Jack, but you can’t be in the first incursion, it’s too risky and difficult for a beginner. I mean, Lord of the Rings is a well explored novel, but an individual book can be very different from the original.”

He sighed and hung his head, “I understand, I don’t like it but I understand.”

“We know, and we’re sorry it has to be like this.” Mrs Tiggy-Winkles covered his hand with her paw, “When we go in for real, you’ll be there, but you have to wait it out for the moment.”

He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighed heavily, “I know, it’s picking the right tool for the job. I’m just not used to someone else making those decisions.”

Mrs Bradshaw had offered him a place to stay whilst they waited for and he gladly took her up on the offer. The group had been gone hours now and it was just about to clock round to five days since he woke alone; five days of fear and pain and loneliness. He read some more of the book, half nervous of slipping into it, half desperately wishing that he could. A timid knock drew his attention and he looked up to find Melanie watching him in concern, “Mem sahib.” He saluted her casually and she advanced into the room

“It must be so hard, how long has it been?” She looked at the book in his hand and sat next to him on the bed

He sighed and pulled out Ianto’s pocket watch, running his thumb gently over the engraving on the back, a simple “With love, Jack” before he turned it over to check the time, “Ask me again in… thirteen minutes and it’ll be five days since I woke alone, a little longer than that since he jumped.” The double entendre of the phrase hit him forcefully and he struggled to push it from his mind.

She squeezed his hand, her soft leathery pad and coarse hair a strange but reassuring sensation in his hand, “They’ll get him back, Thursday won’t stop until he’s safe and sound and back with you.”

He smiled at her gratefully, “I’d do anything to keep him safe, which makes it worse when it’s out of my hands.”

Sudden voices from downstairs distracted them and they hurried down to the parlour to greet Thursday, Mrs Tiggy-Winkles and the Commander. Mrs Bradshaw made tea for them as they settled down and toed off their ‘period’ boots for something more comfortable.

Thursday leant back against the cushions and met his eyes with a soft smile, “We’ve located him and we’re got a plan. Captain, you’re going in.”

“To the Battle of Helm’s Deep.” Commander Bradshaw finished.

Now the cries of clear strong voices came ringing over the fields. Suddenly they swept up with a noise like thunder and the foremost horseman swerved, passing by the foot of the hill and leading the host back southward along the westward slopes of the Downs. After him they rode: a long line of mail-clad men, swift, shining, fell and fair to look upon.

Their horses were of great stature, strong and clean-limbed; their grey coats glistened, their long tails flowed in the wind, their mains were braided on their proud necks. The Men that rode them matched them well, tall and long limbed; their hair, flaxen pale, flowed under their light helms, and streamed in long braids behind them; their faces were stern and keen. In their hands were tall spears of ash, painted shields were slung at their backs, long swords were at their belts, their burnished shirts of mail hung down upon their knees

In pairs they galloped by, and though every now and then one rose in his stirrups and gazed ahead and to either side, they appeared not to perceive the three strangers sitting silently and watching them. The host had almost passed when suddenly Aragorn stood up, and called in a loud voice:

“What news from the North, riders of Rohan?”

With astonishing speed and skill they checked their speeds, wheeled and came charging round. Soon the three companions found themselves in a ring of horsemen moving in a running circle, up the gill slope behind them and down, round and round them, and drawing ever inwards. Aragorn stood silent, and the other two sat without moving, wondering what way things would turn.

Without word or cry, suddenly, the Riders halted. A thicket of spears were pointed towards the strangers; and some of the horsemen had bows in hand, and their arrows were already fitted to the string. Then one rode forward, a tall man, taller than the rest; from his helm as a crest a white horsetail flowed. He advanced until the point of his spear was within a foot of Aragorn’s breast. Aragorn did not stir.

“Who is this Ioan?” said the Rider, using the Common Speech of the West, in manner and tone like to the speech of Boromir, Man of Gondor.

The Riders all looked to a man behind the strangers who sighed heavily, “You’re supposed to ask them that, not me Eomer.” He was dressed as a rider but didn’t carry himself as one, his hair was raven dark and short, and his accent was similar but different to that of the riders. He didn’t have an air of authority, which was unusual considering how much they looked to him.

Aragorn stared at the man in shock, “Who are you?”

“I’m Ianto, and I’m not supposed to be here…”

“No, what are you doing here? Why are you here?”

The dark haired man rolled his eyes, “I don’t know and I still don’t know. You’re not supposed to notice me.”

“You look wrong, are you an Outlander?”

“A what?” He looked perplexed and quite scared, “Look, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I was reading my book and suddenly I’m in the back story!”

“You are! You’re an Outlander, I’ve never met an outlander before.” Everyone was watching him with excitement and he shied away, “Please, just concentrate on doing what you always do, pretend I’m not here. I don’t know why I’m here and I don’t know how to get out of here and I just want to go home and I know I’m screwing things up so please just ignore me.”

There was silence for a moment before Legolas frowned, “Where are you from? You sound like a man of Rohan.”

“Cardiff. Now, ignoring me?”

They did their best, it was true, but Eomer clearly looked to him for guidance and it clearly annoyed him. The three hunters took their leave, talking enthusiastically about their encounter, whilst the riders swept off towards Edoras, Ianto in their midst.

They made camp just before sundown with an hour of riding still to go before they reached Edoras, but Eomer was unwilling to travel in darkness with the climate of danger and fear; orcs already roamed the land and Ianto was glad of the spears, bows and swords surrounding him, no matter how nervous they made him. He ran his hands through his hair as he sat by the fire and felt the effects of four days without being able to wash his hair or shave, doing his best to ignore the effects of four days in a world he didn’t understand, feeling completely defenceless and completely alone, lost without the presence of his lover and partner.

His mind drifted inexorably to Jack, back home, or so he assumed. Was Jack worrying about him, or did he think that he’d just left him? Was he coping any better than Ianto was (which wasn’t well)? Who was looking after him if he wasn’t? “Oh Jack…” He whispered, feeling a tear dropping onto his cheek and brushing it away fiercely

“What’s Jack?” Eomer’s voice was close behind him and he jumped, reaching instinctively for the gun that hadn’t come with him (along with, embarrassingly enough, any of his clothes… probably something to do with his being in bed when he was last aware of being in Cardiff). The Rider held his hands up to show that he was unarmed, a reasonably meaningless gesture on the whole but a heartfelt one, and sat down beside the fire, realising that Ianto had forgotten or not heard his question, not realising that he’d ignored it, “Ianto, you called that word, Jack, what is it?”

He laughed bitterly and hid his face in his hands, “Jack’s not a what, he’s a who. He’s…”

“He’s…” Eomer prompted

Ianto paused a moment, considering the fact that there were no gay relationships (were there?) in Tolkein, but he found he didn’t care, he didn’t have the strength to lie, “He’s my husband, he’s my everything. I love him so much and I miss him, I just want to go home.”

The future king of Rohan stared at the fire in shock for a moment and then looked at his friend, “You’re married? To a man?”

He groaned and refused to meet his new friend’s eyes, “Yes, got a problem with that?”

“No, why would I? What’s it like being married? I mean, I get married, but only in the epilogue really, so I’ve never known what it’s like… Unless, it’s always just a fact for me, is it really like that?”

“No.” He shook his head fiercely, “It’s wonderful, knowing that he’s mine and I’m his and that people can’t argue with that. Some still do, people think that we’re wrong because we’re both men, but we know that we love each other and nothing else matters.”

“It sounds wonderful…” Eomer looked so sad that Ianto’s heart, what wasn’t in Cardiff with Jack, went out to him, “My sister, I think, knows that happiness with Faramir, they use their time as best they can. Aragorn knows it with Arwen, Galadriel and Celeborn… But Lothiriel and I, we know it only as fact.”

“It is wonderful. It’s completion, I’m sorry you don’t get to know that.”

“Yeah. You want to get home?”

Ianto laughed bitterly again, “Of course I do, more than anything… I just want Jack.”

As the sun rose they had already broken camp and were preparing to ride again. Ianto had spent four days in the saddle, more than he had in the rest of his life and it was getting painful. He groaned as he pulled himself into the saddle again and gazed towards the dawn, noting that the dusky pinks lighting the hills softly and the hazy blues drifting across the sky were exactly as he imagined them, a reproduction or a recollection of a perfect night spent with Jack under the stars. Everything was exactly as he’d imagine it, and it was scaring him.

Eomer gave a signal and they moved off, Ianto concentrating on moving with the horse to cause himself minimum pain but it was fairly ineffectual. The ride to Edoras only took an hour, but it felt like forever before they were dismounting in the courtyard and stabling their horses. One of the riders took Ianto’s horse for him and he sank gratefully against the wall, reacquainting his feet with solid ground before he felt able to walk again. A young woman was watching him and came over to offer assistance when he pushed himself away from the wall, “Ioan…”

“My name’s Ianto.” He growled

She looked startled, “Sorry sir. Ianto, would you come with me, we have somewhere you can stay whilst you’re here…” The young man felt guilty for snapping at her, but he was in pain inside and out, his heart and body both aching for different reasons. He nodded silently and followed her to a house away from the main street of the town. Inside it was dark but homely, with a few wooden beds placed in rows, but not regimented in any way. Furs and linen throws covered the beds and they looked like heaven… not that he could sleep alone, maybe at least he’d stop aching physically. “You can take the end bed. It’s part of the programme set up by the Bellman to make it better for minor characters in stories. A few novels have had their back stories fleshed out, nothing physical for the story, but it makes a big difference.”

“Thank you, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about but thank you… What’s your name?” He blushed as he realised that he hadn’t asked before

She smiled, “I’m young Rohiric townswoman three. I don’t really have a name as such.”

“I can’t call you that, it’s too much of a mouthful… Can I call you Alwyn?” He plucked the name at random, the name of one of his friends from primary school, God that was a long time ago.

Alwyn gave him one of the brightest smiles he’d ever seen on someone who wasn’t Jack and nodded shyly, “I like that, Alwyn, thank you Ianto.”

“My pleasure.” She left him again and he fell back onto the bed she’d indicated, wanting to cry at the unfamiliarity and the homesickness that swept across him. He felt a bone deep weariness that didn’t just come from the hard riding and the lack of sleep, and despite his doubts about his ability to sleep alone he felt it tugging at his eyes, drawing him down into a blackness that was cold and empty without Jack by his side and in his arms. Terrifying figures stalked his mind, cannibals, metal monsters and men, shadows of people gone before. He sank further and further with nothing there to pull him back, he was drowning in memories and imaginations…

Ianto woke with a start to a hand on his shoulder shaking him gently, Alwyn’s voice ringing quietly in his ears, “Ianto, please Ianto, you have to wake up…” His eyes flashed open and she started back, “Ianto, you have to listen to me.”

“Alwyn, what’s happened?” He sat up and pushed the terror to the back of his mind, knowing that it would soon return to him

She looked as scared as he felt, “Are you well Ianto, you were having a nightmare.”

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m awake now, it’ll be fine, what’s the matter.” If she’d just woken him because of the nightmare he was still grateful, but her expression suggested that there was more

He was right, Alwyn took a deep breath and glanced at the man standing in the doorway watching them, “Grima Wormtongue has poisoned the King’s mind against Eomer, he has ordered him arrested. He will come for you soon, you must leave now.”

The man strode forwards and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, “We have readied your horse, you must ride to the Westfold now, it will be safe for you there until Wormtongue is overthrown, it’s well in the backstory, but you must stay there until we know what to do with you.”

Ianto shook his head, “I have to stay with the story, I have to know what’s going on… I have to be seen, Jack had to see me.”

“It will be no good if he sees you dead.” The man insisted, and Ianto realised that this was Hama, a fully-fledged character. Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a bad thing when they all looked to him for advice, although he still didn’t know why it was that they did that.

His blood chilled and he nodded, “Understood sir, I’m on my way.”

Outside the gates he took one look back at Edoras, at the concrete fiction, and turned away from it, heading fearfully into the back-story of a fully developed world where monsters and dangers could lurk around any corner. In fact, he reflected sourly, it was just like being at home but without the benefits of weapons he understood and a warm lover to curl up with at night.

Author's Note: For Judy (is this a soon enough update? lol)

This chapter may not make as much sense to you as it does to me if you haven't read any Jasper Fforde. I promise that I will not go to bed tonight until I have explained it all, or as much as I can without getting completely confused...