The Anomaly (The Boy From Messaline)
A-World-Of-My-Imagination
Warnings: References to child abuse/torture/non-con/prostitution (nothing explicit), bad attempts at British styles of speech, non-canon in some of the oddest ways possible, plotlines from a strange mind, possible non-compliance to parts of the Doctor Who universe (I only started watching the series a couple months ago on Netflix and I'm only part-way through Season Four, so any knowledge of future episodes is likely to have mistakes), incredibly non-consistent chapter sizes, OOC-ness, pacing? What pacing?
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine except the plotline (and even that was inspired by far too many hours reading fan fiction)
Summary: Ianto Jones was born an anomaly. It seems he never really shook that description.
A/N: I know, I know, this really isn't that great – I came up with the entire plot a few days ago while listening to my iPod on shuffle. I tried to keep characters from being too OOC, but I've only really been in the fandom for a few weeks and I've yet to catch up on either Doctor Who or Torchwood. Also, I wrote most of this story in about three days, and the pacing is something to cringe at. Oh well, though, here it is! I'll do my best to upload a chapter every Tuesday. Enjoy!
Chapter One – A Strange Beginning - Messaline, 6012
"No light, no light in your bright blue eyes
I never knew daylight could be so violent
A revelation in the light of day
You can't choose what stays and what fades away
And I'll do anything to make you stay"
-"No Light, No Light" – Florence + the Machine
The ground shook slightly and the strange unit opened. It took a moment for the smoke to clear, revealing a slim blonde woman. She looked around curiously as she stepped out, and when a gun was pressed into her hands she barely even blinked.
The woman glanced up and saw a thin man flanked by two others. "Hello, Dad."
The man stared at her with a slightly furrowed brow. The woman just smiled back until her attention was diverted by a small hand tugging at her pants.
"Hello, there."
One of the men who'd given her the gun swore and the woman vaguely considered the fact that she was too young to be hearing such words. "I hate it when it does this, this has got to be the third time it malfunctioned! It's no use giving him a gun, just leave him be, he'll be gone soon enough."
The small boy – he couldn't be more than four or five - tugged at the woman's trousers once more, then looked up. "Daddy!"
The thin man's expression softened just slightly and he turned to murmur to his companions.
The woman brushed off the boy with a small apologetic smile and followed the men with the guns to a barricade of sorts. "Something's coming!" she announced. Moments later, strange sort-of fish creatures came charging down the hall. Guns sounded on both sides, yelling and gurgling and a loud, childish cry sounding over it all.
"Martha!"
The strange-fish creatures had captured one of the women and the man shouted after her. A scramble for a button, shouting and a swell of frantic footsteps, and it was over.
The woman left behind, trapped by the debris that separated her from her companions, woke to the sound of soft gurgling and quiet cries. She slowly sat up and saw one of the fish creatures and the young boy who'd come out of the machine with the blonde woman. She coughed and scramble-crawled her way over to them. The fish-creature was holding his arm and seemed to be in pain while the boy was half-buried under rubble and seemed to have been caught by some of the blast, if the half-charred state of his shirt was to go by.
"Are you all right?" the woman asked the strange fish creature. He gurgled and looked down at his shoulder. "Oh, that's got to hurt. Can I help?"
The sort-of fish gurgled and the woman took the sound as an approval. She studied his shoulder for a moment and declared it dislocated. "I'm going to put it right, but it'll hurt, yeah?"
The woman pushed the shoulder back into place and the creature gurgled his appreciation after wincing at the pain.
"I've got to help this boy," the woman told the fish-creature carefully. "Try to keep your shoulder still, if you can, don't go swinging it about."
The young boy looked up at the woman with pained eyes. "Hi there. I'm Dr. Martha Jones, I…know your dad. What's your name?"
The young boy bit his lip. "No name."
Martha looked over her patient with worried eyes. The rubble was pushing down on the boy's leg and she could see his skin had been burned, almost blackened in some parts. There was some blood pooling under the child's head - he must have hit it on some of the cement.
"No name? Well, don't worry, we'll fix that up real quick," Martha promised, deciding the best course of action would be to remove the rubble and hope for the best before any more fish-creatures came with guns blazing. Once she found the thin man, the Doctor, she could get the boy into the TARDIS and help him further. "I have a friend named Ianto, he's Welsh, that's, uh, a place on Earth. I come from Earth, it's my planet. What do you think? Ianto?"
The boy winced as Martha moved the rubble but he didn't shout. "I like Ianto."
"Well then, Mr. Ianto, do you think you can be brave and tell me about what's going on here on this planet?"
"There's a war. The Hath and the Humans. It's been forever since it started."
Martha frowned and was about to ask more when a group of fish-creatures – Hath, apparently – marched down the corridor and held their guns to her and Ianto. "Look, I'm not part of the war, I'm just trying to help these two."
The Hath she'd helped nodded and gurgled, presumably telling his comrades she wasn't a threat. Even so, the woman was urged to her feet and nudged down the hall.
"Wait, I can't leave Ianto!" She hurried back and picked up the young boy with care, trying to not move his crushed leg or touch his burned arm. "If you get dizzy, tell me, and don't fall asleep."
Martha and Ianto were marched to a large room containing several more of the machines that had produced Ianto and the blonde woman, along with many Hath. Everything after that happened quickly – a holographic map of the base, or wherever they were, was expanded (the Doctor's doing, no doubt) and the Hath marched off to battle. The Hath Martha had first met (Peck! Ianto had announced) hung back, studying the map. Martha was relieved when her phone rang (it had to be the Doctor, it just had to be) and set down her charge so she could answer it.
"Martha!" The voice on the other end shouted happily and the woman grinned. "Martha, are you all right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Ianto's hurt, though, he needs to get back on the TARDIS soon so I can try to fix him up. He's probably got a concussion, and his leg was smashed under the rubble. He seems to be all right for now, though. You?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm with Donna, we're fine, I-" Martha chuckled as she heard Donna's voice protest over the line. "And, uh, Jenny, the woman from the machine, my, um, the soldier, my, er, daughter. Well, not really, but- sorry, who's Ianto?"
"The other one? Your son?"
"Right, right, that's good, yeah, uh, keep him, er, safe. I guess. Listen, Martha, the army's off towards some sort of temple-"
"The Hath are as well! They all started marching once they saw some map get bigger?"
"Yeah, that was me, sorry. Stay where you are, be care-"
The line cut off and Martha sighed at her useless phone. Peck was still looking at the map, and Ianto was nowhere to be seen. "Ianto?"
A soft gasp alerted the woman to the boy's location and she swirled around to see him with his hand stuck in the machine, struggling to get it out. She swore under her breath and reached in to try to pull out the child's hand. Her own just got stuck as well, though, and moments later the section trapping their hands released to let the duo pull their arms free. Both had a small Y scarred into the back of their hand and looked up when the machine opened and spilled out smoke. A small, dark girl a bit younger than Ianto, two or three, probably, came out and Martha swore again. A gurgle alerted her to Peck's continued study of the map and she turned to see it had become holographic in the moments she'd been captured by the machine.
"Peck, you're brilliant! Oh, look at this! We could just go right over the surface and get there before either army, eh? We have to hurry!"
Peck tried to dissuade the woman with statistics on the hologram but she ignored them. "Look, they aren't ideal, but if I'm fast I'll survive-you want to come with? All right, you brave man, let's get on!"
Martha glanced back at Ianto and the other child who'd come from the machine. They'd have to hurry, neither was dressed well for the weather, but she couldn't leave them behind. "Come on, kids, we've got to hurry."
"Martha, she doesn't have a name, she needs a name," Ianto declared.
Martha hesitated. "Look, we really need to go, come on-"
"Name," Ianto insisted.
"I don't know, Heather, Mary, Ingrid, Sarah, Lisa, Vict-"
"I like Lisa!" Ianto grinned, reminiscent of when he'd gotten his own name. "Do you like Lisa?"
"Lisa!" the toddler clapped.
"Lisa it is, then," Martha agreed. "We really have to go, come on, Peck, can you get Lisa and I'll get Ianto? We need to hurry, they won't do well outside for long."
Peck gurgled his agreement and the group set off. They took care walking across the barren, unfamiliar ground and reached the temple soon enough. Lisa and Ianto were both shivering and nearly blue when they finally got inside.
"He'll be around here, somewhere," Martha said quietly. "I'm sure of it. Just keep your head down, I don't think either army has gotten in yet, but just in case…"
Voices sounded from down the hall, and Martha shifted Ianto to her other hip, away from the sounds of the voices. The woman cautiously peered around the corner and grinned. "Doctor!"
"Martha!" he cried back and rushed over to her. "I knew you wouldn't stay away from the trouble, you never can!"
"Oh, like you're one to talk!" she laughed back. "This is Ianto, Peck is the Hath, and Lisa is, well, there was another incident with one of those funky machines and Ianto ended up with his hand stuck. I tried to get it out and got stuck too, and, well, here you go!"
"Hi Granddad," the smaller child grinned and waved happily.
The Doctor seemed nervous, and he stretched his hand to scratch the back of his neck. "Er, hullo."
"Daddy!" Ianto smiled and held out his arms.
The Doctor hesitated, but obliged the small boy when the red-haired woman, Donna, gave him a smack on his arm. "Go on, then."
"Be careful of his leg and arm," Martha warned. "And don't let him fall asleep, he could have a concussion."
Ianto draped his arm carefully around the Doctor and snuggled into his shoulder. "I'm tired, Daddy."
The Doctor slowly lost his tense edge. "I know, sweetheart, just stay awake a little while longer. We've got to go stop a war, do you want to help us? This is Donna, my friend, and Jenny, she's your, uh, sister."
"Okay," Ianto yawned. "Hi Jenny, hi Donna."
"Ianto," the Doctor smiled slightly. "Ianto's a good name. So is Alonso. What do you say, mister, Ianto Alonso…"
"Jones!" the small boy chimed in. "Like Martha!"
"Ianto Alonso Jones it is, then!"
Pounding sounded from down one of the halls and the Doctor traded a glance with Donna. "Come on, let's go." He set off at a quick pace, being sure to be wary of Ianto's injuries.
The group ended up in a large room full of vegetation, trees and flowers at the peak of their blooms. The Doctor set Ianto down on the ground to look at the flowers and Peck put Lisa next to him. "Look, there's the Source! Ah, it's just a terraforming device. All this war, over this?"
The human and Hath armies burst in from different sides and trained their guns on the group. The Doctor explained the true origins of the Source and the war to the opposing armies, glad to see neither was rejecting the truth. He smashed the terraforming device and started the transformation of the planet – all in all, it was a good day for the Doctor and his companions.
The yell of rage echoed through the large room, bouncing back and forth until it could hardly be told where it began. General Cobb, the man who'd lived his whole life (however short it may have been) with the one purpose of obliterating the Haths, broke away from his position at the front of the human ranks and slammed into the two children who'd somehow wandered off away from the Source's pedestal. The man's momentum shoved the two kids down a rigged crack in the room's floor, and Ianto cried out for the Doctor and Martha as he fell.
The Doctor scrambled to the edge and looked down the zigzagged line. "Ianto! Lisa!"
He didn't get a response. The thin man choked back a sob, not caring that he was collapsed in a heap being stared at by strangers.
He didn't hear the shot. No one did, not in time, at least, no one except Jenny. Her eyes were brimmed with tears, but she noticed what the general was doing and dove in front of the Doctor just as the bullet spiraled forwards. Everything slowed as it hit her in the chest, and she fell back with a gasp. The Doctor caught her, and within seconds (though it seemed a millennia, with the general smiling crookedly and a ragged laugh-cough-laugh spilling out of his throat) several of the humans were holding his arms back and confiscating his gun.
"Jenny?" the Doctor asked, cradling her torso like she was the most precious diamond in the sky. "Jenny, please, please don't go, don't leave me too."
The blonde woman smiled the best she could, eyes growing fuzzy and out-of-focus. "I'm here, Dad."
"Yeah. Yeah, you are," the thin man didn't even try to wipe away the tears on his cheeks. Martha leaned down, choking back her own sobs, and took the woman's pulse. The Doctor glanced at her hopefully, but she shook her head. "Come on, Jenny. We're going to have such great adventures. We'll go see the universe, meet new people, stop wars."
"And run?" she said quietly, her voice weak and trembling.
"Oh yeah, we'll do loads of running. It's going to be amazing. You're going to be amazing. We'll go fetch Ianto and Lisa and have a proper family trip, yeah?"
Jenny smiled. "Yeah, that'll be nice."
"Of course it'll be nice, we're Time Lords, and you're all related to me! Never a not-fun day. Never can be, never will be."
"Dad?" The Doctor leaned down to hear Jenny's words.
"Yeah, sweetheart?"
"Thank you."
The Doctor swallowed. "No, thank you. I couldn't have asked for a better daughter, you're outstanding."
The thin man leaned down and pressed a kiss to Jenny's clammy forehead.
"I love you, Dad," she whispered.
The Doctor held her close, even once he couldn't feel her hearts beating. "I love you, too, Jenny."
Martha took her pulse again and looked at the Doctor. His eyes pleaded with her to give him hope, to promise a happy ending. "If we just wait, give her a little ti-"
"I'm sorry. She'd have already regenerated by now. She was like you, just…not enough."
"No," the thin man shook his head. "Too much."
The general laughed again and the Doctor whirled around, scooping up the abandoned gun as he did. He cocked it and held it against the general's forehead, breathing hard. Everything was silent for a long few moments until he turned away.
"I never would," the Doctor hissed. "I never would. Remember that, build your society, human and Hath all together, and remember the man who never would."
The Doctor threw down the gun and sat back down to cradle Jenny's body and stare down into the crack, his voice small and pitiful. "Ianto and Lisa? How…how deep is it?"
The young man they'd first met on the war-ridden world spoke. "Legend says it's a pathway, it runs through the whole base. It's always been here, leading to different worlds, everywhere in the universe. Trouble is, you don't know where you'll end up. Yeah, planets are exciting and all, but's there's an awful lot of dead space out there – you're just as likely to end up there as you are somewhere else. Legend says we've never seen anyone lost to it again, they were just…gone."
"Gone? So…we can't even get their bodies?"
The boy shook his head and the Doctor closed his eyes. The boy knelt down next to the Doctor. "Let us give them proper ceremonies, it'd help us. Please?"
The Doctor hesitated, looking between Jenny and the crack, but finally nodded.
(The TARDIS, Everywhere and Everywhen)
"Don't you want to stay for a while, Doctor?" Martha questioned back on the TARDIS. "For the ceremonies?"
The Doctor paused, then looked down at the hand bubbling away on the floor. "They were the reason the TARDIS brought us here. We just…showed up too soon, we created them. A paradox, an eternal paradox." He stared at the TARDIS' console for a long few moments. "Time to go home?"
Martha smiled sadly. "Yeah, home."
(Messaline, 6012)
The blonde woman opened her eyes with a gasp and sat up. Within moments, she was gone, headed for the stars.
(London, 1987)
"Miss Hartman? A team found a pair of children in the warehouse they were sent to investigate, no parents around."
"Children? What do I care about a pair of lost kids?"
"No, ma'am. They actually have, uh, two heartbeats. We thought you'd want to be the first two know."
"I- yes, Laurence, thank you. Are they here on base?"
"Yes ma'am, in the cells in G8."
"Would you take me there, Laurence? Tell me everything you know, this opens up so many possibilities!"