Glad I was finally able to get this posted. Enjoy! Disclaimer- I don't own Doctor Who. I don't own Torchwood. I most certainly do not own them both.
"You're screwing us, right, Jack?" Owen Harper asked, clearly disbelieving.
"No, this happened." Jack confirmed. "The Doctor, Rose, and me, we saved London in 1941. From a plague of nanobot zombie children, nonetheless."
Owen muttered something under his breath and turned away from the small group of his co-workers, walking towards his medlab instead, leaving the rest of the Torchwood team behind.
Jack smirked slightly at this, and glanced at his team. Gwen was watching Owen, an amused expression on her features, and Toshikio was still watching Jack curiously. All perfectly normal. Jack turned his attention to Ianto.
Nope.
Not normal.
Ianto was staring at the ground, playing with his hands, not looking at anyone.
"Ianto." Jack said, grabbing the Welshman's attention. "What's up?"
"Nothing." Ianto brushed off, forcing a smile. "You were saying?"
"I'm not buying it." Jack said, ignoring the latter part of what Ianto had said. "Come on, spit it out."
Pause.
"I met him once." Ianto blurted. Jack cocked his head to the side slightly.
"What?" Asked Gwen. Ianto cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"The Doctor." He clarified. "I met him once."
"When was this?" Jack inquired incredulously.
"Battle of Canary Wharf. At Torchwood One."
"Oh..." Said Toshiko, sharing the same thoughts as everybody else in the room.
The Battle of Canary Wharf, that had been when Lisa, Ianto's girlfriend, had been halfway converted into a Cyberman, becoming, in effect, a Cyberwoman.
Those couldn't be happy memories.
"Yeah." Ianto agreed bitterly. "Oh."
"That wasn't his fault." Jack hurriedly defended. "Not at all."
"Of course it wasn't." Said Ianto, venom clear in his voice. "All he does is save the world; He can't seem to do anything wrong, can he, Jack?"
Jack stiffened his jaw slightly at this.
"I never said that. He's not perfect."
Far from it in fact. The Doctor could mess up, and he did. Quite a lot actually. But the Time Lord always tried to hurt as few people as possible. It had been in no way the Doctor's choice to have that horrific battle at Torchwood London.
"Everybody lost somebody during Canary Wharf, Ianto. Remember that." Jack said. Ianto scoffed.
"And, pray tell, Jack, who did the Doctor lose? Who did you lose?"
"Rose, who had travelled with the Doctor for two years, got transported into a parallel universe. They will never see each other again." Jack said, voice steely. At this, Ianto's resolve softened very slightly, but an intense hatred was still scrawled across his features.
"What gives you the right to say that everyone lost someone? Who could you have lost?" The Welshman challenged.
"My wife." Jack spat. "I do have a family here, and my wife was killed during Canary Wharf."
A stunned silence enveloped the room, not even a single sound being emitted from the still-present Torchwood team.
After a moment, Jack stood up and turned towards his office.
"Everybody lost someone that day, Ianto. Just like I said. Don't forget it."
oOo
Six months later
Ianto Jones walked the quickly darkening streets of downtown Cardiff, making his way back to his flat for the night. Hands shoved in pockets, staring at the ground before him, Ianto's mind lazily ran through assorted events of the day. Not much had happened really. The most exciting part had been sorting through Rift files with a slice of pizza in hand. Thoughts of what the next day would hold slowly drifted through his mind.
Weevils, Plasmavores, artifacts, he thought. Maybe the Rift would open up and all of Cardiff would get sucked in.
That could be a bit of a challenge to fix.
Vworp, vworp
Ianto's walking halted to a stop and he wildly glanced around.
What in the world was that noise?!
As he looked around, his gaze eventually focused on the in the immediate area that was unusual.
A 1960's era police telephone box.
Glancing around and seeing that there was nobody else on the street, Ianto jogged over to the box. He stopped and began making his way around it, searching for anything strange. Save the fact that it had apparently appeared out of thin air, it was completely normal.
Creek
The squeaks of hinges in need of a good oiling sounded from just a few feet away.
Ianto's head shot up and he darted around the box, over to the side that he had first approached.
Standing there, right before him, was a tall man, clad in a blue pinstripe suit. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair was sticking up in every which direction, and he was ridiculously thin.
He took a key out of a lock and pulled the necklace that it was attached to over his head.
"It's you." Ianto said, loudly enough for the man to hear him. "Oh my God, it's you!"
The man quickly spun around to face the Welshman, scanning him with dark brown eyes that seemed older than eternity.
"You're the Doctor!" Ianto recognized. The Doctor made no movement to acknowledge what Ianto had said.
"...Who are you?" The alien asked after a moment.
Jesus, he sounded tired, Ianto thought. Looked it too. Bags underneath his eyes, leaning slightly on the blue box.
"I'm-" Ianto started, then stopped. "You probably don't remember me, actually. Lots of stuff going on that day. We met at the battle of Canary Wharf."
At the last part of what Ianto was saying, the Doctor stiffens and glares at Ianto, the eyes that just a moment ago had been so weary, now filled with absolute fury.
"Don't mention that to me." He hisses, taking a step towards Ianto, until he stands just a foot or two away from the other man. "Don't you ever mention that to me."
Ianto was about to respond, how, he wasn't quite sure, when a thought hit him.
Time traveller
It had been a good long time since the fall of Torchwood One for Ianto, but for the Doctor, who knew?
"How long?" He asked simply. The Doctor inhaled sharply.
"I thought I said-" He broke off mid sentence. "...Four days." He said, voice cracking.
"Year and a half." Ianto responded.
No answer, spare the piercing glare.
"It gets better." Said Ianto after a few seconds.
"How would you know?!" The Doctor snapped, temper flaring.
"My girlfriend." Was all Ianto offered. The Doctor stiffened at this, clenching his jaw.
"It isn't the same." He dismissed frostily. Ianto studied the other man sadly.
"Isn't it though?" He asked, shaking his head slightly.
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but closed it before any words came.
"You'll get better." Ianto eventually said. The Time Lord gave a skeptical look, disbelieving.
Ianto backed away some, beginning to turn out towards the street, just as Jack had done, all those months ago.
"Everybody looses somebody. Remember that."
oOo
"Captain."
Captain Jack Harkness spun around from the bar table, his hypervodka drink still in hand, and found himself face to face with his tall, suit wearing, jacket covered friend.
It's the first time he's seen the Doctor in years.
And he almost doesn't care.
"Doctor." He recognized. He motioned to a stool next to him. "Go ahead, sit down." He offered.
Almost doesn't care. As much as he doesn't want to, he does still care, just enough.
The Doctor sat himself in the stool that was on the left of his friend. As soon as he did so, a blue skinned being with several protruding tentacles appeared.
"What can I get ya'?" He asked, voice surprisingly smooth for his species.
"I don't suppose you have tea?" The Time Lord inquired. The bartender shook his head at this. "Nothing then, I suppose." The Doctor said.
"Whatever you say, mate." The bartender agreed, walking off to attend to someone else. The Doctor turned his attention to Jack now, noting the grief that was so freely expressed on the Captain's face immediately.
"What's happened?" He asked carefully, cautiously curious.
"Ianto's dead." Jack said bluntly. A look of surprise flashed across the Doctor's face, and he was unsure of how to respond for a moment.
"...I'm sorry." He offered.
Jack snorted a bit.
"Of course you are." He muttered.
"Really. I'm...I'm sorry."
Nothing.
The Ex-Time Agent began to bring his drink up to his mouth, when the thin arm of the Doctor firmly grasped Jac's wrist, stopping the motion. With steady and deliberate force that was inconsistent with the rest of his slight frame, the Doctor pushed his friend's arm back down to the wooden table.
"Jack. Stop doing this to yourself." He said, tone unwavering. Jack gave a bitter laugh.
"Why should I?" He asked, voice little more than a whisper. The Doctor's grip on Jack's arm tightened.
"Because it gets better." The Doctor said. Jack scoffed.
"Yeah? And who told you that?" He questioned.
The Doctor was quiet a moment before answering.
"Four days after Canary Wharf, I stopped in Cardiff." He began. "And I ran into this man. He said that we's met during Canary Wharf. The way I was feeling right then, I couldn't have cared less; didn't want to talk about it at all. But you know what he said? He said that he had lost his girlfriend a year and a half ago during Canary Wharf. He said that it gets better. And he told me that everybody looses someone."
"Well, thanks, Doc. You just changed my entire outlook on he situation-"
The Doctor squeezed at Jack's arm again and the Immortal fell quiet.
"Later, when I was back in the TARDIS, I realized that I hadn't asked for his name. And then it clicked. I remembered meeting him during Canary Wharf. And I remembered his name. Do you know what it was?"
"What was it?" Jack asked, not really interested in the answer.
"Ianto Jones."
Jack's head snapped to look at the Time Lord.
"What?!"
"His name was Ianto Jones." The Doctor restated. "And you know what else? I reckon he got that advice from somebody before he gave it to me, am I right?"
Still stunned, Jack nodded mutely. Yes, no that he thought about it, he could remember saying the same thing to Ianto, so many years ago by now, as he was hearing at this moment.
The Doctor stood up from his stool and clasped a firm hand on his friend's back.
"You'll be fine." He said. "You'll get better and move on. I know you will. Everybody looses somebody. We don't have control over that, but we do have a say in what it does to us." The Time Lord removed his hand from Jack's shoulder and turned away, starting towards the opposite side of the bar. "What goes around come around, Jack. Don't forget that."
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