Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, all rights go to RTD I do believe...if some rights go to other people then I'm sorry I forgot you. But yeah. I own nothing

Description Time: What if Lisa had died at Canary Wharf? What if, instead of going to Cardiff, Ianto went to Scotland?

Author's Note: Umm...this is my FIRST EVER attempt at fanfiction...so daunting! Basically I hope it goes well. I want to make this a multi-chapter but if people hate it then I won't. I'm hoping some people want more because I do want to make this...you guessed it! JANTO! But there's no Jack yet...so ya..

WARNING: No beta...just me doing my best. I'm not even sure what a beta is, exactly, but I'm kind of guessing it's when some wonderful person reads your work and edits it or something. If that's the case then ya...nope, sorry, haven't got one.

A Different Path

Ianto sat motionless in the makeshift medical area, UNIT soldiers seeming to swarm in and out, their black uniforms and red berets making them all blend together into one faceless drone after the other. He knew he should be attempting to help, considering his injuries were minor save a few cracked ribs and a slight concussion. He had overheard UNIT talking about hacking into the secure archives. Ianto had almost piped up at that point, considering he had access to said archives, but he had ultimately decided against it.

A UNIT officer pause in front of him, talking to a doctor, hand resting casually on his gun. Ianto shuddered violently as images of that day flooded his mind. Waking up next to Lisa, beautiful Lisa, the ghost shift stopping, the Doctor's arrival, being sent to the archives to fetch all documents on the Doctor he could find. Those were the blissful memories.

The bad ones came after, memories of cybermen grabbing his co-workers, converting and deleting leaving no one unharmed. Memories of grabbing the biggest gun he could find from the weapons storage and guiding as many people as he could to the archives, locking them in. Memories of the Daleks, the horrible Daleks, their comedic appearance disguising their hateful interiors.

Memories of finding Lisa, his beautiful Lisa half converted and screaming in pain after all the monsters had disappeared. Memories of UNIT finding Lisa and shooting her, straight in the head. Memories of being dragged to the medical bay, screaming. Memories of being told the Doctor had saved the world, yet again. Except, Ianto's world didn't feel saved. It felt destroyed.

"Oi!" a voice called in a thick, Scottish brogue. "focus here, lad."

Ianto blinked, realizing that this voice was being directed towards him. He turned his head to see Archie, the director of Torchwood House up in Scotland. Ianto had met him a few times before and quite liked the odd man. Hartman had often bemoaned him, calling him all kinds of unspeakable names that usually boiled down to the idea that she saw him as a complete idiot. Ianto knew that wasn't true though. Archie was a genius, he just hid it well. Very shrewd, which was exactly what one needed to be in order to survive in Torchwood.

"There you are. It's Ianto, yeah?"

Ianto nodded slowly. "Yes, sir," he mumbled, surprised Archie remembered a junior researcher. Though he suspected Archie knew that Ianto's supposed job title wasn't true, just as he was quite certain Archie was well aware of just how fake Ianto's employee profile was.

"You've got access to the archives, am I right?"

Ianto nodded again. Archie smiled, clapping him on the back, making Ianto cringe in pain. Genius though this man may be he seemed to be lacking in common sense.

"Come on then. You'll be coming with me. Not just to the secure archives. I'm offerin' you a job up in Scotland. Interested?"

Ianto was taken aback slightly but nodded his head. He may as well. There was nothing keeping him in London now, and there was nothing that drew him to Cardiff. He couldn't leave Torchwood-he had denied the offer of retcon-so it seemed Scotland might just be the place for him. Besides, it was where the main archives were kept and Ianto was, if nothing else, an archivist.

Ianto followed Archie down to the secure archives and spent the rest of the day sorting them out. He refused to cooperate with UNIT, much to the delight of Archie, locking them out of the archives. Every time he looked at one of those berets he could see Lisa being shot. It sickened him. Unfortunately he couldn't keep the two operatives Torchwood Cardiff had sent up out of the archives, and was forced to listen to the two of them declare the superiority of Cardiff in loud voices. Ianto nearly punched the acerbic doctor in the face when he said the employees of One deserved what they got. Only Archie's hand on his shoulder grounded Ianto.

"So Grant Moore deserved to die?" Ianto had whispered instead. The doctor shut up, as did the tall, curly-haired woman he was with, the both of them turning to face Ianto. "His son was born two weeks ago. He'd filled out his transfer to Torchwood House a few days ago so he could be sure to live somewhere safer. He deserved to die, did he?"

The room had fallen silent. "Annie Montgomery," he continued. "Her and Dylan were engaged. Their wedding was to be in two months. They deserved their deaths, did they? And Lisa-" on her name, his voice broke, tears glittering in his eyes, threatening to spill over. "Lisa Hallett, the most amazing, beautiful girl in the world, a girl who specialised in xenolinguistics, was fronting the integration campaign, her pet project where she wanted to integrate aliens into the Earth's community, not just experiment on them, she deserved to be taken by the cybermen, strapped to a conversion unit and have metal welded to her body, implants drilled into her skull? She deserved to be left there, screaming in pain, still human, as the Doctor 'saved the day'? She deserved to be shot in the head instead of being given the chance to be saved, did she?"

Ianto choked, turning away and yanking open another drawer, pulling the files out and going over them without really seeing them. The room was silent for a long time before Archie spoke up, his usually gruff yet jovial voice cold as ice.

"Get out. You have enough."

The Cardiff operatives hesitated. Ianto turned around to see them both looking ashamed yet conflicted. "Our orders from Captain Harkness are to salvage the artifacts we can…" the woman trailed off upon seeing Archie's cold eyes.

"Get out. If Harkness has any problems he can bloody well come up her himself."

The Cardiff operatives glanced at each other before scurrying away, leaving the room. Ianto sighed and Archie nodded. "Right then. We've got all we can get, let's head up to Scotland, shall we?"

Ianto smiled weakly. "Let's."

The two of them headed out and, stopping at Ianto's flat long enough to pick up the essentials, leaving the rest of the clean-up to whatever was left of Torchwood, began the drive up to Torchwood Two.

After a while, Archie broke the silence. "Lisa," he began softly. "Was she yours?"

Ianto smiled grimly at that. "Yeah," he replied. "She was."