Part 1 of this fanfic (specifically "A Touch of Torchwood") was written while Torchwood Season 2 was still airing in the UK, pre Doctor Who Season 4, and pre Children of Earth. It is a diligently-researched work of love that I never intended to make public; I began it for my own enjoyment, and continued it out of love, and as a means of coping with some of the grief left behind by TW Season 2. With that in mind, R&R, and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Torchwood and Doctor Who are franchises that don't belong to me. I simply like to visit their 'verse and play.

Primarily, what's not mine belongs to Russell T. Davies et al. of the current incarnation of the Whoniverse.


My name is Miranda Small. I live in Cardiff, Wales. It's nice here, by the sea. Not that I can see the sea, but the smells and sounds are interesting. I've been blind for as long as I can remember, but I don't know how it happened. My friend Jack says I wasn't born blind, but he's never told me how he knows. Typical Jack. He tells me what he wants to say, not necessarily what I want to know. But that's his way. I don't press him. He's the only true friend I have. It's worth the secrecy, to be near him. To be a part of his life. Or at least have him be a part of mine.

He's been coming here for as long as I've been here, my Jack. I have no memory of my life before age twenty, and no memory of life without Jack... but he's not really mine. He's his own man. Sometimes weeks go by and he doesn't come 'round. Sometimes months. Sometimes he comes to me smelling of other women, and sometimes of other men, but he always comes back. Eventually.

For the past eight years, I've known him. For the past eight years, I've loved him. I've often wondered, though, if he's the one that's blind.

Jack says I've known him for most of my life. I wish I could remember. He says I was eight when we first met, but I'm eight now, according to my memories. How can I claim my twenty-eight years on this earth if I don't remember them all?

I sing at a pub most nights. The Blue Danube. It's a bit small; not one of the more popular pubs; but I like it there. My flat is sterile, lonely. The pub is teeming with life. The staff changes often as people move on. Gareth, my boss, says most go off to London. He also says those who fail there are too ashamed to come back 'round. He's passed a few in the street, he says, mere months after they've left. I've known a few to come back in, though. The years may have changed their faces too much for him to realize, but not their voices. I hear them, and I do what they want me to do. I pretend not to know them. Gareth is right about that much. They are ashamed when they fail.

Cardiff is not so bad a place to come back to, though. If it was, Jack wouldn't stay. He's American, or at least he sounds American, but he's been here long enough to have picked up a lot of British terms. He says bonnet and boot, not hood and trunk, when talking about cars. He orders chips, not fries. There's something else off about his voice, though... It's not just that he doesn't sound like the other Americans I've spoken to. It's how, even when he's happy, he always sounds so sad. I don't think it's me he's sad for, either. I'm not that self-centred. I know his world... his universe, doesn't revolve around me.

Speaking of voices and accents and wording... Out of all the people I've met, I speak with Jack the most. Or, better said, I listen to him the most. He's Americanized me, or so Gareth says. Sometimes Gareth has to ask me to re-word things for him, says my accent's a muddle. "That Harkness," he says. "Always changing ye. Every time he comes 'round you go odd on me. Why don't you just tell him how you feel and have on with it?"

He doesn't know, though, about the others. Jack isn't one for sharing much of himself, but he certainly does enough shagging for five men. Am I jealous? Not sure. Should I be? I love him too much to begrudge him his small pleasures. Besides, in the past year or so it's been just the one. He smells nice. Like coffee and soap. His name is Ianto. Jack doesn't know that I know about him, but the thing is that I've met him. Ianto Jones. Clean skin and coffee, and if I hadn't recognized his smell from Jack, I'd have recognized the bit of Jack on him anyway. On his collar, like Jack had rested his head there, or hugged him. That means he's special to Jack, as Jack may be a sexual person, but he is nearly never intimate. He loves, though. Oh, how he loves!

The night I met Ianto was a quiet one. He came late, near closing, and ordered water, sitting beside me at the bar. "Hello," he said to me, then pretended I wasn't the person he was there to talk to. A quiet man. Shy. But as I reached for his hand, he met me halfway. "Ianto Jones," he introduced himself. He had a warm voice. Slightly gruff, but pleasant.

"Miranda Small," I said in turn, then lowered my voice. "Does Jack know you're here?"

He was dumbstruck for a moment, then admitted, "No, he doesn't. Has he...?"

"Mentioned you? No, he hasn't. But he comes here smelling of you sometimes," I explained. "Coffee and soap," I whispered, nearing my lips to the cup of his ear, "and right now you smell of him, too. Just a bit. He just left, didn't he? Or you did. Either way, he kissed you goodnight."

"I should have known you'd be interesting," Ianto chuckled.

"And how did you find me, Ianto Jones?"

"GPS tracking," he said, and I must have looked suspicious, because he over-explained his motives for coming to see me, and he's not the sort to blather. "I wasn't spying on him," he told me, "but Jack's a man of very few habits, and even fewer vices. I noticed he came here often, especially after a hard day, and I was wondering what was here. When I saw it was a pub, I wondered who. Jack—"

"Nearly never drinks," I concluded. "Well, here I am. No big mystery."

"But you are," he admitted. "He comes to me when he's happy. He comes to you when things go wrong."

"And never the twain shall meet," I quipped. "Ianto... Jack is... complicated. You're Torchwood, from your wording. You have a lot on your plate. Jack is your boss and you worry. He keeps things from you. Also, you love him, am I right?"

"More than he knows," Ianto said softly. I still had his hand, squeezed it gently.

"He loves you, too. That's why he comes to me with the bad. He's protecting you," I explained.

"I don't want him to," he murmured, sounding hurt rather than reassured.

"It's his way," I said simply.

"How long have you known him?"

"Long enough," I replied. "Go back to him, Ianto. Tell him you met Miranda Small and she says hello. Tell him I said—"

"He'll know I've been tracking him again," he blurted.

"The Lost Ones? Flat Holm Island?" I murmured, felt his grip on my hand tighten. "You didn't go there, did you? He said one of his workmates had figured it out and gone over."

"That was Gwen," he murmured. "I figured it out first, but she was the one who went. I figured he was protecting us from something, so—"

"But you never thought he might be protecting you from me," I supplied, suddenly finding my hand empty of his. "Ianto, wait," I said, grasping his arm as he moved to stand. "He could just as easily be protecting me from you lot."

"Us?"

"Yes. Torchwood. I don't remember myself, you see. Everything before age twenty is a blank. Was I Retconned out of twenty years of my life? If I was, there must be a reason, but it can't have been for what I know about you. The things Jack's told me! But he never tells me about me. Do you see?"

"What do you want from me, Miss Small?"

"Miranda, please, Ianto. I just want to know, have you looked me up? In the records, I mean. Is there a single mention of me?"

"Not that I know of," he told me. "I checked twice. Would you like me to check a third time? Maybe there's something I missed. Have you considered Miranda Small may not be your real name?" he ventured.

"I have. Why?"

"You don't appear in public records until the year 2000," he admitted. "Before that, it's like you didn't exist. No record of your birth, no family... Maybe there's something I missed," he said again.

"Thank you, Ianto," I said to him, smiling.

"What for, miss? Miranda," he amended. "I've just told you that you don't exist."

"That's more than Jack will say," I told him, kissing him on the cheek. "So thank you. And thank you for loving him. If he didn't have you... Anyway, thanks."

"I believe I could say the same, Miranda," he whispered, "so thank you, too."

And with that said, he left. An odd man, Ianto Jones. But a sweet one.