Rating: T
Word count: ~ 13500 (Length-training is progressing! And I'm teaching myself not to rush immediately to the end…mostly.)
Warnings: Non-consensual drug use, captivity, John Hart.
Summary: Light and heat like a dying star, a long fall down into nothingness, and then Ianto is awake again. He comes to gasping, choking, fire burning in his blood and electricity arcing through each nerve. Pain—and he's no stranger to it, not with Torchwood, but it still hurts and he's supposed to be dead. CoE fix-it.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Beta: czarina_kitty was kind enough to go after my abuse of commas and run-on sentences with a stick, while managing my frantic spazzing, and I am eternally grateful for it. I also bounced ideas off SnarkyHunter and bendyfish, who were both very helpful. Many thanks to all of you!
A/N: Urgh. Why am I doing this to myself again? (But this was satisfying to write, and makes me happy. I guess that's reason enough.) As a warning—this Ianto is much more of a woobie than I usually allow myself to write. Oops? -.-'
(Before I forget: quotes in the middle-ish are from Alice in Wonderland. Don't ask me why.)
and every color illuminates
The water is red and the sky is green, and the sand stretching out along the crescent curve of the shore is lavender. There are alien stars overhead, a nebula so close that Jack can almost feel the heat of the reds and blues and yellow-whites, a host of stars dying and reforming in the sky. Ianto stands before him, pale and lovely in the eerie light, face lined with weariness, red shirt torn and stained. He is barefoot, and that is perhaps the oddest thing about this entire scene, because Jack can count on his fingers the number of times he has seen Ianto choose to go outdoors without shoes on.
But this is not the Ianto that Jack remembers best—it can't be, it isn't, because that Ianto is pallid and weak and gasping in his arms, choking on death as much as on words of love. That Ianto is gone, and Jack admits without hesitation that he fled the memory of him, ran as fast and far as he could from the phantasm of a dying, loving man. A man who only looked at him with sad, resigned amusement when Jack wouldn't give him anything, even in his last moments.
Not a kind word.
Not a kind touch.
Not a whisper of reciprocation for the heart laid out on display.
Nothing.
"Jack," the ghost says, and it's Ianto's voice even if it isn't really him, light and rich and lilting, vowels soft and curled over his tongue. "Jack."
Pain, pain in his scalp, and it takes Jack a moment to realize that he's the one causing it, that he has his fingers laced through his hair and is wrenching at it, tearing, pulling, trying anything that he possibly can to distract and distance himself from this mirage. He clenches his eyes tight, chokes on a breath because that's okay, that's fine, it can't kill him because he can't die, he'll never die no matter what he tries.
"No," he whispers, and it aches.
The sand hisses around Ianto's bare feet as he comes closer, but it's not Ianto and Jack can't allow himself to think of it that way or he'll be lost again, swept away by fancy and longing and soul-deep desperation, and he can't. Not now, not when he's finally run so far as to come back around on the other side of normal, and finally has something resembling his old life again. "No," he repeats, and it reverberates through him, denial like a gong struck against his bones. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"Jack," Ianto-not-Ianto whispers for a third time—three invocations, third time's the charm, thrice spoke and done, three wishes wasted on a single name. He pauses on the purple sand, stretches out his hand to Jack in supplication, and it's Jack's apple, offered by a serpent with too-blue eyes and bruises on his high, sharp cheekbones. As Jack stares at him, so tempted, so taunted, another mottled splotch of color blooms and spreads like some macabre flower, red to black to green to yellow before it fades away entirely.
And then Ianto opens his mouth, lip splitting and spilling blood, and whispers to Jack, "Please. Save me."
There is fire in Jack's ears, a rushing, dully throbbing horror, and he staggers back a step, struck. Just for a moment he thinks he actually has been struck, that he'll look down and see a blade imbedded in his gut, but there is none.
Only Ianto and his desperate eyes, the light of a dying galaxy burning in them as he fades away.
A moment too late—and he always is, always, always just one step behind where he should be, always a second too late to save a single damn person who means anything to him—and Jack realizes what's happening and lunges, reaching for that pale and elegant hand.
But it's useless, done in vain. Ianto is already gone, and Jack slides to his knees in the lavender sand, under an alien sky, and screams his grief to the pitiless stars.
This isn't the first time Jack has dreamed such a thing. The number of people he has lost, even in the past few years, all but guarantees that.
Grey, a small voice deep in his mind taunts.
Tosh.
Owen.
Alex and the others.
Stephen.
Alice, in all but name.
Rose.
Ianto.
There are more names, a list stretching back more than two hundred years—almost three hundred, now, counting the years before he met the Doctor. Jack lists them all, sometimes, when he's feeling particularly morbid in his attempts to sleep, and the number is…vast.
Innumerable.
Equal to the stars in the sky.
Jack opens his eyes in the darkness of his room in the TARDIS, cocooned in warm, silken blankets and sheets, lying on a mattress softer than a cloud. But his eyes are burning and his throat is tight, and he can all but feel that lavender sand shifting beneath his boots, all but see Ianto fading away before him once again with that grimly fearful look upon his face.
He knows that look. He's seen it before on Ianto's face, when Tosh and Owen died, when Jack faced Abaddon, when cannibals held Ianto and Tosh and the Welshman used himself as a distraction to let her escape, even when the Cyberman in Lisa's body was bearing down on him without pity in her blank, bare eyes.
If there's one thing Jack never, ever wanted to see again, it's that.
Taking a long, slow, breath Jack rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling for a long moment. Another breath, this one tight and shaking, and Jack presses the backs of his hands over his eyes, refusing to let a single tear escape.
He's already cried far too much for the past, and in the end, that's all Ianto can ever be now.
He's dead, can never leave the past, and for the sake of this damned eternal life, Jack has to bind him there, never to leave.
Light and heat like a dying star, a long fall down into nothingness, and then Ianto is awake again. He comes to gasping, choking, fire burning in his blood and electricity arcing through each nerve. Pain—and he's no stranger to it, not with Torchwood, but it still hurts and he's supposed to be dead. He's said his last words, given Jack his deathbed confession, and that's supposed to be the end of it. He's gone towards the light, kicked the bucket, flown up to join the heavenly choirs.
But something's gone wrong. The light has been turned off, the bucket is stuck to his shoe, and the pearly gates are padlocked shut.
Ianto is alive when he shouldn't be, and the agony in every inch of his skin lets him know it.
Somewhere beyond him a voice is chanting, and it's a low, heavy thrum in the air. The words are lost to the sound, and that sound is swallowing Ianto up, wrapping around him like a thousand thin, silver-sharp chains and then tightening viciously. Ianto gasps, breath stolen by the sudden burst of white-bright agony, and arches. But the chains are intangible for all they hurt, inescapable no matter what torture they are, and he can't break free.
He wants to cry out but he has no voice. Something has stolen it, locked it away inside his throat—the pain, perhaps? Or something more aware?
Then there is a voice in his ear, deep as a drum roll and vast as an ocean, and the pain is receding, retreating to the edges of Ianto's consciousness. He forces his eyes open, because he finally can, and there is a man leaning over him, old and grey and lined, but with a victorious spark in the depths of his brown eyes. Ianto stares up at him, and the man stares back down.
And then the man smiles, sharp and white, and says, "You, my boy, have great things before you."
It's an alien world that Ianto is entirely unfamiliar with, a place he's never seen mentioned even in the vastness of the Torchwood Archives and all of UNIT's files. There are six moons in the sky, three dusky pink and distant, three so large and close that they feel overwhelming, a weight where Ianto has never felt one before. Gold and forest-green and copper-red, they loom in the sky like vast eyes, and it's entirely unlike anything Ianto has ever seen before.
But they aren't alone in the sky. There's a vast curve on the horizon, red and green and lavender, so distant but so close at the same time, especially when Ianto is used to seeing other planets in the sky as bits of light akin to stars. Not so here, where the sister planets spin around each other the same way they spin around the sun and the people step from one to the other as simply as walking through a door.
The planet—both of them really, for they are twins in all ways, right down to their tall, strong, fair-haired people and the bright, joyful, colorful culture—is lovely, what Ianto has seen of it. There are no wars, nor have there been in many ages. There are processions in the street outside the vast palace where Ianto has found himself confined, and he and his fellow prisoners often gather at the wide windows overlooking the road, watching the dancers and merrymakers go past.
Sometimes, when the copper-red moon is full in the sky, there is a market on the other side of the palace, full of bright tents and laughter and throngs of people dressed in all colors save white or black. On those days, the air is filled with the scent of foreign spices and hot meats, bread and food and herbs, sweet perfumes and the sharp bite of the local brews. Market days are harder to watch, because there is always a need for Ianto and his companions on those days, and the guards come for them before the sun rises, dressed in black with gauzy scarves wrapped around their heads to cover their faces.
Market days mean waking up to the smell of incense and the gentle insistence of the brightly-garbed servants, who never touch but direct Ianto's hands to towels and soaps and chivy him into scented waters, then urge him out with soft words as they hand him the heavy white robes and golden jewelry of the office. They rarely speak more than a few whispers at a time, never meet Ianto's eyes and always step away from him whenever there is room, but they are far less unsettling than the tall, silent guards, who never touch him, never lay a hand on him unless he forces them to. That's perhaps the most disturbing thing of all, after the look of worship in their eyes.
Then the doors of Ianto's private room are thrown open, and the guards flank him through the palace. The halls are marble, white as milk, and the floors are tiled in gold-gilt and silver-grey, almost too fine to tread upon. The walls are bare, and the lights are bright, and there are sweeping arches and grand domes wherever the eye falls, inspiring awe.
On market days, there will be others in the halls, black-clad guards with smaller figures in white between them. The guards lead them to great doors bound tightly shut, secured with dull-grey chains and heavy padlocks. Ianto and the others are never allowed past these doors without the guards around them, never permitted to set foot where someone might see them without being robed and escorted and watched, tied in up chains of formality and office and ceremony.
But on market days, the guards undo the padlocks and throw open the doors of the palace, and they march out in threes, black and white a sharp contrast to the colors of the twin worlds, the bright-clad people parting before them in a wave of murmurs and whispers.
"Gatekeepers," they say, and there is awe in their voices and in their eyes, the way they watch the figures in white until they are blocked from view. "The Gatekeepers are among us."
The guards walk them to the Ways, wide, circular plazas set at strategic points throughout the city, with streets leading out in all directions. Platforms rise from the center, wide enough for six men to pass abreast, with stone slopes leading down to the street on either side.
Then the Gatekeepers step up onto the platforms, one in each plaza in the city. They bow their heads, wait for the guards to step back, and then open the Gates.
Ianto hates the pomp of it all, the solemn ceremony that hides the fact that the Gatekeepers are prisoners trapped in golden cages with no way out, but even he can admit that the Gates are beautiful, entrancing, and that the power is a heady drug, its use burning like concentrated ecstasy through his veins. Each Gate is unique to the one who opens it, little differences that set them apart, and Ianto's are as blue as a Welsh sky on a summer afternoon, wide and tall and open. Energy crackles around the rim, bright and lively, and they take hardly any effort to maintain as the people file through, passing from one planet to the other with their large families and colorful clothes and cheerful voices, carts overflowing with their wares pulled along behind them. Many of them call out their thanks, others whisper it with wonder in their eyes, but Ianto doesn't smile, rarely looks up at all until bells chime the late hour and another Gatekeeper arrives to replace him as the people throng the plaza again, preparing for their return.
The Gates are beautiful, and the power used to open them takes Ianto's breath away, but they're tiring. Each one opening feels like a bruise left on his skin, aching for days afterwards. Ianto staggers as he lets the Gate slip closed, and it's the other Gatekeeper who reaches out to catch his arm and steady him. Their guards hover, three steps away, but don't approach as the other Gatekeeper tightens her grip on Ianto's elbow. There is a question in her eyes, a murmured question on her lips, too soft for anyone but the two of them to hear. Ianto meets her crimson cat-eyes—because there are not just humans here but aliens as well, to both Ianto and the people of the sister-planets—and manages a faint, wan smile in answer.
Then she lets him go, bows her head, and opens a Gate that is the same deep violet as a crocus against the snow, edged with bronze ripples. Her guards take up position on either side of her, far enough away that they won't touch her even accidentally, and Ianto's flank him and escort him from the plaza.
Night falls over the city as they make their way back to the palace. The market is closed, the people fading back into the city with only the memory of laughter to mark them. There are other Gatekeepers in the streets, and they look as weary as Ianto, their steps slow and stumbling. Some assist each other, but the majority—like Ianto—grit their teeth and make their way on their own, no matter how gradual their progress.
The guards never complain, never speak; if anything, the worship in their kohl-painted eyes is more fervent than ever at times like these.
As the last Gatekeepers file into the palace, the doors are chained shut behind them and they are reduced to caged songbirds, elevated to venerated prisoners once more.
It never ceases to amaze Ianto, the reverence with which the people of these worlds treat the Gatekeepers. They are like demigods, like saints, pillars of this culture and the base on which these people's lives are constructed. The Gates that link the sister-planets are what allow trade, communication, travel in a society that has never found any need for advanced technology like spacecraft or cars. People walk or travel through Gates, and there is rarely conflict when all of the people are so similar from the constant mixing of cultures, which have slowly but surely melted into each other until they are indistinguishable.
The Gates make it possible, and the Gatekeepers are the only ones who can open and maintain the Gates.
"White is for divinity," the old man who brought Ianto into this world says, stroking long, age-thin fingers along the spines of the books before him. The library is quiet and bright, dust motes drifting through the sunlight and spinning around the tall shelves. It smells crisp, and clean, like ink and paper and the cloth bindings on the books. "In this world, only the Gatekeepers are permitted to wear it, because only the Gatekeepers are important enough to be considered divine. You are this world, in a way, my boy."
Ianto is seated on the wide window seat, a book on the history of the city open on his lap. His eyes are on the street outside, however, and on the forest-green moon hanging full and bright in the paler green of the sky, so low that it seems about to touch the earth. When Ianto half-closes his eyes and lets his mind drift, just a little, he can see sparks and streamers in the air, blue and gold and black, red and orange and brilliant violet, dancing as the wind changes in the same way the dust motes do in the sunlight. They're thick over the city, brightest where Ianto knows the plazas lie, where the Gates—smaller on days without the markets, kept to a size that two or three people can pass through at a time—are being maintained.
The sparks are power, Ianto knows, the force that the Gatekeepers can tap into to open the Gates, the way they can speak to each other over long distances or call up images of places they've never seen and then Gate there without trouble.
In his heart of hearts Ianto has always wanted to have power, to have an ability like this and be special, or at the very least useful. He's grateful to this man, who pulled him out of the circle of life as he moved from one stage to another and brought him here, created a new body in the image of his old one, who gave him this talent and taught him to use it.
But somewhere, in the back of his mind, Ianto wonders. He's trapped here, a supremely useful songbird in a gilded cage, kept in check by the guards and this old man, the Steward. It's very likely that, unless he can find some way to break free, he'll never see Jack—or Earth—again. Surely, he thinks sometimes, death would have been better.
The Steward is watching him, brown eyes bright with knowing. He's a prisoner here, too, but he seems to have accepted his lot as the one to find new Gatekeepers to swell their ranks. That's something Ianto is certain he will never do.
"You are a Gatekeeper," the Steward tells him, and there is amusement in his voice. "You have everything you could ever desire here and you are held in awe by the people. They love you for what you are. What more could you ask for, my boy?"
"Freedom," Ianto suggests dryly, and it isn't the first time they've had this conversation. Nor, he's certain, will it be the last.
The old man shakes his head, perfectly on cue. "It is for your own protection," he assures Ianto. "Once, we didn't guard the Gatekeepers as we do now, and a war started over their abilities and one group's desire to control them. In the end, only three Gatekeepers were left alive. That was when we began taking those with potential from other planets, those who were not affiliated with anyone in our world, and making sure that none could control or capture the Gatekeepers. It has worked for almost a thousand years now, and I do not see it changing."
Truthfully, Ianto can't see it either, but that doesn't stop him from hoping. He's been here long enough that the aching pain of separation and loneliness have dulled, settled into a soul-deep burn that he tends like a fire in the wind, feeding it with bits of injustice and anger and resentment, woven into a fabric of escape escape escape.
Ianto dreams only rarely on this planet where time runs strangely to his mind. There are no seasons that he's witnessed and the months are all but impossible to mark with six moons in the sky. The twin planets, too, make it hard to tell days apart, since they rotate around each other at the same time they rotate around the sun.
As far as Ianto has been able to tell, the days are longer than they are on Earth, almost half again as long perhaps, but there are a few hours of darkness in the middle of each day, caused by one planet crossing the other's path. The people tend to use the stretch of darkness as a short rest period, everyone retreating back inside their homes to sleep.
This darkness, rather than the fall of full night, is what brings on Ianto's dreams.
When he does dream, more often than not it's about these sister-planets rather than Earth, about the people he's met here rather than the people he knew. Sometimes, he dreams of the two places mixing, of Gwen and Tosh and Owen in this world's bright clothes, or Jack standing with him dressed in the black of a guard.
Other times, it's of the last Gatekeeper who tried to escape.
The man stands before him in his dream, an alien Gatekeeper with green skin and a craggy face, a warrior's fierce and fearsome honor. He is friendly enough to Ianto, though withdrawn, but there's something about him that makes Ianto follow his slim green form with his eyes as the man stalks across the common room to the wide bank of windows. There is a parade in the streets, bright and loud with music and laughter and people dancing. Ianto is tempted to go over and watch it with him, but before he can rise Sekheme latches on to his elbow and holds him in his seat. Her crimson cat-eyes are narrowed warily, and her mouth is open just a bit, as though she's scenting the air.
"No," she says softly, warningly. "He's…different."
Ianto glances at her, surprised, because she's the type to be a friend to anyone, and was the first to make him welcome when the Steward brought him in, half-conscious and nearly blind from the strange lights that filled the atmosphere like scents made visible. "What?" he asks softly.
There is a rush of air before she can answer. Ianto twists around automatically, looking back towards the green-skinned man. The power in the air—quintessence, the Steward calls it— is dancing, whirling around the man as he bows his head.
A Gate, Ianto realizes one moment too late. He's opening a Gate.
They've been warned, all of them, that Gates are only to be opened in designated areas, and that they'll only work if they're opened from one sister-planet to the other. But Ianto can feel in the air, in his bones, that the man isn't trying to move between the two worlds.
The target of his Gate is much, much further out.
A cry breaks the startled stillness and two guards burst into the room, the Steward half a step behind. Ianto makes to move again, thinking to pull Sekheme and himself out of the line of fire, and she obviously has the same idea. But, even as they make it to their feet, the Steward raises a hand, clenches his fist, and wrenches every bit of quintessence out of the room.
The Gate dies stillborn as every one of the Gatekeepers feel the power torn out of their bodies. Most fall, crying out in sudden, shocking agony, some to their knees and some all the way to the floor. The Steward couldn't have gotten a stronger reaction if he'd pulled all the air from their lungs and from the room.
The guards, unaffected, take the opportunity to pin the green-skinned man down and bind him with silken ropes. He struggles, but like the rest of them he's hindered by the crippling lack of power, by the painful, gaping void where that power once was, and they subdue him easily enough.
As they drag him away, the Steward lowers his hand and uncurls his fingers and the quintessence floods back around them, washing over and filling the emptiness like salve spread over a burn. Ianto gasps for breath, on his knees with Sekheme beside him, both of them curled close in pain. Their eyes meet, horrified and a little terrified, and they turn to look at the Steward.
The old man stares around the room, his mouth a tight line, and then nods once. "A warning to you," he says courteously, and sweeps after the guards.
Two days later, the green-skinned man is escorted past the common room on his way out into the city. His eyes are glazed over and he is only barely standing on his feet. There is a smell of herbs and chemicals around him and no words can reach him.
No one tries to Gate out of the palace after that.
Ianto has been a citizen of the sister-worlds for what feels like a year (but in all likelihood is not quite that long) when the next Gatekeeper tries to escape from the gold-and-marble palace.
This time, it's Sekheme.
It's not as visible and flashy as the previous time because Sekheme is not the type. Her guards are the ones to find her in the bath, wrists shredded, blood draining from her body. She's still alive, though, screaming her fury at them, so loud and fierce and vibrant that Ianto knows at a glance why she is so angry.
The realization knocks the breath from his lungs as his own guards lead him past, makes him stagger and grab a hold of the wall to stay upright.
There are still Gatekeepers in other palaces, in other cities, who remember the aftermath of the war to control their order, nearly a thousand years ago.
Sekheme has all but bled herself dry and still lives.
It seems so obvious, looking back, so clear. Ianto feels he should have realized sooner, calls himself an idiot and a fool that he didn't.
The Gatekeepers cannot die.
Immortal, Ianto thinks, and his mind is full to bursting with another immortal, one more dear to Ianto than his own life ever was, even when it was finite. He curls his hand into a fist over his heart, breathes steadily and evenly until the world stops spinning, and thinks, Jack.
Gates are fallible and death is no escape at all. Ianto plans his own escape meticulously, attentive to every detail. His only real hope is to get out of the palace and either blend in with the natives or go to ground and wait for one of the ships that visit the planet occasionally. If he's lucky, he'll be able to barter a passage back to Earth.
If he's very lucky, the Steward and the guards won't catch him before he has the chance to try.
The other Gatekeepers come from all walks of life; there are warriors and simple citizens, politicians and the elite, working class and poor, priestesses and scholars and engineers and spaceship captains. All of them died and all of them have been brought here, made into Gatekeepers without their permission and then locked up in the palaces scattered over the planets. Ianto has an advantage in this sort of thing over some of them, but less of an advantage compared to others. Being Torchwood is good for one's resourcefulness, at least.
The first time Ianto sees Sekheme after her attempted suicide, she looks at him across the table in the common room, over their game of three-dimensional chess. She's a little paler than normal, a little more subdued, but when she scents the air around Ianto and then looks at him narrowly, it's with the same fierceness that she's always had.
"You're planning something," she says at length, soft but certain, as she turns back to the game and moves her bishop.
"Whatever do you mean?" Ianto asks politely, countering with his knight. She snorts softly, puts him in check, and drops the subject.
Ianto is grateful.
Most Gatekeepers try at least once to escape, Ianto has found. Most of them will share their stories of what happened, if asked, and even if they won't Sekheme is usually aware of at least the bare bones of the incident. So far, Ianto has found that nearly everyone who's tried has made some sort of attempt to Gate out and been thwarted by the Steward, who seems preternaturally aware of the movement—natural and otherwise—of the quintessence in the city.
But, while Ianto is quite appreciative of the fact that he now has power, he's spent his entire life as the average one, getting by on common sense and willpower and a touch of cunning, rather than flashy genius. His childhood gave him experience in that, and Torchwood even more. Ianto likes this new ability, is grateful to it for being the reason he's not still dead at the hands of the 456, but he doesn't rely on it.
Cunning, Ianto thinks, his gaze drifting from the board to the wide, bright widow. That's the ticket out.
The water is red and the sky is green, and the sand stretching out along the crescent curve of the shore is lavender. Jack stands with the waves creeping slyly towards his boots and an unfamiliar moon overhead, and watches Ianto walk towards him through the gentle surf.
There are more bruises than before, Jack can see, over Ianto's face and down his arms, though Jack isn't certain whether they're new or simply visible now that Ianto has shed his red oxford. In its place is a long sleeveless tunic, blindingly white, and there's a golden chain wrapped three times around his throat.
Ianto looks good in just about anything, really, but Jack can't help a faint feeling of unease at the sight of him in such colorless clothes. Ianto's always been a fairly colorful person, even back in the beginning when he limited himself to bright ties and the occasional shirt, and right now it seems as though all of that brilliance is being leached out of him. He's paler than he should be, the bruises darker, and—
But no. He's not, because this is not Ianto, and Jack shouldn't try to convince himself it is. Not when the thought of being wrong (of losing him again) fucking tears Jack open somewhere deep inside.
"No," he spits at the phantasm, the ghost of a past he's turned his back on, fled from with all of his might. He stumbles back a step. "No, this isn't happening. You're dead, so go away and leave me alone."
"Jack." The vision frowns at him, that dearly remembered, slightly rebuking expression that hurts like nothing the Master ever did to him. "Jack, just listen to me—"
"This is a dream," Jack says wildly, looking around for Grey and Tosh and Owen, Stephen and Alex and all the other people he's lost over the years, because they have to be here somewhere or the torture isn't complete.
At that not-Ianto's face softens, edges into something Jack only ever saw in private, and he stops walking, standing with the wavelets sliding over his feet. "Oh, Jack," he says sadly, fondly. "You would have to be half-mad to dream me up."
It's a quote; Jack knows that much. Lewis Carroll, unless he's wrong, and that's so apt he could just about cry. "There's no use in trying," he returns, breathless and aching, because Ianto has—had, Ianto had always loved quotes, and sometimes he and Jack would have whole conversations just like this. "One can't believe impossible things."
There's a faint smile tugging at the edges of Ianto's mouth, though he's entirely solemn as he offers, "I daresay you haven't had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Jack wants to laugh. He wants to cry. The waves brush against the toes of his boots and he fists his hands against his eyes, pressing as though doing so will drive out this ghost that is so very much like the man he lost. "Enough," he whispers and then repeats more loudly, "Enough! I can't—I can't do this. You can't do this to me! I just—you're gone! So leave, go away, and don't come back! You're dead and nothing else matters, Ianto!"
For a long moment, there is no sound but the whispering waves. Then Ianto takes a step back, and another. He raises his head, and there are more bruises blooming, streamers of light flickering in the air like the aurora borealis has wrapped itself around him. When Jack chances a look up, Ianto is still smiling sadly. "You used to be much more…'muchier,'" he quotes and while it's not quite disappointment in his eyes, it's something close. "You've lost your muchness." He raises his head to stare up at the sky, at the moon high above and the two smaller ones just rising, and whispers, "If that's something I did…I'm sorry, Jack."
He fades like mist at sunrise, little particles of light and water breaking apart, and somehow it's like losing him to death all over again.
If it's something I did, Jack thinks, opening his eyes in the TARDIS. He laughs, but there's no amusement in it at all.
Of course it's something you did, Ianto. He rolls over and buries his face in the thick pillow, willing down the acid burn of tears. Of course it's your fault.
You died.
On market days, it's always surprising how quickly the streets of the city empty. Ianto is used to Cardiff, to London, to places where the night has a life of its own. Not so here, where the sun goes down and stillness settles over the streets, doors and windows closed tightly to keep out the dark.
There are guards on either side of him, walking precisely three feet from him at all times—never quite close enough to touch, but close enough to protect him if anything happens.
Or stop him if he attempts to open a gate.
But Ianto isn't defined by his abilities. He's more than the sum of his new powers.
They turn the corner, heading away from the Way and back towards the palace. Ianto counts streets as they go. The guards are good—and they know the value of calling for help if need be. But Ianto has been studying maps of the city for weeks now, and histories, and he knows that twelve streets from the Twelfth Way is a stretch of the city that is particularly complex. Normally, the Gatekeepers and their guards only skirt it, because it's rather far from anything and no other Gatekeepers' routes to or from the palace run through it.
It's exactly what Ianto needs.
One streetlight, two streetlights, three streetlights in, but the fourth is dark. Ianto watches it approach, a pool of shadow where three smaller roads branch off the main. Two steps into the darkness and then Ianto moves, as swiftly as he knows how, one hand lashing out low and hard to catch the right-hand guard in the kidney. Ianto was a bit of a criminal as a child, got into enough fights to know that dirty is always the best way to go, so when the left-hand guard grabs at him he half-pivots and drives his knee up into the conveniently presented groin. The man goes down in a whisper of black veils, and the other one grabs Ianto's shoulder. But it's a hesitant grip, because she's never touched Ianto before, and he uses that to his advantage. He hooks an arm around her wrist, turns hard to pull her off-balance, and slams his elbow into the side of her head.
She goes down, too, and Ianto wastes no time bolting for the maze of streets.
No one chases him.
The first thing Ianto does, once he's far enough away from any Ways and any of the routes the Gatekeepers take to and from the palace, is shed his soft white slippers, his bulky white robes, and the gold chains weighing him down. It pains him a little to part with the gold, not for avaricious reasons, but because Ianto is eminently practical and the pile of jewelry is doubtless enough to buy him passage off this world. But Ianto is even more cautious than he is practical and common sense says that the chains are doubtless able to be tracked or traced somehow.
He leaves them in the gutter, along with the white robes.
The people of this world don't seem to fear crime, as many leave their washing out on lines beside the street. Ianto feels only a little guilt taking what he needs; he's stolen before, was a bit of a cat burglar before he met Lisa and she pulled him, kicking and screaming, back onto the right path. This time the need is much more dire, at least as far as Ianto's freedom goes, so he swipes a few veils and some clothes that will be simple enough to move in, and slides back into the shadows.
There's a small spaceport on the western edge of the city. The people here might not want to travel themselves, but they understand the value of off-world trade, and the ships that touch down are polite enough to keep to the ruins of an old town that's nearly been swallowed by the jungle.
It's Ianto's main hope, really.
If he can get passage—even stow away—on a ship headed in the vicinity of Earth, he'll be free. As nice as the thought of waiting for Jack to rescue him is, in the end, if Jack doesn't—won't—believe him, it's just a fantasy.
And maybe it's all just a fantasy anyway. The Steward has mentioned that a Gatekeeper's dreams are more vivid, closer to truth than anyone else's, but he's said nothing about Gatekeepers being able to travel vast distances and speak to others in them. Perhaps Ianto has simply been imagining the purple beach, though Jack's been entirely uncooperative and Ianto would like to think that his fantasy of Jack isn't a stubborn, mule-headed bastard.
Ianto pauses where three streets come together, takes a moment to get his bearings, and breaks into a run.
He's four hundred yards from the edge of the city, where sand-pale and sun-baked streets fade to hard-packed dirt, when his footsteps gain an echo.
Ianto doesn't make it easy for them; he can at least say that for himself. By the time the guards corner him against the crumbling ruin of that was once the forsaken town's boundary wall, he's managed to reduce their number by half. And, while none of the damage he's inflicted is the deadly type, it's more than enough to hold them off for a good while.
But there are too many of them, seven to Ianto's one, and those odds are looking grimmer with every step towards him that they take. It's tempting to think of opening a Gate, stepping through and vanishing into whatever unknown space is on the other side, but the memory of having his power torn from him so viciously stills Ianto's hand at the critical moment.
Then the guards lunge at him, no hesitance at all in their touches now, and Ianto feels himself dragged to the dusty ground. One of them, hanging back, is carrying a syringe and a small glass bottle and at the sight of it Ianto fights harder, twists and writhes and bucks as he tries to throw them off. But seven to one are no odds at all, and two guards pin his shoulders to the ground as another lies full out over his legs and a fourth stretches his arm out and pushes up his sleeve.
The bite of the needle feels like defeat, and Ianto closes his eyes against the sudden, dizzying rush of the drug in his blood. It brings darkness with it, full of misty shapes and looming shadows, terrifying and bewildering in equal measure. Ianto wants to fight it, wants to cry out and have Jack appear like the dashing hero he's always been for a last-minute rescue but there's no relief to be had, not here and not now.
Jack won't even believe in him when he asks—begs—for help.
Jack's not going to save him this time.
Like Canary Wharf, Ianto thinks, and it's probably going to be his last coherent thought for a while. But it sparks something, some bit of memory of the Doctor in his badly fitting brown suit standing up to Daleks and Cybermen and Yvonne Hartman. As the rush sweeps Ianto away entirely, he lets his eyes fall closed and casts his mind out and away from the drugged darkness, carried on the bright quintessence in the air.
The Doctor, he thinks, remembering all of Jack's stories and the accounts in the Archives, UNIT's whispered tales that sound too fanciful to be real but doubtless are anyway. The Doctor, he thinks again, and all is lost to streamers of color, like the Northern Lights come down to earth.
The Doctor opens his eyes to red water and a green sky, purple shoreline leading away, and is immediately fascinated. "Oh!" he exclaims, spinning on the spot to take in the entire view. "This is new! Never been here before."
The man standing a few yards away chuckles a little and smiles at him. He's tall and pale, dark-haired and heavily bruised, dressed in elaborate white robes but bound hand and foot with delicate golden chains. "Doctor," he greets amiably enough. "I've been wanting to meet you for a long time now."
The Doctor pauses. "You have?" he asks with a bit of trepidation, because there are several variations of that opening that he's heard over the years, and he can't remember the last time one lead to anything good.
His wariness seems to amuse the man, who nods. "Yes," he says. "You stopped the Cybermen at Canary Wharf. Without you, I and twenty-six others would have died, and I never got the chance to thank you for that."
Canary Wharf. The Doctor goes still, narrowing his eyes faintly at the man. "You're human?" he asks after a moment. "You were there?"
"Yes." The man huffs a faint laugh, a little melancholy and a little distant. But then his smile returns, and he offers, "Jack told me a lot about you, too. Of course I'd want to meet you, after that."
Jack. The Doctor narrows his eyes suspiciously, because this man is handsome and breathing, which means he's very much Jack's type. "You know Jack?" he asks, halfway hoping not to get an answer. "Do you mean on a social level, or biblically?"
With a snort, the man shakes his head. "Regarding Jack, that's about the same thing," he counters with no little amusement and a great deal of fond tolerance.
Grimacing, the Doctor concedes the point. "All right. But what's with bringing me out here? You can't just drop by the TARDIS for a cup of tea?"
The man's smile fades, and he shakes his head again. "No," he murmurs, lifting his hands to emphasize the point. They're entirely wrapped in thin gold links, bound so tightly the Doctor can see bruises forming on his fair skin. "I'm a bit trapped at the moment. They've got me and all the other Gatekeepers imprisoned. We can't leave, and if we try to escape…"
His expression says it all.
The Doctor is, at heart, a nosy neighbor with a bit of a hero complex. He's long since accepted it, and therefore doesn't fight the sweeping urge that shouts help, help, help him in the back of his mind. "Do you know the planet?" he asks, peering upwards to try and get his position from the stars.
There's a long moment of silence, and then the man says slowly, "You're going to…rescue me? Just like that?"
"Well," the Doctor says agreeably, "it will doubtless get a bit more complicated than that. These things always seem to. But sure, why not?"
"Jack didn't believe me," he murmurs, nearly too soft to hear. "You're willing to, but Jack didn't even consider it. He thinks I'm still dead, and won't consider any alternatives."
"Ah. Well." The Doctor frowns a bit, tucking his hands into his pockets and rocking on his heels. "Jack's been through a bit of a rough time recently. Lost his grandson, and someone he won't tell me about."
The man goes still, all but his eyes, which slowly darken. "Stephen?" he asks after a moment. "He lost Stephen?"
Obviously, this man is much closer to Jack than the Doctor had considered. He nods, filing that thought away for future contemplation, and says briskly, "Well, I don't know you from Adam—or Eve, as the point may be—and since I'm dreaming about you, there must be something to it. Or I really shouldn't have eaten that curry last night." He rocks on his heels, already excited at the prospect of another stop on an unfamiliar planet, and what will doubtless be an enjoyable adventure. These kinds of things always are. "Do you know the planet, then?"
Shaking his head, the man turns and raises a hand, pointing across the red sea to where a vast, pale violet curve is just rising over the horizon. "Twin planets," he offers. "Six moons in the sky, a nebula visible at night, and people who dress in every color save white and black. The Gatekeepers open passages back and forth between the two planets. Is that enough for you to go on, Doctor?"
The Doctor taps his chin thoughtfully, and then nods decisively. "Plenty," he assures the man. "You're—"
The shoreline begins to waver, as though suddenly covered by a heat haze, and the sky darkens to deepest black. The man looks around them, his face gone grim, and says, "Sorry, Doctor, but it looks like our time's all but up. Thank you again, sir."
"Don't call me that," the Doctor complains, even as the world fades further. Then he realizes that the man never introduced himself, and takes a half step forward. "Wait! What's your name?"
For a long moment, there's only silence. The Doctor has just begun to suspect that he's being ignored—or the stranger has disappeared too much to hear him—when the man looks up at him with a faint, wry smile, and offers, "Jones. Ianto Jones. I'll be waiting for you, sir." He pauses for a beat, and then corrects himself, "Sorry. I'll be waiting for you, ma'am."
The last thing visible as the world drifts to darkness is his grin, white and sly as the Cheshire Cat's, and several magnitudes more amused.
The Doctor opens his eyes in his own bed, the TARDIS humming around him, and offers the ceiling an equally wide grin.
"Well," he tells her brightly. "This should be fun."
Distantly, faintly, Ianto is aware of someone speaking to him.
Of someone gripping his hand hard, though there's no way it could hurt.
Not now.
There is no pain, but short, sharp, cat-claws dig into his skin and hold, and Ianto returns the grip that Sekheme has on him as best he can.
Not well, given the circumstances, but he tries.
She's still speaking, even though Ianto can't make out the words. Her voice is soothing, halfway between a growl and a purr, and Ianto smiles a bit at it as he drifts further beneath the waves.
The Doctor is not overly used to being subtle.
For this reason, he's probably not doing the best job of it, sneaking glances at Jack over the breakfast table as the Captain works his unenthusiastic way through his meal. Judging by the questioning glances the Doctor keeps getting Jack's noticed his attention, even if he's not saying anything.
Another sidelong glance and this time Jack puts down his fork with a sigh and straightens up. "What is it?" he asks wearily. "See something you like, Doctor?"
But the flirtation is halfhearted, tepid at best, and nothing like Jack's usual overblown charm. In fact, he hasn't been himself since the Doctor picked him up in that bar a month ago. Jack had been smarting, angry, and had snarled something at the Doctor about substitutes, though the Doctor hadn't had a clue what he was on about—probably some future version of himself, trying to help and making trouble. The Doctor's fairly good at that, at least.
This…this can't go on any longer. Even without the influence of the dream and that sad, tired, bruised man, the Doctor would attempt an intervention. Mr. Jones just makes it easier.
"Ianto Jones," the Doctor says without warning. Jack flinches. "Who's he?"
It's incredible, really, to watch Jack's barriers slam into place as he shuts himself down. His eyes aren't dead though; they're the only part of him still alive, brilliant with anger and hurt. He bangs his hands on the table as he stands up, fury in every taut line of his body, and snaps, "Tapping into my dreams, Doctor?" as he stalks out of the room.
That's…not a normal Jack-reaction. The Doctor hums thoughtfully to himself, drumming his fingers on the table. Apparently, Jack's not going to listen to reason where his dreams of this Mr. Jones is concerned.
Ah, well. That just gives the Doctor an excuse to be…sneaky.
And while he's not so good at subtle, he's very good at sneaky.
The days are different now. Ianto has nothing to do but sleep, the drug subduing every sense until he feels wrapped in cotton. Only the quintessence remains unchanged, bright and hectic in the air as it spins in streamers and sparks like some mad kind of firefly. Sleep comes easily where it never has before and the dreams surge quick and vivid whenever he closes his eyes.
The dreams are also different now. Rather than Jack, or these bright planets, Ianto sees Gwen cradling an infant close, her face glowing as she looks down at her daughter. Rhys stands beside her, one arm around her shoulders, and his smile is bright enough to be blinding. Ianto looks at them and feels an ache in his chest that before he usually associated with Lisa's death. Loss, he thinks, and it's a surprise, because he's always been fairly ambivalent about Gwen, if only for the amount of grief she's given Jack since she found Torchwood.
But this…this is an acknowledgement that she's important, that she is—in her own way—precious to him. Ianto isn't used to having people like that. He's always kept himself at a distance from everyone, only letting people in when they broke through his walls by force, as Lisa and Jack had eventually done. While Gwen had been a teammate, a friend, someone to rely on, she hadn't been like Jack, or even Tosh. He would have hesitated before doing something like head-butting a cannibal for her, and while he might have done it anyway in the end, the hesitation would have said it all.
There would be no hesitation now, though, if he were given the chance.
The dream shifts, Gwen and Rhys fading away to be replaced by someone who is most definitely not precious to Ianto. John Hart is sprawled out in a bed approximately the size of Luxembourg, tangled together with limbs and bodies and what look rather like fluorescent orange tentacles. He's fast asleep, as are his companions, which Ianto can only count as some heaven-sent respite.
It's been a long time since Ianto last saw Hart, and his feeling are most certainly mixed. Resentment, gratitude, anger, and jealousy are all twisted together into a snarled knot of confusion, but one emotion in particular is struggling to the surface. Ianto takes a breath, steps forward, and manages to find Hart's shoulder in the mess of bodies. He rests his hand there, and somehow it's no surprise at all when Hart's eyes flutter open.
Predictably, the first reaction Ianto gets is a lascivious grin. Hart rolls over, hands already reaching as a murmur of, "Ready for another round already, sweetheart?" drips from his swollen lips. Whatever his next words might be, though, they die unspoken as his gaze settles on Ianto. His eyes open wide, and he jerks upright with a sharp breath. "Eye Candy?" he demands.
"Captain," Ianto returns, stepping back and out of range—of what he isn't certain, but with John Hart it's best to be prepared. "You're looking…well."
"Bloody hell," Hart mutters, sliding over to the edge of the mattress. He drops his head, scrubs his hands over his face. "Bloody hell, Eye Candy, where the hell have you been? Jack's just about gone 'round the bend because of you."
That, in a nutshell, is why Ianto can never truly hate John Hart, regardless of what he's done. His feelings for Jack are real, strong, and always at the fore—much like Ianto's own.
He manages a small smile for the former Time Agent. "I've been…indisposed," he allows.
Hart knows very well what he's implying. His eyes narrow and he surveys Ianto for a long moment before flicking a glance at the red coat and sheathed Korean sword lying close at hand. Ianto can all but see the internal debate raging.
"It's all right," he says at length, when Hart still hasn't spoken. "Things could be much, much worse, I'm sure. And they can't exactly kill me anymore."
That brings Hart's sharp gaze back to him, eyebrows rising. He puts his feet flat on the floor and leans back, starting to grin. "You're like Jack now, Eye Candy? That…opens up a lot of possibilities."
Ianto snorts at him, even as he feels the dream beginning to dissolve around him. There's a voice far away, not quite a growl but more than a purr, and it's calling him back. "Sorry, Captain," he offers dryly. "Although I appreciate the offer, of course, I think I'll have to pass."
"Shame." Hart grins openly at him, blue-grey eyes bright with devilish mischief. He raises his arm, fingers tapping over his wristband in a motion Ianto has seen Jack do a thousand times, and adds, "So you know, that's an open offer, Eye Candy. You can take me up on it whenever you'd like."
Then the room is gone, the captain is gone, and all Ianto can see is an ivory ceiling dimmed by a haze of sedatives, Sekheme murmuring desperately at his side.
The Doctor tries once more before resorting to underhanded tactics.
"So, Jack, this Ianto—"
"Doctor—"
"All right, all right! But you're looking stressed—how about a vacation?"
"Doctor…"
"I know this great little pair of planets with the most amazing views. You'll love it! What do you say?"
Ianto can still open Gates, because the quintessence is just about all he knows now. They're good Gates, strong and steady, and they never waver like those of some Gatekeepers kept sedated. All he has to do is close his eyes, lock his knees, and feel and the quintessence bursts to life around him, stronger than ever and barely kept in check as he cuts open the boundaries of space and links two disparate places together with a single, simple thought.
The people still come and go, awed and never looking straight at him, and the guards—three of them now, rather than two—stand firm and foreboding at his back. Each day is exactly the same as the one before, differing only in his dreams of times and places and people far from here. He's never seen Jack or Gwen again, nor any of the old Torchwood. In fact, it's rare that he sees Earth at all, and while it's a bit sad—because Earth is his home, always has been and doubtless always will be—it's also a relief. The ache of loss is ever-present, but at least like this he can turn his face from it, push it to the back of his mind.
Like this, nothing will ever, ever change.
And then a figure in the red jacket of a Napoleonic hussar strides through the Gate, one hand on the hilt of his snakeskin sword, the other hooked into his gun belt. He glances left, glances right, and when his gaze alights on Ianto, he winks cheerfully and offers up a wicked smile.
The guard behind Ianto tenses and takes a half step forward, but Captain John Hart is already moving away. His leather boots clack sharply against the bricks as he disappears into the surrounding streets, whistling a jaunty tune.
Even through the haze of apathy and bone-deep weariness that the drug brings, Ianto watches him go and feels his heart lightening for the first time since he woke up in this world.
There are people laughing in the distance and the city smells of incense and sunlight and infectious joy. Jack and the Doctor stand just outside the TARDIS and breathe it in, wide-eyed at the smiles they receive from the people passing by. No one approaches, but no one seems to care, either.
Since the last time they landed in the middle of a city they got chased out by an angry mob with honest-to-goodness torches, this is a vast improvement—if a bit unsettling.
"Well, Jack!" The Doctor rubs his hands together cheerfully. "How about some sightseeing?" He casts his gaze around, spinning in a circle until his eyes land on a tall structure, gleaming white and gold in the twilight, which rises above the surrounding buildings with a stately air. "Aha! There! Let's go!" Before Jack has the opportunity to protest, the Doctor dives headlong into the crowd, pushing his way through the throng.
Jack stares after him for a moment, mystified that he's actually picked a target, rather than simply gone wandering. But then something breaks, a person shouts, and Jack rolls his eyes and wades in after him.
The Doctor can find trouble by spinning in a circle and pointing at random, but that's never been enough for him. No, he has to throw himself right in and chase it.
My life never used to be this hard, Jack thinks wearily, and then remembers with a flutter of bittersweet longing just what mischief his Torchwood team got into.
For a second, he can almost see Ianto standing behind him, shaking his head in exasperated fondness as he watches Jack go. It's…maybe not quite as painful as it used to be, and that makes all the difference in the world, as far as Jack's concerned.
He even manages to laugh when he finds that the Doctor's gotten himself hung up in someone's clothesline.
Hart's plan, such as it is, goes very much like Ianto's was supposed to—except for the fact that, in Hart's case, it actually works.
Ianto is entirely unsurprised when the ex-Time Agent bursts out of the darkness between two houses, taking all three guards unawares. Two shots, muffled by a silencer, and a single sword-stroke put the trio down permanently, and then Hart seizes Ianto's arm and drags him back into the shadows.
"You do get yourself into the most interesting trouble, Eye Candy," he mutters, throwing open a concealed door and clattering down a flight of steps. Ianto staggers alongside, grateful that Hart is more dragging than escorting him, as he's all but unable to walk by himself. The sedative is starting to wear off, thankfully—especially with the current double-time beat of his heart—but there's still enough left that anything more than breathing and blinking taxes him.
"The Steward," he manages to get out as Hart guides him down onto a rickety cot in a sandstone basement. "This is his city. He'll—"
"That piece of work?" Hart asks, wrinkling his nose. "I've heard of him and what he can do. Quite a few smugglers on these planets, actually—this is one of their bases, and they've rigged up something to keep him out. Now sit there and just look pretty while I get the field up, Eye Candy, or we'll be in for an unpleasant surprise."
The drugs might be fading from his blood, but they're still clearly present and the adrenaline rush of escape is fading. Ianto lets his eyes fall closed, drifting as he tries to piece things together. Hart is here. Hart's rescued him from the guards and the Steward and he seems to be doing it for no profit that Ianto can see. Out of all the Gates in the city, he came through Ianto's, as though the ex-Time Agent knew exactly where to find him, and Hart also seems to know this planet's smugglers well enough to—
A tingling rush spreads over Ianto's skin and the streamers of quintessence are suddenly gone from the room, breaking into dull dust mites and swirling away. Ianto jerks upright, all drowsiness instantly gone, only to have Hart push him right back down.
"Easy!" Hart chides, frowning at him. "It'll be a laugh for you to crack your skull moving too fast after I've gone to all this trouble to rescue you. I had to recalibrate my Vortex Manipulator three times before I could lock in on your signature."
"Why do it, then?" Ianto demands, though he lets Hart reposition him on the cot.
Hart snorts at him as though he's asked a particularly stupid question, but answers, "Because Jack's a wreck right now, nothing like he was even when he was on Earth. I've seen him be a lot of people, Eye Candy, and I don't like this one at all." Then his sharp, wicked grim makes a reappearance, and he adds cockily, "Besides, the odds are in my favor with this one, aren't they? If things get too hot, I just toss you back to the guards and teleport out of here before they can pin it on me. And if I do rescue you, Jack'll owe me for the next century. Low risk and high payoff, gorgeous—it's my favorite kind of play."
It actually reassures Ianto, at least a bit, to know that Hart has ulterior motives for this. In everything, even when Jack's involved, Hart's first priority has always been his own skin, and that's as reliable as John Hart will ever be.
In this case, Ianto thinks, it's enough.
It's more than enough.
He offers Hart a tired smile, and murmurs, "Much obliged, then, Captain."
"Oh, look, the door's locked. Let's come back later," Jack whispers a little desperately. He's crouched with the Doctor behind a clump of worryingly leafless bushes, off to one side of the huge steel doors secured with equally worryingly large padlocks. Whatever's behind there, they obviously don't want it—or them—getting out.
"Nonsense!" the Doctor cries—albeit quietly. He's got at least a bit of sense, despite all appearances to the contrary. "One must seize chances as they come! This will be the perfect opportunity to look around. You've become dull in your old age, Jack! Where's your sense of adventure?"
Dead with Ianto, Jack wants to say, remembering his headlong, fearless rush straight into Thames House—and straight to Ianto's death. And that still aches, most definitely. It aches like his heart torn out and left to bleed upon the ground. It will never not, Jack suspects, in a thousand years or a million. At least he'll be able to keep that promise to Ianto, if he couldn't do anything else to ease those final, agonizing moments.
But the Doctor is still looking at him expectantly, a child's love of mischief and adventure incarnated in the body of an ancient alien, so Jack just rolls his eyes, manages a quick grin—because he does love this kind of thing, even now—and nods.
The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver, grinning like a madman, and Jack braces himself for a wild night.
The halls inside the palace are just as white and perfect as the exterior, gilded with gold and edged with silver, light and airy in a way that only manages to emphasize the air of heavy, resigned sorrow that hangs over them.
All of the doors along the corridors are tightly locked.
"Names," the Doctor murmurs, running his fingers over a plaque on one door. "These are bedrooms, maybe?"
"Not this one," Jack offers, pausing before an unmarked door. He reaches out to try the handle, only to freeze in place as a quick snatch of song drifts up.
It's not a song that anyone here should know. It's not a language that anyone here should know.
Before he can even think of it, Jack has the door open and is inside the room, eyes darting and searching for—for what? What does he think is going to be in here, on this planet a thousand years and countless miles from Earth? But somehow, even though Jack can't logically expect anything, it still feels like that first loss all over again when there is no tall, slender Welshman seated by the wide window.
Instead, an alien woman with a cat's eyes, silver skin, and a long seal-brown braid raises her head to regard him narrowly, crimson gaze wary but not panicked. She hesitates for a long moment, then says evenly, "You're…not guards."
"No," the Doctor agrees cheerfully, leaning over Jack's shoulder. "I'd have to say we're not. Who might you be?"
She straightens in her seat, folding her hands in her lap and nodding once in greeting. "Sekheme, former chieftain of the planet Dale. Who are you?"
"A tourist." The Doctor smiles at her. "Can you—"
"How do you know that song?" Jack cuts in, because there's no reason that she should. He knows Dale, knows it's so far distant from Earth that even in his time there was little to no contact between the worlds. For her to be singing in Welsh right now, centuries too early—there has to be some explanation other than the one his heart immediately leaps to.
"Llwyn Onn?" she asks in clear surprise, and it's a bit annoying that she can pronounce it better than Jack was able to, even after so many years in Wales. "One of the other Gatekeepers taught it to me. The language is very much like my own."
Jack isn't familiar with the Gatekeepers—even with all his time traveling, he's never heard of them. To think that Ianto is one—it's pure foolishness, and it stabs into him like a knife. Letting out a long, slow breath, he slumps back against the wall and rubs his hands over his face. "Sorry," he manages when the Doctor looks at him worriedly. "Ianto always used to sing that, when he was cleaning the Hub. I just…"
"Oh, you know Ianto? Did you come to find him?"
Jack's heart freezes mid-beat in his chest, shocked to stillness as he slowly lifts his head to stare at the woman. She offers him a confused smile, and adds, "You might be too late. He escaped the guards earlier, and no one's seen him since. Even the Steward can't find him."
But Jack isn't listening, because every bit of his broken world has just glued itself haphazardly together once more, and it's staggering.
Hart leaves Eye Candy—Ianto, his name's Ianto—asleep in the base and heads out into the streets as the sun comes up. He's restless, wary of small noises, even though he's done this kind of thing a thousand times before. Admittedly, the stakes have never been quite this high, but that just makes it a challenge.
Ever since the collapse of the Time Agency, there's been a distinct lack of those in Hart's life.
A woman on the corner smiles at John as she ties a rainbow scarf over her long hair, and he nods back, tipping his head and giving her a lazy salute. Her partner, another woman dressed in red and blue, slides out of the building behind her and heads back the way Hart's just come, humming softly to herself. John lets himself relax a bit; they're smugglers, and damn good ones, so Eye Candy will be safe for now.
Which means that he's got free rein to check out this place and get the lay of the land. John sets a hand on his sword, rubbing the hilt thoughtfully. Whoever's in charge will likely be looking for Ianto; he's a valuable resource, and the Steward's already put time and effort into pulling him out of death and dropping him here.
If something's happening or a search party is going out, someone in the palace will likely know. Servants tend to know everything, even—or perhaps especially—the things they're not supposed to. John rocks back on his heels, trying to contain his grin at the thought of some of the maids he met yesterday.
This could be good. Very good, if he's lucky.
Of course, John's never been overly lucky—or lucky at all, some would say—and he's a hundred meters from the pretentiously marble palace when something inside of it explodes.
John pauses, frowning.
The servants' door he was heading for suddenly flies open, releasing a billow of thick, greasy smoke, and three figures come tumbling out. One is tall and skinny, with a shock of dark hair and a bowtie, and the other is a Dalen woman with silver skin, dressed in the same white robes Eye Candy was wearing before. The third is—
"John?" Jack manages, stunned.
"Well, that's one way of doing it," John mutters to himself, then turns on his heel and darts back into the maze of streets.
Behind him, Jack gives chase with a cry, the others following him, and John allows himself a grin as he slows just enough to stay in Jack's line of sight without risking capture.
Jack's always been somewhat easily led, but this time it works to John's advantage.
The Doctor has no idea why they're chasing this man, except that Jack knows him and he's running away—which, admittedly, is usually reason enough to chase someone.
Running away is never a good sign.
Sekheme grabs his elbow as they sprint after Jack, jerking her head to the right. "I saw a Dalen ship land in the spaceport," she says. "Thank you for getting me out, Doctor, but I'll take my leave now."
"My pleasure," the Doctor returns, watching as she rounds a corner and then darts down another street, moving like a big cat.
When he turns back, Jack and the other man are nowhere to be seen.
"Oh, come on," the Doctor mutters, dropping to a halt in the road. "That's entirely unfair, Jack."
Ianto opens his eyes slowly, expecting marble ceilings and gilt, only to find dark corners, cobwebs, and sandstone instead.
He's fairly certain that he's never seen a more beautiful sight in all his days.
His head is entirely clear for the first time in weeks, and the world is steady around him. There's no quintessence, which is an itch of oddness between his shoulder blades, but no quintessence means nothing for the Steward to use to find him, and it's a sacrifice Ianto is more than willing to make.
Footsteps on the stairs make him sit up, and it's a wonder that he can after so long entirely reliant on other others for his balance. He's just sliding out from under several thick quilts when a young woman in red and blue—a native, judging by her long golden hair and her height—clatters into the basement room and stumbles to a halt, offering him a brilliant smile.
"Gatekeeper," she acknowledges, bowing her head to him, but there's no awe in her eyes, none of the worship he would normally see. He returns the greeting, a little startled, but she just smiles again and heads for the computer terminal in the corner. A red light is blinking, and she surveys it with clear satisfaction.
"The field is holding," she informs Ianto. "It takes a certain frequency to keep the Steward out, but I think we've got it with this one."
Ianto thinks about the humming rush that filled the room a moment before the quintessence faded, and nods. "You do," he agrees. "No Gatekeeper will ever find you here."
Her glance at him is sly and pleased, but before she can respond, the rapid thud of hurried feet on the stairs makes them both look up.
John Hart bursts into the room at a flat run. He hooks a hand through the native woman's arm, hauls her to her feet, and says, "Darling, I think you promised me a romp with you and your pretty partner. Let's take advantage of this break, what do you say?" In less than a second, he's dragged her through a small door in the wall, and someone else is pounding down the stairs.
Ianto forces himself to his feet as the noise approaches. Even if Hart has abandoned him—though somehow that doesn't feel like the right assumption, and Ianto's learned to trust his gut—Ianto isn't going to let anyone take him anywhere without a fight. Especially not back to—
But the man who shoots into the basement is not a guard dressed all in black. Nor is he the Steward in his pale grey robes. This man wears a RAF greatcoat and WWII clodhoppers, and his windblown hair is sandy brown. He staggers to s stop in the middle of the room, blue eyes going wide, and Ianto reaches back to brace himself against the wall.
For an endless, infinite moment, neither one of them speaks.
Then…
"Jack," Ianto whispers, and it breaks the spell.
Jack is across the room in an instant, arms around Ianto in a grip so tight it's like he's trying to meld them into one body, but Ianto doesn't care, can't care, because Jack is warm against him and his hands are big and careful. His breath is hot against Ianto's cheek and when their lips finally meet, the kiss is a thousand shades of desperation and longing bound up with threads of grief and joy. Ianto is whispering Jack's name whenever he has the breath, and Jack is chanting something, low and frantic, that Ianto has wanted to hear since their first encounter with Abaddon.
"I love you, Ianto," Jack breathes again. "I'm sorry, I love you," and Ianto kisses him silent and tumbles them both back onto the bed.
They've got forever to say it now, and that will be nearly long enough.
From the other side of the door in the wall, Hart grins at both of them, murmurs, "I'll collect on that debt later, Jackie," and loops an arm around the smuggler woman. "Shall we go?" he asks gallantly, and she laughs at him for it, but leads him away regardless.
There's definitely a threesome in his future.
"Find him," the Steward orders, eyeing the captain of the guard narrowly. "He's one drugged Gatekeeper, I'm sure it won't be that difficult for your officers. I need my second, Captain, and Ianto Jones is the only one who will do."
There's a sharp clang off to the side and a man in a rumpled suit stumbles into the Way, bowtie askew. "Ah. Yes. Blimey. Sorry! Oh! It's you," he says after a moment, and the Steward entirely misses the faint narrowing of his eyes. "I'd say it's good to meet the person in charge, but authority figures always seem to have a problem with me for some reason. Have I mentioned that now might be a fantastic time to start investing in space travel and interplanetary ferries, or maybe setting up a guild?"
(Jack and Ianto, of course, are entirely unaware of any of this.
Perhaps it's better that way.)
FIN