Disclaimer: RTD and BBC (and all that it entails) owns them and all rights, if I owned them I would have fic writers doing the scripts, regardless of what RTD thinks (hmmm assassin!Ianto, Empath!Ianto, or vampire!Ianto or even all three as cannon, that'd be fun)
A/N: Seemed to me there were a few conversations missing in the last few episodes with The Ponds.
A Tale of Three Conversations
Ianto paused to consider the contemplative red-head staring into her coffee before approaching her.
Jack would normally be talking to a Companion; but they both agreed that after years of Jack trying to prepare them for this, that another point of view might be for the best at this point.
"May I join you, Amy?" he asked gesturing to the empty seat across from her at the outdoor table.
"Ianto? Yes of course," she paused as he sat down before continuing. "I don't normally see you without Jack."
Ianto smiled as he took a sip of his coffee. "Well yes, I normally let Jack mostly deal with the Companions. I fully support and agree with his mission, but this is his chosen duty and while I help as much as I can some of those duties are too important to him for me to help with. Regardless, I had some business in the area and thought I'd stop by for a chat."
"Does your business have anything to do with the mystery cubes?"
"Well, yes and no. I did want to consult with Kate - excuse me, Ms. Stewart - however we've had more pressing matters that needed addressing, and with Ms. Stewart and the Doctor on the case there's little we can do, at least at this time."
"So you have no idea what they are either?"
"Not really; but that's not really what I wanted to talk to you about." Ianto paused, sipping his coffee again. "So you've been considering not traveling with the Doctor anymore?"
"What? How did you…" Amy's question trailed off as she stared at him in disbelief.
"You do talk to my partner regularly and you have been traveling with him for quite a long time now. Both Jack and I have known this would be coming."
"It's just…it just feels like we're running away from life here and that we're leading two different lives, and it just seems that we can't keep living both."
"Well in many ways you are leading two different lives, there's no denying that, but as for running away, well from a certain perspective you are. However, if it was that simple you wouldn't be in a quandary."
"I, we, still love traveling with him, all the fantastical places and times we go…how can someone give that up?"
Ianto smiled. "And that's all true as well; but some, in fact many have indeed made that exact choice, Amy. But you are right; it is not an easy choice for someone such as yourself. But in many ways yours is much harder than any other Companions."
"What do you mean?"
Ianto thought for a moment as he sipped his coffee, contemplating the best way to explain.
"Do you remember Jack telling you that once the Doctor leaves the traveling, the adventure is usually over? For his purposes he only included the "usually" because there are very rare occasions where some Companions have found themselves able to help him once again after their traveling days. In fact I think it's only happened less than handful of times in his long life. You see Amy, he's come back for you and Rory. He, for the first time, has come back for a Companion. He's chosen not to end the traveling himself. And I don't think you realize how amazing and monumental this is. He has never, not even for Rose, the Companion that taught him to love and trust again, come back. Even Rose he chose to leave in an alternate world when they last parted ways. And in many ways this is fantastic as it seems he's finally realizing he can continue to depend on Companions, but in others it's not so much.
"Because this also means that you'll have to decide when it ends; and that the Doctor will be faced with the consequences that most of his Companions are extraordinary humans with ordinary human lifetimes."
"So what? You think we should stop?"
"No, what I think is that it is and always be your decision."
"But I can't imagine wanting it to end, to not have him in my life anymore."
Ianto felt his gaze shift. No, he couldn't see the end of the Pond's adventures with the Doctor. Whatever it was, was surrounded in paradox and unnatural flow of time.
"Perhaps you'll have something that is more important than him, something that you can't have if you have the Doctor as well."
"I can't imagine what could possibly be that important."
Ianto shrugged. "I don't know. All I know is that your time with the Doctor won't end until you say so."
"I just can't imagine it ending," Amy said, looking out into the busy street sadly.
Ianto smiled somberly. "The thing is Amy, all things that begin, end. There is no stopping it; but just because one story ends doesn't mean that another doesn't begin, nor does it mean that everything you learned from that story doesn't still make you who you are or influence you. You just have the advantage of choosing when this particular chapter of your story ends. And no matter when that is, in 20 minutes or 20 years it's still and always will be your choice."
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
The Doctor looked out over the spaceport in the 31st century from his seat in the port's less busy bar.
"How ya doing, Doctor?" Jack's friendly voice said as Jack sat in the empty seat across from him with a huge grin.
"Jack! It's been a few months."
Jack laughed.
"Bit more than that Doctor. I haven't seen this version of you in a few years."
"A few years? Then…"
"Yep, I got to the future the old-fashioned way," Jack said, still smiling. "Ianto and I are here resupplying and I saw you and just wanted to stop by and say hello to an old friend."
"Where is Ianto?"
"Oh, he's on our ship. There were some readings that were out of alignment so he's working on that. So what brings you here, Doctor?"
The Doctor could only stare at his old friend for a minute. There was just something strange about Jack and Ianto having lived through to the 31st century. "At the moment, just enjoying a meal on a famous port."
Jack laughed again. "Well, not quite famous yet Doctor, it's still got a few more years before that…like 50 actually. But why are you here alone? Where are…uhh sorry, who have you last been traveling with? I don't know exactly where you are in your timeline only that it seems to have been after you meet Ianto."
The Doctor stared at Jack. From what his old friend had said it almost seemed like he'd travel with someone other than Amy and Rory.
"Amy and Rory. They're on Earth in their own time watching the cubes that appeared. Would it be correct to assume you know what they are?"
"To quote a friend of ours, 'Spoilers!'" Jack smiled before continuing. "It's nothing you can't handle. But why did you leave them?"
"It was so boring and they weren't doing anything! I couldn't just sit there!"
Jack's smile faltered a bit. "So you just left them?"
"Just while the cubes aren't doing anything. As soon as they do they said they'd call and I'll be right there!"
Jack looked solemnly out over the spaceport, seemingly weighing his words and possibly thinking of what was the past for him and the future for the Doctor.
"Doctor, I'm really happy you keep going back to them, I really am. I think you're starting to see what Ianto told you all those years ago; that we Companions won't abandon you just because we leave you or you leave us. But I don't think you realize some important things. Amy and Rory will not always be able to go with you. No matter how that comes about, it is an undeniable fact."
"I know…"
"No, I don't think you do. I think you are avoiding that. To drive the point home, Doctor, right here in this precise moment in time, in this present, their bones are nothing but dust. Their lives forgotten by all except you, me and Ianto, and River if she's floating around this year. As far as anyone else in this year knows they are nameless figures of the past with no meaning to anyone here in this time."
The Doctor cringed at his friend's words.
"You can depend on us, but the repercussion is that you have to face the consequences that, while you find extraordinary people, they won't live forever. They can't. We'll be there from the moment our time with you ends until the end of our days; but most of the Companions don't have the same luxury I do in that respect."
"Maybe I shouldn't go back then," the Doctor said with a frown.
"Don't you dare, Doctor. Don't go back to those old habits now. I know it's hard for you, seeing us with such short lives compared to yours, but Doctor that's part of what makes us, them, human. The very thing you appreciate about them. So just suck it up and do what we have to do: enjoy every moment you have with them, because Doctor whether you like it or not, whether you accept it or not, an end will come."
"It never seemed to before."
"Now you're deluding yourself, because Doctor they all ended, every one. Some of us left you, like Martha and me; some of us you left, like Susan and Sarah Jane; and some of us died for you like Adric and…me. There were ends you just never revisited unless we made you."
The Doctor's head jerked up, staring dumbly at his old friend. "Maybe…maybe it's time I admit I don't like endings."
"I know you don't," Jack said warmly. "But the thing about endings is that you get to enjoy a whole story of adventures before they come. However if you're so worried about when and how the ending will come you can't enjoy the story."
The Doctor just stared out contemplatively, enjoying the now-silent companionship of his oldest friend.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Hello, Darling; Ianto."
"River! It's been too long," Jack said, beaming at his old friend.
"It's good to see you, River," Ianto said with a nod.
River seemed to take a steadying breath before continuing. "I need a favor."
"Anything I can do, River," Jack replied with a concerned look.
"Do you know what happened to my parents?"
At their confused answers she launched into her explanation.
Jack and Ianto readily agreed to help. River could get there but she couldn't offer what they could for Amy and Rory.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Jack and Ianto knocked on the door of the dwelling of their time-stranded friends. Ianto smiled to himself. Somehow it seemed fitting that the paradox that was Amy Pond would end her time with the Doctor by being stuck in the past; it seemed for Amy and Rory the complexity of timey whimeyness was so interwoven with their lives they couldn't escape it.
It was Rory who answered the door.
"Jack? Ianto? What? How?"
"Mind if we come in? So Amy can hear this too," Jack asked with a grin.
"Of…course."
Rory stepped aside letting Jack and Ianto in.
"Jack? Ianto? What are you doing here?"
"You seem to have an echo here," Jack said with a twinkle in his eye. Ianto noticed Rory shaking his head in exasperation out of the corner of his eye.
At Amy's impatient stare Jack continued. "River asked us, but if we found out another way we would have been here anyway."
"River couldn't give you the options we all would want to, so she came to us," Ianto further explained.
"But how did you get here? What options?" Rory asked.
Jack raised his hand with his vortex manipulator. "Less bulky than a TARDIS and able to go where time is heavily distorted," he said grinning. "As for options…" Jack trailed off, looking to his partner.
"You know why we keep in contact with Companions, so it would be remiss of us to abandon you. The current versions of Jack and myself at this point in the timeline don't know you so they couldn't be in contact, but we can't just leave you. So we have some options for you."
Ianto reached into his bag, pulling out a phone and handing it to Jack.
"This will allow you to still call us from here, so we can keep in contact and you can get messages to family if you like. I'll admit this is as much for our peace of mind as yours. I…For me to have you lost like this with no way of talking to someone who understands is…not a happy thought." By the end Jack was frowning contemplatively.
As Jack was finishing his explanation Ianto was reaching into his bag for one more device.
"This on the other hand is a modified Vortex Manipulator, one way back to your home time."
"But what about the Doctor and the headstone?" Rory asked.
"The Doctor can't know, for him you are inaccessible and he has written his own story in that regard, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore if he knew you were back home he'd still come to take you on adventures. He couldn't help himself and you couldn't help yourselves either and we all know your time with him has been coming to an end for quite awhile," Jack said somberly.
"As for the headstone you saw, we can arrange with our current selves to fake the appropriate documents. As Jack said we'd have to do everything that you would have done to impact the future so the Doctor doesn't know. Which means you'll still need to write that afterward for River's book, Amy, and then we can make the arrangements for it to be published if needed."
Jack handed Ianto the phone as Amy and Rory looked on in disbelief.
"All you need to do is to decide: stay here and live, continue building new lives here with contact to your home era, or use this to travel one more time."
Ianto held both out for Amy and Rory to choose.
Amy shared a look with Rory, silently sharing a thousand conversations, thinking of what they would gain and what they would lose. They shared one final nod of agreement before Amy reached out to seize their choice.