Five years. Ianto Jones has moved on, or so he tells himself every time something reminds him of Jack Harkness. Which is to say, every god damned day. But Ianto died in Thames House for all the rest of the world knows, and Jack left Earth, and Ianto's still a little bit pissed off about the Don't, so there's not much to be done about it except to keep doing his job. Saving the world.
He's with Torchwood Four now. The branch Jack described as 'lost' as if it were a set of keys he'd misplaced, but is actually nearly two dozen people who went into hiding when their field of research became too dangerous for the rest of Torchwood to have access. And it's that field of research that brought Ianto back to life.
It's not that Ianto is unhappy to be alive- quite the contrary- it's just that he wishes he didn't have Cyber technology to thank for it.
The first step of a cyberconversion, the very first step, before the emotion inhibitor or the brain removal or the somatic implants, is the Boot Chip. And the Boot Chip's function is very simple: enact a controlled shut down of the brain when oxygen becomes scarce such that when the body systems are able to support it again, the brain can be restarted with no loss of functionality. In the very few victims of the Cybermen whose conversion was stopped at that moment when the chip had been placed and nothing else, the person could later be brought back from any death that hadn't damaged the body beyond repair. And only Torchwood Four knows this and has the equipment to do it. It's too dangerous for anyone else. Just the thought of Yvonne Hartman with the Boot Chip - Ianto shudders.
So when Ianto Jones, survivor of Canary Wharf, was killed in Thames House, his body attacked by a virus and his brain starved of oxygen , Torchwood Four had to make sure his body was never autopsied (as is standard for all Torchwood employees) or the chip would be found. And once they had gone through the trouble of infiltrating the building where the casualties were being stored, swapping the body, and creating a chain of fuckups that sent the replacement body to the incinerator with the rest before it could be claimed by the remaining Cardiff team, it was deemed to be a terrible waste not to bring him back, especially after they'd seen his records. They offered him relocation and a new identity, but Ianto stayed with Torchwood Four. He's dead, after all; what's left for him in the world?
It was difficult; moving on after his own death was much more challenging than moving on after the death of a friend or lover. But Ianto worked hard, focused on his new job, and now he's heading up the division of Torchwood Four that recovers hardware from the bodies of those victims who weren't so lucky. There have been far more incursions than anyone realizes, one or two a year, but when identified, most can be rooted out before they kill more than a dozen or so people. Ianto wonders if considering the deaths of a dozen innocent civilians to be a minor incident is a sign that he's been with Torchwood too long.
It's not easy. There are times when it's too much like Lisa, the blood and the body parts. Sometimes he sees a face still contorted in fear and agony. Sometimes he has to walk through blood, his feet making obscene sticky sounds as he collects what he's come for. In his mind he can still hear screaming. Often, the easiest way to clean up when he's finished is to burn everything. It's a smell he knows, one that still features heavily in his nightmares. He does his job, he always does, even when his hands are shaking and there are tears in his eyes; the breakdown comes later, when he's alone. No one sees him cowering in the corner of his quarters or heaving his guts up in the shower. Privately, he cries until he chokes and clenches his fists until the quarter moons where his nails dig in bleed freely. In front of everyone else, he's composed and distant. His colleagues think he's heartless, cold as ice and twice as hard. It's easier that way.
In many ways, it reminds him of his time in Cardiff staging corpses to hide the alien nature of their demise. The retrieval and paperwork is similar too, and even the espresso machine is familiar, though only because he searched one out. The one thing missing is Jack, and Ianto is still pretending that he's not missing Jack at all.
Sometimes he almost convinces himself.
As it had after the destruction of the Cyberman that had once been Lisa, work keeps Ianto distracted. Especially now, with the cleanup of a major Cyber invasion fueled by the stored consciousnesses of the dead. Most of the Cyber units launched into the sky to dissipate the pollen cloud after the confrontation in the cemetery (there's another department to research that), but a few remained (-and that), and it's Ianto's responsibility to reclaim those units and separate any human remains from the cybernetic and then disassemble the Cyber parts for study. He also makes an effort to identify the human remains and give them a proper burial (some for the second time), though that's not strictly his job. Still, it's the human and humane thing to do, and in this job, as in all of Torchwood, it's a struggle to hold to humanity. Gwen had managed, of course, but that hadn't always been to her benefit, or the team's. Or Ianto's, when Jack got caught up in it. And here Ianto is thinking about Jack Harkness again. He refuses to indulge, shifting his thoughts to the reason he'll never see Jack again, anyway.
When Torchwood Four first woke him and explained how, he was terrified and furious. They knew that he was at Canary Wharf, of course, but they didn't know about Lisa, and it was a long time before Ianto was willing to trust them enough to tell them. He once asked if Lisa could have been saved if she'd been brought to Four, but they said the same thing Jack had told him: once the conversion has progressed beyond the Boot Chip there's no turning back. It is oddly reassuring to know that her death had never been his fault.
It's not as if he hasn't enough other issues to occupy him. When they retrieved his body, he had been dead (mostly dead?) for three days. Kept in cold storage, the worst of the cellular damage had been averted, but they'd kept him brain-dead for another week while they dealt with the effects of lack of bloodflow. It took time before his thoughts weren't sluggish, and it required months of physical therapy to fight off the virus and restore his body to its pre-death strength. Hours of work broadened his shoulders and refined his abdomen…. His legs are strong and his stamina better than ever; he can run for miles. Now past thirty, a milestone he'd never expected to reach, he's in the best shape of his life.
He had died. Being alive at all was a pleasant surprise, but it meant that he had to confront all the things he'd been refusing to deal with before, plus Jack's thoughtless Don't. Beyond that, he is still processing having had undetected Cyber implants. Why hadn't UNIT found them when they released him after Canary Wharf? How had Owen not seen? At first, he lived in fear of the chip somehow activating and converting him, which was ridiculous, as he'd unknowingly been carrying it around for years before dying.
That's how his life is separated now- into before dying and after dying. Everything belongs neatly in one of those categories, with very little crossover. Coffee is in both. Suits and Weevils and stopwatches before, casual clothes, lab work, and lonely nights after. He tried dating. Tried relationships, tried casual sex, and tried some combination of the two that was almost like being with Jack, except that no one else could ever be like Jack. It was all unsatisfying; Ianto has resigned himself to the internet and his right hand, pretending all the while that he's not picturing Jack in his fantasies.
His right hand, sadly, is of no help with his emotional issues. And Ianto has them. How could he not? Rough childhood, estranged sister, tragic alien invasion, Cyber-converted girlfriend killed by his emotionally distant, promiscuous immortal boyfriend who occasionally pined for their (now married) co-worker, the deaths of his team, then, you know, his own death and subsequent resurrection. Also, he's lonely. He'd be in therapy until the end of time if Torchwood offered any such thing. As it is, when he wakes up screaming because digging microservos from the flesh and bone of a conversion victim reminded him of cutting Lisa from the conversion table, the only thing he can do is drink himself into oblivion, then go back to work with a hangover the next morning. And when he lies alone in his bed wishing for someone to hold him and remind him that there's beauty in the universe, that Earth and humanity are worth fighting for, all he has are his memories of Jack. Which is exactly what he's trying to avoid thinking about right now.
Around and around his thoughts go, until Torchwood Four's director, Frederick Nguyen, comes to distract him with work.
"Jones," the man says stiffly, making Ianto miss the more casual atmosphere of Cardiff, "You know the Doctor better than any of us…"
"I wouldn't say that, Director." He still can't bear to call the man 'Sir' as the rest of them do.
"You've actually met him. More than once, and you've spent quite a bit of time with one of his companions." Ianto's lips thin, not liking the direction of this at all. "You've met another. You're probably the foremost expert outside of UNIT, and the last thing we want to do is let them know we exist. So, yes, you're our go-to for Doctor questions."
Sure that this is going nowhere good, but unable to see any way out of it, Ianto gestures open handed for the man to continue.
"The point is, Grandison's team finally got the CCTV footage from St. Paul's Cathedral, right when the Cybermen first arrived. There's a woman with the Doctor. Not his current companion, but an older woman. She seems to be the missing piece in all this. Do you know why the Doctor would be so rattled by someone called the Master?"
Fuck.
AUTHORS NOTE:
You all know how I love Gmariam, yes? As always, she's supported me through this story with ideas, encouragement, and much-needed kicks in the arse. She always asks the 'why' and 'how' questions that force me to look a little deeper into my ideas and enrich my stories. Also, she pokes me when I use the same word or concept over and over.
This story is mostly complete, five chapters have been written and I think that's it. I'm still editing and adjusting the others, but they'll be along shortly. The concept happened when I was wondering if there was any way to bring Ianto back that hadn't been written about yet. But what's the point of bringing Ianto back if there's no Jack? Well...