Meetings In A Bar
Disclaimer: Yeah, there is absolutely no owning here. I'm merely playing with the shiny toys.
Summary: Four years after the events of Miracle Day, Rex Mathis meets an odd man in a bar. Ianto/Jack, Rex/Esther. Thirty-eighth in the "Immortal Janto" series.
Yeah, you guessed it, I'm delving more into events that transpired during "Torchwood: Miracle Day." When I began this series, I didn't know what would happen in "Miracle Day." Now, I do, so I'm going to try and tie up some loose ends, since I'm sad that Esther died. I liked her and was rooting for an evolved Esther/Rex relationship, so, for lack of a better description, this is a fix-it for Esther's (untimely) death (SPOILER, for those who haven't seen the last episode of "Miracle Day").
So, this takes place in 2015 (for Rex) and 2034 (for Ianto and Jack).
And, to update, Annabelle is eighteen in this story.
So, without further ado, here's the latest story in the series.
It was a Tuesday evening and the bar was quiet.
Rex leaned forward, his elbows on the bar. He sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. Four years . . . four years had been since Miracle Day had swept across the planet, since he had met Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, since he had joined Torchwood, since his eyes had been opened to the sheer size of the universe. Four years since Jack's blood had forever changed him, made him into something like immortal.
Four years since he had fallen in love (without realizing it) with Esther Drummond, only to lose her all too soon, when the world's mortality was reignited.
Her death, just as the Miracle was ending, hurt. Still hurt, he had to admit to himself, as he sipped his beer, remorsefully remembering how much he wished he had her back. He would do anything – and he meant anything – to have her returned, but that was just impossible. Jack had been very clear that personal timelines cannot be altered so drastically and that immortality was a bitch.
Jack had told him that immortality would hurt.
Hell, Rex had figured that out long before he even knew that he was immortal. Sitting at her funeral, when he had thought that he was still mortal, had been hard. Now he had to live for the rest of his life with the fact that he loved and had lost Esther. To be fair, Jack had sympathized with him, afterwards, before he had departed for Cardiff, following Gwen and Rhys. It was only then that Rex had seen the mask that Jack wore. He had seen the sadness that was beneath Jack's mask and understood the depth of Jack's pain. He felt bad about accusing Jack of not regretting that his team died.
Because that was when Rex finally learned about how much Jack still mourned the death of Ianto Jones, the one person in the universe who saw beneath the mask of Captain Jack Harkness and loved him for it.
Rex growled under his breath.
Before he met Jack, Rex had a bright, brilliant future before him. He was intelligent, capable, and well-educated. He was going to be successful and have an illustrious career in the CIA. Rex Mathis had been going places.
But then the man in the damn World War II coat showed up and the Miracle happened. Now, here he was, four years later, still immortal, with no sign of that changing in the imminent future. He had tried. After he had helped straightening out the CIA, he had started wondering the planet, in an attempt to forget his pain and help people in Esther's memory.
He took another drink from his beer.
"Rough day?" a quiet voice asked from beside him. The voice had a Welsh accent, Rex noted. He'd recognize one of those accents anywhere. Anyone who had experienced that which is Hurricane Gwen would recognize it.
Rex looked over and raised an eyebrow at the man in the black trench coat who had just sat down on the stool next to him. The man seemed familiar, though Rex couldn't quite place where he had seen him from.
"What makes you say that?" he asked.
The man smiled a bit and shook his head, running a hand through his gray-streaked dark brown hair.
"No sane person is in a bar on a Tuesday evening, by themselves, obviously drowning their sorrows." This man was clearly hit the nail on the head. "Besides, I know a man who did something similar for a while, though he pulled through after about five years."
"What happened to him?" Maybe, just maybe, Rex was a little bit intrigued – but only a little bit.
"Reunions are great, especially when they're with someone you love."
He shook his head. Damn happy people. "I don't think he was in the same boat though. Person I loved – still love – died four years ago and she can't come back."
A soft chuckle met Rex's ears. "Maybe not, but, then again, Jack spent two years moping around, saved the world, then moped around another three years, before he found out I wasn't quite as dead as he thought I was."
Jack . . . Rex perked up. The man noticed because he gave Rex a knowing smile as the bartender put a beer in front of him. He took a long draw from it.
"So, what's your story?" Rex cautiously asked. "What brings you here?"
The man thought for a moment before answering. "I'm here to help you, Rex," he said. "Make some amends for things that happened to you. You've survived a trial, but you still have a long future ahead of you, believe me, I checked."
Rex growled and clunked his beer down on the bar. How did this guy know his name?
"Who are you?"
The man smiled. "I'm someone a lot like you, Rex, someone who has survived death when they shouldn't have, someone who was forever changed as a direct result of Torchwood and Captain Jack Harkness."
"You're with Torchwood?" Okay, this was just getting plain freaky, even by his (forcibly revised by Torchwood) standards!
The man nodded once, his dark blue eyes old and wise. "Once upon a time," he commented, "I was a part of the Torchwood Three team, the one that watched over Cardiff, guarded the Rift, and saved the world."
Rex didn't understand, couldn't understand. "How? Everyone on that team died, everyone except for Jack and Gwen that is."
The man sitting next to him nodded. "We all did die. Most of the team stayed dead. Me, on the other hand, well, let's just say that you and I have something very much in common."
"And what's that?"
"Jack Harkness is the reason that we're both still sitting here, alive and immortal."
"What?"
Whoever this guy was, he seemed to know way more he let on, probably more than Rex cared for him to know.
"Though, knowing Jack, you have to admit," the man said, giving him a quiet smile, "your path to immortality is way less interesting than mine. You just got a total blood transfusion of Jack's blood."
Rex heard the way the humor laced through his voice.
"Okay, I'll bite." Might as well let the guy talk, Rex figured, it was safer that way. "How are you immortal?"
"That's the money question," the man replied. "See, the interesting part about Jack is that he's somehow capable of transferring a little piece of the Time Vortex – the thing that makes him immortal – to other people, via sexual encounters. Now, before you ask, he was only able to do it with someone he truly loves with all of his heart. Well, that, and Naked Hide-and-Seek." The man thought for a moment, grinning broadly at some memory. He mused, "Naked Hide-and-Seek seems to solve a lot of our problems, come to think of it."
"Holy shit!" Realization dawned on Rex as he remembered an old conversation. "You're Ianto Jones."
"In the flesh." Ianto drank from his beer, smiling brightly.
"But how?"
Ianto rolled his eyes. "Really? After everything you've been through?" He waved a hand in front of his face. "Time Vortex! Naked Hide-and-Seek!"
Rex wanted to curl up in a ball and drink this away, but fate, it seemed, had different plans for him.
The bar door banged open and in strode one Captain Jack Harkness, customary grin on his face, coat swinging around him in its usual manner. The man was way too chipper for his own good.
"If I had known we were going for drinks, I would have made an effort to look nicer, Jones, Ianto Jones," Jack said, as he sidled up to the bar. After ordering a drink, he looked over. "Well, well, if it isn't Rex Mathis, resident CIA immortal."
"Yeah, no thanks to you, World War II." Rex was beyond annoyed at the moment. He was not expecting to see Jack for a long time, at least not without warning – that's what Jack had promised.
"And here I thought you missed me?" Jack asked, pretending to be hurt, as he took a drink from his freshly-arrived beer. "You could be nicer to people who bring you presents."
Rex rolled his eyes. "If you're referring to yourself, sorry Harkness, but I don't swing that way."
Jack's grin widened even further as he slipped an arm around Ianto's waist. "Well that's good, because I hadn't planned on sharing Ianto when I woke up this morning." He leaned forward a bit, a sly grin on his lips. "I don't think Ianto likes sharing me too much either. He gets a little possessive sometimes, though Yan gets sexy when he's possessive. I think he gets annoyed when I bait him though."
"Funny," Ianto quipped in return, slapping Jack's leg, "that's not what you said last night."
It only took a second for the innuendo to sink in and Rex choked on his drink. "Just when I though Harkness was enough!"
"Well, when you've been around Jack as long as I have, it's more of an acquired skill than anything else. Besides, this isn't about us right now. It's about you."
Jack tightened his hold on Ianto. "Don't tell him too much, Yan. It'll ruin the surprise!"
"What surprise?" Hell, Rex told himself, if Harkness was around, might as well be kind. Rex did owe the man something. He had grown on Rex, much to Rex's own dismay, and Jack's heart was in the right place – most of the time.
"The future, Rex, the future!"
Ianto patted Jack's hand and explained, "What Jack means to say, is that we have this friend who can travel through time and Jack asked him, about ten or so years ago, to check in on you, to see where you were and all. Well, what he found looked pretty good for you and it will, if we were able to figure something out."
"Time travel? Is that your mysterious Doctor, Jack? Ten years ago? I haven't known you and Cooper that long."
A look passed between the two men that Rex caught before Jack nodded. "Yes, we asked the Doctor. Yes, he time travels and we're actually from the future, about nineteen years in Earth's timeline." A grin flashed across Jack's face. "See, at this point in 2015, we're getting married, for the first time that is, isn't that right, Ianto?"
The Welshman nodded. "Right, it's just before the wedding. Which means that the versions of us actually living through this time period are preparing for that and, more than likely, they are several thousand miles away right now and bouncing around the Time Vortex."
They were giving Rex a headache.
"Then why are you here?"
Jack was clearly excited about something. "Because you don't deserve to deal with your immortality on your own, Rex. I know what a curse and a burden it is, so, after much deliberation and much explanation, we're bringing you something that should make it easier for you."
"Death?"
Rex swore he saw a ghost of a smile cross Ianto's face at his sarcastic comment, but he pushed that thought out of his mind at Jack's reply.
"Nope. Something better!"
The door of the bar was pushed open again and in walked someone who shouldn't have been there.
Rex's jaw dropped as Esther Drummond, as confident as he remembered her to be in the end, walked into the bar, her hair blowing forward from the wind outside. She met his eyes and smiled at him.
"Hello, Rex."
"Esther!" He was standing and crossing to her in two seconds flat. "What?"
She laughed. "I don't know the logistics, but I was offered a choice – die or help you in your immortality. I chose the latter, clearly, and that made me like you."
He looked back at Jack and Ianto. "How?"
Ianto answered that question. "It took us four months to figure out how to make her immortal. The TARDIS helped with that one. It's harder than it looks when you can't force a Vortex event with sex."
"Rules out Naked Hide-and-Seek," Jack added, earning an eye-roll and a little smile from Ianto.
"He cheats. He always cheats."
"Though, we offered. Esther didn't bite."
"Regardless," Ianto continued, "we figured out how to make Esther immortal, found her, while she was still alive, gave her a choice, and, well, two days after her funeral, she became the same kind of immortal that you are. That was six months ago in her personal timeline."
"I had to spend the last six months getting caught up and getting the run-down from Jack, Ianto, Donna, and the Doctor," Esther explained. She held up her wrist and pulled up her sleeve to reveal a strap and Vortex Manipulator much like the one that was on Jack's wrist. "They gave me something that'll allow us the chance to explore the galaxy."
"You'll get bored on Earth after a while," Jack said, a bit prophetically. "Besides, you're not content to sit around and wait for the CIA to need someone weird to do its bidding."
Rex smiled. Jack was right about that one. He carefully reached out and took Esther's hand, squeezing it.
"I suppose it'll be nice to go out and explore." He looked at the two men. "Who knows, might run into your craziness along the way, World War II."
Ianto scoffed, looking at Jack. "World War II?"
"It's the coat." Jack shook his head. "It's seems that not everyone likes it as much as you do, Yan."
The Welshman's brain had to be ticking, if Rex were to take a guess. "I wouldn't have you any other way, cariad."
Jack smiled and kissed Ianto on the cheek. "Glad for that, love."
For a moment, Rex studied Jack. He seemed to be a lot more relaxed and in his element than the last time he had seen the man. Granted, last time had been soon after the end of the Miracle, Esther's death, and his discovery of his own immortality. A gleam of light caught his eye and Rex looked at the rings sitting on a very important finger of Jack's left hand. Right, Jack had mentioned something about a wedding.
"I take it your Torchwood has been reestablished."
As soon as those words left his mouth, Rex regretted them. Esther tensed some beside him and he saw how a look crossed both Jack's and Ianto's faces. Whatever happened wasn't good.
"Not really," Ianto replied, his tone clipped. "Torchwood died a timely death, buried in Cardiff, where it should be."
"But you still check in on Cooper?" Rex might not have been on the best terms with the woman, but he had to ask. She and Jack had been close, when they had worked together. "I mean, you did follow her back to Cardiff."
Jack shook his head. There was exhaustion and pain in his eyes.
"Things happen and we drifted apart," he said quietly. "We'll tell you about it sometime."
Esther wrapped a hand around his waist, drawing his attention. "They told me and, Rex, you understand why people do what they do. Sometimes, choices are made and people change, for better or worse. Let this go for right now."
She was right.
He smiled down at her. "Alright." Esther gave him a brilliant smile. "You know, there's something I've been meaning to do."
"What's that?"
Rex laughed and cupped Esther's face, leaning down to kiss her. It was a brief, chaste kiss, but he hoped it made up for the years that they hadn't had together.
"That."
She was smiling. "That's good."
Part of him was expecting some loud comment from Jack but, when he looked over, he only saw the two men – the two immortals – holding each other gently. He knew Jack. He knew that there was always something that he was hiding beneath the surface. They had butted heads on more than one occasion and, however grudgingly, had saved the world together. But Rex respected him. Jack had given so much in the line of duty, saving and protecting the planet, more than the ordinary person would ever think to give him credit for doing.
The look on Jack's face as Ianto leaned his head on his shoulder was nothing short of blissful and Rex found that he couldn't grudge Jack his happiness. Those two just . . . fit together.
And, as Esther tugged on his hand, he found himself feeling truly happy for the first time in a very long time.
"Come on," the blonde woman urged, "we've got a galaxy to explore."
That prospect was so enticing on its own but knowing that he had Esther along for the ride made it all the more better.
As the bar door closed behind them, Rex swore he saw the same smug look on Jack's face that had he hated, but he found that he didn't care.
They would run into Jack and Ianto again, Rex was certain of that. When they did, it would be so much better than before, because it would be the meeting of friends and equals that time.
So, what do you think? A little bit longer than the past few stories, but, I hope, worth it.
It's a bit of Miracle Day fix-it, but hey, Rex deserves something of a happy ending, especially if he did get immortality from Jack.
Regardless, let me know what you think! Please review this! I will, as I always promise, get another story out as soon as I possibly can.