Huon Particles, Rift Energy and Poisonous Gases

by Caz251

Summary: Written for the longliveianto non-anniversary challenge when the bomb went off in the Hub, it ripped open the Rift and Ianto was bathed in the released Rift energy... submitted by milady-dragon. Slash. Janto. Spoilers for TW: Children of Earth

Title: Huon Particles, Rift Energy and Poisonous Gases

Author: Caz251

Fandom: Torchwood

Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Gwen, 456

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Written for the longliveianto non-anniversary challenge when the bomb went off in the Hub, it ripped open the Rift and Ianto was bathed in the released Rift energy... submitted by milady-dragon

Spoilers: Spoilers for Torchwood Children of Earth and some for Pre-series 5 Doctor Who

Warnings: character deathand implied character death

Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, or anything associated with it.

In the last few years of his life before that fateful day in Thames House Ianto Jones had been many things, but above all he was Torchwood. Whether it be Torchwood London or Torchwood Cardiff it didn't really matter, both branches and the effect they had on him were what led to what happened to him that day. Torchwood London's contribution was physical, while Cardiff's had definitely been emotional.

Before the events of that day in Thames House can be fully understood one must go back to beginning of Ianto's career with Torchwood London. Although Yvonne Hartman was seen by many as a heartless woman on a mission of domination in the stars on behalf of the British Empire, she did believe in her staff. It was her staff and her Torchwood that would conquer the stars, as a result they had to be the best equipped for the job. Every member of Torchwood London was immunised against as many alien substances and illnesses as possible. In his time at Torchwood London Ianto had had if a variety of different immunisations, but it was one in particular that was the start of the process that led to the event that took place that day in Thames House. The immunisation was one that was home grown; the liquid solution filtered through the Thames. The scientists believed it to be something safe and innocuous that could be used to protect against non terrestrial chemicals. In reality the were Huon particles, something that had been banned by the Time Lords long before Torchwood got hold of them.

The Huon particles in his bloodstream didn't affect him much, but it did help him bond with the small piece of coral in Captain Harkness's office when he got the job with Torchwood Cardiff after the fall of Torchwood London. Not that he ever once noticed the bond, it was something that was there, but he never took note of. It was almost like a perception filter was masking the growing bond between them. Residual rift energy seemed to interact with the Huon particles as well, not that Ianto knew this, he had never really thought about the correlation that was a large amount of rift activity and the excess energy he seemed to possess at those times.

In smaller amounts the rift energy was not going to have much affect, and it wouldn't really be noticeable. However, when the Torchwood Cardiff base exploded it became the next piece in the puzzle that was the life of Ianto Jones. The physical explosion wasn't as bad as it should have been as the majority of the explosion was transported through the rift. The explosion caused the rift to open, an explosion of rift energy escaping upwards, directly to where Ianto was above the physical explosion, before the force of the explosion on the other side of the rift closed the rift again. The rift had closed as the force of the explosion was almost like a key, unlocking it on this side of the rift, and relocking it on the other. Due to the short time that the rift was open nothing had a chance to use the rift to travel through it, and the only evidence that it even opened was the rift energy that had saturated Ianto Jones, and the fact that the explosion of the hub wasn't as major as it could have been.

Ianto Jones wasn't the only sentient being dosed with the rift energy however, Jack of course had been saturated in it, being the cause of the rift opening, but so had a small piece of coral in his office. The coral seemed to glow as it absorbed the rift energy, before it vanished from where it had fallen on the floor of what was left of Jack's office. Like the small amounts of residual rift energy that Ianto had encountered over the years the influx of rift energy into his system didn't do much but excite the Huon particles within him. It wasn't until a few days later that the result of what had occurred when all these factors were added together, as well as the final ingredient.

Dying of poison in front of a glass tank containing an alien wasn't the state of affairs that Ianto Jones had planned for his day, but that was the events that had started to play out that day in Thames House. The poison that the aliens, known as the 456 for the frequency they transmitted on, was just what Ianto needed. While it was deadly to ordinary human beings, and even to immortals like Jack, who would bounce back, the poison was the key to unlocking what Ianto Jones was about to become. The poison, which should have by rights killed him, did something else, instead of robbing him of his life, it enacted safety protocols that he had no idea even existed.

As far as Ianto Jones had known he was just Jones, Ianto Jones, human born and bred, who just happened to know of the existence of aliens and many other wondrous things in the world. He had never expected to be one of those wondrous things. While he had been born human, human was a classification that could no longer be assigned to him, he had been changed too much by the Huon particles, rift energy and his bond with that one piece of coral. Ianto had been sure that he was about to die and was trying to convey his feelings to Jack in what he was positive were his last minutes alive, when that very piece of coral appeared in hands. What happened next will forever remain a mystery to many; both Ianto and the coral seemed to burst into a shower of golden light before disappearing. In their place was what looked like a red box from which coffee was often sold.

In reality the defensive measures that were in place around Ianto called the coral to him, and the golden light was the final joining between them. They had been bonding slowly on an unconscious level since Ianto had arrived at Torchwood Cardiff, even more so once Ianto and Jack had become lovers as they both had a shared care for the Captain. Now though they were one as they were meant to be, a TARDIS was incomplete without its heart. Ianto was now the heart of the TARDIS, the heart of a TARDIS is one of the few places that Huon particles can exist in concordance with rift energy, and they had mutated Ianto in order to be able to survive in him properly. Ianto knew what he was now his mind having joined with the coral completely, he had become the TARDIS he could see all of space and time and all the different probable courses of actions.

The box hat appeared in Thames House was his interpretation of a TARDIS's outer shell, what he knew of TARDIS's before he found out what he was came from knowledge of the Doctor's TARDIS, a blue police box. The TARDIS that he was and had become the heart of had also taken on his personality, so instead of turning into something to blend in with the surroundings in the room it had become a coffee box of sorts. When the box opened, a golden light flowed out and around the room on floor 13 flowing round Jack's dead body, holding him in what seemed like a hug. The energy then retreated towards the box that could be seen by Gwen and the others in the warehouse to where Ianto Jones stood alive and whole.

While it was Ianto, it also wasn't, he was still the same as he had been before he had 'died', but he was now more as well. As the heart of a TARDIS the physical humanoid form that he held was only one form that he could take, he could also retreat into the core of the TARDIS and become pure energy. The form of Ianto Jones was the one that he had always had though, and it was one that he intended to keep, there was however a large difference in his appearance now that he had completed his bonding with the physical shell of the TARDIS. His eyes were no longer the blue colour that they had always been, now they were a startling gold. The golden eyes turned towards the glass box in the room, aware now of what exactly the 456 were and the crimes they had committed. The creature inside the tank seemed to sense the shift of power in the room and was keeping silent.

Using his connection to the Time Vortex Ianto came up with a course of action, knowing what the '456' had done to what they considered a remnant, he turned their own weapons back on them. It was obvious to him when he looked through the vortex that the children that were being used as drugs were still mentally aware. It wasn't much of a leap therefore for him to use the rest of the children from 1965, who were no doubt all still connected up to the scourge of the universe. He then snatched out of time the remnants of the wave that they used to kill Clem, unable to save the man as his death would be important. He then fed the wave through space, using Clem and the links of friendship, grown colder, but never dissolved, that he had with the children that he had been in the orphanage with.

His gold eyes narrowed in anticipation as he watched, waiting for the evidence that it had worked and that the threat to the Earth's children was gone. The proof he needed happened a few minutes later when the glass tank that had held the alien exploded, the alien with it. The child from 1965 was still there, rapidly growing cold as death finally overtook their body. All the children would have died at the moment of impact of the wave, but he knew that their deaths were mercy killings in a way, and a sacrifice that saved millions of children from suffering their fates. He gathered up the child's body, taking it within himself to somewhere safe until they could bury the body in a proper ceremony, before he returned to collect Jack. He dragged the man he loved into the control room, before closing the door, and disappearing from Thames House altogether. He didn't need a pilot, he was part of the ship, he would take them were they were going with just a thought, he just hoped that Jack had come back to life and he had a chance to explain everything before they got there.