Things Lost and Things Gained
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own. Sadly.
Summary: Reflections on traveling with the Doctor, as told by Ianto Jones. Follows "Life Happens." Doctor/Donna, hints of Jack/Ianto. Hints of Doctor Who canon. Part of the "Immortal Janto" series.
This is what Ianto is feeling, as a companion to the Doctor. It's Ianto's thoughts on the time he spent, waiting to be reunited with Jack.
By now, Ianto really shouldn't be surprised when weird things happen. After all, he died, came back to life, found that he was immortal (which he's actually not that upset about), and has to wait an unspecified number of years until he can be reunited with the equally immortal love of his life.
That last bit sucks royally.
At first, he didn't mind, because he was travelling with the Doctor and that meant that there was adventure and problems to solve at every corner. The Doctor is infinitely worse than Jack is at attracting trouble and . . . well, the Doctor never seems to be plagued (ever) by long periods of time without sex. Ianto had trouble with that because they never stuck around a place long enough for him to get laid.
Oh, Ianto was in love with Jack and he would be until he died permanently. He couldn't wait until they were together again. Jack would probably insist that they stay in the bedroom for a week (at least).
And it wasn't that sex with Jack isn't amazing. (It is!)
It's just that, when you don't know when you're allowed to see the love of your life and you really want to have sex with said love of your life, you tend to get very sexually frustrated. And Ianto Jones does not like to be sexually frustrated when Jack's not around to make everything better.
Ianto enjoys travelling with the Doctor. He was good at seeing the solutions that the Doctor couldn't and fixing the problems that the Doctor caused. Jack was really good training for that.
Plus, the Doctor taught him how to fly the TARDIS. That was fun. Ianto found that he had some degree of telepathic connection with the TARDIS. The Doctor said that it had to do with the tiny piece of the Time Vortex in him that made him immortal. He finds that the TARDIS is good at sympathizing with him, especially when he needs to vent at someone.
The hardest part, he realized after the first year, was the fact that they had to be careful whenever they were on Earth.
Everyone thought that he was dead and they had to keep it that way until he could be reunited with Jack. Of course, this whole situation with "Miracle Day" and no one dying made it a bit more interesting.
Not that they didn't keep an eye on Jack and Gwen. He would be a bad lover and a bad friend if he didn't.
Gwen, he thought, was a good mum, though still too gung-ho for adventure. Her little girl was beautiful. Seeing Gwen, Rhys, and Anwen, even from afar, made him ache for a family with Jack. One day, the Doctor had told him. One day, they'll have that. It's just so frustrating so see Gwen, of all people, with a family of her own.
Jack, on the other hand, was harder at first to follow, simply because he moping around the galaxy. It touched Ianto that Jack was grieving for him, but, to be perfectly honest, he wanted to smack Jack. If Ianto had been permanently dead, he would have wanted Jack to move on. Ianto didn't grudge Jack his hook-up with Alonso. That had been the Doctor's idea. He had thought that it might be nice to nudge Jack back into functionality because Jack would be needed on Earth.
Still, they did manage to visit Earth. He even managed to visit Cardiff and the Hub (though covertly). Ianto had found one of Jack's spare jackets, a black trench coat, in the remains of the Hub. It smelled like Jack, so he had taken it with him and started wearing it. The Doctor had been wary about it, but Donna, once she had joined up with them after Ianto had figured out a way to stabilize the Time Lord-Human metacrisis in her, had said that it made him more distinguished, not that he would ever tell Jack that.
Every time Ianto sees the Doctor staring at Donna, clearly lost in happy thoughts and memories, he smiles.
It had been a stroke of sheer luck that had allowed him the chance to fix what was wrong with the metacrisis and bring Donna back. The Doctor just hadn't been right without her. He knew that now. The red-head livened up the TARDIS and their lives. Ianto had actually taken a page out of Jack's book and devised an elaborate scheme that had ended with the Doctor and Donna playing a game of Naked Hide-and-Seek, in order to force a Vortex effect on Donna.
The Doctor had been shell-shocked when he came into the control room the morning after and saw Ianto sitting at the controls, sipping a mug of tea, a secret smile hidden behind the mug. Ianto was very proud of himself for getting those two together. So was the TARDIS.
He couldn't imagine a life where he didn't have his adopted sister. Donna had insisted on calling him family, especially since, as she put it, they were both "shagged into immortality." Technically, that wasn't true for Donna, since she was part-Time Lord, but the sentiment was still there. She had dragged him to tea with her mother and grandfather on multiple occasions, after swearing both of them to secrecy about him still being alive (in the very remote off-chance that Jack ever came to visit).
Sylvia Noble was reserved about meeting him at first, simply because he travelled with the Doctor. She had declared, after meeting him, that he was the kind of man that she had hoped Donna would marry one day. Both Ianto and Donna fell into fits of giggles at the slightest mention of that afternoon.
Wilfred, on the other hand, had accepted him with open arms. The old man told him, much later, that he owed Ianto more than he could ever repay, since he had given Donna back her old spark, the spark that she had had when she was with the Doctor. Ianto was flustered at that. He never got used to people thanking him for the things like that. He did it because it was the right thing to do.
Donna and the Doctor were his family, as much as his co-workers at Torchwood had been.
He still mourns Toshiko and Owen and he knows that he always will. Their deaths came just before his. Ianto knows that Jack feels the blame for that and it hurts that he can't reassure Jack that it wasn't his fault, that good things came of their relationship and his first death.
Ianto had managed to go secretly to their graves, one trip back to Earth, and leave flowers at their graves. He had also left flowers at his own grave, mainly out of irony and out of memory for what was left behind. Donna had left flowers as well because she had wanted to memorialize his old life. He smiled at her love.
But, even as he knows that he has lost things and has left things behind, he knows that good things have come of it.
He has become a valuable member of the TARDIS crew. He got to help people, just like had done at Torchwood, only on a larger scale. He had been the one to get Donna and the Doctor together (and had stood as joint best man/maid of honor at their very small wedding). He was the proud uncle of Donna and the Doctor's very rambunctious twins, a boy named Geoff (after Donna's late dad) and a girl named S.J. (after the Doctor's dear former companion, Sarah Jane).
Ianto has plenty to keep him occupied. There are always problems to solve and people to help. He's the always-present babysitter for Geoff and S.J. whenever the Doctor and Donna have date nights.
He knows that, one day, he'll have his wedding (or weddings, if what the Doctor says is correct). He knows that he'll have a family and that his children will have Geoff and S.J., as constant playmates, cousins, and friends. He knows that the Doctor and Donna will be babysitters for his children, because Donna said that they would repay the debt in kind (since they both know that Jack will insist on lots of those), and he looks forward to the first time that happens, because the Doctor's face will be priceless. He knows that Sylvia and Wilfred will dote on his children and, hopefully, accept Jack as they had him, which isn't so much of a problem, since Jack is a charmer.
Still, the waiting is the hardest part.
But one day, out of the blue, fifteen TARDIS years (or five Earth years) after Ianto died, the Doctor comes into the TARDIS control room after a date night, wearing one of his patented madmen/child at Christmas grins (no really, they're patented), and announces:
"Ianto Jones, let's go get your lover."
Well, that's that. Was it good? You know what to do, let me know! I'm planning on doing another sequel, in which Ianto and Jack are (FINALLY) reunited! Boy, oh boy, what an event that should be.