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 This was also a fill for my 2012 BINGO, for the prompt Fork In the Road AU
Dreams of What Could Have Been
Ianto floated in a sea of black.
Gradually, the blackness morphed into swirling colors, until it was as if a rainbow encircled him.
A dream, he realized.
Well, not a true dream in the way humans measure them; this was TARDIS dream, a dream of timelines.
Dreams where seeing what could have been come easily to him.
Slowly the encircling rainbows gave way around him, and he was standing on the bridge of the TARDIS.
To be more precise, he was standing on the bridge of the TARDIS when the Doctor's tenth regeneration was piloting her back with the help of his companions, towing the Earth back into place.
This was the moment he was conceived.
But why was he seeing this? He knew these events as well as he knew his partner.
To his non-human eyes the heart of this Mother glowed, as did the young companion who had taught the Doctor to love again: Rose.
Now he understood; he was seeing his Mother making a different choice.
He let the timeline engulf him; yes, this was the changing point between the timeline and universe he knew so well and another.
He opened his eyes to see the split-second his Mother used the companion, Rose, to recreate the Bad Wolf.
For what purpose, he didn't know yet.
He closed his eyes as he let himself be dragged through the timeline.
When he opened them he could see…himself.
Who was this Ianto?
He reached out to see the timeline of this Ianto.
He smiled sadly. Human, born late in the 20th century; joined Torchwood; thought he was in love with a woman who would be turned into a Cyberman; his career with Torchwood; and finally, Jack.
This human Ianto would love Jack—love all parts of him, the dark parts included. He would understand Jack.
But he was human, with a human lifespan; Ianto knew that in some universes, this was a possibility, but it still saddened him that another version of his partner had to suffer that loss with a version of himself.
Around Ianto and the image of his other self, the darkness was engulfed in light.
The Bad Wolf. Ianto knew this was his Mother's doing—what she had done instead of conceiving him.
But what was this?
A choice. His mother was offering a choice to this version of himself: let his end come as nature intends, or have the chance to be with Jack until the end of Jack's days.
Ianto smiled as he turned from the scene. He did not need to know what the other version of himself would choose. He had seen his counterpart's feelings, and furthermore, he knew himself.
Yes, different experiences and childhoods made himself and his counterpart different, just as they would in every universe; however, at the core of their characters they would all be the same—it's what made them Ianto. Furthermore, for Ianto Jones, the ONE will always be the one known as Captain Jack Harkness.
His Mother knew Jack's pain, and sought to give him something.
It would seem that, no matter the choice, that something was Ianto.