Part Two
Ianto walked silently with the Doctor, curious in spite of his doubts. The man they were following—his other self, the one who had never joined Torchwood—did not look all that different, although Ianto thought he caught a hint of a beard, which was interesting. The suit and the shoes and the coat all looked familiar, and very Torchwood, but this Ianto Jones had walked right past the Hub.
They followed the man along the Quay to the coffee shop that the team visited frequently when they needed to get out of the Hub. He ordered two cappuccinos and some pastries and continued toward the Senedd. They followed him into the assembly building, where he greeted a young blond woman with a kiss and handed her the other drink. They held hands as they entered a nearby lift, talking and laughing, appearing comfortable and content with one another. The Doctor bounced on his toes, obviously waiting for Ianto's reaction.
"So…" Ianto started, turning toward the other man. "I still work for the government."
"Still a PA, too," the Doctor replied. "General Assistant to the AM from…Newport, I believe?"
"Brilliant," Ianto murmured. "So not only did I never leave, but I'm still in Cardiff, working in the very place I wanted to get away from."
"Oh, you left," said the Doctor, motioning Ianto toward a nearby bench. "Went to London, but came back after university. You weren't recruited into Torchwood, so you had no reason to stay."
Ianto shook his head as he sat down, glancing around the busy area in disagreement. This was not what he had ever envisioned for his life. "I would have stayed. I was trying to get away from Cardiff."
"But was London really everything you thought it would be?" the Doctor asked shrewdly.
"It was better than Cardiff, at the time," Ianto replied. "Especially when I had a job offer working in a high-tech office building for Queen and country under the Official Secrets Act."
"You didn't get the offer," the Doctor replied. "So you came back, simple as that. Drifted a bit, until four years ago you started work in the Senedd. You worked your way up quickly, known for your organization, efficiency, and amazing coffee." He paused and frowned, as if considering something. "Ah. You're coffee machine broke last week so you've been picking some up on the way in. You'll get one for Christmas, no worries."
Ianto tried to wrap his mind around the thought of having never been approached by Torchwood. Why hadn't he tried for something else in London? Why come back to Cardiff? And work for the government? He'd gone to school with only vague ideas of what he wanted to do with his life, but working for the National Assembly for Wales had not been one of them.
"Who was the woman I kissed?" Ianto asked. He hadn't recognized her, and the thought of being with someone he'd never met in his own time was almost as unsettling as working for the National Assembly.
"She's your girlfriend, obviously. Her name is Megan, and she works for another AM. You've been together a year now, everyone thinks you're a lovely couple and your family loves her, and I do believe you're thinking about popping the question soon." The Doctor was watching him closely as the realization hit.
"I never met Lisa," he said softly. "Because I never joined Torchwood One."
"You never met Jack either," the Doctor added, surprisingly gentle about it. Ianto couldn't imagine having never met these two important people. He wouldn't be the man he was today if it hadn't been for their influence on who he was, both good and bad. Suddenly he wanted to know everything, but not about his own life—about theirs.
"What happened to her?" he asked. "To Lisa? She joined Torchwood before me. Did she stay?"
The Doctor took off his glasses and nodded sadly. "Let's go for a walk. Stop by the Tardis for some tea, perhaps?"
Ianto frowned, knowing the Doctor was putting him off, but nodded and stood to follow him. They walked in silence back to the Plass and the Tardis, where the Doctor led him through a maze of corridors to a small kitchen-like area. He set a kettle to boiling while Ianto watched and waited impatiently. He would have preferred coffee, but then again, he felt out of his depth, and something more comforting than straight up black would probably settle him more.
"Doctor," Ianto said quietly. "I'd like to know what happened to Lisa Hallett."
To his surprise, the Doctor handed him his tea in a paper cup with a lid, then inclined his head toward what was presumably the door, and they walked back out into the cold sunshine. The tea was strong and hot, but good.
"She died at the Battle of Canary Wharf," the Doctor started matter-of-factly. "She was captured early on, because she wasn't dating a certain Junior Researcher who warned her about the Cybermen and pulled her off the conversion table when it was all over." The Doctor did not look at Ianto, but stared straight ahead. "She took part in the battle as a fully converted Cyberman and was sucked into the void at the end."
"Oh my god," Ianto whispered. He stopped in his tracks, sickened by the thought of such a horrific fate for the woman he'd loved. Tossing his unfinished cup into the nearest rubbish bin, he ran his hands through his hair, trying to calm his racing heart. Lisa was dead. Yes, she was dead in his own time as well, but at least she'd had a fighting chance. He'd warned her, he'd pulled her out of the rubble, he'd done everything he possibly could to try and save her. He'd still failed, but the thought of his Lisa fully converted and killing others only to be sucked into the Void was even worse.
The Doctor was watching him carefully. "I told you—you made a difference. You saved her life."
Ianto shook his head. "I tried to save her life. I only prolonged her suffering, but at least…" He shook off the thought, that at least she hadn't been fully converted. In the end, she had been. Taking a deep breath, he met the Doctor's eyes.
"If I wasn't at Torchwood One to save her, that means I never came to Torchwood Three to hide her. Tell me about the others."
"If you insist," replied the Doctor. "Let's walk some more. Back to where I found you."
Ianto motioned him forward and started asking questions. "What about the team? Suzie, Tosh, Owen, and Gwen? What about Jack? Torchwood Three couldn't be that different."
"Well, to start with, Gwen Cooper never joined Torchwood," said the Doctor. "She's dead."
"What?" Ianto exclaimed. "But I didn't know her before she joined. I couldn't have made a difference in her life!"
The Doctor smiled sadly. "Oh, but you did. You weren't there to warn Jack that Suzie Costello had shown up and was threatening Gwen up on the Plass. Jack was too late. Suzie shot Gwen, shot Jack, and finally shot herself."
"But I…" Ianto thought back to that night. Yes, he had been the one to tell Jack that Gwen Cooper had been wandering around the Plass. And he had called Jack immediately when Suzie had arrived, instinctively sensing the situation was about to go from bad to worse. He'd never considered that he'd saved Gwen's life that night. Now he tried to push bitter thoughts from his mind. She was a good person and even a friend of sorts; he would not wish things otherwise.
"Did Jack hire someone else then? If he didn't hire Gwen?"
The Doctor finished his tea and tossed his cup, then tucked his hands into his pockets as he shook his head. "No, he was too upset about them both. He felt like it was his fault that Gwen Cooper was killed, and was too consumed by guilt over Suzie's downfall to replace her. So they muddled on, the three of them. For a while."
"For a while?"
The Doctor nodded, and his tone took on an indifferent impartiality, as if he were simply reciting rote facts. "Toshiko Sato was killed in the Welsh countryside by a group of cannibals. There was no one there to distract her captors and give her the chance to escape."
"She…" Ianto stared at him, unable to process this one. Tosh, his closest friend, dead in the countryside because of him? "What about the others? They could have saved her!"
"But they didn't. Owen Harper was trying to save the one survivor they'd found, and Jack was questioning one of the villagers. By the time he arrived, she was already gone. She died in Dr. Harper's arms.
Ianto was speechless. They arrived outside the Tourist Office and he sank onto a bench, his head falling into his hands.
"What about Owen?" he finally asked, his voice hoarse. "How did he take it?"
"Quite badly," the Doctor replied. "He even left for a while. Jack carried on alone, but the guilt kept growing. Owen came back to help with some stranded time travelers, but Jack lost one of them and Owen lost the other, and they both fell apart for a while."
Ianto knew the Doctor was referring to John Ellis and Diane Holmes. It was strange to think how many things had still happened, but had happened so differently.
"Owen left Cardiff for good after that, and Jack let him go without taking his memories. He worked on his own again, unwilling to sacrifice anyone else to the demons of Torchwood. He was sucked into a time portal and landed in 1941, but without anyone at the Hub to open the Rift, he had to take the slow path back to the time he'd disappeared. When he did, he was caught up in a plot to open the Rift and release a monster held prisoner there."
"Abaddon," Ianto murmured. He tried to imagine Jack living through the twentieth century again, constantly avoiding himself, only to have to face Abaddon sixty-five years later on his own. It broke Ianto's heart yet again.
The Doctor nodded. "It took him a while to recover from that one. And then I showed up to refuel, and he hitched a ride with me. He'd been waiting for over a century to find out why he couldn't die and was only too happy to leave Torchwood behind after all he'd lost."
Ianto felt himself tense at the Doctor's words. He couldn't imagine Jack willingly leaving Torchwood. He also knew that Jack's time with the Doctor had been difficult, to say the least. Jack had been held captive and tortured for a year, though Ianto didn't know much else. He wondered if it had been the same in this time.
"Yes, the Year That Never Was," the Doctor murmured, gazing out across the bay. "Some things don't change. And that was one of them. It was a hard year for Jack, but at the end, he came back here. He and Martha decided Earth was their home and needed to be protected. He took back Torchwood from UNIT and she joined up. They found Dr. Harper and set about protecting the city once again."
"Are they still alive?" Ianto asked, almost dreading the answer. The Doctor didn't answer immediately.
"Jack went through a difficult time when he came back. I suppose you'd call it post-traumatic stress. He didn't have anyone to turn to, not really. Martha tried to help, but she was dealing with it herself, as well as trying to help her family. And Dr. Harper was a friend and coworker, not a close confidante or lover."
"What are you saying?" Ianto demanded. "That Jack left again? That he couldn't cope and ran away?"
"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head sadly. "But without your support, he fell into a deep depression. Nightmares, flashbacks. Started drinking again. He was more alone than ever."
"That's not my fault!" Ianto snapped. "It's yours! You…you took him away, got captured and let him be tortured for an entire year! You broke him!"
"And you put him back together," the Doctor replied. "Without you, he fell apart, over and over. Martha returned to London after the team lost several days of their memory, and she decided to stay with her family. I suspect running into a certain young doctor helped influence her choice to leave Torchwood and go back to medicine." Ianto knew he was referring to Thomas Milligan, Martha's fiancé, but that was beside the point now.
"Tell me what happened to Jack!" he demanded, standing and confronting the Doctor. The Doctor simply inclined his head toward the tourist office. Ianto turned to see Jack step outside, but it was not the man he knew.
This man appeared smaller, thinner. He looked defeated. The greatcoat both he and Jack took great pride in maintaining was dull and dirty, his tan boots caked in mud. Slightly longer hair and stubble gave him the appearance of having rolled out of bed, but it was clear from the bags under his eyes that he didn't sleep at all anymore. There was no light in this Jack's eyes, no spark of life in his slow, hunched walk toward the water. Ianto had never seen a more gut-wrenching sight.
"Jack," he whispered, taking a step closer before stopping himself. The man at the railing glanced over his shoulder as if he had heard something, but when Ianto looked to the Doctor, the time traveler shook his head.
"He can't see or hear us. We're not truly here, because this place doesn't actually exist. Everything you see is what could have been, a universe of what-ifs."
"It's not real," Ianto replied. "He's not real."
"Could have been, though," the Doctor said. Ianto looked at him sharply.
"I don't believe it for a second. Jack is the strongest man I know! He'd never break, not like…like that!" He waved his hand toward the man at the railing, leaning over smoking a fag. Ianto had never once seen Jack smoke, and it was not the turn-on he'd once thought it could be.
"Everyone has their breaking point," the Doctor said quietly. "Not long after Martha returned to London, Owen Harper was killed while undercover at the Pharm. Jack was too far gone to bring him back with that glove he tracked down in your time. He gave up."
"He wouldn't do that!" Ianto shouted, resisting the impulse to push the man away from him. "You don't know him at all if you think that."
"It's not my personal opinion, it's what would have happened if you hadn't joined Torchwood. You wouldn't have met Lisa and you wouldn't have been at Canary Wharf, which means you wouldn't have come to Cardiff and met Jack."
"And Gwen and Tosh and Owen are all dead because of me?" Ianto scoffed, refusing to believe it. "Jack is…is this, all because of me? It's bollocks!"
"It's true."
"It's not!" Ianto shouted, waving his arms; he refused to believe it. He was not some sort of lynchpin, he was one small man living on a backward planet in the 21st century. "I'm not that important, not to Torchwood, not to them, and not to Jack."
He was breathing rapidly as he blinked back tears and turned toward Jack, wishing he could take this other man in his arms and assure him that he wasn't alone, that he wasn't a bitter, broken man, but strong and confident and full of life. As he took another step forward, knowing it was useless but reaching out nonetheless, the Doctor began speaking.
At first, it was nothing but names Ianto did not recognize. Then he started to remember. The first few names were friends and coworkers from London, followed by Gwen, Tosh, and Owen. Then came dozens of names, ordinary citizens of Cardiff that Ianto knew were tied to various cases over his time at Torchwood Three, or survivors of the Rift at Flat Holm. There were even a few alien names. And last of all…
"Jack Harkness."
Ianto let his eyes slip closed. The Doctor was wrong. It was impossible. Ianto was one person, one insignificant thread in the vast canvas of life. It did not matter how his thread was woven into the tapestry, for his was not a particularly strong, colorful, or important thread in the overall design. That so many others depended on him was unimaginable.
"And yet you are," the Doctor said, eyeing him thoughtfully. "You are important. You are strong. You matter."
"Get out of my head," Ianto snapped.
"I can see it on your face," the Doctor replied. "You're wondering how this is all possible."
"You're a charlatan," Ianto whispered, shaking his head in denial. "You're showing me what you think I want to see."
"I'm showing you the truth!" the Doctor said, and for a moment Ianto thought the man might grab his shoulders and shake him. "The truth is that you not only made a difference in each one of those lives, but you are destined to save even more, Mr. Jones."
"Which is why you're really here to save mine," Ianto replied with bitterness. "I'm just a tool of fate. Is someone I save destined to be the next Prime Minister? Or perhaps their ancestor will discover the cure to cancer?"
"No!" The Doctor turned around, paced away a few steps, then returned. He didn't grab Ianto, but he did shake a finger in Ianto's face, as if disciplining a recalcitrant child. "I'm here for you. Because you deserve to live, and you deserve to be happy—"
"Well, I'm not!" Ianto interjected, hating that he sounded like he was pouting.
"—and because even though you don't think so and may not believe it, Jack cares about you. Don't you get it?" The Doctor gestured at Jack, still standing at the railing, staring at the water with an empty look on his face. "That man you see there? That is Jack Harkness, broken and alone. Your Jack is actually living, not just sleepwalking through life, because of you. Your Jack is strong and determined and confident, not bitter and broken, all because of you. Your Jack loves you, because you are the only one who was always there for him, who supported him, who saved him—who loved him."
"I don't—" started Ianto, but the Doctor stopped him.
"You do, and he does, and neither of you may ever admit it to yourselves, let alone to each other, but it's the truth." This time he did put his hands on either side of Ianto's shoulders. "You are worthy of life, Ianto Jones. You may not think so, but you have so much to live for...your friends, your family, and especially Jack."
Ianto shook his head, refusing to believe it. The Doctor was so wrong it physically hurt, a dull throb in his chest, and from that hurt bubbled great anger.
"Take me back," he said forcefully. "Take me back to my own time. Now."
"So you can top it?" the Doctor asked skeptically. "Or have I changed your mind about it all being a waste of time?"
"You haven't changed my mind at all, because you know nothing about me!" Ianto shouted, shoving him away and pacing. "If you did, you wouldn't have brought me here. You don't know how it adds up, dealing with all the shit we have to go through. My mother died a few months ago, and my sister won't stop giving me a hard time about how I choose to grieve, about my job, about my love life. I've been injured more times than I care to count since I started this bloody job, which is why I'm hooked on these damn things." He took the pills from his pocket and shook them at the Doctor. "One of my coworkers can't die, and another died but came back and can't live. We save the world every other week and no one knows what we do, or why we do it, because we have to cover it up and lie about it every day. My…Jack…cares more about you, and about Gwen, and probably a dozen other people, than he does about me, even if he is sleeping with me. I wake up every day wondering if that will be the day that he leaves, whether he leaves me or leaves Earth for good."
"Jack—" started the Doctor, but Ianto snarled and stopped him.
"Shut up! It's too much, all right? It's not what I wanted, and I'm sick of it! It doesn't matter, I don't matter, because there are other people out there who could do this better anyway. And thanks to you, I think I'm ready to let them have a crack at it."
"What?" the Doctor asked in surprise. Ianto offered a bitter smile.
"You've shown me what my life could have been. What's to stop it from happening in my own timeline? I could quit Torchwood and go work for the Senedd. Start all over. I could have a house, a fiancé, a normal life. Hell, I could probably be an AM myself by the time I'm thirty, which is more than what I can say about staying with Torchwood. I'll be lucky to make it that long!"
"Is that what you really want?" the Doctor asked quietly.
"I don't know!" Ianto shouted. "But I don't want this, not anymore, not if there's something else out there. I don't want to watch my friends die, and I don't want to watch Jack leave, and I don't want to spend the rest of my short life underground, taking care of aliens and addicted to painkillers!"
The Doctor was staring at him and did not reply. Ianto opened his mouth to continue his tirade, but stopped when the Doctor's eyes widened and his mouth curved into a smile. He tipped his head to someone behind Ianto and stepped backward, as if surrendering the stage. Ianto turned to find the last person he expected standing there, eyes full of shock, sadness, and pain.
Jack. His Jack.
Author's Notes:
This is now a four-part story. Because honestly? When I started writing this, I did not expect Ianto to react this way until I typed it. Really. It's such an amazing thing to be writing one thing and have another appear as if by magic. It almost convinces me that these stories we tell, every one, are simply out there, waiting to be transcribed by the right person. I hope this second part has lived up to the expectations of the first! Thank you so much for all the amazing reviews, although some of them make me worry that the rest won't be good enough! I hope you enjoyed this even if it's a bit sad for Ianto. There is more angst, as you might imagine now that Jack has arrived and probably heard some of what Ianto said. But keep the faith, because it's Christmas and it's me.
Also, I've updated 'A Different Life' if anyone is reading that story. The response has been slow, so I'm shamelessly pimping it here. I'm hoping it's not losing steam but sometimes fear the worst. Thanks for reading!