Title: The Chronicles of an Affair
Author: enchanted nightingale
Beta Reader: pussycatadamah
Disclaimer:The characters do not belong to me. I only use them in my plot for fun.
Timeline: Before Ianto works for Torchwood One in London. I'm not sure about a timeline for Doctor Who, probably mid season 2?
Summary: The Doctor takes Rose home and decides to pop out for a bit. Enter Ianto Jones, the Doctor's companion for one hell of a trip that will change his life.
Pairs: Ianto Jones/10th Doctor (friendship), Ianto Jones/ Jack Harkness (later on)
Chapter 7: Back to not so abnormal
''Ah. London air. How I missed it,'' Ianto mused. Behind him, Rose and the Doctor were just exiting the TARDIS. After making coffee for Jackie and her daughter Ianto had gone into the TARDIS one last time, one last trip, for real this time. It was a pity, because Rose was so much fun, the Doctor with Rose at his side even more so. He had not wanted to get between them and it was also getting too dangerous, his need for adventure. If he did not return to his life, his studies, the boring Earth or else it would be too late. Rose, she was already past the point of no return and Ianto feared becoming like her, getting too attached to the Doctor. So he decided that this trip, one visit to the Police Galactic Quarters, one more chance to save the universe and now he was on Earth soil again.
''Ianto, are you sure?''
The Welshman looked back on Rose.
''Yep, enough travelling for me,'' Ianto assured her.
''Got your new and improved phone with you?'' the Time Lord asked.
Ianto took out his phone, a tweaked Blackberry, with universal reception and a phone he would never again need to pay the bill for. He had a suitcase with him, a few knickknacks, nothing blatantly alien. It helped the suitcase had a perception filter on it, the Doctor had insisted.
''I need to settle in,'' Ianto told them. ''Rest a bit.''
''Greet your friends,'' the Doctor commented. ''I can feel their buzzing.''
''The bugs?'' Rose asked.
''Not bugs, they are Mara, creatures of time,'' the Doctor told her. ''You know them as fairies.''
''You are having me on!'' Rose told him, thinking the Doctor was teasing her at first. Then the Time Lord shook his head and she faltered. "Fairies are real? Okay, first werewolves now fairies, are vampires real too?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Who knows!"
Rose went back to staring at the dancing lights.
''Never mind them,'' Ianto told her. He hugged her and said his goodbyes. Then he turned to the Doctor.
''Do you want your hug?'' the Welshman teased the Time Lord who made the move and hugged the man. They did not linger, but the Doctor made Ianto stay still for a moment, and looking into his blue eyes he told Ianto seriously.
''If you find out anything at all...''
''I'll call you,'' Ianto promised.
''Good boy.''
''Take good care of him,'' he told the blond woman. ''And you Doctor, take good care of her. She deserves a nice outing too, a restaurant or something.''
''Ah! The Twin Gea has wonderful restaurants,'' the alien mused. ''I'll take her straight there.''
''Good,'' Ianto approved. ''See you whenever.''
He did not stand around to see them disappear, but he did pat the exterior of the Police Box once the duo got back inside.
''Travel safe,'' Ianto told the TARDIS and the space ship brushed her presence against his mind before disappearing in the Time Vortex.
It took Ianto a month to stop craving the action and even then he held onto his self imposed rules by the skin of his teeth. He applied himself more into his studies and he was soon enough facing his graduation when it happened. The blue eyed man could honestly say that he had not been looking for trouble, though he had met with Jackie and Mickey a couple of times since he tried to be normal. He never asked after the Doctor, never rubbed it in their faces that he had been with the Doctor. With Jackie he went shopping for a suit, for his graduation ceremony. With Mickey he grabbed a pint and watched a few games, normal stuff.
So when he saw a team of men dressed in a military style uniforms taking down what looked like an alien. A van was parked nearby, the logo 'Torchwood' on the side.
The whole scene gave Ianto pause. Humans battling aliens. This one looked like a mercenary, a Blowfish. He had seen a couple of them in one of the clubs in the Vegas Galaxies. Gangsters of Space the Doctor had called them; red cacti Ianto had dubbed them.
The Welshman's sixth sense, the one attuned to danger, adventure and trouble, started tingling. Ianto knew a sensible person would have walked away, run the moment he saw them. The man he had been months ago would have walked away but not Ianto Jones post Doctor; he lingered.
A week later Ianto was contacted by Torchwood Institute of London.
"If Its Alien, it's ours."
The phrase that summed up Torchwood One, the largest branch of the Institute Queen Victoria had founded back in 1879. When Ianto found out the cause behind the birth of such an organization, he felt the urge to flee. These people, these ignorant, pompous bunch who thought they could control the universe were prepared to fight the Doctor, the one person in the history of Earth that had bled more than the humans living on this planet to protect it. Ianto had been furious too. Torchwood was making Earth an even bigger target than it already was to passing aliens.
Ianto's conscience was not fine with him being so close to the wolf's mouth. He feared they might learn he had been with the Doctor, or worse yet, that he had been in an accident involving alien technology. Still, he stayed, because Torchwood was the closest to space he could get, it was not normal by most people's standards, then again Ianto was not normal now. Torchwood was cold, clinical and at its core evil. Having met the head of the branch he was working for Ianto had felt that Yvonne Hartman was not all that sane. He had learned from other workers that she had plans, restoring the British Empire they had whispered. Ianto kept his opinions to himself on that subject and did his job as best as he could, that meant perfectly.
He had been drafted to work for the Torchwood Archives. It was a glorified librarian's work, handling the vast amount of information, both electronic and on paper. Ianto's sort of eidetic memory worked wonders for him. He could cross reference things easily, he knew where everything was. He slowly but steadily established himself in the eyes of his colleagues and the eyes of his superiors. It took six months for him to be the person they turned to when they wanted information not easily found in databases. It was how his file dropped on Hartman's desk. Ianto had been working for Torchwood shy of fourteen months when his big promotion came in. it got him out of the Archives and made him a go between for all the alien catching organizations, like UNIT and other Torchwood branches.
His work was fulfilling, though demanding. He started working long hours, all work and no private life for a while. He drew even further apart from his family and any kind of social life. Not that he did not get his lucky breaks. Ianto's sense of humour and young looks got him many admirers within Torchwood London. He tried not to get tangled up with many people; that would have made things awkward at work; something the Welshman could do without. One of the first people that caught his eye was Albert, a guy from Torchwood's retrieval team. He had been a fun distraction for Ianto for a month. It ended because Albert was killed by one of the aliens his team had been trying to take down. Ianto was sad about it but did not mourn for long. He started dating not long after, a girl from his favourite coffee shop, a guy he met in a pub, then Lisa from the technological department of Torchwood. She was fun and witty and he could have fallen for her very easily, he had begun to in fact, when his work hours, so much longer than hers, wore them down. Then he came, and Lisa never stood a chance.
End of chapter
