Rating: PG (may eventually be NC-17)

Warnings: Bit of angst, Jack meeting the Doctor, spoilers for Army of Ghosts.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Hah! Two in one day! (Consistency? Pacing? What are these mysterious things of which you speak? :P)


Chapter Seven

It's sheer chance that Ianto is between the Doctor and the TARDIS when Jack tumbles to a stop in front of him, because the Time Lord immediately staggers back, and Ianto can see that his surprise is about to become flight.

(Fear, his gift says when he looks at the Doctor. Uncertainty, guilt, horror, sadness. 'I helped him become this, I abandoned him, he's wrong and I don't know how to see him differently.')

So he just…catches the Doctor, very gently, by the elbow and holds him in place.

Wide brown eyes settle on him, uncertain and so very settled at the same time, and Ianto says softly, "Sorry, sir, but I don't think I can let you leave him again."

And then Jack is in front of them, face set, and the Doctor sighs and runs a hand over his face.

"Hello, Jack," he says after a moment, weary and old in a way humans can never be.

"Doctor," Jack says, and his cheerful, mobile features are somewhere between sad, angry, and bewildered.

(Ianto opens his hand and lets the Doctor go, stepping back. This isn't his affair, and he doubts he can help with it.)

The Doctor's gaze shifts away, slide back, and Ianto closes his eyes against the grief in Jack's face. No, he thinks, because he doesn't have to get impressions off Jack to know that the Captain has been waiting for the Time Lord a very long time already. Jack is, from what Ianto knows of the future, immortal, and it seems the Doctor has something to do with this.

No, he thinks again, because Jack is too brave and strong and funny and wonderful to be dismissed the way the Doctor is doing. No, I won't let you do this to him, so STOP.

Something snaps, something rearranges, and Ianto staggers into the wall of the blue police box as his legs suddenly give way beneath him. Jack cries out, the Doctor yelps, and the world resettles with a nearly audible click.

(Somewhere, maybe only in Ianto's head, his mother chuckles and whispers, "Silly boy," because Ianto has always been good at controlling everything except his heart, and his heart is where his power lies.)

"Oh," Ianto whispers, staring at Jack, because Marked suddenly means so much more than it did before.

(He's always been able to control perceptions—other people's impressions—to a small degree, like a walking psychic paper. It was one of the things that made him so valuable to Torchwood Four, but this is utterly new and unexpected. And it's all for Jack—only for Jack.)

The Doctor is staring, too, mouth open and eyes wide, and then he laughs. He laughs like a little kid on Christmas morning, overjoyed and so very excited, and lunges forward to sweep Jack up in a tight hug.

"You're alive!" he cries. "You're alive and I can look at you! You're not wrong!"

Jack seems confused, but he returns the hug, grinning anyway. "Didn't think you'd be the type to look, Doc," he teases, because Jack is always teasing. "See something you like?"

The Doctor pulls back, also grinning, and swats Jack on the arm. "Not like that, you incorrigible rascal! You're a fixed point, a fact, and it's Time Lord nature to avoid those, but—" He cuts himself off and whirls, leveling a long finger at Ianto. "It was you! What did you do, what was it?"

Because he doesn't seem angry, Ianto lets himself relax a little, and smiles. "I just…wanted it," he says with a shrug. "You might be the last of the Time Lords, Doctor, but you've still got a brain, and it's still vulnerable to psychics, if they're the right kind. I don't know how long it will last, though, or whether it's permanent."

The Doctor regards him shrewdly for a moment, then claps him on the shoulder and grins again. "No matter, it worked! Come on, Jack, come and see Rose! She won't know what hit her!" With that, he turns and bounds off, a millennia-old child with far too much energy and enthusiasm. Ianto rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and looks at Jack.

The Captain is staring after the Doctor, eyes soft and smile gentle. When he feels Ianto's gaze, he looks over, though, and turns that gentle smile on Ianto.

"He's the same as ever," he murmurs, and offers Ianto his arm. "If you've given this back to me, Mr. Jones, I don't know how I'll ever work off the debt." Then his grin widens, and he winks. "Though I might have a few ideas, of course."

"Of course," Ianto echoes dryly. It takes a large percent of his willpower to keep from rolling his eyes again as he steers Jack towards the still-open door of the TARDIS. "I'm sure you do, Jack. Let's follow the nice Doctor and see if we can't fix the rest of it, hm?"


"There's something wrong with all of this," the Doctor mutters, raking his hands through his hair and making it stand on end. "The Void, you see the Void when you look at the Ghosts, so they're probably coming from a parallel universe across the Void. But what broke the barriers between the universes in the first place? Torchwood's making it worse, they're using the energy, but—"

He breaks off, shoving his glasses up his nose, and frowns at the controls. "Hmm. I think we need to do a bit of poking around in Torchwood itself."

Jack, from where he's curled up with a still-smiling Rose tucked under one arm, shakes his head. "Sorry, but I don't think I'll be able to get you in. Hartman knows I was a Companion, so she'll be suspicious of anyone who comes in with me. I haven't even taken Ianto, and we've been here almost two weeks."

"We can't just set the TARDIS down inside, somewhere out of the way?" Rose asks, brow furrowed in contemplation.

"No." Jack pulls a face. "I wouldn't put it past Hartman to have a dozen security protocols in place to find the TARDIS. She'd know."

Ianto flicks a glance between the four other members of their mismatched group, but holds his silence.

The Doctor seems to read something in it, because he transfers narrowed eyes to Ianto, arching a brow. "You're not one of Jack's little Torchwood team, then?"

"Not exactly." Ianto hesitates for another moment, and then offers, "But I might be able to take you in, Doctor, if Four's security is as impenetrable as I remember. As long as there's no communication between the branches, it should work. Jack can bring Rose as a new member of Torchwood Three, and we can meet up in the Tower."

"Brilliant!" With a whirl and a bounce, the Doctor is gone, headed for the door again. "Allons-y! And why couldn't your name be Alonso, wouldn't that just be fantastic? Then I could say, 'Allons-y, Alonso!' and off we'd go!"

Ianto rolls his eyes and wonders if one can sprain something doing that too many times, but follows nevertheless.


"I'm not entirely sure about this," Rose mutters, pulling at her neat blouse and pencil skirt. "I look like a bloody secretary."

"That's the point," Jack says with a wide grin, batting her hand away. "And I think you look gorgeous."

"Your taste is suspect, Jack," Ianto murmurs absently, watching the door from his position out of the sight of the CCTV cameras. "Don't worry, Ms. Tyler, people only see what they're expecting to. If they think Jack just hired you for your looks, they won't see your brain, and you'll have the advantage."

Jack splutters something defensive, but Rose laughs. "I like you," she announces, beaming. "I think I want to keep you. Can we keep him, Doctor?"

"No, he's Jack's," the Doctor says, just as absent as Ianto, though Ianto can feel the Time Lord's gaze on the back of his head rather than the Tower.

But there's no time for anything else, because a young woman has just entered Torchwood One without an access card, sliding up the sleeve of her blouse to show something on her arm to the guard at the door. "There," Ianto says, straightening up. "That's how they do it. Doctor, let's go, and whatever you do don't talk."

The Doctor splutters, too, sounding amusingly like Jack for a moment, but Ianto is halfway across the square by the time he recovers. The Time Lord has to hurry after him, falling into step a few meters from the door.

The guard is already stepping out, one hand raised to stop Ianto's brisk forward pace, but Ianto simply shoves his sleeve up to bare the tattoo, even though the motion brings back enough memories to knot his gut in a dozen places. His heart stutters in his chest as the guard blinks, and for a moment all he can imagine is failure, the Handlers coming for him once more to drag him into the depths of Four and leaving the Doctor stranded in the middle of Torchwood with no way out.

The Doctor's hand closes on his other elbow, out of sight, and he hisses, "Happy, confident thoughts, Ianto! Happy, confident thoughts!"

His mind snaps from horror to desperate surety. We will get through; you'll let us through, he thinks fiercely, and feels perceptions shift like a nebula around them. We're nothing special, we're just Torchwood Four, don't look at us too closely, nothing to see here, let us through.

Obediently, the guard nods and steps back, opening the door, and they're inside.

(And if the Doctor has to hold Ianto up, if Ianto's knees are as week as a newborn kitten's and his head is spinning from using an ability he hasn't touched since he got to Cardiff, neither of them says anything about it when they look at each other in quiet triumph.)