In which Donna makes a good point, Ianto makes a new acquaintance (of sorts), and apologies are made all around.
-DW-
It took Donna longer than she'd have liked to find the Doctor. She ended up in front of the kitchen three times before she finally put her foot down.
"Listen up, you old rust-bucket! I know you care about the stubborn alien just as much as I do, and you're not doing him any favors by hiding him from me."
The TARDIS gave a groaning hum, sounding both irritated and mournful, and Donna sighed.
"Alright, you're not a rust-bucket," she said, feeling a little silly but reaching out to stroke the wall consolingly, "but I really need to find the Doctor. He shouldn't be alone right now."
Feeling an answering tug at the back of her mind, she turned. There was a door behind her which almost certainly hadn't been there before, wooden and battered. Stopping only to send a word of thanks to the living timeship, she pulled it open.
The room was quite dark, and she paused a moment to allow her eyes to adjust while the door swung shut behind her. As she did so, she registered a faint sound which was disturbing the still, cool air.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
She moved forward, picking her way through piles of what looked like everything but the kitchen sink. There were various pieces of clothing and jewelry, an old-fashioned journal, what looked like a slightly singed robot dog, some sort of crown . . . .
The thumping was getting louder, and Donna headed towards it. Soon she was within view of the back corner, and the skinny figure who was curled in it, rhythmically slamming his head back against the wall.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Hey now, Time Boy," said Donna, nudging a pair of pocket watches out of the way and sinking down beside him. "Giving yourself brain trauma isn't going to help anything."
Thump.
"Might," the Doctor mumbled contrarily, but ceased his mild self-harm and buried his face in his knees instead.
Seeing that it was up to her to initiate conversation, Donna glanced around the darkened room.
"Haven't seen this place before," she said, keeping her voice casual. "Bit of a mess, isn't it?"
He remained stubbornly silent.
"Doctor. What is all this?" she questioned, poking him none-too-gently in the ribs.
"Just things," he muttered into his knees, still refusing to look at her.
"What kind of things?"
"Things I can't bear to look at anymore."
And also can't bear to let go, Donna added in her mind, recognizing the purple jacket which sat atop a nearby stack of outdated schoolbooks. Aloud, she asked,
"What are you doing here, then?"
The Doctor shifted slightly, and one large, brown eye peered out at her reproachfully.
"Oh." She shook her head, torn between exasperation and his melodrama and heartbreak at the very real hurt behind it. "Oh, Doctor," she sighed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and hugging him closer to her, ignoring his half-hearted resistance. He was practically vibrating with coiled tension, but began to slowly relax as she stroked her hand over his hair.
Trust the Doctor to have a shrine to all his losses. Trust him to hide himself in it when he was already hurting.
"Jack thinks that you're hurting yourself on purpose." She kept her voice carefully even and gentle, trying not to reveal either her own horror at the thought or the pain and worry which had shown through the Captain's professional mask. The Doctor had enough guilt on his shoulders already, and the last thing she wanted was for him to put on a show for them, burying his pain even deeper than he already had.
The Doctor tensed again, curling in on himself even further, but otherwise didn't respond.
"I told him that it probably wasn't quite like that," Donna continued. "Was I lying to him, Doctor?"
"No," the Doctor muttered, his hand moving to the back of his neck. "I'd never do that."
"You're doing it right now," she pointed out, and he immediately loosened his grip on his neck, which his fingers had been digging into with bruising force.
"Doesn't really hurt," the Doctor defended unconvincingly, swallowing audibly.
"Now you're lying."
He pulled away from her, sliding sideways against the wall in a swift, sharp movement and then folding in on himself again.
"Doctor." She turned to face him, her heart breaking at the picture he made. He looked tiny and vulnerable as he sat huddled among the dusty monuments of his grief, his pale, thin arms scant protection against the shadows which threatened to consume him. "You don't deserve pain."
He finally raised his head, his eyes almost black in the gloom.
"You can't possibly know that."
"I can," said Donna firmly, holding his gaze, "because I know you."
His eyes skittered away from hers and he moved as if to retreat into his defensive ball again, but Donna reached out and grabbed his wrist in one hand, putting the other on his cheek and forcing him to face her. He was trembling beneath her fingers, and his face was soaked with silent tears, invisible in the darkness.
"I know you," she repeated, with as much authority as she could muster. "Captain Jack knows you, too, and so does everyone on that team of his, and they all care about you, because that's what you deserve. Friends."
"Then why?" asked the Doctor. Maybe it was supposed to be a challenge, but he sounded like the abandoned child he appeared to be, sorrowful and guilt-ridden but mostly just scared, horribly scared of being left alone to face the cold and the dark and the silence of an empty Universe. "Why does it always come to this?" he questioned, gesturing with his injured hand at the heaps of artifacts which surrounded them – remnants, she suspected, of every lost chance at happiness.
"It doesn't. It hasn't. You have a home out there, Doctor."
He shook his head in helpless denial.
"It won't last," he whispered, voice raw with emotion. "They're human. They'll age; they'll die –"
"Jack won't," said Donna, and never had she been more grateful for fantastical, ridiculous insanity which infused everything the Doctor touched. "He's immortal, he said. And Doctor –" She tightened her grip on his wrist, meeting eyes which were deep and dark and doubting in a pale, young face. "He will always be there when you need him. All you have to do is ask."
She knew that with absolute certainty, knew it from all the looks and touches and subtext which she had observed with the keen eyes which had witnessed a thousand office romances, from weekend flings to forbidden loves. Jack was proud and protective of his team, and he loved Ianto, but he adored the Doctor. And a thousand years from now, when Ianto and Donna herself were nothing but dust, he would still adore the Doctor.
The Doctor crumpled at last, allowing her to gather him in her arms as he descended into wracking sobs.
-DW-
Ianto had expected that when he returned to the Hub, the Doctor would not be in the main area any longer, having long since retreated to Jack's room, the archives, or the TARDIS. As it turned out, he was right. He hadn't expected to find Jack hunched in the Doctor's customary place on the sofa, wiping his eyes.
"Jack?"
The captain jumped, making a compulsive movement towards his gun before registering who he was.
"Fuck, Ianto," he cursed, relaxing again and running his hand over his face in a gesture which didn't quite erase the traces of tears from his cheeks. "Don't sneak up on me like that."
"Sorry."
"I thought I told you get some sleep," sighed Jack.
"I did." In a way, technically. He had tried, at least.
"Two hours is not sleep," said Jack, but his tone was more amused than scolding, and the gratitude which shone in his eyes was more than enough to convince Ianto that he had made the right decision in coming back. "I was just about to go looking for the Doctor," Jack said, standing. "He's in the TARDIS somewhere, with Donna. Come with me?"
Jack was barely even trying to sound casual, now, and Ianto could easily read the subtext beneath the invitation. It was both a request for support and an expression of trust, an offer to let Ianto into the most treasured and intimate part of Jack's life.
Ianto hesitated.
"Are you sure that's wise?"
"Oh, yeah," said Jack with an unconcerned wave of his hand. "The TARDIS won't let us find him if we shouldn't."
Ianto didn't know what that meant, and he was fairly certain that it wouldn't have addressed his actual concern even if he did, but he followed after only a moment's indecision. Jack needed his support, and besides that, he really did want to check on the Doctor. Strange and frightening and alien as he was, he was also caring and charismatic and clever, and Ianto honestly liked him, most of the time.
In any event, Jack loved him, and that was enough for Ianto to look to his wellbeing.
"Hey, old girl," said Jack as they stepped inside, running his hand along the edge of the console. The room's ambient hum shifted slightly, as if in response.
"The ship," said Ianto, who had been meaning to ask about it since his two rather disconcerting journeys inside it that morning, "is it –?"
"Alive? Sentient? Gorgeous? Yes, yes, and absolutely."
The ship hummed again, and Ianto could have sworn that it was a chuckle. Jack was flirting with a time machine. Of course he was.
"Oh," was all he said aloud, as he glanced around the room with new eyes. The Doctor had always talked about the TARDIS as though it – she – were an old friend or (and now his earlier conversation with Donna returned to him) an old lover, but the Doctor was slightly mad and very lonely, so Ianto had never thought much of it. "So when it seems like the doors have shifted –"
"That's her, rearranging things for you," said Jack, just as the room gave an impatient rumble. "And that means, 'stop yapping and find the Doctor already.' We're going, beautiful, we're going."
Jack set off confidently out of the console room, and Ianto hurried to keep up as they made their way past several doors to a worn, wooden one. It sat innocently across from the kitchen, looking for all the world as though it had always been there, when Ianto knew for a fact that only that morning the wall had been blank.
"This is the one," said Jack, and Ianto didn't ask how he knew.
"I could wait out here," he offered. "If you want me to," he elaborated, when Jack shot him a puzzled look. "I wouldn't want to intrude . . ."
"You're not intruding," said Jack. His lips twisted into a wry smile. "The Doctor could use all the friends he can get."
"Yes, I suppose he could," Ianto agreed, and it was settled. Jack pushed open the door.
The room was cool, dark, and cluttered. There was no immediate sign of the Doctor, but then, it was difficult to see much through the gloom and amongst the heaps of what appeared to be random objects. The frown on Jack's face said that he couldn't make much more sense of the room than Ianto could.
He reached out and picked up some futuristic device, his frown deepening.
"What is it?" asked Ianto. He knew what it looked like, but he couldn't see the Doctor ever allowing a gun aboard his ship.
"Sonic blaster," said Jack, his voice coming from someplace very far away. "51st century, from the weapons factories of Villengard." He flipped it over to examine some reading on the side, and his frown softened into an oddly wistful smile. "Battery's dead."
He shook himself back to the present, dropping the blaster back onto the heap of crimson fabric where he had found it.
"Come on. Let's find the Doctor."
"Back here."
They both jumped a little as Donna's voice floated over to them from surprisingly nearby.
"Keep quiet," she added, as they followed the sound. "He's asleep."
There was no question of whom she was referring to, and indeed, they moved forward to find the Doctor curled against Donna's side, clinging to her blouse with his uninjured hand and breathing deeply in peaceful slumber. He always looked young and vulnerable in sleep, and his unusually youthful appearance only reinforced the impression.
"He'll be alright?" Jack questioned, innumerable emotions warring in his eyes as he stared down at the sleeping Time Lord.
"Yeah," said Donna, smiling fondly as she brushed a hand over the Doctor's hair. "He'll be fine. Just needs a little TLC, that's all. And a good smack to stop him moping."
"Good," said Jack, smiling as well. He glanced around the room, and his smile fell away as his eyes lighted on a woman's jacket which was folded on top of a pile of old textbooks. "Is this place what I think it is?"
"Dunno," said Donna. "Do you think it's His Lordliness's Cupboard of Misery? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's what it is."
Ianto gave a snort of amusement, and Jack's teeth flashed in a grin.
"Something like that," he agreed. He reached towards the jacket, but faltered and picked up one of the books instead. He flipped it open, and from where he stood at his shoulder Ianto could see a few handwritten words inside the cover.
Property of Susan Foreman.
"Jack."
Jack and Ianto both jumped guiltily at the Doctor's voice. He was awake and an arm's length from Donna, despite the fact that he had been sound asleep and pressed against her approximately two seconds ago.
"Could you at least pretend that you respect my privacy?" he grumbled, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He froze suddenly, his dark eyes focusing on the book in Jack's hands, apparently realizing what it was for the first time. "Put that down," he ordered, deadly calm.
Jack dropped it as if burned, and Ianto swallowed hard.
"Sorry, Doc," said Jack, with an uneasy smile.
The Doctor glared coldly, looking ready to say something scathing in reply, but Donna put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Calm down, Spaceman, he's said he's sorry. Anyway, you're scaring Ianto."
Ianto flushed a little at being referred to like a child, but the rebuke seemed to be effective. The Doctor deflated, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Sorry," he apologized. "I suppose I've been a bit tetchy lately."
Donna snorted.
"A bit?"
"Yes, alright, I've been a right git," the Doctor admitted reluctantly. "Shouldn't have thrown things at you, Jack."
"I shouldn't have pried," said Jack.
"No, you shouldn't have," agreed the Doctor, climbing to his feet and straightening his clothes. "But I can't exactly scold you for poking your nose in where it doesn't belong. Well, I suppose I could, but it would be a bit hypocritical, don't you think?"
"So we're okay?" asked Jack.
"We're okay," the Doctor confirmed, and smiled.
In the darkness, it was impossible to tell whether it reached his eyes.