NOTE: I accept flames and criticism. If you have any, please submit them. I need to know how bad this is because I feel like it's getting out of hand and my characterization is wonky. So please, flame! This may be the only time you hear someone say it so take advantage of it!

The Doctor was struggling to get Ianto to wake up. He was convulsing violently and wasn't breathing.

"DONNA! WAKE UP!" He yelled to the other room. He had no idea what to do. Ianto wasn't waking but it seemed that he was choking to death in his dreams. "Stupid, stupid, stupid she's dead drunk, why would she wake up?" He looked up in frustration and resumed trying to shake Ianto out of his dreams. Nothing was working. He sighed in exasperation. The only person he could think of that would be able to wake him couldn't be allowed to see him, it would mess up so many of the laws of time. What was he going to do.

"What are you two yelling on about? I'm trying to sleep." Donna stumbled into the room, slurring. "Jesus, what's the matter with him?"

"I don't know! I was watching him sleep-"

"You were watching him sleep?" Donna chuckled. The Doctor let out an exasperated huff.

"Oh, never mind. How are we going to help him?" Donna shrugged and went back to bed. He smacked his head. Never ask a person with a half-slept-through hangover to help. As he travelled his hand down his face, he noticed something he hadn't before. The skin around the center of Ianto's neck was pushing in more than the rest of the skin on his neck. It was as if something invisible was choking him. Running out of options, the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the indentation. He watched as the skin settled back but visible hand marks were left behind.

Ianto woke with a start, breathing desperately and sweating.

"It was so real..." He whispered

"What was?" The Doctor asked, finally allowing himself to sit down and relax, at least for the time being. Ianto reiterated the majority of the dream as briefly as possible, trying his best to keep out the more... explicit moments. When he finished, he looked up at the Doctor, a mixture of sadness and anger in his eyes.

"Why didn't you just let him take me?" The Doctor looked at him, not seeming to hear what he said, with terrified eyes but a relatively calm face.

"This woman, did she give you a name?" Ianto scoffed.

"Right. Ignore me, not like people usually pay me any mind." He paused, reluctant to answer but there was something so persistent in the Time Lord's expression that he had to continue.

"She didn't. But I'm not an idiot. I know it was Seriath. She's spoken to me before. Every time I think of Jack-" He looked sideways sharply, skeptic, then looked back at the Doctor. "Every time I say his name, she talks to me. Like just now. It only started happening after you gave me that funny vaccine."

"So, Seriath is still alive." The Doctor stood up quickly and began pacing about, trying to piece it together. "And she's using Jack to get to you. But how..." He ruffled his hair, gasped and continued pacing. "Of course! That's the reason the nanogenes didn't fix your head the first time around. They knew that you had to be mental to block her out. They took out your memories of him to prevent her from getting in." He looked at Ianto for some encouragement, but the Welshman only seemed confused.

"I don't understand why she has to go through him, though. And why is she trying to control me?" Ianto's brow furrowed. The Doctor shrugged.

"Beats me. But clearly, she needs you alive for something. You said that she was screaming when Death was strangling you, yes?" Ianto nodded. "Brilliant! Oh it makes so much sense now." He looked rather pleased with himself. "Seriath never performs full reincarnations. And even after you got sucked up into the rift, you kept getting lucky and survived and were healed. Even just now, you were seconds away from dying when I figured it out-"

"So why don't you just let me die now?" Ianto shook his head. "Think about it. If she is so desperate to keep me alive, then why not kill me so she can never execute her plans? I mean, I have a photographic memory. For your little nanogene things to come in and mess it up must not have been an easy task. Whatever she needs me for, it's serious. I'm not complaining-"

"No one dies if I can help it." The Doctor cut him off. He knew where this was going. Ianto persisted.

"I'm not going to fight it. There's nothing to help. If you don't do it, I'll do it myself. What do I have to live for? I can't see Jack again, and I certainly don't want to be floating around in the sky with you just because you have to drag me along." He got out of the bed and attempted to leave the room. The Doctor chased after him.

"Oh nononononononono." He locked the door with his sonic screwdriver and pointed back at the bed. "Not on my watch. Now you sit back down and we'll sort things out, yes?"

Ianto shot him a death glare but went back to bed all the same.

"Now, what would Seriath want with you? That's the question." He was trying to do his best at averting Ianto's suicide threats. "I mean, she's obviously trying to cut into some emotional-" He paused his thought. His jaw dropped. "Oh, how could I be so stupid? Really, so very very stupid!"

"What?"

"I give you nanogenes, they fix everything, including changing your memory. So why would they leave something out? The only things they can't fix are sleeper diseases-"

"Sleeper diseases?" Now he just sounded like he was making things up.

"Yes! Diseases that are in the body but show no physical or visible symptoms. They don't exist in the physical body, they exist in the spaces around the body's components. The empty spaces. Such diseases don't exist for humans, they have to be strictly of alien origin."

"What has that got to do with me?" Ianto was becoming increasingly more confused.

"Look at your face! Why would you still have a cut on your face? Why would they leave that out?" The Doctor was trying desperately to form thoughts, explain what he was thinking. "The 456 plague was made of air! You were the only one of the victims at Thames House with any sort of open wound-"

"How would you know that?" Ianto knew all along. The Doctor had meant to skip Earth. He saw what they were doing.

"Because I saw all the bodies. All of time and space, every dead person. And yes I didn't help and no, I will not tell you why." The Doctor was trying to get through his confession as quickly as possible. Ianto got up from the bed and crossed around the Doctor. "Wait! Hold on now, I haven't even explained it to you yet! Let me finish."

"I have no interest in hearing what you have to say. No matter what the reason, you should have come if there were children in danger." He made his way to the door. "And by the way, working for Torchwood, I've had to get through a LOT of locked doors." He kicked the door off it's hinges and walked out of the room.

The Doctor knew that he had lost him. No use chasing, he'd just run away again. He had to let him walk it off for now, he would come back later.

He hadn't even had time to explain that he was a walking plague.

R&R more explanation to come.