Hello again! Wow... this week feels like it's been forever, doesn't it? Well, mine did at least... I think I should explina now that this part of the story has another mini self-challenge to it. I was thinkingup a new theme for chapter titles when I was browsing through my music library, and I stumbled across my Foo Fighters albums. At first, I was going to do In Your Honour: Disc 1, then I thought, wait, no. This part is more questioning of the relationship that's been built so far, and I decided that In Your Honour: Disc 2 (the accoustic album) would be more fitting for it. So yes, the titles are going to be the tracks, and they're going to link to the lyrics, especially as the album tells a kind of story about Dave Grohl's past and stuff like that.
I hope this was worth making you guys wait a bit for! I know I enjoyed getting my fingers into the story again after a few days (I almost had a mental breakdown at school through lack of story writing!). Please comment and tell me how much you like it if you do, reviews encourage new chapters!
The next one should be up on either Wednesday or Thursday, as school will be over and coursework will be handed in.
EDIT: When I say the TARDIS travels through dimensions, I mean the straight forward up down and side to side dimensions.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters found, they belong to Russel T. Davies. I wish I did though. We'd have Jack and Ianto action every single episode if I was a writer (which I would dearly like to be).
And So It Begins... Again: Part 3
Chapter 1: Still
"Promise I will be forever yours, Promise not to say another word,
Never mind what's done is done, Always was a lucky one…"
-Still, Foo Fighters
Jack was snapped out of his second Doctor induced trance when he heard Ianto's head hit one of the head height cabinets. He looked around so see Ianto leaning, head first, on the wooden door, eyes closed. He smiled and walked over to the young man, hooking an arm around his waist to support him as he swayed gently on the spot. Blinking a couple of times, he opened his eyes again and looked blearily at Jack.
The older man just smiled affectionately at him and wrapped his arms tightly around the young man's torso. He sympathised with Ianto as he leaned his head on Jack's shoulder and loosely rested his hands on Jack's hips. Ianto hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time.
Slowly, he untangled himself from him guided him up to his office. Ianto blinked a couple more times and tried to protest as Jack pulled him down into the sleep space, but yawned instead. A few minutes later, Jack had Ianto settled in between the covers, his suit, shirt and shoes now hanging up on the back of the office door.
Closing it gently behind him, he pulled a hardened look onto his face and walked back down to the sofa where Martha and the Doctor were happily debating the existence of Flux Capacitors, the Doctor's back to him.
"But we've seen ALL sorts of stuff from films that's actually real, why couldn't that be real too?" Martha was getting a little heated, obviously annoyed that the Doctor was denying her the belief that Back to the Future could happen in the same way as the film.
"I've told you before! The reason they don't exist is that Flux isn't the cause of time travel!" The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. "Flux is just the amount of time in one place! It doesn't flow, so you can't get it stored in a capacitor! Did you flunk A-level physics or something?"
Jack saw a dangerous look in Martha's eyes and stepped in before the situation could sour any more.
"Right, that's enough guys." He stood in front of them, arms crossed, looking at them with a stern expression on his face. "I don't know what you two think, but I seem to recall that whenever the Doctor's around for too long, aliens come calling and a few people end up dead, mutated or on another continent. Personally, I don't want to have to clean that one up."
He had to stop himself smiling at the story he'd read of the Welsh fruit and veg stand from the local market ending up in the middle of the Himalayas a few weeks after the Doctor's last visit. Instead, he concentrated on the fact that the Doctor would only be around to make his life hard. He had to leave.
"You need to fix the TARDIS, I can probably help, and Martha needs to get back to work." He smiled briefly at her. "I don't need inquiries from U.N.I.T. about a missing medical officer."
The Doctor just smiled placidly to him and nodded along to the entire monologue. It unnerved Jack a little. He shuffled his feet and tried to keep the Doctor's gaze. It didn't work. He ended up rubbing the back of his head and casting his eyes around the hub.
"First off, can I bring the TARDIS in here? I don't feel right about leaving her outside. I'm pretty sure I could manoeuvre her over to here. It's just the inter dimensional and time travel that's the problem." The Doctor stood up, hands in pockets and rocked on his heels a little, smiling continually at Jack.
Jack gave him a sidelong look before scouting around for a suitable place for the TARDIS to be parked. He didn't want the Doctor to be on his own down in the archives (God knows what he'd do to the stuff down there) and he wanted someone to be in his company at all time. He decided that the best idea would be to drain the basin and level the floor out. It would give the Doctor enough space for the TARDIS and room to work.
Tapping a few buttons on his wrist strap, it beeped an affirmative and the slow draining noise of the basin emptying drifted up the them. A few seconds later, a metal floor slid over the top of it and crated a space roughly 9 feet square. Jack pointed silently down at it and the Doctor followed his finger.
"Fantastic! Alright, I won't be a minute." He smiled, hopped round to the elevator and jumped, signalling to Jack to raise it. Jack complied and as soon as the Doctor was out of sight, slumped down onto the sofa and groaned. This was going to be a very long and hard few days.
The next morning, Jack woke to the clatters and bangs of metals parts being dropped and thrown around inside the TARDIS. He'd stayed up late into the night, finally collapsing on the sofa behind Tosh's desk in exhaustion. The Doctor had been like an ADHD riddled child all night, as always, and had chattered away for the majority of the time. It had worn Jack down enough to the point of sleep.
He guiltily pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes. He should've gone to bed with Ianto, spent the night with him, even if it was just lying next to him whilst the young man slept. He quickly decided to push the thought to the back of his mind and get himself moving, going to have a shower and get changed, generally waking himself up for the following day.
He was just creeping out of his office, shoving his shirt untidily into the waistband of his trousers, when the Doctor stuck his head out of the police box's door, grinning up. Jack felt his heart sink.
"Jack! Morning!" Jack waved and snapped his suspenders over his shoulders, rolling his shirt sleeves up and walking round to the basin.
"Managed to make any headway with the-" Jack stopped in his tracks as a second voice floated out from inside the TARDIS.
"Doctor, I think I found something that could be irritating the internals." Jack looked stunned as he peered in to see Martha looking into an open console. She looked up and grinned, waving him a good morning.
"Work?" Wasn't she here on U.N.I.T. business?
"What? Oh! Yeah, work… You seriously think I just happened to be in Cardiff this soon after everything, and I coincidentally called Torchwood and spoke to Ianto?" She looked sceptically at him and rolled her eyes. It slowly dawned on Jack that Ianto had arranged the whole thing deliberately. He must've known that Jack needed to talk to someone who could completely relate to his experiences the previous year. The only two people who could were standing in front of him. The only one of those who would actually be useful in a semi emotional counselling session, was Martha.
Jack looked away, a little sheepish. "I knew that." He turned and stalked away to his office, silently reminding himself to think before he spoke next time. Especially when the explanation was so evident.
He dropped into his chair and sighed heavily. He was tired and he felt jumpy in his skin. He decided that what he really needed was Ianto, so he kicked his boots off and climbed down into the sleep space, sitting below the opening and watching the young man sleep.
He was quiet and peaceful, breathing deeply as he slept on his front. He looked more composed than he had the previous day, his arms tucked neatly into his body, hands on the pillow on either side of his head, face turned towards Jack again. The American leaned forwards and gently stroked Ianto's hair, feeling the calm of the young man's sleep radiating up his arm and soothing the disquiet he felt deep inside him.
After a few minutes of silently watching Ianto sleep, he felt better and decided to make an attempt to get some work out of the way before the others came in.
He successfully managed to hide in his office for an hour and finish filling in several accounts of the weevil attack from a couple of days previously. He altered the CCTV footage of the area of the attack, filed fake police reports of the disturbances being teenagers messing around with fireworks and filled in his own, Torchwood, documentation on the event.
He'd just closed the file up when he heard a series of angry yells from the direction of the hub. He hurried out of the door and looked over the railing.
"FREEZE!" Gwen was standing at the front of the trio, her gun raised and pointing straight at the Doctor. She had a cold, steely face on and was glaring at the seemingly insane man in front of her. The Doctor was grinning at her, hands in pockets and rocking on the balls of his feet again.
"So you're the team then, are you?" The Doctor was quite happy, not perturbed at all by the three handguns which were trained on his chest.
"I don't know who you are, or how you got in here, but you are trespassing on private property." Owen was the next to confront to Doctor, a little less commanding and a little more annoyed than Gwen had been. He looked tired and a little hung over. He hadn't thought he'd have to fire a gun before he had his first cup of Ianto's coffee.
"Hands out of your pockets, where we can see them." Gwen's voice was as steely as her expression, and she gestured to his pockets with her gun, waiting for him to raise his hands. "I said, hands where we can see them."
The Doctor's smile was fading a little and he raised an eyebrow quizzically at the woman ordering him around. Had Jack not told them about him yet? Surely they'd seen the TARDIS behind him… But clearly Jack hadn't explained everything to them, as was his usual habit.
"Look! You have three guns pointing at your chest, all of which can fire a bullet through your heart in a nanosecond." Gwen was getting a little bit jumpy, unsure why this stranger was so comfortable with the situation. "Hands where we can see them, or we all shoot!"
The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes, turning his attention to Jack. Gwen whipped around and looked up to see the Captain leaning on the railing with an extremely amused expression on his face.
"You could fire, but it won't exactly do much good." He smiled knowingly at the confused team before explaining. "He has two hearts, you'd only get one with where you're aiming. He'd still be rocketing around again in a matter of minutes."
Owen looked at the Doctor curiously. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jack cut in. "No, you can't experiment on him, Owen. He's not around for that long either." Jack suddenly realised that he hadn't even introduced his guest.
"Everyone, that guy-" He pointed a finger at the Doctor, who was once again grinning as he raised a hand and waggled his fingers. "- is the right kind of Doctor."
Gwen looked at Jack searchingly once more before looking back at the Doctor, about to apologise. She was cut short by him smiling and waving his hand to stop her.
"Don't worry, you were just doing your job. I'm glad to know you don't shoot on sight all the time." He cast a sharp, accusing look at Jack who quickly looked away, before smiling and heading back into the TARDIS.
Jack quickly ducked into his office and closed the door, leaning on the back of it and letting out an unconsciously held breath. When he opened his eyes, he saw Ianto's head and shoulders had emerged from the sleep space, his arms folded on the floor and his chin resting gently on them.
"The others found out about him now then?" Jack nodded and put his hands in his pockets. Was that a habit he'd picked up from the Doctor? Possibly. He doubted he'd ever really know, but it was a habit he was getting quite attached to, so he didn't feel like forcing himself out of it. He watched Ianto climb out of the sleep space and look around for some clothes. He found a suit and shirt hanging up with clean undershirt and boxers folded on a chair. He picked up the clothes and headed to the door, kissing Jack gently on the cheek before easing the door open and heading round to the shower room.
Gwen and Owen ignored him as they saw the young man shuffle out of Jack's office, clean clothes slung over his shoulder and under his arm, dressed only in a t-shirt and boxers. Tosh smiled at him, and Ianto smiled back. They'd become quite good friends recently, as Ianto had found Tosh was the only one of the three who didn't question him about Jack every few sentences.
He made his way past the workstations and into the shower room, feeling surprisingly awake. He must have slept for a long time. Smiling to himself, he stepped under the hot jets of water and enjoyed his shower, thinking about nothing in particular.
About half an hour later, he emerged from the room, cleanly shaven and dressed, a small smile on his face. Ianto was beginning to remember the events of the night before and when he walked into the main section of the hub and looked to the basin, the remaining memories flooded back. The Doctor, Martha and the broken TARDIS.
He sighed then and felt a stab of something akin to jealousy. He suspected, deep down, that given the chance, Jack would disappear off on another adventure, leaving them behind. He didn't doubt that Jack loved him, he knew too well when his lover was being sincere, but he also knew that Jack wasn't the type to settle. He was immortal, and a lifetime in one place would be nothing more than tedious for him. Cardiff wasn't exactly the most enthralling place in the universe.
He moved to the kitchen area and flicked the coffee machine on, preparing everyone's usual orders before realising he should go ask the Doctor. He got up his courage and made his way cautiously over to the blue box. The door was open, and he took it as an invite to step inside.
He inwardly marvelled at the way the inside was so much larger than the outside, but kept his expression neutral. He smiled when he saw Martha though and made his way over. She looked up and smiled back at him.
"Good morning, Ianto!" She had a strangeness around her which made Ianto feel instantly at ease with talking to her. He suspected that Jack and the Doctor felt it as well. It wasn't alien, it wasn't artificial or forced, it was the aura of a genuine happiness. It was becoming a rarity in Ianto's day to day life to find something like that with human roots.
"Morning. I'm making coffee, would you and the Doctor like some?" There was a loud noise from the balcony above the door and the scruffy man from the night before appeared, leaning over and smiling.
"Ianto!" The young man felt a little intimidated, scared even. His expression must've showed it as the Doctor's changed, became calmer and less manic. "I have heard stories about you Ianto Jones. Apparently there's no finer place to get coffee from in the whole of Cardiff!"
Ianto smiled and blushed a little, wondering just what else Jack might've said. "Well, would you like to try some?" The Doctor grinned again and nodded. "Any preferences? Milk, sugar?"
"Not really, I like it any old way… I tell you what, I'll have whatever Jack's having." The statement was innocent enough, and Martha spluttered from behind the huge cylinder running vertically through the middle of the TARDIS. Ianto looked away and hurried out of the small door, back to the safety of the coffee machine.
"What? What did I say?!" The Doctor looked bewildered, truly confused as to what had just happened. Only after Martha explained the deeper meaning of his request did the Doctor's face light up with understanding. He even had the good grace to feel embarrassed, he hadn't noticed Jack putting the young man to bed the night before, he'd been too busy talking to Martha.
Jack had emerged from his office to find out what was taking his coffee so long. He hadn't had his first proper caffeine hit of the day and his senses were starting to lag a little. He wandered down to find Ianto gazing emptily at the floor, leaning on the work surface. Jack frowned as he noted that the coffee machine had finished boiling.
"Ianto… Ianto, are you okay?" Jack made his way over and put a hand gently on his arm. The young man looked up, a strange look on his face.
"Apparently, the Doctor's having whatever you're having…" Ianto looked into Jack's eyes, a little desperately. Jack struggled not to laugh, but Ianto saw the corners of his mouth twitch and the glint in his eyes. "If you're even considering it, I swear-"
"Ianto! Seriously, calm down." Ianto stopped and narrowed his eyes at Jack, who leaned forwards and kissed him gently on the lips. "He had no idea about what he was implying, trust me. That man wouldn't know how to flirt if he was taught by Casanova himself."
"How do you know?" Ianto's voice was a little uncertain, as if he didn't really know what he was trying to gain from the conversation.
"Lets just say, in my past, I had a thing for him." He caught the warning look in Ianto's eyes and hastily remedied it. "A long, LONG time ago. He wasn't interested and disappeared, I didn't see him again for a long time. When I did, everything had gone, I'd loved and lost several times and then fallen in love again…" He let the end of the sentence hang between them and smiled to himself, feeling truly lucky that he'd let himself get over his feelings for the Doctor. If he hadn't, he could well have never met Ianto, let alone fallen for the Welshman. "Ianto, you do know I wouldn't leave you again, right?"
The young man looked up sharply, not realising that Jack had understood why he'd asked his question, as he'd only just realised himself. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."
"That may be, but I wouldn't go, I wouldn't leave you." Jack smiled. "The only reason he's here is to get him back on the road as soon as possible. He needs help that he can only find in Torchwood, so I can't deny him that… but don't worry, he'll be back on his travels in no time."
Ianto nodded in resignation and turned round to make the coffee. Jack hung around and offered to take his, Martha's and the Doctor's coffees. Placing another kiss on Ianto's lips, he took his tray and headed into the TARDIS, looking around for a surface to put the drinks down on.