Same Ianto, Different Jack
Chapter 26
by Gracefultree
A/N: Many of you have asked when Ianto will get home to His Jack, and the answer is: Read this chapter for hints (a small one). That's all I'm gonna say. Well, I'll also tell you that I've been planning his return to His Jack since I sent him to New Jack's universe. It just needs some tweaking before I type it up.
Enjoy!
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Ianto was back in Cell 27 again. It looked the same as it always did, dark and dirty. It smelled the same, too. It smelled like home, without the sourness of some of the other universes. He put his backpack down, thinking of the picture album New Lisa's Jack had handed him before giving him a lingering goodbye kiss. New Lisa's goodbye kiss had lasted much longer, and he'd been loathe to part with her after how close they'd gotten after living together for almost six months, but he needed to get back to his universe. One where Jack knew him and loved him and was His Jack.
That was six universes ago he'd said goodbye to them. At least he hadn't stayed in the other universes very long, averaging a month or two in each, though it had only been a week just now with Bitter Jack, something that Ianto didn't mind at all. Bitter Jack had been an asshole, having missed the Doctor and his TARDIS when they'd been refueling on the Plass, meaning the Year That Never Was never happened, which was good, but the whole thing just reinforced Bitter Jack's anger and resentment towards the errant Time Lord. He'd taken to Ianto instantly, however, and would barely let Ianto out of his sight, so Ianto had to sneak away from a mission and steal his backpack from the strongbox under the man's bed when the Rift alert he needed came.
Maybe that's why he was thinking of New Lisa and Her Jack? That goodbye had been so different. They'd had almost 24 hours to plan for it, after all, not the scant ten minutes in New Jack's universe or the three hours in Bitter Jack's. He'd liked being able to plan, to say goodbye, to be dressed and ready and hydrated. He always felt better when he was hydrated for a Rift jump.
So, six more Jacks he'd met and slept with since then, six more universes to get used to, three of them in vastly different times from his own. Nearly three years he'd been gone from His Jack. Three years, and he missed the man terribly.
He stepped into the corridor of the newest universe's Torchwood and saw A Jack turning the corner into the hallway. Jack smiled at him, though he also looked mildly concerned.
"Ianto? Are you all right? There was a Rift flare down here."
Ianto's face broke out in a grin as he hurried over to Jack. None of the other Jacks had greeted him this way. None of the 21st century Jacks had recognized him. None of them said his name with such affection. It had to be His Jack! His Jack, who knew him. His Jack, who was worried about him. He didn't stop to think as he pulled Jack into his arms and kissed him, too relieved to do anything else.
It was a wonderful kiss, a fabulous kiss. Gentle and tender and passionate, all at the same time. Ianto lost himself in the kiss, in being in Jack's arms again, in the feeling of Jack's hand in his hair, on his hip. It was nothing like the first kisses he'd shared with any of the other Jacks, even the one from 3402 who'd lost Ianto over a thousand years ago and still remembered him and thought that having Ianto back even for a brief time was the best gift he'd ever received. And the sex had been outstanding! All two and a half months of it.
But, still, he was home, and that was all that mattered.
"Wow!" Jack exclaimed when they pulled apart. Ianto opened his eyes to see something like wonder in Jack's eyes. "That was even better than I expected it to be," he added, leaning in for another kiss which Ianto reciprocated immediately and enthusiastically. Ianto felt himself relaxing, letting go of the stress of jumping universe to universe now that he was back with Jack. He felt Jack's hands on his chest, separating them slightly. "Now, I'm not complaining at all, you understand, and I very much want to continue, but what made you kiss me after all this time?"
Ianto stiffened as he listened to Jack's words and the meaning behind them. "We haven't kissed before?" he croaked, his throat suddenly dry.
"Only in my fantasies," Jack replied with a salacious grin. "And let me tell you, Mr. Jones, they don't hold a candle to the real thing!" He tried for another kiss.
Ianto dropped his arms from around New New Jack's waist and backed into the cell to stumble to a seat on the stone slab. He ran his hands through his hair, not noticing how his sleeves rode down, displaying his vortex manipulator, his brain working in overtime, shocked out of complacency by the new information. This Jack knew him, fantasized about him, but they'd never kissed. What was going on? Had he found yet another world? Yet another Jack and Torchwood? Yet another universe to get used to? Yet more time away from His Jack? His real Jack?
And what was happening to him that his first instinct was to kiss this stranger? The stranger with His Jack's body, some of His Jack's memories…
God, he felt nauseated.
He'd kissed another Jack. He wasn't home. He might never get home… Despair took hold of him and he couldn't contain his grief.
He bent over and vomited into the bucket conveniently next to the stone slab. New New Jack pressed his earbud. "Martha, I need you down in the vaults. Ianto's sick." There was a pause while Ianto wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and pushed the bucket away from him. He rubbed his stomach, wishing for some ginger tea to settle it.
"What do you mean, Ianto's with you? He's right here!" New New Jack exclaimed, looking down at Ianto with increasing concern. He listened again. "All right. He seems docile enough, so I'll handle him for now. In the meantime, initiate lockdown." The lights flickered off, to be replaced by the red emergency lighting. Mainframe informed them that they were in lockdown.
New New Jack walked into the cell, watching him warily. "Ianto?" he asked cautiously. "You are Ianto, aren't you? What's going on?" Suddenly, he noticed the vortex manipulator on Ianto's wrist and reached for it, pulling it over to him, and Ianto panicked, because he knew that New New Jack wanted it. Ianto snatched his arm back, covering the device with his other hand and cradling it against his chest protectively.
"You can't have it! You can't take it from me!" he snarled. "It's the only thing protecting me in the Rift."
"I won't take it," New New Jack said soothingly. "I just want to check something. It can stay on your wrist the whole time. I promise." Reluctantly, but trusting New New Jack because he was Jack, Ianto extended his arm. New New Jack flipped open the cover and pressed a few buttons, then flipped his own open and pressed a few more. He looked between them, thinking. He pressed one more button on Ianto's.
An image of Jack (which one Ianto couldn't tell) appeared as a blue hologram in front of them. He spoke in a language Ianto couldn't understand, though New New Jack seemed to be able to, if the frown of concentration on his brow was any indication. If Ianto were to guess, it was a language he knew well, but hadn't spoken in a long time. When the message finished, he played it a second time. This time, Ianto heard his own name amidst the foreign syllables, as well as a word or two he recognized from things one of the Jack's had murmured late at night when they were in bed and Jack thought he was asleep. He knew it was an endearment at the time, but by the changing look on New New Jack's face, it seemed to mean something special to him. He stopped frowning.
Is this what had changed New Lisa's Jack's opinion of him that first night? That it hadn't really been about the DVDs or his diary, or the letter from New Jack, but about this message? New Lisa's Jack had the vortex manipulator for weeks before he gave it back to Ianto, so it was conceivable that he'd heard it.
"Well, it looks to me like you're here for a little while," New New Jack finally said, letting Ianto have his arm back. "Grab your kit and we'll go upstairs so I can introduce you to my team, if you feel up to the walk."
"Really?" Ianto asked, shouldering his bag. He wasn't going to let a bit of nausea stop him from getting out of the cells. "All you needed was a message from yourself to trust me?"
"That other me said you're from another universe, crossing the Void somehow via the Rift, and that I can trust you with my life, love and secrets. He said some things that make me believe that he trusted you like that, so who am I to argue with myself? I'll have to contact the Doctor to see if it's stable enough to try to get you home, to see if he can get you there."
"You think he can get me home?" Ianto asked hopefully.
"I'm not sure, but either way, I need to make sure your travels aren't disrupting the stability of all the parallel universes out there."
"And you can contact him? You know how to reach him?"
"Sure. He's got a working mobile, now."
"Oh, good. Um, I should probably ask what the date is. I've jumped back and forth a few years, sometimes," Ianto explained. "Well, a thousand forwards, once. Oh, and two thousand backwards. And then there was 200,000 years in the future…" Ianto trailed off, not wanting to think about the state of the Earth and humanity at that time. He'd arrived just as all the shows on the telly stopped, and Ianto managed to find a transmat station that took him up to the Game Station, where he and a newly-immortal Jack Harkness spent three and a half weeks getting Game Station Jack ready to jump to Earth's past, when they weren't shagging, of course.
"November 29, 2009," New New Jack said, recalling Ianto to the current present and his companion in the hallway.
"Ah, my future, then. I'm from May of 2008, and the last universe I was in for any length of time was during the winter of 2007-08."
New New Jack nodded. "Don't worry. We'll get you sorted. Do you mind working for me in the meantime?"
"Of course not," Ianto replied with one of his cheekiest smiles. "I'll gladly take any position you want me to."
New New Jack growled appreciatively, but made no other move towards him.
At the main Hub, New New Jack called out for his team. "Ok, kids, listen up! We've got someone from a parallel universe here, and he'll need our help getting home. In the meantime while he's waiting, he'll work for us. Everyone, this is Ianto Jones." He patted Ianto on the shoulder, his hand lingering. "Ianto, this is Gwen Cooper, former police officer and current police liaison and field agent. Toshiko Sato, computer and technology genius. Dr. Martha Jones, former companion of the Doctor and our medic. And finally, Ianto Jones, Archives and General Support." He winked at Other Ianto and let his hand drop from Ianto's shoulder.
Ianto nodded politely to each team member, smiling at Martha, who he hadn't seen since His universe, after His Owen died and became a zombie. New Martha, he reminded himself. They'd never actually met before. He wondered if New New Owen had died and New New Jack simply hired New Martha to replace him rather than bringing him back to that awful half-life. When he couldn't put it off any longer, he looked towards his counterpart in this universe. He'd never met himself yet, by some miracle. They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, before Other Ianto cleared his throat.
"Coffee?" he asked politely.
"Ginger tea, actually, if you have it, with honey, please," Ianto answered, getting a smile from Other Ianto.
"No cinnamon?"
"It's too much flavor after my travels," Ianto explained. "The ginger will calm my stomach." Other Ianto nodded thoughtfully.
"I'll bring coffee for everyone to the conference room, sir?" he asked New New Jack.
"Thanks, Ianto."
Once in the conference room, Ianto sipped his tea and couldn't help the sigh of pleasure. "Perfect," he murmured, opening his eyes in time to catch his counterpart's smirk.
"Fresh ginger."
"I should've known you'd keep it on hand. Prepared for anything."
"I like to think so," Other Ianto said, giving Ianto a wink.
"If you two would stop flirting with each other, we have a meeting going on here," New New Jack grumbled, accepting his own cup from Other Ianto. Other Ianto rolled his eyes and passed out the rest of the coffee.
"It's not flirting if it's with yourself," he commented.
"It's practice," Ianto finished for him. New New Jack groaned. Ianto wondered if he should be calling him New Ianto's Jack or Other Ianto's Jack, but decided that either of those names implied a relationship between the two men that didn't seem to be there. New New Jack it was, then.
"It's like they're twins…" New New Gwen said in a loud whisper to New New Tosh.
"That reminds me," New New Jack interrupted. "First order of business. We need a way to distinguish between the two of you."
Ianto looked at Other Ianto, who frowned into his coffee. "Call me Yan," Ianto said, getting a startled look from the entire room.
"But I hate that nickname!" Other Ianto exclaimed.
"So do I, believe me. But that's also why I'm going to use it," Ianto explained. "I'm the one from another place, so it's only fair that you keep your name. And I have this," he added, showing off his vortex manipulator.
"Great, that's settled," New New Jack said. "Tosh, I want you to make Yan Ianto's twin brother. Take Ianto's records and blur them enough that he has an entire history. Also, make him an account on our servers. He's to have full access, just like the rest of us."
"What?" New New Gwen demanded. "But he's only just gotten here and we don't know who he really is!"
"I have it from a trusted source that Yan can be relied upon and trusted," New New Jack said firmly. "Now, Martha, give him an induction physical, usual stuff. You'll find lots of residual Rift energy around him. Void stuff, too, if your sensors can detect it. If there's anything else abnormal, let me know."
"Yes, Jack," she answered. "I know how to give someone a physical."
"Excellent. Ianto, once he's done with that, give Yan a tour of the place so he can make any comparisons he needs to the Hub from his universe. Familiarize him with the Archives and give him mission reports for every significant case since —" He broke off and turned to Ianto. "When did you start working here, anyway?"
"Five days after the Battle of Canary Wharf," Ianto said.
"After?" New New Jack repeated, his eyes moving from Ianto to Other Ianto and back again.
"Yes. After."
"Ah, well, doesn't matter. Give him the case files to look at over the next few days while we get other stuff sorted. A lot of it will be the same, but there might be some differences that I want you aware of if you're staying here and working for me. Tosh, I'll also want you to set up a Rift monitoring program set to the specifics of the Rift flare that brought Yan to us and any other information he can give you. Yan, I'll go over some data your vortex manipulator might have collected, if you don't already know how to download it in a way Tosh can use."
"Thanks. None of the other Jacks showed me much more than basic functions."
"Gwen," New New Jack said, apparently satisfied with Ianto's answer. "Sort a flat for Yan. Get him a car, too, and arrange the usual documentation and a bank account. Coordinate with Tosh if you —"
"Actually, I'd rather live at the Hub, if you don't mind," Ianto interrupted. New New Jack motioned for an explanation. "Um, one time, I only had ten minutes to get to the proper cell in the vaults before the Rift took me, and it was three in the morning, so I couldn't have made it if I wasn't here."
"Must have been a busy night, if you were still here that late," New New Tosh commented, speaking for the first time.
"It'd been rather quiet," Ianto said.
"Then what were you doing here so late?" New New Gwen asked, a curious and slightly suspicious twinkle in her eye.
Ianto glanced between New New Jack and Other Ianto before answering. "Me and Jack, we were, um, together," he said softly. He looked up to see Other Ianto's mouth hanging open, his eyes wide and his cheeks pink.
"You — me? — And Jack?" he spluttered. "I don't believe it!"
"Believe it," New New Jack said with one of his characteristically lusty chuckles. "You should have seen the snog he gave me in the vaults!"
"We did," all three women exclaimed in unison. Other Ianto's eyes widened even more.
"There's video of it?"
"We couldn't help it, what with two attractive blokes going at it…" New New Gwen muttered. "Same as when you lot filmed me and Carys my first day here, doing the same thing. Just a snog, mind you," she hastily explained to Ianto. "I'm married to my boyfriend Rhys, now. We're going to have a baby," she added proudly, patting her stomach.
"Congratulations."
"Ok, we'll leave Yan's living arrangements up in the air for now. After you and Ianto go over the Archives, come back to my office," New New Jack finished. "Anything I missed?"
"You could compare Yan and Ianto's DNA, see if there's anything different between them. If one has immunity to something the other doesn't have…" New New Tosh suggested.
"It'll take about 12 hours to compare an entire DNA strand," New Martha added. "I'll have results by tomorrow morning."
"Good. Get to it, everyone." New New Jack pushed himself to his feet, leaving Ianto alone with the team. New New Gwen and New New Tosh left right behind him without a backwards glance. Other Ianto started gathering coffee cups. Ianto moved to help him without thinking.
"Nope, let him do it," New Martha said, tapping Ianto's shoulder. "You've got a date with me at the med lab."
"Sorry," Ianto said to Other Ianto, putting down the coffee cups in his hands.
"It's all right. Come down to my office when you're done with Martha and I'll show you around."
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"So, you and Jack?" Other Ianto asked as he handed Ianto a case file.
"Yep."
"You and Jack…" Other Ianto repeated.
"Come on, you can't tell me you've not thought about it?" Ianto asked. "He's bloody gorgeous! Haven't you been even a little curious?"
"Everyone's a little curious about Jack," Other Ianto hedged.
"You've really never thought about it?" Ianto pressed. Other Ianto pursed his lips and remained silent. Ianto recognized his own habit of shutting people out when he was upset. He sighed and accepted the next case file.
"What was it like?" Other Ianto asked after ten minutes of silently passing files. "You and Jack?"
Ianto couldn't help the relaxed smile that formed on his face. "It was wonderful," he finally answered. "It's just different, him being a man. And he's very good."
Other Ianto snorted. "I can imagine."
"He was the first man I slept with," Ianto said.
"There've been others?" Other Ianto demanded, shocked. "Not just him?"
"Some. It's a long story."
"So you're bi? Great. Just what I needed. A bisexual double form another universe showing up and taking over my life."
"I'm not taking over your life. I'm trying to get back to my own!"
Other Ianto looked at Ianto's determined face for a moment before speaking again. "How long were you with him?"
"A year and a half, off and on. Then a year and nine days with New Jack. Ten weeks with New Lisa's Jack, though the first time was the night before he left with the Doctor, and I took up with New Lisa while he was away. He was gone for three months, so it was five and a half with her. A month or so with each of the others. I've been gone almost three years, at this point."
"You and New Lisa?" Other Ianto asked.
"I lost Lisa at the Battle. That universe had a version of her that was alive. I still loved her, even though she'd been dead for over two years to me, so it seemed natural to get together with her again."
"But —"
"I fell in love with Jack," Ianto said softly. "My Jack, I mean. I didn't expect it, but it happened. And then I loved New Jack. I couldn't seem to help myself. I couldn't be with just New Lisa when there was a Jack around that was amenable to something with me. It was only physical with him, but I needed it. Those pheromones of his…"
"Lisa and I broke up the month before the Battle. I transferred here to Cardiff five days before the Tower fell."
"Wow," Ianto murmured, looking up from the file in his hands. "That must have been —"
"Horrible. I felt guilty that I wasn't there to help her, to help everyone. By all rights, I should've died that day, but Jack needed an archivist and pushed through my application so that I could get over here faster. I wasn't supposed to start when I did, but he came to London and begged me to start early. Gave me a huge bonus to make up for losing the vacation time."
"Wow," Ianto repeated.
They worked in silence for another half hour.
"What happened to Owen?" Ianto asked.
"He died," Other Ianto answered. "Aaron Copley shot him during a case."
"The Pharm. I remember."
"If you're from May of 2008, you should know that."
"My Owen got turned into a zombie. Martha left after the first week when we established that he'd be safe to work with and that he wanted to continue working. He was a right shit for a while, but things were settling down when the Rift took me."
"Huh."
"Yeah." They paused for a few minutes to make coffee for the team, working seamlessly beside each other in the kitchenette. "What's the biggest case you've had lately?" Ianto asked when they returned to the Archives.
"A few weeks back, the Home Office tried to blow up the Hub and kill us all, but we survived and managed to save ten percent of the world's children from being taken by alien thugs. Well, the world governments were going to hand them over, actually, starting with the council estate kids and the homeless. I still have nightmares of going to Rhiannon's house to save Mica and David."
"Jack…"
"Found a way to get rid of them with Tosh without sacrificing anyone. Frobisher, from the Home Office, sent over this guy Dekker who'd been studying the aliens since 1965, and Dekker kept demanding that we use a child to send the aliens away, even though it would kill the child, but Jack refused."
"Good for him."
"It would've worked, using a child," Other Ianto commented. "But it seemed so similar to what happened to that girl Jasmine and the fairies, only this time the child wouldn't be volunteering… when Jack refused and found another way, we were so relieved. I'm not sure if we could've kept working for him if he'd done it."
"Did Jack's old Time Agency partner show up to blow up the city?"
"With Jack's nutcase of a brother, yeah," Other Ianto said. "I'll make sure you get both case files. You should probably read them and all the supporting docs. Jack's been… different ever since Gray showed up here and tried to kill him. Hell, even getting blown to bits didn't affect him that much."
"Having your own brother try to kill you would change anyone," Ianto muttered. "But he was blown to bits? How? And he came back?"
"Someone from MI6 killed him and put a bomb in his stomach, when the children thing started. They misjudged the timing, though, and we were able to get him into the blast-proof cell before it took out the Hub."
"Shit. I can't believe he survived something like that."
"It was horrible, listening to him scream as his body grew back."
"Bloody Torchwood," Ianto whispered.
"I can't agree more."
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"So, what, exactly, was your relationship to these other Jacks?" New New Jack asked as soon as the door of his office was closed behind Ianto. He glanced at the clock on the wall behind New New Jack, realizing that the others were long gone, leaving him alone in the Hub with New New Jack. He couldn't help but speculate that New New Jack planned it that way, asking for 'Yan' to bring his last coffee of the day to 'see if it was as good as Ianto's.' No one was fooled as to what he really wanted, Ianto least of all.
Ianto sighed. "Just ask what you really want to ask, Jack. Don't bother beating around the bush. I've been around more than enough Jack Harknesses to see through you."
New New Jack scrunched up his face in displeasure. "I'm not sure I like that," he commented.
"Yes, I'll sleep with you," Ianto said. "There, are you happy? I won't ask for love from you, but if I'm here any length of time, don't be surprised if I fall for you, like I did My Jack and New Jack. I don't expect monogamy, but I expect honesty and to be treated politely. I won't insist on condoms unless there are others involved, but I'd really rather not go down that route again. That means that I don't want to sleep with anyone else, but you're free to do whatever you want. I know about your immortality and I know you can't get me sick unless there's less than an hour between assignations."
"Assignations?" New New Jack blurted, laughing. "Who calls it that?"
"Whatever," Ianto muttered. "I'll do some kinky things with you, but I have limits and we'll need to talk about them before we get started with anything like that. And we both need safewords. Also, I expect you to find a way to keep me and Ianto separate, as he doesn't seem interested in this kind of thing."
New New Jack's eyes suddenly darkened with desire, and Ianto groaned, imagining what New New Jack must be thinking and cursing himself for implying or suggesting it. "But if he were to be into this kind of thing?" New New Jack questioned carefully.
Ianto paused, considering New New Jack's proposal. "I suppose it's like masturbation…"
"That's the spirit!" New New Jack exclaimed happily. "We'll get him on board yet!"
"Wait a minute. You haven't even slept with me. How can you —"
"That kiss was enough to tell me all I need to know about what you're like in bed, Yan. And if Ianto's anything like you, well, all my Christmases have come at once!"
"You're one horny bastard, you know that, don't you?" Ianto asked, rubbing his temples with his fingers, even as he teased New New Jack.
"Says the man who kissed me before he knew I wasn't the right Jack. And the one who's slept with close to a dozen versions of me and a new version of your former girlfriend." New New Jack grinned ferally. "And I've certainly been called worse."
"Just get over here and show me what you've got compared to the other Jacks I've known," Ianto told him. New New Jack jumped to his feet and rushed around the desk.
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tbc