I think these updates will forever be late. Apologies for that and also for the terribly cliched metaphores I use here, but I'm too tired to be creative right now.
Many many thanks for the absolutely wonderful reviews I recieved! Hope this makes up for the end of the last chapter.
Unbeta'd. I killed Ianto, still doesn't mean I own it.
Chapter 28
The Doctor stared.
This couldn't be happening. And yet the unmoving body on the ground before him said otherwise. He kept staring, vaguely wondering at the ache in his chest that had sprung up as he'd felt the other man slipping away; through his fingers. But as much as he might have wished it so, it wasn't solely because of his grief: that would have been better. Instead his body and mind hurt, the way it did when Time started going wrong; the vague tingling that built and built the longer he was around things that weren't meant to be. This was wrong. All the possible outcomes he'd seen for his young friend, this had not been one of them. A minute, a second ago he'd been shining with life before suddenly it had all gone; snuffed out like a stubborn candle finally yielding under the much greater forces of the universe.
It was weird, because Mr. Jones wasn't Jack, so the Doctor couldn't actually tell if this was it or if he was going to come back to life. Jack was a straight line through Time and Space – well, maybe not a straight line but a line nonetheless, constant and unending at least for now. Mr. Jones' line had just stopped; not gone, just…paused. So he couldn't actually know if someone was going to hit play again.
But at the same time, he did.
"You've got enough life force inside you for two, maybe three more lives. That should be enough."
That's what he'd told Mr. Jones when he'd woken up from his first death: he'd given him enough energy to make sure he completed his part in this massive, messed up Time Loopy thing in their attempt to stop a Paradox that only seemed to be getting more and more likely. Of course he hadn't expected the Time displaced man to start using up those lives so quickly, but he still had plenty left, so he was coming back…wasn't he?
"He's coming back." An unfamiliar voice answered, sounding gravelly as if through lack of use. The Doctor refocused his gaze to see a man Ianto had been talking to earlier crouched over his…body, checking vainly for a pulse.
The Doctor frowned, "How would you know?" he asked. This bizarre man wasn't the one who was abruptly beret of something he hadn't even realised he'd needed until it had been forced upon him; something, someone who he'd come to care about over the months despite his initial desires to keep him at arms length. "Mister…?" he prompted.
"General." The man corrected, "General Gustav-Morgan they call me; but it's not what you know me by."
Even before the Doctor could ask the other man's face started to change as he fiddled with a ring on his left index finger. The hair became shorter, light brown becoming dark, the face becoming younger even as the eyes became darker, transforming from a friendly hazel to a shimmering blue. The shoulders became broader, the chin cleft…
"Jack?"
"Actually it's just Captain now Doctor," Jack replied in his own voice, smiling sadly at him. "After a while even your own names become hard to keep track of." The Time Lord flashed his own sad smile back – a twitch of the lips more than anything else – but an acknowledgement: it may not have been his own reason for an alias, but it made sense, especially if you were as old as Jack was (which judging by his temporal imprint that hadn't been there seconds ago, was about 2500 years.
"How did you…?" he paused, trying to work out how to phrase his question without causing offence, but it seemed like the Captain had other ideas.
"Hide my wrongness from you?" he suggested bluntly, making the Doctor wince and run a hand through his hair in embarrassment.
"Yeah, about that…" Once again he wasn't allowed to finish his sentence.
"Don't sweat it Doc, I've got over it." The lie was obvious, but now wasn't the time. Instead Jack raised his left hand and waggled his fingers at the Doctor instead to show off the ring there. "Changes not only my appearance, but also those pesky signals that peg me as me – there were some instances in customs. As far as any kind of sensors go – including the nose of a Parnigal Wolfhound and apparently the spidey sense of a Time Lord, I'm just a regular 30 year old human. Bargain too." He grinned cheekily.
"Thirty?" The Doctor couldn't help but tease, "Sorry Jack, but that's pushing it - even for you. Is that a grey hair I see there?"
"Aww, c'mon Doc; it's normally the human part they question – I'm just too pretty." Then as suddenly as they'd started the fun was over as the older man turned his attention back to the man on the floor between them, making the Doctor realise with a jolt that he'd momentarily forgotten his friend. He watched as the Captain ran a hand lovingly over the young man's features, his right cheek in particular, no doubt re-familiarising himself with his looks. The Time Lord held his breath, waiting for the Captain to demand an explanation as to why Ianto was alive, so he was surprised when he just sighed before he starting to talk quietly – almost whispering. "You stole him." Jack looked up at him briefly, accusing. "I remember…I…I can't remember…" His voice petered out and he bit his lip in frustration. "It's like the memories are blocked, maybe even gone, but there's still this…this imprint on my mind, and he promised me he came straight home, that he hadn't let you beguile him and…he said you'd offered him the universe, but he'd said no…that he wanted to come back to me." Jack stopped again as his voice broke under the anguish in it, pausing until he'd pulled himself under control. When he re-started it was anger that was holding him together. "I guess that was just something else that wasn't true."
The Doctor stared on, puzzled for a while until it suddenly came to him. When Mr. Jones had first joined him he'd talked about another time he'd been on the Tardis, one that hadn't happened in his own personal Timeline yet. A time when he'd apparently kidnapped the Welshman – as if! He'd been under the impression that Ianto hadn't in fact been on board for long, and indeed hadn't gone travelling with him, but apparently Jack didn't know that, or wouldn't believe it at least.
The Doctor wanted to reassure him that his lover had been faithful to his word, but honestly he didn't actually know. As much as he was sometimes tempted to ask…he couldn't.
Also, to tell would be disastrous. He'd have to reveal that this was a different adventure, that he'd brought the Immortal's companion back to life, not told him and stolen him for his own. He couldn't do that to Jack. He couldn't tell him that Ianto was alive and that he couldn't have him because he was meant for something far greater. He couldn't break him even more, but also couldn't risk what he would do – like steal the Welshman back and damn the consequences. So instead the Doctor just swallowed back the rising tears, ran another hand through his hair and changed the subject back to his original question.
"You said he was coming back; how do you know?"
"Well, you know, apart from having lived and died through his future…the rumours say he gets back up."
"Rumours?" The Doctor looked around: no one appeared to be paying them any attention.
"Yeah, it's why I'm here in the first place. People say that today one of Shrewling's marks feinted, others say he was dead, and I thought, maybe…" he stopped again as if embarrassed before continuing in a self deprecating voice. "I hoped I'd find someone else like me."
The Doctor softened slightly under those sad eyes, but even he couldn't change the facts. "There's no one else quite like you Jack."
"Yeah; I think I've got that now Doc. But how could I not look?" the Captain snapped before he gave another rueful smile. "Of course I realised that the most likely scenario if the rumours were true was that it was me – a past or future version – hence the disguise. That, and I always did like dressing up." He flashed a shadow of a leer, and the Doctor wished he wouldn't pretend, wished he didn't have to lie. "But it wasn't me…so he's not really dead right? I mean, he comes back to me; I know he does. Is it like the miracle elixir on Eden 9? Where you just look dead and then WHAM! You're not."
The Doctor couldn't help the disappointment he felt; he wished he could take comfort in Jack's logic, but Jack didn't know it was flawed. "Yeah," he agreed anyway, even though it was as far from the truth as possible. "Something like that."
Suddenly it didn't matter, because it really was like that as Mr. Jones started screaming.
DWTWDWTW
Something wasn't right. There was a taste in the air that struck a chord in the not so deep recesses of his mind, the resonance of a metallic tang cascading down his tongue, and a deep dark smell awakening almost forgotten instincts.
Number One: Gun out, check area for hostiles – if encountered, neutralise. No gun, but no one else around either as far as he could see…not see: tell.
Number Two: Look over bodies, confirm cessation of life. Yep, he was definitely dead. No body to check, but it felt just like last time.
Number Three: Determine cause of death. That one was harder: poison seemed the obvious option considering he hadn't been mauled, shot or stabbed. But he'd only had some punch from the same bowl as everyone else, and the strawberries had been from the bunch the Doctor had been munching on. So…last thing he remembered…
Shrewling. Shrewling and his glittery 'lady' friend with the strange smelling perfume…now that he thought about it, it had been shortly after Henry had joined them that things had got out of control: he should have been able to talk himself out of the situation, or at least have legged it, but if he'd been drugged…that perfume had definitely been overpowering.
So, death by Eau de Drag Queen. Brilliant. At least it was original.
Number Four: Cover up story. Considering he was already technically dead that one didn't really matter, and the Doctor was the only one who would care what had really happened, and he'd been there.
Was he going to make a habit of dying in handsome men's arms?
Anyway, what came next? Ah yes,
Number Five: Dispose of body. Well, he didn't seem to have one. It felt like he did, but it was more like the echo of a body than an actual physical presence. So that one could be skipped.
Number Six: Replace body if necessary with one from the morgue. Impossible to do whilst dead…
Oh. Shit. He was dead!
And then he wasn't. And it hurt.
TBC
There may be lots of angst approaching. I like angst. Then again there may not be.
Also, what does everyone think about a little bit of Ianto/Ten?
