So sorry for the awful wait; I have many excuses but I won't bore you with them as they basically just boil down to RL.
Anyway, please point out any mistakes an such as I'm in a bit of a rush posting! Would have liked to refine this a bit more but I figured I've left you guys waiting for long enough, so thanks for sticking with me!
Chapter 34
For once absolutely nothing had gone wrong, which in hindsight must have been why it went so badly. Ianto had always thought that when finally no evil aliens gate crashed their party – or technically no evil aliens gate crashed the party they had gate crashed – that the two of them would simply end up whiling away a few hours hunting down possible conspiracy theories before tootling off to find something a bit more invasion like. So he was completely unprepared when their evil alien free gate crashed party seemed to be entertaining the Doctor perfectly well.
"Look! They've got canapés!" the Time Lord grinned, whisking far too many from a passing hover-tray. But Ianto didn't share his friend's enthusiasm – and not just because he wasn't a big fan of the treats. Ever since the incident with Shrewling these sorts of thing always made him feel slightly queasy – the muscle memory of his second death still haunting him, the flashbacks causing his stride to falter. That man had had a far bigger effect on his psyche than he would ever admit. Even after he'd looked him up and discovered that a few weeks after the incident – linear time – Shrewling had turned himself in to the authorities, claiming that he was being hunted down by the military for ghastly purposes; Ianto couldn't shake that fear. And so, whilst the Doctor strutted around the room canapé-hunting, Mr. Jones practiced his invisibility and prayed for an alien invasion.
Apparently he was out of luck on both counts. The party proceeded without any apparent hiccups, and an old lady decided to attach herself to him and spend the next few hours regaling him with story about her very extended family, with photos to match.
Five minutes in; he was praying even harder.
"And this is my great-great-grand-nephew Beatrix; isn't he cute?"
Ianto stared at the photo of what appeared to be a duck, wondering weather it was his eyes or his ears which were deceiving him. "Err-"
"And that's Pauline, his father." She whipped out another photo from her seemingly endless bag. (Ianto hadn't quite decided if she was secretly Mary Poppins, or if it was TARDIS-like technology.)
"The one in the dress?" he asked politely.
The old lady looked at him weirdly. "Don't be ridiculous! It's a jumpsuit."
"Oh, of course, my apologies. I'm…umm…not wearing my glasses," he quickly apologised whilst sighing internally. 'Why do I always attract the crazy ones?'
TWDWTWDW
The photos had eventually run out, and his new friend had pottered off to find someone else to torment for a few hours. He was just looking around for the errant Time Lord when the man in question popped up from behind him, making him jump.
"Doc-"
"Fancy a dance?" the other man asked, eyes full of mischief.
"With...with you?" Ianto couldn't help but stutter in surprise.
"Of course with me." The Doctor held out his physic paper, his finger hovering over the 'Plus One' on his faked invitation. "I am your date after all."
"I…umm…" the younger man couldn't help but stutter, thoughts grounding to a halt as his brain struggled to keep up, protesting vehemently as it went.
'I've finally lost it,' he thought. 'Yup. Lost my mind.'
"C'mon Mr. Jones," the Doctor wiggled his fingers invitingly, and Ianto knew he was done for. Dancing with the Doctor…how bad could it be?
"Well, since you asked so nicely; lead on." He placed his hand firmly into the other man's, holding his breath as he bit the metaphorical bullet, and looked up into kind eyes.
The Time Lord smiled. It was a new smile; one Ianto didn't already have catalogued. So Happy-Surprised Smile (as it would henceforth be called) went into the drawer of Doctor-Smiles right after No. 27: 'Just Looking Around, Never Mind Me' Smile. There was a drawer for other expression as well, but Ianto had noticed that there was only one other main one apart from Smiles (subcategories Grins and Smirks) and that was 'Dark and Brooding'. He tried not to dwell on that too much.
Ianto had always done it – consciously at first – filing people's emotional reactions to certain stimuli away for future reference, until it had become a survival instinct against a world of people who didn't always have his best interests at heart. Now he didn't even register he was doing it; he'd trained his brain to take in certain things, and it did. But he was well aware that this wasn't normal. Sure, there were body language experts, and people who knew their partners so well they could guess the other's next move, but this was different. Normal people didn't keep a record of friends' facial expressions in their minds, just in case one day they turned against them and they needed to be ready; all of it tucked away in alphabetical order.
Paranoia the shrinks called it. (Not that he told them or anyone else: he'd made that mistake once; one too many beers with Gavin down the pub, the look of fascination turning into horror, disgust – all filed away of course – until he still flinched at the word freak.)
But it was a lesson he'd learnt early on; before Government conspiracies and Torchwood, back when aliens were just little green men from Mars in that pop-up book Rhiannon had got her little brother for Christmas.
People were mean.
It wasn't paranoia if they really were out to get you.
And so he filed, catalogued and sorted; neat little rows in boxes, drawers and shelves – just in case.
Jack had a whole cabinet; full of smiles and frowns and twitches. Other reactions as well, recorded not out of necessity but for an entirely different purpose. But those were private, locked away in the bottom draw to only be perused when completely and utterly alone.
Which wasn't now. Not when fingers clenched gently around his own, Happy-Surprised Smile and kind eyes leading him into the middle of the room, slotting them together like they belonged.
Ianto thought that maybe they did.
TWDWTWDW
If asked, neither man would be able to state how long they danced for; Time seemed to loose all meaning (which was a fairly unusual occurrence when travelling through it). They glided across the hall in a slow sort of waltz, moving with the music but not constrained by it. The other guests at the banquet thought it was kind of cute, although several were annoyed that they wouldn't get the chance to take a spin around the floor with either of the two handsome young men who were so wrapped up in each other.
To Ianto it hardly seemed like they were dancing; the only difference from normal was the lack of danger and their proximity – although even that was debatable.
"Oh! That's just brilliant that is!"
"Hmm?"
The Doctor grinned at him, waiting. When his Companion showed no signs of recognition he rolled his eyes and prompted: "Listen!"
For a moment Ianto didn't hear anything noteworthy; the music played on, the hubbub of voices flowed past his ears, the occasional shriek of laughter, noises all ebbing and flowing like the tides of Cerulean Nova until he could hardly distinguish the waves from the shore. Until…
"…nobody stands in between me and my man…"
"Oh God."
The Doctor smirked cheekily, and began to sing along.
"It's me and Mr. Jones."
"Stop it." Ianto glared.
"If you insist. Next line's a bit rude for me anyway."
"Of course; because the mighty Time Lord never swears."
The mighty Time Lord wrinkled his nose in reply. "I swear! But only in polite company."
Ianto laughed; a warm and happy and real laugh, dipping his head to try to stifle it but accidentally brushing the older man's cheek.
The Doctor tensed at the movement, or more accurately what it did to him, and the grin fell off his face as he saw the truth of the situation. He'd thought that for once he could make it end well; part with a Companion on good terms, neither of them leaving the other but a mutual agreement that it was time to move on. He realised now that was never going to happen. No matter how he did this, however many platitudes or explanations he spouted, wherever and whenever they might be…this was going to hurt. It was too late for it not too.
Now was as good a time as ever to break hearts.
"We can't keep doing this you know," The Doctor sighed.
"This?" Mr. Jones queried.
"This." The Time Lord released a hand from around the other man's waist to gesture between them. The latter raised an eyebrow in question.
"Dancing?"
The Doctor sighed again. "All of it. You and me. In the TARDIS." He let his words sink in for a few seconds. "It's time for you to go."
They danced for another beat, another footfall as the music ate their silence.
"You can't keep lying to yourself…"
"WHAT?"
Ianto stopped moving, halting their progress abruptly in the middle of the dance floor as it dawned on him what this conversation was about.
"You…what?"
He'd expected it of course, known it would have to be soon, before he got much older, but…he'd never thought it would be now.
The Doctor was wearing almost no facial expression whatsoever, which Ianto had categorised as Dark and Brooding No 1: Don't Mess with Me. It was the face he wore when people had died, people he'd liked; or when anyone mentioned the "greater good".
"You need to leave."
Mr. Jones broke away from the Doctor's still firm grip, putting a much needed distance between the two of them.
"Just like that?" he asked incredulously.
"Yep."
"So that's just…it?"
"That's it," the Time Lord confirmed bluntly.
"Wow. Could have been done with a little more tact you know." Ianto bit out, his mind still struggling to gasp what the hell had just happened, and when it had all gone so wrong.
"Would it have helped?"
"Maybe. No. Would have been polite though."
Emotion rushed across the Doctor's previously immobile face.
"Oh and when would it have been polite?" he began to rage quietly in that fierce way of his. "Over dinner? Whilst chasing a herd of rampaging wildebeest? As you died?" he spat out, his voice grew in volume as he started to pace, his arms lifting to make nonsensical movements in mid air, his whole body screaming with repressed anger. "I kept trying to find the perfect time, but do you know what I found? There isn't one! And there never will be; but I had to do it at some point!"
"So why now?" the younger man snapped. The Doctor looked at him incredulously.
"It's been three years!"
"Exactly! One more would hardly hurt. With the technology you've got access to we could have decades and no one would notice a thing!"
"I would!" the Doctor practically shouted, bringing the both of them back to the present as the other guests turned to look and tutted disparagingly. The racket of the hall flooded back from where it had become simply background noise in their ears. "I would know," he repeated; just loud enough for Mr. Jones to hear. "And we could…but then I'd never let you go."
Silence played between them for a second as Ianto digested what had been said, acknowledging the sentiment – that which had been said and that which hadn't – but he wasn't going to give in quite yet.
"We could-"
"No."
He raised an eyebrow. "You're not even going to listen?"
"This is the only way; why can't you see that?"
"Because I want there to be another way; there has to be another way! Don't you see? Don't you want that too!"
Exasperated, the Doctor dragged a hand through his hair.
"Oh Mr. Jones, I want that more than anything."
"So why won't you try?"
"Because we can't. There is no other way." Suddenly the Time Lord stepped closer again, grabbing his friend by the shoulders and willing him to understand. "I can see all of Time – that's my curse. Every path that could be taken, those that should be taken and the ones that really really shouldn't. But all those paths I see…none of them are ours."
Somehow the mood shifted as the word 'ours' was propelled into the air, confirming what it was that both of them had been feeling, hinting at for some time now.
The Doctor was certainly not staring at Ianto's lips, and if he was, there was no way for Ianto to know because he was certainly not staring at the Doctor's lips. Centimetres, seconds and eons apart. "That's why you have to go now, whilst your heart still belongs to Jack."
Mr. Jones looked at him as if staring into the depths of his entire being, all the while being himself completely unreadable. The silence gathered with the weight of all the things they'd still left unsaid, until it was quietly shattered as Ianto spoke again, his voice a mere whisper in the space between them, yet somehow still loud enough.
"If only I had two."
But how many times could those hearts break before they just…stopped?
TWDWTWDW
Ianto sat on his bed and stared at the door to his room. He'd stormed back to the TARDIS without speaking another word to the Time Lord and had headed straight for this sanctuary. His room: the one that had become more of a home to him than any of his previous rooms ever had, even though this one had the irritating tendency of moving places when he wasn't looking.
He felt a wave of sadness wash over him – not his own though, and he stroked the nearest wall, accepting the commiseration. "What's going on girl? Why am I even here?"
There was no reply. Mr. Jones sighed, picking up his meagre bag of possessions he'd quickly packed and headed for the control room. The Doctor was leaning against the console in an almost perfect imitation of how he'd been when Ianto had woken up from his first death all that time ago. Three years. It was hard to believe it'd been that long. It was hard to believe it was over.
The Doctor flicked a switch and the central mechanism began to move as the gentle whirring filled the still room.
"Ready to go?"
"You don't have to do this."
"I really do." Their eyes locked across the room, the older pair resigned, the younger frustrated.
"Why?"
"Jack-"
"Is everything about him?"
The Doctor sighed for what felt like the millionth time in just that day as his ship came to a surprisingly smooth halt. He'd thought the argument was over, dead and buried, but apparently like a zombie it kept coming back for more.
"He's a fixed point-"
"This is my life!Not his!"
The Time Lord fought to keep his voice calm as Mr. Jones' became increasingly emotional.
"Your future is his past, and without that…"
"I know, you've said a thousand times…kaboom, wave goodbye to the universe! I know; but why?" the other man pleaded. "That's all I ask Doc; tell me why."
Another sigh. "I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I mean I don't know."
Ianto shook his head incredulously. "You're lying."
"Would I do that to you?"
"I didn't think you'd do this to me."
"Sometimes these things just happen."
"So I meet a younger Jack in the fifty first century and then…? I go on with my life there? Can I come back here? Do I carve myself an entirely new existence in the future?"
The Doctor didn't answer, but the silence was hesitant, heavy with doubts.
"You know something, don't you?" Ianto prompted, his anger welling up again. The Doctor looked…ashamed, slumping slightly against his ship.
"I…I didn't want to tell you."
"I knew it!"
"I don't want you to think you don't mean anything."
"I think it's a bit late for that."
The younger man watched as the Time Lord flinched, but he didn't care anymore, not if it finally meant getting some answers. And suddenly there was a manila folder being proffered, one of those important looking ones that have lots of little tabs sticking out of their rather full sides. It was the sort of folder that would have TOP SECRET stamped on top in the movies. This one had a stamp, but instead of saying TOP SECRET it said IMPORTANT. There was another stamp a bit lower down: it read VERY IMPORTANT. And under that someone had printed the words READ ME!
Ianto blinked, startled. "That's my handwriting."
"Which technically makes this all your fault," the Doctor replied as he looked up.
"How-?"
"It was delivered to me."
The younger man looked back down at the paper in his hands, before slowly starting to flick through the pages, the Time Lord watching on. After a few minutes he spoke again.
"This is me."
"That's Agent Jones."
"This is me. But I still don't see why."
"Look at the back page." Mr. Jones complied, and the Doctor watched as the realisation began to spread over his face. "Jack lost two years of his life, two years that led him straight to me. And you're the one who takes them."
"No…"
"Yes!" In a rare physical display of rage the Doctor snatched the sheet out of the folder and waved it in the other man's face. "Authorisation Jones! You owe your life to those words! That's your purpose, that's why you're here! The only reason you're not dead is because of this sheet of paper!"
The minute the words were out of his mouth he knew they were exactly the wrong thing to say. Telling people they have to do something – something which is the only reason they're still alive – generally doesn't go down well.
It didn't this time either.
Mr. Jones exploded. He snatched the sheet back and flung it and the rest of the folder across the room, letting the files scatter through the air. "Well maybe you should have left me dead!"
"I couldn-"
"Oh no, of course not! I forgot; you always bow to authority. Such a stickler for the rules. Just drop me off in the 51st century then! Wouldn't want to defy a piece of paper would we? How does that even work? Do I just wander into the Time Agency headquarters and ask for a job? "Hey, can I work here because this piece of paper says I do in the future? And while you're at it, mind if I use your memory erasing technology to set off this entire fucked up Time Loopy Paradox thing in the first place?" How could they possibly say no to that?"
"I've got a friend-"
"Oh of course you do! Not even going to bother making sure I'm settled in, because you can't bear to see me moving on!" The Doctor flinched again; Ianto didn't even notice. "I could just not go, you know. I could pilot your damned ship somewhere else and never look back. No Time Agency, no Immortals, no Time Travellers with a God Complex! I could; you know I could!" He paused to catch his breath, heavy again as his voice had risen, but now winding its way back down to its usual calm and controlled self. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken so much at once. He could barely remember the last time he'd been this angry. "But I won't, and do you know why?" There was no reply. "Because I like you Doctor; and I'm very, very glad I met you. Even despite what you've done to me. I won't put that in jeopardy."
The Time Lord's expression was blank again, but as Ianto finished speaking he caught his eye, the older man nodding in acknowledgement.
"So how does this work?"
"You have two years to get close enough to Jack, or high enough up in the Agency to take those two years so he'll never remember meeting you before Torchwood."
"Right…so…where do I start?"
The Doctor looked at his shoes; the nice new Oxfords Mr. Jones had bequeathed (forced) upon him just a few days ago.
"Just…step outside," he intoned, voice flat and dry. "Everything's sorted."
"Oh." Ianto felt himself deflate. He had to admit that although he was doing this, he still didn't like it, had still been hoping that the Doctor would let him stay a little bit longer. Apparently not. "Well, goodbye then." He held out his hand for the other man to shake, trying his best not to remember all the other times he'd taken that hand, running and laughing and dancing – but mostly running.
Their hands connected, grasped, pulled away as if they were strangers who had just completed a business transaction. And then the erstwhile Welshman (known as Mr. Jones to hundreds across the universe, as Ianto to just a few) picked up his bag and walked out the door and listened to the sound of the TARDIS as it faded away.
TWDWTWDW
Separated from the vacuum of space by what appeared to be a small wooden door, a Time Lord sunk to the floor, put his head in his hands, and cried.
END OF PART 2
So, there we go, bit of an anti-climax but there wasn't really another way to go. So sorry for the lack of 10/Ianto, but the muse said it wouldn't work, and I've long given up arguing with that monster.
There'll probably be another long wait until the next chapter, because the next part requires a lot of planning and actually thinking stuff through! Yay! Sorry about that.
I would love to hear what you thought!