This is a converation between Ianto and Martha at the time of Reset.

Tell Me

"I want to know, Martha. Please tell me."

"Why? Why is so important?"

"Because … because it's worse not knowing. I imagine all sorts of things."

"Jack should be the one to tell you."

"I've asked him, of course I have. But he just smiles apologetically and looks away. Then he diverts me."

"With dabbling?" Martha smiled.

"Yes." Ianto grinned. "Please, Martha. I know he's hurting and I want to help him."

Silence.

"I don't know all of it, I wasn't with him most of the time. But it started here in Cardiff. The Doctor and I came to refuel the TARDIS."

"That's the blue box thing."

"Yeah. Jack ran up and hung on to it as The Doctor took off."

"He didn't wait for Jack!?" Ianto look astonished.

"No."

"But Jack had been waiting over a hundred years for him, he told me that much. The bastard!"

"Don't make judgements about someone you've never met!" snapped Martha.

"I don't need to have met him to know that!"

Silence.

"Martha, I'm sorry. He's your friend, I shouldn't have said that to you. But how can you defend him?"

"Because I've travelled with him, seen him do impossible things and save whole worlds." Her face glowed at the memory. "He's a hero."

"So's Jack. If it wasn't for him this city, this country, would have been overrun and destroyed. He saved the world from Abaddon."

"I believe it. Don't get me wrong. But he's like that because of The Doctor. He makes us all like that."

"Maybe."

"Do you want me to carry on?"

"Yes. Please."

"The TARDIS tried to get rid of Jack and took us to the end of the universe where only a handful of humans survived. They were trying to get a place called Utopia and The Doctor and Jack helped them." Martha smiled at the memory.

"Did Jack die?"

"Yes. Why?"

Ianto shrugged. "He was different when he got back, like he'd died a few times. Were they bad?"

"Not then."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll explain but let me get on with the story or we'll be here all night!"

"Sorry."

"It's all right, Ianto. I want to tell you in the order that it happened so you'll understand better, that's all. The man, the professor who was in charge … well, he was a Time Lord."

"Like The Doctor? But I thought he was the only one, that's what they always told us at Torchwood One."

"Turns out there was another, The Master. He stole the TARDIS. The Doctor locked the controls so he could only come here, to Earth at the time we left it or to Utopia."

"So you were stuck at the end of the universe? Weren't you frightened?" Ianto watched her carefully.

"Bloody petrified!" She laughed. "But we were being attacked by some humanoids, the Futurekind, at the time so I didn't have time to think about it. The Doctor got us back to Earth using Jack's teleport."

"Teleport? What teleport?"

"The thing he wears on his wrist. It's a teleport."

"I never knew that."

"Anyway, when we got back to Earth we found The Master had become Harold Saxon - "

"The Prime Minister!?"

"Yes. He took my family hostage and when we went to confront him he took us prisoner too. We were on the Valiant when he killed the US president."

"Hang on. Were we – Gwen, Owen Tosh and I – sent to Tibet to get us out of the way?"

Martha nodded. "The Master didn't want you trying to help Jack. Anyway, Jack gave me his teleport and I got off the ship. I spent a year travelling the world while all the people were made to build missiles or were being killed. Jack spent that year being tortured and … killed by The Master. My family were there, they saw what he went through. It was horrible, Ianto."

Silence.

"It was like that for a year? But he was only gone three months." Ianto was appalled and confused.

"At the end of the year, I was captured and taken back to the Valiant. The Doctor's plan worked and he was set free and Jack and my family. When we stopped The Master and restored the TARDIS time was reversed, it was as if that year had never happened."

"So we all lived a year then had it wiped out. But I don't remember it and you do."

"We remembered it because the Valiant was at the eye of the storm. We were the only ones. Sometimes I wish I didn't." Ianto placed his hand over hers and squeezed it.

"And Saxon died."

"His wife shot him. He could have regenerated, like all Time Lords, but he wouldn't. The Doctor burnt his body."

"Good."

"We stayed on the TARDIS, Jack and me, for a bit. We needed some time to … understand what had happened to us. To heal."

"Poor Jack. Was he tied up on the Valiant?"

"Yes, chained to some posts. Why?" She looked at him quizzically.

"That explains why he doesn't … ah, well, it just explains it." Ianto blushed. "And The Doctor couldn't make Jack mortal again."

"No. It can't be reversed."

Silence.

"Thanks for telling me, Martha. I won't say anything to him but I understand now why he's different."

"He's an amazing man, Ianto. You're very lucky to have him."

"I know."

Just a short story that's been lying around for a while. Hope you like it.