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fictionalTitle: There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains To Bear Their Names To Time
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Ten, +TW team, +sundry members of DW Cast
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, slash, plot, religion (!!), and porn.
Summary: Some people say goodbye and others say hello.
Wordcount: ~32,000 words, posted in five parts
Authors' Notes: This is the penultimate installment of our series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. The title is from a poem by Leonard Cohen; summary is, of course, courtesy The Beatles. Next up: the final installment of the main story arc, though we will be returning to the 'verse at some point after that for some digressions and interludes, and a DVD commentary! Just prior to this, we posted two prequels (one for Jack, and one for Ianto) which are fairly important to the conclusion of the series. They are numbered 8 & 9 in the links below if you'd like to catch up.
Previous installments:
1. A Strange Fashion of Forsaking | 2. Dear Captain, Last Night I Slept in Mutiny | 3. To Learn This Holding and the Holding Back | 4. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World | 5. I Imagine You Now in That Other City | 6. Many of My Favorite Things Are Broken | 6.5 Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Truth, Beauty: or, A Child's Guide to Modern Physics | 7. In Our Bedroom After the War | 8. And I Cannot Know How Long She Has Dreamed of All of You [Jack/Nine/Rose] | 9. The Spectacular Catastrophe of Your Endless Childhood [Ianto/OFCs, Ianto/Lisa]
There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains to Bear Their Names to Time, Part 1
The thing about Torchwood, Ianto reflected, was that it always seemed simple in concept. Even with aliens and space time rifts, the problems Torchwood addressed were pretty simple on the surface. Investigate things that are out of place; stop things that are dangerous. Anyone could understand that.
But in actuality, the situation was always much more complex and usually, Ianto was beginning to notice, it involved killing something in order to save it. He was hoping he wasn't going to need to be saved any time soon, because whatever his fate, he definitely didn't want it delivered to him by Jack's Doctor.
Jack's Doctor. It was ridiculous! Ianto still wanted to punch him. And maybe cry.
"Here," the Doctor was saying, shoving a box for the giant lumpen hazelnut at him. "You shouldn't carry that in the open."
"Why not?"
"Well, it's perfectly safe, but you don't want to attract attention and --"
"Is it dangerous?"
"Oh, no, but... well, it's a thing."
Ianto looked at him crossly. "Physical objects generally are," he said.
The Doctor laughed as if he were delighted. "Look. It would be disrespectful. So, just put it in the box."
"Fine."
"So here's what's going to happen. In a bit I'm going to land us on Crafe Tec Heydra."
"Which is what?"
"A planet, Ianto."
"Oh. Of course!"
The Doctor ignored his tone. "We'll be in a cave. Hopefully, you'll be met by the charming fellow I've been talking to because he seems good natured enough to put up with you, and then he's going to take you to where my friend... lives --"
"What's with the pause?" Ianto asked, cutting him off.
"What pause?"
"You paused. Before you said 'lives'. Your friend does live, doesn't he? Because every time something happens involving people who are walking around but not alive, it's really, really bad."
"Oh. He's alive. Don't worry about that. Not an issue."
"Right," Ianto said suspiciously. "So I meet your friend, give him this thing, then come back here. Game over, you take me home, yeah?"
The Doctor pursed his lips and thought for a second. "Yup."
"Right. So, why's that going to take more than a couple of hours?"
Ianto watched as the Doctor looked around the control room, as if searching for the answer on the walls of the TARDIS.
"Big planet!" he offered. "Mountainous too. Precautionary estimate! Only seems fair. Mountains. Really."
"And why can't you do this yourself?"
"I can't because I didn't. Timelines crossing. Paradox. Very bad."
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it? And we just have to trust that you're not lying for your own nefarious purposes."
"Pretty much," the Doctor admitted.
Ianto frowned and looked down to consider his shoes. "I have another question," he said.
"What?"
"Why does Jack like you?"
The Doctor laughed again. "Well, I am very clever. And also, because he's an idiot. Can you and I agree on that?" he asked conspiratorially, leaning against a control panel.
Ianto smiled in spite of himself.
***
"UNIT Task Force, Dr. Martha Jones speaki--"
"Martha! Finally!"
"Jack? It's good to hear your--"
"Yeah, can we skip the greetings and salutations phase? You've still got that phone number, right?"
"Well, aren't you in a pleasant mood. What's going on--"
"I need you to call the Doctor--"
"But--"
"Right now, Martha. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Just fucking call him."
"...Okay? What do you want me to say?"
"Just call him. Take out that fancy mobile of yours and ring him up. I'll wait."
"Crikey. Fine. I'm dialing right now. What's got your knickers in a twist?"
"Just get him on the line."
"He's not picking up. It's just ringing and ringing. What do you want me to do? Jack? Jack? Are you there? ...Ah. You've hung up on me. Well, that's just bloody marvelous."
***
"What's that ringing?" Ianto asked, as he sat on the somewhat battered white sofa that looked oddly out of place in this magical room, with his seed nut thing in a box beside him.
"What ringing?" the Doctor returned abstractedly.
"You can't hear that? Sounds like a ring tone."
"Oh that? That's nothing. Just a little gadget I've got. Must be on the fritz. Nothing to worry about."
Ianto sighed. This wondrous machine was also, he was beginning to realize, sort of a bucket of bolts. Jack loved it though; he remembered hearing that in his voice when he spoke of it. He wondered briefly if Jack was capable of loving anything at all that wasn't broken.
The Doctor raced around the console, slamming down another lever, and spinning a final dial with a flourish. "Voila!" he said smugly. "Crafe Tek Heydra. Nice landing, if I do say so myself. And I do!"
"Am I supposed to applaud?"
"Couldn't hurt," the Doctor said with a grin. "Now, Ianto Jones, citizen of earth, you're about to take your first step onto another world. New sky. New ground. New to you, anyway. New everything. Well, almost everything. Exciting, isn't it? Doesn't change either, no matter how often you do it. S'why I never stop moving."
Ianto looked at the Doctor's face and thought that he might actually be sincere. "I never wanted to," he said. "Not really."
"No? Never looked into the stars in the sky and wanted to be out there among them?"
"I keep my feet on the ground. I try to, anyway. Roots, you know?"
"And that makes you a braver man than I, Ianto Jones." The Doctor's voice sounded light-hearted, but for a second, Ianto almost felt sorry for him.
"Doctor--" he started, but the Doctor cut him off, which was probably for the best, as he'd really no idea what he could possibly say.
"Listen to me very carefully now. You're going to open that door and step out into the world. That bit of metal I've given you? Strung on a chain round your neck? Keep it there. It's a little piece of the TARDIS. Do not, I repeat, do not lose it. That way the TARDIS translation protocols will continue to work for you -- you'll be able to understand everyone, just as if they were speaking English."
"Are you telling me your ship is inside my head?"
"Yep. Comes in handy too, as you'll see. Pull it out," he instructed Ianto, and waited till he had pulled the object out from where it was hidden under his shirt. "See how the metal's glowing golden? That's because the TARDIS is nearby. After I leave you here, it'll go back to being sort of silver colored. When you see it glow gold again, that's how you'll know that I'm back and that you need to come back to this cave to meet me. I can't stress this enough, Ianto. I won't be able to come in there after you. So you need to make sure that you're here. All right?"
Ianto nodded, not trusting his voice to speak.
"Off you go then."
Ianto picked up the box and made for the door. He had the feeling if he reflected on this too hard, he wouldn't be able to do it at all, so he simply shut off his brain and thought only about putting one foot in front of the other. As he reached for the latch, the Doctor called after him, "Good luck!"
He turned back. "You promise you'll come back for me? You won't just leave me here?"
"I promise," the Doctor said gently. "I will come back. Very soon. And I will take you home. You have my word."
Ianto nodded again, opened the door, and set foot on an alien world for the first time.
Frankly, it wasn't nearly as impressive as he'd thought it would be. As the Doctor had warned him, the TARDIS had landed in a cave -- dimly lit with some sort of flickering light sources that looked like torches to Ianto, but could have also been some form of alien tech, mimicking primitiveness for some reason or other.
He turned back to look at the TARDIS, which was dematerializing with a grinding vworp-vworp noise. He felt oddly forlorn as if he were being deserted by his only friend. Which was ridiculous, since the Doctor was neither a friend nor even someone particularly familiar or comforting.
Ianto heard steps approaching through the dark passageway and instinctively felt for his gun, only to realize that it wasn't there. Except that was very odd, because he was sure he'd had it when he'd run into the TARDIS. Great he thought, the man dumps me on an alien world and leaves me there WITHOUT A WEAPON. Bloody fantastic.
The steps drew closer, and then the alien stepped forward into the circle of light.
Ianto wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. It was... just a man, about his own age. In a suit. An ordinary, every day, 21st century light grey, pinstriped suit. It was even well-cut. Ianto stared.
The stranger leaned forward, hand extended. "Mr. Jones," he said. "Welcome."
Ianto shook his hand, relieved to have the cushion of manners to support him in this hour of need. "You know who I am?"
"Certainly. We've been expecting you. That is, I have. The Doctor spoke only to me. We didn't want to raise His hopes. He's been most distressed over this loss."
Ianto could almost hear the capital in the man's words, and he wondered a little more about what kind of "friends" the Doctor had. He supposed he'd soon be finding out.
"If you'd care to come with me," the man said and gestured for Ianto to precede him down the passageway.
Ianto felt the back of his neck prickle at having this unknown person behind him, but he supposed he really had no choice in the matter. After all, even if he followed all the rules carefully trained into him by Jack, at the end of the day, he was still on an alien planet, in the future, with no weapon, and no way of getting home.
Everyone he ever knew was dead, he thought. Dead, and rotted. Except Jack. Somewhere out there in this universe, Jack was probably still kicking around, and Ianto took some sort of obscure comfort in that thought.
After a bit, the passageway ended in front of doors of some kind, and the man laid a hand on a palm lock to open them. The doors slid open; stepping through them with some trepidation, he walked outside.
Ianto looked about and was forced to admit that the planet was beautiful. At least this part of it. He didn't know what he'd been expecting but it wasn't this stunning view of red-orange mountains in the distance, craggy and tipped with what Ianto thought would have been snow back home, but here was coloured lavender.
As the man led him down a winding road that led down the side of the mountain that the cave was in, Ianto looked back and saw a cliff face sheered off. It was carved with symbols, pictures and hieroglyphs; huge work, really, like a Mayan temple back on earth, but on the side of a mountain.
He stared at it, wishing he could figure out what it was saying. It had many, many figures fighting and falling, rudely drawn. Some looked humanoid. Some not, but bulbous and rounded instead. Not great artists, these people, whoever they were, Ianto thought to himself.
He wondered why it was that this sort of art always resembled nothing so much as the ridiculous caricatures that he and the rest of the team drew to entertain each other, especially considering that none of them had any artistic talent whatsoever. Surely an entire civilisation ought to be able to come up with something better to show for itself.
He continued to look at the crude etchings, realizing that the fighting and falling came to a stop, after which there was something that looked like a child's representation of an explosion. And then, directly at the end, there was a single, solitary individual, this one almost literally a stick figure like Jack might have drawn and put on Ianto's fridge accompanied by some scrawled innuendo.
The figure looked like it was walking away from whatever war between whichever gods was depicted here. Ianto thought there might be a line of writing underneath that last bit, but from his current perspective, he couldn't make it out.
"What is that?" Ianto asked his guide, pointing to the mountain-face.
"It's a story."
"What story?"
"That would be telling, Mr. Jones."
Ianto sighed. "So, can I ask your name? You know mine."
"At present, I'm afraid I'm without one."
"Without... a name?"
"Yes. It will be given back to me. In due time. When I've earned it."
"Earned it how exactly?"
"Through the faithful performance of my duties."
"And what duties would those be?"
"Clerical," the man said shortly.
"Oh?" Ianto looked at the man out of the corner of his eye. A secretary. Or an accountant? Something like that. He didn't know why he was surprised. That was precisely what the man looked like. Maybe the whole universe was more simple and familiar than he'd thought. No need to feel unsettled. He could do this.
***
Jack put his hands on his hips and sighed. Seeing as how throwing a tantrum, trying the Doctor's mobile, completely panicking and then waiting patiently for oh, about ten minutes, had failed to produce any actual results, it was, Jack realized, unfortunately time to think logically.
But not just logically. Logically like Ianto, who was better at keeping secrets, apparently, than anyone Jack had ever known, carnally or not. And that was saying something.
He flipped open his mobile and speed-dialed Gwen.
"Hey, I need you out at Ianto's flat, A-SAP"
"What's going on?"
"He's run off with the Doctor. Or the Doctor's run off with him, or--"
"Jack, don't be daft. Why would he--"
"I saw him," Jack said through grit teeth. "They ran into the TARDIS and goddamn vanished and I--"
"Oh, Jack," Gwen said, cutting him off again, and somehow automatically falling into the pitying voice she used presumably whenever one of her friends had another break up.
"Don't. Do not. Use that tone," Jack snapped, slightly in awe of the narrative she was managing to create without even thinking about it. At least, that's what he hoped was going on. For all he knew, Ianto might have told her something. They'd kept secrets from him together before. "Do you know something I don't?"
"Jack! Of course not."
"Okay then. We don't know what this is about, but I need you to help me search his place."
"Maybe he just wanted to... go?" Gwen said quietly. Jack tried to convince himself she was merely offering that suggestion in lieu of foul play.
"Yeah and maybe he left a note," Jack snapped.
"He could come back at any moment --"
"And then I'll buy you a pint to make up for the petrol you'll use getting the hell over here five minutes ago. Now get in your car."
"All right. All right. Just... don't -- I don't know... whatever it is, just don't, don't panic. We'll get him back."
"Let Maeve know she's in charge," he said and snapped the phone shut.
Jack put his hands on his hips and stretched, looking up at the sky.
"Goddamnit!" he yelled as he kicked at the rubbish bins.
***
"I don't mean to be impertinent," Ianto said, "but I'm afraid the Doctor didn't really give me very much information about... well, any of this. Any explanations you could offer, especially those that treat me like a particularly slow child, would be very much appreciated about now."
The nameless man laughed as if he were truly delighted. "Dressed like that and you don't understand," he muttered to himself.
"Excruciatingly slow child," Ianto reiterated. "I don't even know what this thing is. Or who He is or why I'm here."
"What you carry is not for me to discuss with you, but the rest of it, I think you understand better than most."
"I'm really not being disingenuous!"
"And I didn't say that you were. Most people come here with expectations. Goals. Queries. Demands. You come without them, and that is wisdom."
Ianto took a deep and very frustrated breath. "Philosophy aside. Who am I meeting and what are the etiquette expectations?"
"Ah, protocol. The Doctor said we would find a common language. Clearly he meant in more than tongues."
Ianto closed his eyes tightly and counted backwards from ten, lest he seriously consider throwing the man off a cliff.
When they came to the doors of another structure and the nameless clerk had Ianto set down his box, all he could think really was that the climb back up that slope was going to be awfully tiring. When the man lightly took his hands as if one of them was a girl (although Ianto couldn't decide which) he felt his pulse race with the odd intimacy of it.
"I will accompany you inside as I have duties to attend to within, Mr. Jones, but even though you are not alone, your attention and mine must be to Him. I know you think you did not choose this task, but perhaps you can be surprised."
"At this point, I think I could be just about anything," Ianto muttered, despite the fact that he was trying to take all of this as seriously and formally as possible. Even if no one said so, it was perfectly clear that this was what was being demanded of him. However vaguely. However gently.
The man dropped Ianto's hands and indicated the box. "Your privilege to carry," he said.
"Should I kneel or anything?" Ianto asked, managing to ask the question like it was normal, as opposed to appalling. He was expecting a petty and half mad despot.
The nameless man cocked his head slightly and then chuckled. "Only if He asks."
***
Jack threw himself down on Ianto's sofa. "How does he not leave a fucking note?"
"Well, then you know it wasn't planned. That's something," Gwen said, still wandering around the flat.
"How is that something?" Jack asked sullenly.
"I would say it means he's planning on coming back. Soon," Gwen said, trying to talk Jack down from what she quite frankly thought was an irrational level of distress, admittedly odd though the situation was.
"If he can."
"What does that mean?"
"It means the Doctor's a shitty pilot for one and he tows trouble for another."
"What happened, when you went off with him?" Gwen asked quietly.
"Which time?"
"The one you don't want me asking about."
"Things I can't tell you about. But I was tortured. For a year. And all I can think is that that's happening to Ianto right now."
"Is there any reason to think that, Jack?"
"There's no reason not to."
"He's tough, our Ianto," she said, sitting down next to him and leaning against his side.
"Yeah," Jack said, smiling crookedly, but Gwen didn't ask what he was thinking of.
***
At first Ianto assumed it was merely the transition from outside to inside that made it so hard to see, but he quickly realized the room was very dim.
He resisted the urge to hiss at his guide for directions as to where he should go -- the space was large and open and it seemed odd to him that he should just drift around it waiting for whatever magisterial presence he was supposed to expect.
But at a given point the man grabbed his arm and with a faint pressure, clearly told him to wait and then went to fuss about something at the head of the room.
"Come closer," Ianto felt, more than heard, the way he remembered too much music in too many clubs from when he was still a teen.
He walked forward cautiously, unsure if this counted as spoken to enough that he could say something in return.
"Closer."
Ianto rather thought it was all rather starting to resemble a bad fairytale and felt sad that the only thing he currently felt likely to say to Jack about it all was that he had discovered the universe was very pompous. Jack. Jack who had promised to show him the wonders of the universe, and the stupid Doctor who had somehow caused them all to break that promise.
The voice that had beckoned laughed, and Ianto felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Looking into the gloom, the reason why now seemed abundantly clear.
This was clearly He, and He was a great big giant head in a jar and Ianto wondered how it spoke, considering the lack of a body to house lungs or even, presumably, vocal chords to force air through.
"You have not heard of me," the head said. Within its jar or tank it was shrouded in some kind of smoke, Ianto noticed irrelevantly.
Although it wasn't a question, Ianto decided to play dumb.
"No sir. Only that you are a friend of a... well, the Doctor. I don't know who you are or why I am here or what I am returning to you. I just know that I am."
"Ah," the head said and Ianto realized its lips hadn't moved.
"How can I hear you? You aren't talking."
"But I am thinking."
Ianto thought the head sounded coy.
"I try to be gentle, respect the size and shape of the human mind. You are human?"
"I am, sir. And if you don't mind me saying so, this is disconcerting."
"Perhaps force is less so," the head said, with what Ianto couldn't help but think of as humour.
And then he felt it, that odd pressure from inside his skull of someone trying to pry into his mind, trying to share that small unshareable space with him. And the problem, more than that it was naturally unpleasant, was that it felt utterly familiar.
"Who are you?" Ianto asked, tempted to back away even as he resisted the urge, his muscles tensed to flee none the less.
"I am the Face of Boe."
"But who are you?"
"So much philosophy for an errand runner."
"Who are you?" Ianto asked again, his voice a whisper now.
The Face seemed to pause and either closed its eyes briefly or blinked very slowly, Ianto wasn't sure which.
"Have I known you?" it asked, and Ianto felt the pressing in his head again, both fond and dangerous. "You find this... familiar?"
"Jack?!?!?" he blurted out, and looked around wildly for him before good sense or tolerable logic could stop him. Because whatever was moving inside his head, it felt like Jack. But of course there was no one else there. Only this grotesque giant tentacled... face. In a tank.
Unable to stop himself, Ianto scrambled back as his legs gave out from under him simultaneously. It was ungracious and clumsy and made him feel like a child, but he wasn't sure he cared.
For a moment, he was wrapped in sadness, and it was good and warm and an afternoon spent in bed unexpectedly. Whatever this thing was, Ianto suspected it was rummaging through his head. Because any other conclusion he came to either didn't make a damn bit of sense or was too horrible to contemplate.
"I do not remember. I apologize."
Ianto, still sprawled on the floor, went cold. The Face looked ashamed.
And suddenly, without warning, Ianto's body revolted completely. He just managed to turn his head slightly before he was abruptly, violently sick, in heaving, racking spasms that made him feel like he was turning inside-out. When there was no more to come up, he was gasping and sputtering for air, his whole body feeling wrenched, throat and nose burning, face streaked with tears and if someone had asked him at that moment, he wasn't sure he would even have been able to come up with his own name.
Hands were on him now, trying to help him, pull him up, and small scurrying creatures in robes had appeared and were busily and efficiently clearing up the mess till no trace of it remained. The Face seemed to be gone now as well, and why not? Probably watching someone vomit up the contents of their entire being at you wasn't enjoyable no matter who or what you were.
Utterly humiliated, Ianto tried to surreptitiously scrub at his mouth with one hand, while not letting go of the box with the other. Because it was what he had to hang onto in this moment, a task to cling to in the face of all this that he still didn't understand and didn't want to.
It was the nameless clerk who was helping him up now, he realized, and he was being quietly ushered out of the huge room. Ianto followed him, too exhausted and wrung out to even question where.
"Here," the clerk said, leading him into a cubicle-like room, with a small utilitarian cot in one corner. "There's water through there to clean your mouth with."
Ianto nodded shame-facedly.
"It will be all right," the man said.
"I'm... sorry," Ianto managed to get out.
"No need. Rest."
"But what should I --"
"You will be sent for. At the proper time." And with that, he was left alone. In this future that was like a bad dream, no logic or reason to any of it, and where he'd just disgraced himself like a pathetic child.
He pulled out the chain the Doctor had given him. There wasn't a hint of golden glow about the metal pendant; it was obstinately, inertly silver.
I want to go home he thought, and staring at the box with the alien hazelnut inside it, tried very hard not to cry.
Continue to Part 3
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Ten, +TW team, +sundry members of DW Cast
Authors:
rm & kalichanRating/Warning: NC-17, slash, plot, religion (!!), and porn.
Summary: Some people say goodbye and others say hello.
Wordcount: ~32,000 words, posted in five parts
Authors' Notes: This is the penultimate installment of our series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. The title is from a poem by Leonard Cohen; summary is, of course, courtesy The Beatles. Next up: the final installment of the main story arc, though we will be returning to the 'verse at some point after that for some digressions and interludes, and a DVD commentary! Just prior to this, we posted two prequels (one for Jack, and one for Ianto) which are fairly important to the conclusion of the series. They are numbered 8 & 9 in the links below if you'd like to catch up.
Previous installments:
1. A Strange Fashion of Forsaking | 2. Dear Captain, Last Night I Slept in Mutiny | 3. To Learn This Holding and the Holding Back | 4. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World | 5. I Imagine You Now in That Other City | 6. Many of My Favorite Things Are Broken | 6.5 Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Truth, Beauty: or, A Child's Guide to Modern Physics | 7. In Our Bedroom After the War | 8. And I Cannot Know How Long She Has Dreamed of All of You [Jack/Nine/Rose] | 9. The Spectacular Catastrophe of Your Endless Childhood [Ianto/OFCs, Ianto/Lisa]
There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains to Bear Their Names to Time, Part 1
The thing about Torchwood, Ianto reflected, was that it always seemed simple in concept. Even with aliens and space time rifts, the problems Torchwood addressed were pretty simple on the surface. Investigate things that are out of place; stop things that are dangerous. Anyone could understand that.
But in actuality, the situation was always much more complex and usually, Ianto was beginning to notice, it involved killing something in order to save it. He was hoping he wasn't going to need to be saved any time soon, because whatever his fate, he definitely didn't want it delivered to him by Jack's Doctor.
Jack's Doctor. It was ridiculous! Ianto still wanted to punch him. And maybe cry.
"Here," the Doctor was saying, shoving a box for the giant lumpen hazelnut at him. "You shouldn't carry that in the open."
"Why not?"
"Well, it's perfectly safe, but you don't want to attract attention and --"
"Is it dangerous?"
"Oh, no, but... well, it's a thing."
Ianto looked at him crossly. "Physical objects generally are," he said.
The Doctor laughed as if he were delighted. "Look. It would be disrespectful. So, just put it in the box."
"Fine."
"So here's what's going to happen. In a bit I'm going to land us on Crafe Tec Heydra."
"Which is what?"
"A planet, Ianto."
"Oh. Of course!"
The Doctor ignored his tone. "We'll be in a cave. Hopefully, you'll be met by the charming fellow I've been talking to because he seems good natured enough to put up with you, and then he's going to take you to where my friend... lives --"
"What's with the pause?" Ianto asked, cutting him off.
"What pause?"
"You paused. Before you said 'lives'. Your friend does live, doesn't he? Because every time something happens involving people who are walking around but not alive, it's really, really bad."
"Oh. He's alive. Don't worry about that. Not an issue."
"Right," Ianto said suspiciously. "So I meet your friend, give him this thing, then come back here. Game over, you take me home, yeah?"
The Doctor pursed his lips and thought for a second. "Yup."
"Right. So, why's that going to take more than a couple of hours?"
Ianto watched as the Doctor looked around the control room, as if searching for the answer on the walls of the TARDIS.
"Big planet!" he offered. "Mountainous too. Precautionary estimate! Only seems fair. Mountains. Really."
"And why can't you do this yourself?"
"I can't because I didn't. Timelines crossing. Paradox. Very bad."
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it? And we just have to trust that you're not lying for your own nefarious purposes."
"Pretty much," the Doctor admitted.
Ianto frowned and looked down to consider his shoes. "I have another question," he said.
"What?"
"Why does Jack like you?"
The Doctor laughed again. "Well, I am very clever. And also, because he's an idiot. Can you and I agree on that?" he asked conspiratorially, leaning against a control panel.
Ianto smiled in spite of himself.
"UNIT Task Force, Dr. Martha Jones speaki--"
"Martha! Finally!"
"Jack? It's good to hear your--"
"Yeah, can we skip the greetings and salutations phase? You've still got that phone number, right?"
"Well, aren't you in a pleasant mood. What's going on--"
"I need you to call the Doctor--"
"But--"
"Right now, Martha. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Just fucking call him."
"...Okay? What do you want me to say?"
"Just call him. Take out that fancy mobile of yours and ring him up. I'll wait."
"Crikey. Fine. I'm dialing right now. What's got your knickers in a twist?"
"Just get him on the line."
"He's not picking up. It's just ringing and ringing. What do you want me to do? Jack? Jack? Are you there? ...Ah. You've hung up on me. Well, that's just bloody marvelous."
"What's that ringing?" Ianto asked, as he sat on the somewhat battered white sofa that looked oddly out of place in this magical room, with his seed nut thing in a box beside him.
"What ringing?" the Doctor returned abstractedly.
"You can't hear that? Sounds like a ring tone."
"Oh that? That's nothing. Just a little gadget I've got. Must be on the fritz. Nothing to worry about."
Ianto sighed. This wondrous machine was also, he was beginning to realize, sort of a bucket of bolts. Jack loved it though; he remembered hearing that in his voice when he spoke of it. He wondered briefly if Jack was capable of loving anything at all that wasn't broken.
The Doctor raced around the console, slamming down another lever, and spinning a final dial with a flourish. "Voila!" he said smugly. "Crafe Tek Heydra. Nice landing, if I do say so myself. And I do!"
"Am I supposed to applaud?"
"Couldn't hurt," the Doctor said with a grin. "Now, Ianto Jones, citizen of earth, you're about to take your first step onto another world. New sky. New ground. New to you, anyway. New everything. Well, almost everything. Exciting, isn't it? Doesn't change either, no matter how often you do it. S'why I never stop moving."
Ianto looked at the Doctor's face and thought that he might actually be sincere. "I never wanted to," he said. "Not really."
"No? Never looked into the stars in the sky and wanted to be out there among them?"
"I keep my feet on the ground. I try to, anyway. Roots, you know?"
"And that makes you a braver man than I, Ianto Jones." The Doctor's voice sounded light-hearted, but for a second, Ianto almost felt sorry for him.
"Doctor--" he started, but the Doctor cut him off, which was probably for the best, as he'd really no idea what he could possibly say.
"Listen to me very carefully now. You're going to open that door and step out into the world. That bit of metal I've given you? Strung on a chain round your neck? Keep it there. It's a little piece of the TARDIS. Do not, I repeat, do not lose it. That way the TARDIS translation protocols will continue to work for you -- you'll be able to understand everyone, just as if they were speaking English."
"Are you telling me your ship is inside my head?"
"Yep. Comes in handy too, as you'll see. Pull it out," he instructed Ianto, and waited till he had pulled the object out from where it was hidden under his shirt. "See how the metal's glowing golden? That's because the TARDIS is nearby. After I leave you here, it'll go back to being sort of silver colored. When you see it glow gold again, that's how you'll know that I'm back and that you need to come back to this cave to meet me. I can't stress this enough, Ianto. I won't be able to come in there after you. So you need to make sure that you're here. All right?"
Ianto nodded, not trusting his voice to speak.
"Off you go then."
Ianto picked up the box and made for the door. He had the feeling if he reflected on this too hard, he wouldn't be able to do it at all, so he simply shut off his brain and thought only about putting one foot in front of the other. As he reached for the latch, the Doctor called after him, "Good luck!"
He turned back. "You promise you'll come back for me? You won't just leave me here?"
"I promise," the Doctor said gently. "I will come back. Very soon. And I will take you home. You have my word."
Ianto nodded again, opened the door, and set foot on an alien world for the first time.
Frankly, it wasn't nearly as impressive as he'd thought it would be. As the Doctor had warned him, the TARDIS had landed in a cave -- dimly lit with some sort of flickering light sources that looked like torches to Ianto, but could have also been some form of alien tech, mimicking primitiveness for some reason or other.
He turned back to look at the TARDIS, which was dematerializing with a grinding vworp-vworp noise. He felt oddly forlorn as if he were being deserted by his only friend. Which was ridiculous, since the Doctor was neither a friend nor even someone particularly familiar or comforting.
Ianto heard steps approaching through the dark passageway and instinctively felt for his gun, only to realize that it wasn't there. Except that was very odd, because he was sure he'd had it when he'd run into the TARDIS. Great he thought, the man dumps me on an alien world and leaves me there WITHOUT A WEAPON. Bloody fantastic.
The steps drew closer, and then the alien stepped forward into the circle of light.
Ianto wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. It was... just a man, about his own age. In a suit. An ordinary, every day, 21st century light grey, pinstriped suit. It was even well-cut. Ianto stared.
The stranger leaned forward, hand extended. "Mr. Jones," he said. "Welcome."
Ianto shook his hand, relieved to have the cushion of manners to support him in this hour of need. "You know who I am?"
"Certainly. We've been expecting you. That is, I have. The Doctor spoke only to me. We didn't want to raise His hopes. He's been most distressed over this loss."
Ianto could almost hear the capital in the man's words, and he wondered a little more about what kind of "friends" the Doctor had. He supposed he'd soon be finding out.
"If you'd care to come with me," the man said and gestured for Ianto to precede him down the passageway.
Ianto felt the back of his neck prickle at having this unknown person behind him, but he supposed he really had no choice in the matter. After all, even if he followed all the rules carefully trained into him by Jack, at the end of the day, he was still on an alien planet, in the future, with no weapon, and no way of getting home.
Everyone he ever knew was dead, he thought. Dead, and rotted. Except Jack. Somewhere out there in this universe, Jack was probably still kicking around, and Ianto took some sort of obscure comfort in that thought.
After a bit, the passageway ended in front of doors of some kind, and the man laid a hand on a palm lock to open them. The doors slid open; stepping through them with some trepidation, he walked outside.
Ianto looked about and was forced to admit that the planet was beautiful. At least this part of it. He didn't know what he'd been expecting but it wasn't this stunning view of red-orange mountains in the distance, craggy and tipped with what Ianto thought would have been snow back home, but here was coloured lavender.
As the man led him down a winding road that led down the side of the mountain that the cave was in, Ianto looked back and saw a cliff face sheered off. It was carved with symbols, pictures and hieroglyphs; huge work, really, like a Mayan temple back on earth, but on the side of a mountain.
He stared at it, wishing he could figure out what it was saying. It had many, many figures fighting and falling, rudely drawn. Some looked humanoid. Some not, but bulbous and rounded instead. Not great artists, these people, whoever they were, Ianto thought to himself.
He wondered why it was that this sort of art always resembled nothing so much as the ridiculous caricatures that he and the rest of the team drew to entertain each other, especially considering that none of them had any artistic talent whatsoever. Surely an entire civilisation ought to be able to come up with something better to show for itself.
He continued to look at the crude etchings, realizing that the fighting and falling came to a stop, after which there was something that looked like a child's representation of an explosion. And then, directly at the end, there was a single, solitary individual, this one almost literally a stick figure like Jack might have drawn and put on Ianto's fridge accompanied by some scrawled innuendo.
The figure looked like it was walking away from whatever war between whichever gods was depicted here. Ianto thought there might be a line of writing underneath that last bit, but from his current perspective, he couldn't make it out.
"What is that?" Ianto asked his guide, pointing to the mountain-face.
"It's a story."
"What story?"
"That would be telling, Mr. Jones."
Ianto sighed. "So, can I ask your name? You know mine."
"At present, I'm afraid I'm without one."
"Without... a name?"
"Yes. It will be given back to me. In due time. When I've earned it."
"Earned it how exactly?"
"Through the faithful performance of my duties."
"And what duties would those be?"
"Clerical," the man said shortly.
"Oh?" Ianto looked at the man out of the corner of his eye. A secretary. Or an accountant? Something like that. He didn't know why he was surprised. That was precisely what the man looked like. Maybe the whole universe was more simple and familiar than he'd thought. No need to feel unsettled. He could do this.
Jack put his hands on his hips and sighed. Seeing as how throwing a tantrum, trying the Doctor's mobile, completely panicking and then waiting patiently for oh, about ten minutes, had failed to produce any actual results, it was, Jack realized, unfortunately time to think logically.
But not just logically. Logically like Ianto, who was better at keeping secrets, apparently, than anyone Jack had ever known, carnally or not. And that was saying something.
He flipped open his mobile and speed-dialed Gwen.
"Hey, I need you out at Ianto's flat, A-SAP"
"What's going on?"
"He's run off with the Doctor. Or the Doctor's run off with him, or--"
"Jack, don't be daft. Why would he--"
"I saw him," Jack said through grit teeth. "They ran into the TARDIS and goddamn vanished and I--"
"Oh, Jack," Gwen said, cutting him off again, and somehow automatically falling into the pitying voice she used presumably whenever one of her friends had another break up.
"Don't. Do not. Use that tone," Jack snapped, slightly in awe of the narrative she was managing to create without even thinking about it. At least, that's what he hoped was going on. For all he knew, Ianto might have told her something. They'd kept secrets from him together before. "Do you know something I don't?"
"Jack! Of course not."
"Okay then. We don't know what this is about, but I need you to help me search his place."
"Maybe he just wanted to... go?" Gwen said quietly. Jack tried to convince himself she was merely offering that suggestion in lieu of foul play.
"Yeah and maybe he left a note," Jack snapped.
"He could come back at any moment --"
"And then I'll buy you a pint to make up for the petrol you'll use getting the hell over here five minutes ago. Now get in your car."
"All right. All right. Just... don't -- I don't know... whatever it is, just don't, don't panic. We'll get him back."
"Let Maeve know she's in charge," he said and snapped the phone shut.
Jack put his hands on his hips and stretched, looking up at the sky.
"Goddamnit!" he yelled as he kicked at the rubbish bins.
"I don't mean to be impertinent," Ianto said, "but I'm afraid the Doctor didn't really give me very much information about... well, any of this. Any explanations you could offer, especially those that treat me like a particularly slow child, would be very much appreciated about now."
The nameless man laughed as if he were truly delighted. "Dressed like that and you don't understand," he muttered to himself.
"Excruciatingly slow child," Ianto reiterated. "I don't even know what this thing is. Or who He is or why I'm here."
"What you carry is not for me to discuss with you, but the rest of it, I think you understand better than most."
"I'm really not being disingenuous!"
"And I didn't say that you were. Most people come here with expectations. Goals. Queries. Demands. You come without them, and that is wisdom."
Ianto took a deep and very frustrated breath. "Philosophy aside. Who am I meeting and what are the etiquette expectations?"
"Ah, protocol. The Doctor said we would find a common language. Clearly he meant in more than tongues."
Ianto closed his eyes tightly and counted backwards from ten, lest he seriously consider throwing the man off a cliff.
When they came to the doors of another structure and the nameless clerk had Ianto set down his box, all he could think really was that the climb back up that slope was going to be awfully tiring. When the man lightly took his hands as if one of them was a girl (although Ianto couldn't decide which) he felt his pulse race with the odd intimacy of it.
"I will accompany you inside as I have duties to attend to within, Mr. Jones, but even though you are not alone, your attention and mine must be to Him. I know you think you did not choose this task, but perhaps you can be surprised."
"At this point, I think I could be just about anything," Ianto muttered, despite the fact that he was trying to take all of this as seriously and formally as possible. Even if no one said so, it was perfectly clear that this was what was being demanded of him. However vaguely. However gently.
The man dropped Ianto's hands and indicated the box. "Your privilege to carry," he said.
"Should I kneel or anything?" Ianto asked, managing to ask the question like it was normal, as opposed to appalling. He was expecting a petty and half mad despot.
The nameless man cocked his head slightly and then chuckled. "Only if He asks."
Jack threw himself down on Ianto's sofa. "How does he not leave a fucking note?"
"Well, then you know it wasn't planned. That's something," Gwen said, still wandering around the flat.
"How is that something?" Jack asked sullenly.
"I would say it means he's planning on coming back. Soon," Gwen said, trying to talk Jack down from what she quite frankly thought was an irrational level of distress, admittedly odd though the situation was.
"If he can."
"What does that mean?"
"It means the Doctor's a shitty pilot for one and he tows trouble for another."
"What happened, when you went off with him?" Gwen asked quietly.
"Which time?"
"The one you don't want me asking about."
"Things I can't tell you about. But I was tortured. For a year. And all I can think is that that's happening to Ianto right now."
"Is there any reason to think that, Jack?"
"There's no reason not to."
"He's tough, our Ianto," she said, sitting down next to him and leaning against his side.
"Yeah," Jack said, smiling crookedly, but Gwen didn't ask what he was thinking of.
At first Ianto assumed it was merely the transition from outside to inside that made it so hard to see, but he quickly realized the room was very dim.
He resisted the urge to hiss at his guide for directions as to where he should go -- the space was large and open and it seemed odd to him that he should just drift around it waiting for whatever magisterial presence he was supposed to expect.
But at a given point the man grabbed his arm and with a faint pressure, clearly told him to wait and then went to fuss about something at the head of the room.
"Come closer," Ianto felt, more than heard, the way he remembered too much music in too many clubs from when he was still a teen.
He walked forward cautiously, unsure if this counted as spoken to enough that he could say something in return.
"Closer."
Ianto rather thought it was all rather starting to resemble a bad fairytale and felt sad that the only thing he currently felt likely to say to Jack about it all was that he had discovered the universe was very pompous. Jack. Jack who had promised to show him the wonders of the universe, and the stupid Doctor who had somehow caused them all to break that promise.
The voice that had beckoned laughed, and Ianto felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Looking into the gloom, the reason why now seemed abundantly clear.
This was clearly He, and He was a great big giant head in a jar and Ianto wondered how it spoke, considering the lack of a body to house lungs or even, presumably, vocal chords to force air through.
"You have not heard of me," the head said. Within its jar or tank it was shrouded in some kind of smoke, Ianto noticed irrelevantly.
Although it wasn't a question, Ianto decided to play dumb.
"No sir. Only that you are a friend of a... well, the Doctor. I don't know who you are or why I am here or what I am returning to you. I just know that I am."
"Ah," the head said and Ianto realized its lips hadn't moved.
"How can I hear you? You aren't talking."
"But I am thinking."
Ianto thought the head sounded coy.
"I try to be gentle, respect the size and shape of the human mind. You are human?"
"I am, sir. And if you don't mind me saying so, this is disconcerting."
"Perhaps force is less so," the head said, with what Ianto couldn't help but think of as humour.
And then he felt it, that odd pressure from inside his skull of someone trying to pry into his mind, trying to share that small unshareable space with him. And the problem, more than that it was naturally unpleasant, was that it felt utterly familiar.
"Who are you?" Ianto asked, tempted to back away even as he resisted the urge, his muscles tensed to flee none the less.
"I am the Face of Boe."
"But who are you?"
"So much philosophy for an errand runner."
"Who are you?" Ianto asked again, his voice a whisper now.
The Face seemed to pause and either closed its eyes briefly or blinked very slowly, Ianto wasn't sure which.
"Have I known you?" it asked, and Ianto felt the pressing in his head again, both fond and dangerous. "You find this... familiar?"
"Jack?!?!?" he blurted out, and looked around wildly for him before good sense or tolerable logic could stop him. Because whatever was moving inside his head, it felt like Jack. But of course there was no one else there. Only this grotesque giant tentacled... face. In a tank.
Unable to stop himself, Ianto scrambled back as his legs gave out from under him simultaneously. It was ungracious and clumsy and made him feel like a child, but he wasn't sure he cared.
For a moment, he was wrapped in sadness, and it was good and warm and an afternoon spent in bed unexpectedly. Whatever this thing was, Ianto suspected it was rummaging through his head. Because any other conclusion he came to either didn't make a damn bit of sense or was too horrible to contemplate.
"I do not remember. I apologize."
Ianto, still sprawled on the floor, went cold. The Face looked ashamed.
And suddenly, without warning, Ianto's body revolted completely. He just managed to turn his head slightly before he was abruptly, violently sick, in heaving, racking spasms that made him feel like he was turning inside-out. When there was no more to come up, he was gasping and sputtering for air, his whole body feeling wrenched, throat and nose burning, face streaked with tears and if someone had asked him at that moment, he wasn't sure he would even have been able to come up with his own name.
Hands were on him now, trying to help him, pull him up, and small scurrying creatures in robes had appeared and were busily and efficiently clearing up the mess till no trace of it remained. The Face seemed to be gone now as well, and why not? Probably watching someone vomit up the contents of their entire being at you wasn't enjoyable no matter who or what you were.
Utterly humiliated, Ianto tried to surreptitiously scrub at his mouth with one hand, while not letting go of the box with the other. Because it was what he had to hang onto in this moment, a task to cling to in the face of all this that he still didn't understand and didn't want to.
It was the nameless clerk who was helping him up now, he realized, and he was being quietly ushered out of the huge room. Ianto followed him, too exhausted and wrung out to even question where.
"Here," the clerk said, leading him into a cubicle-like room, with a small utilitarian cot in one corner. "There's water through there to clean your mouth with."
Ianto nodded shame-facedly.
"It will be all right," the man said.
"I'm... sorry," Ianto managed to get out.
"No need. Rest."
"But what should I --"
"You will be sent for. At the proper time." And with that, he was left alone. In this future that was like a bad dream, no logic or reason to any of it, and where he'd just disgraced himself like a pathetic child.
He pulled out the chain the Doctor had given him. There wasn't a hint of golden glow about the metal pendant; it was obstinately, inertly silver.
I want to go home he thought, and staring at the box with the alien hazelnut inside it, tried very hard not to cry.
Continue to Part 3
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 07:58 pm (UTC)And it adds to Ianto's angst, too!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 08:18 pm (UTC)I must say I'm pleasantly surprised at Jack's reaction to Ianto's disappearance. First, I don't recall you guys writing Jack so outwardly emotional before or so OBVIOUSLY in love with Ianto. Second, Ianto left with the Doctor and I would have thought Jack might take that in stride and take the 'wait and see' approach. I love it though. I love Jack going to the bowels of the hub and tossing debris around in his pain and anger and fear.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 08:21 pm (UTC)The thing with the suits! The thing with the suits started because I freaked out about what people should wear and Kali said they should just wear normal clothes because people mostly do in the future on DW, and I was like well that's not very satisfying, now is it and then through some random silliness we decided that the suits should be priests vestments and that civilians should get to wear comfier, more foreign seeming, robe-like clothes. And we thought that was just a delightful little trick to pull on Ianto.
And I'm not sure if the suits are his influence on Boe after all this time so much as a memory of uniforms and orderliness and lots of various things from the 20th century, or, for that matter, from how the Doctor dresses. But Ianto's a piece of it, certainly.
Btw, it's so fun chatting with you as you go through this piece. Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 08:37 pm (UTC)I think the thing with the suits is clever. For all we know, when the 'religion' was founded, Ianto might still have been clear in Jack's/Boe's memories and therefore and homage. Just because Boe doesn't remember Ianto NOW, doesn't mean he wasn't aware of what he was doing way back when. It works for me on a realistic level. Whether it's a true connection to Ianto or just a connection to the 20/21st Century and the Doctor, it still seems to work.
I LOVE full bodied feedback to my stories so when something really resonates with me, I want to honor it by giving extensive and (I hope) useful comments.
And it IS fun to chat back and forth as I read!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:16 pm (UTC)The thing with the suits continues to tickle me. Jack still likes them! And the Doctor and Ianto... little bits that stay. Also it's an homage to the costuming on the show. Like with the cave that the TARDIS lands in, this part? With the torches? Although that particular reference is to the low budget "aesthetic" of Classic!Who.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:42 pm (UTC)It's my homework assignment before Gallifrey One.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-28 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 09:41 pm (UTC)Took no time for Ianto to realize, either. GOD, that was shattering to READ even.
And I agree that Jack wouldn't remember all his loves and heartbreaks that long, because it's MILLIONS OF YEARS, and there's just no way FoB could function that way.
"How does he not leave a fucking note?"
And here I cruelly laugh at Jack's completely inadvertent payback.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 09:44 pm (UTC)Yeah, also Jack is all "Well, okay, I didn't leave a note, and sure, that sucked, but I do things like that. IANTO DOESN"T DO THINGS LIKE THAT"
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:12 pm (UTC)*grin* it all comes back in the end!!
I am SO GRATEFUL this worked for you! I was so, so, so nervous about this story.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-24 10:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-25 04:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-26 01:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-27 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-28 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-02 08:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-01 03:23 pm (UTC)I think that's why he loves them, really. John Hart, Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Ianto, the Doctor, himself - all things that are broken. Torchwood too, for that matter - as a concept, anyway, was broken when he took it over, and he loves it as well.
"What happened, when you went off with him?" Gwen asked quietly.
"Which time?"
"The one you don't want me asking about."
"Things I can't tell you about. But I was tortured. For a year. And all I can think is that that's happening to Ianto right now."
You know, it's one thing to watch Jackie fret over Rose going away, not having any idea or concept really of what Rose sees and does when she's traveling. You almost think that Jackie worries about the mundane things most mothers worry about, with traveling children: getting mugged, or losing passports or plane tickets, or having a one-night-stand with the wrong fellow, or at the worst, being arrested and tossed in a third-world jail cell. Sure, Jackie knows it's dangerous - she probably has an idea that maybe, just maybe, Rose could find herself in real, life-threatening danger. But that's the sort of thing people think, and then say, "Won't happen to ME."
But then there's Jack, because he knows it can happen. Every time he's traveled with the Doctor, he ends up dead in the end. And Jack, upon returning to Ianto after being buried under Cardiff for so long...as I recall, he was kind of - absent, wasn't he? I mean, he remembered Ianto, but only as a concept, not so much as a person. And maybe there's been a bit of time since those stories now...but there was a line, wasn't there, in the first part, where Jack was being jokey, and wanting someone at the table with whom he stood a chance of shagging. Funny, yeah, and cavalier, even for Jack. But I wonder if he wasn't beginning to take Ianto for granted, as a person and as a concept.
And I wonder now - and this is me being rambly on New Year's Morning with four hours of sleep from the night at the pub before, so bear with me - I wonder if the Doctor hasn't taken Ianto on this journey, keeping him three days away, because he wants Jack to realize just how much Ianto means to him. Okay, maybe the seed thing is important - although I haven't figured out quite why - but it's the Doctor. He's got a motive here.
Also, Jack's angst seems to surprise even him, in a way. Which makes me think that's the point. The Doctor took Rose for granted. He wouldn't want Jack to go the same way.
End of the day, I'm a Doctor/Rose shipper, hence why I see things in that light, though I do try to be more even-handed on occassion. And I like happy endings, as much as I love angst.
This was clearly He, and He was a great big giant head in a jar and Ianto wondered how it spoke, considering the lack of a body to house lungs or even, presumably, vocal chords to force air through.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Well, that trumps all me and my philosophizing, over here. *grin* You rock.
"Have I known you?" it asked...
Oh, you are evil. You rock, and you're evil. Expand that philosophizing above: the Doctor isn't just doing this for Jack-as-we-know-him, but for Jack-as-he-is-to-become. (Assuming I'm right, of course. Probably not, but I'm having loads of fun anyway.)
I really, really need an Ianto icon.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-02 08:28 am (UTC)Yes, exactly. And Torchwood is very much an entity here too, much like the Doctor's TARDIS (which is also broken, and also loved by Jack). Funnily, of course, this is a trait Ianto shares with him -- at least Torchwood-era Ianto, who kept his cybergirlfriend in the basement and loves Jack, and the out-of-time dinosaur.
I wonder if the Doctor hasn't taken Ianto on this journey, keeping him three days away, because he wants Jack to realize just how much Ianto means to him. Okay, maybe the seed thing is important - although I haven't figured out quite why - but it's the Doctor. He's got a motive here.
Also, Jack's angst seems to surprise even him, in a way. Which makes me think that's the point. The Doctor took Rose for granted. He wouldn't want Jack to go the same way.
End of the day, I'm a Doctor/Rose shipper, hence why I see things in that light, though I do try to be more even-handed on occassion. And I like happy endings, as much as I love angst.
Well, the Doctor's motives... are always sort of multiplicitous, at least in our canon. It's very rare that he's doing anything for just one reason. But I think, even though some readers seem pretty ticked off with him for what he's doing here, that he does in this instance have good intentions. A little high handed, perhaps, but yet. I'm a fan of Doctor/Rose myself [incidentally, I think the Jack in our story is too!], and what's interesting to me about your comment is the way that the Doctor and Jack keep trading back and forth certain life lessons about how to interact with "regular" human beings... appreciate them, be responsible with your gifts, etc etc. Unfortunately they're both rather poor students. There's also a number of Ianto/Rose parallels in the story itself; in the coda to Journey's End, Jack says explicitly that he thinks Ianto and Rose would have been friends. I'm not sure if that's wishful thinking on his part, but it's definitely on his mind.
*laughs* Glad you enjoyed the intro to FoB. We've been dying to get here ever since we realized this was an arc, and not a one-off.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-07 12:33 am (UTC)Ianto rather thought it was all rather starting to resemble a bad fairytale and felt sad that the only thing he currently felt likely to say to Jack about it all was that he had discovered the universe was very pompous.
What an epic and unexpected turn to this story the Face of Boe is.