DW/TW Fic: Harbour [Part 3]

[fictional]

Title: Harbour
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Ten + appearances by TW Team
Authors: rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, slash, some hints of d/s, toys, romance, angst.
Summary: Everything happens only a certain number of times.
Wordcount: ~30,000 words, posted in 4 parts
Authors' Notes: This is the final installment of our series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. Next up (eventually): some digressions and interludes, and a dvd commentary! Also, we'll be bringing you a new 'verse, with our as-yet-untitled Jenny/Ianto/Jack fic. Thank you all for coming on this journey with us. We've had a brilliant time.

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] | 10. There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains To Bear Their Names To Time

Harbour, Part 1
Harbour, Part 2

Even while he had been declaring his requirements for sleep in the library, Ianto had known that it was a forlorn hope. So it was no surprise when the next few days passed in what he was sure he would only remember later as a mad jumble of impressions and images.

Running. There was, indeed, a lot of running. Way more than there was back home at Torchwood. And a fairly staggering amount of scraping through things by the skin of their collective teeth. As well, a kind of giddy joy at the serendipitous improbability of it all.

"Is that part of being a Time Lord?" he asked the Doctor at one point, when they'd been afraid that Jack had been kidnapped by a tribe of nomads -- only to find him waving at them cheerily from the top of the mountain spire that served as the tribe's capital.

"Is that a crown he's wearing?" the Doctor asked, peering up at Jack's exuberant gesticulating.

Ianto shook his head in sheer wonder. "Yes. Yes it is."

"Looks like they've made him their king," the Doctor said ruefully, as they began to climb up the approach. "What d'you reckon the odds are of us successfully convincing him he has to leave?"

"Slim to none? Perhaps we could hit him over the head with something?" Ianto suggested.

"Charming notion! I like the way you think." And then with one of his rapid, unsignaled reversions back to a previous topic, he asked, "Is what part of being a Time Lord?"

"The luck," Ianto said. "Clearly nothing too terrible can happen to anyone while they're with you."

The Doctor stiffened. "I wouldn't say that."

"Oh come now," Ianto argued, panting a little as they struggled over an obtrusive rock formation. "You faced down that cave monster with a jar of peanut butter. That you happened to have with you. In your pocket."

"They're bigger on the inside," he replied automatically, sounding just a bit smug and self-satisfied. "That's true, I did, didn't I. But it wasn't a monster. Didn't mean to hurt anyone. It was just scared. Needed a bit of high protein glue to stick it back together, that's all. Those miners just didn't understand what they were dealing with."

"But that shouldn't have worked. It was completely ridiculous. It must be because you're a Time Lord."

"Maybe I'm just very clever. And well prepared for all circumstances."

Ianto snorted.

"What? Maybe I am."

"Maybe you are," Ianto admitted. "But there's clever, and then there's the kind of luck that would make me throw a book across the room if I were reading it in a novel. You're like, a Doctor ex machina!"

The Doctor chuckled at that. "Been called a lot of things in my time, but that's a new one on me."

"Bad things happen back home," Ianto told him. "People die. No last minute saves. It's very different, being here with you."

They climbed in silence for a while, and then Ianto glanced at the Doctor out of the corner of his eye. His jaw was clenched tight, and somehow he seemed very far away.

Ianto reviewed what he'd just said. Possibly, it hadn't come out the way he'd intended. "It's okay," he tried. "Of course, you can't be everywhere at once...."

The Doctor turned to meet his eyes, grinning. "Let's go rescue Jack. If we leave him there too long, he'll be chopped into his constituent parts by his harem."

"Harem?" Ianto repeated, startled. But of course Jack would have a harem, he didn't even know why he bothered being surprised.

"With knives. Better hurry."

~*~

The Doctor and Jack had raced to the sonic disrupter and were frantically disabling it.

"Ianto!" Jack barked. "Run back to the TARDIS, and get the lube."

"What?!" the Doctor shouted. "Jack, this is no time for your--"

"No, Doctor," Jack yelled back, interrupting him. "It's orrylium-based--"

"Oh! That's brilliant! Orrylium-based means it'll get past the atomic-weight guards on this thing!"

"And you can imprint its molecules with a little code that will dismantle the program using your screwdriver!"

The Doctor's enormous grin seemed to light up the room. "What are you waiting for?" he called to Ianto. "We can only hold it here for about twenty minutes!"

"How do I get back into the TARDIS?" Ianto asked hurriedly.

"Oh!" the Doctor said. "Here!" And while still tapping furiously at the keyboard with one hand, he tossed him a key on a chain. "That'll get you in! Run!"

Ianto seized it, and ran.

Once he had fumbled the key into the lock and was through into the TARDIS, he went as fast as he could back to the bedroom he shared with Jack. Lube. Where was it? Where had they put it the last time? He couldn't remember. He looked under the headboard. Nothing. He looked on top of the dresser. Not there either. Had one of them -- or the TARDIS -- tidied it into a drawer? He opened the one by the bed. Nothing in there but the old leather backed book that he'd found there the last time he'd been on this ship. He slammed it shut.

"Where is it?" he asked in frustration.

Just then it rolled out -- of its own volition, it seemed -- from under the bed. He grabbed it and raced out, throwing a silent thank you back to the ship.

As he ran, panting, back to the Doctor and Jack, something niggled at the back of his mind. But he didn't have time to worry about it just then.

~*~

It was pitch black. Absolutely. No light penetrated the cell. Reaching out, Jack felt his hand connect with flesh. There was a yelp. "Ianto," he whispered. "Is that you?"

"Oh, thank god, it's you." Ianto whispered back. "Wait, why are we whispering?"

Jack came closer till he was pressing up against Ianto and could feel the long line of him pressing back against him. He reached around, locating his cock with practised ease.

"What are you do--" Ianto started to hiss, but then it quickly shifted into an involuntary moan and then a small grunt, as Jack seized his balls through cloth.

"Stop right there," the Doctor's exasperated voice came from somewhere on the other side of the cell. "This is what got us into this mess in the first place!"

"Not in front of the Doctor," Ianto breathed desperately, sounding horrified, as Jack undid the buttons of his shirt and the fastening of his trousers by touch, slipping his hand inside.

"Yes, exactly! Not in front of me!" the Doctor cried. "Listen to him!"

Jack ignored him, rubbing up against Ianto's ass instead.

"Jack!" Ianto said, but the protest seemed half-hearted at best, especially since he seemed to be writhing closer, not farther away.

"Come on. He can't see you," Jack whispered cajolingly, feeling Ianto's cock harden against his darting, stroking fingers. "If you're quiet, he'll never know. Not exactly."

"I will so," the Doctor declared vehemently.

"Hey, what else are we gonna do to pass the time?" Jack murmured into Ianto's ear, continuing to ignore the Doctor as Ianto moaned softly again. "Never had a prison fantasy?"

"I wasn't usually blindfolded," Ianto gasped back, as softly as he could.

"Two great tastes," Jack offered. "C'mon, isn't it hot?"

As he worked Ianto's cock, harder and faster, he could tell by the hitch in his breath that he was about to come. Jack deliberately didn't let up his stroke, instead just rushing him over the edge until he could feel him spurting into his hand, almost reeling himself from the intensity Ianto's orgasm; it was somehow easier to feel what wasn't his in the dark.

Bringing his hand up to his face, he licked Ianto's come off of his fingers, enjoying the bitter, salty tang of it. And then suddenly realized that he could, in fact, see his hand in front of his face. Which had definitely not been the case a little earlier.

Ianto had half-turned, and was blinking his eyes against the unaccustomed light. "What?" he half-stuttered, still clearly dazed from the orgasm.

Jack spun around too, and saw the Doctor, whose sonic screwdriver was casting the blue light currently emanating into the cell. From, it appeared, the other side of the bars.

"I'll just be going then," the Doctor said off-handedly. "You two enjoy yourselves!"

"Wait," Ianto protested.

"But you're having so much fun!"

Jack could see Ianto's blush, even in the blue light, as he turned to him for help.

"We'll come with you," Jack said.

"Don't do me any favours," the Doctor said, beaming at him.

"We're done for now," Jack assured him. Because while he was going to live forever, and this had been fun, he could see how it might get a little repetitive after a while. "Although I haven't actually managed to get off yet, so if you wanted to wait for just a few--"

"Jack!" Ianto and the Doctor exclaimed together.

"What?" Jack said innocently, before laughing. Making a flourishing gesture with his hand, he bowed to Ianto. "After you! Try not to drop the soap!"

~*~

Ianto made Jack keep cooking when there was time to eat like proper people, not so much because he enjoyed the odd dishes, although he did more or less (even if Jack did salt things less than Ianto felt was appropriate), but because these meals were something like stories of Jack's home and Ianto didn't think Jack would be as inclined to share them so readily once they were back in Wales.

If they ever got back to Wales. Ianto had his doubts. Jack was too happy and the Doctor too sad. Plus the universe was never so simple as all this: joy and victory and laughter and a kiss at the end of every adventure.

And the adventures were hard on him, harder than he often wanted to admit. At least no matter what happened in Cardiff, it was still Cardiff, even if the streets were filled with zombies, angels and other odd forms of ravening beasts. Cardiff Ianto understood. After all he belonged there.

Where he didn't belong was out here on adventures where he was the only human -- Jack and the Doctor not counting. The universe was full of blue skin and tentacles, hives and symbiotes and technology even Tosh wouldn't have understood, and sometimes it made him feel very lonely.

The languages of it all were strange too. Of course, he never had to notice that if he didn't want to, the TARDIS automatically translating for him. But sometimes he begged her internally to stop, because he just wanted to hear. And, occasionally, when they were far enough away from her, she would.

Sometimes then, he asked Jack to speak to him with words that had not yet been invented when they -- or Ianto at least -- had been home. Jack obliged, but sadly, Ianto thought, and would never translate the words, that ghosted like poetry and sounded like seduction as they tumbled out of Jack's mouth in a low rush and made Ianto hard by sheer virtue of their rarity, even if they might have been no more than a children's rhyme or a technical manual from the future's version of an old DVD player.

Ianto wished he could hear the words in bed, but he couldn't there, no matter how he begged, not with the TARDIS always wanting to ease the way between them, and Jack was right, she was fond of them both. Ianto could feel it now, when he placed his palms to her walls and felt the rumble of her thoughts not in his head but in the hollow of his chest instead.

***

"Question," Ianto said, one day when one of the Doctor's miraculous escapes had not gone so well as Ianto had initally assumed they all must. A being had literally exploded on Jack, much to everyone's anguish and, upon discovering the adhesive properties of its blood, disgust.

"Ah," the Doctor said, "so that's why you're not off helping him get cleaned up."

"I'm not helping because it's revolting, and he needed some time."

"I keep forgetting you have manners. Now what mystery of the living universe can I unravel for you, Mr. Jones?"

"Why can't you look me in the eye?"

"What?" Whatever the Doctor had expected, it clearly wasn't this.

"Is it Jack? Does it rub off? Are bits of me fixed in time too?"

"Of course I can look you in the eye!"

"But you won't, and you did last time, and you won't tell us why we're here, and I want to know what terrible thing has changed."

"It's not Jack," the Doctor said softly. "Not his fault, not really. I'll promise you that. How's that?"

"Making no sense whatsoever, I'm afraid."

"You humans are so fragile. It's quite hard sometimes," the Doctor said as if it was merely a casual observation.

But Jack was a con man, and so was Ianto after a fashion, and so he knew the tricks of liars.

"Did you bring me here to die?"

The Doctor laughed, and Ianto thought it sounded both shrill and relieved.

"No! Of course not! I never bring anyone here for that." He paused, and then added, "Even if we all are. Dying, that is. I am. You are. Even Jack is."

"My Sherlock Holmes is in the drawer by the bed."

"Is it? Well, you should talk to Jack about swiping things."

"I think you wanted me to find it."

"Did I? Why?"

"Because you have the whole of time and space before you and you have some fetish for semaphore or morse code or pictographs on walls, I don't know! But what I need to know is whether you're telling me to put my affairs in order."

The Doctor paused and turned to look at him, and Ianto felt the eerie stillness of the fluid motion as if it were weighed down with the timing and cadence of all the movies in the world.

"No, Ianto. I'm telling you the same thing I tell everyone."

"And what's that?" he asked, even as there was roaring in his ears, even as he wasn't sure he was going to be able to finish this conversation, because in asking, he knew.

"Do everything," the Doctor said, and Ianto felt the word like ten thousand years of the leaves in fall.

~*~

Ianto had gone quiet, Jack noticed.

Not all the time, and not sullenly, but lately, there was an new reserve in him that Jack couldn't altogether categorize. He couldn't quite figure out when, precisely, it had begun either -- when you were traveling with the Doctor, time was never your own, and so there had barely been a moment snatched that wasn't running from one escapade or to another, which didn't leave a lot of time for personal reflection, so it had taken a while to notice -- but once seen, it was impossible to un-see.

But why?

There had been blood and guts, of course, and alien beings of all kinds but it couldn't be that which had made him pull inward; things were so much worse back at Torchwood, where the collateral damage was far higher and where they spent all their time wrestling with the dregs of the universe and none at all immersed in its wonders.

Jack kept worrying at it in the few slow moments that arose, when Ianto would look around with a peculiar intensity, or when, after a long day, and a convivial gathering, he would smile a strange smile and disappear into their bedroom, leaving Jack and the Doctor to continue trading stories, or memories, or whatever.

It wasn't like Jack wouldn't have happily followed him, but he could read Ianto loud and clear, and the signs saying "keep off the grass" might as well have been written in letters a mile high.

But he didn't seem upset with Jack either, or at least not as far as he could tell, since they were still fucking, whenever they could steal time, like in that bathhouse on the New Roman Empire's capital planet -- now that had been a good time -- and still laughing, and still working together like two limbs of the same person, just like always.

But here they were in the library, after another long day of running, and the Doctor had broken out the brandy -- though it no longer had any effect on him, Jack couldn't help but remember viscerally the kick of the stuff, and a time long ago now, when the couches hadn't been leather, and he'd been here with another Doctor watching him -- but inevitably, after a little time had passed, Ianto retreated somewhere far away behind his eyes, even as he was still sitting there with them. And shortly afterwards, in what seemed to be turning into a pattern, he excused himself.

"Why's he always doing that?" Jack found himself saying almost without volition, rolling the glass between his fingers.

When he looked up, the Doctor was draining his own glass. Jack thought that he'd never see the man drink with such speed, not even when he and Rose had been rolling around on this very sofa. "Why ask me? You know him better than I do."

"Yeah, of course. But you've noticed he's been acting... weird, right?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"He has," Jack said. "Did you do something to upset him? Do you think I did something to upset him?"

"No," the Doctor said quickly. "I don't think you did anything at all. Probably just needs time to process."

"Process what?"

"You know...," he waved his hands around expansively and vaguely, "new impressions, new ideas. Letting them remake you. That's what traveling's for. We just happen to be old hands, you and I."

"Guess so," Jack agreed. "But --"

"I mean, you weren't around when I traveled with Rose first, or Martha, or Sarah Jane even, long time back. Or these old school teachers I had with me for a bit. Humans. They all need processing time."

"School teachers?"

"They were called Ian and Barbara. Lovely couple, but they were always having to take naps, or something. Of course, they were also always wanting not to do things 'cos they were too dangerous," the Doctor said, as if it were the most unimaginable thing in the world. "It was a bit off-putting, but what can you do? People need time to get used to things, I've learned. And sleep, apparently they need that too. Brilliant, that lad of yours. Just needs a spot of, what d'you call it? Space. To adjust. To things. Very normal, very human."

Jack squinted at him. "Right. And I'll learn about people skills from you, will I?"

"Oi! My people skills are fine, thank you."

Jack couldn't help but laugh.

"They're as good as yours, anyway," the Doctor said.

"At least I practice," Jack said. "You just run away instead."

"I do not!"

Jack arched an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Where's your other half?" he asked pointedly.

"I'm not married," the Doctor said, and then mumbled something under his breath that could have been, "not anymore."

"I know that," Jack said, ignoring that last bit. "I meant the other Doctor. Where is he? And Rose? Why aren't you traveling through time and space together?" He waited, and when there was no response, he added, "Right. Exactly."

"All right, maybe a bit," the Doctor admitted. "But I'm getting better."

"Really?"

"I'll prove it," the Doctor said. "Go be a part of it, Jack."

"Part of what?"

"Whatever he's processing. Whatever it's remaking him into. It doesn't have to be done alone. Not all of it, anyway. Better with two. Stop hiding."

"I'm not hiding!"

"Then why are you still here?"

Jack set his glass down on the table. On his way towards the door, he turned back to look at the Doctor, who was staring pensively into his drink again. "I'm going," he said, "because you're right, but--"

"I'm always right."

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," Jack said. "Anyway, you didn't let me finish.”

The Doctor waved him on to continue, while managing to look almost entirely uninterested in whatever he might have to say.

Jack soldiered ahead anyway. "Look, are you okay?"

For a moment, Jack didn't think he was going to answer. The Doctor was looking at him like he was some singularly unappealing research result. But then he shrugged and simply said lightly, "Oh, yes. Right as rain, that's me."

"Yeah, and if I believe that, you've got a nice bridge you can sell me."

"I'm sorry, remind me, which of us is the conman?"

"Hard to tell sometimes, I know."

"I didn't say good conman."

"Takes one to know one," Jack pointed out. "Why did you pick us up anyway? Why this fun-filled whirlwind tour of time and space?"

"That'd be telling," the Doctor said, infuriatingly. "Whatever the reason, shouldn't you be going? You wouldn't want to waste it."

Jack shook his head at him. "You know I'm gonna figure it out."

"One mystery at a time," the Doctor told him. "One mystery at a time."


In their bedroom, he found Ianto lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with that same strange smile on his face, one hand up on the wall, as if it were a prop and a comfort.

Jack stood in the doorway and watched him for a moment, before stepping inside.

"You all right?" he found himself asking again, for the second time in as many minutes.

Ianto started. "Sure, yeah, of course."

"Two agreements too many," said Jack.

"Could be emphasis, and not evasion."

"Except that it isn't."

"Except that," Ianto agreed amiably. "What are you doing here? I thought you were having a chat with the Doctor."

"We finished," Jack said. "Wanted to come find you."

"Room for two," Ianto said, shifting over to make space for him.

Jack thought about prodding further, but then decided against it. Instead, he went over to the closet and pulled out a carefully wrapped parcel.

"What's that?" Ianto asked.

"I bought it the other day," Jack told him. "On Kyllios. I wanted to surprise you, but then I got distracted. And since then, there hasn't really been time or opportunity. And to do this right, you want to block out a lot of room."

"Best laid plans, and all that."

Freed from its wrappings, he showed Ianto the gunmetal gray box, with its metallic sheen. Ianto lifted a quizzical eyebrow. Jack silently congratulated himself on the selection; even the case looked dirty.

"Going to tell me Jack, or here to add to the burden of mysteries?"

"I'm going to show you," Jack said, chuckling. "Take your clothes off."

Ianto had almost seemed reluctant at first, Jack thought, but then toys had never been his favorite thing. Too silly looking, too undignified. And the buzzing that frequently accompanied them? Too distracting, although Jack had cured him of that notion at least, courtesy of a vibrating plug and instructions to fuck him. Ianto had nearly wept at the overload of it, and it was something Jack liked to recall with a fond cruelty.

Ianto had been sharp with him then, when Jack asked for a little trust and said it would be different. But then, Ianto was sharp, and that was rarely anything to worry about.

But Ianto wasn't sharp now. Not at all. He was melting under glass and electricity, technology that could convince his flesh of a thousand different things thanks to a bit of science and Jack's will.

Jack had let him feel just the current at first, knowing Ianto was almost always better off if he understood something no matter how unfamiliar.

"Oh! Violet wand," he said, as Jack stroked the glass along him arm.

"How the hell do you know what that is?" Jack asked.

"I did have sex before I met you."

"You have not ever used one of those," Jack declared, incredulous and slightly fearful of getting another secret story about the Continent out of the deal.

"I have. In a shop. Lisa wanted one. Pricey things. We never got around to it."

"But you've never fucked with one."

"No."

"Good."

"You know me, Jack, always giving you my first times."

Jack snorted. "Trust me. Even if you'd had one of those, you've never felt one of these."



He'd waited a moment while Ianto shivered at the possibility of real pain or strangeness and then smoothed his thumb around the base of it.

"Fur?" Ianto said, not quite able to believe it.

Jack adjusted it again.

"Water," Ianto said.

Then there was the taste of lemons. Blueberries. The feel of lying in a stripe of sunlight, the soreness of his muscles after a run, pinpricks, massage, fingers, something slimy, ice.

"Shit," he said, breathless more at the weirdness of it than any arousal.

Jack grinned. "I can make you feel anything I want. Anywhere."

"God," Ianto said, shifting on the bed and laughing.

"Any requests?"

Ah. Coy Jack, wanting his approval. Ianto leaned up to kiss him and shrugged.

"Do everything," he said.



Jack cocked his head at the quirk of Ianto's lips as he said it, as if it were a clue to a puzzle he didn't quite know he was trying to solve.

"Even tentacles?" Jack asked.

"Why not?" Ianto said. "I could skip the ice though."

"Do everything, tentacles are just fiiiiiine, but no ice?" Jack teased.

"Well, it won't do you much good, other than pulling me back from the edge."

Jack laughed. "Definitely everything then," he said, smiling as Ianto settled back on the bed as if this particular experience was somehow going to allow him to be lazy.



It had started easy, relaxing, and then strange, more novelty than fuck of a lifetime, but Ianto realized that might well have been the fault of his own demands as much as Jack's attention span. The device's multiple settings were probably not meant to be used all at once, so much as they were meant to provide a panoply of options in a single purchase.

But after a while, Ianto realized Jack was just testing his responses to see what aroused, what overwhelmed, what soothed and what, other than ice, yanked him viciously back from the edge.

And then Jack began to play so that Ianto felt like he was being fucked while biting down on leather and whipped while floating in the sea.

There was a sense of being bound, even paralysed, when he was not -- Jack licked his cock lazily through that -- and some unknown frantic number of minutes where Ianto thrust frantically at the air, actually terrified of what would happen, could he not come. But the result of that had been simple, Jack breathing against his ear and stroking his cock slowly as he explained -- wickedly and, Ianto was almost entirely positive, full of lies, -- that he'd never leave this bed, never be anything less than half hard ever again.

Even if it was true, Ianto thought somewhere distantly, it was all right, because this was what he had been made for.



Ianto gripped Jack's wrist hard then and demanded to be fucked, properly and for real, but Jack just shushed him and told him not yet.

At that, Ianto squeezed his eyes shut tight and made a choked noise. Jack smiled as his own cock bobbed in response.

He ran his free hand up through the hair on Ianto's chest, remembering the thin and falsely fragile boy he had been when Jack had first taken him to bed. This was better. Not nearly half-starved and not afraid. And that was when Jack realized he knew perfectly well what Ianto's strangeness was. He recognized it. And even as it hit him like a punch in the gut, he acted instinctively and bent down to lick careful lines along Ianto's eyelashes, while the bottom fell out of his stomach.

It was better than coins.


After, it took a long time for Ianto to come down, his breath staying rough for longer than Jack could ever remember it doing so before, but he didn't mind. It bought him time, because eventually one of them would have to speak and Jack knew it ought to be him. But what could he possibly say that would be right, and not disturb this hard-fought equilibrium? He couldn't take that away from Ianto.

By the time he did though, he could see Ianto's eyelids drooping. "I knew this kid once," he said, eventually, when his breathing had slowed so much that Jack wasn't even sure he was still awake.

Ianto made a noise of acknowledgement, but Jack was almost certain he wasn't really hearing the words.

Truth was, he didn't care, and Jack shifted closer to him, so he could scrub his hand through the hair that was curling slightly now that it had gone longer without a trip to the barber than Ianto usually preferred.

"In the war. A war. First one I fought. You wouldn't know it. Not important. Anyway, he was a kid, really. Maybe six months younger than me. But at least I almost looked like a man. He really didn't. All limbs. Very awkward.

"The guy was indestructible. Dumb luck mostly, but he was good under pressure, excellent really, and a lesser soldier might not have made it out of some of the scrapes he did. Fought almost the whole length of the war, right up to the end. Which was a little weird. It ate up troops. Spit them out. I did the POW thing for a while. But this guy, he just got to keep on fighting.

"Now when that happens, when it goes on for too long, people tend to go a little weird in the head. Some of 'em want to die. Sometimes they just get crazy, terrified, convinced their death is so imminent they can barely be coaxed to eat, 'cause it might be poisoned. He was fine though.

"Last time I saw him, he'd had his new orders. They'd sent ten guys out on the same thing before him and they hadn't come back, but he was a legend by then, kid out of nowhere, and they needed someone to do it. And when he got the assignment? He glowed, Ianto. He fucking glowed.”

"Radiation," Ianto mumbled, sounding three-quarters asleep.

Jack laughed under his breath, remembering. "Nah, not like that. It was eerie. It wasn't like pregnant glowing. Not pride, either. Not quite. A bit more like those things you people call faeries. There was a real knowingness to it. And a humour. Fey."

"So I asked him, straight out, because I have no fucking manners and we'd known each other a goddamn long time and to be frank, the whole thing was a little unsettling. Anyway, I asked if he wanted to die in there, after everything. If that's why he was so okay with it.

"But he said no. That he was just happy not to have to worry about his own goddamn schedule anymore."

Ianto didn't move or speak, and Jack thought he must have fallen asleep.

"You remind me of him, a little. Did I ever tell you that before?" Jack asked, even though his question was actually something else entirely.

Ianto murmured something, but Jack couldn't puzzle out what he'd said.

Jack sighed to himself, then said softly, "You sleep now."

As Ianto curled onto his side and settled into the pillow, he shifted closer to him, spooning up tight against his back.

He was slightly startled, several minutes later, when he heard Ianto mumble, "What happened to him?"

It was a long time before he could form the words, long enough that Ianto had truly fallen asleep, when Jack finally answered him. "He died," he whispered.

And as Ianto slipped further away into dreams where Jack could no longer follow, he felt the first of his tears spring into his eyes, and then leak slowly down his cheeks, leaving them feeling raw and sore.

One night, he told himself sternly, even as he wanted to howl in anguish, and the silent tears just kept trickling down his face. You get one. That's it. And then no more until... after.

His mind stopped there as if it had run into a wall; he buried his face in Ianto's hair, breathing in the smell of him, counting his breaths, feeling his heartbeat thrum, the uneven rise and fall of his chest, entwining their feet together -- all the things people do in the night while their lovers sleep, all those things, one by one, and all the while weeping soundlessly, helplessly in the dark.

~*~

In the morning, when Ianto had disappeared into the shower, Jack wandered out to the console room. The Doctor looked up as he came in. "Hello," he said, sounding almost tentative.

Jack nodded at him silently.

"Jack..." he started. "I --"

"It's all right," Jack cut him off.

"I'm sorry," he said, and now that he knew to look for it, Jack could see the sorrow in his eyes, the thousand years of heartbreak, the burden of all that time, all those fragile human hearts entangled with his. "I'm so sorry."

"I know," Jack said hurriedly. "It's all right. I understand now. You wanted to give us a little... Time. Away. I get it."

He paused for a second, and then almost against his will, found himself saying, "You can't tell me any more? About how..." Because he had to ask. Had to try.

The Doctor shook his head, and Jack felt the weight of that sink into his heart. "I can't, I literally can't."

"Okay." He tried to grin reassuringly, knowing it was too big, too bright, and the Doctor would see through it straight away, but it was the only thing he could think of to do. "I understand."

"You could...." The Doctor hesitated, and then seemed to change his mind. "You don't have to go yet?" He made it sound like a question.

"Surely not," Ianto said from somewhere behind him, and Jack turned to look at him. His hair was damp and curling from the water, and he'd put on one of his button-down shirts, with a pair of jeans.

"No, of course not," Jack assured him. "Not yet. Plenty of time."

Ianto smiled at him. "Excellent," he said. "Where to next?"


And the remarkable thing was how little changed, in their little world caught out of time. Sure, Jack kept noticing how he would sometimes find Ianto and the Doctor having a private chat -- something that would've seemed out of the realm of possibility before, but now seemed... natural. And there was less of the disappearing act that he'd had going on. But really, things were mostly the same.

They ran from one planet to another, one millenium to another, following the Doctor's nose for adventure, getting caught up in the affairs of 16th century Scotland, a small space station out of Dover's Hand -- five galaxies over in the year @7-889-439, and a casino heist on a small resort planet in rapid succession.

"They thought I was some kind of savage," Ianto complained, after they were recovering from being chased out of Edinburgh Castle on account of being thought to be witches.

"It's your accent. You're a Welshman, aren't you?" the Doctor said lazily.

Ianto glared.

"What?!"

"Sais," Ianto said.

"You know, calling someone an English-speaker isn't precisely an insult."

"Means you can't speak Welsh, doesn't it?"

"Can you?"

"Got me there," Ianto admitted. "A few words, that's all. But it's the principle of the thing."

Jack chuckled to himself as Ianto leaned against him.

"Wait," Ianto said. "I've got an idea. For how you can make it up to me for casting aspersions on my people."

The Doctor looked at him quizzically.

"Can we go and meet King Arthur?"

Jack groaned. "King Arthur. You're kidding. What, you want us to paint ourselves with woad and stuff?"

"You do look good in blue," Ianto said innocently.

He looked to the Doctor for help, but of course he got no joy there.

"Lad's got a point," the Doctor said gleefully. "Blue is definitely your color."


When they were running back to the TARDIS from the crazy tribesmen -- after having discovered that woad had an alien component (which explained the hallucinations) -- who were trying to shoot them with arrows, Jack had just enough wind to shout, "This is all your fault! Both of you!"

"See!" the Doctor yelled to Ianto, "I told you! Savages!"

"I have to admit," Ianto panted, "it's not exactly what I was expecting. Invigorating though!"

And as the sound of their shared laughter was torn away by the wind, Jack found himself thinking wistfully that even forever might not have been long enough.

~*~

It was what Ianto still thought of as morning, when he strolled into the TARDIS console room. It was funny because he was almost growing used to this new pattern of days, even as he knew it could only last so long and not all that much longer either.

Sometime very soon they'd have to go back.

But he'd made his peace with that and made his peace with being here too, so it was fine. Beautiful even, and these days had been so filled with so many things, he didn't know sometimes how one person was supposed to contain it all. He'd touched magic, plain and ordinary Ianto Jones from Cardiff, who'd stumbled, by accident it seemed, into the secret places of the universe, behind enchanted doors that he'd never been meant to open, and it had been terrible, and mad, and bloody brilliant.

Usually the Doctor would have some cockeyed suggestion of somewhere to go, which only worked about half the time -- and often ended up having little to do with the sights they were meant to be seeing, and much more to do with saving some helpless group of people from themselves. But today, he'd come into the room, and Jack and the Doctor had clearly just finished having some sort of chat.

"What's going on?" Ianto asked, looking from one to the other.

"I've got somewhere I want to go," Jack said. "We were just working out a flight plan."

"You do?" Ianto repeated. Jack hardly ever made a suggestion, seeming happy to just float along in the Doctor's wake.

"Yep," Jack said.

"And we think we can actually... what do you call it... land there with some degree of exactitude?"

"What's this we?" the Doctor said. "I think I can, yes."

"I suppose there's a first time for everything," Ianto said, leaning back against the wall and folding his arms across his chest.

"Oi! Less back seat driving, if you don't mind," the Doctor said huffily, as he bounced from one set of controls to the other.

Jack and Ianto exchanged fond glances before they were pressed into service.


When they came out of the TARDIS, Ianto blinked at the sight of the ringed planets hanging huge and luminous in the sky like giant irridescent marbles; they seemed huge and very close by.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Jack said.

"Gorgeous," Ianto agreed. "What are we doing here?"

The TARDIS seemed to have landed in a grassy knoll, practically deserted. It was almost twilight, it seemed, or maybe it never got any lighter here, with those three enormous planets or moons so near, but with their sun far away.

Jack pointed to a hill off in the distance, where there seemed to be some sort of hangar-type structure. "We're headed that way."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Listen," he said. "I've actually... got some things to take care of?"

"Oh?" Ianto asked.

"Yeah. And Jack's got plans for you. So, if you lads don't mind... I think the TARDIS and I will just... nip off for a bit, round the other side of the planet. Have a bit of an excursion, check out some local colour."

Jack grinned at him. "How do we know you won't just leave us here?"

"I wouldn't," the Doctor said. "I'd never--"

"Abandon me?" Jack finished for him, but with a smile that took the harm out of it.

"Well, maybe you. Not Ianto though."

The Doctor pulled out of his pocket a familiar pendant. Ianto looked at it and smiled to himself. He supposed that was why he'd had to give it back the last time. So he wouldn't have it already when the Doctor tossed it to him as he was doing now.

"Keep this with you," the Doctor instructed him.

"When it glows gold, like it's doing now, the TARDIS'll be back with us," Ianto interrupted. "So we should be back in this field. I know."

The Doctor smiled. "Done this before, have you?"

"And you will again," Ianto said, with a grin, before slipping the chain round his neck.

"I'm off then," the Doctor said. "I'll be back soon enough." And with that, he disappeared back into the TARDIS.

Ianto turned back to Jack. "So," he said, "shall we go?"


As far as Ianto could tell, Jack had taken them to the intergalactic version of a German car commercial. The hangar off on the hill hadn't been their destination, so much as the valley beyond and its yards of ships and shuttles of every description. As they walked through the rows of them Ianto couldn't help but touch each one he could reach with any ease, as Jack smiled at him, probably (and mistakenly) thinking that it was a love of machinery more than childhood fantasy that moved Ianto to such familiarity.

He heard Jack laugh low in that way he did when he'd stumbled on some lovely sight or some new way to be indulged.

Ianto watched as he ran his hands over the nose of a ship.

"Oh there you are," he said, and Ianto knew it wasn't to him, but to the machine. He hung back, not wanting to distract, but Jack called him over anyway.

"I can't tell you how long I've wanted to get my hands on one of these," he said.

"Childhood dream?" Ianto asked.

"Nah. Grown up dream. She's delicious. All right, this is the one. Time to haggle. Try not to look too awed."

"At your haggling skills?" Ianto asked incredulously.

"At the spaceships," Jack corrected.


The haggling, Ianto found, was actually boring and having a lack of context for the monetary unit in question didn't help, so he lounged idly against another nearby ship and wished he had a cigarette as he watched Jack try to charm in a way that was so lazy he suspected the haggling was more just a matter of form.

He thought briefly about taking the chain from his neck, in hopes of hearing whatever language Jack and the proprietor spoke, but even slipping that bit of the Doctor's magic into his back pocket would have allowed the translation to continue. He would have to walk back out to the field and fling it away there to have any chance at all of knowing true sounds, and he wasn't stupid enough to do that. Not really.

Not that he wasn't tempted. Throw it away, walk off into a world where he understood nothing and no one, turn up in the local media as some archaic mystery and live out his life free from death by Torchwood at least. Unless there was Torchwood here. Unless Jack hunted him down and strangled him. Ianto laughed at the gravity well of his desire, which only earned him a sharp and very amused look from Jack.


"Okay, you sit there --"

"It has controls, Jack," Ianto said, his voice full of horror.

"Yeah. Co-pilot. Don't worry, my aircraft, but if you want to try, tell me."

"Yeah. Unlikely. So... what are we doing?"

"Like driving, but better. Plus, I sort of promised you once."

"So we're not like, running away from the Doctor or something crazy?"

Jack paused and looked at Ianto out of the corner of his eye. "Why?" he asked slowly. "Want to?" He tried to keep his voice light.

Ianto let the question hang there for a moment and tried not to think about what it meant, asked or answered. "No," he finally said. "Grown a bit fond of him. Plus, the Hub, oh god."

"Yeah, Janet's probably in charge by now," Jack said, sliding into his own seat as he yanked a small folding knife out of the back of his trousers.

"What are you doing?" Ianto asked, as Jack started trying to pry a panel off of what Ianto couldn't help but call the ship's dashboard.

"Disabling the automatic assistance beacon."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to do something slightly fucked up, and if goes off, all our fun will be ruined."

"What are you going to do?" Ianto asked, dimly aware that he sounded more amused than scared, which probably wasn't a logical response at all.

"You'll see. We'll be fine. Don't worry about it. Ah -- gotcha," he said, pulling the panel off and handing it to Ianto as he plunged his hand inside and seemed to feel around for something.

"Jack, you're filthy."

"What?" Jack asked, still rooting about in the ship.

"You're elbow deep in this thing and licking your lower lip while you look for just the right spot."

Jack shrugged a bit sheepishly. "Oh, yeah. Ah, got it!" he said triumphantly and yanked his hand out, pulling a mass of wires with him.

Ianto laughed.

"Okay. Let's get her going. I'm going to take her up gently, but you might not want to look out the window right off."

"Why?"

"Vomit kills the romance?" Jack offered, none too helpfully.


It wasn't actually the going up that alarmed Ianto, it was when Jack went from banking to rolling. Sure, the ship had all sorts of crazy stabilizer things, and Jack had been right all those years ago in the car, it didn't feel like anything really, no G-force, no rush of wind, no impulse to throw a hip into it, but Jack was happy and flying to show it, while Ianto closed his eyes and desperately tried to pretend that this was somehow the solid center of the universe.

"Sorry, I'll let you adjust," Jack said, glancing over at him and hitting something or other than allowed them to just hover.

"Does this thing have water?" Ianyo asked dimly.


Twenty minutes and a bottle of water later, Ianto cracked his eyes open and looked sideways at Jack.

"All right," he said.

"You sure?" Jack asked.

"Just make it like driving," Ianto said.

"So no rolls?"

"No rolls."

"All right, here we go," Jack said as Ianto felt the ship lurch back into some sort of life.


Several things became absolutely positively, immediately clear to Ianto. The first was that Jack was very, very good at what he was doing and the second was that this whole planet really was some sort of German car advert. There was nothing but forests and rivers and mountains -- all picturesque and interesting... and other ships buzzing about – well, he supposed they didn't really buzz -- in all manner of insanity.

Banned from rolling, Jack played with altitude instead, going low and fast through valleys and then up, skimming them along the sides of mountains, and continuing up into the odd duskiness of close space and the blue rings that hovered in the magnificent sky. Ianto wanted to shout at the joy of it, like he was just a kid thinking he was clever for rolling down the side of a muddy hill.

Sometimes he and Jack would glance at each other and grin.


"Okay," Jack said finally, setting them into another high-altitude stationary hover. "Here's the deal. I'm gonna bring us down quite a bit from here, and then I'm going to kill the stabilizers, so you can feel what this thing we're doing actually feels like. It'll be a bit bumpy, but if I'm still as good as I think I am, I should manage to get them back on before I crash her."

"And we're trying to avoid that, right?" Ianto asked, thinking he didn't feel nearly as dubious as he perhaps should.

"Not really. But there won't be any lasting damage. Promise. Point is, we're gonna land for a bit, one way or another."

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Who the fuck ever let you fly in the first place?"

Jack just winked at him. Rolling his eyes, he gripped tight onto the bar next to his head, as Jack pushed in what Ianto thought must be the throttle, and the ship began to sink towards the planet below.

"Look out the window," he ordered, and Ianto did as he was told, even as his stomach was doing cartwheels. It had become much darker since they'd taken off, though the neighboring planets still cast a coloured glow over the rapidly nearing landscape.

"It's like moonlight," Jack told him.

"Planetlight," Ianto agreed, still marveling at the idea. Then he realized that Jack must have been looking at his face. "Shouldn't you... keep your eyes on what you're doing?"

"Look," Jack said, taking his hands off the controls, "no hands!"

Ianto sucked in his breath in panic, but nothing happened.

"It's still in its programmed descent."

"Oh," Ianto said, relieved.

Then Jack smiled. "Well, till now." He hit a button, and several warning lights began to pulse mauve. He hit it again. Ianto gulped. "All right? Ready?"

"Define ready," Ianto said, proud that his voice didn't quiver.

"Here we go," Jack said with a whoop. And with that, his hands were on the controls again, and suddenly the stabilizers cut out, and there was an enormous roaring in Ianto's ears, as the ship's engines were no longer muffled, and the ship itself started to buck and sway underneath them.

"Uh oh," Jack shouted, over the engines.

"WHAT?" Ianto screamed back.

"The fins! They're supposed to create drag, so we can slow down. But one of them's not coming out! And, yeah, not the second stabilizer either. We're gonna be spinning a little."

"That's not funny!"

"It's a little funny. I promised you a crash-landing, didn't I?"

"Oh, god," Ianto said.

"Are we having fun yet?" Jack yelled, and Ianto could see the huge grin splitting his face. He was clearly loving every second of this.

A they skidded through the sky, plummeting downwards at an incredible speed, Ianto screamed like he was riding a roller coaster, except it just kept going on, giddy and shaking and going so terribly, terribly fast, and he tasted the adrenaline like iron on his tongue.

As they cut into the planet's atmosphere, Jack took one hand off the controls to twist something -- Ianto didn't know how he could shriek any louder, but somehow he managed it -- and then they were spiraling downwards like a screw into wood.

"You strapped in?" Jack called to him.

"Of course you bloody lunatic!"

"Great!"

Somehow, Jack pulled them out of the spiral, so at least they were no longer descending at an angle perpendicular to the ground, but hurtling steadily downward at an angle marginally closer to forty five degrees. And then, because he was obviously completely mad, he did something else, and the roof retracted back.

Ianto let out another wordless shout, but this time, the sound was ripped away by the gale-force wind blowing past them. He gripped the bar he was holding even tighter, lest he be swept away in spite of the protective webbing.

He was desperately afraid, but this now, this felt like he'd got a tiger by the tail, like he had imagined flying would be when he'd read comic books as a child. It was the most terrifying, exhilarating, glorious thing he'd ever experienced.

"We're coming in hard!" Jack shouted as if that weren't obvious. "Hold on!"

"I am holding on!"

And then they careened into the ground as Jack manhandled the controls, obviously doing everything within his power to slow them down. They bounced once, twice, three times, each one slowing them down a trifle and jolting into Ianto ferociously; it was like being hit repeatedly with a plank.

Finally, they screeched to a stop.



Jack looked over at Ianto, who still had hold of the bar and was gripping it like his life depended on it. "You all right?" he ventured.

Ianto didn't answer straight away. First he methodically unclenched his hands, unstrapped himself, and sat blankly looking at his fingers. Eventually, he began gently patting at himself like he expected parts to be missing. Then he slowly turned to look at Jack.

"Are we on fire?"

"Nah," Jack said. "Just scraped the paint a little."

There was a pause as Ianto assimilated that.

"Did you like it?" he asked hopefully. Maybe it had been too much.

Jack watched as Ianto took a deep breath, then without warning leaned over and planted a kiss squarely on his mouth.

Okay, he thought. Maybe not.

"C'mon," he said happily. "Let's get out of this and take a look at the damage." He undid his own straps and got up out of his seat.

When they had struggled out of the ship and were standing by its side, Jack scanned the engine, and then turned to Ianto with a sheepish look on his face.

"I think I might've broken it," he said.

"You broke the spaceship," Ianto repeated blankly.

"...yeah."

Ianto stared at him. "How are we going to get back?" he demanded.

"Oh, I can cobble it back together," he said airily. "But I'll need light to do it properly. Lots of small, moving parts."

"What do we do till then?"

He looked up at the sky. "Sunrise is in about six earth hours, I'd say. Might as well make ourselves comfortable."

Ianto arched an eyebrow at him. "Camping, Jack?"

Jack shrugged. "Do you see any other options?"



Ianto looked around the dimly lit field they'd landed in, the dark smudge of trees up a nearby hill, and listened to the burble of what must be running water, somewhere nearby.

"Not really," he said slowly.

"Great," Jack said. "Let's go back inside the ship and scavenge for supplies."

Soon enough, they were sitting on what seemed like army-issue blankets -- dull green and scratchy -- out by the bow of the ship. Jack had managed to dig out water, some energy bars, some assorted jars of what Ianto assumed was other food of some kind, and even a small, artifical fire, which crackled red in the darkness.

"They do come stocked, don't they?" Ianto said as sardonically as he could. "You'd almost think they planned for this kind of thing...."

"Guess so," Jack agreed, apparently taking the statement at face value. "Lucky for us, isn't it?"

"Right. Lucky."

Jack lay back on the blanket and looked up at the sky. "Nice to know I haven't lost my touch," he said, "been a long time since I flew anything like that," nodding at the ship.

"Well, you crashed it, so perhaps you might have been a little rusty."

"That was on purpose," Jack declared, and Ianto laughed, before coming over to lie next to him, as he added, "I always try to keep my word."

"Thank you," Ianto said simply, and Jack tilted his head to kiss him.

As they lay on their backs looking up at the unfamiliar planet-lit sky, Ianto began to be able to pick out stars, not that he knew their names. There were no recognizable constellations for him here.

"Recognize that?" Jack asked, pointing with his finger towards the lower left hand corner of Ianto's field of vision.

Ianto shook his head. "No. Should I?"

Jack chuckled softly. "It's your home," he said. "Just from a different angle."

"Really?"

"Yup. That's Sol. You can imagine the Earth circling around it."

He sighed in wonder and then thought of something. "When is it? Back home, I mean."

Jack lifted his wrist so he could see his vortex manipulator. "2001, give or take."

Ianto laughed involuntarily. "I'm there," he said, marveling at the thought. "Right now, I'm in Europe, or leaving school, or starting uni. And I'm here too. At the same time."

"Yeah," Jack said. "You are. Always will be."

"Comforting thought."

Jack nodded, looking somehow sad, and Ianto rolled over so that he was now lying on top of the other man, who smiled up into his eyes. He took Jack's face between his two hands, and kissed him, long and slow and deep, mouth lingering on his.

Jack kissed him back, leisurely and slow at first, but then taking on haste and urgency, kissing him harder, as if it was the one thing standing between him and disaster, as he wrestled with the buttons of Ianto's shirt and his own and then their trousers.

Then they were touching, skin to skin, and Ianto gloried in the sensation, the chill of the air touching his naked flesh, and Jack's body, warm and inviting beneath him.

"Want you inside," he murmured against Jack's neck, simple fact and odd embarrassment still, and felt the other man nod vigorously in reply.

"Get the jar," Jack gasped.

"Jar?"

Jack's hand fumbled out for one of the assorted bottles he'd brought out of the ship. Ianto sat up to help open it and found it was filled with cream of some kind.

"What is this?" he asked, laughing.

"Silicon engine-cream. Works a treat," Jack said, as he took a great dollop of it, and slathered it on his cock with a pleased hiss.

Ianto only indulged his incredulity for a moment before straddling Jack's hips and reaching back awkwardly to steady the man's cock. Jack bent his knees and planted his feet on the ground to help and reached lightly for Ianto's hips.

And then Ianto was sliding down upon him, centimetre by exquisitely slow centimetre, watching Jack's face as his cock was slowly and surely enveloped. Ianto held his breath, as he felt Jack slide deeper and deeper into him; Jack lying there motionless, letting Ianto control the pace completely, all his energy clearly contained and focused into the sharp waiting, until he was thrust up inside Ianto all the way, filling him.

They stayed there, just like that, for what felt like ages, rocking ever so slightly, but not really moving, caught in this desperate tableaux and poised on the cusp of an uneasy precipice; wanting it to go on and on and knowing it couldn't.

Ianto took Jack's hand in his and brought it up to his lips, pressing a kiss into his palm. Then he brought it to his throat, so that Jack's fingers were half-circling his neck, Jack's thumb playing lightly against his jugular vein.

As he began to move on top of him, spasming around Jack's cock, his fingers closed tightly around Jack's, pressing them inward, harder and deeper, rewarded by the pain and the gasping, helpless, drifting feeling. And then they were moving together, harder, faster, Ianto feeling as if the top of his head might explode and float away as his cock bump against his belly, so hard and engorged with blood, it didn't even felt like it belonged to him. He was aware even of the contours of his own face, clenched and contorted, as Jack spilled into him, before he himself came in a violent, overpowering burst, as his vision briefly went a sparkling black.

When he opened his eyes, still lightheaded and dizzy with sensation, he found Jack looking up at him in concern.



"Are you...?" he asked, but before he could finish, Ianto put his finger against his mouth.

"I'm great."

"Really?"

"Really," he said, and Jack knew he had no choice but to believe him.

"What if the Doctor comes back?" Ianto mumbled, as his eyelids drooped, and great waves of sleep were clearly cresting over him. "While we're out here...."

"He'll wait," Jack told him. "Go to sleep."



When Ianto woke the next morning, he found Jack lying on his side, elbow crooked, head resting in his hand.

"Good morning," Ianto mumbled.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "It is."

"Shouldn't you be fixing the ship?"

"Yeah, already took care of it."

"Was it ever really broken?"

"You think a ship could crash like that and not be broken?" was Jack's only reply, and Ianto decided he'd have to be satisfied with that.

He fished the chain out from where it lay beside them inside his discarded clothes. Both he and Jack stared at it for a long time in silence, apparently hypnotised at the way it sparkled gold.



"Jack--" Ianto started, and then stuttered to a halt, looking around at the planets hanging in the sky, the grass, the trees off in the distance, almost as if he were to look hard enough, he could capture the moment and keep it forever. "It's... we..."

Jack met his eyes, and then nodded once, slowly. "Yeah. Okay," he said, at a loss for how to soothe away what he wasn't supposed to know.



When they'd made their way back to the TARDIS, they found the Doctor inside the console room, on his back, under some grillework, fixing something with his sonic screwdriver.

As they entered, he leapt to his feet. "Have a nice time, lads?" he asked cheerfully.

"Lovely," Ianto assured him.

"Brilliant! So where should we head off to next? Fortuna Major? Meet Charlemagne? Or... we could take in a film at the Cosmoplex in Arison IV? Fully interactive films, love those. Or what...?" He wound down to a stop, having taken in their expressions. "What is it?"

"Doctor," Ianto said hesitantly. "It's been amazing, truly. I'll never forget it. But..." he trailed off.

"What?" the Doctor said, sounding as shocked as if Ianto had spoken in some esoteric tongue.

"I think it's time for me, for us, to go home now," he said, trying to put all his gratitude into his voice, and knowing it was impossible. Words would always fail. How could you thank someone, how could you be grateful for something so shining and so terrible all at the same time? And yet he did. He was.

The Doctor's eyes slid past Ianto to meet Jack's. Ianto turned as well, in time to see Jack nod once silently as if agreeing.

"Oh," the Doctor said, as if he were a balloon that had been pricked. "Of course. Home. Well." He turned to busy himself with some scrap of paper, fiddling with it restlessly. "Okay. Cardiff, early 21st century, then. Got it."

Still not looking at them, he added with forced joviality, "I mean, of course. It's not like you could just... stay." On the last word, his voice rose almost as if he were asking a question or soliciting a contradiction. "That would be... ridiculous."

"Ridiculous," Ianto agreed. "I'm not meant for this, not long term."

"Right. Of course not."

"Besides," Ianto said, thinking of the last time he'd traveled with the Doctor, and his book, older than he'd ever see it, lying tucked away carefully in Jack's bedroom, "we didn't. So we can't. And Jack. You know, with the fixing things, and you changing them. Wouldn't work."

"Right," the Doctor repeated, and Ianto thought he'd never seen the man look so sad. "You didn't. So you can't."


When the TARDIS landed in Cardiff, at what the Doctor assured them was exactly a week after they'd left, Ianto went back to the room to collect their things, leaving Jack behind with the Doctor. He laid a gentle hand against the TARDIS wall. Take care of him he thought at her silently, and felt her presence hum reassuringly through him.

He looked at the set of drawers, where his father's book still lay and smiled to himself briefly.

In the console room, he found Jack and the Doctor waiting for him silently. The Doctor embraced Jack quickly and fiercely; Ianto thought he was whispering something in his ear. Jack nodded and then released him.

Ianto came forward and stuck out his hand, which the Doctor ignored, wrapping his arms around him instead. He squeezed Ianto tight and then let go, stepping back.

"It's not goodbye," Ianto told him.

"Right," the Doctor said. "I'll be seeing you."

"You'll find me at Tesco. Mermaid Quay. When you're looking."

The Doctor nodded. "Now go on, get out," he blustered, and Ianto wondered how he could have ever been fooled. "Nice to finally have a bit of peace and quiet round here."

And as simply as that, they were out on the street, and the TARDIS was vanishing behind them.

"Back to the Hub?" Jack asked.

Ianto nodded. "Back home," he agreed.

Continue to Part 4

Comments

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Honestly? We love to make boys cry. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

[invisible-lift.livejournal.com]

And you're also both too damned wonderful to be "nice."

Morrissey had something useful to say about nice, I think.

But yes. Reading #4 with something like terror. Seriously.