Belonging: Chapter Four
Okay, stop salivating, here's Chapter Four. Apparently I owe some of you a box of Kleenex after the last chapter...
Title: Belonging - Chapter Four
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Characters Jack, Ten / Jack/Ianto
Rating: This Chapter - PG (will be NC-17 overall)
Spoilers: DW: Last of the Time Lords, The Stolen Earth, Journey's End
Disclaimer: The BBC own it all, the little tinkers
Warnings: angst | hurt/comfort
Description:
This is set immediately after the events of The Stolen Earth/Journey's End.
The Torchwood team members are struggling to get back to normal after recent shattering events, when the Doctor turns up in the Torchwood Hub in the middle of the night; alone, heartbroken, guilt-ridden, and needing somewhere to belong.
"...whenever he's around, I feel like... you'd rather be with him than with me."
Chapter Four
The storm had passed.
The hitching of the Doctor's body as he cried in my arms had become less and less frequent, and eventually stopped. He seemed calmer now. I kept stroking his hair, rubbing his back, making comforting noises into his ear.
I'm not sure how long the Doctor and I stayed like that, kneeling on the floor, just holding each other. A few minutes, probably, but it felt like a lot longer. Perhaps it was a side-effect of holding a distraught Time Lord; maybe time just skewed around us in his grief.
After a century or two, I noticed there was someone else in the room with us. Ianto was standing a foot or two away from me, with an expression on his face that I took a second or two to identify. After a moment, I realised it wasn't anger or jealousy, but genuine concern. I felt both relieved and touched at the same time.
He took a step forward, cautiously. "Is he okay?" Ianto asked me quietly.
I shrugged. The Doctor was still trembling slightly, but with his face pressed to my somewhat damp shoulder, it was difficult to gauge exactly how he was doing.
To my surprise, Ianto took another few steps forward and placed a hand on the Doctor's back. "Can I get you anything?" he asked gently.
The Doctor seemed to suddenly come to his senses. The Time Lord straightened up, putting both hands to his face in a self-conscious manner. A few wipes of his eyes and a sniff or two later, he dropped his hands. Now he looked red-faced and slightly awkward, but more or less composed.
The Time Lord wordlessly disentangled himself from me, and stood. He crossed straight over to the glass and looked out at the TARDIS with his arms folded and his back to us.
There was a long, silent pause.
Ianto and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say or do next. Then Ianto held out his hand; I took it and he helped me stand up. My knees felt bruised. I felt about two thousand years old. Which is technically how old I am, although the fact was of no comfort.
Ianto and I shared a brief, silent conversation behind the Doctor's back, consisting of Ianto pointing at the Doctor and mouthing 'what's wrong with him?' and me shaking my head and mouthing the word 'later'.
Without turning his head, the Doctor spoke.
"What's wrong with me, Ianto Jones, is that I'm not safe to be let loose in the universe. Jack has kindly agreed to let me keep my TARDIS here in the Hub. I don't intend to get in your way, so don't worry. Just... forget I'm here."
He turned around. "But, as Jack has just confirmed, he'll tell you later. All the juicy details, I should imagine."
Ianto gaped. I frowned. The Doctor sounded edgy and defensive.
The Doctor's forehead creased slightly. "I was being rude just then, wasn't I? Sorry. Nobody around to tell me when I'm doing that these days, and I don't always..." he sighed, and stuck his hands in his pockets.
Ianto cleared his throat. "Shall I make more tea?" he said brightly.
Surprisingly, the Doctor smiled. "No thanks. But it's very kind of you." The Doctor headed towards us on his way out of my office. He stopped in front of Ianto for a second. "I can see why he likes you so much," the Doctor said to him, cocking his head towards me briefly, and then he carried on towards the door. He stopped a moment, took a chocolate digestive from the plate on my desk, and headed out of the open door and towards the TARDIS, munching on the biscuit as he walked.
Ianto turned to me. "Your friend is weird," he said solemnly.
***
It was very cold and musty down in basement storage bay 5B, where I'd agreed the Doctor could keep the TARDIS. How long for, we hadn't discussed again. I'd only been there a minute or two and I was already covered in goosebumps. Mind, I was in only a t-shirt, and my right shoulder was still damp with Gallifreyan tears, so maybe that wasn't helping.
There was the familiar wailing, grinding noise again, and the tall blue shape of the TARDIS solidified a couple of feet in front of me, amidst a small cloud of swirling dust. I couldn't help grinning a little. The TARDIS still held magic for me.
I thought back to that amazing time, just a few days ago; all of us together, the Doctor's adopted family, flying that wonderful ship through the stars, putting things back to where they were meant to be.
The Doctor had been a little quiet even then, I'd realised since. Everybody had been so jubilant, and yet I'd noticed, and perhaps I'd been the only one to do so, that the Doctor, the real Doctor, had hugged everybody with disguised sadness in his eyes. He'd no doubt been anticipating what was to come.
Being left alone, again.
I wasn't going to let that happen. He wasn't alone and he never would be, not while I was a fixed point in time and space. I'd move the Earth again, and Heaven too, to make the Doctor see that eventually. I didn't believe in this notion he had of never travelling again, but I intended to humour him for the time being.
I put my hand flat on the TARDIS door, enjoying the sensation of the soft vibration against my palm for a moment. Then, resisting the impulse to knock first, I pushed my way in.
The sound of the subtle, ever-constant hum of the TARDIS made my heart ache with longing. Yes, I knew where my loyalties and duties lay, but despite the choice I'd made to stay in Cardiff with my team, with Ianto, I still felt that pang of regret. I would always miss that part of my old life; me, Rose and the Doctor, running around time and space like a bunch of carefree kids. The bubble of excitement you got in your belly just before you stepped out into a new world; a new time, new opportunities... new dangers. I'd always loved that.
Now, if the Doctor had his way, I'd never get the chance of that happening again.
I stopped just inside the threshold. I heard the wooden doors close behind me with a soft thump.
The Time Lord was there, leaning quietly over the console, his face illuminated shades of green and orange. He'd put his brown pinstriped jacket back on, and now that his hair had been ruffled during his earlier rant, he looked more like his old self. His soulful brown eyes still looked haunted, though.
I folded my arms. "Here we are then. Storage Bay 5B. Home, sweet home."
The Doctor continued staring at the console. He absent-mindedly ran a finger down a row of switches, not activating them, just... stroking. I'd always been amused at how he did that sometimes, but it didn't seem funny now.
"The TARDIS is the only thing in this storage room, apart from a few bits of junk," I continued, trying to sound reassuring. "I'll disable all the CCTV and tracking equipment in this area, tell the team that the room has been blocked off due to... I dunno. I'll make something up, so that nobody comes down here. That okay?"
The Doctor nodded. "And I've turned up the perception filter on the old girl. Even if somebody does enter the area, they won't notice her. Well... you and Ianto wiil, of course. Doesn't work if you know she's here already."
I spread my arms out. "So, is this it then? I'm supposed to just forget you're here, let the TARDIS get covered in dust? Leave you here forever, like a hermit in a cave?"
The Doctor shrugged.
I sighed, and walked across the ramp towards the console, my boot heels making a metallic clunking sound as I walked.
"Look, I know you... had a moment back there. It happens to everyone, some time or another. There always comes a breaking point, Doc, and you just hit yours, that's all. But that doesn't mean there's no going back."
The Doctor sniffed. "I bet your boyfriend thinks I'm some sort of nutter."
I chuckled. "You are some sort of nutter. Wouldn't want you any other way."
The Doctor looked serious. "I'm sorry about earlier. I wouldn't... y'know... normally..."
I shushed him. "Forget about it. It's fine. In fact... well, I'm kinda glad you were able to get it out of your system. With me, I mean. It probably did you some good."
The Doctor smiled, a little. "I do feel a bit better. And I'm very grateful. Not just... y'know. For you being there, but for letting me stay."
I shrugged.
"I'd do anything for you," I said.
The sentence hung in the air for a moment. I'm not sure I'd meant to say it out loud.
The Doctor nodded slowly. "Yep. I think you would, Jack." He walked round the console towards me. Held out a hand. I stared at it dumbly for a second before I realised he wanted me to shake it.
How very British and gentlemanly of him.
I ignored the hand, went up to him, moved so close to his body that his outstretched arm and hand ended up brushing against my side. Almost instinctively, his arm curled around me into an awkward kind of one-armed embrace.
Screw it.
I leaned in, gave him a quick kiss. Just a friendly peck on the mouth, that's all. It was no big deal. But my heart was racing, and there was a delicious tingle of electricity working its way down my spine.
Yeah. His lips still felt the same. But no big deal, right?
The Doctor looked a little taken aback, but not entirely displeased.
"That's not a goodbye," I told him. "Not this time. That was a 'goodnight, get your head down, relax and take some time to think things through' sort of kiss, okay?"
"I..." the TIme Lord seemed lost for words.
"When you're ready..." I said firmly, "call me. I'll come running." I held up my wrist, the one wearing my vortex manipulator.
"Ready for what?" He sounded like a little boy lost.
"Ready to tell me what you need," I said. "When you figure that out - I wanna be the first to know."
With that, I stepped backwards, letting the warmth of his arm slide from my hip, turned my back on him and stepped back out into the chill of the Hub.
***
By the time I got back upstairs, the place looked more or less spick and span again. There was a smudge of dust on Ianto's cheek and it looked too adorable to wipe away, so I didn't tell him it was there.
I glanced around admiringly. "Looking good, Ianto."
"I'll order replacements for the broken furniture and equipment tomorrow morning," said Ianto. He glanced at his watch. "Actually, make that... in a couple of hours."
Jesus, was that the time? Outside, the sun must have been rising. I felt drained. I sat down on the ratty old sofa in the main chamber, puffing and moaning like a geriatric. After a moment, Ianto joined me. He wanted the 'later' I'd promised him, and I couldn't keep him in the dark any longer.
I told him about what had happened to the Doctor since I got back to Cardiff, why the Doctor was in such an emotional state, what he had said about needing to be kept safe, away from everything.
I tried to keep it brief, but with having to add in bits of back-story as to who was who, and why, and where, and when, by the time I'd got to the point where Ianto had found us both kneeling on the floor in my office, my throat was dry and my voice was husky.
I must have looked a little upset when I was talking about how distressed the Doctor had been, because at some point halfway through the story, Ianto had taken my hand and hadn't let it go since.
"He'll be okay," Ianto said quietly. "And if you want... I mean, we could.... y'know. Try and cheer him up. Support him. Spend time with him. The two of us, I mean. Or... just you. Whatever. I mean, he doesn't really know me, does he?"
I smiled at the serious-looking young man entwining his fingers with mine. "I'm a little surprised you're being so... I mean..." I sighed. The more the night wore on, the more tongue-tied I was getting.
Ianto shrugged. "If he's important to you, then he's important to me," he said simply.
I nodded gratefully. "I thought maybe you were a little jealous." There was no point beating around the bush.
Ianto looked slightly awkward. "Well... yeah. At first. I mean... whenever he's around, I feel like... you'd rather be with him than with me."
I remembered how, hearing the sound of the TARDIS materialising those few endless hours ago, I'd more or less dumped Ianto like a hot brick in order to get to the Doctor. I could be such an ass sometimes, but... hell. I couldn't deny what Ianto was saying, no matter how guilty I felt about it.
Ianto looked down at our entangled hands for a moment. "But then, I could see he was really upset. And, I suppose you two have been through a lot together." He glanced at me curiously. There was so much I'd never told him. "So... I suppose he needed you. He probably thought you were the only one he could turn to."
Yeah. Maybe so. I nodded slowly.
Was it wrong of me to feel pleased about that?
"So then I felt a bit selfish." Ianto looked up and met my eyes with his. He looked like he was choosing his words carefully. "So... that aside. Do I have cause to feel jealous?"
I hesitated. Certainly nothing had ever happened between the Doctor and I, save for a little playful flirting and the odd bit of friendly physical contact. But that didn't change the fact that...
"I do have feelings for him, yeah," I said truthfully. "But we've never... I mean... I don't even think he'd..."
Ianto shook his head. "I don't know who the Doctor is," he said. "Not really. I know he's an alien, and he's amazing, but I don't know anything about his species, or how and why he does what he does.
"There's something about him that I can't explain or understand. But I've only spent a few minutes in his presence, and even I can see that whatever you feel for him, nobody could ever blame you for feeling it. I should imagine it happens to just about everybody he meets."
I ran the backs of my fingers down Ianto's cheek, accidentally wiping away the smudge of dirt in the process.
I took a deep breath. "Last year," I said, "when I disappeared, for all that time?" I sighed, pushing down the cold fingers of horror that crept through my guts whenever I forced myself to remember what we'd suffered during that lost year on the Valiant, at the mercy of a madman.
I swallowed. "Maybe one day, I'll be able to bring myself to tell you what happened. But the thing is, when it was all over, I could have stayed with him. He asked me to. I could have left Cardiff in that blue box and never come back. But I didn't. I did come back. For you. Just like I did this time."
There was a short silence, as though Ianto was taking that in.
"Let's go back to bed," he said. Just like that.
So we went back to bed. And we didn't get any sleep until way past breakfast time.
***
Later that day, I phoned Gwen and told her that her bout of malingering was over, and that it was time to get her lazy ass back to work. After a short session of swapping friendly insults, Gwen confessed she was getting bored and antsy at home anyway, and couldn't wait to get back and start annoying me again. I smiled as I ended the call.
I felt relieved. After what had happened, for some reason all I wanted to do was get back some semblance of normality.
And I got my wish.
Gwen returned to work the next day, I called in the rest of my team, and after a couple more days, it seemed like Martha had been there forever. Mickey Smith had obviously learned a hell of a lot while he'd been living in that alternate universe; he had skills and ideas that made me think Toshiko's ghost must be haunting the place, and her geeky but extremely impressive talent was being channelled through him. He'd matured a lot. Everybody had, one way or another.
The Rift seemed to dust itself off and start causing trouble again; there were cases of weird sightings and suspicious alien tech reports going off left, right and centre.
Torchwood was back on form, and being kept busy, and somehow it seemed to take up all of my strength and concentration. Thoughts of the amazing blue box hidden in the basement, and its equally amazing occupant, were relegated to the back of my head, because I had no choice.
A few more days later, it was as though the Doctor turning up in the Hub that long and distressing night had been nothing but an emotionally-charged dream.
But then, one night, two things happened that surprised me.
I was alone, down in the holding cells checking on the newest arrival, a Weevil found terrorising a young woman on the outskirts of Cardiff Bay earlier that evening. We'd named it Mildred.
Suddenly, the vortex manipulator on my wrist bleeped. With a touch of a button, shimmering holographic text appeared in the air, in a fetching shade of indigo.
"I'VE RUN OUT OF MILK", it said.
And then the Weevil started talking to me in English.
To be continued
<< Chapter One
<< Chapter Two
<< Chapter Three
>> Chapter Five
>> Chapter Six
>> Chapter Seven
>> Chapter Nine
>> Chapter Ten
>> Chapter Eleven
>> Chapter Twelve
>> Chapter Thirteen
>> Chapter Fourteen
>> Chapter Fifteen
>> Chapter Sixteen
>> Chapter Seventeen
>> Chapter Eighteen
>> Chapter Nineteen
>> Chapter Twenty
>> Chapter Twenty One
>> Chapter Twenty Two
>> Chapter Twenty Three
>> Chapter Twenty Four
>> Chapter Twenty Five
>> Chapter Twenty Six
>> Chapter Twenty Seven
>> Chapter Twenty Eight
Title: Belonging - Chapter Four
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Characters Jack, Ten / Jack/Ianto
Rating: This Chapter - PG (will be NC-17 overall)
Spoilers: DW: Last of the Time Lords, The Stolen Earth, Journey's End
Disclaimer: The BBC own it all, the little tinkers
Warnings: angst | hurt/comfort
Description:
This is set immediately after the events of The Stolen Earth/Journey's End.
The Torchwood team members are struggling to get back to normal after recent shattering events, when the Doctor turns up in the Torchwood Hub in the middle of the night; alone, heartbroken, guilt-ridden, and needing somewhere to belong.
"...whenever he's around, I feel like... you'd rather be with him than with me."
Chapter Four
The storm had passed.
The hitching of the Doctor's body as he cried in my arms had become less and less frequent, and eventually stopped. He seemed calmer now. I kept stroking his hair, rubbing his back, making comforting noises into his ear.
I'm not sure how long the Doctor and I stayed like that, kneeling on the floor, just holding each other. A few minutes, probably, but it felt like a lot longer. Perhaps it was a side-effect of holding a distraught Time Lord; maybe time just skewed around us in his grief.
After a century or two, I noticed there was someone else in the room with us. Ianto was standing a foot or two away from me, with an expression on his face that I took a second or two to identify. After a moment, I realised it wasn't anger or jealousy, but genuine concern. I felt both relieved and touched at the same time.
He took a step forward, cautiously. "Is he okay?" Ianto asked me quietly.
I shrugged. The Doctor was still trembling slightly, but with his face pressed to my somewhat damp shoulder, it was difficult to gauge exactly how he was doing.
To my surprise, Ianto took another few steps forward and placed a hand on the Doctor's back. "Can I get you anything?" he asked gently.
The Doctor seemed to suddenly come to his senses. The Time Lord straightened up, putting both hands to his face in a self-conscious manner. A few wipes of his eyes and a sniff or two later, he dropped his hands. Now he looked red-faced and slightly awkward, but more or less composed.
The Time Lord wordlessly disentangled himself from me, and stood. He crossed straight over to the glass and looked out at the TARDIS with his arms folded and his back to us.
There was a long, silent pause.
Ianto and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say or do next. Then Ianto held out his hand; I took it and he helped me stand up. My knees felt bruised. I felt about two thousand years old. Which is technically how old I am, although the fact was of no comfort.
Ianto and I shared a brief, silent conversation behind the Doctor's back, consisting of Ianto pointing at the Doctor and mouthing 'what's wrong with him?' and me shaking my head and mouthing the word 'later'.
Without turning his head, the Doctor spoke.
"What's wrong with me, Ianto Jones, is that I'm not safe to be let loose in the universe. Jack has kindly agreed to let me keep my TARDIS here in the Hub. I don't intend to get in your way, so don't worry. Just... forget I'm here."
He turned around. "But, as Jack has just confirmed, he'll tell you later. All the juicy details, I should imagine."
Ianto gaped. I frowned. The Doctor sounded edgy and defensive.
The Doctor's forehead creased slightly. "I was being rude just then, wasn't I? Sorry. Nobody around to tell me when I'm doing that these days, and I don't always..." he sighed, and stuck his hands in his pockets.
Ianto cleared his throat. "Shall I make more tea?" he said brightly.
Surprisingly, the Doctor smiled. "No thanks. But it's very kind of you." The Doctor headed towards us on his way out of my office. He stopped in front of Ianto for a second. "I can see why he likes you so much," the Doctor said to him, cocking his head towards me briefly, and then he carried on towards the door. He stopped a moment, took a chocolate digestive from the plate on my desk, and headed out of the open door and towards the TARDIS, munching on the biscuit as he walked.
Ianto turned to me. "Your friend is weird," he said solemnly.
***
It was very cold and musty down in basement storage bay 5B, where I'd agreed the Doctor could keep the TARDIS. How long for, we hadn't discussed again. I'd only been there a minute or two and I was already covered in goosebumps. Mind, I was in only a t-shirt, and my right shoulder was still damp with Gallifreyan tears, so maybe that wasn't helping.
There was the familiar wailing, grinding noise again, and the tall blue shape of the TARDIS solidified a couple of feet in front of me, amidst a small cloud of swirling dust. I couldn't help grinning a little. The TARDIS still held magic for me.
I thought back to that amazing time, just a few days ago; all of us together, the Doctor's adopted family, flying that wonderful ship through the stars, putting things back to where they were meant to be.
The Doctor had been a little quiet even then, I'd realised since. Everybody had been so jubilant, and yet I'd noticed, and perhaps I'd been the only one to do so, that the Doctor, the real Doctor, had hugged everybody with disguised sadness in his eyes. He'd no doubt been anticipating what was to come.
Being left alone, again.
I wasn't going to let that happen. He wasn't alone and he never would be, not while I was a fixed point in time and space. I'd move the Earth again, and Heaven too, to make the Doctor see that eventually. I didn't believe in this notion he had of never travelling again, but I intended to humour him for the time being.
I put my hand flat on the TARDIS door, enjoying the sensation of the soft vibration against my palm for a moment. Then, resisting the impulse to knock first, I pushed my way in.
The sound of the subtle, ever-constant hum of the TARDIS made my heart ache with longing. Yes, I knew where my loyalties and duties lay, but despite the choice I'd made to stay in Cardiff with my team, with Ianto, I still felt that pang of regret. I would always miss that part of my old life; me, Rose and the Doctor, running around time and space like a bunch of carefree kids. The bubble of excitement you got in your belly just before you stepped out into a new world; a new time, new opportunities... new dangers. I'd always loved that.
Now, if the Doctor had his way, I'd never get the chance of that happening again.
I stopped just inside the threshold. I heard the wooden doors close behind me with a soft thump.
The Time Lord was there, leaning quietly over the console, his face illuminated shades of green and orange. He'd put his brown pinstriped jacket back on, and now that his hair had been ruffled during his earlier rant, he looked more like his old self. His soulful brown eyes still looked haunted, though.
I folded my arms. "Here we are then. Storage Bay 5B. Home, sweet home."
The Doctor continued staring at the console. He absent-mindedly ran a finger down a row of switches, not activating them, just... stroking. I'd always been amused at how he did that sometimes, but it didn't seem funny now.
"The TARDIS is the only thing in this storage room, apart from a few bits of junk," I continued, trying to sound reassuring. "I'll disable all the CCTV and tracking equipment in this area, tell the team that the room has been blocked off due to... I dunno. I'll make something up, so that nobody comes down here. That okay?"
The Doctor nodded. "And I've turned up the perception filter on the old girl. Even if somebody does enter the area, they won't notice her. Well... you and Ianto wiil, of course. Doesn't work if you know she's here already."
I spread my arms out. "So, is this it then? I'm supposed to just forget you're here, let the TARDIS get covered in dust? Leave you here forever, like a hermit in a cave?"
The Doctor shrugged.
I sighed, and walked across the ramp towards the console, my boot heels making a metallic clunking sound as I walked.
"Look, I know you... had a moment back there. It happens to everyone, some time or another. There always comes a breaking point, Doc, and you just hit yours, that's all. But that doesn't mean there's no going back."
The Doctor sniffed. "I bet your boyfriend thinks I'm some sort of nutter."
I chuckled. "You are some sort of nutter. Wouldn't want you any other way."
The Doctor looked serious. "I'm sorry about earlier. I wouldn't... y'know... normally..."
I shushed him. "Forget about it. It's fine. In fact... well, I'm kinda glad you were able to get it out of your system. With me, I mean. It probably did you some good."
The Doctor smiled, a little. "I do feel a bit better. And I'm very grateful. Not just... y'know. For you being there, but for letting me stay."
I shrugged.
"I'd do anything for you," I said.
The sentence hung in the air for a moment. I'm not sure I'd meant to say it out loud.
The Doctor nodded slowly. "Yep. I think you would, Jack." He walked round the console towards me. Held out a hand. I stared at it dumbly for a second before I realised he wanted me to shake it.
How very British and gentlemanly of him.
I ignored the hand, went up to him, moved so close to his body that his outstretched arm and hand ended up brushing against my side. Almost instinctively, his arm curled around me into an awkward kind of one-armed embrace.
Screw it.
I leaned in, gave him a quick kiss. Just a friendly peck on the mouth, that's all. It was no big deal. But my heart was racing, and there was a delicious tingle of electricity working its way down my spine.
Yeah. His lips still felt the same. But no big deal, right?
The Doctor looked a little taken aback, but not entirely displeased.
"That's not a goodbye," I told him. "Not this time. That was a 'goodnight, get your head down, relax and take some time to think things through' sort of kiss, okay?"
"I..." the TIme Lord seemed lost for words.
"When you're ready..." I said firmly, "call me. I'll come running." I held up my wrist, the one wearing my vortex manipulator.
"Ready for what?" He sounded like a little boy lost.
"Ready to tell me what you need," I said. "When you figure that out - I wanna be the first to know."
With that, I stepped backwards, letting the warmth of his arm slide from my hip, turned my back on him and stepped back out into the chill of the Hub.
***
By the time I got back upstairs, the place looked more or less spick and span again. There was a smudge of dust on Ianto's cheek and it looked too adorable to wipe away, so I didn't tell him it was there.
I glanced around admiringly. "Looking good, Ianto."
"I'll order replacements for the broken furniture and equipment tomorrow morning," said Ianto. He glanced at his watch. "Actually, make that... in a couple of hours."
Jesus, was that the time? Outside, the sun must have been rising. I felt drained. I sat down on the ratty old sofa in the main chamber, puffing and moaning like a geriatric. After a moment, Ianto joined me. He wanted the 'later' I'd promised him, and I couldn't keep him in the dark any longer.
I told him about what had happened to the Doctor since I got back to Cardiff, why the Doctor was in such an emotional state, what he had said about needing to be kept safe, away from everything.
I tried to keep it brief, but with having to add in bits of back-story as to who was who, and why, and where, and when, by the time I'd got to the point where Ianto had found us both kneeling on the floor in my office, my throat was dry and my voice was husky.
I must have looked a little upset when I was talking about how distressed the Doctor had been, because at some point halfway through the story, Ianto had taken my hand and hadn't let it go since.
"He'll be okay," Ianto said quietly. "And if you want... I mean, we could.... y'know. Try and cheer him up. Support him. Spend time with him. The two of us, I mean. Or... just you. Whatever. I mean, he doesn't really know me, does he?"
I smiled at the serious-looking young man entwining his fingers with mine. "I'm a little surprised you're being so... I mean..." I sighed. The more the night wore on, the more tongue-tied I was getting.
Ianto shrugged. "If he's important to you, then he's important to me," he said simply.
I nodded gratefully. "I thought maybe you were a little jealous." There was no point beating around the bush.
Ianto looked slightly awkward. "Well... yeah. At first. I mean... whenever he's around, I feel like... you'd rather be with him than with me."
I remembered how, hearing the sound of the TARDIS materialising those few endless hours ago, I'd more or less dumped Ianto like a hot brick in order to get to the Doctor. I could be such an ass sometimes, but... hell. I couldn't deny what Ianto was saying, no matter how guilty I felt about it.
Ianto looked down at our entangled hands for a moment. "But then, I could see he was really upset. And, I suppose you two have been through a lot together." He glanced at me curiously. There was so much I'd never told him. "So... I suppose he needed you. He probably thought you were the only one he could turn to."
Yeah. Maybe so. I nodded slowly.
Was it wrong of me to feel pleased about that?
"So then I felt a bit selfish." Ianto looked up and met my eyes with his. He looked like he was choosing his words carefully. "So... that aside. Do I have cause to feel jealous?"
I hesitated. Certainly nothing had ever happened between the Doctor and I, save for a little playful flirting and the odd bit of friendly physical contact. But that didn't change the fact that...
"I do have feelings for him, yeah," I said truthfully. "But we've never... I mean... I don't even think he'd..."
Ianto shook his head. "I don't know who the Doctor is," he said. "Not really. I know he's an alien, and he's amazing, but I don't know anything about his species, or how and why he does what he does.
"There's something about him that I can't explain or understand. But I've only spent a few minutes in his presence, and even I can see that whatever you feel for him, nobody could ever blame you for feeling it. I should imagine it happens to just about everybody he meets."
I ran the backs of my fingers down Ianto's cheek, accidentally wiping away the smudge of dirt in the process.
I took a deep breath. "Last year," I said, "when I disappeared, for all that time?" I sighed, pushing down the cold fingers of horror that crept through my guts whenever I forced myself to remember what we'd suffered during that lost year on the Valiant, at the mercy of a madman.
I swallowed. "Maybe one day, I'll be able to bring myself to tell you what happened. But the thing is, when it was all over, I could have stayed with him. He asked me to. I could have left Cardiff in that blue box and never come back. But I didn't. I did come back. For you. Just like I did this time."
There was a short silence, as though Ianto was taking that in.
"Let's go back to bed," he said. Just like that.
So we went back to bed. And we didn't get any sleep until way past breakfast time.
***
Later that day, I phoned Gwen and told her that her bout of malingering was over, and that it was time to get her lazy ass back to work. After a short session of swapping friendly insults, Gwen confessed she was getting bored and antsy at home anyway, and couldn't wait to get back and start annoying me again. I smiled as I ended the call.
I felt relieved. After what had happened, for some reason all I wanted to do was get back some semblance of normality.
And I got my wish.
Gwen returned to work the next day, I called in the rest of my team, and after a couple more days, it seemed like Martha had been there forever. Mickey Smith had obviously learned a hell of a lot while he'd been living in that alternate universe; he had skills and ideas that made me think Toshiko's ghost must be haunting the place, and her geeky but extremely impressive talent was being channelled through him. He'd matured a lot. Everybody had, one way or another.
The Rift seemed to dust itself off and start causing trouble again; there were cases of weird sightings and suspicious alien tech reports going off left, right and centre.
Torchwood was back on form, and being kept busy, and somehow it seemed to take up all of my strength and concentration. Thoughts of the amazing blue box hidden in the basement, and its equally amazing occupant, were relegated to the back of my head, because I had no choice.
A few more days later, it was as though the Doctor turning up in the Hub that long and distressing night had been nothing but an emotionally-charged dream.
But then, one night, two things happened that surprised me.
I was alone, down in the holding cells checking on the newest arrival, a Weevil found terrorising a young woman on the outskirts of Cardiff Bay earlier that evening. We'd named it Mildred.
Suddenly, the vortex manipulator on my wrist bleeped. With a touch of a button, shimmering holographic text appeared in the air, in a fetching shade of indigo.
"I'VE RUN OUT OF MILK", it said.
And then the Weevil started talking to me in English.
To be continued
<< Chapter One
<< Chapter Two
<< Chapter Three
>> Chapter Five
>> Chapter Six
>> Chapter Seven
>> Chapter Nine
>> Chapter Ten
>> Chapter Eleven
>> Chapter Twelve
>> Chapter Thirteen
>> Chapter Fourteen
>> Chapter Fifteen
>> Chapter Sixteen
>> Chapter Seventeen
>> Chapter Eighteen
>> Chapter Nineteen
>> Chapter Twenty
>> Chapter Twenty One
>> Chapter Twenty Two
>> Chapter Twenty Three
>> Chapter Twenty Four
>> Chapter Twenty Five
>> Chapter Twenty Six
>> Chapter Twenty Seven
>> Chapter Twenty Eight