You Keep Me Alive part 3
Rating: PG
Characters: Jack, Ianto, The Master, mention of other TW and DW characters
Spoilers: Not really any.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. If I did there would be some characters dead, and others alive.
Summary: During The Year That Never Was, Jack is tortured by the Master, but what is keeping Jack fighting.
Beta: This was written for one of my college class’. I really cannot say ladyeternal was just my beta. She was so much more than just a beta. [People get you minds out of the gutter. I so did not mean it that way :)] I could have never received the grade that I did without her help.
Comments are always loved.
Day 98:
“Jack, Jack, Jack. I have something for you,” the Master announced proudly as he sauntered past the armed guards into Jack’s makeshift cell.
“Please say it’s a dark chocolate candy bar and a cup of world-class coffee.”
“So sorry to disappoint, but this is so much better; well… at least for me it is.” The Master was smirking, a cruel gleam in his eyes as he held out a box in both hands for Jack to see.
Jack gasped in horror as the box was opened before him revealing its contents. Inside, Jack could see two human hearts, freshly plucked, still dripping with blood. Sadness ripped through his body as he imagined what must have happened to the people they belonged to, coupled with terror spiking through his veins as he wondered who those people had been.
“Who?”
“I don’t know what their names were. My little friends didn’t wait to find out, but I know it was a beautiful Japanese girl and a doctor.” The Master placed the box at the immortal’s feet and pulled a knife from his waistband, then plunged it yet again into Jack’s chest. “What amazes me about that little team of yours, Captain, is that they don’t even know who you really are, but they’re still willing to die for you.”
The crack of his ribs as the Master gutted Jack was nothing to the tearing in his heart. Grief for Tosh and Owen consumed him almost as swiftly as the inevitable darkness, which was almost welcomed this time.
Pain ripped through him anew as his chest healed and Jack gasped for air. Curling into himself, relieved to see the box had been removed, Jack felt tears course down his cheeks. He didn’t tell other people much about himself. Tosh and Owen hadn’t known much about him. Gwen didn’t either. But Jack had told at least part of his story to the most important person, Ianto Jones.
In the last few weeks, since the terror in the countryside, Jack and Ianto had spent every night together, even on the nights they were not working, which unfortunately wasn’t many. Jack usually wanted to stay in the Hub so they were ready if something was to happen, but after the days like today, the last thing either one of them wanted was to be in the cramped cave Jack called home. Both wanted out of the Hub, away from the constant humming of computers, away from the trickling of water from the sculpture above and the continuous screeches of their resident pterodactyl. They both wanted windows to look out, to see what they worked so hard to keep safe. But most of all they just wanted to be together.
After spending the evening being ‘domestic,’ a side of Jack no one saw other than Ianto, Jack and Ianto lay in Ianto’s big bed enjoying the feel of being alive and together. These were the moments Jack lived for. The moments hidden away from the world of weevils, aliens and cannibals. The moments of feeling, touching and kissing his lover. The moments where the only thing in the world of any importance was in the room with him.
“What did Mary mean when she asked what you are?”Ianto asked as his furiously beating heart returned to normal.
Rolling onto his back, Jack ran one hand over his face, feeling the rough stubble across his cheeks. “I’m not like the rest of you, Ianto,” Jack sighed, the words coming out before he even realized he had spoken.
“What do you mean, you’re not like us?” Ianto asked, curling into his lover’s side and running one hand down the tight muscles of Jack’s chest.
“I’m not from this time. Something happened to me a long time ago, and I got stuck here. I have been waiting for someone for over a hundred years,” Jack confessed. Jack feared telling this young man about any part of his past. Not that Ianto would tell others his secrets, but that Ianto would leave. Jack knew, even at this point, that he would be lost without this extraordinary 21st century man.
“How have you been waiting for over a hundred years? Are you not human? Are you like Mary?”
“No, I’m human. I’m from an off world colony in the 51st century. Something happened to me long ago, and ever since, I haven’t been able to die. Well, die and stay that way. I came to Wales so that I could get some answers from someone I knew long ago, but I haven’t been able to find him yet. I’m starting to think I’m never going to find him.” Jack smiled in relief as Ianto’s arms wrapped around him.
“Oh, I thought you were just joking about 51st century pheromones.”
“Nope, not joking,” Jack said, smiling and kissing the top of Ianto’s head. As always Jack was amazed by the man wrapped in his arms. It was a mystery to Jack how Ianto took so much in so casually. If it had been anyone else Jack had chosen to confess to, that person would be running in fear.
“I don’t understand, Jack. Why here? Why would he come to Wales?”
“Because of the rift. The TARDIS, that’s what his ship is called, uses the rift as a type of fueling station.”
“Did you say the TARDIS?” Ianto half-rose out of his lover’s arms with startled recognition in those blue, blue eyes.
“Yeah. Why?” Jack raised an eyebrow, completely lost by Ianto’s reaction.
“You’re waiting for the Doctor, aren’t you?” Sadness spread across Ianto’s face as he asked.
“Yeah. How do you know about the Doctor?”
“Torchwood One. Everyone who worked there was given information about the Doctor, the TARDIS, and his companion Rose. Are you telling me that you used to travel with the Doctor?” Ianto was unable to look into Jack’s beautifully addicting blue eyes.
“Yeah.” Jack wandered what exactly Torchwood One employees had been told about the Time Lord. Jack knew that Torchwood had been created by Queen Victoria because of the Doctor. Jack also knew Yvonne Hartman and her belief that anything and everything alien belonged to Torchwood.
“Oh.”
“What is it?” Jack saw even more sadness cross Ianto’s face.
“So what happens when you find the Doctor? Will you go traveling with him?”
Jack’s heart sank into his stomach. The sadness in Ianto’s eyes now was not about Torchwood One, Lisa or that terrible day with the Daleks and the Cybermen; it was about him. He was causing Ianto pain. “I don’t know… I don’t think so... I just want answers. A long time ago, I would have gone with him and stayed with him for eternity.” Rising from the bed, cupping Ianto’s cheek in his hand and forcing him to look up, Jack continued. “But that isn’t me anymore. I have more here to lose than I have had in a very, very long time.”
They sat in silence, both engrossed in their own thoughts, memories and dreams for the future until the silence was finally broken by Jack. “Doesn’t it bother you that I can’t die?”
“Not really. I’ve always known there was something different about you. I just didn’t know what that was,” Ianto said, allowing himself to be pulled back under the covering of the bed, wrapped in his immortal lover’s comforting arms. He began to laugh as the memory of their first meeting surfaced. “Hell, you remember the first time that we met? You were bitten by a weevil. There was blood all over your neck and shirt, but moments later, you didn’t have a scratch on you.”
“I haven’t thought about that day in a while. I knew right then I was going to hire you.” Jack couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across his face at the memory.
“Then why didn’t you Jack? I chased you all around Cardiff for nearly a week.”
“Because then I would not have had a week of seeing you in those jeans,” Jack laughed remembering those great jeans worn by this perfect man and his wondrous body.
Even though he hadn’t told Ianto nearly everything, it was still more than he’d ever felt the urge to tell anyone. For reasons Jack couldn’t name, he wanted to tell Ianto everything.
“I will tell you everything when I get back, if you’ll let me,” Jack promised himself, Ianto’s memory and the darkened cell.