Torchwood Advent Challenge - 10th December

[m_findlow]

Title: Making amends
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, The Doctor (Eleven)
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 3,316 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for prompt "The Fabric of Reality"
Summary: The TARDIS has done something, and The Doctor isn't happy about it

'You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady!' The Doctor fumed, storming out into the main area of the TARDIS, still dressed in his blue and white striped pajamas. A bleary-eyed Jack and Ianto had heard the commotion and joined him to see what was going on, also still in their own sleepwear.

'Did you really think I wouldn't notice? Just thought you'd subtly rearrange while I was asleep at night?' The Doctor continued.

'Doctor, what's going on?' Jack said, wiping sleep from his eye, hair sticking out at odd angles.  

'Oh, don't tell me you don't know. You two have been in on this from the start, haven't you?' The Doctor said, pointing angrily at them.

'In on what?'

'Him!' The Doctor said, pointing directly at Ianto.

'Wait, what did I do?' Ianto said, surprised at how the fingers had started being pointed at him. 

'It's not what you've done, it's what she's done. What she's still planning on doing.' He turned away from the pair of them whilst they were still trying to catch up.

'What made you think you could just do whatever you pleased? Hmm? You're my TARDIS, not his. You don't do anything without my say so.'

'Jack, what's going on?' Ianto asked. The Doctor acting strange was nothing new, but this was more than a little bit odd, even for him.

'You stop this right now!' The Doctor commanded. 'You hear me?'

'Doctor, what is it?' Jack said, sounding more frantic than Ianto had ever heard him. Without realising it, Jack had Ianto's hand caught in a vice like grip.

The Doctor turned to face him. 'Only the TARDIS - my TARDIS! - trying to rip apart the very fabric of reality! All because you two want a little more quality time together.'

'Doctor, you're not making sense,' Jack said, easing forward slowly, keeping Ianto behind him. 'Let's just all sit down and talk.'

'It's too late for that!'

Ianto had never seen this version of The Doctor get angry. He was meant to be the nice one, with the crazy bow ties and the penchant for funny hats. Not like the broody one with the pinstripes and sneakers, which made Ianto cringe, nor was he the grumpy Scottish one, who reminded him of those angry people in old people's homes that scared small children. He couldn't get used to the idea that they were all the same person.

'You,' The Doctor continued ranting. 'How could you? I mean, it's bad enough that Jack exists.'  

'Hey!' Jack yelled, face turning angry. 'I thought we were friends.'

'And now you want to go and create another one?'

'Another one?' Jack said, grabbing The Doctor by the arm. 'Doctor, what did the TARDIS do?'

'You. Him. She,' he couldn't finish any one sentence without feeling incensed.

'Jack?' Ianto asked, looking fearful. 'What does he mean when he says another one?'

The Doctor ripped his arm out of Jack's grip and paced over to the far wall, furious.

Jack placed a hand on the TARDIS console and shut his eyes. 'What did you do, old girl? What's the Doc so angry about?' When she showed him, he suddenly backed away, looking pale and frightened.

Ianto walked over to meet him halfway, clutching his arm. 'What did she show you?'

Jack blinked as if noticing him for the first time. 'You. Ianto, I...'

The Doctor looked over at both of them, his eyes steely, arms folded. 'Go on. Tell him.'

Jack looked back at his lover. 'She.... she gave you some of her time vortex energy.'

Ianto frowned. 'What does that mean?'

'She extended your timeline.'

Ianto wasn't sure he knew what that meant either, though had some inkling. 'But, I don't feel any different. I didn't notice.'

'You wouldn't have,' The Doctor said, slowly walking back over, 'because the TARDIS thought she was being clever. Just a tiny bit each night while you were sleeping so you wouldn't notice. So I wouldn't notice,' he added more loudly. 'But I did. She got greedy. Wanted to speed up the process a bit. Caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar.'

'So... I'll live a little bit longer?'

The Doctor threw his head back and laughed. 'A little bit? Does fifty thousand years sound like a little bit to you?'

'Fifty thou-' he felt his legs go weak underneath him. Luckily, Jack was there to grab him around the waist and stop him falling down from the shock of it all.

'Oh, and that's not the best bit,' The Doctor said. 'She was only just getting started. If I hadn't caught it, she'd have kept going. A few thousand years here, a few millenia there...'

'Ho-, how far?' He could barely get the words out.

'All the way,' he said, elongating every word. 'Another impossible immortal to keep Jack company. Reality can't cope with one fixed point in the universe. How's it going to cope with two?' he yelled out to no one in particular, but perhaps his query was directed at the TARDIS.

'But, you can fix it right? Take the time vortex back out?' Ianto said.

The Doctor let out a mirth filled chuckle. 'No more than I can fix Jack, and believe me, I want to.'

Jack scowled at The Doctor, gripping Ianto tight against his body. He wanted to be happy at the news, but instead he was angry. Angry at The Doctor and the way he'd reacted. Angry that he disliked Ianto for what the TARDIS had done to him, and what she'd planned on doing. Moreover, he'd thought that The Doctor's distaste for his own condition was well in the past. Instead of keeping his mouth shut and leading Ianto away somewhere to process this new revelation together, he wanted to speak his mind. If he had to, they'd leave right now and never come back, that was how infuriated he found himself.

'What's done is done. Why can't you just be happy, Doctor? So what if someone lives longer than they should? You of all people should know how much it hurts to live and watch all of your friends die one by one, leaving you all alone. I'd give anything to have just one more day with Ianto than we're meant to. Anything.'

'His timeline is irreparably altered, Jack. Do you have any idea what impact that could have on the future? He's not meant to live forever. I know. I checked his time line.'

'You...' That made Jack angrier still. How dare The Doctor take the liberty of looking into Ianto's future - their future - and pass judgment on it. How dare he know how things ended. 'Did you ever stop to think about what Ianto wants?' Jack asked. 'Maybe he doesn't want to live forever. Gods knows it's been bad enough for me! Immortality is a curse, Doctor. It's a life sentence, and no matter what you do, there's never any escape from it. Ever.'

'Oh, so one second you're saying you don't want to watch him die, and now you're telling me you don't want him to live forever?'

Jack gripped Ianto harder. 'That's not what I meant and you know it.'

'Oh, so you want you cake and to eat it?' The Doctor fumed.

The TARDIS plunged them all into sudden darkness, powering down every last system with a mental snap of her fingers. 'Children, all of you,' she said, speaking in their minds. 'Even you, Doctor.'

'But,'

'Quiet,' she intoned, letting her voice reverberate through their neural pathways. She didn't like to do it, but sometimes a TARDIS could only take so much before she had to speak her mind. She let the lights come back up to half brightness.

'Rose Tyler made Jack out of love and good intentions. He was not intended, but nor is he unwelcome in future timelines.'

'You looked?' The Doctor said, aghast.

'There is much ahead, but all things need balance. Ying and yang, male and female, north and south.'  

'Don't you talk to me about ying and yang,' he huffed.

The TARDIS ignored him. 'Jack requires a balancing force. You cannot leave him alone to face all the time lines that will ever exist. He will live on long after you and I are gone. Who will be there to look after him, then?'

The Doctor looked annoyed. 'Seems my opinion isn't required,' he said, refusing to say anymore on the subject.

The TARDIS turned her attention to Ianto. 'Ianto, I know I didn't ask you, and I'm sorry that I made a choice I thought would make you and Jack happy, but I'm asking you now. What would you like?'

He stood there puzzled. 'I don't really know,' he said, realising he hadn't verbalised the words, but that he was speaking to her in his mind. 'I'm not sure I know enough about it to make an informed decision.'

'You know Jack. You've seen what immortality has been like for him.'

Yes, he'd seen, but had he really understood? He'd seen how much it hurt Jack to sacrifice himself time and time again for people he often didn't even know, and who would never know him, or the sacrifices he'd made for them. He saw how much it hurt when those sacrifices weren't enough. He'd lost good friends over the years, but it was a handful of grains of sand compared to the entire desert full of grains Jack had lost. How he hadn't lost his mind to grief was almost unfathomable. He knew how much Jack's deaths hurt him, but he didn't want his death to hurt Jack either.

'I love Jack.'

'And he loves you. I would not have done it if I had believed otherwise.'

'Fifty thousand years is a long time,' Ianto said. He wasn't sure he could process that kind of measure of time.

'Immortality is longer.'

He thought about that for a moment. 'Will Jack be okay if I'm gone?'

'He will, eventually. But the universe will be wrong.'

'How?'

'All things in the universe come in twos. It is what is known as the natural balance of order. But the universe did not create Jack.'

'So, you're saying that because of it, the natural order is out of whack?'

'More or less.'

Ianto took a deep breath, knowing that in his heart the decision had been made before he'd even asked the question. 'Well, we can't have that. Jack causes enough chaos as it is. You should see the state of the bathroom after he's been in there.'

'I have,' she replied.

'Oh,' he said, realising than she was omnipresent. 'So... you've seen other stuff as well?' He cringed. CCTV was one thing. A sentient time machine watching them in their private moments was quite something else.

'I get bored. You two are very entertaining.'

'A voyeuristic time machine. Great.'

She giggled, sounding naughty. It was a strange sound for a TARDIS to make. Jack would have loved knowing that. Perhaps he already did.

'And we won't be tearing some enormous hole in the fabric of reality like The Doctor said?'

'On the contrary. You will be healing the rift left by Jack's immortality.'

'And if I should, um, die... Will I come back like Jack? I mean, I'm not complaining or anything, but it's all a bit violent and shocking. It's not exactly a walk in the park for me either, watching and waiting for him to come back.'

'I will do things properly this time. I only wish I could do the same for him. It was not a perfect science. More an accident.'

'I think I understand.'

'You haven't said yes, yet.'

'Didn't think I needed to. Pretty sure you read my mind when I first came on board.'

'That is true. lie down.'

Ianto went to move and realised he was still wrapped protectively in Jack's arms, and that both Jack and The Doctor were oblivious to the conversation they'd been having.

'Ianto?' Jack asked, his face full of worry.

'She said I should probably lie down.'

'I shouldn't let you go through with this,' The Doctor said, still looking thoroughly displeased. 'There's no telling what damage this could do to the time lines.' There must have been some angry exchange between the Time Lord and his TARDIS, because he quickly quelled his anger and drew himself back up to full height.

'You know it's difficult to look commanding in pajamas,' he sulked, 'but fine. The TARDIS seems intent on doing this whether I like it or not. She assures me that supposedly this is actually for the greater good, and not just because she has a soft spot for you two.'

Jack gripped him by the shoulders and turned Ianto to face him. 'Ianto, I... I don't know what to say. You don't have to do this. I'll be happy with whatever time we have together, no matter how short it might be.'

'Fifty thousand years,' Ianto repeated, still not sure he believed it, nor what he was about to do. 'Still a blink of an eye when you've got forever.'

'But so much more than I deserve,' Jack said touching his face.

'I don't need to tell you I'm a little scared,' Ianto said, and Jack chuckled, sniffing loudly.

'It's not gonna be all sunshine and rainbows,' Jack warned.

'I know.' He reached out and clasped Jack's hand, squeezing it tight. 'But I'll have you.'

'Not a bad consolation,' Jack joked. 'I still think I get the better deal.' Jack turned to face The Doctor, his face turning serious again. 'I need you to be okay with this.'

The Doctor heaved in a long breath. 'You checked the time lines?' he asked the TARDIS. She hummed at him. 'And you're sure?' She hummed again.

The Doctor frowned and Jack caught the worried look. 'What's wrong?'

'I just realised that I can't let this happen yet.'

Jack narrowed his eyes at the Time Lord, his earlier anger returning. 'Why not?'

'Because I'm not even dressed for the occasion, of course!' he exclaimed, running up to join them. Neither are you for that matter. I mean, come on, you can't really think you're doing it do this dressed like that, do you? It's not everyday you get to watch someone turn immortal.' He clapped Ianto on the arm. 'Ooh wait, can a wear a fez? It is a special occasion after all and fezs are cool.'

'You're really going to let us do this?' Jack asked, almost floored with the excitement running through him.

'Who am I to stand in the way of two immortals in love? Well, almost immortal. Soon, that is. Oh!' he cried, twirling around in a circle, anxious look all over his face. 'I have so many bow ties to choose from! Don't do anything without me!' He rushed off without another word.

Now that they were alone, Jack felt a wave of relief. 'We're really doing this?'

Ianto felt stupidly happy, waiting for the reality of it all to hit him like a tonne of bricks. 'We're really doing this,' he replied. 'I guess that changes everything.'

Jack cupped Ianto's face in his hands. 'This changes nothing,' he said, before kissing him. When they finally broke apart, Jack's eyes were shining with happy tears. He leaned over and placed a hand on the TARDIS console. 'Thank you.' He knew it would never be enough, but it was all he could manage for now.

 

'Where the hell is that Doctor?' Jack complained, lounging back on the seat that looked like it had been stolen out of the back seat of a car.

'Agonizing over wardrobe choices, apparently,' Ianto said, leaning against him. They'd ditched their own sleepwear for proper clothes; Jack in his usual pants and shirt, braces and heavy boots. Ianto had bypassed a whole swathe of suits and freshly pressed shirts with colour coordinated ties, instead opting for dark navy jeans and a much more casual shirt. For some reason a suit felt wrong. Suits had been so much a part of his old life, and today was supposed to be the beginning of some new part of his life. It felt right to begin something new, with something new.

'You know, Ianto, I don't think I've felt this nervous about anything since our wedding day.'

Ianto laughed. 'You? Nervous? The brave Captain Jack Harkness?'

'It's true. I thought you might leave me waiting at that altar.'

Ianto intertwined his fingers in Jack's. 'As if I would ever do that.'

'You weren't nervous?' Jack asked.

'I don't think I had time. I was so worried that the world would decide to end that day, and that we'd never make it there.'

'Instead there wasn't a weevil in sight,' Jack said.

'Not one.'

'Completely boring by Torchwood standards.'

'Totally,' Ianto agreed.

'I'm here! I'm here!' The Doctor yelled, rushing through the door and almost tripping over himself, but keeping one hand firmly over his head, deep red fez held in place. 'I didn't miss it, did I?'

'Oh, yes,' Ianto replied. 'We were just plotting a course for our post mortality honeymoon.'

The Doctor looked devastated, then stopped and frowned. 'You know, I never know when to take you seriously.'

Jack clapped The Doctor on the shoulder. 'Welcome to my life. You didn't miss a thing.'

Now that the moment really was here, Ianto felt ridiculously nervous. He eased himself down on the floor and lay flat, looking over at Jack and reaching for his hand. 'It's gonna be okay,' Jack assured him.

'Are you ready, Ianto?' the TARDIS purred.

'Now or never, I guess.'

At first he couldn't tell that anything was happening, but then it was like his stomach was full of butterflies, churning and swirling. He felt all tingly up and down his arms and legs, right to the tips of his ears and nose. There was something else too, pulling and tugging at him. He looked towards the sensation and saw Jack, his gaze locked with Ianto's own.

'He can feel you,' the TARDIS said, 'just as you can feel him. The vortex binds your bodies and souls together now.' It felt strange but nice, this sense of feeling Jack's presence. It was like a magnetic force.

'North and South,' the TARDIS repeated. 'Two halves of a whole.' Yes, it felt so right. Righter than anything he'd ever known.

'Ooh, tingles!' The Doctor cried, interrupting the serenity of the moment as he felt the vibrations in the time line quivering around them.

'It is done,' the TARDIS announced. 'A wrong I have finally righted.'

'Thank you,' Ianto said. 'Not just for fixing things, but for this. I don't know how to thank you properly.'

'Be yourself and you will have done everything I desire.'

He wasn't quite sure what that meant but he supposed that a super intelligent time machine knew better than he did about these sorts of things.

'You know something else?' Ianto said.  

'What is that, Ianto?'

'It's been really nice talking with you. You're always just there when The Doctor needs you, or when we've needed you, but it's so nice to finally be able to say it.'

'I agree.'

'We should do this more often.'

'The Doctor might get jealous,' she warned.  

'Jack might get jealous,' he added.

'Then we are at an impasse.'

'Well then, to hell with both of them. What's say you and I just take off to the stars and leave the two bickering children behind?'

'I like your style,' the TARDIS beamed.

'Are you two done whispereing to one another yet?' The Doctor interrupted. 'I know you're having a conversation without us. Now hurry up. We've got celebrating to do.'

'Maybe another time,' the TARDIS promised him. 'The children are getting restless.'

'When are they ever not?' he said.