All that we see or seem (Part 1)
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~ 2,400
Warnings: Canon (assumed) character death.
Summary: “Stop,” Ianto’s mother cuts him off. “He’s my child, Doctor. You can check the Matrix if you're doubtful.” She tugs Ianto back a step and smiles at him, heedless of the way it looks with half of the expression covered in deep red blood. “Do you remember our conversation, sweet? This is the man who can answer your questions.”
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I've wanted to write a Time Lord!Ianto story for a long time-since about twelve seconds after I discovered them, really-but never managed to actually do it. Then there was a prompt from Meridas, who is amazing, awesome, and one of the best reviewers I've ever encountered. (I’d call this a gift for the above wonderful person, but I also really, really wanted to write it, so it’s a bit too self-indulgent for that. -.-‘) The title is from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem A Dream Within a Dream.
All that we see or seem (is but a dream within a dream)
Sometimes, Ianto dreams of a world with an orange sky and grey clouds, of trees with silver leaves reaching towards two suns. There is a sense of wonder to those dreams, a sense of whimsy and longing and aching melancholy, but they're still happy dreams for the most part, and peaceful.
He doesn't have them often, only when he’s especially tired or heartsick. At such times they're a balm for his frayed nerves, his battered heart, because the rust and orange-brown of that strange place enfolds him like a mother’s arms, like a lover’s touch. I'm here, the planet whispers, even if I'm only in your dreams.
In the morning, when the dreams fade away, Ianto always awakens with tears on his cheeks and an ache in his soul that nothing can fill. Not Lisa, not his work at Torchwood One (where he’s spent years looking over every inch of the Archives for some mention of a vast orange planet with two moons and two suns), and after a while Ianto stops trying to console himself with either.
It’s clear that there's a hole in him that nothing else can fill.
*.~.*.~.*
Other times, the dreams are a little different, and Ianto will see a stern-faced woman with long brown hair, dressed all in red. She perches on a high stool, bent over a microscope as her fingers fly, taking notes. Still, she glances up at him every so often, and smiles.
“A moment, my sweet,” she says, and her voice is sweet and smooth to his child’s mind, like honey. “Just another moment. This organism’s reaction is fascinating, especially given its place of origin. Give me a minute, child?”
But Ianto is all right with this, because it happens often, and he knows that she is brilliant in a way few are, so he nods and smiles back at her. “Yes, Mother,” he answers, and-
And that makes no sense, does it? Because his mother was from Cardiff and so was his father, before they both died, and certainly neither of them was ever a scientist, or particularly brilliant. He even has a sister, even if he hasn't so much as spoken to her in years, not since she found out he liked both sexes equally and was unspeakably awkward about it.
(Of course, they were always a bit awkward together anyway, even before that-she’d often accused him of being “not right” when they were children, and Ianto, who has always been able to feel the rotation of the Earth beneath his feet, its axis around the sun, the galaxy’s movements in vast cosmic dance-well. Ianto had never argued the point.)
But the dreams come anyway, no matter the logic of them, and he sees himself and the woman and a ship with countless rooms moving through time.
Sometimes, he sees a dark man with different faces-who is always the same person underneath, regardless-who comes into their ship. The woman always sends Ianto to hide, when that happens, and won't let him come out, even when the man leaves her pale and shaking and furious.
Ianto barely waits until the man is gone before he runs to her, wraps his short arms around her waist, and holds on tight. The woman always hugs him back, one of the few times she clings as tightly to him as he always does to her. She presses her face into his hair and says fiercely, “Never be evil, child; it’s pure stupidity. Only an idiot would be wholly evil.”
Those are perhaps the only times she uses the word “evil,” and Ianto has to go an look up what it means in a book. He does, because his mother is brilliant and he never, ever wants to be stupid, no matter what.
“Evil” is confusing, but perhaps not so much as “good.” He asks her about it, sometimes, when he dreams, and she pulls him onto her lap and sighs into his dark hair.
“Oh, child,” she says to him. “Someday you'll meet a man who is very, very good, and he’ll be able to explain it much better than I. Can you wait until then, sweet?”
He can, because he’s willing to do anything when she sounds like that, when she has that look in her eyes, so he smiles and nods and then leads her away by the hand to show her his little chemistry set and the experiments he’s been doing.
*.~.*.~.*
But these are just dreams, of course.
They're not real, no matter what Ianto’s subconscious believes.
*.~.*.~.*
One time, he dreams of the door of the ship swinging open, and his mother limping in with her arm braced over the shoulder of a different man. He has curly hair and a rainbow coat, an equally bright umbrella tucked under one arm. Ianto’s mother looks battered but still beautiful, with blood running down the side of her fierce, strong face and her clothes torn.
She has not told him it’s all right to let this man see him, but she also hasn't told him it’s not all right, so Ianto abandons his book and runs to her, throwing himself against her good leg. He wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her tunic, because while he’s seen her hurt before, he’s never seen her this hurt.
“Mother,” he says shakily, and the bright man goes still.
His mother shoots a sharp look at her companion, even as she sinks gracefully to her knees and wraps her arms around Ianto. “Hush, my boy,” she tells him gently. “I'll be fine. You shouldn't worry.”
“Rani-” the bright man begins.
“Stop,” Ianto’s mother cuts him off. “He’s my child, Doctor. You can check the Matrix if you're doubtful.” She tugs Ianto back a step and smiles at him, heedless of the way it looks with half of the expression covered in deep red blood. “Do you remember our conversation about good and evil, sweet? This is the man who can answer your questions.” Fluidly, she stands and turns them both to face the bright man. “Doctor, this is my son. You may call him Ianto, as he prefers.” A hesitation, and then she adds softly, “If you would watch him as I change, it would be most convenient.”
She does not say I would be grateful, but it hangs in the air regardless.
The Doctor stares down at Ianto for a long beat before he looks back up at the Rani and nods, clapping his hands together cheerily. “All right. Come, Ianto, will you show me what you're reading?”
But his tone is the condescending one that all adults use, that Ianto hates above all, and he glares. His mother chuckles as she walks away, leaving them alone.
“I might be a child,” Ianto tells the Doctor sharply, “but I'm not simple, and I'm not stupid. Why does Mother think you can tell me about good and evil?”
With a roll of his eyes, the Doctor sinks down on one of the Rani’s stools and looks at Ianto closely. “All right,” he repeats. “Well…perhaps it’s easier to start with evil. Do you know what evil is, Ianto?”
“Stupid,” Ianto answers promptly, because this is what his mother has told him, and she’s brilliant. Of course she knows the correct answer.
The Doctor snorts out a laugh, but nods. “Yes,” he agrees. “I suppose that’s one thing it is, especially to the Rani. But evil is also doing bad things, even when you know they're bad, and not caring that you're hurting others. Like taking a life, even when you have the choice not to.”
Ianto mulls that over for a few moments, assessing, and then carefully files it away for future contemplation. “And good?” he asks.
There is a look in the Doctor’s eyes that Ianto has never seen before, something weary and tired but also incredibly strong, a fire and a light in a dark place and a star at the peak of its life.
“Good,” he says, “is always doing the right thing, no matter how hard it is or what the cost.”
*.~.*.~.*
Ianto hears the whisper of those words as he stands over Lisa’s half-converted body, wavering.
No matter how hard it is or what the cost, the bright man whispers in his memory (in his dreams? It’s hard to tell anymore), and Ianto wants to cry.
Evil is also doing bad things, even when you know they're bad, and not caring that you're hurting others.
But love is always good, isn’t it?
Love is goodness.
This can't be wrong.
(Ianto closes his eyes as he bends down to free Lisa. He knows. He knows it’s wrong but he’ll do it anyway.)
(I'm sorry, he wants to say to the bright man, to his dream-mother, but he doesn't.)
*.~.*.~.*
He has dreams where he’s older, too, not just a child but a young man. His dream-mother stands beside him, looking out into the brilliant nothingness of space, and he’s nearly as tall as she. There is a planet before them, a dusky orange-brown with grey clouds scattered across the surface and two moons circling it.
“Home,” she murmurs, but there's anger in the lines of her face.
Ianto touches her shoulder. “I won't go if you don't want me to,” he offers, because it’s painful for her to be here, when she was banished so unfairly. “Let them keep their credentials. I've never attended the Academy, and I don't need to pass their tests.”
The Rani scuffs a hand through his hair, a mother’s aggravatingly fond gesture. “No,” she counters, “you'll go down there and show them just how brilliant you are, my boy. Let them see what they missed when they wouldn't let you attend. You're ready for a TARDIS of your own, and I won't let them steal that from you.”
They share a smile in the reflective surface of the window, even as the Rani’s TARDIS drops towards Gallifrey.
*.~.*.~.*
And then there are the dreams-nightmares, almost-where his mother comes to him with terrified fury in her eyes, and presses the key to her ship into his hand.
“Hide her,” she says, ghosting a kiss over his forehead. “Hide yourself as well. There is a war out there, sweet boy, and evil.”
“Evil is stupidity,” Ianto says automatically, shutting his book and rising to his feet, because it isn’t like her to be worried over anything. She’s conquered planets, escaped the Tetraps, survived the Doctor and his whirlwind adventures. “Mother?”
She smiles at Ianto, warm in the way she has only ever been to him. “Evil has numbers, though, my dearest,” she murmurs, and kisses his cheek. Then she’s gone in a whirl of comfortingly familiar chemical scent, with the words, “Use the Chameleon Arch, and don't look for me,” fading behind her as she leaves Ianto’s TARDIS.
Ianto has always obeyed his mother unless he has a very good reason not to. This time, though, he has no reason, because his mother is brilliant and she wants him to hide, and hide her TARDIS.
She would never ask for such a thing without due cause.
Ianto hides both TARDISes where they will not be found, sets up the Chameleon Arch in his own, and slides the fob watch into place. Then, with a breath, he pulls the headset down.
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
*.~.*.~.*
Ianto Jones dreams of being someone else. He knows everything. And he is in the habit of always carrying a fob watch with him, even though he cannot remember where he gained either the habit or the watch itself.
Looking at Captain Jack Harkness is uncomfortable at first, though Ianto puts it down to guilt. He adjusts eventually, because he grows to love Jack, and love is strong enough to shut out strange instincts that he only half-recalls.
There is a part of him, in his dreams and in the space between waking and sleeping, which mourns a woman called the Rani as his mother, and knows that he has no family on Earth. A part of him that looks for a green door standing alone, or a grey-and-red pyramid rematerializing with a humming, grinding sound. But it is a small part, easily ignored while he’s awake.
Then Jack leaves, disappears between one moment and the next, and over the security footage Ianto can hear the sound from his dreams.
The fob watch is heavy in his hand. He flips it over, studies the etchings on the back.
He’s never opened it before. That now seems like a fairly grievous error.
It unlocks with barely a finger’s touch, and the world turns to deep dark gold.