The Man in the Tower (Part 7) ~ Complete
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~ 2,000
Warnings: Fluff, and copious amounts gratuitous feel-good schmoop.
Summary: Torchwood Tower Three is a place where Earth sends still-useful exiles: a Prime Talent, a technopath, and a biokinetic, drifting around in a station at the cross points of three universes and six galaxies. Then a man named Captain Jack Harkness falls through a tear between universes, and finds three very familiar faces on the other side.
A/N: Final chapter! I swear, there's some sort of mental block in my head against finishing stories. Last chapters always take four times as long as any other. *le sigh*
Chapter Seven
Ianto lies on the table in the autopsy bay of the rebuilt Hub, still and far too pale for Jack's liking. But he’s breathing, Jack can see it, and that’s all he needs for now. Ianto is alive. Even though he’s exhausted from teleporting them across dimensions and destroying the Hive, he’s still alive.
The Doctor is a dark, unhappy presence hovering at Jack's back, silently sorrowful, but Jack can't bring himself to care about that, either. He knows, if only secondhand, that the Hive were more than capable of wiping out this and every other inhabited planet. Only a Talent of Ianto’s skill and strength could have stopped them the way he did, and since there are no others-not on Earth and not on any planet Jack's ever been to, either-Ianto did what had to be done.
Jack doesn't regret it, and he knows Ianto won't, either.
“He’s not the man you knew,” the Doctor says eventually.
It’s a small, sharp pain that the Doctor won't say “loved”-as though he doesn't think Jack capable of such a feeling. But Jack pushes that down, tightens his grip on Ianto’s hand, and answers, “I know. I think I love him because of that, not in spite of it. He’s…different, but it’s a good difference.”
It’s entirely the truth, and simply speaking it aloud like this is something overwhelmingly freeing, like wings and weightlessness and an open sky. Jack wraps his fingers around Ianto’s hand a little more tightly, breathes slowly and carefully because it feels as though he might take flight if he’s not grounded. There's a touch of warmth in the back of his mind, a spot of brilliance that is Ianto, and Jack's been alone in his own head for so very long that it’s a fascinating change, something small but uplifting.
“Move it, Harkness,” Owen snipes, batting both him and the Doctor out of the way as he stalks closer to the bed. “Bloody useless Prime, fainting before he can make himself useful and ‘port my equipment into this scrap heap,” the Healer mutters, swatting Jack's hand away from Ianto’s with glowing fingertips. He touches skin and Ianto immediately relaxes, tension draining out of him like a low, slow sigh. “Bloody useless,” Owen repeats, but it’s more fond than pissy, and Tosh laughs at him from her place on the steps.
“We’re not the same people who were here before, either,” she informs the Doctor, still smiling gently, “but I hope you won't hold that against us. We came a long way because your world needed us to stop the Hive.”
“By killing them all?” the Doctor asks, but he’s not puffed up the way he would normally be, certain of his moral high ground. It seems that he remembers the failed attempts at communication, the planes shot down before they could ever make contact.
“Yes.” Tosh's voice is firm to the point of immovable. “You haven’t seen what the Hive is capable of, Doctor, or you would agree with us. They take over whole worlds, wipe out all living things on them, and then seed them with their young. The young mature, devouring everything on the planet-even each other-and then follow their parents on to the next planet, and the next, and the next. If I had to guess, I’d say that's the reason this universe has so many kinds of aliens and ours had none-the Hive destroyed them all.”
There's a long moment of chilling silence, where even the Doctor looks a little horrified. Then Rory offers, “Well, I for one am all for exterminating bugs before they can spread, especially when they look like that.”
From where they’re leaning over the railing above, Amy elbows him hard-for the sentiment or for breaking the moment, Jack can't tell-and Rory protests. Owen sighs and mutters, Tosh giggles, the Doctor allows himself a smile, and Jack relaxes in his chair, taking Ianto’s hand again.
Family, he thinks, and it’s everything he’s been missing for so long.
*.~.*.~.*Ianto wakes up that afternoon, a little wan but cheerful enough. Tosh and Owen have been hovering, and the Healer at least hasn't left his side, no matter how strenuously he denies it. when he makes a move to get up, both of them are there, gripping his elbows and pulling him to his feet.
Jack, up in the main part of the Hub, hears their voices and smiles to himself, then begins laying out cartons on the conference room table.
“Jack?” Ianto calls a moment later, as he’s helped up the stairs.
“Over here,” Jack calls back. “Come on up, I've got something I need your help with.”
The three of them trade confused glances, but follow the order anyway. Tosh loops an arm through Ianto’s, guiding him, and Owen chivvies them from behind as they make their way to the doorway where Jack is waiting, grinning widely.
One step through the door and they all stop dead.
The conference table is covered with food, more of it than the four of them can eat even if they worked at it all day. Chinese, Italian, Thai, Spanish, and boxes of pizza as the centerpiece-it’s everything they haven’t had in years, and overwhelming.
“Haven’t you ever heard of moderation, Harkness?” Owen mutters, but his eyes are wide, and he’s already heading for the pizza box with a look on his face that says they’ll need a crane and a good amount of sedative if they want to get him away from it before he’s done. Tosh is equally quick to seize a large bowl of salad, piling it on her plate. Jack just watches them with a pleased smile on his face, eyes bright with warmth and fondness.
Ianto puts a hand on his arm, only half for support.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and Jack turns that brilliant smile his way.
“You're welcome,” he returns, and the look on his face is so sweet that Ianto just has to kiss it off.
*.~.*.~.*This new world is strange, much different than the one Ianto has known for over a decade. He walks out of the Tourist Office with Tosh on one side and Owen on the other, and the three of them share a glance and then, as one, lift their faces to the sky.
“God,” Tosh whispers after an endless moment of breathtaking blue. “It’s…”
“Gorgeous.” Owen’s voice is gruff and hoarse, on the verge of being choked up, though he’ll never acknowledge it. “Bloody hell. How many years has it been?”
“Seven, for me,” Ianto offers a touch bleakly. “Seven years in that damned Tower, breathing recycled air, staring at metal walls, eating protein rations.”
“Six years and two hundred thirty days, for me,” Tosh says, closing her eyes. There's a smile on her face, brilliant and beautiful. “And now…it’s over.”
Ianto takes a deep breath of fresh, planet-side air, and lets it out in a laugh of relief and joy he can feel from his toes on up. “Makes me want to twist the Tower into scrap metal and be done with it,” he admits, and it's glorious, being able to contemplate such a thing.
“Oi! Not until we get all of my equipment out of there you won't!” Owen protests, raising a threatening finger at Ianto. “That stuff’s irreplaceable.”
Ianto rolls his eyes indulgently. “Yes, Owen,” he placates. “Your equipment comes out first, I promise.”
Jack comes out to call them in a few minutes later, steps into the tableau of Owen and Ianto wresting around in the dirt like boys, Tosh all but convulsed with laughter off to the side, and just shakes his head.
He’s grinning, though.
“Come on, hooligans,” he says tolerantly. “Back inside or it’s time-out for all of you.”
Sprawled over the pavement, Ianto and Owen trade glances, then turn to look narrowly up at Jack. Jack's eyes widen in sudden, horrified understanding, but before he can even begin to move, the two men launch themselves at him and tackle him to the ground. Tosh whoops as they go down, bent nearly double, and laughs even harder.
*.~.*.~.*
The Doctor and his companions take their leave in the morning. In the doorway of the TARDIS, the Doctor pauses and looks back at Jack, standing tall and steady in the Plass with Ianto on his right, Tosh and Owen at his back.
“Don't suppose I can tempt you with a quick trip?” he offers. “Barcelona’s beautiful at this time of year. And there are dogs with-”
“No noses,” Jack finishes for him, smiling a little. He shakes his head, though, for once entirely unmoved by the temptation. He’s already found his Eden, after all. “Thanks, Doctor, but I'm going to have to pass. Earth needs me here, and I've been gone for too long already.”
For a long moment, the Doctor just looks at him. Then, without warning, he smiles brilliantly and claps Jack hard on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit!” he cries. “Now, onward! Universe to see, all of time to explore, must be off!” He ducks through the door, and the police box shuts behind him. There's a beat of silence, and then with a whooshing, grinding sound the TARDIS fades from sight.
It’s an acknowledgement, where Jack never realized he needed one. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and can't bring himself to be surprised when Ianto’s hand slides into his.
“What now?” Ianto asks, stepping closer to press their shoulders together.
This Ianto is far less cautious with his touches than the other; Jack puts it down to living in a universe where gender no longer mattered in regards to love or marriage. It’s…comforting, like a reminder of Jack's own time, and he presses back a little.
“Now?” He looks up at the sky, blue and endless, even with the clouds coalescing on the horizon. “Torchwood’s mostly gone-Archie in Two is just about the only one left. I think we should change that.”
Tosh steps up on Ianto’s other side, pulling Owen with her, and she glances meaningfully at Ianto. “Those Potentials that we felt,” she offers after a beat. “They're just about ready to be woken up. If we can train them, and Ianto can identify them, that would make for a good basis for the new Torchwood.”
“At least one of them is a Healer,” Owen agrees. “Train the little bastards, set up some sort of school, and do it right, and that’ll be your new Torchwood.”
Jack wraps his arm around Ianto, pulls him close, smiles at Tosh and Owen. He can't remember the last time his heart felt so light, so warm. It’s brilliant.
“Yeah,” he agrees, and if his voice is a little choked up, none of them mentions it. “That’ll work.”
It will. They’ll make sure of that.
*.~.*.~.*
esto perpetua
Word count: ~ 2,000
Warnings: Fluff, and copious amounts gratuitous feel-good schmoop.
Summary: Torchwood Tower Three is a place where Earth sends still-useful exiles: a Prime Talent, a technopath, and a biokinetic, drifting around in a station at the cross points of three universes and six galaxies. Then a man named Captain Jack Harkness falls through a tear between universes, and finds three very familiar faces on the other side.
A/N: Final chapter! I swear, there's some sort of mental block in my head against finishing stories. Last chapters always take four times as long as any other. *le sigh*
Chapter Seven
Ianto lies on the table in the autopsy bay of the rebuilt Hub, still and far too pale for Jack's liking. But he’s breathing, Jack can see it, and that’s all he needs for now. Ianto is alive. Even though he’s exhausted from teleporting them across dimensions and destroying the Hive, he’s still alive.
The Doctor is a dark, unhappy presence hovering at Jack's back, silently sorrowful, but Jack can't bring himself to care about that, either. He knows, if only secondhand, that the Hive were more than capable of wiping out this and every other inhabited planet. Only a Talent of Ianto’s skill and strength could have stopped them the way he did, and since there are no others-not on Earth and not on any planet Jack's ever been to, either-Ianto did what had to be done.
Jack doesn't regret it, and he knows Ianto won't, either.
“He’s not the man you knew,” the Doctor says eventually.
It’s a small, sharp pain that the Doctor won't say “loved”-as though he doesn't think Jack capable of such a feeling. But Jack pushes that down, tightens his grip on Ianto’s hand, and answers, “I know. I think I love him because of that, not in spite of it. He’s…different, but it’s a good difference.”
It’s entirely the truth, and simply speaking it aloud like this is something overwhelmingly freeing, like wings and weightlessness and an open sky. Jack wraps his fingers around Ianto’s hand a little more tightly, breathes slowly and carefully because it feels as though he might take flight if he’s not grounded. There's a touch of warmth in the back of his mind, a spot of brilliance that is Ianto, and Jack's been alone in his own head for so very long that it’s a fascinating change, something small but uplifting.
“Move it, Harkness,” Owen snipes, batting both him and the Doctor out of the way as he stalks closer to the bed. “Bloody useless Prime, fainting before he can make himself useful and ‘port my equipment into this scrap heap,” the Healer mutters, swatting Jack's hand away from Ianto’s with glowing fingertips. He touches skin and Ianto immediately relaxes, tension draining out of him like a low, slow sigh. “Bloody useless,” Owen repeats, but it’s more fond than pissy, and Tosh laughs at him from her place on the steps.
“We’re not the same people who were here before, either,” she informs the Doctor, still smiling gently, “but I hope you won't hold that against us. We came a long way because your world needed us to stop the Hive.”
“By killing them all?” the Doctor asks, but he’s not puffed up the way he would normally be, certain of his moral high ground. It seems that he remembers the failed attempts at communication, the planes shot down before they could ever make contact.
“Yes.” Tosh's voice is firm to the point of immovable. “You haven’t seen what the Hive is capable of, Doctor, or you would agree with us. They take over whole worlds, wipe out all living things on them, and then seed them with their young. The young mature, devouring everything on the planet-even each other-and then follow their parents on to the next planet, and the next, and the next. If I had to guess, I’d say that's the reason this universe has so many kinds of aliens and ours had none-the Hive destroyed them all.”
There's a long moment of chilling silence, where even the Doctor looks a little horrified. Then Rory offers, “Well, I for one am all for exterminating bugs before they can spread, especially when they look like that.”
From where they’re leaning over the railing above, Amy elbows him hard-for the sentiment or for breaking the moment, Jack can't tell-and Rory protests. Owen sighs and mutters, Tosh giggles, the Doctor allows himself a smile, and Jack relaxes in his chair, taking Ianto’s hand again.
Family, he thinks, and it’s everything he’s been missing for so long.
*.~.*.~.*Ianto wakes up that afternoon, a little wan but cheerful enough. Tosh and Owen have been hovering, and the Healer at least hasn't left his side, no matter how strenuously he denies it. when he makes a move to get up, both of them are there, gripping his elbows and pulling him to his feet.
Jack, up in the main part of the Hub, hears their voices and smiles to himself, then begins laying out cartons on the conference room table.
“Jack?” Ianto calls a moment later, as he’s helped up the stairs.
“Over here,” Jack calls back. “Come on up, I've got something I need your help with.”
The three of them trade confused glances, but follow the order anyway. Tosh loops an arm through Ianto’s, guiding him, and Owen chivvies them from behind as they make their way to the doorway where Jack is waiting, grinning widely.
One step through the door and they all stop dead.
The conference table is covered with food, more of it than the four of them can eat even if they worked at it all day. Chinese, Italian, Thai, Spanish, and boxes of pizza as the centerpiece-it’s everything they haven’t had in years, and overwhelming.
“Haven’t you ever heard of moderation, Harkness?” Owen mutters, but his eyes are wide, and he’s already heading for the pizza box with a look on his face that says they’ll need a crane and a good amount of sedative if they want to get him away from it before he’s done. Tosh is equally quick to seize a large bowl of salad, piling it on her plate. Jack just watches them with a pleased smile on his face, eyes bright with warmth and fondness.
Ianto puts a hand on his arm, only half for support.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and Jack turns that brilliant smile his way.
“You're welcome,” he returns, and the look on his face is so sweet that Ianto just has to kiss it off.
*.~.*.~.*This new world is strange, much different than the one Ianto has known for over a decade. He walks out of the Tourist Office with Tosh on one side and Owen on the other, and the three of them share a glance and then, as one, lift their faces to the sky.
“God,” Tosh whispers after an endless moment of breathtaking blue. “It’s…”
“Gorgeous.” Owen’s voice is gruff and hoarse, on the verge of being choked up, though he’ll never acknowledge it. “Bloody hell. How many years has it been?”
“Seven, for me,” Ianto offers a touch bleakly. “Seven years in that damned Tower, breathing recycled air, staring at metal walls, eating protein rations.”
“Six years and two hundred thirty days, for me,” Tosh says, closing her eyes. There's a smile on her face, brilliant and beautiful. “And now…it’s over.”
Ianto takes a deep breath of fresh, planet-side air, and lets it out in a laugh of relief and joy he can feel from his toes on up. “Makes me want to twist the Tower into scrap metal and be done with it,” he admits, and it's glorious, being able to contemplate such a thing.
“Oi! Not until we get all of my equipment out of there you won't!” Owen protests, raising a threatening finger at Ianto. “That stuff’s irreplaceable.”
Ianto rolls his eyes indulgently. “Yes, Owen,” he placates. “Your equipment comes out first, I promise.”
Jack comes out to call them in a few minutes later, steps into the tableau of Owen and Ianto wresting around in the dirt like boys, Tosh all but convulsed with laughter off to the side, and just shakes his head.
He’s grinning, though.
“Come on, hooligans,” he says tolerantly. “Back inside or it’s time-out for all of you.”
Sprawled over the pavement, Ianto and Owen trade glances, then turn to look narrowly up at Jack. Jack's eyes widen in sudden, horrified understanding, but before he can even begin to move, the two men launch themselves at him and tackle him to the ground. Tosh whoops as they go down, bent nearly double, and laughs even harder.
*.~.*.~.*
The Doctor and his companions take their leave in the morning. In the doorway of the TARDIS, the Doctor pauses and looks back at Jack, standing tall and steady in the Plass with Ianto on his right, Tosh and Owen at his back.
“Don't suppose I can tempt you with a quick trip?” he offers. “Barcelona’s beautiful at this time of year. And there are dogs with-”
“No noses,” Jack finishes for him, smiling a little. He shakes his head, though, for once entirely unmoved by the temptation. He’s already found his Eden, after all. “Thanks, Doctor, but I'm going to have to pass. Earth needs me here, and I've been gone for too long already.”
For a long moment, the Doctor just looks at him. Then, without warning, he smiles brilliantly and claps Jack hard on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit!” he cries. “Now, onward! Universe to see, all of time to explore, must be off!” He ducks through the door, and the police box shuts behind him. There's a beat of silence, and then with a whooshing, grinding sound the TARDIS fades from sight.
It’s an acknowledgement, where Jack never realized he needed one. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and can't bring himself to be surprised when Ianto’s hand slides into his.
“What now?” Ianto asks, stepping closer to press their shoulders together.
This Ianto is far less cautious with his touches than the other; Jack puts it down to living in a universe where gender no longer mattered in regards to love or marriage. It’s…comforting, like a reminder of Jack's own time, and he presses back a little.
“Now?” He looks up at the sky, blue and endless, even with the clouds coalescing on the horizon. “Torchwood’s mostly gone-Archie in Two is just about the only one left. I think we should change that.”
Tosh steps up on Ianto’s other side, pulling Owen with her, and she glances meaningfully at Ianto. “Those Potentials that we felt,” she offers after a beat. “They're just about ready to be woken up. If we can train them, and Ianto can identify them, that would make for a good basis for the new Torchwood.”
“At least one of them is a Healer,” Owen agrees. “Train the little bastards, set up some sort of school, and do it right, and that’ll be your new Torchwood.”
Jack wraps his arm around Ianto, pulls him close, smiles at Tosh and Owen. He can't remember the last time his heart felt so light, so warm. It’s brilliant.
“Yeah,” he agrees, and if his voice is a little choked up, none of them mentions it. “That’ll work.”
It will. They’ll make sure of that.
*.~.*.~.*
esto perpetua