fic- More Than Ch 6: Unexpected
Title - More Than
Chapter 6: Unexpected
Author - coffee_n_retcon
Rating - T
Characters - Ianto/Jack, Ten, Tardis
Length - 1850 words
Summary - On Day Four Jack Harkness’ world crumbled. Six months later he gave up and ran. Now he's back with the Doctor, and together they discover something better, something More Than their wildest dreams.
Spoilers - Any and all, COE
Disclaimer - C'mon, if they were mine I'd take better care of them and feed them lattes and chocolate.
Chapter 6: Unexpected
The next morning, well, relatively speaking, Ianto was up and in the kitchen. He was in the mood for a full Welsh breakfast and had gotten up with exactly that intention, having left Jack soundly asleep and snoring in bed. Ianto smiled at the thought, two years on and Jack still claimed he did neither.
“Morning!” The Doctor grinned from the doorway where he stood in exceedingly wrinkled pyjamas.
“Morning. Coffee’s ready.” Ianto couldn’t help but grin widely in return.
“I really am a tea-drinker,” the Doctor told either Ianto or himself as he moved to the pot and poured himself a cup of coffee. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of its aroma.
“Yep. I can absolutely tell.” Ianto moved to turn the bacon before emptying the toaster and adding yet more bread. He watched the Doctor take a sip and sigh deeply as he sat with his mug. “I can stop, you know. Making coffee. Make something else, if you’d prefer…”
“NO!” the Doctor’s eyes shot open. He looked at the way Ianto stood, hands on his hips and already immaculately dressed, grinning back at him. The Doctor beamed, “Now stop that Ianto. I’ve got enough to put up with around here already. Speaking of whom, how is our Jack?”
Ianto supposed the Doctor had figured out that something had been wrong when they went to bed last night, but wasn’t sure how much he’d guessed, or for that matter, how much he should say. “He’s… sleeping.”
“Hmmm.” The Doctor took another long sip of coffee. “Not quite what I was asking.”
“No, it wasn’t, was it?” Ianto moved to retrieve the eggs.
“Might help to talk about it.”
“Might.” Ianto scrutinized the bacon with a small, contemplative frown, “I think…”
The Doctor waited while Ianto stared keenly at the sizzling pan. After a minute or three Ianto seemed to snap back and moved to fetch a serving plate. Only once the bacon was drained and the eggs were frying and the breakfast was almost ready, Ianto continued as if there had been no pause, “That Jack needed to see that I was… still me.”
“Well who else would you be?” Jack stood, leaning in the doorway, and grinned at Ianto.
Ianto smiled back and turned to scoop the eggs onto the plate alongside the bacon, sausage, tomatoes, fried bread and mushrooms.
“You two. Already dressed at the breakfast table. This just isn’t right.” The Doctor went to get a second mug of coffee.
“Better watch that Doctor, Ianto’s coffee is highly addictive,” Jack slid behind Ianto, squeezing by him in a rather unnecessary fashion, given the size of the kitchen. Jack stopped to rest his hands on Ianto’s hips and kiss his neck. “As is the man who brews it. Morning gorgeous.”
“Good morning to you too, Jack.” The doctor grinned at the two of them, glad that whatever had been the setback last night seemed to have worked itself out. The Doctor guessed it was one of two things. Either Jack was having problems with his young lover suddenly being another species (and a rather intimidatingly impressive species at that, if he did say so himself) or Ianto was having problems with suddenly becoming a different, highly impressive species, only to find that his immortal-fixed-point-in-time lover suddenly seemed… wrong.
For now, it seemed that whatever the problem was, it was willing to wait. The three of them sat down to Ianto’s intimidatingly impressive breakfast and discussed things of no importance whatsoever.
The Doctor cornered Ianto later that day when Jack was busy working-out in the gym, “So, how does Jack feel to you, now that you’re a Timelord?”
To his credit, while he did blush, Ianto remained calm and didn’t stammer when he answered with a raised eyebrow and a small smirk, “How Jack feels is none of your business, Doctor. You had your chance.”
‘Oh. Well. What? What?!?. No. That that ThatsnotwhatImeant.” The Doctor stammered.
“Go find your own dashing hero to feel-up.” Ianto glared at the Doctor for longer than he thought he could have managed before giving in and grinning widely.
“Oh! You!” The Doctor sputtered. “Just for that, now you have to answer my question, you cheeky monkey, you.”
“Jack feels…” Ianto paused and seriously considered the question. Then he realised he simply didn’t know. He frowned. He thought. He frowned some more before settling on the least incorrect word for how it felt, “Different.”
“Different.”
“Different.” Ianto wished someone would enter another word into the conversation, something… different. He took a deep breath and plowed on, “It’s not like he’s different from who he was… he’s just different, from everyone else. I’m not explaining this very well.”
“He doesn’t feel… wrong?” The Doctor peered at Ianto and waited.
“Nothing about Jack has ever felt wrong. I mean he can be wrong. Like when we disagree about something… then he’s clearly wrong. But no, he doesn’t feel wrong. He just feels like Jack.” Ianto bit his lower lip, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Oh, it makes more sense than you know.” The Doctor grinned so madly his face started to hurt, “And, best of all, it’s just brilliant!”
“I’m just saying its funny, Jack. What with all your stories… and you go and have a panic attack at the realization that Ianto isn’t human. That he has two hearts. Don’t know about ‘omnisexual.’ Sounds just a touch xenophobic.” The Doctor smiled to soften the suggestion. “You sure all those stories of yours are quite… accurate?”
“Ianto always seems to know what’s real.” Jack’s smile flickered and faded into a slight grimace, “At least I hope he knows.”
“I think Ianto would have run screaming by now, if he didn’t have a pretty good grasp on your version of reality.”
“I don’t know what caused me to panic, really. Whether it was that Ianto wasn’t what I expected him to be, or that he really is a Timelord.”
“And what, exactly, have you ever expected Ianto to be?”
Jack snickered. “I suppose you’re right. At very first I expected Ianto to be… a conquest. When I failed in that, I guess I expected him to be quietly efficient. Then I moved on to expect loyal, smart, devoted, caring, brilliant and… innovative. And Ianto delivered… big time. Now, I think I expect him to be… surprising.”
“Well, I’d say Ianto is definitely full of surprises.”
“You’re telling me. Then, back to what you were saying earlier… so even now, as a Timelord, Ianto can’t see me as fixed in time… as… wrong.” Jack peered at the Doctor.
“Oh, I think he sees it, all right. It just doesn’t bother him. As he says, ‘It’s just Jack.’”
“So, I’m not wrong.” Jack looked up at the ceiling.
“Not to Ianto, you’re not.”
“But you left me.”
“Look Jack, I’m sorry. Can we just let that go?”
“You said I was wrong, so wrong you couldn’t physically stand to be near me. The Master. In that year. He said the same thing. So many times…”
“Well Jack. Okay. Me, I’ve gotten used to it, to you, to the way it feels to just be around you. The Master, well… what he did or didn’t feel doesn’t matter. And Ianto, Ianto doesn’t feel that way about you at all.”
“But why?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.” Jack thought about it, “In fact, everything about Ianto matters to me.”
“Is this about Ianto?” the Doctor studied Jack. “Or is it about you?”
“It’s about… us. If I do feel wrong to him, how long until that gets to be… too much? Until not even Ianto can stand it? Until he leaves me?”
“I’m not leaving you, Jack.” Ianto stood in the doorway with a tray of coffees. “I’ve just trained you to put your dirty socks in the hamper. You think I’m getting rid of you now?”
“Ianto…” Jack whined slightly plaintively.
“Jack.” Ianto put down the tray and folded his arms across his chest, making his serious face.
“I have a theory.” The doctor pushed between them and continued brightly as he picked-up a mug, “When Ianto first met Jack, human or not, he would have been influenced by the time stream. I would assume, in fact, that Ianto has always been a little more conscious of time than most.”
Jack grinned and Ianto offered a small shrug. Jack laughed, “Oh c’mon! You cannot deny it, that is so you! Mr. Ten-minutes-early-is-late.”
“As I was saying!” The Doctor glared at Jack. ‘Influenced by the time stream… He would have felt it, even if he didn’t realize it or understand it as such. He would have felt that you were a fixed point, Jack, without knowing what that meant.”
“So I should have always felt wrong to him?” Jack looked to Ianto for confirmation or denial.
“Actually, Jack, I’m surprised you didn’t make him seriously ill. Just the sight of you.” The Doctor rambled on, “You know, make him… ill.”
“I didn’t, did I?” Jack turned to Ianto, looking seriously unwell himself at that given moment.
“I remember feeling… nervous.” Ianto smiled softly. “Butterflies, that sort of thing. But nothing… Nothing unpleasant.”
“Hmmm.” The Doctor looked at Ianto and considered whether or not the boy was just trying to be kind, or whether he really couldn’t feel Jack as a temporal point displacement. “Well, in any case, I would hazard that since you first met Jack while you were human, you, shall we say, ‘got used to him.’
“Oh thanks!” Jack smirked.
“Oh, you know what I mean. We all got used to you, Jack. Eventually.” The Doctor’s grin grew impossibly broad, “In any case, I think its good news for the two of you staying together. As long as you can keep putting those socks in the hamper, that is!”