A Matter of Time (17/20)
Rating: PG
Summary: In which there is waiting.
A/N: Thanks to thaddeusfavour and bacchae777 for the lighting-quick betas!
Previous chapters here.
~
“My friend isn’t a Time Agent. He’s a military captain, which is exactly what we’ll need to get into Zeta Oh.”
“And you think he’ll help you, why? He’d be risking his career.”
“He’ll do it.”
~
It took them a week to reach the location Jack had agreed on with his Captain - Captain Iro Westlin. The days passed quickly compared to the previous long-distance trips, because the days were busy enough with arguments and plans and weapons practice (Kethan insisted) and the nights, well. One Jack had enough of a libido to keep Ianto more than satisfied, two kept him busier than probably was medically advisable. Ianto ended up sleeping, as usual, with Kethan in their quarters, and Jack would come and go. Officially, he was sleeping in Brenneth’s quarters because the bed in Kethan’s really wasn’t big enough for three grown men, but when Ianto inquired in private, Jack admitted he still didn’t sleep much, and he didn’t want Kethan asking questions.
“What do you do at night, then?” Ianto asked, curious. He wasn’t entirely sure what Jack had done at Torchwood, with literally twenty-four hours to burn every day, but there he’d had Torchwood business to keep him occupied.
“Read. Meditate, sometimes. And talk to Jotir - he doesn’t sleep a whole lot, either, so we can keep each other company.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“His mother works for me,” Jack said. “I’ve known him since he was born.”
“Works for you?” Ianto asked, curious. “What do you do?”
“Not much, for the last two years,” Jack pointed out. “She’s my housekeeper, you could say.”
Ianto blinked. “You have a housekeeper?”
“In a practical sense, yes. I keep a house, but I sometimes leave for long periods of time. Jotir’s family lives there and makes sure it’s there when I come back.”
“I see.”
Some of the crew found Jack’s presence quite amusing - Soren and Ellis in particular thought it was hysterical and took every opportunity to crack jokes, especially once they clued in that Ianto had, in fact, managed to get both of them in bed at once. Ellis’ humour, however, reached an endpoint over what Jack was asking him to do to the engines.
“No. Just no.”
“Ellis,” Jack said patiently. “It’s the only way.”
“Do you understand what that means? Look,” he demanded, dragging Jack over to the schematics up on the screen in the bridge. “I do that much damage to the Star, and we are not moving until I’ve had a week in a spaceport.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly?” Ellis threw up his hands. “There’s no exactly about it! We’d be defenseless, a fish stranded out of water. We’d have no escape route.”
Jack’s glance flickered over Ianto and to Opal, who was watching impassively from the helm.
“I say exactly,” Jack explained, “because that’s precisely what we need to be - stranded. If we just do some minor damage and call Iro, what do you think he’ll have to do? Send his mechanics on board, who will find the problem and fix it. We need to be badly enough damaged to give him a good enough reason to tow us to Zeta Oh.”
“It won’t matter if we get there and can’t leave,” Ellis growled, looking pleadingly at Opal. “Captain, there has got to be another way.”
“I don’t see one,” she said with a shrug. “I agree it’s far from optimal, but if that’s what Jack says we need to do…”
“How’s this ‘Captain Westlin’ know about this, anyway?” Ellis demanded, rounding on Jack and stepping into his space. He barely came up to Jack’s chin, but his clear frustration was enough to make Jack step back a pace. “What were the chances he was near Zeta Oh to begin with? Isn’t this all a bit coincidentally easy?”
“Ellis-” Opal began, but Jack cut her off.
“It’s fine, Opal,” he waved a hand, and then leaned back on the console, considering Ellis. “He’s there because he’s known for twenty years he needed to be there, and pulled all the right strings.”
“How did he know?” Ellis asked, clearly not yet convinced.
“Because I told him. Straightforward enough for you?”
Ellis pursed his lips and gave a short nod. “How do you know him?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!” Ellis cried. “We’ve already dealt with one shoddy outsider. Who almost killed Ianto, in case you’ve forgotten. Unless you have a good reason to trust this Captain-”
“He’s my son.”
Ianto, and everybody else in the room, looked startled.
“You have a son?” Ianto asked, and immediately felt dumb. Jack had been around for long enough to have more than one son.
“I have a son?” Kethan asked, eyes wide.
“He’s our biological son, yes,” Jack said with a nod.
“He’s too old,” Opal said, thoughtfully. “Of course, that hasn’t stopped Kethan before.”
“Time travel is a wonderful thing,” Jack said with a grin. “Iro’s nearly fifty, but that’s no problem for a TARDIS. Now,” he said, and Ianto could see the switch back to business mode, “is that good enough for you, Ellis? I guarantee this is what happened, and that it goes - more or less - to plan.”
“It’s the more or less part I don’t like,” Ellis grumbled, but otherwise he acquiesced. Ianto watched him leave, dragging Opal along to help, and then looked over at Jack with a questioning glance.
“You know,” Kethan said, interrupting Ianto and Jack’s unspoken conversation. “I fit a hell of a lot into the next twenty years, don’t I?”
Ianto looked at him warily, hoping he wasn’t suspecting any more than just that. Jack just smiled easily.
“We never were one to lay back and do nothing. Are you surprised?”
“No. But a kid? That’s awful busy. And not in my cards.”
Jack clapped him on the shoulder and headed for the exit to the quarters section. “Trust me - most of what’s to come? Definitely not in your cards.”
He gave Ianto a look as he passed him, and Ianto took the hint and, after shooting a bewildered Kethan an apologetic look, followed Jack out into the corridor.
“So. He’s your son,” Ianto said, hands in his pockets. Jack turned back to him, expression open but attentive.
“Yep.”
“How many kids do you have? Because that’s two I’ve been surprised with recently,” Ianto snipped, and then cut himself off. Where did that come from?
Jack looked a little startled, but just opened his door and gestured inside. Ianto followed him in and let the door shut behind him.
“Are you jealous?” Jack asked, sounding a little incredulous.
“No!” Ianto said, shaking his head. “Or, well. I don’t think so. What would I be jealous of anyway?”
Jack’s lips twitched, like he was suppressing a grin, and he pulled the chair out from under the small desk and twirled it around, sitting so that his arms were leaning against the backrest.
“You tell me.”
Ianto was silent, considering. He couldn’t be jealous - what was there to be jealous of? So Jack had a kid. He wasn’t jealous of Ashild. But Ashild wasn’t even really Kethan’s kid.
“Is… does he have a mother?” Ianto asked, realized he didn’t even know exactly how this Iro Westlin was related to Jack. Biological kid was less descriptive than it used to be.
“Yes. A beautiful, fabulous woman named Nella Westlin.”
“So you were - together.”
“For about fifteen years, yes. She was a historian doing research on me - or the man who I was back in the twenty-first century - and unlike most other people, followed the data trail and realized I was Jack Harkness. She came demanding answers,” Jack said, a fond smile on his face, “and ended up sticking around a little longer than planned.”
“You would be pretty interesting to a historian,” Ianto said, not without a hint of disdain.
Jack raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. “Yep.”
“Why’d she leave?” Ianto asked, not sure why he was assuming she left him, and not the other way around. If it had been his Jack, he would have guessed it was his doing, but this man wasn’t the same.
“Job offer at a prestigious university, based on her work on me. Even if I wanted to follow her, it would have been tricky explaining how her partner happened to be genetically identical to the man she was researching. Even if the lore does say Captain Jack never got older.”
“It’s all lore, then?” Ianto asked, trying to move the conversation away from the topic that, for some reason, left him itchy with resentment.
“It was general knowledge, for a few centuries, but enough happened to bury the truth. Only I know it, now. And Nella, and you, I suppose.” Jack shrugged. “But it’s not important - and you are jealous.”
“Not of her,” Ianto insisted, and then he took a seat on the bed with a sigh. “Not of her for being loved by you. But maybe of her for having you.”
Jack watched him, giving him time to sort through his tumultuous thoughts.
“I can’t imagine you being interested in… creating a life with me. Not kids, I don’t want kids - ” not with Jack, anyway, not working at Torchwood “ - but just…” he trailed off, glancing down at his hands. “I miss what I had with Lisa, some days. I miss Lisa for herself, of course, but I miss the boring relationship bits as well. Waking up with someone in the morning. Getting angry about clogged drains. Buying groceries - cooking meals - for two. For all that I’m with you, then, we’re not really together. Not in any significant way.”
“I know.”
Ianto’s head snapped up, and he met Jack’s eyes. The last thing he expected was for Jack to agree with him. Jack gave him a wan smile.
“I’m not him. I’m not going to defend him. Because you’re absolutely right. As you know me, back then, I’m in no place to embark on any sort of real relationship.”
“Oh,” Ianto said. Well, it was at least nice to know he was right. He stood up and started for the door, but Jack moved quickly and caught him by the wrist.
“Ianto. Stop. I’m not telling you that to dash all your hopes-”
“I don’t have any,” Ianto protested. He didn’t expect anything of Jack, really. He just sometimes wished he could… have Jack and have more, all at once. But if he could only have one, he could be content with Jack. Or at least, he thought so. A month of waking up beside Kethan, taking meals with him, playing games and having real, honest conversations about something other than work had reminded him precisely of what his relationship with Jack wasn’t, and how much he wanted it.
“Yes you do. And you should, because I’m an idiot. An immature, unthinking idiot not to realize how unfair I’m being to you.”
Ianto let out a snort of laughter. “I know what I signed on for.”
“And it was good of you to humour me,” Jack insisted, “but know this: I will change. That’s not how it has to be, and you need to stop putting up with me and stop making excuses for me.”
Ianto gave Jack a wide-eyed stare. “You’re telling me to-”
“To ask for more. Because you deserve it, Ianto.” Jack pressed his hands to Ianto’s shoulders. “You don’t have forever to figure it out. I did, but I shouldn’t be wasting your life trying to do that. Don’t let me.”
“I, um…” Ianto shrugged, at a loss for words. “I’ll, well.” He cast around for something to say. “How about you get me back, and I’ll see what I can do?”
Jack grinned and leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to Ianto’s lips and then hauling him in. “God, I love you, Ianto Jones.”
Ianto’s heart leapt, and he hid his blush by burying his face in Jack’s shoulder. “Do you now?” he muttered, muffled by Jack’s shirt.
“You know it.”
“Even after three thousand years?”
“It takes more than time to dull those feelings, believe me,” Jack replied, resting his cheek against Ianto’s head. “You never forget the ones you love. Or at least, I haven’t yet, and I’ve got a bit more authority on that than anyone else.”
“You remember them all?”
“You. Everyone on this ship. Estelle. The Doctor. Rose. Toshiko and Owen. Gwen. Martha. Suzie.” Ianto could feel Jack’s shrug under his head. “I forgot Gwen’s name once, and I spent a panicked three days trying to recall it. But I never forgot that I loved her.”
“You’re a big old romantic, aren’t you?” Ianto asked, pulling back and giving Jack a teasing grin.
“You betcha,” Jack said, not letting go. “Always was. Just forgot for a while.” He pulled Ianto back in, this time resting his chin on Ianto’s shoulder. “Don’t be jealous of the fact that I have relationships after you. Take it as reassurance that I am, against all plausibility, capable.”
“Alright,” Ianto said quietly, slipping his arms through Jack’s and clasping them behind his back, content just to stand there. There was no point in worrying about home until he got there. For now, Jack was here and that was good enough.
After a minute or two of silence, Jack spoke again. “I need your help.”
“With what?”
Jack pulled back and met Ianto’s eyes. “I need to show you how to fly the TARDIS.”
Ianto let go and ran a hand through his hair. “Is that possible? And why?”
“Yes, it’s possible, and I need a back-up.” Jack nodded over to the desk and computer console. “I’ve drawn up plans, but I set up an emergency autopilot years ago, just for this. You hit the right buttons in the right order and you’ll be back in your own time.” He made a face. “Well, more or less. It’s hard to accurately pre-plan a TARDIS trip. But I erred on the side of later, so you should at least be able to find me.”
Ianto didn’t move. “Why can’t you do it? I thought this all succeeded.” Silence. “You said this worked,” Ianto accused. “I get back and Kethan lives and we get the TARDIS.”
Jack twitched a smile. “I know you get back. Clearly, Kethan survives. Me?” He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“You can’t die,” Ianto pointed out, flatly.
“No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get captured, or killed long enough that I’m out of action. Ianto,” he stressed, pointing at the screen. “Please? Someone else has to know how to fly the TARDIS.”
Ianto let out a breath. “Okay. Okay.”
“Thank you.” Jack smiled and beckoned him over. “Alright, so, the buttons are colour coded, and the first rule is, don’t touch the mauve ones…”
~
Iro Westlin looked, well, nothing like Jack. He was built on the same scale but that’s about where the similarities ended. His dark skin and corkscrew hair, cut close to his head, had Ianto doing a mental comparison, trying to see if he could find anything of Jack in the handsome, authoritative features of the Captain. The men greeted each other with comfortable familiarity and first names - whatever Westlin called Jack in private, he used Jack here - apparently unconcerned about what other people might say of this coincidental meeting.
The meeting in the cargo bay was brief, and Westlin sent his chief engineer off with Ellis to see what could be done, as Jack predicted. Ellis’s foul glance at Jack as he left evinced his annoyance at being shown up, but he acquiesced. Aimless chatter, comprised mostly of discussion of local activity and a nearby alien war and a few lies about the Evening Star’s recent activity followed until the engineers returned to the bay and confirmed what the crew of the Star already knew.
“Needs new parts and a serious overhaul,” the alien said, clapping her hands together twice before dropping them. “Can’t leave ‘em here, they’ll lose the back-up power before they can get the engine restarted.”
“Towing it is, then. Zeta Oh is nearest,” he glanced at Opal. “Will that do?”
“Certainly, if we can buy the parts there. They don’t have much of a market, from what I recall.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Westlin promised. “Co’hola, get the docking bay set, the rest of you,” he nodded at the crew, “need to pack your bags and join me on my ship. We’ll put you up in the guest quarters, though I’m afraid the rest of the ship will be off limits.”
“How long to Zeta Oh?”
“Forty-eight hours or so. Pack an overnight bag and you should be fine. Is ten minutes enough time?”
“Yes,” Opal turned to the crew. “You heard the man, pack up, anything you need to keep entertained for the next day or two. Back here in ten.”
~
“Bored now.”
“Are you twelve?”
Kethan stuck out his tongue at Soren and dropped his head back onto the arm of the couch.
“That doesn’t exactly help your case,” Jack pointed out from the desk across the room. Kethan ignored him and continued staring at the ceiling.
“Go play cards with the others,” Ianto suggested. It was just the four of them in this wing of what, to Ianto, seemed to be ambassadorial suits, or at least something designed for guests and not military. Soren had pulled a chair up in front of him and was currently losing the game of chess he was playing with Ianto. “You’re fine on the Star,” he pointed out from his seat at the other end of the couch. “How’s this different?”
“It’s different because I can’t even go tinker with the engines, or shoot some targets, or talk about nefarious plans I may or may not have.” He poked Ianto with a foot. “There’s only so long I can sit still and wait.”
“He also,” Jack interrupted, “doesn’t like feeling trapped. What?” he said at Kethan’s glare. “I just spent two years in a cell. I think I’m qualified to speak on our claustrophobic tendencies.”
“Two years,” Kethan sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “That’s forever. How could you stand it?”
“No choice. Kethan.” Jack hesitated and then went on. “Something I told myself - it’s always worth it.”
Kethan made a face. “I know. I’m here and doing this, aren’t I?”
Jack shrugged. “No, I know. Just remember it, alright?”
“I don’t,” Kethan pointed out, not angry, from what Ianto could tell. He seemed to have resigned himself to his fate, whatever that was.
“You get them back. Trust me, there are going to be days…” Jack trailed off.
“I get them back? Entirely?” Kethan sat up and swung his legs off the couch. “But you don’t remember everything.”
“You get them back,” Jack insisted, dropping his computer to the side table and stretching out his legs. Soren kicked Ianto under the table and Ianto’s attention went back to the game, ears still attuned to Jack and Kethan’s conversation.
“When?”
Jack made a face.
“Well, I won’t know until I get them!” Kethan exclaimed, throwing out his hands. “Obviously.”
Jack glanced over at Ianto and back at his younger self. “Well, in theory, Ianto’s going to bring them back to me.” He stood up and pulled what was shaped like a wallet, only a little smaller, out of his back pocket. Snapping the case open, he walked over to Kethan and dropped it into his outstretched hand.
“What is that?” Ianto asked, curious. Kethan was looking disturbed, as if Jack had just dropped a dead baby mouse into his hand.
Kethan bit his lip and held it out for Ianto to see. The inside was mostly lined with something soft and black, like a jewelry box, except for a thin, shiny hexagon settled in an indent in the middle.
“Okay,” Soren breathed out, looking a little on edge.
Ianto reached out to touch it, to see if it felt as slick as it looked, but Kethan jerked the case away.
“Don’t - it’s delicate,” he snapped it shut and gave it back to Jack, hurriedly.
“It’s my memories,” Jack said calmly, slipping it back into his pocket. “The ones he - ” he gestured at Kethan “ - is about to lose, and the ones I got back. The one missing them currently, in the loosest sense of the word, is your Jack.”
Ianto glanced at Soren, trying to get a grasp on the sudden tension in the room. Soren just shook his head and looked back down at the chessboard.
“How are your memories on there?” he asked, pointing to Jack’s pocket. “Retcon doesn’t store them anywhere.”
Kethan frowned. “You know about Retcon?”
“I use it all the time. Used it, back at Torchwood.”
There was a heavy silence and Ianto’s skin prickled.
“What is it?”
“Memory tampering is illegal,” Soren said flatly. “Mental adjustments, without explicit permission from the party, is highly illegal.”
“Not where I’m from,” Ianto said. “Jack - you - we use Retcon all the time. It’s how Torchwood stays secret.”
Jack sighed and took a seat between him and Kethan, elbows on knees.
“Ianto, Retcon is something I brought back from the fifty-first century with me. Here it’s… akin to a date-rape drug. Using it on another sentient being is highly illegal. It’s also imprecise, like painting over an oil canvas with watercolours. It’s a backwater drug, but it was all I could create from memory. This,” he tapped his pocket, “is what the big boys use. What the Time Agency uses. They don’t try to hide the memories in your mind, they take them out, entirely.”
“I thought you said it was illegal.”
“Only if you’re not above the law,” Soren muttered darkly as he moved a knight.
“Only if you don’t sign a contract with the Agency giving them explicit ownership over your memories,” Kethan said, voice defiantly level. His hands were gripped tight in his lap.
“That doesn’t make it any less disgusting,” Soren spat, shaking the table with a fist. Ianto plucked up two fallen pieces and put them back on their squares.
“I didn’t realize there was such a taboo against tampering with memories,” he said softly, not looking anyone in the eye.
“How could you not?” Soren exclaimed. “Who is anyone but their memories? Take those away and there’s nothing left.”
Kethan stood up suddenly, and the other three watched as he muttered an excuse and left the room. Soren glared at Ianto, though Jack was giving him a similar look.
“Very nice,” Jack rolled his eyes, settling back in the couch.
“Should I…” Ianto looked at the door Kethan had left out of.
“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “He just needs to collect himself. It’s only two years, after all, it’s not his whole life.”
“Two years is a long time when you’re twenty-eight,” Ianto muttered. “I’m sorry it didn’t click that it was such a horrible thing. I was sort of thinking he got off easy.”
“He does,” Jack said mildly. “But it sure as hell doesn’t look like that from his perspective. He’ll be okay, especially knowing he gets them back in short order.”
“How? How’d you get it here? You couldn’t have had it in the prison.”
Jack grinned, a little grimly. “A little time-traveling trickery. I went forward ten years ago and stole the memory chip from the Agency after it - well, when its archive security goes way downhill, shall we say. I gave it to Jotir to look after, and he gave it back to me my first night here. As soon as we split up, I’ll give it to you. That way, as long as you get to the TARDIS and get back to Earth, I’ll get them back.”
“And the circle completes,” Ianto said thoughtfully, trying to see if that all actually made sense.
“Yep.”
“So your future self is sending memories stolen from your past self to your present self?”
Jack blinked. “Yes?”
Soren let out a snort. “Ianto, I appreciate that chess isn’t very interesting in comparison, so do you want to just finish the game later?”
“Oh, um. Yeah, maybe. I actually,” he glanced at Jack and then back at the door. “I’m going to go find Kethan, is that all right? I’m not breaking any timelines?”
Jack waved him off. “Go. Tell him to buck up. It’s not that bad. I’ll finish your game for you.”
“Right.” Ianto apologized to Soren again and left them behind.
~
“Kethan?” Ianto stuck his head through a doorway. This was the dining room, and it was almost empty, but Ianto could see a figure standing in the dark by the expansive floor to ceiling window at the back. It was the only view they had of space from their series of rooms on the military ship.
Ianto maneuvered his way through the tables and came up beside Kethan, stopping a few feet away and taking in the sight of the man, illuminated by the strange glow of the engines he could just see outside. He had one hand pressed up against the glass (plastic? Super futuristic see-through compound?) and Ianto had a strange urge to reach over and put his on top. Jack’s hands had always made him feel safe, in their strength and absolute certainty over what he was doing them, but now he looked lost with one splayed out on the glass. Ianto reached up, instead, and touched his shoulder.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Kethan echoed back, not taking his eyes off the rushing space. “Sorry for storming out. I needed - ”
“S’fine,” Ianto said softly, stepping up beside him. “I didn’t… I never thought about it. What losing your memories really means. I guess I got used to it, at Torchwood.”
“Drugging people with Retcon?”
“We prefer ‘administering’,” Ianto joked, but it fell flat. “Yeah. It’s not much, usually, unless they’re criminals or something. Mostly just a few hours here or there. And it’s written into my contract, for if I need to leave.”
“What?” Kethan turned and made eye contact for the first time. “They’ll take your memories if you quit?”
“So it says.” Ianto stuck his hands in his pocket. “When I say I work for a secret organization, I’m not being stuck up.”
“No,” Kethan drawled. “I guess not. And I’m your boss?”
“Yeah.”
Kethan frowned.
“I can’t imagine ever ‘administering’ someone Retcon, let alone approving it as a standard mode of operation.” He tilted his head. “I’m pretty different, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” Ianto said, honestly. “You’re - you. But after more stuff.” He made a face. “Not the most eloquent of explanations.”
“Yeah, well, since you can’t tell me this stuff…” Kethan managed a smile and leaned gently against Ianto. Ianto took the hint and wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him up against him as Kethan mirrored him and dropped a head on his shoulder.
“Six hours and we’re there,” he said quietly.
Ianto pressed a kiss to his hair. “Six hours till D-day.”
“World War Two,” Kethan muttered. “I’m good with that time period. Liked it.”
“It was a war,” Ianto pointed out. “What’s there to like?”
“People fighting for their beliefs. Their lives, their countries. Acts of bravery and foolishness, often the same thing. Coming up against the worst of humanity to see if there’s really anything to you.”
“The worst of humanity is what sticks in most people’s minds, when I’m from.”
“Too near, I guess.”
“I guess. Have you seen it?” Ianto asked, curiously. Jack had lived through it, and he’d been stuck there for a few hours, and, apparently, he’d been there when he met the Doctor. If he’d been there a fourth time, that would have been a bit of the ultimate crossing of timelines.
“Nope. It’s a bit of a prize period; if we ever need to go there, I’m not senior enough.”
“Oh,” Ianto said, pressing his fingers into Kethan’s side, slipping a thumb under the edge of his shirt to touch the soft skin underneath. “Would you like to know that you do get to see it?”
Kethan turned to look at him, a real smile on his face. “Really?”
“Yep. Uniform and everything. You still have the coat.”
“Wicked,” Kethan said, pressing a kiss to Ianto’s jaw line before settling back against his shoulder. “It’s funny, a lot of people think the future would be the really cool thing, if you could travel through time. I’ve always liked the past best. It shows where we come from, who we are, so much better.”
“Explains why you like me,” Ianto teased. “I’m just an artifact from the past, aren’t I?”
“Absolutely,” Kethan deadpanned. “Completely a historical curiosity. Nothing else to it.”
Ianto laughed but Kethan came round to stand in front of him, hands on his hips and a serious look on his face.
“You know that’s not true, right?” he asked, looking anxious. “I know you haven’t been sure about all this, but…” He touched a hand to Ianto’s chest before letting it fall away. His eyes were bright with sincerity and determination as he leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Ianto’s lips. “I couldn’t have done this without your help. Literally, but more than that, too. When Brenneth was killed, if you hadn’t been there…”
Ianto stopped him with a hand to his cheek. “You would have been fine. But I know.” He ran his thumb down to rub across Kethan’s lips. “I’m glad I was here. As terrifying as it’s been, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
“I wish I didn’t have to give you up.”
“You don’t.”
“Still feels like it.”
Ianto leaned forward and kissed him gently. “You won’t even notice the time pass. You’ll forget me, and then you’ll find me, and then I’ll almost get everyone killed and eventually we’ll stop hating each other long enough to realize there are better things to be doing with our time.” He grinned. “It’ll work out. Eventually. I think.”
“Even though you don’t think I love you,” Kethan said.
“I…” Ianto trailed off, unable to give an honest answer.
“Well, that’s stupid,” Kethan said firmly. “Because I love you now, and even if I forget it, it’s still there, on that stupid chip, and I’ll get it back.” He squeezed his palms on Ianto’s sides. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Ianto said. “Kethan, I - ”
“I know,” Kethan cut in with a smile. “Even if you are - what did Zoanne call you? An under-evolved example of a human male.”
Ianto put on an affronted face. “She called me that?”
“She did,” Kethan laughed. “It’s alright, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You may think you’re going to get burned, but you still walk right into the fire, Ianto Jones, whether you can admit it or not.”
He dragged his hands up to Ianto’s shoulders and pushed him back against the glass, coming forward to press up against him and meet Ianto’s mouth with his own. Ianto let his hands fall to the small of Kethan’s back, bunching up the shirt to slide underneath as Kethan’s tongue slid against his own in an unhurried kiss. There wasn’t any tension, or urgency, just the comfortable warmth of someone else who mattered, and Ianto tried to forget that this was probably goodbye.
~
Read Chapter 18
Summary: In which there is waiting.
A/N: Thanks to thaddeusfavour and bacchae777 for the lighting-quick betas!
Previous chapters here.
~
“My friend isn’t a Time Agent. He’s a military captain, which is exactly what we’ll need to get into Zeta Oh.”
“And you think he’ll help you, why? He’d be risking his career.”
“He’ll do it.”
~
It took them a week to reach the location Jack had agreed on with his Captain - Captain Iro Westlin. The days passed quickly compared to the previous long-distance trips, because the days were busy enough with arguments and plans and weapons practice (Kethan insisted) and the nights, well. One Jack had enough of a libido to keep Ianto more than satisfied, two kept him busier than probably was medically advisable. Ianto ended up sleeping, as usual, with Kethan in their quarters, and Jack would come and go. Officially, he was sleeping in Brenneth’s quarters because the bed in Kethan’s really wasn’t big enough for three grown men, but when Ianto inquired in private, Jack admitted he still didn’t sleep much, and he didn’t want Kethan asking questions.
“What do you do at night, then?” Ianto asked, curious. He wasn’t entirely sure what Jack had done at Torchwood, with literally twenty-four hours to burn every day, but there he’d had Torchwood business to keep him occupied.
“Read. Meditate, sometimes. And talk to Jotir - he doesn’t sleep a whole lot, either, so we can keep each other company.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“His mother works for me,” Jack said. “I’ve known him since he was born.”
“Works for you?” Ianto asked, curious. “What do you do?”
“Not much, for the last two years,” Jack pointed out. “She’s my housekeeper, you could say.”
Ianto blinked. “You have a housekeeper?”
“In a practical sense, yes. I keep a house, but I sometimes leave for long periods of time. Jotir’s family lives there and makes sure it’s there when I come back.”
“I see.”
Some of the crew found Jack’s presence quite amusing - Soren and Ellis in particular thought it was hysterical and took every opportunity to crack jokes, especially once they clued in that Ianto had, in fact, managed to get both of them in bed at once. Ellis’ humour, however, reached an endpoint over what Jack was asking him to do to the engines.
“No. Just no.”
“Ellis,” Jack said patiently. “It’s the only way.”
“Do you understand what that means? Look,” he demanded, dragging Jack over to the schematics up on the screen in the bridge. “I do that much damage to the Star, and we are not moving until I’ve had a week in a spaceport.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly?” Ellis threw up his hands. “There’s no exactly about it! We’d be defenseless, a fish stranded out of water. We’d have no escape route.”
Jack’s glance flickered over Ianto and to Opal, who was watching impassively from the helm.
“I say exactly,” Jack explained, “because that’s precisely what we need to be - stranded. If we just do some minor damage and call Iro, what do you think he’ll have to do? Send his mechanics on board, who will find the problem and fix it. We need to be badly enough damaged to give him a good enough reason to tow us to Zeta Oh.”
“It won’t matter if we get there and can’t leave,” Ellis growled, looking pleadingly at Opal. “Captain, there has got to be another way.”
“I don’t see one,” she said with a shrug. “I agree it’s far from optimal, but if that’s what Jack says we need to do…”
“How’s this ‘Captain Westlin’ know about this, anyway?” Ellis demanded, rounding on Jack and stepping into his space. He barely came up to Jack’s chin, but his clear frustration was enough to make Jack step back a pace. “What were the chances he was near Zeta Oh to begin with? Isn’t this all a bit coincidentally easy?”
“Ellis-” Opal began, but Jack cut her off.
“It’s fine, Opal,” he waved a hand, and then leaned back on the console, considering Ellis. “He’s there because he’s known for twenty years he needed to be there, and pulled all the right strings.”
“How did he know?” Ellis asked, clearly not yet convinced.
“Because I told him. Straightforward enough for you?”
Ellis pursed his lips and gave a short nod. “How do you know him?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!” Ellis cried. “We’ve already dealt with one shoddy outsider. Who almost killed Ianto, in case you’ve forgotten. Unless you have a good reason to trust this Captain-”
“He’s my son.”
Ianto, and everybody else in the room, looked startled.
“You have a son?” Ianto asked, and immediately felt dumb. Jack had been around for long enough to have more than one son.
“I have a son?” Kethan asked, eyes wide.
“He’s our biological son, yes,” Jack said with a nod.
“He’s too old,” Opal said, thoughtfully. “Of course, that hasn’t stopped Kethan before.”
“Time travel is a wonderful thing,” Jack said with a grin. “Iro’s nearly fifty, but that’s no problem for a TARDIS. Now,” he said, and Ianto could see the switch back to business mode, “is that good enough for you, Ellis? I guarantee this is what happened, and that it goes - more or less - to plan.”
“It’s the more or less part I don’t like,” Ellis grumbled, but otherwise he acquiesced. Ianto watched him leave, dragging Opal along to help, and then looked over at Jack with a questioning glance.
“You know,” Kethan said, interrupting Ianto and Jack’s unspoken conversation. “I fit a hell of a lot into the next twenty years, don’t I?”
Ianto looked at him warily, hoping he wasn’t suspecting any more than just that. Jack just smiled easily.
“We never were one to lay back and do nothing. Are you surprised?”
“No. But a kid? That’s awful busy. And not in my cards.”
Jack clapped him on the shoulder and headed for the exit to the quarters section. “Trust me - most of what’s to come? Definitely not in your cards.”
He gave Ianto a look as he passed him, and Ianto took the hint and, after shooting a bewildered Kethan an apologetic look, followed Jack out into the corridor.
“So. He’s your son,” Ianto said, hands in his pockets. Jack turned back to him, expression open but attentive.
“Yep.”
“How many kids do you have? Because that’s two I’ve been surprised with recently,” Ianto snipped, and then cut himself off. Where did that come from?
Jack looked a little startled, but just opened his door and gestured inside. Ianto followed him in and let the door shut behind him.
“Are you jealous?” Jack asked, sounding a little incredulous.
“No!” Ianto said, shaking his head. “Or, well. I don’t think so. What would I be jealous of anyway?”
Jack’s lips twitched, like he was suppressing a grin, and he pulled the chair out from under the small desk and twirled it around, sitting so that his arms were leaning against the backrest.
“You tell me.”
Ianto was silent, considering. He couldn’t be jealous - what was there to be jealous of? So Jack had a kid. He wasn’t jealous of Ashild. But Ashild wasn’t even really Kethan’s kid.
“Is… does he have a mother?” Ianto asked, realized he didn’t even know exactly how this Iro Westlin was related to Jack. Biological kid was less descriptive than it used to be.
“Yes. A beautiful, fabulous woman named Nella Westlin.”
“So you were - together.”
“For about fifteen years, yes. She was a historian doing research on me - or the man who I was back in the twenty-first century - and unlike most other people, followed the data trail and realized I was Jack Harkness. She came demanding answers,” Jack said, a fond smile on his face, “and ended up sticking around a little longer than planned.”
“You would be pretty interesting to a historian,” Ianto said, not without a hint of disdain.
Jack raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. “Yep.”
“Why’d she leave?” Ianto asked, not sure why he was assuming she left him, and not the other way around. If it had been his Jack, he would have guessed it was his doing, but this man wasn’t the same.
“Job offer at a prestigious university, based on her work on me. Even if I wanted to follow her, it would have been tricky explaining how her partner happened to be genetically identical to the man she was researching. Even if the lore does say Captain Jack never got older.”
“It’s all lore, then?” Ianto asked, trying to move the conversation away from the topic that, for some reason, left him itchy with resentment.
“It was general knowledge, for a few centuries, but enough happened to bury the truth. Only I know it, now. And Nella, and you, I suppose.” Jack shrugged. “But it’s not important - and you are jealous.”
“Not of her,” Ianto insisted, and then he took a seat on the bed with a sigh. “Not of her for being loved by you. But maybe of her for having you.”
Jack watched him, giving him time to sort through his tumultuous thoughts.
“I can’t imagine you being interested in… creating a life with me. Not kids, I don’t want kids - ” not with Jack, anyway, not working at Torchwood “ - but just…” he trailed off, glancing down at his hands. “I miss what I had with Lisa, some days. I miss Lisa for herself, of course, but I miss the boring relationship bits as well. Waking up with someone in the morning. Getting angry about clogged drains. Buying groceries - cooking meals - for two. For all that I’m with you, then, we’re not really together. Not in any significant way.”
“I know.”
Ianto’s head snapped up, and he met Jack’s eyes. The last thing he expected was for Jack to agree with him. Jack gave him a wan smile.
“I’m not him. I’m not going to defend him. Because you’re absolutely right. As you know me, back then, I’m in no place to embark on any sort of real relationship.”
“Oh,” Ianto said. Well, it was at least nice to know he was right. He stood up and started for the door, but Jack moved quickly and caught him by the wrist.
“Ianto. Stop. I’m not telling you that to dash all your hopes-”
“I don’t have any,” Ianto protested. He didn’t expect anything of Jack, really. He just sometimes wished he could… have Jack and have more, all at once. But if he could only have one, he could be content with Jack. Or at least, he thought so. A month of waking up beside Kethan, taking meals with him, playing games and having real, honest conversations about something other than work had reminded him precisely of what his relationship with Jack wasn’t, and how much he wanted it.
“Yes you do. And you should, because I’m an idiot. An immature, unthinking idiot not to realize how unfair I’m being to you.”
Ianto let out a snort of laughter. “I know what I signed on for.”
“And it was good of you to humour me,” Jack insisted, “but know this: I will change. That’s not how it has to be, and you need to stop putting up with me and stop making excuses for me.”
Ianto gave Jack a wide-eyed stare. “You’re telling me to-”
“To ask for more. Because you deserve it, Ianto.” Jack pressed his hands to Ianto’s shoulders. “You don’t have forever to figure it out. I did, but I shouldn’t be wasting your life trying to do that. Don’t let me.”
“I, um…” Ianto shrugged, at a loss for words. “I’ll, well.” He cast around for something to say. “How about you get me back, and I’ll see what I can do?”
Jack grinned and leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to Ianto’s lips and then hauling him in. “God, I love you, Ianto Jones.”
Ianto’s heart leapt, and he hid his blush by burying his face in Jack’s shoulder. “Do you now?” he muttered, muffled by Jack’s shirt.
“You know it.”
“Even after three thousand years?”
“It takes more than time to dull those feelings, believe me,” Jack replied, resting his cheek against Ianto’s head. “You never forget the ones you love. Or at least, I haven’t yet, and I’ve got a bit more authority on that than anyone else.”
“You remember them all?”
“You. Everyone on this ship. Estelle. The Doctor. Rose. Toshiko and Owen. Gwen. Martha. Suzie.” Ianto could feel Jack’s shrug under his head. “I forgot Gwen’s name once, and I spent a panicked three days trying to recall it. But I never forgot that I loved her.”
“You’re a big old romantic, aren’t you?” Ianto asked, pulling back and giving Jack a teasing grin.
“You betcha,” Jack said, not letting go. “Always was. Just forgot for a while.” He pulled Ianto back in, this time resting his chin on Ianto’s shoulder. “Don’t be jealous of the fact that I have relationships after you. Take it as reassurance that I am, against all plausibility, capable.”
“Alright,” Ianto said quietly, slipping his arms through Jack’s and clasping them behind his back, content just to stand there. There was no point in worrying about home until he got there. For now, Jack was here and that was good enough.
After a minute or two of silence, Jack spoke again. “I need your help.”
“With what?”
Jack pulled back and met Ianto’s eyes. “I need to show you how to fly the TARDIS.”
Ianto let go and ran a hand through his hair. “Is that possible? And why?”
“Yes, it’s possible, and I need a back-up.” Jack nodded over to the desk and computer console. “I’ve drawn up plans, but I set up an emergency autopilot years ago, just for this. You hit the right buttons in the right order and you’ll be back in your own time.” He made a face. “Well, more or less. It’s hard to accurately pre-plan a TARDIS trip. But I erred on the side of later, so you should at least be able to find me.”
Ianto didn’t move. “Why can’t you do it? I thought this all succeeded.” Silence. “You said this worked,” Ianto accused. “I get back and Kethan lives and we get the TARDIS.”
Jack twitched a smile. “I know you get back. Clearly, Kethan survives. Me?” He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“You can’t die,” Ianto pointed out, flatly.
“No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get captured, or killed long enough that I’m out of action. Ianto,” he stressed, pointing at the screen. “Please? Someone else has to know how to fly the TARDIS.”
Ianto let out a breath. “Okay. Okay.”
“Thank you.” Jack smiled and beckoned him over. “Alright, so, the buttons are colour coded, and the first rule is, don’t touch the mauve ones…”
~
Iro Westlin looked, well, nothing like Jack. He was built on the same scale but that’s about where the similarities ended. His dark skin and corkscrew hair, cut close to his head, had Ianto doing a mental comparison, trying to see if he could find anything of Jack in the handsome, authoritative features of the Captain. The men greeted each other with comfortable familiarity and first names - whatever Westlin called Jack in private, he used Jack here - apparently unconcerned about what other people might say of this coincidental meeting.
The meeting in the cargo bay was brief, and Westlin sent his chief engineer off with Ellis to see what could be done, as Jack predicted. Ellis’s foul glance at Jack as he left evinced his annoyance at being shown up, but he acquiesced. Aimless chatter, comprised mostly of discussion of local activity and a nearby alien war and a few lies about the Evening Star’s recent activity followed until the engineers returned to the bay and confirmed what the crew of the Star already knew.
“Needs new parts and a serious overhaul,” the alien said, clapping her hands together twice before dropping them. “Can’t leave ‘em here, they’ll lose the back-up power before they can get the engine restarted.”
“Towing it is, then. Zeta Oh is nearest,” he glanced at Opal. “Will that do?”
“Certainly, if we can buy the parts there. They don’t have much of a market, from what I recall.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Westlin promised. “Co’hola, get the docking bay set, the rest of you,” he nodded at the crew, “need to pack your bags and join me on my ship. We’ll put you up in the guest quarters, though I’m afraid the rest of the ship will be off limits.”
“How long to Zeta Oh?”
“Forty-eight hours or so. Pack an overnight bag and you should be fine. Is ten minutes enough time?”
“Yes,” Opal turned to the crew. “You heard the man, pack up, anything you need to keep entertained for the next day or two. Back here in ten.”
~
“Bored now.”
“Are you twelve?”
Kethan stuck out his tongue at Soren and dropped his head back onto the arm of the couch.
“That doesn’t exactly help your case,” Jack pointed out from the desk across the room. Kethan ignored him and continued staring at the ceiling.
“Go play cards with the others,” Ianto suggested. It was just the four of them in this wing of what, to Ianto, seemed to be ambassadorial suits, or at least something designed for guests and not military. Soren had pulled a chair up in front of him and was currently losing the game of chess he was playing with Ianto. “You’re fine on the Star,” he pointed out from his seat at the other end of the couch. “How’s this different?”
“It’s different because I can’t even go tinker with the engines, or shoot some targets, or talk about nefarious plans I may or may not have.” He poked Ianto with a foot. “There’s only so long I can sit still and wait.”
“He also,” Jack interrupted, “doesn’t like feeling trapped. What?” he said at Kethan’s glare. “I just spent two years in a cell. I think I’m qualified to speak on our claustrophobic tendencies.”
“Two years,” Kethan sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “That’s forever. How could you stand it?”
“No choice. Kethan.” Jack hesitated and then went on. “Something I told myself - it’s always worth it.”
Kethan made a face. “I know. I’m here and doing this, aren’t I?”
Jack shrugged. “No, I know. Just remember it, alright?”
“I don’t,” Kethan pointed out, not angry, from what Ianto could tell. He seemed to have resigned himself to his fate, whatever that was.
“You get them back. Trust me, there are going to be days…” Jack trailed off.
“I get them back? Entirely?” Kethan sat up and swung his legs off the couch. “But you don’t remember everything.”
“You get them back,” Jack insisted, dropping his computer to the side table and stretching out his legs. Soren kicked Ianto under the table and Ianto’s attention went back to the game, ears still attuned to Jack and Kethan’s conversation.
“When?”
Jack made a face.
“Well, I won’t know until I get them!” Kethan exclaimed, throwing out his hands. “Obviously.”
Jack glanced over at Ianto and back at his younger self. “Well, in theory, Ianto’s going to bring them back to me.” He stood up and pulled what was shaped like a wallet, only a little smaller, out of his back pocket. Snapping the case open, he walked over to Kethan and dropped it into his outstretched hand.
“What is that?” Ianto asked, curious. Kethan was looking disturbed, as if Jack had just dropped a dead baby mouse into his hand.
Kethan bit his lip and held it out for Ianto to see. The inside was mostly lined with something soft and black, like a jewelry box, except for a thin, shiny hexagon settled in an indent in the middle.
“Okay,” Soren breathed out, looking a little on edge.
Ianto reached out to touch it, to see if it felt as slick as it looked, but Kethan jerked the case away.
“Don’t - it’s delicate,” he snapped it shut and gave it back to Jack, hurriedly.
“It’s my memories,” Jack said calmly, slipping it back into his pocket. “The ones he - ” he gestured at Kethan “ - is about to lose, and the ones I got back. The one missing them currently, in the loosest sense of the word, is your Jack.”
Ianto glanced at Soren, trying to get a grasp on the sudden tension in the room. Soren just shook his head and looked back down at the chessboard.
“How are your memories on there?” he asked, pointing to Jack’s pocket. “Retcon doesn’t store them anywhere.”
Kethan frowned. “You know about Retcon?”
“I use it all the time. Used it, back at Torchwood.”
There was a heavy silence and Ianto’s skin prickled.
“What is it?”
“Memory tampering is illegal,” Soren said flatly. “Mental adjustments, without explicit permission from the party, is highly illegal.”
“Not where I’m from,” Ianto said. “Jack - you - we use Retcon all the time. It’s how Torchwood stays secret.”
Jack sighed and took a seat between him and Kethan, elbows on knees.
“Ianto, Retcon is something I brought back from the fifty-first century with me. Here it’s… akin to a date-rape drug. Using it on another sentient being is highly illegal. It’s also imprecise, like painting over an oil canvas with watercolours. It’s a backwater drug, but it was all I could create from memory. This,” he tapped his pocket, “is what the big boys use. What the Time Agency uses. They don’t try to hide the memories in your mind, they take them out, entirely.”
“I thought you said it was illegal.”
“Only if you’re not above the law,” Soren muttered darkly as he moved a knight.
“Only if you don’t sign a contract with the Agency giving them explicit ownership over your memories,” Kethan said, voice defiantly level. His hands were gripped tight in his lap.
“That doesn’t make it any less disgusting,” Soren spat, shaking the table with a fist. Ianto plucked up two fallen pieces and put them back on their squares.
“I didn’t realize there was such a taboo against tampering with memories,” he said softly, not looking anyone in the eye.
“How could you not?” Soren exclaimed. “Who is anyone but their memories? Take those away and there’s nothing left.”
Kethan stood up suddenly, and the other three watched as he muttered an excuse and left the room. Soren glared at Ianto, though Jack was giving him a similar look.
“Very nice,” Jack rolled his eyes, settling back in the couch.
“Should I…” Ianto looked at the door Kethan had left out of.
“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “He just needs to collect himself. It’s only two years, after all, it’s not his whole life.”
“Two years is a long time when you’re twenty-eight,” Ianto muttered. “I’m sorry it didn’t click that it was such a horrible thing. I was sort of thinking he got off easy.”
“He does,” Jack said mildly. “But it sure as hell doesn’t look like that from his perspective. He’ll be okay, especially knowing he gets them back in short order.”
“How? How’d you get it here? You couldn’t have had it in the prison.”
Jack grinned, a little grimly. “A little time-traveling trickery. I went forward ten years ago and stole the memory chip from the Agency after it - well, when its archive security goes way downhill, shall we say. I gave it to Jotir to look after, and he gave it back to me my first night here. As soon as we split up, I’ll give it to you. That way, as long as you get to the TARDIS and get back to Earth, I’ll get them back.”
“And the circle completes,” Ianto said thoughtfully, trying to see if that all actually made sense.
“Yep.”
“So your future self is sending memories stolen from your past self to your present self?”
Jack blinked. “Yes?”
Soren let out a snort. “Ianto, I appreciate that chess isn’t very interesting in comparison, so do you want to just finish the game later?”
“Oh, um. Yeah, maybe. I actually,” he glanced at Jack and then back at the door. “I’m going to go find Kethan, is that all right? I’m not breaking any timelines?”
Jack waved him off. “Go. Tell him to buck up. It’s not that bad. I’ll finish your game for you.”
“Right.” Ianto apologized to Soren again and left them behind.
~
“Kethan?” Ianto stuck his head through a doorway. This was the dining room, and it was almost empty, but Ianto could see a figure standing in the dark by the expansive floor to ceiling window at the back. It was the only view they had of space from their series of rooms on the military ship.
Ianto maneuvered his way through the tables and came up beside Kethan, stopping a few feet away and taking in the sight of the man, illuminated by the strange glow of the engines he could just see outside. He had one hand pressed up against the glass (plastic? Super futuristic see-through compound?) and Ianto had a strange urge to reach over and put his on top. Jack’s hands had always made him feel safe, in their strength and absolute certainty over what he was doing them, but now he looked lost with one splayed out on the glass. Ianto reached up, instead, and touched his shoulder.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Kethan echoed back, not taking his eyes off the rushing space. “Sorry for storming out. I needed - ”
“S’fine,” Ianto said softly, stepping up beside him. “I didn’t… I never thought about it. What losing your memories really means. I guess I got used to it, at Torchwood.”
“Drugging people with Retcon?”
“We prefer ‘administering’,” Ianto joked, but it fell flat. “Yeah. It’s not much, usually, unless they’re criminals or something. Mostly just a few hours here or there. And it’s written into my contract, for if I need to leave.”
“What?” Kethan turned and made eye contact for the first time. “They’ll take your memories if you quit?”
“So it says.” Ianto stuck his hands in his pocket. “When I say I work for a secret organization, I’m not being stuck up.”
“No,” Kethan drawled. “I guess not. And I’m your boss?”
“Yeah.”
Kethan frowned.
“I can’t imagine ever ‘administering’ someone Retcon, let alone approving it as a standard mode of operation.” He tilted his head. “I’m pretty different, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” Ianto said, honestly. “You’re - you. But after more stuff.” He made a face. “Not the most eloquent of explanations.”
“Yeah, well, since you can’t tell me this stuff…” Kethan managed a smile and leaned gently against Ianto. Ianto took the hint and wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him up against him as Kethan mirrored him and dropped a head on his shoulder.
“Six hours and we’re there,” he said quietly.
Ianto pressed a kiss to his hair. “Six hours till D-day.”
“World War Two,” Kethan muttered. “I’m good with that time period. Liked it.”
“It was a war,” Ianto pointed out. “What’s there to like?”
“People fighting for their beliefs. Their lives, their countries. Acts of bravery and foolishness, often the same thing. Coming up against the worst of humanity to see if there’s really anything to you.”
“The worst of humanity is what sticks in most people’s minds, when I’m from.”
“Too near, I guess.”
“I guess. Have you seen it?” Ianto asked, curiously. Jack had lived through it, and he’d been stuck there for a few hours, and, apparently, he’d been there when he met the Doctor. If he’d been there a fourth time, that would have been a bit of the ultimate crossing of timelines.
“Nope. It’s a bit of a prize period; if we ever need to go there, I’m not senior enough.”
“Oh,” Ianto said, pressing his fingers into Kethan’s side, slipping a thumb under the edge of his shirt to touch the soft skin underneath. “Would you like to know that you do get to see it?”
Kethan turned to look at him, a real smile on his face. “Really?”
“Yep. Uniform and everything. You still have the coat.”
“Wicked,” Kethan said, pressing a kiss to Ianto’s jaw line before settling back against his shoulder. “It’s funny, a lot of people think the future would be the really cool thing, if you could travel through time. I’ve always liked the past best. It shows where we come from, who we are, so much better.”
“Explains why you like me,” Ianto teased. “I’m just an artifact from the past, aren’t I?”
“Absolutely,” Kethan deadpanned. “Completely a historical curiosity. Nothing else to it.”
Ianto laughed but Kethan came round to stand in front of him, hands on his hips and a serious look on his face.
“You know that’s not true, right?” he asked, looking anxious. “I know you haven’t been sure about all this, but…” He touched a hand to Ianto’s chest before letting it fall away. His eyes were bright with sincerity and determination as he leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Ianto’s lips. “I couldn’t have done this without your help. Literally, but more than that, too. When Brenneth was killed, if you hadn’t been there…”
Ianto stopped him with a hand to his cheek. “You would have been fine. But I know.” He ran his thumb down to rub across Kethan’s lips. “I’m glad I was here. As terrifying as it’s been, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
“I wish I didn’t have to give you up.”
“You don’t.”
“Still feels like it.”
Ianto leaned forward and kissed him gently. “You won’t even notice the time pass. You’ll forget me, and then you’ll find me, and then I’ll almost get everyone killed and eventually we’ll stop hating each other long enough to realize there are better things to be doing with our time.” He grinned. “It’ll work out. Eventually. I think.”
“Even though you don’t think I love you,” Kethan said.
“I…” Ianto trailed off, unable to give an honest answer.
“Well, that’s stupid,” Kethan said firmly. “Because I love you now, and even if I forget it, it’s still there, on that stupid chip, and I’ll get it back.” He squeezed his palms on Ianto’s sides. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Ianto said. “Kethan, I - ”
“I know,” Kethan cut in with a smile. “Even if you are - what did Zoanne call you? An under-evolved example of a human male.”
Ianto put on an affronted face. “She called me that?”
“She did,” Kethan laughed. “It’s alright, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You may think you’re going to get burned, but you still walk right into the fire, Ianto Jones, whether you can admit it or not.”
He dragged his hands up to Ianto’s shoulders and pushed him back against the glass, coming forward to press up against him and meet Ianto’s mouth with his own. Ianto let his hands fall to the small of Kethan’s back, bunching up the shirt to slide underneath as Kethan’s tongue slid against his own in an unhurried kiss. There wasn’t any tension, or urgency, just the comfortable warmth of someone else who mattered, and Ianto tried to forget that this was probably goodbye.
~
Read Chapter 18