A Matter of Time (8/20)
Rating: R
Summary: In which Ianto learns some things about Kethan.
Thanks to my betas, thaddeusfavour and especially bacchae777 who told me when my timelines were getting out of hand.
Previous chapters here.
A/N: Since I was having some questions about how to pronounce Kethan, I made a little tiny Glossary with the character's names, pronunciations, jobs and ages. I will eventually update it to include information from this chapter, but it will remain un-spoilery until I say so. Check it out here.
~
“Fuck you, Jack Harkness,” he snapped suddenly, his hands starting to shake. “Fuck you, Kethan Brisho, or whomever the fuck you are.”
~
Ianto woke up to someone’s breath on his face. He opened his eyes, and found himself staring back at Jack.
No, not Jack, he thought with a quiet sigh. He always forgot when he woke up. Ianto didn’t think his subconscious would ever sort this out. He’d gone to bed with Kethan for seven nights running, and he still woke up thinking he was with Jack. Last night he had crashed, exhausted after a long day of explanations, firefights and space travel, in the small room in which he and Kethan had stowed their packs.
“Morning,” smiled Kethan, trailing a hand down Ianto’s side, moving to draw small circles on his skin. “Sleep well?”
Ianto hummed a response. “Much better wake-up than yesterday,” he said, voice husky. He could see Kethan’s eyes glaze over for a moment as he recalled what happened yesterday, and then he let out a small laugh.
“Didn’t like the cuffs?” Kethan teased.
“I like cuffs just fine, thank you. Usually you’re the one wearing them, that’s all.”
“Oh, really?” Kethan said, arching an eyebrow. “I must trust you a lot.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t let people tie me up unless I know them pretty well. Dangerous, in my line of work, letting someone have that kind of advantage over you.” Kethan eyed Ianto thoughtfully. “You’re pretty loyal to me, aren’t you?”
Ianto nodded.
“What,” Kethan asked, looking amused. “Don’t want to talk about it?”
“What is there to say?” Ianto asked. He wasn’t really used to this; he and Jack never actually discussed the details of their relationship. Neither of them were talkers when it came to the emotional details, though for different reasons. Ianto preferred to let his actions speak for themselves, and Jack - well, Jack just wasn’t interested in emotional complications, Ianto presumed.
“You would have died for me, yesterday, without a second thought, without knowing anything about what I’m doing. I wasn’t expecting Aharon to threaten your life; I was a little annoyed he took it that far. I don’t expect you to die for me, Ianto. Do I in your time?”
“No,” Ianto laughed. “You don’t. But if-” you could die, Ianto thought “-it was necessary, I would.”
“That’s what I’m interested in.” Kethan said, leaning back to look Ianto more fully in face. “The sex must be pretty good to inspire that kind of loyalty,” he joked.
Ianto gave a small smile and rolled onto his back.
“It is, but that’s not why. You-earned it, I suppose. Gave me my life back.”
“Gave you your life back,” Kethan echoed, intrigued. “How did I do that?”
Literally, Ianto thought wryly. But that wasn’t the important way.
“I betrayed you, actually. I worked for you, I was supposed to be one of your trusted soldiers, and I completely abused that trust.”
“You work for me?” Kethan asked, intrigued. “At this Torchwood thing?”
“Yes,” Ianto said, waiting a moment for a shagging-the-boss joke. It never came; perhaps there weren’t any strictures against sleeping with your employer anymore. He took a breath and continued.
“You said that you must trust me, when I’m from. That’s the thing, you do, but you shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it.” He dropped his hand on Kethan’s where it was resting on his stomach. “Should I be telling you this?”
“I’ll stop you if I need to. So you owe me? That’s why you’d die for me?” Kethan made a face. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“I did owe you,” Ianto admitted. “And for a while, it was just sex between us, but it changed. I grew to respect you.”
“Ah, respect,” said Kethan solemnly. “The founding principle of any relationship.”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “The founding principle of our relationship was definitely lust. Everything else came after.”
“I thought you didn’t base your relationships on sex,” Kethan asked. “Or was that just you conning me?”
“No,” said Ianto, shaking his head. “I wasn’t conning you. Jack and I - you and I - didn’t - don’t -”
“Ignore the tense issues,” Kethan injected. “I can figure it out.”
“Alright.” said Ianto, breathing out sharply. “We didn’t have sex until after I betrayed you. Until after you’d forgiven me.”
“When you owed me?”
“Right,” said Ianto. “When I owed you.”
“Again, not sure I like that.”
“It wasn’t like I was trying to get your forgiveness,” Ianto pointed out. “You’d already forgiven me. But I was hurting, and you were hurting, and the sex - sort of made us forget about it.”
“Ah,” said Kethan, sitting up. “I know that kind of sex. The angst driven, lust-filled rutting that is just another version of drowning your sorrows in a bottle of booze?”
“Yep,” chuckled Ianto.
“When did it change?”
“You left,” Ianto said simply. “And then you came back, and somehow, it was different. I was different, I think, and so were you.”
Jack had come back different from his time with the Doctor. He’d told Ianto very little of his time away, but Ianto was smart enough to realize that whatever questions Jack had had about himself, his immortality, had been answered to some degree. Whereas before, Jack had never been willing to commit anything beyond the next night to Ianto, now he seemed more prepared to make long-term plans. Well, thought Ianto wryly, long-term in the sense of a date on Friday. They certainly weren’t saving up a down payment on a house.
“Do you love me?”
Ianto started. “Pardon?”
“I don’t mean me, now,” Kethan said, shrugging. “I mean Jack. Do you love him?”
“Does it matter?”
“I think you do,” Kethan said confidently, throwing a leg over Ianto and straddling him. “I see it when you look at me. You’re missing him, missing your lover. I’m close, but not quite, aren’t I? So it hurts, every time you look at me, and it shows in your eyes.” He leaned over and ghosted his lips over Ianto’s. “That’s why you’d die for me. Not because you owe me, or anything so coarse. Because you love me.”
Ianto looked away. “I think we all do, really.”
“All?”
“Your team. There are four of us, and you.”
“Would they die for me, too?” Kethan asked.
“Yes,” Ianto said. It was a bit like cheap grace, he thought. None of them would ever be tested on that, but nonetheless, Ianto knew that each and every member of Torchwood Three would lay down their lives for Jack. Ianto was nothing special, in that way. He was just the one Jack took into his bed.
Ianto stared up at Kethan, who looked like he was lost in thought, probably at the idea of having four people who were that loyal to him. He was beautiful; naked and warm, his knees hugging Ianto’s hips, one hand resting on Ianto’s stomach, the other raised to his mouth, rubbing absently. Of course he loved him, Ianto thought. He had never met anyone who inspired more love in the people around him than Jack. Irritation, anger, and even fury, yes; but at the end of the day, they all loved him. They couldn’t help it.
Ianto reached up and took the hand that was at Kethan’s mouth, using it to pull Kethan down to him before rolling them over, chest to chest against the wall of the small bed. Kethan smiled up at him and rubbed his nose against Ianto’s, bringing back memories of their third meeting. This man was a stranger, as Jack had been then. Could you know someone if you knew who they would be? If he loved Jack, did he love Kethan too?
The falling sensation in the pit of his stomach was the same, at least. This time, Ianto gave in and let his weight fall onto Kethan, his mouth pressing against Kethan’s as if he could kiss the answers out of him.
They kissed languorously for some time, bodies shifting together leisurely rather than passionately. This was how it was, after the long days at Torchwood when Ianto was too tired to do anything else, or when Jack needed to be reminded that peace could be found in some places, even if they were as small as Ianto’s arms. They moved unhurriedly, Kethan twining a leg around Ianto’s and pressing his hands to Ianto’s back as Ianto buried his face in Kethan’s neck, finding the places that used to make Jack gasp and sigh.
Kethan smoothed a hand down Ianto’s arse, pulling them together as Ianto reached between them, curling his hand around their cocks and stroking, slow and strong. Kethan arched and twisted under him, seeking more contact. Steady pressure built as they rocked in a slow rhythm, lips and cocks and arms and thighs brushing together, and soon (too soon) Ianto was coming, eyes forced open to watch Kethan’s face as Ianto slicked his hand and brought Kethan over the edge, leaning down to capture the small sigh in a final kiss.
Ianto moved off Kethan, just far enough to let him breathe, and they lay there, panting.
“This is so weird,” Kethan murmured after a while. “It must be even weirder for you.”
“Sex with you?” Ianto asked. “It is, a little. My brain can’t figure out if I’m cheating on Jack by sleeping with you or not.” He’d given up thinking that maybe he shouldn’t be sleeping with Kethan at all. Jack had been irresistible enough when Ianto was ignorant of what he was missing; trying to keep out of his bed all over again would have been a pointless exercise.
Kethan laughed. “Unless I’ve changed a lot by the time I know you, I don’t think I’ll mind.”
“No,” Ianto admitted, “Probably not. Why is this strange for you? Aren’t you used to the complications of time-traveling?”
“I am, but it’s never been like this.”
“Like what?”
“Ianto,” he said softly, “Sex with you is like coming home. Whatever we have, in the twenty-first century, it must be good. It’s like you know me better than I know myself.”
Ianto rolled off the bed and found a dirty shirt, which he used to clean himself off before tossing it to Kethan. “I don’t,” he said, shortly. “I don’t know you well at all. I don’t even know your real name.”
Kethan sat up and wiped off his own stomach, frowning. “That is strange. Maybe telling you would mess with the timelines.” He looked thoughtful. “Maybe I don’t even remember my name.”
“Is that possible?” Ianto asked. Jack was old, but he wasn’t old enough to forget who he used to be.
“I forget you, apparently. Who’s to say I don’t forget a whole lot more than that, as well. Maybe that’s why I go by ‘Jack Harkress’, or whatever it is.”
“Harkness,” Ianto corrected, putting on a clean pair of trousers and finding a shirt. “I doubt it. You have plenty of secrets you don’t share with anyone.” He pulled on his shoes, laced them up, and was halfway out the door before Kethan called after him.
“Elariu.” Ianto turned back. “Kethan Elariu, born in the Boeshane Peninsula in 5028.” He smiled. “It was spring.”
Ianto nodded. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
~
After Ianto had eaten, Brenneth sent him off with Kareh for a grand tour of the Evening Star. Kareh had been one of the crew who’d gotten a little more of an introduction than Ianto had intended, but the only comment he made was a mild “and you’ve already acquainted yourself with the cargo bay”. The tour ended in the mainframe, a little cave-like room that appeared all the smaller for the sheer amount of technical equipment packed into it, connected with a hodgepodge of wires.
“This,” Kareh said, throwing his arms widely, “is my baby. She keeps the ship ticking when we sleep, detects spatial disturbances, plots our courses, takes astronomical data, tracks our enemies, regulates our environmental controls, and plays a mean game of chess.”
Ianto stepped up and ran a hand across a panel. “Does she have a name?”
“Just the Evening Star. The ship may be her body, but this is her brain.”
Ianto examined the display that was central to the room and took up four panels. Kareh reached past him and tapped the screen, bringing it to life. Ianto started.
“I know this,” he said, in surprise. “This is the same interface as the mainframe at Torchwood.”
“Torchwood?”
“Where I work,” he answered absently, stepping forward and touching an icon on the screen. “It isn’t touch-screen, and it’s in English, but it’s the same operating system.”
“She’s a bit of a mash-up between a couple of common systems,” Kareh said. “I’d be surprised if you’d seen her before. My predecessor designed her.”
“Your predecessor?” Ianto asked, squinting at the alien text. “Can I plug in my fish, somewhere?”
“Here,” Kareh said, pointing to a port. Ianto pulled off his fish and plugged it in, and Kareh reached over to some keys. The screens divided so that half of them showed what was presumably the same thing as the original Galactic Standard in English. “I’ve only been here for twelve years and Opal’s been captain of the Star for more like twenty. Lirone was the previous computer technician and this is his system.”
“What happened to him?” Ianto asked, flicking through system menus. Definitely the same interface as the Hub’s mainframe.
“Died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kareh shrugged. “I never met him. He was the Captain’s lover, though, so be careful what you say around her. She doesn’t like to talk about him.”
“I thought the Captain and the Doctor…?” Ianto trailed off.
“They are. They’ve been together since, well, forever. Since they were your age, I think.”
Right. Ianto thought. Non-monogamous.
“Here,” Kareh said, stepping up. “Shall I show you the basics? Nav and Enviro are good places to start; everyone on board should be able to use them. You can access both from the bridge as well, but we’ll disturb fewer people down here.”
Ianto picked up the system quickly; he should, he spent enough time buried in the Hub’s mainframe trying to figure out how to get her to run as smoothly as possible. Working with Kareh made Ianto wish the man worked for Torchwood, since Ianto had often felt like he was dealing with a foreign language when accessing the Hub’s systems. Kareh could probably make the Star play four-dimensional Tetris if he felt like it. By the end of the two hours they spent going over the Evening Star’s systems, Ianto had collected enough information to rework several of the mainframe’s vital systems.
When they finished, Ianto left Kareh to his work and went to the mess, where Jotir was ensconced in frying pans and cutting boards. He didn’t look up as Ianto wandered over to the counter.
“Can I help?” Ianto asked softly, trying not to startle the alien. Jotir glanced up, giving Ianto his first look at the alien’s small, pale eyes, and then back at the vegetables he was frying, nodding his head and handing Ianto the wooden spatula he was stirring the food with.
“Stir this. Don’t let it burn,” he said, gesturing with long, translucent fingers.
Ianto felt relieved to hear to alien speak; the silence had been a little disturbing. Now that he knew Jotir was capable of speech, though, he didn’t push it, and they cooked the meal in silence until the rest of the crew started trickling in, finding seats around the long table and grabbing plates and cups.
“Paravian stir-fry!” cried Kethan, leaning over the counter and picking out of the dishes with his fingers. Jotir let out a sigh, but didn’t say anything.
“Jotir will put extra chili powder in your curry again if you keep doing that,” warned Ashild, tugging on his sleeve. “Sit down and be patient.”
“Sorry Jotir,” Kethan said, flashing a shit-eating grin at the alien. “I’ll keep my fingers out of your… offerings, I promise.”
The mechanic - Ellis - let out a bark of a laugh. “Jotir wouldn’t let you anywhere near his offerings, Kethan. He’s got some brains.”
“What do you have, then?” Kethan smirked, pulling out a chair. “And the rest of this crew?”
“A bizarre fondness for your wicked ways, of course,” replied Ellis. “Jotir is the only one who hasn’t fallen for it.”
“You’ve slept with the whole crew?” Ianto couldn’t help but ask, setting bowls of hot food on the table before finding a seat between Kethan and Zoanne.
“Except for Ashild, of course,” answered Ellis for him.
Ianto glanced at Ashild. “Not interested?”
She made a face. “In incest? Not quite.”
“It wouldn’t really be incest,” Kethan objected, waving a fork. “But it would be weird.”
“Are you his sister?” Ianto asked, confused.
“He didn’t tell you?” she asked, turning to glare at Kethan. “Ashamed of me, are you?”
Kethan looked guilty. “It didn’t come up.” He turned to Ianto. “I’m her surrogate father.”
“Excuse me?” Ianto asked, successfully swallowing the bite of food in his mouth.
“It’s sort of a long story,” Kethan said, looking down at his plate.
Zoanne let out a snort. “He hates telling it. Thinks he comes off badly in it.”
“I do!” Kethan replied, spearing an orange vegetable. “I almost got you all killed.”
“You saved her life.”
“No, I almost destroyed it. You saved her life, with my consent.”
Varelle interrupted. “My apologies Ianto, they have this argument every time it comes up.” She took a sip of her water and cleared her throat. Ianto noted that everyone else quieted down and gave her their full attention.
“Twenty-five years ago Zoanne and I worked on a ship, not the Evening Star, that delivered medical supplies to war zones. Zoanne was the ship’s doctor and we were expecting a baby. I was not even three months along when we ran into Kethan.”
“Twenty-five years ago?” Ianto clarified. “He was back in time?”
Kethan nodded. “It was five years ago, for me. I was twenty-three, fresh out of the Academy, and an idiot.”
“Some things never change,” quipped Brenneth.
Kethan made a rude gesture and continued. “I was ordered to stop some temporal smugglers - people taking future technology and bringing it back in time - who were supplying one side with weapons that were swaying the balance of the war. But there was a mix-up in the intel and I thought the Methrin, the ship Zoanne and Opal were on, was the smuggler’s ship.”
“Which would have been cleared up in no time,” inserted Varelle, “But we were ambushed by one side looking to stock up on supplies when we landed. Unfortunately, it was the side the smugglers weren’t supplying-”
“So I thought they were attacking the source of their enemy's weapons, and joined them in the firefight until the Methrin’s crew were disabled enough for me to go in and shut them down. By the time that happened, most of the crew were dead or injured, and Opal had been shot,” Kethan said, sounding disgusted.
“They would have ambushed us without you,” Varelle pointed out mildly, and then continued. “When Kethan realized his mistake, and that I was going to lose the baby, he offered to be a surrogate host.”
“A ridiculous offer,” Zoanne added. “He didn’t even know us and it would have been six months of his life, but I was angry so I took him up on it, determined to make it his punishment for hurting Opal. And there was no other way, really. I was the only one around who could perform the surgery, and I couldn’t exactly do it on myself.”
“So Zoanne removed the… foetus from Opal and implanted it into you?,” Ianto clarified, looking at Kethan, “And then you carried Ashild to term?”
“Yep,” Kethan said. “And I don’t care what they say about medicine being able to make it easy for men, nobody should have to go through that, male or female.” He shuddered, and then looked over at Ashild.
“It wasn’t entirely selfless,” he admitted. “When Zoanne told me Opal was pregnant and going to lose the baby, I knew that if I didn’t find some way to keep that from happening, the timelines would have snapped. Ashild had to survive, had to be part of the future. Offering myself up as host was the only thing I could think of.”
“You know,” Ianto said thoughtfully. “You did mention that you’d been pregnant, once. I think we all thought you were joking.”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Ianto sat quietly, for a moment, food forgotten. “So let me get this straight. Twenty-four years ago in linear time Ashild was born. Which is why she’s twenty-four now,”
“Yep,” said Ashild.
“But it was only four years ago for Kethan, who went back in time to-”
"5032, when I was born, but it was 5031 when he arrived,” Ashild supplied.
“So he spent six months back then, had you, and then, what, left?”
“Yeah, the Agency was really pissed at having to give me unplanned paternity leave. Usually with their male agents they at least get some warning that they’re trying to conceive, since the Agency’s health care pays for the surgery. Besides,” Kethan said, grinning, “I wasn’t exactly ready to settle down and become a stay-on-ship father. I visited when I could.”
“I see.” Ianto speared a pink vegetable and chewed thoughtfully. “When did you become captain of the Evening Star, then?” he asked Varelle.
“When Ashild was five, so nineteen years ago. Brenneth was my pilot back then, and Ellis a mechanic, but the rest of the crew has turned over once or twice since then.”
“And what do you do, normally?”
Varelle met his gaze calmly. “We’re smugglers.”
“Pardon?” Ianto asked, furrowing his brow.
“We bring supplies behind the Embargo lines.”
That was familiar, Ianto had read about this while on the transport ship. “The region of colonies that was cut off after the Terran-Irolic war thirty years ago?” Thank god he had a superior memory. The sheer amount of history he’d absorbed in the last week would have overwhelmed most people, but knowing something about the world - or rather galaxy - around him made Ianto feel more secure.
“Yep,” said Brenneth. “They opposed the war and wouldn’t send troops to support it. Earth responded by cutting them out of the Galactic Accord. That would have been fine with them, except they were mostly new colonies, hardly terraformed or self-sufficient. They had, and still have, limited access to technology and medical supplies, so neighboring systems pick on them. Earth won’t back them up, so we do. Most of us are from those planets.”
“Boeshane was one of them,” Kethan added. “Until ten years ago.”
“What happened then?”
“They formed an accord with Earth. We were attacked by a local species on a fairly regular basis, and it went beyond our ability to handle. In exchange for some limited conscription from the Boeshane population and the rights to build military outposts, Earth agreed to send in troops to defend us.”
“So when you would go back to the Evening Star, did they ever help out Boeshane, before the accord?” Ianto asked Kethan, who smiled.
“You pick up this time travel thing pretty quickly.”
“I do deal with a massive temporal rift for a living,” Ianto reminded him. That, and he had a logical mind with an excellent ability to track detail.
“It shows. Yeah, they have run supplies to Boeshane before, but I never joined them for any of those missions. The Agency didn’t know what I was doing, but if I started crossing my own timeline, they might have picked up on it.”
Zoanne let out a disapproving noise. “The Agency. I still don’t know why you won’t leave them, Kethan.”
“Clearly, I have,” said Kethan, looking a little annoyed.
“You haven’t left, you’re just messing around without their permission. What do you think you’ll do when they get you back? Let them wipe your memories so you can go back to doing their dirty work all over again?”
“Someone has to do it,” Kethan said, dropping his utensils. “Do you know how many times the Agency has stopped people from completely fucking up the timelines? Who else would do that job?”
“Half of those people are only able to mess with time because of the Agency in the first place. They’re only interested in timelines that benefit themselves anyway, not actually preserving a good one. After all you’ve learned in the past year-”
“Leave him alone, Zoanne,” said Aharon, gruffly. “He’s just a kid.”
“He still can make good choices.”
“I don’t need you to defend me, Aharon,” Kethan said sharply over Zoanne.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You-”
“Boys.” They all looked over at Varelle. “We don’t need to agree with each other, but please, let’s refrain from violence over lunch.”
The tension hung in the air for a long moment before a beep disrupted it. Soren glanced at his wristband and jumped up, heading for the bridge. He wasn’t gone thirty seconds before he clambered back down to the mess.
“We’re about to have company. A patrol ship wants to run an inspection.”
Varelle nodded once and stood. “You know the drill, stations, check the wares, erase any suspicious data, and make sure the logs are clean. Jotir, can I ask you to get Kethan hidden?” She turned to Kethan. “Is Ianto safe?”
“Well,” said Kethan, frowning. “Uno didn’t recognize him, which means the Agency had no idea I wasn’t traveling alone, but I’m not sure I want to gamble that they haven’t connected us by now.”
“Very well. Jotir, will they both fit?” Jotir nodded in response. “Good. Move!”
Kethan and Ianto followed Jotir through the hall to the cargo bay, where he popped the lid of a large crate.
“We’re hiding in there?” Ianto asked in disbelief. The crate was big enough for two people, as long as they were very friendly six year-olds. Kethan grinned and shook his head, climbing in. Ianto watched as he reached down and then stood up again. When Ianto peered over the edge of the crate, he could see that Kethan had pulled open some sort of a trap door, below it was a small enclosure.
“It’s shielded from scans. They’ll look in the crates, but they don’t think to look under them,” Kethan said, dropping into the room. “I’ve never actually had to hide in here before. Good for some ‘trapped in a closet’ role play, though.”
“Lovely,” Ianto said, following Kethan into the crate and through the trap door. There was just enough room for the two of them to sit cross-legged. “How long are we going to be down here?”
“If the crew does their job right? An hour. Two, tops.”
“Even better,” Ianto said, trying to figure out how to sit without his legs cramping up. “Turn around.”
Kethan looked amused, but obeyed, spinning around and shuffling back between Ianto’s legs so they could both stretch out a little. They’d just gotten organized when Jotir stepped into the crate and dropped the trap door over them with a clang.
“Thanks for the warning,” Ianto grumbled. At least the room had a couple small lights built into the walls.
“He’s not much of a talker, in case you haven’t noticed,” replied Kethan, letting his weight fall back against Ianto. “I haven’t figured out if he’s shy, or just has low tolerance of humans.”
“How long has he been on the ship?”
“Erm,” said Kethan, tilting his head so it rested against Ianto’s shoulder. “Lets see, he wasn’t there seven years ago, but he was three, and… six? I think? It’s always hard keeping track of who’s going to be here, since I don’t visit in any sort of order. Varelle used to run new crew members by me, to make sure they would stick around.”
“Why don’t you visit in order?”
Kethan shrugged. “More fun?” He wriggled in Ianto’s grasp. “So, are we going to have some fun of our own? Not much else to do in a space the size of a Kitaran hotel room.”
“Actually,” said Ianto, slowly. “I had some other ideas.”
“And what would those be?”
“You, telling me exactly what is going on. Why you left the Time Agency. Why they’re after you. Why we have to hide in this little hole.” Kethan stopped moving. “What? You know you can trust me now.”
Kethan sighed. “I know. I just don’t like thinking about it more than I have to, that’s all.”
“I deserve to know,” Ianto said calmly.
“Yeah, you do.” Kethan blew out a breath. “But where to start? Where I started, or where it all starts?”
“How about the shorter version, for now.”
“Okay,” said Kethan, straightening up and twisting to look at Ianto. “Have you ever heard of a TARDIS?”
~
Read Chapter 9.
Summary: In which Ianto learns some things about Kethan.
Thanks to my betas, thaddeusfavour and especially bacchae777 who told me when my timelines were getting out of hand.
Previous chapters here.
A/N: Since I was having some questions about how to pronounce Kethan, I made a little tiny Glossary with the character's names, pronunciations, jobs and ages. I will eventually update it to include information from this chapter, but it will remain un-spoilery until I say so. Check it out here.
~
“Fuck you, Jack Harkness,” he snapped suddenly, his hands starting to shake. “Fuck you, Kethan Brisho, or whomever the fuck you are.”
~
Ianto woke up to someone’s breath on his face. He opened his eyes, and found himself staring back at Jack.
No, not Jack, he thought with a quiet sigh. He always forgot when he woke up. Ianto didn’t think his subconscious would ever sort this out. He’d gone to bed with Kethan for seven nights running, and he still woke up thinking he was with Jack. Last night he had crashed, exhausted after a long day of explanations, firefights and space travel, in the small room in which he and Kethan had stowed their packs.
“Morning,” smiled Kethan, trailing a hand down Ianto’s side, moving to draw small circles on his skin. “Sleep well?”
Ianto hummed a response. “Much better wake-up than yesterday,” he said, voice husky. He could see Kethan’s eyes glaze over for a moment as he recalled what happened yesterday, and then he let out a small laugh.
“Didn’t like the cuffs?” Kethan teased.
“I like cuffs just fine, thank you. Usually you’re the one wearing them, that’s all.”
“Oh, really?” Kethan said, arching an eyebrow. “I must trust you a lot.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t let people tie me up unless I know them pretty well. Dangerous, in my line of work, letting someone have that kind of advantage over you.” Kethan eyed Ianto thoughtfully. “You’re pretty loyal to me, aren’t you?”
Ianto nodded.
“What,” Kethan asked, looking amused. “Don’t want to talk about it?”
“What is there to say?” Ianto asked. He wasn’t really used to this; he and Jack never actually discussed the details of their relationship. Neither of them were talkers when it came to the emotional details, though for different reasons. Ianto preferred to let his actions speak for themselves, and Jack - well, Jack just wasn’t interested in emotional complications, Ianto presumed.
“You would have died for me, yesterday, without a second thought, without knowing anything about what I’m doing. I wasn’t expecting Aharon to threaten your life; I was a little annoyed he took it that far. I don’t expect you to die for me, Ianto. Do I in your time?”
“No,” Ianto laughed. “You don’t. But if-” you could die, Ianto thought “-it was necessary, I would.”
“That’s what I’m interested in.” Kethan said, leaning back to look Ianto more fully in face. “The sex must be pretty good to inspire that kind of loyalty,” he joked.
Ianto gave a small smile and rolled onto his back.
“It is, but that’s not why. You-earned it, I suppose. Gave me my life back.”
“Gave you your life back,” Kethan echoed, intrigued. “How did I do that?”
Literally, Ianto thought wryly. But that wasn’t the important way.
“I betrayed you, actually. I worked for you, I was supposed to be one of your trusted soldiers, and I completely abused that trust.”
“You work for me?” Kethan asked, intrigued. “At this Torchwood thing?”
“Yes,” Ianto said, waiting a moment for a shagging-the-boss joke. It never came; perhaps there weren’t any strictures against sleeping with your employer anymore. He took a breath and continued.
“You said that you must trust me, when I’m from. That’s the thing, you do, but you shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it.” He dropped his hand on Kethan’s where it was resting on his stomach. “Should I be telling you this?”
“I’ll stop you if I need to. So you owe me? That’s why you’d die for me?” Kethan made a face. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“I did owe you,” Ianto admitted. “And for a while, it was just sex between us, but it changed. I grew to respect you.”
“Ah, respect,” said Kethan solemnly. “The founding principle of any relationship.”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “The founding principle of our relationship was definitely lust. Everything else came after.”
“I thought you didn’t base your relationships on sex,” Kethan asked. “Or was that just you conning me?”
“No,” said Ianto, shaking his head. “I wasn’t conning you. Jack and I - you and I - didn’t - don’t -”
“Ignore the tense issues,” Kethan injected. “I can figure it out.”
“Alright.” said Ianto, breathing out sharply. “We didn’t have sex until after I betrayed you. Until after you’d forgiven me.”
“When you owed me?”
“Right,” said Ianto. “When I owed you.”
“Again, not sure I like that.”
“It wasn’t like I was trying to get your forgiveness,” Ianto pointed out. “You’d already forgiven me. But I was hurting, and you were hurting, and the sex - sort of made us forget about it.”
“Ah,” said Kethan, sitting up. “I know that kind of sex. The angst driven, lust-filled rutting that is just another version of drowning your sorrows in a bottle of booze?”
“Yep,” chuckled Ianto.
“When did it change?”
“You left,” Ianto said simply. “And then you came back, and somehow, it was different. I was different, I think, and so were you.”
Jack had come back different from his time with the Doctor. He’d told Ianto very little of his time away, but Ianto was smart enough to realize that whatever questions Jack had had about himself, his immortality, had been answered to some degree. Whereas before, Jack had never been willing to commit anything beyond the next night to Ianto, now he seemed more prepared to make long-term plans. Well, thought Ianto wryly, long-term in the sense of a date on Friday. They certainly weren’t saving up a down payment on a house.
“Do you love me?”
Ianto started. “Pardon?”
“I don’t mean me, now,” Kethan said, shrugging. “I mean Jack. Do you love him?”
“Does it matter?”
“I think you do,” Kethan said confidently, throwing a leg over Ianto and straddling him. “I see it when you look at me. You’re missing him, missing your lover. I’m close, but not quite, aren’t I? So it hurts, every time you look at me, and it shows in your eyes.” He leaned over and ghosted his lips over Ianto’s. “That’s why you’d die for me. Not because you owe me, or anything so coarse. Because you love me.”
Ianto looked away. “I think we all do, really.”
“All?”
“Your team. There are four of us, and you.”
“Would they die for me, too?” Kethan asked.
“Yes,” Ianto said. It was a bit like cheap grace, he thought. None of them would ever be tested on that, but nonetheless, Ianto knew that each and every member of Torchwood Three would lay down their lives for Jack. Ianto was nothing special, in that way. He was just the one Jack took into his bed.
Ianto stared up at Kethan, who looked like he was lost in thought, probably at the idea of having four people who were that loyal to him. He was beautiful; naked and warm, his knees hugging Ianto’s hips, one hand resting on Ianto’s stomach, the other raised to his mouth, rubbing absently. Of course he loved him, Ianto thought. He had never met anyone who inspired more love in the people around him than Jack. Irritation, anger, and even fury, yes; but at the end of the day, they all loved him. They couldn’t help it.
Ianto reached up and took the hand that was at Kethan’s mouth, using it to pull Kethan down to him before rolling them over, chest to chest against the wall of the small bed. Kethan smiled up at him and rubbed his nose against Ianto’s, bringing back memories of their third meeting. This man was a stranger, as Jack had been then. Could you know someone if you knew who they would be? If he loved Jack, did he love Kethan too?
The falling sensation in the pit of his stomach was the same, at least. This time, Ianto gave in and let his weight fall onto Kethan, his mouth pressing against Kethan’s as if he could kiss the answers out of him.
They kissed languorously for some time, bodies shifting together leisurely rather than passionately. This was how it was, after the long days at Torchwood when Ianto was too tired to do anything else, or when Jack needed to be reminded that peace could be found in some places, even if they were as small as Ianto’s arms. They moved unhurriedly, Kethan twining a leg around Ianto’s and pressing his hands to Ianto’s back as Ianto buried his face in Kethan’s neck, finding the places that used to make Jack gasp and sigh.
Kethan smoothed a hand down Ianto’s arse, pulling them together as Ianto reached between them, curling his hand around their cocks and stroking, slow and strong. Kethan arched and twisted under him, seeking more contact. Steady pressure built as they rocked in a slow rhythm, lips and cocks and arms and thighs brushing together, and soon (too soon) Ianto was coming, eyes forced open to watch Kethan’s face as Ianto slicked his hand and brought Kethan over the edge, leaning down to capture the small sigh in a final kiss.
Ianto moved off Kethan, just far enough to let him breathe, and they lay there, panting.
“This is so weird,” Kethan murmured after a while. “It must be even weirder for you.”
“Sex with you?” Ianto asked. “It is, a little. My brain can’t figure out if I’m cheating on Jack by sleeping with you or not.” He’d given up thinking that maybe he shouldn’t be sleeping with Kethan at all. Jack had been irresistible enough when Ianto was ignorant of what he was missing; trying to keep out of his bed all over again would have been a pointless exercise.
Kethan laughed. “Unless I’ve changed a lot by the time I know you, I don’t think I’ll mind.”
“No,” Ianto admitted, “Probably not. Why is this strange for you? Aren’t you used to the complications of time-traveling?”
“I am, but it’s never been like this.”
“Like what?”
“Ianto,” he said softly, “Sex with you is like coming home. Whatever we have, in the twenty-first century, it must be good. It’s like you know me better than I know myself.”
Ianto rolled off the bed and found a dirty shirt, which he used to clean himself off before tossing it to Kethan. “I don’t,” he said, shortly. “I don’t know you well at all. I don’t even know your real name.”
Kethan sat up and wiped off his own stomach, frowning. “That is strange. Maybe telling you would mess with the timelines.” He looked thoughtful. “Maybe I don’t even remember my name.”
“Is that possible?” Ianto asked. Jack was old, but he wasn’t old enough to forget who he used to be.
“I forget you, apparently. Who’s to say I don’t forget a whole lot more than that, as well. Maybe that’s why I go by ‘Jack Harkress’, or whatever it is.”
“Harkness,” Ianto corrected, putting on a clean pair of trousers and finding a shirt. “I doubt it. You have plenty of secrets you don’t share with anyone.” He pulled on his shoes, laced them up, and was halfway out the door before Kethan called after him.
“Elariu.” Ianto turned back. “Kethan Elariu, born in the Boeshane Peninsula in 5028.” He smiled. “It was spring.”
Ianto nodded. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
~
After Ianto had eaten, Brenneth sent him off with Kareh for a grand tour of the Evening Star. Kareh had been one of the crew who’d gotten a little more of an introduction than Ianto had intended, but the only comment he made was a mild “and you’ve already acquainted yourself with the cargo bay”. The tour ended in the mainframe, a little cave-like room that appeared all the smaller for the sheer amount of technical equipment packed into it, connected with a hodgepodge of wires.
“This,” Kareh said, throwing his arms widely, “is my baby. She keeps the ship ticking when we sleep, detects spatial disturbances, plots our courses, takes astronomical data, tracks our enemies, regulates our environmental controls, and plays a mean game of chess.”
Ianto stepped up and ran a hand across a panel. “Does she have a name?”
“Just the Evening Star. The ship may be her body, but this is her brain.”
Ianto examined the display that was central to the room and took up four panels. Kareh reached past him and tapped the screen, bringing it to life. Ianto started.
“I know this,” he said, in surprise. “This is the same interface as the mainframe at Torchwood.”
“Torchwood?”
“Where I work,” he answered absently, stepping forward and touching an icon on the screen. “It isn’t touch-screen, and it’s in English, but it’s the same operating system.”
“She’s a bit of a mash-up between a couple of common systems,” Kareh said. “I’d be surprised if you’d seen her before. My predecessor designed her.”
“Your predecessor?” Ianto asked, squinting at the alien text. “Can I plug in my fish, somewhere?”
“Here,” Kareh said, pointing to a port. Ianto pulled off his fish and plugged it in, and Kareh reached over to some keys. The screens divided so that half of them showed what was presumably the same thing as the original Galactic Standard in English. “I’ve only been here for twelve years and Opal’s been captain of the Star for more like twenty. Lirone was the previous computer technician and this is his system.”
“What happened to him?” Ianto asked, flicking through system menus. Definitely the same interface as the Hub’s mainframe.
“Died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kareh shrugged. “I never met him. He was the Captain’s lover, though, so be careful what you say around her. She doesn’t like to talk about him.”
“I thought the Captain and the Doctor…?” Ianto trailed off.
“They are. They’ve been together since, well, forever. Since they were your age, I think.”
Right. Ianto thought. Non-monogamous.
“Here,” Kareh said, stepping up. “Shall I show you the basics? Nav and Enviro are good places to start; everyone on board should be able to use them. You can access both from the bridge as well, but we’ll disturb fewer people down here.”
Ianto picked up the system quickly; he should, he spent enough time buried in the Hub’s mainframe trying to figure out how to get her to run as smoothly as possible. Working with Kareh made Ianto wish the man worked for Torchwood, since Ianto had often felt like he was dealing with a foreign language when accessing the Hub’s systems. Kareh could probably make the Star play four-dimensional Tetris if he felt like it. By the end of the two hours they spent going over the Evening Star’s systems, Ianto had collected enough information to rework several of the mainframe’s vital systems.
When they finished, Ianto left Kareh to his work and went to the mess, where Jotir was ensconced in frying pans and cutting boards. He didn’t look up as Ianto wandered over to the counter.
“Can I help?” Ianto asked softly, trying not to startle the alien. Jotir glanced up, giving Ianto his first look at the alien’s small, pale eyes, and then back at the vegetables he was frying, nodding his head and handing Ianto the wooden spatula he was stirring the food with.
“Stir this. Don’t let it burn,” he said, gesturing with long, translucent fingers.
Ianto felt relieved to hear to alien speak; the silence had been a little disturbing. Now that he knew Jotir was capable of speech, though, he didn’t push it, and they cooked the meal in silence until the rest of the crew started trickling in, finding seats around the long table and grabbing plates and cups.
“Paravian stir-fry!” cried Kethan, leaning over the counter and picking out of the dishes with his fingers. Jotir let out a sigh, but didn’t say anything.
“Jotir will put extra chili powder in your curry again if you keep doing that,” warned Ashild, tugging on his sleeve. “Sit down and be patient.”
“Sorry Jotir,” Kethan said, flashing a shit-eating grin at the alien. “I’ll keep my fingers out of your… offerings, I promise.”
The mechanic - Ellis - let out a bark of a laugh. “Jotir wouldn’t let you anywhere near his offerings, Kethan. He’s got some brains.”
“What do you have, then?” Kethan smirked, pulling out a chair. “And the rest of this crew?”
“A bizarre fondness for your wicked ways, of course,” replied Ellis. “Jotir is the only one who hasn’t fallen for it.”
“You’ve slept with the whole crew?” Ianto couldn’t help but ask, setting bowls of hot food on the table before finding a seat between Kethan and Zoanne.
“Except for Ashild, of course,” answered Ellis for him.
Ianto glanced at Ashild. “Not interested?”
She made a face. “In incest? Not quite.”
“It wouldn’t really be incest,” Kethan objected, waving a fork. “But it would be weird.”
“Are you his sister?” Ianto asked, confused.
“He didn’t tell you?” she asked, turning to glare at Kethan. “Ashamed of me, are you?”
Kethan looked guilty. “It didn’t come up.” He turned to Ianto. “I’m her surrogate father.”
“Excuse me?” Ianto asked, successfully swallowing the bite of food in his mouth.
“It’s sort of a long story,” Kethan said, looking down at his plate.
Zoanne let out a snort. “He hates telling it. Thinks he comes off badly in it.”
“I do!” Kethan replied, spearing an orange vegetable. “I almost got you all killed.”
“You saved her life.”
“No, I almost destroyed it. You saved her life, with my consent.”
Varelle interrupted. “My apologies Ianto, they have this argument every time it comes up.” She took a sip of her water and cleared her throat. Ianto noted that everyone else quieted down and gave her their full attention.
“Twenty-five years ago Zoanne and I worked on a ship, not the Evening Star, that delivered medical supplies to war zones. Zoanne was the ship’s doctor and we were expecting a baby. I was not even three months along when we ran into Kethan.”
“Twenty-five years ago?” Ianto clarified. “He was back in time?”
Kethan nodded. “It was five years ago, for me. I was twenty-three, fresh out of the Academy, and an idiot.”
“Some things never change,” quipped Brenneth.
Kethan made a rude gesture and continued. “I was ordered to stop some temporal smugglers - people taking future technology and bringing it back in time - who were supplying one side with weapons that were swaying the balance of the war. But there was a mix-up in the intel and I thought the Methrin, the ship Zoanne and Opal were on, was the smuggler’s ship.”
“Which would have been cleared up in no time,” inserted Varelle, “But we were ambushed by one side looking to stock up on supplies when we landed. Unfortunately, it was the side the smugglers weren’t supplying-”
“So I thought they were attacking the source of their enemy's weapons, and joined them in the firefight until the Methrin’s crew were disabled enough for me to go in and shut them down. By the time that happened, most of the crew were dead or injured, and Opal had been shot,” Kethan said, sounding disgusted.
“They would have ambushed us without you,” Varelle pointed out mildly, and then continued. “When Kethan realized his mistake, and that I was going to lose the baby, he offered to be a surrogate host.”
“A ridiculous offer,” Zoanne added. “He didn’t even know us and it would have been six months of his life, but I was angry so I took him up on it, determined to make it his punishment for hurting Opal. And there was no other way, really. I was the only one around who could perform the surgery, and I couldn’t exactly do it on myself.”
“So Zoanne removed the… foetus from Opal and implanted it into you?,” Ianto clarified, looking at Kethan, “And then you carried Ashild to term?”
“Yep,” Kethan said. “And I don’t care what they say about medicine being able to make it easy for men, nobody should have to go through that, male or female.” He shuddered, and then looked over at Ashild.
“It wasn’t entirely selfless,” he admitted. “When Zoanne told me Opal was pregnant and going to lose the baby, I knew that if I didn’t find some way to keep that from happening, the timelines would have snapped. Ashild had to survive, had to be part of the future. Offering myself up as host was the only thing I could think of.”
“You know,” Ianto said thoughtfully. “You did mention that you’d been pregnant, once. I think we all thought you were joking.”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Ianto sat quietly, for a moment, food forgotten. “So let me get this straight. Twenty-four years ago in linear time Ashild was born. Which is why she’s twenty-four now,”
“Yep,” said Ashild.
“But it was only four years ago for Kethan, who went back in time to-”
"5032, when I was born, but it was 5031 when he arrived,” Ashild supplied.
“So he spent six months back then, had you, and then, what, left?”
“Yeah, the Agency was really pissed at having to give me unplanned paternity leave. Usually with their male agents they at least get some warning that they’re trying to conceive, since the Agency’s health care pays for the surgery. Besides,” Kethan said, grinning, “I wasn’t exactly ready to settle down and become a stay-on-ship father. I visited when I could.”
“I see.” Ianto speared a pink vegetable and chewed thoughtfully. “When did you become captain of the Evening Star, then?” he asked Varelle.
“When Ashild was five, so nineteen years ago. Brenneth was my pilot back then, and Ellis a mechanic, but the rest of the crew has turned over once or twice since then.”
“And what do you do, normally?”
Varelle met his gaze calmly. “We’re smugglers.”
“Pardon?” Ianto asked, furrowing his brow.
“We bring supplies behind the Embargo lines.”
That was familiar, Ianto had read about this while on the transport ship. “The region of colonies that was cut off after the Terran-Irolic war thirty years ago?” Thank god he had a superior memory. The sheer amount of history he’d absorbed in the last week would have overwhelmed most people, but knowing something about the world - or rather galaxy - around him made Ianto feel more secure.
“Yep,” said Brenneth. “They opposed the war and wouldn’t send troops to support it. Earth responded by cutting them out of the Galactic Accord. That would have been fine with them, except they were mostly new colonies, hardly terraformed or self-sufficient. They had, and still have, limited access to technology and medical supplies, so neighboring systems pick on them. Earth won’t back them up, so we do. Most of us are from those planets.”
“Boeshane was one of them,” Kethan added. “Until ten years ago.”
“What happened then?”
“They formed an accord with Earth. We were attacked by a local species on a fairly regular basis, and it went beyond our ability to handle. In exchange for some limited conscription from the Boeshane population and the rights to build military outposts, Earth agreed to send in troops to defend us.”
“So when you would go back to the Evening Star, did they ever help out Boeshane, before the accord?” Ianto asked Kethan, who smiled.
“You pick up this time travel thing pretty quickly.”
“I do deal with a massive temporal rift for a living,” Ianto reminded him. That, and he had a logical mind with an excellent ability to track detail.
“It shows. Yeah, they have run supplies to Boeshane before, but I never joined them for any of those missions. The Agency didn’t know what I was doing, but if I started crossing my own timeline, they might have picked up on it.”
Zoanne let out a disapproving noise. “The Agency. I still don’t know why you won’t leave them, Kethan.”
“Clearly, I have,” said Kethan, looking a little annoyed.
“You haven’t left, you’re just messing around without their permission. What do you think you’ll do when they get you back? Let them wipe your memories so you can go back to doing their dirty work all over again?”
“Someone has to do it,” Kethan said, dropping his utensils. “Do you know how many times the Agency has stopped people from completely fucking up the timelines? Who else would do that job?”
“Half of those people are only able to mess with time because of the Agency in the first place. They’re only interested in timelines that benefit themselves anyway, not actually preserving a good one. After all you’ve learned in the past year-”
“Leave him alone, Zoanne,” said Aharon, gruffly. “He’s just a kid.”
“He still can make good choices.”
“I don’t need you to defend me, Aharon,” Kethan said sharply over Zoanne.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You-”
“Boys.” They all looked over at Varelle. “We don’t need to agree with each other, but please, let’s refrain from violence over lunch.”
The tension hung in the air for a long moment before a beep disrupted it. Soren glanced at his wristband and jumped up, heading for the bridge. He wasn’t gone thirty seconds before he clambered back down to the mess.
“We’re about to have company. A patrol ship wants to run an inspection.”
Varelle nodded once and stood. “You know the drill, stations, check the wares, erase any suspicious data, and make sure the logs are clean. Jotir, can I ask you to get Kethan hidden?” She turned to Kethan. “Is Ianto safe?”
“Well,” said Kethan, frowning. “Uno didn’t recognize him, which means the Agency had no idea I wasn’t traveling alone, but I’m not sure I want to gamble that they haven’t connected us by now.”
“Very well. Jotir, will they both fit?” Jotir nodded in response. “Good. Move!”
Kethan and Ianto followed Jotir through the hall to the cargo bay, where he popped the lid of a large crate.
“We’re hiding in there?” Ianto asked in disbelief. The crate was big enough for two people, as long as they were very friendly six year-olds. Kethan grinned and shook his head, climbing in. Ianto watched as he reached down and then stood up again. When Ianto peered over the edge of the crate, he could see that Kethan had pulled open some sort of a trap door, below it was a small enclosure.
“It’s shielded from scans. They’ll look in the crates, but they don’t think to look under them,” Kethan said, dropping into the room. “I’ve never actually had to hide in here before. Good for some ‘trapped in a closet’ role play, though.”
“Lovely,” Ianto said, following Kethan into the crate and through the trap door. There was just enough room for the two of them to sit cross-legged. “How long are we going to be down here?”
“If the crew does their job right? An hour. Two, tops.”
“Even better,” Ianto said, trying to figure out how to sit without his legs cramping up. “Turn around.”
Kethan looked amused, but obeyed, spinning around and shuffling back between Ianto’s legs so they could both stretch out a little. They’d just gotten organized when Jotir stepped into the crate and dropped the trap door over them with a clang.
“Thanks for the warning,” Ianto grumbled. At least the room had a couple small lights built into the walls.
“He’s not much of a talker, in case you haven’t noticed,” replied Kethan, letting his weight fall back against Ianto. “I haven’t figured out if he’s shy, or just has low tolerance of humans.”
“How long has he been on the ship?”
“Erm,” said Kethan, tilting his head so it rested against Ianto’s shoulder. “Lets see, he wasn’t there seven years ago, but he was three, and… six? I think? It’s always hard keeping track of who’s going to be here, since I don’t visit in any sort of order. Varelle used to run new crew members by me, to make sure they would stick around.”
“Why don’t you visit in order?”
Kethan shrugged. “More fun?” He wriggled in Ianto’s grasp. “So, are we going to have some fun of our own? Not much else to do in a space the size of a Kitaran hotel room.”
“Actually,” said Ianto, slowly. “I had some other ideas.”
“And what would those be?”
“You, telling me exactly what is going on. Why you left the Time Agency. Why they’re after you. Why we have to hide in this little hole.” Kethan stopped moving. “What? You know you can trust me now.”
Kethan sighed. “I know. I just don’t like thinking about it more than I have to, that’s all.”
“I deserve to know,” Ianto said calmly.
“Yeah, you do.” Kethan blew out a breath. “But where to start? Where I started, or where it all starts?”
“How about the shorter version, for now.”
“Okay,” said Kethan, straightening up and twisting to look at Ianto. “Have you ever heard of a TARDIS?”
~
Read Chapter 9.