Different Kind of Magic -- For Queen and Country
Title: Different Kind of Magic
Chapter Sixteen: For Queen and Country
Date Written: 8/17/09
Rating: PG-13/T
Word Count: 3,362
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Ianto/Jack, Rose/Doctor, Donna, Martha, Lucy (DW), Tosh, Idris (DW/TW), Lumic (DW)
Spoilers: Doctor Who up through Season 04 and current specials, Torchwood up through 02, Different Sort of Science and To Days To Come
Warnings: AU like whoa, character death (sort of)
Author's Notes: Thanks so much to my gorgeous betas totally4ryo and katestamps, who are my sounding boards, my muses, and all-around fantastic girls. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAGEVERSE! For those of you that missed it, there are birthday pictures on my LJ, and you'll all be getting another chapter later tonight!
Previous chapters found here.
Book cover by cjharknessgirl
"No second chances. I'm that sort of man."
-- The Doctor, Christmas Invasion
"Luckily, the Queen said that she wasn't feeling well before she went to bed," Martha told the Doctor. "If she hadn't mentioned her upset stomach, and if you hadn't insisted that you call one of the Healers for her..." She let the sentence drop off, leaving Ianto and the Doctor to fill in the blank with the most horrible image their minds could come up with.
"Right," the Time Lord said, clapping his hands together. "So. What in Rassilon's name are we going to do?"
"We can't exclude anyone or any theory," Ianto said. "Staff, the court, visiting nobles, hired assassins. It all has to be taken into consideration."
"How do we go about finding out who did it?" Martha asked, looking from one man to the other for an answer.
The Doctor sighed. "As much as I hate to say it, the best likelihood is that it was a member of staff. That's where we'll start, then move out from there if need be."
Martha nodded in agreement. "How many people left when Harold was overthrown?" she asked.
"Not as many as I expected," the Doctor admitted. "We offered anyone who wanted to walk an extra month's pay. Maybe a tenth of the staff actually took it. From what I heard, they all ended up in other estates within the fortnight."
The three of them paused their conversation when the door swung open. Lucy entered, carrying a tray of tea and finger sandwiches. She set the tray on a side table, fixing their tea and handing them the cups.
"That leaves a lot of room for someone to stay behind and plan something," Ianto pointed out. "It would be prudent to cut down staff access to Rose to those you trust implicitly." He nodded his thanks to Lucy when she gave him her tea.
"You, Jack, Donna, and Martha are of course on the top of that list," the Doctor said. He flashed Lucy a smile when he got his own cup of tea. "We'll expand it from that."
"Jack's been extremely protective of her, so he'll insist on having one of us with her all day," Ianto continued. "He'll probably want it to be him until we find someone else." He looked at the Doctor. "I'm sorry, but we can't stay here forever, no matter how much we want to."
"Jobs to do, Houses to run?" the Doctor teased.
"Classes to teach and children to raise," Ianto joked back. "We left Gwen and Rhys in charge."
"God and Goddess, you need to get home before that mother of theirs catches wind of that and decides to move in," the Doctor said, rolling his eyes. "Lady Williams is bad enough in court, I wouldn't want to inflict that on those two any more than she has to deal with her."
"That would probably be for the best," Martha agreed. "And a food tester, since she ingested the poison."
"I'll do that one," the Doctor said. "I don't like the idea of hiring someone for a task like that."
"Would that be good though?" Ianto asked, looking at Martha. "Isn't Time Lord physiology different than Human?"
"Well, yes," Martha agreed. Lucy handed her cup and she actually paused in her conversation to speak to the woman. "Thank you, Lucy. Anyway, there are differences between Time Lords and Humans -- most notably the double hearts -- "
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Ianto interrupted, setting his cup aside. "Double hearts?" He looked at the Doctor. "You have two hearts?"
"One is for my Queen, and the other one is for my Country," the Doctor deadpanned. Ianto gave him his best I Am Not Amused look and the Doctor continued. "After we Time Lords Trigger, we grow another one."
"Jack doesn't have two hearts," Ianto said. "And I can say that with the utmost certainty."
The Doctor just grinned. "Jack's half-Human, so he didn't grow another during his Trigger ceremony. He only has the one he was born with."
"... But you have two?" Ianto repeated.
"Biology lesson later, boys," Martha said with a fond smile. "Like I said, there are differences, but for the most part we have the same fallacies. Certain poisons might not affect the Doctor, or something harmless to us might be deadly to him. A big dose of hemlock or something strong and fast like that, however, will kill him as dead as it will you or me, Ianto."
Ianto nodded at her words, thinking before turning back to the Doctor. "You've got two hearts?" he repeated.
The Doctor sighed and started unbuttoning his shirt. "Right. Come here, feel for yourself," he urged. Like an eager child, Ianto did as he was told, scooting his chair over.
"Right," Martha said, smacking the arms of her chair. "I'm going to go check on the Queen," she informed them as she levered herself out of her seat.
"Right, tell her I'll be in shortly," the Doctor said, taking Ianto's hand and pressing it to the right side of his chest. Ianto could feel the faint tha-thump, tha-thump of the Doctor's heart. After a few beats, he moved Ianto's hand over to the left side.
Ianto's eyes widened when he felt another heartbeat, a steady split second behind the first one he'd felt. "Dear sweet Goddess Pythia," he gasped. "That's amazing."
"It is," the Doctor agreed. "Almost as amazing as how Martha knew," he said, raising his voice so the Healer at the door heard it. She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and Ianto could almost feel the waves of guilt rolling off of her.
"I, uh -- Donna told me about it once," she said quickly, flashing a smile. "When I treated her."
"Donna hasn't been ill since you came to work at Torchwood House," the Time Lord pointed out, buttoning his shirt up again.
"It came up once in conversation," she said, waving her hand distractedly. "I'm going to see Rose."
The Doctor and Ianto looked at each other. "Curiouser and curiouser," the Doctor said with a grin. "Another mystery."
-----
Rose's recovery was fast, but not as fast as the others would have preferred. The poison's toxins had done a bit more damage than the Healers liked to admit, and because she was such an important person, Rose was basically banished to her own private quarters. They were convinced she would make a complete recovery.
Eventually.
"At least you let me get up and walk about," Rose said to Ianto, taking a deep breath as she stood in front of the open windows. "Jack and John and the others would rather see me tied to bed for the rest of my life, with the windows and doors shuttered and barred."
"They love you and worry about you," Ianto reminded her gently. "They just want to protect you."
"I know," the blonde said, turning to look at the young Mage. "But caged birds don't live as long as free birds."
"Once we catch the cat, we'll let you fly about to your heart's content, Your Majesty," Ianto continued the analogy with a smile. "Here. The window's open. Come lay back down and don't think such things."
As the Queen moved to her bed, Ianto poured a glass of water from the pitcher next to the bed and handed it to her. He'd fetched the water himself, so he was fairly certain it was safe. If their would-be assassin had poisoned the water well in an attempt to get to the Queen, they'd have bigger problems on their hands soon.
Rose took the glass and laid down next to him, looking at the books strewn about on the coverlet. "What are you reading?"
"Lots of different things," Ianto admitted. He touched the texts in turn as he rattled off their contents. "This one's a Healer's manual on different types of poisons and antidotes. This one's from the Royal Archives, summaries of all of Harold's policies he enacted throughout the kingdom while he was in power. And these are... personal studies. They're spell books."
"You still do private study?" Rose asked, curiously picking up the Healing text and opening the book.
Ianto smiled, watching the Queen flip through the pages, lingering at a sketch or two that looked interesting. "Life is all about learning," he replied. "Whether from a book or from personal experience."
"And what are you learning from those books, Mr. Jones?" Rose asked, smiling over at him. Ianto could still see the eager, curious young woman that that entranced the Doctor under the appearance and dressing gown of an older queen.
"It's an immortality spell," he said. Rose didn't interrupt him, so he continued his explanation. "From what I've been able to understand from these texts and what the Doctor, Donna, and Jack have told me, Time Lords can live forever because they have... What did Jack describe it as?" He paused for a moment, trying to remember Jack's explanation about his immortality. "Oh yes. They have Time in their veins as well as Magic. It's a part of them, and they can tap into it and steal what they want. It's why Jack's immortal. There's no way to stop the flow of Time into his body."
"And Mages can't do that," Rose guessed.
"Nope." He picked up one of the books and held it up. "Others before me have found a way around it, have found a way to achieve virtual immortality." He sighed and threw the book back on the bed, watching it bounce against the mattress. "But it's wrong."
"How do you mean?" Rose asked.
"It's like when I died," Ianto explained. "The spell Jack used was originally meant for a group of people to perform it. The more participating, the better things went. Everyone would give a piece of their own life to the one they wanted to bring back -- normally a few years. If you have ten people and they each give two, three years, the resurrected deceased has twenty to thirty years to enjoy life again."
"How much time do you have?" Rose asked. "Jack's not finite, like we are."
"I honestly have no idea," Ianto admitted. "We -- Owen and Jack and I, mostly -- think that because of Jack's unique ability, he gave me almost immortality." The confusion was obvious on the blonde's face, so Ianto elaborated. "Jack can be killed by illness or injury, but not old age. In that respect, we theorize that I will have that long too."
"If you..." Rose shook her head. "Then why try to become immortal? Just be careful."
"With all due respect, ma'am, we were careful with you too," Ianto pointed out. "If someone runs us through with a sword, Jack'll come back but I won't. I won't do that to him again."
Rose smiled and cupped Ianto's face with her hand. "You do love him," she said fondly.
"Of course."
"So what's the problem?" she asked, looking back down at the books.
"The problem is that the other Mages used the same theory to prolong their own life," Ianto explained. "They steal life from others for their own purposes. For the most part it seems to be people who were ill or otherwise injured who took life from willing hosts -- friends or family or acolytes, things like that, but..." He shook his head. "There's an old, old story about one Mage here," he said, tapping a beat up and otherwise pitiful-looking text. "It's practically a legend by now, it's that ancient. This account says that it happened back when the Mages were still a young race, and were teaching Humans how to be better than what they were."
"What's it about?" Rose asked.
"It's about a Mage named Tobias," Ianto explained. "Tobias Zed. Mages and Time Lords, especially the older ones, took pity on Humans because they weren't as advanced a race, so oftentimes they would strike out and find peoples that were isolated; island colonies, or tribes hidden deep in forests, things like that. Zed found a tribe like that, but he... decided to take advantage of them instead of help them.
"He called them the Ood, because that was similar to their own language, but we have no idea who they really were. They'd never seen magic before, so they thought he was a god, and worshiped him as such. The power went to his head, and he decided to use their complete and utter faith in him to his own ends."
"What did he do to them?" Rose asked, horrified.
"According to the stories, he would perform magic experiments on them, mostly," he replied. "One of his favorites was to suck the life out of them." He leaned on his hand. "I have to admit, if it's true, some good theories on life and the soul and the spirit probably came from his work. As heartless as I know that just sounded."
The Queen shook her head, blonde hair bouncing a little. "That's horrifying."
"It is," Ianto admitted.
"What happened to the Ood?"
Ianto shrugged. "By the time other Mages found Zed, he was ancient and all alone in a village full of skeletons. Gone half-mad, apparently, kept calling himself strange names like Krop Tor, and Abbadon, and Pwccm. The others, when they found out what he'd done, just called him The Beast."
"That's terrifying," Rose said after a moment.
Ianto sighed. "Power tends to make people go mad. Especially a life-or-death power. And while I know that Jack would have absolutely no hesitation to be -- well, a sort of host for me in that respect..."
"You can't do that to him," Rose finished as Ianto trailed off.
"Exactly," Ianto said softly. "I'm not going to do that to him."
The two of them fell quiet. "So what are you going to do?"
"Be really careful until I figure it out."
Rose let out a little bit of a laugh. "You know, if Jack found out what we were talking about, what you were thinking about, he'd thrash us both," she said. "He's so careful with everyone else's life but so careless when it comes to his own."
Ianto nodded, smiling a little bit. "I know. He's so completely and utterly aggravating sometimes."
"Wouldn't change him, though," Rose said after a moment.
"Not for the world," Ianto agreed quickly.
The door opened and, as if summoned, Jack walked in, his father right behind him, carrying a covered tray. "Your Majesty," he said, grinning. "Your lunch awaits you."
The Doctor grinned and uncovered the tray, revealing a tray of glazed meat, cubed and served over some sort of leafy vegetable that Ianto couldn't make out from halfway across the room. The smell wafted over to the bed and both Ianto and Rose instinctively licked their lips. "That looks fantastic," Ianto said.
"I brought enough for all of us," the Doctor said. "It just needs a taste test first -- "
Before the man could continue, Jack reached over and plucked a piece of meat off of the plate.
"Jack Harkness, have you no manners?" the Doctor scolded, but it was good-natured.
Jack grinned. "My father was rather lax on that topic," he teased.
"It wouldn't kill you to learn some manners!" the Doctor sighed.
Jack just laughed and popped the piece in my mouth. "Prove it," he said with a full mouth.
The entire room went silent as Jack's eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to the ground.
The Doctor sighed. "Jack, honestly," he chastised.
Jack didn't move.
The Time Lord nudged him with his foot. "... Jack?"
Ianto groaned. "I'm... I think he's dead," the Mage said, putting his hand on his forehead. "I don't feel him."
Rose touched his face. "Ianto, love, you look pale."
"I don't feel him," he repeated. "There's... there's nothing there." He felt massive panic coming on, and tried to take a deep breath. It was like he was missing part of his body, an arm or a leg. Was this how Lumic felt when he woke up and couldn't walk? No wonder he got so depressed --
-- He wasn't breathing. He couldn't breathe.
"Rose, get him to the window," he dimly heard the Doctor order, and he felt hands on him, pulling him towards the light, away from the Jack-shaped void of darkness lying on the floor. He felt cool wetness at his mouth -- someone was trying to get him to drink some of the water, but he just choked on it. It was poisoned, it was all poisoned. All Poison and Death and Black.
"He wasn't this bad last time." The Queen, obviously worried. Ianto couldn't be fussed to care.
"Last time they weren't Linked," the Doctor sighed, the noise dim. "A piece of him died when Jack did. When I lost Sarah Jane , I went nearly catatonic for a week. Donna's the only thing that pulled me out of it. We almost lost her when Lee died... I could barely bring myself tell her about the twins."
Only Black, sucking up all the noise. Leaving everything barren.
"Will it be like this every time?"
Only the Void.
"It's possible they could build up a resistance, but do you want to put them through that?"
Oh Goddess, the Void, where Lisa and Jack would forget him. Where he'd forget them.
Then the darkness splintered into light and suddenly Ianto could breathe again, he could breathe because Jack was there, cool lips against his own, forcing sweet air into his lungs. He clung to the immortal's shoulders and kissed him back for all he was worth, the world slowly starting to slot itself back into place.
When Jack pulled back, everything was back as it was. He slowly became aware of the fact that he was shaking uncontrollably, and was completely ashamed that he'd become just so undone.
"Shh, shh, it's okay," Jack soothed, tucking his head underneath his chin. He felt an accompanying wash of comfort in his mind. "I'm here."
Ianto took a deep, shuddering breath and pulled back. "I'm sorry," he said, wiping away the tears he didn't even realize he'd cried.
"It's all right," the Doctor reassured him. Rose nodded and rubbed his back soothingly.
"I can't believe they were so bold," Jack said, not letting go of Ianto. "I mean, they know we're guarding her."
"Maybe that was the idea," the Doctor said. "That meal was for all of us."
"Is it wrong of me to say at least it was fast?" Rose asked.
Ianto covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath, pulling his thoughts together. With Jack back and his emotions properly sorted, he let one come out in full force.
When he lowered his hands, Jack and the others physically took a step back. They could see the anger Ianto had let build up and burst out.
"I want to know every single person who was in contact with that plate before you two picked it up," he said, his voice as cold as steel.
"Ianto -- " the Queen started, but he cut her off.
"I want to know all of them, and then I want them all brought to me."
"I don't know if that'll be such a good idea," the Doctor said hesitantly.
"Now, Time Lord!" Ianto roared.
Both the Doctor and Jack turned and fled to do as they'd been ordered. Ianto faintly heard Jack's voice as the door swung shut behind them.
"Are you sure you picked the right person as Successor and Second?"
"Ianto," Rose said, putting a hand on his arm. "It shouldn't be like this. I don't want his ghost turning you into a killer."
"I'm just sick of getting played," the Mage replied, fighting to keep his voice calm. "Their punishment will be chosen by you and the Doctor, as is proper. However, I'm not going to sit around and wait for them to kill my Jack again."
Rose looked like she was at a complete and utter loss as of what to say, so she just went back to rubbing his arm.
Chapter Sixteen: For Queen and Country
Date Written: 8/17/09
Rating: PG-13/T
Word Count: 3,362
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Ianto/Jack, Rose/Doctor, Donna, Martha, Lucy (DW), Tosh, Idris (DW/TW), Lumic (DW)
Spoilers: Doctor Who up through Season 04 and current specials, Torchwood up through 02, Different Sort of Science and To Days To Come
Warnings: AU like whoa, character death (sort of)
Author's Notes: Thanks so much to my gorgeous betas totally4ryo and katestamps, who are my sounding boards, my muses, and all-around fantastic girls. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAGEVERSE! For those of you that missed it, there are birthday pictures on my LJ, and you'll all be getting another chapter later tonight!
Previous chapters found here.
Book cover by cjharknessgirl
"No second chances. I'm that sort of man."
-- The Doctor, Christmas Invasion
"Luckily, the Queen said that she wasn't feeling well before she went to bed," Martha told the Doctor. "If she hadn't mentioned her upset stomach, and if you hadn't insisted that you call one of the Healers for her..." She let the sentence drop off, leaving Ianto and the Doctor to fill in the blank with the most horrible image their minds could come up with.
"Right," the Time Lord said, clapping his hands together. "So. What in Rassilon's name are we going to do?"
"We can't exclude anyone or any theory," Ianto said. "Staff, the court, visiting nobles, hired assassins. It all has to be taken into consideration."
"How do we go about finding out who did it?" Martha asked, looking from one man to the other for an answer.
The Doctor sighed. "As much as I hate to say it, the best likelihood is that it was a member of staff. That's where we'll start, then move out from there if need be."
Martha nodded in agreement. "How many people left when Harold was overthrown?" she asked.
"Not as many as I expected," the Doctor admitted. "We offered anyone who wanted to walk an extra month's pay. Maybe a tenth of the staff actually took it. From what I heard, they all ended up in other estates within the fortnight."
The three of them paused their conversation when the door swung open. Lucy entered, carrying a tray of tea and finger sandwiches. She set the tray on a side table, fixing their tea and handing them the cups.
"That leaves a lot of room for someone to stay behind and plan something," Ianto pointed out. "It would be prudent to cut down staff access to Rose to those you trust implicitly." He nodded his thanks to Lucy when she gave him her tea.
"You, Jack, Donna, and Martha are of course on the top of that list," the Doctor said. He flashed Lucy a smile when he got his own cup of tea. "We'll expand it from that."
"Jack's been extremely protective of her, so he'll insist on having one of us with her all day," Ianto continued. "He'll probably want it to be him until we find someone else." He looked at the Doctor. "I'm sorry, but we can't stay here forever, no matter how much we want to."
"Jobs to do, Houses to run?" the Doctor teased.
"Classes to teach and children to raise," Ianto joked back. "We left Gwen and Rhys in charge."
"God and Goddess, you need to get home before that mother of theirs catches wind of that and decides to move in," the Doctor said, rolling his eyes. "Lady Williams is bad enough in court, I wouldn't want to inflict that on those two any more than she has to deal with her."
"That would probably be for the best," Martha agreed. "And a food tester, since she ingested the poison."
"I'll do that one," the Doctor said. "I don't like the idea of hiring someone for a task like that."
"Would that be good though?" Ianto asked, looking at Martha. "Isn't Time Lord physiology different than Human?"
"Well, yes," Martha agreed. Lucy handed her cup and she actually paused in her conversation to speak to the woman. "Thank you, Lucy. Anyway, there are differences between Time Lords and Humans -- most notably the double hearts -- "
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Ianto interrupted, setting his cup aside. "Double hearts?" He looked at the Doctor. "You have two hearts?"
"One is for my Queen, and the other one is for my Country," the Doctor deadpanned. Ianto gave him his best I Am Not Amused look and the Doctor continued. "After we Time Lords Trigger, we grow another one."
"Jack doesn't have two hearts," Ianto said. "And I can say that with the utmost certainty."
The Doctor just grinned. "Jack's half-Human, so he didn't grow another during his Trigger ceremony. He only has the one he was born with."
"... But you have two?" Ianto repeated.
"Biology lesson later, boys," Martha said with a fond smile. "Like I said, there are differences, but for the most part we have the same fallacies. Certain poisons might not affect the Doctor, or something harmless to us might be deadly to him. A big dose of hemlock or something strong and fast like that, however, will kill him as dead as it will you or me, Ianto."
Ianto nodded at her words, thinking before turning back to the Doctor. "You've got two hearts?" he repeated.
The Doctor sighed and started unbuttoning his shirt. "Right. Come here, feel for yourself," he urged. Like an eager child, Ianto did as he was told, scooting his chair over.
"Right," Martha said, smacking the arms of her chair. "I'm going to go check on the Queen," she informed them as she levered herself out of her seat.
"Right, tell her I'll be in shortly," the Doctor said, taking Ianto's hand and pressing it to the right side of his chest. Ianto could feel the faint tha-thump, tha-thump of the Doctor's heart. After a few beats, he moved Ianto's hand over to the left side.
Ianto's eyes widened when he felt another heartbeat, a steady split second behind the first one he'd felt. "Dear sweet Goddess Pythia," he gasped. "That's amazing."
"It is," the Doctor agreed. "Almost as amazing as how Martha knew," he said, raising his voice so the Healer at the door heard it. She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and Ianto could almost feel the waves of guilt rolling off of her.
"I, uh -- Donna told me about it once," she said quickly, flashing a smile. "When I treated her."
"Donna hasn't been ill since you came to work at Torchwood House," the Time Lord pointed out, buttoning his shirt up again.
"It came up once in conversation," she said, waving her hand distractedly. "I'm going to see Rose."
The Doctor and Ianto looked at each other. "Curiouser and curiouser," the Doctor said with a grin. "Another mystery."
-----
Rose's recovery was fast, but not as fast as the others would have preferred. The poison's toxins had done a bit more damage than the Healers liked to admit, and because she was such an important person, Rose was basically banished to her own private quarters. They were convinced she would make a complete recovery.
Eventually.
"At least you let me get up and walk about," Rose said to Ianto, taking a deep breath as she stood in front of the open windows. "Jack and John and the others would rather see me tied to bed for the rest of my life, with the windows and doors shuttered and barred."
"They love you and worry about you," Ianto reminded her gently. "They just want to protect you."
"I know," the blonde said, turning to look at the young Mage. "But caged birds don't live as long as free birds."
"Once we catch the cat, we'll let you fly about to your heart's content, Your Majesty," Ianto continued the analogy with a smile. "Here. The window's open. Come lay back down and don't think such things."
As the Queen moved to her bed, Ianto poured a glass of water from the pitcher next to the bed and handed it to her. He'd fetched the water himself, so he was fairly certain it was safe. If their would-be assassin had poisoned the water well in an attempt to get to the Queen, they'd have bigger problems on their hands soon.
Rose took the glass and laid down next to him, looking at the books strewn about on the coverlet. "What are you reading?"
"Lots of different things," Ianto admitted. He touched the texts in turn as he rattled off their contents. "This one's a Healer's manual on different types of poisons and antidotes. This one's from the Royal Archives, summaries of all of Harold's policies he enacted throughout the kingdom while he was in power. And these are... personal studies. They're spell books."
"You still do private study?" Rose asked, curiously picking up the Healing text and opening the book.
Ianto smiled, watching the Queen flip through the pages, lingering at a sketch or two that looked interesting. "Life is all about learning," he replied. "Whether from a book or from personal experience."
"And what are you learning from those books, Mr. Jones?" Rose asked, smiling over at him. Ianto could still see the eager, curious young woman that that entranced the Doctor under the appearance and dressing gown of an older queen.
"It's an immortality spell," he said. Rose didn't interrupt him, so he continued his explanation. "From what I've been able to understand from these texts and what the Doctor, Donna, and Jack have told me, Time Lords can live forever because they have... What did Jack describe it as?" He paused for a moment, trying to remember Jack's explanation about his immortality. "Oh yes. They have Time in their veins as well as Magic. It's a part of them, and they can tap into it and steal what they want. It's why Jack's immortal. There's no way to stop the flow of Time into his body."
"And Mages can't do that," Rose guessed.
"Nope." He picked up one of the books and held it up. "Others before me have found a way around it, have found a way to achieve virtual immortality." He sighed and threw the book back on the bed, watching it bounce against the mattress. "But it's wrong."
"How do you mean?" Rose asked.
"It's like when I died," Ianto explained. "The spell Jack used was originally meant for a group of people to perform it. The more participating, the better things went. Everyone would give a piece of their own life to the one they wanted to bring back -- normally a few years. If you have ten people and they each give two, three years, the resurrected deceased has twenty to thirty years to enjoy life again."
"How much time do you have?" Rose asked. "Jack's not finite, like we are."
"I honestly have no idea," Ianto admitted. "We -- Owen and Jack and I, mostly -- think that because of Jack's unique ability, he gave me almost immortality." The confusion was obvious on the blonde's face, so Ianto elaborated. "Jack can be killed by illness or injury, but not old age. In that respect, we theorize that I will have that long too."
"If you..." Rose shook her head. "Then why try to become immortal? Just be careful."
"With all due respect, ma'am, we were careful with you too," Ianto pointed out. "If someone runs us through with a sword, Jack'll come back but I won't. I won't do that to him again."
Rose smiled and cupped Ianto's face with her hand. "You do love him," she said fondly.
"Of course."
"So what's the problem?" she asked, looking back down at the books.
"The problem is that the other Mages used the same theory to prolong their own life," Ianto explained. "They steal life from others for their own purposes. For the most part it seems to be people who were ill or otherwise injured who took life from willing hosts -- friends or family or acolytes, things like that, but..." He shook his head. "There's an old, old story about one Mage here," he said, tapping a beat up and otherwise pitiful-looking text. "It's practically a legend by now, it's that ancient. This account says that it happened back when the Mages were still a young race, and were teaching Humans how to be better than what they were."
"What's it about?" Rose asked.
"It's about a Mage named Tobias," Ianto explained. "Tobias Zed. Mages and Time Lords, especially the older ones, took pity on Humans because they weren't as advanced a race, so oftentimes they would strike out and find peoples that were isolated; island colonies, or tribes hidden deep in forests, things like that. Zed found a tribe like that, but he... decided to take advantage of them instead of help them.
"He called them the Ood, because that was similar to their own language, but we have no idea who they really were. They'd never seen magic before, so they thought he was a god, and worshiped him as such. The power went to his head, and he decided to use their complete and utter faith in him to his own ends."
"What did he do to them?" Rose asked, horrified.
"According to the stories, he would perform magic experiments on them, mostly," he replied. "One of his favorites was to suck the life out of them." He leaned on his hand. "I have to admit, if it's true, some good theories on life and the soul and the spirit probably came from his work. As heartless as I know that just sounded."
The Queen shook her head, blonde hair bouncing a little. "That's horrifying."
"It is," Ianto admitted.
"What happened to the Ood?"
Ianto shrugged. "By the time other Mages found Zed, he was ancient and all alone in a village full of skeletons. Gone half-mad, apparently, kept calling himself strange names like Krop Tor, and Abbadon, and Pwccm. The others, when they found out what he'd done, just called him The Beast."
"That's terrifying," Rose said after a moment.
Ianto sighed. "Power tends to make people go mad. Especially a life-or-death power. And while I know that Jack would have absolutely no hesitation to be -- well, a sort of host for me in that respect..."
"You can't do that to him," Rose finished as Ianto trailed off.
"Exactly," Ianto said softly. "I'm not going to do that to him."
The two of them fell quiet. "So what are you going to do?"
"Be really careful until I figure it out."
Rose let out a little bit of a laugh. "You know, if Jack found out what we were talking about, what you were thinking about, he'd thrash us both," she said. "He's so careful with everyone else's life but so careless when it comes to his own."
Ianto nodded, smiling a little bit. "I know. He's so completely and utterly aggravating sometimes."
"Wouldn't change him, though," Rose said after a moment.
"Not for the world," Ianto agreed quickly.
The door opened and, as if summoned, Jack walked in, his father right behind him, carrying a covered tray. "Your Majesty," he said, grinning. "Your lunch awaits you."
The Doctor grinned and uncovered the tray, revealing a tray of glazed meat, cubed and served over some sort of leafy vegetable that Ianto couldn't make out from halfway across the room. The smell wafted over to the bed and both Ianto and Rose instinctively licked their lips. "That looks fantastic," Ianto said.
"I brought enough for all of us," the Doctor said. "It just needs a taste test first -- "
Before the man could continue, Jack reached over and plucked a piece of meat off of the plate.
"Jack Harkness, have you no manners?" the Doctor scolded, but it was good-natured.
Jack grinned. "My father was rather lax on that topic," he teased.
"It wouldn't kill you to learn some manners!" the Doctor sighed.
Jack just laughed and popped the piece in my mouth. "Prove it," he said with a full mouth.
The entire room went silent as Jack's eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to the ground.
The Doctor sighed. "Jack, honestly," he chastised.
Jack didn't move.
The Time Lord nudged him with his foot. "... Jack?"
Ianto groaned. "I'm... I think he's dead," the Mage said, putting his hand on his forehead. "I don't feel him."
Rose touched his face. "Ianto, love, you look pale."
"I don't feel him," he repeated. "There's... there's nothing there." He felt massive panic coming on, and tried to take a deep breath. It was like he was missing part of his body, an arm or a leg. Was this how Lumic felt when he woke up and couldn't walk? No wonder he got so depressed --
-- He wasn't breathing. He couldn't breathe.
"Rose, get him to the window," he dimly heard the Doctor order, and he felt hands on him, pulling him towards the light, away from the Jack-shaped void of darkness lying on the floor. He felt cool wetness at his mouth -- someone was trying to get him to drink some of the water, but he just choked on it. It was poisoned, it was all poisoned. All Poison and Death and Black.
"He wasn't this bad last time." The Queen, obviously worried. Ianto couldn't be fussed to care.
"Last time they weren't Linked," the Doctor sighed, the noise dim. "A piece of him died when Jack did. When I lost Sarah Jane , I went nearly catatonic for a week. Donna's the only thing that pulled me out of it. We almost lost her when Lee died... I could barely bring myself tell her about the twins."
Only Black, sucking up all the noise. Leaving everything barren.
"Will it be like this every time?"
Only the Void.
"It's possible they could build up a resistance, but do you want to put them through that?"
Oh Goddess, the Void, where Lisa and Jack would forget him. Where he'd forget them.
Then the darkness splintered into light and suddenly Ianto could breathe again, he could breathe because Jack was there, cool lips against his own, forcing sweet air into his lungs. He clung to the immortal's shoulders and kissed him back for all he was worth, the world slowly starting to slot itself back into place.
When Jack pulled back, everything was back as it was. He slowly became aware of the fact that he was shaking uncontrollably, and was completely ashamed that he'd become just so undone.
"Shh, shh, it's okay," Jack soothed, tucking his head underneath his chin. He felt an accompanying wash of comfort in his mind. "I'm here."
Ianto took a deep, shuddering breath and pulled back. "I'm sorry," he said, wiping away the tears he didn't even realize he'd cried.
"It's all right," the Doctor reassured him. Rose nodded and rubbed his back soothingly.
"I can't believe they were so bold," Jack said, not letting go of Ianto. "I mean, they know we're guarding her."
"Maybe that was the idea," the Doctor said. "That meal was for all of us."
"Is it wrong of me to say at least it was fast?" Rose asked.
Ianto covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath, pulling his thoughts together. With Jack back and his emotions properly sorted, he let one come out in full force.
When he lowered his hands, Jack and the others physically took a step back. They could see the anger Ianto had let build up and burst out.
"I want to know every single person who was in contact with that plate before you two picked it up," he said, his voice as cold as steel.
"Ianto -- " the Queen started, but he cut her off.
"I want to know all of them, and then I want them all brought to me."
"I don't know if that'll be such a good idea," the Doctor said hesitantly.
"Now, Time Lord!" Ianto roared.
Both the Doctor and Jack turned and fled to do as they'd been ordered. Ianto faintly heard Jack's voice as the door swung shut behind them.
"Are you sure you picked the right person as Successor and Second?"
"Ianto," Rose said, putting a hand on his arm. "It shouldn't be like this. I don't want his ghost turning you into a killer."
"I'm just sick of getting played," the Mage replied, fighting to keep his voice calm. "Their punishment will be chosen by you and the Doctor, as is proper. However, I'm not going to sit around and wait for them to kill my Jack again."
Rose looked like she was at a complete and utter loss as of what to say, so she just went back to rubbing his arm.