Convergence of Probability
Title: Convergence of Probability
Rating: G
Word count: 1684
Fandom: Torchwood, Doctor Who (new series)
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Ten, Martha, Mickey, Donna
Spoilers: Through Torchwood's Exit Wounds and Doctor Who's Journey''s End
Warnings: Angst, possible shoe lust
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I promise to return them in like-new condition when I'm done with them. Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC and RTD and Kneazles belong to J.K. Rowling.
Author's Notes: Originally written from the day three prompt at horizonssing, but it seems to have gone another way. Much thanks to my beta,
gracie_musica, without whom this would not be ending so well and to my hubby for giving me the perfect title. Not going to be a series. Really. I swear. (Stop laughing, Gracie.)
Convergence of Probability
Ianto Jones took great pride in his ability to be unflappable under pressure. Nearly eaten by cannibals? Get your ribs wrapped and try not to do any heavy pizza-lifting. Jack swanning in to save the day after having been gone for months? Resist the urge to throttle him and keep working. Dead co-worker? Take him off the coffee rounds. Dislocated shoulder from having a building dropped on you? Pop it back in and keep moving. Daleks in the hub? Shoot them and don't collapse from shock when you're not dead in seconds. Above all, keep moving.
So when the TARDIS appeared next to the rift pool a mere twenty minutes after he'd sent Gwen home to check on Rhys and disgorged a dripping, bedraggled Doctor, he did what any sane Torchwood employee would do. He asked the Doctor how he took his tea.
“Pardon?” The Doctor looked stunned. “I mean, I like tea, nothing fixes you up like a spot o' tea, but I thought you were a coffee man. Jack makes it sound like your coffee is a religious experience...well, as close to religious as Jack's likely to get, really, man like him. But you know that, you're....” The Doctor, perhaps suddenly conscious of the fact that he was dripping into water up to his ankles and babbling, pulled up short. “You ARE Ianto Jones, aren't you? I did wind up in Torchwood Cardiff?” He sagged against the entry to the TARDIS, resting his head along the doorframe in something like a caress. “Sometimes she decides where we're going and I don't have much control over it, but the coordinates looked familiar. Maybe I'm later than I thought?”
“I expect you're a bit earlier than expected, actually sir. The Earth's been back in orbit about an hour.” He smiled as the Doctor's head lifted sharply from the side of the TARDIS. “I take it you dropped Jack off elsewhere?” He turned, heading for the kitchen, listening for the slight squishing that meant the Doctor was following.
“Yeah, him and Mickey and Martha. But just London, Martha said something about Jack having to go home to see her mum.” The Doctor shuddered audibly. “Formidable woman, that. Still, I expect he'll be back in a few hours.”
Ianto turned, holding out a towel. “I expect it will be a bit longer than that. It is Sunday, after all, and I've never heard of Jack refusing Sunday dinner.”
The Doctor, who had been toweling his hair, stopped. “Sunday? But, I never go anywhere on a Sunday! Sundays are boring! Donna, tell him,” The Doctor, half-turned as if to speak to someone just behind his left shoulder, froze. He swayed, just a little, and Ianto got a hand under his elbow and steered him to a chair just in time. The Doctor bent double, head between his knees and Ianto turned back to the tea.
After a time, the Doctor sat up and Ianto presented the cup of steaming Earl Grey. They sat, silently sipping their tea, until the Doctor sneezed. “Oh wonderful, I'm catching a cold. Haven't had one of those yet in this body, I wonder how it'll feel. Last regeneration, I had a nose that took hours to blow. Only had the one cold, but it lasted for weeks.”
Ianto stood, gesturing for the Doctor to follow him. “Then let's get you out of those wet clothes. I'm sure Jack's got something that will fit you well enough, and a hot shower might head off the worst of the congestion.” He led the Doctor through the hub to Jack's room, pulling out a pair of sweat pants and an undershirt and pointing out the shower. He left the Doctor commenting loudly about how Jack's showerhead was in no way temporally appropriate, but he should expect such things from such an unrepentant hedonist. He stifled the wince that went with the thought that he owed Tosh lunch because she'd sworn the showerhead was alien tech, never mind that he'd ordered it over the Internet as a surprise for Jack. Then he went to work.
Googling “Donna Noble” pulled up her profile with the temp agency and her MySpace page. A quick glance through the latter “Interests: Travel” and the pictures confirmed he'd found the proper woman. He checked hospitals through the UK for any signs of her admission, knocking together a quick program to alert him to any Jane Does, hospital admissions or police reports matching her description. Then he called her house and asked to speak to her. The man who'd answered the phone insisted that she was “out to tea, bless her,” and asked if he could take Ianto's number, but he rang off without leaving any contact information. Then, he went to work.
The “Torchwood Pension Fund” line in the budget had been a matter of some consternation and amusement for years, and while Jack was gone Ianto had discovered exactly how much money had been put by for an eventuality that would never come. Owen had been all in favor of dividing the spoils between them all, making a comment about the lotto not paying as well as all that. Toshiko had smiled and said she could imagine others who would wish the same. Ianto had said he wished they could dispense money as freely as retcon and the three of them had looked at each other, all struck by the same idea simultaneously. Three hours later, the Torchwood Retcon Lottery and Rainy Day Fund had been officially christened with three of the most deserving of the previous year's retconees as recipients. Tosh had even managed to tweak it so the local lottery offices delivered the checks and celebrated the winners. They'd been working up the lists for this year just before the disaster and Ianto, in a fit of sentimentality, had awarded the prizes to each of Owen and Tosh's top three choices, a total of five in all. (They'd both agreed that Mrs. Dimthwapple, six of whose seventeen cats had turned out to be Kneazles and who had needed two rounds of retconning to stop looking for “Miffy” and “Buttons” on every corner, needed a bit more padding in her pension. Ianto, having met the woman in question, thought perhaps she should be in a home instead, but sentimentality won out.)
Ianto worked fast, and by the time the Doctor came wandering down the stairs, looking both drier and less openly distressed, he was nearly done.
“Donna likes clothes, right?” He asked, still typing furiously.
“Is water wet?” The Doctor grinned,” I remember this one time, we were in Pompeii, whole place is about to blow, and there she is, modeling this blue number that....” He trailed off, looking ever-sadder.
“All right then, we'll up this by ten percent, make it payable annually for thirty years and...done.” Ianto turned to the Doctor, flashing him a grin. “In about three hours, one Miss Donna Noble will win a lottery, payable annually for the next thirty years to the tune of,” he swiveled the screen toward the Doctor, “which should enable her to travel anywhere on the planet to her heart's content.” He typed another string of characters and then stepped back and dusted his hands off. “It is possible we will hear her scream all the way here.”
The Doctor started laughing, chortling, great huge belly laughs rolling up from his toes and little giggles that rocked him back and forth. When Gwen arrived a few minutes later, she found Ianto sitting on the couch watching the Time Lord laugh. By the time Jack arrived, Mickey and Martha in tow, the three of them were sitting on the floor against the sofa, drinking from coffee mugs and toasting fashion icons.
"Donatella Versace." Gwen smiled broadly, bringing her mug gently against the Doctor's.
"Coco Chanel." Ianto smiled, adding his with a soft clink.
“Manolo Blahnik.” Gwen turned to look at the Doctor and Ianto mentally revised his opinion of Donna. Upward. Anyone who could run in those shoes.
“Vera Wang, I liked her wedding dresses.” Gwen twisted the ring on her finger and smiled gently.
“Yves Saint Laurent,” Ianto declared, smoothing a wrinkle from his trousers as the hub door began to roll open.
"Mira Liantalla," the Doctor pronounced carefully, giving the words an extra flair.
"Who?" Gwen, Ianto, Jack and Martha asked in unison.
"Oops, sorry, give it five years." The Doctor looked momentarily abashed before dissolving into another fit of giggles and taking the rest of them with him.
Mickey stared at the three of them piled on the floor before the hub's couch and then took in Martha and Jack looking at them with the fond expressions of long-suffering parents and sighed. “This, I came back for? Touched in the head, I am. 'Come back to Cardiff, best coffee in the universe,' he says and I hop on a train. And here I am watching Captain Cheesecake get mushy and not a drop of coffee in sight.” Overhead, Myfanwy screamed a welcome and Mickey glanced upward, startled. “Pet pteradon?” He walked over to the threesome on the floor, picked up the bottle beside Ianto and took a hearty swallow, ignoring Jack's “hey, isn't that the one from my office?”
He held up the bottle and cleared his throat. Astonishingly, miraculously, five heads swiveled to look at him. “I'm Mickey Smith. And we just saved the world, and I say that means the world owes us a party.” He smiled at Jack. “Any objections?”
Hours later, after Martha and Gwen had been collected by a bemused Rhys, after Mickey and the Doctor had been settled onto the Hub's couches and Myfanwy had been let out for the night, Jack turned to Ianto. “Thank you for looking after him.” He leaned close, kissing Ianto's cheek as he tipped him into bed. “Do you know what happened to Donna? I sort of expected her to be here.”
Ianto laughed sleepily before rolling his face into the pillow. “She won the lottery.”
Rating: G
Word count: 1684
Fandom: Torchwood, Doctor Who (new series)
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Ten, Martha, Mickey, Donna
Spoilers: Through Torchwood's Exit Wounds and Doctor Who's Journey''s End
Warnings: Angst, possible shoe lust
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I promise to return them in like-new condition when I'm done with them. Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC and RTD and Kneazles belong to J.K. Rowling.
Author's Notes: Originally written from the day three prompt at horizonssing, but it seems to have gone another way. Much thanks to my beta,
gracie_musica, without whom this would not be ending so well and to my hubby for giving me the perfect title. Not going to be a series. Really. I swear. (Stop laughing, Gracie.)
Convergence of Probability
Ianto Jones took great pride in his ability to be unflappable under pressure. Nearly eaten by cannibals? Get your ribs wrapped and try not to do any heavy pizza-lifting. Jack swanning in to save the day after having been gone for months? Resist the urge to throttle him and keep working. Dead co-worker? Take him off the coffee rounds. Dislocated shoulder from having a building dropped on you? Pop it back in and keep moving. Daleks in the hub? Shoot them and don't collapse from shock when you're not dead in seconds. Above all, keep moving.
So when the TARDIS appeared next to the rift pool a mere twenty minutes after he'd sent Gwen home to check on Rhys and disgorged a dripping, bedraggled Doctor, he did what any sane Torchwood employee would do. He asked the Doctor how he took his tea.
“Pardon?” The Doctor looked stunned. “I mean, I like tea, nothing fixes you up like a spot o' tea, but I thought you were a coffee man. Jack makes it sound like your coffee is a religious experience...well, as close to religious as Jack's likely to get, really, man like him. But you know that, you're....” The Doctor, perhaps suddenly conscious of the fact that he was dripping into water up to his ankles and babbling, pulled up short. “You ARE Ianto Jones, aren't you? I did wind up in Torchwood Cardiff?” He sagged against the entry to the TARDIS, resting his head along the doorframe in something like a caress. “Sometimes she decides where we're going and I don't have much control over it, but the coordinates looked familiar. Maybe I'm later than I thought?”
“I expect you're a bit earlier than expected, actually sir. The Earth's been back in orbit about an hour.” He smiled as the Doctor's head lifted sharply from the side of the TARDIS. “I take it you dropped Jack off elsewhere?” He turned, heading for the kitchen, listening for the slight squishing that meant the Doctor was following.
“Yeah, him and Mickey and Martha. But just London, Martha said something about Jack having to go home to see her mum.” The Doctor shuddered audibly. “Formidable woman, that. Still, I expect he'll be back in a few hours.”
Ianto turned, holding out a towel. “I expect it will be a bit longer than that. It is Sunday, after all, and I've never heard of Jack refusing Sunday dinner.”
The Doctor, who had been toweling his hair, stopped. “Sunday? But, I never go anywhere on a Sunday! Sundays are boring! Donna, tell him,” The Doctor, half-turned as if to speak to someone just behind his left shoulder, froze. He swayed, just a little, and Ianto got a hand under his elbow and steered him to a chair just in time. The Doctor bent double, head between his knees and Ianto turned back to the tea.
After a time, the Doctor sat up and Ianto presented the cup of steaming Earl Grey. They sat, silently sipping their tea, until the Doctor sneezed. “Oh wonderful, I'm catching a cold. Haven't had one of those yet in this body, I wonder how it'll feel. Last regeneration, I had a nose that took hours to blow. Only had the one cold, but it lasted for weeks.”
Ianto stood, gesturing for the Doctor to follow him. “Then let's get you out of those wet clothes. I'm sure Jack's got something that will fit you well enough, and a hot shower might head off the worst of the congestion.” He led the Doctor through the hub to Jack's room, pulling out a pair of sweat pants and an undershirt and pointing out the shower. He left the Doctor commenting loudly about how Jack's showerhead was in no way temporally appropriate, but he should expect such things from such an unrepentant hedonist. He stifled the wince that went with the thought that he owed Tosh lunch because she'd sworn the showerhead was alien tech, never mind that he'd ordered it over the Internet as a surprise for Jack. Then he went to work.
Googling “Donna Noble” pulled up her profile with the temp agency and her MySpace page. A quick glance through the latter “Interests: Travel” and the pictures confirmed he'd found the proper woman. He checked hospitals through the UK for any signs of her admission, knocking together a quick program to alert him to any Jane Does, hospital admissions or police reports matching her description. Then he called her house and asked to speak to her. The man who'd answered the phone insisted that she was “out to tea, bless her,” and asked if he could take Ianto's number, but he rang off without leaving any contact information. Then, he went to work.
The “Torchwood Pension Fund” line in the budget had been a matter of some consternation and amusement for years, and while Jack was gone Ianto had discovered exactly how much money had been put by for an eventuality that would never come. Owen had been all in favor of dividing the spoils between them all, making a comment about the lotto not paying as well as all that. Toshiko had smiled and said she could imagine others who would wish the same. Ianto had said he wished they could dispense money as freely as retcon and the three of them had looked at each other, all struck by the same idea simultaneously. Three hours later, the Torchwood Retcon Lottery and Rainy Day Fund had been officially christened with three of the most deserving of the previous year's retconees as recipients. Tosh had even managed to tweak it so the local lottery offices delivered the checks and celebrated the winners. They'd been working up the lists for this year just before the disaster and Ianto, in a fit of sentimentality, had awarded the prizes to each of Owen and Tosh's top three choices, a total of five in all. (They'd both agreed that Mrs. Dimthwapple, six of whose seventeen cats had turned out to be Kneazles and who had needed two rounds of retconning to stop looking for “Miffy” and “Buttons” on every corner, needed a bit more padding in her pension. Ianto, having met the woman in question, thought perhaps she should be in a home instead, but sentimentality won out.)
Ianto worked fast, and by the time the Doctor came wandering down the stairs, looking both drier and less openly distressed, he was nearly done.
“Donna likes clothes, right?” He asked, still typing furiously.
“Is water wet?” The Doctor grinned,” I remember this one time, we were in Pompeii, whole place is about to blow, and there she is, modeling this blue number that....” He trailed off, looking ever-sadder.
“All right then, we'll up this by ten percent, make it payable annually for thirty years and...done.” Ianto turned to the Doctor, flashing him a grin. “In about three hours, one Miss Donna Noble will win a lottery, payable annually for the next thirty years to the tune of,” he swiveled the screen toward the Doctor, “which should enable her to travel anywhere on the planet to her heart's content.” He typed another string of characters and then stepped back and dusted his hands off. “It is possible we will hear her scream all the way here.”
The Doctor started laughing, chortling, great huge belly laughs rolling up from his toes and little giggles that rocked him back and forth. When Gwen arrived a few minutes later, she found Ianto sitting on the couch watching the Time Lord laugh. By the time Jack arrived, Mickey and Martha in tow, the three of them were sitting on the floor against the sofa, drinking from coffee mugs and toasting fashion icons.
"Donatella Versace." Gwen smiled broadly, bringing her mug gently against the Doctor's.
"Coco Chanel." Ianto smiled, adding his with a soft clink.
“Manolo Blahnik.” Gwen turned to look at the Doctor and Ianto mentally revised his opinion of Donna. Upward. Anyone who could run in those shoes.
“Vera Wang, I liked her wedding dresses.” Gwen twisted the ring on her finger and smiled gently.
“Yves Saint Laurent,” Ianto declared, smoothing a wrinkle from his trousers as the hub door began to roll open.
"Mira Liantalla," the Doctor pronounced carefully, giving the words an extra flair.
"Who?" Gwen, Ianto, Jack and Martha asked in unison.
"Oops, sorry, give it five years." The Doctor looked momentarily abashed before dissolving into another fit of giggles and taking the rest of them with him.
Mickey stared at the three of them piled on the floor before the hub's couch and then took in Martha and Jack looking at them with the fond expressions of long-suffering parents and sighed. “This, I came back for? Touched in the head, I am. 'Come back to Cardiff, best coffee in the universe,' he says and I hop on a train. And here I am watching Captain Cheesecake get mushy and not a drop of coffee in sight.” Overhead, Myfanwy screamed a welcome and Mickey glanced upward, startled. “Pet pteradon?” He walked over to the threesome on the floor, picked up the bottle beside Ianto and took a hearty swallow, ignoring Jack's “hey, isn't that the one from my office?”
He held up the bottle and cleared his throat. Astonishingly, miraculously, five heads swiveled to look at him. “I'm Mickey Smith. And we just saved the world, and I say that means the world owes us a party.” He smiled at Jack. “Any objections?”
Hours later, after Martha and Gwen had been collected by a bemused Rhys, after Mickey and the Doctor had been settled onto the Hub's couches and Myfanwy had been let out for the night, Jack turned to Ianto. “Thank you for looking after him.” He leaned close, kissing Ianto's cheek as he tipped him into bed. “Do you know what happened to Donna? I sort of expected her to be here.”
Ianto laughed sleepily before rolling his face into the pillow. “She won the lottery.”