Fic: Not Prone To Impulse
Not Prone To Impulse
Author: Neth Dugan
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ten/Ianto, some Jack/Ianto
Disclaimer: I own none of it, not the shows and not the characters.
Spoilers: Doctor Who up to the end of series three, Torchwood up to the end of series one.
Summary: Ianto Jones was never a man prone to making impulsive decisions. He liked a well ordered world that he could reason out, however his entire life changed after once, just once, he gave in to impulse and decided to find out what was inside that big blue box.
Author's Notes: First, this was beta read by the fantastic
archae_ology and
scifinut , so thank you very much, both of you! Actually, this is all
archae_ology 's fault as she put the entire bleeding idea into my head so this is also dedicated to that evil woman *g*. Also, the timeline on when this takes place is slightly odd. It starts before Torchwood series one and Doomsday, but also after Doomsday. Timey-Whimey.
A long time ago, many years now, both before and after the war between Cybermen and Daleks caused so much death, Ianto Jones met one of the most magnificent men in existence. Not Captain Jack, though in later years he'd realise that he was pretty damn brilliant in his own ways, but a man from a different world. Literally.
It was the last day of college even if that had technically been months ago. He had his grades on paper and he never had to return here again - ever. Oh he'd be in university come September but that wasn't something to think about now, now was a moment of freedom. His mother wouldn't really care much as she was still prone to thinking of him as a child before throwing him out to get a job, but for this fleeting second or hour that didn't matter.
He was walking around the corner that lead to the bus stop (and really, when were those busses going to get into some form of order?) when he saw it. A blue box. A rather big blue box, actually. It looked like something from decades ago and vaguely he remembered his grandparents mention them but nothing like them still existed. And far more importantly, it hadn't been there an hour ago on his way to the college.
It was bizzare, a strange object that in his care free moments the teenage adult decided to investigate. And his entire life changed.
The Doctor was a man unlike any other in a very real sense, not another like him in the multiverse. He ran through time leaving change and hope and despair and confusion in his wake whilst never standing still for more than a moment. He was exciting like something out of a lost dream but he was real. Real, and full of sorrow and guilt. When Ianto had first met him, despite being so hopeful and new himself, he was forced to change, just slightly.
“Look, all I'm saying is that these people like it like that. It's part of who they are, and want to be. The dominant race have tried giving them power, several times in fact, and every time after a few decades it gets handed back to them. They like being subservient.”
“But it's not right, them living like that. Having to do everything that...”
“It's not human. It's not right by human standards, well not even that. Modern human standards. And for you lot you'd be right but this is a different species all together. There are laws to protect them, and if any of them wants freedom they only have to ask. But they don't. In another few centuries the Ha'lengah hand self control back to the Claven and it sticks. It's hard work, and power exchanges hands a few more times between now and then but...”
“But they're slaves!”
“Yes. And I don't much like it either. But, for another few centuries that's how they want it. They're not human. They don't share your morality or your culture or your brain chemistry or instincts or history. Leave it.”
The young man looked down for a few moments, thinking and a furious pace as his face scrunched up ever so slightly, before looking back at the Doctor and nodded. If the Claven had wanted freedom then the Doctor would have been right there to help them, not turn the radical group in for justice.
Traveling through time and space meant that a teenager from Wales was forced to see the universe as something far more complex than his own world and learn to accept alien cultures for just that. Alien. Not worse or better, but different. Except, of course, when something went terribly wrong in which case the two of them would run like the wind, tear through the environment and leave change and laughter and tears behind.
“Ianto?”
“Doctor?”
“I think now might be a good time to RUN!”
The human stayed with the Doctor for almost a year, growing not so much up as out. His horizons expanded and he learned enough to know that when he returned to Earth, home, he was never going to sit in some office writing up a one column article for the local paper. He was going to do better than that. And if Ianto Jones, for all his resolve, accidentally fell for the Doctor....
Well, that wasn't the first time it had happened. And it wouldn't be the last.
“Doctor, I need to leave. I need to return to Wales.”
He was standing in the control room with a shoulder brushing one of the support struts and staring at the Doctor through a truly blank face as the older man turned around looking extremely puzzled.
“Why, what's happened?”
“A few reasons. It has been a year and someone is bound to notice I look different now, let alone if I stay another year. And another is...”
“Well?”
“I... it's hard for me to explain without embarrassing myself.”
The Doctor being 900 years old was an extremely clever man, but he wasn't always the most perceptive. Still, it was best to play along for now, and find out what the young man was worrying about and see if he could help.
And so, many years ago now but only a few hours after a young Welsh man had stepped into an alien ship, a blue box faded noisily into existence on a street corner under a street light. Ianto Jones left the Doctor that day and returned to his linear existence, going on to university and then to a career that he thought would fit him well.
There were, however, several things that he was unaware of at that time. First, the Doctor had to an extent reciprocated Ianto's feelings. But so soon after the loss of his previous companion whom he'd just started to accept would be there for years to come. There was also the minor detail, in the Time Lord's brain, that Ianto was even younger than Rose had been when they'd met.
In the years that followed, shortening the gap between then and now the Welshman accepted a job at Torchwood only to become anxious about how it behaved.
He sat at home in his flat and watching the television, some documentary on exotic spiders, wondering about how he'd gotten here. He'd only wanted to carry on doing something magnificent and help the world like he'd taught him to. To live a life more interesting than the day to day bore of average human life. Instead he'd fallen into - this. A company that thought it was above everyone and everything except a Queen who probably didn't know much about it, and who wanted to reinstitute an Empire that was best left as a commonwealth.
How had it reached this?
And worse yet, the small fear in his mind that just would not leave and kept him awake at night was the big what if. What if this was the company the Doctor had told him about? What if these were the people who would cause so that man so much pain?
Ianto was a smart man who had done well at school and adapted well to life outside Earth and he had some pretty good instincts even if once he found another person to love they became clouded. Even if most of his worries would never come to pass in our reality or were too minor to spend much time on in this worry, this singular worry, he was entirely correct. However, he did not find out for sure until one day, only a year or two ago now, he discovered that the Doctor was there and with him was a blonde woman called Tyler.
Tyler. Rose Tyler was here, with the Doctor. And though he'd only caught a glimpse of him (looking exactly the same as all those years ago) rumours had started to circulate. He was rude, he was loud, he bounced all over the floor - he claimed that the ghosts were dangerous.
He'd tried to get people to believe him, and had superiors reprimanded him for it. He'd tried to explain to Lisa that this man wasn't a threat to them, that they should pay attention because if they didn't Bad Things would happen. All she wanted to know was, how was he sure?
He couldn't tell her of course. What would he say? A nine hundred year old alien that he'd met years ago, but after this happened, swept him off his feet and he knew in his gut that they needed to listen to him now. And then, there were the basic rules of time travel he'd learnt.
And as suddenly as he realised he couldn't do anything, he realised that he had to sit by and watch people die and the Doctor lose his best friend.
The next year of Ianto Jones' life was spent on a quest to save one person at the expense of most everything else. Torchwood in London was now gone but there were other outposts, and he had heard that the one in Cardiff was managed by a man who was both unorthodox and looked down upon by Yvonne Hartman. At the time the young man, still only in his mid twenties, didn't realise what he was embarking on and wouldn't for another solar year. Not just in terms of Lisa, he'd learn that in a few months, but with the team he was joining.
Ianto Jones, proud Welshman and former time traveller hadn't anticipated Jack Harkness.
Jack was something else, he'd decided. There was something about him that wasn't from around here, something that told him that Jack might be more experienced with aliens than ordinary Torchwood work allowed.
He could be wrong, but his gut told him otherwise. The occasional mentions of a certain kind of doctor every blue moon made him even more suspicious. Though, if he was right it at least meant that this was a man who wouldn't want this place to turn into Torchwood One. And a man he could probably trust to try and do the right thing. And given he hadn't been thrown out after all he'd done with Lisa, oh god Lisa...
This wasn't at all how he'd imagined his life going, and there were days when he went to bed wishing he could walk through the door to the TARDIS's control room and have one of those bizarre conversations they had. The kind that was almost like a comforting whirl wind, much like the last Time Lords himself, when he felt like it in any case. He wondered what the Doctor would make of him now.
There was, not long ago at all now, an incident where a few clever people tried to force open a wound that would have been best left closed. People died. The team, such as it was, cracked and Ianto Jones grieved silently and apart as another person he loved died, the one he had thought would never die even if he did leave some day.
Jack Harkness' death was not permanent, however, and he eventually awoke with skin so pale he could have been a ghost. When he disappeared like one it confused the rest of Torchwood Three even as they noticed that the mysterious hand was gone.
And even though he thought he'd imagined it, though it was real, Ianto Jones heard the strained grinding of a time machine as she moved into the time vortex.
“Ianto, are you okay?” Gwen asked as she came up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Yes. Do you need any coffee? I can get us some coffee if you want some,” he offered as he rose to get some ready. Coping mechanisms were always useful, especially when you're not quite sure what to do because the world has just been turned upside down again. There was something about the processes and precision of making a good coffee that allowed the mind to relax. Even if the world were falling down around him, there would still be the processes of the perfect coffee.
And even though if they're not saying it they both know that the job won't stop, because it can't. And even if Jack doesn't return for another month or another year they will have to continue onwards.
Two days later, though none of the Torchwood employees were aware of it consciously, time changed tracks from one path to another as it returned from a paradox to a healthy flow. They didn't know that a year of their lives has been erased though they'd be grateful for it. Ianto Jones isn't aware that only he and Toshiko escaped the drones that the Master sent after them, and then when the year was almost done Ianto was one of the loudest voices calling for the Doctor whilst clutching to Tosh's far too skinny hand.
It was a few days after that when Ianto heard the strange noise of the TARDIS whilst shopping for coffee beans at a shop near the public entrance of the hub. Ianto Jones had a good head on his shoulders, despite the several mistakes he'd made since joining Torchwood, and so made a run for it.
The residents of Cardiff and several tourists, two of whom had generally thought Wales of a quiet place where not much happened, were treated to the sight of an extremely well dressed man with a bag of coffee beans in his left sprinting across the plaza at an incredible speed. On the opposite side of the public area stood three unremarkable people laughing until the man in the brown suit looked up and stared.
His legs were starting to hurt, he hadn't had much cause to run top pelt these past few years, as he made his way towards the trio standing against a railing, laughing. He'd been right, Jack did know the Doctor and they were rather good friends, which presented him with a slight problem. Who was he supposed to greet first, and how? For all the protocol he'd memorised he was sure nothing quite like this had popped up.
What to do when your current almost-but-not-quite boyfriend turns up after he'd gone missing alongside the object of long time affection that you hadn't quite stopped loving. Probably depended on where in the Doctor's time line this was.
The Doctor noticed him first, turning to gape at him which meant he'd been recognised. A big grin broke out across his face as he ran even faster, barely noticing as Jack questioned the older alien how they knew each other. Get there, fastdon'twasteanytime.
“Ianto? What are you doing here?”
“I...I work here,” he panted. More air. Need more air.
“With Torchwood? Why does everyone end up with Torchwood, what did I do to deserve that?”
“Don't know. I didn't know what they were when they recruited me, and when I fond out what they were like...”
“Ianto Jones!” Shouted Jack, slightly amused but still lost. “How do you know him, you never mentioned him or gave any sign.”
“Neither did you sir. Travelled with him for a year, when I was eighteen. Doctor, I swear, by the time I realised who Torchwood were I couldn't stop it. I tried when I found out you and Rose were there, I tried but no one would listen and then I remembered...”
“That even if you could change it, you shouldn't. And then you joined his version,” the Doctor finished, pointing at the slightly annoyed captain. In the background Martha stood confused and a little irate that everyone had seemed to forget about her. Again.
“Well, I'd heard the other heads didn't like him, on account of being unorthodox. And there were.... complications. Doctor, it's good to see you again.”
“Hey, what about me?”
“Missed you too sir, and everyone will be glad to see you again. But it's been years since I saw the Doctor. And I... missed him.”
The brown eyed man smiled slightly, looking down at his feet as he made them dance for several seconds before coming back up again and staring off to the side. All three companions recognised this behaviour and rolled their eyes oh so slightly, gins on both his face and Jack's. Typical Doctor, he thought. Not that he blamed him considering.
“Missed you too Ianto Jones of Wales. I am sorry, about before. It wasn't that.... it wasn't that you were the only one. You weren't. But the time was all wrong and you were....”
“Good. In which case you won't mind this”
After all these years, he though for a brief second, this is my chance. This is-
Despite not being prone to impulse and being a person who craves a certain amount of order Ianto Jones' life had hinged on two vital points, two decisions, both of which were the result of rather disorderly actions stemming from his impulses. The first was to walk into a strange blue box near a street corner on the way home from college, high in his momentary freedom. The second was to kiss a nine hundred year old alien after seeing him again for the first time in over seven years.
And whilst the Doctor wasn't usually prone to kissing humans, despite what his recent history might tell you, he reciprocated rather eagerly. After all, he'd always had a fondness for a certain dark-haired Welshman.
That brings us up to the present. What the future may bring, who knows. But for this moment, this one moment, two people who had lost loves and travelled the stars found a moment of freedom in each other. Jack Harkness, it should be noted, was plotting how to turn this into a threesome but that is perhaps a story for another time, in years to come.
Author: Neth Dugan
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ten/Ianto, some Jack/Ianto
Disclaimer: I own none of it, not the shows and not the characters.
Spoilers: Doctor Who up to the end of series three, Torchwood up to the end of series one.
Summary: Ianto Jones was never a man prone to making impulsive decisions. He liked a well ordered world that he could reason out, however his entire life changed after once, just once, he gave in to impulse and decided to find out what was inside that big blue box.
Author's Notes: First, this was beta read by the fantastic
archae_ology and
scifinut , so thank you very much, both of you! Actually, this is all
archae_ology 's fault as she put the entire bleeding idea into my head so this is also dedicated to that evil woman *g*. Also, the timeline on when this takes place is slightly odd. It starts before Torchwood series one and Doomsday, but also after Doomsday. Timey-Whimey.
A long time ago, many years now, both before and after the war between Cybermen and Daleks caused so much death, Ianto Jones met one of the most magnificent men in existence. Not Captain Jack, though in later years he'd realise that he was pretty damn brilliant in his own ways, but a man from a different world. Literally.
It was the last day of college even if that had technically been months ago. He had his grades on paper and he never had to return here again - ever. Oh he'd be in university come September but that wasn't something to think about now, now was a moment of freedom. His mother wouldn't really care much as she was still prone to thinking of him as a child before throwing him out to get a job, but for this fleeting second or hour that didn't matter.
He was walking around the corner that lead to the bus stop (and really, when were those busses going to get into some form of order?) when he saw it. A blue box. A rather big blue box, actually. It looked like something from decades ago and vaguely he remembered his grandparents mention them but nothing like them still existed. And far more importantly, it hadn't been there an hour ago on his way to the college.
It was bizzare, a strange object that in his care free moments the teenage adult decided to investigate. And his entire life changed.
The Doctor was a man unlike any other in a very real sense, not another like him in the multiverse. He ran through time leaving change and hope and despair and confusion in his wake whilst never standing still for more than a moment. He was exciting like something out of a lost dream but he was real. Real, and full of sorrow and guilt. When Ianto had first met him, despite being so hopeful and new himself, he was forced to change, just slightly.
“Look, all I'm saying is that these people like it like that. It's part of who they are, and want to be. The dominant race have tried giving them power, several times in fact, and every time after a few decades it gets handed back to them. They like being subservient.”
“But it's not right, them living like that. Having to do everything that...”
“It's not human. It's not right by human standards, well not even that. Modern human standards. And for you lot you'd be right but this is a different species all together. There are laws to protect them, and if any of them wants freedom they only have to ask. But they don't. In another few centuries the Ha'lengah hand self control back to the Claven and it sticks. It's hard work, and power exchanges hands a few more times between now and then but...”
“But they're slaves!”
“Yes. And I don't much like it either. But, for another few centuries that's how they want it. They're not human. They don't share your morality or your culture or your brain chemistry or instincts or history. Leave it.”
The young man looked down for a few moments, thinking and a furious pace as his face scrunched up ever so slightly, before looking back at the Doctor and nodded. If the Claven had wanted freedom then the Doctor would have been right there to help them, not turn the radical group in for justice.
Traveling through time and space meant that a teenager from Wales was forced to see the universe as something far more complex than his own world and learn to accept alien cultures for just that. Alien. Not worse or better, but different. Except, of course, when something went terribly wrong in which case the two of them would run like the wind, tear through the environment and leave change and laughter and tears behind.
“Ianto?”
“Doctor?”
“I think now might be a good time to RUN!”
The human stayed with the Doctor for almost a year, growing not so much up as out. His horizons expanded and he learned enough to know that when he returned to Earth, home, he was never going to sit in some office writing up a one column article for the local paper. He was going to do better than that. And if Ianto Jones, for all his resolve, accidentally fell for the Doctor....
Well, that wasn't the first time it had happened. And it wouldn't be the last.
“Doctor, I need to leave. I need to return to Wales.”
He was standing in the control room with a shoulder brushing one of the support struts and staring at the Doctor through a truly blank face as the older man turned around looking extremely puzzled.
“Why, what's happened?”
“A few reasons. It has been a year and someone is bound to notice I look different now, let alone if I stay another year. And another is...”
“Well?”
“I... it's hard for me to explain without embarrassing myself.”
The Doctor being 900 years old was an extremely clever man, but he wasn't always the most perceptive. Still, it was best to play along for now, and find out what the young man was worrying about and see if he could help.
And so, many years ago now but only a few hours after a young Welsh man had stepped into an alien ship, a blue box faded noisily into existence on a street corner under a street light. Ianto Jones left the Doctor that day and returned to his linear existence, going on to university and then to a career that he thought would fit him well.
There were, however, several things that he was unaware of at that time. First, the Doctor had to an extent reciprocated Ianto's feelings. But so soon after the loss of his previous companion whom he'd just started to accept would be there for years to come. There was also the minor detail, in the Time Lord's brain, that Ianto was even younger than Rose had been when they'd met.
In the years that followed, shortening the gap between then and now the Welshman accepted a job at Torchwood only to become anxious about how it behaved.
He sat at home in his flat and watching the television, some documentary on exotic spiders, wondering about how he'd gotten here. He'd only wanted to carry on doing something magnificent and help the world like he'd taught him to. To live a life more interesting than the day to day bore of average human life. Instead he'd fallen into - this. A company that thought it was above everyone and everything except a Queen who probably didn't know much about it, and who wanted to reinstitute an Empire that was best left as a commonwealth.
How had it reached this?
And worse yet, the small fear in his mind that just would not leave and kept him awake at night was the big what if. What if this was the company the Doctor had told him about? What if these were the people who would cause so that man so much pain?
Ianto was a smart man who had done well at school and adapted well to life outside Earth and he had some pretty good instincts even if once he found another person to love they became clouded. Even if most of his worries would never come to pass in our reality or were too minor to spend much time on in this worry, this singular worry, he was entirely correct. However, he did not find out for sure until one day, only a year or two ago now, he discovered that the Doctor was there and with him was a blonde woman called Tyler.
Tyler. Rose Tyler was here, with the Doctor. And though he'd only caught a glimpse of him (looking exactly the same as all those years ago) rumours had started to circulate. He was rude, he was loud, he bounced all over the floor - he claimed that the ghosts were dangerous.
He'd tried to get people to believe him, and had superiors reprimanded him for it. He'd tried to explain to Lisa that this man wasn't a threat to them, that they should pay attention because if they didn't Bad Things would happen. All she wanted to know was, how was he sure?
He couldn't tell her of course. What would he say? A nine hundred year old alien that he'd met years ago, but after this happened, swept him off his feet and he knew in his gut that they needed to listen to him now. And then, there were the basic rules of time travel he'd learnt.
And as suddenly as he realised he couldn't do anything, he realised that he had to sit by and watch people die and the Doctor lose his best friend.
The next year of Ianto Jones' life was spent on a quest to save one person at the expense of most everything else. Torchwood in London was now gone but there were other outposts, and he had heard that the one in Cardiff was managed by a man who was both unorthodox and looked down upon by Yvonne Hartman. At the time the young man, still only in his mid twenties, didn't realise what he was embarking on and wouldn't for another solar year. Not just in terms of Lisa, he'd learn that in a few months, but with the team he was joining.
Ianto Jones, proud Welshman and former time traveller hadn't anticipated Jack Harkness.
Jack was something else, he'd decided. There was something about him that wasn't from around here, something that told him that Jack might be more experienced with aliens than ordinary Torchwood work allowed.
He could be wrong, but his gut told him otherwise. The occasional mentions of a certain kind of doctor every blue moon made him even more suspicious. Though, if he was right it at least meant that this was a man who wouldn't want this place to turn into Torchwood One. And a man he could probably trust to try and do the right thing. And given he hadn't been thrown out after all he'd done with Lisa, oh god Lisa...
This wasn't at all how he'd imagined his life going, and there were days when he went to bed wishing he could walk through the door to the TARDIS's control room and have one of those bizarre conversations they had. The kind that was almost like a comforting whirl wind, much like the last Time Lords himself, when he felt like it in any case. He wondered what the Doctor would make of him now.
There was, not long ago at all now, an incident where a few clever people tried to force open a wound that would have been best left closed. People died. The team, such as it was, cracked and Ianto Jones grieved silently and apart as another person he loved died, the one he had thought would never die even if he did leave some day.
Jack Harkness' death was not permanent, however, and he eventually awoke with skin so pale he could have been a ghost. When he disappeared like one it confused the rest of Torchwood Three even as they noticed that the mysterious hand was gone.
And even though he thought he'd imagined it, though it was real, Ianto Jones heard the strained grinding of a time machine as she moved into the time vortex.
“Ianto, are you okay?” Gwen asked as she came up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Yes. Do you need any coffee? I can get us some coffee if you want some,” he offered as he rose to get some ready. Coping mechanisms were always useful, especially when you're not quite sure what to do because the world has just been turned upside down again. There was something about the processes and precision of making a good coffee that allowed the mind to relax. Even if the world were falling down around him, there would still be the processes of the perfect coffee.
And even though if they're not saying it they both know that the job won't stop, because it can't. And even if Jack doesn't return for another month or another year they will have to continue onwards.
Two days later, though none of the Torchwood employees were aware of it consciously, time changed tracks from one path to another as it returned from a paradox to a healthy flow. They didn't know that a year of their lives has been erased though they'd be grateful for it. Ianto Jones isn't aware that only he and Toshiko escaped the drones that the Master sent after them, and then when the year was almost done Ianto was one of the loudest voices calling for the Doctor whilst clutching to Tosh's far too skinny hand.
It was a few days after that when Ianto heard the strange noise of the TARDIS whilst shopping for coffee beans at a shop near the public entrance of the hub. Ianto Jones had a good head on his shoulders, despite the several mistakes he'd made since joining Torchwood, and so made a run for it.
The residents of Cardiff and several tourists, two of whom had generally thought Wales of a quiet place where not much happened, were treated to the sight of an extremely well dressed man with a bag of coffee beans in his left sprinting across the plaza at an incredible speed. On the opposite side of the public area stood three unremarkable people laughing until the man in the brown suit looked up and stared.
His legs were starting to hurt, he hadn't had much cause to run top pelt these past few years, as he made his way towards the trio standing against a railing, laughing. He'd been right, Jack did know the Doctor and they were rather good friends, which presented him with a slight problem. Who was he supposed to greet first, and how? For all the protocol he'd memorised he was sure nothing quite like this had popped up.
What to do when your current almost-but-not-quite boyfriend turns up after he'd gone missing alongside the object of long time affection that you hadn't quite stopped loving. Probably depended on where in the Doctor's time line this was.
The Doctor noticed him first, turning to gape at him which meant he'd been recognised. A big grin broke out across his face as he ran even faster, barely noticing as Jack questioned the older alien how they knew each other. Get there, fastdon'twasteanytime.
“Ianto? What are you doing here?”
“I...I work here,” he panted. More air. Need more air.
“With Torchwood? Why does everyone end up with Torchwood, what did I do to deserve that?”
“Don't know. I didn't know what they were when they recruited me, and when I fond out what they were like...”
“Ianto Jones!” Shouted Jack, slightly amused but still lost. “How do you know him, you never mentioned him or gave any sign.”
“Neither did you sir. Travelled with him for a year, when I was eighteen. Doctor, I swear, by the time I realised who Torchwood were I couldn't stop it. I tried when I found out you and Rose were there, I tried but no one would listen and then I remembered...”
“That even if you could change it, you shouldn't. And then you joined his version,” the Doctor finished, pointing at the slightly annoyed captain. In the background Martha stood confused and a little irate that everyone had seemed to forget about her. Again.
“Well, I'd heard the other heads didn't like him, on account of being unorthodox. And there were.... complications. Doctor, it's good to see you again.”
“Hey, what about me?”
“Missed you too sir, and everyone will be glad to see you again. But it's been years since I saw the Doctor. And I... missed him.”
The brown eyed man smiled slightly, looking down at his feet as he made them dance for several seconds before coming back up again and staring off to the side. All three companions recognised this behaviour and rolled their eyes oh so slightly, gins on both his face and Jack's. Typical Doctor, he thought. Not that he blamed him considering.
“Missed you too Ianto Jones of Wales. I am sorry, about before. It wasn't that.... it wasn't that you were the only one. You weren't. But the time was all wrong and you were....”
“Good. In which case you won't mind this”
After all these years, he though for a brief second, this is my chance. This is-
Despite not being prone to impulse and being a person who craves a certain amount of order Ianto Jones' life had hinged on two vital points, two decisions, both of which were the result of rather disorderly actions stemming from his impulses. The first was to walk into a strange blue box near a street corner on the way home from college, high in his momentary freedom. The second was to kiss a nine hundred year old alien after seeing him again for the first time in over seven years.
And whilst the Doctor wasn't usually prone to kissing humans, despite what his recent history might tell you, he reciprocated rather eagerly. After all, he'd always had a fondness for a certain dark-haired Welshman.
That brings us up to the present. What the future may bring, who knows. But for this moment, this one moment, two people who had lost loves and travelled the stars found a moment of freedom in each other. Jack Harkness, it should be noted, was plotting how to turn this into a threesome but that is perhaps a story for another time, in years to come.