Interventions (4/8)
Title: Interventions
Pairing: Simm!Master/Ten!Doctor, Jack/Ianto
Author: Buttercup
Contact: Buttercupgaud@aol.com
Rating: Let’s say R to be safe, but might be PG-13
Warnings: None really. No spoilers for season 2 of TW, either.
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, they belong to Russel T and the beeb.
Summery: The Doctor wakes up with a headache, which quickly becomes everyone at TW’s too. Doctor Who/Torchwood crossover.
Thanks: Thanks to the wonderful Amy for beta reading this and being so encouraging.
Part One.
Part Two.
PART Three
Jack was sitting behind his desk staring at nothing. Ianto had to crouch down beside his chair before he even noticed that someone had come in. “Jack,” he said softly, gently emphasising the use of his first name, “what’s going on?”
Jack started when he noticed Ianto, but his eyes didn’t lose any of their concern when he registered who it was. He shook his head. “There are things that I can’t talk about.”
Ianto nodded. “Okay,” he said softly, “then try telling me something that you can talk about.”
Jack looked at him. “I think it might be better if you went home. I think I can handle the Master, and it’d be safer-”
“It’d be safer?” Ianto cut in. “Jack, we hunt aliens for a living, no day is what most people would describe as safe. I don’t understand what’s going on, if you don’t trust him then why have you let him in the Hub at all?”
“I don’t trust him, but I do trust the Doctor, he’s saved everyone so often that we have to do the same for him.” Jack sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t explain, but there are things I can’t-”
“Yes,” Ianto said firmly, “so I’ve gathered. But this obviously affects me; you’re trying to send me home and I’d like to know a) when that’s ever actually worked, and b) if the Master’s dangerous enough to get you this worked up why I’d be safer sitting at home watching telly.”
Jack smiled, but he seemed sad and tired. “It’s the way he was looking at you. I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but just having him here feels so wrong. I fought against him for so long and now I’m expected to just work alongside him, and the thing is, I do believe what he’s telling me, and I also know that that must be wrong and possibly the most stupid mistake I’ve ever made. And believe me,” Jack looked at Ianto, “there’ve been a few. I lost you once to him and I just can’t do it again.” He looked away from Ianto, jaw tense.
Ianto had learnt not to press Jack for information. He very rarely told him anything in a linear way, it seemed to be too painful for Jack to do it that way. Ianto simply stayed quiet and gathered the shards of information and pieced them back together on his own. He knew that Jack hardly ever opened up and that he needed this. Ianto didn’t speak, he just listened, and was still there when Jack had finished.
That was all Jack ever needed, and he was happy to give it.
****
The Master seemed to be in a better mood now he’d managed to get a reaction out of Jack. He hummed to himself as he went over the readouts for the fifth time. Jack braced himself and walked over to him.
“Do you have any ideas?” he asked, arms crossed over his chest. He realised it looked defensive, but didn’t change his posture.
“Many, many,” the Master said without looking up. “None of which are very plausible.”
Jack sighed. “The readings all seem to be saying the same thing,” Jack said when it looked like the Master wasn’t going to offer any more to the conversation, “that the Doctor didn’t go anywhere. But, he clearly did.”
“Hmmm,” the Master said distractedly. Then a complete change came over him. He froze and looked at Jack. “Say that again.”
“What?” He frowned. “That the readings say the Doctor hasn’t gone anywhere?”
The Master laughed. Stood up and laughed again. “Oh, very clever, very clever. Yes, yes. Of course they say that. He hasn’t gone anywhere.”
He ran down to the spot where the Doctor had been standing just before he’d disappeared and held a hand up, as though touching something Jack couldn’t see. He laughed again. “Yes, yes, very good. Very good indeed!” He paced for a moment, then nodded.
“What?” Jack said, hating having to ask for the Master to explain it, but he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and was looking at him. “Do you know where the Doctor is?”
The Master smiled at him. It was a strange smile and it took Jack a moment to realise why. There was no malice in it, or mocking sarcasm. It was a smile of genuine joy. The change in the Master’s face was remarkable. “He’s right here! I might be standing on him.” He moved a little to the left at this and laughed.
“But, then why can’t we see him? And I thought you said you were in a cell?” Jack felt like slapping him to calm him down. It was something he’d often considered doing to the Doctor when he got like this, but he refused to make any further comparisons between the two.
“We weren’t asking the right question!” The Master grinned. “Not where is he, but when is he!”
Realisation dawned on Jack, and he felt a smile tugging at his lips. “You mean that they’ve transported him through time.”
“Yes, just find a time when the Hub wasn’t here, build a cell and bam! Perfect kidnapping.” The Master began to pace, he brought his hand to his mouth, an indication that he was following a train of thought. “There must still be link between here and there,” he said. “The Doctor used it to send me here.”
“Can we use it to bring him here, or us to him?” Jack asked.
Tosh was already modifying her scans to find that sort of energy signature. She gasped. “I’ve found it.” Both the Master and Jack ran to her side. Jack edged in front of the Master, a physical barrier between Tosh and him. “It looks like normal background radiation from the rift, but it’s too still. Look at the way the rest of the spikes from the rift dart about but this one,” she pointed at the screen, “is hardly moving at all.”
“And why couldn’t we see it before?” Jack hated missing things. They’d wasted too much time.
“Well, we were looking for something that changed as the Doctor was taken, but this looks like it’s always been here. They just had to activate it.” Tosh tried to get the reading as clear as possible.
“So we can bring him back,” Jack said, feeling utterly relieved at the thought.
But the Master was shaking his head. “I don’t think that it works like that. If the Doctor had been able to come with me, he would have. No, I think it’s a one way trip only. Someone might be able to go to him, but then you’d be stuck there.”
Jack nodded. “But, there must be another way in, otherwise how could you have been any use to them?”
The Master was silent for a long time. “We might be able to track him using the link and then use the TARDIS to go to him.”
“Don’t you think it might be safer to work out what they want with the two of you first? We might be walking into a trap,” Owen said.
The Master looked at Jack, and smiled insincerely at him. “Permission to speak to the ape, sir?”
Jack glared at him. “Denied,” he said shortly. He looked at Owen, “You might be right.” He sighed. “But we also don’t have much time.”
He sighed. It seemed the Master was at least trying to help find out what happened. Not that Jack planned on letting his guard down even a little. There weren’t many people who Jack would attach the word ‘hate’ to, but the Master was one of them. It wasn’t so much the evil genius thing, Jack had met plenty of those and didn’t hate them. It was the utter joy the Master found in destruction, and, more than that, it was the way that the Doctor was around him. Jack found it hard to watch the Doctor’s grief, comprehend that he could care so much about someone who had not only hurt everyone the Doctor was meant to care about but had enjoyed it. Had loved it, in fact.
It had felt like a betrayal when the Doctor had announced he’d give everything up to be with the Master, and Jack hadn’t really been able to forgive him. After all that waiting, after being abandoned, and then ignored, it was that that had really hurt. It made it seem that it hadn’t mattered to the Doctor, all those things that he’d witnessed in the year that never was. But it did to Jack. He knew, too, from Martha that the Doctor had been less than lenient with those who he came up against in the year she’d been with him. Yes, the Master might be the last of the Doctor’s kind but did that mean Jack’s love, or Martha’s, meant nothing? It would never be enough for the Doctor, while the hatred of another Time Lord was. He could have gone with the Doctor, travelled with him for years and simply asked to be brought back to Torchwood just after he’d left. It wasn’t like Jack didn’t have enough time. But he couldn’t. Not now. He would always love the Doctor, but it wasn’t blind any more. He could finally see the Doctor, and yes, he was brilliant, but there was darkness too. The Doctor couldn’t give Jack the redemption that he craved, that was up to him alone. So he’d left, gone home, back to his team, back to Ianto and he hadn’t looked back. It had always felt temporary before, because he knew he was just waiting until the moment that he would be able to leave with the Doctor. It wasn’t like that now. He was here to stay, and it actually felt nice.
But the Master was threatening that. Jack had been able to leave the Doctor, safe in the knowledge that everything would carry on just the same without him. Although, they all knew that Martha was going to stay with her family, the Doctor would find a new companion, and he’d be alright. Jack wasn’t so sure that that was true anymore. The Master affected the Doctor’s judgement at the best of times. There was no way that he could kill him, if he hadn’t been able to after the Toclafane, then there was no chance of it now. And the Master had a foothold in the Doctor’s mind. Together they’d be unstoppable, and Jack didn’t dare imagine what they could do if they put their now joined minds to it. He had to find some way of ending their Entrenchment without killing the Doctor. He’d kill the Master without a second’s thought, if he had to, despite knowing the Doctor would never forgive him. There were things that someone had to do, and Jack wouldn’t shirk the responsibility.
“I’m talking to you, Captain Marvellous,” the Master was glaring at him. “Are we going or not?”
Jack looked at his team. His eyes lingered over Ianto for a moment before he nodded. “Just us,” he said firmly. “The rest of you stay here and think of plans B through Z, just in case.”
Although the idea of letting Jack go without the rest of them was never met with approval it seemed the idea of being able to get rid of the Master had a certain appeal, because no one argued with him.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.
The Master was bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Oh this will fun! A road trip with someone who can’t die, imagine the fun I could have!”
Jack didn’t reply just walked over to where the TARDIS was, tucked into a corner of the Hub where the Doctor had parked it, refuelling.
*****
The link between the Master and the Doctor was beginning to take its toll. Although there had been an instant relief as soon as they’d been separated, the link was now being stretched too far. The Master wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep. The Doctor was trying his best to sleep for the both of them, but it wasn’t easy because everything hurt, making sleep difficult. The Master could feel his listless sleep in his head. The half-way point between waking and sleeping made them both feel disorientated. The Doctor caught brief glimpses of what the Master was doing and tried to concentrate, but couldn’t quite struggle to wake completely. Sending the Master back to the Twenty-First century and taken its toll on him. The Master meanwhile felt every shift the Doctor’s mind made. His worry and guilt about not being able to do anything. It was disconcerting, and the link had turned on its hosts to feed itself. Every movement felt laboured as he walked toward the TARDIS. He refused to show this.
He would get back to the Doctor and they would find a way to break this Entrenchment, and if not, there were ways around it. He felt the Doctor’s joy at having him near and alive, that he wasn’t alone. The trust and, yes, love. He could use it all, he could finally have dominion over the Doctor. It was so close he could taste it. The idea of forcing the Doctor to comply was not as appealing as having his genuine consent, but it would do. Then maybe the drums would stop. With the both them united, not pulling in opposite directions, they would be able to stop them.
But things were not going according to plan. “What do you mean she won’t accept your commands?”
Jack glared at him. “I would have thought that was obvious, even to you. She won’t do anything, she’s not even showing me any of her readings.”
The Master sighed. He could feel the TARDIS’s fear and anger at him for the way he had treated her on their last encounter, and she could barely stand Jack’s wrongness at all. She was as stubborn as the Doctor. The Master walked to her controls and reached out to them. “Ouch!” He pulled his hand back and stuck his finger in his mouth.
She won’t listen to you. The Doctor’s thoughts seemed to be getting smaller, but the Master didn’t have time to think about what that might mean. I programmed her not to react to another Time Lord after the paradox machine, thought it was safer.
What a bloody stupid thing to do! There had to be a way around this.
There isn’t. You could probably override my controls, but that would takes weeks that we just don’t have. Besides, the precision that you’d need to get to me would require her to like you, and that won’t be happening.
There was no real need for the Doctor to be feeling smug about this, even if it was buried under his concern. The Master bit his lips and gave in. “Oh, get the apes in here. See if she can stand any of them, they’ll have to calm her down and fly her.”
Jack looked as though this were the last thing he wanted to do, and the Master felt the same. But, there was little choice in the matter, and even less time.
After Jack had gone he let himself sag a little, lent against the TARDIS wall and closed his eyes. The drums had altered since the Doctor had turned up in his head. They didn’t seem to be pushing him forward now. Far from it, they made him want to lie down in a dark room until they went away. He couldn’t understand it; yes, he’d hated him. That they’d never once let him rest, but they had, at times, seemed like a companion of his own. Always there pushing him on to greater and better schemes and it seemed now like they’d turned against him. Perhaps they were jealous of sharing him with the Doctor. But, they’d always done that.
“Ah,” he pushed himself away from the wall as Jack brought his little team back with him. The Master watched them splutter and gasp at the TARDIS for a moment, but only a moment. “Right, I don’t have time for you to be as utterly shit as usual.” The Torchwood team tensed at this, and turned to look at him. “You’re going to concentrate, open your minds to the TARDIS, with the Doctor so far away I think she’ll be looking for someone to be able to fly her to him.” They just stared at him. “Well get on with it! Or shall we just stand about until the universe comes crashing down around us?”
They all looked at Jack, who shook his head. “Just do as he says, the TARDIS won’t hurt you.”
Owen was the first to open his eyes again. “This is bullshit, I can’t feel anything.”
The Master rolled his eyes. “Then get out, you’re obviously as useless as you look.”
“Fuck you,” Owen said and turned around to watch the others.
Gwen was next. “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said, “I think I can feel it, but it’s like I’m being blocked.”
“That’s fine, honey, don’t worry about it,” Jack soothed and looked apprehensively at Tosh and Ianto.
Tosh sighed, “I think I can feel something, it’s a little like the necklace Mary gave me, but I don’t know.” She looked at Jack, “Is that helpful?”
“No,” the Master said, everyone looked at him. “It’s all up to you, Welsh boy, show us what you’ve got.”
Ianto looked at him for a long moment before turning and walking to the nearest console. He paused for a second, closing his eyes before reaching out and flipping a switch. The TARDIS sprung into life around them. “Ah ha!” the Master bounded forward, tried not to make it too obvious when a wave of dizziness hit and grabbed hold of the nearest support. Which turned out to be Ianto, he grinned at him, then took his head in his head and kissed him firmly on the mouth. “That’d a boy!” he cried.
Jack had already covered the couple of steps between them, his hand going to his gun. The Master waved a hand at him. “Stand down, Captain, nothing to get your knickers in a twist over.”
Ianto was blinking at him, then he turned to look at Jack. “Looks like I’m coming along for the ride.”
Jack nodded grimly.
*****
“She likes you.” Ianto looked over at Jack, who was trying not to hover over his shoulder and failing.
“I get the feeling that calling the TARDIS ‘she’ has more to it than nautical tradition,” he said as he ran a hand over the console.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed, smiling fondly, “she’s alive, a living organism as a ship.”
Ianto pressed his lips together and just nodded. He’d heard stranger things. Besides, it felt like she was talking to him. Not exactly with words, but suggestions would appear in his mind. He’d done what the Master had told him to, tried to open his mind to whatever might be there. Almost straight away he’d felt a little tug at the back of his mind, a presence. It seemed … annoyed, and a little scared or concerned. He’d tried to relax, project calm and reassurance. That had been all, but then when the Master had told him to show him what he could do, he’d just known that pressing that button would turn on the screen in front of him.
The Master had immediately tried to take over, pushing Ianto roughly out of the way and pressing another button, but all he’d received was an electric shock and some smoke. Ianto had felt a stab of annoyance that didn’t seem entirely his own. He also felt a wariness when Jack was too close to the console. He’d known - since Owen had shot Jack in the head and he’d gotten up - that there was something different about him, but he’d never considered it as something wrong until now.
“I think it’s because of how calm you are,” Jack said, obviously determined not to be left out of the process altogether. “She’s worried about the Doctor, and having me and him here isn’t ideal.”
“I can imagine,” Ianto said. He’d taken a look at Tosh’s readings of the anomaly, and was now trying to figure out how to show it to the TARDIS. A small frown formed as he pulled a lever.
“Can I help?” Jack said after trying to be quiet for about a minute.
“I’d love a cup of coffee,” Ianto smiled over his shoulder at Jack, who grinned back at him.
“Could you enjoy this any more?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He stopped as though considering this. “No, come to think of it, I don’t think I could. It must be hard, Mr-I-know-everything-there-is-to-know-about-time travel, to ask me - who has never travelled in time - to fly a time-ship for you. Breaks my heart, really.”
“Do you want a job after this?” Jack asked, grinning at him.
“You can’t fire me, what if you can’t work the computers in the Hub? I know that people your age can find technology hard to understand, I’m sure it was very different in your day. Steam power and all that.” Ianto patted Jack on the arm. “Just remember I’m here if you need help texting or anything.”
Jack’s eyes flashed. “That’s enough of that, Mr Jones,” he said. His expression was different now. More predatory. He came toward Ianto, backing him away from the console and towards a wall. He was advancing on him like a big cat, eyes narrowed and lips pressed tightly together, but eyes sparkling in the warm light of the TARDIS. “Old, am I? Passed it?”
Ianto tried not to smile. “Well, we can’t all be young and virile, and there’s something to be said for wisdom. Not that you’re not spry,” he conceded, he bit his lip and shrugged, “for your age.” Ianto’s back met with the wall, but Jack carried on toward him.
“Is that what you think?” Jack asked, him arms resting either side of Ianto against the wall of the TARDIS, trapping him there.
Ianto just smiled and looked at him. “Never said I didn’t like older men.”
Jack suppressed his smile. “You know, I think you’re getting a bit big for your boots, Ianto Jones, time someone took you down a peg a two. In fact,” he lent in close and kissed Ianto just under his ear, feeling a little shiver run through Ianto as his lips touched the sensitive skin. “I think I know what would be most beneficial for you.”
Ianto was breathing more heavily now, his breath tickling the hair’s at the base of Jack’s neck. “What’s that then?” His hands came up, pulling Jack against him.
Jack pressed a series of kisses to his neck. “A dressing down by a superior officer, or an undressing, maybe.”
“Hmmmm.” Ianto mumbled, leaning forward trying to press a kiss against Jack’s neck. “I think that’d do me the power of good.”
Jack grinned and captured Ianto’s lips in a kiss. It was meant to be a small peck before they got back to work. It really was, but Jack was pressing against him tightly, trying to pull them as closer. Jack’s hands were suddenly everywhere, pulling at Ianto’s suit, trying to get at some skin. Ianto had never really been able to think straight where Jack was concerned; he was too intoxicating. He didn’t have to think, Jack just took over him. He seemed so in control that Ianto could let go, and that was new to him. And utterly amazing. Finally Jack pulled back, and Ianto suddenly realised how breathless and flush they both were.
“Now, be good, or I’ll be forced to punish your more severely next time,” Jack whispered, his lips ghosting along his ear.
“Oh, I don’t know whether to throw up or retire to my room,” the Master’s voice seemed to be magnified and felt like it was echoing around the TARDIS.
Ianto tried to act as though nothing was happening, by casually looking away from Jack at the TARDIS consoles, and frowning. The effect was a little let down by the fact that he was still holding onto Jack. Who, for his part, pulled away slowly from their embrace and smiled at Ianto before heading out of the TARDIS, hopefully to get some coffee. He didn’t even look at the Master as he passed him.
Ianto swallowed the urge to make some sort of excuse for their unprofessional behaviour and went back to work. Only now the Master was hovering just over his shoulder. For all that the Master was slight physically, his presence was like a brick wall behind Ianto, and utterly impossibly to ignore.
“Getting off while the universe is ending, eh?” the Master said after Ianto had tried very hard to ignore him for several minutes.
He paused for a moment but decided not to answer. There was no point in arguing and Jack seemed to hate it when Ianto spoke to the Master, and as he had absolutely no desire to do so, he tried not to.
“I think I might learn you like you,” the Master said. “Your hideous taste in partners aside, of course.” Ianto felt the Master lean forward a little, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Not that ‘partners’ is the right word, really. I mean you’re not exactly his partner, are you? Someone to make his coffee and get him off after a hard day might be closer to the truth.”
Ianto sighed heavily, and tried to push out the irritation along with his breath. No need to rise to the bait. He pulled another lever, and moved around the console, stretching to reach a couple of buttons. Trying to shut out everything but what the TARDIS was trying to communicate.
“How much do you know about our handsome Captain?” The Master’s voice was so gentle, and although Ianto knew there was certainly malice behind the words it was hard to keep that thought in his head. The Master was even closer to him now. “Not as much as I do, I should think. I have the Doctor’s memories, now. You know how they met? What they were to each other?”
Ianto’s hand hovered over a button, and although he was staring at the screen in front of him he wasn’t really seeing it. He swallowed. Perhaps it was because he’d been startled out of such an intimate moment, but he felt raw and exposed and the Master’s words seemed to surround him. Wrapping them together in a little pocket where there was only Ianto and what the Master was saying. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, not just to the Master. Tried to break whatever mood this was. “I know what he is to me, to Torchwood … he’ll tell me the rest when he’s ready.”
“What he remembers perhaps.” The Master came to stand directly behind Ianto. “There are things even Jack doesn’t know about himself. Two years of his life that he doesn’t remember. Not to mention well over a hundred that he does.”
Ianto tried not the tense up, not to show any sign that the Master was having an affect on him, but he couldn’t. He’d considered the possibility that Jack might be older than he looked, but… “I don’t believe you,” he said, but the words were too quiet to hold much conviction.
The Master laughed. “Of course you do, because why would I lie when the truth is so much better?” There was a pause and then the Master was reaching around Ianto, pressing against him and covering Ianto’s outstretched hand with his own. “It’s this one here,” he said softly, whispering into Ianto’s ear, placing Ianto’s hand on a red button and gently pressing it down. “There’s a lot I could teach you, Ianto Jones,” the Master didn’t pull back and Ianto felt frozen in place. The Master was pressed along the entire length of is body, he could feel his surprising lack of body heat, the beating of what actually might be more than one heart. He struggled not to close his eyes, because that would be a defeat. “I travel among the stars you know, time and distance mean nothing to me, and I need a companion. Someone I can show the end of stars and the birth of planets. Why monitor time when you experience it?”
Ianto wanted to say something, to push the Master away but his voice was so soothing, and the questions about Jack that exploded in his mind kept him in place. He shook his head a little.
The Master lent down, resting his chin on Ianto’s shoulder and talking directly into his ear. “I will answer any question you ask of me, I would have no reason to lie to you, and I don’t even drink coffee.”
Ianto felt a laugh escape despite himself, and felt it mirrored by the Master as his warm breath ghosted across his ear, just as Jack’s had what seemed to be a lifetime ago.
“Back. The fuck. Off,” Jack’s voice wasn’t loud. It probably wouldn’t have been as effective if it had been.
The Master looked over at him and slowly stepped away from Ianto. “I was just showing Mr Jones here the ropes,” he said sweetly. He looked at Ianto. “Consider what I said,” he said seriously and turned and wandered off deeper into the TARDIS.
Ianto forced himself to look at Jack. He hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but he felt like he’d been caught in the middle of an illicit act. Jack was holding two mugs, and he looked concerned. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
Ianto felt a wave of irritation. “No, he didn’t hurt me. I can look after myself for whole minutes at a time, as it happens.”
Jack frowned. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that he’s not what he seems.”
“Yeah,” Ianto said, looking away, “seems that it’s catching.”
TBC...
Pairing: Simm!Master/Ten!Doctor, Jack/Ianto
Author: Buttercup
Contact: Buttercupgaud@aol.com
Rating: Let’s say R to be safe, but might be PG-13
Warnings: None really. No spoilers for season 2 of TW, either.
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, they belong to Russel T and the beeb.
Summery: The Doctor wakes up with a headache, which quickly becomes everyone at TW’s too. Doctor Who/Torchwood crossover.
Thanks: Thanks to the wonderful Amy for beta reading this and being so encouraging.
Part One.
Part Two.
PART Three
Jack was sitting behind his desk staring at nothing. Ianto had to crouch down beside his chair before he even noticed that someone had come in. “Jack,” he said softly, gently emphasising the use of his first name, “what’s going on?”
Jack started when he noticed Ianto, but his eyes didn’t lose any of their concern when he registered who it was. He shook his head. “There are things that I can’t talk about.”
Ianto nodded. “Okay,” he said softly, “then try telling me something that you can talk about.”
Jack looked at him. “I think it might be better if you went home. I think I can handle the Master, and it’d be safer-”
“It’d be safer?” Ianto cut in. “Jack, we hunt aliens for a living, no day is what most people would describe as safe. I don’t understand what’s going on, if you don’t trust him then why have you let him in the Hub at all?”
“I don’t trust him, but I do trust the Doctor, he’s saved everyone so often that we have to do the same for him.” Jack sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t explain, but there are things I can’t-”
“Yes,” Ianto said firmly, “so I’ve gathered. But this obviously affects me; you’re trying to send me home and I’d like to know a) when that’s ever actually worked, and b) if the Master’s dangerous enough to get you this worked up why I’d be safer sitting at home watching telly.”
Jack smiled, but he seemed sad and tired. “It’s the way he was looking at you. I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but just having him here feels so wrong. I fought against him for so long and now I’m expected to just work alongside him, and the thing is, I do believe what he’s telling me, and I also know that that must be wrong and possibly the most stupid mistake I’ve ever made. And believe me,” Jack looked at Ianto, “there’ve been a few. I lost you once to him and I just can’t do it again.” He looked away from Ianto, jaw tense.
Ianto had learnt not to press Jack for information. He very rarely told him anything in a linear way, it seemed to be too painful for Jack to do it that way. Ianto simply stayed quiet and gathered the shards of information and pieced them back together on his own. He knew that Jack hardly ever opened up and that he needed this. Ianto didn’t speak, he just listened, and was still there when Jack had finished.
That was all Jack ever needed, and he was happy to give it.
****
The Master seemed to be in a better mood now he’d managed to get a reaction out of Jack. He hummed to himself as he went over the readouts for the fifth time. Jack braced himself and walked over to him.
“Do you have any ideas?” he asked, arms crossed over his chest. He realised it looked defensive, but didn’t change his posture.
“Many, many,” the Master said without looking up. “None of which are very plausible.”
Jack sighed. “The readings all seem to be saying the same thing,” Jack said when it looked like the Master wasn’t going to offer any more to the conversation, “that the Doctor didn’t go anywhere. But, he clearly did.”
“Hmmm,” the Master said distractedly. Then a complete change came over him. He froze and looked at Jack. “Say that again.”
“What?” He frowned. “That the readings say the Doctor hasn’t gone anywhere?”
The Master laughed. Stood up and laughed again. “Oh, very clever, very clever. Yes, yes. Of course they say that. He hasn’t gone anywhere.”
He ran down to the spot where the Doctor had been standing just before he’d disappeared and held a hand up, as though touching something Jack couldn’t see. He laughed again. “Yes, yes, very good. Very good indeed!” He paced for a moment, then nodded.
“What?” Jack said, hating having to ask for the Master to explain it, but he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and was looking at him. “Do you know where the Doctor is?”
The Master smiled at him. It was a strange smile and it took Jack a moment to realise why. There was no malice in it, or mocking sarcasm. It was a smile of genuine joy. The change in the Master’s face was remarkable. “He’s right here! I might be standing on him.” He moved a little to the left at this and laughed.
“But, then why can’t we see him? And I thought you said you were in a cell?” Jack felt like slapping him to calm him down. It was something he’d often considered doing to the Doctor when he got like this, but he refused to make any further comparisons between the two.
“We weren’t asking the right question!” The Master grinned. “Not where is he, but when is he!”
Realisation dawned on Jack, and he felt a smile tugging at his lips. “You mean that they’ve transported him through time.”
“Yes, just find a time when the Hub wasn’t here, build a cell and bam! Perfect kidnapping.” The Master began to pace, he brought his hand to his mouth, an indication that he was following a train of thought. “There must still be link between here and there,” he said. “The Doctor used it to send me here.”
“Can we use it to bring him here, or us to him?” Jack asked.
Tosh was already modifying her scans to find that sort of energy signature. She gasped. “I’ve found it.” Both the Master and Jack ran to her side. Jack edged in front of the Master, a physical barrier between Tosh and him. “It looks like normal background radiation from the rift, but it’s too still. Look at the way the rest of the spikes from the rift dart about but this one,” she pointed at the screen, “is hardly moving at all.”
“And why couldn’t we see it before?” Jack hated missing things. They’d wasted too much time.
“Well, we were looking for something that changed as the Doctor was taken, but this looks like it’s always been here. They just had to activate it.” Tosh tried to get the reading as clear as possible.
“So we can bring him back,” Jack said, feeling utterly relieved at the thought.
But the Master was shaking his head. “I don’t think that it works like that. If the Doctor had been able to come with me, he would have. No, I think it’s a one way trip only. Someone might be able to go to him, but then you’d be stuck there.”
Jack nodded. “But, there must be another way in, otherwise how could you have been any use to them?”
The Master was silent for a long time. “We might be able to track him using the link and then use the TARDIS to go to him.”
“Don’t you think it might be safer to work out what they want with the two of you first? We might be walking into a trap,” Owen said.
The Master looked at Jack, and smiled insincerely at him. “Permission to speak to the ape, sir?”
Jack glared at him. “Denied,” he said shortly. He looked at Owen, “You might be right.” He sighed. “But we also don’t have much time.”
He sighed. It seemed the Master was at least trying to help find out what happened. Not that Jack planned on letting his guard down even a little. There weren’t many people who Jack would attach the word ‘hate’ to, but the Master was one of them. It wasn’t so much the evil genius thing, Jack had met plenty of those and didn’t hate them. It was the utter joy the Master found in destruction, and, more than that, it was the way that the Doctor was around him. Jack found it hard to watch the Doctor’s grief, comprehend that he could care so much about someone who had not only hurt everyone the Doctor was meant to care about but had enjoyed it. Had loved it, in fact.
It had felt like a betrayal when the Doctor had announced he’d give everything up to be with the Master, and Jack hadn’t really been able to forgive him. After all that waiting, after being abandoned, and then ignored, it was that that had really hurt. It made it seem that it hadn’t mattered to the Doctor, all those things that he’d witnessed in the year that never was. But it did to Jack. He knew, too, from Martha that the Doctor had been less than lenient with those who he came up against in the year she’d been with him. Yes, the Master might be the last of the Doctor’s kind but did that mean Jack’s love, or Martha’s, meant nothing? It would never be enough for the Doctor, while the hatred of another Time Lord was. He could have gone with the Doctor, travelled with him for years and simply asked to be brought back to Torchwood just after he’d left. It wasn’t like Jack didn’t have enough time. But he couldn’t. Not now. He would always love the Doctor, but it wasn’t blind any more. He could finally see the Doctor, and yes, he was brilliant, but there was darkness too. The Doctor couldn’t give Jack the redemption that he craved, that was up to him alone. So he’d left, gone home, back to his team, back to Ianto and he hadn’t looked back. It had always felt temporary before, because he knew he was just waiting until the moment that he would be able to leave with the Doctor. It wasn’t like that now. He was here to stay, and it actually felt nice.
But the Master was threatening that. Jack had been able to leave the Doctor, safe in the knowledge that everything would carry on just the same without him. Although, they all knew that Martha was going to stay with her family, the Doctor would find a new companion, and he’d be alright. Jack wasn’t so sure that that was true anymore. The Master affected the Doctor’s judgement at the best of times. There was no way that he could kill him, if he hadn’t been able to after the Toclafane, then there was no chance of it now. And the Master had a foothold in the Doctor’s mind. Together they’d be unstoppable, and Jack didn’t dare imagine what they could do if they put their now joined minds to it. He had to find some way of ending their Entrenchment without killing the Doctor. He’d kill the Master without a second’s thought, if he had to, despite knowing the Doctor would never forgive him. There were things that someone had to do, and Jack wouldn’t shirk the responsibility.
“I’m talking to you, Captain Marvellous,” the Master was glaring at him. “Are we going or not?”
Jack looked at his team. His eyes lingered over Ianto for a moment before he nodded. “Just us,” he said firmly. “The rest of you stay here and think of plans B through Z, just in case.”
Although the idea of letting Jack go without the rest of them was never met with approval it seemed the idea of being able to get rid of the Master had a certain appeal, because no one argued with him.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.
The Master was bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Oh this will fun! A road trip with someone who can’t die, imagine the fun I could have!”
Jack didn’t reply just walked over to where the TARDIS was, tucked into a corner of the Hub where the Doctor had parked it, refuelling.
*****
The link between the Master and the Doctor was beginning to take its toll. Although there had been an instant relief as soon as they’d been separated, the link was now being stretched too far. The Master wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep. The Doctor was trying his best to sleep for the both of them, but it wasn’t easy because everything hurt, making sleep difficult. The Master could feel his listless sleep in his head. The half-way point between waking and sleeping made them both feel disorientated. The Doctor caught brief glimpses of what the Master was doing and tried to concentrate, but couldn’t quite struggle to wake completely. Sending the Master back to the Twenty-First century and taken its toll on him. The Master meanwhile felt every shift the Doctor’s mind made. His worry and guilt about not being able to do anything. It was disconcerting, and the link had turned on its hosts to feed itself. Every movement felt laboured as he walked toward the TARDIS. He refused to show this.
He would get back to the Doctor and they would find a way to break this Entrenchment, and if not, there were ways around it. He felt the Doctor’s joy at having him near and alive, that he wasn’t alone. The trust and, yes, love. He could use it all, he could finally have dominion over the Doctor. It was so close he could taste it. The idea of forcing the Doctor to comply was not as appealing as having his genuine consent, but it would do. Then maybe the drums would stop. With the both them united, not pulling in opposite directions, they would be able to stop them.
But things were not going according to plan. “What do you mean she won’t accept your commands?”
Jack glared at him. “I would have thought that was obvious, even to you. She won’t do anything, she’s not even showing me any of her readings.”
The Master sighed. He could feel the TARDIS’s fear and anger at him for the way he had treated her on their last encounter, and she could barely stand Jack’s wrongness at all. She was as stubborn as the Doctor. The Master walked to her controls and reached out to them. “Ouch!” He pulled his hand back and stuck his finger in his mouth.
She won’t listen to you. The Doctor’s thoughts seemed to be getting smaller, but the Master didn’t have time to think about what that might mean. I programmed her not to react to another Time Lord after the paradox machine, thought it was safer.
What a bloody stupid thing to do! There had to be a way around this.
There isn’t. You could probably override my controls, but that would takes weeks that we just don’t have. Besides, the precision that you’d need to get to me would require her to like you, and that won’t be happening.
There was no real need for the Doctor to be feeling smug about this, even if it was buried under his concern. The Master bit his lips and gave in. “Oh, get the apes in here. See if she can stand any of them, they’ll have to calm her down and fly her.”
Jack looked as though this were the last thing he wanted to do, and the Master felt the same. But, there was little choice in the matter, and even less time.
After Jack had gone he let himself sag a little, lent against the TARDIS wall and closed his eyes. The drums had altered since the Doctor had turned up in his head. They didn’t seem to be pushing him forward now. Far from it, they made him want to lie down in a dark room until they went away. He couldn’t understand it; yes, he’d hated him. That they’d never once let him rest, but they had, at times, seemed like a companion of his own. Always there pushing him on to greater and better schemes and it seemed now like they’d turned against him. Perhaps they were jealous of sharing him with the Doctor. But, they’d always done that.
“Ah,” he pushed himself away from the wall as Jack brought his little team back with him. The Master watched them splutter and gasp at the TARDIS for a moment, but only a moment. “Right, I don’t have time for you to be as utterly shit as usual.” The Torchwood team tensed at this, and turned to look at him. “You’re going to concentrate, open your minds to the TARDIS, with the Doctor so far away I think she’ll be looking for someone to be able to fly her to him.” They just stared at him. “Well get on with it! Or shall we just stand about until the universe comes crashing down around us?”
They all looked at Jack, who shook his head. “Just do as he says, the TARDIS won’t hurt you.”
Owen was the first to open his eyes again. “This is bullshit, I can’t feel anything.”
The Master rolled his eyes. “Then get out, you’re obviously as useless as you look.”
“Fuck you,” Owen said and turned around to watch the others.
Gwen was next. “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said, “I think I can feel it, but it’s like I’m being blocked.”
“That’s fine, honey, don’t worry about it,” Jack soothed and looked apprehensively at Tosh and Ianto.
Tosh sighed, “I think I can feel something, it’s a little like the necklace Mary gave me, but I don’t know.” She looked at Jack, “Is that helpful?”
“No,” the Master said, everyone looked at him. “It’s all up to you, Welsh boy, show us what you’ve got.”
Ianto looked at him for a long moment before turning and walking to the nearest console. He paused for a second, closing his eyes before reaching out and flipping a switch. The TARDIS sprung into life around them. “Ah ha!” the Master bounded forward, tried not to make it too obvious when a wave of dizziness hit and grabbed hold of the nearest support. Which turned out to be Ianto, he grinned at him, then took his head in his head and kissed him firmly on the mouth. “That’d a boy!” he cried.
Jack had already covered the couple of steps between them, his hand going to his gun. The Master waved a hand at him. “Stand down, Captain, nothing to get your knickers in a twist over.”
Ianto was blinking at him, then he turned to look at Jack. “Looks like I’m coming along for the ride.”
Jack nodded grimly.
*****
“She likes you.” Ianto looked over at Jack, who was trying not to hover over his shoulder and failing.
“I get the feeling that calling the TARDIS ‘she’ has more to it than nautical tradition,” he said as he ran a hand over the console.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed, smiling fondly, “she’s alive, a living organism as a ship.”
Ianto pressed his lips together and just nodded. He’d heard stranger things. Besides, it felt like she was talking to him. Not exactly with words, but suggestions would appear in his mind. He’d done what the Master had told him to, tried to open his mind to whatever might be there. Almost straight away he’d felt a little tug at the back of his mind, a presence. It seemed … annoyed, and a little scared or concerned. He’d tried to relax, project calm and reassurance. That had been all, but then when the Master had told him to show him what he could do, he’d just known that pressing that button would turn on the screen in front of him.
The Master had immediately tried to take over, pushing Ianto roughly out of the way and pressing another button, but all he’d received was an electric shock and some smoke. Ianto had felt a stab of annoyance that didn’t seem entirely his own. He also felt a wariness when Jack was too close to the console. He’d known - since Owen had shot Jack in the head and he’d gotten up - that there was something different about him, but he’d never considered it as something wrong until now.
“I think it’s because of how calm you are,” Jack said, obviously determined not to be left out of the process altogether. “She’s worried about the Doctor, and having me and him here isn’t ideal.”
“I can imagine,” Ianto said. He’d taken a look at Tosh’s readings of the anomaly, and was now trying to figure out how to show it to the TARDIS. A small frown formed as he pulled a lever.
“Can I help?” Jack said after trying to be quiet for about a minute.
“I’d love a cup of coffee,” Ianto smiled over his shoulder at Jack, who grinned back at him.
“Could you enjoy this any more?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He stopped as though considering this. “No, come to think of it, I don’t think I could. It must be hard, Mr-I-know-everything-there-is-to-know-about-time travel, to ask me - who has never travelled in time - to fly a time-ship for you. Breaks my heart, really.”
“Do you want a job after this?” Jack asked, grinning at him.
“You can’t fire me, what if you can’t work the computers in the Hub? I know that people your age can find technology hard to understand, I’m sure it was very different in your day. Steam power and all that.” Ianto patted Jack on the arm. “Just remember I’m here if you need help texting or anything.”
Jack’s eyes flashed. “That’s enough of that, Mr Jones,” he said. His expression was different now. More predatory. He came toward Ianto, backing him away from the console and towards a wall. He was advancing on him like a big cat, eyes narrowed and lips pressed tightly together, but eyes sparkling in the warm light of the TARDIS. “Old, am I? Passed it?”
Ianto tried not to smile. “Well, we can’t all be young and virile, and there’s something to be said for wisdom. Not that you’re not spry,” he conceded, he bit his lip and shrugged, “for your age.” Ianto’s back met with the wall, but Jack carried on toward him.
“Is that what you think?” Jack asked, him arms resting either side of Ianto against the wall of the TARDIS, trapping him there.
Ianto just smiled and looked at him. “Never said I didn’t like older men.”
Jack suppressed his smile. “You know, I think you’re getting a bit big for your boots, Ianto Jones, time someone took you down a peg a two. In fact,” he lent in close and kissed Ianto just under his ear, feeling a little shiver run through Ianto as his lips touched the sensitive skin. “I think I know what would be most beneficial for you.”
Ianto was breathing more heavily now, his breath tickling the hair’s at the base of Jack’s neck. “What’s that then?” His hands came up, pulling Jack against him.
Jack pressed a series of kisses to his neck. “A dressing down by a superior officer, or an undressing, maybe.”
“Hmmmm.” Ianto mumbled, leaning forward trying to press a kiss against Jack’s neck. “I think that’d do me the power of good.”
Jack grinned and captured Ianto’s lips in a kiss. It was meant to be a small peck before they got back to work. It really was, but Jack was pressing against him tightly, trying to pull them as closer. Jack’s hands were suddenly everywhere, pulling at Ianto’s suit, trying to get at some skin. Ianto had never really been able to think straight where Jack was concerned; he was too intoxicating. He didn’t have to think, Jack just took over him. He seemed so in control that Ianto could let go, and that was new to him. And utterly amazing. Finally Jack pulled back, and Ianto suddenly realised how breathless and flush they both were.
“Now, be good, or I’ll be forced to punish your more severely next time,” Jack whispered, his lips ghosting along his ear.
“Oh, I don’t know whether to throw up or retire to my room,” the Master’s voice seemed to be magnified and felt like it was echoing around the TARDIS.
Ianto tried to act as though nothing was happening, by casually looking away from Jack at the TARDIS consoles, and frowning. The effect was a little let down by the fact that he was still holding onto Jack. Who, for his part, pulled away slowly from their embrace and smiled at Ianto before heading out of the TARDIS, hopefully to get some coffee. He didn’t even look at the Master as he passed him.
Ianto swallowed the urge to make some sort of excuse for their unprofessional behaviour and went back to work. Only now the Master was hovering just over his shoulder. For all that the Master was slight physically, his presence was like a brick wall behind Ianto, and utterly impossibly to ignore.
“Getting off while the universe is ending, eh?” the Master said after Ianto had tried very hard to ignore him for several minutes.
He paused for a moment but decided not to answer. There was no point in arguing and Jack seemed to hate it when Ianto spoke to the Master, and as he had absolutely no desire to do so, he tried not to.
“I think I might learn you like you,” the Master said. “Your hideous taste in partners aside, of course.” Ianto felt the Master lean forward a little, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Not that ‘partners’ is the right word, really. I mean you’re not exactly his partner, are you? Someone to make his coffee and get him off after a hard day might be closer to the truth.”
Ianto sighed heavily, and tried to push out the irritation along with his breath. No need to rise to the bait. He pulled another lever, and moved around the console, stretching to reach a couple of buttons. Trying to shut out everything but what the TARDIS was trying to communicate.
“How much do you know about our handsome Captain?” The Master’s voice was so gentle, and although Ianto knew there was certainly malice behind the words it was hard to keep that thought in his head. The Master was even closer to him now. “Not as much as I do, I should think. I have the Doctor’s memories, now. You know how they met? What they were to each other?”
Ianto’s hand hovered over a button, and although he was staring at the screen in front of him he wasn’t really seeing it. He swallowed. Perhaps it was because he’d been startled out of such an intimate moment, but he felt raw and exposed and the Master’s words seemed to surround him. Wrapping them together in a little pocket where there was only Ianto and what the Master was saying. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, not just to the Master. Tried to break whatever mood this was. “I know what he is to me, to Torchwood … he’ll tell me the rest when he’s ready.”
“What he remembers perhaps.” The Master came to stand directly behind Ianto. “There are things even Jack doesn’t know about himself. Two years of his life that he doesn’t remember. Not to mention well over a hundred that he does.”
Ianto tried not the tense up, not to show any sign that the Master was having an affect on him, but he couldn’t. He’d considered the possibility that Jack might be older than he looked, but… “I don’t believe you,” he said, but the words were too quiet to hold much conviction.
The Master laughed. “Of course you do, because why would I lie when the truth is so much better?” There was a pause and then the Master was reaching around Ianto, pressing against him and covering Ianto’s outstretched hand with his own. “It’s this one here,” he said softly, whispering into Ianto’s ear, placing Ianto’s hand on a red button and gently pressing it down. “There’s a lot I could teach you, Ianto Jones,” the Master didn’t pull back and Ianto felt frozen in place. The Master was pressed along the entire length of is body, he could feel his surprising lack of body heat, the beating of what actually might be more than one heart. He struggled not to close his eyes, because that would be a defeat. “I travel among the stars you know, time and distance mean nothing to me, and I need a companion. Someone I can show the end of stars and the birth of planets. Why monitor time when you experience it?”
Ianto wanted to say something, to push the Master away but his voice was so soothing, and the questions about Jack that exploded in his mind kept him in place. He shook his head a little.
The Master lent down, resting his chin on Ianto’s shoulder and talking directly into his ear. “I will answer any question you ask of me, I would have no reason to lie to you, and I don’t even drink coffee.”
Ianto felt a laugh escape despite himself, and felt it mirrored by the Master as his warm breath ghosted across his ear, just as Jack’s had what seemed to be a lifetime ago.
“Back. The fuck. Off,” Jack’s voice wasn’t loud. It probably wouldn’t have been as effective if it had been.
The Master looked over at him and slowly stepped away from Ianto. “I was just showing Mr Jones here the ropes,” he said sweetly. He looked at Ianto. “Consider what I said,” he said seriously and turned and wandered off deeper into the TARDIS.
Ianto forced himself to look at Jack. He hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but he felt like he’d been caught in the middle of an illicit act. Jack was holding two mugs, and he looked concerned. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
Ianto felt a wave of irritation. “No, he didn’t hurt me. I can look after myself for whole minutes at a time, as it happens.”
Jack frowned. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that he’s not what he seems.”
“Yeah,” Ianto said, looking away, “seems that it’s catching.”
TBC...