Fic: The Oncoming Storm (Slash, AU, Janto 37/40 Act 1/9)
Author: d8rkmessngr
Pairing: Jack/OMC, Jack/?, Jack/Ianto eventually, het and slash
Rating: NC-17 (betaed)
Summary: He left Jack on the game station. Abandoned. But then…he came back…different. An AU look on what happens if things happened differently. Doctor Who 'verse with Torchwood later on. Be sure to read the warnings.
Warnings: Please read each chapter's individual warnings. Some parts down the road may briefly mention non-con, abuse, and/or violence. Dark in the beginning. Please note there are some dark thoughts as my boys are broken…for now. Each chapter will be labeled for your convenience.
Author's Notes: Please note this is an AU that will cross over DW to TW season one. I'm probably spoiling my own story, but it will eventually be Janto. There's a bit of a journey first. I hope you enjoy. I'm working on this and intend to post regularly every other day. And again, I always believe in happy endings. So without further ado…
Disclaimer: RTD and BBC owns them. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Warning For This Chapter: strong language, dark, angsty, disturbing imagery (a matter of reader's interpretation, though)
Notes For This Chapter: Note there are parallels to DW's "Utopia" and briefly mentions things from DW's "42"
Prologue + Ch , Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18. Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31, Ch 32, Ch 33, Ch 34, Ch 35, Ch 36
Master Fic List: here
Chapter 37 "The Sound of Drums"
Act I
Malcassairo
Year 100 trillion…
He could smell the stench of abnormal hunger. He could taste the sour tang of fear in his throat. With the alarms blaring, his stopwatch dangling off its chain like an anchor, the howling growing against his back, it felt too much like Canary Wharf. Ianto's heart hammered like punches inside his ribcage.
Martha shrieked off to his left as a grimy hand touched her neck. The door couldn't hold up against dozens of cannibals, not with only two people serving as the barricade.
"Doctor!" Martha cried out as she swatted away the filthy hand pawing her. She dug her shoulder into the door. "Help!"
The Doctor shook out of his reverie and threw himself at the door, next to Ianto. But he didn't push.
"What are you doing?" Ianto exclaimed as he felt the Doctor pry his left arm away from the door. Ianto skidded and the opening widened.
"Oi, not helping!" Martha shouted, panicked, as a head popped through the door. He snarled at Martha. She screamed. Ianto's abrupt punch with his right to the cannibal's mouth silenced him. The head disappeared back into the throng of arms. The punch, however, cost them and the door opened further. Ianto and Martha yelped together and shoved until the door slid back to their left. The cannibals outside growled like frenzied wolves.
"Hold still!" the Doctor complained as he tugged on Ianto's arm again.
"Are you planning to feed them my limbs first as an appetizer?" Ianto snapped and yanked his arm, but the Doctor's grip was iron strong.
"And give them indigestion?" the Doctor scoffed. "Don't move!" And with a harder tug, he regained Ianto's arm. He shoved at Ianto's sleeves, baring his forearm.
Leverage with one arm was just the same as no leverage at all. Ianto gritted his teeth and dug his back into the door and pushed. The door, however, never moved either way.
"How much time?" Martha gasped out as she pushed.
"I don't know," the Doctor muttered, annoyed, as he grabbed Ianto's wrist firmly, his other hand poking him with his odd screwdriver. "Hold it still!"
"Not you!" Martha groaned. "The radiation!" Her foot slipped and the door edged to the right. Ianto and Martha pushed back to the left with renewed strength.
"Three minutes!" Ianto shouted as he fought to check his watch and keep the door from opening at the same time.
"Actually, two," the Doctor corrected him.
"What?" It wasn't clear who was louder, Ianto or Martha.
"Blast it, stop moving!"
Ianto gaped at the Doctor pointing the screwdriver towards Jack's wrist strap. The tip glowed and made all sorts of noises that only served to make Ianto even more anxious. "What are you trying to do? Jack said it hasn't worked in years!" Ianto protested. "It's broken!"
"That's because he didn't have me!"
"And whose fault was that?" Ianto couldn't help barking back.
"Can you two stop your yelling for a tick and just do something?" Martha shouted. She clenched her teeth as she fought to put all her weight on the door.
The screwdriver bleeped one final high note. "Martha, grab hold!"
"To what?" Martha exclaimed.
The Doctor reached over and ripped Martha's grip off the door and slapped it over Ianto's wrist.
Three things happened to Ianto at once: the door was wrenched open, there was distant screaming in the back as one by one, the cannibals were vaporized by the encroaching stet radiation, and this cold yet hot sensation of his insides being knotted took over just as the Doctor none too gently jammed his thumb on one of the odd buttons on the wrist strap.
Ianto wondered briefly if this was what's it like to be vaporized before everything blinked out of existence.
London
Present day…
There was a moment of suspension, of weightlessness.
Then, falling.
Perhaps, Ianto mused absently, if they were forewarned, their arrival would have been more…graceful.
Refuse bins clattered, boxes flattened as the three popped back into physical existence…
Seven centimeters above the ground.
Bollocks.
Ianto yelped. His feet thought they were running while the rest of him thought they were standing still. He steadied when he could feel his toes touching the ground. He nearly had it until another body collided with him and they landed with a very loud oof. A bottle rolled away from an upset bin by his foot.
"Oh my head," Martha whimpered to the left of him. She leaned against a brick wall of what looked like a narrow alley, hand to her brow, another to her middle. She was far enough away that she was spared the awkward, rugby-like collision.
Ianto groaned and was aware of an elbow digging into his belly. Brown hair tickled his chin. Wool draped over his face like a cloak. "Sir," he gasped out. He spat out wool from his face and thought Jack's greatcoat was better quality. "I must reiterate to you the necessity of cutting back on those scones you boasted about."
"I'm not fat," the Doctor mumbled from somewhere down his chest, clearly miffed. "Time Lords have a dense skeletal structure."
"Then kindly remove your dense skeletal structure off me," Ianto wheezed as the elbow thankfully moved. "I'm very fond of breathing."
The Doctor struggled to untangle his limbs. With Martha's help, the Doctor got to his feet.
Ianto smiled wanly at Martha as he stood up with a stagger. The world wobbled. Ianto wished that he could stop feeling like he was being squished then stretched over and over again. It reminded him of Owen's driving or worse, Jack's.
"That," Martha declared, out of breath, "was not fun at all."
Ianto agreed. He couldn't imagine how Jack did it before. Ianto gazed at the wrist strap on him and shakily closed its flap.
"That thing was really only meant for one time traveler," the Doctor muttered. "Be glad it took all three and didn't simply drop one of us somewhere else."
That was an unpleasant thought.
"I think I'm going to throw up," Martha whined, a hand to her mouth. Thankfully, she didn't vomit.
"Time travel without a capsule," the Doctor grimaced as he stretched his back, "that's a killer." He turned his head left and right, making a loud and painful crack. "Come on," the Doctor muttered. "Let's see where we are."
There was an overwhelming feeling that swept over him when Ianto saw the familiar structures and people of what looked like the right time. Shops and people greeted him with the sparkling gleam of ordinary life, seemingly untouched by what had occurred before. Ianto's knees trembled and he wanted to sit down for a moment.
"Did we make it?" Ianto murmured, low to the other two as they walked out off the alley where they had found themselves and into what appeared to be a shopping arcade. He looked at a young mother with her tot. A man rode by on his bicycle. A child ran by chasing another. Someone was laughing. Martha turned her head every which way, taking in everything.
"Earth, 21st century, by the looks of it." Ianto glanced over hopefully to the time traveler between them. "More specifically, London."
The Doctor nodded curtly.
Ianto closed his eyes briefly and took a steadying breath.
Martha exhaled, relieved. "Talk about lucky."
"That wasn't luck," the Doctor bit out. "That was me."
This was getting to be too much and Ianto's head spun. Perhaps it showed on his face because suddenly, Martha was steering for some public seating. She never said anything; just chatted away, pointing out shops she'd recognized as she had two fingers touching his right elbow, leading them off the sidewalks and into the cement barriers and benches. Ianto dropped into one bench with a whoosh.
Ianto took a deep breath, then another. He was grateful no one suggested he put his head between his knees. The Doctor stared at the people who surrounded them, at a vagrant slumped by a closed shop's front alcove.
"All right?" Martha inquired, her hand on his knee.
Ianto nodded and wiped across his brow with a sleeve. He made a face. His suit was in dire need of dry cleaning. It smelt like sweat and blood and all sorts of smells he didn't want to think about.
Ianto made a shaky laugh. He lifted his wrist up to show them. "I guess the moral of the story is, if you're gonna get trapped at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent."
The Doctor offered a tight smile but didn't berate Ianto for his lapse. "Or his vortex manipulator at least."
"A Time Agent?" Martha frowned as she craned her neck to examine the device closer.
The Doctor gave her a headshake. Ianto shrugged to her. Martha looked like she wanted to ask more but she shook her head and shrugged. She looked resigned, as if she was used to having her questions unanswered.
"But this Master bloke," Martha began. Her hand flitted in the air helplessly as she tried to wrap her head around everything. Ianto could sympathize. It still felt like he was running, the ground still moving underneath him.
"He's got the TARDIS," Martha lamented. "He could be anywhere in time and space."
"No. He's here," the Doctor replied, his words grim. "Trust me."
A chill settled in Ianto's chest. "We heard him…when we tried to call Jack."
The Doctor nodded, grave.
"So the Master traveled back in time to get…" Martha mulled it over, her mouth pursed. "But, we heard him when we were in Cardiff. When we were at the end of the universe, he wasn't even the Master yet." Martha waved her hands helplessly in the air.
"Time travel is confusing that way," the Doctor muttered as he scanned their surroundings, distractedly. "Our future became the Master's past."
"That's why he sabotaged the TARDIS," Ianto realized. His eyes widened. "Back in Torchwood, he sent it to the end of the universe so he…" He covered his mouth with his hand.
"We handed over the TARDIS to him," Ianto breathed.
"She must have been programmed to only respond to him," the Doctor theorized out loud. "Not that she would go willingly. I heard her as she dematerialized." The Doctor scowled but there was also a proud glint in his eyes. "She'd have fought him every step of the way."
Another thought occurred to him and it felt like all the blood drained from his face. Ianto found himself shaking. "God…"
"Ianto?" Martha tilted her head and leaned in closer.
"You heard everything in the control room." Ianto didn't make it into a question but Martha nodded all the same.
"Our lines went down as soon as you and the Doctor left. We only heard you but I couldn't contact you."
His mouth tasted sour, bitter and now Ianto thought he was going to throw up instead of Martha.
The Doctor stared intently at Ianto, his eyes dark but not accusing. They were full of understanding and somehow, that only made it worse.
"You couldn't have known," the Doctor murmured.
"What?" Martha looked at the Doctor and Ianto. "What is it? What couldn't he have known?"
"I told him how to find Jack," Ianto choked out, miserable. "In 1941. He took the TARDIS and must have gone there to find him. If it weren't for me…" Ianto's eyes burned. He felt cold and, God, so sick to his stomach. "Everything…everything started because of me." The world shrank around him. Ianto dropped his head in his hands.
"No, everything started because of the Master," the Doctor corrected him, his voice firm. "He did this. There was no way to predict this. No way we could have known."
"That woman…" Martha whispered.
Ianto looked up. "What woman?" he croaked.
Martha stared past his shoulder, remembering. "There was this woman…she knew who Professor Yana was b-before he even knew it himself. She was going to kill me, said I will never know her."
The Doctor darkened. "What?"
"She…she told the Professor to open that watch, that c-chameleon thing. Chantho told me she arrived months before we did and…and…" Martha struggled for words before giving up with a sigh.
"Who is he anyway?" Martha wanted to know. "And that voice at the end, that wasn't the Professor."
"If the Master's a Time Lord as well, then he must've regenerated," Ianto guessed. "Before we were able to get in, I thought I heard fighting, weapon fire."
Martha's brow knitted. "What does that mean?"
"It means he's changed his face," Ianto explained. "Voice, body, everything, a new man." A stranger who posed as a friend, waltzed in and let Jack believe…Ianto swallowed hard.
Martha stared at him, displayed. "Then how are we going to find him?"
"I'll know him," the Doctor said all of the sudden. His jaw was set, his eyes determined. "The moment I see him. Time Lords always do."
Martha nodded, thoughtful as she stared around her. Something caught her eye. "But hold on, if he could be anyone…" Martha stood and approached a flyer that was tacked up on the wall. Vote for Saxon, it read.
"We missed the election," Martha stammered as she read the flyer. Her eyes grew into huge circles. "But it can't be…"
Applause burst out on the street at something that was on the screen that hung high above the street.
"Mr. Saxon has returned from the Palace and is greeting crowds inside Saxon headquarters."
Martha veered around people cheering on the street. "I said I knew that voice," Martha breathed, her eyes wide. "When he spoke, inside the TARDIS."
Ianto rose to his feet as well. They both followed Martha as she walked over to the screen, staring at it.
"I've heard that voice hundreds of times," Martha continued, disbelief in her voice, her expression. "I've seen him, we all have."
Ianto raised his eyes to the screen. He stiffened at the image of a couple descending the red-carpeted stairs amidst recorded applause and live clapping.
"That was the voice of Harold Saxon," Martha said, incredulous. She gaped up at the news feed.
"That's him. He's Prime Minister," the Doctor declared in a low voice as he stared at the video that panned up to that familiar condescending smirk Ianto had seen so many times up close.
"It was him," Ianto choked. He stared at the screen, so hard, his eyes burned. "That's who I saw in Canary Wharf with Jack. He was the one who said he came back for Jack. He said he was the Doctor."
Out of the corner of Ianto's eye, he saw the clouds shadowing Doctor's face, his once jovial expression now stormy.
Martha started. "Wait, so you're saying-"
"The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain," the Doctor hissed.
The press on the screen was shouting something to Saxon. He merely smiled and pulled the young woman to him and waited a pause for the cameras to click and flash before he kissed her.
"The Master and his wife?" the Doctor blurted out.
Ianto searched the video even though he knew it was fruitless.
"Do you see him?" Ianto asked desperately. "Do you see Jack with him?"
The Doctor was staring hard at the screen, but Ianto wasn't sure if he was searching for Jack or for something on the Ma-no, he refused to call him that-Saxon's face.
"That woman…" Martha clutched Ianto's arm. "S-she…half her face was scarred but the other half…" Her fingers tightened around Ianto's wrist.
"Doctor…" Martha was barely audible, her face white. "Harold Saxon's wife…she was there. At the end of the universe!"
Doctor spun around and faced her. "You certain it was her?"
"Her face was partially scarred, but the other half…Yes, yes, I'm sure of it!"
"She must have been there to wake the Master," the Doctor hissed.
Martha could only nod.
The camera zoomed in on Saxon's smirking face.
Ianto took a step closer, his hands balling into fists.
"Ianto," Martha murmured. She squeezed his wrist.
"This country has been sick," Saxon declared as he looked towards the cameras. It was like he was smiling directly at them.
"This country needs healing. This country needs medicine." Saxon's mouth twisted to a sneer that seemingly only they noticed.
"In fact, I'd go as far as to say that what this country needs right now…" The sneer broadened and white teeth flashed. "…is a Doctor."
Act II
Additional Notes: Many thanks to soullessminion for betaing this chapter. And trtmx for her magic trick that saved my sanity! LOL.
Pairing: Jack/OMC, Jack/?, Jack/Ianto eventually, het and slash
Rating: NC-17 (betaed)
Summary: He left Jack on the game station. Abandoned. But then…he came back…different. An AU look on what happens if things happened differently. Doctor Who 'verse with Torchwood later on. Be sure to read the warnings.
Warnings: Please read each chapter's individual warnings. Some parts down the road may briefly mention non-con, abuse, and/or violence. Dark in the beginning. Please note there are some dark thoughts as my boys are broken…for now. Each chapter will be labeled for your convenience.
Author's Notes: Please note this is an AU that will cross over DW to TW season one. I'm probably spoiling my own story, but it will eventually be Janto. There's a bit of a journey first. I hope you enjoy. I'm working on this and intend to post regularly every other day. And again, I always believe in happy endings. So without further ado…
Disclaimer: RTD and BBC owns them. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Warning For This Chapter: strong language, dark, angsty, disturbing imagery (a matter of reader's interpretation, though)
Notes For This Chapter: Note there are parallels to DW's "Utopia" and briefly mentions things from DW's "42"
Prologue + Ch , Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18. Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31, Ch 32, Ch 33, Ch 34, Ch 35, Ch 36
Master Fic List: here
Chapter 37 "The Sound of Drums"
Act I
Malcassairo
Year 100 trillion…
He could smell the stench of abnormal hunger. He could taste the sour tang of fear in his throat. With the alarms blaring, his stopwatch dangling off its chain like an anchor, the howling growing against his back, it felt too much like Canary Wharf. Ianto's heart hammered like punches inside his ribcage.
Martha shrieked off to his left as a grimy hand touched her neck. The door couldn't hold up against dozens of cannibals, not with only two people serving as the barricade.
"Doctor!" Martha cried out as she swatted away the filthy hand pawing her. She dug her shoulder into the door. "Help!"
The Doctor shook out of his reverie and threw himself at the door, next to Ianto. But he didn't push.
"What are you doing?" Ianto exclaimed as he felt the Doctor pry his left arm away from the door. Ianto skidded and the opening widened.
"Oi, not helping!" Martha shouted, panicked, as a head popped through the door. He snarled at Martha. She screamed. Ianto's abrupt punch with his right to the cannibal's mouth silenced him. The head disappeared back into the throng of arms. The punch, however, cost them and the door opened further. Ianto and Martha yelped together and shoved until the door slid back to their left. The cannibals outside growled like frenzied wolves.
"Hold still!" the Doctor complained as he tugged on Ianto's arm again.
"Are you planning to feed them my limbs first as an appetizer?" Ianto snapped and yanked his arm, but the Doctor's grip was iron strong.
"And give them indigestion?" the Doctor scoffed. "Don't move!" And with a harder tug, he regained Ianto's arm. He shoved at Ianto's sleeves, baring his forearm.
Leverage with one arm was just the same as no leverage at all. Ianto gritted his teeth and dug his back into the door and pushed. The door, however, never moved either way.
"How much time?" Martha gasped out as she pushed.
"I don't know," the Doctor muttered, annoyed, as he grabbed Ianto's wrist firmly, his other hand poking him with his odd screwdriver. "Hold it still!"
"Not you!" Martha groaned. "The radiation!" Her foot slipped and the door edged to the right. Ianto and Martha pushed back to the left with renewed strength.
"Three minutes!" Ianto shouted as he fought to check his watch and keep the door from opening at the same time.
"Actually, two," the Doctor corrected him.
"What?" It wasn't clear who was louder, Ianto or Martha.
"Blast it, stop moving!"
Ianto gaped at the Doctor pointing the screwdriver towards Jack's wrist strap. The tip glowed and made all sorts of noises that only served to make Ianto even more anxious. "What are you trying to do? Jack said it hasn't worked in years!" Ianto protested. "It's broken!"
"That's because he didn't have me!"
"And whose fault was that?" Ianto couldn't help barking back.
"Can you two stop your yelling for a tick and just do something?" Martha shouted. She clenched her teeth as she fought to put all her weight on the door.
The screwdriver bleeped one final high note. "Martha, grab hold!"
"To what?" Martha exclaimed.
The Doctor reached over and ripped Martha's grip off the door and slapped it over Ianto's wrist.
Three things happened to Ianto at once: the door was wrenched open, there was distant screaming in the back as one by one, the cannibals were vaporized by the encroaching stet radiation, and this cold yet hot sensation of his insides being knotted took over just as the Doctor none too gently jammed his thumb on one of the odd buttons on the wrist strap.
Ianto wondered briefly if this was what's it like to be vaporized before everything blinked out of existence.
London
Present day…
There was a moment of suspension, of weightlessness.
Then, falling.
Perhaps, Ianto mused absently, if they were forewarned, their arrival would have been more…graceful.
Refuse bins clattered, boxes flattened as the three popped back into physical existence…
Seven centimeters above the ground.
Bollocks.
Ianto yelped. His feet thought they were running while the rest of him thought they were standing still. He steadied when he could feel his toes touching the ground. He nearly had it until another body collided with him and they landed with a very loud oof. A bottle rolled away from an upset bin by his foot.
"Oh my head," Martha whimpered to the left of him. She leaned against a brick wall of what looked like a narrow alley, hand to her brow, another to her middle. She was far enough away that she was spared the awkward, rugby-like collision.
Ianto groaned and was aware of an elbow digging into his belly. Brown hair tickled his chin. Wool draped over his face like a cloak. "Sir," he gasped out. He spat out wool from his face and thought Jack's greatcoat was better quality. "I must reiterate to you the necessity of cutting back on those scones you boasted about."
"I'm not fat," the Doctor mumbled from somewhere down his chest, clearly miffed. "Time Lords have a dense skeletal structure."
"Then kindly remove your dense skeletal structure off me," Ianto wheezed as the elbow thankfully moved. "I'm very fond of breathing."
The Doctor struggled to untangle his limbs. With Martha's help, the Doctor got to his feet.
Ianto smiled wanly at Martha as he stood up with a stagger. The world wobbled. Ianto wished that he could stop feeling like he was being squished then stretched over and over again. It reminded him of Owen's driving or worse, Jack's.
"That," Martha declared, out of breath, "was not fun at all."
Ianto agreed. He couldn't imagine how Jack did it before. Ianto gazed at the wrist strap on him and shakily closed its flap.
"That thing was really only meant for one time traveler," the Doctor muttered. "Be glad it took all three and didn't simply drop one of us somewhere else."
That was an unpleasant thought.
"I think I'm going to throw up," Martha whined, a hand to her mouth. Thankfully, she didn't vomit.
"Time travel without a capsule," the Doctor grimaced as he stretched his back, "that's a killer." He turned his head left and right, making a loud and painful crack. "Come on," the Doctor muttered. "Let's see where we are."
There was an overwhelming feeling that swept over him when Ianto saw the familiar structures and people of what looked like the right time. Shops and people greeted him with the sparkling gleam of ordinary life, seemingly untouched by what had occurred before. Ianto's knees trembled and he wanted to sit down for a moment.
"Did we make it?" Ianto murmured, low to the other two as they walked out off the alley where they had found themselves and into what appeared to be a shopping arcade. He looked at a young mother with her tot. A man rode by on his bicycle. A child ran by chasing another. Someone was laughing. Martha turned her head every which way, taking in everything.
"Earth, 21st century, by the looks of it." Ianto glanced over hopefully to the time traveler between them. "More specifically, London."
The Doctor nodded curtly.
Ianto closed his eyes briefly and took a steadying breath.
Martha exhaled, relieved. "Talk about lucky."
"That wasn't luck," the Doctor bit out. "That was me."
This was getting to be too much and Ianto's head spun. Perhaps it showed on his face because suddenly, Martha was steering for some public seating. She never said anything; just chatted away, pointing out shops she'd recognized as she had two fingers touching his right elbow, leading them off the sidewalks and into the cement barriers and benches. Ianto dropped into one bench with a whoosh.
Ianto took a deep breath, then another. He was grateful no one suggested he put his head between his knees. The Doctor stared at the people who surrounded them, at a vagrant slumped by a closed shop's front alcove.
"All right?" Martha inquired, her hand on his knee.
Ianto nodded and wiped across his brow with a sleeve. He made a face. His suit was in dire need of dry cleaning. It smelt like sweat and blood and all sorts of smells he didn't want to think about.
Ianto made a shaky laugh. He lifted his wrist up to show them. "I guess the moral of the story is, if you're gonna get trapped at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent."
The Doctor offered a tight smile but didn't berate Ianto for his lapse. "Or his vortex manipulator at least."
"A Time Agent?" Martha frowned as she craned her neck to examine the device closer.
The Doctor gave her a headshake. Ianto shrugged to her. Martha looked like she wanted to ask more but she shook her head and shrugged. She looked resigned, as if she was used to having her questions unanswered.
"But this Master bloke," Martha began. Her hand flitted in the air helplessly as she tried to wrap her head around everything. Ianto could sympathize. It still felt like he was running, the ground still moving underneath him.
"He's got the TARDIS," Martha lamented. "He could be anywhere in time and space."
"No. He's here," the Doctor replied, his words grim. "Trust me."
A chill settled in Ianto's chest. "We heard him…when we tried to call Jack."
The Doctor nodded, grave.
"So the Master traveled back in time to get…" Martha mulled it over, her mouth pursed. "But, we heard him when we were in Cardiff. When we were at the end of the universe, he wasn't even the Master yet." Martha waved her hands helplessly in the air.
"Time travel is confusing that way," the Doctor muttered as he scanned their surroundings, distractedly. "Our future became the Master's past."
"That's why he sabotaged the TARDIS," Ianto realized. His eyes widened. "Back in Torchwood, he sent it to the end of the universe so he…" He covered his mouth with his hand.
"We handed over the TARDIS to him," Ianto breathed.
"She must have been programmed to only respond to him," the Doctor theorized out loud. "Not that she would go willingly. I heard her as she dematerialized." The Doctor scowled but there was also a proud glint in his eyes. "She'd have fought him every step of the way."
Another thought occurred to him and it felt like all the blood drained from his face. Ianto found himself shaking. "God…"
"Ianto?" Martha tilted her head and leaned in closer.
"You heard everything in the control room." Ianto didn't make it into a question but Martha nodded all the same.
"Our lines went down as soon as you and the Doctor left. We only heard you but I couldn't contact you."
His mouth tasted sour, bitter and now Ianto thought he was going to throw up instead of Martha.
The Doctor stared intently at Ianto, his eyes dark but not accusing. They were full of understanding and somehow, that only made it worse.
"You couldn't have known," the Doctor murmured.
"What?" Martha looked at the Doctor and Ianto. "What is it? What couldn't he have known?"
"I told him how to find Jack," Ianto choked out, miserable. "In 1941. He took the TARDIS and must have gone there to find him. If it weren't for me…" Ianto's eyes burned. He felt cold and, God, so sick to his stomach. "Everything…everything started because of me." The world shrank around him. Ianto dropped his head in his hands.
"No, everything started because of the Master," the Doctor corrected him, his voice firm. "He did this. There was no way to predict this. No way we could have known."
"That woman…" Martha whispered.
Ianto looked up. "What woman?" he croaked.
Martha stared past his shoulder, remembering. "There was this woman…she knew who Professor Yana was b-before he even knew it himself. She was going to kill me, said I will never know her."
The Doctor darkened. "What?"
"She…she told the Professor to open that watch, that c-chameleon thing. Chantho told me she arrived months before we did and…and…" Martha struggled for words before giving up with a sigh.
"Who is he anyway?" Martha wanted to know. "And that voice at the end, that wasn't the Professor."
"If the Master's a Time Lord as well, then he must've regenerated," Ianto guessed. "Before we were able to get in, I thought I heard fighting, weapon fire."
Martha's brow knitted. "What does that mean?"
"It means he's changed his face," Ianto explained. "Voice, body, everything, a new man." A stranger who posed as a friend, waltzed in and let Jack believe…Ianto swallowed hard.
Martha stared at him, displayed. "Then how are we going to find him?"
"I'll know him," the Doctor said all of the sudden. His jaw was set, his eyes determined. "The moment I see him. Time Lords always do."
Martha nodded, thoughtful as she stared around her. Something caught her eye. "But hold on, if he could be anyone…" Martha stood and approached a flyer that was tacked up on the wall. Vote for Saxon, it read.
"We missed the election," Martha stammered as she read the flyer. Her eyes grew into huge circles. "But it can't be…"
Applause burst out on the street at something that was on the screen that hung high above the street.
"Mr. Saxon has returned from the Palace and is greeting crowds inside Saxon headquarters."
Martha veered around people cheering on the street. "I said I knew that voice," Martha breathed, her eyes wide. "When he spoke, inside the TARDIS."
Ianto rose to his feet as well. They both followed Martha as she walked over to the screen, staring at it.
"I've heard that voice hundreds of times," Martha continued, disbelief in her voice, her expression. "I've seen him, we all have."
Ianto raised his eyes to the screen. He stiffened at the image of a couple descending the red-carpeted stairs amidst recorded applause and live clapping.
"That was the voice of Harold Saxon," Martha said, incredulous. She gaped up at the news feed.
"That's him. He's Prime Minister," the Doctor declared in a low voice as he stared at the video that panned up to that familiar condescending smirk Ianto had seen so many times up close.
"It was him," Ianto choked. He stared at the screen, so hard, his eyes burned. "That's who I saw in Canary Wharf with Jack. He was the one who said he came back for Jack. He said he was the Doctor."
Out of the corner of Ianto's eye, he saw the clouds shadowing Doctor's face, his once jovial expression now stormy.
Martha started. "Wait, so you're saying-"
"The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain," the Doctor hissed.
The press on the screen was shouting something to Saxon. He merely smiled and pulled the young woman to him and waited a pause for the cameras to click and flash before he kissed her.
"The Master and his wife?" the Doctor blurted out.
Ianto searched the video even though he knew it was fruitless.
"Do you see him?" Ianto asked desperately. "Do you see Jack with him?"
The Doctor was staring hard at the screen, but Ianto wasn't sure if he was searching for Jack or for something on the Ma-no, he refused to call him that-Saxon's face.
"That woman…" Martha clutched Ianto's arm. "S-she…half her face was scarred but the other half…" Her fingers tightened around Ianto's wrist.
"Doctor…" Martha was barely audible, her face white. "Harold Saxon's wife…she was there. At the end of the universe!"
Doctor spun around and faced her. "You certain it was her?"
"Her face was partially scarred, but the other half…Yes, yes, I'm sure of it!"
"She must have been there to wake the Master," the Doctor hissed.
Martha could only nod.
The camera zoomed in on Saxon's smirking face.
Ianto took a step closer, his hands balling into fists.
"Ianto," Martha murmured. She squeezed his wrist.
"This country has been sick," Saxon declared as he looked towards the cameras. It was like he was smiling directly at them.
"This country needs healing. This country needs medicine." Saxon's mouth twisted to a sneer that seemingly only they noticed.
"In fact, I'd go as far as to say that what this country needs right now…" The sneer broadened and white teeth flashed. "…is a Doctor."
Act II
Additional Notes: Many thanks to soullessminion for betaing this chapter. And trtmx for her magic trick that saved my sanity! LOL.