The Windhovers: The Fledgling (5 of 6), Jack/Ianto
Title: The Fledgling
Series 'Verse: The Windhovers
Chapter: 5 of 6
Author: sarcasticchick
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Spoilers: TW S1, S2
Fluffers/Betas: lilithilien
Summary: "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." - Galileo Galilei
A/N: Chapter total changed again due to the holiday travels totally cramping my writing time, not to mention I had the feeling this chapter might be information overload. You might need time to digest it like a good turkey dinner. :) Or tofurkey in my case. And pie. Lots of pie. Mmmmmm. I promise tho - next week is the final chapter for this story!
No pumpkins were harmed while writing this entry.
Previous Chapters:
The Windhovers: The Beginning(complete)
The Fledgling (1 of 6)
The Fledgling (2 of 6)
The Fledgling (3 of 6)
The Fledgling (4 of 6)
Previously on...
"Welcome to the planet -"
"Trahgdar." Ianto supplied with a quick smile he didn't really mean as he stuffed his hands in the pockets of trousers that weren't quite denim. He didn't see any point in pretending, the Doctor knew what he was and if it filled him with a little immature pleasure to kill that manic grin, well, that was just an added bonus. It just wasn't right -- the list of destruction and ruin stretched in his mind, but the Doctor didn't act like there was a problem of any kind. Not that Ianto was sure how the Doctor ought to be acting beneath the weight of his crimes, but a little more stoicism might be appropriate.
As if on cue the gleeful smile fell, and damned if Ianto didn't feel a bit guilty for it. He looked rather like Ianto had kicked his proverbial puppy. Ianto bit back the apology, however. He felt a twinge of guilt, not a complete dismissal of Windhover instinct.
"It's pronounced Trahgt-ar," the Doctor corrected, producing a guttural sound that Ianto assumed was the native dialect. Ianto supposed he deserved the correction, just a bit. "Interesting etymology. Stems from the ancient Coushine root y-trahgr which means, ah, roughly 'tasty greens' in your English..."
The Doctor turned abruptly and started walking up a trail which led to the village Ianto could see in the distance, never looking back to see if he followed or not. Ianto looked back at the TARDIS, debating his options amidst the salmon-colored foliage and flying vehicles on a planet somewhere in the known universe, in a time between the dawning and end of all things.
Coffee won, no matter the company.
***
"-so that's why they call it Trahgdar instead of Dinwale, despite their greens which aren't actually green. Rather like Dinwale myself, sort of rolls off the tongue like Bergen without the fish. But who's to argue with the Dinoud?"
Ianto couldn't help himself; he stared. Not at the banana the Doctor waved around like a conductor's baton as he guided an orchestra in Flight of the Bumblebee. Nor was he staring at the Doctor because (Ianto was fairly certain) he hadn't paused for breath during the whole lecture on the origins of the planet's name -- surely Time Lords had to breathe? No, he was staring for an entirely different reason, even as he held the coffee cup clenched in his fingertips and had to will himself not to squeeze harder for fear of spilling what smelled like perfectly brewed coffee even if it had come out of a machine with four nozzles and a whirly-gig. "You bartered your mobile."
"Best coffee in the system!" The Doctor gestured at the rather large cup in Ianto's hands, an insulated piece of wonder which kept his hands cool and yet promised to degrade into water and silicone sand when the inside dried. "And real bananas. I love bananas."
"You're bananas," Ianto so desperately wanted to say, but following the Trahgdar history lesson, he wisely opted against speaking his mind. If it had been Owen sitting across from him at the tiny outdoor table, he might not have been so generous. Deliberately taking a sip of his coffee and refraining from affirming the quality (though it more than met his high standards), Ianto eased back into his chair and studied the Doctor, who appeared nonplussed and almost like he encouraged the examination "That was deliberate," Ianto voiced before he realized that he believed what he said. But it was truth, and the anger that came with it felt just as real. "You did it so Jack couldn't phone you."
"Wrong, Mr. Jones." The Doctor didn't smile this time, but he did gesticulate with the banana again, emphatically making his point. "Now you can't phone him."
He nearly argued semantics before he stopped himself with the words still upon his tongue, spoiling the taste of rich coffee grown on hillsides he'd never seen. "You've no right to keep me hostage!" His voice rose, he couldn't stop himself, but the fear of just how far he was from Cardiff, from Torchwood, hell, from Jack began settling in around him as ghosts of yesterday. The TARDIS would take him back, wouldn't she? There had to be laws against this; the fact that he couldn't think of any meant nothing. This was wrong; everything about the situation was so very wrong and crawling under his skin until even the wind blowing through his hair scratched through his sense of control and calm. The TARDIS tried -- he could feel her attempts to comfort even from this distance -- but it seemed the more he attempted to regain stability within his life, ever since seeing his mother outside Torchwood, the faster it had spun away from him, until now he was on another bloody planet, for gods' sakes, with no means of returning home under his own power.
Maybe he did.
The more he thought about it, the more plausible the notion became. When he'd witnessed ... whatever it had been. Memory? Not his. A Windhover's. Someone who'd perished in their final attack. But it had been perfectly reasonable to that individual that the Windhovers should arrive from any time or space. Maybe if he thought about it long enough, accessed more memories somehow, he could figure it out ...
"No." Ianto startled as he focused on the Doctor who had jabbed the banana in his direction, so close in fact that Ianto found himself leaning back to avoid it. The Doctor continued as gravely as he'd begun. "I know what you're thinking and that would be a very bad idea, Mr. Jones."
Opening his mouth to argue, Ianto realized he had no idea what he'd be arguing against. The assumed line of thought? The content? The Doctor for being who he was? It unnerved Ianto just how little he understood his own footing around the man, so he tried to hide his confusion behind a well-timed gulp of coffee. With most of Torchwood, even Jack, Ianto believed he may have pulled off the masked emotion; with the Doctor, on the other hand, it appeared it hadn't worked particularly well. The other man's expression softened, which was rather unfair as Ianto couldn't read the other man at all.
"There may still be some out there that hunt your kind." The Doctor waved the banana with a flourish, an action Ianto completely failed to interpret as he was still fixated on the word "hunt". "You'll go attracting all sorts of unwanted attention and I still haven't figured out how you live, much less without your H'd-toba."
There was that word again. 'H'd-toba'. Ianto faintly understood what it meant from what he'd gleaned in the vision -- some kind of partner -- but he still didn't know why the Doctor kept insisting he had one. Unless maybe Jack was his H'd-toba? Was that possible? Defining their relationship had never been a particularly strong subject for either of them, and the way Jack had left to chase down the Mellonians didn't leave Ianto believing things were on good enough terms to ask him if he was. Or if he would be. Was it that important to have one? The Doctor seemed to imply that it was, but then, the Doctor was responsible for the destruction of so much; could he even be trusted to utter truth? "How do you know about-" Ianto stopped himself and glanced around, feeling as uncomfortable saying it aloud as he had with Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy. There wasn't an individual around; the tables were empty around them and the street held a few out for a stroll, but none paid attention to the conversation at their tiny table. Still, Ianto cringed at using the name and admitting anything about himself. "How do you know about them?"
"You existed before us and would have existed long after." The Doctor studied him for a moment, marking the time between Ianto's breaths with a tap on his chin and Ianto felt uncomfortably like he was being measured up. "We were once allies, yours and mine, Mr. Jones. After the Great Parting you disavowed us, but there's no reason now to pretend we knew nothing of you." He paused, dropping his eyes to his hands in the only sign of ... flappability that Ianto had seen. He wasn't so sure he liked it, even if he he did loathe the man. The Doctor's face brightened considerably, the shift so sudden and drastic Ianto was convinced it was false. Not that the words would be false, but he had seen Jack do the same thing when the conversation drifted to sensitive topics he'd rather avoid. "I'd thought you'd all been lost, but here you are! So tell me how you escaped, I do love a good story."
Ianto sipped his coffee, taking time to consider everything the Doctor had said as well as to buy himself time before answering as he didn't consider his escape that good of a story. None of it made much sense; he did get the impression that the Great Parting had been between the Windhovers and the Time Lords, but what that entailed or why he would do something as silly as pretend what he honestly did not know left him wishing for more coffee and two aspirin. Maybe a shot or two of tequila. Shit, he'd never even told Jack how he'd escaped from Providence. Taking a deep breath, Ianto quickly recounted the details of his escape that he could remember. "Not much to tell. I began palming the anti-psychotics some time after I arrived at Providence Park, and eventually the effects lessened to the degree I could appropriate orderly clothing, keys, and a mobile. When the migraines began, I escaped the grounds and phoned an old contact for assistance."
The Doctor's comical, flummoxed look would have been entertaining had Ianto not had the distinct impression that was not the response the Doctor had been expecting. He would have been embarrassed for misinterpreting the Doctor's question and providing those details of his life, but he'd already thoroughly humiliated himself by his display after viewing the remains of Halcyon. Not that it had been necessarily his fault; Ianto rather believed that the response had been more instinctual than failure of control on his part, but he didn't take to emotional collapses in front of strangers.
"You don't remember escaping Halcyon before the Daleks attacked?"
Now it was Ianto's turn to stare what he expected was dumbfoundedly, but he couldn't stop himself had he the mind to try. The Daleks? The Daleks were responsible for the annihilation of the Windhovers? The same Daleks that had engaged in battle against the Cybermen and Torchwood personnel at Torchwood One? His stomach turned to lead and the coffee felt like it congealed at the thought of twice now the abominations were responsible for so much death. If he'd only known ...
Ianto could feel the fury rising as he thought of the battle in London; he'd had opportunity then. If he'd known, fuck, he could feel his fingernails digging into his fists as the urge to do something...anything...in retaliation for the destruction of his kind. He'd had the chance just a few years past, he could have opened the Veil and allowed the existence beyond to swallow them up until such a time when they were no longer a threat. That's what he could have done, with the charges against the Daleks for their crimes. And the Cybermen too, for everything they'd done.
For Lisa.
His clenched fists shook; fuck he could feel them shake as his teeth ground together as he struggled to heed the Doctor's earlier warning not to jump back in time, to fix that missed opportunity for vengeance. But just as before with the Doctor, Ianto could feel the urge slip away as quickly as it had begun as reason grappled for control. Soon he could once again smell the wafts of coffee from the cup still setting on their table.
He hadn't known, then. And he couldn't exact revenge now. He couldn't. Justice, perhaps. If he found them now he could quantify their crimes and try them in accordance to Law. They had destroyed the Windhovers, they would pay for their crimes.
But in justice's name.
Not vengeance, otherwise he would be no better than the criminals themselves or the merc Judoon who killed for pleasure.
And just as calmly as he had before the revelation, Ianto stretched out his hand and lifted the coffee cup, taking a long sip before acknowledging the Doctor again. He had no idea how long his little fit of temper had lasted, but he had to calm himself. He was a Windhover, and moreover, he was Ianto Jones. He had an image of professionalism and order to maintain, even if he wasn't wearing a suit. "I wasn't at Halcyon when it was destroyed. I'd not left Earth until the TARDIS took me hostage, and I was not aware that it was the Daleks who were responsible for the deaths of the Windhovers -- which I didn't even know I was until I passed out in the backseat of a car after my escape from Providence and woke up with bloody wings."
He heard his own voice rise almost independently as his irritation grew, his overall frustration with simply everything so massive it threatened to drown out even the smell of the coffee. Although what he expected from a fucking Time Lord he wasn't sure; they hadn't involved themselves in the concerns of others outside their precious timelines for generations, why Ianto expected help from the Doctor he had no clue.
And then he had to wonder why he thought that at all.
Distress. Ianto decided 'distress' was an appropriate and fitting term for himself at the moment.
For his part, the Doctor looked equally as perplexed as Ianto felt, which assuaged his ego just a bit. When the Doctor finally spoke, some of the confusion had cleared, but wonderment still underlined his words. "You initiated just weeks ago?" At Ianto's nod (agreeing to what he assumed was in reference to the whole acquisition of wings ordeal), the Doctor continued. "And what of your Coterie? And your H'd-toba? They weren't present? Where is your H'd-toba?"
"I was alone." Truth be told, Ianto had no idea what the hell the Doctor was on about, nor what half of what he spoke of even meant. He didn't seem to know anything and it was increasingly difficult to maintain any semblance of composure in response to the Doctor's rapid queries as it became more apparent just how little he knew in front of a man who Ianto believed could out-destroy the Daleks if he put his mind to it. Maybe even had already. But Ianto swallowed what small measure of pride he had left and asked the question that had been bothering him. "What is a H'd-toba? Is-" Ianto cleared his throat, a sudden shyness clogging any attempt to speak and ask the question he felt like he ought to know. "Is Jack my H'd-toba?"
Whatever response Ianto had been expecting, it hadn't been laughter. And not just a small little chuckle; the Doctor's laughter was a boisterous laugh that echoed in the relatively empty streets of this village on Trahgdar. Shame rose quickly to Ianto's face, the blush quickly heating his skin until his whole face felt ablaze. Forget any earlier embarrassment, Ianto decided as he quickly stood from his chair. This toppled all previous slights. He wasn't quite sure why the Doctor's opinion mattered, for all the important reasons it shouldn't. But the man had a way of making him feel sixteen years old again and like he'd woken to sticky sheets after dreams involving Mr Tanner, the kind man who'd paid Ianto to tend his gardens in the summer months.
"Ianto, please, sit down. My sincerest apologies; I shouldn't have laughed." Ianto stared at the hand touching his arm, the mild restraint easily broken and equally offensive but Ianto honestly wasn't sure if it was the Doctor's laughter which had repulsed him so much or the physical contact which was more psychosomatic than legit, he reasoned. But reason didn't stop him from feeling disgusted, both on his own behalf and on Jack's, and the hand was removed as quickly as it had appeared, to Ianto's relief. He crossed his arms, waiting for the Doctor to either quickly explain himself or to offer to return Ianto home.
"It's just ... you're Windhover. He's decidedly not." Blankly, Ianto waited for the Doctor to continue because that explanation meant nothing to him and went even further in offense towards Jack. "You exist outside of space and time. Well, not in that form. Actually, in that form, but for all appearances in that form you don't. Jack, on the other hand, is a fixed point in time, as permanent a stamp in time as one can be. He is no more your H'd-toba than I am."
Now it was Ianto's turn to laugh, not the boisterous laugh of the Doctor's but quite the extended chuckle as what the Doctor had said repeated itself over and over in his mind, growing more and more absurd with each repeat. 'Exist outside of space and time'? Ludicrous. The Doctor was most certainly lying, seeing how extreme he could get before Ianto's faith in his credibility finally snapped. And it had. What else had been bullshit? The Daleks' involvement? The etymology of Trahgdar? Perhaps not all the Windhovers were even dead; perhaps this was just some fanciful vision concocted by the Doctor and his TARDIS. The tea! His tea had been drugged, though that'd happened before the memory-vision thing. He might be tied up somewhere on the Doctor's ship, and he just needed to wake up from whatever nightmare he was experiencing.
The Doctor was looking at him much like he'd lost his mind, which wasn't the first time anyone had ever looked at him that way. Fucking thing about sanity -- it's all relative depending on the observer. "And I suppose the pyramids are really ship landing pads and the American President is actually a space poodle."
Looking like he was seriously going to answer, the Doctor stopped himself and for once Ianto had to applaud this first demonstration of restraint. But the other man spoke, just not in words the Ianto had been expecting. "There is no purpose in deception, Mr. Jones."
Ianto found himself sitting without consciously deciding to sit, the press of the chair solid against his backside when everything else around him trembled. Maybe that's what earthquakes were like, only he knew the land itself wasn't quaking, it was steady as ever. Would another planet still call them earthquakes? It was presumptuous to believe that they would call the ground 'earth' as it was called on planet Earth. Perhaps here they were called trahgdarquakes, though that had a significant drop in phonetic poetry and sounded more like a cat coughing a hairball than a viable word.
Fuck. How could anyone exist outside of space and time?
That was impossible.
Except when it wasn't.
Which it apparently was.
Ianto finally located his voice somewhere between 'what the fuck?' and 'holy shit', two expletives he refrained from exclaiming if only for the sake of company. "I don't understand," he said, words coming out far softer than he would have liked, but it was truth in both power and content. He knew nothing. He understood nothing. And the most distressing part of it all, he had no access to information outside of the man sitting across the table from him because Halcyon was gone. He'd always prided himself on his ability to learn, to take a subject and read up on it, then apply that knowledge to a situation. It'd gotten him through life during all the odd jobs he worked to support him and his mother and working for Torchwood London. Even Cardiff.
But there were no books, no Internet, no records, no family to interview or even invoices to study and research. He had the Doctor. And with a scowl, Ianto could sort of understand why Jack had vanished on them to seek out answers.
"I don't either! Brilliant, isn't it?"
His fingers curled around his coffee cup at the Doctor's cheerful tone, and he may have made a sound that may have sounded suspiciously like a growl, but Ianto would deny it if asked later. If all Time Lords were like the Doctor, it was a small wonder the two races had split.
Thankfully the Doctor sobered, and Ianto wasn't forced to take extreme measures like waste his remaining coffee soaking the Doctor's brown suit. "You must understand, Mr. Jones. Your race originates from a place outside what we understand as space and time. You had a name for the boundary, the L'ranore Veil, which separated here from the-"
"From existence beyond." The Doctor's expression twisted as though he'd tasted something sour, and Ianto figured he must have been right to have earned that expression. He remembered the phrase from the vision, and now that he had heard it he knew that it was correct in this use, no matter what the Doctor thought.
"Yes, well, we called it The Void."
Ianto snorted, he couldn't help himself. "You don't understand something, so you call it a name implying nothing could exist in something you failed to understand."
"Some refer to it as Hell." The Doctor smiled, an artificially helpful smile that only served to aggravate Ianto more. But the term brought to the forefront the fears that possibly his race had been dangerous, deadly, an evil for which there was purpose in its destruction. He didn't think it was possible -- he didn't consider himself ultimately evil -- but there was much he didn't know. "As we understood it, in the ... on the other side of the Veil," the Doctor's grin this time was more apologetic as he edited himself than not, "there is this giant ... nebulous ... glob of gobbildygook." His hands waved around in what Ianto assumed was an attempt to visually represent what he was saying. It wasn't helping matters. "But there's no mass to it, there's no matter. It exists because it exists, not because it was ever born but because it's a constant in the absence of all known constants."
His eyebrow arched in skepticism before Ianto could check the action. "You're making no sense."
"Now you understand why we called it The Void."
Rather than agree to the Doctor's point, Ianto took a drink of his coffee, still rather remarkably the same temperature as the beverage had been when the Doctor had traded for it some time ago. It was impressive and Ianto desperately wished to get his hands on the technology for use back home. If he swore to not sell the information, he did wonder if the Doctor would let him keep the cup. "So let's say what you said is true. What does that giant nebulous glob of gobbbidlygook have to do with me?"
"Because you're it. Or an expression of it." The Doctor leaned forward, banana in hand, his face alarmingly close for Ianto's periodic urge to hit the bastard. Not that he would lose all restraint except under true duress, but the idea was tempting at times. "Consider satellites. The Windhovers were individual satellites, throughout time and the Universes, gathering information and sending it back to the Void while functioning as the operating arm this side of the Void."
"And information can be received as well," Ianto noted, as even if the concept itself was difficult to wrap his brain around, it did at least give credence as to why he seemed to know some things. "That makes me sound rather ... robotic." He didn't say the name he was thinking, applying such a term to his own being made him ill.
"Oh, not at all. Satellite was too simplistic. Although, that makes perfect sense now why he named them ArchAngel-" Ianto didn't miss the sorrow which crossed the Doctor's face, maybe a little regret, but he couldn't fathom the reason why -- he knew of a project named that, but few of the details as it had never been a Torchwood concern. It almost made him feel sympathy for the man. "Well, anyway. You all had families, Coteries you called them, even though you didn't share any genetic information to actually make you family." At Ianto's blank stare, the Doctor quickly elaborated. "You don't have genetic information. DNA. RNA. TNA. You exist because you think you exist, not because your parents physically copulated and created you through shared genetic material."
And with that, the Doctor completely lost Ianto. He had a mother and a father, he'd been born with help of a midwife named Annie, and most importantly, he remembered every day of his life from a very young age. He hadn't just popped into existence because he thought he should exist. He physically looked like his parents, he had his father's figure and his mother's dark, wavy hair. He had father's nose and his mother's eyes and cheeks. There was little doubt he was related to them and he was not denying that they were his parents, no matter their history.
Ianto finished the last of his coffee and again stood, but this time without his earlier force. He was done with this conversation. It was edging into the ridiculous and it was past time for him to return to Cardiff. "I think we're done here." To his credit, the Doctor didn't say anything, just stood and followed Ianto out away from the terrace of tables and chairs, and didn't question when Ianto didn't take the path back towards the meadow and the TARDIS, but rather walked up a street with intriguing storefronts of clothing he'd never seen before, technology that he'd only ever imagined, even with Torchwood's access. He needed time to consider what the Doctor had said, what it meant, and if there was any truth to his words.
Fuck if he didn't believe the Doctor, which made it more difficult to understand how it could be possible.
***
"It's the ultimate camouflage device to protect your kind."
The Doctor had remained silent for all of eleven minutes while they walked; Ianto had bet himself that it would take only eight minutes before the Doctor broke the silence so he supposed he owed himself for being wrong. What payment would be he didn't know, he typically wasn't incorrect when he made those bets and Ianto felt a bit bewildered how to handle this internal wager. Ianto didn't acknowledge the Doctor's words, however, just kept walking with his hands in the shallow pockets of his jacket. But he listened, if for nothing more than to tell the Doctor precisely why he couldn't be right.
"Quite brilliant, really. The H'd-tobi pair seek out a willing individual on a planet they protected and implanted the idea of a new Windhover H'd-tobi. The existence then goes through the development cycle of their host, and they're birthed as identical twins of that species. They mature to adulthood as children of that planet's main governing species, thinking they were that species. Then their Coterie comes for Initiation, when they reconnect with the ... thing ... across the Veil."
"Sprouting wings," Ianto helpfully clarified, not that he entirely believed the Doctor's story but he could rationalize a few things with the information; like how he'd fooled every test Owen and the TARDIS had run because he'd, what, thought himself human?
"Visual and physical manifestation of the tether connecting you to your 'existence beyond'."
Ianto blinked in surprise, the idea of the wings as a link between he and ... it ... had never entered the realm of possibility. They'd been a nuisance and a hindrance, but nothing more. "And if the link is severed?"
"Then you cease to exist," the Doctor said simply, causing Ianto to pale at his notion of surgically removing his wings back at Lester's when desperation admittedly caused him to think a bit irrationally. "There were theories that the Daleks had a device which instantly cut all the Windhover's links across the Veil, it was the only thing that explained the way they vanished."
"There was a light, something which..." Ianto struggled to think of a word to describe what he had seen, "...hummed ... sort of opposite the hum of the Veil."
"It's possible, maybe canceled portions of the link which caused it to fail." The Doctor shrugged, then with an added bounce to his step turned to Ianto as they walked. "Which does not explain how you are here."
With certainty, Ianto stated what he knew. "I wasn't a twin. There was only me."
"And if your H'd-toba had died, you would have as well." The Doctor's eyes narrowed on him as he flipped the banana in his hand. "You shouldn't have survived Initiation without your Coterie or H'd-toba either. Their assistance in the ritual was essential."
Ianto once again got the feeling that the Doctor was blaming him for something he hadn't done. Skipping out on the destruction of Halcyon? He could see how that would be a betrayal to his kind, but Ianto was certain he remembered his life, no blips in the memory other than a few hours during Canary Wharf where it was difficult to piece together everything from that trauma and the bit of time preceding his arrival to Providence Park. There were no gaps after, no missing time or feelings like he was fleeing some great tragedy other than his own relationships. "I struck my head and ended up on anti-psychotics prior to the whole 'Initiation' thing," he supplied, not sure if it had any bearing on the situation but couldn't hurt to share.
Damn himself for believing any of it anyways. He shouldn't trust the Doctor but he did.
A frown creased the Doctor's features as he stared at the banana. "You mentioned that before. Why did they medicate?"
"Hallucinations." A blush crept over his cheeks, spreading like fire until it covered his neck and he was pretty sure if he looked his entire body would be red. He remembered the moment he realized what he was seeing, laughing until he wept with Jack's arms around him. "I kept seeing dead people. I think Tosh guessed it was anything alien, I remember her telling me that at one point while I was sectioned."
"Oh. Oh! Yes. No, Well, of course!" The Doctor's eyes lit up; Ianto had never seen the man so excited, not even when he'd seen the bananas at the tiny breakfast shop. He swore the other man danced a little jig, but that was simply a trick of his eyes in the presence of all the salmon-colored foliage on the trees. The Doctor was positively giddy as he started and stopped sentences half a dozen times, speaking thoughts aloud and jumping to the next before Ianto could follow the logic or even the words.
As much as it disgusted him, Ianto couldn't help but feel a bit excited as well.
"Oh, Mr. Jones, this makes sense now! Unless I'm mistaken, which I rarely am." The grin on the Doctor's face couldn't be broader and Ianto clumsily fumbled with the idea that this man was the same one who'd wrought such destruction. "Spontaneous evolutionary genesis!" He spun on one foot, settling back into step beside Ianto who felt the need to restrain himself from strangling the man to just spit out what he was talking about. "You're not the last of your kind. No no no, that set had problems with the process. Was too weak, couldn't survive its faults. The H'd-tobi made them vulnerable, the rituals demanding and distracting. What good were guardians who weren't guarding?"
Ianto warily eyed the Doctor, confused and not certain if he should be offended on behalf of his race. "I'm not the last of my kind?" He'd witnessed the Windhovers' destruction, experienced their loss, he knew all had gathered to fend off the Daleks. If some had survived, wouldn't he have known?
"No, you're the first of the next!" The Doctor stopped, hands in his pockets and his action was so sudden it caused his overcoat to swirl about his legs. Jack had an action much like that and in that brief moment between the Doctor's words, Ianto missed the man terribly despite everything he was learning. The Doctor barely spared him a moment though, more wrapped up in the discovery and presentation it would seem as he continued exuberantly, "Mr. Jones! And now begins, the Children of the Windhovers."
Next Chapter
Series 'Verse: The Windhovers
Chapter: 5 of 6
Author: sarcasticchick
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Spoilers: TW S1, S2
Fluffers/Betas: lilithilien
Summary: "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." - Galileo Galilei
A/N: Chapter total changed again due to the holiday travels totally cramping my writing time, not to mention I had the feeling this chapter might be information overload. You might need time to digest it like a good turkey dinner. :) Or tofurkey in my case. And pie. Lots of pie. Mmmmmm. I promise tho - next week is the final chapter for this story!
No pumpkins were harmed while writing this entry.
Previous Chapters:
The Windhovers: The Beginning(complete)
The Fledgling (1 of 6)
The Fledgling (2 of 6)
The Fledgling (3 of 6)
The Fledgling (4 of 6)
Previously on...
"Welcome to the planet -"
"Trahgdar." Ianto supplied with a quick smile he didn't really mean as he stuffed his hands in the pockets of trousers that weren't quite denim. He didn't see any point in pretending, the Doctor knew what he was and if it filled him with a little immature pleasure to kill that manic grin, well, that was just an added bonus. It just wasn't right -- the list of destruction and ruin stretched in his mind, but the Doctor didn't act like there was a problem of any kind. Not that Ianto was sure how the Doctor ought to be acting beneath the weight of his crimes, but a little more stoicism might be appropriate.
As if on cue the gleeful smile fell, and damned if Ianto didn't feel a bit guilty for it. He looked rather like Ianto had kicked his proverbial puppy. Ianto bit back the apology, however. He felt a twinge of guilt, not a complete dismissal of Windhover instinct.
"It's pronounced Trahgt-ar," the Doctor corrected, producing a guttural sound that Ianto assumed was the native dialect. Ianto supposed he deserved the correction, just a bit. "Interesting etymology. Stems from the ancient Coushine root y-trahgr which means, ah, roughly 'tasty greens' in your English..."
The Doctor turned abruptly and started walking up a trail which led to the village Ianto could see in the distance, never looking back to see if he followed or not. Ianto looked back at the TARDIS, debating his options amidst the salmon-colored foliage and flying vehicles on a planet somewhere in the known universe, in a time between the dawning and end of all things.
Coffee won, no matter the company.
***
"-so that's why they call it Trahgdar instead of Dinwale, despite their greens which aren't actually green. Rather like Dinwale myself, sort of rolls off the tongue like Bergen without the fish. But who's to argue with the Dinoud?"
Ianto couldn't help himself; he stared. Not at the banana the Doctor waved around like a conductor's baton as he guided an orchestra in Flight of the Bumblebee. Nor was he staring at the Doctor because (Ianto was fairly certain) he hadn't paused for breath during the whole lecture on the origins of the planet's name -- surely Time Lords had to breathe? No, he was staring for an entirely different reason, even as he held the coffee cup clenched in his fingertips and had to will himself not to squeeze harder for fear of spilling what smelled like perfectly brewed coffee even if it had come out of a machine with four nozzles and a whirly-gig. "You bartered your mobile."
"Best coffee in the system!" The Doctor gestured at the rather large cup in Ianto's hands, an insulated piece of wonder which kept his hands cool and yet promised to degrade into water and silicone sand when the inside dried. "And real bananas. I love bananas."
"You're bananas," Ianto so desperately wanted to say, but following the Trahgdar history lesson, he wisely opted against speaking his mind. If it had been Owen sitting across from him at the tiny outdoor table, he might not have been so generous. Deliberately taking a sip of his coffee and refraining from affirming the quality (though it more than met his high standards), Ianto eased back into his chair and studied the Doctor, who appeared nonplussed and almost like he encouraged the examination "That was deliberate," Ianto voiced before he realized that he believed what he said. But it was truth, and the anger that came with it felt just as real. "You did it so Jack couldn't phone you."
"Wrong, Mr. Jones." The Doctor didn't smile this time, but he did gesticulate with the banana again, emphatically making his point. "Now you can't phone him."
He nearly argued semantics before he stopped himself with the words still upon his tongue, spoiling the taste of rich coffee grown on hillsides he'd never seen. "You've no right to keep me hostage!" His voice rose, he couldn't stop himself, but the fear of just how far he was from Cardiff, from Torchwood, hell, from Jack began settling in around him as ghosts of yesterday. The TARDIS would take him back, wouldn't she? There had to be laws against this; the fact that he couldn't think of any meant nothing. This was wrong; everything about the situation was so very wrong and crawling under his skin until even the wind blowing through his hair scratched through his sense of control and calm. The TARDIS tried -- he could feel her attempts to comfort even from this distance -- but it seemed the more he attempted to regain stability within his life, ever since seeing his mother outside Torchwood, the faster it had spun away from him, until now he was on another bloody planet, for gods' sakes, with no means of returning home under his own power.
Maybe he did.
The more he thought about it, the more plausible the notion became. When he'd witnessed ... whatever it had been. Memory? Not his. A Windhover's. Someone who'd perished in their final attack. But it had been perfectly reasonable to that individual that the Windhovers should arrive from any time or space. Maybe if he thought about it long enough, accessed more memories somehow, he could figure it out ...
"No." Ianto startled as he focused on the Doctor who had jabbed the banana in his direction, so close in fact that Ianto found himself leaning back to avoid it. The Doctor continued as gravely as he'd begun. "I know what you're thinking and that would be a very bad idea, Mr. Jones."
Opening his mouth to argue, Ianto realized he had no idea what he'd be arguing against. The assumed line of thought? The content? The Doctor for being who he was? It unnerved Ianto just how little he understood his own footing around the man, so he tried to hide his confusion behind a well-timed gulp of coffee. With most of Torchwood, even Jack, Ianto believed he may have pulled off the masked emotion; with the Doctor, on the other hand, it appeared it hadn't worked particularly well. The other man's expression softened, which was rather unfair as Ianto couldn't read the other man at all.
"There may still be some out there that hunt your kind." The Doctor waved the banana with a flourish, an action Ianto completely failed to interpret as he was still fixated on the word "hunt". "You'll go attracting all sorts of unwanted attention and I still haven't figured out how you live, much less without your H'd-toba."
There was that word again. 'H'd-toba'. Ianto faintly understood what it meant from what he'd gleaned in the vision -- some kind of partner -- but he still didn't know why the Doctor kept insisting he had one. Unless maybe Jack was his H'd-toba? Was that possible? Defining their relationship had never been a particularly strong subject for either of them, and the way Jack had left to chase down the Mellonians didn't leave Ianto believing things were on good enough terms to ask him if he was. Or if he would be. Was it that important to have one? The Doctor seemed to imply that it was, but then, the Doctor was responsible for the destruction of so much; could he even be trusted to utter truth? "How do you know about-" Ianto stopped himself and glanced around, feeling as uncomfortable saying it aloud as he had with Lester and Dr. Ramamurthy. There wasn't an individual around; the tables were empty around them and the street held a few out for a stroll, but none paid attention to the conversation at their tiny table. Still, Ianto cringed at using the name and admitting anything about himself. "How do you know about them?"
"You existed before us and would have existed long after." The Doctor studied him for a moment, marking the time between Ianto's breaths with a tap on his chin and Ianto felt uncomfortably like he was being measured up. "We were once allies, yours and mine, Mr. Jones. After the Great Parting you disavowed us, but there's no reason now to pretend we knew nothing of you." He paused, dropping his eyes to his hands in the only sign of ... flappability that Ianto had seen. He wasn't so sure he liked it, even if he he did loathe the man. The Doctor's face brightened considerably, the shift so sudden and drastic Ianto was convinced it was false. Not that the words would be false, but he had seen Jack do the same thing when the conversation drifted to sensitive topics he'd rather avoid. "I'd thought you'd all been lost, but here you are! So tell me how you escaped, I do love a good story."
Ianto sipped his coffee, taking time to consider everything the Doctor had said as well as to buy himself time before answering as he didn't consider his escape that good of a story. None of it made much sense; he did get the impression that the Great Parting had been between the Windhovers and the Time Lords, but what that entailed or why he would do something as silly as pretend what he honestly did not know left him wishing for more coffee and two aspirin. Maybe a shot or two of tequila. Shit, he'd never even told Jack how he'd escaped from Providence. Taking a deep breath, Ianto quickly recounted the details of his escape that he could remember. "Not much to tell. I began palming the anti-psychotics some time after I arrived at Providence Park, and eventually the effects lessened to the degree I could appropriate orderly clothing, keys, and a mobile. When the migraines began, I escaped the grounds and phoned an old contact for assistance."
The Doctor's comical, flummoxed look would have been entertaining had Ianto not had the distinct impression that was not the response the Doctor had been expecting. He would have been embarrassed for misinterpreting the Doctor's question and providing those details of his life, but he'd already thoroughly humiliated himself by his display after viewing the remains of Halcyon. Not that it had been necessarily his fault; Ianto rather believed that the response had been more instinctual than failure of control on his part, but he didn't take to emotional collapses in front of strangers.
"You don't remember escaping Halcyon before the Daleks attacked?"
Now it was Ianto's turn to stare what he expected was dumbfoundedly, but he couldn't stop himself had he the mind to try. The Daleks? The Daleks were responsible for the annihilation of the Windhovers? The same Daleks that had engaged in battle against the Cybermen and Torchwood personnel at Torchwood One? His stomach turned to lead and the coffee felt like it congealed at the thought of twice now the abominations were responsible for so much death. If he'd only known ...
Ianto could feel the fury rising as he thought of the battle in London; he'd had opportunity then. If he'd known, fuck, he could feel his fingernails digging into his fists as the urge to do something...anything...in retaliation for the destruction of his kind. He'd had the chance just a few years past, he could have opened the Veil and allowed the existence beyond to swallow them up until such a time when they were no longer a threat. That's what he could have done, with the charges against the Daleks for their crimes. And the Cybermen too, for everything they'd done.
For Lisa.
His clenched fists shook; fuck he could feel them shake as his teeth ground together as he struggled to heed the Doctor's earlier warning not to jump back in time, to fix that missed opportunity for vengeance. But just as before with the Doctor, Ianto could feel the urge slip away as quickly as it had begun as reason grappled for control. Soon he could once again smell the wafts of coffee from the cup still setting on their table.
He hadn't known, then. And he couldn't exact revenge now. He couldn't. Justice, perhaps. If he found them now he could quantify their crimes and try them in accordance to Law. They had destroyed the Windhovers, they would pay for their crimes.
But in justice's name.
Not vengeance, otherwise he would be no better than the criminals themselves or the merc Judoon who killed for pleasure.
And just as calmly as he had before the revelation, Ianto stretched out his hand and lifted the coffee cup, taking a long sip before acknowledging the Doctor again. He had no idea how long his little fit of temper had lasted, but he had to calm himself. He was a Windhover, and moreover, he was Ianto Jones. He had an image of professionalism and order to maintain, even if he wasn't wearing a suit. "I wasn't at Halcyon when it was destroyed. I'd not left Earth until the TARDIS took me hostage, and I was not aware that it was the Daleks who were responsible for the deaths of the Windhovers -- which I didn't even know I was until I passed out in the backseat of a car after my escape from Providence and woke up with bloody wings."
He heard his own voice rise almost independently as his irritation grew, his overall frustration with simply everything so massive it threatened to drown out even the smell of the coffee. Although what he expected from a fucking Time Lord he wasn't sure; they hadn't involved themselves in the concerns of others outside their precious timelines for generations, why Ianto expected help from the Doctor he had no clue.
And then he had to wonder why he thought that at all.
Distress. Ianto decided 'distress' was an appropriate and fitting term for himself at the moment.
For his part, the Doctor looked equally as perplexed as Ianto felt, which assuaged his ego just a bit. When the Doctor finally spoke, some of the confusion had cleared, but wonderment still underlined his words. "You initiated just weeks ago?" At Ianto's nod (agreeing to what he assumed was in reference to the whole acquisition of wings ordeal), the Doctor continued. "And what of your Coterie? And your H'd-toba? They weren't present? Where is your H'd-toba?"
"I was alone." Truth be told, Ianto had no idea what the hell the Doctor was on about, nor what half of what he spoke of even meant. He didn't seem to know anything and it was increasingly difficult to maintain any semblance of composure in response to the Doctor's rapid queries as it became more apparent just how little he knew in front of a man who Ianto believed could out-destroy the Daleks if he put his mind to it. Maybe even had already. But Ianto swallowed what small measure of pride he had left and asked the question that had been bothering him. "What is a H'd-toba? Is-" Ianto cleared his throat, a sudden shyness clogging any attempt to speak and ask the question he felt like he ought to know. "Is Jack my H'd-toba?"
Whatever response Ianto had been expecting, it hadn't been laughter. And not just a small little chuckle; the Doctor's laughter was a boisterous laugh that echoed in the relatively empty streets of this village on Trahgdar. Shame rose quickly to Ianto's face, the blush quickly heating his skin until his whole face felt ablaze. Forget any earlier embarrassment, Ianto decided as he quickly stood from his chair. This toppled all previous slights. He wasn't quite sure why the Doctor's opinion mattered, for all the important reasons it shouldn't. But the man had a way of making him feel sixteen years old again and like he'd woken to sticky sheets after dreams involving Mr Tanner, the kind man who'd paid Ianto to tend his gardens in the summer months.
"Ianto, please, sit down. My sincerest apologies; I shouldn't have laughed." Ianto stared at the hand touching his arm, the mild restraint easily broken and equally offensive but Ianto honestly wasn't sure if it was the Doctor's laughter which had repulsed him so much or the physical contact which was more psychosomatic than legit, he reasoned. But reason didn't stop him from feeling disgusted, both on his own behalf and on Jack's, and the hand was removed as quickly as it had appeared, to Ianto's relief. He crossed his arms, waiting for the Doctor to either quickly explain himself or to offer to return Ianto home.
"It's just ... you're Windhover. He's decidedly not." Blankly, Ianto waited for the Doctor to continue because that explanation meant nothing to him and went even further in offense towards Jack. "You exist outside of space and time. Well, not in that form. Actually, in that form, but for all appearances in that form you don't. Jack, on the other hand, is a fixed point in time, as permanent a stamp in time as one can be. He is no more your H'd-toba than I am."
Now it was Ianto's turn to laugh, not the boisterous laugh of the Doctor's but quite the extended chuckle as what the Doctor had said repeated itself over and over in his mind, growing more and more absurd with each repeat. 'Exist outside of space and time'? Ludicrous. The Doctor was most certainly lying, seeing how extreme he could get before Ianto's faith in his credibility finally snapped. And it had. What else had been bullshit? The Daleks' involvement? The etymology of Trahgdar? Perhaps not all the Windhovers were even dead; perhaps this was just some fanciful vision concocted by the Doctor and his TARDIS. The tea! His tea had been drugged, though that'd happened before the memory-vision thing. He might be tied up somewhere on the Doctor's ship, and he just needed to wake up from whatever nightmare he was experiencing.
The Doctor was looking at him much like he'd lost his mind, which wasn't the first time anyone had ever looked at him that way. Fucking thing about sanity -- it's all relative depending on the observer. "And I suppose the pyramids are really ship landing pads and the American President is actually a space poodle."
Looking like he was seriously going to answer, the Doctor stopped himself and for once Ianto had to applaud this first demonstration of restraint. But the other man spoke, just not in words the Ianto had been expecting. "There is no purpose in deception, Mr. Jones."
Ianto found himself sitting without consciously deciding to sit, the press of the chair solid against his backside when everything else around him trembled. Maybe that's what earthquakes were like, only he knew the land itself wasn't quaking, it was steady as ever. Would another planet still call them earthquakes? It was presumptuous to believe that they would call the ground 'earth' as it was called on planet Earth. Perhaps here they were called trahgdarquakes, though that had a significant drop in phonetic poetry and sounded more like a cat coughing a hairball than a viable word.
Fuck. How could anyone exist outside of space and time?
That was impossible.
Except when it wasn't.
Which it apparently was.
Ianto finally located his voice somewhere between 'what the fuck?' and 'holy shit', two expletives he refrained from exclaiming if only for the sake of company. "I don't understand," he said, words coming out far softer than he would have liked, but it was truth in both power and content. He knew nothing. He understood nothing. And the most distressing part of it all, he had no access to information outside of the man sitting across the table from him because Halcyon was gone. He'd always prided himself on his ability to learn, to take a subject and read up on it, then apply that knowledge to a situation. It'd gotten him through life during all the odd jobs he worked to support him and his mother and working for Torchwood London. Even Cardiff.
But there were no books, no Internet, no records, no family to interview or even invoices to study and research. He had the Doctor. And with a scowl, Ianto could sort of understand why Jack had vanished on them to seek out answers.
"I don't either! Brilliant, isn't it?"
His fingers curled around his coffee cup at the Doctor's cheerful tone, and he may have made a sound that may have sounded suspiciously like a growl, but Ianto would deny it if asked later. If all Time Lords were like the Doctor, it was a small wonder the two races had split.
Thankfully the Doctor sobered, and Ianto wasn't forced to take extreme measures like waste his remaining coffee soaking the Doctor's brown suit. "You must understand, Mr. Jones. Your race originates from a place outside what we understand as space and time. You had a name for the boundary, the L'ranore Veil, which separated here from the-"
"From existence beyond." The Doctor's expression twisted as though he'd tasted something sour, and Ianto figured he must have been right to have earned that expression. He remembered the phrase from the vision, and now that he had heard it he knew that it was correct in this use, no matter what the Doctor thought.
"Yes, well, we called it The Void."
Ianto snorted, he couldn't help himself. "You don't understand something, so you call it a name implying nothing could exist in something you failed to understand."
"Some refer to it as Hell." The Doctor smiled, an artificially helpful smile that only served to aggravate Ianto more. But the term brought to the forefront the fears that possibly his race had been dangerous, deadly, an evil for which there was purpose in its destruction. He didn't think it was possible -- he didn't consider himself ultimately evil -- but there was much he didn't know. "As we understood it, in the ... on the other side of the Veil," the Doctor's grin this time was more apologetic as he edited himself than not, "there is this giant ... nebulous ... glob of gobbildygook." His hands waved around in what Ianto assumed was an attempt to visually represent what he was saying. It wasn't helping matters. "But there's no mass to it, there's no matter. It exists because it exists, not because it was ever born but because it's a constant in the absence of all known constants."
His eyebrow arched in skepticism before Ianto could check the action. "You're making no sense."
"Now you understand why we called it The Void."
Rather than agree to the Doctor's point, Ianto took a drink of his coffee, still rather remarkably the same temperature as the beverage had been when the Doctor had traded for it some time ago. It was impressive and Ianto desperately wished to get his hands on the technology for use back home. If he swore to not sell the information, he did wonder if the Doctor would let him keep the cup. "So let's say what you said is true. What does that giant nebulous glob of gobbbidlygook have to do with me?"
"Because you're it. Or an expression of it." The Doctor leaned forward, banana in hand, his face alarmingly close for Ianto's periodic urge to hit the bastard. Not that he would lose all restraint except under true duress, but the idea was tempting at times. "Consider satellites. The Windhovers were individual satellites, throughout time and the Universes, gathering information and sending it back to the Void while functioning as the operating arm this side of the Void."
"And information can be received as well," Ianto noted, as even if the concept itself was difficult to wrap his brain around, it did at least give credence as to why he seemed to know some things. "That makes me sound rather ... robotic." He didn't say the name he was thinking, applying such a term to his own being made him ill.
"Oh, not at all. Satellite was too simplistic. Although, that makes perfect sense now why he named them ArchAngel-" Ianto didn't miss the sorrow which crossed the Doctor's face, maybe a little regret, but he couldn't fathom the reason why -- he knew of a project named that, but few of the details as it had never been a Torchwood concern. It almost made him feel sympathy for the man. "Well, anyway. You all had families, Coteries you called them, even though you didn't share any genetic information to actually make you family." At Ianto's blank stare, the Doctor quickly elaborated. "You don't have genetic information. DNA. RNA. TNA. You exist because you think you exist, not because your parents physically copulated and created you through shared genetic material."
And with that, the Doctor completely lost Ianto. He had a mother and a father, he'd been born with help of a midwife named Annie, and most importantly, he remembered every day of his life from a very young age. He hadn't just popped into existence because he thought he should exist. He physically looked like his parents, he had his father's figure and his mother's dark, wavy hair. He had father's nose and his mother's eyes and cheeks. There was little doubt he was related to them and he was not denying that they were his parents, no matter their history.
Ianto finished the last of his coffee and again stood, but this time without his earlier force. He was done with this conversation. It was edging into the ridiculous and it was past time for him to return to Cardiff. "I think we're done here." To his credit, the Doctor didn't say anything, just stood and followed Ianto out away from the terrace of tables and chairs, and didn't question when Ianto didn't take the path back towards the meadow and the TARDIS, but rather walked up a street with intriguing storefronts of clothing he'd never seen before, technology that he'd only ever imagined, even with Torchwood's access. He needed time to consider what the Doctor had said, what it meant, and if there was any truth to his words.
Fuck if he didn't believe the Doctor, which made it more difficult to understand how it could be possible.
***
"It's the ultimate camouflage device to protect your kind."
The Doctor had remained silent for all of eleven minutes while they walked; Ianto had bet himself that it would take only eight minutes before the Doctor broke the silence so he supposed he owed himself for being wrong. What payment would be he didn't know, he typically wasn't incorrect when he made those bets and Ianto felt a bit bewildered how to handle this internal wager. Ianto didn't acknowledge the Doctor's words, however, just kept walking with his hands in the shallow pockets of his jacket. But he listened, if for nothing more than to tell the Doctor precisely why he couldn't be right.
"Quite brilliant, really. The H'd-tobi pair seek out a willing individual on a planet they protected and implanted the idea of a new Windhover H'd-tobi. The existence then goes through the development cycle of their host, and they're birthed as identical twins of that species. They mature to adulthood as children of that planet's main governing species, thinking they were that species. Then their Coterie comes for Initiation, when they reconnect with the ... thing ... across the Veil."
"Sprouting wings," Ianto helpfully clarified, not that he entirely believed the Doctor's story but he could rationalize a few things with the information; like how he'd fooled every test Owen and the TARDIS had run because he'd, what, thought himself human?
"Visual and physical manifestation of the tether connecting you to your 'existence beyond'."
Ianto blinked in surprise, the idea of the wings as a link between he and ... it ... had never entered the realm of possibility. They'd been a nuisance and a hindrance, but nothing more. "And if the link is severed?"
"Then you cease to exist," the Doctor said simply, causing Ianto to pale at his notion of surgically removing his wings back at Lester's when desperation admittedly caused him to think a bit irrationally. "There were theories that the Daleks had a device which instantly cut all the Windhover's links across the Veil, it was the only thing that explained the way they vanished."
"There was a light, something which..." Ianto struggled to think of a word to describe what he had seen, "...hummed ... sort of opposite the hum of the Veil."
"It's possible, maybe canceled portions of the link which caused it to fail." The Doctor shrugged, then with an added bounce to his step turned to Ianto as they walked. "Which does not explain how you are here."
With certainty, Ianto stated what he knew. "I wasn't a twin. There was only me."
"And if your H'd-toba had died, you would have as well." The Doctor's eyes narrowed on him as he flipped the banana in his hand. "You shouldn't have survived Initiation without your Coterie or H'd-toba either. Their assistance in the ritual was essential."
Ianto once again got the feeling that the Doctor was blaming him for something he hadn't done. Skipping out on the destruction of Halcyon? He could see how that would be a betrayal to his kind, but Ianto was certain he remembered his life, no blips in the memory other than a few hours during Canary Wharf where it was difficult to piece together everything from that trauma and the bit of time preceding his arrival to Providence Park. There were no gaps after, no missing time or feelings like he was fleeing some great tragedy other than his own relationships. "I struck my head and ended up on anti-psychotics prior to the whole 'Initiation' thing," he supplied, not sure if it had any bearing on the situation but couldn't hurt to share.
Damn himself for believing any of it anyways. He shouldn't trust the Doctor but he did.
A frown creased the Doctor's features as he stared at the banana. "You mentioned that before. Why did they medicate?"
"Hallucinations." A blush crept over his cheeks, spreading like fire until it covered his neck and he was pretty sure if he looked his entire body would be red. He remembered the moment he realized what he was seeing, laughing until he wept with Jack's arms around him. "I kept seeing dead people. I think Tosh guessed it was anything alien, I remember her telling me that at one point while I was sectioned."
"Oh. Oh! Yes. No, Well, of course!" The Doctor's eyes lit up; Ianto had never seen the man so excited, not even when he'd seen the bananas at the tiny breakfast shop. He swore the other man danced a little jig, but that was simply a trick of his eyes in the presence of all the salmon-colored foliage on the trees. The Doctor was positively giddy as he started and stopped sentences half a dozen times, speaking thoughts aloud and jumping to the next before Ianto could follow the logic or even the words.
As much as it disgusted him, Ianto couldn't help but feel a bit excited as well.
"Oh, Mr. Jones, this makes sense now! Unless I'm mistaken, which I rarely am." The grin on the Doctor's face couldn't be broader and Ianto clumsily fumbled with the idea that this man was the same one who'd wrought such destruction. "Spontaneous evolutionary genesis!" He spun on one foot, settling back into step beside Ianto who felt the need to restrain himself from strangling the man to just spit out what he was talking about. "You're not the last of your kind. No no no, that set had problems with the process. Was too weak, couldn't survive its faults. The H'd-tobi made them vulnerable, the rituals demanding and distracting. What good were guardians who weren't guarding?"
Ianto warily eyed the Doctor, confused and not certain if he should be offended on behalf of his race. "I'm not the last of my kind?" He'd witnessed the Windhovers' destruction, experienced their loss, he knew all had gathered to fend off the Daleks. If some had survived, wouldn't he have known?
"No, you're the first of the next!" The Doctor stopped, hands in his pockets and his action was so sudden it caused his overcoat to swirl about his legs. Jack had an action much like that and in that brief moment between the Doctor's words, Ianto missed the man terribly despite everything he was learning. The Doctor barely spared him a moment though, more wrapped up in the discovery and presentation it would seem as he continued exuberantly, "Mr. Jones! And now begins, the Children of the Windhovers."
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