The Torchwood - 10/10
Jack ushered the Doctor and the Master into the TARDIS, keeping his Webley trained on the Master the entire time. Gwen and Isaac brought Joshua in, and locked him in a small room that the Doctor showed them.
“The TARDIS will keep him locked in here. You won’t have to worry about that. I don’t think she likes him much,” he said, opening the small door and turning on the single overhead lightbulb.
“What are you going to do with him, Doctor,” Isaac asked. Despite everything, Joshua was still his brother. He didn’t want some alien taking him off-world. Or, worse, probing him. He’d heard enough stories about probes. Nasty, unhygenic things.
“Not my decision Zack. Can I call you Zack?” the Doctor asked. “He betrayed Torchwood, he’s their problem now.”
“Maybe Jack will Retcon him,” Gwen suggested, trying to be helpful. “Then again, Joshua did help kill him, even if it was only temporary.”
“Yeah, ‘temporary’ kind of takes the sting out of death, doesn’t it?” the Doctor mused thoughtfully as the three made their way back to the conference room.
“Doc,” Jack called as they entered the room, “You need to make a decision, cause if you make me stay here, I’m gonna kill him. Her. It. Whatever.” Jack’s Webley was still aimed at Lucy/Master’s head, never wavering.
“Righty-o then.” The Doctor said, walking over to the extrapolator, now resting against the TARDIS’s central console. Suddenly he stopped and turned to Jack. “Jack, never let me say that again. Never.”
He finished attaching the various appliances to the extrapolator, humming Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ to himself the whole time. Gwen and Isaac watched, fascinated at seeing the infamous Doctor with a sonic screwdriver stuck between his teeth.
He stood up and patted the console. “Ok, Jack. Bring the Master over here.” Jack dug his Webley into Lucy/Master’s back and pushed him in the direction of the console.
“Now, being the fantastic thing that I am, and don’t give me that look Jack, I’ve hooked the extrapolator to the TARDIS. We just have to turn it on and watch what happens. Everyone crossing their fingers? Right! Allons-y!” The Doctor danced around the TARDIS, pumping the bicycle pump, pressing buttons, and flipping levers. The Master, suddenly deciding that he wanted to live, tried to run to the door, but Jack grabbed him and held him firm. Gwen and Isaac aimed their guns at the master, deciding that if he tried to get away, he wouldn’t make it very far. Static built up in the air as the central column began pumping furiously, sending out an array of colors and noises.
Everyone jumped when the console cracked open with a resounding crash. “Don’t look at it!” the Doctor called.
The Master began fighting against Jack again, desperately trying to get away. A golden light enveloped him, and he stopped, turning to look back at the console. He was silent, his eyes drifting shut and his face peaceful.
“It’s beautiful, Doctor,” he murmured. “It’s quiet, so quiet. It’s the first time it’s ever been quiet.”
For what seemed an eternity, Jack, Gwen, Isaac, and the Doctor watched as the TARDIS surrounded the Master. The golden light pulsated, drawing the Master closer to the console, so close that he began stroking the central column.
“Thank you,” he said quietly while laying his hand on the column. “Thank you.”
With that, Lucy/Master’s head tilted back, eyes suddenly open and ablaze with light. A deep voice resonated from his as he tilted his head to look at the Doctor. “My doctor, my Theta.”
“TARDIS?” the Doctor asked.
“We do not wish you sadness, Doctor. The death of this one is deserved, but we do not wish you to be alone. We can take life, but learned to bring life through the Rose-child. We will not kill this one, as he is one of you. There are too few of you left to destroy another.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor answered gruffly, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
“Yet he cannot be trusted. You understand this, my Doctor. We will keep him with us always. He will live through us. We will heal that which was done to him. We cannot promise redemption, but we can promise peace.” The Doctor nodded his further thanks. “The girl will require assistance, Doctor. Her mind is fractured. We will heal what can be healed, but she will require peace and rest. Solitude, we think, will suit her.”
“We’ll take care of her,” Gwen vowed. Lucy/Master/TARDIS nodded. The light in its eyes suddenly flared even brighter. The Being, for there is no way to describe such a creature, shuddered as the TARDIS withdrew herself and the Master’s consciousness from Lucy’s mind. Everyone watched as the ring around her finger turned to golden dust at her feet. The TARDIS’ light left Lucy’s form and returned to the console, closing the metal with a slight click. Lucy fell, Jack catching her in his arms.
“Put….” The Doctor began, having to stop to clear his throat. “Put her in Peri’s old room. The TARDIS will keep her asleep and her dreams peaceful. I think she’s deserved a rest.” Jack nodded and quietly picked up the young woman, carrying her off into the inner TARDIS.
“What happens now, Doctor?” Isaac asked quietly.
“Now…Now I take you home, Mr. Bevan.”
After Jack had situated Lucy in Peri’s room, he walked slowly down the TARDIS corridors, his hands in his greatcoat’s pockets. His mind was filled with memories of his time with the Master, the beatings, death, starvation, deprivation….So lost in his own waking dreams, he didn’t even notice he had run into Owen until the smaller man grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him towards the infirmary doors.
“Ok, Captain Broody, I may not want to know anything about what you and the Tea-Boy get up to in the SUV, but I’ll be damned if I save his life only to have you ignore him!”
“Huh?” Jack said, blinking. “Ianto….Ianto! Owen, how is he?”
“Good news - Tea-Boy will live to serve another day. And don’t you dare make any sexual references with that statement.”
“And the bad news?” Jack asked, quietly dreading what came next.
“He’s bad, Jack. I’ve had to put him on a ventilator and a dialysis machine; I want to take the pressure off his lungs and kidneys for a few hours, let them heal. He’s awake, but he’s pretty weak and a bit out of it. I was worried about brain or nervous system damage, but that seems to be ok. He needs to rest.”
Owen stepped aside and pushed Jack through the infirmary door. What Jack saw next stopped him cold and made him wonder how could ever have forgotten, even for a moment, that Ianto had been injured.
The TARDIS infirmary was a replica of the White Star line. It was filled with dark woods and cream-colored clothes, lit by soft lights, in an effort to comfort the few who needed medical attention. For Jack, the warmth of the room only exacerbated Ianto’s paleness. His face was covered by the ventilator and a large number of IVs lines were attached to his left arm, still filled with the bruises from Joshua’s injections. The dialysis machine sat near the end of the bed. The only noise was the beeping of a heart monitor tucked away into a corner behind Ianto’s head. His eyes were closed, dark circles only emphasizing his illness.
Jack stood still in the doorway, unable to make himself go any closer. He watched, entranced, as Ianto’s right arm moved weakly to remove the ventilator mask from his mouth. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to stare?”
Somehow, Ianto’s fragile voice broke through Jack’s reverie. Jack rushed to his side, pulling the mask from Ianto’s hand and placing it back over his face. He covered Ianto’s hand with his, gently stroking the young man’s knuckles.
Ianto once again removed the mask. “Feeling a bit protective are we?”
Jack grabbed the mask back and placed it gently over Ianto’s face again. “Shh. Don’t talk right now, ok? You need to sleep, Owen said so.” Ianto rolled his eyes in response. “Hey, the man is technically a doctor. He may have Photoshopped his diploma, but it still technically counts.”
Ianto chuckled at that, and his eyes slowly closed. Suddenly he opened them wide again, searching around the room.
“Hey, it’s ok,” Jack said, stroking the side of Ianto’s face. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, ok? Just go to sleep and I’ll be here when you wake up.” With that, Ianto nodded and drifted off again.
Jack looked up to see the Doctor watching Ianto. There were tears in the Time Lord’s eyes, and he seemed to be doing everything in his power to hold them back.
“Doc?” Jack asked, concerned. “You ok?”
“He’s….he….” the Doctor began, taking a few deep breaths to control his emotions.
“Doc, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“His mother….Susan….” Another few deep breaths.
“Yeah, Ianto talked about her once. Had to get him pretty drunk though. He’s Welsh, so you can believe how long that took.” Jack gently placed Ianto’s hand back down on the bed and moved towards the Doctor so they wouldn’t wake Ianto up from his much needed sleep. “She died in Providence Park, a psychiatric hospital. He blames himself for not being there for her. His brother blames him too. He said Ianto should have spent more time with her, done more for her. They haven’t talked since the funeral. I tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. I mean, it’s not like he could have done anything, him working for Torchwood in London.”
“Ianto was in London?” the Doctor said, suddenly seeming to see Jack for the first time.
“Yeah. He was there for a year and then for the battle. He saved the others in his office; hid them, protected them. Then he went out to look for his girlfriend and the cybermen captured him. They got as far as strapping him to a conversion unit. He had to watch as the people he knew, his friends, were converted right in front of him. Just as the cybermen were turning on his unit, you did whatever it was you did and everything just stopped.”
“Oh god….oh Rassilon…” The Doctor collapsed to the floor, his head in his hands.
“Doc?!” Jack exclaimed, falling to his knees beside his friend. “Doc, come on! Give me something here! What’s wrong?”
“His mum, Susan. She is, was, my granddaughter. I thought she died during the War. She didn’t die; she went mad.”
“So wait. Ianto’s your great grandson? Ianto’s a Time Lord?”
The Doctor chuckled grimly. “No. My people were a bit….conceited….Thought that only pureblood Gallifreyans could be Time Lords. I’m only half Gallifreyan, but my family was high enough up that I couldn’t be denied at place at the Academy. Which meant that my descendents weren’t fully Time Lords. Susan married a human. Ianto’s more human than Time Lord now, his parents’ human genes are dominant.”
The Doctor turned his head to look up at Ianto lying on the bed. “There’s nothing Time Lord there. No two hearts, no respiratory bypass, no regeneration. He’ll age and he’ll die, just like every other human. The only thing he got from his mother’s heritage is…well, it’s a bit hard to explain. Ever since I entered his mind on the Ugorian ship, I’ve been able to feel him a bit. Just an echo, a slight reverberation at the edge of my consciousness, but it’s there. For the first time since the War, something’s there.”
“Are you going to tell him?” Jack asked. A nightmare, he thought. Now the Doctor will take Ianto away. Of course Ianto will go. Who wouldn’t want to see the stars? I’ll wait for him, when he comes back. If he comes back.
“No.”
Jack was astonished. “No?” he asked, his voice rising. “No? You finally find out that you have family and you’re not even going to tell him? Why the hell not? What, he’s not good enough because he’s mostly human? Is that why I wasn’t good enough either?”
“Of course not Jack! I’m not telling him, because what good will it do? He thinks his mum was a human. He’s human. If he found out the truth, it could destroy his life. He wouldn’t know who he was, he’d start questioning every thing about her.” The Doctor closed his eyes, sighed, and rubbed his face. “I’d like to get to know him though. Not as a great-grandson, but as a friend. If that’s alright with him, that is.”
After 24 hours, Owen removed Ianto’s ventilator and dialysis machine. The Doctor wanted to help, but Owen refused to let him anywhere near the patient; apparently, even the great and bloody Doctor was afraid of Owen. Especially when Owen was brandishing a variety of scalpels and threatening the Doctor with evisceration if the Doctor even attempted to get in his way. And the TARDIS wasn’t helping either. She’d taken a liking to Owen and his crass ways. Owen wasn’t sure how it happened, and if anyone asked he’d deny it until his dying day, but by the end of the 24 hours, he’d begun to believe that the TARDIS was leaving extra sharp scalpels wherever Owen went. Not to mention the slight niggling at the back of Owen’s mind whenever he was in the bathroom. A niggling that, had Owen believed in such things, he’d have sworn was distinctly feminine.
After another 24 hours, Owen declared Ianto fit to leave the TARDIS and beginghis two week-long recuperation period at his flat. First, the Doctor dropped Joshua and Isaac off at the Future Operations Committee. After giving their statements, the PM declared that Joshua would be handed over to UNIT for remand. What happened then was still undecided. Isaac was granted leniency, but would no longer be employed by the FOC. Instead, he was granted a position as Auditor for Torchwood House.
The Doctor flew the TARDIS first to the House, where Lucy Saxon would also be staying. The PM granted her a permanent residence (there was no where more peaceful than the rambling old mansion. All Lucy asked for was quiet and silence. It was the least they could do for her.), and employment as Assistant Chief Housekeeper. With the two situated in the House, the Doctor returned to the Hub, where he dropped off Owen, Tosh, and Gwen a full forty-five minutes after they had originally left with the coral.
“Forty-five minutes Doctor? That’s got to be a record! Someone get me a calendar so I can mark this day as the first one that he got right!” Jack teased. The Doctor just rolled his eyes and ushered the three out the door. Owen let the girls go first and, upon reaching the door, gently stroked his hand along one of the nearby struts. The lights dimmed and the smell of roses permeated the air.
“Dr. Harper! I thought Jack was bad enough! I think you just gave my ship goosebumps!” the Doctor said, his lips quirking in amusement. Owen shook his head in disbelief, and, stroking the strut once more, went out to join the girls. As the door closed (far slower that it had ever closed before, Jack thought, as if the TARDIS didn’t want to leave), the three remaining men could just make out Owen rallying the girls for a trip to the corner pub.
“Well then, Mr. Jones, let’s get you home,” the Doctor said. Pumping the bicycle pump, twirling the snowglobe, and shifting what looked suspiciously like an original Nintendo joystick, the TARDIS materialized inside Ianto’s sitting room. The Doctor opened the doors and waved his hands in the direction of Ianto’s sitting room.
“Here we are then,” the Doctor said morosely. “Um, Ianto, I was wondering. I mean, if you want to, and it’s certainly ok if you don’t, I’d never force you to do anything, unless it was for your own good, or you were about to die, or there were things chasing us, or we were about to get arrested, or-“
“Doctor, is this going somewhere?” Ianto interrupted with a raised eyebrow. He was still weak, and was sitting on the console bench, leaning against Jack. “It’s just that I really need to use the loo, and if you’re going to ramble for a while, could you let me know for about how long?”
“Oh, right, sorry. Bit of a rambler, me. One of my worst flaws. Or my best features, if you look at it that way. Gets me out of a lot of trouble. And in a lot of trouble. You never can tell which way it’s going to go. There was this one time in Cardiff where I was trying to convince the Gelth not to eat us and use out bodies as-“
“Doctor!” Ianto yelled, exasperated.
“Sorry! Iwasjustwonderingifyou’dliketogetacoffeesomedayorsomething,” the Doctor said quietly and rather quickly.
“If I’m right, and I’m not entirely sure I am at the moment,” Ianto said slowly, “You either just insulted me with a really long word in an alien language that I’ve never heard of and, as such, the insult means nothing to me, or, conversely, you just asked me out for coffee. Doctor, all I know about you comes from Jack’s stories. Are you trying to ask me out on a date?”
“What?! NO! No, of course not! Never! That is something I would never, ever, EVER ask you. And I never say never ever, so you can understand how this is something that will really never ever happen! I just think you’re an interesting person and I’d like to get to know you. Hang out with you, get a coffee, sit on the pier… Jack can come,” he added lamely.
“Alright then. Just give us some warning, ok? Showing up unannounced in a Ugorian ship with a crazy dead man is not the way proper society behaves,” Ianto said smirking. The Doctor visibly relaxed, smiled, and nodded his head. Jack helped Ianto to his feet, and, wrapping his arm around Ianto’s waist, supported Ianto as they made their way to the now-open door. Before Ianto could exit, however, he turned back to the Doctor.
“Sir, I’ve always thought it rude to ask questions when the other person obviously doesn’t want to answer. Lord knows I’ve give Jack enough latitude. But, there’s something about this ship. I don’t know what, but I feel like I’ve seen it before, or been in it before. You said she could get in your head. Has she done something to me?”
“Oh no, Ianto, she hasn’t done anything to you,” the Doctor smiled indulgently. “She likes you, cares for you. That’s her way of showing it.” Ianto thought about it for a moment, bobbed his head slightly and turned back to go with Jack into his flat.
As the door closed, the Doctor sagged against the console. “I know, old girl, I know. He’s family. You felt it, eh? But he can’t come. His place is here, you know that. We’ll be back soon though. No way I’m losing contact with him. I’m not letting him become another Sarah Jane. Not when he’s family.”
The Doctor looked up at the ceiling and, pulling the large grey lever beside him, plunged the TARDIS into the Time Vortex and plotted a course for Haliop 7. He needed a vacation, and what better place than where the local crop was bananas?
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When they heard the TARDIS dematerializing, Ianto turned to look at Jack.
“So. I’ve been held prisoner and almost killed by a man/woman in multiple slinky red dresses and silver stiletto heels. I think I deserve a treat.”
“Oh do you,” Jack purred. “You know how much I’d love to give you exactly what you want, but I pinky promised our illustrious medic that I’d let you rest for the next few days.”
Ianto snorted. “Our ‘illustrious medic’ is currently joining our techie and our field agent on their way to being three sheets to the wind. I highly doubt he’d care what we got up to. And he doesn’t have to know.”
Jack pulled Ianto into an embrace, resting the younger man’s head on his shoulder.
“Oh really? And just what do you have in mind, Mr. Jones? I know how kinky you can be when you try.”
“You, Sir, owe me a date,” Ianto replied, his voice slightly muffled by Jack’s greatcoat. “I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I believe you asked me to dinner and a movie. With the stipulation, if you remember, that it not take place in an office. This automatically disqualifies the other night with the feather and the Chow Mein”
“Dinner and a movie, huh? You can barely keep your eyes open. How ‘bout you get a bath started, I’ll order Thai, and we can watch SkyTV while I rub your back and give you a massage.”
“Hmm…takeaway, SkyTV and a massage. I could be persuaded. Of course, I’d demand that we were naked. So as not to get sauce on our clothes, you understand. Peanut sauce is a bugger to get out.”
“You’re on, Mr. Jones.,” Jack sat as he swat Ianto’s bottom. “Now get that bath started! I want you naked and covered in bubbles by the time I place the order!”
Ianto twisted from Jack’s grasp and, straightening his back, stood at attention. He gave Jack a sharp, perfect salute and, with a cheeky twinkle in his eye, said “Yes, Sir.”