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Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

SUMMARY: AU VERSE! Following on from To Separate The Lies From Truth, separated centuries apart, how does Jack and Ianto survive the events following the Doctor brief arrival in Cardiff, and what dangers does the future bring.

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor Who unfortunately. Ianto’s death murdered me.

Author’s Note:

This might come as a surprise, but here I am, just in time for a massive Christmas gift – this fic is coming back!!!!!!!      

It’s been way too long I’m so sorry, I got out of the flow of writing what with the pressure of University, then my first ever job over summer before immediately returning to my third and final year of Uni. But I know I’ve done what I always got annoyed with – unfinished series on fanfiction. Let me tell you all – I understand a lot better now. 

So therefore, let me get on with this AU’s version of The Year That Never Was. I totally didn’t have to go back and read the entire rest of this series to understand what the hell I’d already written though lol that took another day and a half.

Anyway, this part hopefully won’t be too long, and will be ready to post in a few days! Gives you plenty of time to refresh your memory – or if you are a new reader, welcome to the chaos of the Five Element Torchwood AU!

Thank you and so sorry it’s taken so long.

Imagine333

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse) ­­

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Follows on from the very end of To Separate The Lies From Truth, with some reference to the beginning of Doctor Who’s 3x11 Utopia.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, though some speech is taken from the episode Utopia.

WORDS: 3650

NOTES: Here it is - the first chapter as a present for the New Year!!!! Have fun this evening!!!!

Chapter 1: Promised Paradise

PREVIOUSLY ON THE FIVE ELEMENTS:

“Little one must not travel.” The voices echoed the same words from out the whirling wind, but the Fae didn’t show their forms. The voice was also different from the one that spoken during their time travel stint, almost younger sounding. “Must stay to be protected.”

“Ianto!?”

Ianto looked away in the distance to see that Jack had stopped, noticing he was no longer following. The latter frowned the sight of him the ground, wind-swept in a way that could only be from one culprit – or should he say, species of culprits.

“They don’t want me to leave!” Ianto replied and further away from them both, the familiar sound of the TARDIS starting to dematerialise began. Jack had to go now or he’d miss his chance and he wasn’t going to let that happen just because the Fae had decided to be overprotective. “Just go! You’ve waited to long for this to miss it!”

Jack hesitated, but relented under Ianto encouragement.

“I’ll be back!” He assured, their bond helpfully audible despite over the noise of both the wind and the TARDIS.  “Before you know it, okay? I’ll be back.”

“Good luck!” Jack turned to run once more and Ianto snapped his eyes close as a white Fae appeared right in face, giggling gleefully at her prank. When Ianto opened then again, Jack, the TARDIS, and the Fae were gone, the air still and silent once more.

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

100 Trillion - The End of the Universe:

The inevitable but familiar agony of resurrection brought Jack back to awareness as he heaved as much air into his lungs as possible. As much as he’d wanted Ianto with him, especially as he yearned for their bond that had gone absent with distance (and most likely time), he was now grateful the Fae had intervened as his brain recalled the events before this most recent demise.

Feeling a hand on his shoulder his opened his eyes to see a young woman leaning over him as he clutched her upper arm, painfully. He done it by instinct in the panic of his revival - it’d been a while since he’d revived alone. Their link seemed to always ensure that Ianto was aware of whenever he’d died, regardless that Jack would prefer that his lover didn’t sense any emotions even close along those lines.

“It's all right. Just breathe, deep. I've got you.”

Jack loosened his harsh grip as he studied the woman in front of him, as his breaths started to settle once again. “Captain Jack Harkness. Who…?”

“Martha Jones.”

“Nice to meet you, Martha Jones.” Jack replied, sincerely.

“Oh, don't start.”

The new voice startled Jack, he’d almost forgotten the elephant in the room. He looked over to see the Doctor, vastly different from the man Jack remembered, yet at the same time recognisable not just by seeing him from CCTV in London, but just by the tone of voice he employed in just those three words.

“I was only saying hello.” He retorted back, Martha helping him stand while reassuring him.

“I don’t mind.”

Jack stood still for a long moment, staring straight at the Time Lord he’d waited so long to meet again. Now that he had, he couldn’t quite organise this thoughts past the initial shock that it was actually happening at last. Only just not quite how he’d expected it, especially the last few years when he’d planned for Ianto meant to join. “Doctor, good to see you.”

“And you, same as ever.” The Doctor answered, expressionlessly. “Although have you had work done?”

Was he serious, Jack questioned, stunned. “You can talk!”

“Oh yes, the face. Regeneration. How did you know this was me?”

“The police box kind of gives it away. I've been waiting for you a long time. You abandoned me.” Jack bit back.

Not that he wished it true, but from both the stoic expression and lack from reaction from his revival, he’d begun to think the reasoning for that was anything but being presumed dead, exterminated by the very Dalek’s he’d been trying to protect them from.

Backing out for the moment, he moved on before he could any type of assertion to the fact. “But first I got to ask. The Battle of Canary Wharf, I saw the list of the dead. It said Rose Tyler.”

“Oh, no! Sorry, she's alive. Parallel world, safe and sound. And Mickey, and her mother.”

Jack’s mood one-eighted in the span of a few seconds, so excited and relieved with the news that while he heard Martha’s muttered comment, he put it aside to ask her about later. “Yes!”

“Right, so, what we’re waiting here for then?” The Doctor asked, with his usual pattern so changing the subject as fast as one could blink. “Not every day you visit the end of the universe.”

So that explained the when, and as they begun to stroll through the scrubland, he wondered why the Tardis had chosen this specific time and place to land. No matter how much, the Doctor pretended otherwise, he knew the TARDIS had the same amount of control, if not more, over where they landed than he did.

“So, there I was, stranded in the year 200100, ankle deep in Dalek dust, and he goes off without me.” Jack finished explaining to Martha, as they walked, keeping his tone indifferent even as he side-glanced at the Time Lord briefly to try gage his reaction, before bringing up his arm to display his VM. “But I had this - it's called a Vortex Manipulator. I used to be a Time Agent. He's not the only one who can time travel.”

“Oh, excuse me. That is not time travel.” The Doctor countered for the first time since they started walking. “It's like, I've got a sports car and you've got a space hopper.”

“Oh ho. Boys and their toys.”

“All right, so I bounced.” Jack retorted. He wasn’t sure when technicalities had become important to his story. “I thought 21st century, the best place to find the Doctor, except that I got it a little wrong. Arrived in 1869, this thing burnt out, so it was useless.”

He ignored the Doctor’s quiet ‘told you’ with another glare, as he continued, slowly become frustrated. Once again, this was not how he’d imagined this reunion.

“I had to live through the entire 20th Century waiting for a version of you that would coincide with me.”

“But that makes you more than 100 years old.”

“And looking good, don't you think?” Jack deflected. “So, I went to the time rift, based myself there because I knew you'd come back to refuel. Until finally I get a signal detecting you and here we are.”

He didn’t delve far into this part of his story, careful not to mention any reference to Torchwood. That reveal would come another time – if it had to come at all – but at this moment he didn’t want to give the Doctor any more ammunition to seemingly wash his hands of Jack any more than he already had. It was now certain he wasn’t going to like the answers he’d wanted for so long.

“But the thing is, how come you left him behind, Doctor?”

“I was busy.”

Just like that Jack got the confirmation he’d now realised, but still it hurt, more than he’d thought. There was no remorse in the Doctor’s tone, evident that even Martha noticed. 

“Is that what happens, though, seriously? Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?”

“Not if you're blonde.” Jack couldn’t help but scorn, not at Rose’s expense of course, though maybe he was feeding off the earlier resentment he’d overheard from Martha.

“Oh, she was blonde? Oh, what a surprise!”

“You two!” The exclaimed loudly, spinning around to face them both. “We're at the end of the universe, all right? Right at the edge of knowledge itself and you're busy blogging! Come on.”

Silently, they continued walking until they reached the edge of a cliff, overlooking the remains of some kind of construction, a city almost. At one time maybe it was.

“Is that a city?” Martha asked, reaching a similar conclusion.

“A city or a hive, or a nest, or a conglomeration. Like it was grown. But look, there. That's like pathways, roads? Must have been some sort of life, long ago.”

“What killed it?”

“Time. Just time. Everything's dying now. All the great civilizations have gone. This isn't just night. All the stars have burned up and faded away into nothing.”

“They must have an atmospheric shell.” Jack commented, looking up where the Doctor had just pointed. “We should be frozen to death.”

“Well, Martha and I, maybe. Not so sure about you, Jack.”

Momentarily caught on the enlightening words, Jack missed the next part of conversation, movement down below in the corner of his eye, brought back to the present, and turning he focused in on the humanoid figure fleeing through the city, pursued by the tribe, tuning back into the Doctor’s words.

“… hope life will find a way.”

“Well, he's not doing too bad.”

“Is it me, or does that look like a hunt? Come on!”

Jack followed as The Doctor and Martha immediately set off running, realising he should have known. He should have remembered that when you travel with the Doctor – trouble was always nearby. It certainly hadn’t taken long to kick of this time .

As they fell in step with the running man, Jack pulled out his gun on instinct, turning to the tribe on their tails, their teeth exposing them as not quite human.

“Jack, don't you dare!” Chastised that he’d forgotten the Doctor’s distaste for guns, Jack adjusted his aim to fire into the air, the noise stopping the tribe in its tracks.

“What the hell are they?” Martha asked.

“There's more of them. We've got to keep going.” The man replied, ignoring the question in favour of one more likely to keep him alive.

“I've got a ship nearby. It's safe. It's not far, it's over there.” The Doctor replied, but as if summoned by the words more tribesmen appeared on the cliff, in the direction he’d pointed. “Or maybe not.”

“We're close to the silo.” The man returned. “If we get to the silo, then we're safe.”

“Silo?”

“Silo.” Martha agreed.

Jack was strongly beginning to doubt whether the reasons he was here were worth this new trouble, because at that moment in time he wanted nothing more to be back with Ianto, their bond fierce and comforting once again.

They’d come a long way in strengthening their bond since the incident with Tanizaki, that the distance around Cardiff was now not usually far enough to break it completely and so it’d been a while since their bond had been demolished for this long a period of time – on his end at least – and for a second he sympathised with how Ianto must have felt over the last few days as he laid dead from Abaddon. 

But unfortunately, or fortunately depending how he looked at it, Ianto wasn’t there right now, and between this apparent Silo or remaining here to get eaten endlessly by an unknown species, one choice was considerably higher in the ranks.

“Silo for me.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

10th January 2008:

“Ianto!”

“What was that? Where did he go? Was it the rift?”

“There’s been no trace of activity for hours. It wasn’t rift.”

“It must’ve been something. He just vanished.”

The air didn’t remain still and silent for long, as Ianto stared at the space where his lover had just vanished, the voices of his teammates becoming clearer each second, their coffee run cut short as they witnessed the events on the Plass. Any sign of the Fae’s intervention had long quietened and he raged internally at their interference and instant avoidance. It felt like they could control every aspect of his life, with no explanations. As much as he’d sought to be with Jack as he received the knowledge he’d been hunting for so long, it seemed the Fae had other plans.

“Oi, teaboy. You hurt?” Owen’s hand on his shoulder jolted Ianto back to full awareness, realising he’d been sitting where the Fae had knocked him for a little too long.

Shoving Owen’s hands off him, he pushed himself to his feet. It was time to take charge in Jack’s absence.

“I’m fine. We’re both fine.” All Ianto could do was believe it was true.

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Ianto evaded any other questions until they were all gathered back in the Hub. Another coffee run gave him time to gather his thoughts, the first cups not salvageable from being scattered across the Plass in the team’s earlier panic.

Watching them as he re-entered the Hub, a temporary boardroom had been fashioned in the main area (the previous destroyed when the Rift opened) while Tosh was still repeatedly scanning for Rift activity. Through his usual dampening shields, he could read their nervousness and alarm at Jack’s apparent disappearance distinctly, only minorly quelled by his initial assertions.

“First of all, Jack will be fine.” Ianto distracted Tosh from her PDA as he began. “He left voluntary, not by the Rift, and will be back as soon as he can.”

Perching on the nearest railing, he sipped his warm but burnt takeaway coffee, deciding on the balance between how much he should share, and what would breach Jack’s privacy before he continued. “As you are now aware of, he has been waiting a long time for someone to arrive who’d be able to shed light on his supposed immortality, and after the recent chaos the least we can do to give him some time for that.”

“The right kind of Doctor.” Tosh implied quietly, Owen and Gwen nodding in confirmation to her assumption. Jack had mentioned those specific words in many a conversation over the years.

“Yes, though more specifically he was referring to The Doctor.” 

The team knew the basics about the existence of The Doctor, but only what was in the Torchwood charter. Not enough to draw any definitive conclusions. Except maybe Tosh, he amended, reading her sudden realisation before she’d even opened her mouth.

“From the original charter that Jack edited when he split from Torchwood One at the turn of the Century. He hid the files, but it was evident he changed The Doctor from Number One enemy to ally, and after I met him in London a few years ago, I understood why.” Tosh turned to him for clarification. “I told Jack about meeting him right after it happened, but while he was a bit down, he didn’t really react any further.”

“He knew it wasn’t the right version of him, in London. The Doctor travels both time and space meaning that version of Doctor hadn’t met Jack yet, so turning up would change timelines drastically.” Ianto corroborated. “It was only after Canary Wharf that he knew he’d caught up to the right one – but of course he was too late in arriving.”

“But is no-one going to comment on that fact you were fully expecting to be go with him.” Gwen criticised, changing course, even as Tosh and Owen glared. “How could you try both leave at once, especially right now.”

“Yes I was, though it seems everything was against that idea.” Ianto muttered, sighing. “While his arrival was most likely triggered by the rift opening and both would admit it wasn’t the best time to leave, we’d knew we would also return to as close as this time as possible.”

“That doesn’t explain why you were leaving or why he didn’t tell us.”

Ianto gritted his teeth; Gwen had toned her initial jealously down since she’d first joined once it became clear he and Jack were in a committed relationship. Ianto had never held it against her, knowing it was unfair when he could read emotions more than your average human when that person didn’t always act on those emotions, but it was back in surge, though it seemed not at him in general but more from conceit of not knowing everything she felt she should.

“While I did admit he should have shared the knowledge of his immortality after finding out the hard way myself, I also understood his reasons why he didn’t… which are his to share and his alone.” Ianto finished as Gwen opened her mouth once more. “In terms of me leaving….Jack once promised that if he was going to get answers that I could get my own too, but… I don’t know…”

Ianto trailed off; this wasn’t the best place to start. Talking about his past had always been complicated, but maybe this time there was a way to begin. “How much has Tosh has already explained about what you witnessed a few days ago.”

“I only explained the basics of what you shared, after what I witnessed when you saved my life from the Cannibals.” Tosh divulged, apologetically. “I kind of let slip that I’d already known while you were unconscious.”

“She’s right.” Owen agreed. “All she said, was that you were still human by DNA, which I already knew, but that that you can influence and control elemental energies such as the Earth, which again was also obvious when you smashed that falling rock to dust just by looking at it.”

“It’s a start, but truthfully, there’s more to the story that even Tosh knew.” He glanced at the technician, his turn to now look apologetic. “When we had our conversation, I’d only recently regained my memories and insight into what was the cause for everything I’d been through before I met Jack. Some of it was too new to me to fully share.”

“It’s okay.” Tosh bobbed her head once, in understanding. “I already told you after Mary, you didn’t have to.”

“Why then, though? What happened before our hellish trek into the forsaken countryside, which brought everything back to forefront. What triggered it?” Owen queried.

Ianto hesitated. Only Jack had ever heard this part of his life. “Do you remember the case we had, with Jasmine Pierce and the Fae…?”

Briefly summarising his childhood and his reasons for going with the Fae when he did, Ianto tried not to focus on what inconsistent and erratic emotions were springing from the team.

“But if you were too old to go with them, then why did they allow it. Surely they knew it wouldn’t work?” Tosh asked, as stumbled past retelling the fateful day of his father’s death.

“I’m not sure, maybe they thought there was still a chance.” Ianto shrugged. “The time between then and when Torchwood One discovered me, is still a bit of a blur. My mind was probably too busy adjusting to everything to be able to retain anything. But of course, once Torchwood One discovered my gifts, Yvonne wanted it for herself, so with no idea who, or what I was, they held me for four years.”

He didn’t need to go into any more detail than that, all three of them were perceptive enough to knew what’d happened, even if the repulsion and sympathy rolling off them didn’t give it away.

”And so, Jack found me, smuggled me out, and showed me who I was again, keeping me hidden until he had enough information to blackmail Yvonne for control of Torchwood Three and my freedom.” Ianto wanted nothing more now than to finish this, and hide away in the archives for a long while, but there was still one other part he had to share. “What they never knew however, was that the water element also makes me more susceptible to the emotions of others.”

“A bloody Empath as well, anything else, teaboy?”

“Of the little I seemed to understand from Jack after the incident with Mary, that while human do have a natural preposition to psychic abilities it doesn’t become a prevalent until, um, later…” Tosh trailed off, worried she’d spoken too much.

“The future, you mean.” Gwen finished, but thankfully didn’t comment more, instead more focused on the topic at hand. “What’s an empath again, anyway, are you just reading our minds the whole time. What about our privacy.”

“Emotions, not thoughts, but yes.” Ianto returned. “It’s all that not amazing, Gwen. Before Jack taught me to shield, I could feel everyone emotions as my own, and not just the positive. Anger, pain, hatred, they’re all there, especially in a place like Torchwood One, it’s overwhelming. I don’t go looking for it, it’s just there.”

Ianto was beginning to get tetchy with where the conversation was heading, but with luck they were presently interrupted before it could continue further by the incessant ringing of the phone in Jack’s office.

“It’s the Minister of Defence again.” Being the closest, Tosh had instantly moved to answer, Ianto not far behind. “What do we tell him, if he asks for Jack?”

Ianto definitely preferred it before the Government had started to become aware of Torchwood existence, even if those that did were still few and far between. Saxon especially, no matter how many people respected him, hadn’t been in the picture long enough for him to get close to trusting.

“Nothing. Legally, Torchwood reports only to the Queen, they have no obligation to know.” Ianto stressed, delicately not mentioning his fears happen to both him and Toshiko if word got out to UNIT that Jack wasn’t around. “As far as anyone else is concerned, nothing is different, and it’s not. Jack will be back in a few days. Until then, we keep doing what we do.”

Notes: Hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you find any errors let me know, it’s been a while since I wrote anything, but I really want to get this done!!!!. So many ideas just no time to write.

Anyway, next chapter will be in a few days. I’ve got 2 more chapters complete and the others in progress so hopefully updates won’t be long. In the meantime, please review and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023!!!!

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse) ­­

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Jack’s back in the 21^st Century, with uncomfortable answers, and a mad Time Lord as Prime Minster. All he wants is Ianto, but where is he?  Some references to the beginning of Doctor Who’s 3x12 The Sound of Drums.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, though some speech is taken from the episode Sound of Drums.

WORDS: 2140

NOTES: Hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Thanks for the reviews! I’m sorry if it’s skipped ahead a bit, but there’s some sections in the next chapter or so that cover what happened, and I didn’t want to repeat myself too much so don’t worry you’ll get the angst! Enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter 2: The Darkness up Ahead

3^rd March 2008:

Jack grasped his head against the shock of pain flashing through it as he stumbled out the vortex, and into an alleyway, the Doctor and Martha behind him.

The events of the past few minutes blurred into a mess symbolising just how fucked up the situation had suddenly gone, and it seemed not even 15 minutes ago he’d been stood in a scorching, radioactive room helping the last of humanity travel to freedom, while he listened to the answers to every question he’d been mentally check-listing for the past 140 years. Well, give or take.

“Oh, my head.” Martha exclaimed, as she too stumbled to regain her balance, disorientated by the jump.

“Time travel without a capsule. It's a killer.”

“Still, at least we made it.” Jack replied, using his now fully refunctioned VM to scan the surroundings as he sympathised with Martha. It might have been a while since he’d used by it, but apparently his body was still somewhat used to its effects. Truthfully, the first time he’d ever travelled by Vortex he’d vomited, but he used to try chalk that to it being an earlier version or a fault of the technology to save face, however. “Earth, 21st century by the looks of it. Talk about lucky.”

“That wasn't luck, that was me.”

Jack frowned at the Doctor, but continued for Martha’s sake. “The moral is, if you're going to get stuck at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent and his Vortex Manipulator.”

The conversation, however, switched quickly to the more pressing matter at hand as they made their way out of the alley, and discovered the truth about just who the Master had regenerated into.

Saxon.

Presumedly, Martha began to lead the way to her house, so they could regroup, but Jack found his focus was on anything but his surroundings. If, Saxon was now Prime Minister as of that morning, then he must have missed the election. That would mean, with dismay, that he’d been gone from this time, and subsequently Ianto, for near on 2 months. At least, he could blame the still absent connection to his lover on the fact they were in London.

However, he actually knew it was what he decided to do with this information, which would determine whether that absence was fixed in time. Did he leave Torchwood out of this, and have the opportunity to return to an earlier date without the risk of a paradox, or would they need the extra resources and back-up.

On one hand, it would mean revealing his role in Torchwood to the Doctor, but on the other – maybe more selfish – hand, he just wanted to hear Ianto’s voice, and it was evident which side won.

“Home.” Martha opened her front door as she spoke, but Jack wasn’t paying attention as they entered, trying once again to get through to either the Hub or Ianto’s mobile, but with no success.

“Jack, who are you phoning? You can't tell anyone we're here.”

“Just some friends of mine, they can help, but there's no reply.” Ianto’s phone clicked over to voicemail once more to concur with his words, his voice tense with subtle concern. Unless they were all out the Hub, it wasn’t often that the phones went unanswered.

He tried Tosh’s mobile next, but with the same result, just as Martha reappeared with her laptop, passing it to the Doctor.

“Here you go. Any good?”

“I can show you the Saxon websites.” Jack interposed, returning his phone to his pocket, whilst quenching his fears for the time being. “He's been around for ages.”

“We went flying all around the universe while he was here all the time.” Martha exclaimed, as she probed the Doctor. “You going to tell us who he is, then? I mean, who'd call himself the Master?”

“He's a Time Lord. That's all you need to know.” The Doctor avoided. “Come on, show me Harold Saxon.”

Jack pulled up everything he could find on Saxon quickly; grateful it wasn’t first time he had. He hadn’t understood at the time, but recently Ianto had been politely questioning Saxon’s loyalties – now obviously  for good reason – but nothing solid had ever been found against the running member of parliament, even by Tosh.

“Former Minister of Defence. First came to prominence when he shot down the Racnoss on Christmas Eve…”

“But he goes back years.” Martha interrupted. “He's famous. Everyone knows his story. Cambridge University, Rugby Blue. Won the Athletics thing. Wrote a novel, went into business, marriage, everything. He's got a whole life.”

Identity backgrounds were easy to create, but this standard went considerably further than your usual style if it’d managed to escape even Tosh’s keen eye, yet there was another possible explanation. “He’s got the Tardis though. Maybe he went back further in time and has been living here for decades. It worked for me.”

“No.” The Doctor interjected quickly. “When he was stealing the Tardis, the only thing I could do was fuse the coordinates. I locked them permanently. He can only travel between the year one hundred trillion and the last place the TARDIS landed. Which is right here, right now.”

“Yeah, but a little leeway?” Jack scoffed, knowingly. 

“Well, 18 months, tops, both for him and us, but yes the most he could have been here is 18 months. So how has he managed all this? The Master was always sort of hypnotic, but this is on a massive scale.”

“I was going to vote for him.” Martha replied. “Well, it was before I met you and left. I liked him.”

“Why do you say that? What was his policy? What did he stand for?”

“I don't know. He always sounded good, like you could trust him. Just nice. He spoke about. I can't really remember, but it was good. Just the sound of his voice.”

“Same. Only Ianto never did.” Jack added, not managing to catch the slip before it was out, though thankfully it didn’t get noticed. “I might have agreed with questioning if something was off with how prominent he became so fast, but he was great.”

“What's that?” The Doctor jumped up, intrigued as if suddenly noticing something but not placing it’s reasoning. “That. That tapping, that rhythm. What are you doing?”

“I don't know. It's nothing. It's just, I don't know.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Ianto crouched low in the shadows, waiting for the last of the Millennium Stadium Security Team to pass by on their rounds, before ducking past, overwriting the lock with his own security passcode, and heading down through one of many hidden entrances to the Hub. Jack most likely knew more, better hidden, entrances, but this was one of his lover’s favourites – allowing him free access to the roof whenever he liked – which meant Ianto was more familiar with the route, than some of the others.

It was rarely used, otherwise, but with the tourist office, carpark, and Watertower being the three most recognised entrances, and most likely to be watched, subterfuge was needed.

The Hub was silent, everywhere shadows and gloom, but Ianto paid no attention, instead continuing down to the lower levels. Anything connected to the outside world was powered down – for all intents and purposes, they weren’t there.

For the last two days, the team had commandeered an empty room five floors down, if you’d could call a concrete chamber a room and not a cell. What the other didn’t know, however was that it wasn’t just the current political affairs that had Ianto’s defences up.

Jack should be back. It’s been close to two months, and the rest of the team had begun to lose hope he was returning any time soon, but Ianto both had confidence he’d be back, but also concern. They’d tried to explain he was just tetchy from missing him, Tosh even theorised privately that their absent bond was affecting how he felt, but yes, while he missed his lover, considering they’d always planned to return as close to the time they’d left as possible, two months was definitely pushing it.

Something was wrong, and Jack was involved. And most likely it ws the same reason the Fae had prevented him from joining Jack on the TARDIS.

But - not that he’d informed the rest of the team - that something was happening here and now, in the present, he was certain.

As if to prove it to himself once again, Ianto sparked a flame in a palm, using it to light his way down. Yet instead of chasing away the shadowy corners not lit by the emergency lighting of the Hub as he walked, it flickered strongly for barely a minute, before dying. Something was affecting his connection to the elements, and it was getting stronger.

Something was happening, brewing in the background, and the newly elected Prime Minster knew it.

Instead, now at least, there was some kind of proof.

“… don’t get why we’re hiding down here. Saxon calls and declares there’s a sighting of Jack, and rather than instantly chasing after him, Ianto locks the Hub down, it doesn’t make sense. Rhys must be going out his mind.”

“Even if it is a trap, or a distraction, or whatever Teaboy argued last time, wouldn’t this all-wonderful Prime Minister have realised we’re not in the bloody Himalayas by now.” Owen grouched. “Even with Tosh’s faked travel records, we haven’t exactly hidden far.”

“As Jack once said, the best place to hide is in plain sight.” Ianto entered the chamber, making no effort to hide the fact he’d been eavesdropping.

“Oh, if Jack said it, it must be true.” Owen sniped, not surprised however when he was ignored.

“Anything?” Tosh asked, glancing over him with concern.

“Nothing.” With the rift predictor off, they’d been relying on the regular police scanner to keep an eye on any activity, which, however, had meant having no idea what he was walking into. It might not have been a false alarm like he’d just had.  “Just humans causing chaos, not weevils or blowfish -  they all got quickly distracted by Saxon’s latest broadcast instead.”

“We saw it.” Owen nodded, gesturing to one of the two laptops they had, both of which only connected after several layers of encryption. Normally, I say teenagers being interested in anything political would be another sign of weirdness, but considering what he had to announced, I’d be more surprised if anyone missed it.”

“Have you seen any reference to anything like these Toclafane before in the archives?”  Tosh continued. “I had a quick look, but without the database, no-one knows the system as well as you.”

“Not that I was aware of, I was going to look now.” Ianto inferred. After he’d painstakingly sorted the archives during his first two years in Torchwood, he’d banned all but Jack, and later Tosh from entering. The incident with Suzie had only reinforced his reasonings further. “Keep an ear out on all channels you can access safety, see how UNIT is reacting to this supposed visit. Come find me if you get anything on when Saxon might have first discovered this species.”

“Here.” Gwen stepped up, before he could leave. “I found the stash of burners you described.”

Since they could be tracked, their own mobiles were powered off, and he nodded. pocketing the new black device and thankful he now had another way to keep an eye on the team. “Okay, call me instead, it’ll be faster and easier than…”

“Ianto, wait!” Owen interrupted. Ianto snapped around, but Owen’s gaze was fixed on the laptop in his lap. “Oh, well, you were right, I think we can no longer pretend Saxon wasn’t lying about Jack being in the Himalayas.”

He spun the laptop around, unmuting the channel as a news-speaker became audible. “…known as The Captain. They are known to be armed and extremely dangerous.”

“That’s the same Doctor, from Canary Wharf, with another woman, Martha Jones.” Tosh exclaimed, watching the still images of the three flash continuously cross the screen. “He’s declared them all public enemies.”

“Do you think they know something about all this, that we don’t?”

“That much is obvious. Where are these photos from?”

“Last seen in South London.” Tosh read, having opened the reports here, before glancing over her shoulder at him as he leant over. “You’re going to him, aren’t you. Alone.”

“I have to.” Ianto returned, gaze replicating the steel in his voice. He knew the others would back him up in a heartbeat, but four was a lot hard to hide in the shadows than one, and Tosh understood that. Plus, they needed to keep an eye on the rift.

“Good luck.”

Notes: I really hope this chapter was okay, it was a bit awkward and I know it was mostly more filler than plot but I promise it gets better!!!! The next chapter will be in a few days, while I attempt to write the very last 2, and don’t worry it’ll be longer too. In the meantime, please review and enjoy the week!!!!

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse)

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Hiding from the Master’s watchful eye…oh never mind I’m too lazy…..I’ll just say….spoilers everyone.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, though some speech is taken from the episode Sound of Drums.

WORDS: 2930

NOTES: Hey I’m back again with the next chapter! Thanks for the reviews! It’s been slow writing the last few days as I moved back to Uni for the next term that starts in a about a week, but I told myself if I wrote over 800 words today, I’d post, and I did so here we are.

Enjoy 😊

Chapter 3: The Archangel Network

3rd March 2008:

Jack looked up as the door to the warehouse clanked open and shut, the sound followed by the damp splashes of footsteps signalling Martha’s return with their takeaway.

“How was it?”

“I don't think anyone saw me.” She replied, handing him a bundle of chips. “Anything new? My family?”

“I've got this tuned to government wavelengths so we can follow what Saxon's doing.” Jack replied gesturing to his VM.

“It still says the Jones family taken in for questioning.” The Doctor continued, from his seat at the table. “Tell you what, though. No mention of Leo.”

“He's not as daft as he looks.” Martha laughed, before pausing with realisation. “I'm talking about my brother on the run. How did this happen?”

“Nice chips.” Jack empathised with Martha. He still hadn’t had a response from Ianto or the team, and but it was better not to dwell on what they couldn’t change. “So, Doctor, who is he? How come the ancient society of Time Lords created a psychopath?”

“And what is he to you? Like a colleague or….” Martha trailed off.

“A friend, at first.”

“I thought you were going to say he was your secret brother or something.”

All three of them froze, both him and Martha staring at the Doctor until he recovered from the alarming notion. “You've been watching too much TV.”

“But all the legends of Gallifrey made it sound so perfect.”

“Well, perfect to look at, maybe. And it was. It was beautiful.” The Doctor stared into space, his mind elsewhere as he described and recounted the events of so many centuries ago. “As a novice, he was taken for initiation. He stood in front of the Untempered Schism. It's a gap in the fabric of reality through which could be seen the whole of the Vortex. You stand there, eight years old, staring at the raw power of time and space. Just a child. Some would be inspired, some would run away, and some would go mad.”

“Brrrrrr” The Doctor practically seemed to shake himself out of his memories. “I don't know.”

“What about you?” Martha urged.

“Oh, the ones that ran away! I never stopped!”

Jack was about to make a flippant response when abruptly, his attention was drawn from the pair’s conversation, with the unexpected but yearned familiar feeling of the warm and reassuring presence of Ianto’s mind within him, and he focused his own on the relieving but worrying connection between him and his lover. Worrying in the fact that while he didn’t regret the assertion of Ianto’s safety from Saxon, it meant he was close. Close as in, London.

“Ianto-?”

“Jack!”

The mental words overlaid each other, followed by a sense of both relief and urgency from Ianto, who’d unlike him, obviously been awaiting their bond’s connection as he drew nearer, but had feared otherwise.

“Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Yeah…” Jack sent, along with a mental image of their current hideout, his exhaustion- both physical and mental - suddenly more evident that before, a minute amount of tension lifting from his shoulders as his mental masks dropped. “You? The team?”

“Everyone’s fine. We hunkered below base in the Hub…. Um I’ll explain later….” Jack’s confusion must have made him change course. “We saw the news though. I don’t know whether to commiserate or congratulate. Public Enemy Number 3 is quite an achievement, even for you.”

Jack huffed mentally, but with the faintest edge of humour. “This time, not really much of my fault.”

“So, you know what’s going on?”

“Saxon’s an old acquaintance of the Doctor.” Jack shared. “And by acquaintance, I mean psychopathic Time Lord. I guess your intuition was right once more, though I don’t believe you would have guessed…”

“Jack! Jack! Captain!”

Fingers snapped loudly in front of his face, startling him back to awareness so sharply, he had to send silent apologies to Ianto for the sudden flood of panic he must have received.

“And where did you go?” The Doctor was leaning forward him his chair, while Martha looked on from beside with a slight look of concern. They must have been calling his name a while. “Not exactly the time for daydreaming.”

“Doctor!” Martha’s exclaimed, slapping his chest harmlessly. “Never mind that, Jack. Your watch is beeping.”

Jack fully pulled himself back from his connection with Ianto that was gradually getting stronger by the minute, to focus on his VM that he realised was alerting him of an incoming message now that he was concentrating, and he shoved his chips to the table in front.

“Encrypted channel with files attached.”

“Patch it through to the laptop.”

Jack gulped internally. “Since we're telling stories, there's something I haven't told you.”

A few minutes later his VM was off his wrist and wired through to the laptop, and preparing himself for only a brief second before he clicked play on the email file, he waited for the inevitable piece of revealing information to appear on screen, averting looking at the Doctor’s reaction.

“You work for Torchwood. Everything Torchwood did, and your part of it?”

“I swear to you, it's different. It's changed. There's only half a dozen of us now, based at the rift.” Jack defended, almost automatically, this time facing the Doctor’s gaze directly and purposefully. “The old regime was destroyed at Canary Wharf, but even then Three split from One long before then. I rebuilt it, I changed it, and when I did that, I did it for you in your honour.”

Jack bristled under the glare for a moment longer, before the Doctor tore away to hit play, and for some reason he felt it was the urgent situation at hand that had prevented more questions, rather than his own words.

“If I haven't returned to my desk by 22:00, this file will be emailed to Torchwood. Which means if you're watching this, then I'm... Anyway, the Saxon files are attached. But take a look at the Archangel document. That's when it all started. When Harry Saxon became Minister in charge of launching the Archangel Network.”

“What's the Archangel Network?” The Doctor asked, hitting pause.

“I've got Archangel. Everyone's got it.”

“It's a mobile phone network, worldwide.” Jack explained, overtaking the computer to pull up the other documents attached within the email. “Look, it’s got 15 satellites in orbit. It’s gotten so powerful that even the other networks are all carried by Archangel.”

“It's in the phones! Oh, I said he was a hypnotist.” The Doctor hollered, snatching Martha’s phone from her hands to do something with this sonic. “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on…”

Smacking the phone on the table, , a quiet beeping started emanating from the silence– almost familiar in it repetitive pattern – that Jack virtually felt his attention wavering until he shook it off, prompted with other brush of Ianto’s mind against his own.

“There it is… That rhythm, it's everywhere, ticking away in the subconscious. Subtler than mind control, any stronger and people would question it. But contained in that rhythm, in layers of code, ‘Vote Saxon. Believe in me.’ Whispering to the world. Oh, yes! That's how he hid himself from me, because I should have sensed there was another Time Lord on Earth. I should have known way back. The signal cancelled him out.”

“That’s great and all, but the question is, can you stop it?”

All but Jack, sprang around in alarm at the new voice, gazes stopping upon Ianto who stood in the entrance of the large warehouse room, dressed in his usual three-piece suit. That last brush against his mind, had signalled his lover’s imminent arrival, but still Jack couldn’t help but grin at the sight (and a little at the other’s panic, though he knew it was justified under the circumstances).

Before the other two could recover from their surprise, Jack stepped forward, dragging the other into a deep, but brief kiss, before dropping his head to Ianto’s shoulder and tugging him forward into a tight hug. It’d only been a day for him, but it’d been longer for Ianto, and it rather felt just as long for him, and he took the fleeting moment to reach out once more to their shared link, his concern forefront.

“We’re fine.” Ianto reiterated, calmly. “Saxon tried to side-line us with a wild goose chase to find you, but we saw through it.”

“You mean you saw through it.”

“They understood as soon as Saxon’s broadcast first aired.” Ianto agreed. “They’re on lockdown at the Hub. He can’t get to us.”

Eventually, Jack hauled himself away, turning stand by Ianto’s side. Martha was standing awkwardly to the side, confused but not wanting to interrupt, while The Doctor had taken off his glasses and was squinting at Ianto, as if searching for the last fragments of a past memory, of which it was clear to both him and Ianto when the recognition finally hit him.

“Ianto Jones!” He declared, finally, turning to Martha briefly. “See, I never forget a face.”

“It’s good to see you again, Doctor. Though it could be better circumstances.” Ianto replied, politely.

He clearly remembered the events of an evening nearly 3 years ago now, with both a previous reincarnation of the Doctor, and a younger, mortal Jack. Of course, he couldn’t tell how long it’d been for him.

He found Jack’s hand again at his side, before continuing. “Tosh called not that long ago; she got the same email you did. She’s looking into the Archangel network now, but she could probably use some help to speed things up if you know how to stop Saxon’s signal.”

“Not from here.” The Doctor replied, glancing at their only laptop. “But now we know how he’s doing it.”

“We can fight back.” Martha affirmed, confidently.

“She also said that Air Force One lands on British soils tonight. Saxon’s meeting the President first thing.”

“Then that’s our next step.”

“We need to stay out of sight, whatever we do.” Jack pressed. “Our faces are known all over, and I don’t want Saxon realising my team is involved anymore that he thought before.”

“Already ahead of you.” The Doctor returned, as he finished welding parts of the phone and laptop sonically onto four TARDIS keys he’d both dug from his pockets and collected from both Jack and Martha.

“Four Tardis keys. Four pieces of the Tardis, all with low level perception properties because the Tardis is designed to blend in. Well, sort of. But now, the Archangel Network's got a second low level signal. Weld the key to the network and….”

“You get a perception filter.” Ianto glanced at Jack briefly. “Like the invisible lift. It just shifts your perception a tiny little bit. Doesn't make us invisible, just unnoticed.”

“Invisible lift?” Martha asked as the Doctor finished putting the key on it around his neck, and immediately she began having trouble keeping her gaze focused.

“When the Rift was torn open last time we met, the Tardis’ perception filters welded to the spot it was parked.” Ianto explained simply. “Jack developed it into a hidden entrance.”

“Of course, he did. Extravagant as always, Captain.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

With nothing more they could do until light, an hour later they each found a secluded place throughout the warehouse to rest. There wasn’t exactly anywhere comfortable, but Jack quickly laid his greatcoat out on the driest, cleanest patch of floor he could find before inviting Ianto to lay down beside him, and taking off his suit jacket, Ianto complied. He’d sure enough spent nights in worst places.

There were only a few moments of silence as Ianto finished the rest of Jack’s chips, simply enjoying the warmth of private company combined the feel of Jack’s body pressed up beside him after so many weeks apart.

“I was worried.” He began, quietly, finally feeling the urge to speak. The reasons behind that worry were silent but clear, nonetheless.

“I’m sorry.” Jack returned, just as softly, nestling his mouth into the gap between his chin and shoulder to reach his neck. “I swear it’s been only a day for me.”

Ianto used his surprise as an excuse to roll over onto his side to face Jack. “A day?”

“An extremely long and exhausting day, but yes.”

“I always knew you would return, but…I don’t know...” Ianto sighed. “As the weeks passed, I think part of me feared something must be preventing you, that maybe by trying to help you, the Doctor…”

Jack must have known where he was heading, as the former quickly cut him off with a chaste kiss, before he could confirm his worries of the past 2 months out loud.

“The Doctor says I’m a fixed point in time. I think that means it’s forever.” Jack explained, and somewhere between them Ianto could decipher the strongly masked bitterness flooding from his lover at the words. “And even if he could, I wouldn’t agree to that now. Not to you.”

“He can’t help you?” Jack’s silence was his answer, and he moved on. “But you got your other answers right? You know what happened?”

Jack exhaled loudly but for a moment said nothing, instead pulling him closer. “The battle where I died for the first time. The Doctor had sent Rose away, to keep her safe, but she came back, absorbed with so much Vortex power from the heart of the TARDIS, that she defeated the Daleks and brought be back with just a few words. But she couldn’t control it. She brought me back forever.”

As Jack spoke, flashes of a conversation surrounded by a red hue crossed his mind, as if Jack was unknowingly sharing both his own memories and the sense of abandonment he so keenly felt at what he learnt and Ianto couldn’t help but keep anger from their connection. “And the Doctor knew along.”

“Yeah, he knew.”  Jack closed his eyes as he spoke. Ianto knew from that simple action that this was an issue that wouldn’t go any further tonight, not with the Doctor in the same building, even if he was out of earshot. He must have sensed Ianto’s disapproval though because he continued a few seconds later with a lighter tone.

“It wasn’t all a completely terrible day, though. Did you know humans still survive even One Hundred Trillion years into the future? The Earth may die long before then, but humans always survive. We helped rescue a whole refugee camp to another safer planet.” Jack leaned to whisper in his ear as if to share a big secret. “Apparently, the skies are made from diamonds.”

Ianto chuckled at the image, though, with the whole of the universe the limits of his imagination, it wouldn’t be impossible.

“We should sleep. I don’t how long it will be till we get another chance.”

Tomorrow was set to be both busy and dangerous - not that unusual for Torchwood really - but their plan to gate-crash Saxon’s visit to the airfield wasn’t the only thing making him tense. Instead, it was the uncomfortable sensation that’d existed inside him for the last few weeks, which had only gotten exceptionally worse over the last day, his apprehensions only strengthened by the weakened and almost staticky emotions he’d been able to read earlier from Martha.

He was now more certain than ever, that the Fae knew something of what was occurring, and why. They saw through time, both past and future, and at long last he’d reached the conclusion that if they had wanted to prevent Ianto from leaving with Jack for his own protection they could bloody well explain why.

It was apparently his turn of be unwittingly sharing too much, as Jack shifted beside him, disturbed by the waves of thoughts and confusion. They must be out of practice shielding their thoughts from either other, while they relished solely on their bond’s reconnection.

“It’s nothing.” Ianto returned, trying to push the matter from his mind. If they Fae weren’t going to come to him, there wasn’t anything he’d could do, because he wasn’t going to abandon Jack with this mission, not after the conversation they’d just had.

“You’re not abandoning me if you don’t come tomorrow.” Jack replied, his efforts clearly not having been effective. “In fact, I’ll be happier and more focused if I knew you were safe, far away from Saxon, but at least tell me what you think’s going on with the Fae?”

“Don’t you think there might be more to this scheme Saxon’s pulling than just arranging First Contact on live TV?” Ianto asked, and at Jack’s concerned frown, he elaborated. “I’m not sure, but something’s unbalanced with the natural elements of the world, and has been for a while. Watch.”

Ianto lifted his hand the same familiar motion Jack had seen hundreds of times, lighting a small flame in his palm, only this time, it flickered and died before it could fully reach the even two thirds the normal size.

“It’s as if the Fae aren’t fully present in this time. I’ve been trying to summon them to ask, but I feel maybe it’s time to go to them.”

“If they aren’t coming to you, how will you find them?” Jack queried, his distress at Ianto’s demonstration clear. “It’s not like you can go to them.”

“Maybe I don’t have to.” Ianto countered. “And I have a feeling, our friend, Estelle will know the best place to try, even if I did.”

Notes: Hope you enjoyed this and if you need a reminder on how the Doctor knows Ianto go back to The Power of New Beginnings Chapter 19 – Boom Town - don’t worry I completely forgot as well for ages.

Please review, I love them. Perhaps a question for you: what was your favourite line of this chapter or story so far?

See you next time and have a good weekend!

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse) ­­

CHAPTER SUMMARY: While Jack, Martha and the Doctor seek out The Master, can Ianto find the Fae?

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, though some speech is taken from the episode Sound of Drums.

WORDS: 2640

NOTES: Here we go - it’s Day Zero people! Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4: Day Zero

4th March 2008  - 6:54am:

With a two-hour drive ahead of him, and not much time before Saxon’s speech, Ianto had slipped out of the warehouse before first light, taking advantage of the empty roads. Even so, as he knocked on Estelle’s front door, he hoped he wasn’t waking her - emergency or not.

Fortunately, it was only a few moments before he heard the latch clicking and the door opening, the small crack not hindering Moses from immediately bolting through and wrapping around his feet.

“Mr Jones!”

“Apologies for the early hour, ma’am.” Ianto replied. ”Hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Nonsense, dear. Come in.” She opened the door further and stepped back to allow him to enter. “I’m sure everyone’s up for the PM’s speech in hour. I gather that’s why you’re here?”

Ianto smiled thinly at Estelle’s perceptive and deliberate glance. “I’m afraid I need a favour.”

“I’m sure it’s the least I can do after everything you did last year.”

“I need help finding the Fae.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

7:24am:

Jack, Martha, and Doctor stood silently at the edge of the runway, hidden by the keys around their necks, watching Saxon greet the President of America, as he stepped down from Air Force One. As much as he was disappointed to separate with Ianto, he was thankful he was somewhere safe, with his own perception filter as backup.

“First Contact cannot take place on any sovereign soil. To that purpose, the aircraft carrier Valiant is enroute.” President Winters stated, as they focused on the conversation happening in front of them.

“So, America is completely in charge?” The Master replied, childishly. “It still will be televised, though, won't it. Because I promised the whole world watching.”

“Since Britain elected an ass, yes. It’s too late to pull out. I'll see you onboard the Valiant.”

“Well least he’s not afraid to say it.” Martha sniped, with a hint of humour in her tone. “Where this Valiant, then?”

“Aircraft carrier.” Jack answered, checking his newly repaired Vortex Manipulator. “It's a UNIT ship at 58.2N, 10.02E”

“Does that thing work as a teleport?” The Doctor enquired, and Jack glanced up again.

 “Since you revamped it, yeah. Coordinates set.” Taking each of their hands in his so they all were touching his, Jack pressed a signal button that transported them instantaneously to the Engine Room of a ship.

“Oh, that thing is rough.” Martha protested; but in spite of this she shook off the effects faster than before, her gaze catching the view out of the nearest window. “Hold on, I thought this was a ship. Where's the sea?”

“Welcome to the Valiant. A ship for the 21st century, protecting the skies of planet Earth.”

They navigated their way through the belly of the Valiant quickly by methodically, searching for the control deck. Well, they were until the Doctor stopped short, as if he’d hit an invisible barrier.

“Come on, we've no time for sightseeing.” Jack pressured. It was almost eight.

“No, wait, Shush. Can't you hear it?” The Doctor asked, holding his finger up with tentative excitement. “Brilliant. This way.”

It was almost impossible to keep up as the Doctor charged down a gangway to level 4, slamming a door at the end, but at the unmistakable blue wooden panels, the Doctor eagerness was immediately contagious, the sight of the TARDIS relighted the sense of optimism that had died ever since the Master has stolen it on Malcassairo. “Oh, yes!”

“What's it doing on the Valiant?” Jack asked rhetorically, as he followed the Doctor in racing through the door of the police box, but the trio immediately drew short at the repulsive scene before them, the moment of hope instantly wiped from their minds. A nauseating sensation pricked at the edge of his perception. He doubted, however, that without his psychic abilities improving since bonding with Ianto, he would have felt it.  “What the hell's he done?”

“Don't touch it.”

“I wasn’t going to.” Jack stepped back anyway, though the sarcastic tone remained. It seems the initial lack of trust from the Time Lord still existed after all this time.

“What's he done though?” Martha repeated. “Sounds like it's sick.”

“It can't be. No, no, no, no, no, no, it can't be. He's cannibalised the Tardis.” The Doctor tapped a gauge on the time console. “As soon as this hits red, it activates. At this speed, it'll trigger at two minutes past eight.”

“First contact is at eight, then two minutes later.” Jack deducted, some facts in his head were starting to add up in ways he wished they wouldn’t. “Is this what I think it is?”

“It's a paradox machine.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

7:48am

With the SUV parked as far into Roundstone Wood as it could fit, and with the sun now up for over an hour, Ianto fished out his mobile Gwen had handed him as he climbed out, and powered it up. It might have been secure burner, but he’d hadn’t wanted to take the risk of being compromised or losing charge, especially after Tosh’s first call before he’d met up with Jack, and had switched it off overnight. However, that didn’t hadn’t stopped the numerous alerts that the device immediately received upon connecting to the network. Understandably, the team had been wanting updates.

“How much further is this place?” He asked, turning to Estelle who’d moved around the vehicle to join him.

“A few minutes.” Estelle replied, confidently.

As far as Ianto could figure, the place Estelle was describing was the one she’d taken the most photographs of the Fae when studying them before the events of last year. Frowning, he checked the digital clock in the corner of the phone. They were running out of time, but hopefully if this worked then time would be the one thing he wouldn’t need to worry about, and before he could convince himself otherwise he pressed ring-back.

It only rang for a second before the dial tone ended and the line connected, evidently on loudspeaker from the backgrounds noises.

“Ianto! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Ianto smiled at both Tosh’s concern, but also the reverse, typical mutter of ‘about time, Teaboy’ from Owen in the distance. “And so’s Jack. He’s with the Doctor still. They’re tracking Saxon at the airport.”

“Did he know more of what’s going on?”

“Not exactly, but we were right that this all about Saxon. It’s an alias and a good one.” Ianto clarified, shouldering a go-bag from the trunk and starting to follow Estelle. The latter, while not commenting on the one-sided conversation she was hearing, was definitely listening with worry. “He’s another Time Lord called the Master, who’s after the most amount of power he can get. He used the Archangel network to ensure he’d win election. The how though is still unclear but there’s almost certainly another part to this First Contact that we’re not….”

“Wait, wait. Hold your horses, Teaboy.” Owen interrupted. “Are you saying the current Prime Minster is an alien?”

“Bloody hell.” Gwen added, shook. “I guess that’s not something the government plans for every day.”

“Um, it’s technically not the first time that…”

“Guys, focus.” This time Ianto was the one to interrupt Tosh before the team could get side-tracked. “What have you found on the Archangel network?”

“My programs are still running, they’re slow with only one device.” Tosh sounded rather exasperated at being limited by the technology she had hiding in the Hub. “However, I can tell you that in the last hour, President Winters overtook the whole operation alongside UNIT so that it’ll now take place on the Valiant rather than British soil. The only thing is that, according to the files, Saxon helped build the ship including some features he was adamant about adding.”

“In other words, he planned for it. He wanted First Contact on that ship.”

“Most likely…yes. What about you? Where are you?”

Still not used to the others knowing, and being able share to anyone other than Jack, there was a moment of hesitation on the line before Ianto answered. “Roundstone Wood. There might some others with answers.”

“You think they’ll help?”

“I hope so.” Ianto replied. He didn’t comment that he had to find them first. “I’ve got to go.”

“Be safe.”

Hanging up, they brushed past the last few branches to arrive at a small stone circle off the broken path. The area was quiet, barely even any wind whistling through the leaves, though Ianto wasn’t really surprised.

“Thank you.” Ianto nodded at Estelle, before digging a tablet out of his bag, and pulling up one of the many live channels that were awaiting footage from the Valiant, due to air in the next minute, before passing it to her. He wouldn’t be able to watch while attempting this, and he didn’t want to risk missing something crucial. “Let me know when that starts, or something happens.”

“What are you planning?” Estelle’s arched her eyebrow meaningfully, though she did take the device. He’d explained part of how the Fae had been avoiding him on the drive there, and with the clearing also empty, it was becoming obvious to Estelle that a simple conversation was not what Ianto had in mind.

Ianto gave a wry expression “I’ll be fine. Hopefully, this will only take a minute at most, but if I disappear for a moment, don’t worry.”

Taking a deep breath, he faced the centre of the stone circle. He’d practised this first part a little since his trip to 1941 and back, but reaching for the diminished spark of power inside him, his hand shook with exertion, but sure enough the world began to slow. The leaves, wind and earth fell still and silent, a recognisable hush that came from the manipulation of time.

Relieved, Ianto tried not to get ahead of himself. While he’d experienced the next part, he hadn’t tried before, but without the Fae present, he didn’t have a choice. If the Fae refused to appear in this time due to the probable impending crisis, then he’d have to go to them. Either to the Lost Lands itself, or back to a time before all this. Before Saxon.

Straining against all his reservations, he recalled the times he’d travelled with the Fae; the whirlpool of winds, the disorienting sense of nothingness, but most importantly the energy from which it was created, and replicated in his own mind, as the world turned a blinding white.

A loud sound, alike the air snapping echoed deafening through his ears, as pain spiked through his head and he collapsed to the ground, the whiteness returning back into the greens and browns of the trees as quickly as it’d come. Yet even more worryingly was Estelle still present at edge of his peripheral vision, even if still seemingly frozen.

It hadn’t worked.

“Idiot human!”

Actually, maybe it still had.

A singe Fae perched on a tree branch high above him, it’s anger represented through its large green form that snarled down at him.

“You do not attempt such a feat at a time such as this.”

“Got your attention though.” Ianto coughed, pushing himself up from the leafy ground. “I wouldn’t have had to if you come to me.”

“We may protect our own but we do not interfere if needs not.”

“You can’t just prevent me from leaving and warn of dangers, then vanish for months!” Ianto bit back. “You say you protect, so then why are my powers failing?”

“Your gift is as much a part of you as your mind and soul, Little One. The remnants of your time as Fae. You cannot lose what you are.” The Fae enlightened, and Ianto couldn’t help but feel a little relief. “But as much you’ve learnt to draw energies from within, do you draw from the Lost Lands, and for now this is closed for you.”

“Then what’s happening is so big it’s affecting the Lost Lands?” Ianto interpreted.

“Time is shadowed by a darkness one would norm never imagine. A year fixed outside the timeline in which we exist.” It answered cryptically. “That time draws ever near. Your attempts unfortunately ensue in my presence, but The Fae departed this world long before today. I cannot remain, but will contemplate this proposition to join us and avoid this year, once and only once.”

Even without the full picture, Ianto didn’t consider the offer for more than a second.  “I will not abandon Jack. Or my team.”

“Then I will take my leave.” The large form of the Fae, leaped up from the branch without another word, spreading it’s faint wings into flight, immediately vanishing from view. As it did, the light sound of the wind resumed as time returned to normal, he must have been the one maintain the power.

The time to dwell on what he’d learnt however was also taken from him, as new sounds reached his ears, but this time it was urgent shout of his name from Estelle. Spinning around, she was staring in shock at the tablet, where panicked screams were emanating.

“What is it? What’s happening!?”

“I don’t know!” Estelle faltered, handing back the device. “They just killed the President!”

On screen showed the Master standing dead centre of the flight Deck, the Doctor struggling in the grip to two black dressed guards in front of him. “Stop it! Stop it now!”

“We meet at last, Doctor. Oh, ho. I love saying that. As if a perception filter's going to work on me. And look, it's the girlie and the freak. Although, I'm not sure which one's which.”

Appearing from out of the camera view, Ianto would recognise his lover anyway, and mentally shook his head in equal fond respect, acceptance, and annoyance, as Jack raced forward to help, with his usual lack regard to his own welfare. Even so, when the Master withdrew a device similar to the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and electrocuted him with more violence than necessary, without even a hint of remorse but instead nonchalant enjoyment, Ianto growled, gritting his teeth in revulsion at the Master.

“Laser screwdriver. Who'd have sonic? And the good thing is, he's not dead for long. I get to kill him again!”

His own anger as well as the confusions and shock he was receiving from Estelle made it harder than it’d been for a long time to keep control of his power. It was probably only the current weakness of them that stopped the ground from shaking or the air from storming.

“Oh, do excuse me. Little bit of personal business. Back in a minute.”

“That was Jack! He killed him.” Estelle cried, looking to Ianto, probably interpreting both the Master words and Ianto’s own anger but not grief to reach her own conclusions. “Is that how he’s survived so long?”

“Yes. He might not age or stay dead, but it doesn’t mean he can’t die.” Ianto answered, grimly. “It’s a fact I quite often have to remind him of, actually. He might be immortal, but he’s as vulnerable as everyone else.”

“Is it time? Is it ready?” The childlike voices of the Toclafane were a stark contrast to the other voices. “Is the machine singing?”

“Two minutes past. So, Earthing’s. Basically…er…end of the world. Here come the drums!”

The signal cut off to black as a bright light from above shone through the trees and grabbing Estelle’s hand, they hurried to the verge of a nearby clearing. A large tear, its edges the colour of red fire, split across the whole sky above, with thousands of spheres – The Toclafane - pouring out, surrounding the world.

Invading.

Notes: Dun Dun Dun, the paradox has begun! Will be back in a couple days people with more exciting angst (and longer chapters), but in the meantime please review!

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse) ­­

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Ianto vs the end of the world

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, and I’m also not a doctor so apologies for any medical mistakes. Chapter title taken from song ‘Where the Shadow Ends’ by BANNERS

WORDS: 4240

NOTES: Hiya! Yes long chapter today, but lots of it’s exposition to begin I’m so sorry! I just had so much information to just put out there’s that later might be important! But enjoy, and thanks everyone for the reviews so far.

Chapter 5: A Lighthouse Through the Smoke

Paradox date: 6th July 2008:

Letting the last of the water drip into the crumpled plastic bottle that was only three-quarters full, Ianto reluctantly twisted the cap on the dispenser back on tight, and handed it apologetically to down to the young girl in front of him. Being no older than five, she’d been unable to reach the tap.

“Thank you, Mister Ianto.” Taking the bottle gingerly, Cadi (or was it Catrin? He felt awkward not knowing her name, but with the hundred faces he saw daily, there just wasn’t enough time to learn them all apart) smiled up at him, before scampering away quietly, and for a second Ianto is painfully reminded of his own niece.

Grimacing, he disconnected the water tank to take it for refilling. One minute he wasn’t sure whether to hope his family was alive or not, and next he was regretting even thinking the latter.

The world had fallen into chaos for those that had survived the Toclafane’s initial slaughter. Who wasn’t killed were enslaved, and those that refused to work were also killed. There were people supporting him, working for him, enforcing his orders, and he could only assume that the Archangel network was still forcing the majority of the population compliant. He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but in some ways the Master description of the ‘End of the World’ was rather apt, or at least when considering the world as they knew it.

However, in other ways, he wasn’t naïve enough to think it couldn’t get any worse.

He just hoped that part wasn’t still to come.

He could only look around him at what they’d managed to achieve in the last four months as an example and wondered if this was anything like the refugee camp Jack had described the last night they’d spent together. If only he could do the same for these people as Jack had done for them.

Estelle had travelled directly from Roundstone Wood to the Hub with him, abandoning the SUV and main roads for the cover of trees and buildings. Whatever phenomenon, rift of not, that had granted the Toclafane entrance to this world, had overloaded the Rift Manipulator, causing a chain reaction of explosions echoing throughout the Hub. Had they not been sheltered by the cover of the lower levels, Ianto feared what would have been made of the team. They’d survived, but the hub was inhabitable. It’d would have also been the first place Saxon ordered to be searched.

They joined with a few other survivors of the massacre that first day, assisting with injures and trying to locate a secure enough place to stay, but with troops of both humans and Toclafane alike across the whole of Cardiff, amassing the remaining population into labour camps, Ianto had grudgingly divulged one of Jack’s closest secrets.

The underground wartime bunkers on Flat Holm.

Gwen had declined, adamant on finding Rhys, but Owen and Tosh agreed in the benefits of his plan, but there had been two drawbacks of heading to the island.

The truth about the Rift.

And the prospect of seeing Suzie.

He needn’t had worried. Whether it was because they’re were currently in a state of war and conflict, with horrors on their own doorstep, to have time to reflect much on the actual harsh reality of the stolen people of the Rift, they’d taken it in their stride after a few weeks, becoming just as friendly with Charlie and the other more social patients as he was.

Suzie was a little more awkward. Though both of them had been in frequent contact with Helen, Ianto himself had only seen Suzie once since the visit during the Pilgrim murders incident last year. Mostly though the reports were the same with her keeping to herself in her room, but Ianto had been determined not to pretend or hide her away from the rest of the team when they were technically sharing the same home, makeshift as it was, and while Tosh and Owen hadn’t been physically threatened or injured by Suzie’s betrayal like he and Gwen had, the air was a little tense as Ianto led them to her room.

But ultimately, Suzie was their friend, and couldn’t be fully blamed gloves’ influence on her and slowly the conversations had become more relaxed. Suzie might still stay in her room, but he often saw Tosh slipping out to that area with a technical device, weapon, or something else that needed fixing or an opinion on.

It was something he could tell Helen was quite grateful for, but Ianto only wished he could share her progress with Jack, in hope with would ease some of his guilt on the matter.

Each day the raw absence of their bond was a constant reminder of who was missing, but he tried not to think too much of Jack, keeping himself distracted. He hated it, feeling though he was somehow betraying his lover by blatantly ignoring the realism of what he was most likely experiencing, the last fateful image of The Master killing him permanently seared into his mind.

The bunkers under Flat Holm were not exactly accommodating for a large number of people, but everyone had done their best in dividing the spaces available in each room accordingly, loose material from anything hung and fashioned into curtains for privacy. Despite that, Ianto had ensured it was still spilt into two sections, the furthest rooms situated away from the majority of survivors, instead dedicated for more specific purposes.

A few of the rooms Owen had fashioned into somewhat of an infirmary to prevent the spread of any infections or virus, and the other held the previous occupants of Flat Holm. As much as they were in the same situation as everyone else, some had experienced horror maybe even worse than the present and needed privacy and extra care. Plus, there was the concern of Max that arose other ethical concerns on allowing someone who’d killed before unsupervised access to what was now a community in itself.

The drapes of one said room brushed open just as Ianto was a passing, having swapped the empty canister with another full of water. Owen tugged his latex gloves off as he exited before dumping them in a nearby basin for boiling clean at a later point and behind him he could see Helen and another volunteer, Tom Milligan, settling a patient down on a bed of scratchy blankets.

They were just two of many differences that had unwillingly been made since this crisis started, but they’d just didn’t have the right number of beds or the medical gear to waste. While the original supplies they’d recovered from the Hub combined with those already available at Flat Holm had gone a long way, there just hadn’t been enough for the steadily increasing number of survivors they found. Flat Holm had only had a handful of both residents and staff before this.

Catching Ianto’s presence, the Torchwood Doctor started towards him, and even without the grim look, he would have known what was going to be said even without sensing the waves of frustration rolling from the medic.

“What do we need?”

Owen grunted and leant against the wall behind him, shoving his hands in his pocket. “We’re out of insulin and down to the last two packs of painkillers”

Ianto cringed. Another excursion was definitely in the books for this afternoon. The supply scouts were dangerous, each minute spent on the mainland a risk of drawing unwanted attention towards them, however, the need for medicine was a must he refused to fail on. Not again.

They had the doctors and those with other medical experience, but they couldn’t do much without provisions and Ianto and was determined not to experience the overwhelming guilt he’d felt as he’d held Estelle’s hand as she’d quietly passed away, only six weeks into their stay on the island. It was the only point he was glad Jack wasn’t around to witness. The guilt would have coincided with his lover’s grief, no matter how many times he told himself there was nothing to be done. Estelle had been old, too old to survive the strain of conditions like these.

“Okay, let me finish this and we’ll head out.” Ianto declared. The sooner they set out the more hours of light they could use. While the dark brought cover it didn’t help with any searches. “Who’s next on the rota to join us?”

He’d had gone on scouts alone at first, gathering supplies while using the TARDIS’s key to hide in plain sight, returning with any survivors he’d found along the way, but as the camp grew larger and more was required from each trip, it was no longer feasible to go about it alone.

Not that’d he had a choice in the initial protest, however, many volunteering with almost no convincing by Tosh needed, and pressured from every angle, he agreed for those willing to develop a rota, but under one change.

The TARDIS Key was given a new purpose. With a longer chain fashioned from many necklaces and cords scavenged from deserted homes, it hung around the frame of the front bunker entrance, shielding the hundred sheltered inside.

He wasn’t going to let others walk into danger if he alone was protected.

“The Hanford couple, I believe.” Owen replied. “With them and Tosh looking for the usual stuff, you and I should be able to make it to that pharmacy in Sully.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Paradox month: July 2008

Jack awoke violently, gritting his teeth against a scream of pain as he scrambled to get his feet back on solid ground, his chains rattling as his arms instinctively fought for a more comfortable position than the straining crucifixion forced upon them. He would have hoped his legs would have learnt not to collapse from under him when he slept, but he supposed even with practice, one couldn’t stand up forever.

In some ways, it wasn’t the torture or the deaths that were starting to get to him- though not even the Time Agency or War could have prepared him for the originality of The Master’s methods, but instead it was the trivial things - like the endless months of grime and blood and that coated his skin and clothes.

And maybe the worst of all of it, was that time had lost its meaning.

Jack huffed, half-heartedly. That was saying something for an immortal who’d lived one to many lifetimes already.

It’d certainly been months, making it June or July right now, but the exact date had been forgotten ages ago. He might have a digital clock in his sight, but as the days passed, and the number deaths grew and varied, there was no way of telling how long he’d hung cold and lifeless each time he awoke. Whether it’d been a day or two. Sometimes even longer.

If anything, the sole purpose of the clock was for those periods he was left alone, a forgotten toy of the Master’s, to torture him further with the slow, mindless passing of each second. His current existence – because that was what it was in the end. It certainly wasn’t a life - aboard the Valiant was a repetitive cycle of agony, darkness, and loneliness.

Jack closed his eyes again. Not to go to back sleep – he wasn’t really tired anymore - but to retreat into somewhere far happier. His memories. It might be cliché, but sometimes the old, simple tactics worked best and the fondness and warmth it brought was only strengthened by the hopeful belief that Ianto was still out there. Not safe – no one was - but surviving - as he’d always done. Protected from sight by his own TARDIS key.

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Paradox date: 6th July 2008

“So then, what’s so special about that Martha girl that Saxon’s always ranting about again?” Owen asked as they left pharmacy laden with bags of new medicine that should hopefully last a few weeks baring no emergency.

The street they came out onto had not too long ago been a fairly modern residential street, but now it laid in ruins, houses and cars deserted, and the pair kept an eye on the rubbish spread across the road and pavement as they walked, hoping to spot anything useful.

“She’s the Doctor’s latest companion. I met her in London with Jack, so I guess she’s trying to figure a way to stop this, just like we are.”

“Yeah, the leader of the Resistance or whatever it’s called now.” Owen replied. “I wonder where she is now.”

“Last the rumours heard she was in Turkey. Before that, France.” Ianto replied, tugging the corner of a trapped piece of fabric from under the boot of an overturned car, revealing itself to be a worn, filthy, but relatively thick blanket. “She has a key like I had. It’s probably the only reason Saxon can’t find her. The perception filter can’t fool him, but it’s not like he’s leaving the Valiant to look himself.”

“Word says she’s travelling the world, finding something that can kill the Master.”

“The Doctor wouldn’t allow her to kill, especially if that person is most likely the only other Time Lord in existence.” Ianto rejected. “She has another plan, I’m certain.”

“Doesn’t really help the lot of us in the meantime though.” Owen grumbled yet his fury was clear. “Not with no way to kill these things. Nobody’s been able to even look at a sphere close-up to find one. They can't even be damaged, except if you can recreate that once-in-a-billion chanced lightning strike that brought down that one in South Africa.”

Ianto froze, Owen’s words having an unintentional impact, possibilities now circling his mind, and from the way Owen paused himself and the surge of understanding that clashed against his shields, the medic had evidently just realised what he’d said and to who.

“Ianto, don’t! That’s not what I meant!” But Ianto had already hurried off ahead, leaving Owen frantically catching up. ”Ianto, wait. You don’t even have your full powers!”

He heard Owen’s protests, but ignored them. They were valid concerns, yes, but the Fae had also been right in describing this gifts as a part of him. Ianto knew his limits, even with them at half the strength of usual, but this was a once-time deal he needed to get right because while this wouldn’t kill him, the Toclafane most definitely could if he missed.

Or if there was more than one, though he tried not to focus on that unless it happened, because getting their attention was the easy bit and he wasn’t going to waste any more time that he already had. He could have done this from the start.

He pulled out his handgun, pointed it upwards, fired three times, turned, and ran.

Grabbing Owen by the arm, he pulled them both behind the overturned car he’d just scoured through and waited, drawing every drop of energy in him to the surface. Without the power of the Lost Land’s, it just meant more from within was needed.

Theoretically, the science was simple. Lightning was energy, created when the accumulation of electric charges between the air and the ground became great enough to overcome the insulating properties of the air. It was the rawest form of electricity, and to much electricity fried technology.

Plus, what few people knew, was that lightning didn’t just come down. The part you see is the return stroke, going upwards and that was the part that would be much easier to control.

As predicted, they weren’t waiting long, as seconds later the memorable whirring of a Toclafane grew closer, and Ianto stood, primed. He’d created and controlled the elements into weather before (though he’d had a feeling stopping rain was a slightly different ballpark to this), but hypothetically everything is composed of the four elements, it was just a matter of proportion.

It was over in a flash. (A/N: Sorry, I couldn’t resist :D)

Then darkness.

Yes, he’d known it wouldn’t kill him, but he’d never said anything about blacking out, and sure enough when Ianto next opened his eyes, it was to the uncomfortable feeling of concrete under his aching head, and Owen’s face hovering not far above.

“Congratulations, Teaboy.” Owen griped skimming him over with assessing look before giving him a hand up, but Ianto only relished in the familiar name he hadn’t heard in what seemed like forever. “You’ve officially graduated to the biggest idiot I’ve ever met.”

“But did it work?” Ianto asked, crucially. Owen rolled his eyes, but grinned nevertheless, tipping his head towards the silver sphere that was strewn motionless against the curb of the pavement.

“Never said you weren’t an impressive idiot.”

“Yeah well, defeating it was only half the job. It’s what’s inside that counts.”

Crouching down beside it, Ianto realised the flaw in how they were going to get it safely back along with everything else they’d collected. They had yet to see how heavy it was or whether there was any chance of it only being stunned. Hurried footsteps, however, made him stand again, signalling the arrival of Tosh, her gun armed towards the sky with the Hanfords close behind.

“What happened, are you okay?” She inquired, lowering the gun only an inch, even after she saw no immediate threat. “We heard gunshots and the lightning.”

“Don’t look at me.” Owen opposed, holding his hands up in innocence and pointed and Ianto. “He’s the one with the suicidal tendencies.”

Ianto gestured to the immobile Toclafane, hoping its presence would be enough of a distraction to avoid having to explain too much of the how while in extra company. “Tosh do you think you’ll be able to get anything from it?”

“Well, I’m not going to let an opportunity like this go to waste.”

She shared a knowing smile, interpreting what’d occurred as he knew she would, crouching down in a similar fashion to how Ianto had earlier. Mr Hanford however looked unsure, as he came up behind them. “Is it safe to bring it back with us?”

“I’d prefer a containment box just in case,” Tosh frowned, glancing up at the sky again. “but if that lightning strike alerted us, then it could have alerted others, and we’re too exposed here. We should get back before more come.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Tosh’s area of the bunkers was different than Owen’s. While all three of them stayed in the same room at night, it hadn’t been the place for Tosh to start assembling her own computer system from an array of laptops and the sparce equipment Flat Holm owned.

Refusing though to occupy too much space needed more by others, she shared the room a fair amount of storage despite his insistence she didn’t need to, especially considering the amount of time she’d spent in there since. It was only a few weeks prior that he’d tentatively interrupted. He’d not wanted to disturb, but he knew she needed to take a break.

“How’s it going with Archangel?” Ianto asked, tentatively, leaning against the doorway.

“Not the best.” Tosh sighed.  “I’ve found a way to access the network and the satellites, but I can’t without triggering alerts on the Valiant. It’d …”

“It’d lead them directly to us.” Ianto finished, regretfully. “How much longer until you think you can get in secretly.”

“At this rate…months.”

“Then, 8 hours won’t make much difference.” He countered, taking Tosh’s hands in his and lifting them from the keyboard. “Sleep. I mean it.”

But now, returning to the Island, Ianto carried the fallen Toclafane directly to the room, avoiding any of the most public space, while the Hanfords split to take the rest of the gathered goods to the top of the lighthouse on the cliff, where’d they’d been storing the most recent collections as both a back-up and as they ran out of room down below.

“Dr Harper! Did you find any….Whoa!” Milligan charged into the room, not far behind them, halting suddenly at the sight of what had been the death of so many,  forgetting the reason he’d entered in his shock. “How’d you manage to get that?”

Ianto shrugged. “Wasn’t as hard as you think.”

“Said the one that almost killed himself doing so.” Owen griped, but turned back to Tom before Ianto could contradict him. “What’s did you need me for?”

Tom buffered briefly but quickly regained focus. “Little Hayden had another asthma attack. He’s stable but we don’t have enough medicine if he has another. Did you manage to source any more Salbutamol?”

Ianto grimaced, but thankfully Owen nodded. They’d been lucky earlier that the pharmacy hadn’t seemed to have been ransacked too much , most of the medicine shelved exactly where’d they had been left. Tom seemed to relax again at the answer, but his attention turned back to the Toclafane Tosh was studying. 

“You hoping this will be a case of knowing your enemy?”

“If we can get it open, then maybe.”

“I’ve almost got it, there's seems to be some sort of magnetic clamp.” Tosh explained. “Hold on, I'll just trip the…Oh!”

The top of the sphere had clanked, falling open into four quarters, revealing a tiny, aged head, connected to the metal casing through pipes and wires as if it was both armour and life support. Disturbingly, it reminded Ianto of the Cybermen.

“Well, I think I’m not alone in saying this wasn’t what I expected.” Owen snarked.

“Technically all we knew for sure was that ‘Toclafane’ is a concocted name. But no, I didn’t expect this.” Ianto replied. That titbit had been brought up before he’d left to Estelle’s the next morning, and truthfully they both hadn’t thought much on it. They didn’t exactly have another name to call them. “Jack, just thought it was another game of the Master’s so the Doctor wouldn’t know who they really were.”

It looked - for all intent and purposes - dead but at Ianto’s words, it’s lights flickered on and eyes sprang open without warning, causing all four of them jump back in alarm. “It’s alive.”

“Jack.” A female, childlike voice, arose from the table, tearing their attention back. “Captain Jack.”

“It knows Jack?” Owen asked, disturbed. “Do you think it met him on the Valiant?”

“Captain Jack and sweet kind Martha Jones. They helped us to fly. They led us to salvation.”

Ianto sat down in front of the table, an inconceivable thought beginning crossing his mind. “Who are you? Where did they lead you?”

“Where the skies are made of diamonds.”

“Oh god.” He should have figured it sooner – the naïve human emotions of joy and delight he often felt brushing against his shields on patrols, that no sane person in the area would ever be feeling at a time like this. But with that one line, the edge pieces of a mystery slotted together, and there could be no mistake.

“What? What is it? What are they?”

“They're us. They're humans. The human race from the future.”

The short shallow gasps were the only verbal reactions he heard, but Ianto didn’t need words to know of the distress and disbelief the other felt. There was nothing he could say next that could even quell the devastation of this truth.

“When I last saw Jack he told me of a camp of humans he rescued in the future - before the whole thing with The Master went down.” He explained, solemnly. “He quoted that exact line they used describe the planet where they thought they were heading.”

“There were no bright skies, no diamonds. Just the dark and the cold. We made ourselves so pretty.”The Toclafane described. “But, then the Master came with his wonderful time machine to bring us back home.”

“But that's a paradox.” Tosh grasped, always focused on the topic at hand even through her shock. “If you're the future of the human race, and you've come back to murder your ancestors, you should cancel yourselves out. You shouldn't exist, it’s impossible.”

“She’s right. Jack almost died last time I accidently created a small one by meeting an earlier version of himself.” Ianto cut in, ignoring the side glance from Owen at that answer to one of Jack’s many medical miracles. “The paradox would constantly be trying to fix itself. To return everything back to before.”

“Then the Master would have had to create something to prevent that. To allow this to occur.”  Owen inferred, but Tom quickly countered it, still looking appalled at the revelation.

“But what you described would have to be impossible.”

“He’s a Time Lord. If anyone can it’s them.” Ianto alleged. The puzzle that had been forming in his mind since this reveal was now almost complete, a new light shining on the truth of the Fae’s abandonment of this time, and whatever plan the Doctor and Martha had devised. Yes, there were parts still missing - the final centre pieces needed to complete the whole picture, but at long last, he knew where those answers would be.

 “I need to find to Martha.”

Notes: There you go! Hope it wasn’t too wordy, and go news, depending on how much I write tonight, I might post again tomorrow, plus I can always be bribed with reviews. (wink)

Thanks, I333

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse)

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Can they find Martha?

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, and I’m also not a doctor so apologies for any medical mistakes. Chapter title taken from song ‘Where the Shadow Ends’ by BANNERS

WORDS: 4780

NOTES: Early chapter today - because I finished!!!! Which means – there might be another later. Maybe…. Enjoy!!!!

Chapter 6: Underneath the Roaring of the Storm….

Paradox date: 9th July 2008

Three days of preparations brought Ianto to where he was now, looking out over the edge of the cliff down to the ocean below, stretching far out to meet with the horizon, where the last of the day’s light was generating streaks of red and orange in the sky.

No matter what a day brought, the sun would always set, and any other day he might have thought of some symbolic meaning on the normalcy of watching the sunset in such a precarious time, but today his thoughts were elsewhere.

Not so long from now, the sun would fully set, and then they’d have to leave. The cover of darkness hopefully providing at least a little headstart as they set off on their journey to join Martha.

Despite both their horror at the identity of the Toclafane and the fact that truthfully they weren’t still sure of her precise whereabouts, Tosh and Owen hadn’t taken much convincing to change their stance from slight hesitancy to willing support, except the question of who’d would join him, hadn’t been quite that simple.

“I’m in. If you need technical support, I won’t exactly be able to help from here.”

“Same.” Owen nodded, shrugging. “You’ll need a medic, just in case.”

“We can’t all go.” Ianto affirmed. Torchwood couldn’t just abandon all those they’d spent months rescuing on what could be a Hail Mary. “One of us has to stay here, in charge. The people here need you, Owen.”

“I’ll go.” Tom spoke up, and Ianto’s immediate instinct was to protest, but he held up a finger to stop him until he could explain. “I used to be in paediatrics, I should be able to get a licence to travel under the pretences of helping out at labour camps.”

Ianto sighed. He’d done his best to convince him otherwise, but his logical mind couldn’t disagree with what Tom had suggested and so instead he now reluctantly stood watching, as him and Tosh finished putting the last gear and bags on the spare boat they’d sourced. They’d done as much as they could to scavenge provisions that wouldn’t deprive the camp of any needed resources, including the boat they need for trips to the mainland.

He wondered when he’d started taking a page from Jack’s book when it came on brooding on high places. Maybe it was because Jack couldn’t be here right now to do it for him, no matter how much he wished he was.

“Here. You should take this.” Helen appeared at the cliff’s edge, the TARDIS key dangling from her hand. “You’ll need it.”

“No, I couldn’t.” Ianto shook his head, adamant. Without it, the entrance to the bunkers would be visible and vulnerable once again. “Everyone in there is relying on it.”

“They’re relying on you.” Helen emphasised, double looping the long chain around his neck, and closing his hand around the key hanging in front of his chest. “To finish this once and all. And you will, I just know it.”

“Thank you.” Ianto gulped, speechless. “I…”

“You’ve come a long way since I first met you, Ianto Jones.” Helen added, and then nodded for the boat behind him. “Go, and good luck.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Paradox date: 28th July 2008

Bearing West from Flat Holm, their travels took them through so many places the trio had never visited before, as they crossed the States of America and Middle East, and Ianto found himself yearning that he’d visited them before, when they’d once been modern cities and rural wonders of the world.

Today, they were either reduced to rubble or built encampments for Saxon’s new world order.

However, as Turkey came and went, and they changed direction up North and back East, some days it felt as if they’d weren’t making as much progress in finding Martha as they should be. Supplies were running low, the people they saw were becoming suspicious, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to know which rumours were true and which were hoax of keep people off her tail.

But three weeks later, after days of sailing, walking, and driving (when they were lucky enough to acquire a vehicle for a short time), on the border of Russia, they found her.

Or rather she found them.

“Heard some people were following me, asking some dangerous questions.” A voice startled them, and they turned to find Martha standing weary but strong, a large deliberate smile across her face. “Should have known it was you.”

“Miss Martha Jones, good to see you again.” Ianto stepped forward and took her hand in his welcome. “This is Toshiko Sato, and Tom Milligan. We’ve got some information you might find useful.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

The route they walked took them through some high mountain trails, past where a giant statue of the Master stood towering above the rocks, and Martha grimaced at the sight. “They’re all over the Earth, those things.”

“We saw.” Tosh replied, nodding. “He's even carved himself into Mount Rushmore.”

“He assembled them in another show of power, which is why they’re usually around the slave camps, and this is the biggest of them all.” Martha left the cliff’s path leading them to the edge where below them a fleet of space rockets stretched out as far as they could see. “Shipyard Number One. They say it’ll eventually stretch all the way from the Black Sea to the Bering Strait. A hundred thousand rockets being built, readying for war.”

Ianto nodded. “It’s the same back home. The entire south coast of England, converted into shipyards. They bring in slave labour every morning. They’re breaking up cars, houses, anything, just for the metal. Building a fleet out of scrap.”

“But war with who?” Tom asked. “He’s already got the whole world in his grip.”

“The rest of the universe. I've been out there, in space, before all this happened, and there's a thousand different civilisations all around us with no idea of what's happening here. The Master can build weapons big enough to devastate them all.”

“You've been to space?” Tom exclaimed, surprised. “Anything else I should know?”

“I've met Shakespeare.” Martha winked and turned to head back to the track, leaving Tom stunned. Ianto laughed a little beside Tosh, as they followed her. They’d done well to keep Torchwood’s true job a secret in the camp, so they couldn’t blame Martha much for showing off when presented with that reaction. It was so much like Jack.

Yet as ominous buzzing filled the air, that moment’s hesitation from Tom, might have cost them.

“Tom, here!” Ianto hissed, grabbed Tosh’s hand. He pulled his TARDIS key from under his jacket, looping the extra chain around her head, just as two spheres flew in from behind the statue. There was no time for Tom to make it, not now they’d seen him and tensing, Ianto shifted minutely to the weapon on his side, but he knew not to intervene unless absolutely necessary.

“Identify, little man.”

“I've got a licence.” Tom stammered, scrambling for the ID card in his pocket that he’d managed to obtain at a camp once they’d left Flat Holm. “Thomas Milligan, Peripatetic Medical Squad. I'm allowed to travel. I was just checking for…”

“The rockets will fly and everyone will need medicine. You'll be so busy.” The spheres flew off in the direction of the shipyard, laughing, but Ianto didn’t relax until they were gone from sight, Tosh slipping the rest of the chain from herself and back around his neck.

“That was close.”

“We should hurry. It’s not safe in the open like this.” Martha agreed. “And once it gets dark, there’s wild dogs everywhere. We’ll get eaten alive.”

“Where are you based around here?”

“There’s a cave, hidden in these mountains. There are a few refugees sheltered there currently.” Martha explained, nodding only a few yards into the distance. “We were holed up in a few houses nearby, but they were raided recently, so it’s not exactly accommodating I’m afraid.”

Ianto smiled thinly. “If you knew where we’ve been staying recently, then you wouldn’t be worried about saying that.”  

As described, the cave they entered not long later was nothing more than a crack in the rockface, though what one wouldn’t realise from the outside, was that it expanded into quite a number of spacious caverns only metres in. A few lanterns provided a tiny amount light in the darkness, and a small group were huddled around them, mostly consisting of children who were all distractedly drawing in the mix of gravel and soil.

Setting another burning, they split off down another channel and into another cavern, presumably for a semblance of privacy, but as Martha slipped off her jacket, the conversation on the tip of tongue got lost to something more unsettling and his hand snatched her wrist tightly, just above the Vortex Manipulator fastened around it that had caught his eye.

“That’s Jack’s.” Ianto insisted, with a hard by worried glare. “It’s broken, but he never takes it off.”

“He gave it to me. The Doctor fixed it, back before...” Martha assured, but Ianto could sense the grimace at his hold. “It was the only way I escaped from the Valiant, even though I had to leave my family there. I haven’t used it, since, if that helps. I don’t know if he could track it or something.”

“No. I mean, yes. I didn’t....” Ianto let his hand slip from hers, apologetically. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It seems both you and Jack are just a protective of each other.” Martha smiled.

“You should try being around them every day.” Tosh joked, relieving some of the tension that’d filled the cave. “It’s like we’re sometimes not even there.”

“Yes, I got that feeling when Ianto turned up in London. They stared at each other long enough it was like they were having a conversation with just their eyes.” Martha teased, not realising how accurate her words were, though Tosh looked at Ianto calculatingly. While she knew of his Empath abilities, he hadn’t shared anything on his bond with Jack, but he’d a feeling it wouldn’t take much longer for Tosh to figure it out.

Thankfully, as they settled on a worn blanket on the hard ground, Martha refocused the conversation to one more important but depressing. “Now, what did need to share?”

“During a scout, a few weeks ago, we managed to get our hands on a Toclafane and to find out what they were.” Ianto began, explaining what’d had happened, skirting around the subject of how and focusing on what they’d discovered. There was no proper way of letting it be known gently. “It mentioned the sky being made of diamonds. Jack told me that’s what some of them were calling Utopia. In the camp, you were at, I mean.”

“Creet. He was just a child.” Martha nodded, troubled as she remembered the young boy that had toured them around the camp, and had spoken with such hope and excitement about the rocket launch. “I mean, I’d sort of worked it out, but still. When The Master stole the TARDIS, the only thing The Doctor could do was lock the coordinates, so he might have had a time machine, but the only other place he could go than here was the end of the universe.”

“So, he found Utopia, and promised them better than what they’d found.” Ianto surmised. “Human’s from the future, coming back and making the future their own to control.”

“And that’s what the Paradox Machine is for.” She enlightened, looking at Ianto. “We found the TARDIS on the ship. He’d cannibalised it. A living Tardis, strong enough to hold the paradox in place, allowing the past and the future to collide. He couldn’t destroy it before he knew its purpose. Not without potentially blowing up the Solar System, but then Master used the Lazarus Technology to age and disable the Doctor so he couldn’t fight back and it was too late.”

“He has a plan though. To destroy it.” Ianto infers. “That’s what you’ve been doing this whole time.”

“I…”

Ianto could sense Martha’s hesitation about revealing the truth, and that was actually something he respected. Trusting too many people was how secrets because lost, and battles were lost.

“Jack’s shared with me a lot about his travels with the Doctor. About how he prefers non-violence.” He added, perceptively. “I know that’s killing the Master is only a decoy. You can trust us.”

Tosh and Tom nodded in agreement. “We can help.”

“The Doctor gave me a task before I escape. His plan. Travelling across the world, on my own, finding the people and telling my story. Telling them about the Doctor.” Martha explained. “No weapons, just words. Then I told them to pass it on, to spread the word so that everyone would know.”

“Know what?” Tom asked. “The plan?”

“It’s more an instruction, really. If everyone thinks of one word, at one specific time right across the world, just one thought even, at one moment, but with fifteen satellites.”

“The Archangel Network.” Tosh interpreted. “I’ve been trying since we heard about it to get in the system to stop it, but you’re using them instead. It might be the Master's greatest strength, but at the same time it’s also his weakness.”

Martha nodded. “Fifteen satellites all around the Earth, a telepathic field binding the whole human race together, still transmitting. That's why there's so little resistance. It's broadcasting a telepathic signal that keeps people scared, but if all of them were thinking the same thing at the same time….It can reverse what the Master did to the Doctor.”

“What time are you telling them, then?”

Martha paused for a second, giving Ianto an uncomfortable notion, before she answered quietly. “The countdown.”

Ianto froze, the silence in the cavern, deafening. The emotions smothering.

“The countdown? For the Launch? That’s 7 months away!”

“It needed to be something memorable, and it’s the only way I can travel….”

Restlessly, Ianto stood and paced the small cave as Martha tried reasoning futilely.

“The people can’t suffer like this much longer. Jack, your family even are all up there, going through god knows what every day.” He interrupted, and shook his head. “No, there has to be another plan.”

“Ianto.” Tosh’s hand on his arm tried, hopelessly once again, to placate him. “The Fae told you it’d be a year.”

They had, he’d been there himself, he remembered it distinctly, but Ianto didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to believe it.

“They don’t know everything.” Ianto argued. “The Fae can only travel though one potential future. It’s never set in stone, otherwise they’d have never lost a Chosen One before. They’d know to stop it.”

“I want this to end just as much as everyone else.” Martha added. “But with Saxon and the Toclafane watching for any Military action, I can’t exactly think of another solution, here?”

“No, no. You’re doing your best, I’m sorry. I just…” Ianto hunched within, embarrassed at having gone off like that. She was putting much at risk already with the Archangel Network’s subconscious orders meaning there was a risk with trusting anyone, no matter who they were before. “Wait…”

He turned to Martha, Tosh, then back again, the gears turning in his head.

“What if there was a faster way to do all of it?”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Paradox date: 29th July 2008 – 4:14am (MST)

Waking early, Ianto listened for any sign of movement, and only once the silence had stretched for long enough in the darkness did he open his eyes.

The four of them had settled down for the night, switching out the lanterns to save on fuel, after discussing the finer details of their altered plan for hours, but Ianto hadn’t slept for long. He’d rested while he had the chance, yes, but instead, he’d been waiting.

Now however, Ianto sat up, sparking the smallest flame in his palm. He knew just how small to keep it so it didn’t wake the others, but that was the easiest of everything he wanted to achieve that night.

Martha only shifted a little in her sleep as Ianto knelt next to her, but still it made him freeze momentarily, and he was internally thankful he had at least some experience with unfastening the strap of the Vortex Manipulator, as he fumbled to slide it awkwardly from her wrist with only one hand. But, once successful, he sighed silently with relief before standing and heading straight for the cave’s exit, only stopping to pull his stun gun and weapon from the side pocket from his bag.

He didn’t take anything else. He shouldn’t be gone more than an hour, and if it took any longer, he most likely wouldn’t need the supplies anymore.

With dawn not far off, the darkness lifted slightly outside the cave and Ianto quenched the flame as he walked, afraid of being spotted. He wanted as much distance between him and cave as possible, before he attempted to use Jack’s VM, in case Martha had been right about it being tracked, but during that specific conversation earlier, she also unintentionally let slip something of importance and use to Ianto.

The Valiant had remained in the skies above the North Sea from the start, and if she hadn’t used it since escaping, then the co-ordinates in the device were still accurate.

The only downside was those co-ordinates were of main flight deck. He could only hope that the quiet of night, and his TARDIS key meant he could materialise undetected.

At the bottom of the mountain range, Ianto crouched low (not that’d it help much, but would hopefully provide a bit extra cover from being spotted immediately), and fastened the strap around his own wrist, and activated the teleport.

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

(A/N – Time zones for North Sea and Russia with Summer Daylight saving times were such a pain! Why are the co-ordinates Jack said in the Sound of Drums not somewhere simple like above Britain. No, it’s closer to Germany – cries. )

Paradox date: 23rd July 2008 – 3:34am (MST-1)

The flight deck of the Valiant was exactly how they’d seen it on the livestream, but in other ways not. It seemed as though the Master’s extravagant style also played a major part in his interior design preferences.

Either way, the lights were dark, a purple hue emanating from the panels of the walls, while the metal staircase up to the control deck was highlighted with blue safety lights. There was no sudden chaos of movement, no alarm, nothing bar the single UNIT personnel that guarded the entrance to a door at the far end of the room.

They hadn’t noticed him. The key was doing its job as usual.

As much as he and Tosh both had difficult history with UNIT, Ianto still shunned unnecessary violence especially during time when many were coerced and threatened into service, but currently there was only one destination he had in mind, and with practised care not to draw unwanted attention to himself, he crept around the edge of the room, tasing him the guard in the ribs with only a little hesitation.

Lowering him to the floor to prevent a thud, he was nothing near prepared for the next voice that penetrated the silence of the assumed empty room. 

“You didn’t need to do that.”

Ianto spun around, startled, exchanging weapons for his gun instinctively, but instead of another guard or the Master himself, he lowered the weapon at the sight of a child sized tent in the corner as his rattled mind finally placed the voice, though rasped and faint compared to the few times he’d heard it before.

“Doctor?” Stooping down, he pushed the fabric from the front aside, revealing the Doctor just as Martha had described, aged and frail, his old recognisable attire hanging loosely off his frame, and regardless of his suppressed anger at the Doctor about his mistreatment of Jack, he knew his wasn’t what he deserved.

“Ianto Jones.” Old and tired eyes tracked from his face, down to the strap on his wrist. “That belongs with Martha.”

“She’s fine.” Ianto might not be able to properly read the Doctor but he could still see his fear for his companion in his face.

“You’re here for Jack.” It wasn’t a question. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“I shouldn’t be anywhere else. Jack might be immortal, but he suffers just as much as everyone else. Perhaps even more. At least we have blessing to feel the agony of death only once.” Ianto corrected, firmly. “Anyway, the plan’s been accelerated and we need a distraction so I thought there’s not one much bigger than this.”

He nodded respectively before standing again and turning back towards the lift. “3pm, one week today. Be ready.”

Ianto knew nothing about the layout of the Valiant or where Jack would be being held, but at the same time, he’d never needed help finding Jack from the very first time they’d met.

That hadn’t changed since, and it only took a second to focus and find the white spark that embodied his lover, following the beacon down into the bowels of the ship. He only encountered a handful of other guards enroute, each tased and gently eased to the floor, but it was the one standing in front of a metal cage of room, that once subdued, brought Ianto’s attention to the scene behind the steel grated fencing that made him sick to his stomach.

Jack, virtually unrecognisable under the layers of filth, soot, and blood, hung solely from his wrists in the middle of bare, humid boiler room. His head lay slack against his chest as if asleep if not for the fact his eyes were open. Only they showed no life, and to Ianto, their reconnected bond was the only sign from behind the door of the cage that he was currently alive.

He’d broken the bolt of the cage before he’d noticed himself doing, his anger and anguish fuelling his powers, darting to Jack’s side bracing his frame against his own to try and reduce the strain on his lover’s arms.

 “Jack? You’re okay. It’s me.” Ianto cupped his chin to lift his head, meeting Jack’s eyes directly. “We’ve got a plan, okay? He’s not going to hurt you again.”

A slow blink his only response. It was as if Ianto was lost in his own mind, awake but absent from everything but his memories. Sparked by the notion, Ianto touched their foreheads together tenderly, reaching out with his own mind along their bond, to probe gently against Jack’s own shields. They were fractured, but at the same time stronger than ever if only as a defence against the most recent assaults.

“Jack. Cariad, I’m real.” Jack’s mind was clouded in pain, confusion, and disbelief, and he echoed the same words mentally, hoping for any further reaction from his lover. He barely took notice of the affection as it slipped out, but he didn’t mind. He meant it. “Jack, I’m here to get you out.”

“Ianto?” Jack’s gaze focused, brightening with a hint of life but also with an edge of fear as he began to understand he wasn’t an illusion. “No, you can’t be here.”

“I’m not leaving without you, so don’t even try. Not with you like this.”

His lover shifted slightly, wincing as he pulled on some hidden injury. He saw the determination in Ianto’s stare and nodded slowly, protesting only when Ianto reached for the chain above him, readying to snap it away from the wall.

“Don’t.” Jack whispered, pulling his chain as far as possible – which wasn’t at lot – away from Ianto’s hands. He swallowed, trying to find his voice to continue.  “You don’t have enough power at the moment.”

“I have enough.” Ianto reasoned, adamantly. He’d created lightening with this limited power the other week, he could definitely break metal like he’d been doing for years. But then Jack didn’t know that yet, their last conversation together his only reference.

“The guard should have keys. Don’t waste your gifts unnecessarily.” Jack repeated, more urgently. “You’ll need them to get back out of here.”

“That, surprisingly, is the easy bit.” Ianto claimed, but agreed nonetheless, dragging himself away from Jack to find the described keys in the guard’s pocket. He returned promptly, reassured at with these keys he could more easily release the vile manacles from around Jack’s chafed wrists rather than just the chains.

He wrapped his arms around Jack as the second lock disengaged, supporting his emasculated frame as his legs immediately tried to collapse beneath him, no longer used to holding his full weight. Ianto barely keeping him vertical while Jack gained his balance, simultaneously unfastening the VM on his wrist and pressing it into Jack’s hands, all while never breaking contact with him.

“I think this belongs to you, sir.”

Jack feebly but confidently gripped the proffered object in his fist, staring down in surprised and worry before fumbling to fasten it around his wrist, his fingers not obeying him. “Martha?”

“She’s fine.” Ianto reiterated, reaching to fix the buckle for him. “You’ll see for yourself as soon as we return.”

Jack shook his head, but Ianto could sense his words had provided at least a little reassurance and hope. “Her family. The Master will take this out on them… I can’t…”

“You think he’ll risk losing his only leverage on Martha?”

“Oh, he knows plenty of ways not to kill them. Trust me.” The dejected tone made Ianto want to do anything but trust him, if not to avoid the images that the words brought to mind, and while the faster they left, the less likely the unconscious guards would be spotted and they were caught, but he’d never be able to forgive himself if he returned with Jack but without her family, especially if they would pay for his own actions.

“Ok.” Ianto agreed. “Where are they? Can you walk?”

“I’m okay.” Jack assured then frowned. “I think their cell’s down here, but I never really left here.”

“We’ll find them.”

Searching each engineering unit and cargo hold, Ianto lowered his shields to try find emotions of anyone nearby, allowing them to lead the way.  Jack seemed to be strengthening every second, but was still relying on Ianto at little to steady him as they eventually, only few gangways away from the boiler room he’d found Jack, came across a more familiar but still inexcusable style cell, once again guarded only by one armed UNIT solider, easily overpowered.

The ringing and jangling of the keys when Ianto unlocked the door, as quiet as it was, must have been enough to wake the three occupants of the cell, all sitting up in alarm and uncertainty until they recognised who was there.

“Jack?”

“Did anyone order an ingenious escape plan from nowhere?” Jack grinned, the door of the cell clanking open as family got to their feet. “Ianto Jones, meet Francine and Clive, and the ever-wonderful Tish. The Jones’ meet at last.”

“What’s going on? How….?”

“Told you we’d get out of here, didn’t I?”

“Condition red. Repeat, condition red.” A disembodied voice from above, broke the hopefulness and joy of the reunion, resounding throughout the echoey units.

“We should go, now.” Ianto hurried, looking behind him as alert was quickly followed by the blaring of an alarm and thundering of footprints, and Jack nodded.

“Hold on to each other and make sure you don’t let go. This may be rough.” He added, lifting his wrist to access his newly required VM as bullets began to clang against the metal pipes and cages, barely missing them.

“Oh, here we go again” Before Ianto could even register Jack’s resignation over their bond, he felt a pressure on his back shoving him forward, just as a second round of bullets struck Jack dead centre from behind.

“Shit.” Ianto swore, turning and catching his lover’s body as he fell forward, his hand immediately finding the button Jack had been about to press. “Hold on!” 

The instant he felt hands grab him and Ianto pressed firmly, watching as the world faded for the second time that morning into a blue, electric hue.

NOTES: Here you go, they’re back together but please don’t kill me for the cliff-hanger. Reviews are motive to post again tonight however.

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse)

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Jack and Ianto have reunited – again – at last

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, and I’m also not a doctor so apologies for any medical mistakes. Chapter title taken from song ‘Where the Shadow Ends’ by BANNERS

WORDS: 2310

NOTES: Here you go! As promised, the second chapter today

Chapter 7: …Can you Hear the Breaking of the Dawn?

Paradox date: 29th July 2008 - 5:03am (MST)

The five of them landed awkwardly in the very same place below the mountains that Ianto had previously deserted. The sun had risen, sitting low in the sky above the horizon, and the sandy ground around that a burnt orange colour. He’d always thought the Russian mountains weren’t dry like this, but then a lot had changed recently, the fumes from the labour camps playing havoc on the weather.

The confusion and discomfort from the Jones’ family as they picked themselves up reached him, as he scooted carefully out from under Jack, who’d landed on top of him, motionless in death.

“Where are we?” Clive asked, squinting while looking around at the rocks surrounding them.

“Khokh Mountain Range, Russia.” Ianto explained, checking Jack needlessly, before gathering his frame into his arms, trying to ignore how much lighter he was than normal. He’d always believed Jack revived to a healthy state each time he died, but he’d never considered whether a consecutive number of deaths in a short amount of time would have a longer lasting impact. “We should move, I don’t know if he can track the teleport’s signal, and I don’t want to risk it.”

The trek back up to the entrance to hidden cave took a little longer than it’d taken to head down, the slopes steeper. Ianto took the lead, but he could almost feel the eyes on him from behind.

 “So, who are you? Jack definitely seemed happy to see you.” Francine commented, arching her eyebrow cynically when Ianto slowed. “Though, I know for sure he gave that teleport watch thing to Martha. How did you have it? Have you seen her, is she alright?”

 “Mum! He just saved us.” Tish disputed, quietly. “Perhaps ease up with the questions until…”

“It’s okay, she’s right to be wary.” Ianto interrupted. “I work with Jack, or well I did before all this I guess.”

“There’s no need to downplay it, Ianto. We’re not going to judge. They’re together, romantically.” Tish revealed, shrugging when she saw Ianto’s shock. “I spent a bit of time with him. I tried to help, but we weren’t really allowed to talk, and he was tight-lipped when he did, but he let a few things slip when…”

She paused, grimacing, refusing to finish where that sentence has evidently been heading. That Jack’s mind had at times been so muddled with pain and confusion that he’d not known where he was. They were approaching the entrance now, and Ianto was on the verge of answering the other questions he’d been bombarded with when muffled sounds stopped him short of the last bend.

He pressed himself back against the rocks, the others copying his action concernedly, but listening closely as became clearer, Ianto relaxed recognising the voices. It might be early, but it seemed his plan to be back before anyone else awoke had failed.

“Where are you? Ianto?” That was Tom. Ianto cringed at the volume, and it seemed he wasn’t the only one.

“Shush! Do you want to tell every Toclafane where we are?” Martha voice hissed from the same direction. “I told you; he took the teleport. He could be anywhere.”

“I don’t get why he’d leave without telling us.” Tosh answered and Ianto winced from the guilt that hit him. “That’s Jack’s way, not Ianto’s.”

“Really?” Tom countered. “I know I’ve only known him a few months, but he does give off a bit of a lone wolf vibe sometimes.”

Any denial or confirmation to that the others might have thought of him was missed. Apparently he wasn’t the one only to have recognised the voices. Or at least the one belonging to her daughter, as Francine hurried past him. “Martha!” 

“Mum?” Following, Ianto watched with a small smile as Martha turned towards the sound of her name instinctively identifying the voice she’d heard since birth, before double- taking in surprise as she eventually comprehended what their presence meant.  “Mum! Dad! Tish! How…?”

Martha looked over her parent’s shoulders from where she was hugging them to silently eye Ianto. He could sense her delight and the appreciation rolling off her, but also knew the question weren’t far off. Tosh, however, simply shook her head knowingly as she regarded Jack’s prone form in Ianto’s arms with sorrow.

“I should have guessed.”

“I couldn’t leave him there.” Ianto avowed. “Not when I had the choice.”

“Is he okay? He looks…” Tom asked. He’d stepped forward without anyone noticing, studying Jack with medical concern, and Ianto cursed himself for momentarily forgetting not all of them knew of his immortality. He knew there was no hiding the truth, but still he found his hold shifting almost unconsciously to hide Jack’s pale slack face against his chest.

“No, but he will be.” Ianto answered, protectively. Physically at least, he added silently to himself. Mentally would be a different matter, something only time and care would make possible. “We should get out of the open.”

Entering the far cavern of the cave once again, it was scarcely a minute later that Jack awoke, his revival so abrupt and silent than what he’d been expecting, that Ianto had to fall to the ground to stop him from dropping his lover from the sudden movement.

“Jack! You’re alright. I’ve got you.” His grip tightened, hoping the contact would help Jack calm as usual, yet this time it appeared only to have the opposite effect.

The last few months, touch had only brought pain for Jack, and now a flailing elbow struck hard against Ianto’s jaw as he fought to escape the restricting hold. Ianto’s grasp loosened as he tumbled backward, more from surprise than the force, but Jack took it as his chance to scrabble away from him, breaths coming in sharp panicked gasps.

The sound of them only disturbed him further, Ianto was quick to recover diving after him to wrap his arms back around his lover, only this from behind. His own arms pinned Jack’s immobile as they both lay on their sides on the hard unforgiving floor, and as much as he hated himself for doing so, it was obvious Jack believed he was elsewhere. He was trapped reliving the horrors of death, and Ianto didn’t want to risk him hurt himself.

“No! Get off!” Jack’s screams were hollow and pained, voiceless sobs echoing through Ianto’s mind. From the corner of his eye, he could see Tosh pulling Tom, Martha, and her family from the cavern to leave them both a little privacy, and mostly likely let Jack keep a little dignity from being seen in this state, as justified as it was.

“Jack. It’s me. It’s Ianto.” He whispered into Jack’s ear, refusing to budge against the continued struggles. “Deep breaths, okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No more, please…” This time Jack’s pleas had dropped to no more than a whisper, but somehow that made it worse. Like Jack was giving up the fight.

“Listen to me, Jack.” The use of their mental bond caused the figure in his arms to freeze, finally free from the confines of his living nightmare. “You’re safe, but you need to calm down before you hurt yourself.”

“Ianto? You’re here?”

“I’m here. You’re safe. Breathe.”

When Tosh and Martha cautiously returned five minutes later it was too the sight of them both curled around each other, tear tracks on both faces noticeable even in the minimal light provided by the lanterns. They looked asleep, eyes closed almost peacefully, but Ianto looked up and over his shoulder when they knocked faintly on the wall of the chamber nervously.

“He’s out.” Ianto confirmed, his hand still absentmindingly stroking Jack’s matted hair. “He’s exhausted.”

“Will he be okay? I mean…”

“In time.” He answered, wishing that by simply saying the words it made the true. “Helping to stop the Master will be a gigantic step towards that, but for now smaller things are more important.”

“Like what?” Martha asked. “You brought my family back to me. What can I do in return?”

“You don’t owe me anything.” Ianto assured, but as he tried and failed to use his sleeve to remove one of many streaks of grime from Jack’s forehead, a thought came to mind. “Are there any springs around here? You must be getting fresh water from somewhere?”

“There’s a mineral spring on the other side of the statue. It’s not a hot one, but it works for what we need.”

Perfect. Hot or not, he could always warm the water himself. He gathered his lover up, so he was standing with him once again, relishing that this time he was only sleeping and not dead.

“I’m taking him to get cleaned up. He’s not waking up covered like this again.”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

Waking sluggishly, Jack savoured the peace he was feeling for a long minute as he shifted on the soft material he apparently was lying on. Horizontally, he realised, different to the way he’d become accustomed to as he hung vertically from his chain, and it was that, that made it brain start to focus properly.

Blinking his eyes open, he stared into the gloom that was barely alleviated by a handful of lamps settled around what appeared to be some kind of cave, and for some reason the first thought that came to mind was the sudden appreciation at the lack of metal surrounding him.

His mind was confused, recalling Ianto’s presence on the Valiant and their daring escape while alarms began to blare above them, and perhaps he would have presumed he’d died once again and had only just revived, if not for the further vague memory he had of the feeling of someone, Ianto undoubtedly, lightly washing his arms and face, a sensation he’d missed and longed for recently. Sure enough, sitting up and releasing the blankets covering him, he found himself dressed in new unfamiliar clothes, that while not his usual style, were clean and comfortable.

“Oh!”

Jack startled a little, but eased when spotted Tish entering the cavern, her hands around a bowl of food, steaming hot, the smell bright and delightful. “We weren’t sure you’d be awake yet, but we just had dinner and I figured you’d want to eat when you did.”

“Well, it must have been the glorious smell that woke me.” He teased.

“Well, I have to disappoint a little.” Tish returned, just as jokingly. “It’s still not fish and chips, but I can confirm it’s a lot better than what I usually give you.”

Jack took the bowl as she spoke, beaming both her words and the sight of the delicious strips of dried meat and boiled vegetables in front of him. He wasn’t considerably hungry, and knew he shouldn’t eat a lot immediately, but was also aware of how malnourished he was, frequent revivals or not, and took a few slow bites before asking his next question.

“Where’s Ianto?” While their bond was strong and meant he was close, he wanted nothing more to see his lover, and even as he asked, he reached out mentally, Ianto answering in return.

“He was helping cook for everyone.” Tish answered anyway, unaware. “I’ll tell him you’re awake.”

Jack grinned, cryptically. “No need. He’ll know. He always does.”

Predictably, he’d only eaten half the bowl before the others began to filter into the cavern. Ianto joined his side immediately their shoulder brushing as their hands sought each other’s, while his eyes scanned the small crowd, passing Martha and her parents, both out of their horrendous serving uniforms and overalls. He studied briefly an unfamiliar man stand self-consciously at the back - Tom Milligan Ianto provided over their bond at his silent question - before settling on a sight he’d hoped but not imagined he’d see again.

Toshiko Sato, a survivor. She sent him a warming smile which he returned - that was until he noted the absence of another two presences.

“Gwen? Owen?” Jack suddenly didn’t feel like finishing, swallowing the mouthful he was on as he placing the rest on the ground, with Ianto shared worried glance with Tosh not helping.

“We don’t know about Gwen; she went looking for Rhys at the beginning.” Ianto finally answered, squeezing Jack’s hand in his. “Owen’s safe though, last we heard at least.”

“The Master took joy in flaunting how the Hub exploded. I thought…”

“We escaped. The lower levels survived the blast.” Tosh added. “I think we did rather well to be honest, saved quite a few hundred people from the camps, just as Torchwood’s meant to. That’s why Owen stayed. After we knew more of what was happening and needed to find Martha, we knew we couldn’t abandon post.”

“So, you know the truth about the Paradox.” Jack surmised. It hadn’t taken long during his enforced spare time to figure out the truth, and he turned to Ianto, remembering what he’d said on the Valiant. “You said there was a plan?”

His lover nodded, and the next half hour was spent catching him, and Martha’s family, up on what they’d discovered as well as The Doctor’s initial plan.

“However, with Ianto and Tosh, we no longer need to tell the world by voice.” Martha finished. “Not when Archangel can do it for us.”

“But doesn’t that still take away the public’s choice in the matter.” Francine asked. “We’d be as bad as him.”

“Archangel doesn’t control, otherwise all of us right now wouldn’t have this choice in rebelling against Saxon.” Ianto returned. “It subconsciously offers suggestions, yes, and just have to believe in how more inclined people will be at following a path of hope rather than destruction after death he’s caused.”

NOTES: One more chapter to be posted tomorrow! (Then I really need to start my Uni work lol). Please Review, and enjoy your evening!!!!

Chapter Text

TITLE: Cloaked in Shadows

PART FOUR OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse) ­­

CHAPTER SUMMARY: The plan is in motion…how does it play out?

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Torchwood or Doctor, and I’m also not a doctor so apologies for any medical mistakes. Chapter title taken from song ‘Where the Shadow Ends’ by BANNERS

WORDS: 2850

NOTES: Final Chapter! Enjoy! Sorry it's up late on here, the maintenance blocked me legit as I was about to post ahahaha

Chapter 8: The Shadow’s End

Paradox date: 5th August 2008

The following week between leaving to rescue Jack, and when their plan would be ready, was a commotion between the daily tasks needed to survive in the cave, alongside the slow constructing of each step, including the tense but necessary mission Tosh and Tom underwent midweek, breaking into the shipyard to retrieve the technology required to access the Archangel network.

Whenever they had a free hour however, Ianto spent his time with Jack, practising the use of his gift and explaining the differences now that the Lost Lands were closed. Truthfully, he didn’t exactly need the practise but in some moments the similarities of the times to many years before when Ianto had just joined Torchwood – when they’d had one on one training session, made him almost forget the reality of the situation, with the added bonus of distracting Jack from reminiscing on other, more recent, memories.

It also helped him stress less about the possibility that he might have to use his abilities more openly if things went down the drain. Tosh was an unknowing hand in that, joining a few sessions intrigued with getting to know more on what he could do.

Nonetheless, 3pm on the chosen day came both too soon but not fast enough, and the bait was finally cast.

The Master had made it known, loudly and threateningly, on all broadcasting platforms, that there was a reward for any and all information on the whereabouts of the escaped prisoners – irate at the jailbreak occurring under his very nose. So, once again, getting caught was the easy part.

“It's him! It's him! Oh my God, it's him! It's the Master. He's here.” The voices of the children they’d rescued indicated his arrival. “But he never comes to Earth. He never walks upon the ground.”

“I can see you! Out you come. Come and meet your Master. Anybody? Nobody? No? Nothing?” The guards behind them, raised their weapons on his orders, aiming at the crowd. “Surrender or they fire. Ask yourself, what would the Doctor do?”

Jack shared a glance between Martha and Ianto. It was time.

Martha took the lead, pulling the TARDIS key from her head and leaving the shadows, Jack and Ianto following behind.

“Oh, yes. Good girl. He trained you well.” The Master praised gleefully. “Oh, and the freak and his rescuer. Hope you enjoyed the fleeting taste of freedom because it ends now.”

Ianto spied the infinitesimal signal for his men to fire, and reacted on instinct, drawing upon the least amount of power necessary, to slow his perception of time just enough that he could pull Jack from the line of fire, without drawing attention as to how. As it was the bullet missed Jack’s forehead by less than a millimetre.

“There’s no need for that.” Ianto growled, standing in front of Jack. “ We’ll come quietly if you don’t try that again.”

“Oh well, I promise.” The Master vowed, playfully reluctant in his tone. “I suppose I can hold off for a little while, because soon you won’t be around to care. But when you die, the Doctor should be witness, hmm?”

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

“Citizens of Earth, rejoice and observe.” The Master stood above them on the staircase of the Valiant’s flight deck, addressing the cameras with pompous victory, before turning to Martha. ”Your teleport device in case you thought I'd forgotten.”

The main show hadn’t even started yet, and already Jack couldn’t help but smile at the Master’s obliviousness of what had been occurring without his knowledge, and watched his reaction when he instead unbuckled the strap of his VM. Only, rather than placing it in the Master’s awaiting hand, he chucked it sideways into an empty corner of the flight deck. He’d only just regained it, and in the wrong hands it could be dangerous.

“Now, wasn’t that childish.” The Master sniped, but otherwise ignored it, just as Jack had predicted. ”What was that meant to achieve?”

Jack shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Kneel.” 

The trio ignored him, and this time it was Ianto that challenged him. “Do you really think you just happened to catch us? You didn’t even know I’d survived until a week ago. Then you suddenly get an anonymous tip, after all this time? We wanted to be here.”

“Oh, but you're still going to die.”

“But don’t you want to know why?”

“Oh, go on then.” The Master sounded exasperated, but was only naïve in his belief that nothing could stop him. “Tell me.”

“Of all your supposed strength and power, you egotism at being elected and controlled the world with fear,” Martha started. “Nobody knows that’s it’s all a lie.”

“You didn’t gain that power yourself; you’ve used puppets to drive it for you, using a dying race’s desire to survive against them, backed up by a technology that will now become your one weakness.” Ianto continued. “This whole time, you’ve had messages broadcasted to the world, helping to acquire the people’s trust and obedience, but what would happen, if that message was just to think of just one word, at one specific time.”

“Nothing will happen!” The Master claimed, flippantly. “Is that your weapon? Prayer?”

“Right across the world, one word, created and boosted by the power of the Archangel Network. Every single person on Earth, thinking the same thing at the same time. And that word is Doctor.”

It was in that single word that all their hope lay. Down on earth, Tosh and Tom were watching the livestream, awaiting that specific cue to press the button which would either confirm or deny whether their idea would succeed.

“Stop it. No, no, no, no, you don't.” The Master had at last seemed to have clocked on to their plan, but it was too late. In the corner, where the Doctor sat silently in his wheelchair, a glow began to surround him, the crowds on the monitors beginning to recite in unison. “Stop this right now. Stop it! I order you to stop!”

“I've had months to tune myself into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices. The one thing you can't do. Stop them thinking.” The Doctor pushed himself to stand, his body slowly reverting to the one they all recognised, his strength also returning. “Tell me the human race is degenerate now, when they can do this.”

“No!” His laser screwdriver withdrew to fire toward his foe, only for him to be protected from the energy field surrounded, and he turned toward the trio instead. “Then I'll kill them all.”

The Doctor however only stretched out his hand, the energy used to knock the screwdriver from the Master's hand. “And you know what happens now. You wouldn't listen and you know what I'm going to say.”

“You can't do this. You can't do it. It's not fair!” The Master was almost curled in a ball against the wall, as the Doctor whispered only a few words, inaudible to everyone else, but something that petrified the only other survivor  of his species. “My children.”

“Protect the paradox. Protect the paradox. Protect the paradox.”

The cries from the Toclafane echoed as they descended from the sky advancing directly on the Valiant, the view from the flight deck becoming dark with metal.  “We've all six billion spheres heading right for us.”

“Captain, the paradox machine!”

“You men, with me.” Jack ordered, immediately jumping to the Doctor’s command. “Ianto, my VM!”

Ianto’s directions, if not spoken, were clear from the pictures flashing across his mind, as the pair of them raced to the lift behind them, the Vortex Manipulator lying where it’d been thrown in the opposite direction, however that was no hinderance to Ianto, as a single gust of wind swept the object towards them, Jack plucking it from the air. 

The route to where the TARDIS was held was uneventful, but when the final set of doors open, the hope of not being stopped was lost, confronted by the sight of three spheres are guarding the TARDIS, and the guards fell short, using the walls as shelter. “How do we get in, we’ll get slaughtered.”

Jack shrugged. “Yeah, happens to me a lot.”

“And I really wish it wouldn’t, so please try not too today.” Ianto sniped, and Jack grimaced, guilty. Both, however, knew there was really only one way forward. They broke cover firing, the UNIT guards staying back as reinforcements. The bullets wouldn’t penetrate their shell, but it would give them time, yet they still cut it close as they slammed through the door of the police box.

“Sorry, old girl, but hopefully this will make you feel better.” Jack emptied his machine gun clip with no precise aim, the paradox machine exploding under its assault, the hum in the back of both their minds calming, sending out something of a thank you just as Ianto’s sleeve was gripped by his lover, both teleporting once again.

“And back we go.”

Jack’s words as they reappeared beside Martha and The Doctor were, not even a second later, a double entendre as papers flew everywhere and the ship rocked with something that definitely wasn’t natural turbulence.

“Everyone get down! Time is reversing!” The sky outside transitioned between night and day rapidly, the spheres outside vanishing from sight, the people in the crowds on the monitors following, as the streets reverted from their ransacked states back to their previous array.

“The paradox is broken. We've reverted back, five months, one day. Two minutes past eight in the morning.” The Doctor flick a few controls, retuning the radio that was reporting the President’s assassination, before switching it off alongside the cameras. “Just after the President was killed, but just before the spheres arrived. Everything back to normal. Planet Earth restored. None of it happened. The rockets, the terror. It never was.”

“What about the spheres?”

“Trapped at the end of the universe.” The Doctor returned. “We're at the eye of the storm. The only ones who'll ever know.”

Jack didn’t know what to make of that. The people below were safe, alive and free from the haunting knowledge of the devastation that had occurred. Yet, those things had still happened, he’d still remember them, forever.

The Master had taken the distraction of the reversal, however, to flee for the door, but he didn’t get far, seemingly hitting an invisible wall. To the others in the room, it looked as if he’d simply tripped humiliatingly, but Jack knew better and smiled as Ianto dropped the shield his fist unclenching at his side. 

“Perfect.”

“I try, Sir.”

“Whoa, big fella! You don't want to miss the party. Cuffs.” Jack ordered aloud, pulling the one he’d come to fear to his feet. He’d needed this exchange of command for a while, and perhaps now he could start healing properly. Alongside Ianto, back at Torchwood with things as they should be. “So, what do we do with this one?”

(A/N: I cut this here so imagine it works similar to how it happens in canon with Lucy, but as I haven’t watched what happened with the Master’s revival episode I didn’t want to mess up that plot.)

~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~

10th March 2008

Three days – but actually a week – later, Ianto leaned against a railing overlooking the Plass with Jack Martha and the Doctor beside him. He was starting to get confused by the different time skips (how did they keep them straight) but this had been the earliest the TARDIS could drop them after the clean-up on the Valiant was over.

“Time was, every single one of these people knew your name. Now they've all forgotten you.”

“Good.” The Doctor countered shortly to Martha.

“Sometimes, it’s better to work in the shadows. Avoids complications.” Jack added, then pushed off the guardrail, readying to leave. “Speaking of which though, back to work for us. Like you said, Doctor, responsibility.”

“Defending the Earth. Can't argue with that.”

Ianto did the same, stuffing his hands into his pockets, glad to be back in his suit that the TARDIS had replicated, alongside Jack’s greatcoat, but he got pulled back by Jack’s next brazened protest, watching as the Doctor exposed his VM on his wrist, before retrieving his sonic.

“Hey, I need that!”

“I can't have you walking around with a time travelling teleport. You could go anywhere, twice. The second time to apologise.”

“At least let him keep the teleport function. There’s no risk to timelines that way.” He caught the Doctor’s gaze, as if daring him to remember one of their last conversations. “You owe him that much.”

Martha and Jack both stood awkwardly in the tense silence, glancing back and forth between them, but eventually the Doctor agreed with a slight nod, dropping Jack’s wrist, the latter looking at his lover in shock.

“Ianto? What did you say to him?”

“He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” Ianto didn’t know whether the Doctor had read his expression, or was doing something psychic with his Time Lord abilities. You never know with the Doctor, but Ianto wasn’t going to ask and interrupt this apparent, rare, apology. “You're an impossible thing, Jack, and there might not be anything I can do, but none of what happened was on you, and for that I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“If you ever want to travel again someday, you’ll always be welcome.” The Doctor turned now to face Ianto. “Same for you.”

With that they both ducked under the railing, to head for the Water Tower, but they’d barely made it a few steps when Jack paused and turned back.

“But I keep wondering. What about aging?” He asked, nervously. “Because I can't die, but I keep getting older. The odd little grey hair, you know? What happens if I live for a million years?”

“I really don't know.”

“Okay, sorry, couldn’t help asking. I used to be a poster boy when I was a kid living on the Boeshane Peninsula. Tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me.”

Ianto had heard the story maybe once before – of the most of Jack’s tales he shared, he barely mentioned his childhood – but as they both continued on for the Hub, it was clear both Martha and the Doctor hadn’t and it evidently meant something – at least that’s what he deduced from the loud gasps and exclamation of disbelief from behind them. Jack, however, didn’t react.

“They suspect something, you know that right?” He probed silently, falling into step beside him. “Do you think they’ve met a future you?”

“I don’t know, but with stuff like that, it’s better not knowing.” Jack replied, regretfully, instead changing the subject. “Thank you, by the way. For convincing him about the teleport.”

“Figured it’d come in useful at some point, even without the time-traveling. Anyway, he doesn’t know that that’s my speciality. Well, eventually.”

“Ianto Jones, you sly dog.” Jack teased, aloud grinning playfully. “Your powers back then? The Lost Lands have reopened?”

“I think so. I mean, I feel like they’re back.” Ianto returned. “I’m surprised we haven’t been confronted by them already. They told me it’d be a year, and I refused to listen.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t, and while they don’t know remember anymore, so does everyone else.” Jack then paused as if realising something new. ”Wait, if all that practise you got , made you that strong without the power of the Lost Lands, do you think…”

“Jack. Let’s just get back and reassure the team we’re still alive. I think we’ve both had enough excitement for a little while - at least.”

Later that evening, however, once they were curled up in the quiet of Ianto’s bedroom after emotional reunions with both the team and Estelle (who thankfully hadn’t been too shocked at him apparently vanishing from the forest only to appear on screen on the Valiant only seconds later from her perception), Ianto reflected on that conversation.

Hopefully things would now start to settle once more – or as settled as possible in Torchwood - but it didn’t mean everything would go back to normal. His power was certainly stronger and unsettled, itching to be released, and Jack would need helping adjusting and processing his ordeal, but first there was one key question on his mind.

“Jack?”

He felt the neck muscles of his lover beside him swallow heavily. “Hmm?”

“You know you could have gone with him if you’d wanted.” Ianto mumbled. “I know you wouldn’t want it to be for long, but you deserve a break from Torchwood after a hundred plus years here, and after the recent…. I mean we could have managed.”

“Ianto?” His name was the echo of Jack’s a few second ago.

“Yeah?”

“Stop trying to get rid of me.”

NOTES: This part is finally finished, hope it was as you expected! I’ll eventually get around to Season 2 AU but it might take a while with Uni, and other fandoms I’m in the middle of, but thank you for sticking around this long, and for the amazing reviews.