Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Jack visited Ianto almost every day if he could manage it, but especially today. July 10th, the day he lost Ianto to the 456. That was 2009, and now it was 2013. The headstone was slightly worn, little tracks from vines that Jack had ripped away as soon as he had seen them. 

He ran his fingers over the inscription. Ianto Jones. 1983 - 2009. Died saving the world. Of course, Ianto wasn’t actually here. As per protocol, his body was cryo-frozen in the Torchwood hub. And if they ever found any technology to bring people back, Ianto would be the second person he would use it on - the first person to check it was safe, and then Ianto. 

Today though, he was visiting for a different reason. It sounded cheesy, even in his head, but there was definitely something different about Ianto. He wasn’t just someone Jack was with for a few nights and then never saw again. As much as he had hated to admit it then, (and as much as he regretted never saying how he felt before it was too late), they were kind of dating.  

17th of July 2013. Jack was known to hate commitment, but the legalisation of gay marriage was still a big thing for him, even though the only person he would have considered marrying was buried underneath him, or at least he was figuratively buried underneath him. 

In another universe, he would have been in the hub. He would have gotten down on his knee and presented a ring to Ianto, and they would have been together. In this universe, he put a ring on the grass in front of the headstone and sobbed, alone, in the middle of a graveyard. 

He picked the ring up, pocketed it, and walked back to his car. He’d put it in Ianto’s box of things in the Torchwood vault when he got back. 

He leant against the cool metal of the car, ran his hands over his face and got ready to go back to the hub.

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Ianto had been waiting. That was what the Doctor had told him, stay put and wait for him to come back. Of course, Ianto had very quickly realised that what the Doctor actually meant was ‘wait here until I remember about your existence and come back for you’.

The issue was, he couldn’t even hold a grudge against the man, because without him he wouldn’t be there to hold the grudge in the first place.

All he remembered was dying in Jack’s arms and waking up on this alien planet which was almost completely unlike earth. He later learnt (and it wasn’t for lack of asking) that the Doctor had saved him using some time loop thing which was too complicated for the human brain to comprehend and brought him to this planet while another version of him was, presumably dead in the Torchwood employee graveyard, aka the freezer. This planet was apparently the only one with the correct atmosphere to keep him alive in the last moments between inhaling the virus and dying.

And he also couldn’t die. Which when he was younger would have seemed absolutely amazing, but having hung around Jack for the better part of ten years, he now saw it for the curse it was.

Apparently the Doctor had left to go and find Jack or something to cure Ianto and bring him back to earth, but Ianto wouldn’t put it past the Time Lord to have gone and gotten distracted for entire centuries.

This planet was…interesting. He’d originally thought it was abandoned, but at the 6th theme park teleport gate in a row on one high street he’d started to realise that everyone was just spending all day, every day at what seemed to be almost exact reconstructions of UK theme parks. The only difference was that every single park seemed to be…well, overdecorated for pride month. He’d tried to go on SAW the ride at ‘Thope Park’, but all the corpses were spewing rainbow coloured blood and it just wasn’t as scary.

His main concern, mainly thought about in the seemingly endless queues that were just his life now, was that Jack still believed him dead. Half of him thought Jack will have forgotten about me by now (and for Jack’s sake he almost hoped it was true), and the other half of him was thinking I should not be having fun while my kind-of-but-not-really boyfriend is grieving my death.

It was on probably his 10th or 20th visit to obnoxiously-bright-alton-towers that the Doctor returned for him.

The man must have a sense of humour, Ianto thought, as the Doctor turned to him at the top of the Smiler lift hill, pulled back his hood and grinned, distracting Ianto just as the ride dropped and then corkscrewed. At the end of the ride, the Doctor pulled a vial of clear liquid out of his trouser pocket and handed it to Ianto.

‘Antidote for the virus you were exposed to in Thames House. I’ll take you back in the TARDIS, and you’ll have to drink it as soon as you exit. I’ll try to get you back just after you ‘died’.’ He said the last part making quotation marks with his fingers. Ianto was not convinced that they’d end up anywhere near 2009, but crossed his fingers subtly as they entered the TARDIS

He’d heard a bit about it, and had obviously been in it before, but that time he’d been a bit too busy trying not to die to notice the true scale of the place. The doctor grinned at him, waiting for his reaction.

‘This is ridiculous.’ Ianto gasped. Physics seemed jumbled, everything he’d ever learnt was now wrong because of this alien spaceship. The Doctor pouted. ‘You didn’t say the thing! Everyone says the thing!’

‘What?’

‘You need to say that it’s bigger on the inside!’

‘But I know that!’
‘Aww, you’re no fun.’

The Doctor turned back to the console, and suddenly Ianto was thrown against the wall as the TARDIS moved through space. They landed as abruptly as they’d left, and the Doctor checked the screen.

‘2013.’

‘What? I’ve been dead for four years! Can’t you take me back to a little bit earlier?’

‘Sorry, no. Paradoxes and… things.’

Ianto uncorked the vial gripped in his hand and opened the door, drinking it all in one gulp. He looked around. He seemed to be in Britain at least, going by the church and graveyard next to him. He saw a man standing by a car, and walked over to ask for a lift. As he got closer, though, he realised that it was a very familiar face. Somehow, out of all the millions of places they could have landed, he’d ended up just meters away from Jack.

Chapter Text

Jack leant against the cool metal of the car, ran his hands over his face and got ready to go back to the hub when he heard a familiar noise. The first thing he felt was anger, and then curiosity. He needed to know why the Doctor had abandoned him to face the 456 alone. He started to run towards the noise, but crashed into someone and fell over.

‘Sorry.’ he mumbled, picking himself up and continuing to run.

‘Jack!’ said the man he’d crashed into, and Jack wondered if he had finally gone insane. Because that sounded exactly like Ianto, who was very definitely dead.

He turned around to see the man staring at him, and Jack slowly walked back towards him. He hugged Ianto tightly, both to check that he was real and to stop him from disappearing. ‘How are you here?’ Jack asked through his tears.

‘The Doctor saved me. I was on a really weird planet for a while-’ but he was cut off by Jack’s lips pressing against his.

‘I missed you.’ said Jack once he’d pulled away.

‘Me too. But - I died in this universe. I’ve been dead for four years. Surely things have changed. What’s been happening?’

‘Well, as hard as it might be to believe, the world is still turning. Even harder to believe, I haven’t dated anyone since you… left. We rebuilt Torchwood, me and Gwen. Even found Myfanwy flying around Cardiff. Oh, and I can do this.’

He pulled out the small box from his back pocket. ‘Look, I know it’s really cliche and you’re legally dead, so we’d need to sort that out, and you only just got back and it’s probably a bit too soon but would you maybe like to get married? To me, I mean. Not just in general.’

Ianto didn’t reply, but he kissed Jack again, and Jack took that as a yes.

Just then, they heard the noise of the TARDIS disappearing. Jack took off running again, and banged open the doors in the last second before the machine disappeared.

‘Doctor, don’t think you’re running away now. Come back to Torchwood, meet my team. Besides, you have a lot of explaining to do about how you saved Ianto.’

The Doctor looked sheepish. ‘I wasn’t running away, I was more… walking very fast to escape before chaos ensues.’

‘Well stop it. Come back with us. We’ve got a lot to talk about.’