Title: The Dog and the Bone
Author: Clarity
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Ten, Jack/Ten (Ten/Other)
Series: 1) The Slave and the Lion, 2) The Ant and the Chrysalis
Note: Third in 'The Aesop Fables Series'. This is a bit weird... you have been warned!
Summary: Jack and the Doctor may have reversed a year, but some events are irreversible. Ianto finds his life suddenly changed more than he ever thought possible.

***

The silence of the morgue seemed like it would stretch out forever, past all boundaries of perception, relentlessly going on and on.

Then footsteps came and broke it, thunderous and pounding so that they echoed all the way around the cavern.

Jack's eyes flittered up only for a second before returning to the body on the tray hanging out of door 007. That had been the one reserved for Jack until he'd gone and proven that he was never going to be making good use of it. Apparently the team had thought it fitting that Ianto be placed there.

Whether that was an act of kindness or an intentional reminder that Jack was responsible for it coming into use, he couldn't quite fathom.

The footsteps stopped as the Doctor came to a halt beside the body, on the opposite side to Jack. He stared down at it, expression completely unreadable except for the slight frown.

It had only been three days since he and Jack had left for Torchwood, but it had been a good six months for them. Neither of them had expected this and the stone cold shock had rendered them both speechless for a good long while. The Doctor had retreated to the TARDIS and Jack had hung back in his office for a while, trying to get up the courage to go see for himself.

The irony of it was, Ianto had been with them the whole time; the silent presence standing between the two men wherever they went. Neither of them had been quite able to escape their memories of him, although Jack had made more of a valiant stab at it than the Doctor in his constant pursuit of a closer relationship. They had both wordlessly been anticipating returning back and seeing him again, and making the presence a reality. Now they were back, there was only emptiness.

Ianto was dead. Cold and grey, his body packaged away into cold storage.

And it made no sense.

'I want to bring him back,' Jack said, breaking the deafening silence around them deliberately.

The Doctor blinked hard and gave him a searching stare.

'I need to...' he began and cleared his throat before continuing, 'I need to find him. Tell him to come back again. He's dead because he thought I didn't...' Jack swallowed and lowered his eyes.

'Did you?' the Doctor asked, folding his arms across his chest.

Jack's head snapped up to him, and the Doctor pressed his lips closed. There were a lot of things he wanted to say to him, things he'd been holding in for six long months, but now wasn't the right time. That would wait.

'You think I didn't want him because I wanted you more?'

'I think you want a lot of things.'

A huff met that supposition. 'Yeah well, right now one of those things is to look into the heart of the TARDIS. I want to find him.'

As Jack anticipated, the Doctor looked immediately horrified and ready to tell him just how ridiculous a notion that was.

'Hear me out,' he continued, quickly. 'I once asked Ianto what I looked like to the vortex. What I was.' Jack paused to blink back a stray tear, remembering lying in bed in the darkness, wrapped around Ianto, their fingers comfortably entwined, just talking through the night. 'The gist of what he told me is that I'm a hole in time and space. The vortex can't see into me or touch any part of me. It won't be like it was with Rose because it won't be able to take hold of me. I can look in but it can't look back. I'm hoping I'll be able to see inside far enough to find him, call him. Tell him... tell him he needs to come back.'

The Doctor looked aside with a heavy sigh.

'Look, I know it's risky, and I know you hate the idea...'

'Do it,' the Doctor said, suddenly, and couldn't help but smile a little at Jack's complete expression of shock that he was agreeing to that. Ordinarily, Jack would have been right. He wouldn't ever consent to his meddling with something so potentially damaging to the entire universe. This was no ordinary person at stake though, and if there was a chance it meant Ianto would no longer be dead, he'd take it.

He watched Jack lovingly press a kiss to Ianto's lips and stroke his cold cheek.

'I'll stay here in case it works,' the Doctor said. 'Just tell the TARDIS who this is for and she'll open for you. She... she'll want him back to I suspect.'

Jack nodded and made a run for the door, not stopping for him to change his mind. Once he'd gone and silence was restored, the Doctor turned back to Ianto and looked pained.

Letting Jack do that was stupid. Staying with Ianto when he really should stick close to Jack in case things went wrong and he had to sacrifice a regeneration again was stupid too. However, it fitted the disturbing pattern he had been noticing more and more as time went by.

He might be more than a little obsessed.

When he'd woken up in the TARDIS after Ianto had somehow reached into his mind and given him a few moments peace, he'd wanted to run as far as he could away from that place and never stop. He supposed it had been fear making him want to run. But Ianto was never far from his thoughts. When he looked at Jack, he didn't see him as wrong anymore, but nor did he see him as his friend. Instead he saw someone who had been loved by Ianto and who had still left him behind. The Doctor thought he should be flattered that he'd done that for him. In fact, he had considered experimenting in reciprocating Jack's obvious feelings for him. He couldn't deny a twinge of desire at the thought, even if it was a distant one, well trained out of his system over centuries. The problem was, he didn't want Jack like that, not really. There was only one name on his lips when he woke up in the night and he honestly didn't know what he was feeling or why.

It wasn't his style to mention any of this stuff aloud, of course. All Jack had seen of it was his moodiness and how much more of a chore going on seemed to become for him with each passing day. If Jack had known it was because he was longing to reach out and connect with Ianto again, the Doctor thought he might have been much less trusting than he was, even if he didn't consider his attraction to be on a far more spiritual level than a prurient one.

A little tap in his pocket and his sonic screwdriver covertly overloaded the CCTV camera trained on him. When the red light fizzled out on it, he leaned over and kissed Ianto's cold forehead, tenderly. It was so very wrong that this almighty being, this monster in a child's body, could possibly be dead. He could almost believe that he was just sleeping, seeming so peaceful there, like the calm before a storm. The Doctor still didn't really understand what Ianto really was or what he had done to him to open his eyes so profoundly, even for a short time. All he knew was, he needed him to be alive again. He just... needed him.

While he waited, Jack ran, not stopping to answer his team's questions, not stopping even as he nearly bowled someone off their feet on the Plass. He went straight for the TARDIS and leapt inside, hitting the central console dead on. Jack wheezed out what he wanted to do, hoping the ship would understand him. For a few moments, he didn't think it had. But then it opened up to him like a venus fly trap, flooding the place with light.

Jack took a moment to catch his breath, mentally preparing himself, before looking directly into the heart of the TARDIS; into the vortex itself.

He had to push and struggle against it to force himself into the light, and all the while he was calling out to Ianto, hoping against hope that he'd hear him and know what to do. But it was hard to keep control and all too soon he found himself spiralling into it, out of control, falling too fast.

Then something seemed to wrap around him and hold him steady. Everything slowed and he found himself floating in a place of white light, fire and what seemed like mirrors, reflecting him back as a black and empty outline of a man.

Whatever was holding him pulling back and the light and fire swirled in front of him to form a human shape. 'What are you doing here?' it asked, seemingly in his mind. 'It is not for anyone to tread this way. Not even the universe's greatest exception to every rule.'

If he hadn't have been so frantic and more than a little frightened, he might have taken that description to heart. 'I'm looking for someone.'

'That much is obvious,' it said and something in the way it was said, dry with a hint of wit, clued Jack in immediately.

'Ianto? Is that you?'

'Sort of.'

Jack tried to reach out and touch him but the distance was not what he thought it was. Even though he seemed so close, he was also an eternity away. 'What's that suppose to mean?'

'This Ianto is not the one you seek.'

'You're not... oh.' It became immediately obvious with that who he had found. 'You're the other Ianto. From the year I reversed.'

'Your disappointment is profoundly flattering.'

'Where's my Ianto?'

The being flittered for a moment, like a bird's wing and then reformed as it was before. 'This Ianto was also your Ianto once. You did not return for this Ianto.'

'I couldn't. The Master...'

'It is not a case of could and couldn't. More of will and wouldn't. Your will is not tied to us. You want another.'

'No... yes, but...'

'When we were young our father read stories to us, under a tree, beside a brook not far from our home. The stories of Aesop. Now that we are what we are, those stories inform the workings of the universe. Strange, really.' The vortex-Ianto seemed to circle around him, yet stayed still at the same time. 'There once was a dog with a treasured bone. But when he passed over a bridge and looked into the water, he caught sight of his reflection and believed he saw a better bone in the jaws of another. The dog dropped his bone in pursuit, only to find himself with neither. Do you understand?'

Jack tried to, if only to humour him, but it really didn't make much sense to him in the context of what he wanted.

'Reflections can be false. You see what you desire and misjudge what is real. That is why you have lost that which you treasured.'

Finally the penny dropped. 'You're saying I'm the dog and I've lost Ianto for going after the Doctor?'

'Yes.'

'I don't accept that. It's a false analogy and you know it. I want him back. I know you can send him back. You did it before.'

'We did.'

'Right. Then do it again.'

'That's not possible.'

A vein of nervousness passed through Jack and he forced it down, determined not to back down on this. 'Why?'

'We cannot die. We cannot differ in this. But he at least can rest. He is resting.'

'Then wake him up,' he snapped, getting exasperated.

'Not here. It was not safe for two of one kind to be so close for too long. He is resting in the darkness. It's beyond my power to call him back. The vortex cannot tread there.'

Jack stared at him, the strange formation of a man he knew, yet not, trying to comprehend. 'In the darkness? You mean that place I always go to when I get killed?'

'It is the natural place for the dead. Or perhaps we should say, the resting. He cannot be reached there by the vortex. We are sorry.' He took a step forwards and the fire and light formed into something more solid; almost human. Jack finally saw Ianto standing before him. 'Understand our nature, Jack. He is more human, I more vortex, but we are unique souls. I may go into your world through him exactly as he may enter the vortex through me. We are always connected. Always one in two.'

'I'm not sure what you're saying,' Jack admitted.

'I was once your Ianto. Before you left us.... me.'

Finally, he got it. 'Oh. You... you want to come back instead?' He didn't know why he sounded so deflated. This was Ianto too, and he knew it was, but Jack couldn't escape the feeling that it just wouldn't be the same.

'That at least is within my power. To stretch. We desire that you are never alone. And... we desire to teach you about reflections.'

Jack shrugged. He wasn't really sure what to say, because he was torn in half trying to decide if he could settle for what would be, to him at least, a different Ianto than the one he wanted back. 'Well ah...' he replied, hesitantly, really not sure if it was a good idea or not, 'if you're all I have left of him...'

Suddenly, he felt like he'd been dropped on a bungee chord and was springshot back upwards. Everything became a blur and he flailed and shouted, not sure where he was or how to regain control. There was an explosion and he found himself being catapulted across the TARDIS, landing in a twitching heap on the floor.

Every part of his body was aching but he didn't have time to listen to the pain. He headed straight out of the door and broke into a limping run back across the Plass.

*

The Doctor gasped as he thought he saw the dead body before him jolt. For a few moments, he thought he had imagined it. He pressed the body and found it as cold and unmoving as before, and cursed himself for being so stupid.

Then it twitched again and this time he was sure. 'Ianto?' he asked, anxiously, leaning over him.

Suddenly, he was blinded as a burst of light, more powerful than any sun he had looked into or any star he had brushed by, burst into the room. The Doctor shielded his eyes and stumbled back, completely blinded. He stumbled around, not sure where to go or what to do. There was no way to open his eyes, it was so incredibly bright.

He slid on his feet and then slipped over onto one knee, clumsily. Something warm slid into his hand and the light was gone. The Doctor squinted his eyes open, his vision swimming all over the place, and saw Ianto leaning over him.

The Doctor gasped and then laughed with sheer disbelief . 'He did it. I don't believe it!' He pulled Ianto down to his knees as well and put his arms around him. Without thinking about it he held his face in his hands and kissed his forehead again, overcome with a giddy kind of joy which nearly made him cry.

Ianto clung on and leaned in, resting his head on his shoulder. 'Doctor,' he sighed.

After a long few moments just enjoying holding Ianto in his arms, marvelling at how warm and soft and alive he now was, the Doctor felt eyes on him and turned to see Jack in the doorway of the morgue, looking in a way which could only be described as jealous.

'You did it,' he said, dumbly, smiling against Jack's suspicious glare. He tried to pull away but Ianto wasn't going let him go.

Jack walked the line towards them, his gaze indelibly fixed on the Doctor with a sternness that made his eyes look sharp. 'Ianto?' he asked, kneeling down beside them.

His head turned a little but he didn't open his eyes once.

'Ianto, it's me. Look at me.'

'I am looking at you,' he replied, calmly.

'Uh, well, your eyes aren't open, so...'

Ianto frowned and slowly, very slowly, opened them up. 'I forgot,' he muttered. 'I forgot what it is to be this way. We are... so small.'

Jack pulled back a little, warily. He knew that technically, there should be little difference between this Ianto and the one he had known, but he still felt like he wanted to pull away from him. The eyes looking at him were too distant, too shiny; looking through him instead of at him - almost exactly the way Ianto had looked at him when he'd been too closely connected to the vortex by the Torchwood Three TARDIS. Just... strange.

He got to his feet and stood over them, arms folded, making it abundantly clear that he wanted them stand up too. When the Doctor didn't seem to notice, being too busy staring at Ianto, he cleared his throat and glared. Only then did the Time Lord see him and carefully prise himself away to help Ianto to his feet.

'Okay Doc,' Jack said, putting his hand on his shoulder to pull him aside to speak privately, 'I need to tell you something. That's not Ianto.'

'Hm?'

'Not the Ianto you knew, I mean. I managed to see into the vortex and, well, I found... him. I mean, well...' he rolled his eyes, knowing this was going to be complicated, 'that's the other Ianto. The one from the year we reversed.'

The Doctor squinted at him, eyes still swimming a bit, trying to make sense of what he was saying. 'Uh, the one that got turned into vortex matter? But... that can't be possible. I mean... surely the vortex can't contain a living consciousness? It would be... well it would throw up so many questions even my brain would start to hurt.'

'Well I don't know how it works. I just found this one and he said our Ianto can't be reached now, so... so he said he'd come back instead.' Jack sighed, glancing over at him while he inspected his morgue smock, speaking quietly in the hopes of not being overheard. 'I don't know if I made the right choice letting him.'

Ianto climbed up onto the morgue tray and sat down. 'My feet are cold,' he said, by way of explanation as they looked over to him, hearing the clatter.

'It is rather cold here,' the Doctor said. 'Jack, go get some clothes for him before he freezes.'

Jack looked between the Doctor and Ianto, a sulky expression overtaking him. He quite obviously didn't want to be the one to go and fetch them, not wanting to leave them alone together. In the end he relented without putting up a fight and went to do as the Doctor requested.

After waiting for him to leave and taking a moment to be sure he was really gone, the Doctor stepped towards Ianto and gave him a curious stare. Ianto returned a patient smile, as though somewhat amused by the scrutiny.

'I've been wanting to see you for a long time,' the Doctor admitted, eventually. 'The other you, I mean.'

'We are the same.'

'Right.' He sounded somewhat sceptical about that.

'I touched your heart that day we helped you and your ship, just as he did.' Ianto reached out to take hold of his hand again and the Doctor didn't stop him. 'Perhaps more.'

'I didn't really think it was possible... to talk to you, like you're... I thought, being absorbed into the vortex would, I don't know, cancel you out...'

'That would be logical. It is not the way it works, however.' Ianto used the hand he had clasped to pull him a little closer and placed his other hand on the Doctor's shoulder, like he was anchoring him. 'The vortex gave birth to itself and all of time and space because it was conscious. It desired that it would be thus. And it desired because it was conscious because we were it. That is the simplest explanation I can think of.'

There was something almost hypnotic about his voice, the Doctor found himself swaying on his feet a little, staring into his fathomless eyes, trying to make sense of his words. 'Simple?' he chuckled.

'I know you're drawn to me,' Ianto continued. 'It's a trait of your kind.'

'Is it now?'

'Well... not all. Some we inspire, some we defeat, some we frighten. Most run away or simply lose their minds. Not you. You've longed for us since you were a child. That is what you have been feeling, Doctor. Only that, I promise.'

The Doctor nodded, remembering the day he had been made to look into the heart of time itself as a child. He had seen chaos; a chaos he had longed to fix, if only he could reach in. He'd spent his entire life trying to put the universe back together again and turn the chaos into peace. 'So it was never Ianto I wanted. It was you, whoever you are.'

'Yes.' Ianto cupped the Doctor's face in his hands. 'Mostly,' he sighed. 'Oh, but you're beautiful through her eyes.'

'Mm?'

For a moment, it really did seem as though Ianto was about to kiss him and he felt tingles going through his spine at the thought. But before he came close enough, Ianto pulled back and looked aside, his smile turning sad. 'Nothing,' he said and made a visible effort to appear contented again.

'No, tell me what that meant?' the Doctor pressed him, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He said “her”, he thought and wondered about it.

Ianto stared into his eyes, intently. 'You've already guessed.'

He pursed his lips to say her name but the word didn't come out. Instead it reverberated around his mind like it was an echo in a cavern. Rose.

'A fragment of her remains with us. It always will. Her love for you, and for Jack, will never die.' Ianto started to grin. 'Why else would you escape certain destruction so many times? There is, as you know, no such thing as luck.'

'I...' the Doctor began, and cleared his throat in indecision, 'I don't know what to...'

'No need to say anything. Just understand. You and Jack, you were loved before you were born, you were loved every day after, and will be loved forever. By us. By me and by the spark she left behind within us. Even our human selves felt it; knew it was inevitable the moment we met you both.' Again, Ianto chuckled, seeming more human and less ethereal for it. 'You look like I've just poked you in the eye with a fork. Was that too much information?'

'No um...' the Doctor blagged, ruffling the hair on the back of his head with his hand, clearly resisting the urge to start pacing back and forth across the room.

'To coin a phrase, the first time they tell you that the Earth's turning, you just can't believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. This is like that.'

That chimed with the Time Lord and made him sigh. 'I said that to her, the day we first met.'

'Exactly.'

The Doctor shook his head and looked at him, really looked at him, like he was seeing him for the first time. Slowly, he started to smile, and then grin, in that devilish, boyish way of his. 'I think I'm going to like knowing you. You make my head hurt.'

'Can I help it if all existence is a complete and utter paradox?'

A pause. 'That did it too.'

'Maybe I'll stop talking now, then.' He snorted and then shivered.

'Still cold?'

Ianto nodded, shyly and seemed impressed when the Doctor removed his jacket and put it around his shoulders. 'Thanks.'

Their grins broadened and they stared at each other, until the sound of someone clearing their throat drew both of their attentions aside.

Jack had returned, and the rest of the Torchwood team had followed him down. They looked on for a moment, the silence acute, before Tosh broke into a run and grabbed Ianto in a hug. Gwen and Owen followed and soon the morgue was filled with excited, babbling chatter, warnings about scaring them and various other conversations revolving around their incredulity.

Seeing Jack dump the clothes and hang back, the Doctor stepped back from the rabble and went towards him. He felt like he needed to explain, even if he wasn't entirely sure he understood it all himself. Jack frowned at him and then walked out, leaving him to run along next to him.

'Something I don't understand,' Jack said, as they half walked, half jogged along together down the corridor. 'Don't take this the wrong way but, why are you so happy he's back? You're... you were all over him. Last time I checked, you and the other him weren't exactly the best of friends.'

'It's... complicated,' the Doctor conceded. 'When I last came here, we had a moment of sorts.'

'You mean when you and Ianto disappeared off inside the TARDIS and then I found you out cold?'

'He... opened my eyes. To you; why I shouldn't see you as wrong. To me... all the things I had forgotten to be. To him as well. Especially him. Well, not the human him, the other him. The one you've brought back... Oh for goodness' sake, could we rename them or something? Ianto one and Ianto two? No?' Getting a bit irritated at having to play catch up, the Doctor held him still by the shoulders, forcing Jack to listen and respond. 'Look, it's not what you think. At all. I'm not entirely able to explain it but trust me, it's nothing like you're thinking. Kind of a Time Lord meeting vortex issue we need to resolve.'

Jack raised an eyebrow and then smiled his far too infrequently used coy smile. 'I'm overreacting aren't I?'

'Maybe. Maybe not.' He couldn't entirely say that he was, since Jack didn't know just how much and how long he had been pining for Ianto. Indeed, the Doctor was beginning to think it might be best not to share that nugget of information with him since he obviously wouldn't take it well. 'You're still my favourite,' he added, hastily.

'Am I now?'

Knowing that tone all too well, the Doctor shuffled back and gave him the old mock-glare. Jack shrugged and backed off, amicably, and for a moment the Doctor regretted his reaction. All said and done, he did like the attention. He couldn't deny that anymore, even to himself. But now Jack was wise to his inability to act on that the attention given was much less insistent and therefore much less satisfying.

He sighed as Jack turned back towards the morgue and ruffled his hair with his hand, agitatedly. Relationships weren't supposed to be this complicated. Or then again, maybe they were, and he'd just forgotten over all the years of avoiding them.

*

It quickly became very clear to Jack just how different this Ianto was to the one they had known. He felt no ease or comfort in his presence, even if sometimes the things he said were pure Ianto; things which made him laugh and tingle. The problem was his eyes. He always looked through Jack rather than at him and it was a constant reminder, as if he needed one, that he wasn't normal by the standards of universal constants. Not only that, he seemed to spend most of his time watching mundane things, for no apparent reason. Jack only discovered what that was about after Toshiko had asked him and found out that he was watching molecules interacting. She didn't get it at all, unsurprisingly. Jack barely understood himself.

The change was most confusing to the team. They had no real conception of why Ianto had changed in the first place. In destroying the miniature paradox machine Ianto had created, they had reversed time to a point before they had seen him go nuts collecting random objects and wiring them all together, and before the incident where he turned the water tower to dust in the blink of an eye. So far as they knew, the weirdness had begun when Ianto had first woken up from the dead after being shot; and they were still pressing Jack for answers on that one, let alone this second time. All of them, even Tosh, seemed to be as uncomfortable around him as Jack was. Nobody really wanted to say it, but they knew he wasn't Ianto — the Ianto they knew. But Jack didn't even know where to start to explain it all to them, so he didn't.

In fact, the only one who didn't seem weirded out by him was the Doctor. And wasn't that just a whole other barrel of what the fuck? Of course, Jack still didn't know what had happened when Ianto had helped the Doctor fix his TARDIS, or why he'd suddenly been able to go near the ship without her freaking out and sending them hurtling through time, or even why he'd found the Doctor out cold on the floor when he'd gone inside again. He thought he'd probably never understand what happened there. Obviously it had been something major because Jack hadn't seen the Doctor so obviously awed and so terribly attentive since Rose, and that really was a kick in the teeth. He'd never looked at him like that, not once. It wasn't remotely fair.

Obviously, that had nothing to do with his reasoning for following them up onto the roof of the Millennium Centre though. Not at all. He had a perfectly legitimate reason for that, even if it didn't quite extend to his crouching back behind the ridge where they couldn't see him, listening in.

'Wait, you're saying there's more than one vortex?' the Doctor was asking as he got close enough to hear, with a touch of incredulity in his voice.

'There are many. Many realities too. But this one is the only one contaminated with consciousness.'

'Is that so?'

'Why else would it have spread so far across this universe? No other universes are like this. Only ours has life.'

The Doctor huffed in surprise and leaned back a little further on his coat, looking up at the stars with a smile. 'Fantastic.'

Ianto chuckled. 'I probably shouldn't tell you about all of that though. Your headache can't be improving.'

'No but I'm getting used to it.'

'It won't be for much longer.'

That made Jack prick his ears up and the Doctor seemed equally intrigued. 'Oh?'

'I'll be leaving soon.'

'What? Why? Where?' the Doctor asked, quickly.

'Too eager to be the way I was, I forgot that it is impossible to go back. I can never be what I used to be. I can never be just a human being. To Jack, I'm a shadow of the other Ianto. To you, I'm a shadow of Rose...'

'Hey, that's not...'

'It is true. And you're not incorrect. I am both those things.'

'Look, I know it's a factor but it's not the only thing. Even when I was travelling with Jack after... you were all I could think about. And I don't mean the other, human Ianto... I mean you. It's not just because I can sense her in you.'

Ianto nodded but his saddened expression didn't change as he looked aside at him. 'We already discussed why that is.'

'I know but...'

'I promise you, that's all it is.' He sighed and shuffled closer to the Doctor, leaning into him as an arm extended around his back. 'I came here to teach Jack about reflections. But you need the lesson as well I think.'

'What lesson is that?'

'None of us are completed as one. We all have our opposites. And our opposites are our completion. Jack doesn't understand that you and he are the same. You're not each others' completion and never can be.'

Jack winced a little but in his heart of hearts, he had to concede the point. He'd always wanted the Doctor; saw him as the unifying presence he so desperately needed. He knew now that he had been wrong to think that. Perhaps they would be fantastic in bed, and Jack still wanted desperately to give that a go, but it wouldn't be a case of feeling whole and complete together. They were both too frenetic and the Doctor was not the be all and end all he'd built him up to be in his mind over a century of hanging around, waiting for him. Jack supposed he needed someone calm and quiet and centred to provide the grounding he so desperately needed. Someone like...

'That's our role I'm afraid. W ell, human-Ianto's role really now,' Ianto continued. Nearby, Jack closed his eyes and bore the waves of pain that hit him at hearing that, because he'd always known and always fought against it.

'Then I'm sorry he's dead. For Jack's sake.'

'No. Not dead. It's a law of universal balance. Let's just say, it was not entirely Rose's will which made Jack the way he is. It was an inevitability. To be honest, it was her will because it was so inevitable.'

'And... yep, my headache is flaring up again,' the Doctor said and rubbed his forehead for effect.

'It's complicated, of course. But what I mean is, we are all like coins at the end of the day. You can't remove the head and keep the tails because it's not a coin without either. The same thing applies. I can't die so Jack can't die.' Ianto's expression turned very serious and the Doctor seemed captivated by it. 'Just as your other half can't die without you. The universe will conspire to ensure that.'

For a long moment, the Doctor stared at him, frowning. 'Rose...?'

'Not her.'

He shook his head a little, ruffling his hair once more. 'Who?'

'All opposites are of different means and measures. Jack and I are opposite in nature but we share many traits, and we share love. It does not follow that you and yours are the same.'

'Uh... still lost here.'

The seriousness dissolved into a smile. 'It's not important. I believe you know in your heart who it is, as painful as it is for you to admit it to yourself. But enough of that.'

He pulled free of the Doctor and got to his feet. Then he turned around and looked straight at Jack. At first, Jack shrank back, but he knew he was rumbled and there wasn't much use in pretending otherwise. He sheepishly got to his feet and brushed himself down, doing his best to ignore the disapproving look from the Doctor at his eavesdropping.

'Do you understand about reflections now, Jack?' There was so much wisdom in his voice, he was almost hypnotic.

Before he knew it, Jack had stepped forward and was holding him in his arms, nodding. Ianto leaned in, hard, like he had been starved of affection for a long time, trying to make the moment last, but then pulled away and stepped back with haste. There were tears on his cheeks.

'Why are you crying?' Jack asked, breathlessly.

He touched his fingers to his cheek, seeming surprised. 'I didn't realise,' he said and wiped them away with his sleeve. 'A lifetime ago, I remember watching you run away from me. I remember being trapped in the Hub, watching the world burn, longing for you. I remember my mind being twisted for want of seeing you, and gladly burning every atom in my body away in the hope of having the power to do that. It was always all for you. But learned more than I ever could have dreamed, Jack. And I know how things are supposed to be.' Ianto stepped forwards and kissed him, gently. 'It's beyond my power to bring your Ianto back,' he whispered in his ear. 'But it's not beyond yours.'

Jack looked into his eyes, even though they weren't exactly looking back at him the way he wanted to, and held onto his arms tightly. 'What do I need to do?'

'Die.'

'Wh... what?'

'He's there in the void. You're the only one able to go there and return. Tell him everything you've learned. Tell him you want him back and he will come. When he begins the journey back, we will become as we were before and the vortex will give him the strength to return to life.'

Jack turned aside and looked out across the sparkling night sky, then down to the edge of the Millennium Centre.

The Doctor obviously saw and circled around to put a hand on his shoulder. 'Jack...' he began, but couldn't seem to find the words to continue.

'If that's what I have to do, then I'll do it,' he said, quietly, knowing the message would get through.

'Then I must say goodbye.'

'Hold on,' the Doctor said, grabbing onto him and spinning him around. 'You... you shouldn't have to sacrifice yourself... it's not... it's not fair...'

Ianto smiled and put his hands on his face to kiss him, feeling the spark of Rose that was still fused into him shine through him as he did. 'You know it's the way it has to be. You need to let her go.'

'But...' he started and then sighed in defeat. 'I've enjoyed our time together. You've shown me things I could never have imagined. For a Time Lord, that's a rare gift. I think I'm going to miss you.'

'If you'll forgive the clichÃ, you know I'll always be with you in one form or another.'

'No more headaches. It won't be the same.'

Ianto grinned at him. Then he turned around to Jack. 'Time to go,' he said.

Jack nodded and tried to smile. As much as he wanted his Ianto back, he still felt bad for this version of him and wished it didn't have to be a case of losing one for the other. He watched, completely still as Ianto slowly closed his eyes, grew limp and fell back, right into the Doctor's arms.

Once certain the body was now vacant, he took a deep breath and made a dash to the side, running for all he was worth to launch himself off, into the air, and down onto the pavement below.

*

He awoke, as he always did, with a sense of fuzziness in his mind. All his recollections were vague and his body felt cold and strange. Jack always knew when he'd been dead, even if it was always difficult to hold onto the memory of actually being there, in the darkness, with the waiting moving something and all the sleeping souls, seeing them yet not being able to join them all the way.

But there was something warm against him, nestled into his side. Jack blinked a few times and looked to find a mop of curly back hair and a familiar hand on his chest. 'Ianto?'

Ianto pulled up a little to be able to see him. There were tears all over his face and he was clinging onto him, tightly. 'Thank you,' he said, 'for finding me... wanting me.'

It all came back to him in a flash - running through the darkness, calling to him, pleading with him, finding him and - 'Ianto!' he gasped and kissed him, passionately, unable to stop, clinging on just as tightly. It didn't matter that they were lying on the cold pavement, in the dark of an alley, frozen to the bone, he was there in his arms. Alive.

And finally, it all felt right. Jack knew then and there that Ianto really was his reflection; his opposite and his completion. It buzzed right through him and he sensed that Ianto knew it too. Perhaps he had known it all along.

Vaguely, he became aware of eyes on them, and looked across to see the Doctor standing some way along the alley, hands digging into his pockets, his coat billowing out behind him with the wind. Jack knew the expression; the coldness in his eyes that came with the loneliness he could never seem to be rid of. He understood it really. For whatever reason, the Doctor had felt something for the other Ianto, and he'd lost him. Just like everybody else he'd ever felt something for.

The Doctor gave Jack a small, silent nod and then turned and walked away, back towards the Plass. Jack knew he was leaving and, for the first time, he had no urge to run after him, begging for him to take him with him.

He had Ianto back and finally, he was happy.

***

Next story in series - The North Wind and the Sun.