Title: Echoes
By: elfin
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: NC-17
Summary: CoE SPOILERS / FIX-IT.

“Don’t.  Go.”  Jack raised his hand, his face breaking into a grin, eyes sparkling.  “There’s someone I want you to meet.” 
The Doctor gave him a half-smile and shrugged, leaning oh-so-casually in the narrow doorway of the TARDIS where it stood in the centre of the colourfully lit Roald Dahl Place. “Okay.”

“Uh-hu.”  Jack shook his head.  “You’ll vanish the moment I turn my back, I know you.”  He held out his hand, palm up.  “Give me your screwdriver.” 
The Doctor’s brows shot up.  “Can’t say I’ve ever heard it called that before.”

“Sonic screwdriver.  Give.  You never go anywhere without it.”  Rolling his eyes, the Doctor reached into a pocket and pulled out the slim, silver device, smacking it sullenly into Jack’s open palm like a kid caught with cigarettes.  Jack closed his fingers over it.  “Wait here.”  He turned and bounded off, running towards the water feature that stood over the Rift.  The Doctor, for once, did as he was told.  He waited.  And hummed. 
~

Jack found Ianto sleeping in his coat, in his bed.  He’d missed that coat, had left it behind in their hurry to leave.  Ianto looked good in it, even if he was wearing it almost like a blanket – too big for him as it was – one of those itchy blankets, the sleeves covering his hands, thick material twisted around his legs.  Jack dropped down and crouched at the edge of the cot in the cramped space.  “Ianto.” 


Tired eyes opened, saw him, and in the moment when Ianto should have been all over him, he instead sat up, formal and awkward, saying something that sounded like... – oh, no, he did not just call Jack, “Sir.”  In the next moment Jack set things right.  He threw himself at Ianto, wrapped one arm around his shoulders, the other around his waist, snaking under the heavy coat to pull him close and open his mouth against a hot, salty throat.

“I have missed you so fucking much,” he confessed, pain and passion in his voice, and it didn’t take much to rewind and undo the staunch front that Ianto had probably planned on keeping up for days, possibly weeks.  Strong arms surrounded Jack, wet tears touched his neck and he held on tight.  “I’m sorry, I had to leave for a while but I’m back now, and I swear, Ianto, next time... next time I’ll take you with me.”  He lifted his head and stroked a large hand over the thick black hair, staring into watery blue eyes.  They had a lot of catching up to do but Ianto was already pulling away from him.  “I’m sorry I left you again.” 


Ianto was swiping at his tears with the sleeves of Jack’s coat.  “Sorry,” he was saying, voice low, “I’m sorry.”

Jack shook his head.  “Don’t be sorry.  You’ve nothing to be sorry for.  I’ll tell you everything, I promise, but I need you to come with me now.  I want you to meet someone.” 


Ianto nodded, pushed himself off the bed and followed Jack up the ladder into his office.  “Do you want your coat back?”

Jack glanced at him.  “Eventually, but you look kinda cute in it.”  He did.  He was wearing it over a crumpled red shirt and blue jeans, about as informal as Jack had seen him looking since that first time out in the woods.  The coat seemed to drown him and Jack felt the almost irresistible urge to hug them both.  He found Ianto’s hand and held it, leading him to the lift, putting an arm around his waist and holding him close as it took them up to the pavement.  It was dark, middle of the night, but the TARDIS was clear on the other side of the bowl.    
He heard Ianto ask, “Is that your Doctor?” and really didn’t know how to answer so he just nodded and kept his fingers splayed over Ianto’s hip, warm under the coat.

When they were close enough, the Doctor stepped out from the shadow of the blue box, hand out-stretched.  “Ianto Jones!  It’s an honour to meet you, I’ve heard absolutely everything about you!” 
~

His handshake was firm despite how nervous, how vulnerable he looked, dragged out in the middle of the night, and the Doctor couldn’t help but wonder what was attracting Jack to this unassuming Welshman.  More than attracting; Jack was falling in love.  He could tell it by the way Jack had talked about this man incessantly, between fighting the bad guys, dying a couple of particularly nasty deaths and knocking back a large number of Singapore Slings in the best bar in the galaxy.  And he’d only tried to hit on the Doctor a couple of times; once after being forcibly resurrected following almost decapitation and waking in the Doctor’s arms (it seemed only fair, the decapitation having been meant for him and everything), and once in the bar after the seventh cocktail.  Even then the Doctor had ended up being compared to Torchwood’s tea boy. 


Ianto was good for Jack; grounded by the sounds of it, balanced.  He obviously thought the world of their 51st century hero – which was good in one way, bad in another (Jack’s ego was big enough already, thank you very much).  And he looked really, really good in Jack’s familiar old coat, the one he’d complained about leaving behind almost as much as he’d talked about Ianto.

“I’ve heard a lot about you too.”  Oh yes, the honey and smoke in his voice, the way his big eyes self-consciously slipped away from the Doctor’s... Jack was a moth drawn to a flame. 


Ianto let go of his hand.  And suddenly the Doctor’s head was filled with screaming and he saw Jack crying and Ianto... dying.

He grabbed Jack’s sleeve, suddenly, startling both of them.  “Get in!” 


“What?”

“Get in the TARDIS.”  He watched Ianto’s hands bunch into fists and Jack’s arm around his middle tighten.  “Both of you,” he clarified hurriedly, rolling his eyes. 

“Doctor....”

“Just do it!” 


Ianto’s reaction to stepping inside the ship was the exact same as every other human who’d done so.  “Roomy, isn’t it?”  He would have smiled if he hadn’t just seen this lovely man die, sometime in the future.  He wasn’t given over to visions, so when he had one it was best of take notice.  Jack was watching him, waiting, but he needed context, needed to give them more than he’d seen and he wasn’t about to let Jack out of his sight until he had done.  Despite what he thought, his feelings were reciprocated.  The Doctor just couldn’t act on them, could never act on any of them.  Only once he’d come close, only with Rose.  He couldn’t let Jack in like that.  And besides, for now he had formidable competition.

An hour later they were still in the TARDIS.  Jack and Ianto were sitting on the uncomfortable floor, leaning back on intertwined arms, leaning into one another, talking quietly, Jack petting Ianto’s hair, Ianto touching Jack’s hand, getting closer and closer to sharing the briefest of kisses.  And when their mouths finally met, Jack’s tilted into a smile, the Doctor saw the vision of the future again, and this time he saw something else too.  He saw the Shilieonn.

 
“There’s a race,” he said suddenly, and the two men broke apart to look at him as if just remembering he was there.  He tried not to feel too insulted.  “They’re calling the Shilieonn but you – here on Earth – you might call them something different.  They need a toxic atmosphere to survive, they... they look like sea monsters.”  Jack was shaking his head.  “They’re... drug addicts, parasites, bastards.  But when they come, they’ll be in a big transparent box in a big, dark room... Jack, when you face them, don’t take Ianto with you.  You’ll want to, for whatever reason, you might need to, but you can’t.  If he faces them he’ll die.  You’ll die.  But you’ll come back and he... he won’t.”

Ianto sat forward, suddenly formal, insisting, “I’m not scared of doing my job, I’m not scared of dying.”

“I am,” the Doctor told him, “I’m scared of what you dying will do to Jack.  Please.  For my sake, don’t go.”
“And if it’s my time?”

“It isn’t.”  The Doctor stressed that.  “Promise me you’ll stay behind.” 
For the longest time Ianto stared at him, then he nodded slowly.  “I promise.”

~ 
He was half-in the Porsche when Jack put his arm across the passenger seat and shook his head.  “This is it, Ianto, this is what he warned us about.”

“No...” but he knew, had known, as soon as he’d seen the box in the video from the contact lenses.   
“Sorry, Ianto.  You have to sit this one out.”  Jack’s hand grasped his on the top of the door.  “I won’t take you to your death.”

It took a few long seconds, but Ianto nodded, squeezed Jack’s hand and let him go.  “Jack... I’ll be there, when you come back.  I’ll be there.” 
He kept his promise.

Peeling back the orange plastic, he watched Jack take that first, loud, aching breath.  And then Jack was in his arms, clutching at his shoulders, whispering, “I thought I saw you, in the darkness, I thought I heard you....”

Ianto shook his head and held on tight.  “I’m here, Jack, here and alive.”

“You would have died in there, at my side, and I wouldn’t... couldn’t have saved you.” 

“It’s okay.”  It was all he could say.  “It’s okay.” 

~ 

“This is the strangest fetish you’ve got, Jack,” Ianto murmured softly and Jack chuckled.  Ianto was lying on top of him, naked except for Jack’s coat, on the cot barely big enough for the both of them in the cramped hole they affectionately referred to as Jack’s quarters.  Ianto wearing his coat had leapt to the top of his list of really hot things the night he’d come back, but tonight it had dropped to number two behind Ianto wearing nothing but his coat.  He’d fucked him while he was wearing it, slowly, for ages, dropping kisses to his mouth and his neck, sucking on his tongue, loving him. 

“In the mornings it smells of you,” Jack told him, running the tips of his fingers along his side, under the heavy material, tracing a line from his armpit to the back of his knee.  Ianto shuddered a little.  “When we’re running around Cardiff chasing aliens I can smell you.” 

“Smell sweat and sex, you mean.”   

And Jack grinned.  “Like I said.  You.  And it’s more than sweat and sex; it’s your aftershave and deodorant, that green shampoo you use and the soap in your shower.”  He felt cool feet burrowing between his shins and gazed happily into Ianto’s eyes when he lifted his head. 

“I’m going to die one day, Jack,” he said quietly and Jack’s warm feelings cooled somewhat.  He flattened Ianto’s black hair, cradling his head against his palm 

“Of old age,” Jack told him with a certainty he only wished he felt, “and in my arms.” 

“How many people have died that way?”  He sounded so sad that Jack lifted his head and kissed him, prolonging it, deepening it, Ianto crawling further up his body when Jack’s neck gave out just to keep it up and when he finally bit Jack’s bottom lip gently, he said, “I love you, Jack,” at the same time bringing a hand up and touching his fingers to Jack’s lips.  “Don’t say anything.  Just... know, okay?” 

Jack nodded.  He didn’t know what to say anyway.  He loved Ianto but then again he’d loved lots of people.  He was big enough to admit he was in love with the Doctor.  But with Ianto?  He honestly didn’t know.  He thought maybe he was, because there was nowhere else in the world where he wanted to be right now and when he’d been travelling all he’d been able to think about was this.  He took a deep breath and asked, “Can I spend the rest of your life with you?” as if he was proposing. 

For a moment Ianto didn’t say anything, then Jack thought he caught moisture blossom in his blue eyes before he turned his head and rested it back on Jack’s chest.  “If that’s what you want,” he muttered, and Jack hugged him tight. 
“Look at me,” he murmured, and after the longest time Ianto raised his head again, tears running down the side of his nose.  “I want,” he said, “I love.”

Ianto blinked wet eyes, a smile brightening his face.  “Me too.”  He dropped a sloppy kiss to Jack’s mouth. 

“I hope you don’t want a ring,” Jack teased.  

“God no.”  He grinned through more tears.  “Maybe... matching Vortex Manipulators...?”


fin