Title: Forever Changed
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ianto Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1drabble
Prompt: 22, Recovery
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Tenth Doctor or Jack Harkness, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Ianto sighed as he looked at himself in the mirror, searching for some tangible sign that he had been forever changed by that bolt from the blue that had rendered him immortal. Try as he might, he couldn't see any kind of outward change in himself.

How many times had he done this since that fateful day? How many hours had he studied himself in a mirror, wondering just how much he had changed?

He couldn't help wondering if he was ever going to recover from the shock of finding that he was immortal, that he had become something like his former lover. It didn't seem possible that he could be like Jack; somehow, immortality had always seemed his especial province.

But that wasn't true. He knew that for a fact.

There were probably other immortals in the world, too. Ianto frowned at that thought, then shook his head. If there were, then Jack would have found them -- at least if they were on Earth. Jack had spent a lot of time looking for others like himself.

It didn't really matter to Ianto if he and Jack were the only immortal beings in the entire galaxy; as long as he could be with the Doctor through time and space, nothing else really mattered to him. His immortality didn't really raise a lot of questions.

He simply felt lucky that such a gift had been bestowed on him -- and on the Doctor. He had always worried about what the Doctor would do once he was gone; his short human life span would seem as a moment in time to the man who was his lover.

He wasn't sure that the Doctor had completely recovered from the shock of all that had happened, either, though he seemed to have bounced back very well. Still, Ianto couldn't help but believe that he was hiding worries that still plagued him.

Well, they would simply have to get that out into the open.

He didn't know when they were going to do that -- and he had no idea how to start them both on the road to recovering from all that had happened if they still needed help with it. There was no precedent for this, no place for him to know where to start.

He looked at himself closely in the mirror again; no, there were no outward signs that he was any different. Maybe he wasn't. At least, not that anyone could see.

If he and the Doctor still needed time to recover, then they would find a way to do that. Together. Ianto took a deep breath, turning away from the mirror and heading for the door of their bedroom. He wanted to talk with the Doctor about that recovery -- and the sooner, the better.

***