Title: Haunted
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3
Prompt: 22, Ghost
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own Ianto Jones or the Tenth Doctor. Please do not sue.

***

Ianto looked around him, letting his eyes rest on the Doctor, who was standing only a few feet away. Maybe coming to a cemetery hadn't been the best idea, but he'd wanted to commemorate the death of his grandfather, who he'd been very close to.

He'd done this every year when he was still living in the flat in Cardiff; it was a way of feeling that he had some ties in the world. He wasn't particularly close to his parents, and his grandfather had been the center of his world when he was a child.

However, being here seemed to have plunged the Doctor into a state of melancholy, and Ianto never liked to see his lover like this. He was walking from one headstone to another, perusing the names, his hands buried in the pockets of his trenchcoat.

Ianto knew that serious, sober look on the Doctor's face well; it was one that meant he was deep in thought, and it usually meant that he was thinking of Gallifrey.

He never liked seeing that look. It always bothered him to see the Doctor less than happy; though he knew that the other man had been through a great deal in over 900 years, Ianto liked to think that his presence in the Doctor's life could take some of that pain away.

Of course, he didn't expect to be able to eradicate all of those memories from the Doctor's mind. But he hoped that he at least made the Time Lord less lonely, and took that feeling of melancholy out of his life and banished it into the background.

But it seemed that the Doctor was feeling somewhat nostalgic today. Why else would he be looking at the headstones with such concentration? Ianto rose from when he'd knelt at his grandfather's grave to move towards the Doctor, a slight frown on his features.

He stopped when he stood beside the Time Lord, reaching for his lover's hand and twining their fingers together as he sought for words.

"Doctor, is something bothering you?" Not exactly the words he'd meant to say; they were bland and banal, but he couldn't just jump right into a question about what he thought might be on the Doctor's mind. That would seem far too intrusive.

The Time Lord started to shake his head, then nodded slowly, turning to look at Ianto. "Any time I'm in a place like this, I can't help feeling that the ghosts of the dead are watching me -- haunting me, in a way," he said quietly, his voice strained.

"You can't blame yourself for all the deaths you've witnessed, Doctor," Ianto told him softy, squeezing the Time Lord's hand. "I know you want to believe that you can save everyone, but you're not some sort of superman. You can't be all-powerful."

"Sometimes I think I should be," the Doctor said, looking down at the headstone in front of him. "Those people expected me to be. And I let them down."

"You did your best," Ianto protested, the frown on his face deepening. "I know you might not think so, but I also know you well enough to be absolutely positive that you would never give anything less than your utmost to help people."

"I've always tried my best -- but I know that all too often, my best isn't good enough," the Time Lord whispered, looking over at his lover. "I can't do anything more than my best -- but it breaks my hearts to know that I can't always succeed."

"You succeed when it's most important that you do," Ianto said softly, turning towards the Doctor and wrapping his free arm around the Time Lord's slender waist. "If there are any ghosts around you, they shoud be thankful ones."

He pulled the Doctor into his arms, letting the other man rest his forehead on his shoulder. Ianto simply stood there and held the Doctor, waiting for him to speak again.

"I've tried my best to tell myself that there aren't any ghosts following me," the Doctor murmured, his face still pressed against Ianto's shoulder. "But that's a lie, Ianto. They're always there. Waiting in the woodwork, ready to jump out and accuse me at any time."

"Accuse you of what?" Ianto asked, keeping his voice gentle. "Like I've said, you can't save everyone, Doctor. No one has a right to expect that of you. You do the best you can, and at the end of the day, that has to be enough."

"It's never enough." The Doctor's voice was quiet, but his words had the strength of conviction. "I can never do enough, Ianto. I failed my own planet, my own people. Maybe I'm just trying to make up for that by being sure that I save others, but --"

"You can't do that," Ianto interrupted, shaking his head. "Gallifrey is gone, Doctor. You can't keep beating yourself up over your part in the Time Wars."

"There's a part of me that feels I have to atone for the damage I did," the Doctor whispered, swallowing hard and raising his head again to look into Ianto's eyes. "I don't want the ghosts of the past following me for the rest of my life, but sometimes it seems as though they always will."

"I think your people understood that you didn't want to be the one to destroy them," Ianto told him, taking the Doctor's face between his hands as they gazed at each other. "They don't blame you, my love. I'm sure they don't."

"Maybe they don't -- but I blame myself." The Doctor closed his eyes, swallowing again; several long moments passed before he spoke again, his voice softer this time. "I'll always have that on my conscience, no matter how often I tell myself that I didn't have a choice."

Ianto didn't know what to say; all he could do was wrap his arms around the Doctor, pulling the other man fimly against him and holding his lover close.

"I wish there was some way that I could turn back time," the Doctor whispered, blinking back tears. "I wish that I could at least go back and try to ... .well, make it come out differently. Even though I know that it couldn't."

"It's better not to think about that," Ianto sighed, wishing with all his heart that the Doctor didn't have to carry around such terrible pain and guilt. But unless the Time Lord was willing to let those feelings go, there was nothing he could do to help.

"I know," the Doctor said, his own sigh mingling with Ianto's. "Any ghost that haunts me from that time is something I'll have to learn to live with. Though sometimes I don't know if I'm haunted by ghosts -- or by my own guilt."

"Either way, they need to leave you alone," Ianto said, smoothing the Doctor's unruly hair back from his face. "You can't change the past, Doctor."

The Time Lord nodded slowly, turning away from Ianto to take a last long look around him at the quiet headstones. When he turned back to his lover, he looked resolute, though not as melancholy as he'd been before. "Let's get out of here."

Ianto didn't say a word, only nodding at the Doctor and turning to follow him out of the cemetery. He didn't even glance back at his grandfather's grave; he had a feeling that this would be the last year he came here on this particular day.

After all, he had to put the past behind him just as much as the Doctor did. He had to push away the ghosts that still haunted him, the ghosts of people he'd been close to who were no longer there. They could live in his memory, but not take it over.

Catching up to the Doctor, he took the Time Lord's hand in his own again, relieved when his lover turned his head to smile at him. The melancholy was passing, and the ghosts that haunted the man he loved were retreating, at least for the time being.

***