Title: In A Different Light
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 4
Prompt: 12, Hot
Author's Note: Spoilers for the Doctor Who episode "42."
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 was awakened from a sound sleep by the Doctor tossing and turning beside him. It took him a few moments to realize that something was wrong; the Time Lord was whimpering in his sleep, sounding more and more desperate with each passing moment.

"No .... it burns .... stop ...."

"Doctor!" Ianto reached for the Time Lord, pulling the other man into his arms. "Doctor, it's all right. I'm here. Wake up, love. You're safe, it's all right."

The Doctor's dark eyes snapped open, staring up at him. Ianto could read the fear there, and he coudln't help but wonder just what the Doctor had been dreaming about. The other man's eyes were wide and unfocused, unseeing for a few seconds.

"Shhh, it's all right," Ianto soothed, pressing a gentle kiss to the Time Lord's forehead and brushing his damp hair back from his face. "Doctor, I'm here. Nothing's going to happen to you. You were just dreaming, love."

Slowly, the Doctor's breathing slowed to a more normal rate, his tense body relaxing in Ianto's arms. He rested his forehead against his young lover's shoulder, taking a deep breath and finally speaking in a shaky voice.

"I'm sorry, Ianto. It was .... not a dream, precisely .... a memory." He swallowed hard, lifting his face to look at the younger man. "It was something that happened to me not long ago."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ianto asked gently, feeling curious as to what it could possibly be that would make the Time Lord have that sort of a reaction. "It's all right if you don't feel that you can," he added hastily, not wanting to push his lover.

His heart clenched in his chest as the thought crossed his mind that the Doctor could have been dreaming about something that the Master had done to him. Ianto didn't think he could bear hearing about that -- but if the Doctor needed to talk, he would listen.

The Time Lord took another deep breath, closing his eyes and swallowing hard. His small, delicate hands clenched a handful of the covers, pulling them up around Ianto's bare shoulders as though he was trying to shield his boyfriend from whatever had happened to him.

"It's all right, love," Ianto whispered, tightening his arms around the Doctor. "You're here now. You're safe, I promise you."

"There was a sun .... in another solar system .... that got inside me," he murmured, his voice trembling a little as the words came out. "It was burning me from the inside. And I couldn't open my eyes, because it would have incinerated anyone I looked at."

Ianto blinked, his mouth opening slightly. He couldn't even begin to imagine how that must have felt, being burned from the inside out. "How did you get it out of you?" he asked at length, shuddering at the thought of how painful that must have been.

The Doctor nodded, sighing and burying his face against Ianto's shoulder. "It more or less left. But it was nearly frozen out -- and if it had been, I could have died and had to regenerate. I would have frozen to death in that stasis chamber. And then I wouldn't have had you."

"But that didn't happen," Ianto whispered, his own voice shaking. "You're here with me, Doctor. You're all right. You didn't have to regenerate."

He could feel the tears coming to his eyes at the thought of never having met this man, of the Doctor never having discovered him. What if that had happened? What would his life be like if the Doctor had never come into it and opened his eyes?

"It was s-so hot," the Doctor whispered, both thin arms wrapping around Ianto's waist and clinging to him. "I thought I'd m-melt away from the inside. I was sure I was going to die. And all I c-could think of was that my life in this body would have been wasted."

Ianto took the Doctor's face between his hands, tilting the other man's face up to his and gazing into those dark eyes, his own gaze steady and unblinking.

"Listen to me, Doctor," he said, his voice firm and steady. "I'm not going to let anything like that happen to you again. You're not going to have to regenerate while you're with me. I may not be able to promise that, but I'll do everything in my power to prevent it."

Those dark eyes locked with his; he could read the fear lurking in their depths, but he knew that the Doctor's initial panic when he'd first woken up was starting to pass. Ianto dared to draw a breath of relief, though he didn't let the other man go.

"I know that it isn't likely to happen again," the Doctor finally said, his voice sounding calmer, less agitated. "But there are times when that memory comes back to me so clearly, Ianto. It was one of the most frightening times of my life."

Ianto only nodded, pulling the Doctor closer against him and wrapping his arms securely around the Time Lord's slender waist. He could only imagine what that must have been like.

Not being able to open his eyes for fear of incinerating someone close to him -- effectively being blind as well as being burnt from the inside. Ianto shuddered, closing his eyes tightly and pressing his face against the Doctor's hair. It would have been a horrible end.

But it hadn't come to that. The Doctor was here; he'd lived through that terrifying time, and he was safe. Ianto didn't know just what had come to pass, or how he'd made it through, but the important thing was that he had.

And the Doctor was here, with him. Safe in his arms, where he belonged. To Ianto, that was the only thing that really mattered.

Of course he was concerned with things that had happened to his lover in the past; they were a large part of what made the Doctor who he was. Especially things that had happened to him in this body, that he'd experienced fairly recently.

Still, he didn't want the Doctor to dwell in the past; he didn't want those experiences to loom large in his lover's mind. Somehow, this one incident seemed worse than some of the others the Doctor had mentioned; it seemed more .... threatening.

Ianto shuddered again, the shiver moving through him involuntarily. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that he would have face that sun creature at some point. He wouldn't see it in a different light than he did now, he was sure; he'd never consider it as anything but a menace.

If he did, he would do his best to keep it away from the Doctor. He wasn't going to let his love go through something like that again -- not with the devastating effect it had apparently had on him the first time. He'd protect the Doctor with his life, if need be.

He couldn't get the feeling out of his head that it would be back in their lives again, though he had no idea how to watch out for it. And now wasn't exactly the time to tell the Doctor that he felt a sort of premonition about it.

"I think you should forget about that kind of heat .... and concentrate on the two of us making some of our own," he whispered into the Doctor's ear, moving his hands slowly up the other man's back.

He was rewarded by the appearance of a different kind of light in the Doctor's eyes, a light that told him the Time Lord agreed fully with what he said. There were no words needed -- and none spoken as their kiss melted the two of them into each other.

***