Title: The Slave and the Lion
Author: Clarity
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mild Jack/Ianto and Ianto/OCs
Note: First 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.

***

Jack was gone. He'd run into the TARDIS on the Plass and got swept away through time. The team, well they were alone now. Things might never be the same again.

Except, he wasn't gone. His face had being splashed across the evening news as a terrorist and the new Prime Minister himself, the man who had ordered them to lockdown and stay on reserve for him just in case the Toclafane turned out to be less than friendly, even made an appearance to appeal for his arrest.

They all stayed in the base, taking his orders, even when UNIT got the scoop instead. They remained there and watched the President greet the new aliens, along with the rest of the world. They watched him be killed and then the screens go dead.

That unlikely moment was when it all began for Ianto; the din; the breathing sound in the Hub; the heartbeat; the strange growing cacophony.

Ianto realised pretty quickly that the others didn't hear it. Or perhaps they just weren't paying attention. There was a note of panic in the air, for obvious reasons, and it seemed to be blocking the sound out to them. He tried to ask Toshiko if she could hear it too. Normally she would have taken time to listen, to figure it out, but she wasn't interested. They were all in a state of confusion.

He supposed he should be quietly panicking too and wondering what was going on. Wondering why the President was dead. Ianto just couldn't, not when the Hub was breathing in and out, pulsing, gasping.

Whispering his name almost.

He'd never heard it before but now it was like it was part of the air. Part of the walls. Part of everything. Ianto wanted to be upset along with the team over what they had just seen, and to be afraid. Yet he didn't feel anything about it. The sound was too distracting.

But the others couldn't hear it so he decided that it was best not to alarm them whilst they ran around, trying to get word from UNIT on what the hell was going on up on their flagship in the sky. There was always a chance he was just cracking up, after all. They'd been through quite a lot even before Jack had even run off, what with the rift splintering, a demon being released and Jack taking an extended break Chez Morgue. It wouldn't be that unfeasible that he was just hearing things.

Indeed, it was entirely possibly that he was actually panicking along with the rest of them, but doing it in a completely different way. Perhaps he was panicking but not feeling it somehow. That could be possible.

He watched Gwen and Owen make a dash for the exit, and then he watched Toshiko tapping away furiously at the computers, trying to get word of what was going on. He asked her again if she could hear the breathing sound but she just looked at him oddly and gave him a brief rundown on what she was doing.

So Ianto took a seat and tried not to listen to the sounds or the way the walls seemed to be heaving and rippling, like time was being squeezed. It didn't work for long, despite his best efforts.

He slipped away and found himself going down through the levels. Normally only twelve or so levels were usable but due to the influx of visitors they'd had when the rift was splintering, they had opened up what seemed like a bottomless pit of extra levels below that. Ianto fancied nobody had been down there for years.

It was all empty now, just waiting to be shut away again. So Ianto had no idea why he was going down there, except that the sounds seemed... not stronger, but more insistent as he did. And he needed to know what the hell was calling him.

The funny thing was, he wasn't scared. Didn't feel a thing. He was numb, in ways he'd rarely ever been in his life. In the back of his mind, common sense was warning him away, telling him that if it turned out to be something alien, something hostile, something that should never be heard or seen, he would be in real trouble, since he was wandering around with no backup or anything. It was too distant to really dissuade him though.

Further and further he went. The base grew darker, the air grew thicker, his head felt lighter.

Then, suddenly, there was light.

'Look, he's awake,' Owen's voice flittered into his mind for a moment.

Ianto blinked and, realising he was lying down, promptly sat himself up. He had been lying on the couch in the Hub for some reason. How he got there, he had absolutely no clue. The sound was still there, though it seemed to be less tangible and more background; like a pulsing twinge of a headache.

'Hey there,' Jack's voice drifted over him, cool as a breeze.

For a moment or two, he didn't think anything of it. Then he remembered that Jack was gone. Ianto wiped the fuzz from his eyes and forced the noise away for a moment. He looked up and saw Owen leaning on his desk, Gwen next to him, Toshiko nearby and... something in-between them.

Was it Jack? It seemed to be, except... not.

It was like he was seeing with two sets of eyes. One could see Jack, his Jack, same as he'd always been. The other could see something else; a black hole in space and time that was just... just...

Jack moved towards him, smiling. 'Decided to take a nap did we? During working hours? I never thought I'd see the day.' He took hold of his hand and yanked Ianto to his feet.

The hand felt real enough. Human to the touch. Ianto frowned, confused.

'Couldn't stay away,' Jack said, and tried to pull him into a loose hug.

Ianto jerked away and almost tripped backwards over the couch. The moment he saw the hurt look in Jack's eyes he wanted to apologise and take his reaction back. The problem was, it wasn't Jack. Well, it was and it wasn't at the same time, so he wasn't sure.

Then there was the slight problem that he couldn't find the words. And even if he could have, he couldn't find his voice. Not until Jack was getting right in his face, staring at him, trying to figure out what was wrong. 'What is it? Are you alright?'

'You're...' he managed to utter, his voice made of gravel, trapped mostly in his chest.

'Back? Like I said, couldn't stay away.' He grinned, easily, flirtatiously.

Ianto shook his head, finding it hard to look Jack in eye, because half of the time it wasn't his eyes he was seeing, it was the empty hole in space where a man should be. 'You're... wrong,' he whispered, finally.

Jack's expression turned shocked and then soured to wariness. 'What?'

No further elaboration of that impression was particularly forthcoming to him. Ianto felt like his mind had been taken part hostage by the din. It was telling him things and, although he couldn't explain what he was seeing, or the gut reaction it produced, there was no other word for Jack except for 'œwrong'; like it was infused into him.

The walls were vibrating backwards a little, recoiling from Jack and the black emptiness in the shape of a man entwined with his form. Ianto knew it was him, not some apparition or an alien because the scent was right. The touch felt right. He knew the man before him as well as ever he did, but it was like his eyes had been opened too far and he was seeing a secret that wasn't his to see.

Gwen was quickly by his side, tugging on his arm, asking him what was wrong. Ianto was too distracted to notice her much except in passing, like a fly in his peripheral vision. Someone - Toshiko - said they had returned to find him asleep there on the couch, not long before Jack arrived back.

Ianto didn't argue, even though he still didn't know how he'd got there. The last thing he could recall was exploring the empty lower regions of the base, being drawn by something.

Something with a purpose.

That seemed to become clear the more he thought about it. Ianto felt like he could almost reach out and grasp whatever it was. Except he couldn't, because it would be like trying to take hold of the air, or the wind, or the stars in the sky.

The others had moved on a bit from mutual agreement that Ianto was being weird, but Jack was still staring at him, warily. It didn't really matter to him though because the black hole was becoming the more prevalent image before him. His expression was growing less and less affecting when his face was melting away to reveal truths Ianto had never suspected.

Besides, there were far more important issues at hand. Some wrong had been done; time was not working properly. The beating heart in the Hub was too fast, the constant whispering laboured now that he thought about it. Aside from it calling his name, he could hear it telling him that it wanted him to trust it.

Time had been reversed and hurt whatever it was that was reaching out to him. Somehow, he got the impression Jack was at fault; he was so dark, so strange, so unimaginably wrong, it had to have been him. Wherever he'd gone, he'd done something.

Ianto had to fix it. The voice was cradling him, telling him what he needed to know. There was no question in his mind that there was any malice or evil within it; only need. Nor was there any question that he would help it.

Slowly, he removed his jacket and tie and dropped them onto the couch. He needed to be comfortable to get to work. He became aware of something gripping his wrist and he could see the outline of Jack.

'What are you doing?' it asked and sounded just as Jack always did.

Unfortunately, he couldn't see enough of him now to even focus on him. Jack backed off and Owen grabbed him, roughly taking a look in his eyes and checking his glands.

'Have you taken something?' the Doctor asked, frowning.

Ianto shrugged him off, wanting to get to work. But Owen wasn't having it. He manhandled Ianto into the medical round and made him sit on the table at the centre of it. Gwen, Tosh and the shape of Jack followed and watched him looking him over. He checked his vitals, all the while trying to get him to say something.

Since there was nothing relevant to speak of, and the air was already too noisy, Ianto couldn't manage to get his voice out. It was the strangest thing; now even Owen looked like he was fluxing. It was entirely different to how Jack looked though. More like he was seeing the molecules comprising Owen shifting a little, back and forth. It was the same for Gwen and Toshiko. In fact, it was the same for everything.

The eyes which before spent so much time cataloguing words, or watching the coffee maker do its work, or witnessing any number of other mundane tasks, were now looking into the heart of molecules and seeing their path through the universe.

Strange.

When his colleagues could find nothing wrong with him, they let him go. Ianto immediately set to work on his first task; a device he didn't know the name of, but knew how to build using parts the voice was directing him to gather. She - it was definitely a she - needed his natural aptitude for calculation and mathematics for the device he was building to work.

It took three days to perfect and he nearly rewired the whole base to ensure it would have enough power.

When he turned it on, he suddenly knew exactly what it was. He had built a paradox machine.

The base started to grind down as the power came to be diverted away more and more. Ianto heard whisperings amongst the team that perhaps they would have to sedate him but they did nothing but watch in the end.

So he set about achieving his second task. He started collecting the things that were needed and assembled them in the room directly below the water tower. They were simple things, small things; a marble, a leaf; a tiny fragment of cloth from Tosh's jacket; a chip of wax from a candle; a bit of wire from one of the backup fuse boxes. Things like that. He did the easy stuff first.

When he started drilling in to find a specific fragment of concrete he wanted from the wall of one of the rooms, that's when the team started following him around everywhere, taking it in turns to watch him, trying to engage him even though he didn't respond.

Days began to pass by and every now and then he sensed Jack was there. Sometimes he could hear him speak too but it didn't make much sense anymore. Jack was a nothing; an unnatural calm in the midst of a storm that was never meant to stop. Once he looked directly into him and almost felt himself falling into the darkness. It frightened him, for the first time since the thing had called for him. He tried not to look at him or hear him again after that.

They started trying to lock him up in the cells. But each time, she intervened and the slightest pressure would have the locks break and the door swing open, or the glass panels would always bend for him and let him out.

Ianto became aware of Toshiko spending more time with him, describing the things going on in the base; how they had seen him inexplicably set free each time on the CCTV cameras; how things were going missing around the place, only to appear elsewhere; how Owen was positive there was an extra step in the staircase in the main Hub and was terribly freaked out by it; how Jack could barely touch a thing without it sparking or burning him. She told him they knew something was happening and that he was connected to it, and she told him he had to tell them what it was. She told him they needed him.

'She needs me more,' was his only response.

It was the first time he had spoken in over a week and, unfortunately, it made them spend a lot more time attempting to get a reaction out of him. Ianto wouldn't be intercepted, except for when they brought him sustenance. He didn't answer any questions though. It wasn't time for that yet.

Time rolled on and he kept building, holding all of the little things together with wires, so it looked like he was building some monstrous tree bearing a hundred different kinds of unnatural fruit. Owen called it crappy modern art. Gwen thought it might be some sort of emotional therapy. Toshiko looked for patterns in its construction to explain it. He didn't know what Jack thought. Couldn't tell anymore.

After a while, he decided he had enough things. The tree had grown across the entire room, stretching like vines, with thousands of seemingly random tiny objects tethered to it.

At one point the team decided to try and remove him from the base by force, only to trigger a lockdown. They soon realised that they could do nothing but allow him to continue.

They believed that whatever alien force had taken hold of him had taken hold of the Hub too. Repeatedly they tried to reason with 'œit' through him. They tried to get him to respond to ridiculous questions. Ianto wanted to reassure them and tell them that it was alright and that they should relax; nothing would happen to them. All she wanted was her freedom. They had no right to deny her that.

Not when it was their fault she was awake and aware, because they had woken her up by opening the rift in the first place.

But Ianto couldn't find the words so he didn't share. He just kept building until it seemed ready. Then he set about achieving his third task.

Ianto stood in the Hub, the team watching from the wings as he wandered around the water tower in circles. He stared into it, at the molecules assembling it, probing further than any human eyes should be able to to.

At some point, the black shape grabbed him by the arms and pulled him away. He pressed his eyes closed and went limp in his arms. Gradually he began to make sense of his words again for not having to see him.

'Please tell me what's happening, Ianto. Please.'

'Need to remove the thorn,' he told him, although partly it wasn't him speaking.

'What? Ianto look at me. Please... please tell me what's doing this to you.'

If he sounded frightened or upset, it didn't really register with Ianto. 'The thorn from the paw of the lion.' He sighed. 'Not up on Aesop, then, Sir?'

There was a pause and then laughter, tinged with a mix of relief, surprise and concern. 'I get it. Androlocles and the lion.'

'I need to pull out the thorn.'

'I... I don't understand... And you're still not looking at me, Ianto.'

'The water tower, Sir... Need to get rid of it.'

'Get rid of it how?'

Ianto pulled away, more of her volition than his own, deciding it was time to get going, but Jack was persistent. He grabbed him in what had to be some sort of flying leap and tackled him to the floor.

Somewhere nearby, Gwen and Toshiko gasped.

'Ianto, please, look at me.'

'Can't.'

'Why not?'

He paused, not sure what to say, considering not saying anything at all. In the end he decided he had been keeping his vow of silence long enough. It was time to start answering them again. 'Can't see you.'

'Do you mean that literally?'

Ianto nodded his head. 'You're...'

'Wrong? You said that before. I get it a lot, actually.' Jack shifted and held him a little closer, apparently getting comfortable there on the floor in the expectation of keeping him there.

The Hub had other plans, of course and it wanted him away from the unnatural creature. 'Let me go, I need to do this.'

'What? What do you need to do?'

Ianto sighed and breathed in his scent, enjoying a few moments of peace in his arms; he had missed Jack since this happened to him, there was no denying that. 'Where were you this past year?'

'Uh... I was here, remember?'

'No, the year that was erased.'

'You... shouldn't know about that,' Jack muttered, stiffening at once and lowering his voice.

Ianto pulled away from him and got to his feet. He went back to circling around the water tower. 'We did this before, in that year. I freed her. But you changed time. Caged her again... Brought me back here. We remember.'

He ran over to the area where the fuseboxes for the base were mounted on the wall, and started adjusting the switches and power settings. Then Ianto he ran over to the team. 'I strongly urge you all to take cover now,' he warned.

Uncertainly, they shuffled up the steps to the upper deck and viewed the Hub from behind the glass. The black hole that was Jack tried to take him with them too but he wanted to remain.

The air started to grow thick and some of the computers exploded, power surging through them incorrectly. After a few moments of expectant silence, the water tower suddenly rumbled and there was a giant pop. The metal structure and water was at once gone, and in its place stood an enormous column of dust. A blink later, it all crashed down at once, filling the entire Hub with a blast of grey, like it had been hit by the ash from a volcano. The team recoiled but were protected by the glass shield they had taken refuge behind.

Once it had cleared a little, they ran down and found Ianto standing where he had been before, covered in the dust from head to toe, light shining down on him from the new hole in the Hub ceiling.

'Holy shit...' Owen broke the stunned silence. 'Well, I'm no expert in vacuum cleaners, but something tells me the Dyson won't take care of this.'

'What happened to it?' Gwen asked, standing under the spotlight of sun, staring upwards. 'One minute it was the water tower, the next... This is impossible!'

'How?' Toshiko questioned him, half disturbed, half excited.

'At some point in time, every atom in the universe will constitute dust,' Ianto responded, dreamily. 'We all start that way. We all end that way. The molecules were shifted through time to an inert stage of their existence.'

'Aw crap,' Owen sighed as several bystanders from the Plass started looking down through the hole, right into the base. 'Pass the Retcon somebody. How the fuck are we gonna explain this one?' he asked his boss.

Jack didn't even hear him, clearly more disturbed by what he'd seen than any of them. Although Ianto couldn't see him, if he had he would have known that the expression stuck on his face was genuinely horrified. 'What sort of a being has the power to shift molecules through time like that?' he gasped. As far as he knew, that was a power not even the Time Lords possessed. 'It can't be.'

Ianto ignored the question entirely. 'The thorn is gone. The sword pinning her to this time and place is finally gone,' he said, in a satisfied manner. Then he slid down to the floor amidst the chaos of dust and knocked over computers, apparently making himself comfortable.

'What are you doing?' Tosh asked.

'My head hurts,' he said, and drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

He wasn't allowed to remain that way for long. The next thing Ianto knew, he had been laid out on the metal table in the autopsy bay. He woke up jumpy as hell and heard Owen say he'd been given a shot of adrenaline.

The black hole that was Jack was anchored onto him, holding him tightly like he feared he would disappear at any moment. Ianto was quick to squeeze his eyes shut against seeing the darkness.

'I need to know what's going to happen,' Jack insisted, ardently. 'Ianto, look at me. Look at me. Look at me Ianto!'

The force in his voice startled him enough to comply and Ianto looked into the abyss. He became aware of Jack reaching out to him, holding onto him, keeping him from falling too far and reaching out to his mind.

Ianto let him in and flinched as he finally received an answer to the question of what happened to Jack the year he was gone. At the same time, he knew Jack was seeing the same lost time from his perspective; all the memories unnaturally returned to him.

'So that's where you were,' Ianto muttered, sadly, 'hanging in chains, watching the diamonds tear up the skies. Oh Jack.'

As he left the abyss, he began to see Jack twofold again; saw his face for the first time in weeks. He could see the shock and grief and he ached for him, even as she told him not to be so foolish and not to look at the thing.

'No Ianto... You can't let it do that to you,' Jack said

'It's how it's supposed to be...'

'No!' Jack shook him, forcibly. 'It's not! That year was reversed for a reason! She isn't supposed to be free, not like that!'

Ianto fought to get off the table and pushed anyone who tried to stop him away. Whatever they said, he could see the lifespan of the universe and the being which gave him that power was too powerful to be chained to one space and time. It wasn't right. It felt almost as unnatural as Jack.

'Listen to me! If she made you build a paradox machine then that means she wants something to happen that isn't meant to be. You gotta believe me, this isn't right.'

'It is...'

'And why the hell was she was buried here anyway? Must have been by something or someone powerful. They must have had a good reason.'

'Of course, Jack. She's a TARDIS.' He looked around, at everything; seeing the Hub in every state of being in every time; seeing it through the eyes of a being so powerful it existed outside all natural boundaries. 'Not too many of them left. That's reason enough to keep one on ice, here on the rift were she would always be trapped, inert, pinned down, unable to ever die.'

'Uh excuse me, TARDIS? As in blue box thing your Doctor friend likes to travel around in...?' Owen chipped in.

'Yes. And like Torchwood Three,' Ianto replied, calmly. 'We're inside a TARDIS, Owen. We just never knew it before. This base, all of it, is her insides. She's been asleep for a long time but you woke her up when you opened the rift. She wants me to free her...'

'Why you?' Gwen asked, eyes wide and a little scared.

'Don't let her do this to you,' Jack cut in before he could answer, practically growling. 'She can't have you Ianto. You can't possibly want this.'

He hesitated, not really knowing. The tug was so strong. The din so loud. He didn't know how he could ever possibly refuse such need, such want, all directed at him and him alone. Beside, what was his life worth anyway? It would be preposterous to even try and calculate his tiny mortal existence comparatively.

Ianto felt a little punch drunk as he made for the exit. Owen and the girls made to stop him but Jack held them back and told them to get out of the base. They protested, of course, until he pulled rank.

They left and the black shape moved in behind Ianto, following him. 'I'm coming with you,' he informed him.

'Why? She'll eject you the moment she's free, you know that. You're unbearable to her.'

They entered the elevator together and stood in it, side by side.

'I want to watch if this is how it's going to be. You've spent weeks amassing a collection of tiny pieces of junk. So what's going to happen? They'll be turned to dust too?'

'No, the opposite. I selected things containing atoms that will, or rather would have, one day become part of things of power; a marble containing three atoms destined to become part of the energy matrix for a supercharged light weapon; a piece of concrete from the walls that was once part of her original power source; a toenail of Owen's containing an atom on course to be part of a supernova billions of years from now. The paradox machine I built makes them usable in the now. They will be shifted into the moment of their most powerful forms and together they will give her a new heart. A new life; the power of the vortex.'

'And you? Why does she need you? What molecules do you contain that she wants?' he asked, emphasising the word 'œmolecules' by doing the inverted commas sign with his fingers. 'I saw her shift you too, in those memories she gave you... I saw her kill you...'

'It's not... look, would it be better to be like you than to be with her, Jack? To be an empty hole in time and space? Are you better?'

Jack smarted at that low blow. 'I didn't choose to be what I am. And you're not choosing this. She's making you choose this. You must see that.'

'No she...'

There was some buffeting and the elevator shook, throwing them around.

'What the hell...?!'

'It's almost time.'

They reached the right floor and Ianto leapt out, almost excitedly. Jack grabbed onto his hand to stay with him, and only just narrowly avoided being taken down as the elevator chord snapped and it plummeted. Jack looked back at the doors, gingerly, and was gratified to see that Ianto looked surprised too.

'She just tried to...'

'No it was... she was just trying to warn you off.'

Jack barked a sarcastic laugh at that notion. 'This isn't like the Aesop fable, is it? In that one, the slave pulled the thorn from the lion's paw, and so the lion saved his life later on, right? You pulled the thorn but she's going to kill you anyway.'

'You still don't understand... I know this is how it's supposed to happen.'

'Right, right, because she showed you memories of the year I erased from time...'

'No! Because...' Ianto pressed his hands to his head and started pacing. 'You want to know the truth? The truth is, she's not doing this to me. It's not her Jack... it's me. I'm doing this.'

'What?!'

'I'm already with the vortex. I'm already part of the thing that flows out of the heart of every TARDIS there ever was. To become part of it, at any time in any reality, is to be one with it forever, outside of time. No, part of time itself. She hasn't done anything to me Jack except for one thing... she connected me to myself. Myself within the vortex.'

He stepped back, blinking, and for the briefest moment Jack thought he saw the vortex's power flash across his eyes, like a pure white volt of electricity. Ianto turned and Jack grabbed onto him by the hand. They stumbled along a few paces, Ianto trying to move forwards, Jack trying to pull him back.

'Let me go!'

'No way!'

Realising he wasn't going to get free by force, Ianto relented a little and came face to face with Jack, squinting against what he was seeing. 'I helped make you what you are, you know. I remember changing you. I remember Rose Tyler; her heart touching our heart...'

Immediately it had the desired effect of making Jack recoil from him. 'That's not...'

'I couldn't have seen that in my mind if this isn't supposed to happen. You must see that.' Finally he slid free of his hands and staggered backwards from him.

He made it all the way to the door at the end of the corridor before Jack regained his composure enough to call to him. 'Wait, Ianto! Answer me this...'

'What?' Ianto asked, only half turning back to him.

'Who turned the water tower into dust? You or her?'

Ianto stared at him through half-lidded eyes, still having to fight to look at him. 'Me.'

'And who built the paradox machine?'

He hesitated for a moment. 'I used leftover parts of her.'

'So it was you. Not her. Okay. Now, I know for a fact that Torchwood Three remains here for a good long time past now. I'm from the future remember? So tell me this; if according to history as I know it this base doesn't just disappear one day, how is it possible that this TARDIS is supposed to be freed now, rather than sent back to sleep the way she's meant to be?'

Ianto frowned, unable to square what he was saying with what he thought must be correct.

'It doesn't make sense does it?'

'The paradox machine will allow...'

'Exactly! That's just it! Before, it was the Master's paradox machine which allowed things that weren't supposed to be to happen. Probably not just here; probably all over the place. That year wasn't supposed to be and I reversed it. But if you became part of her energy core, part of the infinite vortex, even during that year... there's no way back from that. You were thrown out of normal time.' Jack edged closer and closer to him, and the voice in Ianto's mind started screaming at him not to listen, loud enough to almost make his ears bleed. 'That's why you're part of it,' Jack continued, ardently. 'It's not because this is actually supposed to happen, it's because it already happened with the intervention of a paradox machine, and you were thrown out of linear time. That couldn't be reversed even when that year was reversed. So now you exist in both places. You're both here and there, and she's opened the gates between you and the you from that year. Do you see what I mean?'

Ianto began to sway on his feet, not sure what to do, his mind beginning to split apart. 'I think... perhaps you're right.'

'This TARDIS obviously sensed what you are and called you. But it's not supposed to be this way, it's... well it's...'

'Wrong?' he finished his sentence with a smile.

Jack almost smiled at that. 'I'm beginning to hate that word, but yes.' Finally he reached him and held his hands tightly. 'If you want to go back to that Aesop analogy we've been playing with, you're not the slave. I think you're the lion. You're the one who needs to get a thorn out of your paw.'

'I don't understand?'

'Send her back to sleep. Stop her from channelling that other you, the one in the vortex, into your mind. You must be able to do it.'

'I...' He flinched, hearing her calling him even more insistently, demanding he finish what he started and set her free to roam the universe again. 'That won't work. She opened the door between us but she's not perpetuating it... he is.' Ianto cried out involuntarily as she screeched in his mind. She had grown in strength over time after connecting to the vortex through him, he knew that, but this was too much.

Before he knew it, the black shape of Jack was carrying him away somewhere. He was taken around the corner and set on the floor before the paradox machine he'd built. Jack pulled out his gun and aimed at it. 'For a start, let's take it back to a time before you even built that construct in the other room... Okay?'

Ianto breathed in deeply, not sure if it was a good idea or not, but nodded. Jack took a shot and blew it up, and suddenly calmness returned to the base. The air cleared and no longer felt so expectant.

Her voice grew less strong but more angry than he'd heard before.

'Let's see if it worked.' Jack helped him to his feet and they limped into the room where he had gathered the thousands of objects he had intended to time-shift into a new power core.

It was all gone.

'I guess we've been taken back to the point just before it came online,' Jack said. 'We were at the eye of the storm in that room. Oo I bet Owen, Gwen and Tosh are back on the base now.'

'They are,' he said, and rubbed his forehead.

'Do you still hear her?'

Ianto nodded and averted his eyes from Jack again after nearly looking at him head on. 'And him. Me, I mean. I'm still not... not entirely me.'

'Alright, now, what would happen if you were to revert the TARDIS? I mean, the same way you changed the molecules in the water tower. Revert this whole base to what it was before we ever opened the rift and send her back to sleep that way. She will never have opened a link between you and the other you in the vortex.'

'I... I don't know if I can,' he said, honestly. 'It's so much to try and channel out and control. I'm only human, Jack.'

'You are and you aren't, I think.' There wasn't really any other way to explain how he was simultaneously plain old human Ianto and a Ianto who was basically a fraction of infinity; both human and energy, linked between incompatible realities.

'She'll try to stop me, close the link down. She's already threatening to... I can hear it. She's angry, Jack.'

He put his arms around him, protectively, without even thinking, only realising his faux pas when Ianto flinched. 'Sorry.'

'No... no I think... this is the solution, Jack! Shield me.'

'What?'

'Shield me! You repel her. Shield me!' Ianto clamped his hands on either side of Jack's head and slowly opened his eyes to him, clearly fighting himself not to look away. 'You can stop her from stopping me. Let me flow through you. Hold her back from me.'

Jack did the same and pressed his hands to Ianto's head, staring back into him. 'Do what you need to do. I won't let you go.'

They slid to their knees as Ianto began to look more and more stricken. Jack could feel him falling into his mind again and did his best to hold onto him. The further in he went, the more he too could sense the TARDIS; it was calling Ianto back, demanding he help her. Then Ianto's form seemed to give way to something else, to a creature made of light with his face. Jack saw himself reflected in its eyes; saw the emptiness in the shape of a man he truly was. He had to fight himself not to run scared from it. The only reason he didn't was because Ianto looked exactly the opposite, like he was made of the fabric of reality itself. He was beautiful. The very opposite of what he saw himself to be. A true image of yin and yang together.

He held on, even when it felt like he was going to implode, even when the power felt like it was going to overwhelm him.

Then the voice of the TARDIS retreated and went silent. Ianto became Ianto again but went limp in his arms. Jack cradled him, holding his breath until he opened his eyes.

Ianto smiled softly at him. 'I can see you,' he said.

'I can see you too,' Jack replied, numbly, and stroked his cheek. 'Is she gone?'

'The TARDIS? Yes. She's sleeping again. We did it.'

'So no more Owen running up and down the steps, insisting there are too many of them? No more things going missing? No more electric shocks?'

'Nope. Normality has been restored.' Ianto put a hand on his chest, over his heart. 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.'

'Jack I... I'm so sorry.' Ianto's expression, which had been so sweet a moment before, turned sad. 'For letting you be what you are, I mean. We couldn't resist Rose's will...'

'Hey,' Jack said, quickly, mostly because he didn't really want to discuss that ever again, 'no more of this 'œwe' stuff. That isn't you.'

Ianto rolled out of his arms and struggled to his feet, carefully avoiding his eyes.

'Right? That link is gone, right?'

'I...' he began, not quite sure what to say.

'Wait, tell me you're not still...!'

'No! No, I'm just me. I'm not... It's not what it was before. Nothing like it, but...'

'But what?'

'It's there. The connection. Faint now... but I can still feel the tug in my chest. The split. It's hard to explain.' Ianto put his hands on Jack's shoulders and gently kissed him. 'You know something? You're not wrong. Not at all,' he breathed.

'No?'

'You're contrary to the power a TARDIS lives on, and against everything a Time Lord knows. They can sense that, it's true. But you're not wrong. You're just... opposite.'

Jack thought about it for a moment and then smiled. 'I can live with that.'

He looked into Ianto's eyes, noting that there was nothing otherworldly to be found in them anymore. It was just plain old Ianto; the one he liked best of all. And Ianto looked right back at him, feeling overwhelmingly pleased to see the Jack he knew and loved in place of the terrible darkness. They wound up grinning at each other like a pair of mad fools.

'What now?' Ianto asked once the moment had passed.

'Hmmm... good question. I know... want to go count some steps?'

That was so mad, and so perfectly Jack, Ianto couldn't help but laugh out loud at the notion. 'You want to go up to the Hub and count the steps?'

'For starters. Then I think we should count the steps on the ladder under my office.'

Ianto rolled his eyes. 'You're so subtle.'

'This is the first time you've looked at me properly in weeks. Call me an opportunist but... well, I've missed you.'

The arm around Ianto's back pulled him closer to him and the hand on his hip squeezed. Ianto realised he'd missed Jack too, more than he could say. So instead of protesting at the silliness of that suggestion, as he probably normally would, he just nodded and let Jack lead him away, up to the Hub, to waste time counting steps.

He had plenty of time to waste now, after all.

Just like Jack.

***

Next story in series - The Ant and the Chrysalis.