Title: Present Tense
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: R
Table: 5
Prompt: 27, Present
Author's Note: Continuation of Beloved.
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Jack Harkness. Please do not sue.

***

Ianto looked down at the Doctor's sleeping face, still pale and wan from the experience with the Master. He closed his eyes for a moment, before opening them to continue gazing down at the man he loved. What had happened was in the past. Yes, it would affect them, but it was over now. Ianto didn't want to think about it.

He let out a soft sigh, brushing a lock of tawny hair from the Doctor's forehead. Of course it was going to affect them. The Doctor more than himself, though he wasn't sure of exactly what the Time Lord had been through at the Master's hands.

Ianto shuddered, wanting to gather the Doctor into his arms and hold the Gallifreyan tightly against his own body, if only to convince himself that the Doctor was here, that he was safe, that no one would touch him again. It had seemed like eternity before he'd found his love, an eternity of alternate prayer, hope and despair.

It had been all too obvious as to what the Master had done to the Doctor physically, from the way his love had cried out at his slightest touch. Ianto hadn't broken down at the realization, hadn't cried, hadn't let himself break down in the presence of the Time Lord. No, tears were something he'd reserved for the moments he'd spent alone in the shower.

He'd more than broken down then; he'd huddled in a corner of the large bathtub, the shower water pounding down on him, mingling with the tears pouring down his face. He couldn't have said if he was crying more from the relief of knowing that he had the Doctor back, or crying for what he knew his love had suffered.

Why hadn't he been there? How had the Master managed to take the Doctor? How had he managed to get by the Doctor's safeguards, spirit him away to a place where he could have the freedom to inflict harm on the man Ianto loved?

He knew why. He hadn't wanted to admit it to himself while the Doctor had been missing, and he really didn't want to face the fact now. But he had no choice -- it was staring him straight in the face, demanding to be confronted.

The Master had taken the Doctor because of him. He had been the target, Ianto was sure of it. Nothing would hurt the Doctor more than to have someone he loved forcibly taken from him and hurt at the Master's whim. It would cut into the core of his being more than any physical pain inflicted upon his own body could.

And because Ianto hadn't been there to offer himself up, the Doctor had been the one to suffer what had been meant for him.

Ianto could feel the tears springing to his eyes again as he looked down at his love, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of the Doctor's thin chest. He was all right, thank goodness -- well, as "all right" as could be expected. Ianto didn't know the extent of the physical damage to the Doctor's body, but he was fairly sure that his love would heal.

The young man frowned, his fingertips trailing gently down the velvet softness of the Doctor's cheek. Why hadn't the Doctor merely regenerated into a new body when this one was damaged? It was a question that he thought he should know the answer to, but that answer kept hovering around the edges of his consciousness without breaking through into the light.

It was something that he intended to ask the Doctor -- but not now. When his love had recovered somewhat from his ordeal, then Ianto would talk to him about what had happened. That is, if the Doctor was able to talk of what had happened.

The last thing Ianto wanted was to put his love through any more emotional duress. He'd already been through enough physically, the young man thought to himself, his fingers moving to the Doctor's bare shoulder and stroking slowly down his arm.

He couldn't help wincing as his eyes took in the dark bruises that marred the Time Lord's porcelain skin, the rawness of the skin on his thin wrists from his struggles to free himself from his bonds.

Ianto's eyes filled with tears again, and he bowed his head, closing his eyes and lifting one of those slender wrists to his lips. He pressed his lips against the Doctor's skin, his tears falling on his love's upturned palm.

As though he could feel the gentle kisses being pressed onto his abraded skin, the Doctor opened his eyes, lifting his hand to place it against Ianto's cheek. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, thready, broken from the hours he'd spent screaming.

"Don't cry, beloved." The words were little more than a thin whisper of sound.

To hell with thinking that it would be better to let the Doctor rest in bed. Ianto wrapped his arms around his love, drawing the slender Time Lord into his arms, sitting up with the other man in his lap. The Doctor rested his head on his young lover's shoulder, his body sagging into Ianto's embrace.

"I thought I would never see you again," Ianto whispered brokenly, finally daring to voice what had been his greatest fear.

"As did I," the Doctor answered, his voice still hoarse and reedy. "But I survived. Thanks to you."

Ianto shook his head, brushing his lips against the softness of the Doctor's mouth. "You kept yourself alive. You didn't give up."

"I couldn't," the Time Lord whispered, closing his eyes and giving himself over to the comfort of his lover's arms. "I couldn't abandon you."

"Nor I you." Ianto tilted the Doctor's face up to his own, his gaze searching his love's dark eyes for long moments before lowering his lips to the Time Lord's, his fingers stroking the line of the Gallifreyan's jaw as the kiss deepened.

"I knew you wouldn't," the Doctor murmured into the kiss.

Ianto pushed his questions into the back of his mind. This wasn't the time to ask them. The Doctor was alive, he was here, safe in Ianto's arms. There was time enough in the future to find out what he had to know. Time enough to let words, mental images, rip his heart into shreds.

The future would take care of itself, in time. Right now, the present was all that mattered.

***