Title: Silver Lining
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3
Prompt: 45, Shadow
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 turned over in bed next to the Doctor, spooning behind the other man. His arms slid around the Time Lord's slim body, pulling the Gallifreyan closer to him and almost clinging. The Doctor blinked, a curious note in his voice when he spoke.

"Ianto, is something wrong?" he asked, his voice soft and husky from sleep. "It isn't that I mind you wanting to hold me, but you seem a little .... insistent. Did you have some sort of bad dream?" One hand moved to Ianto's arm, long fingers encircling his wrist.

The young man shook his head with a soft sigh, taking a breath. "I know it probably sounds a bit strange, but .... I had an odd dream last night. It's one that I've been having quite a lot lately, and it's beginning to worry me."

"You don't often have premonitory dreams," the Doctor said, a worried tone creeping into his voice. "I wish I knew what was causing them, love. I hope it doesn't mean that the Master is somehow getting back into your thoughts."

Ianto shook his head, frowning. "It's not him -- at least, I don't think so. It doesn't feel like something that's coming from the Master. Just .... this dark, foreboding feeling that something is going to happen. Something that we can't control."

The Doctor turned over in Ianto's arms so that he was facing his lover, raising a hand to cup the young man's cheek. "Ianto, you can't think like that," he said softly. "I don't want our time together to be tainted by worry for the future."

"I don't want anything to taint our time with each other," Ianto murmured, raising a hand to stroke the Time Lord's unruly hair back from his face. "But I feel that there's a dark shadow looming over us, Doctor. I can't get that thought out of my mind."

"Is it just a feeling you have, or has something happened that I don't know about to make you feel that way?" The Doctor's voice was even more worried now, a frown settling onto his features. "If something's happened, Ianto, please tell me."

Ianto shook his head, sighing again. "No, Doctor, nothing's happened, I promise. I just .... I've had this feeling for a while, and it refuses to go away. As though we're being followed by some sort of trouble that's just waiting to reach out and swallow us whole."

A shudder went through the Doctor's slender body at Ianto's words; the young man pulled him closer, wrapping both around the Time Lord and pulling the covers closer around the two of them as he cast an anxious glance around the room.

"Nothing's going to happen to us here, Ianto," the Doctor murmured, snuggling close against his lover. "We're on the Tardis. She'll keep us safe, you know -- and if there was any danger to either of us, she would let us know."

"I know," Ianto murmured, brushing his lips across the Doctor's forehead. "But that feeling is still there, Doctor. It just won't go away. It's like there's a shadow in the back of my mind -- and it keeps growing. I don't know why it's there, and that's what scares me."

"I don't either," the Doctor told him, his tone still worried. "But whatever it is, we'll get to the bottom of it, Ianto. I promise you that. I won't have some unidentifiable worry making you feel uneasy. You don't deserve to have to deal with that."

"Neither do you, love," Ianto sighed, turning over onto his back with the Time Lord in his arms. He settled back against the pillows, letting the Doctor rest his head against his shoulder, threading his fingers through the other man's hair.

"The Master hasn't shown up for a while," the Doctor said, thinking out loud. "And as far as I know, the Daleks haven't given anyone any problems, either. Nor the Cybermen. So what could it be that's causing these feelings?"

"I don't think it's anything we've met before," Ianto told him, frowning as he struggled to put his uneasy thoughts into words. "It's not an enemy that we've had to face. It's just a kind of .... I don't know, it's as though I'm sensing trouble yet to come."

"Could it be that you're starting to develop an empathy that reaches outside of the two of us?" the Doctor mused, his expression thoughtful. "I've never heard of empathy just developing like that before, but anything is possible."

"I don't think I'm empathic," Ianto said slowly, shaking his head. "With you, I am, but that's only because of the nature of the bond we share. And I'm helped along in that respect by the pendant," he added, touching the softly glowing necklace at the base of his throat.

"Thank goodness for those pendants," the Doctor said softly, raising a hand to touch the matching one that he wore. "If it wasn't for these, I might have been trapped with the Master forever." A shudder went through his slim form at the thought.

Ianto wrapped his arms more tightly around the Time Lord, pulling the other man close against the warmth of his body. "Don't think about that time, love," he said, his voice firm. "We have to let that go. It's in the past, and it won't happen again."

"I still have horrid nightmares about it sometimes," the Doctor admitted with a sigh. "Of all the things that have happened to me, that's the one that seems to stand out as the worst. But I think it's more because I was terrified of losing you forever than because of what he did to me."

"It sticks out in my mind, too," Ianto murmured, not wanting the Doctor to know that he, too, still had nightmares about that point of their lives. He would wake once in a while from a vivid dream that was more of a memory, the images dancing before his eyes.

He would sit bolt upright in bed, a lingering scream caught in his throat, a scream that thankfully didn't come out. It would seem ages before he could make himself fall asleep again, as he lay there beside the Time Lord, listening to the other man's breathing on the pillow beside him.

Maybe that was what he felt now, Ianto told himself, hoping that he was correct. Maybe it was just the residue of that terrible time that wrapped itself around him, refusing to let him go, his fears from the past projecting themselves into the present.

"That could be it, then," the Doctor said, a note of relief in his tone. "It could just be your dreams of that time coming forward again. I don't blame you for that, Ianto. It was a terrible time for us, and having bad dreams about it is certainly reasonable."

Ianto nodded, not wanting to tell the Doctor that he thought it was more than that. He didn't want to worry his lover; the Time Lord usually had enough on his mind without having to add some unknown fear based on a premonition.

He could keep a watch on his fears for himself. He didn't need to add to the burden that was already on the Doctor; after all, he was here partly to be a companion to the man he loved, to watch his back and to protect him, not to heap more problems on him.

He wasn't going to give the Doctor yet another burden to add to the ones he already carried. He was going to be a help to his lover, not a hindrance, in every way he could. There was no reason to make the Doctor worry about what was probably going to turn out to be nothing.

"I think it is," he said softly, pushing his fears away and locking them into the back of his mind. They didn't bear thinking about now. And the Doctor was probably right, anyway. "I need to just forget about that time. It's in the past, and we need to look at the future."

With those words, he closed his eyes, stroking the Doctor's hair until he could feel the Time Lord relax in his arms. Even after his lover's even breathing indicated that he had fallen asleep, Ianto lay there, staring up at the ceiling.

He couldn't sleep. If he did, then that dark shadow would descend on his mind again, clouding his thoughts and bringing that sense of dread that he hated. He didn't know what it portended, but it was nothing good for the two of them, of that he was sure.

Every dark cloud had a silver lining, or so he'd been told when he was a child. He desperately wanted to believe in that old saying now; he needed to find that silver lining, and make himself believe that his fears would all come to nothing in the end.

***