Title: Smoke Screen
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, 10_hurt_comfort
Prompt: 10, Unconscious
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 stroked his hand through the Doctor's hair, looking down at his lover with worry on his face. How long had the Time Lord been unconscious now? It seemed like hours, but it was nowhere near that long. His fear was just making time seem to go much more slowly.

He'd thought that they would never fight their way out of the burning building they'd been trapped in, that they would both end up dying of smoke inhalation, or that a burning timber would fall on one -- or both -- of them, and leave them pinned and helpless against oncoming death.

But, miraculously, they'd made it out -- along with the other people who'd been inside the place. No one was left, thank goodness -- Ianto had a feeling that if there had been, the Doctor would have insisted on going back inside to rescue them.

Of course, he hadn't been conscious when Ianto had dragged him out of the door just before the ceiling had collapsed, so he hadn't been able to say anything about the situation.

Ianto didn't know just when the Doctor had lost consciousness. Everything that had happened up until the moment that he'd dragged the Time Lord out of that building had been blurred, as thought it was a dim memory and not something that had just taken place a few minutes before.

At least they'd made it out all right, Ianto told himself, settling more comfortably against the bench they were sitting on. He was reasonably sure that the Doctor was all right, anyway -- there didn't seem to be any wounds.

He hadn't wanted to let an ambulance take the Doctor to a hospital for medical care -- the last thing they needed was for anyone to make the discovery that he wasn't human. Hopefully, he would regain consciousness soon, and they could make their way back to the Tardis.

But he wasn't going to move the Time Lord until he was conscious. He had no idea if the other man might have internal injuries, or if he'd want to leave the scene.

So, for the moment, he was going to sit here and wait for the Doctor to come around. If that didn't happen fairly soon, then he was going to take his chances with carrying his lover off to the Tardis, and hope that she could somehow restore the Time Lord in some way.

He was still breathing, Ianto thought worriedly, his eyes resting on the Doctor's pale face. And he didn't seem to be having any sort of problems doing that. It was a good sign. He'd probably just been knocked out, or the smoke had gotten to him.

Ianto carefully wiped a smudge of ash away from the Doctor's cheek; he'd thought it was a bruise at first, and was relieved to discover that it wasn't. The Time Lord didn't seem to be physically damaged in any way -- other than not waking up.

What if there had been something in that smoke that could have been toxic to him, something that acted on Time Lord physiology? Ianto bit his lip, his mind starting to run away with possibilities. No, he couldn't think like that. There was no precedence for it.

And besides, any sort of panic on his part wouldn't help the Doctor if he needed it. The best thing for him to do was to wait this out for a few minutes more, and then try to make it back to the Tardis carrying the Doctor.

As if in answer to that thought, the Doctor stirred slightly, his eyelids fluttering for a moment before they opened. His dark eyes looked clouded for a moment, then his gaze focused on Ianto.

"I take it that we managed to make it out of that building safely," he said, coughing as he spoke. Ianto helped him to sit up, wishing that he had a bottle of water, something that the Time Lord could drink to help him get his voice back.

"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously, one arm still wrapped protectively around the Doctor's slim waist. He wasn't going to let go of the other man, not until they were safely back in the Tardis and he knew that there was nothing to threaten either of them.

The Doctor nodded, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair. "Yes, I'm fine. Just a bit too much smoke in my lungs for my comfort," he said, raising a hand to his mouth and coughing again. "I think that's fairly common in a situation like this."

He looked up at the building, now a smoking shell of what it had been. "I can't help wondering exactly what caused that place to catch fire," he murmured, his brows drawing together in a frown. "It doesn't seem that there was anyone of consequence there."

"No one but you," Ianto said softly, knowing that the Doctor would vehemently deny that he could possibly be a target.

Just as he'd thought, the Doctor threw him a glance that was almost amused. "Oh, Ianto, you must be joking. No one would set fire to a building full of people just to get rid of me. It's flattering that you would think so, but ..... no."

"You can't be so sure of that, Doctor." Ianto's voice was quiet, but firm. "You do have some enemies in the galaxy, you know. And what better time for them to strike at you than when you definitely don't expect it?"

The Doctor looked thoughtful, his dark eyes moving from the building to Ianto and back again. "Hmmm. You could be right, Ianto -- but I don't want to give that idea a lot of credence until we find out who else could have been in there. There may be more to this than meets the eye."

Ianto wasn't so sure, but at the moment, he wasn't interested in arguing about it. What he wanted to do was to get the Doctor back to the Tardis -- before the Time Lord became too interested in all of the possibilities and got himself into some kind of trouble.

"We can worry about that later," he said, his arm tightening around the Doctor's waist. "Right now, you need to get back to the Tardis. We can puzzle this out and then come back, if you feel that we need to. But I want you to be in a safe place where you can rest."

The Doctor frowned, almost looking belligerent before he relented and nodded wearily. "All right. I suppose you're right. Smoke inhalation doesn't leave me at my best. It would probably do me good to get back to the Tardis."

Ianto helped the Doctor to his feet, still keeping his arm around the other man as they moved away from the scene of devastation and towards the street where they'd left the Tardis. At least it didn't appear that anyone else had been hurt, either. That was good to know.

"Were there any .... casualties?" the Doctor asked softly, his dark eyes meeting Ianto's. The young man was glad that he was able to ease the other man's mind in that respect; if this had been some sort of trap for him, no one else had been harmed by it.

He shook his head, his own sigh of relief joining the Doctor's. "No, there weren't, from what the police told me when I spoke to them. A couple of people were taken to the hospital for burns, but fortunately, they weren't serious. We all had a lucky escape."

"A narrow one." The Doctor looked around him as they left the scene of the fire, his eyes taking in all the damage that had been done. "We'll have to come back here and do a little investigating, Ianto. I want to know what caused that fire."

Ianto nodded as they moved off, looking around them a little nervously. Could one of those faces that looked so innocent be someone who'd deliberately set a fire? He had no way of knowing, but he was sure that it hadn't been an accident.

He'd put it out of his mind for tonight, and concentrate on the question when they returned here after the Doctor was feeling more himself. Hopefully, they would both have clearer minds then. But just to be on the safe side, he was going to be even more cautious than usual.

Neither of them noticed a thin man dressed in a suit and tie lingering near the entrance of an alley, well out of their sight. He smiled as the two of them passed, watching them until they turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

Turning back to survey the scene of the fire, the man smiled, strolling to the bench where the Doctor and Ianto had been sitting. He searched the area, but the two of them had left nothing behind, nothing to indicate who they were or where they might be going.

The man put a hand on the bench, leaning against it -- his thin fingers beating out a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like drumbeats.

***