Title: The North Wind and the Sun
Author: Clarity
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Ten/Master (slight Master/Ianto)
Series: 1) The Slave and the Lion, 2) The Ant and the Chrysalis, 3) The Dog and the Bone
Note: Forth 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.

***

That night, the Doctor dreamt of his first kiss.

It had happened two days after he'd looked into the Untempered Schism, discovered the name destiny had assigned him, and thus graduated from Time Peer to Time Lord.

He'd been sitting in the tree range, cooling his heels in an artificial brook, under a nice canopy of leaves, hot after running around with his friends. With that tiny glimpse of his future firmly in mind, he had been playing a literal sort of doctor with a great deal of enthusiasm for most of the day. But now the light was dimming, most of his friends had gone home or back to the academy, and he had been left alone with his thoughts.

Almost. A familiar tingle had stung him in the neck and made him swing around to see who was there.

He remembered a hand pressing into his arm, a cheeky smile, holding back as his friend leaned towards him strangely close, hearts beating wildly, warm and soft lips suddenly meeting his, the other boy laughing as he ran away through the trees...

And then realising the Master had stolen his brand new sonic screwdriver.

That moment was to set the tone of their relationship from then on.

The Doctor woke up with a start and a little yelp. He blinked a few times, surprised to find that he'd fallen asleep in his chair. It had been a while since he'd done that.

Then again, it had been a while since he'd been alone.

Rose was forever lost to him, Martha had left of her own free will and so had Jack. Ianto too had slipped out of his grasp, like a flash of light he couldn't ever have hoped to hold on to. He really was completely alone now.

Not even...

Quickly, he banished that stray thought from his mind. That was one name he wasn't ever going to speak again and, for the safety of the universe, good riddance.

The Doctor ran a hand though his ruffled hair and took a moment to breathe in deeply. His thoughts were turning towards what he wanted to do next, or where he wanted to go, but they were lost as he realised the TARDIS was starting to shake.

He ran to the central console and made it just in time to grab on as the rumbling movement became violent, like she was doing somersaults through space and time. Every dial and light on his console started to flash and the monitor started to flicker sporadically.

HELP

It screamed at him in giant white letters against fuzzy, fritzing black.

DOCTOR

HELP

PLEASE

HELP

'Who... who's doing that?' he yelled over the din. 'Who's there?'

HELP


JACK

PLEASE

PLEASE

PLEASE

The last word got stuck on a loop, coming back and forth in a rhythmic pattern like a clock chime. He stared at it, trying to fathom how someone could be sending him a message through it. When he realised who it might possibly be, nerves rushed through him from head to toe. 'Ianto?' he tried. 'I-is that you?'

YES

PLEASE

COME

HELP

PLEASE

CAN'T

CAN'T

CAN'T

CAN'T

'Can't what?' the Doctor gasped. 'Ianto, can't what?'

The monitor sparked and shut down, leaving him none the wiser. So he diverted his energy to holding on tightly and trying to get the TARDIS to follow the cry and take him back to the place and time they had just come from, post haste.

*

The cheek that Gwen kissed, upon invitation, was rosy and pink and a little more stubbly than usual. 'Good night?' she asked.

Jack laughed and whirled her around in the air. That was all the response she needed really, but Jack didn't stop there. Next he grabbed Toshiko and made her dance, despite her flustered protestations, and ruffled his hand in Owen's hair, despite his murderous looks of warning. Then he stood at the centre of the Hub and stretched, his body and everything that he was seeming able to fill the entire cavern for a split second.

'Ianto about then?' Owen asked, grumpily. 'I take it Creepy took you home then, huh? Great. As if I needed to feel any more nauseous this morning.'

Jack happily ignored the mean spirited nickname Owen had conjured up. First of all, Ianto had been different recently, and neither he nor the others of his team would ever be able to understand why even if he did attempt to explain it. Creepy was as good a description as any, and one he couldn't argue with because he'd felt a bit of it too with the other strange ethereal version of Ianto that had briefly been inhabiting the man's body. Second of all, Owen was entirely correct that they had come to work together, having spent a long night doing what they did best together.

And there was nothing, absolutely nothing on earth, with the power to affect his mood today.

Then again, that was before the Doctor arrived; TARDIS literally spinning and turning the Hub into a chaotic mess before setting down, the man himself leaping out like he was on fire.

'Where's Ianto?' he asked the first person he collided with - Toshiko - frantically.

'Whoa whoa Doc,' Jack said and moved to stop him. 'Slow down. What's up?'

'Where is he? Is he alright?'

Jack looked at him oddly, but with concern. 'He's fine. Why? What's going on? Doctor?'

The Doctor caught his breath and made an effort to calm it down. 'He's alright,' he muttered, as though reassuring himself. He took a moment to compose himself and then frowned, deeply. 'Then why...? Huh.' He eyed Jack up and down, oddly. 'And so are you.'

'Right as rain.' Jack flashed him a grin but it didn't last long. 'What? What happened?'

Before an answer could be made, they were interrupted as Ianto arrived, hurriedly. 'Is anybody down here actually watching the monitors...?' he began, only to be halted in his tracks by the sight before him. 'Doctor?'

'Ianto.' The Doctor seemed about to run over to him but, aside from a small twitch in his direction, he stopped himself. 'What's happened?'

'Happened?' Ianto shook himself out of the lapse of concentration brought on by the surprise of seeing the Doctor again, so out of the blue. 'Oh, uh... giant slug.'

'Mmm?'

Ianto ran across to Toshiko's computer and reangled the cameras on the Plass. 'I take it nobody was actually watching then. I heard shouting and peeked my head around the door to the office. Tourists are clearing away pretty quickly.'

'Ugh,' Gwen said, now also seeing the slug in question. 'Is it throwing up?'

'Mucus. Bloody marvellous,' Owen sighed.

Jack sagged a little. He hadn't thought much could ruin his mood today but giant slug monster spewing phlegm was definitely something of a mood killer.

'Never mind that,' the Doctor said, pulling Ianto aside a little, stiffly. 'You called me.'

'Uh... no. I wouldn't know how to do that, even if I had a good reason to.'

'The TARDIS... she went nuts. It was you, I know it was...'

'Whoa!' Owen gasped, as a the giant slug managed to drench two people who were running away from it. 'Gross or what? They're gonna need a shower or two after that!'

Ianto looked between the Doctor and the monitor. 'I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you. I'm fine. We're all fine. And I really need to go get some hazmat suits ready so we can take care of that slug before it makes the evening news.'

The Doctor hesitated, but then stepped back to let him past. After a moment's thought, he followed behind him to ask more questions, only to be presented with a hazmat suit himself.

'Please, wear this Sir. It'll cut down on the drycleaning bill.'

*

And so it was the Doctor ended up shoulder to shoulder with a group of Torchwood specialists, attempting to melt a rather ill tempered oversized slug with saltwater pumped from the bay, topped up somewhat with salt from storage.

It took them more than an hour for the monster to be melted into a toxic, twitching puddle, and they were all exceptionally pleased to see it go. Even Gwen had no sympathy for it, thrash and whine though it did in the end.

Owen was the one who called for Ianto to sort out the clean up operation, only find he was not standing guard on the perimeter of their hastily erected quarantine zone as he'd been told to. Curiosity piqued, he took a look around and spotted Ianto across the way, near the entrance to the Millennium Centre, apparently talking to a pedestrian. 'Oi!' he yelled, immediately irritated by what he was seeing, since Ianto had been supposed to get rid of all potential bystanders, not stand around chatting with them.

'What is he...?' the Doctor muttered, and Jack turned to see what he was looking at.

When he saw, Jack immediately ran over to Owen, instructing him to sort out the mess while he went to Ianto. Something in his gut was rumbling warnings, though he had no idea why.

But something came to him as he went closer to them; a faint memory that otherwise might not ever have been stirred, of waking up some time in the middle of the night and seeing Ianto standing at the window, naked and blue from the moonlight, arms curved around his lean body, staring out at something and seeming troubled. Jack had rolled over and gone back to sleep and forgotten about it pretty much instantly.

The expression he saw Ianto was wearing was exactly the same one as he'd held then. He seemed disturbed, concerned, dazed and perhaps even a little afraid. Jack looked at the pedestrian but couldn't see much aside from a female shape and some golden locks tumbling out of the large swathe of red hooded cloak she was wearing, hiding her face. He noticed then, with some alarm, that Ianto and the woman weren't even talking; just standing there, apparently staring at each other.

'Ianto?' he asked.

There was no answer. Not even a twitch to show that he had been heard.

'Ian...' Jack started, and then came close enough to catch a glimpse of the woman's mouth. Something seemed familiar about those red lips, but he couldn't quite place them.

When, after several seconds, neither of them had moved, Jack removed the glove of his suit and pulled back the woman's hood.

He actually flinched back when he saw who it was. Then he grabbed Ianto around the waist and pulled him back, as if she might harm him, as stupid as the action would have seemed to him if the gut instinct wasn't sounding so many alarm bells.

Lucy Saxon didn't blink but she moved her head a little.

'Ianto?' Jack asked, and shook him, breathing a deep sigh of relief as his eyes finally shifted to him. 'What's wrong? What's she done to you?'

'Nothing,' he said, quietly. 'I just... I don't know.' Ianto frowned. 'She's been watching us. Since yesterday evening. I could... sense something. I didn't know what it is. Not sure now.'

Jack looked at Lucy, meaning to give her a hard glare, but didn't manage that. She looked completely blank; pale and glassy eyed like a porcelain doll. Her beauty was entirely undiminished but something in her eyes, something terrible and vast, destroyed its power. It was the spectacle of a childlike innocence corrupted, perhaps. Or madness even. It was hard to say.

The Doctor suddenly appeared at their shoulder. He was fighting his hazmat suit to try and get a hand inside to find his sonic screwdriver. 'Stay back, Lucy. Don't move,' he said, and finally liberated his device.

'What are you doing here, Mrs Saxon?' Jack barked at her.

She looked between them both but didn't respond. Jack felt Ianto trying to pull free of his grip to move towards her and held him back, determined not to let him take any risks. She might look dazed but he'd seen her kill before. He'd seen her stand by for a whole year as the earth burned and the Master destroyed everything in his path. Lucy Saxon was not remotely safe, or even stable.

'Jack, let me go,' Ianto murmured, weakly.

'Not a chance.'

'Doc, would you take him?' Jack asked, and passed him over.

The Doctor pulled Ianto back and started walking away, more than a little disturbed by the way he kept glancing back at her.

For a moment, Jack wavered over what to do. He didn't exactly want to keep her around, but nor could he let the bitch go in good conscience. It was strange that she had decided to appear in Cardiff. Even stranger that, if Ianto was correct, she had been watching them. Stranger still that Ianto couldn't seem to take his eyes off her. All those things meant that it was certainly strange enough to warrant further investigation, no matter how much the sight of her made his skin crawl.

Slowly, she lifted her hand and held it out to him, balled into a fist. He looked at her and at her hand, wondering what on earth she had. Obviously, it was something she meant to give to him.

Her fingers creaked open. Jack leaned in a little, to see more clearly. As he did, her other hand took hold of his wrist and pressed his hand over the object in her palm. She turned their hands over, to transfer it to him, and then stepped back, eyes clouding over a little as she lowered her head.

The Doctor felt a sudden jolt as Ianto suddenly collapsed in his arms, pressing his hands to his head like it was about to burst and trying to twist around to Jack. 'Jack! No! Doctor! Doctor help! Help Jack! Please! Please!'

His voice didn't just seem to be coming from him, it seemed to be coming from everything; the sky, the air, the earth and everything inbetween was crying out and the Doctor felt it in every part of his body. He could sense the TARDIS spinning again and suddenly realised what had happened.

This was Ianto's cry; the one which had sent him into a freefall through time. He'd just arrived before it happened. It was massive and primal and the whole earth felt like it was trembling.

The Doctor tried to move towards Jack, to see what was happening, but reality itself seemed to pummelling him back and forth somehow for being so close to him.

Jack was looking at something in his hand, frowning a little. It was obvious, even from where they were, that his eyes were wide as saucers and his pupils blown like supernovas.

The air between them began to pound. Rhythmic beats which made his spine tingle as they grew more and more cohesive.

Drums.

It was drums. Familiar drums.

He watched Jack's eyes slide closed and something else seem to take him over. The Captain held up what Lucy had given him, and the Doctor saw that it was something silver and thick. A ring.

As if through a tunnel, he watched Jack put the ring onto his finger and sway on his feet. The moment it set in place, the sound of drums suddenly stopped.

Then he heard laughter. In his ears. All around him. Insane laughter. Laughter... he knew. All too well.

Reality went back to normal at last and he no longer felt like he was being crushed by Ianto's sheer world-shattering terror.

Overhead, the rain broke in waves. But the man it fell upon was not the one who had been standing there a moment ago. The eyes and sinister smile told that story effectively.

'No,' Ianto moaned, pathetically. 'Please no. Doctor...'

In that moment he knew exactly why he'd been called so urgently.

And why he had been dreaming certain dreams, as well.

The team were moving in behind them now, disbelief in their faces. Someone was asking what the hell just happened. Another was calling Jack. One was moving for Ianto, asking him if he was alright.

The Doctor grabbed Ianto's gun from his holster, thankful that he hadn't worn a hazmat, and aimed it at Jack. He emptied it into Jack's body without blinking once.

'Tie him up and get him inside,' he yelled at the team. Of course, they all just looked horrified and didn't respond to his command. 'Trust me, that's not Jack. That's not your leader. Now get him inside and lock him up before he recovers!'

'Do it,' Ianto forced himself to say, though it clearly took a lot of effort. 'Please! Hurry!'

'But...' Gwen began.

'If there was ever a time to trust me... please, this is it!' Ianto gasped.

Owen ran over to Jack and managed to pull out some handcuffs to secure their dead leader's hands behind his back. He then called for someone to help him carry him and grabbed onto a reluctant Gwen.

'Take Lucy too,' the Doctor yelled, purposefully looking at Toshiko. Then he helped Ianto onto his feet and supported his weight as they hurried after them.

'Can't... can't... can't... can't... can't...' Ianto mumbled, breathlessly.

'Can't what? Ianto, can't what?'

He suddenly keeled over, completely out cold. The Doctor immediately swung him up into his arms and carried him the rest of the way.

*

Ianto's eyes fluttered open and he winced at the lights of the Hub dangling over him. He sensed a presence beside him but wasn't able to see who it was.

The person flittered away and he heard voices, before a different presence moved to his side. By this time his eyes were adjusting and he was able to see who it was. 'Doctor?'

'Hello there. Feeling better?'

'Uh... Maybe.' He forced himself to sit up and held his throbbing head in his hands. 'Sorry.'

'Don't be. Just... tell me what's going on. How...?'

'The Master!' Ianto gasped, suddenly, as if he was putting together the events leading up to his unconsciousness and not liking what he saw. 'Jack... oh god...'

'It's alright, he's contained,' the Doctor said, trying to calm him, despite the fact that he wasn't feeling all that calm about it himself. He was feeling like a man whose ground had been pulled out from under his feet and who couldn't figure out if he was falling or flying.

'No.' Ianto covered his eyes and seemed to be fighting off tears. 'This isn't happening.'

'Judging by suddenly changed accent and demeanour, I would have to disagree.' He was going for levity and got nowhere close. 'Do you know what that ring was? Where it came from? How...?'

'Yes.' The response was quick and snappy. 'It was... memories that weren't mine, they zapped into me when I saw it. That's what floored me. I couldn't control them. It was like a waterfall on my head. Since the, uh, since my return the connection between me and the other Ianto has been kind of quiet. Then it was zero to a thousand in one second.'

'So the ring is, what? Something the other Ianto knows about then?'

'Something he was keeping from me before now.'

The Doctor didn't like the sound of that, and his expression testified to that.

Ianto finally managed to get him into focus and frowned, deeply at him. 'Wait, what are you doing here, Doctor?'

'You called me.'

'I did?' Ianto pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut against the splitting headache he was wrestling with.

'Gave me a bit of a scare, if I'm honest.'

'Oh. You already told me that, I think.'

'Yes,' the Doctor admitted. 'I think you're in shock.'

'I knew something was going to happen,' Ianto continued, distantly, thought processes still erratic. 'Ever since you left, I've been sensing something. It was this. This was what I was sensing.'

'The ring?'

'I don't exactly know why.'

'You said it was memories. From the other Ianto...'

Ianto blinked and jolted a little. 'Yes. Did I? Uh, yes. Memories... memories I didn't have before, from the other Ianto. They slammed into me when I saw this ring. I'm not sure why.' He gulped and had to covertly dry his eyes, finding it hard to keep controlled when not too long ago his whole world had exploded and turned on its head. 'The ring is a remnant from the year that never was.'

As he faltered, the Doctor squeezed his shoulder and stood up. 'Cup of tea? Coffee?'

'That's my job...' Ianto tried to stand up.

'Sit down and catch your breath. I'll get it.'

'Alright. Coffee, please. Black. Strong as possible. I think I need it.'

The Doctor went to make the brew, a little dismayed to have to use his sonic screwdriver to get such a simple piece of technology working. He brought it back and smiled at the gratitude on Ianto's face. 'Now, start from the beginning. I need to know everything.'

Ianto leaned back and sipped at his coffee. 'The TARDIS, the Torchwood Three TARDIS I mean, when she got free she roamed the universe, she... wasn't happy because she needed a Time Lord. It's a basic need for any TARDIS I suppose. At that time, you were out of the picture and there was only one viable Time Lord around.'

The Doctor's eyes turned very dark, knowing exactly who he meant.

'I'm fuzzy on the details, but I think she sought him out at the end of the universe... found a way to communicate through the human, or should I say Toclafane, technology he had... struck a deal. In exchange for his demands, he promised to join with her and travel with her. Make her life meaningful again.'

'Something tells me he didn't exactly keep up his end of the bargain.'

Ianto shook his head. 'He was more interested in conquering Earth in the past than travelling around. Not much of a traveller like you, I guess. After she gave him what he wanted, he just cannibalised her for the paradox machine. But she escaped before he was able to take too much away.'

'So, what did he want?'

'There is only one thing the Master wanted more than to conquer the Earth and defeat you Doctor; immortality. This ring would have given it to him,' he said, and then added, bitterly, 'or perhaps I should say, has.'

'How?' the Doctor asked, his voice caught midway between a gasp and a croak. He hadn't had this much of a headache since chatting with the vortex Ianto.

'My other self made this ring. It's... well, it's Jack.'

'Uh... what?'

'That's the part I don't understand. Early in that missing year, he took all of the stray hairs, toenails, skin cells from him that were left in the Hub and time shifted their molecules to make that ring. The TARDIS offered it to the Master as a way of taking over Jack's body, should he ever run out of regenerations. Essentially, it's a means for him to live forever.'

'So he was going to keep Jack on ice and use him as a life raft when the time came?'

'Yes. But it makes no sense. Why make the ring in the first place? I don't get it.' He huffed and shrugged. 'Anyway, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, the Master's death was a set-up. Lucy, either her mind has been gone a long time or there never was one in the first place; she was and still is completely controlled by him. When she shot him, it was nothing more than his Plan B. To escape you. He transferred himself into this ring when she did that... and now she has brought it to Jack...'

Stricken, the Doctor started to pace and scratch the back of his head. 'Then we need to get that ring off him, right?'

'Uh... I don't know. Maybe.'

'Maybe?'

Ianto shrugged and rubbed his forehead, compulsively. 'I don't know if that will work or not. I just...' He gasped out loud, as though the pain in his head was dragging the breath right out of him. 'I can't think.'

No sooner had the words left his mouth had the Doctor hurried off. Ianto made an attempt to go after him but only made it so far as Owen's desk, where he collapsed pathetically into the chair. He searched around and caught sight of Owen, Toshiko and Gwen in the conference room on the upper level and guessed they were probably having an unofficial team meeting about what had happened.

That didn't particularly bother him. It was a natural reaction; essentially they were cavorting with their designated number one enemy, who had also killed their leader, on the say so of their hired help. Ianto had no idea what they were making of it all, but thought it best to leave them be to figure out their consciences for themselves. They didn't really matter anymore, anyway.

Ianto logged into the computer and accessed the camera system to search the cells. First he found Lucy, on level 8, lying down on the bed of her cell, staring up at the ceiling unblinkingly. Next he found Jack — not Jack, never think of him as Jack — on level 9, sitting on the bed and staring into the handcuffs he had been fitted with. Slowly, his eyes flitted up to the camera and Ianto felt a shiver go all the way down his spine; it was a look that didn't belong to Jack's face. A smile too that made him want to scream out with anguish.

When the Doctor appeared on the other side of the glass, Ianto put on his earpiece and tuned it into the signal. Then he sat back and watched, wondering what the Doctor was going to do.

*

'Hello Clarice.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 'Excuse me?'

'You never saw that one, then? Pity. You know, it's amazing how much time you have on your hands once you've conquered a species. I took in quite a few human movies.'

The accent was all wrong. The voice was Jack's but the diction and manner of expression was completely foreign to him. The Doctor stared at him, looking past the façade, trying to see the man he knew almost as well as he knew himself, opening what he liked to think of as a sort of Time Lord third eye. It was surprisingly easy.

The Master was certainly not hiding from him. More, radiating; as though he was indescribably proud of his achievement of managing to escape death, yet again. Had Ianto, the Ianto he mourned, the vortex entity, not seen fit to call him, the Doctor supposed if he would have sensed him all the same. He was just too proud not to boast.

Yes, he would have known. The Master would have wanted him to know he was alive. That was just how their relationship worked.

'Conquering planets not exciting enough for you?' he asked, lightly.

'It is so difficult to find exciting pastimes these days, is it not? Particularly given that we're the last two of our kind.' The Master stepped a little closer to the glass, coming more under the light. 'I like this form, though. Handsome, don't you think? Definite opportunities for excitement.' He rubbed the chin that didn't belong to him, smiling a smile that was more disconcerting than alluring.

The Doctor shrugged. 'I liked it better when it was Captain Harkness.'

'In that case, I'm sorry to disappoint. Although...' he squinted his eyes a little and tilted his head, 'I'm not so sure you are all that disappointed. Not really. Miss me did you? I have to admit, I did enjoy that tearful goodbye. Never knew you cared.'

With a sigh and a shake of the head, the Doctor decided just to cut to the chase. 'Take off the ring.'

There was a pause and he sensed a moment of indecision within the Master.

'Certainly.' He mimed doing that, but stopped before it was actually removed. 'How unfortunate, it appears to be stuck.' The words were issued as if in challenge.

'Take it off,' the Doctor warned.

'Or what? What will you do to me if I don't?' Now, even now, his smile was fixed in place.

The Doctor stepped closer, eyes darkening and growing narrow. But for the glass, they were almost nose to nose. Fleeting memories of all the humiliations suffered during their year on the Valiant; memories that could never be erased the way that time could be, circled around his mind alongside years of fights, battles and struggles.

His first kiss, his first orgasm (tricked away by the Master during a weak moment), his first heartbreak (when the Master stole the heart of the first woman the Doctor had fallen for, just to get back at him). They were all given in the waging of it.

This time, he wasn't going to let it happen. The Master wasn't going to win. Never again.

He reached inside his jacket and took out his sonic screwdriver.

'What do you plan to do with that?' the Master scoffed. 'Tickle me with vibrations until I give in?'

The Doctor merely smiled and pulled out the gun he still had in his pocket. He held them both up together. 'If you don't take off that ring, I'll come in there and take it off you myself.'

The Master looked between the two objects and then up at him, registering a modicum of seriousness at least. For once, he actually believed him.

*

Ianto hurried down to the cells as fast as he could, though it was like running through endless tunnels to his tired, shellshocked mind.

By the time he got there, he was too late. He knew would be but it still floored him.

The Doctor removed the ring from the lifeless hand of the Master and stepped outside, sealing the lock again with his sonic screwdriver.

'What have you done?' Ianto asked, aware that he had sunk down onto his knees and was shaking a little.

'What I had to do.' The Time Lord was studiously resisting eye contact. 'You don't know him like I do, Ianto. Everything is a game to him. There was no other way.'

'No other way that you'd enjoy so much?'

'What?'

'Nothing.' Ianto rubbed his forehead again and began to feel strange sensations, like sparks shooting behind his eyes. He could sense the other Ianto reaching out to him, tendrils of energy and power suffusing his veins, soothing him in a way he badly needed. Calmness overcame him and he was able to see and breathe properly again, all pain gone.

A laughter sounded and both he and the Doctor looked into the cell, to see the stolen body shaking with it. The Master laughed and laughed, like he'd heard the funniest joke in the world.

The Doctor just gaped in shock, still holding the ring in his upturned hand.

'You can't make a man take off his coat through cruelty,' Ianto said, but it was a different voice altogether than the one that had preceded it. He sounded like the eye of a storm; both calm and fantastical all at once. 'Let us help him.' Ianto stood up and put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder; an action which finally made him tear his eyes away from the Master's laughing gaze. 'Let us help him, the way we helped you and your TARDIS. Open the door for me.'

'Are you sure...?'

'Trust us.'

Not entirely understanding, yet sensing he needed to step back and give ground on this, the Doctor once again opened the cell door. He then backed away, watching Ianto kneel over the Master with a sense of the absurd at the situation. When the Master grabbed Ianto and rolled him over, he flinched but didn't go so far as to run inside, even if that was the purpose of his initial twitch in that direction.

The Master looked to the Doctor, grinned as if to challenge him yet again, and then kissed Ianto hard on the mouth. It made the Doctor's heart drop in his chest and his fingers twitched for the gun. If there had been any bullets left, he probably would have actually grabbed it again.

Ianto rolled the Master back over and pinned him down by the shoulders. The man inhabiting Jack's body stared up, frowning, as though something had occurred that he hadn't expected. The Doctor could sense his confusion.

'The drums... wh-where are they?' the Master muttered slowly, clearly shocked. 'I can't hear them.'

'You'll never them again,' Ianto promised. He closed his eyes and kissed the Master, using the contact to establish a link into his mind.

Years rolled past in memory form, from the day the Master had seen the edge of the vortex and lost his mind and on and on. Ianto let his other self take over, healing all of the cracks that had grown with every thrumming beat and pouring light into them; locking every act of anger, malice, hate and bitter-tinged love away within his mind.

And Ianto suddenly came to know exactly why the ring had been made; it was for this purpose all along. It had been made as a gift for the Doctor, to be given in this moment, in this manner. The vortex Ianto had simply kept that to himself in order to preserve the linear timeline.

Sneaky. Very sneaky, Ianto decided. But necessary nonetheless. He would have reacted quite differently had he already known that all of this was all going to happen, and that the Master's escape plan had been entirely orchestrated. Not by the Master, but by the other Ianto Jones. It made sense to him too though, really.

The Doctor needed the Master. Neither could die, not truly die, while the other lived. They had to be together, for the sake of universal balance, and for their own sakes. Just like him and Jack. Like a few others destined to be of great importance to the fabric of time. It was the universe's way of coping with its problem children.

'Doctor,' Ianto said and held his hand out towards the glass, invitingly, although he didn't turn his head to look at him. 'Doctor.'

A number of reservations churned the Time Lord's gut, yet he was sufficiently curious over what was happening to move to the door of the cell. He looked inside, trying to sense something, anything that could give him some sort of clue as to what was going on. The Master had suddenly become silent and distant to him. It was unnerving since he knew he was right there.

'Doctor,' Ianto whispered again, and moved his hand a little, still holding it out to be taken.

The Doctor stepped forwards and tentatively took it.

When the rest of the team finally left their meeting and ran down to the cells to see what was going on, they found nothing to be as they expected.

Ianto was standing outside of the cell, looking in, hands stuffed into his pockets. He looked distant but contented somehow. The Doctor was inside the cell, crouched on the floor in the corner, eyes closed, face peaceful. Jack, or at least the man inhabiting his body, was slotted against him, limbs tangled, sobbing into his chest and clinging onto him for dear life.

'What's happened?' Toshiko asked, Ianto.

'What are they doing?' Gwen asked almost at the same time.

Without a word spoken in answer, he gave them all a sly smile before turning and walking away.

*

They had sat in silence for a long time. Hours at least, and maybe even longer than that. The Doctor gently stroked the Master's hair, thinking how much more like the boy he'd befriended and even looked up to before he'd seen into the Untempered Schism he seemed now.

And while the Doctor contemplated this, the Master continued to cling onto him, enjoying a peace and quiet he could never remember even being able to imagine before.

'What do we do now?' they both suddenly asked, in perfect unison, and then laughed.

'That was eerie,' the Doctor said.

'Remember, the first day I met you, we did the same thing. Different words of course.'

'Ah yes. The words were “my toy”, and they were delivered in a far more petulant tone. Kids, eh.'

The Master squeezed his hand a little. 'Oh yes. I had forgotten. My mind... it's been so far away for so long. That was like another lifetime. Everything I've done, it was for the drums. My destiny... what I thought was my destiny. But they never stopped. No matter what world I conquered or what life I took. Never. Except...'

'They're gone now?'

'Yes. I feel like I'm seeing for the first time since... since I can hardly remember. It's... strange.'

'Hmmm,' the Doctor sighed. 'The question remains then, what do we do now?'

'What indeed.'

'You can't keep that body...'

'I know. You don't have to tell me. It's... wrong.' The Master smiled shyly at the bemused expression on his former rival's face. 'I don't want to. Whatever that Ianto boy did to me, I owe him the world. Also, I have to confess that the sight of him makes my heart beat faster and that's not down to me. This body just doesn't fit.'

The Doctor went for the old raised eyebrow. 'Should I be jealous?' he asked, lightly.

However the Master looked up at him with a far more serious countenance. A hand curled around the back of the Doctor's neck and pulled him down a little as if for a kiss, but the Doctor jerked back.

Suddenly, he was afraid for the safety his sonic screwdriver all over again - a completely irrational reaction given the obvious changes in his old enemy's personality. So irrational that he chuckled, nervously.

The Master finally pulled away and shuffled out of his arms. 'I'm sorry, you know for...'

'Forget it. We're past that.'

The Time Lord in Jack's body nodded, uncertainly since they obviously weren't past that, before finding his own space to sit down in. 'I think I have a solution, by the way. To this problem.'

'Oh?'

'It occurs to me that I need a body. Further to that is the consideration that we have a spare.'

'We do?'

The Master nodded and grinned.

*

Jack awoke, rather gracelessly, with a yelp and a shudder. He sprang up and managed to headbutt Gwen right in the forehead.

She fell back and took Owen down with her. They landed together in a tangled heap on the floor, each trying to get up without touching the other too much and trading some pretty fruity insults.

Toshiko put a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh.

'Jack? Can you hear me?' Ianto asked and squeezed his hand.

'Um... sure. What's going on?' He looked around the Hub and at his team, understandably disconcerted.

'What do you remember?'

Jack scratched his forehead and squinted his eyes, in the way people sometimes do when looking into the past. 'Giant slug.' Something hit him then and he looked more than a little shocked. 'Lucy... the ring... the Master...'

'Shh shh.' Ianto held him down by the shoulders to keep him seated. 'It's fine. You're alright.'

'I heard his voice in my head. He was everywhere... Like he was crawling into my mind.' He shuddered and fought his way past Ianto to get to his feet. 'Where's the Doctor? Is he alright?'

'He's fine. Everything is.' Ianto sighed and, after a quick glance at the team, set propriety aside for once to grab Jack in a hug. 'I thought I'd lost you,' he mumbled into his ear, under his breath.

Jack clung on and held him tightly, in the way that made their bodies slot together like jigsaw pieces. 'Never.'

Above their heads a familiar sound echoed down through the Hub and a stray gush of air ruffled the papers from their desks.

*

'I take it you're feeling better?' the Doctor observed, wryly, clearly bemused to see the Master waltzing alone to some Strauss.

'The TARDIS and I have come to an understanding, despite our history.'

'That's not what I meant.'

The Master lost his beat a step but picked it back up quick enough for it not to be too noticeable. 'Are you asking if I've got used to waking up in the body of a robotic nymph? Passably so.'

'No longer a Time Lord,' the Doctor observed. 'That must take some adjustment.'

'In spiritu, Doctor, in spiritu. But I at least got my immortality wish, or near enough. If they can't make synthetic human-robot hybrids to really last in the year one hundred trillion, there's no hope for them. Even if they did eschew this model for the advantages of existing as flying metal balls in a fiery environment; I suppose that's a form of robotic natural selection.' He paused for a moment and brushed his hands through his long blonde hair. 'I have to admit, I miss Lucy a little. Soulless plaything though she was.' The Master quickly shook that off and smiled at him, alluringly. 'Also, it will take some time getting used to being female.'

Yet again the Doctor moved a little closer. 'I suppose if you get tired of it, we can find a new, more masculine robotic body for you somewhere out there.'

'Not sure I have the strength to transfer again. Nearly didn't make it out of our dear Captain. But thank you for offering, that's very... chivalrous of you.' He extended a hand. 'Care to dance Doctor?' The Master ran his hands down his slender stomach and around his newly acquired curves. 'This body was made for dancing.'

The Doctor held back and pondered just how surreal this situation was. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of the Master's transformation but he knew and trusted Ianto's power to rid the other Time Lord of his demons, and could sense his sincerity for himself. Still it didn't make it any less strange and unexpected to have him, his lifelong friend and enemy, dancing in circles around his TARDIS and inviting him to dance with little in the way of ulterior motives.

'You know, the last time we danced, you stole my TARDIS key and crashed her into the side of the academy.'

'That was an accident...' the Master began, but then backed down contritely, 'alright, I was annoyed you graduated to TARDIS holder before me. But I have no intention of doing anything like that now. I'm reformed.'

Finally, he accepted her hand and they moved easily into a waltz. 'Oh really?'

'Absolutely. I'm a living, walking cliche the tortured soul on a quest for absolution. I have a lot to make up for. I'd like to start with you, if you'll let me.'

'Oh?' He twirled him around and dipped him in time to the music, even though it was a move that didn't really belong to a waltz of that tone.

'Yes. What was the first thing I ever took from you? Do you remember?'

He remember alright, but he wasn't about to say it. So the Doctor shook his head and feigned innocence.

'It was this.' The Master turned and pulled him closer and moved him into a kiss. His arms wrapped around the Doctor and their bodies sealed comfortably together, the music and the dance entirely forgotten.

This time, the Doctor didn't shy away. He leaned in and realised that yes, Ianto had been right all along; he had known who his other half was. He had always known. Not Rose, but the one soul who had been with him his whole life, regardless of separation, regardless of their endless battles, and regardless even of death on occasion.

He broke the kiss and smoothly resumed the dance all the way to its finishing bars. When it ended, he decided that it had been something of a long refrain; in many ways, they had basically been dancing for over nine hundred years.

The perfect time, then, to bring it to a conclusion at last.

***