Title: The Way Back
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3
Prompt: 25, Intimidated
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 reclined on the couch, waiting for the Doctor to come into the room. Of course, there wasn't any guarantee that he actually would come in, he thought, sighing and looking up at the ceiling. Ever since their near-breakup, the Doctor had .... changed. Their relationship wasn't as free and easy as it used to be.

In fact, it wasn't free and easy at all. They had gone right back to the awkwardness of their first days together -- only with a lot more awkwardness and none of the anticipation. Ianto sighed again, his fists clenching in his lap. The Doctor was distant, almost suspicious, not wanting to be touched or, it seemed, to even be close to him.

He'd felt bewildered at first, not knowing what to do, what to say. But now, it felt as if they'd settled into a kind of routine. Being polite, even seemingly friendly, but always with a wall of reserve firmly between them.

Ianto hated it. But there was nothing he could do to make things different, nothing he could think of to shake the Doctor out of his reserve and restore the passion they'd had in their relationship such a short time ago. He felt helpless, frustrated, immobilized. And there was no way that he could talk with the Doctor about what he was feeling.

Well, he could attempt to talk to the Doctor -- but it was something he shrank away from. He didn't want the Gallifreyan to feel that he was trying to get too close, too quickly. And with the way that the Doctor had been acting lately, Ianto didn't want to push him away even further than he already had.

This was his fault, he'd told himself over and over again. He had no one to blame but himself; it was his cold, cruel words that had sent the Doctor away from him in the first place, and those same words were making it impossible for the Doctor to feel comfortable with him again. If only he could take them back, somehow make them unsaid.

But that obviously wasn't possible. Once words had been spoken, they couldn't be retracted and disappear into thin air. They remained there, coloring everything around the person who'd said them, and making life much more difficult than it had to be.

For what must have been the thousandth time, Ianto inwardly cursed himself for having spoken to the Doctor in a moment of pique, when he was frustrated and angry. If he'd thought about what he was saying, then he wouldn't have phrased his words in that particular way, and he definitely would have thought about what he was saying before the words were out.

It was too late for self-recriminations now, too late for him to wish those words unsaid or to take them back. No, all he could do was to keep telling the Doctor that he was sorry, that he hadn't meant those words. He could only hope that eventually the Time Lord would believe him, and let their relationship begin to heal.

He frowned, thinking back over the past few days. He and the Doctor had slept in the same bed, but the Gallifreyan had made it abundantly clear that he didn't want to be touched or held, and Ianto had respected his wishes. But he couldn't help feeling that his own words hadn't been the only cause of that distance.

No, there had been something else to cause the Time Lord's reluctance to be intimate, something dark and forbidding. The Doctor had refused to talk about the time he'd spent in the place they'd found him in, and Ianto couldn't help but feel that the other man was keeping far too much bottled up inside -- and that those repressed feeling would explode at some point.

Still, if the Doctor didn't want to talk about what had been done to him during that time, Ianto wasn't going to force him into it. He was almost afraid to hear about it -- afraid that what he heard would make him break down in front of the man he loved.

Did he even want to know what that monster had done to the Doctor? What he'd seen with his own eyes had been bad enough; if anything worse had happened, Ianto wasn't sure that he could deal with knowing about it. And the Doctor had shown no signs of telling him, so perhaps it was for the best to let sleeping dogs lie.

He sighed again, slumping down further on the couch and closing his eyes. How much longer could they go on like this, almost as if they were trying to pretned that there was no rift between them? Ianto could almost feel his nerves stretching to the breaking point, the tension almost unbearable whenever he and the Doctor were even in the same room.

Maybe it would be best if the Doctor decided that he needed to take some time away, Ianto thought, a wave of guilt sweeping over him the moment that idea had fully formed in his mind. What in the hell was he doing? Sending the Doctor away was the very thing that had caused this mess in the first place. He wouldn't be stupid enough to do it again.

Ianto was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice when the Doctor entered the room until the Time Lord sank down onto the couch. The first thing he did notice was that the Doctor hadn't sat down close to him, as he normally would have -- no, the Time Lord was all the way on the other end of the couch, as far away as possible.

He swallowed hard, looking over at the man he loved from under his lashes. What should he do? Should he reach out to the Doctor, or was that something the other man would pull away from? He hated feeling so unsure, when only a few weeks ago, he would have felt utterly confident with taking the Doctor in his arms. This was beyond frustrating.

Why should he feel so intimidated by the Doctor? That was ridiculous, he told himself firmly. This was the man he'd lived with, slept with, talked with, made love with, and shared his life with for the past few months. The man who was his other half, his destiny. There was no reason for him to feel inferior, unworthy, afraid.

"What's the matter, love? Couldn't you sleep?" he finally asked, his voice soft and concerned. Even though he'd thought that the Doctor would wake and leave their bed, it still worried him that the Gallifreyan slept so little -- and that what sleep he did manage to get was disturbed by what appeared to be horrific nightmares.

The Doctor shook his head, looking down at his hands. "No, I couldn't," he murmured, his voice hoarse. Ianto's worry increased; the Time Lord sounded as though he'd been crying, and he was sure that if his own gaze met the Doctor's, his eyes would be red-rimmed. He couldn't bear to think of his love being unhappy, even though he knew very well that he'd caused that state of affairs himself.

"Can I --" he began, wanting to ask the Doctor's permission before he dared to touch the other man. He didn't want anything he did to seem like an intrusion, after all, not after what the Doctor had already been through at the Master's hands. But he couldn't hold himself back; he had to have some sort of physical contact.

Without waiting for an answer, or even for the Doctor to look at him, Ianto slid over on the couch next to the Time Lord, pulling the slender man into his lap and wrapping his arms around the Doctor's waist. The Gallifreyan tensed at first, then relaxed in Ianto's arms, leaning his forehead against his young lover's shoulder.

"You can talk about whatever's bothering you, you know," Ianto said softly, brushing a few strands of damp hair back from the Doctor's forehead. "You don't have to keep anything inside. Whatever it is, let it out. I'm here to listen, love."

"I know, Ianto." The Doctor sighed, not lifting his head and not moving. "I .... don't really want to talk about it. It's in the past, it's over and done, and I should be able to move on. But that's easier said than done. I want to concentrate on rebuilding our future -- but I can't do that unless I can move away from the past."

"Perhaps we both need to let the past go," Ianto murmured, stroking the Doctor's hair and tightening the arm around his waist. "We need to put aside what's been said, take the good parts of our pasts and let them go into the future with us, and blot out the bad. That's the only way we're going to have a future -- if we put the past where it belongs."

The Doctor didn't nod, didn't say anything for long moments. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy, as if all inflection had bled out of it. "If we don't confront the past and clear the air between us, then we don't have a future. We can't just sweep it under the carpet as if it never happened, Ianto. That won't make things better."

Ianto nodded slowly, placing one finger under the Doctor's chin and raising the Time Lord's face to his own. "I'm sorry, love. I want the words I said to be unspoken; I wish I'd never said them. I didn't mean them, but there was no way for you to know that. I'm so sorry that I hurt you as badly as I did. You have to know I never wanted that."

"It isn't that, Ianto." The Doctor shook his head, his dark eyes not leaving Ianto's. "Didn't I already say that all is forgiven? It's nothing you've done. It's something I've done, something that I can't forgive myself for. It's a weakness in me, a failing that I've never wanted to admit I have."

Ianto was silent, not knowing what to say. He had no idea what the Doctor was talking about -- and he wasn't sure that he wanted to know. But in a way, it was a relief to hear the Time Lord say something like this; his feelings of intimidation were starting to melt away, making him feel that he was on a more equal footing with the other man.

"Why would you say that, love?" he finally asked, wondering just what the Doctor could mean about "failings" and "weaknesses." Yes, he knew that the Doctor wasn't perfect; he didn't expect perfection from anyone, not even from the man he loved. But this was something he hadn't thought he would hear from the Doctor, and it started him a little.

"I ...." The Doctor seemed at a loss for words, finally shaking his head. "I can't put it into words, Ianto. It's just .... a feeling that I've always had within myself, that I've always been weak -- especially when it comes to him. There's a pull that I can't resist, some kind of odd link between us that I can't keep myself away from."

Ianto's frown grew, an uneasiness starting to build inside him. If the Doctor felt like this about the Master, then where did that leave them? He closed his eyes, biting his lip and forcing back the words of protest that rose to his lips. This was just something that he would have to trust the Doctor to be able to combat.

But his lover's next words were something that he wouldn't have ever thought he would hear.

"I need your help, Ianto," the Doctor whispered, clutching at Ianto's shoulders and holding onto him as tightly as he could. "I need you to help me stay away from him. I can't resist him on my own -- I need you to help me keep my head above water. I can't let him pull me under again."

"You've always had my help, beloved," Ianto said, wanting to burst into tears and hug the Doctor's thin body against him, to say that he'd protect this man until his last breath. But he'd already said those words, and besides, he doubted his own ability to protect anyone. What good would false reassurances do?

"Promise me, Ianto." The Doctor was pleading now, looking up at him with wide dark eyes, tears still streaming down his cheeks. "Promise me that you won't let me fall so far again. If I do, I don't know if I'll have the strength -- or the courage -- to pull myself out of that abyss again. I didn't this time, not on my own. If it hadn't been for you and Jack and Owen ...."

"Shhh, love, it's all right." Ianto pulled the Time Lord close, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and forcing back his own tears. "You have my promise that I'll do everything in my power to help you stay away from him." He raised the Doctor's face to his own again, kissing away the tears. "You belong to me. And I'm not giving you up."

"Don't let him get to me again, Ianto. Please." The Doctor's voice was a hoarse whisper, his grip on Ianto's shoulders tightening.

"I won't, my love," Ianto soothed him, continuing to stroke the Doctor's hair, trying to soothe him. "Don't you think that we should go back to bed? I-I can hold you, if you want." Damn. He hadn't meant to let those last words sound so tentative. He'd wanted them to come out as a strong declaration, not a question.

But the Doctor was nodding, agreeing with him, starting to move out of the protective circle of his arms to stand up. "Yes, I think that would be a good idea. If I start to have another bad dream ...." He shivered, crossing his arms over his chest. "Hopefully, those dreams won't plague me if you're holding me."

Ianto got to his feet, sliding an arm around the Doctor's slim waist and leading him towards their bedroom. "Then I'll hold you all night, for as long as you need me to. Besides," his voice lowered, his head turning to the side to brush a gentle kiss across the Doctor's forehead, "I've missed having you next to me. I've missed holding you."

"I've missed it, too," the Doctor said softly, leaning into Ianto's touch. "I don't know how I've gone this long without it."

"You won't have to go without it any longer," Ianto murmured, entering the bedroom and moving to sit down on their bed. "I'll be right here beside you, Doctor, for as long as you need me. We can start rebuilding ourselves, from this moment on."

The Doctor pulled back the covers, sliding into bed and moving over to make room for Ianto beside him. "That sounds reassuring, love. I'm never going to forget those words, you know -- or let you forget that you've said them."

Ianto quickly shed most of his clothes, leaving his boxers on and sliding into bed beside the Time Lord. He took the slender man into his arms, pressing another kiss to the Doctor's forehead, then to his lips. "I'll never forget them, beloved, never fear. Sleep well, my love, and don't forget that I'm right here beside you."

"I could never forget that," the Doctor whispered, closing his eyes and resting his head on Ianto's chest. Within moments, the Time Lord was asleep, his body warm and relaxed in Ianto's arms. The young man lay there, stroking his lover's hair, thinking about the events of the past few days and feeling grateful that he and the Doctor were still here together.

How could he ever have felt intimidated by this man? This wasn't someone who should frighten him or make him feel inferior. This was the Doctor, his soul mate, his destiny -- the man who he loved more than life itself. It was silly to have ever doubted himself so much; but at least he knew now that he didn't have to.

Ianto yawned, looking at the clock and realizing that it was much later than he thought. He definitely needed to get some sleep, or he'd be a mess in the morning. Smiling, he closed his eyes, pulling the covers up over his shoulders and letting himself relax. Within moments, he too was asleep, the Doctor clasped protectively in his arms.

***