Chapter Text
The Hub was a disaster.
Ianto sighed and leaned on his broom, surveying the main floor with resignation. It had never stopped being a disaster, actually, after everything that had happened recently with Gray and John Hart, but now there were bits of blown-up Dalek everywhere, too. He'd sent Gwen home to Rhys hours ago, so now it was just himself and the mess.
He was sweeping Dalek casing into a dustpan when he heard the lift activate. He emptied the dustpan into a bin, wiped his hands on a rag, and went to greet Jack.
He wasn't alone. A disturbingly familiar man in a blue suit and trainers, with hair that stuck up every which way, was with him. He looked around with alert, intelligent eyes as they descended.
"Blimey, Jack," Ianto heard him say. His voice echoed off the walls of the Hub. "You've built a proper Batcave down here, haven't you?"
The voice was the nail in the coffin. Ianto's heart sank. Jack had sworn to him that he'd be back, that he wouldn't just leave them again, especially now, and Ianto had believed him. Here he was, as promised, but Ianto wasn't sure it boded well that he'd brought the Doctor with him. On the other hand . . . Jack didn't look pleased. He didn't reply to the Doctor's remark, and they descended the rest of the way in silence.
"Welcome home," Ianto said, when they were close enough he wouldn't have to strain his neck to see them properly.
"Thanks," Jack said, stepping off the lift. The Doctor followed, glancing about to take everything in until his gaze landed on Ianto. Then it sharpened, focused. Ianto fought the urge to loosen his tie. "How're things here?"
"Bit of a mess, but nothing we haven't seen before. Everything's sorted, I take it?"
"Oh yes," the Doctor said brightly. "No more Daleks or planets in the sky. The weather's going to be terrible for awhile, but it's not as though we'll much notice here in Cardiff, is it?"
Ianto wondered if that we meant what he thought it did. He glanced at Jack. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced."
Jack gave an exhausted sigh. "Ianto, this is the Doctor. Doctor, Ianto Jones. How many messages from UNIT?" he added, looking, if it were possible, even more weary.
"Only six or seven dozen."
"Right. If you'll both excuse me." He turned, trudged up the stairs to his office, and shut the door. Ianto stared after him, a little stunned. Jack had been cold to everyone lately, but that had been downright frigid.
The Doctor cleared his throat. Ianto glanced back at him and raised an eyebrow. The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets. "Don't take it personally. It's been a long day. Lots of history for Jack."
"I see," Ianto said, looking him up and down. History, indeed. "So. You're the Doctor."
He gave an awkward little side-to-side hand wave. "Sort of. Depends on how you define selfhood, really. I've all his memories, so if that's what we are, then yes, I'm the Doctor. On the other hand . . . only one heart," he pointed to his chest, "and if you were to shoot me with that gun I see you're carrying, I would stay quite dead."
"Good to know," Ianto muttered.
"I'm a human-Time Lord metacrisis. I'm the Doctor, but . . . human." He grimaced, as though the word tasted sour. "I expect I'll get used to it."
"I expect so," Ianto said, automatically. He glanced up at Jack's office again. "If you don't mind my asking, why are you here?"
"Ah." The Doctor rocked back on his heels. "That's an interesting story. My other half's a bit of a prat, you see, which probably means I am as well, but he's the one who decided he didn't want to look at me every day, some rubbish about genocide as though he hasn't - well, anyway, he wanted to dump me in the other universe with Rose, but Rose wasn't having it - quite right, too, I don't blame her the least bit for it - so he brought us both back, and now, here I am." He shoved his hands in his pockets again. "Don't think it did Jack any favors, seeing Rose again, especially since now they're -" he waved his hands expansively, if vaguely "- out there, and he's here. Not that he doesn't want to be here," he added hastily, "but, well . . . anyway. The prat asked him to come with, but only because he knew Jack'd say no."
Ianto frowned. "I see." There was a lot of garbled information there, but he thought he'd managed to parse the relevant bits. He hesitated, wanting to be very careful in how he asked his next question. "So you're here permanently, then?"
"So it seems. Jack promises me you're not like that lot at Canary Wharf."
Ianto managed to control his flinch. "No, definitely not."
"I suppose it's as good a place as any. Jack's a friend, and there's the Rift, of course. The 21st century is an interesting one. If I'm going to be in one place and time for the rest of my life . . ." He shrugged, glancing away. Ianto watched in fascination as his gaze skittered over the Hub: the workstations, the pool, up to Jack's office, and finally back to the main room. It took Ianto a few seconds to realize he was staring at the shards of Dalek casing still littering the main floor of the Hub.
"Sorry, I was just cleaning up," he said, moving to pick up his broom.
"Right," the Doctor said. "Er . . . can I help?"
Ianto raised an eyebrow. "If you like. There's another broom in that cupboard over there."
They agreed to start at opposite ends of the Hub and meet in the middle. Ianto kept an eye on the Doctor for the first few minutes, but whilst he did have the tendency to get distracted by shiny alien artifacts, he didn't seem inclined to do anything dangerous with them. Ianto had to admit that things went much faster with two people. Within an hour, they had almost the whole floor clear of debris, and were able to start the actual mopping part of the post-crisis mopping up. Ianto pushed his mop along on auto-pilot, iPod headphone in one ear and his other tuned towards Jack's office, and let himself drift. It wasn't as good as actual sleep, but it was the closest he'd come for at least a couple more hours.
At last Ianto decided he'd had enough. The worst was taken care of, and the rest would keep until tomorrow, when he could press-gang Gwen. He wrung his mop out one last time, stuffed his headphones in the pocket of his suit, and went to tell the Doctor to call it a night.
The Doctor was scrubbing hard at the floor, hair flopping down into his face. He was also, Ianto realized as he came within a few feet, muttering to himself. Ianto frowned.
". . . three-six-zero-zero-one-one-three-zero-five-three-zero-five-four-eight-eight-two -"
"Doctor," Ianto said quietly. The Doctor startled, his head coming up. His eyes were wide and a little wild. Ianto smiled nervously. and held his hands out, doing his best to look harmless. "I don't know about you, but I'm ready to call it a night."
"Oh," the Doctor said, looking around. "Yes, I suppose so. What time is it?"
"Just gone one. I was going to take Jack a cup of tea before I left." If he left. No telling what mood Jack would be in tonight. Ianto was happy to offer sex if that was what Jack wanted, but he wasn't sure it would be. It hadn't been thus far, not since Gray. "Would you like some?"
The Doctor's face suddenly looked a bit pinched. He smiled, but it didn't come anywhere near his eyes. "Yes, that - that would be nice. I also - I . . ." He hesitated. The tips of his ears went pink. "I think I need to sleep. Just an hour or two, I'm sure, but my body seems rather insistent." He gave a brief laugh, as though he could not quite believe himself. "Is there anywhere I could - I mean, I don't need -"
"The sofa," Ianto said, gesturing. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll bring you a blanket."
He made the tea as quickly as possible - herbal, of course, no caffeine this time of night even for him unless there was a crisis in-progress. He took a tray with three mugs and a small plate of biscuits out to the Doctor, along with a spare blanket. It was on the rough and scratchy side, but considering that the Doctor seemed to be planning to sleep in his clothes, Ianto supposed it didn't matter.
Tomorrow one of them would have to take him out and help him buy a few essentials. He had nothing, Ianto realized, watching the Doctor add an alarming amount of both cream and sugar to his tea. Truly nothing. The Doctor - the other Doctor, the one with two hearts who apparently wouldn't stay dead if Ianto shot him - had dumped him here with only the clothes on his back. And so far all Ianto had done was make him mop up Dalek goo.
Ianto cleared his throat. The Doctor glanced up. "I'll give you a proper tour tomorrow," he said, "but for now the kitchen's there, and the loo's just there. Don't worry if you hear something flapping around in the rafters, that's just Myfanwy, the pteradon. She's friendly. If you need anything in the night, Jack sleeps in a room under his office."
The Doctor nodded, looking up at him. "Are you staying?"
"I'm not sure yet. I might be. Don't worry," Ianto added, with half a smile, "even Jack can be discreet when he wants to be."
The Doctor smiled into his tea. "It isn't a problem. Thank you, Ianto Jones."
"It wasn't anything. You helped me."
The Doctor shrugged. Ianto wished him a good night and climbed the stairs to Jack's office, tray in hand once more. He glanced back at the top and saw that the Doctor had stretched his legs out on the sofa so that he was propped up on one end. He held his mug of tea loosely and stared off into the distance. His lips were moving. No sound emerged that Ianto could hear, but he was certain that if he watched closely enough, he would see them form the shapes of numbers.
He turned away and knocked on Jack's door.
"Come in."
Ianto pushed the door open with his hip. "Tea, sir?"
Jack nodded. "Thanks." He held his hands out to accept the mug. "UNIT," he said, making a face at his phone. "I don't know why I bother." He took a long, slow sip of tea. "How's our guest?"
"All right, I suppose. He seems a bit . . ." Ianto hesitated.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "What?"
"Nothing. I think he's just exhausted."
"That makes two of us then." Jack heaved a sigh and set his tea down. He rubbed his hands over his face. "I'm sorry for just dumping him on you like that. It was wrong and I knew it, but I just - I couldn't -" He laughed. It sounded strangled. "So much of my past has dropped by to say hello lately. I really couldn't deal with him on top of everything else."
"You'll have to eventually, you know. You're all he has."
Jack shook his head. "Don't say that. Not even if it's true." He leaned forward and put his head in his hands, pulling roughly at his temples. "God, I'm so tired. You'd think I'd be well-rested after a two-thousand year sleep, but it turns out that's not how this works."
Ianto swallowed. "Jack -"
"Sorry. Sorry." Jack straightened up in his chair, rolled his shoulders back, and looked steadily at Ianto. "You should go home, get some rest. You've been here for days."
Ianto bit his lip. "If that's what you want."
"I think it'd be best. Thanks for the tea."
"Of course." Ianto hesitated, then leaned across the table, cupped the side of Jack's face in his palm, and kissed him. "Get some rest yourself, all right?"
Jack reached up to cover Ianto's hand with his own. "I'll try."
Ianto stayed long enough to rinse the mugs and leave them upside down in the drainer to dry. Then he collected his coat and slipped quietly out through the Hub, pausing to give it a quick auditory check. It was making its usual night noises: hums and growls and rustlings, with the occasional purr from the mainframe. Tonight there was a trickle of water as well, as it seeped down from the downpour above.
Ianto held his breath and listened harder. Sure enough: beneath all of that, he could just barely discern a string of numbers being whispered into the dark.
". . . six-six-four-eight-two-one-three-three-nine-three-six-zero-seven . . ."
***
The Doctor woke gasping for air. Still half in the dream but starting to realize that it wasn't real, he wasn't buried alive and choking to death on dirt, he forced himself upright, pulling in great gulps of slightly dank air and waiting for his respiratory bypass to kick in.
Except it didn't. And wouldn't. He didn't have a respiratory bypass anymore. He didn't have a second heart, either, nor a spare liver. If any of his organs failed, he was buggered.
"Bloody hell," he gasped, head spinning. He doubled over and put his head down between his knees. "Three-point-one-four -" he choked out, but didn't get any further. "Jack," he tried next, but his office, when the Doctor managed to lift his head to look, was dark.
It took him a long time to come down and even longer for the dizziness and disorientation to recede. When it finally did, he lay sprawled across the sofa, mostly on top of the blanket Ianto had given him. He felt wretched - utterly exhausted, but still too terrified to sleep.
He wanted Donna. She had always been so good with his nightmares. But Donna was gone. He hoped Rose had been spared watching it.
Donna was gone and Rose had chosen her Time Lord. The Doctor didn't blame her. But he missed them. Martha, at least, was within reach if he decided to call her. Perhaps he'd look up some of his other old friends, see what had become of them. He'd love to take tea with the Brigadier again. If Jack didn't want him, and the Doctor was beginning to think he didn't, perhaps he wouldn't be completely alone.
The Doctor choked out a laugh. What rubbish. Of course he was alone. He was more alone than he had been in centuries. He ached with how alone he was, deep down where his second heart used to be.
He could no longer hear the TARDIS.
A thousand years together, and now she was gone. He doubted the other Doctor had even considered that when he'd decided his human twin would do "just fine" with Jack in Cardiff. All he'd cared was that he didn't have to look at his own genocidal face across the breakfast table every morning.
The Doctor rubbed his eyes. This wasn't doing him any good. He had to adapt. He had to. That life was over. He might never see the TARDIS again. He had to accept it.
It just . . . it hurt. Eventually it would either stop hurting, or he'd get used to it and not notice anymore. He had no other choice.
But tonight, he wasn't there yet, and he knew he wouldn't get any more sleep. He wrapped the scratchy blanket around his shoulders and waited for morning.
As it happened, he didn't have to wait nearly as long as he expected. Only a few minutes later - exactly how many, he didn't know, and wasn't that strange after a lifetime of being able to track time down to the very millisecond - the light in Jack's office switched on and Jack emerged, staggering down the stairs in t-shirt and trousers, his braces looping down by his hips. He paused at the bottom as he caught sight of the Doctor.
"Sleep well?" Jack asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "You?"
Jack shook his head. He looked away. "I need coffee. And we should talk."
The Doctor nodded. He followed Jack into the kitchen, where Jack brewed a pot of coffee. The Doctor accepted a mug, sniffed it, and poured half of it out in the sink to replace with cream and sugar. "How do you have any stomach lining left?" he wondered aloud.
Jack smiled faintly. "Ianto makes it most of the time."
"Ah." That made sense. The Doctor had scarcely been in any fit state to appreciate it, but the tea Ianto had made the night before had been impeccable. He seemed the sort of person who might invite that description on a regular basis. The Doctor had been called many things, but impeccable had never been one of them.
"So," Jack said, when they were seated across from each other at the small table. He opened his mouth, then closed it. "You're here," he said at last.
"So it seems," the Doctor said. He hesitated. "But I don't - I know you didn't - neither of us -"
"Just say it, Doctor," Jack said wearily.
The Doctor sighed. "Fine. If you'd rather I weren't here, please tell me." He sipped his coffee, cradling his mug in both hands to hide the fact that they were shaking. He had other former companions, other friends in this place and time. But while mopping the floor with Ianto, he'd started imagining himself here, thinking about the niche he could carve out for himself with Jack and his team. Of all his options, it was the one that filled him with the least dread.
Jack rubbed a hand over his face. "Doctor, please. I can't deal with anyone else's angst right now." He drew a deep breath. "We've had a rough go of it here lately. I don't want to talk about it," he added, before the Doctor could speak. "Ianto will tell you, if you ask."
The Doctor nodded. "Fair enough. But you never did say . . ."
"Neither did you."
The Doctor frowned. "No, but - well, frankly, what I want is no longer a possibility. And this," he turned to gesture towards the main part of the Hub, "this isn't anything like what Yvonne Hartmann was running in London." He shrugged. "You know me, Jack. I love things cobbled together from spare parts that only work half the time."
"Well, then," Jack said with a sad smile, "you might work out here after all. And . . . we do need a tech. Do you want to stay, then?"
"I want to stay," the Doctor said cautiously, "if you want me to."
Jack said nothing for what felt like a very long time. The Doctor sipped his coffee. It needed more sugar.
"That's never been our issue," Jack said at last, his voice a bit rough. "I've always wanted you to stay."
The Doctor winced. Touché. "If it helps . . . it's not an problem for me, Jack. I can't feel you like he can. You're just you. Just Jack."
Jack smiled, but it wasn't a very nice expression - his lips twisted bitterly. "Well, I guess we're decided, then." He stood to put his mug in the sink.
"Jack," the Doctor said, twisting in his chair, "are you all right?"
Jack braced himself against the counter, his back to the Doctor. "No. You?"
The Doctor was silent. "Last night I was reciting pi," he said at last, "and I realized I couldn't remember more than about the two-thousandth digit. It just isn't there anymore." He shrugged. "On the other hand, I can't really fault existing."
"Yeah," was all Jack said. It occurred to the Doctor that Jack probably had days when he wished he didn't exist. Rather lot of them lately, he suspected.
Jack crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the sink. "I'm going to have Ianto take you out today. You need clothes, personal items, a mobile. Ianto's good at organizing that sort of thing."
The Doctor nodded. "Thanks."
Jack left. The Doctor stood and dumped his coffee down the sink. He ran the water to wash it down and splashed some on his face while he was at it. He would have liked to have a shower, but he didn't know where they were, and Jack hadn't offered to show him. Ianto had said he'd give him a tour later. The Doctor supposed he could ask him then, if it didn't come up.
He sighed to himself. "This may have been my worst idea ever," he said aloud to the empty kitchen. And it hadn't even really been his.
Three hours later, that opinion hadn't changed. The Doctor had been nearly shot as an intruder by Gwen Cooper and come close to being mobbed by the pteradon, who was after the chocolate Ianto had his pocket. To be fair, Gwen obviously felt a lot worse about almost killing him than Myfanwy did, and she made up for it by giving him the second chocolate croissant in her bakery bag.
It was the first food the Doctor had eaten as a human. He nibbled cautiously, wondering if it would taste any different. He was unsurprised to find he could no longer take it apart molecule by molecule. But butter was butter and chocolate was chocolate, and after a few bites he found he actually enjoyed eating without analyzing. He bolted the rest of it and washed it down with a cup of Ianto's vastly superior coffee.
"Thank you," the Doctor said at last, swallowing the last bite of croissant. "I'd no idea I was so hungry."
"You should be flattered. I was planning to squirrel that away in my desk as a guilty pleasure." Gwen leaned back in her chair, sipped her own coffee, and eyed him with undisguised curiosity. "Ianto says you're the Doctor, but not."
"That's true. More or less. Mostly more."
"He also says you might be staying. For good."
The Doctor shrugged. "For a while. Jack says you need a tech."
Gwen's eyes shuttered. "I guess so. Tosh was a genius, and she had a lot of special projects going. I don't think the three of us could understand half of them."
The Doctor was finding that it was easier, as a human, to understand when he'd put his foot in it, and a lot harder to pretend he didn't care. He cleared his throat and tried to think of something appropriate. "I look forward to trying," he finally said, hoping it'd do the trick. Not that he anticipated it being very difficult. Torchwood had undoubtedly got a bit of a boost from scavenged alien tech, but there was only so much a 21st century scientist, however brilliant, could do.
Then again . . . approximately a million digits of pi were suddenly missing from the Doctor's brain.
"Just be careful," Gwen advised, as she collected the napkins and used them to sweep crumbs off her desk and into the bin. "Tosh was mad about security, and the mainframe is very finicky."
The Doctor smiled. "I've some experience with finicky machinery. But thank you, that's good to know."
"Doctor," Ianto called from across the Hub. "Are you ready for that tour now?"
The Doctor stood. "If you are."
"The Rift predictor said it would be quiet today," Ianto said, coming closer with his own coffee in hand. Was that his second or his third cup? The Doctor wondered if he'd end up similarly addicted. "I thought we'd do the tour, and then Jack gave me the Torchwood credit card to take you shopping."
The Doctor shook his head. "You don't have to do that. Really, I have money. I worked for UNIT years ago, and it's all just been sitting there, collecting interest."
"Do you have any way to access it?" Ianto asked. "Bank card, for instance?"
The Doctor was forced to his shake his head.
"Well, then that's something else we should sort. But for now, Jack's feeling generous, and I for one am not going to argue, especially not when it means sushi for lunch. Come on, I thought we'd start at the bottom and work our way up."
The bottom turned out to be the vaults and the cells, filled with creatures Ianto called "weevils." They weren't a species the Doctor had ever seen before, but Ianto said they'd become a bit too common around Cardiff. Mostly they kept to themselves, but occasionally they got aggressive. The cells were the best Torchwood could do for them.
It was clear from his sideways glances and carefully chosen words that Ianto expected criticism from the Doctor about this. As it was, the Doctor had to physically bite his tongue to keep from saying anything unfortunate. His Time Lord twin wouldn't have bothered, he knew; he would have simply laid into Ianto and later Jack for keeping these creatures locked up under these conditions. But the other Doctor might've had a way to offer them a ride home. He didn't. He was just as stranded as these poor creatures were.
"How unfortunate," was all he said. Ianto let out a breath that was not quite a sigh of relief, and led the Doctor upwards into the archives.
The Doctor was glad to eventually emerge into the relatively open space of the Hub proper. Ianto gave him a thorough orientation in the kitchen and other common areas, such as the conference room, and a more cursory one in the autopsy bay, which also seemed to double as a basic infirmary. Most of the equipment, both domestic and alien, was already familiar to him, he was glad to see. Finally, Ianto led him onto the main floor of the Hub and pulled up beside one of the empty work stations. This one appeared particularly tidy, as though someone had given it a good dusting recently.
"Jack seems to have decided you're to be our tech. That means you'll be working at Tosh's station." Ianto nodded toward the computer and console.
The Doctor wondered just how recently Tosh had died. Recently enough for Ianto to look like this physically hurt him. "I don't have to. I'm sure I could work from one of the others."
Ianto sighed. "I don't think you could, to be honest. And Tosh wouldn't want her projects abandoned. She'd be honored to have you take them on, I'm sure. Now," Ianto clasped his hands together, clearly signaling that that conversation was over, "do you have any questions?"
"Just one." The Doctor smiled weakly. "Is there anywhere I might have a shower?"