Rating: PG (may eventually be NC-17)

Warnings: Spoilers (in an AU-ish sort of way) for the end of Doctor Who series 2 and all the minor character deaths implied therein (mostly. In an AU-ish way, again).

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Urrrgh, this one took so long. I had to rewrite it a dozen times before I was even slightly happy with it, and the only real reason I'm posting it now is because my lovely ball and chain has threatened grievous bodily harm if I don't stop tweaking things and let her read it. Which means posting it, so here you are. Hopefully, it won't put you off. (After the number of rewrites invested in this, I certainly hope not.) So! Onward, and march! :)

Chapter Nine

"We have to send it back," Ianto says flatly.

The Void ship gleams behind him, a black hole leading down to nothingness. It makes his skin crawl and his head ache with the sheer wrongness of it, and even the presence of the Doctor—who feels like determination and old wisdom and joy in life and enthusiasm—cannot temper the reaction.

"We've gotten Hartman to stop the Ghost Shifts for now," Jack offers, but he sounds grim even over the speakerphone, and Ianto can't imagine what he had to do convince Hartman—or bribe her. "But I don't know how long we can keep her away from the damned thing. She's certain that such a clean, perfect source of energy can't be anything suspicious."

The Doctor rubs his hands together, frowning thoughtfully. "And the Ghosts, can't forget about them. Right. I think…"

"The Void energy," Jack finishes eagerly, seizing on the plan, half a step behind the Doctor but still a step ahead of the rest of them. "Open the rift one more time, suck everything back through, and shut it again, permanently. Can we do that?"

"'Course we can!" the Doctor returns cheerfully. "Keep them from starting another Shift, Jack, we'll be right there." He snaps Ianto's phone shut and hands it back. "Well, Mr. Jones, how do you feel about another trip through the Tower?"

Ianto chews on his lip for a moment, assessing. He reaches for his ability again, tries to shift perception, but it's like trying to grab a hold of a thousand slippery, windblown threads.

He comes back to himself, breathless as if the wind has been knocked out of him, with a twist of vertigo. The Doctor is gripping his elbow, looking worried, and Ianto shakes his head carefully.

"I don't think I'll be much help," he murmurs. "It might be best if you just left me here, Doctor."

The Doctor looks at him, eyes warm and immeasurably deep, and grins. "Nonsense," he cries, and slaps Ianto's shoulder. "Now, how about running? How d' you feel about that?"

The answer, it turns out, is exhilarated.

There is a place that Ianto goes sometimes, when he dreams. It's a peaceful place, a beautiful one, for all that he can never quite determine what makes it either.

But there's a woman there, a woman with long black hair and a pretty face, coral lips always quirked in a kind smile. She sits on a stool in front of a window overlooking a green field, hands busy as they flicker over the silver thread she holds, the applewood loom where a tapestry is forever in a half-finished state.

As Ianto watches, she looks up and turns that sweet, pretty smile on him; her blue eyes are the precise shade of his own. "Of course it's not done," she says, and Ianto knows she's laughing at him, but it's too wonderful to matter. "You're still alive, my sweet. The story still has many endings yet to come."

"What about this part of it?" he asks, compelled. His fingers ghost across the stitching that she's still working on. "How will this end?"

Gently, she tugs his hand away from her work, folding their fingers together.

She's warm.

Ianto's not sure why that surprises him, but it does.

"Silly boy," she murmurs, "hasn't anyone ever told you not to spoil the story halfway through?"

The look Ianto gives her is full of despair, of hopelessness, because he knows himself and his life, and happy endings have never, ever been his. She sees it on his face, in his eyes, and her smile turns sad and sympathetic. "Oh, child."

Her lips brush across his forehead, and an elegant hand ruffles his hair.

"Not everything has to end in tragedy. Happiness just takes a little more effort, and a bit of help."

Jack, Ianto thinks, and smiles back at her.

They very, very nearly don't make it.

There are Cybermen in the Tower, hidden away in side corridors and construction areas, hovering over their bloody conversion tables—Ianto's nightmares given form.

Lisa's nightmares given form.

Ianto and the Doctor meet them entirely by accident, bolting around a set of guards who've chased them through seven floors already.

("Run!" the Doctor had shouted when they came across the first one, and Ianto had wanted to roll his eyes and smack the Doctor with the idea of discretion, do you not know how to keep a low profile for the love of little green apples, spaceman!)

Predictably, the Cybermen are none too happy with being discovered, and chase them.

Doggedly.

With very big guns.

"Is this how your day usually goes?" Ianto demands breathlessly, flinging himself through a closing doorway just under a bolt from an energy rifle.

The Doctor gives Ianto a vaguely sheepish smile, as though he doesn't know whether to be enthusiastic or chagrinned. "More or less, though the Cybermen are admittedly a bit beyond the normal scope of things."

"Brilliant," Ianto mutters, as something very large and metallic clangs into the closed door, denting it. He sighs, the Doctor grins, and they're off again.

Jack is waiting, a forbidding figure blocking the doorway, when they skid around the corner three short steps ahead of their pursuers—more security guards, new ones, as the last group had met the Cybermen somewhere in the middle and subsequently realized that two skinny men in suits running through their tower were the least of their worries.

The Captain steps neatly to the side as they barrel past, and then slams the door after them, locking it swiftly. The guards start pounding, but Torchwood Tower is built to survive an alien invasion, given enough warning, and there's no way they can get through.

Ianto staggers to a stop beside one of the desks, and recoils in horror at the sight of the body splayed out on the floor beside it. One of the Bluetooth devices Hartman's employees seem to favor lies next to him, a long strip of nerve tissue dangling from it.

Ianto's stomach churns threateningly, and he lurches away.

Jack catches him with a hand under his elbow, hauling him close to his chest.

"Shh," he murmurs, turning them away so the corpse—and Ianto can see another like it, and another, under other desks—is hidden from view. "They were already dead. I just finished things. I'm sorry."

The only thing in Ianto's head is the image of Lisa falling, riddled with bullets. Of Torchwood Four, burning to the ground. Of Cybermen, converted from the conscripts in Four's cells, and given no choice in death the same way they were given no choice in life.

"Gods," he whispers, pressing his face into the lapel of Jack's coat. "It's bloody Four all over again."

But it's not, because they win this time. The Void ship returns to the Void, hopefully never to reemerge, and the Cybermen Ghosts follow after.

They win, and that's the hardest part of this whole bloody thing to believe.

But, as Jack laughs and twirls Rose, as the Doctor crows with victory, Ianto watches, and in that moment, he believes.

When Jack turns to him, whirls him into his arms and dips him like some dame, as Jack pulls him upright and kisses him right there in front of God, Hartman, the Doctor, and everyone, Ianto can't be anything but grateful and so very, very overjoyed.