Rating: PG-13

Word count: ~ 3,000

Warnings: Canon (assumed) character death, canon character death at a time that is not canon.

Summary: "Stop," Ianto's mother cuts him off. "He's my child, Doctor. You can check the Matrix if you're doubtful."

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: Last chapter! I warned you that it was going to be short(-ish). But there will possibly someday be a sequel or a follow-up one-shot—it might be fun to write the Rani's reaction to seeing her son again. Anyway, Meridas, I hope you like what you spawned with you innocent little prompt. I certainly had fun with it. :D

Take this kiss upon the brow (and, in parting from you now)

This time, when Ianto dreams of Gallifrey, it is different. He stands in the middle of a field of wilted red grass with skeletal silver trees in the distance, and the grey clouds are thick across the sky, low and heavy. Rain is falling like tears, even though it has not rained on Gallifrey in a Time Lord's memory, the clouds splitting open and falling to earth the only way they know how.

There is no one else. There are no animals in the grass, no birds in the sky, no laughter from the distant hills. Ianto stands alone upon a dying world, a world in mourning.

Here, now, in his dreams, is the last of the Nine Gallifreys.

The remaining Time Lords are so few in number that Ianto can count them all upon one hand and have the majority of his fingers to spare, even if he is wrong in his assumptions and his mother still lives.

The Master is dead, and now only the Doctor and the Archivist remain.

Ianto raises his head, stares up towards the slowly crumbling sky, and grieves.

Twenty-nine, fifty-seven, eighty, and Ianto is on his own, a Time Lord in his own right, trained by the Rani and an exile of Gallifrey in all but law. He does not go back, even though Gallifrey haunts his dreams, calls him home with visions of open skies and soaring mountains and libraries of knowledge that he's already stored in the recesses of his memory.

No, he says to her. No, I will not return; my mother is one of your forsaken and my father is no one. I am a son of the stars, and I will live and die as such.

Gallifrey never stops beckoning him home, never stops pleading in his mind for him to come back to her, until the day she does.

His TARDIS has rearranged herself while they were out; now, the main room sports a wide bay window with a comfortable seat—the perfect place to watch as all of time and space rushes past. Ianto strides in without hesitation, Tosh right behind him, Owen and Gwen following her. The three of them immediately make for the window, still slightly out of breath after their run from the Futurekind, and Ianto watches them with a fond smile, happy that they're already so much at home in the TARDIS.

Outside the window, the Doctor and his companion—the lovely Martha Jones, whom Ianto has yet to have a chance to meet in more than passing—are standing outside the Type 40 TARDIS, clearly arguing about something. They look fond of each other, though, content in their disagreement, and Ianto smiles at that, too.

It's good to find things to smile about, after learning that he and the Doctor are quite probably the only Time Lords left.

The scuff of a WWII clodhopper pulls Ianto's attention back to the open doorway. Jack's standing there, looking around with a kind of absent interest.

Something in Ianto's heart sinks a bit, but he steels himself and reaches for Jack's arm.

"Come on," he murmurs. "I think we need to talk."

Jack nods in silent agreement, casting one last glance towards the Doctor and his TARDIS before following Ianto down the hall, through the first door on the right. It's a library, beautiful and light and airy, holding what is quite likely the last remnant of Gallifrey's vast collection of literary knowledge. It's a sad thought, but comforting, in a way. There's a bit of home that's always to be had, something of Gallifrey that he can carry with him, beyond his heritage and dream-memories.

Waving Jack to one of the couches scattered around the room, Ianto keeps walking until he's right in front of one of the shelves, scanning titles even though he remembers the placement and contents of every single book in the room.

Silence settles between them, awkward in a way Ianto had thought they'd overcome after Lisa, and he can't bring himself to break it.

But Jack can't, either, it seems, and the stillness stretches until Ianto clears his throat sharply and says, in a flat voice, "You're not coming home to Cardiff with us. You're going to stay with him."

Jack nods slowly, and it's apologetic. "Yes," he says, and despite the regret in his tone, his words are firm. "Not forever, and I'll come back to Cardiff, but I need this, Ianto. I've been waiting for the Doctor for almost two hundred years. This is—I need to make things right between us again."

Ianto wants to point out that forcing the Doctor to travel with him probably isn't the best way to deal with a Time Lord's natural avoidance of fixed points, but keeps his lips sealed firmly shut. He's got no idea what will come out if he tries to speak, and would rather not humiliate himself right now.

"What about Torchwood?" he asks, when he can finally trust himself to open his mouth again. "Three is all that's left, and with you gone—"

Soft fingers on his face, a big palm cupping his cheek, and Jack's suddenly right in front of him, smiling gently. "Ianto, you're a Time Lord. There's nothing that can come out of the Rift that you and the team won't be able to handle. And the Doctor's got a TARDIS, too. He can have me back a few hours after I leave."

Ianto sniffs disdainfully, but leans into the touch. "That old heap of scrap barely counts as a TARDIS anymore," he says, and he'll never admit to the slight tremor in his voice. "Especially with the Doctor at the helm."

Jack's smile is exasperated, if fond, and he chuckles as he leans forward to capture Ianto's lips in a forceful kiss. It's all heat and want and humor and affection, and hope rips through Ianto like freefall.

"I'm sorry," he whispers as they separate. "I'm sorry, I would have told you, but even I didn't know—"

Jack kisses him again, and it's just as lovely as before, even if Ianto suspects that the main purpose this time is to shut him up. "Enough," Jack orders warmly. "I get it, Ianto. The Doctor's got a Chameleon Arch, too, and he explained it to me once." He ghosts his fingers over Ianto's ruffled hair, down his cheek and neck, and taps him gently over his right heart. "Ianto," the Captain murmurs, catching and holding Ianto's eyes firmly. "Ianto, I'm going to come back. I swear. You don't have to worry about me."

"Of course I do." Ianto raises an eyebrow at him. "I grew up with the Doctor, Jack. I've seen the kind of mayhem he drags along in his wake. But if he doesn't bring you back in one piece, I'll stuff him through a wormhole."

There's a long moment of startled silence, and then Jack throws his head back and laughs, bright and loud and sweet. He drags Ianto closer, crushes him against his chest, and holds on tightly, snickering into his hair.

"Oh, Yan," he whispers, "never, ever change. You're perfect just like this."

Suddenly, it's not enough to be standing, pressed together from knees to crown. Ianto wants more, wants everything, and he grasps Jack's arms with something close to desperation.

"One hour," he demands, making Jack pull back to look at him in confusion. Ianto meets blue eyes, bright under furrowed sandy brows, and repeats, "One hour, Jack, and then I'll let you go without a word. I'll even tell the others if you want. Just give us one hour for a proper goodbye."

Jack grins at him, brilliant and happy. "Ianto, if you think all we'll need for a proper goodbye is an hour, you don't know me very well at all."

Jack stands in front of the Doctor's TARDIS, watching as a green door set into the air swings shut on his Torchwood team—on his Time Lord, standing so confidently and competently at the controls. Tosh is hovering over his shoulder, watching his every movement, and Owen and Gwen are a few feet further back, arguing over something that's no doubt amusing and insignificant.

But it's Ianto who holds Jack's attention, even as the door clicks shut and fades from view with a grinding rush. Ianto, who will live for centuries, millennia if he's careful. Who would probably have forgiven Jack for disappearing on him eventually, even if he hadn't opened the fob watch. Who came after him, who worried about him, even knowing full well that Jack couldn't die.

Jack can't quite imagine what would have happened without Ianto to stop the Master from opening the watch. He's glad for that, because he's seen enough horrors in his life, been given enough information (by Ianto and the Doctor both) about the Master to be able to extrapolate, and it's grim.

But instead of any of those visions coming true, he's watching Ianto fly away under his own power, preparing to join the Doctor once more. The memory that he'll carry with him is of Ianto against wine-red sheets, splayed out over the pillows looking wicked and decadent, murmurs of "sir" and "Captain" falling from his lips like a sinful caress.

And "Jack."

He'll never recover from the way Ianto says his name.

He doesn't particularly want to.

Going with the Doctor is something he has to do. It's necessary, and it's what Rose would have wanted for them. What she would have forced them to do, a fury in a little blond body, a force even a Time Lord couldn't stand against.

So Jack will travel with him, and he knows he'll enjoy it, because that's the kind of thing he's always loved, and the Doctor helped remake him, build him up from a Time Agent and a self-centered con into the man he is today. They'll travel, and they'll doubtless save worlds full of incredible people, and Jack will adore every hectic, dangerous moment of it.

And then he'll go back to Cardiff, where his heart waits in a neat three-piece suit, armed with a cup of the divine ambrosia he calls coffee and the rest of them call blood.

Jack will travel with the Doctor, be a Companion again for a little while, but then he'll return to Ianto.

And that…

That will be the best part of the trip.

Jack turns away, one hand curled around the deep red tie stuffed into his pocket, and he's whistling as he saunters into the TARDIS.

The universe awaits, and after that…

Home.

It's quiet in Cardiff, for once. The Rift monitor hums steadily along, predictable only in its volatility, but quiescent for the moment. Ianto leans back against his desk, rubbing the kinks formed by long hours doing paperwork out of his neck. In that, at least, nothing has changed. Torchwood is still probably the only secret organization in the world that generates enough paperwork to rival the British government on a good day. On the bad days, Ianto sometimes finds himself wondering why they don't just take over the world, for the sole reason that would require far less inane documentation.

Today is, more or less, a good day. A host of intergalactic slavers tried to make Earth their next hunting ground, but dealing with them had been fairly straightforward. Black and white is always fairly easy to see, in cases like that.

With a soft sigh, Ianto straightens from the desk and heads for the kitchen, idly running through a mental inventory of what food they have hidden away in the cupboards and drawers. It's insane to think about the fact that he did this without a Time Lord's memory once—without the Archivist's memory once. It's far easier to do his job as administrator, general support agent, and part-time field agent when he has access, from memory, to every bit of information Torchwood's squirreled ever away.

There's still coffee in the carafe, which is a godsend. Ianto doesn't have to sleep nearly as much as a Time Lord as he did when he was human, but Torchwood is still enough to exhaust even him. Before the slavers there were the Macra, another rogue Arcateenian, the Horda, and an invasion of several hundred Voord—all averted, thankfully, but only with the application of a vast amount of working hours.

Ianto remembers Jack's report on Suzie's first death, how she spoke of Earth attracting only the universe's trash. But surely, with so many races trying to invade, trying to take Earth as their own, there must be something here worth protecting, worth gaining.

Jack certainly thinks so.

Smiling, Ianto takes a slow sip of coffee, closing his eyes to let the bitterness wash over his tongue. Jack's still with the Doctor, still running for his life in some distant corner of the universe, but it's all right. Ianto spoke to him just the other day, when he called unexpectedly. There'd been no reason to it, just an intergalactic chat because he was feeling a little nostalgic, a little fond. Ianto remembers the way Jack grinned at him, a little boy off on an adventure, and the way their conversation about nothing in particular had been cut short by the Doctor nearly crashing his TARDIS into a mountain range.

It's good, life is good right now, and Ianto is content like this.

His TARDIS gives a whispering hum of agreement, and he turns to smile at her, an emerald-green door set into the far wall, where no door has ever been before. She's happy, too, finally restored from being a half-forgotten dream to the fixture in his life that she's meant to be. He's surrendered his apartment, and spends every night here at the Hub, with her.

It's rather like resuming an old affair now that the husband's off traveling, he thinks fondly, and she laughs at him.

Ianto tops off his cup, snags a few of Owen's biscuits—passive-aggressive is the best thing in the world, when Owen's on the receiving end—and turns to head back to his paperwork, which is apparently capable of asexual reproduction, as the pile's grown since the last time he looked at it.

He freezes before he can take so much as a step, mug trembling dangerously in his hand.

There's a small pyramid sitting in the center of the Hub, slate-grey panels and reddish-pink accents—a Type 70 TARDIS, one with which Ianto is intimately familiar. His fingers fly up to the chain around his neck, the small, ornate brass key that rests there, and feels the pulse of warmth in what has, for years, been dead metal.

With a rushing, grinding whoosh, the TARDIS fades from sight, called back to its pilot.

Ianto's TARDIS sings in his mind, high and eager. Ianto laughs through his shock, wild and delighted, and throws himself at the Rift monitor. He flips it to automatic and calls Tosh.

"Hello?" she answers, voice rough with sleep. "Ianto, what's wrong?"

"Can you cover the Hub for me?" he asks. "I'll reroute all the alarms to your comm, you don't even have to come in, but—I'll be back before you know it, Tosh, there's just something I have to do. Someone I have to find."

"Of course," Tosh says instantly, not questioning even though she's curious, and Ianto loves her for it. "Reroute everything, I'll be there in a bit. Just be safe, Ianto."

Ianto laughs, clutching the key to his mother's TARDIS, and swears, "Of course, Tosh. When am I not?"

There's amusement in her voice as she responds. "I think you'd rather I didn't answer that, Ianto. Just don't take too long, or we'll have to come looking for you."

He's a Time Lord. He's over a century in age, and very much capable of looking out for himself. Still, it warms something inside of him to know that they'd come after him anyway.

"Of course," he repeats, and this time it's a promise.

Tosh signs off, promising to let the others know at a more decent hour, and Ianto spends another moment rerouting all alerts to her. When he turns away, the green door is already standing open, the interior warm and welcoming with its golden wood.

Ianto steps in, feeling home rise up to surround him, and sets his fingers on the controls.

"Ready, my beauty?" he murmurs. "Lock in those last coordinates. Let's go find the Rani."

The green door closes with a soft click, and then they're off.