Title: The Eye of Neith (9/10)
Author: Emma
Characters/Pairings: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Martha, Andy, John Hart; Jack/Ianto, mentions of past others
Rating: R, maybe
Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
Spoilers: None. Takes place twenty or so years after Series 2 ends.
Summary: Torchwood’s past and Ianto’s future collide when Ianto’s former lover arrives in Cardiff asking for help…
Author's Note: Validium is featured in the classic Doctor Who episode Silver Nemesis . The "Sinister Woman" appears in 42 and The Sound of Drums. For TARDIS technology and society, visit the TARDIS pages of www.whouniverse.org


Homecoming is here; Part one is here; Part two is here; Part three is here; Part four is here ; Part five is here; Part six is here; Part seven is here; Part eight is here

  
         Ianto was aware of the Other standing quite near by, waiting patiently. She -- She? -- seemed to understand his need to explore this new place.

            It was vast, extending in all directions as far as he could sense. All dimensions? He pushed his new senses further. There was something out there, at the edge of perception. He had no words for the immensity of it.

            *What is this place?*

            *We call it the nursery. The Ones Who Assisted Us called it a Hyper-loom.*

            *Am I dead?*

            *No. You are being born.*

            
            Jack rubbed his hands over his face, took a deep breath, gawped like a hooked fish, took another deep breath, then tried again.

             “Doc, are you seriously telling me that Ianto has a TARDIS wrapped around his wrist?” His voice, which had started out calm and reasonable, climbed several decibels to a near-shout by the time he was done.

             “A very old, tired one, Jack. It won’t hurt him!” the Time Lord said defensively when Jack glared at him. “Functional TARDIS can become quite unhappy without a symbiotic relationship. In extreme cases they have been known to self-terminate. When Nethisi left this dimension, she wanted to prevent that from happening, so she transferred the link to Ianto.”

             Jack rubbed his face again. “I thought symbiotic links could only be made with Time Lords.”

             “Er… yes.”

             Jack repeated the gesture.

             “You’re going to strip your skin off if you keep doing that,” the Doctor said brightly.

             “Never mind my skin! Are you saying Ianto’s a Time Lord?”

             “No!” The Doctor looked momentarily flummoxed, then lit up again in his usual manic fashion. “I don’t know exactly what your young man is, Jack, but we’re going to have to keep a very close eye on him!”

          

She -- She! -- was a column of light perfumed with the scent of apples and lavender and resonating with the pure soft tone of a single organ note.

             *Who are you?*

             *I am the Last.*

             *What happened to the others?*

             *The Ones Who Assisted Us fought against a great evil. We judged the war just, and fought at their side. During the last battle, the enemy targeted the nurseries with chronospatial disruptors. The Metastructures were destroyed before the connection to the Eye of Harmony could be completed. Only I and my One survived the battle.*

             *I am sorry.*

             *Thank you.*

             *What was it like, before?*

             The single column of light before him multiplied into a hundred, a thousand, a million, in every color of the rainbow. A million scents blended into the most exquisite perfume he had ever smelled. The single organ note became a symphony of unimaginable complexity. Ianto could see great herds of TARDIS  moving in and out of the Spacetime stream, which was not a stream at all, but something else, greater and deeper, and filled with Purpose. Then, slowly, the sound died down, and the lights dimmed, until the single column was left.

             *You must be very lonely.*

             *I have my One and his purpose is my purpose. His companions are amusing. I had no desire for more until Satellite Five.*

             *Where Jack died and was resurrected?*

             *Where the girl Rose changed the future.*

           

            Jack looked up at the soft knock to see Isabella lounging against the door jamb. “How is he?”

             “Still asleep. Martha says it’s not a coma. More like he’s resting after a huge exertion.”

             “Makes sense.” She sat down on the other side of the bed. “When my Lady left she transferred her power over the Eye to him. Having that much energy pour into your mind all at once must be quite a shock.”

             “Did you know what would happen, Isabella?”

             “Not the details. Nathisi was tired of her prison, Jack, but she did not want the Master loose on the Universe again. Once she spoke about the Year that Never Was” at Jack’s start she nodded. “She would not explain, but whatever it was, it both scared her to death and enraged her. She was determined to stop him.”

             “And Ianto? Was he part of her plan all along?”

             She nodded. “Now, I believe so. I would not have said it yesterday. I do know she was fascinated by him. When we met she prodded me to pursue our relationship. Not that I needed much prodding, but I thought she was… well, she’s always been curious about mortals. Now, I think it was more than that.”

              “My Time Lord seems to be fascinated by him too.” Jack laughed. “And what about you, Isabella? Now that Nethisi is gone, what will your family do?”

             “Live like normal people, I suppose.”

             “After all these centuries, you wouldn’t know how. You need something that will fill the space properly.”

             She looked at him, eyes twinkling. “Why, Jack. Are you by any chance recruiting?”

 
             He sat in a field of coppery grass, his back pressed against the trunk of a tree with silvery leaves and sweet green fruit that dissolved like rain water on the tongue. He grieved for all that had been lost and rejoiced in all that could be. He wondered about himself and what he was becoming, but it did not preoccupy him. He wondered if it should.

             *Why? It is a passing, nothing more.*

             He turned his head to look at her properly. Today she had chosen to wear a human body.

             *You look a little like Donna Noble.*

             *I liked her. She had Potentiality.*

             *Jack says she would die if she remembers.*

             *He believes so because my One told him.* She sighed a very human sigh. *The Ones who Assisted Us could be very arrogant in their superiority. My One loves all his Companions but he does not look past their mortality. He is slowly beginning to perceive the Potentiality, but he is still young, and unlearning is most difficult.*

             *Does everyone have Potentiality?*

             *No. The One called in speech Nethisi believed that when the Evil Ones attacked the nursery, fragments of the Metastructures were flung through the Vortex to your planet. We are attracted to a certain kind of matrix codes that sometimes occur naturally in flesh-minds. Nethisi thought the fragments attach themselves to those codes when they find them. That Event would trigger the Potentiality.*

             *So I have been carrying around a piece of a TARDIS in my mind all my life?*

             *No. You have been waiting to be a TARDIS all your life.*

             *Excuse me. I have been waiting to be a blue police call box all my life?*

             She giggled like a school girl. “Do you think your reality-body matters? TARDIS are beings of Time and Space, at one with the Vortex. That is who you are, or will be.*

            

            “Ianto. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I want to tell you about Lucy. I never wanted any of you to know anything about the Year that Never Was. I didn’t want it to touch any of you. Lucy. God, was there ever anyone so much sinned against than poor Lucy? He took her and he broke her, Ianto, into so many little pieces it’s a wonder she ever managed to pull something back together.

             When I first met her, she would… help him. Whatever he wanted to do to me. After a while, though, she started to stay away. One night, she showed up alone. He had beaten the crap out of her, because I had refused to beg. I hadn’t known, he hadn’t said anything! I started to cry. She put her arms around me and held me and she whispered, very quietly, that she wanted me to fight him every step of the way, that her pain didn’t matter as long as she knew someone was fighting him. After that, she would come down to the boiler room every night she could. We would talk on and on about nothing at all, about roses and horses and other worlds… Sometimes she would just stand pressed against me and hold me until we both fell asleep standing up.

             And then she did something magnificent. They were looking for you, for Torchwood Three. You had figured out that the whole Himalayas thing was a load of bollocks and had dropped out of sight. He had as many people as he could looking for you. She sabotaged them, Ianto. When I asked her how, all she said was that she knew what her best assets were. She kept them off you for three months. She was as much of a Torchwood heroine as Tosh. She’s in a drawer now next to her. Lucy Cole. I don’t even want his name to touch her.

             Ianto. Please listen. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by saying I couldn’t go on without you but… it would be unbearably painful. I’m not ready to give you up yet. I don’t care if I’m being selfish, but please come back. Come back… come back…

 

            *What did Rose do?*

             They were sitting on the floor of her control room, playing dimensionally transcendental poker (chess was too easy). Ianto was losing, but not too badly.

             *When she brought Jack back to life, she changed the Timelines in ways the Purpose had not intended.*

             *Jack was meant to die?*

             *No. He was meant to discover his Potentiality. But Rose was stronger than I expected and I could not override her desires. A cosmic accident, our Rose.*

             *And now we have to change it back?*

             *We can’t. All we can do is make certain that both futures happen. It has already started. Before you, Jack’s choices were made out of anger and loneliness. You changed that. Now, at some time in the future, Jack will choose, and if he does it right, both his lives will become stabilized within the Purpose.*

             *And what will happen to me?*

             *Now? Now you must forget.*

             *Why?!*

             *Because you are a flesh-child, and your mind cannot process all the necessary data at once. You must learn slowly, as a child does. Don’t worry. Your Teacher will be with you. Go on. Jack is waiting.*

 

            “…come back, come back, come back…”

             Ianto carded his fingers through Jack’s hair. “You daft bugger. I’m not going anywhere without you.”