A/N So I come to the end of this story. I want to thank everyone who has reviewed, it is greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank all the people who put this story on alert or favorite. ANd last but not least to Helen Pattskyn for sitting through it while I was writing so my beta wouldn't get spoilers, you are the best and a brilliant writer. I do not know if I will continue in this story line but I left it open ended so that I can if the stories come to me. All opinions on this greatly appreciated. Let me know. As always, reviews are love, so if you love it let me know, and if you are following either Past Tense, Future Tense or Well, Now what are we going to do? I hope to have something tomorrow, and there may be a cameo from someone you recognize in Past Tense. Well, its been a hell of a ride. Enjoy. Kitsa

They stood on the Plas, three of them together, watching the people wandering, tourists taking pictures, just another ordinary day, except for the blue police call box sitting silently before them. Ianto Jones straightened his tie again, and brushed at invisible wrinkles in his perfectly pressed suit. He wanted to meet the doctor, really he did, or at least he thought he did. The Doctor was a legend at Torchwood One, and that alone was enough for him to be curious, but it was more than that. Jack's relationship with the Doctor was complicated, the man who had changed him, abandoned him, then returned to him. He thought Jack might be in love with him but Jack had the room in his heart for a lot of love. It didn't make Ianto any less nervous, or if he was honest with himself, less jealous, he couldn't help it.

Then of course there was why he was here, now. The last time the Doctor had shown up, the Earth had been moved to God knows where, Daleks had descended and he had watched the man he loved transport off to save the universe. While he would have had it no other way, Jack was hardly the man to sit by while the world ended, still, what did he want now? At the moment things looked fine, perfectly normal in fact, but since when had that ever meant anything. Would he take Jack away, and for how long? So many thoughts floating around in his head while the police box sat there, silent and innocent.

"Have you gone bender?" his sister asked, her voice stolid with working class sensibility. He didn't know what to say to her, it wasn't easy to talk to the sister he so rarely saw, even though it was his choice to stay away.

"Can the children hear you?" he asked, not knowing what else to say, and because he could hear the sounds of a video game being played in the background.

"Mischa don't care, her friend from school has two Mam's. You just don't want to talk to me, you never do, not since Dad died," her voice went from cajoling to accusatory in null point two seconds, just like Mam, but she was right. After he died, Ianto really just hadn't known what to do, what to say, so he said nothing. He showed up with gifts or more often money for the kids on holidays, never stayed longer than a cup of coffee and then he went back to his life, to Torchwood. Maybe it was time he changed all that.

"It's not like that, he's my boss," he said, though he knew his sister, and she wouldn't let it go, and maybe it was time he let her in a little. But he didn't know how to start.

"Your boss it is? But Tina said you were together, intimate like. I told her you'd had girlfriends before, but she said there weren't no woman going to get her feet round that table. And she said he was gorgeous, like a film star. Now, look you, you going to tell me what's going on? And don't give me all that 'bout you working. You just don't want to come 'round, you're ashamed of us, too good for the estate now, is it?"

"No, it's not that. I just…" he paused and thought about it. Just that morning, he and Jack had been talking about them, about their relationship with one another. He had told him he loved him again, reinforcing that the conversation in the middle of the night wasn't a dream. And Ianto had finally been able to say it too. For all the nights he had wanted to, the nights he had woken up and whispered it to himself, now it was all out, and maybe that was the way it should be. "He is handsome though," he said.

"Ohhh?" Rhiannan had said, suddenly all ears.

"It's not men," he told her, having difficulty finding the right words. "It's him, it's just Jack, it's only Jack. I can't explain."

"Serious is it?" she asked. A day, a week earlier, he wouldn't have known what to say to her, but now he knew better.

"Yeah, I think it is, yeah."

The rest of the conversation had passed quickly, as he agreed to come round and have Mischa and David out to the cinema and a hamburger restaurant or something, to make up for all the times he had missed. He didn't know why now he felt the sudden need to reconnect but then he knew it wasn't just him, Jack was feeling the same way. That with the chronon spikes and the appearance of the Doctor was more than enough to set the rats in his stomach to dancing the Gay Gordon in full highland kit. But still the door remained closed. Ianto pulled out his trusty pocket watch. It had only been two minutes thought it felt like an hour or more.

Finally after an eternity, the door opened like a shot and out stepped the man himself, the Doctor, all spiky hair and brown suit. He gave it a disapproving tut but only to himself. He was wearing no tie and his shirt open to show the tee shirt underneath and trainers with a suit and top coat? Clearly this was one of his more sartorially challenged incarnations. Behind him, a young woman with dark hair emerged as well, clearly as uncertain as they were about their reception.

The two men sized each other up for a moment, Jack stepping forward, his eyes hooded. The Doctor stepped aside to allow his companion out of the doorway, but kept his eyes on Jack and the rest of them.

"Doctor," Jack said.

"Captain." Then a smile broke out on his face like the sun coming out from behind the clouds and Jack reached out to pull him into a hug. "This your team then? Nice to meet you all in person," he said, coming forward and shaking Ianto's hand before he even knew what was going on, then turning to Gwen. She looked as struck as he did, her mouth open as the man bounced to her, and then turned away, throwing one arm around Jack's shoulders and dragging him a little way off, babbling a mile a minute. Ianto caught the words time shift, and paradox before the dragging Jack out of their hearing over toward the water.

"I'm Christina by the way. I'd wait for an introduction but we'd have to get him to stop talking long enough to notice first." They nodded and introduced themselves and stood awkwardly, waiting for the two men to come back. Finally after a few minutes, Gwen suggested they go across to the coffee shop and grab a cup if they were going to be anti social. Ianto declined, uncertain he was capable of trusting the Doctor alone with Jack and a working time machine, even if his companion was with Gwen, so he just told them to go on.

He settled on a bench, and tried to calm down. Jack and the Doctor were having what appeared to be a casual conversation with each other down by the water, but he couldn't hear anything. It was hard, watching the two of them together. There was an easy camaraderie that spoke to time spent together, getting to know each other. He had never asked if they were lovers, but somehow he doubted it. Still it didn't stop the little jealous niggle. Then there was what the Doctor was doing here. If he needed Jack to stop some universe shattering evil, it wasn't as if he would expect him to stay just for him. He couldn't ask him to, Jack was a hero and that was what heroes did. But it didn't make it any easier. Finally, just when he thought that those rats were going to wear through his stomach and burst out like that creature from Alien ( he had always wondered if someone in Torchwood One was feeding ideas to the Scott brothers but had never been able to prove it,) the two man came back. They both seemed relaxed, no rushing to get to the TARDIS, no apparent need for tearing about preparing for invasion, just two blokes, walking across the plas like any one of a dozen others.

"Everything alright, Sir?" he asked, trying for his best composed look.

"Fine, Ianto," he said, as he reached for the other man, and pulled him into a tight hug. It wasn't like Jack to do that in public, but right now he didn't care if BBC1 was filming them to show to the entire world, all that mattered was the reassurance. He released him but not completely, looping an arm around his waist to keep him pressed close. Ianto wasn't sure about what the Doctor had told him but he would sort that out later, when the alien was gone and it was just the two of them. "The Doctor just stopped by to reassure me about those readings we have been picking up. It seems he has been plugging up some anomalies left over from that Dalek incident."

Ianto just nodded, reassured at least some what. He was still coming to terms with himself and Jack, allowing himself to be ok with the affection but right here, right now, in front of the man who more than anything he feared would take Jack away from him, he reveled in the attention.

"Ianto Jones, you have no idea how glad I am to actually meet you in person so to speak. Jack has told me so much about you," the Doctor said.

"So you won't be needing him to save the universe right now then?" Ianto asked.

"Not that I know of, no."

"Good, would hate to have to change the schedule." The two women were returning from the shops, Gwen with a paper carrier full of drinks cups.

"You have a schedule? I love schedules, I used to keep a diary, well not a diary so much as a journal, well more like a date book but I forgot it, or lost it somewhere. Perhaps I could borrow him from you, Jack? Just to help me get sorted out? Though organizing through time is difficult, and particularly hard on the grammar. That's the problem with time, non linear time that is…"

"Sorry, Doc, he's all mine," Jack said with a reassuring squeeze of the younger man. "I couldn't get anything done without him."

"Oh alright," he said with a bit of a pout, before giving them a dazzling smile. "But perhaps a trip? Just one, any place any time, both of you of course." Ianto felt the rats in his stomach take five and wander off. Jack's arm around him reassured him, and for the first time since he had met the doctor, he felt calm.

"Ianto, what do you say? A new world, back in time, something completely different?"

"Yes, could take you off to the moon of Poosh, not lost anymore so they had to change all the charts, or somewhere sunny? There are some beaches out on the edge of the Draco system, two suns, you know? We could go for a few days and be back in five minutes?"

"Maybe, but…"

"The Rift, yeah, Doc, afraid we have some responsibilities here. We're still two team members down and you know your driving is…"

"Oi, what's wrong with my driving?" The two engaged in a brief verbal scuffle about time travel while Ianto thought about it. What would it be to travel in that little box, to see the stars with Jack?

"Perhaps one day," Ianto said tentatively. "When we are back to full strength."

"That reminds me, Jack, or rather Ianto, I suppose, this seems more in your line, I may have a couple of candidates for you, to fill out those vacancies." Both men looked on in shock as the Doctor reached in to one of his pockets and withdrew several pencils, a handful of assorted coins, a slinky, a ball of string, and finally a piece of paper which he passed on to the young man.

"Lois Habiba, Commander Johnson, MI-5 ? Who are they?"

"Just a couple of people who might be just what you need." Ianto nodded and secured the rather grubby paper in the pocket of his suit. Any recommendation of the Doctor should be enough to be considered.

"Off again, Doctor?" Jack asked, not letting go of the other man.

"Not immediately, no. Thought I would stick around for tea. That lovely place out in the bay still there?"

"Sure," Jack said.

"Good, then you can show me this base of yours. You have a pterodactyl, you said?" Chattering along amicably the Doctor started across the plas, not even waiting for them to follow him.

"Do you ever get tired of following him?" Ianto asked as Jack pulled him along together.

"Never will, but it's better if I can take you with me." The immortal stopped and pressed a kiss to his lips, as the Doctor moved on and the sun set slowly in the bay.