Rating: PG-13 (for now)

Word count: ~ 2,000

Warnings: Angst, weirdness.

Summary: Torchwood Tower Three is a place where Earth sends useful exiles: a Prime Talent, a technopath, and a biokinetic, drifting around in a station at the cross points of three universes and six galaxies. Then a man named Captain Jack Harkness falls through a tear between universes, only to find three familiar faces waiting for him.

A/N: So. I've been on a bit of an Anne McCaffrey binge the last few weeks, and wanted desperately to write some kind of Anne-McCaffrey-universe/Torchwood crossover/fusion thing. Now I'm a little hesitant to call this a fusion with McCaffrey's To Ride Pegasus books (specifically the Tower and Hive series) as I've changed a lot of stuff. However, it does draw heavily from the universe created in that series, especially in regards to the terminology. You needn't have read the books to understand this story, but it might give you a better idea of where I'm coming from.

(And it was either this or a Dragonriders of Pern crossover, and idk, that's a bit crackish even for me.)

Chapter One

"Freight shipment coming in from UNIT Outpost Six, not fragile," Tosh informs him, even as the warning bells start to ring. Her fingers fly over the keypad, accepting the transfer and starting the countdown. "Destination Torchwood Tower One. On my mark: three. Two. One—"

Ianto closes his eyes, lets out a breath, and casts his mind out into the blackness of space.

There's another mind waiting, the UNIT Prime of Outpost Six. Ianto reaches for the Brigadier, touches his thoughts. A thousand words are passed in the space of a second, a hundred tons of cargo shifted into Ianto's grasp to guide down into Torchwood Tower Three's transfer area. As soon as the load is settled, Lethbridge-Stewart detaches with a mental slap to the back and retreats back to the confines of his body.

"Shipment secure," Tosh says, sounding pleased. It's distant, though, almost going unnoticed as Ianto gathers his Talent and prepares for the long 'port jump to One. "Ready for transfer in three—two—one—"

With a heave and shove, Ianto wraps the shipment in bands of mental power and hurls it into the nothingness. Space itself parts around it, and for a brief moment he can see One, a gleaming metal tower seething with life, its feet planted firmly on Earth and a Prime station crowning its top. One's Prime is there and waiting, his mental touch coolly distant and professional.

Jones, he greets, accepting the transfer and easing the shipment down into One's cargo area. It gives Ianto petty pleasure—carefully hidden, of course—to see that Singh is nowhere near the Prime that Ianto himself is, fumbling slightly on the landing. Had that been a passenger ship, the occupants would have been in for a very unpleasant landing.

Rajesh, he returns, equally chilly, and then with a sharp jolt he's back in his own body, in Torchwood Tower Three, at the cross points of three universes and six galaxies.

Alone in a huge, gleaming metal station, a Prime Talent with enough power to destroy whole systems.

Alone and trapped in the middle of space with no one for company but an equally disgraced technopath.

Ianto sighs and slumps back in the deep, throne-like chair Primes use for their long-distance work, opening his eyes.

Tosh stands off to the side, watching him with sympathy and no little sadness. She knows what he's feeling, to some extent, but at least she can't see all the places that they can't go. The station and its systems are her whole world.

It isn't the same for Ianto.

People fear Prime Talents, especially the powerful ones. As soon as their abilities fully emerge, they're marked forever, a tattoo on their foreheads to keep them from ever blending in. Even other Talents are nervous and wary in their presence, careful and cautious even though all Talents, no matter the level, have personal shields on their minds.

Ianto used to be one of those foolish people. He hadn't even thought he was among the ten percent of the population born with a psychic Talent, let alone among the very small handful of individuals born a Prime Talent, until a tragedy had unlocked his ability when he was fifteen.

Most Primes showed their gifts as children—some even as infants. The most powerful ones are born moving objects, teleporting them across the room, reacting to people's thoughts, and broadcasting their emotions.

It's just another way in which Ianto stands apart from everyone else.

Tosh brings a tray up from the kitchens at the end of the shift, and leaves it next to his chair as she shuts down all but the emergency communications and marks them as off rotation for the next cycle. Archie in Torchwood Tower Two responds with a cheerful acknowledgment, as do the Brigadier at UNIT Outpost Six and Captain Erisa Magambo at UNIT Outpost Nine. They will be the ones picking up the slack, and a little bit of pleasure curls in Ianto's gut—carefully hidden, again, because these people are at least a little friendly to him and Tosh both—at the fact that it takes three Primes scattered around the galaxy to make up the work of Prime Jones and Tech Sato at Torchwood Tower Three.

Tosh smiles at him like she knows what he's thinking, and pushes the last button to close the clear dome of the Prime station. In space, it's always night, but at least off-shift they can pretend like the darkness comes after a long day.

"Eat," she orders firmly, spinning her chair around to face him. "We've got a long shift next time, and a lot of passenger ships. You'll need your strength."

The promise of a lot of work, especially if it's as delicate as moving passengers, is one of the few things that can motivate Ianto to take proper care of himself, and since she learned this fact Tosh has made shameless use of it. Ianto narrows his eyes at her, but pulls the tray closer and eats as quickly as possible—anything to avoid the taste of reconstituted protein rations. "What were our averages?" he asks between bites. "Holding steady?"

Tosh's eyes flicker electric-white in a way that Ianto knows means she's checking through the system. "Increasing," she corrects after a moment. "Non-perishable cargo transfer times are almost half of what they used to be, and passenger shifts are down an average of five seconds. Overall, we're seven minutes faster than our last shift, and almost an hour faster than One's."

Torchwood Tower Three might be a beautiful prison, but at least they're industrious prisoners, and far better than the ponces at One. Ianto hums contentedly, making Tosh giggle at his smug expression, and goes back to his meal.

The next work shift can't come fast enough.

Sometimes, when it feels especially dark and the halls and chambers echo even more emptily than usual, the door to Ianto's rooms slides open with a soft hiss, and he keeps his eyes on the ceiling as Tosh pads noiselessly across the room and crawls into the other side of his ridiculously oversized bed. She curls up against his side, head on his shoulder, and he wraps his arms around her and holds her close. They've never had sex, never felt the urge—they're more family, brother and sister, than anything else—but comfort is something they both want, at all times, and rarely get.

Space, out here at the cross points of three universes and six galaxies, is lonely, and they are alone.

But then they're not, because Torchwood Tower Three gets another disgraced Talent—utterly disgraced, to be sent all the way out here. He's a Healer, a biokinetic of a high level, and Archie—a bit of a gossip, if only among the other Primes—confides in Ianto that Owen Harper has been removed from his research posting on Mars because he slept with the Outpost Director's wife.

Thankfully, Owen seems mostly resigned to his exile in Three, because while he's caustic and forever grumbling, he isn't overwhelmingly nasty. He even warms up to Tosh a bit, though he and Ianto will never be the best of friends.

Tosh, Ianto can see easily, is smitten. It's been hard for her, even though she's relatively shy, to have spent the last five years stranded in this Tower, and Ianto doesn't begrudge her the budding romance. Since Owen, trapped out here just as they are, is rather lacking in other prospects, he returns her tentative advances, and Ianto can only hope that he comes to see her for what she is.

And if he misses her warmth sometimes, when the nights are long and cold, well—

Her happiness is far more important.

Ianto doesn't deserve the comfort.

Sentinel duty is, without a doubt, the most tedious part of the shifts. Ianto hates it, because it is simultaneously dull and shows him just how much time has passed him by since he was first sent to the abandoned Torchwood Tower Three. It's been a long while, and the rest of the universe is marching on. Time for them is a quickly moving thing, something to outrace rather than a creeping morass to endure.

Eyes closed and breathing carefully even, Ianto reaches out to the Talents at the worlds on the edge of colonized space, making sure that nothing has happened since his last check. For the most part they greet him cheerfully, though some project fear and awe in equal measures. He acknowledges them and enters their responses—usually some variant of "all quiet, we're fine here"—into the log, which he sends on to UNIT Outpost One.

His range is good enough that Torchwood Tower One has him scan as much of the frontier space as he can, and it takes time. He's still done eventually, though, and he sighs as slumps back in his chair. There's a low-level ache building behind his eyes, but it's not yet too painful to ignore, so he puts off the thought of going to see Owen.

Owen, who is doubtless attached at the lips to Tosh, since they seem to be in the "first blush" stage of falling in love.

Ianto smiles and rakes a hand through his hair. He's happy for them, he thinks as he stands. Dinner is calling him, and then bed and a long sleep until the next cycle, when he's finally back on a cargo shift.

Of course, that's when the fabric between the universes tears like cheap tissue, and a man in a long blue coat tumbles out at Ianto's feet.

Ianto freezes, his Talent leaping to sew the rift back up. It's hard, like weaving slippery spaghetti noodles that have a mind of their own, but Yvonne Hartman had sent him to Torchwood Tower Three for a reason beyond simple exile. It sits at point where the barrier between the universes is thinnest, the Void beyond simple to cross with the right amount of willpower, and Ianto is the only Prime able to repair it like this. He does, stitching it back up before any bit of the Void can leak through, and then stills the warning sirens with a thought.

When he's satisfied that it will hold, he finally turns his attention to the man at his feet, dropping his gaze to take in the shocked blue eyes and waxy skin of the man from the parallel universe.

"Ianto?" the man breathes, and there's heartbreak in the word. "You're…alive?"

This is, of course, the moment when the stranger passes out on top of Ianto's bare feet, and Tosh and Owen burst through the far doors. Ianto closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and sighs.

"Oh, lovely," he mutters, because it's either that or swear soundly at his misfortune, and that's never worked before.