Title: A Reason To Believe
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Table: 4
Prompt: 6, Belief
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own Ianto Jones or the Tenth Doctor. Please do not sue.

***

The Doctor put down the book he was reading, glancing up at the clock sitting on the desk only a few feet away from him. Sighing, he closed the book and propped his chin in his hand. It wasn't long before Ianto would be home, but the minutes could seem like an eternity.

He shouldn't be this melancholy, he told himself sternly, giving up on getting any coherence from the book in his lap. He'd been reading the same page over and over, unable to make any sense out of it. He had too much on his mind to be able to escape into fiction.

Probably because his own life seemed to have so much more of a fantastical aspect than anything a human author could dream up, he though, a wry smile crossing his features. He shouldn't be surprised at that. After all, to humans, he was an alien, someone to either be fascinated by or afraid of.

Thank goodness Ianto had never shown that sort of fear, or even any kind of hesitation. He would have had a hard time dealing with his own feelings if that had been the case. He would have made the best of it, but it would have still hurt -- and he'd had enough of dealing with emotional pain.

The Doctor leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head and looking up at the ceiling. Fortunately, he hadn't had to deal with that sort of pain much lately -- and even though he and Ianto had their disagreements, they managed to work through them.

He'd always been told that he would find the other half of his soul someday, the one person in the world who was meant for him. But he'd never quite been able to make himself believe those words.

Until Ianto.

He'd thought Jack would be the one -- the immortal, the man who could give him the forever he needed. But that hadn't come to pass, and when Jack had walked away, he'd sworn to himself that he'd never get emotionally close to anyone else.

The Doctor couldn't help smiling at that thought. He hadn't counted on the impact Ianto Jones would have on him, the attraction that would spark between them from the first time their eyes had met. It had come at him completely out of the blue -- unexpected, but not unwelcome.

And it really hadn't been hard to let himself open up to Ianto, he mused, glancing at the clock again. Only five minutes had gone by since the last time he'd looked. Strange, that a Time Lord should want to rush the passage of time. He'd never really wanted to do that before.

Why did he suddenly want to make time go by whenever Ianto wasn't here? Not a question that was hard to answer -- he wanted more time with Ianto. It was hard to be satisfied with just a few hours here and there; he was wishing that they were out in space, in the Tardis, with no one else around.

Whenever he got restless, Ianto could usually pick up on it. He'd tried to hide how he was feeling from his young lover, but he wasn't sure that he could do that for much longer. Ianto was certain to realize that something was wrong from the moment he walked through the door tonight and sat down.

He closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath. Well, it wasn't so bad if Ianto knew how he felt, was it? It wasn't as though he was forcing the young man to come with him.

No, that was what Ianto wanted. What he'd wanted since they'd first come together. It had led to their one parting -- a parting that the Doctor was determined would never happen again. He wasn't going to put himself or Ianto through that kind of hell a second time.

It was still an odd feeling for him to know that Ianto could read him so well. Even Jack had never been able to do that, not in the way that Ianto could. No one had ever been able to see through him, to divine his emotions so completely -- or so quickly.

But then, no one else had been his soul mate, the person he was destined to be with. Yet another thing that he'd been told for most of his life on Gallifrey, and another belief that he'd never held to. But it seemed to be true -- at least in his case.

Soul mates .... he'd never thought they existed, not even when he'd been told by more than one person who could supposedly see his future that he hadn't met the one who was the other half of his soul yet. Maybe he should have paid closer attention to what they'd told him, after all.

Because, in spite of all his disbelief, here he was -- involved with a young man who seemed to be all of the things that he'd been told his soul mate would be. And truth be told, Ianto was more than just his mate. Ianto was .... as trite as it sounded, everything.

Only a few years ago -- even a few months ago -- he would have scoffed if someone had told him that he would be in love like this. In love with a human.

He'd been in love with Jack -- but that had been something completely different. As deep as his feelings for Jack went, he'd never had any illusions about the immortal. He'd always known that he and Jack weren't intended to spend their lives together.

Even though Jack could have given him the forever he always wanted from the people he cared about, he'd known from the start that it wasn't in the cards. Jack wasn't the type of person to make that kind of a commitment -- and at the time, he himself hadn't been sure that he wanted it.

That had changed, eventually. He'd fallen in love with Jack, much, much more deeply than he would have believed possibly. But as much as it had hurt when Jack had walked away from him, he'd known in his hearts that it was the right thing for both of them.

And now .... Now he had Ianto. The other half of his soul. The person who he'd been meant to mate with from the moment he was born. The man he'd always been destined to be with, even though Ianto hadn't been born until he was nearly 900 years old.

He'd never have believed that someone so young could be the one he was intended to be with. But his hearts wouldn't lie to him, the Doctor told himself, placing a hand on his chest. No, they knew who he was meant for, and they'd led him to his soul mate.

His hearts wouldn't have led him astray, he told himself with a smile. They'd never done it before -- they'd always held him back from being too emotional and impulsive.

If it hadn't been for his hearts somehow holding him back from getting himself so deeply involved with Jack that he would never have been able to love anyone else, then he wouldn't be with Ianto. Thank goodness those two hearts seemed to have more sense at times then he himself did.

The Doctor's head jerked up as he heard a step outside in the hallway, and then a key turning in the lock. He couldn't keep a smile from spreading across his face as Ianto opened the door, looking towards the living room aread of the flat as though he was searching for the Time Lord.

He didn't speak, merely smiled and held out his arms to his young lover. Ianto closed the door, shrugging off his coat and moving across the room to sit down on the couch and slip one arm around the Doctor's slender waist, drawing the Time Lord close against the warmth of his body.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to get home, love," Ianto apologized, brushing his lips against the Doctor's hair. "Traffic was terrible today."

"You should have a Tardis to zoom around in, hmmm?" the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling. Somehow, his tension seemed to have melted away now that Ianto was here. He'd forgotten how impatient he'd been to have his lover home in the relief of being next to him.

"Now that would be a sight on the streets of Cardiff, wouldn't it?" Ianto laughed, then shook his head. "Of course, she wouldn't be on the streets. She could just take me from one place to another in the blink of an eye. I have a hard time getting used to that concept."

"It's something you wouldn't have believed possible before you met me, I presume," the Doctor said, again raising an eyebrow. "I think there are a lot of beliefs that we've both had that are either being confirmed or proved wrong since we met each other."

"You know, I believe you may be right about that," Ianto said softly, leaning back against the soft couch cushions and sliding his other arm around the Doctor, nearly pulling the Time Lord into his lap. "But I don't think that this is quite the time to debate that, do you?"

"Certainly not," the Doctor murmured, closing his eyes and letting himself sink into Ianto's embrace. It didn't matter that he might not have believed in the past that he could be this happy. The important thing was that he was happy -- and he hoped that he would be so for a long time to come.

***