Title: Breathe Again
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3, 50ficlets
Prompt: 17, Breathe
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.

***

Ianto looked around him at the quiet, wooded glade that the Tardis had brought them to, a small smile on his lips. The Doctor was somewhere in the ship; he was waiting patiently for his lover to reappear, with whatever his "surprise" would be.

The Time Lord had told him this morning that they were going on a picnic -- on another planet. Ianto found that he hadn't become jaded by the prospect of seeing a different planet yet, despite the fact that he'd been traveling with the Doctor for quite a while now; it still sounded exciting.

So far, there hadn't seemed to be much of a difference from Earth, really. Ianto had been surprised at how much alike some planets were; he'd expected radical differences, though he was starting to get used to the familiarity of most places.

Of course, everything wasn't entirely familiar. But in a way, it was comforting to know that there were other places that resembled his home planet to a great extent.

And it was wonderful to know that places like this existed, even on different worlds; places where he felt that he could be himself and not hide behind the straight-laced image he'd felt that he had to uphold when he was working with Torchwood.

It hadn't always been like that, of course; there had been several times when he'd let that impassive mask drop, usually when Jack was in some kind of trouble. But usually, he'd managed to keep himself hidden behind the mask of control that he always wore.

He'd never felt as though he could really breathe freely when he was with Torchwood. Yes, he'd loved his job -- and had loved it even more when he and Jack had been lovers -- but there had always been that element of tenseness when it came to completely letting himself go.

He had never really felt as though he was completely accepted by the rest of the team. He'd known that, in their hearts, he would always be the teaboy, and not much more.

Oh, they'd been fond of him. That he was sure of. And he was fond of them, too. They'd been his closest friends for a long time -- they'd all been through a lot together, and they'd helped him through some of the most difficult times of his life.

Ianto pushed those thoughts away from him, resolutely putting them out of his mind. He didn't need to remember those feelings now. That was the past, dead and buried, and he had a new life with a man who he loved more than he would have thought possible.

This was the life he'd always wanted -- a life of freedom, a life where he could be exactly who he was, without having to feel that he had to hold anything back, or hide behind a mask. A life where he could finally breathe freely in his own skin.

The Doctor had given him all that -- and more. The Doctor had given him not one heart, but two. Two hearts that he would always treasure and do his best to protect.

And more than that -- the Doctor had given him the opportunity to breathe again, to finally take a deep breath and draw the universe into himself. Until he'd begun to travel with the Time Lord, he'd never felt that he could open up to the world around him.

But that had all changed with the advent of the Doctor in his life. After his disastrous involvement with Jack that had ended with the two of them only on terms of icy politeness, he'd thought that he would never be able to give his trust -- or his heart -- to another man again.

He'd been so sure that he would spend the rest of his life feeling constrained in his own skin, unable to be who he truly was. He'd thought that he would have to bury himself under a veneer of respectability and never let himself venture out of that safe little box.

The Doctor had turned his world upside-down -- and he loved every moment of it. His life had changed in so many ways since he'd met the Time Lord -- all of them for the better.

Jack had been his first step to freedom, to becoming the person he'd always known that he was but had been afraid to let himself be. And the Doctor had pulled him even further out of that dark place he'd been hiding in, refusing to let those walls stay up any longer.

The Time Lord had breached those walls, made them crumble to the ground in a shower of ashes. And now that he'd stepped out from behind that garrison and taken a deep breath of the world around him, alight with millions of possibilities, he'd truly started to live.

Ianto took a deep breath, leaning back on the blanket that he'd spread out on the ground under the shade of a tall tree. Yes, he could be himself with the Doctor, completely opened to everything in the universe around him; he could breathe again, freely and without shame.

This was the life he'd always wanted to lead. A life that he never wanted to end, spent by the side of the man he loved. A life that would go far, far into the future, to embrace whatever might await them.

***