Title: Soul Survival
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: R
Table: 5
Prompt: 44, Sacrifice
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Jack Harkness. Please do not sue.

***

The Doctor took a deep breath, the sheet of paper he held in his hand falling from his numb fingers and floating slowly to the ground, to land at his feet. The dark, heavily inscribed pen strokes slashed across the paper, forming words that were burned into his brain.

It had to happen sooner or later, didn't it? He should have known that he'd never be allowed to find the kind of happiness that he'd had for the past days.

But this wasn't the way that it was supposed to happen. It should have been him. He was the one who should be suffering, the one who could be faced with the possibility of forfeiting his life in a game that he'd never wanted to play.

Not Ianto.

The Doctor looked down at the paper lying by his feet, his blurred vision not able to make out the words but knowing them all without looking at them directly. Especially a certain few.

"He will die. And you will watch."

"No," he whispered, shaking his head, the panic that had been rising in him from the moment that he'd picked up the phone in Ianto's small apartment to hear Jack's unusually slow and hesitant voice on the other end escalating.

None of them seemed to know just when the Master had taken Ianto. Or how the bastard had gotten to his love. None of them had known anything until the neatly sealed letter had shown up on the door of the apartment. Sealed with red sealing wax, as though the Master was hearkening back to some bygone era that appealed to him.

The Doctor's lips twisted in a parody of a smile. The age of chivalry. Damsels in distress, and heroes rushing to their rescue. Because the Master knew that was exactly what he would do.

The bastard also knew that taking Ianto was the one thing that would cut the Doctor more deeply than any threat to his own life.

He could regenerate. He could come back. Ianto didn't have that luxury. Once he was gone -- he was gone forever. The Doctor would never have him back.

An eternity without his love, the gaping emptiness in his life never replaced.

He could already feel that desolation closing in on him.

The Doctor scarcely realized what he was doing as he turned to walk towards the bathroom, beginning to pull off his clothes as he moved. His shirt was thrown on the bedroom carpet, the jeans following; he padded down the hallway into the bathroom and turned on the overhead light.

The Doctor stood in front of the full-length mirror for what seemed like forever, studying his nude body with unforgiving scrutiny. He wasn't a bad-looking man, he told himself dispassionately, his eyes sweeping over his reflection. Not bad at all.

What was it about this body that Ianto loved so much? What was the attraction that bound the beautiful young man to him? Was it something about this particular body that he himself couldn't see?

The Doctor closed his eyes, a lump rising in his throat that he tried to choke back.

No. It wasn't this body. It was something in their souls, something that had drawn them together at first sight. Something that went beyond the physical.

Yet .... Ianto loved this body. How often had he seen his young lover gazing at him, that hungry look in his eyes, literally undressing the Doctor with those eyes?

If he had to regenerate to preserve himself -- would Ianto love another body in the same way that he loved this one? Could he save his mate, only at the risk of severing their bond by becoming something that Ianto couldn't love?

The Doctor's lips tightened, his hands reaching out as though to push the mirror away from him. He had to take the risk. He couldn't let that monster harm Ianto. There was no way of knowing what his love had already been through.

The only thing that he could be absolutely sure of was that Ianto wasn't dead. Not yet. The Master wouldn't kill his lover before the Doctor was there to witness it. No, the bastard would want to cut out his heart, slice by painful slice, using Ianto's suffering to do it.

And .... he would feel it if Ianto had already been irrevocably taken from him. That gaping emptiness would already stretch before him, a panorama of centuries ahead to mourn what he would never have again.

He turned away and headed for the door, striding purposefully down the hall for the bedroom. The first thing to do was get dressed, and then form a plan of attack.

He would get Ianto back. Unharmed, if luck was with them.

And that bastard would pay for daring to touch his love. Pay with his life, if the Time Lord could manage it.

He'd already waited too long to rid the universe of that threat. And now that the Master had brought Ianto into this vendetta, it would stop. For good.

The Doctor went to the closet, yanking the door open and reaching for his suit and trench coat. It would almost feel good to slip into those familiar clothes. Though he had been getting used to the soft t-shirts and jeans that he wore when he was with Ianto ....

His hand brushed one of Ianto's shirts, sending out an emanation of the warm, slightly musky scent of the cologne his young lover favored.

The coat fell from the Doctor's hands, his newfound resolve crumbling.

"Ianto," he whispered, sinking to the floor and curling up against the door frame, pulling his legs up to his chest and burying his face in his hands.

That bastard had Ianto. And there was no guarantee that the Doctor could save him.

Not without sacrificing one of them. Or even both.

Neither was a sacrifice that the Doctor was prepared to make.

***

Next story in series - Into Hell