People were shouting around him, calling out numbers and acronyms as he gasped for air.

 “Ianto!”  He could hear Jack calling his name, and his eyes searched him out.

 “Please, sir, you need to let us work if you want us to save your friend,” Ianto heard someone say.

 “Jack,” Ianto croaked, feeling the warmth of his breath encased in an oxygen mask.  His whole body ached but there was a sharp pain in his chest that made it hurt to breathe.  “Jack,” he tried to call with more volume.

 “Ianto?”  Suddenly Jack was there, pushing people aside like he always did.  “Ianto, can you hear me?”

 “Jack,” Ianto whimpered, trying to reach up his hand.

 “I’m here,” Jack said, grasping his hand.  “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”

 “Sir, please!” A woman’s voice said.  “We need to operate on him as soon as possible, and we can’t do that if you insist on barging in here and getting in the way!”

 “It’s going to be okay, Ianto,” Jack assured him, but it was getting dark again and Ianto could barely hear him.  It was so hard to keep his eyes open.  “Ianto?  Ianto!”

 Ianto opened his eyes and looked around the hospital room.  He was alone now, left to an eerie silence.  He sat up on the bed and pulled the various tubes and leads off an out of himself before he slipped off to stand.

 “Jack?” He said cautiously before he walked towards the double doors of the emergency room.  He hesitated a moment before he pushed the doors open, revealing the Hub.

 He looked around wondering where they had all gone, before his attention was drawn back to the door.  He eyed it nervously and jumped when something banged against it.  No, he decided, he didn’t want to stay here, not while that was trying to get it in.

 “Ianto!” Someone called.  He spun around to see a man in a dark brown suit waving him over from the archives.  He frowned for a moment before he recognised him; the Doctor.  “Quickly now, come on!”  The man encouraged.  Ianto cast another look at the door before he followed the Doctor.

 “Ah, good,” the Doctor said once Ianto entered the archives.  “Now, we need to start searching for this alien, figure out what it is and how to get rid of it.”

 “Just what exactly are you doing here?”  Ianto asked, his eyes narrowing on the man.

 “I’m helping,” he said, somewhat defensively.  “See me, researching, suggesting – helping.”

 “Yes, but why you?”  Ianto said.

 “Well, why not me?”  The Doctor asked.  He added proudly, “I have a TARDIS.”

 “And I’m very happy for you, but why does that mean you’re helping me?”

 “Ah, well,” the Doctor turned to him, brandishing his arms like a magician getting ready for a trick and wearing an expression of one about to explain something incredibly complicated and technical.  “You see, this is all in your head, you’re dreaming – you did know you were dreaming, yes?”

 “I’d figured that part out, thank you,” Ianto said dryly.

 “Right, so everything here is a part of you, a part of your mind, including me!” The Doctor grinned smugly.  “I’m the part of you that’s logical, smart, intelligent...  Apparently you associate these traits with me – well, the Doctor, anyway.  You relate to him on an intellectual level of brilliance!”

 “And arrogance, it would seem,” Ianto commented.

 “Yes, maybe that too,” the Doctor conceded.  “But look, we should get going, I don’t think the right one is here anyway.” He put down the files he was holding.

 “Where are we going?” Ianto asked as he followed the other man.

 “Here!”  Ianto stopped to stare at the TARDIS.

 “Why is it blue?  I never understood why it’s a blue police box,” Ianto said.

 “I don’t know, this is your brain we’re in,” the Doctor said.  He jumped towards the door and opened it.  “Come on, we’ll be safe in here.”  The Doctor disappeared inside leaving Ianto glancing between the entrance to the archives and the TARDIS.

 “Maybe later,” Ianto muttered and continued through the archives.  Behind him he heard the sound of the TARDIS leaving.  So much for that plan.  He pushed aside boxes of artefacts and stumbled into a corridor of Torchwood London.

 People bustled around him, bright and happy, chattering away to each other about inconsequential things.  He remembered them like this, excited and smiling and god how he wished they could have stayed that way.  He watched Carrie from Research and Development laugh with Richard, also Research and Development, about something they were working on.  Brenda from the Ethics Department listened to them, nodding in the right places.

 “It’s brilliant!  It’s going to change the world!”  Carrie exclaimed happily, grinning as she tucked her wild blond hair behind her ears.

 “Yes!  Telepathic vacuum cleaners,” Richard enthused.  “Cleaning will never be the same again!”

 “But what about the ethical implications?”  Brenda asked, frowning slightly.  “Is it right to expect something to clean up after you just because you want it to?”

 “Well that’s what the Society for the Protection of Cleaning Kit is for,” Richard said.  “SPOCK makes sure that no vacuum cleaners are hurt in the making of this dream.”

 “Oh, I see,” Brenda said, nodding.

 “Plus it won’t matter once we use them in our world domination plan!” Carrie said with a chuckle.

 Brenda laughed.  “Oh of course, you’re quite right – how silly of me to forget.”

 Ianto chose then to interrupt.  “Excuse me, but where are the archives from here?  I seem to have forgotten.”

 “The archives?”  Richard from R and D said.  “We don’t have archives anymore; they were destroyed in the battle, remember?”

 Ianto looked at each of them in turn, their cold metal faces emotionless and Ianto knew he shouldn’t have interrupted.  “Right, of course.  I just need to find out what’s after me.”

 “Hmm, maybe you should try floor thirteen, there might be something left there,” Carrie said.

 “Right, thanks,” Ianto said, backing away from the three Cybermen.  He hurried away, dodging around more Cybermen who were stomping around until he pushed through a door and he was on floor thirteen.

 The wreckage swamped the floor, files scattered haphazardly around the room with desks and chairs overturned and broken, a few of them on fire.  He picked his way through, occasionally lifting some papers only to dismiss them after a second’s glance.  His attention was drawn to one corner where there were piles of cushions and pillows, and he nervously walked over to them.

 “Stay away!” A voice commanded.  “Don’t come any closer.”

 “...Director Hartman?”  Ianto said, peering in through a gap.

 “This is my fort, there’s only room for me.  Stop looking at me, they might see me!”  She sounded panicked.

 “They aren’t going to bother us now, I think,” Ianto said as the Cybermen behind him walked slowly around without purpose.  “They’ve been dead a long time.”

 “I did my duty,” she insisted.  “For Queen and country – I did my duty.”

 “I know,” Ianto said quietly.  “I remember.  Director Hartman, I don’t suppose you have the file on what’s following me, do you?”

 “It’s not following you,” she said as though it were obvious.  “It’s wearing you down, wearing you out and eventually it’s going to break through that door.”

 Ianto looked at the cog door, where the something was banging away, trying to get in.  He turned back to her in her fort, now damp in the pool at the bottom of the rift manipulator.  “But if I know what it is I might be able to tell Jack, let him know; he might be able to stop it.”

 “You can have the file, but I need you to answer me something first,” she said moving closer to the gap so he could see her wide, earnest eyes.

 “Anything,” he said honestly.

 “I was good, wasn’t I?”  Her voice sounded small and lost amongst the pillows.  “I tried to do my best – what was best for the country, for its people.  I didn’t know what would happen, I couldn’t have known, if I did, I never would have-“

 “I know,” Ianto said.  “I have to believe that.”

 “If I had survived I would have endeavoured to do what was right,” she said sadly.  “I never would have stopped paying for what we did.”

 Ianto nodded.  “I know the feeling.”

 From between two pillows a file of paper slid out, small and non-descript in its brown folding.  “I have to find more pillows,” she said, and her eyes retreated from the gap.

 “Thank you,” Ianto said, clutching the file and hurrying away with it.  The banging against the door was getting worse and Ianto retreated up the stairs to the conference room.  He closed the door behind him and walked into Lisa’s flat.

 He stopped as he looked around taking in all the little ornaments she had, now covered in dust after being left for so long.  There were cobwebs hanging and he knew Lisa would go hysterical if she saw this.  It used to look so warm, but the rose-coloured walls now seemed bleached and unhealthy, the carpet so thickly layered in dust it let little clouds up with every step he took and a musky, unlived-in smell pervaded the flat and it nearly made him choke.

 How long had it been since he had been there, he wondered.  He was sure there were things missing, but he just couldn’t remember what.

 “Hello Ianto.”  Ianto spun around to see Lisa, standing by her sofa and giving him a critical eye.  “Long time no see.”

 He frowned at her, unable to quite place what was wrong with her, yet knowing there was something different.  “Lisa, we have to hide, there’s something-”

 “I know, there’s something after you.  That’s what it takes to get you to visit me now, isn’t it?  Imminent danger,” she said, scrunching up her nose.

 “I visit you all the time,” he protested.

 “Don’t you love me anymore Ianto?” She asked, a heartbroken expression on her face.

 “Of course I do, I always will.”

 “Then why are you neglecting me?”

 “This isn’t right,” Ianto said, turning away from her.  “You were never like this; you would never say things like this.”

 “Ah well,” the Doctor said, pushing the little service doors of her kitchen open to peer out at them.  “This would be the guilt talking,” he said knowledgably.  He paused then said, “I could murder a cup of tea!”  The Doctor closed the doors and the kettle started a low rumble.

 Ianto sighed and said to the wall, “I can’t stay here forever.”

 “I’m not asking for forever,” she said.  The kettle was settling in to a whine in a high tone.

 “It’s going to find me,” he murmured.  “I’ve got to move on.”

 “Then go,” she replied.  “But Ianto?”

 He noticed the kettle was no longer a kettle, but rather a steady note, not dissimilar to that of a dial tone, or maybe a heart monitor... “Yes?”  He said, now turning to look at her.

 The Cyberwoman lifted her hand as the darkness rushed in and said in a cold robotic voice, “Don’t forget me.”  She electrocuted him once and his body rose up off the bed before landing heavily back down.

Part Three
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