Forever Autumn 4/23
Title: Forever Autumn 4/23
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, John/Nick,
Characters: Jack, Ianto, John Hart, Nick Jones, and a cast of (probably!) thousands.
Spoilers: Set after Exit Wounds. Sequel to 'We Could Be Heroes'
Rating: Adult - it's going to get very dark in some places.
Warnings: Slash, language, angst, dark themes.
Summary: A return to the Brecon Beacons introduces Nick to something wonderful.
Disclaimer: I'm a student. I don't own Torchwood.
The Master List is here: anduria-trianys.livejournal.com/27610.html
Chapter 4
17th March 2013...
March had fallen right in the middle of a cold snap that was unusually frigid, even for a cold snap. It had started with a biting wind and rain in the middle of February which had quickly progressed into frost and then into heavy snow that had sent biting chills through anyone who dared to venture out into it. Then, for a few days in early March, it had seemed as if a thaw had set in as the sky slowly deepened from the pale grey it had been for over three months to a bright cerulean blue and the sun's rays finally dared to break through the gradually thinning clouds and warm the Plass and making the few remaining puddles sparkle like thousands of diamonds.
But then the weather turned violently and abruptly, firstly with the vociferous cold snap and then with a ferocious gale of snow blowing in from somewhere - Jack and Nick had jokingly suggested that the North Pole and South Pole were having a competition to see which could produce the coldest weather and, for some reason, Cardiff had been caught in the crossfire, while Ianto had theorised that the Rift had somehow found a way to manipulate the weather without flagging anything up on the computers in the Hub and, given how sneaky the Rift could be sometimes, the others had to admit that his theory didn't seem impossible (though Jack and Nick would still joke about the Polar Ice Competition, as they'd called it).
However the weather had come about, though, the last thing that John had wanted to was to spend the evening of St. Patrick's Day trekking through the Brecon Beacons in three feet of snow to deal with whatever it was that the Rift had decided to drop off this time. At the same time, Jack didn't seem particularly pleased by it either, but he had at least been sensible enough to do something John wasn't completely convinced he himself would have done, which was to remember Ianto's fervent dislike of the place and let him stay behind at the Hub rather than have him come to the place where, along with one of his best friends, he had almost been served up as dinner for a bunch of psychotic cannibals. Unfortunately, he hadn't had the same common sense as far as Matt had been concerned, which had meant that the Irish weapons trainer had spent most of the trip grumbling in the back seat of the SUV about how he could have been enjoying a nice date with Garrett involving a pint or several of Guinness and a plateful of his mother's Irish stew.
“I remember she always used to put lots of carrots in it as well,” he was saying for what felt to John like the thousandth time. “I loved carrots when I was a kid; used to eat them with everything, because they reminded me of the orange part of the Irish flag and -”
“Matt, believe it or not, being stuck in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a freezing cold snowstorm isn't exactly my first choice of how to spend a Sunday night!” snapped Nick. “But you know as well as I do that the Rift doesn't play fair and it doesn't stop if the weather's bad just to give us a break. So just shut up and put up with it, because there's slightly less than nothing that we can do about it.”
Matt pouted at him. “I know,” he muttered. “Doesn't mean I have to like it.”
“You chose to take the job, remember, just like all of us here did.”
Jack shifted a bit in the front seat. “Actually, technically, I didn't.”
“Okay, all of us apart from Jack,” conceded Nick. “And sometimes this is the result. It's not a bundle of laughs at times, but you've got to do it. Besides,” and here, Nick's mouth twitched, “how do you think Garrett would react if he heard you whining like this over a bit of snow?”
Matt glared at him for a second. “He'd be tutting at me, wouldn't he?”
“Yep, he would. But then he'd wrap you up in a blanket afterwards and plonk you in front of the fire...well, actually, maybe in front of the radiator would be more accurate, given what happened the last time he tried to light a fire!” said Nick, laughing.
John's mouth twitched slightly as he listened to the chatter between his two friends and remembered exactly why he had fallen in love with Nick. He just loved watching the way his eyes sparkled and danced when he laughed and the way the little dimples would form in his rosy cheeks when he smiled. He loved how Nick's long red hair floated gently around his face and twirled its way around his finger and then dropped in soft curls over his shoulders and his back. He loved the way that, even when he fell asleep at the opposite end of the bed, he would somehow still wake up wrapped around John and making that soft purring noise as he opened his eyes and smiled that sleepy grin before leaning over to claim his morning kiss.
He smiled softly to himself. When it came to how he felt about Nick, he knew that it wasn't about sex like so many of his other relationships had been. It was so much more than that; it was those little moments where they were just sat together, either in front of the television on a night off, or with Nick bandaging up whatever new injury John had incurred that day (despite his immortality, he still managed to get himself injured a lot) or even like just now when they were sat together in the back of the SUV driving out to the Brecon Beacons.
Suddenly, Jack swerved violently as something rushed out of the shadows in front of them. In the glare from the headlights, everyone caught sight of a flash of orange and a very familiar looking bipedal shape.
“Blowfish!” yelled Nick and abruptly leaned over John and out of the window, aiming his gun at it.
“Don't you dare!” shouted John, attempting to pull his partner back into the car as Jack tried to avoid the alien as it fired shots off at the car. “That thing could kill you!”
“Jack, stop the car!” shouted Nick, completely ignoring John. Jack did so - though clearly it was against his better judgement since the Blowfish was now barely two feet away from them - and, barely a second later, Nick fired a shot straight into the head of the gun-wielding bipedal fish. The alien crumpled to the ground, though not before it had yelled out a very annoyed curse.
Matt grimaced and craned his neck around the others. “Right, so we've managed to get Blowfish brains all over one side of the car,” he said. “I don't think Ianto's going to be too happy about that, since he's the one who cleans it.”
“I think he's had plenty of practice cleaning the SUV before, actually,” said Nick as he opened the door and scanned the area, his gun out and ready. “And besides, he'll probably just be relieved that we're not dead.”
“Not for the lack of trying in some cases, though,” muttered John with a scowl. “Really, Nick, what were you thinking, sticking your head out of the car like that? You could have had your brains blown out!”
“I had a clear view of him,” explained Nick. “But I couldn't have brought the shot off if Jack was still driving. So, I asked him to stop and then got the hit off.”
“Oh,” said John quietly, scuffing his foot against the ground. “Okay, I see.”
Nick cocked his eyebrow at him. “Hey,” he said, reaching out to wrap his arm around him. “I wouldn't have taken the shot if I didn't think I could. I won’t put myself in danger intentionally, okay? Don't worry about that.”
John sighed. “I know. I just don't want you to get hurt.”
“I know. But don't worry, okay? If there was one thing I did learn at the Time Agency, it was better self-preservation skills!”
Meanwhile, Matt had finished burying the Blowfish six feet down and covering the corpse with soil. He straightened up and wiped his forehead. “Was that what we came here for? To take out another Blowfish?”
“Nope,” said Jack. He consulted his wrist strap. “According to this, we actually came here for something that's a little further up this way. Come on.”
They piled back into the car and drove on for several minutes, John periodically checking their tech to check exactly where the Rift had been active and giving Jack the co-ordinates. Eventually, they came to a secluded clearing with a small stream running through it, though the water had long since turned to ice and the tree branches were almost weighted down by the snow covering them, snow which had also covered most of the ground, so it was very hard to see where they were going and, more than once, someone had a nasty surprise when they slipped on one of the large and flat stones that were hidden underneath the snow.
“You know, I know it's not exactly fun walking through here,” remarked Nick as he picked himself up for the third time. “But you have to admit, it is beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is,” said Jack. “And it also reminds me of the infamous snowball fight of Christmas 2009.”
“Oh, yes, I remember that!” laughed John. “I also seem to recall that you gloated up a storm afterwards, because you managed to pin Ianto to the ground and keep him there!”
“And I also seem to recall that you said I was just too much for you, John!” retorted Nick. “In fact, I seem to remember a very impressive piece of theatre where you collapsed onto the ground, panting the words out!”
“Shut it, you.” John had scooped up a handful of snow. “I'm armed.”
Jack shook his head. “Come on, kids, we can have a snowball fight later. Matt's just said that he's found whatever it was that the Rift dropped off.”
John sighed and dropped the snow, but then clasped Nick's hand and together they rushed after Jack towards the frozen waterfalls that were glistening in amongst the trees. Matt was leaning over something, but when he looked up and saw them, he started waving frantically.
“Nick, I need help here!” he shouted. “I'm not sure what's been dropped off, but it's been badly injured!”
Nick shouted back that they were on their way and rushed over to his friend, John and Jack hot on his heels. John looked at the creature lying on the ground and gasped. “Jack, is this what I think it is?”
If anyone else had been here, they might have thought that they were looking at a dragon, possibly straight out of the pages of Pern. Indeed, the beautiful cobalt blue creature did look very much like one of the fictional beasts, though where another dragon might have had claws, she - for, on closer inspection, John realised that it was a female - had only short nails as bright as silver, but as soft and unthreatening as a cloud on a warm spring day and her wings were white and as thin as parchment though with soft flickers of silver, like moonlight, shining through them.
She looked up at them through her deep blue eyes, which seemed oddly faded, far from the usual vibrant colour that they should be and let out a pain-filled moan that shattered the heart of every man present. At the same time, she struggled to lift one of her enormous silken wings and everyone gasped as they realised that, not only had the wing been ripped apart, but that the shreds of delicate skin were almost soaked through with what anyone else might have taken to be water, but when the team looked closer, realised was in fact blood, streaming from a gaping wound in her side.
Nick dropped to his knees, evidently not bothered about the cold snow and reached for his medical kit. “What is it?” he whispered, lightly resting a hand on the creature’s head and stroking it lightly to soothe her.
“One of the aatiae from Caspyraea,” said Jack quietly. “One of the most affectionate and beloved creatures in the entire universe, they’re elemental creatures.”
“What does that mean?”
John pointed. “You see there, she’s licking at the snow?” Nick nodded. “She’s an aatia of water. It means she needs water to survive. It’s how they live; some rely on water, some on air, some on earth and some on fire.”
“But if she survives on water, then why is she so…” Matt furrowed his brow, hunting for the right word, “wounded? Could that wound have caused so much damage?”
“It’s possible, if they’re a peaceful breed who can’t know how to defend themselves,” said Nick quietly. He looked up, his eyes damp. “Who, or what, would do something like this?”
“Poachers,” said Jack sadly. “Aatia wings are used to make beautiful clothes - I’ve seen a simple shirt sell for thousands, millions even, in some places - and their nails are used in jewellery making and can fetch an absolute fortune on their own, especially on the black market.”
He bent down and looked at the beautiful creature. “They’re also incredibly hard to catch, because they can fly away almost in an instant, rather like teleporting. Anyone who manages to catch, and kill, an aatia would be instantly guaranteed a fortune. But it looks like this one didn’t manage to get out of the way of the poacher in time because her wing was so shredded.” He gave Nick a grim smile. “All aatiae rely on their wings to allow them to move quickly and if one is damaged…” he shook his head sadly. “Then, they’re almost already dead as it is.”
At that moment, the aatia suddenly scrunched her eyes up tightly and her face took on an expression of almost indescribable distress. She then started whimpering and crying out in pain, as if she was looking for something she had lost, but knew that she’d never find it. Immediately, Nick started stroking her head again, trying to calm her, but as soon as he touched her, his expression changed to one identical to hers and he collapsed onto the snow with a despairing moan. “No…”
John rushed over and picked him up. “Nick!” He gently patted the younger man’s cheeks. “Nick, it’s John; you’re going to be all right, I’ve got you. Just take your hand off her head.”
Nick blinked up at his partner as his hand dropped back to his side. He opened his eyes properly. “John?” he whispered. “John, what happened? I…I just touched her head and…” he shuddered. “God, I’ve never heard anything like it. It just rips right through you…turns you cold inside and shatters your heart.”
Jack knelt down in front of him. “You heard the dying cry of her mate,” he said gently. “The aatiae have a connection with their mates and their children which lets them know whenever anything happens to them so that they can come to help. But sometimes, when they feel intense emotion, anyone touching them can share that connection while contact is made. When she heard her mate scream, she became distressed because she couldn’t get home to help…and she had to hear him die as clearly as if she had been there when it happened.”
Nick shut his eyes. “I felt her distress,” he murmured. “She was crying inside because she couldn’t get to him…” He looked at the two former Time Agents. “And then, there was…nothing. Just this empty space where she’d been a moment before.”
“That was me telling you to lose contact with her,” said John. “When you did that, you cut the connection between the two of you.”
“No…no, it was before I heard you. I heard her voice, but then…then she just disappeared…” Nick’s voice trailed off when he looked up and saw Jack bending over the now prone form of the aatia. “Jack?”
“She’s gone,” said Jack, his voice slightly hoarse. “She was already weakened because of her injury and the exhaustion of her jump through the Rift. But the sound of her mate’s death cry shattered her beyond repair.” He closed his eyes and rested his hand on the aatia’s head.
John reached out and put his arm around Nick’s shoulders, drawing him close and letting him rest his head on his shoulder. He squeezed his hand gently and dropped a kiss onto his forehead, just letting him relax as the shock of what had just happened slowly left his system until he almost melted against him, his arms slowly going around John’s waist and his breathing slow and even once again.
Suddenly, John heard a strange noise that caused him to look up and glance around. Instinctively, his hand went to his gun, but Jack shook his head and beckoned to where the dead aatia had been lying only a few moments before. It seemed that Jack had also heard the noise and had moved her body to investigate.
Curiously, John shuffled over to look and gasped when he saw a cluster of six tiny shapes shifting around in the snow. Looking closer, he saw that some of them were blue just like the older aatia and some of them a beautiful bright orange with pale yellow wings and eyes the colour of melted amber, just like Nick’s hair which two of them, having just escaped from their freezing nest, were crawling towards and now attempting to chew on, though Nick himself hadn’t noticed.
“She was pregnant?” he whispered.
Jack nodded. “Something, possibly the jump through time and space, must have triggered the labour.” He picked one of the other orange ones and frowned as it let out a tiny sound, clearly squeaking with cold. “John, these ones are freezing; they won’t survive long if…” he let the sentence trail off and sighed.
At that moment, one of the ones clinging onto Nick’s hair pulled hard on a few strands, jerking the young man upright again. He blinked and looked around, his jaw dropping open when he saw the babies. “Are these…her babies?” he whispered, gently removing the two from his hair and holding them in his hands. “They’re so small.”
“Yes,” whispered Jack. “Her mate must have been an aatia who survives on fire. That means that some of them are going to need fire and heat if they’re going to survive.” He chuckled softly. “And it seems as if they’ve mistaken Nick’s hair for their element!”
John frowned as he watched the four orange babies move slowly towards Nick, almost as if they were in pain from the freezing cold snow, and crawl into his hands, some of them reaching up to try and touch his hair, only to recoil back when they realised that it didn’t carry the comforting warmth they yearned for. He frowned. While the two blue babies were happily crawling around and eating the snow, watched by Jack, the others were gasping and hissing from the cold as they trembled in Nick’s hands.
Jack’s right. If we don’t do something quickly, those babies aren’t going to survive.
“Nick,” he said quietly, looking at his lover, “you have the power to help them. I know you hate using it, but do it just this once…for them.”
“John, you shouldn’t force him to use that power,” said Jack reprovingly, “You know he hates it.” To Nick, he said, “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“No,” said Nick, who had been staring at the baby aatiae. “John’s right. If there’s a way to help them, then that’s what I’ll do, whatever it is.”
John smiled at him. “I trust you, Nick. Now, you just need to trust yourself. You can do this. Just stay calm.”
“I know,” whispered Nick, although he was trembling slightly and his face was a little pale. “Just promise me that if it gets out of control…”
“I’ll stop you,” promised John. “At the first sign of anything going wrong, I’ll stop you.”
“I’ll go with Matt to get something to put the water babies in with some of the snow,” said Jack, getting up and gathering the snow on which the blue babies were playing in his hands. “Did that sound as weird as I thought it did?”
Nick huffed out a small laugh before he looked back down at the orange aatiae. John smiled and watched as, very slowly, a pale yellow glow started to form in his partner’s hands, glowing brighter and brighter by the minute. For a second, Nick looked frightened at how fast the flames were growing and John wondered if he was going to call the whole thing off. But then, he heard a soft warbling sound that whispered through the clearing and warmed the air around him and slowly came over to look at Nick.
“Wow,” he whispered, watching the tiny babies now happily singing and fluttering around in the ring of fire in Nick's hands. “Look at them.”
“I know.” Nick's eyes were shining in the light of the flames as he looked up and grinned at John. “They're so beautiful.” Suddenly, he grinned. “Do you think Jack will let me keep them?”
***
Next Time: The Doctor arrives for John’s stag night, but where will he end up taking them?
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, John/Nick,
Characters: Jack, Ianto, John Hart, Nick Jones, and a cast of (probably!) thousands.
Spoilers: Set after Exit Wounds. Sequel to 'We Could Be Heroes'
Rating: Adult - it's going to get very dark in some places.
Warnings: Slash, language, angst, dark themes.
Summary: A return to the Brecon Beacons introduces Nick to something wonderful.
Disclaimer: I'm a student. I don't own Torchwood.
The Master List is here: anduria-trianys.livejournal.com/27610.html
Chapter 4
17th March 2013...
March had fallen right in the middle of a cold snap that was unusually frigid, even for a cold snap. It had started with a biting wind and rain in the middle of February which had quickly progressed into frost and then into heavy snow that had sent biting chills through anyone who dared to venture out into it. Then, for a few days in early March, it had seemed as if a thaw had set in as the sky slowly deepened from the pale grey it had been for over three months to a bright cerulean blue and the sun's rays finally dared to break through the gradually thinning clouds and warm the Plass and making the few remaining puddles sparkle like thousands of diamonds.
But then the weather turned violently and abruptly, firstly with the vociferous cold snap and then with a ferocious gale of snow blowing in from somewhere - Jack and Nick had jokingly suggested that the North Pole and South Pole were having a competition to see which could produce the coldest weather and, for some reason, Cardiff had been caught in the crossfire, while Ianto had theorised that the Rift had somehow found a way to manipulate the weather without flagging anything up on the computers in the Hub and, given how sneaky the Rift could be sometimes, the others had to admit that his theory didn't seem impossible (though Jack and Nick would still joke about the Polar Ice Competition, as they'd called it).
However the weather had come about, though, the last thing that John had wanted to was to spend the evening of St. Patrick's Day trekking through the Brecon Beacons in three feet of snow to deal with whatever it was that the Rift had decided to drop off this time. At the same time, Jack didn't seem particularly pleased by it either, but he had at least been sensible enough to do something John wasn't completely convinced he himself would have done, which was to remember Ianto's fervent dislike of the place and let him stay behind at the Hub rather than have him come to the place where, along with one of his best friends, he had almost been served up as dinner for a bunch of psychotic cannibals. Unfortunately, he hadn't had the same common sense as far as Matt had been concerned, which had meant that the Irish weapons trainer had spent most of the trip grumbling in the back seat of the SUV about how he could have been enjoying a nice date with Garrett involving a pint or several of Guinness and a plateful of his mother's Irish stew.
“I remember she always used to put lots of carrots in it as well,” he was saying for what felt to John like the thousandth time. “I loved carrots when I was a kid; used to eat them with everything, because they reminded me of the orange part of the Irish flag and -”
“Matt, believe it or not, being stuck in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a freezing cold snowstorm isn't exactly my first choice of how to spend a Sunday night!” snapped Nick. “But you know as well as I do that the Rift doesn't play fair and it doesn't stop if the weather's bad just to give us a break. So just shut up and put up with it, because there's slightly less than nothing that we can do about it.”
Matt pouted at him. “I know,” he muttered. “Doesn't mean I have to like it.”
“You chose to take the job, remember, just like all of us here did.”
Jack shifted a bit in the front seat. “Actually, technically, I didn't.”
“Okay, all of us apart from Jack,” conceded Nick. “And sometimes this is the result. It's not a bundle of laughs at times, but you've got to do it. Besides,” and here, Nick's mouth twitched, “how do you think Garrett would react if he heard you whining like this over a bit of snow?”
Matt glared at him for a second. “He'd be tutting at me, wouldn't he?”
“Yep, he would. But then he'd wrap you up in a blanket afterwards and plonk you in front of the fire...well, actually, maybe in front of the radiator would be more accurate, given what happened the last time he tried to light a fire!” said Nick, laughing.
John's mouth twitched slightly as he listened to the chatter between his two friends and remembered exactly why he had fallen in love with Nick. He just loved watching the way his eyes sparkled and danced when he laughed and the way the little dimples would form in his rosy cheeks when he smiled. He loved how Nick's long red hair floated gently around his face and twirled its way around his finger and then dropped in soft curls over his shoulders and his back. He loved the way that, even when he fell asleep at the opposite end of the bed, he would somehow still wake up wrapped around John and making that soft purring noise as he opened his eyes and smiled that sleepy grin before leaning over to claim his morning kiss.
He smiled softly to himself. When it came to how he felt about Nick, he knew that it wasn't about sex like so many of his other relationships had been. It was so much more than that; it was those little moments where they were just sat together, either in front of the television on a night off, or with Nick bandaging up whatever new injury John had incurred that day (despite his immortality, he still managed to get himself injured a lot) or even like just now when they were sat together in the back of the SUV driving out to the Brecon Beacons.
Suddenly, Jack swerved violently as something rushed out of the shadows in front of them. In the glare from the headlights, everyone caught sight of a flash of orange and a very familiar looking bipedal shape.
“Blowfish!” yelled Nick and abruptly leaned over John and out of the window, aiming his gun at it.
“Don't you dare!” shouted John, attempting to pull his partner back into the car as Jack tried to avoid the alien as it fired shots off at the car. “That thing could kill you!”
“Jack, stop the car!” shouted Nick, completely ignoring John. Jack did so - though clearly it was against his better judgement since the Blowfish was now barely two feet away from them - and, barely a second later, Nick fired a shot straight into the head of the gun-wielding bipedal fish. The alien crumpled to the ground, though not before it had yelled out a very annoyed curse.
Matt grimaced and craned his neck around the others. “Right, so we've managed to get Blowfish brains all over one side of the car,” he said. “I don't think Ianto's going to be too happy about that, since he's the one who cleans it.”
“I think he's had plenty of practice cleaning the SUV before, actually,” said Nick as he opened the door and scanned the area, his gun out and ready. “And besides, he'll probably just be relieved that we're not dead.”
“Not for the lack of trying in some cases, though,” muttered John with a scowl. “Really, Nick, what were you thinking, sticking your head out of the car like that? You could have had your brains blown out!”
“I had a clear view of him,” explained Nick. “But I couldn't have brought the shot off if Jack was still driving. So, I asked him to stop and then got the hit off.”
“Oh,” said John quietly, scuffing his foot against the ground. “Okay, I see.”
Nick cocked his eyebrow at him. “Hey,” he said, reaching out to wrap his arm around him. “I wouldn't have taken the shot if I didn't think I could. I won’t put myself in danger intentionally, okay? Don't worry about that.”
John sighed. “I know. I just don't want you to get hurt.”
“I know. But don't worry, okay? If there was one thing I did learn at the Time Agency, it was better self-preservation skills!”
Meanwhile, Matt had finished burying the Blowfish six feet down and covering the corpse with soil. He straightened up and wiped his forehead. “Was that what we came here for? To take out another Blowfish?”
“Nope,” said Jack. He consulted his wrist strap. “According to this, we actually came here for something that's a little further up this way. Come on.”
They piled back into the car and drove on for several minutes, John periodically checking their tech to check exactly where the Rift had been active and giving Jack the co-ordinates. Eventually, they came to a secluded clearing with a small stream running through it, though the water had long since turned to ice and the tree branches were almost weighted down by the snow covering them, snow which had also covered most of the ground, so it was very hard to see where they were going and, more than once, someone had a nasty surprise when they slipped on one of the large and flat stones that were hidden underneath the snow.
“You know, I know it's not exactly fun walking through here,” remarked Nick as he picked himself up for the third time. “But you have to admit, it is beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is,” said Jack. “And it also reminds me of the infamous snowball fight of Christmas 2009.”
“Oh, yes, I remember that!” laughed John. “I also seem to recall that you gloated up a storm afterwards, because you managed to pin Ianto to the ground and keep him there!”
“And I also seem to recall that you said I was just too much for you, John!” retorted Nick. “In fact, I seem to remember a very impressive piece of theatre where you collapsed onto the ground, panting the words out!”
“Shut it, you.” John had scooped up a handful of snow. “I'm armed.”
Jack shook his head. “Come on, kids, we can have a snowball fight later. Matt's just said that he's found whatever it was that the Rift dropped off.”
John sighed and dropped the snow, but then clasped Nick's hand and together they rushed after Jack towards the frozen waterfalls that were glistening in amongst the trees. Matt was leaning over something, but when he looked up and saw them, he started waving frantically.
“Nick, I need help here!” he shouted. “I'm not sure what's been dropped off, but it's been badly injured!”
Nick shouted back that they were on their way and rushed over to his friend, John and Jack hot on his heels. John looked at the creature lying on the ground and gasped. “Jack, is this what I think it is?”
If anyone else had been here, they might have thought that they were looking at a dragon, possibly straight out of the pages of Pern. Indeed, the beautiful cobalt blue creature did look very much like one of the fictional beasts, though where another dragon might have had claws, she - for, on closer inspection, John realised that it was a female - had only short nails as bright as silver, but as soft and unthreatening as a cloud on a warm spring day and her wings were white and as thin as parchment though with soft flickers of silver, like moonlight, shining through them.
She looked up at them through her deep blue eyes, which seemed oddly faded, far from the usual vibrant colour that they should be and let out a pain-filled moan that shattered the heart of every man present. At the same time, she struggled to lift one of her enormous silken wings and everyone gasped as they realised that, not only had the wing been ripped apart, but that the shreds of delicate skin were almost soaked through with what anyone else might have taken to be water, but when the team looked closer, realised was in fact blood, streaming from a gaping wound in her side.
Nick dropped to his knees, evidently not bothered about the cold snow and reached for his medical kit. “What is it?” he whispered, lightly resting a hand on the creature’s head and stroking it lightly to soothe her.
“One of the aatiae from Caspyraea,” said Jack quietly. “One of the most affectionate and beloved creatures in the entire universe, they’re elemental creatures.”
“What does that mean?”
John pointed. “You see there, she’s licking at the snow?” Nick nodded. “She’s an aatia of water. It means she needs water to survive. It’s how they live; some rely on water, some on air, some on earth and some on fire.”
“But if she survives on water, then why is she so…” Matt furrowed his brow, hunting for the right word, “wounded? Could that wound have caused so much damage?”
“It’s possible, if they’re a peaceful breed who can’t know how to defend themselves,” said Nick quietly. He looked up, his eyes damp. “Who, or what, would do something like this?”
“Poachers,” said Jack sadly. “Aatia wings are used to make beautiful clothes - I’ve seen a simple shirt sell for thousands, millions even, in some places - and their nails are used in jewellery making and can fetch an absolute fortune on their own, especially on the black market.”
He bent down and looked at the beautiful creature. “They’re also incredibly hard to catch, because they can fly away almost in an instant, rather like teleporting. Anyone who manages to catch, and kill, an aatia would be instantly guaranteed a fortune. But it looks like this one didn’t manage to get out of the way of the poacher in time because her wing was so shredded.” He gave Nick a grim smile. “All aatiae rely on their wings to allow them to move quickly and if one is damaged…” he shook his head sadly. “Then, they’re almost already dead as it is.”
At that moment, the aatia suddenly scrunched her eyes up tightly and her face took on an expression of almost indescribable distress. She then started whimpering and crying out in pain, as if she was looking for something she had lost, but knew that she’d never find it. Immediately, Nick started stroking her head again, trying to calm her, but as soon as he touched her, his expression changed to one identical to hers and he collapsed onto the snow with a despairing moan. “No…”
John rushed over and picked him up. “Nick!” He gently patted the younger man’s cheeks. “Nick, it’s John; you’re going to be all right, I’ve got you. Just take your hand off her head.”
Nick blinked up at his partner as his hand dropped back to his side. He opened his eyes properly. “John?” he whispered. “John, what happened? I…I just touched her head and…” he shuddered. “God, I’ve never heard anything like it. It just rips right through you…turns you cold inside and shatters your heart.”
Jack knelt down in front of him. “You heard the dying cry of her mate,” he said gently. “The aatiae have a connection with their mates and their children which lets them know whenever anything happens to them so that they can come to help. But sometimes, when they feel intense emotion, anyone touching them can share that connection while contact is made. When she heard her mate scream, she became distressed because she couldn’t get home to help…and she had to hear him die as clearly as if she had been there when it happened.”
Nick shut his eyes. “I felt her distress,” he murmured. “She was crying inside because she couldn’t get to him…” He looked at the two former Time Agents. “And then, there was…nothing. Just this empty space where she’d been a moment before.”
“That was me telling you to lose contact with her,” said John. “When you did that, you cut the connection between the two of you.”
“No…no, it was before I heard you. I heard her voice, but then…then she just disappeared…” Nick’s voice trailed off when he looked up and saw Jack bending over the now prone form of the aatia. “Jack?”
“She’s gone,” said Jack, his voice slightly hoarse. “She was already weakened because of her injury and the exhaustion of her jump through the Rift. But the sound of her mate’s death cry shattered her beyond repair.” He closed his eyes and rested his hand on the aatia’s head.
John reached out and put his arm around Nick’s shoulders, drawing him close and letting him rest his head on his shoulder. He squeezed his hand gently and dropped a kiss onto his forehead, just letting him relax as the shock of what had just happened slowly left his system until he almost melted against him, his arms slowly going around John’s waist and his breathing slow and even once again.
Suddenly, John heard a strange noise that caused him to look up and glance around. Instinctively, his hand went to his gun, but Jack shook his head and beckoned to where the dead aatia had been lying only a few moments before. It seemed that Jack had also heard the noise and had moved her body to investigate.
Curiously, John shuffled over to look and gasped when he saw a cluster of six tiny shapes shifting around in the snow. Looking closer, he saw that some of them were blue just like the older aatia and some of them a beautiful bright orange with pale yellow wings and eyes the colour of melted amber, just like Nick’s hair which two of them, having just escaped from their freezing nest, were crawling towards and now attempting to chew on, though Nick himself hadn’t noticed.
“She was pregnant?” he whispered.
Jack nodded. “Something, possibly the jump through time and space, must have triggered the labour.” He picked one of the other orange ones and frowned as it let out a tiny sound, clearly squeaking with cold. “John, these ones are freezing; they won’t survive long if…” he let the sentence trail off and sighed.
At that moment, one of the ones clinging onto Nick’s hair pulled hard on a few strands, jerking the young man upright again. He blinked and looked around, his jaw dropping open when he saw the babies. “Are these…her babies?” he whispered, gently removing the two from his hair and holding them in his hands. “They’re so small.”
“Yes,” whispered Jack. “Her mate must have been an aatia who survives on fire. That means that some of them are going to need fire and heat if they’re going to survive.” He chuckled softly. “And it seems as if they’ve mistaken Nick’s hair for their element!”
John frowned as he watched the four orange babies move slowly towards Nick, almost as if they were in pain from the freezing cold snow, and crawl into his hands, some of them reaching up to try and touch his hair, only to recoil back when they realised that it didn’t carry the comforting warmth they yearned for. He frowned. While the two blue babies were happily crawling around and eating the snow, watched by Jack, the others were gasping and hissing from the cold as they trembled in Nick’s hands.
Jack’s right. If we don’t do something quickly, those babies aren’t going to survive.
“Nick,” he said quietly, looking at his lover, “you have the power to help them. I know you hate using it, but do it just this once…for them.”
“John, you shouldn’t force him to use that power,” said Jack reprovingly, “You know he hates it.” To Nick, he said, “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“No,” said Nick, who had been staring at the baby aatiae. “John’s right. If there’s a way to help them, then that’s what I’ll do, whatever it is.”
John smiled at him. “I trust you, Nick. Now, you just need to trust yourself. You can do this. Just stay calm.”
“I know,” whispered Nick, although he was trembling slightly and his face was a little pale. “Just promise me that if it gets out of control…”
“I’ll stop you,” promised John. “At the first sign of anything going wrong, I’ll stop you.”
“I’ll go with Matt to get something to put the water babies in with some of the snow,” said Jack, getting up and gathering the snow on which the blue babies were playing in his hands. “Did that sound as weird as I thought it did?”
Nick huffed out a small laugh before he looked back down at the orange aatiae. John smiled and watched as, very slowly, a pale yellow glow started to form in his partner’s hands, glowing brighter and brighter by the minute. For a second, Nick looked frightened at how fast the flames were growing and John wondered if he was going to call the whole thing off. But then, he heard a soft warbling sound that whispered through the clearing and warmed the air around him and slowly came over to look at Nick.
“Wow,” he whispered, watching the tiny babies now happily singing and fluttering around in the ring of fire in Nick's hands. “Look at them.”
“I know.” Nick's eyes were shining in the light of the flames as he looked up and grinned at John. “They're so beautiful.” Suddenly, he grinned. “Do you think Jack will let me keep them?”
***
Next Time: The Doctor arrives for John’s stag night, but where will he end up taking them?