"April 30, 2011," Mio's responds a few seconds later. "And it depends on your definition of 'collapsed.'" Her tone is so dry it's practically cracked and bleeding. The last few months have been rough on her--on everyone, really--but she's always been a survivor. Though it may not seem so to Jack, she's actually back on the upswing now, though not without a few more scars to remember by.
"If you want to come up to my office, I can give you a debriefing on everything that's been going on recently. And....welcome back. I'd appreciate it if you stayed this time."
For a moment, Jack closes his eyes, lets that voice wash over him. Tastes every note, every crack, every flicker of inflection. There's a story there, and he's not sure he wants to know it. He just needs to.
"Mio," he says, and pushes the door back open. "Good to hear your voice, and believe me, I'd appreciate that too. The minute we get a Rift stabilizer."
The door swings shut behind him, and he steps back into the lobby. There are no new bullet holes, he notes; no fresh blood on the laminate floor. That's a good sign. He thinks.
"I'm on my way up now," he says, and breaks into a jog.
"I'll get right on that," Mio says drolly. Of course they both know that the probability of actually finding a Rift stabilizer is slim to none, but sometimes black humor is the only way to cope
( ... )
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for both of them, Jack's doing very little shielding of his own at the moment. In his mind he's just come down from speaking with Iris, keeping himself as perceptive and connecting as he could, and while the sudden jump forward through time has him on high threat, it's not a psychic threat. He's practically thrumming with strong emotion, concern and futile anger and trepidation, all of which is held down with one strong hand under the insouciant mask but not partitioned or repressed.
"Tea would be lovely," he says. "Apparently I haven't eaten in a few months." Or... you know, existed to eat, but an echo tells as much as a light.
Mio is stubbornly trying to not listen, but it's an effort, one that's visible in her body language if you know where to look. There's the tiniest increase in the amount of muscle tension, and her movements become sharper, more defined, and more restrained, ever so slightly drawing the things she interacts with closer to her body as she tries to close herself off.
"Well, if you're looking at i from my frame of reference, maybe; I don't know about yours. You know as well as I do that time isn't strictly linear." All the same, she pulls an energy bar out of a drawer and tosses it at Jack.
"All right," she says, bringing the mugs of tea over to her desk when she done making it, "What's the last date you remember being here? The Rift does an annoying little perception filter number that makes it difficult for me to tell when exactly you disappeared."
Jack catches the energy bar, and uses it to make a little salute. "Hop, skip and a jump," he says, possibly by way of agreement, and jabs his wrist device once or twice more. It whitters unhelpfully. "God, it was... I'd been checking in on Iris," he says. "Mid-February. Looking for-"
And then something hits him, and the sentence stops fast and hard.
"You said it was April 30th," he says, voice dropping from mock-fine to dark and hard in the space of a second. He'd been given a deadline. That deadline has passed.
"She's gone," Mio says, her voice choking back tears. "Jumped off the Tower three and a half weeks ago. Thought she was flying, right up until the point where she hit the ground." She sinks into her desk chair with a heavy thump and buries her face in her hands.
"I-I wasn't fast enough. By the time I'd felt what she was doing she'd already stepped off the edge." Felt it, as she smashed into the pavement, and felt it as the light went out of her eyes. She never got the proper chance to say good-bye.
Jack looks down, letting that news sink into him. It's not the only thing he feels sinking.
"It was always a long shot," he says, and hates the part of himself that lets him characterize things that way. Saving her. Her survival was always improbable. Some people are built for the worlds they find themselves in, and some people aren't - and he includes himself in the latter category. It's just that he's slightly too adept at survival, and Iris wasn't adept enough. Not for this place and all its bitter disappointments.
But those that will not break it kills, plays in the back of his head. He's quoted that, the first part, to Iris, kept those particular words to himself because she might find something too apt in them. Looks like it didn't matter, in the end. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."I'm sorry," he says, and winces at the sound of it. He always seems to be coming back to
( ... )
"Don't apologize," Mio says heavily. "It sounds callous, but frankly, it was a relief. The hard part was watching her as she slowly lost all sense of who she was and be able to do nothing to stop it. I'm not a healer. Never have been. In the best case scenario, I can help patch things up temporarily so they can stay functional while they come to grips with things, but with Iris it was like trying to treat a sucking chest wound with band-aids. I saw what happened coming from weeks away. I just regret that I wasn't able to be there with her at the end." She sighs. She would really like a hug right now, but she knows better than to ask for one. That would just end up badly for both of them
( ... )
Jack might have has something to say to address the moral complexities of healing and mercy, but he doesn't get a chance to before that status report hits him in the face. And-
"Wait, Gwen was stabbed?" is the first thing out of his mouth; then, like his processing is racing after Mio's words and always just a step behind, "wait, baby? What - Phoebe's gone? I-"
Aaand, critical confusion is reached. Requests for clarification shutting down.
"-one moment," he says, and looks down to his wrist device to key in the universal-matching program the Doctor installed ages ago. Because he's suddenly not at all certain he's come back into the same universe he left from.
Mio's not seeing so many moral complexities. At points, Iris had lost all sense of self to the point where she couldn't even recognize who or what she was anymore. In a lot of ways, Iris's mind had already died long before the body did and Mio had felt it. Even so, she did everything she could for Iris right up until the very end, even to the detriment of her own physical and mental needs. Mio couldn't have gone on trying to support Iris to the extent that she had been for much longer without spiraling into near-insanity herself. Iris's death saved Mio from having to make the choice between Iris and herself.
"We think it was some kind of mugging gone wrong," Mio says. "And yes, baby. She was pregnant when she came through the Rift...was I seriously the only person that knew?" Though it's not like Gwen had really told anybody. She hadn't exactly told Mio voluntarily either
( ... )
Jack has to take a moment to digest all of that before speaking. Otherwise, he's afraid any speech would come out in a gibber. If he knew how to turn around and walk straight back into the rift that skipped him up here, he'd be half-tempted to.
Instead, he just closes his eyes, takes a deep, steadying breath, and heaves all expectation that Chicago might have some semblance of stability out of his cognition with both metaphorical hands.
Right. Death, stabbing, revelation, death, disappearance, death, death, death. Sounds like Torchwood Chicago to him. He raises one hand to head off her next words.
"Let's save the good news for last," he says. I have a feeling I'll need it to wash the taste out of my mouth. "Who was taking care of Gwen prior to her release from the infirmary, and has she seen anyone even remotely like a trauma counselor?"
He can have what he suspects will be a very long conversation with her about why the hell she didn't tell anyone after he's sure she's all right and able to handle it. ...though, hell, if
( ... )
"Martha," Mio replies. "And yes, if you consider Martha qualified to act as a trauma counselor. Considering all the bullshit she's been through in her own life, I certainly think she is."
She shrugs and takes a sip of her tea. "I've been trying to keep an eye on her since she was released. That was part of the reason I put her to work; she's somewhere where I can see her that way. I can't exactly say she's doing okay right now, because no one is 'okay' after something like that, but she's coping. She's a strong woman." Not that she expected anything less from Gwen. Frankly, she kind of envies that strength. Not many people are able to remain empathetic to the troubles of others in the face of their own tragedies the way Gwen does. Mio certainly can't, although she's learned to do a good job of faking it, over the years.
"No kidding," Jack mutters, and it's an open question whether he means Martha's qualifications-by-fire or Gwen's strength. He shakes his head. "And how are you, dare I ask? Psychically, emotionally, professionally, spiritually, whatever you want to give me." Which is probably more bad news, just from looking at her. Acting head of Torchwood Chicago isn't exactly a job that lends a great deal of emotional stability to those performing it.
Of course, he's not expecting to hear much of that bad news from Mio, even if he is asking her. Working for Torchwood at all seems to mean you become incapable of communicating your own needs and emotions, if you were at all capable before. Jack's perfectly aware that some of it is selection bias, but given Gwen...
"Been hell of a lot better, that's for sure," Mio mutters darkly. She takes a slow breath to steady herself before trying to respond with a less flippant answer. "Honestly? By the time Iris died, I was burnt out. I was beyond burnt out, to the point where the only thing keeping me going was sheer stubborn willpower and large quantities of caffeine and ibuprofen. On top of the regular Torchwood stuff, I was spending hours every day in a psychic trance trying to track down the CLF and spend time with Iris and keep her from falling into a completely dissociated state. I tried to delegate as much of the Torchwood stuff as I could, but it's not exactly like we had manpower to spare. I was about three steps away from collapsing of exhaustion before Aurora and Uchiko-chan ganged up on me and bullied me into starting to take better care of myself. That was about a week before Iris died." Mio sighs. There's still a part of her that says But if only I could have done a little bit more..., but she knows deep down that no, she couldn't have, or
( ... )
"If you want to come up to my office, I can give you a debriefing on everything that's been going on recently. And....welcome back. I'd appreciate it if you stayed this time."
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"Mio," he says, and pushes the door back open. "Good to hear your voice, and believe me, I'd appreciate that too. The minute we get a Rift stabilizer."
The door swings shut behind him, and he steps back into the lobby. There are no new bullet holes, he notes; no fresh blood on the laminate floor. That's a good sign. He thinks.
"I'm on my way up now," he says, and breaks into a jog.
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"Tea would be lovely," he says. "Apparently I haven't eaten in a few months." Or... you know, existed to eat, but an echo tells as much as a light.
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"Well, if you're looking at i from my frame of reference, maybe; I don't know about yours. You know as well as I do that time isn't strictly linear." All the same, she pulls an energy bar out of a drawer and tosses it at Jack.
"All right," she says, bringing the mugs of tea over to her desk when she done making it, "What's the last date you remember being here? The Rift does an annoying little perception filter number that makes it difficult for me to tell when exactly you disappeared."
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And then something hits him, and the sentence stops fast and hard.
"You said it was April 30th," he says, voice dropping from mock-fine to dark and hard in the space of a second. He'd been given a deadline. That deadline has passed.
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"I-I wasn't fast enough. By the time I'd felt what she was doing she'd already stepped off the edge." Felt it, as she smashed into the pavement, and felt it as the light went out of her eyes. She never got the proper chance to say good-bye.
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"It was always a long shot," he says, and hates the part of himself that lets him characterize things that way. Saving her. Her survival was always improbable. Some people are built for the worlds they find themselves in, and some people aren't - and he includes himself in the latter category. It's just that he's slightly too adept at survival, and Iris wasn't adept enough. Not for this place and all its bitter disappointments.
But those that will not break it kills, plays in the back of his head. He's quoted that, the first part, to Iris, kept those particular words to himself because she might find something too apt in them. Looks like it didn't matter, in the end. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."I'm sorry," he says, and winces at the sound of it. He always seems to be coming back to ( ... )
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"Wait, Gwen was stabbed?" is the first thing out of his mouth; then, like his processing is racing after Mio's words and always just a step behind, "wait, baby? What - Phoebe's gone? I-"
Aaand, critical confusion is reached. Requests for clarification shutting down.
"-one moment," he says, and looks down to his wrist device to key in the universal-matching program the Doctor installed ages ago. Because he's suddenly not at all certain he's come back into the same universe he left from.
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"We think it was some kind of mugging gone wrong," Mio says. "And yes, baby. She was pregnant when she came through the Rift...was I seriously the only person that knew?" Though it's not like Gwen had really told anybody. She hadn't exactly told Mio voluntarily either ( ... )
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Instead, he just closes his eyes, takes a deep, steadying breath, and heaves all expectation that Chicago might have some semblance of stability out of his cognition with both metaphorical hands.
Right. Death, stabbing, revelation, death, disappearance, death, death, death. Sounds like Torchwood Chicago to him. He raises one hand to head off her next words.
"Let's save the good news for last," he says. I have a feeling I'll need it to wash the taste out of my mouth. "Who was taking care of Gwen prior to her release from the infirmary, and has she seen anyone even remotely like a trauma counselor?"
He can have what he suspects will be a very long conversation with her about why the hell she didn't tell anyone after he's sure she's all right and able to handle it. ...though, hell, if ( ... )
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She shrugs and takes a sip of her tea. "I've been trying to keep an eye on her since she was released. That was part of the reason I put her to work; she's somewhere where I can see her that way. I can't exactly say she's doing okay right now, because no one is 'okay' after something like that, but she's coping. She's a strong woman." Not that she expected anything less from Gwen. Frankly, she kind of envies that strength. Not many people are able to remain empathetic to the troubles of others in the face of their own tragedies the way Gwen does. Mio certainly can't, although she's learned to do a good job of faking it, over the years.
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Of course, he's not expecting to hear much of that bad news from Mio, even if he is asking her. Working for Torchwood at all seems to mean you become incapable of communicating your own needs and emotions, if you were at all capable before. Jack's perfectly aware that some of it is selection bias, but given Gwen...
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