What Happened to My Life? (4/34ish)
Title: What Happened to My Life?
Author: Otrame
Summary: Ianto Jones is an ordinary bloke. Maybe a little on the geeky side. Works for a big insurance company. Married, first baby on the way. So, why won’t his kidnappers believe him when he tells them that he has never, ever heard the word Torchwood before?
Rating: PG 13 for mature themes.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Warnings:This story contains some descriptions of torture, most of which is psychological. Occasional highly charged sexual language, frequent cursing, etc. There will be some explicit violence and occasional brief sexual scenes, though these will be not be detailed or terribly explicit. It is an AU.
Spoilers: Potentially all of S1 and S2 until after Owen's first death.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction and is intended as a tribute to characters and stories developed and owned by Russell T. Davies and the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended.
The story begins here.
4. “He does recognize you.
In which test results are considered.
Ianto woke with a start. He was disoriented a moment, then remembered. He had been determined to at least get a look at the person or persons who left food for him, so he had sat down near the door to wait until the next meal was delivered. He had clearly fallen asleep, and the tray with what appeared to be breakfast was there next to him.
Since the American had left suddenly two, or was it three, days ago, he had seen no one. If he dozed off, or took a shower, or even just took a crap, a tray would appear by the door. This seemed to him to be happening at increasingly irregular intervals, although he knew very well that he had long ago lost all sense of time here.
He’d tried to get their attention. Knowing that there were cameras and microphones, he tried calling to them. When that got no answer he tried not leaving the tray near the door. He tried using up all his clothing, taking showers every few hours, leaving wet towels and dirty clothes all over the room. But inevitably, he would sleep, and when he awoke the room would be clean, and the clothes washed and put back in the drawers. He suspected they were drugging him and started only drinking water from the sink, but that didn’t help.
After a while he began to think that this isolation was a deliberate attempt to drive him crazy. Even though the American and his strange doctor friend had acted as if there was a certain amount of urgency, once the former had been called from the room, there had been no communication of any sort. He did not understand what was going on. That was the worst. If he had any kind of reasonable structure to events, so he could understand why they were happening…
The only thing he could cling to was Mary Elizabeth. The only comfort he had was remembering the deeply comforting love that she represented. His thought circled around her, around the glory of being in bed with her. In his mind she shone clear and bright, dark hair cut at her shoulders, pale freckled skin. Her belly seemed to get bigger every day and he found it amazingly erotic, that firm hard space that often undulated while they were making love, as if the child was as excited as her parents. He’d voiced this thought, and Mary had said, “That may be the most disgusting thing you’ve ever said,” though she was smiling as she said it. And he had kissed her softly and said, “I was talking about the love, not the sex, dirty mind.” And she had grinned and proved once more how much easier it was with her on top these days. He’d nearly been late for work.
God, how long had it been? Mary, oh, Mary, my darling I am so sorry. I don’t know how I brought this down on us, but I swear I’ll keep trying to get home. Oh, God, please let me be with her, I need her. His need was a deep cold ache in his guts. Not being with her hurt.
Ianto got wearily to his feet, looked without appetite at the scrambled eggs and toast. He walked away from the tray, went to the bathroom and took a shower. He was just coming back toward the bed when he heard the lock on the door. He stared, frozen to the spot, his heart pounding.
Doctor Harper came in, looking at him with what Ianto felt was some distaste. Behind him was an Asian woman, dressed in a severely cut pant suit. She wore dark framed glasses and carried a file folder resembling medical records. Harper stopped when he saw Ianto was not on the bed, pointed to it. Ianto went and sat down. Harper got the chair and placed it a few steps away. The Asian woman sat, and looked up at Harper.
Harper cleared his throat. “Mr. Jones this is Colonel Sato. She’s been put in charge of this case.” He moved to a space behind and to the left of her chair and stood with his hands behind his back.
“What happened to the other bloke. The American?”
Dr. Harper looked unhappy and dropped his eyes. The woman said, “He as been reassigned. He no longer has a function here. You will not see him again.”
Ianto stared from one to the other. Harper still would not look at him. There had been something about the way she said that, something in the way Harper looked that made Ianto deeply uneasy. It was not that he had enjoyed his time with the American, but he had a feeling that things had just gone from bad to worse.
Colonel Sato-and it occurred to him for the first time that the military ranks might mean that it was the government who was doing this to him. For some reason, the American being addressed as Captain had not sparked this thought. This Colonel Sato was a nice enough looking woman, her black hair pulled back into a roll on the back of her head. Her expression as she opened the folder and examined some of the papers pinned in it was rather sour. When she finally looked up at Ianto, her gaze was hard.
“Mr. Jones, I have a few questions to ask before we get on with the tests. Can you tell me-“
“Wait, what are you talking about? What tests?”
“The tests that Dr. Harper and my predecessor should have started immediately after getting you here.”
Ianto saw the doctor’s tongue come out to lick his lips, and he realized the man looked worried, maybe even a little scared. Ianto said again, “What tests?”
She glanced up at Harper, then returned a cold stare to Ianto. “Nothing that will hurt you. We need information about your brain, Mr. Jones.”
Fear, never far from the surface of his emotions, flared. He swallowed. “And if I refuse to cooperate?” he managed to say.
The Colonel smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “Your cooperate is not required for these tests, Mr. Jones.”
And suddenly, completely, Ianto lost it. He launched himself at Harper with no real plan in mind, just hot rage, raw defense, and a desperate need to do something. Still, it was not Harper that put him onto the concrete floor so fast he couldn’t even understand what happened. It was not Harper that held him there with apparent ease, helpless, struggling, screaming every obscenity he’d ever heard. It was Harper, however, that stuck the needle into his shoulder muscle.
Interlude 3
He stood silent, his attention torn between the monitor showing Ianto struggling to get free of the straps that held him to the gurney and the woman studying the results of the tests they’d done.
“Well, he does recognize you. All of you.”
“But he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does. Look here. We show pictures of each of you, mixed in with pictures of complete strangers. See these flares of color. That’s the part of the brain that is responsible for facial recognition. I’ll slow this down. Okay, this is when we flashed the picture of you. See the response here? And the flare here? He recognized you. He had a strong reaction. There was a flare here, which is along the pathway to the amygdula but it stops before it gets there. That shouldn’t happen. It’s as if there is some kind of road block. It doesn’t affect recognition of your faces since he’s been here; the recent memories associated with your faces are accessible. But the older memories are not.” She moved those images off the screen and replaced them with what looked like regular MRI scans. She increased the scale, focusing on one area of the brain.
He looked over at the monitor, and saw that Owen had come into the room. Ianto stopped struggling and concentrated on calling Owen a long list of obscenities. Owen listened for a while, but when Ianto paused to take a breath he said, “You weren’t hurt, were you? The Captain told you you wouldn’t be hurt.”
Ianto glared at him. “Yeah, well the ‘Captain’ isn’t here, is he? What happened to him?”
He could see Owen’s jaw working, “He was reassigned.”
“If that’s all, why are you acting like he died, for God’s sake?”
Right on cue, Owen turned and walked out of the room.
“Very nicely done.”
He murmured, “Yeah, not too bad for a zombie.”
“What?”
“Private joke.”
He turned to look a her, watching as she returned to the monitor that displayed Ianto’s tests. Owen came in. There was a deep scowl on his face. “This fucking sucks,” he muttered. The Captain’s hand touched his shoulder. Just a touch. And she could see how it calmed the doctor.
An hour later and she finally turned to the four of them, waiting so painfully for what she had to tell them. Her face is solemn.
“It’s not very good news. First, you need to understand that the brain is modular. I’m not talking about its structure per se, but its function. We can use the analogy that you have hundreds, maybe thousands of little compartments in which your brain performs a function, and each of these is connected to other compartments. I don’t want you to think that memories are in specific locations in the brain. We don’t understand all that much about memory yet, but we do know that. But the analogy of brain functions taking place in compartments is what I want you to understand. Using that analogy, I can tell you that your friend still has his memories of you, of this place, of being the Ianto Jones you know. But the compartments of the brain that function as what we call the “consciousness” have no access to them.
“I’m still not entirely sure how they did this, but there is no question about the nature of the damage they’ve done. The damage is physical.” She paused, and there was a moment of silence.
“You mean they damaged his brain?” Jack asked.
“Yes. There are several hundred minute anomalies, most of them in the cerebrum and structures associated with the amygdula.”
She looked at the stunned faces around her and said, “I’m sorry.”
Part 5
Author: Otrame
Summary: Ianto Jones is an ordinary bloke. Maybe a little on the geeky side. Works for a big insurance company. Married, first baby on the way. So, why won’t his kidnappers believe him when he tells them that he has never, ever heard the word Torchwood before?
Rating: PG 13 for mature themes.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Warnings:This story contains some descriptions of torture, most of which is psychological. Occasional highly charged sexual language, frequent cursing, etc. There will be some explicit violence and occasional brief sexual scenes, though these will be not be detailed or terribly explicit. It is an AU.
Spoilers: Potentially all of S1 and S2 until after Owen's first death.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction and is intended as a tribute to characters and stories developed and owned by Russell T. Davies and the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended.
The story begins here.
4. “He does recognize you.
In which test results are considered.
Ianto woke with a start. He was disoriented a moment, then remembered. He had been determined to at least get a look at the person or persons who left food for him, so he had sat down near the door to wait until the next meal was delivered. He had clearly fallen asleep, and the tray with what appeared to be breakfast was there next to him.
Since the American had left suddenly two, or was it three, days ago, he had seen no one. If he dozed off, or took a shower, or even just took a crap, a tray would appear by the door. This seemed to him to be happening at increasingly irregular intervals, although he knew very well that he had long ago lost all sense of time here.
He’d tried to get their attention. Knowing that there were cameras and microphones, he tried calling to them. When that got no answer he tried not leaving the tray near the door. He tried using up all his clothing, taking showers every few hours, leaving wet towels and dirty clothes all over the room. But inevitably, he would sleep, and when he awoke the room would be clean, and the clothes washed and put back in the drawers. He suspected they were drugging him and started only drinking water from the sink, but that didn’t help.
After a while he began to think that this isolation was a deliberate attempt to drive him crazy. Even though the American and his strange doctor friend had acted as if there was a certain amount of urgency, once the former had been called from the room, there had been no communication of any sort. He did not understand what was going on. That was the worst. If he had any kind of reasonable structure to events, so he could understand why they were happening…
The only thing he could cling to was Mary Elizabeth. The only comfort he had was remembering the deeply comforting love that she represented. His thought circled around her, around the glory of being in bed with her. In his mind she shone clear and bright, dark hair cut at her shoulders, pale freckled skin. Her belly seemed to get bigger every day and he found it amazingly erotic, that firm hard space that often undulated while they were making love, as if the child was as excited as her parents. He’d voiced this thought, and Mary had said, “That may be the most disgusting thing you’ve ever said,” though she was smiling as she said it. And he had kissed her softly and said, “I was talking about the love, not the sex, dirty mind.” And she had grinned and proved once more how much easier it was with her on top these days. He’d nearly been late for work.
God, how long had it been? Mary, oh, Mary, my darling I am so sorry. I don’t know how I brought this down on us, but I swear I’ll keep trying to get home. Oh, God, please let me be with her, I need her. His need was a deep cold ache in his guts. Not being with her hurt.
Ianto got wearily to his feet, looked without appetite at the scrambled eggs and toast. He walked away from the tray, went to the bathroom and took a shower. He was just coming back toward the bed when he heard the lock on the door. He stared, frozen to the spot, his heart pounding.
Doctor Harper came in, looking at him with what Ianto felt was some distaste. Behind him was an Asian woman, dressed in a severely cut pant suit. She wore dark framed glasses and carried a file folder resembling medical records. Harper stopped when he saw Ianto was not on the bed, pointed to it. Ianto went and sat down. Harper got the chair and placed it a few steps away. The Asian woman sat, and looked up at Harper.
Harper cleared his throat. “Mr. Jones this is Colonel Sato. She’s been put in charge of this case.” He moved to a space behind and to the left of her chair and stood with his hands behind his back.
“What happened to the other bloke. The American?”
Dr. Harper looked unhappy and dropped his eyes. The woman said, “He as been reassigned. He no longer has a function here. You will not see him again.”
Ianto stared from one to the other. Harper still would not look at him. There had been something about the way she said that, something in the way Harper looked that made Ianto deeply uneasy. It was not that he had enjoyed his time with the American, but he had a feeling that things had just gone from bad to worse.
Colonel Sato-and it occurred to him for the first time that the military ranks might mean that it was the government who was doing this to him. For some reason, the American being addressed as Captain had not sparked this thought. This Colonel Sato was a nice enough looking woman, her black hair pulled back into a roll on the back of her head. Her expression as she opened the folder and examined some of the papers pinned in it was rather sour. When she finally looked up at Ianto, her gaze was hard.
“Mr. Jones, I have a few questions to ask before we get on with the tests. Can you tell me-“
“Wait, what are you talking about? What tests?”
“The tests that Dr. Harper and my predecessor should have started immediately after getting you here.”
Ianto saw the doctor’s tongue come out to lick his lips, and he realized the man looked worried, maybe even a little scared. Ianto said again, “What tests?”
She glanced up at Harper, then returned a cold stare to Ianto. “Nothing that will hurt you. We need information about your brain, Mr. Jones.”
Fear, never far from the surface of his emotions, flared. He swallowed. “And if I refuse to cooperate?” he managed to say.
The Colonel smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “Your cooperate is not required for these tests, Mr. Jones.”
And suddenly, completely, Ianto lost it. He launched himself at Harper with no real plan in mind, just hot rage, raw defense, and a desperate need to do something. Still, it was not Harper that put him onto the concrete floor so fast he couldn’t even understand what happened. It was not Harper that held him there with apparent ease, helpless, struggling, screaming every obscenity he’d ever heard. It was Harper, however, that stuck the needle into his shoulder muscle.
Interlude 3
He stood silent, his attention torn between the monitor showing Ianto struggling to get free of the straps that held him to the gurney and the woman studying the results of the tests they’d done.
“Well, he does recognize you. All of you.”
“But he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does. Look here. We show pictures of each of you, mixed in with pictures of complete strangers. See these flares of color. That’s the part of the brain that is responsible for facial recognition. I’ll slow this down. Okay, this is when we flashed the picture of you. See the response here? And the flare here? He recognized you. He had a strong reaction. There was a flare here, which is along the pathway to the amygdula but it stops before it gets there. That shouldn’t happen. It’s as if there is some kind of road block. It doesn’t affect recognition of your faces since he’s been here; the recent memories associated with your faces are accessible. But the older memories are not.” She moved those images off the screen and replaced them with what looked like regular MRI scans. She increased the scale, focusing on one area of the brain.
He looked over at the monitor, and saw that Owen had come into the room. Ianto stopped struggling and concentrated on calling Owen a long list of obscenities. Owen listened for a while, but when Ianto paused to take a breath he said, “You weren’t hurt, were you? The Captain told you you wouldn’t be hurt.”
Ianto glared at him. “Yeah, well the ‘Captain’ isn’t here, is he? What happened to him?”
He could see Owen’s jaw working, “He was reassigned.”
“If that’s all, why are you acting like he died, for God’s sake?”
Right on cue, Owen turned and walked out of the room.
“Very nicely done.”
He murmured, “Yeah, not too bad for a zombie.”
“What?”
“Private joke.”
He turned to look a her, watching as she returned to the monitor that displayed Ianto’s tests. Owen came in. There was a deep scowl on his face. “This fucking sucks,” he muttered. The Captain’s hand touched his shoulder. Just a touch. And she could see how it calmed the doctor.
An hour later and she finally turned to the four of them, waiting so painfully for what she had to tell them. Her face is solemn.
“It’s not very good news. First, you need to understand that the brain is modular. I’m not talking about its structure per se, but its function. We can use the analogy that you have hundreds, maybe thousands of little compartments in which your brain performs a function, and each of these is connected to other compartments. I don’t want you to think that memories are in specific locations in the brain. We don’t understand all that much about memory yet, but we do know that. But the analogy of brain functions taking place in compartments is what I want you to understand. Using that analogy, I can tell you that your friend still has his memories of you, of this place, of being the Ianto Jones you know. But the compartments of the brain that function as what we call the “consciousness” have no access to them.
“I’m still not entirely sure how they did this, but there is no question about the nature of the damage they’ve done. The damage is physical.” She paused, and there was a moment of silence.
“You mean they damaged his brain?” Jack asked.
“Yes. There are several hundred minute anomalies, most of them in the cerebrum and structures associated with the amygdula.”
She looked at the stunned faces around her and said, “I’m sorry.”
Part 5