Not Just Frozen Soldiers, Part 2
Title: Not just frozen soldiers.
Chapter: 2
Pairing: Jack/Ianto.
Rating: PG - N-17
Spoilers: Ep 2x03
Synopsis: When a pretty ghost appears to Jack at St. Tailo’s hospital, it becomes clear that Tommy isn’t the only one out of his time.
Genre: AU - and isn't that our favourite safe place atm!
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood... believe me... if i did this would so not be happening!
A/N - I feel inclined to add that this fic will end happily. We all need a bit of happiness atm. I have actually changed this a bit more to incorporate some happy moments that we all need.
Part 1 is here
Jack Harkness wandered through the eerie corridors of St. Tailo's hospital; the wing hadn’t been closed all that long, maybe thirteen years or so, but the empty room felt ghostly despite the floors above it still being in use. The sound of footsteps reverberated through the ceiling, blending with the muffled voices from above, then filtered out through the air and disappeared. The doors were in a state of disrepair and the painful scratch of rusted hinges echoed through the ward as he pushed his way though them; if it wasn't for Torchwood's yearly visit to the ward Jack was almost sure that they would rust shut completely.
The electricity had been cut to the lower wards a few years previously, and the windows were boarded with thick planks of wood from the inside. They blocked out most of the light, but some still managed to break through, lighting just enough to see the room; blankets of dust could be seen in the rays of sunlight, floating around in the air without settling.
It wasn’t unusual to have some activity on this day. Ever since Tommy had been frozen in 1918 there had been ghostly apparitions down on the ward caused by rift and the timeshift; they only usually lasted an hour or two and the nurses and doctors that had always been there had just resigned to the fact that the ward was 'ghostly'. The result was a abandoned ward, almost as frozen in time as Tommy; a place nobody but Torchwood ever went, and never more than once a year.
Jack heard a noise. Fast footsteps, like someone was running, and a scream that came from further away than the darkness could reach. There was a flash of light that shone through the door at the end of the ward, flickering like a candle but maybe a little brighter. He looked towards the light and took his gun from it's holster; he pressed his back towards the wall and checked it was loaded before continuing with caution.
“Hello?” Jack called. “Is anyone there?”
The reply was muffled as if it were too far away to be heard, but sounded close somehow. The footsteps stopped and Jack could hear a familiar sound, like the loading of a pistol; if it was a ghost, it was a ghost with a gun. An old gun.
He turned the corner, peering around with caution; he had located the source of the flickering light. Jack Harkness found himself caught in a beam of low light, flickering as a figure moved towards him. He raised his gun without the intention of using it. As the firm footsteps got closer Jack could make out the silhouette of a man. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a head of neatly cut dark hair, not exactly short back and sides, but neat. His breath became a little uneven as he ventured closer, and his footsteps started to get more tentative, getting slower as he neared him.
The figure seemed to fade away and then reappear, like a flickering light in human form.
Jack lowered his gun. He was sure it was a ghost; the figure seemed to stare through him as though he wasn't there and he didn't look real. His clothes were old but looked new and pristine. It was a shame to see such a beautiful ghost, with cheekbones that could cut marble and lips that seemed to delicious he could almost taste them from five foot away. He was young too, maybe twenty-five, and his blue eyes still has that spark of life; had that ghost been real Jack Harkness would have asked him out for dinner.
Jack smiled a little and stopped in the middle of the ward, waiting for the beautiful ghost to reach him. He enjoyed the cool feeling of a ghost passing through his body; it was almost like a cold knife, slicing painlessly through him and leaving him with a icy breeze on his face as if he'd been running in the wind.
But this was a new ghost, one that he had never seen before, and didn't correlate with any of the reports from the staff in the hospital. They were usually all the same; soldiers, injured and bleeding, or doctors and nurses, but this was one that he had never seen before. He didn’t seem to be a doctor, and he certainly wasn’t a nurse; he looked too healthy to be a patient and visitors were banned from the lower levels of the hospital. It was possible that he could have got lost, but random visitors to a hospital rarely got lost whilst in possession of a lamp. Whoever's this ghost was, if he was killed, it had been deliberate and that was one thing that Jack couldn't come to peace with.
The figure came closer, and as he did Jack could see his face more clearly. The contours of his face, the outline of his lips and the way that he walked jut seemed beautiful and familiar. The sight of him caught his breath and stopped his heart for a single moment; he didn't know him, he had no reason to feel anything, but he did. The moment the ghost walked towards him Jack felt a warmth in his heart that he just couldn't explain.
Catherine watched from the other end of the table as Tommy tucked into his breakfast, shovelling the food into his mouth.
“Slow down,” she said, “you would think you hadn’t eaten in a year.”
“Well technically I haven’t.” He took a drink of his tea and rested the ends of the cutlery on the table as he looked over at the young woman who sat at at the other end of the table staring down into the depths of her tea. “What happened then?”
“Happened?”
“To the others.”
“Oh.” She looked a little unsure and focused on anything in the room but him; she was nervous and it was showing, but Tommy didn't mind, he was used to new faces and apprehension. “I think that’s classified sir.”
He chuckled. “You lock me up in a freezer for a year at a time; I don’t think I’m going to tell anyone.”
Catherine smiled. “That' very true.”
“So?”
“Shot,” he said simply, “all of them shot. Dead. Like all the others that came before them. All but Jack perished that day.” She looked over the table, making eye contact with the young soldier for the first time. “He’s stronger than anyone I’ve ever known; he survives things most people couldn’t. The thing’s he’s seen, everything that he’s lived through and he’s still going.” She looked down at her hands and twisted the gold band around on her finger. "I should be scared of this world that he's introduced me into, but I have nothing else to live for now. Inside we're as dead as each other."
“You think Jack is dead inside?”
“I'm sure of it. He lost his memory when he came here, or that's what he told me. He dreams of it at night, a time into the future with faces that he recognises but doesn't understand. And he cries in the night for a love who's name he has wiped from his mind but haunts him in his dreams; he said that he suspects that something happened, far into the future, that broke his heart so much that he couldn't live with it. He said it felt like his breath has no purpose in his dreams.”
“You think he wiped it himself?”
“I'm sure of it.” She looked down at her wedding band, then looked at the young soldier sadly, “but wouldn't you?”
"Talk about lost loves." he gestured to her hand. "I've seen that look more times than I should care to remember."
"I suppose you would have. It can't be easy passing through here and just seeing all the broken hearts." She looked up and gave him a sad smile. “Jack's is the most broken of them all.”
Tommy looked away from her in the silent moment and began to eat his breakfast again, but slower; he took his time.
A long silence fell between them, the clattering of cutlery the only noise.
"It must be hard for you.” Catherine broke the silence. "You wake up and see people you don't know. We stick needles into you then freeze you again for another year."
“Every time I wake up there’s someone new,” Tommy said, “always something to fight and someone always loses. One day they’ll wake me up and even Jack will be gone.”
“Excuse me.” She stood up and tucked her chair back into the table neatly. “I should go and set up the laboratory for testing.”
“More blood tests eh?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“One day you’ll have to put some blood in to replace the amount you’ve taken out.”
Jack put away his gun; he didn't need it but he didn't know why.
“Hello?” The voice that came from the figure was full of beautiful Welsh vowels, annunciating every letter. “Is anyone there?”
Jack said nothing; he couldn't. The words were like an echo from the past, but didn't exist as a memory. He closed his eyes and the smell from the nearing ghost made his breath catch; a hint of freshly brewed coffee mixed with a subtle woody aftershave and something else that he couldn't explain. It gave him a feeling in his heart, and a tear in his eye, but Jack couldn't explain it.
Jack pushed the feelings aside. The rift had strange effect on him sometimes, and he was a master at ignoring it. This time would be no different. He took a breath; that feeling would be gone in a moment, and not a moment too soon.
He braced himself for the rush of cool air as he moved closer. But the cool air never came, and instead the air felt warmer as the man reached out and touched him. He jumped back, startled, and after a moment pressed his hand against the man’s shoulder; he was real.
Jack baked away until he hit the wall and then swallowed back an odd fear. His eyes were transfixed on the figure, staring through him as though he couldn't exist.
“It's all right,” The figure said, “I'm not going to hurt you.”
Jack believed him instantly. “I know that.”
“Are you all right?”
“You’re not a ghost,” he said. He touched the young man's face, running his thumb over the familiar contours of his skin. “You're real.”
“As are you sir.” He didn't push Jack away, but held his warm gaze with his eyes.
Jack smiled, feeling a little more at ease. He dropped his hand from the man's face and looked him up and down. “You're real, which, considering just how good you look in that suit, should be a very good thing.”
“Do you work here?” He moved a step away, seemingly as surprised to see Jack as Jack was to see him.
“I should ask you the same question.”
“Maybe I should be asking the questions.” He shone the light in Jack’s face, and it flickered casting shivering shadows on the walls. “Visitors aren’t allowed in this part of the hospital, sir.”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who just wonders around deserted hospital wards without a purpose?” Jack was still a little confused, but the feeling that the man gave him wasn't a bad one; he enjoyed it even though it scared him.
He looked him up and down and smiled a little. “Do you really want me to comment on the way you look?”
“Hey!" Jack feigned pain. "I’m pretty.”
“I never said you weren’t sir.”
Jack offered his hand. “Captain Jack Harkness.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“What's your name?” Jack asked. “Tell me your name.”
“Jones. Ianto Jones.”
The name meant nothing and Jack shook his feelings away. “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Jones.” He kept hold of his hand for a moment. "What brings you down here?"
"I'm with Torchwood."
Jack stepped back, dropping the other man's hand and blinking a few times before refocusing his gaze. "Torchwood?"
"You don't need to know anything more than that."
He shook his head. "You can't be Torchwood."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm Torchwood and I don't recognise you." He tilted Ianto's chin to the side and looked at his face in profile. “Although, you do feel strangely familiar.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, “but we have definitely never met. I would remember someone like you.”
“I would hope so. I'm unforgeable.”
“The rift must have infused you with energy when you passed through,” he said, “this deja vu is a side-effect, I've had it before.“
“That could be it.”
Ianto looked at him for a moment before stepping back a little. "What year do you think it is?"
"1933. It's June 20th."
"You have to go back," he said, leading the way through the stiff double doors, turning left down a corridor, "or should I say forward. We''ll go to the weakest part of the hospital and hopefully you can get back to your time." He stopped and turned around to face him. "It Tommy still alive?" he asked. "Is he okay?"
"He was when I left him."
Ianto continued down the corridor and Jack followed behind closely. "You have to get back to him, and so do I. He's waiting for me."
"What makes you so sure that you're not the one out of their time?"
He stopped. "I can't be."
"What makes you so sure?"
"I recognise this building, I know it like the back of my hand; I would realise if it were another time."
"This place never changes, nobody has been down here for years; if we come back in fifty years I could guarantee you that it would look exactly like this." He sighed. "And I can prove it."
"How exactly could you do that?"
Jack pushed his sleeve up a little and flipped open his leather wrist strap. “I have a toy.”
"What's that?"
Jack pressed some buttons. "It's a time vortex manipulator," he explained, "It's too complicated to explain."
"What does it do?"
"Everything. But basically it uses alien technology, their satellites and planetary positioning systems to--”
“What?”
“It's technology from a time you can't possibly understand. The time I think I'm from. There are planetary systems in that time that can always be located with this thing; I don't know what I'd do without it.”
“So, you're from the future?”
Jack sighed. “I'm not exactly sure, but that's another story for another day.”
“But it can tell you things?”
“It can give me an accurate assessment of the time --" he paused "well. not the time per se; can you believe that this thing can tell me what species you are - human - what star sign you are - Sagittarius- and that you find me strangely attractive, but not the actual time of day?" He rose an eyebrow. "I need to carry this thing and a pocket watch."
"How would that be able to tell you that I find you attractive."
"Body temperature, pulse, heart rate, breathing pattern, increased level of sex hormone that you're putting out there," he looked up at him and smiled, then stepped a little closer; too close. He licked his lips. "Are you telling me it's wrong?"
Ianto blinked Jack's intense gaze away. "Does it by any chance use the alien technology, their satellites and planetary positioning systems to give you an accurate assessment of why this isn't the time or the place for that kind of behaviour?"
"No."
"Then maybe you need one."
Jack sighed and closed the wrist strap. "Okay, so I have some good news and some bad news for you."
"What's the bad news?"
"It's 1933 and the rift seems to have closed for now, so unless I can find some way to send you back before the day is out then you're stuck here for at least a year."
"What the hell is the good news?"
"I'm free for lunch."