Four Plus One 2/4
Title: In the Beginning
By: Sammy Girl
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be.
Note:This story owes much to the creator and writers of the M7-LB AU. Batered by my good friend LT. I hope you enjoy it.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Summery: When something fragile and precious falls though the rift, the team, especially Jack, face their greatest challenge.
<><><><><><><>
Part 2
Jack led the boy into the changing room; every now and again he’d look down and smile reassuringly, giving the tiny hand in his a gentle squeeze. When they arrived at the men’s changing room, Jack moved to the end of the row of shower stalls, where there was a small cubical containing a bath, which he began to fill, making sure the water wasn’t going to be too hot for the boy. While he did this, the boy just stood and watched. With the tub full, Jack turned on his heels to face the boy.
“Let’s get you ready for a bath, that’ll be nice, won’t it?”
He kept his voice low and slow, trying to be as unthreatening as possible.
“Do you need some help with you’re shirt?”
The boy shook his head and began to undo the buttons. It was almost painful to watch, as tiny, shaky fingers made slow work of each little button. He still had two to go when Owen came in. Jack glanced up at him, but gave no other indication he was there, not wanting to startle the boy. Finally the shirt was off.
“We can’t bath you in your trousers, can we?”
Even as he said it, Jack’s eye caught sight of Owen’s face. His normal look of boredom had been replaced by shock, even anger. Of course, Owen had a view only of the boy’s back, so Jack wasn’t sure what had changed. He refocused on the boy, who was working diligently on the buttons of his fly. Jack wondered why such a small boy had button flies, then he saw some of what Owen could see. The boy wasn’t just thin, he was emaciated, his ribs clearly visible, as he bent over Jack could see the top of the spine, every vertebra obscenely prominent. Worse, there were sores on his body, large angry patches of weeping, yellowed, crusty skin that looked horridly painful. Just as the boy pushed his trousers down and stood up, unashamed and now naked, as he had no under things of any kind, Gwen appeared, carrying the clothes and some fresh towels.
While she stood in the doorway in shocked silence, Owen seemed to be shaken out of his own state of shock.
“Jack, I err, I need to get some things….”
Jack didn’t respond immediately.
“Jack?”
“What?”
“I need to get some supplies.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
<><><><><><><>
The boy hadn’t spoken at all, though he did cough now and again, nor had he shown much emotion, other than fear. Yet he seemed, if not happy, at least content to do what ever Jack suggested and placidly went with him to bath and allowed himself to be lifted in. As he settled in the warm water, he let out what could only be called a contented sigh and smiled.
“It’s nice to be clean, isn’t it?” Jack soothed as he knelt on the bath mat and picked up the flannel Gwen had brought down. “We’re going to get you all clean and fresh, won’t that be good?” The boy nodded and smiled, he had the most beautiful eyes.
So while Gwen stood in the doorway, Jack washed the boy and his hair, where he discovered something unpleasant.
“Here, put this on his hair,” Owen announced as he returned and paused past Gwen. He handed Jack a bottle of anti head lice conditioner. “Only needs to be on there for ten minutes, then you can wash it out and start combing.”
As Jack brought the bottle closer, the boy flinched.
“It’s okay, he’s a doctor.” Jack glanced over his shoulder, pleased to see Owen had taken the time to put his white coat on. “He wants to help you feel better. Right, Dr Harper?”
“That’s right, which is why we’re going to put some of this in your bath water.” Owen then poured two capfuls of Dettol into the water. The boy watched it turn from brown to milky white with evident amazement.
Once the head lice lotion had done it’s job and their new charge was clean and dry, Owen gave Jack a tube of ointment and a disposable glove.
“Use the glove and put the cream on all the sore bits,” he instructed.
Jack followed instructions and in no time, the boy was dressed in one of his old tee shirts, which hung off him like and oversized night shirt.
Finally Jack was able to set about changing his own clothes. He was just doing up his trousers, when suddenly the boy, who was standing there staring up at him, burst into tears.
“What did you do?” Jack asked instantly, kneeling in front of the boy.
“Nothing,” Owen insisted.
There was a no response, just more crying. Acting purely on instinct, Jack engulfed the small boy in a hug, picking him up as he did. Eventually the crying slowed.
“Better now?” Jack asked.
The boy nodded.
When the sobbing had stopped completely, he sat down with the boy on his knee.
“You know our names now, don’t you? I’m Jack and that’s Owen and Gwen.” He pointed to each of them in turn. “So what’s your name?”
“Ianto,” came the reply in a small voice.
“Ianto?” Jack asked, seeking conformation, he received a nod. “Do you have any other names?”
“Jones.”
Jack held out his hand. “Nice to meet you Mr Jones.”
After a little hesitation, Ianto took his hand and they shook.
“Hello,” Owen greeted, then he looked back at Jack, “I’ll see you up top in a few moments?”
Jack nodded.
By the time they emerged, Owen was waiting for them with a plastic beaker of something that looked like water.
“Here you go kid, drink this, it’ll take that bad taste out of your mouth.”
Ianto eyed it suspiciously, and then glanced at Jack, who smiled and took the cup from Owen. “Go ahead,” he encouraged.
After one sip the boy wrinkled his nose, clearly it wasn’t water.
“I added some lemon juice and sugar,” Owen explained. “Go on, drink up.”
After a few more tentative sips, he finally downed the drink. Still in Jack’s arms they hadn’t even got as far as introducing him to Tosh, before he fell asleep.
“Lemon juice, sugar and a healthy dose of sedative,” Owen explained. “Bring him down to the med bay, I need to examine him again, do some scans and take some more blood.”
<><><><><><><>
All this time, with a whirlwind going on around her, Tosh was working on the problem of the mysterious rift peek. Finally she looked up to see Gwen making some coffee.
“And where is everyone else?” Tosh asked.
As if in response to this, Jack walked in; carrying the slumbering boy in his arms, followed by Owen, still in his white coat and carrying what looked to be a sleeping bag.
“Conference room,” Jack announced as this strange procession walked past.
<><><><><><><>
With the still sedated Ianto safely cocooned in the sleeping bag on the floor, the four of them sat around the conference table.
“Owen, tell us what you found,” Jack invited.
“Okay, he looks to be about four or five but given his state of health, he could easily be as old as six or seven. He’s badly malnourished, he’s got rampant impetigo and he had a nice colony of head lice.” Tosh’s hand instinctively went to her head. “Which we’ve dealt with. His teeth are in a bad way, but they’re only baby teeth, so that’s not a disaster. However,” Owen paused, he really couldn’t believe he was about to say this. “What I thought was a chest infection is actually TB.”
“TB?” Gwen spluttered. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure, he isn’t coughing up blood yet, but his lungs are a mess.”
“What does that mean for us?” Gwen asked.
“At the moment, probably nothing, you need to be in close proximity to someone with TB over a period of time to be at risk.”
“What’s he need?” Jack asked.
“He needs to go to hospital, have some more tests and be started on antibiotics; if he’s luckily he’ll only have to take them for about six months.”
“What I want to know is, where are his parents, who let him get into that condition?” Gwen asked, anger all too clear in her voice.
“Tosh?” Jack asked in response.
“I think I know how he got into that building.”
“He came though the rift - didn’t he?” Jack asked.
“Yes.”
“Hang on, the St Peter’s pulse as been doing it’s thing for centuries and no one ever came through before,” Owen pointed out.
“True, people are seen, but they don’t have any solid form and they aren’t seen for long - like ghosts,” Tosh agreed. “However, the rift has been increasingly active, and this time the regular pulse just happened to coincide with a random rift spike, which made it strong enough to bring the boy through.”
“Going by his clothes and his use of language, I’m guessing mid to late 19th century,” Jack told them.
“I can run a check for boys named Ianto Jones in the records,” Tosh offered, “especially boys who disappeared on or around the times of the pulse in that time frame.”
“Do it,” Jack ordered. “Owen, we can’t send him out into the 21st century. Can you treat him?”
Owen took a moment to think. “Yes, I’ll need to do some research, get the right drugs at the right dose, but yes I can do it. One thing in his favour, we can be sure his TB isn’t antibiotic resistant. So just where do you suggest he lives?”
Jack opened his mouth, and then closed it.
“I’m not be an expert on TB, but one thing I do know is, that kid needs fresh air and sunshine, no way is he gonna get better living down here. And while he’s no threat to us now, in the time it takes the antibiotics to work, he could infect anyone who looks after him day to day.”
“I’ve had a BCG,” Gwen pointed out.
“Me too,” Tosh added.
“Good, so have I, but for one thing a BCG isn’t 100% effective and for another, we have no way to know if the strain of TB he’s got, is the same as the one we’ve all been inoculated against.”
“Can you establish that?” Jack asked.
“Yes, I’ll have to send some of the samples I took off for analysis along with a sample of his sputum, but that will tell us exactly what strain he’s got. In the mean time, he can’t stay here, not only is it bad for him, it’s dangerous for us, and he can’t go to Flat Holm,” Owen concluded darkly.
“I know that,” Jack agreed. While Flat Holm existed to take care of those who fell back through the rift, it wasn’t for those like Ianto who were ‘undamaged’. “He’s a danger to you but not me,” Jack pointed out. “I don’t get sick.”
“True, but you live down here in a cell.”
“It’s not a cell.”
“It’s underground, it has no windows and the only way in and out is a ladder or a steel reinforced door, what would you call it?”
“My room!”
“You could rent a house,” Gwen suggested, trying to prevent another Jack - Owen sniping contest.
“Or you could just move into the flat,” Tosh pointed out, “like you’re meant to.”
Jack glared at Toshiko.
“Flat?” Owen asked.
“You do know that we have a garage and a cargo lift?” Tosh asked him.
“Yeah, I have used it, I used it a few hours ago!”
“And you know that in front of and above it there is a building, fronting onto the Plass, all of which Torchwood owns?”
“Pugh and Son, solicitors, who see nothing and hear nothing - what of it?”
“Pugh and Son only occupy the ground floor and the basement, on the first floor there is a one bed room flat, which is needs to be modernised. The second floor and attic is a perfectly nice, fully modernised, two bedroom flat, for the use of the leader of Torchwood Three.”
All eyes turned to Jack.
“You live here, in this place, when you could be living in what has to be one of the best addresses in Cardiff?” Owen asked incredulously.
Jack shrugged. “When you’ve lived in a place for over a 100 years, you kinda get used to it.”
“You’re a strange man, Jack Harkness,” Owen commented.
“The point is, I’m not going to catch TB off the lad,” Jack restated, trying to move the conversation back to the topic at hand.
“You gonna move into this flat?” Owen asked.
“I guess, temporarily, but not tonight, it’s too late, all of you, go home.”
“I’ll put a camp bed in your room,” Gwen offered.
“Good thinking.”
<><><><><><><>
Part Three
By: Sammy Girl
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be.
Note:This story owes much to the creator and writers of the M7-LB AU. Batered by my good friend LT. I hope you enjoy it.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Summery: When something fragile and precious falls though the rift, the team, especially Jack, face their greatest challenge.
<><><><><><><>
Part 2
Jack led the boy into the changing room; every now and again he’d look down and smile reassuringly, giving the tiny hand in his a gentle squeeze. When they arrived at the men’s changing room, Jack moved to the end of the row of shower stalls, where there was a small cubical containing a bath, which he began to fill, making sure the water wasn’t going to be too hot for the boy. While he did this, the boy just stood and watched. With the tub full, Jack turned on his heels to face the boy.
“Let’s get you ready for a bath, that’ll be nice, won’t it?”
He kept his voice low and slow, trying to be as unthreatening as possible.
“Do you need some help with you’re shirt?”
The boy shook his head and began to undo the buttons. It was almost painful to watch, as tiny, shaky fingers made slow work of each little button. He still had two to go when Owen came in. Jack glanced up at him, but gave no other indication he was there, not wanting to startle the boy. Finally the shirt was off.
“We can’t bath you in your trousers, can we?”
Even as he said it, Jack’s eye caught sight of Owen’s face. His normal look of boredom had been replaced by shock, even anger. Of course, Owen had a view only of the boy’s back, so Jack wasn’t sure what had changed. He refocused on the boy, who was working diligently on the buttons of his fly. Jack wondered why such a small boy had button flies, then he saw some of what Owen could see. The boy wasn’t just thin, he was emaciated, his ribs clearly visible, as he bent over Jack could see the top of the spine, every vertebra obscenely prominent. Worse, there were sores on his body, large angry patches of weeping, yellowed, crusty skin that looked horridly painful. Just as the boy pushed his trousers down and stood up, unashamed and now naked, as he had no under things of any kind, Gwen appeared, carrying the clothes and some fresh towels.
While she stood in the doorway in shocked silence, Owen seemed to be shaken out of his own state of shock.
“Jack, I err, I need to get some things….”
Jack didn’t respond immediately.
“Jack?”
“What?”
“I need to get some supplies.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
<><><><><><><>
The boy hadn’t spoken at all, though he did cough now and again, nor had he shown much emotion, other than fear. Yet he seemed, if not happy, at least content to do what ever Jack suggested and placidly went with him to bath and allowed himself to be lifted in. As he settled in the warm water, he let out what could only be called a contented sigh and smiled.
“It’s nice to be clean, isn’t it?” Jack soothed as he knelt on the bath mat and picked up the flannel Gwen had brought down. “We’re going to get you all clean and fresh, won’t that be good?” The boy nodded and smiled, he had the most beautiful eyes.
So while Gwen stood in the doorway, Jack washed the boy and his hair, where he discovered something unpleasant.
“Here, put this on his hair,” Owen announced as he returned and paused past Gwen. He handed Jack a bottle of anti head lice conditioner. “Only needs to be on there for ten minutes, then you can wash it out and start combing.”
As Jack brought the bottle closer, the boy flinched.
“It’s okay, he’s a doctor.” Jack glanced over his shoulder, pleased to see Owen had taken the time to put his white coat on. “He wants to help you feel better. Right, Dr Harper?”
“That’s right, which is why we’re going to put some of this in your bath water.” Owen then poured two capfuls of Dettol into the water. The boy watched it turn from brown to milky white with evident amazement.
Once the head lice lotion had done it’s job and their new charge was clean and dry, Owen gave Jack a tube of ointment and a disposable glove.
“Use the glove and put the cream on all the sore bits,” he instructed.
Jack followed instructions and in no time, the boy was dressed in one of his old tee shirts, which hung off him like and oversized night shirt.
Finally Jack was able to set about changing his own clothes. He was just doing up his trousers, when suddenly the boy, who was standing there staring up at him, burst into tears.
“What did you do?” Jack asked instantly, kneeling in front of the boy.
“Nothing,” Owen insisted.
There was a no response, just more crying. Acting purely on instinct, Jack engulfed the small boy in a hug, picking him up as he did. Eventually the crying slowed.
“Better now?” Jack asked.
The boy nodded.
When the sobbing had stopped completely, he sat down with the boy on his knee.
“You know our names now, don’t you? I’m Jack and that’s Owen and Gwen.” He pointed to each of them in turn. “So what’s your name?”
“Ianto,” came the reply in a small voice.
“Ianto?” Jack asked, seeking conformation, he received a nod. “Do you have any other names?”
“Jones.”
Jack held out his hand. “Nice to meet you Mr Jones.”
After a little hesitation, Ianto took his hand and they shook.
“Hello,” Owen greeted, then he looked back at Jack, “I’ll see you up top in a few moments?”
Jack nodded.
By the time they emerged, Owen was waiting for them with a plastic beaker of something that looked like water.
“Here you go kid, drink this, it’ll take that bad taste out of your mouth.”
Ianto eyed it suspiciously, and then glanced at Jack, who smiled and took the cup from Owen. “Go ahead,” he encouraged.
After one sip the boy wrinkled his nose, clearly it wasn’t water.
“I added some lemon juice and sugar,” Owen explained. “Go on, drink up.”
After a few more tentative sips, he finally downed the drink. Still in Jack’s arms they hadn’t even got as far as introducing him to Tosh, before he fell asleep.
“Lemon juice, sugar and a healthy dose of sedative,” Owen explained. “Bring him down to the med bay, I need to examine him again, do some scans and take some more blood.”
<><><><><><><>
All this time, with a whirlwind going on around her, Tosh was working on the problem of the mysterious rift peek. Finally she looked up to see Gwen making some coffee.
“And where is everyone else?” Tosh asked.
As if in response to this, Jack walked in; carrying the slumbering boy in his arms, followed by Owen, still in his white coat and carrying what looked to be a sleeping bag.
“Conference room,” Jack announced as this strange procession walked past.
<><><><><><><>
With the still sedated Ianto safely cocooned in the sleeping bag on the floor, the four of them sat around the conference table.
“Owen, tell us what you found,” Jack invited.
“Okay, he looks to be about four or five but given his state of health, he could easily be as old as six or seven. He’s badly malnourished, he’s got rampant impetigo and he had a nice colony of head lice.” Tosh’s hand instinctively went to her head. “Which we’ve dealt with. His teeth are in a bad way, but they’re only baby teeth, so that’s not a disaster. However,” Owen paused, he really couldn’t believe he was about to say this. “What I thought was a chest infection is actually TB.”
“TB?” Gwen spluttered. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure, he isn’t coughing up blood yet, but his lungs are a mess.”
“What does that mean for us?” Gwen asked.
“At the moment, probably nothing, you need to be in close proximity to someone with TB over a period of time to be at risk.”
“What’s he need?” Jack asked.
“He needs to go to hospital, have some more tests and be started on antibiotics; if he’s luckily he’ll only have to take them for about six months.”
“What I want to know is, where are his parents, who let him get into that condition?” Gwen asked, anger all too clear in her voice.
“Tosh?” Jack asked in response.
“I think I know how he got into that building.”
“He came though the rift - didn’t he?” Jack asked.
“Yes.”
“Hang on, the St Peter’s pulse as been doing it’s thing for centuries and no one ever came through before,” Owen pointed out.
“True, people are seen, but they don’t have any solid form and they aren’t seen for long - like ghosts,” Tosh agreed. “However, the rift has been increasingly active, and this time the regular pulse just happened to coincide with a random rift spike, which made it strong enough to bring the boy through.”
“Going by his clothes and his use of language, I’m guessing mid to late 19th century,” Jack told them.
“I can run a check for boys named Ianto Jones in the records,” Tosh offered, “especially boys who disappeared on or around the times of the pulse in that time frame.”
“Do it,” Jack ordered. “Owen, we can’t send him out into the 21st century. Can you treat him?”
Owen took a moment to think. “Yes, I’ll need to do some research, get the right drugs at the right dose, but yes I can do it. One thing in his favour, we can be sure his TB isn’t antibiotic resistant. So just where do you suggest he lives?”
Jack opened his mouth, and then closed it.
“I’m not be an expert on TB, but one thing I do know is, that kid needs fresh air and sunshine, no way is he gonna get better living down here. And while he’s no threat to us now, in the time it takes the antibiotics to work, he could infect anyone who looks after him day to day.”
“I’ve had a BCG,” Gwen pointed out.
“Me too,” Tosh added.
“Good, so have I, but for one thing a BCG isn’t 100% effective and for another, we have no way to know if the strain of TB he’s got, is the same as the one we’ve all been inoculated against.”
“Can you establish that?” Jack asked.
“Yes, I’ll have to send some of the samples I took off for analysis along with a sample of his sputum, but that will tell us exactly what strain he’s got. In the mean time, he can’t stay here, not only is it bad for him, it’s dangerous for us, and he can’t go to Flat Holm,” Owen concluded darkly.
“I know that,” Jack agreed. While Flat Holm existed to take care of those who fell back through the rift, it wasn’t for those like Ianto who were ‘undamaged’. “He’s a danger to you but not me,” Jack pointed out. “I don’t get sick.”
“True, but you live down here in a cell.”
“It’s not a cell.”
“It’s underground, it has no windows and the only way in and out is a ladder or a steel reinforced door, what would you call it?”
“My room!”
“You could rent a house,” Gwen suggested, trying to prevent another Jack - Owen sniping contest.
“Or you could just move into the flat,” Tosh pointed out, “like you’re meant to.”
Jack glared at Toshiko.
“Flat?” Owen asked.
“You do know that we have a garage and a cargo lift?” Tosh asked him.
“Yeah, I have used it, I used it a few hours ago!”
“And you know that in front of and above it there is a building, fronting onto the Plass, all of which Torchwood owns?”
“Pugh and Son, solicitors, who see nothing and hear nothing - what of it?”
“Pugh and Son only occupy the ground floor and the basement, on the first floor there is a one bed room flat, which is needs to be modernised. The second floor and attic is a perfectly nice, fully modernised, two bedroom flat, for the use of the leader of Torchwood Three.”
All eyes turned to Jack.
“You live here, in this place, when you could be living in what has to be one of the best addresses in Cardiff?” Owen asked incredulously.
Jack shrugged. “When you’ve lived in a place for over a 100 years, you kinda get used to it.”
“You’re a strange man, Jack Harkness,” Owen commented.
“The point is, I’m not going to catch TB off the lad,” Jack restated, trying to move the conversation back to the topic at hand.
“You gonna move into this flat?” Owen asked.
“I guess, temporarily, but not tonight, it’s too late, all of you, go home.”
“I’ll put a camp bed in your room,” Gwen offered.
“Good thinking.”
<><><><><><><>
Part Three