Fic: The Ninth Letter in the Alphabet
The Ninth Letter in the Alphabet
The stones that line the floor of Ianto’s cell are shaped like capital “I’s”. Ianto notices this immediately as he compiles a list important features about his cell. Sometimes, the smallest detail can help Jack identify an alien population. “I” shaped stones may be the ticket this time.
For the first days, Ianto entertains himself by pacing the cell and attempting to break out. Once this hope is dead, he begins to keep himself occupied in a less-than-traditional way.
He starts in the far corner and assigns a word to each tile. Ianto, I (as in self), id, insignificant, insight. With each new word, he begins back in the corner repeating the list so that it’s imprinted in his memory.
He falls asleep with his hand marking his place-ignorance. When he wakes, he repeats the pattern.
It takes less time than he assumed to name each tile. He stands, hands on hips, glaring at the floor. Then, he begins to create sentences that employ as many of the words as possible.
“Ianto,” I said, “has the id of an insignificant fool. Without insight, how could he…”
And so it went. Diagonal sentences and vertical. Finally, skipping lines.
Then, he resorts to other languages. Welsh goes with the same ease as English, French is nearly on par with those two languages. Italian is difficult, and he has to begin to conjugate verbs to fill on the tiles with Russian.
Frustrated and despondent, he turns to the topic of Jack and applies him to his assigned tile alphabet.
Ianto would do anything for Jack.
I admit this makes me a fool.
My id agrees.
Compared to time, I am insignificant.
It takes great insight to admit this.
He sleeps.
When he next awakes, Owen-post-zombie-and-meltdown-Owen-is standing on “idol.” Ianto directs him to stand on “ironic” instead.
“Am I dead?” he asks and Owen frowns.
“Nope. Dehydrated.”
“Enough to see hallucinations?” he queries, lifting his hand to stare at his fingers.
“Nope, I just chose to be seen,” Owen replies, sitting down across from Ianto.
“Is Jack coming?” he asks, feeling innocent and a bit stupid.
“He’s doing his best.”
Ianto nods. Sometimes, it’s just best to go along with these things.
“I think I’m dying,” Ianto confesses.
Owen huffs and stretches his legs out so that the soles of his shoes nearly touch Ianto’s knee.
“I think you’re an overdramatic idiot,” Owen replies, his eyes drifting over to the tile assigned to that word.
“Perhaps you can help me with the Latin,” Ianto offers, looking down at the tiles, “or maybe anatomy.”
Owen shakes his head. “Naw, listen, you need to find some liquid before you get yourself seriously hurt.”
Ianto is too busy with ear lobe, liver, renal artery, foot to reply. No water is coming, surely Owen knows this (dead or not), so Ianto doesn’t worry about it. He had been drinking is his urine, but he’s stopped producing much so he’s fairly sure it’s a lost cause. He can control the tiles-- labeling comes with his job as Archivist. This he can do.
Time passes. There is no window here, but it appears to be lit through the ceiling, but Ianto can’t determine how. He had noted this when he was examining his cell, but sometime after idiosyncratic and before lo zucchero he had forgotten.
“That’s the dehydration again,” Owen offers, even though Ianto hasn’t spoken.
Ianto nods. He’s fallen down somehow. He lies there, half on his back staring at the strange lighting and listening to himself breathe.
“You’re still a zombie,” he offers and Owen snorts.
“I never wanted for brains,” the doctor replies. “Of course, I don’t think I wanted Tosh like she wanted me.”
Ianto’s head lolls to the side so he can see the medic better. “She loved you,” he offers, and then notices just how dry his tongue is. His voice is harsh.
Owen looks sympathetic, but shrugs. “She might have done.”
Ianto looks away. “Why isn’t she here? She’s my best mate.”
Owen picks at something under his nail. “She’ll be here soon, I think.”
And then Ianto must sleep or pass out or something, because when he next wakes she is there. Tosh sits shoulder-to-shoulder with Owen, both leaning against the wall.
“Hi,” she offers, and he gives a half-hearted attempt to raise his heavy hand from the floor to wave. It twitches, but then falls back to the tile.
“I’ve missed you,” he replies, and her eyes are bright with tears. Ianto would drink them if she were really here.
“And I you,” she whispers.
“I’m dying,” he murmurs, and both of his dead teammates nod. They know.
He wonders if he should expect Lisa and her bright smile. Maybe his Canary Wharf office mates will join him. Maybe his Dad, even though they never got on. It might be good to see him again. Or maybe his Mum, who never forgave him before she drank herself into her grave.
No, Ianto thinks, it would get awfully crowded with all his dead in one area. It was best to keep it simple: Owen and Tosh were more than enough.
He blinks slowly, letting the eerie light from no where shift in and out of his vision. Tosh’s black kitten heel is sitting on carai and her hand is on impart. He can feel his pulse in his head, thump, thump, thump, and he closes his eyes.
When he’s next aware, Owen is sitting by his left arm and Tosh is stroking his hair.
“Just hold on,” she whispers, “Jack is coming.”
He smiles and tries to speak, but his throat is too dry. It comes out like a grating whisper, “Don’t lie.”
She smoothes his hair and looks to Owen. He grimaces and Ianto tries to laugh.
“You’ll lose consciousness soon,” Owen informs him, gently, “and may or may not wake.”
“Hurt?” he asks, but that wasn’t the Queen’s English and he’s distantly embarrassed.
“No more than this,” Owen answers, reaching out to take Ianto’s hand.
The world greys and fades, and sometimes Ianto recognizes Toshiko’s gentle singing or Owen’s soothing words. They are always above him, in his line of sight and they calm him.
Then Tosh yells. “Ianto! Ianto, wake up! Wake up, now!” And years of battle training kick in. His eyes wrench open, far too dry to tear, and they feel like sandpaper.
He struggles to focus, but both Owen and Tosh lean in close so he can see them. Tosh’s hair tangles in Owen’s and Ianto smiles. It’s good to know they’re together in the darkness. He had worried that they were alone.
“Find Suzie and Lisa,” he whispers, hoarsely.
“Enough,” Owen snarls, more like himself than he’s acted these last days, “Jack is here. Wake the fuck up. You can’t die now.”
“Ianto,” Tosh demands, “Jack is here. Hold on.”
And there is an explosion and they are gone. Ianto cries out, reaching weakly up for their comfort. His arm trembles and his vision swims.
Jack calls for him and Ianto remembers what they said. Jack is here. He fights against the darkness that swims at his vision.
“Jack?” he croaks, struggling to roll over to his stomach.
Jack calls for him again, desperately. And then he’s there, trampling over illusion, and jour, and my infatuation with Captain Harkness will likely kill me, as if they aren’t there. He grabs Ianto by the shoulders and pulls him up off the floor.
Behind him somewhere, Gwen is yelling and firing a gun, but Ianto can’t look beyond the epaulet on Jack’s coat.
“Jack,” he cries, dryly.
Jack tugs him into his arms and lifts him effortlessly from the floor tiled with “I’s”.
“I’ve got you,” he replies, and carries Ianto from his cell. Ianto looks over his shoulder to look for Owen and Tosh.
They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, both smiling faintly.
“Care for each other,” he tries to say, but he’s barely able.
Owen nods all the same and takes Tosh’s hand. She flushes and waves to him. Jack rounds the corner in the hall and Ianto can no longer see them.
Gwen gives a war cry before she makes over Ianto, but Jack glares.
“We need to get him to hospital,” he demands, and, somehow, while holding Ianto as if he is his bride, manages to fire his Webley at strange humanoid aliens.
Gwen tries again and again to start Ianto into conversation. She reaches for him, but Ianto shrinks into Jack’s arms and coat. He clings to his Captain until a UNIT medical officer forces a sedative into his vein.
Days later, Ianto asks for a pen and paper and he slowly copies down the words he has assigned to the tiles of his cell. Jack looks over them slowly, his lips forming the words as he reads. Ianto sees something obscene in the way Jack reads his conjugated Russian verbs, but it doesn’t stir Ianto’s arousal.
“This is your ‘name, rank, and serial number’ then?” Jack teases, as his finger rubs over a sentence that contains his own name.
Ianto blinks slowly and shrinks back into his NHS-issued pillow. “There are only so many words on this Earth,” he says, still surprised that his voice is not raspy, “and only so many begin with ‘I’.”
Jack stares at him then, his eyes concerned and his face blank. Ianto reads his worry in the set of his jaw.
“You gave up,” he theorizes, sounding almost insulted.
Ianto doesn’t deny this. Jack looks away.
“I was dying,” Ianto admits. He would tell about seeing their teammates, but he’s afraid that Jack will remember CERN and the way he reacted to hearing Lisa, Tosh, and Owen then.
Jack blanches. “You’re safe now. You’re safe, Ianto.”
Ianto nods. “All the same.”
They don’t speak about the cell or his imprisonment again, and if Ianto avoids certain words that begin with “I” then they don’t talk about it. Jack respects Ianto’s decision on the letter. Ianto wonders if Jack feels betrayed when he wants to discuss the word “couple” and Jack so obviously doesn’t.
Then it doesn’t really matter, as he’s lying on another tiled floor dying. Ianto honestly doesn’t know if Toshiko and Owen make it to that, because he’s too busy looking into Jack’s eyes.
And it might be inappropriate timing to revive certain words and phrases that being with “I,” but he has to try.
Title: The Ninth Letter in the AlphabetAuthor: rev02a
Rating: R
Warnings: Character death (past), language
Summary: The stones that line the floor of Ianto’s cell are shaped like capital “I’s”. Ianto notices this immediately as he compiles a list important features about his cell. Sometimes, the smallest detail can help Jack identify an alien population. “I” shaped stones may be the ticket this time.