Desperate Measures (2/2)
Desperate Measures part 2
Life and consciousness returned slowly and painfully, as Jack finally blinked awake to something wet dripping onto his face.
"You're an idiot," Ianto said voice rough. "Did you even care what this would do to you?"
"What sort of welcome back is that for the man who just saved your life?" Jack said, hoping that Ianto being snappy with him for his disregard of his own safety was a sign things were the same as they'd always been. "I was expecting at kiss, maybe..oh." He stopped suddenly aware that he could feel Ianto's fear and relief mingled in with him own. He'd not considered that, well perhaps it had been an outside possibility, but then so had a lot of things like it not working or the glove continuing to pull energy from him forever - a living death if there ever was one. With any luck it would fade in a few minutes and Ianto would never have to know.
"What shouldn't I know? What's…" Ianto stopped, eyes widening in fear and confusion. "I can hear what you're thinking. What the hell did you do to me? I mean apart from bring me back?”
Yeah, Jack thought, there really were a whole host of reasons why opening up his mind as he'd done to get him back had been inadvisable. But with Ianto warm and alive in his arms Jack couldn't bring himself to care about any of them just yet. "I don't know. I had to get you back and it wasn't working. So I gave it everything I had and hoped.”
“You love me,” Ianto said faintly.
“Of course I do,” Jack said holding him tight, wondering how Ianto could find the fact that he loved him equally as shocking as their new, surprise telepathic link. Hadn't he made it clear enough that one of the main reasons he'd given up what he'd waited over a hundred years for was him. “Don't you ever doubt that.”
Ianto shook his head looking stunned. “Don't think I can, not now.”
"So how are you feeling?" Jack asked, looking at the scar on Ianto's shoulder where the bullet wound had been just minutes before. It looked old, healed, and Jack reached up to touch it. As he did he could feel a residual ache in his own shoulder.
"I could ask the same," Ianto replied. "But I think we both know the answers." Leaning forward, he unbuttoned what was left of Jack's shirt and pushed it from his shoulder to reveal a scar that was identical to his own.
Now that was seriously weird. None of the various injuries he'd had, not even the nasty, messy, deadly ones had left a mark, nothing since that day on the Game Station more than a century ago. Not that there was any chance to think about it as the emergency lighting flickered and went off, replaced by the normal harsh glare of the flourescent strips a few seconds later.
"Looks like we're about to get company," Jack said. Reluctantly letting go of Ianto, he grabbed his coat and handed it to him. If the feelings he was getting off Ianto were anything to go by, he really didn't like the idea of being naked in front of the whole team. 21st century proprietary still seemed odd, even with having lived through the 19th and 20th were it had been a whole lot more stuffy.
Ianto had just finished on row of buttons when Owen appeared at the top of the steps leaning down to the autopsy bay. “Bloody hell. So that's why you sent us all out." He looked at the shattered glass and broken cuboards. "Do I even want to know how you did it?"
“Does it matter? Ianto's alive. Jack did it!” Gwen said loud and happy, as she rushed past him down the steps to hug them. "I knew it. I knew he'd do it."
Tosh and Martha looked Jack and Ianto and then at each other, smiling and lost for words.
“Could I please have my clothes back?” Ianto asked once everybody had joined them down in the autopsy bay.
“Nope, 'cause I binned them,” Owen said, sounding not in the least sorry. “They were all covered in blood and it didn't look like you'd be needing them again.”
Ianto pulled Jack's greatcoat tightly about him, then sounding more than a little irritated said, “Could I at least have my trousers?”
“You really don't want them.” Owen expression softened a little. “Seriously when a body dies it tends to let go of stuff.”
Ianto looked blankly at him for a moment then when red. “Oh, um, sorry.”
“Yeah well, you were dead,” Owen said actually sounding embarrassed now as well. “So let's never talk about it again. Ever."
“Right.” Ianto nodded, looking like he was hoping the floor might just open up and swallow. “Right, yes.”
“Okay,” Jack said, putting a hand on Ianto's shoulder and then wished that he hadn't - the connection was so much stronger when they were touching and he could feel his face flush as a result of Ianto's embarrassment.
“Probably a stupid question," Owen said, looking at him, "but are you alright? You look a bit red."
"Not everyday I get to see Ianto out of his suit," Jack replied, hoping that it would have it desired effect of getting Owen leaving the subject alone. "Maybe we should make it a regular thing. Some offices have casual Fridays, we could have naked Wednedays."
"In your dreams." Owen snorted. "And I know what you two get up to in my green house after we've gone home."
A little later and still naked apart from Jack's greatcoat, Ianto sat on the sofa behind Tosh's workstation, drinking the hot, sweet tea that Gwen had made for him. “We should run tests,” he said, not meeting any ones eyes. “Just to make sure.”
“Of what?” Owen said, not bothering to disguise the fact that he was staring at him. “You're alive. You're breathing. At least I assume you are or otherwise how the hell are you talking? That something that always bugged me about vampire films, how did they talk?"
“I just want know what's happening to me,” Ianto said quietly, gripping the mug so tightly Jack was worried it might break. “Is that so difficult for you to understand?”
Jack could feel Ianto's fear in the back of his mind. Part of him wanted to shut down that part of his connection to him for both their sakes, feeding each others fear was hardly going to help either of them. But without knowing what would happen if he did he was unwilling to try it just yet. With a brief nod to Ianto, Jack turned to Tosh. “Can you run a scan like you did for Suzie's connection to Gwen?”
“Of course.” There was worry under her professionalism, but Tosh didn't pause as she accessed the programs she needed. The knowledge that Jack had used another glove to bring Ianto back had been met with the same.
“The energy link is still present, but nothing is being transferred between them,” Tosh said a few moments later, turning her monitor so that they could see the faint, glittering line of energy between Jack and Ianto. “It's stable as far as I can tell. Whether it will switch off or if it will start to draw energy from Jack again in the future I couldn't say with any degree of certainty.”
“We should probably test what happens when either of them get hurt,” Owen said, watching the display. “Just to make sure.”
“Nobody is going to experiment on him,”Jack said sharply. Memories of what had happened to him, Emily Holroyd and Alice Guppy watching him with interest as he bled, died and revived. Too late he realised that the thoughts hadn't been shielded as he heard Ianto's sharp intake of breath and realised that he must have seen at least part of those blood soaked memories.
Ianto looked at him, sorrow in his eyes for what Jack had suffered. “I'm sure Owen would never do that to anyone,” he said faintly.
“Do what?” Owen asked looking and sounding confused and irritated. “What am I missing here? What are you talking about?”
“Residual psychic link,” Jack said managing to sound more relaxed about it presence than he was - not that that kind of thing was going to fool Ianto any more. Although perhaps, he realised, maybe he'd never managed to fool Ianto before either.
The team shared concerned looks, and then Owen said sceptically, “And you're fine with him being in your head?”
“I'm fine with Ianto being in me whatever way he likes,” Jack said, hoping the suggestive tone would help lighten the mood.
“You're one sick man Harkness,” Owen said shaking his head. “Serious though, you don't mind?”
“What about the rest of us?” Tosh said, just a hint of wariness in her voice. “Can he see what we're thinking?”
They all stared at Ianto, suddenly worried that she might be right.
“I'm not psychic. The connection is only with Jack,” Ianto said wearily, pulling the greatcoat tighter about himself like he was trying to hide inside it. “Everybody at Torchwood One was tested. I pretty much failed it entirely. Very little ability in detecting and even less in shielding. I honestly thought they were going to sack me, either that or laugh.” He looked slightly guiltily at them. “It's why I always avoided using Suzie's glove. It scared me.”
“Oh Ianto, it'll be all right, we'll think of something,” Gwen said, sitting down next to him. She looked at Jack. “We could destroy the glove and break the connection like we did with Suzie. That would work, wouldn't it?”
“It would work, but Suzie died again when we did it.” Jack looked at Ianto, cold fear gripping his heart. With the telepathic connection between them he'd feel him die. He folded his arms, the action mostly hiding the shudder that went through him. “We're not taking the risk. No way.”
“Suzie probably only died again because you shot her half a dozen times just before we destroyed it,” Owen pointed out.
“Are you willing to bet his life on that?” Jack stared all of them down, daring any of them to challenge him. “Because I'm not. I'm the one with the connection to him and I run this place. So when I say not doing it this then we're really, really not doing it.”
“Don't I get a say in this at all?” Ianto said, sounding rather peeved about it all. “I mean what if I want to take the risk?”
“Do you?” Jack asked, not bothering to hide the fear running though him from Ianto.
Ianto bit his lip, then shook his head, but didn't look any of them in the eye.
“That's settled then,” Jack said with far more confidence than he felt. “Home time. Its been a long couple of days. I don't want to see any of you back here before nine tomorrow morning.”
“You're just sending him home?” Gwen said looking over at Ianto. “Do you really think that's such a good idea letting him be on his own so soon?”
“No, you're all going home. Ianto is staying here with me.”
There were a few grumbles, but Jack could see that they were actually glad to get away. Tomorrow there would be questions and he had no idea how he was going to answer any of them. Sometime it sucked being the one in charge, people expecting you to fix everything and make it make sense. Sometimes it felt like they were running from one disaster to the next with no idea of what they were doing.
He sat down next to Ianto on the sofa. Even without the connection he could see that Ianto was confused and scared, even if he was trying to hide it.
“We should have let Owen and Martha try a few small tests. Just a bruise or a cut or something,” Ianto said now that they were alone. “We need to know how this works. If I get hurt, does it reactivate and start drawing energy from you to heal me? What if I die? Or you do? Would I just drop down dead? Would I get back up again when you do or...” He stopped and shivered. “What if I stop getting older? Am I going to be here forever, like you are?”
Putting an arm around him Jack could feel panic building in Ianto's mind as he started to consider all the consequences. “Maybe, I don't know.” He wished that he had something more definite to tell Ianto, but whether the link would decrease over time, stay the same or strengthen he couldn't even begin to guess. As between his own immortality, the very basic psychic training Ianto had received at Torchwood One and the incomprehensible technology behind the glove, just about anything was possible.
“So that's it? We're tied together, possibly forever,” Ianto said, voice carefully neutral. “Did you know this might happen?”
“No.” Jack could still feel Ianto's fear, although, amazingly, nothing showed in his face. It made he wonder how many times in the past he'd thought Ianto was calm, but had secretly been terrified. He thought he'd been more aware than that. “I really wasn't thinking past getting you back. All I knew was that I couldn't lose you. I need you."
Ianto sighed and leant back on the sofa. “It's going to take some getting used to.”
“Yeah.” Jack tried not to look at where the greatcoat had fallen open. There was, even for him, such a thing as appropriate time and place for the kind of thoughts he was having. Ianto naked apart from a greatcoat was a kink that Jack hadn't realised he had until now. Unfortunately it probably wasn't the best time to be discussing it, he thought. It was a shame though, there were so many possibilities.
Next to him Ianto laughed. “Really? I'm not sure I'm that's even possible."
“Oh.” Jack tried to feel a little bit guilty and failed.
Ianto smiled, then rested his head against Jack's shoulder. “I didn't say I wasn't willing to find out.”
“Really? Because you don't have to right now."
“I think I just need to focus on be glad that I'm alive for now, because I can deal with that, with living. The rest...” Ianto stopped and let out a slow breath. “Well they say let tomorrow take care of itself, so I that's what I'm going to do. Or try to anyway.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jack said. It probably wasn't much of a plan, but he'd had a lot of practice at living life day to day and trying not to thing too closely about the future. About all those endless years stretching out in front of him.
Life was odd. Even by Torchwood standards. The past year hadn't happen and now all the space of one day Ianto had died, come back and they were sharing a single indefinable and apparently indefinite life source as well as a telepathic link. There was so much in his mind that Jack didn't want Ianto knowing and he suspected that Ianto had memories of his own that he'd rather not share. They would deal with that when they had to, Jack thought as he leant in to kiss him, but for now they were alive and that was enough.
The End.
A/N
I know there are a lot of unanswered questions, but this felt like the right place to end it. I've not got any plans currently to write any more in this verse, but never say never. If I get a good idea one day then who knows.