VS3:10 -- "Family Business", Part Three
Family Business -- Part Three
"No doughnuts," said Gwen, looking at the conference room table. "God, I could eat a horse."
"They were all out," said Megan; she'd gone up to Fabulous Welshcakes that morning, aware that it was probably her turn to provide the treats. "Hungry, hungry city."
Someone had turned on the radio, letting it blare across the Hub. Jack was thundering around on the upper levels, his footsteps clanging on the metal of the gantries. Gwen and Megan made eye contact, a tacit agreement to stay out of Jack's way. Gwen's phone rang, and she stood to answer it, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she talked. Gwen was pale this morning, and Megan noted that she had her jacket on even though the Hub was warm.
The Hub smelled delightful. There were flowers on the coffee table, flowers in the conference room, flowers everywhere. Gwen had been furious when she'd discovered what Megan had done to her anniversary flowers; she hadn't known why Gwen had been so angry. She never got that angry, not about something stupid like flowers. It was just this sudden heat, and then it was gone as quickly as it had come, letting her return to being calm again.
"I just got a call from Andy," said Gwen, returning to the table.
"Did you tell him that you're a happily married woman?" Megan asked.
Gwen shook her head. "He was calling in about the traffic."
"The traffic?"
"Yeah. Apparently people are sort of - drifting off at the wheel," she said, absently. "He reckons it's connected to something. He said something the other day. I forget."
The door slid open, masking whatever else it was that Gwen was going to say. Megan sighed.
"Good morning!" Ianto announced, obnoxiously cheerful. "Special treat today!"
"Treat?"
"Chocolate!"
"I like whatever perfume you're wearing, Megan," said Gwen, her gaze following the packets in Ianto's hand. "Is it Joop?"
Megan frowned. Gwen didn't usually change tack quite so abruptly; non sequiturs were more Jack's thing, especially when it came to smelling, tasting, or making innuendo-filled jokes about something irrelevant.
"No," she said. "It's patchouli oil. I don't use commercial perfumes; all-natural for me."
"Natural doesn't mean safe," said Ianto, breaking up a block of chocolate to put in the middle of the table as a mid-meeting pick-me-up. "Spiders are natural. So's uranium."
"I know that," she said, leaving the word idiot unsaid. She rolled her eyes anyway. Ianto looked up just in time to miss it. "I'm not stupid, Jones."
"Ianto," he said, mildly, and then took a piece of chocolate. Gwen pulled an entire packet to where she could get it. "Make sure you wash your hands after. Myfanwy can smell this stuff through lead."
"Why buy it, then?" she asked, looking out through the frosted glass at something shuffling out there that definitely wasn't human.
Ianto shrugged. "Keeps life interesting," he said, and she heard Jack swearing. Ianto raised his eyebrows, his smile enigmatic. You bastard, she thought. Well done.
"Ianto," said Jack slamming the door behind him. "Is that chocolate?"
"Why yes," said Ianto, breaking off another square. "I believe it is." He popped it in his mouth, and sat.
Jack didn't reply, just sat heavily in his chair, and held out a hand to Gwen. She put a few squares in his hand. "Hungry, are we?" Jack asked, as Gwen ate a strip of chocolate in three large bites.
"Starving," she said. "I must be over morning sickness. I don't think I've ever been this hungry in my life."
"There are probably better things to eat than chocolate," said Megan, and Gwen shrugged. "Shall we begin?"
Ianto grinned. Jack folded his arms.
"I believe that's my call," he said, and Ianto kept grinning like some sort of lunatic. Jack coughed. "Let's start. Gwen. What did you find?"
"Mmm?" Gwen asked, around a mouthful of chocolate. She swallowed. "People complaining of headaches, nausea, irritability. Not really anything to write home about. No one had seen the neighbour prior to her collapse."
"How's she doing?" Jack asked. Gwen shook her head.
"She passed away," Megan said. "Looks like it was probably diabetes, in the end."
"Diabetes?" Jack asked. "That's not what we think killed the others, is it?"
"We have to be careful of making faulty links," said Megan, tapping her fingernails on the table. "The others tested with very high levels of the compound, where we could get samples. That doesn't mean that the compound killed them. We only think that's what it did."
"And so you're doing what in the medical bay? Having a rave?" Jack asked, staring at her. "Don't I employ you to find these things out?"
"Yes, and you also employ me to get things right," Megan replied. "I'm continuing the experiments. I'm not going to compromise the process just to do things quickly and slapdash. Sorry, Jack. That's not acceptable."
"Timeframe?" Jack said.
"Today. Or tomorrow," she said.
"What information have you got?" asked Ianto. "It might not be complete, but it might give us something to go on."
"It's a botanical thing," said Megan. Gwen sniffed. "I've… I'm sorry about your flowers, Gwen."
"Probably best that they were useful," Gwen said, a little sadly. "I have the card. And it's not like we're short on flowers around the Hub this morning."
"Question is," said Megan, "I don't think the flowers themselves are enough to make people sick. So how are they getting the chemical into their bloodstream? And what's it doing once it's there? I don't even have solid data on what sort of flowers they are. Florist's bunches are no good if they're mixed; there's too much cross-contamination."
"I've got a delivery of segregated lots coming in today," Ianto said. "Jack, if you wanted to, you could pick it up from Flower Power? I didn't get them to deliver it because of possible contamination from the inside of the van."
"And you can't go because…?" Jack asked.
Ianto shrugged. "I'd prefer not to go because I'm allergic to some flowers. I'm not as bad as my sister, but I sneeze and sneeze if I get near echium or foxgloves."
"I'll keep that in mind next time I'm buying you a bouquet," said Jack, and there was a vaguely sinister undertone to his words; Ianto's next posy, Megan thought, might be nothing but foxgloves.
"I want to go downtown and talk to Andy," said Gwen, tearing little squares off the chocolate foil. "He thinks there's been a suspicious increase in road accidents - not just people getting angry and banging into each other, but people drifting off at the wheel. Have a guess at the demographic."
"Women," said Jack.
"Women," Gwen replied, with a nod. "Age eighteen to fifty."
"Big age range."
"But significant," said Megan, frowning. "I mean - this means that there's something going on that affects mainly women. Some sort of common factor."
"Perfume?" said Ianto.
"That's a bit hackneyed, isn't it?" asked Jack. "Put the poison in the perfume?"
"Tampons," said Gwen, and then looked at them. "What? That's something pretty much every woman aged eighteen to about fifty has. Depending on… well, you know."
"Doesn't make sense," said Megan. "If this is linked to the deaths, they were older and younger. This seems to be spreading to a different demographic. The elderly might use perfume, but they've no use for sanitary products. And even if it's in nappies, then we seldom perfume babies; they're too delicate for it. Most baby lotion is unscented, for that reason."
"Lotion?" asked Jack. "It could be absorbed through the skin."
"Good thought," said Megan. "Get me lotion, as well."
"Any particular type?"
"One that says its made with flowers or fruits," she said. "Check the ingredients list. It'll probably say organic or all natural."
"I'll check the purchase records at local chemists," Ianto offered. "If a new product has come onto the market and it's being picked up by consumers, it should show up in sales records."
"Good idea," Jack replied. "Okay, people."
There was a hum, as Gwen's phone vibrated its way across the table. She looked up at them, considerably brighter for the addition of chocolate to her morning. "Sorry," she said, and picked up. "Andy? What is it?"
"Ianto," said Jack, pleasantly. "I'd like you to do something for me, please."
"Anything, sir," Ianto said, and Megan decided that if he got any more obsequious, he might start to ooze slime.
"I'd like you to stop the pterodactyl taking anyone's arm off when we leave here," said Jack, and Megan turned to look at the frosted glass, covered in greasy smudges from wings and beak.
"Not a problem," Ianto replied, standing. "Shall I…?"
He pulled a family size block of Dairy Milk out of his pocket, and walked out, cooing praise to the animal that usually lived up in the rafters. Jack looked furious, and Megan was glad that she wasn't on the receiving end of that when Gwen put the phone down.
"Andy reckons someone's run into a building near City Hall," she said. "Can I take Ianto with me to have a look?"
"Sure," said Jack, as through the frosting Megan saw Ianto playing some sort of game with Myfanwy. She was certain that if she'd been able to see his face, he'd have been grinning. "Fine. Whatever."
Cardiff was busy this morning, and Anna Wilson sat in the traffic, watching the tail-lights of the cars ahead of her. She had put on a suit this morning, one of her interview suits, because the solicitors were old-fashioned, and because one never knew when there was a camera lurking. She hadn't done any washing for two weeks, and she hoped it wouldn't be too warm in the office, because she didn't want to take off her jacket and expose the creases and stains in her blouse. She felt like a ghost, so insubstantial that she could pass through solid objects, the sort of feeling as if she were pale inside and out.
It was the last meeting with the solicitors about Mam's will. Mam had never let Anna give her any free samples. If she had, maybe Anna would have noticed something. She'd called, a few times, and when no one had answered, she'd assumed that Mam was out with Bridge Club or something. She'd tried to tell the solicitor about it, but he'd been an old friend of her mother's and supremely unhelpful in assuaging any guilt.
"When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me," he'd said, and she'd wanted to punch him.
She realised too late that the car ahead had slammed on its brakes, and wrenched the wheel, trying not to hit it. She spun out, braking frantically, the car lurching as it heaved its way onto the footpath. The car revved under her, and she realised too late that she had her foot on the accelerator, not the brake, but by then she was powerless to control it, clutching at the wheel, hearing the crump of metal against metal, metal against brick, and then the explosion of the airbags as they burst forth. Winded, Anna flopped back in her seat, fighting for air.
People were at the door of the car, then, and she felt like she was under water, their voices unclear, all blurring into one.
Fucking crazy bitch - is she all right - oh my god what happened? - Out of control - Jesus
Someone managed to wrench the door open as sirens wailed, but Anna could barely move, barely bring herself to breathe. Her car. Her car was wrecked. She was late for her appointment. She didn't know - didn't know-
"It's okay, love. Let's have a look at you," said a man, and she looked at him, vision blurring a bit. He was young, and tan-skinned - Indian, maybe? - and he had on a paramedic's uniform. "Can you tell me your name, love?"
"Anna," she said. "Anna Wilson."
"Okay, Anna. I'm just going to have a look at your neck. Do you know what's happened?"
"Car accident," she said, moistening her lips. "I was in a car accident."
He poked at her, feeling at her neck and her ribs, making her move and roll, all the time asking her questions; who was she? Where did she live? Could she tell him what 5 x 8 was? Eventually, he okayed her to get out of the car, and, feeling wobbly, she did so.
"You've had a shock," the paramedic said. "I want you to sit here for just a bit. The police are going to want to interview you."
She sat, and the police bustled around, and her car was hooked up to a tow truck and dragged away, caution tape rolled out around the building. A huge black SUV pulled up, and the people who got out weren't in uniform; one wore a suit, and the other a leather jacket. They greeted the uniformed police, and then approached her.
"Anna?" asked the woman. "Anna Wilson?"
"Yes," Anna said, and pulled the foil blanket they'd wrapped her in a little tighter. It crinkled.
"Hi," said the woman. "My name's Gwen, and this is Ianto. We're with Torchwood."
She swallowed, throat dry. "T…Torchwood?"
"We need to work out why you crashed," said Ianto. "We think it might not be your fault. Have you been feeling sick, this last little while?"
"Oh god," she said, and it all came out in a rush. She didn't really have anyone to talk to at home, and these people seemed friendly. "I've been feeling terrible for months. I've put myself on a really restrictive diet; I've been trying to work out if I'm gluten intolerant, and then I got rid of refined sugar, and I still don't feel better."
She'd not eaten anything since breakfast yesterday; nothing seemed appetising. She wondered, briefly, if she maybe should ask one of these people to get her some tea, but it probably wouldn't help.
"Okay," said the man. "Anna, Gwen is going to talk with you about what happened. She'll be recording the conversation. I'll chase up the others involved in the crash. Is that okay?"
'That's okay," Anna said, weakly. Gwen sat beside her, smiling.
"So," she said. "Where were you off to?"
"The solicitor," she said, "I'm… finalising Mum's will."
Gwen smelled good - really good. Anna tried to think of where she'd smelled that before, and she suddenly realised. It was the purple flower, her purple flower.
"You use Cosmetologica, don't you?" she asked, and Gwen smiled, surprised.
"Yeah, I do," she said. "I'm meant to be going to a party later in the day for it."
Anna smiled, even though she felt weak and horrible and her car was god-knew-where. The mechanisms that drove the world were still working; people were still buying her stuff. "That's great," she said. "So what did you want to know?"
"Okay," said Rhiannon, with her brightest smile. "Now, ladies, we'll start with the bath milk. It's all part of a full regimen of products, and all of them are available through yours truly, your local Cosmetologica supplier."
She opened the jar, sprinking out a little of the white powder into the bowls of water she'd set out. It hadn't been all that expensive, the starter kit, and it was going great guns already. People were seeing the stuff on the telly and they wanted it.
Gwen, despite her promise to show up, hadn't. Johnny reckoned they must have got caught up with some aliens, but the little suspicious part of Rhiannon thought that maybe Gwen had never intended to come. The bath milk was dispersing, making the water, well, milky, and she smiled.
"According to the woman who owns the company, the extract of purple moonflower in the baby milk bath is what gives it its soothing properties," said Rhiannon, as the girls looked at the bath milk. "Go on, try it! That's what the towel is for, to dry your hands. We're onto the scrub next, and you can see the little bits in there of the moonflower seeds. Pretty, isn't it?"
There were a few admiring coos as she put a glop of the scrub onto waiting hands, the vibrant purple probably made of artificial colouring, not the all-natural ingredients that the stuff claimed, but Rhiannon was a realist. If people wanted to buy it, and it was safe (of course it was safe, it came from a big company and all!), then she was happy to sell it.
She carefully didn't get any on her own hands; she'd tried it before and come out in terrible eczema, and a bit of a rash that looked like sunburn. She hated having sensitive skin; even the cream she'd tried to stop the stretch marks after the kids were born had brought her out in the red flakeys, and that was meant to be for the most sensitive skins in the world.
"It smells so nice, doesn't it?" asked one of the women. "Like apples, or flowers or sommat."
"Yeah," said Rhiannon. "Mica's got a bit obsessed with it - she stole my body lotion, and she reckons I haven't noticed. If you layer the products, then you don't even need perfume."
"Oooh, that's good, that is."
"Okay, now," said Rhiannon. "We have the moisturising mud cream. Don't worry, it's not made out of real mud, just botanical extracts and…" hell if she knew what went into moisturising cream, "…moisturising goodness. Here we are; the little spoon things are so that you can grab as much or as little as you'd like from the sample jar…"
There was the crunch of tyres on the road outside, and her heart skipped, just a little. It would be Ianto's friend, she thought, and Johnny would be right; it was just that they were busy up in Cardiff. It must be busy, Torchwood, all secret and busy.
Then the car kept on going, and Rhiannon pulled the sigh that wanted to escape from her lungs right back inside her, tamping it down and smiling so brightly that she'd put the sun to shame. She knew each step by heart, from milk bath all the way to shimmer dust for that extra special sparkle. She made all the right noises: ooh, wouldn't that be good for your mum? And that's just perfect for the girls, all sparkly and pretty. Oh, and for Sarah's eldest, because he was a bit - that way.
Ianto didn't wear glitter, though, and he didn't really look pretty. He looked swish, like the people who worked in the city but still drove SUVs; when they were kids, he'd liked to pretend to be James Bond, and at the time she'd teased him mercilessly, because she wanted to be a beautician and everyone knew that you could get an apprenticeship to be a beautician, but that MI5 didn't exactly come out recruiting at school. You couldn't just go down your local spy agency and do work experience.
But, in the end, it looked like Ianto had got his dream, and Rhiannon was still stuck in the Estate, with two kids and a cat and a great lump of a husband who drove her crazy and made her mad with love by turns.
When it was all over, Rhiannon looked at the little stack of orders, pride warring with dissatisfaction.
"Well, that were a good haul!" said Johnny, beaming.
"Yeah," she replied, flipping through them. He sighed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You don't nothing me," he said, standing behind her and running his big, warm hands over her shoulders. "You're upset because that bloody woman didn't come."
"Gwen," said Rhiannon, looking at the table, between her hands. "And she's Ianto's friend."
"Ianto's friends don't have to be yours. So she thinks she's too posh for us," Johnny replied. "Big fucking deal. You and me, yeah?"
"Yeah," she said, but she didn't feel it. Johnny's brother had been sent down for stealing cars a few years back; he was a good fifteen years older than Johnny, and so her husband, bless him, didn't really get what it was like to have a little brother. She'd already as good as lost Ianto once, and now she could see him slipping away from her again.
"Hey," he said, and he was really trying too hard now. "We got good sales. How about we get the kids and take them somewhere for dinner? Fish and chips, on Cosmetologica."
"Yeah, I s'pose," she said. "David! Where's your sister?"
"In her room with Boots!" David called back.
"Go get her, then! We're going out for fish and chips!"
Johnny kissed her, as David bolted up the stairs, brushing her cheek with thumb and forefinger.
"I'm so proud of you, love," he said, kissing her again. "You're really good at this party plan stuff. You've got a natural talent for it."
"You're a dreadful flatterer, Johnny Davies," she said, and David's feet thundered on the stairs, running back down. "David! Don't you thunder about like a herd of wild elephants!"
Then she looked at him. Sometimes it was easy to forget how young he was, he was such a little back-chatter, but now he looked like a baby. He was shaking. Johnny pulled away from her, ready for action; something was wrong, horribly wrong.
"Mam, Dad," David said, pale and frightened. "You've gotta come upstairs. Mica… Mica won't wake up."
Gwen really liked the smell of the concentrate. Like apples, when she caught it right against her skin, apples and jasmine. Wore off quickly, though, which was a shame, because she kept on putting it on to stop the fragrance from leaving her. She looked at her face in the mirror; a bit pale, sickish but not too bad. She'd left Ianto sorting out the mess downtown after she'd been hit by a dizzy spell. Jack had picked her up, and together they'd carried bags of lotions in to the Hub, whilst Jack held forth on how expensive it was to buy what was essentially a few petrochemicals and some artificial scent.
She went up to join him in unloading the last of the bottles, pausing to look down at Megan, who looked thoroughly nonplussed, surrounded by trolleys, machines, medical equipment, all of which were covered with growing populations of flowers and face cream. Megan had a breathing filter on, and she held up her hands to stop Gwen up top, bounding upstairs to join Gwen and Jack.
"Don't go down there," she said as she pulled the filter down from her mouth. "I don't know exactly what it is, and it's a safe bet to say that whatever it does, it isn't going to be good for your baby. I think it's concentrating in my workspace."
Oh, ugh. She hadn't even thought of that. She was getting so spacey lately, dangerously spacey. Gwen sighed, not wanting to think about whether she might need to come off active field work for a while, the feeling of being trapped nagging at her.
Jack joined them, slipping his mobile into his pocket as he walked. "That was Ianto. He's bringing back samples from everyone involved in the crash; thinks that the woman you were talking to might be affected, Gwen."
"So, Ianto'll be a while, then," said Gwen.
"Nope," said Jack.
Megan frowned. "I thought you two were fighting."
"Smooth, Muli, really smooth," Jack said, with an oddly distant look. "I'll come down to join you in a sec; I want to see what you've found. I think I've got you enough lotion and flowers to woo and lube for the rest of this century."
"Ew," Gwen said.
"Could you not?" Megan added. "Hang on, I'll get you a filter sorted."
Gwen watched Jack, as Megan went filter-hunting. He folded his arms over his chest.
"Things aren't exactly right between you and Ianto, are they?" she asked.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jack said.
"Jack," Gwen replied, as Megan surfaced from a supply cupboard, waving a white paper box.
"Hey, you found one!" Jack said, grabbing the filter from Megan, unpacking it. Megan pointed at Gwen.
"What do you use?" Megan asked.
Gwen frowned. "Huh?"
"What sort of skincare do you use?"
"Oh," she said. "Um… I used to use Clinique, but then my friend had one of those parties…"
"What parties?" asked Megan.
"You know…" Gwen said. "Like, the sales person comes around and you invite all your friends, and then they buy things? Like for Tupperware." Lucy had organised an intimate apparel one for a hen night, once, and they'd all been too mortified by the seriousness of the woman hosting to buy anything, but Karen's Cosmetologica party had gone well.
Everyone paused. Looked at each other.
"No…" said Gwen.
"Parties wouldn't show up on sales records in the shops," said Jack.
"Parties," said Megan, "are usually done in neighbourhoods. Someone has a party in, all of their friends get invited. There's incentives to have another, so someone does. A steady supply of the drug."
"Karen wouldn't… are we talking some sort of alien drug ring here?" Gwen asked.
The Hub siren sounded, the door rolling back. Ianto walked in, looking like someone had just kicked his pet puppy.
"Problems," he said. "Hospital wasn't too pleased about supplying me with the samples. They want Jack or our staff doctor."
"Ianto?" Gwen asked. "How did Rhi get into the Cosmetologica stuff?"
Ianto shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't ask. I think it's just… it's like Avon, or something, isn't it?"
"Could you ask?" Jack said.
"I could," said Ianto, "though I'd appreciate knowing why."
"We're thinking that it might be a carrier for our alien compound," said Megan.
Ianto froze. "Are you serious?" he asked. "But aren't there… checks and balances? You can't just put anything into a face cream, or else we'd all still be coating ourselves in lead."
"No one would be looking for it," said Jack. "All sorts of secrets can be kept under wraps if you don't know that you need to look."
"Sometimes these things can be positive," said Megan. "It was discovered a few years ago that giving patients with MS simvastatins - cholesterol drugs - could inhibit the production of brain lesions. Bit of a win for anyone who was already taking them."
"You think that this is positive?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Anything in overdose is negative. Look at the effects of paracetamol, or even alcohol," she said. "Everything bears further investigation."
"Yes," said Jack, looking past Megan to Ianto. "Everything does."
Gwen coughed. "So," she said. "What do you want us to get investigating, Jack?"
Ianto was already on the computer, fingers flying over the keyboard.
"I'm sure Rhiannon said it was local," he said. "Welsh girl makes good, that sort of thing."
"Good thinking," said Jack, and Ianto looked up, surprised. Jack nodded, just a little, and Ianto got back to work. "Is there anything on the side of the bottle?"
"Not often that you get an address, in my line of work," said Megan, and Gwen grinned. "Molecules don't tend to keep post office boxes."
Gwen got the bottle from her handbag, and she handed it over. The remaining concentrate sloshed a bit, and she realised with a start how much of it was gone.
"I'm not going to get sick from this, am I?" she asked.
Megan gave her a tight smile. "I don't... well, you're not showing any particular symptoms, are you?"
Gwen shrugged. "I don't think so."
"We'll keep an eye on you, then."
Gwen tried to think if she was showing any symptoms, but... well, it was hard to tell. Was a dizzy spell a dizzy spell from pregnancy, or something more malignant? Was she imagining feeling a bit tired, or was she just a bit tired? Shit. She didn't want anyone over-reacting and pulling her off field work, and then having it be just a silly false alarm.
"Oh, you're not going to believe this," said Ianto, looking up from the computer. "Gwen. The company owner is called Anna Wilson."
Anna Wilson. No. Not the…? "You're kidding, right?" Gwen asked. "Not the woman from this morning?"
"The very same," said Ianto, pulling up a promotional picture. "She has a hobby farm not far out of Cardiff, where she raises the plants that make up the basis of her signature Cosmetologica range. I'll cross-reference to what we have on file…"
The computer hummed, fan furiously whirring as it did the calculation, everyone watching over Ianto's shoulder. When the data flashed onto screen, they all leaned back, the pieces of the puzzle starting to fit together.
"So," said Megan.
"Patient Zero?" asked Gwen, as the image of Marjorie Wilson, the victim that Megan had shown them first in the boardroom, joined that of Anna's on the screen. Mother. Deceased.
"That implies a contagion," said Megan. "I think this is absorbed environmentally. If you could catch it, then we'd have more cases. I just need to work out how to block it, or at least treat it."
"Okay," said Jack, putting his filter down on Ianto's desk. "Change of plans. Muli, keep on this. I'll go and get those samples; give me the details, and then Gwen and Ianto, you go out to this Anna Wilson's place. If she's met you already, she might be more forthcoming. See what you can find."
"I'm going to call Rhi," said Ianto. "Don't… don't wait for me. I'll go and get whatever stock she has."
"Is that a request, or a statement?" Jack asked.
"Erm… both?" Ianto replied, fidgeting, looking a little wretched.
Jack's expression softened. "Fine. Then join Gwen out at the farm."
Megan pulled on her mask again, and Gwen watched her go downstairs, pointedly not watching Jack and Ianto quietly converse, nor Jack's fingers gently brush across Ianto's sleeve as Ianto explained the situation with the blood samples. Jack nodded, and left through the cog, and Ianto immediately pulled out his mobile, one hand on his hip, pacing a little as he tried to get through to Rhiannon. Her own mobile rang, startling her out of her reverie. Damn. She'd have to get moving, if she was going to get out to this hobby farm and back again at a reasonable hour. She took a second to glance at the name before answering.
"Hullo?"
"It's Andy." It was sort of adorable, really, the way that he identified himself even though he had to know that when he rang her mobile his name flashed up in giant letters, along with that photo of him she'd taken when he'd been in the rain for three hours and even his eyelashes were plastered damply to his face. "Gwen?"
"Hmm?" she asked. "Sorry, yeah. What's wrong?"
"I just…" he said, "just wanted to check that you were okay. You seemed pretty ill by the time Jack picked you up."
"Oh, that," she said. "No, I'm fine. Just spacey. You know, pregnant brain. I think I just needed to eat something."
"If you're okay, then," he said.
She smiled, even though he couldn't see it. "Andy, I'm fine, and you're a sweetheart, but I've got to go."
"Did you eat some-"
"Andy, I have to go," she said, gathering up her things; she'd never really expected that one of the features that she'd look for in a handbag would be pockets to carry extra ammunition, but here she was, stuffing her bag full, just in case. "Talk to you later, yeah?"
"Bye," he replied, and she hung up, slipping her phone into the pocket of her jacket.
"Okay, I'm off!" she called. "I'll call if there's news."
"Do that!" Megan called back. Ianto didn't reply, and when she looked around for him, she realised that he was still on the phone. He hung up, and grabbed the railing in front of him, looking out over the Hub.
"Gwen?" Ianto called. "I might be a little later than I thought. Definitely don't wait for me."
"You'll let me know?" Gwen asked, her stomach flip-flopping. Ianto didn't shirk work; had something happened?
"I'll give you a call," Ianto replied, letting go of the railing, fussing with his cuffs as he made his way across the Hub. "I'll… let you know how I get on."
He got onto the invisible lift, and Gwen wondered what grated about that until she realised that she'd very rarely seen him willingly use it since Lisa died. A tingle ran down her spine, but she shook it off, grabbing her handbag and heading for the door.
Ianto easily elbowed his way to the main desk at A&E, past a sad-looking boy in a football uniform and a woman who was bent over a bucket, past a loudly-complaining senior citizen and a harried triage nurse who was trying her hardest to get them into a sensible order of priority.
"Ianto Jones, Torchwood," he said, showing his ID. "I need to get in to find out what is happening with Mica Davies."
"Take a seat. Someone will be out shortly," said the woman behind the desk, not even looking at Ianto.
"I must insist…" Ianto began.
"I can't give you people that don't exist!" said the woman. "Look, Mr. Torchwood, we've been run off our feet this morning by bloody stupid people doing bloody stupid things. Whatever it is, it can wait."
Ianto put his ID into his pocket. Time to channel Jack, he supposed.
"Hey," he said, charmingly. "I think we got off on the wrong foot."
She looked at him. "If you think that this new foot is the right one, then you're sorely mistaken. Take a seat."
Ianto sighed, then breathed in a familiar scent. Gwen's new perfume. It was bloody strong - it had even managed to waft over the bewildering fragrance of all the flowers in the Hub. He'd liked to imagine that he was synaesthetic as a kid; he'd made up colours for smells and emotions for colours.
This perfume was starting to smell like disaster.
The nurse went back to her work, leaving him standing there stupidly, and Ianto turned on his heel and walked straight through the doors marked Do Not Enter. They should have been locked; he'd been expecting to have to wait for someone to come along and then catch their slipstream, but instead the handle gave when he turned it. He'd been here enough times now to have a mental map of the place, and he headed for intensive care, spotting familiar figures sitting on the plastic benches outside the big blue-green double-doors that led into the room.
Johnny had David on his lap, and Rhiannon was pacing. David saw Ianto first, and waved.
"Uncle Ianto!" called David, still clutching his Da. "Over here!"
"Ianto," said Rhiannon, and when he looked at her, he knew that she'd been avoiding any thought of crying, but she hadn't quite managed it. It was one thing they had in common; they cried when they got angry, or hurt, or miserable. He still couldn't quite think about the night that Lisa died without thinking of how sore his eyes had been after, and how the taste of bile and tears lingered in the back of his throat. He hugged her, tightly.
"Rhi," he said. "What happened?"
"There was…" she said, and her voice caught, "there was… I don't know, I was having the party, and I'd sent her upstairs to play and then… then David went up to get her and she was just…"
Ianto nodded, his heart thrumming against his ribs. "Just asleep?"
"She was on the floor," said Rhiannon. "She just looked like a… looked like a doll."
"Was there… did she have any of the Cosmetologica stuff with her?" he asked.
"Yeah, she had a bottle of the perfume…" said Rhiannon, "spilled it on herself earlier."
Ianto drew in a breath. Okay. So it was the stuff. "We think it's something in the formula. Like, a chemical from one of the ingredients."
Rhiannon's eyes widened and she swallowed before she spoke. He ached to just tell her that everything would be okay, but he wasn't sure that he could.
"Oh my god," she said. "Have I been… have I been poisoning people, selling them that stuff?"
"You didn't know," said Ianto. "No one knew. We're trying to build up a picture of how it works, and how to stop it."
"We?" asked Rhiannon.
"Yeah," said Ianto. "I'll… I can call my people. We think it's what made Mrs. M sick, too."
"Fucking Torchwood," said Johnny, vicious. "Seems we didn't have any problems like this until they turned up. What if this is something long-term? How're we meant to afford that?"
"I'll… make arrangements," Ianto said, desperately aware of how clinical that sounded.
"Like hell you will," said Johnny, hugging David tightly, possessively. "You think you can just swan in here and wave around your wallet and your suit and everything will get fixed? You've forgotten what it's like, haven't you? You just sit in some fancy office by the bay with your boyfriend and make decisions that affect people. And this time it's us, it's your family, and I'm not going to let you throw money at us and hope we'll go away."
"Johnny!" said Rhiannon, hushed. "That's not what Ianto meant, is it, Ianto?"
"You're my family," said Ianto, quietly. "That means we look out for each other, right?"
"We don't know anything about you," said Johnny. "Last thing I knew, you were saying Lisa had died and you were working at that shitty little tourist office. Or was that a lie, too?"
Ianto felt his fists clench, and his back ached with stiffness; he wanted to say so many things, had wanted to say so much, but that wasn't Torchwood, was it? You didn't go around talking about an organisation if you wanted to keep it secret.
"She died because of me," Ianto replied, his throat tight. "And I said I was working in that shitty little tourist office because I had to, okay? If I didn't tell you about Torchwood, then I didn't have to tell you about Canary Wharf, and then I could pretend that we'd just got fucking sick of London and come home."
"Jesus, were you in that big terrorist thing in London the other year?" asked Rhiannon, grabbing his arm when he tried to rub his hands over his face, tried to wipe away the brain fog. He looked at her.
"Yeah," he said, and she started to cry. "Oh god; no, no, Rhi, I wasn't… it wasn't… it was just better…"
He didn't know how to explain it to her, not so bluntly, not with David watching. She nodded, and he pulled his hanky out of his pocket, offering it to her.
"It's like the pumpkins," she said, wiping her eyes, and he nodded. When they were kids, they'd had an allotment that Dad had paid for, just a little stretch of green where they'd go of a Saturday morning and together they'd grown veggies. When the pumpkins had been ripe and fat, Rhiannon'd discovered that some kids had been through and stomped them, and so she'd gone down the shops and bought some with all her pocket money. It'd been years before Ianto had told her that he knew she'd bought them, because they weren't the right type - but when Mam had made them into soup, the lie had tasted brilliant.
"Yeah," he said, with a little smile. "It's just like the pumpkins. I want to call Jack, and see if he can spare Dr. Muli, because she's brilliant. Can I do that?"
Rhiannon nodded, glancing at Johnny. He gave a gruff nod. "Yeah," she said. "Ianto, do you know what this is? This thing that made Mica collapse? That… that killed Mrs. M?"
"Almost," he said, "and we're going to beat it."
Jack straightened his coat, held out the bunch of flowers, and stepped through the cog door onto the floor of the Hub. He put on his favourite sit-com voice, smiling like a matinee idol.
"Honey, I'm home!"
The only reply was the water trickling, and the sound of a drumbeat echoing up from the medical bay. Bloody Owen, ruining his grand entrance, Jack mused, clomping down the gantry, his boots clanging in time with the music. He vaguely recognised it as one of Owen's favourites, and it took that much to make him stop and shiver, a twitch running down his spine as if someone was walking over one of his many, many graves.
Of course, it wasn't Owen.
"Muli!" he called, over the music. "I got you something. Got a call from the florist when I was on my way back."
She looked up. "For me? You shouldn't've."
He tossed the flowers over the railing, and they flew rather spectacularly wide, bouncing across the floor and shedding petals all over the place. Megan cast him a baleful look.
"Could you not contaminate my medical bay with probable hallucinogens?" she asked, opening a drawer for a facemask. "Wait. This isn't the right plant."
"How can you tell?" Jack asked, heading downstairs and putting the bag of samples onto a clear spot in her work area.
"This is an echium. The… no, there's some of… bloody hell, you ask them not to cross-contaminate…"
She used gloved hands to separate the bouquet, the purple echium from the fleshier, more pungent purple flowers of a plant that she'd seen in a few of the contaminated bouquets. There was something strange about it; one of the stems was blooming brightly, leaves and flowers almost getting bigger as she looked at it.
"Jack, did you get anything on this plant?" she asked.
He shrugged. "The florist had them in water."
"I doubt it's sensitive to water," she said. "It would probably have overrun us all by now. In case you hadn't noticed, we're in Wales. Did you get any that weren't mashed together in a lump?"
"Yeah," Jack said. "I'll go get the rest from the SUV."
The florist had been quite thorough, and Megan wondered how much Jack had spent, and just how insane the florist thought Jack was to buy hundreds of pounds' worth of bright purple flowers. She'd narrowed it to even fewer species, and she put them in makeshift vases; beakers, a specimen jar, an empty rum bottle that she'd washed out after finding it wedged into the back of one of the drawers.
(It had rolled out one day, still half-full, when she'd been trying to put a cadaver in. She and Ianto had drunk it together after Ianto had claimed to know its provenance. "A much wiser man than any of us had it on hand for days like these," he'd said, a few days after she'd given him a clean bill of health after Xanther.)
The fleshy stemmed plant was drooping in its beaker, but the one that had been in the mixed bouquet was luscious and green. Its stems were damp, and when Megan took the paper off, she noticed that there was a little disposable cup in the bottom, presumably to keep the flowers fresh. She sniffed the water.
It smelled like damp vegetation. Okay. She put a few drops onto a slide to test it.
BLOOP.
MATCH-MATCH-MATCH
She flicked the data across to the computer screen, examining it. Saccarides. Taking a gamble, Megan took the stairs two at a time, grabbing a glass from the kitchen, filling it with water and stirring in spoonful after spoonful of sugar from the coffee station, enough to make a saturated solution. Then, she gingerly made her way back down, and plucked out a stem of the fleshy-leaved plant, placing it into the sugary water.
"Come on," she told it. "Do something interesting."
The drooping leaves didn't seem to change much. It had been a good idea, she supposed, taking a few drops of the saturated solution to put on a slide with the compound, sliding it under the microscope. She looked again at the plant.
The plant was perfect. Bright, lush leaves stood tall and proud, and flowers had opened, glowing with health. The transformation had been almost ridiculously fast, and she opened her mouth and then shut it. Sugar.
Now that she had an idea, it was much simpler, like that moment putting together a puzzle, when you have all four corner pieces and a bit of the sky. She liked working here; the tech was excellent, the resources she needed at her fingertips. She had to remember to thank Ianto at some point for filling the order that she'd placed with him when she first arrived. He was like a ghost; she'd go home one day, and the next, there'd be fifteen boxes of test kits and steri-strips all neatly inventoried and shelved.
She didn't notice Jack until he coughed, and she looked up.
"Results?" he asked. Damn him, where was his breathing mask? She nodded.
"I was going to bring them up to you in a little while."
"Tell me now."
"Sugar," said Megan. "It absorbs sugar. That's why people are dying - they're becoming so hypoglycemic that they just keel over and die."
"And the plant can photosynthesise, so it's getting enough energy through the sunlight," said Jack, nodding. "But when the compound is removed from the plant…"
"…it's taking what readily available energy it can get," finished Megan. Jack paused.
"Are you saying… it's alive?" he asked. She shook her head.
"It's more like… nanotechnology, or little tiny sponges, or something. It's not got the conditions for life, and it's not a bacteria; it doesn't multiply. It just absorbs."
"So how do we stop it?"
"Wait for it to stop feeding," she said.
"That's impossible," he said. "It'll just keep on eating; if the amount of glucose in the blood goes down, then won't it strip everything? Get down to the bonds between DNA, if it needs to?"
"Not… quite," she said. "I'm theorising that it's not that subtle. It's not made to last, either. It's crude - the sort of thing you'd put into the water, or food, to keep a population weak and controllable, but it's not going to poison an invading force if they accidentally eat it, too."
"So, someone who gets the compound into them in a small dose is relatively unaffected," Jack said. "Makes sense. Then why is it that only certain groups are getting sick?"
"Normally, we can deal with the toxin. It'll pass through like any other compound that we don't use does," she said. "It's just when the concentration gets too high…"
"Children. Less blood," he said.
She nodded. "Got it in one."
"What's the plan?" Jack asked.
"We need to dilute the concentration," she said.
"You mean… put the patients onto dialysis?" he asked. She inclined her head. Smarter than he looked, Jack was.
"Or find some way of neutralising some of the compound," she said.
"We've got to stop the supply, first," he said. "If we can keep people alive until their bodies take care of it…"
"That's certainly an option," said Megan. "Toxin-specific dialysis for those who can't. If we stop the supply, then we stop new cases. It might be a better use of our time."
Jack flinched, suddenly. "Excuse me," he said, pulling his mobile out of his pocket. "Gwen, I'll put you on speaker. We think we've got a solution."
"That's good," said Gwen, her voice thin through the tinny speaker. "You'd better get out here. I think we've found the source."
Family Business: Part Four