For quitehomoerotic: The Truth Hurts (Everyone)
He made the decision on the way back to the Hub.
The certainty he felt about it almost frightened him; it made him sick to his stomach. He knew he should wait, think about it for a few days, discuss it with her, plan. But he was tired, and he was tired of planning, and it had to be tonight ( Read more... )
The certainty he felt about it almost frightened him; it made him sick to his stomach. He knew he should wait, think about it for a few days, discuss it with her, plan. But he was tired, and he was tired of planning, and it had to be tonight ( Read more... )
Well, that was nothing knew. They were always long days. Often a long few days that sort of stuck together to make one. His team were as much workaholics as he was. He'd practically had to push Tosh out the door, and though Owen had made a great show of looking as though he wanted to leave, Jack knew better than that ( ... )
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His finger twitched over the trigger.
"Look. Ianto. You can't save these things. You just can't. I don't care what you think you know, but you don't. These things will kill. She might have been your girlfriend once? But she's not now, and I'm sorry really I am, but she's dead and the rest? Well that has to die too."
He paused, perhaps for emphasis, perhaps for breath.
"This ends now. Take me there."
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He stepped closer, his proximity almost pressing the barrel of Jack's gun against his chest. "She's alive," he said, his voice low and hard. Certainty. Blind faith. And, somewhere, almost a threat. "You'll see."
He let those words hang between them, then added, "I'll show you."
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He pressed the gun a little closer to him.
"I'm waiting."
And without even moving his gaze, he shifted, reached over and pressed a key on the nearest keyboard, and typed in a code he knew without even having to glance.
The Hub went dark and switched to emergency lighting.
"Lockdown. Nobody is going anywhere until this place is safe again. Now get out."
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"Why doesn't she deserve to live?" he asked through gritted teeth. "Why her? Why won't you even..."
He hadn't told Jack so that Jack could kill her. None of this was supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to make things worse.
During the pause, his fingers closed around one of Jack's braces, and his grip tightened until his knuckles were white. "Are you that much of a monster?"
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He would have stayed that way, he could have, had Ianto not accused him.
In a flash he pushed a hand to Ianto's chest and knocked him back.
"You saw those things," he shouted, "you've seen what they can do. You want that let loose on the rest of the world, do you? You think your precious little heart is worth the lives of millions? Well let me tell you, Ianto Jones, it's not. So you can stop feeling sorry for yourself, pick yourself up and show me where the hell it is."
He hissed through his teeth, and took a long breath of composure.
"You can't help these things. You just can't."
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He sniffled again and ran a hand over the bottom half of his face, slowly, staring at Jack all the while. His chest heaved as every breath he took seemed to travel through his entire body.
He saw what the Cybermen could do. He did. And that, he wanted Jack to realize, was the point. He had seen large-scale destruction, had seen a tower crumble, and while he could do nothing that day, he could save none of his friends and none of the strangers, he could save her. Now, months later, the Cybermen gone, this was the only kind of victory he could hope for.
If she died, the Cybermen would win again.
But all of that was in Ianto's eyes, and in his heart, and he could not speak.
Feeling the sting of tears at the corner of his eyes, he turned. And he headed toward the lift.
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He walked with the point of his gun pressed between Ianto's shoulder blades; his fingers itching on the trigger and his teeth gritted.
He didn't speak until they got to the lift.
"Why now?" He asked, quiet, but with a gruff edge to it.
"Why tell me now? You lied to me. Lied your way in here. Lied to all of us. We took you in and you betrayed us. So tell me, why now? Why are you suddenly telling me this?"
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"I shouldn't have," he answered, turning his face so that he looked anywhere but at Jack. His tone was one of barely-suppressed anger, with a touch of petulance.
Anger at Jack, at himself, at anyone and everyone.
A moment passed, and then "I need help," he said, sadder now, almost distant.
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That someone was him, he was used to that.
But looking at Ianto, with his face so worn with emotion, it felt like a physical hurt to Jack to have to remain so harsh, and for just a fraction of a moment, it showed in his eyes.
"I'll help you, Ianto," Jack said, and there was less of the edge from before, "but there's only one way. You know that. You had to know this couldn't go on."
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He breathed in. Out.
"There's a doctor," he said, a tremor audible in his voice. This had been on his mind a lot recently, but he didn't know how to proceed, or if he should. "An expert. From Japan. I thought..."
He had drafted the email in his head a thousand times.
He had mentioned it to Lisa once, as a possibility, but that's all--and between the drugs and the pain, she had been unable to contribute. Unable to help him decide. I know you'll do the right thing, she'd said.
"We," he stuttered, "We could ask him..."
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Jack answered simply. But just as he'd softened slightly before, it wasn't harsh, just an expression of fact.
"No, Ianto. We can't. This isn't a game. Nobody can know and nobody can help because there's nothing to do to help. It's hard for you. I know, I get that. And honestly I'm glad you came to me. But you have to know how this ends. There's no such thing as a fairy tale, Ianto. We don't always get to have what we want."
The lift clicked into place and Jack nodded forwards.
"Lead the way."
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He was running out of arguments, but he still knew, beyond a doubt, that Lisa had to live.
He hesitated for a few seconds after the lift stopped.
Then, as though on autopilot, he led Jack to the old storeroom he had cleared out during the first few days he'd been at Torchwood Three.
From the inside pocket of his suit jacket he pulled a silver key. As they approached the door, with its prominent lock, he glanced over his shoulder at Jack.
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Ianto pulled out the key and the gun was again primed in Jack's hand. He nodded briefly to Ianto for him to push open the door.
"Go on," he said, voice firm and even, but not so harsh.
And then, as the door was pushed open, he followed him inside.
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He unlocked the door, his motions subdued, and then made quick work of the secondary locks, ones that looked as though they were made to keep something in instead of out.
Once that was finished, he forced himself to breathe, and as he inhaled the third or fourth time, he opened the door.
To reveal, in the dim room, lit only by back-up lights and the blue cast of the cyber-equipment, Lisa. Her body covered in metal, on a bed of metal, the only thing that that kept her alive. Her eyes were open, but Ianto knew she wasn't conscious. They were still experimenting with the dosages of the painkillers Ianto had managed to find, but he had managed to keep her asleep most of the time; if she was asleep, she couldn't be in pain, and she was always in pain ( ... )
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It was sickening.
It. Her. Lying there, and she looked so much more human than Jack could have possibly imagined. Skin against metal and it somehow made her seem all the more dangerous. There wasn't just that though, but the metal she was suspended on, and oh he didn't want to see that. The contraption, a Cyber conversion unit. How stupid (how lovestruck) must Ianto have had to be to bring something like that here?
"Keep back," Jack said evenly, from his place in the shadows in the corner of the room.
His eyes shifted to the units and devices to her side, keeping her breathing, keeping her alive. Torchwood devices. It made that feeling of betrayal bristle back up along his spine.
"Do you have any idea what she'd be capable of if she got free? Any idea at all?"
He looked over to him. "I want you to give me that key." And it wasn't a request.
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