All That We Can
Title: All That We Can
Author: Timelordshines
Characters: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper
Rating: 15
Words: 1250
Spoilers: S2E11
Disclaimer: Characters and situations belong to RTD and the BBC - I’m just borrowing them.
Written for hc_bingo prompt "Archaic Medical Treatment"
Author's Note: As always, comments and criticism are welcome and would help me to improve.
Author's Note 2: I'm sorry everyone, it's Christmas so I should be writing fluff, but I had to write another h/c. Still trying to work my way through my card. I'll be posting this week's tw100 entry soon so I promise I'll make that fluffy!
Gwen paused outside Jack’s office. She had learnt not to just barge in after hours, and she really didn’t want to anger Jack right now. Or embarrass poor Ianto. She smothered a laugh as she thought of the last time when she had walked in on the pair in the hot house. Gwen raised her hand and knocked on the door, waiting for Jack’s shouted “Come in!” before opening it.
Jack and Ianto were sitting enjoying a glass of scotch and relaxing, just spending time together after a long and difficult day.
“Hi Gwen” Jack said as Ianto nodded in greeting “How can we help you?”
Gwen folded her arms and looked directly at Jack “I’ve been thinking about Flatholm.” The declaration was met with a stony silence from the Captain, but Gwen was unperturbed, continuing obliviously “I understand that we can’t reunite the victims with their loved ones. Nikki taught me that. She is struggling to come to terms with what she has seen, what she knows, and she has admitted that she found it easier to cope before because before there was hope.” Gwen paused for a second looking from Jack to Ianto and back to Jack, who nodded almost imperceptibly in acknowledgement to ask Gwen to continue. “I even get that we can’t support the families left behind. We don’t have the resources, and we can’t tell them the truth anyway, so that is something best left to the police and existing charities.”
“So what do you want us to do Gwen?”
“I don’t know - there must be something more that we can do for the victims themselves, instead of just locking them away on that tiny island.”
“We are doing all that we can Gwen.” Jack said, a note of steel creeping into his voice.
Ianto, who had been watching the exchange, looking from one to the other of his colleagues like a spectator at a tennis match, now decided to speak up.
“I shared the truth about Flatholm with you because I could see how close you and Tosh were to piecing it together anyway and I thought it was time that the rest of the team knew, so that you could help and support Jack, so that he wouldn’t have to shoulder the burden alone any more. I didn’t tell you so that you could come in here and try to pile more guilt on to him.”
Gwen looked at Ianto as if he had suddenly grown another head. “I’m not trying to guilt Jack, I’m just brainstorming trying to think of a better way to help.” Gwen continued. “There must be some illnesses and conditions that the rift victims have that Jack has seen before, that they can treat in his time.” Gwen said, looking from Ianto to Jack, who nodded slowly, “Well, why can’t he help them now?”
“We can’t!” Jack said forcefully. “I cannot use my future knowledge to help human scientific advancement in any way.” Gwen opened her mouth to argue, but Jack interrupted her before she could even begin. “I used to be a Time Agent. I understand that I cannot mess with the timelines I know how bad the consequences can be. The timelines must be sacred.”
“But there must be something more we can do? There must be some exceptions?”
Jack’s fists clenched on the desk. Gwen didn’t notice. Ianto did.
“There are.” Jack looked over at Ianto, taking strength from the young man’s quiet calm presence. “A couple of years ago there was a young girl who had been taken by the rift to the forty ninth century. The rift returned her, just like it did Jonah. Whilst she was away she had contracted a disease that you haven’t yet seen on this planet, but which interplanetary travel had caused a pandemic of by the forty ninth century. Luckily, when I went to retrieve her I recognised the symptoms from the history books I had read at school. I was able to get her to Flatholm and into quarantine without her coming into contact with anyone else. The disease was so contagious that it would have wiped out half the population if it had been allowed to get out.”
“You say you read about it in the history books… does that mean it had been eradicated by your time?” Gwen asked.
“Yeah, they found a cure and a vaccine in the early fiftieth century. I was vaccinated against it as a child, so I didn’t need to worry about catching it. I really wish I could have helped. It wouldn’t have made any difference to the Earth’s scientific advancements to treat that one case, as another case wouldn’t be seen for millennia so nothing learned would be remembered, but I couldn’t do it.” A single tear rolled slowly down Jack’s face as he remembered.
Ianto pushed his chair back and went and stood behind Jack, with his hands on the Captain’s shoulders, gently massaging and offering support. Jack reached up and covered one of Ianto’s hands with his own, before continuing, “I couldn’t risk any of the Flatholm staff contracting the disease, so I nursed the girl myself for over a week. I had to watch the poor child slowly die, unable to do anything for her but give her stronger and stronger doses of morphine to lessen the pain as much as I could. She kept crying out for her Mum.” Jack closed his eyes and squeezed Ianto’s hand tightly, “I never left her bedside. I read to her and held her hand and tried to tell her everything would be ok.”
“So why didn’t you help her? You said it wouldn’t affect the timelines so why didn’t you?” Gwen persisted.
“Because I couldn’t!” Jack choked out.
Gwen looked confused. She opened her mouth to speak, but Ianto cut her off. “Gwen,” he said, waiting for her to look up at him before continuing, “Imagine that you saw someone in twenty first century Cardiff suffering from bubonic plague, the black death. If you were lucky enough to recognise the symptoms, would you let that person die?”
“No, of course not!” Gwen replied.
“What would you do?” Ianto asked.
“Give them a course of antibiotics.” Said Gwen, giving Ianto a strange look and wondering where he was going with this.
“What kind?”
Gwen cast her mind back to her school history lessons, “Streptomycin?” she guessed.
“Well done,” said Ianto. “You would be able to save that person’s life.”
Gwen smiled warily, still unsure of Ianto’s point.
“Now,” said Ianto, “imagine you were in the fourteenth century. You saw someone with the plague. Would you let them die?”
“No….” said Gwen
“What would you do?” Ianto persisted.
“Give them streptomycin.”
“How would you make it?” Ianto asked.
Gwen was stumped, but she finally realised what Ianto had been trying to say.
Ianto squeezed Jack’s shoulder again, and finished making his point to Gwen “Just because Jack recognised the illness doesn’t mean he could help. He might even have known what the cure was, but unless he knew the exact chemical formula of the drug and how to produce it, that knowledge is useless. You have to trust that Jack is doing all that he can to help these people.”
Jack turned and looked up at Ianto, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. Ianto bent down and kissed his captain softly on the lips.
Gwen averted her eyes from this unexpected moment of tenderness between her two colleagues.
Author: Timelordshines
Characters: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper
Rating: 15
Words: 1250
Spoilers: S2E11
Disclaimer: Characters and situations belong to RTD and the BBC - I’m just borrowing them.
Written for hc_bingo prompt "Archaic Medical Treatment"
Author's Note: As always, comments and criticism are welcome and would help me to improve.
Author's Note 2: I'm sorry everyone, it's Christmas so I should be writing fluff, but I had to write another h/c. Still trying to work my way through my card. I'll be posting this week's tw100 entry soon so I promise I'll make that fluffy!
Gwen paused outside Jack’s office. She had learnt not to just barge in after hours, and she really didn’t want to anger Jack right now. Or embarrass poor Ianto. She smothered a laugh as she thought of the last time when she had walked in on the pair in the hot house. Gwen raised her hand and knocked on the door, waiting for Jack’s shouted “Come in!” before opening it.
Jack and Ianto were sitting enjoying a glass of scotch and relaxing, just spending time together after a long and difficult day.
“Hi Gwen” Jack said as Ianto nodded in greeting “How can we help you?”
Gwen folded her arms and looked directly at Jack “I’ve been thinking about Flatholm.” The declaration was met with a stony silence from the Captain, but Gwen was unperturbed, continuing obliviously “I understand that we can’t reunite the victims with their loved ones. Nikki taught me that. She is struggling to come to terms with what she has seen, what she knows, and she has admitted that she found it easier to cope before because before there was hope.” Gwen paused for a second looking from Jack to Ianto and back to Jack, who nodded almost imperceptibly in acknowledgement to ask Gwen to continue. “I even get that we can’t support the families left behind. We don’t have the resources, and we can’t tell them the truth anyway, so that is something best left to the police and existing charities.”
“So what do you want us to do Gwen?”
“I don’t know - there must be something more that we can do for the victims themselves, instead of just locking them away on that tiny island.”
“We are doing all that we can Gwen.” Jack said, a note of steel creeping into his voice.
Ianto, who had been watching the exchange, looking from one to the other of his colleagues like a spectator at a tennis match, now decided to speak up.
“I shared the truth about Flatholm with you because I could see how close you and Tosh were to piecing it together anyway and I thought it was time that the rest of the team knew, so that you could help and support Jack, so that he wouldn’t have to shoulder the burden alone any more. I didn’t tell you so that you could come in here and try to pile more guilt on to him.”
Gwen looked at Ianto as if he had suddenly grown another head. “I’m not trying to guilt Jack, I’m just brainstorming trying to think of a better way to help.” Gwen continued. “There must be some illnesses and conditions that the rift victims have that Jack has seen before, that they can treat in his time.” Gwen said, looking from Ianto to Jack, who nodded slowly, “Well, why can’t he help them now?”
“We can’t!” Jack said forcefully. “I cannot use my future knowledge to help human scientific advancement in any way.” Gwen opened her mouth to argue, but Jack interrupted her before she could even begin. “I used to be a Time Agent. I understand that I cannot mess with the timelines I know how bad the consequences can be. The timelines must be sacred.”
“But there must be something more we can do? There must be some exceptions?”
Jack’s fists clenched on the desk. Gwen didn’t notice. Ianto did.
“There are.” Jack looked over at Ianto, taking strength from the young man’s quiet calm presence. “A couple of years ago there was a young girl who had been taken by the rift to the forty ninth century. The rift returned her, just like it did Jonah. Whilst she was away she had contracted a disease that you haven’t yet seen on this planet, but which interplanetary travel had caused a pandemic of by the forty ninth century. Luckily, when I went to retrieve her I recognised the symptoms from the history books I had read at school. I was able to get her to Flatholm and into quarantine without her coming into contact with anyone else. The disease was so contagious that it would have wiped out half the population if it had been allowed to get out.”
“You say you read about it in the history books… does that mean it had been eradicated by your time?” Gwen asked.
“Yeah, they found a cure and a vaccine in the early fiftieth century. I was vaccinated against it as a child, so I didn’t need to worry about catching it. I really wish I could have helped. It wouldn’t have made any difference to the Earth’s scientific advancements to treat that one case, as another case wouldn’t be seen for millennia so nothing learned would be remembered, but I couldn’t do it.” A single tear rolled slowly down Jack’s face as he remembered.
Ianto pushed his chair back and went and stood behind Jack, with his hands on the Captain’s shoulders, gently massaging and offering support. Jack reached up and covered one of Ianto’s hands with his own, before continuing, “I couldn’t risk any of the Flatholm staff contracting the disease, so I nursed the girl myself for over a week. I had to watch the poor child slowly die, unable to do anything for her but give her stronger and stronger doses of morphine to lessen the pain as much as I could. She kept crying out for her Mum.” Jack closed his eyes and squeezed Ianto’s hand tightly, “I never left her bedside. I read to her and held her hand and tried to tell her everything would be ok.”
“So why didn’t you help her? You said it wouldn’t affect the timelines so why didn’t you?” Gwen persisted.
“Because I couldn’t!” Jack choked out.
Gwen looked confused. She opened her mouth to speak, but Ianto cut her off. “Gwen,” he said, waiting for her to look up at him before continuing, “Imagine that you saw someone in twenty first century Cardiff suffering from bubonic plague, the black death. If you were lucky enough to recognise the symptoms, would you let that person die?”
“No, of course not!” Gwen replied.
“What would you do?” Ianto asked.
“Give them a course of antibiotics.” Said Gwen, giving Ianto a strange look and wondering where he was going with this.
“What kind?”
Gwen cast her mind back to her school history lessons, “Streptomycin?” she guessed.
“Well done,” said Ianto. “You would be able to save that person’s life.”
Gwen smiled warily, still unsure of Ianto’s point.
“Now,” said Ianto, “imagine you were in the fourteenth century. You saw someone with the plague. Would you let them die?”
“No….” said Gwen
“What would you do?” Ianto persisted.
“Give them streptomycin.”
“How would you make it?” Ianto asked.
Gwen was stumped, but she finally realised what Ianto had been trying to say.
Ianto squeezed Jack’s shoulder again, and finished making his point to Gwen “Just because Jack recognised the illness doesn’t mean he could help. He might even have known what the cure was, but unless he knew the exact chemical formula of the drug and how to produce it, that knowledge is useless. You have to trust that Jack is doing all that he can to help these people.”
Jack turned and looked up at Ianto, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. Ianto bent down and kissed his captain softly on the lips.
Gwen averted her eyes from this unexpected moment of tenderness between her two colleagues.