(Inspired by John Barrowman’s comment that Jack had brought Ianto
back to life before, but when he kissed him in CoE it was too late.)
He wakes. He opens his eyes. Everything is orange.
Why is everything orange?
He’s fully clothed, and it seems strange that he should have fallen
asleep with his tie perfectly knotted and his waistcoat straightened.
When did I fall asleep?
Where did he fall asleep? Because whatever he’s lying on is
hard. Like a floor.
Why did I go to sleep on the floor?
He doesn’t remember lying down under an orange sheet on a hard
floor. He remembers blinding bright sunshine, cool air and a rush
of adrenaline, aliens in a plastic box.
Dying.
Ianto lifts a trembling hand to touch the orange tarpaulin and screams.
~
Terrified.
Alice’s hands are no longer banging on the heavy metal door.
They’re pressed against it, fingers locked, body ridged as her mind
refuses to go to the logical conclusion of Jack’s actions.
Stephen’s in there, and she knows that her Dad – her fucked-up alien
Dad – means to use him, to harm him, because he’s the only child around
and they’re out of time and it doesn’t matter to her that millions of
children will be enslaved and tortured if he doesn’t. Stephen’s
her son and she’s frozen in place because she would die for him but
there’s nothing she can do and she’s banged on that door until her
hands bled. She’s helpless, without hope. All she can do is
watch.
There’s a commotion in the corridor and she looks out of the corner of
her eyes because her head refuses to turn. She sees a man in a
suit running towards her, breathing hard; eyes wide, face pale - almost
white. He stops at her side, stares in through the window and
begins banging on the door. She tells him it’s pointless, that
they won’t let anyone in and everyone inside does ignore him until he
shouts, as loud as she’s ever heard anyone shout, “JACK!”
To her amazement, her father stops and turns, mouth falling open,
staring at the suited man through the small square of reinforced
glass. And in the next second he’s thrown aside two armed men and
yanked open the doors and is pulling this stranger into his arms;
Jack’s hugging him as if life itself depends on it. Alice is
through the open doors and across the concrete floor in a heartbeat,
scooping Stephen up, lifting him out of the way despite the hesitant
weapons being aimed at her. An urgent voice tells them that
they’re running out of time but as she watches it feels as if time is
standing still, with her Dad taking the strange man’s face into his
hands and staring into his eyes.
She hears him say, “Ianto,” and vaguely recognises the name.
“I think you brought me back,” he says and she wonders what that means
as Jack’s face breaks into a smile so bright that for a moment it seems
to make everything seem just a little less terrible. Then the man
– Ianto – squeezes Jack’s arms and says, “Use me. Their virus is
inside me, I can feel them. I can be the conduit. Use me.”
She understands that this is why he needs Stephen, and now Ianto’s
volunteering to be used in her son’s place and Alice could hug him
too. But Jack’s shaking his head, wearing an expression of
horror. “No! I can’t. It’ll kill you.”
Deep down she knows that but to hear it spoken with such pain when he
had been so willing to sacrifice his own grandson turns the final
remnants of her love for Jack to stone.
Ianto’s insisting, almost desperate, “You can bring me back.” And
now she’s starting to realise what it means. “You’ve done it
twice, you can do it again.”
There are tears in her father’s eyes when he asks, “And what if I
can’t? What if it doesn’t work this time?”
“Then I’ll have saved millions of kids. I’ve already died today,
Jack, at least this way would have some meaning.”
He’s still shaking his head. “Don’t ask me to do this. I
can’t live the rest of my life knowing I was the one to kill you.”
“If you kill Stephen, you’ll hate yourself forever. Please, Jack,
we’re out of time, you have to use me.” He leans in and to
Alice’s amazement, kisses her father on the lips.
It’s obviously breaking him apart to agree but he gives a quick nod,
strokes a hand over the man’s pale cheek and she watches him murmur, “I
love you, Ianto.”
“Love you too, Jack.” He moves away, into the circle where
Stephen had been standing. Someone’s yelling that it has to be
now, but it sounds like a distant cry and she feels like she’s trapped
in a bubble with her Dad and the man who is saving her son’s
life.
At the laptop, Jack sets the program with tears running over his face
and his hands are shaking as they hover over the keyboard. He
looks up and there is a plea in his eyes but Ianto has his back to Jack
and there is agony in his face as he hits the final Enter key. In
the circle, Ianto freezes, his mouth opens in a silent scream. It
seems strange that nothing else happens, not for long seconds that tick
past like the final dying beats of a heart. Then Ianto starts to
tremble, blood pooling in his eyes and ears, dripping with macabre
effect over his pale skin. Bearing the brunt of the fatal
transmission, the trauma rips through his body and all she can do is
watch as agonising convulsions grip him and shake him. Behind the
laptop, Jack’s hunched over unable to watch, head dropped forward,
shoulders hitching up and down; sobbing silently as he slowly kills
this man he so obviously adores. Outside there’s a series of
sounds like metal tearing and from somewhere in the building there’s an
explosion. It seems to last for an eternity and all she can do is
hug Stephen to her and silently give thanks for this brave
stranger.
Then it’s over. The transmission dies. Ianto collapses like
a broken doll and Jack’s with him before his head hits the floor,
cradling him, mouth to mouth, kissing him; a weird, intimate parody of
the kiss of life. She imagines she can see something, like smoky
light pass between them but she can’t be sure because her own tears are
marring her vision. A man’s lying dead in front of her and she
wonders what he meant to her father because she’s always thought he was
strictly a ladies’ man because of her mother and now it seems she
barely knows him.
~
Outside the sky is ablaze. And the thirteen floor of Thames House
is flooded with lethal gases.
~
“Ianto? Ian... please. Come back to me, please.”
Jack’s holding the dead man in his arms, rocking him just slightly,
stroking his hand over the dark hair, over a stubbled cheek. His
face is wet, eyes red, and he’s crying like he might never stop.
“Please, Ianto....”
The armed men have backed away, embarrassed to watch such an emotional
scene, and she tells Stephen to stay where he is as she cautiously
approaches. But her Dad’s beyond her reach now, beyond anyone,
locked in his own grief, holding Ianto so tight there’s blood staining
his hands, face and coat. There’s no comfort she can offer.
Even if her love for her father hadn’t turned cold there’s nothing she
can think to say to take from what he’s done. She backs away,
putting an arm around Stephen’s shoulder and turning him from his
devastated grandfather, leading him to the door. Still she can
hear Jack begging the dead man in his arms to come back to life, his
voice breaking, words turning to mindless sobs. That could be
Stephen lying dead and bleeding in her arms, she knows, and she reaches
for the door, wanting nothing more than to leave this nightmare behind.
She’s almost out in the corridor when she hears it; a first agonising
breath, life returning. She turns, and sees to her astonishment
that Ianto is gripping Jack’s shoulders, head lifted, still lying in
Jack’s arms where he’s being petted and comforted, eased back to the
land of the living by a man who knows all too well the pain of this
return. She stares as Jack drops a chaste kiss to his forehead
and can’t quite hear the words that pass between them but Ianto’s arms
wind around Jack’s neck and she’s left in no doubt that this is someone
her father loves very, very much. It thaws her slightly and she
steps back inside but they just need each other right now, and alerting
anyone else to what’s just happened would probably have extremely bad
consequences for all involved. Everyone’s suffered enough, she
decides. It’s time to go home.
~
They can’t get close enough. They’ve made love, been inside one
another, and now they’re lying face to face, legs entangled, on the
queen-sized bed in the suite in the five star hotel the Home Secretary
has set them up in for the night. In the other room, Gwen
and Rhys are presumably doing the same thing. It’s been a hellish
day for them all and while Jack knows they should all be exhausted
beyond belief, remnants of adrenaline remain in their blood and while
the half-empty bottle of red on the bedside cabinet and the desperate
sex should knock them both out eventually, for now they were still wide
awake.
“One day, Jack, I won’t want to come back,” Ianto points out quietly,
gently, and he knows Jack understands, even if his lover’s only answer
is to kiss him again. “When I’m old and grey....”
“Until then, stay with me. Please.”
Ianto curves his hand around Jack’s neck, rubs his jaw with his thumb
and nods. “Of course I will.”
Jack takes his hand and links their fingers, stretching their arms down
his leg and bringing their mouths together. Part of him thinks
maybe he’s being selfish with this, but losing Ianto twice in one day
still weighs heavy on him and he doesn’t want to think about the cons
right now, just that Ianto’s alive; very much alive in his arms.
Fin
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