Author's notes: This story takes place in the marvelous and beautiful AU created by Helen Pattskyn. There's a link to her work on my "favorites" page. You do not have to read her stories (there are so many of them to enjoy!) to get the idea of this one, though. This was a way for me to explore Jack and Ianto's family, both biological and extended. This was my thought of what Jack's instinct would be if he had to watch Ianto battle for his life after being injured and what would keep him from acting on that instinct. If you'll kindly accept that Jack and Ianto and Gwen have rebuilt a new team for Torchwood, that Jack and Ianto have had a daughter of their own, that Jack's son from the 51st century has come with Jack's mother and become part of their life, and that Jack's daughter, Alice, and grandson, Stephen, are alive, well, and happily a part of Jack and Ianto's life, then you'll be fine here! Thank you so much, Helen, for giving permission for me to play a bit in your universe. I hope you enjoy it! Reviews and good ol' fashioned honest feedback is always welcome. I'm new at this and need all the help I can get! Oh yeah, I'm an English teacher, not a doctor. I make no claim that the medical stuff is accurate.
A couple of Weevils usually weren't anything two experienced field agents like Jack and Ianto couldn't handle, so when the call came in and they were the only two on duty, neither one thought anything of it. Routine snapped into place and ten minutes later they were assessing the situation. When they had sprayed the two weevils and started to drag them to the SUV, however, the real problem emerged, and as Jack saw the gang of ten or so closing in on them, the panic really set in. Before either man had another second to react, though, the pack descended, and the nightmare began.
They had made the routine call to Bobby, who was on backup duty tonight, and when they didn't make the routine call to tell him to stand down, he started to worry and got himself dressed and down to the hub quickly. It had been about twenty five minutes since his bosses had gone out, and when Bobby couldn't raise them on his comms, he made the call to Gwen and told her what was happening. As he was explaining, Jack's voice broke through on the comms, and it was filled with fear and panic and pain like Bobby had never heard from him before. "Bobby! Meet me in the med bay, NOW!" and Bobby hung up on Gwen and took off at a run through the hub to find his boss. He figured Jack would teleport, judging by the tone in his voice, and that meant something bad. But when he saw Jack materialize on the floor of the med bay covered in blood and holding an unconscious Ianto, bad didn't even begin to cover it.
It was pure adrenaline and fear that let Jack help Bobby get Ianto onto the table, and as soon as the weight of his husband's inert body left his hands he dropped to the floor in a heap, knowing only that at the very least he'd managed to get Ianto into Bobby's skilled hands before passing out cold on the floor of the hub. Bobby didn't even waste a glance at Jack, because saving Ianto would take considerably more effort than saving Jack ever did. His only thought before he zeroed in on the saving of Ianto's life was a quick prayer and the knowledge that, despite Jack's immortality of flesh, there were two men's lives in Bobby's hands right now.
Gwen thought she might throw up when she saw the scene in the med bay a few minutes after Bobby had hung up on her. Jack was lying, his shirt and pants covered in blood, in a crumpled heap next to the surgical table, unconscious. Bobby had Ianto's shirt and pants cut off and thrown in a bloody pile next to Jack, and Ianto seemed to be cut open in every visible place, his face, his chest, his legs. It was a scene from a horror movie, and all she could do was stare. Just then Wendy flew past her and down the steps and Bobby began giving commands to both of them.
"Wendy, get me two pints of Ianto's blood so I can start a transfusion. Gwen, I need you to get down to the archives." he paused to scribble something on a piece of paper and handed it to her. She looked quickly down at Jack and Bobby snapped at her, "NOW, Gwen. We're going to lose Ianto if we worry about Jack." She ran. She returned a few minutes later with a small case in her hands. Bobby paused what he was doing and tore the case open, revealing a small knife that glowed just a bit. Gwen was about to challenge him about it, but he shook his head and looked at her bleakly, "I am seriously desperate here, Gwen. It's just a temporary fix, so I can at least stop the bleeding to know what I'm looking at. I remember that it doesn't hold." They had made the mistake of relying on the small knife a month ago and a disastrous assumption had killed the
alien they were trying to save. "Gwen," Bobby continued as he worked on Ianto frantically, not even looking at her as he spoke, "See if you can move Jack to the side room. I do not want him waking up here."
Gwen gave him a questioning look because Jack was a very big man, especially unconscious. She did manage to drag him the few feet into the next room, however, and she knelt down to assess the damage to him. His face was streaked with blood and dirt and what looked like claw marks. His hands were sliced as well, and she sat him up and peeled his great coat off of him, revealing his shirt and braces, but his braces had been sliced in half and were hanging off ungracefully. His shirt was soaked with blood, but she didn't know whose blood it was, and the seriousness of the situation finally hit her. She was shaking as she peeled his shirt and t-shirt off and found a very deep ten inch gash across his chest that wasn't showing any signs of healing. The gash on his face and the ones on his hands were healing faster. She was never quite sure of the rules of his remarkable body, but it did seem like the worse the injury without an accompanying death the longer it took him to recover. She once saw him set back two or three hours with a knife wound, and this was much, much worse. So she went to the supply cabinet and pulled down a few clean towels and began to try clean him up a bit. He was still out cold, but he hadn't died, and she knew that Bobby wouldn't have time for Jack any time soon. She could hear him giving commands to Wendy and cursing every few seconds. Gwen quickly realized that a few towels weren't going to take care of the gash across Jack's chest. It was deeper than she thought and it was bleeding steadily. If someone with any idea about what to do to get something like this to stop bleeding didn't get to him soon, he would die, and despite the pain of a deep gash, Jack's few discussions of the matter suggested that the death and resurrection would be worse.
She stood up and stepped toward the surgery table, quietly asking Bobby about Jack. He didn't even look up from what he was doing, but he told Wendy to take the knife from the archives and use it on Jack while he tried to figure out where the other blood was coming from on Ianto. Gwen stole a look at Jack's husband lying there on the table, and was suddenly even more afraid of how this night would turn out. He was pale and his face was pinched and drawn, and it still seemed as if he was bleeding from a thousand gashes of his own. As Wendy knelt down over Jack and began to run the glowing tool over his wound, Gwen asked, "Ianto? Is he going to be all right?"
"I don't know, Gwen," Wendy replied coldly. "Bobby really has only shown me how to do some basic triage techniques to help him in an emergency like this. I don't know chances or anything when I look at a wound." She paused and drew in a ragged breath, "Seems pretty bad, though. Bobby keeps cussing about internal bleeding and Ianto's blood pressure." Wendy was pale and her voice was shaky when she spoke to Gwen. Wendy had taken Ianto in when he was a teenager and he was her best friend. This had to be impossible for her in Gwen's view. As Wendy worked on Jack's wound, Gwen stood up again. She pulled out her mobile phone and called Mickey and then Shane. She told both of them, currently off-duty, to get to the Hub as fast as they could. If a call came in she would need help, and Bobby and Wendy were going to be busy a while, it seemed.
Wendy had run the knife over Jack's gash very slowly, and it seemed to be helping. She used some gauze pads to sop up the blood that had seeped out, and she put a bandage over it carefully. She brushed Jack's hair out of his eyes and leaned over and kissed his forehead. "It's going to be a long night for you, boss. I hope you sleep through most of it."