AN: Follow on from 'A Stomach Full of Rats'.... not entirely sure where this will go, but it won't be nice so if you like fluff read another story because there won't be any in this one....
RAGE IN THE BLOOD PART ONE
Ianto trudged along with the rest of them, his head down, his feet moving mechanically one in front of the other. He didn't look up to see where he was going because he knew the route well enough, a long well trodden dirt track that lead to what was left of the M4 motorway. He was part of a gang that went out at first light every day to help break down and strip all the abandoned vehicles that had been left in the aftermath of the Toclofane invasion. They wanted metal, well Harold Saxon wanted it anyway. The Toclofane balls whizzed over the heads of the snaking column of ragged men and women and the UNIT soldiers marched alongside them with rifles at the ready, looking for any excuse to use them. Ianto had lost count of how many people he seen mowed down by casual gun fire.
His body ached from lack of a decent bed and poor diet. He could not remember the last time he had washed and he hated the lank hair on his head and straggly beard. It could be worse, he supposed. Tosh, Owen and Gwen were dead. They had died when their helicopter on route to Nepal had been shot down. Ianto had hidden himself in the tunnels underneath Cardiff until lack of food and water had brought him to the surface, a full month after everything went to shit. He found the bodies of his sister's family a week later. The Toclofane had caught him when he was trying to bury them. He had lied and told them he was Johnny Davies and this they seemed to accept, or else didn't much care. Ianto Jones was number two on Harold Saxon's wanted list he later discovered, someone called Martha Jones was number one. Ianto wanted to meet her and kiss her. His capture had led to him to being brought to Camp 16. One of Saxon's work camps, little better than a concentration camp without the gas chambers, though Ianto couldn't be certain of that. There were no old people, no babies or toddlers and no disabled. He could only assume what had happened to them hadn't been a holiday somewhere nice and sunny because there were four industrial sized microwave ovens in the secured area by the foundry.
Ianto had lost count of the days spent in the routine of sleeping in a wooden rack with no mattress and no blankets, the murmurs and mumbles of another two hundred men around him in the men's shack. He'd forgotten the taste of real food and just accepted the sickly sweet soup of vitamin enhanced mush that he was fed to keep him working and on his feet. He ignored the blisters on his feet. He bit down his nightmares of cyber conversion units until they faded into insignificance against the horror of his waking life.
So Ianto trudged and kept his head down and did as he was told. He didn't talk with his fellow prisoners unless he had to and he worked hard to avoid punishment from the soldiers around him. Mostly he just listened and very occasionally his lifted his face to the sun and let it warm his gaunt face if it showed itself. That morning he had seen drooping white headed snowdrops at the side of the ruined road and the sight of them almost broke him, such beauty in such a terrible world, broken world. The sunlight caught them in a moment of revelation and Ianto had had force himself not to stop to savour the sight. As he passed on he closed his eyes briefly and allowed moisture to gather under his weary eyelids, but the tears were kept at bay.
How was it that the world had fallen so easily into darkness? Ianto often asked himself this very question. He remembered voting for Saxon, even though he couldn't clearly remember why. He recalled Jack's intense dislike of the man and being asked to look into him and Ianto couldn't remember ever following up on Jack's order. Somehow things had gotten away from them, their little world under the Plas had crumbled and Jack was gone. Ianto tried not to let that hurt, but he failed. It was partially his fault that Jack had left. He couldn't find it in him to be angry anymore. Jack's leaving or staying would have made no difference to the current situation. The Doctor.... That bloody Doctor and Jack were both prisoners in the sky on board 'The Valiant' and they were the only two people who possibly could have saved the planet. Torchwood was gone, UNIT had defected. Ianto wasn't really certain about UNIT, the Master appeared to be a Master of control... all it seemed to take was a weak mind.... that seemed to account for most of humanity.
It was a lovely day and he realised that he could hear birdsong, blackbirds to be precise and with his eyes cast down to the cracked tarmac he managed the faintest of smiles.
They were split up into groups of two and once again Ianto was assigned to work with a fellow Welshman called Rhys. Gwen's fiancé. Ianto was entirely grateful that the man had no idea who he was. Rhys thought he was Johnny and Ianto made no mention of the woman that Rhys lamented. He never discussed the fact that her dying words over a crackling phone line were 'Tell Rhys I love him.' Ianto could hardly believe that, after all she had been shagging Owen and doing her level best to get into Jack's pants before he disappeared too. Ianto kept his mouth shut and let Rhys ramble on as they began work pulling apart an old Nissan mycra. They had few tools and only select members of the work gangs had access to them at all. Rhys was one of them. Ianto didn't want the privelage because other prisoners resented it. Rhys didn't seem to notice or care. Ianto realised that the man was just going through the motions because his body hadn't told him he was dead yet. They were all dead really. The human race would end here in this current generation and if Jack's long winded tales were anything to be relied on, then the course of history would be changed forever. Jack always had been full of bullshit, apart from the not dying thing of course. Ianto halted in his task and straightened up, taking a moment to look down the length of motorway. It had already been cleared of traffic and looked surreal like an empty vein. He absently rubbed at his stomach, his abdomen hard and unyielding with weight loss and added muscle tone combined. He sighed then returned to work helping Rhys strip off the useless furnishings from the inside of the car. A truck would be along soon to take away the metal skin and engine parts.
It was a chilly spring day and Ianto was just grateful for the faint sunlight and sounds of voices as the men worked and the guards barked out orders and abuse. Somewhere in the quiet recesses of his brain Ianto worked out it had been approximately three months, maybe four since Jack's departure. A lot had happened in that 12 weeks. The Earth had fallen. Ianto found himself wondering what had happened to his dinosaur and he felt grief prickle at his gut. They were all dead, all the people that meant anything to him gone, snuffed out before they should have been because something went fundamentally wrong after Jack ran away. Ianto sighed. It was a rare enough gesture for Rhys to look at him in concern.
"You alright mate?" He whispered.
Ianto gave him a clipped nod in return but did not speak.
The truck arrived with a rumbling that sounded distinctly alien to his ears nowadays and the men around them began dumping metal car parts into the back, Ianto among them.
He saw the brilliant light before he heard the bang and then he was flung through the air, slamming into the grass bank at the side of the road with a painful crunch of his right arm. Then blackness swallowed him whole.