AN: For anyone who knows Babylon V, the soul hunters take the souls away from people at the moment of death and store them in jars..... Torchwood finds a man who takes souls from the living.
Takes place season one, 5 weeks after the whole Lisa thing and before the Fearies.
THE INNER LIGHT : CHAPTER ONE
His hands had locked around the steering wheel. He sat rigid, staring blankly out through the shattered remains of the windscreen. Freezing rain lashed at his face, soaked his shirt and bit into his skin, like needles. He was aware of all these things, the cold air, the radio, the deepness of the night and the fact that he just couldn't move. He was frozen as if he had stayed in a moment in time and the rest of it just slipped by without him. His ears hummed and felt hot in his head. That wasn't right. Warm liquid running through his hair when it should be cold, when it was so cold. He could see his hands clenching the arc of the steering wheel, he willed himself to dislodge them and still he could not. He was in a fuzzy world where light and dark began to merge into a mire of chaos.
"Ianto?"
Who was that?
"Ianto? Come on Ianto, can you hear me?"
Jack leaned in through the broken driver's door and called his name for a third time. To no avail. He carefully knocked away the rest of the fractured glass and grasped at Ianto's hands.
"Shit. Owen I'll need your help here."
It was difficult releasing Ianto's hands. Owen had climbed on to the crunched bonnet and assisted by clambering in through the absent windscreen. He and Jack exchanged worried glances as Owen gave his colleague a cursory exam.
"He's in shock Jack. How long has he been here?"
"I'm not certain, but a couple of hours at least. It was only because he was late that I checked the tracker. Why the fuck hasn't any one else stopped to help?" Jack was glancing along the length of the road. "Someone must have seen this?"
"You'd think....Look Jack I'm calling an ambulance, shock and hypothermia are already fairly advanced and he's almost non responsive."
Owen slid off the wreck and pulled out his mobile as Jack finally managed to wrench the door open. He was kneeling at Ianto's side and pulling off his greatcoat to cover him. Jack inspected for damage.
"He's not trapped, we can get him out."
"Don't even attempt to move him Jack, not until I've got his neck braced and the Paramedics are here, just cover him and keep talking to him." Owen yelled, as he ran back to the SUV for his trauma box.
Jack carefully released Ianto's seat belt and tucked the coat about his rigid body talking light heartedly the whole time. Then Owen was there neck brace in hand as he shooed Jack out of the way.
"Ok Ianto, I'm just going to put this on to keep your head still. The ambulance is on its way, mate. Don't worry you'll be fine." Owen slipped the collar on painfully aware that Ianto did not respond to his presence at all. Owen looked up into Jack's worried face.
"Jack search around, something must have caused Ianto to veer off the road. He may have hit someone or something."
Jack nodded, reluctantly he did as Owen asked, flashlight in hand. By the time he got back to the car wreck the ambulance had arrived and Ianto was being lifted on to gurney. A police car rolled up and the familiar figure of PC Davidson stepped out.
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Owen stood at Ianto's bedside perusing the medical charts in his hands. Jack had come back into the room and not even giving the patient a second glance his attention focussed on the medic.
"Well?"
Owen sighed dropping the charts down on to the bedside table. "He's suffering from exposure, bruising and he is in a state of catatonia. They've done a CT and found no abnormalities and since we brought him in last night he hasn't uttered a word or made any indication that he aware of his environment."
Jack finally looked to the young man lying on the pristine sheets, flat on his back staring at the ceiling above. Jack was unmoved, part of him was still so angry with Ianto that he didn't much care about his current state, but part of him was sad. Ianto had suffered enough over recent weeks.
"Conclusions?"
Owen shrugged, he too didn't appear particularly upset. "Some catastrophic mental breakdown, would be my best guess. He had no medical or psyche support after Canary Wharf, hiding Lisa for 6 months and then losing her. Well quite frankly I amazed he didn't top himself. Perhaps he's just lost it. He's a kid Jack whose seen some pretty horrible things, with no one to help him....Well he's probably better off in the state he's in."
Owen was watching Jack now. "It's not your fault Jack. Ianto was...."
"In love someone he couldn't bear to lose and none of us saw the pain he was in and now look. Maybe I should've just retconned him."
"I think the bullet would have been kinder."
Jack nodded, forced to agree. "I've notified his family that he was involved in an accident. His mother is on her way."
"Well, let her deal with him." Owen responded making to leave the room. "There's nothing we can do until he chooses to come out of this, if he ever does that is."
"That's it? We just write him off?"
"Jack...."
He glared at Owen. "I know what he did to us Owen. Believe me I am as angry as you and the others, but the bottom line is that we....I failed him..."
"Bollocks Jack. He brought this on himself!"
"By asking the Cybermen to destroy his life? We forget too easily what lead to the events of last month, he's human Owen, the same as you and I. You know how you felt after Katie? I don't imagine that he feels any less pain than you did."
Owen sucked in a steadying breath, knowing full well that Jack was right. "So what do you want me to do?"
"Let's give it a couple of days, see how he does. If there's no improvement we take him back to the Hub and run more detailed tests, our equipment there far outweighs what they have here. Can we at least make certain that there is nothing else we can do for him."
"No problem Jack. I'll do whatever it takes. He's still one of us after all."
"Thank you Owen."
Owen left the room and Jack turned his gaze back to Ianto who was completely unaware of the world. Cautiously Jack leant forward to look into his eyes and swallowed with shock when he realised that there was nothing there.
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The following morning felt strange. Jack stepped down from his office and noted the distinct absence of the aroma of brewing coffee. The Hub was still in darkness and Jack found himself shuddering at the realisation that Ianto's not being there felt wrong. It had been a welcoming thing, to rise each morning with the familiar sounds and smells of another presence, no matter how distant, to greet him in the earliest hours of the new day. Jack bit the thought back and went to make his coffee. Two hours later and the rest of the team straggled in. Gwen being the last to arrive, she straight away pulled a file out of her hand bag and took it up to Jack's office.
"I've got the preliminary report on the car accident, you'll want to see it Jack, it's odd."
Jack gestured for his newest recruit to sit, he eyed her appreciatively as she handed over the file.
Jack put it down and smiled at her. "So give me the shortened version."
Gwen dipped her head slightly and blushed for no good reason other than the fact that her boss was looking at her, she always felt like she was being undressed under his gaze.
"They think someone was in the car with him at the time of the accident. The windscreen was blown outwards, not in. They're speculating that he may have been attacked from behind, something, possibly a bullet caused the windscreen to shatter, he loses control of the car, it rolls then hits the tree. There were skid marks on the road lasting a couple of hundred yards that zig zag as if he lost control of the steering, it's also where they found a good deal of the glass. The forensics boys are taking the car apart today to look for further evidence."
Jack failed to hide his surprise. "Do we know where he'd been earlier that day?"
Gwen nodded. "Apparently to visit his sister's family and his mother, he'd left Abergavenny just after lunch time and was on his way presumably to work or home first maybe." She paused for a moment. "How was he yesterday Jack? Owen wouldn't say much."
"No serious injuries other than the fact he's in some kind of waking coma. He was like a rag doll yesterday, just lying there and when I looked into his eyes they were completely vacant." He shuddered at the memory.
"Nervous breakdown?"
Jack had no idea. "Owen thinks so. I'm not entirely convinced. I think if he were going to fall apart on us it would have happened by now."
Gwen frowned at him. "I think it happened the day Lisa got loose Jack. He seemed to be getting a bit better to me."
"He did?" Jack was curious. "He's talked to you?"
"No." She was shaking her head, dark hair reflecting the light as it moved, Jack noticed. "He's been talking to Tosh though. She's visited him at home a few times to check on him. I think she's rather fond of him."
"At least one of us has cared enough to bother. All I did was yell at him and threaten him with Retcon."
"Is that what you always do when things don't go your way?"
"How do you mean?"
Gwen decided to be blunt. "Well you've flirted with him relentlessly ever since I got here, perhaps your ego took a bit of a battering when it became obvious that it wasn't you he was interested in."
Jack opened his mouth to retort.
"We all ignored him Jack. You just saw him as an object to lust over. Truth is he's damn good at his job, so good that we don't notice until he's not here doing it. I don't know how you all managed before he arrived."
"Aren't you angry with him, for what happened?"
"No, how can you be mad at someone for being in love. I'm angry because he didn't trust us to help. I mean not me personally but I would've expected him to feel that he could talk to you. We never made him feel like of the team though did we? Never gave him a reason to trust us. I thought I was supposed to be the one here to keep us in touch with our humanity and I totally failed to see that something was amiss, and it was staring us in the face the whole time."
Gwen shifted in the seat enjoying the continued focus of Jack's gaze upon her.
"Hindsight is a wonderful thing." Jack leant back in his chair. "Come with me to the hospital later on, maybe he'll connect with you and wake up."
"Don't joke about this Jack."
"I wasn't. I was going to ask Tosh as well. Call the police too, get Ianto's car sent over we'll run our own tests on it."
Gwen took that as a dismissal and rose to her feet. "Will do. Have you spoken to his family?"
"Just to let them know he was in hospital, over the phone."
"We should talk to them. They were probably the last ones to see him before this happened."
Jack nodded. "Yeah you're probably right about that."
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"What do you mean he's been transferred?" Owen demanded of the nurse who was stood at her computer terminal with a very annoyed look on her face.
"He was moved to Providence Park. Dr Townsend signed the papers and the boy's mother paid for a private ambulance to take him there."
Owen glowered at the nurse. "That's a nut house!"
"Dr Harper, Providence Park is a psychiatric hospital. Mr Jones was in no condition to be left here, it's the best place for him under the circumstances and quite frankly we need the bed space for the physically injured and ill. Mr Jones has been handed over to the mental health team for his own benefit, now if you don't mind I'd like you to leave my ward. Torchwood or not you are in the way."
Owen turned on his heel and stomped through the swing doors swearing loudly. Jack, Gwen and Tosh were waiting in the corridor for him.
"What's going on?" Tosh uncharacteristically demanded.
"They've shipped him off to the funny farm. His mother organised it apparently, got him a place at PP."
"PP?" Jack asked.
"Providence Park." Gwen replied. "I guess we have to go there then."
Jack tapped on the steering wheel throughout the 20 minute journey, the absence of decent coffee was really getting to him. He swung the SUV somewhat carelessly into the driveway eliciting shrieks of protest from Owen and Tosh who were sat in the back of the vehicle. Braking hard outside the front of the recently converted stately home Jack was out of the car before the others had even undone their safety belts.
It was a beautiful room. It hadn't taken long for the staff to get Ianto settled into a chair by the window with a plaid blanket pulled over his lap. Mrs Emily Jones fussed about the vicinity of the chair adjusting the blanket and the cushions and patting her son's unresponsive hand. She chattered away to herself in an effort to calm herself and pulling up another chair she finally sat beside her son, well what was left of him. Emily had known since the terrorist attacks at Canary Wharf and the death of Lisa that her boy would be forever changed by the experience. When he returned to Cardiff a shadow of the bright and optimistic man she once knew she had spent each day living in fear, waiting for a call half expecting the police to be ringing her to identify the body of a suicide victim. So many times over the last few months he had called her and just cried down the phone, so many times she had felt him slip just that little bit further away. Emily squeezed his fingers, there was nothing there, no hint of acknowledgement, not even a recognition of another presence beside him. He sat his eyes unfocussed the light from the window on his pale face and he looked for all the world like a child with no soul. Emily cried, finally the last 24 hours sinking in when she realised her son was lost to her in spirit if not in body. It took her some moments to realise someone had come into the room. She looked up expecting to see a member of the hospital staff returning with the rheam of forms she knew she had to fill in. A man stood there, tall, his presence over shadowing everything in the sparse room, his handsome bright white smile failed to hide to look of surprise on his face.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude." A hand was outstretched in greeting. "You must be Ianto's mother?"
The American accent sounded cheesy and too cheerful to her ears and Emily flinched at the sound of it, not accepting the offered hand, she simply nodded.
"And who are you?" Her voice a deep Welsh timbre was cracked with grief.
The hand was dropped along with the smile. "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, we spoke yesterday on the phone."
"I see, what do you want?" her hand remained protectively over Ianto's who was oblivious.
"I came to see your son. I'm trying to find out what happened to him."
"It was a car accident. Who are you?"
"Capt...."
"Not your name. What is it you do? Are you police?" She took in the old military coat and peculiar dress, no not police then. Torchwood, it had to be, Ianto's firm from London. "Are you from Torchwood?"
The American froze for a moment, looking mildly annoyed.
"Yes ma'am. I'm Ianto's superior officer."
Emily hitched in a breath and tears threatened again. "He said he wasn't working there anymore, because of Lisa, he was going to leave, the day of the accident. Oh God. Did you do this to him?"
A look of horror flashed across the Captain's face. "No." Aside from the accusation, he had had no idea that Ianto was planning on leaving them. "We found him in his car in this state, we don't know what happened, but the police believe that there may have been someone else involved." He took a pace forwards and smiled kindly.
Emily glared at him. "Get away from my son. Get out! Get out!" She rose to her feet and screamed at him tears flooding down her face. Then someone else came into the room.
"Jesus Jack what the hell is going on?"
Owen was confronted by a screaming older female version of Ianto standing furiously protecting her son. Owen grasped hold of Jack's arm and pulled him back out of the room closing the door behind them. Jack was too stunned to respond, he hadn't for one moment considered the impact on Ianto's family, wasn't used to dealing with people on the outside who mattered.
"What the hell did you say to her?" Owen demanded.
"Nothing I...She just."
Gwen stepped forward taking in Jack's dazed expression.
"Was it Ianto's family?"
"His mother, she's pissed." Owen replied. "I'm going to talk to the doctor. Jack stay away from Ianto until his mother is out of range!"
Some one seemed to have anticipated Owen's next move.
"Dr Owen Harper?" A soft Welsh accent.
The torchwood team turned and faced a white coated young woman with copious amounts of red hair and in the early stages of pregnancy.
"Are you lot from Torchwood?"
Jack was scowling. "Does all of Wales know we're here?"
A hand was outstretched. "Hello, I'm doctor Rhianna Kelly. Please tell me you're Torchwood."
Jack shook her hand taking in the wide green eyes and rose coloured cheeks against a pale skin, she looked oddly familiar.
"I'm Ianto's sister, and one of the resident clinical pyscologists here. I would like to talk to you."