I'm over the moon about the reception off you guys! Even at that chapter, which is more like ER than Torchwood! The real action picks up in the next couple of chapters ;)

I hope you enjoy it guys, thankyou SO much for the comments!

Chapter 2

In the fragments of the songs
Carried down the wind from some radio
In the murmuring of the city in the distance
Ominous and low

It took Jack almost a third of the time to return to the hospital. He didn't break pace once, charging through to streets back the way he'd come. People stopped and stared but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything, his feet finding their own way to the hospital as his mind chanted nothing to him - an empty nothing that didn't contain any thought at all. There was nothing but the sound of his blood pumping in his ears.

If he thought, he'd think of Ianto and he'd think of times that would hurt him to the core, times that he wouldn't be able to deal with. He needed to be strong. He needed to be the leader of his team and he needed to lead by example.

When he arrived, he almost ran into Tosh, who was watching out for him in the waiting room. As he skidded to a stop, he looked down at the woman, her face sombre and pale. His heart leapt again painfully and he gripped her arms, eyes staring intently into hers.

"Where is he, Toshiko?" He asked quietly. She pointed toward the stairs. He smiled briefly – a tight, false expression - and pulled her into a hug before guiding her over to the doors and letting her lead him upstairs.

Each time they passed a window, Jack caught snatches of music from outside - from an open air concert down the street, open car windows, people humming as they walked. It all reminded him of how this shouldn't have happened – how life should be continuing in that flawless pattern that they lived through day after day. Jack sighed heavily and pushed the thoughts from his mind.

He went back to the nothing. The nothing was safer to have in his mind as they navigated the staircase, passing numerous doors with clinical descriptions and numbers on them. He could feel himself on the edge of breaking down, but the sight of Tosh - distraught and grief-struck - made him cling on. This was what he was used to, being the survivor.

They eventually got to the fifth floor and Jack gripped Tosh's shaking hand as they stepped through the doors. Walking through the silent corridors to the operating theatres, Jack felt his muscles tense and a chill run down his spine. He hated hospitals normally, but being where they cut people open just disturbed him – especially as Ianto was behind one of those cold, sterilised doors.

At least, he hoped that was where Ianto was.

"Talk to me, Owen." Jack said firmly as they approached the waiting area with his two other team members in it. The medic was sitting with his arm around Gwen, who was crying silently. Owen shot a look at Tosh and the woman nodded, taking his place and gripping Gwen's hand for mutual support.

"It's not good." Owen said quietly as they walked through the glass doors and back out into the corridor. "They had to shock him twice and he had sluggish reflexes. Luckily, the bullet missed his aorta, but it nicked one of the renal veins and lacerated his liver. They've got to fix the damage then do exploratory surgery to assess the rest."

"But he'll pull through?" Jack asked harshly, his face serious, knowing that the expression on Owen's meant that there was more.

"He was down for almost ten minutes the last time, Jack. Ten minutes without oxygen." Owen watched Jack for a reaction or a rpely, but Jack's ears were already buzzing, ringing hollowly. He knew what was coming next. "There was swelling to his brain… They can't say with any certainty that he'll wake up again."

Jack slumped backwards and hit the wall with a dull thumb, his knees giving out and his body sliding down so he was crouched on the floor. He wrapped his hands around the back of his head and he closed his eyes, concentrating on not crying, on not screaming and yelling at how unfair this entire situation was. He simply breathed. As painful and sickening as it was, he kept breathing.

Owen came and sat down next to him, legs sticking straight out as he sighed.

"We've seen so much death, Owen. I've seen so many bodies, but this… This is worse than everything." Jack whispered, the shock evident in his tone. Owen reached out and patted his shoulder in an uncharacteristic show of support.

"I'll give you that one, Jack." He said sombrely. "But… as the boss, you're his next-"

"Don't." Jack murmured, horrified and angry tears starting to fall as he realised just what Owen was about to say. He was right, of course. In the contract each employee signed, they made him their legal next of kin, should anything happen. The moment they signed up, they signed over their entire lives.

Ianto had no remaining family. He'd never had a father and his mother had passed away a couple of years before. No brothers or sisters and no cousins, no aunts or uncles to be there for him. All Ianto had in the world was Jack and the others. Jack couldn't bring himself to speak again and Owen didn't have any desire to make him. For once, both men were glad of the silence.

They sat like that for a very long time, hours in fact. Occasionally, a nurse would come over to make sure the four of them were alright and another family joined them a few hours later, though the faces weren't nearly distraught as the Torchwood teams'.

At some point, Owen got up and got them all cups of tea, deciding it was best to avoid coffee whilst Ianto's fate was still unknown - it would hurt them all too much and Gwen had only just managed to stop crying. Jack sat and listened intently to the sounds around him, tuning out the breathing from the people nearest him and listening for anything through the sterile doors, knowing before he tried that there would be nothing audible to him. He turned his attention to what was going on outside the walls instead.

There was the sound of the wind, seeing as they were so high up, and the heavy, rushing sounds of lorries and cars, the occasional babbling of laughter as people walked past - even the sound of an aeroplane overheard.

The world continued to turn. The world continued as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed. It was like an omen to Jack, one that snickered and sneered and laughed at him for ever letting Ianto into his life. The possibility of this being the end - at the hands of John no less - made Jack want to scream and rage his way into oblivion.

*

After eleven hours of tense and nervous waiting, a surgeon walked through the doors opposite them. Jack looked up sharply and Tosh shook Owen awake, who'd fallen asleep with his head on Gwen's lap, exhausted form the day's events. Together, they walked over and Tosh helped Jack to his feet. They faced the surgeon as a team, but none of them wanted him to speak.

"We've repaired all the damage." He said slowly, carefully applying his training so as not to get their hopes up. Jack almost laughed at the façade, but nodded bitterly instead. "We had a few scares and his heart stopped again. We needed to shock him back and give him a lot of blood, but he pulled through and he's now in the surgical ICU."

He sighed heavily and looked at Jack, who was obviously the leader of the group. "He's still heavily sedated, so we won't be able to test his brain function for another few hours. I'm sorry."

"Can we see him?" Gwen asked gently, her hand gripping onto the sleeve of Jack's coat. The doctor nodded gently and guided them through the doors and along to new area of the department to the ICU. Tentatively, Gwen stepped through, holding Owen's hand, his other arm around Tosh's shoulders. Jack hesitated.

"What's the likelihood of him waking up as his old self?" He asked quietly, folding his arms and looking through the glass as his team approached a curtained off area.

"I'm sorry, Mr…?" He began. but realised he didn't know the man's name.

"Harkness. Captain Jack Harkness." He said with a hint of self mockery in his voice. All those times he'd introduced himself with a grin and a wink and now… Now he was being serious.

"Well, Mr. Harkness, I really can't speculate until we've done more tests." He smiled apologetically and Jack's nodded. "I'll get a nurse to bring you something clean to change into."

"Thank you." Jack said with genuine appreciation.

Lets just hope I can thank you for more than a change of clothes, he thought as he glimpsed the end of a hospital bed through a gap in the curtains surrounding it, his heart tightening painfully.