Some have asked if Jack and Ianto are in a relationship given the fact Ianto said he went climbing at the weekend and Jack clearly wasn't with him.
I would point out the small comment Jack made after telling Owen his VM was already synced to Ianto's Avalanche Location Beacon (So he already knows what the jacket is for as well as the beacon's frequency). "If it happens I will leave you behind." Let's just stop and realise they would probably all be in danger as well and Jack just calmly told Owen his one and only thought would be to save Ianto.
I like to think Ianto and Jack had a complex relationship and were a lot closer than they let the others think, Jack might have made out he didn't know if Ianto had been climbing at the weekend so Ianto could give him an out by making out he had been alone.
Who knows.
It just seemed to sound how they would bluster about with their secret trysts.
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Ianto is now in one of the worst positions possible for a free climb. He is moving up the underside of the overhang and is essentially hanging upside down, knifing his fingers into tiny cracks for support. It's excruciating ... both in terms of muscular effort, and the abrasions that come from forcing fingers into ice and rock again and again. Ianto keeps his hold with one hand and slides the other up, hammering it into a crack wedge with ice ... some of the ice chips whistle past and down ... finally, Ianto gropes one hand over the edge, and pulls himself onto the overhang.
Exhausted, Ianto pulls himself prone across the top.
It's getting dark rapidly ... Ianto has scaled a rock formation so he has a view of the rest of the valley ...Ianto slowly looks along the trees of the valley below, the canopy ... looks pretty ordinary to us, but something must have caught Ianto's eye, because he swings back to look at one tree. With broken branches on top.
He climbs down from his rock perch and rushes toward the tree.
He frantically rushes around, looking for the crash site ... he spots a crater of snow, rushes to it and starts digging. Even below the snow, the tracer's blinking red light is glowing and visible. Ianto laughs as he digs it out.
Something hard is underneath him ... Ianto recovers and brushes the snow off the metal casing that's underneath. It's battered from the fall, but is still barely holding together. Something has managed to force open the trashed locks ... he looks inside the vessel, and fans out his fingers for a small creature to clamber out onto.
"Jesus."
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Jack and Owen look up. They can see Ianto has made it ... but they can't see him, or the crash site anymore.
"Lower it down ... now!" Owen demands, already excited about what he might be able to dissect, after all he's gushed about it all the way here in the SUV.
Ianto has no intention of doing this ... he looks over at a ledge that moves off from it ... and at the ice and snow above.
They try to look up and locate Ianto. They can't. Until Ianto leans over shouting down "I've got a better idea. Why don't you come up and get it?"
With Ianto moves back against the wall, on the ledge that skirts off the overhand ... from Jack and Owen's point of view Ianto can hardly be seen ... since the mountain bulges out as it goes up. Ianto's got a slight edge of cover.
Owen looks at Jack, "He wouldn't leave."
Jack grimaces as he tries to work out what Ianto's doing and then he curses softly, "He's influenced. Something or someone was alive in there. He is creating space, warning us."
Owen looks up, worried ...
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Ianto moves across his thin ledge as Jack runs across his … Ianto ducks back and has to flatten even more against the wall, because his ledge is getting smaller … Owen yells Ianto's name again as Jack swings to motion him not to and above something finally gives way, dropping an avalanche on Ianto who hugs the wall … Only now can we see how much snow and ice had been penned up on the mountain top ... tons of ice and snow sweep down the mountainside
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Owen and Jack are safe at their vantage, but stunned at the sight of the snow... The SUV down at the base is swallowed in an explosion of white … then quiet. The avalanche ends as abruptly as it started. The rumble dies down to complete silence.
"You son of a bitch" Owen mutters as he kicked the side of the mountain and Jack pulls a face of disbelief.
Powdery snow is settling from the avalanche.
Owen takes a pair of overpriced binoculars and looks up "Do you think he's OK?"
"Let's catch up and find out." Jack huffs as they grab their packs, and hurry onto a trail that will lead them up onto the upper ledge where Ianto was hopefully waiting. Nothing is stirring. Until, there's some movement ten feet from where Ianto was hugging the wall.
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It's a crevice in the mountain, about two feet wide ... a climber would call this a "chimney" ... and it's packed with ice and snow. It's also packed with Ianto ... his hand gropes out ... and with some difficulty, he digs himself out, gasping and coughing. Ianto, coated with snow, leans against the wall and rests.
Alive.
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Jack checks his VM ... the blip is above, almost straight up. He motions to the wooded area ahead where a trail can be seen "The next one's a direct line to the top of the peak. This'll be long, but easy ... more like a hike than a climb."
Owen is suspicious as he sits on a rock and shakes snow from his boot "It looks like a winding route. Besides, what if he's not there?"
"There's another route. The East Face. But it's the wall on the other side, and it's smooth as glass. Maybe a dozen guys in the world could do it in good weather. Only a psycho would try it in a snowstorm." Jack replies calmly, "Besides. This is Ianto we are talking about, a seasoned climber. He will head straight up. Direct route, easiest. Even if something is controlling him he will move in this direction, second nature."
Owen digests this, and motions Jack to help him to his feet.
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Ianto is in pain. In spite of the cold and wind, he's drenched in sweat, half exertion, half fear. He is still stuck to a wall. A really big wall. A really, really big wall. A wall that's as wide as it is high ... five thousand feet by five thousand feet ... narrowing to a domed peak at the summit. Now picture the same wall, covered with ice. If this were horizontal, you or I couldn't walk on it without falling.
Now picture the same wall with an orange dot, two-thirds of the way up it. The orange dot is Ianto and he barely has the strength to hold on, much less go up.
Ianto holds himself steady with one hand, gets a foothold, and swings another hand up to SLAM it against the wall.
He's improvised gear ... he's tied a crampon to one hand. But it's as awkward as it sounds. Ianto moves up only a foot or so ... then pulls out the crampon, reaches up, and SLAMS it into the wall, starting the painful process over again.
Ianto is clearly exhausted and freezing ... his lips are blue, his eyebrows encrusted with snow. Wind still threatens to knock him off the wall ... but he forces himself on.
His teeth chattering as he talks softly to himself "A steam bath. (spikes himself up) A steam bath ... and a bottle of whiskey. (new foothold)A steam bath with a bottle of Glenfidich. And a fire. (new handhold)A steam bath ... with a bottle of Glenfidich ... and a steak. (new foothold)A steak soaked with Glenfidich, cooking over a steam bath on fire."
Ianto finally reaches the top of the wall, where it meets an enormous overhang of ice.
Ianto is right underneath where the ice flows over the wall. Ianto takes his handheld crampon and hammers it into the ice overhead with more force than usual. This one is going to have to hold.
Ianto steels himself for a tough move ... with one hand gripping that crampon, he swings out, away from the wall.
Only the crampon spikes jammed into the ice above his hand are keeping Ianto from falling. Ianto needs the second crampon to make the move up ... but that's not going to be easy to get.
It's attached to his boot.
As Ianto clings to the upper crampon, his body swaying, he reaches down with his free hand to loosen the other crampon.
The ground is one slip and five thousand feet away. Ianto fumbles desperately with the buckles on the crampons ... but both his fingers, and the buckles, are frozen stiff ... his face shows real, solid terror for the first time ... Ianto gets the first buckle off ... then the second. The crampon is off his boot.
Still swinging from one hand, he takes the now freed crampon and slams it into the ice. It doesn't hold ... but the force of Ianto's swing, pushing him away, has loosened the other crampon. Ianto only gets one more shot at this ... he swings the free crampon up with all his might ... it catches in the same split second as the other dislodges.
But the hard part is over ... with the two crampons, Ianto quickly manages to climb up over the lip of the overhang.
This is a field of ice sloping up to the top. Ianto pulls himself a few feet away from the edge, and puts the crampons back on his feet where they belong. It's now pretty simple for Ianto to run up the ice slope three hundred yards to the top which is a rocky, wooded area. Ianto seems to have a second wind now ... he runs to the other side of the summit. The other side is obviously the route the others will be taking ... beneath the summit is a winding, well beaten path.
Ianto finally arrives at a small shack where he struggles to get his hands to work, something definitely fighting him as he writes in the dust on the table.
STAY AWAY - PASSENGER
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For those of you who haven't guessed ... I have a weird habit of making my chapters about 800 words ... it's like an OCD thing I can't stop .. Walter is usually around 400. But this story is double the quota ... around 1600 or more per chap so those of you asking for double chaps ... these are. Also why this story will be only 5 chaps long instead of the 10 it would have been ... OK?