Boo26
timerelativedimensioninspace
ADDyke
butterfly.cell
emeraldsage85
coffeemagic
Lost Flame
Siobhan Rose
Much love to you all for reviewing, I really appreciate it, believe me! The same goes for all you lovely folks who have story alerted and favourited me. I'd apologise for always leaving you guys with a cliffhanger, but I wouldn't mean it because I love doing that! Continue watching this space, I'm not done yet... xxGhostfishxx
Taking several deep breaths, Ianto gripped the cold metal of the gun tightly and raised it to press into the soft skin beneath his jaw. He felt the cold barrel scratch against the overnight growth of hair on his chin. This would be the quickest way, he'd decided. One flash of pain and then gone. Quick, simple, then he wouldn't have to deal with any of this shit ever again. He'd be with Lisa again.
His finger was tightening on the trigger when he heard the one voice that could have stopped him. He heard his name. He heard the accent. He felt the voice inside his head. Reacting on instinct he turned and aimed dead-on at the owner of the voice, his mind a jumble of anger and confusion.
Jack stood a few feet away, arms spread, eyes betraying the fear beneath the forced calm on his face. Ianto stared at his boss, shocked to see him. He then noticed the rest of the Torchwood team several meters away beneath the trees and let out an unintentional moan of disappointment. How had they found him? Were they here to save him? Why? Why the hell couldn't they just do what they'd been doing for months and leave him alone!
'Go away,' he rasped, staring at Jack and not dropping the gun one millimeter.
Jack raised an eyebrow apologetically. 'Can't do that, sorry.'
Ianto hated him more than he ever had at that point. He hated the control in Jack's voice, the assumption that Ianto would listen to him just like he always had. Jesus, this was the man that had been a hairs breadth away from shooting Ianto himself not so long ago, and now he had the hypocrisy to stand here and tell Ianto not to make that decision?
Ianto let his arm fall, breathing in quick, shallow gasps and wondered what to do now.
He watched numbly as Jack slowly came to join him, kneeling in front of him, the look in his eyes rendering Ianto helpless under their blue stare. Ianto suddenly had the odd sensation of being held, as if his body was somehow no longer under his own control. Keeping him from his escape. To test the theory, Ianto tried flexing his fingers around the gun. He couldn't even move his head to look at the hand to check.
'What's happening?' Ianto asked quietly, unable to break eye contact with Jack. This had to be something to do with the Captain.
He saw Jack swallow before speaking. 'I'm stopping you from doing something incredibly stupid.'
Weird. Ianto frowned (noting absently that he could still make facial expressions, despite the selective paralysis elsewhere). When Jack spoke the voice was strange. It was as if it were layered, doubled up. He felt very uncomfortable all of a sudden, as if something was scratching around inside his head. What the hell was going on?
'I'm sorry, Ianto, I know it's a bit of an invasion,' Jack said. 'But you must know I can't let you do this.'
The words were in his head as well as spoken aloud. Still unable to tear his gaze away from the eyes of the Captain, Ianto swallowed dryly, every movement now seemed painful. It should be done by now, he thought miserably, it should be over... I should be gone.
'I don't want you to go, Ianto,' Jack said quietly.
Ianto felt his eyes widen. How had he done that? Was Jack able to read what he was thinking? Could he always...
'Not always, no,' Jack said. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed, Ianto thought bitterly. Who the hell does he think he is? He has no right to know what I'm thinking.
'What are you doing to me?' Ianto demanded quietly. 'How are you doing this?'
'I can't explain it, it's not important,' Jack replied ambiguously. 'I need to make sure you're safe, that's all, and I'm not about to wrestle with someone as good at shooting a gun as you are.'
Several smart answers to that skimmed across Ianto's mind, none of which he could settle on to insult Jack with. Being so still, he could feel every part of himself with clarity. His heart was hammering in his chest almost painfully and his head ached. This was all Jack's fault. This should be over.
'Bastard,' was all he managed through gritted teeth, feeling with shame the build up of moisture in his eyes.
Unblinking, Jack took a deep breath. Holding Ianto still took an incredible effort, and Jack was out of practice. He could feel a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead as he fought to keep concentration. Thankfully, despite the internal struggle for freedom, Ianto was like a rabbit in headlights.
'Bastard,' the man hissed at him, eyes shining.
'Call me what you like, Ianto, but I'm not going anywhere unless you're coming with me. This stops here.'
'Why? What's the point?'
'Because death is not the answer,' Jack said, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the man. Any false move now and the connection between Ianto and himself would be lost. It was becoming more and more of a struggle to hold him still. 'Believe me, I know.'
Ianto snorted in disgust. 'How would you know? You always come back.'
'But you won't come back, Ianto. And I can't let that happen.' Jack's voice was fierce now, edged by desperation. He could feel it, the determination in Ianto to end his life was terrifyingly strong. If Jack lost control of this...
He forced the thought from his mind, concentrating on the now.
'I don't want to come back, don't you get it?' Ianto was saying, eyes now imploring Jack to understand. 'I have nothing. Nothing. Al I ever had was Lisa, and she's waiting for me. I have to go so as I can be with her again.'
Jack felt a frown crease his brow. 'What do you mean?'
Ianto smiled slightly for the first time. 'They're all waiting for me.'
'They? Who are they?' Jack demanded, and immediately the memory of the Faeries came to him. But it was impossible; Ianto was too old to be a Chosen One, the Faeries only took children. This was something else.
Without warning, Jack felt the connection snap. He pitched forward, unable to stop himself as Ianto pulled away from him. The sheer physical relief from the burden of control making him weak momentarily. Jack looked up to see Ianto, still smiling, as he turned away to his original position in the clearing, staring around the stone circle.
'Can't you see them?'
The portable rift monitor bleeped quietly at Tosh, demanding her attention, which had been flicking between it and the scene in front of her. She couldn't hear what was being said exactly, only snatches of the conversation borne across by the breeze. All any of them could see was Ianto's face as Jack crouched in front of him, the expressions heartbreaking. Tosh had never seen him looking so...lost.
Lifting the small handheld, Tosh noted again the spike in rift activity in the area they were standing in. She couldn't identify it, and it certainly wasn't a tear or they'd have been able to see it in front of them. As she frowned at the monitor, all she could think was that the energy itself from the rift seemed to be centering here.
'Jack? Can't you see them?' Ianto repeated, his voice low and tired, but at the same time full of wonder.
Desperately trying to regain control of the link they'd had – Ianto was now free to use the gun after all – Jack moved forward slowly and sat next to the Welshman on the crackly carpet, staring into the clearing with him.
'I can't see anything, Ianto,' he replied quietly. 'There's nobody here but you and me and the team.'
Tearing his eyes from the scene for a moment, Jack caught the scorn on Ianto's face. 'You can't see them because you don't want to. But you can feel it, can't you? You know something is here.'
Now that, Jack had to admit to. The fractured cloud was still very much around them, overwhelmingly strong now he sat right next to the nucleus of it. But that didn't explain what Ianto was seeing.
He was struck by an idea, a dangerous one considering Ianto still had a firm grip on the revolver in his lap, but worth a try. 'Show me.'
'What?'
'Show me, Ianto.'
Ianto was now looking at Jack as if he were the mad one. That was it: Jack pushed his mind forward again as he held eye contact and was suddenly surrounded by Ianto's mind again. Ianto moaned a protest this time as he felt it happen, and swore under his breath.
'You've no right...'
'Show me what you see, Ianto,' Jack interrupted. If this worked (though he'd never tried anything like this before, it had to be theoretically possible) he might be able to gain some insight into what was happening to Ianto.
Frozen again under Jack's gaze, Ianto frowned. 'How?'
Jack swallowed hard, wishing there was some other way. He didn't feel ready for this but at this point, what choice did he have? It would be worth it if he could bring Ianto back.
And so he opened his own mind to someone else for the first time in centuries.
Iantos' eyes widened visibly as he realized what was happening, that he could now sense Jack in the same way that Jack seemed able to read him. Jack felt his breath hitching with the effort of it, every instinct screaming at him to cut off from this stranger, this intrusion but he fought it. He had to force himself not to blink as his own vision seemed to double, and with a shock he realized that he was seeing through Ianto's eyes, the images that the other man saw ghosting over Jack's own vision.
He could see himself through Ianto's eyes, sitting amongst the clumps of leaves in the forest, could see the trees wavering behind him. It was unclear, like looking at an image through water, but it was exactly what Jack had been hoping for. I'll be damned, Jack thought to himself, unable to believe his luck.
'Can you see them Jack?' Ianto whispered again, and to Jack's surprise Ianto looked away without breaking the connection. Somehow they remained linked despite not having eye contact, something Jack had never experienced before. Maybe it was something to do with the conjoined minds, now Ianto had an equal share in the control.
Jack turned to look at the clearing too, his overlayed vision becoming confused if he didn't look at the same area as Ianto. He squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. What Ianto could see.
There was something else in the clearing now and Jack silently whooped for joy: his gamble had payed off.
Shapes...glowing shapes. People? Jack squinted, he couldn't be sure as the images before him were not completely clear to Ianto himself, so they were even more distorted through Jacks' eyes. He could see enough to discern them though, four of them, all standing in the central area between the stones, apparently watching the scene.
Jack let himself feel what Ianto felt and had to bite back a gasp. All he'd touched upon until now was pain, loneliness from the man beside him, but as he looked out at these glowing forms before him he picked up on the complete opposite. The emotional attachment to each of these beings was extraordinary. Ianto had formed a strong bond with these things. To him, they were real, something he could invest some form of happiness and trust in again after all the pain of the past couple of years.
Jack's chest felt constricted suddenly as the strength of the emotions washed over him. Emotion that was not his own. The connection between them was getting stronger, more established now that Ianto had discovered he could use it too.
Jack? The voice surprised him, inside his head. Jack blinked and breathed deeply, trying not to become overwhelmed with the intensity of it all.
'Yes. Yes I can see them,' Jack finally said aloud, his voice low as he continued to study the images. They were slowly becoming clearer as Jack got used to the layered vision. One was nearer to them than the others, more defined, and it appeared to be sitting on one of the rocks nearest the two men. A wave of feelings that were not his own swept over Jack again at the sight of this one, accompanied by flickering memories that moved too quickly for Jack to be able to understand. But he didn't need to, Ianto knew who it was and so Jack knew.
Lisa? he asked silently.
Yes. I told you. She's waiting for me.
And all of a sudden, Jack had it.
The reason nobody could see these things but Ianto. The reason nothing came up on Tosh's scanner, except for an elevated energy level in the area. This was nothing to do with the Rift, nothing alien, and certainly nothing to do with Faeries.
Ianto was doing this to himself. He had spent so long locked away inside his own hurt that his mind had tried to created an escape route for him, a way out of his pain. The latent empathic ability within him had somehow become fractured, enabling Ianto to project images of people he cared about into something like reality, that he saw as real. Ianto knew these beings were not human, but instead had accepted them as ghosts that only he could see. Ghosts were perfectly feasible in their line of work and so Ianto hadn't questioned it too much. The reason he perceived them as real was because he didn't know that he was responsible for them. As Jack stared at the things that were drawing Ianto away from his own world and into one of his own creation, he knew that this was going to be harder than he originally thought. How do you convince someone that what they think is real is only a fantasy?
Who are the others? He had to ask.
Can't you tell? You'd recognize two of them, Ianto replied, eyes flicking between the three others behind the image of Lisa. Jack followed his gaze as best he could and immediately recognized Suzie.
Suzie? Why is she here, Ianto?
Ianto smiled a little. Because she understands. She knows what it's like when everything gets too much. She knows what I'm feeling.
Jack frowned. But she's dead Ianto. You must know that. So is Lisa. Who are the other two?
That one – Ianto looked at the smallest shape – that's Eugene, remember him? He was happy at the end even though his life was over. He never did anything really, he wasn't really noticed when he was alive. Like me, I suppose. But when it came to him dying he realized it was actually okay, that people had loved him and that he'd see them again one day. He told me about it.
Jack looked at the final figure and felt Ianto's gaze follow. That's my brother, Euan. You never met him. Never will. He was in the army, died in battle, but he's waiting for me too. The only one in my family who ever gave a damn about me was taken away, and now I can get him back.
Ianto turned back to Jack. Jack blinked suddenly, his vision had cleared. Ianto had shut the link that allowed Jack to see through his eyes, surprising Jack with the amount of self control it must have taken to do so. All Jack could sense now was that steely determination, back again full force, and the steady look on Ianto's face as he looked at him.
'I'm going with them, Jack,' Ianto said aloud now. 'They said I can join them, and I want to. You can't stop me. Just let me go.'
Jack shook his head. 'No. You belong here.'
'No I don't. I don't belong anywhere. But with them I'll be safe.'
Jack reached out and grabbed Ianto's arm, the skin cold beneath his fingers, and flinched at the sudden pressure in his head, the psychic link increasing with the physical contact. He'd never felt so connected to someone before, and this was the main reason Jack rarely used his own ability. The strength of other people's emotions could pour unchecked into your own. It was hard enough controlling what you felt within yourself, but it was nigh-on impossible to change the thoughts of someone else.
Ianto truly felt that nobody cared for him anymore, that he was surplus to everyone's requirements. Jack winced as he touched on the memory of his own betrayal in Ianto's mind, a steely flash of hatred and Ianto's own anger at himself for being stupid enough to trust someone again. Jack had known that he'd hurt Ianto by leaving with the Doctor so abruptly, he saw it all over the man's face when he'd returned just as unexpectedly, but he had no idea of the extent of it. Ianto felt...alone. Completely and utterly alone. No wonder the thought of death seemed so appealing. Ianto felt as good as dead already.
Jack struggled to stay afloat in the mire, refusing to be overwhelmed. Ianto needed grounding, and fast.
I'm sorry.
Ianto looked at him sadly. What for?
For leaving you. For letting you cope with this alone. For never asking.
The other man shrugged. It doesn't matter now.
'Yes it damn well does matter!' Jack shouted, rising panic causing him to lose his temper. He could feel Ianto slipping away from him 'I will not let you kill yourself, Ianto Jones, do you understand me?'
'It's not your decision. You can't save everyone Jack, and I don't want to be saved. You have no control over me anymore,' was the reply, Ianto's eyes cold now.
'Ianto, the people you're seeing...they're dead.'
'I know that! I'm not stupid!' Ianto snapped defensively.
'Then you must know that you don't belong with them! You belong here, with me, with us,' Jack said, eyes still trained on the man opposite him. 'We need you.'
The cold blue stare grew harder, and Jack felt a flash of anger. 'Need me? What for? To clean up and make coffee? To feed Myfanwy? To do the paperwork? You don't need me Jack, none of you do. Lisa does. She needs me. She wants me with her, and that's where I want to be too.'
With that, Ianto pulled his arm away from Jack, fingers tightening round the gun again. 'You'll replace me as easily as you did Suzie. Don't worry.'
Jack felt the link snap completely as Ianto shut himself off. Horrified, he watched as Ianto lifted the gun again, pressing it to his temple, eyes squeezed shut.
'Goodbye, sir,' Ianto murmured.
'NO!'
Owen, Tosh and Gwen watched their colleagues in confused fascination. They were speaking in broken sentences, and Tosh had the feeling that they couldn't hear all that was being said between the two. It was spookily reminiscent of conversations she and Mary had had, half aloud, half silent. All three had edged closer in order to hear what was going on, and had thankfully not been noticed.
Gwen couldn't look away, hearing the conflicting pleas of Jack and Ianto. One desperate to die, the other desperate to save. She felt her heart skip as Ianto raised the gun to his head again.
'Goodbye, sir,' he said, eyes shut.
Gwen heard the two beside her scream the word even as she did.
'NO!'
