Chapter 11
Ryan learned quickly in the bizarre alternate universe that he'd been thrown into. Never, ever say that nothing will shock you anymore. Ever. Because sure as eggs, it will find a way to smack you upside the head with a rubber chicken and run away giggling. Nick, Stephen and Connor in a committed, albeit unorthodox, threesome? Not a problem. Kinda… Aliens trying to take over the world?
That takes some getting used to.
And in getting used to his slightly off-kilter new world, Captain Tom Ryan found himself in a position that was both unusual and not-so-unusual position for him to be in. Head down, flinching slightly, gun blazing in a combat situation? Not-so-unusual. Fighting for his life, back to back with a former tax consultant and a government cover-up specialist against alien forces that looked like Satan's version of Mr Potato Head? That was unusual.
"Reloading!" Mariko called dropping back.
Ryan shifted slightly, covering her. Mariko reloaded quickly and efficiently, glasses askew on her face, making Ryan shake his head as he turned back to his own enemies. She hadn't even had time to swap her contacts in. Ryan swore softly under his breath, knowing subconsciously he was running low on ammo. Any second now… He should really pull back.
Click.
"Fuck. Reloading!" he dropped back, just as Mariko had done.
He felt his pocket. Nothing. He felt his belt. Nothing. Oh shit…
"Ianto… I'm out. Really out!"
"What?!" Ianto flicked his head back to see Ryan, empty-handed and utterly frustrated in the dirt behind him.
He kept one finger on the trigger, bracing his gun against his chest and fumbled through his own pockets, tossing a magazine in Ryan's general direction, "Here! But that's my last too!"
Mariko spoke up, "I'm on my last, now, Ianto."
"Shite…" Ianto risked a glance over at Mariko, "We need to…"
His answer was cut short in a cry of pain as one of the Toclafane rushed forward and slashed at his chest. He staggered back, breathing harshly, blood rapidly staining the tear in his shirt and dripping down his side. Mariko let out a sound she refused to acknowledge as a wail and swung her assault rifle around, destroying the Toclafane completely.
She only lowered her gun when the chamber began to click over, "Ianto?"
Mariko finally came back to herself and clued in, "Ianto!" she ran to him, pressing her hands down on the wound.
"Easy, Mariko… It's not as bad as it looks," Ianto looked a little stunned.
"Little help!" Ryan called over his shoulder.
Ianto gave Mariko a quick smile and gently took her now-bloodied hands away from his chest, "On it!" he pulled his gun up again and started firing.
"Well it's about time," Ryan yelled back, shooting another Toclafane out of the air.
"Shut up," Ianto grumbled at him, twisting away with a muffled curse as the Toclafane in front of him exploded.
He turned back, ready to fire at whatever Toclafane remained. But none did. They had all gone. Ianto's eyes narrowed suspiciously. That wasn't like them. Back up. They'd gone for back up. Had to have done. Ianto turned to Ryan to voice his concerns and blinked in shock when he couldn't see him.
"Ryan?" he glanced around, "Bloody hell! Ryan!"
Blood covering his face, Captain Tom Ryan lay flat on his back on the floor. Ianto dropped to his knees next to him, hissing as his wound pulled. Mariko followed quickly, wiping Ianto's blood off her hands and grimacing lightly before poking as perfunctorily as she could through the blood on Ryan's face.
"Head wound, deep," she pulled her hands away, blood covering her fingertips, "He probably got beaned by a piece of Toclafane as it whizzed past."
"Breathing?" Ianto still looked concerned.
"Yeah… pulse is steady too. He should be fine. Just a nice little scar and a bitch of a headache."
"Good…" Ianto's voice sounded distracted.
"What now?" Mariko didn't look up.
"Where's Stephen?" Ianto struggled to keep his voice calm.
"With the second SUV," Mariko still didn't look up, "Why?"
"Call him, please?"
Mariko looked up, "Fuck me sideways."
"Now, Mariko!"
She wasted no more time, "Stephen!" she all but yelled into her com, "Get that car round here now!"
"Coming!" Stephen's voice crackled through her earpiece.
She stayed crouched by Ianto, protecting the still unconscious Ryan, and looked down at the disaster that lay before them. Ianto had been right… in a manner of speaking. The Toclafane had found back up. But they had found it in the refugee camp below. Terror filled screams and the almost gleeful whirring of the Toclafane blended together in discordant harmony.
The screeching of tyres and harshly pressed brakes added to the cacophony of sound. Mariko and Ianto both snapped their heads around to look, letting their shoulders slump in relief, only minutely, as Stephen barrelled around the corner in the SUV. He stopped, skidding a little and visibly fighting the wheel.
He opened the car door and swore as he saw Ryan, "I take it this is why I'm here?"
"Yeah," Mariko stepped around Ryan's prone body and opened the back of the SUV, "I want more weapons too."
"More?" Stephen looked shocked, "What happened to the…" he saw the Toclafane descending on the refugee camp and his expression hardened, "Oh."
He helped Ianto manoeuvre Ryan's limp form into the backseat of the SUV. He carefully shut the door behind him, before moving around the back of the SUV to shut the doors Mariko had left open. Stephen raised an eyebrow when he saw the amount of firepower missing from the back of the car, but shut the door anyway, turning to try and find the petite woman. He frowned. Then ducked his head around the other side of the car. No sign of her.
"Where's Mariko?" he asked of Ianto, making the blonde man's head snap up in horror.
"What?" his eyes darted around, "She's not here?"
"No…" Stephen ran for the driver's seat, "Oh shit."
"What? What, what, what?! No 'oh shit'!" Ianto ran up beside him, then slumped in defeat, "Oh shit."
"What is she doing?" Stephen shook his head as they both watched Mariko skid, practically on her behind, down the embankment leading to the refugee camp.
Ianto shook his head, practically wringing his hands, "I don't know…"
Then, at almost the exact same time, both men saw what had caught Mariko's eye and heartstrings. Animals. Lots of them. Caged and fenced to stop them running wild. Now sitting ducks for the Toclafane. Ianto and Stephen both blanched. Ianto pushed off the SUV and grabbed for some more ammo. Stephen grabbed his wrist. Ianto glared at him.
"What are you doing, Ianto? There's no way you could catch her. And even if you did, you'd only be making yourself a sitting duck too!"
"But…" Ianto growled in frustration.
"Get in the car, you idiot," Stephen shoved him towards the passenger seat, "We'll find her."
Ianto reluctantly got in the SUV and buckled his seatbelt, pulling the door shut. His hands clenched, white knuckled in his pants as Stephen pulled away. He kept his head down, not wanting to watch as they left Mariko behind. Stephen kept his foot on the accelerator, not wanting to give Ianto any opportunity to turn back.
"You'll have to stay with Ryan," Ianto broke the silence.
"What? What about the plan?" Stephen took his eyes off the road for a fleeting second.
"The plan went to hell in a shopping trolley the second Ryan got hurt," Ianto snapped back.
Stephen growled at his tone, but nodded, "Right, I'll take him back to the pub."
Ianto nodded, spotting the rainwater tank and cyclone fence that marked their meeting point, "Here," he said, "Just here."
Stephen braked slowly, eyes flicking up to the mirror, trying to watch both Ryan and the road, "Right. I'll see you back at the pub. Don't die."
"Don't run yourself off the road," Ianto returned the friendly goodbye and slid out of the car.
Stephen drove off. Ianto watched him go, then turned to the rainwater tank, trying to find Spanner and trying to ignore the fact that Mariko should be with him. Mariko… Gunfire echoed through the refugee camp, making Ianto spin on his heel. It also made the refugees panic. En masse, they began to run, scrambling and pushing at each other, trying to get to the gate, to any kind of safety they could find. He stared, wide-eyed, down into the refugees, knowing it was an exercise in futility to try and find Mariko in the sea of people. But… his heart twisted… She was in there somewhere.
He looked around, "Spanner?" he called hesitantly into the crowd, "Connor?"
A few of the refugees that had milled by the gates looked up, "Let 'em go, lad," a sad-eyed old woman called to him, "If they're in there, t'aint no way they comin' back."
Ianto gave her a weak smile in return, "Spanner?" he tried again, "Connor? Nick?"
"Ianto?" he heard faintly.
"Ianto!" came again.
"Spanner!" Ianto shoved through the crowd of refugees fleeing through the gates, "Spanner!"
"Ianto!"
Ianto swung his head round, trying in vain to find his redheaded friend, "Spanner?!"
"Up you useless Welsh bastard, look up!"
Ianto stopped dead, tilting his head back, and spotting Spanner crouched on a rainwater tank above him, "Have you seen her?!" he called up, pushing through the crowd towards Spanner's position.
"Mariko?" Spanner shook her head, moving around on top of her rainwater tank, "Not as yet."
"Christ…" Ianto rose up on his toes, ignoring the blood running down his side from his newly opened wound, "Mariko?!"
"Give it up, Ianto, you'll never find her in this lot," Spanner's eyes were sympathetic, even as her voice was hard, "Get back to the car, dumbass, you're bleeding."
"What's going on?" Connor skidded to a stop next to Ianto, tilting his head up to Spanner.
"Mariko… She's somewhere in there," Spanner jerked her chin at the sea of refugees.
Nick appeared on Ianto's other side, "Jesus Christ…"
"She hurt?" Connor was watching the people intently.
"God, I hope not…" Ianto murmured fervently.
Spanner answered the question for him, "She wasn't last time I saw her."
Connor nodded, "Right then," he shrugged out of his coat, passing it off to Nick, "Hold that," his rifle followed, "And that."
"Connor… what?" Ianto blinked at him.
Connor grinned sheepishly, "That," he pointed to the sea of people that Mariko was lost in, "Looks like a Star Wars Convention Tom, Duncan and I went to in first year. We lost Duncan. He just… wandered off," his eyes softened at the memory, "And if I can find an overweight teenager in glasses at a Star Wars Convention, I can find Mariko in that."
And with that he disappeared into the crowd.
Connor slid through the crowd, bumping into people occasionally, murmuring apologies as he did, eyes scanning around him. Then he saw her. Mariko was pale faced and wan, leaning up against a wall, wedged between a barrel and a dumpster. Blood stained her lower left pants leg, making Connor blanch slightly, even as he hurried towards her.
"Mariko?" he crouched down in front of her.
A gun barrel appeared in front of him, "Don't fuckin' touch me…" the voice was slurred and the hand holding the gun shook slightly, but the ice in Mariko's eyes was unmistakable.
"Easy, Mariko! It's me, its Connor…"
The gun barrel wavered, the dropped back to Mariko's side, "The fuck're you doin' 'ere…?"
"Looking for you," Connor sidled into the tiny space Mariko was wedged into, "If I help you, can you stand?"
"'Spose so," Mariko looped her arms around Connor's shoulders, "Jesus, watch th' leg…"
"Sorry, but you're wedged in here pretty tight," Connor managed to manoeuvre Mariko out from her hidey-hole with as little pain as he could.
Curling an arm around her waist and letting Mariko rest her weight against him, Connor half carried the slight Asian woman back through the crowd. Every person they bumped into now received a snarled curse instead of a murmured apology. When Mariko stumbled against him, Connor helped her over to the nearest wall, lowering her to the floor.
"What're we doin' on the floor 'gain?" Mariko scowled at him, blearily.
"Resting," he told her blandly, "You're fat."
"Boku no shiri ni kisu siro!" Mariko snapped angrily at him, obviously swearing.
"About half past four," Connor returned in the same bland tone.
"Ketsunoana!"
"Turn left at the next roundabout."
Mariko glared at him, before mumbling, "Yaka mashi," something Connor assumed meant he should shut the hell up.
So he did. The two sat in silence, Mariko closing her eyes wearily and leaning her head back against the wall, trying to ignore the pain in her leg. Connor kept watch, eyeing off the crowd of refugees, whilst simultaneously keeping an eye on Mariko.
After a while, Mariko cracked open a weary eye and looked at Connor, "We goin'?"
Connor nodded, "You okay to get up?"
"Yeah," she waited until Connor's dark shaggy head had bent near hers to help her up, then clipped him hard upside the head, "Don't call me fat, you ratbastard."
"Ouch!" Connor grinned wryly at her, "And there's the Mariko we know and love."
Together the two made their way slowly through the sea of refugees once more. Mariko limped heavily, leaning hard against Connor, but she pressed on, encouraged by Connor's words. Connor's eyes scanned the above the crowd for Spanner on top of her water tank. There… He shifted direction slightly, murmuring an apology at Mariko's disgruntled yelp.
Spanner kept her own eyes on the crowd, perched on her water tank. She scanned the sea of people in the impossible task of finding two. Separate or together, she didn't know. She growled to herself at the impossibility of the situation. Spanner pivoted on her heel to tell Ianto that she couldn't find them. And froze. Was that…? Slowly, she moved her head back across the crowd, narrowing her eyes slightly. There!
"They're coming! He has Mariko!"
Ianto stretched up onto his toes, craning his neck, trying to pick Connor out of the crowd, "Where, Spanner?"
Then he spotted them. Spotted her…
"Mariko…" Ianto shoved his way past Nick, breaking into a run and skidding to a stop in front of Connor and Mariko.
"You stupid, stupid woman," he breathed, staring at her leg.
"Hello to you too, Ianto," Mariko turned a weary face up to him.