ABOMINATION

TWELVE

"Busy doing what?" Ianto asked her again as she stood dead still, looking back at him silently.

Her expression did not change but something in her eyes set off alarms in his head.

Something wasn't right.

"Oh my," she gasped, her eyes suddenly growing larger, as if she'd just witnessed the most astonishing spectacle.

Then, to his horror and dismay as he watched, her irises rolled up into her skull and she collapsed in a heap on the pavement.

"Bloody hell!" Without thinking he quickly looked around and realizing no one was observing them, clicked off the phase shifter. There was the usual momentary feeling of discombobulating metamorphosis and then he was crouching down at the fallen woman's side.

Later he would look back on his actions and wonder what had possessed him to proceed as he did. It would've been so easy to have simply walked away…

But at the time he believed if he acted quickly enough and could make their combined profile small enough he just might be able to encompass her within his phase segment. He picked up the woman, who was heavier than he expected, hugged her closely to his chest and reactivated the device. Then he paused, trying to figure out if he'd succeeded in cloaking the both of them or not. Ah! Right! The Tower! He examined it and saw that neither of them was reflected in the cascading water.

The next step would be to get her inside the Hub. He already knew from experience it would be simple enough for him to walk in through the front office and then head down into the tunnels. That was how he'd done it in the past and the requisites he needed to breach Torchwood security were already in place. There was a likelihood that Jack would sooner or later – probably sooner! – detect him, but that seemed unimportant in contrast to the woman he currently cradled in his arms, the woman who'd so surprisingly confessed to having been phase shifted.

Now that had been a shocker.

But, aside from her astonishing statement, something intangible that he'd not yet quite gotten a handle on had led Ianto to believe the woman was important. Important beyond the phase shifting admission, and way beyond what had occurred between Jack and him.

Consequences be damned, he entered the special access codes that got the two of them inside the Hub. It was as usual easy to walk in cloaked, and he quickly and silently carried the woman through a series of underground passageways to the medical bay's ICU.

As he laid her on a bed and stepped back, allowing her body to separate from the phase segment, he started considering his next action. He'd have to go to Jack and inform him. Once he told his story, everything that followed would be up to the Captain's discretion... He would have to put himself at Jack's mercy. It was a frightening thought to be sure, yet Ianto felt a wave of relief wash over him as if he was waking from a terrible nightmare.

It was only after he turned to leave that he realized Torchwood was under lockdown. The emergency lights were madly flashing. Ianto felt a momentary sense of shock and disbelief. How could he not have noticed? He stopped dead in his tracks.

Apparently the phase device had permitted him to enter the secured Hub unhindered. That was curious.

Curious, but not nearly as interesting – or worrisome – as why the facility had gone into lockdown.

Ianto deactivated the phase device, calmed himself and waited. Nothing changed. Okay, so it was likely the device itself hadn't caused the emergency. What could it have been?

He looked at the person lying motionless on the bed. He was reasonably sure it wasn't her presence that had set off the alarm. Intuitively he ascertained the lockdown must've started before they'd entered. But why? He was torn between trying to help the woman and leaving her where she lay in order to investigate what was going on.

The thought occurred to him that since he was no longer phase shifted Jack should've detected him. Knowing Jack, the Captain normally would have stormed in by now, pissed off as hell and armed for bear. But he hadn't. Things weren't normal.

Something was very wrong indeed, and while Ianto felt responsible for the unfortunate woman, she was as safe in the medical bay as anywhere else in the facility. He could lock her inside so she couldn't leave and get into trouble. Not that she couldn't cause a fair amount of trouble where she was, Ianto thought, as he glanced around at the facility and all of its high-tech gadgetry. He briefly considered restraining her to the bed, but decided it would be an unacceptably cruel thing to do.

At that moment all Ianto knew for certain was that he must find Jack. So he walked out of the room and with a final fleeting look at the red-haired woman, closed and locked the door behind him.