Bluebirds Part 12
"If you stare at it long enough, it starts to look like one of those 3D Magic Eye puzzles" Owen said, holding one of the photographs of the stone tablet that had fallen out of the rift close to his face.
The meeting room table was a sea of photos and take-away containers, photocopies of glowing alien glyphs half hidden under serviettes and paper cups.
"Except there's no hidden picture.' Owen continued, dropping the photo back on the table. 'Maybe it's defective."
Gwen had found the tablet in the custody of a Weevil the night before, and despite the efforts of the entire team they were still no closer to identifying its origin or translating the glowing text inscribed on its face. They had stayed late at Jack's insistence, and both ideas and enthusiasm were running thin.
"It might be part of a set.' Toshiko suggested, looking at the photos of the lengthy inscription. 'Maybe we should archive it and wait to see if something similar shows up."
"Yes- brilliant.' Owen said enthusiastically. 'Ianto- give it a stupid name, stick in a drawer and let's go home."
Ianto stifled a yawn as he looked at his watch. "The Sleep-late Plate?"
Owen rolled his eyes. "The Fuck-knows Prose."
Ianto nodded. "I like it."
Rolling her eyes at them, Gwen reached over the cartons of take-away to look at the photo.
"Are these markings similar to the glyphs on that amulet we found last year?"
Ianto shook his head. "I thought so too, but I pulled it out of storage and it's not a good match…"
At the end of the table Jack was fidgeting in his chair, too distracted by the nagging pain in his hips to properly engage with either the conversation or his dinner. Feeling felt short of breath and nauseated, he shoved his food away only to see it gently rebound back towards him.
"You might feel better if you eat some of that." Owen told him, his voice low under the conversation of the others.
Jack wasn't in the mood.
"Make him eat it.' He said, gesturing at Ianto sitting behind his own uneaten dinner. 'Mother someone else for a change."
Owen sighed angrily, dropping his fork down on the table with a clatter that killed the general conversation.
"I can't take any more of this tonight.' He said, reaching for his jacket. 'I'll finish the chemical analysis tomorrow."
The general murmur of agreement from the table was drowned out by Jack's voice, harsh and booming in the small room.
"Sit down. We're not leaving until we figure this out."
Owen hesitated, but shrugged his jacket on over his shoulders.
"This isn't urgent- we don't have to analyse every piece of rubbish that falls out of the rift like it's the Rosetta Stone. I'm not staying."
Jack narrowed his eyes angrily at Owen and opened his mouth, rising from his chair for the eleventh time in ten minutes.
"Woah!" Gwen said loudly from across the table, holding up her hands. "Stop. Do not say whatever it is you are about to say, Jack. No one's leaving but I think we all need a break. Owen, take Jack down to the lab and do something about his back before hell breaks loose. Ianto, we could all use a coffee if you don't mind. Tosh, finish your dinner in peace. I'm going out for a bit of air."
Owen grabbed Jack and steered him out of the room before Jack could react, pulling him down the stairs to the bay and dumping him on the exam table. Jack popped back up as soon as Owen let go of his arm, intending to head back up the stairs to yell at Gwen for issuing orders, but Owen blocked his way, holding a hand up to his chest.
"You're obviously not feeling great. Tell me what's going on, then you can go and yell at who ever you want."
Jack didn't respond.
"Come on, I haven't finished my dinner and apparently it's going to be a long night.' Owen said impatiently. 'Which is it? Back or hips?"
Jack pictured himself running- a fast sprint through the doors of the tourist office and out into the rain, his coat swinging around his legs, body moving easily and without pain, his digestive system all his own.
He sighed.
"Both."
"Well, come over here then. And for fucks sake take off that coat so I can look at you. Shirt too." Owen examined Jack's back, measuring his hips with his hands.
"Your joints are loosening. That's good…"
Jack remained silent. He was having trouble focusing on Owen, feeling light-headed again. He reached a hand out and felt the tiles of the wall. The cold ceramic felt good under his palm and he suppressed an impulse to lean his whole body into the wall and let it cool his skin. Maybe he would indulge himself in this as soon as Owen left him alone, he thought.
Jack felt Owen's hands on him again, thumbs digging into the muscles of his lower back. The pressure made him swear and bend but brought relief and he pressed back against Owen, trying to ease the ache.
"This is kinda hot." He teased Owen half-heartedly, coughing as he ran out of breath.
The tiles of the wall seemed closer than they had a moment ago. Jack thought he heard Owen speaking, but couldn't make sense of his words, feeling a wave of prickling heat wash over his face accompanied by more dizziness. He felt the tiles against his face as he slid out of Owen's grasp. They felt so good. Jack didn't want to move, but knew he should.
"I can't breath." Jack felt his lips moving, slurring against the wall. Had he spoken? He must have, he thought, seeing a mask descended through his line of vision.
The mask covered his face and reality came rushing back like magic.
He was on the floor and Owen was holding him under the arms, trying to support his head while Tosh held the mask in place. Owen must have yelled for her, and Jack wondered if Ianto and Gwen were also nearby.
As the world pulled back into focus, Jack's first thoughts were not for himself. Knocking the mask off his face, he grabbed at Owen's shoulder as he lent over him with the scanner. Owen looked up at Jack's touch and nodded.
"She's okay." He said, pushing the mask back up to his face.
Jack closed his eyes. Ianto was above him somewhere, Jack could feel his hand against his face. He felt lonely, like a feather floating in a dark sky. Hands lifted him up into the air, and he let himself drift into the darkness.
000
Ianto couldn't reach the biscuits. He jumped and grabbed at the tin but only succeeded in pushing it further back on the high shelf where he had hidden it from Gwen. Looking around for something solid to stand on and finding nothing, Ianto leapt at the shelf again with no better luck.
He didn't really feel like eating, but his inability to get at the tin had elevated its importance. Feeling suddenly small and helpless, Ianto turned away from the shelf in frustration.
He had just returned from the med bay where he had been sitting by Jack as he slept. Owen had told him that Jack's blood pressure had dipped and that his lung capacity was reduced, although Owen told him this would ease as the ligaments in Jack's hips continued to soften, allowing the baby to drop away from his lungs. Owen had placed Jack on oxygen, taking care to explain that it was 'just temporary' and 'nothing to freak out about'.
He had helped Owen to drag the table against the wall, propping Jack semi-upright with as many pillows as the could locate to maximise the space in his chest cavity. When they had finished, Ianto sat beside him frozen and worried. He had wanted to reach out to Jack, smooth his hair and touch his face, maybe even sob into his shoulder while he waiting to feel the movement of their baby, but his whole body had felt awkward and locked. Not wanting Jack to wake up and see him paralysed with fear but totally unable to fight his inertia, Ianto had left his side.
Leaving the room hadn't really helped, he reflected as he turned back to stare at the out of reach biscuit tin. Finding himself once again lost and motionless, Ianto grabbed a tea towel and began to tidy up the small kitchen. While searching in the cabinets for the de-scaling liquid for the coffee machine, a cardboard box caught his eye, the words 'fuck off' neatly printed in black texta on the top. Offended by both the expression and the unfamiliar object in what Ianto viewed as his kitchen, he pulled the box out on to the floor and opened the cardboard flaps.
Ianto shook his head when he saw what was inside.
The box contained a case of wine. Ianto pulled a bottle out, inspecting the label. It was a cheap shiraz cleanskin, a vintage so young that it promised to bludgeon anyone brave enough to drink it with a blunted double edge of foul taste and brutal hangover. Judging from the quality of the wine and the warning label, Ianto guessed that the box must belong to Owen; probably some kind of end-of-days provision stashed away in case circumstances ever required that he be quarantined inside the hub with no one but the rest of the team for company.
Ianto shut his eyes and sat down heavily next to the box, feeling the concrete walls of the hub looming over him. Owen had suggested he go home and get some sleep, repeating over and over that Jack would be fine before finally throwing up his hands in frustration and leaving him to it.
Ianto thought about his home- a sparsely furnished bedsit with nothing but his clothes, toiletries and a few books to indicated his presence there. The contents of the life he had shared with Lisa was boxed up in a storage unit in London, their photos, furniture and crockery all neatly labelled and locked away like the artefacts in the vaults.
His home now was Torchwood, the place where he kept his identity and sense of purpose. Sometimes he wondered if he temporarily ceased to exist when he stepped out of the cog door each night, only rematerialising when he unlocked the tourist information office in the morning. No, he didn't want to go to his flat, but Owen was right: staying wasn't doing him any good either. Fuck it, he thought as he pulled himself up off the floor.
"Is he really alright?" He asked, raising his voice so that Owen could hear him at his desk.
"Yes. Go home." Came the short response.
"I'm going down to the archives."
"Whatever…" Ianto ignored Owen's barely audible but prolonged muttering and looked back down to the box at his feet.
Deciding that possession was indeed nine-tenths of the law, Ianto grabbed a bottle, leaving the box open on the floor. Fuck it, Ianto thought again. Owen could yell at him later, if he could find him. The wine hidden under his jacket, Ianto headed for the tunnels, relieved to have found an activity that would doubtlessly keep him busy, if only for a few hours.
Thanks for reading! Next Chapter coming soon - We're not going to sit in doom and gloom forever, but fluff really isn't on the cards for this one. Thank you again to the kind reviewers, you guys are great motivators!
