It was time, time tell the truth about him. About his past, present and future. He was certain that this time things would be different.
" Time to stop running." He whispered to himself when he watched Ianto leave the house. This was probably it, his one chance to do what was right. His one chance to safe himself from eternity. In his head, he made a shopping list for the plan he had. He knew Ianto wouldn't be home until late at night so it might be nice to come home to a nicely cooked meal. He barely cooked at all, even though he'd managed to create 5-star meals in his Immortal years. It wasn't very far towards the first supermarket nearby. He'd forgone the car for once and walked his way towards the shop, it gave him some time - and peace - to think his plan through. First, he was going to cook Ianto a meal he hoped would bring his spirits up. Then he wanted to start the conversation about them. And after that, he wanted to show him his reality. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. He was so in thought that at first, he didn't even notice her standing only a few meters away from him. But after he'd gotten a shopping cart and wanted to make his way in, he spotted her. She stood talking to an elderly lady on the side of the road. From shock, he stood still and gaped at her appearance. She looked exactly the same, her clothes had changed though, more modern than all those years ago. Slowly - and without even realising - he walked towards her and before he knew it he stood face to face with the woman who had made his life a living hell on earth.
"You!" He practically screamed in her face. The woman looked up shocked at him, clearly feeling threatened by his appearance.
"Agatha Firewrist! Yo-" at that point the woman he was 100% sure of to be his curser, put her hand on top of his mouth.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not that woman. " She said calmly. Her eyes were twinkling as she looked at him and he just knew that she was not telling the truth or keeping something from him. Harshly he took her hand in his and moved it away from his face.
"I'll see you later Nancy." She said to the other woman who walked away, curiously, towards the flower shop on the other side of the street.
"My name is Lily Gregory. Agatha was my great grandmother." She explained to him and waved him towards the bench where she sat down and stared at him.
"How did you know her?" She asked peculiarly when he sat down next to her. Was she really who she said she was? Could he trust her?
" Right, I know I shouldn't have asked that. Sorry. Great grandmother did a lot of awful things in her time, or so granny told me.'' He had no idea why, but he trusted this stranger.
" You look a lot like her." He sighed, how had he never seen her before in Cardiff?
" Yes, so I've been told on many occasions actually. I'm going to assume you know all about our families history, so you'd know that many a witch has told me the same thing you just did. Some even assumed I was her, she was always talking about finding the elixir of life, so it's no wonder." Her soft smile made him feel a little better about it all. At least her descendants didn't approve of all the things she'd done or had been planning to do. He hadn't really kept a close eye on her or her plans. He'd been too busy trying to save his own skin. He kept quiet, staring at his hands while he tried to think about what to say.
" You're her victim, aren't you? That's why you were so mad when you saw me." Her words brought him out of his trance, his head snapped up and he looked her straight in the eye.
"How do you know?"
" Her magic is all around you, I can feel it." For a moment he doubted if she was her great grandmother's doppelganger, but only looking at her made him sure that the woman in front of him was completely the opposite of what she'd been. But looks could deceive, as he'd had to learn the hard way around.
" A long time ago she cursed me, I'm immortal until I find my true love." He told her like they'd known one another for years on end.
"Oh, I've heard of you. Granny would always tell me of this guy who her mother had cursed with the cruellest thing she could think of. I'm really sorry about that." Her genuine affection showed on her face and even though he could hear her words, it would've felt better to hear it from the curser herself.
" I think my family has something to make up to you. She did murder the rest of the village, so why she rendered you to this fate, I wouldn't know." She began to say. Her apology didn't really make any sense. Why should her family be held responsible for what her great grandmother did out of rage towards the human population? Her hand went towards her chin and her eyes cast upwards. He could practically see the cogwheels turning in front of her head.
"Aha, I know it. As my final act of kindness to humanity, I do this." She swished with her finger in front of his face. At first, he thought she'd been joking as nothing happened. He'd been ready for some kind of hidden camera to come out and surprise him. But then it happened. His airway tightened, his hands flew towards his neck while he struggled to take a breath. Confused and most of all shocked he sprang up and struggled to keep his balance. He stumbled backwards, blackspots covered his vision while he stumbled faster backwards. He didn't know it, but a car was fast approaching. The honks passed by his ears, the invisible hand on his throat disappeared and he took a deep breath and then... his body was impacted by something big. The car, whose driver had expected Jack to move out of the way, couldn't dodge his body and hit him with a great impact, making his body fly several metres through the air before it fell on the floor with an audible thud. Not like he'd noticed any of that, because everything had gone black as soon as the car hit him.
He opened his eyes and he could vaguely see the woman's silhouette. Her panic-stricken face stared at him while she called someone. She leaned closer towards his ear and whispered:'' You're going to be okay." In a mysterious way before everything faded to black altogether.
-0O0-
"Okay, the head is out. We just need one more push. Can you do that?" He asked Mrs Smith. He was currently holding a blood-covered baby head which was sticking out of a woman's vagina, just a usual day at work.
He smiled towards the sweating woman on the bed. The pain she must've been feeling was nothing compared to what any men would be able to imagine. She nodded and he could see her squeezing her husband's hand a little tighter.
"Alright, one, two, three, push!" He told her when the time came, not even a minute after her last contraction. He was taking out the tiny, screaming baby and before he could blink, Lyla, his college had wrapped a cloth around the baby's fragile body. While he held the newborn, his college put the clamp around the umbilical cord and handed the scissors toward the dad.
" If you could cut as close towards the clamp as possible." He told her and held out the baby. It was exactly 14.32 when he held the baby, he would need to remember that for the files. Once cut loose, he took care of the baby, while his colleges took care of Mrs Smith and the sack that would still need to come out of her vagina.
"Yes, yes, it's going to be fine." He told the baby while he tried to calm the young boy before he handed him over towards the young mother.
" There you go little guy, a little bit cleaner." He told him, the baby boy soon quieted down just seconds before he lay him on his mother's chest. With a pained smile, he watched the mother and father adore the kid who had just been born.
"Ianto! Ianto!" A young girl yelled while she ran into the room. Shocked, he looked towards the intruder who carefully closed the door behind her before she put her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath. Her face was beet red and she seemed so young in comparison to most women who worked here, but if he didn't already know her then the nurses uniform could've told him she worked here at the least.
"What is it, Annie?" She looked up and tried to talk with as much energy as possible.
"It's doctor Harper. He says it's urgent."
''I can't, I'm sorry Annie, but I'm busy.'' He told her, what did Owen want of him now?
''He told me you'd say that. So he told me to say it was about Jack. Something's happened.'' His eyes turned the size of saucers and he watched her with an open mouth.
''Just go Ianto, we'll manage,'' Lyla said from next to him. Without a second doubt he - professionally - walked towards Annie and followed her out of the ward. Then without even asking, she began to run and he ran after her. His head was going crazy and it felt like his body had petrified. He just narrowly avoided a collision with another patient '' I'm sorry.'' He yelled towards her and raced away. It wasn't hard to spot which room he had to be once they entered the right ward. Cops were standing just outside the door conversing with a young woman about something. It wasn't uncommon to see cops at the A&E. Owen just left the room in question when he wanted to ask Annie for sure which room they needed to be before his heart started to beat out of his chest and his head began to panic.
" Ah, Ianto, there you are." His face didn't look promising, it looked rather grief-stricken. What was going on? And why was Jack involved?
" Thank you, Annie, could you leave the two of us alone now?" He asked the young nurse, obediently she nodded and walked away. He was quite out of breath when Owen beckoned him closer.
" What's wrong?" He asked, there wasn't enough breath in his lungs to start any long sentences as they'd just been running through the whole hospital in a few minutes time, which usually took far longer on foot, hence why so many doctors made their way through the hospital on a step when they had to go far.
"Let's just go inside, it might be easier if I show you." He said and opened the door he'd just closed behind him. Owen walked in first and he walked behind him, not wanting to see what he feared was going to happen. He watched the ground until he heard the firm click of the door behind him, slowly he brought his gaze towards where he knew the bed would be standing.
"God no!" Left his mouth out of pure shock. There, right in front of him, lay an unconscious Jack. His heart was beating normally and he didn't have a tube in his mouth to provide him with some much-needed air, but the horror in front of him still scared him.
" I'm sorry Ianto," Owen told him, he could feel his friends hand on his shoulder while he fixated on Jack. It couldn't be, just this morning he'd been fine.
" What happened?" He whispered without really registering. His body stood petrified, watching the monitor with one eye and with the other looking at Jack, who seemed to be sleeping there so peacefully.
" Hit-and-run accident. Someone found him and called 999."
" How is he? Any internal bleeding?"
" Miraculously not."
" Brain damage? Or leaking brain fluids?"
" According to the brain scans not, but we can only guess some things until he wakes up. And there's nothing leaking. There was a little swelling in his brain at the beginning but that seems to have gone."
" Bones?"
" His right wrist is in a cast, and so is his left leg. He's going to need all the help he needs when he wakes up and possibly goes home." Home. Possibly. No. No, Jack was going to wake up, he was going to be fine. Before he knew it they would be trying to keep Jack in bed as he knew Jack didn't like hospitals. He knew that Jack would want to go home as soon as possible. Owen - now holding both his shoulders - steered him towards the chair next to the bed and pushed him down on it. He was sure that his knees would give out soon anyway, so it was better to have something to sit on in case his knees really gave out. Owen kneeled down in front of him and stared him in the eye.
" Ianto, Ianto look at me. He's going to be fine. He might take some time to wake, but he's going to be fine, just you see." Owen assured him. Owen was the best doctor he knew, so if he knew more than he would've obviously said so, his friend wasn't the person to give someone false hope.
" How could this have happened?" He murmured to no one at all. Owen was checking something, he wasn't really paying close attention to what exactly.
"I'm not sure, maybe that woman in the hallway knows. She claims she found him on the road at the grocery store."
''And… his spine?'' he barely dared to voice it. It was very common for a victim to come in with spinal cord injuries or even worse, a broken neck. He didn't want Jack to get paralyzed. He leaned forwards in his chair and grabbed Jack's left arm in his hands.
''No, he's going to be fine. Like I told you.'' As quick as a leopard he shot up out of the chair.
''I've got to go back to work.'' He mumbled more to himself than to Owen. But his friend was the one who stopped him, both physically and mentally.
''Ianto, you're not fit to work like this. Sit.'' Owen said and pushed him back into the chair.
''I'll clock you out and arrange with HR for you to get free the rest of the day.'' With that Owen walked out of the room and left him alone with a peacefully sleeping Jack. He seemed so innocent when he was asleep. No worries, no… nothing.
A nurse came in and without a word handed him the plastic bags with Jack's possessions. Everything - even the cut-off clothes - he'd been wearing on him. He put the bag with the clothes aside and checked if Jack still had his most precious possessions. He could see his wallet, keys, some weird kind of wrist strap and there it was: the high-quality picture of the young girl he knew nothing about, but at the same time knew she was important to Jack. He closed the bag and put it next to him on the chair. The only sounds he could hear were those of the beeping machines and their breath. Deep breath in, and out. He was going to be okay.
''I love you, you dumbass.''
A/N: I hope you like it and please leave a reivew.
XXXFredAndGeorgeForever