Chapter Thirteen

"You should be dead." Owen told Jack when they met him in front of the platform.

"I'm the stubborn type." Jack responded, grabbing the blow torch and the sauce they used to feed Myfanwy. "Get behind me."

"That's right, stay back. This'll at least give you a heartburn." Jack warned the Cyber-women as she started approaching.

"The power will run out. I can wait." The cyber-women responded calmly.

"Jack, help her. Give her a chance to surrender." Ianto pleaded.

"Have you not seen what she's done?" Owen demanded.

"Let her stay in the cells. We have to reverse the process." Ianto continued to plead.

"I've told you we're past that. Hold him back." Jack ordered Gwen and Owen since I was still covering them even if my bullets had proven useless at this point. The two bullet holes in Lisa's stomach were bleeding weekly but she didn't seem remotely effected by them.

"What are you gonna do?" Gwen questioned.

"Don't ask questions. Just get him on there and hold him." Jack ordered.

Owen and Gwen obeyed, making sure to keep a strong grip on Ianto who was struggling. I stepped back so I was on the edge of the platform, lowering my gun slightly since Jack seemed to have a plan. With us out of the way Jack squirted the sauce over the cyber-women.

"What is that stuff?" Gwen questioned, not understanding what Jack was doing.

"Kind of barbecue sauce. It helps her identify its food."

"Help who identify its food?" Gwen questioned.

"I'm sorry." Jack said softly, pressing a few buttons that summoned Myfanwy to let her know there was food. He stepped back on to the slab and looked down at his wrist strap nervously. "Come on, Tosh, hurry up."

"You'll kill her." Ianto shouted, struggling harder against Gwen and Owen. "Let me go. Let me help her!"

Suddenly the slab began to raise and Jack placed a supporting hand on my shoulder as I wobbled slightly. I didn't normally take this exit, and I had never done so while standing so close to the edge.

"Hold him still." Jack ordered, not wanting to lose a member of his team, no matter what they had done.

"No!" Ianto shouted as the dinosaur over powered the cyber-woman. "Call it off her. You can do that. Have some fucking mercy." Ianto's shouts mixed with the cyber-woman's screams of pain.

Finally, they emerged topside to see Tosh running towards them. "It worked! What happened to…" she started to question.

"No." Jack shook his head to let her know that they had killed her.

When Jack turned back to Ianto he surprised everyone by punching him hard enough to send Jack stumbling back. "You could have saved her. You're worse than anything locked up down there. One day, I'll have the chance to save you, and I'll watch you suffer and die."

"It was the only thing that would stop her!" Jack shouted back, trying to get through to his distraught employee.

"Listen. When I was at reception, I managed to trip the lockdown timer. The power should be coming back on any second. We can get back in." Tosh said, trying to defuse the situation.

"Ianto!" Jack shouted as he took off like a bullet. Normally I would have easily caught up with the archivists but the electricity that had been passed through my body was starting to take its toll and the run of emotions was overwhelming me. I was only just fast enough to keep pace with Jack.

"Ianto, stop." Jack shouted, trying to catch up with Ianto before he got in the tourist office.

"She can't have survived that attack." Gwen panted.

"I used my initiative. I'm sorry." Tosh shouted from besides Owen at the back of the group.

"When I want you to think for yourself, I'll tell you." Jack said, obviously completely frustrated with how everything had gone to hell.

"Maybe if you'd told me your plan, I wouldn't have done it." Tosh responded.

They all stumbled into the tourist information centre to find Ianto pointing a gun at them.

"Ianto, don't be stupid." Gwen said patronisingly when she realised what Ianto was holding.

"I've nothing left to lose." Ianto responded brokenly.

"There's always something left to lose." Jack said softly, hoping to talk down Ianto but recognising that that probably wouldn't be possible considering his mind was clouded with so many emotions.

"I'm going back in to save her. Anybody tries to stop me, I'll shoot them." Ianto threatened, but there was a quiver in his voice. Jack noticed this too and moved quickly to disarm him, putting the gun at Ianto's head instead.

"You make a threat like that; you'd better be prepared to follow it through. See? You disobey me now, I really will shoot you." Jack said seriously.

"Get off me." Ianto struggled against Jack's hold.

"You want to go back in there? You go in to finish the job. If she's still alive, you execute her."

"No way." Ianto said, and I could see it on his face. He was breaking. It was one thing to have your soul-mate killed, it was another thing to actually go in there and kill her. Even if Ianto accepted that Lisa died at the battle of Canary Warf, going in there now would mean he would never recover. And I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let him suffer any more than he had too.

Moving quickly, I ducked into the secret passage and activated the lockdown. It would take Tosh a minimum of ten minutes to override it and get back into the hub.

"RAVEN!" Jack shouted my name and I turned to look at him through the glass panel. My eyes flickered to Ianto's horrified glaze before I turned around, straightening my spine and marching down the passage with my gun raised. Jack would come to understand what I was doing, and I had no doubt that I could earn his forgiveness. But I didn't know about Ianto. I didn't know if I could earn his forgiveness, but right now the safety of the planet and Ianto's fragile physique was more important to me than his forgiveness.

Entering the hub, I noticed two fresh pizza boxes on the floor and the computer was flashing red alerting me to a power drain. My eyes widened in horror as I realised an innocent had come into the hub. I ran down to the basement, to find the conversion unit empty, and the cyber-women's body on the floor, bleeding from numerous wounds. From the shadows a young woman stepped, a scar running along her forehead.

"What have you done?" I demanded, raising my gun.

"I transplanted my brain into this new body. Ianto fought so hard for me, I thought we could upgrade together." She explained. With those words my heart clenched painfully, Lisa was truly gone. I pulled the trigger and shot the girl once through the forehead, killing her quickly.

Tears flowed down my cheeks, but I couldn't stop and cry. Ianto couldn't know that another person had died because of Lisa. I went and grabbed some body bags before hiding the pizza girl in a room. I also placed Lisa in one, but I left the face open so that Ianto could see her. While looking for the body bags I came across the body of a man – his eye transplanted. I placed him in the same room as the girl.

Raven didn't notice when we entered the hub. She had gotten some gloves and was on the floor, cleaning up the blood while singing to herself – tearing rolling down her face unchecked.

And in my twisted face

There's not the slightest trace

Of anything that even hints of kindness

And from my tortured shape

No comfort, no escape

I see, but deep within is utter blindness

Ianto ran over to the cyber-women's body which had been placed in a body bag although it was left open, and cradling her while he cried to the sound of Raven's voice.

Hopeless

As my dream dies

As the time flies

Love a lost illusion

"Owen, could you check Ianto over. When's he's cleared, Tosh can you take him home?" Jack asked quietly, looking at the two broken members of his team.

"Yeah." Owen muttered before moving over to Ianto. Tosh nodded her head; she had been the least harmed out of all the team and the least trapped since she had been sent out of the hub. And as she had been closer to Ianto prior to this incident, and she knew what it was like to betray someone for those you love, she didn't hold as much anger against Ianto as Jack was sure Owen and Gwen would. And right now, he was too emotionally compromised himself to make a rational decision.

Helpless

Unforgiven

Cold and driven

To this sad conclusion

It took a bit of work but Owen eventually got Ianto to let go of Lisa and Tosh escorted him out of the hub when Owen said Ianto was only suffering from extensive bruising.

No beauty could move me

No goodness improve me

No power on earth, if I can't love her

No passion could reach me

No lesson could teach me

How I could have loved her and make her love me too

If I can't love her, then who?

Long ago I should have seen

All the things I could have been

Careless and unthinking, I moved onward

No pain could be deeper

No life could be cheaper

No point anymore, if I can't love her

No spirit could win me

No hope left within me

Hope I could have loved her and that she'd set me free

But it's not to be

If I can't love her

Let the world be done with me.

(If I can't love her – Beauty and the Beast)

"Raven." He called, approaching the youngest member of his team once she had finished her song and bit back a sob. He didn't recognise the song, but Raven had told him that she had memorised every Disney song ever written so that she could sing her sisters and the other younger children she came across to sleep. With that knowledge, he assumed that the song she had sung was a Disney.

Her head snapped up immediately. "Sir?!" she asked and Jack nearly flinched. Raven hadn't called him Sir before, always Captain or Jack.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly, knowing it was a stupid question.

"No, but I will be." Raven responded, sitting back and staring around the room. Noticing that Ianto wasn't present she turned back to Jack. "There's another two bodies. They're in the room next door, I couldn't let Ianto know about the pizza girl. He would have broken if he had to kill or seen Lisa killed. Jack, I couldn't let him break, I couldn't." she trailed off into broken sobs and Jack grabbed her in a hug.

"Gwen, Owen could you deal with the bodies. And I know it's not a nice job, but can you clean away what's left of the blood?" he asked, lifting his youngest employee in his arms.

"Yeah." Gwen responded, choosing not to argue since it was clear Raven wasn't going to respond to anyone else right now.

"I need to check Raven over for injuries." Owen said hesitantly.

"Let me clean her up, when she's asleep you can check her over while I dismantle the conversion unit." Jack decided, before carrying her out of the basement.

Eventually Raven cried herself to sleep in Jack's arms and he placed her gently on his sofa, removing her jacket and gently washing the blood off her hands. Her jacket was probably unsalvageable. It was her favourite jacket, long and warm it acted like a security blanket for her, no matter where she was.

Jack sighed softly as he gently ran his hands through Raven's hair. He really didn't know what to do. Raven had gone down to the hub to stop Ianto from breaking, he couldn't discipline her because now he was starting to think with a clear head again, he realised she was right. He should have never ordered Ianto go and kill his soul-mate, no matter what form she was in. Now all he could hope was that Raven wasn't damaged by killing someone.

And he needed to figure out how strong her empathy was. He had been noticing that the longer she spent around him and the team, the more in tune with their emotions she was. She had also gotten better with dealing with other people, such as the police and the public, when they attended a crime scene. It was like the longer she was around the hub, and the centre of the rift, the more powerful her empathy was.

If he was right, and she was getting stronger, then he needed to teach her a way of controlling it, and coping with the emotions of others before it overwhelms her completely and he lost someone else he cared for before he was ready to let go.


A/N: My sister is a great lover of disney, and over the years i have watched all the disney movies even though i only like a couple of them. I went to the theaters when the new Beauty and the Beast went out, and i loved it. So the love of disney songs (this is not the last time they will appear) is dedicated to her. And sister, if you're reading this... it's not a compliment!