Torchwood: Divergence
Book One: Dychwelyd

Chapter 11

The Captain didn't wait for an answer, instead he reared back and kicked the door as hard as he could just to the left of the handle, the portal crashing open under the desperate assault even as the other Torchwood personnel headed his way on the run. Jack burst in to find Ianto on the floor in convulsions and blood everywhere. It looked as though the young Archivist had lost his balance when the seizure started, tried to catch himself against the sink, but ended up slamming into the mirror face first before bouncing off the basin beneath it and hitting the tiles hard. He had a huge gaping gash on the left side of his forehead, another beside that eye, and appeared to have broken his right wrist when he fell.

Harkness quickly moved to restrain the younger man, trying to keep him from doing any more damage to himself as he continued to gasp and convulse. Finally, the seizure faded, and he simply picked up the now limp Welshman to take him to the medical bay. The rest of the team members present were waiting close by but well out of his path, each ready to help.

"I'll go get the cleaning supplies," Lois volunteered when she saw the blood all over the man in Captain Jack's arms, already heading for the broom cupboard.

"I called Martha," Turlough stated evenly, going ahead into the Autopsy Lab and getting all the equipment turned on. "She's on her way down now. Let's get the facial wounds under control and a splint on that wrist."

The redhead was pulling on surgical gloves and grabbing supplies, apparently no stranger to emergency first aid. Jack eased Ianto onto the exam table, he and Turlough trying to control the bleeding from the horrific gashes on the Archivist's forehead and temple, even as Gwen appeared to take up the fibreglass splint and got her friend's badly twisted right wrist straightened out against it before snugging the attached hook-and-loop straps. It was at that point that Jones regained consciousness, and the strangled cry of pain-laced terror that escaped him hit the other team members like a blow to the guts.

"It's all right, Ianto," Jack reassured, trying to get the younger brunette to focus on him. "You fell and hit your head, yeah? We're just trying to get you patched up."

The twenty-six-year-old relaxed visibly, but was obviously still agitated and undoubtedly in pain. Turlough offered a shot of Morphine, but the injured Welshman refused, somehow knowing the drug wouldn't work on him anymore...just as the local anaesthetic and Paracetamol hadn't.

"Can't breathe..." he choked, struggling to sit up.

Harkness helped him ease into a sitting position, Turlough keeping the slabs of packing cotton in place on the younger man's face as Gwen locked the top of the table into a fully upright inclination. And that was where things stood when Martha rushed in, her boot heels clanging on the stair treads as she hurried down into the bay.

"What happened?" she prodded, quickly getting into a pair of gloves and her lab coat.

"Memory flash," Jack explained, steadying the subject of all the concern. "He was feeling sick after, went to the nearest bathroom and suffered a seizure. Shattered the mirror with his face, busted his right wrist when he fell."

"Sounds like you'll need stitches, but we didn't have much luck with the local before," the white coat clad woman stated with a frown. "Let's have a look... maybe I can just surgical glue the cuts closed."

"Ease back," the Captain murmured encouragingly as the top part of the exam table was shifted into a slightly more reclined angle. "I've got you, don't worry. We'll get you fixed up."

"Okay, Turlough," Martha began evenly. "Let me take over here, and since you're already gloved, I'll have you get a bowl of Providone Iodine and some sponges so we can clean the area. Then if you'll grab the surgical adhesive and a couple packs of Elastoplast sutures, we'll be in business. Now, Ianto, let me take a peek at what we're working on."

She carefully peeled away the heavy sections of crimson saturated absorbent packing to expose both wounds, her frown deepening. Without a word, she accepted the disinfectant, sponges, and sterile towel the slender redhead behind her offered, set about cleaning away the blood that stained her patient's skin. After a few minutes, she shook her head and raised an eyebrow at Jack.

"Nothing to worry about," Martha reassured. "Must've seemed worse than it was with how bad head wounds tend to bleed. Just a couple of angry scrapes once all the gore's gone."

"No way," Jack and Turlough insisted in unison.

"He had great gaping gashes pouring blood when I put the packing on," the sharp featured redhead stated flatly. "I could see bone across his forehead."

"And scrapes don't leave the kind of puddle Lois is cleaning up in the bathroom, or soak the shoulder of your shirt the way his is," Harkness seconded. "Gwen saw the wounds too, and splinted his wrist."

"It has a terrible bulge just past the joint where the bone's broken," Cooper nodded.

The team doctor frowned again and moved to examine her patient's right hand and forearm, carefully removing the splint.

"Seems fine," she decided, chewing her bottom lip. "Let me grab the Bekaran for a closer look."

The young black woman fetched the piece of alien technology that had always been one of Owen Harper's favourites, used it to check Ianto's wrist and head.

"No signs of trauma whatsoever," she pronounced at last. "No bony or soft tissue injuries to the wrist, just some minor swelling. And not even a hint of fracture or even concussion in the cranial area. It doesn't..."

"What?" three voices demanded when Doctor Jones' words trailed off and she stood staring at her patient's face.

"They're gone," Martha pointed out, gesturing toward the bewildered brunette on the exam table. "The scrapes I just cleaned up are completely healed. There's barely even a red mark to show where they were."

"Shit..." Ianto breathed, closing his eyes. "The headache's not gone... and my arm still hurts when I move it."

"But the trauma itself has healed," Martha insisted. "Sit up a minute and take your shirt off."

"Someone always wants me to undress," the young Archivist complained under his breath, as a smirking Jack helped him sit up and unfasten his borrowed, and now blood-stained blue shirt.

The doctor reached over to remove the heavy-duty sticking plasters she'd placed on the brunette's back when she'd taken the tissue samples, making a face when she discovered that they were damp from his morning shower. Beneath each covering was nothing but smooth, pale, unmarked skin. Core punch wounds that should have needed at least a full week or more to heal, were gone without a trace in only two days. She quickly peeled off the damp bandage covering the IV needle tear in the back of his left hand, only to find the flesh there completely unmarked as well.

"I need a blood sample," she mumbled, turning to grab a glass slide and a lancet.

She unpackaged both, quickly pricked the side of her patient's formerly broken wrist, smeared the resultant drop of blood on the slide and got the cover plate over it. And even as she hurried to load it into the scanner, the small wound she'd made disappeared. In seconds, the blood sample appeared on the computer monitor, and it was immediately obvious that the alien substance in Ianto's body was no longer dormant. The tiny black flecks were reaching out like shadowy spider webs, somehow making slightly damaged cells whole again when they touched them, bridging gaps until more extensive repairs could be completed if necessary and their tenuous connections were no longer needed. And as soon as all the injured blood and plasma cells in the sample were whole once more, the black specks reverted to the completely inactive state they'd been in before.

"Bloody hell," Martha gaped. "It's like Reset on steroids, only without the damn Mayflies. I can't be absolutely sure, but considering how fast the injuries you all saw healed and what just happened on the screen, there's a good chance that you could even recover from mortal wounds, Ianto. And it's already obvious that those alien cells have stopped you from aging past the day you died in London."

"They brought you back to be with me," Jack stated slowly into the tense silence that had fallen, trying to comprehend what they'd just discovered. "So they tried to make you like me? Why? Why would they do that?"

"I don't know..." Ianto whispered miserably, the lost child look back in his eyes, only now compounded with guilt and despair as he picked up on the irritation and disappointment in his Captain's voice. "I'm sorry... I don't remember being told that's what the threads of shadow were for... I thought they were just for the wings and fighting... I didn't ask... I just wanted to be with you again... I'm sorry… Shit… I don't mean to whine and snivel… I just…"

"Hey, it's okay," Harkness soothed as he realised his mistake, helping his partner back into his bloodied shirt, then letting him hide his face against his chest when panic spawned tears threatened. "You didn't ask to be made an alien science project, and it doesn't change how glad I am to have you back. I'm just worried about their motives is all."

"Because if they intend no harm," Turlough put in unexpectedly. "Why are your memories blocked? I mean, the constant torture of the knives would be too strong on an emotional and physical level for anything to completely seal away. But every time you try to concentrate on those memories or search for others, you end up in convulsions. That kind of reaction reeks of purposeful memory locking to me, and it makes me wonder what will happen if something triggers the release. What do they plan for you to do or become when all your memories return?"

"Put me in the Vaults," Ianto whispered to Jack, starting to shiver. "He's right... I'm not safe... I should be in a cell..."

"No. Cells." Harkness insisted firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument. "No matter what's been done to you or why, I have a gut feeling that you're not a danger to any of us. So, we'll just keep going with the investigation and work through this till we have all the facts. You're Torchwood, and you'll function as part of the team whenever you're up to it, and just be an observer when you're not. For now, I think the best thing is for you to let us help you finish cleaning up, then I'll see you settled back in our room. Get your head down for a bit, try to relax, and we'll see where we go from there, yeah?"

"I think Jack and Martha can handle things from here," Gwen suggested pointedly. "Turlough, you've got more libraries to search, and I'll go see if Lois needs a hand with mopping up."

The two disappeared after a moment and Martha fetched a hot, damp flannel to wipe the rest of the blood from her patient's face, neck and recently shorn hair.

"Good as new," she smiled, gently cupping the young Welshman's cheek with one hand. "We'll get you sorted, don't worry. Now go with Jack, do a proper scrub for anything I missed, and try to rest a while. Do you want something for the headache?"

"Nothing like that works on me anymore," Ianto explained with a weary shake of his head. "I'll just lie down and it'll probably go away on its own."

"Let me know if it doesn't, and I'll figure something out," the team medic promised with a reassuring smile, helping the twenty-six-year-old ease off the exam table so his partner could escort him to the room behind the office.

Another exciting morning at Torchwood-Cardiff had begun... with luck, the rest of the day would prove less disturbing.

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AN: And I'm back. I'll give you two chapters this round for being so patient. I'm reasonably sure that Chapter 12 is what some of you have been waiting for…

Sandysan2013 – Thank you for your reviews. Sorry I can't reply to them. I do appreciate the commentary though.

Thank you to those reading the story. And thank you to those who have followed, favourited, and reviewed. NM