Torchwood: Divergence
Book One: Dychwelyd
Chapter 45
The car park at Harwood's was empty, the side door closest to the office unlocked as instructed. Jack and Ianto entered the half empty truck barn area cautiously, moving toward the big cargo block in the east corner near the huge rollup doors at a slow pace so they could check every inch of the building as they went. The closer they got to the correct area, the louder a slight scrabbling and thumping sound became. When the container came into sight they split up, one circling to each end of the massive metal box, hand torches and guns at the ready. There was definitely something moving between the block and the truck barn wall, beams of light panning the forty-centimetre-wide gap from either end to find it.
There was a panicked flurry of movement, whatever it was trying to flee toward the end where Ianto stood. Jack tracked the motion with his Webley, prepared to pull the trigger.
"No, don't!" Ianto suddenly shouted, nearly getting himself shot instead. "It's a dog, Jack... it's hurt."
"Gwen picked up Rift energy from it," Harkness insisted, trying to centre his aim again.
"I know," his partner conceded. "But just give it a minute, yeah? Let's see if it's actually a danger. If it goes for my throat, by all means, shoot it."
Reluctantly the older man nodded, keeping his weapon levelled nonetheless. He watched the twenty-six-year-old at the other end of the gap put his own gun away and drop to one knee.
"Come on, puppy," Ianto called gently, patting the concrete before him with one hand. "Come see me, yeah? Maybe I can fix whatever's wrong. There you go... a little more."
The apparent canine whined, awkwardly making its way toward the Changeling, its tail low but not tucked.
"It's all right," the Welshman continued to coax, carefully extending his hand palm down and fingers curled so the animal could catch his scent. "There's a good puppy..."
He could see the red reflection of light in only one eye, ragged black and white fur over a terribly thin body. But the dog didn't growl or act aggressively, it was trying to obey his injunction and come to him. So, he backed up a little to give it space, winced in sympathy as it whined in obvious pain. Finally, the animal staggered from its hiding place, and Ianto felt tears sting his eyes as he pocketed his torch.
The dog was more a hide covered skeleton than anything else; its size, colouring and conformation marking it as some type of small herding dog, and it was wearing a scuffed red leather collar but no tags. One eye was a dry, empty socket of bone, the other a withered but soulful brown pleading for comfort. It tried to prick its desiccated ears, wagged it raggedly plumed tail and staggered toward his still outstretched hand on three legs, the left front dragging uselessly as it went.
"Oh, puppy..." Ianto breathed shakily, carefully touching the dog's neck. "How did you get like this?"
The canine pressed against him, and he shifted to sit on the concrete, gently guided it into his coat muffled lap. It settled there with a whimper, tried to lick his hand with a dry, leathery tongue. The dog was female and should have been long past experiencing pain, but the young brunette could clearly feel her heart beating rapidly where the bony chest rested against his left leg. A shadow passed over him where he sat, and he looked up at his partner with anguish filled eyes.
"Did the Rift do this?" the young Guardian breathed tightly, his heavier accent the only indication of his deep distress as he sat stroking the dog's long, brittle fur. "She's a corpse, Jack, but her heart is beatin' and she's sufferin'."
Harkness was at a loss for words, never having seen such a thing before. Disturbed and no little horrified, he opened his wrist strap, scanned the dog and frowned. Then he scanned the cargo block, and cursed under his breath.
"There's something inside the container that's putting off pulses of Rift energy and some other emission," he stated grimly. "Non-living... must be a device of some sort. My guess is that whatever is in there is responsible for the dog's current state and why she's registering at the Hub. Probably a stray that wandered in here for shelter and died. Let me see if I can shut down what's causing this... maybe that will let the poor thing go back to her former rest."
The American returned to the far end of the block, carefully undid the latch on the door and eased it open. It was empty, save for a small flat-bottomed sphere about the size of a golf ball. It was bright metallic gold, with spidery writing etched around its centre and a green light pulsing at the top. Jack reached out to tap it with the barrel of his gun, then closed his eyes and rested a forefinger on its surface. When nothing unpleasant happened, he carefully pressed around the etched letters, then pushed at the lighted area to see if it had any effect. Pressure over the blinking end turned the light from green to red. Another try made it go out entirely. Pulling a Weevil hood from a pocket inside his coat, he gingerly collected the item, then went out to see if the situation with the dog had changed.
"I shut it down, did it..." his words trailed off as he came around the big container.
"No..." Ianto whispered sadly, still trying to comfort the cruelly resurrected canine. "She can't stay like this, Jack."
"No, she can't," the Captain agreed quietly, understanding his partner's distress as the poor creature whined and nuzzled his hand in a wordless plea for help. "Brain and heart function need to cease, then everything else will shut down as well. I could..."
"I'll do it," the immortal twenty-six-year-old insisted quietly, holding the black and white furred body closer to his chest. "I think if the heart stops, the rest will too. Hopefully I'm right..."
He stroked the dog's bony muzzle, smoothed the short fur around the missing left eye, then cradled her head in the crook of his left arm. Silver pooled in his right palm, a long thin bladed dagger forming from the material.
"It's all right, little girl," Ianto murmured soothingly, holding the canine's one-eyed gaze. "I'll make it better, I promise..."
He gently slid the blade through the thin hide and up under the dog's sternum, felt the heart flutter to a halt as he eased the dagger out again. The animal gave a slight sigh then was still, the light of life leaving the now half-closed remaining eye. Ianto stroked her fur one last time, then carefully moved her from his lap to the concrete by the warehouse wall, laid her on her side as though asleep.
The young Welshman was shaking as he got to his feet, his expression a mix of anger, grief, anxiety and guilt. The little dog had obviously suffered before originally dying, a shattered leg and ruined eye likely being only a small part of it. Then to have some alien device drag her back into a semblance of life filled with nothing but confusion and pain... where a knife through the heart was the only true relief. It horrified and hurt the young immortal to even think about it, made him feel strangely unclean for the part he'd played. A few minutes of caresses and comforting words before sending the poor thing back to the grave seemed like a kind of betrayal... and the very idea was making him feel intensely ill.
Ianto staggered as he turned away from the dog's once more motionless corpse, darkness gathering at the edges of his vision, his heart rate climbing and his breath catching as his muscles started to tense. Harkness had just taken two steps toward the door they'd entered by, keying his comms to report their findings to Gwen when he heard the Scieron Guardian behind him choke and then start to gasp for air.
"Ianto?" Jack whirled back barely in time to grab the younger brunette as his spine arched and he started to collapse. "What's wrong? Why is this happening again? Hey... I've got you, it's okay. Relax and breathe, buddy."
[Jack?] Cooper's voice called over the earcomms, obviously concerned.
"He's having a seizure," the American replied hurriedly. "But I don't..."
A red glow suddenly began to radiate from the floor where the dog's body lay; a tall, vaguely humanoid Shadow rising within the light.
"Listen to your annwyl, Child of My Knife," the Scieron whispered softly, the voice identifying the entity that had returned the Welshman's memories to him nearly two months before. "Do not let your heart be so troubled. You acted out of kindness, little cysgod, showed mercy to one in dire need of it. But you are not yet fully synched with the Scieron part of your body, for the vast concentration of our cells we implanted must have time to truly and completely mesh with your own. It will be at least a full cycle of moons on your world before your nervous system can bear the weight of too much unreleased strong emotion, or the strain of too great a burden of worry if you push yourself overly hard. Our fibres feed on such fare, but it takes time for your human half to tolerate that process. Until then, such extremes will likely bring this same result... a brief neural overload and the need to rest after. Let the Eternal comfort you, Frân Arian, and try not to be so critical of yourself in the days to come."
The Shadow reached out to gently touch the Changeling's forehead; then it, the light of its portal, and the dog's body all disappeared.
[Was that one of the Scieron I heard?] Gwen's voice queried in Jack's ear.
"Sounded female, yeah?" the Captain acknowledged, cradling his partner as the seizure finally faded. "I really need to start paying better attention to how much Ianto's taking on for a while, ask him if he's unhappy or upset, feeling overwhelmed. Otherwise, this is apparently going to keep happening because of how the Shadows in his body react to strong emotion and high stress. His nervous system can't handle the way the Scieron cells absorb that stuff yet. Madam Shadow said he's looking at a year or more before he's fully adjusted. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before now."
"It..." Ianto whispered shakily, his voice rough edged and his eyes red rimmed when he slowly blinked them open. "It has done..."
"In the SUV yesterday, I know," Harkness nodded, gently stroking the twenty-six-year-old's cheek and hair, giving him time to recover.
"Few times before that..." the young Welshman confessed, his expression lost and vulnerable. "When we've argued... or things went really wrong on missions... When I was afraid you were doubting me... worried you regretted having me back... that you were angry if I got hurt..."
"God... why didn't you tell me?" Jack breathed, holding the younger man even closer as though trying to protect him from his concerns.
"I didn't want to upset you..." Ianto whispered with a cringe, tears escaping from the corners of his eyes as he turned his face to the older man's shoulder. "I was afraid it meant that I wasn't right somehow... damaged... And you'd worry or get angry... and then decide I wasn't worth keeping..."
"No," Harkness stated firmly, gently touching his lover's face and trying to somehow reassure him even as tears welled in his own eyes. "No, no, no. I need you, Ianto. You don't know the lengths I went to trying to get you back or find a way to die too when I lost you. I... I love you so much; I can't function without knowing you're here. There's no way I'd ever reject you, no matter what. I'd sooner take a one-way trip to the surface of the sun and burn forever than try to keep going if you're ever taken away from me again. Having you die in my arms at Thames House destroyed my world, shredded my soul. Having you back now, knowing you love me and still want me to love you... that's the glue holding all the shattered pieces together. Without you I'm nothing but a cold, crumbling shell.
"So, I need to know when you're hurting or upset or feeling sick. If I'm being an ass and pushing you into a seizure, tell me. Please don't be afraid to share with me the way you used to. Don't hesitate to get in my face when I'm making you mad or being a stubborn bastard. I can't know that I'm hurting you if you don't cry out somehow. How will I know if I've somehow pushed you to the edge without meaning to, if you don't tell me to stop what I'm doing that's causing the problem? I don't want to find out after I lose you to that Pledge Blade. Please... please don't leave me again, Ianto... don't let me make that happen. Talk to me..."
"I'm sorry..." the young Welshman breathed, shifting in the older man's embrace enough to shakily wrap his arms around the Captain's RAF coat clad torso and press his forehead to the side of the American's neck. "I won't ever leave you, Jack... I promise. I won't hide things anymore... please don't hide from me either."
"I'll try, I swear," Jack vowed, holding him tight for several more minutes. "It's a really old, hard habit to break... but I will try for you. Just keep on me, don't let me backslide. If I get surly, remind me that I promised to share and don't take no for an answer, yeah?"
"Yeah..." Ianto nodded slightly, content to simply close his eyes and relax for a few minutes in the wake of what had just happened.
Just a tiny bit of stolen time alone with his cariad, that's all he needed to gather his crumbling defences and get back to work.
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AN: So not how he'd planned, but Jack did get to tell Ianto how much he loves and needs him.
This chapter has a bit of a personal element in it for me. The dog they found was a tribute to my first daughter-in-fur. Shelly Draven was the most wonderful, loving little black and white Shetland Sheepdog, and though I had my second canine fur-child by the time I wrote this, I couldn't resist modelling the wee Rift victim here after Shelly. She was my darling companion and sweet child… made it to 14 years, 2 months and a day before cancer had the last word and she let me know she was ready to have me and our vet help her past the Veil on April 21, 2008 (two days after Exit Wounds played for the first time on BBC America). Even now, I still miss my little Crow.
Thank you to those reading the story. And thank you to those who have followed, favourited, and reviewed. NM
