AN: You're absolutely right McParrot......
DON'T LOOK NOW: PART 11
"Jack stop!" Martha's voice snapped him back to his senses and he got up and glared at the woman who had shouted his name. It took great force of will not to recoil away from the anger radiating off her.
He stood there bloodied hands limp at his sides, Susan lying huddled up on the floor behind him by his feet, neither Jack or Martha registering the satisfied look on her face. The rescue party had arrived.
"Jack can you come with me, please?"
Jack followed without a word and Susan watched as the door was locked and she was finally alone, she could hear raised voices outside of her cell.
Martha stood feet apart, arms folded across her chest, trying hard to look as menacing as possible.
"I can't stand by and watch any more of that Jack. I am not letting you back in that cell."
Jack couldn't help but see the disappointment in her face. "I need answers."
"And you're not getting them that way. I'm sorry Jack, it's just plain wrong."
"And leaving Ianto and those others to die isn't?" His fists clenched at his sides. "You have no idea what he has been put through, what those people have done! How can you stand there and tell me not to do something to save Ianto. He's all I have Martha, the only one who accepts me." He was yelling at her now. Martha took a pace back instinctively, she had never seen Jack this angry, didn't believe he was capable of such rage.
"So you think that behaving this way...is justifiable Jack? I thought you were a better man than that, the Doctor always believed that you were. Ianto certainly believes that you are. If you truly love him that much then you will not dishonour him by sinking to this. I can't believe I have stood back as long as I have. I'm disgusted with myself and with you."
Jack froze, gaping her. "I can't lose him Martha." The words were out of his mouth before he even realised it.
Martha cautiously stretched out her hand. "Do you think he would want you to sacrifice your humanity for him? I can't claim to know him Jack, but I am certain he would not want this, wouldn't expect you to do that for him. Jack you have to see that."
He took her offered hand. "I can't lose him. I've lost so much Martha.... I just can't." He was desperate.
"I'm your friend Jack, but I cannot stand by and watch you torture someone, I am a doctor which means 'do no harm' no matter what. I know how you feel Jack, you know I understand, after everything we went through, please......" Martha pulled him close and hugged him, burying her face against his chest. "Jack, you know he'd never forgive you if.... You've got me, Owen and Tosh and half of UNIT working on this. What Ianto needs is you by his side, holding his hand and telling him to hold on. That will be the best thing you can do for him. Believe me Jack I know."
Jack enveloped her in his arms, holding her close. "I just feel so helpless."
"I know Jack but you have to have faith in him and in us, we will get to the bottom of this and we will do our damndest to save Ianto. This is something you have to let us do."
"How'd you get so wise?"
Martha smiled into his shirt. "I had a good teacher Jack. I also remember Ianto from 'that year' and what he was like..... you would have been proud of him, don't give him reason not to be proud of you. He doesn't have anyone else Jack, you need to be strong for him, you need to do the right thing, not the easy thing and taking out your fear and anger on the prisoners is not going to help." She eased herself back her hands still firmly gripping his arms. "Now go get cleaned up, put on some fresh clothes and return to Merton and when Ianto wakes up you'll be there looking like his shiny hero, the man he knows you to be, the man you are." There was a sparkle in her eyes as she smiled at him.
Jack smiled back and touched her cheek with a shaking hand. "My nightingale." He murmured.
"Now go."
Martha watched as Jack departed through the swing door at the end of the corridor and then turned and went into the cell to confront her prisoner. Martha stood by the door.
"I'll send someone in to treat your injuries. You'll not be harmed again, but I will not apologise for Captain Harkness' treatment of you. Jack wouldn't have done it without good reason. You won't be getting out of here because you have no rights in this building, if you want to be given any rights again you need to co-operate, unless of course you want to spend the rest of your life in this facility."
She turned and left, ordering the guard outside to send for a medic, regardless of her position as a doctor Martha could not bring herself to help the woman any more than she had already, she wondered fleetingly if that made her any better or worse than Jack.
Two hours later and Jack was back in a Hazmat suit at Ianto's side with Owen's assurance that the young man's condition hadn't deteriorated over the last few hours. Jack sat there by the bed side holding Ianto's hand hoping that he had some sense of his presence there.
Toshiko was smiling happily as Owen stepped into the office that sat opposite the containment area.
"Ok, Owen I've retrieved all the deleted files, you need to tell what I am looking for."
"Jeez Tosh, that was quick." He couldn't hide the admiration.
"Actually it was easy, they tried doing this in a hurry and nothing has been encrypted, they obviously didn't have an IT expert here, thankfully."
Owen couldn't agree more he knew how long how it take to break inconvenient pass codes.
"Ok, let's start with patient records for Ianto, see if it tells us what they have been giving him."
Tosh tapped away with swift key strokes.
"How's Jack?" She asked not pausing from her task as various charts came up on the screen. Owen was reading through over her shoulder, gripping the back of the chair.
"He's sitting with Tea Boy. I don't think he's coping too well with this.... stop there open that one up." He pointed to a folder on the screen.
Tosh obliged and sat back a little as Owen scanned the data in front of him. "You beauty! That's it Tosh, print it off. I need to find their drugs cabinet."
Two hours later and Owen was stood in a large fridge surrounded by shelves of bottles and vials, hundreds of them. Jack was at his side along with Martha whom Owen had called in to help.
"We need to go through all of these to find Ianto's. They've got a section allocated to each patient with all the drugs they need for treatment."
Martha was confused. "You mean they weren't treating the patients?"
Owen shook his head. "Everybody has been bred with differences in their DNA, minute differences. What they have been doing is infecting them with what looks like a retro virus. I'll need to take a closer at it for the purposes of studying the resulting disease. The treatments are all here. I think what they were trying to do was work out the most effective way of killing a specific gentic group within the population without it impacting on anyone else."
Martha looked horrified.
Jack was thoughtful. "But you said the aberrant DNA in Ianto was alien."
"It is Jack. I suspect that if the scientists and doctors on this project were tested you'd find that they are not human either, well not entirely anyway."
"Aliens experimenting on aliens here on Earth? Thats...."
"Not as crazy as it sounds. We've had run ins with this kind of thing before, sleeper agents that appear human, think they are human. Ianto had no idea about his true heritage until we tested him. If there has been some long term breeding program going on, what worries me is that Torchwood knew about it and even supported it." Jack gazed about the room. "Ok, can we talk about this later and sort these people out."
Owen sighed as he injected the liquid into Ianto's IV line. He knew it was a risk doing it but there was little choice, he didn't have time to run the tests he wanted to Ianto and the other patients didn't have that luxury so Ianto had become the test subject. Owen hoped it was right because Jack was going to throttle him otherwise.
Martha watched from the outside of the containment area as Owen worked. Jack was back at Ianto's side, no longer in a Haz Mat suit as Owen had determined that he was perfectly safe and not likely to become infectious. Tosh was standing beside her arms folded across her chest.
"You talked to Jack, didn't you?" Tosh asked not taking her eyes away from Ianto.
"How do you know?"
"Jack would have been raging by now. He's never good at controlling his feelings where Ianto is concerned." Tosh turned and smiled at her. "He's never told us how he knows you, but you obviously have his trust and respect. I'm glad you're helping us Martha."
Martha smiled at her. "One day I'll tell you how we met. What I will tell you is that Ianto means a lot to me because although he doesn't know it, he saved my life.... died for me in fact and he did it because he loved Jack. It's hard to explain Tosh and don't ask Jack, it was a painful time for him, he'll tell you when he is ready."
"Did you really save the world? Jack told me that you did."
Martha laughed. "The Doctor saved the world, I just helped him along a bit and in turn Ianto helped me. Just look at them Tosh, they're just meant to be."
Both women returned their gaze Owen, Jack and Ianto. Martha finally stepped back. "Right I have a phone call to make. I think I have a friend who will want to know what the hell has been going on here."