Miranda was surprised by how quickly Gwen had managed to get all five of the bodies she'd requested. She'd even managed to get two that had died nearly a month ago. Ianto was just putting them into the cold storage. She was focusing on the body on her autopsy table now. It was one of the newest victims and had not yet been autopsied. Even though she had nothing to fear from disease, alien or otherwise, Miranda followed the Torchwood safety protocol. She was wearing a gown, gloves, mask and face shield. She stepped on the small recorder button at her foot.
"This is the body of Torchwood Jane Doe number 9578-a. She is a mildly malnourished Caucasian female approximately age 20-25. Shoulder length hair brown, dyed blonde and bright orange and purple. Eyes brown. There are numerous track marks on the arms and hands as well as the legs and feet. Photos taken." She stepped on the recorder button again and produced a small camera to photograph the track marks. She activated the recorder and continued speaking. "There is a tattoo on the left side of the neck just below the left ear as well as the lower back. Photos taken." Again she turned off the recorder to take pictures.
"Let me know when you want me to bring those other bodies up, Mandy," Ianto said as he passed her.
"Thanks, Ifan. By the way, what are we watching tonight?" she asked.
"I hadn't decided yet. In the mood for anything in particular?"
"No romantic comedies, please."
Ianto let out a groan. "I get enough of those with Jack, thank you very much."
She chuckled. "Ifan? Do you mind throwing on a pair of gloves and turning her over? I just need to photograph this tattoo on her back."
He walked over to the cupboard and pulled on a gown and a pair of gloves. He grabbed the woman's body by the shoulder and hip and heaved her onto her side. Miranda snapped two quick pictures of the tattoo before nodding to Ianto who gently laid her back down.
"Do you need me help you with anything else?" he asked, his voice slightly muffled from the mask.
"No, I can handle it by myself. Thank you, Ifan." She picked up the scalpel, saw him disposing of his protective items and then leave the autopsy bay out of the conner of her eye. She tapped the recorder again "Rigor mortis and livor mortis are complete and fixed. Beginning y-incision…" Miranda performed the standard y-incision and exposed the inside of the body, speaking into the recorder occasionally to note her observations. The habit of her turning the recorder on and off had originated from the 80's, to conserve cassette tape. It was superfluous now but the habit remained. She paused the recorder again as she started cutting around the heart so she could measure and weigh it. She noted a small area of darkening on the underside and started to speak but realised she hadn't turned on the recorder. She tapped her foot around looking for it, her foot hitting nothing but tile. She flicked her eyes to the floor quickly, looking for the pedal, and the scalpel slipped. "Fuck!" she shouted as the blade sank into her index finger.
Ianto poked his head around the corner when he'd heard the swear. "Mandy? You all right?"
"I'm fine, Ifan. I just sliced my finger." She dropped the scalpel onto the instrument tray and pulled off her glove. The cut wasn't bleeding much. "It'll heal in a few moments. It was clumsy of me."
She used her other gloved hand to wipe the blood away then held up her hand so he could watch the cut seal itself. "See? Good as new."
"You do realise that is insanely creepy, right, Mandy?" he deadpanned. No matter how many times he'd seen it on her or Jack it still weirded him out.
"Yup," she said and then frowned. She pulled off her other glove and walked towards the autopsy bay's thermostat. 21C… She felt warm and was starting to sweat under the gown. "Do you think it's warm in here, Ifan?"
He shook his head. "No, feels the same as always though Jack would say you should find a better pick up line."
She yanked off the face shield and mask, dropping them onto the instrument tray. She tugged off the disposable gown roughly, pushing it into the biohazard bin. "I think I need a cool drink," she said as she pushed passed him.
"Mandy? Are you all right?" Ianto asked her but she ignored him. He tapped the comm unit in his ear. "Jack? Gwen? Something's wrong with Mandy, you two should get back here."
"What do you mean, Yan?" Jack asked in his ear.
"I don't know. She was doing the autopsy on the latest overdose victim. She cut herself with the scalpel and now she's acting strangely."
"Gwen, stay where you are. I'm on my way," Jack said tersely. Ianto turned his comm unit off and went after her.
Miranda had reached the Hub kitchen and had pulled out one of the cans of cola Ianto kept for her. She popped the can open and began drinking, not noticing Ianto come up behind her.
"Mandy? Are you sure you're all right?" he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
She ignored him and continued downing the soft drink in record time. When she'd finished she turned around and looked at him. "Ifan?"
"It's me, Mandy. Are you all right?" he put his hands on both her shoulders. "What's wrong?"
She smiled at him and then started to laugh. Ianto had started out a little uneasy but his concern was growing.
"I'm fine. Just a little warm and thirsty." She knitted her brow and looked around the kitchen. "Wasn't I just in the autopsy bay?"
Ianto was now worried. He took Miranda by the arm and sat her down on the Hub sofa. "I'm going to get you a glass of water," he said but when he let go of her arm she reached up and grabbed his hand.
"Wait. Don't go! Stay here, please," she begged and his worry deepened. She was displaying emotions he never thought he'd see out of her. Miranda was a woman of emotional control that rivaled his own.
"All right. How about we get up? Move over this way…" he said, trying to ease her up off the sofa in an attempt to wheedle her down the east stairs and into a cell as their standard protocol for unusual behaviour dictated.
Her eyes went wide with fear, another emotion he never thought he'd see her display. So strong was her mettle normally that he never thought he would see a moment when Miranda Ryan would show fear, at least not for herself.
Her voice sounded frantic as she pleaded with him, "Don't leave! Please… everyone leaves!"
He had no idea what the right course of action was. His stun gun was locked away in the armory. He'd seen Miranda fight and if he attempted to forcefully drag her down to the cells it could prove fatal for him. He decided to sit with her until Jack arrived. Her voice was so terrified that Ianto worried about how she'd react if locked in a cell alone. For some odd reason, she had started speaking in Welsh, rambling on in one long stream of consciousness.
"You're gorgeous, you know that, Ifan? You're extraordinary… Jack is so lucky. I've never seen him so happy…" Her eyes had a far off look.
He didn't know what to say so he allowed her to ramble on. Suddenly, she switched back to English.
"I'm happy for the two of you. I'm jealous of Jack… I'm jealous of what you two have… I haven't loved like that in centuries." She let out a hysterical sort of laugh. "You meet a lot of people in four thousand years…"
Oh my God! Four thousand years? She as old as the bloody pyramids! he thought incredulously. Miranda always evaded the question about how old she was and now he knew why.
"The extraordinary Ianto Jones… The man with no ghosts…"
He allowed her to reach up and brush her fingertips against his cheek. She's delirious. God if she remembers any of this…
Miranda trailed off from speaking Welsh and switched to something else. Whatever language she started speaking, Ianto didn't know it. She continued to babble on incoherently, well incoherently to him. She'd been speaking the Welsh perfectly so he assumed whatever language she was now using was being spoken correctly. Ianto spoke his native Welsh and English but was also fluent in French and Italian and, thanks to Tosh, knew enough Japanese to get by. She switched between several languages, one of which sounded something like German but Ianto couldn't be sure. He suddenly realised how much English had changed over the past few hundred years. Miranda could be speaking a dialect or older form no longer used. He vaguely began to wonder just how many languages she spoke.
She switched to Italian and Ianto could finally understand her and immediately regretted that he could. "Isabetta… I kept my promise… we didn't have enough time… I will always love you… I miss you so much…"
He felt a knife in his heart. God is this what she's been doing this whole time? Rambling on to dead lovers? He started to wonder how many lovers one could accumulate over the course of four thousand years. It sent a shudder through him as his thoughts turned to Jack. Where the hell is Jack?
Suddenly, Miranda was breathing heavily, panting through her mouth, her face flushed. She shook her head, as if to clear it.
"Betta…? It's hard to breathe…" she said in Italian gasping.
Just then the cog wheel door opened and the proximity alarms blared. "Jack! Over by the sofa! She's having trouble breathing!"
By the time Jack reached them, Miranda was thrashing and clawing at her throat. Jack grabbed her hands attempting to stop her. "Will! Hang on!"
Neither of the men knew what to do. None of them had the medical training to help her. Ianto and Jack both watched helpless for what felt like an eternity as Miranda's lips started turning blue and pin point haemorrhages started appearing in the whites of her eyes. Her thrashing increased as she tried desperately to breathe, eyes bulging, and then suddenly she went still. Jack reached for her neck, feeling for a pulse. He shook his head slightly. Ianto bit back a sob. After he'd pulled his stopwatch from his pocket and pressed the button, he started to arrange her carefully on the sofa.
Jack scrubbed at his face with his hands and sniffled hard. Ianto saw the tears on his cheeks. "Stay with her. I'm going to put that body in the autopsy bay into a secure containment box."
"Jack, be careful."
"I will," Jack pressed a quick kiss to his forehead and headed for the autopsy bay.
Ianto had only ever seen Jack revive. He didn't know if it would be the same for Miranda. Jack had told him it felt like being hauled over broken glass. He also had no idea how long this would take. It appeared to have been death by asphyxiation. It was a death that Jack recovered fairly quickly from, usually half an hour, but he couldn't be sure how long it would take Miranda. Over the past few months, he knew she'd died but he'd never witnessed it or her revival. He looked at the stopwatch. Five minutes… He knelt by her side and waited, holding her hand in his. He tried not to think about what she'd said when she'd been under the influence of whatever she'd been under the influence of. Ten minutes…
At exactly eleven minutes and thirty seconds, Miranda gasped, convulsed and then screamed. Her arms and legs flailed wildly, terror on every inch of her face. Exactly like Jack… Ianto grabbed at her wrists and shouted right in her face, "Mandy! It's Ianto! You're safe!"
He saw her draw in a few shuddering breaths. He'd seen the same look of panic and agony on Jack's face more times than he'd care to remember. She seemed to be reacting on instinct, trying to push herself up. He tried to get her to lay back down. "Calm down! Lay back!" he said.
"How long was I down?" she asked in a strained voice as she tried to catch her breath.
"Eleven minutes and thirty seconds," he said succinctly.
"What happened?"
Ianto felt a stab of relief that she couldn't remember the painful ramblings. "You don't remember?"
The relief he felt evaporated as she said, "I know what happened from my perspective, Ifan. I need to know what you saw."
"After you cut yourself, you went into the kitchen for a drink. You became… delirious. That lasted about ten minutes. Then you went into some sort of anaphylaxis and… died." He stumbled over the last word.
"You said something about Jack? Where is he?" she asked.
"He's in the autopsy bay, putting the body into a containment box."
"Ifan, about what you heard…" she trailed off, uncertain.
He put his hand up. "You were delirious, Mandy. Most of what you were saying was in languages I didn't understand."
"Most," she said flatly. "What parts did you understand?"
"It doesn't matter. It's none of my business," he said simply.
She shook her head, her eyes swimming with tears.
"Do you want to talk about it, Mandy?" he asked gently.
She shook her head as tears streamed down her cheeks. It was the first time Ianto had seen her cry and again, it was something he never thought he'd see. He reached over, cupping her face in his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. "It's going to be okay."
She shook her head again and then pulled away as she wiped her face with her hands. He saw her close her eyes and inhale sharply. As she slowly exhaled, she rolled her shoulders and then squared them. Ianto had seen her do this many times. It was like some sort of a conditioned response she used to calm herself. He saw the forced calm move across her face, the emotional pain so prominent before had vanished from her features but he could still see its ghost in her eyes.
Jack cleared his throat from a discrete distance away. Ianto wondered how long he'd been there. "The bodies are in containment units. Full hazmat protocol, Will. Those bodies are now off limits to Gwen and Ianto."
"I think I know how I got exposed, Jack," she said. "I sliced my finger. I got contaminated with her blood. We should keep the hazmat protocol but I need to examine all the bodies and get them disposed of as quickly as possible. We also need to warn the police that any of the overdose victims bodies need to be treated as hazardous."
Jack nodded. "I'll help you."