GAH! My fic - 10 Things Jack Harkness Learnt About Ianto Jones - won best Listfic in the Children of Time Awards! I'm idiotically happy about it, so thankyou to anyone who voted :D
Chapter 4
If you ever need holding
Call my name, I'll be there
If you ever need holding
And no holding back, I'll see you through
Sky blue and black
Jack had been standing outside the doors to the ICU for over half an hour when Gwen came out and pulled him stubbornly into the room. He'd changed into a blue, surgical scrub top and had washed his hands and arms completely of the blood.
He still felt like he was wading through it though. It was even worse the closer he got. He could almost taste the metallic tang on the back of his tongue
"Gwen…" He muttered hesitantly as she pulled him nearer to the hospital bed.
"Jack, You have to. You don't have a choice." She said darkly, pushing him towards the curtains and making him step through. Jack swallowed hard and tried to look anywhere but the bed. If he didn't see Ianto, then this wasn't real, he was just dreaming.
"Jack… We'll go- we'll give you some room." Tosh said quietly, standing up from where she'd been seated next to the bed and walking over to him, hugging him briefly before following Gwen outside of the cubicle. Owen stood up as well and nodded mutely to him, closing the small gap in the curtains as he left.
With shaking hands, Jack took the seat Tosh had been sitting in and leaned forwards a little, his hand hovering over one of Ianto's, lying cold and pale on the bed sheets. It was one of the only decent sized areas of skin that wasn't covered in monitors or hooked up to IVs.
If I don't touch him, then none of this is real. If I don't look at his face, I can wake up and he'll be humming the shower like he normally does… Jack thought in a futile attempt to reverse the past day. He felt tears threatening as he placed his hand down onto the young man's, shifting his grip almost instantly as he felt a trace of body heat remaining. He clung to it and his heart held its hope of the possibility that Ianto was just sleeping, that he'd wake up soon.
"Ianto?" Jack whispered, still unable to look at his face. With sheer force of will, he managed to forced his gaze from the pattern on the bedspread to the pale, familiar face. He took in Ianto's features, so peaceful and calm, and tried not to notice the all too obvious changes. His skin was too pale, his lips a little blue, his eyes ringed with purple, bruise like marks, the scars on his cheek standing out. That was all he need for the tears to start falling. "Oh God, open your eyes, Ianto… please, just open them…"
He started to cry properly then, sobbing as he curled in on himself, instinctively leaning his head on the hand in his own as he screwed his eyes up. "I'm sorry, Ianto… This is all my fault, I'm so, so sorry…"
He thought he heard Ianto's heart rate pick up, his pulse beat that little bit harder, but when he looked up at Ianto's face again, it was still the smooth, peaceful expression it had been a few moments ago. He sighed heavily, the breath jagged again from tears and he gripped Ianto's hand in his and ran his thumbs over it gently.
"You said you weren't going anywhere, Ianto… So you can't go, see? You can't leave me yet." He whispered gently, bringing Ianto's hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the palm. "I was going to take you for dinner tonight, I was going to take you out and treat you properly, as a 'thank you'. You've been so much more than I've deserved for the past few days…"
He swallowed hard, forcing the tears to stop. His lips pressed together in a solem line that matched the weariness in his eyes as he reached up gently to stroke Ianto's cheek with the back of his hand. His heart jumped painful at the feverish touch of Ianto's skin, contrary to his deathly colour. "Why did he have to come, Ianto? Why couldn't he have just left us alone? I should've gotten rid of him on my own, you shouldn't have been there. I was stupid and childish but I needed you. I needed you there with me, Ianto. I always need you there, so you can't go…"
He leaned his head on Ianto's hand again and started to cry again silently. He didn't think he could stand this for much longer. The waiting, the watching, the pain and the guilt. He hated feeling so attached to one person. He hated feeling so lost and vulnerable.
He just wanted it all to be back to normal, he wanted his lover and his friend back. He needed him back.
*
"It's simple. You're a physical manifestation of the psyche, or your soul." The Doctor was talking fast and with excitement as he manoeuvred Ianto around the TARDIS, sitting him down and hooking him up to machines of all kinds, wires and tubes running in and out of him like a miniature highway.
"How is that different to what I should be?" Ianto asked, cautiously picking at a particularly interesting looking device.
"The human being in comprised of the mind, soul and body. You, from what I'm guessing, are the majority of the mind and the soul, enough to create a physical being that is separate from your body, which is back in twenty first century Cardiff." The Doctor was standing in front of him and explaining with hand gestures. "Your body is filled with organs and processes that keep it alive, and your mind controls that. Technically, you don't need to breathe-"
"Really?" Ianto said curiously, tempted to try the theory out.
"Yes, you probably never have to take another breath again, but I wouldn't risk it." He warned. "You could easily try for so long for so hard that the rest of you mind catches on and shuts your lungs down in your body. Not only would you scare Jack to yet-another-death, you'd cause more damage to your body which would probably be permanent."
Ianto nodded slowly and made sure he kept his breathing level. "Okay, so how do you get me back?"
"Well, there's still a bond between the two parts of your mind and soul." The Doctor was back at his consoles, flicking switches, turning dials and pressing buttons. "All we have to do is track the link, apply a suitable amount of energy straight to your 'brain' and you should be pulled back and meld together with the rest of yourself."
"How did I end up here though?" Ianto asked calmly, deciding that seeing as the Doctor was a genius and his only hope at getting back home, he should just trust him and nod along.
"That's a total mystery. Most likely because the TARDIS has a highly telepathic field and it drew you here due to the amount of energy you needed to form a physical structure." The Doctor shrugged and smiled placidly at him.
"As you do." Ianto muttered dryly. As much as he found the Doctor companionable and friendly, the moment the Doctor had hooked him up to the TARDIS – which he'd explained was a living creature who, unsurprisingly, liked him and thought Jack had good taste in men – he'd been haunted by whispers and murmurs of people around him, predominantly Jack, begging and bargaining and sobbing. It had broken his heart and made him increasingly more desperate to go back.
"Right, lets give this a go, okay?" The Doctor grinned and grabbed hold of the lever. "This might tingle a bit, hold on."
"Okay…" Ianto said apprehensively, hearing the lever slam down and a yell of 'Ianto?' almost immediately. He felt a jolt of pain rip through his stomach and the feeling of someone gripping his hand and everything went dark, murky as it had been before.