CHAPTER NINE

The hub was chaos. Blood covered the concrete and filled the air, but to Ianto's relief there was no sign of a body. Of course that didn't mean Lisa was alive.

He scanned the room. He knew how Myfanwy feed, if she'd succeeded in killing Lisa, there would be body parts all over the place. As he searched for any signed and found none, he felt his hopes raise. She wasn't dead.

It was swiftly confirmed by the flickering of lights. She must be trying to for lack of a better term 'recharge'.

Ianto turned, in order to head to the basement. They didn't have long before Jack and the others came in after them. They needed to find a way out of here.

Then he noticed it and his hopes shattered, his heart plummeted and fear took hold. He rushed past the blood covered Pizza delivery box and ran to the basement.

He stormed into the room breathless from fear more than anything. Then he froze dead. Lisa lay not three feet before him. Lifeless and covered with blood.

He dropped to his knees and cradled her head in his lap. He'd failed. Failed to save the woman he love. He cried once again. He didn't think he would ever stop crying. Didn't think he would ever start living. He stared down at the blood that covered his hands. Lisa's blood.

"Ianto?"

He jumped to his feet. Weapon raised, as a short blond woman, he recognized as one of the delivery girls from the local pizza place stepped out of the shadows. Her face bloody, her forehead tainted by a large sown up wound that reminded him of Frankenstein's monster.

"Ianto. It's me. It's Lisa. – I'm human again." She said matter-of-factly.

Ianto watched her as she moved towards him, doubtful. Though somewhere inside he knew what she was saying was true.

"You fought so hard for me, I had to hold on for you.- So I took this body and transplanted the brain"

"You're not Lisa."

He said it more to himself than her. Cause he knew it was, he just prayed he was mistaken, because that would mean Jack was right, she wasn't the woman he loved any longer. His Lisa could never do something like this.

"You always said you didn't love me for what I looked like."

Ianto shook her head, not wanting to believe it. Needing to believe that Lisa hadn't become the monster he's tried so hard to prove she wasn't.

"Last time you said that, it was a Saturday. We were hangover. You made cheese toasties and moaned I hadn't descaled my kettle."

Ianto remembered that morning as clear as day. It could have been yesterday for the clarity it held in his mind. They'd had a rare weekend off together and decided to make the most of it. Jumping on the ferry and heading over to Brittany to do some camping. It hadn't been the best time of year to do it. It had been freezing.

"…We wore our coats and shared one sleeping bag. When we woke up the next morning, a dog was pissing on our tent…"

He'd hung on to a lot of memories since Canary wharf. That had been only a few week before that horrific day that the world had so easily forgotten. But he could never forget. He'd lost Lisa that day.

He knew that now. It would be easier for him to think of it that way, that he'd lost her that day, not today. That the woman… thing standing in front of him wasn't Lisa.

"Hold me, Ianto. – I need you to hold me."

Ianto tried to shut out her pleas. It wasn't Lisa he told himself over and over, even as she continued to beg for him to hold her. He had to do this, he had to finish it. But his heart could let him.

"I need you to tell me it's all right."

That was all Ianto could take, he stumbled swiftly forward, wrapping the shorter woman in a tight embrace, as he cried. It didn't feel like Lisa, it didn't smell like Lisa. Because it wasn't Lisa. He hadn't gotten to say goodbye to his Lisa, this was that goodbye.

With a deep shaky breathe, Ianto stepped back and raised his weapon once more. His face hard and determined.

"What are you doing? –Ianto, It's me. It's really me - You wouldn't shoot me. I did this for you."

"I'm sorry…" He sobbed, shaking as he looking to the face of a woman who wasn't Lisa but who offered him everything he'd lost. "I'm sorry."

He couldn't do it. Shooting her, whether she was Lisa or not was just not in him. "Lisa" He turned away from her in turmoil. It was Lisa, it wasn't Lisa. He had to stop her, he couldn't stop her. It was all so much to take in. He couldn't handle it. It was all too much. He began to stumble away under the weight of loss and guilt.

"We can be upgraded, together." She said and Ianto's heart finally shattered within his chest. Lisa or not, she was dangerous.

The choice was taken out of his hands. The shots rang like a bell in the empty silent room. Ianto span to see Lisa, or the body her brain now inhabited, falling backwards under the force of the shots aimed at her. Blood slowly seeping from the bullet holes to her chest and abdomen.

The Gwen, Owen, Tosh and Jack stood in the doorway, weapons raised as Lisa lay lifeless on the conversion unit. Gwen was the only one who would not meet his eyes.

The team watched in silence as he walked heavily towards the two bodies, dropping to his knees between them, sobbing.

A/N: Would like to thank everyone for reading, reviewing and faving this story. It meants a lot to me as this was my first Torchwood story. :D Hopefully not my last.

One more chapter then its over. :D