Chap 19

"Ianto! Ianto!"

He doesn't respond.

Because he's unconscious or dead. His head lolls there.

There's no time left for restraint. Jack snatches a device off the wall. It looks like a rifle with a power cable. Points it at him. Triggers it. It's a huge laser pointer. Lights him up. Shouts to the computer.

"Hard Dock!" Jack screams. The ship pauses, like its thinking. And refuses.

Object out of range. Emergency braking will commence in seven seconds.

Torchwood tells him then turns off the pointer. Jack throws it crossly aside. There's a track on the side of the wall with a line thrower attached. He clips in. Grabs something the size of a watermelon with nozzles sticking out of it in his free hand. And shouts "Last acquisition. Line release. Full velocity."

And it does. The line wrenches him brutally along the track and hurls him into space.

Tumbling, he half-regains his bearing, holds out the mini-thrust ball. Shouts something at it. It Blasts. Drags him by the arm towards Cosmos. He smashes into it. Twisting, floundering, way too hard. Half knocks himself out. Recovers, clips in with the tether on his suit.

Ianto is completely unconscious.

He shouts something in the silence we can't hear. The reel in the ship starts to spin. So damn fast it's smouldering.

The Cosmos is reeled in, spinning wildly at the end of the line. The Torchwood, giant by comparison, is about to swallow up the tiny SRM and its two passengers. At 45 mph.

The dock comes speeding at them. They're both going to be squashed like bugs.

Jack cuts the line. And fires everything left in the portable thrust engine at once. Blue plasma flares. His arm is twisted wildly, almost pulled from its socket. But...

The Cosmos spins 180 degrees as they plunge through the opening of the port into the Torchwood. They're on the shaded side as the Cosmos hits the far side of the dock like a freight train.

"Seal! Emergency atmosphere. Now!" Jack yells and the airlock closes. The room is pommelled in white mist. He grabs an emergency cutting tool, hooks it into the front of Ianto's suit. Rips it open from stem to stern.

He's limp, unresponsive.

"No. Not after all that, dammit." Jack sobs, "No."

He checks, he has no pulse.

"Dammit, no!"

A first aid station is bolted into the wall. Jack grabs him by the front of his shirt, pushes them over there. Takes out a pair of pre-gummed shock pads, slaps them onto his chest and fires them.

Ianto is thrown completely across the room by the current. Slams into the far wall. Opens his eyes. Starts to breathe. "Hey, I knew you wouldn't leave without me."

Jack stares as if he can't believe it.

"You promised." Ianto coughs.

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They're all astonished back at Mission Control. And freaked. They've got a serious problem now.

"Mission Control. This is Torchwood. Recovered ground crew." Jack's voice crows, "Request recalc and reconfiguration for return flight. Orbit is stable but diminished."

The scientists have been figuring madly. And they don't like what they're coming up with.

"We can get 'em back. Slowly. Fifty extra days." Andy says slowly, "And we're not going to be able to support food and air for two people."

The two men aboard the Torchwood listen as Rhys motions to Gwen to speak, "that travel has been increased by approximate two months. Concern is that available life support is untenable for duration and current crew strength."

Ianto is unconvinced. Worms tried to eat him, robots tried to kill him and they're worried about this? .

"Scientists. Scientists sent us here. Scientists figured the whole thing out with Mars." Ianto says to Jack with anger, "I hate to bring this up, but they got us into this whole mess in the first place. Hell, they shouldn't be allowed to drive 'cause they miss the turnoff as they consider the ramifications of the internal combustion engine."

He picks up the mike. "Hey, guys. How 'bout we come about halfway home and you send a ship with air and food and stuff to meet us? In the middle. And we don't have to get all the way back. Huh?"

"I know where there is a rocket in Uzbekistan. For cheap. A friend of mine has kept it." Borokovski laughs. Ianto likes this guy!

Outside, Mars drifts by in the view port. Jack looks at it desolately.

"So much for saving humankind and living on Mars. I guess the worms took care of that." Jack sighs as Ianto drifts into his arms.

"The worms are not our enemy. They're our friends." He whispers, enjoying the touch of another human being, let alone a desirable one.

He's pulled the container out of his pocket. Unscrews it to show him the little slimy monsters. He recoils in horror. "You brought them back? Are you insane?"

"It's okay, I'm pretty sure they don't like titanium." Ianto laughs. "We're gonna live. On Mars. Hell, maybe even back on Earth. Maybe anywhere we want. And the reason we're gonna live, is the damn worms. Yeah, they ate all the algae, and damn near everything else, but they store and excrete oxygen."

Jack finds this hard to believe. But he explains.

"That's why we could breathe." Ianto explains, "You should have seen these suckers burn when they went up. I had some time to think about this. I was in orbit for six minutes before you found me. I should have been dead. But the air locked in the suit was almost pure O2. Because of the worms. We didn't just find a new place to live on, we may have saved our old one. Toxic waste, they'll eat it. Poisonous landfills, they'll eat it."

Jack's still trying to process all this. It's been a long couple of days.

"God's got a sense of humour. He's giving us another chance. If we can all get along this time. Tosh knew somewhere that it wasn't the science, it was about having something to believe in. Doc always knew. Wonders of the deep." Ianto shakes his head sadly, "We just had to go to Mars to remind ourselves of what we should have been able to see back on Earth. It's not all about us. We can't kill everything and survive."

Jack looks back at Mars. Astounded. Believes. "You wanna tell them back on Earth the species is saved and we're gonna live?"

"How should I know, I'm the janitor."

"Well?" Jack says with a gleam in his eye, "What can you do for my poor, tired heart?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Ianto kisses Jack. Soft, gentle and so bloody sweet. They drift in the weightless dock as hands explore and Ianto shivers as Jack's hands find their way inside his t-shirt.

"It's an extra fifty days back." Jack pants as he pulls the t-shirt of Ianto's head, then moans at the sight before him.

"Gee, wonder what we'll find to do with ourselves." Ianto asks with mock sincerity.

Jack growls and kisses Ianto passionately, removing all doubt that they will be busy, indeed.

The End

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Thanks for reading, I tried to keep it as close to the story as I could, an extra smut chap will follow for those of you who want it, if you don't … this was it.

Laters Alligators.