Well this is getting a little more difficult than I wanted. Sorry about the wait, I promise to try and be faster, is it still worth carrying on?
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"Well hold her bloody hand then" Shouted Ianto at the sight of Jack standing there like a lemon. God but sometimes he had to be the adult round this place and what the hell was Owen doing pulling the contents of the ready use drugs cabinet out onto the floor.
"Owen focus" he said wanting to slap him for good effect, "What are you looking for?"
"Ianto" said Own as if he had only just realised he was there, he paused a second to do as he was told, he understood the consequences of disobeying the young Welshman and would carry the scar on his shoulder to his grave, if he ever got one of course. "How much morphine have we used?"
Ianto picked up the previously discarded notes and flicked through mentally adding all the doses.
"Exactly the same amount as we normally keep in the Hub." Said Ianto succinctly.
"Shit" shouted Owen throwing a final handful of medicines back into the metal cabinet and continued with a few more choice phrases. He pinched the bridge of his nose, a classic Owen thinking position, as he muttered through the options.
"Owen do something." Said Jack his voice dangerously low as he turned his head from the whimpering form of the woman on the table. Ianto was pleased to see Jack had followed his orders and went to collect the blanket from the floor where it had fallen. He covered the shaking form and brushed over Jacks hand for reassurance, they were white, the blood crushed out of them by the death grip of the woman in front of them. She was muttering incoherently in between small agonising moans,
"Make it stop, please make it go away."
It sounded more like a mantra and Jack responded making all the right sounds but it was like sticking a plaster on a gaping wound. Ianto, efficient as ever, quickly got the mop and bucket that always stood in the hall in the hope of making the environment a little nicer. As he came back Tosh and Gwen came walking in slowly, neither of them looked please to be called away from the inviting warmth of a bed promised not half an hour ago. Seeing the stressed look on Iantos face they both perked up slightly and walked with a little more purpose back towards the autopsy room.
"Jesus Jack what did you do this time?" Exploded Gwen as the vision of a dead woman breathing and struggling for life assaulted her eyeballs. Tosh also brought up short and just stared.
"Why do you all automatically blame me?" asked Jack affronted
"Call it past history Jack" said Gwen huffily "Owen do you need a hand?"
"No I need morphine and we don't have any" He replied his shaking hands pulling together a few other drugs that he knew she needed anyway.
"Right well I'll get some, write me the script and I'll go to the pharmacy over at the hospital, Ianto can ring ahead and I can be there and back in twenty minutes." Ever practical in a crisis that didn't involve her or one of the people she loved.
"We don't have 20 minutes Gwen." Hissed Owen
"Give me the keys and find Owen his little pad to scribble on." She said ignoring him as she often did now she had the confidence she had lacked before Jack had disappeared.
"Of course the SUV" said Ianto cryptically as he sprinted up the stairs.
"Fucking great." Said Owen throwing his hands up dramatically, "The one time it would be good to work as a team and Tea-boy decides to go it alone."
"Zip it Owen." Said Gwen coming down to Owens level in the pit. "Think what your other options are." She was looking round for a pen, Good God though Owen, she wants to bloody brain storm patient resuscitation in the middle of an incident.
"She needs some pain relief because her blood pressure is going to give her a stroke and I've used all the meds because the Hub isn't set up as a full scale emergency department. We can't shove her off to A&E because there are too many questions and I've run out of options." The despair in his voice echoed round the autopsy bay as they both looked back at the tableau of desolation playing out before them.
Tosh started forward taking her leather jacket off and throwing it over her discarded bag.
"I have an idea." She said quietly moving over to where Jack was crouched down trying to get any sort of eye contact as Jennys eyes flitted all over, the concentration to get her breath taking priority over anything else.
"Let me take her hands Jack." He looked at her unwilling to give up the contact "It's fine Jack I just want to try something." She said with a hand on his shoulder.
She took both of the frail white hands and bent close to Jennys face talking quietly so none of the team could quite hear what she was saying.
"Where's Ianto?" asked Jack looking round as if it was the first time he had seen the rest of the team in the room.
"He just ran off" said Gwen without any inflection leaving Jack to flounder around for the meaning in the sentence as he looked into her wide eyes
"Sit-rep" he snapped at the pair of them needing to get a grip on something before he became the same gibbering mess the pair in front of him were becoming.
Owen looked back at the screens and then at Tosh and Jenny,
"What are you doing Tosh?" he asked quietly
"Acupressure, by using some pressure points at the base of the thumb it seems to reduce the awareness of the pain."
"Well I never, it seems to be working a bit." Said Owen, the wonderment that anything not based on the ideals of western chemistry could provide any relief.
Jack watched over the scene, his mind coming back to full speed like being dragged through the time vortex. He was about to start issuing orders again when he heard the clattering steps of leather soled shoes on the metal work of the Hub and suddenly Ianto burst back into the autopsy bay carrying the field med kit from the rear of the SUV.
"Pethadine" he wheezed holding the bag up in front of him.
Owens eyes widened in glorious recognition as he snatched the black case from him
"Ianto Have I ever told you that you are a genius." He asked as he snapped open the metal tin that held the single use pain killer. Owen felt it was a rather blunt instrument in the vast arsenal of painkilling drugs he could get his hands on but it was an easy thing for the rest of the team to understand in the field. Besides that at the moment beggars could not be choosers.
"Nope, I think that is the first time you have recognised what I have always known to be true." Ianto straightened up, the sprint to the SUV hadn't been far but he couldn't remember the last time he had eaten and he had used all his energy on the gallop up the steps.
Jack slapped him on the back as Owen jabbed the needle into an exposed portion of the thigh, the further unexpected shock causing a gasp from the patient. Ianto took a final deep breath and composed himself, the mask of normality covering his face.
"Now Gwen can have the keys and go to St Helens." Said Ianto holding out the keys like a sausage in front of a dog.
After admitting that for once he was wrong – the autopsy room was no longer suitable - they had transferred the patient to the softer surroundings of the medical suite. Owen had however had the last word stopping Jack from in his matinee idol role and insisting on doing things properly, using the trolley to transport her, in the lift. That seemed such a long time ago thought Jack wiping his face and feeling the stubble, if fate was going to make him live forever it could of at least made it so he didn't have to shave every day. He had shooed the others away, all of them reluctant to leave again after what had happened last time but he had pulled rank and given them all the look. Tosh and Gwen had pulled on Iantos arm to go and Jack had politely suggested he go home and change, code for the fact he would have to warm his own bed tonight. Jack hoped he realised it wasn't permanent but he needed some head space to get over what had happened to him today and sitting in a small room was one place to do that. Only lit by one lamp, turned against the wall so there was enough light that you didn't fall over, but not enough to really disturb the patient he really did have space to cogitate. He knew Owen was still within screaming distance but Jack would place money on the fact he would be in some second world, which seemed to be his escape now porn was a sick reminder of what he could never have. One day soon humans would have real alternative realities, the 21st century really was when it all changed – how come he could remember lessons in school that he wasn't really paying attention to but not what his mother looked like?
Owen had made Jenny comfortable and then given her something to help sleep, his remark that the drugs seemed to be lasting a little longer than last time had worried him. Why did everything Torchwood touch seem to end up broken? He stroked her hand again so she knew there was someone there, it was horrendous to wake up in a strange place, alone, a subject on which he could write a book. He hoped she wouldn't remember much of the last 24 hours, they said people don't normally remember trauma like that, he did, he remembered every little moment that brought him to each of his deaths. He could probably name all of them but he had stopped count after about 700, especially as he had turned it into a fairground trick so about 200 of them were the same, night in night out. How was he going to get this across to Ianto? How do you truly explain why you would hide large portions of his life even from yourself to someone who wore their own heart on their sleeve and believed that his own lies and secrets had nearly ended the world. He knew the boy, no man, too well to think for a minute he would let it go, like a dog with a rag when he thought he was being kept in the dark. Just telling him it was for his own good that he didn't know wouldn't cut the mustard any more and lying didn't sit well after the fact that this was all caused by his deceit.
He snook a look at his watch, nearly 6am, Ianto would be in soon with his coffee and smiles, perhaps after that they could talk. Unconsciously he rubbed the bruises round the base of her thumbs, Tosh had really done a number on her and Jack shuddered to think what other talents she had hidden away but as normal the quiet hidden talents of a team that on paper shouldn't even function well enough to know each others names came to the fore. Jack was pulled out of his introspection when he noted the slight change in breathing patterns, the next two minutes could get painful. He stood up so he could get close to her face when she did finally realise what was happening and started stroking her cheek and cooing, he was cooing he thought to himself the 21st century and it's foray into metro sexuality really had effected him.
Jenny couldn't work out what was happening in her own head, her chest and her hip it was a sensation she wasn't used to but as her brain finally flipped over the last card before becoming conscious she realised this was pain, true bone wrenching pain. As she struggled to breath without the grinding of bone she felt herself being pulled slightly forward taking the weight off her sternum till she regained some equilibrium. She hadn't yet opened her eyes but she knew who it was in the room with her, the touch alone was something she had held in her mind for 90 years. Finally as she felt herself returning to the soft over stuffed pillows that had her propped in a strange half sitting position she opened her eyes.
"Welcome back." He said quietly, rearranging the hair on her forehead and replacing the plastic pipe delivering oxygen behind her ear. "Do you need something for the pain, Owens's just next door I can get him."
She shook her head and kept hold of his hand trying to form a sentence in her head while working out if she could actually cope with the sensations moving round her body. Jack saw her lips moving, a small bright red tear catching the eye against the paleness of her face and reached over awkwardly with his free hand to snatch up the glass of water on the cabinet. He smiled inwardly when he saw the straw, Ianto must of remembered how he had ended up wearing most of his drink when Jack had tried the same thing with him just after their trip to the Beacons. After a few sips she lifted her hand and moved the glass away but she didn't have enough strength left to move her head from the hand that was holding it upright.
"I have never felt like this before." She said falteringly "It goes away, tell me it is going to go away soon, how can humans cope, how do they keep going?" she asked starting to shake a little.
"We all carry on because that's what life is" he said with a sad smile, reflexively he felt himself stroking her cheek, wiping away the tears that had formed. For the first time he realised that he had regained something he once buried, late Victorian Britain hadn't really gone for the touchy feely approach and it felt so much better like this.
"You scared us all, we thought we lost you."
"Do you do this every time?" she asked grasping his hand and winding the fingers together, she didn't know she was doing it but she gripped so tightly it hurt.
"Sometimes it's worse than others, but I gotta say I don't think I have ever died of so many things at once."
"How can you cope with it all?"
"You just box it and carry on." He said realising that was going to have to change.
She just looked at him, breathing heavily, before forming a response.
"That's the difference between you and me, you hide in the shadows – I hide in the light." She paused for breath and tried to get a little more comfortable but found she just didn't have the strength to move. "And I hope you have a bigger storage area for all those boxes because I would say yours is full and you're only a youngster." She smiled and they both started to chuckle which quickly turned into a full on coughing fit frightening Jack into calling Owen.