STORIES
THIRTY
The Captain began prying off his boots.
Ianto's eyes widened. "Jack, what are you doing?"
"I'm going out there."
The suspenders were down and the trousers were coming off.
"We should get you into an EVA suit."
"Fuck that!"
The shirt was over his head and gone.
"Or at least some scuba gear?"
Jack was now stripped down to his boxers and tee-shirt. Then those were gone, too.
"Stay here," the Captain ordered. "Think of helpful things you can do that don't endanger yourself or the ship."
He took two or three rapid, deep breaths, held in the last one, fixed his eyes forward and jumped horizontally through the shield's barrier into the water.
As Jack kicked off the barrier – how strange, he thought, I can move through it yet kick off it – his entire body shivered convulsively. The water was unbelievably cold. The shock of it nearly stole away what precious oxygen he still had filling his lungs.
Using powerful leg kicks he propelled himself out and upward, reaching forward with his hands until, according to his best estimate, about thirty vertical feet or so later he touched what he assumed must be the ceiling. The water level rose right up flush to its horizontal plane. Small fireworks went off in his brain: there was no air to be had up at the top.
He pivoted and kicked firmly off the ceiling, diving back downward. He was squinting in the dim light, trying to make out where the wall might be, the frigid water stinging his eyes. He saw the wall just before he grazed it with his outstretched fingertips. Widening his arms he pressed against its surface as hard as he could. The wall was vertical, solid, smooth, flat, and it didn't budge. He began moving along it, clutching, scrabbling with his hands to his right – clockwise, always clockwise.
Suddenly it became less dim. Jack blinked several times. He didn't think it was because his eyes were adjusting. He took a chance and paused his progress, turning his head, neck and torso outward as he held on to the wall. He could clearly make out the door of the TARDIS. The entrance was an intensely bright, white, glowing rectangle. And in the center of the rectangle was a vague, dark, man-shaped splotch. Ianto! The splotch seemed to be gesturing wildly with its arms.
His choice quickly made, Jack kicked off the wall and with several strong strokes made it back to the barrier. He gasped as he tumbled inside, the phenomenal cold of the water only conclusively hitting him as he felt the warm air of the TARDIS interior waft across his bare skin. He rolled onto the floor and into a fetal position, shivering intensely.
Ianto was there at the bottom of the ramp with a warm blanket and towels, and he was saying something. Saying something – the same thing, apparently – over and over again. The Captain had to concentrate hard to understand the words: "Jack, Jack, do you understand me? I've a waterproof torch for you. And a facemask. Jack?"
Jack met the Welshman's eyes and nodded. Ianto had knelt down beside him and was using his hands to vigorously rub the Captain's back and shoulders. Now he stopped, picked up a large but featherweight military-style flashlight from the floor and also, improbably, a bright orange scuba mask – sans snorkel. The Captain grabbed the face mask, pulled it onto his head and tightened it over his eyes and nose. Then he snatched the torch and shrugged off the blanket and towels that were covering him. Jack took a deep breath through his mouth, exhaled, took another deep breath and then without exhaling and without looking back he once again propelled himself out the door.
"You didn't tell him." This was Grasshopper's voice. Or was it The Doctor's TARDIS? Ianto had no flipping idea. Wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.
"I didn't have the heart. Besides, this is Captain Jack Harkness. Astonishing and unanticipated things tend to happen when he's around and the last thing I want to do is cramp his style." He pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses out of his suit coat pocket and put them on. "Interior illumination back to maximum, please. Let's give the man some light to work with." Ianto thought about how much he loved Jack Harkness as he pushed the wet blankets and towels aside, stood up, and went to fetch dry replacements.
At that precise moment Jack Harkness was thinking about how much he loved Ianto Jones. Ianto had given him an extra shot of hope, and like "love," "hope" was one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer. Although it was still fucking cold, thanks to Ianto's ingenuity at least now he could see, and in fact see quite well. Using the torch to brighten his way, he swam to where he believed had been his last location along the wall and resumed his methodical clockwise search. It didn't take long before he saw something noteworthy in the beam of the flashlight. Using one arm and two legs he stroked powerfully toward a shape illuminated on the wall ahead of him. The shape resolved into a figure, that figure, in the light of his torch, resolved into John Hart. His head was tilted back, his eyes and mouth were open wide, and his fingers were outstretched, wiggling slightly in the current that Jack was generating around him.
The Captain reached out and touched his friend's, his lover's face. It was frighteningly cold. Jack reined in his emotions. Of course it'd be cold. He let the torch float free in perfect weightless equilibrium and grabbed one of John's hands. It was affixed somehow, some way to the wall. The Captain moved his fingers around John's arm and wrist, probing, and encountered the manacle. He pulled on it with all his might. Nothing! Then he tried to snap the chain that connected the manacle to the wall. Fuck! Nothing! Why hadn't I thought to bring something useful with me? Jack felt himself beginning to lose control. He consciously calmed his thoughts and subdued his movements – his lungs were starting to burn and he needed to conserve what he could of his remaining oxygen. Using his fingers, which were without any doubt starting to go painfully numb, he began to examine John's body – to in fact methodically frisk him. Come on, John, he thought, I know you're never without a weapon. Now where is it? It was when his fingertips probed around John's waist that Jack found what he was looking for. He dug deep into the waistband and felt something hard, metallic. He pulled it out and stared at the object as he held it up in the light of the lazily drifting flashlight. It looked like… Well, he'd never seen one quite like it before but instinctively the Captain knew it was some sort of switchblade. He fiddled with the thing, trying to ignore his screaming lungs, his freezing hands almost dropping it. But Jack had never met a weapon he couldn't figure out, couldn't use, and this one was no exception. His fingertips located the release mechanism. The blade extended out of the handle. His hands were so cold, so clumsy; he almost cut himself on the knife's edge, and it was a good thing, a very good thing that he didn't…
Because it was without a doubt the sharpest implement he'd ever encountered, ever employed. The blade severed the first chain as if it'd been made of warm butter. The other three shackles were dealt with just as swiftly, just as elegantly. Jack used his arms to grab John's form in a bear hug and again he pivoted around and kicked off the wall. Every muscle in his body was now burning, howling, dying. He fixed his eyes on the entrance of the TARDIS and kicked as hard as he could with his legs toward the light. But somehow, inexplicably, the light seemed to be growing dimmer, moving away from him, not closer. He kicked again, a black curtain of despair coming down on his vision, on his thoughts. Then, silhouetted by the light, he saw a dark shape growing larger, moving toward him, its appendages reaching out graspingly to him. For a nanosecond his brain snapped into battle mode, he'd not expected to be met by friendly forces half-way to his destination. Jack instantly, intuitively got his body and mind ready to fight. Luckily the better angels of his judgment won out over pure military instinct. It was not a foe coming toward him, it was… MOST implausibly, The Doctor! Fully dressed in his suit and converses, the Time Lord was swimming to him, was wrapping his arms around both the Captain and his beloved, precious cargo, pulling them… dragging them…
The next thing Jack knew he was inside the TARDIS, his body screaming, his mind screaming, his voice screaming.
In between his own screams, he heard a second voice yelling, "Charging to 300! Charged!"
And then a third voice, "Clear!"
Adrenaline does weird things to your head. You hear people talk about how everything slows down. That just isn't the case. Not in real life. Nothing is happening slowly. But as Jack's adrenaline level shot through the roof it felt that somehow he could fit a whole lot more thinking into the time and space that was provided. As it turned out, what he was thinking was about to be proven quite wrong.
"NO!" screamed Jack, having concluded the yelling was all about him. "I'm okay!"
What followed was the sound… a sound that is unique in the universe; it could only be one thing – the shock of defibrillator paddles. But the yelling hadn't been about him… oh no, not at all.
The third voice, Jack now recognized it as The Doctor's voice: "No pulse. Again! Charge!"
"Charging to 300!" The second voice – it was Ianto's. "Charged!"
"Clear!" The Doctor – as before his voice strong, commanding, yet Jack thought he perceived a change in its tone…
Again the shock of the paddles. "No pulse," The Doctor's tone was most definitely changing…
"Again?" This was Ianto.
There was no immediate response.
"Charging again, Doctor?"
"Ianto…" the inflection said it all.
Jack opened his eyes and looked at The Doctor's face. He knew that look. He'd seen it before.
"NO!" the Captain screamed once more. He threw off his blankets, lurched for the paddles, violently grabbed them from the Time Lord's hands and shoved The Doctor aside with his shoulder. "Charge to 360!"
"Charged!"
Jack placed the paddles, "Clear!" and administered the shock. The sound of it reverberated off the walls of the control room.
The Doctor looked at the electrocardiogram reader. "Nothing. Jack…"
"Again!" screamed Jack.
And again the paddles were charged and again John's heart was shocked and again The Doctor was the deliverer of bad news, "Jack, I'm sorry. I'm so…"
The Captain tossed aside the paddles vehemently. "No! He wants to live. He always wants to live!" Jack leaned over and began administering manual chest compression. "One, two, three, four, five," he counted as he cycled through compressions. "One, two, three, four, five…" Jack completed five full cycles, refusing to stop, refusing to give up. The Doctor and Ianto both looked on hopelessly, helplessly, horrified.
After the fifth compression cycle Jack sat up, breathing hard, his body glistening with sweat, and felt for a pulse. "Damn it, John, don't give up on me! Do you hear me? I need you! You're my best friend! Don't you dare even think about giving up on me!" He switched to artificial respiration, pinching John's nose and covering his mouth with his own. Shit, I have life enough for both of us! He insufflated John's lungs.
Two ventilations later Jack again felt for a pulse before going back to the chest compressions. "One, two, three, four, five," his voice was angry. "I'm not going to let you die! I'll never let you die! Are you listening? Never! One, two, three, four, five…"
"Jack…" it was The Doctor, his quiet words filled with incredible sadness as he reached for the Captain. "I'm so sorry…"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Jack's voice pounded through the air as he bore down with all his might on John Hart's chest.
And that's when they heard John gasp.