Guilt
Chapter Eighteen
With Ianto, if not entirely convinced that it was best, at least resigned to having this discussion without Lisa, Owen prepared to start again.
"First things first, the blood tests all actually look pretty good. Her blood sugar is a little high, but we can adjust a few things to deal with that. More importantly, there was no sign of any infection. I was a little worried about sepsis considering she's on continual dialysis, but we seem to have avoided that thus far."
Owen was pleased to see that the scrap of good news appeared to help Ianto compose himself. Although he couldn't fool himself into believing that Ianto's apparent calm was anything more than another coping mechanism. However, the obvious suppression of emotion Ianto was doing now was healthier than the complete detachment that had manifested earlier, so Owen wasn't going to interfere.
He took a deep breath. The scan had revealed a lot of things, some of them more worrying and difficult than others, and it wasn't all going to be easy for Ianto to hear, or for Owen to tell.
"Hopefully that little bit of luck will hold, as even though her kidneys are mostly intact, they have been infringed by some of the metal, and their blood supply has been seriously disrupted."
"Can you fix it?" Ianto's voice was strong despite the almost imperceptible shake in his hand.
Own tilted his head uncertainly. "I can't say for sure. Going on the information from the scan, I should be able to, yes. But I've never dealt with this sort of intrusion, so I don't want to make any promises."
"Not to be negative here, but isn't there a bit of a problem with fixing her kidneys when her… well… when she has all that… metal… there?" Jack waved a hand in indication of the problem area.
Owen blinked. He hadn't even thought that far, and from the slightly startled expressions around the table, he could tell he wasn't the only one. "Umm… yeah… I suppose there is. But… erm… how about we cross that bridge when we come to it?"
He was fairly sure that between them they could come up with a workaround to that particular issue, but there was a related one occurring to him now that wouldn't be quite so easily sidestepped.
"I guess that sort of brings me to the digestive system," he continued, cringing internally a little at his choice of segue. "I'm assuming that had the... process... been continued, it would have become redundant, with something else as an energy source. But there wasn't anything actually removed. It's all still there, and mostly undamaged, just not exactly… connected up, anymore."
"So where does that leave us?" Tosh asked, noting a few things down on her notepad.
"Basically, we're going to have to keep her on the TPN for a while longer. Eventually we can try to do something about that, but meanwhile we just have to…" Owen trailed off as he registered the puzzled looks on Jack, Ianto and Suzie's faces.
"TPN?"
"Sorry about that… it's just the fancy name for a drip feed." Owen explained, wondering a little at how quickly he'd slipped back into medical lingo.
"Anyway, as I was saying, we do have to keep an eye out for infection and liver problems from that, but we don't really have an option. She's not really in a position to be eating anything, even ignoring the intubation."
Here, Ianto spoke up again. "About the intubation… is there anything we can do about that? It's just…" He glanced down at the table while he gathered his thoughts. "It's not that I can't carry on a one-sided conversation with her, but I know she hates not being able to communicate. If there's anything we can do, anything at all…"
Owen sighed. "Her lungs were quite badly damaged during the con… process." He had come to an agreement with Jack to avoid the 'c' word wherever possible, but it was hard not to let it slip out. "She definitely needs help to breathe, and the intubation is the only way current medical science can do that."
"What about Torchwood science? Surely there's something?"
Owen thought for a moment and looked and Tosh and Suzie. "I dunno, it's not something we've ever needed before. We can look into it though. Tosh and Suzie can do wonders with a bit of alien tech and some tinkering." He grinned thinly at the two women, who both blushed faintly at the praise.
"Thank you." Ianto blew out a breath. "I know, I know there are no guarantees, but it really will do wonders for her mental state if we can do something." His eyes unfocused a little as a sad smile drifted across his mouth. "She's always loved to talk."
"It might actually be rather useful in monitoring her status too," Owen mused, possibilities flashing through his mind. "She can tell us a lot more than we can get just from scans and tests, especially when it comes to the brain." He could see Ianto deliberately prepare himself before he spoke.
"They put something in her brain, didn't they?"
Owen took a calming breath of his own before he answered. "Yes, the scan showed several intrusions into her brain. Mostly affecting the somatosensory system and the cochlear nucleus. Touch and hearing," he clarified, realising that he had inadvertently reverted to the technical medical terminology again.
"The parts I'm most worried about, though, are the intrusions into her limbic system. We know that the completed process would have rendered her emotionless, so that's worrying, but…"
Owen saw Ianto's face light up in protest and he held up a hand to stop him. "But, we also know from Tosh's scan that that isn't the case."
Ianto settled back into his seat, apparently mollified for now, and Owen felt safe to continue. "The presence of intrusions into that area of her brain is still worrying, there could be something there that is just inactive, and we really don't want to accidentally activate it if there is."
"Well, how would whatever it is get activated?" Suzie asked. "So we can be careful not to do that."
Owen shifted uncomfortably. "Well, that's the problem really. We have no idea how it could be activated, how to tell if it was activated or if there would be any way of deactivating it if we did. We don't even know for sure that there's anything there to be activated."
"So we have to avoid doing some unknown thing that will have an unknown result to something that might not even exist. Just great," Jack sighed, the frustration evident in his voice.
"I'd give you more information if I had it, we just don't know enough about the technology," Owen told him, feeling a little useless that he didn't have all the answers.
"Is that everything?" Ianto asked entreatingly. His shoulders were beginning to slump, and Owen worried that he was beginning to get overwhelmed with the details. "Please say that's everything."
"I'm sorry," he shook his head. "Not quite. Good news is that there's nothing in any of the tests or scans to suggest there's anything wrong with her heart. It's working pretty hard to try to cope with all of the other issues, but as far as I can tell it's fine. And that brings us down to the final thing, and I promise you that this is the last of it, Ianto. And it's mostly a cosmetic issue."
"The metal." Ianto said dully. Owen nodded in response.
"The metal. It's been cybernetically bonded into and in place of her skin, so we're not going to be able to just remove it. The result would be similar to giving her 3rd degree burns all over her body, and that's no trivial amount of damage."
"Can we treat it like they do burns then? With skin grafts and the like?" Tosh inquired thoughtfully.
"It's definitely an option," Owen concurred, "although I'm no expert at cosmetic surgery, so there would still be visible scarring."
"But we could do it?" Ianto wanted to know.
"We'd have to source or build a few bits of kit to culture the skin growths from harvested cells, but yes, I think we could."
Ianto was quiet and thoughtful for several long minutes in which the rest of the team barely dared speak, let alone move.
Finally, he roused himself and looked up at Owen.
"We have to talk to Lisa."