Chapter Fifty-Three
Sorry that this has taken so long – I've had so many exams that I can't really think straight. :-(
Dedication: CelticHeiressFiona for being, in general, made of awesome. And Unidentified99, for leaving lovely reviews that always spur me on to greater writing heights. ;-P
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Torchwood.
The Doctor spun around at a resounding knock on the door.
Rosalinne grabbed Pierre and looked at the Doctor for direction, her eyes wide and scared. "John? What is it?"
The Doctor took a cautious step forward and frowned as there came a crash from outside. "I think that maybe our visitors aren't as pleasant as hoped..."
-T-
G-Ianto frowned at the new, 'good' fish-man, trying to ignore the fact that the alien stank. The fish-man's scales were a dull, muddy-brown colour, and seaweed was encrusted beneath his fingernails. At least, G-Ianto guessed that it was seaweed.
"So you want me to give bone marrow?" G-Ianto asked.
The fish-man (who G-Ianto had decided to christen Elvis, simply from the quiff and way of speaking) nodded enthusiastically. "Uh-huh."
"Will it hurt?"
"Uh-huh."
"But he'll die without it," G-Ianto said, almost to himself.
"Uh-huh," Elvis agreed, even though it wasn't a question. "He die."
G-Ianto turned away, trying to keep him emotions under wraps. He stared at the grey brick wall, counting the flecks in an effort to keep control. I'm not a medicine closet, he wanted to say. I've already given blood and stuff.
And a tiny, rogue thought slipped in. What if he dies? it whispered in his ear. If he dies, then Jack might come back to you.
G-Ianto shook his head, trying to dislodge that thought. It would be wrong to do anything less than everything he could to save the other man – and if he was the cause of the other Ianto's death...well, Jack wouldn't exactly be falling into his arms any time soon.
"You good?" Elvis asked, sounding concerned. "Need water?"
"No, thanks," G-Ianto said absently. He fiddled with his watch-strap, wishing that he could put this off, somehow. "Where's Jack?"
"Here," Jack said quietly. G-Ianto turned around, to see the captain standing in the doorway, his face pale and his eyes red-rimmed. G-Ianto wondered if he'd been crying. "What's up?"
"Nothing," G-Ianto lied, ignoring the urge to hold Jack tight, to comfort him, "just wondered where you were."
Jack nodded, his blue eyes distracted. "Are you ready?" he asked.
G-Ianto frowned. "Ready for what?"
"For the transplant," Jack said, clearly surprised. "The bone marrow."
But I haven't agreed to do it yet! G-Ianto wanted to scream. You can't make me. "Yeah. Of course," he said instead, forcing a smile and following Jack and Elvis from the room.
-T-
"Open up!" a harsh voice commanded.
The Doctor cast Rosalinne and Pierre a cautious look, before unbolting the sturdy oak door and poking his head around. "Hello there," he said cheerily to the grim-faced pirate outside. "Sorry we can't come out right now, but if—"
He was cut off by a fist around his wind-pipe and a growled complaint in his face, "You talk too much. Shuddup."
"Magic word," the Doctor managed to choke out.
The pirate's heavy brows drew together in a confused scowl. "You talk too much," he repeated.
"Y'know, I think I've heard that before—"
The pirate tightened his grip, and the Doctor gasped for air. "Shuddup."
The Doctor was dumped unceremoniously on his backside in the mud and the pirate pulled the door fully open, beckoning out Rosalinne and Pierre with a lascivious leer.
-T-
He instantly felt guilty for even thinking of refusing to go through with the surgery when they entered the blue-eyed Ianto's room and he saw him, lying there in the bed, his face almost the pallor of the dead and his chest barely moving. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be sleeping.
"Ianto?" Jack asked softly, taking his hand and pressing a gentle kiss to the palm. "We've got something that'll make you better." He shot a glance at G-Ianto, his expression nervous. "Just hang on a bit longer – it'll be all over by the end of the day."
Ianto didn't respond, remaining perfectly still apart from the gentle rise and fall of his chest. G-Ianto swallowed, then trailed after Elvis into the connecting room, where needles would be stuck into his hips, like a human pincushion, and some marrow sucked out.
Nice.
-T-
"I am now in charge here," the pirate said smugly, strutting up and down the green (or rather, the brown – it was knee-deep in thick, gloopy mud). "I, Blackbeard the Brave!"
"What a stupid name," the Doctor muttered out the side of his mouth to Rosalinne, in an attempt to conquer the terrified expression on her flaccid features. "But imagine if it were Bob – now that—"
"Just shut up, will you," Rosalinne hissed, her pale eyes wide with fear. "You'll make it worse!"
-T-
Jack bit his lip, pacing back and forth in front of the door behind which both of the Iantos were undergoing surgery.
A small fish-girl with shimmering silver scales hurried around the corner, offering up a tray on which a single glass of water was balanced. "You drink?" Her voice was surprisingly throaty, not dissimilar to that of a French-speaker speaking English.
"No thanks," Jack said distractedly. "How much longer will it take?"
She shrugged, slopping some of the water over the sides of the glass. "19 clicks?" she said.
Jack did a quick mental calculation. About an hour and a half, then.
"I help you with things?" the fish-girl asked. "I Cleo."
"Like Cleopatra?" Jack questioned, smiling despite himself. "What is it with you guys and famous names?"
"I no understand..." Cleo said, frowning in anxiety.
"Doesn't matter," Jack said. He leant back against the wall, letting himself slide down until he sat on the floor with a bump. He buried his face in his hands, and willed the time to hurry up.
He felt his mobile vibrate in his pocket. He froze for a second, before realising what it was and answering.
"Jack?"
"Gwen."
"You're back, then?" There was no way of telling what she was feeling; her voice was carefully neutral.
"Yeah. They're in surgery at the moment." Jack scrubbed a hand across his face and into his hair.
"...'They'?"
Damn. "There was a slight ... complication," Jack said carefully, "which resulted in there being two Iantos."
"'Two Iantos'?"
"It's complicated, Gwen. I'll explain it all when we get back," Jack said, suddenly feeling a bone-deep exhaustion. "We should be back by tomorrow evening, hopefully."
"Okay." A beat. "Where are they in surgery?"
"Turns out the aliens aren't all bad," Jack said with a choked laugh. "They're split into two groups. One group's trying to kill us all, the other group's trying to stop them." He paused, trying to order his thoughts. "The bad group were the ones that killed Ianto and infected him with the leukaemia, in an attempt to turn us away. The good ones were the ones talking to Clara, but they accidentally killed her."
"How can you 'accidentally kill' someone?" Gwen asked. She sounded tired, and strained.
"Beats me," Jack said. "But the good ones are currently curing Ianto – they made sure that both of the Iantos would get pulled from the other world, so that they could use his stem cells."
"Why would they do this for us?"
Jack sighed, and shifted the mobile to his other ear so he could check his watch. Still an hour and twenty minutes to go. "I promised them that the Doctor would take them home."
"Jack, the files say that their planet was destroyed by war," Gwen said. "There's no way you can keep that promise. The Doctor doesn't keep his promises. For all we know, he could drop them off into a black hole."
"The Doctor would never do that," Jack said instantly.
Gwen was quiet for a moment. "But what if you don't know him as well as you think you do?"
"I know him, and he'd never do that. What's brought this on?"
"Jack ... the Doctor knew about these aliens all along. He knew about their base, about their war, everything."
"What?" Jack demanded, feeling a surge of dread in his gut. "What are you talking about, Gwen? What's happened?"
"Martha and Toshiko found a file about the aliens. The Doctor was the one who set them up in their base underneath the islands," Gwen said. "He was the one who gave them the technology to give people leukaemia." She paused. "He was the one who killed Ianto."
I've been going through the 6th (or 7th ... I forget) draft of Splash today, printing it all out and sticking it in a binder. It's both shorter and longer than I expected ... which doesn't even make sense, does it? *shrugs* I'm in a funny mood today. Hence the strangeness of this chapter. Hope you don't mind!
REVIEWS = HAPPY WRITER = PRODUCTIVE WRITER = QUICKER UPDATES (unless there's a very good reason for me not to update)