The corridors were eerily quiet as they made their way back towards the conversion room. Ianto had fully anticipated running into squads of Cybermen, much like the unit that had taken Jack and Lisa away. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or concerned that there were none about.
"Where are they?" Rose asked breathlessly, echoing Ianto's own unvoiced worries. "They were everywhere before. Where've they all gone?"
"To fight the Daleks?" Ianto suggested, hoping fiercely for it to be true. If they managed to avoid running into any Cybermen, then he wouldn't be obliged to try and fire a weapon that he had no clue how to handle. His hopes were short-lived, though, when they heard the familiar, frightening sound of metal footsteps just around the corner. He exchanged stricken looks with Rose, realising that walking into a fight with a squad of the Cybermen would be suicide, whether he knew how the gun worked or not.
"I can't use this!" he hissed, feeling like an utter fool not only for his lack of know-how in weaponry, but also for the time they'd wasted in collecting the guns in the first place. "Rose, I don't know how! I don't know how to fire a gun!"
She stared back at him, wide-eyed, before looking around frantically, and then grabbing Ianto by his shirt sleeve and hauling him into an alcove.
"Be quiet," she whispered, to which Ianto responded with a roll of his eyes. He hardly had any intention of making a noise and alerting the Cybermen to their location.
They stood huddled together in the alcove, not daring to move or speak, and hardly daring to even breathe as the Cybermen marched past in perfect formation. Whether the metal monstrosities were even interested in them any longer, neither Rose nor Ianto had any way of knowing. They could only watch in mixed relief and incredulity as the Cybermen kept going, either oblivious or uncaring to their presence.
"They didn't see us," Rose murmured. Ianto peered out into the corridor cautiously, making sure the Cybermen were gone before emerging.
"Or they had something more important to deal with." He suddenly became aware that he was still holding the gun, and put it down quickly with a mixture of embarrassment and disgust. Rose eyed him critically.
"Why didn't you say before now that you don't know how to use a gun?"
"Male ego," Ianto answered bluntly. "That, and I convinced myself that I could wing it." He paused, staring back at her before grimacing. "I know. Idiotic."
Rose's expression was inscrutable for all of about three seconds before she mirrored his grimace.
"Okay, confession time. Truth is, I don't know how to use them, either. 'Specially not this ruddy thing. I was kind of hoping that you'd know, and I could just copy."
Ianto felt thoroughly sick.
"We could have both been killed, not to mention the time that we've wasted getting weapons that neither of us know how to use!"
Rose set her gun down on the floor.
"Doctor wouldn't want us using these things anyway. C'mon. Let's just go rescue Jack the old-fashioned way, with plain old human sneakiness."
Ianto shook his head incredulously.
"And I thought you were the sane one."
Rose looked affronted.
"Oi! Careful. I might take offense."
"C'mon," Ianto growled. "We've wasted too much time already."
He took off at a run, forcing Rose to do the same in order to keep up.
Ianto was acutely conscious of Rose calling to him, begging him to stop, or to at least slow down. He heard her say something along the lines of they didn't know what they would find, and that they needed to be careful. He knew she was right, but his concern now was not for himself, or even for Rose. Now, his prime concern was for Jack, and anyone else that they might have a chance of saving – Lisa included.
He ran harder, driven by fear and by frightening premonitions of Jack trapped forever in the metallic skin of a Cyber suit. It wasn't until they were nearly to the room when Ianto finally stopped, and horror dawned on his face.
"It's stopped."
"What?" Rose demanded breathlessly. "What has? What are you talking about?"
"The screaming," Ianto said in a whisper. "The screaming has stopped. It's gone quiet."
Rose found his hand, and squeezed it tightly.
"C'mon. Let's do this."
Ianto had a very vivid memory from his childhood. He recalled waking one night to the sound of his mother's scream. Scared as he'd been, he ignored the very strong desire to hide under his blankets, and had gone to investigate.
His parents, so he had discovered, were watching a horror film on the television. He'd known that he should have gone straight back to bed, but the lure of something that was strictly forbidden had proven too strong. And so he'd huddled on the stairs and watched the horrific images unfold on the little screen of his parents' TV.
Before long, he'd found himself frozen, unable to move even though he'd desperately wanted to. When the terrifying climax had finally come, Ianto had lost control of his bladder and saturated his pyjama bottoms. And that was how he'd been found by his parents when the movie finished – terrified beyond reason and utterly traumatised by what he'd seen.
As Ianto stepped past the opaque, blood-spattered sheets of plastic, Ianto felt like he was that helpless little boy all over again; an unwitting and unwilling witness to a horror show that was far too terrifying for his mind to fully comprehend.
The first thing that caught his attention was the smell. He'd noticed it earlier when they'd first followed the Cybermen, but now it hit him full strength, and he had to struggle not to throw up. It was the smell of seared flesh, of body parts cut away with blades hot enough to cook the flesh that they cut through. The smoke wafting in the air was not actually smoke, Ianto realised with a rolling stomach, but rather the natural steam of over a hundred bodies that had been freshly sliced and diced to Cyber specifications.
And then there was the blood. It lay on the floor in glistening pools, gathered mostly at the bottom of the many conversion tables that filled the room. Blood ran across the floor in thick streaks, denoting where bodies had been dragged around.
And then, finally, there were the bodies themselves.
Lifeless, mutilated bodies lay in a sickening pile by one wall. Tops of heads were missing from those still visible at the bottom of the pile. Towards the top, though, mangled corpses became a nauseating mishmash of severed limbs and discarded body parts.
It was carnage, pure and simple, and Ianto was utterly certain that it was a sight that he would be condemned to always remember.
"Oh my god," Rose moaned, clutching at Ianto's arm for support. "Ianto... Look..."
At that point, Ianto became aware of the unfortunate souls still trapped on the conversion tables, bleeding and mutilated.
"We have to help them..." Rose went on hoarsely. His hand found hers, and grasped it tightly.
"We can't."
"But we have to!"
"Look at them, Rose. They're dead. They're already dead. There's nothing we can do for them now. Please, just help me find Jack?"
How he kept his voice steady, Ianto would never know, but his calm manner seemed to help settle Rose.
"All right," she whispered, wiping roughly at her eyes. "Let's find Jack."
Ianto ventured deeper into the room, silently praying that Jack was not one of these many corpses.
"Ianto..."
He froze at the familiar voice, now wracked with pain. For the longest moment, he was too frightened to look. When he finally did, he wished so much that he hadn't.
"Oh gods... Lisa..."
He walked towards her as if on automatic pilot, sickened and distraught by the sight before him. It was almost impossible to tell how much of her was still human. To Ianto's sharp eyes, she seemed more metal the flesh, wearing what looked like a metal exoskeleton suit. Nausea wracked Ianto's body when he realised that the metal was, in fact, now a part of her.
She was covered in her own blood; the knives from the conversion unit still half-buried in her flesh. Her eyes were wild with pain, and seemed barely capable of focusing on him as he approached her.
"Lisa," he whispered again as he walked stumblingly towards her.
"Get me out of here, Ianto," she begged him. "Please, get me out of here!"
He was crying even before he realised it, and the tears he tried so uselessly to suppress stung his eyes badly.
"I can't," he told her in a stricken voice. "I'm sorry, Lisa. I'm so sorry."
"Please, Ianto," Lisa pleaded with him. "Don't leave me here! You have to help me!"
"I can't," he insisted, though his tone suggested that perhaps he wasn't so sure. "I can't help you, Lisa. There's nothing I can do."
Bitterness and hurt filled her face, briefly overriding the spasms of pain that wracked her features.
"You can't help me, but I bet you'll try and help him, won't you? You bastard."
"Lisa, look at you," Ianto choked out. "How am I supposed to help you? What can I possibly do?"
"Just get me off this damned table," she sobbed. "I know I'm dying, but please don't let me die on this table. Please, Ianto, help me?"
"Help her," Rose said abruptly, and Ianto started in surprise, having momentarily forgotten she was even there. She squeezed his hand briefly in reassurance.
"I'll find Jack. Help her however you can."
Ianto conceded with a quick nod, and began to search for a way to release her.
"Thankyou," Lisa whispered, though whether it was directed towards Ianto or Rose, Ianto didn't know and wasn't going to ask.
"What happened?" he asked as he examined the table and its restraints. "Where are all the Cybermen?"
"Don't know," Lisa answered breathlessly. "There was a massive power surge, and then everything just stopped. All their machinery, everything. The next thing I knew, they were all leaving. I don't know where they went, and I don't care. As... as long as they don't come back."
"Did you see what happened to Jack?" Ianto asked, and Lisa uttered a bitter, slightly strangled laugh.
"Always about him, isn't it? Bloody hell, Ianto."
"I made a promise to him, Lisa."
"You made one to me, too!" she exploded with as much force as her weakening lungs would allow. As it was, the strength of her anger and grief drove him back a couple of steps. "You promised to love me no matter what! You broke that promise, Ianto! Not me!"
He wanted to argue with her, he really did. In the end, though, his head dropped and all he could do was agree miserably.
"I know," Ianto whispered brokenly. "I'm sorry."
It wasn't anywhere near enough, and for the first time Ianto considered that perhaps he was as much at fault for the breakdown of their relationship as she had been. Too late, though – those realisations always came too damned late, when all he was left with was self-recrimination.
She stared at him for several long seconds through pain-filled eyes before speaking in a defeated voice.
"They took him to a conversion table only a couple of minutes before the power surge happened... somewhere over on the other side of the room. He probably hasn't been hurt at all, the lucky bastard."
Frowning, Ianto reached across and tried to lift one of the metal arms away from Lisa. It jolted one of the knives still buried in her stomach, and she screamed in pain.
"I'm sorry," Ianto choked out, tears streaming down his cheeks and blinding him. "God, Lisa, I'm sorry... I... I can't do it. I can't get you off here without turning the power back on, but if I manage to do that..."
"It'll just restart the process," Lisa whispered. "Ianto..."
"The Doctor," Ianto said abruptly. As little as he trusted the Time Lord, he could see no other way to help the woman that he had once, not so long ago, intended to propose to. "We'll wait for the Doctor. He'll know what to do. He'll be able to help you."
"Ianto, look at me," she whispered. He raised his eyes to meet hers, compelled to obey. Lisa swallowed convulsively before going on unsteadily. "I'm not going to ask you to lie and tell me you love me. I know you don't. And I won't lie either. I hate him for taking you away from me."
"Lisa, please, what are you..."
"Kill me," she whispered. Ianto felt as though he'd just been sucker-punched. He was still trying to regain the wind that had been knocked from his very lungs when she spoke again. "If you leave me here, like this, I'll die slowly. If you do it... at least I know it'll be quick."
Ianto's face crumpled at her plea, and his knees buckled beneath him, sending him to the floor in a pitiful heap.
"No," he moaned in distress. "No, please. Don't ask me to do that. I can't do it..."
"You owe me something, Ianto," Lisa demanded, equally distraught. "I don't want to hurt anymore. You're the only one who can do that for me."
Not strictly true, a tiny voice whispered in the darkest corners of his mind. It was a voice that he steadfastly ignored. Despite knowing that Jack was more than capable of taking a life, he would not order Jack to consciously and wilfully kill her... or anyone, for that matter.
Not to mention, he had no clue at this point what sort of condition Jack was in.
"Ianto, please, just do it," Lisa begged him. "It hurts. I don't want to hurt anymore."
Distraught, Ianto looked around and his gaze fell on a sliver of scrap metal. Could he really do it? He consciously asked the question of himself, and realised that even at that moment, with the choice right in front of him, he couldn't answer it.
Earlier, when he'd taken Spence's gun, he'd had the same choice before him, and God knew he'd had far more reason to do the deed then than he had now. And yet, he hadn't been able to do it. Instead, he'd merely knocked the son of a bitch out and then watched later with no small amount of satisfaction as Spence was felled by a Dalek death ray. He had been able to relish Spence's death without experiencing the guilt of being responsible for it.
Here, a woman that he really did believe that he'd once loved was now pleading with him to end her suffering, and her life.
Did he love Lisa now? No, he did not and he wouldn't try to kid himself or anyone else otherwise. Did he want her to die? Again, no, and he wasn't sure if he could live with himself if he were to give in to her begging and end it for her. A brief and somewhat sinister thought whispered in his mind that perhaps that was her final revenge – to place him in a situation where he would eventually self-destruct from guilt.
And even as the thoughts spun in his mind, he found his hand had closed around the piece of metal, clutching it so tightly that it cut into his hand.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, unable to look her in the eye as he slowly picked himself up off the floor. "I'm so sorry, Lisa. Please forgive me?"
"I forgive you, Ianto," she told him. He thought he could hear a hint of desperation in her voice as she spoke, and tried futilely to ignore it. "I never blamed you. I... I don't even blame him, not really. I blame this place. I blame Torchwood."
There was something that he could agree to, and grab hold of, and he did so with a ferocity that frightened even himself.
"Yes, it's Torchwood. It's this whole place. If we hadn't taken those jobs here, we wouldn't be here now. We'd be somewhere else entirely..."
"And this would probably still be happening to other people," Lisa said softly. "And... Jack would still be a prisoner here. I blame Torchwood, but that doesn't change the fact that you were right."
Any fight that Ianto might still have had left him in a rush, and his head dropped forward to rest against her metal clad shoulder, sobbing heavily. Tears rolled down the sides of Lisa's face, leaving glistening streaks as she watched him out of the corner of her eye.
"I'm going to die no matter what, Ianto. Please don't let me go on hurting."
Slowly, Ianto raised his head and finally made himself look her in the eye. He expected to see hate, or some sort of recrimination, but all he saw was forgiveness and relief. He wasn't sure which would have been worse.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again. Then, steeling himself as best as he could, he drove the makeshift weapon in under her sternum and angled it upwards so that it pierced her heart. It was almost instantaneous; Lisa's eyes went almost comically wide with pain and shock, she uttered a tiny gasp, and then the breath stilled in her body.
Ianto released his grip on the metal and leaned in against Lisa's lifeless body, weeping uncontrollably. He didn't know how long he'd been there for when a hand on his shoulder startled him back to reality. Rose was there, and though she didn't say anything, the look on her face as her eyes flickered to the metal blade told him she knew what he'd done.
"C'mon," she said softly. "I've found Jack."
"Is he all right?" Ianto asked, quietly hating how his voice shook. Rose's expression caused his heart to sink.
"You'd best come see for yourself."
Like Lisa, Jack was trapped on a conversion table, but unlike her it appeared that the actual upgrading hadn't actually begun; not properly. He lay naked on the table, stripped of even the flimsy shorts he'd been wearing, and bleeding all over his body where numerous wires had been implanted into his flesh in apparent preparation for the main stages of upgrading. As with Lisa, though, the blade of more than one knife was buried in his flesh, leaving deep and agonising lacerations that could not heal whilst the still hot blades remained.
As terrible as the sight was, Ianto felt guiltily relieved that he had something to take his mind off what he had done less than a minute ago. Oh, he knew well enough that the reality of his actions would hit sooner or later, but right then he would prefer it be later, and not sooner.
His gaze swept briefly up and down Jack's naked form, and he grimaced a little in embarrassment for Rose.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, all the while feeling a right fool. Rose easily guessed what he was referring to, and huffed loudly in response.
"Not like I haven't seen it before. Doctor told him once to create a distraction, so he stripped off and ran naked through a hospital."
Ianto shook his head, thinking of Jack's propensity for baring his body.
"Somehow I am not surprised by that."
Jack, who up to that point had appeared unconscious, now opened his eyes and uttered a plaintive cry at the sight of his beloved Ianto.
"Yan toe! Help..."
The word dissolved into an agonised wave of sobbing, bringing fresh tears to Ianto's eyes.
"We will, cariad," he promised. "Just be brave a little longer, and we'll get you out of there."
"It hurts," Jack sobbed, and Ianto felt his stomach roll as his thoughts went back momentarily to Lisa.
"Oi, snap out of it!" Rose growled. "We have to get Jack out, and there's only a couple of minutes left until the Doctor does whatever it is that he needs to do."
Ianto felt ill all over again.
"We can't get him out, though. Not without putting the power back on, and if we do that..."
"It'll just start up the upgrading process again. Right."
Rose reached up to lay her palm tenderly against Jack's cheek. He whimpered softly, but said nothing.
"The Doctor had something," Ianto said abruptly, recalling the slender, pen-like device that he'd seen in the Time Lord's hand. Rose nodded.
"His sonic screwdriver. If we had that, we could get out of here in a second. And Gage, he had some weird thing that unlocked Jack's chains and your cell door. Wish I'd thought to grab that, at least. Didn't know we'd need it, though, did I?"
"So all we can do then is wait," Ianto said bleakly.
"When the Doctor's done what he has to do," Rose said, "he'll come and find us. He'll help us get Jack out, and then we'll leave here together. All of us."
"You hear that, Jack?" Ianto asked. "We're all going to leave together. No one gets left behind this time."
"Left behind," Jack whimpered, and Ianto leaned in to kiss him lovingly on the forehead.
"No, love. Not this time. I promise. Now just hang in there for a little while longer."
"I could tell a story, if you like," Rose suggested. "It's a story about a brave man who loved his friends so much that he was willing to give his life up to save them. And not just once, but lots of times. A man called Jack."
Jack's pain-riddled features creased in confusion.
"M... Me?"
"Yes, you," she confirmed, smiling gently at him. "You're something special, Jack Harkness, and your not being able to die isn't anything to do with it."
"I don't remember," Jack cried. "I want to remember, and I can't."
"You will," Ianto reassured him. "Eventually, you will."
"Yan, ouch," Jack said suddenly, his attention directed downwards. Ianto followed his gaze in confusion, and blanched at the sight of his hand dripping blood.
"Oh..."
"Quickly, elevate it," Rose told him. "Let me find something to wrap it up."
Ianto stayed where he was, leaning against the conversion table for support. Any light-headedness he might have been experiencing was quickly washed away, though, when Jack spoke miserably.
"Yan, please don't die."
"What?" Ianto asked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"All the blood," Jack said. His gaze went around the room to others similarly trapped in conversion units. All of them were dead. "They bled lots and then they died."
Ianto barely suppressed a groan, knowing the sound would not bolster Jack's confidence at all.
"Jack, it's okay. It's just a cut. I'm not going to die, I promise you. Please, love, just stay calm, or you'll hurt yourself even worse."
Rose returned, then, carrying a strip of material. As she wrapped his hand up, he decided that he absolutely didn't want to know where she'd gotten it.
"There," she murmured as she tied it off. "Not exactly professional, but it'll do."
Ianto gazed down at his injured hand, and flexed it experimentally. The burning pain that accompanied the gesture was a welcome distraction from the dark thoughts that threatened to consume him. Focused as he was, it took him half a minute to realise that Rose was speaking to him again.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "I wasn't listening."
"Yeah, I noticed," Rose retorted. "I said, do you feel that?"
Ianto frowned and was about to ask what she was talking about when he realised. Everything around them – the floor, the very walls – had started to vibrate.
"Earthquake?" he wondered aloud, but immediately dismissed the thought. He knew as well as any Torchwood employee that the Tower was one of the most earthquake-proof buildings in the world. Whatever was causing the building to tremble and shake was happening from within its walls.
"The Doctor," Rose said in nervous excitement. "I bet it's the Doctor doing it... whatever it is." She offered the two men a brave smile. It'll all be over soon. You'll see."
Ianto tried to smile for Jack's benefit, but the smile rapidly faded from his face within seconds.
"Rose? Rose, what's going on? What's happening to you?"
Rose could only stare at him in fright and horror as she was lifted clean off her feet by an invisible force, and swept suddenly towards the open doorway.
to be continued...