A/N: Extremely short note for a long chapter. This is still for my original 4 reviewers. You guys rock. Here are two more OCs: Learner and the elusive Agent Catharine. Hope you enjoy.
Blip. Blip. Blip.
Out of the darkness of the room, Catharine eyed the massive, hulking supercomputer suspiciously. Or rather, what she presumed to be a supercomputer. Learner hadn't been too helpful with the details.
"You'd better know what you're doing, Learner."
"Oh, believe me Cath, I do. You and I know that this has a fairly high success rate."
"If you call 50-50 high. It needs to work this time, and properly. No halfway point. We've had more than enough working brains, but I could do without the whole vegetative state part."
"Puh-lease. This is gonna be piss-easy. He's the ideal candidate."
Catharine sighed, drumming her fingers on her leg anxiously, "Then what's the hold up? How long is it till go-time?"
Learner looked at a clock on the wall, "About 10 minutes. Keep your hat on."
Catharine was not a patient woman. She idly flicked some dust off her trousers, staring at Learner. He was a genius; that much was certain. She knew she ought to pay more attention to him, but her emotions were getting the better of her – they needed this. They'd been through so much to get him, waited so long. For an organization that had a reputation for killing its employees early, Ianto Jones took a long time to pass away.
Needless to say, the Officials jumped in as soon as he did. They were known for their efficiency; this was one thing Cath was relying on to entice young Ianto Jones to join their ranks.
Her heart thrummed pleasantly in her fingertips, and she grinned, revealing straight, dangerous-looking teeth. Learner tapped her shoulder, and she looked up.
"It's time."
The room they migrated to was bright, almost too bright compared to the room that Learner liked to work in. Cath favoured this spacious, beautiful white room. It smelt…clean. And calm. Ideal, really, for what they were about to attempt. They had pushed her mahogany furniture to the sides of the room to make space for the sterile metal bed they placed Ianto Jones on, still immaculately dressed and still, Cath thought, as beautiful as he had been in life, if not more so. The grey-blue tinge suited his skin, she thought, as she removed his cufflinks and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt to his elbows.
She eyed the junction of veins in the crease of his elbow, and licked her lips.
Learner sighed, "Now now, Cath, don't get too excited. There's no action in those veins right now."
"I know, I know. Can we just get this show on the road?"
Learner nodded, "Get the cables then."
She headed back to the dark room, and hoisted a thick coil of heavy cables onto her shoulder. One end of all of them was attached to the machinery; the other had a strange three-pronged plug on the end. Cath smiled as she felt the razor-sharp prongs dig into her ever so gently. Bringing back Ianto Jones was going to be fun in the very worst way.
Letting them uncoil as she headed back to the white room, she leaned against the doorway for a second, watching Learner prep Ianto's body; sterilizing his forearms, unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt, removing the tie, and sterilizing his face and torso.
She hummed appreciatively, "Learner, you are an artiste."
Learner smiled grimly, "If you're gonna do a job, may as well do it well. He's doing to be magnificent." He turned to face Cath, face solemn, "Promise you won't ditch me for him when we bring him back. You know his heart will never belong to you like mine does."
"You're so sweet. Of course I won't leave you…You're too special," she purred, nipping at Learner's earlobe, "You're the best of a fabulous lot."
She watched as Learner's plain, non-note-worthy human body rippled and shimmered, and in an instant he was magnificent. Huge pitch-black spines sprouted from his back, the back of his arms, and backs of his calves, his eyes turned entirely white, his skin turned an iridescent indigo and he hissed lightly, exposing a forked tongue. He grinned wickedly, showing three rows of identical pointed teeth. She loved when he lost control.
"Time to get to work then."
He pulled a long, metallic spike from the holster strapped around his thigh, over his ripped black board shorts; the only piece of clothing that could survive his transformation. He lightly pressed on the end, smiling as a small hole was made in his fingertip, dark green blood welling on the surface.
And with that, he drove the stake three times into Ianto's torso.
Satisfied when the blood began to well up and spill out of the punctures, Learner handed the spike to Cath, "You do the forearms, you're more careful at these things than me. I'll start plugging him in."
Cath grinned, carefully – but precisely – spiking him in the forearms, wincing ever so slightly as she felt the stake penetrate his skin and muscles, "If this doesn't work, Torchwood are gonna be pissed at the state we've left him in."
"Naturally. Which is why this is gonna work. Now, shh…" Learner tugged the thick, coiled wire cables towards Ianto, and identified which plugs he needed, and fitted the biggest one into the holes in Ianto's torso, and the two smaller ones into the wounds in his forearms. He looked at Cath, "Stay here. Keep your comms open."
She nodded, and he left the room.
Learner moved sinuously into the dark room again, slipping back into his human form to sit down at the heavy machinery. Rolling his desk chair towards the screen, he watched as lines and lines of coding flowed down it, the bright green of the text starkly contrasting in the pitch-blackness of the room. The lack of light was to keep the machine cool; if it overheated, it could kill everyone within a 5km radius of their locale. Learner shuddered at the thought.
The code stopped. Time to press go.
"We're ready in here," he whispered, knowing the comm would carry his voice to her.
Cath flicked a few switches on the plug, and replied, her voice slightly muffled by the comm, "Get the party started, Learner."
He took the mouse in his hand and clicked the green icon, and ran back to join her.
Blackness. That was all there was…He'd half expected to see people he'd lost, but he was wrong. He knew nothing except the crushing darkness. You can perhaps imagine his surprise when the darkness started to lighten, and he began to feel slightly conscious.
It wasn't much at first. Just the ability to think, his brain slowly – but surely – awakening. He registered that he was likely in a vegetative state, and dimly wondered what had happened to put him there. Little by little, memories came back; his name was Ianto Jones, he was 25, Welsh, lived in Cardiff (usually), migrated to London with his team to stop…
Wait a second. He'd died. He could have sworn to a jury he'd died in that bloody Thames House place. Oh, fuck. If this was him travelling to Heaven, or Hell, or some such other place – he'd always rather liked the sound of the Elysian Fields – then he had better bloody hurry up.
Lighter. Slowly getting lighter. There had been someone there until his last breath. Brown hair, blue eyes, smiles and tears, sadness and pain. Beautiful to the very last. What was his name? He'd promised himself to remember it, no matter what…J. It began with a J.
Jack. That was his name. As he put a name to the face, the face grew clearer, and Ianto pulled out memories of this Jack, to see what he meant to him.
Oh. Wow. The first memory just had to be that. Though, he had to hand it to himself, that was a bloody innovative way of using a stopwatch. If he could have, he would have blushed. As his body remembered being with Jack, Ianto noticed that he had a body. In that case, this could not be him passing on. It felt like it had been too long for him to be passing on, anyways.
That gave him two options. Either he was a) not dead, just in a coma, or b) being brought back to life.
Ianto swore inwardly. If they were using that bloody Risen Mitten on him, he'd fucking kill them himself.
He remembered Torchwood. All of it. Betraying them for Lisa, the cannibals, Suzie, Owen, Tosh, Gwen, Rhys, Adam, Tommy, the Weevils, Myfanwy… Everything. He recalled that only Gwen and Jack were left now. Wincing, he felt he wanted to sigh, and was surprised when he found he could.
He could also hear voices.
"He's coming back! He's breathing! Learner, statistics?"
"Brain activity at 90%! By all accounts, he should be hearing us by now!"
"Ianto Jones? Flex your fingers if you can hear us, sweetheart!"
Ianto dutifully flexed his fingers, and screamed out in agony as he began to feel his body. He could feel three cold points in his chest, and in each of his forearms, and something warm and wet that smelt and felt like blood, and a cold, cold metal table which he was lying on, his back arching and his fingers scrabbling for a grip.
"Brain activity at 100%! Just a little longer now!"
"Ianto, does it hurt?"
"YES! OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOES! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Now now, no need to swear."
Cold fingers grasped his, making him realize just how hot he was. They stroked his hand carefully, soothingly, "Just a little longer, cariad, you'll be better soon."
He wanted to scratch his skin off. It felt like he was burning. Hot, far too hot. Tiny, microscopic itches everywhere, crawling and dancing underneath his baking skin.
Ianto wailed and writhed on the operating table for what felt like forever. And just when he thought the agony would never stop
it
did.
The silence rang out in the white room.
Ianto Jones sat up.
