Ianto/Jacque fic.
Part 5.
You feel him jump, almost dropping you, and turn to cough the water from your lungs in such a way that - even with the sewage still dripping into your eyes - you can't miss the crumpled look on his face or the trails of tears there.
"Jacque!" he practically sobs, wiping at his eyes, "Y-you, you w-were dead! I pulled you, face down, out of the river! How are you alive!"
"V-very painfully," you sputter between hacking up sewage and trying to breathe. Eventually you get back to normal and it's just the smell you're trying to be rid of when you wince and rub your chest. It feels like you were just hit there with a sledgehammer. Twice.
"I-I tried to perform CPR," you hear from one side, turning to see Tosh looking like she's seen a ghost, "You were gone."
"Yeah," you say, clearing the phlegm from your throat to try and get the slight raspy sound to go away, "Guess I'm back, now."
Suddenly, Ianto has his arms around you again, practically clinging to you and trembling hard.
"Shh," you whisper, holding him back tightly, "I'm okay."
You stay like that until the others stir, the clutching-for-dear-life relaxing, by then, to just being close. When Gwen wakes up, there's the obvious mumble of 'my head' before the expected, "What happened? Where did it go?" Oddly enough, it's Ianto who speaks up.
"From what I heard, you were taken down after me and Owen barely had enough time to tell Tosh to drown the thing before getting hit, too. She wasn't going to, since apparently this room is one big garbage disposal, but Jacque told her to do what he said. And since Jacque's in charge..." He shrugs, arms tightening around you protectively.
"Wait, wait, wait," you say, having not heard the full exchange between Tosh and Owen before, "Garbage disposal? Like the ones in the sink? All rotating blades and such?" You look, wide-eyed, as both Tosh and Ianto nod solemnly. "Jesus. Fuck, how am I alive?"
"I was just about to ask that about myself," you hear Owen groan, struggling to sit and rub at his head. "Fuck me, how long have I been out for?"
"About three hours," Tosh says, still in shock. In fact, her and Ianto look completely shaken by the whole thing.
"Why don't we go over this at home?" you suggest, "We go back to base, clean and fix ourselves up, and go back over it all over tea?"
The group as a whole nods, even those just waking up noting the tone of your voice and quickly catching on to how rattled the two are.