Silver (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
a_silver_story) wrote2009-07-29 01:51 am
a_silver_story) wrote2009-07-29 01:51 am
Entry tags:
POST COE FIC: SPOILERS LIKE YOU'RE IN A MASSIVE FUTURE LIBRARY!! | 07
Title: The Ballad of Ianto Jones
Chapter: 7 | Chased
Characters: Jack Harkness, OFC, OMC, Gwen Cooper
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a_silver_story
Genre Angst like yo momma's watchin'
Rating: PG-13
Warnings:
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know.
Summary: Can't summarise without spoiling, really. It's post-COE, so go figure.
FIRST PART | Keeping Promises
PREVIOUS | Torchwood Index/Masterlist
07 |
Jack shouted at them all to run and split up. Lennie ran with him, while John and Button left them at the first fork. The Archiver heaved and dragged behind them, leaving a long trail of beige paint and deep scratches in the white floors of the tunnels. Jack didn’t look back, he kept running, his hand holding on to Lennie’s arm to keep her close.
The first door they came to, Lennie suggested they hid inside. “No.” said Jack, urging her on. “Too predictable.”
They chose the third door down, hurrying inside and crossing the latch closed. It wasn’t strong, but it might give some warning should the Archiver try and get inside. Jack could hear it distantly, and it seemed to be getting further away. He thought of Button and John, realising it had picked the side of the fork they had gone down.
~*~*~*~
“Won’t hiding behind the first door we come across be a bit predictable?”
“So predictable it’s unpredictable.” replied John.
“Will the Monster think like that?”
John thought about it for a second. “Probably not. Next door along?”
The next one was locked, and the Archiver was getting closer. The clunks and screeches of its movements getting quicker and more frantic. It was getting louder and louder at an alarming pace.
Button was running alongside John, and instinctively batted John’s hand away when he’d tried to clasp his own. “Play nice!” John had goaded. Button just scowled and concentrated on getting away from the Monster. He was terrified, and wanted Jack, but he’d never admit it.
They reached a dead end with three doors leading off it. They split, the first two doors refusing to give. They both charged heavily at the third door, hammering and kicking and throwing their weight against it but still it would not give.
“You’re supposed to be James!” gasped Button. “You’re supposed to know all the access codes!”
CLUNK
“Well I never really saw the need to memorise the Archive ones!” snapped John.
SCREEEEECH
“Thought you’d depend on the bloody droid did ya?”
CLUNK ... SCREEEEEEEEECH
“HA! I’d never depend on that thing!”
“You knew it was AI! You were trying to murder it!”
CLUNKSCREEEEEECH
“And now it’s trying to murder me!”
CLUNKSCREEEEEEEEECHCLUNKSCREEEEEEEEEECH
“I wouldn’t blame it! Look at the state of it. I’ve been here three months and met it twice, and it’s enough to convert me to one of those protest groups that say AI Robots should have working rights!”
CLUNK SCREECH CLUNK SCREECH CLUNK SCREECH
John sniggered, lowering his voice dangerously. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
Hart reached out to touch his face, and Button flinched away. “Awww.” cooed John. “Aren’t you precious?”
They both seemed to realise the silence pressing in upon them. They turned, and there, blocking the exit of the tunnel; staring straight back at them, with empty black eyes and cruel, long fingers digging into the floor, was the Big Beige Monster itself.
Captain John Hart grabbed Button by the lapels and kissed him.
~*~*~*~
Jack gave up keeping watch by the door. The Monster had gone after the others, and in a couple of minutes they would go after it. But first, Jack had something he needed to do.
A computer was whirring in a corner, and Lennie was typing quickly, her fingers barely brushing the keys.
“It’s negative, Jack.” she replied. “I can’t find any record of a living brain in the Archives. Are you sure she was talking about Torchwood Three Archives?”
“It’s the only Torchwood Real Gwen would know to hide things. Can you try different key words?”
“I don’t want to spend too long searching on here.” she said edgily. “It’s wirelessly connected to the Archiver: it’ll know where we are.”
“I took out it’s legs.” Jack told her. “It won’t get here any time soon.”
“It’s a robot, Jack. It’s arms aren’t exactly going to get tired.”
“Just try one more time? For me?” Jack pleaded. Lennie conceded, giving the door an edgy glance. Her fingers flew over the keys again.
“Oh ... what the-! It’s blocked me out Jack.” she groaned. Jack groaned too, but was silenced by the heavy sliding of deadlocks within the door behind them. Lennie frowned. “Deadlocks? These doors have deadlocks?”
“Well, we never know what we’re going to be keeping behind them.” Jack explained. “Can you get us out again?”
“I can try.” she yawned. Her lack of sleep made her look like death warmed up, but Jack was proud of how she soldiered on. As she worked, he began pacing and thinking. Somehow, John and Gwen had become colleagues. She had made him travel a thousand years into the future. Why? Hang on – John seemed to despise her. Had he run away to the future? Was he somehow tied to Torchwood? What influence did the Archiver have? Whose orders was it following if not John’s?
At that moment, Jack managed to slip on some spilt oil, smacking his head on the ground and knocking him out cold.
He wrenched his eyes open, the brightness of the world nearly blinding him. Ianto was there.
~*~*~*~
Button shoved John back against the wall, wiping him off his mouth in disgust. “What the hell are you playing at?” he shouted.
“Me? I’m getting my cover story sorted.”
Confused, Button took a step back. “What?”
“I can tell them the epic tale of how bravely you fought the Monster, trying to keep it away from me, your valiant leader. I had to leave you – oh woe to me! – but your efforts were not in vain, kid. I promise you an extra nice font on the Torchwood Memorial.”
“You ... can’t ...” stammered Button, his knees suddenly not wanting to hold him up. His stomach turned and his vocal chords failed to function properly. “What ...’ave you done to me?” he managed.
John pointed to his lips. “Paralyzing Lipgloss. You’ve got your lovely Captain Jack to thank for that one ... oh no – I forgot! You’ll be dead by the time he finds you in this maze – if the Monster doesn’t get you first, of course.”
The sound of the metal body behind them shifting distracted him. “Come on!” he goaded the robot. “Come and get Jack’s new little toy! Here boy!”
The Archiver stretched out its longer arm, curling its fingers to grip into the white floor, and hauled itself forward.
~*~*~*~
”This is a dream.”
“Then it is a good dream.”
“Trust you to quote Lord of the Rings at a time like this.”
Ianto smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. "Any excuse to think of Liv Tyler. God, I wish I could have met her."
Jack was lying somewhere soft – his bed, back in his Hub, in his Torchwood. Ianto was sat leaning over him. Taking care of him.
This wasn’t the cobbled together Ianto that Jack had become accustomed to seeing in his dreams, with blurred features that slowly dripped from his memory. This Ianto was crystal clear and solid. Jack reached to touch his hand. It felt warm under his skin. “You ... where are you?”
Ianto's smile faded. His eyes clouded over as he looked away.
“I’m lost, Jack.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry. You ... you have to stop this. You have to let go ... I know ... I know I told you not to forget me but ... for the sake of everything ... please. Let me go.”
A tear spilled down Ianto's cheek, and Jack wiped it away with his thumb, caressing his face with his palm. “Not yet. I can’t ... I need ... I need to find your ... your ... you-know-what ... and ... I won’t stop looking. Ever.”
Ianto rose and moved away, turning his back to the Captain. Jack lifted himself to an upright position and reached for Ianto's hand. “This ... this is a psychic projection, isn’t it?” he whispered softly. Ianto turned to him, more tears having rolled down his face and his teeth were biting his lower lip. He nodded.
Jack closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Where are you?”
A woman’s voice floated through the vision. “Jack! Jack ... are you alright?”
“You have to go back now.” said Ianto, pulling his had away. “You have to go back, and you have to leave Torchwood. Leave Earth. Leave me, Jack.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to find a new life. You have to move on.” Ianto was speaking faster now, the perfectly detailed image of Jack’s quarters blurring and fading. “I love you.”
“Please! Tell me where you are!” Jack cried.
“I’m in your heart, Jack.”
“Don’t be a sentimental twat! Where are you? Please ... please, Ianto!”
All that was left of the vision was Ianto's torso, and it was quickly fading into the blackness that Jack feared. Ianto was calculating in his head, the way Ianto did, and he gave Jack one last, fleeting smile.
“You know where I am Jack, you just don’t know you know. You cannot find was is not lost and ... what’s not lost is not worth saving ...”
"You ... you just said you were lost! I don't understand. No! Come Back!"
His hand closed on nothingness, and he himself was fading.
Voices were echoing through Jack’s head as it pieced itself back together again. He could hear Gwen: “God Jack ... I’m going to die!” she shouted at him.
Button’s laugh cut through her anguish.
“I still love you.” muttered John.
“Alive? ... I thought you were artificial!” Lennie was shouting to Mrs. Cooper.
“He’s in the Archive!” said Jack’s own voice.
“Er ... yeah. Great. Jack, honey: we need to run.” replied Button.
“He’s in the Archive!” repeated Jack, his voice echoed as he began to properly come round.
“Er ... yeah. Great. Jack, honey ....”
“He’s in the Archive!”
“Er ... yeah. Great ...”
“...the Archive!”
“Er ... yeah.”
“Archive!”
“Er ...”
“Archive!”
“Er ...”
Jack gasped and clutched the cheek Lennie had forcefully been slapping. He felt dizzy, the voices still whirring around his head buzzing and jostling for attention.
~*~*~*~
“Here boy! C’mon! Come and get ‘im” John was singing.
Button couldn’t move. His eyes were the only thing he had any sense of, and he could see the Archiver moving towards him. It paused, cocking it’s head, calculating in the way it did, then turned its head to John. John took his chance, leaping over it in one bound and clearing its mass with little difficulty. He shot off down the corridor, tossing a “Bah Bye, Buttony-Bob!” behind him.
Terrified, Button stared back at the Monster. He’d had nightmares like this – cornered by the Thing, defenceless. He’d always been assured it would never harm a living thing – but here it was. It seemed torn between going after John or going for its paralysed prey. Button felt as though tears should be washing down his face, but his paralysed tear ducts couldn’t allow it. He thought of all the things he’d never done, all the things he’d intended to do but never had time, and of all the things he would never be remembered for. But most of all, he thought of Jack. Captain Jack Harkness, who he had known for only five days (or eight, depending on whether or not he was counting the three days spent in the Time Bubble), and who he already knew he could never imagine his insignificant life without having known.
He thought also of James, or John as Jack called him, and how if James had done this to the robot ... might it go after him? Was it programmed with ideals of vengeance? James had tried to murder it. James had humiliated and mutilated it. James had driven it do whatever it was doing now. Surely, it would go for him ...
There was a scrape of metal and a cybernised whine.
The Monster had made its decision.
It moved towards Button.
~*~*~*~
Lennie had managed to get the deadlocks off the door, overriding the Archiver’s command with her human access codes. Jack hugged her, still biting back tears from his visit from Ianto's ghost. He hadn’t told her about it. They had enough to concentrate on. Getting Button and John away from the Beige Monster, for a start.
“Ready?” asked Lennie, holding the door open ajar and waiting for Jack.
“Ready.”
They bolted out of the door, hurtling back down the corridor as fast as they could. Lennie’s plimsolls whispered across the floor and Jack’s shined shoes clattered as he ran. He missed his army boots. Now that was footwear that really made an entrance ...
They u-turned down the fork that Button and John had taken, flat-out running. Suddenly, Jack registered that Lennie had frozen to the spot. He jogged back to her.
“I can’t hear anything.” she said. Jack listened.
“Maybe it’s paused. Or maybe Button and John took it out.”
“Yeah ... but ...” she seemed so distant, almost staring into space. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How exercise gets the blood flowing and the brainwaves going?”
“Er ... okay.”
“I kept looking at his photo thinking ... ‘god ... he’s so familiar’ .... but the penny never dropped ...”
“What are you talking about?” a metallic shift distracted Jack for a second, but still he stayed by Lennie.
“I thought ... I thought he had one of those faces, y’know ...”
“Who ... what are you ... Ianto?”
“Yeah ... I’ve just realised where I’ve seen him before.”
~*~*~*~
If he wasn’t paralysed, he’d probably have wet himself. How undignified.
The Monster was hauling itself over, approaching slowly – it seemed almost wary. Maybe it thought its prey being so incapacitated was too good to be true. It was inches from him now, the cold radiating from its metal touching Button’s skin and bringing up gooseflesh. Button would have laughed at the misfortune: he couldn’t control his muscles, but he would feel everything that was about to happen to them. In his mind, he clenched his eyes shut.
The first touch surprised him. Cold metal fingers stroked down his cheek, gentle. Almost a caress.
“You. Are. Poisoned.” said the Monster.
Did it sound sad, or was Button’s mind just clouded over in fear? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t react. The Archiver heaved itself upright, leaning itself against the wall by Button’s head. He could hear the scrape of it opening up its front compartment, the rust falling off and lightly peppering his head. There was a metallic whirr, and something cold touched his lip, then his tongue. A drop of liquid dripped into his mouth, and the cold hand of the Monster pushed his chin up to keep the drop inside.
Instantly, Button found he could feel functioning in his tongue again. He swilled the saliva around his mouth and soon he could swallow. He let whatever the Monster had given him fall down his throat, and accepted another drop of the stuff. It was slow working, from the inside out, and he couldn’t walk. Before he knew it, however, the Archiver had lifted him through the air and placed him on his back.
“Why ... why are you helping me?” he asked, his vocal chords finally letting him speak.
The Archiver ignored him, and began heaving them both in the direction John Hart had run away in.
FIN
Next Part | Previous Part | Torchwood Index | Request a Convo/Prose Fic
Chapter: 7 | Chased
Characters: Jack Harkness, OFC, OMC, Gwen Cooper
Author:
a_silver_storyGenre Angst like yo momma's watchin'
Rating: PG-13
Warnings:
SPOILERS FOR COE! DON'T READ!
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know.
Summary: Can't summarise without spoiling, really. It's post-COE, so go figure.
FIRST PART | Keeping Promises
PREVIOUS | Torchwood Index/Masterlist
07 |
Jack shouted at them all to run and split up. Lennie ran with him, while John and Button left them at the first fork. The Archiver heaved and dragged behind them, leaving a long trail of beige paint and deep scratches in the white floors of the tunnels. Jack didn’t look back, he kept running, his hand holding on to Lennie’s arm to keep her close.
The first door they came to, Lennie suggested they hid inside. “No.” said Jack, urging her on. “Too predictable.”
They chose the third door down, hurrying inside and crossing the latch closed. It wasn’t strong, but it might give some warning should the Archiver try and get inside. Jack could hear it distantly, and it seemed to be getting further away. He thought of Button and John, realising it had picked the side of the fork they had gone down.
“Won’t hiding behind the first door we come across be a bit predictable?”
“So predictable it’s unpredictable.” replied John.
“Will the Monster think like that?”
John thought about it for a second. “Probably not. Next door along?”
The next one was locked, and the Archiver was getting closer. The clunks and screeches of its movements getting quicker and more frantic. It was getting louder and louder at an alarming pace.
Button was running alongside John, and instinctively batted John’s hand away when he’d tried to clasp his own. “Play nice!” John had goaded. Button just scowled and concentrated on getting away from the Monster. He was terrified, and wanted Jack, but he’d never admit it.
They reached a dead end with three doors leading off it. They split, the first two doors refusing to give. They both charged heavily at the third door, hammering and kicking and throwing their weight against it but still it would not give.
“You’re supposed to be James!” gasped Button. “You’re supposed to know all the access codes!”
CLUNK
“Well I never really saw the need to memorise the Archive ones!” snapped John.
SCREEEEECH
“Thought you’d depend on the bloody droid did ya?”
CLUNK ... SCREEEEEEEEECH
“HA! I’d never depend on that thing!”
“You knew it was AI! You were trying to murder it!”
CLUNKSCREEEEEECH
“And now it’s trying to murder me!”
CLUNKSCREEEEEEEEECHCLUNKSCREEEEEEEEEECH
“I wouldn’t blame it! Look at the state of it. I’ve been here three months and met it twice, and it’s enough to convert me to one of those protest groups that say AI Robots should have working rights!”
CLUNK SCREECH CLUNK SCREECH CLUNK SCREECH
John sniggered, lowering his voice dangerously. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
Hart reached out to touch his face, and Button flinched away. “Awww.” cooed John. “Aren’t you precious?”
They both seemed to realise the silence pressing in upon them. They turned, and there, blocking the exit of the tunnel; staring straight back at them, with empty black eyes and cruel, long fingers digging into the floor, was the Big Beige Monster itself.
Captain John Hart grabbed Button by the lapels and kissed him.
Jack gave up keeping watch by the door. The Monster had gone after the others, and in a couple of minutes they would go after it. But first, Jack had something he needed to do.
A computer was whirring in a corner, and Lennie was typing quickly, her fingers barely brushing the keys.
“It’s negative, Jack.” she replied. “I can’t find any record of a living brain in the Archives. Are you sure she was talking about Torchwood Three Archives?”
“It’s the only Torchwood Real Gwen would know to hide things. Can you try different key words?”
“I don’t want to spend too long searching on here.” she said edgily. “It’s wirelessly connected to the Archiver: it’ll know where we are.”
“I took out it’s legs.” Jack told her. “It won’t get here any time soon.”
“It’s a robot, Jack. It’s arms aren’t exactly going to get tired.”
“Just try one more time? For me?” Jack pleaded. Lennie conceded, giving the door an edgy glance. Her fingers flew over the keys again.
“Oh ... what the-! It’s blocked me out Jack.” she groaned. Jack groaned too, but was silenced by the heavy sliding of deadlocks within the door behind them. Lennie frowned. “Deadlocks? These doors have deadlocks?”
“Well, we never know what we’re going to be keeping behind them.” Jack explained. “Can you get us out again?”
“I can try.” she yawned. Her lack of sleep made her look like death warmed up, but Jack was proud of how she soldiered on. As she worked, he began pacing and thinking. Somehow, John and Gwen had become colleagues. She had made him travel a thousand years into the future. Why? Hang on – John seemed to despise her. Had he run away to the future? Was he somehow tied to Torchwood? What influence did the Archiver have? Whose orders was it following if not John’s?
At that moment, Jack managed to slip on some spilt oil, smacking his head on the ground and knocking him out cold.
He wrenched his eyes open, the brightness of the world nearly blinding him. Ianto was there.
Button shoved John back against the wall, wiping him off his mouth in disgust. “What the hell are you playing at?” he shouted.
“Me? I’m getting my cover story sorted.”
Confused, Button took a step back. “What?”
“I can tell them the epic tale of how bravely you fought the Monster, trying to keep it away from me, your valiant leader. I had to leave you – oh woe to me! – but your efforts were not in vain, kid. I promise you an extra nice font on the Torchwood Memorial.”
“You ... can’t ...” stammered Button, his knees suddenly not wanting to hold him up. His stomach turned and his vocal chords failed to function properly. “What ...’ave you done to me?” he managed.
John pointed to his lips. “Paralyzing Lipgloss. You’ve got your lovely Captain Jack to thank for that one ... oh no – I forgot! You’ll be dead by the time he finds you in this maze – if the Monster doesn’t get you first, of course.”
The sound of the metal body behind them shifting distracted him. “Come on!” he goaded the robot. “Come and get Jack’s new little toy! Here boy!”
The Archiver stretched out its longer arm, curling its fingers to grip into the white floor, and hauled itself forward.
”This is a dream.”
“Then it is a good dream.”
“Trust you to quote Lord of the Rings at a time like this.”
Ianto smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. "Any excuse to think of Liv Tyler. God, I wish I could have met her."
Jack was lying somewhere soft – his bed, back in his Hub, in his Torchwood. Ianto was sat leaning over him. Taking care of him.
This wasn’t the cobbled together Ianto that Jack had become accustomed to seeing in his dreams, with blurred features that slowly dripped from his memory. This Ianto was crystal clear and solid. Jack reached to touch his hand. It felt warm under his skin. “You ... where are you?”
Ianto's smile faded. His eyes clouded over as he looked away.
“I’m lost, Jack.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry. You ... you have to stop this. You have to let go ... I know ... I know I told you not to forget me but ... for the sake of everything ... please. Let me go.”
A tear spilled down Ianto's cheek, and Jack wiped it away with his thumb, caressing his face with his palm. “Not yet. I can’t ... I need ... I need to find your ... your ... you-know-what ... and ... I won’t stop looking. Ever.”
Ianto rose and moved away, turning his back to the Captain. Jack lifted himself to an upright position and reached for Ianto's hand. “This ... this is a psychic projection, isn’t it?” he whispered softly. Ianto turned to him, more tears having rolled down his face and his teeth were biting his lower lip. He nodded.
Jack closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Where are you?”
A woman’s voice floated through the vision. “Jack! Jack ... are you alright?”
“You have to go back now.” said Ianto, pulling his had away. “You have to go back, and you have to leave Torchwood. Leave Earth. Leave me, Jack.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to find a new life. You have to move on.” Ianto was speaking faster now, the perfectly detailed image of Jack’s quarters blurring and fading. “I love you.”
“Please! Tell me where you are!” Jack cried.
“I’m in your heart, Jack.”
“Don’t be a sentimental twat! Where are you? Please ... please, Ianto!”
All that was left of the vision was Ianto's torso, and it was quickly fading into the blackness that Jack feared. Ianto was calculating in his head, the way Ianto did, and he gave Jack one last, fleeting smile.
“You know where I am Jack, you just don’t know you know. You cannot find was is not lost and ... what’s not lost is not worth saving ...”
"You ... you just said you were lost! I don't understand. No! Come Back!"
His hand closed on nothingness, and he himself was fading.
Voices were echoing through Jack’s head as it pieced itself back together again. He could hear Gwen: “God Jack ... I’m going to die!” she shouted at him.
Button’s laugh cut through her anguish.
“I still love you.” muttered John.
“Alive? ... I thought you were artificial!” Lennie was shouting to Mrs. Cooper.
“He’s in the Archive!” said Jack’s own voice.
“Er ... yeah. Great. Jack, honey: we need to run.” replied Button.
“He’s in the Archive!” repeated Jack, his voice echoed as he began to properly come round.
“Er ... yeah. Great. Jack, honey ....”
“He’s in the Archive!”
“Er ... yeah. Great ...”
“...the Archive!”
“Er ... yeah.”
“Archive!”
“Er ...”
“Archive!”
“Er ...”
Jack gasped and clutched the cheek Lennie had forcefully been slapping. He felt dizzy, the voices still whirring around his head buzzing and jostling for attention.
“Here boy! C’mon! Come and get ‘im” John was singing.
Button couldn’t move. His eyes were the only thing he had any sense of, and he could see the Archiver moving towards him. It paused, cocking it’s head, calculating in the way it did, then turned its head to John. John took his chance, leaping over it in one bound and clearing its mass with little difficulty. He shot off down the corridor, tossing a “Bah Bye, Buttony-Bob!” behind him.
Terrified, Button stared back at the Monster. He’d had nightmares like this – cornered by the Thing, defenceless. He’d always been assured it would never harm a living thing – but here it was. It seemed torn between going after John or going for its paralysed prey. Button felt as though tears should be washing down his face, but his paralysed tear ducts couldn’t allow it. He thought of all the things he’d never done, all the things he’d intended to do but never had time, and of all the things he would never be remembered for. But most of all, he thought of Jack. Captain Jack Harkness, who he had known for only five days (or eight, depending on whether or not he was counting the three days spent in the Time Bubble), and who he already knew he could never imagine his insignificant life without having known.
He thought also of James, or John as Jack called him, and how if James had done this to the robot ... might it go after him? Was it programmed with ideals of vengeance? James had tried to murder it. James had humiliated and mutilated it. James had driven it do whatever it was doing now. Surely, it would go for him ...
There was a scrape of metal and a cybernised whine.
The Monster had made its decision.
It moved towards Button.
Lennie had managed to get the deadlocks off the door, overriding the Archiver’s command with her human access codes. Jack hugged her, still biting back tears from his visit from Ianto's ghost. He hadn’t told her about it. They had enough to concentrate on. Getting Button and John away from the Beige Monster, for a start.
“Ready?” asked Lennie, holding the door open ajar and waiting for Jack.
“Ready.”
They bolted out of the door, hurtling back down the corridor as fast as they could. Lennie’s plimsolls whispered across the floor and Jack’s shined shoes clattered as he ran. He missed his army boots. Now that was footwear that really made an entrance ...
They u-turned down the fork that Button and John had taken, flat-out running. Suddenly, Jack registered that Lennie had frozen to the spot. He jogged back to her.
“I can’t hear anything.” she said. Jack listened.
“Maybe it’s paused. Or maybe Button and John took it out.”
“Yeah ... but ...” she seemed so distant, almost staring into space. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How exercise gets the blood flowing and the brainwaves going?”
“Er ... okay.”
“I kept looking at his photo thinking ... ‘god ... he’s so familiar’ .... but the penny never dropped ...”
“What are you talking about?” a metallic shift distracted Jack for a second, but still he stayed by Lennie.
“I thought ... I thought he had one of those faces, y’know ...”
“Who ... what are you ... Ianto?”
“Yeah ... I’ve just realised where I’ve seen him before.”
If he wasn’t paralysed, he’d probably have wet himself. How undignified.
The Monster was hauling itself over, approaching slowly – it seemed almost wary. Maybe it thought its prey being so incapacitated was too good to be true. It was inches from him now, the cold radiating from its metal touching Button’s skin and bringing up gooseflesh. Button would have laughed at the misfortune: he couldn’t control his muscles, but he would feel everything that was about to happen to them. In his mind, he clenched his eyes shut.
The first touch surprised him. Cold metal fingers stroked down his cheek, gentle. Almost a caress.
“You. Are. Poisoned.” said the Monster.
Did it sound sad, or was Button’s mind just clouded over in fear? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t react. The Archiver heaved itself upright, leaning itself against the wall by Button’s head. He could hear the scrape of it opening up its front compartment, the rust falling off and lightly peppering his head. There was a metallic whirr, and something cold touched his lip, then his tongue. A drop of liquid dripped into his mouth, and the cold hand of the Monster pushed his chin up to keep the drop inside.
Instantly, Button found he could feel functioning in his tongue again. He swilled the saliva around his mouth and soon he could swallow. He let whatever the Monster had given him fall down his throat, and accepted another drop of the stuff. It was slow working, from the inside out, and he couldn’t walk. Before he knew it, however, the Archiver had lifted him through the air and placed him on his back.
“Why ... why are you helping me?” he asked, his vocal chords finally letting him speak.
The Archiver ignored him, and began heaving them both in the direction John Hart had run away in.
FIN
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And hmm......the plot thickens!
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Absolutely amazing, none the less. *waits for more*
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This is an excellent story. It has it's creepy moments. The whole Gwen obession w/Jack and stealing brains. But it's really good.
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WAHH!! Jack's visit from Ianto had me very nearly crying.
And I want to take and twist John and Gwen's necks together. :P
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That dream sequence was heartbreaking. My poor Ianto!
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Poor Jack:( But looking forward to Lennie and what he knoews.
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maybe jack can find ianto with his YANTOE NEKKIDNESS SPIDEY SENSES, because bitchy!gwen had not only removed ianto's brain but also his clothes ;)))
next one plssss :D
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But not in a You Know Who (No, not Voldemort!) way. Love this!
More please :)
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But then, I thought that before.
Hmmmm, you're good.
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I NEED MORE!!!!!
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sad, but great story:( two thumbs up!
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Anyway, I've just starting to read this from the first chap and I'm already hooked! Can't wait for the next one!
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John really is a poopy head. :)
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Come on Jack! REMEMBER! Remember Ianto! I am intregued as to where Lennie has seen Ianto before... Can't wait to read more!