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silver_sunTitle: Things Lost and Found Along The Way (7/10)
Rating: pg13
Characters/Pairings: Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, eventual Jack/Ianto.
Word Count: 3k (of 22k/28k posted)
Contains: Serious illness of an alien variety.
Summary: Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.
A/N: This is a sequel to The Spaces in Between. This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.
Starts here.
Jack wakes, his eyes feeling gummy and sore from falling asleep with tears still in them.
He's not sure when he finally fell asleep, the last clear thing he remembers is Ianto rubbing his back, trying to ease the painful, gasping sobs that where shaking him. The realisation that Ianto must have continued to hold him until he'd cried himself to sleep touches him more than he can say.
Rolling over onto his side, Jack can see Ianto is asleep in the chair next to the bed, his head nodding forwards.
It always surprised Jack how young his Ianto had looked when he was asleep, and this Ianto is no different. The worried frown that seems to have become his permanent expression over the last few days is gone, replaced by a peaceful one. Jack just wishes he could give Ianto that carefree life, but that, like so much else at the moment, is out of his control.
Jack can feel another bout of coughing building, and he tries to muffle it, covering his mouth with his hand.
It's not altogether successful, and after about a minute or so, just as Jack finishes coughing, Ianto wakes. Looking bleary eyed and tired, he says, “Are you alright. I'm sorry, I must have dozed off.”
“I'm okay, and you look like you needed it.” Jack hurriedly wipes away the blood on his lips before Ianto can see. “You didn't need to stay, you know.”
“I couldn’t just leave you.” Ianto looks surprised by the intensity in his voice, hurriedly saying, “I mean I’d have done the same for Owen or Tosh.”
Jack just nods. He knows that eventually they are going to have to talk properly about the tangled mess of what they are feeling about each other, to try to work out what, if anything, there is between them.
“Tosh came by while you were asleep, she said she'd come back later. I think she wants to talk to you about how your immortality works. Owen told her about you said, the not working right part that is, I don't think he said anything else,” Ianto says, changing the subject as he pours Jack a glass of water. “Owen dropped in as well, he left you one of the nutrient mixes, it just needs some water adding to it.”
“Lucky me.”
“I could get you some other food,” Ianto offers. “You might be okay with it.”
Food sounds about as unappealing as the nutrient mix, and Jack says, “I think I'll leave it for now.”
“If you're sure.”
A few moments later there's a knock at the door, and Ianto gets up to answer it.
“Is he still asleep?” Tosh asks quietly.
“No.” Ianto turns round to look at Jack. “Are you feeling up to talking?”
Jack smiles at Tosh. “I've always got time for a beautiful lady showing up in my bedroom.”
Tosh laughs. “Seems like some sleep did you good.”
Amused, Ianto shakes his head, and then gestures to the chair, “You can have my seat.”
“You're not going to stay?” Tosh asks, a little surprised.
“No. I’ve got a couple of things I need to do.”
“Don't work too hard,” Tosh says, sounding concerned about him. “And get something to eat, me and Owen missed you at dinner.”
“Food is one of the things, so don't worry.” He pauses at the door. “I'll see you both later.”
"Owen tells me you think that you've somehow managed to switch your immortality off," Tosh says, once Ianto has left. She’s trying to sound business like it, although it's clear she's concerned about him.
“I think it was the glove.” He been over it in his mind, and he's sure that tiredness – which now, on reflection, just seems like a normal, human pattern of sleep, had only started after he'd used it.
“I see.”
"It killed your Jack, maybe it's what it does. Kills." The bitterness in his own voice, surprises Jack.
"Not like this. What it did…” She trails off with a haunted look in her eyes. “Well it wasn't anything like this." Tosh sits down, then opens the data pad she's brought with her. "I want you to start by telling me how your immortality worked, and then what differences you've noticed since using the glove.”
“I don't know how it works, worked. The Doctor told me I was a fixed point. That I was... ” Jack pauses to take a breath. What the Doctor thought of him, and why he left him behind has, Jack decides, no bearing on the current situation. “Well he said a lot of things, main point, nothing was going to change what I'd become. I was going to live forever.”
Tosh smiles sadly, a knowing look in her eyes. It makes Jack wonder what had happened between the Doctor and Jack in their world, and if their Jack had been more free with what he's been told.
“How did your immortality work when healing injuries?” Tosh asks, making a quick note on the pad.“Did it repair them all straight away? Or was there usually a delay?”
“It varied.” Jack wishes he had more definite answer to give to Tosh. “Some things would heal straight away, others seemed to take a few hours, nothing ever took more than a day.”
“Did you every find a pattern in why it was like that?”
“No, and believe me I'm not the only one who's tried.” The women in charge of Torchwood Three back in the 1890's, and again years later, the Master, had subjected him to enough death and pain that if there had been any form of pattern in it he's sure they would have found it, and most likely used it against him.
“So even though it has varied in the past it's never been like this.”
Jack nods.
Tosh looks concerned, then asks, “And how did it work with illnesses?”
“I didn’t get ill. Any disease either killed me pretty much straight away if it was deadly enough or I just didn't catch it at all,” Jack says, hoping that Tosh doesn’t ask him about the last virus that killed him – the memories of what happened in Thames House are still far too raw for him to talk about. “I've been shot, stabbed, poisoned, electrocuted, gassed, drown, buried alive, hell I've even been exploded, but I've never been ill. You'd have thought in a couple of millennia I'd have a caught a cold or something, wouldn't you?”
“All those deaths,” Tosh says sadly.
"You think it's possible, don't you?" Jack asks, both needing and fearing the answer.
"Yes," Tosh looks down. "You said that you where a fixed point in time. You'd have been a fixed point in time in your dimension. My best guess is that when you crossed into our universe that you severed your connection with your own, you were cut adrift from it in both time and space."
"So it's gone?" Jack asks hollowly.
"It might not be that simple," Tosh says, putting down her data pad. "The link may have been cut, but from what Owen told me about your knee you're still healing at a faster rate than you would if you're just human. So that gives us two possibilities. One, that the healing you're still experiencing is from residual energy still stored within you from when you were a fixed point, and that it's a finite resource that's being used up and once it's gone you'll be fully mortal. Or two, that now you're back in your own dimension your position as a fixed point is re-establishing itself, and that given time you're immortality will go back to the way that it was."
"And there's no way of telling which?" Jack asks, unable for the moment to decide which is the more preferable option.
Tosh shakes her head. "Not apart from you dying or getting older, I'm sorry, Jack, I really am."
Jack nods, not able to find any words. There had been so many times over the years that he's lived as an immortal that he's wished that death could be an option for him, the guilt of living sometimes becoming too much to bear. Even the Doctor had asked him once if he wished to die, a question that he'd felt unable to answer.
“Can I get you anything?” she asks.
“No,” Jack says, sounding as numb as he feels. “I just need some time to think.”
“I understand.” She picks up her walking stick, and smiles sadly at him. “You think you know how your life is going to be, you have it all planned out, then everything changes.”
“I know you do,” Jack says quietly as she leaves. It's hard to know whether Tosh means the permanent numbness in one of her legs left over from when Gray had shot her, the fate of the Earth she came from, or both.
Alone again, Jack draws his knees up to his chest, and wraps his arms about them.
He's not sure what he'd expected Tosh to tell him. He supposes what he'd wanted was a definite answer, because, if anything, not knowing is worse.
It puts him right back where he was when he found he couldn't die – scared and full of questions which in all probability only one man could answer. Not that he expects to see the Doctor any time soon. There last encounter, a silent meeting across a crowded bar, had felt like goodbye.
Not wanting to think about that either, Jack rubs a hand across his face.
His throat feels dry from talking, and he drinks what's left in the cup. still thirsty, Jack reaches for the jug, only to find that it is also empty.
Wishing that he'd thought to ask Tosh to fill it up for him, Jack slowly gets out of bed.
Picking up the jug, Jack has only covered the few steps to the door, when a wave of dizziness breaks over him.
Leaning against the wall, his head against the cool metal, Jack waits for it to pass.
It doesn't, the tight feeling in his chest starting to increase as well.
Breathless, Jack stumbles, the jug falling to the floor with a metallic clang as it hits the deck.
The room seems airless, and Jack drops to his hands and knees, head hanging down as he gasps for breath.
There's the sound of running footsteps in the corridor outside, and Jack tries to turn towards it, tries to call out. He can't and he falls forward onto the floor.
The room and everything in it is starting to grey out by the time that Jack feels himself being rolled over, his head raised up off the floor.
He struggles weakly, barely conscious of what is happening as a mask is held over his nose and mouth.
A hand shakes his shoulder, the voice urgent, familiar, but the words remain indistinct.
“Breathe,” Owen orders, nearly shouting it into his ear. “You listen to me, and you bloody well breathe.”
Jack drags in a shaky breath, it hurts, but there's relief too, much needed air suddenly seeming to fill his lungs.
“That's it,” Owen says. “Keep going.”
“What is it?”
“Oxygen, well a high oxygen mix any way.” Owen puts the mask back in place. “There's probably not enough unaffected lung surface left to get sufficient oxygen in from the air. No more questions for few minutes, just breathe.”
Closing his eyes again, Jack concentrates on getting enough air in. Gradually he becomes aware enough of his surroundings to realise that his head is pillowed on Ianto's lap.
“Let’s get you back into bed.” Owen nods to Ianto. “Right, you lift his shoulders, I'll take his feet. We'll lift on three.”
“No. I can manage.” Jack tries to stand, the feeling of light headedness increasing as soon as he starts to move.
“Alright, but I'm telling you right now, this is a stupid idea,” Owen says.
With Ianto supporting him, and Owen holding the mask and oxygen bottle, they slowly move over to the bed.
It's only a few steps, but by the time Jack sits down on the edge of the bed, he's shivering and shaking, gasping into the oxygen mask.
“How..” Jack taps the side of the mask. “..did you know..”
“That you might need it?” Owen finishes for him.“I'm treating a patient with breathing difficulties and reduced lung capacity, it would be pretty damn irresponsible of me not to have some oxygen to hand, don't you think?”
Shakily, Jack nods. He's grateful that Owen had the foresight to do it, as he really don't want to think about what might have happened if he'd been
“I know I said that I thought this was probably something that you picked up on our Earth, but given its current speed of progression, I don't think it can be,” Owen says, not looking happy that he's having to admit that he might have been wrong. “So it's got to have been something on the Meridian Star, something that only you came in contact with. So we’re going to go back over there.”
“Celesti won’t agree,” Jack says weakly. He knows that if he were in her place, he probably wouldn't either.
“She already has, that's where I went earlier, to talk to her,” Ianto says. “It doesn't appear to be contagious, and she knows that it'll be easier to sign over the Meridian Star when they get to port if she can tell the authorities just what happened.”
Ianto smiles slightly, trying to reassure him. “So don't worry, I've sorted out hazmat suits for myself and Owen. ”
“Don't...not worth it.” Jack struggles to sit back up. “Not worth your life.”
“If there is a chance to save you, and I didn't take it, I'd never forgive myself.” Ianto says. His voice is rough, and he turns away Jack thinks he can see tears in his eyes.
Walking quickly to the door, Ianto says, “Owen, I'm going to make sure everything is set, I'll meet you at the airlock.”
Giving them both a despairing look, Owen pushes Jack gently but firm back down on to the bed. “He's willing to risk going over there for you, so the least you can do is try not to make yourself worse while we're gone, okay?”
Staring after Ianto, a defeated look in his eyes, Jack says, “And why are you risking it?”
“Because I'm a stubborn bastard, and I don't like not knowing what's going on.”
“Look, I get you're fining it tough, but so it is he,” Owen says, adjusting the pillows behind Jack, so that he's sitting more upright. “He spent loads of time with Jack when the glove was sucking the life out of him, and it watching you like this is doing a real number on his head.”
Jack closes his eyes. He feels tearful and wretched. “Just...look after him.”
“Like I'd do anything else.” Owen checks the level of oxygen in the bottle. “Now, I want you to try to only use the oxygen if you feel you need it, okay?”
Jack nods.
“Now, I going to have to go and see what he doing, but I'll get Tosh to come and sit with you.”
* * *
“We've fixed up a camera on Ianto's hazmat suit, so you'll be able to direct them,” Tosh says, angling the screen so both she and Jack can see.
“If there's anything to find, they'll find it,” Tosh reassures him, as they both start to watch.
The picture quality is poor, and the image jerky from where it's mounted on the side of headpiece of Ianto's hazmat suit. The flickering picture and the constant hiss of feedback on the comm. link add to the unsettling atmosphere, the Meridian Star seeming eerier than it had before. It makes it feel like he's watching a low budget horror film.
The environmental control room, when Owen and Ianto reach it, is just as Jack remembers it – reasonably well maintained, and lacking in any kind of useful information.
“Okay, where to now?” Owen asks, once they've had a look round.
“Follow the corridors down...” Jack takes wheezing breath, and Tosh hands him the oxygen mask.
“Jack?” Ianto asks concerned when, after a moment, Jack hasn’t continued with directions. “Jack, are you alright?”
“I’m okay,” Jack says moving the mask just enough to talk. He’s glad that the video link only works one way. “Just thinking. Take the corridor to the left, follow direct route to cargo holds.”
“Dank and crumbling room one hundred and fifty three,” Owen says, sounding bored and fed up as they walk through yet another section of the ship. “And this one is filled with mouldy flowers.”
The camera dips as Ianto bends down to get a better look them. “It looks like one of the bales was ripped open, maybe there was some form of struggle on board after all.”
“That was me,” Jack admits, hoping they don't want to go into detail – it had been embarrassing enough even without an audience. “Got my coat snagged when the lights went out, knocked it over.”
Owen crouches down next to Ianto, and scoops up a handful of the flowers. “Were they mouldy then?”
“Maybe,”Jack says. He'd not really taken too much notice of it at the time, as after identifying them as asha flowers, he'd pretty much ignored them, more interested in finding out the whereabouts of the people who had grown them. Jack takes another ragged breath. “Didn't seem important.”
“When you first got sick I asked you if you'd been in contact with anything dodgy, and you thought that getting covered in mouldy flowers, and breathing in who knows what kind of fungus spores wasn't bloody important?” Owen says, frustrated and angry. “I could have been spent the last few days creating cultures, finding if there some kind of anti-fungal mediation on board, but no, you-”
“Owen!” Ianto drags him to his feet, shaking him as he does. “Leave him alone, it's not going to help.”
“I can hear you,you know,” Jack says irritably. Much of the annoyance is directed at himself though, as he realises that the concerns about whether it was contagious the could have been solved by him just thinking to mention the mould.
“Sorry,” Ianto says, letting go of Owen.
“Yeah, sorry.” Owen says, putting a handful of the flowers in to a container he's got with him. “We'll bring a sample back, and I'll get to work. I'm not going to let some uppity fungus get the better us.”
“He means it,” Tosh says, giving Jack's hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.. “If there’s any way at all to cure this he’ll find it.”
Holding on to Tosh's hand, Jack just hopes that Owen has enough time.
Rating: pg13
Characters/Pairings: Jack. AU Ianto, Owen and Tosh. Owen/Tosh, eventual Jack/Ianto.
Word Count: 3k (of 22k/28k posted)
Contains: Serious illness of an alien variety.
Summary: Travelling back to Earth with Ianto, Owen and Toshiko on board the freighter Ariadne, Jack has growing concerns that the glove he'd used to bring them into this universe has somehow affected him. He's still trying to deal with these worries on his own when they receive a distress call from another ship. A call which is about to change everything.
A/N: This is a sequel to The Spaces in Between. This is a sequel to 'The Spaces in Between.' which was a CoE sort of fix it. Any similarity to Miracle Day with regards to what is going on with Jack is totally accidental as this aspect of the fic had already been decided on last year. Updated weekly on Friday.
Starts here.
Jack wakes, his eyes feeling gummy and sore from falling asleep with tears still in them.
He's not sure when he finally fell asleep, the last clear thing he remembers is Ianto rubbing his back, trying to ease the painful, gasping sobs that where shaking him. The realisation that Ianto must have continued to hold him until he'd cried himself to sleep touches him more than he can say.
Rolling over onto his side, Jack can see Ianto is asleep in the chair next to the bed, his head nodding forwards.
It always surprised Jack how young his Ianto had looked when he was asleep, and this Ianto is no different. The worried frown that seems to have become his permanent expression over the last few days is gone, replaced by a peaceful one. Jack just wishes he could give Ianto that carefree life, but that, like so much else at the moment, is out of his control.
Jack can feel another bout of coughing building, and he tries to muffle it, covering his mouth with his hand.
It's not altogether successful, and after about a minute or so, just as Jack finishes coughing, Ianto wakes. Looking bleary eyed and tired, he says, “Are you alright. I'm sorry, I must have dozed off.”
“I'm okay, and you look like you needed it.” Jack hurriedly wipes away the blood on his lips before Ianto can see. “You didn't need to stay, you know.”
“I couldn’t just leave you.” Ianto looks surprised by the intensity in his voice, hurriedly saying, “I mean I’d have done the same for Owen or Tosh.”
Jack just nods. He knows that eventually they are going to have to talk properly about the tangled mess of what they are feeling about each other, to try to work out what, if anything, there is between them.
“Tosh came by while you were asleep, she said she'd come back later. I think she wants to talk to you about how your immortality works. Owen told her about you said, the not working right part that is, I don't think he said anything else,” Ianto says, changing the subject as he pours Jack a glass of water. “Owen dropped in as well, he left you one of the nutrient mixes, it just needs some water adding to it.”
“Lucky me.”
“I could get you some other food,” Ianto offers. “You might be okay with it.”
Food sounds about as unappealing as the nutrient mix, and Jack says, “I think I'll leave it for now.”
“If you're sure.”
A few moments later there's a knock at the door, and Ianto gets up to answer it.
“Is he still asleep?” Tosh asks quietly.
“No.” Ianto turns round to look at Jack. “Are you feeling up to talking?”
Jack smiles at Tosh. “I've always got time for a beautiful lady showing up in my bedroom.”
Tosh laughs. “Seems like some sleep did you good.”
Amused, Ianto shakes his head, and then gestures to the chair, “You can have my seat.”
“You're not going to stay?” Tosh asks, a little surprised.
“No. I’ve got a couple of things I need to do.”
“Don't work too hard,” Tosh says, sounding concerned about him. “And get something to eat, me and Owen missed you at dinner.”
“Food is one of the things, so don't worry.” He pauses at the door. “I'll see you both later.”
"Owen tells me you think that you've somehow managed to switch your immortality off," Tosh says, once Ianto has left. She’s trying to sound business like it, although it's clear she's concerned about him.
“I think it was the glove.” He been over it in his mind, and he's sure that tiredness – which now, on reflection, just seems like a normal, human pattern of sleep, had only started after he'd used it.
“I see.”
"It killed your Jack, maybe it's what it does. Kills." The bitterness in his own voice, surprises Jack.
"Not like this. What it did…” She trails off with a haunted look in her eyes. “Well it wasn't anything like this." Tosh sits down, then opens the data pad she's brought with her. "I want you to start by telling me how your immortality worked, and then what differences you've noticed since using the glove.”
“I don't know how it works, worked. The Doctor told me I was a fixed point. That I was... ” Jack pauses to take a breath. What the Doctor thought of him, and why he left him behind has, Jack decides, no bearing on the current situation. “Well he said a lot of things, main point, nothing was going to change what I'd become. I was going to live forever.”
Tosh smiles sadly, a knowing look in her eyes. It makes Jack wonder what had happened between the Doctor and Jack in their world, and if their Jack had been more free with what he's been told.
“How did your immortality work when healing injuries?” Tosh asks, making a quick note on the pad.“Did it repair them all straight away? Or was there usually a delay?”
“It varied.” Jack wishes he had more definite answer to give to Tosh. “Some things would heal straight away, others seemed to take a few hours, nothing ever took more than a day.”
“Did you every find a pattern in why it was like that?”
“No, and believe me I'm not the only one who's tried.” The women in charge of Torchwood Three back in the 1890's, and again years later, the Master, had subjected him to enough death and pain that if there had been any form of pattern in it he's sure they would have found it, and most likely used it against him.
“So even though it has varied in the past it's never been like this.”
Jack nods.
Tosh looks concerned, then asks, “And how did it work with illnesses?”
“I didn’t get ill. Any disease either killed me pretty much straight away if it was deadly enough or I just didn't catch it at all,” Jack says, hoping that Tosh doesn’t ask him about the last virus that killed him – the memories of what happened in Thames House are still far too raw for him to talk about. “I've been shot, stabbed, poisoned, electrocuted, gassed, drown, buried alive, hell I've even been exploded, but I've never been ill. You'd have thought in a couple of millennia I'd have a caught a cold or something, wouldn't you?”
“All those deaths,” Tosh says sadly.
"You think it's possible, don't you?" Jack asks, both needing and fearing the answer.
"Yes," Tosh looks down. "You said that you where a fixed point in time. You'd have been a fixed point in time in your dimension. My best guess is that when you crossed into our universe that you severed your connection with your own, you were cut adrift from it in both time and space."
"So it's gone?" Jack asks hollowly.
"It might not be that simple," Tosh says, putting down her data pad. "The link may have been cut, but from what Owen told me about your knee you're still healing at a faster rate than you would if you're just human. So that gives us two possibilities. One, that the healing you're still experiencing is from residual energy still stored within you from when you were a fixed point, and that it's a finite resource that's being used up and once it's gone you'll be fully mortal. Or two, that now you're back in your own dimension your position as a fixed point is re-establishing itself, and that given time you're immortality will go back to the way that it was."
"And there's no way of telling which?" Jack asks, unable for the moment to decide which is the more preferable option.
Tosh shakes her head. "Not apart from you dying or getting older, I'm sorry, Jack, I really am."
Jack nods, not able to find any words. There had been so many times over the years that he's lived as an immortal that he's wished that death could be an option for him, the guilt of living sometimes becoming too much to bear. Even the Doctor had asked him once if he wished to die, a question that he'd felt unable to answer.
“Can I get you anything?” she asks.
“No,” Jack says, sounding as numb as he feels. “I just need some time to think.”
“I understand.” She picks up her walking stick, and smiles sadly at him. “You think you know how your life is going to be, you have it all planned out, then everything changes.”
“I know you do,” Jack says quietly as she leaves. It's hard to know whether Tosh means the permanent numbness in one of her legs left over from when Gray had shot her, the fate of the Earth she came from, or both.
Alone again, Jack draws his knees up to his chest, and wraps his arms about them.
He's not sure what he'd expected Tosh to tell him. He supposes what he'd wanted was a definite answer, because, if anything, not knowing is worse.
It puts him right back where he was when he found he couldn't die – scared and full of questions which in all probability only one man could answer. Not that he expects to see the Doctor any time soon. There last encounter, a silent meeting across a crowded bar, had felt like goodbye.
Not wanting to think about that either, Jack rubs a hand across his face.
His throat feels dry from talking, and he drinks what's left in the cup. still thirsty, Jack reaches for the jug, only to find that it is also empty.
Wishing that he'd thought to ask Tosh to fill it up for him, Jack slowly gets out of bed.
Picking up the jug, Jack has only covered the few steps to the door, when a wave of dizziness breaks over him.
Leaning against the wall, his head against the cool metal, Jack waits for it to pass.
It doesn't, the tight feeling in his chest starting to increase as well.
Breathless, Jack stumbles, the jug falling to the floor with a metallic clang as it hits the deck.
The room seems airless, and Jack drops to his hands and knees, head hanging down as he gasps for breath.
There's the sound of running footsteps in the corridor outside, and Jack tries to turn towards it, tries to call out. He can't and he falls forward onto the floor.
The room and everything in it is starting to grey out by the time that Jack feels himself being rolled over, his head raised up off the floor.
He struggles weakly, barely conscious of what is happening as a mask is held over his nose and mouth.
A hand shakes his shoulder, the voice urgent, familiar, but the words remain indistinct.
“Breathe,” Owen orders, nearly shouting it into his ear. “You listen to me, and you bloody well breathe.”
Jack drags in a shaky breath, it hurts, but there's relief too, much needed air suddenly seeming to fill his lungs.
“That's it,” Owen says. “Keep going.”
“What is it?”
“Oxygen, well a high oxygen mix any way.” Owen puts the mask back in place. “There's probably not enough unaffected lung surface left to get sufficient oxygen in from the air. No more questions for few minutes, just breathe.”
Closing his eyes again, Jack concentrates on getting enough air in. Gradually he becomes aware enough of his surroundings to realise that his head is pillowed on Ianto's lap.
“Let’s get you back into bed.” Owen nods to Ianto. “Right, you lift his shoulders, I'll take his feet. We'll lift on three.”
“No. I can manage.” Jack tries to stand, the feeling of light headedness increasing as soon as he starts to move.
“Alright, but I'm telling you right now, this is a stupid idea,” Owen says.
With Ianto supporting him, and Owen holding the mask and oxygen bottle, they slowly move over to the bed.
It's only a few steps, but by the time Jack sits down on the edge of the bed, he's shivering and shaking, gasping into the oxygen mask.
“How..” Jack taps the side of the mask. “..did you know..”
“That you might need it?” Owen finishes for him.“I'm treating a patient with breathing difficulties and reduced lung capacity, it would be pretty damn irresponsible of me not to have some oxygen to hand, don't you think?”
Shakily, Jack nods. He's grateful that Owen had the foresight to do it, as he really don't want to think about what might have happened if he'd been
“I know I said that I thought this was probably something that you picked up on our Earth, but given its current speed of progression, I don't think it can be,” Owen says, not looking happy that he's having to admit that he might have been wrong. “So it's got to have been something on the Meridian Star, something that only you came in contact with. So we’re going to go back over there.”
“Celesti won’t agree,” Jack says weakly. He knows that if he were in her place, he probably wouldn't either.
“She already has, that's where I went earlier, to talk to her,” Ianto says. “It doesn't appear to be contagious, and she knows that it'll be easier to sign over the Meridian Star when they get to port if she can tell the authorities just what happened.”
Ianto smiles slightly, trying to reassure him. “So don't worry, I've sorted out hazmat suits for myself and Owen. ”
“Don't...not worth it.” Jack struggles to sit back up. “Not worth your life.”
“If there is a chance to save you, and I didn't take it, I'd never forgive myself.” Ianto says. His voice is rough, and he turns away Jack thinks he can see tears in his eyes.
Walking quickly to the door, Ianto says, “Owen, I'm going to make sure everything is set, I'll meet you at the airlock.”
Giving them both a despairing look, Owen pushes Jack gently but firm back down on to the bed. “He's willing to risk going over there for you, so the least you can do is try not to make yourself worse while we're gone, okay?”
Staring after Ianto, a defeated look in his eyes, Jack says, “And why are you risking it?”
“Because I'm a stubborn bastard, and I don't like not knowing what's going on.”
“Look, I get you're fining it tough, but so it is he,” Owen says, adjusting the pillows behind Jack, so that he's sitting more upright. “He spent loads of time with Jack when the glove was sucking the life out of him, and it watching you like this is doing a real number on his head.”
Jack closes his eyes. He feels tearful and wretched. “Just...look after him.”
“Like I'd do anything else.” Owen checks the level of oxygen in the bottle. “Now, I want you to try to only use the oxygen if you feel you need it, okay?”
Jack nods.
“Now, I going to have to go and see what he doing, but I'll get Tosh to come and sit with you.”
* * *
“We've fixed up a camera on Ianto's hazmat suit, so you'll be able to direct them,” Tosh says, angling the screen so both she and Jack can see.
“If there's anything to find, they'll find it,” Tosh reassures him, as they both start to watch.
The picture quality is poor, and the image jerky from where it's mounted on the side of headpiece of Ianto's hazmat suit. The flickering picture and the constant hiss of feedback on the comm. link add to the unsettling atmosphere, the Meridian Star seeming eerier than it had before. It makes it feel like he's watching a low budget horror film.
The environmental control room, when Owen and Ianto reach it, is just as Jack remembers it – reasonably well maintained, and lacking in any kind of useful information.
“Okay, where to now?” Owen asks, once they've had a look round.
“Follow the corridors down...” Jack takes wheezing breath, and Tosh hands him the oxygen mask.
“Jack?” Ianto asks concerned when, after a moment, Jack hasn’t continued with directions. “Jack, are you alright?”
“I’m okay,” Jack says moving the mask just enough to talk. He’s glad that the video link only works one way. “Just thinking. Take the corridor to the left, follow direct route to cargo holds.”
“Dank and crumbling room one hundred and fifty three,” Owen says, sounding bored and fed up as they walk through yet another section of the ship. “And this one is filled with mouldy flowers.”
The camera dips as Ianto bends down to get a better look them. “It looks like one of the bales was ripped open, maybe there was some form of struggle on board after all.”
“That was me,” Jack admits, hoping they don't want to go into detail – it had been embarrassing enough even without an audience. “Got my coat snagged when the lights went out, knocked it over.”
Owen crouches down next to Ianto, and scoops up a handful of the flowers. “Were they mouldy then?”
“Maybe,”Jack says. He'd not really taken too much notice of it at the time, as after identifying them as asha flowers, he'd pretty much ignored them, more interested in finding out the whereabouts of the people who had grown them. Jack takes another ragged breath. “Didn't seem important.”
“When you first got sick I asked you if you'd been in contact with anything dodgy, and you thought that getting covered in mouldy flowers, and breathing in who knows what kind of fungus spores wasn't bloody important?” Owen says, frustrated and angry. “I could have been spent the last few days creating cultures, finding if there some kind of anti-fungal mediation on board, but no, you-”
“Owen!” Ianto drags him to his feet, shaking him as he does. “Leave him alone, it's not going to help.”
“I can hear you,you know,” Jack says irritably. Much of the annoyance is directed at himself though, as he realises that the concerns about whether it was contagious the could have been solved by him just thinking to mention the mould.
“Sorry,” Ianto says, letting go of Owen.
“Yeah, sorry.” Owen says, putting a handful of the flowers in to a container he's got with him. “We'll bring a sample back, and I'll get to work. I'm not going to let some uppity fungus get the better us.”
“He means it,” Tosh says, giving Jack's hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.. “If there’s any way at all to cure this he’ll find it.”
Holding on to Tosh's hand, Jack just hopes that Owen has enough time.