Fic: A Different Path (part 2 of 3)
Feb. 1st, 2012 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silver_sunTitle: A Different Path. (Part 2 of 3)
Characters/Pairings: Ianto/Lisa, 9th Doctor. (Past Doctor/Rose, and Doctor/Jack/Rose implied.)
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood. (AU from Parting of the Ways for
Doctor Who)
Rating: R (see warning)
Word count: 2100 (this part of about 6k total)
Warning: Assisted suicide of minor canon character.
Summary: The Doctor had meant it to be a quick stop in Cardiff to
refuel the TARDIS, then back out into time and space, alone once more after
losing Rose to a parallel world. What he hadn't expected was to pick up the
energy signature of an operational cyberconversion unit.
A/N: Sorry for how late this is, real life has hit hard the last week or so, and the story got rather longer than planned. There might end up being more in this 'verse, but there aren't any definite plans at the moment.
Part one is here http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/169749.html#cutid1
The lights in the TARDIS pulse softly, seeming to express sympathy for the situation, as the Doctor puts Ianto down on the one of the benches near the console.
“I know I said it was just going to be us for a while,” he says aloud, walking through to the wardrobe room. Retrieving a blanket from one of the storage boxes, he takes it back to the console room and places it over Ianto. “But I can’t just leave him there.”
Tucking the blanket round Ianto, satisfied that for the moment at least that he isn't going anywhere, the Doctor gets started on the task of removing all traces of the Cyberman technology from the garage.
Even with the TARDIS parked just inside the garage, it still takes some time to dismantle the conversion unit, but there is no way that the Doctor is leaving it there where it can be found and maybe utilised.
By the time he's removed Lisa's body from the conversion unit, dismantled it and jettisoned the offending pieces of cyber technology into the Sun, he’s tired and his hands are scratched and sore.
The fact that Ianto had somehow managed to get the unit and Lisa from London to Wales in a functional condition and then keep it working for a few months is impressive.
He’s not had anybody who was handy like that aboard since Jack. The Doctor closes his eyes for a moment. He misses Jack as much as he misses Rose. They'd both been just what he'd needed. Fun, optimistic and with a sense of adventure that had made travelling a joy again, rather than a way of trying out run the guilt of being the only survivor of Gallifrey.
“Turning into a sentimental old fool,” he grumbles to himself. Wanting something else to concentrate on, and realising that he's ignored Ianto since leaving him in the console room, he goes to check on his guest.
He can hear Ianto, who is still lying on the bench where the he’d left him, before he sees him. His breathing sounds worse than it had been in the garage, the wheezing painful to hear.
“Come on, I'd better find you a bed, and something to drink,” the Doctor says walking over to him.
Getting closer he can see he’s shivering, sweat soaked hair clinging damply to his forehead. Frowning, he shakes his shoulder. “Wake up, lad. You can’t stay there.”
Ianto opens his eyes and stares at him. They're bright with fever and lacking in comprehension at what is going on. He mumbles something that might be about dying and Lisa, before closing his eyes again.
Taking the blanket off him, the Doctor stands there for a moment trying to decide what to do for the best. Ianto hadn't seemed this sick when he'd brought him into the TARDIS. But the Doctor suspects that with Lisa's death he'd lost the only thing that had kept him fighting. Leaving him to overheat under a thick blanket probably hadn't done him all that much good either.
The Zero Room, seems like the best option, as he knows that the environment their can be tailored to suit whatever the needs of the person are, regardless of their species.
Ianto is limp, his skin far too hot as the Doctor picks him up again, and carries him through the TARDIS.
The last person he’d had to deal with who’d been this sick was Jack. Following the thing in Russia – repeated dousing in freezing sea water, near drowning, superficial burns and almost complete exhaustion from running and fighting for his life and their for days had taken their toll, and after a day or so claiming to be fine he collapsed, and spent the best part of the next week in bed fighting off pneumonia cause by breathing in some of the water.
That hadn't been the last time the Zero room had been used though. The last time had been for himself. Not that he remembers much about it.
The details of getting there after the energy from the heart of the TARDIS from Rose are fragmentary at best. He remembers falling to his knees in the console room, the energy burning through him, sure that his current body was about to die, and then there'd been nothing until he'd woken some days later feeling indescribably weak on the bed in the zero room, Rose asleep in a chair by his side.
Putting Ianto down on the bed, the Doctor starts to program the controls for the room. The low level psychic field in the room will assure him a deep, dreamless sleep to help him heal. While the air in the room can be augmented with compounds to assist in fighting off whatever infection or virus he's picked up.
He's not so far out of it that drinking, albeit with some assistance, is a problem. So after some cajoling and reassurance that the 38th century isotonic energy drink isn’t going to poison him despite its less than palatable taste, the Doctor is satisfied that Ianto has drunk enough, and that he's not going to get sicker due to dehydration.
The only thing that remains for him to do is let him sleep. Watching him seems unnecessary, as he's not going to go any where or say anything for the next few hours, and the Doctor turns his attention to removing the last pieces of cyber technology – those that had been graphed on to Lisa.
Removing the metal from her body isn’t been a quick or pleasant task, and despite using some synthetic skin replacement technology that he'd picked up years ago to cover up the worse of the damage caused by the partial conversion the extent and disfigurement caused by it is still severe.
* * *
Even with the Zero Room helping speed Ianto's recovery, it still takes some time for him to become coherent enough to be able to talk or even be aware that the Doctor is there. And further day beyond that for the Doctor to decide that he can move Ianto to one of the other rooms in the TARDIS.
The infection in his lungs caused by breathing in whatever irritant particles had been in the air when Torchwood Tower burnt, is mostly healed, although the Doctor knows that there will probably be some level of scarring that will remain. Although unless he’s really pushing himself the Doctor is reasonably sure that it shouldn’t interfere with day to day life.
Getting rid of the infection though had been the easy part, getting Ianto to show any interest in anything, including eating, has been much harder.
Wearing old fashioned stripy pyjamas and a faded dressing gown, Ianto is sitting on the edge of his bed staring at the wall, hands resting limply in his lap when the Doctor walks in.
There’s a hollowness, an emptiness, in his red rimmed eyes, that the Doctor knows only too well: It’s the look of someone who has seen everything they cared about, their entire life, destroyed.
“I’ve travelled with enough humans to know that they need to eat. They start getting cranky if they don't,” the Doctor says putting the plate of food down next to Ianto.
“I’m not hungry.” Ianto doesn’t look at the Doctor or the food.
“You must be, you’ve not had anything but a little bit of soup and water for the last two days.” The Doctor is fairly sure that it has been days, but floating out here in time vortex, it gets hard to tell after a while. “You’re not going to get better if you don’t eat.”
“I don’t care.” Ianto shakes his head, before handing back the plate to the Doctor, and lying down on the bed. “Please, just leave me alone.”
“No.” The Doctor can see a lot of himself in this young man, sees the same look of complete despair in his eyes that he’d felt after the loss of Gallifrey. He’d had nine hundred years of experience and the knowledge of the Time Lords behind him to deal with it, and still it had nearly broken him.
He’d only just been dragging himself out of that despair when he’d met Rose, and for a while everything had seemed so much brighter and full of life.
How old was this man, twenty-five? A paltry little a quarter of a century, just a blink of an eye in the terms of the universe. How was someone like that supposed to cope with his whole existence falling apart?
“Is this the part where you tell me it’s going to get better, I've just got give it time?” Ianto sounds bitter and hollow. “Well forgive me if I don’t believe you, but it’s a load of crap. It was when my mam died, it was when my tad died, and it is now.”
The Doctor frowns, it’s exactly what he was going to say. It’s a little unnerving, and it leaves him wondering if he’s becoming predictable or if Ianto has some form of psychic talent that he hadn’t detected. “Well I could lie and say I was going to say something different, but that isn't me. I'm trying to help you.”
“I don’t want any help. I just want to…” Ianto rolls over, hiding his face.
“No, you don't.” The Doctor sits down on the edge of the bed. He wishes that Rose were still there, she'd known what to say to him, how to comfort him properly. “You might think you'd be best off not being here, but there'll be people who'll miss you, there always are.”
“There aren’t.” It’s muffled from where he’s pressed his face against the sheets. “They’re all dead. And I’m not. And it’s not fair.”
He doesn’t ask Ianto if he means that it’s not fair they’re dead or if it’s that he doesn’t know why he’s still alive. He knows those feelings of confusion and guilt all too well.
Putting a hand on his shoulder, the Doctor says, “A lot of things aren’t fair, and there’s nothing I can say that’ll make it otherwise. But there are still good things out there, fantastic things, you just need to give it a chance to happen.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Ianto asks turning back over so that he can see him. “You must hate Torchwood, what they did. You know I worked for them.”
“Hate doesn't solve anything, not in the end,” the Doctor says wearily. So many times and on so many worlds he's seen the destruction that hate can cause, he's more tired of it than he can find the words to describe. “And Lisa asked me to.”
Sitting up, Ianto says, “She asked you to?”
“Yep. Told me to make sure nothing happened to you. And I’m trying to do it, but you don’t make it easy.”
Ianto sniffs and wipes his eyes. “She always said I was too stubborn for my own good.”
“Not going to argue with that.” Picking up the mug of tea on the tray he hands it to Ianto. “You going to try to drink some of this?”
Taking the drink, Ianto holds it white knuckled, clinging to it like it’s his only life line. “Did you leave her there?”
“Of course not.” He nods at the tea. “It’s going to get cold if you leave it.”
With a long suffering look, Ianto slowly sips some of the tea.
“Can I see her?” Ianto asks eventually, his voice unsteady. “I need to tell her…I need to…”
“Alright.” It's probably not the best idea, but the Doctor suspects that Ianto would try to find her as soon as he's left the room anyway. Better that he walks with him rather than have him wander off who knows where and collapse in a corner.
Getting off the bed, Ianto takes few shaky steps towards the door, before stopping, and leaning against the wall.
“Feeling dizzy, aren't you?” the Doctor says, getting close enough that he'll be able to catch him if he falls.
“It'll pass.”
“It'd pass quicker if you'd start eating properly,” the Doctor grumbles to himself. Knowing that he's not got a chance of persuading Ianto to go back to bed, eat something and try again later, he says, “I'll help you get there, but you've got to promise you'll try and eat something later.”
Ianto nods looking like he'd probably agree to almost anything if it means the Doctor will let him see Lisa.
“Come on then.” Putting an arm around Ianto's waist so he can lean on him for support, they slowly make their way through the TARDIS.
TBC.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
The incident in Russia that the Doctor refers to (although not what happened afterwards) is from the tie-in novel Deviant Strain by Justin Richards. The Zero Room in the TARDIS is from classic Who, although since it was destroyed and then rebuilt in the Big Finish Audio (which I've not listened to yet) I've kind of taken some liberties with what it can do, mainly because I'm not 100% sure what it can do. Although it has been (by all accounts) used to help a sick companion (also Big Finish Audio – Patient Zero.)
Characters/Pairings: Ianto/Lisa, 9th Doctor. (Past Doctor/Rose, and Doctor/Jack/Rose implied.)
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood. (AU from Parting of the Ways for
Doctor Who)
Rating: R (see warning)
Word count: 2100 (this part of about 6k total)
Warning: Assisted suicide of minor canon character.
Summary: The Doctor had meant it to be a quick stop in Cardiff to
refuel the TARDIS, then back out into time and space, alone once more after
losing Rose to a parallel world. What he hadn't expected was to pick up the
energy signature of an operational cyberconversion unit.
A/N: Sorry for how late this is, real life has hit hard the last week or so, and the story got rather longer than planned. There might end up being more in this 'verse, but there aren't any definite plans at the moment.
Part one is here http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/169749.html#cutid1
The lights in the TARDIS pulse softly, seeming to express sympathy for the situation, as the Doctor puts Ianto down on the one of the benches near the console.
“I know I said it was just going to be us for a while,” he says aloud, walking through to the wardrobe room. Retrieving a blanket from one of the storage boxes, he takes it back to the console room and places it over Ianto. “But I can’t just leave him there.”
Tucking the blanket round Ianto, satisfied that for the moment at least that he isn't going anywhere, the Doctor gets started on the task of removing all traces of the Cyberman technology from the garage.
Even with the TARDIS parked just inside the garage, it still takes some time to dismantle the conversion unit, but there is no way that the Doctor is leaving it there where it can be found and maybe utilised.
By the time he's removed Lisa's body from the conversion unit, dismantled it and jettisoned the offending pieces of cyber technology into the Sun, he’s tired and his hands are scratched and sore.
The fact that Ianto had somehow managed to get the unit and Lisa from London to Wales in a functional condition and then keep it working for a few months is impressive.
He’s not had anybody who was handy like that aboard since Jack. The Doctor closes his eyes for a moment. He misses Jack as much as he misses Rose. They'd both been just what he'd needed. Fun, optimistic and with a sense of adventure that had made travelling a joy again, rather than a way of trying out run the guilt of being the only survivor of Gallifrey.
“Turning into a sentimental old fool,” he grumbles to himself. Wanting something else to concentrate on, and realising that he's ignored Ianto since leaving him in the console room, he goes to check on his guest.
He can hear Ianto, who is still lying on the bench where the he’d left him, before he sees him. His breathing sounds worse than it had been in the garage, the wheezing painful to hear.
“Come on, I'd better find you a bed, and something to drink,” the Doctor says walking over to him.
Getting closer he can see he’s shivering, sweat soaked hair clinging damply to his forehead. Frowning, he shakes his shoulder. “Wake up, lad. You can’t stay there.”
Ianto opens his eyes and stares at him. They're bright with fever and lacking in comprehension at what is going on. He mumbles something that might be about dying and Lisa, before closing his eyes again.
Taking the blanket off him, the Doctor stands there for a moment trying to decide what to do for the best. Ianto hadn't seemed this sick when he'd brought him into the TARDIS. But the Doctor suspects that with Lisa's death he'd lost the only thing that had kept him fighting. Leaving him to overheat under a thick blanket probably hadn't done him all that much good either.
The Zero Room, seems like the best option, as he knows that the environment their can be tailored to suit whatever the needs of the person are, regardless of their species.
Ianto is limp, his skin far too hot as the Doctor picks him up again, and carries him through the TARDIS.
The last person he’d had to deal with who’d been this sick was Jack. Following the thing in Russia – repeated dousing in freezing sea water, near drowning, superficial burns and almost complete exhaustion from running and fighting for his life and their for days had taken their toll, and after a day or so claiming to be fine he collapsed, and spent the best part of the next week in bed fighting off pneumonia cause by breathing in some of the water.
That hadn't been the last time the Zero room had been used though. The last time had been for himself. Not that he remembers much about it.
The details of getting there after the energy from the heart of the TARDIS from Rose are fragmentary at best. He remembers falling to his knees in the console room, the energy burning through him, sure that his current body was about to die, and then there'd been nothing until he'd woken some days later feeling indescribably weak on the bed in the zero room, Rose asleep in a chair by his side.
Putting Ianto down on the bed, the Doctor starts to program the controls for the room. The low level psychic field in the room will assure him a deep, dreamless sleep to help him heal. While the air in the room can be augmented with compounds to assist in fighting off whatever infection or virus he's picked up.
He's not so far out of it that drinking, albeit with some assistance, is a problem. So after some cajoling and reassurance that the 38th century isotonic energy drink isn’t going to poison him despite its less than palatable taste, the Doctor is satisfied that Ianto has drunk enough, and that he's not going to get sicker due to dehydration.
The only thing that remains for him to do is let him sleep. Watching him seems unnecessary, as he's not going to go any where or say anything for the next few hours, and the Doctor turns his attention to removing the last pieces of cyber technology – those that had been graphed on to Lisa.
Removing the metal from her body isn’t been a quick or pleasant task, and despite using some synthetic skin replacement technology that he'd picked up years ago to cover up the worse of the damage caused by the partial conversion the extent and disfigurement caused by it is still severe.
* * *
Even with the Zero Room helping speed Ianto's recovery, it still takes some time for him to become coherent enough to be able to talk or even be aware that the Doctor is there. And further day beyond that for the Doctor to decide that he can move Ianto to one of the other rooms in the TARDIS.
The infection in his lungs caused by breathing in whatever irritant particles had been in the air when Torchwood Tower burnt, is mostly healed, although the Doctor knows that there will probably be some level of scarring that will remain. Although unless he’s really pushing himself the Doctor is reasonably sure that it shouldn’t interfere with day to day life.
Getting rid of the infection though had been the easy part, getting Ianto to show any interest in anything, including eating, has been much harder.
Wearing old fashioned stripy pyjamas and a faded dressing gown, Ianto is sitting on the edge of his bed staring at the wall, hands resting limply in his lap when the Doctor walks in.
There’s a hollowness, an emptiness, in his red rimmed eyes, that the Doctor knows only too well: It’s the look of someone who has seen everything they cared about, their entire life, destroyed.
“I’ve travelled with enough humans to know that they need to eat. They start getting cranky if they don't,” the Doctor says putting the plate of food down next to Ianto.
“I’m not hungry.” Ianto doesn’t look at the Doctor or the food.
“You must be, you’ve not had anything but a little bit of soup and water for the last two days.” The Doctor is fairly sure that it has been days, but floating out here in time vortex, it gets hard to tell after a while. “You’re not going to get better if you don’t eat.”
“I don’t care.” Ianto shakes his head, before handing back the plate to the Doctor, and lying down on the bed. “Please, just leave me alone.”
“No.” The Doctor can see a lot of himself in this young man, sees the same look of complete despair in his eyes that he’d felt after the loss of Gallifrey. He’d had nine hundred years of experience and the knowledge of the Time Lords behind him to deal with it, and still it had nearly broken him.
He’d only just been dragging himself out of that despair when he’d met Rose, and for a while everything had seemed so much brighter and full of life.
How old was this man, twenty-five? A paltry little a quarter of a century, just a blink of an eye in the terms of the universe. How was someone like that supposed to cope with his whole existence falling apart?
“Is this the part where you tell me it’s going to get better, I've just got give it time?” Ianto sounds bitter and hollow. “Well forgive me if I don’t believe you, but it’s a load of crap. It was when my mam died, it was when my tad died, and it is now.”
The Doctor frowns, it’s exactly what he was going to say. It’s a little unnerving, and it leaves him wondering if he’s becoming predictable or if Ianto has some form of psychic talent that he hadn’t detected. “Well I could lie and say I was going to say something different, but that isn't me. I'm trying to help you.”
“I don’t want any help. I just want to…” Ianto rolls over, hiding his face.
“No, you don't.” The Doctor sits down on the edge of the bed. He wishes that Rose were still there, she'd known what to say to him, how to comfort him properly. “You might think you'd be best off not being here, but there'll be people who'll miss you, there always are.”
“There aren’t.” It’s muffled from where he’s pressed his face against the sheets. “They’re all dead. And I’m not. And it’s not fair.”
He doesn’t ask Ianto if he means that it’s not fair they’re dead or if it’s that he doesn’t know why he’s still alive. He knows those feelings of confusion and guilt all too well.
Putting a hand on his shoulder, the Doctor says, “A lot of things aren’t fair, and there’s nothing I can say that’ll make it otherwise. But there are still good things out there, fantastic things, you just need to give it a chance to happen.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Ianto asks turning back over so that he can see him. “You must hate Torchwood, what they did. You know I worked for them.”
“Hate doesn't solve anything, not in the end,” the Doctor says wearily. So many times and on so many worlds he's seen the destruction that hate can cause, he's more tired of it than he can find the words to describe. “And Lisa asked me to.”
Sitting up, Ianto says, “She asked you to?”
“Yep. Told me to make sure nothing happened to you. And I’m trying to do it, but you don’t make it easy.”
Ianto sniffs and wipes his eyes. “She always said I was too stubborn for my own good.”
“Not going to argue with that.” Picking up the mug of tea on the tray he hands it to Ianto. “You going to try to drink some of this?”
Taking the drink, Ianto holds it white knuckled, clinging to it like it’s his only life line. “Did you leave her there?”
“Of course not.” He nods at the tea. “It’s going to get cold if you leave it.”
With a long suffering look, Ianto slowly sips some of the tea.
“Can I see her?” Ianto asks eventually, his voice unsteady. “I need to tell her…I need to…”
“Alright.” It's probably not the best idea, but the Doctor suspects that Ianto would try to find her as soon as he's left the room anyway. Better that he walks with him rather than have him wander off who knows where and collapse in a corner.
Getting off the bed, Ianto takes few shaky steps towards the door, before stopping, and leaning against the wall.
“Feeling dizzy, aren't you?” the Doctor says, getting close enough that he'll be able to catch him if he falls.
“It'll pass.”
“It'd pass quicker if you'd start eating properly,” the Doctor grumbles to himself. Knowing that he's not got a chance of persuading Ianto to go back to bed, eat something and try again later, he says, “I'll help you get there, but you've got to promise you'll try and eat something later.”
Ianto nods looking like he'd probably agree to almost anything if it means the Doctor will let him see Lisa.
“Come on then.” Putting an arm around Ianto's waist so he can lean on him for support, they slowly make their way through the TARDIS.
TBC.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
The incident in Russia that the Doctor refers to (although not what happened afterwards) is from the tie-in novel Deviant Strain by Justin Richards. The Zero Room in the TARDIS is from classic Who, although since it was destroyed and then rebuilt in the Big Finish Audio (which I've not listened to yet) I've kind of taken some liberties with what it can do, mainly because I'm not 100% sure what it can do. Although it has been (by all accounts) used to help a sick companion (also Big Finish Audio – Patient Zero.)