m_findlow

Title: Brought back from death
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,124 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for juliet316's prompt "Any, any, the first time feeling touch after a long time not feeling anything" at fic_promptly
Summary: The task of dealing with the dead is best suited to one who's already dead.

'Ianto.' Hearing his name called out startled him. He slowly put down his pen and looked up towards the man approaching him.

'Can I help you, sir?'

'Need a hand with something,' Jack replied, nodding his head and indicating Ianto should follow.

'How's the new digs?' Jack asked, making idle conversation as they stood in the lift, heading down several floors below. How far down? Ianto wondered. All the way? Had Jack uncovered what he was hiding down there?

'Fine. Thank you.' He forced out the words, trying to sound calm and relaxed. Funny how being back in Cardiff didn't quite feel like being home. Home was wherever he and Lisa decided to be. Once she was better they'd leave Cardiff and start life somewhere else that would be home. He wouldn't return to Cardiff, probably couldn't. After he skipped town, Torchwood would be looking for him. Who knew how long Jack might spend trying to find him before he finally gave up the chase, letting Ianto slip into whatever incognito existence he set up for himself and Lisa. New names, new backgrounds, all traces of their old life erased. It would be hard to let all of that go, but it would be worth it.

'So, I need to ask a favour,' Jack said, interrupting his thoughts of future escape. 'Owen is a brilliant doctor, and can autopsy just about anything that lands on his table and tell you what it had for breakfast, but he's not real big on the part that comes after.'

'Cleaning up,' Ianto supplied.

'Exactly. He thinks the corpses will just magically disappear, like I have some alien remote control that can just zap them out of existence.'

'You don't?'

'Oh, no, I do. But don't tell Owen that.'

'So, you need someone to deal with the bodies.'

Jack stopped and looked at him. 'Are you okay with that?'

Jack watched him for signs that this wasn't something he could cope with. He wasn't sure what Ianto had seen at Canary Wharf. The place had been utter carnage when Jack and his team had arrived to clean up the mess Yvonne Hartman had left in her wake. There were bodies and broken bits of Cybermen and Daleks everywhere. It was bloody and horrific. Almost too scared to ask, Jack wondered how the hell Ianto had survived it.

'All part of the job,' Ianto replied.

Jack nodded and continued down the hall. 'Apologies for the state of this one. It's not in the best shape. And that's after Owen has finished with it.'

'Isn't it usually the other way around?'

Jack chuckled. 'For all his obnoxious qualities, he actually is a very good doctor. As much as possible we try to put things back together. We don't know what kind of beliefs or religions a lot of these creature follow or practice, and maybe we're violating some of those, but the best we can do is try to give them a respectful ending.'

'That's seems... very unexpected. Didn't think Torchwood did funeral services.'

Jack turned and faced him. 'Imagine it was you, stranded on an alien world, body torn apart. Wouldn't it be comforting to think that someone there would try and sew your body back up and give you a proper burial?'

'I suppose so. You have an alien graveyard somewhere?'

'Cremation mostly,' Jack replied. 'We're all carbon-based lifeforms at the end of the day. Life created from an explosion of fire at the beginning of the universe, and returned to the flames once we're gone from this world.' It was all rather poetic, Ianto thought. Who knew Jack could be so eloquent.

Jack stopped just outside the door. 'You're good?'

Ianto nodded. He took a couple of long, slow breaths, preparing himself. Don't throw up, and please don't faint, he prayed. When Jack opened the door and he saw the thing on the table, his own reaction surprised him.

He felt nothing. Just blank emptiness. The body was horribly mangled, just as Jack had warned him. Instead of feeling revulsion, or panicking at the memories of bodies just like it that he'd had to crawl over to find Lisa, there was just a hollow nothingness. It was dead. He couldn't change that. He was alive, and Lisa was alive, and everything else didn't matter. It was like having blinkers on, unable to see all the death and the horror around him.

'Ianto?' Jack's voice cut through with a tenderness he didn't expect.

'What do you need me to do?' he asked.

'There's special bags in the cupboard,' Jack explained. 'They're lined with chemicals that help to break down any alien toxins produced during the cremation. We get as much of it in the bag as possible, and disinfect the rest, table, tools and all.'

'I can do that,' Ianto said, committing the process to memory.

'Once the bag is ready, there's a second trolley over there to take it down to the incinerator. Fire it up about forty minutes before you're ready, so it's nice and hot.'

'How long?'

'Sensors inside will shut it off automatically once the weight reaches a set minimum and the toxin readings come back clear. Load the body and then you can call it a day, the incinerator will take care of the rest.'

Ianto nodded, adding it to his list.

'You're okay with all that?'

Ianto snapped on a pair of gloves, feeling rather disembodied himself. This was a good thing, he told himself. He'd been terrified he might freak out or have a breakdown.

There was a hand on his shoulder, and suddenly he was hit by a tidal wave of emotions.

'You're sure you're okay?' Jack's eyes bored into him.

No, he wasn't. Two seconds ago, he'd been fine, but Jack's touch had broken open some invisible floodgate inside him. No one had touched him for so long he felt like he barely existed. Was that why he'd felt nothing at the sight of the corpse? Like he himself had been dead inside? These were different feelings though, not horror and fear, but a sadness and a loneliness. He was trapped here, trying to save Lisa who'd grown cold and untalkative. Jack was right here, though, warm and caring, looking at him like he really did exist. How much had he forgotten what it was like to feel wanted and needed? He was becoming just as cold and unfeeling as Lisa.

'Why don't I stay and help?' Jack suggested. 'Just to get you going? First one's always the toughest.'

'Thanks,' he said, grateful for the offer. He wasn't quite ready to let go of feeling again, knowing how empty it would suddenly be when Jack left the room again.