m_findlow

Title: In the still of the night
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,733 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Regular Challenge r18.10 - Hush
Summary: All Jack wanted for his lover was a little peace and quiet.

Jack was fuming by the time he'd clambered up the narrow ladder, walked though his office, and out into the main hub, trying to pinpoint the noise. He leant over the railing that looked down into Owen's medical bay and spotted the man in question, clanking around and making a ruckus, alien corpse on his metal gurney as he worked away.

'Hey! What they hell do you think you're doing?'

'What does it look like, genius?' Owen grumbled.

In the background, Jack heard a series of coughs, followed by a general sound of slowly approaching footsteps.

'Good one,' Jack complained. 'I only just got him to finally go get some sleep, and then you come blundering in here, making a racket.'

Owen set his hands on his hips. 'Well, how was I supposed to know? It's not like you stuck up a sign,' he retorted. 'Usually you're whinging that I haven't done anything. Now you're having a go because I am.'

'What's going on?' Ianto asked, shuffling towards them, looking tired and disheveled.

'It's nothing,' Jack said, staring daggers back at Owen. 'Owen here was just leaving.'

'I can't leave. Not until I get this thing dealt with, unless of course you'd like it stinking up the hub for days.'

'Well, can you at least do it without making a racket?'

'The thing is covered in metallic scales. What do you want me to do?' Just moving it around caused the sharp edges of the scales to screech against his gurney, and that was nothing compared to trying to get his tools to pierce the skin to figure out why it had died in the first place. He was considering dumping his traditional medical equipment for a hammer and chisel, or maybe a chainsaw. Even the soft spots like the underarms and neck were virtually impenetrable. Jack had been the one who'd joked and called it tin man, and that maybe it wasn't dead but just needed a good oil. Owen disagreed. It might be tough on the outside, but it was already beginning to decompose on the inside. On a scale of one to ten for the smell, Owen knew this one would be a doozy. He wanted it gone as quickly as possible.

'I can help,' Ianto said. 'It'll speed up the process. Two hands are better than one, or is it four hands are better than two?' He frowned. 'Actually, I think the saying is two heads are better than one.'

'No,' Jack said. 'You need to be resting.' The nonsensical idioms coming out of his mouth were evidence enough of that.

'I'm fine.'

'You're not.'

On that he and Owen could at least agree. There was nothing firmly diagnosable, it was simply a matter of him being run down from too many long days and longer nights. Though he persisted, it was clear from the sluggish way he moved that he was struggling for energy. Jack's own battle had been in getting him to stop. Exhausted as he was, once you finally got him into bed, he couldn't sleep, like his brain refused to give in, no matter what. It was frustrating watching him toss and turn all night, unable to get the sleep he desperately needed and then forcing himself to do it all over again the next day. Owen's solution had been to feed him vitamins to tide him over. If he took any more tablets though, Jack was sure he'd rattle when he walked.

It had only been five o'clock, but Jack had managed to usher Gwen and Tosh out early, determined to get Ianto some peace and quiet so he could sleep. The last person he expected to want to hang around and be an overachiever was Owen.

'I'll help,' Jack offered. Anything to get Owen's autopsy done and gone.

'Good,' Owen replied. 'I could use a bit of brute force.'

'I'll take that as a compliment,' Jack said.

'Well, it's certainly not your precision medical skills I'm after,' Owen quipped. 'A butcher would do a better job.'

'What can I do?' Ianto asked.

'Go to bed,' Jack replied.

Ianto winced as Owen moved the body again, causing another screech of metal on metal. It was worse than fingernails down a chalkboard. 'Yeah, that's going to work well,' he said. 'Nice and peaceful.'

'Fine,' Jack huffed. 'Go downstairs and get the incinerator going, then. It's going to take a good half hour to get hot enough to nuke this guy. But after that, bed. No arguments.'

Ianto took his orders and left.

The incinerator room was a vast rectangular space many levels below the main floor of the hub. It housed not only the large high tech incinerator, but also an array of other machinery, which included an industrial sized washing machine and tumble dryer, a large autoclave for Owen's medical implements, a garbage crusher and a huge sink. There was normally at least one piece of machinery going at any time, and oftentimes more than one, creating a cacophony of noise. It wasn't anywhere you wanted to spend long periods of time unless you wanted a headache.

He padded over to the incinerator, still dressed in his slippers and fluffy dressing gown. He didn't have to like Jack's orders but he did have to follow them, and he was tired. He was sure that with a few decent nights sleep, he could bounce back from whatever was wrong with him.

Pressing a large button on the side, he heard the whump sound of the gas jets igniting inside the huge metal machine. Getting it up to temperature enough to cremate a body took time, and the tougher the alien, the longer it needed to heat. Twenty minutes was enough for most, Owen having already sealed them in a bag full of chemicals that would help break down organic material. It also happened to nullify the impact of any harmful chemicals produced naturally by the body when burnt. Having witnessed the problems Owen was having just breaking the skin, he cranked it as high as it would go. Already he could feel the heat emanating from it, a constant radiant warmth that would soon fill the room.

As he stood there enjoying the warmth, he noticed the light blinking down the far end of the room. Then he remembered he'd left a load in the tumble dryer and hadn't come back to collect it. No time like the present, he thought.

He opened the door and began tugging the contents out of the machine and onto the floor. It was nothing more than a large load of towels. Every night this week it had rained, and every night Myfanwy would come home from her nightly flight soaked to the skin. Unable to stop himself, he'd go up there and dry her off before she settled in for the night. The last thing they needed was a pterodactyl with a cold. By the time he'd dried her, he'd used up about five or six towels, and that had accumulated until he'd completely run out, needing to wash and dry the lot of them.

It was a veritable tower of towels, once he'd pulled the last of them out. It'd take a solid half an hour to fold them all, which he supposed would at least fill in time until Jack and Owen were finished upstairs. Then they could all turn in.

He folded the first few efficiently, beginning a small tower. As he reached for the ones underneath, they were still warm. He pressed it to his face, breathing in the sweet clean scent and the lovely warm feeling against his cheek. Could there be anything better than laundry fresh from the dryer? He continued folding until thoughts of curling up amongst warm fluffy towels were all he could think of, weariness eating away at him.

Just a quick nap, he thought, assuming he could fall asleep at all, which had been his problem of late. He nestled against the remaining pile, soft and warm like a cloud, and closed his eyes.

When Jack and Owen came downstairs, wheeling the trolley between them, it was the silence that surprised them, a hush having fallen over the room.

'I thought Teaboy was turning this thing on?' Owen said, wondering why he couldn't hear the fierce jets of flame.

Jack held his hand near it. 'It's warm. It must've turned itself off, though,' he added, knowing that there was a safety mechanism in place that automatically shut it down if no one came back after an hour to switch it from heat to incinerate. It was a good thing too, since they often got distracted or delayed. The autopsy had taken longer than they expected, having spent the first forty minutes arguing the best way to pierce the outer shell, laser saws having been completely useless. Finally they'd hacked away enough scales on its belly for Owen to cut deeper and reveal that there was a tumor inside the size of a grapefruit which had crushed three other vital organs in the process. Poor bugger, Owen thought. Build like a tank and destroyed from the inside.

'So, where's Ianto, then? Did you see him come back upstairs?' Owen asked.

'Nope. He couldn't have gone far, though.' Jack looked around and spotted the high pile of white at the other end, a much smaller, neater pile beside it. He walked across and as the opposite side of the white mountain came into view he found Ianto curled up asleep. Finally! He grabbed one of the folded towels and draped it over him, before stepping quietly away.

'Don't tell me he fell asleep over there?' Owen asked.

'I won't tell you, then,' Jack said, keeping his voice low. 'Out,' he said, pointing to the door.

'What about this thing?' Owen said.

'It's sealed up for now. It can wait until morning.' He wasn't going to risk any noise that might wake Ianto. It was so quiet down here once all the machines were idle. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been down here and something hadn't been whirring or grinding.

'All that effort for nothing, then,' Owen grumbled, half wishing he'd just gone home and left the alien corpse to be someone else's problem.

'Well, it wasn't a complete waste,' Jack said. It was the little victories that mattered.