Torchwood: Fanfic: Drowned out

[m_findlow]

Title: Drowned out
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Lisa
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 684 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for secretstaircase's prompt "Any, any, shouting over the din" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto's cries for help are going unheeded.

Most of what happened that day was a complete blur to him. He was utterly terrified and working on adrenaline alone to get him through the worst of it. If he thought that things on the inside were bad, it was nothing compared to the chaos wreaking havoc outside. He'd assumed that the crisis was isolated to Torchwood, and that once he got outside everyone would be rushing around to help him, assuming they themselves weren't terrified by the body of the woman he had clutched in his arms.

She wasn't just any woman, though. She was his girlfriend, his entire reason for being, and something terrible had happened to her. Those monsters had taken her and tried to turn her into one of them. They hadn't succeeded though. It was only half done, whatever it was, which meant she was still human.

That he'd found her at all was nothing short of a miracle, and to find her alive was beyond his wildest hopes, since every last body he'd passed had been dead, either horribly mutilated or just lying there, as if they were asleep. The conversion rooms were even more terrifying - huge pieces of machinery littering what had once been empty storage rooms and science labs, and hanging from the roof like menacing arcade games, ready to grab any poor unsuspecting soul that happened to wander underneath their claws. They seemed to be inactive now, though he'd dodged them all the same, pushing through the shredded plastic curtains hiding the terrible deeds behind them. That's where he'd found her, his beautiful Lisa, screaming and bloodied, in ten kinds of pain he couldn't imagine.

He should have been there when it happened. This was his fault for skipping her lunch invitation. No, none of that mattered now. What mattered was that he get her out of here and get help.

As they staggered out of the front entrance, he wasn't sure what to expect. Perhaps he expected half the staff of Torchwood One to be milling out the front, like they had a hundred times before, every time there was an alarm and an evacuation drill. Then again, perhaps they'd all been locked down inside like he had. Even so, he at least expected some of their military arm to be out the front barricading the building. Instead there was just utter chaos. People all around were just running, or screaming or crying, taking pictures with their phones, or talking on them to frantic family and loved ones about the metal men that had invaded the streets, killing everything in sight.

How had this happened? he wondered. Things at Torchwood never got out into the public eye. Well, at least nothing until that ghost machine had come along. Was that what this was? Were the ghosts really metal monsters? There wasn't time to wonder about it.

'Help! Somebody please, help!' he yelled, but no one seemed to be taking any notice of him. There were too many frantic people everywhere, bloodied and injured themselves, police cars with flashing blue lights and sirens, and the wail of ambulances, but not a one that was taking any notice of him and his desperate need for aid.

'Please!' he yelled again. Where was a taxi when he needed one, that could take him to the nearest hospital.

'Ianto.' He was lucky to even hear her over everything else. She sounded so weak and in so much pain. He felt the way her entire weight was being held upright in his arms, more than twice what she normally weighed, on account of all the metal parts now strapped to her body.

'It's going to be okay,' he promised.

'Can't... Breathe.'

That scared him. 'It's okay, we'll get help. Somebody!' he shouted.

'Inisde...' she wheezed, 'know how to fix... this.'

'We can't go back in there.'

'Have to.'

'It's not safe.'

'Please.'

There was so much desperation in that one word that it broke his heart. No one was heeding his cries for help. What choice did he have?

'Okay. Tell me where we need to go.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

Poor Ianto. If anyone had taken any notice of them, Lisa would most likely have been ripped from his arms and killed. Maybe that would have been better in the long run.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Sometimes you think it might have been better if he'd never found her at all.