m_findlow

Title: Losing yourself
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Lisa
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,665 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 15 - The Police Song Titles (Rehumanize Yourself) at ficlet_zone
Summary: Ianto and Lisa's plight grows ever more desperate.

Ianto was exhausted. What a day, he thought. What had promised to be a quiet morning had quickly descended into chaos and it hadn't improved one iota since.

He knew things were mad when Jack asked him to go along with them, even if all he was doing was tearing the SUV all around town, picking them up, dropping them off, and on one occasion, having to actually be in pursuit of one of the creatures that seemed to have dropped into the city and quickly dispersed, causing as much destruction and chaos as they could manage.

All fourteen of them were now locked up tight in the cells beneath the hub, awaiting the next Shadow Proclamation transport vessel to come and take them back where they belonged, which was to say, the prison they'd been plucked out of when the rift had decided to take them in the first place. Trust us to get a bunch of alien terrorists, Owen had complained and Ianto couldn't disagree. Where were all the nice polite aliens? Lately it felt like all they got were the nasty, dangerous or destructive kind.

He took a surreptitious glance around the hub, checking it was all quiet before logging off his computer and stifling a yawn. Jack wasn't anywhere to be found, which was a relief. Despite a hectic day, he'd gone out again on other undisclosed business. Or perhaps that was what he said when all he was really doing was nipping down to the pub. Not likely, Ianto decided. Who went to the pub for a glass of water - since that was all Jack would drink, apart from his coffee and the occasional soda. Or perhaps that was just what he wanted them all to think. Who really knew what Jack did when they went home for the night.

Most nights he didn't even leave the hub. Ianto knew he slept here, and a sneaky little space right underneath his office that was spartan in its amenities and cluttered with decades of knick knacks. It was hardly what Ianto would call cosy, but then again he could hardly talk. He'd been sleeping down in the basement at the bottom of the hub most nights. He was the last person to critisise the minimalist way of living. And there'd been plenty of nights when he wished he could just head out to the pub and lose himself in an alcoholic haze. He couldn't though. He had more important things to do than worry about how to take the edge off his own frayed nerves.

He checked his watch, alarmed at the lateness of the hour. Days like this always wound him up in knots, not that anyone would ever see even a shred of that anxiety on his face or in his movements. However, it didn't stop it from eating him up on the inside. He didn't like leaving Lisa alone for so long. Anything could happen. She might sleep through most of the day, but similarly, she might have spent the whole day writhing in agonising pain. The medications had been so hard to get right lately, and no two days were ever the same. One day they'd work a charm and the next it was as if they'd done nothing at all.

He wished he could have a proper doctor take a look at her and tell him what he was doing wrong. The last thing he wanted was for her to be in pain. She hadn't asked for any of what had happened to her, and he still held out hope that he could find a way to reverse what they'd done to her. His email to Doctor Tanazaki had so far gone by without a reply. He was the world's foremost expert on cybernetics. If he didn't reply, Ianto was going to have to take his chances with someone less qualified. All he knew was that he couldn't tell the others or ask for their help. Torchwood knew all about cybermen and its opinions of them were not glowing. As heroic as Jack appeared to be, there was a part of Ianto that knew he couldn't trust Jack with this. He'd been there to ensure that Torchwood One was razed to the ground and every scrap of valuable technology shipped back to Cardiff for safekeeping. That was why Ianto needed to be here. Everything he needed to keep Lisa alive was locked away down in their storage vaults. Coming back to Torchwood wasn't an option - it was a necessity.

He wended his way down the familiar corridors and doorways. They probably hadn't seen another human soul for years until he'd come along, and now they were being used several times a day. Circuitous and mazelike as it was, he knew the route like the back of his hand and could have navigated there with his eyes closed. On nights like tonight when he was dead on his feet, that was practically what happened.

He paused for just a second at the final door, doing his best to compose himself. It never got any easier, preparing himself for the sight just on the other side of that door. Sometimes it made him want to throw a fist through the wall in anger, other times he was on the verge of tears. Neither emotions were of any use to the person locked away inside. He needed to be strong for both of them. He sucked in a deep breath and slipped the key into the lock, twisting it with a heavy, fateful clink.

Lisa had her eyes open when he stepped inside. He managed a small smile for her, wondering how long she'd been lying there awake, all alone and probably wondering if he'd abandoned her. He rushed over, slipping his hand into hers, and leaning over to give her a tender kiss. 'I'm sorry,' he apologised. 'Things just got a way from me.'

'It's okay,' she replied, trying to smile back at him. It wasn't okay but he wasn't going to argue with her.

'How have you been?' he asked, already beginning the procedural task of checking all the monitors and feedback systems that the pair of them had managed to cobble together. Ethernet cable, he chastised himself, remembering that he was meant to pilfer one and bring it down here the next time he could. He could go and get it now but that would just be another twenty minutes of leaving Lisa alone. Tomorrow, he promised himself.

'I'm okay,' she replied, though he could tell she was leaving something out. She wasn't okay - not entirely - just enough that she could live with it. He hated that she had to suffer through any of this. 'Actually,' she began, 'I was thinking.'

'Dangerous,' Ianto joked, trying to bring a little levity to their exchange.

'I just thought, we could tweak the system that's regulating nervous function.'

'What?' He wasn't even sure what she meant but it didn't stop that feeling of dread growing leaded inside his stomach.

'For the pain,' she added. 'We've got most of the equipment. We could enhance the neural nervous system interface so that it could better regulate any pain signals traveling to my brain.'

Ianto shook his head in disbelief. 'That's crazy. We wouldn't even know how.'

'We do. I found the details in my data reserves. It's doable.'

Ianto sank down onto the tiny stool by her side. He shook his head again. 'No. We can't.' He couldn't even believe what he was hearing. She wanted to remove some of the synaptic systems that registered pain in her body. 'We're supposed to be fixing you, not making you less human.'

'It's only a little change. It would just be temporary. Ianto...' Her voice broke. 'You don't know how much it hurts.'

Her comments broke his heart. If it hurt anywhere near as much then he understood perfectly. 'I've been trying...' he said, trying to hold his voice level without losing it. 'The medications...'

'I know,' she said, trying to be sympathetic to his plight. 'I know what I'm doing. It'll be fine.'

'How can you know?' he cried, exasperated. Lisa had always joked that she'd flunked science at school, but now here she was claiming to now how to re-engineer the human body.

'I just do,' she said, a tiny edge of annoyance in her voice. It went all metallic and creepy when her emotions got too much for her. It unnerved Ianto hearing that robotic sound coming from his beloved. 'What's the point of having all this data inside me if we can't use it to our advantage?'

It shouldn't be in there in the first, place, he wanted to argue. Those monsters had tried to make her like them, a robot without emotions that only wanted to kill. She wasn't one of them, though. She was still human. She shouldn't give up even a single bit of her that made her human, even if it meant putting up with a little pain. He knew he couldn't even truly understand what kind of agony she was going through, but giving up more of herself didn't feel like the answer. They fought so hard to prevent the situation from getting worse. This seemed like a step backwards rather than forwards.

'Please, just hang in there a little longer,' he begged. Perhaps he might get away with it. If she needed supplies to do what she was proposing - more than the conversion unit was currently capable of - he might be able to stall her and talk her out of this.

'It's getting harder,' she confessed in a small voice. 'I feel like I'm losing the battle.'

Ianto wrapped his arm around her torso. It was all cold and hard edges but he didn't care as he pressed his forehead to her. 'I am going to do absolutely everything in my power to fix this, I promise.' Just not this, he didn't add.