Torchwood: Fanfic: The root of all evil

[m_findlow]

Title: The root of all evil
Fandom: Torchwood
Prompt: Experiments by Evil Scientists at hc_bingo
Wordcount: 1,959 words
Rating: PG
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Some things even Torchwood can't protect you from 

Experiments gone wrong. That was the story Jack had given the staff that worked at Flat Holm Island.

He'd never been great with lies for as long as Ianto had known him, and it made him wonder how he'd ever survived all those years as a conman. Perhaps it was simply the desire necessary to be believed, and that he didn't really declare this particular lie with the conviction required to believe it for truth. Something must have shown on his face that had given him away, but to their credit, none of the staff questioned his authority. There was something to be said for the hippocratic oath, he supposed. Sometimes he wondered if it were better that they know the truth. Other days, it was probably kinder that they thought of their patients as victims of malicious people, rather than victims of an unforgiving rift. Perhaps it would make it easier for them to sleep at night.

His life hadn't been the same since that first night he'd found out for himself. Pulled out of bed at three in the morning by the firm knock on his door, driven out to a remote beach on the south coast, and finding a petite woman huddled on the cold, pebbly shore. One side of her face was badly burned and the limp blonde hair that hung across her brow was charred and damaged. The smell of it would stay with him forever.

Jack had crouched low and quiet beside her, placing a warm arm around her and whispering gentle shushing sounds to calm her sobbing cries. For all his outlandish bravado, Jack was capable of incredible tenderness.

Ianto wasn't quite sure what to do, feeling a bit like a third wheel, but his heart broke for this poor woman. The best he could manage was a blanket pulled from the SUV's boot and gently wrapped around her, as if she were made of fine china.

Eventually her crying abated and Jack bundled her to her feet, and into the SUV.

Ianto had more questions than answers. Who was this woman? Why had she been on the beach? What had happened to her? And how had Jack known to find her there? He had even more questions again when Jack failed to make the turnoff for the hospital, but he kept his silence. He'd trusted Jack this far and he wouldn't have hauled him out into the middle of the night if it wasn't important.

Their drive took them back to the hub, walking the girl down into the disused bowels of the tunnel system and out to the underground marina berth. Now Ianto was really confused. They weren't treating her at the hospital,  and by all indications, they weren't treating her at the hub either. All Jack had done was given her something for the pain and a light sedative, before he had her moved on to one of the smaller vessels docked along the rickety wooden quayside.  

'Coming?' Jack asked.

Ianto hadn't even realised he'd stopped, just staring at Jack gently guiding the frail woman up the gangway.

He followed Jack mutely and without thought. He should have been more alert, processing what he was witnessing and reacting to it, even helping, for surely that was why Jack had brought him along in the first place, but instead he felt like a bystander in a dream that belonged to someone else.

Once they were out past the barrage, his sleep deprived mind began to sort itself into place and he decided to press Jack for information.

'What are we doing? Who is she and how did you know she'd be there?'

At first Jack stared straight ahead, not meeting his gaze. When he finally did meet Ianto's eyes, he could see that there was an unbidden sadness there.

'She came through the rift.'

'From where?'

'From here.'

It took him a minute to process. He looked across at the sleeping girl and then it hit him.

Oh god. He'd always wondered about the rift, how stuff was always falling out of it, but some of it was just plain old earth stuff like bicycles and CD players. Now he had an answer for where they had come from in the first place. It made sense that stuff could travel both ways. But it didn't just take ordinary, everyday objects. The rift took people as well.

He felt sick and his head began spinning, and he was fairly certain it wasn't sea sickness.

'It-, they-,' His head darted back and forth between Jack and the sleeping girl. Suddenly he couldn't find the words. A large warm hand found his cheek and pulled his gaze back towards Jack's own.

'Flat Holm Island. I set it up as a place where they could be looked after. But it needs work. I was thinking maybe you could help me.'

Ianto sucked in a deep breath. 'How?'  

'Just be yourself.'

Ianto didn't understand what that meant until much later.

Once they'd docked and their passenger, Sylvia was awake, Jack had guided them through the scrubby hillside. They trekked past all the old concrete installations that had sat there idly since the war, only visited now by the seabirds that called the island home, quietly reassuring the woman that they were going to look after her and that it wasn't much further to go.

A decrepit bunker hid the facility within. A kindly woman with a large round face, greeted them and took over their charge, dressing her wounds and finding her a place to rest, while Jack lead Ianto further through the compound, showing him around.

Ianto was astounded. There were twelve other patients here in various physical and mental states. Tortured, scarred, terrified of the world and the things they'd seen. He could feel their anguish and fear hanging oppressive and thick in the air. You didn't have to be empathic to sense it, but it made the sensations stronger by a hundred fold.

Then he understood what Jack had meant earlier. Despite the feelings of sickness in his stomach, his mind was already compiling a list of things that needed doing or buying or organising. Jack had done what he did best, save people. Now Ianto had to do what he did best, looking after their needs.

At one point he entered into detailed discussions with Helen, the charge nurse they'd met earlier about what needed doing, and hadn't realised that Jack had disappeared from his side, so engrossed he'd become in the tasks that came naturally to him.

Once he felt confident that he had a list of actionable items, he went in search of Jack. For starters, he decided, the place needed a map. Eventually he found his way out of the warren of dark mazelike hallways and out into the brightening sunrise. Jack was perched high upon the clifftop, salty sea breeze whipping through his hair. Ianto got the very strong sense that Jack didn't like this place, even for all the good it was trying to achieve, and that the cliff top was as far as one could be from it all without actually leaving the island.  

He sat gently beside Jack on the grassy hillside and felt Jack's hand slip into his own.

'I wish you'd told me sooner.'

Jack sighed. 'I wanted to. Gods, how I wanted to. But this,' he said, waving his arm across the expansive view of the island below, 'it's not what we do. We're supposed to protect people. All this place represents is the collective failure to protect these people from the rift.'

He huffed out a long breath, staring ahead. 'I tried to tell the carers that these people had been victims of mad scientists. Sometimes I'm not certain that we're any better. We sit here and let the rift do whatever it wants and then observe the outcome, write reports, file them away and start all over again. All we care about is the useful stuff that comes through and how we can use it against alien threats. We let these people suffer for the sake understanding the rift. And still we do nothing. What does that say about us?'

Ianto sat in silence for a long while, watching the waves cresting, hearing the caws from birds that passed overhead, sailing on the updrafts, and tasting the salted tang on the air. Jack wanted him to confirm that he wasn't the monster he believed himself to be. He knew it for himself but couldn't find the right words to say it,  too caught up in processing his own feelings about everything he'd been confronted with in the past few hours. It completely changed the way he saw Torchwood and what they did. It changed how he saw Jack. He wasn't just their eccentric, fearless leader. He was a soul burdened by the realities that the rest of them were oblivious to. He'd spared them that burden by shouldering it all himself.

'You said yourself, there's no way of knowing when or where the rift might take someone,' Ianto said, breaking the silence.

'And no way of knowing if it will bring them back,' Jack stated despondently.

'What about their families? Maybe they could help?' Ianto offered.

Jack shook his head. 'No.'

'Don't they have a right to know?'

Jack grew fierce and defensive. 'You've seen what these people come back like. They're broken and damaged in ways we can't even begin to understand. They can't know. Not ever.'

'Why not? Wouldn't you want to know what happened to someone you lost?'

Jack turned his head violently away from him, staring out at the waves raging across the channel and smashing themselves unforgivingly against the rocky shores. Of course he did. What he wouldn't give to know what had happened to Gray. He'd spent years trying to find the answer to those questions. But part of him also feared knowing. Feared knowing what had become of him. He hadn't told Ianto about Gray, about his childhood. He feared the look of disappointment that would come from knowing he had failed those who needed him most, the way his mother had looked at him each time, knowing that he was the shameful reminder that confronted her every single day.  

He turned back to face Ianto.

'When you think of Lisa, do you remember the cyberman or the person she was before?'

He hated himself for asking, for even bringing it up, but he had to make his point.

Ianto pulled his hand from Jack's. He knew he hadn't meant it to be hurtful, but now he understood the choice Jack had made. He remembered Lisa, beautiful and whole as she was before the nightmare of Canary Wharf. He didn't have to answer for Jack to know his thoughts.

'I couldn't do that to them,' Jack said, filling in the tense silence, 'I don't want to ruin that memory.'

It felt like an eternity, but eventually Ianto leaned against Jack, taking back his hand and intertwining it with his own.

'I'm sorry you've had to do this on your own, but now you don't have to.'

'Thank you. You don't know what it means to not have to carry this secret alone anymore.'

'Maybe we can't stop it from happening, and maybe we can't fix them, but we can help them.'

Jack smiled. He adored Ianto's determination and youthful innocence. Perhaps he had become too hardened by experience, and had forgotten the power of optimism.

Ianto watched the expression on Jack's face and realised it was the first time he'd seen him smile all day. Jack without hope was a terrible thing to behold, but perhaps now there was hope after all.

Comments

[jo02]

This was another one beautifully told. I wish you would sign up to the T3 newsletter so more people could read these, she says wistfully.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your kind words. I adore the levity of the more serious fics because the characters really shine through.

I took your advice and added myself to their watchlist. Mainly I've just been writing them for myself, creating the stories I wanted to read, and keeping myself sane. If other people enjoy them, that's such a plus.

[jo02]

I've been curious to ask, now that a month has passed, have you had any increase in the number of comments and views since you 'went public' ?

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Everything is pretty much the same as it was. I'm not technologically savvy enough to know if they're being viewed more, but I don't mind. Years ago I wouldn't have commented on other people's fics, that just wasn't me. I got into writing to tell the stories I wanted to read, so really, the only person who needs to openly like them is me. :)

[bk_forever]

Beautiful, sad and moving. As upset as Ianto is by what he's seen, he'll do what he can to help and he'll suopport Jack by sharing this burden.