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Blood Price
Jack has been back from his jaunt in the TARDIS for a week, and most of the team hasn’t spoken to him. Only Ianto understood why he had to go, what he wanted.
Dark!fic Death!fic character death(s)
**************************
Ianto stood back as Owen and the others climbed out of the SUV, all covered in blood. There were two distinct shades on all their clothes, a shade of lilac, obviously the blood of the alien they had been chasing, and red, so much red.
“Where’s Jack?” He asked, half knowing the answer, but needing to have it confirmed.
“The thing got hold of him before we took it down. He hasn’t snapped out of it yet, so he’s in the back with it.” Owen shrugged, disinterested. All he wanted right now was a hot shower to get all this blood off, and with any luck, a hot Gwen, to burn off the excess adrenaline with.
“What do you mean, snapped out of it?” Ianto asked.
“You know, popped back from the dead.” Gwen rolled her eyes.
“Did any of you bother reading the report he filed, about what he did while he was gone?” Ianto asked through gritted teeth.
“Not yet. We’re not really interested in his excuses for running out on us yet.” Tosh grimaced as she peeled her ruined jacket off.
“Well, let me give you the condensed version. He saved the world AGAIN. He sorted out his issues with the Doctor, oh, and HE GOT HIS IMMORTALITY PROBLEM RESOLVED!” Ianto yelled.
Gwen fumbled, and dropped her phone on the floor, and Ianto caught flashes of guilt over all of their faces, before shock closed in behind it.
“You used him as bait, didn’t you? You assumed that it wouldn’t matter if you weren’t quick enough, because, hey, Jack won’t stay dead. Did he know what you were doing?”
“No. We just sort of guided him out ahead of us, so he was isolated enough that it wouldn’t register a threat,” Toshiko whispered, her face paling.
“Well, I hope you’re satisfied. Owen, you must be the only person in history who got to murder your boss twice. I’ll take care of Jack, but you three can take care of the alien yourselves, and you had better not come near me, or Jack, for at LEAST the rest of the day,” Ianto said coldly. If Jack had been there, he would have been able to read the cold fury in Ianto’s eyes, but the others couldn’t see it.
Ianto got Jack into one of the medical rooms and disconnected the cameras, before locking the door. He cut Jack out of his clothes, and tenderly washed the blood and dirt off him, laying him out carefully and pulled a sheet up to his shoulders.
He looked as if he were sleeping, as he had so many times before, but this time, there would be no awakening. Brushing away the tears that streamed silently down his face, he picked up Jack’s wrist computer, and opened the flap, pushing the two buttons Jack had shown him, for if anything happened.
Within minutes, there was the wheezing roar that he had heard twice before, once at
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS already talking.
“You’ve been back one week Jack, how much trouble can you have gotten into in seven days?” He trailed off, quick eyes darting over the scene in the room, Ianto’s tear streaked face, and the still, pale form on the bed.
“What happened?” He demanded, his voice cold, dark, dangerous.
“They killed him. They hadn’t even tried to forgive him for spending a couple of days with you, they didn’t know he was mortal again. They used him as bait to lure out an alien that had been killing hikers.” Ianto broke, crumpling to his knees at the side of the bed and sobbing, his face buried against Jack’s cold shoulder.
The Doctor knelt beside the distressed young man, pulling him into his arms and rocking him until he calmed slightly.
“I assume you called me because you want me to take him?” He asked quietly.
“It’s what he wanted. He didn’t want to be here for Torchwood to autopsy him, to poke and prod his body.” Ianto sniffled into the trench coat covered shoulder.
“Will you come? I don’t think he would want to leave you here with them, if they are that unforgiving.”
Ianto hesitated, then he looked up at the time lord, seeing his own loss echoed there. This man had loved Jack every bit as much as Ianto did.
“I want to, I really do, but…….” Ianto trailed off.
“But what?” The Doctor prompted.
“They have to pay for this. They took him, Doctor, they took him from us,” Ianto said, his eyes darkening.
“I can wait Ianto Jones, time is not something I am short of.”
“Thank you.”
The Doctor rose, and gathered the chill body in his arms, carrying Jack into the TARDIS.
“Come on, I’ll take you to your house, so you don’t have to go through there.”
Ianto followed him, and the TARDIS quickly dematerialized. By the time the others broke down the door, attracted by the sound of the TARDIS, the room was empty, the only sign anyone had been there the bloody water Ianto had used to wash Jack.
**
The SUV screeched to a halt down the road from Ianto’s house, Owen, Gwen and Tosh jumping out and staring at the flames that were consuming their colleague’s home.
“Do you think he was in there?” Tosh asked.
“Yeah. Sad git probably topped himself over Harkness.” Owen sneered.
“God, don’t you care about anything Owen? We got Jack killed, and now Ianto is probably dead.” Gwen turned her back on him, watching the firefighters trying to get the blaze under control.
“Of course, the other possibility is that the Doctor took Ianto when he came and got Jack, and killed him in revenge. He could want to kill us all,” Tosh said in a small voice.
“No chance, he wouldn’t take us on. Lets get out of here, there’s nothing more to see,” Owen said, getting back into the drivers seat.
*
Tosh let herself into her flat, throwing her bag onto the sofa and kicking her shoes across the room. She poured herself a very large drink, and knocked it back in one, then refilled it, and sank down on the sofa. As bad days went, this was right up there with killing Jack and almost bringing about the end of the world.
“Are you going to kill me, Doctor?” She asked numbly, hearing a soft footstep behind her.
“The Doctor isn’t here Tosh, just me.”
“Ianto? I.. we.. thought you were dead.” She dropped her glass as she spun round on the sofa to face him.
“That was the idea,” he said, reaching out to caress her face lightly.
“He forgave you Tosh. He forgave you for that whole debacle with Mary, with the mind reading pendant. And you couldn’t even dredge up a little forgiveness for him going with the Doctor for a few days. For taking the opportunity to try to get his life sorted out when it presented itself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s a little late for that Tosh. He’s dead, and there is no bringing him back this time.”
She tried to struggle as his hands closed around her throat, but he was far too strong for her. The last thing she saw as the darkness closed in on her forever, was the hatred in Ianto’s eyes.
When the last, frantic flutters of her pulse had died out under his fingers, he picked her slight body up and carried her through to the bedroom, where everything was prepared for her death to appear to be suicide. He set up the hanging with his usual meticulous attention to detail, then smiled and slipped out the back.
*
Gwen hurried into the small hotel that she and Owen sometimes used when they wanted to meet for sex, keeping her head down. She had been surprised to get his text after the way she had a go at him over Ianto and Jack’s deaths, but she was willing to give him a chance to apologize.
The door to the room was on the latch, so she slipped in and looked around. She couldn’t see Owen, but his jacket was thrown over the end of the bed, and she could see a light under the bathroom door. She threw her jacket over his, and locked the door, before sitting on the bed to wait. The bathroom door opened, and she turned, but it wasn’t who she expected to see coming out.
“Ianto, thank God you’re all right. Your house burned down, we thought you were dead.”
“Yes, so Owen said. Sorry he can’t talk to you right now, but he’s a little indisposed.” Ianto glanced over his shoulder as he spoke, and she stood up and looked into the bathroom.
Owen lay in a bath full of gently steaming water, his wrists cut, the water rust red around him. His eyes were glassy and disinterested when they skated over her before drifting shut.
“Oh God, we have to call an ambulance,” she said, reaching for her phone.
“No, see that isn’t going to happen,” Ianto said, catching her wrist.
“There is going to be an unfortunate murder suicide here, you see. Owen killed you, after a lovers quarrel, and then in a fit of remorse, he killed himself. Poor Tosh has already hung herself, her note was very eloquent, she couldn’t deal with the guilt over Jack’s death.”
Gwen didn’t even have time to cry out as he reached out lightning fast, and broke her neck. He let her body crumple to the floor, stepping over her as her eyes glazed over, and leaving without a backward glance.
*
The TARDIS materialized inside the hub once more, and Ianto stepped out.
“Jack had some stuff in his quarters he had been collecting for you. Its in a marked box. I’ll round up Mfanwy and start the self destruct protocols, if you want to go and get the box. You are sure she will be all right on Taltix II?”
“Yes, she is very similar to the great birds that are native there, she may even be able to breed with them.”
“Good. Lets make this quick, I want to get away from here. There’s nothing left now.”
*
The TARDIS left the hub as it collapsed in on itself in a carefully controlled explosion that would obliterate the hub without risking lives on the surface.
Ianto stood in the doorway to the gardens, watching Mfanwy fly around the false sky happily. Martha stepped up beside him, taking his hand gently.
“I didn’t really know him, but I am sorry for your loss,” she said. She had come back from visiting her sister to find Jack lying in the medbay, ready for burial, a pterodactyl flying around the gardens, and Ianto firmly settled aboard.
“Thank you,” Ianto said, closing the door to the gardens, and leaving Mfanwy alone.
“We’re just landing. He’ll be ready to move Jack as soon as you are.”
“Good.”
They walked down to medical and found the Doctor hooking up the anti gravs so that he and Ianto could move Jack.
“Ready?” The time lord asked.
“Yes.”
They interred Jack in a wooded glade, a simple stone marking the place on this peaceful uninhabited world as Martha watched from a few feet away and Mfanwy circled overhead. Jack had had very little peace when he was alive, so Ianto and the Doctor thought he deserved it in death.
End
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Thanks, glad you liked it, a bit darker than my usual stuff, but I kind of thought, 'what if they were so pissed with Jack they wouldn't listen to him when he came back?' and this was the result.
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I'm probably a sick and twisted individual at heart, but just the thought of dark Ianto getting his revenge on the others almost makes up for the whole killing Jack thing.
an unusual fic, but I liked it.
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Thank you.
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I think this was probably my only foray into dark fic, I like my happily ever after AU's too much.
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Great job!
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