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The car was slightly musty. That was the first smell that Ianto recorded the minute he and Jack stumbled into the car, bullet holes still visible and not repaired.
He hadn’t been out much, since he had been rescued. Even now, days later, the range and depth of colours visible to him again was enough for him to squint.
Beside him, Jack hovered over his shoulder, his hand indicating as if he was not quite sure if it was safe for Ianto to be capable of accepting touch. “You’re sure that you’re capable of this?”
“I’m fine, absolutely fine.” It didn’t sound convincing to his ears, but he wanted to convince himself that he could go into a hospital after everything.
“We can just turn back and wait…”
“No.” Now, that sounded forceful. “Let’s… just go.”
The car began to move, leaving Ianto alone to watch unfamiliar buildings go past him. Gwen had told him that it had been two years since he had been taken. He wondered what he had missed.
Jack sat awkwardly beside him, completely silent, as if he didn’t know how to handle… everything.
Personally, Ianto still wasn’t sure if it was Jack or a convincingly real hallucination. At the very least, his broken mind was quite capable of emulating the real thing now at least. Or in a form that wasn’t being injured or hurt all the time.
Eventually, the car drove to a halt in front of the hospital. Jack pulled his way out of the car and reached for Ianto’s hand. The world was still spinny, legs awkwardly twisting and turning, but he found himself capable of walking the short distance up to the door. He studied the sign intently.
GLASGOW ROYAL INFIRMARY
Before London, he knew that he could quickly skim through that sentence. Now, though, it took him a little longer to read. Perhaps it was the drugs he had been pumped with, he thought. Sucking away who he was.
He took another look at the hospital. It was nothing like the Project – more of a grey colouration, much bigger as a location.
It didn’t stop his heart from clenching tight.
“You ready to come in?” said Jack.
Ianto shakily nodded. “Yeah.”
As they walked in through the corridor, Ianto tried not to think about how the white, septic corridors looked exactly like the ones the scientists wheeled him through to do their experiments.
It evidently didn’t help, judging by the way that Jack was flinching at their clenched hands.
The waiting room was different, nothing like he recalled from those two years. Several people dotted themselves on the chairs throughout, some on their phones, some just sitting with their legs bouncing up and down. It had been a long while since Ianto had seen a phone. He wondered if they were different from the type he had before… everything.
Ianto’s legs wobbled under him, the room spinning slightly with them, and he felt Jack hold him up and carry him to a nearby empty chair.
“That’s a little further than before,” he could hear Jack from above him.
“Yeah,” Ianto managed to utter back. Really, he had been hoping to be capable of walking a little further. He hated this. Hated the idea of feeling useless. Almost made him feel like…
He shook his head. He was out of there. He was safe, even though he wasn’t quite he was sane anymore.
“You know, we can have Shepherd look over you, see what we can do to help…”
“Can we not think about that?” Even before London, Ianto was never fond of physicals. Too personal. Now though, he couldn’t imagine being prodded and poked at without imagining knives stabbing him through the chest, sounds of scribbling in the background.
Jack didn’t speak again as they waited to be called. It was… such a weird thing coming out of him. Usually, he was one of the most talkative of them all, second only to Gwen. Briefly, he wondered how Jack dealt with his absence. Probably poorly, if his past recollections of what happened after Tosh and Owen died was true. At least then, he could bury himself in work, drag Jack to work with him. Now though, he was no longer capable of work. And they had nothing but their own demons.
After several minutes (at least, he thought so. His sense of time had been shattered since… everything), a nurse walked through wearing a dress.
A woman stood in front of him, making notes as he saw his kidneys be extracted, making no eye contact with him as he tried not to scream from the pain.
He shook his head, making deep breaths like Andy had suggested he do.
“Jack Harkness? And this is your…”
“Ifan Jones,” and Ianto flinched slightly, because he could still remember that week back at Serenity, when he briefly entertained the idea of normality (he definitely would not be capable of doing that again). “He’s my boyfriend.”
Ianto shot his head, or as much as he could without the world going dizzy again. Jack had not brought up their relationship at all in the few days since he had finally been freed (finally mentally broke altogether). He had almost thought he hallucinated that bit, about Jack actually loving him. He was pretty sure he couldn’t be loved anymore. He was broken now, incapable of doing anything. Incapable of even being sane without tumbling into his dreams.
“Simon and John are in Recovery Ward 8. They’ll be happy to see guests.” The nurse (notthescientistnotthescientist) told them, before walking off. Simply to visit another patient, Ianto tried to convince himself. Simply to give them needed treatment.
Jack helped him as he stood up and began taking steps, very slowly. Walking was an extremely careful process now, his mind still not used to walking without the altered perception of drugs, and his body still didn’t have the energy for the amount of concentration needed for long periods, but he found himself eventually able to walk down a corridor and towards a large room with a range of beds. The patients there was quiet, and didn’t look like either John Hart or Simon. He squinted, trying to catch their…
His eyes settled on a screen in front of the bed. His heart started to pound rapidly as he realised where he was. He thought he was free, from both the ship and the Project, but here he was back again.
He turned his head to see Jack.
“Jack, you shouldn’t be here.”
Jack frowned. “Ianto…”
“Jack, go! I can’t see you hurt again!” He could imagine it now, the guards coming down to grab and take him away. He could even smell the cooked flesh coming off from Jack. The broken fingers he was hiding under the coat sleeves. He wanted to flee, run from here, but there was no escape for him. No escape…
Tap. Tap tap tap tap tap tap.
He paused, felt the simple tap increase to a crescendo. He recognised the morse code, from his training at Torchwood.
HOME. TW1. SAFE. NO SHIP.
He blinked. And realised that he was currently collapsed on the hospital floor, Jack’s fingers soothing his cheekbone.
They weren’t on the ship. They would never be on the ship again.
“You back with us?” Jack asked, his voice sounding distant to Ianto’s ears.
Ianto nodded and shakily got up, feeling even more exhausted than before. “Yeah… I’m here.”
“Bad memory?”
He nodded again, leaning his head on Jack’s shoulder. “No, it was just like my… every time I sleep. There’s always a screen there. And you’re always there being…” Jack, getting burned alive on a tiny screen, a flash of colour in Ianto’s eternally white world.
“I know,” Jack said, arms wrapping around Ianto’s waist for support, something which he felt pathetically grateful for. “It’s okay if you’re not…”
“I need to cope with it. Get better. They’re just dreams.” Ianto turned his head, only just realising that he was yet another corridor rather than the room they were in. “Where are we?” He asked, trying to hide his panic. If the Project had caught them…
“Still in the hospital. A few nurses looked worried at you, but I reassured them.” Jack soothed.
“With your charm?” He asked, more shakily than usual.
“I think one nurse thought they were going out for dinner. Still,” he leaned in closer. “I told them I already had someone. Someone I thought I lost.” He added in an honest tone that felt out of place with Ianto’s memories of Jack.
I’m probably still lost to you, Ianto wanted to say. Instead, he looked away from Jack, towards the reflective sheen of the corridor walls. Caught sight of his long hair, dropping down to shoulder length. Before… everything, he remembered his hair being short. He didn’t like the way it tickled against his neck. “You know, the last time my hair was this long was when I was a teenager.”
“Really?”
“I don’t look back on those days fondly.” He decided right there and then that the one thing he knew he was now was someone with short hair.
“You know, I can cut your hair for you.”
Ianto raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You? A hairdresser?”
“Several centuries of living, you get to pick up things around.”
Ianto… wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “If… if you want to. Now, if you excuse me, we still need to visit John and Simon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He knew in spite of everything that he was still Torchwood. And Torchwood agents got injured all the time. Enough to end up in hospital frequently.
Slowly, Ianto began walking towards where Simon and John Hart was getting treated, making a mental note not to look at the TV screens. Somehow, he felt that this attempt would be better than the last one.