Title: Everything Will Be Fine
Author: Jigot
Rating: PG
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: Ianto knows that Jack will make everything OK.
Notes: Set sometime after Countrycide and before Captain Jack Harkness.

***

Wednesday

Jack sat by the bed in the medical bay, holding Ianto's hand, watching and waiting.  Seeing the first signs of stirring, he looked up, his eyes full of hope.  "Ready?"

Owen nodded.  "This had better work.  After this, I'm all out of ideas."  He prepared the syringe and injected its contents into the cannula in the back of Ianto's free hand.  Then he stepped back.

As the darkness subsided, Ianto could feel nothing but pain.  His whole body was burning.  He heard screaming.  It took him a few moments to realise that he was the one screaming.  Then he heard another voice, calm and soothing in his ear.  A hand squeezed his and another stroked his hair.  Jack was here.  Everything would be OK now.  Jack would make everything OK.

The hope faded rapidly from Jack's eyes, replaced by worry and despair.

"It's not working.  Put him under."  He looked back to Owen.  "Now!"

Ianto felt the darkness creeping back in.  As the pain lessened, the screaming stopped.  He tried to squeeze Jack's hand, to let him know that he knew he was there, but his muscles wouldn't respond.  Then the darkness enveloped him and he felt nothing.

Jack was still stroking Ianto's hair.  Tears were flowing unchecked down his cheeks.  "Damn it."

                       -----------------

Monday evening (2 days earlier)

Jack stood in the cells, watching the alien cowering in the corner.  It was clearly frightened, but appeared to be unhurt.  Tall and thin, with smooth reddish skin, its head looked too small for its body.  As it blinked, Jack saw that it had two sets of eyelids.  The first was thin and almost transparent, the second thicker and a deeper red than the rest of its skin.  Its mouth was small and round, barely hiding a viscious-looking circle of short, sharp teeth.

Owen was in the autopsy room, tidying up.  He was, for once, feeling happy with the world.  The autopsy had been interesting – he'd never seem a, well, whatever it was before and its internal organs had been fascinating.

Tosh and Gwen were both sat at their workstations, finishing off their reports on the day's outing.  Writing up a straightforward recovery of a crashed alien craft, when there had been only a couple of witnesses to worry about, was hardly taxing and they were almost done for the night.

Ianto was in the morgue, putting the dead alien's body in storage.  Before he pushed it into the drawer, he hesitated.  Owen had been joking earlier about the time he had hidden in a body bag when he was a student.  The young mortuary attendant who had had the misfortune to be on duty that night had run screaming from the room when Owen had burst out of the bag.  Ianto wouldn't put it past Owen to pull the same stunt twice.  He opened the bag, just enough to see the alien's face.  He stared for a moment in fascination at its small, round mouth, and then pulled his gaze away.  He started to zip the bag up, but stopped when he saw a faint glow coming from that fascinating mouth.  The glow moved towards him and then vanished.  Ianto gasped – his head hurt, a lot.  Then his every nerve in his body was crying in pain.  His legs gave way beneath him and he fell to the ground, screaming.

The others all heard him, the agonising sounds echoing around the hub.  Gwen and Tosh grabbed their guns from their desks.  Owen grabbed his medical bag.  Jack just ran and he got there first.

Jack grabbed Ianto and held him tight.  The screaming lessened a little, but it didn't stop.  Jack had to shout to make himself heard.

"What is it?  What's wrong?"  There was no answer, only screaming.

Owen appeared beside him.  He took one look at Ianto and grabbed a bottle and a syringe from his bag.  He spoke calmly and soothingly as he prepared the syringe.

"It's OK, Ianto.  I'm going to give you something to stop the pain."  He pushed Ianto's shirt sleeve up and emptied the syringe into his upper arm, then sat back and waited.  But nothing changed.

Jack looked expectantly at Owen.  "Why isn't it working?"

Owen looked confused.  "I don't know.  That was one hell of a dose.  I'm going to have to sedate him instead."  He produced another bottle from his bag.  The second injection took effect almost immediately.  Ianto's screams subsided, and Jack felt his muscles relax.

Ianto felt the darkness creeping in.  The pain was less now, and he could feel Jack's arms around him.  He tried to open his eyes and look at him, but it was too much effort.  Instead, he allowed the blackness to swallow him.  Jack would take care of him.  Everything was fine.

***

Wednesday evening

Jack, Gwen and Tosh sat in silence in the Boardroom. Gwen had made coffee, desperate to find something useful to do, but no one was drinking it. She could hardly blame them – it was not a patch on Ianto's. 

Jack's eyes were red from tears he had silently shed over the last two days. He glanced at the others. They looked exhausted. No one had left the hub for over 48 hours and whilst he knew that they had each grabbed a couple of hours sleep when they could, the whole team was now running on empty. 

Owen returned from the medical bay and slumped into a chair. Jack looked up, suddenly alert and anxious. "Well?" 

Owen sighed. "No change. Heart rate normal, blood pressure normal, temperature normal, brain waves normal – everything is bloody normal. So long as we keep him unconscious." 

He took a long drink from a mug of by now almost cold coffee. Gwen smiled weakly at him. 

Jack put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. How the hell were they going to fix this? He knew that everyone in the room was looking to him for answers, or instructions, or both. He was the leader, and he had to lead. 

"OK. Tosh – I want you to check the biohazard sensors." 

Tosh looked exasperated. "Jack, I've already checked them twice, they're working perfectly." Then she saw the fire in Jack's eyes. "But I'll go and check them again." She stood up slowly and left the room. 

"Owen – ". But Owen was already on his feet. 

"I know. I'll go over the autopsy results again – see if I missed something. And I'll double-check Ianto's brain wave traces too. Maybe they'll give us something. Anything." He headed off for the autopsy room, taking his coffee with him. 

Jack and Gwen sat in silence for a few minutes. Gwen was waiting patiently to be told what to do. Eventually, Jack spoke, his voice quiet and almost pleading. 

"I'm going to go and sit with him. Can't leave him on his own. Come with me?" 

                ------------------------ 

Jack held Ianto's hand, and Gwen held Jack's. She felt as though she was intruding, but he had asked her to be there; she wouldn't leave until he asked her to go. 

Jack was grateful for her presence. He had spent so many hours sitting here alone with Ianto. He knew that the others were busy doing whatever they could to try to find the answers he was so desperate for, but he could have used a little company. He wasn't used to wearing his heart quite so brazenly on his sleeve, and he had never felt so alone. 

He gazed at Ianto's face. He had quickly grown to love watching him sleeping in his arms, his features so soft and childlike. For a split second, he could almost bring himself to believe that Ianto was merely sleeping now. But the memories of his lover's pain, and the sickening screams, could not be held back. They flooded in, and he knew that the tears were not far behind. 

He squeezed his hand. 

"Ianto – what the hell is it? What do we need to do?" 

                ------------------- 

Tosh finished checking the biohazard sensors, satisfying herself that they were, as ever, working perfectly. She walked slowly to the medical bay. Jack had given her a task, and she had to report back her findings. She could have simply used her headset, but she felt guilty. Guilty because she just felt numb when she thought of Ianto in such pain. He was her friend. Surely she should feel something more than that? And guilty because Jack's reaction to it all made her feel so uneasy. It wasn't that she was taken by surprise by the strength of Jack's love for Ianto. After all, she had already known how much Ianto loved Jack. It was Jack's apparently helplessness that left her so ill at ease. He had always seemed to strong and in control but now he needed all the support they could give him and Tosh knew that she was failing him.

Tosh stood in the doorway of the medical bay. Jack looked up and she felt another pang of guilt as she saw the tears on his face.

"I've checked the sensors. They're fine. I'll go and see how Owen's doing." 

Jack smiled weakly and nodded his thanks. Tosh left feeling slightly less unhappy with herself, and headed off to look for Owen.

She found him at his workstation, watching Ianto on the CCTV image that he had brought up on the screen. He had angled the camera so that he could see both Ianto and the monitors that he was hooked up to. Jack and Gwen were not visible. He's avoiding Jack too, she thought.

Owen looked up as she approached, but said nothing. She stood at his shoulder for a while, both watching the screen.

"How long can we keep him like that?"

Owen didn't answer straight away. When he did, his voice was steady and determined. "As long as it takes."

"Have you found anything?"

Owen sighed, and determination seemed to give way to frustration. "No. There's nothing from the autopsy – no sign of anything other than the crash injuries."

"And Ianto?"

"All I know is that when he's sedated, he's fine. As soon as it starts to wear off, his pain levels go through the roof. Brain waves, heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol, adrenaline, endorphins – all go into overdrive. And I can't do a thing about it. I've tried every painkiller in every combination I can think of. None of them has any effect at all."

He turned to face her properly, and she saw the first signs of self-doubt in his eyes.

"I'm all out of ideas. And if we keep waking him up without the right answers, I don't know how much longer his body's going to cope. Sooner or later, something is going to give."

               ----------------------

Jack and Gwen looked up hopefully as Tosh and Owen entered the medical bay, but Owen shook his head dejectedly. "I'm sorry, I can't find anything."

Jack held Owen's gaze and he squeezed both Ianto's and Gwen's hands.  He so desperately wanted to keep trying, but he knew they would achieve nothing more that night.

"It's OK. I want you all go and have something to eat and then get some sleep. We'll start over in the morning."

Gwen was the first to move. She stood, still holding Jack's hand, then leant down and kissed him on the cheek. "OK", she said. "Call us if anything changes." She and Tosh left quietly, both glad to have been given permission to go. But Owen lagged behind.

"I need to check him over before I go. And I'm not leaving the hub tonight."

For a moment, Jack looked as though he were about to protest, but then changed his mind. He hadn't really expected Owen to leave his patient. He was grateful.

"OK. But you need some sleep. You'll be no use to him if you can't even keep your eyes open. You can use the sofa in my office. I'll call if he needs you."

Owen busied himself checking Ianto's vitals, and making sure his sedatives would last through the night. He wasn't going to let him wake up again until they had something new to try. Then he turned to Jack.

"I'll go order us some pizza. You need to eat too." He left without waiting for a response.

Once again, Jack found himself alone with Ianto. He lifted a hand to gently stroke his cheek. "Sleep well Ianto.  Don't worry. We'll find it and we'll beat it. I promise. Everything's gonna be OK."

***

Thursday

Gwen and Tosh both arrived early the next morning.  Gwen had stopped off to pick them up some breakfast on the way and now they sat in the boardroom waiting for the others.

Owen was the first to join them.  He looked tired, but brightened slightly at the sight of breakfast.  He took a seat and was about to start eating when he realised that Gwen and Tosh were both looking at him, obviously expecting him to say something.

"Oh yeah.  No change.  He's still sedated.  Jack will be along in a minute."

"And how's Jack?"

"Jack's fine Gwen, thanks for asking."  Gwen looked up, embarrassed.  She hadn't heard him come in.  But Jack smiled as he sat down, grabbing a coffee and a Danish, and she was pleased to see how much brighter and more in control he looked than he had the night before.

They ate breakfast in companionable silence.  When everyone was done, Jack brought them back to the task in hand.

"OK team.  We're gonna crack this, and we're gonna do it today.  I want us to go back to the beginning and look at everything again.  Tosh, Gwen, I want the two of you to go through all of the CCTV and the sensor readings from Monday.  Everything from the moment we got back until Ianto..."

His voice trailed off.  Gwen filled the silence: 

"What are we looking for?"

Jack refocused.  "Anything.  Anything you see that shouldn't be there.  Or anything you don't see that should be there."

"Owen – you're with me.  We're going to concentrate on the aliens.  The one in the body bag and the one in the cells."

Jack got up to leave, looking expectantly at the others.  They all took his lead, Gwen and Tosh heading to Tosh's workstation while Owen followed Jack to the autopsy room.

         ------------------

Gwen and Tosh watched the CCTV footage displayed on the screen.  They saw the SUV pull up and come to a halt.  They saw Jack and Gwen emerge, half carrying the alien that was now resident in the cells.  Owen appeared with Ianto to collect the body bag stowed in the back of the SUV.  They all entered the building.

"OK, nothing there.  Let's get the sensor readings up with the internal CCTV and see if that gives us anything."  Tosh tried to sound positive, though she certainly didn't feel it.  She doubted whether Gwen did either.

                  -----------------

Owen finished going through the autopsy report and dropped it back down on the table.  Jack tried not to sound too disappointed.

"So you found nothing?"

"Not a thing, except of course for the crash injuries.  But then I've never seen one of these – whatever they are – before, so maybe I missed something."

"OK, so let's go take a look at our house guest.  Maybe that'll help."

Once again Owen followed Jack, this time heading for the cells.

        ------------------

Tosh's screens now showed a frozen frame from the CCTV footage from the morgue along with the traces and readouts from assorted sensors.

"OK.  I've time-synched these so that we can see the sensor readings with the CCTV.  Ready?"

Gwen nodded.  She had no idea what half the sensors were measuring, let alone how to interpret the displays.  But Tosh seemed pleased to have her company, even if not her help.

Tosh clicked her mouse and the displays sprang into life.  They watched as Ianto pushed the body bag into the drawer, pausing to open it.  They saw his expression change from wariness to surprise and then to pain in the space of a heartbeat.  They saw him fall to the floor, screaming, writhing in agony.  They saw Jack come running in, crouch down beside Ianto, scoop him into his arms and hold him tight.

Gwen couldn't watch anymore.  Somehow, it was worse watching it played out before her than it had been at the time.  Just knowing how much more suffering the Ianto on the screen had yet to endure made her feel so helpless.

She turned her gaze to the sensor readings instead.  One of the traces showed a series of spike that she was sure hadn't been there before.

"What's this?"

Tosh, glad of a reason to look away from the CCTV, peered at the display.  "That's a combined sound readout from various places around the hub.  These spikes here are..."  She paused and swallowed.  "Well, they are Ianto's screams.  But these ones on the right are at much too high a frequency to be human.  We wouldn't even be able to hear them.  I don't know what they are.  I haven't seen anything in that range before."

As they watched the spikes dancing on the screen, the CCTV played out unobserved.  Owen had arrived and had injected Ianto with the painkillers that were to have no effect.  He had quickly moved on to the sedative and Ianto's screams began to subside before he fell silent and still in Jack's arms.

The spikes on the sound sensor trace had also died down with Ianto's screams, but those showing the unknown sound lasted a few seconds longer.

Tosh considered what they had seen.  The readings were definitely strange.  For the first time, she felt that they were making some progress.  They had finally found something.  She had no idea what it was, or what it meant, but her heart leapt.

"I'll do a search on the sensor records.  Whatever this sound is, maybe it occurred at other times too."  She typed as she spoke and the answers were on the screen almost immediately.

"OK, we've got 5 hits.  The first was the one we've just seen.  Let's take a look at the next one."  Tosh brought the trace up on the screen.  "Right, this is a few seconds before it starts."

They watched the trace flicker, its shape changing before their eyes.

"Here we go.  See these small spikes here?  Look, they're getting bigger.  And – oh."

Tosh paused.  More familiar spikes had formed.

Gwen blanched.  "Is that what I think it is?"

"If you mean is that Ianto screaming, then I would have to check the timing, but yes, I think it is."

They watched in silence as the spikes danced for a few more seconds and then faded.

It took Tosh less than 10 minutes to check the other traces and to confirm that each coincided with Owen's futile attempt to relieve Ianto's pain as he roused him from his unconscious state.

"Whatever this is, it's being picked up on all the sensors, but it was loudest in the morgue the first time, and then in the medical bay after that, so wherever Ianto was at the time.  Come on, we need to tell Jack."
 
As Tosh stood to leave, Gwen caught her arm.

"Hold on – what's this?"  Gwen was looking at a trace on another screen, seeing the familiar high frequency spikes.

Tosh looked puzzled.  "That's the live read out.  Shit!"

Gwen and Tosh turned and ran towards the medical bay, Gwen shouting urgently into her headset as she went.  "Owen? Jack?  Where are you?"

Owen answered.  "We're down in the cells.  The other alien is getting a bit agitated."

"Well Ianto's about to wake up so you need to get back up here now.  We'll meet you there."

            -------------------

Ianto panicked as the darkness began to fade and the pain overwhelmed him.  He was alone.  This time was so much worse than all the others and Jack wasn't there to help him.

Gwen and Tosh got there first.  Ianto was already conscious and the screams seemed to be louder than ever.  Gwen rushed to his side and took his hand in hers, trying to comfort him as best she could.  But Ianto clearly mistook her for someone else as his screaming became words.

"Jack, make it stop.  Please make it stop."

Jack and Owen came running into the room.  Gwen looked helplessly at Jack and quickly moved away as he took Ianto's hand from hers.  Jack stroked his hair and bent to whisper soothingly in his ear as Owen worked desperately to increase the sedation.  After what seemed to them all to be an age, Ianto's screams and pleading subsided and finally he was quiet, consciousness having slipped away.

When he was certain that Ianto was no longer suffering, Jack turned his attention to Owen.

"What the hell happened? I thought you were keeping him under?"  Jack's eyes flashed with anger, but Owen was defiant.

"I was.  He should have been sleeping like a baby.  I've just had to almost double the dose.  Whatever this is, we need to find it soon because if I have to up it much more, it will kill him."

***

Thursday (continued)

Jack's anger dissolved, the weariness and despondency returning. He turned to Gwen and Tosh.

"Please tell me you found something."

"Gwen can tell you," said Tosh. "I just need to get something." She dashed out of the room, leaving Gwen to explain what they had discovered, and how they had known that Ianto was waking up. As Gwen finished, Tosh returned. She was holding a small silver device in her hand. It looked not unlike a calculator, with buttons and a small screen.

"This scanner picks up sound waves. I think I've adjusted it so that it will only show up high frequency sounds, but I've never used it in anger before so it might not work." She looked questioningly at Jack.

"Is it safe?" He knew Tosh would never do anything to hurt Ianto, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Tosh nodded. "It's definitely only a receiver – I know that much for sure. It won't do Ianto any harm, it's just that it might not do any good."

"OK, give it a go." He squeezed Ianto's hand and bent to whisper in his ear. "Lie still Ianto, I've got you."

Owen moved away from the bed to give Tosh room to work. She held the scanner over Ianto's abdomen, moving slowly up to his chest. There was no response. But as she moved it up to the side of his head, the single line on the display began to change into the familiar spikes.

"Bingo! That's it. Something is causing high frequency sounds in his head. Whatever it is, it's affected by the sedatives to some extent – these sounds aren't anywhere near loud enough to be picked up by the hub's internal sensors."

Owen was exasperated. "I don't get it. I've scanned his brain 3 times already and I've found nothing. So what the hell is it?"

"Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it isn't there." They all looked at Jack. "Well think about it," he said. "There are carbon-based life forms, and silicon-based life forms, so why not energy-based life forms? Something that exists purely as sound?"

"OK," said Tosh slowly. "That would certainly explain why nothing showed up on the brain scans, but why are the sedatives affecting it?"

Jack wasn't giving up that easily. "Maybe it's not that simple. What if it has hooked itself into Ianto's brain somehow? So that whatever affects him affects this - this thing - too?"

Tosh was starting to get excited. This could be it! "You mean like a parasite, or a symbiont even?"

"Yes! A symbiont! It was living in the dead alien and then when Ianto opened the body bag, it moved on to him instead."

"Er, guys?" Owen looked doubtful. "This is all great, but how does it help? We still don't know how to get this thing out of Ianto."

"That's easy," grinned Jack. "We find another host."

--------------------

Owen adjusted the drip, reducing the amount of sedative flowing into Ianto's vein. Tosh swallowed hard as a wave of nausea swept over her.

"Are you sure you have to do this?"

Owen's face was set in grim determination. "Well let's suppose that this actually works, and we manage to get the symbiont out of Ianto's head. Right now, he's got enough sedative in his system to kill a horse. If I don't reduce it, we won't be saving him, we'll be killing him." He looked down at Ianto, whose limbs were already starting to twitch.

"Sorry mate, this is going to hurt you a hell of a lot more than it hurts me."

Tosh touched her headset. "Jack? We've started."

Jack and Gwen were in the cells, watching the alien.

"Yeah, we can tell. Our guest is getting pretty restless. It must have good hearing. We're bringing it up." Jack tried not to think about what was happening in the medical bay. They had to do this, they had no choice.

Gwen pushed the button to open the cell door and they stood aside. Jack drew his gun. The alien eyed them suspiciously, then walked out of the cell and allowed itself to be shepherded up through the hub to the main floor and eventually to the medical bay. The screaming had started almost before they had left the cells and even there they had heard it. Gwen forced herself to concentrate on her task, and she knew that Jack was trying to do the same.

As the three of them reached the medical bay, Owen and Tosh looked up nervously from their charge. Tosh moved aside, allowing Jack to take up his place next to Ianto. He moved around the bed, but he didn't look down. His pistol was trained on the alien as it slowly walked further into the room. He knew they were taking a huge risk and he was determined to be ready if anything went wrong.

The alien seemed to stare at Ianto for a few seconds before turning questioningly to Jack. Jack nodded, a signal to both the alien and Owen. As the alien moved closer to Ianto, Owen once more adjusted the drip. The effect was almost instantaneous. Ianto's screams grew even louder, the knot in Jack's stomach became even tighter and the grip on his pistol even firmer.

Once more, the alien looked at Jack. All other eyes were concentrated on Ianto. Only the alien saw Jack's nod. It leant forward, moving its mouth slowly towards Ianto's. Jack was glad that Ianto's eyes were squeezed so tightly shut – he wouldn't have wished that view on his worst enemy let alone the man he loved.

The alien stopped when its face was only centimetres from Ianto's. For a few seconds, nothing happened but then the alien's whole body seemed to stiffen and a faint glow was visible around its head. Ianto's screams lessened, and then stopped. Jack released a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding. Still he did not look down, keeping his gaze, and his gun, firmly on the alien.

The alien raised its head towards the ceiling, spreading its arms wide. The glow was replaced by a blue, shimmering light and the creature disappeared before their eyes, leaving them staring at an empty space.

Jack was the first to speak.

"Tosh, Gwen – go and find out where it went. I want you to tell me that it can't come back."

He watched them hesitate and then leave the room. Only then did he allow himself to look down at Ianto. And only then did he realise that things weren't going according to plan. Ianto's eyes were open, but clearly registered nothing. He took hold of his hand, but it was limp in his grasp.

"Owen?" His voice broke as he sought reassurance.

Owen didn't respond. He was injecting a syringeful of clear liquid into the cannula in the back of Ianto's hand, not taking his eyes from the monitor which was now beeping in protest at Ianto's slowing heart rate.

"Just give me a minute Jack. I've given him an antidote to the sedative. I've shut the drip off, but he's still got so much of it in him..."

Jack slumped down into the chair behind him, still clutching Ianto's hand. He bent his head to whisper in his ear. "Come on Ianto, you can do this. Come back to me."

Owen was still watching the monitor, and his heart leapt as he saw the flashing number which told him Ianto's heart rate start to rise. He turned to Jack. "It's working. Keep talking to him."

"Come on Ianto, wake up. That's an order." The beeping stopped.

Tosh and Gwen reappeared, both smiling. Tosh was about to report back when she was the scene in front of her and stopped short.

Suddenly, Jack felt Ianto's hand move in his. He squeezed it back and Ianto's eyes finally seemed to focus. "Jack?" Ianto's voice wavered, and he sounded so tired. "Has it gone?"

Jack grinned.

"Yes Ianto, it's gone. Everything's fine."


The End

***