Work Text:
Linked
by peja
Annie Bennett's face was the very picture of shocked disbelief as the first bullet tore through her chest. She met Ianto's stunned expression, slapping him with the reality that in this body his beloved Lisa Hallet could indeed be killed.
Several more shots in quick succession whirled him around. His eyes widened, his mind registering Jack, his face grim, murderous. Owen Harper was his usual peevish-faced picture of duty, his arms braced against the kick of his weapon just in case. Gwen Cooper turned away under Ianto's horrified stare. Not ashamed, but resigned. There was a sympathetic flicker before her gaze darted away. Toshiko Sato, always the obedient one, stood at the ready to fire again if Lisa should suddenly rise once more.
But Ianto knew Tosh had no reason to be concerned. There was truth in the statement that everyone from Torchwood One held a certain level of psychic ability. Ianto's abilities were empathy. And to a minor degree telepathy. He had been linked to Lisa through that magical connection since his feelings for her had engaged. Even now, Ianto's mind clung to the sputtering psychic link he shared with her.
And through that connection, he felt her death. Every desperate glimmer of it. Felt it as if he experienced it himself.
Frozen with despair, Ianto opened his mouth to speak, to say...something. Anything. But what was there left to say. He had done what he had done. And that was definitely not what Jack had ordered him to do.
There was no way in hell he would have killed Lisa....Annie....Oh, God...
He had no doubt that Jack would follow through with his threat to put a bullet in him now that he had failed to obey.
He didn't have to watch the bullet coming at him.
Turning away, he dropped down onto his knees between the two bodies. He knew in some small part of his brain that he was kneeling in the women's life blood. It was all he could do to contain the hysterical giggles battering away at his self-restraint. Only seemed proper his own blood should mingle with that of the woman he loved as their minds had mingled and entwined.
He couldn't remember when he had felt so very alone. Surely not since he met and fell in love with Lisa, back in '05. Not with her always a comforting spark in his brain. What matter that the link had changed, had gotten darker, since her conversion, had become more demanding, more directing. Lisa had needed his comfort then, more than ever before. Confined to the conversion bed, she had depended on him for her very survival.
It had only seemed natural that he give whatever he could. Do whatever she asked.
Needing the comfort of another's touch, he laced his fingers with Lisa's already cooling ones as he waited for the killing shot.
But the link was gone. Lisa was gone, leaving him in a daze of confusion. Of wonder at what he had become.
He was lost. Alone.
Terrified in his own calm.
His mind screamed for a connection. Any connection.
Quite unexpectedly, Tosh, or the image of her, danced before his eyes. His mind was seeking out a new link. Probing Tosh's and finding an icy, brittle form of concern. He recognized it as sympathy and, cringing away from that emotion, the instinctive probing leapt for another.
Gwen. Sweet, compassionate Gwen. Not quite the image that the link found within her secret mind. The woman was first and foremost a cop. This evening's games had left a bitter taste in her. One that would not trust easily.
His mind moved on to Owen. But only the briefest of touches. Owen's rage threatened to tip Ianto into himself. The empathic link bolted back much like a child hurling itself into it's mother's arms to cower from the boogie man.
Only one other. Only Jack. Only the man who had sworn to execute him.
Ianto wrapped his arms around his waist, rocking himself gently. What was Jack waiting for? Ianto wanted, so very badly wanted to screech at Jack to end his pain, but no words would come.
Closing his eyes against the dark cloak of detachment closing in on him, he bent his head and let his tears begin again.
"Ianto."
Ianto heard this name called in some forgotten corner of his mind. But it was so quiet in the fog of the world he'd retreated to he couldn't be sure it was more than the ghost of a voice.
He began to hum something tuneless, masking the beckoning call. His soul burrowed deeper into the world he was creating inside himself.
The slap, when it came, was a shock strong enough to drag him back to awareness.
He stared up at the furious man towering over him. Recognition was slow in coming, his eyes widening finally, "Jack..."
And just like that, the connection hit them both like a lightning bolt. Jack was inside Ianto's mind. Ianto was inside Jack's.
Wide-eyed, Ianto roared out his denial. "Not you. Please, God, Not you."
Jack's shark's smile twisted his lips upward and he brushed a thumb over Ianto's full lower lip. "Another secret, Ianto?" He chuckled sardonically. "But there can be no more, now. Never again."
Ianto winced as he felt the strange power that was Jack's own psychic energy, feeling silken psychic chains curling around him, demanding submission....promising dire punishment if he resisted.
He barely had time to register the internal threat before he was flooded the outer layer of rage dissolved with the burning flare of Jack's honest affection.
Ianto stared deep into Jack's eyes, searching, not allowing himself to dare hope....
The honeyed memory of Jack's lips on his after Lisa had hurled him across the Hub command center danced before his eyes. He shuddered, because he knew he had been dead.
Dead, now returned by the power of Jack's own curse.
Jack's creation just as Jack had been the creation of a woman called Rose.
Dead...never to stay dead again.
The attraction that had been between then since the beginning, but buried beneath Lisa's own claim on his mind, flared as Jack dragged him into his arms, smothering him with a desperate kiss. Ianto fought the hunger rising inside him briefly, then melted against the man who had executed his first love, accepting the comfort Jack was offering.
He told himself that Lisa...before Canary Wharf... had loved him with everything she possessed. That had been honest. After her conversion something else had run dark under the love, if it had still even been love. That evil had influenced his movements in a cybernetic will to survive. Free of the connect, he recognized that Jack had been right. His Lisa had died at Canary Wharf. What had remained had other uses for him. He would always love the before Lisa. But he was free now.
Free to find honest love...If he was strong enough to claim his prize.
If he could believe that jack could forgive his betrayal.
If....
END?
End Note: This started out with one direction, to be another Post Cyberwoman AU. Something went hinky and turned left into the Twilight Zone. What can ya do when the muse is mental?