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Title: The Angel of Death (20/20 plus epilogue)
Author: Emma
Characters: Jack Harkness, others
Rating: Starts PG. That's all I know
Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
Summary: Far in the future, Jack meets someone he never expected to see again
Author's Note: There's an epilogue. The Lonely God wants the last word!
Chapter Eighteen is here; Chapter Seventeen is here; Chapter sixteen is here; Chapter fifteen is here; Chapter fourteen is here; Chapter Thirteen is here; Other chapters here
“It's beautiful.”
The Tosh avatar breathed the words so only Jack could hear. He had to agree with her. The plain, functional gyroscope had been converted into a crystalline spiderweb hanging from a framework of silver rods. Somewhere, Jack knew, there was a secondary gyroscope keeping the station in orbit with full gravity.
“Jack,” the avatar sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “What he said back there...”
Instinctively, he reached for her hand and was not surprised to find it completely real, down to a gentle pulse at the wrist. “I know, Tosh. The conversation with Navigator Ll'nau is getting longer every day.”
They watched as Ianto moved along the spiderweb filaments. After a few minutes Jack realized what Ianto was doing. The Angel – because it was the Angel making himself felt – was using the web in the same way the Christiani of Opiuchi Prime used their meditation mazes or the Ood used their plain descants. He was opening the center of himself, reaching down and finding the words, the feelings, that would drive a stake through whatever passed for the 456's heart.
Each of Ianto's steps made energy ripple outwards. As he reached the center of the web the silver rods realigned, one end pointing directly at him, the others radiating upwards and outwards, lifting the web until it became a protective cage around Ianto's body. Ianto brought his hands together at heart-level and pressed his palms together into anjali mudra and closed his eyes.
At first there was only silence. Then Jack felt a light shiver racing up and down spine, something like the feeling of being touched by cold hands. It increased slowly, building not only in strength but complexity, until his entire body was shaking. Tosh fell to her knees, but her face wore a wide, joyful smile. The metal decking under Jack's feet rattled and whine as the stress began to shake molecules loose. Overhead, the silver rods vibrated, and the air was filled with the sound of glissandi being played on giant harps.
The web around Ianto began to glow as the energy built. He seemed unaffected, standing calmly at the center of the storm. Then his eyes opened and Jack's breath caught as he saw the blue fire that blazed outwards. His hands moved apart, rotating slowly until his palms faced outwards. Then he pushed.
Jack counted his own heartbeats... five... six...seven....and suddenly his mind was filled with a roar so vast that, for a terrifying moment, he was blind and deaf. The sound was a physical presence, all arrogance and contempt for the insignificant food-animals that dared challenge it. The blast rocked the station and sent him tumbling to the deck next to Tosh. He managed to raise his head and look at Ianto. The blast had been aimed directly at him. It should have knocked him unconscious.
What he saw rocked him harder than the blast. Ianto was floating in the middle of his silver cage, eyes closed, a half-smile on his lips, much as he looked when he was having a good dream. The silver rods had moved closer to his body, creating a halo effect. They glowed blue-white, the light flaring and coruscating, filling the area with millions of sparks. After a moment Jack realized the light had patterns in it, patterns he could follow only if he looked at the rods out of the corner of his eye. And there was something familiar in those patterns... bells being played... what had that church been called... Saint Augustine, that was it. He remembered all the Sundays Ianto had dragged him out of bed in the early morning hours to drive out to Rumney to listen to the bells ring their treble bobs, or whatever the hell the patterns were called. He had learned to love it, mostly because the second part of the morning usually included breakfast and lovemaking – not necessarily in that order.
Feedback in the system, Ianto had said. Now Jack understood he had meant it literally. Ianto was gathering everything the 456 was throwing at him and sending it back along the channels it used to control his slave bodies, transformed into sound. Thousands upon thousands of sound waves, pure sound, the sound of Welsh church bells ringing the Christmas changes. That had been, hands down, Ianto's favorite sound, the ear-shattering, brain-blasting sound of the Christmas bells.
Sound could kill, Jack knew.
It seemed to go on and on for hours. The roar became tinged with fear as one by one the slave bodies collapsed under the strain. As the channels closed, the 456 felt something it had not felt for millions of years: hunger. The fear turned to panic as whole worlds disappeared from its consciousness. The deck shivered as the Tech used cat's cradles to stop the suddenly unmanned 456 ships from crashing into the station. The rods around Ianto were vibrating so hard that Jack could actually see the sounds as streaks of light. This must be what synesthesia's like, he thought dizzily. Besides him, Tosh had clamped her hands over her ears and curled into a tight ball. He realized that she must be hearing it all through the Toshiko's sensors; Jack couldn't even imagine what that was like.
“The stars are screaming,” she whispered to him through bloodless lips, answering the question he hadn't asked. “All over, everywhere.”
Jack wrapped her in his coat and held on. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth; one more decibel, he thought, and his ear-drums would burst. But they didn't. Instead, he heard the roar die down to the horrible gurgling of someone drowning as his lungs filled with blood. The bells soared triumphantly, a million Christmases all come at once.
And then, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a switch, there was silence.
Jack untangled himself from Tosh and levered himself upwards. Ianto was standing in the middle of the collapsed web. He was deathly pale and Jack could see the tremors running through his body. Jack ran to him and pulled him into a tight hug. He could have wept with relief as he felt Ianto's arms wrap around his waist.
“We did it.”
“No,” Jack pressed his lips against Ianto's temple. “You did it. Thank you.”
Ianto nuzzled Jack's jaw. “So formal, my Captain. I...”
Jack heard the sound of a plasma rifle, and felt Ianto's body jerk and then slump forward. He cradled his lover's body in his arms and lowered them both to the floor, memories of Ianto's first death colliding with the litany of no.... no.... no...no....that ran endlessly through his mind. There were more shots behind him, and a woman screamed, but he paid no attention. Tears ran down his face; he wanted to scream but he didn't seem to have any air left in his lungs.
“You're raining on me.”
The whisper made him jerk. “Ianto?”
“You need to move away, Jack.”
Disbelieving, in agony over the rejection, he tightened his grip. “I tried, Ianto. I did my best...”
Ianto ran a hand up Jack's arm to cradle the side of his face. “I'm not blaming you, cariad. But you need to...”
“No!” Jack interrupted him. “I'm not going anywhere.”
Ianto chuckled. “Only you, Jack. On your own head be it.”
His body arched and spasmed. Jack clung to him, desperately trying to minimize the damage Ianto's body was suffering. He twisted around until he was seated on the deck with Ianto held against his chest. Smiling into his lover's eyes, he lowered his head.
“Jack, don't...”
“This time it's live or die together, Ianto.”
He pressed his open mouth on Ianto's and funneled Vortex energy into him. He fed Ianto as he had once fed Abbadon, pouring all of himself into the battle against death. Then, astonishingly, he felt another energy rising to meet his, something he recognized, something his own energy remembered. He pulled back. Ianto's body was glowing, and his outlines were blurring as if he couldn't hold his own shape. The shock made him rear back.
“Too late, Jack. You said it. Together.”
The blast caught him full on. He hung on, letting his body ride the waves, absorbing energy and returning it in a way his body found comfortably familiar. A laugh exploded out of him, and he heard Ianto's answering chuckle. The final explosion left them sprawled on the deck, still laughing.
Jack kissed Ianto lightly as he pulled both of them up. He examined Ianto's face. It was the same, yet subtly different, more angular and sharp. His deep blue eyes were now a stormy grey-blue, and his hairline made a slight widow's peak over a narrower forehead. But it was Ianto's ears that made him chuckle. They stood slightly out from his head, with longer, heavier lobes. He stroked them gently.
“Care to share?”
He looked up to find Tosh, Ai-Shi, Marcus, Leah, and a number of servos staring down at them.
“We're alive and the 456 are gone.” He shrugged. “I don't know much else.”
Ianto grinned. “It seems the Ylnagii had a backup plan.”
“Ianto, you regenerated!” Tosh burst out. “I have records of some of the Doctor's regenerations in my files, and it was almost identical. And you look a little like...”
“Like who?”
'Well, like Jack's first doctor.”
Ianto clapped his hands to his ears. “Shite.”
Jack laughed. “They're rather cute on you, love.” He gave himself a once-over. “I feel a little odd myself.”
“Well,” Ianto said thoughtfully, “You wouldn't move away when I asked you. You must have been caught in the blowback.”
Marcus looked from one to the other. “But neither one of you is a Time Lord.”
“There's that.” Ianto seemed to examine his own memories for a moment. “I don't have any information on this. The regeneration was a last resort, but I don't know how they managed it.”
Surprisingly, it was Ai-Shi who answered. “The Doctor gave them the technology.”
Jack stared at her. He and the Doctor had avoided each other after the events of the early twenty-first century. Even after millennia had passed their meetings had been, at best, strained. He had made it his business not to cross the Time Lord's path, and the Doctor had seemed content to have it stay that way. The Doctor using Gallifreyan technology to make sure Ianto survived his battle with the 456 was the most outlandish idea Jack had encountered in a life overfilled with outlandish ideas.
“Ll'Nau will be here in three standard hours,” Ai-Shi said, sliding her exquisite metal arms around Jack and Ianto, “and these things are better discussed over tea. Come on. You two need a bath and a nap.”
As they passed through the Zocalo Jack noticed a group of miners and servos surrounding some men wearing the black leather uniforms of the Espinosa's personal guard. Arabella was standing among them, one hand wrapped in bandages held to her chest. She glared at them. Jack let his eyes slide past her, knowing his disinterest was the worst blow he could deal her.
“She was the one who shot Ianto,” Marcus said. “Tosh blew the gun out of her hand.”
“Remind me to give Tosh a raise.”
Jack leant back until he could see Ianto. His Angel was in deep conversation with Tosh, and Leah. The scene was familiar, but this time the memories were sweet. He had a future now, not just a never-ending life. Briefly, he wondered what the regeneration energy had done to him. He grinned. He couldn't wait to find out.
Author: Emma
Characters: Jack Harkness, others
Rating: Starts PG. That's all I know
Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
Summary: Far in the future, Jack meets someone he never expected to see again
Author's Note: There's an epilogue. The Lonely God wants the last word!
Chapter Eighteen is here; Chapter Seventeen is here; Chapter sixteen is here; Chapter fifteen is here; Chapter fourteen is here; Chapter Thirteen is here; Other chapters here
“It's beautiful.”
The Tosh avatar breathed the words so only Jack could hear. He had to agree with her. The plain, functional gyroscope had been converted into a crystalline spiderweb hanging from a framework of silver rods. Somewhere, Jack knew, there was a secondary gyroscope keeping the station in orbit with full gravity.
“Jack,” the avatar sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “What he said back there...”
Instinctively, he reached for her hand and was not surprised to find it completely real, down to a gentle pulse at the wrist. “I know, Tosh. The conversation with Navigator Ll'nau is getting longer every day.”
They watched as Ianto moved along the spiderweb filaments. After a few minutes Jack realized what Ianto was doing. The Angel – because it was the Angel making himself felt – was using the web in the same way the Christiani of Opiuchi Prime used their meditation mazes or the Ood used their plain descants. He was opening the center of himself, reaching down and finding the words, the feelings, that would drive a stake through whatever passed for the 456's heart.
Each of Ianto's steps made energy ripple outwards. As he reached the center of the web the silver rods realigned, one end pointing directly at him, the others radiating upwards and outwards, lifting the web until it became a protective cage around Ianto's body. Ianto brought his hands together at heart-level and pressed his palms together into anjali mudra and closed his eyes.
At first there was only silence. Then Jack felt a light shiver racing up and down spine, something like the feeling of being touched by cold hands. It increased slowly, building not only in strength but complexity, until his entire body was shaking. Tosh fell to her knees, but her face wore a wide, joyful smile. The metal decking under Jack's feet rattled and whine as the stress began to shake molecules loose. Overhead, the silver rods vibrated, and the air was filled with the sound of glissandi being played on giant harps.
The web around Ianto began to glow as the energy built. He seemed unaffected, standing calmly at the center of the storm. Then his eyes opened and Jack's breath caught as he saw the blue fire that blazed outwards. His hands moved apart, rotating slowly until his palms faced outwards. Then he pushed.
Jack counted his own heartbeats... five... six...seven....and suddenly his mind was filled with a roar so vast that, for a terrifying moment, he was blind and deaf. The sound was a physical presence, all arrogance and contempt for the insignificant food-animals that dared challenge it. The blast rocked the station and sent him tumbling to the deck next to Tosh. He managed to raise his head and look at Ianto. The blast had been aimed directly at him. It should have knocked him unconscious.
What he saw rocked him harder than the blast. Ianto was floating in the middle of his silver cage, eyes closed, a half-smile on his lips, much as he looked when he was having a good dream. The silver rods had moved closer to his body, creating a halo effect. They glowed blue-white, the light flaring and coruscating, filling the area with millions of sparks. After a moment Jack realized the light had patterns in it, patterns he could follow only if he looked at the rods out of the corner of his eye. And there was something familiar in those patterns... bells being played... what had that church been called... Saint Augustine, that was it. He remembered all the Sundays Ianto had dragged him out of bed in the early morning hours to drive out to Rumney to listen to the bells ring their treble bobs, or whatever the hell the patterns were called. He had learned to love it, mostly because the second part of the morning usually included breakfast and lovemaking – not necessarily in that order.
Feedback in the system, Ianto had said. Now Jack understood he had meant it literally. Ianto was gathering everything the 456 was throwing at him and sending it back along the channels it used to control his slave bodies, transformed into sound. Thousands upon thousands of sound waves, pure sound, the sound of Welsh church bells ringing the Christmas changes. That had been, hands down, Ianto's favorite sound, the ear-shattering, brain-blasting sound of the Christmas bells.
Sound could kill, Jack knew.
It seemed to go on and on for hours. The roar became tinged with fear as one by one the slave bodies collapsed under the strain. As the channels closed, the 456 felt something it had not felt for millions of years: hunger. The fear turned to panic as whole worlds disappeared from its consciousness. The deck shivered as the Tech used cat's cradles to stop the suddenly unmanned 456 ships from crashing into the station. The rods around Ianto were vibrating so hard that Jack could actually see the sounds as streaks of light. This must be what synesthesia's like, he thought dizzily. Besides him, Tosh had clamped her hands over her ears and curled into a tight ball. He realized that she must be hearing it all through the Toshiko's sensors; Jack couldn't even imagine what that was like.
“The stars are screaming,” she whispered to him through bloodless lips, answering the question he hadn't asked. “All over, everywhere.”
Jack wrapped her in his coat and held on. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth; one more decibel, he thought, and his ear-drums would burst. But they didn't. Instead, he heard the roar die down to the horrible gurgling of someone drowning as his lungs filled with blood. The bells soared triumphantly, a million Christmases all come at once.
And then, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a switch, there was silence.
Jack untangled himself from Tosh and levered himself upwards. Ianto was standing in the middle of the collapsed web. He was deathly pale and Jack could see the tremors running through his body. Jack ran to him and pulled him into a tight hug. He could have wept with relief as he felt Ianto's arms wrap around his waist.
“We did it.”
“No,” Jack pressed his lips against Ianto's temple. “You did it. Thank you.”
Ianto nuzzled Jack's jaw. “So formal, my Captain. I...”
Jack heard the sound of a plasma rifle, and felt Ianto's body jerk and then slump forward. He cradled his lover's body in his arms and lowered them both to the floor, memories of Ianto's first death colliding with the litany of no.... no.... no...no....that ran endlessly through his mind. There were more shots behind him, and a woman screamed, but he paid no attention. Tears ran down his face; he wanted to scream but he didn't seem to have any air left in his lungs.
“You're raining on me.”
The whisper made him jerk. “Ianto?”
“You need to move away, Jack.”
Disbelieving, in agony over the rejection, he tightened his grip. “I tried, Ianto. I did my best...”
Ianto ran a hand up Jack's arm to cradle the side of his face. “I'm not blaming you, cariad. But you need to...”
“No!” Jack interrupted him. “I'm not going anywhere.”
Ianto chuckled. “Only you, Jack. On your own head be it.”
His body arched and spasmed. Jack clung to him, desperately trying to minimize the damage Ianto's body was suffering. He twisted around until he was seated on the deck with Ianto held against his chest. Smiling into his lover's eyes, he lowered his head.
“Jack, don't...”
“This time it's live or die together, Ianto.”
He pressed his open mouth on Ianto's and funneled Vortex energy into him. He fed Ianto as he had once fed Abbadon, pouring all of himself into the battle against death. Then, astonishingly, he felt another energy rising to meet his, something he recognized, something his own energy remembered. He pulled back. Ianto's body was glowing, and his outlines were blurring as if he couldn't hold his own shape. The shock made him rear back.
“Too late, Jack. You said it. Together.”
The blast caught him full on. He hung on, letting his body ride the waves, absorbing energy and returning it in a way his body found comfortably familiar. A laugh exploded out of him, and he heard Ianto's answering chuckle. The final explosion left them sprawled on the deck, still laughing.
Jack kissed Ianto lightly as he pulled both of them up. He examined Ianto's face. It was the same, yet subtly different, more angular and sharp. His deep blue eyes were now a stormy grey-blue, and his hairline made a slight widow's peak over a narrower forehead. But it was Ianto's ears that made him chuckle. They stood slightly out from his head, with longer, heavier lobes. He stroked them gently.
“Care to share?”
He looked up to find Tosh, Ai-Shi, Marcus, Leah, and a number of servos staring down at them.
“We're alive and the 456 are gone.” He shrugged. “I don't know much else.”
Ianto grinned. “It seems the Ylnagii had a backup plan.”
“Ianto, you regenerated!” Tosh burst out. “I have records of some of the Doctor's regenerations in my files, and it was almost identical. And you look a little like...”
“Like who?”
'Well, like Jack's first doctor.”
Ianto clapped his hands to his ears. “Shite.”
Jack laughed. “They're rather cute on you, love.” He gave himself a once-over. “I feel a little odd myself.”
“Well,” Ianto said thoughtfully, “You wouldn't move away when I asked you. You must have been caught in the blowback.”
Marcus looked from one to the other. “But neither one of you is a Time Lord.”
“There's that.” Ianto seemed to examine his own memories for a moment. “I don't have any information on this. The regeneration was a last resort, but I don't know how they managed it.”
Surprisingly, it was Ai-Shi who answered. “The Doctor gave them the technology.”
Jack stared at her. He and the Doctor had avoided each other after the events of the early twenty-first century. Even after millennia had passed their meetings had been, at best, strained. He had made it his business not to cross the Time Lord's path, and the Doctor had seemed content to have it stay that way. The Doctor using Gallifreyan technology to make sure Ianto survived his battle with the 456 was the most outlandish idea Jack had encountered in a life overfilled with outlandish ideas.
“Ll'Nau will be here in three standard hours,” Ai-Shi said, sliding her exquisite metal arms around Jack and Ianto, “and these things are better discussed over tea. Come on. You two need a bath and a nap.”
As they passed through the Zocalo Jack noticed a group of miners and servos surrounding some men wearing the black leather uniforms of the Espinosa's personal guard. Arabella was standing among them, one hand wrapped in bandages held to her chest. She glared at them. Jack let his eyes slide past her, knowing his disinterest was the worst blow he could deal her.
“She was the one who shot Ianto,” Marcus said. “Tosh blew the gun out of her hand.”
“Remind me to give Tosh a raise.”
Jack leant back until he could see Ianto. His Angel was in deep conversation with Tosh, and Leah. The scene was familiar, but this time the memories were sweet. He had a future now, not just a never-ending life. Briefly, he wondered what the regeneration energy had done to him. He grinned. He couldn't wait to find out.
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