Into The Silence

by Pinborough, Sarah

  Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel inside the SUV. Sitting around doing nothing was not something he did well. Even with an apparently endless life ahead of him, it was a frustrating waste of time. Behind him, DI Cutler beat out a similar quiet rhythm on the back of the leather seat. It seemed the policeman wasn't too hot on inactivity either. No one spoke. They'd long ago run out of conversation, and the tension of the alien's no-show hummed throughout the car.

  Gritting his teeth, Jack stared out into the gloom of the falling night. Where the hell had the creature from the Silent Planet gone? It had to be out there somewhere and why the hell had it stopped attacking after such a frenzied start? And who the hell knew where it was really from anyway? All he had was guesswork and probability.

  As the hours ticked past, he had found he was starting to doubt himself, and self-doubt was another thing Captain Jack Harkness didn't do well. It irritated him. But this case had the taste of unfinished business, and that he couldn't doubt. The feeling came from his gut and that was rarely wrong. There was a chance he might mess up the small details, but never the big picture. He'd seen too much not to trust his instincts. Maybe the alien was lying low for a while. Maybe they'd have to sit around waiting until they'd all gone crazy, or Ianto was taking to the stage of the Millennium Centre, or next year's competition came round, but it would be back. Jack just knew.

  Beside him Gwen bristled, and Jack knew what she was going to say before her mouth opened. His pulse quickened.

  'Rift activity.'

  'Where?' The drumming of fingers stopped.

  'Everywhere.' Gwen frowned at the screen. 'Tiny spikes. Nothing major. I don't understand. They seem to be all over the city.'

  'That's not helping, Gwen.' Jack gripped the car door handle. They couldn't screw this up.

  'I'm just telling you what the machine is telling me.'

  'Don't just read it. Predict where it's going.'

  Gwen flashed her dark, angry eyes at him. 'I'm not bloody Tosh. I'm doing my...' Her gaze back on the screen, she tilted her head. 'Hang on. They're converging. This is weird. It's like they're pulling together or something.' Recoiling, she flinched. 'Shit! We've got a big spike.' She looked up. 'It's coming together here! At the church!'

  Jack was out of the SUV before she'd finished her sentence, arms pumping as he sprinted up through the alley, Cutler's heavier tread echoing his own a few paces behind. The church grew up from the corner and he pushed himself towards it.

  EIGHTEEN

  Drew was just reaching the peak of his piece when Ianto's muscles stiffened slightly, his primal senses aware of danger even before it had quite arrived. Lost in the music, Drew sang on, but Ianto was no longer absorbed in his talent, the sound now merely a distraction as he glanced around trying to home in on what had disturbed him. He shivered, a chill running down his spine. Something was wrong.

  He looked up, just before a window set high in the wall above him smashed, sending shards of crimson-coloured glass plummeting to the floor like bloodied hail and carrying within it a figure that disintegrated into nothing as he tried to focus on it, becoming only a substance hidden between the fragments. Ducking instinctively, Ianto yanked the portable device free and, crouching, peered upwards. Where the hell was it?

  Drew had stopped singing and the backing music continued plaintively as the chubby man stared desperately at Ianto, fear wreaking havoc in his eyes before something caught at his chest and, as he gasped, his gaze dragged reluctantly to his left. Staying low and hidden by the aisle, Ianto moved forward, looking to see what Drew was staring at with such unconfined horror.

  A dark void of blackness that was smeared against the wall of the church began to re-form, shaping itself into something solid. Watching the moulding of limbs and torso completing, cold gripped Ianto's chest and it took all his effort to touch his earpiece.

  'Jack.' The name was suddenly unfamiliar, and for a moment Ianto couldn't see Jack's face in the space in his brain where it belonged.

  'It's here.' The words rasped out of him, no purity in the sound and no breathing from his diaphragm, just sheer effort and desperation, and the minute he'd spoken he wasn't sure he could repeat the sentence, even if his life depended on it.

  Life.

  He dragged his head upwards against the weight of emptiness that was pressing his soul into isolation. Drew's life. The chubby man was just a few metres away, gazing, his mouth drooping open as if he'd forgotten how to close it. Ianto didn't look over at the alien. He couldn't. If he did, he was afraid he'd never move from the spot again.

  Keeping his eyes down, he rushed towards the frozen Drew, needing to come between him and the creature. In the corner of his eye there was a sudden movement and, twisting his head, he saw the strange metallic man, his solid body a network of sharp fractures. Caught in that frozen moment as they both leapt towards Drew, Ianto thought the black silent void of its home planet leaked through those cracks, infecting the air around it with sheer emotional desolation, as if there was too much for the one creature to house.

  Ianto wanted to weep, but had forgotten how. His own action was clumsily human, slow and heavy, but the alien moved fast and jerkily like the flickering image of a broken film; in one spot at one moment, and beside Drew in the next, its attention focused only on the chubby man as if the Torchwood operative didn't even exist.

  Shrieking like a savage, Ianto threw himself at it, his finger on the button of the portable prison. The power of his cry deadened in the air around the alien and, taking a deep breath, Ianto's hand grabbed the creature's arm. His shriek died with the contact and what it brought with it. Coldness shocked its way throughout his own system and an instant silence emptied his mind. The world was empty. The world was dead. With the last drip of thought, he squeezed his numb finger down.

  The alien tossed him aside as if he were no more than an irritating gnat, hurling him sideways and into the piano. His head slamming hard into the sharp edge of the wood, Ianto watched in despair as the portable prison tumbled to the back of the church, activated, but with nothing in its field but empty air. Blood trickled into his eye, and he was glad of its warmth. Black pain throbbed through his head and, just as unconsciousness gripped him, he heard Drew Powell begin to scream.

  Jack pushed through the double doors from the vestry, not pausing in his stride as his eyes took in the scene ahead. Broken glass littered the pews, crunching underneath his boots. Beyond the altar and the piano, the blue light of the prison cylinder shone upwards but it was empty; Jack didn't even have to look at it to know that.

  Drew Powell lay on the floor, the alien crouching over him. Its head was tossed back in an awful mockery of a howl, the pit of its mouth stretched open in a silent scream, pouring black emptiness out into the church. Its arm stretched out towards Powell's neck, the limb dissolved towards the end, the hand nothing more than a black streak that cut into the singer's neck like a scalpel.

  'No!' Pulling his gun free from its holster, Jack fired into the alien's back before running forward. Drew Powell was not going to die. Not when they were this close, God dammit. Recoiling from the bullet, the creature twisted round, its rage and disappointment glaring out at Jack from two blazes of red in the pits of its dark eyes. In a split second it was on its feet, the shot seeming to have caused no lasting damage.

  Jack's lungs burned with cold as he stretched out to grab it, but he was an instant too slow, its body dissolving into blackness as the shadow pulled away and upwards, escaping through the broken window high on the wall, leaving Jack with only the slightest damp taste of its presence. Panting, he filled the space the alien had vacated, and black rage filled him.

  'Shit!' Behind him, Cutler turned back. 'I'll go after it!'

  'No point. Call an ambulance.' Falling to his knees, Jack looked down into the gurgling mess of Drew's neck. A slice ran down from his chin to his Adam's apple, sticky blood pumping slowly out. The cut was bad, and God only knew how deep it went, but Jack knew that i
f an artery had been severed they'd all be covered. Maybe there was a chance. Cursing under his breath, he chewed on his own frustration and anger. There had to be a goddamn chance. Gently, he lifted the man up slightly so he could breathe without drowning in his own blood, and stroked his forehead.

  'It's OK. You're going to be OK.' Watching the beads of damp sweat forming on the shivering man's ashen face, he hoped he wasn't lying. 'You hang in there, you hear me? Help's on its way.' Somewhere in the distance, giving his words weight, a siren began to wail through the night.

  Behind him, Ianto groaned.

  'Gwen!' Jack called over his shoulder. 'Is Ianto all right?'

  'He's got a nasty cut. But I think he'll live.'

  There was a long pause.

  'What are we going to do now, Jack?' Her voice was soft and low and, feeling the warm blood of the injured man coating his hands, Jack was glad he didn't have to look at her face when he answered.

  'I don't know, Gwen. I just don't know.'

  NINETEEN

  The hospital was alive with sound from the moment they arrived.

  It seemed to Gwen that each area of the building had its own unique orchestra to identify it. When she'd visited the witnesses to Richard Greenwood's death, there had been only the hum of lights and the calm whispering of shoes and skirts as they had travelled through the ward like ghosts, pausing to smile and check temperatures and tick lists on charts. Patients had been reading books and magazines and occasionally chatting quietly to visitors as they discussed what they might do when they were released. Much of the time had been filled with the slow breathing of sleep as fractured bones and damaged organs mended. Peace and quiet had reigned in a place where recovery was almost a certainty, and days were marked off with the delivery of meals and afternoon naps after some daytime TV.

  This time, as she leapt out of the ambulance and ran into the hospital behind the paramedics, Gwen would have known she was in the Accident and Emergency department even if she had been blinded. Noise danced and partied in the bright corridors, whooping with glee at every new arrival. The wheels of the trolley carrying Drew Powell squealed and rattled as they pushed forwards, crashing through doors as nurses and doctors called out to each other for drips, and numbers and pressures in a language of their own that just created dread in those excluded from its understanding. Behind hastily drawn curtains, the burned and the broken and the drunk ranted and raved, screaming and sobbing for help or a loved one, either in pain or in panic. Nurses' feet thumped hard against the floor as they ran for bandages and medication that was needed immediately rather than regularly. There was nothing of quiet in this place where people raged against the dying of the light.

  Leaning against the wall of Drew's room in the ICU, Gwen folded her arms and thought that the sounds in Intensive Care were the worst in the hospital. The quiet was filled with tension. No patients screamed or wailed here; their bodies were either too sedated or too damaged and had no energy for anything but the silent internal struggle to hold on to life.

  Visitors sat quietly, occasionally releasing stifled sobs into tissues pressed close to their mouths, for fear that if they let their emotions cry out the invisible death that drifted behind the nurses in the corridors would hear them and start to focus on their loved ones. Machines beeped, just like the one attached to Drew, and time was marked out by the too-regulated huff and puff of ventilators. The living mocked the dead with their stillness, and under the soft quiet of those that were conscious and the beeps and hums of machines was the awful crackle of tension. The noises where the difference between life and death was as fragile as a gossamer strand were the worst of the building. They tore strips from the soul.

  Gwen let out a long sigh. At least they'd secured Drew a private room. The infirmary was overcrowded and, according to the nurse, tonight was a busy night for those intent on dying. Behind one of the curtained cubicles, a 34-year-old man was heaving up the bottle of paracetamol he'd swallowed an hour or so earlier before changing his mind about just how bad his life was. He seemed to think he would be OK but, coming back from the coffee machine, Gwen had seen the looks on the doctors' and nurses' faces. They were placing their bets on kidney failure setting in by morning. She'd seen that look before. God, it was all so depressing.

  The coffee sat cooling on the small table beside her. She'd taken one sip and that was enough. It tasted like crap. But then she supposed coffee wasn't high on anyone's priorities in this part of the ward. The machine attached to Drew released another soft beep as his ventilator continued to steadily pump air down past his damaged throat and into his lungs and then pause to let it out again.

  She wondered if he was dreaming in his sedated sleep and whether he was stuck in a nightmare of watching the alien that attacked him ripping apart his boyfriend. He wouldn't be having it for long at least. As soon as he was recovered enough, they'd Retcon him. Still. Serial killer. Alien. Either way it wasn't going to make much difference to his grief.

  The door clicked open, and Ianto stepped inside. He looked tired, and a dark shadow of bruise oozed out from under the taped gauze covering the stitches running across his temple.

  'I thought you'd gone home.' Gwen squeezed his arm. 'You might have concussion.'

  'Well, if I do then I'm in the right place.' He looked at the coffee. 'That going spare?'

  'Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it.'

  Ianto leaned against the wall beside her and for a moment neither spoke, lost in their own quiet worlds.

  'I saw the doctor.' Ianto's voice was barely more than a whisper, its deep tones just reaching Gwen's ears. 'They're going to move him to a recovery ward tomorrow.'

  Her heart thumping with relief, Gwen grinned. 'That's brilliant news. Bloody brilliant.' She was as relieved for her quiet colleague as she was for the man in the hospital bed. She knew there was nothing more he could have done against the alien, but Ianto would be having a harder job convincing himself, the same way she would if their roles had been reversed. If Drew had died, he would have seen it as his fault for messing up his job.

  Ianto's eyes slipped to the man on the bed, his jaw set firmly. 'He'll never sing again, though.' He paused. 'He'll be lucky if he can talk.'

  'But he'll be alive.' Gwen shivered at the cool monotone of Ianto's delivery.

  'Singing was his life.'

  She shook her head. 'No it wasn't. It was just part of it. A big part maybe, but not all.' Her mind wandered down the corridor to the man who, just hours before, had thought he was desperate to die and was now chucking his guts up for all he was worth in the vain hope he'd make it to the weekend and this would just be a story he could tell to his mates in the pub for a bit of a laugh. 'He'll be happy he's alive mainly.'

  'Maybe. At first.' He frowned. 'Where's Jack?'

  'Said he had some stuff to do.'

  'What, back at the Hub?'

  Gwen shook her head. She'd seen the grim set on Jack's face as the ambulance pulled away. 'I doubt it. He had that look.' Glancing up to Ianto, she watched him nod. He knew what she meant.

  'We won't see him for a few hours then.'

  'No.'

  He sniffed. 'What were you planning to do? Go home?'

  'If I went home this early, Rhys would go into shock. He's probably just opening a beer in front of the football.' The machine pinged again and she wondered what the point of it was. Maybe its purpose was just to momentarily relieve the oppressive hush of the ward and allow the occupants to breathe.

  'So, what's the plan? Stay here all night?'

  She shook her head. 'I thought I might take a look at the data from just before the attack. For a few seconds it seemed like there was Rift activity all over the city, then it suddenly spiked at the church. I'm going to see if there's any way to refine the program. Maybe we can get it to show us where the alien's going to appear with enough time for us to get there.' She gritted her teeth and, although she was staring at Drew, her mind had rewound to the moment they'd burst into the church. '
We were only round the corner, but if you hadn't distracted it we'd never have saved this poor sod.'

  Ianto smiled at her. 'Refining the program, eh? Tosh would be proud. We'll make a geek of you yet.'

  'I'm more likely to break the bloody monitor than get it working better. Still, I've got to try something.'

  'You want a hand?'

  Gwen smiled. 'Definitely. That way the blame gets split when we wreck the computer.'

  TWENTY

  The bar was dimly lit with various pink and blue neon strips running along the bench seating and under the chrome edge of the marble top that Jack was leaning his elbows on. The sleeves on his blue shirt were rolled up, and for once it felt like his braces were digging into his shoulders. Or maybe it was just psychosomatic. It sure felt like something was causing that tense ache that sat tight in his muscles and he'd rather think it was the braces than the alien.

  Picking up his bottle of water he took a long swallow, avoiding looking in the mirror that lined the back wall. It was only partly hidden by bottles of spirits in the kinds of colours you just know are going to disagree with your insides, and his own face was one he could do without looking at right now.

  'Have you got ten sets of that clobber or something?'

  The stool next to him grated roughly on the floor as it was tugged out, and Jack looked up and smiled.

  'Something like that.'

  Cutler wore jeans and a V-neck sweater, the casual clothes suiting his scruffy hair and stubble. Sitting down, he nodded at the barman. 'JD and coke. Double.' He looked over at Jack who tilted his bottle. 'And another of whatever that piss-water is.'

  'I thought you'd stood me up.'

  Cutler snorted out a laugh and passed a ten pound note over to the barman. 'Yeah, right. Where else am I likely to be? Everywhere I go there's a phone ringing for me.' He picked up his drink and swallowed nearly half of it. 'Not too different for you either, I should imagine.'