Oncoming Storms (original) (raw)

"Are you crazy?" Rhys screamed as he rounded on Gwen, passing between the motionless bodies of Thames House staff--people, not bodies, motionless people. He glanced, once, at the paramedic who, four beds down, didn't dare move. "Put that down!"

"We need him," she said, but her voice was deep, wrong, and she never took her eyes from Jack and the barely-there rise and fall of his chest. "We all need him."

"Gwen," he tried again, "sweetheart..."

Her mouth twisted, and she yelled "I need him!" and before he could wonder what she meant she pulled the trigger.

***

"...good to see you awake, Mr. Jones."

Ianto squinted at the overly cheerful nurse who had appeared by his bedside. He'd been awake for five minutes already but his vision was still slightly blurred. Thankfully, he was too busy feeling like he'd been hit by a truck and trying not to choke on ice chips to worry terribly much about it.

Well, maybe not thankfully.

"I'll have someone phone your sister," she added as she set the bowl of ice she held on his bedside table. "She'll be very pleased."

Just about then, Ianto dozed off. He must have done, because the next he knew the nurse was gone and Rhiannon was there. "You idiot," she breathed when she saw he was awake.

"Hey," he said, but he didn't recognize his own voice, and turned his head toward her. Her eyes were red, and, far from being pleased, she was watching him with a mix of emotion he hadn't seen since he was ten years old, defending his big sister only to have her arse of a boyfriend give him a black eye.

"Oh, hello, you big bloody idiot," Rhiannon said, and she smiled for him, but it didn't come easily. I'm sorry, he wanted to say, don't look so miserable because of me.

But he didn't apologize, because for a split second he couldn't remember what he'd done that would make him an idiot, at least any more than usual, and for a split second he was only confused.

When he remembered, he remembered backwards: looking up at Jack as the room filled with gas, the Hub exploding beneath him, the children on the Plass all chanting in unison, we are coming...

"Mica," he rasped out. "David--"

Rhiannon breathed in and looked away, and for a moment Ianto thought he knew what that meant, and suddenly he felt as cold as the ice on the table. He closed his eyes and held himself still, and stayed like that until his sister's hands closed over his.

"No," she whispered. "No, they're fine. They're all fine. Johnny's bringing them."

When, finally, he forced himself to look, there were tears on Rhiannon's face. Tears, but not for her children. Slowly, he wet his lips and tried desperately to gather enough energy to ask--

"That, with the kids," she answered before he could, "Ianto, that was eight months ago."