silkendreammaid

Title: Silence
Author: silkendreammaid

Disclaimer: I do not and never will own Torchwood or the characters within.
Rating: PG13 Warning: Language
Characters: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness

Note: Written for the 2011 Advent Challenge. Prompt #12 taken from the 2010 prompt list.

Author’s Note: Sixth in the series that started in Cold …

And I was channel hopping as I was writing this and found Torchwood on ABC2 … Everything Changes and right where Gwen picks up the pizza… and how come I never noticed Owen’s earring before when he’s using the alien spray…

Summary: December is starting off unseasonably cold. Torchwood has one dead alien and another one missing. There’s also the sudden disappearance of Cardiff’s rats.

In this chapter Ianto dreams, Owen worries and Jack could be in trouble

Silence

There is no sound. No light. There is only cold.

Ianto wonders if he is alive.

“Where’s Ianto?” Owen demanded as he stomped out of his autopsy bay.

Tosh looked up, eyes slightly unfocused. “Archives I think,” she replied. “Jack went down there just before they left.”

“Which was an hour ago. Ianto should have been up to make coffee by now.” Owen went to his desk and picked up his com unit. “Hey tea-boy! Where’s my coffee?”

Only silence answered him. Owen frowned. “There’s no answer. I’m going to find him.”

There is ice in his veins and coating his skin. His eyes are sealed shut. He doesn’t think he is breathing.

Even his heart is not beating.

“Tosh?” Jack’s voice was tinny through the com. “Tosh, tell Owen we’ve found some of his missing rats.”

“Will do, Jack. Sensors indicate the temperature has risen another degree over the last hour but Cardiff’s has decreased by half a degree over the same time.”

“It sounds like whatever it is, it’s sucking the heat out of the air,” Jack commented. “We’ve found a dozen dead rats over the last hundred meters and they were all heading towards it. We’ll bring a couple back for Owen.”

“I’m sure he’ll like that,” Tosh replied.

“What’s he doing at the moment?” Jack asked.

“He went down to see Ianto. He didn’t answer his com.”

“Okay. Get Owen to contact me when he returns. . I’ll call you again when we get to the source.”

Tosh heard the call disconnect and turned her attention back to her screens when Owen’s urgent shout had her head whipping around. Her eyes went wide as she saw Owen appear carrying an unconscious Ianto.

It is dark. It has been dark for so very long. He has lain sleeping in the dark cold. He thinks he might be dreaming.

Do the dead dream he wonders.

Owen bustled around Ianto as he lay on the autopsy table. Warm blankets cocooned his slender frame and Owen had turned the heating up. Ianto looked as if he was just sleeping but his body temperature was low and his breathing was very slow. He wasn’t responding any stimuli and yet Owen was certain that Ianto wasn’t in a coma.

He scanned him again and frowned at the inconclusive results.

Something changes. The merest whisper of heat, of ice cracking.

In the moment before his heart – no, not his heart – whose heart? – starts beating, Ianto understands.

‘How is he?” Tosh asked hesitantly from the top of the stairs, looking down into the autopsy bay. Ianto lay so very still on the table and it was hard to see the slow rise and fall of his blanketed form.

“I don’t know, Tosh,” Owen replied and slumped on his stool. “He appears to be asleep except it’s the deepest sleep I’ve ever seen. Nothing seems to rouse him.”

“Jack’s just radioed in. He asked after Ianto. I said he was sleeping. Jack didn’t seem surprised,” Tosh reported with a slightly puzzled air.

“If you’d said he was unconscious you would’ve gotten a different reaction, I bet,” Owen remarked. “But it’s probably best not to have told him.”

“That’s… I didn’t get a chance to tell him that bit. The coms died. I lost contact with him.”

Continued in Lights