Series: Taken
Part: Three - Taken Life
Word Count: 2589
Characters: The staff of Torchwood Three, The Doctor, Donna Noble.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
RatingG: PG
Genre: Angst!!! and drama. With slight AU.
Warning: Spoilers up the Adrift and slight character death!
Dsiclaimer: Alas the Torchwood character's are not mine, they belong to other more fabulous people. Which makes me sad.

Un-beta'ed, sorry. Any and all mistakes are my own, and i apologize for them.

Authors Ramble: Third part, and for those of you hoping for all the answers right away can hit me later. Seriously, i think by the time the last part of this fic rolls around i'll have been beaten to death by the J/I hockey stick of doom because i'm such a tease lol. But oh what a way to go! Anywho, i'm just finishing up the last part (it's up to 8) now so the updates should start coming out quicker. As long as my real life doesn't get in the way, 'cause then i'll have no control over how quickly i can get them out because life unfortunately comes first :(

Also, i do have my occasional dyslexic moments so if you see any words that are wrong or other typos feel free to poke me with a 'hey stupid' to let me know ^_^

Summary: Jack was sure that the Rift was out to muck up his life completely.



- I just need to know whatever has happened -
The truth will free my soul

Jack was sitting in his office staring off into space, his mind wandering. The weight of his thoughts evident on his face, his eyes dark with troubled memories. Memories of weeks before, of finding Ianto again. The night seemed to echo continuously in his minds eye. Tosh's voice ringing out....



"Jack? Jack? Are you there? What's happening!?"

"Ianto?" Jack's voice desperate as he wanted to shake the battered man awake, if only to see his sky blue eyes again. But the young man was unmoving, unresponsive.

"Jack, if you can hear me. We're on our way!" He heard Tosh say, her voice muffled by the phone.



"Jack!" Gwen's voice snapped the older man out of his reverie, her head popping in his office doorway. "We're going to pick up some lunch, want something?"

"Oh, uh, yeah sure."

"What?"

"Just get me whatever." He said flippantly as he turned his attention to the paper work on his desk, pretending like he was actually doing it until he heard the cog door roll close and he was sure he was once again alone.
Getting up from where he sat, Jack wandered out of his office and into the main area of the hub. The computer at Tosh's work station was happily humming away, running some sort of program or diagnostic that he was sure he would hear about but never be able to understand. He stood by her desk for a moment, staring at her swirling blue screen saver. He once again allowed his mind to wander back to that night.
Memories of bright torch lighs cutting through the darkness of the night, the sound of three pairs of feet running like all hell up behind him. And Gwen's whispered 'oh god' as his three teammates came upon the scene.



"Jack, let me near." Owen ordered, trying to get near Ianto. "Jack! Jack, get up! Let me near!" Owen's voice was near a beg, when he placed a hand on Jack's shoulder and attempted to pull him backward.
The pressure on his shoulder caused Jack to move a little, as two sets of small yet firm hands grabbed his arms and pulled him up. Which in turn left Owen with enough room to fall to his knees next to Ianto, as Jack stood behind him sandwiched between the two women.

"Ianto? Ianto?" Owen tried to jar him, leaning forward close to his face placing a ear near Ianto's lips listening for breath as the doctor's bandaged hand felt for a pulse in one of the welshman's wrists.
"Thready by there." He muttered to himself, placing both of his hands on either side of Ianto's face.
"Hey Ianto, come on mate open your eyes. Just for a minute, come on now." Owen said loudly, close to Ianto's face. Really what Owen was doing was basic, rudimentary even. But since he had no equipment with him other than his travel medical case, it was the best he could do.

"Tosh." Owen snapped, which caused the petite woman to kneel next to him in an instant. She opened the black med kit she had been holding. Owen grabbed the stethoscope out of it, quickly placing the buds in his ears and listening to Ianto's heart.
"His hearts going a mile a minute. He could go into cardiac arrest." Owen's voice held a bit of panic to it as he grabbed a syringe out of the kit, holding it between his teeth as he leaned over Ianto again.
It was then that Jack felt Gwen's hand slip into his own, squeezing slightly. A reassurance, however weak it might have been. But a reassurance none the less.

"I need to check his pupils." Owen said around the syringe in his mouth as he pulled the buds out of his ears, leaving the instrument hanging around his neck.
"Ianto? Open your eyes. Come on teaboy, i need to check your eyes." Owen's voice was firm as he took the needle out of his mouth, pulling the top off of it and placing it on the ground next to him ready to use. Grabbing a penlight out of his back pocket, he leaned over Ianto again pointing the small light in his face. As he slowly pried on of his eye lids open, Ianto began to scream.



Jack jumped at the sound of the cog door opening, breaking him from his stupor. His three staff members walking in, chatting away happily as they carried take away packages. The stopped when they saw the look on Jack's face, like he was surprised that he was standing in the hub.

"Jack, you okay?" Gwen asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, i'm fine." He said with a nod, grabbing his coat from where he had tossed it onto the couch that sat against the wall behind Tosh's desk.

"Do you want your..." Tosh began to ask, holding up Jack's container of food as he brushed past her.

"No, i'll have it later." He called, already on his way out the door.

"Where's he going?" Tosh questioned softly, which cause Owen to snort in annoyance at the question.

"Where do you think?"

As Jack got into the SUV outside, he fought back the onslaught of images and sounds that plagued his mind. The same moments of that cold October night replaying like bits of film over and over again.



"We've got to get him to a hospital. Take him to the A&E." Gwen suggested from the divers seat of the large SUV, as she drove them all back from the pier.

"What the hell would the hospital do with him? They'd have no clue." Owen snapped from the backseat where he was monitoring the now heavily sedated Ianto who was wrapped in Jack's large coat.

"Yeah, well neither do we!" Gwen snapped back, taking a hard turn which caused everyone in the car to lurch to the right slightly.

"Well wherever we're going, let's get there in one piece!" Owen said loudly, as he helped Jack adjust the unconscious man who was practically laid across the two of them.

"But did you see what..." Tosh's soft voice cut through the momentary silence that had fallen over the car. "I mean, there's nothing at the hub that can fix that." She said with a shake of her head from where she sat in the passenger seat next to Gwen, the somber quiet that followed her words only proved that the rest of them were thinking the same thing.

"He needs the Doctor." Jack said suddenly.

"And what am i? A peanut butter sandwich?" Owen questioned rudely.

"I said, the Doctor. Not, a doctor." Jack said, looking at Owen. "Tosh, get Martha Jones on the phone, tell her to get him here." Tosh was dialing Martha's number as Jack finished. "Tell her we have Ianto."



Jack was honestly surprised that he hadn't managed to crash the car as he drove to the fishing docks, considering his mind was on anything but the road. By the time he got onto the usual boat he used to get to Flat Holm, the afternoon sun was high in the sky shining brightly over the deep blue water. He stood against the side railing of the small fishing boat, watching the way the water splashed up against the side of the vessel. It was almost hypnotic in it's movement, which helped the weary captain once again lapse into moments from weeks past.



The four members of Torchwood were walking into the hub when they all stopped dead at the sight of a large blue box sitting in the middle of the main level. Jack, who was carrying Ianto rather easily just brushed past the other three dumbfounded people and into the medical bay.

"How'd he get here so bloody fast?" Owen asked.

"Time machine!" Came a loud cheery voice as the door of the box opened and out walked the odd man in the pin striped suit from the funeral.

"Wait a minute, you're the Doctor?" Tosh questioned, obviously expecting someone else.

"Yes why? Oh yes!" The Doctor grinned brightly. "Doctor Sato! Why i haven't seen you since the space pig incident. Downing street eh? Who would have guessed." He gave a little shrug, as Owen snickered from next to Tosh when she was called 'Doctor Sato' which made her elbow him sharply.


"Doctor!" Jack's voice rang out in the hub, which caused the Doctor to look toward the medical bay.

"Oh right! The young man, brilliant." He said as he made his way to where Jack was. The team watched as a red headed woman came out of the box as well.

"Well it's about time he got out of the doorway." She smiled.

"Oh right! Donna, Torchwood. Torchwood, Donna." The Doctor said in a careless manner as he entered the medical bay. Donna just rolled her eyes in an exasperated way.

"Well i'm sure you all have names beside 'Torchwood'." She said.


The Doctor and Jack could hear the group making idle and most likely awkward small talk up in the hub, as the two men stood over the unmoving Ianto who had been laid out on the examination table.

"Blank?" The Doctor questioned, to which Jack just nodded. "Alright, dim the lights and lets have a look." The thin man said, causing Jack to press a few buttons on his wrist cuff making the lights grow dim.
"Hmm, handy little thing that." The Doctor commented idly, before leaning over Ianto and prying open his eyes lids. Jack just stood to the side watching as the other man pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and ran it over Ianto's face. After a minute he allowed the younger man's eyes to close again but continued to run his screwdriver up and around the crown of Ianto's head.

"Hmmmm." The Doctor hummed, looking up at Jack from his bent position over the welshman. "Okay you can put the lights back up." Jack did, looking at him expectantly.

"Well?"

"Come on Jack, i think we need to have a chat." And with that the Doctor turned and left the medical bay.


The two walked back into the main hub to catch Donna listening to Owen's chest with a stethoscope. "Blimey, you really are dead! That's mad!" Donna exclaimed as the other three chuckled.

"Yeah, it takes a bit of getting use too." Owen said trailing off, catching sight of the other two men.

"Jack?" Gwen questioned when she saw them.

No longer able to keep the up the pretense that they weren't worried out of their minds, the three Torchwood members looked to Jack with guarded hope in their eyes.

"Donna." The Doctor piped up. "Why don't you give them a quick tour of the TARDIS. You'll like it." He assured the worried staff. "It's bigger on the inside!" He smiled at them. Jack gave a slight nod, signaling that they should do as the other man said. So somewhat reluctantly the three people filed into the small box, followed by Donna.

"Oi!" The Doctor called out to his companion, pointing at her. "No taking her anywhere." He told the red head firmly.

"Yeah, yeah." She waved off his warning, closing the door as she entered the ship.



"That'll be 20 quid mate." The ships captain said, shocking Jack back to reality. The boat had docked at the island, and the man was now waiting to be paid.

"Right." Jack muttered, digging into his pants pocket and pulling out the proper amount of money.

"Do you want me to stay?" He asked Jack.

"No, it's alright." Jack told the man as he made his way off the boat and onto the rough terrain of the island.



"Are you sure?" The Doctor asked, standing in Jack's office with his hands in his pockets. "Because i could stay. You know, for a couple days."

"No, it's fine." Jack said, his voice melancholy.

"Jack. I'm sorry, i'm so sorry. But there's nothing i can do. What happened to him, i'm not really familiar with. And that's saying something." The Doctor quipped, which caused Jack to look at him tersely. The Doctor softened a bit, sitting down in the chair that sat on the other side of Jack's desk across from him.

"Jack listen, i would love to help. I really would. But i can't think of even where to begin to look. I've never seen a human so cleanly wiped before, whoever did this. You don't want to run into them. I'm sorry, but the man you love is gone." Jack's jaw tightened at that, he felt the familiar sting of tears building behind his eyes.
"That thing you have in the medical bay, is just a body. A shell, empty. Everything that made Ianto Jones who he was, is gone. What you have is a blank human, with limited motor skills and your most basic of pain respirators. Whoever did this, hollowed him out." Jack looked off to the side, fighting to control his emotions as the Doctor pressed on unwavering.
"Ianto Jones is dead. You buried him, i was there. You said your goodbyes, and you laid him to rest. None of that has changed, no matter what happens to be laying in your medical bay."



"Back again?" The head nurse's voice cut through Jack's thoughts like a knife as he entered the facility.

"Yeah." He said softly.

"He's in his room." The woman said, giving Jack a sad smile before going about her rounds.

In all the years that Jack had been to Flat Holm since he had the secret facility made, he always had to steel himself against the noises he would hear as he walked the halls. Screams, cries for help, and some of the more horrific sounds he had ever heard yet couldn't name. But none of them, none of the anguished cries of desperation coming from the rooms as he walked passed managed to send a chill down his spine like the silence that came from the last room did. Ianto's room.
Ianto never spoke, he couldn't. You had to be aware, to be alive to speak. And Ianto was neither. Like the Doctor had explained to him weeks before, it was just a body. Empty, hollow, blank.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Jack made his way into Ianto's room.
It was dimly light and quiet, horribly quiet.
"Hello love." Jack said softly, entering the room.

Ianto sat, as he had every other time Jack had visited. On a small wooden chair in the middle of the room, his back to the door.

"How are we today?" He asked, knowing he'd get no response. Jack moved so that he was in front of the other man, he kneeled down so that he was eye level with him.
"We miss you around the hub. Owen's bitching that he hasn't had a decent cup of coffee in ages." Jack said with a smile before it dissolved as an onslaught of emotions hit him.

"God." He sob softly, closing his eyes against the pain he felt. "Ianto, i promise." He swore, looking back into Ianto's eyes. Those pale, white, blank eyes. The bright blue eyes that once held so much emotion and depth, were now as white as the light that had taken Ianto in the first place.
"I promise, i'll find you." Jack said through his tears as he reached up and ran his hand along Ianto's cheek.
"I'm going to get you back, i swear."




Comments are love. Love it? Hate it? Want to beat me over the head with the J/I hockey stick of doom? Let me know ^_^

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8