buttononthetop | Fic: The Sea After a Storm (73/?)

Title: The Sea After a Storm, Chapter 73

Rating: R

Warnings: Violence, minor character death, some swearing

Spoilers: Season Two thru Reset (2x06)

Pairings: Jack/Ianto

Disclaimer: Torchwood, Doctor Who and all their wonderfulness belong to the Mighty Beeb and He Who Must Not Be Named. All ©'s to J.C. Wilsher for situations and dialogue borrowed from Reset. No infringement, only worship intended!

Summary: In which Jack, Owen and Ianto question the Pharm's assassin...

Notes: Thanks again to everyone who's reading and commenting! You can find all the previous chapters of The Sea After a Storm here. This is a sequel to Vizzini’s Rule and To The Pain. Thanks again and forever to my amazing beta and wonderful friend thraceadams for all the help and support and beta work; any mistakes are mine!

The Sea After a Storm: Chapter Seventy-Three
Previously on The Sea After a Storm: Martha successfully hacked the Pharm's computers but her escape was foiled, leaving her trapped in the complex. Luckily, Gwen and Ianto may have found a way to rescue her...

Jack and Owen were waiting in the garage when Ianto pulled in with a screech of protesting tyres. He motioned to the boot as he braked hard, stopping only seconds before they were at the back and pulling out Billy Davis' stunned body.

"Meet us in the vaults and grab some weevil spray on your way down," Jack ordered curtly.

"That sounds ominous," Ianto muttered to himself as he got out of the SUV.

Gwen had gone with Jack and Owen, pestering them with questions about the cryofreeze as they dragged Billy Davis' into the Hub, leaving Ianto to deal with Elin Morgan. He used one of the rolling tables from the side of the garage and moved her to the conveyor for transport to the medbay. He made sure Elin was still deeply sedated, secured her arms and legs with the soft belts on the conveyor and then activated it. He hurried back up to the hub, giving Tosh a nod as he headed for the medbay. The beaming smile she gave him surprised him, but he knew Jack was waiting for him so he didn't pause to discover what had turned around her bad mood. He retrieved Elin from the conveyor and got her situated in the medbay for the cryo-freeze prep and then ran back up to the Hub and then down to the vaults, remembering the weevil spray at the last moment.

"What can I do?" he asked Jack, slightly out of breath, ignoring Owen and Gwen who were having a heated conversation in low tones by the stairwell.

Billy Davis was tied to a chair near the end of the vaults, a tray of medical supplies set rather threateningly close to him. Jack was standing over him, his arms crossed, holding a length of thick chain. When he saw Ianto, Jack let his frown relax slightly, reaching out to touch his arm.

"I'm sorry to ask this, Ianto, but I need you to be Kennel Master."

Ianto glanced at the chain in Jack's hand and then at the weevil spray in his own. He groaned. "Really, sir?"

"Hopefully he'll just talk, but we're pressed for time here so if he's even a little reluctant, I thought..."

"Yeah, okay," Ianto said, swallowing hard. "I'll be sure it gets extra rations for a few days as an apology."

Jack gave him a tight smile. "Good man."

"Fine! I'll just do it myself then!" Gwen shouted and stalked up the stairs.

"What the hell have I been saying for the last five minutes?" Owen yelled after her. "Jesus bloody Christ, do I have to do everything around here?" he muttered as he walked over to Jack and Ianto. "Ready to wake him up?" he asked, reaching for the medical tray and not mentioning the conversation with Gwen.

Ianto held out his hand wordlessly for the chain.

Jack handed it over and said, "When you hear me say anything about 'the hard way'."

Ianto nodded and headed for the cell at the end of the row. He opened it up and the weevil inside shuffled to the back of the cell, away from Ianto. This was their normal routine at feeding time and Ianto felt sick about having to abuse the system. He held up the chain and showed it to the weevil.

"Just for a minute," he promised, holding up the weevil spray and then making a show of putting it his pocket. "No spray if you cooperate. I just need you to scare the shit out of someone, you like that, don't you?"

The weevil growled softly at him, but it was actually a fairly mellow sound for a weevil. Ianto showed it the spray again and then put it away, reaching out carefully to fasten the chain around its neck. The weevil snarled, but seemed to understand the basic idea of what was going on and just stood there. They waited near the door as Jack and Owen started interrogating Billy Davis, who was moaning about his stomach hurting, of all things.

Sooner than he expected, Ianto heard Jack say, "Okay, let's do it the hard way."

Right on cue, Ianto kicked open the door and the weevil leapt out of the cell, snarling and biting and being generally terrifying. It got in Ianto's face, but then saw Billy Davis at the end of the hallway and lunged for him.

"Merciful Christ!" screamed Davis. "What the...?" He screamed again as the weevil roared.

"They have a tendency to act up," Jack said calmly.

The weevil went for Davis again, pulling with all its strength against the chain.

"Losing him!" Ianto called.

"Please!" Davis screamed.

"Something to say, Billy?" Jack asked politely.

Davis looked terrified. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you want, just get it away from me! Get if off me!"

With a grunt of satisfaction, Ianto reeled in the weevil, using the weevil spray as a reminder to behave, but spraying it off to the side, not directly at its face. Once again, the weevil seemed to understand what was going on and cowered as if Ianto had given it a full blast right in the face. He locked it back in its cell and would have sworn it grinned at him through the little window as he closed the door.

Jack loomed over Davis, his hands on his hips. "Okay, Billy, you've been on a killing spree. Why?"

"I work for the Pharm!" All Billy's hesitations over spilling his guts had vanished. "They'd been giving people this Reset drug but there were these side effects – parasites or something. They were gonna die anyway, so I had to get rid of them before any weird symptoms showed up... in public."

"So you executed people who were ill? People who were sick?"

"They weren't any more, were they? The Reset stuff worked except..."

"Except for those pesky side effects," Owen said coldly.

Davis closed his mouth and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"Okay, Billy, we're going into the Pharm and you're going to front it for us," Jack said.

Davis nodded as he squirmed. "Yeah, yeah," he agreed, panting with pain. "Okay. My stomach! My stomach!" he cried out again, coughing up blood.

"Whoa!"

Owen's response echoed Ianto's thoughts perfectly.

Jack lunged forward, trying to stabilize Billy's head. "Owen, we need him alive!" he shouted.

"Yeah, all right, I'm flying blind here, Jack," Owen shouted back, rifling through the instruments on his cart, trying to find something to help.

"Do something!" Jack yelled.

Owen held up the Singularity Scalpel. "Let's start with this. I think I've got it, okay? I've got the calibrations right. I can get it out of him."

Ianto crossed his arms at the other end of the hallway, staying well out of Owen's range while wondering what 'it' Owen was talking about. A second later he stopped wondering as the scalpel blew a hole in Billy Davis' torso and a huge mayfly landed on the stone floor of the vaults.

"Owen, deal with it," Jack ordered, nodding to the mayfly as he checked on Billy Davis, who was clearly dead. "Are you sure you had those calibrations right?" he groused.

"I'm sorry, all right?" Owen grabbed a bucket and some tongs, catching the mayfly easily and containing it. "He must have breathed in larva when one of his victims died. This could have been me or Martha," he marvelled.

"You're going to wish it'd been you if anything happens to her," Jack threatened. "He was our only way in!"

"Look, that thing was killing him just as dead as the Scalpel," Owen said, defending himself.

"He might've lasted long enough to get us to Martha!" Jack yelled.

"Bullshit, Jack! That thing was eating from the inside out, you saw him, he had minutes left, not hours!"

Ianto quietly walked back up the stairs, leaving Jack and Owen to their screaming match. The first thing he did was check on Gwen who had successfully administered the cryo-freeze compounds to Elin Morgan and was currently transferring her to the dumbwaiter that would lower her body to the morgue level. When Ianto offered to help, he was brusquely rebuffed, Gwen still smarting from her argument with Owen.

Everyone is completely on edge, Ianto thought to himself as he poured himself a much needed cup of coffee after washing the weevil spray off his hands. Gwen headed down to the morgue as Jack and Owen came up from the cells, still shouting at each other as they passed through the Hub and into Jack's office.

Tosh raised an eyebrow at Ianto.

"Didn't go well, I take it?"

"Davis had ingested a larval mayfly at some point," Ianto explained, stepping over to her workstation. "Whether it was the mayfly itself or Owen's use of that Singularity Scalpel thing he's been obsessed with lately, it's hard to say, but the end result was on par with the dinner scene in Alien."

Tosh shuddered delicately. "So nothing useful from him at all?"

"Well, he did admit to working for the Pharm as an assassin. He'd just agreed to get us into the compound when... kablooey." He made a face.

"Lovely." Her tone was sarcastic, but her smile was genuine, the first Ianto had seen since Martha had arrived.

"What's up?" he asked softly. "You seem better, happier."

"I am." Tosh's smile stretched into a grin. "I took your advice."

It was Ianto's turn to grin. "Which advice? I give so much..."

She chuckled. "About trying again with Owen. I asked him out on a date, straight up, no confusion or trying to be subtle and he said yes!"

"Tosh, that's great!" Ianto gave her a one armed hug, careful not to spill coffee on her. "You really should have known that subtle would never work on Owen," he teased.

She laughed again.

Ianto drank the last of his coffee and mentioned getting a refill. "Can I get you anything," he asked.

Tosh shook her head, turning back to her computer as he walked away. He poured a fresh cup of coffee and pondered dealing with Billy Davis' dead body. The sooner the better, I guess. He headed back down to the vaults and then realised he was going to need some form of transport to get Davis to the incinerator at the back of the morgue. When he came back upstairs, Tosh called to him.

"Ianto, what have you done with Billy Davis' body?"

"Um, I was just about to dispose of it. Why?"

"I've thought of a way we can use him to get us into the Pharm," Tosh said, pulling up the image of a movie poster on her monitor. "Clever, huh?"

Ianto stared at the image for a long moment, before he understood what she was suggesting. "Ohhh, you are warped on the inside," he said, revulsion warring with admiration in his voice. "How do you think of these things?" He hurried off to find Jack, leaving Tosh grinning at the Weekend at Bernie's poster on her screen.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Tosh said happily.

TBC...

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