Title: Superficial wounds

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length:1,164 words

Content notes: None

Author notes: Written for Challenge 382 - Healing

Summary: Jack’s problems are bigger than just a few cuts and scrapes..

Jack's attention turned away from the unconscious Esther Drummond now sprawled over the top of her subtly feminine duvet. He'd done the tricky part of getting rid of his only witness and now had time to consider other more pressing issues.

He rolled up his damaged shirt sleeve and bent his arm inwards so that he could inspect the damage. It was stinging and sore. Unable to get a good look at it, he offered it to the only other person ostensibly in the room. ‘I hurt my arm,’ he said, not for the first time this evening.

‘I can see that,’ Ianto said. ‘Jumping out of the third storey windows of an exploding building is bound to have that effect. It's a wonder neither of you were killed,’ he said, making reference to their blonde counterpart. At least she was real, Jack thought. Ianto standing there looking just as calm and placid as always simply couldn't be. He was dead. Had been for over a year. It was only Jack's screwed up mind that was creating this very convincing hallucination.

‘That was over an hour ago,’ Jack replied, pointing out what was plainly obvious to both of them. He'd had far worse than this and within no time at all, Jack's body would naturally heal itself as if it had never been there at all. All in all, this was such a minor abrasion that ten minutes should have been more than enough for the injury to patch itself over, leaving unblemished skin in its place, just as perfect as it had been before.

‘Looks like it must sting,’ Ianto mused, avoiding having to discuss it for a few moments longer.

‘It does,’ Jack admitted. Most injuries hurt, but it had all become relative over the years. Something like this shouldn't have bothered him at all. He scarcely noticed things like this normally. Now though it was hurting like crazy.

‘You should clean it and bandage it,’ Ianto advised.

‘With what?’

Ianto's eyes rolled at him and he supposed he deserved that. ‘We're in a young woman's apartment. I'm certain she has not only fresh, running water, but a small arsenal of basic medical supplies.’ He pointed towards the ensuite behind Jack's shoulder. ‘I honestly wonder sometimes how you survived without me.’

Jack set the warm water running from the basin tap and awkwardly angled his forearm under it, hissing loudly as it stung even more, leaving a rose coloured liquid to swirl counter clockwise down the drain. Just watching the water spin in the complete opposite way to how he was accustomed to seeing it move temporarily made him forget everything else.

‘At least there doesn't appear to be any glass or debris in the wound,’ Ianto said, peering over it. ‘You were lucky. A few sticking plasters and you'll be fine.’

‘Some very big sticking plasters,’ Jack said, emphasising that it was no small injury.

‘Or maybe just a small bandage then. Try the cupboard under the sink. Bet you ten quid there first aid kit in there.’

Ianto was, of course, right, just as he always was. A compact first aid kit was tucked in bedside loofah scrub and vitamin E cream. Unzipping it revealed a small roll of sterile bandage that Jack could use to strap the grazed and cut portion of his arm. He fumbled with the end of it, struggling to get it to stay in place long enough to wrap over the end, giving it the necessary tension. ‘A little hand here?’ he asked, slightly surprised that Ianto wasn’t fussing over him like he usually did. He’d grown accustomed to that level of attention, but the young man was distant and aloof – a quality that Jack usually exhibited.

‘Incorporeal, remember? You’ll have to do this one all on your own. Put some antiseptic cream on it first before you do.’

‘Right.’ Jack’s flush of embarrassment and having the obvious pointed out to him was quickly supplanted by the sharp pain in the gut that made him clench involuntarily at the reminder his lover was dead. Jack repositioned his arm to try and get better leverage on the end of the bandage whilst Ianto slowly wandered over to the bedroom window, staring silently out of it whilst Jack tended to his wound. Jack fiddled with the laborious process he was unused to, whilst keeping a watch on Ianto from the corner of his eye. Esther Drummond, lying on the bed between them, became invisible.

Just as Jack had managed to get the end of the bandage caught under the next layer, able to pull it taught as he began to wrap it around, he heard his former lover sigh.

‘Shit,’ he muttered, still staring out at the night-time streetscape below, the expletive catching Jack by surprise.

Jack looked up. ‘What?’

‘A man on death row survives the lethal injection. Hospitals start reporting people with fatal injuries being spared from death, and you have a laceration that won’t heal.’

Ah, so now they were going to have the conversation. ‘I know,’ Jack said. He’d only been back on Earth a few hours and it was already looking incredibly grim, not least of all for him in a personal sense. He finished tying off the bandage and clipping the ends before rolling his sleeve back down over it so that he wouldn't have to look at it.

‘You waited over a century to find your Doctor and understand what had happened to you and how he might fix it, only to realise you didn’t want to be fixed.’

‘I wouldn't say it was that simple,’ Jack countered. There was the small matter of the Doctor not being able to fix him that made any choice in the matter a moot point. ‘But yeah,’ he said, still not moving from the bathroom doorway.

Ianto’s hands slipped into his pockets as he likewise continued to avoid eye contact, studying the view outside. ‘What does it feel like now?’ Ianto evaded the statement that was on both their minds – that Jack was somehow now mortal, whilst everyone else on the planet appeared to now be immortal, if not quite in the same way as Jack had been.

Quite honestly, it frightened him. He hadn’t had to fear death for so long that just the idea of it being possible made his blood run cold. More to the point, he understood the power of the TARDIS and what it was capable of, but this? The lives and mortality of seven billion people altered in a heartbeat. Who? How? And most worryingly, why? What was there to be gained from making the whole world immortal?

‘How I feel isn’t important,’ Jack said, shaking any lingering self pity from his system and moving towards the window. ‘Someone wanted me here for a reason. I got their message loud and clear. It’s going to take a lot more than a few cuts and scratches to stop me.’