Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 1,107 words

Content notes: None

Author notes: Written for Challenge 386 - Wrong number

Summary: Ianto is suffering from unknown medical maladies.


Ianto prepared to grumble loudly as Jack walked into the infirmary, replacing Owen who had left simultaneously, only giving him sixty seconds of peace in between feeling sorry for himself.

‘How're you doing?’ Jack asked, pulling up a chair beside the bed and settling into it. Ianto knew he was in for the long haul because he'd bought a book. Not that he hadn't read the well wrong paperback a hundred times judging by the state of it, but once more appeared to be in order. Just so long as he didn't plan on reading it out loud to his patient. There was only so much bad science fiction a man could take, though it never seemed to be enough for Jack.

‘Ready to get out of here,’ Ianto said, tugging the oxygen mask from his face. He might not be able to argue with Owen, but he could be very persuasive with Jack, and Jack didn't like to deny him. ‘Actually, for the record, I never wanted to be here in the first place.’

‘So be more careful in the archives.’

‘I was. And you didn’t answer my question.’

Jack's smirk told him everything he needed to know about his chances of escaping Torchwood's medical facilities. ‘Not for a while yet. You're under observation since we still don't know what the hell that artefact was supposed to do, let alone what it did to you.’

‘I doubt it did anything,’ he said, still trying to argue his position on the matter. Just once he'd like to be able to mind his own business down in the archives and just get on with the job without having something down there go rogue on him.

Jack gave him one of his trademark Captain looks. ‘How are those pins and needles in your arms and legs?’

‘Point taken,’ he said, feeling slightly embarrassed. Going to Owen to have it checked out had probably been overkill, and had landed him where he was now.

‘Well, Tosh is going to check it out anyway. Carefully,’ Jack added. ‘I don’t need two team members out of action.’

‘And me?’ Ianto asked, raising an eyebrow at Jack that deuced him to say Ianto was here for more than the next ten minutes before being given the all clear to return to work. He drew in a deep breath as he waited for Jack to reply.

‘We're just being extra cautious.’

‘If we were… extra cautious, none of us would ever… step foot in the hub. Or out of it.’

‘Your readings are all over the place; blood pressure, oxygen saturation, pulse rate, temperature, white cell count… Just looking at the numbers on the monitor makes me go cross-eyed. You might feel fine, but these all tell a very different story, and none of them stay the same for long without swinging widely from one extreme to the other. Owen called you a walking, talking ball of who knows.’

‘I'm sure there was at least… one expletive in there you left out.’

‘Probably,’ Jack conceded. ‘Honestly, he's worried that at any given moment you could go into cardiac arrest. That's why he wants to keep an eye on you. If Owen’s worried, then we all are.’

‘Well, he… certainly didn't tell me… that.’ That he was at risk of having his heart stop on him, or that he cared enough to worry.

‘I'm sure it was only to keep your blood pressure down.’

‘It's not working. And I'm fine. Honestly. I feel… perfectly fine.’

Jack’s head tilted to one side as it studied him. ‘That's why you're very clearly short of breath.’

‘I'm just worked up. You know… how much I hate hospitals.’

Jack took the oxygen mask and set it gently back on Ianto's face. ‘So stop getting worked up. We're keeping an eye on you. Nothing bad is going to happen.’

‘If it wasn't… you wouldn't be watching me like a hawk.’

‘Shhh. Just lie there and relax.’ Jack made a show of easing back in his own chair, crossing one leg over the other as he set his book on his lap, preparing to open it.

Ianto turned over onto his side, coming to face Jack. ‘I don't like lying on my back,’ he sulked. ‘Makes me feel like a corpse.’

‘That's fine. Just so long as you keep the mask on and don't upset any of the cables, you can lie however you like.’

He huffed at the indignity of having things stuck to his fingers and chest and the back of his hand and anywhere else Owen thought he could stick something. There was an IV drip that was totally unnecessary but he'd drawn the line at Owen suggesting a catheter so he didn't have to move from the bed. All of the cables made annoying beeps on the monitor he thankfully couldn't see. Watching his pulse rate and breathing was likely only to get it going higher. It was bad enough having the machine beep at anything other than a steady rhythm, sometimes erupting into outraged alarms before settling itself back down. None of it was helping him relax one bit.

He focused instead on the tip of the mask in front of his face that fogged up on each exhale, trying to make a slow and steady rhythm of it. Admittedly it was helping. His head felt clearer and less tired now that the mask was back on. If his blood pressure went the opposite way he'd probably pass out the moment he stood up. It wasn't fair that alien devices liked to pick on him. He never saw Gwen strapped to a hospital gurney, and Tosh only occasionally. Jack never stayed sick, injured or dead long enough to end up bedridden, and Owen self-administered treatment.

‘It'll probably all blow over in twenty four hours,’ Jack assured him. ‘Just a temporary scrambling of everything.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Try and get some sleep if you can,’ Jack suggested.

‘I don't feel tired.’

‘Well, perhaps I can read this aloud then, so you’ve got something else to keep your mind off of things.’

Ianto took one look at the worn cover and frowned. Volume 3 of the Altasien Adventures of Bick Briockelhurst, English language translation - according to Jack, one of only five copies ever published by the Star Books Publishing Consortium. ‘Actually, I think maybe I am a little tired, on second thoughts.’ Volume three was even worse than volumes one through seven, and probably why it rated as Jack’s favourite.

Jack gave a cheeky smile and peeled the book open to the halfway mark. ‘I thought as much.’