Title: Love leaves its scars
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,761 words
Content notes: Spoilers for BigFinish audioplay “Outbreak”
Author notes: Written for Challenge 399 - Amnesty & Challenge 152 - Shot
Summary: Getting wounded in the line of duty isn’t always the worst thing in the world.



‘Gwen, you start making sure every last person at the castle gates starts getting vaccinated if they haven't already,’ Jack ordered, taking command of the room. It was such a relief to have Jack back to normal and leading the team in navigating the tail end of the city’s crisis. Things without Jack just hadn’t been the same, and it was nice to know they no longer had to worry about him trying to tear the flesh from his own bones, or to try and kill the people he loved most. There were bad viruses, and then there was what Jack had caught. Good Thinking didn't even begin to describe it. It was just generally bad all around.

‘On it,’ Gwen said, giving Rhys a quick peck on the cheek before disappearing from Doctor Larson’s lab.
‘Rhys,’ Jack said, turning his attention to Gwen’s other half, ‘get that shoulder patched up.’ Jack spared only the briefest glance for Ianto. ‘I've got some unfinished business with Frances Godalming to attend to.’ Without further explanation, he too disappeared.

Ianto looked around at the four of them left in the lab. ‘Well, I guess that leaves me here with you, Doctor Larson. And Andy. And one lucky to be alive Rhys.’

‘Too bloody right, mate,’ Rhys agreed. ‘Getting shot by the missus does not count as one of my better days.’

‘Would you like a piece of my birthday cake?’ Andy asked, still in his slightly altered state as he continued to work his way through stage one symptoms. ‘I know you missed most of the party but there should at least be some cake left.’

‘Maybe you want to give Andy one of those shots of Provictus now,’ Ianto suggested, turning to Doctor Larson as he said it. ‘You know, before he decides he loves us more than cake.’

Doctor Larson nodded. ‘Right. And then, Rhys, is it? Let's take a look at that shoulder.’

Ianto divested his suit jacket, reminded of his own wound and inspecting the hole it had left in his jacket. First his tie, now his jacket. Jack was going to owe him a serious shopping trip after this.

‘Eh? You got shot?’ Rhys asked, hissing as Doctor Larson began flushing out his wound. He let out a few choice swear words as Doctor Larson did her best to apologise for her less than sharp practitioner skills.

‘Yeah,’ Ianto absently replied, poking gingerly at the cut in his upper arm where the bullet had luckily only grazed him, taking away fifteen layers of skin. Good fortune more than good planning that he wasn’t in more trouble, having to dig a bullet out of his arm, or having already bled to death. ‘Speaking of being shot by the missus…’

‘What? Gwen shot you too?’

‘No, that'd be Jack.’ He gave Rhys a mirthless smile. ‘Turns out he really does love me.’

Doctor Larson's head spun back toward him. ‘Jack shot you?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, unashamedly stripping off his shirt to get proper access to the wound. Yet another piece of clothing destined for the bin. ‘We're kind of a thing,’ he admitted.

‘Aye, bloody marvellous, isn't it?’ Rhys replied with no small amount of sarcasm. ‘That's Torchwood life for you. Ow!’ he cried as the alcohol stung.

‘Sorry,’ Doctor Larson apologised again.

‘Got any more of those irrigation kits going begging?’ Ianto asked, keen to get his own first aid moving along. It was a mess right now, between the semi dried blood and the bits of fabric in the wound.

She paused just long enough to come over and inspect Ianto's gunshot wound. ‘Doesn't look too bad, actually’ she said. ‘Once it's clean, I can help you bandage it.’ She reached into a cupboard and pulled out a few extra sticks of saline solution, snapping the top off one and handing it to him.

‘Thanks,’ Ianto said. ‘And you might want to test me for the virus while you're at it.’ He waited a beat for her to catch up.

‘But you don't look infected. You seem perfectly rational to me. If you were infected wouldn't you want to kill Jack?’

He had to grin at her assessment. ‘No more than I do on any other day of the week. It's funny, see. I met this guy Luke. He was one of the original test subjects, although perhaps you already know that. He said that if you focused on something else really hard you could push past the paranoid delusions and the desire to kill.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, still sounding sceptical about his theory. ‘All I've seen is people on the streets trying to tear one another apart.’

‘Well, I don't have my gun on me,’ he replied, grimacing as he squeezed the tube of fluid into the wound, making it sting, ‘but there's a lot of sharp objects here and I haven't gone for any of those. That's something, right?’ No sense mentioning that he'd earlier shot Jack in the leg, particularly since it was largely in self defence, even if a tiny little piece of him might’ve enjoyed it. Only for a millisecond, of course.

‘Now hang on,’ Rhys interrupted, clutching a wad of gauze to his own shoulder wound. ‘If you were able to fight off the virus then how come Gwen wasn't?’

‘She only shot you in the shoulder, didn't she? And she got you to the castle.’ At least none of them had progressed to stage four like Jack. For all his invincible immortality, he hadn’t fought the effects of the virus at all, eventually going all the way through to it having killed him.

‘Yeah, spose,’ Rhys conceded, not entirely convinced by Ianto’s assessment, even if they both knew Gwen was capable of being a killing machine when it was necessary. ‘Not the same though, is it?’

Doctor Larson dried Ianto’s freshly irrigated wound and began wrapping a bandage around it. ‘Well, I think Jack should count himself very lucky he's got you.’

‘Yes, he should, shouldn't he?’

‘Jack came to my party,’ Andy interrupted. ‘ Should we leave him some cake too?’

Ianto gave Doctor Larson the eye and she immediately nodded. ‘One shot of Provictus coming right up. Er, sorry, make that two.’

‘Three,’ Ianto replied, nodding his head in Rhys’ direction. He looked around the room and his eyes fell upon an empty gurney. ‘Mind if I park myself here for a bit?’ he asked, making himself comfortable on it. ‘Been a few days since I last had any sleep.’ Gwen was off herding the entirety of Cardiff towards a cure and Jack was doing whatever it was Jack did. Right now, he was tired and feeling surplus to requirements.

Doctor Larson grabbed a syringe. ‘Let me just…’

‘Ow!’ Andy cried out as she stuck him with the needle. ‘That’s not nice! You’re meant to pin the tail on the donkey, not the birthday boy!’

Ianto smirked until Doctor Larson came for him, undoing her earlier fine work with a poorly placed injection that hurt like hell. He donned his shirt and jacket again before curling over on the gurney. ‘Wake me if it looks like the world is still ending.’

It felt like he’d only just closed his eyes when there was a hand on his shoulder shaking him back awake. ‘Wakey, wakey, Mr Jones,’ Jack said, standing over him with his trademark smile. ‘I mean, I could leave you here to sleep off the next three days in a creepy old castle, or I can take you home.’

‘Home sounds like an excellent plan,’ Ianto agreed.

‘That’s what Gwen and Rhys said too. They’re waiting for us. Traffic is still hell out there so it’s a bit of a walk back to the hub, but a whole lot safer.’

Gwen and Rhys met them at the castle gates, Gwen looking just as ever, Rhys now with a sling for his shoulder. True to Jack’s word, people were still flooding in the castle gates, queuing in their thousands to get their vaccines, but few were heading the other way. No one was going to get in their way on the journey back towards the bay.

Ianto felt better now that things were starting to get back to normal – or at least as normal as Cardiff ever got – and an hour’s nap added in to boot. There was the not so small matter that he’d confirmed with Doctor Larson that he had in fact been infected with the virus, but so far he’d managed to resist killing Jack, so it was probably going to be okay.

He’d also had a shot of the Provictus vaccine, which, whilst not perfect, was at least now a dormant strain. The only things Provictus considered to be “bad thinking” were whatever Jack had programmed it to consider bad. He only hoped that Jack’s ideas of good and bad didn’t now translate to it being okay to parade around the streets naked and having sex with anyone and everyone, but that submitting paperwork on time was now the most heinous crime of all, potentially sending the preparer into a murderous rage. Jack was liberal, but there were lines even he didn’t cross, and not all of them made sense.

‘I still can’t believe you bloody shot me,’ Rhys could be heard complaining just in front of them as they began the slow walk back down Lloyd George Avenue towards the hub, some several miles away.

Gwen wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer to her. ‘Oh, stop your moaning, you silly sod,’ she chastised. ‘When are you going to realise that it just proves how much I must love you?’

Rhys narrowed his eyes at her. ‘And you’re sure you didn't shoot anyone else?’

‘Not unless you count a few innocent bricks in a wall.’

Rhys hummed as he looped his arm in hers. ‘Aye, well, I suppose I can forgive you for that. Just next time how about showing me how much you love me with a box of Quality Street and a night in front of the telly, eh? Shooting people as a declaration of love I can do without. It’s bloody mental, it is.’

Beside him, Ianto felt Jack's hand brush his and then before he knew it, the two were intertwined as they strolled behind Gwen and Rhys. Ianto took it as the silent apology from Jack for his own actions, but unlike Rhys, he couldn’t agree that maybe there weren’t some things worth nearly getting shot for.