( click here for SERENDIPITY chapter 6! )

‘Oh for fucks sake, Ianto!’ Owen moaned, as he heaved the Welshman towards the cells. ‘You weigh a ton!’

‘Jack likes it’, Ianto muttered, deliriously. ‘Said he never did go much for string beans…that’s why he’s never shagged you.’

Great.

Owen slowed down in his movements. ‘This isn’t what it looks like, you know. We just need to-‘

‘I know,’ Ianto said, breathing hard. ‘I’m not safe. Even I know that. Just get me in a cell.’

Owen pulled him into the nearest empty cell, ignoring the growls of the weevils nearby.

‘Save me, Owen’.

Owen froze. ‘What?’

The Welshman was looking at him helplessly.

‘I’m dead, Owen,’ Ianto spoke, voice low and tinged with fright. ‘I’m not me anymore. There’s something in me that’s turning me inside out, and its killing me. I don’t want to feel like this.’

Owen stared, cautiously as Ianto continued. ‘Something inside me wants to hate you all.’

Suddenly, Ianto’s face contorted, twisting with pain. Just as Owen was about to open the glass door, Ianto began banging on it.

‘Let me OUT!’, he yelled, shaking his head in frenzy. Owen moved back in shock. ‘Jack needs to pay for this, all of this. I’ll do it with my own bare hands-‘

Owen banged on the cell glass. ‘Ianto, stop it!’

‘I need to, I NEED TO-‘

‘IANTO!’ Owen yelled. ‘This isn’t…this isn’t you. You and Jack…’

‘Jack needs to pay with his blood’, Ianto spat. ‘He’s damaged me…’

Then, again, Ianto’s face contorted, and Owen moved back. Ianto began sobbing.

‘Help me, Owen,’ he wept, sliding down against the wall. ‘…Kill me.’

Kill me.

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John kept his face blank. ‘What device?’

Jack faced him, his own face dark as murder. ‘He…he acts like…he knows you. Yan’s acting scared and dangerous, all at the same time…’

Jack laughed. ‘I haven’t seen anyone like that that you haven’t made feel’.

John looked at him. ‘Caught me’.

‘Let him go NOW’.

‘Can’t’

Jack pulled out his gun, as John shook his head in mirth.

‘A gun!’, John laughed. ‘Another bikini cops thing, is it? Dashing men in suits, black coats and gigantic guns…’

‘We’re Torchwood’.

‘Bikini cops sounds better. And if you liked suits so much, you could’ve just told me’, Jon continued. His voice became more grave. ‘I can’t let him go’.

Jacks face twisted in fury. ‘Why not?’

John paced around the Captain. ‘He’s tied to the machine. I can’t do anything.’ The look Jack was giving would’ve killed him in an instant. ‘Come on! It was just a bit of fun’.

‘You gave this …thing to Ianto?’

‘Yup’.

‘This was never a funny joke.’

‘We never did have the same humour.’

‘And for that, thank God.’, Jack turned to walk out of the tourist office door. ‘And I never want to see you again.’

‘Breaking the device won’t kill me, Jack’, John said softly. Jack whipped around, his arm point at John.

‘I’m giving you a chance!’ Jack bellowed. ‘One chance…again. Final chance. I never, ever want to see you again…never.’

John watched Jack walk out, into the Plass, before smiling brilliantly.

‘You were never much good at 21^st century Language’, he said to himself. ‘And you never did understand. Gray really is back.’

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Tosh watched as Owen came up from the cells, looking more disturbed than she had ever seen him.

‘He thinks…’ Owen began, as Gwen turned to attention. ‘He thinks he’s someone else, half the time. Either that or he’s had a drastic personality change; because I don’t believe that’s Ianto.’

‘What do you mean?’ Gwen asked, quickly.

‘He was acting so weird-different. You should’ve seen, there’s no explaining it.’

‘I’ll bring up CCTV’, Tosh said, quietly, typing away. Owen stopped her.

‘Don’t’, he said, quickly. ‘I don’t want to see that again’.

‘What did you mean; Ianto’s not acting like himself?’ Gwen asked. Owen looked thoughtful for a second.

‘He keeps saying…he keeps saying something’s changing him. I just know it’s not him…he says what ever made him this way, it had something to do with Jack.’

He paused. ‘He wants to kill him. He’s remembering things that haven’t happened…he said that’s what’s making him hate us all.’

Tosh gasped inwardly, facing the computer, unable to face her colleagues.

‘Then what do we do?’ she said, softly, as she stared at the coffee machine, behind her computer. ‘There’s not much we can do’.

That’s when Tosh’s comm. Bleeped, and Tosh looked at Owen.

There was only one thing they knew that got rid of memories, good or bad.

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‘Tosh, I want you to do a surveillance of any alien technology in Ianto’s flat, the Hub, his parents home- I’m sending you the address-, and any other place Ianto might have gone in the past few weeks.’

‘Hang on, Jack…I’m getting readings from his flat.’

‘Exact location?’

‘Sending to you now, it’ll be a minute’.

BLEEP.

Ten minutes later, Jack was in Ianto’s flat, in Ianto’s suit pocket.

He held the tiny, flashing device in his palm, willing it break to pieces in his glare.

‘Got it, Toshiko. Thank you.’

‘What is it, Jack?’

‘I’ll explain more when I get back. It needs to be destroyed first.’

And I need to get Ianto back.

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Tosh pulled out his comm, watching Gwen as she walked away, before turning her head in Owen’s direction.

He was studiously ignoring her.

‘What are we going to do, Owen?’ Tosh asked, calmly.

We can’t do it.

Owen was still ignoring her, looking thoughtful.

‘Owen’. Her voice rang out, this time, loud and crystal, desperate for an answer. Owen , for the first time, considered how close Ianto and Tosh might have been.

‘I don’t see an alternative, Tosh, I really don’t’.

Tosh looked at him. ‘Don’t do it.’

‘Tosh, please, just fuck off-‘

‘I can’t’, Tosh breathed, walking to him. ‘Are you REALLY going to retcon him? You think Jack’s going to ever let you? What do you think its going to do to Ianto?’

‘I’m not sure its even going to work…didn’t Ianto once say he was resistant?’

‘You and me both know he won’t be able to fight higher dosages’, Tosh argued. ‘And it’s still very wrong’.

‘Then you be the fucking doctor, Tosh!’ he yelled at her, making the Japanese woman jump. ‘You’d make a better doctor than me any day. I can’t…there’s nothing else I can think of.’

He made to walk away before he paused. ‘You and I know he’s deteriorating, how long do you think he’s going to be able to fight whatever it is? Do you want to die?’

Tosh stayed silent, and she heard Owen’s voice wobble.

‘I’m sorry. It’s all I know to do. I’m going to tell Jack when he gets here, and you better back me up when he’s here, ‘cause Gwen’s going to have my shit with her morality crap’.

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Save me, Jack, do something. Come and get me. I’m dying….I’M DYING.

I hate myself.

I hate YOU.

I need you dead.

Why won’t you die?

Both you and I deserve to die…

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TBC

What do you think? I know this chapter was a little shorter than the rest, and I actually intended to add more, but it didn’t seem to work with what im planning next. Please keep reading guys, I know this fic is getting a little…scary! (As I’ve been told).

And please comment- it means a lot and keeps me writing! Thanks for reading!