Into the Silence

against the floor as they ran for bandages and medication that was needed immediately rather than regularly. There was nothing of quiet in this place where people raged against the dying of the light.

Leaning against the wall of Drew's room in the ICU, Gwen folded her arms and thought that the sounds in Intensive Care were the worst in the hospital. The quiet was filled with tension. No patients screamed or wailed here; their bodies were either too sedated or too damaged and had no energy for anything but the silent internal struggle to hold on to life.

Visitors sat quietly, occasionally releasing stifled sobs into tissues pressed close to their mouths, for fear that if they let their emotions cry out the invisible death that drifted behind the nurses in the corridors would hear them and start to focus on their loved ones. Machines beeped, just like the one attached to Drew, and time was marked out by the too-regulated huff and puff of ventilators. The living mocked the dead with their stillness, and under the soft quiet of those that were conscious and the beeps and hums of machines was the awful crackle of tension. The noises where the difference between life and death was as fragile as a gossamer strand were the worst of the building. They tore strips from the soul.

Gwen let out a long sigh. At least they'd secured Drew a private room. The infirmary was overcrowded and, according to the nurse, tonight was a busy night for those intent on dying. Behind one of the curtained cubicles, a 34-year-old man was heaving up the bottle of paracetamol he'd swallowed an hour or so earlier before changing his mind about just how bad his life was. He seemed to think he would be OK but, coming back from the coffee machine, Gwen had seen the looks on the doctors' and nurses' faces. They were placing their bets on kidney failure setting in by morning. She'd seen that look before. God, it was all so depressing.

The coffee sat cooling on the small table beside her. She'd taken one sip and that was enough. It tasted like crap. But then she supposed coffee wasn't high on anyone's priorities in this part of the ward. The machine attached to Drew released another soft beep as his ventilator continued to steadily pump air down past his damaged throat and into his lungs and then pause to let it out again.

She wondered if he was dreaming in his sedated sleep and whether he was stuck in a nightmare of watching the alien that attacked him ripping apart his boyfriend. He wouldn't be having it for long at least. As soon as he was recovered enough, they'd Retcon him. Still. Serial killer. Alien. Either way it wasn't going to make much difference to his grief.

The door clicked open, and Ianto stepped inside. He looked tired, and a dark shadow of bruise oozed out from under the taped gauze covering the stitches running across his temple.

'I thought you'd gone home.' Gwen squeezed his arm. 'You might have concussion.'

'Well, if I do then I'm in the right place.' He looked at the coffee. 'That going spare?'

'Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it.'

Ianto leaned against the wall beside her and for a moment neither spoke, lost in their own quiet worlds.

'I saw the doctor.' Ianto's voice was barely more than a whisper, its deep tones just reaching Gwen's ears. 'They're going to move him to a recovery ward tomorrow.'

Her heart thumping with relief, Gwen grinned. 'That's brilliant news. Bloody brilliant.' She was as relieved for her quiet colleague as she was for the man in the hospital bed. She knew there was nothing more he could have done against the alien, but Ianto would be having a harder job convincing himself, the same way she would if their roles had been reversed. If Drew had died, he would have seen it as his fault for messing up his job.

Ianto's eyes slipped to the man on the bed, his jaw set firmly. 'He'll never sing again, though.' He paused. 'He'll be lucky if he can talk.'

'But he'll be alive.' Gwen shivered at the cool monotone of Ianto's delivery.

'Singing was his life.'

She shook her head. 'No it wasn't. It was just part of it. A big part maybe, but not all.' Her mind wandered down the corridor to the man who, just hours before, had thought he was desperate to die and was now chucking his guts up for all he was worth in the vain hope he'd make it to the weekend and this would just be a story he could tell to his mates in the pub for a bit of a laugh. 'He'll be happy he's alive mainly.'

'Maybe. At first.' He frowned. 'Where's Jack?'

'Said he had some stuff to do.'

'What, back at the Hub?'

Gwen shook her head. She'd seen the grim set on Jack's face as the ambulance pulled away. 'I doubt it. He had that look.' Glancing up to Ianto, she watched him nod. He knew what she meant.

'We won't see him for a few hours then.'

'No.'

He sniffed. 'What were you planning to do? Go home?'

'If I went home this early, Rhys would go into shock. He's probably just opening a beer in front of the football.' The machine pinged again and she wondered what the point of it was. Maybe its purpose was just to momentarily relieve the oppressive hush of the ward and allow the occupants to breathe.

'So, what's the plan? Stay here all night?'

She shook her head. 'I thought I might take a look at the data from just before the attack. For a few seconds it seemed like there was Rift activity all over the city, then it suddenly spiked at the church. I'm going to see if there's any way to refine the program. Maybe we can get it to show us where the alien's going to appear with enough time for us to get there.' She gritted her teeth and, although she was staring at Drew, her mind had rewound to the moment they'd burst into the church. 'We were only round the corner, but if you hadn't distracted it we'd never have saved this poor sod.'

Ianto smiled at her. 'Refining the program, eh? Tosh would be proud. We'll make a geek of you yet.'

'I'm more likely to break the bloody monitor than get it working better. Still, I've got to try something.'

'You want a hand?'

Gwen smiled. 'Definitely. That way the blame gets split when we wreck the computer.'

TWENTY

The bar was dimly lit with various pink and blue neon strips running along the bench seating and under the chrome edge of the marble top that Jack was leaning his elbows on. The sleeves on his blue shirt were rolled up, and for once it felt like his braces were digging into his shoulders. Or maybe it was just psychosomatic. It sure felt like something was causing that tense ache that sat tight in his muscles and he'd rather think it was the braces than the alien.

Picking up his bottle of water he took a long swallow, avoiding looking in the mirror that lined the back wall. It was only partly hidden by bottles of spirits in the kinds of colours you just know are going to disagree with your insides, and his own face was one he could do without looking at right now.

'Have you got ten sets of that clobber or something?'

The stool next to him grated roughly on the floor as it was tugged out, and Jack looked up and smiled.

'Something like that.'

Cutler wore jeans and a V-neck sweater, the casual clothes suiting his scruffy hair and stubble. Sitting down, he nodded at the barman. 'JD and coke. Double.' He looked over at Jack who tilted his bottle. 'And another of whatever that piss-water is.'

'I thought you'd stood me up.'

Cutler snorted out a laugh and passed a ten pound note over to the barman. 'Yeah, right. Where else am I likely to be? Everywhere I go there's a phone ringing for me.' He picked up his drink and swallowed nearly half of it. 'Not too different for you either, I should imagine.'

'Ain't that the truth.'

They sat in silence for a moment, Cutler staring into the black liquid glowing slightly in the reflected light. 'We had a lucky escape today. If that poor bastard had died…'

'Yeah, I know.'

And Jack did know. It was easy for the brass above Cutler to start screaming at the DI about results, but it wasn't them out chasing the unknown and everything else that the Rift spat out in their faces. The world was angry and needed people to blame, and it was human nature always to look to others rather