Into the Silence

The drops outside grew heavier, smashing silently into the reinforced glass, and her alter ego's mouth trembled for a moment before blending with her chin. Maybe this was the way Ryan saw her: an ugly monster to be avoided. In some ways she wished that were true. At least if he saw her as a beast, it would indicate that she had some presence in his life, other than just as an irritant like all the other people he was forced to have some kind of interaction with. Adrienne knew better than that, though. In a small, dead part of her heart, she knew that she was nothing to Ryan. Not even a concept. She was as intangible as the transparent reflection that tried in vain to stay solid in the window.

Behind her, Ryan had slipped directly from 'Walking In The Air' into 'Where Is Love?' from the musical Oliver! Even with Ceri trying to cajole a drink of water into his mouth, each note held its purity, fluidly shifting from one to the next. As always when her boy sang, the haunting emotional quality he created with his voice made it almost impossible for anyone seeing him for the first time to really believe he could be so disconnected from people. No one could sing like that without some huge reservoir of emotion bursting through their skin, surely?

In the early days, which were only a few years ago, but seemed and felt like a lifetime to Adrienne, some of his singing would make her cry all night. Even after he'd moved in permanently to the Havannah Court centre, she would go home to the wreck of her marriage and curl up on her side of the bed and wait for the snoring to start so she could let the less beautiful sound of her own pain out to be poured wetly into her pillow. His voice would haunt her more than the deadness of his intelligent expression and for a long while she was convinced that it was an indication of his trapped feelings. He did love and need her; he just didn't know how to express it. She didn't care what the doctors said. She was his mother. She knew. She wanted more tests. More evaluations. They'd all got it wrong.

It was only when Michael had dragged her into Ryan's room, the little boy oblivious to the rage of his parents as they screamed at each other, and forced her to listen to him — to really listen to him — and then to listen again to that damned CD, that the truth hit home. She finally saw it. Or heard it. Whichever. Her heart broke for the final time that day, all her hopes and dreams of one day reaching her blond angel, shattered in the music. Michael and the doctors had been right all along. All the beautiful power in Ryan's voice was just the original singer's emotion made better. It was as if her tiny, talented, lost child was a mechanical computer. He absorbed the sound and reproduced it, but as it should be. The perfect version. He had enhanced the song, but not with his own emotions, whatever they were.

Michael had been right, but she couldn't forgive him for it. That day was the last time she had spoken to him. Perhaps it wasn't only Ryan that could be so remote. And the advantage of being one of Cardiff's best barristers meant that the divorce was swift and clean-cut. Their marriage was executed as painlessly as possible.

'Bloody awful weather, isn't it?' Ceri's soft voice broke Adrienne's reverie and she turned round. The nurse was trying to slip a baby's drinking bottle of fruit juice into Ryan's mouth. 'I was hoping we'd get one of those Indian summers.' Ceri looked up, her round face cheerful, despite having to catch the mouthfuls of juice that dribbled down the little boy's chin. 'You know, the kind that the people on the weather are always telling us to expect but never arrive.'

Adrienne gave her a tired smile. 'I know the kind.'

Ryan sat unmoving on the bed, his blue eyes staring into some void that only he understood, his mouth still producing the music in spite of the bottle being gently pushed into the corner of his mouth. Adrienne didn't know how his voice hadn't totally given out or been damaged by now. But then Ryan was the only child in the unit who would sleep for twelve-hour stretches every night, regular as clockwork. Maybe twelve hours on and twelve hours off was what his body needed. Adrienne often thought that those twelve hours where Ryan was completely lost in the darkness of his own mind must be his favourite times. If he was capable of such things as favourites. The workings of little Ryan Scott's mind and heart were truly an enigma.

'Didn't you have a holiday this year?' Adrienne asked, pretending to ignore the juice that slipped down her son's tiny Welsh rugby shirt. She never came at meal times. She just didn't have the stomach for it — one more indication of her uselessness to a boy like Ryan.

'No.' Ceri caught the liquid stream before it made its way to the carpet. 'My mum's waiting for a hip operation so I've been looking after her when I can. Didn't want to leave her.' She gave Adrienne a warm, open, beaming smile. 'I can always dream of booking myself some winter sun, but I expect I'll just wait for next year to roll around and grab myself two weeks in Magaluf, the same as everyone else.'

Leaning against the window sill, Adrienne allowed her own expression to soften for a minute. They were chatting as if it were perfectly normal for a little boy to be singing over their conversation while ignoring the toys that remained in the same place every day because he really had no use for them.

'You're looking after your mother as well?' Adrienne let out a sigh. 'I don't know how you do it, Ceri.'

'It's not so much. I just do her shopping and that kind of thing.' The nurse looked up and Adrienne hated seeing the care and concern there. Her natural defences growled and sprang into position, forcing her to straighten her back a little and set her face in a frown as if she were in the middle of a particularly tricky cross- examination.

Ceri watched her for a moment, and Adrienne had an idea that she was used to breaking through barriers far tougher than Adrienne could provide.

'What you do is harder.' Ceri paused and looked sadly at Ryan. 'He's so far locked inside himself nothing will ever touch him I don't think, no matter what we try.'

'I just wish he'd bloody shut up.' The thought escaping before she had time to tame it, Adrienne was shocked by the harsh bitterness of her own voice.

Ceri nodded a little. 'I can understand that. It's so beautiful.' She wiped away more juice and sat her solid body back on her heels. 'But it's only automatic. I doubt he even hears it, that's what Doctor Chipra says. He says he sings to protect his silence. To keep the sounds of the world away from him.' Ceri ran a hand over the boy's blond hair with a gentle affection that made Adrienne envious.

'Poor little mite.'

Adrienne watched them for a moment longer and wished she could find something other than hollow sadness in her heart.

EIGHT

Having spent the whole day so far inside the Hub trying to make some sense of the Rift data, Ianto wouldn't have known if it was raining, snowing or the middle of a heatwave up on Cardiff's pavements if it hadn't been for the dampness of Gwen's hair. He was beginning to feel like a Weevil stuck underground all the time. Carrying the coffees, he went to join Jack and Gwen in the Boardroom. Maybe not a Weevil. At least they got to go out and wreak some havoc at night time. He was more like a mole. Yes, analysing all the data was important, but it seemed that the only time he had been allowed out on the surface recently was to pick up the pizza.

'OK, let's see what we've got.' Standing at the end of the table, Jack spread the images of the bodies across its surface.

Ianto took his usual seat and, seeing that Gwen had done the same, immediately wished he'd broken the habit. The empty chairs between them throbbed, and Ianto was sure that however much the three of them talked, the lost voices that should fill them would still be heard the loudest in their absence. Sipping his coffee, and letting it burn his throat, he focused on Jack.

'Three people dead in the space of just over twelve hours.' As Jack spoke, a map of the Cardiff area came up on the screen behind him. Three red dots stood out. 'As you can see, none of them were that close to each other, but there were spikes of Rift activity just before each death, so we know we're most likely dealing with something alien.'

Ianto looked at the photographs on the table for a moment. 'Who was the third victim?'

'Karen Peters.' Gwen pulled her wet hair back into an untidy ponytail. 'She died at eleven o'clock this morning at the Cooper Drake Insurance office where she worked.'

'At work? So we've got some reliable witnesses then?'

Gwen shook her head, and Jack cut in. 'Like the other two, Miss Peters was an amateur singer. She was in