The Day the Dragons Came (3/4)
Title: The Day the Dragons Came (by Mica Davies, Age 7) (Part 3 of 4)
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Reign of Fire
Characters: Team, Rhys, Martha, Mickey, Rhiannon, kids
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Mickey/Martha
Rating: R
Warnings: character death, child endangerment, graphic descriptions of burn wounds
Spoilers: goes AU after "Something Borrowed," TW: COE (characters only), DW: The Stolen Earth, SJA: Death of the Doctor
Word Count: 20,000 (4,800 this part)
Disclaimer: Characters from Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC. "Reign of Fire" belongs to Spyglass, Touchstone, and Buena Vista. No infraction of their copyright is intended or should be inferred.
Summary: Two years ago, dragons destroyed the world while Torchwood stood by helplessly. It's time to fight back.
Beta: wynkat1313, fide_et_spe, and eldarwannabe did the heavy lifting for the beta on this. amilyn did a fantastic medpick. The remaining errors are all mine.
Author's Notes: Written for reel_torchwood. No familiarity with the film is necessary. (It's a B-movie with dragons. They eat people.)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
***
Chapter Three
***
When the dragons make you fire, you die. Uncle Ianto keeps the names of peeple who die because we need to remmber.
***
Jack took down the dragon chasing him, then looked wildly for the others. He saw the great bulk lying dead, watched as the other shot flames and then took flight into the air and away. Okay, they'd killed two and chased away a third. Not bad for a day's … He saw the burning form, saw Mickey yanking off his jacket to beat out the flames, and something in Jack crumpled as he ran, as if through molasses, to where Mickey was putting out the fire as fast as he could. Everything around them was smoke, and Jack's eyes stung.
"No. Nonononono … "
"He's still breathing," Mickey said. "If it didn't get into his lungs he has a chance. Come on." Mickey was cool and collected, as if he saw burn victims every day, as if this wasn't his world ending.
***
Owen let Gwen sort out the people as they emerged from hiding. He made his way back to Medical, checking the damage. The tremors had knocked over some of his things, nothing broken. He heard the lift going, and steeled himself for another round of welcoming the heroes. Then he got a good look at Jack and the ruined mess in his arms, and if Owen's heart was still beating, he thought it might have broken just a bit at the sight.
***
Martha came out of Medical after a couple of hours and made her way to the kitchen. "It's too soon to tell," she said to the worried looks, though her words were mainly for Jack and Rhi. "Owen's going to keep monitoring. He'll let us know."
Jack tried to read into her words. Hope? Gentle reassurance despite the overwhelming odds? He got nothing, but instead poked at the hollow place inside of himself like a rotten tooth, sore and out of sorts. Because of the attack, and the fears of another one, there was no school today for the children. Instead, they wandered in and out of rooms, tagging along behind one another like flocks of grey geese. Just yesterday, David had been coaxing smiles out of Steven, and now Steven was dragging Mica and her brother through the Hub to cheer them from their fears. Jack watched them, brain moving at a snail's pace.
"Steven told me about Alice," he said to Martha as she sipped tiredly at her instant coffee. A shiver passed through her. Mickey looked more serious, but unashamed at being caught out. "You knew who he was. Why did you lie to me?"
"We needed your help."
"You'd have had it."
"Of course we would have. We'd stroll in, 'Sorry, we got your daughter killed, fancy lending us a hand?' and you'd have said 'Sure!'" Her eyes were exhausted. "This was easier. And I know how you think, Jack. You're a menace to yourself and everyone else when you're acting out of grief. Give you someone to protect, to fight for, and that's when you shine." She might still have been playing him, but she was right.
Mickey said, "Some of our people wanted us to use him, hold him at our base and make you help or else."
Jack could picture it too easily. He'd have done the same, had he thought it was necessary for the survival of his people. Martha said, "We brought him to you, safe and alive. I won't have prisoners."
No. She wouldn't. "How'd you find him?"
They shared a glance. Mickey said, "Alice found us. She had about six, seven people with her and Steven, looking for other survivors. She was with us for over a year."
Jack inhaled sharply. "How did she die?"
Martha said, "She was in the team that went against the nest. We had the arrows. We had the plan. We lost."
"How long ago?"
"Three months." In another world, Martha's face would have been drawn in sorrow for him, but she had watched the world end twice, and she wasn't the same woman she'd once been. She'd lost much of the use of her leg, and she'd lost her family, and she'd had to cope with the apocalypse all over again, and she didn't have time to spare mourning any of it. Jack himself had grieved for Alice a long time ago, and knowing at last put the cap on the pain. She lived only in his memories now, and he could love her as long as he could remember her.
"We need to end this," he said. "We need to go, and stop them once and for all."
Mickey said, "We'll need a way to get there. The trucks are burned."
Rhys said, "I checked the SUV. It's charred but running." When the rest looked at him, he said, "What? It needed doin'. And you'll need a driver. I'm goin'."
"You're not leaving me," said Gwen. "I'm going, too."
"I don't want you both on the same mission. And Gwen, you're off active duty as it is."
Rhys said, "She's a better shot than you are. We all took turns practisin' with the bows. You need her. And I'm not stayin' here without her."
"We'll need more trucks," Mickey said. "If we've got a team, we should be able to take the nest, but we have to get there."
Martha said, "We passed cars that didn't burn. We'll find something."
There was a noise, and only when Jack turned to look did he see Owen, and realised it had been the doctor trying to clear his throat. "It's visiting hours, if you want to come down."
Rhiannon was on her feet in an instant. "How is he?"
"He's not dead. Speaking as someone who can't even say that, it's a start."
***
Ianto ought to be dead, just like the others Owen had seen who'd suffered this massive of a burn, but somehow he clung to life, miserable and in pain. Jack could transfer his energy to others when he tried. Maybe some had been transferring along with everything else the pair shared. If life was a disease, Jack could be Typhoid Mary, and Ianto had caught more than his share of whatever Jack was spreading.
"He needs more morphine," Jack said, his eyes locked on Ianto.
"There isn't any more," said Owen. "I gave him the last of what we had." They'd used up the fentanyl months ago. And painkillers were less important than his other concerns. Owen had the dermal regenerator, but it wasn't designed for full-body use. He'd have to go slowly and recharge it every twenty minutes, and in the meantime, the lack of antiseptic conditions and antibiotics would end up killing Ianto as it had the last poor bastards they'd brought back in this condition. Owen couldn't tell Jack that now, or he'd insist on staying until the end.
"Then we'll forage at the hospital again. There's got to be something."
Rhiannon said quietly, "Jack, you have a prior engagement. Leave the foraging to us."
Jack took a shuddering breath. He leaned down and whispered something Owen couldn't hear. Probably some endearment, better if it was a quiet goodbye. Owen made a motion to Ianto's sister to give them a moment, but her eyes stayed glued and she didn't move. Well, it wasn't as though she didn't know, and with the last of the drugs pumping through Ianto's system, he wouldn't care.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," Jack said, and he ran up the stairs and away. If Ianto noticed, he didn't react, and Owen guessed that was for the best.
Martha came down again, and she checked over the few notes Owen had made. The little slump of her shoulders was all the sign she gave. Instead of speaking, she took Owen into a quick hug, full of sharp bones. She pulled back with an almost-smile. "See you," she said, without hope.
"Fuck," Owen said quietly when she was gone.
***
The newly-commandeered trucks -- filled with the last of the petrol they could scavenge, barely fitted with protection, but running -- rolled unevenly over the broken roads. The smells and sights were different out in the country, less filled with ash and more with dung. Although the flocks of sheep and cattle that once grazed here were scattered, the dragons had moved into their spaces, leaving piles of droppings like the floor of a huge birdcage. Myfanwy was out here somewhere, just another flying lizard in a world returned to them.
Beside him, Gwen shivered in the cold air. He should have argued with her more. She was his best shot, but she should have been safe back at the Hub instead of exposed out here on the road, part of their slow-moving convoy and sitting ducks for a hungry dragon.
When the dark shape broke through the clouds right in front of them, it was more of a relief in tension than anything else. The last truck slammed into reverse, peeling out behind them. Their driver hit the accelerator, but nothing happened; the SUV stalled out beneath them.
"Out!" Jack shouted. "Now!"
Gwen and Rhys didn't wait for more. The driver tried restarting the engine. Jack took one look at the dragon and then bailed from the SUV just as a spurt of flame engulfed them. He felt the scorch go down his side, and then Gwen and Rhys were grabbing him, dragging him away from the burning vehicle.
The lead truck had already circled around again, and Mickey had his crossbow out as Martha drove evenly. Jack pushed away the pain to watch as he took aim.
The truck hit a pothole in the road, and they thumped. "Watch out!" Gwen screamed as the dragon blew a stream of flame. Martha cranked the wheel hard, turning them away. They couldn't outrun the flame, but they could dodge. Jack heard screams from the fleeing truck, scrambled madly back towards his own car. His hands were charring and cooking, blistering in pain, but he grabbed two of the arrows from the fire, and gasping, threw them to Gwen and Rhys.
Gwen cursed and swore as she loaded the arrow. The dragon ignored them, still chasing Martha's truck. Jack breathed hard, his senses singing in pain, and he thought he may have to die to heal through this one. Then Rhys pulled off his coat and ran at the dragon, swinging and shouting at it as he waved wildly.
Gwen didn't have time to scream at him. As Jack watched, the dragon swooped around, and Rhys led it back to them. Gwen fired as the beast drew back, and Rhys ploughed into her, knocking her roughly to the ground. The dragon's head blew, casting brains and worse everywhere. Jack smiled grimly, his lungs full of smoke and his arms agonising, and then he died.
***
Waking hurt, as bones and flesh kept knitting, but he could feel life thrumming in his veins again. He sat up and tried to get his bearings as his head cleared. Road. Dragon. Gwen. Martha. As his memories slotted into place, he remembered Ianto, badly burned back at the Hub, and he shoved those thoughts away before he was lost in them. He got to unsteady feet and staggered over to the ruined, burning SUV he'd come in, the other two trucks parked safely out of range.
Martha was bent over Mickey in the back of their truck. "Martha?" Jack asked, still dazed.
"Not now," she said, but kindly. As he neared them, he saw the burns over Mickey's face, saw also the rise and fall of his chest, and the few burns elsewhere.
"What happened?" he asked, stupid from his death.
"I'll be fine," Mickey said in a voice that meant anything but.
"We'll have better supplies when we get back," Martha said. Jack saw the bandages, as she began wrapping them delicately over his eyes. "I can't have you injuring yourself further." The worry and pain were tightly-held. Jack came the rest of the way over, and he took Mickey's hand as Martha finished her work. She turned to Jack. "He'll need to go back to Cardiff. Owen has equipment that might be able to help."
Mickey said, "We don't have vehicles to spare, not if we're going to all get there. I can ride in the back. Fix me up later."
"You can't fight," Martha said. "And don't you dare give me some line about suddenly being able to hear well enough to aim." Her words teased bitterly, but the reality hit him: Mickey was their expert marksman. Jack and Gwen could use the crossbows, but Jack had been relying on Mickey being there to keep the other dragons at bay.
Jack said, "We need to go. As long as we're sitting still, we're a target. And forward is better than backward."
Even as he spoke, Rhys and Gwen loaded into the remaining truck, crowding in closely with the soldiers. Jack caught Gwen's eye and nodded his thanks at the dragon kill. She smiled back her welcome.
Martha let out a hard sigh. But she'd never signed on to lead a pack of surviving humans in a futile battle against flying lizards, either. "All right. Get in."
Jack sat in the back with Mickey and two people he didn't know, and the trucks rolled out again.
***
The Hub shuddered. Then it shuddered again. Rhiannon knew where the sensors gave their data, had watched Ianto read them enough. The ones that hadn't been destroyed in the last attack were clear. She watched closely. There was only a single dragon this time, lashing the street and outside entrances with its huge tail, burning what it could reach.
After a while, the shudders stopped and the signals went away. She didn't think it had given up. She just hoped it hadn't gone to find friends.
***
The nest, as it turned out, was high upon Snowdon, which was both completely logical as an eyrie, and annoying as hell to reach.
"There used to be a UNIT base here," Martha told them. "As far as we can tell, they were hit early on."
"Survivors?" Gwen asked without much hope. Martha shook her head.
Above them, poking out through the clouds at irregular intervals, Jack saw dragons circling. They parked in the ruined car park, which was covered in dragon shit and debris. Rhys got out, head craning to the sky, helping Gwen without watching her. Her expression matched his: worry and fear and resolve.
Martha stayed in their truck for a moment, holding Mickey's arm. "You can't go. You can stay in touch with the walkie talkies. Promise me."
"I promise."
She bent over and kissed him hard, as though she would never see him again. Maybe she never would. Then she got out, a quick sleeve over her eyes, and taking in all of them with her words: "Now, we climb."
"We should go inside," said Jack. "There's cover, and the dragons can't reach us."
"That's what we did last time," Mickey said from the truck. "The blast doors were all broken. The dragons burned out both internal teams inside the corridors of the base."
It would have been like an oven, like a charnel house, bodies burning where they stood. Alice would have been among them, would have died like he had died so many times.
"We climb," Martha said, and Jack followed.
***
The rumbling started and stopped throughout the day. Rhiannon refused to worry, refused to send the rest scurrying for cover every time the walls trembled. If they were trapped underground, best that the end came fast instead of choking and slow in the dark, or burned alive as they emerged from hiding with their bleary-eyed group of frightened children.
She made the meals, and cleaned the dishes for something to do. When she went to see her brother, he moaned in his sleep, and twice he called out for Jack. Owen tended to him, but he'd already told her they needed medicines he didn't have, and with the dragons guarding the doors, they weren't going to get them.
***
They had almost made Bwlch Cwm Llan when the attack came. There was little cover, and they clung to the ground, camouflaged and shivering, knowing they had to spare the last of the arrows. They had four left after the loss of the SUV, and using even one at this stage could mean losing the goal.
Martha ducked her head as the fires burned around them, wanting to scream, wanting to cry, watching as her friends burned and died across the path from where she hid and she could do nothing. Jack took her hand, understanding and shared grief on his face, but Gwen and Rhys were on this side of the path.
When the dragons flew off again, they waited for an age, and then they stood. Seven left alive, and Mickey made eight back with the truck if the truck hadn't burned. She felt old, and so damned tired.
"Come on."
***
Ianto's eyes cracked open. He made a soft noise.
"Hello, there," said Owen.
"Hurts."
"I know." Jack ought to be here, give him the speech about good soldiers or some shit, but Jack was gone. "I've got some pills, but you'll have to be upright to take them. Think you can manage that?"
The blue eyes went wide with fear and pain, but he started to move, and Owen brought an arm to help him sit. The skin where the regenerator had been was healing in deep, viny scars. It would be time to change the bandages on the rest soon, and Owen had debrided enough patients over the last two years to know Ianto would spend the process screaming, even with the pills. And for what?
He got a cup of lukewarm water, brought it to Ianto's mouth so he could swallow the meds, something Owen had scrounged from the back of the cupboard. This was shit, this was all shit. Outside, the dragons waited for them to come above, so if Owen somehow managed to keep his patient alive long enough, it would be for the pleasure of watching him go outside to burn again.
"Here." Owen set the full bottle within easy reach. "The dosage is two every twelve hours. You'd best be careful with them." He placed the cup beside the pills. "I reckon five at once would be lethal for someone of your build. Three would probably be enough for one of the kiddies. And we wouldn't want that."
Owen watched Ianto's face, saw the eyes, dull with pain, flicker over to where his niece and nephew were playing with Jack's grandkid. The world had ended in fire, and most of its people had burned. There were kinder deaths.
"Thanks," Ianto managed, and lay back down slowly.
Owen waited until the medications had taken effect, and his friend's breathing was even again. Weird, thinking of Ianto as a friend, but Owen could spare the word now. When he was sure, he left the med bay and went to the kitchen.
Rhiannon looked up at him from over the book she was reading. Somehow, in the archives or in the ruined library they occasionally raided on rainy days, she'd found a book on cooking with simple ingredients. Owen didn't eat, could hardly smell, but he'd noticed the quality of the food she fixed, how she took whatever the foraging teams brought back and turned it into something better. Peas in a pod, her and Ianto, taking care of everyone better than they deserved, not expecting praise and rarely even getting a thank you. And if Rhiannon had secrets to keep, she held them as close as she did her kids.
He ought to walk away now, ask one of the men. But he needed someone he could trust.
"How many did they leave?" she asked, marking her page. He spared her a grim smile. Rhiannon had told him their father was a bit of a bastard, but Owen thought he would have quite liked to have met their mum.
"Two. Jack stashed them away."
"How many dragons?"
He'd checked an hour ago. "Two."
"That doesn't give us any room for mistakes."
He watched her, but he knew she'd spent time on the practise range in the basement over the last two days just as he had. "Then let's not make any."
***
The reek of sulphur was choking this close to the top. Beside him, Gwen held her sleeve over her mouth and nose, coughing as quietly as she could. Above them, dragons swooped and soared, unknowing of their approach. The smell that smothered them also protected them. Jack looked around as they walked and climbed, tried to memorise the faces. Gwen and Rhys and Martha he would always recall, but he didn't even know the names of the two men and one woman in their faded UNIT uniforms, who climbed with dour faces knowing none of them were likely to survive this ascent. When they'd stopped to rest, Martha had shown him her pack, the charges she'd brought. Jack was to take out the dragon queen, but Martha intended to make certain the nest was destroyed as well.
They turned another corner, careful of coming upon a dragon, and that's when Jack first saw it. The nest stretched across a dried-up lakebed, larger than a football pitch and filled with leathery-shelled eggs.
And dozens of nestlings.
"Oh no," Gwen breathed in the pungent air. Jack watched her watch the little dragonets, none bigger than a dog, as they nipped and rolled and played with each other. Their new scales were still bright rather than the duller, sooty colours of their elders, a royal blue there, two almost metallic reds wrestling playfully next to them, near enough to touch.
"Don't say it," Rhys said in a low voice.
"But they're babies," said Gwen, her hand on her abdomen.
Jack said, "Gwen, they would gladly eat us all alive. If they grow up, this will never end." As they watched, one of the reds spurted out a tiny blowtorch flame.
Gwen looked at him. "This will be genocide. You know that."
"I'll take it," he said. "Martha, stay here and set the charges. This all has to be obliterated, or we might as well not have come."
***
The Hub had two official entrances, two service entrances, and a quiet host of passages that no-one knew about unless they'd made a sharp study of the blueprints and were good at guessing where the architects had papered over lies. Someone who knew all the ways in and out could do anything, up to secreting in and installing a Cyberman in the heart of Torchwood out of a wide-eyed desire to restore humanity to someone who had already lost it forever. For the sake of the organisation, Ianto was good at keeping secrets. For the good of the world, he'd once told a few of them to his sister over a great deal of booze on yet another long night's vigil awaiting Jack's reanimation and return.
Two of the passages were lost to tunnel collapse, but Rhiannon and Owen made their way through one long, narrow corridor that was on no map but led them unerringly out and up into the ruin of a warehouse that Torchwood had once owned via a paperwork trail as labyrinthine as the tunnels themselves. The walk back was terrifying but short. From where they watched, a safe distance from the Plass, they could see the two dragons wreaking havoc atop their not especially secret base.
"They're intelligent," Owen said. "They know where we live, and they want revenge for the deaths of their mates."
Rhi watched them, frowning in deep thought. "If we get these, will there be more, do you think? Will they just keep coming?"
He shrugged. "No way to know. Maybe Jack and the rest will piss them off enough that they turn us all into magma. Or we'll get lucky and they'll drop dead as soon as he offs their ladyfriend."
"That'd be nice."
"It's not going to work that way."
"I know that. I'm not stupid."
A roar caught their attention. "Come on," said Owen. "Let's go slay some dragons."
***
Given a choice, Jack would have taken only Gwen. He trusted her to follow his orders, most of the time, and to be silent when he needed her to be silent, and not to miss when she aimed. But Rhys had told him point blank using small words and large threats that Jack was bloody well not taking Gwen to fight a flock of damned dragons without Rhys bang up right beside her. He might be barbecued standing there, but he was certainly not going to stand somewhere else if she was going to be in that kind of danger.
They were Team Alpha. Team Beta was headed to the apex via another route, hunting for the queen. Martha was alone with her explosives, and Jack could only pray that she'd walk away from the nest alive.
"Come on," he said, in the softest voice he could use. They found yet another entrance to the UNIT base, and slipped inside. It wasn't safe for passage, but for a moment's rest, it'd do.
"Jack?"
He turned to Gwen's tiny voice. She looked out behind them. They stood on a catwalk just inside the door, overlooking a darkness that seemed far larger than the usual rooms without electricity.
The heat rose to them, and now Jack could smell the brimstone reek, not just the stale smell that permeated the air around them but a fresh, raw, primal odour of fires banking but ready to burst into life and engulf them. Over the edge of the catwalk and down, he could make out dim embers outlining shapes.
There was a rocket, massive and phallic and broken, leaning crazily against one wall. Beneath it, breathing hugely, was the largest dragon Jack had ever seen. He couldn't make out colour, couldn't really see shape, was only left with shadow and hot malevolence. The queen slumbered below their feet, but she was waking, and she was angry.
***
It hurt like hell. Everything did. By increments, Ianto rose to a sitting position, and then rested there, exhausted with just that effort. Two days ago, he'd been fighting dragons and protecting their home. Now he was hard-pressed to sit upright, and he sat, gasping with the agony that was only held off a small amount by the medication.
He called out, first for Owen, then for Rhi, but no-one answered. His head swam with pain, and he nearly vomited when he saw the condition of what skin he could see. He noticed the patches of healing among the ruined, bubbling flesh, where the dermal regenerator had begun its work. Given enough time, enough recharges, it might render him merely a bent, scarred figure instead of a scarecrow dying from the outside in.
A small face came into view, and he smiled. His face must have been horrible because the child gasped and stepped back.
"Timmy, isn't it?"
The child nodded. Too young for this life, for this world gone to flames, all of them were. "Do you know where Doctor Owen is? Or Miss Rhiannon?"
Timmy shook his head.
"All right. Can you ask David to come here?"
Timmy scampered away, clearly glad to be out of sight of Ianto's shattered body. He wanted to lay back, and he didn't dare, not with the pain it took to move. After a while, footsteps came pounding down the stairs. "Yeah, Uncle Ianto?" David froze as he saw him, and then kept looking.
"Where's your mam? Or Doctor Owen?"
David glanced away, looking at the equipment on the bench, at the drip, anything. "They went outside."
"Your mam isn't supposed to go foraging. Neither is Owen." Ianto took Rhi's turns, and Owen wasn't expendable. But with Jack and Rhys gone, and Ianto wounded, and their numbers dwindling ...
"I was listenin'. There's dragons still outside." Even as Ianto listened, he could pick out the rumble of great bodies above them, stepping and pushing off to fly. "Mam went to fight them."
There was fear in the boy's voice, and pride, too. Their family, patchwork though it was, took the risks and fought the fights, and David was already looking forward to a life of dragon-slaying, the poor daft child.
Rhi was outside fighting a dragon, with a dead man at her side. There was no way, none, that they'd succeed.
Ianto glanced at the table beside the bed, and the bottle of pills, remembering Owen's words. He would have known he was going. He would have understood he wasn't coming back.
"David, fetch your sister. Steven, too."
***
Chapter Four
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Reign of Fire
Characters: Team, Rhys, Martha, Mickey, Rhiannon, kids
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Mickey/Martha
Rating: R
Warnings: character death, child endangerment, graphic descriptions of burn wounds
Spoilers: goes AU after "Something Borrowed," TW: COE (characters only), DW: The Stolen Earth, SJA: Death of the Doctor
Word Count: 20,000 (4,800 this part)
Disclaimer: Characters from Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC. "Reign of Fire" belongs to Spyglass, Touchstone, and Buena Vista. No infraction of their copyright is intended or should be inferred.
Summary: Two years ago, dragons destroyed the world while Torchwood stood by helplessly. It's time to fight back.
Beta: wynkat1313, fide_et_spe, and eldarwannabe did the heavy lifting for the beta on this. amilyn did a fantastic medpick. The remaining errors are all mine.
Author's Notes: Written for reel_torchwood. No familiarity with the film is necessary. (It's a B-movie with dragons. They eat people.)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
***
Chapter Three
***
When the dragons make you fire, you die. Uncle Ianto keeps the names of peeple who die because we need to remmber.
***
Jack took down the dragon chasing him, then looked wildly for the others. He saw the great bulk lying dead, watched as the other shot flames and then took flight into the air and away. Okay, they'd killed two and chased away a third. Not bad for a day's … He saw the burning form, saw Mickey yanking off his jacket to beat out the flames, and something in Jack crumpled as he ran, as if through molasses, to where Mickey was putting out the fire as fast as he could. Everything around them was smoke, and Jack's eyes stung.
"No. Nonononono … "
"He's still breathing," Mickey said. "If it didn't get into his lungs he has a chance. Come on." Mickey was cool and collected, as if he saw burn victims every day, as if this wasn't his world ending.
***
Owen let Gwen sort out the people as they emerged from hiding. He made his way back to Medical, checking the damage. The tremors had knocked over some of his things, nothing broken. He heard the lift going, and steeled himself for another round of welcoming the heroes. Then he got a good look at Jack and the ruined mess in his arms, and if Owen's heart was still beating, he thought it might have broken just a bit at the sight.
***
Martha came out of Medical after a couple of hours and made her way to the kitchen. "It's too soon to tell," she said to the worried looks, though her words were mainly for Jack and Rhi. "Owen's going to keep monitoring. He'll let us know."
Jack tried to read into her words. Hope? Gentle reassurance despite the overwhelming odds? He got nothing, but instead poked at the hollow place inside of himself like a rotten tooth, sore and out of sorts. Because of the attack, and the fears of another one, there was no school today for the children. Instead, they wandered in and out of rooms, tagging along behind one another like flocks of grey geese. Just yesterday, David had been coaxing smiles out of Steven, and now Steven was dragging Mica and her brother through the Hub to cheer them from their fears. Jack watched them, brain moving at a snail's pace.
"Steven told me about Alice," he said to Martha as she sipped tiredly at her instant coffee. A shiver passed through her. Mickey looked more serious, but unashamed at being caught out. "You knew who he was. Why did you lie to me?"
"We needed your help."
"You'd have had it."
"Of course we would have. We'd stroll in, 'Sorry, we got your daughter killed, fancy lending us a hand?' and you'd have said 'Sure!'" Her eyes were exhausted. "This was easier. And I know how you think, Jack. You're a menace to yourself and everyone else when you're acting out of grief. Give you someone to protect, to fight for, and that's when you shine." She might still have been playing him, but she was right.
Mickey said, "Some of our people wanted us to use him, hold him at our base and make you help or else."
Jack could picture it too easily. He'd have done the same, had he thought it was necessary for the survival of his people. Martha said, "We brought him to you, safe and alive. I won't have prisoners."
No. She wouldn't. "How'd you find him?"
They shared a glance. Mickey said, "Alice found us. She had about six, seven people with her and Steven, looking for other survivors. She was with us for over a year."
Jack inhaled sharply. "How did she die?"
Martha said, "She was in the team that went against the nest. We had the arrows. We had the plan. We lost."
"How long ago?"
"Three months." In another world, Martha's face would have been drawn in sorrow for him, but she had watched the world end twice, and she wasn't the same woman she'd once been. She'd lost much of the use of her leg, and she'd lost her family, and she'd had to cope with the apocalypse all over again, and she didn't have time to spare mourning any of it. Jack himself had grieved for Alice a long time ago, and knowing at last put the cap on the pain. She lived only in his memories now, and he could love her as long as he could remember her.
"We need to end this," he said. "We need to go, and stop them once and for all."
Mickey said, "We'll need a way to get there. The trucks are burned."
Rhys said, "I checked the SUV. It's charred but running." When the rest looked at him, he said, "What? It needed doin'. And you'll need a driver. I'm goin'."
"You're not leaving me," said Gwen. "I'm going, too."
"I don't want you both on the same mission. And Gwen, you're off active duty as it is."
Rhys said, "She's a better shot than you are. We all took turns practisin' with the bows. You need her. And I'm not stayin' here without her."
"We'll need more trucks," Mickey said. "If we've got a team, we should be able to take the nest, but we have to get there."
Martha said, "We passed cars that didn't burn. We'll find something."
There was a noise, and only when Jack turned to look did he see Owen, and realised it had been the doctor trying to clear his throat. "It's visiting hours, if you want to come down."
Rhiannon was on her feet in an instant. "How is he?"
"He's not dead. Speaking as someone who can't even say that, it's a start."
***
Ianto ought to be dead, just like the others Owen had seen who'd suffered this massive of a burn, but somehow he clung to life, miserable and in pain. Jack could transfer his energy to others when he tried. Maybe some had been transferring along with everything else the pair shared. If life was a disease, Jack could be Typhoid Mary, and Ianto had caught more than his share of whatever Jack was spreading.
"He needs more morphine," Jack said, his eyes locked on Ianto.
"There isn't any more," said Owen. "I gave him the last of what we had." They'd used up the fentanyl months ago. And painkillers were less important than his other concerns. Owen had the dermal regenerator, but it wasn't designed for full-body use. He'd have to go slowly and recharge it every twenty minutes, and in the meantime, the lack of antiseptic conditions and antibiotics would end up killing Ianto as it had the last poor bastards they'd brought back in this condition. Owen couldn't tell Jack that now, or he'd insist on staying until the end.
"Then we'll forage at the hospital again. There's got to be something."
Rhiannon said quietly, "Jack, you have a prior engagement. Leave the foraging to us."
Jack took a shuddering breath. He leaned down and whispered something Owen couldn't hear. Probably some endearment, better if it was a quiet goodbye. Owen made a motion to Ianto's sister to give them a moment, but her eyes stayed glued and she didn't move. Well, it wasn't as though she didn't know, and with the last of the drugs pumping through Ianto's system, he wouldn't care.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," Jack said, and he ran up the stairs and away. If Ianto noticed, he didn't react, and Owen guessed that was for the best.
Martha came down again, and she checked over the few notes Owen had made. The little slump of her shoulders was all the sign she gave. Instead of speaking, she took Owen into a quick hug, full of sharp bones. She pulled back with an almost-smile. "See you," she said, without hope.
"Fuck," Owen said quietly when she was gone.
***
The newly-commandeered trucks -- filled with the last of the petrol they could scavenge, barely fitted with protection, but running -- rolled unevenly over the broken roads. The smells and sights were different out in the country, less filled with ash and more with dung. Although the flocks of sheep and cattle that once grazed here were scattered, the dragons had moved into their spaces, leaving piles of droppings like the floor of a huge birdcage. Myfanwy was out here somewhere, just another flying lizard in a world returned to them.
Beside him, Gwen shivered in the cold air. He should have argued with her more. She was his best shot, but she should have been safe back at the Hub instead of exposed out here on the road, part of their slow-moving convoy and sitting ducks for a hungry dragon.
When the dark shape broke through the clouds right in front of them, it was more of a relief in tension than anything else. The last truck slammed into reverse, peeling out behind them. Their driver hit the accelerator, but nothing happened; the SUV stalled out beneath them.
"Out!" Jack shouted. "Now!"
Gwen and Rhys didn't wait for more. The driver tried restarting the engine. Jack took one look at the dragon and then bailed from the SUV just as a spurt of flame engulfed them. He felt the scorch go down his side, and then Gwen and Rhys were grabbing him, dragging him away from the burning vehicle.
The lead truck had already circled around again, and Mickey had his crossbow out as Martha drove evenly. Jack pushed away the pain to watch as he took aim.
The truck hit a pothole in the road, and they thumped. "Watch out!" Gwen screamed as the dragon blew a stream of flame. Martha cranked the wheel hard, turning them away. They couldn't outrun the flame, but they could dodge. Jack heard screams from the fleeing truck, scrambled madly back towards his own car. His hands were charring and cooking, blistering in pain, but he grabbed two of the arrows from the fire, and gasping, threw them to Gwen and Rhys.
Gwen cursed and swore as she loaded the arrow. The dragon ignored them, still chasing Martha's truck. Jack breathed hard, his senses singing in pain, and he thought he may have to die to heal through this one. Then Rhys pulled off his coat and ran at the dragon, swinging and shouting at it as he waved wildly.
Gwen didn't have time to scream at him. As Jack watched, the dragon swooped around, and Rhys led it back to them. Gwen fired as the beast drew back, and Rhys ploughed into her, knocking her roughly to the ground. The dragon's head blew, casting brains and worse everywhere. Jack smiled grimly, his lungs full of smoke and his arms agonising, and then he died.
***
Waking hurt, as bones and flesh kept knitting, but he could feel life thrumming in his veins again. He sat up and tried to get his bearings as his head cleared. Road. Dragon. Gwen. Martha. As his memories slotted into place, he remembered Ianto, badly burned back at the Hub, and he shoved those thoughts away before he was lost in them. He got to unsteady feet and staggered over to the ruined, burning SUV he'd come in, the other two trucks parked safely out of range.
Martha was bent over Mickey in the back of their truck. "Martha?" Jack asked, still dazed.
"Not now," she said, but kindly. As he neared them, he saw the burns over Mickey's face, saw also the rise and fall of his chest, and the few burns elsewhere.
"What happened?" he asked, stupid from his death.
"I'll be fine," Mickey said in a voice that meant anything but.
"We'll have better supplies when we get back," Martha said. Jack saw the bandages, as she began wrapping them delicately over his eyes. "I can't have you injuring yourself further." The worry and pain were tightly-held. Jack came the rest of the way over, and he took Mickey's hand as Martha finished her work. She turned to Jack. "He'll need to go back to Cardiff. Owen has equipment that might be able to help."
Mickey said, "We don't have vehicles to spare, not if we're going to all get there. I can ride in the back. Fix me up later."
"You can't fight," Martha said. "And don't you dare give me some line about suddenly being able to hear well enough to aim." Her words teased bitterly, but the reality hit him: Mickey was their expert marksman. Jack and Gwen could use the crossbows, but Jack had been relying on Mickey being there to keep the other dragons at bay.
Jack said, "We need to go. As long as we're sitting still, we're a target. And forward is better than backward."
Even as he spoke, Rhys and Gwen loaded into the remaining truck, crowding in closely with the soldiers. Jack caught Gwen's eye and nodded his thanks at the dragon kill. She smiled back her welcome.
Martha let out a hard sigh. But she'd never signed on to lead a pack of surviving humans in a futile battle against flying lizards, either. "All right. Get in."
Jack sat in the back with Mickey and two people he didn't know, and the trucks rolled out again.
***
The Hub shuddered. Then it shuddered again. Rhiannon knew where the sensors gave their data, had watched Ianto read them enough. The ones that hadn't been destroyed in the last attack were clear. She watched closely. There was only a single dragon this time, lashing the street and outside entrances with its huge tail, burning what it could reach.
After a while, the shudders stopped and the signals went away. She didn't think it had given up. She just hoped it hadn't gone to find friends.
***
The nest, as it turned out, was high upon Snowdon, which was both completely logical as an eyrie, and annoying as hell to reach.
"There used to be a UNIT base here," Martha told them. "As far as we can tell, they were hit early on."
"Survivors?" Gwen asked without much hope. Martha shook her head.
Above them, poking out through the clouds at irregular intervals, Jack saw dragons circling. They parked in the ruined car park, which was covered in dragon shit and debris. Rhys got out, head craning to the sky, helping Gwen without watching her. Her expression matched his: worry and fear and resolve.
Martha stayed in their truck for a moment, holding Mickey's arm. "You can't go. You can stay in touch with the walkie talkies. Promise me."
"I promise."
She bent over and kissed him hard, as though she would never see him again. Maybe she never would. Then she got out, a quick sleeve over her eyes, and taking in all of them with her words: "Now, we climb."
"We should go inside," said Jack. "There's cover, and the dragons can't reach us."
"That's what we did last time," Mickey said from the truck. "The blast doors were all broken. The dragons burned out both internal teams inside the corridors of the base."
It would have been like an oven, like a charnel house, bodies burning where they stood. Alice would have been among them, would have died like he had died so many times.
"We climb," Martha said, and Jack followed.
***
The rumbling started and stopped throughout the day. Rhiannon refused to worry, refused to send the rest scurrying for cover every time the walls trembled. If they were trapped underground, best that the end came fast instead of choking and slow in the dark, or burned alive as they emerged from hiding with their bleary-eyed group of frightened children.
She made the meals, and cleaned the dishes for something to do. When she went to see her brother, he moaned in his sleep, and twice he called out for Jack. Owen tended to him, but he'd already told her they needed medicines he didn't have, and with the dragons guarding the doors, they weren't going to get them.
***
They had almost made Bwlch Cwm Llan when the attack came. There was little cover, and they clung to the ground, camouflaged and shivering, knowing they had to spare the last of the arrows. They had four left after the loss of the SUV, and using even one at this stage could mean losing the goal.
Martha ducked her head as the fires burned around them, wanting to scream, wanting to cry, watching as her friends burned and died across the path from where she hid and she could do nothing. Jack took her hand, understanding and shared grief on his face, but Gwen and Rhys were on this side of the path.
When the dragons flew off again, they waited for an age, and then they stood. Seven left alive, and Mickey made eight back with the truck if the truck hadn't burned. She felt old, and so damned tired.
"Come on."
***
Ianto's eyes cracked open. He made a soft noise.
"Hello, there," said Owen.
"Hurts."
"I know." Jack ought to be here, give him the speech about good soldiers or some shit, but Jack was gone. "I've got some pills, but you'll have to be upright to take them. Think you can manage that?"
The blue eyes went wide with fear and pain, but he started to move, and Owen brought an arm to help him sit. The skin where the regenerator had been was healing in deep, viny scars. It would be time to change the bandages on the rest soon, and Owen had debrided enough patients over the last two years to know Ianto would spend the process screaming, even with the pills. And for what?
He got a cup of lukewarm water, brought it to Ianto's mouth so he could swallow the meds, something Owen had scrounged from the back of the cupboard. This was shit, this was all shit. Outside, the dragons waited for them to come above, so if Owen somehow managed to keep his patient alive long enough, it would be for the pleasure of watching him go outside to burn again.
"Here." Owen set the full bottle within easy reach. "The dosage is two every twelve hours. You'd best be careful with them." He placed the cup beside the pills. "I reckon five at once would be lethal for someone of your build. Three would probably be enough for one of the kiddies. And we wouldn't want that."
Owen watched Ianto's face, saw the eyes, dull with pain, flicker over to where his niece and nephew were playing with Jack's grandkid. The world had ended in fire, and most of its people had burned. There were kinder deaths.
"Thanks," Ianto managed, and lay back down slowly.
Owen waited until the medications had taken effect, and his friend's breathing was even again. Weird, thinking of Ianto as a friend, but Owen could spare the word now. When he was sure, he left the med bay and went to the kitchen.
Rhiannon looked up at him from over the book she was reading. Somehow, in the archives or in the ruined library they occasionally raided on rainy days, she'd found a book on cooking with simple ingredients. Owen didn't eat, could hardly smell, but he'd noticed the quality of the food she fixed, how she took whatever the foraging teams brought back and turned it into something better. Peas in a pod, her and Ianto, taking care of everyone better than they deserved, not expecting praise and rarely even getting a thank you. And if Rhiannon had secrets to keep, she held them as close as she did her kids.
He ought to walk away now, ask one of the men. But he needed someone he could trust.
"How many did they leave?" she asked, marking her page. He spared her a grim smile. Rhiannon had told him their father was a bit of a bastard, but Owen thought he would have quite liked to have met their mum.
"Two. Jack stashed them away."
"How many dragons?"
He'd checked an hour ago. "Two."
"That doesn't give us any room for mistakes."
He watched her, but he knew she'd spent time on the practise range in the basement over the last two days just as he had. "Then let's not make any."
***
The reek of sulphur was choking this close to the top. Beside him, Gwen held her sleeve over her mouth and nose, coughing as quietly as she could. Above them, dragons swooped and soared, unknowing of their approach. The smell that smothered them also protected them. Jack looked around as they walked and climbed, tried to memorise the faces. Gwen and Rhys and Martha he would always recall, but he didn't even know the names of the two men and one woman in their faded UNIT uniforms, who climbed with dour faces knowing none of them were likely to survive this ascent. When they'd stopped to rest, Martha had shown him her pack, the charges she'd brought. Jack was to take out the dragon queen, but Martha intended to make certain the nest was destroyed as well.
They turned another corner, careful of coming upon a dragon, and that's when Jack first saw it. The nest stretched across a dried-up lakebed, larger than a football pitch and filled with leathery-shelled eggs.
And dozens of nestlings.
"Oh no," Gwen breathed in the pungent air. Jack watched her watch the little dragonets, none bigger than a dog, as they nipped and rolled and played with each other. Their new scales were still bright rather than the duller, sooty colours of their elders, a royal blue there, two almost metallic reds wrestling playfully next to them, near enough to touch.
"Don't say it," Rhys said in a low voice.
"But they're babies," said Gwen, her hand on her abdomen.
Jack said, "Gwen, they would gladly eat us all alive. If they grow up, this will never end." As they watched, one of the reds spurted out a tiny blowtorch flame.
Gwen looked at him. "This will be genocide. You know that."
"I'll take it," he said. "Martha, stay here and set the charges. This all has to be obliterated, or we might as well not have come."
***
The Hub had two official entrances, two service entrances, and a quiet host of passages that no-one knew about unless they'd made a sharp study of the blueprints and were good at guessing where the architects had papered over lies. Someone who knew all the ways in and out could do anything, up to secreting in and installing a Cyberman in the heart of Torchwood out of a wide-eyed desire to restore humanity to someone who had already lost it forever. For the sake of the organisation, Ianto was good at keeping secrets. For the good of the world, he'd once told a few of them to his sister over a great deal of booze on yet another long night's vigil awaiting Jack's reanimation and return.
Two of the passages were lost to tunnel collapse, but Rhiannon and Owen made their way through one long, narrow corridor that was on no map but led them unerringly out and up into the ruin of a warehouse that Torchwood had once owned via a paperwork trail as labyrinthine as the tunnels themselves. The walk back was terrifying but short. From where they watched, a safe distance from the Plass, they could see the two dragons wreaking havoc atop their not especially secret base.
"They're intelligent," Owen said. "They know where we live, and they want revenge for the deaths of their mates."
Rhi watched them, frowning in deep thought. "If we get these, will there be more, do you think? Will they just keep coming?"
He shrugged. "No way to know. Maybe Jack and the rest will piss them off enough that they turn us all into magma. Or we'll get lucky and they'll drop dead as soon as he offs their ladyfriend."
"That'd be nice."
"It's not going to work that way."
"I know that. I'm not stupid."
A roar caught their attention. "Come on," said Owen. "Let's go slay some dragons."
***
Given a choice, Jack would have taken only Gwen. He trusted her to follow his orders, most of the time, and to be silent when he needed her to be silent, and not to miss when she aimed. But Rhys had told him point blank using small words and large threats that Jack was bloody well not taking Gwen to fight a flock of damned dragons without Rhys bang up right beside her. He might be barbecued standing there, but he was certainly not going to stand somewhere else if she was going to be in that kind of danger.
They were Team Alpha. Team Beta was headed to the apex via another route, hunting for the queen. Martha was alone with her explosives, and Jack could only pray that she'd walk away from the nest alive.
"Come on," he said, in the softest voice he could use. They found yet another entrance to the UNIT base, and slipped inside. It wasn't safe for passage, but for a moment's rest, it'd do.
"Jack?"
He turned to Gwen's tiny voice. She looked out behind them. They stood on a catwalk just inside the door, overlooking a darkness that seemed far larger than the usual rooms without electricity.
The heat rose to them, and now Jack could smell the brimstone reek, not just the stale smell that permeated the air around them but a fresh, raw, primal odour of fires banking but ready to burst into life and engulf them. Over the edge of the catwalk and down, he could make out dim embers outlining shapes.
There was a rocket, massive and phallic and broken, leaning crazily against one wall. Beneath it, breathing hugely, was the largest dragon Jack had ever seen. He couldn't make out colour, couldn't really see shape, was only left with shadow and hot malevolence. The queen slumbered below their feet, but she was waking, and she was angry.
***
It hurt like hell. Everything did. By increments, Ianto rose to a sitting position, and then rested there, exhausted with just that effort. Two days ago, he'd been fighting dragons and protecting their home. Now he was hard-pressed to sit upright, and he sat, gasping with the agony that was only held off a small amount by the medication.
He called out, first for Owen, then for Rhi, but no-one answered. His head swam with pain, and he nearly vomited when he saw the condition of what skin he could see. He noticed the patches of healing among the ruined, bubbling flesh, where the dermal regenerator had begun its work. Given enough time, enough recharges, it might render him merely a bent, scarred figure instead of a scarecrow dying from the outside in.
A small face came into view, and he smiled. His face must have been horrible because the child gasped and stepped back.
"Timmy, isn't it?"
The child nodded. Too young for this life, for this world gone to flames, all of them were. "Do you know where Doctor Owen is? Or Miss Rhiannon?"
Timmy shook his head.
"All right. Can you ask David to come here?"
Timmy scampered away, clearly glad to be out of sight of Ianto's shattered body. He wanted to lay back, and he didn't dare, not with the pain it took to move. After a while, footsteps came pounding down the stairs. "Yeah, Uncle Ianto?" David froze as he saw him, and then kept looking.
"Where's your mam? Or Doctor Owen?"
David glanced away, looking at the equipment on the bench, at the drip, anything. "They went outside."
"Your mam isn't supposed to go foraging. Neither is Owen." Ianto took Rhi's turns, and Owen wasn't expendable. But with Jack and Rhys gone, and Ianto wounded, and their numbers dwindling ...
"I was listenin'. There's dragons still outside." Even as Ianto listened, he could pick out the rumble of great bodies above them, stepping and pushing off to fly. "Mam went to fight them."
There was fear in the boy's voice, and pride, too. Their family, patchwork though it was, took the risks and fought the fights, and David was already looking forward to a life of dragon-slaying, the poor daft child.
Rhi was outside fighting a dragon, with a dead man at her side. There was no way, none, that they'd succeed.
Ianto glanced at the table beside the bed, and the bottle of pills, remembering Owen's words. He would have known he was going. He would have understood he wasn't coming back.
"David, fetch your sister. Steven, too."
***
Chapter Four