The Spirits Within

Chapter: 17/21 + epilogue

Characters: Jack, Ianto Owen, Tosh, Rhys, John Hart, the Doctor

Rating: PG

Warnings: Character death

Spoilers: Only if you’ve never seen Torchwood of Final Fantasy

Notes: See chapter 1 for notes and disclaimer.

Chapter 17

General Hart sat strapped in a chair behind his desk, the seat belt keeping him from floating in the zero gravity. He had ordered the shuttle to hold its position in orbit and not move until he gave the order. Then he had locked himself in his room. That had been two hours ago.

Two long hours of getting ready to do what he knew needed to be done.

On his desk a small screen showed an aerial image of what had been Barrier City London. Using the screens on the satellite visuals, he could see the Phantoms, roaming the streets and moving through the buildings of the now-dead city. He could even see the human bodies scattered in the streets and on the rooftops. A dozen fires still raged, getting larger instead of smaller, since there was no one left alive down there to contain them.

Yet just last night that city had been alive and full of millions of humans, not Phantoms.

It had been full of people he had killed.

He studied the image for another moment, then clicked off the screen. He reached down and un-snapped his side arm from its holster. He had gotten the weapon twenty years before, as a present from his father when he made captain. He had carried it every day since.

He studied it like an old friend. The metal shone, the handle perfectly polished, as always. It seemed that he and this old friend were going to have one final talk before deciding to move on. He clicked it open to make sure it was loaded, then made sure a shell was in the chamber and clicked the hammer back.

Millions of deaths.

He had caused millions of deaths. This would only be one more.

No one would even notice.

He put the gun to his temple, then changed his mind and put the barrel of it in his mouth. Less chance of missing that way. The metal was cold, and the taste metallic and bitter. That was perfect for him. He need to taste his death, to make sure it was going to happen. He took a pillow he had tucked under the side of his chair to keep it from floating away and put it against the back of his head. His brain, skull, and the pillow would slow the bullet down enough that it wouldn't cause too much damage to the shuttle. The men on board were good men. No point in killing even more good people when all he wanted to do was kill himself.

He twisted the gun in his hand while holding the pillow against the back of his head. It scraped on his tongue as the images of the people dying on that rooftop filled his mind.

The memory of Major Smith clutching his chest replaced the other memories. Smith had been a decent soldier. Not smart, just decent. A loyal man who followed orders. He hadn't deserved to die like that.

Hart knew he had killed a lot of good people today. All he had to do was pull the trigger and he would never have to think about it again. The barrel of the gun banged against his upper teeth.

Pull it!

Just pull the trigger.

His body tensed.

Pull it!

Now!

His finger didn't move on the trigger. He could see his hand holding the gun, and the top of the barrel. His hand was starting to shake, the gun moving in his mouth.

Pull it, you coward!

His finger didn't move. Only his body tensed.

He stared at his hand, the metal hard in his mouth.

Finally, disgusted, he pulled the gun from his mouth and let the pillow float away in the zero gravity. He had killed millions, and now he was too much of a coward to even kill one more. How stupid was that?

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He didn't want to go on, live one more hour, with the thought of those deaths on his conscience. No one could live like that.

But why couldn't he just kill himself and be done with it?

What was stopping him?

The image of a Phantom moving over the top of a man on the rooftop flashed into his head.

Then he knew the answer.

Of course!

He shouldn't really be killing himself, he should be going after the true cause of all the deaths: the Phantoms. Just as he couldn't actually kill himself, he hadn't actually killed anyone directly. Granted, he had let the Phantoms into the city, but everyone who knew that was dead.

Besides, the Phantoms would have gotten in at some point anyway.

The Phantoms had killed every one of those people. And his wife and daughter. And they would kill many more if he didn't stop them. Had he forgotten that? He had the means of killing them, of wiping them from the face of the planet.

He put his gun back in its holster, sat up, and took a deep breath. Then he tapped the communications button on his desk.

"Yes, sir?" the pilot said.

"Hub Cannon station," he said. "How long until we can reach it?"

"Ninety minutes," the pilot said.

"Set a course," he said. "And get us there as fast as you can."

He clicked off the communications link and sat back in his chair. He would avenge all the deaths tonight by wiping the Phantoms from existence, if it was the last thing he ever did.

*~*

After their slow and tender love-making, Ianto had held Jack for at least another hour, the two of them floating in the middle of the cargo bay after having reached orbit.

Jack had said nothing, never mentioning the three who had died for them. Maybe later they would be able to talk about Toshiko and Rhys and Owen. But not yet. The grief was too much, too soon.

The Doctor had left them alone, moving up to the lab, and when Ianto finally let Jack have a few minutes alone, he found that the Doctor was already working in the lab to find the next spirit.

As he floated into the room, he flipped on the holographic image of the Phantom spirit, its wave form flowing upward like spiralling red smoke from the centre of the ship’s lab table.

Then, as Ianto pulled himself around into an upright position and watched, the Doctor brought up the wave with the seven spirits they had collected. The two looked almost exactly the same.

As Ianto compared the two waves, the Doctor moved the holograms closer and closer until they overlapped. Ianto knew they were so close. After all this time, all they needed was one more.

"I started the search pattern," the Doctor said.

"Same parameters as last time?" Ianto remembered that it had taken them less than a day to find the seventh spirit in the wasteland. He hoped they could find this one as fast.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, this time I included areas we had previously overlooked, just to be safe. Who knows when we're going to get another chance, after what happened."

Ianto nodded. He had no doubt that General Hart would have them arrested again the first chance he got. But expanding the search parameters had problems. "Isn't that going to make the search harder, and more time-consuming?"

"No, it won't," he said. "We have such an exact reading on the last spirit’s shape so we can increase the size of each grid, thus making it easy to expand the search. And more logical."

"If you say so," he said. "So where do we stand with-"

Suddenly the sound of beeping filled the lab. He spun so hard he lost his grip on the lab table for a moment and floated up toward the ceiling.

The Doctor seemed stunned as well. That was the signal that they had found the last spirit.

Jack floated in from the hallway as Ianto pushed himself down beside the Doctor. Together they stared at the computer screen, looking at the results of the search.

"What's all the beeping mean?" Jack asked.

"We found it," Ianto said, smiling at him.

"The eighth spirit?"

"A positive match," the Doctor said.

Then Ianto looked at the exact location where the green light was blinking on the hologram image of the surface of the planet. "That can't be right."

His stomach twisted, and he could feel the sweat on his hands. The light showed the eighth spirit was in the Phantom rift in Cardiff.

Jack moved up and studied the map as well. Then he laughed, as if the readings were a joke. "I've got to say, that's a strange place to find the eighth spirit."

The Doctor nodded, going over the sensor readings as he spoke, double-checking everything. "Yes, really quite astonishing."

Ianto watched as the Doctor inserted the last piece, the basic image of the last spirit he had scanned from below, into the swirling hologram image they had been trying to build. A perfect match. The computers were right. The eighth spirit was down there in the rift, there was no doubt.

That's it," Ianto said, trying to catch his breath at finally having the last spirit that would save him, and maybe the entire human race.

"Can't be," Jack said. "Nothing could survive in that rift impact except Phantoms." "Precisely," the Doctor replied.

Ianto looked at him, stunned and amazed at what he had just said. "You want to explain that?"

He smiled. "What we have here is clear evidence that the eighth spirit is a Phantom spirit."

Ianto felt his entire body go numb. It couldn't be possible. How could a Phantom spirit be the key to saving him from a Phantom infestation?

"I can't explain it at the moment," the Doctor said, staring at the image of the completed spirits spiralling in front of him, "but I'm sure that once we get down there, we'll understand."

"Wait," Jack said, holding up his hand. "Doctor, that's a one-way trip you're talking about there."

The Doctor looked at Jack and just smiled.

Ianto knew that look. It was one he used to give his students when he was explaining something simple.

"I expected that was how you would evaluate our chances," the Doctor replied.

"Well?" Jack asked, "Am I wrong?"

"Doctor?" Ianto asked, wanting to know the same answer. "It is a one-way trip, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes, I'm afraid it just might be." He said that without looking at either one of them. Then he looked up at Ianto, holding his gaze. "I agree that we probably won't live long enough to extract the eighth spirit from the rift."

"So what would be the point?" Jack asked. "Why should we even try it?"

"Because," he said, "we don't need to extract the eighth and final spirit."

"I see," Ianto said. He was finally starting to understand what the doctor was talking about.

"You want to clue me in then?" Jack asked, his patience clearly pushed to its limits.

"If we can't bring the final spirit here," Ianto said, pointing to the lab, "then we go there and complete the wave?"

"Exactly," the Doctor said.

"And how do we do that?" Jack asked, looking first at Ianto and then at the Doctor. "Exactly?"

"I can construct a device that would attach to Ianto's chestplate," he said, "to gather the eight spirits and then..."

The Doctor stopped and didn't look as if he was going to continue as he turned his attention back to the computer screen and the readouts pouring in from the scans.

Ianto glanced at the puzzled frown on Jack's face, then back at his mentor. He had no idea exactly what would happen at the point when all eight spirits were together and came in contact with a Phantom wave. He doubted the Doctor did, either. They both had theories, but it was nothing more than that, since they had not yet gotten all eight spirits to run tests with.

"And then what, Doctor?" Jack asked.

The Doctor just shrugged. "And then we wait and see what happens."

"You're kidding?" Jack asked. "That's your plan? We wait and see what happens?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, looking at Jack. "That is exactly what we do."

Jack looked at him, then at the hologram spiralling above the table, then at the Doctor. "Okay. Well, I've got a plan too. How about we keep scanning the surface from orbit, and maybe we'll find a compatible spirit somewhere else?"

Ianto looked at Jack then turned to the Doctor. He knew what had to be done.

"Ianto?" Jack asked. "Tell me you're not thinking of doing this? Please?"

Ianto placed his hand inside the swirling hologram and looked first at the Doctor, then at Jack. "I say we go in."

Jack just shook his head. "I was afraid that would be your answer."

He just smiled.

"Well," he said, "if you two are insisting on this mission, at least let me try to figure out a way to get us out afterwards."

"Sounds fine to me," Ianto said, "but we don't have much time, remember."

"I won't take much time," he said. "How long until you are ready, Doctor?"

"Four hours."

"Then I'll be ready on my end in four hours as well," Jack said.

Ianto watched him turn and push himself back down into the cargo hold.

The Doctor patted his hand. "Don't worry," he said. "If anyone can get us in and out of the rift alive, it's your boyfriend, there. Captain Harkness has done amazing things so far."

"I hope he can pull off one more," he said.

But honestly, he doubted if any of them would come out of that rift alive. But if things worked the way he and the Doctor hoped, their three lives would be the last three lives ever taken by a Phantom.

And that would be worth dying for.