Sarah Pinborough - Into the Silence

'No!' Pulling his gun free from its holster, Jack fired into the alien's back before running forward. Drew Powell was not going to die. Not when they were this close, God dammit. Recoiling from the bullet, the creature twisted round, its rage and disappointment glaring out at Jack from two blazes of red in the pits of its dark eyes. In a split second it was on its feet, the shot seeming to have caused no lasting damage.

Jack's lungs burned with cold as he stretched out to grab it, but he was an instant too slow, its body dissolving into blackness as the shadow pulled away and upwards, escaping through the broken window high on the wall, leaving Jack with only the slightest damp taste of its presence. Panting, he filled the space the alien had vacated, and black rage filled him.

'Shit!' Behind him, Cutler turned back. 'I'll go after it!'

'No point. Call an ambulance.' Falling to his knees, Jack looked down into the gurgling mess of Drew's neck. A slice ran down from his chin to his Adam's apple, sticky blood pumping slowly out. The cut was bad, and God only knew how deep it went, but Jack knew that if an artery had been severed they'd all be covered. Maybe there was a chance. Cursing under his breath, he chewed on his own frustration and anger. There had to be a goddamn chance. Gently, he lifted the man up slightly so he could breathe without drowning in his own blood, and stroked his forehead.

'It's OK. You're going to be OK.' Watching the beads of damp sweat forming on the shivering man's ashen face, he hoped he wasn't lying. 'You hang in there, you hear me? Help's on its way.' Somewhere in the distance, giving his words weight, a siren began to wail through the night.

Behind him, Ianto groaned.

'Gwen!' Jack called over his shoulder. 'Is Ianto all right?'

'He's got a nasty cut. But I think he'll live.'

There was a long pause.

'What are we going to do now, Jack?' Her voice was soft and low and, feeling the warm blood of the injured man coating his hands, Jack was glad he didn't have to look at her face when he answered.

'I don't know, Gwen. I just don't know.'

The hospital was alive with sound from the moment they arrived.

It seemed to Gwen that each area of the building had its own unique orchestra to identify it. When she'd visited the witnesses to Richard Greenwood's death, there had been only the hum of lights and the calm whispering of shoes and skirts as they had travelled through the ward like ghosts, pausing to smile and check temperatures and tick lists on charts. Patients had been reading books and magazines and occasionally chatting quietly to visitors as they discussed what they might do when they were released. Much of the time had been filled with the slow breathing of sleep as fractured bones and damaged organs mended. Peace and quiet had reigned in a place where recovery was almost a certainty, and days were marked off with the delivery of meals and afternoon naps after some daytime TV.

This time, as she leapt out of the ambulance and ran into the hospital behind the paramedics, Gwen would have known she was in the Accident and Emergency department even if she had been blinded. Noise danced and partied in the bright corridors, whooping with glee at every new arrival. The wheels of the trolley carrying Drew Powell squealed and rattled as they pushed forwards, crashing through doors as nurses and doctors called out to each other for drips, and numbers and pressures in a language of their own that just created dread in those excluded from its understanding. Behind hastily drawn curtains, the burned and the broken and the drunk ranted and raved, screaming and sobbing for help or a loved one, either in pain or in panic. Nurses' feet thumped hard 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.'