nothing_rhymes_with_ianto

Title: Bittersweet
Author: qafkinnetic
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Torchwood Team
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for Cyberwoman
Summary: A different take on what might've happened in Cyberwoman
Author's Note: I seem to be on a Cyberwoman kick these days. This was a speedwrite. I just got an idea.

Can’t remember her face
Age it fell away
But I remember her taste
Bittersweet and pure
And I’ve always loved her
Calm the beast inside
I let the only one go
Who ever made me smile
-Blue Gillespie, The Misanthropist

Electricity crackled across Jack’s mind as he revived. He groaned and looked around. Gwen and Owen were hiding somewhere in the base, hopefully. He could hear the Cyberman stomping away in the vicinity of the medbay. A lump caught his eye. Ianto, facedown in the water of the rift pool.

“Ianto?” Jack ran to him, grabbing him under the armpits and lugging him out of the water. “Ianto!”

He put his fingers to the side of Ianto’s neck. Nothing. No pulse beat against his fingertips. He breathed into Ianto’s mouth, holding his head. Something was loose under his hands. Jack checked again. Ianto’s head lay at an impossible angle, stretching backward at a diagonal. His neck had been broken.

Gwen and Owen’s frantic yells brought him back to the present. They ran to his side. Gwen made a small noise as she noticed Ianto’s slack face, his awkward head. Pneumatic hisses announced the arrival of the half-converted thing called Lisa. Jack raised his gun and his head to face it down.

“Ianto?” The thing asked.

“Ianto’s dead.” Jack told it forcefully. “You killed him. He’s not coming back.”

The Cyberman stared at him for a long moment, shock filling what features Jack could see. Then it seem to crumple, became impossibly small inside the rigid metal of the Cyber-suit. A strange crunching wail emanated from it, hitching and choking. It was crying.

“Oh god,” Gwen gasped. “It’s still human!”

“Ianto!” It wailed the Welshman’s name. Then it turned to Jack, nearly-human urgency in its features. “Kill me. Please kill me. Just kill me.”

“Jack, you can’t, it’s still human.”

“Please!” The thing begged.

Jack looked to Owen, who nodded. “Do it. Give it some mercy, if it is still human.”

Jack gave a short nod in reply and levelled his gun. In his peripheral vision, he saw Owen do the same. He aimed for the head. He could see Owen aiming for whatever vulnerable part of the belly or legs he could find. At his sharp nod, they both fired.

Bullets filled the air, the sound echoing through their ears. Then stillness, broken only by the steady water sliding down the fountain.

The thing that had once been a girl named Lisa Hallet twitched on the floor. Its hand raised to them as if beckoning them closer. Jack obeyed, stepping within feet of the thing. It looked up at him. A tear slipped down its ruined cheek.

“Thank you.” The metal was gone from its voice.