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"Ianto!" I screamed. "Ianto!"

I kept on screaming, but now I felt the need to begin moving around. I wanted to destroy everything in this room that wasn't my brother. I didn't know what exactly I could break without accidentally hurting my brother, but I certainly was going to figure it out in one way or another.

What if I started attacking the wires? What would happen then? Would I end up breaking them and making my brother something more than a vegetable strung up to a wall? Or would I end up breaking the only connection that was keeping him alive? How much was I willing to risk in order to get my brother out of this condition?

Too many questions swirled around in my head for me to pinpoint one long enough to make a coherent answer. I couldn't allow myself to stop for a moment - at this point, I was running on almost pure emotion. The only part of me that was actually thinking sensibly was the one preventing me from creating massive damage. But then again, maybe all that I needed to do was cause massive damage.

Revenge for what they'd done to Ianto.

"Alia!"

I swung my head around as I continued to punch and swing out at anything that I could. Cecily Algernon was making her way towards me, ready to apprehend me. This was her fault. This was her fault! I wouldn't let her make any more damage.

"Alia!" Cecily shrieked, reaching out for me. The moment I saw her move, I ended up thrashing out even more violently in response. No, no, no. She wasn't going to stop me. I wouldn't let her hurt me. If she'd allowed this to happen to Ianto and covered it up, then she was evil. It was either that, or she'd been the one to string up Ianto in the first place.

"Alia Parr," she said, reaching out yet again and this time grabbing my arm. This didn't do a thing to prevent me from trying to hit her, or do absolutely anything that could end up being harmful. I would keep thrashing until the end of time - I would lash out and destroy everything if it meant I could get revenge for what happened to my brother.

Nothing she could say would stop me from continuing to move and squirm. But at the same time, she was strong - the next thing I knew, I couldn't move my arms. She'd taken both of my wrists into her hands and was struggling to keep me from moving.

I couldn't make out anything in the room - my eyes were glossed over with tears and sweat from my effort in trying to hurt something or someone. I must've looked crazy, but I didn't care. If crazy meant I could make some sort of difference, then crazy I'd be. Even if Cecily had me restrained, I could speak.

If I could speak, I could shriek. And if I could shriek, I would scream. I would make myself heard, make her and everyone else who did this to Ianto understand what I was going through and how I was going to stop it. Nothing would stop me.

"You did this to him!" I screeched. "This is your fault! How could you do this to him? He's just a boy, a thirteen year old boy!"

"Alia, please, listen to me," Cecily said. It was strange to hear such urgency coming into her voice - I was used to hearing her with a solid, nearly emotionless tone. Cecily Algernon was a calm woman, but now she had fear in her eyes. Fear, pity, and a whole bunch of negative emotions that I couldn't quite place.

"Why the hell should I listen to you?" I asked. "Listen to me, first - even if you didn't do this to him, it's still your fault! You let this happen, you kept it a secret! You could've told someone. you should've told someone! Why the hell didn't you just let someone know?"

"Alia, please," she asked again. "Please, I can explain this. Just listen to me here, please. Alia, I promise it will all make sense if you allow me to continue."

"No!" I said, immediately refusing. "No, I don't give a damn about sense! Get Ianto. Get Ianto now."

"Ianto is right here," she said in response, the tinge of confusion coming into her voice. "I don't think we can really 'get' him-"

"Get him down from there. Get him back to talking. Get him back to being alive!" I yell out. But at this last point, I found all of my strength leaping straight out of me. My knees started to buckle underneath me, and I started to collapse to the ground with tears streaming out of my eyes. I couldn't scream any more. I wasn't giving up - but I couldn't do anything at the moment.

"We can't get him down, or do anything else," Cecily replied. She gently released my wrists, allowing me to move my own arms and hands once again. "It's as simple as that, Alia. We can't. We would, but we cannot. We are not capable of doing anything."

"Why?" I asked. "You're supposed to be the best of the best for...everything. You have to be able to do something. You have to be. That's what you're here for. Why can't you do anything?"

"Ianto did this to himself, Alia," Cecily said. "Ianto chose this for himself. We woke up one morning and saw him like this. No one completely understands the technology - as far as we know, its' never been done before."

"You just left him there like that?" I squeaked. "And you just didn't tell anyone?"

"Like I said, no one here has any idea of precisely what is going on," Cecily replied. "We knew that if we tried to get him out, we might end up killing him. We couldn't run the risk."

My throat was aching for me to let out another scream. It was swelling at the bottom of my lungs. I didn't know what to do, so I attempted to calm myself down. To an extent, it did work - I didn't end up shrieking at Cecily, but my heart rate was still heavily increased from its normal amount. My breathing was heavy, and short, as if I were about to go into a panic attack.

I looked at nothing. There was nothing to look at, aside from Cecily and Ianto. I couldn't very well look at either of them. No. I just looked out into space, as if somewhere in my daze I'd be able to find something to calm me down. But, worst of all, I couldn't speak or make any other sort of noise for the moment. I'd become incapable of doing such a thing.

"Alia, no one saw this coming. We would've told you sooner, but we were trying to figure out precisely what was going on first. We can only hypothesize what he was trying to do, but we are certain that Ianto did do this to himself."

It seemed so strange - this didn't feel like something that my little brother would do. It just didn't seem right. But there were so many pieces of the puzzle missing that it was completely impossible to make out what the entire picture would be. I couldn't do it on my own. Cecily had to continue explaining to me precisely what was going on, even though she didn't know herself.

No one knew what was going on, except for Ianto. The one person who could make this come together was the one person who'd caused everything to fall apart in the first place.

"We believe this is Ianto's method of reclaiming the data," Cecily said. "We have hypothesized that he believes his brain is capable of getting the memory back. It's as if he believes the data eating is sort of like amnesia - the memories are still there and are just difficult to get back. If he could get the data into his head, then he might be able to get it all together."

And in an instant, everything connected. Not everything made sense, but it all connected in my mind. Of course this was what had happened. Ianto had done this to himself because absolutely anything was better than something being completely deleted. He was so afraid of that concept, that idea, that he'd be willing to do absolutely anything.

Absolutely anything would be better than something being completely deleted - even being half-dead. Even sacrificing his body and his mind to get the data back. I'd seen how much he'd been hurt from his fear in the past, and maybe in his mind it somehow hurt less to do something like this. None of the other results would've mattered - if he was helping his country and preventing his fear, nothing mattered.

He didn't care about his friends who cared so much about him.

He didn't care about the family he'd grown up with and learned from.

He didn't care about his older sister who'd read his messages every day, worried about him from the very first time they'd been separated.

He didn't care.

"All of this, because he wants to reclaim the data," I said, my voice starting to turn hoarse. All of that yelling from earlier certainly ended up hurting my vocal cords, but if the opportunity presented itself I would find myself in another bout of screams. That is, assuming that I could actually manufacture a scream at the moment. To be honest, I wasn't sure what I could do any more.

Cecily continued speaking, trying to explain everything that they thought they knew and everything they suspected. She was doing her best to comfort me, but it wasn't going to work. Nothing was going to be able to calm me down unless Ianto was suddenly okay. I heard only a few words out of many, nothing that could form anything coherent.

"I'm truly sorry, Alia," she said. "But you know there is nothing we can do without endangering Ianto any further. I...I'll leave you here with him. You deserve that much at the very least."

I only nodded in response, still refusing to look directly at Cecily. I couldn't blame her for what had happened, but I couldn't stop myself from feeling bitter over it. Besides, I was far too emotionally torn within to fully process anything. I only listened to her as she walked away, going off somewhere to help all the other kids in the central group. There was only so much time that could be wasted on me.

I was a hopeless case.

Finally, the real tears came. It wasn't as if I'd been holding them back, but now everything from before seemed to be piling on top of itself in order to cause an absolute deluge. I couldn't see from how many tears were coming from my eyes. Everything was blurred and impossible to make out - and somehow, I felt this was the only way I could properly make it through the day.

I started making choking noises and gasping for air, my sobs causing my body to quiver every other second. I couldn't help myself. It was too much for me. All of this was just too much. There was far too much suddeness to it all, while at the same time I was in front of my own younger brother looking as if he were moments from death.

I never saw any of this coming, none of it. The dangers of this Intel Initiative had hit me as soon as I knew what it was about, but I wouldn't have expected Ianto to cause harm to himself. My sweet, quiet, horribly shy and bashful brother - now nothing more than a figure hanging on a wall with half a million wires stuck into his nervous system.

This thought caused me to let out another enormous sob. I couldn't help myself - there was just too much pain sitting inside of me. It started in my heart and then streamed throughout my entire bloodstream, causing me to feel it everywhere. I was heavy but light headed, crying so loudly but feeling like I was silent at the same time.

The worst part was that part of me was beginning to get used to the idea that Ianto was stuck in a coma and wired up to a wall. Looking at him didn't cause me to cry any harder - I was starting to realize there was nothing I could do.

But there had to be something I could do, right?

I couldn't think of anything, so instead I cried.

The sound of footsteps came into my ears, causing me to quiet down. I was embarrassing myself by sobbing so much. No one wanted to see me crying so much. No one really cared, anyways. I'd never been in the same room with another person crying without feeling awkward, and I could only imagine whoever was beside me was feeling the same thing.

My mind automatically assumed that Cecily had returned to give me more information. Maybe she'd contacted Alex over at the field base and he wanted me to come back. Or maybe they'd figured out something, anything, that could get us through this horrible experience. But of course, that was all just wishful thinking. Absolutely none of it could be true because it wasn't Cecily beside me.

No, the girl standing beside me and watching as I wiped my tears away was far shorter and many years younger. I had to push my hair out of my eyes and then try to clear any excess moisture from my eyes before I could properly make her out, too. But then I realized that she was in a similar situation as me - she'd been crying too. In fact, I had a feeling that she was still crying or at least very close to it.

"Nell?" I managed to squeak out, trying to improve my looks just a bit more.

"Alia, oh my God. Alia," she said, hearing the sound of impending tears within her voice. "I was just...I was just coming to see Ianto."

I nearly said that I could leave, but I felt so heavy from all of my crying that I knew I couldn't get myself back up if I tried. For all I knew, I was rooted to the ground in front of Ianto for the rest of my life. If it could somehow get him to move again, then I would gladly stay frozen forever.

"No, no, it's fine," I said. My voice had the same tear-filled quality as hers, and somehow this allowed us to connect in a deeper way. "I was just seeing him for the first time."

"I guessed that much," she said, trying to suck in a deep breath and get herself through this without any more problems. "Most of the others...most of the others in the central time try to avoid this room as much as possible, but I...I can't help but come back here, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he might flutter his eyes open and wake up from it all."

"It shows that you care," I said. I realized that I probably would have difficulty leaving him behind myself. Despite all of the main caused from being around him, I knew that I'd want to be near him just to check on him and care for him. I'd be doing absolutely nothing, but at least I'd be beside him and I'd be thinking about him.

"Everyone cares," Nell said, forcing her voice to be solid for those two words. "It's just no one can really stomach it the way we can...and that's not even a fair statement, because this makes me sick."

"You've known the longest, haven't you?" I asked, sniffling slightly. "You've known...somehow...you know something."

"I do...I do know something," she said, heaving out an enormous sigh. "We were in the middle of a training exercise, a completely ordinary and unremarkable training exercise," Nell explained. "It was fairly simple, but it did involve getting lots of data deleted completely. I...I noticed he was getting very upset with it. I told him to...to message you about it, or tell someone, or just take a breath of fresh air. Something..."

"And he didn't listen," I murmured to myself, sniffling slightly.

"We stopped our training for that day, and he just stormed straight to his room. I thought nothing...nothing of it. I just assumed that he was going to rest, that he was just angry...he could get through with it."

"He chose it for himself," I said, my voice without any tone. It was flat, completely and utterly flat. "He chose this for himself. This is what he thought was best."

"I wish that weren't the case, but it is," Nell replied. I heard her voice crack, and immediately I knew that she was crying too. "That's the only way I can see it."

"Then it really isn't anyone's fault," I said, feeling tears pressing at my eyes again. "My little brother decided this was for the best. No one else did this to him..."

"All his own work," Nell replied through her tears. "I tried to figure out how he did it, I really did, but it's...it's strange. It's made in such a way that he's really the only who could understand it. It doesn't seem complicated until you realize just how many layers there are, and then..."

"You've done what you can, Nell," I replied, squeezing the tears from my eyes as I closed them. "Thank you for that much at least."

"I should've been able to do more, I should've been able to prevent this-"

"You've done what you can," I repeated. "We all could've done something to prevent this, but...we didn't. There was no way of knowing. And now it's no one's fault, none of us are to blame. None."

 A/N Not going to lie - this is one of my favorite chapters of this entire story. I love Alia's reaction, and her conversation with Nell. It's emotionally charged, and that means it's excessively fun to write and all of that jazz. So, what do you all of you think of it?