10110

Somehow thinking about going to see Ianto once again felt completely different now that I'd been through my part of the mission. For me, more or less, it seemed like the Intel Initiative was over. Since it was over, everything that came along with it felt like it should be over as well - it felt like the situation with Ianto should be over.

Even though I knew that he wasn't suddenly going to be okay, I couldn't help but feel myself hoping for some sort of bizarre miracle that could manage to fix everything in an instant. If Ianto could do that to himself at the age of thirteen, then there had to be some sort of force that could reverse it out there. I didn't have the faintest idea what it could be, but hope swelled within me.

But of course, I couldn't get my hopes too far up. If anything, I was going to end up only managing to get more upset about everything.

That was precisely why I sat in front of Ronnie and prepared myself to speak to her. I needed to get someone else to go with me in order to support me, and I needed to make sure that I wouldn't end up shattering into a million pieces as time went by. I knew things could go terribly wrong if I allowed them to...I needed someone else to keep me in check.

"Truitt," I said. I had to pause before continuing in order to allow myself to inhale an enormous breath - this was far more difficult than I had been making it out to be in my mind. If anything, it should've been the easier part of everything - but of course, I ended up making it harder for myself.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Will you come along with me? I can't...I can't go through all of this with Ianto by myself, and I don't know who else I could possibly ask, and I trust you enough to support me from time to time..." I blubbered out.

"I've been your best friend for...well, it doesn't matter exactly how long. All that matters is that the answer is yes, and I assume that we're going to be leaving soon?"

My jaw just about dropped open. I'd been expecting her to deny me flat out - she might have things to do in order to celebrate, or she just wanted to relax after our part of the mission and no longer have to bother with any sort of stress, or anything. I was so used to clashing against Ronnie that I just expected it to happen no matter what.

Ronnie furrowed her brows as she looked over towards me, perplexed by this reaction to her accepting my invitation. I managed to bring myself back together, but I still couldn't help but feel extremely strange over the entire situation. A flush started to stretch across my cheeks as she continued to stare at me.

I couldn't possibly decipher what was going through her head at the moment - I'd been too shocked simply by the fact she'd said yes to me to begin with. It seemed almost mad to think that everything was working out for me after I'd had so much trouble. Certainly there had to be something going behind it all.

"What...what is it?" I murmured. "Why are you staring me like that?"

"Why am I staring at you?" she repeated after me.

"Yes, why?" I asked, biting my lip.

"Oh, come on, Parr! I was going to come whether you asked me to come or not," she scoffed. "Do you really think I was just about to let you scamper off again after I found out what all of this does to you? Of course not."

"Oh," I mumbled. For a few moments I let this sink in - Ronnie really did care about me, if she were willing to give up a time of celebration just to sneak off and make sure I was okay. More than that, really - she would be risking getting in trouble in order to monitor me. But, then again, Ronnie never was bothered whenever she got in trouble.

"You shouldn't be so surprised by that, really," Ronnie said, shaking her head. "I think you're too busy looking on the bad side to realize that there are some good things going on too! Come on, I know you know somewhere in there that I wanted to come along with you. You wouldn't have even asked if you didn't."

"I just wanted someone I trusted to go with, and I didn't think that any of the other people here would work out as well as you would, you know...? Yeah?"

"Yeah, I get that," she said, a small smile curling across her lips. "I hope that you would trust me more than everyone else. You've only known me for years on end, Parr."

"But I thought..." I started to say, realizing that I had no real explanation for what had been going on in my mind when in reality it was little more than a gut feeling that was was keeping my going onwards in such a way. I'd been surprised by just how often I'd been wrong with my gut lately.

"Whatever you were thinking, you probably thought wrong - sorry to say it, but it's true."

"Well, okay," I said, letting out a sigh. I felt silly and stupid for reacting in such a way, but I intended to go through with what I was doing.

"And?" Ronnie prompted.

"And we have to go now," I said. "Alex told me that I shouldn't waste my time about it."

"He says that you shouldn't waste time for anything."

"I think he's right about that. About Alex, though..." I began, my voice fading away as I started to reconsider telling her about how I'd been asked out on a date by someone else. Maybe it was a bad idea.

"What about Alex?" she asked, now fascinated by whatever I had to say. "What about him?"

"Well, I went to go ask him about going off to the central base to make sure I had permission to go, right?" I said, raising my lips into a small smile in order to reassure her of everything that I was saying. "That's exactly what I should do, and that's all I was doing."

"What about Alex?" she repeated, starting to push even further to get the answers out of me. She was staring unblinkingly in my direction, something that made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. I started shifting around and fidgeting to throw the feeling off of me, but it didn't really work.

"Well, he...he asked me out on a date," I said. "He wanted to know if we could go to dinner once the entire Intel Initative was through."

"Of course he did," Ronnie said, scoffing slightly. "I wasn't expecting anything more from him, but I'm still not happy about it. God. You'd think he might just leave you alone after everything."

"How about we just go ahead and get everything together and go off for the central base now?" I suggested. Ronnie seemed like she was going to respond for several moments, something that bothered me quite a bit. I'd just wanted to be honest about the entire Alex thing...but I soon regretted making the decision to just let it spill out.

Our trip went far faster than I had been expecting, especially due to the fact that Ronnie was mostly silent the whole time and I never attempted to bring up any sort of conversation. I realized that she'd been somewhat hurt by the fact someone else had tried to ask me out, and also she was starting to let the gravity of the situation sink into her skin.

At least she was attempting to prepare herself for seeing Ianto - I'd explained very little to her, but it was enough to make her understand that she needed to get herself into a proper mindset before going onwards. Besides, she wanted to be strong in order to support me now that I was going back there. I just hoped that I hadn't ruined everything by mentioing Alex to begin with.

I gave myself a mental note to put all of that behind me - right now I wasn't worrying about romance and relationships that I might have with people. I was worrying about the fate of my younger brother and how that would end up affecting me and other people I cared about. That was the reason we were heading off to the central base.

Alex's only part in this was giving me permission, Ronnie's only part was being there to support me. Nothing else mattered except for Ianto.

Would it hurt me any more to see that nothing had changed in spite of everything that happened around him? I'd convinced myself I wasn't expecting any real change in Ianto - and yet, my heart longed to be able to find that he was going to be just fine, that we could cast all of the previous worries aside and never have to think about them again.

Then again, nothing could be that easy, especially not anything like what we were experiencing with Ianto. As much as I could look up towards the sky and hope that somehow things could be changed, my thoughts alone would do very little. I would have to skew the universe's plan quite a bit in order for everything to be instantly fixed.

As negative as I felt, I still hoped that there was some solution out there waiting to be found before crumbled apart. While I had no clue what this solution could be or where it would be found, I felt myself beginning to wonder if it would be at all possible to fix it all. Surely there had to be something on the Earth that could help.

We arrived at the central base and stepped out in front of it, still remaining silent. I started thinking of all the possibilities about what could be going through Ronnie's head, then I chastised myself for getting so distracted. There were other things that we had to worry about that were far more pressing than anything else.

The two of us stepped into the central base together, Ronnie not wanting to be behind anyone. She was the sort who always stepped ahead no matter what, even though I was supposed to be the one leading her around.

"Here we are," I said, finding that my voice was far softer than I was expecting it to be. Whenever it came to seeing Ianto, I couldn't help but lose a portion of the control I had over myself. I didn't know what it was, nor did I care to figure it out. Ronnie, of course, had been in the base before and had nothing to be impressed by.

"We are," Ronnie said, heaving out a sigh. These were the first few words we'd exchanged with one another for quite a while, it seemed. I could see her struggling with this, hoping to get past her emotions so that we could have a better time now that we were here.

Just like me, she must've realized that the main thing we needed to worry about dealed with Ianto and not wherever our relationship lay. We didn't need to think about what Alex was up to, only what we were up to in that current moment.

"So we're heading right towards the computer lab, yeah?" Ronnie asked, pursing her lips. "That's where...that's where Ianto is, right?"

"Right," I confirmed. "Are you...are you ready for all of this?"

"As ready as I'll ever be. What about you, Parr?"

"I'll be okay," I tried to reassure her. Unfortunately, my words didn't even help to reassure myself. I knew that Ronnie didn't believe me, but she said nothing more on the subject. This certainly wasn't the time for her to say any sort of quip directed to me - I was emotionally fragile enough.

We faded into silence once again as we both started making our way towards where we both knew the computer room was. She kept pace with me the entire time, however, not dragging behind nor going too far ahead where I could no longer know where she was going.

Once we got to the entrance, however, we had to go in one at a time. Ronnie allowed me to go in first, and I didn't bother to try to decipher all of the thoughts that she was currently going through. I wouldn't have to experience the shock of seeing Ianto in such a condition for the first time, not the way she did.

I heard Ronnie mutter a curse and as I turned to face her I saw her eyelids flutter shut. The pink shades in her cheeks were beginning to drain away until she looked paler than I'd ever seen her before. She opened her eyes again to reveal pearls of tears forming in the corners.

This was the most shaken I'd ever seen Ronnie be throughout all the time we'd known one another. Just days ago I'd seen her facing something where the smallest error could end up in creating World War III in a matter of moments, and she hadn't even been all that outwardly worried at all.

But now I couldn't blame her at all for being shocked - yes, I had explained what had happened to Ianto to her, but a simple explanation couldn't prepare her for the reality of the situation. Nothing could've prepared me, after all.

She'd known Ianto for as long as she'd known me, and while she didn't exactly know him very well, she did care. I know she did.

There were so many people who I never would've pegged down to have cared for Ianto, but now that he was in such a condition it made me understand just how much of an effect he would have on others. I didn't know what to say or do about any of it, but it was almost sweet to know I wasn't the only one suffering.

I wasn't alone in caring for Ianto, and I wasn't alone in feeling so utterly horrible over what he had done to himself.

"Psi, I am so sorry. So sorry about all of this," she said. "I know that there's nothing I can really do, but I...I knew it was bad, but I had no idea just how bad it all was..."

"Sorry won't do anything," I mumbled in response. But then I reached out my arms and pulled Ronnie close to me. I wanted to have some source of comfort, and the girl who I assumed was my soon-to-be girlfriend was the only one I knew I could completely and utterly rely on. Whether I needed her to lean on emotionally or physically, she would be there for me.

At that very moment, she was there for me to lean up both emotionally and physically. I buried my face into her shoulder and tried to find some sort of way to calm myself down. The only thing I could think of would be to clear my mind - and I couldn't possibly do that.

Ianto was there behind us the entire time, always present, never conscious to see anything that was going on. I wondered if he'd be happy to find out that Ronnie and I were going to have a relationship together. He probably would be, although he'd be surprised...unless, of course, he'd realized that she was flirting with me the entire time we'd known one another.

He probably did realize, even though he'd never seen the way Nell had cared for him as well. Those two would've been adorable together, and they would've gotten together if he wasn't in his current condition. Ianto's entire future had been twisted because of this decision. It seemed almost impossible that he would have any sort of future.

This realization became my breaking point. An enormous lump made its way into my throat, and I managed to pull Ronnie even closer to me as if that action could help me feel better on its own. She did the same to me, able to understand what was happening and trying to help me get through it all.

I felt somewhat embarrassed as tears flooded my eyes, but I wasn't going to hold myself back at this point in time. Even now, even after seeing Ianto all wired up for so long, I couldn't get used to the sight. Ronnie had seen just how traumatizing it was with her own eyes, so she certainly couldn't blame me for crying over it.

But at the same time, I knew that I'd already cried out far too many tears, lamented over Ianto far too many times. How much longer would this despair last, and how far could I push it to the back of my mind before it popped right back up again? It wouldn't leave me alone forever no matter what I did, that much seemed certain.

Ianto was my younger brother and would always be, no matter what happened. As his older sister, I would always carry the responsibility to look over him and boss his around. That, however, was not something that I could manage to do with what he was currently going through.

I felt so helpless - no matter what I might try, I couldn't make any difference. I couldn't communicate with him or figure out a way to get him back to being a normal boy once the Intel Initiative was through. Just because I was his sister didn't make me special.

"I hate this so much, Truitt," I sobbed. "I've hated every moment of this."

"I know you have, I've been there for a whole lot of those moments," she said.

A/N Wonderful things happening in this world - and they're all about to get a little more wonderful. Is that sarcasm or me just being somewhat sadistic? I dunno. That's all up to you, I suppose.