Destruction: Chapter 4 - Courage

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RATING: PG-13 for this Chapter for some swearing
WORDS: ~ 1050
CHARACTERS: Ianto, Owen, Jack, Ocs -  Sam Shuster, Molly
SPOILERS: None, Not canon. This Chapter set pre-Series 1. 
SUMMARY:  More angst for our boys

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear - Ambrose Redmoon

Ianto lay completely in the dark. The initial elation of having been found was ebbing away as the hours passed. He was surprised that he wasn’t more afraid. He reckoned that it was because at least now his body would be recovered. That was something, wasn’t it? But he felt so tired. The effort to respond to the “London voice” was getting harder and harder.

 

Finally, the voice told him that they were going to begin to remove the above ground debris and to not be frightened by the noise. He could hear the sound of a motor, then some gears being shifted. ‘Must be the crane,’ he thought. After some time Ianto heard a loud boom and thought he would have jumped out of his skin, if he could have moved at all to do so. As it was, he shook uncontrollably. 

 

“That was a large slab of concrete being removed from the top of the debris pile and it made a bit of noise when they put it down out of the way. They’re going to be removing some smaller pieces next. Just hang in there.”

 

The layers of destruction were slowly and carefully peeled away. It was now early afternoon and while the scraping continued, Owen was sure that the time gaps between his request and the S.O.S. response were getting longer. They were already past the critical 24 hour point. He knew that the survival rate for serious crush injuries decreased rapidly after 24 hours. Shock, hypothermia, organ failure all took their toll. A punctured lung, or a small amount of internal bleeding that could easily be dealt with initially, became a much more serious issue as time passed.

 

The crane came down to lift another huge piece of concrete. It strained under the weight and for a moment Owen was afraid that the crane might tip and drop the slab back down on the survivor. The crane finally lifted the concrete and slowly turned to remove it. Once the piece was out of the way, he and Sam came and looked once more. Molly, who had been silent through the whole process, began pulling on Sam and circling the area frantically. She barked twice and sat down. They both tried to look for any openings into the interior.

 

Owen’s flashlight caught a reflection of something as he moved his torch methodically over the area. He backtracked and slowly moved the torch over its previous path. There it was. He inched forward to get a better look. A small opening leading to what? He shined the torch directly into the hole and saw only debris. Frustrated he backed up and realized that initially he was looking into the space from a completely different angle. Getting down on his stomach he angled the light through the hole to try to see more the interior. 

 

“Hey, can you hear me?” The wait was interminable. “Hey can you hear me?” He heard what could be a faint scratch, but he wasn’t sure. “OK, if you can see my torch light, scratch twice. Another wait. And then he heard it – two faint scratches. “Mate, scratch again, every few seconds while I try to find you.” Owen focused on the sound as he swept the light slowly into the small hole. He almost missed it, but his light picked up the reflection again. He saw a small round gold circle suspended out of the ceiling.   No, not the ceiling, but from an object stuck just below the top of the area. 

 

He carefully moved his light up a bit. It took him a moment to recognize that it was a person. The gold circle was hanging from the person. Looking harder Owen could see that he (was it a he?) was lying on his back trapped between what looked like two more slabs of concrete. From their angles, it looked like the pieces had trapped his entire right side, leaving only his left arm and head with a little space to move. But the person wasn’t moving at all at the moment. “I see you, just hang in there..don’t give up.” Owen saw the survivor’s head shift slightly and the eyes open. He was alive, though he looked in a pretty grim state. 

 

He shouted to Sam who radioed the base about their discovery. The engineers ran to the site and examined the situation. “We’re going to have to use hand tools – concrete saws, maybe even chisels to get him out. If we try to lift that last piece of concrete directly off him, something’s bound to shift. We’ll radio for the firefighters; they have the tools and the most experience with this type of situation.”

 

Owen, looked at the survivor again. ‘He’s just staring,’ Owen thought. ‘Don’t tell me we got this far only to lose him.’ Owen saw the person blink and let out a sigh of relief.

 

“We’re going to cut the last pieces away with hand tools, OK? The noise will be close to you but we’re getting you out. You’re going to be fine.”    He turned to the engineers and saw they were preoccupied with organizing the firefighters who had been at the base.

 

He looked at the hole again. He was pretty sure he could get through there and crawl on his belly across another cement slab until he was directly next to the survivor. He knew he shouldn’t but damn it he wasn’t going to lose this guy now. As he began to creep toward the opening, Sam made eye contact with him. He knew what Owen was doing but did nothing to stop him or alert the others. ‘You daft fool’, he thought. ‘But I’d do the same if I could fit through there.’

 

Owen squeezed his body through the hole, and crawled along the small space toward the survivor. Man, woman, Owen wasn’t sure. As he got closer he could see the left hand pretty well. He thought it was a man based on hand size. He looked at the face, caked in dirt, dark black eyes just staring at him. His lowered his torch and illuminated the dangling round object. A pocket watch. He could see the man was wearing what has been a suit. He smiled to himself.

 

He looked directly at the trapped man. “Gramps, it’s your lucky day.”

Chapter 5 is here: http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/2977.html