L.I.F.E. (Torchwood/ Janto)

Chapter 9

Owen reached Life before the rubble around her had even finished settling. He was reaching down to pull away the stones when the car was suddenly flung back out of the car as though the whole scene had been put in reverse. 

Stunned, Owen crouched by the rubble where Life was now standing, bloodied and covered in dust, but still standing. 

"That shouldn't have happened," Life stated, quite obviously as she took in the scene, her hands planted firmly on her hips. 

"Which part are you referring to, you getting hit by a car or Jack getting knocked out by that transmitter?" Owen asked as he followed her to Jack and the minotaur's limp bodies.

"Any of it. That minotaur shouldn't have been that strong, if he was an ordinary minotaur he should've been completely immobilized by those vines." Life climbed onto the Minotaur's chest and started removing his armor.

"What the hell are you doing, Jack needs medical attention!" Ianto yelled at Life as he cradled Jack. There was blood seeping from his ears and nose and he had multiple cuts and bruises all over his body.

"Jack's fine, he's not even dead, just unconscious. I started healing him the second he went down, he's just exhausted from the process. Hard to say when he'll wake up though. Here take this," Life handed the minotaur's breastplate to Gwen who promptly fell over. 

"Oh, that was heavy, uh, shit okay." Life picked the breastplate up and handed it gently to Tosh, Owen, and Gwen.

"Get that to the car, I'll take Jack, but what the hell are we gonna do with this guy?" Ianto said shaking his head. His jaw dropped as Life easily hefted the minotaur's arms up and over her shoulders. His body dissolved into sparks and Ianto gaped as Life burst into flames. With a wink she was gone. 

Life appeared back at the Hub, minotaur in tow, and set him down with a heavy thunk.

"Now, let's see who you really are," Life set her hand on his chest and exhaled. A soft light emanated from the palm of her hand into his body. His chest started glowing and slowly the light expanded to illuminate his whole body. Two bright lights shone from underneath his eyelids and Life sharply inhaled. At once the glow retreated back into her hand, leaving her body alight. With the minotaurs life playing in her mind she dropped to the floor.

That's how the team found her fifteen minutes later, her glowing body next to the minotaur.

"Jesus, can she go half an hour without collapsing in a dramatic pool of light?" Gwen complained as her, Tosh, and Owen struggled to carry the breastplate in the door.

"Hey! That's not fair she's an immortal goddess, uh, entity, we don't know if they're all like that or if it's just her, could be part of the job," Owen replied defensively.

"Thank you Owen, unfortunately for Gwen I do happen to be conscious and free from pain. I've just figured out who our minotaur is, and even more unfortunately for all of he is definitely not supposed to be here," Life replied from her place on the floor. 

"Well shit, really? You're telling me there ISN'T supposed to be a large minotaur roaming the streets of Cardiff here in the 21st century," Tosh replied as the three of them finally put the breastplate down. Ianto set Jack down and worriedly stroked his hair.

"Not this one, no. This is Asterion and he was supposed to be eating people right about now, not lying dead on the floor of your Hub." Life said rising to a seated position.

"Care to elaborate a just a bit?" Owen said, voicing the confusion everyone else was feeling.

"Asterion? The minotaur? Come on didn't you guys ever take Greek history?" Life said exasperatedly, at their blank stares she continued. "Okay so we all know that Zues was a hoe, right, so the result of one of his unions Minos wanted to be king of Crete but he had two other brothers who were equally entitled to the throne. He claimed that the gods wanted him to be King, in order to prove it he prayed to Poseidon and asked him to send a majestic bull and that after the people were convinced of his worth, he would sacrifice the bull to Poseidon. Now, gods love sacrifices and Kings who are indebted to them, so Poseidon sent the bull but Minos, the sneaky little bastard, who then decided that he wanted to keep the bull. And let me tell you Poseidon was NOT happy so he decided to uh, well... he decided to instill a certain lust into Minos' wife, Pasiphae, for the bull."

"Wait a minute, he made Minos' wife fuck a bull? What kind of a punishment is that for Minos? His wife had to be penetrated by a bull!" Gwen exclaimed.

"Yeah, repeating it all aloud in a condensed version makes it sound much worse. Anyway, so Pasiphae enlists Daedalus and Icarus to help her uh, fuck the bull. And they do, so she does. She gives birth to a minotaur, Asterion, and she cares for it and loves it etcetera until it starts eating people. Then Minos orders Daedalus and Icarus to make a maze to contain him. The Athenians at about the same time, were like, peripherally responsible for the death of Minos and Pasiphae's only human son. So Minos demanded that the Athenians send tributes to Crete to be sacrificed to the minotaur." Life finished with a huff and sat back. 

"So I'm not seeing how this is a bad thing? He was just going to eat and kill innocent people, I thought you would be all for this," Owen inquired.

"I know! You'd think wouldn't you," Life shook her head and crossed her arms in a huff. "But, he's necessary. He was supposed to set off a chain of events that shape history into what it is today. Messing with small things that far in the past is dangerous and likely to have large unintended consequences, but a large event such as the lack of a minotaur? That leads to the survival of dozens of people who were supposed to die, Theseus never becomes a hero, Aegeus never throws himself into the sea, and most importantly, the plague on Athens is never lifted."

"That sounds... awful important and everything, but I guess my main concern is why he ended up here, or rather how he ended up here," Jack said, cracking open an eye. Ianto lunged for him without warning, wrapping his arms around him and putting his face next to Jack's.

"Hey, hey, I'm okay, look I'm fine," Jack said pulling Ianto closer to him and pressing his lips softly but firmly to Ianto's. 

"Well, while they're snogging or whatever you kids call it these days, I will tell the rest of you exactly what I know about why the minotaur is here. Which is nothing, so I guess we'll sit here in awkward silence until one of them remembers that there are other people in the room." Life said pulling a phone out of literally nowhere. 

Ianto was straddling Jack as Jack worked a hand down Ianto's pants. The soft murmers of reassurances were almost inaudible over the sound of the Angry Birds game that Life was playing on her phone. 

"We're gonna be here awhile aren't we?" Owen said looking mournfully at the pair as Ianto started to work Jack out of his shirt. 

"Yes, yes, we are." Life replied.