Norton didn't hear Jack leave the observation room. It was only the encroaching silence, the lack of Jack's boundless warmth and vitality that poured out to fill any space he occupied, that made Norton glance around in sudden alarm.

"Jack? Where've you got to now, poppet?" Norton went to the door, but the empty stairs stretched away toward the main laboratory level. Had he gone out before or after the virologist had gone to retrieve the reports? Had he even made it up to this room, or had he slipped away just after they had left the lab? "Jack!" he shouted again. There was no answer.

Norton remembered Jack's smoldering anger as they had been ushered through the lab, one of the scientists nattering away about stages of infection and failed test subjects, but he hadn't thought Jack would actually act on his disapproval. After all, they were here—nominally—to evaluate Good Thinking's progress and report back to Torchwood. If Jack didn't like what he saw, he could always file a complaint and recommend that the project be discontinued.

Of course, Jack didn't know about Norton's other orders, nor the ominous weight in his jacket pocket. Maybe if he did, he would—

From the corridors below, he heard a sudden scrabble of unarmed combat, followed by shouts of warning. Jack's voice rang out in command. Norton rolled his eyes and muttered to the empty room. "Sounds like someone is trying to go someplace he shouldn't. Do I get three guesses who?" He turned toward the door, but before he reached the stairs a shrill alarm sounded. Norton whirled toward the sound. A flashing light on a panel over the desk identified the breach as the door to the containment enclosure.

Norton swore and dashed to the observation window, pressing his face against the glass and praying Jack wasn't doing what he thought—knew—he was doing. Twenty feet below, at the base of the cylindrical chamber, squirmed a milling conglomeration of humanity—no, they were too far reduced to be called human. They were nothing but fragmented bodies, now, torn and mauled by their own hands, flesh and eyes clawed away to reveal the uncanny organic wiring spreading through their bodies. Most of them wore nondescript jumpsuits. A few wore uniforms. One or two, incongruously, were dressed in lab coats, though the fabric was no longer white. The figures wobbled to and fro in a sort of wave, a sick imitation of wheat ruffled by wind.

There was a sudden disturbance in their movements, and into the midst of the throng stumbled a tall figure in a gray coat. Norton slapped his hand against the glass. "Jack!"

Below him, Jack fell to his knees and retched, and Norton felt his own stomach lurch sympathetically. The sight was bad enough, this far removed; Norton couldn't begin to imagine the smell in that silo of death. When he recovered, Jack pushed himself to his feet and began gesturing, trying to get the attention of the wasted figures around him. A few tipped their heads idly in his direction; most ignored him and continued clawing at their tattered limbs, adding their blood to the widening puddle beneath the grated floor.

Jack spun in a circle, staring, and the walking dead constricted about him until he was absorbed into their crush.

Norton shook himself out of the fascination that had gripped him since he looked down upon that scene of horror. Jack—brave, noble, stupid Jack—was trying to save these wretches. Save the victims of the Good Thinking virus. Didn't he know it was too late? These men were well into the self-destructive stage; they were doomed to die, and had been isolated to finish the job in a controlled area, where their remains could be conveniently cremated after they were studied. Why was he putting himself out for men who should have died anyway? These men, they were nothing. Criminals. Condemned men, their thoughts dark and malevolent. They deserved their fate. But Jack…

Norton froze. Jack.

In their brief time together, Norton had glimpsed the darkness behind Jack's eyes, the shadows cast into stark relief by bright flares of passion. Jack was not like these other men, true, but his thoughts were far from pure. His guilt was a badge, worn as some men wore a medal of honor.

Jack would be infected. Jack would have his beautiful body mutilated and torn to the bone. Jack would die.

Norton flung himself against the communications panel at one side of the window, activating what he hoped was the intercom to the enclosure. "Jack!" he shouted, his artfully-crafted persona forgotten in a moment of panic. "Jack, don't touch them! You've got to get out of there, now!"

Jack did not hear, or did not care. He clutched at a convict's arm, then recoiled in horror as the torn flesh sloughed away beneath his touch.

Norton pounded his fist uselessly against the intercom switch, then against the heavy glass dividing the viewing room from the enclosure. He was too focused on the scene below to hear when the miniature transistor set in his pocket crackled to life, until it began to repeat its electronic coda.

"Confirm receipt," droned the mechanical voice. Norton staggered back and reached into his pocket to retrieve the radio. "Confirm receipt."

He hesitated, fearing he would only hear the final confirmation of his orders—but perhaps there was a solution, after all. There was a chance they had changed their mind. A reprieve, a way to spare Jack. Fingers shaking, he tugged the microphone out of a panel in the side of the radio and connected the cable. "Negative on receipt. Request repeat orders."

A series of clicks, then the tinny voice returned. "Request acknowledged. Second iteration. Good Thinking Project status: Terminated. Purge data. Purge samples. Purge personnel." Another pause. "Confirm receipt."

The radio slipped from his fingers and clattered to the desk. Purge samples.

Jack.

Norton had first seen Jack Harkness only a few seconds after Jack had spotted him, judging by the appraising look that was sliding almost tangibly up his legs. It was only his second week at Torchwood, and Norton had been leaning over a desk, waiting for Dr. Peters to sign off on his mandated training in the science division, when he'd turned around to find himself the subject of an examination that was anything but scientific in nature. His flesh had tingled beneath that intense blue gaze, and he'd been struck speechless when he followed it to a matinee-idol face with a jawline to kill for. He never got the pretty ones, no matter how he batted his lashes. How had he caught the eye of someone so delectable?

Was it the suit? It must have been the suit. He did look rather dapper in this one…

Jack had tossed him a saucy wink that set fire to his cheeks—Norton Folgate was not one to blush easily, but he made an exception for aphrodisiacs incarnate—and sauntered on to the office of the head of research, greatcoat swaying dramatically in his wake.

A snort from behind him brought him planetside again, and he turned to see Dr. Peters rolling her eyes. "Stay well away if you know what's good for you," she warned. "That Harkness is a bad apple."

Norton turned to gaze in the direction the blue-eyed demigod had disappeared. "But bad apples make the best cider," he murmured. He straightened his tie and vowed to cross paths with this Harkness fellow again.

The next time their paths crossed, Harkness had shown precious little regard for Norton's suit. The natty gray flannel had ended up in a condition that even Norton was embarrassed to present to his tailors for repair. Still, he considered it a worthwhile sacrifice for the experience, and if an acquaintance with Captain Jack Harkness meant that his next few paychecks were forsworn to replacement clothing—well, he certainly wasn't complaining. His wardrobe could use some sprucing up, and he couldn't think of a better way to dispose of his old togs.

Norton Folgate was no slave to his emotions, but his time with Jack had awakened a plethora of entirely new feelings in him. The flush of rare self-consciousness when Jack's eyes swept over his body. The warm spark of affection that had nothing to do with physical gratification, and everything to do with the dimple in Jack's cheek when he smiled. The flare of possessiveness when Jack paused to chat with a guard at the entrance to the facility. "How's the wife, Hugo?" he'd asked with a wink and a familiar pat on the rump. Hugo had laughed and blathered something about children, and Norton had squashed a desire to forcibly remove the man's teeth.

Hugo was down there now, fingernails tearing at the sturdy material of his uniform as he attempted to claw out his own heart. Jack was grappling with him, hands clamped around the man's wrists, trying to stop the scratching while struggling to drag him toward the door. As Norton watched, the guard flung an arm into Jack's face to push him away. Jack reeled back with a bleeding lip, and Norton winced. That certainly would sting when he kissed…

He halted that thought forcibly, shuddering. From the desk below him, the tinny orders droned again. "Purge samples. Purge personnel. Confirm receipt."

Below, Jack swept a hand across his face, marring the gleam of perspiration on his brow. Norton pushed away from the window and turned to the wall of file drawers on the opposite side of the room. "No wonder you're sweating, treacle," he murmured conversationally, trying to calm himself, to focus on the task at hand. "You're packed like sardines down there, and in that coat, you must be sweltering. Let's get you out of there, shall we? And then we'll see what else we can get you out of…"

It took less than a minute to locate the relevant files on the Good Thinking virus. Norton paged through the folders, setting aside computer punchcards and skimming report abstracts and summaries of the experiments. There had to be a way to deactivate the virus. A vaccine, a cure, a way to just turn the bloody thing off. He knew it was technological in nature—something to do with radio transmission—and one thing all radios had in common was a power switch. Even that blasted transistor set that kept parroting its purge orders could be shut off, if it came to it.

After several minutes' searching, Norton let the final file fall from his hands, the loss of hope draining him of strength. There was no cure. The virus had grown beyond control, mutated to a point where it defied its human creators. It was unkillable. Unstoppable, except by…

"Purge samples."

Norton went to the window and tipped his head against the glass, scanning the teeming mass of bodies below for one in a long gray coat. It didn't take long to locate him; Jack was still standing, while all around him men were collapsing, too damaged and bloodied to remain on their feet. Jack staggered, wild-eyed, heat in his cheeks. So alive, so vibrant. He swung his gaze about the room, taking in the devastation, and even from this height Norton could see the blue of his eyes.

As he watched, Jack raised a hand to his neck. Scratched at the skin. Stopped. Stared at his hand.

Norton turned away from the dawning horror he saw in Jack's face.

"Purge data. Purge samples. Purge personnel. Confirm receipt."

He went to the desk, where the radio hummed its endless message. He raised the microphone, thumbed the switch for transmission. "Receipt confirmed," he said, his voice as flat as the machine that had issued the orders.

Bowing over the control panel, Norton input the sequence to initiate incineration. As the flames leaped high to blacken the observation glass, their roar at last drowning out the screams from the chamber below, his heart turned to ash in his breast.

Author's Notes:

I love the character of Norton Folgate more than is reasonable, considering what an absolute slimeball he turns out to be (but he's such a fun slimeball!). When he confesses to Jack that he once killed someone he loved, it underscores that there's more to him than rainbows and sarcasm and murderous snark, and he actually *does* have a heart under all that attitude. Or... did. Once.

Norton is one of those characters you love to hate-but at the same time, he has moments, in Ghost Mission as well as Outbreak, where you almost wonder if he used to be a decent fellow who was corrupted (much like Suzie and others) by the abuses of Torchwood and his proximity to power... so that's what I decided to aim for with this fic. Not to excuse his behavior, but to show the circumstances that may have shaped it.

Though the line of dialogue is left somewhat open to interpretation, and it's unclear when they actually became involved, I was taken with the idea that Norton was referring to killing Jack. This scene began to take form during my second listen to iTorchwood: Outbreak/i, and though I found it VERY difficult to get inside Norton's head, the idea wouldn't leave me alone until I'd given it a shot. I took some liberties with the narrative (to be fair, Jack's virus-induced flashback is a little disjointed), but not enough to save poor Hugo-but he dies in canon, so it's not my fault! Maybe someday I'll save him in another story.