Hey, all! I've gone and written myself a new story. No orignal characters this time! That didn't seem to go over well. Hm...wonder why? Anyway, read this mildly creepy and action packed episode to make up for the previous disasters I have written. Review! Oh, and there's only four chapters to this one because I had to break up the story funny so it would flow right...

"Well, this is just shitty." Ianto grumbled, pulling his suit jacket tighter around himself in a useless attempt to ward off the rain.

They'd been wandering around Bute Park for hours now and the rain had started falling in force an hour ago. It had been drizzling all day, but no one had paid it any mind. Ianto was of the opinion someone should have thought to bring an umbrella. Of course, those sorts of things were his job and if anyone was to blame for the oversight, he was. He'd hear it when they got back to the Hub, he was sure. Right now though, he would murder for anything that could be used to shelter him from the rain.

He sighed loudly and plodded on, one hand holding the middle of his jacket to keep it pulled tight and the other clutching a PDA in a shaking grip. He was so cold. If it wasn't a matter of life or death—strangely, everything seemed to be these days—he wouldn't even have dreamt the idea to be out searching the Park for the source of the strange readings. It wasn't Rift energy that the computers had picked up, he'd double checked that. No, it was something else, something unfamiliar that had given Jack pause.

Thus, there they were, mucking about a soaking wet, muddy park looking for an elusive piece of technology when everyone else was cuddled up to their loved ones with a steaming mug of hot cocoa. He'd murder for some of that, too. The loved one and the hot cocoa. He didn't think Jack would agree to that right now, though. None of them would. Even Gwen had used this miserable search to escape the pity-filled eyes of Rhys. He and Jack had tried to comfort each other, really had, but Jack couldn't find it in himself to feel anything for anyone at the moment.

Ianto doubted he even gave two shakes about the Doctor right now.

Being buried alive for 1,872 years could do that to a person, Ianto decided. He couldn't begrudge Jack his emotionless state right now, didn't think he ever could. For him, it had been almost two thousand years instead of two hours. It hurt Ianto's head to think about it, so he tried desperately not to, but found his mind drifting back to it anyway. Something about the brutal horror of it drew his damaged psyche to it. He couldn't help it. Jack had died and revived every three minutes for almost two thousand years, then came back to losing Toshiko and Owen.

That had to have done some serious mental damage. Ianto counted himself lucky, for all it hurt to think. He didn't think it was lucky Owen and Toshiko died, but he felt far better than Jack did and found himself thinking—much to his own shame—that he was glad he wasn't Jack right now. Normally, he found himself vaguely jealous of the Captain, but now, now he just thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't even remotely close to being Jack. He didn't know what he would do with himself if he were.

Suicide was most definitely out.

Being perpetually alive sort of clinched that deal, anyway. You couldn't kill yourself when it was impossible for you to die. Ianto was sure Jack had thought it, though. He'd seen it behind his lover's eyes for days afterwards. The feeling had faded, leaving in its wake an eerie hollowness that almost made Ianto long for the deep, pure, heart wrenching agony. At least then he knew Jack was in there somewhere. Now he felt like he was conversing everyday with an empty shell that had happened to borrow Jack's face.

Ianto pulled in a halting breath, the cold making it harder to breathe. He was soaking wet and bone deep miserable, but it was still better than sitting around the depressive atmosphere of the Hub bringing everyone so many cups of tea that they ran out of space on their desks for them.

It was times like these he wished he could do more than clean up other people's shit and make damn good beverages. He felt useless, impotent; like there wasn't thing he could do besides shout at the stars and rage at the uncaring cosmos. He'd done his fair share of that, it became boring after a while, and completely pointless, too. He sighed and flexed his left hand, which was tightly gripping the front of his jacket. His hand was starting to ache, but he didn't care. He just kept following the yellow flashing light on his water-proofed PDA. The light kept shifting, causing him to have to change his direction, but each time he did, it got closer.

"This is such shit." Ianto muttered, teeth clattering harshly.

"I know, it is, isn't?" Gwen said from his right. She sighed heavily. "Still, I'll take this over sitting around doing nothing. Even freezing to death in the rain beats sitting around doing nothing."

"Yeah, it does." Ianto acknowledged softly. He adjusted his grip on the PDA. "What do you think, Jack? Will we find it soon?"

"You're the one with the PDA, you tell me." Jack replied distractedly, blue eyes roving slowly around the scenery. He didn't seem particularly affected by the rain, even though his coat had turned a deep shade of grey from the wet.

"It's getting closer." Ianto answered vaguely, unable to get a more accurate reading. He growled, suddenly irrationally angry, and banged the PDA on his other hand, letting go of his jacket. "Dammit! We need Toshiko; I don't know how to work this!"

"Well, we don't have her!" Jack whirled around and snarled at him, blue eyes as cold as the rain. "So, figure it out! Unless you'd like to be the one looking for her replacement?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Jack, leave him alone!" Gwen interceded, just as angry as Jack, if not more so. "He's grieving, we all are! This isn't ideal, I understand, but we need to make due. Shouting at each other isn't going to make this any easier."

"Speak for yourself." Jack told her, voice deceptively level. "I've already got someone lined up to replace her. And Owen. I'm interviewing them tomorrow."

"How could you?" Ianto asked eyes wide with shock. He stopped walking to stare open-mouthed at Jack. "It's only been three weeks, Jack! You can't seriously be considering replacing them yet?"

"Why not?" Jack asked, completely unfazed by the emotion on Ianto's face. "It's been three weeks, Ianto. We should've had replacements two weeks ago. I held off this long, it's time I stopped putting it off and actually got it over with."

"That's easy for you to say!" Gwen snapped, affronted and angry. "You were buried under the ground for two thousand years, we were stuck here! What to you want from us, Jack? For us to just switch off our emotions and forget that Owen and Tosh ever existed?"

There was a long, tense pause before Jack answered her. "Yes, that's exactly what I want you to do."

"Well, alright then," Gwen said disbelief tangible in her voice. "I'm sorry; Jack, but I can't do that. I won't."

"Then don't." Jack shrugged. He snatched the PDA from Ianto's lax grip, turned on his heels, then stalked off in the direction of the yellow dot. "Either follow me or go home and forget Torchwood ever existed. Your choice."

Gwen and Ianto shared a long, hard look, before jogging to catch up with Captain Harkness.

Losing Toshiko and Owen was one thing, but losing the memory of their sacrifice would just be cruel. They deserved to be remembered by the people that cared about them until the end of time, not to be wiped out by a drug used to keep people quiet. Ianto had the startling, if not somewhat despairing thought, that the old Jack would never had said that to them. He didn't threaten people with retcon, not over something like that, simply because two years of his own life had been snatched from him.

Ianto had thought that would always be a deciding factor in Jack's personality.

He was apparently wrong.

Before Ianto could think any further on the subject a strange shimmering, almost like a bubble, passed by the corner of his eye. He frowned, stopping to spin around in place in an attempt to catch the strange phenomenon head on. Eyes wide and stinging in the rain, he stood there a few moments before shrugging it off and trotting after Gwen. If he saw it again he'd say something, for now he'd keep quiet about it. No use chasing after strange things you've seen out of the corner of your eye. Those sorts of sightings were notoriously unreliable.

Rolling his eyes to the sky he trudged on, both arms wrapped around his middle to defend against the cold. He didn't remember ever being this miserable at Torchwood before, not counting the incident with Lisa, of course. That was something else entirely in his mind. It had nothing to do with Torchwood and everything to do with Canary Warf. They were two separate things to him. They hadn't been at first, but then he'd met Jack and suddenly they had become two different entities. Jack had that effect on things, Ianto noticed. He could twist it to fit what he wanted it to be. He supposed that's why Jack liked the Doctor so well; he couldn't twist the Time Lord.

The strange wave-y bubbling passed the corner of his eye again and Ianto whirled around to get a good look at it. He frowned. The air was bending, shifting, like a heat wave rising off the road in the middle of summer. His brows scrunched as he stared it head on, trying to figure out what it could possibly be.

"Jack!" he called out, eyes fixed on the strange shimmer about the size and shape of a door.

"What?" Jack snapped, turning around to glare at Ianto, only to pause and frown in confusion at the warping air instead. "What the hell is that?"

"What the hell is what?" Gwen asked tiredly, also turning to face Ianto. Her jaw dropped. "Is the air supposed to be doing that?"

"I'd wager a no." Ianto said, arms coming to rest at his sides, cold completely forgotten. He made to take a step towards it, but Jack's panicked shout stopped him.

"Ianto, don't!" the Captain raced the ten yards over to Ianto, yanking him viciously away from the strange bubble-door in the air. "Don't you even dream of goin' near that! I won't lose someone else!"

"Alright, Jack," Ianto agreed, carefully removing his jacket sleeves from Jack's steel grip. He swallowed and gently pried the PDA from Jack's cold hand. "Let me see it, Jack. I might be able to determine exactly what this is."

"It's a bubble." Jack informed him solemnly. "We should go, now, before it snatches us, too."

"Snatch us?" Gwen asked, voice trembling. "I don't like the sound of that. How do we stop it?"

"We don't." Jack answered her, voice flat. "It has a set requirement that it has to meet, then it disappears on its own, there's nothing we can do."

"Well, I just won't accept that." Gwen insisted stubbornly. She squared her shoulders, then darted towards the shimmer, running into it before Jack could stop her.

"Gwen, no!" he shouted uselessly, watching on in horror as Gwen just vanished. His arm dropped to his side as he stared at the shimmer. It was still there, mocking them. "Dammit! Why did she do that? Gwen!"

"C'mon," Ianto started, putting the PDA away in his pocket. He grabbed Jack's hand. "We have to go in and get her."

"No!" Jack braced his feet and pulled Ianto back. "If we go in, we get stuck too."

"Does that really matter?" Ianto asked, getting a strange feeling of emptiness in his gut. "What else is there, Jack? We've already lost Tosh and Owen; I won't lose her, too. Let me go."

"No, I won't." Jack told him, eyes hard once again, no longer showing the blind panic they had earlier. He clutched Ianto's hand tighter. "We'll both go."

With that, he stepped forward, pulling Ianto into the bending, shifting, doorway with him.

Ianto thought the rain had been cold. He was wrong. Stepping through the doorway felt like someone had stuck him in front of an industrial fan and threw a bucket of ice water on his head. He gasped, the feeling freezing his chest and limbs. He felt like he was flying standing vertical, it made him impossibly dizzy. The Park spun around the edges of his vision, zooming and swirling all at once. His stomach flipped, he was going to be sick he was sure. The little ice spiders crawled along his skin, his hands were numb. He couldn't feel Jack, could barely feel himself.

Suddenly, all of the motion stopped.

He hit old, moldy, wet brick, the gouges and pock marks forcing a gruesome pattern on his right cheek. He groaned, his chest protesting from hitting the ground abruptly and without padding. Wincing with the pain that shot through his skull and bounced around in his teeth, Ianto pushed up to rest on his knees. He blinked his eyes, trying to adjust them to the dim light of the stone room he seemed to have landed in. He glanced around, turning his head to see behind himself. He froze when he spotted a lump of clothing and pale flesh. Pushing rapidly to his feet as he dared, Ianto stumbled over to investigate.

He fell to his knees with a harsh thump next to the body and swiftly rolled it over, only to feel a sharp stab of fear lance through his chest. It was Gwen. He checked to make sure she was breathing and alive. She was, thankfully. Pushing his terror away for the moment, Ianto hauled her into his lap, trying to wake her. He opened her eyelids checking for a concussion, and finding none, felt himself relax further. She was just unconscious with no danger of falling into a coma, luckily.

"Gwen. Gwen!" Ianto shook her roughly, attempting to wake her. He coughed, breathing in the strange mist that seemed to permeate this place.

There was no sign of Jack.

"C'mon, Gwen!" Ianto urged. "Don't leave me alone in this strange medieval dungeon. Wake up!"

"Huh?" Gwen mumbled, hazel eyes blinking slowly open.

What she saw made her pause. There were clumps of mold and fungus, growing mostly at the tops of the walls where they met the ceiling. It was a strange incandescent purple color that Gwen was sure was more deadly than it looked. Most things in nature tended to be that way. Especially when pretty. The walls themselves were made of stone and obviously very old. They fit together well enough, but Gwen could see gaps where tar used to be but had eroded away. There wasn't the sound of water, but the walls were wet, dripping in some places but not in others.

There was a strange smoke-like mist that hung oppressively in the air, irritating the lungs. Not enough to cause coughing, but enough to make you want to. It stifled everything else and she couldn't help but breathe it in. It seemed to be in the same concentration on the floor as it was at the ceiling, which struck her as odd. Most gasses sunk, floated, or hung in the middle. They didn't disperse evenly. Not to her knowledge anyway, which if she admitted it, wasn't very extensive. It was all very odd and only served to make her feel even more discomforted.

"Ianto?" Gwen asked, clearing her throat from the mist. "Where are we?"

"I dunno." Ianto answered, helping Gwen sit up slowly. "I just got here. I found you unconscious. Jack was with me, but now he isn't. We were holding hands; I don't understand how he could have landed somewhere else."

"Maybe he didn't come through at all." Gwen suggested, climbing unsteadily to her feet. She braced her hand against the wall, grimacing at the slimly feel of the rock. "He's not exactly normal, you know. Maybe he didn't meet the portal's requirements. It's just a thought."

"Yeah, maybe," Ianto acknowledged, eyes roving around their new environment. "I hope so, anyway. He'll be able to think of a way to get us out. Because, right now, we're stuck with no way to leave. I don't see a door, do you?"

"No," Gwen said with a sigh. She turned and began to walk towards the far wall, only to jump back in surprise when a section of the wall slid away to reveal a passage. "I think I found one, Ianto."

"I suppose it's better than nothing." Ianto said resignedly. He straightened the hem of his jacket. "Going forward is better than staying in here. We need to find the source of the water; we're going to need it in a few hours."

"Yeah, we are, aren't we?" Gwen asked rhetorically. She squared her shoulders and gathered her courage. "Right. Let's go. Maybe we'll find a way out."

"I hope so." Ianto mumbled, following Gwen down the damp passage. "I really do."

TWL

"Ow!" Jack grunted out harshly as he impacted wet stone. Groaning in pain, he rolled onto his back, eyes starring unseeingly up at the ceiling.

Blinking blearily in the dim light, he slowly sat upright, eyes scanning his new surroundings for entrances and exits. There seemed to be nothing. It was just a completely enclosed stone room with strange smoky mist and fluorescent purple fungus growing on the walls. With a sigh, he slowly stood, spinning around in place, still searching for an exit. He didn't find one. Rolling his eyes skyward in exasperation, he opened his Vortex Manipulator, intent on using it to find the door.

He pressed a series of buttons and a harmonious beep sounded in the damp chamber. With a sigh, Jack walked over to the north wall and waited for the door to open. It slid open with a loud, grating, groaning noise that made him wince and cover his ears until it passed. The hallway beyond the strangely advanced door resembled the chamber, mist and all. Shaking out the tension in his shoulders, Jack set out down the hallway, intent on finding Ianto, Gwen, and the way out.

It seemed odd to him that Ianto wasn't there. He should have been, they'd been holding hands when they'd stepped through the shimmer. It didn't make sense that Ianto would end up somewhere separate from him. Jack felt worry slice through his guts as a thought occurred to him. Maybe the portal had killed Ianto; maybe he'd been dead when he landed! No, that couldn't be right; he remembered hitting the ground then sitting up, no pauses in between. Then again, he couldn't use that as a reliable indicator anymore. After the thousandth time he'd died under the Earth, it had all started to blur together. He couldn't remember when he was alive or dead, or had just died.

The thought didn't disturb him as much as it should have. He'd had thousands of years to think about it. For three minute segments, of course, but those added up in the long run. He'd found that out too while buried alive. He'd also found out that all of the shit he had went through before hand was a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to that. He should hate Grey, knew he should, but instead he only hated himself. He'd abandoned Grey, drove him to that point. It was his fault, not Grey's. It could never be Grey's. As long as he lived, his brother would, too. He'd vowed that every time he died. He swore to himself that Grey would live on, if only so he could wallow in the memory.

Jack sighed and forced his hands into his damp pant's pockets. He would have been bothered by the wet if it wasn't so warm in the hallway. It was warm and his throat burned every time he took a breath. For the first time, Jack noticed the mist. He'd ignored it before, figuring it was just smoky air in a cramped space. Now, though, he thought different. The air was the same in the passageway as it had been in the chamber. That hardly made sense as the chamber was air tight and looked as if it hadn't been used in centuries. Nothing fit right now, he bemoaned silently. Why couldn't something just—

A scream pierced the air, making Jack jump and sprint down the passageway looking for the source.

He tore around a corner, nearly sliding into a wall on the slick floor. He ran straight ahead, then turned sharply left, heart thudding in his ears and against his ribcage. He skidded to a halt in front of an open door, panting for breath. Sitting there on the floor was a girl, barely nineteen. She had frizzy brown hair, an average looking face and was far too skinny to be completely healthy. She wore designer jeans and a tight shirt with short sleeves. She looked cold to Jack's eyes. Her brown eyes were wide with fright, as if something had just jumped out of the wall and scared her.

"Are you alright?" Jack asked, walking carefully into the room.

"Ye-yeah," she stuttered out, slowly standing. She swallowed hard and pulled a lock of her hair behind her right ear. "Wh-wh-who are you?"

"Jack," he answered, trying to appear non-threatening, "you?"

"Amy," she answered softly, taking in a deep breath. "Where are we?"

"I dunno," Jack answered with a casual shrug. "I was hoping you could tell me, to be honest. How long have you been here, Amy?"

"Two days according to my watch," she held up her wrist so Jack could see the aforementioned device. "I dunno if it's right, though. It doesn't seem like two days, it can't have been two days."

"You're from London?" Jack asked, finally placing her accent.

"You're from America?" she countered with a smile. She sighed heavily. "I was just going for a walk in Bute Park, then all of the sudden, the air rippled and here I was. I've been wandering around this dungeon for two days now and I haven't seen another living soul."

"I'd say that's a good thing." Jack returned with a grin. He stretched out his hand. "C'mon, let's go. Maybe we can find a way out of here."

"I don't think so." Amy told him resignedly. "I've been down here for days. There isn't a way out. There can't be. I would have found it by now," she coughed suddenly, rubbing her chest. "This mist is driving me absolutely crazy!"

"What is it, anyway?" Jack inquired, leading the way back down the hallway he had come from.

"I dunno." Amy answered him with a shrug. "I've been trying to figure it out since I first got here, but I can't think of what it could be. I mean, it's everywhere, even in the airtight rooms, which makes no logical sense."

"Yeah, it doesn't." Jack agreed. He consulted his Vortex Manipulator, scanning the air. He frowned when he got the result. "I can't pick it up. It won't register on my instruments. Huh."

"Where did you get that?" Amy asked, openly admiring Jack's wrist computer. "I've never seen anything like that before."

"Government prototype," Jack lied, knowing what would happen if he didn't give her an answer. She was too sharp to fall for vague misdirection. "I work for UNIT; we have a lot of new tech we're testing."

"Oh, really?" Amy scoffed, sounding highly suspicious. "Let's see your ID, then. I don't wanna be stuck here with a lying psychopath."

"Okay," Jack removed his psychic paper from his inner jacket pocket and flashed it at Amy. "See, UNIT."

"Captain Jack Harkness, R&D," Amy quoted the fake ID. She shrugged, then pulled Jack's sleeve when they came to a fork in the path, "works for me. C'mon G-man, we should go left. I've gone right a hundred times. It only leads to a dead end."

"Sure, why not?" Jack said rhetorically, following after Amy. He was content to let her lead him around for the moment, as he had no earthly clue where he was. She did.

They walked along in companionable silence for a while before Jack decided to ask her a question. She'd been screaming when he found her, he wanted to know why. There hadn't been anything in the room and unless she was frightened by falling on her ass, he seriously doubted there was nothing to worry about. He needed to know, needed to understand this place better if he was ever going to get out. And he needed to figure out what the hell the damn annoying mist was before he coughed himself into an early grave trying to rid his throat of the itchy feeling.

"Amy," Jack started after a moment of thought, "why were you screaming before? Did something scare you?"

"I-" she stopped, obviously uncomfortable. "I dunno. I just screamed. Can we leave it at that?"

"No, we can't." Jack persisted, now knowing without a doubt he was on to something. "Why did you scream? What did you see?"

"I didn't see anything." Amy stubbornly insisted, arms crossed defensively over her chest.

"Yes, you did. What was it?" Jack pushed, attempting to pressure her into answering, just like every other suspect he had ever interrogated.

"Nothing!" Amy snarled at him, brown eyes flashing.

"It wasn't nothing!" Jack shouted back, eyes far more dangerous than hers. "Tell me!"

"It was my mother!" Amy snapped back. Her shoulders slumped, all the fight leaving her. Her brown eyes misted over and she swallowed back tears. "It was my mother. She-I-she's dead. It's my fault. I saw her and she was fine, but then-but then she wasn't. She was dead! A corpse, just standing there. Flesh rotting off of her bones and eyes from hell itself! That's what I saw! Happy now?"

"No," Jack told her bluntly. He looked around, eyes frantically scanning the damp passageway. It had suddenly taken on a more sinister air. "This is gonna sound callous, and maybe it is, but do you have a history of mental illness?"

"No!" Amy snapped back indignantly. "And before you say it, it wasn't grief. She's been dead for six years now. If I was going to hallucinate her, I would have done it years ago. I didn't."

"Maybe," Jack answered with a nonchalant shrug. "The mind is a delicate thing, Amy. This is a stressful situation; I wouldn't blame you for seeing her."

"Yeah, neither would I." Amy acknowledged softly. She licked her dry lips. "But I know I wouldn't have seen her dead like that. I don't know why I…"

"Situations like these can warp you, Amy." Jack told her solemnly, voice devoid of empathy. "I'd know."

"Well, you would, wouldn't you?" Amy muttered darkly. "Mister Top-Secret-Government-Man. Bet you've seen all sorts of scary shit. Bet this is an average day at the office for you."

"Yeah, it is," Jack answered with a heavy sigh, "unfortunately."

Okay, that's the end of chappie one. Tell me what ya think!