Author notes: ok basically I am absolutely obsessed with Torchwood, it is the most fantastic thing ever, with fantastic actors and fantastic props and fantastic sets and fantastic plots, and it's just so fantastic! No, I'm not obsessed at all… ok I AM I AM I AM I AM!!!!!!!! Man I thought Doctor Who was good but this show makes Doctor Who seem like third hand chewing gum wrapped in the sock of a murderer who hasn't washed it for five years!! I am serious people! Anyway. Back on topic. I'm kinda nervous about this fic cos it's the first one I've done which isn't Harry Potter. But I had all these ideas (Torchwood is currently my main topic for day dreaming. And I day dream a lot) and I thought… why not! So here goes, I hope you enjoy this, please leave comments telling me how you'd like me to improve the story, or if there's something you'd like me to include. Oh yeah and this is set after Episode Five: Small Worlds because that's when my imaginings occurred. So forget what happens in Countrycide and all other episodes afterwards because they're irrelevant to this story. I hope this can fill the time between now and whenever we see Torchwood again, I for one am filled with emptiness now it is over :(.
Disclaimer: Characters etc belong to BBC, Russell T Davies, and so on. Plot lines belong to ME and if you steal them then I will set the Fairies on you. I warn you, I am a chosen one. If this is even half as good as the work of Russell, I will be well pleased.
This chapter is dedicated to two of my friends, both called Alex, who both constantly put up with my raving over Torchwood and cries of "Watch it! Watch it! Watch it!"
Jack is having another dream; he is remembering things that he thought he had long forgotten. He dreams of holding a baby girl, and then the girl's a toddler, laughing and playing… then he dreams of the argument he had with her as a teenager. That was the last conversation they had before the explosion… the explosion that killed her and immortalised Jack…
Jack woke with a start, sweating. He hadn't had a dream about her for a long time.
Chapter One- Chain Mail
"What have we got?" Jack asked Toshiko. It was the next morning and Jack had completely forgotten his dream.
"Trails of destruction across several houses in south England. The first one happened last Thursday; the house was basically inside out when the owners got home. There was a note, with an address on it, apparently. The house of that address was destroyed three days later, with another address left on a note inside. That house was just down the street from the second one, and was burnt to the ground the Monday just gone. Everything was destroyed… apart from another note, another address. And so the chain goes on… there seems to be no pattern of address, or any particular link between the victims."
Jack frowned, deep in thought.
"Talk about mass destruction," Gwen said thoughtfully, while blue tacking the pictures of the destroyed houses and their owners to the wall. "Any ideas what could have done it, Jack?"
Jack chewed his lip meditatively and looked as if he was about to answer Gwen, but instead turned back to Toshiko. "The last place that was destroyed… you have the address that was left inside it?"
"Well, actually, no. Either there was no note, or the police are hiding something."
"Those police are always messing things up for us, making our job harder." Owen complained. "No offence, Copper Cooper."
Gwen smiled sarcastically. Recently, Owen had taken to insulting the police at any opportunity he got, and Gwen was getting increasingly annoyed.
Ianto entered the room, breaking the tension that had slowly been building up. "Coffee?" he asked, and the Torchwood 3 headquarters buzzed into action once more.
Owen stared thoughtfully at the pictures Gwen had just tacked up. "Have there been any casualties?" he asked.
"Just one," Toshiko replied. "An old man who live in the house which burned to the ground. Apparently his family were going to visit him and they just found the piece of paper. Well, there were no bones or anything, so we can't rule out the possibility that he's hiding, or been kidnapped or something. I think he was a bit of a nutter anyway."
"Peter Paepre, 75 years old. Wife died a year previously from cancer. He had a son and a daughter. His son was convicted of rape about a month after his mother's death, and is still in prison for various crimes, I think. I wouldn't be surprised if Peter was a nutter! His daughter, however, has done quite well for herself. She has a husband and twin boys. Shelley Carter; you may have heard of her, she's an author." Gwen filled the others in.
Owen opened a drawer and picked out a thick, white book with blue graphics on the cover. "Chain mail, Shelley J Carter," he said. "It's a work of genius."
Jack, who had been listening to these revelations in silence while he finished his coffee, sat up straighter. "How long since the last attack?"
"Three days," Ianto replied. He was standing behind Toshiko, avidly reading the information on the screen.
"And you're sure there was no note? Gwen, get me pictures of this house," Jack ordered.
"Before or after?" Gwen asked.
"After," he confirmed, and then added as an after thought, "and before. Tosh, get me CCTV of the house that burnt down, I want to see how it happened. Owen, get reading-" he pointed to the book still in Owen's hands, "- and make notes on anything useful you find."
Owen looked visibly perplexed, but did not question his orders.
"What about me?" Ianto asked.
"You, my boy, are coming with me," Jack replied, leading him over to his desk. He picked up a strange contraption; it looked a bit like a remote control with an antennae sticking out of one end. There was a small screen at the other end. He passed it to Ianto. "I think it's a locator of some sort, but I'm not certain. See what you can find out, but be very careful." He slapped Ianto on the back, and then went to see how everyone was getting on.
A few minutes later, Jack was studying the pictures with Gwen, Ianto had taken Owen's book and was making notes, and Owen had taken Ianto's 'locator' and had begun working on it. Toshiko looked up from her computer.
"You might want to see this."
The team gathered round the monitor, on which was a paused picture of a house. Toshiko pressed play.
"Look, 15:53, house intact, Peter Paepre looking out the kitchen window as if he's expecting guests; his daughter's family presumably. Then the screen just goes blank. When it comes back on it's 17:53, two hours later exactly, and there's no Peter and no house. There's not even a curl of smoke left."
Ianto stirred uncomfortably. "Can't the system override the blank spot? You could when I… when I…" he trailed off sadly, and Gwen gave his shoulder a squeeze. No one had to ask to know that he was talking about the time not too long ago when he had tried to stop the CCTV cameras from showing footage of him trying to restore his girlfriend Lisa to her human body.
Toshiko broke the silence. "I've tried everything. It was easier… before… because that was CCTV for our own headquarters. This is something completely different altogether. The footage shown is controlled from somewhere else. If I could go there and find out where the camera's being controlled from, I might just be able to do it, though."
"Excellent," Jack said, smiling. "Good work, Tosh. I was thinking we might go there anyway… question the locals; see if they saw anything unusual, so even if you can't get the footage we might still be able to find out what happened."
Ianto had returned to his desk and was staring open mouthed at a page of the book.
"You found something?" Gwen asked. Owen looked up at Ianto, and then he too looked stunned.
"Of course!" he cried. "I'm so stupid!"
"Would either of you care to tell us what's going on?" Gwen asked impatiently.
"Well," Ianto began, "I think the answer to everything may lie in the plot of this book!"
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"Basically, as you can probably guess from the title, this book has chain mail in it. But it's not your average chain mail."
Gwen was about to interrupt again, but Jack shushed her.
"It's more like… hate mail," Ianto continued. "Hate chain mail. But a lot worse than it sounds."
Gwen sighed impatiently.
"All right, all right, I'm getting there. Thing is, this chain mail isn't in letter form or anything. Well, I guess it kind of is, if you think about it…"
"Get to the point!" Gwen exploded.
"Gwen, shush!" Jack chided. "Hurry up, Ianto."
"Ok, ok, sorry. The chain… the chain is, well, a chain of destruction. The first house is destroyed, and a note is left. It leaves an address, and warns that if that address isn't destroyed by a certain date, then the victim and their family would be next to be destroyed. Seems like an exact replica of what's happening here. And there's more. In the back, it says 'Shelley Carter has not had an easy life. About a year before Chain Mail was published, there was a terrible fire at her family home, followed shortly by the death of her mother.' Sounds like she was caught up in all this too…"
Jack's eyes narrowed. "I think it's time we payed Shelley Carter a visit, don't you think?" he said grimly. "I knew I recognised that name."
The group ran out to the car. Jack got in the driver's seat, Owen in the passenger seat, and Ianto and the two girls in the back.
"Anyone else find anything?" Owen asked as they set off.
"Gwen and I where looking at the pictures," Jack replied. "We were looking at the pictures before the house was destroyed, to see if there was any indication of what was to come, and we were looking at the pictures after it had been destroyed to see if there was any indication of the next target."
"And what did you find?" Ianto asked.
"Nothing," Gwen replied discontentedly. "Nothing at all. If we had had more time I would have found pictures of the other houses to compare them, but time is of the essence if we're to stop any more buildings from being destroyed. Did you find anything, Owen?"
"Sort of," he said, smacking his lips. "I turned it on, at least." He held up the small contraption, and the group saw that the screen was lit up, showing the words 'no data'. "Aside from that, no, I haven't found anything. I have absolutely no idea what the device does. I just managed to turn it on. Where did you get it from, Jack?"
"From an old friend… he said there was another part to it, though, which he didn't have. Maybe that's why it isn't doing anything; it needs its other part to function."
"Maybe…" Ianto said, "But there could be numerous other reasons why it isn't showing any data. We might not be in the right place… you said yourself, Jack, you think it's some kind of locater."
They all looked at the device still in Owen's hand, imagining that this was a detective film and Ianto had said some sort of trigger word and the weird contraption would reveal all. But nothing happened. This was real life, not a film.
Gwen broke the silence. "Where are we, Jack?"
Without a word, he pointed gravely out the window. Everyone immediately recognised the rubble that stood perilously before them. It was the wreckage of the most recent house to be destroyed.
Gwen looked on with sad eyes. "It looks so different from the photos."
"That's because when you're here, you can smell the evil that went into this, and the heartbreak that came out of it." Jack replied, narrowing his eyes. He opened his car door, and the others did likewise. "Tosh, Ianto, go and see what you can do about that CCTV footage. Gwen, come with me and we'll go around the neighbourhood, see what we can find. Owen, you stay here. Look around the wreckage, and keep the locator out at all times, see if anything happens. We'll all meet back here in half an hour, no excuses. And don't go anywhere different without letting me know."
"How do we let you know if we can't come and find you?"
"Just stay where I've told you to, Owen."
The team departed their separate ways, leaving Owen sulking amongst the ruins of a house destroyed by something that Jack knew more about than he cared to admit.
"So what's the plan?" Ianto asked Toshiko as they walked at quite a pace in the opposite direction of the others.
"I was looking on the way here, and I think I've located where the CCTV camera was." She stopped walking and Ianto looked up for the first time.
Before them stood a huge building, with vast metal gates and many guards standing with odd shapes in their pockets; you didn't have to be a genius to work out they were guns. On the building, in blue was a strange insignia. Ianto looked up at with wide eyes, his quick brain already trying to work out any hidden messages. He gasped.
"SJC," he whispered.
"What?" Tosh said impatiently. She was busy studying the security gates without arousing the suspicions of the guards on the other side.
"SJC," he said again.
"Is that supposed to make sense for me?"
"Look at the sign."
Tosh stopped mid task to do his bidding. "Yes?" she said. "What about it?"
"The whole thing is kind of an 's'. Then the top bit is a 'c'. And the bottom bit is a 'j'." he replied, tracing the figures in the air with his hands. "SJC."
Tosh gasped. "I see it," she said. "SJC." She looked up at Ianto. "Shelley J Carter?"
"Could well be," Ianto replied. "More things are falling into place if that's true. Jack will want to know about this." He turned around and made as if to find his boss, but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"I don't think we should split up. And besides, Jack told you to help me figure out the CCTV, and that's exactly what you're going to do. Come on; let's go find a way in."
She had obviously given up on the gates.
"Jack," Gwen said loudly, running to catch up.
Jack stopped in his tracks and whirled round. "What?"
"Jack," Gwen said again, slowing to a halt. "You said before we left. You recognised her name." Jack started to turn around again but Gwen stopped him. "Don't think I've forgotten!" she said fiercely.
"Well please, do, for now, for me." Jack said, wrenching his arm out of Gwen's grip.
"What?" Gwen asked, chasing after him again.
"Please just do a little forgetting. For now. For my sake. I need time to think. Or I'll send you back to wait with Owen."
Gwen was starting to think that this might not be such a bad thing, but she kept her mouth closed. She would feel guilty going home to Rhys that night.
"Ok, so where are we going?" she said instead.
"To question the locals, you know that."
"Yes I do know that. But you seem to be heading in a very specific direction."
"Ah, touché."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "Quit playing games, Jack."
He raised his shoulders in an innocent shrug. "Jack doesn't play games."
"Yes he does, all the time." She replied, laughing. "And he breaks most of the rules, too."
"Hey, what can I say, this game has no rules! Now come on, you're slowing me down."
Owen eyed the rubble warily, rubbing his arms. Although he was wearing his leather jacket, it wasn't enough to keep the cold away. More than that, the desolation of the place seemed to seep through his skin and into his bloodstream, and the longer he stood there the worse he felt.
He didn't particularly want to examine the wreckage, but he didn't see that he had a choice. As he took a step closer the device whirred in his hand. He stopped dead and examined it but there was no visible difference. Maybe he'd just imagined it.
"What are you?" he asked it under his breath, as he took another step.
He received an unexpected answer as he tripped over a brick on the floor, and as he fell to the ground, felt his finger compress a button on the device. It shrieked.
It was like a woman's scream, high in pitch, and loud, oh so loud. He dropped the remote control as if he'd burnt himself, but the screaming continued. He pressed his hands over his ears but it made no difference; it was as if the noise was inside his head. He curled up on the dirty floor, willing the torture to end, all he felt was great pain, not concentrated on any part of his body but just inflicting him as a whole.
As suddenly as it had started, the noise stopped, and so did the pain, replaced by a throbbing headache. If Owen had looked up just moments before the device had muted itself, he would have seen that on the screen an address had replaced the words 'no data'. But as it was, he didn't see them, as they were only there for a few seconds anyway.
He stood up and threw the device a disgusted look, then, leaving it on the ground, went to see if anything survived the fire.
Tosh and Ianto had found a back door which was less carefully guarded, and, after flashing business cards at the guards claiming they were security inspectors, they found themselves inside the main building of SJC.
"So what's the plan now we're in here?"
"To get to roof without arousing suspicion."
Ianto raised his eyebrows. "And then?"
"I have a special scanner in my bag. On the CCTV camera there's something quite similar to a bar code; I'll scan it, and it'll give me a special code to tap into the blank footage."
"That's quite a machine."
Tosh smiled. "Thank you, I made it."
Ianto stared at her with approving eyes, and then bowed low. "I am forever at your service, oh mighty mistress."
Tosh laughed. "That might come in handy, I'll remember that. Now come on, we need to get onto the roof!"
"So, where are we headed?" Gwen asked again impatiently.
Jack sighed and pointed down the street. "You see that house at the end there with the flag in the window?"
"Yeah."
"The house to the right of it."
The house looked grubby, from the outside, at least. Gwen didn't much fancy going in there but she deeply trusted Jack so followed him without a word.
They had just reached the house with the flag in the window when they heard a commotion inside. A woman screamed, and Jack and Gwen heard voices from within.
"Get off me!" the woman screamed, accompanied with a loud crashing sound. "Get out of my house!"
Jack pulled out his stun gun and crashed through the front door without a moment's hesitation. Gwen followed warily.
They followed the voices into a small kitchen, just as two stocky men dressed in black were tying up and gagging a middle-aged woman, who Jack would have recognised if she wasn't in disguise.
Another thing that Jack failed to notice in his haste was that the two men were not at all surprised or worried to see him, but in moments their faces were blank and unreadable, Jack's gun still warm in his hand. He pulled the woman to her feet, and untied her.
"Thank you," she said, catching her breath, as she slouched into a kitchen chair. "I can't thank you enough!"
A few awkward minutes passed in silence, and then Jack stirred into action. He tied the two criminals together and turned back to the woman, who was still pale.
"I would call the police, they'll wake up soon," he said, nodding to the two unconscious men lying on the floor. "Are you ok now, or would you like us to stay longer? Because if you're all right we have some errands we can be doing."
The woman glanced at the clock on the wall and smiled sweetly. "Of course, sorry. Thank you again, I really couldn't have survived without you," she replied, showing them to the door.
"Think nothing of it," Jack muttered as the door was shut in his face.
Meanwhile, outside, a group of people dressed all in black huddled further up the road. After seeing Jack and Gwen enter the house, they quietly sprang into action.
They entered the house next door to the one Jack and Gwen had entered.
After taking care of the house's inhabitants, the group quickly began working at the task in hand.
Toshiko and Ianto crept stealthily down the corridor and further into the building. Although they had outwitted the guards on the back door, it was only a matter of time before someone realised that they didn't normally work there.
All the doors they passed were locked and opaque. They found one open door, but the room that it led to was completely empty. At last they found a lift, and took it up to the highest floor; the fourth. They went up in silence, and when they got off the place was suspiciously empty. They found the stairs to the roof in no time at all. They were beginning to get worried at the ease of the task; they had seen nothing and no one, apart from the guards at the entrances. Were they guarding an empty building?
Toshiko knelt on the side of the building, and leant over so she could reach the CCTV camera with the scanner she held in her right hand. Unexpectedly, Ianto crouched behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
As the scanner came into contact with the camera, a shock wave swept through Toshiko's body, and it had nothing to do with what Ianto's hands were doing. It was like an electric shock, but a million times worse; it took all her strength to hold on while the scan finished.
When it had, Ianto helped her to the middle of the rooftop where she could lie down safely. He gazed at her with concerned eyes.
"What happened?" he asked, shaking his head to clear it.
Toshiko stood up. "I have no idea," she replied shakily.
Tears slid down her cheeks, and she flung herself into Ianto's arms, weeping. She was so distraught that she almost didn't notice as Ianto's lips pressed gently into hers.
Jack turned and groaned. "Shit," he said.
Gwen turned and gasped. The house next door to the one they had just left, the house that they had originally been heading for, was in ruins. It was obvious at a glance that the place was deserted.
"Shelley," Jack muttered, racing back into the house.
The woman and two criminals were no where to be seen.
"Shit," Jack said again. Gwen put a hand comfortingly on his shoulder.
"Perhaps we should go back now? Our half hour's up."
"So I was standing just here, and then I pressed this button, and… and… it was horrible!" Owen concluded.
"Are you sure it was that button?" Gwen asked, when no one else said anything.
"Yes, look, none of the others do anything!" he replied, pressing each of them in turn.
"Might you have been… imagining it?" Toshiko asked tentatively. "After, it seems such a coincidence that it happened here…"
"Are you saying I've gone mad?!" Owen replied fiercely, brandishing the device as if it was a weapon. "Of course I didn't imagine it! What do you take me for?"
Jack was just reaching out to put a comforting hand on Owen's shoulder when he fell to the floor, shouting.
"It's happening again!" Owen screamed. "I must have pressed the button by accident! Aah, turn it off, turn it off!"
The others looked at each other blankly. They could not hear what Owen spoke of; all they saw was Owen writhing on the ground, the screen of the device he had dropped to the ground lit up…
"Look!" Gwen exclaimed, picking it up. "An address!"
Toshiko took it quickly from her and gasped. "Not just any address. The next address. The address that was destroyed after this one!"
Jack reached out his hand to take the device, his brow furrowed, but by the time it was in his possession the address had gone and Owen was standing once more, wiping the sweat and dirt off his forehead.
"I am never, ever, touching that thing again," he said firmly, breathing deeply.
"So it's agreed," Jack concluded, after in the discussion that followed Gwen and Jack retold everything that had happened to them, and Toshiko and Ianto had related the information they had gathered, omitting the fact that they had kissed. "Tosh, Ianto, you'll take the car and go back to the base, and we'll go on to the next address, following the trail until we get a new one, presuming that this is the trail of destruction that we're following. Any questions?"
"What do we do once we've found the CCTV footage?" Toshiko asked.
"Relate your findings to us, it might be of use. And then stay at the base, we'll asked you if the addresses we find are the ones we need."
"And what do we do, when we've got the new address?" Gwen asked, deep in thought.
"We go there, and we evacuate it, and we guard it, and we stay there until something happens. Let's roll."
Toshiko and Ianto got into the car, smiling shyly at each other. They were both thinking the same thing… that when they got back, they would be alone… together… no one else around… just an empty base. How exciting.
As Ianto started up the engine and checked his hair in the mirror, Toshiko searched desperately for something to say.
"So…" she began, "do you like… reading?"
"Yeah…" Ianto replied, "reading is… nice…"
Meanwhile, Jack, Gwen and Owen made their way on foot to the next address. As promised, Owen refused to go anywhere near the strange device that seemed to hurt him and no one else, so Jack was carrying it in an inside pocket of his coat.
They arrived slightly out of breath, corollary of the fact that they had walked as fast as they could without running. The wreckage was similar to the previous one. Jack pulled out the locater, which, before he had left, Ianto had dubbed 'location generation'. As soon as he and Toshiko had driven out of sight, Owen had rechristened it as the 'plain darn locator', or PDL for short.
"Here goes," Jack said, a hard look in his eyes, as he calmly pressed the button on the PDL. Nothing happened. He peered at Owen curiously. "Am I pressing the right button?"
"Yes!" Owen said impatiently. Jack shook his head and pressed the button again.
"Maybe it was just a one off, before?" Gwen suggested.
"Maybe," Jack said, "but we have to make sure." He proffered the PDL to Owen, but was bluntly refused.
"No way."
"Can I try?" Gwen asked. Jack glanced at her in thought, and then assented.
"It's worth a try."
Gwen closed her eyes and pressed the button. She tried once more, and then looked up at the boys, who were studying her intently. They could tell without asking that it hadn't worked.
Owen sighed and held out his hand. "Fine." He said nervously. "Let's have a bash."
Gwen hesitantly relinquished her grasp on the PDL, and Owen steadied himself, breathing heavily. Almost as soon as he pressed the button, he let go of the whole contraption, and fell to the floor, writhing in pain. It was the same as before, but, if anything, worse. It was excruciating, but it didn't just effect him, it… it was him. He was the pain, he wasn't just feeling it.
Jack and Gwen gaped at each other, and then Gwen hurriedly checked the screen of the PDL while Jack helped Owen up.
Owen was out of breath, as if he'd just run a marathon. He seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness and was close to collapsing. Gwen spoke into her head set.
"Tosh?" from her headset came the muffled laughter of Ianto and Toshiko. At last Toshiko answered.
"Yes Gwen?"
"I want to check if this is the next address."
Gwen recited the address that was on the PDL screen, and after a brief pause Toshiko confirmed that yes, it was the next address.
"I wonder what those two were up to?" Gwen stated absently, a smile playing over her lips. "They seemed to be having a good time."
Jack and Owen stared at her curiously. "What do you mean?"
"Haven't you noticed?" she asked, smirking. "They've been getting on a little… better than usually since they came down from the roof…"
Jack and Owen just gaped, stunned.
"Tosh?" Owen asked. He sounded hurt.
"Ianto?" Jack asked, mirroring Owen's expression.
Gwen raised her eyebrows with a knowing smile and turned, beginning to lead the way to the next address.
Fifteen minutes later, they were standing amid the wreckage of the most recent house to be destroyed.
"This is it," Jack said dryly, handing Owen the PDL.
"Yeah, this better work," Owen replied, scowling at the thing.
This time he was prepared, and sat down on a pile of bricks. He was sick of constantly falling over, and he was sure there would be bruises.
Feeling slightly nauseous, and apprehensively aware of the fact that this might not actually work, he closed his eyes and pressed his finger down on the button.
This time, the pain was immense. It seemed to erode his soul; it felt as if hundreds of fingernails scraped at his face, as if his heart might explode at any moment from the enormous sense of evil that it had to grapple with. His ears stung with the sound of constant screaming, and terrible images flashed across his eyelids that were squeezed so tightly shut that he thought he might go blind. His skin burned at the slightest movement, and he bit his tongue, hard. Almost immediately it swelled up to twice its normal size, choking him; but he no longer cared. And he accepted the darkness that swallowed him up with grim relief; the pain was gone, at last.
Meanwhile, Toshiko and Ianto had just got back to the base. They had had an intriguing conversation in the car about computers, and had both been intensely annoyed at Gwen's interruption.
Toshiko marched proudly over her desk and brought out a slim metal box with wires protruding from the casing slightly.
"What's that?" Ianto asked curiously. Himself, he wasn't as fascinated with computers as Toshiko was, but now he was more involved with her, he thought he began to see what interested her so much about them.
"It's the second part of the scanner; I made it later on, more of a convenience than a necessity, really. You see this black strip? Well if I swipe the scanner over it, it will upload the data onto my computer. All it does is saves typing it out manually. But it takes a while…" Toshiko replied, cheekily. She swiped the scanner as she had explained, and the computer screen immediately filled with numbers and symbols Ianto had never seen before in his life. She turned to him, smiling shyly, and he embraced her warmly, kissing her passionately.
After realising that Owen wasn't going to wake up unless they did something, Jack bent down and examined his wounds.
"So you got the address?" he confirmed for what seemed like the millionth time.
"Yes, Jack." Unwilling to get too close to Owen (his fit had scared her, and she didn't want to know how badly he was wounded), she retreated to a corner of the wreckages, stating, "I'll get Tosh to locate the address."
Toshiko was almost in the same state as Owen, although what she felt was nothing to do with pain, or hatred, or screams. This was to do with love.
Just as Ianto's fingers perused her skin, they were shocked back to their present situation. Toshiko's phone shrieked out its high pitched, memorable ring tone that Toshiko's young niece had set on her phone and somehow managed to lock in place. For all the precautions Torchwood took, they always seem to be outwitted by younger generations.
Toshiko cringed and glanced at Ianto, half expecting him to leave her right then. But he just held onto her more tightly and said, "Don't answer it."
Drawn between answering her phone in case it was an emergency, and doing as Ianto wanted and staying in his arms, she stumbled, and as her arms flailed to keep her balance, she knocked the second part of the scanner onto the floor.
Sparks flew as the cable connecting it to the computer was ripped out unceremoniously.
"Shit!" Toshiko replied, struggling out of Ianto's arms. "This was only a prototype!"
She knelt by the remains of the machine she had worked so hard to make, but even Ianto could see that it was past repair.
"Great," Toshiko scowled. "Now we have to type it all in, number by number."
Her mobile lay forgotten under the table.
Gwen sighed, concerned. "Toshiko won't pick up. D'you think they're ok?"
"I'm sure they're fine," Jack replied bitterly. "Probably having a quick shag out back."
Gwen smiled grimly. It wasn't her fault that Tosh and Ianto harboured feelings for each other. "I'll start tracking a route to the address; you just concentrate on getting Owen back with us."
"What do you think I've been doing?!" Jack snapped. Gwen just shook her head and continued her own work.
Back at the hub, Toshiko was moodily typing in the code figure by figure, as Ianto watched warily from over the other side of the room.
Owen stood up shakily, passing his dirty sleeve over his sweaty forehead. He was pale and trembling slightly, but he was ok and he was able to walk the route Gwen had set out for them without any assistance.
"It would be so much easier if we still had the car!" Gwen complained.
Owen ignored her, glaring at Jack. "I mean it this time. I am never, ever, ever, touching that thing again. Never."
"But how-" Gwen began, before shutting up after seeing the icy glare aimed in her direction by more than one of her companions.
"Ok, Owen," Jack nodded, "we'll just have to find another way."
They were each so wrapped up in their own thoughts that they didn't noticed the young girl heading straight towards them until she had bumped into Jack. Her eyes, too, had been directed at the ground, but now she slowly dragged her gaze upwards, mumbling an apology.
She and Jack stared at each other for what seemed like an age. From Gwen and Owen's perspectives, they couldn't understand what was going on, but they had no idea of the thoughts whirling round the other two's heads.
The girl was small but she looked like she'd seen a lot of bad things for her age. She had brown hair and her skin was grubby and her clothes torn; she looked like she had been living rough for a while now.
Jack broke the silence, his voice cracking and eyes shining. "Elen?"
Elen nodded, her face drooping, blinking furiously. "…is that really you?"
"What the hell?!" Owen butted in rudely. But he might as well have not been there.
A tear trickled down Jack's cheek, startling all those present, including himself. "I… I think so…"
"But…" Elen stammered, "But you should be dead! You are dead! I saw it all happen. I was there."
Jack pinched himself, wincing. "I feel alive. And I don't think I'm dreaming either… unless we both died in the explosion and just haven't realised it yet… you're the one who died anyway! What happened? You're so young still, too…"
"I'm not the only who hasn't aged… d-dad. We're both alive… and we're both the same age we were when… when we died."
Gwen and Owen gasped simultaneously. Dad? Jack was this girl's dad? What was going on?
Jack and Elen embraced warmly, but then Jack pulled away suddenly as Owen cleared his throat.
"I hate to break you guys up, but… we still have to get to that house, you know."
Elen studied her father curiously. "Where are you going?"
"295 Hamley Street. We're on a trail of destruction." Jack winked, even though the situation was not to be taken lightly.
Elen gasped, pulling something out of her bag. Then it was the team's turn to gasp. Elen now held an object in her hand that looked exactly the same as the locater that had given Owen his spasms. Jack pulled it out, exclaiming. "It's the other half!"
Elen nodded. "That would make sense. I always thought there was more to it. It looks like I've been following the same trail as you… I've just been to Hamley Street, and we're too late, the house has already been destroyed. I was just on my way to the next address…"
"Which is where?"
"42 Joyl Street. Somewhere vaguely in that direction." She pointed the way she had been walking.
"Gwen, track us a route for 42 Joyl Street."
Still perplexed at all the recent events, Gwen did as she was told.
"Elen… there's so much we need to say. But right now just isn't the right time. We'll talk later, I promise, when all the danger is over."
"But what if… what if you die? I mean, properly?"
"That won't happen, trust me."
"Er, Jack?" Owen began timidly. "Not that I don't trust you completely or anything, but… are you sure this is wise? Don't you think we should go and check out the last address, just in case? I mean, you want to… you want to trust the word of a…" he gesticulated madly at Elen.
Jack turned a cold glare on Owen, vehemently wishing he had left him out cold amid the rubble. "I have complete faith in my daughter, Owen. And you would do well do remember that she is a lot older than she looks and has gained a lot more experience than you ever could."
Owen swallowed and smiled weakly. "Sorry, er… Elen."
Something in the atmosphere had shifted, and a greater sense of urgency descended on the team.
"I said left, not right!" Gwen screeched as they took yet another wrong turning.
"Oh keep your fucking hairnet on; it's not my bloody fault!" Owen shouted back.
"Oh please, don't pretend you're so hurt, we all know you're just putting it on!"
"Don't you dare think you can boss me around, you don't know squat about me!"
"SHUT UP!" Jack roared. Their constant bickering was driving him nuts. "Don't you think we have more important things to worry about? Gwen, try and calm down a bit. Owen, try and listen more carefully to Gwen's instructions. She's the one who knows where we're going."
Owen scowled at him and swallowed down the retort he had been about to make.
The group walked on in silence, Jack and Elen occasionally exchanging small glances and unbelieving smiles. Jack caught Elen staring at him more than once. He himself could barely take his eyes off her. This can't be happening. It can't be real. It can't be true. Thoughts such as these kept swirling around his head, and he had to look at his daughter again to check that she was really there.
After ten excruciating minutes, Gwen flung out her arm and ordered the group to a halt. She pointed to the end of the street, where a house was slightly separated from the others. "That's the one."
"Elen, perhaps you better-"
"I'm not going to be left behind dad. Not again."
Jack nodded and turned his head. "Owen, maybe you better stay behind? I mean, I'm sure you're not feeling too great after-"
"Oh, no. You're not leaving me behind."
The group turned to Gwen. "Now that really isn't fair!" she cried.
Jack sighed. "Ok. We'll all go. But just… just…"
Apparently he was unable to finish his sentence.
"How are you doing?" Ianto asked tentatively.
"A lot better before you came along," Toshiko retorted angrily. She was still fuming about her machine being wrecked, and firmly believed it was all Ianto's fault. As she punched numbers, letters and symbols into her keyboard one by one (this was the painfully slow manual method she had talked of earlier), she secretly vowed that nothing would ever make her forgive Ianto.
"I'm so, so, sorry," Ianto replied, for the zillionth time. "And you've typed in so much already, surely you're almost-"
"There!" Elen whispered, pointing to an upper window of the house they were studying. "I'm sure I keep seeing someone moving up there!"
"Well," Jack replied, straightening up from the hunched over position he had previously been in, "there's no time like the present. Come on, we're going in!"
He checked his watch, which read 15:53, then marched smartly up to the door and rapped on it with his knuckles. The others stood quickly behind him.
A small, old looking woman, who appeared to have an eyesight problem, answered the door in an instant. She was wearing a skimpy black dress with white frills, and the sight of her made Jack shudder. "Come in, do come in," she said, without even asking who they were.
They followed her into the house, a decision which they immediately regretted. Four large men wearing identical leather body suits and black motorcycle helmets stepped out from the shadows and seized Jack, Elen, Gwen and Owen, holding their arms so tightly behind there backs that they couldn't struggle at all.
The old woman swept off her wig and glasses and Jack narrowed his eyes at her.
"Good afternoon, Mr Harkness, how very nice to see you again," she trilled.
"Miss Carter. I should have known."
"Yes, you really should have. I expected a lot better from you. And this must be Owen Harper?" she chuckled as Owen gasped. "Yes, I know all of you. And the newest recruitment of the team, Gwen Cooper." She gave another horrible smile and then turned to Elen, taken aback. "Surely not Toshiko? My, I thought you were taller than that!"
"She's not with us. She's never worked for us, Shelley. I suggest that you let her go free and get one life off your conscience."
At a stern look from her father, Elen stayed silent. Shelley J Carter gave a horrible cackle and then raised the index finger of her right hand. Immediately her cronies began to drag the helpless four down a flight of stair and into a dingy, cold room. There she stripped them of all their outer clothing and their weapons. Finally she reached across and pulled the first half of the locater from Elen's hands.
"You won't need this any more," she crooned with a suppressed smile. She took the one Jack held as well. "I simply cannot believe this little invention of mine worked so well! It lured you right into my trap." She gave another unspoken command and her four helpers tied their captives together around a post in the middle of the room. They tied them so tightly that immediately they began to feel the blood draining away from their arms and the lower halves of their body. "This is the end of Torchwood."
Shelley began to walk out of the room with her companions, but at the door she turned. "I believe I owe you an explanation. It was I who caused the diversion so my colleagues could destroy the house that held all the information you needed, and its occupants. It was I who planted these 'locators' on you so I could track your every move. I meant for them both to get to you, Jack, and it was a miscalculation on my part that the other half fell into the possession of this… little girl. But no matter. Mistakes can be rectified. I'll enjoy watching you burn." She concluded, waving a box of matches.
Then she really did leave.
Meanwhile, back at the headquarters, Toshiko was finally typing in the last few characters, still adamantly ignoring Ianto.
She momentarily forgot her resolution, however, when she straightened up and smiled broadly after keying in the last three letters: SJC. "Done!"
"Excellent!" Ianto beamed, glad that she seemed to be in a better mood. "Let's see what we've got."
"You mean let's see what I've got. You didn't exactly help matters."
Ianto sighed. His relief had been short lived.
Toshiko consented, however, to sit by him as they waited for the footage to load up. "What time are we looking at again?"
"15:53," Ianto replied promptly, and Toshiko found the spot.
There was the house, completely still, and then… together they watched open mouthed as Jack marched up to the door and knocked on it. Gwen, Owen, and a young girl assembled behind him. A maid answered the door and ushered the four inside.
Toshiko and Ianto waited a painstakingly long time for something more to happen, both with their hearts in their mouths and their eyes wide in terror. They could not speak. They could not say a word.
Finally the old maid exited the house through the front door, although now she seemed to have different coloured hair and she was accompanied by four large motorcyclists. The last one out the door set a damp sheet wrapped around a large stick of wood on fire and tossed it through the door before closing and locking it. Then the five companions ran out of the range of the camera and the screen returned to its blank state.
After a few steadying gasps of breath, Toshiko dragged her eyes up to meet Ianto's gaze.
"They're in trouble," was all he said.
"We need to save them," Toshiko added.
They raced out to the car and took an infuriating length of time to get it started. Finally they tore out of the headquarters, Toshiko having just located the address that they needed to go to. Sweat trickled down Ianto's forehead and he swore loudly as they were engulfed in traffic. Toshiko leaned her head back against her seat and closed her eyes, breathing heavily. No matter how many times she had faced danger, she could never and would never get used to that feeling of rising panic that overwhelmed her every time.
After many lengthy, exasperating and terrifying minutes, Ianto screeched the car to a halt just in front of the burning building. They had no trouble identify where it was their friends were trapped.
Coughing from the smoke, and crying from the heat that irritated their eyes, they ploughed their way through the wreckage.
They found the room at the back of the house. Apart from the door, which was now a pile of ash on the ground, the entire room was made from metal and apparently fire proof. But even though the room itself was not burning, it was filled with smoke, and the metal had heated up to an excruciating temperature. A pile of bodies lay slumped in the middle of the room, tied to a metal pole. They were barely conscious.
Ianto severed their bonds, and then the two worked together to get the group out of the house. Ianto carried Elen and Toshiko supported Gwen. Owen and Jack stumbled along behind them.
Once out in the fresh air, they collapsed to the ground. All four had immense breathing difficulties and severe burns and blistering where they had been touching the metal pole.
Ianto looked at his watch. 17:50.
The next day Ianto and Toshiko returned to the hospital where their friends were being treated. Earlier that morning they had been in the process of being enlightened about Elen when a police officer entered the room and told them that Shelley J Carter was at the police station. Ianto and Toshiko went with him so they could question her.
Now they had returned and were relating their findings to the rest of the group.
"Not much to tell, really," Toshiko sighed, sitting on the end of Owen's bed.
"We asked her all sorts of questions, and all she would say was 'I fight fire with fire'. That's all she would say, nothing else!"
"Eventually we just had to give up and let the police carry on. They said they'd let us know if they managed to coax her into making sense."
"Well good luck to them! I won't be expecting a call any time soon!" Jack replied, in a strangely good mood.
Things weren't perfect, but they weren't too bad either.
Next time in Torchwood: The First Step…
"Who is she?"
"OWEN!"
They returned to find the tent empty.
"Oh… dear…"
"Please… whatever you are… you can't do this…"