DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

A/N: This was written as a 'missing scene' between parts 1 and 2 of S5 "Cold Fusion".

Decon

by Joodiff

The world is full of movement and chaos, full of sound and speed, and it's like nothing Grace Foley has ever encountered before. It's all so terrifyingly alien, and the hazmat-suited figures that scurry in the perpetual gloom of the basement look like invaders from another world, humanity and individuality completely hidden behind protective layers. Rubber faces with eyes that are just circles of glass. Men from Mars, barking orders, herding them all towards the emergency exit and, Christ, she doesn't know what's going on, not really. It's all happening so quickly, and they're dancing puppets, all of them, even Boyd. They're driven forward like sheep, the hazmat dogs nipping at their heels and there's too much noise, too much to see and do and think. There's nothing Grace knows here, not really. A brief glimpse of Stella's face, white and strained, her eyes too wide and panicked, soundless words moving on her lips. Stella and herself, the man who was with Felix – Harry? – and Boyd, all of them being swiftly harried onwards with sharp, brusque words.

Boyd bristles and barks, he growls in protest, he makes demands and threats, and he's remorselessly pushed on with the rest of them, all his authority gouged away from him by the green-clad men from Mars. No choice, no hesitation. Just sound and fear and someone else giving the orders as they finally break out into the cold grey afternoon and find the familiar landscape transformed into blue strobes and temporary screens. It reminds Grace of the apocalyptic visions of Cold War newsreels, of the feared doomsday that never came. She can't remember the last time she was this viscerally frightened, and maybe Boyd senses it, because he rounds again on their captors, their protectors, whatever the men from Mars are, and this time he doesn't just growl, he roars – but it makes no difference. He's just anonymous meat, just a problem to be dealt with quickly, cleanly, efficiently.

Rubber sheeting under their feet, slightly sticky to walk on. The air's crisp and cool, autumnal. Bleak, black mask, anonymous and intimidating, turns on them and orders, "Please go behind the screens and remove your clothes. Down to your underwear."

It can't be a serious request, but there's absolutely no doubt that it is. The men on the perimeter – also wearing hazmat gear – are armed. No-one's joking. This is real, and it's happening, and the sides of the orange decontamination tent ahead are flapping in the slight breeze.

Boyd rounds angrily on the speaker. "Who's in charge here? This is a fucking joke…"

But it's not.

"Please go behind the screens and remove your clothes, sir."

The screens don't hold back the cold, or the hard eyes behind the masks, or the frightened faces that are enduring the nightmare with her. They don't even look as if they will provide the modicum of privacy intended as the breeze briskly shakes their light frames. This can only be an embarrassing, stress-induced dream. It can't be what's really happening on this very ordinary day, right here in the centre of London.

Huddled together like sullen, frightened sheep, they don't move.

"Sir," the speaker says to Boyd, "We have our orders, and we have protocols for dealing with non-compliance."

It sounds like a threat. It might be. It might not be. They will cuff him, he's told; they'll cuff him and cut the clothes off his back if they have to. His choice. Better to cooperate, sir. Decon doesn't take long. The water's heated, sir. Please move behind the screen and take off your clothes.

Boyd rails at them, and Grace suddenly realises it's not for his own sake. Fiercely protective, it's for her and for Stella, and even for Harry that he puts up such stubborn resistance. He will tear the world down in front of them, she can see it in the blaze of his dark eyes and the set of his jaw, but the men from Mars don't care. She sees how this will end. They will subdue him in all his glorious, prickly belligerence. He cannot win. Will not win. She's cold and old and scared, and she can't believe what's happening. She calls to him, trying to cut through the defiance, and for a moment their eyes lock – brown on blue – and no words are necessary. Silently, she orders him to acquiesce, and eventually he does.

"Give me your name," Boyd grinds out, cold and hard. "I'll give you fucking protocol… You're going to wish you'd never turned up for work today…"

Behind the useless screens the clothes go, and the cold bites. Grace wants to run, she wants to huddle away in a corner; wants to close her eyes and will herself a thousand miles away, a thousand days away. Stella looks as if she's going to cry, but she doesn't. Her shoulders are slim and pale and covered with goosebumps. The breeze shows Grace the acne scars on Harry's back as the screens bow and shift. And Boyd… Boyd is throwing his shirt down onto the rubber sheeting in temper, and beneath the broad, smooth chest the clean white scars on his abdomen twist like angry snakes as he moves. The October air is unforgiving, its embrace sharp and unpleasant, and Grace shivers as it plucks spitefully and shamelessly at the pretty lace no-one else is ever supposed to see.

None of them look. All of them look. Sideways glances, born from blank shock not prurient curiosity. Glimpses through the gaps. Private imperfections ruthlessly exposed in unforgiving daylight. Horrific. Now it's Harry who looks as if he's on the verge of tears as he stands with his head low and his hands protectively over his groin, his boxer shorts blisteringly white against his dark skin. In a quick glimpse Grace sees one of his cheap grey socks has a hole in it. She wants to comfort him, to tell him that it doesn't matter, but she is – figuratively and almost literally – frozen. Only partly obscured, and defiant to the last, Boyd bullishly squares his bare shoulders and lifts his chin.

Nothing will ever erase this moment. Despite the paltry screening, from this day onwards she will know what lies beneath those elegant designer suits, just as he will know exactly what's under her carefully chosen and coordinated outfits. She doesn't know if she can bear it. He sees, she sees, and it's… appalling. Mortifying. Dark trunks on him, delicate lace on her, and their bare, chilled flesh that long ago lost the tautness of youth. They are… revealed. It matters. It doesn't matter.

The hazmat suit addresses Harry. "You first, sir. Take your underwear off and walk into the tent."

She sees him, the frightened, naked young man who goes into the tent where the water's already running, already being siphoned into holding tanks marked with bio-hazard symbols. She looks at Stella who shares her side of the screens, and she's appalled at how vulnerable the young woman looks. There's fear and cold and shock, and still people run and shout, and still the blue strobes bounce off the concrete walls, the screens, the decontamination equipment. This belongs to emergency services training exercises shown on the television news to reassure a nervous public. It doesn't belong to her life. Grace looks at the blue rubber under her feet and she realises she's shivering so hard that it feels as if her bones are rattling.

Boyd is barking again, and the men from Mars try to coral him, try to calm him. They tell him, "Doctor Gibson has already been through decontamination, sir… Someone will be able to tell you more very soon…"

The herd him forward, towards the tent, and she sees him unprotected for a single moment before she quickly looks away. The image stays with her, haunts her. Long limbs and scars, lean hips and short, dark wiry hairs that lead her eyes down to private places she instantly blanks from her mind. When she looks again, he's gone, gone into the water that hisses and splashes and drums incessantly, and then it's just the two of them in their fragile underclothes, and the bleak, scary hazmat men who are just doing their job and probably don't mean to be harsh or unkind.

"Take your underwear off, ma'am, and walk into the tent…"

And then Grace is naked in the autumn breeze for too many bitter moments before she's finally in the rubber womb where the foaming water flows, the strong chemical smell more pungent than she could ever have imagined. Warm. Blessedly warm. The voice outside the tent instructs her to scrub, tells her what and where and how, and she obeys like a hollow creature stripped of all will and reason.

It's over. Into the clean area beyond, and suddenly there are stiff white towels that come wrapped in polythene, and someone's briskly attaching a white wristband to her arm as she's ushered rapidly back into the building and given white shorts and shirt and a hooded green coverall. Quick, practised, soulless. She's still zipping the coverall as she's taken through into one of the empty offices towards the rear of the building, and she doesn't know if she's relieved or not to find that she's re-joining Harry and Boyd, both of whom are identically clad, both of who are still as damp as she is. The former skulks at the edge of the room, quiet, traumatised, while the latter barrels towards her, his expression a strange mixture of rage and concern as he stops short and demands, "Christ, Grace… are you okay?"

He understands. Against all the odds, he is sensitive enough to understand. She can see it in his eyes. She nods shakily. "I think so…"

"Jesus, what a fucking fiasco…"

Fear and fury. Impotent fury.

She dares to ask, "Felix…?"

"No idea, bastards won't tell me a thing."

So many questions, so few answers.

Moments later Stella joins them, her face still just as pale, just as shocked, as if she simply can't process everything that's happening to them, around them. Questions, questions.

An armed man in a black suit bearing the legend 'ATO' appears in the doorway, his features obscured by the now-familiar black mask. His voice is slightly distorted as he instructs, "Please come with me."

This is the day when nightmares are real, when nothing makes any sense. This is the cold, brutal day that Grace will never quite be able to forget. This is the day when they are all levelled in their naked helplessness. This is the day that won't end for many, many more hours. This is the day that will finally end, but in blood and death. None of them yet knows it.

This is the day Grace Foley stood naked under the autumn sky. The day she saw the moles on Stella's back and the scars on Boyd's stomach. This is the day when things will change in some way for each one of them, the day that precedes the night when they will all lie awake in their separate beds trying to make sense of things that make no sense.

This is a day of death and betrayal and fear.

This is the day Boyd puts his hand on her shoulder as they walk from the room, and the day he leaves it there, heavy and reassuring. They day that just his touch tells Grace more about the great good heart of him than anything else ever could.

- the end -