AN: Here's chapter 2, will the presence of the Sanctuary team be enough to save Tosh and Owen from the fates they had in canon?
Chapter 2
Ashley raided the autopsy bay for first aid equipment, she then proved that all the time spend in her mom's infirmary had taught her something by bandaging Hart's wrist. She also proved she wasn't as caring as her mother since she didn't offer him any painkillers and she wasn't exactly gentle as she tied the bandage off.
Meanwhile Gwen had rerun the scan that Tosh had already run; they hoped that if there was anything to find then the more powerful Hub computers would help. That wasn't proving to be the case. "I am telling you I have run every scan possible, there is no signal traceable."
"Then try it again, it's got to be there." Hart insisted then he noticed that Gwen wasn't looking at him and neither was Ashley. "Oi, I'm talking to you."
Both women continued to ignore him and mentally curse themselves since the Weevils that had suddenly appeared were now between them and the weapons they had discarded so they had their hands free for first aid and computers.
They were surrounded on all sides and ended up back to back, trying to keep all the Weevils in someone's line of sight and not giving them the chance to get behind them.
"You know you've got a real pest problem around here." Hart said as the Weevils growled at them.
Ashley reached and grabbed Gwen's wrist in one hand and Hart's in the other, and debated where the best place for them to make a strategic retreat to. Even her teleporting wouldn't let her reach her gun since one of the Weevils was very close and would get her before she could shoot it.
Before she could decide where to go there were a series of gun shots. They looked to see Ianto, Tosh and Henry. Ianto and Tosh had their guns out and were the ones who had fired. Henry, who wasn't as well trained, was behind them.
"Oh, God, I'm so pleased to see you!" Gwen said with real relief.
Ianto seemed not to have heard her, or even noticed the rest of them were there. He just made his way towards Hart, his gun pointed at the other man and the look on his face said that he was going to use it. He was going to kill Hart.
Gwen got between then, forcing Ianto's gun arm up and away from Hart as the man in question back away, his arms raised defensively. Ashley helped Gwen hold the irate Welshman because as much as she wanted to shoot Hart herself she knew that he might still be useful for getting her god-father back.
"Don't start." Hart said. "I'll make things right, Eye Candy." Ashley felt Ianto tense and thought that Hart might not be all that smart after all if he was further irritating Ianto when the Welshman was already prepared to kill him in cold blood.
"Then start by getting those Weevils down the vaults before they recover." Tosh told them as she moved around her workstation. "It takes more than a bullet to stop them."
Henry stepped closer to one of the Weevils and it growled and tried to crawl away from him. "Dude what the hell?" He asked.
"I think it knows what you are." Ashley suggested. "And I think it's scared of you."
"Cool." Henry said and took another step towards it and the Weevil tried to get further away.
"Stop playing around." Gwen told him. "And actually help with these will you?" Ashley shrugged and grabbed the legs of the one Ianto was dealing with while Henry helped Gwen with hers since it seemed the most out of it and it didn't respond to him. They left Hart to deal with number three on his own.
While they made their way down to holding cells Gwen took the opportunity to fill Ianto and Henry in on what was going on with Hart. They reached the main point of it just as they reached the cells. "You did what?!" Ianto demanded of Hart when Gwen told him about Jack been buried, alive, somewhere under Cardiff.
"Ianto!" Gwen was just glad she was between the two men as they hauled the Weevils into their cells, she'd like to think that Ashley would stop Ianto killing Hart but she knew there was an equally good chance that the young American would help. So for now she needed to keep Ianto's mind on the situation at hand and not what Hart had done to his lover.
"I didn't have a choice!" Hart defended but Ashley wasn't having any of there.
"There's always a choice!" She shouted at him and she should know, she'd been prepared to die rather than hurt her mother.
Gwen was thinking that maybe she should find a way to get Hart out of the immediate vicinity of Ianto and Ashley since he obviously didn't have a high enough IQ to keep his mouth shut. "Okay, can we just get these Weevils into the cells please!"
"If we don't find him, I'll kill you." Ianto promised as they pulled the Weevils into the cells. "Very slowly."
Before anyone could say anything else the doors slammed shut behind them. "Whoa!" Gwen said. "What's happening? Tosh? Tosh!" There was no answer. "Ianto, my comms are dead." She would have been more panicked but Ashley could teleport out of the cell in a heartbeat unless someone put up an EM field.
"Gwen?" John's voice called her attention to him and the man standing in front of that cell.
"I let you go." He said to Hart. Gwen and Henry moved as close to the glass as they could so they could see what was going on and in their cell Ianto and Ashley did the same. The young man's faint resemblance to Jack and the way he was talking was enough to strongly suggest that this was "I gave you one trip, you could have gone anywhere."
"Question of honour." He replied but Gray just scoffed at that and started to walk away.
Gwen tried to reason with Gray but it was no good, all he said was: "His life's mine now."
Ianto was nearly so civilised but Gray ignored his shouted demands completely. "What've you done with him?!" Ianto shouted again at the retreating back of Gray but he still didn't get a response.
"Lovely guy." Henry muttered. "Hey Ash, any chance of getting us out of here?"
Ashley grinned and grabbed Ianto's hand, teleporting them back into the corridor they had started out in. "Oh that was not pleasant."
"Will would agree with you." Ashley told him. "Some people just seem more sensitive to jumps." She let go of Ianto and walked to the door that led to Gwen and Henry's cell. She took a quick look through the spy hole then teleported in, grabbed their arms and jumped back to the corridor. She did the same with Hart's cell just he held up his hand.
"Give me a minute." He was fiddling with a box that Ashley presumed he had pulled from his pocket. "Ah, got it!" Another very loud noise, though on a slightly different pitch to the one that had called the Weevils out and sent them on the rampage. Ashley grabbed Hart's hand and teleported them into the hallway where the other three had their hands over their ears, Henry seemed to be particularly suffering, his hearing more sensitive than a human's. "Sorry about that." John shouted over the noise as they appeared.
"Turn it down!" Gwen snapped and when he did so she continued. "What have you done?"
"Recall signal." Hart sounded smug. "Time for all the pets to return home."
"Why didn't you do that while they had us surrounded up stairs?" Ashley demanded.
"Well sweetheart it takes a few minutes to rewire and we really didn't seem to have those few minutes up there." Hart told her and Ashley wished for a knife or her gun, something to wipe the smirk off his face.
"We can complain about this later." Gwen said. "I hate to point this out but Gray is running round the Hub and we have no way to warn Tosh." That pulled everyone's thoughts back to where they should be, they exchanged a singled look and headed for the stairs back to the main Hub. They were nearly there when an unearthly banging started echoing through the Hub.
"What the hell is that?" Ashley asked.
"Wasn't me." Hart said quickly. But by then Gwen had reached the main level of the Hub and spotted Tosh on the floor near her work station and a growing pool of blood.
"Oh my God!" Gwen shouted. "Tosh!"
Everyone ran to the fallen technician, she had one hand pressed to her gunshot wound to her stomach. Ashley grabbed the first aid kit she'd been using on Hart and started doing the best she could for Tosh. "Are the comms working? I need mom here, this is more than I can deal with." She told them.
Ianto tapped his comm. "Magnus, we need you at the Hub, ASAP, Tosh is down, gunshot wound to the stomach."
"Bloody hell!" Was the reply, "We'll be there in a few moments."
"Ianto!" A second voice overlaid Magnus. It was Owen. "What the hell is going on there? Where' s Tosh? She's not answering me."
"She's been shot." Ianto told him quickly.
Owen cursed quickly and fluently. "She was supposed to be talking me though dealing with this reactor overload, she was rerouting power from the auxiliary source back to the station and then use that to restore the coolant system."
"Henry." Ianto called to the Sanctuary Tech as he tried to get the computer system at Tosh's work station on but that clearly wasn't happening and Ianto suspected that Gray had trashed it. "Tosh was helping Owen deal with the nuclear power plant."
"I need some computer but I think I can manage that." Henry told him. Ianto grabbed Tosh's hand held system and pulled Henry to the Autopsy bay where the projector and wall would do just fine in place of a computer screen.
At that moment Helen and John Druitt appeared in the Hub. Helen immediately rushed to where her daughter was working on Tosh with the help of Gwen. "What have we got?"
"Gunshot wound to the stomach." Ashley said. "Bullet is still in and there's serious blood loss."
"Alright Toshiko stay with me." Helen told her as she checked the injury.
"Owen, the nuclear plant, we need to restore the coolant." Tosh said as she tried to focus on the faces of the people around her.
"Henry and Ianto are working on it." Gwen told her. "We need to get you fixed up Tosh."
"No, have to help Owen." Tosh insisted and actually tried to sit up.
"No." Helen said firmly. "If we don't sort this out then you aren't going to be around to care about nuclear meltdown." She looked up at Gwen. "I need to get her into surgery now or she's not going to make it."
"I don't think that a good idea here." Gwen said. "Gray is still on the loose."
Helen wondered who Gray was but decided that she would worry about it later. "We'll take her to London, their infirmary is fully prepped for casualties, since we didn't know what your situation was." She looked at her family. "John stay here, they might need you, you have more experience with teleporting under difficult conditions." She looked to her daughter. "Ashley I need you to take us to London, their infirmary please."
"Helen?!" They all turned to see Jack Harkness who had just run into the room. He was looking rather the worst for wear. His clothes were dirt stained and ragged around the edges.
"No time." Helen shouted across the Hub to him. "We need to get Tosh out of here." She said and glanced at Ashley who nodded and placed a hand on her mother's arm and one on Tosh's shoulder then, with a quick smile for her god-father, she teleported them away.
As soon as they were gone Gwen went and hugged Jack. "Oh thank God!"
Ianto had run up the stairs from the autopsy bay at the sound of Jack's voice. "I thought we'd lost you." He said as he made his way over.
Jack shifted Gwen so she was against one side and pulled Ianto against him as soon as the other man was within arm's reach. He pressed a kiss to Ianto's hair. "Never!" He promised.
"Quite a queue for the hugs." Hart commented.
Ianto pulled away from Jack and moved behind his shoulder, keeping his eyes on Hart. As far as Ianto was concerned it didn't matter is Gray had been controlling things, John Hart had been the one to bury Jack under Cardiff for a very long time given what Hart had said about the guarantee on the transmitter and Jack been buried for ever. Ianto's hand drifted to the gun still strapped to his hip, if Hart made one wrong mood he would blow his brains out.
"Always has been, always will be." Jack replied. "Nice use of the ring."
"Thank you. Least I could do. Listen, Gray's in the Hub."
"I know." Jack said shortly. "It's done." No one wanted to ask exactly what Jack had done to his younger brother.
"Oh fuck!" Henry's curse brought everyone's attention to the autopsy bay and Jack ran over followed by everyone else. It hadn't escaped his attention that his doctor was missing and once he saw what was on the projector in the autopsy bay he had a terrible feeling that he knew where Owen was.
"What's going on?" He demanded looking down at Henry.
"The good news is that we managed to stop the nuclear meltdown." Henry swallowed. "The bad news is that Owen is stuck in there in exactly the place the irradiated coolant is about to flood."
Gwen's hand flew to her mouth as she looked at the screen in horror, knowing that the blinking curser was her trapped friend and one time lover. "Oh shit!"
Jack and Ianto also looked at the screen in horror as well while Henry looked rather guilty, as though it was his fault this was happening to Owen though anyone could tell him the Hart was guiltier than he could ever be. Only John Druitt kept his composure.
"Henry I need GPS coordinates for the power plant." He said. "Mr Jones I need blueprints of the layout, preferably to scale."
Jack whirled around to face him. "There is no way you are going in there." He said taking a step towards him. "Teleporting and radiation do not mix."
"You can't stop me Harkness, I need that information gentlemen." But he didn't need to remind them, Henry had already pulled up what he needed and Ianto was using Tosh's remote access device to call up the blueprints of the power station. Blueprints that Torchwood probably shouldn't have but then again, thanks to Tosh, Torchwood had an awful lot of things they probably shouldn't have.
"Here." Ianto said handing it to John. "Good luck." Henry was talking to Owen over the comm and it sounded like he was doing his best to calm the understandably panicked medic, telling him that Druitt was going to come and get him out of there.
John took the device from Ianto and after a quick glance at the location that Henry had pulled up on the screen, he teleported away.
"Who the hell are you hanging out with?" Hart asked.
"That would be John Druitt." Ianto told him with a glare.
"Jack the freaking Ripper?" Hart asked incredulously. "No way." He turned to look at Jack. "You really know Jack the Ripper?"
"He's not the Ripper anymore." Jack told him absently but the majority of his attention was focused on the screen and praying that John got to Owen in time.
" "
John Druitt was grateful that Ashley was not around to volunteer for this insanity because Jack had been right; turning yourself into pure energy when there was high levels of background radiation was not generally a good idea. While it certainly wasn't as dangerous as trying to teleport in an EM field the higher than normal levels of radiation would make the jumps tricky, especially the re-materialisation part.
Rescuing Doctor Harper would also be difficult since he couldn't just jump in and out again. He didn't have the proper coordinates for the room that he was in, nor did he have the placement of the equipment within the room. Without that information he would risk rematerializing inside a wall or ever a table. Usually he could avoid furniture but the background radiation would make that harder than normal.
Instead he made his way thought the power plant as quickly as he could on foot, only teleporting whenever he came across a sealed door. Even then he only jumped far enough to land just on the other side of the door.
Finally he reached the room that Owen was sealed in and jumped inside. "Oh thank the fuck." Owen had been pacing back and forth in short frantic moments. Clearly he had been worried that John wouldn't get to him in time. "He's here." He said into his comm. "And we're out of here, London?"
John nodded. "This trip will not have been good for me." He placed his hand on Owen's arm. "But I should have one more jump in me." He teleported them both out.
" "
"And not a second too soon." Henry said watching the screen as it showed the coolant venting at the power plant was beginning mere seconds after Owen's last comm call. Gwen breathed a sigh of relief as did Jack and Ianto while Henry flopped down in the autopsy table, looking exhausted. Only Hart seemed relatively unaffected by everything.
Jack took a deep breath. "Right then. Henry, not that I'm not very pleased to see you but what the hell are you doing here?"
"Declan had a report of explosions in Cardiff." Henry explained. "When no one answered the phone the boss got had us all come over here and help. Will and Kate are with her husband." He pointed at Gwen. "Over at the Police HQ."
"What happened to Tosh?"
"She was shot." Ianto told him. "Single gunshot to the stomach, I'm assuming it was Gray."
"Declan and his team are on their way to help with the clean-up." Henry told them, he pulled out one of his own toys and check the screen. "They should be here within the next hour."
"Gwen can you contact Will and Kate to see what needs doing, and let Rhys know you're alright." Jack ordered. "Henry get the Hub systems back on line as best you can and then see about getting the city back on line. John stay out of the way and trouble, or better yet get started on the calculations you need to be gone." Jack added before turning to Ianto. "Ianto, find a way to contact London and see how Tosh and Owen are doing, then please put some coffee on."
"Of course Jack." Ianto didn't bother asking what Jack was going to do, he just assumed that it was something to do with Gray. And he was right, Jack intended to freeze Gray in the morgue, he simply couldn't bring himself to kill his little brother even as he acknowledged that this angry young man who had caused so much suffering wasn't the little boy he had known and that killing him might be the kinder thing to do.
Hart apparently agreed with him on that because he followed him as he went to retrieve Gray's unconscious body and then helped ot carry him up to the autopsy bay. He stood back and allowed Jack to prepare Gray for the Cryo-unit alone but he couldn't help but ask. "Are you sure this is a good idea Jack? Maybe killing him would be the release he needs."
"I can't." Jack said simply.
"You didn't struggle when I buried you." Hart said. "Like, you were allowing it."
"It was my penance." Jack said sadly.
Hart stepped closer and said softly. "It's not your fault." Jack didn't reply, instead he activated the cryo-unit and then took a deep breath before turning back to John.
"Need help with those rift predictions?"
"Lot of this planet I haven't seen. You like it so much, thought I might take a look. Maybe see you around." Hart kissed Jack's cheek and started for the stairs then he turned back. "I just have to ask, Jack the Ripper, seriously?"
"Yes." Jack said.
"Next you'll be telling me the brunette was his wife and you know their blond hellion of a daughter." Hart laughed and then noticed that Jack didn't. "Seriously? Man, they're like famous they're still talking about them back in our time and here you are hanging out with the legends themselves."
"Legends are a lot more painful up close." Jack told him. "I haven't told them what the future holds, at least not the parts I can remember."
"You never were much good at history." Hart grinned. "And you copied off me to pass the course."
"And I paid you for it."
"Oh yes you did." Hart grinned fondly at the memory. "Too bad Eye-Candy will object if we go there again, at least I assume he will."
"He will." Jack told him. "And I wasn't offering. But for old time's sake I'll give you some free advice; stay away from the Sanctuary and especially Ashley."
"Hey I like to live dangerously." Hart held his hands up in mock protest.
"She's my god-daughter."
"But not that dangerously." Hart said quickly. "I'll see you around."
Ianto passed Hart as he was leaving. "Is he leaving?" Ianto asked when he reached Jack. Jack nodded. "Good." Ianto said. "How are you doing?"
"I've been better Ianto, I've been a lot better." Jack sighed. "But it would all have been a lot worse without the Sanctuary joining us."
"It might still be worse." Ianto told him grimly. "I've got a report from Doctor Magnus in London."
"Tosh?"
"Is stable for the moment, she's not out of the woods yet but she survived surgery." Ianto sighed. "The problem is Owen." That surprised Jack, since Owen was already dead he hadn't expected there was much more that could harm him. Ianto obviously saw what Jack was thinking. "He received a massive dose of radiation, as did Druitt but he's responding well to the medication Magnus has given him, medication that Owen can't metabolise."
AN: Please leave me a REVIEW and let me know what you think? and any guesses you might have about what's going to happen? (Except for a certain someone who knows what happens)