KITG: I am sooooooo sorry for the wait. I've been ill, and trying to lift up my arm let alone write was a huge effort. Hopefully I'm on the mend so here is the next instalment for you.
Chapter 4: A phoenix will riseThe hub was silent.
True, but the bland statement of fact did nothing to express the fullness of the truth. It was as though a deadening, dull blanket of memories weighed heavily down on your mind, a silence you longed to break with a scream or a yell or even a whisper . . . but still you remained quiet, because even under the noise, the silence would still be there, like a ghostly hand on your heart.
Jack sat at his desk, looking down at the silent hub. More specifically, he was trying not to look at an empty chair by an empty desk. But his eyes kept drifting back to the empty seat, and her computer, still running a program she was never going to need again.
It was wrong, it should not be like that, he was sure, as though he were looking into the face of some unutterable paradox in the weft of time.
Just as time abhors its paradoxes, so the hub rebelled against the loss of Gwen. It seemed impossible that one person could have imprinted herself so thoroughly on a building in such a short time.
There had been others, after all, more than he liked to think about. Men and women, and even one or two children, by human standards at least.
Why Gwen? Why should everything in the hub seem to smell of her, to bring back memories that only reminded him of the wound. Like the man with his sore tooth, he couldn't leave it alone. Again and again, his eyes returned to the empty chair.
Some part of his mind just refused to accept that she wasn't going to come bursting through the door, all welsh accent and black hair flying about her head, laughing, shouting, smiling . . . just being Gwen.
But no, something had other ideas. She was gone now, taken away in a ball of fire and destruction. Was she in the dark abyss Suzie had talked about? He knew the darkness . . . it was all he saw for a second of eternity, every time he died –before he was ripped back in to his body.
One second of eternity was always enough. Cold darkness, with something beyond it, something cold and indescribable just outside what you could see. Something that wasn't good or evil or stupid or misunderstood or deceptive, something beyond what his brain was capable of understanding . . . and it terrified him. Every single time.
"Sir?"
Jack restrained the automatic jerk of surprise at being pulled from his thoughts, and looked up to see Ianto, standing beside him with a mug of coffee in one hand. Jack wondered just how long he had been trying to get his attention.
"Thanks," he said hastily, standing up. He took the mug, nursing it with both hands as though the warmth could banish the memory of cold.
"You should eat something, sir." When Ianto spoke, his voice was quiet. "You look as though you need it."
"I don't know about you," said Jack, with an attempt at his natural manner, "but I don't think I could stomach anything right now."
Ianto gave a half smile that was somehow sadder than if he'd begun to cry right in front of his CO.
"Neither can I," he admitted, "but I thought I'd ask."
"How are they?" Jack asked gesturing towards Tosh. Owen was downstairs doing the autopsy, and Jack knew Tosh was all-too aware of it, since that was the eighth time he'd seen that page of text run across the screen.
"They're keeping busy," said Ianto. "Tosh is trying to figure out exactly what the devices do, and Owen's just starting the autopsy."
"Just starting?" Jack looked at his watch. Two hours had passed since Gwen's charred corpse had been laid on the autopsy slab. "What's he been doing all this time?"
"Just staring at her, I believe," Ianto kept his voice bland, like some 21st century version of the perfect butler, but Jack could hear the pain behind it.
Jack snapped, as soundlessly as the hair holding up Damocles sword. He seized the closest thing to hand –a glass paperweight with a milky way spiral in the centre –and hurled it across the room. It flew past Tosh to smash noisily on the far wall, exploding like a snowball of ice. She jumped, but Jack didn't even notice.
"I should have been able to stop this!" he fumed, voice leaking pain and fury –mainly self-directed.
"How, sir?"
"What?" Jack blinked.
"How would you have stopped it?" Ianto clarified.
"I should have been the one on the plane! I should have been able to –to –"
Ianto cut in. "There was nothing you could have done to foresee this. Gwen would be the first person to tell you to stop blaming yourself, and we both know it."
Ianto stepped in closer until he stood by Jack's side, and placed a firm hand on Jack's shoulder. Jack hesitated, then put his hand over Ianto's, grateful for the support.
He sighed, heavily. "You're right, of course. She'd be shouting at me now for just moaning to myself. Her welsh accent making all the words blur into an angry mess as she yelled at me for being so stupid. . ." Jack could almost laugh at the thought, but it stuck halfway, and came out strangled.
He glanced down at what he had been avoiding looking at even more than Gwen's empty desk –a plain manila folder with his report to Torchwood HQ about the death of his latest acquisition to the network. He knew what the first picture inside was –he had taken it himself, not very long ago, smiling when Jack had told her some outrageous and mostly true story about a Crinoid he'd married as he snapped the shot.
Hard to believe that the picture behind it was of a blackened corpse, long black hair burned down to the twisted skull. No bright, intelligent eyes looking at everything with empathy and compassion.
No warming smile as she tried to cheer you up after something that had happened to dampen your spirits.
Across the front was stamped in bold red letters CONFIDENTIAL, and, in smaller black letters with a white sticky label was the name, Gwen Cooper, Employee Number 58449234.
And obscuring all this was a new mark. Not even a full word –just three letters long, and printed large enough to cover all the previous information.
KIA. Killed in action. Such a small, meaningless word, really. It didn't even begin to describe what had happened, and yet, it did exactly that. Gwen Cooper, killed in action.
Jack felt a hand caress his face, and, for a glorious, delusional moment, he thought it was Gwen.
But the voice that followed the touch was Ianto's.
"Jack?" his voice was concerned, his usual deference forgotten in the face of it. Jack found himself trying to focus on Ianto's face, his mind returning from the memories that had threatened to swallow him.
"What…?"
"You zoned out a moment there sir" Ianto hadn't moved his hand from Jack's cheek, so Jack could feel the thumb of that hand slowly begin to caress his skin. So he turned his face and planted a kiss in the palm.
Ianto straddled Jack then inched forward to kiss his commander, Jack answered hungrily as if starved of affection of feeling. In truth to dull the loss of a friend. He needed this moment. A smile graced his lips that were still locked with Ianto's. He thought back to when Gwen had caught them at it last time. They had jumped apart as if struck by lightening, though the deed couldn't be hidden as Jacks shirt was undone exposing his muscled chest.
Plus the fact that Gwen had seen them kissing didn't help the matter. But she had just laughed and told them in a coppers voice "carry on" after grabbing the folder she had come up for. They had stood gob smacked a moment as they watched her go down the stairs, the wait for the "you never guess what I just saw" but she just walked to her desk and continued her report. Jack should have know she would not tell, after all she had never mentioned seeing him getting shot in the head by Suzie to anyone.
Jack ran his hand to the back of Ianto's neck as he crushed the man to him, devouring his mouth to taste all he could. Neither cared they were in Jack's office, that Owen or Tosh would come up and see them. They both needed this. Ianto shifted against Jack's semi-hard member making it strain against its confines. Jack moaned into Ianto's mouth in appreciation.
All this was brought to an end by the exultant cry from Owen as he ran in from the autopsy room. Jack and Ianto sprung apart trying to re-arrange their rumpled clothes. Ianto straightening his tie with meticulous adjustments. Owen came running into Jack's office as though the devil was at his heals. He did not notice Jack and Ianto's flustered demeanours, the news he was dying to impart overriding everything else.
"It's not Gwen!"
"What?" Jack exclaimed, eyes wide.
"That body in there isn't Gwen! The Dental records, DNA. It doesn't match, any of it! So that isn't Gwen!" Owen was practically jumping up and down on the spot in his excitement and joy.
"Owen, calm down. It doesn't mean she is still alive." Jack tried to be the voice of reason.
"But it was her seat! Why would someone else be in her seat?" Owen raged, trying to hold onto this glimmer of hope in the never-ending darkness that seemed to have descended on them.
"She may have put someone else in her seat, maybe they couldn't get to theirs so she gave them hers."
"Are you so determined that she be dead?" Owen raged at Jack.
"No! But we have seen too much to go on blind faith Owen! No one survived that crash. No one!"
"Well she might have! Maybe she never got on the plane"
"Owen you're deluding yourself. She was on the plane, her ID was there.." But Owen interrupted him.
"Someone might have nicked her ID".
"For gods sake, Owen! I was talking to her on the plane! I heard her fear, Owen. Heard the engines whine as the fought to keep them in the air. She was on that plane" Jack sighed.
Owen seemed to crumple again; he sat on one of the chairs in Jack's office head in hands.
"I thought…."
"I know what you thought. Look Owen we'll check see what the autopsies on the other bodies come up with. She might be in there with them." Jack stated calmly.
Owen nodded, his voice lost once more as he walked out of Jack's office. Tosh had been standing in the doorway listening to the whole exchange. She followed Owen down the stairs without a word on giving Jack a fleeting glance. Jack stood a moment before kicking his metal bin across the room; it hit the wall with a resounding "clang".
The hub was silent again . . . a silence that seemed to scream with loss. Then the alarm went off. Someone was in the shop.
Ianto walked out of the large gear-like door as it rolled back to admit him . . . and then returned moments later with someone else.
Jack took the newcomer in with one broad sweep of his eyes.
Tall, white Caucasian. Black suit, brown hair, blue eyes. Middle-aged –forty to forty-five.
Jack started to turn, already beginning to dismiss the man from his mind –but something kept his attention, made him analyse the man more closely.
He was long and thin, built like a whip on a diet. The suit was Armani, and he wore expensive leather shoes, with a weak chin and overly perfect white teeth that seemed to be noticeable even when his mouth was shut.
The skin on his face seemed to be stretched just a little too tightly over an admittedly excellent bone-structure, as though he had had one too many pin-back operations. He was alarmingly pale in the harsh lights of the hub, and there was a shifty look in those pale, almost dead-looking eyes.
Jack would have liked him a whole lot better if he didn't get the unnerving feeling the guy could have been a stand-in for Count Dracula.
"Jack Harkness?" the man shouted, looking at each of them in turn.
"Captain Jack Harkness speaking," Jack replied, wary. He didn't know much about this guy, and had a feeling he wasn't going to like what he did know.
The man looked up at him with an expression that indicated he was not entirely impressed with what he saw.
"My name is de Rano. I have been sent by some concerned . . . members of Torchwood. They have been hearing some disturbing rumours about this branch. You seem to be loosing your staff rather quickly. There are concerns about you being in command."
The wary dislike Jack felt jacked up to an active aggression. The man –de Rano –seemed to spill rather than talk, his tone slippery and about as safe as adder venom. He had something up his sleeve, Jack felt certain.
"And just who are these concerned . . . members of Torchwood?" Jack sneered, exaggerating de Rano's significant pause.
"That is none of your concern. I will need full access to this base."
DeRano pulled out a letter; but Jack didn't need to read it. He recognised at least four of the signatures on the bottom, even from this distance. That letter would give him access to everything he wanted. And cooperation, if Jack knew the Torchwood word-smiths.
Jack was helpless. It was all he could do to not jump from his perch and slam his fist in to the man's face. Instead, he gave him a vague wave which could have meant anything from "go ahead" to "get stuffed".
As he almost marched for his office door, a dangerous expression settled on his face. Captain Jack Harkness might not be much of a diplomat. He was definitely not good at conversation that involved anything soft and squishy –unless, of course, he was dating it. And he couldn't play the harpsichord to save his life.
But one thing Captain Jack Harkness was good at was getting his job done with a minimum of fuss. It had been his maxim for a while now, and he found he liked it that way. You asked for Captain Harkness, you got the job done, and you got it done without disruption.
Jack was about to be very, very disruptive.
He fell into his chair, and brought up a video call on his computer, sending a coded text to Tosh to ensure the line was secure. There was a moment's pause, and then a small green light flashed on the keyboard. Tosh had okayed the line –and then, a moment later, he was in.
The Torchwood logo spun round and round the screen as the other end connected. Jack allowed himself a small sarcastic lift of his eyes. Honestly, a Torchwood screensaver? Had these people no taste?
Then the hexagons that made up the symbol of Torchwood exploded outwards to leave the screen behind.
In the centre of the screen was the face of a man. He looked strangely ageless –not obviously . . . just in some vague, hard to define air about him. He had long black hair pulled into a ponytail behind him, and what Jack could see of his clothing was dark. He knew for a fact that what he couldn't see was a long, dark coat with a hood for discretion, and a black suit and matching shoes.
Despite that, there was something about him that meant no punks with something to prove ever tried to call him a Goth. None that Jack could trace afterwards, at any rate. And Jack knew this man very well. He ought to; after all, it had been he who had introduced Jack to the wonder that was Torchwood. And it's bureaucrats.
"Captain Jack Harkness," the man acknowledged with a faint inclination of his head. "It's been a while." His voice, Jack reflected, had the same faint lilt to it –the sort of voice you would instantly trust, whatever it said.
"Hello, Galen," Jack greeted him cheerily, no sign of his previous anger in his face. "You look sexier every time I see you."
"And, as always, you haven't changed at all," Galen remarked ironically.
"Ah, well," Jack shrugged lightly. "Only the good die young. I'm still having too much fun to die at the moment."
Galen laughed –a rare sound. "That's not what you told me the last time we went on a drinking spree," he reminded Jack. "Now, what's up?"
"Up?" Jack gave him his most innocent expression.
"Don't bother, Harkness," said Galen ironically. "Someone's got you furious –and don't bother to deny it" –Jack's mouth shut – "I know you better than your mother would, if she was ever within a million light-years of you. And besides, you never call me unless something's up." Galen leaned back in his chair with the air of a man resigned to his fate.
Jack let the cheerful act drop. "We got some slimy bastard here who says he's from Headquarters."
Galen nodded. "Name?" he asked.
"de Rano."
Galen snarled, showing his long canines –an unnerving expression snarl more animal or demonic than human.
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Friend of yours?" he enquired ironically.
"Hardly," Galen was thinking hard, Jack could tell by the way he look dead at the camera. "But I know him, yes. That snivelling Keplagh had been given more sway than is his due. What is he there for?"
Galen's black eyes seemed to be tinged with an almost alien red. Anyone else would have assumed the camera was at fault. Jack did not, for two reasons. Firstly, because Tosh and Galen were both aesthetics when it came to their technical gear. And secondly, because he had seen that look once or twice in person. Both times, someone had ended up wishing they hadn't.
"He says he's here because of some concerned members of Torchwood."
Jack looked down into the hub, and saw de Rano harassing Tosh. He felt a little better –de Rano obviously hadn't worked with techies very often. Techies might not trade barb for barb, but that didn't mean they didn't find their own ways of taking revenge. De Rano was in for a rough ride on the technical side of things . . .
"I have an idea whom they may be . . . watch yourself for now, Jack." Galen locked eyes with Jack, putting across the seriousness of the matter.
"Who?"
"Verdelay. He has been setting his eyes on Rockfort's chair for some time now." Galen seemed to look out of his office a moment before looking back at Jack.
"Verdelay? Wasn't he some lower ranking pompous windbag?" Jack tried to think back. it had been a long time since he had made contact with any of the more obnoxious bureaucrats in Torchwood.
"No Jack. He may have seemed as such when you were here –but much has changed since then. Since the Daleks and Cybermen, many were promoted who might, perhaps, have been better off in their place." Galen sighed. "He had been voicing his opinions when the Sygorax turned up. He said it was proof that we should shoot first and ask questions later. But you and I both know that would do more harm than good."
For just a second, the captain and the mysterious stranger shared a look of mutual commiseration –the look of two who had seen too much of the universe to expect anything good to come of a trigger-happy culture.
Jack and Galen shared a look that showed the sign of someone that had travelled the universe and knew its terrors. Quite how a human of this time could know as much as or even more than Jack…well that remained to be seen. Jack knew some of it, but there was much of Galen he did not know.
"What do you suggest?" Jack looked to see de Rano walking up the stairs to his office, and made the universal sign for a need to cut power momentarily, drawing his finger across his throat with a warning look to the side.
"Humour him . . . until I get there."
Galen's smile was purely demonic in its look. And Jack couldn't help but join him.
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Gwen wasn't quite sure what had happened.
She had been pushed to her knees before the aliens. She could remember the leader pulling out a sword, and she had thought fleetingly of Jack, praying for a last minute rescue.
Of course, none came. Gwen made a mental note to watch less Action Adventure movies in the future.
That was, if she had a future.
Then there was pain, unspeakable pain. She knew she had been stabbed, felt like her right shoulder. But that pain was nothing compared to that which was ripping through her skull. The Voices, compelling, commanding her to do things she knew she shouldn't do.
"Go into your base. Return it to us, find it . . . kill all who stand in your way"
"Nooo . . ." the drawn out moan that she realised was her voice.
"Go! Retrieve them for us! Kill all who stand in your way"
This time there was no answering defiance to the order.
All that was Gwen Cooper was locked away inside her mind. It was here she was left thinking as she looked out of eyes that were no longer under her control.
She tried to take back her body, had been trying ever since this had begun. But every time she tried the pain would lance through her.
She saw she was walking down streets she knew well, though she couldn't quite remember how she had left the caves to get here. One moment she was sat before the leader, the thing inside her listening to his orders. Then she had appeared down a dark alleyway not far from the Millennium fountain. Now Gwen was walking to the shop that served as a front to the Torchwood base. That which was Gwen but – paradoxically –wasn't, walked through the door as if she owned the place.
Ianto was missing from his customary station, which Gwen was thankful for. If Ianto had tried to stop the thing that now inhabited her body . . . she wasn't sure she could stop it. No, scratch that. She knew she wouldn't be able to stop it. And the thought scared her spitless.
She entered her code and the hidden door opened. Gwen walked down the passage then waited for the large cog door to roll back. She saw inside the hub, Tosh was at her desk, Owen was sat at his with his head in his hands. She could just see Jack talking with someone she didn't know. Then her eyes locked with Ianto's . . .
"Gwen?"
TBC……….
I love this! Brilliant, brilliant brilliant! Sorry I've been so long, but one thing and another, you know . . .
