Probably doesn't seem this way to you guys, but I feel as though I've been on an updating spree with this story, and rather need to finish up chapter fourteen. But you needn't worry about that, just go forth and enjoy! Disclaimer- No. Nonononononononononono.
In Which Breakthroughs Are Made, Tests Are Preformed, and Toshiko's Patience is Tested
~oOo~
Two Hours Later
"Found anything yet?"
Owen jumped slightly at the unexpected question, turning around from his work -the alien's body- to face Jack, who stood at the staircase of the medlab, leaning on the guard rail. Collected once more, Owen ran a hand through his hair before answering.
"Uh, no, not yet, Jack." He replied. The Immortal's eyebrows drew together as he worked his way over and next to Owen.
"What've you been doing, then?" He questioned. Owen scoffed.
"I've barely had one bloody hour." He chastised. "I've been studying vitals; making sure the thing isn't going to die un us, you know? Standard medical procedure?"
Jack nodded.
"Yeah, of course. Sorry, I've just been-"
"Busy?" Finished Owen. Jack shrugged.
"Yeah."
"Tom?"
"Some other stuff, but yeah. Tom, definitely."
"...Right." Owen paused a moment. "How's he taking all of this?"
"Well." Jack answered. "Really well, actually, considering everything that's going on right now."
"That's good."
"Yeah."
There was a slight pause before Jack inhaled sharply and turned from Owen some, motioning vaguely to the upper level of the Hub.
"I should be doing...things." He muttered. "And you probably need to be getting on with your inspection."
"Probably, yeah."
"Alright then." Said Jack, nodding all the while. A moment of silence ensued before Jack turned silently and exited from the medlab, leaving Owen alone once more.
~oOo~
Jack left and Owen let out a shaky sigh. He needed sleep. Or food. Or some combination of the two.
Because while he still hadn't been overly polite to Jack, he had found it exceedingly difficult to hold his tongue, to stop himself from being more offensive than usual.
Which was sort of difficult.
'Something's off here', thought Owen, returning to his work. He'd been getting as much sleep as he ever did, but a lack of sleep was the only reason Owen could fathom as to why he was feeling this way. Frustrated, uneasy. Almost hormonal. Like a teenager in the midst of a particularly bad mood swing. Maybe his screwy sleep schedule was finally catching up with him.
Then again, Jack had been acting odd as of late as well. And Owen knew that sleep had nothing to do with Jack's behavior had nothing to do with a lack of sleep, seeing as how the man never seemed to need to sleep. Taking a step back from the medical table he'd been working at, Owen buried his face into his hands, gears turning in his mind.
Sleep couldn't have anything to do with it, not if it was affecting both him and Jack.
But they were both acting strangely for no readily apparent reason, There had to be something connecting them.
Breathing slowly, trying to collect his thoughts into something resembling coherency, Owen focused on possible causes. It had to be something that only he and Jack had been directly exposed to, so that ruled out...well, that ruled out quite a lot, actually. So at least whatever it was wasn't in the water. Always a good thing, that. On top of that, they had probably come into contact with it quite recently, unless there was some sort of incubation period. Dismissing that possibility, at least for the moment, he focused on the last few days, recalling things that only he and Jack would have directly interacted with.
Figuring that the best place to start would be the day that Jack had attacked the Doctor, Owen remembered back to then, trying to pinpoint exactly when his demeanor had changed into something more violent and aggressive than normal for him. As far as Owen could tell, he had been mostly fine that day, even after the Doctor had arrived. Unsettled by his not-quite-friend, not-yet-enemy, presumably for his lack of self care, agitated at the same man, and probably somewhat hurt and confused by the whole situation, but he definitely hadn't shown any signs of aggression. Continuing through the day, after the Doctor had passed out and was no longer in the picture, he'd still seemed to be mostly fine.
It occurred to Owen that that the Immortal had only become violent after his interaction with the alien they'd confronted.
And he, himself, had also become more agitated after being in close proximity to the aliens.
The new aliens.
The new aliens that they knew next to nothing about.
The aliens, Owen realized, that were very possibly toying with their emotions.
But wait a second, Ianto had interacted with those same aliens, hadn't he? And so far he was acting no different than usual. After a few moments, the difference between Jack and Owen's experience as opposed to Ianto's surfaced. Though the Welshman had also come into direct physical contact with them, he had only done so after it had died, whereas Owen and Jack had had physical interaction with the aliens while they were alive and well.
However, Jack hadn't come into physical contact with the aliens, not the first time they'd been encountered. But he'd been close...and perhaps that was enough. Could it be? Could it be that this...effect, if you will, was able to be projected in a sense of the word? It wasn't as if Jack was the most emotionally stable guy to begin with; he would make a prime candidate for beings whose very presence was emotionally manipulating.
Eying the unconscious alien on his medical table carefully, Owen took another step back from it, towards the stairs. He turned to the stairs and raced up, stopping at the Hub's main level.
"Jack!" He called, glancing around his surroundings frantically. Gwen stood up from her desk, glancing to Owen and pointing to the balcony.
"In his office." She supplied. Owen gave a small nod at this and started up the second flight up stairs, taking them two at a time and then coming to a sudden halt at the door that led into Jack's office. He turned the knob and entered the office with no hesitation, not even bother to knock. At Owen's sudden appearance, Jack's attention snapped from the papers he'd been reading, presumably Rift reports, to Owen, and an expression of surprise quickly passed over his features.
"Owen." He recognized, sounding vaguely confused as to why the medical doctor had entered so abruptly.
"I've figured it out, Jack." He sputtered out, words rushed and pressed together. "At least, I think I have, can't really be sure-"
"Woah, woah, woah," Said Jack, standing up from and working his way around his desk. "You've figured what out?"
"The aliens. What they're doing."
Jack's eyebrows drew together.
"Explain. Everything. Slowly."
And so Owen did.
~oOo~
Jack bit his lip slightly, processing everything Owen had told him, running it over for possible errors; parts of the theory that would leave a taste of uncertainty when chewed for too long.
"...Those things affected me a lot more than they did you." He eventually noted. Owen nodded.
"Yeah, well, I'm willing to bet that you've got a lot more built up emotional turmoil than me, Jack." Owen retorted bluntly. The Captain winced at this but didn't bother to argue. "So it only makes sense that you would be more effected by them than most other people."
"Fair enough." Muttered Jack. He paused a moment, then sighed. "...Right then. We've got that sorted out a bit, at least. Now we need to figure out what the hell they're playing at." The Immortal said, running a hand through his hair. "I expected a lot more resistance than I actually got today."
Owen cleared his throat slightly, drawing Jack's attention back to him.
"Ah, Jack? It's a bit obvious, don't you think?"
Jack arched a curious eyebrow, motioning for the medical doctor to continue.
"He was planted."
"What?!"
Owen hesitated slightly, choosing his next words with care.
"We were expecting more of them than last time today, yeah?" He asked. Jack nodded shortly. "Exactly. And like you said, the alien didn't resist up until the very last moment, which was probably just a natural fear reaction; nearly impossible to not act on. So either we're dealing arrogant and nearly inconceivably think aliens, or it was planted there."
Jack is silent as he considers Owen's words.
"They...they sent one of them to get inside of Torchwood?"
"Far as I can tell." Owen confirmed.
"B-but why?!" Jack sputtered.
"They probably figured that we'd want to take it back to Torchwood, and that from there we'd all interact with it on some level. I think that they wanted to mess with all of us, like they did you and I."
"So, what? They want to manipulate our emotions? Get us angry, or feeling down, whatever?"
"Think about it, Jack." Owen said, a sigh in his voice. "If they amplify the emotions we already have, none of us will be functioning very well as a team if we're all effected. You're a fantastic example of that."
"...And if we're not able to work together well-"
"It would make their job, whatever that is, a hell of a lot easier if we were out of the way." Owen concluded. Jack was silent a moment, nodding slowly at this information, mostly to himself. After a moment, he spoke.
"...Well, shit."
~oOo~
"And you're sure about this?" Questioned Toshiko, raising a skeptical eyebrow. Owen shrugged, motioning to Jack.
"What d'you say, Jack? Are we sure?"
The Immortal gave a small nod.
"Yeah, we're sure. Makes sense after all."
"I suppose..." Agreed Toshiko. "But we should run some tests, just to be sure."
Owen scoffed.
"They're fucking emotions, Tosh. Hate to break it to you, but there are some things that you just can't test."
Despite how Owen...enjoyed her presence at times, there were certain aspects of Toshiko that occasionally grated on his nerves.
"Owen?" Asked Jack.
"Yeah?" The medical doctor replied.
""Shut up for a minute, okay?"
Owen, though looking incredibly indigent, did as Jack said, clamping his mouth shut, and settled for crossing his arms across hes chest, a sullen look plastered on his features. The Captain turned to Toshiko.
"What did you mean by 'run some tests'?" He inquired.
"Test emotional levels; see if they're heightened." Explained Tosh.
"And since you're suggesting it, I assume you have some way of doing this?" Jack asked.
"As it would happen, we do."
Jack blinked once and stared for a moment before speaking.
"...When did we get this, then?" He questioned, clearly confused.
"Two or three months back." Answered Tosh. "Ianto filed it away in the archives."
Toshiko was met with two blank stares.
"Am I honestly the only one who bothers to pay attention to these things?" She asked, exasperated. When nobody answered she merely sighed and turned towards the archives. "I'm off to find Ianto, then." She said.
After she'd left, Owen turned to Jack.
"You can test everything. How about that? I was wrong."
Jack snorted slightly.
"Mark this down as the day Owen Harper admitted that he was wrong." He chastised, laughing as he watched Owens ears burn red.
~oOo~
Twenty three minutes later
Toshiko set the device she'd went looking firmly down on Jack's desk, said device looking suspiciously like a can of spray paint.
"...That's what's going to answer our question?" Asked Owen, skeptical.
"This is precisely what's going to answer our question, Owen." Said Toshiko. "From the planet Traxis IV, in the Ascomycetes galaxy."
"It looks rather a lot like a can of spray paint." Noted Ianto.
"I've noticed, Ianto." Replied Tosh. "Bit like how a powerful psychic artifact looked rather like a necklace, isn't it?"
Ianto was quiet a moment.
"Fair enough." He conceded.
Pause.
"So what do we do with it?" Jack asked, cutting through the silence.
"Well," Began Toshiko. "You and Owen are going to stand very still while I use this to scan you both over for hormone levels, so I can compare them to typical levels and confirm or disprove our hypothesis here." She explained.
"And what happens if we don't stand 'very still'?" Owen questioned.
"The readings won't be as accurate and you'll have been slapped." Responded Tosh.
"Ah," Said Owen. "Good to know."
"That's what I thought." Toshiko said as she picked up the device and flipped it over, adjusting a dial on the bottom. After a short moment she flipped it back upright, apparently satisfied with her work.
"There we are then." She said, glancing the can over. "Jack, I need you to stay right where you are."
"Not a problem, Toshiko." The Captain respinded, doing as Tosh had instructed, standing exactly still.
"Right."
Tosh gripped the can, finger on top of what would have been a paint can's nozzle, and took a step towards Jack. Then, applying pressure, she ran the can up and down Jack's body twice. Though the nozzle was depressed, no noise was forthcoming. Roughly a minutes later, Tosh's finger left the nozzle and she brought the device back to herself, studying the side of the can intensely.
Curious as to what this was all about, Owen walked over to Toshiko, stopping behind her so that he too could see what she was seeing. On the side of the matte silver can, several colored bars were being projected, though there was no visible screen. Taking this in stride, images without screens was hardly the strangest thing he'd ever seen, after all, Owen's attention focused instead on the bars. There were two of them, side by side, one of them blue and the other red.
"So," Started the medical doctor. "Are we looking at, exactly?"
Toshiko studied the readings a moment more before turning her focus away from them.
"This," She said, motioning to the red bar, the shorter of the two by a significant margin. "Is the typical, biochemically caused aggression level of an average thirty year old male."
Owen nodded.
"And I'm guessing the other one is Jack's?"
"That'd be right." Tosh confirmed. Owen let out a slow breath.
"Great." He muttered. "Bloody fantastic." He glanced to Tosh. "Well that more or less proves it, doesn't it? These things screw with emotions."
"More like hormones, but that's basically what it looks like." Agreed Toshiko. "What do you think, Jack?"
Memories of the night before flooded Jack's mind, joined by the conversation he'd shared with Martha earlier that day.
"Yeah." He said. "I think that's safe to say."
"Right then." Said Ianto. "...What do we do now?" He asked nobody in particular.
After a moment Toshiko spoke.
"We figure out why they're here."
Silence.
Suddenly, Jack turned on his heel, stalking towards the stairs that led down to the holding cells.
"Don't let the Doctor near them."
And so some progress has been made. From here on out there is rather a lot of it. So yay for that, I guess. To you guys who reviewed for like the last ten chapters. I promise I'll actually get around to replying to your reviews in this section sometime soon. I really do appreciate the things you say. However, if you want an immediate response to your review, or want to discuss an aspect of this story, or any story, or, heck, if you just need someone to talk to for any reason, my PM box is always open and I always reply. Anywho, thanks for reading, have a great day, and DFTBA!