This is only a temporary chapter. Review it if you must, but it really has nothing to do with the story. I just feel very alone out here – even those who were kind enough to review the earlier chapters are gone, yet from the stats I know there are many many readers – even some who looked at my profile to see, well, whatever there is to see. So here is Chapter 12, "The Hurting, Pt 1". If it gets reviews it will be re-edited significantly. If not, I've received your message and this story is complete.

After all, I did promise some hurting if I got no reviews, and I try to keep my promises…so here comes the bad kind.

There is something about a night of lovemaking in a castle under the stars that makes you extremely tired and leaves you quite giddy as well, even if you are in fact an immortal. Jack had finished off the champagne just before jumping into the SUV, and had great difficulty keeping the SUV in the left lane as his eyes were drooping.

"Jack, should I drive?" Ianto asked sleepily.

"No – no, I've got it," Jack began, just as a schoolbus rounded the traffic circle he was trying to negotiate, unsuccessfully. There was nothing to do but swerve erratically and he lost control of the SUV.

"HANG ON!" Jack shouted, as the heavy vehicle swung in a circle twice, tipped onto two wheels, and still had enough speed built up to land on its roof and skid into the side of a substantial apartment building on one of the corners bordering the traffic circle. The corner of the building was demolished, removing a significant part of its foundational structure, so tons of cement, glass, and all the furniture, drywall and other bits that make up peoples' homes buried the SUV in a smoking pile.

No one in the SUV was conscious enough to hear the desperate scream of sirens as emergency crews arrived. They called out hoping for signs of life, but the more they saw of the SUV's wreckage, the more they had to conclude their efforts were hopeless. They kept at it nonetheless, working long into the next night.

The rest of the Torchwood crew had no idea anything was amiss until they arrived to a dark, lifeless HUB after their day off.

"Oi, I don't like the look of this." Owen muttered, the understatement of the year.