13.

It was Owen who came up with the idea after Jack had explained the situation to him via the phone. He returned to the Hub in the afternoon when Gwen and Tosh arrived as well. Owen only took a minute to tell everyone that Ianto was doing fine under the circumstances and then turned the briefing over to Jack.

John remained seated at the end of the boardroom table, peeling an apple with a knife the whole time Jack talked. Owen wondered what he was still doing here, but then again, he must have had a reason to turn up in the first place. Maybe he was waiting for the whole Finlay disaster to be over before wracking his own havoc.

When Jack was done, Gwen and Tosh were looking at him in disbelief. "So we can't get rid of him. He's buried in our memories?" Gwen asked with a frown.

She was looking at bit pale and Tosh's face was drawn, her eyes gazed into nothing as if she was tying to find dodgy parts in her memories. Owen exhaled. He tried not to do the same. He really didn't want to know which of his memories had been tampered with.

"Why go to these lengths?" Gwen asked. "Just to feed on your memories?"

Jack was standing with his arms crossed at the head of the table, his face grim. "Yes. I have a well of them. Hundreds of years of experiences, many different worlds, different people, all kinds of adventures. He would be able to live off of me for a very long time. And basically, he's a predator looking for food."

Owen nodded thoughtfully. "So he kept you as a prisoner and away from us. So he could feed on you anytime he wanted with none of us accidentally witnessing it."

"That's what I think," Jack said with a nod.

With a smirk, John added, "An all you can eat buffet."

Silence descended once again until Jack said, "We can't think about this too hard. We can't keep trying to find him in our memories."

Gwen scoffed. "What are we supposed to do then, Jack? Just accept that he's there?"

"Yes," Jack answered, almost gently. "Accept it, learn to live with it and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else."

Gwen ducked her head. Owen cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, trying to focus on the here and now, not the past.

Accept it, learn to live with it and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else.

That was their job after all.

Tosh leaned back in her chair, a thoughtful expression on her face. "So we can't kill him with Retcon, he'll just turn up again. We can't kill him the regular way, either." She waited for Jack to give her a nod before asking, "So what do we do?"

"Owen came up with an idea."

All eyes settled on him and Owen swallowed, slightly nervous. He didn't know how the others would react to his suggestion, even though Jack had already agreed. "We freeze him."

Gwen's eyes widened. "Would that work?"

"Quite possibly, yeah. Cryogenics is like a deep sleep and he would just be a prisoner without us having to worry about him."

Jack nodded in agreement. "We'll put a sign on his door, make sure nobody will ever open it again and let him escape." He looked at each of them gravely. "It's the only way. I think we all agree on that."

xxx

Gwen kept a close eye on Finlay when Jack and John led him into the morgue. None of them were planning to touch him, but they were wearing gloves just in case they would have to. Finlay, though, didn't put a up a fight. Maybe he knew that it would be useless. Or, Gwen thought, he was waiting for the right moment to pounce. He turned his head to look at her, his blue eyes cold and challenging. She had to look away, hating herself for giving in. Instead, she stared at the walls, where cryo-chambers were stacked one over another, all of them hidden behind metal doors the size of a coffin; most of them containing Torchwood agents that had died since Torchwood Three had been founded and others still empty, waiting. Maybe for her.

Gwen shuddered and turned her attention to the one cryo-chamber that was pulled out of the wall, waiting for Finlay. Owen and Tosh were standing next to it, making some finale checks. Jack stopped Finlay by stepping in front of him and pointing his gun at him.

Finlay smirked. "This won't help you."

"The bullet won't kill you but it will knock you out for a while. That's good enough for me."

Finlay rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean the gun, Jack." He nodded at the cryo-chamber. "Nice idea, but it won't stop me."

"Oh, I think it will," Jack replied, stepping closer to him with a cold smile on his lips that turned his handsome face into a cruel mask. "You've got a physical form and you're stuck with it, or you would have vanished by now. By changing our memories, you might have gained a semblance of control over whether or not we kill you, but you also lost the possibility of just leaving and starting anew somewhere else. Because as long as we remember you as a human being … you are."

Finlay stared at him angrily and took a step closer. Gwen raised her gun to point it at Finlay's head and saw Tosh and Owen do the same. John made a threatening sound, placing his gun against Finlay's temple. Everybody was tense, grim. They knew that he would only be able to change their memories one by one, by touching them individually, but they wanted to make sure that didn't happen. Not even to only one of them.

Finlay just kept staring at Jack. "We have something in common. I saw that in your memories." He grinned and leaned slightly closer as if about to share a secret. Softly, he said, "You kill what you love, Jack Harkness. It might take a while, it might not be by your own hands but … loving you and being loved in return is deadly."

"Get into the chamber," Jack hissed. Gwen could see that he was barely holding on to his rage.

Finlay chuckled. "This isn't over," he said, while climbing into the coffin-like chamber and lying down. "I'm in your memories, from your birth right up until now. As long as you will remember me, I will live and you're immortal." He winked. "Something else we've got in common now."

"We'll see," Jack replied while Owen started up the cryo-chamber. "Have fun." The lid of the chamber slid shut and Jack pushed it back into its place in the wall. He slammed the door shut and sealed it. Then he just stood there for a moment, his hands against the metal of the door as if he was listening to something.

Gwen made an effort to relax, watching John tuck his gun into the waistband of his jeans.

Jack turned around to them. "Too bad we don't have a camera in there," he said and looked at Owen. "How long will it take?"

Owen shrugged. "The only living person I ever put in there was Tommy and it took about a minute with him."

"Not long enough," Jack replied grimly and there was that expression on his face again – the one that scared Gwen sometimes and hinted at Jack having done many things in his long life … good things as well as cruel ones.

"Other than with Tommy, though, I just might have forgotten to inject Finlay a pain killer. His nerves – if he has something like that – should be on fire now."

"I sure hope so," Jack said and turned away. "I'll be at the hospital."

He left without another word.

"I guess that means we'll stay and watch the Hub," Owen said sourly.

Tosh suggested, "I'll stay with you. I can't sleep anyway."

Gwen said, "I'll stay as well."

Tosh shook her head. "Go home and see Rhys. It's been a while."

Gwen thought that it was unfair for Tosh and Owen to be stuck with Hub duty. Tosh looked exhausted and Owen haggard, but she also really wanted to go home and see Rhys, make sure that he was still there and explain to him what had happened. "I'll come in first thing tomorrow, though, yeah?"

Tosh nodded with a small smile.

Someone cleared their throat. "I guess I'll be off as well," John said, making Gwen aware that he was still there.

Owen frowned skeptically. "Just like that? Did you already do what did you came back for in the first place?"

"That's between me and Jack."

Owen snorted. "I bet it is."

John winked at him. "Still jealous? There's enough of me for everyone, darling."

Owen rolled his eyes and left, muttering to himself. Tosh followed him after a quick smile at John.

He heaved a sigh. "I get no love here."

"I'm curious, though," Gwen said, stepping closer to him. "Why did you come back?"

John looked at her and he seemed uncharacteristically earnest. "Got a message for Jack. I guess I'll have to drop by the hospital now to give it to him." He started to saunter out of the room. "See y'around, gorgeous!"

Gwen chuckled and then pulled her mobile from her jeans pocket to call Rhys and tell him to order in pizza.