Owen felt awkward for a moment suggesting it, but eventually just shoved his hands into his pockets and got it over with. "I think it's time to break into the 'do not use' section."
Ianto looked up from the last bin of uncatalogued junk. "No."
Yeah. This being in charge thing was for the birds. "That wasn't a suggestion, Ianto. Second in command, all that shit. But it takes two keys to open the lock. Are you with me?"
The Welshman put the awkwardly shaped device back in the bin, then turned to face his teammate, 'that look' in his eye. The one Owen saw the last time he wanted to go against Jack's wishes. That look that said yes, fucker, I really will shoot. Then does.
Ok, so Owen wasn't quite as over that whole shooting him thing as he thought. "Look. I know how you are about disobeying a direct order. But seriously—there isn't going to be a mess to clean up, if we don't do something. Jack's been incommunicado since he went up there. And that kid's more likely to get him killed than do any good. So as the second in command, I'm making the executive decision that we're gonna do something. Just incase." Implication: incase Jack's already dead.
"No." Ianto repeated, rather put out that the medic could be so slow. "If Jack's up there, we can sort this. This is going to end up a Torchwood One-style mess if we don't. Diplomacy-"
A hand snapped up, waving off any further explanation. "Is for shit. Look what it's got us so far. Ok, you wanna get us all blown the hell up. That's fine. But those kids in that ship have run out of time. I couldn't give a shit less about that alien git, but those kids didn't deserve that. Rom was just on the phone—the kids losing hold, fast. If you won't give me your key for Jack, then help me with our other problem."
Owen hadn't wanted to play that card. Ianto didn't like the Doctor, and he hated the children. But hell—they were kids. It wasn't like they deserved any of this—even if they did dirty up the Hub and usurp Jack's attention. They were kids.
He could see Ianto hesitating, before reaching into his pocket and heading for the steps. "Fine. But it's on your head."
Following him, Owen frowned. "Isn't it always."
XYZ
Once upon a time, back when Violet was interested in such things, she'd catalogued all of the Doctor's various neuroses. It had started one boring afternoon while trying to sneak through a puritanical town on Mentros, in the Velda system. All they had to do was make it to the other side of the city and back to the TARDIS without being noticed. Without being seen as different from the norm that was so highly prized in this civilization.
But they couldn't just get through the town. No, it started with an agitated tapping of his fingers beneath the drab sackcloth robes they were hidden beneath and ended with him offering an editorial opinion on the benefits of fish to a shopper at the town market.
After that they'd had plenty of time for her to begin a list, what with them holing up in a hayloft for the better part of a day, until the trouble cleared. There was the obvious Attention Deficit Disorder. Coupled with, well, his total detachment from reality. That was the only way she could think to explain it. Because if she tried to figure it out, it would probably end up with her declaring the Doctor insane.
Only an idiot or a lunatic would attempt to buy her freedom with a box of strike anywhere matches and a cow. Well, another flaw that she'd detected in the Doctor was his perpetual insistence that he was much cleverer than he was. He did have luck on his side, though. She'd give him that—somehow her captors had accepted the trade.
He had numerous other flaws—he didn't know what a spoon was for, didn't wear socks, and wasn't capable of landing the TARDIS in the right place and time twice in a row. He also tended to keep people at a distance. It was an amazing dichotomy to maintain—having the intense relationship with someone forged by all of these trials, but to still reserve that last piece of emotional closeness, never giving it over completely.
She'd always seen that as a flaw. Now she wasn't so sure. Not when she was doing her damnedest to close Greg out of her head, and just couldn't. Part of it was stubbornness on her part. She didn't want to give up that last bit of contact. Another part of it was being unable to find him, to shut him out.
The thread was there, like seeing something out of the corner of the eye, but she couldn't grab hold of it. This made things very tricky indeed. She reached out again into the nothingness and looked in all of the places her mind could see, but she simply ignored, as it was easier to ignore these things than block them out. Putting a barrier between her mind and the rest of the universe would be necessary, just as soon as she found Greg and severed the connection between them.
If she'd have simply behaved like those stodgy old Time Lords from Gallifrey and obeyed every instruction in all of her textbooks, this wouldn't have happened. She'd have kept a fair distance from events and from people from these time lines, and she wouldn't be trapped in an amalgam of consciousnesses, trying to block her Earth-born lover out of her head so that she could mourn him properly before his passing.
Well, if the Doctor had abided by those same rules, she wouldn't be here.
What was the deal, anyway? He broke some rules, or bent them horribly out of shape. But others were sacred. Not crossing time lines, not changing events once he'd become part of them. She was now unwittingly part of the events of Greg's demise, now that she'd witnessed her grandmother startled at the sight of him. It wouldn't be possible to enter the stream somewhere between point A, the last family meal she ate with them, and B, that awkward encounter in that dark hallway without risking reapers or worse.
She wanted to risk it for him. It was foolish, it was irresponsible, but if you didn't love someone enough to risk destroying the universe for him, what did that leave you with?
Duty.
Goddamned duty.
It was why the Doctor had never pushed too hard on the boundaries between realities, to get back to her mother. He had a duty to not destroy all of creation as it was known. She wished she was as strong of will as he was.
How was she to give up laying in bed for hours, talking about nothing and everything, skin pressed against skin, when she had the ability to stop those events that would lead to their parting? How could she give up his hand brushing against hers in the control room, or the playful way he intentionally stepped on her toes. Making love in prison cells too narrow to manage it properly, escapes from places no other humans would see. His dark brown eyes and the way he looked at her, as if she was a better person than she knew herself to be.
All of that, or duty.
Suddenly she understood why some religious orders around the universe promoted or enforced celibacy among its anointed ones. How could one possibly be loyal to both? It would seem that duty to the universe and duty to the love of another should mean the same thing, result in the same actions being taken. But that wasn't always the case.
The nothingness became clouded, and she pulled back from it, disoriented. "What would you do, if it was mum? How would you live with yourself?"
She felt him somewhere in the mist obscuring Greg, but couldn't see him. "I'd do what I had to."
"Thanks for being so ambiguous all the time. "
Sensing him sigh more than hearing it, she almost tried to reach out to the Doctor, but didn't. She wasn't sure if she could bare the mental contact right now with her defenses so muddled and nonexistent. "I was told, the valiant child would die in battle. That's what I was told. I had to live with that. I had to look her in the eye and lie to Rose and tell her she wouldn't. I didn't know the exact circumstances, and it's only by a fluke in the time line, your grandfather mostly, that she's here now. I've lived with it, Vi. I know the lies you've been telling, the ones you still have to tell. So don't ever think I don't know."
Pushing against the walls of the TARDIS' psychic smothering, she looked for him one more time. It wasn't like the connection had snapped—merely faded away. "Lying. I might not have to—I don't. I can't feel him."
What was worse, she couldn't sense the Doctor any more, either. It was just her, and the dense fog of her mind. "Doctor?"
No response. Not even a mental urging for her to continue on this path. She was well and truly alone.
Swallowing back agony, she steeled herself, looking at the sad excuses for psychic barriers. She had a duty to perform, and wallowing in the loss of a single creature from a single timeline would not get it done.
Somehow she'd learn to harden herself. Some day it wouldn't matter.
XYZ
Rose…looked like hell. And that was putting it nicely. They'd circumvented each of the access tunnels, one at a time, by going up and over. Now they were at the last tunnel and they had no solution for the mechanism to manually dump the cargo rooms, who knew what had become of the boys, and Rose's laboured breathing and sweat-covered face were starting to make Gwen worry more than she already had been to that point.
Leaning against the wall of the dark, humid tunnel, Rose tried to steady herself. "I think we can move this lock," she whispered. "It's not magnetically sealed. We should be able to get the door open."
Nodding, Gwen shined her torch on the oval shaped door with the enormous heavy-looking pins. "Once we get through there, how do we get rid of the other ship?"
Sliding down the wall, Rose let out a long breath as she came to sit on the damp floor. "Haven't quite worked that out, yet." She held out her hand. "Phone?" she asked.
Digging into her pocket, the other woman produced her mobile. "Will we get signal down here?"
Rose assured her that yes, they would. As soon as she set about dialing a long series of numbers that Gwen couldn't imagine being any earthly sort of exchange, the former PC flashed the light on the door again, trying to think up a plan of attack.
Licking her lips, Gwen bit down on the end of the mini torch and began yanking on an old pipe. As she threw all of her weight into it, she felt a twinge of remorse. They had to be hurting the ship with all of this circumventing, but what other choice was there? She supposed they could all kiss and make up later, if it came to that. Sometimes, life just wasn't fair, and you had to do shitty things. That's what being a grownup was all about.
When the pipe broke free, she used it as leverage on the stuck handle. I took some doing, but the handle finally gave way, throwing Gwen backwards and onto the floor as it swung open, creaking and hesitant.
Pushing herself to her knees, Gwen wiped her hands on her jeans, then looked behind her to Rose.
Taking a deep breath, the pained and pregnant woman rested her head against the wall, ending the call. "No answer. They're on the line." Closing her eyes, she wiped a line of sweat away from her bottom lip. "Ok. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that things might be a little worse than we thought."
XYZ
"Hey, Rom—stay with me now. I need you to talk to me. Did the cable crossover work?" Toshiko leaned forward in her chair, pressing the headset further into her ear, as if that would make the boy respond faster. "Roman—did you get the cables to cross over?"
There was some fumbling from the phone, then the younger one took a deep breath—she was sure it was Branden, even the inhalation had a soprano whine to it. "Rom's barfin' right now." He sniffed, sounding like he was sucking back in a good bit of mucus. "The cables won't reach. Eww. I think he fell asleep in it."
Tosh looked up at the rafters, licking her lips and searching for inspiration. Now she had to do this with a four-year-old. Not to mention not knowing what had happened to the older boy. When it rained at Torchwood, it poured. "Branden, can you drag him out of it?" That'd be just perfect—the poor kid drowning in his own vomit.
The kid moaned with effort. "Not enough room. Too heavy."
Ok. She needed to get them out of there sooner, rather than later. "Branden, what's two times two?" she really needed to keep the one that was still awake with her, and Owen's suggestion of keeping his brain working seemed like the best bet right now.
"Eight," the kid responded instantly. "Seven."
Yeah. They were in trouble. "Branden, can you tell me what else you two have in there? Do you have anything to make those cables reach? We just need anything metal that'll carry the power."
The boy sucked in another breath. He was going down fast, as well. "Other line's ringing. I don't remember how ta change it over. Its one of the buttons…" There was a long pause. "Mummy said I'm not 'loud to play with 'tricity after that one time."
"Branden, this is an emergency. I'm sure your mother would understand. Now, do you have anything to connect the power with."
There was a moments hesitation, but he wheezed again, and she was at least reassured that he was thinking about it. They were brilliant children, but they were still kids. She hoped he was ok enough to get through this. "Yeah. I got sumthin' I can do it with." But there was something about the way he said it that made her a bit worried. "My shoes got rubber soles. I'll be ok."
Oh hell. Before she could yell at him to stop, the phone crackled, and then went out. Someone needed to tell that kid that HE was not made out of metal, even if HE was conductive material.
XYZ
Metal and earwax in the mouth, head felt like it'd been slammed in a door, repeatedly. And the face in front of him—one he hadn't expected to see, but still…
"You!" Jack ground out, just as soon as his vision cleared. There was still smoke and fire obstructing his vision, but that outline was unmistakable. "You killed me! Again."
The figure shifted uncertainly, offering a hand to help. "That's gratitude for you, I suppose."
Not accepting the offered help, Jack sat up and struggled out of the now broken shackles on his hands, trying not to breathe in the smoke filling the room. "You killed me once and it was kind of cute, you killed me again and it kind of pissed me off. Now I'm just going kill you right back, see how much YOU like it!"
Groggily getting to his feet, Jack noticed the dead or unconscious torturers around him—he didn't exactly know or care what their status was at the moment. At the moment he had a score to settle. Staggering forward he threw all the energy he had into the punch, connecting with the other party's jaw. Both of them fell toward the open cell door, collapsing on the ground in a heap of flesh.
"Are you done?"
Jack pulled back, preparing for another punch. "No."
"Well, finish up. This place is about to blow."
TBC…