Whoopie-another update. xD

This one has some Torchwod spoilers-probably nothing you didn't know, though.

Also some mature content-just skim to the next break if you're bothered.

Spare Wheel

Twenty-one: Escape

"Just stay still, I'll get you a painkiller." John rummaged through his knapsack until he found the tiny pills. "You still with me Jack?"

"Yeah," Jack said faintly.

"Does it hurt?"

"God, John… no, I only got hit by a modulated energy pulse. Why would it hurt?"

John smiled slightly. Good to know his sense of humor is fine. "MEPs are child's play in our time, you big baby. Here."

Jack lifted his head and took the pill and water John offered him.

"There'll be an ID signature in you now," John told him. "We've got to get it out."

"No matter what time you go to, it always comes back to removing bullets, doesn't it?"

"You ever been shot before?"

Jack shook his head. "First time."

"Congratulations." John kissed him. "All in all, the plan went pretty well, though. Right?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get this over-with."

John chose his favorite knife and went back to the bed. "Okay, sweetheart. Show me where it hurts."

"You do know what you're doing, right?"

"Yes. I promise." John looked into Jack's eyes and stroked his brow. "You trust me, don't you?"

Jack nodded. He closed his eyes. His hand moved slowly up to his right shoulder and he felt around for a moment before his index finger came to rest just below his collarbone. "Okay, it's right here."

"All right." John kissed him softly. "I love you."

"Love you too… please, be careful."

"I will. But you're going to feel this, I'm afraid." John took Jack's left hand and cuffed it to the bedpost.

"Hey… what…"

"Just to make sure you don't interfere. Try to relax." John rested his left hand on Jack's shoulder while his right brought the knife point to the place Jack had indicated and made a small incision.

Jack gasped in pain, but he didn't struggle.

"That's the way. Easy." John gingerly made the cut longer.

Jack's breathing became heavier and sweat broke out on his face.

"It's okay. You're gonna be fine." He very carefully splayed the skin with his left hand and spotted a tiny glow coming from inside the wound. "There we are. I can see it. Hang on." He set the knife aside to wipe the blood away with a cloth. Then he took up a pair of tweezers and opened the wound again.

Jack flinched. A tear escaped the corner of his eye.

"I'm sorry. You're doing really well," John told him. "I'm proud of you."

"Oh, shut up," Jack grunted.

John grasped the little glowing speck with his tweezers and set it in the ashtray on the bedside table. "There we are." He released Jack's left hand and gave him the cloth he'd used to clean away the blood. "Hold that on your cut; I'll see if I can get a needle someplace to stitch you up." He leveled his VM at the ashtray and gave it a neutralizing pulse. The glow went out, leaving only a tiny metal ball smaller than the head of a pin. "Okay, they can't track us now. I'll be right back." He kissed Jack's forehead and left him just long enough to buy a needle and thread at the corner store.

"Feeling any better?" he asked when he returned.

"A little," Jack said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"You'd never done that before, had you?"

"Mm… no," John admitted.

"I didn't think so."

"I did all right though, didn't I?"

"We'll see." Jack braced himself as John brought out the needle and thread.

"Sorry, this is going to be a bit primitive. Who actually sews anymore? We'll fix you up properly back at the TA."

"Won't need to—I'll revert back to the state I was in at the start, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. I s'pose you will."

"Um… what are you doing?"

"Gonna stitch you."

Jack shook his head. "I don't think you've ever stitched anything in your life. I think I can do this part myself. Hand it over."

John did as he was told. "What makes you the expert? Were you needlepoint champion of the Boeshane Peninsula?"

"Nope." Jack snapped the thread off the needle and re-threaded it. "My mother used to design children's clothes for me to model."

"So, you were her dummy? How appropriate."

"Shove it."

John watched Jack work. He kept silent so he wouldn't distract him, but he kept a hand on Jack's chest, moving his fingers minutely to show his support.

"Okay," Jack said at last, tying off the thread. "Cut that for me, will you?"

John cut the thread and set his knife and the needle aside. "I'm sorry you got hit."

"Wasn't your fault. Check out the crystals. Are they real?"

John brought out the two crystals they had taken from the Museum. "Okay, the display…" he performed a few scans with his VM. "…is fake. It's a very good copy, though. Very nice. The other… oh, fake as well. Clearly. This one's not nearly as good. You were right." He smiled at Jack. "Well done. So, now what do we do?"

"Wait out the rest of the week. When we come back, we need to find the Cloak as quickly as possible."

"But the only place we know he'll be is the GHA on the 26th and/or 27th…"

"No, we spotted him as early as the 18th, remember?"

"Frankly, no. It's been so long since we took the mission seriously, I don't remember much of what we did before."

Jack struggled to sit up.

"Easy, mate."

"Painkiller's working. I'm okay. I figure we need to find him and tail him to his base of operations. Then we can find out how he set up the time loop and break it."

"Oh, sounds simple," said John sarcastically. He put his arms around Jack, careful not to disturb his wound. "In the meantime… since we've got to blow the rest of this week anyway…" he kissed Jack's cheekbone and moved his mouth slowly down to his neck.

"John… have you ever tried being gentle with another guy?"

"Sure. We've done that some. But I thought you liked it rough."

"I do. But I'm not sure I'm up to it right now and besides…"

John studied Jack's face. "What is it?"

"I… just think you put more feeling into it when you take your time. More meaning."

"Are you going sentimental on me?" he asked, stroking Jack's face.

"Could we just take it easy tonight?" Jack asked, sounding as if he were trying to get out of a parking ticket. "Nice and quiet from start to finish—do you think you could do that?"

"Sure. I can do anything," John boasted. "I think it's a little boring, but I suppose it's a good idea to give my patient some extra attention. TLC."

Jack smiled. "Thanks."

It had been so long since John really, seriously took things slowly and gently that he found Jack's gentlemanly side tortuous to deal with.

"Jack…" he pleaded when he couldn't stand it anymore. "Come on, please…"

"What do I have to do—cuff you to the bed?" Jack asked, smiling. Then his expression turned cold and he brought his face close to John's as his fingers moved slowly, inflicting tantalizing agony on his partner. "By the way," he said icily, "don't you ever call me a microwave again."

Oh, god, he tricked me. This was cold, calculated pay-back. Damn him. "All right. You win. I take it back."

Jack's smile returned and he pulled John closer. "Thank you. Stay with me, now."

John closed his eyes as new waves of pleasure crashed over him. How the hell does he do this to me—I'm going to come off right here and now, and I haven't even tried to get inside… He moaned suddenly as Jack tipped him over the edge. Then he found his mouth full of Jack's tongue, felt Jack's hands everywhere…

"I love you," Jack whispered.

John collapsed against Jack's chest. "I love you too, you torturing bastard."

Jack chuckled and kissed the top of John's head. "Sleep well."

Jack didn't like being reminded of that night. The way John had taken care of him, the way he'd been downright sweet, which was akin to blasphemy for John, the way Jack had cruelly shown him the reason penetration had never been necessary to him with other male partners, the way they had pledged their love to each other…. It seemed wrong now. Out of place. Something from someone else's life.

"Maybe I was the wife," John mused. "But I loved it. Loved you."

Don't say it, Jack thought, but it didn't matter, because they both knew what John was thinking:

"I still do."

It took a few more cycles of the time loop before the Time Agents were able to track the Cloak back to his base of operations. It seemed to be a rotund structure resembling a water storage tank. They could find no way to get inside it—there was a keyhole, but the lock's technology was far above the capabilities of a vortex manipulator.

"It's beautiful," John said, looking over the readings from his VM. "It's a physically mechanized lock, but it's on a rolling code. Simply ingenious."

"So, you know how it works—can you open it?"

"Nope. We break our way in or don't get in at all. I recommend dynamite."

"Hang on… we're close enough that I can pick up a fix on the Verastigen Crystal. It's not inside."

"Really? Where is it?"

Jack scanned the ground. "It's over here… here we go—buried here in the ground. There's some other reading, too… I don't know what this means."

"Damn, we'll have to go back to town for shovels. It'll be dark when we get back. Can it wait until tomorrow?"

"John, we're so close. We need to finish this."

John grinned. "I remember the last time you said that. All right; we'll forge ahead."

Under three feet of dirt, they found a metal box about two feet by three. The lock on the box was not as complex as the one on the structure nearby and John managed to open in short order.

"Oh, my god," Jack breathed.

Inside were not one, but three gleaming crystals, evenly spaced in the box. The Verastigen glowed white, sending a bright stream of particles to the next stone, which radiated a soft turquoise light. A stream of blue flowed into the last stone, which was sending its own stream of faint gold back to the first.

John scanned the system repeatedly, checking each result. "Oh, this is… this is way beyond us, Jack."

"What the hell is it?"

"It's… well, it's a time loop, of course."

Jack made some scans of his own. "What does it mean?"

"This is Gardine," John said, indicating the Verastigen. "The blue is the Time Agency. And the gold is time itself."

"But they're just stones, right? If we crushed the blue one, the Time Agency wouldn't disintegrate, right?"

"No, they're just controllers… I can't explain because I don't even really know how it works, myself… wasn't paying attention to that bit in training, since they said we'd never need to know it anyway. They told us nobody encounters time loops firsthand and blah, blah, blah…"

"Well, how do we stop it?"

John put his hand between the two of the stones. The light particles continued on, as if going through him. "The stones are physical, but this energy isn't." He frowned in thought. "I've got an idea… but it involves more theft."

"How soon can we get it done?"

"Tonight." John replaced the lid of the box. "Let's go."

A few hours and stolen MEP guns later, they were back at the box. John tipped back the lid and the glow from the stones lit their surroundings in the dark.

"Okay. We've got to interrupt the streams all at the same time," John instructed. "MEPs don't become physical until impact, so I'm hoping they're the right sort of stuff to interfere with this… whatever it is."

Jack nodded and aimed his gun. "Let's hope our luck holds. I've got the white."

Just then, the door in the metal structure a few feet away lurched open to reveal the silhouetted figure of the Cloak. "I saw you'd dug up the box and I knew you'd be back," he said. "I am impressed that you found the stone so quickly."

Quickly? John thought. Five bloody years…

"Now," the Cloak went on, aiming a strange-looking device at them, "I'll give you just a moment to drop your guns and surrender."

"John," said Jack, "let's get him."

"I'm going to count to three," the Cloak warned.

"On three," John said, nodding.

"One," the Cloak said, looking angrier by the moment. "Two…" he lifted his instrument menacingly. "Three!"

Jack and John fired simultaneously. Jack's offensive shot was easily absorbed by the Cloak's device. His other landed perfectly in the middle of the white energy stream, just as John's two entered the blue and gold. The stones began crackling and giving off sparks.

"What have you done?" the Cloak cried. "No!"

Jack's eyes grew wide as he saw a dim image of the Cloak overshadow him and be absorbed by him. Then the Cloak stumbled back into his structure and the door closed behind him. John rushed forward but it was too late.

Moments later, the structure faded out of sight. The night became absolutely silent except for the occasional call of some nocturnal bird.

Jack turned back to look at the box. The glow was gone. The stones were cold and dull.

"What the hell was that?" John asked. "That ghost-ish Cloak…"

"I think it was the other him. He was stuck in the time loop, too. Except he also rewrote it. There were two of him here each time, instead of one like us. The first version set the trap. Then, when we started the week over, while the first one set the trap again, the new one was rewriting. He just waited until we left to go back to the TA, stole the fake, came back to his ship and took off without a care," Jack reasoned. "Then, when we destroyed the time loop, the second version couldn't exist anymore. We hauled him back into the first body."

"How do you know all that?"

"I don't. I'm making it up. But it sounds good, don'tcha think?"

John grinned and tackled Jack. "We did it," he laughed. "We've finished the mission and we've got a week and a half to spare."

"Well, we didn't really complete the mission," Jack reminded him. "We were supposed to stop the Cloak from stealing the Crystal and arrest him. We haven't really done either."

"Details, details," John said dismissively. He moved his hands seductively over Jack's body. "Wherever he got those other two stones, I'm sure they're valuable, too. We've recovered three important objects of power. I think that will make up for losing the prisoner. And speaking of valuable stones…"

Jack groaned. "You make the most terrible puns. Come on—let's return the Verastigen and get the others back to the TA."

"But… we've got a week and a half."

"John, don't you want to go home?"

John rested his head on Jack's shoulder. "No… this feels like home now. Here, in Gardine, with you. It's the closest thing I've ever had. We know everything there is to know about this town, this planet, this time… we could own it so easily. It's ours, Jack." He lifted his head and looked into Jack's eyes. "Ours."

Jack lifted his hand to John's face and caressed him. "We've been here too long. You've forgotten the life you had before, that's all. We have people to go back to."

"I don't," John said stubbornly. "They can go to hell."

Jack pulled him down and hugged him tightly. "I'm sorry, but I need my family. I have to go back, even if you won't come with me."

"Won't come with you? You think I'd stay here without you? You're the reason I want to stay. If you go, I'll go. I just wish…" John paused, realizing that for the first time in years, his throat was getting tight. He felt out of his depth. This isn't right… I don't want to go. Why can't you understand? "I need you. You're my best mate. You love me, don't you?" God, that sounded weak.

"Of course, I do." Jack pressed his lips against John's neck and rubbed the back of his head. "I love you very much. But you're not the only person I love. Please understand."

John's eyes stung. Damn. No. Don't do this to me. "Could we stay a couple of days, at least? I'm not ready to go back yet." He waited, trying to keep his breathing quiet.

Finally, Jack answered. "I'll wait until the day after tomorrow."

"Thank you." John proceeded to cover Jack's face with kisses. "I love you so much."

"You know I had to go back," Jack said quietly.

"I know," John agreed. "But that didn't make it easier for me. You realize I was willing to live out my days there with you, forever? I wanted to."

Jack closed his eyes and felt John's hand entwined in his own. "Yes, I know." I'm sorry. I know it didn't work out how you wanted. But you lost your mind… it didn't have to be this way.

"It was so weird, going back," John went on. "Getting back to our normal timestream felt so… abnormal. Actually living through something new that we'd never seen before. Getting a new mission, finally. After getting the same one some hundred-thirty times or whatever, we finally got to do something new."

"That was weird," Jack agreed.

"And then they decided to split us up. We were having the time of our lives, blazing through missions… sure, we didn't get them done quite how they wanted us to, but we always got the bottom line right, didn't we?"

"Yeah. Left a lot of messes in our wake."

"But it was fun."

"It was escapism for me. I hated that I couldn't find any new clues to find Gray. And somewhere in there, my mother disappeared. She said she was going away for her health, but she wouldn't tell me where, or how long she'd be gone. I felt like I'd lost everyone."

"You had me. But I was never enough for you, was I?"

"It wasn't like that. No matter how many wonderful people you have, it doesn't take away the pain of the people you've lost. Isn't that what you've been telling me here?"

"If you understand that, then why do you go on pushing me away? I've never stopped loving you."

"Never? Don't make me laugh. You tried to kill my entire team. You thought you had killed me, and you showed no remorse—"

"That's not true," John cut him off. "You've no idea how torn I was."

"Yeah, sure. I bet you sang a dirge for me. You were insane."

"Hold on a minute. You're not seeing the whole picture, here. I didn't go to twenty-first century Earth to kill you and your team."

"No; you went to find a diamond."

"Well, yes. And when I found that you were in the same area, it was just… icing on the cake. Actually, no—it was more like an extra cake."

"I'm a cake now?"

"Mm, you always were. But anyway, when we met again, it was like old times. Need I remind you, you kissed me first?"

"Of course, I did. How else would I greet you? Need I remind you that you hit me first?"

"Course I did. You should have seen it coming. I always told you to make sure you got the first hit in; you let your guard down."

Jack smiled in spite of himself. "Okay, fine. But you had no reason to hurt my team. We were helping you. Why the hell would you do that?"

"Because you loved them. You 'd forgotten all about me and replaced me with a pack of… children who could never understand who you really were."

"Don't talk about them that way." Jack felt a lump forming in his throat.

"I'm only trying to make you understand how I felt at the time. I'm sorry about them now—truly, I am. But when I told you it was good to see you and then you told me to leave… it was like a slap in the face. I'd been planning how I'd catch up with you; maybe we could find the diamond together and split the money. We could be partners again. And then, I'd tell you the best part: I'd found Gray for you. I knew you'd be so pleased. You'd be overjoyed. You'd take me back with open arms, and we'd be happy forever. Only then you told me to leave. You didn't want me. Have you any idea what that did to me?"

Jack felt tears in his eyes. Is it possible? Was he really ready to reform and I crushed him? Oh, god… but he's a liar. An accomplished one. This could all be a lie.

"I know you think I'd gone off the deep end before that, with the lying and the drugs and the alcohol and sex and killing… but it was all due to the Agency splitting us up. I couldn't bear being without you. I was trying desperately to find a way to forget you, because it hurt so much."

"Don't blame your addictions on me," Jack growled as hot tears rushed down his cheeks. "I know it was hard for you, but you're still the one who made the bad choices. No one forced you."

"I know that. I know I was wrong. But listen—I started these things because I wanted to forget you. But I got over them because I wanted to find you. I stuck with the Time Agency after you left because I knew they were looking for you, too. But every time they found something that looked like it might possibly be you, they stuck me on another assignment.

"You abandoned me, but I never stopped hoping I'd find you. And then, when I finally did… you belittled me in front of your new friends, you wouldn't take anything I said seriously—you treated me like an enemy. Like the shit of an enemy."

Jack could hear that John's breathing was heavy and irregular now. Damn, we're both going to be a big mess pretty soon… "I didn't abandon you. I had to leave. The Time Agency brainwashed me. They stole two years of my memories—I had no clue what I'd done or what had been done to me. I couldn't stay with them after that—I don't trust people who don't trust me."

"Why didn't you come to me? I'd have helped you. Didn't you know that?"

"I didn't remember what had happened between us in the last two years. For all I knew, you were in on it. That's why I had to leave without talking to anyone, not even you."

It was getting long, so here's where it stops. More soonish, as time allows. Thanks to my beta for helping me figure out timey-wimey time loop stuff and for helping get this one done quickly. Comment away. :)