"What the..." He never gets to finish the question as John walks through the garage door, carrying a dark haired woman dressed in black fatigues over his shoulders. John pointedly ignores him and heads for the lower levels of the Hub. He shoots Jack a questioning look, but Jack simply shrugs in that so annoying 'do not ask me' way. He is definitely starting to get very tired of the whole keeping him in the dark.
With a sigh, he bolts after John, following the footsteps on the concrete floors. Echoes reverberate in the corridors, guiding him. At least John is not trying to keep this – whatever this is – private. He catches up with John in the Vaults, two levels down, just as the door of one of the cells locks into place. At least John had the sense of not putting her in a cell next to the Weevils.
"Who is she?" John ignores him again, just keeps staring at the glass. He grabs John by the jacket, roughly turning him around. John's arms come up, the metallic flash of a knife in one hand, lips pressed together in a determined line. There is a moment of tension, of unspoken threats, of instincts kicking in before thought can rein them in – dangerous as that may be, it has kept them both alive more than once.
"Agent Johnson." After a beat, John relaxes and lets his hands fall and pulls a face, as if expecting the timelines to snap or at least bend around him. The knife disappears without a trace. Tension seeps away. "One of Whitehall's loyal pups." On the other side of the see-through glass, the woman is lying on the concrete step, unnaturally still. "Don't worry, she's alive." John grimaces again. "I had to stun her." He shoots John a glare. "She wouldn't cooperate, what the Hell did you want me to do?" Good question. "I tried pulling rank, but the whole 'my boss is bigger than your boss' didn't seem to have any effect on her."
He swallows. Things always get complicated when Whitehall gets involved. Mostly because nobody in Government ever seems to have the slightest clue about what Torchwood do, the problems they face or the meaning of life and death.
How on Earth the country gets run is anybody's guess.
"What's she got to do with all this?" John shrugs and takes a couple of steps closer to him, a hand settling on his chest. So, John is definitely hiding something. Surprise, surprise. "Come on, John, you don't expect me to believe you brought her here just because she happened to cross your path, do you?" John snort-giggles in a gesture that reminds him of Ianto and holds his gaze, defiant.
"Well, yeah." He glares at John, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. He has to wonder if it ever did have any effect on John, the man who could shake just about anything off. "Technically, that's what happened." Never a good sign if John has to resort to technicalities to get himself off the hook. "And you should know better than asking, Jack. You know there are things I cannot tell you."
"But you can tell me who she is." John arches an eyebrow and spreads his arms, fingers flexing in the air. Feeling, as if expecting Time to tingle around him. He rolls his eyes. He doesn't have time for theatricals.
"Apparently so." John tucks his thumbs on the gun belt and almost stands on tiptoe. "And there are five more goons where she came from. Whole welcoming party, they had organised." John swings back and forth, transferring his weight from the heels to the balls of his feet. "Can't beat a well armed party. Well, I obviously did, but..."
"I suppose I can always find out exactly how she ties into all this mess." John ignores the interruption and simply stares at him for a long moment with an undecipherable smile. Great. Everybody seems to have been taking lessons from Ianto on how to do just that.
"I think you know where she fits." A heartbeat. Two. Three. And he finds himself nodding. Doesn't take a genius to put it all together. If the 456 really have returned, a lot of people in Whitehall will be way too concerned with hiding the past to actually care that maybe, just maybe, Torchwood may be able to help.
"I have an idea, yeah." Betrayed by those he swore to serve, or near enough. It is enough to make his stomach turn. No wonder the Hub ended – will end, no, could end – up blown to smithereens; however it was done, he would not have seen it coming. Would not have been expecting it. Would not have wanted to believe it. Even with all the evidence in front of him, he is finding it hard to convince himself that yes, the woman in the cell was sent to kill him.
Probably Ianto and Gwen as well.
He swallows. Is that why Jack looks so beaten, so lost? The whole world seems to stop for a moment, possibilities racing through his mind. Shaking his head, he pushes the thoughts away. There are some things he is better off not knowing. Although it may be too late for that now.
"What has Jack been telling you?" John turns around and faces the glass wall. Something is getting under John's skin, even if he can't quite place it yet. And John is definitely hiding something. Everybody seems to be hiding something.
Just another day at Torchwood.
"Jack? Nothing." He pauses for a second. "Ianto and Gwen, on the other hand, put together a few things and gave me a lot to think about." John smiles, looking all proud mother hen. Oh, dear. Whatever happened to the rogue who couldn't see anything but a mark in every person he met? "After that, it wasn't hard to figure out exactly what is going on."
John frowns and looks about to ask something , but seems to think better of it and walks past him towards the door. Steps stop after barely half a dozen. He doesn't turn around.
"Just make sure things don't play out like they will." He nods, even though he knows John is not looking at him. "There are certain things I would rather not live through again."
It takes a while before he feels ready to head back upstairs. Well, in fact, it takes a long while before the sound of arguments turning dangerously close to murder drifting from the main area of the Hub forces him to put everything in his mind aside and head upstairs.
Ianto and Gwen are back, and he wouldn't want to be in the receiving end of their anger. Gwen is furious, voice raised and sharp words being thrown at John for leaving them behind, for taking the car with him, for leaving them to explain five knocked out black ops they didn't have a clue about in the basement of the hospital. Some of the anger probably still has something to do with paralysing lip gloss.
Ianto, in the mean time, is hanging his coat – a very sexy tailored number – and heading for the coffee machine, but he can tell Ianto is angry under the apparent calm. And everybody knows it is the quiet ones that one should worry about. Ianto will have his revenge, make his point and win his battle in a manner and at a time convenient only to Ianto Jones.
And probably John will thoroughly enjoy it.
He claps his hands a couple of times, and silence falls. He catches everybody's eyes just for a moment, and gets a silent acknowledgement nod. The whole room seems to be holding its breath for a long, tense minute, before everybody settles down.
"Gwen, what happened to Johnson's men?" She gives her a blank look. "The black ops at the hospital."
"Well, we couldn't bring them here." She gives John a pointed look that adds the missing 'because somebody stole our vehicle'. "So I called Andy. Told him to keep them in as long as possible, he promised to delay the paperwork as best as he can to buy us some time. But once they are in the system, goodness knows who will show up to bail them out." Well, never let it be said that Cardiff finest never lent a hand to Torchwood. "I thought we can always pick them up from the station if we have to, and at least this way we know where they are." He nods to Gwen as she falls on her chair, placing her bag – as usual – on her keyboard, then hastily retrieving it when the computer starts beeping.
"Ianto!" Ianto raises an eyebrow from behind the coffee machine. "When you are done with the much needed coffee magic, go back to the Archives. Find everything related to the 456." Ianto raises a second eyebrow. "1965, if it is filed correctly." Ianto murmurs something that sounds close enough to 'if only'. "John will have decaf, by the way." That puts a hint of a smile on Ianto's lips, and makes John launch into a string of protests that take a while to die off.
"Who are these 456?" Gwen stashes her jacket in a drawer and kicks it closed, eyes fixed on him. He pulls a face, wondering how much to tell, how much to keep to himself – and his other self and John, of course. "Are they the ones controlling the kids?"
"That's what we called them, the 456." Gwen leans back on her chair, arms crossed in front of her. John wisely moves away from her and towards his office. He shoots John a warning glare that goes unnoticed. "After the frequency they used to transmit, to communicate." He lets out a sigh, wondering why it didn't occur to him to keep an eye on the frequency, after what happened. "I ran an analysis on the data at the time the children stopped this morning, then again when they started talking in unison." He swallows. "It is the same frequency. It has to be them."
"Or nasties with the same transmitter." Yes, John, thanks for the pointless interruption. Gwen shoots John an annoyed look, but John – as usual – just shrugs it off. Like water off a duck's back. Certain things never change.
"Have they ever controlled children like that?"
"No." A pause. Why does he always end up caught up in the middle, between giving his team too much information and forcing them to see the darkest side of Captain Harkness, and not giving them as much as they need to survive? "But their last visit was... brief." He tries to keep a straight face. He knows Ianto will ask questions later.
"How brief?" Gwen, on the other hand, will never learn to drop the matter when politely hinted to do so. Like he said, certain things never change.
"Let's just say..." He pauses for a second, looking for the words. How can he explain he sacrificed thirteen children to save the planet? It was the only decision he could make at the time, despite knowing it would set a precedent and eventually come back to bite them. But how can he explain it to Gwen, of all people? Gwen, who still sees the world in blacks and whites and struggles to accept even the existence, let alone the necessity, of greys? "Let's just say they arrived, they threatened, they got what they wanted, they left."
"So much for not negotiating with aliens." Across the room, Jack and John grimace. He probably does too. "And what did they want?" The drops of water falling onto the pool at the bottom of the water tower feel like explosions in the tense silence that falls on the room again. He looks away, unable to hold Gwen's inquisitive look. "What?"
"Children, Gwen." The words taste bitter in his mouth. "They wanted children."