Woo yeah! More Jaffa Cakes for everyone. Well, for everyone who's still here. Sorry about how tedious this is! I really love everyone who's reading and reviewing it! It's very very encouraging to know there's people wanting to continue reading this! The next part is a pretty damn good part if you ask me, lots of fun and frolics, with a little more emphasis on character dynamics. Trust me, it'll be great!

As for my A/N at the bottom of the last chapter, the 'pow' bit was taken from the Wonder Boys between Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand when she holds a gun to his chest and pretends to shoot him. That whole little bit was supposed to be taken in the same vain (will he, won't he?). But it doesn't really matter! As long as it worked for you when you read it, that's cool!

PLEASE REVIEW! Reviews are VERY appreciated, they help me to write quickly (knowing that there're people actually waiting for updates). SO please please review.

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah, not mine. Russel T. Davies FTW.

Chapter 7: Communication

Jack stepped cautiously down the steps, screwing a pair of sonic earplugs that Tosh had handed him into his ears. Hopefully, the frequency they were emitting into his brain would cancel out whatever the alien was trying to do with its eyes. As he approached the bottom of the stairs, he gave each earplug another gentle twist for good measure, taking a deep breath and stepping towards the table.

The creature turned it's huge silver eyes on him and after a moment, Jack was satisfied that he was still in control of his actions. He got the impression that it wasn't the ear plugs that caused this but rather the creature choosing not to take him over. He walked right up to the table now and took the seat on the opposite side to his captive.

"Right." He looked hard at it's smooth, expressionless face, trying to connect with something that would make this easier. "You're killing my people and I want to know why."

He watched in silence as the creature sat there, its expression not changing at all, except to tilt its head very slightly to the side, sending a faint shimmer along its sheet of long white hair. Then it reached up its hand, very slowly, attempting to extend its fingers to touch Jack's skin again. He jerked backwards and pulled his gun form its holster, aiming it at the creature's head. The hand dropped back instantly.

"So you're not going to play ball, huh?" Jack placed the gun on the metal surface and tapped his fingers lightly on the table, considering what to do next. It was highly possible that this being didn't speak English, but it should at least say something to show it had heard him.

Heard him. A thought struck him and he frowned a little at the creature in front of him. It uses telepathy to control its victims, so what is there to say that they don't communicate like that as well? He leaned forwards a little and looked into its eyes (a disconcerting thing to do, as there were no irises or pupils, just spheres of silver). He raised his own hand and pointed to the alien's head, then to his own.

It seemed to understand this action and its head nodded sharply, its hand coming up from where it had dropped, fingers extending again. Jack kept constant eye contact and braced himself for what was about to happen. He felt the cool finger tips touch his skin and closed his eyes.

It all happened in a blur after that. Fire spread out from where the fingers joined his skin, freezing the contents of his veins as it moved. However, the pain wasn't as excruciating as before, and he slowly realised that this wasn't an attack, it was the price he'd have to pay for being able to communicate. His body hadn't been designed with this kind of mental connection in mind. As he slowly regained control of himself, he started to see images flicker across his vision.

He saw a planet with an orange sky, with crystal spires rising so high that they seemed to be created to touch the stars. Whether they were natural or not, Jack couldn't tell. The vision shifted to thousands of people, thousands of the alien's race, lying dead or bleeding on a vast sapphire plain, the victims of a terrible war. It moved again and he found himself looking at some sort of ceremony with seven of the creatures standing on a podium, dressed in the same fashion as the one they'd captured. They looked strikingly like bounty hunters, dressed in plain tunics and trousers, bindings around their waists, wrists and ankles. Several of them wore scarves, wound around their necks and mouths. All of them had a steely determination and a formidable look in their silver eyes.

Then everything shifted once more to somewhere much closer to home. He recognised the site of one of the murders, he watched as the woman in front of him started screaming, writhing in pain that he could imagine all too well.

Abruptly, Jack pulled away, unwilling to go any further or see anymore. He simply nodded to the creature and took several jagged breaths to try and calm his erratic heartbeat. Wearily, he pulled himself to his feet and staggered across the room, gripping the handrail for support as he climbed the stairs and left the room, locking the door firmly behind him.

"Shit! Jack, what the hell did you do?" Owen's shocked voice came from somewhere near him, and he looked up to find the medic looking at him in horror.

"What?" Jack frowned as Owen gestured vaguely at his face. Jack's hand instinctively imitated what he saw and he groaned as he felt the raised web of veins across his right cheek, no doubt radiating out form three cigarette shaped burns. "Oh. Well, so much for telepathy. I wouldn't suggest any of you do that, you may not be able to stay conscious."

Jack turned on his heel and stalked off to his office to think about what he'd seen. He dropped stiffly into his office chair and leaned backwards, staring at a patch of floor just to the side of his desk. His hand was absent-mindedly tracing the pattern on his face as he sorted through the visions.

He'd felt strange emotions at the sights, like echoes or ripples in what he was seeing, assuming that it was what the alien had felt about the events. He could see that there had been a war between the seven different tribes of Astor, a planet in a distant constellation, one that couldn't be seen from Earth. The war had been raging for generations and the race was on the brink of extinction when a delegate from the most peaceful clan travelled to the others, calling a council of the tribe leaders.

The negotiations had taken years to complete, but at least the fighting had stopped. An agreement had been reached that there would be a contest every five years on their planet, the Hunt. Jack only assumed that one year on Astor was ten on Earth.

One representative from each clan would be sent to another planet and they would harvest as many organs as possible. After centuries of the festival, the Astorians had settled on Earth as their hunting grounds and eyes, tongues and hearts as their prizes. It seemed that they made strong aphrodisiacs, and due to the limited amounts, they brought a good income.

The clan that harvested the most organs was proclaimed the winner, and their clan would lead the joint council until the next Hunt. This was where the disputes started. The same clan had won for the past three of their decades, and unrest was starting to spread through the planet, rumours and accusations flying between the clans, no one satisfied that the Hunt was unbiased anymore.

Jack couldn't see an easy way to solve this problem. He was well aware, thanks to the Doctor, that Earth was a protected planet, and therefore this race's democratic system was built on an illegal pastime. To stop the Hunt from continuing, Jack risked the collapse and possible extinction of a species. To do nothing meant that more innocent humans would be killed for the sake of their power games.

He sighed heavily and pulled himself back to reality, rubbing his eyes and pushing himself to his feet. For now, he would just keep the captive in the cells. This wasn't a decision he could make on his own, he would need the Doctor's input. If he would return the captive to Astor, maybe he could lead the way forward through more peace talks, try to find a new way of settling the inter tribe enmity. Extended discussions weren't really his style, but him being who he was, Jack suspected they would take much less time to complete.

Walking back out into the hub, he was met with Tosh's sympathetic eyes and Owen's smirk of self satisfaction.

"Oh, knock it off Owen. We all know I've had worse from shaving. It'll be gone by the morning" One way or another. He gestured to the interrogation room. "Take her down to the cells until we've worked out what to do."

"Her?" Owen snorted in disbelief and rolled his eyes at Jack's dark expression.

"Yes, 'her'. She's a tribal representative. I'll write up the report and make a copy for you all to read before the briefing tomorrow." He watched as Owen turned away to sort out the prisoner and then turned to Tosh, who was waiting expectantly for her orders.

"So much for that translation program you were running, sorry about that." Jack looked at her apologetically and she shrugged, smiling back at him.

"It was fun, don't worry about it! I'm sure it'll come in handy sometime soon. Was there anything else I could do?" Jack thought for a moment before nodding, there was something about the recent events that wasn't quite adding up.

"I need you to go back through the files and see whether the Astorians – this species – are in any way linked to the fish-man we have sitting in the morgue, you know, the time bomb?" She nodded and turned round to face her computers again. "Oh, hey, do you know where Ianto's disappeared off to?"

"I think he headed down to the firing range." Tosh's voice was already a little distant as she got to work, making Jack decide to leave her to it.

It had been a long time since he'd been down to the range, probably not since he'd taught Gwen how to shoot straight. The memory caused a stirring of guilt in his stomach. The motives behind that particular training session had been somewhat strange for him. This new member of the team, this attractive, feisty young woman, had been instantly brought to his attention, causing his light humoured pursuing of the mysterious administrator to fall by the way side.

Of course, that had all been before his year aboard the Valiant, before the team had even found out about Lisa. Ianto and himself had been a different thing back when Gwen arrived, nothing serious, just casual flirting on his behalf and graceful acceptance on Ianto's. Why did he feel so bad about it then? He hadn't cared about Ianto anymore than a boss cares about one of his employees, he'd barely known the man. Maybe that was it. He'd barely known Ianto back then, he hadn't known anything more about him than what he could look up on his personal file.

Was it that he had already been more interested in Gwen after she'd only been on the job for a week, at the most? That he already knew her better than he knew Ianto, someone who'd been on his team for almost a year? He shook his head to dislodge the train of thought that was making him increasingly uncomfortable, finding himself almost at the door to the firing range.

Although the solid steel door was closed, he could hear the furious firing of the man inside. He vaguely wondered where Ianto was finding the ammo to practice like this, and how long he'd been at it. Carefully, Jack opened the door, reaching for a pair of goggles and earmuffs, slotting them on in the antechamber to the range before stepping around the toughened glass partition and heading towards the man standing in the middle of the room, between two tables filled with various different handguns.

Ianto had removed his jacket again, his sleeves rolled up and his tie loosened, his waistcoat hanging open to give him more freedom to aim. Jack took another step towards him and as if in reply, Ianto fired off several more shots at the wooden target on the opposite side of the room. Jack marvelled inwardly at the accuracy of the young man, wondering briefly why he hadn't noticed this before.

He watched as the young man emptied the gun in his hand at the target, waiting patiently for him to finish. Eventually, the last bullet was fired, and he tossed it to the side, onto a small pile of guns on the second table that he'd already used up. Then he turned to Jack, pulling his goggles and earmuffs off at the same time, placing them on the first table. Jack followed suit and looked hard into Ianto's eyes.

"You need to keep your left hand steady when you're shooting two handed." Jack's words were soft and Ianto just smiled at him with his usual dry expression. "Apart from that, you're a pretty good marksman."

"I'm an excellent marksman, sir." Jack smiled at that and nodded in agreement. He met Ianto's eyes again and saw concern in them. He stayed perfectly still as Ianto stepped around the table, one of his hands coming up to hover over the raised lines on his face. "What happened, Jack?"

"Telepathy. To communicate with me, the alien needed to have skin to skin contact. It's just my natural reaction to it." Ianto continued to stare at the lines for a moment before moving his fingers to run along one of the veins, following it from the burn to where it faded down, just below his bottom lip.

Jack was just about to speak again when Ianto leaned forwards and kissed him, his hand moving round to the back of Jack's neck. Jack felt the tension in his shoulders melt away and he slipped his arms around the young man's waist, pulling him closer. The kiss deepened and Ianto's free hand came up to wind into Jack's hair, keeping him close. After several long, contented minutes, Ianto pulled away for breath, leaning his forehead against Jack's, his hands moving so that his arms locked around his neck, showing him that he by no means wanted the older man to leave.

"I'm sorry about earlier, I didn't mean to be so harsh." Ianto closed his eyes and simply breathed in Jack's scent, feeling comforted instantly. He'd needed to apologise to Jack since he'd calmed down, and it felt good to get it out of his system.

"I'm sorry about shooting myself over something that trivial." Jack moved his head to bury his face in Ianto's neck, kissing the soft skin gently, making the young man smile.

"So you should be." He sighed and managed to move his arms, Jack instinctively moving around him to hold him from behind. Ianto picked up the next gun, the one he usually armed himself with, and checked the magazine. Jack seemed to sense what was coming, and he rested his chin heavily on the young man's shoulder. "Jack…"

"Yes?" He hadn't been remotely unsettled by the deep, warning tone in Ianto's voice, replying with his own butter-wouldn't-melt innocence. Ianto sighed and flicked him hard on the forehead, causing Jack to jerk his head back and blink hard. Ianto took the opportunity to twist free of his arms, kissing on the cheek as a consolation prize. "Where are you going?"

Jack turned round to look at Ianto who had slotted his gun into it's holster and was now casually rolling his shirt sleeves down and fixing his tie. Ianto fixed him with an exasperated look.

"I'm going home. You know, the place where the bed is, where the TV is? Not to mention the place where the bath is and the food." He was buttoning up his waistcoat and shrugging his jacket on, much to Jack's appreciation. "It's one in the morning and I'm tired. Are you coming home now, or do you have work to do?"

"I have to write up the report of what the Astorian told me. It shouldn't take too long, but it needs to be done for the briefing tomorrow." He sighed heavily and Ianto nodded once, walking towards Jack and tilting his chin up from where he'd been focusing on the floor. He kissed him once more and headed towards the door.

"Just make sure you come home soon." Jack smiled and nodded to him, watching as Ianto turned and headed round the corner and back up to the hub. He sighed heavily again and looked around him at the discarded weapons, deciding to clean them up now to save Ianto the job later.

It took him roughly twenty minutes to finish reloading and storing the pile of handguns, and he was quickly making his way back through the corridors to the hub, eager to write down everything he remembered. He ended up drawing half of the visions he had, finding it extremely hard to translate everything he'd seen into words.

The final product was three A4 sheets of notes, sketches and general outline of events. Jack sat for a moment and looked at the memo, feeling very proud of himself. It had been a while since he'd produced a report this detailed and he secretly couldn't wait to show everyone else. Of course, they were used to his messy, casual way of presenting information, but this was still neater and more informative than usual.

As he filed it away in his desk drawer, he started to hum to himself, glad to be pulling his coat on and locking up his office. He was also glad to see that the others had all left for the night, so he quickly went round the workstations and powered down the computers, setting his wrist-strap to synchronise with the rift alert system, stepping onto the invisible elevator and activating it. As he moved upwards, he pushed away all thoughts of calling the Doctor to stop a civil war. He would at least have the rest of the night without the worry.

As he stepped out into the crisp night air of Cardiff, he checked his watch again and smiled as he read 03:00, pleased that he would still have a good amount of time to watch Ianto sleeping. He was incredibly cute when he slept, especially if it was a night when he was talking to himself.