Right. Sorry for not updating yesterday, I was on an English trip...to the cinema! We saw Creation at the Barbican. It was pretty cool. Most of the class were in tears. I was welling up, but refused to actually cry so that Ianto would be the last thing I'd cried at for a while longer.
This was rendered pointless today, when I started sobbing after realising how this episode is going to end. Nobody is going to die. But this is possibly the most heartbreaking thing I've ever imagined, so I don't know how I'm going to write it. But I was talking it over with a friend today, and she made me realise that it's the only ending possible, given the circumstances. It's totally what Jack would do, but I just feel so upset that he has to do it.
...Anyway. I've plotted out the next couple of chapters to the end. I've got it down as 19, but this chapter covered less scenes than I thought it would, so it might stretch to 20. I won't know until it's written. The point is that we're nearly done. I'm really looking forward to starting One Good Reason. Hopefully, the two Doctors will help instill that episode with Christmas cheer. This episode has been rather morbid, upon reflection. It's only going to get more so. The epilogue is slightly more upbeat, though, if that helps any.
This chapter also sees the return of Lois and Andy! Their sudden reappearance does have a vague plot link, it's just that because this chapter ran over, I didn't have time to include Part B of their trauma. So you'll see that next chapter. I'm really happy with how the characterisation and even the PLOT came out in this chapter. I don't think you understand quite how happy I am.
Special thanks to Mark and Storms for beta-ing, and to Claire for moral support and helping with my word!fail. Without her, this chapter would only be half-written, and even that half would be incomprehensible.
"Bloody Cardiff." Andy scowled as a motorcyclist zipped in front of him, only to slow a few metres ahead as, like the rest of them, it got stuck behind a queue of what seemed like hundreds of cars.
Lois gave a soft sigh and glanced out of the window. It was stifling inside the car – naturally, the air conditioning system was faulty – but she didn't dare open the window. Just the idea of the fume build-up around them made her cough.
A small truck pulled up beside them. Its driver leaned on the horn for several seconds.
"Oh, shut up, mate," Andy muttered. "Not like we'll get there any faster by deafening everybody, is it?"
Lois smiled despite their lateness. Still, the entire city was completely gridlocked, so perhaps Jack and the others were also caught in the rush, or would at least understand it as an excuse. "Last time I accept a lift from you, Andy Davidson," she said, only half-teasing.
Andy looked over in surprise, as though he had completely forgotten that she was in the car. "Oi, you can't go blaming all this lot on me!" He flailed a hand in the air, gesturing to the ridiculous amounts of traffic.
"It's not usually this bad, is it?" Lois heaved another sigh. "Must just be my luck. Always late on the job, no matter how early I set out."
"Nah." Andy glanced to his right in irritation as the truck-driver beside them honked his horn yet again. "You know what I reckon it is? That bloody new department store in the town centre. Always rebuilding Cardiff, they are. Never happy with what they've got."
"You sound like a grumpy old man," Lois laughed.
"Well, it's true, isn't it?" Andy looked beseechingly at her. "Ruddy mayor's fixated on bringing in more tourists, thinking that the roads'll magically expand to fit them all in. Bet she's never been stuck in traffic this bad." His scowl returned as the truck-driver's horn began once more. "Be stuck here all bloody day at this rate."
Lois tapped her fingers against the dashboard in a rhythmic fashion. "If you like, I have some biscuits in my bag."
Andy looked at her oddly. "You carry around biscuits?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact."
"Right. Of course. Makes perfect sense, that does."
"It's useful if we were to, I don't know, get stuck in traffic?" Lois shot him a triumphant smile.
--
"Did the thought occur to you that maybe Jack...might?" The figure on the left scratched his chin. "If he was being particularly–"
"Stupid?" Ianto suggested. "It occurred to me. I dismissed it."
"Even if I told you that he was the real Jack?" The left Jack gestured to the other one.
Ianto raised an eyebrow and watched the captain carefully. "Why would you tell me that?" he asked slowly.
"Think about it. What possible reason is there for having two Jacks?" He paused. "Okay, aside from that."
"I wasn't thinking anything." Ianto frowned.
"No, I was."
"Oh." Ianto gently cleared his throat. "Anyway, if either of you would be so kind as to actually disentangle me from this machine..?"
Both Jacks glanced at each other, but stood for several seconds in silence.
"No, really," Ianto continued. "I accept that neither of you want to show that you have to prove yourself to be Jack, but I'm starting to get cramp."
One of the Jacks grinned; the other laughed and walked over to help wrestle with the equipment.
As soon as Ianto was free, he stretched out his limbs and ran his hands down his face, like he was trying to wake himself up. He certainly didn't seem too alert – he wasn't smiling and his eyes looked heavy. But then, he hadn't been getting much sleep.
"Right. Plan of action?" He looked between the two Jacks. "No? Okay, up to me, then." He paused. "Back to the Hub."
"To the Hub?" One of the Jacks pulled a face. "Really? When you know that one of us is a threat, if not both?"
"To the Hub," Ianto clarified, "where there are weapons and medical scanners and a medic. And torture devices, should worst come to worst."
Jack smirked. "You don't know how to use them."
"Then I can experiment until I find out," Ianto said quietly.
"One of us might be Jack."
"One of us is Jack."
"In which case, he'll recover." Ianto swallowed. "I could just put a bullet through both your heads and have done with it."
"But you can't bring yourself to shoot Jack."
"No." The other Jack shook his head. "He doesn't want to shoot the alien. Jack would come back. The alien might not."
Ianto looked up at him. "Definite points for perception," he murmured.
Jack merely shrugged. "So, Ianto Jones, what's your plan for getting us back to the Hub? The SUV's outside, but then you'd have to keep your eyes on the road rather than on us."
"But if we go by foot, it'll take longer, and if one of you is Jack, then you've left Greg all by himself in the Hub. So the sooner we get back, the better."
"He's with Martha, but I see your point. Also, seeing clones might freak people out a little."
Ianto shrugged a shoulder. "We have Retcon, if we need it."
Keeping both Jacks in front of him, they walked back to the SUV, which was parked just at the end of the street. One passer-by gave them an odd look, but Ianto wasn't sure whether to attribute this to the fact that there were two Jacks, or the fact that aforementioned Jacks kept shooting questionable sidelong glances at each other. Ianto rolled his eyes.
He'd liked to have been able to rule out either of them being Jack, but the unfortunate truth of the matter was that Jack would certainly flirt with himself, even in front of Ianto. There were just some opportunities too great for the captain to resist.
Which left Ianto with few options as to how to prove, one way or another, if either of the figures in front of him were Jack. He'd been sure before that neither of them were, but that certainty wavered with every passing second. One of them had been acting – was acting, in fact – a lot like Jack. The other one had had moments when he hadn't been acting like Jack, but Ianto still couldn't say for certain that he wasn't. After all, there was a lot he didn't know about Jack – it might just have been another side to the captain that he hadn't seen before.
As they reached the end of the road, the accumulation of traffic became obvious. One of the Jacks passed a comment that Ianto couldn't quite make out over the thrum of petrol fumes chugging uselessly into the atmosphere. Several drivers were honking their horns in an almost dulcet manner, though it was far too loud to be bearable. The amalgam of sound and smell was overpowering.
"Must have been some sort of accident," Ianto concluded. "Looks like we'll be better off by foot after all."
"Good thing both of me are wearing my sturdy walking boots." One of the Jacks grinned as he began to walk in the general direction of the Hub. The other one followed close behind, but kept silent.
Ianto stared at him. "Pardon?"
Jack just looked innocently at him. "What?"
"You just said 'both of me'. Forgive me for being slightly confused at your warped yet somehow logical grammatical sense."
Jack waved a hand at him. "You encounter clones as often as I have, you get used to it. Just wait until humans start time travelling. The shifting tenses might just kill you."
"Oh? You mean like the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Sub-inverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional?"
Now it was Jack's turn to stare. "You're not supposed to know that yet."
Ianto laughed. "It's a quotation, actually. Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
"Ah." Comprehension dawned on Jack's face. "Good book. Although he got it a little wrong."
"The tensing?"
"No, the fact that mice are smarter than dolphins."
Ianto smiled. "Of course. What a silly mistake."
Jack waved a finger. "You laugh now, but in a hundred years, it's dolphins who manage to first communicate with Medusians, not humans. Or mice." He quirked his eyebrows and increased his pace.
Ianto frowned for a moment before hurrying to catch up with the striding figure. "Jack, wait – you're not serious?"
Jack just laughed.
--
Martha pursed her lips as she tried in vain to re-activate the comms system. "No use," she said finally. "They're working fine, according to the Hub's programming. Jack's just...not picking up."
"Maybe he got distracted?" Greg suggested, somewhat half-heartedly. The medical bay was marginally bigger than it had been in his day, but that didn't make it any more exciting a room to be stuck in for hours on end. He was too worried to touch the machinery he didn't recognise – which was most of it, in all truthfulness – in case he broke something, which meant that he wasn't much use at all.
He was tempted to go for a walk, stretch his legs a little around the Plass, but dismissed the idea. He didn't want to leave a relative stranger alone in the Hub, even less so now that she'd been so helpful. Admittedly, they hadn't been able to put any of their theory into practice yet, but that didn't mean that it was any the less useful. If nothing else, it had been insightful. They knew roughly how the aliens' cloning process worked. Perhaps they ought to catalogue it somewhere. They had done that sometimes, back in his Torchwood, though with Tilda Brennan as leader, there had never been much to record. She had always been more concerned with potential threats than potential discoveries.
Still, the other members had made some effort toward it. Greg remembered Rhydian keeping a small black notebook in his pocket for jotting down quick notes, though they had been few and far between. He expected that Ianto was much more committed to such records. Having said this, given the apparent burst of recent technology, perhaps the records were computerised. He'd ask later.
"You all right?" Martha asked, looking over at him in concern. "You look a bit pale."
"Just a little exhausted."
Martha shot him a chastising look. "You're a medic. You ought to know better." Nevertheless, she smiled. "Have you eaten yet today?"
"I had some toast this morning."
Martha glanced down at her watch. "It's gone two. Blimey. I think, Mr Bishop, we deserve a lunch break, don't you? After all, if Jack can't even be bothered to keep in contact..." She grinned. "Come on. Lunch."
She strode purposefully up the staircase, sending another glance back in Greg's general direction to see if he was tagging along.
He was just about to follow when a great squall resounded from every wall of the Hub. Greg had the distinct feeling that this time, it wasn't a phone call. Red lights began flashing all around them.
"What's that alarm?" he asked Martha, having to yell over the noise.
"Lockdown! The Hub's going into lockdown!"
Reviews? Pretty-please?
I made a Douglas Adams reference. That's got to be worth a teensy review, at least!
