"You were there, Doc, doncha remember?" Jack gestured as he tried to get Matt to remember the events that led Jack to try to capture the dangerous man in the cube.
Shaking his head, Matt couldn't recall anything of the sort happening.
He remembered what the two Doctors told him, about them acting as one in the same, and realized that another Doctor talked to Jack sometime ago.
Which one that one was, Matt didn't know, just knew that it's confusing him terribly to remember he has to keep up the visage as the Doctor.
"Look, Jack, I've been everywhere and dealing with situations left and right, I can't exactly remember everything," Matt gave a reasonable excuse as to why he wouldn't remember the event.
It appeared that the other Doctor helped Jack considerably and somehow Matt wound up on Jack's radar because of it and his assumed title.
Begs the question what happened to the other Doctor who helped Jack prior.
Gesturing, Jack explained that Matt warned him explicitly to stay away from the man after he escaped. Said that he was an incredibly dangerous man who can and has killed everyone who attempts to stop him.
"Must be the change," Jack pointed at Matt's face.
Matt played along with it and learned through Jack that assumed Matt forgot because of his "regeneration" and recalled him saying that he might incur it little after his last meeting with Jack.
It'd explain why Jack contacted Matt in the first place back when they dealt with the Delco Conspiracy, because he remembered the Doctor and found a way to contact the TARDIS like he did previously.
"Turned you paler than a ghost when he saw you," Jack recalled a scene between him and the man. "Like he was in your head!"
Matt couldn't grasp even the thickest of straws, so he said that he'd simply repressed the memories in his regeneration, as Jack called it.
"Whatever happened to… me?" Matt inquired.
Jack shrugged, said he'd left with a girl with blonde hair and that was the last he'd seen Matt until he reached out again.
"Okay, say I forgot, who's the man I warned you about?" Matt asked Jack.
Jack grimaced as he pointed at Matt.
"You warned me, nay, begged me to not utter his name again," Jack recalled what the other Doctor warned him.
In passing, he said explicitly that Jack must never say the man's name, never acknowledge it, and if he ever saw it, contact him immediately. Do nothing else until further instructions.
"Wh-why would I do that?" Matt flinched.
Jack shrugged as he said that he wouldn't tell him, but the girl who was with him that day seemed absolutely angry when she saw him.
"I remember she saying something about him killing her friend," Jack shrugged.
He remembered her red in the face as she shouted at the man, calling him a murderer, but he shrugged it off, looked bored more than anything.
It took restraining to keep her from lunging at the man and she wanted his blood more than anything. She even begged Jack and Ianto to kill him once and for all.
While Jack would've happily obliged, well, the man had other plans.
"She was so miserable when she left, whatever happened to her?" Jack asked about the unknown woman that Matt never knew or heard about until now.
He shrugged his tweed shoulders as he admitted to Jack he didn't remember and that this is all new to him, in earnest.
"You said that'd happen," Jack frowned.
Matt asked who was traveling at the time and Jack replied, "You always called her Rose, but for some reason, I don't think that was her name, at least what I remembered her saying."
Apparently, the other Doctor traveled with a companion called Rose, or as Jack thinks, nicknamed as Rose, but he wasn't too sure, the Doctor wasn't too keen on causally talking when dealing with something serious as the man.
"Whatever happened to him?" Matt asked Jack.
He wanted to know if the man ever turned up again and Jack shrugged his shoulders as he said that after that day, they never saw him again, like he vanished into thin air.
"Bloody idiot, coulda left me a little card in the TARDIS with the details!" Matt muttered under his breath at the displeasure that his predecessor didn't think to leave something for him to use as footnotes when something like this happens and he needs to act the part.
When he finally meets with that Doctor, he's going to have a long chitchat about footnotes and leaving notes for him to use, because he doesn't even know what Jack's talking about and he's bewildered!
Overhead, Jack and Matt noticed the lights wildly surging and Jack radioed the others, warning them to get ready. Matt asked if it's Vena and Jack held his gun carefully as he wearily looked around.
"Jack!" Matt jumped at the sudden static and Jack radioed Gwen.
He heard from her that there's movement in the vents and she gave him the coordinates. From the heat signature it's lukewarm and something sinister.
"You and Lee lock yourselves in the Room until I come get you, understand?" Jack ordered Gwen.
Gwen acknowledged the order and the radio cut out.
"How'd she get in here, we took the lift down to here, right?" Matt looked at Jack.
Scanning the area as he slowly moved, Jack said that he specifically made Torchwood in a way that in the event of disaster or other, his team's easily able to escape.
That of course came with it's own problems, but Jack meant well when he designed the layout of the institution.
"Okay, how does that translate to this?" Matt weary looked around as he grabbed the only thing he knew to have, his trusty Sonic Screwdriver.
Jack explained that there's exit ports hidden away that when accessed, his team can get out of Torchwood easily, they'll just reappear elsewhere.
Lee received training on how to find and use them and when he brought Vena here, he showed her to ease her concern about him working in Torchwood.
"Oh great, the vampire knows how to use ventilation systems, wonderful," Matt exhaled sharply.
Jack caught that and stated that Matt found the idea wonderful and even wanted to play in the ventilation hadn't Rose yanked him by the ear and dragged him out of it.
"It was funny, she called you a brown mole!" Jack had a bit of fun watching the two arguing about ventilation systems of all things.
Apparently, Matt said to Rose, "What's wrong with being a mole, I love moles, their little eyes and their little noses, never hear them complain much, do you?"
Matt played along with the incident Jack said happened and heard thudding noises, metallic, and hollow.
"Ianto, how're we on the cube?" Jack radioed Ianto and heard him say that the cube's ready and for him to hurry up with Vena.
Matt heard Ripley hiss amid the static, "You didn't need to poke me!"
Weary he asked what she meant and Jack admitted that Ianto might've drawn some blood from Ripley, but only enough for Vena to get a whiff of it and track her.
"Look, we need to keep her interested and I don't think I have to tell you how bad a hungry vampire is when her meal's hidden," Jack pointed out.
Matt smelled blood and worried, but Jack told him it's fine, it's Ripley's wafting through the air.
Ianto made sure her blood's scent traveled the air so Vena'll notice it.
Overhead they heard rattling noises and loud thudding as Vena traveled the ventilation system to the source of the blood.
"Come on!" Jack pulled Matt with him towards the lift that takes Ianto and Jack to the bottom basement.
Hurrying into the lift, Jack put the key in and turned it, waiting for the lift to slowly descend to the lower levels.
As they did, they smelt Ripley's blood in the air.
Unintentionally, it made the hairs on Matt's neck stand up as he smelt her blood, it took Jack reminding him that she's fine.
The lift reached the bottom and the door opened to darkness.
"Are the lights always off?" Matt asked Jack.
Jack shook his head.
Cautiously, Jack reached into his pocket and yanked out a small torchlight and turned it on. Magnetically it stuck to his gun and he held it outright as he walked ahead of Matt, checking every corner as he slowly moved.
Matt trailed behind him, looking around as the darkness enveloped the men.
Vena disappeared into the darkness when she attacked him the first time, like liquid she melted into the darkness, and now they're in it completely.
Heavy thudding noises overhead as Vena made her way down the winding ventilation into the bottom basement and a heavy presence filled the air.
It's so thick, Matt couldn't breath as he felt his heartbeat elevate from the tension that started looming.
He jumped when he heard gurgling noises coming from the distance and clattering noises, it took Jack to pull him ahead and forced him to hurry towards the room where he and Ianto kept the cube.
Matt didn't think much when he's running through the hallways to the room, Jack kept point, and even he couldn't help but run.
Slamming into the doors, Matt waited for Jack to hurry towards the scanner and used his biometrics to enter the room where there's a large ominous cube in the distance.
Leading him, Jack hurried to the hidden doorway that opened when he touched a hidden scanner.
Hurrying into the hallway, they ran up the stairs and turned right.
Ianto and Stephen pointed their guns at the men and recoiled when Jack confirmed that they're not Vena.
"She's coming," Jack hurried towards the controls and looked out the observation window.
Matt asked Ianto if Ripley's all right and Ianto nodded. He said that Ripley nearly kicked him in the precious bits because he had to quickly draw blood to use to lure Vena down here.
"She's fine, just a little prick," Ianto told Matt.
He only needs a few droplets and the ventilation system does the rest. All in the name of stopping Vena. Ripley even got a cute bandaid out of it, so it wasn't all in vain, either.
Stephen spoke up, "He poked her with a box knife and tried to give her a lolly."
Matt leered at Ianto as he stressed it was just a poke and he made sure to disinfect the knife before he poked her. It wasn't even a poke, just a cut, and he gently squeezed blood out into a tube that he used to bait Vena.
He figured a lolly would've eased the discomfort Ripley had about Ianto poking her with a knife, but she apparently didn't like sweets and instead wanted to pummel Ianto into the ground hadn't Stephen talked her out of it.
"Gentlemen, if we can stop chin wagging for a few minutes, we have pressing matters," Jack butted in and told the men to calm down, they have more important things to worry about other than a little prick in the skin.
The heavy feeling that Matt felt started coming back again and he knew instantly that Vena's near.
"Okay, now what?" Matt asked.
Jack and Ianto stated that they needed to wait for Vena to come and try to get into the cube.
It's set that the moment she breaches the cube, Ripley's able to escape, and Vena can't.
There's an ominous groan coming from the doors as Vena forcibly grabbed the handles and tried to open them.
Effortlessly ripping off the doors, there's a low growl and there's a set of long arms reaching into the room, long and pale, clawed and thin.
That wasn't so bad until another set reached into the room and slowly Matt spotted a chalky white Vienna with black oily hair that stuck to her face and kept them from seeing it.
She stepped inside the room and her arms raised, all four, as she glimpsed around.
Her clothes in tatters, completely stained with black and red, and she barely made any noise when she looked for Ripley and stopped when she smelt the air.
"Okay, come to daddy, come on," Jack muttered under his breath
He waited for Vena to go to the cube and try to open it, but he saw something amiss, and she didn't go to the cube as intended.
Turning her head, Matt saw her face as the matted hair pulled away, her mouth completely different and her eyes, there was nothing in her eyes left that showed she was human.
"We are in serious trouble," Stephen winced.
