Chapter 4
Gwen rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Looking at her watch, she was surprised at how late it was--nearly midnight. Being underground and with everything that had happened, she'd completely lost track of time. No wonder her eyes itched, but she was far too anxious to even try to sleep.
When she'd finished talking to Jack about the converter, she'd spent a few minutes scrolling through the tablet PC's incomplete translation. A partial transcript was accessible even though the programme hadn't yet finished. Very little of the aliens' language had been filled in at that point--a verb here, a few adjectives there--but her conversations with Jack in English were there and complete. And her statement to him in Welsh was translated as I know you couldn't find a pub speaking only Welsh, let alone proposition anyone, but I wouldn't put it past you to try.
But, to her amazement, the translator had also recognised the languages Jack had tried in his attempt to find a common ground with the aliens' leader. I don't recognise your species. What system do you come from? he'd asked both times. She was curious about how UNIT's translator had come to be programmed with Jack's 'galactic standards', but she bet Jack knew. Gwen had resolved to see if he'd tell her when they got out of this.
Now she stalked the seven by seven area of the confinement, wondering how the aliens would see her behaviour--a caged tiger looking for an out, ready to pounce on whatever happened by? She remembered childhood trips to the zoo--did the aliens have zoos?--and the big predators that tracked never-ending circuits in their pens. But, no, with the size of these aliens, she wouldn't be a tiger to them. More like a monkey--and a small, funny, chattering one at that. The creature that had captured Jack hadn't appeared threatened by her at all.
Gwen sighed and stretched, willing the tension in her shoulders to ease, her fingers brushing the metallic mesh above her. The terror that had spiked when she'd seen that thing with its claws on Jack had receded during the last few hours, leaving only a hardened knot in her stomach. That sickening but, she was proud to say, controlled panic had given way to gnawing worry.
She checked the translator's progress--again. It was the only thing she could do, after all. It was still plugging away, calmly and confidently counting down the hour to what could prove to be the most momentous negotiations she'd ever undertaken in her life--the negotiation for her and Jack's freedom. But more. The establishment of hopefully friendly diplomatic relations with an alien species--from another planet--was a far cry from talking a junkie down from an overpass.
From another planet. The realisation was a bit staggering. She knew that was what Torchwood was about. She'd read the case reports, handled the artefacts that even the most advanced human science was at a loss to explain, but actually seeing it firsthand and in person was something completely different.
Pull yourself together, she ordered herself, blowing out a breath. The fairly recent past had been a time for accepting a lot of things that until now had confined themselves to the science fiction programmes Grant liked: ghosts who turned out to be metal men from an alternate reality--so that was robots and parallel worlds for the list; aliens, with the hostile Sycorax ship over London last winter... Yet, somehow, the idea of an alien ship over London wasn't the same as green-and-scaly-and-two-feet-away aliens. Add to the top of that pile the apparent reality of time-travel in the form of the Doctor character that formed the Torchwood Institute's other obsession and you had almost every sci-fi plotline ever written.
Gwen gave a thought to Grant. She'd promised to ring him, knew he worried when he didn't hear from her. Though imprisonment by aliens would count as an extenuating circumstance. And, to be honest, right now she was worried about herself too. The worst part was going to be having to explain to him that she couldn't explain to him, that everything that'd kept her from contacting him was classified to the highest level.
She sat down once more, knowing in the back of her mind she'd be pacing again soon, wondering how Jack was faring. Probably a lot better than she was, just judging by the way he'd faced the aliens. He knew what the stuff in this lab was and thought he could figure out how to get an alien ship running again. That could be all bluster, but she was pretty sure it wasn't. And he'd been able to talk to them, if only a few words. More Jack Harkness mysteries that made her contemplate wanting to lock him into an interrogation room again. What had he done in his past that made him so bloody good at this?
From the tales she'd been able to gather, he hadn't been with Torchwood for much longer than she had. If the stories were to be believed, he'd simply turned up one day with all the right authorisations and blessings and took charge.
Suddenly feeling the need for some reassurance, for someone to talk to, Gwen was going to call out to him. Before she could, she was interrupted by the appearance of one of the aliens--the one Jack had referred to as the 'looker', she realised. Smaller than the rest, the creature's skin was a darker, dustier shade of tannish-green while the others were brighter in their colouring. The biology she'd had in school kicked in. Smaller and plainer typically meant female, at least in Earth species. Did that apply anywhere else?
Gwen watched curiously as it--she?--busied itself at one of the work-surfaces for a short time, its movements surprisingly dainty, the long, clawed fingers rather dextrous. With sidelong glances, the alien watched her just as curiously for a few minutes as it made the rounds, caring for the caged animals.
Soon it turned to Gwen and approached with something that looked like a beaker clasped in its hands. It kept its motions slow and deliberate as if it were afraid it would frighten her. Gwen recalled the way she had flinched away when it had first touched her. It had found her as fascinating as she found it now, but it was clear the alien also knew that it had scared her then. So Gwen stayed where she was as it neared.
It offered the beaker to her through the pass-through opening in the cage door. Gwen stood and took it gingerly, sniffing the contents. And the creature said something that it took her a moment to recognise as the mangled word 'water'. She dipped her head in appreciation and pronounced the word clearly for the creature. "Water."
It made a strange little noise and tried the word again, the result much clearer this time. "Yes, that's it," Gwen praised it, smiling. Still leery, she dunked a finger into the vessel, testing the contents before taking a small sip. Once she did, the alien seemed pleased and wandered back to its work.
"Thank you," she said to its retreating back. It regarded her for a moment over its shoulder and went back to its duties. Taking care of lab specimens she understood, even if she rather feared she was one of them. Her mind drifted back to the dissection table for an instant. But right now, the creature was working with tools and equipment whose purposes were a great deal more obscure to her.
"Fox Mulder, eat your heart out," she muttered to herself as she sat back down on the mattress to one side of the cage floor. The alien glanced up, eventually giving her an encouraging sound when she didn't say anything further. Was she supposed to keep talking? "Mind you, I only watched the show because I happened to fancy David Duchovny at the time. Thought it was complete rubbish. Proved me wrong, didn't they."
It continued with what it was doing, but spared her a look every now and then as if it were interested in her speech. She had what she supposed was an appreciative audience, so she talked to it about nothing at all for a long while, simply filling the space with her own voice and feeling marginally better for it. Knowing that the creature really didn't understand her apart from a few scattered words, she was beginning to understand why people talked to their pets. Although in her current position she was definitely the pet.
When the tablet PC beeped unexpectedly, she jumped, uncomfortably aware that the creature had swung around, alarmed by the sound, its head cocked; she was now at the centre of its full and undivided attention. Her gaze never leaving the alien, Gwen fumbled a little for the translator. Glancing down at the device in her lap, she saw that a new status window had appeared on the screen.
Matrix compilation complete.
The alien was moving toward her now, staring at her piercingly, warily eyeing the translator in her hands. Here goes nothing, Gwen thought to herself.
"Do you understand me?" she asked it. After a half-second's delay, the translator emitted a disjointed string of sounds, obviously pieced together from the conversations it had recorded, and sounding only vaguely like the alien's language to her ears. She hoped it was close enough.
The creature looked taken aback for an instant before answering.
(you have?) a translation. not before why, the screen read. It was working. A sense of soaring elation displaced her worry, and she wanted to hug the UNIT team that had created it. Barring that, she vowed to send a long letter of thanks if she could find her way to an address for the appropriate parties.
"I couldn't use it before--the translator. It just finished."
It cocked its head again, seeming to concentrate on deciphering the machine's translation, and spoke. (?) bad translation. word required is (finished/done?)
Gwen was confused for a moment until she realised that the translator had quite probably spit out nonsense, but the alien had been able to figure out what she meant and had given her the right word, which the translator noted and used to improve the translation matrix. She had the feeling that for a while yet she'd be reading between the lines as the database was refined.
She needed to get to Jack, but the alien was talking excitedly as it went to pick something up from a nearby worktable. (imperative?) go to (Name2--untranslatable). he is (commander/master)
Gwen shook her head. "I'd like to see to my partner first...if possible." She didn't have any idea how much leeway she would be allowed, whether or not her requests would be listened to.
The alien returned to the cell door, unlocking it with the flat object it'd used to secure it earlier. we will go to your mate.
She chuckled a little at substitution of 'mate' for 'partner' and at the thought of Jack in that role in her life. The alien was giving her what she assumed was a quizzical look. "Bad translation," she told it.
oOoOo
Talking to Doug and Mike had yielded no more clues as to the aliens' intent. Jack still had nothing more to go on than his own assumptions and observations. He did, however, find out that he and Gwen had come in the hard way though the mine. There was an entrance to the cave that didn't require climbing gear to negotiate not far from the mine entrance, closer to the ship. Then of course, the fact that he and Gwen hadn't come in that way had probably kept them from being captured earlier. From their story, his cellmates had been descended upon almost immediately.
But, by their own admission, they'd been treated all right, provided with food and water. Scared, but unharmed.
Jack paced, unable to settle. He hated this kind of thing, the sit-around-and-wait scenario; always had. It was this kind of thing that, in his Agency days, would have had him getting friendly with the nearest willing participant--if not, as he preferred, physically, then talking to them, drawing out as much of someone's life story as he could, wooing their trust and honing the knife's edge of his persuasive charm. Unconsciously practising to be the con man he became after his spectacular resignation from the Time Agency after they wiped out a couple of years' worth of his memories.
It was also a game that he was in no mood to play right now. He'd been too terse with his information-gathering, prodded too hard for details. Anticipation, apprehension and fatigue kept him abnormally tight-lipped. And he knew full well that he'd probably garnered something of an unfavourable, if not unfriendly, opinion in the minds of his fellow captives.
Jack sensed that he could win Doug over in a heartbeat, despite his offhand treatment. Instinct and experience told him that the guy was the type to fall open like a book under the gentlest inveiglement. Mike would be a harder sell. After Jack's harsh words earlier, dashing the kid's initial idea that their rescue would be soon, the young man had been regarding Jack with an increasingly distrustful expression, closing himself off, his answers becoming less and less helpful. It was something Jack would deal with later if he had to.
He regretted that decision sooner than expected when the forceful impact of a body into his back shoved and tried to hold him against the mesh. Defence training made his response automatic, getting his hands down first, muscles coiling to slam back and throw off his attacker. Part of his mind registered Doug's horrified "Mike!"
Free of the hold, Jack whipped around with a furious "What the hell do you--" And froze as he found himself staring down at a stunned-looking Mike Westman on the ground on his back; Jack's gun was in the kid's slightly shaking hands. He swore reflexively under his breath, putting his hands out slowly, keeping them in sight in front of him.
"Mike, give me the gun back," Jack said, taking a tentative step toward the young man. He stopped when the weapon's aim solidified on him.
"What're you going to do with that?" he asked, feigning a calmness that he didn't feel. Inside he seethed with self-recrimination. He'd been irresponsible and careless, underestimated the threat posed by two frightened, stupid kids barely out of their teens. Mike was getting to his feet, his gaze and the gun's aim never leaving Jack, never giving Jack an opening. "You planning to shoot me?"
Doug, who'd been agape with shock at his friend's reckless manoeuvre, found himself and hissed to Mike. "What you doing? God, just give it back to him."
"Shut it, Dougie! We're getting out of here," Mike declared with the certainty of the desperate and the insane. "Now."
"And how are you going to do that?" Jack asked critically, immensely grateful that the kid didn't know that he could open the cell door. If he could keep the guy talking, he might get an opportunity to disarm him, preferably without getting shot in the process. Doug was keeping himself well out of the way, terrified by the sudden turn of events. Smart kid.
"We're sick of waiting for you to make a move." Mike waved the gun in a wide, sweeping arc to punctuate his frustration, but too soon pointed it back at Jack. "You've had your chance. Now I don't want to shoot you. But if you aren't going to help out, you can bloody well stay out of the way!"
Well, it was nice to know he wasn't an intended target, but the subject was moot considering the weapon was still aimed at his chest. Jack made a placating gesture. "We will get out of here. Just--"
"Fuck, yeah, we will. Just as soon as one of those things sticks its ugly nose in here." Jack wanted to shake his head. Another kid who'd seen too many movies, who had no clue how things worked for real. He could really begin to hate this century's entertainment industry. His heart already pounding wildly--with good reason, he found that Mike's crazed tone unnerved him too, and the hope of talking him down was scattering like so much dust in the wind. The guy was mad and was going to get someone killed or, worse, end up starting an interplanetary conflict that could only end badly for Earth.
Suddenly, something else grabbed his attention, something that added a whole new dimension of thorniness to the already dire situation. He was sure he'd heard alien voices outside the chamber, approaching. And without speaking their language, he had no way to warn them before they walked into danger.
oOoOo
A raised voice from the cavern ahead made Gwen pause. Her alien escort looked at her questioningly. "I don't like the sound of that," she told it as another angry outburst echoed down the passage. "We'll hold here until we figure out what's happening," she told it. The creature waited for the translation and trilled something that sounded like agreement.
She listened intently, trying to catch the gist of the conversation. "Listen, you really want to think about this," Jack was saying. His voice was deadly calm, but there was a strain in it that many people would miss completely. From that alone, Gwen knew he was in a position he wasn't sure he'd be able to gain control of. And if there was anything she'd found that could rattle an otherwise unflappable Jack Harkness, it was losing control of a situation.
"C'mon, Mike," Jack cajoled. "Okay, if you won't reconsider your plan, would you at least quit pointing the gun at me? It's getting old..."
Gun. She missed the rest of what Jack said, but she really couldn't ask for any more obvious evidence than what she'd heard. "Trouble," she said to the alien, putting the translator into its hands to hold for the time being. "Stay here." Unholstering her own weapon, she began to creep forward. She needed a vantage point, needed to be able to assess the scene.
The creature stopped her, blocking her path, its tone distressed. Gwen put a hand out to it. 'Danger' was the only word she could make out from her quick glimpse of the device's screen. "It's all right. It's my job to deal with dangerous situations, to protect people." Very reluctantly, the alien moved aside, and she was allowed to move forward again, coming to the mouth of the tunnel. She'd have to break cover to get a look into the room.
Staying low and in the shadow, she threw a glance into the room, noting everyone's position, before ducking back. No one faced her direction. Jack and the blond with the gun both had their sides to her. The brown-haired caver held position behind the gunman. Only one weapon in sight.
Steeling herself, drawing a deep breath, she darted into the room toward a narrow column of limestone a short distance to the right of the passage opening. It would serve as barely adequate cover, but it was the only option within reach.
"Armed officer! Drop the gun and get down on the floor!" she ordered, her own weapon trained on the gunman, the sharp staccato of her shout ringing through the chamber. Instantly, the blond swung around and scuttled back a few feet to the furthest wall of the confinement, aiming the gun in her direction instead. By dropping back, the guy still had Jack in front of him, still had him as a potential target should Jack try anything.
Time had slowed to a crawl, and some remote part of her brain pointlessly logged how tired that cliché was. "You drop yours and come out," he shouted back.
The man was in his early twenties at most, Gwen guessed--same age as the lanky guy next to him. She hadn't had a good look at them before; her own fear at the time had shamefully taken the fore. Both were haggard and unshaven, clothes and faces grimy from two days underground. And she didn't care at all for the maniacal, almost feral, glint in the blond's eyes.
"Gwen, don't fire!" Jack shouted to her. "Doug, get down." The gunman's petrified friend fell to his knees, hands out, removing himself as a threat. "Michael, please give me the gun. C'mon, trust me, you really don't want to do this," he coaxed.
Don't get any nearer, Jack, she pleaded silently. Gwen swore to herself that she wasn't going to lose another partner if it was within her power. In her mind, the image of Jack superimposed itself onto the haunting image of Jacob's death; she forced it away instantly. She knew she'd fire if the gunman threatened Jack again. But if Jack got any closer...
"Drop it," she ordered again. "Hands where I can see them." The gun pointed at her, it clicked that, as afraid as she'd been of the aliens, the only real danger here was posed by members of her own species.
"Oh, god, just do it, Mike! Just drop it already!" Doug on the floor beseeched. His voice trembled as much as he was. Yeah, c'mon and listen to your friend. Show a little sanity here.
Mike's attention wavered to his friend for the barest moment, his resolve eroding very slightly under new uncertainty. And Jack was on him, twisting the gun out of the young man's hands, neatly disarming him.
As if the weapon were the only thing holding him up, the guy crumpled bonelessly to the ground. On his hands and knees, head down, his posture was one of supreme anguish and a wordless sob wracked his body.
Breathing the relieved sigh that she was sure was shared by everyone, Gwen lowered the Glock's muzzle to the floor and raked a hand over her forehead and scalp. She squeezed her eyes shut and tugged at her plaited hair, needing to feel something beyond the yawning gulf of numbness left within her in the wake of extreme apprehension and anxiety.
"Safety was still on," Jack stated flatly, holstering the weapon. His own relief was written in every line of his body. She could only nod, safetying and reholstering her own gun. Her heart was still pounding, her breathing as ragged as if she'd just run ten miles.
Unable to make her body respond, she watched Jack use his remarkable wrist device to unlock his cell door and secure it again behind him while he regarded her with a concerned expression.
"We could've walked out of here all along?" Doug gaped at him in gobsmacked amazement from his place on the ground where he tried to console the whimpering Mike.
"Yeah, but for right now I think we're all better off if he"--Jack nodded to Mike--"stays in there for a while longer. Don't you?" Doug hesitated, then nodded, acknowledging the logic. Jack crouched for a second beside the cage door. "Look after him for a while, Doug. There'll be some ruffled feathers over this." He stood and crossed to her.
"You okay?" he asked, putting his hands on her upper arms.
"Fine. Just fine." After the harrowing experience, his proximity was a comfort, but she stopped short of hugging him, not sure that it would be entirely appropriate. Jack didn't share her doubts and resolutely pulled her into a tight embrace. Gwen sagged into it, wrapping her arms around his middle, glad he was safe. "Nice move getting the gun," she mumbled against his shoulder, "but if you do anything like that again, I'll kill you myself."
He chuckled, but an instant later, his body stiffened under her hands. He released his hold on her. "Get behind me," he murmured to her, his gaze fixed on a point behind her. She turned to see what he had, and he pulled at her, putting himself between her and the large, very angry-looking alien.
oOoOo
He heard Gwen draw a sharp breath, and she gripped at the back of his jacket. "Not good," she breathed.
The male alien had obviously come to check what all the hoopla was about. Seemed he wasn't too happy that the mice had slipped their cages, and Jack realised he hadn't had the chance to wonder how Gwen'd got out. Now was not the time to ask her either, as the alien stalked them, outraged aggression etched into every movement.
"Gwenny, back away--slowly. Don't run and don't threaten him. I'll handle this," he said quietly without looking at her. He fiercely hoped he wasn't committing suicide here, but he wanted to show the alien that, despite being loose from the cell, he didn't intend to escape. At the same time, he didn't want Gwen in the strike path should that not appease the creature.
Her hand had barely left him when he was set upon by the alien. With force enough to dash the breath from his lungs, he was driven to the rough stone floor of the cavern. The creature held him there, kneeling over him, one hand holding him there with a painful amount of pressure. Jack struggled to draw breath in anything more than shallow, laboured pants.
He had hit the ground and Gwen had cried out, driving at the alien apparently trying to get it off of him. The rash move was doomed to failure, and one minor swipe from the alien's thickly muscled arm was enough to throw her off and send her staggering backward. He wanted desperately to order her to stop--there was a slim chance she'd listen if only he could get the air needed to speak. A few more seconds and the grey tinge that was already forming at the edges of his vision, he knew, would swamp him and he'd pass out if he didn't get the brute off his chest. But fighting against the alien was useless and would get him injured worse.
As if he were watching a vid running at half speed, he saw Gwen try again, sounds coming to him as though filtered through water. This time she too was knocked to the ground a few metres from where she'd started. He panicked momentarily when she went down, but she got to her feet again.
There was shouting; he could swear there were new voices in the room, too. He was almost beyond caring, though, oxygen starvation eating away at his consciousness as agonisingly slow seconds ticked by.
Miraculously, the weight constricting his lungs lightened some. A few long moments passed and the darkness began to recede. The alien was still there, but its attention was on something on the far side of the room. Jack squirmed a little to try to suss out what was happening. As soon as he tried to move, the crushing pressure was back. This time, he had enough air in his lungs to cry out involuntarily as the renewed pain caught him off guard.
Gwen's anguished "Jack!" met his ears and she appeared in his field of vision. She cast a wary glance at the male alien, but, to his immense surprise, it didn't stop her from getting close this time. It watched her, its black gaze forbidding as she kneeled beside him. Her expression was pleading as she looked back at the alien. And Jack was at a loss to explain what had changed in those few seconds that she was allowed to approach.
One new voice said something in the aliens' language and the huge, scaled hand on his chest was lifted.
"Thank you," Gwen said to the male, and it replied with a dispassionate grunt. It moved to crouch nearby, staying within reach in case they tried to escape, he assumed. "Are you all right?" Her brown eyes brimmed with concern.
"Just about," he gasped. "Knocked the wind out of me." Eyes on the creature, he tried to sit up. Gwen's hand on his shoulder kept him where he was.
"Rest a minute. We're okay." She glanced around, and Jack followed her gaze. The female was standing not far away. So, she was the one who had come to his rescue the last time.
The two aliens held a conversation over their heads, the subject a matter of great dispute by the sound of it. Jack imagined that it was probably about what was going to happen to him and Gwen.
Then he remembered something. "How'd you get out?"
Gwen suddenly smiled the beautiful smile that it was too tempting to wish she reserved only for him. "The translator's working. That one let me out and we were on our way to come and get you before we went to see their leader." Sure enough, Jack now realised the tablet PC was in the female alien's hands. The other voice he'd heard had to have been the translator.
In spite of the excellent news, his guilt resurfaced. "But my carelessness aided Mikey over there's grand scheme and messed that one up," he said bitterly.
"What happened?" As expected, a direct question from the detective.
He took a deep breath--still hurt a bit to do that--and struggled to sit up, accepting the hand Gwen offered. "Kid tackled me from behind and grabbed my sidearm in the process. I should've seen it coming, should've anticipated it. Should never've turned my back."
Gwen shook her head. Her reply was gentle yet mildly chiding. "Can't be paranoid every minute, Jack. Never let your guard down and, eventually, it falls down on its own."
His comment about paranoia keeping him alive this long never got made as the female alien beckoned Gwen over. Jack suppressed the urge to latch on and keep her where she was as with a squeeze of his shoulder she was gone.
He tried to keep the distrust he felt from showing on his face as he watched them talk via the translator. The male simply looked on stonily. It felt to Jack that he didn't have any more confidence in the situation than Jack did.
But Gwen soon returned to his side. "You think you can walk?"
"Yeah." Without giving her time to react, he was already getting to his feet, hiding his reaction to the twinge of discomfort caused by it, ignoring the way Gwen's brow furrowed when he didn't quite manage it. "Don't really fancy him carrying me," he explained, nodding to the male. "What did she tell you?"
Gwen didn't appear angry, more irked. "They're going to lock us up again." She held up a hand for silence when he opened his mouth. "Just until they can check with their leader." She added, "Go with it, I'll explain later," in a low murmur.
Jack eyed the cage. Doug was virtually pressed against the front of it, fingers in the mesh, observing the whole scene with a nervous avidity. Mike sat at the back of the confinement, knees draw up and hugged to his chest; he stared hollowly at the floor in front of him. He was completely passive. Nothing showed to indicate he even knew what was going on.
If he was going back in, Jack decided, the .38 was staying out here. He was about to undo the first catch on his gun-belt when Gwen laid a hand on his forearm. A tip of her head indicated a direction opposite the cage. The motions of the two aliens--the female ahead of them toward the tunnel, the male rising and waiting a small distance from them to follow--seemed to coincide with the direction Gwen wanted him to go, so he followed.
The passage soon widened into the lab that Gwen had told him about, a confinement area similar to the one he'd been locked in set up to one side, Gwen's backpack on its floor. Reminded, he did a quick mental inventory of his own pack's contents still back with Doug and Mike. He couldn't come up with anything he should worry about the two young men getting their hands on. With all that had transpired, Gwen had ended up carrying most of the valuable or classified equipment. His own pack only had the remaining climbing gear and rope, some water, a few energy bars and a couple of other odds and ends.
Once the door had been locked behind them, the male alien relaxed some but still radiated displeasure. The female was looking deeply apologetic again, and the male barked a terse comment at her and stalked off.
She watched him go and then hastily turned to Gwen, speaking quickly and quietly, handing her the translator through the opening in the mesh of the cell door. Gwen read the screen and pushed the device back through the door. "It's okay. Go," she told the alien, and it hurried off, translator cradled in its arms.
"Quite the girls' club you've got going here." He couldn't keep himself from smirking. "Do I get to play?"
But Gwen was all business. "She's going to take the translator and try to convince the leader to listen to us. The other one's obviously not happy about any of it, and doesn't trust us."
"Okay. But why lock us up again? They must know we can get out."
"She does. I told her to stay back until the danger had passed--and she did until the other one showed up and pinned you--" Gwen disregarded his dry "Unlike someone I know," and went on. "So she knows you got out on your own, but she's covered for us and told the big one that she let us both out. Explained to him about the translation and going to talk to their leader. That's what got him to stop suffocating you."
He nodded. "I'll have to thank her." Gwen had found them an ally. He only hoped the older alien would be as reasonable as Gwen's friend.
Her expression no-nonsense, she looked at him then and said, "Jack, I know you're going to take this the wrong way, but I want to see your chest." Quick laughter bubbled up inside him, but it turned into a gasp when he forgot his recently crushed torso. Worry softened her expression and she went to retrieve a small first-aid kit from her pack. "C'mon. I need to check your damage."
Without further comment from either of them, she helped him out of his jacket, shirt and t-shirt. His chest was going blossom into a massive contusion in a few hours, and Gwen told him his back probably wouldn't be much better. "Feel like you've cracked any ribs?" she asked as she lightly probed his injuries, her fingers cold from the cave's chilly ambient temperature.
He shivered slightly as much from her touch as the cold air. "Doesn't feel like it. Only bruised."
Gwen noticed his reaction. "Sorry about the cold. We'll get you dressed again after I wrap your chest," she said, opening the med-kit. "If the ribs aren't broken, some compression might make it easier for you to move, maybe help you remember not to overdo."
"You don't need to be in such a hurry to cover me up, you know." He grinned flirtatiously at her in an attempt to get her to stop looking so grim. He really was fine. He'd had bedroom encounters that had left him more roughed up. Granted, at least one of those times involved a jealous lover and a twenty-seventh century, low-power concussion grenade and the other--well, that was just dumb luck and alcohol. "I can stand a little cold if you want more time...looking."
Gwen found the rolled elastic bandage she'd been rummaging for and rose to give his cheek and affectionately cool 'yes, dear' pat. "I've seen enough. And you've been prettier, I'm sure." Jack was glad to see a small smile appear.
"That I have," he agreed. "But I am all right, Gwen. Really."
She didn't respond to that, instead telling him to take a breath and hold it. He grimaced a little when she pulled the bandage snug across his ribs. Gwen frowned. "You sure they don't feel broken?"
"Yeah, had a few in my day. I know what they feel like."
A minute later, she secured the wrap. "Okay?"
He moved experimentally, finding the bandage did help. "Great. Thanks." And she handed him his t-shirt.
Once he had finally shrugged into his jacket, she dropped two paracetamol into his hand and stuffed the bottle into his pocket, handing him a half-full water bottle. "Don't have anything stronger, I'm afraid."
"This'll do. Thanks again."
He'd barely swallowed the tablets when the female alien appeared at the tunnel opening. She crossed quickly to unlock the cell door, saying something to them in her fluting language; he could guess at the gist of it. The door open, she gave the translator to Gwen, who read the text.
"Showtime?" Jack asked.
Gwen gave him a nod. "Showtime."
