16
Silence.
Every Cortex screen is on, each looking at a different place.
Every one shows fire, destruction or the snow of an interrupted signal.
Jax stands alone amidst the screens, saying nothing. After a long moment, all of the screens hitch, the images replaced by identical images of The Agent. He looks solemn.
"I'm sorry. But I cannot let you hide and I cannot let you run. Things become... extreme. And we wish for another way."
"Don't talk at me like a righteous man. You are a killer of children." Jax snarls at the screen.
The Agent speaks again, "When God wanted Pharaoh to release His people from bondage – you know the story? He didn't ask. He sent his plagues down upon Egypt. That's me, Captain. The path to peace is paved with corpses. It's always been so."
"So me and mine got to lie down and exist on this world?"
"I'm not going to live there. How could you think - there's no place for me there, any more than there is for you. Jaxton, I'm a monster. What I do is evil, I've no illusions about it. But it must be done."
"Why? Do you know why?"
"It's not my place to ask." The Agent is angelic again. It really pisses Jax off.
"You will never see Ianto Jones. I'm telling you this." Jax says with syrupy sweetness.
"Maybe not. But you'll keep him close now, and when I blow Torchwood out of the air, this will be ended. You're so terribly out of your depth, Captain. Your old boat can't take the pressure."
"She ain't buckled yet. And the only reason you're talking such a lot is you can't get a fix on us." Jax can be smug as well.
"Yes, your scrambler's code is too old for our seekers. You love that, yes? The small triumph over modernity. You really are the noble savage."
"Nobody - ever - calls me noble." Jax is insulted now.
"But that's what's going to kill you, Jaxton. Nobility. It confuses your text, which is self-interest. And sin." The Agent nods.
"Only man I know who still believed in sin just died by your hand."
"What do you believe in?" the Agent is genuinely interested in this man, this…righteous man.
"Not a solitary thing." Jax shrugs.
"If that were true, you'd be nothing more than a Muncher." Something changes in Jax's expression as the man continues "But then, maybe you're not that far from…"
Jax flicks a switch and every screen goes dark.
Jax comes striding out, where the crew have been gathering bodies, laying blankets over them.
In the background he can see Ianto sitting on the Agent's downed ship's nose, riding it like a cowboy. That boy will be the death of him, but laws he is so sweet and brain shaken.
"Get these bodies together." He demands.
"We got time for grave digging?" Martha asks with raw hope.
"Martha, you and Owen are gonna rope 'em together. Five or six of 'em. I want them laid out on the nose of our ship." Jax is waving a hand at the Torchwood as he gives his orders.
"Are you insane?" Owen asks.
"What do you mean, the bodies..." Toshiko splutters with horror.
"Toshiko, I need you to muck the reactor core, just enough to leave a trail and make it read like we're flying without containment, not enough to fry us." Jax continues to speak, ignoring her.
"These people are our friends"
"Toshiko, you got a day's work to do and two hours to do it." Jax turns from her "Rhys, you and Mickey hoist up that cannon mount. Goes right on top. Piece or two of the other ship, stick it on. Any place you can tear hull without inner breach, do that too."
"And we're gonna need paint." He mutters looking around "We're gonna need red paint."
"Sir." Martha grabs his arm "Do you really mean to turn our home into an abomination so we can make a suicidal attempt at passing through Muncher space?"
"I mean to live. I mean for us to live. The Agency won't have that, so we go where they won't follow." He replies calmly.
"God's balls, there's no way we're going out there!" Rhys splutters.
And everybody (save Ianto) is talking at once:
Owen "What's the point of living if you sink to the level of a savage"
Rose "Please, we should talk this over"
Rhys "I ain't takin' orders from a man has lost his brainstem"
Mickey simply blows a raspberry.
Jax face palms, steps back, hand on his gun.
"This is how it works. Anybody doesn't wanna fly with me anymore, this is your port of harbour. There's a lot of fine ways to die. I'm not waiting for the Agency to choose mine." He walks through the group, toward the smashed cockpit of the Agency fighter. Struggling to get out is the badly wounded pilot. He sees Jax coming and raises his hands in surrender.
Jax shoots him in the head, turns back "I mean to confound those killers, and take my shot at getting to Hallett, maybe finding out what all I'm dying for. That's my theme now. So I hear a word out of any of you that ain't helping me out or taking your leave I will fucking shoot you."
He grabs a body - drops it at Martha's feet as he heads toward the ship.
He turns back as he reaches the ramp, "I don't know about you, but I have a job to do!"
Ianto kicks his feet against the hull, thud thud thud thud./
.
.
.
Bodies burn, flames passing over them and suddenly flickering out as dark falls. They are patches of leathered flesh stretched over bone - monsters, screaming soundlessly in the nothing of space.
Looking past them to the windows of the bridge, Jax is watching, with Martha behind and Mickey at the helm.
The whole of Torchwood is hardly recognizable. Charred corpses on the nose, Cannon atop with a space-suited corpse draped within, long scars, welded-on parts and war paint... the trail of green light burns out with sporadic bursts of vapour.
It looks, for all the world, like a Muncher ship.
.
.
.
Jax comes down the stairs to the catwalk. He hesitates, then steps into the shuttle.
It's dark in here. Jax stands with his back to the door, no light on his face, shaking. Not crying, but overcome.
He looks up: Ianto's in the corner looking through that trunk, hands on a long oilcloth wrapped around something.
"Didn't see you." Jax croaks out and Ianto blinks as he nods to show he was aware of that. "Anything of use in there?"
Ianto puts it down and crosses to the bed. He sits by Jax.
"You don't have to hide in a shuttle, you know. There's room, if you wanna sleep awhile." Jax whispers as Ianto leans in to sniff him with interest.
Jax opens his mouth to say something but it is lost in Ianto's mouth as their lips meet and Jax is pushed back into the bedding.
Comfort is found there.
Torchwood flies, silent.