CHAPTER 8: ZOMBIES AREN'T SO FAR FETCHED
Ianto or Gwen never texted to tell me to come into work during the week of finals. I didn't come in voluntarily either. I needed to get my last minute studying in so I could be sure to pass my classes. After a week of being free from the hub, it got to me. I needed to find out what was going on at the hub.
I zoomed through Friday's final exam, the last exam I'd ever have to take. Graduation was on Sunday, and life would become much less hectic after that. I was looking forward to not balancing school and Torchwood.
I walked in the main base of the hub and looked up to see Jack's guard dog flying above me, he squawked at me, but didn't stop soaring.
"Gwen?" I called, "Ianto?"
No one answered me. At least I knew where to find Ianto. I headed towards the vaults and stopped once I turned the corner.
The couch was still there, but it was vacated. My gaze turned to the cadaver tray Jack had been on for almost two weeks and noticed it was empty too.
I stepped forward and took a closer look at the tray. There were enough silver fragments that could easily make up a whole bullet. I picked up a fragment with my hand and held it up to my face. This was impossible. The bullet had been a hollow tipped round before it shattered into a billion pieces upon hitting Jack's skull. There was no way all the pieces could be out, not even a neurosurgeon could find all the pieces in a brain that had had a hollow tipped bullet explode through it.
"Do all the pieces of the puzzle fit?" an American voice asked from behind me, "Or are you missing a few?"
I dropped the fragment I had been holding and spun around just a little too quickly. I must be hallucinating. Dead people don't get up after being dead for almost two weeks. Jack was standing not two arms lengths away. He looked a bit pale and he had some bruising on his forehead where the bullet had gone through his head.
I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes, trying to make the vision of my dead boss standing in front of me go away. I peeked an eye open and saw him still there. There was a smile on his face as if he was amused by this whole situation.
"Sir, did you need me to," Ianto cut himself off as he came around the corner and saw me gaping at my dead boss.
"I'm dreaming, right?" I asked.
"Nope," Jack answered me.
"Hallucinating, then?"
"No, again,"
"So you're real?" I asked Jack.
"Yeapp,"
I turned to Ianto, "Did you bring him back? Do we have some kind of alien technology that brings dead people back to life?"
"Yes and no." Ianto answered. At my continued confused gaping, he continued, "We destroyed it shortly before you were recruited."
I silently stared at the two before me before pointing at Jack, "So, you're a zombie." I said, not caring how ridiculous it sounded. It was the only answer I could come up with.
Jack laughed loudly at it before stepping forward and taking my hand. His hands weren't the creepy cold of a cadaver. His hands were as warm as any normal human. He spoke, "I have a heartbeat, you know." He placed my hand against his chest where his heart was. I could feel it beating beneath my hand.
I ripped my hand out of his grasp. I knew he could have kept it there if he wanted, he was stronger than me even though he'd just come back from the dead, "How do you explain it?" I asked. My eyes burned. I'd seen this man get his head blown to pieces in my living room, seen his brains all over. I've peered inside his skull the few times I'd come to the hub after dealing with the Varvara. There was no way this was all true, "Do you have a twin?" I questioned Jack.
"No."
"A clone?"
He laughed again, "Definitely not."
"Are you a zombie?"
"Zombie?" He asked, he looked at me like I was crazy.
"Well we work with aliens day in and day out, zombies aren't so far fetched."
"I'm not a zombie. Do I look like the living dead to you?"
"Well, you were dead and now you're walking around, it screams zombie at me."
"I'm not a zombie." He repeated.
I wanted to know if this was definitely Jack, "What's my name?"
"You're name is Caden Phyre, you came to Cardiff from Wausau, Wisconsin to study ballistics. You met me in an alleyway when I saved your ass from getting your brains spewed all over. You refused to take an amnesia pill, you overcame the Retcon anyway and you were recruited to Torchwood. I was shot saving your ass from the Varvara. Are you satisfied?"
"No." I said, "I'm satisfied that you really are Jack Harkness, but it still doesn't explain how you're standing here."
He sighed, "There isn't any easy way to explain this," he said, "but I just can't die."
I snorted in disbelief.
"Look, a long time ago I died and for some reason I was brought back to life. Since then, I can't die."
"So what, you just completely regenerated?"
He laughed like there was some hidden joke, I didn't see any humor.
"Basically." He said.
"Why did it take so long?" Ianto spoke up, it was the first phrase he'd said for a while, he seemed content to let me ask all my questions, it was his turn to question.
"Why did it take so long?" I repeated, gaping at Ianto, "You knew about this and you people didn't tell me?"
"It freaks people out," Jack said for Ianto, gesturing towards me. He continued, "It took practically two weeks because all the fragments needed to come out."
"So you can't regenerate if the thing that killed you is still stuck in you?" I asked.
He laughed again.
"Is there something funny about something I'm saying?" I questioned angrily. I felt like a child asking silly questions.
"No, nothing funny, sorry," He said, trying to wipe the smile off his face, "To answer your question, no, I can't put myself completely together if something's still stuck in me."
"That's powerful information to have," I said looking angrily at him, "maybe next time you pull this on me, I'll drive a stake in you and leave it there."
His smile fully left his face, "You wouldn't do that."
"Probably not, but don't try me." I let some of the anger leave my features, "Does Gwen know you can't die?"
"Yeapp." He said, making a popping sound on the 'p'.
"So, new girl isn't important enough to know her boss can't die?"
"It's not like I go around advertising I can't die. Sometimes crap happens and I die in front of people. Couple hours or days later, or whatever, I come back to life right before their eyes." He paused, "They just find out," he trailed off.
I nodded.
"You should probably go back home, you know, to sort through all this information overload stuff." Jack suggested.
I kneaded my temple with my fingers, "Yeah, probably."