Jack remembers and Owen tries to help.

Who?

Chapter Five

The Hub was quiet. Jack was alone, sitting in what he'd been told was his office staring at the wall and thinking. He had a lot to think about.

After impulsively kissing Ianto, a kiss which had been returned with interest, he had thought the young man would become more friendly. Not so. When Ianto had realised that Jack still didn't remember him, he had withdrawn again. He had been polite but distant and after showing him to this office he had retreated to the Tourist Office upstairs. Jack couldn't fathom that out. There was no denying the Welshman had enjoyed the kiss – as had Jack – so why the cold shoulder afterwards? Hadn't Jack made up for not flirting with him before?

Putting that to one side, Jack had rifled through the papers on the desk which was supposedly his. They were like those he had already seen, notes on cases and reports, reinforcing the alien hunter idea but they didn't spark any memories. He had then gone through the desk drawers one by one. Nothing here either, until he came across a small tin box of photographs. They were all of him but he was in period costume and he laughed out loud at the stupid poses. The wedding one was a bit more worrying; was he married? The cache supported the theory that these people knew him, that he belonged here but he was still not wholly convinced.

Finally, he had turned to the PC on a stand behind him and turned it on, surprised when it allowed him access without a password. He navigated through folders and files but they were full of alien encounters and other than a general interest in the descriptions of the aliens, he found them boring. Leaving the PC, he had explored the filing cabinets and a cupboard which was locked up tighter than anything he had yet seen in this place. Was this where they kept the really secret stuff? Made sense.

With nothing left to look at, he had returned to the desk and sat with his feet on it. He was going over that last memory. He was in the garden of the house. There was a lawn with a strip of earth round three sides filled with straggly bushes and a few tatty flowers. Running along the back of the house was a paved area; a couple of plastic chairs and a table were arranged there. He remembered standing by the chairs, looking at readings on … his wrist strap. Jack straightened up, swinging his feet down. That was new and he kicked himself for not picking up on it when he had seen the CCTV footage earlier. Now, he looked at the wrist strap properly and opened the flap on top.

Images and feelings flooded his brain and he was forced back in his chair by the force of them. Movement, disorientation and darkness; co-ordinates; strange worlds; aliens; that doctor; pain, horrible pain; a blonde girl; a fish in a suit; this office but different, old; a green alien in a human body; a blond man, red jacket, in a hologram; two old fashioned women. Jack closed his eyes to shut them out but they kept coming until he could take no more and he put his hands to his head. He was screaming.

That was how Owen found him. He went to him straightaway and held his shoulders, knowing they had been foolish to leave Jack with Ianto. Tea-boy was obviously having problems being round Jack and shouldn't have been left alone with him for an extended period. Jack was clinging to Owen, head resting on his chest. He had stopped screaming, for which Owen was grateful, but was shaking uncontrollably. It took him a good five minutes to calm down and release Owen.

"Tell me what happened," said Owen, drawing up the visitor's chair and sitting knee to knee with his boss.

"There were … All these images, I …."

"Take your time, no rush. Want some water?" At Jack's nod, Owen got up and went to the fridge in the work area and grabbed a couple of bottles. He strolled back, giving Jack more time to compose himself. Back in the office he sat down and handed over a bottle. "Here."

"Thanks."

"I take it some of your memories came back." Owen swigged from his water bottle and watched Jack drink thirstily, downing half the bottle in one go.

The other man nodded. "Yeah, with a vengeance." Jack managed a weak smile. "It was like my life was flashing before my eyes. All colour and images and such strong feelings." He drew in a deep breath. "None of it made any sense."

"That's okay, don't try to force it into any kind of order, not yet. Just getting this far is a good sign. What started it off?"

"I was going over my last memory, of that house. I could see it really clearly and I remembered using this." He looked down at the wrist strap, the flap still open. He paused, bracing himself for more images but none came. "When I opened it up to look at it – that's when it happened."

"Want to talk about the images?" Owen asked, tentatively. He saw Jack tense and immediately put a reassuring hand on the man's knee. "It's okay, mate, you don't have to. But if there are any you want to talk about just sing out. I bet there were a lot of strange ones, kind of work we do." He laughed to lighten the atmosphere, to give Jack a bit more time.

Jack laughed too, just a bit. "A few. There was one, it was really weird."

"Try me."

"It was fish walking around in a suit!" Jack was shaking his head with the absurdity of the notion.

"Red and orange was it?" asked Owen conversationally.

"Yeah," replied Jack slowly. "No, no it can't be real!" he protested.

"'Fraid so. We call 'em Blowfish. Had one a few weeks back, was driving around in a little red sports car." Jack was looking at him open-mouthed, not sure if he was joking. "It's true. They come here, steal cars and get high on drugs."

"So that memory is real?" Jack decided to accept it for now though he was not convinced. "What about the spaceships and other planets, they real too? Do we go out and patrol the galaxy?"

Owen was taken aback. He had long suspected that Jack was not from Earth, or at least not from this time, from the things he said and the way he reacted to events. This was proof; Jack had been out among the stars in spaceships. Intriguing. "No, we don't but doesn't mean they're not real."

"What?"

Owen leant forward until his head was close to Jack's. "Look, mate, there's a lot we don't know about you. You're a secretive son of a bitch and don't say a lot about your past but, well, I think you probably have been out there, in space, at some time or the other. I may be wrong but if these images you're getting are muddled in with the others I know are true then," he shrugged, "odds are the space ones are true too."

Jack stared at him. He barely knew the man but Jack's instincts were that Owen was telling the truth, that he, Jack, had travelled in space. That was ludicrous, wasn't it? And yet … Somehow the idea didn't feel ludicrous, it seemed possible even likely. But where was the sense in it? If he was an astronaut, where was his spaceship? Seems it wasn't anywhere around here or Owen would know about it – bit difficult to hide it, unless it was invisible. An image of a large clock face flittered across his mind and of the blonde girl and of them dancing. When he tried to hang on to it, the image was gone.

"My advice, Jack," said Owen, "is don't worry about it. Don't try too hard to remember and it'll all come back to you. You getting these flashbacks really is a good sign." He patted Jack's knee and pushed back his chair.

"But I need to know what they mean. Is there no one who can help make sense of them? One of the others maybe?"

"You can always run them by me, no sweat, but your best bet? That's Ianto. You and he, let's just say you're close." Owen hesitated but then decided to go ahead and ask, "You got any memories of him? Not that I want you to share!" he added hastily.

Behind them the door alarm sounded and Owen looked up to see Gwen walk in; Toshiko was already at her desk, she must have come in via the lift for him not to have heard her. Jack had swung his chair round to see what was happening and then looked back at Owen.

"Are you saying that Ianto and I are …" he let the thought hang in the air.

"Oh yeah but it's complicated. Let's just say that you went missing for a while and left him hanging. You've only just got back together again."

"That explains a lot." Jack was quickly putting together the pieces; Ianto's hurt at not being recognised, his reluctance to be with Jack, his response to the kiss and then the retreat upstairs. "Thanks for telling me."

"Hey, better you know." The door alarm sounded again and Owen saw Ianto come in with pizza boxes. "Great, lunch is here. Come on, let's get something to eat."

The two men walked out into the work area where Ianto had put the pizza boxes on the coffee table. Gwen and Toshiko were going through them, both women hungry after the early start to their day. They sorted out the pizzas and took their own. Owen found his and passed one of the remaining two to Jack who took it. He watched the others settle at desks and on the sofa and wondered if he should stay or take the food back to his office.

"Jack, come sit by me," called Gwen from the sofa. "Any joy with the memory?"

"Actually, yes." He smiled and joined her on the battered sofa, opening the pizza box and taking out a slice; the smell was making him hungry. "I was telling Owen about some flashbacks. He tells me they're real." Jack's expression said he was none too sure himself.

"Can you believe it, the thing Jack remembers is the Blowfish!" Owen chortled and the others joined in.

"That thing!" said Toshiko with a shudder. "It gave me the creeps."

"That one's real, mores the pity," confirmed Gwen, chewing on her food. "Any other memories?" She smiled up at Ianto as he put coffee mugs on the table.

"This place, my office particularly, but different. It was old fashioned, Victorian maybe, with wooden doors and there were two women in long dresses and knickerbockers. I don't think they liked me." He smiled round at them, sure that this memory was false.

"Sounds like Alice and Emily," said Ianto from his place standing by Toshiko's desk. "They were operatives here in the 1900s."

Jack looked at him, disbelief written all over his face. "You're having me on. How the hell could I remember that!?"

"You were here then. You're immortal." Ianto was looking at Jack, wanting to see how he reacted to the news, wanting to hurt him. To pay him back for the false kiss and for not remembering him!

Jack stared at Ianto, the slice of pizza in his hand dripping grease onto his trousers unnoticed. "I'm what?"

Oh no! How will Jack react? Next chapter coming soon.