Chapter 12

Gwen's eyes flickered; she was slowly coming back to consciousness. The pain of the Taser had loosened and she was slightly disorientated, she could see Tosh's face smiling down at her but didn't recognize the architect that surrounded her.

"Gwen? Are you ok?" the voice was familiar but it wasn't Tosh. Gwen turned her head to see who had spoken.

"Gwen?" it was Jack.

"I'm fine." Gwen managed in a little squeak.

"Good, glad you back!" Jack smiled at her, Gwen managed to smile back.

"What happened?" Gwen asked to anyone who would answer.

"You were Tasered, the effects while wear off completely within a few minutes." A new voice explained. The tone of voice was a harsher one and Gwen had the inclination that it didn't have any feeling for her. She lifted her head so she could match the voice with the body. Arikahs wasn't even looking at her; he was watching Jack and Nathan with hawked eyes.

"Five seconds to detonation." The overhead voice announced.

Five seconds to the end, Five seconds to save the world, five seconds to make a difference. Jack held this thought in his head as he made a dash to the computer. He had figured that as Arikahs had access to such high-tech alien technology he had almost defiantly activated the bomb via the computer systems. All he had to do was get to the computer and press the deactivate button.

Jack reached the computer with 2 seconds to go. He reached his hand out to press the button and the screen went blank. Jack's heart took an extra beat.

Arikahs pulled his gun out of his pocket and aimed it at Jack, Tosh screamed. Nathan charged at Arikahs, but he was too late. Arikahs had already fired the gun and Jack's body had slumped to the ground.

Tegana looked back at the wires; there was a blue and a red one leading into the timer. Her hand was hesitated over both wires, wondering which one she should cut. The timer was counting down rapidly, it now said 2 seconds.

"Blue!" Owen shouted. Tegana wasted no time in disconnecting the blue wire, holding her breath as she did so.

Ianto looked at Owen, how did he know that?

"Lucky guess I hope!" Owen replied to Ianto's questioning look. With a sigh Ianto turned to Tegana, it was too late to change it now.

Tegana watched as the timer completely ceased working and for a moment she thought she had disconnected the wrong wire. But then nothing happened. Tegana sighed in relief, she had done it. She had stopped the bomb exploding.

Around her the teenagers were breaking out of their trance and pondering on how they had managed to get here and why they were all standing in a circle next to strangers. Tegana stayed by the deactivated bomb, feeling too exhausted to move, and rather dizzy with relief.

Ianto and Owen looked through the crowd at Tegana, catching her eye they all smiled at each other. Unbeknownst to the teenagers around them, they had just saved their lives and hundreds of others as well, just the three of them. It made them feel a sense of pride, not to mention overall relief.

Arikahs ran to the computer, pressing several buttons in order to try and get it to work.

"What has he done to it?" Arikahs roared.

"Nothing, you shot him before he had a chance to do anything!" Gwen said her voice seeming more annoyed then upset at her friend's death.

Nathan was having to hold back his anger. It was building up inside him like a balloon and he was ready to explode. He wanted to strangle Arikahs, how could he be more concerned about a computer then someone's life? He had just killed Jack. And Gwen, what was it with her attitude? Was she not upset at Jack's death, shocked maybe? She seemed to be taking it as a minor setback.

Arikahs stormed out of the room, he was going to sort out what's wrong with the systems.

As soon as Arikahs was out of the room, Tosh and Gwen hurried to Jack's side, the rolled him over on to his back and laid him out properly so he didn't have his leg tucked underneath him.

Nathan watched, wondering why they were bothering when they could after the thing that killed him. He didn't say anything because he didn't want to interrupt them and they seemed to know what they were doing, apparently for them this was a daily occurrence.

Outside, Ianto and Owen picked their way through the crowd to Tegana. They helped her up and congratulated her on managing to do it by herself.

Ianto suggested that they should go and find Jack, Gwen, Tosh and Nathan. They had probably realised by now that they had stopped the bomb and they may need help with Arikahs.

Dodging their way back through the crowd and over to the manhole that they had emerged from in the first place. Tegana noticed that the teenagers where all starting to walk away from the square and she hoped that they would all go home as quickly as they could and stay there, they had been involved in alien affairs once and it was better that they didn't make it a second.

One by one they filed down the hole, entering the underground once again. A gust of warm air was the first thing that hit them, that and the dimmer lighting.

They let their eyes adjust to the light before carrying on down the corridor and into the room in which Tegana and Nathan had been interrogated in. To their surprise Arikahs was there hunched over the computer, typing away with fury.

"Arikahs? What's wrong with the computer?" Tegana asked evidently startling the alien as he had been engrossed in his work.

"The human you call father, has been tampering with the systems." Arikahs replied curtly.

Tegana frowned, why would Jack do something to the systems when the bomb was already being dealt with above, surely it wasn't connected to the computer systems…was it?

"Tegana…" the voice was much softer and clearly hadn't come from Arikahs for he had returned to his work and hadn't flinched since. Tegana moved her head to the doorway. There stood Nathan. He looked as white as a sheet and terribly upset.

"Nathan?" Tegana ventured. Nathan didn't have to say anything; she knew he wanted her to follow him.

Ianto and Owen exchanged glances and then followed on behind her.

Nathan led them into the room where Jack laid on the floor, cold.

"Dad!" Tegana exclaimed forgetting all about the fact that Jack wasn't really her father. She ran to his side, kneeling down she looked at her father not believing what she saw. He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't.

"What happened?" Tegana turned to Gwen and Tosh for an answer.

"Arikahs shot him." Tosh explained. Tegana looked at Tosh and then back at Jack's body. A tear formed in her eye as she remembered how her last words to Jack had been about him not being her father. She wished she could've ended it on a better conversation.

Ianto looked away; he couldn't bear to see Jack's body in that state. He pained him to know that Jack had gone through the pain of dying and even though he knew what would happen he couldn't help but feel distraught every time.

Out of the corner of his eye Ianto could see Nathan; he looked just as distressed as Tegana was. It was probably more to do with the shock than anything else, the guy hardly knew Jack, but he wasn't used to seeing death or aliens or being involved in a major crisis. That had probably been the last straw for how much he could bear.

Owen, Tosh and Gwen exchanged a look of confusion; they thought Tegana of all people knew. But then with further thought they realised that she never needed to know, it always happened while she wasn't there, in the school term.

"Ten minutes to destruction." The announcement rang out through the underground den. For a moment everyone paused wondering if their hearing was correct, Ten minutes to destruction, again?

Tegana stood up sighing; it was time to stop Arikahs. He had already killed one person and she didn't want anyone else to die by his hand today. She wiped away a tear as she headed towards the door.

Gwen caught Ianto's eye and both of them concerned for Tegana as they realised that she planned to face Arikahs and give him a piece of her mind. If the alien could kill Jack without a flinch, then who's to say he wouldn't do it again? Ianto and Gwen felt it their responsibility to look out for Tegana, with her true guardian indisposed.

Leaving Tosh, Owen and Nathan, Gwen and Ianto followed Tegana out of the room.

They halted short of arriving through the door. Tegana was in front of them addressing Arikahs who was glued to the computer.

"Arikahs, turn it off." Tegana order, there was a slight quiver in her voice as she fought back tears.

Arikahs had planned to ignore her, but he caught sight of her as a tear rolled down her face. It confused him; she must be more human than he had originally thought. He stopped typing and frowned at her.

"Don't you have feelings, emotions?" Tegana asked a sense of accusation came through in the tone of her voice.

Arikahs refused to answer, his race never had a name for any emotions and it was frowned upon to mention them. Yet watching the half human half alien child letting her emotions take hold of her, Arikahs the hard solider, doing his duty for his planet whatever the consequences, paused taking a moment to think over what he was really feeling at this moment.

"You killed Roberto Hannigan, you killed my father, leave it at that." Tegana raised her voice making it demanding and accusing.

Arikahs doted on his family life, as custom in Arika, he never knew his father and his relationship with his mother wasn't much, as soon as he was old enough she left him to fend for himself. Regrettably he found himself thinking about how different life would've have been if he held the relationships that the humans held. He snapped himself out of the fantasy and glared at Tegana.

She returned his glare with a similar gaze, only hers depicted two emotions: anger and upset. It unnerved Arikahs when he looked at her. The two emotions didn't seem to fit.

He tried not looked at her, avoid her gaze, look at anything but her. But he couldn't, there was something about the way she wouldn't back down, the way she wouldn't take no for an answer. It interested him, it confused him, he didn't know what to make of her, the half human, half Zakothian child.

Ianto and Gwen were poised ready for Arikahs to flip and threaten Tegana or worse. Ianto scrutinized Arikahs every move, he didn't want to risk anything, if Arikahs looked like he was going to harm Tegana, he would attack Arikahs. Gwen didn't take her eyes off Tegana; if anything came close to hurting her Gwen would be in there defending her.

Arikahs glanced at the computer and then back at Tegana. Part of him was softening to her pleas, part of him was telling him to keep true to his mission. He was letting his softened part take over, despite constant reminders that he shouldn't be letting it.

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