­­Note: This chapter takes place between episodes 11 and 12 of Torchwood. Mainly because I still hadn't seen episodes 12 and 13 before starting it.

Dårlig ulv
By Maetel

Chapter 2

Why doesn't anyone stay here?
Why do they leave me?

- "Porcelain Doll" by Megan McCauley

Jack had been mucking about the Torchwood hub for two hours, since he'd sent everyone home for the evening. He'd even dispatched Ianto. The man had seemed rather worried, but Jack did his best to put the man's worries aside. Ianto seemed to believe him and left without saying much.

Since then, Jack was feeling restless. Like something was about to happen, and he had no idea what. There was a pair of matching buzzes, one in his chest and one in the back of his head. He shook his head, trying to ease the sensation, and drank a few beers he kept in his living area. Nothing helped.

Eventually, he'd resigned himself to going over old case reports concerned with the Weevil fight club that Owen had almost been killed at. He still couldn't believe how foolish he'd been acting. Didn't anyone realize how much life was worth anymore? Even Gwen, the promising one, seemed to be letting the job take over everything, even after she'd told him that she wouldn't let that happen. There were times he really hated Torchwood. The sleepless nights didn't help, not that he had much of a choice. Hadn't really needed sleep since-

Thoughts were cut short by the sound of the alarms going off, alerting him that something was falling through the rift. In an instant, he was at Tosh's work station, noting where the rift had opened, which was surprisingly close, and contacted the others before heading towards the exits. He didn't even have to go to the SUV. He walked out of the door and allowed the platform to lift him up to where he saw a faint golden glow seeping through the tear in space and time.

He walked towards the light slowly before noticing an unmoving figure lying on the ground beneath it. He drew his revolver and carefully moved nearer to the body, wondering if she, from what Jack could tell, had been an innocent victim or the reason the rift had opened. Either way, he was going to be careful. Inability to stay dead was one thing. Getting injured was another. And there was the fact that the buzzing he was experiencing was getting stronger. That might prove to be too much of a distraction if he wasn't careful.

As Jack drew nearer, he noticed there was a pool of liquid beneath the woman that was slowly growing. He had seen the answer to his question. Something had attacked her, wounded the woman, and badly if the amount of blood was any way to determine the answer. He knelt down beside the woman, hearing a soft groan of pain escape the petite figure.

Jack placed a gentle hand on the woman's shoulder, and as though touching a flame, he wrenched his hand away, as though he were burned. The buzzing had stopped. The moment he'd made contact with the petite woman's frame, the sensation has dispersed. This is what he knew was supposed to happen. The only thing he didn't know was how. He looked at the hand he'd touched her with and noticed a soft faint glow fading away. He looked up to where the rift had opened and realized that the colors were one and the same

A frown formed on his face, and deciding not to waste another moment, Jack took his phone from the inside pocket of his military style jacket he wore and was pulling up Tosh's number, but put the thought aside as Gwen pulled up in her little blue car. He called out to the brunette as he took a moment to try and she where the blood was pouring from, but she was lying on her injured side, "We've got a woman injured here. We need to get her inside and patch her up fast."

Carefully, he turned the woman onto her side, trying to not injure her any further. He saw that she was still breathing, but when he took a moment to see the victim's face, it was him whose breath had stopped. His one remaining question had been answered, leaving more in its wake. Lying before him was… It couldn't have been her, but he knew that face, even if it did look a little older. Here was Rose Tyler, who was supposed to be dead, instead, possibly dying if something wasn't done soon.

Gwen rushed over to the pair and looked at Jack. "I got here as fast as I could. Was she attacked by something that came through the rift?"

Jack shook his head, though the expression on his face made it clear that he wasn't exactly sure what was going on. He shook his head, his face going blank as he looked at the newest member of his team. "We need to get her inside. She's lost a lot of blood, and we need to get her taken care of."

"Then shouldn't we get her to the hospital?" the dark haired woman replied softly. "If she's lost a great deal of blood, then-"

"No. This girl has been listed as dead for three years. Taking her into the hospital will cause more problems than what we need to deal with. We need Owen to take a better look at the wound to see what caused it, but right now all that matters is getting her inside and stopping the bleeding," Jack snapped, his voice hurried, never giving Gwen a moment to interrupt.

The former constable simply nodded and watched Jack take off his jacket and drape it over the girl's helpless form. She couldn't help but note the way her leader was acting. She'd never seen him give off such an air of worry, even if he tried to keep his feelings from reaching his expression. He'd not acted in such a manner towards anyone. Then again, if what he said was true, that the girl had been listed as dead, then she didn't blame him.

Jack carefully lifted Rose, sighing a bit in relief when he heard her groan softly. It was a sign that she wasn't too far. That she might be strong enough to wake up and possibly explain how she'd gotten back. Now, the real question- Where was the Doctor in all of this?

He carried her down into the Torchwood hub and to the only place he could think of- the autopsy area. There wasn't actually any sort of infirmary in the building , and that didn't leave many other places unless he wanted the weevils howling for blood. Besides, he didn't want to expose her to too much since he wasn't sure what she'd been through recently. He wasn't even sure how many years had passed for her. Not too many since she barely looked older than when he'd last seen her. Then again, he'd barely changed, and he'd been alive for… Well, he didn't want to think about how many years he'd seen pass.

Gently placing the young traveler onto the table, he called Gwen down to help him, figuring that it might take the other agents a more than a few minutes to arrive. Looking to the brunette, he sighed. "I want you to keep pressure on the wound while I try to find the first aid kit in my office. Hopefully, cleaning it will buy some time for the others to get here. Give us some idea what happened to her."

She nodded and he quickly went to get the supplies as well as a hypodermic needle and a small vial of something to keep Rose from feeling pain should she wake up, though he doubted that would happen.

As they worked quickly, neither he nor Gwen noticed the entrance of Tosh and Owen until the Asian woman started towards the autopsy area. "What's happened Jack? Did somethi-" She cut herself short when she saw Jack and Gwen bent over a wounded woman, wounded only because she was still wearing a bra and, for the clincher, bleeding a bit from a nasty looking wound on her side.

Owen silently stood beside Tosh, taking in what was happening. From what he could see, the wound on her side didn't look like something that could be explained by claws to the flesh. Or teeth. It looked almost like a burn mark, but-

"What could have caused the wound?" he asked, putting his thoughts into words.

"I don't know. First glance gives the impression that it might have been caused by some sort of gun, but there's no sort of bullet, and I've not seen any laser wound that's looked like this before. Usually those are a bit cleaner," Jack stated. "That's wha-"

The living mystery was cut off when he heard the wounded blonde speak. Her voice was faint, and he could barely make it out, but from what he could tell, she'd said something along the lines of, "My doctor…"

"Rose?" he said softly, lowering himself so that he was looking at the girl's face. He could tell that her eyes were open, though they were glazed. There was a faint golden glow in the irises, giving Jack a faintly haunted feeling.

When Rose heard him, her gaze cleared faintly, but he could tell that she was aware enough to know who he was. She frowned a bit, a perplexed look on her face. "Jack? How are you here? I thought…" She groaned a bit, clenching her eyes shut to block out the pain that came as she tried to finish the sentence. "Where is he? Where's the-"

"Shh…" he whispered softly. Any one who knew the girl could probably guess what she was going to ask. Especially after starting a person's title with "the." He wasn't going to tell her that he didn't know. Better give the girl some time to recuperate before telling her that he'd not seen the man in far too many years. "Just try to relax. We can talk once you're taken care of, all right?"

"Jack, pl-"

"I promise, we'll talk once you're stronger," he told her, giving her a smile that he hoped would make her agree. Others had agreed to more when that smile was flashed. And they were usually in better shape than the girl was at the moment.

Rose simply sighed, too tired to continue trying to get the man to talk. She knew that if there was something he didn't want to talk about, he wouldn't. She knew that, and she hated him for it. They'd traveled together. She'd considered him family, and now, he was keeping the most important piece of information from her. So much for-

The blonde's thoughts were cut short by the feeling of gentle fingers on her skin, followed by a cloth. She'd not realized how hot her skin was until the cold of the material brushed against the wound she knew was there. It was hard to forget the sensations caused by a second generation energy gun designed to take out a Cyberman when on its highest setting

She was almost glad that it happened though. She knew she was back in her world. When she was first working for Torchwood, she looked up everyone she knew in her travels. Captain Jack Harkness hadn't even existed. The only records was a small boy who'd been murdered during an attack on the middle and northern parts of North America. They'd won, but the casualties were more than Rose had ever considered. A Phyrric victory if she'd ever heard of one.

"You're going to be all right," came a soft sounding feminine voice from behind her. Rose looked back at her, expression confused due to the woman's words, though that changed into a look of disbelief. She had never been a believer of reincarnation, but the woman looked too much like the young maid, Gwyneth. The woman who'd chosen to sacrifice herself in order to save her "angels."

"What?" Rose replied, finally snapping out of her reverie.

"You looked like… well… Like you were thinking of something that you shouldn't be. Like something bad, as silly as that sounds," she said.

"Oh… No… Just remembering something," Rose whispered.

"Nothing bad I hope, considering how you were staring at me," Gwen quipped, trying to lift the girl's spirits, though she had to admit that it was rather annoying. The longer the girl had been looking at her, the more and more her stomach seemed to clench up and her head started to hurt. There were odd flashes… Images in the woman's mind. They were so familiar, but too distant to be clear. Angels and blue. And the scent of gas. She had to take a step away from the table to try and clear her head.

"Gwen, you all right?" she heard Jack ask, bringing her attention back to the matter at hand.

She nodded her head slowly, looking over to Rose only to see that the woman's eyes were closed. She'd fallen asleep thanks to the pain killer that had been injected. That wasn't what was bothering Gwen though. Instead, it was the question how long had her eyes been like that?

She looked to Jack when she felt his hand on her shoulder. He looked her in the eye and told her, "Maybe you should head back home. If anything needs taken care of, we'll call you. I have a feeling that Rhys is wondering where you are right now. Besides, if I'm right, the answer to the question about the rift is laying on that table. I'll find out once Owen checks her wounds out more closely. If she's not the answer, then I'll contact you."

The constable turned special ops tried to come up with some sort of argument, but considering what she'd seen already, whether it was real or not, she might want to consider getting some rest. She sighed. "All right, but let me know if there's any change. If she came through the rift-"

"I will. Now go." Jack was surprised by the fact the woman didn't put up more of a fight, but it suited him just fine for the moment. Hopefully Owen wouldn't prove himself to be such a pain. "Owen get down here. I want you to see if you can get any sort of idea what might have caused this wound."

The team's doctor slowly made his way down, moving over to the woman's side. He looked down at her face, before looking over to his boss. "It doesn't look like any sort of gun or laser we've seen from what I could tell-"

"Then take a closer look at it. I'm not asking you to do much, but this girl needs our help, and if you even try to keep from helping her, I assure you, you'll wish I had been merciful enough to have let that Weevil rip your throat out," Jack snapped.

The question of why the girl drew such behavior out of the normally distant Captain ran through Owen's mind. Not even the faerie victims drew this sort of reaction out of him.

Owen didn't say anything though. Instead, he washed his hands and carefully put on a pair of gloves so that he could examine her wound without risking her any sort of infection. He carefully ran his fingers along the outer part of the abrasion, taking note of burn marks of varying degree. He had to say that the girl was lucky. No vitals hit, but it had been close. Just another inch or less over and she might not have survived.

Meanwhile, Jack had moved up into the main area of the hub, pacing a bit as he waited for Owen to finish. Looking towards the one remaining member, he nodded towards her station and said, "Tosh, I want you to do a search for any files concerning a Rose Tyler from London, specifically, the Powell Estates. Mother's name was Jackie Tyler."

"Right, Jack," said the computer genius of the group. She quickly set off to work, but wasn't quite sure what she could learn that Jack didn't already know.

Hey everyone. Sorry for the wait, but I had the hardest time writing this chapter. Anyways, don't worry. The Doctor will be making his appearance very soon. And thanks to those who reviewed. They were greatly appreciated. :)