5
Let the game begin.
Tosh awoke with the feeling that a considerable amount of time had passed. Her back and neck ached, and she could not identify if her rump was attached, or even present. This all could be attributed to the fact that she sat against a wall, with her head nearly resting on her left shoulder. There was a pressure on her thighs, and upon looking down, her laptop came into view. Her hands rested to either side of her, unbound and unharmed; her legs, too, were completely free. Coupled with the presence of her laptop, the situation puzzled her. Here she was, propped against a wall, free of restraint with her laptop resting on her legs. From the feel of things, she had been here for a substantial stretch of breath, unconscious. Putting her computer adjacent to the wall, Toshiko struggled to her feet. She stumbled as the blood rushed to her extremities, and finally noted her surroundings.
The wall she had been against appeared to be the end of a corridor, dirty, poorly lit. Pipes hugged the walls at waist height, some missing and others continuing out of site a hundred meters ahead. The corridor smelled of stale water with a vague accent of brackish stagnation. The temperature hovered only a few degrees below tepid, where the necessity of a jacket is borderline. Tosh leaned towards the want for the extra material, for the comfort of familiarity rather than added warmth; her laptop was something hard, impassive, whereas a jacket retained feeling and could always be likened with . . . happier occurrences that her current one. How had she even gotten here? She had been going to work and...everything after that became hazy, unattainable.
Pushing the somewhat dolorous thoughts if daylight and comforting heat from the front of her mind, Toshiko hugged her laptop to her chest and started forward.
"Okay, one, two, three!"
Gwen and Ianto hauled Jack to his feet; he cried out as they pulled one of his arms over each of their shoulders.
"Felling any better?" Gwen queried, trying to see Jack's face.
"No," he ground out, taking his arm off Gwen's shoulder to press around his side. "But it feels like it's healing."
"That's good."
The silence fell immediately and absolutely, disrupted by Jack's slightly accelerated breathing. Ianto looked to Gwen, but she shook her head. Both of them looked to Jack, but his head was bent forward, eyes closed. It was fairly obvious he was concentrating on his sliced ribs. The silence existed as more than awkward: it personified of all their uncertainties, the collective swell of their unspoken fears. This lack of sound had a life of its own. A body of still air and a vile spirit of malice that preyed on doubt and fright. All the bad, bound to an indefinite form.
"Did you get a tape, Ianto?" Gwen needed there to be sound; it kept her mind from wandering in unfavourable directions.
". . . No. Why do you ask?"
"Well . . . Jack, did you?"
A nod.
Gwen swallowed before speaking. "I got a tape telling me what . . ." She closed her eyes for a few seconds before speaking again. "Telling me what I had to do to unlock myself, to escape."
Ianto's brow creased in confused contemplation as he focused nearly all his attention on his wide-eyed team mate.
"What where you locked to?"
"A pipe. And . . . and there was a body." She chocked on the last word.
"Gwen—" Jack began, but she cut him off.
"It said the key was somewhere inside, and that I had to find it. There was a knife . . ." With each word she sounded closer and closer to tears.
Jack dropped his arm from Ianto's and stood before Gwen, placing both hands on her shoulders, smiling kindly. A rather lacklustre attempt to placate her that he silently prayed would work.
"Try not to think about it, Gwen. It's done with—"
"I had to— to dissect him like some dead animal in a biology class! The stench of it! How can I not think about that, Jack?!"
Tears finally escaped her eyes and slid down her dirty cheeks. Jack winced as she clung to him, sobbing into the front of his coat. He placed a hand on the back of her head, whispering soothing words and rubbing her back, trying to comfort her. He glanced back to Ianto, but the younger man only raised his eyebrows in question and put his hands into his pockets. He in no way was going to help. Jack's eyes lingered on Ianto's. The captain tried to convey his annoyance through that stare. Ianto dropped his eyes to the floor and scratched at his head.
Gwen squeezed Jack particularly hard and he gasped, letting go of her and doubling over with his arms wrapped around his abdomen.
"Oh my god, Jack, I am so sorry!"
"That's great, Gwen, but it's not going to make it stop hurting."
Gwen, unable to think of a response, slid down the wall until she thumped softly to the ground. Jack followed suit with a grimace, facing Gwen, hunched forward. Ianto just stood, looking from one to the other, unsure of what to do. It didn't seem like anything needed to be done.
Jack scooted closer until he was able to reach Gwen's hands, which he took in his own.
"Gwen, look at me."
She complied, eyes wide and frightened.
"I'm fine, 'kay?"
She nodded numbly, dropping her eyes to the floor once more. But Jack tugged on her hands, pulling her a little ways from the wall.
"It's not your fault. Don't think that for a second."
She finally looked up, a minute smile attempting to move to corners of her mouth. Jack beamed, hoping to assure her that, despite the acid fire his sides had become, he was fine and one way or another would live. It had some effect. Gwen's smile expanded and her eyes shed their first layer of fear.
"There's the Gwen Cooper we all know and love."
Gwen gave him a long-suffering look before rising, offering Jack her hand. He allowed her to pull him to his feet, and was, to his amazement, able to stand without losing the location of his head. Or having his feet dissolve into vague smoke lumps that may or may not be touching the ground.
"Anyone care for a stroll?"
With that, he slipped his hands in his pockets and walked forward, glancing over his shoulder with a playfully challenging look. He'd be damned if he couldn't walk on his own for at least a few minutes. And, it was best that they think he to be fine. Much better. Less stress on them, less worrying for him.
Right. Don't kid yourself, Harkness.
Gwen and Ianto exchanged smiles and started after the captain.
The failing lights overhead only further agitated her. They constantly cast her into darkness, in spurts short enough to make her eyes conjure shapes that didn't really exist. Toshiko felt so on edge that she believed something would jump her at any moment; it would have been an expectation and a simultaneous shock. The fact that the one thing she had with which to defend herself was her laptop did nothing to make her feel in control of the situation. If she did happen upon anything, she hoped it wouldn't want or need to kill her. However, she invested more hope in the possibility that she didn't encounter anything at all.
While more time elapsed, Tosh grew steadily and progressively uneasy. The certainty that she would be attacked became undeniable. Tosh knew something was going to present itself soon, and her mind refused to accept that. Plausible deniability: pretend that knife in your chest isn't there and maybe it'll just disappear. Which is why, when she heard a faint hissing, her mind rammed the sound into the dusty recesses of thought, and shoved forward a notion that it was simply her pants brushing against each other. This trick of the mind is not, however, unable to make physical beings vanish.
Toshiko slowed as she neared a corner, shuffling around it with her laptop hugged protectively to her chest.
But she still startled when she saw the weevil.
It was staring at her, head tilting from side to side, upper lip drawing over its top teeth occasionally. It hissed quietly, shifting constantly, sometimes forward, other times back. It growled and started forward.
"Oh no you don't," Tosh whispered vehemence turned the warning to a hiss in its own respect.
The weevil stopped, hesitant.
"I'm sick of being knocked out and waking up in dark places with no explanation! It's bad enough not knowing where in the hell you are, but to come across a weevil? What else is down here, what other alien life? Whoever it is that set this up is going to have hell to pay, I can guarantee you that!"
The weevil canted its head to the left, bemused. Toshiko ignored it and kept on with her rant.
"Ever since that incident in the countryside, I've known; someone's been watching us," she scoffed, laughing slightly, "Just waiting for the opportune moment to snatch us all! Look how easy it was for bloody villagers!"
Whatever part of the weevil made decisions decided this female was not worth listening to. It started forward with confidence, sure of its intent.
Toshiko tensed, raising her laptop. The weevil was feet away when she swung it forward, yelling at the top of her lungs.