PLAGUE
NINE
The various involved governmental and non-governmental organizations were still arguing over what to do with the lone survivor of the space station catastrophe when Sunjammer came to rest in a desolate quarry northwest of Cardiff.
Working with the local constabulary and the Cardiff authorities, the Torchwood team had cordoned off an area of several square kilometers ("gas leak" the curious had been told), and Owen met the returning travelers with the SUV.
No media or other onlookers were present to see them hurried into the vehicle and driven off.
Once in the car and behind dimmed windows, Jack and Wil removed their helmets, but left the French astronaute as they had found him, fully suited. He was alive, with stable vital signs thanks to the life support in his suit, but unconscious. It was fortunate that he was so small, and Jack so large; the latter had strapped the young man to his chest in order to get him off the station, rather than spend the time to locate or jury-rig some sort of carrier. It had been messy and difficult but they'd managed to get the Frenchman out and strapped down in the Sunjammer.
Monsieur Teitler had been totally oblivious to the whole process.
Rescuing a survivor had helped Wil quiet the pain of leaving the deceased behind. To Jack they were just empty shells, but for her – she couldn't see them that way. They'd been people with loves, desires, hopes and dreams. All quashed forever, now.
She thought of the Japanese woman who she'd found strapped in a sleeping creche, her long hair softly moving around her face as if she was alive – but she had instead been horribly dead. Wil closed her eyes and stifled a small sob. Owen, as usual driving like a bat out of hell, glanced sideways at her but said nothing.
She found herself both envying and abhorring Jack's apparent callousness. She glanced up into the rear-view mirror and saw that he appeared to be sleeping. But she knew better – she knew Jack didn't sleep. During the long conversations she'd had with him, The Doctor and Rose back in the Brave Woman galaxy they'd talked mostly about her – embarrassingly and endlessly about her – but they also had spoken at length of themselves.
That's when he'd told her that he couldn't die, and didn't sleep.
She had believed him of course, believed everything they'd revealed about themselves – the Captain, the Time Lord and his loyal companion.
However, she'd had trouble believing what they'd said about her, and what she'd done. But along with the rest she'd accepted and embraced it, and then she'd moved on.
Standing still was not one of her hobbies.
She looked up at him again. Jack's concern was for the living, not the lifeless. Was it partially because he was jealous, she wondered -- envious of the dead?
Owen veered around a corner into the tunnel that led directly down into the complex. He looked up at his rear-view mirror and snapped "Jack! Wake up! We're here."
Wil was still gazing into the mirror and with a small amount of alarm saw Jack's eyes flutter open and what seemed to be a startled look of confusion flash across his face.
Could he have lied, she wondered. Had he been asleep?
Whatever, he appeared to recover quickly as he barked out orders. "I want Ianto back here on the double; have Tosh and Gwen meet us with a gurney, and then tell them to head out and deal with the media. We'll take our visitor directly to the clinic."
"Already done," responded Owen, who, Wil thought, looked as rattled as she felt.