A/N: many, many thanks to those who are sticking with this and/or continuing to review!! Everyone is appreciated. Yes, regarding the title of this one, I ended up on a Star Trek kick… the only bad thing about that is for three days I haven't been able to get The Firm's "Star Trekkin'" out of my head!
Hope you all enjoy. Please reveiw if you do ;-) We're almost to the end.
Chapter Fourteen: It's Life Jack, But Not as We Know It
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Cardiff, Wales (UK):
Shapes and colours drifted by, slowly at first and then faster. Under her skin, the muscles stretched, filling with blood. The sound of her own heartbeat throbbed in her ears.
Scent and sound mingled together, damp green earth, cool, dark water. Ice against fur and flesh.
Searing, blinding pain… Ozone and fire… An ear shattering scream that she only barely recognized as her own voice.
Wendy sat bolt upright in the strange bed, her breath coming fast and hard in ragged gulps as if she'd just run a long way. The room was silent but for the sound of her heart still beating in her ears.
Her chest constricted in panic as strange smells washed over her, overwhelming everything, even the pounding beating of her heart. She tried to get her bearings, but all she could make out were unfamiliar shapes in the darkness and smell of coffee and spice. Deep heat… Cinnamon and musk. Fire. Sex.
A flush of heat overtook her cheeks as she realized the scents weren't unfamiliar after all. It was Ianto and Jack. She was in their bed.
Wendy closed her eyes and took a slow easy breath, trying to calm her heartbeat. She knew she was safe here, she was with friends, people who cared about her, but every muscle in her body ached with irrational fear and loneliness.
She took another deep breath and let it out slowly, counting to ten as she exhaled. She was all right. Jack was a good man, Ianto was her best friend…
But I may never look at the two of them the same way again, she thought.
She slid out of their bed and realized she was barefooted. That had to be Ianto's doing. It made her smile to picture him pulling off her shoes before putting her in his bed. He could be so anal… She blushed again.
Wendy padded across the cool floor to the bathroom. The smooth chill of the floor felt good against her bare feet, like ice easing away the fire of a hazy memory that niggled at the back of her brain anyway, refusing to go away.
She shook herself and turned on the tap, letting the water run cold.
Beyond the hard smooth walls she knew there was earth and stone. She felt it calling to her, singing the comforts of the moist Mother Earth. She shook herself again. Her senses shouldn't reach that far, not through concrete and steel. Even in the worse throws of puberty, with every sense being assaulted by hormones, she hadn't been as acutely aware of the Damp Earth as this.
She cupped her hands and splashed cold water on her face, but it didn't help. She had to steady herself against the sink as her knees buckled under the weight of strange memories pulling themselves up to the surface of her conscious mind.
Shapes and colours… Dark damp earth… Water… Cold and black … Heat and spice…
Fumbling, she pushed the bathroom door shut, but the hot smell didn't go away. It burned, searing through her from the inside out.
"Wendy?" Ianto's voice cut through the pain. "Wen? Are you all right?" he asked, finding her on the bathroom floor, shaking. He knelt down next to her but she scrambled away from his touch. "Wendy! What's the matter?"
She pulled further away, bringing her knees up protectively in front of her. "I'm sorry," she said to the hurt look in his blue eyes. "It's not you, Yan. It is you," she corrected, sobbing, "but it isn't. I can't explain it. There's… there's fire, everywhere. Everything burns. I can't make it stop."
"Wendy, calm down. It's going to be all right…"
"I have to get out of here. I need air… No! Don't touch me! " She pulled back when he reached for her again. "Please… I'm sorry," she added to his pained expression. "Your scent is everything that hurts." She pushing past him, more roughly than she meant to but she needed to get out of the room. She needed air…
"Wendy? Wendy!" he followed her out into the bedroom.
"Ianto?" Jack called from up above.
She followed the sound of his voice, knowing it would lead her out.
The rungs of the ladder stung against her palms and bare feet as painfully as if they were made of silver even though she knew they were iron. She pulled herself up into the office.
"Wendy…?" One look at her as she propelled herself up the ladder was all Jack needed to understand the panic he'd heard in Ianto's voice. "What's going on?" He tried to catch her, but her expression was one of warning. "Wendy, take it easy," He backed away, both hands raised. "Talk to me…"
"I can't. I have to get out." Her gaze darted around the room wildly, as if looking for door, like she didn't know where she was even though she'd been in his office several times before.
"Hey… hey!" Jack manoeuvred himself between her and the rest of the Hub. "Let's talk…"
"Let me out!"
"Wendy!" Ianto snapped at her, emerging from the hole that served as a door to their quarters.
She whirled around and glared at him at the same time as Jack shot him a look of his own. If she lost control, he could survive it, but the younger man didn't stand a chance.
"Look at me," Jack coaxed her, desperate to draw her attention away from Ianto. "Talk to me. Tell me what I can do to help you."
When she faced him again, her expression a mix of fear and pain. It reminded him of their first encounter. "Please, Jack, I just need to get out of here. Please." Her knees buckled again. "Don't touch me!" She pulled away as he reached for her. When Ianto tried, she backed frantically way from him, too. "They're pulling me apart! Make it stop! Jack… please…"
He caught her as she slipped into unconsciousness, scooping her up into his arms.
……………………………………………..
Bobby and Liz both looked up as Jack carried Wendy, still unconscious, down the steps into the medical bay with Ianto right behind him; both men wore worried expressions.
"What happened?" Liz asked the question first, pulling her arms out of the thick 'gloves' of the quarantine unit.
"I don't know." Jack laid Wendy down on the table. "She passed out in my office."
"What happened just before she lost consciousness?" Bobby asked him, a deep frown working its way across his face. He pulled off his gloves and placed his hand on her cheek. Her skin was cool to the touch. He checked her pupils but they seemed normal. He shot an expectant look at Jack and Ianto.
"She said she needed to get out," the Captain told him. "She was disoriented, almost… manic," he shrugged, not sure it was really the right word to describe the frantic state she'd been in when she came up the ladder.
"She seemed to be… afraid of me, like she didn't know where she was." Instead of stuffing his hands into his pockets, he snaked one arm around Ianto's waist and pulled him close. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but it was the best he had to offer.
"I found her shaking on the bathroom floor," Ianto added, his tone betraying how helpless he felt. "She said everything burned and pulled away from me, too. She wasn't making any sense."
Bobby turned to Liz, "You examined her before. Maybe you should be doing this." He knew Wendy was his responsibility, but if Jack had any objections, he kept them to himself.
………………………………………………
In a landscape of sound and colour, understanding began to filter through the pain.
The burning subsided and only the longing remained, the need to return to the cool dark place… The cold water… Home… The Whole.
She understood the bonds of kinship because her own heart ached with the need to be with own kind again. She needed that family as much as she needed air, as much as she needed freedom.
But they cast her out. She broke the law and they cast her out. There was no turning back, no changing their minds. She would never run with her kin again, never see them or speak to them, not in this lifetime or any other.
And so she understood. Through the colour and the light and the dark, and the cool, and the heat, and the pain, she understood that sometimes it was better to die than to be separated from The Whole.
……………………………………………..
"Wendy?" Liz's voice filtered through the haze of strange colour.
She blinked in confusion, uncertain where she was or what was happening. Slowly the haze seemed to lift from her senses… Liz… Ianto… Bobby… Jack. She found the Captain's face in the dark and met his gaze. "You have to stop," she told him, surprised at the sound of her own voice, weak it and ragged. "Please, Jack. You have to stop it."
He frowned, clearly not understanding. "Stop what?"
"Stop the killing," she begged him.
Ianto looked at her, just as confused as Jack was, "Wendy, what are you talking about? We're not killing anybody," the Welshman said.
She shook her head, "You don't understand. You are."
"Who am I supposed to be killing?" Jack asked her.
Despite their protests, Wendy pulled herself up off the table, accepting Bobby's assistance when her knees began to give out again.
"Wendy?" the Captain inquired.
"You don't understand," she told him.
She pulled away from Bobby and moved toward the quarantine unit, peering in. Liz had broken several of the specimens apart, probably taking samples. Before anyone could stop her, she lifted the lid and reached in.
Instinctively, Jack pushed Ianto behind him and grabbed Bobby by the arm, shoving him towards the steps. "Get out," he told them, motioning for Liz to go too.
Wendy picked up one of the crystals.
"Wendy," Jack said her name again. The stone in her hand began to pulse with weak green light. "Put that down and let's talk."
She looked up at him without seeming to actually see him. The pulse of light grew stronger.
Ianto swallowed the cold lump of fear in his throat, refusing to be leave, even when Jack told them to get out a second time.
The older man shot Liz a desperate look. She nodded and with Bobby's help, dragged the protesting Welshman up the steps. "Lock the place down," he added to Liz.
Jack took a step closer to Wendy. "Can you hear me?" he asked, keeping his voice calm.
"It's better to die than to live apart from your own kind," she told him softly, still seeming to be looking through him rather than at him.
"Wendy, look at me… look at me." He had to work hard to ignore the sound of Ianto's increasingly anxious tone above them. "Wendy," he took another step forward. "You have friends here. People who love you," he reminded her. "You're not alone. I promise you, you you'll never be alone."
She blinked, suddenly seeming to see him again. "I know. I trust you."
"All right, good." He was standing right in front of her by then, but he was afraid to make any sudden moves. She was almost as deadly as the crystal in her hands. "Put that down and let's talk…"
She took a step back away from him. "No. No, you don't understand."
"Ok. So talk to me. Tell me. Help me understand."
"It's like… like when a bee stings someone, to protect the hive. The bee dies. It's better to die protecting what's important to you than to lose it, than to live apart."
He frowned, not understanding at all.
"Listen to me, please," she begged him. "You have to listen."
"I'm listening," he assured her. So far the all crystal seemed to be doing was glowing soflty green; it didn't seem to be hurting her – or anyone else. "You said something about bees dying to protect the hive, right?"
"That's the only thing I can compare them to."
"Them?"
She nodded to the stone in her hands.
His frown deepened, "What are you trying to say? That that's some kind of… of life form?" His tone was sceptical.
"Not the way we define it. Not the way we understand it. But I can feel it. I understand it."
"Why you?"
"My people are more in tune with the patterns of life than humans. It's… it's what set me off so badly about you. You're not a part of the web of life."
He blinked, unsettled by the comment. This wasn't the time to consider a statement like that or the way it made her look at him with such incredible sadness in her eyes, but it made him stop and pause anyway.
"So I'm not a part of…some kind of 'web of life', but that thing is?" he wanted to know.
"It's… sentient, Jack. It's aware."
"It killed three people," he reminded her.
"They didn't have a choice. Separated from The Whole, from their own kind… it hurt. I understand that kind of hurting. You know how desperate I was before I understood what you were really about here," she reminded him. "I would rather have died than live locked up like that.."
He gave her a long, measured look. "You really understand that thing?"
"On a very basic level, yes."
"What about those three dead people in my morgue?" he asked again, settling his hands on his hips.
"Jack, the amount of energy it took to kill those people killed them, too," she nodded at the stone in her hands. "The ones who tried to kill you in the cave are all dead. It's like bees protecting the hive. They died trying to protect The Whole… or trying to find a way to communicate."
"The specimens we found at Miller's and Warren's…"
Wendy shook her head. "There's enough residual energy to trace, but they're as dead as Miller and Warren and the other guy. Use that thing of yours, see for yourself," she nodded at his wrist strap. "This one's still alive," she glanced at the two stones still in the containment unit, "they're dead. When Liz pulled them apart… " she glanced up at the scientist. It wasn't Liz's fault, she didn't know… she couldn't have. None of them did.
"It's not going to try and kill me again, is it?" he asked, still sceptical.
"No."
"And you passing out?" he inquired, as he flipped open the control panel on his wrist strap and began taking readings. It didn't register as any form of life he'd ever heard of. "Was that just their way of saying 'hello'?" He was satisfied that the one in her hands was giving off stronger readings than the two in the containment unit, but that was all he was sure about.
"They were desperate for a way to communicate. They weren't trying to hurt me it just... just to get through, to be heard." She struggled to find the right words. "It was like sensory overload. They don't think the way we do. They don't communicate in words, just… feelings. It's all a jumble of light and colour and scents. It was too much all at once, but I feel fine now."
He regarded her a long moment. Just because it didn't look like she'd been possessed by some alien life form… "You're sure?" he asked.
"Liz can check me over if it'll make you happy."
"As a matter of fact it would."
Wendy nodded. "What about these?" she asked of the crystal. "What are you going to do with them?"
"They're too dangerous…"
"They're only dangerous if they feel threatened," she said a little too defensively for him.
"Why don't we talk about it later?"
"This isn't some kind of invasion. They didn't even come to Earth voluntarily."
"How did they get here?"
"The best I can piece together is that that meteorite used to be a part of some larger body, an asteroid or a maybe a small planet, I don't know. I smell green… feel cold… water… then fire… burning. Darkness. Then the ocean. Our ocean." She shrugged. "They fell here. They didn't attack the first people who found them, but then they were pulled apart, separated from each other. It hurt."
He considered a moment before proposing an solution. "What if I can find one big room to put them all into, together? Do they need anything special?"
"They don't sustain themselves the way we do, they don't need food or water or… or much of anything except each other. As long as they're together," she looked down at the stone in her hands, truly understanding.
All she needed was her own kin, but she would never see them again.
Jack gave her another long look, "You really do understand that… " he began in a soft tone, only he couldn't find the right words. Torchwood may have been set up to hunt down and eliminate alien threats – to claim alien technology by whatever means necessary – but that wasn't who he was.
Wendy's smile was enough, though. He knew she understood what he was having a hard time saying.
"You're one of the good guys, Jack." She told him. "I trust you. All of you," she added, glancing up at Liz, Bobby and Ianto.
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"To your first day at Torchwood," Bobby raised his wineglass towards Wendy. They were back at Ianto's flat after a very long day. A very long week.
Smiling, she met his glass with her own, with small clink. "And my new flatmate," she told him.
He laughed, "I'll drink to that." At the moment, he would drink to almost anything.
They both drank quite a bit of the wine. Bobby topped up both their glasses. "I think this is the first time I've gotten back here before midnight all week," he murmured, glancing at the clock.
"You know you really don't have to give up the bedroom to me…"
He shook his head, cutting her off, "What kind of a gentleman would I be to ask you to sleep on the couch?"
"As long as you're sure you really don't mind."
"I really don't. Besides, with any luck I'll be able to find my own place soon, so it's just for a while, right? And it seems like a comfortable couch," he pushed at the cushions. "I've definitely slept on worse."
"I thought you were some kind of rich doctor or something."
He scoffed, "Not all doctors are rich." He drank some more wine. "I guess… I was at one point. Then my father disowned me. Or maybe we disowned each other," he shrugged.
She gave him an inquisitive look, silently inviting him to continue if he wanted to.
"It's a long story." He drained his glass and refilled it. Wendy didn't press the issue, but he realized he felt like talking to her. "My dad ran out on my mom and me when I was a kid. She was an alcoholic and he couldn't stand living that way."
"He didn't take you with him?"
"Why would he? I was just a kid, I would have been too much of a burden on him. He was a doctor too," he explained, settling back into the sofa. "My dad never had much time for us even when he was around."
"I have never understood parents who abandon their children."
Bobby shrugged again, but didn't say more on the subject.
Wendy rearranged herself into a more comfortable position next to him. "What happened? Do you mind me asking?"
He shook his head, getting a little more comfortable himself. "The last time I saw my father was a few months before he died. That was a couple of years ago now, I guess. He didn't even bother telling me he was dying. He told my boss instead. He didn't tell me either."
"This infamous sounding Dr. House you've talked about?" she took a big sip of her wine.
Bobby chucked, "That would be the one. It doesn't matter, though," he continued in a more sombre tone. "I wouldn't have gone to my father's funeral anyway. He cut me out of his will a long time ago. That's not why I wouldn't have gone, though."
"I know. I mean… I understand." She blushed a little. "I don't mean to say I think I know you that well."
He shrugged, "I don't have anything to hide. Erm…not that I meant… " he floundered.
Wendy shook her head, cutting him off. "I know you didn't mean that towards me."
Still embarrassed, Bobby reached for the wine bottle to refill their glasses. They both noticed that the bottle was getting empty quickly. There were two more chilling in the fridge, however.
They were all under strict orders to relax and not come in until lunch tomorrow, even Gwen who had missed the excitement at the Hub. Jack had sent her back to Barry to coordinate with the local police who were fielding calls from people afraid that every little thing they'd picked up on the beach might be radioactive.
"If we're going to keep drinking like this," Wendy suggested, "We should probably get something to eat."
"Good idea. Does anybody around here deliver this late?"
"A couple of places, but if you don't mind the walk there's a fantastic Italian restaurant not too far from here. If we hurry we can get there before they close and get take away."
"Italian it is," he hauled himself to his feet and offered her his hand.
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It was just past two o'clock in the morning when Alison Cameron got off a plane at Cardiff International airport and found a taxi.
She knew she would never be able to sleep, but it was too early to do more than check into a hotel, take a shower try to figure out what she was going to say to Robert when she found him.