Chapter 5

Owen opened his eyes just as dawn began to break. He hadn't meant to fall asleep but the hand of exhaustion upon his shoulder had been just too strong – he'd been powerless to resist. He turned his stiff neck tentatively to observe Toshiko, still asleep, in the passenger seat beside him. Her own face was still congealed with dry blood, and had started to swell. Owen made a mental note to get ice on it for her as soon as he could to try and minimise the bruising, before glancing up in the rear view mirror to check on Jack in the back. Ianto still sat in the seat directly behind him - his head had slumped forward and his mouth was slightly open – Gwen's eyes were closed too and she was still snoring lightly with her head resting gently against his shoulder.

Jack on the other hand, although still alarmingly pale, was very much awake.

"Jack!" Owen exclaimed, trying to stifle a yawn, as he turned around in his seat to look at him. "How are you feeling?" He asked, rubbing his tired eyes wearily, before unbuckling his seatbelt.

"Much better!" Jack nodded, shuffling in his seat as he said this however – trying to get comfortable. Owen wasn't convinced. "I've been up close to the last hour waiting for you lot to wake up!" He smiled.

There was something about the way he still held himself that made Owen feel uneasy, as though he was still uncomfortable, but doing his best to hide it. A healthy Jack would certainly not have spent the past hour waiting for the rest of his team to wake up – he'd have woken them all up himself in his impatience to get on with the job in hand.

"We need to get back to the Hub!" Jack insisted.

"Well, let me be the judge of that!" Owen insisted as he unlocked the driver's side door. The cold air felt refreshing against his hot skin, and the fresh scent of the morning's breeze provided a welcome wake up after the stuffy, stale air inside the vehicle.

Owen had had the heating turned up all night and as he opened the passenger door on Jack's side of the SUV he noticed the man shiver as a result of the cold.

"Let's take a look at your wounds." He sighed.

As Owen peeled away the layers of Jack's bandages he was surprised that the man could appear so calm. He hadn't had any morphine in several hours, and should have been writhing. Anyone else would have been beside themselves with the pain by now. The gauze and layers of dressings were soaked in blood and yellow fluid from his weeping wounds, some had even dried in places forming a slightly sticky layer of crusty matter, acting like a glue and making it very difficult to prise the dressings away from Jack's raw skin. Other gauze pads were still wet in areas, and where Owen gently stripped them away he revealed large open wounds still oozing blood beneath. He grimaced at the sight of the mess this caused.

"Jack," He addressed him seriously, "this is bad. The extent of these injuries in anyone else other than you would be a serious cause for concern, and even as things stand I'm worried. I'm going to give you another dose of morphine to help with the pain, and you're almost certain to be anaemic from the amount of blood you've lost." He explained.

"Don't go wasting medical supplies on me Owen." Jack insisted. "I'm fine, really. This is nothing… believe me I've had worse. Besides, you know I heal quicker than most."

"Yes but you're not are you Jack?" Owen asked him.

Jack didn't respond – Owen was right. He wasn't healing as rapidly as he should have been. The fall from the top of the tower block had killed him. When he'd revived he should have been healed – but he wasn't about to burden his team with the reason why this hadn't happened.

"I'll have you take iron tablets for the next couple of weeks, just to be on the safe side," Owen explained to him, "and then I'll check your blood for any remaining abnormalities. These wounds will need redressing for now, and then I'll try to change them at least three times daily, at least until the bleeding stops. You're also likely to be dehydrated, you're losing a lot of bodily fluids from these wounds." He reached up to check the contents of Jack's IV bag, noticing that it was already almost empty. "I'll give you another bag of saline as well." He said.

Jack shook his head.

"No time." He explained. "We need to get back to the Hub now!" He was becoming more and more agitated by the minute – his voice raised, it's tone urgent.

"Jack you need to rest!" Owen insisted.

"I've already rested!" Jack exclaimed. "I can rest once we've seen to John. We can't risk leaving him to roam the streets of Cardiff, he's dangerous. Look what he did to Gwen, to you and Tosh! He came here because he tracked me down… this is all my fault. Owen if you really want me to rest I can rest easier once I know he can't hurt anybody else! You don't know what he's capable of! What he did tonight is only the tip of a very large ice-berg!"

He sat back, clearly exhausted despite his insistence to the contrary, and Ianto began to stir. His head rolled back against the headrest, his eyelids flickered, and finally he opened his eyes. It took him a moment to realise where he was and for him to remember what had transpired the evening before. He wasn't waking up to the beautiful Cardiff sunrise streaming through the curtains of his apartment, or in the chair behind his desk where he'd sometimes grab a few hours sleep after a busy night's work, when he hadn't had time to return home. He'd never woken to find himself having spent the night in the back of the SUV before.

He turned to Jack sitting beside him. Owen was still leaning in through the open passenger side door, applying the last of the Captain's fresh bandages before administering him with a fresh dose of morphine. He'd measured out, drawn up and injected the contents of the syringe into Jack's IV line before the man had even had time to protest.

"Jack?" Ianto asked his lover, uncertainly.

"I'm alright Ianto." Jack tried to reassure him. "It's just a little scratch."

"Jack," Owen sighed, "You've broken your back in several places, you're ribs are fractured, not to mention any internal injuries you may have sustained, and if you could see your back you would realise that it's more than just a scratch, but one massive open wound! Now will you stop behaving as though it's nothing more than a grazed knee and just, for once, listen to me!"

"I've told you Owen!" Jack responded, finally finding the strength to assert some authority over the situation. "I'll rest once we've dealt with Captain John… now are you going to get behind that driver's wheel, because if you don't I will!" He demanded, already making move to push past Owen and get out the car.

"Hmph…" Owen groaned, his mounting frustration evident. He fixed Jack with a hard stare as he began tidying away what was left of the assorted medical equipment on the back passenger seat – making it clear that he did not approve – before disposing of the empty packaging.

"I'll drive!" He finally relented.

Owen slammed the passenger door shut and made his way around the side of the car, jumping into the driver's seat, as Ianto looked from Jack, to Owen, and back again. He could feel the Welshman's eyes boring into the back of his head as he reached across to put the small medical kit back in the glove compartment – being careful not to catch Tosh's knees with his arm as he did so. She was still dozing restlessly beside him, her own face now set in a pained grimace – her bruises troubling her even in sleep.

Owen turned the keys in the ignition and the engine revved into life. He glanced in the rear view mirror just in time to watch Jack tare his IV line out – stemming the small trickle of blood from the vein in the back of his hand with a discarded gauze pad.

Gwen began to stir.

"Where are we going?" Ianto asked him, confused.

"Back to the Hub." Jack growled – voice thick with uncharacteristic venom. "I have a bone to pick with Captain John Hart!"