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CHAPTER 3

Their first move was to pull the body from the temporary storage in the autopsy bay and lay it out on the table. Owen prepared the instruments he would need and Jack quickly sent off two texts, one to Gwen and one to Tosh, to tell them that they would need to be quiet on entry to the Hub and that they should head round to autopsy once they were in.

"Okay, humanoid, approximately six foot two. Do you know what species it is?" Owen glanced up at Jack, who pocketed his phone and turned around, shaking his head.

"I don't recognise it, but we can't rule out the possibility of it being a shape-shifter until we've had a look inside." Jack shrugged and Owen carried on writing out the physical details. He examined the eyes and mouth, taking swabs of the teeth and finger nails and setting them to one side.

He picked up a scalpel and paused for a moment. The creature looked like your typical wrestler – bald, lots of muscle and tattoos. Before he started cutting him open, Owen snapped photos of the unusual and highly distinctive black lines patterning the alien's upper arms, neck and head. He had very lightly tanned skin, tinged blue around the nails, mouth and eyes - even before the bullet had ripped his heart clean from its major blood vessels. His eyes were more elongated than a typical human's, the iris' a deep, haunting violet.

Owen put the scalpel to the skin with a carefully restrained anticipation. Any new species always fascinated him, no matter how violent they'd been before their death. He sliced the chest open and used a bone saw to open the rib cage. As suspected, the heart was lying uselessly in a pool of half congealed blood. It smelt truly awful.

"Hang on, Owen, what's wrong with the lungs?" Jack was pulling his t-shirt collar up over his nose with one hand as he leaned forwards, pointing to the open chest cavity.

"It looks like there're four of them…" Owen said in astonishment. A little more careful slicing and a couple of scans of the head and Owen deduced that one pair was dedicated to the nose and the other, larger pair were attached to the mouth. He took samples from each pair of lungs and ran them through a quick scan. "The ones attached to the nose seem to be designed for scent… there're receptors throughout the lining – probably to help with tracking their prey. The second, larger pair are the same as ours, designed for breathing only. They're completely independent of each other."

"Whoa… That's what I call evolution. If their ability for smell is so accentuated, what would you say to the idea that the other senses are heightened as well?" Jack mused, meeting Owen's eyes as the medic nodded in contemplation.

"Yeah… yeah, that's a good thought." Owen looked at the body for a moment before handing Jack a scalpel. "Get me samples of the tongue and inside of the cheeks. I'll do another scan of the head and then one of the nervous system."

They worked quietly and efficiently, moving around and through each other in perfect sync. It was only fifteen minutes later when they had confirmation that the ear ducts were almost three times larger than a typical human's and there were ten times as many taste buds situated in the mouth and on the tongue. The nervous system showed that the skin, whilst being extremely thick and leathery, had an enormous amount of nerve endings. Had a fly landed on the creature, it would've known.

"It's all making sense now." Jack leaned back against the wall, arms folded as he chewed on the inside of his lip gently. "No wonder it took us so long to track him – he's the ultimate hunter. It makes us look pathetic in comparison."

"That as may be, but we still need to work out how he infected Ianto and what with." Owen gestured at him with a scalpel and Jack suddenly snapped from the pensive mood that had claimed him, nodding.

He was just about to reply when he heard the cog door rolling back and hurried, quiet footsteps as the two women headed into the Hub and round to where they were.

"What's going on?" Gwen's voice was loud, bouncing gently off the walls and making Owen and Jack wince and realise just how quietly they'd been working and speaking over the past half hour. Owen just gestured them down stairs.

"Something's happened to Ianto. All his senses have gone into overdrive – I dare say he can hear us speaking now and he's in Jack's bunker." Owen glanced at Jack, who was standing alone and staring at the alien again. Tosh moved quietly round to him and squeezed his shoulder gently. He glanced over with a smile. "He got a scratch off this bugger yesterday and at the moment, I reckon some form of venom or toxin has passed into his bloodstream."

"He may not be the only person who's been harmed, so, Gwen, I'll need you to keep an eye on police reports and hospital admissions. If there's someone out there suffering from the same thing, we need to get to them and help them as soon as we've worked out how to." Jack spoke to the corpse but Gwen nodded, waiting for him to carry on. "Voices are going to need to be kept quiet – no yelling in the Hub today. We'll need to try and keep Myfanwy calm and we need to suppress all those clumsy urges to drop things or play basket ball when there's no work."

"I know you've already muted the siren, but I can mute the alarms in general and redirect an audio warning to your wrist strap. The computers will still flash and get our attention, but I can get a quiet bleep to alert you as well." Tosh spoke up and Jack nodded, grinning.

"Sounds like a good plan, Tosh. Thanks. I borrowed you new ear defenders as well – they were easier to get to quickly than run down to the firing range for the industrial ones." Jack looked a little chagrined but Tosh waved her acceptance with a roll of the eyes.

"It's fine, it's fine. Besides, they needed to be used sometime otherwise what's the point in having them?" Tosh smiled and Jack managed to return it. "Right I'll get on with that stuff then."

She nodded and Jack caught her hand briefly, squeezing it in thanks.

"I'll set up the scanning and alerts for case files then run out and get everyone something to eat – maybe some coffee as well." Gwen nodded and left the two men to it. She wanted to help but she knew there was nothing she'd be able to do. For now, she could only try to keep morale up a little and help the two men work out a way to help Ianto.

Back in the autopsy bay, Jack grimaced and Owen sighed. They both knew what they had to do now. It was going to be painful and stressful for the both of them, but it needed to be done. Carefully, Owen gathered up a blood draw kit and some spare vials and let Jack lead him up to the office and then into the bunker.

*

Ianto had, somehow, managed to drift into a doze, missing the conversation he would have been able to hear through the walls. He was woken by the sound of voices and footsteps directly above him and only just managed to cover his eyes and ears in time for Jack and Owen moving the cover form the entrance and climbing down into the bunker.

The two hearts were beating out of time, one faster than the other, nervous and worried. It moved closer and he felt familiar hands gently nudging him awake. He turned away from them and curled up, wanting them to go away. He knew what they were there for.

"Come on, mate, lets just get this over and done with." Owen spoke as softly as possible, but Ianto heard it as if he were speaking perfectly normally. Owen sounded weird, different inflections in the sound of his voice and a clarity and sharpness that was uncharacteristic to the sarcastic, cynical Doctor.

"Jack, please, I don't want to…" Ianto murmured, feeling the hands on his back gently manipulate him until he was sitting in his lover's arms, his head angled into Jack's shoulder with one of his hands securely across his eyes and the other holding his right arm straight. The grip was tight and uncomfortable and he tried to wriggle free, but the friction burned his skin. He shuddered against Jack's shoulder, feeling trapped and helpless.

Jack's heart was pounding faster, the constant rush of his breathing hitching at each of Ianto's gentle sounds of protest. He felt a tug of guilt at upsetting Jack, but his grip was uncomfortable and far too tight. He didn't want to associate it with Jack. His lover had never had to use force in such an unrelenting way with him before and he hated it – they both did.

He felt something cold and wet against the inside of his right elbow as he realised that Owen was silently wiping his skin clean. He heard the click of was sounded like a lamp and understood why Jack was covering his eyes so securely.

"I'm going to give you a local anaesthetic to your arm… it's going to hurt and I'm sorry, but this is the only way." Owen's voice was low and regretful and Ianto could hear the true disgust he was feeling at having to inflict this kind of pain on a colleague. Ianto cringed further against his lover, biting back a cry as Jack's hand tugged at his skin slightly. He tried to keep himself still, but the fear of the impending pain was paralysing and his instincts were taking over in full force.

The needle was a scratch against his skin made him flinch violently, jerking his arm against Jack's grip and crying out as fire shot up from his wrist.

"Jack, stop it, let me go, please!" He couldn't stop himself from sobbing – the fear and the helplessness making him feel like he was cornered. He felt Jack shake his head and his breath shudder in his chest and his grip remained firm on his lover's wrist.

Owen's expression darkened at the sight of the younger man, completely terrified. It reminded him of a particularly traumatising night when he'd was on call at the hospital, a junior doctor with the whole of accident and emergency understaffed and overworked. He'd been calling up to paediatrics every twenty minutes but no one had come down and there was a seven year old girl who'd needed a lumbar puncture. After four hours of waiting, he'd been forced to perform it himself, the little girl's father holding her tightly, his grip unrelenting as she cried to him to let her go, that it was hurting her.

The expression on the man's face was the exact twin to the one Jack now wore; the gritted jaw, the bloodshot, tearing eyes and the complete disgust at the thought of betraying someone he cared for and loved beyond anything else.

Owen took a deep breath and steadied his hand again, gripping gently to Ianto's upper arm to add some more restraint as he quickly injected the anaesthetic into three spots along the inside of his elbow. The younger man cried out again, his muscles tensing and spasming beneath his grip as he fought between the burning of the needle and the friction hurting his skin. Owen didn't glance up to know that tears were spilling from his Captain's eyes or that the muscles in his jaw were knotting in determination.

"Okay, I'm going to need to put the tourniquet on now, so Ianto, I need you to make a fist." Owen spoke gently once more, releasing his hold on Ianto's upper arm, replacing it with a blood pressure cuff. He waited until Ianto had curled his fingers together, Jack adjusting his grip but not giving Ianto any room to move away. Owen pumped up the cuff and felt Ianto shaking before it was even half done.

"Owen, it hurts. It feel like my arm's going to explode…" Ianto's voice shook and he swallowed convulsively. Owen just shook his head and shared a look with Jack.

"I know, but there's nothing else I can do. It'll be over soon, I promise." Owen waited for his reaction before carrying on, taking the hesitant nod as a confirmation. He carried on filling the cuff until the veins on Ianto's arm began to stand out enough. He tried to ignore the whimper of pain that escaped Ianto's lips, but he still felt another wave of distaste at having to perform the procedure. "Alright… I'm not going to lie, this is going to hurt – but I'll be as fast as possible. You can put me on decaf for a week if it takes more than sixty seconds from when I get the needle in."

Ianto nodded again nervously, his whole body tensing and curling against Jack completely. He just focused on Jack's heart beat, on his breathing and his smell. He tried to lose himself completely in the other man, but he heard the hitch in his breath again, followed by a searing pain in his arm that made him cry out again.

His arm instinctively flinched away from the needle which only served to hurt him more. He could hear Owen muttering to himself, counting the seconds away as he filled the first vial with blood, then the second, the third, the fourth and, finally, the fifth – just to be safe. By the time he'd pulled the final vial free and slid the needle out of Ianto's arm, he'd reach fifty five seconds.

"Sorry, mate. Looks like I won." Owen pressed some cotton wool to his arm and indicated Jack should hold it in place to stop any bruising. Ianto managed to laugh a little shakily at his words and let out a shuddering breath. Jack didn't want to comment on the tears on his palm covering Ianto's eyes. "Okay, the next stuff won't hurt at all, I promise."

"Yeah, right." Ianto muttered, clinging gently to the front of Jack's t-shirt as he listened to Owen getting one of his scanners out and running it across him. He heard the clicks and beeps loudly, focusing on his head, the scratch on his neck, his heart and his stomach, assessing his internal organs. On the next pass, he focused the scanner on his ears, arms and legs.

"Mouth open." Owen waited for Ianto to nervously open his mouth a little and took gentle swabs of the inside of his cheeks and tongue, passing the scanner over it as well for good measure. "I need to check your eyes, Ianto. The scanner might be a bit bright but, again, I'll try and do it as quickly as possible.

Ianto nodded again and he heard the click of the lamp being turned off before Jack slowly peeled his hand away from his face. Ianto gripped the material under his fingers a little tighter, Jack's hand still securely around his shoulders. He blinked his eyes a little and managed to focus on the small room around him.

Owen was right – the scanner was the only source of light for the other two, bright and beacon-like in the darkness… but for Ianto, there was also the background light, the residual rays that made their way down through the entrance. The room was lit in a soft, orange glow – like twilight, or dawn. He felt his eyes focus and adjust to the light levels, everything starting to stand out just a little more the longer he looked.

He glanced up at Jack again, his heart tightening at the sight of the tears on the older man's cheeks. His jaw was set, his face resolute and dispassionate, but Ianto could see the sadness in his eyes. On the other side of him, Owen was waiting patiently, watching him with a similar distaste at his actions. On the bed, next to Owen, were the five vials of his blood and Owen's kit bag.

He looked back at the scanner and nodded nervously, letting Owen bring it up to take readings form his eyes and analyse them. He couldn't help the slight cringe away form the light, but forced himself to endure the discomfort of keeping his eyes open and staring at the bright lights of the device. He didn't notice the flicker of concern across Owen's face.

"Right, done. Jack, I'll head up and start plugging in the data and running the blood tests." Owen packed everything up quickly and left the two lovers together, knowing they needed some time to adjust and reconcile over Jack's need to restrain Ianto throughout the procedure.