A/N. Hi, sorry for the long delay in posting this chapter. I'm back at Uni doing a really intensive course, so it takes up a lot of time. I hope the wait has been worth it. There is only one chapter left after this one, and i will try to get it up within the next two weeks. Thank you for all your reviews for the last chapter, and please let me know what you think of this one. Also a huge thank you to my beta JolinarJackson. :) Enjoy and please review. Kat xx

Chapter 10.

Inside the lab Jessie was contemplating her options, which she had to admit were severely limited. She realized that she only had two, the first was to play along and hope that someone could mount a rescue before she ended up going through a portal, or the second, attempt to make a run for it. She decided on playing along for now and attempting to stall, as there were three armed men in the room, as well as two students and Morgan. Jessie knew she would never make it to the door in time and even if she could it was probably locked. Morgan was standing at one of the computer terminals typing in a very complicated looking code. The buzzing of machines was all that could be heard, the students were also working at computers, they were looking at Jessie curiously, but obviously didn't dare question why she was there. They were probably glad they weren't the latest test subject Jessie thought to herself. Jessie was stood near what looked like goal posts. This seemed to be where the portal would appear. She was looking around the room when her breath caught in her throat. The door where she had been brought through from the other room cracked open ever so slightly. Jessie knew that she had to divert everyone's attention away from that door.

'I have a question,' she asked looking a Morgan.

Morgan looked up at her, 'What is it?'

'I just wondered what the point was of using me as a test subject?'

Morgan looked at her as if he didn't understand the question.

'I assume you haven't fixed it and that by sending me through I'll be stuck where ever it is I end up.'

Jessie took a look over at the door seeing it widened a little more. The two armed men that were near to the students hadn't seemed to noticed, they were too busy looking at her questioning Morgan. The third was stood behind her and was at the wrong angle to be able to see. One of the students however had noticed, as his eyes widened, but he didn't say anything.

Morgan walked over to Jessie and stood close to her. 'You know nothing about my work. All the glitches have now been fixed and this portal will work perfectly,' he replied arrogantly.

'Then that must mean you trust me to come back through,' said Jessie, smirking at the way Morgan's face dropped. 'Because the only way you're going to know for sure all you're glitches are fixed is if I come back.' She could tell by the look on his face that he hadn't factored this into his plan.

'I'll teach you to be so insolent,' he cried as he hit her hard across the face with his hand.

'That's not anyway to treat a lady now is it?' came a voice from the other side of the room. Everyone turned and looked at Jack, who was standing there with Tosh, Owen and Ianto behind him. All of them had their weapons raised. Gwen was just coming through the door on the other side of the room.

Morgan turned and looked at the intruders. 'Captain Harkness, what a pleasure. What can I do for you?' he said innocently.

'I think you know exactly why I'm here Morgan. You need to stop these experiments and let Jessie go.'

Morgan merely smiled in response, unruffled by the demands coming from the other man. 'My experiments are my business, not yours.'

'They became my business when you started messing with the Rift to power them. You have no idea what you could unleash.'

'I am willing to take risks because the rewards will be worth it. As for her,' he said jerking a thumb in Jessie's direction, 'I fail to see why you care. She's not one of your team.'

'Jessie is a friend and I will not see her used in your experiment. Neither will I see you use any more students.'

'I don't think we'll agree on this matter Captain, so it would be in your team's best interest to leave. If you go now, no harm will come to you or them.'

'I think we all know that's not about to happen,' replied Jack.

'So be it,' answered Morgan, and he gestured to the armed men who immediately aimed their weapons at the Torchwood team. Morgan hit a button on the console and energy between the two posts started to power up. Jessie attempted to get away, but was held firmly by the man behind her. She vaguely heard Jack say 'You know what to do' before the sound of gunshots rang out in the lab. The two students took cover under one of the tables, too scared to try and flee to the door.

Owen and Gwen were busy keeping the two gunmen on the other side of the room busy while Tosh attached her PDA to one of the consoles and started typing frantically. Owen and Gwen had taken up position behind one of the lab tables and they waited until one of the men stood up to take a shot. Owen was faster and shot the man in the shoulder, causing him to drop his gun and fall to the floor. Gwen took the opportunity to move. She kept crouched down low and moved quickly around the tables until she was positioned behind the other man aiming at Owen.

'Drop the gun,' Gwen shouted.

The man spun around to take a shot at Gwen, but she had anticipated his move and ducked down. This had given Owen the time to get around to them and he tackled the man to the floor, punching him once to render him unconscious. Gwen picked up both the guns that the men had dropped and then helped Owen to secure them, before going over to see how much progress Tosh was making.

On the other side of the room Jack and Ianto had closed the gap between them and Morgan. They could hear what was happening behind them, but kept their focus on their own task. The third man and Jessie were perilously close to the portal which was rapidly reaching full power.

''Give it up Morgan, it's over,' said Jack.

'Come any closer and my colleague will shoot her.'

Jessie rolled her eyes, she was fed up of being held at gun point, this was the second time in twenty-four hours. She also realized she was in the middle of a stand off. Jack and Ianto couldn't risk making a move at Morgan while she was being held in-between them with a gun pointing at her, something was going to have to give. At that moment the man holding on to her shifted his feet slightly so that one of them was aligned next to hers. Seizing on the opportunity she lifted up her left foot and slammed it down hard onto the mans foot, causing him to cry out in pain and push her away from him. Jessie hit the wall next to them and landed on the floor in a heap. The man regained his composure quickly and turned to shoot her, but was stopped when Jack fired first and the man fell down next to the portal. Ianto rushed over to where Jessie had fallen, the concern evident on his face.

'Are you alright?' he asked worriedly.

'Yeah,' said Jessie rubbing the back of her head. 'At least I hit the back of my head this time and not the front again.'

Ianto smiled at the attempt at humour. 'I'm not sure whether what you did was brave or stupid.'

'Well, it got me out of the way.'

At that moment a bright blue burst of light flashed between the posts and the portal came to life. The energy emanating from it was strong, the man that Jack had shot had fallen near the edge and he was sucked into the portal. Ianto pulled Jessie closer to him, they could feel the strength of the energy and didn't dare to move for fear of being sucked through the portal too.

Jack turned to Tosh and shouted. 'What's taking so long, Tosh? We really need this portal closed.'

'I'm working as fast as I can, but it's taking time to get through all the codes on the system.' Tosh was getting frustrated, it shouldn't have taken this long but Morgan had some serious encryption on his programmes.

'You'll never get through my encryptions in time.' Morgan said.

Jack was about to retort when a loud high pitched sound was heard coming from the direction of the portal. He turned as he heard Gwen gasp.

'Oh my God there's something on the other side,' she shouted pointing in the direction of the sound.

In the middle of the blue light a dark mass could be seen heading towards them. It was hard to make out what it might be, but whatever it was had a lot of arms, or maybe they were legs. Whatever the limbs were they looked liked tentacles and one broke through the portal hitting the table in front of it before disappearing back in the light.

'What the bloody hell was that?' exclaimed Owen.

'See this is what I was talking about,' shouted Jack to Morgan. 'You have no idea what that thing is, shut the portal down now!'

Before Morgan had the chance to do anything, one of the tentacles snaked back out and grabbed a hold of him, pulling him towards the portal. Jack shot at it, trying to get it to let go, but it didn't seem to notice. It pulled Morgan back into the blue light.

'Tosh, give me some good news.'

'Nearly there, I have one last line of code to break.'

One of the tentacles whipped back out of the portal causing Jack to jump back. It was then joined by another, each one flapping around trying to grab hold of something. Gwen and Owen had joined Jack, keeping their distance from the flailing limbs, guns aimed, but no one shooting yet in case that just angered it more. Jack though was aware of how close Ianto and Jessie were. They hadn't moved for fear of getting caught out by the portal energy, and now they had shrunk back against the wall trying to make themselves as small as they could to avoid the limbs.

As one of the limbs was about to make contact with Ianto's foot Tosh cried, 'I've got it!' The blue light of the portal flashed brightly causing everyone in the room to cover their eyes. When they look again the portal had disappeared taking with it the thing that was trying to get through. Tosh finally released the breath she had been holding and slumped down into her chair. Jack walked over to Ianto and Jessie. Jessie had her head turned into Ianto's shoulder, while he had his arm protectively around her.

'You okay down there?' asked Jack.

'I think so', replied Ianto.

Jessie lifted her head up, tears shining in her eyes. 'I will be when I stop shaking. It's over right?' she added cautiously.

'It's over,' said Jack. He held his hand out and helped Jessie to her feet, before helping Ianto up. Jack pressed a kiss to Ianto's forehead as he did so, relieved that the Welshman was okay. 'Right we need to clean up in here, sort out the witnesses and then get back to the hub.'

While the other got to work, Ianto turned to Jessie, 'You sure you're okay?'

'I don't think I've been that scared since…' She let the sentence hang. 'I'll be fine though once I get out of here.'

'Come on, let's go outside and get some air, the others can cope without us for a bit.'

Ianto went over and told Jack where they were going and they left the lab to stand outside. It was getting late now and Jessie watched the few students who were still milling about oblivious to what had just happened a few feet away. They had no idea how close to disaster they had been.