The traffic was quite heavy but Gwen seemed to keep the car moving for the short journey through the city. She was assisted by Tosh who monitored the traffic flow while simultaneously trying to find Jack and Ianto. The latter was now across the other side of the city after wading into a pond to retrieve another unidentified metal block with alien particles on it. He had started the conversation by complaining about the pond weed on his shoes till Tosh had explained the situation. The SUV could affect traffic flow to suit itself if Ianto set the automatic filters. Jack however was AWOL somewhere in the underground labyrinth having gone down there not long after Owen and Gwen had left, putting his comms pointedly down on the desk.
Gwen was on the home stretch and motoring into the garage at a speed not recommended by the council who thought they owned it. Tosh pressed the override to the back entrance which was normally on a delay and the Hub lit up with flashing lights and alarms, should find Jack she thought. Gwen hated this bit, she knew that the end wall of the garage was only partly real and that the bit over the roadway was a very smart hologram and she knew because she had a transponder on her car that the barrier on the other side had raised automatically and she knew it was fine but crashing through a pretend wall wasn't her cup of tea. She braked furiously knowing the real wall was only a few metres behind it and turned the car with a squeal of wheels as she passed through the harmless barrier.
"We'll make a stunt driver of you yet PC Cooper." Said Owen from the back.
Gwen ran round and pulled open the door of the car as Tosh ran into the garage. Where was the Torchwood muscle when you needed it she muttered earning a slightly hurt glance from Owen who had always been more athletic than body builder. Carefully they lifted Jenny from the car and onto a blanket on the floor, every movement seeming to cause more pain than the last.
Owen knelt on the floor as the women looked on nervously until the silence was dramatically shattered when Jack burst through the open door with his gun held in both hands. Gwen screamed with the shock and some automatic part in Toshs brain sent her reaching for her own gun to find it not there, she was the only one in the team that preferred not to carry it unless she was on the sort of mission that needed it. Jack took in the scene, counted his team members and realised the only person missing was Ianto, with his heart in his mouth he holstered the gun and his eyes dropped to the floor, he could have sagged with joy when he realised that the figure on the floor wasn't the missing team member. He joined Owen on the floor and took in the blood and general pallor,
"What happened?" he said simply as he stroked the hair out of her eyes.
There was more blood now, old wounds were reappearing like some alien version of scurvy, her hands were covered in scratches and there were small cuts on her face.
"Blood, I gave her human blood and now it's reacting with whatever flows through her veins Jack and it's killing her. I've killed her."
Jack looked at Owen, it was rare he admitted defeat but when he did he normally meant it. Jennys right hand started moving and she was trying to talk, Jack took her hand and came close to her face to hear what she was saying.
"Not the end, like before, remember?"
Jack repeated the words to the group out loud, hoping they would make more sense of it. Her eyes were beseeching, Owen took one last look up and down before making his decision.
"We have to get her downstairs, I can't do anything here."
He motioned for each of the girls to grab a corner of the blanket but before they could get there Jack had swept Jenny into his arms like some latter day Rhett Butler and was carrying her gently through the door. Owen followed behind tutting at the act of heroics but he admired the style. He dodged ahead and swept the used coffee mug from the autopsy table. With infinite care Jack and Owen laid Jenny down, apologising for the cold metal and while Jack talked in a low soothing voice Owen flicked the computer onto the scanning settings that suddenly displayed on the wall and they didn't please him. Tosh and Gwen ran into the bay and were quickly sent by Jack to find blankets and pillows as Jenny was shivering violently.
"Jack it isn't the cold, in fact her core temperature is slightly above normal." He stopped himself and clarified the sentence "Human normal, it's shock her body is shutting down, gotta be." Said Owen in his matter of fact way as he scanned the numbers
"Then fix it." Snapped Jack
"Cold, good, very cold" said Jenny trying to control her own body as Jack looked on with the face of a helpless puppy
"I don't know how Jack, there is no Hayes Manual for unknown alien species, Hell she doesn't even know where she comes from herself."
"And she is still in the room Owen." Said Gwen returning and throwing a blanket over Jenny but she was pushed aside by Jack as he fussed round ensuring that she was covered and comfortable.
To give himself more time to think Owen picked up his pen torch and started doing a few more tests, pushing Jack out of the way. Her eyes followed Owen round the room, her breathing had settled but there was still a thin trickle of blood coming each nostril and her tear drops had a small tinge of red to them. He seemed satisfied with his light waving and turned back to the screens, things were getting worse, it was only slight but in two minutes it was a big change.
"What did you mean like before?" asked Jack
Jenny tried to talk and Owen nodded at Jack as he motioned to take the mask off.
"I survived" she smiled and took a few small painful breaths, "they wanted to make
invincible humans because they wanted more of you."
A spasm of pain pulled her face out of shape and the little colour left in it drained. Owen pulled the mask back over her nose and mouth and squeezed the saline to try and add a little pressure, give him more time to work this out.
"Does anyone understand?" he asked the team who were stood round the rails
"Understand what? Asked Ianto skidding to a halt and coming up short when he saw the patient. Tosh quietly brought him upto date.
"The file, that has what happened before, has anyone looked at that?" Asked Ianto looking directly at each of them, the lack of reply told them that Ianto was right again and he started back into the Hub thinking he would find the file in Jacks desk. Owen called him back and sheepishly pulled the file out of the back of the rucksack, he got a sharpening of the eyes from Ianto but Jack wasn't even looking. Ianto ran back to Toshs desk as the nearest and cleanest to start looking for a clue. Owen drew some blood and held it up to the light, instead of being red and opaque it was more straw in colour with a small swirl of red running through it.
"Tosh can you run the analysis?" asked Owen wondering what was keeping her alive.
She came down and took the vial and listed a number of tests which Owen wasn't really listening to anyway but just nodding. He was watching Jack as he gently cleaned round the cuts and grazes, muttering lightly and looking directly at her most of the time as if the eye contact would keep her alive all by itself. Owen motioned at Gwen to come down into the pit and with a swift motion of the head tried to make her understand he needed rid of Jack. She walked behind him and rubbed his shoulders, a motion familiar to him, he turned and looked at her with mournful eyes.
"I did this, I was part of it all." He said quietly.
Gwen hugged his waist and looked up at him
"No Jack this was old Torchwood, you changed it for the better."
If eyes are the window to the soul Jacks laid bear his whole existence at that moment in time, it nearly broke Gwens heart.
"Why don't you make some coffee for everyone, I think this could be a long night." Said Owen picking up a pair of cloth cutting scissors. Jack shook his head and stroked Jennys hair.
"Jack piss off and give us some room." Said Owen simply "Gwen will help me make her more comfortable, I'll call you when we're done."
"We could take her down to the medical room." He said with a quiet strength that would normally be listened to
"The equipment is better here." What he actually meant was the alien stuff and all his personal experiments were up here and all the stuff downstairs was a little more conventional. Gwen stroked Jacks arm as he kissed the fingers of his right hand and placed them on Jennys cheek between the welts lingering just a little as she looked directly at him. Without a word he walked out of the pit and towards the Hub.
Ianto was flicking quickly through the early pages of the old report trying to find anything that could help, he had to admit they had really gone about this scientifically with anything and everything recorded in bland impersonal language. He was starting to get into the darker parts when he heard a noise behind him. His brain sorted through what the sound could be as he turned round, a scraping sound but something soft. The sound nagged at his brain for a few seconds till he realised he wasn't concentrating on the page, he stood up to get a better view in the direction of the sound and saw Jack crumpled at the bottom of the wall his arms covering his head. Instantly Ianto started across the floor softly calling his bosses name with no response. He sank down the wall in the same way that Jack had, his suit jacket making the same noise and touched his shoulder. It gained no response and he tried saying his name again and in response Jack started to rock slightly
"Go away, make it go away." Repeated Jack over and over though it was muffled as his head was tightly held against his raised knees.
Ianto first thought the comments were aimed at him but when he kept repeating himself he started to get worried and tried shaking Jack without much affect. He crawled round to be in front of Jack, his hand never leaving his shoulder, and started peeling his arms away from his body but each time Jack just pulled back.
"Jack" said Ianto sharply "Jack you're scaring me, what's wrong, let me in Jack, tell me so I can help." Jack scrabbled away and turned towards the wall taking a deep and wracking gasp of air.
Ianto was at a loss for what to do and started to move so he could see round the wall to the autopsy pit and call Owen but Jacks strong hand shot out and grabbed the front of his shirt pulling him in so close that for a second Ianto couldn't breath. He soothed Jacks hair and rubbed his back while Jack rocked slowly until some of the tension dissipated.
"I'd blocked it out, 50 years I've not thought about it, I was a monster, I told them what to do, helped them and I thought I'd made it right then I blocked it all. I didn't learn I did it with Suzie and now someone else is suffering and it's all my fault."
"Jack it was the blowfish, it was Owen not understanding, it was her own desire to save you, to give everything upto save another life it wasn't you."
Jack pulled his head away from Ianto and looked him directly in the eye.
"The torture, those cuts on her hands, her face, everywhere I told them exactly where to inflict the most pain, I did that to people, people Torchwood told me were enemies, I was the go to guy Ianto."
Each phrase seemed to cause pain to Jack and as he shut his eyes he could see all the creatures again lined up pleading for it to stop, the images caused his skin to creep and the sudden movements caused Ianto to hold him even tighter.
"Let me get Owen." Said Ianto trying to get loose to be able to call him.
"No I caused so much pain I deserve to remember this is my punishment."
"Jack you aren't mentioned in the notes, perhaps you are remembering the wrong thing. How could you forget a thing like that, even retcon doesn't blank that much out without punching great holes in your memory."
"It wasn't retcon, it was something the Time Agency taught us how to be selective but you have to remove any trigger anything that you could connect or it comes back just as fresh as if it had just happened. It is a bit like a mental perception filter." Something else crawled into his consciousness he shuddered grimacing and paddling his feet against the metal work.
"So why didn't seeing her the first time trigger this?" asked Ianto trying to process all the information and hold it together for himself and Jack.
"I never saw the faces, that was my one rule, I did it because when I didn't they would cut me out, I once spent two years waiting for them to call and I always went back because they had information on the Doctor, I needed to know when he would be back so they would cover the faces and I would do what I was told."
Ianto was start to pull together some of the things that Jack had said over the past few days and realised that the strange reactions were as if he was doing the opposite of what he would normally do.
"So is that why you've been acting so strangely, some sort of response to this secret?"
"Think of it like peeling away the layers of an onion, like something you see in the corner of your eye, then it moves into your central vision and finally does a full striptease to hit you wham."
Ianto pulled Jack closer, when he had asked him about his past he hadn't thought of the consequences of things that he didn't want to remember.
"Was it me dredging your past that released this?" he said quietly.
Jack responded by shaking his head and burying it in Iantos chest with a quiet howl of pain.
"No first I went digging in the archives, then I saw her face, just like the last time I saw her, the only time I saw her face, the glass, there was nothing I could do the only way was to smash the glass and it fell on her face. She was so close to death she didn't move even as we dragged her into the dockyard, I didn't think she would survive."
It wasn't making sense to Ianto,
"Where did the glass come from, I'm not following you Jack, help me understand."
"It was Polly that showed me the truth, it was nearly 100 years since I had landed back on earth from the game station, I started to believe them, the Doctor was an enemy. She knew the truth behind the Doctor, she travelled with him too, she used the fact that I wanted more information on him to get to know me then she made me see the reality of what I was doing, how he wouldn't want me to do this." Jack looked directly at Ianto, "I refused to do their dirty work anymore but they just brought someone else in. So we decided if we couldn't stop them doing this we would have to take away their playthings. We planned for weeks but someone found out and we had to move early, we could only save a few. What happened to the ones we left behind?" he screwed his eyes shut again as if it could cut the pain out but the images started again.
Ianto had no idea what to say or what to do next, Jack was the one that coped for everyone else, practical and strong he was the voice of reason. Ianto could guess what had happened to the others and when all this was over he would take Jack and find out so he could lay the ghosts to rest but he needed to get it together now.
"You did what you could Jack, you can't save everyone." That didn't sound like it had in Iantos head even though it was true it was very harsh. "Lets concentrate on what we can do now."
There was a long silence as Ianto waited for Jack to make the next move, with shaky hands he pulled some folded papers from his back pocket.
"This is what they did, what I did."
Ianto took the papers, torn down one edge as if they had been pulled from a file in a hurry. Making sure to keep some contact with Jack he quickly read through the missing pages of the file now sitting on the desk. It was the investigation into the missing "Artefacts" released by person or persons unknown. The lead investigator was named 'Freelancer JH' who seemed to lead a thorough investigation to nowhere and was replaced after two weeks by 'Special Agent TV' who found his way after a few days to a recently and hastily abandoned hideout behind one of the meat production sheds, accessed through a freezer. His conclusions stated that there was still inside help and that the investigation had been compromised by shoddy work by the freelancer and retraining was required.
Ianto had seen enough for now, he had to do for Jack what he had done for him more than once and remind him of the here and now. He took a deep breath through his nose and grabbed Jack roughly by the shoulders.
"Snap out of it Jack" he forced his head up so he had to look at him "Here and now that's what matters, are you going to get up and walk in there and be there for her. I've seen how she looks at you, she doesn't blame you for anything." Ianto stood up pulling Jack with him which was no mean feat when he was acting as a dead weight. He took his perfect white handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped at Jacks face like a house-proud mother, pulled his rumpled shirt straight and stood back nodding. Jack cuffed at his face and took a deep breath.
"I'm proud of you Jack, here and now is what matters, we need you Jack and never forget it." He finished the sentence and moved forward his lips hitting Jacks with explosive force, reminding him what there was to fight for.