The pain was marginally less, but as she slowly explored exactly how much she could move without it becoming unbearable Gwen moved over to the bed and gently placed a hand over hers. Jenny had never really got with the touchy feely programme and that attitude had served her well over the past 40 years of medical practice and she shuddered slightly at the contact. Gwen quickly moved her hand but smiled and sort to fill the silence with words.
"You look better."
"I feel like shit." Said Jenny, the boring pain in her chest and head taking away the capacity to make a longer sentence. "How long has it been?"
Gwen looked at her watch, it was mid afternoon though it could have been anytime in subterranean Torchwood.
"About 18 hours since you, well you know" Gwen didn't really feel comfortable telling someone they had been dead, two years working with Jack and it seemed normal for him, but Gwen didn't know how normal it was for her.
"Since I got hit by a truck." She took an experimental deep breath and just about managed it. "This isn't right, I should be running round by now"
"Owen is trying to work that one out now, if it's any consolation he still thinks you are healing faster than the average human." Gwen trying to be perky was not a good thing.
Jenny smiled in a resigned way and tried to push her self upright, she wasn't used to doing nothing or being an invalid, but her body rebelled and Gwen found herself struggling to hold her in the bed while calling for Owen. She hadn't wanted the baby sitting duties anyway, she was itching to delve deeper into Jennys past in the hope she could use it to wheedle more information out of Jack about his past. The med room had no connectivity because Tosh refused to run cables to a room that never got used and Owen said the slightly "cookie", that being his technical term for anything he didn't understand or couldn't pronounce, wireless technology would spook his strictly earth bound equipment. So Jack had given her a well thumbed copy of War of the Worlds from his personal collection which she had snorted at till Ianto had sidled up to her and pointed out that it was a first edition and she should check out the cover page, it was inscribed in beautiful copperplate
"For Jack, a true friend and visionary and may his imagination never show truth"
It was signed Bert. So instead to finding answers she was getting more questions.
Owen came running at her shouts, all he seemed to do at the moment was run round at other peoples behest, but that was the nature of the job and the alternative wasn't worth thinking about. As he burst through the door he rolled his eyes and helped Gwen get Jenny back into the bed, his hand lingering a little longer than was strictly necessary on the small of Gwens back when he stepped away – well he could dream couldn't he?
"Really, we do not another hero in this place." He said pulling a stethoscope out of his back pocket. "There must be something in the air that forces people into working themselves to death."
Gwen couldn't look him in the eye after that comment, little close to the bone even for the worlds most insensitive man. He gave short barking orders to his patient and then stood back contemplating the results. Jenny scowled at him breathing heavily through her nose while Gwen stood in a corner, trying to calculate how she could get out of the door.
"So give me the bad news then doctor."
"No it's not bad news, it's good news in fact, you are healing, faster than I would expect for a human, I reckon if I didn't know better that what happened yesterday was about four days ago."
"I should be fine by now." She whined, oh god thought Owen not another one it sounded just like Jack when he was recovering from the beating of his life. Owen leant back on a metal table and crossed his arms in front of his chest, he hoped he looked like George Clooney or McDreamy.
"Well I've been looking into that and I still don't know what happened, or how you are alive at the moment." He paused for dramatic effect and got the sort of death stare that the Tea Boy could only dream of perfecting, "The main problem is your body rejected most of the blood I gave you the day before so most of the stuff flowing through your veins, do you call them veins by the way, is a saline/glucose concoction." As if to prove a point he dragged out a vial of straw coloured fluid and waggled it in front of her, she snatched it from him and looked at it experimentally.
"That doesn't look right" she said swirling it as if that would make it look more normal
"I'm doing a bit of analysis on it at the moment and I can tell you there are no nanobots or anything else creepy in there." He took the vial back off her and put it in a pocket.
"Nothing?" she asked her interest piqued by the fact that 500 years of explanations to herself had just been shattered, "So what makes me so different from you, apart from the fact I have a pulse?" Owen nearly dropped the clipboard.
"Look I have no right to judge here, strictly between you and me, I've met a few people who described themselves as vampires, the odd shape shifter and even seen the odd ghost or two so I'm just curious."
"How can you tell?" asked Owen swallowing convulsively for no reason other than reflex.
"Owen I have just spent 40 years in various medical school anatomy labs, A&E departments the length of the country and a few stints in various war zones over the past 500 years. I know what a dead body looks and feels like, even if it is talking to me." She raised an eyebrow and let the statement hang in the air.
"Long story." Said Owen to close the argument and went back to fussing round various machines.
"I'm happy to give you a hand, got me interested in me again, did Torchwood ever pin Jack down to a reasonable explanation?" She asked beginning to sit up and swing her legs round.
"Whoa." Said Owen as he stopped her getting out of bed, which was unlikely to happen anyway as the movement of her legs caused the blood left in her to rush south and a wave of vertigo caused the floor to move away from her feet. Tucking her back under the sheets he stood back with his hands on his hips.
"Lets do a deal, you sit there like a good alien and if you can keep breakfast down tomorrow I will talk to Jack about letting you help."
She looked at him, her lips set with exactly the same pout Ianto gave him when he was told what to do but nodded seeing the sense in what he was saying. She picked up the book Gwen had left and turned over the beautiful bindings to see what was going to occupy her for the next few hours.
Owen stepped back and turned to leave the room when she spoke again,
"Tell me Owen, with an attitude like that exactly how many times a day do you get punched?"
"I do a good line in blocking and dodging." He said with a wry smile as he left the room.
As a new day dawned over Cardiff Bay Jack sniffed the air like a dog checking his patch, he wondered if he would ever smell truly fresh air again. Zapping himself from the Game Station to the centre of industrial London with it's coal fires and pea soupers had just about burnt all his sense of smell out for years, he had tried oceanic travel with the intention of settling in the rapidly civilising "Wild West" with the wide open spaces and woodlands of Montana in the hope of getting rid of the rank smell. To get there however he had passed through Ellis Island and the rest as they say is history. He looked over at the new residential developments that now littered the Bay, perhaps he should just move Torchwood into their basement. Despite the fact he had told everyone to take the day off unless he called to tell them the world was ending they were all back by lunchtime. They all live for work, even Gwen who did have a life which was why in semi punishment he had given her the most boring job in the world. He had just sent them all home again and was starting to dream about a fairly simple meal in the local tapas bar with Ianto for company when the alarms had gone off and while it wasn't worlds end their seemed to be more work than he could handle alone.
So the girls had gone haring off after a set of chronon particles and he had taken Ianto Weeviling. Of course one loose Weevil is bad luck, two is erring on the side of decidedly unnatural and three have a explanation that needs investigating. So they had been out most of the night in various sewers and empty warehouses, why did Weevils never decide to terrorise a nice spa or a decent 5 star hotel? Ianto had kept up with him until the drive home when Jack had noticed that there were no groans at his bad jokes and noticed that Ianto had fallen asleep in the passengers seat, Jack wasn't even sure he had woken up on the walk back into the Hub and was now asleep on his bed. Jack hadn't even had time to think of all the things that had happened to him in the last 72 hours, the promises he had made to himself and Ianto about the past, but what was his past? He waved at the security guard from the Senedd who was just going home and decided to walk out to his favourite little bakery instead of driving.
It was one of those walks that needed no conscious thought, other than avoiding the odd early morning runner and having to look long in a cursory fashion at road junctions but he would hear most things other than the paper boy on his bike long before it was on top of him. He walked over the grass in the park getting the hem of his coat wet from the dew and tried to remember the landscape of a hundred years ago, with the castle looming in front of him not that different. He turned sharply right and meandered into the housing estate and found the place he was looking for. He ordered a large variety of fatty, salty or sticky treats that should raise the general BMI of the Hub by at least two points but he reasoned they probably worked it off last night any how. He took the large box from the grandmother in front of him, a woman he had know as a two year old who sat in her pram outside the shop while her own mother worked inside and set off on a more direct route. That was something he could tell Ianto about perhaps, but too much information had to be bad. He reasoned with himself about the things he knew about that he could hide, the things he didn't know he had hidden and the bits that revealed too much about the future. He was starting to understand why the Doctor was as scatty as he appeared to be sometimes, Jack only had 150 years of history and give or take his forays with the Time Agency that he could remember about 4000 years of future. The Doctor once said he could see the whole of time which would occupy his team with questions till they exploded.
With a light step only held by those who are ignoring every other impulse he disappeared in front of the water tower and descended into the Hub. As normal everyone looked up, well Gwen and Tosh, Owen could be heard humming tunelessly from the lab as he passed at that level. It always struck Jack as strange, there was only one person that could operate that lift from outside, him, yet they always looked up in casual wonder as if they weren't expecting it to be him but if it wasn't him they would all be dead by the time they reached for a weapon. Perhaps some retraining was required. Instead of look back to her computer screen Gwens face lit up at the sight of the box and she clapped like a small child, that always made Jack grin, another one of the little things that made it all worth fighting for.
"Hey kids did you miss me?" asked Jack, one of his favourite lines and the company in-joke.
"Why have you been somewhere?" asked Tosh innocently not looking away from her screen, all the while resisting the urge to snatch the box from him.
"Thought I would get myself a snack, you should have said if you wanted anything" he said behind her station opening the box and sniffing deeply knowing the smell would permeate the work station instantly. It was the signal the girls had been waiting for as they both jumped from their chairs and started a tickling fight which could have ended very badly for the doughnuts had Ianto not appeared on the balcony right then. His shirt crumpled and his hair flatter on one side than the other he made Gwen stop and Tosh giggle.
"Hands off the merchandise girls" he shouted across the Hub, Jack flashed a thousand watt smile.
"Hey Ianto if you make the coffee I'll keep all the custard ones for you." Gwen punched Jack lightly
"You know the custard ones are my favourite"
Tosh just stood back "I'll even eat the apple ones if Ianto is making the coffee."
"You have a point." Said Gwen standing back "Besides I smell bacon butties to start."
"You can have the custard doughnuts Gwen" shouted Ianto, "I much prefer a good Danish, something about the way you get to swirl you tongue around the frosting." He said with a deadpan face that hid most emotions.
Jack smiled again and dumped the box in Gwens arms,
"Take it all down to the medical room, I love a good picnic but first I have something to deal with." He never took his eyes off Ianto and even as he walked slowly across the Hub floor their eyes didn't part.