Hope

4th January 2008

Jack looked at Gwen and Ianto. "I can't believe I forgot that..."

"Jack, that still doesn't explain who she is... or for that matter why you lied about Torchwood Four to get her in," Ianto said.

"Wait, you said she was with the FBI?" Gwen asked.

Jack nodded. "Yeah... She did maths that analysed crime. It's a rare thing in the Bureau... Her ability at maths and science... It was another thing we hid from Torchwood," he looked back down at the file. "Still doesn't tell me who she was or what happened to her..."

Ianto looked at Gwen then Jack. "Should we... Wake her?"

Jack looked up at him. "Only if we've got the cure to what she was poisoned with. I... I don't even know what it was..."

Ianto flipped through the files. "There should be a blood sample somewhere. If it kept."

Jack nodded. "Go and ask Ow-" he stopped mid-word, "Go and look," he said to Gwen. She nodded and left the archive room.

"You Ok?" Ianto asked him as he heaved a deep sigh.

"I don't know Ianto... I seem to be saying that a lot don't I?" he picked the photo up again an stared at the face of the young woman. "I just... I don't see what purpose Gareth had to retcon me... If what Alice and Emily said was true, his trying to kill her would have hurt more then anything... I don't see his motive in retconning me..."

Ianto scratched his ear as he thought. "Well... Maybe he didn't. Maybe they did," Jack looked at him like he was about to say something, but Ianto interrupted before he could. "Look. I don't know... I think the best option is to ask her, but to do that we've got to wake her up."

Jack shook his head. "I won't wake her up until we know what she was poisoned with. I won't risk her life!"

Ianto raised an eyebrow at Jack. "For someone you don't remember, you're awfully protective of her," he commented.

"I can't explain it Ianto..." Jack replied, looking down to the ground, as if the floor was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. He sighed. "There should be a box of her things around here somewhere... She had stuff from the 21st century that we hid from Alice and Emily, I found it when I was going through her things."

Ianto nodded. "There is a box somewhere here that I've been meaning to ask you about..." He wondered off down one of the makeshift corridors of shelves. Jack waited by the table for Ianto to return, his eyes fighting between looking in the direction Ianto had disappeared to and staring at the photo of the mysterious young woman.

Ianto re-emerged from the maze of shelves carrying a box. "Stasis box. Don't usually see them in the archives," he explained to Jack. "Has your mystery girl's name on it."

Jack looked at the box, he remembered packing it. He remembered needing to desperately find a stash of artefacts that had been hidden in his house.

"Why does she mean so much to you Jack? You can't remember her," Ianto asked as he dropped the box beside the personnel files. He smiled slightly when he felt Jack's arms wrap around his waist. He turned in Jack's arms and wrapped his own arms around his lover's neck.

"Hope..."

Ianto pulled back slightly, so he could look at Jack's face. "I don't understand," He said.

Jack sighed. "I was in a downward spiral Ianto... I'd been with Torchwood nearly ten years. Being controlled by Alice and Emily. Their puppet so to speak, with no one to talk to, no real friends. I wanted to die. But, Yan... When I woke up, when I was over the grief of losing her and don't ask me why I grieved for a girl I couldn't remember. I don't know why, but I did... I had hope, hope that one day I would be free of them, that I'd see the Doctor, that I'd have true friends around me... I just had hope... And the only thing that had changed, was her... Despite my lack of memories..."

Ianto was touched by Jack's sincerity and the pain that he saw in the older man's eyes. "Come on, let's see if we can jog your memory further!"

Jack nodded as he pulled away from Ianto. He punched in his access code to the box and pulled off the lid. The box was only half full with various items, that to Ianto, looked more out of place within the hub, then they would have in the real world.