Warning: Some swearing.
The Choices Are Made.
Phoenix woke up the next morning with a start, feeling as though she couldn't breath. As breath finally came back to her, she felt an arm tighten around her and she looked to her side.
"Go to sleep Phoenix. It's too early yet," Jack tells her more than half asleep.
Phoenix pulls up the sheet that is covering her and she sees that she is semi dressed. She looks over at Jack under the covers and he is completely butt naked. Phoenix jumps out of the bed, flinging Jack's arm back onto him and he wakes with a start as Phoenix runs towards the ladder but misjudges it in the dark and bangs her head on it.
"Shit!" Phoenix shouts out holding her head as it seemed more painful than usual.
"What's going on? What's happened?" Jack asks seriously confused.
"Did we….you know, last night?" Phoenix asks him diving for her pants, her head throbbing now as Jack puts on the lamp.
"You are kidding right?" Jack asks her rubbing his fingers through his hair.
"Do I look as though I am kidding?" she asks him as she puts her legs into her trousers.
"What would make you think that and don't you remember?" he asks her really confused now.
"No Jack I don't remember but look under the sheet and you might figure it out," she tells him and he looks and doesn't see anything out of the usual and then it clicks.
"Oh, you mean that? I sleep naked all the time, ask Ianto," he asks her realising.
"Yes, that. God this bloody hurts," she say as she gets hold of head again.
"Let me look at that," he tells her getting out of the bed, wrapping the sheet around his waist and he goes to her.
He looks at her head and there is a right lump on her forehead and it was bruising.
"That's a nasty one. I'm going to have to watch you for concussion now," he tells her as the sheet starts to slip.
"What the hell was I doing in your bed while you were butt naked and never mind concussion, I don't get that but I am getting a bloody headache," Phoenix replies trying not to notice that the sheet was slipping further down.
"Right. You back in bed and I'll get some pain killers," Jack orders Phoenix as he moves to the ladder and start climbing it to his office.
"You had better give me answers Harkness," Phoenix tells him going to the bottom of the ladder and shouting through the hatch.
"Shut up and get back into bed," Jack shouts back down from his office so she does but now with her pants on.
Jack soon makes his way down the ladder and back over to the bed with a glass of water in his hand. He climbs on the bed managing not to spill any or lose his sheet. He passed Phoenix the glass of water and the two pills that were hidden underneath the glass.
"Take these. They are one of Owens concoctions and I swear by them," Jack tells her as she takes them and puts the glass on the side and then settles down on the bed.
"What am I doing here Jack? We didn't did we?" Phoenix asks him hoping that he said no so she didn't have to wipe his memory again but wanting him to say yes at the same time.
"Well after about the third time we were that tired we just had to sleep," he tells her seeing the look on her face.
"Kidding," he tells her and she kicks him out of the bed and Jack exits minus the sheet and then gets up, everything visible and Phoenix looks away and he gets back in bed.
"Just like old times, you kicking me out of bed. I have the bump to prove it," Jack tells her as she turns to him again.
"Don't say stuff like that Jack. It's not fair reminding me of when we were together. Why am I even here?" Phoenix asks him as he gently moves a blonde curl off of her face.
"I kissed you out in the hub and you kissed me back but when we got hot and heavy, you pretty much passed out on me so I brought you down here to sleep and as you slept, I got in and held onto you in case you had nightmare. I only put my arm around you, I didn't do anything else. You weren't in any fit state and needed to sleep otherwise it might have been a different story," Jack tells her as she looks into his eyes, only seeing the truth in them.
"Thank you Jack," Phoenix tells him and gives him a kiss on the cheek but as she goes back to her pillow Jack puts his hand on the side of her face.
"Why did you wipe my memory Phoenix? What did you take from me? Did we make love on the dead planet because if we did, I want those memories back," Jack says as he strokes her face.
"It doesn't work like that Jack. Once I have taken the memories, I can't give them back and I have to live with them. I did it for you. I took away the memory of us together so you wouldn't feel guilty over Ianto," Phoenix tells him.
"Didn't I have the right to choose whether I wanted to keep those memories because I did, I do want them," Jack tells her running his thumb over her bottom lip.
"Don't Jack. I'm not worth losing Ianto over. I'll be gone in a few days, gone for good and then I will be a distant memory. I love you Jack but I'm not worth that. I know what it is like to lose the one you love," Phoenix tells him.
"I'm still here Phoenix. I only have you for another few days and then once you have destroyed The Devourer, you will go back to being the Dark Avenger and I won't see you again, you'll be saving someone else," Jack tells her and a tear falls from her eye.
"No Jack. I won't go back to being the Dark Avenger and saving other people. I meant it when I said this is my last stand. I'm too tired to keep doing this. I am worn out. I can't do this anymore knowing that I have nothing of my own to fight for," she tells him sitting up and pulling away from his hand.
"No Phoenix. I won't let this happen. You can't give up. There are people out there that need you, I need you," he tells her sitting up next to her.
"There's no use in trying to change my mind Jack. You of all people know that when I have made my mind up that's it. At least I will have saved Earth in the process," Phoenix tells him grabbing her boots from the bottom of the bed and she heads for the ladder.
"Don't do this to me Phoenix. Don't leave me again," he tells her as she reaches the ladder.
"I have made your choice for you Jack. It's Ianto. Be happy Jack," Phoenix tells him and she climbs the ladder leaving Jack behind her.
When she reaches the office, she closes the hatch locking it. As she walks through the hub, the tears fall as she had said goodbye to the only man she had ever loved and for good this time. Her mind was made up and there was no backing down from it. She had focus now and make plans of her own as she knew that Jack would try and stop her. She had to step up the training, she had lost too much time. She needed to speak to General Stanley, Captain Terry and Captain Matthews. She needed to give them orders of her own. She couldn't let Jack or the Torchwood team distract her and she needed to protect them. They were the important ones for reasons she would never tell them.
She sat down on the sofa and but her boots on, tying them and then she moved over to Toshiko's computer. Phoenix accessed the hub's computer and brought up the personal files for General Stanley, Captain Terry and Captain Matthews. She had to make her choice. She had to trust one of them and reading through, her choice was Captain Matthews. She located where Captain Timothy Matthews was at that moment and wrote the co-ordinates down. She turned the computer off and slid the piece of paper in her pocket and as she accessed a Vortex, the hatch finally opened but too late. She had disappeared and Jack stood alone in the hub, sheet wrapped around his waist and tears on his cheeks.