Chapter Thirty-One

Jake Simmonds groaned as he slowly regained consciousness. Everything hurt. His head pounded with every beat of his heart, starting at his temples, climbing to the crown of his head and descending into his ears and jaw. Even his hair hurt. He tried to open his eyes—one was so swollen it was only able to open partway—to try to figure out where he was, and he swore when it only made his headache worse.

He was lying on some sort of hard bed or bunk, and he could feel the weight of handcuffs around his left wrist. So he was chained to it, he thought. And wherever he was, it was dark. Although with his headache that wasn't all bad, he thought ruefully. Even after his eyes adjusted to the extremely dim light, he could barely make out the features of the room. All he could really tell was that he was in a small room barely larger than a cupboard. And for some unknown reason it looked familiar to him.

Well, he may not know where he was, but he could figure out how he was. Mindful of his injuries, he carefully sat up. He tried to take a deep breath and hissed when he felt shooting pain in his left side. He gingerly touched where he had felt the pain. Cracked ribs. Probably two or three based on the fact that it hurt more, and over a wider area, than the time he only had one. And he was having trouble breathing through his nose; it was possibly broken. With his right hand he tentatively touched it. Not possibly. Definitely. And he had at least two missing teeth, top and bottom, right hand side. Once he realized they were gone, he couldn't keep his tongue from prodding the vacant spaces, despite the pain. Thankfully his jaw was still intact, he thought, as he moved it from side to side. At least that was something.

Something hurt inside too, front and back, and he felt like throwing up. Bruised kidney? Spleen? He didn't think it was too bad, whatever it was, because he was still able to concentrate despite the pain. But he'd need a doctor's examination to be certain.

How the hell did he get in this condition? The last thing he remembered was talking to Audrey about… something. Shit, what was it? An image of her sitting at a table, nose in a book, flashed through his mind. And he was… damn, this headache was bad. He was… on the computer. That's right. He was on the computer, and Audrey was talking about some book… no, that wasn't right. What was it? She was saying something about….

All of a sudden his memories came flooding back. He had narrowed the traitor down to two people and couldn't get any signal on his mobile for some reason so he had gone outside to try and call Pete. He had been approached by a couple of people he had thought at first were a prostitute and her pimp and then he had thought he was being mugged. But muggers don't tend to kidnap their victims. Knife them, maybe, but not kidnap them.

It had to have been a set up, he thought. They had known who he was; in fact, they must have been waiting for him. And in order for them to have been waiting for him, they must have blocked the signal to his mobile. That was the only way they could be sure he'd come out of the Pub. And then when they had grabbed him, he had fought back, and that's when they had given him the very thorough working over he had received.

He winced and fought off a wave of nausea. They must have hacked my computer, he thought. Why else would they have picked me up? And they must have known, or at least have guessed, that they'd be caught on Torchwood's CCTV if they had entered the building.

He remembered being hauled into a cheap motel near the Pub, the kind where no one asks any questions no matter what they hear, and he had been interrogated about what he knew about the Doctor, Rose, Pete and the break-in at the mansion. At some point they had shot him up with something, and then everything got really hazy after that. And then somehow he had ended up here.

Wherever here was.

Jake heard the door open. At the same time the overhead lights flicked on. He immediately closed his eyes against the glare, and he heard the door closed.

"Hello, Jake," a familiar voice said.

He opened his eyes. He wasn't surprised at who stood in the doorway.

"You look like shite, Jake. They weren't supposed to be so rough while questioning you. On the other hand, you did try to escape."

"Did you really think I wouldn't?"

"I guess not. Tell me, when did you realize it was me?"

"About fifteen seconds ago," Jake answered. "Although I figured it might be you right before your friends picked me up. Whenever that was. So what's next? You kill me?"

"Actually not. I need to find out what else you know. And who you may have told."

Jake raised one eyebrow. It hurt like hell, but he tried not to show it. "Then you kill me?"

The other man didn't answer. Instead, he opened the door and a guard Jake recognized from the archives walked in.

"Hold him down."

The guard approached him. Jake struggled as he was forced backwards onto the bed. And then the guard held him as he was injected with something. In the back of his mind he vaguely wondered what he had been given before he blacked out.

~oOo~

Ianto's sister's minivan slowly pulled up to the Severn Bridge. Toshiko had analyzed all the possible routes out of Wales and had discovered that all the routes out were either hours out of their way or blocked. The Doctor, who was driving, had decided to take the direct route, reasoning he could talk, Rose said bluff, his way through the checkpoint.

It had just begun drizzling as they had left Cardiff, but within minutes the skies had opened up and they had been deluged. This wasn't all bad; they all knew that the rain would more than likely help them get to London without being spotted.

As they had moved to the head of the queue, the heavily armed border guards approached the van.

"Now we're gonna see if these passports actually work," the Doctor said.

"Don't worry, they will," Toshiko assured him, snapping her laptop closed. He glanced in the rear view mirror. Owen and Toshiko were seated in the center row, while Ianto had the back bench seat to himself. The Doctor had sonicked Tosh's laptop before they had left, and she had been using it to continue to monitor the situation in London. So far, she still hadn't been able to discover where Pete, Martha and the rest of the staff were being held, and she had found out her friend in IT at Torchwood Four had been among those that had been fired, drying up that source of information.

"You need to put on the perception filters and be completely silent and completely still in order for this to work," the Doctor told them. Rose moved to pull on hers, and he stopped her. "It'll look less suspicious if I'm traveling with someone."

"Now why are we using the passports instead of the psychic paper?" Rose asked as the others put on their perception filters.

"Because it's more fun this way," he replied. He waggled his eyebrows and gave her a wide grin as he pulled the van forward.

After he stopped at the makeshift gate, a soldier in bright yellow rain gear walked up to the minivan as two others who were similarly dressed stood by, holding rifles in their arms. The Doctor lowered his window.

"Hi," he said in a broad American accent. "What's up?"

The man's eyes narrowed. "Names, please?"

"I'm Jack Harkness and this here's my wife, Sarah Jane," the Doctor answered, gesturing at Rose. She smiled flirtatiously at the guard.

"Hi, y'all," Rose said, trying for a deep Southern American drawl.

The Doctor winced almost imperceptibly. "Don't," he whispered to her without moving his lips. "Please, just don't."

"Yeah, like your accent is any better," she muttered under her breath.

"Papers, please?" the soldier said coldly.

"Sure, no problemo, let me just get them out." As the Doctor reached inside his leather jacket, the other man pulled out his gun while the other guards quickly pointed their rifles at him. The Doctor and Rose hurriedly put up their hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said. "Just gettin' them out of my pocket." He slowly lifted open his jacket with two fingers of one hand and carefully withdrew both of their passports from an inside pocket with the other. "See? Just gettin' our papers."

After putting away his weapon, the soldier took them out of his hand and examined them. The Doctor and Rose slowly put down their hands.

"Where did you get the minivan, sir?"

"Oh, we rented it. Nice young woman, wasn't she, Sarah Jane?"

Rose just nodded.

"Paperwork on that?"

The Doctor reached into his pocket again, this time pulling out the psychic paper and handing it over. The other man examined it for several long moments before he handed it back, obviously satisfied with what he had seen.

"Purpose of your visit?" he asked.

"Honeymoon." The Doctor beamed at the other man. "Me and the wife, we've traveled all over but we've never been here before so we thought, what the hell, let's take a road trip all over England."

"But you were in Wales."

"Yeah?" he responded with a so what's your point tone to his voice.

"Wales isn't a part of England."

"It's not?" he asked, sounding bewildered. "Then what is it?"

"It's a separate country."

"Really? No kiddin'." The Doctor looked over at Rose. "Ya hear that, Sarah Jane? All this time we thought we were in England and we weren't. Well, I guess we'll be in England now, huh?"

"You are entering England now," the guard confirmed. "What is your destination, sir?"

"Scotland," the Doctor replied. "Now that's in England, isn't it?"

Irritation crept into the soldier's voice. "No, sir. Scotland is also a separate country."

"Wow. Who knew?" The Doctor tried to look puzzled. "What about London? That's in England, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank goodness. Here I was beginning to think that that zeppelin dropped us off in the wrong place."

As he spoke, the guard gestured to the other two. One approached the front of the minivan, his rifle trained on the Doctor, while the other circled towards the back of the vehicle.

"Open the back and the side door of your vehicle, sir," the soldier said.

There was a sharp intake of breath from the back, which Rose assumed to be Tosh.

"Sure," the Doctor said. He pressed several buttons on the control panel, the side door slid open and the back door rose of its own accord.

While the soldier in front kept his weapon trained on the Doctor, the other pulled a heavy torch off the utility belt he wore and pointed it into the side door; Toshiko and Owen froze as its light illuminated their faces. Then he walked around and examined the small area in back. Again he lifted his torch to shine into the main part of the vehicle. This time the light shone directly on Ianto. The guard's eyes narrowed as he stared into the vehicle. After several long moments in which they all stopped breathing, he then walked back to the side, where he stared again into the vehicle's interior.

After a moment, he slammed both doors shut.

"Nothing there," he said.

The first guard handed their passports back to the Doctor. "Here you are, sir. Your paperwork seems to be in order. Now don't forget, you need to get to your destination quickly, or stop on the way. Curfew is at 10:00 pm, and you won't be allowed on the road after that."

"Yes, sir," the Doctor answered. "We'll keep that in mind, won't we, honey? We'll find a place to stay right quick. Well, I thank you for all your help, I really do."

The soldier waved him on while one of the other guards raised the makeshift barrier that stretched across one lane of the road. As the Doctor drove away from the checkpoint, Toshiko let out a sigh of relief.

"I thought we were done for," she said.

"Nope," the Doctor said, popping the 'p'.

"And what was all that business about Wales and England?" Rose asked

"I thought it lent an air of authenticity to the role. We were supposed to be Americans, you know." He could barely contain a smirk. Rose rolled her eyes.

"One of these days you're going to get us killed, Jack," she said, slapping the Doctor's arm.

"Not today." He grinned cockily and winked at her.

"And Sarah Jane?" She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Who is that, an ex-girlfriend?" Owen asked.

"Yes," Rose answered.

"No," the Doctor said at the same time.

"Yes, she was," she said teasingly to him, and he shot her a look.

"No, she wasn't," he told her.

Rose turned around and looked at Owen. "Don't listen to him," she said, suppressing a laugh. "He can deny it all he wants, but she's his ex."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, which she ignored. "We were just friends," he said. "Best friends, but just friends."

"I know what that means," Owen responded with a smirk, and the others made noises of agreement.

"No, it doesn't," the Doctor disagreed. "We were just friends."

Now it was Rose's turn to roll her eyes. "Did you or did you not travel with her?"

"Yeah," he responded slowly.

"How long?"

He paused thoughtfully, considering it. "Several years."

"Ever hug her?"

"On occasion."

"Hold hands?"

"Sometimes. But that was it," he insisted.

"A girlfriend," the three in the back of the van agreed and Rose laughed.

"A pretty useless one if you ask me," Owen added. "But definitely a girlfriend."

"I actually met Sarah Jane. She was nice," she continued and then turned back to the Doctor. "But I still don't want you to call me by her name."

"You'd better be careful of that," Owen warned. "Did that once, called someone the wrong name at the wrong time and ended up not being able to walk for a week."

"Now why doesn't that surprise me?" Tosh rolled her eyes. "It was probably in bed."

From his position in the back, Ianto snorted.

"Well, at least I had someone to call the wrong name," Owen said nastily.

"Owen, shut up," everyone else said in unison.

~oOo~

"Okay. Well then, get here when you can," Gwen said into her mobile. "I'll see you later. Love you."

She rang off and turned to Jackie. "That was Rhys. He's hung up at one of the checkpoints. There's some problem with his paperwork, and he doesn't know when he'll be here."

They were sitting at the kitchen table, both nursing mugs of tea from Jackie's latest pot.

"I hope everything's alright," Jackie said.

"Oh, I'm sure everything's fine," Gwen said lightly, trying to hide her concern from Rose's mum.

"Yeah, you're probably right," she responded. She sounded more confident than she felt.

Tony raced into the kitchen. "Mummy, Mummy, someone's coming up the road!"

Gwen immediately switched from concerned wife to Torchwood agent.

"What does the car look like, sweetie?" she asked gently.

"There's a big, black car like Daddy's," he answered excitedly. "And a big truck, too!"

Gwen and Jackie exchanged worried glances.

"It's probably UNIT," Gwen told her. "I need you and Tony to put on your perception filters and quietly head towards the Doctor's hiding spot. I'll meet you there. It's just up the path, yeah?"

"Yeah, but shouldn't we wait for you?"

Gwen shook her head as she pushed herself out of her chair. "No. I need to get something first. I'll be right behind you. But Jackie, if I'm more than a minute, go in without me."

Jackie stared at her for a moment before nodding sharply. She grabbed a couple of perception filters from the table before turning towards her son.

"Tony, remember when we were playin' Torchwood agents with Rose?" she asked as she led him out the back door. "Well, we're gonna play it again, and this time you're gonna wear this special spy necklace. It's gonna make you invisible, just like in Harry Potter, but you have to be really, really quiet…"

After they had walked out the door, Gwen crossed the room, rummaged through her knapsack and removed a sonic blaster from the Hub's armory. She pulled on her own perception filter before slipping out the door.

Thankfully the rain had stopped, but everything was still wet. Puddles had filled the low spaces in the path and the lawn. The roof and the trees were still dripping. And the heavy mist that filled the air was quickly soaking her to the skin as thoroughly as if it still had been raining.

As Gwen carefully made her way through the garden towards the trees, her heart began to race. She could hear the UNIT soldiers begin to surround the house. Normally she lived for this, the adrenalin rush of stalking a criminal or being stalked by one. But she had to think about the baby now.

Holding the blaster in front of her, she flipped the switch to turn it on, and winced as the hum it made broke the silence. As she continued to move across the garden, two soldiers, both young men, rounded the corner of the building. She froze.

Gwen held her breath as they moved stealthily past her. She realized that, despite seeing the Doctor's demonstration and despite all the incredible things she had seen working for Torchwood, she hadn't truly believed that the perception filter would actually work, would make her virtually invisible. Yet here she stood, out in the open, only inches away from them and they didn't notice her.

At a signal she couldn't see, they burst through the kitchen door into the house. After a moment, she could hear voices in the house, but she couldn't make out what they were saying. She bit her lip and glanced towards the path. It was only about fifty feet from her. She should really go and find Jackie and Tony, she thought. But the temptation to hear what they were saying was too great. Reasoning to herself that she needed to know what their plans were, she cautiously walked back to the house and stood under the open window.

"They weren't upstairs either, ma'am." A young man's voice filtered through the window.

"What about the outbuilding?" a woman asked.

"Randall and Dibley are checking it out now."

Gwen heard the sound of a door opening and closing, and footsteps cross the floor. So that meant there were at least six of them, she reasoned. Randall, Dibley, the two kids who had entered from the back, the woman in charge and whoever had just entered the room. Six. Or more. Assume more.

"Captain, the television was on when they came in." This time, the voice sounded like a young woman.

"And their tea is still warm," the Captain said.

"There is a path out to the woods, sir," the young man interjected. "They may have escaped out the back as we pulled up."

"Check it out."

At that, Gwen turned and ran across the garden trying not to slip on the wet grass. Surprising herself at how quickly she could still move, she had her blaster in one hand with the other supporting her belly. Behind her, the back door opened and several soldiers exited the house. She heard someone yell an order to fan out.

"Shit, shit, shit," she muttered under her breath. She might have been running, but they weren't almost nine months pregnant so they were gaining on her. And she only had a vague idea of where she was going. According to Rose, there was a hiding place in a large tree in the center of a small clearing at the end of the path. But how a tree could hide them? It didn't make any sense.

At the end of the path she stopped, unable to breathe. Her belly was pressing on her diaphragm, not allowing her lungs to fully expand. Gasping, she arched her back to allow her lungs more room to fill with air. Inside her, the baby was doing something that felt a lot like kickboxing. Gritting her teeth at the pain, she rubbed a sore spot on her belly and looked around. She couldn't see Jackie or Tony, but that wasn't a bad thing. If she couldn't see them, the soldiers wouldn't be able to see them, either.

There was one tree in the clearing that towered over the rest. She stepped up to it and walked around the trunk. There was a large heart carved into it, just below eye level, and despite the urgency of the situation she smiled as she read the words carved inside. This was definitely the tree Rose had described, but she couldn't see any place where you could go inside it. And it was too small to hide the three of them, anyway. She wasn't even certain it was big enough to hide her.

As she heard the soldiers near the clearing, she glanced back the way she came. Amazingly, they still weren't here, but she knew they would be any second. Remembering what else Rose had told her, she turned back towards the tree and placed her hand in the center of the heart. Her eyes widened. There was something there. It felt like a large button.

Before she even had a chance to press it, a door in the trunk swung open.

A door. In the trunk.

A hand grabbed her and pulled her through the doorway.

A doorway. In a tree.

"Oh, thank heaven," Jackie said. She shut the door behind Gwen and locked it. "I was getting so worried about you."

Gwen gaped at the impossible room in front of her. It was larger than her entire flat. The walls, which appeared to be made of some sort of alien material, were covered with round indentations and glowed with an inner light. Pillars that appeared more grown than built stretched up to an arched ceiling high overhead. In the center of the room, it looked like someone was building something but hadn't finished yet.

"Bloody hell," she said softly. "It's bigger on the inside."