A half hour later saw the Doctor standing by the same window where Ianto had frequently caught Jack peeking out at the outside world. The look on his face could be described as nothing less than furious, and right at that moment he was every bit the Oncoming Storm. Rose sat on the couch, clutching the photo of Jack and Ianto with tear-filled eyes while Jackie told them everything she knew about Jack's captivity.
"A hundred years?" Rose whispered. "He's been their prisoner for a hundred years?"
"How did they come to be here?" the Doctor asked suddenly. "Did someone help them?"
Jackie answered with a nod.
"Yeah. I didn't know her before this, but she said she knew Rose. Sarah Jane, her name was."
The Doctor sighed. Somehow, he wasn't surprised.
"Good old Sarah Jane."
Abruptly, Rose spoke up incredulously.
"Mum, if Jack was here for nearly two months, where didn't you call me? You've got the mobile number!"
Jackie glowered at her daughter.
"I tried, thankyou very much! You never ruddy answered it! And you're no better, you might as well not have it! Never called me once, did you?"
Rose winced and looked away guiltily, recalling just how many times she'd disregarded calls from her mother.
"All right," the Doctor said finally. "I need to find this Torchwood and get Jack out of there. Jackie, have you got any idea at all where it is?"
"No, sorry. Ianto never said. He didn't like to talk about it at all, really, because of Jack. Although, he seemed to think they might be responsible for the Ghost Shifts."
The Doctor stared at her, puzzled.
"Sorry, the what?"
"The Ghost Shifts," Jackie repeated. "You'll see in about... oh, half an hour or so. See, these ghosts have been appearing every day for well over a month now. Just once a day to start with, and then twice every day from a few weeks back. They're all over London! One even appears in my kitchen!"
"Ghosts?" the Doctor echoed incredulously. "Since when do ghosts have shifts? Since when do shifts have ghosts?"
Jackie turned to Rose, effectively ignoring the Doctor.
"You know, I thought at first it was your grandfather, but I have to confess that now I'm not so sure. Because to start with I was sure I could smell cigarettes. It wasn't very strong at first, but then I just tried harder...."
"The more you want it, the stronger it becomes," the Doctor mused, and Jackie nodded.
"That's right. And I was so positive, but Ianto didn't trust the ghosts. He was sure there was something wrong about it all. I tried to get him to see how wonderful it could be. I mean, think about it. Everyone's loved ones coming back to them. Don't you think that's beautiful?"
The Doctor looked grim.
"I think it's horrifying. I'm sorry, Jackie, but it isn't a natural thing. Your Mr Jones thought there was something wrong, and I think he was right."
"Well, he wasn't the only one who didn't like the Ghost Shifts," Jackie went on. "Poor Jack was just plain terrified of them. Got to the point where he'd go hide in his room and not come out until me or Ianto could go tell him it was over."
"Jack?" Rose echoed incredulously. "Our Jack, scared? Are we really talking about the same bloke, here?"
"I told you, Rose," Jackie said in a soft tone that covered a layer of steel. "Whatever he was like when you knew him, he's changed. Those bloody people at Torchwood changed him."
"This is mad," Rose whispered. "It was only a year ago! Less than!"
"Time isn't a straight line, Rose," the Doctor reminded her. "You know that now. It might have only been a year since we last saw Jack, but for him it's clearly been a lot longer."
"More than a hundred years," Jackie added bitterly. Rose stood up a little too quickly.
"I'm makin' some fresh tea."
She left the room without bothering to ask who else might want a cup.
"He think you're just going to abandon him again, you know," Jackie said once Rose had disappeared through into the kitchen. The Doctor frowned.
"Who? Jack?"
"Who else d'you think I mean, you silly fool?"
"How much does he remember?" the Doctor asked. "Does he remember what happened on Satellite Five?"
"I don't know. Anything like that, it was Ianto that he talked to. What I do know is that the poor love had nightmares nearly every night, and that he was scared to see you again. Why would that be, then?"
The Doctor pushed his fingers absent-mindedly through his hair.
"He has nothing to fear from me. He proved long ago that he was bigger on the inside. I'm the one who's come up short."
"I'll say you have," Jackie growled. "Why'd you do it? Why'd you leave him behind?"
"Because I was a coward," the Doctor admitted. "What Jack had become goes against every law of the Universe. A fixed point should never happen. He was supposed to die on that satellite, but Rose loved him too much to let it happen. She loved him so much that she didn't just give him back his life. She gave him eternity."
"And you weren't angry at her for it?"
The Doctor looked so painfully tired all of a sudden that Jackie found herself wishing she could take back what was clearly a loaded question.
"Everything she did, she did out of love. How could I possibly be angry at her for that?"
"Thankyou," Jackie murmured, albeit reluctantly. "Mind you, I'm not letting you off the hook over Jack. You owe him, Doctor."
"I know," he agreed. "More than you can possibly understand."
At ten past the hour, Jackie ushered the Doctor into the kitchen to witness the Ghost Shift. He watched the entity with a gravity that was masked by an almost childish enthusiasm.
"Doctor?" Rose asked cautiously as the entity began to fade from sight after a couple of minutes. "What is it?"
"I don't know," the Doctor admitted, "but what I do know is that it's coming through from another dimension. The power being used to pull it through, though, is from this world."
"Torchwood?" Rose guessed.
"Torchwood," the Doctor agreed with a fervour that made Rose grin.
"So, can we track it back to the source?"
"Oh yes," the Doctor confirmed enthusiastically. "Jackie, when it the next Ghost Shift due to happen?"
"This evening. Ten past six."
"Okay. That'll give me enough time, I think."
"Enough time for what?" Jackie asked.
"Enough time to devise a way of tracking the source of these so-called Ghost Shifts back to Torchwood, so that we can find Jack and his friend Ianto, and get them out. This Torchwood isn't going to know what hit them. Nobody interferes with my companions."
As he strode from the apartment to head back to the TARDIS, Rose smiled in relief at her mother.
"We're going to save Jack, Mum."
"Him and Ianto both," Jackie added. Grinning, Rose grabbed her mother by the hand and pulled her towards the door.
"C'mon! Let's go see what he comes up with."
Nearly six hours later, the three of them stood inside the TARDIS, ready for the next Ghost Shift.
"When it's over," the Doctor said, "I won't be wasting any time following the energy trail to Torchwood's location, so you might want to vacate now, Jackie."
Jackie folded her arms across her chest and positively glowered at him.
"Are you mad? I'm coming along this time, thankyou very much. You're going to need all the help you can get to find them."
"Mum, we'll be fine..." Rose protested, but Jackie silenced her with a look.
"Think about it for a minute, would you? He hasn't seen either one of you for over a hundred years. In his mind, you abandoned him."
"I didn't know," Rose said tensely. "If I had, we would have gone back, issues or not."
"But he doesn't know that," Jackie reminded her. She then turned to the Doctor. "As for you, he isn't going to even recognise you. So say what you like. I'm coming along."
"Oh, all right, then," the Doctor conceded, however reluctantly. "Just... don't touch anything, please."
Jackie pointed at him threateningly.
"Mind you, if we end up on Mars, I'm gonna kill you."
When the TARDIS landed, and they witnessed the rather heavily armed welcoming party, the Doctor turned to Rose and Jackie and spoke urgently.
"They may or may not know I'm travelling with someone. If they don't, I want you two to wait here until the coast is clear, and then start looking for this Ianto Jones. If they do know, then I want you to come with me, Jackie."
"No!" Jackie protested. "I want to find Jack!"
"We will," the Doctor reassured her. "This Torchwood is a powerful organisation, and any organisation that can keep a man locked up for over a hundred years is going to be arrogant. I can guarantee you, they're not going to be able to resist showing off Jack to me, just to get my reaction. Like you said, he's not going to recognise me, so I need someone to be there who he will recognise and trust. That someone is you, Jackie."
"Well, what about me?" Rose protested. "I hope you don't expect me to just hide in here and wait?"
"Like I said," the Doctor repeated patiently, "when the coast is clear, I need you to find this friend of Jack's. I have feeling we're going to need to bring him along with us, at least to begin with."
"Oh, thank god," Jackie said in relief. "Ianto tried to tell Jack that he couldn't go with him when you came back, and Jack just couldn't accept it. He was totally distraught, the poor love. Didn't want to go anywhere without Ianto."
Rose nodded. She wasn't entirely happy with being given what she considered the lesser task, but conceded nonetheless.
"All right, fine. I'll find this... what's his name? Ianto?"
"They've probably got him locked up somewhere," Jackie told her. "Ianto mentioned a name, though. See if you can find a bloke called Gage Adams. He helped Jack and Ianto to escape to begin with."
Rose nodded again, not bothering to point out that the likelihood of finding one individual in a place like that was slim to remote.
"Gage Adams. Got it. Good luck, you two."
The Doctor smiled grimly.
"And you." He turned towards the door, breathed in deeply and murmured somewhat ominously, "Here we go, then. Allonsy."
Rose was watching the monitor within the TARDIS, waiting for the area outside the TARDIS to clear, when a jolt knocked her momentarily off balance. She watched on the monitor incredulously as the time ship was hoisted onto the back of some sort of truck, and carried off. Probably, Rose decided, to some research room somewhere.
She grimaced, and hoped that wherever they were deposited, it wasn't too heavily populated.
Gage couldn't believe his luck. He was starting to think he would have to kill someone to get to Jack, but all of a sudden, Secure Archives were deserted. Oh, he knew where everyone had gone. Like everyone else, he'd heard that the Doctor had arrived. Unlike everyone else, he was in no hurry to see him. After all, despite the alien's enemy status, Yvonne Hartman was still inclined to fawn over him like a bloody celebrity. Consequently, he doubted it would be appreciated if he punched the bastard. It would be even harder to explain why.
And so, when word had spread and everyone hurried off to find a vantage point where they might spot the elusive Time Lord, Gage had stayed put, and now he literally had a free path to Jack's cell.
In reality, it was the same room where Jack had been kept before, but it had been stripped completely of everything that had helped to make it a more hospitable atmosphere. Jack, too, had been stripped of all the clothes that he'd been wearing when Torchwood had recaptured him. Now, he was wearing only a pair of boxers, and had been heavily chained once more. Gage had been furious when he'd seen the CCTV footage, but there had been nothing he could do.
It broke his heart to see Jack being reduced to animal-like status once more, to see all of Ianto's hard work and efforts going down the toilet. To have argued, though, would have meant a slow and painful death. Coward that he was, he'd convinced himself that he would be no use to either Jack or Ianto if he was dead, and so had kept quiet. His one and only satisfaction had been found in Spence's disappointment at having to leave him alone.
Oh, Gage knew he was being watched. He had no doubt about that, and so had been very careful not to do anything to raise suspicions. Now, though, he did have a chance to do something positive for Jack, and he'd decided that he couldn't care less if it got him killed.
No, he had a promise to keep. Find Jack, and tell him Ianto wasn't dead, and that he loved him. He'd promised, and he was going to do it, even if it got him killed.
"Adams, are you there?"
Gage cursed softly. Fucking Boyd from Internal Transfers...
"Yes, I'm here," he answered sourly.
"You must be the only one. Don't you know who's here?"
"I heard, but someone has to stay. We drew straws. I got the short one."
It was a blatant lie, but a believable one. His resentful tone could easily be mistaken for someone who was upset at missing out on the current excitement.
"Hard luck to you, mate. Then again, maybe not. Anyway, delivery to Bay Four."
"What is it?"
"It's his ship, Adams."
Curious despite his self-professed disinterest, Gage headed to Bay Four to see the infamous ship.
Rose waited for as long as she dared after the TARDIS had been deposited back on solid ground before risking opening the door. She had no idea where in Torchwood she was, and she wasn't sure how she was going to find this Ianto person, let alone anyone else. After all, she could hardly go up to the first person she saw and ask them where he was. Or rather, she could if she wanted to get caught.
Grimacing, she stepped out and pulled the doors closed behind her. She turned and froze upon discovering that she was being observed. A man stood nearby, watching her with obvious interest. Deciding to try for casual, she shoved her hands into her pockets and spoke frostily.
"What's the matter with you? Never seen anyone come out of a police box before?"
"As a matter of fact, no," the man replied with a hint of amusement. "I haven't."
"Well, then, first time for everything, isn't there?" she retorted. She made to walk past him, and almost thought she'd gotten away with it when he reached out and snagged her wrist.
"Yes or no. Do you travel with the Doctor?"
She tried to pull away, but he had her in an iron grip.
"You don't let me go right now, and you won't be having kids, yeah?" she growled. He didn't react to the threat, except to tighten his hold on her.
"Yes or no! Quickly!"
"All right! Yes! Why, what's it to you? You gonna lock me up as well, are you?"
Abruptly, he released his grip on her arm, and she only barely kept from falling.
"Sorry. I just needed to know. And no, I'm not going to lock you up, but we need to do something or the first person to see you will. Here..." He grabbed an abandoned lab coat from a nearby table, and held it out to her. "Put this on, quickly. And can you come with me? There's something you have to see."
She'd barely gotten the coat on before he was running from the room. Hoping she was doing the right thing, Rose hurried after him.
"Oi, what's your name?" Rose demanded as she caught up with him. He glanced across at her, never slowing his pace.
"Gage Adams."
Her breath caught, and she could barely believe her luck.
"Oh my god! I was supposed to find you! I was told you could help me find someone called Ianto!"
Gage came to an abrupt halt, and Rose barely avoided running straight into him.
"Oi, careful!" she burst out. Gage, however, stared at her with wide eyes.
"You know Ianto?"
"Well, no, not personally," she answered. "But my mum does... God, doesn't it feel weird saying that?"
A wry smile tugged at the corner of Gage's mouth.
"Doesn't matter, and I'm probably better off not knowing. Look, don't worry. I'll take you to Ianto, for sure. But there's someone else I need to take you to first."
And suddenly, Rose felt her heart rate sky-rocket as she realised just who Gage was talking about.
"Jack? Please tell me you're talking about Jack?"
"So you do know him, then?"
"Yeah," Rose whispered, suddenly having to fight off a new wave of tears. "I do. I just hope that he knows me."
Gage smiled sympathetically at her.
"I think he will. C'mon. I'll take you to him, but we have to hurry."
When they got to the room, Gage had a sudden moment of panic that maybe the codes had been changed, locking him out. He had a way in if that was the case, but the less time wasted, the better. What with Tomas's fate, and the very blatant threats issued from Spence and the hierarchy, Gage couldn't be certain that none of the Secure Archives team would turn them in if they happened to come back and discover them. He couldn't blame them for it, either, which only added to the urgency of the situation. Apparently, though, no one else was considered a risk with Ianto locked up, though, for the code that he entered in immediately released the heavy security door.
He was just about to warn Rose about what she might find beyond the door, when she pushed past him and strode into the room.
"Oh my god... Jack..."
A distressed sob escaped Rose's lips as she stared at the battered and cowed figure that was chained to the far wall of the room. Even Gage was horrified by the level of abuse that had been inflicted on Jack in such a short period of time. Between that, and letting the poor sod believe that Ianto was dead, it was no wonder that Jack had gone feral again.
Rose approached him slowly, and she was within a couple of metres of him when Jack lifted his head.
"Those bastards!" Rose exploded at the sight of his swollen and lacerated face. She started to reach out to him, only to stumble backwards in fright when Jack lunged forward as far as the chains would allow – which wasn't all that far – and snarled loudly at her.
"Jack, it's me," she said desperately. "It's Rose! Don't you remember? Dancin' on top of your Chula ship in the middle of a German air raid? Chasing the Slitheen? The Daleks?"
He didn't react to her words, instead lowering his head to arms and watching her almost sullenly through half-lidded eyes.
"He doesn't know who I am," she whispered, distraught. "He doesn't remember..."
Gage touched her shoulder tentatively.
"It's been a long time since he saw you, and the bastards here have done everything they could to strip away his humanity. Let me try, please?"
Feeling frustrated and helpless, Rose nodded her reluctant consent and stepped back to let Gage through. Stepping past her and crouched down in front of Jack, just out of reach.
"Jack! Look at me, lad. It's me, it's Gage. C'mon, now. I know you remember me."
Slowly, Jack lifted his head, and the sullen resentment crumbled away to make way for entirely new emotions.
"Gage...?"
Gage smiled with relief, and finally closed the distance between them. Jack lifted up his chained arms towards the other man and uttered a wordless cry of grief and distress, to which Gage responded by wrapping Jack up in a fierce hug. Jack promptly burst into a flood of tears, clinging to Gage as though his very life depended on it.
"There, now," Gage murmured. "It's going to be all right."
"Yan," Jack sobbed, clutching at Gage in despair. Gage smoothed down his mussed-up hair tenderly.
"Listen to me, Jack. They lied to you. Ianto isn't dead. He's alive."
Jack stared up at Gage with wide eyes, his tears suddenly forgotten.
"Yan... Not dead?"
"Not dead," Gage assured him. "Look, now. See who else is here? Do you remember her?"
Jack looked past Gage to Rose, who was struggling not to cry again. At first, there was nothing in his expression to suggest that he remembered her. Gradually, though, recognition dawned, and his face slowly lit up.
"Rose..."
She hurried forward and threw her arms around him, sobbing softly.
"Jack... I am so sorry. God, you must hate me so much."
Jack uttered a soft whimper, and buried his battered face in her hair.
"We need a key or something," she said finally. "Got to get these chains off him."
"Here, I've got something better than a key," Gage said, and pulled a strange looking device from within his jacket. "It's alien tech that came to us from the old base in Cardiff. Opens any lock in under forty-five seconds. Just hang on, and we'll have those chains off before you know it."
The device worked quickly and well, and Jack was released from the cruel chains.
"Look at this," Rose said in dismay, taking one of Jack's hands gently in her own to examine the bloodied gouges that the manacles had made in his flesh.
"I can get some bandages," Gage offered, but Rose shook her head.
"No. Don't worry about it. We can get these sorted out back in the TARDIS. Best medical care in the universe. Right, Jack?"
Jack didn't answer, but continued to stare at her curiously. Rose got up and tried to urge him to his feet.
"C'mon, Jack. We're going to get you safely into the TARDIS, yeah? C'mon, it's time to go home. Don't you want to go home?"
"Home," Jack murmured, and suddenly his face screwed up and he shook his head, stubbornly refusing to move. "No."
Rose blinked, not quite sure she'd heard right.
"No? Sorry, what?"
"Don't want to go," Jack insisted, his expression hardening. Confused and frustrated, Rose looked over at Gage for help. Gage chuckled softly.
"Sorry, Rose, but you've got no chance to getting him to go anywhere without his Ianto."
One look told her Gage was right in his assessment, and she bit back a frustrated sigh. Instead, she carded her fingers through Jack's matted hair, and cupped his cheek lovingly.
"Haven't changed that much, have you? Still won't leave anyone behind."
Her words triggered a fresh wave of guilt at the knowledge that that was exactly what she and the Doctor had done to him. Shoving those unhelpful thoughts to the back of her mind, Rose made a quick decision.
"All right, then. Let's just find your Ianto, and then we'll get you back to the TARDIS. Okay?"
They were clearly the magic words, for Jack abruptly scrambled to his feet, heedless of his bruised and swollen ankles and feet.
"Yan!" he burst out, taking a few stumbling steps towards the door. Gage quickly positioned himself at Jack's side, gently encouraging the other man to lean on him.
"All right," he agreed. "Let's go get Yan."
Ianto was sitting on the hard bench, his face buried in his hands, when his cell door swung open. He didn't bother to lift his head. If it was Yvonne Hartman finally come to execute him, then he was not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing how afraid he really was. Consequently, he never saw who it was that appeared in the doorway of his cell, and he was caught totally off-guard when someone literally barrelled into him, nearly knocking him off the bench, and began to smother his face with a torrent of kisses.
"What...?" Ianto sputtered, and he finally looked and found himself staring at a face that he honestly had not expected to see again. "Jack...?"
Before he had a chance to get another word out, Jack all but dove in and kissed him squarely on the mouth. Startled though he was, this time Ianto didn't push him away. When Jack did pull back of his own accord, Ianto immediately responded by pulling Jack into a ferocious and protective hug.
"Cariad, I am so sorry. I didn't mean what I said. I do love you, Jack. I love you so very much."
"Love you, Yan," Jack sobbed against his shoulder. Still holding Jack to him, Ianto looked back towards the door.
"Gage?"
Gage smiled wearily at his friend.
"Yeah. Not just me, though."
He stepped to one side, allowing Rose to see into the cell. Ianto gasped softly in shock.
"Rose? My god, it is Rose, isn't it?"
She smiled tearfully, and nodded.
"Yeah, I'm Rose. And you must be the famous Ianto Jones. Got my mum wrapped around your finger, you have. Not to mention this one wasn't going anywhere until we'd rescued you, too."
Ianto ruffled Jack's hair lovingly, delighting in the contented sigh that met the gesture.
"You silly old fool. All right, you've rescued me. Now, we need to get out of here."
"We'll be safe in the TARDIS," Rose said, and Ianto's eyes widened.
"The TARDIS? You mean... he's here, too?"
Rose reached out to grasp Ianto's shoulder gently.
"We arrived back home this morning. Mum told us everything. We came to get you both out of Torchwood, Ianto. Now, will you both get up so that we can get back to the TARDIS, and I can call the Doctor and tell him you're both safe?"
Grinning suddenly, despite his own antipathy towards the Doctor, Ianto got up and urged Jack up as well.
"C'mon, sweetheart. We're getting out of here."
Jack clutched anxiously at Ianto's arm, though, panic in his eyes.
"Please don't leave me, Yan toe," he pled softly. Before Ianto had a chance to respond, Rose spoke for him.
"Don't you worry, Jack. He's coming with us, whether he likes it or not. He's not leaving you. Not yet."
Ianto frowned a little, but Jack was placated and finally allowed Ianto to lead him back out into the corridor. Gage took the lead to take them back to Bay Four when he froze in his tracks at the sight of a familiar and extremely unwelcome individual who had just entered the corridor at the very far end.
"Fuck... It's Spence!"
Ianto didn't hesitate. He wheeled around and took off at a run, pulling Jack along with him. Gage and Rose followed, having no other alternative.
"Ianto, there's no way out down this end," Gage called to him as loudly as he dared. "It's just the research labs!"
"So we hide in one until he's gone," Ianto growled back. "We can't let him see us, Gage, and none of us has a weapon. He might be a sadistic bastard, but he's not stupid. If he finds us, he'll shoot first and ask later. Now, c'mon!"
They continued to run, with Jack stumbling along behind Ianto as best as he could manage. Finally, Ianto came to an abrupt halt and his fingers flew over the keypad of one particular door. The light flashed green, unlocking it and letting them in. The four almost fell into the room, and Gage quickly closed and locked it behind them.
"Now, let's just hope the bastard doesn't come this far down," he grumbled, quietly wishing he at least had a stun stick to use on his boss. There was no response from any of his companions, and he turned to see what was wrong. It wasn't difficult to see what had all their attention – even Jack's, and Gage swore softly in shock.
"What in the fucking hell is that?"
to be continued...