A/N: Hello everyone! Just a quick note of apology here really, I just thought I'd better mention that I realised today that in the process of reformatting this story, I had accidentally published the same ch. twice meaning that both chs 27&28 were the same! I have gone back and corrected this, and if anyone who came across the discrepency earlier wants to go back and read the updated version it is chapter 27 that has the new content. As ever, hope you enjoy! Hannah xxx
We were all called into the conference room this morning. In mine and Jack's case it was more 'staying where we already were' rather than being called in, but still. Owen Harper is about 40 % something else, but 40 % what Dr Jones? What is it that's claiming our friend and colleague as its own? One current theory was that the energy the glove used to bring people back from the dead, was the same energy that was slowly converting Owen into something new – not that this would be useful information even if it turns out to be right, as according to the analysis Tosh had ran on the glove, there was no way of knowing where the glove's energy comes from.
It was strange sitting through that conference; listening to everybody talk as if Owen wasn't even there. Never for one second did it cross my mind that they were doing this on purpose, because they wouldn't have been. It was just the way cases were always referred to, and the fact that our current case focused on our own Owen, was a strange concept to get one's head around. I pitied him then, I never thought that I would see the day when I would pity Owen Harper, but I guess here at Torchwood the foundations upon which we build up reality can change in a second.
Tosh came up to me shortly after the meeting, whilst I was running a scan on the internal systems to check for any dimensional anomalies within the last 24 hours, with such a heartbroken expression on her face. At first I assumed that it was because of everything that had happened over this past day; that (potentially) the love of her life had been killed, brought back, and was now a member of the living dead. That she understood that they would probably never have that date after all. But when I spoke to her about it, she said that she was so upset because she went to talk to Owen about confessing her love to him and he just assumed that she hadn't meant it. That it had been said on a whim as he lay on his death bed. That she hadn't uttered a most painful truth. And she just stood there unable to dispute it, in fact she agreed with him to an extent because she was still in such shock from the whole situation. She reckons she's blown away any chance she had now.
I didn't question her, merely held her and comforted her as she let all of this out in desperate bursts. But honestly, I wanted to ask her whether she genuinely still saw Owen in the same light, could still picture something between them even with him in his current state. Not because I thought it was odd, or unnatural or anything like that (although it was far from loves young dream) but more because I was purely curious. The situation seemed to mirror my relationship with Lisa, the way I carried on loving her despite the changes. It seemed also, to reflect my relationship with Jack, how my opinion of him didn't change after I found out he was immortal he broke my heart, then returned to confess his past. It's a strange thing that love does to you, how when it's strong enough, almost anything can be ignored.
"We need to stop thinking about him as Owen."
Oh Martha… just when I had begun to wonder how someone like you faced working for an organisation like UNIT day after day, and contemplating how you would be much better suited with us here at Torchwood. Maybe not. She didn't seem to get it; Owen will always be Owen to us. Right now the other four of us were not thinking about how to minimise the danger for the outside world or how to contain the situation or anything like that, we were just trying to work out what to do for Owen. It's not her fault, it's just the kind of natural instinct that working with UNIT, or Torchwood One from what I saw, gives you.
Jack went to fetch Owen after he fled form the hub, and somehow they both ended up inside police cells, I can only begin imagine how that happened. I'll have to ask Jack to fill me in properly later.
Ah it'll probably end up being a lot later. Tosh went through the CCTV footage just before Owen stormed out to see if she could try and work out a motive and she found something that was most alarming. It was unlike anything we'd ever seen before; his eyes had turned pitch black – but it was almost sort of darker than black, as if the darkness he had been slipping in and out of, the darkness that was slowly consuming him, was now boring through his eyes. He called out in an unearthly, unknown voice in an ancient language, Latin perhaps?, and then was startled back into reality.
Just as we were translating the recording of Owen and playing it out through the speakers – "I will walk the Earth and my hunger will know no bounds" was the message – as Jack and Owen arrived back. Whilst they had been out, a gang (a gaggle, a flock?) of Weevils cornered them in the large multi-story. They were poised, ready to attack with teeth bared and claws outstretched, seeming more primitive than we had ever observed, certainly a long way off from the further evolved Weevils we had found a while back. But Owen slipped back into that strange mode of eyes filled with darkness, and words in an unknown tongue spilling from his mouth, and they retreated.
Jack's just taken him down to the Weevil cells now, to see how they reacted to him.
"So I'm King of the Weevils" Was Owen's comment on the matter. I was suddenly so very glad to see Owen's sarcastic, dry sense of humour emerging. It managed to restore a vague sense of reality, and more importantly made sure that none of us would forget that despite whatever was going on – he was still the same man.
But his next significant comment, as Gwen pulled out her research on the grim reaper and the Black Death, was a lot less reassuring. "Yea, I'm dead not death – there's a difference". There was so much uncertainty in his voice, and it was as if he needed his words to be true.
How I wish that I could run in there and tell him that he was right, but after hearing more on Gwen's research, about the Parish of St James where upon hearing of the Black Death the citizens built a wall around the town. But it didn't prevent one little girl from dying. The priest performed a miracle, and brought the young girl back to life, but as the legend goes she brought death back with her. Death needed 13 victims in order to gain a permanent hold on the Earth, but somehow it was stopped at 12, stopped through faith the legend foretold.
Toshiko didn't want to admit the parallels that were obvious between this situation and Owen's, and although it was just something that Gwen had 'googled' it could be a good lead. But surely even she couldn't deny that it was worth researching after realising that the Priest's church was the same one that Jack had retrieved the glove from, or that six hundred years after this legend, the Parish of St. James became Cardiff?
Owen walked through the hub, ready, willing and prepared to face his 'death'. He would be injected with formaldehyde and paralysed for eternity, yet for all we know his mind would continue to be active in this undead state for ever. He was sacrificing himself for the sake of the team, and I have never felt angrier with him or more in admiration of him in that very moment. I didn't know what to say to him as the time approached. I wanted for him to call me 'teaboy' and insult me one last time, to make a joke about how the position Martha caught Jack and I in last night, and most of all for me to be able to tell him that none of this was really happening. To be honest, for Owen's sake I would have rather that he had just died properly, as he should have done after the shooting, it would have been much kinder to him – but I can't lie and say that I haven't selfishly enjoyed these extra few hours. He was at 95% and how was I supposed to convey all of this in that time? So I opted for silence and simply squeezed his hand as it trailed past mine on the banister, he looked into my eyes and I hope he saw what I couldn't bear to say.
It all got a little bit hectic after Owen stepped into the autopsy bay. I remember feeling glad, just for a second, that the glove caused enough of a distraction to delay Owen's injections. But after what it did to Martha… It was so peculiar; it just sort of began chasing after her of its own accord.
I armed myself with a hockey stick that was, rather luckily, just lying around. I tried not to think of the last time I had used a hockey stick inside the hub, and prayed that no one would bring it up again afterwards as I had been embarrassed enough the first time. Somehow I doubt that anyone even noticed I was holding a stick, we were all in that much of an adrenaline fuelled state of preparation.
For a second nobody even noticed what had happened to poor Martha after we had extracted the glove from her face, we were busily trying to contain the situation. It wasn't until the glove was most definitely neutralised, that we saw what had happened, how it had drained all of her youth away. "It must have been death, because it's stolen my life" – despite the fact that everything is, relatively, fine now. Her words are still echoing around my mind.
Owen's transition reached completion and a figure of thick, black smoked spread out from within him and filled the air. Nobody quite knew what happened after that, we were all so stunned that things have kind of become a little bit of a blur, but suddenly we were driving a very sick, aged, Martha to the hospital with no clue as to where 'death' had vanished to.
Jack sent me back to the hub to find out as much as I could about the legend from the 15th Century and about anything that would be vaguely helpful, whilst the others evacuated the hospital. Unfortunately for me, everybody in the entire hospital must have been trying to access the internet to 'Facebook' their friends about what was going on because the connection to the internet was unbelievably slow. I decided to try and break into the hospital communication systems which was a much easier task, anticipating that it might be useful, which it was.
There had been multiple heart attacks all throughout intensive care; death was making its way up to its 13 souls. Meanwhile I was getting nowhere with that research, I kept frantically searching for the key phrase 'I shall walk the Earth and my hunger will know no bounds' but I just kept getting re-directed to bloody weightwatchers!
I tried searching again; using the name of the medical journal Gwen had given me as a prompt this time, and finally found out something useful. Gwen had missed something earlier. A subtle and almost insignificant something, but never the less a very important something – a something which changed the whole meaning of the information she had found. It was Faith, not faith that stopped death from claiming the 13th person. Faith was the little girl who the priest had resurrected.
Whilst my research was useful, it was Owen who saved the day in the end. He came to the conclusion that he, like Faith had nothing left to lose, he was already dead. He faced death with bravery, and he won. Not before making sure that both Tosh and the young boy Jamie who had been trapped inside the hospital, were ushered to safety. He gave Tosh a kiss on parting, and swiped her monitor as he was at it, he was wrong, I don't think there was anyway Tosh could hate him after what he did even if he stolen away all of her gadgets in the world.
At this point, I was still hooked up to the computer, sat by Martha's bedside, and after hearing some awful and frantic screaming from Tosh over the comms decided to check and see if anyone was still out there. As I was calling their names, Martha- youthful and revived once more – startled me by grabbing my shoulders. I've never been so glad as to be unwillingly surprised in my entire life.
Now we're all in the hub, just sitting, no speaking and not really doing anything either. Nobody's sure of what happens next, nobody knows how long Owen will remain like this for, all we can do is relish the time he does have left with us whether it's thirty years, or thirty days.
As it's been confirmed that as well as not being able to eat or drink, that Owen can't sleep, Jack's just let him go back to his own apartment so that he can at least be truly comfortable in his permanent state of consciousness. And, somehow, I finally found the time to book Martha into a local hotel so Jack and I have the evening to ourselves, which selfishly I'm quite glad about.
We ended up going back to my apartment rather than staying at the hub as Jack seemed to want to be as far away from there right now as physically possible, admittedly my apartment was only really a few hundred metres away, but the atmosphere was a world away from that back at the hub. I thought about fixing us something to eat, but I wasn't really feeling like eating much and Jack looked as if he couldn't stomach food right now so I left it, and poured both of us a whisky instead.
I thought tonight might be one of those times where Jack needed a consul, when he needed someone to sit there and listen whilst he offloaded his troubles. But evidently it wasn't.
"So…" I began, as we sat down on my settee.
"So", he repeated.
"Are you alright?" I asked, feeling like it was a foolish question anyone who was looking at a pair of eyes with a such a saddened expression as that could tell that the owner of them was anything but alright.
"Ianto… No… No offense, but can we not? Not right now at least, it's too fresh. I need to think of nothing for a little while" He replied, sounding stained.
"Of course" I replied with a small, sad smile. If I was honest I would rather not talk about it myself, but had it been what he needed, then I would have done.
We sat for half an hour or so, curled up tightly on the sofa with the news on in the background – but neither of us was really watching it. I tried thinking about what made me feel better when I felt so utterly rotten and was in complete despair and only one thing came to mind that I remembered even vaguely helping numb my mind for a bit after Lisa… after Jack…
A long soak in a hot bath.
I was, usually, first and foremost a shower man. They were faster, more economical and more environmentally friendly, but when you're feeling so very low, there's nothing like a bath to help melt away tension. Usually I would have said that the best thing to make Jack feel better when he's not up to talking was sex. But today I thought he needed something more than that, he needed a gesture of affection.
So I got up and told him I would be back in ten minutes, he seemed a little perturbed as I left, but it was to be worth it in a moments time. I went back into the living room, a minute earlier than I had said I would be, and announced that his bath was ready. He seemed a little surprised, but grateful.
I walked him to the bathroom, and he gave me a tender kiss before beginning to take off the day's clothes. I started to leave, to give him some time in peace to relax and think of nothing whilst in the presence of hot water, but he seemed to have other ideas.
"The idea of a bath has suddenly become a whole lot less appealing now that I know you won't be joining me" He said whilst my back was turned to face him, he was trying to sound disappointed but I could tell he was grinning out of my sight.
I turned around and raised an eyebrow in return.
"Please" he begged, reaching out to unbutton my shirt. I never could turn him down when he pleaded for something be it coffee or the completion of paperwork… or this apparently.
What also became apparent is that a combination of affection and sex is the best way to make Jack Harkness feel better.