A/N: we continue with short chapters, some more Jack inner musings.
Spoiler alert: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Beta-ed: TattoedLibrarian
Jack lifted himself slowly. It was painful to revive before everything was healed again. Usually it would be just a short passing pain that would last as long as his first intake of breath. But sometimes repairing needed his awaking presence. This was one of those times. His vertebrae were in an unnatural position that couldn't be healed without him straightening himself up through the pain. He made it in silence because if he didn't he would have shouted as loud as he could. He would never give John that kind of performance, not easily. When he was repaired and upright he noticed the silence. It could only mean that John wasn't there, noise would follow him anywhere. His hand felt naked.
`Of course` he rubbed his wrist `he wouldn't miss out on such simple robbery'.
Jack lifted his head up following the line of the building. It was a long way to fall and as much as he didn't want to go up there again there was a mobile phone on the roof. Without his wrist strap he felt blind, he was unable to find his team or predict John but at least he could use this times technology. Of course he blocked their head sets but he would never bother with a messy technology like a mobile network. He would have to shut down the entire network. That would be too much leg work for him. Tosh could do it in a flash. Jack could hear the mobile ringing from the stairs. He ran the rest of the way as the phone didn't stop ringing. Ianto was calling. Jack answered with a sigh of relief and withheld his fear.
"Status?" he said in the phone to keep his bearings.
"All accounted for" Ianto informed him briefly with what he knew Jack needed to hear "Owen wounded, flesh wound, Gwen poisoned but cured, Tosh has a split lip" he lined up things by severest of the injuries, that meant Ianto was intact.
"Your status?" Ianto asked in return with his short ordering voice he wasn't aware of.
"Alive" Jack was brief "pick me up by the office building; he's taken a key to the house."
"We're already on the way" said Ianto firmly "We'll be there in ten" he ended the call. Jack looked at the phone fondly. They knew to handle things.
As Jack waited for them on the pavement he didn't look at the bench but he kept looking up the building. Maybe it was a relief that John had finally killed him. He always thought he might, because living alongside with someone like John meant nothing was safe, it was only question of time when you'd become an enemy. Jack felt like it was the final ending between them. He was dead to John, and if he didn't show himself, John would always think of him as dead, even more he would enjoy the fact he was the one to decide Jack's ending. As much as Jack loved his own privacy and knew his undying was a weakness, he couldn't let John win like that. It was one of the rare times when this undying ability was something that would serve him to win a break up; because this was a break up. In the messed up timelines of time travelers one could never be sure when an ending is really the end or just postponing. But this was the line, death was always the line there was no turning back from, and John had intended to send him across that line.
When the car arrived Jack climbed in the passenger seat and Ianto drove. His knuckles were white from squeezing the wheel. Gwen was pale, Owen clenched his jaw, and Tosh looked pissed. Ianto looked annoyed; Jack smiled at his profile enjoying his presence. Jack looked over their injuries and could clearly see John's twisted logic in his actions. Tosh had only been beaten because she flirted and admired, after all for John beatings were foreplay. Owen was shot because he was immediate competition and clearly wasn't infatuated by John. Gwen was poisoned by a kiss because she dared to contradict Jack and challenge him. In John's twisted mind he was protecting him from her. Ianto was intact because it was meant for him to run around and be used for extortion later on; and because John couldn't fight his aesthetic nature and taint something perfect. Jack was grateful for that.