Interesting use of words. So whatever was inhabiting the others, it was trapped here.
Jack noted to himself that he’d automatically dismissed the notion that Toshiko and Owen and probably Gwen were doing this voluntarily. Something had taken them over.
Good. At least he wasn’t being betrayed by his team.
He realised that the pinpricks were tiny wires into his skin, and that this had been worked out meticulously. And no matter how good Toshiko and Owen were, bless ’em, they couldn’t have achieved this with just their technological savvy.
Aliens? Rift aliens? Something else?
It didn’t matter. He was trapped, and encased in some kind of holding prison, unable to move and would, eternally, be living and dying and powering the aliens and their plans.
Great.
There was nothing he could do. Except wait for help from Ianto or someone else.
Jack smiled. Because he knew that Ianto would find a way. Because he was Ianto.
A long time passed. A lot of deaths and rebirths. Jack had no idea of time or space any longer – it was all he could do to keep sane.
Then, one day, a series of cracks appeared in the compound that held him.
He heard lots of noise, gunfire perhaps, and clearly some bullets had hit the thing he was in.
His vision clouded with scarlet. Had he been shot? No, no someone else had, directly above him, on the surface of the compound.
He knew then that Ianto was dead. Somewhere inside his head he felt something sever and die.
And he understood. Ianto had got himself shot, somewhere above him, deliberately. Knowing that his sacrifice was the only way to break the compound holding Jack.The crimson running across his vision and down tiny splinters in the compound towards him was Ianto’s blood.
Jack felt himself tense. Anger, hurt, pain, betrayal, fury. All of those came together as his cheek felt a drop of Ianto’s blood hit it.
Summoning every primal ounce of strength in him, Jack Harkness screamed in rage and pushed himself up, ignoring the searing pain as the compound shattered and sliced into him, ignoring the awful sensation of pure light hitting his eyes, blinking away the brightness and the blood.
He was standing there, threads of wiring torn away from his body, facing a group of armed guards, suited workers and Toshiko, her eyes now black, her face snarling.
‘Kill him,’ she screamed.
As if in slow motion, the guards raised their automatic weapons, but Jack was driven by something more powerful than good sense or logic.
He was driven by the death of Ianto Jones.
He reached forward and snatched a gun from a guard, swinging round, firing as he did so, not giving a damn who died as the spray of bullets went out. This wasn’t a time to care, this was a time for revenge. Revenge for the future of Earth, a future that was going to be destroyed if the aliens weren’t stopped.
He watched as a couple of guards fell astonished before him, grabbing another weapon and firing it equally indiscriminately, determined to ignore the bullets that were now peppering him. Without him, the alien plan probably couldn’t work. But he was going to take as much down with him as he could, just in case.
He saw Tosh suddenly gasp and a black… cloud erupted from her mouth, nose and eyes, as whatever alien was there fled her. Dark light – somehow he knew that was the phrase. On the ground at her feet, Owen’s body, already dead, convulsed as the aliens left that too.
Jack dropped to the ground, as the bullets from the remaining guards did their work. He let himself roll back, taking the last armed guard down with him, and took in the water tower behind him, the exposed Rift Manipulator flashing away, as its power was disrupted.
Summoning the very last vestiges of life within him, Jack fired straight into it, and with a series of explosions, the Manipulator exploded.
He was aware, as if hearing it from a million miles away, of the huge rumble. Aware of screaming people running out of whatever building they were in, ignoring the dead and wounded around them. Aware of the Dark combining and racing towards him.
Jack crawled over to the water tower. He realised that Toshiko was there with him, tears flowing down her cheeks. As they hit the base of the tower together, Jack shoved his hand into the burning Manipulator, ignoring the pain as his finger burned and blistered, melted flesh and bone.
He screamed as Toshiko grabbed him, held him, sobbing her apologies.
‘Not your fault,’ he gasped, every breath pure agony.
‘Theirs.’
And they both watched as the Dark sped towards them.
And Jack wrenched everything out of the Manipulator.
The staff at St Helen’s Hospital were in panic. All the power in the hospital had cut out and no one knew why. Then they felt the ground shake, as windows exploded and a hundred car alarms in the car park roared into life.
Gwen Williams convulsed as the Torchwood equipment designed to extract the baby from within her failed.
Unseen by the doctors and nurses, a tiny cloud of Dark light emerged from Gwen’s mouth as she screamed. It vanished immediately in a silent explosion, dying before it could find a new host.
A couple of nurses went into professional overdrive, immediately preparing Gwen for a caesarean.
Rhys was beside her.
An hour later, Rhys Williams held Geraint Williams Junior in his arms, singing Welsh rugby songs to him.
Gwen, smiling and exhausted, had just come round.
‘What happened, Rhys?’ she asked. ‘I can’t remember much of anything. Like a fog has been lifted.’
Rhys took her hand. ‘There was an explosion, love, at the heart of Cardiff.Terrible – a whole section of the city has gone, there’s just a crater.’
And Gwen looked at him as memories flooded back.
She cried for half an hour. The nurses took the baby to the nursery while Rhys looked after his wife.
every so often, she’d say, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing or thinking,’ and ‘I let them control me,’ and ‘I’m so sorry,’ but Rhys didn’t care. He had his wife back and safe and alive and well and a perfectly healthy baby.
He did though have things to say to her when she was calmer. Two things in fact.
First that, lovely as Geraint was as a first name, he thought Jack Ianto Geraint Williams was a better choice. Then he said something she’d never forget.
‘Torchwood, as we knew it, has gone, love. Jack, Ianto, Owen and Toshiko, gone. But there still needs to be a Torchwood of sorts. Someone’s got to carry on doing what you lot did.
‘So you and me, yeah? Together. And we’ll find more people: new Tosh, new Owen. And we’ll make this place safe again. Somewhere safe for the baby to grow up.’
And Gwen hugged him harder than ever before.
TWENTY-TWO
The bucket hit the ground with a loud crash, and coins spilled everywhere over the road.
Gwen Cooper awoke from whatever dream she’d had with a gasp.
She could see people around her, clown faces on all of them. Not just the street performers but what appeared to be normal members of the public. Bits of the last few hours juddered into her mind, and she remembered that the plan was to lure people here, to get the Light inside them… for safekeeping. Just a race of alien life forms that needed temporary hosting, until their own habitat became available again.
Something about a diary. And Bilis Manger. He was their… friend?
And that awful future world where she’d been infected by Dark light… and Torchwood had tried to dominate Earth and been destroyed.
‘Jack!’ Gwen yelled at the top of her voice.
Everyone else in the street turned and looked at her.
As one, they marched towards her, card players throwing cards at cars and doors where they stuck, a mime imitating her every move as she made it.