I'm not ready for the dead to show its face, whose turn is it anyway?

[aboveandbelowme]

There are archangels moving in on the Kashtta Tower. Rather a lot of archangels, considering - when archangels move in groups like this, they're usually either hunting some serious prey, or going drinking. Most archangels do not go drinking quite this heavily armed

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AFTERMATH

[hey_capn_jack]

 

[hey_capn_jack]

Jack has moved the injured - mostly Mat and Gene - into an office with less damage from explosions than the one Sam and Mat took refuge in. He's checked in with his team - and oh, how good it feels to call it his team again - and while they report injuries, so far there aren't any fatalities. He's sent Malek off to bring Juliet and Tachi up so that Juliet can be treated without leaving her patient. And the control room is monitoring the archangels in their makeshift prisons.

This is what's going on when Maya checks in.

The comm lines are open. So when Maya says {"Captain Harkness,"} it should give Sam pause, because it's the perfectly reserved quiet tone that suggests she's going to take the next opportunity to make someone suffer and suffer dearly.

Jack, however, not being acquainted with Maya, just taps his comm. "Maya. All quiet on the upper front?"

{"The two archangels aren't doing anything. I think they've given up."} There's not much of a pause as she switches topics. {"I would like to come down to the infirmary."}

[definitivestep]

Sam's sitting on the floor where he can keep an eye on both Mat and Gene, his hands still shaking a little from adrenaline, and he's probably not going to be able to get that to stop for a while.

The sound of Maya's voice on the comm gets his attention, and he glances to Jack. Waits for him to finish speaking with Maya, and opens his mouth to... warn him or something, because that tone in Maya's voice is never a good sign. He's heard it directed at him, and he knows what usually comes after. But how, exactly, he's supposed to warn Jack about that, he's not sure.

He doesn't really get the chance to sort it out before Gwen strides into the room, looking both shaken and furious. "Jack!"

[hey_capn_jack]

Maya's warning signs might go right over Jack's head, but that tone is not one he's going to mistake anytime soon. His attention snaps up and he pulls himself up despite himself, with an involuntary first reaction of oh, fuck, what now?

"Gwen," he says, quite evenly considering he's about to get both barrels for something.

[that_damn_paki]

And he is. But possibly not from whom he expects.

Maya stalks into the room with the same civility Sam always got before she took him to task for something, but... amplified. She stops at a reasonable distance, her best We're listening to me, now, as I'm a DI and I need answers voice in full projection. "Jack Harkness?"

[hey_capn_jack]

Though he can't say why, Jack is getting the vague feeling of compounded impending doom.

"DI Roy," he says, stepping forward to offer a handshake. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

[that_damn_paki]

Maya ignores the hand. She studies his expression, working out the angles - she's not the best at reading people, but you don't work for CID for long without picking something up.

Rather than shaking his hand, she steps forward and punches him in the stomach.

Hard.

[hey_capn_jack]

That, Jack was not expecting. He's forced back a step, but instincts react faster than rational thought and he's caught Maya's wrist before she has a chance to withdraw it. For a second his face twists into a snarl, and he tamps down on the reflex that'll send her flying into a desk or a wall. "What the f-!"

[that_damn_paki]

Maya isn't letting him get the first word in this. This is not a rage Sam's ever seen before, or anyone has - she's running on epinephrine, with the greyscale scenes of carnage still existing as afterimages in her mind. "Fifteen archangels!", she snaps, pulling back her wrist. Jack lets go, probably more out of reflex than propriety. "Two survivors! Four of those angels were killed within minutes of stepping inside this building. Is that what you meant by 'defense'?"

[hey_capn_jack]

In retrospect, he should have seen that coming. Never mind that the archangels were the aggressors here. Never mind that this was a dishonorable battle in a ludicrous war. It's going to come back to the bodycount.

"Is there something you want to say to me?" he asks, because he's not going to stand here and defend his actions with hypotheticals to someone he doesn't even know.

[that_damn_paki]

Mature. Maya has never been the sort to be put off by a stony front, or to enter an argument without the full force of her convictions behind her. He wants to make this hard, she can take it hard. She's been in the trenches of argument and confrontation with Detective Chief Inspectors and criminals both. She's not going to be cowed by him.

"Was there any consideration, at any point in time, given to not killing them all at the earliest opportunity?"

[hey_capn_jack]

"What, before they blasted down the front door and charged in, I should have asked them out for tea and a nice chat?" Jack draws himself up. "This was a war, Roy, and they came in intending to take lives. They brought the war to us. We engaged on their rules."

[that_damn_paki]

Maya pulls herself up as he does, a new level of anger bleeding into her expression. Sarcasm is inappropriate in this situation, and she's not at all liking the person this man is turning out to be.

"And that's mitigating circumstance for the entire massacre? You had them torn apart by animals, you had them stabbed in the back - you killed the first man, Harkness, and I watched you. We had five archangels locked in an office and when they agreed to go home peacefully you unleashed those ghosts and they took each other apart. And you killed every archangel you came across. This wasn't a defense, it was a slaughteryard."

[hey_capn_jack]

"And at least one of those archangels, as soon as I ran across her, killed me!" Jack shoots back. "Fifteen archangels, armed and with orders to kill two members of Torchwood. Orders from Romana, DI Roy, and I've seen her rules of engagement. Do you think that if they needed to, they would have hesitated to kill every last person in this building?"

[that_damn_paki]

Maya scoffs. And he thinks he's one to deliver lectures on judging the other side and holding to those judgements? Rich. Very rich.

"You've seen one confrontation which escalated," Maya snaps. "And it's not as though you could have claimed to be a model of diplomacy. You uniaterally usurped part of the basement."

And, granted, the wanderers had no central authority, but none of them had any vested interest in Elashte, dead or alive. That had been Torchwood acting on their own convictions, or Harkness on his own, not in representation of anyone. And that had driven the Wanderers out of the basement not long after.

"The week before I came here," she says, "I was at the Hotel working with one of her angels to investigate the people behind the terrorist attacks on the city. They're good people. They-"

[hey_capn_jack]

Good people, bad people, put a gun in their hand and give them a reason to shoot you and you'll still be hoping you can shoot first. "The issue isn't whether-"