It's not like every devastating end brings a new beginning...

[torchwoodsheart]

A cab pulls up in front of the Main Gauche, rather slowly and reluctantly as it gets close enough to see the twisted wreckage of the gates, a few scorch marks on the buildings and grounds... Gwen hands the driver a few bills and slides out of the back seat, eying the gates uncertainly for a second before she starts inside. She can deal with this.

Comments

[homoraptor]

And there is Malek, waiting at what's left of the gates, watching the parking lot. his shoulder is bandaged and his trenchcoat off - odd, for him - but he's refusing to wear a sling. He looks unhappy with everything - he hasn't seen Anya, and while there were no bodied they could identify as her, there were a lot of bodies that couldn't be identified. Elashte is up in his office moving as little as he can, and who knows where Tay's got off to.

He sees the taxi and pushes himself off the gates, walking out to meet the visitor. "You Cooper?"

[torchwoodsheart]

Gwen nods a little, glancing up to meet his eyes. She recognizes him from the Kashtta, the velociraptor... One of the two people she was supposed to contact if she could't reach Jack. A lot of good that will do now.

"That's me. You're Malek?"

[homoraptor]

Malek nods. "Well, our mems' fine. El's up in 'is office. Rest of you kids're 'round here somewhere. Dunno where, exact."

He motions her to follow him, heading back into the courtyard. In the light of day the destruction is given a strange, arbitrary air, blood drying on the grass and torn patches of unearthed soil and burn marks all disconnected from the violence of the night before. A few birds, undaunted by the lingering smell of smoke and blood and magic, are in the trees and bushes, twittering as though it's any other day.

"Heard it was your kid Romana went off 'n' Fell on," he mentions, voice flat. "Was there. Saw the thing. Stood right in front of Romana, told her down. ...didn't turn out so well, not either o'tem."

[torchwoodsheart]

Gwen clenches her jaw a little, closing her eyes just for a second as she trails after him. "She wasn't supposed to be here," Gwen says quietly, trying to keep the guilt and grief out of her voice and mostly failing. Gwen's never been good at holding back her emotions. "Shouldn't have been." As if that makes any difference.

[homoraptor]

Malek reaches back with his good hand, patting Gwen roughly at the base of her neck. "Lots weren't," he says, leading her on up into the east building, up into the halls. "Made a good accounting of us, though. An' wit' t'First dead on the ground, won't happen again. Make sure that."

He stops at Elashte's office, poking his head in. Elashte is sitting at his desk, some distance back from the door, and looks up as the door opens. There's a swelling bruise on his forehead, one of his arms in is an cast, and there's a cane resting against his leg.

"'ere y'are," Malek says, ushering her in. Elashte smiles, though it's a thin and pained smile, and motions her to a chair.

"Gwen Cooper, I presume. I hope you'll forgive me if I don't stand."

[torchwoodsheart]

"Thank you." Gwen gives Malek a tired, slightly forced smile before moving to the chair indicated.

"Of course," she says to Elashte. "It's good to meet you, finally. I wish it were under better circumstances..." And didn't she just do this with Mitsuki? She'd like to stop having meetings that involve coming to collect the dead.

[elashte]

Elashte nods. "We can only hope that the sacrifices made last night will allow for better circumstances to come."

He shifts a few papers, watching over her as Malek closes the door behind him. He'll be standing watch there, probably until Gwen leaves, but he won't intrude.

Elashte selects one sheet and pushes it across the desk to her. It's a photocopy of the entry Suie wrote to Jack detailing his shadow. "After Captain Harkness brought Ms. Sato to me, I confronted him about his use of force," he begins. "He admitted that he had two years missing from his memory. I offered to attempt to return them to the surface, and he agreed."

It was just that the attempt ran into... more than a bit of difficulty.

[torchwoodsheart]

Gwen takes the paper, studies it for a second, and grimaces a little. She's seen it, as Suzie locked it to her last night, read over it several times while she waited for word back from Sam and Maya. She skims it again anyway, and finally glances back up to Elashte. "What happened?"

[elashte]

Elashte considers for a moment.

"The memories were repressed," he says. "There are generally a very few, simple mechanisms which control repressed memories in the human mind, that I've found. Either the pathways to access those memories have been destroyed or rerouted, or blocks exist on the paths which, when the mind turns toward the memories, turn the mind to a different, 'safe' topic. In Harkness' mind was something I had never seen before."

And hope never to again. It was more than normally unsettling."Any access had been severed," he said. "Quite deliberately. I've been a poludnica for over three hundred years, Ms. Cooper, whose forte has been working with the mind and its function, and I had never seen manipulation on this level. Even so, I thought it would be simple enough to recreate the paths, which I attempted... only to find that blocks on them developed as I worked. I tried to undo them, but they recreated themselves as soon as my attention was a way. So I resolved to look for a mechanism of control for that

[torchwoodsheart]

"Isn't that..." Gwen looks down and bites her lip, because she is not going to yell at this man - he was trying to help, and he's concussed now - but she can't help the anger flaring up just for a second or two, because even just hearing that, it sounds risky and a little stupid and how long did they even stop to consider it before they just turned Jack's mind inside out?

"He attacked you. Did you happen to get anything about his state of mind before he knocked you out?"

[elashte]

Elashte reads that from her expression and tone if nothing else, and takes a moment to scan the topmost of her thoughts. The effort brings a twinge of pain, and he winces.

"You should understand," Elashte says. "Captain Harkness was adamant about recovering these memories, and only became more so when we discovered the extent of the manipulation. I wasn't exactly rifling through his mind - I was examining mechanisms, not specifics - but something bothered him about it, more than the mere fact that his memories had been comprehensively locked down."

The one time he decides not to learn all he can about someone while he's in their mind, fixing them. That'll teach him to make gestures of trust and good faith

[torchwoodsheart]

Gwen nods a little, leaning forward to set the photocopied page back on his desk and looking up again to meet his eyes. "Understood. Could you undo it? If we found him and..." Brought him back. Contained him. There has to be something. They're Torchwood.

[elashte]

Elashte nods, motioning to his head. "Once I'm recovered from the blow he gave me, I believe so. I would need a certain amount of focus and access, and it's possible that the new conscious self could fight back against me, but were it necessary, I believe I could overpower it."

Set all this to rights. He doesn't want to lose Harkness or Torchwood as an ally.

[torchwoodsheart]

"Thank you." Of course, none of that matters if they can't find him - always a possibility with Jack - or if they can't stop him... Gwen thinks briefly of the talk she had with Jack before he left, and quickly turns her thoughts away from that. It's not going to come to that.

"What about Tosh? I'd like to bring her home with me, if she wants to come."

[elashte]

Elashte nods slowly. "Under normal circumstances, I'd like to keep her here for more time," he says, "but after last night, this is likely not the best environment for her. Added on to that, the man who was working with her is apparently catatonic, at the moment. Overexerted himself in ending the fighting."

There's what might be a heavy regret on his face - for Eric's condition, for the pervasive brokenness of the Gauche, for the fact that he missed everything and is left cleaning up pieces now that it's all done. There's anger behind it, but he's keeping it out of his expression.

[torchwoodsheart]

"I don't know if Jack ever warned you, but we don't usually get normal circumstances." Gwen pauses, and then says quietly, "I'm sorry." Not that she or Torchwood can be blamed for Romana, but she might not have attacked now if it weren't for what happened at the Kashtta. And since Jack she doubts Jack apologized...