Corpses in the Rift Room.

[hey_capn_jack]

Jack falls--rather, is shoved--through the Rift and into the Rift Room already dead. This is less a problem for him than it might be for others, but it's still inconvenient.

If anyone notices the corpse in the Rift Room, they're free to investigate.

Comments

[guardsintheory]

"Holy fucking shit!"

Shock and awe, everybody - one of the Rift room angels is actually at his post. Granted, he'd just run back in from the table he and the other angel have set up in the back of the kitchen, to grab his gameboy, but... he's here.

Matthew eyes Jack's corpse warily, then moves closer and nudges it with his foot.

And then groans. "Dammit, we just got the place mostly cleaned up and now I gotta get Brando to haul some dead guy's ass over to Ripley?" He glares at the body. "Thanks a lot, what are we supposed to do with you in the meantime?"

He acts like he and Nathaniel actually spend any significant amount of time in the Rift room. Heh.

[hey_capn_jack]

Coming back to life is not, for Jack, a gradual process. It's a rush. It is, in fact, exactly like some Grand Hand of the Universe took a look at his soul floating in limbo, said "Hey, you're not allowed in here!", and heaved him back into the land of the living like a particularly overenthusiastic bouncer heaving him out of a bar.

...well, maybe not exactly like that.

In any case, there's no real transition between Jack lying supine on the ground and Jack's every muscle spasming, his eyes flying open, and a noise like "Yeeearaugh!" tearing out of his mouth.

He starts hyperventilating.

[guardsintheory]

Mat screams. Rather like a little girl, to be truthful. Loud, high-pitched shriek, and he's scrambling on top of one of the beds for safety.

"You are not allowed to suck my blood you undead motherfucker!"

He's making assumptions, but in his defense, they're logical assumptions in this universe.

[hey_capn_jack]

Jack flails his way to a crouch, and spends a moment getting his breathing under control. "What?--blood? Wh--" He looks around. Right; cute guy, white room. Cute guy seems to be coruscating a faint blue, or maybe he just hit his head when he woke up. He swallows. "Where am I?" A second passes. "--and why would I want your blood?" He stands up.

[mordundgeister]

Morona is headed to the Rift Room to make sure no-one's come through, and of course, as luck would have it, someone has. And when she sees Jack lying on the floor, not moving, she automatically assumes the worst. Being a forensic pathologist, it's in her nature.

She runs over to him and kneels down, tentatively placing two fingers on his wrist to check for a pulse, somewhat frightened of receiving a vision from him. She then listens for a heartbeat by leaning down and placing her ear just over his chest. She finds none, but to be sure, she says, "Hey, are you alright? Can you hear me?"

[hey_capn_jack]

It's not the touch that wakes him up, it's the universe's love for a coincidence. But he does wake up, with a jerk that nearly takes his skull into her face, and scrambles into a crouch.

He looks like he expects something to kill him. This would almost be ironic.

A second later he notices she's there and startles, eyes opening wide. "Whoa! How did you--" He reconsiders that. "Where are we?"

[mordundgeister]

Morona screams and jumps back. "Oh my God!"

Pausing for a moment, she calms herself down, and says, "Sorry, I thought you were dead... We're in the Conrad Hotel, Chicago, Illinois."

[hey_capn_jack]

Jack jumps a little, putting up his hands in a Not a threat! Sorry! display. "Sorry! I have that effect on people," he said, offering a grin. It'd be his most charming, but his attention is divided. "Conrad Hotel, eh? This may be a weird question, but has anything odd been going on here?"

[techniclybrill]

((OOC: Sorry for bombarding you with tags, but... Tosh insisted.))

Tosh hasn't been in the Rift room since it exploded. Not the entire room obviously, just the twisted and scorched machine that is still sitting in the corner, but... a desire not to add "stepped on broken glass" to the list of her injuries kept her out until now.

She left a whole notebook full of notations here the last time, though, and while she doesn't even know if it survived the explosion, she'd like to find it if she can.

The body lying on the floor stops her before she can start rummaging through desk drawers, though, and she freezes for a second, staring wide-eyed. "De-" she starts to say, except that she can't think of why Des would be in the Rift room, much less lying on the floor unconscious... well, he does tend to do dumb things, but not quite that dumb. And Des... Des doesn't dress like that, not in her experience.

"Jack?"

[hey_capn_jack]

((OOC: No problem! Jack is pro-people.))

Soemwhere, buried in the back of Jack's brain, is a trigger that says Hey, your team needs you. Get the fuck up. Its a bit spotty, but this time, it works a charm. He comes back with the usual rush of adrenaline, the scream of blood in his ears--and Tosh's face.

Which under any other circumstance would have been reassuring.

"Tosh!"

That's it. Zero to panic levels of concern in less than a second. Because it's one thing that the Sifr have decided he's going to be their whipping boy, and quite another when they start involving his team.

"How'd you get here? What happened? Are you all right?"

[techniclybrill]

That series of questions gives Tosh pause. Of course, it's possible Jack thinks he's still... wherever he ran off to, and no, Tosh isn't still sore over that, of course not. She's just really not sure which to answer first, so it takes her a moment to sort it all out in her head.

"I've... been here for a couple months now, Jack. Owen and I were- It's not important." She folds her arms uncertainly over her chest, which is hard to do with a cast on one of her arms, but she manages it. Even if it makes it a little harder to breathe. And she takes a little half-step back, barely noticeable, it's just... She doesn't even know where she stands with Jack now. Where any of them stand. You come back from the dead and then vanish, it's bound to leave a few uncertainties hanging around. "I'm fine. Except for the broken arm and ribs, I mean."

She wants to ask where he went, but decides it's only fair to hold off for a little while, considering he did just fall through the Rift.

[hey_capn_jack]

"Months?" That spins him for a loop. He pulls up his arm, checking his wrist device, and--yeah. No, time differentials tell him absolutely nothing, but there is a line of color on the screen he has no idea how to interpret. He looks at her again, taking in the cast, the way she's holding herself, and his face hardens.

Physical assault isn't the Sift MO, but he wouldn't put it past them to engineer something. They're damnably good at engineering things.

And if they dispensed with him--well, if they were working through Torchwood, Toshiko would be a tempting second candidate. But Owen?

"What happened?" he asks again, voice darkening. He might not be able to do anything to the Sifr, from here or anywhere else, but if there's something he can hit...

He's in a hittin' mood, right now.

[theteaboy]

[ooc: I couldn't help myself. :) ]

Ianto had been down in the Rift Room, monitoring a few things, making sure all was in check when the body of one Jack Harkness appeared. He thought, briefly, that he might be in need of sleep (but when wasn't he?), but upon closer inspection, he knew.

Rushing to the other's side, he allowed his clipboard and notes to fall to the ground, hand instantly reaching for a pulse.

"Jack?"

So, he was dead. But this wasn't something unusual, right? Well, he was hoping the Rift had decided to leave him be...

[hey_capn_jack]

[[ooc: Ohh, this should be interesting....]]

Jack's eyes fly open when his heart starts beating, and at first all he can see is a symphony of lights and colors swimming across his vision. It doesn't quite clear, but it receds a bit, to the point where he can see--

He closes his eyes again. Tight. Tells himself he's experienceing a moment of post-death hallucinatatory trauma, because he can't have actually seen who he thought he saw.

Very, very cautiously, he opens one eye. The colors are still there, swimming lazily around the periphery of his sight, and so's the face.

And for a second--just a second, before reason sets in and crushes all hope--he lets himself be convinced. "...Ianto?"

[theteaboy]

[ooc: Oh, it will be, indeed! ]

Ianto doesn't jump as life fills Jack once more, instead, he places one steady hand against the man's arm. He knew Jack would come back, but... somewhere, in the back of his mind, there was always that lingering possibility.

That solitary chance.

"Sir." His voice is quiet but confident. "Everything all right?"

He removes his hand briefly from the other's arm and instead fidgets with his tie (blue silk today!), as if considering something, before his hand goes right back to the man's arm once more.

Be it emotional or physical, take your pick, Jack.

[hey_capn_jack]

Jack freezes. It's not a reasoned reaction--it's instinct, and pretty far down the superstition ladder, for that. Don't move, and you won't wake up. You can stay here a little longer.

The voice is great. Just right. And the hand on his arm is a nice touch.

It's just that none of this is technically possible, unless the great forces who've been orchestrating his life for the past few months have decided that seduction would be a nice change from all the threats and grandstanding.

He exhales. Everything's not all right. But for a moment, before he has to get up and break out and go back to the good fight, he can let himself imagine. "It would be."