TW Classic Big Bang Fic: Exit Strategy - Part 2/2
For full headers, see Part 1.
“So, what are we going to do then, just stand here staring at each other while the universe collapses?” Johann demanded. “Because I can think of plenty of things I'd rather be doing with you, you, or you, and maybe even you.”
Jack rolled his eyes.
“Fuck off, Hart,” Owen said, obviously offended at being the last in that list. “As if any of us would do you, end of the universe or not.”
“Weren't you the one suggesting an orgy last time?” Gwen asked.
“I'm almost certain that's still my job,” Jack cut into the banter that was growing more than just edged with hysteria. He had to get them under control and focused. “Meanwhile, psychopath or not, he's got a point. Sitting around waiting isn't what we do.”
“I've got a search program running on the secure archives,” Tosh said. “They shouldn't be affected by the decreasing boundaries of the bubble universe for another hour or two after the main archives become inaccessible, plus we have a better idea what those items actually do. More data tags to work with.”
“Great idea,” Jack said. “Now, what about the rest of us?”
“Should we be relocating the Weevils?” Gwen asked.
It was a tempting thought. Pointless, really, as either the universe would end regardless or things would reset somehow, but it would give Jack something to think about other than the possibility that he might actually survive the total collapse of the universe … or that he might not.
Or that he'd just frozen his brother in another equally pointless gesture. Killing him now might actually be kinder, but Jack couldn't bring himself to do it.
“I am not spending my last hours wrestling Weevils,” Owen said.
“Not like you have to actually wrestle them,” Gwen muttered.
“Children,” Jack snapped, pointing a finger at the wall behind him, “I will turn this universe around!”
Tosh giggled, then schooled her face to seriousness. At least, she tried, but she quickly gave in and rested her head in her hands as she laughed. Gwen's lips twisted into a small smile, though she never took her gun off John. Owen just rolled his eyes.
“What? I haven't spent long enough in this backwards century to get these obscure cultural references,” Johann said with a shrug.
“Or we could just put this one in the cells,” Gwen suggested.
“With the Hoix?” Owen asked, a hopeful note in his voice.
Jack sighed.
“Gwen, stand down,” he said. “This one's got as much to lose as the rest of us right now. I want you, Owen, and Tosh going through your personal logs. See if anything jumps out at you that might have the potential to affect temporal energies. I'll be doing the same.”
“And me?” Johann asked. “What's my homework going to be, teacher?”
Jack went into his office, pulled out the top drawer from one of the files, and brought it back out, setting it on the floor where it was nearly equally visible from everyone's work stations.
“Paper? I get paper?” The look of offense would be comical if he hadn't been at least part of the cause of this mess.
“You really think I'm letting you near Mainframe again?” Jack asked, arching an eyebrow.
Johann started to say something, then shrugged. “Yeah, even I can't argue that one. But paper? Seriously?”
“Ianto and I have been working on getting everything digitized,” Tosh said. “However, some of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century documents are too worn to scan well, and manual input takes time.”
Jack saw Johann mouth the word “some” while looking at the file drawer in dismay.
“Considering when and where things fall through the Rift from,” Jack said, “when they arrived isn't a limiting factor, so get moving.”
Jack reflected for a moment that he and Johann actually should probably have gone to the physical archives with the others. While the Doctor had said that River would know what she needed when she saw it, the fact remained that a pair of Time Agents would help narrow things down further and faster. Giving himself a shake, Jack went into his office and sat at his computer, angling it so he could keep an eye on Johann. There were entirely too many hiding places, good hiding places, to be had in the archives, and in this together or not, he didn't trust Johann out of his sight.
~0~
The stairs leading down to the archives were steep and not terribly well-lit. River wondered if that was an effect of the bubble-universe, as they'd be cut off from external power sources, or possibly just something this lot did for ambience. Given the way Mr. Ianto Jones was proceeding as if nothing were amiss, she suspected the latter.
At the end of the stairwell was a securely locked door. Ianto opened it using a combination palm and retinal scanner that was a bit more advanced than similar devices in this century, she thought. Once the door opened, he bowed her in.
“I do like a young man with old-fashioned manners,” she said as she walked into an absolutely cavernous room filled with rows upon rows of file cabinets and storage cupboards with shelves of various and sundry containers along the back wall.
“As we don't know what we're looking for,” Ianto said, ignoring her comment, “it might be easiest to start with the as-yet-uncategorized items over there.” He indicated the back wall.
“That and if we lose ground to the universe collapsing, it'll be the first area to go.” River didn't think there was any way to calculate the odds on whether that specific wall would contain what they needed, but it would be worth ruling the items there out before they lost them.
“There is that as well.” He nodded. “Anything in a lead container is obviously giving off radiation of some kind. At a minimum, nothing down here explodes just from touching it, or it wouldn't have made it here. Beyond that, handle with care is the best advice I can give.”
River nodded and started for the shelves, a thrill of excitement running through her. Who knew what they might find?
~0~
Jack scrubbed his hand over his face. Nothing. A great big load of nothing was what he'd found. Granted, his digital logs went back much farther than the others', and he'd started from the 1950s, figuring they'd have recent years well-covered, but the task was beginning to seem impossible.
Rather like the fact that they had power to be doing any of this if the rest of the universe was gone, but he'd learned centuries in the future not to get too caught up in the eccentricities of a paradox while trying to solve it.
There was also the nagging thought that he couldn't quite squelch. He could be on the verge of losing them, all of them-even the Doctor, wherever he was in the Vortex-and surviving for eternity, alone. Climbing back into that grave was looking better and better by the minute. Except for the selfish corner of his mind that couldn't help asking if this was the one thing that could finish him off, actually let him rest. Burying him alive sure hadn't worked that way. It was bizarrely tempting to find out.
What would it be like? Would the cold and the dark continue forever? Or would even they cease to exist? Might that be worth it, to save even the dead by putting an end to that terrifying isolation?
No.
He didn't know why he was so certain. Maybe it was something as simple as the inborn drive for survival, whether of himself, his team, his species, or just life, period. Or maybe it was something more. But giving up wasn't something he did, any more than waiting around was, and he wasn't about to take it up for a hobby now.
Shooting a glance outside his door, he saw Johann sitting cross-legged on the floor and reading frantically through a folder of reports before tossing it onto a growing pile. The clicking of keys as the others searched their online logs told him they were still at it as well. And the CCTV showed Ianto and River working systematically through yet another row of unidentified artifacts.
It would be easier if he knew what he was looking for. The Doctor had sounded so certain that they'd find it. Jack hoped that meant something, though the emotion ached like lead in his stomach.
~0~
River was starting to get discouraged. In the past two hours, they'd uncovered two Cyloxian bread baskets, a Vieakow grenade launcher, a Luapon writing set that had been engraved for some pod's anniversary and that would make a very interesting paper if they could just find something useful to ensure there being anyone to read said paper, and a Stoshan laser-tuner. Nothing, however, that seemed likely to solve their predicament. They also lost several shelves at the far end of the wall.
“On the bright side,” Ianto said, “once we fix this, I'll be able to organise these items properly. You never know when something might come in useful.”
River nodded. “Right about now would be a good time.”
Ianto nodded in agreement and opened an odd orange box to pull out a Caaforian tentacle warmer. River identified it, and he gave her a wry look.
“What?”
“I'm not sure if Jack is going to be disappointed or unreasonably pleased with that.”
River grinned and turned to her own box, which unfortunately held the Publan version of an afghan.
This was getting them nowhere fast. Why had the Doctor been so sure she could work it out? She wondered what the lot of them were doing upstairs.
Ianto touched a finger to his ear and appeared to be listening.
“Are you sure, Tosh? No, no, you're right. That would be logical. We're on our way.” He started walking briskly towards one of the rows of cabinets.
River fell in behind him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Tosh has been scanning the data archives, and located something in the secure archives that may be what we're looking for,” he said. “I can't believe I didn't think of it. That is, if the assumption that something soaked in artron energy that allows one to glimpse the past or the future is likely to be helpful.”
River raised her eyebrows. “Yes, that would be a reasonable assumption. What is it?”
Ianto led her to a safe built into a wall that was unfortunately growing very dark as the edge of the bubble universe crept inward. He keyed in a code, then slapped his palm over yet another palm reader and stared at the retinal scanner.
“We don't know for certain,” he said. The door unlatched and he pulled it open, removing an item surprisingly similar in shape to a contemporary video game controller and yet clearly alien in origin. River couldn't even place a likely era or species of origin. “Jack said it's some sort of quantum transducer. We just called it the Ghost Machine.”
~0~
Jack wasn't sure how he felt about Tosh's idea. She was almost certainly right that it was their best chance out of all the categorized items. He should be relieved. He wanted to save the universe, didn't he?
The promise of potential oblivion had been there, though, and now it was gone. He was selfish enough to be disappointed at that. It was good that he had a few minutes before he had to face the others, so that he could bury that in with all the other parts of himself that it was best they never see.
What, he wondered, would the transducer show them? The timeline that had been meant to happen? The future actions they needed to take to correct the paradox they'd created? Either way, it was the most likely candidate. Still, he didn't look forward to using it.
Footsteps echoed up the stairwell, and just like the universe as a whole, he was out of time.
He shot the device a distrustful look as they drew closer with it. Dr. Song shot him a questioning look.
“Bad history with that,” he said. “I agree with Tosh that it seems to fit the parameters that would make the most sense. Doesn't mean I like it, especially since I'm not sure what to do with it.”
“How does it work?” she asked.
Ianto indicated the buttons on either side of the device, then, with a twisting motion, pulled it into two halves. “It seems that activating a single component allows one to view and experience the past while using both conjoined enables one to glimpse the future.”
“An unalterable future,” Gwen put in with a shudder. “No matter how much you might try to change it.”
“It has the potential,” Jack said, “to be used as a temporal navigation device. It traces quantum particles using technology somewhat similar to that used by the Time Agency. Not compatible though. It's as far removed from this”--he pointed to his disabled manipulator--”as this is from zigma rays.”
“And definitely not human in origin,” Dr. Song said. “Nor Galifreyan, for that matter. May I?”
Jack's eyebrows rose. He'd known she had a connection to the Doctor, but enough to know that for certain?
“Just don't press any buttons,” Ianto said as he handed one half of the device over.
Dr. Song looked vaguely insulted by the warning until she held the device. Lights suddenly activated, and Jack could almost see her fighting the urge to activate it.
“I can see why you locked it away,” she said. “The question is, if this is the key, how do we use it? I'd been hoping for something that would do more than allow for passive observation, but ... Would it show us the past that was meant to happen that has been changed?”
“So far, the two team members who've activated it only ever accessed actual past or future events,” Jack said. “But quantum theory would suggest the possibility of tracing alternate timelines as well.”
“It does seem to be tied to emotions,” Owen put in, a quaver to his voice. “The stronger the better.”
“And Bernie Harris saw … a future that didn't happen,” Gwen said, looking shaken, as well she might.
So, those were the two who'd tried it.
“Have you never used it yourself, then?” she asked Jack.
“No, why?”
“So the only people who've tried it have always followed linear time?” she pressed.
Jack grinned. “Excellent point.”
“You mean to say that exposure to artron radiation might increase the range of possibilities?” Tosh asked. “That perhaps Jack's theory requires the user to already be a time traveler in order to utilize it to its fullest capacity?”
“That's exactly what I'm saying,” River said.
“How much time travel?” Gwen asked. “Or would teleportation with one of those be enough?” She pointed to Dr. Song's vortex manipulator.
“Run a scan for artron radiation traces, Tosh,” Jack said. “You all got a pretty good dose the last time 'John' was in town, but not compared to traveling in the TARDIS. Pretty sure it's down to the lovely Dr. Song and myself, but the scan will tell us who has the best shot.”
“Already running it and … wow.” Tosh took off her glasses and put them back on. “We've all got some, as you said. Jack, you're lit up like a Christmas tree ...”
He reached for the device. River made to hand it over.
“... but River, you look like a supernova.”
Jack wasn't surprised. He wasn't. Or at least, he wasn't about to show it. Just exactly how much time had she spent with the Doctor to soak up that much artron radiation?
“How long have you been with the Agency then?” he asked instead.
“Who said I was?” Dr. Song gave him a wink.
Jack couldn't help but smile, though he was sure it must look a bit forced. “Right, so the best chance we have of seeing the various possibilities is if you use it.”
“Location was a factor when it was used before,” Tosh said. “We are a bit limited in that regard.”
“How much of a factor?” River asked.
“Each past event seen was in the specific location where it had occurred,” Jack said. “The device seemed to be activated by locations with a substantial emotional imprint.”
“And that's when it would compel the holder to use it?” River asked.
“Yes.”
The pull had been getting stronger as they spoke, Jack could tell. Her fingers were twitching slightly as she fought to keep them off the activation button.
“Here goes nothing then,” she said as she depressed the button.
Seconds passed.
Dr. Song let go of the button, her cheeks damp as she looked at them all. Jack wondered what she'd seen but decided he'd rather not know. His nightmares were bad enough without giving them added material.
“Well, we're not doing that,” she said softly. “Not a chance.”
“Whatever it is,” Jack pointed out, “it can't be worse than erasing the universe. And if it's what I'm thinking ...”
“No.” Dr. Song dashed the remaining tears from her eyes.
Just exactly what had she seen?
“There's a clue in there somewhere,” she said, “it's just a question of what it is and how we can use it. There has to be a way. There's always something.” She closed her eyes most likely replaying what she'd seen. “That ring. What is it?”
Jack reached into his pocket and pulled it out. “Homing device. Rated to last millennia. Good plan, actually.”
“I do try,” Johann replied.
“So you were counting on being able to locate it to dig him back up now,” Dr. Song said.
“Well, yeah.”
“On a site that would eventually house an organization dedicated to seeking out alien or noncontemporaneous technology?” she asked. “Seriously, did you think this through at all?”
Johann looked at her in confusion.
Toshiko got there first, though Jack was right there with her. “Torchwood would have found Jack too soon. He might have even found himself, crossing his own timeline.”
“I wouldn't have let that happen,” Jack said, though he felt more worried than certain. He'd only had so much to bargain with for most of Torchwood's history. Who might he have had to convince, and would they have listened?
“Well, I didn't have time to sit around chewing on alternatives,” Johann said, bristling. “Still better than letting him get buried with no way to find him at all.”
“Wait, isn't that how you found me?” Jack asked.
“What? No,” Dr. Song said. “Didn't realize it was there till I'd already found you. The important thing is, I think that gives me an idea how we can fix this, if I can just ...”
The room shook.
“What the hell was that?” Owen demanded.
“I don't want anyone to panic,” Tosh said, her eyes wide and slightly manic, “but I think the radius of our bubble universe isn't collapsing at quite the steady speed we thought. It looked it at first, because the increments were so small, but the actual differential is working on a different algorithm than I'd ...”
“Bottom line, Tosh,” Jack said.
“We've got an hour at best before we have barely enough air to breathe, let alone space to stand,” she said. “And that's if it doesn't change.”
“Where did you find this?” Dr. Song asked, holding up the transducer.
“What does that matter?” Gwen asked.
“Some kid found it in a storage locker with a bunch of other stuff that must've come through the Rift,” Jack replied, catching the hint of where she might be going with this. “Unless, of course, it was dug up.”
Dr. Song grinned and nodded, all vestiges of the emotions she'd picked up from the device gone. “You already discovered the playback option. If this really was used for navigation, and I think you may be right on that score, then it has to have a recording function as well. Think we can find it?”
Jack grinned. This was going to be fun.
~0~
She wasn't sure if it was from his time with the Doctor or whether he really had been a Time Agent at some point, but Harkness definitely had a solid grasp of temporal mechanics and nanotechnology. Between them, they'd found the control sequence to record quantum signatures, and then he'd led her to a room just off the main area. It was piled with old and utterly useless chairs, desks, and what looked like it might once have been a bathtub.
“You sure do know how to impress a girl,” she said as she looked over the cobwebs.
“This is the single room where I've died and come back the most often,” he said, voice even flatter than his accent usually made it. “If you're right that it's the emotions that matter, not whatever actually brings me back, this is the place to find them.”
River used her vortex manipulator to interpret what the transducer was picking up in its resting state. Something, definitely, as the pull to activate it was strong. “At a quantum level, it hardly matters whether it's the event itself or your perception of it. That's why the user actually feels emotions that aren't theirs. It's picking up plenty in any case.”
“If this doesn't work ...”
“If this doesn't work, then we can talk about sticking you back in the ground,” she cut him off, wincing at the images that flashed in the air before her as she activated the recording function. Jack, tied to a chair being electrocuted, shot, carted over to a tub and drowned, and the deaths just kept going. “Bit sadistic, weren't they?”
“Trust me, not the worst I've met,” he said darkly.
“I think that's got it,” she said as the images started to repeat. With a tap, she stopped it recording but continued to watch the energy readouts.
“It better.” Harkness grabbed her elbow and pulled her back towards the door.
Looking up from her task, River saw that the far wall of the room had faded into a nondescript arc of darkness that wasn't exactly there and wasn't exactly not. It was rather fascinating actually, rather like the night sky had appeared in the world with no stars. Something about that tickled at the back of her brain as Harkness dragged her out of the room and back to the others.
“... rate of decrease is continuing to accelerate,” Toshiko was saying, “but the rate of acceleration is remaining steady. Maybe half an hour left.”
“Right then,” River said. “Hold tight.”
She pulled up the spatio-temporal coordinates of the site where she'd found Harkness.
“How are you going to go back there,” Owen asked, “if there isn't anything outside of here?”
“But there was, back then,” Harkness replied, his smug grin belied by the hint of worry in his eyes.
“Exactly.” River winked at him, hoping that hid the similar concern she was sure was mirrored in hers.
Ianto stiffened at that, she noticed. Bless. He handed over the last two items she'd need to pull this off, color staining his cheeks.
She tucked them away and activated her vortex manipulator.
In a flash, she was back at the side of the hole she'd dug. At the treeline, a wolf glared at her, setting the hairs on the back of her neck on edge. River separated the two halves of the transducer and slid a tiny lever to one side. After reattaching the two sides, she pulled out the rather interesting spring-loaded devices Ianto had given her and put them in place to hold the two buttons depressed, keeping the transducer in continual playback mode.
A growl sounded from the trees.
“All right,” River muttered. “I'll be going in a tick.”
She tossed the device into the hole and started throwing shovelfuls of earth over it.
The wolf growled.
River mentally worked out the distance it would have to charge versus the weight of her blaster at her back and how quickly she could draw it and kept shoveling.
The earth shook.
“Oh, now, that can't be good.”
There wasn't enough earth covering the device. That wolf at the treeline or anything, really, could come dig it up and send everything pear-shaped.
Ah well, there was cheating, which she was already doing, and then there was cheating, which she might as well add to her sins.
Setting down her shovel, River flicked open the cover of her vortex manipulator and tapped the external teleport sequence.
Nothing happened.
Everything read correctly, but the pile of dirt stayed where it was.
“What the …?”
Just then, the wolf charged from the trees, snarling and snapping its teeth. River drew her blaster and held her ground. The wolf darted towards her, then back towards the mound of soil, which it started pawing furiously into the hole.
River lowered the blaster slightly. “Who are you?”
The wolf looked at her again, eyes a yellow far too bright to belong on any Terrestrial animal.
Again, something tickled the edges of her mind, but she couldn't quite follow the thought. One thing was clear, however. The wolf was helping, and it wanted her gone, as it snarled again at her.
“That's me told then.” River holstered her gun and switched to the coordinates that would bring her back to the Torchwood Hub. Just before tapping the button to execute the temporal teleport, she looked the wolf in its bright eyes and seemed to see an understanding there. “Thank you.”
~0~
Jack looked up as the door to his office opened. Ianto stepped in and pulled the door shut behind him. Jack raised his eyebrows.
“Tosh says we have less than a quarter hour before we start to lose space in the main area.”
Jack nodded. It had been nearly twenty minutes since River had left, which was frustrating, as there was nothing left for the rest of them to do. They'd continued sifting through the logs for any additional ideas, but none were surfacing.
“I always knew it might be an end-of-the-world situation,” Ianto said, looking every bit as young as he was, even as his eyes looked so very much older. “Somehow, I'd never pictured it quite like this.”
Jack stood and came around his desk, taking Ianto into his arms. “Don't.”
“What will happen to you?” he asked, his words muffled as he buried his face in Jack's shoulder.
“I don't know.” Jack took a deep breath, savoring and memorizing Ianto's scent. If he was going to be the last thing to exist forever, if this was the end for everything and everyone but him, he wanted his last sensation to be something amazing. He turned to capture Ianto's lips with his.
Too soon, Ianto pulled back. His eyes were filled with a mixture of sadness, fear, and something else Jack had seen there more and more lately but had never dared put a name to.
“Jack, I ...”
“It's back!” Toshiko cried out. “The rest of Cardiff, I can see it!”
The two men pulled apart and ran to join the others around her desk. There, on all her screens, was Cardiff in all its literally blazing glory.
“Turnmill?” Owen asked, a quaver in his voice.
“Locked down. Nothing's changed. The meltdown's contained.” The grin on Tosh's face seemed to light up the Hub. “We did it!”
“And the world beyond Cardiff?” Jack asked.
“All there,” Tosh replied. “I'm seeing communications from just about every point on the globe. And before you ask, the rest of the solar system is right where we left it too.”
“Back to clean-up duty, then,” Ianto said, his composure firmly back in place. He turned and went into Jack's office, presumably to start planting explanations for the bombing. Jack decided not to follow just yet.
“What about this one?” Gwen asked, her gun once again trained on Johann.
Before Jack could answer, there was a flash, and Dr. Song was standing in front of them.
“Did it work?” she asked, her eyes wild.
A cacophony of voices answered her, and Jack smiled to hear it as her eyes went from worried to ecstatic as she made out what they were saying.
“Wonderful!” she was all she managed to say before Gwen had wrapped her in an enthusiastic hug.
“Always a pleasure saving the world with you,” Gwen said as she let River go and took a couple of steps back towards the others. “You going to just run off again to wherever it is you go?”
Dr. Song glanced at her vortex manipulator. “Going to have to. They'll definitely have missed me by now, and that new guard will be in awful trouble.”
Jack just shook his head. “How do you manage to get that past them, anyway?”
“I have my ways.” She winked.
Ianto returned from Jack's office. “Sure you won't stay for a bit of coffee then? You did seem rather fond of it the last time.”
Owen said something under his breath that Jack thought probably involved his own disastrous attempts at working the coffee machine.
“I really had better get going,” she said, “but I look forward to it.”
Ianto strode forward and nodded firmly as he shook her hand. “Till next time then.”
River's smile shifted slightly, but she nodded in return.
Owen approached her next.
“Thanks for everything,” he said. “Never mind the universe, I owe you my life several times over. You were right...”
“Owen,” Jack cut in warningly. “Please don't break the timeline when we've only just got the universe back.”
River raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like an interesting spoiler.”
“Let's just say you gave us some advice that's as good in the field as it is on the pull.” Owen winked.
Jack swallowed. It was true. They could have lost Owen at the Pharm if he hadn't been wearing his kevlar vest that day. As much as it chafed to know that she'd spotted that flaw in his leadership, they were all being more careful since then, at least when they knew in advance that they were going into a hostile situation.
“And that's enough out of you,” Jack said, pinning him with a glare.
Tosh wasn't as demonstrative as Gwen had been, but she gave River a glowing smile as she said her goodbyes.
Finally, with a shake of her head at Johann, River came to Jack.
“Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”
“You're welcome,” she replied. “Who knows? I may be the one needing your help someday.”
“Whenever you need it, and I do mean whenever.” He shook her hand firmly. He still didn't know what she was to the Doctor, still didn't know how she'd come to be involved with Jack's little team, but she had definitely earned any favors he could offer.
River just smiled, then turned to Johann.
“As for you,” she said, “you're coming with me.”
“What if I don't want to?” he asked. “Maybe I'd like to stick around, find out what's so special about this planet.”
“Did I sound like I was asking?” She grabbed his hand and tapped her Manipulator, which must have already been set, because they disappeared without another word.
For a moment, silence reigned in the Hub. The others might be wondering any number of things, but Jack was focused on trying to remember if there had ever been any mention of a Time Agent in Storm Cage. It was probably the only place that would hold Johann for long, so he rather hoped that was where River had taken him.
Ianto was the first to speak. “Cleanup duty then?”
“Right.” Jack shook off his reverie and started handing out assignments. While he had every intention of letting the civilian authorities handle as much as they could, he felt personally responsible for the devastation Gray and Johann had wreaked on the city, and so he and his team were going to do everything in their power to help.
Several hours later, he finally let himself return to the cryo-chamber Ianto had helped him put Gray in. It was probably futile, but he had to hope there would be some way to help his brother, someday.
His fingers flipped open the faceplate of his vortex manipulator almost of their own accord. It was too soon. It was self-indulgent. It might compromise the hasty cryo-prep they'd done. But he needed to see his brother, just once more, to say goodbye properly.
A pair of hands separated his and brought them to his waist as arms wrapped around him. Jack leaned back into Ianto's embrace.
“Let him rest,” Ianto said. “Time you did as well.”
Everything in him rebelled against the idea. There was still so much he needed to do, so many amends he needed to make. To his brother. To his team. To the city. Still, he could hear the sense in the other man's words. He nodded sharply and let himself be led out of the morgue.
~0~
It was an odd way to receive a message, he thought. All of his current team were accounted for, even the ones off-planet, and there wasn't anyone he listed as family these days. Hadn't been for centuries. It just wasn't safe, on many more levels than he could enumerate. Could be a trap, but if it was, it was a clumsy one.
When he arrived at the hospital, Jack was on guard, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight that met his eyes in the room they led him to.
“You haven't changed,” the man said.
Jack just stared at him dumbly. For all the faces he'd known and forgotten, this was the one that he'd known would always haunt him. Was he finally going mad?
“You were gone,” he said finally. “When we moved the cryo-chambers before they started building the Cobalt Pyramid, yours was empty. I thought … Gray?”
The nurse who'd guided him through the hospital handed him a sealed envelope bearing his name. It held a piece of paper that had been folded into tiny sections but looked remarkably fresh for all of that.
“She said this would explain things.”
He opened it.
River,
I know we all owe you more than we can ever repay, but I need to ask one more favor of you.
Jack's put his brother into cryogenic stasis. He seems to believe there will come a time when medical or psychiatric science will be able to help him. That may be true, but I fear that keeping him here in the meanwhile is asking for trouble.
If you are from the future, and if it is true that he can be helped, please bring Gray there. Funds that may be used for his treatment can be accessed ...
Tears filled Jack's eyes as he skimmed over the details of the rest of the letter and then lingered over Ianto's hasty but impeccable signature. Another face he would never forget, now for yet another reason.
He looked up at his brother. “Gray?”
The other man nodded, and the madness Jack remembered, the look that haunted his dreams every bit as much as the feeling of fingers slipping away from his, no longer filled those eyes.
Jack launched himself forward and pulled his brother into his arms, hope lancing through him like sunlight.
Fin
Thank you for reading, and again, please give slowsunrise's gorgeous artwork some love here.