Jack's Capture (Part Three)
Grarg. I've had a headache since Thursday. I've been doing English and Classics coursework. I've been kept off the computer by my brother doing stuff for college. I've even done my homework.
In short, life has conspired against me for the past couple of weeks.
But it's here. It's done. I throw it out to the wolves and wash my hands of it and kind of hope you enjoy it all the same. ;) Epilogue is optional.
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, death, some gore...
Word Count: 2666
Summary: Post season one. Jack's returned from travelling with the Doctor, only to be snatched away again - and this time there's nothing voluntary about it.
Part 3, of 3. (With the option of an epilogue)
Prompt: 019. White.
Jack's Capture
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
The first thing Jack did was find a computer port and check the ship’s schematics. He stopped there for less than a minute, listening to the orders and reports being snapped out over the communicator.
“What the hell do you mean, he’s escaped? Get down there and find him! He’s accessed the computer port on level nine! Corridor C55. Hurry, while he’s distracted.”
Jack took off at a run down the corridor, listening to the shouts of, “He’s on the move! Second left, he’s heading down corridor C56, 57… No, he’s doubled back! C84! Oh shit!”
Jack reached the door of the surveillance room, just as the Agents inside rushed to lock it. He used one of the blasters, cutting out the lock and kicking the door open, already firing before the two Agents in the room even had a chance to react to his entrance. By the time their decapitated bodies hit the floor, he was already at the computers, overriding the systems, shutting down all internal sensors, locking all modifications to that particular entry port, and then slicing the vital components out with the blaster. He backed away to the other side of the room, ripped the power packs from the dead Agents’ blasters, changed the setting on his own gun, and fired again. What little that remained of the computers was busy exploding and melting in the flames as he ducked out and headed on.
He put some distance between himself and the room, listening to the Time Agents yelling over the communicator, “Where is he? Where is he? What the hell did he do? Surveillance, give us some answers!”
“Surveillance systems are down. He got here before we could intercept him. Bastard murdered Jeris and Aila.”
“Shit. Bridge, can you get us some tracking systems back? Trace the blaster he’s using or something.”
“No go, Kass. All sensors inoperative. The safeguards have been overridden, and he’s locked us out of the whole system. Shana’s already working on breaking back in, but we’re down to the portable scanners.”
“Hate to break it to you, bridge, but we’ve barely even got that. Most of the portables were patched into the mainframe when it went down. They’ve been scrambled. We’ve got one working, and Derelet’s got another, but beyond that we’re having to do without.”
Jack smiled to himself as he heard the Agents cursing him before they signed off. He headed for his second port of call, managing to avoid the searchers on his way.
The storeroom was unguarded, and he took the opportunity to get back into his own clothes, ripping the white uniform as he took it off, but feeling satisfaction rather than guilt. He checked his wrist computer was working, shoved a sonic blaster into his holster (he missed his gun, but for now it couldn’t be helped) and once more fastened on the belt he’d stolen, grabbing a few more things from the stores (they might be useful, one never knew) and fitting them into the slots as best he could.
He was on the point of heading out again when he heard over the communicator, “Who’s guarding the stores? He’ll be after his own stuff,” and the response, “We’re in that corridor now. Got it covered.”
Turning his back to the door, mentally recycling his list of swearwords, Jack looked for another way out. There were no doors, and he had no idea what rooms were beyond the walls of this one - though he couldn’t blast his way out, since the walls were hidden behind piles of boxes anyway. His gaze passed over these, and then went up to the ceiling.
He grinned.
Ten metres further on in the ventilation shaft, he paused to listen to the brief report over the communicator - “He got here before us. His stuff’s gone, and he’s raided a load of other boxes too.”
Jack curled up on the cool metal, listening to the orders that had Time Agents rushing to blockade the corridors, and kept one hand pressed tight over his mouth as he fought down laughter, fearful of lapsing into hysteria or tears if he gave in, and trying to stop himself from thinking of what Ianto would say about his current situation. Clearly these Time Agents hadn’t seen enough twentieth century action movies, or they’d have started blasting holes in the air vents already.
He forced himself to crawl on, and nearly succumbed to the laughter when he came to a grille blocking the shaft. Whoever had designed the ship, at least, had taken such ideas into consideration.
Trying not to giggle to himself, he cut the grille out with a sonic blaster, crawled on, then turned and replaced it. He moved on, heading for the bridge, and the main navigational computers.
“All Agents activate portable breathing apparatus. Repeat, all Agents activate portable breathing apparatus. Commence flooding of ship in five… four…”
Jack froze, eyes wide, then checked his belt and all the equipment he’d stolen. There was a distinct lack of breathers, filters, gas masks, anything. And when he looked ahead, down the long, straight shaft, he could already see and hear the gas rolling towards him, pouring through the ventilation system and spreading out into the corridors and rooms all over the ship. For a moment he couldn’t move, eyes wide, mind going back to wars and battles and poison and death, and then he panicked, and used the blaster.
He, and everything he’d stolen, was ripped out of the hole he’d created, into the airless innards of the ship, crashing into pipes and wires as the air blasted out of the shaft. He twisted and sealed the breach again, as the first wisps of the gas roiled over the crisp edges of the gap.
He fell back to the ventilation shaft, trying to hold his breath and knowing he didn’t stand a chance of surviving for long enough. Already his lungs were burning, his head swimming, and everything was blurring in front of his eyes - then gone.
When he came back to life, he nearly killed himself again by trying to breathe in nothing. Desperate to breathe, he used the blaster and opened up the ventilation shaft again, relief nearly bringing him to tears when the air that poured out was clear. He hauled himself back in, fighting the rushing wind. As he sealed the breach and lay panting on the cold metal, he wondered how long he’d been dead.
After a few moments more, he heard, “Ship is clear. Air quality restored. Search teams, blockade corridors C88, 89, 78, 79…”
Jack forced himself to roll over and start moving. He’d just about managed to clear his head when he came up against another grille. When he tried to use the blaster again, nothing happened. Sighing, he sat with his back to the grille and set about replacing the power pack.
“Search the ventilation shafts. He could be avoiding the corridor patrols that way. And find him within the next half hour or we’ll have to flood the ship again to keep him under. Shana, any luck with the sensors yet?”
“Nothing. We’re totally locked out. Give us another hour and we should have internal systems back.”
“Alright. Keep working.”
Jack’s hands were shaking when he finally got the blaster to work and started moving again. He hadn’t got far when he spotted another opening in the shaft just ahead. He could hear the Time Agents talking below him as they removed the grille, and then one of them began to climb in.
Bracing himself, he took out the section of metal beneath him, and fell.
The Agents in the corridor shouted in surprise, going for their guns and yelling, “He’s here! C92!” as Jack fired without pausing to pick himself up. He dropped two of the three without any trouble, but the third caught his hand a glancing blow with a stunner as he jumped back down from the ventilation shaft. Jack swore and dropped his gun, hurling himself to the wall as the Agent’s second shot sparked off the floor where he’d been. Left-handed, Jack ripped the second blaster from his belt, and fired.
Swearing some more, he got to his feet and collected the guns, kicking the bodies out of his way and trying to stop thinking about the horrifyingly unnatural wounds he’d inflicted. He couldn’t remember ever hating straight lines so much before.
He tried to shake some life back into his numb hand, and took off down the corridors.
Somehow, through a combination of quick reflexes, concentration on the messages over the communicator, and pure blind luck, he made it to the bridge without another encounter with his hunters. He didn’t have to kill anyone else until he blasted the door control of the bridge and strode in, cutting two guards in half with one shot and yelling, “Everybody up against the window, now!”
It took the decapitation of another three brave but foolish fighters before they obeyed him, and even then he had to cut one woman’s hand off when she tried to pull a gun on him. He left her alive and sobbing, huddled with the others up against the window at the front of the bridge, blood pouring from the neat wound while a few of her comrades tried desperately to patch her up.
In the sudden silence, he paused for a second to listen to the Agents elsewhere in the ship, yelling over the communicators, “Bridge? Bridge, what happened? We’re on our way!” But he ignored that, and concentrated on his prisoners instead.
“Communicators, weapons, breathers, anything you’ve got. One pile, here, now,” Jack told them, pointing at the floor in front of him. This time they followed his orders without any fuss. With a wave of the blaster, he herded them into a corner, then went over to the line of computers in the centre of the room, and locked down the bridge.
“Okay,” he said cheerfully, straightening up and grinning at them. “Chief navigator?”
Enough of them looked at one woman for him to take it as positive identification.
“Get over here,” he told her, and she started forwards, but was stopped by another man, who visibly gathered his courage to tell Jack, “You won’t gain anything from this. Whatever you’ve got in mind, it won’t work.”
Jack held his gaze, then changed the setting on the sonic blaster, and pointed it at the window, saying quietly, “Navigator, get over here.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” the man said. “You’d kill yourself as well.”
Jack pulled the trigger.
His captives screamed. Five of them, including the woman whose hand he’d removed, were wrenched out of the gap before Jack repaired the breach. The survivors fell to the floor, gasping, as Jack released his grip on the computer desk and regained his footing, saying, “Don’t test me. Navigator?”
The woman headed over nervously, wringing her hands in front of her. Jack sat her down at the console, sat on the desk beside her, and said, “Take us back to Earth. Two hours after we left.”
She nodded silently, and got to work, and he noticed suddenly that she looked a lot like Tosh, right down to the frown of concentration and the quick sweep of her hand to tuck stray hair behind her ear when she was typing. He put the gun to her head.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” he warned her quietly as she froze, shaking. After a few seconds she started typing again, and he kept an eye on the screen to make sure she was doing as he’d ordered.
Eventually, the ship shuddered for a moment, and she said, “I’ve changed the course. It’ll take us another twelve hours to get back.”
“Then increase the speed,” Jack told her impatiently.
She hit a few more buttons, and the whine of the ships engines became audible for a few seconds as they were forced to work harder and accelerate.
“Four hours,” she said. “Any faster is too dangerous.”
“Good girl,” Jack smiled. “Go on back and join the others.”
She practically ran to get back to the group, and Jack took the opportunity to use the console himself. Then he strolled over to the pile in front of the others, and found himself a breather. Heading back to the computers, he entered the command, and put the breather on as gas started pouring out of the air vents again.
With some satisfaction, he heard the yells of surprise over the communicator, mingled with the coughing and gasping of his collapsing captives, and then everything went silent.
He settled down at the computer and went to work.
~*~
Three and a half hours later, as the ship was settling itself into orbit above Earth, he double checked the controls of his wrist computer, and headed out into the corridors, only just beginning to be cleared of the gas. He hurried back to the white room that had been his introduction to this vessel, checking his wrist computer again as he opened the door and stepped in.
“Don’t move.”
He looked up, and found himself facing three Time Agents, all with guns aimed at him, and all wearing similarly smug expressions. They didn’t even stumble when the ship shuddered into its orbit, and Jack sighed, raising his hands reluctantly.
“Alright,” one of them said calmly. “You can start by putting the blasters on the floor. We’ll take it from there.”
Slowly, Jack smiled. The three Agents frowned at him, and one said, “What’s so funny?”
“Shoot to kill,” Jack said, and lowered his hands.
The three gunshots were almost simultaneous, and Jack watched the Time Agents collapse with holes through their heads, then looked back up at Gwen, Owen and Tosh, and said, “Nice timing.”
~*~
They helped him drag the bodies out of the teleport room (trying not to stare at red stains on the white, the contrast almost mesmerising in its intensity, scarlet taints blazing against the shining purity of the floor) while Tosh quickly explained what she’d done, delighted that her idea had worked. He simply nodded along, then told them to strip the bodies of any technology they wanted (he said, “Shame to let it go to waste,” but none of them thought to ask him what he meant) and to get back into the room again, warning them that there could be other Time Agents around. He didn’t dare to mention Ianto’s absence - but none of the others mentioned it either, and he dared to hope, at last, that the female Time Agent hadn’t been lying to him.
Gathering in the centre of the room again, he flipped open his wrist computer and pushed three buttons in sequence. On the last, the walls rippled and changed, and the Hub appeared around them. Tosh rushed straight to her computers to see what her scans were telling her.
“The ship’s leaving,” Jack said. “I reprogrammed it to head back where they came from. They’ll wake up in about twenty minutes, a hell of a long way from here, and they won’t be able to do a thing about it. We’ve seen the last of them.”
Owen strolled over to his workstation, saying, “Well, now that’s sorted…” and put down the array of weapons he’d taken from the dead Time Agents. He settled down to investigate them, Tosh absent-mindedly slid into her computer chair, focusing on the screens in front of her, and Gwen scurried off to take their normal guns back to the armoury.
Jack turned to watch her go, and stopped. Ianto was standing by the stairs, watching him.
With a shaky smile, holding back a thousand unnecessary words, Jack held out a hand. That was all the invitation Ianto needed to move into his embrace, hugging him fiercely even when Jack refused to clutch him any tighter, remembering that Ianto had been wounded, despite the fact that he wasn’t letting any pain show.
For now, that was enough.
Epilogue
In short, life has conspired against me for the past couple of weeks.
But it's here. It's done. I throw it out to the wolves and wash my hands of it and kind of hope you enjoy it all the same. ;) Epilogue is optional.
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, death, some gore...
Word Count: 2666
Summary: Post season one. Jack's returned from travelling with the Doctor, only to be snatched away again - and this time there's nothing voluntary about it.
Part 3, of 3. (With the option of an epilogue)
Prompt: 019. White.
Jack's Capture
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
The first thing Jack did was find a computer port and check the ship’s schematics. He stopped there for less than a minute, listening to the orders and reports being snapped out over the communicator.
“What the hell do you mean, he’s escaped? Get down there and find him! He’s accessed the computer port on level nine! Corridor C55. Hurry, while he’s distracted.”
Jack took off at a run down the corridor, listening to the shouts of, “He’s on the move! Second left, he’s heading down corridor C56, 57… No, he’s doubled back! C84! Oh shit!”
Jack reached the door of the surveillance room, just as the Agents inside rushed to lock it. He used one of the blasters, cutting out the lock and kicking the door open, already firing before the two Agents in the room even had a chance to react to his entrance. By the time their decapitated bodies hit the floor, he was already at the computers, overriding the systems, shutting down all internal sensors, locking all modifications to that particular entry port, and then slicing the vital components out with the blaster. He backed away to the other side of the room, ripped the power packs from the dead Agents’ blasters, changed the setting on his own gun, and fired again. What little that remained of the computers was busy exploding and melting in the flames as he ducked out and headed on.
He put some distance between himself and the room, listening to the Time Agents yelling over the communicator, “Where is he? Where is he? What the hell did he do? Surveillance, give us some answers!”
“Surveillance systems are down. He got here before we could intercept him. Bastard murdered Jeris and Aila.”
“Shit. Bridge, can you get us some tracking systems back? Trace the blaster he’s using or something.”
“No go, Kass. All sensors inoperative. The safeguards have been overridden, and he’s locked us out of the whole system. Shana’s already working on breaking back in, but we’re down to the portable scanners.”
“Hate to break it to you, bridge, but we’ve barely even got that. Most of the portables were patched into the mainframe when it went down. They’ve been scrambled. We’ve got one working, and Derelet’s got another, but beyond that we’re having to do without.”
Jack smiled to himself as he heard the Agents cursing him before they signed off. He headed for his second port of call, managing to avoid the searchers on his way.
The storeroom was unguarded, and he took the opportunity to get back into his own clothes, ripping the white uniform as he took it off, but feeling satisfaction rather than guilt. He checked his wrist computer was working, shoved a sonic blaster into his holster (he missed his gun, but for now it couldn’t be helped) and once more fastened on the belt he’d stolen, grabbing a few more things from the stores (they might be useful, one never knew) and fitting them into the slots as best he could.
He was on the point of heading out again when he heard over the communicator, “Who’s guarding the stores? He’ll be after his own stuff,” and the response, “We’re in that corridor now. Got it covered.”
Turning his back to the door, mentally recycling his list of swearwords, Jack looked for another way out. There were no doors, and he had no idea what rooms were beyond the walls of this one - though he couldn’t blast his way out, since the walls were hidden behind piles of boxes anyway. His gaze passed over these, and then went up to the ceiling.
He grinned.
Ten metres further on in the ventilation shaft, he paused to listen to the brief report over the communicator - “He got here before us. His stuff’s gone, and he’s raided a load of other boxes too.”
Jack curled up on the cool metal, listening to the orders that had Time Agents rushing to blockade the corridors, and kept one hand pressed tight over his mouth as he fought down laughter, fearful of lapsing into hysteria or tears if he gave in, and trying to stop himself from thinking of what Ianto would say about his current situation. Clearly these Time Agents hadn’t seen enough twentieth century action movies, or they’d have started blasting holes in the air vents already.
He forced himself to crawl on, and nearly succumbed to the laughter when he came to a grille blocking the shaft. Whoever had designed the ship, at least, had taken such ideas into consideration.
Trying not to giggle to himself, he cut the grille out with a sonic blaster, crawled on, then turned and replaced it. He moved on, heading for the bridge, and the main navigational computers.
“All Agents activate portable breathing apparatus. Repeat, all Agents activate portable breathing apparatus. Commence flooding of ship in five… four…”
Jack froze, eyes wide, then checked his belt and all the equipment he’d stolen. There was a distinct lack of breathers, filters, gas masks, anything. And when he looked ahead, down the long, straight shaft, he could already see and hear the gas rolling towards him, pouring through the ventilation system and spreading out into the corridors and rooms all over the ship. For a moment he couldn’t move, eyes wide, mind going back to wars and battles and poison and death, and then he panicked, and used the blaster.
He, and everything he’d stolen, was ripped out of the hole he’d created, into the airless innards of the ship, crashing into pipes and wires as the air blasted out of the shaft. He twisted and sealed the breach again, as the first wisps of the gas roiled over the crisp edges of the gap.
He fell back to the ventilation shaft, trying to hold his breath and knowing he didn’t stand a chance of surviving for long enough. Already his lungs were burning, his head swimming, and everything was blurring in front of his eyes - then gone.
When he came back to life, he nearly killed himself again by trying to breathe in nothing. Desperate to breathe, he used the blaster and opened up the ventilation shaft again, relief nearly bringing him to tears when the air that poured out was clear. He hauled himself back in, fighting the rushing wind. As he sealed the breach and lay panting on the cold metal, he wondered how long he’d been dead.
After a few moments more, he heard, “Ship is clear. Air quality restored. Search teams, blockade corridors C88, 89, 78, 79…”
Jack forced himself to roll over and start moving. He’d just about managed to clear his head when he came up against another grille. When he tried to use the blaster again, nothing happened. Sighing, he sat with his back to the grille and set about replacing the power pack.
“Search the ventilation shafts. He could be avoiding the corridor patrols that way. And find him within the next half hour or we’ll have to flood the ship again to keep him under. Shana, any luck with the sensors yet?”
“Nothing. We’re totally locked out. Give us another hour and we should have internal systems back.”
“Alright. Keep working.”
Jack’s hands were shaking when he finally got the blaster to work and started moving again. He hadn’t got far when he spotted another opening in the shaft just ahead. He could hear the Time Agents talking below him as they removed the grille, and then one of them began to climb in.
Bracing himself, he took out the section of metal beneath him, and fell.
The Agents in the corridor shouted in surprise, going for their guns and yelling, “He’s here! C92!” as Jack fired without pausing to pick himself up. He dropped two of the three without any trouble, but the third caught his hand a glancing blow with a stunner as he jumped back down from the ventilation shaft. Jack swore and dropped his gun, hurling himself to the wall as the Agent’s second shot sparked off the floor where he’d been. Left-handed, Jack ripped the second blaster from his belt, and fired.
Swearing some more, he got to his feet and collected the guns, kicking the bodies out of his way and trying to stop thinking about the horrifyingly unnatural wounds he’d inflicted. He couldn’t remember ever hating straight lines so much before.
He tried to shake some life back into his numb hand, and took off down the corridors.
Somehow, through a combination of quick reflexes, concentration on the messages over the communicator, and pure blind luck, he made it to the bridge without another encounter with his hunters. He didn’t have to kill anyone else until he blasted the door control of the bridge and strode in, cutting two guards in half with one shot and yelling, “Everybody up against the window, now!”
It took the decapitation of another three brave but foolish fighters before they obeyed him, and even then he had to cut one woman’s hand off when she tried to pull a gun on him. He left her alive and sobbing, huddled with the others up against the window at the front of the bridge, blood pouring from the neat wound while a few of her comrades tried desperately to patch her up.
In the sudden silence, he paused for a second to listen to the Agents elsewhere in the ship, yelling over the communicators, “Bridge? Bridge, what happened? We’re on our way!” But he ignored that, and concentrated on his prisoners instead.
“Communicators, weapons, breathers, anything you’ve got. One pile, here, now,” Jack told them, pointing at the floor in front of him. This time they followed his orders without any fuss. With a wave of the blaster, he herded them into a corner, then went over to the line of computers in the centre of the room, and locked down the bridge.
“Okay,” he said cheerfully, straightening up and grinning at them. “Chief navigator?”
Enough of them looked at one woman for him to take it as positive identification.
“Get over here,” he told her, and she started forwards, but was stopped by another man, who visibly gathered his courage to tell Jack, “You won’t gain anything from this. Whatever you’ve got in mind, it won’t work.”
Jack held his gaze, then changed the setting on the sonic blaster, and pointed it at the window, saying quietly, “Navigator, get over here.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” the man said. “You’d kill yourself as well.”
Jack pulled the trigger.
His captives screamed. Five of them, including the woman whose hand he’d removed, were wrenched out of the gap before Jack repaired the breach. The survivors fell to the floor, gasping, as Jack released his grip on the computer desk and regained his footing, saying, “Don’t test me. Navigator?”
The woman headed over nervously, wringing her hands in front of her. Jack sat her down at the console, sat on the desk beside her, and said, “Take us back to Earth. Two hours after we left.”
She nodded silently, and got to work, and he noticed suddenly that she looked a lot like Tosh, right down to the frown of concentration and the quick sweep of her hand to tuck stray hair behind her ear when she was typing. He put the gun to her head.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” he warned her quietly as she froze, shaking. After a few seconds she started typing again, and he kept an eye on the screen to make sure she was doing as he’d ordered.
Eventually, the ship shuddered for a moment, and she said, “I’ve changed the course. It’ll take us another twelve hours to get back.”
“Then increase the speed,” Jack told her impatiently.
She hit a few more buttons, and the whine of the ships engines became audible for a few seconds as they were forced to work harder and accelerate.
“Four hours,” she said. “Any faster is too dangerous.”
“Good girl,” Jack smiled. “Go on back and join the others.”
She practically ran to get back to the group, and Jack took the opportunity to use the console himself. Then he strolled over to the pile in front of the others, and found himself a breather. Heading back to the computers, he entered the command, and put the breather on as gas started pouring out of the air vents again.
With some satisfaction, he heard the yells of surprise over the communicator, mingled with the coughing and gasping of his collapsing captives, and then everything went silent.
He settled down at the computer and went to work.
~*~
Three and a half hours later, as the ship was settling itself into orbit above Earth, he double checked the controls of his wrist computer, and headed out into the corridors, only just beginning to be cleared of the gas. He hurried back to the white room that had been his introduction to this vessel, checking his wrist computer again as he opened the door and stepped in.
“Don’t move.”
He looked up, and found himself facing three Time Agents, all with guns aimed at him, and all wearing similarly smug expressions. They didn’t even stumble when the ship shuddered into its orbit, and Jack sighed, raising his hands reluctantly.
“Alright,” one of them said calmly. “You can start by putting the blasters on the floor. We’ll take it from there.”
Slowly, Jack smiled. The three Agents frowned at him, and one said, “What’s so funny?”
“Shoot to kill,” Jack said, and lowered his hands.
The three gunshots were almost simultaneous, and Jack watched the Time Agents collapse with holes through their heads, then looked back up at Gwen, Owen and Tosh, and said, “Nice timing.”
~*~
They helped him drag the bodies out of the teleport room (trying not to stare at red stains on the white, the contrast almost mesmerising in its intensity, scarlet taints blazing against the shining purity of the floor) while Tosh quickly explained what she’d done, delighted that her idea had worked. He simply nodded along, then told them to strip the bodies of any technology they wanted (he said, “Shame to let it go to waste,” but none of them thought to ask him what he meant) and to get back into the room again, warning them that there could be other Time Agents around. He didn’t dare to mention Ianto’s absence - but none of the others mentioned it either, and he dared to hope, at last, that the female Time Agent hadn’t been lying to him.
Gathering in the centre of the room again, he flipped open his wrist computer and pushed three buttons in sequence. On the last, the walls rippled and changed, and the Hub appeared around them. Tosh rushed straight to her computers to see what her scans were telling her.
“The ship’s leaving,” Jack said. “I reprogrammed it to head back where they came from. They’ll wake up in about twenty minutes, a hell of a long way from here, and they won’t be able to do a thing about it. We’ve seen the last of them.”
Owen strolled over to his workstation, saying, “Well, now that’s sorted…” and put down the array of weapons he’d taken from the dead Time Agents. He settled down to investigate them, Tosh absent-mindedly slid into her computer chair, focusing on the screens in front of her, and Gwen scurried off to take their normal guns back to the armoury.
Jack turned to watch her go, and stopped. Ianto was standing by the stairs, watching him.
With a shaky smile, holding back a thousand unnecessary words, Jack held out a hand. That was all the invitation Ianto needed to move into his embrace, hugging him fiercely even when Jack refused to clutch him any tighter, remembering that Ianto had been wounded, despite the fact that he wasn’t letting any pain show.
For now, that was enough.
Epilogue