Chapter Text
14th October, 10:36 AM
“She’s two streets ahead of you. Keep driving straight, but you’ll have to do the last bit by foot.”
Tosh quickly tapped away at her keyboard, tracing the alien heat signature they had picked up this morning. It was coming off a woman who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time earlier in the day, and was now as a consequence playing host to a parasitic alien.
“Thanks, Tosh,” Gwen replied over the comms.
“She isn’t going fast - you must’ve clipped her with a shot at some point earlier.”
“Brilliant. Let us know if anything changes.”
“Will do,” Tosh answered, leaning back on her chair to watch the tracker. As soon as her back made contact with her chair, a touch on her shoulder shocked Tosh so quickly that she let out a yelp.
“I’m sorry, did I make you jump?” Ianto asked, his voice sounding low and tired.
Tosh turned around to look at him, grateful that she’d turned her comms onto mute. His clothes were rumpled, and his hair was slightly skewed, despite the work of the hand he was running through it. “Ianto! When did you wake up?”
“Just now,” he shrugged, looking around the Hub. “What’s happened? Where are the others?”
“Out on a Rift call. Some kind of alien parasite took over a woman’s body, but it appears harmless for now. The others are hunting it down.”
Ianto nodded. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Not for now,” Tosh said, turning back to glance at her screen. She heard Ianto pull up a chair to sit next to her. “You could tell me what happened last night? Jack seemed to be in a better mood.”
“Did he?” Ianto asked, looking confused.
Tosh smirked. “Don’t give me that. Go on. Did you ‘kiss and make up’?”
“I…” Ianto spoke, his forehead creasing, and Tosh let her smirk drop. “I can’t remember.”
“Jack told us you were tired.”
“I… must’ve been,” he said, still running his hand through his hair. “Sorry. This isn’t like me. I don’t usually sleep this late or this… unprofessionally.”
“It’s okay,” Tosh responded calmly. Then she spotted something on the map and pushed the button on her comms. “She’s taking a left turn, guys.”
“On it. Just leaving the SUV,” Owen’s voice spoke.
“How’s your side?” Tosh asked, remembering the gash that Owen had got only yesterday. It made her pause and wonder why Jack had insisted on Owen coming with them on this mission rather than having Tosh take his place.
“Fine for now. Painkillers are still working, but - over there! She’s running! Got to go, Tosh.”
Owen disconnected his comms, and Tosh turned back to Ianto.
“I feel like there’s something…” Ianto began, but broke off.
“Something...?”
Ianto met her eyes. “Something I needed to do. Or remember. Or something. Just on the tip of my tongue - but out of reach. Fuzzy.”
Tosh paused. “Ianto,” she said, her mind beginning to whirr. “What was the last thing you remember about last night?”
“I… I remember the argument we had, in the medical bay. Jack stormed out. You helped Owen home, and Gwen left too. Then… I worked in the archives for a bit. Made some coffee. And…”
He looked up at her, a lost look on his face. “And then I guess I must’ve fallen asleep on the sofa.”
Tosh shook her head. “That’s not what Jack said. He told us that he found you awake, still working, and told you to sleep. That you complained about it, but he insisted on you sleeping and practically had to force you onto the sofa.”
Ianto’s eyes widened. “I don’t remember Jack doing that.”
Tosh placed a hand to her mouth, thoughts flying through her head. Ianto couldn’t remember last night - which could mean one of a few things, but - no. It couldn’t be. Jack wouldn’t-
“I don’t remember Jack there at all,” Ianto whispered, shaking his head softly.
“Ianto, you don’t think he..?”
“Retcon?”
Tosh stared straight into Ianto’s terrified eyes.
“He wouldn’t,” Ianto began. “He’d never- not Retcon! ”
“Maybe… there was something he didn’t want you to remember?” she suggested, trying not to think about what Jack could have done, knowing that Ianto wouldn’t remember any of it.
“The others,” Ianto said, regaining his voice. “We should warn them.”
Tosh nodded quickly, turning her comms onto a private channel with Owen and Gwen. “Guys, there’s something you-”
“Not now, Tosh!” Gwen shouted, her breath heavy. “Jack, don’t, we need to- Jack!”
And bursting through Tosh’s ear, the sound of a gun echoed, followed seconds later by a hideous, tortured scream.
14th October, 10:51 AM
One second, the woman in front of Owen was standing tall, her long hair whipping in the wind as she stared at her three pursuers.
The next second, Jack Harkness had put a bullet in her chest.
Owen ran up to her, fear trembling down his spine as he saw the large pool of blood that was already spilling out of the girl. He heard heated voices behind him, Gwen and Jack shouting angrily at each other, but his focus was on the injured woman.
“What happened? Are you guys okay?” Tosh asked, sounding frenzied, in his ear.
“We’re fine, Tosh, but the girl isn’t.”
“Is she-?”
Pressing a finger to her neck, Owen searched for a pulse. He shook his head, reaching to see the gunshot, and felt his heart plummet.
It was straight through her heart.
“Bloody fuck. She’s dead! Jack killed her!” he shouted, and heard Tosh gasp.
“Owen, you need to get back here, as soon as you can. Jack isn’t right, still. We think he Retconned Ianto last night.”
“What?” Owen exclaimed, shocked.
“We’ll explain when you get back. Jack’s not safe to be around. Just get back to the Hub.”
Owen took a look around them and spotted Jack rounding angrily on Gwen. She looked torn between standing her ground against Jack and cowering away as he towered over her.
“Gwen, need your help here!” Owen shouted, effectively deciding for her.
Gwen turned to stare at him and took in his blood covered hands. Her eyes went wide, and she ran over to join him.
“What can I do?”
“It’s too late,” Owen said, reaching over to grab an arm. “She’s dead. We need to get her back to the Hub, in case she’s still contaminated.”
“What was Jack thinking ?” Gwen asked, tears pooling in the bottom of her eyes as she held onto the woman’s legs.
“We can’t trust Jack any more. Tosh said he retconned Ianto last night.”
Gwen’s head snapped up to look at him, and she nearly let go of the woman in shock. “No!”
“Uh-huh,” Owen replied, grunting as they stumbled towards the SUV. They soon reached it, piling the body as gracefully as they could into the back.
“Jack,” Owen called as Jack made his way towards them. He still looked vaguely angry, but a part of him looked horrifically satisfied about something. Owen really hoped it wasn’t the dead body in the back of the car. “We need to get back to the Hub.”
Jack nodded and stepped forwards. “I’ll drive.”
“Actually, I was thinking that Owen could-” Gwen started but then trailed off as she caught sight of Jack’s glower.
“I’ll. Drive,” Jack repeated, and yanked the driver’s door open.
Gwen gave Owen another look and jumped in the back of the car. Despite wanting to follow her, Owen thought it was best if at least one of them went in the passenger's seat while Jack was driving, so he reluctantly walked around the car and got in.
Thankfully, Jack did indeed direct them straight back to the Hub without going on any detours or driving too dangerously. Owen was certain he saw at least three speed cameras flash, but that was fairly normal for Jack’s driving.
When they stepped into the tourist office entrance, Owen wasn’t surprised to see Tosh and Ianto standing there. Noting that the three of them were safe, specifically Owen and Gwen unhurt, they seemed to relax a bit more.
“Oh, have we got a reception?” Jack asked, his face not giving away anything. “Nice to see you’ve decided to wake up today, Ianto.”
Nobody laughed.
“Did you Retcon Ianto?” Tosh asked bluntly, getting to the point.
Jack chuckled quietly and raised an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?”
His response sounded less like a defensive excuse and more of a taunt - as if he was genuinely asking Ianto why he would have Retconned him. And, Owen thought, feeling frustrated, of course the tea boy wouldn’t know, because Jack fucking retconned the memories away!
“What happened last night that was so bad, you had to make me forget?” Ianto growled, advancing on Jack as he got his gun out.
“Woah, woah!” Gwen exclaimed as a second later Jack got his own gun out. They stood, guns pointed at each other, held in a deadlock.
“You couldn’t shoot me ,” Jack mocked, pulling the trigger back on his gun. Ianto did the same, glaring defiantly at him.
“I couldn’t?”
“One of us could,” Tosh suddenly joined in, pulling her own gun out and pointing it at Jack. From besides him, Gwen did the same, and Owen decided he might as well play a part in their plan. “And it’s not like you’d stay dead, or anything.”
“Exactly.” Jack grinned, changing his aim between his four workers as he spoke. “One of you shoots, and I shoot back. Only I’ll wake up a few minutes later.”
They all stood, locked in position.
From behind Jack’s shoulder, Owen caught Tosh’s eye. “Tranquilizer!” he mouthed at her, seeing her eyes widen, then her face nod minutely in understanding. He started to inch his way around the room, being the closest to the door that led to the Hub.
Tosh lept forwards and pressed the button, opening the way for Owen, but Jack swivelled around to face him. For a horrifying second, Owen thought Jack was going to shoot him there and then - but Ianto was quicker. He hit Jack with a strong blow to the head, his gun connecting with Jack’s skull. Jack staggered over, and in the momentary confusion, Owen ran into the Hub.
The klaxon blared as he got through to the main area, but it wasn’t loud enough to block out the second gunshot that Owen had heard that morning.
He stopped for a second, almost considering going back to see if anybody had been hurt, but shook his head and pressed on. They needed to get Jack under control, and quickly. His side twinged, reminding him that he needed to take his second set of painkillers soon, but the bandage around it was keeping his stitches pressed tight for now. He wouldn’t usually have come in after the injury he had got yesterday, but Jack had been quite insistent on joining him on the mission. Should’ve been a sign, he realised.
As Owen grabbed the tranquilizer and filled up a syringe with it, he looked over his medical bay and spotted some gauze left out from yesterday. He seized that too, swallowing a small white pill dry to ease the pain in his side. Between that and the adrenaline, he’d be fine for now.
He sprinted back up the stairs of his bay, making his way to the exit. The door slowly opened as he impatiently waited, slipping through the second there was enough room for him to get past.
The sight that awaited him in the tourist office was a shock.
Jack was face down on the floor, Gwen kneeling on his back as she tried to hold onto his cuffed hands. He was roaring and bucking, trying to shake Gwen off, but the ex-police officer was strong and knew just where to apply pressure to keep him down. Tosh was next to her, holding Jack’s legs down too. Ianto was standing in front of them, his gun pointed at Jack’s head. His jacket was off, and Owen’s eyes widened when he saw it pressed to his arm, blood seeping onto his white shirt underneath.
“Owen. Quick! ” Tosh shouted, breaking Owen from his momentary pause. He ran over, reaching for the nape of his neck. He plunged the syringe down, depressing it until all the liquid had gone into Jack.
Finally, Jack slumped against the floor of the tourist office, still. All that could be heard was heavy breathing.
“What do we do now?” Gwen asked, after what felt like minutes of silence.
“We need to get Jack down to the cells, then figure out what the hell is going on with him,” Ianto said, and they nodded.
“And I need to take a look at your arm, mate,” Owen added, ignoring the grimace that Ianto sent back at him.
“Fine. Let’s get to it. Give me a hand with Jack?” Tosh asked, and Gwen and Owen both went over to hold up an arm.
14th October, 11:33 AM
“Shirt, off,” Owen ordered, moving around Ianto to sterilize the medical equipment he needed.
“That’s very forward of you, Owen,” Ianto replied sarcastically, despite already starting to unbutton his shirt.
“Yeah, yeah,” Owen grumbled back. “Show me your arm.”
Now having taken his shirt off, Ianto lifted his arm up, trying not to wince. The wound wasn’t too bad, having barely clipped the top of his arm, but it stung like a bitch.
“Right. We need to sterilize this and make sure there’s nothing left in the wound that could infect it,” Owen told him, and Ianto nodded.
“Just do what you need to.”
“You want anything for the pain?”
Ianto considered. “Only if it won’t make me drowsy. We still have Jack to sort out.”
“I’ll give you something mild, for now,” Owen responded, walking over to his cupboards while Ianto sat down on the table.
Owen soon got to work, first using gauze and rubbing alcohol to cleanse the gash. Ianto grit his teeth through the pain but couldn’t help letting out a pained noise when Owen started picking out bits of his shirt which had got caught in the wound.
A few minutes later, Owen was wrapping the dressing tightly around the wound. Thankfully, it hadn’t been bad enough to need any stitches applied. Ianto shuddered as he remembered the cold, lifeless look in Jack’s eyes as he pulled the trigger, his aim thankfully skewed when Gwen jumped on him from behind. If she hadn’t done that - if Jack had had his shot on target - then Ianto might not have even been alive anymore.
He was torn from his thoughts when Gwen and Tosh suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Are you okay, Ianto?” Gwen asked, looking pointedly at his arm.
“I’m fine. I was lucky it wasn’t any deeper,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
“What should we do with the body?” Tosh said next.
“Do your scans still detect the parasite anywhere on her? Or in the city?” Owen asked.
“No, they stopped the second Jack shot her.”
Ianto thought, for one brief second, that he could remember a skull, pale white and held in two large hands.
“In that case, I’ll leave it until after we’ve sorted Jack. The autopsy won’t be too bad, at least, seeing as he shot her straight through the heart.”
Another flash, and there the skull was once more. Held protectively over what looked to be a chest. Ianto pinched his eyes shut, trying to chase the image.
“Ianto. Are you sure you’re not in pain?” Owen asked him, jolting Ianto’s eyes back open as he put an arm on his shoulder.
“I’m fine. Just… has anybody seen a skull around here?”
“A skull?” Gwen frowned.
Ianto shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he lied, trying to stop thinking about it. “I’ll go and make some coffee. You all must be dying for a cup by now.”
The three others shared an equal, guilty look.
“Ianto, the coffee machine was broken when we came in this morning,” Tosh explained.
“Oh,” he said, dumbfounded.
“We’ll go and get some in a bit, from a shop,” Gwen decided, looking kindly at him. “We should go sort out the body for now.”
Ianto closed his eyes once more, blocking out Gwen’s discussions on what they should do next. His mind was whirring, noises of breaking machinery filling his mind as a fast moving fist was flying in and out of his memory.
Shaking his head, Ianto opened his eyes and saw that Gwen and Tosh had gone. With a nod to Owen, he quickly made his way out of the medical bay, his destination set.
As soon as he lay his eyes on the broken coffee machine, the image of a fist slamming harshly into the machine, filled his mind. He couldn’t remember anything more, except the one hand breaking the kitchen appliance and returning with a trail of blood dripping down it. Somehow, he knew it was Jack’s hand, and he concentrated even harder on the brief fragments of memory that he was getting.
And then the skull was back in his brain, suffocating his memory until it was the only thing he could think about. So close, and yet so frustratingly unfamiliar, despite himself knowing he had seen the skull before, and-
Suddenly he realised just what was odd about it. It wasn’t a real skull. It was painted.
14th October, 11:46 AM
Gwen walked briskly down the stairs that led to the lower level cells, trying to banish the feeling of dread that was filling her gut.
Together with Tosh, they’d moved the dead civilian into cold storage, ready for Owen to autopsy once their more pressing issues had been sorted out. Seeing her lifeless face, far too young to have even really started her life, made Gwen feel broken. The woman must have a family that they would have to visit and feed whatever cover story they could come up with.
The pain and anger Gwen felt at the injustice of the woman’s death made Gwen determined.
Jack was in a cell, now only one floor beneath her, stewing away in his own anger. They needed to figure out what was going on with him, before more people were killed. Gwen tried not to think about the fight in the tourist office and how close they had been to losing one of their own.
One more flight of stairs descended, and Gwen was in the lower level cells. She took a deep breath, opened up the steel door, and walked in.
Jack was sitting, crossed legs, head bowed towards the floor, separated from Gwen by the enforced glass door of the holding cell. He looked up as she entered, giving her an odd smile that she couldn’t understand.
“Gwen. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. His voice sounded calmer, more defeated than he had sounded earlier on. It was as if all traces of anger had escaped from him and left him empty.
“I came down here to check up on you, now that you’re awake,” she said, looking at him to gauge his reaction.
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Gwen,” he responded, then let out a long sigh before continuing. “Though, I imagine you have ulterior motives for being down here.”
“I’m sorry, Jack, but there’s something wrong with you. We need to figure that out.”
Jack nodded slowly. “I know. I wish I could help you. I don’t like feeling like this.”
Gwen looked at him with renewed interest. She frowned, trying to work out if he sounded genuine or not. “How do you feel then, Jack? Help us understand. It might help us work out what’s wrong.”
Jack closed his eyes for a moment. “It feels terrible. There’s this anger, which starts small, but then it just gets bigger and bigger, until it’s all I can think about. And the next thing I know, I’ve- I’ve-”
“Shot a woman through her heart? Tried to kill Ianto?” she offered, almost out of curiosity to see how he would respond.
“Yes, ” he whispered, his eyes opening. “And I feel so guilty - but at the time it just felt right. ”
Gwen’s heart twinged at his obvious discomfort. “I’m so sorry this is happening, Jack. We’ll find a way to fix this, I promise.”
Jack looked up at her. “Let me help you. You can do whatever tests you need to do or anything to get this sorted.”
He moved forwards so he was standing at the front of the glass, bringing his face close to hers, despite being separated by the glass. He was so close that Gwen could smell his unique scent, even through the gaps in the door.
“Jack,” she spoke after a moment. “You can’t. We can’t trust you anymore.”
Jack recoiled back, a forlorn look spreading over his face. His shoulders dropped.
“I’m sorry, you know we can’t. I’m just speaking the truth.”
“I know,” Jack replied quietly, hanging his head. As he wrung his wrist, he suddenly stopped and looked at his arm. “Would this help convince you you can trust me?”
Gwen watched, absolutely shocked as Jack undid the strap on his vortex manipulator, pulling it off his arm as he threw it to the ground. He stepped back until his back was against the furthest wall of the cell, his hands up.
“Go on. Take it. You can trust me,” he implored, looking directly into Gwen’s eyes.
She hitched in a breath, not quite believing that her boss was willing to part with the one thing he never went without. In fact, there was not a single time (bar when it had been removed from him with physical force ) that she’d seen him with a bare arm.
But there was still the nagging feeling at the back of her mind, that Jack was dangerous. “Jack, I…”
“ Please , Gwen,” he begged, his blue eyes turning crystal clear as the pain of what he was going through shone out. “I don’t know what else to do to make you trust me.”
Gwen swallowed, and reached into her pocket for her gun. “I won’t hesitate to shoot, so stay against the wall.”
Jack finally started to look hopeful, his back straightening a bit as Gwen went for the door. She typed the passcode in and took a deep breath before she opened the door and slipped inside quickly.
The vortex manipulator was right at the front of the room, two steps away. With her gun cocked and still trained on Jack, she stepped forwards and snatched it, only moving her eyes from Jack for a split second.
“Three… Two… One…” Jack murmured under his breath, and Gwen took a sudden step backwards, seeing a gleam in Jack’s eyes that couldn’t be anything good.
“What are you-”
The cell door behind her closed.
Gwen whipped around and reached for the door, but she couldn’t yank it back open. It was locked shut, trapping her inside the room.
Before she could even realise that she’d turned her back on Jack, an arm was gripping her right wrist, digging fingers in as it twisted her hand painfully. She yelled out in pain and was forced to drop her gun before her wrist snapped broken.
Gwen twisted round, pulling her arm from Jack’s hand as she stared at her boss. He was grinning, utterly maniacally, his face threatening to split in two.
“After your quaint little team intervention yesterday, I had a feeling you guys might lock me in a cell for my safety,” Jack began, advancing on Gwen. She threw a hand up in a punch, but Jack blocked the blow. “So I reprogrammed the cell doors to lock after five seconds of being open, on the off-chance something like this would happen.”
“No!” Gwen hissed, darting out from where Jack was looming over her. She made a beeline for the gun, but Jack kicked it out of the way before she could reach it.
“Pretty little Gwen Cooper,” Jack said in a melodic tone. “What will the others say, when they get in here and see you in my clutches?”
Gwen’s brain whirred, trying to come up with a way out, but she was too quickly distracted by Jack rushing towards her. He hit his shoulder into her stomach, throwing her against the side of the cell, and she cried out in pain as her head jerked backwards and made contact with the concrete. Not stopping for long, she thrust a knee upwards, which hit Jack’s groin. She was satisfied to hear him groan in pain and slipped out from his grasp.
But she didn’t get very far. As she tried to put distance between her and Jack, Jack hooked a foot around her ankle, and she fell on the floor, hands luckily breaking her fall. She tried to scramble away, but Jack now had an arm around her ankle and was lunging forwards.
And then there was a familiar click, the barrel of her gun pressed into the back of her skull.
“I’ve got you now, Gwen Cooper."
14th October, 12:03 PM
“It’s… horrible ,” Tosh whispered.
With Owen’s help, Ianto had raced down to Jack’s quarters, found the painting that had come through the Rift over a week ago, and taken it upstairs to be examined. When he had set his eyes on the painting in the full light, Ianto had physically recoiled at the sight. It was as Tosh said - just horrible. Jack’s face was disfigured, brushstrokes harsh and heavy unlike the original, daintier strokes that had comprised the painting before. The colour scheme was darker, and the shadows were elongated, in deep purples and greens.
The only part of the painting drawn with great detail and care were the white flowers in Jack’s hand. They had blue veins travelling up their centre, but Ianto couldn’t make them out too well, as Jack’s fists were clenched tight over the flowers. A trail of petals fell to the bottom of the painting, escaping his hands.
“This isn’t the painting that fell through the Rift,.” Owen said, shock evident across his face.
“It is. It’s just changed,” Ianto said. “I saw a skull on it last night, I’m sure. Right over Jack’s heart.”
“And then Jack shot a civilian, right through her heart.”
“Then what do the flowers mean?” Tosh asked. “If the skull was some sort of premonition for earlier, then what’s going to happen with the flowers?”
“They’re primroses,” Owen added, and Tosh and Ianto turned to stare at him. “What? Am I not allowed to enjoy a spot of botany in my spare time?”
“In that case, put your botany skills to work and find out what’s special about those flowers,” Ianto instructed, with a raised eyebrow. “Tosh, can we start analysing this painting?”
Tosh nodded her assent and moved quickly towards her desk, gathering up a few items that Ianto vaguely recognised.
A few minutes later, she was growling in frustration, hitting a metallic scanner hard in her hand. “It’s not working!” she growled, pointing the device back at the painting and pressing a button on the side for the fourth time. “I can’t pick up any history on it - it’s like it never existed before it came to the Hub!”
“Can you try another scanner? Different tests?” Ianto suggested, wondering what the hell Jack’s vortex manipulator scanned when it came through the Rift. Perhaps Jack had been under its spell from the very beginning...
“I can, but they’ll take longer to do.”
“We have time.”
Tosh sighed. “This would’ve been a lot easier if we’d been allowed to scan it when it first came through the Rift.”
“That’s not our fault. Jack told us he’d already done that,” Ianto responded.
Their conversation was abruptly interrupted when Owen entered, running towards Tosh’s desk.
“Where’s Gwen?” he demanded, eyes wide with panic. Ianto straightened up, already moving towards the computer on his left to search the building.
“No idea. Why?” Tosh asked, as a 3D image of the Hub appeared on the screen, showing flashing red dots that indicated heat signals.
“Those flowers,” Owen began, looking between each of them. “They’re Gwen primroses.”
If the name of the flowers hadn’t been enough to set alarm bells ringing in Ianto’s head, seeing two pulsing red lights right by the cell Jack was locked in started a cacophony of panic in his mind. Before they fully had time to process what was happening, Ianto and Owen were off, pushing comms units into their ears as Owen barked at Tosh to stay with the painting and give back-up from observing the CCTV. Ianto already had his hand around his gun, though at the speed they were running through the Hub, he had almost reached the lower level cells before he had the weapon in hand.
They pounced into the room, ignoring the snarls of a Weevil in the first cell, and moved further in. Ianto frowned at the empty room, the fluorescent light reflecting off the empty floor. It was only when they moved right to the end and looked into the furthest cell that they saw Gwen.
“Boys! Nice of you to join me!” Jack exclaimed, an arm wrapped possessively around Gwen’s waist as his free hand held a gun tightly to her temple.
“Gwen!” Ianto exclaimed, meeting her tear-stricken gaze as her eyes opened wide. She looked entirely terrified, an expression mirrored inside Ianto’s chest as his lungs constricted in panic.
“Let her go, you bastard!” Owen snarled, pointing his gun at the cell, though Ianto knew that bullets couldn’t permeate the reinforced glass.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands,” Jack replied, digging the gun into Gwen’s head.
Ianto’s heart raced as he tried to come up with any solution that could get Gwen out of this situation unharmed. If they could get inside the cell, then he and Owen could possibly overpower Jack - but not when he had a gun against one of his closest friends' head. The twinge in his arm was testament to the fact that Jack wouldn’t hesitate to risk their lives anymore.
“Jack, this has gone too far,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “Nobody has to get hurt.”
“And nobody will, if you just do exactly what I say.”
“Don’t listen to him-” Gwen hurriedly got out, but Jack reached his hand over her mouth, shutting her up.
“Ah, ah, ah - not so fast,” he said, accompanying his words with soft taps of the gun on Gwen’s head. He turned to look at Ianto and Owen. “You let me out of this cell, or I’ll paint the walls with Gwen’s blood and brains.”
Ianto heard a muffled whimper from behind Jack’s hand, and his throat stuck. What could they do? They had no idea what Jack wanted or what the painting was trying to do with him. Jack was bad-tempered and manipulative, but he’d killed a girl today. What would he do next? Try to take over Cardiff? England? The world?
But there was no way Ianto was willing to risk Gwen’s life for anything. He looked over at Owen, both sharing an uncomfortable, pained look. Ianto reached across for the lock to the cell, typing in the passcode he had memorised in his brain. The door hissed as the light turned green, slowly opening.
Jack walked out, Gwen in front of him with the gun still held threateningly on her. “Good boy, Ianto,” Jack said patronizingly. “I knew there was still hope for you.”
Ianto felt physically nauseous, his mind in a panic. “What do you want?” he asked Jack, at least wanting to know what his plans were.
“What do I want?” Jack repeated, a gleam in his eye as he paused in thought. “Many things. Power. Control. The entire world at my feet.”
“You’re sick. You’ve gone crazy !” Owen said, his arm straightening as his gun stayed trained on Jack.
“Put the guns down, boys,” Jack instructed, his eyes going dark. “Need I remind you what’ll happen if you don’t follow my command?”
Ianto looked at Gwen, could almost hear her begging to not listen to Jack, but with a gun to her head, Ianto wasn’t going to risk anything. He dropped his weapon and heard Owen do the same.
“Good. I think I’m going to lock you all up. Give you each an individual cell, keep you trapped there for the rest of your lives, perfectly safe from danger,” Jack said, eyes trailing off to the left as he thought through his many options. Ianto couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. “But I’ll let the secretary out, so he can see to my needs, and if he has time, he can keep the rest of you watered and fed too.”
“You can’t do that,” Owen protested.
“But I can !” Jack gleefully cried, his grin widening to the point where it looked almost painful. “And when I’ve got you all safe and sound, I can go bigger. I can take to politics, gain control of the military - or just use what I have here at Torchwood! Win wars against other countries - find a way to get off this godforsaken planet and conquer the stars! There’s so much I could do, so much power I could have-”
Ianto, eyes wide, began to notice that Jack was starting to froth at the mouth. He was going utterly crazy .
Owen put a hand up to his ear quickly, pressing his comms. “Tosh. Third drawer on the left of my desk. Now !”
“What did you say?” Jack roared, snapping the gun away from Gwen to point at Owen. His eyes were aflame, a disfigured fury inside them that looked like it could burn Owen on the spot. “ What’s inside your desk? ”
Owen paused. “A bottle of Jack Daniels,” he admitted, seeing the frown on Jack’s face increase.
“And? What use will alcohol have now?” Jack demanded.
“Not much. Unless Tosh is clever - and Tosh is always clever.” Owen grinned, and Ianto prayed that whatever his plan was, Tosh had figured it out. “She’ll have picked up my lighter too.”
Something clicked in Ianto’s brain.
“And I’ve also heard that oil paint can be quite flammable.”
Jack stood for one second, then took a long lunge forwards, arms outstretched as if he was going to strangle Owen. But before he could reach him, he froze, as if someone had suddenly grabbed hold of all his limbs and kept him hanging on the spot.
Then he erupted into flames.
Ianto heard Gwen scream from beside Jack, and as his jaw dropped open, he saw her bolt away from Jack. She ran to Ianto’s side, hooking herself under an arm that he wrapped around her in comfort.
Jack’s entire body was aflame, and he’d gone rigid. His spine was straight, his head tipped backwards as he let out a demonic scream that pained Ianto’s ears. The flames were odd- spiraling in many colours, deep greens and vibrant purples, mixed with more traditional reds, oranges and even some blue. As they licked up his body, Ianto was shocked to see there was no smoke, and that the flames were almost see-through. Unlike what he thought, Jack’s clothes didn’t seem to be charring or burning to ashes, and his skin still looked unblemished.
But his eyes had rolled back, showing only the whites as he continued to let out his hideous scream.
They stood watching him for minutes, unable to look away or move an inch. It was captivating in the most morbid, torturous way, but none of the three could bring themselves to move. It was as if some force was keeping them there, making them watch as Jack burned.
Finally, the flames stopped, sudden and jarring. Jack’s body fell limp, dropping to the floor. He lay unmoving.
Dead.
16th October, 1:03 PM
There was a gasp, a strong intake of oxygen that set limbs moving and thoughts racing. Eyes snapped open and the darkness receded, fading back as life overtook it.
Jack felt cotton bedsheets beneath him, and an uncomfortable mattress underneath those. The ceiling was grey, but the light shining from the centre was blinding. His eyes blinked as he sat up, still woozy with the reappearance of life.
He was in one of the spare rooms on the lower levels. If he had to guess, he’d say he was in an interrogation room, repurposed with an uncomfortable temporary bed, the desk and chairs left in the room. He took a second to think about how he got here.
Everything came rolling back to him in surges of guilt, horror, and terrific agony. Memories of the past week crashed against his mind like waves against the shore. What he did to Tosh, to Owen, to Gwen, to Ianto-
He jumped off the bed, running to the sink in the wall, and threw up. He heaved with each memory that returned, painfully shaking his body as his throat was scraped raw. He vomited until there was nothing left, and still he continued heaving, not sure if they were retches or sobs by this point. His legs gave up, and he sunk to the ground, resting his forehead against the cool edge of the sink. Reaching up, he turned the tap on and tried to wash down the mess he’d made, cupping the water with two hands as he splashed his face with it too.
“You don’t look very comfortable there, sir,” a very familiar voice called from the doorway.
Jack turned and stared at Ianto Jones - beautiful, perfect Ianto Jones - and turned back to the sink to throw up again.
“That’s not the reaction I usually get,” Ianto joked, but Jack could hear the strain in his voice.
“Torchwood rules and regulations, section D, paragraph five,” he said, his voice scratching his throat. He coughed before speaking again, “Compromised Torchwood personnel must be isolated for a period of one to eight weeks, depending on circumstance.”
“And here I was thinking you were back to normal,” Ianto said, raising an eyebrow. “You, following the rules for once?”
Jack had to snort mildly at that response. “I could still be dangerous.”
“Tosh scanned the painting, and the connection between you and it has gone. Besides, I can tell from the vomit that you’re feeling something other than anger,” Ianto explained, taking a seat at the desk, indicating for Jack to take the one opposite. “We don’t know what the painting was, but we believe the situation has been resolved.”
“I think I can help,” Jack offered, leaning back on his chair slightly. He’d known what the painting was the second he laid eyes on it, the last good memory he had before his mind had been changed. “I know what it was, but it wasn’t meant to work the way it did.” Ianto made a ‘continue’ gesture with his hands, so Jack did. “You know mood rings?”
Ianto snorted in surprise, and his brows furrowed slightly. “What, those tacky rings that change colour randomly? Think we have a box of them in the Tourist Office.”
Jack nodded, somehow not surprised to hear of the things stocked in the office upstairs. “It’s essentially those, but in a painting instead. Low level psychic link between the person it keys to, and then the painting changes with their mood. Put it in your hallway, your bedroom - even in servants’ quarters so they know what mood you're in and when.”
Ianto cocked his head. “But the painting didn’t show your mood. It changed it.”
“It also came through the Rift,” Jack pointed out. “It probably got a bit corrupted. I reckon it got stuck in a negative feedback loop. For whatever reason, when I first touched it, I must’ve been very slightly angry. Maybe I was annoyed to have to leave bed at three am or something.”
“And it linked to you and showed your picture.”
“Exactly. Except it latched onto the glimmer of anger, and instead of just showing a picture of me being a bit annoyed, it also projected anger onto me too.”
Ianto’s eyes were looking to the left, a telltale sign that he was thinking hard about something. “And that made you more angry, which made the painting show more anger and project even more anger onto you, which-”
“-left me in a negative feedback loop, yeah,” Jack concluded. “Just a shame it latched onto my anger. Why couldn’t it be happiness? Or even lust - now, that would’ve been a fun week!”
“Maybe for you, sir, but I can barely cope with you as you are,” Ianto said, sarcasm evident in his words. Jack met his eyes and found his own smile dropping away again. It was so difficult not to think about the terrible things he’d said and done to Ianto, and yet here he was, faithful as a dog, talking to him as if Jack was the one who needed to be given comfort.
“You didn’t know what the painting did to me, but you still came in here barely thirty seconds after I woke up?” Jack asked, his voice softening. “Alone?”
Ianto stiffened slightly, and looked almost embarrassed. “Well. Not alone, per se.”
His eyes flickered upwards, and Jack turned his head, looking at the camera that stuck into the wall. “Ah. The others watching the CCTV then?”
“All but Owen. He’s by the door.”
“In case I really was still evil,” Jack said, filling in the blanks. “It makes sense.”
“We didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Ianto admitted, and Jack thought back to the sudden nausea he had felt the second he’d laid eyes on Ianto. He couldn’t imagine the guilt he’d have felt if he’d had to face all four of his workers at once, seeing their wary and untrusting looks directed at him.
“Thanks,” Jack whispered, not sure what else to say. “I’m sorry you had to… you know, be the first. See all that.”
Jack indicated the sink and shrugged, looking down at the table.
“Don’t be daft. As if anybody could’ve kept me from running in as soon as you came back.”
Jack snapped his eyes upwards, once again struck by Ianto’s compassion. He suddenly had a thought, as he noticed the darker stubble that lay unusually unshaved on Ianto’s chin.
“How long have I been out?”
Ianto took a deep breath. “Two days, and a few hours.”
The breath escaped Jack’s lungs, and he felt his eyes go wide. “Two whole days?”
Ianto gave him a soft, yet overwhelmingly emotional smile. “Yeah,” His voice was quiet, timid enough that the camera wouldn’t pick his words up. He looked up at Jack, a vulnerable expression showing. “Do you know how hard it was to have to watch you through CCTV, lying dead on that bed? Or to sit two metres away, not even able to touch you in case it wakes you and you’re still under control of that painting?”
Jack felt his heart twist painfully in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he lamely replied, not sure how to put the things he was feeling into words.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Ianto insisted.
“I did horrible things to you. I shouted at you, I broke your coffee machine,” he continued, ignoring Ianto’s words. His voice dropped to barely a whisper. “I… I cheated on you.”
“You didn’t ,” Ianto implored, looking right at him with eyes that were nearly enough to calm Jack. “The painting did all that. You didn’t want to do any of that - it was barely even consensual. I should be asking you if you’re okay.”
Jack ran a hand over his face, trying to figure out why Ianto wasn’t reacting worse to all of this. Why he even wanted to talk to him or look at his face. He thought back to the other night, memories weaker with the alcohol that had been running through his system. And then a memory of the girl at the bar flashed in his mind, and he had to swallow down more bile.
“But that’s the worst part,” he finally spoke, voice shaking. “I think back on the memories, and it isn’t like watching someone else. It was me. I wanted to do all of that. I enjoyed it.”
For one moment, Jack saw a flash of fear cross Ianto’s face. It was gone, soon replaced with a sympathetic smile, but Jack knew that the trust Ianto had once had in him wasn’t fully there right now.
“It’s okay,” Ianto insisted, reaching out a tentative hand to place on top of Jack’s. The touch shot through Jack’s arm, barely even present but enough to ground him.
“Why are you so understanding about this?” Jack asked.
“Because I...” Ianto began, then paused. He looked away. “I know you, Jack. And last week? That wasn’t you.”
Jack felt something well up inside him - the pain and guilt he was feeling for his terrible actions mixing with the knowledge that this man in front of him could still look him in the eyes and ask if he was okay.
Jack was bursting with feeling, a dam about to explode, and before he knew it, he was opening his mouth and words were tumbling out. “I don’t think I’ll ever deserve you, Ianto,” he said, waving Ianto off as he opened his mouth to interrupt. “And I might have the worst timing in the universe, but I can’t not say it. Because Ianto, I-”
“Don’t!” Ianto hurriedly interrupted, drawing his hand back, and it was only then that Jack looked up and could see a slight wetness to Ianto’s eyes. “Not right now. Not… after all this. You’re confused - you’ve only felt anger for so long, and you’re tired.”
“You don’t need to come up with excuses,” Jack said, trying to dim down the beating of his heart. “It’s okay. I understand.”
Ianto gave him a small, quiet nod, and they both took a second to gather themselves together. Ianto reached up his hand to absentmindedly rub at the top of his other arm, and it was then that Jack remembered (with horror) that he was the cause of the bandage there.
“Your arm,” he began, reaching out a hand to touch it.
Ianto instantly flinched backwards, leaning as far back as he could on his chair. Too late, Jack drew his hand back, realising that things might take a bit more work than he’d originally assumed.
“I’m sorry,” Ianto muttered, shoulders sagging back into a less tense position. “I know you’re not- that you wouldn’t-”
“Don’t you start apologising.” Jack laughed lightly, awkwardly even. “I can see we’re going to have to take it easy for a while.”
“Probably for the best.”
Jack hummed, trying not to blame himself once more. “How are the others?”
“They’re doing… okay,” Ianto said, after a pause. “Owen’s moaning, Gwen’s fretting, and Tosh is trying to do anything to distract herself.”
“Sounds like my team,” Jack joked. “How are they feeling, towards me?”
Ianto grimaced. “I’m not sure. Gwen’s going to need a bit of time, I think.”
“Understandable,” Jack nodded, trying not to think about the feeling of her head against the gun he held.
“And Owen might never mention the name ‘Katie’ ever again.”
“I can work on that, before next year.”
Ianto gave him a look. “It’s not going to be easy, regaining our trust.”
Jack blinked, wishing he could just fall asleep and wake up, the memories of the past week just a blur of a nightmare instead of the reality he now faced. “I understand.”
Ianto gave him a smile, the barest flicker of his usual snark and sarcasm edging outwards. “You can start by buying me a new coffee machine.”
Jack let out a genuine laugh, the humour being the most real feeling he’d felt over the long week he’d had.