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Link to Part 14
http://amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com/47996.html
Link to Part 16
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Jack looked at Owen as the younger man sat waiting for an answer at the end of the couch.
“No, we’re not coming back.”
“Were you going to tell us, if we hadn’t had to call you back like this?”
“Of course, we would have told you when we came back to pick Martha up, after the baby was born,” Jack said, registering a surprised look on Owen’s face.
“What?”
“I would have thought she’d…Martha isn’t going back, she asked us for a job because she was staying on Earth. I thought she would have told you before she left.”
“No, she didn’t say a word. I…I guess we didn’t exactly make her feel like there was much space for her in our little unit,” he sighed, stroking his hand over his stomach absently.
“Well, whatever the reason, she came to us looking for a job, although, this might have changed her mind.”
“No, Martha Jones doesn’t run when the going gets tough, that isn’t who she is. I would have wanted to talk to you anyway; I’m planning on turning joint control of Torchwood three over to you and Toshiko. It will take the two of you, I think, to rein in Gwen’s more bleeding heart idiocy. She is good at what she can handle, investigations, profiling, liaising, being the sympathetic face for victims, but she’s too damn idealistic, and she’ll eventually get the lot of you killed if she’s left in charge.”
“She won’t like it,” Owen said.
“She doesn’t need to like it, just accept it.”
There was a crackle from the comm. and Toshiko’s soft voice followed a moment later.
“We’re in,”
Owen got up and hurried over to the system.
“Confirmed, we’re monitoring. Be careful you lot.”
xxx
Dr. Aaron Copley watched the computer screens monitoring the Mayfly that Sam Jones, or whatever the hell her name really was, had been infected with, ignoring the sound of her struggling against her restraints behind him. The door slammed open, and two unfamiliar men burst in, one of them leveling a gun on Copley as the other, wearing a blue pinstripe suit slipped a pair of glasses on and pushed past, toward the struggling woman on the table.
“What have you done to her?” the young man with the gun demanded, gesturing him away from the middle of the room with the gun.
“Tell me that’s not Reset,” the man in the suit groaned, starting to check the woman over quickly.
“She has survived the larval stage, the only subject ever to do so,” Copley said, pride in his voice, mutating to curiosity as he continued.
“It’s fascinating, turns out these bugs practice sibling cannibalism, only the strongest individual is left now. God knows what happens next.”
“You need to put a stop to this,” the Doctor demanded, looking up at the insane human ‘scientist’ Ianto was keeping corralled across the room.
“I can’t. I don’t know how,” he added hurriedly as Ianto raised the gun meaningfully.
xxx
Gwen and Tosh broke into a dingy looking outbuilding, guns drawn and ready as they carefully moved through the pools of shadow toward where they could hear the soft sounds of movement.
They paused when they saw a woman in a white coat working at some kind of machine, lifting out jars of a pinkish fluid.
“Put your hands above your head,” Gwen ordered firmly, stepping out with her gun leveled. The woman obeyed without a word, watching them warily as they moved closer to where she stood, their eyes taking in what she had been doing.
“Bloody hell,” Tosh breathed, horrified.
xxx
The Doctor watched in horror as Martha’s stomach undulated with the movement of the thing inside her, wincing at her moans of pain.
“Ianto, this thing is killing her,” he said softly.
“What are we going to do?”
“Stay calm, there has to be something….,’ the Doctor paced frantically, his hands scrubbing through his hair as the thought, ideas whirling across his mind before being dismissed equally quickly.
“Of course,” he whispered, scrabbling frantically in his pockets, he pulled out two screwdrivers, his own sonic, and the laser screwdriver the master had built.
xxx
Gwen and Tosh were both staring at a Weevil, imprisoned inside a tube of some kind, connected to tubes. It looked lost, miserable, afraid and alone, they had never seen one looking like this before, even the ones they had captured in the Hub didn’t look so unhappy.
“What’s happening here?” Gwen asked, feeling ill.
“This is what the Pharm is all about. We farm captive aliens for the exotic chemical products they metabolize.”
“What the hell do you get from a Weevil?” Tosh demanded.
“Some pesticides, and a quite powerful chemical defoliant, but the Weevils aren’t what are going to clinch the Nobel for us,” she said, walking deeper into the room, them following close at her heels as she stopped in front of another tube.
“The Mayfly, our feedstock for Reset, given time we’ll tweak the product for human use, and then it will be bigger than penicillin.”
Gwen looked at the Mayfly pityingly as it banged against the glass, wanting to be free.
Tosh turned away, leaving Gwen to handle the woman, she tapped her earpiece.
“Doctor, I can give you a report on Zone A. They’re holding dozens of creatures captive down here, they seem to be using them as test subjects,” she said.
xxx
The Doctor didn’t even look up from where he was frantically working on the two screwdrivers as he distractedly tapped the comm. Ianto had made him wear,
“Understood Toshiko. Is there any way you can shut them down, permanently?”
“This place is a torture chamber,” Ianto hissed at Copley, his grip tightening on his gun.
“I don’t need to debate medical ethics with you,” Copley said dismissively.
“You abused the Mayfly, turned them into parasites.”
“We didn’t understand how the Mayfly reproduced. We tried to limit the damage.”
“By murdering people?” Ianto snorted disbelievingly.
“They were going to die anyway. We’re on the edge of the greatest discovery in history. That’s got to be worth a few sacrifices, you must understand that, Torchwood is involved in alien research.”
“Not like this,”
The Doctor looked up briefly from where he was still adjusting the screwdrivers.
“We’re closing this place down.”
“In your dreams, this is a state of the art, official facility,” Copley sneered.
“Oh, we’re not going to do it by sending a memo, we’re in control of your IT systems, as we speak, we’re crashing your databanks, wiping your records,” Ianto said almost cheerfully.
“That’s cyber terrorism,”
“And that’s just for starters. We’re going to trip the systems on your fire, radiation and biohazard safety networks, the power will cut, the sprinklers will be activated, and a large part of this facility will be sealed and flooded with inert gasses,” Ianto told him.
“The aliens will die,” Copley tried desperately.
“They’re already dying,” Ianto tossed his own statement back in his face, “this way they’ll be put out of their misery.”
“For Gods sake, we’re on the same side,” the scientist said angrily.
“No, combating hostile aliens is one thing, but this…this is slavery, exploitation, a war crime,” Ianto hissed.
Martha started to convulse against the table, and the Doctor cursed softly, hoping he had done this right.
“Ianto, I need your help,” he said.
Ianto hurried over to hold her still as they Doctor unfastened the last of the straps holding her in place. He peripherally noticed Copley taking the opportunity to slip out of the room, but Martha was more important right now. The Doctor checked the settings on the cobbled together sonic laser screwdriver, and whispered a silent prayer to Gods hadn’t believed in when Gallifrey did still exist, and told Ianto to get out of the way. Fixing his eyes on the readings flitting over the monitor screens, he took a deep breath, and activated the device.
Martha sat up, gasping sharply, her eyes wide and shocked, before she slumped back against the table, all of the monitors echoing a single, shrill note, death.
“What have I done?” the Doctor whispered.
They stood, unable to move, staring at her, neither of them having any idea what they were going to do now, how were they going to tell Jack, in the condition he was in. They jumped as Martha inhaled, moaning softly as her dark eyes fluttered open and the monitors started to register life signs once more, one last Reset from the deceased bug. Both lunged forward, hugging her briefly before pulling her off the table.
“Let’s get you out of here,” the Doctor said, grabbing her jacket from where he saw it lying over a chair as they passed and wrapping it around her.
As they stepped out of the front door, they saw the others heading for the meeting point, Gwen guiding Copley’s assistant at gunpoint, and Toshiko walking with her laptop open, resting on her arm as she walked and tapped in commands one handed. They met up at the landrover they had appropriated to get into the Pharm, and the Doctor nodded at Toshiko.
“Do it,” he said softly, he hated the thought of all of the captive aliens dying, but Ianto had been right, they were dying anyway, and better quickly, like this, than slowly being tortured to death.
She tapped the final command into her keyboard, and all over the complex, everything began to shut down.
“All right, let’s go,” the Doctor said, and they all moved toward the vehicle.
xxx
In the Hub, Owen grinned over at Jack, who was still sitting safely on the sofa.
“Easy as pie, they’re done,” he said, reaching out to shut off their end of the communication. They heard Copley’s voice before his hand reached the button.
“Did you really think I was going to let you walk away? You’ve ruined everything I’ve worked for.”
“Now, let’s not be stupid, it’s over, put the gun down,” the Doctor’s voice was next, and the subtle crunch of footsteps across gravel as one of them moved.
There was the sound of a gunshot, and Gwen and Tosh screaming as the Doctor yelled.
“Ianto, no,”
A second gun shot, and then there was nothing more than frantic yelling and the sound of running feet across gravel.
Jack was at Owen’s side in an instant, his face sheet white as he leaned forward.
“What’s going on there? Someone answer me, what’s happening? Ianto, Doctor, one of you answer me?” he yelled, panicked.
Owen felt like he was moving underwater, everything was slowing down as he registered the sweat across Jack’s forehead and cheeks, the pallor, and a moment later, he doubled over, screaming in pain as he pressed both hands to the swell of his stomach,
“Jack, no,” he gasped, slapping his hand down on the switch to cut the comm. without thinking about it as he jumped off the seat, moving slowly, so slowly as he dived for the crumpling Jack, managing to get between him and the floor. Jack was breathing hard, his eyes wide and glassy with shock and pain, and that was when Owen registered the blood.
Tbc.
Oh dear, a double cliffhanger. Runs frantically for cover. I’ll write the next part tomorrow, I promise, don’t hurt me, please.
On a slightly less ‘pleading for my life’ note, I hope their voices still worked with the necessary redistribution of lines from the different characters present. I tried to keep it as close to the episode as I could (forty five minutes to watch a ten minute segment of the DVD, and the first time EVER I’ve worked from notes.)
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argh! *tears at hair!*
this is not a nice thing to do to someone recovering for an extended stay in hospital!
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You’re just out of hospital? Hope you’re ok.
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Reasearch kind of done, chapter WILL come tomorrow.
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You'd better update soon!
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Love how you turned it about. Great work.
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*patiently waiting for more*
Another great chapter though..:)
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The next chapter will be up tonight, even if I have to write it when I get to work, lol.
Glad you liked it.
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Do you take evil cliffhanger vitamin supplements? *wink*
And you did a wonderful job of paralleling to the episode. Owen and Jack getting along so friendly and respectful like was really nice.
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Yes, I did take evil cliffhanger vitamin supplements, they're called 'Evil Cliffie of Doom', and they were giving out free samples in Boots, *g*
Thank you, glad you liked the way it worked with the episode, the last time I tried it was BAD because I was unwilling to follow the episode that closely, so glad it was better this time. Glad you like them getting on too.
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On a saner note, I thought the voices worked well, Ianto is in a position to think/ say many of the things Jack would both because of his relationship with Jack (and now the Doctor) and because of his own experiences with Torchwood 1. So no need to fret over that...so long as you do post the next chapter soon!
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Glad that you think the redistributed lines worked, thank you.
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beautiful written, the voices were perefct
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