buttononthetop | Fic: The Sea After a Storm (76/?)

Title: The Sea After a Storm, Chapter 76

Rating: R

Warnings: None really, just Zombie!Owen ;-)

Spoilers: Season Two thru Dead Man Walking (2x07)

Pairings: Jack/Ianto

Disclaimer: Torchwood, Doctor Who and all their wonderfulness belong to the Mighty Beeb and He Who Must Not Be Named. All ©'s to Matt Jones for situations and dialogue borrowed from Dead Man Walking. No infringement, only worship intended!

Summary: In which Jack uses the glove to say goodbye to Owen...

Notes: OMG so totally sorry about March, my darlings! Back on schedule now - thanks so much for sticking with me! You can find all the previous chapters of The Sea After a Storm here. This is a sequel to Vizzini’s Rule and To The Pain. Thanks again and forever to my amazing beta and wonderful friend

thraceadams for all the help and support and beta work; any mistakes are mine!

The Sea After a Storm: Chapter Seventy-Six
Previously on The Sea After a Storm: Jack retrieved the other resurrection glove to bring back Owen...

Everyone flinched when Jack cradled Owen's head in his metal-covered hand. A faint hum and buzz of electricity filled the air as Jack called to Owen. Ianto was suddenly very worried that this glove would indeed work for Jack.

"Owen... It's Jack, can you hear me? Owen? Hear my voice! Get a hold of it, let it draw you out, pull you out."

Ianto glanced at the monitor. "I'm not getting any vital signs."

"Owen, it's me, Jack." There was another long pause where Jack's face contorted in pain. Then – "He's coming! He's coming!" Jack cried.

The electricity in the room seemed to gather its strength, become focussed on the air over Owen's body and then his eyes opened.

Owen screamed.

"Oh, my God!" Martha cried, covering her mouth with her hands in pure shock.

"What happened? Where am I?" Owen screamed. "Oh, God, I'm shot! He shot me!"

"Owen, you need to listen to me," Jack said firmly, placing his free hand on Owen's shoulder to keep him from flailing. "We don't have long."

"Where am I? This isn't the hospital, this is the autopsy room!" Owen's eyes were rolling hysterically. Jack moved his hand to Owen's cheek, stroking gently. "What am I doing here?" Owen mumbled.

Before anyone could answer, Owen's eyes caught a glimpse of the metal surrounding Jack's hand. "Jack! Oh, no... what's that? What's that!"

"The resurrection glove. We lost you, but I brought you back."

"How long have I got?" Owen asked apprehensively.

Ianto checked his watch. "We're at thirty seconds and counting," he told Owen.

"Oh, no, Jesus. Really?"

"Okay, team, say your goodbyes," Jack instructed. "Gwen!"

Gwen spread her hands in frustration and huffed at Jack's order but didn't say anything.

"Gwen, no offense, but I've only got two minutes to live."

More like one minute now, Ianto thought to himself, glancing at his watch again.

"Tosh," Jack said, abandoning Gwen as a lost cause.

Tosh hurried forward and rested her hands on Owen's chest. "I'm gonna miss you," she said desperately. Her eyes filled with tears and she leant closer to whisper in his ear, "And I love you, I always have."

She stepped back, brushing the tears from her cheeks.

"Owen!" Jack sounded pained, as if the glove was causing him physical distress now. "I need the code for the alien morgue. You're the only one who knows it."

What!?

Ianto's thought was echoed instantly by Owen's outrage.

"You brought me back for that? For that!?" Owen yelled.

What's Jack playing at? Ianto wondered. Ianto knew the code for the morgue and, more damningly, Ianto knew that Jack knew he knew it.

"Sorry!" Jack cried.

"Oh, Jack, it's 231165," Owen muttered. "Okay?"

That was exactly the number Ianto was expecting to hear.

"Sorry, and to... to help you prepare. I know what death is. I want you to be ready."

Owen reached out and grasped Jack's hand. "There's nothing. Just... just darkness."

"Two minutes," Ianto warned in a ragged voice as his stopwatch ticked around for the second time.

"Jack, Jack..."

"Be brave!" Jack said, giving Owen one last order.

Owen steeled himself against the inevitable.

"Owen!" The heart monitor slowed, the beeps growing further and further apart. "Owen!" Jack cried again.

Slowly, Jack let Owen go, sliding the glove out from beneath his head carefully so as not to jostle him. The beeping slowed even more and then the sound of the flatline filled the medbay again. Jack leant his forehead on his hand, still clasped with Owen's, and allowed his tears to fall. Ianto swallowed against his own sorrow, watching as Martha took the last few steps down the staircase and moved to stand at Owen's other side. Martha's expression was sadness mixed with curiosity, whilst Gwen and Tosh were merely heartbroken. Ianto reached out to turn off the heart monitor. They didn't need the steady drone of the flatline to remind them all that Owen was truly gone this time.

"I'm really gonna need that hand back," Owen said.

Everyone jumped at the sound of Owen's voice.

"Owen?" Jack stared down at Owen, eyes wide with shock.

Ianto stared for a second and then looked at the watch in his hand, still merrily ticking off the seconds. "Two minutes twenty!" Ianto warned.

Jack rose quickly from his knees, pulling away from Owen and raising the glove in a classic hands-off motion. Ianto half expected him to shout 'no foul' but instead he said, "Look! I'm not using the glove!"

"But I'm still here," Owen said sarcastically

Ianto put away his watch with a sigh. "Oh, here we go again."

Jack pulled off the glove and threw it on the walkway behind him. It slid a few inches closer to Gwen who shied away from it, backing up quickly, not wanting the glove anywhere near her.

Owen sat up on the table which brought him face to face with Toshiko. They both stared at each other for a second and then looked away, clearly uncomfortable with her deathbed confession. Jack took Owen's hand again, supporting him as the scientific part of Owen's mind took over, working through the whys and wherefores of this second chance at life.

"Maybe I cheated it somehow," he hypothesized. "Maybe... I wasn't meant to die so I'm being kept alive. Ahh, somebody pass me my pants, please," he requested, looking down. "Whoa!" he cried a second later when he caught site of the bullet hole in his chest.

"It's okay. I hate to say it, but... you'll get used to it," Jack sympathised.

Ianto held up the clothes Martha had cut from Owen's body prior to beginning the autopsy. "Not sure these'll do," he said dryly.

Owen groaned. "I loved those jeans," he whined. "Okay, okay, uhh... I have some spares in my locker. I'll just –" He hopped off the table with the sheet clutched around his waist. When his feet hit the stone floor of the medbay, however, his knees gave out and he would have fallen if Jack hadn't caught him by the arm.

"Whoa," Owen said again, deep breaths wracking his body.

"You stay here," Jack ordered, helping Owen back onto the table. "Ianto?"

"On it," Ianto replied, already heading up the stairs.

When he returned with jeans, a button down, and a pair of briefs for Owen, he passed Gwen sitting alone at her workstation.

"All right?" he asked as he walked by her.

She nodded and gave him a tight smile. Not believing that nod for a moment, Ianto made a mental note to speak to her as soon as he had the chance. For now, he just gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder as he walked behind her chair.

Owen dressed quickly as soon as Ianto handed him the clothes. Whatever weakness he'd been feeling a few minutes prior seemed to have worn off. He bounded up the stairs to the Hub with no trace of infirmity, grabbing a stethoscope off the instrument tray as he went by.

At the top of the stairs, Owen stopped suddenly, the stethoscope pressed to his chest. "My God. No heartbeat, there's no pulse."

"Owen, you can't lead the investigation," Martha protested.

Owen looked genuinely surprised. "Why not?"

"Because you're the subject of it, and because..." Martha hesitated. "Because... you're dead!"

"Are you sure about that?" Owen challenged.

"Yes, I'm sure!" Martha looked at the others for support.

Before anyone could speak, however, Owen moved over to Gwen's workstation, pointing to the recording of his vital signs that was displayed on her monitor. Ianto noted the way Gwen hurriedly slid her chair away from Owen as if reluctant to even be near him.

"Well, I'm okay. Look," he demanded, pointing at the screen. "There's electrical activity in my brain."

"That shouldn't be possible," Martha mumbled.

"Well, I'm still here and actually, I feel amazing!" Owen was shouting now.

Martha was visibly trying to remain calm and rational as Owen got more and more worked up. "So, where's the power coming from?" she asked quietly.

"Suzie survived because she was draining energy from me," Gwen explained to Martha. "Owen could be doing the same to Jack."

Everyone's eyes shot to Jack who raised his eyebrows and spread his hands. "I feel fine."

"Let me run a scan on you both, make sure there's no connection like last time," Tosh said, heading for her workstation.

Jack nodded. "Fine. Ianto, can you please grab the glove? I have a feeling we're going to need to look at it at little more closely."

Jack turned and led the way to his office, followed closely by Tosh, Martha and Owen. Gwen stayed seated at her workstation as Ianto headed back down to the medbay. He took a quick moment to tidy up the room, before looking around for the glove. He found it still lying on the floor of the walkway, although a significant distance from where he'd sworn Jack had tossed it earlier.

He picked up the glove cautiously, on the alert for any odd sensations or electrical current, but he felt nothing. He turned it over in his hand, his fingers tracing strange runic carvings along the inside of each of the fingers and around the edge of the 'palm' of the glove. The other glove hadn't had anything like that on it. He felt an unfamiliar wave of irritation at Jack's recklessness wash over him.

"We'll need to take a closer look at the glove," he mimicked softly. Maybe it would have been smarter to look at the glove before using it? he thought. He sighed and flipped the glove over again, trying not to be squeamish about the way it seemed to hold his hand instead of just resting on it.

"I told you, I feel fine," he heard Jack say as he neared the office.

Gwen was leaning back in her chair, trying to follow the conversation inside the office without actually crossing the threshold. When Ianto passed behind her again, she flinched and rolled quickly out of his way.

"So what's keeping me ticking?" Owen was asking. "The energy in my brain must be coming from somewhere."

"This glove is different to the other one. Maybe different gloves do different things?" Ianto offered as he walked into the office.

"How many are there?" Martha asked, sounding slightly horrified.

"Two. Well," Ianto added with a slight smile. "They do tend to come in pairs."

Marta rolled her eyes at him.

Ianto grinned but gave her the information she was really looking for. "We fished the first one out of the harbour last year."

"But where does it come from, originally?" Martha persisted.

"Good question," Jack said. There was a short pause. "No idea. Tosh, do an analysis of the glove, see if you can find out. Owen, I don't need to tell you that you're under quarantine."

"You don't," Owen agreed. "And yet, you still do," he added with a bit of his old snark.

Jack watched Owen carefully as they all left the office. Ianto noticed and hung back, about to ask Jack what was wrong but Jack waved him out with everyone else saying, "Ianto, pull the archives on the first glove, would you?" He spun his chair around, putting a stop to the conversation as effectively as closing a door.

TBC...

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