Torchwood: Fanfic: Learning the ropes

[m_findlow]

Title: Learning the ropes
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Agent Johnson
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 838 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for samuraiter's prompt "Any, any," Lucky for me it's not loaded." "What do you mean it's not loaded?" " at fic_promptly
Summary: Agent Johnson gets some induction training, Torchwood style

Jack passed the gun to Agent Johnson and she expertly loaded the clip, having done so hundreds of times in training. Alien or not, a gun was a gun. She wasn't even sure why Jack was bothering to give her firearms training. She didn't need it. She was probably a better marksman than anyone else here. It didn't matter that they'd all been doing this for years. She'd been trained a soldier, and a soldier never forgets.

'Ready?' Jack asked her.

'Ready for what?'

'Anything,' he grinned.

He put her through her paces, easy at first, a few lazy rounds against a target sheet, but his methods soon picked up, bordering on brutal as she was forced to duck and weave, run, jump and shoot.

'You look like you're enjoying this,' she said, wiping the sheen of sweat from her brow. Jack still looked as if he'd yet to lift a finger, grinning that overconfident little smile of his.

She had to remember that they were on the same side now. She'd left her position with MI6, choosing to jump before they pushed her; her actions during the incident with the 456 having done her no favours in the eyes of some of the administration. They didn't want anyone working for them who would question their orders. On the flip side, she'd come to realise that the world wasn't quite as black and white as she'd thought it to be. Torchwood had been trying to do the right thing, even though they knew it would put them all in deadly peril. They'd nearly lost one of their own that day. She still couldn't comprehend how it was that Jones had survived the virus that killed everyone else in Thames House. Jack she could understand. Apparently he couldn't die, but Jones was a still mystery.

'We haven't even gotten started yet,' Jack replied. 'You wanna wait until we get down to the hand to hand stuff.'

'Yes, I imagine you'd enjoy that sort of thing.'

He grinned again. 'Not for today. Today you learn how to handle yourself with our armory collection. Not all of these use bullets, but they're all deadly in the right hands.'

'Sounds like my kind of weapon,' she said. 'Loading only slows you down.'

He took her through some of their standard issue items, and a few of the lesser used but equally useful weapons, pointing out settings and triggers, warning about blowback and reverse charges, before setting her through some drills with them. She wasn't perfect, but for a first timer, she handled herself exceptionally well. Time for one last test,Jack thought. One he'd give all his team in varying levels of success.

He handed her one of their standard semi-automatics, before going across the room to open a small box, making to retrieve something from it. Then he suddenly collapsed on the ground.

Johnson rushed over to him immediately, seeing him convulsing on the floor.

'Jack, what's wrong?' she said, putting a hand under his head to stop him from smashing it into the concrete floor as he continued fitting.

'There was... something in there... that shouldn't have been.'

'What?'

'Nanobots.'

'Nano what?'

'Highly advanced... microscopic robots... only... their programming has.... gone haywire.'

'How do you know?'

'I can feel them... inside me. Oh God, you have to... stop them. If they mutate... they'll infect everyone and multiply.'

'How? How do we stop them?'

'Kill me. They'll deactivate if I'm... dead. Then you can... burn my body and... destroy them.'

Jack was mad. Two seconds ago everything had been perfectly mundane, and now they were in crisis.

'There's... no time.' Jack struggled to fight against them. 'They're taking over... my body. Shoot me.'

Johnson looked at the gun in her hand. She didn't have her earpiece, so she couldn't call for help. It was up to them to stop these Nanobots. She lifted it, sliding back the safety and pointed it at his head.

'Do it,' he said.

She pulled the trigger, waiting for the sound to ring out around the enclosed space, only all she heard was a muted click.

Jack looked up at her, his convulsions stopping.

'Lucky for me it's not loaded,' he said, beaming with pride.

She felt stunned. 'What do you mean it's not loaded?'

He sat up, looking all the world to have been miraculously cured. 'It was a test.'

'A test?'

'I need to know that you'll follow orders, no matter how crazy. Torchwood isn't like any other job. There's going to be times when not everyone gets to live. We make sacrifices to protect people, no matter the cost.'

'You set me up,' she stated.

'I knew you had it in you. Gwen and Ianto bet me twenty quid you wouldn't shoot.'

Johnson did something she'd never done before, to anyone. She slapped him.

'Don't you ever lie to me like that again, or next time I really will put a bullet in you.'

Jack just laughed. 'Welcome to the team, Agent Johnson.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

I can really see Jack pulling something like that. It's important to know if he can count on the members of his team to do whatever is necessary. Even if it means killing one person to save others.

[jo02]

Really, really good!