Fandomweekly Challenge 41 - Back from the brink

[m_findlow]

Title: Back from the brink
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG. Spoilers for Miracle Day
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 41 - Resurrection at fandomweekly
Summary: Jack has been brought back from the brink, but he's not out of the woods yet.

Esther worried over the dwindling inventory of medical supplies tucked away in her bag before diverting her gaze to Jack. He was resting peacefully for now, enjoying the relief that morphine brought to his abdomen.

She's been at sixes and sevens playing a waiting game, watching as Jack went from bad to worse. The wound had looked neat after the doctor Esther had kidnapped had done her work, but clearly it was infected deep within and no amount of antibiotics seemed to be clearing the infection. Jack thrashed at times, threatening to reopen the wound. Other times he merely whimpered and shivered. At all times though he was incoherent and only semiconscious, and forever repeating a man's name over and over again, like he was expecting him to be there.

Twice Esther had thought about trying to get Jack in the car and just go. It made her nervous, camping in out in an abandoned electronics store for days. Someone was bound to find them here. People were starting to hide their Category One relatives and loved ones, sparing them from being rounded up and shipped off to camps. Things were getting desperate and here they were, split up from Rex and Gwen, right when they all needed to stick together.

They had to move. The CIA wanted them, but the Three Families wanted them dead. Right now she'd take the CIA and live with the consequences. If they could get out of the country, it would be harder for the CIA to mobilise and capture them. And Gwen had been deported back to Wales, so the UK was where they needed to be. Gwen would know what to do next.

Jack was slowly getting a little better than he had been yesterday, at least with periods of lucidity between rounds of morphine added to his IV line, sparingly now that they were almost gone.

Esther reached over the shook his shoulder. 'Jack? Can you talk to me?' He nodded half-heartedly but his eyes were clearer than they had been. 'We need to go. Can you think of any way we can get a flight out of the country?' She wasn't even sure if Jack could fly in his current condition. What if a pressurised cabin tore open his gunshot wound?

'I know someone,' Jack replied, his voice barely a whisper. 'He can get us through passport control.'

Esther grabbed her new burner phone. 'Just tell me who I need to call.'

It felt strange to be walking through Los Angeles Airport pushing Jack in a wheelchair. Not that he didn't need it. He could barely stand let alone walk. If she'd thought they were going through security as inconspicuously as possible, Jack had other ideas. Esther paused a few dozen yards before the security screens and reconsidered attempting this.

'Trust me,' Jack said, leant over in the wheelchair in jeans and a hoodie, but clearly in some discomfort.

Esther puffed out a breath and tried to push him as confidently towards the security screens as possible. 'Afternoon,' she said, gripping their fake passports.

'Afternoon, Miss. Can he walk?'

She shook her head. 'My brother has MS,' she explained. 'We're hoping this experimental treatment in the UK might help.'

'You go through and we'll process him.'

Esther didn't relinquish her grip on the wheelchair. 'He's mildly autistic. Doesn't do well with strangers and today hasn't been a good day for him. I should really stay with him so he doesn't get too agitated.'

'I can help sort them out,' called out a Latino officer.

The officer shrugged as if glad to be relieved of dealing with a mentally and physically disabled passenger and his overbearing sister. 'They're all yours, Miguel.'

Esther gave both officers an appreciative smile before wheeling Jack across to a small office at the edge of the screening booths, wheeling him inside.

Miguel turned to look at them both once the door was shut. 'Good to see you, amigo, but you don't look so good.'

'I'll take that as a compliment,' Jack replied, putting all his effort into a smile. 'Strictly speaking, I should be dead. Esther here brought me back. Turns out the Miracle isn't so miraculous for me.'

Miguel smiled back at him. 'I remember Nicaragua. You wouldn't stay dead then, either.'

'You promised to make it worth my while.'

'Okay, enough, Jack,' Esther chided. 'Let's just get through this and then you can regale me with your conquests.'

Miguel kept them long enough to make a show of checking their passports, luggage and the wheelchair, all for the benefit of the security cameras, before finally releasing them out the other side to join the rest of the outbound passengers. 'Safe trip, Miss.'

Esther nodded and wheeled Jack to the gate where the attendants bent over backwards to help get Jack settled into his seat. By the time they were done, he was in too much pain to be bothered flirting with them.

'You okay, Jack?' Esther said, clipping herself in next to him, leaving him the more private window seat.

'The seat belt is killing me. Literally.'

She unclipped it and tucked the ends under his sweater so the flight crew wouldn't be able to tell the difference. 'How's that?'

'Painkillers would be better.'

'You're getting to be as bad as Rex.'

'Difference being I'm actually in pain. Rex is just a pain in the arse.'

She knew he didn't mean it. If there was anything Rex could do for them, he would be. For now though he had to stay onside with the CIA. Jack and Esther were the ones that had gone rogue. 'Just as soon as we're airborne, I promise. Almost home now. I bought some sleeping tablets in the airport lounge while we were waiting.'

Jack beamed. 'You're too good for me, Esther Drummond.'

'You'll have to share,' she warned him. She wasn't going to be able to sleep easy until they were on UK soil. The sooner the better.