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[personal profile] m_findlow

Title: Wrongful arrest
Fandom: Torchwood
Prompt: Arrest at [livejournal.com profile] hc_bingo
Wordcount: 24,947 words
Rating: M
Warnings: N/A
Summary: UNIT are on the warpath, and they've got Jack in their sights.

New Jack made a point of alerting the guard posted outside the cell that the prisoner was dead. Immediately the guard called it in to a commanding officer, who in turn immediately reported it to Colonel Oduya. It took only minutes for the news to filter back and for Oduya to march down there in a rage, Ianto and Martha following quickly behind.

Oduya burst past the guard at the entrance to the cell and saw the ashen figure slumped on the floor, unmoving.

'What the hell happened?' Oduya ordered.

New Jack responded calmly. He didn't spare a look towards the corpse. Seeing his own image lying there dead was more than even he could stomach.

'Things got a little heated.'

'Heated? He killed three of my officers! He was to face justice for his actions.'

'And now he's dead. A punishment befitting of the crime don't you think?'

'This is highly inappropriate, Captain.'

'Two seconds ago, you were agreeing that he was pretty much beyond redemption.'

'What gives you the right to make that decision?'

Jack turned to face him, his expression stony and fierce.

'I have every right to make that decision!' he growled. 'He's me from an alternate universe. Do you have any idea the kind of knowledge he has? Time travel, knowledge of future events and technology. Knowledge that he could use to destroy this planet, and absolutely no morals preventing him from doing so. Believe me, know one knows better than me what he's capable of. The universe is better off without him in it.'

Ianto knew New Jack was acting, but some of it seemed to hold the ring of truth in it. Had he really convinced himself that he was so bad, that no amount of good could atone for it?

New Jack didn't wait for further argument from the colonel.

'I want the body. He's Torchwood property now. Arrange for him to be ready for us to transport back to Cardiff tonight. We'll wait.'

Oduya bristled at the order. Then again, this whole sorry mess would be cleaned from his hands just as soon as Torchwood were safely back across the other side of the border in Wales. He'd blame the soldiers deaths on Torchwood. The Home Office could be left to argue with them.

Part of him was slightly pleased, and not a little unsurprised, that Jack could be so cold blooded as to kill an alternate version of himself.

Ianto spared the fallen Jack a sad look. He knew it was only temporary, but he hated it every single time. He hated that he had, in part, caused this. He hated more that he might not be there when he came back. If everything went to plan, he would be.

'C'mon,' New Jack said, sensing his despair, placing an arm on his shoulder, and leading him out.

 

 

New Jack and Ianto were sat on a bench in a disused hallway, waiting for the green light to collect Jack's body.

The delay was being caused by UNIT insisting on at least performing an autopsy. Apparently they felt the need to have something to append to their paperwork that would place the blame solely on Jack, should it ever come back to bite them.

Martha had duly volunteered for the task, for which Ianto was grateful. Even dead and immortal, he didn't like the idea of Jack being sliced open and investigated, or worse, trying to come back to life whilst being sliced open and investigated.

Because of the request, they'd now have to wait several hours before UNIT would clear Jack's body for transport. And Martha had to fake an autopsy, which meant taking the time to record false notes of all her procedures. Fortunately, given the late hour, no one was keen on accompanying her and observing the process. That meant she could record everything on audio without having to visually confirm anything. The cause of death would be obvious, asphyxiation by strangulation. The marks on Jack's throat, and the CCTV footage of their altercation in the cells, confirmed it without a shadow of a doubt, and no one would be running a toxicology panel with that kind of diagnosis. The remaining details would be noted on paper. Still, all of that took time.  

New Jack had already collected his remaining possessions, Jack's vortex manipulator, even more broken than his own according to Ianto, his webley, and most importantly his coat, which he was now wearing. In truth, his own coat was safely tucked away in the SUV, and Jack's vortex manipulator pocketed, along with a few other items already there.

Ianto was sat closely beside him, nervous fidgeting having finally given over to weariness as they waited.

'Are you sure this will work? He won't come back too soon will he?' He never thought he'd be wishing for Jack to stay dead longer than was strictly necessary. This time, it was critical he did. They needed to be in the SUV and on their way back to Cardiff before Jack could safely return to them.

'Trust me, that plant's sap is so deadly it'll take days to exit his system, no matter how good his regeneration is. How none of you have killed yourselves keeping something like that in your hothouse is beyond me.'

'Well, Owen was our resident botanist.' He wasn't sure what he was inferring with the comment. That Owen was very careful, or that botany was not his speciality, and that it was sheer dumb luck they hadn't poisoned themselves. Torchwood had way too many dangerous objects that were potentially lethal. Perhaps they were just lucky after all.

'Was?'

'And doctor,' he added. 'He died, and then he sort of un-died, but he was still dead, if that makes sense. Guess deadly plants can't kill a dead man. Just nuclear power plants going into meltdown,' Ianto’s voice drifted off.

'So he was a zombie?' asked New Jack.

'Don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as zombies. How many times do I have to tell you that?' The zombie argument had become an endless point of ire for Ianto. He stoutly refused to believe they existed, despite Jack's protestations.  

New Jack raised an eyebrow at him. 'Not Jack,' he replied.

'Right, sorry,' Ianto apologised. 'I keep forgetting.'

'So, deadly plant. Undead doctor. And now temporarily dead Jack. Sounds like everything's coming up roses.'

'Good. Well, not good, I mean, it's awful that he's dead. Owen that is. And Jack, of course. It's awful that he's dead too, but-'

'Shhh,' whispered New Jack, trying to stem Ianto's nervous wittering.

Ianto sighed. New Jack was so close to him. He smelled just like Jack and he was wearing Jack's coat. He knew it wasn't his Jack but right now he didn't care. He finally gave over to temptation and leaned his head gently against the warm wool of Jack's shoulder. When New Jack didn't make any move to shrug him off, he let his eyes gently drift closed.

 

 

Martha Jones had compiled all of her verbal observations during Jack's fake autopsy. She'd carefully zipped up the body bag, concealing the fact that she hadn't made a single incision on the body. Once completed, she had instructed one of the technicians to finalise the paperwork that would accompany their usual morgue reports and subsequent transfer, whilst she headed back up to her lab to finish the remaining notes required to complete the fabrication and make it look authentic.

The technician was young, and accustomed to following orders to the letter. It was unfortunate that he was even here, but that was the price you paid for being the newest, having to take the graveyard shift in an organisation that never slept. It was even less fortunate to be dealing with a corpse, since his usual duties only dealt with the deaths of microbes contained within the limits of a petri dish.

The clipboard in his hand shook only slightly as the pressure of his pen against it tested the strength of the other arm holding it upright. At first he didn't catch the subtle rustle of the body bag over the sound of his pen scratching against the paper. Then it grew more insistent. The technician looked over towards the sound, and the sight of the movement within the body bag caused him to drop the clipboard with a loud clatter to the floor. Immediately he panicked. Something was very wrong. He hadn't been working for UNIT all that long, but too many zombie movies in his teenage years had sent his mind into overdrive. He did the only thing he could think of. He hit the emergency containment alarm and ran like hell.

 

 

It was the sudden sound of alarms that jolted Ianto from his dozing state.

'What's going on?'

'I don't know, but I don't think it's good.'

It didn't take a genius to connect the dots and figure out that the timing was way too coincidental. They both began running down the hall and straight towards UNIT's morgue.

Chapter fourteen...

Date: 2016-03-09 12:38 pm (UTC)
bk_forever: (Gasp)
From: [personal profile] bk_forever
Oh bugger! Jack, why couldn't you have stayed dead a bit longer?

July 2025

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