Sacrifice [for slayers_desire]

[fractured_agent]

The city of Cardiff is eerily quiet in the aftermath of Abbadon's passing. Those who died beneath his shadow had their life forces returned once the demon died... all but one.

Captain Jack Harkness lies in the Torchwood Three morgue, cold as stone. Gwen sits at his side, waiting patiently for him to revive. But where he only took minutes to come back from the dead before, there isn't even a whisper of life from him now.

Lost without their leader, who they so recently betrayed, the team drifts in uncertainty.

It's Tosh who finds April's contact information in Jack's antique Rolodex, and gives her a call, not sure if this is a plea for help or a final death notice.

Comments

[slayers_desire]

"After sensing everything I did when I entered... I wish I was wrong. To save you all the pain."

[fractured_agent]

"At least it's over now, we think," Tosh says. "We haven't seen Bilis since the Rift was opened." She doesn't say the Rift has settled down, though. It's hard to tell if the increased activity is the new normal, or if it's just aftershocks, like waves in a pond after throwing in a stone.

[slayers_desire]

"He might not be completely gone... we have to be careful."

[fractured_agent]

Jack comes out of the morgue, moving slowly. He still feels drained, with good reason, and he's still pale. But at least his color is a little better. "And that's why psychic shielding is important, boys and girls," he says, his voice a lot more normal too.

[slayers_desire]

"Of course. And I am sure everyone has learned what they require to build stronger shields."

[fractured_agent]

All the others are ashamed of being fooled so easily... except for Gwen, whose vision became a reality when Bilis killed Rhys, her boyfriend. Something that was thankfully reversed by opening the Rift. She regrets what came of that decision. But she doesn't regret her boyfriend being alive again.

Jack doesn't give them much time for wallowing in that shame. He moves to the couch and sits down a little more heavily than normal, glad to get off his feet. "We're not going to let this happen again, isn't that right?"

The rest of the team nod in agreement. "Absolutely," Owen says.

[slayers_desire]

"Good. I know you all will face my challenges with all your heart. And that is all I could ever ask."

((bed))

[fractured_agent]

It certainly does seem like they're going to be better students from now on, especially Owen.

Jack looks to Tosh. "How's the Rift looking? Settled down any?"

"It's hard to tell yet... there haven't been any more unusual reports since after it was opened."

[slayers_desire]

Even with everything that happened today, April is impressed that they dedicated to their duty.

[fractured_agent]

It's easy to find normalcy in routine, something to hold onto when everything else has gone crazy. It was all that was keeping some of them together when Jack was dead, with them thinking they were on their own now.

Owen has had the least amount of work to do to keep him busy and keep his mind off things. So he's the one who breaks first. "Jack.... how are you not dead?"

It's a difficult question to answer. It always has been. "I don't know."

[slayers_desire]

April doesn't know how to answer that question any better. Strangely, this would be an easier question to answer if she had been shot, and revived.

[fractured_agent]

"Gwen says you've done this before," Tosh says. "Coming back from the dead." And you said you served in the war...

"More times than I can count," Jack admits. "But I don't know how, or why."

[slayers_desire]

"Jack has an endless sense of time about him. He didn't always have these abilities... but he does now."

[fractured_agent]

"And you... you know an awful lot more than just a plain old telepath would know," Owen says, doing his best not to be confrontational about it. Today's been a tough day and he's fucked up several times, and he doesn't want to make anything worse. He's had enough.

[slayers_desire]

"A plain old telepath?" April chuckles at that. She honestly never heard the phrase before.

"Jack and I have been friends a long time. I know about this, and he knows things about me."

"Like, how I am not just a plain old telepath. I have very strong psychic and telepathic powers."

[fractured_agent]

Tosh is bursting with questions, but she doesn't want to disrespect April's privacy by revealing her secrets without her permission. "That's how you helped bring Jack back."

[slayers_desire]

"Yes. I am familiar with his condition myself."

"I have already mentioned this to Tosh, but the rest of you might as well know... I am not human."

[fractured_agent]

"Kinda guessed that," Owen says. "What are you, then? Rift refugee?" It happens sometimes, that aliens who look human enough are given cover stories and homes so they can live among the humans. But only since Jack came to be in charge six years ago.

[slayers_desire]

"No. I never came through the Rift." She is trying to stay honest, without revealing anything about the Nexus.

Honestly, she is nervous about their reaction. "I am a vampire."

[fractured_agent]

There's an immediate thought of Vampires aren't real from Owen, but he doesn't say it out loud. He used to think aliens weren't real either. And that people couldn't come back from the dead.

Gwen's eyes go wide. "You mean like the blood-drinking kind of vampire?"

[slayers_desire]

"Yes. I drink blood."

"I also have a vampiric form. And enhanced abilities of my species."

"Of course, not all vampires are telepathic... but I inherited my abilities from my mother."

[fractured_agent]

Ianto had looked up from cleaning the bloodstain when she revealed her secret. Now he looks down at it again in realization. No wonder she wanted to avoid it...

"Now before anyone goes for their guns," Jack says, to diffuse any tension before it starts, "you've got my personal guarantee that April does not eat people." None of them had been planning on it, but putting it in a more lighthearted way might help smooth things over.

[slayers_desire]

"Besides, getting shot is unpleasant, and is ineffective against a vampire." April gives her same heart-warming smile. Because she is still the same person, no matter the recent information.

[fractured_agent]

Owen casts his medic's eye over her critically, even though he's encountered her before. She's warm, color's right, breathes like a normal human being. So maybe the literature is wrong about that. "Saying it's unpleasant is a bloody understatement," he says, still feeling the pain from the fresh bullet wound in his shoulder from yesterday.

"Not one of my favorite things either," Jack says. He knows that his team are going to be thinking about Owen shooting him because of it, but the more he acts like it doesn't deeply bother him, he's hoping they'll start treating it as normal too. The worst part about Torchwood in the past was most people treating him like a freak.

[slayers_desire]

She can sense his critical medic eye on her. "When I take my vampiric form... I go cold. I have no pulse. No breath. No heartbeat."

"If you want to see it..." She leaves the offer open. It doesn't bother her, taking that form.