Title: Out Of The Shadows
Chapter: 3/?
Pairing: Eventual Owen/Ianto
Timeline: Set after Jack returns in season 2 - but no spoilers. There will be spoilers for Cyberwoman and Combat.

x

The young girl’s body was slumped in the corner of the small cell. Her neck was twisted almost completely around. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream as her eyes stared lifelessly at the wall.

“What the Hell is happening, here?” Jack demanded, folding his arms across his chest.

Owen was crouched next to the girl, his medical kit sitting open on the floor next to him. His gloved hands gently prodded her neck, feeling each broken bone. “Almost every bone in her neck is broken,” the doctor muttered, getting to his feet and yanking off the latex gloves.

“Jack,” Gwen’s voice spoke through the blue-tooth ear piece the Captain was wearing.

With an audible sigh, Jack activated the ear piece so Gwen could hear his words. “Yeah.”

“I’ve checked the CCTV like you asked.”

Jack pressed her for more information and then frowned when she responded, “The cameras down in the cells were deactivated almost twenty minutes before Owen and Tosh found the body.”

Owen activated his own ear piece as he helped Jack lay the girl’s broken body flat so they could put her into a body bag to be moved to the autopsy bay. “How is that even possible?” he demanded.

Their eyes turned to the camera positioned in the top corner of the cell. It was trained on them and the small red light was flickering steadily, indicating that they were being recorded.

“Whoever broke in entered the hallway and slipped into a blind-spot to shut the camera down. There might be a small glimpse of them in the seconds before it goes black but it’s too dark and grainy to make out.”

“Tosh?” Jack asked, looking at the Japanese woman who was surveying the cell with what could easily be mistaken as a PDA.

She nodded and slipped the scanner into her pocket. “I can run it through some programs and algorithms to see if I can make it clearer. But it’ll take a few hours.”

Jack reached down to his side and unfastened the holstered at his hip, pulling out his Webley revolver. “Do it,” he instructed, nodded his head curtly.

In the blink of an eye Tosh had disappeared up the stairs and into the main Hub where her beloved computers were.

“Gwen, activate total shut down. We’ve been breached.”

“Jack, are you sure? I mean…”

“We’ve been breached, Gwen,” Jack replied tensely. “Whatever’s going on here has got something to do with these two creatures and whoever’s doing it is obviously strong. We can’t risk whatever this is escaping into the city. Hopefully we’re not too late and it’s still in here somewhere.”

Jack nodded to Owen, indicating for him to follow. “Ianto,” he addressed the Welshman who was waiting outside the cell for instructions. “You, me and Owen are going to search the archives and lower levels. There a lot of places for this thing to hide, so be careful and keep comms open at all times.”

The trio split up when they reached the archives; Jack taking the left, Owen the right and Ianto the centre.

x

The ceilings were low and filled with cobwebs. As he moved through the shelves, Jack had to duck several times to avoid getting a hair full of cobwebs. A shudder ran down his spine as he thought about the spiders that could be sitting above his head, waiting to drop down the back of his neck.

It was dark, so dark he could barely see in the thin beam of light emitting from his torch. There was a smell of musty dampness in the air and he had to fight back the urge to sneeze and cough violently when his shoulder disturbed a large box on his right, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

Jack hadn’t realised how many files Torchwood Three had accumulated since it’s inception in the late 1800’s. He had been slowly making his way through the various shelves and small storage rooms and a glance at his watch told him they had been down there for almost three hours.

He tapped his ear piece and spoke quietly, purposely keeping his voice down in case their intruder was around the next corner, as unlikely as he knew that was going to be. “Any sign of our guy?”

Owen’s voice replied almost immediately. He sounded completely worn and very irritated at being stuck in the archives. “There’s nothing here, Jack. There’s no sign that anyone’s been down here since the fifties. I can’t believe how much bloody dust there is!” He added a sneeze on the end to prove his point.

“Ianto, what about you?” The line remained silent and Jack frowned deeply. “Ianto, you still with us?”

It was a long moment before a voice sounded in his ear. “Yeah, I’m here.” Jack couldn’t help notice how tight Ianto’s voice appeared to be, but shrugged it off. They were all tense, knowing someone else was in the Hub and not being able to find them. “There’s no sign of anything here either.”

Jack let out a long sigh, his breath blowing the cobwebs for a moment before they stilled once more. “Okay, stay at it,” he instructed, deactivating his ear piece.

After searching three more rows and finding nothing, Jack jumped and nearly shot at nothing when he felt his mobile phone vibrate and ring in his pocket. “Tosh? What are you doing ringing me?” he demanded, answering the call and putting the phone to his ear.

“Jack,” Tosh’s voice sounded even more strained than her Welsh colleague’s. “Where are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I?” Jack growled, still scanning his surroundings with his torch. “I’m in the archives. The same place I’ve been for the past three hours.”

“What about the others? Owen and Ianto?” she pushed, her voice moving up a level of urgency.

“They’re here too. Tosh, what the hell is wrong? Tell me, now!”

“The computer has just finished running the algorithms on the CCTV image. We’ve got a face.”

Jack smiled slightly with relief; at least they now knew something that would help them. “Then what’s the problem?”

“That thing in the cell… the thing that killed that girl…” Tosh took a shuddering breath in before continuing. “Oh, God… It’s Ianto, Jack.”

TBC