Title: Night shift
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,250 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 473 - Taking turns
Summary: In the quiet of an empty warehouse, Jack waits nervously for events to unfold..


Jack paced around the large empty warehouse, trying to shed the nervous energy that built up inside him when there was nothing more important he could be doing. He hated waiting for things to happen, but given the current situation they were facing, perhaps nothing happening was the preferable outcome. He'd always known that one day they were going to be facing down a serious alien threat, but he’d also hoped that it might still lie off in the distant future. Instead it was here and happening right now, and Torchwood were hamstrung by their current fugitive status. It was enough to put anyone on edge.

It was only as he passed by the firing barrel Rhys had made that he realised just how cold the place was. The radiant heat coming from the flames inside was like a breath of warm desert air, not unlike the gusts that he remembered whipping up off the dunes of his childhood home a hundred lifetimes ago.

He shivered involuntarily as he moved beyond the small fire, taking in the scene. Clem McDonald was closest to the fire, tucked up on a camping mattress and sleeping bag, as insulated from the cold as he could be. He was soundly asleep, accustomed to years of living rough and sleeping in worse places than this. On the tatty sofa at one end was Rhys, sitting upright but with his head lolled back and his mouth hung open wide like a mockery of the sideshow alley clowns at the carnival, making slightly guttural noises as he snored. At the other end he found Ianto, upper body lying on the musty cushions, lower half twisted and hanging off the edge in order to share the space with Rhys.

Jack stood and just watched him sleeping, eyes landing on the deep scar crossing his cheek. Jack reached out and gently touched it with the back of his hand, careful not to wake him. Ianto had been injured worse in the line of duty, but this was a reminder of just how close Jack had come to losing him. A few more seconds delay and Ianto would have been crushed to death in the explosion of brick and metal, with Jack at the heart of it. He was a walking timebomb for his friends, letting them get too close and risk being with his blast radius when he went off. It didn't matter that they knew it and still chose him, it was the reality of what his conscience had to live with.

For now though, Ianto slept, still alive and whole. Jack removed his coat and lay it gently over him, trying to keep him warm in the cold warehouse. It was the least he could do – payment in kind for waking from death to find himself in Ianto’s arms only a few hours earlier. He wasn't sure what he'd do the day he had to wake up and find Ianto not there.

Jack kept moving though the maze of makeshift supplies and equipment. Gwen was at the table lined with laptops and recording equipment. From behind she looked bored by the current inactivity, elbow on the table and head leaning into it. Things wouldn't stay that way of course. They were moving too quickly for anyone to get more than five minutes respite.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and she startled at the touch like a frightened animal. ‘Sorry,’ Jack apologised, realising that she'd nodded off herself whilst keeping an eye on the monitors showing that Thames House was equally empty except for the monster hidden in the fog of its containment cell. In a not dissimilar way, the politicians that had been leading the charge in communicating with it were also hiding away in a small space of their own, debating what they might do and who they might blame if things didn’t end well.

‘Sorry,’ Gwen apologised, rubbing her face to eke out the drowsiness that had settled there. ‘I don't even remember falling asleep.’

‘You should get some real sleep.’

She sat up straighter, jiggling the mouse next to her laptop to wake up the glowing blue screensaver. ‘I'm okay. I told Ianto I'd take the first shift and he could relieve me in a few hours.’

‘Your idea of taking turns needs some work. Perhaps he should’ve taken the first shift.’

She gave Jack a tired but toothy smile. ‘I wasn’t planning on taking turns, not that he knew anything about it. Poor lamb hasn't slept in three days. He’d never admit it but he was worried sick about you. Wouldn't rest until he knew where they’d taken you and if you’d be okay.’

‘I know,’ Jack said, feeling a weight of guilt settle in the bottom of his stomach. They’d both regaled him with their various plans for his rescue on the way back to London, both mad in their own way, but heart-warming for their desperate determination to save him at any cost. ‘And you?’ Jack asked. ‘When did you last get any sleep?’

‘I got an hour or two on board a potato truck.’

Jack couldn't help but smile. ‘Now that's a story I want to hear more about later.’ There had to be some potato related humour that he could use given enough time to think on it.

‘How's Clem?’ Gwen asked.

‘Sleeping. Helped along by a little bit of sleeping tablets.’ After the night he'd had, realising Jack was the one who’d tried to sacrifice him to the alien monsters some forty five years ago, it was hardly a surprise that Jack had ended up taking a bullet as revenge. Clem was slightly unhinged at the best of times, but Jack's presence had only made things worse. It had taken Gwen to calm him down and convince him that Jack wasn’t about to sacrifice him a second time. Not yet, anyway. The alien only wanted kids for now.

Gwen frowned at him. ‘Where did we get sleeping tablets from?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Found some in the glovebox of the sports car I stole. Rich people like to live hard and fast. Hardly surprising to find prescription drugs. Came in handy.’

Gwen chewed her lip. ‘Probably for the best. Poor thing. He must have been terrified out of his mind as a boy. All he needed was a loving family to adopt him and show him love and kindness.’

‘That’s all any of them needed,’ he replied, feeling his bitterness returning. If they hadn’t been orphans in the first place they never would have been cannon fodder for Torchwood to use to placate the alien’s demands in the first place. He swallowed hard, trying to force those feelings back down where they belonged. ‘Go get some sleep, Gwen. I can take over keeping an eye on things here.’

She gave him a sceptical look; not as if she didn’t trust him to stay awake, but more that she didn’t necessarily trust him to stay here on his own with his conscience to torment himself. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive,’ he replied. ‘Promise not to wake you unless it’s an emergency.’

‘Do you want me to get Ianto to keep you company?’

Jack waved off the suggestion. ‘I’ll be fine. Who knows how long it will be until we get a break again. My turn to repay you two for not giving up on me.’

Gwen leaned over and gave him a platonic peck on the cheek. ‘We never would.’