Torchwood: Exodus Code

of cigarettes. Jack opened it, discovering its pages hollowed out and Gwen’s dad’s watch and wedding ring inside. Jack began tossing books from the shelves next to the window. Ten minutes later he found the Torchwood SUV’s key fob hidden in a hardback copy of
Brave New World
. After another twenty minutes, he’d discovered the wrecked vehicle hidden in the nearby lock-up.
    Clicking twice on the key, Jack opened the vehicle’s hatch and the wave of images and smells that assaulted his senses took him to his knees. Oranges and lilies and musk. He could see the team clambering into the vehicle and racing out to the Brecon Beacons, or speeding through the narrow backstreets of Cardiff. Tosh in the backseat, working on her laptop, Owen mocking her mercilessly, Gwen mocking Owen, and Ianto, dear sweet Ianto, taking care of them all. Jack leaned back on his heels and closed his eyes. Ianto touched his cheek, put his lips on Jack’s, his hands moving under Jack’s shirt.
    Jack let out a sob, and opened his eyes.
    A flock of starlings swooped over a nearby roof, panicking at something, darting higher up into the sky. Jack was aware of a rustling sound, close to the lock-up. He walked back out to the street, peering into the darkness.
    A dark sleek puma padded across his line of vision. It stopped , turned its head and stared directly at him, its black eyes twinkling in the moonlight.
    Ginger flooded Jack’s mouth. He inhaled slowly, every instinct telling him to get away, to flee, to run, but he couldn’t get his feet to move. Jack felt as if he was being held in place, as if hands were pressing down on his shoulders. His knees buckled again. The puma pounced. Jack ducked, shielding his head with his arms, a draft of cold air hitting his face.
    When he looked up, the animal was gone. Nauseated, Jack leaned against a wall, calming his breathing, forcing his mind to clear. A car alarm went off in the distance. His stomach ached at the sound.
    Jack slid to the ground against the wall, struggling to control his mounting anxiety, his head between his knees. He was falling through the sky. The ground rushed up to meet him, the air cutting through his skin. Jack tried desperately to tuck into a ball, but his arms and legs wouldn’t respond, he squeezed his eyes closed and felt the rough stone of the wall behind his back.
    For the first time in his long life, Jack felt sheer terror beyond anything he’d experienced when confronting Daleks, or Cybermen, or – No, this kind of terror was making his bones ache, making his heart feel as if someone was squeezing and twisting it, making him doubt his sanity.
    Jack crawled inside the SUV. The scent of the memory replaced with the stench of rust and mould and the stink of shit and rotting leaves.
    What the hell is happening to me?
    What, he wondered as he sat in the corner, his knees against his chest, what if the Doctor and all his theories about his mortality were wrong. What if this was how Captain Jack Harkness was going to end his existence. His body always able to heal itself, reanimate each cell, restructure every muscle, over and over and over again. Life always winning out within him . Perhaps the price of regaining his immortality after the Miracle had been the loss of his memories, his intelligence, his sanity?
    Jack knew he could face death. He had faced death. But how could he face life on those terms?
    Jack sat in the shell of the Torchwood SUV and sobbed, letting hopelessness burrow deeper into his psyche, letting emotions he’d never experienced in years course through his veins, letting the enemy inside.
    Outside the SUV, the puma stalked the perimeter, its head lifted towards Jack. Then it paused, scratched at the ground around the SUV before fading into the darkness, leaving the smell of eucalyptus lingering in its wake.
    Jack felt the tremor in his hands, an uncontrollable itch on each tip of his fingers. He clawed his hands across the carpet of the SUV, trying for relief. The itch spread to his elbows like a million mosquitoes biting him at once. He scrambled out of the vehicle, rubbing his arms against the wall, scraping and tearing the skin. Then he felt the ground roll beneath him. The garage walls surrounding the SUV began to shake, the corrugated iron door buckling as dust and dirt rained down on him.
    In the distance he heard a chorus of car alarms start as a tremor ran up the street, ripping up the pavement like paper and scattering trees. One