Edgar van Scyoc Presents: Doctor Who; Chapter 2
Title: Edgar van Scyoc Presents: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13 (mainly for language)
Summary: As Torchwood's Owen Harper weakens and Tosh and Tommy improve relations with USPAT, the Doctor comes up against one of his oldest enemies. In the meantime, Ellis gives dramatic readings, Edgar gives interviews, and Mia takes every opportunity to make gentle fun. And a new cast member joins the Torchwood crew, a blues-playing Welshman who is very far from home.

Chapter Two

TORCHWOOD 2x05: THE LAZARUS EXPERIMENT
When excavation into the ruins of Torchwood One reveals new and dangerous artifacts, Jack is summoned to New York to deal with their safe disposal. He brings Ian and Owen reluctantly, knowing each man has his own demons in the city, but the real trouble only begins when the men are invited to a charity function by the man intent on buying Torchwood One's former building site -- a man who is obsessed with immortality and has built a machine to make him young again. Except that youth, as always, comes with a price...

Title: Forget
By: sam_storyteller
Rating: PG
Summary: Owen just wants to sleep; Ian just wants to forget.
Author's Notes: While I know a million people are writing fic about Owen, Ian, and Jack in their tuxedos, and I'm sure there are a ton of threesome fics about Owen feeling like a third wheel, I thought I'd go in a different direction...

They drive back to the hotel in exhausted silence, bruises already rising from their battle with what had once been Richard Lazarus. Owen had, in a moment of unusual graciousness, let Ian have the front seat; he flopped onto the backseat with a groan and a complaint about Torchwood being self-propelled trouble magnets while Ian gingerly buckled himself in and Jack started the car.

"I'm sorry," Jack says after a while, eyes still on the road as he drives through the dark New York streets. "I thought after the day we had, it might be fun to go to a party."

"Admit it," Ian answers, angling for a laugh, "You just wanted to see us in tuxedos."

Jack smiles a little. "Well, the appeal of walking into a swanky party with two well-dressed men isn't lost on me, you know."

When there's no reply from the back seat, outraged or otherwise, Ian twists to look back at Owen.

"I think he's sleeping," he says.

"Odd. Normally after life-threatening battles with fanged monsters he's wired," Jack observes.

"He doesn't normally get winded running down two flights of stairs, either. Guess today was hard on him, too."

Jack chews on his lip before answering. "Was it wrong to bring you here?"

"You didn't really have a choice."

"I could have taken Tosh and Tommy."

"They didn't know this Torchwood like we did." Ian shrugs. "Weird to see it like that. The last time I saw it, there was just this big pile of rubble. Now it's a clean little hole in the ground. One of the work-foremen said they're going to build another office block."

"Brilliant," Jack mutters.

"It'll be like it was never there. Or like it never fell. So I guess it's good," Ian mumbles.

"Good?"

"That we got to see it. To know that it's gone, it's not coming back." Ian stares out the window. "It's over."

"Does he feel guilty?"

"Who, Owen? Why?"

"For leaving. Abandoning everyone."

Ian frowned. "I don't know. He doesn't talk to me about it."

"Why not? I'd think of all the people he could talk to, you'd be the one."

"Then he just doesn't talk to anyone about it."

Jack looks up at the rearview mirror, catching just the edge of Owen's face, pressed against the seat.

"Do you feel guilty?" he asks, and glances at Ian.

"No. The odds of me getting out to begin with were pretty low, considering -- considering I had someone else to think about. I did everything I could. I refuse to feel guilty over that."

"You were quite silent today."

"We all were." Ian swallows. "I...thought about...talking about it. It's just that...in my memory, it's huge. It isn't just Torchwood, it's the city. I liked New York. I felt like I had a purpose, I know Owen didn't feel that way but to me just being a part of it -- but that leads into losing it. I didn't want to talk about that. Losing Torchwood."

"You didn't lose Torchwood."

"I would have, if I'd let you send me away."

Jack drums his fingers on the wheel as they pull into the hotel parking garage.

"Then it's just as well you're a stubborn bastard, eh?" he asks, turning the car off. In the back seat, Owen shifts and moans, an unhappy and painful sound.

"I'll get him to his room," Ian sighs, opening the back door and easing Owen's arm over his shoulders. "Guess I couldn't talk you into ordering us something to eat."

"I'll see what I can do," Jack says.

Ian half-drags, half-carries Owen into the hotel, brushing off the front desk receptionist with the excuse of too much partying. A few years ago, according to Jack, it wouldn't even have been a lie; Ian never knew Owen worked for Torchwood until he came back to Chicago, but since then he's become aware that Owen wasn't happy in New York, and self-medicated that misery with less than stellar results.

As he deposits Owen on the hotel-room bed and bends to take off his shoes, Owen's hand grips his shoulder with startling strength. He looks up to see Owen watching him warily.

"How did we get here?" Owen asks.

"We drove. You fell asleep," Ian answers, careful not to let any reproach into his voice.

"Oh," Owen says, looking confused. "My arm hurts."

"The paramedics said you were fine," Ian replies.

"Paperwork?"

"No, Owen. Get some sleep. I'm going to, in a minute."

"I'm tired," Owen complains.

"We all are."

"Do you miss New York?" Owen asks.

"Not anymore. Do you?"

"God, it was awful," Owen mumbles. "When it all happened, Jack wouldn't let me go..."

"Probably a smart idea."

"I don't miss it."

Ian shoves him gently back onto the bed, then straightens and crosses his arms. "We're going home in the morning."

Owen smiles blissfully, curling into a ball and pulling the blanket around his shoulders. "Home," he says, and drifts off to sleep again.

When Ian quietly lets himself into Jack's room -- a large room, meant for two people, though technically Ian has a hotel room of his own down the hall -- Jack has raided the minibar and is eating M&Ms washed down with what looks like a whiskey tonic. He offers a glass to Ian, who drinks gratefully and sits next to him on the bed.

"I ordered food," he says, nuzzling Ian's neck affectionately.

"Room service is slow," Ian muses.

"However will we fill the time?"

Ian looks at Jack, sees the regret and honest unhappiness in his face -- for being in New York, for putting his boys through hell, for having to kill Richard Lazarus, for everything.

"Make me forget," he says to Jack, and Jack smiles through the sadness and obliges.

***

Transcript from an interview with Matt Lauer and Edgar van Scyoc on The Today Show, October 2008:

Matt Lauer: So you've just wrapped filming in New York, are you staying in town for a few days?

Edgar van Scyoc: Actually we're flying back day after tomorrow, once we've finished doing -- the talk shows and everything. Don't get me wrong, I love New York, but I've got a million small fires to put out in Chicago, and Ellis is going straight to Vancouver to work with the writing team there. Plus I think the boys are kind of exhausted, so they'll get a little while to rest up while they finish filming Tosh and Tommy's episode, The Devil and the Deep.

Matt Lauer: How did it feel to be in the middle of New York, filming a television show?

Edgar van Scyoc: Pretty much like being in the middle of Chicago and filming a television show. It's not like this is my first time at the rodeo. What was more interesting was working with only a partial cast; in this episode Jack is sort of forced into bringing Ian and Owen back to New York, and it focuses very tightly on those three.

Matt Lauer: Now these characters don't have positive associations with this city, do they?

Edgar van Scyoc: That's a fair guess, yes. Which is pretty cool, you get to see them working through those issues, coming out the other side as better people. There were a couple of scenes we filmed, especially with Matt -- Ian -- that were very...emotional, even for me as the director on this one. Owen nearly killed himself in New York, and Ian lost his whole world when Torchwood New York was destroyed. And then on the other hand you get all three men in tuxedos being chased by a giant alien bug monster. There's something for everyone, really.

***

TORCHWOOD 2x06: THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP
With Jack, Ian, and Owen in New York and Gwen on her honeymoon, Tosh and Tommy are left to hold the fort in Chicago. When an alien craft crashlands into Lake Michigan it seems at first like business as usual: a USPAT recovery team and a full study of the artifact. But then a storm rolls in, the boat breaks down, and a tentacled monster of the deep threatens to become the new big predator of the Great Lakes. Can Tamaki, Toshiko, and one young USPAT officer named Ross Jenkins save the day?

Lieutenant Ross Jenkins leaned on the railing of the small recovery ship and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a mature gesture for such a young man, particularly Jenkins, who looked younger than he was -- twice that morning he'd been mistaken for a member of the recovery team instead of its leader. And there were moments when he wished that were true.

USPAT might be covert ops but they had the full support of the military and the federal government. Torchwood had no such support, but for some reason even the lowest rung in Torchwood outranked the local command of USPAT, and that of course annoyed command into conniptions. Torchwood had simply called up and placed an order for a recovery team, and USPAT had been forced to jump-to, and now Jenkins -- who "sounded foreign" and was therefore always getting the shit jobs -- was getting an earful from his superiors.

"Sir," he said patiently, "I'm afraid your signal's breaking up," though it wasn't. "Sir? Sir!"

He hung up the mobile and, for good measure, switched it off. The rest of the team would be on radio frequency anyway.

"I do that sometimes," said a voice at his elbow. He turned to see Tamaki Sato leaning on the railing nearby.

"Agent Sato," Ross said carefully. "It appears that contact with USPAT command has been momentarily broken."

"Is that so, Lieutenant...Jenkins, right?" the man replied, grinning. He hitched his hip against the rail.

"Yes, sir."

"No need to stand on formality. Call me Tommy. Besides, with two Agent Satos on one small boat, it's going to get old really fast."

Tommy turned to stare out at the water; the wind ruffled his hair, which if he'd been in USPAT was long enough, shaggy enough, messy enough, and dyed enough colors to get him unceremoniously dumped. And that was without even starting on his clothes, which were baggy and patched but in an artful, done-a'purpose sort of way.

But of course Tommy and Toshiko Sato weren't USPAT. So it hardly mattered.

"Not to profile or anything, but you don't sound American," Tommy said.

"Naturalized citizen."

"And you're a little young to have your own command."

"I could say the same. USPAT's a little shaken-up at the moment, our major intel agent's gone missing."

"You're not supposed to tell me that, are you?" Tommy asked.

"Probably not. Anyway, I think it's nothing, everyone says the Colonel disappears all the time. USPAT thinks differently, so most of our men are on search detail. Hence, you're stuck with me."

"You're not too bad," Tommy replied. "Besides, this should be a cake walk. Tosh is getting a fix on the crash coordinates. From there she'll triangulate potential sinkage sites and we'll recover what we can."

"Sonar should pick it up, if it's as big as we think," Ross offered.

"Should, yeah, but it keeps her busy and she gets to show off for your boys."

"It can't be very important, anyway," Ross said. "No offense, but -- if it were, Captain Harkness would have come out too."

"He does love a boat," Tommy agreed. "But he's in New York for the week with the rest of the team. Even if it was a big deal we'd need to do primary recon before he got back." He tilted his face up to the darkening sky. "Weather looks nasty, huh?"

"We'll get in and get out," Ross said. "Won't take any time at all."

Famous last words.

***

When you're trapped inside a rickety boat on a storm-tossed sea with an alien tentacle monster looking for you, what you really want is a cigarette.

"How long until the neurotoxin takes effect?" Ross whispered to Tosh as he crawled across her legs to get to the dead bodies piled against the door.

"Depends on how long those tentacles are," she whispered back. "We should have hit it with more than enough -- "

At that point Tommy flailed back into consciousness and Ross dove for him, clapping a hand over his mouth and pinning down his arms.

"It uses sonar. If we get above ninety decibels it'll find us," he whispered into Tommy's ear. Tommy nodded to show he'd heard, and Ross released him.

"What happened?" he croaked.

"You got hit in the head," Ross heard Tosh say, as he began rummaging in the dead mens' tac-vests. "We loaded up the Kraken out there with neurotoxin from the weapons kit."

"Awesome," Tommy whispered. "Ross, what're you doing?"

Ross bit down on a yelp of triumph and held up the still-dry pack of Parliaments he'd recovered from one man's vest.

"That's sick," Tosh whispered.

"What? He's not going to use them," Ross replied.

"Are you allowed to smoke in USPAT?" Tommy asked. Ross gave him a withering look.

"I'm going to forgive you on the grounds of concussion," he said, and dug around for a lighter.

"What's gonna happen if it finds us?" Tommy asked.

"Well," Ross deadpanned, "we know it's armed."

"It can't take more than another couple of minutes," Tosh said, over Tommy's quiet groan. "The storm should let up sometime in the next hour. Can you get the boat back to harbour with just the three of us?"

Ross was opening his mouth to reply when there was a metallic clanking noise, and then the creak of steel under pressure.

"Think it's found us," he said, stabbing out the cigarette he'd just lit. He grabbed onto a railing on the wall with one hand and Tommy's shirt with the other, pulling him over. "Grab something to hang onto, Tosh."

"Why?" Tosh asked. Ross grinned at her.

"Welcome to the rollercoaster," he said, right before the lights went out and gravity shifted drastically.

The tentacles wrapping around the hull of the boat pulled it down and sideways, fighting its buoyancy, tossing the bodies inside against any available surface. The tumbling seemed to go on and on, crashing and creaking and any minute he expected to die, but then suddenly it stopped. The boat righted itself, equipment falling all over the place, and there was a second of blissful silence before the creature screamed, screamed through the water, the soundwaves breaking over the boat and filling up their ears.

When it finally ended, Ross could hear breathing -- two people breathing, thank god.

"Okay, fine," he said, into the ringing silence. "I'll quit smoking already."

***

Transcript from the DVD Extras, Torchwood, Season Two: The Unlikely Welshman

Gareth David-Lloyd: Umm, the story of how I got the job...it's sort of funny actually. We were, um, on tour -- the blues band I front -- and we'd got up enough money to get over here but we sort of, um, ran out of money to get back. So we were stuck in Chicago, which if you're a blues band is...I guess a good place to be stuck, and we were doing a set at Kingston Mines. At the time I'd seen maybe, I think, an episode of Torchwood or something, it's not licenced in the UK yet. And this woman in the bar, Mia Lee, who is our, uh, our art director, said they were casting and she thought I'd be good for a role, gave me her card and said she'd get me in. I thought it was just a little one-off part so I read for it and umm...I guess they liked me.

Off-camera voice: Did the rest of your band ever get home?

Gareth David-Lloyd: [nervous laugh] Yeah, my first paycheck, I bought them tickets home. And I, uh, stayed. [another laugh] I think really Mia just wanted to see me in one of those yellow USPAT berets.

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x06: The Devil And The Deep.
Story by: Edgar van Scyoc
Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy and Anna Jackson

INT - HUB - EVENING

TOSH and TOMMY are sitting on the couch, exhausted. Both of them are in much more ordinary clothes than usual, which appear to be stolen from the stash the others keep at the HUB. The sound of the rolldoor is heard.

JACK OS
Honey, we're home!

TOSH and TOMMY run to greet the others, hugging them and laughing.

TOSH
Oh my god! How was New York?

JACK
Smelly.

IAN
Also, hellbeasts.

TOMMY
All in a day's work, huh?

OWEN
More or less.

IAN sets down a cardboard box labeled DO NOT OPEN.

IAN
Brought you some toys.

TOSH
Cool!

TOSH begins digging through the box, showing shiny things to TOMMY.

JACK
How about you. Chicago keep quiet while we were gone?

TOSH and TOMMY share a look.

TOSH
Mostly.

TOMMY
We had some fun out on the lake.

JACK
I'm going to get memos about this, aren't I.

TOSH
Maybe one or two.

TOMMY
We got Owen something.

OWEN
What?

TOMMY
It's in the grotto.

OWEN pushes past them and makes for the GROTTO.

JACK
What happened?

TOSH
Well, there was this spaceship...

OWEN OS
WHY IS THERE A TENTACLE ON MY OPERATING TABLE?

Blackout.

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x06: DALEK
The Doctor, still trying to get back to 21st century Chicago, is distracted by a distress beacon and lands the TARDIS in Utah in 2012. The Doctor, Rose, and Lethbridge find themselves in a veritable museum of alien technology that shouldn't be there. When they're captured by the owner of the museum, a grasping inhumane businessman named Henry Van Slatten, the Doctor is faced with his worst enemy: a machine-bound alien known as a Dalek, which he believed were wiped out long ago. When the Dalek is inadvertently freed, the museum becomes a pitched battleground between the Doctor and the Dalek -- which must end in genocide for one of these ancient races.

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 1x06: Dalek.
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy and Derek Smith

INT - TARDIS

LETHBRIDGE is leaning on the TARDIS console, trying to be as much in the way as possible while the DOCTOR studiously ignores him.

LETHBRIDGE
So, nice weather we're having.

DOCTOR
If you're going to get in the way, go away.

LETHBRIDGE
I'm fine where I am, thank you.

DOCTOR
That wasn't a request.

LETHBRIDGE
Listen, you haven't said two words to me since we left 1984.

DOCTOR
Has it been that many? I must be losing my touch.

LETHBRIDGE
Why are you so mad at me?

DOCTOR
Take three wild guesses.

They begin to get into each others' personal space, aggressively.

LETHBRIDGE
Very mature, o aged representative of an ancient and venerable race.

DOCTOR
Well, I find I have to lower myself to humanity's level to make myself understood.

ROSE
[entering]
Doctor, I was wondering --
[she sees them glaring at each other]
Oh. Awkward. I'll come back later.

DOCTOR
Humans always run off.

LETHBRIDGE
Seriously, that's what you're being all pissy about? Rose ran off on you too.

DOCTOR
Rose didn't sleep with the first pre-millennium pointy-brassiered floozy she --

LETHBRIDGE
One, great mental image, thank you, and two, she wasn't a floozy. Who even says that word anymore?

DOCTOR
You had sex with someone from another time!

LETHBRIDGE
So what?

DOCTOR
Sex is powerful. It's deep and old and the most basic instinct humanity has. Most basic instinct of any animal. Propagate the species. Carry on the line. It's the only weapon aside from fists that the human body has built in. It's the basis for evolution, union and cycle and -- you transferred a part of yourself into someone else, you created the potential for a part of yourself to exist after your death. That's not something that should be taken lightly but you, you just flung your DNA around --

LETHBRIDGE
Jesus, it's just sex!

DOCTOR
Will you listen to yourself?

LETHBRIDGE
You change things all the time, you kill people!

DOCTOR
Because I know what I'm doing!

LETHBRIDGE
And I don't?

DOCTOR
No, of course you don't! You don't hear the galaxy singing to you, you can't taste time, you can't hear the pulse of the world. Someday humanity might but you're totally numb to almost everything around you and you don't even know it. You have no clue what you're doing and -- this never comes to any good.

In the CORRIDOR, ROSE is eavesdropping; she clutches the wall tightly as he speaks, her face agonised.

DOCTOR
I'm just going to have to take you both ho -- ooooooh.

LETHBRIDGE
[mocking]
Hoooooooh?

DOCTOR
Shut up. Distress signal. Sit down and don't say anything.

***

Ellis once told Edgar that it was an old French tradition that the playwright, at the first meeting of the actors for a production, would get up on stage and read out his play, acting out the various parts and voices. Edgar found it oddly charming that Ellis felt compelled to repeat a ritual he wasn't even a part of by cultural heritage, but it had the strange effect of bringing the cast and crew closer together. When more than one person had worked on a script, they read in ensemble; when it was just one person, whoever they were, they followed Ellis's example and went to the rehearsal room, whether or not anyone else decided to show up, the night before first read-through.

People did show up, more and more as time went on, bringing snacks and hauling comfortable chairs into the room to watch the performance. Edgar always came, when he could, especially when it was the junior writers who were reading. He was torn between enjoying their discomfort at his presence and hoping that they felt he was there for some kind of moral support.

And it was wonderful to hear Ellis read, he would admit.

"The Doctor turns to Rose," Ellis read, executing a slight turn to the right, his face earnest and solemn. "I have to destroy it. It won't stop until it destroys me, and then it'll -- I don't know what it'll do, it'll do to Earth what it did to Gallifrey." He paused. "Rose, curious and horrified: What's Gallifrey?"

Edgar heard a handful of people take anticipatory breaths; they'd waited as long as the viewers had to hear the secret of Gallifrey. Ellis turned front, facing an imaginary camera, eyes off to the left slightly.

"I'm the last of my kind," he said, sadly. "Gallifrey was my home, the home of my species, my race. Beautiful cities full of spires reaching to the sky...and now it's not even a memory, except to me. My people are gone. They died to destroy that -- to destroy those things. There was a war and time itself convulsed with the violence of it, the Time Lords against the Daleks. Thirty thousand miles of fire burned at the battlefield over Arcadia, the last stronghold of Gallifrey. The stars nearby still echo with the screams of both races. I thought they had all been destroyed but -- but somehow the Daleks survived, falling through time."

Edgar saw Ellis take a deep breath.

"They always survive," he said. "And I lose everything."

Silence for a moment. Edgar looked sidelong at the crew and cast sitting nearby, faces rapt. Ellis modulated his voice slightly to Lethbridge's nasal tones.

"It looks like an industrial vacuum cleaner to me. Rose swats him on the arm." The Doctor's voice. "They exist to kill. It's the last one, and I'm going to burn it to atoms."

Ellis reached out for a bottle of water nearby and took a sip. "And, end act two. I need to hydrate. Five minute commercial break, brought to you by Kraft Singles, the official prepackaged cheese of Doctor Who."

Edgar waited until everyone left the room to smoke or have a drink or a pee, and then leaned back.

"You shouldn't be wasting that huge brain of yours on cheap science fiction," he said.

Ellis looked at him over the edge of the water bottle, swallowed, wiped his mouth. "No. But I've sort of fallen in love with them now."

"Is that so," Edgar smiled.

"It is. Wait until you hit act four, where the Doctor tells Rose and Lethbridge that maybe he needs humans around, right at the end. It'll be killer onscreen."

"It always is."

***

From Who's Talking, the official Doctor Who Extras website:

Telephone transcript, Torchwood archives, 9/12/2012.

GL: Leone speaking.
Col.L: This is Colonel Gordon Lethbridge. I need to be transferred to USPAT Base Twelve.
GL: I'm sorry, sir, what did you say?
Col.L: I don't have a whole lot of time, I need to speak to the USPAT base in Utah.
GL: And your name is Gordon Lethbridge?
Col.L: What kind of idiot are you?
GL: I'm sorry, sir, but Colonel Lethbridge was listed as missing, presumed dead two years ago.
Col.L: Did you people not get the memo about me taking off in a flying time machine? I have information I need to get to USPAT headquarters. I tried to get it to you sooner but I couldn't without crossing my own timeline.
GL: These things can be tricky.
COl.L: I need a recovery team sent to my location.
GL: I'm afraid that's not possible. USPAT has been disbanded.
Col.L: What? Why did you answer this number?
GL: It was assigned to Torchwood when we took over, sir. I can probably scare up an army ops unit if you give me a few minutes --
Col.L: Fine, whatever, can you please put me through to General Stewart?
GL: General Stewart is dead, sir.
Col.L: What the hell have you boys been doing while I was away?
GL: Sir, if you can give me the information --
Col.L: The Doctor is here, in Utah, and I need a recovery team to help me detain him.
GL: The Doctor?
Col.L: Oh my god --
[In the background: COLONEL, WHERE ARE YOU?]
Col.L: I need to go. I'll -- put the information in the mail to you or something, is the drop box still open?
GL: Just address it to Gianni Leone, Torchwo --
[Background: COLONEL, COME ON, WE NEED TO GO!]
GL: Torchwood, Chicago. It'll reach us.
Col.L: Okay, I -- okay.
GL: Glad to be of service, Colonel. Safe journey.
[Background: I CAN'T STOP IT, GUNS DON'T WORK -- ]
Transcript ends.

***

TORCHWOOD 2x07: THE ONLY GOOD OWEN
On a routine trip to Springfield to assist an excavation, Owen collapses and briefly stops breathing. Though at first glance it looks like a reaction to the excavation site, Jack begins to worry when Owen's strength fails to return and Owen admits that he's been suffering from muscle tremors and exhaustion ever since he was revived. Realizing that the Doctor's revival of Owen was imperfect, the Team rushes to save him before he slips away from them completely. Jack may have one way of preserving Owen's life, but will it cost Owen everything to get it?

Transcript of the audio commentary for Torchwood 2.07, with Burn Gorman and Hiro Mizushima:

Burn: We actually thought that a scene between Tommy and Owen in the afterlife would be pretty funny.

Hiro: Oh, yes!

Burn: Because...Owen wakes up, can't see anything, thinks he's had a whopping hangover. He says, you know, where are we --

Hiro: In the dark! But Tommy catches on fast, so he'd reply, "I think we're dead."

Burn: And there's only one reaction to that, of course, in the dark, dead, no consequences, so Owen would turn -- metaphorically -- to Tommy and say, "Wanna make out?"

Hiro: "And I thought the afterlife couldn't get any worse."

***

None of them were particularly fond of hospitals, but they all agreed that if Owen was actually going to be sick, he couldn't very well rig up anything to look after himself in the medical grotto. So they took him to the hospital and sat in the waiting room, hands cupped around awful coffee, speaking in low tones.

"Tommy?" Jack said, his face drawn and tired. "How are you feeling?"

Tommy gave him a guilty look. "I feel fine. Probably better than I did before."

"Could he be stealing...this sounds stupid," Ian said. "Could he be drawing on Owen's, uh, life-energy?"

Jack shook his head. "I don't think so. They're not showing any signs of linkage otherwise. I think...I think something got mucked up with Owen. Something went wrong. And now it's wearing off, and his body's shutting down as the energy leaves it."

Gwen looked down at her coffee cup. "Is there anything we can do?"

"I don't know," Jack said.

"Well, there must be something!"

Tosh wrapped one hand around Gwen's, thumb rubbing soothingly across her knuckles. "We'll think of something."

"We don't know what he did or how it works," Gwen said miserably.

"Well, that's never stopped us before," Ian pointed out. He glanced sidelong at Jack, lips thinning. Jack gave him a warning look.

"He's not dead yet," Tommy said. "There's gotta be something they can do. Vitamins or something."

"I don't think an intravenous caffeine drip is going to work," Jack sighed.

"There might be..." Ian ventured, glancing at Jack again.

"What?" Tosh asked.

"Messing with life force is dangerous," Jack said warningly. "We know what happened to Suzie."

"Yeah, but..." Gwen bit her lip. "I mean, she was a little nuts to start with."

"She was a good person," Jack retorted.

"Besides, the glove's been destroyed," Tommy added.

"Jack," Ian said. Jack met his eyes, shook his head, and leaned back.

"Fine. Tell them."

"We recovered something in New York, about three years ago," Ian said. "I was research aide for the team that studied it. Artifact 3G-19A5."

"Catchy name," Gwen said.

"We called it the Grip'n'Rip." Ian smiled slightly. "My name for it. It's in archives at the Hub."

"It's too dangerous," Jack said.

"It lifts your personality out of your head. We think," Ian continued. "We only ever tried it on animals. Somehow it reproduces your neural patterns. Plug it into a computer, put your head in a CPU. We put a rabbit into a toy robot dog once."

"Sounds useful," Gwen said carefully.

"Except the amount of sensory input required for a human doesn't exist in robotics," Jack said sharply. "Put a person's mind into a machine with no senses and they go insane. Total sensory deprivation. So you can't leave them in the machine. You have to transfer them to something else. Anyone here have a spare sensory-enhanced android lying around? No? Off the table, then."

"It'd buy us time," Ian said, defensively. "The slower he loses energy -- "

"He's not a battery," Jack replied. "And I'm not going to lock Owen up on a hard drive."

***

Edgar sat looking at the sketch of the Grip'n'Rip personality transferrence device, his head slightly tilted to one side.

"She's mad as a hatter," Ellis said. "She keeps a hamster."



Edgar smiled. "I think there's a kind of charm in it. And you can't actually say any of what she wrote is untrue, can you?"

Ellis raised his eyebrows. "Been keeping tabs on me, Edgar?"

"Of course. Anyway, it's a genius design. Even if I didn't like her, which I do, we'd have to keep her; she's the best there is."

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x07: The Only Good OWen.
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc and David Tennant

INT - HUB - MEDICAL GROTTO

GWEN presses the injector-pen to JACK's neck.

GWEN
Sorry, Jack.

JACK collapses.

IAN
[leaning over OWEN on the operating table]
Owen? Can you hear me?

TOMMY
Ian, we have to do it now.

IAN
Owen, try not to freak out.

IAN clamps the Grip'n'Rip onto OWEN's head. The jewel at the front glows green; there is a brief sizzle, and IAN starts back with a yelp. OWEN exhales and stops breathing.

IAN
[tossing the coil of wires across the table]
Tommy!

TOMMY plugs the wires into the wall of the HUB and hesitates, his hand on the switch.

GWEN
Tommy, do it!

TOMMY slams the switch up. Sparks fly. OWEN convulses; the HUB falls into darkness momentarily before emergency lights come on. TOSH is already fixing electrodes to OWEN's chest and helping GWEN lift him into a drawer.

As they slam it shut JACK gasps and flails, grabbing GWEN's leg.

JACK
[looking up]
What did you do?

ALL look at him.

JACK
WHAT DID YOU DO?

TOMMY
Owen?

OWEN's voice comes over the loudspeakers, sounding slightly mechanised.

OWEN
Tommy? Where am I?

Several cameras in the grotto swivel to focus on the group.

OWEN
What the HELL HAVE YOU DONE?

Blackout.

***

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7