Out of Place Chapter 17

[galadriel1010]

Greg grinned with the familiar buzz of excitement as he lifted a complete print from the edge of the window. He was about to call across to Grissom and tell him when the older man’s phone rang, distracting him from his study of the bookcase. The Californian smiled to himself and secured the print, humming under his breath and turning back to the window. He didn’t often get to work a scene with Grissom, for which he was secretly extremely grateful, but just occasionally he found the quiet, methodical nature of their leader soothing.

“Greg.” Nothing soothing about his voice now. Grissom sounded faintly terrified, which was definitely not a good thing

He stood up and turned to face the older man, “What’s up, what’s happened?”

“It’s Nicky, he’s been taken from a scene.” The unspoken ‘again’ hung in the air.

Greg struggled to breathe, this could not be happening, not now, not to Nick, “Who was he with?” His brain had turned to mush, he just couldn’t remember if his lover was alone at the scene

“He was with Jasmine.” Grissom was already packing up his things, “Stay here and finish the scene, I’ve got to get back to the crime lab.”

“Griss, no, I can’t…”

“I’m sorry Greg, but this scene needs to be processed and I need to get back to the lab.” Grissom watched him closely, “I know it’s a shock, but do your best work, we’ll get him back.”

Greg bit his lip so hard it bled, he couldn’t say what was running through his mind, the ‘Grissom, that would be my husband if the law allowed it’, or even ‘you have no idea what’s running through my mind now’. Grissom couldn’t know the nature of their relationship, it was just against the rules. And so he had to stay here and let other people find and save the man he loved beyond words. He settled for, “Okay.” Even though it wasn’t, not at all.

Grissom packed up the last of his stuff and straightened up, turning for the door, “I’ll call you if anything comes up. Just get back to the crime lab as soon as you can.”

It was at that precise moment that the door flew open.

---

Jack clapped a hand to Simon’s shoulder and tugged slightly, pulling the younger man into his wake as he headed for one of the vans, Ianto just behind the two of them. “Let’s get a move on.” He signalled to one of the UNIT guards, who tossed him the keys, and paused with his hand on the door, “We’ll probably need backup at some point. Can you arrange that?”

Simon glared at him, “I’m coming with you.”

“Good answer.” Jack met his glare, “Can you arrange it?”

“I’ll have a squad ready to move on my orders as soon as we have a location.”

Ianto had slid silently into the middle seat, ignoring the alpha-male posturing going on and concentrating on linking up with everyone who needed to know what was happening. Jack swung himself into the seat, leaving Simon to come around to the other door and get in on the other side of Ianto. “I give the orders if it comes down to it.”

“Of course Captain.” Simon smiled grimly, “I wouldn’t trust anyone else with the job.”

“Where are we heading Jack?” Ianto spoke up for the first time as he grabbed hold of the Captain’s arm to steady himself when Jack took a corner too sharply

“Back to the house, get Archie, David and Greg there too. Especially Greg.”

“On it.”

---

John looked around the room once, took in the stunned expressions and stunted protests and turned on his heel, “Come on.”

Greg hesitated a moment, then pulled his gloves off and dumped them in his kit, closing it hurriedly and going after the former Time Agent, “Where are we going?”

“Back to the house.” John held the door for him and nodded curtly to Grissom, who looked thoroughly perplexed by now, “The moment they got taken, you went onto Torchwood time. Chances are they wanted Jasmine, and Nick was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Jasmine.” John vaulted a railing and watched as Greg came around it, opening the doors of his car and swinging in, starting the engine before Greg had even got there, “Stuff happens to us.”

“Stuff happens to us too. This isn’t the first time Nick’s been kidnapped from a crime scene.” Greg pointed out, half to himself. If Nick had been hurt…

John shook his head, but didn’t reply directly, “We’ll get back to the safe house and let Jack take over proceedings. He’ll know how to go on.”

---

Captain Jack Harkness and Sergeant Simon Collins set the systems up in the dining room of UNIT Safe House 376 and started scanning for tracers, tracking devices, sightings and known enemies. “Her tracking devices and phone are all at the site still.”

Jack hurried over to him and studied it in surprise, “What, all of them?”

“Every single tracking device or tracer tagged to the Commander is at the crime scene.” Simon brought up the list, “Any that have been missed, or secret ones?”

“Not on Jazz, you know what she’s like on sharing information.” Jack shook his head, “The only way I would know all of her tracers is by checking that list, and she wouldn’t carry any that didn’t come up automatically on the system. She wouldn’t see the point.”

“No, I thought not. But look, they got the one out of her boot heel.” He pointed to one of the results and shook his head, “Either she’s still there, or someone really knew what they were looking for.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah.” Simon chuckled, “That’s the concise way of putting it.” A car pulled up outside and he checked another screen, “That’s them, and John’s just behind.”

“Okay, they can catch up when they get in.”

Ianto was first through the door, with Archie and Hodges close behind him, and made his way straight across to his partner, resting a hand in the small of his back and glancing expertly through the data feeds, “What do you want me to do Jack?”

The immortal turned as John entered the room and nodded a greeting to him and the CSI with him, “Brief them, we’ll concentrate on this.”

“OK.” He turned back to the table and gestured for everyone to sit down, “What we know is that Jasmine and Nick have been taken from their scene. The professionalism - all of the tracking devices have been removed - suggests that Jasmine, rather than Nick was the target. This means that they want information or something else that Jasmine can get them access to. Our main concern, therefore, is Nick. I’m sorry Greg.” He looked directly at the older man, “But his chances aren’t good. Either they have already disposed of him, or they will try to use him to get to Jasmine. If they try the latter, she’ll probably be able to get him out of there, but she can’t give them what they want.”

Greg just nodded, too stunned to speak and worried that if he tried he’d break. Jack watched his boyfriend out of the corner of his eye and smiled sadly at his constant professionalism and expertise. He was the youngest person in the room, but still held such an aura of command that the CSIs and lab technicians, even Simon, were hanging on his every word. No explanations, no theorising, just the plain facts, all gleaned form a single glance at the readouts; he’d learnt from the best after all.

They shared a worried look as Ianto checked for new information and Jack turned his attention back to finding their friends, “There will be a very short turn around on this. They won’t have taken them far, because they know we’ll get onto finding them immediately. Assuming that they’ve knocked them out somehow, they’ll want to get them secured before they wake up. Maximum of fifteen minutes travelling distance.” Jack mused as he set a search radius. “Which means we can knock out quite a lot of houses, but gives us quite a lot of desert to work at.”

“It doesn’t matter to them if we find them once they have the information or carry out their threats.” Simon glanced up at Jack, seeking approval

“But it would be better for them if we did.” Ianto pointed out without turning

“Captain.” Simon’s voice had taken on an excited, adrenaline fuelled quality that John, Jack and Ianto recognised well, “How does this sound, Peter Hilona, illegal casino and brothel owner, fingers in a lot of criminal pies. Suggested links to alien drug rings, illegal domestications, we’ve managed to link him to plants in the past, but not had enough to convince us to move.”

“And?”

“And one of his places is five minutes from the scene. More to the point, the body that Jazz and Nick were investigating has come back as one of his main rival’s boys.” The Sergeant pointed to it on the map

Jack grinned, “I think we’ve got a location. Ianto?”

“Thirty seven minutes gone. Estimated twenty three minutes left.” He grabbed the keys and tossed them to Jack, then caught them as he threw them back, questioning only with a puzzled glance.

Jack tossed another set of keys to Simon, “Sergeant, you take John and Greg in the car, we’ll go in the van. I want you two,” he pointed to Hodges and Archie, “Stay here and monitor the systems, be ready for us coming back and send us any messages that come through. The systems should run themselves, but if anything goes wrong, call Ianto and he’ll put you straight. Greg?”

The young man hadn’t moved and suddenly looked much older than he was, rather than his usual ten years younger, “Jack?”

“Come on, we’ll get him back.”

The immortal hurried out towards where the sounds of the cars starting up could be heard easily and Greg followed him more slowly. Archie squeezed his arm softly as he took up his seat at the head of the table and Hodges smiled grimly, “They’re the best Greg, he’s coming home.”

Outside he hesitated a moment, watching Jack and Ianto already leaving in the van, before going to get in the back of the car with John, the only person he felt he had anything in common with at the moment. He stared blankly out of the window, not really seeing the streets going by. A gentle touch startled him as John took his hand and held it. He smiled weakly but gratefully and squeezed the hand, holding on to it like it was his only lifeline.

---

A Liberty Towers force met them outside the house. It was a severe, professional operation; residents evacuated and a perimeter set up within minutes of Jack’s orders. The house they had come to had had signs of activity until their arrival; then it had gone deadly silent, curtains closed, doors locked. It was more than slightly suspicious. Jack had sent Greg and Ianto around to the back of the building with a couple of Liberty Towers guards, setting them to watch the house, giving the CSI something to do, something to distract him, and also putting him as close as possible to their probable exit point. He just hoped that that was the right decision.

He met John’s eyes grimly and pulled him into a one armed hug as they both watched the house, “So what, talk first, shoot second?”

“Get an assurance that Nick is alive, then go from there. If he isn’t, then we knockout gas the place and get Greg out of here. He…”

John squeezed him reassuringly, “You can’t win them all Jack, you know that better than any of us.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just hope that this is one we do win.”

“Yeah.”

---

Ianto looked across at his friend and covered his hand with his own, “How are you doing?”

Greg looked surprised, “That’s the first time any of you has asked me that.”

Ianto nodded, returning his eyes to the back of the house but not removing his hand from where his thumb rubbed soothingly at the back of the other man’s hand, “We’ve all been there, friends and lovers in trouble. The trick to coping is to not think about it.”

“I can’t not think about it, what if he doesn’t come out? What if I’m alone again, I never even got to take him home to meet my parents.” He looked wretched

Ianto smiled slightly, “I know, that’s why I asked. Trust us Greg, we’ve done this more times than I care to remember, with John, with me, with Jack and Jasmine, with the other members of our team… Jack’s never lost someone from a situation like this yet.” As long as Nick’s still alive, as long as he’s still there, living and breathing, then they can get him out.

But as Greg pointed out in a voice so quiet that it was barely audible, “There’s always a first.”