[TM] 228 - Again.

His hand is gripping to the pipe, nearly a foot over his head. Palm pressing hard against the small button that was supposed to be keeping the release valve open nearly three blocks down the hallway. The cramping in his arm wasn't so bad really, he'd figured that if he was going to get a cramp from this it might as well be from holding something hard in his hand for an hour.

It was also a far cry from being hung up by chains. That was getting old.

His other hand shifted into his line of sight, wrist twisting around so that he could check the time. "Come on!!" Jack shouted down the long span of hallway hearing his voice echo against itself and finally fading into nothing. Shaking his head he checked in on his comms, "Ianto... do we even know if this is gonna happen?"

"It's on record of occurring at least three other times. I'd like to guess that the answer would be yes."

Jack growled at the reply nearly beneath his breath. He was frustrated, and he was tired of this sort of thing being 'his role' on the team. Oh he understood the why of it, and really it usually made perfect sense. It just didn't mean he actually had to like it. In fact of all the things he could be doing at almost two thirty in the morning, really... this was not it.

"Jack? You okay down there Jack?"

Gwen's tone cut in briefly and he nodded as if maybe his head rattling could pass through the comms and ease her mind, "Just peachy Gwen. Things still clear up there?" Gwen had been sent to the bridge over the damn, and he was hoping that she was still a good safe distance away from anything.. should anything happen.

"Rift activity in two... one... it's opening now."

"Finally," Jack intoned as he heard Toshiko coming in from the Hub. Jack let go of the release and sure enough the ground started to shake above him. Silt from between the crevices shifted down into his hair, his hand instantly going to shake it free. "Anything up there?"

"Negative Jack. It's clear here."

Jack shook his head. It was just another hoax. The rift was opening every so often sure... taking people maybe, leaving things behind perhaps... but sometimes it just opened and that was that. This was probably that. "Gwen?"

Jack waited for the reply but heard nothing. His steps paused and he heard her name repeated by Owen, in his ear. "Jack... I'm going to her."

"Dammit!" Jack cursed himself as he started to head toward the opening in the tunnels, but there was something else coming. Quickly too and he wasn't even sure if he was hearing it right. The low hiss of air... maybe a push... or a slosh of sound.

Before he could even turn around to look he knew what it was, the flood gates were being opened and the spill over was flooding through the tunnels. Which was exactly why he was the one down there.

That whole.. just in case factor. Shaking his head he stopped running, "Guys... give me a minute. Ianto you head to Owen, Toshiko? Track where this tunnel I'm in lets out... just in case."

"Got it Jack."

But by then the water had already taken out his comms and flooded into his lungs. He took in deep gulps of it. Trying not to fight it. Trying not to make it to the surface to breathe it in. Die now and take the ride, or fight and struggle for however many minutes. It was never a choice he liked, never a choice he even wanted to even think of, but if was his choice to make.

His body carried with the water, lifeless and limp until it slammed into the metal grating near the over flow lake that wasn't too far from the dam. His coat waterlogged and his lungs coughing up fluid that he really didn't want to taste in the morning he reached up to grab a hold of the lever to let himself out.

His team still had a good fifteen minutes before -

"What just happened?" Jack asked, his arm once more raised above his head, cramping up... holding that release valve. Which well... did nothing. He knew that now... now because... it...

"Status?" His comm was working again... and he was dry?

"Sorry Jack? We just had rift activity? I- I don't know what else I should monitor."

"Where's Gwen?!"

"Here Jack. Nothing's gone on here though."

"Okay... uh..." Glancing to his watch he noted the time... almost fifteen 'til three in the morning. Same time. Letting go of the valve release he flipped open his wrist strap and compared the times. "Three-oh-two..." the words breathed just below his breath.

"Time loop," he relayed to his team. "We've got five minutes, I'm coming to where you're at Gwen." Dropping the open line he shrugged it off. He hated time loops, and he hated the Rift even more because of them. But if it gave him a second chance... one that actually meant he could fix something, he'd take all the repeating three am's he could have.

[MtM] 04.08 - Memories

The facts of life and death remain the same. We live and die, we love and grieve, we breed and disappear. And between these essential gravities, we search for meaning, save our memories, leave a record for those who will remember us. - Thomas Lynch - Bodies In Motion And At Rest

Staring into her eyes he's not sure what to believe anymore. He's seen more than a thousand things that could make any man in their right mind question that judgement entirely, but this... for some reason leaves him questioning everything he's ever done. He wants to believe, to trust in the words she says and the way her features fell just barely as she pulled back from the kiss. The kiss... he wanted to laugh it off. To say that he'd been kissed by so many that it was beginning to feel like one long gracing of his mouth upon others. But he couldn't. He couldn't even laugh it off to give her some ease to her mind, because he knew her.

He knew the woman standing there with features so fair and familiar, and he knew her in such a way that he'd almost forgotten how much it hurt to remember. Death was steady. Death was something he knew, and each time he made his way back from the darkness he found another piece of light within him he'd never even realized. If he even put it to his mind he'd have realized just what his body had been doing over the years.

Two years lost.

Two years trying to be healed.

The slowest way possible it seemed, since his body knew what it was supposed to hold within it's core, it knew the basic structure. But he knew as sure as other things that if nanites could get it wrong... the body of a Time Agent was so tangled up into the slipstream that it might not know right from wrong. Truth from the lie.

But he knew her. The blue of her eyes, and the heart shape to her mouth as she knelt beside him watching his features for some sign that he believed her. Perhaps him knowing her wasn't as far of a feat as the way she seemed to know him. The truth was there after all, if he just looked close enough. It was in the way she nearly sighed when he smirked at her a moment before kissing her. She knew him... and not the way most thought they did. The way she knew him... went beyond just two years. Two years that the Agency could pin down sure, two years that they could track from a start and end date.

If he hadn't been the type to have seen the things he'd seen... surely this would've been a lie.

Instead, looking back into her eyes and moving up to brush his hand against her cheek he saw the hesitation in her, the way she resisted leaning into that touch. She fought it, because maybe she worried that he'd forget all over again.

Still he fought it because he still wasn't whole, and what sort of man would he be... to have forgotten her. With a deep furrow of his brow he closed that distance relighting up a memory he'd felt the edges a thousand times but never fully grasped until he could feel the softness of curls beneath his palm and the confident press of her mouth to his.

"My Lady," were the words that fit to the moment, feeling more right than his usual candor. "I'm so glad you remembered me."

[EcM] 04.08 - Torn

( Post Exit Wounds Content - Canon Interpretation Only - Not RP Binding At All )