Torchwood: Exodus Code by Carole E. Barrowman, John Barrowman Page A

inhaled. He exhaled.
    Nothing.
    No gasping. Nothing.
    Cupping his palm at his mouth, he exhaled again. Nothing. He wasn’t breathing. What the hell?
    Renso. The Hornet. The mountain. Jack’s chest felt light. He pressed his hand on his heart. Still beating. So maybe not dead.
    In limbo? Still healing?
    Strange.
    Jack took deep breaths in and out, but nothing went in or wheezed out from his lungs.
    So did that make him dead?
    Confusion rushed over Jack in a cold wave. Never experienced this before.
    And then the wisp of an image – a girl, the sun, a kiss, darkness.
    And so much pain. Jack gasped, the memory flitting away.
    Sitting up, Jack could feel he was lying on a platform of rock. He squinted, running his hands over the surface, eventually seeing he was on a lip of rock that ran the circumference of a massive stone chamber. The walls were black granite marbled with veins of silver that were pulsing in the darkness. Above him the chamber formed a square opening, a faint glimmer of moonlight filtering down. Far below him the ground rippled like a satin robe in a soft breeze.
    Could rock do that?
    Jack was acutely aware of his body, of the fact that he was wearing nothing except a long, intricately embroidered tunic, that the soft wool was caressing his skin, that he was enjoying the sensation immensely, that he was hearing water flowing somewhere in the distance, that despite the darkness he was now seeing clearly, and that in the face of an overwhelming thirst he was tasting lemon and ginger and a hint of chocolate.
    Had he fallen from the plane to this place? Into the mountain itself? The plane exploding on the ground flashed in front of Jack, Renso’s last moment like a black and white newsreel running above Jack’s head. He reached out a hand to touch him. The image dissolved. Renso. Poor Renso.
    Jack heard himself think the words, but he felt no sadness, no ache in his loins or his heart. He adored Renso, had adored Renso, and yet Jack couldn’t make himself feel even a fleeting moment of grief.
    Staring down at his hands, Jack turned them over and over. Long fingers, no calluses, flat round nails. Definitely his hands. Then he pushed up the wide sleeves of the tunic and stared at his arms. He parted the tunic, running his hands across his skin. No puncture wounds, no damage anywhere on his body.
    So he had healed from the fall.
    But did he fall? When did he fall? Minutes or months ago? The memory of it felt small and thin and kept darting from him.
    ‘I’m Jack Harkness,’ he said aloud, his voice carried no echo. In a stone chamber of this size, it should have. Strange.
    ‘I’m a Time Agent, a time traveller.’ Jack smiled. His voice felt soft and sensuous in his throat. ‘I know a Time Lord, the time of the day, the time of the night, tea time, two times two is not too many times,’ he said, laughing, the words bouncing playfully in his brain.
    His laughter echoed, but his voice had not. He laughed again. The silver veins in the walls pulsed brighter each time he did. Jack had never seen anything like this place, and he had been strapped into and locked down in a lot of strange places. This had to be one of the most fantastic.
    Leaning back against the rock wall, Jack felt a warm rush of desire flood his being. He felt himself grow hard beneath the tunic. Wow. His body felt ethereal, weightless, but grounded, experiencing this moment, substantial. The silver veins from the rock, reached out like long probing fingers and they danced across his body.
    Jack closed his eyes, but instead of darkness he saw himself languishing on the platform of rock experiencing a powerful rush of pleasure.
    For a beat Jack realised the chamber was inside his head and outside it. Behind him and in front of him. He laughed at the absurdity and let himself sink back into the rock. The silver veins threaded themselves across every muscle, every limb, every part of him. Closing his eyes again, he could see himself being folded