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CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
LOCATION: MED BAY
WARNINGS: ... Partial nudity? It should be pretty tame, but let me know if I need to add anything.
SUMMARY: Side-effects of a jump may include disorientation and temporary memory loss. Fortunately, there are a handful of others who have been through this before.
NOTES: Yes, it's a rehashing of the game premise. Don't worry, you can personalize your own (re-)introduction!

You wake up, alone in the dark.

There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

Don't worry, you are not alone. There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. They will help you through your disorientation, even though they might suffer from it too.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

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Ianto sighs and slumps against the wall of the lift as they step inside, all the snark draining out of him to leave him weary and rueful.

"Sorry. I'm being irritable, aren't I? I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the gravity couches." Everything is rubbing him the wrong way right now. He won't be comfortable until he's showered and relaxing with Jack in their room, and even then he still has too much on his mind to be completely at ease. The new arrivals are a part of that.

"Maybe there's something we can do to make their adjustment a little less traumatic than ours was." He'd like to think he helped Roxanne when he'd met her outside the grav couches, but he still feels as if he could have done more, somehow.

Jack smiles softly at Ianto's apology, and bites back a comment about how yeah, Ianto is being a little irritable, but it's alright. He steps forward, running a hand over Ianto's jumpsuit lapel and generally just smoothing the fabric down, and hopefully soothing Ianto in the process as well. "It's alright," he says. "How're you feeling? Those things can leave you pretty down and out for a while even after you've woken up out of them."

He isn't sure what to make of Ianto's other comment, though. About making the adjustment less traumatic. What they need is answers, and those are answers that none of them really have, yet. Answers that Jack is still trying to figure out.

"Pretty down and out," he echoes ruefully. "It's not as bad as last time. My memory isn't completely bollocksed up, just... Everything seems a bit out of focus. And I'm not tired this time, just hungry."

Jack's touch does help though; it always helps. He straightens up some, hooking his fingers in Jack's braces and letting them rest there comfortably. "Some of these people can't even grasp that we're in space," he continues with his earlier thought, "And some of them... some of them might know each other, but come from different times." Like us, his eyes seem to say as they bore into Jack's. "I just wish we could do something to present them the facts in a convincing manner before they all stumble off confused. It isn't responsible to let everyone out of stasis with nothing more than a short notice about where the passenger quarters are."

Like them. Ianto doesn't need to say it, but the words are there, a suggestion in his tone and the loss of Ianto too raw in his mind to be able not to go there. He likes the fingers hooked in his braces, though. The lift is going to take a bit longer to get them from the med bay to the passenger's quarters, he's going to enjoy their moment alone while it does.

"What d'you suggest?" he asks. "What is there to tell them that might make them feel better about being here?" The pair of them know perfectly well what sort of situations some of them are showing up on the ship coming out of. "What would you have liked to hear, coming out of one of those things?"

"I would have liked... I would have liked to have been informed right off that we weren't prisoners. That was my first thought, when I came out of the gravity couch that first time. I was somewhere strange with a number tattooed on my wrist, and I thought I'd been taken prisoner." In a way, it's even true, but in all the ways that count, it's not. They have rights and free reign, and so it doesn't matter quite so much that they ended up here against their will and can't leave. It's a pretty illusion, at least.

"If the captain would take the time to record a message explaining the situation... Or anyone really, it doesn't matter whether it's the captain, only it should be his responsibility." And Ianto feels very strongly about that. More than anything, he feels that Ward should be handling this situation with more initiative. More like Jack probably would, were this his ship. Ianto has no doubts he'd be down there with all the new passengers after every jump, announcing himself and turning on the charm to keep them all calm.

Maybe they are being held prisoner, but Jack finds himself not really wanting to find an escape back to Cardiff. Torchwood is gone. Gwen's better off without him, with her family - Rhys and the new baby on the way. There's no reason to stick around on Earth, and ironically he'd been thinking of leaving when he'd suddenly woken up here. Where Ianto is. And maybe it isn't ideal, but he's got him back, so he doesn't quite care what the circumstances are exactly.

"Maybe he should do that. But he isn't. Is it really the place for one of the passengers to make such an announcement in lieu of the captain?" Jack questions. Because Ianto's right, Jack would. If it were his ship, he'd be doing what he could to soothe the situation because he knows what people can be like when they think they're captives. But it isn't, and he's not sure that it's entirely his place either. He is curious, though.

The left reaches the passengers quarters and the door opens, but Ianto doesn't move immediately.

"Maybe not, but someone has to do something. If Ward won't, then sooner or later one of these people is going to be trouble." And sometimes all it takes is one person to overthrow a ship's captain, or worse. Ianto has faith that Jack would do everything in his power to get them both off the ship if things went badly wrong one day. They could find a nice planet somewhere, find jobs, have a life... But there are dozens of other people on the ship with homes to return to, and they deserve a chance to get there.

Jack stands there, looking at Ianto for a long moment, weighing his options. This other man has so much faith in him. Faith that got him killed, and he still trusts him, even now. He wonders what he ever did to deserve such devotion. He wonders if Ianto remembers the circumstances surrounding his death any more now than he did the night that they had shown up there. He isn't quite sure he wants to ask, though. He's afraid that the answer will be no, and that when he does remember, something about this blind faith will go away.

"...next time, I'll try something," he says. "A test announcement. See if it makes a difference. Of course. We're going to have to gather all the information there is about this place to announce to them. I could use your help on that, you know."

Ianto remembers completely now, and he doesn't blame Jack for a bit of it. It's still a subject they'll have to broach one day, probably soon, but it doesn't change Ianto's faith in Jack. He knows without a shadow of a doubt that Jack will never leave him behind if he can possibly help it.

The door begins to close automatically, and Ianto shoots out a hand to press the door open button.

"Of course." He smiles gratefully, glad for the support in an endeavor he honestly would have attempted with or without Jack's help. "I'm good with that sort of thing. Thank you."

He pulls him close and gives him a kiss.

Jack smiles and gives in to the kiss, enjoying the feeling of the other man pressed up against him, enjoying the fact that he's still there with him, enjoying that they have this moment to share with each other, that they're both on this ship by some miracle and not letting any moment of it go to waste.

Jack's arm slips around Ianto's waist and he pulls him closer, deepening the kiss properly before pulling back. "C'mon, then," he said, nodding towards the door. "Any more of that and we'll be taking our chances getting caught in the shower again. Not that I mind..." he adds, with a wicked grin.

Ianto flushes a little, his pupils dilating. That grin does things to him, and his resolve to refrain from public shower sex experiences a moment of doubt. Maybe they can find a shower in the corner, and be very quiet. Or maybe they can just make it a brisk shower and get back to their room in record time. Either way, Ianto returns the grin with a smile that may be unintentionally desirous, and gives one last tug to Jack's braces before letting one of them snap back with just enough force to say behave.

He slips out the door and into the hallway, heading toward the showers. He keeps a keen eye out along the way for others, just in case.

Jack doesn't doubt that they can find a shower and be quiet. Or maybe they can make it back to their room in time. Who knows? It's really up to whatever Ianto lets him get away with, lets him know is okay. Sticking his hands in his pockets, Jack follows along with Ianto down the hallway towards the shower, letting Ianto keep his eye out for others while Jack himself rather admired the other man's figure in that jumpsuit, how it clung in several places and pulled over his body when he walked. Ianto always did have nice legs and a cute butt, nice broad shoulders, and much though Ianto would prefer to wear something else it was definitely a good look on him.

Ianto can feel Jack's eyes on him, but he doesn't mind. He never minds. Sometimes he'll even do something provocative like 'accidentally' drop a pen and then bend over enticingly to pick it up, all while keeping a straight face. Unfortunately he doesn't have a pen, and his stomach is growling.

Quick shower then, then a quick trip to the kitchen, then some very leisurely sex.

Still, once they get to the showers, he can't help but strip in a way he knows will get Jack going, stretching and arching and exaggerating his movements just enough to show off.

Jack loves that Ianto plays along with his needs, and he admires the show that the other man is giving him with a grin, moving to start stripping himself.

"You keep teasing me like that, Mr. Jones, and I'm not sure that we'll make it as far as our room," he warns the other man.

"Is that so?" he responds, his voice lilting with mischief. "The great Captain Jack Harkness, so hot and bothered he can't contain himself for, say, twenty minutes? That sounds like a challenge to me..."

Pulling the stopwatch from his discarded jumpsuit, he flashes a playful grin at Jack, his thumb hovering over the button on top. Out of all the things they do together, he often likes these games the best.

Jack cracks a smile at the other, stepping out of his clothes and into the spray of the shower, letting it wash over him before he responds. "You don't think I can manage it?" he asks, with a grin. "I am 'the great Captain Jack Harkness', after all," he adds, quoting Ianto's words. He raises an eyebrow back at Ianto, as if to say 'if that's what you want, challenge accepted'. It should be noted that he is very much aroused, regardless as to whatever games they may or may not be playing with a stopwatch.

"We'll see," he says with a grin, depressing the button on the stopwatch and setting it down before stepping into the shower, very deliberately brushing up against Jack as he moves over to the next shower. There's a curtain between them, but Ianto doesn't bother to draw it closed as he turns on the water and steps into the spray.

The game is on, and while Ianto's goal is to drive Jack absolutely insane, he's very aware that it will be no small challenge of his own to keep his own sanity in the face of a naked, wet, very aroused Jack Harkness.

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