Ghosts (ClassxTorchwood)

Bilis

Jack's pov

I spend the whole of the next day in Coal Hill with Gwen and Miss Quill, who doesn't seem to have a name other than that, trying to figure out exactly how time began to splinter here. It isn't exactly happening quickly but there is no rift manipulator here that anyone knows of which has made the rift extra volatile, no wonder they've been having so many problems recently.

I keep seeing Ianto, Tosh and Owen, it's like they're trying to tell me something. They keep leading me to a certain door but it's in the most public part of the school and the head teacher won't let me anywhere near it. it's too early to know but I think that that must be where the splinters are originating. The five students that I met the previous day are suspicious of her as well as she seems to know too much about all of them.

I meet Gwen and the others at the school entrance at the end of the school day. I tried to tell them not to get involved but they wouldn't listen to me. We go back to the assembly hall where almost all of us have seen someone today. It seems to be the centre of the cracks and I'm hoping that we can find out exactly what's causing it before it's too late.

When we walk into the hall the headteacher is waiting.

"Oh let me guess, the governors are here to save the day," Miss Quill says sarcastically, "Well we don't need your stats on who will survive thanks."

"Ok I'm getting the feeling that there's something you haven't told us," I say, "What is it?"

"We didn't think it would be important," Tanya says, "But basically our headteacher knows a lot about aliens."

"Well more like she is one," Ram mutters.

"And you didn't think that would be useful? I've been being led to a room all day, and so has Jack, that she won't let us into. If that isn't the origin of all of this then I don't know what is." Gwen says, beginning to lose her calm exterior.

The headteacher, who has been watching us talk with some form of amusement showing on her face, finally speaks, "The governors are not the cause of this, I can promise you that. We simply observe, we don't travel in time or do anything to cause the rift to act in this way."

"Yeah well, we'll soon find out if you're telling the truth about that," I say.

I reach into my bag and pull out a laptop and a scanner. I log onto the Torchwood software and set it up to monitor the rift. "I'll use the scanner to find any traces of alien lifeforms and irregularities in the rift and we can leave the laptop for 24 hours so that we know when the rift is most active."

"Won't the scanner just pick up me and Miss Quill?" Charlie asks.

"Yes, but we can just ignore your signals. Anyway, at least we'll know if it's working." Gwen says.

I turn on the scanner and it instantly picks up Miss Quill and Charlie. However, it is also picking up another trace just outside. I signal to Gwen to move into position by the doors and the others to stay back. Miss Quill ignores me and steps forward anyway, ready to fight whatever is on the other side of the doors. I give them a count of three and then we go through the doors and into the corridor outside. I see Miss Quill push someone to the ground and I quickly go to help her while Gwen keeps her gun covering whoever it is.

I grab his shoulder and force him to turn towards me. His face is lined and gaunt and his grey hair is slicked back. Billis.

Gwen's pov

When I see Bilis' face I almost drop my gun. I want to shoot him dead for stabbing Rhys but I wait for Jack to tell me what to do. After all, I might be able to cause him more pain if he's alive.

I glance at the others and see that Charlie has his gun on Bilis and Miss Quill has him in a stranglehold but I know it's useless. He can escape without even moving. Jack is attempting to get information out of him but he simply blinks out of existence.

"Where did he go?" Tanya steps forward, "And how do you know him?"

"Go home," Jack says, "Don't get involved, it's too dangerous."

"I'm sorry?" Ram says incredulously," You don't get to tell us what's too dangerous. April is sharing a heart with a shadowkin, Miss Quill and Charlie are from another planet. I think that we are qualified to deal with an old man."

"You don't understand," Jack says, "It's not Bilis that's the dangerous one. I don't care how 'qualified' you are. We can deal with this."

"What do you mean sharing a heart?" I ask but my words fall on death ears.

"I don't know about prince and co. here but I'm staying," Miss Quill says, "I am a Quill warrior I don't want to miss out on this."

"You're all going to go home and forget we exist. And that's final." Jack says, the harsh tone in his voice seems to exert some kind of force on everyone except Miss Quill but she follows the others who all give Jack dirty looks.

"You do realise that they were probably safer with us, right?" I say, "They're just going to go looking for trouble now."

"Not if we retcon them," Jack says grimly.

A:N/ I'm finally in the summer holidays so I should be updating fairly regularly but don't expect it to be on a schedule as I tend to procrastinate a lot.

Thank you for reading and please vote if you liked it.

-Annie