Fic: Children's Crusade 2/10? [10/J/R | Teen]
Title: Children's Crusade (2/10?)
Author: aibhinn
Pairing: Ten/Jack/Rose
Rating: PG-13 (may go up for later chapters)
Spoilers: For my chaptered fic Reunited. (Link goes to Teaspoon.)
Summary: Jack's past-including his missing memories-comes back for another go…but it's not quite what he expected.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This story begins roughly a year after Reunited ended. Many thanks to measi, dameruth, sensiblecat, and invisible_lift for the beta-fu-especially sensiblecat, for the information about British pubs. Don't forget, this is a sequel to Reunited, so it's A/U for post-s2 Doctor Who and post-s1 Torchwood.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
Rose sat with the Doctor at a table in the back corner of the pub, trying not to watch Jack too closely. He was at a table by himself, nursing a glass of water and appearing utterly unconcerned with what was going on elsewhere in the room. It was only a front, she knew; if she asked, he could probably tell her what every person in the pub was wearing, where they were sitting, and what they'd had to drink. Rose glanced towards the door, where Gwen and Ianto sat at yet another table, pretending to be a couple. Owen waited outside in his car, in case he needed to follow Karen when she left, and Tosh was back at the Hub, keeping an eye on the CCTV surrounding the pub. Jack had insisted he didn't need full surveillance to be run as though he were meeting some sort of criminal, but Gwen had, uncharacteristically, put her foot down. Jack had given in with more reluctance than grace, but he had done so surprisingly easily. Rose suspected it was for one of two reasons: either he was so taken aback at her insistence that he wasn't willing to simply refuse, or he had his own concerns about this Karen Delapaz. Although, she thought as she craned her neck to see around a trio of men who were noisily seating themselves at a table between her and Jack, it was probably a combination of those two and who knew how many other reasons.
"Relax," the Doctor murmured in her ear, squeezing her shoulder slightly. He'd draped his arm casually around her; now he stroked the nape of her neck with his thumb, a gesture he knew would cause at least some of her tension to fade away. "We've got it well in hand. He's in no danger."
"I know," she sighed. "Nothing's going to happen in a public place, and we've got all the exits covered and Owen out there ready to follow if necessary, and she's someone he knows anyway. But I can't shake the feeling that there's something here we don't know about."
"Of course there is," the Doctor said calmly. "He's got his past, just as you and I have. And either he'll tell us about it or he won't, but if he doesn't, it's not because he doesn't love us or trust us enough."
"I know, Doctor. I really do. But this…." She blew out a breath. "I'm worried about him. The look on his face when he saw her picture…there's something important going on there. Something powerful, something that hurt him or frightens him." She leaned against the Doctor, eyes still focused on their other lover. "Look at him. He's ready to jump out of his skin, though I don't know if anyone else can tell. He's on a knife's edge, and I wish I knew why."
"If it were something that dangerous, he'd have told us," the Doctor said, but Rose could hear the wishful thinking in his voice and knew he could, too.
"Not if it was something he didn't want us getting involved in," she pointed out. "He still tries to protect us from his past, what he remembers of it. I know those two years of missing memories still haunt him."
"They haunt me, too," the Doctor said. He'd tried several times to try to reawaken Jack's memories, both telepathically and with the use of some of the more esoteric technology on board the TARDIS, to no avail. "I'm not giving up yet, though. We'll find out what this Karen wants, and then we'll go back to the TARDIS and go on with our lives."
Rose pulled away from the Doctor so she could look up into his face. "You know better than that. We can't just walk away from this. Someone from Jack's past has discovered the name he's using and knows where he's been living for most of the past hundred and forty years. They know where he works and what he does, and have got enough of a background on the rest of Torchwood Three to start asking the sorts of questions that got their attention. If she's anything to do with his missing memories, it's possible he's in a lot of danger now they've found him, and that means the rest of the team are, too. We've got to work out what's needed and take care of it for their sakes, if nothing else."
"And for Jack's," the Doctor agreed, nodding. "I know. Running isn't really an option this time, is it?" He blew out a breath. "Well, if she does have something to do with those two years of memories, it might actually be a good thing for him."
"His family," Rose said, nodding. "And his name." It had horrified her when Jack had confided in her that he'd taken the name of an American volunteer who'd died a hero in World War II. Not because he'd taken a dead man's name, but because of the reason why: when his memories had been stolen, so had his identity. Anything else to do with who he was had been excised from his brain with surgical precision and immense skill-skill that she knew the Doctor both despised and admired despite himself.
Movement caught her eye, and she turned to see what it was, catching her breath when she recognised the dark-haired figure. The woman's hair was swept up in a French roll and she wore glasses, but she was definitely Karen Delapaz. A glance told her that Gwen and Ianto had seen her too and were on alert, and the tension in the Doctor's arm around her told her he'd done the same. Rose clenched her fist in her lap and tried not to be too obvious about her interest in the two of them. Stakeout protocol, she reminded herself, and forced herself to pretend to relax, leaning her head against the Doctor's shoulder and sliding an arm around him. He glanced down at her, surprised, and Rose had the satisfaction of seeing Karen Delapaz's gaze flicker right over the two of them, dismissing them as unimportant. That's right, Rose thought, you're alone with him. Now try whatever you want to try. We're watching you.
***
Jack caught a trace of a familiar, vaguely floral scent that wouldn't be synthesised for another three millennia just before he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He steeled himself, then looked up to face the woman standing behind and to the side of him.
Karen. They'd both been eighteen the last time he'd seen her, when he was home on compassionate leave because of James's death. She looked to be in her early forties now, by fifty-first-century standards; most people in this pub would guess her to be in her late twenties. Medical science-not to mention cosmetics and skin treatments-would make great leaps between now and the century of his birth. God, she's still beautiful, Jack thought, and felt a twinge deep in his chest that James hadn't lived to see her like this. Karen had been a pretty girl who had grown into an attractive young woman; now, in her prime, she was gorgeous.
They looked at each other for a long moment. "Hi," she said at last.
"Hi." What do you say, he thought, to the woman you thought would be your best friend's wife, until you got him killed? Should he reach out and hug her? Should he shake her hand? What was the protocol here?
She took the question off his hands, thankfully. "Thanks for meeting me," she said. "Can I buy you a drink?"
Taking charge-very like her. "Mineral water," he told her. "Still, not sparkling."
"Water?" she repeated, eyebrows rising. "That's unlike you."
He shrugged. "Everything changes, given enough time."
"True." She looked at him for a long moment, measuringly, then turned and walked over to the bar. Jack watched her go and wondered why he felt like she found him wanting-and why it bothered him so much, after all this time.
"Can I get you something, love?" he heard the barman ask her.
"A pint of the best lager you've got on tap, and a still mineral water," she told him, and held out a twenty-pound note.
The barman nodded and took her money, heading down to the other end of the bar. He drew her pint and poured Jack's water, then brought them back along with the change. Karen thanked him politely and headed back towards Jack's table. Gwen caught his eye from her table, and he shook his head ever so slightly; everything was fine.
Karen set his water down, then sat beside him and leaned back in the chair, once again looking him over. "You look good," she said.
"So do you." He took a sip of water to wet his dry throat. If he'd thought hearing her name had thrown him for a loop, it was nothing compared to actually seeing her. The years melted away, and he was an awkward teenager again-guilt-ridden over James's death, horrified at what he'd seen and been and done, determined to do the right thing no matter how much it hurt him… and her.
"And you've changed your name, I see."
He shrugged, not looking at her. He didn't know how much she knew of what had happened to him after he'd left-and about his two missing years-and wasn't willing to get into it now. Not until he knew more about why she was here. Old friend or not, he didn't trust someone from his past who showed up out of nowhere. Don't let your caution become paranoia, he warned himself. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for her to show up out of the blue, looking for him. Might.
He was filled suddenly with an almost overwhelming desire to turn around, find the Doctor and Rose, and reconnect with the two of them, even if it was only by eye contact, the way he'd done with Gwen. But he knew he couldn't. He daren't. Karen had been asking after him, not them, and it was possible she didn't know about them-which meant they were his ace-in-the-hole.
She took a sip of her lager and raised her eyebrows in appreciation. "Not bad," she said, and took another sip, then put her glass down and turned to him with an air of settling down to business. "I've been looking for you a long time," she said. "What possessed you to hole yourself up in this century? And this place? Bit of a backwater, isn't it?"
He turned to face her as well. Might as well lay it all out on the table; she certainly wasn't going to do anything in the middle of a crowd like this, and the way she answered would tell him a lot. "Do you know why I left the Time Agency?"
"You were mind-wiped," she said. "Two years, wasn't it? Punishment for unpublished crimes against the Agency."
"Yeah." He took another drink of his water. "I woke up knowing that I'd been wiped and that it had been unjustified. They left me with that much." No need to explain to her why he'd changed his name; he still wasn't sure he trusted her quite that far. If she did work for the Agency, she knew how far the mind-wipe went, and if she slipped and mentioned it, that would tell him what he needed to know. "That meant I had enemies in the Agency who had arranged the wipe in the first place-maybe even set me up with some mockery of a trial-but without my memories, I had no idea who they were. I thought it was best to slip away."
"Yeah," she said, looking away. "You're good at that." Before he could react to that thinly-veiled dagger to the heart, she added, "Have you remembered anything since?"
"From an Agency mind-wipe?" He laughed hollowly. "No, nothing more than occasional images, like shadows on a wall, and every once in a while, a nightmare that I never remember. Always the same one, but there's never anything there when I wake up. Nothing else."
"So you don't remember any of it," she said quietly. She looked away, leaned against the low back of the chair, and took a drink. It looked as though she'd lost her last hope for something, Jack thought.
"Any of what?" he asked, curious now.
"Any of what got you mind-wiped-and nearly got me transported to the Outer Colonies for sedition."
She pulled her handbag into her lap and started to open it. Jack tensed in reflex. She wouldn't kill him here, he was sure, but there were fifty-first-century weapons that could do some pretty serious damage without attracting twenty-first-century attention.
She paused, glancing up at him and apparently noticing his reaction, then shifted her handbag so he could see into it and opened it very slowly. Inside was what he'd come to recognise as the usual contents of a woman's bag-wallet, chequebook or something very like it, mobile phone, notebook, hairbrush, compact, lipstick case…and a familiar rectangular shape, like a frame with an opaque center instead of clear glass. This she drew out, closed her handbag again, and set the bag aside. "Recognise this?" she asked.
"Photo display," he said. He hadn't relaxed yet; something was telling him this was going to be important-whether she was telling the truth or not. She handed the display to him, and he turned it on, flipping through the images stored on it. They were all of the same boy, who looked vaguely familiar somehow. The boy seemed to be about twelve years old; his hair was dark, his eyes brown, his features regular; he would grow up to be an incredibly handsome man. He frowned, looking at the pictures. "Who is this?" he asked.
"That's my son, Dennis." There was pride in her voice, along with a note of sadness that caught his attention. He looked up at her, and she met his gaze. "Mine-and James's."
The news hit him like a shot to the solar plexus. James had had a son. He'd had a son. His best friend, the one he'd had to watch being tortured to death because James was weaker than he-the one whose death had weighed on his conscience for most of his life because he'd been the one to persuade James to join up-had had a child he'd never known about. Jack looked at the pictures again, saw echoes of James's dark-haired good looks and his ready smile in the boy's face, and was convinced.
Abruptly he stood. Karen looked up, startled, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Doctor and Rose focus sharply on him. "Let's take this somewhere a bit less public," Jack said.
Author: aibhinn
Pairing: Ten/Jack/Rose
Rating: PG-13 (may go up for later chapters)
Spoilers: For my chaptered fic Reunited. (Link goes to Teaspoon.)
Summary: Jack's past-including his missing memories-comes back for another go…but it's not quite what he expected.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This story begins roughly a year after Reunited ended. Many thanks to measi, dameruth, sensiblecat, and invisible_lift for the beta-fu-especially sensiblecat, for the information about British pubs. Don't forget, this is a sequel to Reunited, so it's A/U for post-s2 Doctor Who and post-s1 Torchwood.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
Rose sat with the Doctor at a table in the back corner of the pub, trying not to watch Jack too closely. He was at a table by himself, nursing a glass of water and appearing utterly unconcerned with what was going on elsewhere in the room. It was only a front, she knew; if she asked, he could probably tell her what every person in the pub was wearing, where they were sitting, and what they'd had to drink. Rose glanced towards the door, where Gwen and Ianto sat at yet another table, pretending to be a couple. Owen waited outside in his car, in case he needed to follow Karen when she left, and Tosh was back at the Hub, keeping an eye on the CCTV surrounding the pub. Jack had insisted he didn't need full surveillance to be run as though he were meeting some sort of criminal, but Gwen had, uncharacteristically, put her foot down. Jack had given in with more reluctance than grace, but he had done so surprisingly easily. Rose suspected it was for one of two reasons: either he was so taken aback at her insistence that he wasn't willing to simply refuse, or he had his own concerns about this Karen Delapaz. Although, she thought as she craned her neck to see around a trio of men who were noisily seating themselves at a table between her and Jack, it was probably a combination of those two and who knew how many other reasons.
"Relax," the Doctor murmured in her ear, squeezing her shoulder slightly. He'd draped his arm casually around her; now he stroked the nape of her neck with his thumb, a gesture he knew would cause at least some of her tension to fade away. "We've got it well in hand. He's in no danger."
"I know," she sighed. "Nothing's going to happen in a public place, and we've got all the exits covered and Owen out there ready to follow if necessary, and she's someone he knows anyway. But I can't shake the feeling that there's something here we don't know about."
"Of course there is," the Doctor said calmly. "He's got his past, just as you and I have. And either he'll tell us about it or he won't, but if he doesn't, it's not because he doesn't love us or trust us enough."
"I know, Doctor. I really do. But this…." She blew out a breath. "I'm worried about him. The look on his face when he saw her picture…there's something important going on there. Something powerful, something that hurt him or frightens him." She leaned against the Doctor, eyes still focused on their other lover. "Look at him. He's ready to jump out of his skin, though I don't know if anyone else can tell. He's on a knife's edge, and I wish I knew why."
"If it were something that dangerous, he'd have told us," the Doctor said, but Rose could hear the wishful thinking in his voice and knew he could, too.
"Not if it was something he didn't want us getting involved in," she pointed out. "He still tries to protect us from his past, what he remembers of it. I know those two years of missing memories still haunt him."
"They haunt me, too," the Doctor said. He'd tried several times to try to reawaken Jack's memories, both telepathically and with the use of some of the more esoteric technology on board the TARDIS, to no avail. "I'm not giving up yet, though. We'll find out what this Karen wants, and then we'll go back to the TARDIS and go on with our lives."
Rose pulled away from the Doctor so she could look up into his face. "You know better than that. We can't just walk away from this. Someone from Jack's past has discovered the name he's using and knows where he's been living for most of the past hundred and forty years. They know where he works and what he does, and have got enough of a background on the rest of Torchwood Three to start asking the sorts of questions that got their attention. If she's anything to do with his missing memories, it's possible he's in a lot of danger now they've found him, and that means the rest of the team are, too. We've got to work out what's needed and take care of it for their sakes, if nothing else."
"And for Jack's," the Doctor agreed, nodding. "I know. Running isn't really an option this time, is it?" He blew out a breath. "Well, if she does have something to do with those two years of memories, it might actually be a good thing for him."
"His family," Rose said, nodding. "And his name." It had horrified her when Jack had confided in her that he'd taken the name of an American volunteer who'd died a hero in World War II. Not because he'd taken a dead man's name, but because of the reason why: when his memories had been stolen, so had his identity. Anything else to do with who he was had been excised from his brain with surgical precision and immense skill-skill that she knew the Doctor both despised and admired despite himself.
Movement caught her eye, and she turned to see what it was, catching her breath when she recognised the dark-haired figure. The woman's hair was swept up in a French roll and she wore glasses, but she was definitely Karen Delapaz. A glance told her that Gwen and Ianto had seen her too and were on alert, and the tension in the Doctor's arm around her told her he'd done the same. Rose clenched her fist in her lap and tried not to be too obvious about her interest in the two of them. Stakeout protocol, she reminded herself, and forced herself to pretend to relax, leaning her head against the Doctor's shoulder and sliding an arm around him. He glanced down at her, surprised, and Rose had the satisfaction of seeing Karen Delapaz's gaze flicker right over the two of them, dismissing them as unimportant. That's right, Rose thought, you're alone with him. Now try whatever you want to try. We're watching you.
***
Jack caught a trace of a familiar, vaguely floral scent that wouldn't be synthesised for another three millennia just before he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He steeled himself, then looked up to face the woman standing behind and to the side of him.
Karen. They'd both been eighteen the last time he'd seen her, when he was home on compassionate leave because of James's death. She looked to be in her early forties now, by fifty-first-century standards; most people in this pub would guess her to be in her late twenties. Medical science-not to mention cosmetics and skin treatments-would make great leaps between now and the century of his birth. God, she's still beautiful, Jack thought, and felt a twinge deep in his chest that James hadn't lived to see her like this. Karen had been a pretty girl who had grown into an attractive young woman; now, in her prime, she was gorgeous.
They looked at each other for a long moment. "Hi," she said at last.
"Hi." What do you say, he thought, to the woman you thought would be your best friend's wife, until you got him killed? Should he reach out and hug her? Should he shake her hand? What was the protocol here?
She took the question off his hands, thankfully. "Thanks for meeting me," she said. "Can I buy you a drink?"
Taking charge-very like her. "Mineral water," he told her. "Still, not sparkling."
"Water?" she repeated, eyebrows rising. "That's unlike you."
He shrugged. "Everything changes, given enough time."
"True." She looked at him for a long moment, measuringly, then turned and walked over to the bar. Jack watched her go and wondered why he felt like she found him wanting-and why it bothered him so much, after all this time.
"Can I get you something, love?" he heard the barman ask her.
"A pint of the best lager you've got on tap, and a still mineral water," she told him, and held out a twenty-pound note.
The barman nodded and took her money, heading down to the other end of the bar. He drew her pint and poured Jack's water, then brought them back along with the change. Karen thanked him politely and headed back towards Jack's table. Gwen caught his eye from her table, and he shook his head ever so slightly; everything was fine.
Karen set his water down, then sat beside him and leaned back in the chair, once again looking him over. "You look good," she said.
"So do you." He took a sip of water to wet his dry throat. If he'd thought hearing her name had thrown him for a loop, it was nothing compared to actually seeing her. The years melted away, and he was an awkward teenager again-guilt-ridden over James's death, horrified at what he'd seen and been and done, determined to do the right thing no matter how much it hurt him… and her.
"And you've changed your name, I see."
He shrugged, not looking at her. He didn't know how much she knew of what had happened to him after he'd left-and about his two missing years-and wasn't willing to get into it now. Not until he knew more about why she was here. Old friend or not, he didn't trust someone from his past who showed up out of nowhere. Don't let your caution become paranoia, he warned himself. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for her to show up out of the blue, looking for him. Might.
He was filled suddenly with an almost overwhelming desire to turn around, find the Doctor and Rose, and reconnect with the two of them, even if it was only by eye contact, the way he'd done with Gwen. But he knew he couldn't. He daren't. Karen had been asking after him, not them, and it was possible she didn't know about them-which meant they were his ace-in-the-hole.
She took a sip of her lager and raised her eyebrows in appreciation. "Not bad," she said, and took another sip, then put her glass down and turned to him with an air of settling down to business. "I've been looking for you a long time," she said. "What possessed you to hole yourself up in this century? And this place? Bit of a backwater, isn't it?"
He turned to face her as well. Might as well lay it all out on the table; she certainly wasn't going to do anything in the middle of a crowd like this, and the way she answered would tell him a lot. "Do you know why I left the Time Agency?"
"You were mind-wiped," she said. "Two years, wasn't it? Punishment for unpublished crimes against the Agency."
"Yeah." He took another drink of his water. "I woke up knowing that I'd been wiped and that it had been unjustified. They left me with that much." No need to explain to her why he'd changed his name; he still wasn't sure he trusted her quite that far. If she did work for the Agency, she knew how far the mind-wipe went, and if she slipped and mentioned it, that would tell him what he needed to know. "That meant I had enemies in the Agency who had arranged the wipe in the first place-maybe even set me up with some mockery of a trial-but without my memories, I had no idea who they were. I thought it was best to slip away."
"Yeah," she said, looking away. "You're good at that." Before he could react to that thinly-veiled dagger to the heart, she added, "Have you remembered anything since?"
"From an Agency mind-wipe?" He laughed hollowly. "No, nothing more than occasional images, like shadows on a wall, and every once in a while, a nightmare that I never remember. Always the same one, but there's never anything there when I wake up. Nothing else."
"So you don't remember any of it," she said quietly. She looked away, leaned against the low back of the chair, and took a drink. It looked as though she'd lost her last hope for something, Jack thought.
"Any of what?" he asked, curious now.
"Any of what got you mind-wiped-and nearly got me transported to the Outer Colonies for sedition."
She pulled her handbag into her lap and started to open it. Jack tensed in reflex. She wouldn't kill him here, he was sure, but there were fifty-first-century weapons that could do some pretty serious damage without attracting twenty-first-century attention.
She paused, glancing up at him and apparently noticing his reaction, then shifted her handbag so he could see into it and opened it very slowly. Inside was what he'd come to recognise as the usual contents of a woman's bag-wallet, chequebook or something very like it, mobile phone, notebook, hairbrush, compact, lipstick case…and a familiar rectangular shape, like a frame with an opaque center instead of clear glass. This she drew out, closed her handbag again, and set the bag aside. "Recognise this?" she asked.
"Photo display," he said. He hadn't relaxed yet; something was telling him this was going to be important-whether she was telling the truth or not. She handed the display to him, and he turned it on, flipping through the images stored on it. They were all of the same boy, who looked vaguely familiar somehow. The boy seemed to be about twelve years old; his hair was dark, his eyes brown, his features regular; he would grow up to be an incredibly handsome man. He frowned, looking at the pictures. "Who is this?" he asked.
"That's my son, Dennis." There was pride in her voice, along with a note of sadness that caught his attention. He looked up at her, and she met his gaze. "Mine-and James's."
The news hit him like a shot to the solar plexus. James had had a son. He'd had a son. His best friend, the one he'd had to watch being tortured to death because James was weaker than he-the one whose death had weighed on his conscience for most of his life because he'd been the one to persuade James to join up-had had a child he'd never known about. Jack looked at the pictures again, saw echoes of James's dark-haired good looks and his ready smile in the boy's face, and was convinced.
Abruptly he stood. Karen looked up, startled, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Doctor and Rose focus sharply on him. "Let's take this somewhere a bit less public," Jack said.