Beginnings (Alt!Jack, Rose, Ten II, PG)
Title: Beginnings
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG
Characters: Alt!Jack, Rose, TenII
Spoilers: Journey's End.
Betas: dameruth and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: A man falls through the Rift in Pete's World. A very familiar man… wearing a very familiar wrist computer.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: A long-overdue story for wendymr. I thought about calling this "How Alt!Jack Met the Doctor and Rose", but it seemed a little too long. *G* Prequel to Join Us and Trust, though you don't need to have read those first.
Darkness-the most complete darkness he's ever seen. He flails, searching for something, anything, to hold onto. Nothing's there.
Disoriented, he overbalances and falls-
falls-
falls-
falls-
and screams.
***
Lights. He flinches, even with his eyes closed. He's been in darkness for so long. Voices assail his ears.
"Who is he?"
"No idea. Never seen him before."
"So how'd he get here?"
"Good question. Is that some kind of uniform?"
"Looks like. God, he's in bad shape. Get him to hospital, and inform General McIntosh."
"No need." This voice is female. "We've got it handled."
The first voice again, irritated. "Really? And just who the hell are you?"
"Torchwood." The woman's voice is flat, final: the voice of one used to being obeyed. "This one's ours."
Torchwood. He should know that name. Why should he know that name?
The lights go away, at least temporarily, and he hears her footsteps coming near her. He can feel the heat of her hand before it touches his cheek. "Can you hear me?" she asks. "Can you open your eyes?"
Carefully, cautiously, he does. A face fills his vision: blonde, beautiful, with a look of concern in her eyes. "What's your name?" she asks.
What is his name? It's changed so many times. He searches his memory. "Jack," he says at last, grating the word through a throat raw from screaming. "Jack-Harkness."
Her thumb traces his cheekbone. "Don't worry, Jack," she says. "We'll look after you."
He shouldn't believe her, but he does. With a sigh, he closes his eyes again, turns his head to lean into her hand, and falls unconscious once more.
***
One week later
The Doctor-others call him Doctor Smith, but he continues to think of himself as just 'the Doctor', still and always, regardless of who lives in the other universe-stands in the secure hospital room, looking at the figure lying in the bed. Monitors record and display his vital signs, along with one very special monitor-found in no other hospital in the country-which records what's going on in his brain. "Nightmares," he says out loud.
"We know that much," says Pete Tyler, dryly. He's dressed as Vitex Founder today, which is to say in a suit that's just the wrong side of the line between elegant and overdone. Intentionally, of course; Pete is a past master at being underestimated. "That's why he's sedated so heavily; he nearly took a nurse out yesterday. But nightmares about what?"
The Doctor shifts, uncomfortably. Before the metacrisis, he'd have been able to see into the man's mind, perhaps even take the nightmares away from him, but now, he can barely see the fringes of the sedated mind's eye. "Darkness. Falling. Things plucking at him. That's all I can get."
"Would it help if you touched him?" Pete asks.
The Doctor shakes his head. "I have done," he says. "That's how I got what I did. He's had training in shielding his mind; even sedated, he's near-impossible to read. Even more impossible than most people, that is," he adds, with a note of bitterness he can't quite hide. He's been here just over a year, but the bitterness still crops up sometimes.
A small hand curls around his, and he glances over to smile wanly at Rose. He lost a great deal with the metacrisis, but he's gained so much more-so much that his other self will never, ever be able to have.
"And we've no idea how he ended up in the middle of a top-secret air base." Pete rubs his eyes wearily. "The President isn't happy about this, and the top chiefs are at him to throw this bloke in prison as a spy."
Rose's hand tightens on his, and the Doctor squeezes back reassuringly. "He's no spy," he says. "If anything, he's a victim. My guess is that he fell through the Rift and came out here. The base was built there because of Rift activity, remember. I'm surprised they've not had more people and things falling through."
"Maybe they have," Rose says. She catches her dad's eye and raises an eyebrow. "Maybe they've just not told us. General McIntosh was certainly less than willing to let J-this bloke go, and so were the military police who found him. I wonder what else they have on that base that should be ours."
Pete meets her eyes for a long moment. "That's a point," he acknowledges. "You've got this situation under control?"
"For the moment," Rose says. "Until he recovers enough that they can bring him out of sedation and we can talk to him, there's not a lot to do except watch."
"Then he's yours until then." He glances at his watch. "I've a conference call with the President in an hour; I'd better go." He kisses Rose on the cheek, claps the Doctor on the shoulder, and disappears down the hall.
Rose watches him go. "Wonder what they'll find on the air base when they go looking?"
"More than they should, I expect." The Doctor releases Rose's hand, only to wrap his arm around her. She leans against him. "You all right?"
"Yeah." But it's not a convincing tone, and her eyes turn to rest on the stranger who bears their friend's name and face.
"He's not the same man, Rose," the Doctor warns gently. "Different universe, different person. Just like Ricky and Pete and the other Jackie."
"I know." She sighs. "But I hardly got to say anything to our-friend-before we left." They'd agreed not to use Jack's name while they were in the room with him, in case he was able to hear and understand. Sedation was a tricky thing, especially when dealing with beings from other times and places.
"I know. I'm sorry." He kisses the top of Rose's head. "But don't let yourself fall into the trap of thinking of him as our friend. He's his own man, and you can't know what kind of man that is. Not yet."
Rose sighs again. "You're right," she says. "And I won't. But it's not easy."
The Doctor looks over at the bed, at the face of the man who was friend and colleague and so much more, and feels his heart turn over. "No, it's not," he agrees. "For either of us."
***
When Jack was finally released from the hospital, he was given a place to stay: a small bedsit, sparingly furnished. Single bed, single desk, single chair, two lamps-one by the bed, one on the desk. A window that looks out over a small grassy area, but doesn't open. A door that opens onto a hall which is guarded by a man at one end and a door with an alarm at the other, not to mention security cameras at both.
He's permitted-even encouraged-to come down to the common room for meals and to leave the building, but he's already spotted his minders. They're very good when they follow him, very unobtrusive. He doesn't mind being followed; he'd have had himself tailed, too, in their position. What he minds is not knowing how he got here, or how he can get back, or what's going to happen in the meantime.
He walks out of the main doors and sets off down the road, choosing a direction more or less at random. His new coat-given to him to replace the one that had apparently been ruined in his mysterious journey-is a comforting weight on his shoulders. He wishes he had the equally comforting weight of his blaster under his arm, too, but dismisses that wish almost immediately. He has no need for it, except to escape, and that's not an option at the moment.
He's already determined that he can't leave this time because his Vortex Manipulator has been missing since he woke up, which means if he does escape and cause a commotion among his minders-which he could do if he wanted; he's still skilled enough for that-he'll eventually be hunted down, and probably sooner rather than later. He has no currency, no friends, no contacts, and too little understanding of this era to make any of the above in a short enough amount of time to make escape viable. The smart thing to do right now is to play nice, use what freedom he has to learn as much as he can, as quickly as he can, and let the people in charge come to trust him.
He hasn't really lost anything, after all; he had nothing to lose before. The only potential problem now is the Agency finding him again, but really, why would they look here, in this backwater time? And even if they delve deeply enough into the Torchwood archives, they're still not likely to find him. One, he's changed his name several times since he left them, and two, they'd never expect him to be a prisoner of Torchwood. They'd expect him to be a field operative at the very least. His reputation is enough for that.
He turns a corner towards the little park he found yesterday, and stops cold. In front of him, parked in the entrance to an alleyway, is a long, black vehicle with dark windows. The driver's window is down, and the man turns to look at him. Cold eyes stare into his, and the familiar frisson of fear slides down his spine. Not the Time Agency, this guy; they'd never lower themselves to using primitive technology like a car. Nor the ordinary authorities from this time; all they have to do is come to his room. This is someone else. Someone powerful. Someone dangerous.
Training kicks in. Smoothly, as though he intended it all along, Jack turns, jogs across the road in the last seconds of the walk light, and slips into the mass of people in a shopping arcade. It's not a good place to try to escape; he knows there aren't any ways out except through the open storefronts because this building backs directly onto another, no alley between. But that's all right, because he's not looking for a way to escape: he's looking for a way to hide in plain sight.
Step one: get rid of anything you're wearing that's recognizable from a distance. Full-length blue greatcoats definitely fit that bill. A good-sized plastic carrier bag with string handles lies on the ground between two shops, tossed aside and forgotten. He picks it up and, under cover of the crowd, slips out of his coat, rolls it up, and stuffs it into the bag. It fits well enough to look like he's just done some shopping.
Step two: acquire something else that's recognizable from a distance-something you didn't have before. Hats are perfect. A couple of shops down, a mother is trying to quiet a child who's throwing a temper tantrum. Everyone, including nearby shoppers and the clerk, is focused on the child and the mother, providing perfect cover for Jack to sidle up to a rack of flat hats and surreptitiously drop one into his carrier bag.
Step three: change the way you move. He waits a moment or two, until the mother finally picks the child up and carries her, screaming, out of the shop, then moves on, adding a slight stiffness to his gait and slouching a bit to disguise both his height and his military training. He pulls the cap out of the carrier bag and puts it on, then, hands in his trouser pockets and the bag dangling from one wrist, he ducks his head, pretending to stare at the pavement as he moves. Slipping around a faux-wrought-iron pole, he joins a mass of people moving back the way he came. Elapsed time: roughly three minutes.
He watches his surroundings carefully as he moves along with the crowd. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone in a black suit standing on the corner where he'd first seen the car, a phone to his ear. The car itself is no longer where it was. Jack allows a small, satisfied smile to twitch one side of his mouth. No-one ever expects the person they're following to double back the way they came, at least not so quickly. While they're looking north, in the direction of the shopping arcade, he'll lose himself in the streets to the south while he works out whether it's safe to go back to the flat or not. He already knows they're willing to find him on the street wherever they can; the question now is whether these new people have the balls to try to capture him in or near a block of protected government housing.
Not a chance he's willing to take at this point.
He lets the current of people move him towards the nearest Tube station, but bypasses it in favour of walking southwest down another well-travelled street. He doesn't have money or a pass to travel on transit, and isn't familiar enough with the system to know whether he can get away with a free ride or not. A short alley connects this street to another one up higher on the hill, and he takes it, doffing the cap as he goes and shoving it back into the carrier bag. This street looks like it's heading up towards the financial district, and the quality of dress is significantly higher than it was nearer his flat; the hat is out of character up here. However, his trousers and dress shirt are not. He wishes briefly he'd thought to steal a tie in the shopping arcade as well, but it's too late now. With luck, he won't attract too much attention.
A coffee shop comes up on his left, and he decides to duck in there, give himself a chance to plan. He's reasonably sure he hasn't been found by anyone to do with that car and driver, but he's not certain whether he's lost his official minders. Might be a good idea to let them catch up. If something does go seriously wrong, it would be good to have friends-or, at least, tails-in high places.
The coffee shop is some sort of chain, and there are a good dozen people in there already, sipping coffee or tea at small tables or sitting in upholstered chairs. He chooses a table near the door marked 'employees only' (which he rather hopes leads out a back way) and sits sideways, not facing the windows-that would be too obvious-but able to see everyone who comes in. Finally, he allows himself to relax just a bit. He's got to think. Is there anywhere he can go, anything he remembers from his training about this time in history?
The bell on the door jingles as a handful of people come in. Three of them are women, two are men. One man and woman are obviously a couple, but the rest pay for their drinks separately. He watches the men carefully-in this place and time, he's pretty sure a takedown team will be male-but doesn't pay as much attention to the women. Women in the twenty-first century still have something of a subordinate role, he's pretty sure. He's certainly not seen many in positions of authority so far.
Until one of them, a blonde, comes over to his table, sets a coffee in front of him, and sits in the other chair with a smile. "Hi, Jack," she says cheerfully. "Good to see you up and about."
Shitshitshit, he thinks as he pastes a carefully-confused smile on his face. "Sorry?" he says, imitating the accent of one of the male nurses in the hospital. He's always been good with accents. "I think you have me confused with someone else."
"Do I?" She leans back, takes a sip of her coffee, crosses her legs. "Pity. I was looking for the man who lost this." She reaches into her messenger bag, takes out a small paper sack, and places it on the table.
He shrugs. "Not me," he says. "Sorry."
"Are you sure?" Her brown eyes bore into his. "Because I really think it's a pity a former Time Agent should have to do without one."
Fear clenches his guts again, and he knows he's screwed. Carefully, he takes hold of the paper sack, slides it over, opens it.
It's his Vortex Manipulator.
He looks up at her, eyes wide, but she seems perfectly at ease. "Where did you find it?" he asks, shifting back to his normal accent; with his cover blown, no point not to.
"Seems someone at the air base where you were found has a habit of keeping trophies," she says in a tone most people would believe was casual. "Most of them have no known owner, but we were able to return this one to you." She takes a sip of her coffee and leans back, crossing her legs. "Some people would be grateful to have a possession so valuable brought back to them."
He closes the sack again and forces himself to let go of it, leaving it on the table. "What do you want?" he asks flatly.
"What, I can't just want to return an object to its rightful owner?"
"No," he says.
"Why not?" Her eyes sparkle with humor; she knows exactly why not, and is waiting for him to say it. She can play the game, that's for certain; she knows what to say and how to start the conversation rolling. She's ready to be flirted with, ready to begin the give-and-take of a true negotiation.
And suddenly, he just doesn't have the stomach for it. He looks her in the eyes and says simply, "Because you know what a Time Agent is and you know I used to be one. Not that I am one, that I used to be one. You know what this is and what it's used for. And you were the one who brought me to the hospital when I was found," he adds, abruptly realising it's true. "You were the woman there. You're from Torchwood."
Her eyebrows go up, and she sets her coffee down. "Very good, Mr Harkness," she says with a slight smile. "I wondered if you'd remember me. My name is Rose Tyler, and yes, I'm from Torchwood. I'm here to make you an offer."
Rose Tyler? The pieces click into place, and his mouth drops open. Torchwood is a byword in his time, the organisation that had saved the Earth-and humanity itself-multiple times throughout history. "Rose-Pete Tyler's daughter?"
She chuckles. "So you know who I am-that's good. It saves a lot of time if I don't have to go about convincing you that I can do what I say I can do."
"And what's that?" he asks.
"I'm here to offer you a position. Or rather, I'm here to ask you to come back and speak to my dad about it." She smiles again, a genuine smile that actually reaches her eyes. "He's impressed, you know; you lost your tails from the block of flats and the blokes who were sent to intercept you, and made your way clear over here. If you'd kept the hat on, we might not have noticed you; the facial-recognition software wasn't programmed to look for it."
"Hell," he says feelingly, and she laughs.
"It's all right. Impressing Dad's not easy. He thinks you and your experience in the Time Agency will be invaluable for a couple of missions he's got planned."
Aha. "What sort of missions?" he asks.
The eyebrows go up again. "You know I can't answer that. That's Dad's job, not mine. I'm just the messenger today."
He chuckles, honestly amused. "Some messenger. Send the heir to offer me a job . . . I think I'm flattered."
"You should be." Her twinkling eyes take the ego out of the words. "Drink your coffee, Mr Harkness-I promise I didn't put anything in it-and we'll go see what Dad has to offer, shall we?"
He really doesn't need to think about it for long; he doesn't have a lot of choice, after all. He owes Torchwood his freedom, perhaps his very life. From what he remembers of that day when he was rescued from-wherever-he rather thinks the blokes who found him would have been quite happy to lock him up somewhere and forget about him. This woman, and presumably her father, are the reason those blokes didn't succeed. "Certainly, Ms Tyler. And please, call me Jack."
She grins. "Only if you call me Rose."
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG
Characters: Alt!Jack, Rose, TenII
Spoilers: Journey's End.
Betas: dameruth and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: A man falls through the Rift in Pete's World. A very familiar man… wearing a very familiar wrist computer.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: A long-overdue story for wendymr. I thought about calling this "How Alt!Jack Met the Doctor and Rose", but it seemed a little too long. *G* Prequel to Join Us and Trust, though you don't need to have read those first.
Darkness-the most complete darkness he's ever seen. He flails, searching for something, anything, to hold onto. Nothing's there.
Disoriented, he overbalances and falls-
falls-
falls-
falls-
and screams.
***
Lights. He flinches, even with his eyes closed. He's been in darkness for so long. Voices assail his ears.
"Who is he?"
"No idea. Never seen him before."
"So how'd he get here?"
"Good question. Is that some kind of uniform?"
"Looks like. God, he's in bad shape. Get him to hospital, and inform General McIntosh."
"No need." This voice is female. "We've got it handled."
The first voice again, irritated. "Really? And just who the hell are you?"
"Torchwood." The woman's voice is flat, final: the voice of one used to being obeyed. "This one's ours."
Torchwood. He should know that name. Why should he know that name?
The lights go away, at least temporarily, and he hears her footsteps coming near her. He can feel the heat of her hand before it touches his cheek. "Can you hear me?" she asks. "Can you open your eyes?"
Carefully, cautiously, he does. A face fills his vision: blonde, beautiful, with a look of concern in her eyes. "What's your name?" she asks.
What is his name? It's changed so many times. He searches his memory. "Jack," he says at last, grating the word through a throat raw from screaming. "Jack-Harkness."
Her thumb traces his cheekbone. "Don't worry, Jack," she says. "We'll look after you."
He shouldn't believe her, but he does. With a sigh, he closes his eyes again, turns his head to lean into her hand, and falls unconscious once more.
***
One week later
The Doctor-others call him Doctor Smith, but he continues to think of himself as just 'the Doctor', still and always, regardless of who lives in the other universe-stands in the secure hospital room, looking at the figure lying in the bed. Monitors record and display his vital signs, along with one very special monitor-found in no other hospital in the country-which records what's going on in his brain. "Nightmares," he says out loud.
"We know that much," says Pete Tyler, dryly. He's dressed as Vitex Founder today, which is to say in a suit that's just the wrong side of the line between elegant and overdone. Intentionally, of course; Pete is a past master at being underestimated. "That's why he's sedated so heavily; he nearly took a nurse out yesterday. But nightmares about what?"
The Doctor shifts, uncomfortably. Before the metacrisis, he'd have been able to see into the man's mind, perhaps even take the nightmares away from him, but now, he can barely see the fringes of the sedated mind's eye. "Darkness. Falling. Things plucking at him. That's all I can get."
"Would it help if you touched him?" Pete asks.
The Doctor shakes his head. "I have done," he says. "That's how I got what I did. He's had training in shielding his mind; even sedated, he's near-impossible to read. Even more impossible than most people, that is," he adds, with a note of bitterness he can't quite hide. He's been here just over a year, but the bitterness still crops up sometimes.
A small hand curls around his, and he glances over to smile wanly at Rose. He lost a great deal with the metacrisis, but he's gained so much more-so much that his other self will never, ever be able to have.
"And we've no idea how he ended up in the middle of a top-secret air base." Pete rubs his eyes wearily. "The President isn't happy about this, and the top chiefs are at him to throw this bloke in prison as a spy."
Rose's hand tightens on his, and the Doctor squeezes back reassuringly. "He's no spy," he says. "If anything, he's a victim. My guess is that he fell through the Rift and came out here. The base was built there because of Rift activity, remember. I'm surprised they've not had more people and things falling through."
"Maybe they have," Rose says. She catches her dad's eye and raises an eyebrow. "Maybe they've just not told us. General McIntosh was certainly less than willing to let J-this bloke go, and so were the military police who found him. I wonder what else they have on that base that should be ours."
Pete meets her eyes for a long moment. "That's a point," he acknowledges. "You've got this situation under control?"
"For the moment," Rose says. "Until he recovers enough that they can bring him out of sedation and we can talk to him, there's not a lot to do except watch."
"Then he's yours until then." He glances at his watch. "I've a conference call with the President in an hour; I'd better go." He kisses Rose on the cheek, claps the Doctor on the shoulder, and disappears down the hall.
Rose watches him go. "Wonder what they'll find on the air base when they go looking?"
"More than they should, I expect." The Doctor releases Rose's hand, only to wrap his arm around her. She leans against him. "You all right?"
"Yeah." But it's not a convincing tone, and her eyes turn to rest on the stranger who bears their friend's name and face.
"He's not the same man, Rose," the Doctor warns gently. "Different universe, different person. Just like Ricky and Pete and the other Jackie."
"I know." She sighs. "But I hardly got to say anything to our-friend-before we left." They'd agreed not to use Jack's name while they were in the room with him, in case he was able to hear and understand. Sedation was a tricky thing, especially when dealing with beings from other times and places.
"I know. I'm sorry." He kisses the top of Rose's head. "But don't let yourself fall into the trap of thinking of him as our friend. He's his own man, and you can't know what kind of man that is. Not yet."
Rose sighs again. "You're right," she says. "And I won't. But it's not easy."
The Doctor looks over at the bed, at the face of the man who was friend and colleague and so much more, and feels his heart turn over. "No, it's not," he agrees. "For either of us."
***
When Jack was finally released from the hospital, he was given a place to stay: a small bedsit, sparingly furnished. Single bed, single desk, single chair, two lamps-one by the bed, one on the desk. A window that looks out over a small grassy area, but doesn't open. A door that opens onto a hall which is guarded by a man at one end and a door with an alarm at the other, not to mention security cameras at both.
He's permitted-even encouraged-to come down to the common room for meals and to leave the building, but he's already spotted his minders. They're very good when they follow him, very unobtrusive. He doesn't mind being followed; he'd have had himself tailed, too, in their position. What he minds is not knowing how he got here, or how he can get back, or what's going to happen in the meantime.
He walks out of the main doors and sets off down the road, choosing a direction more or less at random. His new coat-given to him to replace the one that had apparently been ruined in his mysterious journey-is a comforting weight on his shoulders. He wishes he had the equally comforting weight of his blaster under his arm, too, but dismisses that wish almost immediately. He has no need for it, except to escape, and that's not an option at the moment.
He's already determined that he can't leave this time because his Vortex Manipulator has been missing since he woke up, which means if he does escape and cause a commotion among his minders-which he could do if he wanted; he's still skilled enough for that-he'll eventually be hunted down, and probably sooner rather than later. He has no currency, no friends, no contacts, and too little understanding of this era to make any of the above in a short enough amount of time to make escape viable. The smart thing to do right now is to play nice, use what freedom he has to learn as much as he can, as quickly as he can, and let the people in charge come to trust him.
He hasn't really lost anything, after all; he had nothing to lose before. The only potential problem now is the Agency finding him again, but really, why would they look here, in this backwater time? And even if they delve deeply enough into the Torchwood archives, they're still not likely to find him. One, he's changed his name several times since he left them, and two, they'd never expect him to be a prisoner of Torchwood. They'd expect him to be a field operative at the very least. His reputation is enough for that.
He turns a corner towards the little park he found yesterday, and stops cold. In front of him, parked in the entrance to an alleyway, is a long, black vehicle with dark windows. The driver's window is down, and the man turns to look at him. Cold eyes stare into his, and the familiar frisson of fear slides down his spine. Not the Time Agency, this guy; they'd never lower themselves to using primitive technology like a car. Nor the ordinary authorities from this time; all they have to do is come to his room. This is someone else. Someone powerful. Someone dangerous.
Training kicks in. Smoothly, as though he intended it all along, Jack turns, jogs across the road in the last seconds of the walk light, and slips into the mass of people in a shopping arcade. It's not a good place to try to escape; he knows there aren't any ways out except through the open storefronts because this building backs directly onto another, no alley between. But that's all right, because he's not looking for a way to escape: he's looking for a way to hide in plain sight.
Step one: get rid of anything you're wearing that's recognizable from a distance. Full-length blue greatcoats definitely fit that bill. A good-sized plastic carrier bag with string handles lies on the ground between two shops, tossed aside and forgotten. He picks it up and, under cover of the crowd, slips out of his coat, rolls it up, and stuffs it into the bag. It fits well enough to look like he's just done some shopping.
Step two: acquire something else that's recognizable from a distance-something you didn't have before. Hats are perfect. A couple of shops down, a mother is trying to quiet a child who's throwing a temper tantrum. Everyone, including nearby shoppers and the clerk, is focused on the child and the mother, providing perfect cover for Jack to sidle up to a rack of flat hats and surreptitiously drop one into his carrier bag.
Step three: change the way you move. He waits a moment or two, until the mother finally picks the child up and carries her, screaming, out of the shop, then moves on, adding a slight stiffness to his gait and slouching a bit to disguise both his height and his military training. He pulls the cap out of the carrier bag and puts it on, then, hands in his trouser pockets and the bag dangling from one wrist, he ducks his head, pretending to stare at the pavement as he moves. Slipping around a faux-wrought-iron pole, he joins a mass of people moving back the way he came. Elapsed time: roughly three minutes.
He watches his surroundings carefully as he moves along with the crowd. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone in a black suit standing on the corner where he'd first seen the car, a phone to his ear. The car itself is no longer where it was. Jack allows a small, satisfied smile to twitch one side of his mouth. No-one ever expects the person they're following to double back the way they came, at least not so quickly. While they're looking north, in the direction of the shopping arcade, he'll lose himself in the streets to the south while he works out whether it's safe to go back to the flat or not. He already knows they're willing to find him on the street wherever they can; the question now is whether these new people have the balls to try to capture him in or near a block of protected government housing.
Not a chance he's willing to take at this point.
He lets the current of people move him towards the nearest Tube station, but bypasses it in favour of walking southwest down another well-travelled street. He doesn't have money or a pass to travel on transit, and isn't familiar enough with the system to know whether he can get away with a free ride or not. A short alley connects this street to another one up higher on the hill, and he takes it, doffing the cap as he goes and shoving it back into the carrier bag. This street looks like it's heading up towards the financial district, and the quality of dress is significantly higher than it was nearer his flat; the hat is out of character up here. However, his trousers and dress shirt are not. He wishes briefly he'd thought to steal a tie in the shopping arcade as well, but it's too late now. With luck, he won't attract too much attention.
A coffee shop comes up on his left, and he decides to duck in there, give himself a chance to plan. He's reasonably sure he hasn't been found by anyone to do with that car and driver, but he's not certain whether he's lost his official minders. Might be a good idea to let them catch up. If something does go seriously wrong, it would be good to have friends-or, at least, tails-in high places.
The coffee shop is some sort of chain, and there are a good dozen people in there already, sipping coffee or tea at small tables or sitting in upholstered chairs. He chooses a table near the door marked 'employees only' (which he rather hopes leads out a back way) and sits sideways, not facing the windows-that would be too obvious-but able to see everyone who comes in. Finally, he allows himself to relax just a bit. He's got to think. Is there anywhere he can go, anything he remembers from his training about this time in history?
The bell on the door jingles as a handful of people come in. Three of them are women, two are men. One man and woman are obviously a couple, but the rest pay for their drinks separately. He watches the men carefully-in this place and time, he's pretty sure a takedown team will be male-but doesn't pay as much attention to the women. Women in the twenty-first century still have something of a subordinate role, he's pretty sure. He's certainly not seen many in positions of authority so far.
Until one of them, a blonde, comes over to his table, sets a coffee in front of him, and sits in the other chair with a smile. "Hi, Jack," she says cheerfully. "Good to see you up and about."
Shitshitshit, he thinks as he pastes a carefully-confused smile on his face. "Sorry?" he says, imitating the accent of one of the male nurses in the hospital. He's always been good with accents. "I think you have me confused with someone else."
"Do I?" She leans back, takes a sip of her coffee, crosses her legs. "Pity. I was looking for the man who lost this." She reaches into her messenger bag, takes out a small paper sack, and places it on the table.
He shrugs. "Not me," he says. "Sorry."
"Are you sure?" Her brown eyes bore into his. "Because I really think it's a pity a former Time Agent should have to do without one."
Fear clenches his guts again, and he knows he's screwed. Carefully, he takes hold of the paper sack, slides it over, opens it.
It's his Vortex Manipulator.
He looks up at her, eyes wide, but she seems perfectly at ease. "Where did you find it?" he asks, shifting back to his normal accent; with his cover blown, no point not to.
"Seems someone at the air base where you were found has a habit of keeping trophies," she says in a tone most people would believe was casual. "Most of them have no known owner, but we were able to return this one to you." She takes a sip of her coffee and leans back, crossing her legs. "Some people would be grateful to have a possession so valuable brought back to them."
He closes the sack again and forces himself to let go of it, leaving it on the table. "What do you want?" he asks flatly.
"What, I can't just want to return an object to its rightful owner?"
"No," he says.
"Why not?" Her eyes sparkle with humor; she knows exactly why not, and is waiting for him to say it. She can play the game, that's for certain; she knows what to say and how to start the conversation rolling. She's ready to be flirted with, ready to begin the give-and-take of a true negotiation.
And suddenly, he just doesn't have the stomach for it. He looks her in the eyes and says simply, "Because you know what a Time Agent is and you know I used to be one. Not that I am one, that I used to be one. You know what this is and what it's used for. And you were the one who brought me to the hospital when I was found," he adds, abruptly realising it's true. "You were the woman there. You're from Torchwood."
Her eyebrows go up, and she sets her coffee down. "Very good, Mr Harkness," she says with a slight smile. "I wondered if you'd remember me. My name is Rose Tyler, and yes, I'm from Torchwood. I'm here to make you an offer."
Rose Tyler? The pieces click into place, and his mouth drops open. Torchwood is a byword in his time, the organisation that had saved the Earth-and humanity itself-multiple times throughout history. "Rose-Pete Tyler's daughter?"
She chuckles. "So you know who I am-that's good. It saves a lot of time if I don't have to go about convincing you that I can do what I say I can do."
"And what's that?" he asks.
"I'm here to offer you a position. Or rather, I'm here to ask you to come back and speak to my dad about it." She smiles again, a genuine smile that actually reaches her eyes. "He's impressed, you know; you lost your tails from the block of flats and the blokes who were sent to intercept you, and made your way clear over here. If you'd kept the hat on, we might not have noticed you; the facial-recognition software wasn't programmed to look for it."
"Hell," he says feelingly, and she laughs.
"It's all right. Impressing Dad's not easy. He thinks you and your experience in the Time Agency will be invaluable for a couple of missions he's got planned."
Aha. "What sort of missions?" he asks.
The eyebrows go up again. "You know I can't answer that. That's Dad's job, not mine. I'm just the messenger today."
He chuckles, honestly amused. "Some messenger. Send the heir to offer me a job . . . I think I'm flattered."
"You should be." Her twinkling eyes take the ego out of the words. "Drink your coffee, Mr Harkness-I promise I didn't put anything in it-and we'll go see what Dad has to offer, shall we?"
He really doesn't need to think about it for long; he doesn't have a lot of choice, after all. He owes Torchwood his freedom, perhaps his very life. From what he remembers of that day when he was rescued from-wherever-he rather thinks the blokes who found him would have been quite happy to lock him up somewhere and forget about him. This woman, and presumably her father, are the reason those blokes didn't succeed. "Certainly, Ms Tyler. And please, call me Jack."
She grins. "Only if you call me Rose."