Fic: Quadruple Trouble - Part 2-2
Title: Quadruple Trouble - Part 2-2
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, OC.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada
Summary: The cause for Jack’s quadruple state is finally discovered, but can he be put back the way he was?
Word Count: 2381
Written For: Challenge 111: Four at beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Part 1
Getting out of the Hub for a bit did Ianto a world of good, easing his tension headache and putting the spring back in his step. In fact it improved his mood so much that on the way back with the harmless, not to mention completely useless, single ice skate that had arrived via the Rift, from the nineteen-seventies by the look of it, he stopped and bought cream cakes for everyone. The way he saw it, he’d promised the Jacks a treat, and everyone else deserved one for putting up with their quadrupled boss.
Thankfully, all four Jacks had behaved reasonably well, so Ianto didn’t have to withhold their treats, something he wasn’t sure he would have been able to do anyway. Jack’s pout was a formidable weapon in the singular; having four of them directed his way would be devastating. As he handed out the cakes, Ianto noticed each Jack now had a number written in marker pen on the back of his left hand.
“You numbered them?” he asked Owen, amused and a little annoyed he hadn’t thought of that himself.
“Had to. It was the only way to be sure I didn’t run the tests on the same one four times. You know what Jack’s like.”
Ianto did, all too well; if there was a way to cheat at anything, Jack would find it. Not only that, but he delighted in playing pranks on his team; Ianto wouldn’t have put it past his lover to play games with Owen, just for the fun of it. “Good idea; now we can tell them apart! So what did you find out?”
“Nothing we didn’t already suspect. They’re all Jack, identical in every way, right down to their fingerprints, retinal scans, even their DNA; carbon copies, but I couldn’t tell you which was the original.”
“Not sure that really matters, as long as none of them’s any kind of impostor.” Ianto handed Owen a large and gooey bear claw. “Enjoy; you’ve earned it.”
“Thanks, mate!” Owen headed down to the medical bay, where he could enjoy his treat in peace.
For Tosh, there was a large and decadent slice of chocolate gateau, which Ianto set at her elbow, along with a spoon, when he went to check on her progress. “How are you getting along?”
“Thanks, Ianto; that looks delicious!” Tosh pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’ve mostly cleared up the few seconds of interference, but I’m afraid it hasn’t really helped much. Here, let me show you.” She ran the footage back a bit before setting it to play.
On her screen, Jack could be seen entering his office to stand by his desk, gloomily staring at the pile of files in his inbox. Tosh slowed the footage right down and they watched as Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, then his image wavered a bit, and split into four, standing shoulder to shoulder.
“I thought at first that Jack might’ve had something in his pocket, a device of some kind that could have caused him to… divide, but I had them all empty their pockets, and the same things are in all of them; wallet, keys, three pounds seventy-two in change, half a packet of extra strong mints, a button, three safety pins, and a walnut. I did wonder about that, but Jack says he carries it for luck?”
Ianto nodded. “Yes, some sort of old Boeshanian tradition; they carry something called a Bregelnut, but Jack says walnuts look and feel similar. He’s been carrying that one around in his pocket for as long as I’ve known him, that’s why the shell looks so shiny, like it’s been polished.” He studied the footage on the screen again. “So we’re still none the wiser about how we’ve ended up with additional Jacks?”
“Well, not exactly. There’s this.” Tosh rewound the footage frame-by-frame, pausing it just before the single Jack split into four, and enlarging the image, focusing in on one particular area. Using a stylus, she pointed out something on Jack’s desk, just behind the lamp. “See?” It looked like it could be a tiny figure.
“Did you show this to Jack?”
Tosh shook her head. “Not yet, I only noticed it a few minutes ago and I’ve been trying to get a clearer image. This is the best I’ve managed so far. It’s still not all that good, but…”
“No, it’s fine.” Turning, Ianto called up to Jack’s office. “Jack? Can you come down here please?”
Four Jacks came running, briefly getting stuck in the doorway when they all tried to get through it at the same time in their rush to see what Ianto wanted them for.
“Yes, Ianto?” They lined up in front of him, like a row of puppies eagerly waiting to be petted. Ianto resisted the temptation to pat them all on the head and say, ‘Good boy’. It wouldn’t do to encourage them.
“Tosh may have found something. Did you ever see anything like this before?” Ianto pointed to the image on the screen, which Tosh had enlarged as much as she could without it becoming too blurry.
The four Jacks leaned over Tosh’s shoulders. “Well I’ll be…” they murmured, slightly out of sync so they sounded a bit like an echo.
“What is it, some sort of imp?” Tosh asked.
All four Jacks started to talk at once. “Not exactly…”
“Not really an imp…”
“Something along those lines, but…”
“I’m pretty sure it’s…”
“Don’t all speak at once!” Ianto quickly shut them up; quadraphonic sound was distracting. “Jack number one.”
The Jacks all looked at their left hands before one stepped forward to serve as temporary spokesman. “It’s a Perivite, a race of very small but scientifically advanced aliens.”
“They’re harmless,” said Jack Four, not wanting to be left out of the discussion.
“But they’re great inventors,” added Jack Two.
“It must have done something to me!” Jack Three frowned at the tiny figure on the screen.
“But why would it turn one of you into four?” Ianto asked, baffled. Causing Jack to multiply didn’t seem like a particularly smart thing to do. Then again, he knew Jack a lot better than their alien visitor did.
“Maybe we should ask it,” the Jacks chorused, turning to grin at each other as if they were proud of coming up with such a brilliant solution.
Ianto shrugged; he didn’t have any better ideas. “Couldn’t hurt to try.”
Tosh and Ianto followed the Jacks up to their office, Ianto thinking how nice it was to be the one doing the following this time instead of risking being mown down by stampeding Jacks. Once there, and knowing what to look for now, the Jacks used their vortex manipulators to locate the tiny alien, who was hiding out in the fern on top of the filing cabinet, munching on a morsel of leftover pizza.
“What did you do to us?” one the Jacks asked as another of him set the fern on the desk. Tosh, Ianto, and all four Jacks surrounded the potted plant in an effort to prevent the Perivite from escaping. Despite its lack of stature, the alien didn’t appear at all intimidated by the six giants looming over it.
“Was this not what you desired?” it queried in a tiny voice. “There was a great deal of work awaiting your attention, enough for four, or so you claimed… It was my hope that if I enabled you to complete your many tasks in a timely manner, perhaps you would then be willing to assist me in return. Was I in error? It was not my intention to cause offence, merely to provide one service in exchange for another.” The little alien sounded so mournful none of them could remain angry with it.
“No harm done, I suppose, but can you fix us?” asked Jack Two. “Make the four of us into one again?”
“For that, my assistance will not be required; you will revert to your previous state once the work is completed.” The Perivite gestured towards Jack’s inbox, which only had perhaps a dozen files left in it.
“Oh. Well that’s good to know.” Jack Four sounded as relieved as his other three selves looked.
“You could’ve just asked us for help without all of this,” Ianto said. “Part of our job is to provide assistance to other sentient races.”
The Perivite shook its tiny head. “That is not the way of my people. We do not accept something for nothing; there must be a fair exchange. It is our custom to first provide whatever assistance we may, then ask a boon of those we aided.”
“What is it you need from us then?” Jack Three asked.
“A way to return home. My ship was destroyed by the Rift that swept me from my course and deposited me in this great city, and now I find myself stranded on your world, far from my own people and with no means of making contact with them to inform them of my whereabouts. I would ask for transportation by whatever means you might provide.”
“Ah. That might be easier said than done,” Jack One said. “We’d gladly help you if we could, but this planet hasn’t developed interstellar travel yet, and we don’t have any working spacecraft, just a lot of bits.”
“But you are a Time Agent, are you not? You wear the transporter device.” The Perivite gestured at the leather strap around Jack One’s wrist.
“Vortex manipulator,” Jack One corrected. “I used to be a Time Agent, but not anymore, and anyway, my VM’s broken. Or rather, it’s been fixed so I can’t use it to travel through time or space.”
“Why would you wish to render your device inoperable? I do not understand.”
“Hey, it wasn’t our choice!” Jack Three said, indignant. “Someone else decided they didn’t trust us with it; we didn’t have any say in the matter.”
“If I were to repair it for you, would you then agree to return me to my home?”
“Gladly,” all four Jacks replied eagerly.
“But you’ll probably have to wait until they’re all one person again, right?” Ianto asked.
The Perivite inclined its head. “It is so.”
“Fine, so while the Jacks finish their paperwork, I’ll make coffee and we can talk.”
So that was what they did, Ianto and Tosh entertaining their guest until all the paperwork in Jack’s in-box was done, at which point one singular Jack came bouncing down from his office.
“I’m all me again! See?” He showed Ianto his left hand, where the four numbers Owen had scrawled on him now overlay each other, proving he was indeed just a single Jack once more.
“Well that’s a relief. Four of you are a bit too much of a good thing,” Ianto admitted. “It was like having double vision, only worse.”
Jack looked contrite. “Sorry. I’ll make it up to you,” he promised, and proceeded to kiss his lover until Ianto couldn’t have stood up without Jack’s arms around him if he’d tried. Steering Ianto to the chair behind the desk, Jack sat his lover down, then took off his VM and set it in front of the Perivite. “There you go. Let me know if you need any tools or anything.”
“Unnecessary,” the Perivite replied, opening a pouch on the belt encircling its waist and taking out a miniscule toolkit. “I have all I will require.”
It took the Perivite no more than twenty minutes to repair and recalibrate Jack’s VM, which it then set to the correct coordinates. “When we arrive on my world, I will set the device for your return journey,” the tiny person promised. “You will return here only a short while after your departure.”
“Thank you,” Jack said with a smile.
“No, it is you to whom gratitude is owed,” the Perivite insisted. “I have been away from my home for a considerable time. It gladdens me that I may at last rejoin my people.”
“Ready to go then?”
“Indeed.”
Jack held his hand out above his desk and the Perivite stepped onto his palm. Then, with the press of a single button, the Vortex opened in a burst of golden light. Jack stepped through the portal, and it snapped closed behind him.
Having recovered somewhat from being kissed into the middle of next week, Ianto began to pace restlessly back and forth across the office. How long would Jack be gone? The Perivite had said ‘a short while’, but that was so vague it could mean anything from a few minutes to several days. And what if, now that Jack’s vortex manipulator was in working order again, he decided not to bother coming back at all? He could go anywhere in the universe now; there was nothing to stop him.
Ianto needn’t have worried though; to his relief, barely twenty minutes later there was another flare of golden light, and Jack was back.
“Hey there, did you miss me?”
“Just a bit,” Ianto said, smiling with relief. “I didn’t know how long you’d be gone.”
“Sorry, I would’ve been back sooner, but I took a slight detour on the way home. Present for you.” Jack pulled something from the pocket of his coat, which he’d put on before leaving just in case the Perivite’s planet was a bit chilly, and handed it to Ianto, who turned the leather strap over in his hands, studying it.
“A vortex manipulator?”
Jack winked. “I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a few spares while I had the chance. You know, just in case the Doctor decides to ‘fix’ mine again. It’s only to be used when really needed though; we don’t want to risk timelines or anything. I’ll show you how to use the teleport function later; keep it with you at all times, then if you ever run into trouble, you can press a button and be back here before you can blink.”
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Jack.”
“Trust me, it’s for my benefit just as much as yours.” Jack wrapped both arms around his lover. “I have no intention of losing you; I plan on keeping you safe for a very long time.”
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Gwen, OC.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada
Summary: The cause for Jack’s quadruple state is finally discovered, but can he be put back the way he was?
Word Count: 2381
Written For: Challenge 111: Four at beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Part 1
Getting out of the Hub for a bit did Ianto a world of good, easing his tension headache and putting the spring back in his step. In fact it improved his mood so much that on the way back with the harmless, not to mention completely useless, single ice skate that had arrived via the Rift, from the nineteen-seventies by the look of it, he stopped and bought cream cakes for everyone. The way he saw it, he’d promised the Jacks a treat, and everyone else deserved one for putting up with their quadrupled boss.
Thankfully, all four Jacks had behaved reasonably well, so Ianto didn’t have to withhold their treats, something he wasn’t sure he would have been able to do anyway. Jack’s pout was a formidable weapon in the singular; having four of them directed his way would be devastating. As he handed out the cakes, Ianto noticed each Jack now had a number written in marker pen on the back of his left hand.
“You numbered them?” he asked Owen, amused and a little annoyed he hadn’t thought of that himself.
“Had to. It was the only way to be sure I didn’t run the tests on the same one four times. You know what Jack’s like.”
Ianto did, all too well; if there was a way to cheat at anything, Jack would find it. Not only that, but he delighted in playing pranks on his team; Ianto wouldn’t have put it past his lover to play games with Owen, just for the fun of it. “Good idea; now we can tell them apart! So what did you find out?”
“Nothing we didn’t already suspect. They’re all Jack, identical in every way, right down to their fingerprints, retinal scans, even their DNA; carbon copies, but I couldn’t tell you which was the original.”
“Not sure that really matters, as long as none of them’s any kind of impostor.” Ianto handed Owen a large and gooey bear claw. “Enjoy; you’ve earned it.”
“Thanks, mate!” Owen headed down to the medical bay, where he could enjoy his treat in peace.
For Tosh, there was a large and decadent slice of chocolate gateau, which Ianto set at her elbow, along with a spoon, when he went to check on her progress. “How are you getting along?”
“Thanks, Ianto; that looks delicious!” Tosh pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’ve mostly cleared up the few seconds of interference, but I’m afraid it hasn’t really helped much. Here, let me show you.” She ran the footage back a bit before setting it to play.
On her screen, Jack could be seen entering his office to stand by his desk, gloomily staring at the pile of files in his inbox. Tosh slowed the footage right down and they watched as Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, then his image wavered a bit, and split into four, standing shoulder to shoulder.
“I thought at first that Jack might’ve had something in his pocket, a device of some kind that could have caused him to… divide, but I had them all empty their pockets, and the same things are in all of them; wallet, keys, three pounds seventy-two in change, half a packet of extra strong mints, a button, three safety pins, and a walnut. I did wonder about that, but Jack says he carries it for luck?”
Ianto nodded. “Yes, some sort of old Boeshanian tradition; they carry something called a Bregelnut, but Jack says walnuts look and feel similar. He’s been carrying that one around in his pocket for as long as I’ve known him, that’s why the shell looks so shiny, like it’s been polished.” He studied the footage on the screen again. “So we’re still none the wiser about how we’ve ended up with additional Jacks?”
“Well, not exactly. There’s this.” Tosh rewound the footage frame-by-frame, pausing it just before the single Jack split into four, and enlarging the image, focusing in on one particular area. Using a stylus, she pointed out something on Jack’s desk, just behind the lamp. “See?” It looked like it could be a tiny figure.
“Did you show this to Jack?”
Tosh shook her head. “Not yet, I only noticed it a few minutes ago and I’ve been trying to get a clearer image. This is the best I’ve managed so far. It’s still not all that good, but…”
“No, it’s fine.” Turning, Ianto called up to Jack’s office. “Jack? Can you come down here please?”
Four Jacks came running, briefly getting stuck in the doorway when they all tried to get through it at the same time in their rush to see what Ianto wanted them for.
“Yes, Ianto?” They lined up in front of him, like a row of puppies eagerly waiting to be petted. Ianto resisted the temptation to pat them all on the head and say, ‘Good boy’. It wouldn’t do to encourage them.
“Tosh may have found something. Did you ever see anything like this before?” Ianto pointed to the image on the screen, which Tosh had enlarged as much as she could without it becoming too blurry.
The four Jacks leaned over Tosh’s shoulders. “Well I’ll be…” they murmured, slightly out of sync so they sounded a bit like an echo.
“What is it, some sort of imp?” Tosh asked.
All four Jacks started to talk at once. “Not exactly…”
“Not really an imp…”
“Something along those lines, but…”
“I’m pretty sure it’s…”
“Don’t all speak at once!” Ianto quickly shut them up; quadraphonic sound was distracting. “Jack number one.”
The Jacks all looked at their left hands before one stepped forward to serve as temporary spokesman. “It’s a Perivite, a race of very small but scientifically advanced aliens.”
“They’re harmless,” said Jack Four, not wanting to be left out of the discussion.
“But they’re great inventors,” added Jack Two.
“It must have done something to me!” Jack Three frowned at the tiny figure on the screen.
“But why would it turn one of you into four?” Ianto asked, baffled. Causing Jack to multiply didn’t seem like a particularly smart thing to do. Then again, he knew Jack a lot better than their alien visitor did.
“Maybe we should ask it,” the Jacks chorused, turning to grin at each other as if they were proud of coming up with such a brilliant solution.
Ianto shrugged; he didn’t have any better ideas. “Couldn’t hurt to try.”
Tosh and Ianto followed the Jacks up to their office, Ianto thinking how nice it was to be the one doing the following this time instead of risking being mown down by stampeding Jacks. Once there, and knowing what to look for now, the Jacks used their vortex manipulators to locate the tiny alien, who was hiding out in the fern on top of the filing cabinet, munching on a morsel of leftover pizza.
“What did you do to us?” one the Jacks asked as another of him set the fern on the desk. Tosh, Ianto, and all four Jacks surrounded the potted plant in an effort to prevent the Perivite from escaping. Despite its lack of stature, the alien didn’t appear at all intimidated by the six giants looming over it.
“Was this not what you desired?” it queried in a tiny voice. “There was a great deal of work awaiting your attention, enough for four, or so you claimed… It was my hope that if I enabled you to complete your many tasks in a timely manner, perhaps you would then be willing to assist me in return. Was I in error? It was not my intention to cause offence, merely to provide one service in exchange for another.” The little alien sounded so mournful none of them could remain angry with it.
“No harm done, I suppose, but can you fix us?” asked Jack Two. “Make the four of us into one again?”
“For that, my assistance will not be required; you will revert to your previous state once the work is completed.” The Perivite gestured towards Jack’s inbox, which only had perhaps a dozen files left in it.
“Oh. Well that’s good to know.” Jack Four sounded as relieved as his other three selves looked.
“You could’ve just asked us for help without all of this,” Ianto said. “Part of our job is to provide assistance to other sentient races.”
The Perivite shook its tiny head. “That is not the way of my people. We do not accept something for nothing; there must be a fair exchange. It is our custom to first provide whatever assistance we may, then ask a boon of those we aided.”
“What is it you need from us then?” Jack Three asked.
“A way to return home. My ship was destroyed by the Rift that swept me from my course and deposited me in this great city, and now I find myself stranded on your world, far from my own people and with no means of making contact with them to inform them of my whereabouts. I would ask for transportation by whatever means you might provide.”
“Ah. That might be easier said than done,” Jack One said. “We’d gladly help you if we could, but this planet hasn’t developed interstellar travel yet, and we don’t have any working spacecraft, just a lot of bits.”
“But you are a Time Agent, are you not? You wear the transporter device.” The Perivite gestured at the leather strap around Jack One’s wrist.
“Vortex manipulator,” Jack One corrected. “I used to be a Time Agent, but not anymore, and anyway, my VM’s broken. Or rather, it’s been fixed so I can’t use it to travel through time or space.”
“Why would you wish to render your device inoperable? I do not understand.”
“Hey, it wasn’t our choice!” Jack Three said, indignant. “Someone else decided they didn’t trust us with it; we didn’t have any say in the matter.”
“If I were to repair it for you, would you then agree to return me to my home?”
“Gladly,” all four Jacks replied eagerly.
“But you’ll probably have to wait until they’re all one person again, right?” Ianto asked.
The Perivite inclined its head. “It is so.”
“Fine, so while the Jacks finish their paperwork, I’ll make coffee and we can talk.”
So that was what they did, Ianto and Tosh entertaining their guest until all the paperwork in Jack’s in-box was done, at which point one singular Jack came bouncing down from his office.
“I’m all me again! See?” He showed Ianto his left hand, where the four numbers Owen had scrawled on him now overlay each other, proving he was indeed just a single Jack once more.
“Well that’s a relief. Four of you are a bit too much of a good thing,” Ianto admitted. “It was like having double vision, only worse.”
Jack looked contrite. “Sorry. I’ll make it up to you,” he promised, and proceeded to kiss his lover until Ianto couldn’t have stood up without Jack’s arms around him if he’d tried. Steering Ianto to the chair behind the desk, Jack sat his lover down, then took off his VM and set it in front of the Perivite. “There you go. Let me know if you need any tools or anything.”
“Unnecessary,” the Perivite replied, opening a pouch on the belt encircling its waist and taking out a miniscule toolkit. “I have all I will require.”
It took the Perivite no more than twenty minutes to repair and recalibrate Jack’s VM, which it then set to the correct coordinates. “When we arrive on my world, I will set the device for your return journey,” the tiny person promised. “You will return here only a short while after your departure.”
“Thank you,” Jack said with a smile.
“No, it is you to whom gratitude is owed,” the Perivite insisted. “I have been away from my home for a considerable time. It gladdens me that I may at last rejoin my people.”
“Ready to go then?”
“Indeed.”
Jack held his hand out above his desk and the Perivite stepped onto his palm. Then, with the press of a single button, the Vortex opened in a burst of golden light. Jack stepped through the portal, and it snapped closed behind him.
Having recovered somewhat from being kissed into the middle of next week, Ianto began to pace restlessly back and forth across the office. How long would Jack be gone? The Perivite had said ‘a short while’, but that was so vague it could mean anything from a few minutes to several days. And what if, now that Jack’s vortex manipulator was in working order again, he decided not to bother coming back at all? He could go anywhere in the universe now; there was nothing to stop him.
Ianto needn’t have worried though; to his relief, barely twenty minutes later there was another flare of golden light, and Jack was back.
“Hey there, did you miss me?”
“Just a bit,” Ianto said, smiling with relief. “I didn’t know how long you’d be gone.”
“Sorry, I would’ve been back sooner, but I took a slight detour on the way home. Present for you.” Jack pulled something from the pocket of his coat, which he’d put on before leaving just in case the Perivite’s planet was a bit chilly, and handed it to Ianto, who turned the leather strap over in his hands, studying it.
“A vortex manipulator?”
Jack winked. “I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a few spares while I had the chance. You know, just in case the Doctor decides to ‘fix’ mine again. It’s only to be used when really needed though; we don’t want to risk timelines or anything. I’ll show you how to use the teleport function later; keep it with you at all times, then if you ever run into trouble, you can press a button and be back here before you can blink.”
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Jack.”
“Trust me, it’s for my benefit just as much as yours.” Jack wrapped both arms around his lover. “I have no intention of losing you; I plan on keeping you safe for a very long time.”
The End