(no subject)
For coffeemagic, from here:
So... you're sending the Daleks and Cybermen to Hell.” Mickey grinned and turned to Jake. “Man, I told you he was good.” Jake nodded with a tight smile, the idea of sending the Cybermen to Hell was more than satisfying, if it worked.
“But it's... like you said, we've all got Void stuff. Me too, 'cos we went to that parallel world.” Jake could Rose her flexing her hands in front of her before removing the 3-D glasses and looking up at the Doctor in horror. “We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in.”
“That's why you've gotta go.” Rose just stared at him as the computer announced that it would reboot in two minutes. “Back to Pete's world,” the doctor continued. He pointed back at Pete, then turned to him with a grin as a thought occurred to him. “Hey, we should call it that - 'Pete's World'.” The grin vanished and he became serious again as he turned back to Rose. “I'm opening the Void, but only on this side. You'll be safe on that side.” Rose just stared at him, heartbroken, as Pete stepped forward.
“And then you close it. For good?” The Doctor tore his eyes from Rose and nodded.
“The breach itself is soaked in Void Stuff, in the end it'll close itself. And that's it. Kaput.”
Jake could see Pete’s shoulders tense before he turned back, their eyes met as a horrible thought occurred to them both. “Jake, gather the rest of the team. Emergency evacuation. Hurry.” Jake nodded made a quick visual scan of the room, noting who was there and subtracting them from his mental list of team members. As Rose and the Doctor began arguing he ran off to make sure all of his people got out. This would have been so much easier if they’d brought more communications equipment, but any kind of headset was out of the question after the way the Cybermen had used the earpods. He would have to find and personally inform everyone in his team. Fortunately they had made plans for the team to stay in the same general areas throughout the assault and he found most of them quickly. He had to backtrack a bit to pick up the last member, and he didn’t bother to disguise his relief when he finally ran (almost literally) into their communications expert. “Chrissy! Emergency evac! Now!” She nodded shortly and vanished as she hit the transporter button. He paused for just a moment to double-check his mental list, once he was satisfied that everyone was safe he raised his hand to activate his own transporter.
Then all Hell broke loose.
Jake was thrown across the room as some incredible force seized him and pulled, instinctively his hands left the transporter and grabbed for the nearest desk. The force pulling him was too great and the desk slid after him, his fingers slipped but inertia kept the desk sliding after him. He slammed hard into the wall and his head cracked hard against it; his vision was already fading as the desk slammed into him and wedged him there. As he slumped down across the top of the desk, everything went black.
As consciousness slowly returned, Jake could not remember at first what had happened. Or why his head and entire body ached. There was something pressing against his chest and it was only when he tried to push it away that he realized what it was. The transporter.
The void.
The breach.
Oh god no.
He shoved the desk away with strength he didn’t know he’d had a moment before and slammed his hand into the button.
Nothing.
Again.
Again.
He crumpled to the ground, hitting the activation button over, and over, and over, but still nothing happened.
Trapped.
That one word kept reverberating through his head over and over.
Trapped.
He shot to his feet, intending to run back to the top room, find the Doctor, find a way home, but the world lurched and spun. He sank back to the floor and pressed his forehead to his knees, trying to suppress the sudden wave of nausea and will the world to stay still. He didn’t know how long he sat there before the world stabilized enough for him to make another, slower, attempt to stand. This time he was successful. He kept one hand on the wall for balance as he lurched through the door and down the hall to where he’d last seen the doctor. He never got there, though. Before he could get anywhere close a rescue party approached from behind him, he could hear their chatter as they ran up to him and a large man stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Hey, now. You’re safe, take it easy.” Jake looked up at him, distantly surprised at how difficult it was to focus his eyes.
“Can’t. I need to find the Doctor.” The man’s eyes widened, but he gestured a member of his group forward.
“I’ve got a doctor right here. You’ll be alright.” Jake shook his head almost violently, but he immediately wished he hadn’t as the pain in his head increased exponentially and the floor lurched, the man caught him as his legs buckled.
“No...the Doctor. The Doctor,” he muttered as the man lowered him to the floor and called for someone named Owen. The new man prodded at Jake’s head and shone a bright light in his eyes, he made a weak protesting sound at the spikes of pure pain this sent through his skull. He heard Owen mention something about shock and a concussion before everything went dark again.
When he once again came to he was lying on his back and feeling just a little more clearheaded. A voice from outside his sight line called out, “Oi, Jack! He’s awake!” and he turned toward it. He was relieved to find that the movement didn’t cause as much pain this time, just a dull throb. The man who’d stopped him earlier came into view above him. Now that Jake was calmer and no longer quite so dizzy he had time to wonder why the man was wearing a WWII RAF coat.
“Hey there, I’m Captain Jack Harkness. Feeling any better?” He grinned and leaned against the side of what Jake was gradually realizing was a cot in a makeshift hospital area.
“No. I need to see the Doctor, where is he?” Jack’s expression altered subtly yet profoundly and he leaned closer.
“How do you know the Doctor?” His voice was quiet and intense, Jake lowered his voice to match.
“He helped save my world. Never saw him again till now, he was going to open the breach in the void, send the Cybermen and the Daleks to Hell. I had to find my people, I didn’t have time to get back . . . This isn’t my universe, I’m not supposed to be here . . .” He tried to sit up as panic began getting the better of him, but Jack kept him down with a strong hand on his shoulder, before he could say anything Jake started rambling again.. “It’s true. I’m not mad. Parallel Earth, parallel Torchwood . . .” Jack nodded and patted his shoulder.
“It’s alright, take it easy. I believe you.” Relief and a little hope entered Jake’s expression.
“You do?” Jack nodded, when he’d heard Jake’s first jumbled explanation he’d had Tosh go into what fragmentary surveillance footage remained, and he’d observed the sudden appearances and disappearances of Jake’s team, among other things. He’d have to get Jake to make a positive ID of the Doctor on the tapes once he was in a bit better shape. Jake relaxed back against the cot and rubbed his head, Jack squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
“Just take it easy for a while, everything will be taken care of.” Jake nodded and Jack moved off again. There was a young Welshman in a suit that he wanted to check in on.
After a few days of being poked and prodded and monitored and psychoanalyzed, Jake finally managed to escape the doctors looking after the few (too few, painfully few) survivors of the attack on Torchwood Tower. They hadn’t been inclined to tell him much of anything, fortunately he’d picked up a thing or two about computer hacking from Mickey and once he’d found a secluded area with an operating computer it hadn’t taken him long to get through what remained of the security systems and find what had happened. He was searching through the casualty lists and security footage to make sure the rest of his team had gotten home safely when Jack found him again.
“Find what you’re looking for?” Jake nodded without looking up from his screen.
“Everyone else got out. Good enough for me.” Jack nodded thoughtfully and leaned against a nearby desk.
“What do you plan on doing now?” Jake looked up at him in surprise, and frowned.
“. . . Don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“You said that you worked for Torchwood, that’s still an option. The London branch is as good as gone, but we could always use another hand down in Cardiff.”
“Cardiff?” Jack nodded and Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. I need some time to think about it.”
“Take all the time you want, when you decide come to the Millennium Centre in Cardiff and mention my name at the information center outside.” With that Jack turned and vanished out the door in a swirl of coat.
A few house later, Jake had managed to find less conspicuous clothing than he’d been wearing when he arrived in this universe (it wouldn’t be missed, the owner of the locker he’d raided had died in the Cyberman invasion), and found his way out of what was left of Torchwood Tower. He picked a direction at random and started walking, and it was only when he was in the bustling center of London that he realized that he really had no where to go. He had no flat, his was in on the other side of the void. He had no money, the currency was different. He had no identification, his had been issued by a republic that didn’t even exist in this universe. Maybe he should have taken Jack up on his offer straight off.
His feet had continued wandering while he was lost in thought and he stopped dead when he suddenly realized where he was. His old neighborhood, he hadn’t been there in years. After a few moments he started walking again, inexorably drawn toward a house that he hadn’t seen since he was eighteen. He stared at it from a distance, wondering what would happen if he walked up and knocked on the door, when it opened. Jake ducked behind a tree and watched as . . . he stepped out. It was like looking through a mirror, he thought, as he watched himself laugh and joke with his father, a scene that hadn’t happened in his own universe since before Jake joined the Preachers. The other him, the one that never left his home universe, never fought a war, looked up, and for just a moment their eyes met. Jake ducked back behind the tree and started off at a jog, not wanting to wait and see if his doppelganger would come after him.
Rooting through the possessions of the dead made him feel vaguely ill, but Jake was glad that it hadn’t taken too long for him to find enough for the train ticket to Cardiff. The information centre didn’t look like much from the outside, and the suited man working there didn’t even look up from what he was doing at first when he asked “Can I help you?” in a soft Welsh accent.
“Yeah,” Jake answered. “I need to see Captain Jack Harkness.” The man’s head snapped up and Jake suddenly realized that he remembered him from Canary Warf, a look of recognition passed between the two men who had lost everything. “I’m here to take him up on his offer.”
The man, Ianto if Jake remembered correctly, just nodded and did something under the desk. Jake was surprised when a panel in the back wall slid open, revealing a staircase. “Go on down, then.” Jake nodded and started down the stairs and into the dark, high-tech headquarters of Torchwood Cardiff. After a few moments of looking around he spotted Jack on a catwalk above him, Jack caught and held his eyes for a few moments before starting down the stairs toward him. Jake took a deep breath and moved to meet him at the bottom, hoping that he was ready to rebuild his life.
So... you're sending the Daleks and Cybermen to Hell.” Mickey grinned and turned to Jake. “Man, I told you he was good.” Jake nodded with a tight smile, the idea of sending the Cybermen to Hell was more than satisfying, if it worked.
“But it's... like you said, we've all got Void stuff. Me too, 'cos we went to that parallel world.” Jake could Rose her flexing her hands in front of her before removing the 3-D glasses and looking up at the Doctor in horror. “We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in.”
“That's why you've gotta go.” Rose just stared at him as the computer announced that it would reboot in two minutes. “Back to Pete's world,” the doctor continued. He pointed back at Pete, then turned to him with a grin as a thought occurred to him. “Hey, we should call it that - 'Pete's World'.” The grin vanished and he became serious again as he turned back to Rose. “I'm opening the Void, but only on this side. You'll be safe on that side.” Rose just stared at him, heartbroken, as Pete stepped forward.
“And then you close it. For good?” The Doctor tore his eyes from Rose and nodded.
“The breach itself is soaked in Void Stuff, in the end it'll close itself. And that's it. Kaput.”
Jake could see Pete’s shoulders tense before he turned back, their eyes met as a horrible thought occurred to them both. “Jake, gather the rest of the team. Emergency evacuation. Hurry.” Jake nodded made a quick visual scan of the room, noting who was there and subtracting them from his mental list of team members. As Rose and the Doctor began arguing he ran off to make sure all of his people got out. This would have been so much easier if they’d brought more communications equipment, but any kind of headset was out of the question after the way the Cybermen had used the earpods. He would have to find and personally inform everyone in his team. Fortunately they had made plans for the team to stay in the same general areas throughout the assault and he found most of them quickly. He had to backtrack a bit to pick up the last member, and he didn’t bother to disguise his relief when he finally ran (almost literally) into their communications expert. “Chrissy! Emergency evac! Now!” She nodded shortly and vanished as she hit the transporter button. He paused for just a moment to double-check his mental list, once he was satisfied that everyone was safe he raised his hand to activate his own transporter.
Then all Hell broke loose.
Jake was thrown across the room as some incredible force seized him and pulled, instinctively his hands left the transporter and grabbed for the nearest desk. The force pulling him was too great and the desk slid after him, his fingers slipped but inertia kept the desk sliding after him. He slammed hard into the wall and his head cracked hard against it; his vision was already fading as the desk slammed into him and wedged him there. As he slumped down across the top of the desk, everything went black.
As consciousness slowly returned, Jake could not remember at first what had happened. Or why his head and entire body ached. There was something pressing against his chest and it was only when he tried to push it away that he realized what it was. The transporter.
The void.
The breach.
Oh god no.
He shoved the desk away with strength he didn’t know he’d had a moment before and slammed his hand into the button.
Nothing.
Again.
Again.
He crumpled to the ground, hitting the activation button over, and over, and over, but still nothing happened.
Trapped.
That one word kept reverberating through his head over and over.
Trapped.
He shot to his feet, intending to run back to the top room, find the Doctor, find a way home, but the world lurched and spun. He sank back to the floor and pressed his forehead to his knees, trying to suppress the sudden wave of nausea and will the world to stay still. He didn’t know how long he sat there before the world stabilized enough for him to make another, slower, attempt to stand. This time he was successful. He kept one hand on the wall for balance as he lurched through the door and down the hall to where he’d last seen the doctor. He never got there, though. Before he could get anywhere close a rescue party approached from behind him, he could hear their chatter as they ran up to him and a large man stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Hey, now. You’re safe, take it easy.” Jake looked up at him, distantly surprised at how difficult it was to focus his eyes.
“Can’t. I need to find the Doctor.” The man’s eyes widened, but he gestured a member of his group forward.
“I’ve got a doctor right here. You’ll be alright.” Jake shook his head almost violently, but he immediately wished he hadn’t as the pain in his head increased exponentially and the floor lurched, the man caught him as his legs buckled.
“No...the Doctor. The Doctor,” he muttered as the man lowered him to the floor and called for someone named Owen. The new man prodded at Jake’s head and shone a bright light in his eyes, he made a weak protesting sound at the spikes of pure pain this sent through his skull. He heard Owen mention something about shock and a concussion before everything went dark again.
When he once again came to he was lying on his back and feeling just a little more clearheaded. A voice from outside his sight line called out, “Oi, Jack! He’s awake!” and he turned toward it. He was relieved to find that the movement didn’t cause as much pain this time, just a dull throb. The man who’d stopped him earlier came into view above him. Now that Jake was calmer and no longer quite so dizzy he had time to wonder why the man was wearing a WWII RAF coat.
“Hey there, I’m Captain Jack Harkness. Feeling any better?” He grinned and leaned against the side of what Jake was gradually realizing was a cot in a makeshift hospital area.
“No. I need to see the Doctor, where is he?” Jack’s expression altered subtly yet profoundly and he leaned closer.
“How do you know the Doctor?” His voice was quiet and intense, Jake lowered his voice to match.
“He helped save my world. Never saw him again till now, he was going to open the breach in the void, send the Cybermen and the Daleks to Hell. I had to find my people, I didn’t have time to get back . . . This isn’t my universe, I’m not supposed to be here . . .” He tried to sit up as panic began getting the better of him, but Jack kept him down with a strong hand on his shoulder, before he could say anything Jake started rambling again.. “It’s true. I’m not mad. Parallel Earth, parallel Torchwood . . .” Jack nodded and patted his shoulder.
“It’s alright, take it easy. I believe you.” Relief and a little hope entered Jake’s expression.
“You do?” Jack nodded, when he’d heard Jake’s first jumbled explanation he’d had Tosh go into what fragmentary surveillance footage remained, and he’d observed the sudden appearances and disappearances of Jake’s team, among other things. He’d have to get Jake to make a positive ID of the Doctor on the tapes once he was in a bit better shape. Jake relaxed back against the cot and rubbed his head, Jack squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
“Just take it easy for a while, everything will be taken care of.” Jake nodded and Jack moved off again. There was a young Welshman in a suit that he wanted to check in on.
After a few days of being poked and prodded and monitored and psychoanalyzed, Jake finally managed to escape the doctors looking after the few (too few, painfully few) survivors of the attack on Torchwood Tower. They hadn’t been inclined to tell him much of anything, fortunately he’d picked up a thing or two about computer hacking from Mickey and once he’d found a secluded area with an operating computer it hadn’t taken him long to get through what remained of the security systems and find what had happened. He was searching through the casualty lists and security footage to make sure the rest of his team had gotten home safely when Jack found him again.
“Find what you’re looking for?” Jake nodded without looking up from his screen.
“Everyone else got out. Good enough for me.” Jack nodded thoughtfully and leaned against a nearby desk.
“What do you plan on doing now?” Jake looked up at him in surprise, and frowned.
“. . . Don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“You said that you worked for Torchwood, that’s still an option. The London branch is as good as gone, but we could always use another hand down in Cardiff.”
“Cardiff?” Jack nodded and Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. I need some time to think about it.”
“Take all the time you want, when you decide come to the Millennium Centre in Cardiff and mention my name at the information center outside.” With that Jack turned and vanished out the door in a swirl of coat.
A few house later, Jake had managed to find less conspicuous clothing than he’d been wearing when he arrived in this universe (it wouldn’t be missed, the owner of the locker he’d raided had died in the Cyberman invasion), and found his way out of what was left of Torchwood Tower. He picked a direction at random and started walking, and it was only when he was in the bustling center of London that he realized that he really had no where to go. He had no flat, his was in on the other side of the void. He had no money, the currency was different. He had no identification, his had been issued by a republic that didn’t even exist in this universe. Maybe he should have taken Jack up on his offer straight off.
His feet had continued wandering while he was lost in thought and he stopped dead when he suddenly realized where he was. His old neighborhood, he hadn’t been there in years. After a few moments he started walking again, inexorably drawn toward a house that he hadn’t seen since he was eighteen. He stared at it from a distance, wondering what would happen if he walked up and knocked on the door, when it opened. Jake ducked behind a tree and watched as . . . he stepped out. It was like looking through a mirror, he thought, as he watched himself laugh and joke with his father, a scene that hadn’t happened in his own universe since before Jake joined the Preachers. The other him, the one that never left his home universe, never fought a war, looked up, and for just a moment their eyes met. Jake ducked back behind the tree and started off at a jog, not wanting to wait and see if his doppelganger would come after him.
Rooting through the possessions of the dead made him feel vaguely ill, but Jake was glad that it hadn’t taken too long for him to find enough for the train ticket to Cardiff. The information centre didn’t look like much from the outside, and the suited man working there didn’t even look up from what he was doing at first when he asked “Can I help you?” in a soft Welsh accent.
“Yeah,” Jake answered. “I need to see Captain Jack Harkness.” The man’s head snapped up and Jake suddenly realized that he remembered him from Canary Warf, a look of recognition passed between the two men who had lost everything. “I’m here to take him up on his offer.”
The man, Ianto if Jake remembered correctly, just nodded and did something under the desk. Jake was surprised when a panel in the back wall slid open, revealing a staircase. “Go on down, then.” Jake nodded and started down the stairs and into the dark, high-tech headquarters of Torchwood Cardiff. After a few moments of looking around he spotted Jack on a catwalk above him, Jack caught and held his eyes for a few moments before starting down the stairs toward him. Jake took a deep breath and moved to meet him at the bottom, hoping that he was ready to rebuild his life.