TW Fic: Be All My Sins Remembered (1/4)
Title: Be All My Sins Remembered (1/4)
Author: nancybrown
Artist: rexluscus
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Martha, Lois, Johnson, Mickey, OCs
Warnings: poor understanding of time travel, even poorer understanding of 40s era British military systems, angst, character death
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,500 (6100 this part)
Beta(s): queenfanfiction audienced this, while wynkat1313 and fide_et_spe both kicked it into shape, and you have them to thank if it makes any kind of coherent sense
Spoilers: up through CoE (characters only)
Summary: Someone from Jack's past comes through the Rift. Gwen puts two and two together and comes up with nine months. Meanwhile, Ianto is dealing with a morning after he wasn't expecting, Martha is rethinking her agreement to work here, Johnson is definitely not dating anyone, and Lois is quietly reporting everything back to her true bosses. (Well, almost everything.) Also, invisible face-eating aliens may be stalking Cardiff. Must be Tuesday.
Notes: Written for the 2010 tw_bigbang, with deepest thanks to the mods. This is a standalone story in an alternate third season where Lois, Johnson, and now Martha have joined Team Torchwood.
Art by rexluscus
***
Chapter One
***
Jack knelt beside the body, for once wearing his latex gloves as he prodded at the wounds on the dead man's face. Martha had scolded them for contaminating scenes, and while Gwen had fussed about the same thing in her own early days, Jack was currently glad enough to have Martha aboard that he humoured her when he could. Ianto kept his mouth shut, supplied the SUV with gloves in various sizes, and waited for the inevitable fallout when Jack got bored or sloppy and stopped bothering.
Jack asked, "What did the witness say again?"
"That it was 'an invisible face-eating alien.'" He'd had Ianto repeat the phrase twice already. "This is one of those occasions where you just like listening to me say the words, isn't it?"
"Maybe."
"Shall I call the others out?"
Jack stood up. "No. The witness wasn't sure what he saw, was he?"
"Not if 'invisible face-eating alien' was the description, no."
Jack's eyes accused Ianto of saying it again on purpose. Ianto refused to give him an answer either way, even though he had.
"Looks like a Weevil attack. Agreed?"
Ianto nodded. The wounds on the corpse's face and the slashing cut to the throat were consistent, and at least the poor man would have died quickly.
"Fine. I'll let the police know they've got a rabid dog on the loose. You give the witness a nice cup of coffee." Their eyes both slid to the sacrificial thermos sitting in the SUV. It could be their breakfast, or it could be filled with delicious amnesia for the witness.
Ianto said, "He didn't see much. And after the Daleks … "
"Dose him."
A few minutes later, they were in the SUV, headed towards the Hub. Ianto stifled his yawn.
"Think of it as getting a good early start to the day," Jack said teasingly.
"It's not as if we had much sleep last night."
Several things piled into Ianto's head at once with the words, and he sat upright, suddenly quite awake. He'd been too muzzy-headed when the call came through to think about anything other than fumbling his clothes on and staggering out behind Jack. Now, with the cold light of morning about to bloom over the city, Ianto remembered last night with crystal clarity. What had been a spontaneous dally with a new experience looked in hindsight like a fast way to destroy everything he'd grown to cherish.
"Oh God."
"You and Lois did say that a number of times. I decided not to take it as a personal compliment, but it's tough."
"Oh God," he said again.
Jack gave him a long look, which made the drive more intimidating as Jack swerved without looking to miss another vehicle. "Are you going to be okay?"
"I'll be fine," he said automatically, as images from the night before replayed in his mind. Had he actually … Yes, he'd signed his name across Lois's stomach with a highlighter marker at one point. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but Jack made many things seem like good ideas. "Oh God."
"Ianto? Talk to me. Hyperventilating is bad for you."
"I'm not going to hyperventilate. Jack, she's going to be at work today."
"I should hope so. She didn't ask for any leave, unless you signed my name on something again." Ianto twitched at the close parallel to his own thoughts. He almost took the bait, almost started fussing back that he'd only signed Jack's name when Jack had vanished with the Doctor, because he could forge Jack's handwriting and Gwen had asked nicely, and they all liked getting paid. And that wasn't the point here.
"What are we going to say to her?"
"I'll start with 'Good morning,' get a little flirting in. People notice when you stop flirting in public. Then I'll ask her to get things ready for our morning meeting."
"Jack … "
"If you're going to make a thing about this, we need to talk now. You said you'd be fine if it was someone we both liked, someone we both trusted, and someone who wasn't otherwise attached. You like her, I like her, she likes us, and unless I'm really misreading signals, you both had a fantastic time last night, and I know I did. What's the problem?"
"How am I going to talk to her today?" All the air was gone from his lungs.
Jack closed his eyes, against all the rules of the road. Sometimes he did that, Ianto had noticed, when he was trying to remind himself of things that had slipped away when he was underground so long. He did it less and less, but there were still moments when Ianto could see Jack trying to piece back who he'd been. And on occasion, there were bits missing. "The first time you and I had sex, were you like this the next day?"
He chose to believe Jack was unable to remember the morning after, and that he had not forgotten their first night. Little lies got Ianto through his days. "I was. But I kept the panicking to myself for the most part. If anyone noticed, they didn't say anything."
"And how did that turn out?"
You live with me, although you refuse to admit we've been living together for months. Last night notwithstanding, you claim you haven't been with anyone but me in the kind of timespan that I normally only think of in regard to history books. I've forgotten what it's like not to spend nearly every waking and sleeping hour within the sound of your voice. You have never, ever said that you love me, but I stopped doubting it a long time ago. "It turned out fine."
"So there you go. You'll be fine. Lois will be fine. I'm always fine." Jack had his own little lies to pave a smoother way through his life. At the next traffic light, he leaned over and gave Ianto a friendly kiss, just a press against the corner of his mouth. "You'll see."
Ianto managed to relax a little. Lois had a good head on her shoulders, and had been up front with them that this had just been for fun, scratching an itch after she'd broken up with her boyfriend. She'd be as calm and professional at work as ever.
Jack said, "I wonder if she's busy tonight."
Ianto froze again.
***
It was just gone eight when Lois made her way into the Hub proper. She'd been setting up the Tourist Centre for today's walk-ins, checking her email, and getting ready for another day at Torchwood. In no way was she dawdling, procrastinating, or otherwise avoiding any of her co-workers. Doing so would be silly, and also counter-productive as she'd rapidly learned that she needed to trust all of them with her life.
Gwen and Johnson hadn't arrived yet, but Martha was already in the med bay making a disgusted face at her latest find in the freezer. She'd started two weeks ago on an extended loan from UNIT, although records indicated she'd worked with Torchwood before.
"Good morning!" Lois said in what she hoped was a cheerful tone.
"Morning." Martha's expression didn't change. "I may be ill." Lois stepped to the railing and peered more closely, then scooted back when she saw the greenish-purplish pile of half-burned entrails.
"I don't blame you. What did it use to be?"
"I'm not sure. Jack's scribbled something here." She gestured with an elbow at a clipboard. Lois was growing familiar with the piles of paperwork, tree-based and electronic, that accompanied each find. Their employer stored a wealth of information about various alien species in his memories, but when he was in a hurry, his handwriting on the matter might as well have been in Sanskrit. Add to that the late Doctor Harper's illegible scrawl, and it was a wonder Martha understood anything written at all.
Nimbly, Lois made her way into the bay, steering clear of the thawing mess on the table. She scanned the note, translating from Jackese. "Would 'Larma' make sense?"
"It might. Thanks."
Lois bowed her head slightly. Her skills included reading gibberish, filing nonsense, and otherwise keeping an office running smoothly, be it for the Undersecretary to the MoD or Her Majesty's top secret alien catchers in Cardiff. It was why she'd been sent here on assignment.
The smell from the Larma's corpse really was foul. "I'll get the coffee started."
"Ianto's in." Which meant the process was probably already started. "But if you could bring me a cup, I'd love it." Martha looked down at the mess covering her gloves and frowned again. "Paper cup."
Lois smiled to hide the sudden worry blooming in her stomach. "I'll see what I can find."
With a careful tread, she made her way towards the butler's pantry, finally sniffing the addictive aroma wafting through the Hub. Maybe he wouldn't be there. She cast a glance and saw that Jack's office door was closed and the blinds drawn, and she relaxed a little.
As she poured coffee into a nice mug for herself and a disposable cup for Martha, the cog wheel alarm sounded, announcing Gwen and Johnson's arrival. Lois pulled out two more mugs and placed them all on the tray.
"Oh, thank God!" Gwen said as Lois appeared with the drinks. "Lois, you're a saint."
For the first month of her employment here, Lois would have blushed and murmured about just doing her job, but she was used to Gwen's effusiveness now, and merely smiled in acknowledgment as she handed Johnson a drink.
Keep smiling. Just keep smiling and no-one will ever look further.
"Thanks a million," Martha said when Lois placed the paper cup on the bench. The doctor had dabbed some Vapour Rub under her nose and seemed a little less nauseated by the stench. Pity it'd kill the taste of the coffee, but Lois supposed there were worse things.
She heard the door to Jack's office squeak open and made a mental note to put the WD40 in an obvious location. Since his cast had come off a week ago, Ianto had been catching up on the Hub maintenance they'd let slide. Even before his accident, the previously-tiny team had been up to their arses in alligators, as Jack put it, so there was a backlog even in the chores the rest of them had parsed out. They had yet to figure out who was going to muck out the pterodactyl's nest, and that was going to be a biohazard issue soon, something which their boss was cheerfully ignoring.
Said boss bounded down the stairs with his typical floppy dog attitude. Ianto followed coolly in his wake.
Jack took them all in with a welcoming expression and brought his hands together. "Morning, kids. No meeting today, that was our London Branch with a heads up. They're picking up readings that look like a major Rift breach in their neck of the woods."
It was another of Jack's idiosyncrasies that he insisted on referring to what amounted to one-man operations as "branches" of Torchwood. Torchwood Glasgow was one rangy old geezer who smoked like a chimney and spoke what to Lois's ear sounded like a blend of Scots-Gaelic and Klingon. Torchwood London, on the other hand, was currently one man Jack had hired, handed some basic scanners to, and told to keep an eye out for "anything weird." That had been last month. She'd only met Mickey once, but she'd spoken to him on the phone several times as he reported in from whatever Jack was having him watch.
Mickey had gone into Lois's report when some basic digging reported him dead at Canary Wharf only to miraculously reappear this past spring.
"Question," said Johnson, hands wrapped greedily around her mug. "The Rift doesn't extend to London, so why are we getting readings there?" And what are you really asking Smith to look for, she did not say but Lois knew she was dying to ask.
Agent Johnson had been discovered early on to be a spy, and the only reason Jack had given the others for keeping her on was that he liked his enemies in front of him. Johnson no longer worked for her former employers, and as Lois had been tasked by Torchwood to help monitor all her communications, she knew the woman hadn't contacted them. That didn't mean she wasn't still collecting information.
Jack folded his arms. "No, the Rift doesn't go that far. But the problem with the Rift is that it's not fixed at both ends." He looked up and over at Gwen, who went to her computer.
"Take a look," Gwen said. "It's like a rubber band." On her screen, there was a string, gyrating almost lasciviously. "One end stays fixed here. That's what we watch. But the other end can wind up anywhere."
Lois had seen this simulation before. Ianto had shown her many of Dr. Sato's old files. This particular one was a visual representation of the Rift-monitoring program, as Sato had tried (unsuccessfully) to trace where the other end went at any given time. She had believed that finding out where it ended would help the team control it better here, but nothing had come of her quest. Ianto had got sad after telling Lois about it, and she remembered that his grief had been freshly reopened.
Lois was circumspect when she put the information into her report. Grief was often a motivation for Torchwood's past misdeeds.
Jack said, "The other end is about to spill in London. We think. So, field trip. Ianto and Lois will stay here to keep an eye on things, the rest of you are with me." For the first time since he'd come into the room, Lois looked at Ianto, but he was an expert at not showing anything on his face when he didn't want to do so.
Gwen asked, "Are we anticipating an overnight?"
"No, but you can call Rhys and warn him it might be. Mickey says whatever is going to hit is coming in the next couple of hours, so we'll be fighting the roads to get there in time, but I don't know what we'll find when we do."
"Sir," said Lois. "If this is as big as you say, shouldn't the full team go?"
"Negative. I don't want to leave Cardiff unprotected." He let out a sigh, as if reading the mind of the man behind him, who was still not making any expression at all. "And yes, that means if something happens, you're both free to go into the field and deal with it. But call us!" This last was barked at Ianto, who finally broke into a tight but satisfied smile.
"Yes, sir. I'm sure the worrying will do us loads of good."
Jack's stern expression broke into something much fonder. "Just don't break anything else while we're gone." While Martha had cleared Ianto for field work, Jack had yet to let him out for dangerous missions of any type despite Ianto's repeated requests.
"I'll wrap him in bubble wrap if that would help," Lois offered. This earned her their combined attention, and a slight flush flowing up Ianto's neck. She hadn't intended that, but words spoken were words too late to take back, as her grandmother had always said. She cleared her throat. "I'll get supplies ready for the trip," and she fled, her exit covered by her equally flustered colleagues who were gathering equipment.
Ten minutes later, she watched on CCTV as the SUV roared out of the underground garage and wondered if it would be feasible to avoid her remaining co-worker until the rest got back tomorrow or the next day.
Twenty minutes after that, Ianto appeared beside her desk. Apparently not.
"Hi," he said, finally making proper eye contact for the first time today.
"Hi." This would be a good time to make small talk, or to worry out loud for the rest of the team, or something.
"How are you doing? Today, I mean." His voice was steady but she could tell it was at a cost.
She opened her mouth to say, "Fine," and instead "Pleasantly sore," came out, followed by a tiny laugh. "You?"
"Same." There was that flush again. She wished Jack were here. Jack could make awkward situations smooth, just by being there and refusing to be uncomfortable. Last night had been massively outside her previous experience, but Jack's smile had made it seem like the most normal thing in the world to play naughty secretaries with her employer and his lover.
But Jack wasn't here, and the night was well over.
Ianto said, "Jack's a bit better at this than I am. Sorry."
She wanted to ask him better at what? Morning after talk? Giving the "let's be friends" speech? She'd run over both in her mind, wondering how the let-down would come. From what she could tell, the two men were in a long-term relationship, and she'd been invited to join them simply because she was the only woman they knew who wasn't married, related to them, or Johnson. Her supervisor had told her about Jack's reputation and indicated she might be propositioned, emphasising that he did not expect a seduction to be part of her job and that she should feel free to decline on her own terms.
She hadn't declined. But she wasn't putting it into the report.
Lois broke first. "Shall we get the 'let's agree to be friends' bit out so we can get back to work?"
"If that's what you want." Something about his voice indicated this wasn't as great a relief as she'd been expecting.
She pursed her lips, and spoke slowly, thinking out loud. "Last night was a lot of fun." She broke off, and looked at him. "A lot of fun." He laughed, some of his tension broken, and she smiled again. "And I won't say I'd object to a repeat, but for now, I think it's best if we just set it aside as a happy memory."
Her own memory chose that moment to betray her. For the first part of the night, she and Ianto had been forbidden from touching each other as Jack gave them truly delightful orders. By the end, and after a break for a late supper (for Lois and Ianto -- they'd left Jack tied up, and honestly, he'd deserved it) there wasn't an inch on her body that hadn't been stroked or kissed or more. Even now, looking at his hand resting on the back of the chair, Lois remembered what those hands could do, and she had trouble keeping her voice calm and her breathing steady.
Perhaps he had the same problem, as his eyes focused for a moment on her hands resting folded on the desk. Then the mask came down again as she watched, and a pleasant smile that gave nothing away replaced the flash of lust she'd seen. "I think you're right."
She expected him to hold out his hand for a friendly shake, because it seemed the silly kind of thing he'd do. She'd take his hand, and they would be very, very good and not pull each other in for a kiss that would certainly not lead anywhere productive.
The Rift alarm sounded. The noise shuddered through them both. Then Lois spun to the keyboard at her desk while Ianto hurried to Gwen's station.
Ianto said, "Unknown size, just opened near Whitchurch." He touched his ear. "Where are you?"
The little earbud in her own ear said, "Crossing the bridge now. Why?"
That was faster than she'd expected, but then, Jack drove like a maniac when he could get away with it. Ianto said, "We've just had something come through."
"We can be back there in fifteen minutes."
Lois and Ianto shared what were no doubt matching looks of horror at the mental images this evoked.
"Don't. The London thing may be bigger. Lois and I will check this one out. Could be nothing."
"Be. Careful. Both of you." That last part was sweet, she thought, considering. "Call as soon as you know anything."
"We will. Good hunting."
She expected them to say something else, but it was an open channel, and anyway, endearments didn't fit either one. The slight static faded, indicating Jack had closed the line.
Ianto was already on his feet. "Ready?"
"Let's go."
***
The need for small talk in the car was conveniently bypassed with monitoring the equipment. Jack and the rest had taken the good portable scanners with them, so Ianto had to wrack his brain to tell Lois how to recalibrate these to give them the information they needed.
"Are you sure there aren't any non-human lifeform readings?"
She frowned at the monitor again. "Five Weevils are showing, but they're in the wrong direction." That could be a problem later, and he made a mental note to keep an ear out for anything unusual over the regular channels. "Everything else is terrestrial."
"Check the site again," he said, and gunned the engine. He was already breaking the speeding laws, and without the familiar menace of the Torchwood SUV, he was risking unwanted attention from the police. The end result would be the same, but he'd rather not lose time in case whatever was on the other end of this trip went on a rampage.
He spared a glance over to Lois, who was still fidgeting unhappily with the scanner. For that matter, he'd rather not have to go against said rampaging alien with her as his sole backup. Gwen teased Ianto about misplaced chivalry all the time, but this was practicality: Lois had very little field training, she was still not qualified on her sidearm although she had regular lessons with Gwen and, bless, she had a tendency to squeak and duck when they were facing something hostile. There was a reason she was office support. He hoped whatever came through would be easily subdued, because the thought of attempting any kind of coordinated manoeuvre with her frankly scared him.
"We're nearly there," she said. "Still nothing alien."
"Scan for technology." Perhaps they'd got lucky, and it was just some random Rift detritus. "One time, we had a huge Rift event that dropped a tonne of alien toothbrushes on a farm not far from here."
"Toothbrushes?"
"That's what Jack said they were. Though sometimes I think he makes it all up. Either that, or there's a much larger number of sex toys from the future that fall through the Rift than you'd think possible."
That drew a laugh from her, and she scanned. "Nothing."
He let out a breath. No use accusing her of reading it wrong.
They arrived at the site and he parked, making a decision as they got out. "Lisa, stay here and monitor the site in case something else comes through." She frowned at him, then nodded slowly. "We'll stay in comms range. I'll scout the area, and if I can bring it in, I will. If I can't, we'll fall back and try to keep whatever it is here until the others return."
"That could be hours." Or more, if the London incursion went bad.
"Then let's hope this is an easy one." He offered her a smile he didn't feel, and then handed over his keys, feeling only a tiny twinge. "If it goes badly, get out of here and call Jack. If the team can't make it back in time, call UNIT."
She looked unconvinced, but did take the keys. "Jack hates UNIT."
"So do I. But they're useful."
For half a second, they stared at each other. Part of him wanted to give her a quick kiss for luck. The rest of him thought that would be a bad idea.
"Good luck," she said, and stepped away, answering that question. Her eyes dropped to her screen. "Still nothing."
He readied his gun, but left it out of sight, and began making his way through the crush of stores. The streets weren't as busy with shoppers as they could have been, which reduced the chance of civilian casualties. Without a working scanner, he wasn't sure what he was dealing with, or how he'd recognise it if he saw it. He just hoped the alien threat would be obvious enough.
Fortunately, the four WWII-era soldiers stood out in the small crowd.
Ianto unclenched. Rift refugees were a completely different story. He thumbed the safety back on his gun, and then said in a friendly voice, "I was wondering where you'd gone. The fancy dress party is all the way across town."
A few onlookers glanced his way without much interest. He gave them a quick smile, nothing to see here, just some blokes out early. "I've got the car around the corner."
One of the men said, "This isn't where we were. There was a bright light … "
Ianto approached them with care. "You are safe here. I can explain further, but we should go somewhere in private."
"We can't leave the lorry here," said another soldier, his face gone pale and shocky. The other two men -- one hefty and blond, the other black and bespectacled -- came to either side of him protectively, and Ianto suddenly hoped none of them would need a trip out to Flat Holm. These men didn't appear to be as far-travelled as the poor souls out there, merely displaced in time. Torchwood had protocols for that, assuming the new arrivals could be assimilated back into the culture. A safe house, a bit of training, and oftentimes, people from recent or near future eras could transition smoothly. Never mind that the last time people had come through this way, two had committed suicide and the third had fled to London, all to get away from their new best friends at Torchwood Cardiff.
"Is your lorry near here?"
The first soldier, the one who appeared the least upset by the changes around him, nodded. Ianto touched his ear. "Lois, please bring the large tarpaulin and join me. Oh, and a roll of the yellow tape."
"Is everything all right?"
"Just another day," he reassured her. To the men he said, "My associate will join us in a moment. She and I will help you."
"What year is this?" The soldier didn't sound surprised, but worry crept into his voice. When Ianto didn't answer immediately, he added, "This is Cardiff, isn't it? Was it the Rift, then?"
Ianto stepped closer. "You know about the Rift?"
"I do. They'll need a bit of catching up." He gestured at his friends.
"It's 2009." This was in a low voice, only for the man, who finally blanched and closed his eyes.
"1945 for us."
A clatter of shoes later, and Lois appeared with the lightweight tarp in her arms. Ianto took it from her, grateful to look away from the lost soldiers. "Thank you."
The man Ianto was assuming was their leader fell into flirtatious banter with Lois quickly, and the others treated her politely, possibly in response, as the six of them located the half-destroyed remnant of the over-sized lorry, covered it with the tarpaulin, and labelled it carefully with caution tape.
As retrievals went, this was one of the easier ones, Ianto thought. They returned to the car while Lois took out her mobile to call a cab for herself. "I'll meet you there."
His ear chirped. "Ianto?" Jack sounded worried.
Bugger. He hadn't reported in yet. "Here. Everything's fine. Some Rift refugees. We're handling it."
"All right. Keep me in the loop."
"Likewise. Are you in London yet?"
Jack's laugh came loud and clear across the comm.
***
They beat the Rift event, but only barely. The SUV skidded to a stop, peppering Mickey's car with gravel. The team jumped out with a smooth efficiency Jack was pleased to notice and joined Mickey in the broken expanse of cracked rubble and pavement that used to be a Tower block a few years back.
Mickey nodded as Jack approached. "If I'm reading this thing right, we're probably way too close."
Jack glanced over his shoulder, and his mouth went dry. "You're reading it right."
Above them, the sky splintered into white cracks. Gwen and Johnson had the biggest particle weapons out, a fact which made Jack only slightly jealous. Mickey's gun was at the ready. Jack kept his own away for now. He trusted his people to fire on his order if whatever came through was hostile, but he did want to start with the option that it wasn't. Beside him, he felt Martha's quiet approval. She carried a gun, and she was very good with it, but they both had someone else keeping watch, if only in spirit.
His eyes glued to the sky, Jack said, "Get ready."
Mickey said, "Now, that's kinda weird."
Jack's head snapped back down to see the readings on the scanner shift abruptly. The spike went negative. Jack felt the blood rush from his face as he shouted: "Get back! Run!"
Martha was the closest and he grabbed her arm roughly, pelting as fast as he could away from the site. Gladly, he heard the others following, with Johnson actually overtaking him in her haste to get away. He glanced back, and Gwen and Mickey weren't more than two steps behind him as they all ran for cover.
The Rift spike opened wide and a large chunk of former housing vanished from where they'd been standing, tonnes of the stuff just gone and air cracking in to fill the vacuum. Jack let himself slow down, let the rest get past him, and he stood and watched as the Rift ate away at the rubble twice more, and then was still. Jack felt a space-time belch would be in order, but none came. He grinned at the thought of it anyway.
"What … " Gwen said between gasps, "just … happened?"
Jack's fingers flew over the controls of Mickey's scanner. Temporal flux was still messing with the system, but he could make out a very rough guess. "That was the far end of the Rift making a pick-up from another time. That pile of debris is going to give us a headache in about two centuries."
Martha smiled. "We'll leave you a big broom, then," she said, and Gwen laughed.
Mickey looked chastened, but Jack handed him back the scanner and patted his shoulder, though not too much because Mickey got weird about touching. "You wouldn't have been able to tell from the readings we had, not until it happened, and if it had been coming the other way, something that size, we'd have been fighting off a Sontaran battle cruiser."
Mickey made a face. "Not the potato guys."
Jack grinned again, then looked at the others. "Can you three load up the weapons so we can get back? I want to make sure this thing is working before we go." He waited for Gwen, Martha, and mostly importantly Johnson, to be out of earshot. "Any news?"
"Not yet."
Mickey had a set of scanners, ostensibly to watch London's skies for anything weird, but mainly because he was one of the few people Jack could rely on for two vital assignments. Sarah Jane had said something was off with the Doctor, something important, but she didn't know what, and she'd been too distraught at the time to answer questions. London was a far more likely place than Cardiff for a sighting, and Mickey's a more welcome face than Jack's, so Mickey kept the lookout and Jack kept the worry. Neither one needed to be expressed in front of Johnson, no matter how closely they watched her, in case her former masters -- he used the term deliberately, now that she'd told him who'd given the original order to have Torchwood watched -- had an interest of their own in the Doctor's whereabouts.
And then there was the other project, sparked by an impossible cry for help that had arrived unexpectedly at the Tourist Centre four weeks ago addressed to Jack. He and Martha had run into a series of dead ends ever since. They'd asked Tish for help, but she'd given them a firm no and Jack understood; warfare and imprisonment meant knowing whom to rely on utterly, but afterwards, it was often too painful to keep close contact with the people who'd seen you at your lowest point. For Tish, working for Jack on this would mean daily reminders of a horror she wanted to put out of her mind forever.
He wasn't ready to bring in Ianto or Gwen, not yet. If it was a mistake, they didn't need to know. If it was a trap, he wanted them well clear.
That left Mickey, who was trustworthy enough to follow through, and distant enough from the worst of it not to be in danger. He wasn't a hacker on par with Toshiko, but he could sneak into certain locked communications with the help of Torchwood tech, and he could keep an ear on the ground for more. They'd only received one message out of the darkness. It could be nothing. Jack had to know.
"All right. You know the drill. Anything at all … "
"I'm on the phone."
They walked back together so Mickey could say his goodbyes to the rest. Something clicked in Jack's head. "Martha, do you want to stay here and come back tomorrow? Give Tom a surprise visit?"
"I'd love to, but he's out of the country until Friday." Her eyes dimmed for a moment, and Jack felt bad. She'd agreed to the extended tour with Torchwood, but long-distance relationships were hard on anyone, especially newlyweds.
"Remind me to give you the weekend off, then."
"I'll hold you to it." She gave Mickey another hug, and then they were back in the SUV headed home.
***
The return trip was less breakneck than the drive there had been, but Jack was still whizzing in and out of traffic like he had a race car instead of a large, black SUV. Gwen was used to this, used to the bumps and shifts, used to holding on for dear life at the grab bar as Jack said, "I can make that gap." Her breakfast wasn't sitting well, though, and come to think of it, most of her breakfast had been coffee.
From the back seat (slightly more protected from the jarring, if only by a small degree) Martha said, "We're stopping in Bath. You're going to need petrol, and it's a good stop for lunch."
Jack said, "We can be back in Cardiff for lunch. A late lunch."
Johnson said, "I second the motion to stop in Bath."
"This isn't a committee."
"Third," Gwen said, because she could, and also a break from the rollercoaster drive sounded like Heaven to her roiling stomach. She could fake a bit of lunch, too.
Jack let out a mutter. "Fine." He resembled nothing so much as a dad out in a car trip with the kids as he grumbled and put the SUV into a lower gear, looking for his exit.
Gwen took the food orders down and added a small salad for herself. Her denims were tight this week, had been for a couple of weeks, actually. As she picked up the food, she idly began doing a little mental maths.
She almost dropped the tray when she came up with an answer.
***
Chapter Two
Author: nancybrown
Artist: rexluscus
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Martha, Lois, Johnson, Mickey, OCs
Warnings: poor understanding of time travel, even poorer understanding of 40s era British military systems, angst, character death
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,500 (6100 this part)
Beta(s): queenfanfiction audienced this, while wynkat1313 and fide_et_spe both kicked it into shape, and you have them to thank if it makes any kind of coherent sense
Spoilers: up through CoE (characters only)
Summary: Someone from Jack's past comes through the Rift. Gwen puts two and two together and comes up with nine months. Meanwhile, Ianto is dealing with a morning after he wasn't expecting, Martha is rethinking her agreement to work here, Johnson is definitely not dating anyone, and Lois is quietly reporting everything back to her true bosses. (Well, almost everything.) Also, invisible face-eating aliens may be stalking Cardiff. Must be Tuesday.
Notes: Written for the 2010 tw_bigbang, with deepest thanks to the mods. This is a standalone story in an alternate third season where Lois, Johnson, and now Martha have joined Team Torchwood.
Art by rexluscus
***
Chapter One
***
Jack knelt beside the body, for once wearing his latex gloves as he prodded at the wounds on the dead man's face. Martha had scolded them for contaminating scenes, and while Gwen had fussed about the same thing in her own early days, Jack was currently glad enough to have Martha aboard that he humoured her when he could. Ianto kept his mouth shut, supplied the SUV with gloves in various sizes, and waited for the inevitable fallout when Jack got bored or sloppy and stopped bothering.
Jack asked, "What did the witness say again?"
"That it was 'an invisible face-eating alien.'" He'd had Ianto repeat the phrase twice already. "This is one of those occasions where you just like listening to me say the words, isn't it?"
"Maybe."
"Shall I call the others out?"
Jack stood up. "No. The witness wasn't sure what he saw, was he?"
"Not if 'invisible face-eating alien' was the description, no."
Jack's eyes accused Ianto of saying it again on purpose. Ianto refused to give him an answer either way, even though he had.
"Looks like a Weevil attack. Agreed?"
Ianto nodded. The wounds on the corpse's face and the slashing cut to the throat were consistent, and at least the poor man would have died quickly.
"Fine. I'll let the police know they've got a rabid dog on the loose. You give the witness a nice cup of coffee." Their eyes both slid to the sacrificial thermos sitting in the SUV. It could be their breakfast, or it could be filled with delicious amnesia for the witness.
Ianto said, "He didn't see much. And after the Daleks … "
"Dose him."
A few minutes later, they were in the SUV, headed towards the Hub. Ianto stifled his yawn.
"Think of it as getting a good early start to the day," Jack said teasingly.
"It's not as if we had much sleep last night."
Several things piled into Ianto's head at once with the words, and he sat upright, suddenly quite awake. He'd been too muzzy-headed when the call came through to think about anything other than fumbling his clothes on and staggering out behind Jack. Now, with the cold light of morning about to bloom over the city, Ianto remembered last night with crystal clarity. What had been a spontaneous dally with a new experience looked in hindsight like a fast way to destroy everything he'd grown to cherish.
"Oh God."
"You and Lois did say that a number of times. I decided not to take it as a personal compliment, but it's tough."
"Oh God," he said again.
Jack gave him a long look, which made the drive more intimidating as Jack swerved without looking to miss another vehicle. "Are you going to be okay?"
"I'll be fine," he said automatically, as images from the night before replayed in his mind. Had he actually … Yes, he'd signed his name across Lois's stomach with a highlighter marker at one point. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but Jack made many things seem like good ideas. "Oh God."
"Ianto? Talk to me. Hyperventilating is bad for you."
"I'm not going to hyperventilate. Jack, she's going to be at work today."
"I should hope so. She didn't ask for any leave, unless you signed my name on something again." Ianto twitched at the close parallel to his own thoughts. He almost took the bait, almost started fussing back that he'd only signed Jack's name when Jack had vanished with the Doctor, because he could forge Jack's handwriting and Gwen had asked nicely, and they all liked getting paid. And that wasn't the point here.
"What are we going to say to her?"
"I'll start with 'Good morning,' get a little flirting in. People notice when you stop flirting in public. Then I'll ask her to get things ready for our morning meeting."
"Jack … "
"If you're going to make a thing about this, we need to talk now. You said you'd be fine if it was someone we both liked, someone we both trusted, and someone who wasn't otherwise attached. You like her, I like her, she likes us, and unless I'm really misreading signals, you both had a fantastic time last night, and I know I did. What's the problem?"
"How am I going to talk to her today?" All the air was gone from his lungs.
Jack closed his eyes, against all the rules of the road. Sometimes he did that, Ianto had noticed, when he was trying to remind himself of things that had slipped away when he was underground so long. He did it less and less, but there were still moments when Ianto could see Jack trying to piece back who he'd been. And on occasion, there were bits missing. "The first time you and I had sex, were you like this the next day?"
He chose to believe Jack was unable to remember the morning after, and that he had not forgotten their first night. Little lies got Ianto through his days. "I was. But I kept the panicking to myself for the most part. If anyone noticed, they didn't say anything."
"And how did that turn out?"
You live with me, although you refuse to admit we've been living together for months. Last night notwithstanding, you claim you haven't been with anyone but me in the kind of timespan that I normally only think of in regard to history books. I've forgotten what it's like not to spend nearly every waking and sleeping hour within the sound of your voice. You have never, ever said that you love me, but I stopped doubting it a long time ago. "It turned out fine."
"So there you go. You'll be fine. Lois will be fine. I'm always fine." Jack had his own little lies to pave a smoother way through his life. At the next traffic light, he leaned over and gave Ianto a friendly kiss, just a press against the corner of his mouth. "You'll see."
Ianto managed to relax a little. Lois had a good head on her shoulders, and had been up front with them that this had just been for fun, scratching an itch after she'd broken up with her boyfriend. She'd be as calm and professional at work as ever.
Jack said, "I wonder if she's busy tonight."
Ianto froze again.
***
It was just gone eight when Lois made her way into the Hub proper. She'd been setting up the Tourist Centre for today's walk-ins, checking her email, and getting ready for another day at Torchwood. In no way was she dawdling, procrastinating, or otherwise avoiding any of her co-workers. Doing so would be silly, and also counter-productive as she'd rapidly learned that she needed to trust all of them with her life.
Gwen and Johnson hadn't arrived yet, but Martha was already in the med bay making a disgusted face at her latest find in the freezer. She'd started two weeks ago on an extended loan from UNIT, although records indicated she'd worked with Torchwood before.
"Good morning!" Lois said in what she hoped was a cheerful tone.
"Morning." Martha's expression didn't change. "I may be ill." Lois stepped to the railing and peered more closely, then scooted back when she saw the greenish-purplish pile of half-burned entrails.
"I don't blame you. What did it use to be?"
"I'm not sure. Jack's scribbled something here." She gestured with an elbow at a clipboard. Lois was growing familiar with the piles of paperwork, tree-based and electronic, that accompanied each find. Their employer stored a wealth of information about various alien species in his memories, but when he was in a hurry, his handwriting on the matter might as well have been in Sanskrit. Add to that the late Doctor Harper's illegible scrawl, and it was a wonder Martha understood anything written at all.
Nimbly, Lois made her way into the bay, steering clear of the thawing mess on the table. She scanned the note, translating from Jackese. "Would 'Larma' make sense?"
"It might. Thanks."
Lois bowed her head slightly. Her skills included reading gibberish, filing nonsense, and otherwise keeping an office running smoothly, be it for the Undersecretary to the MoD or Her Majesty's top secret alien catchers in Cardiff. It was why she'd been sent here on assignment.
The smell from the Larma's corpse really was foul. "I'll get the coffee started."
"Ianto's in." Which meant the process was probably already started. "But if you could bring me a cup, I'd love it." Martha looked down at the mess covering her gloves and frowned again. "Paper cup."
Lois smiled to hide the sudden worry blooming in her stomach. "I'll see what I can find."
With a careful tread, she made her way towards the butler's pantry, finally sniffing the addictive aroma wafting through the Hub. Maybe he wouldn't be there. She cast a glance and saw that Jack's office door was closed and the blinds drawn, and she relaxed a little.
As she poured coffee into a nice mug for herself and a disposable cup for Martha, the cog wheel alarm sounded, announcing Gwen and Johnson's arrival. Lois pulled out two more mugs and placed them all on the tray.
"Oh, thank God!" Gwen said as Lois appeared with the drinks. "Lois, you're a saint."
For the first month of her employment here, Lois would have blushed and murmured about just doing her job, but she was used to Gwen's effusiveness now, and merely smiled in acknowledgment as she handed Johnson a drink.
Keep smiling. Just keep smiling and no-one will ever look further.
"Thanks a million," Martha said when Lois placed the paper cup on the bench. The doctor had dabbed some Vapour Rub under her nose and seemed a little less nauseated by the stench. Pity it'd kill the taste of the coffee, but Lois supposed there were worse things.
She heard the door to Jack's office squeak open and made a mental note to put the WD40 in an obvious location. Since his cast had come off a week ago, Ianto had been catching up on the Hub maintenance they'd let slide. Even before his accident, the previously-tiny team had been up to their arses in alligators, as Jack put it, so there was a backlog even in the chores the rest of them had parsed out. They had yet to figure out who was going to muck out the pterodactyl's nest, and that was going to be a biohazard issue soon, something which their boss was cheerfully ignoring.
Said boss bounded down the stairs with his typical floppy dog attitude. Ianto followed coolly in his wake.
Jack took them all in with a welcoming expression and brought his hands together. "Morning, kids. No meeting today, that was our London Branch with a heads up. They're picking up readings that look like a major Rift breach in their neck of the woods."
It was another of Jack's idiosyncrasies that he insisted on referring to what amounted to one-man operations as "branches" of Torchwood. Torchwood Glasgow was one rangy old geezer who smoked like a chimney and spoke what to Lois's ear sounded like a blend of Scots-Gaelic and Klingon. Torchwood London, on the other hand, was currently one man Jack had hired, handed some basic scanners to, and told to keep an eye out for "anything weird." That had been last month. She'd only met Mickey once, but she'd spoken to him on the phone several times as he reported in from whatever Jack was having him watch.
Mickey had gone into Lois's report when some basic digging reported him dead at Canary Wharf only to miraculously reappear this past spring.
"Question," said Johnson, hands wrapped greedily around her mug. "The Rift doesn't extend to London, so why are we getting readings there?" And what are you really asking Smith to look for, she did not say but Lois knew she was dying to ask.
Agent Johnson had been discovered early on to be a spy, and the only reason Jack had given the others for keeping her on was that he liked his enemies in front of him. Johnson no longer worked for her former employers, and as Lois had been tasked by Torchwood to help monitor all her communications, she knew the woman hadn't contacted them. That didn't mean she wasn't still collecting information.
Jack folded his arms. "No, the Rift doesn't go that far. But the problem with the Rift is that it's not fixed at both ends." He looked up and over at Gwen, who went to her computer.
"Take a look," Gwen said. "It's like a rubber band." On her screen, there was a string, gyrating almost lasciviously. "One end stays fixed here. That's what we watch. But the other end can wind up anywhere."
Lois had seen this simulation before. Ianto had shown her many of Dr. Sato's old files. This particular one was a visual representation of the Rift-monitoring program, as Sato had tried (unsuccessfully) to trace where the other end went at any given time. She had believed that finding out where it ended would help the team control it better here, but nothing had come of her quest. Ianto had got sad after telling Lois about it, and she remembered that his grief had been freshly reopened.
Lois was circumspect when she put the information into her report. Grief was often a motivation for Torchwood's past misdeeds.
Jack said, "The other end is about to spill in London. We think. So, field trip. Ianto and Lois will stay here to keep an eye on things, the rest of you are with me." For the first time since he'd come into the room, Lois looked at Ianto, but he was an expert at not showing anything on his face when he didn't want to do so.
Gwen asked, "Are we anticipating an overnight?"
"No, but you can call Rhys and warn him it might be. Mickey says whatever is going to hit is coming in the next couple of hours, so we'll be fighting the roads to get there in time, but I don't know what we'll find when we do."
"Sir," said Lois. "If this is as big as you say, shouldn't the full team go?"
"Negative. I don't want to leave Cardiff unprotected." He let out a sigh, as if reading the mind of the man behind him, who was still not making any expression at all. "And yes, that means if something happens, you're both free to go into the field and deal with it. But call us!" This last was barked at Ianto, who finally broke into a tight but satisfied smile.
"Yes, sir. I'm sure the worrying will do us loads of good."
Jack's stern expression broke into something much fonder. "Just don't break anything else while we're gone." While Martha had cleared Ianto for field work, Jack had yet to let him out for dangerous missions of any type despite Ianto's repeated requests.
"I'll wrap him in bubble wrap if that would help," Lois offered. This earned her their combined attention, and a slight flush flowing up Ianto's neck. She hadn't intended that, but words spoken were words too late to take back, as her grandmother had always said. She cleared her throat. "I'll get supplies ready for the trip," and she fled, her exit covered by her equally flustered colleagues who were gathering equipment.
Ten minutes later, she watched on CCTV as the SUV roared out of the underground garage and wondered if it would be feasible to avoid her remaining co-worker until the rest got back tomorrow or the next day.
Twenty minutes after that, Ianto appeared beside her desk. Apparently not.
"Hi," he said, finally making proper eye contact for the first time today.
"Hi." This would be a good time to make small talk, or to worry out loud for the rest of the team, or something.
"How are you doing? Today, I mean." His voice was steady but she could tell it was at a cost.
She opened her mouth to say, "Fine," and instead "Pleasantly sore," came out, followed by a tiny laugh. "You?"
"Same." There was that flush again. She wished Jack were here. Jack could make awkward situations smooth, just by being there and refusing to be uncomfortable. Last night had been massively outside her previous experience, but Jack's smile had made it seem like the most normal thing in the world to play naughty secretaries with her employer and his lover.
But Jack wasn't here, and the night was well over.
Ianto said, "Jack's a bit better at this than I am. Sorry."
She wanted to ask him better at what? Morning after talk? Giving the "let's be friends" speech? She'd run over both in her mind, wondering how the let-down would come. From what she could tell, the two men were in a long-term relationship, and she'd been invited to join them simply because she was the only woman they knew who wasn't married, related to them, or Johnson. Her supervisor had told her about Jack's reputation and indicated she might be propositioned, emphasising that he did not expect a seduction to be part of her job and that she should feel free to decline on her own terms.
She hadn't declined. But she wasn't putting it into the report.
Lois broke first. "Shall we get the 'let's agree to be friends' bit out so we can get back to work?"
"If that's what you want." Something about his voice indicated this wasn't as great a relief as she'd been expecting.
She pursed her lips, and spoke slowly, thinking out loud. "Last night was a lot of fun." She broke off, and looked at him. "A lot of fun." He laughed, some of his tension broken, and she smiled again. "And I won't say I'd object to a repeat, but for now, I think it's best if we just set it aside as a happy memory."
Her own memory chose that moment to betray her. For the first part of the night, she and Ianto had been forbidden from touching each other as Jack gave them truly delightful orders. By the end, and after a break for a late supper (for Lois and Ianto -- they'd left Jack tied up, and honestly, he'd deserved it) there wasn't an inch on her body that hadn't been stroked or kissed or more. Even now, looking at his hand resting on the back of the chair, Lois remembered what those hands could do, and she had trouble keeping her voice calm and her breathing steady.
Perhaps he had the same problem, as his eyes focused for a moment on her hands resting folded on the desk. Then the mask came down again as she watched, and a pleasant smile that gave nothing away replaced the flash of lust she'd seen. "I think you're right."
She expected him to hold out his hand for a friendly shake, because it seemed the silly kind of thing he'd do. She'd take his hand, and they would be very, very good and not pull each other in for a kiss that would certainly not lead anywhere productive.
The Rift alarm sounded. The noise shuddered through them both. Then Lois spun to the keyboard at her desk while Ianto hurried to Gwen's station.
Ianto said, "Unknown size, just opened near Whitchurch." He touched his ear. "Where are you?"
The little earbud in her own ear said, "Crossing the bridge now. Why?"
That was faster than she'd expected, but then, Jack drove like a maniac when he could get away with it. Ianto said, "We've just had something come through."
"We can be back there in fifteen minutes."
Lois and Ianto shared what were no doubt matching looks of horror at the mental images this evoked.
"Don't. The London thing may be bigger. Lois and I will check this one out. Could be nothing."
"Be. Careful. Both of you." That last part was sweet, she thought, considering. "Call as soon as you know anything."
"We will. Good hunting."
She expected them to say something else, but it was an open channel, and anyway, endearments didn't fit either one. The slight static faded, indicating Jack had closed the line.
Ianto was already on his feet. "Ready?"
"Let's go."
***
The need for small talk in the car was conveniently bypassed with monitoring the equipment. Jack and the rest had taken the good portable scanners with them, so Ianto had to wrack his brain to tell Lois how to recalibrate these to give them the information they needed.
"Are you sure there aren't any non-human lifeform readings?"
She frowned at the monitor again. "Five Weevils are showing, but they're in the wrong direction." That could be a problem later, and he made a mental note to keep an ear out for anything unusual over the regular channels. "Everything else is terrestrial."
"Check the site again," he said, and gunned the engine. He was already breaking the speeding laws, and without the familiar menace of the Torchwood SUV, he was risking unwanted attention from the police. The end result would be the same, but he'd rather not lose time in case whatever was on the other end of this trip went on a rampage.
He spared a glance over to Lois, who was still fidgeting unhappily with the scanner. For that matter, he'd rather not have to go against said rampaging alien with her as his sole backup. Gwen teased Ianto about misplaced chivalry all the time, but this was practicality: Lois had very little field training, she was still not qualified on her sidearm although she had regular lessons with Gwen and, bless, she had a tendency to squeak and duck when they were facing something hostile. There was a reason she was office support. He hoped whatever came through would be easily subdued, because the thought of attempting any kind of coordinated manoeuvre with her frankly scared him.
"We're nearly there," she said. "Still nothing alien."
"Scan for technology." Perhaps they'd got lucky, and it was just some random Rift detritus. "One time, we had a huge Rift event that dropped a tonne of alien toothbrushes on a farm not far from here."
"Toothbrushes?"
"That's what Jack said they were. Though sometimes I think he makes it all up. Either that, or there's a much larger number of sex toys from the future that fall through the Rift than you'd think possible."
That drew a laugh from her, and she scanned. "Nothing."
He let out a breath. No use accusing her of reading it wrong.
They arrived at the site and he parked, making a decision as they got out. "Lisa, stay here and monitor the site in case something else comes through." She frowned at him, then nodded slowly. "We'll stay in comms range. I'll scout the area, and if I can bring it in, I will. If I can't, we'll fall back and try to keep whatever it is here until the others return."
"That could be hours." Or more, if the London incursion went bad.
"Then let's hope this is an easy one." He offered her a smile he didn't feel, and then handed over his keys, feeling only a tiny twinge. "If it goes badly, get out of here and call Jack. If the team can't make it back in time, call UNIT."
She looked unconvinced, but did take the keys. "Jack hates UNIT."
"So do I. But they're useful."
For half a second, they stared at each other. Part of him wanted to give her a quick kiss for luck. The rest of him thought that would be a bad idea.
"Good luck," she said, and stepped away, answering that question. Her eyes dropped to her screen. "Still nothing."
He readied his gun, but left it out of sight, and began making his way through the crush of stores. The streets weren't as busy with shoppers as they could have been, which reduced the chance of civilian casualties. Without a working scanner, he wasn't sure what he was dealing with, or how he'd recognise it if he saw it. He just hoped the alien threat would be obvious enough.
Fortunately, the four WWII-era soldiers stood out in the small crowd.
Ianto unclenched. Rift refugees were a completely different story. He thumbed the safety back on his gun, and then said in a friendly voice, "I was wondering where you'd gone. The fancy dress party is all the way across town."
A few onlookers glanced his way without much interest. He gave them a quick smile, nothing to see here, just some blokes out early. "I've got the car around the corner."
One of the men said, "This isn't where we were. There was a bright light … "
Ianto approached them with care. "You are safe here. I can explain further, but we should go somewhere in private."
"We can't leave the lorry here," said another soldier, his face gone pale and shocky. The other two men -- one hefty and blond, the other black and bespectacled -- came to either side of him protectively, and Ianto suddenly hoped none of them would need a trip out to Flat Holm. These men didn't appear to be as far-travelled as the poor souls out there, merely displaced in time. Torchwood had protocols for that, assuming the new arrivals could be assimilated back into the culture. A safe house, a bit of training, and oftentimes, people from recent or near future eras could transition smoothly. Never mind that the last time people had come through this way, two had committed suicide and the third had fled to London, all to get away from their new best friends at Torchwood Cardiff.
"Is your lorry near here?"
The first soldier, the one who appeared the least upset by the changes around him, nodded. Ianto touched his ear. "Lois, please bring the large tarpaulin and join me. Oh, and a roll of the yellow tape."
"Is everything all right?"
"Just another day," he reassured her. To the men he said, "My associate will join us in a moment. She and I will help you."
"What year is this?" The soldier didn't sound surprised, but worry crept into his voice. When Ianto didn't answer immediately, he added, "This is Cardiff, isn't it? Was it the Rift, then?"
Ianto stepped closer. "You know about the Rift?"
"I do. They'll need a bit of catching up." He gestured at his friends.
"It's 2009." This was in a low voice, only for the man, who finally blanched and closed his eyes.
"1945 for us."
A clatter of shoes later, and Lois appeared with the lightweight tarp in her arms. Ianto took it from her, grateful to look away from the lost soldiers. "Thank you."
The man Ianto was assuming was their leader fell into flirtatious banter with Lois quickly, and the others treated her politely, possibly in response, as the six of them located the half-destroyed remnant of the over-sized lorry, covered it with the tarpaulin, and labelled it carefully with caution tape.
As retrievals went, this was one of the easier ones, Ianto thought. They returned to the car while Lois took out her mobile to call a cab for herself. "I'll meet you there."
His ear chirped. "Ianto?" Jack sounded worried.
Bugger. He hadn't reported in yet. "Here. Everything's fine. Some Rift refugees. We're handling it."
"All right. Keep me in the loop."
"Likewise. Are you in London yet?"
Jack's laugh came loud and clear across the comm.
***
They beat the Rift event, but only barely. The SUV skidded to a stop, peppering Mickey's car with gravel. The team jumped out with a smooth efficiency Jack was pleased to notice and joined Mickey in the broken expanse of cracked rubble and pavement that used to be a Tower block a few years back.
Mickey nodded as Jack approached. "If I'm reading this thing right, we're probably way too close."
Jack glanced over his shoulder, and his mouth went dry. "You're reading it right."
Above them, the sky splintered into white cracks. Gwen and Johnson had the biggest particle weapons out, a fact which made Jack only slightly jealous. Mickey's gun was at the ready. Jack kept his own away for now. He trusted his people to fire on his order if whatever came through was hostile, but he did want to start with the option that it wasn't. Beside him, he felt Martha's quiet approval. She carried a gun, and she was very good with it, but they both had someone else keeping watch, if only in spirit.
His eyes glued to the sky, Jack said, "Get ready."
Mickey said, "Now, that's kinda weird."
Jack's head snapped back down to see the readings on the scanner shift abruptly. The spike went negative. Jack felt the blood rush from his face as he shouted: "Get back! Run!"
Martha was the closest and he grabbed her arm roughly, pelting as fast as he could away from the site. Gladly, he heard the others following, with Johnson actually overtaking him in her haste to get away. He glanced back, and Gwen and Mickey weren't more than two steps behind him as they all ran for cover.
The Rift spike opened wide and a large chunk of former housing vanished from where they'd been standing, tonnes of the stuff just gone and air cracking in to fill the vacuum. Jack let himself slow down, let the rest get past him, and he stood and watched as the Rift ate away at the rubble twice more, and then was still. Jack felt a space-time belch would be in order, but none came. He grinned at the thought of it anyway.
"What … " Gwen said between gasps, "just … happened?"
Jack's fingers flew over the controls of Mickey's scanner. Temporal flux was still messing with the system, but he could make out a very rough guess. "That was the far end of the Rift making a pick-up from another time. That pile of debris is going to give us a headache in about two centuries."
Martha smiled. "We'll leave you a big broom, then," she said, and Gwen laughed.
Mickey looked chastened, but Jack handed him back the scanner and patted his shoulder, though not too much because Mickey got weird about touching. "You wouldn't have been able to tell from the readings we had, not until it happened, and if it had been coming the other way, something that size, we'd have been fighting off a Sontaran battle cruiser."
Mickey made a face. "Not the potato guys."
Jack grinned again, then looked at the others. "Can you three load up the weapons so we can get back? I want to make sure this thing is working before we go." He waited for Gwen, Martha, and mostly importantly Johnson, to be out of earshot. "Any news?"
"Not yet."
Mickey had a set of scanners, ostensibly to watch London's skies for anything weird, but mainly because he was one of the few people Jack could rely on for two vital assignments. Sarah Jane had said something was off with the Doctor, something important, but she didn't know what, and she'd been too distraught at the time to answer questions. London was a far more likely place than Cardiff for a sighting, and Mickey's a more welcome face than Jack's, so Mickey kept the lookout and Jack kept the worry. Neither one needed to be expressed in front of Johnson, no matter how closely they watched her, in case her former masters -- he used the term deliberately, now that she'd told him who'd given the original order to have Torchwood watched -- had an interest of their own in the Doctor's whereabouts.
And then there was the other project, sparked by an impossible cry for help that had arrived unexpectedly at the Tourist Centre four weeks ago addressed to Jack. He and Martha had run into a series of dead ends ever since. They'd asked Tish for help, but she'd given them a firm no and Jack understood; warfare and imprisonment meant knowing whom to rely on utterly, but afterwards, it was often too painful to keep close contact with the people who'd seen you at your lowest point. For Tish, working for Jack on this would mean daily reminders of a horror she wanted to put out of her mind forever.
He wasn't ready to bring in Ianto or Gwen, not yet. If it was a mistake, they didn't need to know. If it was a trap, he wanted them well clear.
That left Mickey, who was trustworthy enough to follow through, and distant enough from the worst of it not to be in danger. He wasn't a hacker on par with Toshiko, but he could sneak into certain locked communications with the help of Torchwood tech, and he could keep an ear on the ground for more. They'd only received one message out of the darkness. It could be nothing. Jack had to know.
"All right. You know the drill. Anything at all … "
"I'm on the phone."
They walked back together so Mickey could say his goodbyes to the rest. Something clicked in Jack's head. "Martha, do you want to stay here and come back tomorrow? Give Tom a surprise visit?"
"I'd love to, but he's out of the country until Friday." Her eyes dimmed for a moment, and Jack felt bad. She'd agreed to the extended tour with Torchwood, but long-distance relationships were hard on anyone, especially newlyweds.
"Remind me to give you the weekend off, then."
"I'll hold you to it." She gave Mickey another hug, and then they were back in the SUV headed home.
***
The return trip was less breakneck than the drive there had been, but Jack was still whizzing in and out of traffic like he had a race car instead of a large, black SUV. Gwen was used to this, used to the bumps and shifts, used to holding on for dear life at the grab bar as Jack said, "I can make that gap." Her breakfast wasn't sitting well, though, and come to think of it, most of her breakfast had been coffee.
From the back seat (slightly more protected from the jarring, if only by a small degree) Martha said, "We're stopping in Bath. You're going to need petrol, and it's a good stop for lunch."
Jack said, "We can be back in Cardiff for lunch. A late lunch."
Johnson said, "I second the motion to stop in Bath."
"This isn't a committee."
"Third," Gwen said, because she could, and also a break from the rollercoaster drive sounded like Heaven to her roiling stomach. She could fake a bit of lunch, too.
Jack let out a mutter. "Fine." He resembled nothing so much as a dad out in a car trip with the kids as he grumbled and put the SUV into a lower gear, looking for his exit.
Gwen took the food orders down and added a small salad for herself. Her denims were tight this week, had been for a couple of weeks, actually. As she picked up the food, she idly began doing a little mental maths.
She almost dropped the tray when she came up with an answer.
***
Chapter Two