Fic: Boggarts, Cracks and Lava (Predators of the 21st Century) pt1
Title: Boggarts, Cracks and Lava (Predators of the 21st Century)
Author: phaetonschariot
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Pairings: As canon
Rating: Currently PG-13
Spoilers: Through Doctor Who 5.05 "Flesh and Stone"; most likely alternate canon from then on.
Summary: Timelines are normally pretty robust, but between cracks in reality and the fixed point in time that is Jack Harkness, sometimes things go a little haywire. Unfortunately you can't always fix things with some technobabble and a sonic screwdriver - baggage is something you just have to live with.
It was absolutely bloody typical that Owen and Gwen would be out of the base on the morning that a strange grinding noise became audible on the main floor of the Hub. Ianto's head snapped up at the sound, breath catching on something sharp like barbed wire. It was unmistakable. Even only having heard it over recordings, some of them poor quality enough that if they'd been anything else they'd have been wiped after first listen, there was no doubt whatsoever what he was hearing.
Steel reverberated under his shoes as he hurried down a flight of spiral stairs to find Tosh already half out of her seat, the expression on her face close to what he thought his must be. "It's--"
"I know. Get the others back here, now." He sounded confident, commanding even, and that was still novel enough that something in his stomach did a bit of a flip when he recognised it, and when Toshiko nodded and moved out of the way to where she had quiet enough to speak over the comms. Ianto watched her for a moment before continuing towards the other side of the room, stopping a few feet back from where the air was flickering, a tall shape wheezing in and out of phase, gradually solidifying until it became recognisable.
The TARDIS. He'd seen it once before, in person, even before those days when they'd watched the CCTV footage of Jack's disappearance over dozens of times, trying to find answers to questions they weren't even sure how to ask. It seemed different somehow, newer, than when it had sat in a Torchwood storage in London.
He had time to clasp his hands behind his back before the door swung inwards. He hoped he didn't look like he felt.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting, really, so it wasn't exactly a surprise when a man in an awkward-looking suit and bow tie combination blew out of the TARDIS like a hurricane was on his heels. He was-- young, unlike most of the pictures Ianto had seen of eccentric old gentlemen, and energy seemed to be practically sparking off him. "Torchwood! Yes, excellent, right where it should be. Good sign. Probably should've checked that first, actually, bit of advice, you never want to land in a cave in. Ruins the paint job. Who are you?"
Talks a lot, Ianto thought, remembering the gossip that had been flying around the tower on the day before they nearly destroyed the word, and had to swallow down bubbling laughter. Oh, yes, this was definitely the Doctor, no matter what he looked like. "Ianto Jones," he replied, glad to hear that his voice was steady still. Square shoulders, spine straight, fake it til you make it. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement as Tosh returned, and the reassurance settled something in his chest until he almost felt the calmness he was pretending to. "Head of Torchwood Three. May I ask the purpose of this visit?"
The Doctor had been pacing a bit and he stopped now, staring at Ianto with a frown. Behind him, a red-haired girl stepped out of the TARDIS - his companion, no doubt. She appeared to be human, a few years younger than Ianto was, and her outfit placed her as contemporary... give or take a decade or two. Girls had been dressing like that when he was a kid, hadn't they?
"No you're not." The Doctor scoffed in disbelief, ignoring the girl as she stared around the huge room, eyes almost impossibly wide. Ianto's right hand itched, wanting to lead her off somewhere away from any sensitive equipment and leave someone else to deal with the Doctor while he quietly served up refreshments, but he didn't have that luxury anymore. He had to step up and take responsibility.
"I certainly am," he retorted, trying to keep his tone as mild as possible. "Appointed by Her Royal Highness the Queen. It would be a little difficult to forget."
"Noooo," the Doctor repeated, drawing the sound out. "No! No, really? What about Jack? Where is he?" He looked around properly now, as though expecting to find that they were keeping Jack stashed under a desk or something.
If only. No, it was only Ianto and Tosh, and he couldn't pretend he wasn't a little bit relieved when she spoke up. "He doesn't work here anymore. We-- thought he might be with you, actually."
"Not here. Right. Of course. Not good, very, very... What year is this, Ianto Jones?"
He exchanged a quick glance with Toshiko, wishing he had some kind of handle on the situation, or at least that he had even half a clue what the hell was going on. There was nothing, though, just the manic way the Doctor was waving his hands around as he talked, as though he was working through an idea out loud. The best thing, he supposed, was just to answer his questions until things became clearer. "Two thousand ten. June 26."
"Right, right, yes, that's what I thought. Alright, I have just one more question, and this is important, very, very important. Why did he leave?"
That was a question Ianto had been trying to answer for almost a year, now, and to hear it coming from the mouth of the last Time Lord had him fighting to control his reaction. He needed to be able to remain composed under pressure. Even he wouldn't be able to trust his judgement, otherwise, let alone a team that was made up entirely of people older than he was. He allowed himself only a moment of tension and hysteria before letting it all out in a slow exhale, trying to will the emotions out of his body as he pictured the Ianto he wanted to convince the world he was. Calm, competent and in control, no matter what the universe threw at him. That was what he wanted.
And then, just like so many times in the past, he could almost believe it. Certainly he could make everyone else believe it - it really wasn't that hard, when you got a bit of practice. He met the Doctor's gaze, barely feeling the urge to reel back when he was hit by the strange magnetism there, the intense alienness that threatened to overwhelm. "It probably helped that he never really wanted to be here in the first place," he said, with just enough flippancy to convince anyone that he wasn't particularly bothered by the idea. "Let alone in charge. We had one bad ending too many. Unlike you, we don't get to skip out on the consequences of our actions."
Somehow, that didn't seem to be the answer the Doctor wanted, as for a long moment when Ianto finished speaking he simply stared at him - not in shock or disbelief or anything, now, just thoughtful, as though Ianto were a difficult puzzle that needed concentration and forethought to solve. Just when he was starting to feel uncomfortable under his gaze, the Doctor nodded, clapping his hands once. "Right! Come on, Amy, places to go!"
He took the girl by the elbow, half-dragging her back into the TARDIS despite her protestations. Ianto could hear her saying, "They had a pterodactyl!" as the door closed, but it wasn't until the engines started up their whining again that he felt himself deflate a little.
Tosh's footsteps were quiet, muffled even more by the noise of the TARDIS, but he managed not to jump when she rested her hand on his shoulder. She didn't say anything, at least, and after a moment he sighed and turned to face her. "Okay. I'd better write up an incident report. Get on the computer, see if there are any irregularities we hadn't noticed. The Doctor rarely turns up anywhere for no reason."
He didn't wait for her answer before starting back towards his office, though unlike when Jack had done that, it wasn't because he was confident enough not to imagine that his instructions might not be followed. He just wanted to get out from under her sympathetic gaze.
*
66,302 LIGHT YEARS AWAY
913 YEARS LATER
This was the kind of bar Jack liked these days. Crowded enough that you never had to feel alone, noisy enough that you never had to deal with silence, and full of people with too much money to spend. He waited for the barman to finish pouring his drink before picking it up and raising it to his companion - they'd been making the same toast for the last half hour or so, by his count, and pretty soon zie would be cheerful enough about his generosity to walk away without too much bitterness over unforeseeable circumstances that interfered with perfectly legitimate business transactions. Sure, zie was out a good chunk of credits, but hey. You win some, you lose some, right?
The hem of his coat was starting to come undone, he realised, and for a moment the fingers of his left hand toyed with the gap in the stitching. He'd have to see to that later. He was perfectly capable of mending clothing, actually, counting it as one of many survival traits that were more prudent than not to know, but he'd probably never get it looking as good as it had been.
Things always showed, once they were broken.
He managed to make his exit a few minutes later, leaving the mark chatting up another patron and looking like zie was going to get a bit of action, and he passingly considered heading to another bar himself to see if there was anyone interesting and available around. There was almost certain to be - places like this, way-stations and pit-stops, were notorious for being able to provide anything an anonymous traveler might want, and anyone who didn't want to contribute to that sort of atmosphere would likely just stay on their transport anyway. Confirmation bias, or something similar in theory; either way it worked in his favour, supplying him with an ever-changing population of people who didn't have the time for any kind of long-term relationship, be it financial or romantic.
Tonight, though, he didn't feel up to it. He wasn't sleepy, exactly, but the kind of tired that sank into your bones and weighed you down, made everything sound like it required far more effort than he had to spare. A better idea would be finding a white space booth - it was an expense, but the idea of a few hours in a room designed to let you just shut down and drift was more alluring than anything else he could think of right now. And it wasn't like he didn't have the credit to spare for once.
Not bothering to remember what kind of user interface this system used in this century, he turned into the next corridor off the main parade and leaned against the wall, lifting his wrist to access the computer built into the leather strap he wore there. It was millenia more advanced than the technology here but designed to be subtle - one good thing you could say about the Time Agency. A few taps were all he needed to access the public services maps and he located the nearest booths quickly, scanning over the directions until he had them fairly well set in his short term memory.
It was a bit of a walk, but that was alright. One foot in front of the other, that was all walking was. A hell of a lot easier than the job the clean up crews had ahead of them on the planet's surface, following the accidental chemical explosion that had taken out two adjacent towns and a single parked piece of space junk.
*
It was impossible to tell exactly how long he'd been in the booth when the door opened to alert him, politely, to get the fuck out. That was sort of the idea, really; the technology had been adapted from one species' solution to the vast and empty boring parts of interstellar travel. It would be taken off the market in a few decades amidst concerns for public safety in the wake of several studies coming to light on the addictive nature of it, but Jack figured he could try every addiction in the known universe and still have time to do the straight and sober thing after it all.
He stumbled a little on the way out, body not quite sure yet how this 'floor' thing was supposed to work again. He looked more drunk than he felt, most likely, but it was still probably safer to sit down for a few minutes, despite the lack of chairs, and they really ought to do something about that. They wouldn't have had the material for it to start with, but there were supplies coming through the station at all hours now.
He'd just let his eyes slide shut when he was startled by a piercing whistle coming from down the hallway. It had a distinctively organic sound, the kind that came from a person, not a machine, and when he turned to glare at the offender the.. man? was just lowering a hand from his mouth. "Jackie-boy! You're coming with me."
"That's not--" His protest died as he studied the man closer. Apparently human, awful fashion sense, turning up out of nowhere with a girl and a feeling that he'd just come from somewhere probably exciting and almost certainly dangerous? "Doctor?" There wasn't much in the way of purchase on the recycled wall panels, but he managed to get his feet under him somehow anyway, even without tripping over the hem of his coat. Now that would have been embarrassing.
There was nothing familiar about the face he wore, but oh, his grin... that was all Doctor. "Amy Pond, meet Captain Jack Harkness. --She's getting married," he added sternly, pointing a warning finger at Jack, and he let out a short laugh of disbelief. Turning up out of nowhere with a girl and starting lecturing him within a minute, apparently.
"I'm reformed," he retorted, which, technically, was probably true. A few long strides caught him up to them. God, they made him feel tall. "What's the emergency?"
"End of the universe, of course! Nothing I can't handle. Not sure how yet, I'll figure something out. I always do."
Amy frowned, long red hair falling back off her face as she looked sideways at him, keeping pace with them easily, and Jack wondered how long she'd been with the Doctor. "Captain of what?" she asked, and he decided that it had either been a while or like just attracted like; whatever this particular universe-ending disaster might be, she didn't seem especially worried about it.
"It's a long list," he told her easily.
"But this is the thirtieth century, and you're wearing a military coat. And all the humans are supposed to be on those country ships, aren't they? We were just there a bit ago."
Ah, Starship UK. Nice place to visit, but he sure wouldn't want to live there. It tended to take a rather hard line approach to society, and he'd always been a fan of flexibility, especially when it bent in his direction. "No citizenship." He grinned at her, tugging on the edges of his charm until he could pull them out of the box they'd gotten packed away into. Now that the vertigo was starting to wear off, he really did feel a lot better - just as well, if there was going to be much running. "Not in this century, anyway. I'm really more of a free agent."
"He's a conman," the Doctor corrected. "And that's wrong, too. You keep breaking time, Jack, though I suppose it's not your fault this time--"
"It wasn't my fault last time, either!"
"--And it should be an easy enough fix for once. We just have to get you back where you should be."
There was a decidedly ominous sound to that, Jack decided, and stopped dead in his tracks. Amy and the Doctor continued for a couple of steps before realising, and by the time they'd turned back to face him he had his arms crossed across his chest. "What do you mean, 'where I should be'?"
Amy's expression lit up in sudden realisation. She looked as though she was practically about to clap her hands in glee, actually, and where once Jack would have wondered why the Doctor always went for the young ones, he thought he understood now. Looking through someone else's eyes, things were almost new again. "Oh, Torchwood!"
And that was what he'd been afraid of. "No way," he said, turning to go back down the corridor. There barely even was a Torchwood anymore, as far as he knew, but even if it had turned into some vast benevolent empire that barely resembled the original thing, whatever the Doctor needed it for, he could do it himself.
"Oi, get back here, you dolt!"
It was the wording more than the exasperation in his tone that made Jack pause, looking back over his shoulder to ask, "Did you just call me a dolt?"
For a moment the Doctor seemed visibly flummoxed before recovering himself, as though he himself was having the exact same reaction as Jack was. "Ye-es, I did. Sorry. New me, still working things out. But you don't have that excuse." He walked towards him, stopping only when he was close enough to grip Jack's arms with both hands and meet his gaze steadily. Funny how his eyes could change colour, but they always looked exactly the same. It was cliched, and almost as cliched again to point out the cliche, but Jack felt like you could drown in them before you ever worked up the strength to look away. It was no wonder people followed him into madness, really, if they'd never seen anything else so powerfully, intensely magnetic. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," he said quietly. "Because it is, desperately important. There's a crack in the very fabric of the universe, and I don't know where it's come from, but time is running out and things that should have happened never did. You can probably remember most of them, but I think some of them hit that crack before they got to where they were going and now the timelines are broken and I need you back there, Jack. And I think you need to be back there too."
The annoying thing, the really damnable thing, was that it didn't even matter what the Doctor said. All he really had to do was look at someone like that, touch them and use that tone of voice that was intimate and knowing and demanded faith and trust, and he could be reciting Beowulf in the original Ancient English for all the difference it would make. It was impossible to turn away from that - always had been. In the end, he could lead Jack anywhere at all.
*
He tried to remember that as the harsh grinding of the engines started to fade. The TARDIS interior was unfamiliar, vastly different from the last time he'd seen her, and if the controls made up in eccentricity what they lacked in history, there was still something missing. Not that he didn't still love the old girl, but... it was like when you ran into an old friend who'd made radical life changes, had all these new ideas and perspectives and no matter how hard you tried, in the end it was all awkward silences and lacklustre as you both began to realise that you just didn't have much in common anymore. Jack had no doubt he could get to know this new TARDIS, new Doctor, new girl, but if he was going to be stuck here back on Earth, it was probably for the best not to. No mess, no fuss, no one to miss.
That was the idea, at least.
There was a calendar displayed on one of the consoles and he stared at the numbers for a moment, trying to fit them into the timeline of his memories. Gwen would have had her baby by now. Had she stuck around to rebuild? Maybe Rhys had helped out. She'd probably recruited Andy, too. Found a new place, even scavenged some of the equipment from the Hub. Right behind the TARDIS doors.
"Go on." The Doctor nodded at the door, rocking back and forth on his heels, hands shoved into his pockets now that they'd parked and he no longer needed six limbs just to keep them on route. Jack wondered, very briefly, what would happen if he changed his mind... but the Doctor was stubborn as hell when he got something in his head. Somehow, he didn't think exactly that that was something that had changed.
The door seemed lighter than he remembered and pulled open easily, swinging inside so that he had to step around it before exiting the TARDIS into--
The Hub?
The Hub, complete with hodge-podge architecture, computer systems cobbled together, water feature centered dramatically right in his line of vision, and Gwen Cooper and Toshiko Sato staring at him as though they were looking at a ghost.
He kinda knew how they felt. He almost couldn't bring himself to look away - Toshiko, standing right in front of him, breathing and unbloodied - but he had to know-- that this wasn't part of what was broken. If this was what the Doctor thought needed fixing, then...
He wasn't sure what his face looked like when he caught the Doctor's eye again, couldn't even begin to imagine, but the things he wanted to know must have been obvious, or maybe the Time Lord just knew him pretty damn well by now. Neither of them had to say anything; the Doctor just nodded once, and Jack let his eyes close in-- relief? thanks? disbelief? All of that. Even so, he half-expected it to be gone when he opened them again.
"Right!" the Doctor announced, clapping his hands together. "Well, got to be going, still got a bit of a problem to figure out, so I'll just--"
"Hang on." Of course it was Gwen who interrupted, hands on hips and magnificent. "You can't just disappear on us, no explanation, and walk back in whenever you feel like as if nothing happened!"
"I--" He stopped, caught by movement - Ianto and Owen had just come in, followed by a third man he'd never seen before, and his throat and chest and stomach all seized up at once. Oh god, it was all of them, all three of them, the stranger looking a bit bemused and Ianto and Owen closed off and it would be really, really inappropriate to laugh. Or to tell them that Tosh and Ianto had both died in his arms, probably. They didn't need to know that.
He looked back at the Doctor helplessly. He looked like he'd been considering ducking back into the TARDIS and bailing out of the awkward scene. "Well, not strictly speaking," he allowed instead. "Time can change, and usually the universe can compensate, but Jack's a big old blob of... un-time. Very complicated, you wouldn't understand."
Ianto muttered something that Jack couldn't catch at that, and Owen snorted. Whatever it was had probably been quite uncharitable - most people wouldn't know it, but Ianto could be a real passive-aggressive bastard sometimes. When it wasn't directed at him, it was funny. He'd more than once enjoyed poking him just a little into going off into a rant about whoever had been getting on his nerves just so he could listen to all the creatively insulting turns of phrase he came up with.
Mentally, he shook himself; there would be room to remember all of this later, when it looked like there was less chance of one of them hitting him again. He gave Gwen a beseeching look, trying to throw a bit of sheepish charm into the mix for good measure. "I wouldn't just leave, Gwen. There wasn't... anything left. I was sick of watching people I cared about die."
"And now?" Tosh asked.
"I don't want to lose any more time."
The constant hum of computer processors - this century was so noisy with its technology still - filled the silence as his team exchanged significant glances, having a conversation with nothing but their eyes that clearly didn't include him at all. He'd been part of that once - how long had it taken for them to shut him out?
"I'm not giving my office back, though," said Ianto after a few seconds, and Jack's head whipped around to stare after him as he left the room, clearly removing himself from further conversation. Ianto's office?
"Wait," he said. "What?"
Author: phaetonschariot
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Pairings: As canon
Rating: Currently PG-13
Spoilers: Through Doctor Who 5.05 "Flesh and Stone"; most likely alternate canon from then on.
Summary: Timelines are normally pretty robust, but between cracks in reality and the fixed point in time that is Jack Harkness, sometimes things go a little haywire. Unfortunately you can't always fix things with some technobabble and a sonic screwdriver - baggage is something you just have to live with.
It was absolutely bloody typical that Owen and Gwen would be out of the base on the morning that a strange grinding noise became audible on the main floor of the Hub. Ianto's head snapped up at the sound, breath catching on something sharp like barbed wire. It was unmistakable. Even only having heard it over recordings, some of them poor quality enough that if they'd been anything else they'd have been wiped after first listen, there was no doubt whatsoever what he was hearing.
Steel reverberated under his shoes as he hurried down a flight of spiral stairs to find Tosh already half out of her seat, the expression on her face close to what he thought his must be. "It's--"
"I know. Get the others back here, now." He sounded confident, commanding even, and that was still novel enough that something in his stomach did a bit of a flip when he recognised it, and when Toshiko nodded and moved out of the way to where she had quiet enough to speak over the comms. Ianto watched her for a moment before continuing towards the other side of the room, stopping a few feet back from where the air was flickering, a tall shape wheezing in and out of phase, gradually solidifying until it became recognisable.
The TARDIS. He'd seen it once before, in person, even before those days when they'd watched the CCTV footage of Jack's disappearance over dozens of times, trying to find answers to questions they weren't even sure how to ask. It seemed different somehow, newer, than when it had sat in a Torchwood storage in London.
He had time to clasp his hands behind his back before the door swung inwards. He hoped he didn't look like he felt.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting, really, so it wasn't exactly a surprise when a man in an awkward-looking suit and bow tie combination blew out of the TARDIS like a hurricane was on his heels. He was-- young, unlike most of the pictures Ianto had seen of eccentric old gentlemen, and energy seemed to be practically sparking off him. "Torchwood! Yes, excellent, right where it should be. Good sign. Probably should've checked that first, actually, bit of advice, you never want to land in a cave in. Ruins the paint job. Who are you?"
Talks a lot, Ianto thought, remembering the gossip that had been flying around the tower on the day before they nearly destroyed the word, and had to swallow down bubbling laughter. Oh, yes, this was definitely the Doctor, no matter what he looked like. "Ianto Jones," he replied, glad to hear that his voice was steady still. Square shoulders, spine straight, fake it til you make it. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement as Tosh returned, and the reassurance settled something in his chest until he almost felt the calmness he was pretending to. "Head of Torchwood Three. May I ask the purpose of this visit?"
The Doctor had been pacing a bit and he stopped now, staring at Ianto with a frown. Behind him, a red-haired girl stepped out of the TARDIS - his companion, no doubt. She appeared to be human, a few years younger than Ianto was, and her outfit placed her as contemporary... give or take a decade or two. Girls had been dressing like that when he was a kid, hadn't they?
"No you're not." The Doctor scoffed in disbelief, ignoring the girl as she stared around the huge room, eyes almost impossibly wide. Ianto's right hand itched, wanting to lead her off somewhere away from any sensitive equipment and leave someone else to deal with the Doctor while he quietly served up refreshments, but he didn't have that luxury anymore. He had to step up and take responsibility.
"I certainly am," he retorted, trying to keep his tone as mild as possible. "Appointed by Her Royal Highness the Queen. It would be a little difficult to forget."
"Noooo," the Doctor repeated, drawing the sound out. "No! No, really? What about Jack? Where is he?" He looked around properly now, as though expecting to find that they were keeping Jack stashed under a desk or something.
If only. No, it was only Ianto and Tosh, and he couldn't pretend he wasn't a little bit relieved when she spoke up. "He doesn't work here anymore. We-- thought he might be with you, actually."
"Not here. Right. Of course. Not good, very, very... What year is this, Ianto Jones?"
He exchanged a quick glance with Toshiko, wishing he had some kind of handle on the situation, or at least that he had even half a clue what the hell was going on. There was nothing, though, just the manic way the Doctor was waving his hands around as he talked, as though he was working through an idea out loud. The best thing, he supposed, was just to answer his questions until things became clearer. "Two thousand ten. June 26."
"Right, right, yes, that's what I thought. Alright, I have just one more question, and this is important, very, very important. Why did he leave?"
That was a question Ianto had been trying to answer for almost a year, now, and to hear it coming from the mouth of the last Time Lord had him fighting to control his reaction. He needed to be able to remain composed under pressure. Even he wouldn't be able to trust his judgement, otherwise, let alone a team that was made up entirely of people older than he was. He allowed himself only a moment of tension and hysteria before letting it all out in a slow exhale, trying to will the emotions out of his body as he pictured the Ianto he wanted to convince the world he was. Calm, competent and in control, no matter what the universe threw at him. That was what he wanted.
And then, just like so many times in the past, he could almost believe it. Certainly he could make everyone else believe it - it really wasn't that hard, when you got a bit of practice. He met the Doctor's gaze, barely feeling the urge to reel back when he was hit by the strange magnetism there, the intense alienness that threatened to overwhelm. "It probably helped that he never really wanted to be here in the first place," he said, with just enough flippancy to convince anyone that he wasn't particularly bothered by the idea. "Let alone in charge. We had one bad ending too many. Unlike you, we don't get to skip out on the consequences of our actions."
Somehow, that didn't seem to be the answer the Doctor wanted, as for a long moment when Ianto finished speaking he simply stared at him - not in shock or disbelief or anything, now, just thoughtful, as though Ianto were a difficult puzzle that needed concentration and forethought to solve. Just when he was starting to feel uncomfortable under his gaze, the Doctor nodded, clapping his hands once. "Right! Come on, Amy, places to go!"
He took the girl by the elbow, half-dragging her back into the TARDIS despite her protestations. Ianto could hear her saying, "They had a pterodactyl!" as the door closed, but it wasn't until the engines started up their whining again that he felt himself deflate a little.
Tosh's footsteps were quiet, muffled even more by the noise of the TARDIS, but he managed not to jump when she rested her hand on his shoulder. She didn't say anything, at least, and after a moment he sighed and turned to face her. "Okay. I'd better write up an incident report. Get on the computer, see if there are any irregularities we hadn't noticed. The Doctor rarely turns up anywhere for no reason."
He didn't wait for her answer before starting back towards his office, though unlike when Jack had done that, it wasn't because he was confident enough not to imagine that his instructions might not be followed. He just wanted to get out from under her sympathetic gaze.
*
66,302 LIGHT YEARS AWAY
913 YEARS LATER
This was the kind of bar Jack liked these days. Crowded enough that you never had to feel alone, noisy enough that you never had to deal with silence, and full of people with too much money to spend. He waited for the barman to finish pouring his drink before picking it up and raising it to his companion - they'd been making the same toast for the last half hour or so, by his count, and pretty soon zie would be cheerful enough about his generosity to walk away without too much bitterness over unforeseeable circumstances that interfered with perfectly legitimate business transactions. Sure, zie was out a good chunk of credits, but hey. You win some, you lose some, right?
The hem of his coat was starting to come undone, he realised, and for a moment the fingers of his left hand toyed with the gap in the stitching. He'd have to see to that later. He was perfectly capable of mending clothing, actually, counting it as one of many survival traits that were more prudent than not to know, but he'd probably never get it looking as good as it had been.
Things always showed, once they were broken.
He managed to make his exit a few minutes later, leaving the mark chatting up another patron and looking like zie was going to get a bit of action, and he passingly considered heading to another bar himself to see if there was anyone interesting and available around. There was almost certain to be - places like this, way-stations and pit-stops, were notorious for being able to provide anything an anonymous traveler might want, and anyone who didn't want to contribute to that sort of atmosphere would likely just stay on their transport anyway. Confirmation bias, or something similar in theory; either way it worked in his favour, supplying him with an ever-changing population of people who didn't have the time for any kind of long-term relationship, be it financial or romantic.
Tonight, though, he didn't feel up to it. He wasn't sleepy, exactly, but the kind of tired that sank into your bones and weighed you down, made everything sound like it required far more effort than he had to spare. A better idea would be finding a white space booth - it was an expense, but the idea of a few hours in a room designed to let you just shut down and drift was more alluring than anything else he could think of right now. And it wasn't like he didn't have the credit to spare for once.
Not bothering to remember what kind of user interface this system used in this century, he turned into the next corridor off the main parade and leaned against the wall, lifting his wrist to access the computer built into the leather strap he wore there. It was millenia more advanced than the technology here but designed to be subtle - one good thing you could say about the Time Agency. A few taps were all he needed to access the public services maps and he located the nearest booths quickly, scanning over the directions until he had them fairly well set in his short term memory.
It was a bit of a walk, but that was alright. One foot in front of the other, that was all walking was. A hell of a lot easier than the job the clean up crews had ahead of them on the planet's surface, following the accidental chemical explosion that had taken out two adjacent towns and a single parked piece of space junk.
*
It was impossible to tell exactly how long he'd been in the booth when the door opened to alert him, politely, to get the fuck out. That was sort of the idea, really; the technology had been adapted from one species' solution to the vast and empty boring parts of interstellar travel. It would be taken off the market in a few decades amidst concerns for public safety in the wake of several studies coming to light on the addictive nature of it, but Jack figured he could try every addiction in the known universe and still have time to do the straight and sober thing after it all.
He stumbled a little on the way out, body not quite sure yet how this 'floor' thing was supposed to work again. He looked more drunk than he felt, most likely, but it was still probably safer to sit down for a few minutes, despite the lack of chairs, and they really ought to do something about that. They wouldn't have had the material for it to start with, but there were supplies coming through the station at all hours now.
He'd just let his eyes slide shut when he was startled by a piercing whistle coming from down the hallway. It had a distinctively organic sound, the kind that came from a person, not a machine, and when he turned to glare at the offender the.. man? was just lowering a hand from his mouth. "Jackie-boy! You're coming with me."
"That's not--" His protest died as he studied the man closer. Apparently human, awful fashion sense, turning up out of nowhere with a girl and a feeling that he'd just come from somewhere probably exciting and almost certainly dangerous? "Doctor?" There wasn't much in the way of purchase on the recycled wall panels, but he managed to get his feet under him somehow anyway, even without tripping over the hem of his coat. Now that would have been embarrassing.
There was nothing familiar about the face he wore, but oh, his grin... that was all Doctor. "Amy Pond, meet Captain Jack Harkness. --She's getting married," he added sternly, pointing a warning finger at Jack, and he let out a short laugh of disbelief. Turning up out of nowhere with a girl and starting lecturing him within a minute, apparently.
"I'm reformed," he retorted, which, technically, was probably true. A few long strides caught him up to them. God, they made him feel tall. "What's the emergency?"
"End of the universe, of course! Nothing I can't handle. Not sure how yet, I'll figure something out. I always do."
Amy frowned, long red hair falling back off her face as she looked sideways at him, keeping pace with them easily, and Jack wondered how long she'd been with the Doctor. "Captain of what?" she asked, and he decided that it had either been a while or like just attracted like; whatever this particular universe-ending disaster might be, she didn't seem especially worried about it.
"It's a long list," he told her easily.
"But this is the thirtieth century, and you're wearing a military coat. And all the humans are supposed to be on those country ships, aren't they? We were just there a bit ago."
Ah, Starship UK. Nice place to visit, but he sure wouldn't want to live there. It tended to take a rather hard line approach to society, and he'd always been a fan of flexibility, especially when it bent in his direction. "No citizenship." He grinned at her, tugging on the edges of his charm until he could pull them out of the box they'd gotten packed away into. Now that the vertigo was starting to wear off, he really did feel a lot better - just as well, if there was going to be much running. "Not in this century, anyway. I'm really more of a free agent."
"He's a conman," the Doctor corrected. "And that's wrong, too. You keep breaking time, Jack, though I suppose it's not your fault this time--"
"It wasn't my fault last time, either!"
"--And it should be an easy enough fix for once. We just have to get you back where you should be."
There was a decidedly ominous sound to that, Jack decided, and stopped dead in his tracks. Amy and the Doctor continued for a couple of steps before realising, and by the time they'd turned back to face him he had his arms crossed across his chest. "What do you mean, 'where I should be'?"
Amy's expression lit up in sudden realisation. She looked as though she was practically about to clap her hands in glee, actually, and where once Jack would have wondered why the Doctor always went for the young ones, he thought he understood now. Looking through someone else's eyes, things were almost new again. "Oh, Torchwood!"
And that was what he'd been afraid of. "No way," he said, turning to go back down the corridor. There barely even was a Torchwood anymore, as far as he knew, but even if it had turned into some vast benevolent empire that barely resembled the original thing, whatever the Doctor needed it for, he could do it himself.
"Oi, get back here, you dolt!"
It was the wording more than the exasperation in his tone that made Jack pause, looking back over his shoulder to ask, "Did you just call me a dolt?"
For a moment the Doctor seemed visibly flummoxed before recovering himself, as though he himself was having the exact same reaction as Jack was. "Ye-es, I did. Sorry. New me, still working things out. But you don't have that excuse." He walked towards him, stopping only when he was close enough to grip Jack's arms with both hands and meet his gaze steadily. Funny how his eyes could change colour, but they always looked exactly the same. It was cliched, and almost as cliched again to point out the cliche, but Jack felt like you could drown in them before you ever worked up the strength to look away. It was no wonder people followed him into madness, really, if they'd never seen anything else so powerfully, intensely magnetic. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," he said quietly. "Because it is, desperately important. There's a crack in the very fabric of the universe, and I don't know where it's come from, but time is running out and things that should have happened never did. You can probably remember most of them, but I think some of them hit that crack before they got to where they were going and now the timelines are broken and I need you back there, Jack. And I think you need to be back there too."
The annoying thing, the really damnable thing, was that it didn't even matter what the Doctor said. All he really had to do was look at someone like that, touch them and use that tone of voice that was intimate and knowing and demanded faith and trust, and he could be reciting Beowulf in the original Ancient English for all the difference it would make. It was impossible to turn away from that - always had been. In the end, he could lead Jack anywhere at all.
*
He tried to remember that as the harsh grinding of the engines started to fade. The TARDIS interior was unfamiliar, vastly different from the last time he'd seen her, and if the controls made up in eccentricity what they lacked in history, there was still something missing. Not that he didn't still love the old girl, but... it was like when you ran into an old friend who'd made radical life changes, had all these new ideas and perspectives and no matter how hard you tried, in the end it was all awkward silences and lacklustre as you both began to realise that you just didn't have much in common anymore. Jack had no doubt he could get to know this new TARDIS, new Doctor, new girl, but if he was going to be stuck here back on Earth, it was probably for the best not to. No mess, no fuss, no one to miss.
That was the idea, at least.
There was a calendar displayed on one of the consoles and he stared at the numbers for a moment, trying to fit them into the timeline of his memories. Gwen would have had her baby by now. Had she stuck around to rebuild? Maybe Rhys had helped out. She'd probably recruited Andy, too. Found a new place, even scavenged some of the equipment from the Hub. Right behind the TARDIS doors.
"Go on." The Doctor nodded at the door, rocking back and forth on his heels, hands shoved into his pockets now that they'd parked and he no longer needed six limbs just to keep them on route. Jack wondered, very briefly, what would happen if he changed his mind... but the Doctor was stubborn as hell when he got something in his head. Somehow, he didn't think exactly that that was something that had changed.
The door seemed lighter than he remembered and pulled open easily, swinging inside so that he had to step around it before exiting the TARDIS into--
The Hub?
The Hub, complete with hodge-podge architecture, computer systems cobbled together, water feature centered dramatically right in his line of vision, and Gwen Cooper and Toshiko Sato staring at him as though they were looking at a ghost.
He kinda knew how they felt. He almost couldn't bring himself to look away - Toshiko, standing right in front of him, breathing and unbloodied - but he had to know-- that this wasn't part of what was broken. If this was what the Doctor thought needed fixing, then...
He wasn't sure what his face looked like when he caught the Doctor's eye again, couldn't even begin to imagine, but the things he wanted to know must have been obvious, or maybe the Time Lord just knew him pretty damn well by now. Neither of them had to say anything; the Doctor just nodded once, and Jack let his eyes close in-- relief? thanks? disbelief? All of that. Even so, he half-expected it to be gone when he opened them again.
"Right!" the Doctor announced, clapping his hands together. "Well, got to be going, still got a bit of a problem to figure out, so I'll just--"
"Hang on." Of course it was Gwen who interrupted, hands on hips and magnificent. "You can't just disappear on us, no explanation, and walk back in whenever you feel like as if nothing happened!"
"I--" He stopped, caught by movement - Ianto and Owen had just come in, followed by a third man he'd never seen before, and his throat and chest and stomach all seized up at once. Oh god, it was all of them, all three of them, the stranger looking a bit bemused and Ianto and Owen closed off and it would be really, really inappropriate to laugh. Or to tell them that Tosh and Ianto had both died in his arms, probably. They didn't need to know that.
He looked back at the Doctor helplessly. He looked like he'd been considering ducking back into the TARDIS and bailing out of the awkward scene. "Well, not strictly speaking," he allowed instead. "Time can change, and usually the universe can compensate, but Jack's a big old blob of... un-time. Very complicated, you wouldn't understand."
Ianto muttered something that Jack couldn't catch at that, and Owen snorted. Whatever it was had probably been quite uncharitable - most people wouldn't know it, but Ianto could be a real passive-aggressive bastard sometimes. When it wasn't directed at him, it was funny. He'd more than once enjoyed poking him just a little into going off into a rant about whoever had been getting on his nerves just so he could listen to all the creatively insulting turns of phrase he came up with.
Mentally, he shook himself; there would be room to remember all of this later, when it looked like there was less chance of one of them hitting him again. He gave Gwen a beseeching look, trying to throw a bit of sheepish charm into the mix for good measure. "I wouldn't just leave, Gwen. There wasn't... anything left. I was sick of watching people I cared about die."
"And now?" Tosh asked.
"I don't want to lose any more time."
The constant hum of computer processors - this century was so noisy with its technology still - filled the silence as his team exchanged significant glances, having a conversation with nothing but their eyes that clearly didn't include him at all. He'd been part of that once - how long had it taken for them to shut him out?
"I'm not giving my office back, though," said Ianto after a few seconds, and Jack's head whipped around to stare after him as he left the room, clearly removing himself from further conversation. Ianto's office?
"Wait," he said. "What?"