Fic: Quelled or quenched (1/?)
Title: Quelled or quenched
Author: rev02a
Beta: comestodecember
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, language
Cast: Team, all canon parings, Pre-Millennium team (some made up names), Ianto/OC, Torchwood One (some made up names), Rhiannon & Co.
A/N: I love AU, but I swear, after this, I’m writing a regular Torchwood adventure: aliens, sex, and guns!
A/N2: Also, the title comes from the poem “Binsey Poplars” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which, if you are/were not an English major you’ve never heard of, and if you are/were, then you read it for homework and, like me, grumbled about another nature poem.
A/N3: The connection between allusions and foreshadowing… LOVE IT.
Summary: Torchwood One’s mantra of “if it’s alien, it’s ours” may suit the dreams of rebuilding an empire, but does little for ethical concerns. In 1998, Captain Jack Harkness becomes aware of the imprisonment and experimentation on the Ambassador of the Forest of Cheem.
“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.” -Willa Cather
March 21, 1998
When the invitation to visit a special human experiment at Torchwood One came, Alex Hopkins considered whom he would take along. Dr. Hannah Green would be interested, but she had to run tests on Tommy Brockless when he was unfrozen the next day. Jim Overstreet would enjoy the outing and the chance to speak to other scientists, but he and Tommy had that three-year (or three day, depending if you’d be frozen or not) running chess game. Alex didn’t want to break up the older brother vibe that Jim had going; it was nice to see the technician being friendly. Amy, the weapons specialist, and Whitney, the general support, would either be too horrified or too interested in the experimentation. Best leave them home too.
That only left Jack Harkness. Alex lifted his phone slowly before dialing the freelance operative.
Despite his brash exterior and inappropriate comments, Alex liked Jack. There was something about the other man-something other about him. Maybe it was that Jack was old enough to be Alex’s great-grandfather, or perhaps that Jack held so much sorrow in his eyes, Alex didn’t know. He did know that the other man was good company when leadership bogged him down.
During the drive to London, Alex had offhandedly mentioned that running the team was running him down. Without offering sympathy, Jack launched into a story about leading a team of too-young soldiers into the trenches. Maybe it was Brockless’ impending wakening hanging over both of them that led to the topic, but it did the trick. It made the point: Jack understood.
Alex was fully aware that Jack despised Yvonne Hartman. The feeling was, apparently, mutual. Once the two men had shook hands with the director, Jack’s stories changed from first-person accounts of major historical events to sexual liaisons. These new tales were as vulgar and lewd as Jack could make them. Alex was off put, until he saw the hard hatred in Jack’s eyes.
Oh, Alex thought, so the Captain knew what game he was playing.
Hartman, still the headstrong, stonehearted bitch she’d always been, ignored him.
“Look, Yvonne,” Alex began, as their lift ascended the floors, “I just want to be clear from the start: I don’t know exactly what you’re doing here, but the moment you tell me ‘human experiments,’ I’m not happy.”
Hartman waved him off. “This is a good sort.”
Jack growled. “There is never a ‘good sort’.”
Hartman continued to ignore him. She led them from the lifts to a keypad at an innocuous door. Once opened, the men found themselves in a strange combination of living room and laboratory, only separated by a glass wall. A young, dark-skinned woman met them with an excited smile.
“Director Hartman,” she greeted.
“Dr. Hallett,” Hartman smiled, shaking the other woman’s hand. She turned to Jack and Alex. “This is Doctor Lisa Hallett, she is heading up the Forest Project.”
Hallett smiled and shook both men’s hands. “I have taken over the project from Dr. Jones. He is, of course, still involved, but not directly. But, enough of that, you’ll want to meet the Primary.”
Hallett did not once stop to explain exactly what they were preparing to see. She spoke at a quick rate, stating that DNA had been extracted from the Primary and spliced with human volunteers from the Tower.
“No one was forced,” Hallett amended. She stopped and faced the three people following her. “I want to be sure that you understand that.”
“Except for your so-called ‘Primary,’” Jack clarified. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “An alien, I assume. I doubt highly that you have that being’s permission.”
Hallett’s brow wrinkled as she frowned. “But the Primary is an alien. It doesn’t matter; it belongs with us now.” She looked to Hartman for confirmation. Yvonne smiled and waved off Jack’s concerns.
Jack tensed. Alex questioned his decision to bring Harkness along-the man had been experimented on himself during his first days at the Institute. Before he could rescind his offer, Hallett opened another door into a series of cells. Behind the Plexiglas wall before them, stood, for lack of better term, a humanoid plant. It looked like a tree.
Jack pushed past the other three people and dropped to one knee. He bowed his head. Without pause, he launched into a discussion with the plant in a language that sounded like the creaks and quakes of a tree in a strong wind. The tree approached Jack cautiously, before placing its hand on the Plexiglas that separated them.
“You can speak to it?” Hallett inquired, excitedly. She hurried to a speaker button on a wall and called for a Dr. Jones. Alex watched her for only a moment, before turning his attention back to Jack.
Hartman’s eyes gleamed and Alex felt his stomach flip. Hartman could keep Jack here, locked up just like this alien. It scared him.
“What’s it saying?” Hallett asked, running up to Jack’s side. Jack lifted his head from his bow and glared darkly.
“You have no idea who this is, you foolish girl,” he sneered. Hallett looked taken aback.
“This is the Ambassador from the Forest of Cheem. He was brought here by the Rift and you locked him up-naked!”
Hallett looked from Jack to the alien. “But it’s a tree.”
Jack glared at her again before addressing the Ambassador. When he spoke, he looked at Hallett and sneered. The tree also looked at Hallett before offering his own thoughts. Neither thought highly of her, that much was assured.
Hartman shifted her weight. “What’s going on, Harkness?”
Jack continued to converse with the alien, before nodding a second bow and turning to face Yvonne. “Well, you see, Ambassador Comwen here has been kidnapped, imprisoned, and experimented upon. He’s been stripped of his dignity and, apparently, tortured.”
“What is he the ambassador to?” Hallett inquired, scribbling notes on a pocket-sized pad of paper.
“The Shadow Proclamation-an organization that protects the Universe. The Forest of Cheem is a non-violent race known for their negotiations between warring races. You have, basically, subjected a peaceful being to war crimes. If the Ambassador were to report his treatment to the Shadow Proclamation, Earth would be destroyed,” Jack snapped.
“As expected,” Hartman sniffed, turning away from the alien’s cell, “it is a threat to the Empire.”
Jack yelled, “Excuse me? I said ‘peaceful’ and ‘non-violent,’ not ‘known for terrorizing cities and razing them to the ground’!”
Hartman moved close to Jack, leaning into his space. “And you said if he escaped, he’d issue an order to destroy the Empire. I cannot allow that to happen.” Without another word, she punched a series of buttons on a nearby keypad.
“Director!” Hallett cried, as an opaque smoke filled the alien’s cell.
“No!” Jack yelled, rushing to the Plexiglas and trying to force it open with his hands.
Alex turned away as the alien succumbed to the poison. Jack was silent as they were led away from the dead alien. Hallett seemed bereft.
“Dr. Hallett-Lisa,” Yvonne began, calling her employee back to the matter at hand, “tell Director Hopkins about the experiment.”
Hallett nodded, still subdued. “We began to take the tree’s DNA and splice it with human.”
Alex stopped walking in surprise. “You’ve created a sentient being?”
“It has been a tricky process,” Hallett acknowledged, nodding. “We have spliced over five hundred times. Only four hundred and ten actually took. Some of the splices were… unsuccessful and have been destroyed.”
Jack looked at Hallett with hatred so strong that Alex wondered if he would have to shoot Jack to keep him from killing the doctor. Hallett seemed immune to the glare and led them into a viewing area for a clean room.
“The sprouts are raised up here,” she pointed to a space housing wriggling green things. They looked like bean sprouts with human faces. They were no bigger than a loaf of bread. They stretched and wiggled under a UV light. “They are a mix of plant and human, so they are given embryonic fluid and water. It’s a complicated formula to get right. Each growth year has been different.”
Jack stared at the fifty or so plant-human hybrids in the clean room. “Those are children.”
Hallett looked back to Hartman for some form of support. Hartman ignored Jack and Hallett’s look.
“Show them the growth, Lisa. It’s so exciting!” Hartman gushed.
Alex guided Jack with the group by placing his hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack looked drained and angry, but he still offered a tight smile to his friend. Alex attempted to return it.
The next room was a classroom. Inside were about thirty children. They had bark for skin and leaves covering their arms. All of them stared raptly at a television.
“We’re training this bunch,” Hartman explained, her voice soft but filled with pride, “as potential soldiers. Their skin is harder to penetrate.”
Alex stared at her in disbelief before glancing back at the television screen. “You’re indoctrinating them with propaganda!” he shouted.
Hartman glared at him. “How dare you! Propaganda was for the Nazis; this is training.”
Her heels clicked as she marched past Hallett and the classroom. Hallett led the men away. They arrived back in the hallway where their trip had begun. Inside the glass, sitting in the living room, different ages of trees gathered.
It was easy to see the differences in genetic make up. Some looked completely human, some completely tree-others were strange combinations. There were three tall men who were wider at the bottom and very thin at the top; Alex wondered how they held up their heads. A group of girls played cards, seeming unaware of the flowers that bloomed in their hair.
“This group,” Hallett tried to explain, pointing to a group of people who appeared to be in their late teens, “are five years old next month.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex interrupted. “Did you just say five years old?”
Hallett smiled. “Of course. We needed all ages to experiment completely. We’ve given some growth hormone to achieve the ages needed.”
Alex saw red. “So that tree there,” he pointed at a wrinkled old woman sitting in an armchair, “is really how old?”
Hallett followed his finger. “That’s Emily; she’s eight.”
Alex roared and would have jumped at the doctor in anger if Jack hadn’t restrained him.
“We’ll deal with this, Alex,” Jack whispered into Alex’s ear. “But we have to be patient.”
Alex tensed, and then allowed the fight to drain out of him. Jack continued to hold him. Hartman looked on in curiosity.
“How about him?” Jack asked, nodding his head toward someone behind the glass.
Hallett looked down and smiled sweetly. “That’s Ianto Jones. He’s four and training to be an archivist here at the Tower.”
Alex shrugged out of Jack’s hold and watched Jack watch Jones. He knew that look; it meant that Jack had found someone he would bed in the future. Jones looked to be about fourteen, but his face was young. His skin looked pale, but was patterned with what looked like wood grain.
“I think four is a little young for you, Harkness,” Alex offered, his voice quiet.
Hallett frowned. She looked at Alex and Jack darkly. Just then, another man, much taller than Jones approached. He looked up and saw the audience watching Jones. He placed a hand on Jones’s shoulder, kissed his cheek, and directed his gaze to the viewing window.
Jones looked up at the four gathered watching him and then quickly looked to his companion. He took the taller man’s hand and they walked away. Alex noted that the taller man’s arrival and greeting kiss made Hallett frown harder. Jack, of course, was now checking out both departing men’s arses.
“Who was the friend?” Alex asked, innocently.
“Bruce Adair,” Hallett responded, looking suddenly angry, “he’s a genetic clone of a lost child.”
Hallett had Jack’s full attention again. “That’s not possible.”
Hartman grinned. “Anyone can clone a sheep. We’re doing what the rest of the world is ethically questioning with cloning. And then, adding a twist.”
Jack watched her with narrowed eyes. “This isn’t right. You’re experimenting on them, I assume?”
Hartman shrugged, Hallett nodded. “We’re developing soliders. We want them to be the best.”
“What sort of tests have you attempted?” Jack continued. His jaw tightened, but Hallett and Hartman were ignorant to the tells of the Harkness temper.
“Heat and cold sensitivity, nerve disruptions-“
Jack turned away from her and back to the glass. “You tested those things on these children?”
“They’re possessions of the Empire,” Hartman snapped. “I thought you’d be open to this sort of adventure, Alex. Apparently, I was mistaken.”
Security saw them out of the Tower. Jack was spitting mad.
“We have to get them out,” he raged.
“And, how,” Alex questioned, drained, “will we do that?”
As quickly as he was angered, Jack became silent. “I don’t know.”
Part Two
Author: rev02a
Beta: comestodecember
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, language
Cast: Team, all canon parings, Pre-Millennium team (some made up names), Ianto/OC, Torchwood One (some made up names), Rhiannon & Co.
A/N: I love AU, but I swear, after this, I’m writing a regular Torchwood adventure: aliens, sex, and guns!
A/N2: Also, the title comes from the poem “Binsey Poplars” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which, if you are/were not an English major you’ve never heard of, and if you are/were, then you read it for homework and, like me, grumbled about another nature poem.
A/N3: The connection between allusions and foreshadowing… LOVE IT.
Summary: Torchwood One’s mantra of “if it’s alien, it’s ours” may suit the dreams of rebuilding an empire, but does little for ethical concerns. In 1998, Captain Jack Harkness becomes aware of the imprisonment and experimentation on the Ambassador of the Forest of Cheem.
“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.” -Willa Cather
March 21, 1998
When the invitation to visit a special human experiment at Torchwood One came, Alex Hopkins considered whom he would take along. Dr. Hannah Green would be interested, but she had to run tests on Tommy Brockless when he was unfrozen the next day. Jim Overstreet would enjoy the outing and the chance to speak to other scientists, but he and Tommy had that three-year (or three day, depending if you’d be frozen or not) running chess game. Alex didn’t want to break up the older brother vibe that Jim had going; it was nice to see the technician being friendly. Amy, the weapons specialist, and Whitney, the general support, would either be too horrified or too interested in the experimentation. Best leave them home too.
That only left Jack Harkness. Alex lifted his phone slowly before dialing the freelance operative.
Despite his brash exterior and inappropriate comments, Alex liked Jack. There was something about the other man-something other about him. Maybe it was that Jack was old enough to be Alex’s great-grandfather, or perhaps that Jack held so much sorrow in his eyes, Alex didn’t know. He did know that the other man was good company when leadership bogged him down.
During the drive to London, Alex had offhandedly mentioned that running the team was running him down. Without offering sympathy, Jack launched into a story about leading a team of too-young soldiers into the trenches. Maybe it was Brockless’ impending wakening hanging over both of them that led to the topic, but it did the trick. It made the point: Jack understood.
Alex was fully aware that Jack despised Yvonne Hartman. The feeling was, apparently, mutual. Once the two men had shook hands with the director, Jack’s stories changed from first-person accounts of major historical events to sexual liaisons. These new tales were as vulgar and lewd as Jack could make them. Alex was off put, until he saw the hard hatred in Jack’s eyes.
Oh, Alex thought, so the Captain knew what game he was playing.
Hartman, still the headstrong, stonehearted bitch she’d always been, ignored him.
“Look, Yvonne,” Alex began, as their lift ascended the floors, “I just want to be clear from the start: I don’t know exactly what you’re doing here, but the moment you tell me ‘human experiments,’ I’m not happy.”
Hartman waved him off. “This is a good sort.”
Jack growled. “There is never a ‘good sort’.”
Hartman continued to ignore him. She led them from the lifts to a keypad at an innocuous door. Once opened, the men found themselves in a strange combination of living room and laboratory, only separated by a glass wall. A young, dark-skinned woman met them with an excited smile.
“Director Hartman,” she greeted.
“Dr. Hallett,” Hartman smiled, shaking the other woman’s hand. She turned to Jack and Alex. “This is Doctor Lisa Hallett, she is heading up the Forest Project.”
Hallett smiled and shook both men’s hands. “I have taken over the project from Dr. Jones. He is, of course, still involved, but not directly. But, enough of that, you’ll want to meet the Primary.”
Hallett did not once stop to explain exactly what they were preparing to see. She spoke at a quick rate, stating that DNA had been extracted from the Primary and spliced with human volunteers from the Tower.
“No one was forced,” Hallett amended. She stopped and faced the three people following her. “I want to be sure that you understand that.”
“Except for your so-called ‘Primary,’” Jack clarified. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “An alien, I assume. I doubt highly that you have that being’s permission.”
Hallett’s brow wrinkled as she frowned. “But the Primary is an alien. It doesn’t matter; it belongs with us now.” She looked to Hartman for confirmation. Yvonne smiled and waved off Jack’s concerns.
Jack tensed. Alex questioned his decision to bring Harkness along-the man had been experimented on himself during his first days at the Institute. Before he could rescind his offer, Hallett opened another door into a series of cells. Behind the Plexiglas wall before them, stood, for lack of better term, a humanoid plant. It looked like a tree.
Jack pushed past the other three people and dropped to one knee. He bowed his head. Without pause, he launched into a discussion with the plant in a language that sounded like the creaks and quakes of a tree in a strong wind. The tree approached Jack cautiously, before placing its hand on the Plexiglas that separated them.
“You can speak to it?” Hallett inquired, excitedly. She hurried to a speaker button on a wall and called for a Dr. Jones. Alex watched her for only a moment, before turning his attention back to Jack.
Hartman’s eyes gleamed and Alex felt his stomach flip. Hartman could keep Jack here, locked up just like this alien. It scared him.
“What’s it saying?” Hallett asked, running up to Jack’s side. Jack lifted his head from his bow and glared darkly.
“You have no idea who this is, you foolish girl,” he sneered. Hallett looked taken aback.
“This is the Ambassador from the Forest of Cheem. He was brought here by the Rift and you locked him up-naked!”
Hallett looked from Jack to the alien. “But it’s a tree.”
Jack glared at her again before addressing the Ambassador. When he spoke, he looked at Hallett and sneered. The tree also looked at Hallett before offering his own thoughts. Neither thought highly of her, that much was assured.
Hartman shifted her weight. “What’s going on, Harkness?”
Jack continued to converse with the alien, before nodding a second bow and turning to face Yvonne. “Well, you see, Ambassador Comwen here has been kidnapped, imprisoned, and experimented upon. He’s been stripped of his dignity and, apparently, tortured.”
“What is he the ambassador to?” Hallett inquired, scribbling notes on a pocket-sized pad of paper.
“The Shadow Proclamation-an organization that protects the Universe. The Forest of Cheem is a non-violent race known for their negotiations between warring races. You have, basically, subjected a peaceful being to war crimes. If the Ambassador were to report his treatment to the Shadow Proclamation, Earth would be destroyed,” Jack snapped.
“As expected,” Hartman sniffed, turning away from the alien’s cell, “it is a threat to the Empire.”
Jack yelled, “Excuse me? I said ‘peaceful’ and ‘non-violent,’ not ‘known for terrorizing cities and razing them to the ground’!”
Hartman moved close to Jack, leaning into his space. “And you said if he escaped, he’d issue an order to destroy the Empire. I cannot allow that to happen.” Without another word, she punched a series of buttons on a nearby keypad.
“Director!” Hallett cried, as an opaque smoke filled the alien’s cell.
“No!” Jack yelled, rushing to the Plexiglas and trying to force it open with his hands.
Alex turned away as the alien succumbed to the poison. Jack was silent as they were led away from the dead alien. Hallett seemed bereft.
“Dr. Hallett-Lisa,” Yvonne began, calling her employee back to the matter at hand, “tell Director Hopkins about the experiment.”
Hallett nodded, still subdued. “We began to take the tree’s DNA and splice it with human.”
Alex stopped walking in surprise. “You’ve created a sentient being?”
“It has been a tricky process,” Hallett acknowledged, nodding. “We have spliced over five hundred times. Only four hundred and ten actually took. Some of the splices were… unsuccessful and have been destroyed.”
Jack looked at Hallett with hatred so strong that Alex wondered if he would have to shoot Jack to keep him from killing the doctor. Hallett seemed immune to the glare and led them into a viewing area for a clean room.
“The sprouts are raised up here,” she pointed to a space housing wriggling green things. They looked like bean sprouts with human faces. They were no bigger than a loaf of bread. They stretched and wiggled under a UV light. “They are a mix of plant and human, so they are given embryonic fluid and water. It’s a complicated formula to get right. Each growth year has been different.”
Jack stared at the fifty or so plant-human hybrids in the clean room. “Those are children.”
Hallett looked back to Hartman for some form of support. Hartman ignored Jack and Hallett’s look.
“Show them the growth, Lisa. It’s so exciting!” Hartman gushed.
Alex guided Jack with the group by placing his hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack looked drained and angry, but he still offered a tight smile to his friend. Alex attempted to return it.
The next room was a classroom. Inside were about thirty children. They had bark for skin and leaves covering their arms. All of them stared raptly at a television.
“We’re training this bunch,” Hartman explained, her voice soft but filled with pride, “as potential soldiers. Their skin is harder to penetrate.”
Alex stared at her in disbelief before glancing back at the television screen. “You’re indoctrinating them with propaganda!” he shouted.
Hartman glared at him. “How dare you! Propaganda was for the Nazis; this is training.”
Her heels clicked as she marched past Hallett and the classroom. Hallett led the men away. They arrived back in the hallway where their trip had begun. Inside the glass, sitting in the living room, different ages of trees gathered.
It was easy to see the differences in genetic make up. Some looked completely human, some completely tree-others were strange combinations. There were three tall men who were wider at the bottom and very thin at the top; Alex wondered how they held up their heads. A group of girls played cards, seeming unaware of the flowers that bloomed in their hair.
“This group,” Hallett tried to explain, pointing to a group of people who appeared to be in their late teens, “are five years old next month.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex interrupted. “Did you just say five years old?”
Hallett smiled. “Of course. We needed all ages to experiment completely. We’ve given some growth hormone to achieve the ages needed.”
Alex saw red. “So that tree there,” he pointed at a wrinkled old woman sitting in an armchair, “is really how old?”
Hallett followed his finger. “That’s Emily; she’s eight.”
Alex roared and would have jumped at the doctor in anger if Jack hadn’t restrained him.
“We’ll deal with this, Alex,” Jack whispered into Alex’s ear. “But we have to be patient.”
Alex tensed, and then allowed the fight to drain out of him. Jack continued to hold him. Hartman looked on in curiosity.
“How about him?” Jack asked, nodding his head toward someone behind the glass.
Hallett looked down and smiled sweetly. “That’s Ianto Jones. He’s four and training to be an archivist here at the Tower.”
Alex shrugged out of Jack’s hold and watched Jack watch Jones. He knew that look; it meant that Jack had found someone he would bed in the future. Jones looked to be about fourteen, but his face was young. His skin looked pale, but was patterned with what looked like wood grain.
“I think four is a little young for you, Harkness,” Alex offered, his voice quiet.
Hallett frowned. She looked at Alex and Jack darkly. Just then, another man, much taller than Jones approached. He looked up and saw the audience watching Jones. He placed a hand on Jones’s shoulder, kissed his cheek, and directed his gaze to the viewing window.
Jones looked up at the four gathered watching him and then quickly looked to his companion. He took the taller man’s hand and they walked away. Alex noted that the taller man’s arrival and greeting kiss made Hallett frown harder. Jack, of course, was now checking out both departing men’s arses.
“Who was the friend?” Alex asked, innocently.
“Bruce Adair,” Hallett responded, looking suddenly angry, “he’s a genetic clone of a lost child.”
Hallett had Jack’s full attention again. “That’s not possible.”
Hartman grinned. “Anyone can clone a sheep. We’re doing what the rest of the world is ethically questioning with cloning. And then, adding a twist.”
Jack watched her with narrowed eyes. “This isn’t right. You’re experimenting on them, I assume?”
Hartman shrugged, Hallett nodded. “We’re developing soliders. We want them to be the best.”
“What sort of tests have you attempted?” Jack continued. His jaw tightened, but Hallett and Hartman were ignorant to the tells of the Harkness temper.
“Heat and cold sensitivity, nerve disruptions-“
Jack turned away from her and back to the glass. “You tested those things on these children?”
“They’re possessions of the Empire,” Hartman snapped. “I thought you’d be open to this sort of adventure, Alex. Apparently, I was mistaken.”
Security saw them out of the Tower. Jack was spitting mad.
“We have to get them out,” he raged.
“And, how,” Alex questioned, drained, “will we do that?”
As quickly as he was angered, Jack became silent. “I don’t know.”
Part Two