Time Refugee
Erm, I may have slightly gone and written a crossover of Dr Who and Law and Order UK. I know it's bad of me, but somehow possible Semitic names in Cypro-Minoan just weren't speaking to me today... so here's something a little more diverting!
ETA: For my own reference, also posted here and here.
Author: Rochvelleth
Title: Time Refugee
Fandom: Dr Who (/Torchwood) crossed with Law and Order UK
Rating: PG
Notes: I'll let the story speak for itself. To be continued!
Time Refugee
“So we go for arson and manslaughter then,” James Steel was saying. “I really don’t think your witnesses are strong enough to go for murder.”
“But three people died!” Alesha Phillips cried, more loudly and passionately than she had intended.
James frowned, but let his boss, George, give her a gentle put down. “The number of victims is immaterial, Alesha,” George said quietly, trying not to appear overly disdainful in front of the two police officers who had brought the case to the CPS. “It’s the evidence that matters.”
DS Brooks and DS Devlin were evidently disappointed by what James had said too, but they knew by now not to push it. If such a competent lawyer didn’t feel that a murder case would be successful, then better to get the man on arson and manslaughter and put him in prison for while, rather than give him the chance to get away with it.
When the police officers had gone and George had retired to his room to take a phone call, Alesha was left alone with James, and she held up her hands before he could say anything about her little outburst. “I know, I know! Don’t get emotionally involved, don’t go for unrealistic convictions, don’t-“
“Actually, I was going to ask you to come and speak to the defendant with me, and see what you think of him.” He smiled, and handed her her coat from the peg on the wall. “There is a place for emotion in this job, Alesha - but it’s better to save all that passion for the courtroom, where it can have an effect on the people who matter: the jury who represent the public.”
As Alesha followed him out of the room, she cringed and wished she had kept her mouth shut. James must think she was some young hot-headed girl with no experience of the world. If only he knew the things she had been through... but of course, she could never tell him, however much she wanted to.
---
The defendant, Luka Tartt, was an impossibly good-looking young man, with pale skin and black hair, and a horribly disarming way of looking you in the eye very steadily for a long time. Alesha felt distinctly uncomfortable sitting opposite him, and allowed James to do most of the talking.
“I did nothing, I told you,” Tartt said, his voice quiet but his fist thumping down on the table, an action somewhat at odds with what otherwise seemed a very calm exterior. “Oh, this would never have happened in the old days, back in the Time War...”
Alesha caught her breath, but managed not to gasp or give away her shock - or so she hoped.
“Mr Tartt, if you could keep to the matter at hand,” James went on, sounding a little more tired than usual. But Alesha was no longer listening, and when they got out from the interview room she made her excuses and went away to be alone for a while. James looked concerned, but he was the last person she could talk to about this.
---
When it came to the trial, Alesha was glad that it would all be over soon, and that she could stop thinking over the ethical implications of her actions, or rather lack of them - not telling UNIT, or Torchwood, or the Doctor. So Luka Tartt knew something about the Time War. That didn’t mean he was an alien, did it? Not necessarily. And whoever he was, he was living as a British citizen and subject to its law. So she wasn’t doing the wrong thing, was she?
The trial went well - just as James had predicted. The evidence for Tartt starting the fire was water-tight, the witnesses were being compliant, and the defence lawyer was getting a little aggravated that his line of insisting on the defendant’s good character was evidently unsuccessful. When Tartt took the stand, James gave him such a masterful grilling that Alesha almost forgot her troubles as she watched in admiration.
Then, all of a sudden, something caused Alesha to turn round and look towards the back of the court. Perhaps she had heard the door clicking ever so quietly shut, because there was a newcomer squeezing into one of the seats at the back. A newcomer in a long coat who was grinning flirtatiously at the man he had just sat down next to. It was Jack Harkness.
---
When the trial was adjourned for the evening, Alesha kept very close to James and scurried out of the court, trying to make sure that Jack had no opportunity to harangue her. She didn’t want to know what he had to say - that part of her life was over, and she was never going back.
“Fancy a drink?” she asked James as they walked down the steps.
“Sorry, I’m meeting someone,” he said, very casually and apparently without the slightest idea that she would be devastated by the rejection. For him, there was no rejection - just a simple statement that he was unavailable that evening. Or perhaps he had some idea how she felt... but just now, she didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself.
“OK,” Alesha said, trying to sound cheerful. Then she walked away, and stopped just round the street corner so that she could peer back at the court and make sure that Jack was not following her. She waited ten minutes, but still there was no sign of Jack coming out. And then someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“Anyone would think you were avoiding me,” Jack grinned. “And who is that gorgeous blond?”
“What blond?” Alesha said, confused. How had he sneaked up on her like that? And why was he doing this?
“The guy you were sitting by in court.”
“Oh, that’s James... Look, Jack, just tell me why you’re here, and then go.”
“Can we go somewhere to talk?”
Reluctantly Alesha nodded.
---
They ended up in a rather trendy bar, sitting in a small booth and sipping cocktails. Jack had insisted on getting the drinks in, and Alesha was too concerned about what was going to happen to deny him the pleasure of chatting up the barman.
“Look, I know you must be here about Luka Tartt,” Alesha said, “but it’s nothing to do with me. I don’t know anything about him, so you can just leave me alone!” She was upset, and did not mind showing it.
“Martha, don’t be like that! I just came to check you were OK. When you suddenly quit UNIT like that, it was left to me to persuade them not to lock you away in a secure facility. You know so much...”
“I just couldn’t do it any more, Jack. When Tom was killed... well, it just stopped making sense.”
“But I’ve never known anyone as strong as you. The things you’ve been through to keep the world safe, to help the Doctor... and the things you still could do.” Jack sighed. “Can’t I persuade you to come back to Torchwood for a while?”
Alesha shook her head. “That part of my life is over. Completely over.”
“But Martha...”
“And you can stop calling me that!” she said in an angry whisper. “I’m not Martha any more, I’m Alesha. I changed my name, I got a whole new identity. I’m working for the CPS now. Martha is dead.”
“But you haven’t changed, have you? You’ve tried to push your past away, but you’re doing exactly the same thing now. Trying to get justice for ordinary people, keeping them safe - that’s what drove you when you were with the Doctor and it still drives you now.”
Alesha just shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, Jack, but I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over, and so is this conversation.” With that she stood and walked out of the bar, leaving her cocktail untouched.
Jack let her go... for a few moments. And then he realised what she had said when they first got to the bar. I know you must be here about Luka Tartt. He jumped up from his seat and ran after her, almost bumping into a crowd of post-matinee theatre-goers coming in for drinks.
“Martha, wait!”
“Alesha!” she protested as he caught up and took hold of her hand, forcing her to turn towards him. “Just leave-“
“Who is Luka Tartt?”
She shook her head. “Nobody. It’s nothing, just leave it.”
“Oh no you don’t. If there’s something on your mind... maybe something you can’t tell anyone else about...”
Alesha sighed, the ethical debate rearing up in her mind. Because she wasn’t convinced she was doing the right thing by keeping her knowledge of Luka Tartt to herself. Perhaps she needed Jack after all.
---
Back at Alesha’s flat, she and Jack had a takeaway while she told him everything she knew. That wasn’t much - just some details about the crime, some names of people involved in the case, and the mention of the Time War. But it was enough to have Jack making enquiries on the phone to his team back in Cardiff, and before long he was convinced that Tartt must be an alien of some sort.
“No obvious cause of the fire was found, you said?” Jack mused. “So why is the evidence against him so strong?”
Alesha shrugged. “He was found watching the blaze, his clothes were singed, he had threatened to make the place go up in smoke the day before... Everything points to him being guilty.”
“Alright, well I’ll see what I can do. I’m afraid I think Tartt may be dangerous - he may not have needed anything to start the fire.”
“A fire-breathing alien? You know he’s just been waiting in a cell since he was arrested, don’t you? No attempts to escape, no reports of prison guards being burnt alive. Why do you think he’s an alien?”
“A hunch,” Jack said, turning fully towards her and holding her gaze. “You had the same hunch, didn’t you? You knew there was something not right about him.”
Alesha looked down, avoiding eye contact. He was right, dead right. But she wasn’t enjoying the feelings he was waking in her. Just to speak so freely about creatures from another world again was strangely stifling - not liberating, as she might have expected. For months now she had been wishing that she could open up to James and explain that she wasn’t some inexperienced trainee but a warrior who had been fighting for people’s rights more intensely than he could ever imagine. But now it came to it, she realised that she had just been making poor excuses for her lack of experience as a lawyer. She had so much to learn, but instead of studying she had been dwelling on her own past, taking pride in it rather than giving herself a reason to take pride in her new life. She hadn’t wanted this confrontation with Jack - but it was only making her more determined to solidify her reinvention of herself.
When Jack finally left, after long hours of speculation about who Luka Tartt might be, she went to bed feeling as though freedom really might be on the horizon after all.
---
The next day, Alesha arrived at the office with a smile, but her happiness was extinguished when she saw the look on James’s face. He was frowning over a set of papers, turning them over with his right hand while his left settled over his mouth, as though he were reading something he could not quite believe.
“This can’t be right,” he said over his shoulder, speaking to George who was standing by the window gazing out. “They can’t do this... surely.”
“What’s happened?” Alesha asked, realising that nobody had noticed her come in.
James just shook his head, too puzzled to speak as he was still processing the information, and so George turned and took it on himself to explain. “We got a message directly from the government this morning. The case of Luka Tartt is being taken off our hands - and out of the courts.” He shook his head, and then suddenly he exploded into rage. “The temerity of it! The sheer bloody... injustice! A case that is in the middle of its trial, removed suddenly from the court, by people who claim they are not answerable to any but the highest authority!”
“We represent the highest authority,” James said, suddenly standing, hands on hips, angry. “We represent the British people - this taskforce has to be answerable to them!”
Alesha wondered what to say. Then, as James and George continued their tirade, she realised she did not have to say anything. To them, she was just a junior member of the team, and she might well be as outraged as they were but she didn’t have the authority to speak about it. Except that she did. She knew what had happened - that Jack had passed the case on to UNIT and let them handle it - and James and George could never hope to know or understand.
Perhaps it was for the best, she thought. Jack had protected her by taking the decision out of her hands, and not telling her what would happen or involving her in the clean-up. For that she was grateful. On to the next case, and the rest of her long, normal life.
ETA: For my own reference, also posted here and here.
Author: Rochvelleth
Title: Time Refugee
Fandom: Dr Who (/Torchwood) crossed with Law and Order UK
Rating: PG
Notes: I'll let the story speak for itself. To be continued!
Time Refugee
“So we go for arson and manslaughter then,” James Steel was saying. “I really don’t think your witnesses are strong enough to go for murder.”
“But three people died!” Alesha Phillips cried, more loudly and passionately than she had intended.
James frowned, but let his boss, George, give her a gentle put down. “The number of victims is immaterial, Alesha,” George said quietly, trying not to appear overly disdainful in front of the two police officers who had brought the case to the CPS. “It’s the evidence that matters.”
DS Brooks and DS Devlin were evidently disappointed by what James had said too, but they knew by now not to push it. If such a competent lawyer didn’t feel that a murder case would be successful, then better to get the man on arson and manslaughter and put him in prison for while, rather than give him the chance to get away with it.
When the police officers had gone and George had retired to his room to take a phone call, Alesha was left alone with James, and she held up her hands before he could say anything about her little outburst. “I know, I know! Don’t get emotionally involved, don’t go for unrealistic convictions, don’t-“
“Actually, I was going to ask you to come and speak to the defendant with me, and see what you think of him.” He smiled, and handed her her coat from the peg on the wall. “There is a place for emotion in this job, Alesha - but it’s better to save all that passion for the courtroom, where it can have an effect on the people who matter: the jury who represent the public.”
As Alesha followed him out of the room, she cringed and wished she had kept her mouth shut. James must think she was some young hot-headed girl with no experience of the world. If only he knew the things she had been through... but of course, she could never tell him, however much she wanted to.
---
The defendant, Luka Tartt, was an impossibly good-looking young man, with pale skin and black hair, and a horribly disarming way of looking you in the eye very steadily for a long time. Alesha felt distinctly uncomfortable sitting opposite him, and allowed James to do most of the talking.
“I did nothing, I told you,” Tartt said, his voice quiet but his fist thumping down on the table, an action somewhat at odds with what otherwise seemed a very calm exterior. “Oh, this would never have happened in the old days, back in the Time War...”
Alesha caught her breath, but managed not to gasp or give away her shock - or so she hoped.
“Mr Tartt, if you could keep to the matter at hand,” James went on, sounding a little more tired than usual. But Alesha was no longer listening, and when they got out from the interview room she made her excuses and went away to be alone for a while. James looked concerned, but he was the last person she could talk to about this.
---
When it came to the trial, Alesha was glad that it would all be over soon, and that she could stop thinking over the ethical implications of her actions, or rather lack of them - not telling UNIT, or Torchwood, or the Doctor. So Luka Tartt knew something about the Time War. That didn’t mean he was an alien, did it? Not necessarily. And whoever he was, he was living as a British citizen and subject to its law. So she wasn’t doing the wrong thing, was she?
The trial went well - just as James had predicted. The evidence for Tartt starting the fire was water-tight, the witnesses were being compliant, and the defence lawyer was getting a little aggravated that his line of insisting on the defendant’s good character was evidently unsuccessful. When Tartt took the stand, James gave him such a masterful grilling that Alesha almost forgot her troubles as she watched in admiration.
Then, all of a sudden, something caused Alesha to turn round and look towards the back of the court. Perhaps she had heard the door clicking ever so quietly shut, because there was a newcomer squeezing into one of the seats at the back. A newcomer in a long coat who was grinning flirtatiously at the man he had just sat down next to. It was Jack Harkness.
---
When the trial was adjourned for the evening, Alesha kept very close to James and scurried out of the court, trying to make sure that Jack had no opportunity to harangue her. She didn’t want to know what he had to say - that part of her life was over, and she was never going back.
“Fancy a drink?” she asked James as they walked down the steps.
“Sorry, I’m meeting someone,” he said, very casually and apparently without the slightest idea that she would be devastated by the rejection. For him, there was no rejection - just a simple statement that he was unavailable that evening. Or perhaps he had some idea how she felt... but just now, she didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself.
“OK,” Alesha said, trying to sound cheerful. Then she walked away, and stopped just round the street corner so that she could peer back at the court and make sure that Jack was not following her. She waited ten minutes, but still there was no sign of Jack coming out. And then someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“Anyone would think you were avoiding me,” Jack grinned. “And who is that gorgeous blond?”
“What blond?” Alesha said, confused. How had he sneaked up on her like that? And why was he doing this?
“The guy you were sitting by in court.”
“Oh, that’s James... Look, Jack, just tell me why you’re here, and then go.”
“Can we go somewhere to talk?”
Reluctantly Alesha nodded.
---
They ended up in a rather trendy bar, sitting in a small booth and sipping cocktails. Jack had insisted on getting the drinks in, and Alesha was too concerned about what was going to happen to deny him the pleasure of chatting up the barman.
“Look, I know you must be here about Luka Tartt,” Alesha said, “but it’s nothing to do with me. I don’t know anything about him, so you can just leave me alone!” She was upset, and did not mind showing it.
“Martha, don’t be like that! I just came to check you were OK. When you suddenly quit UNIT like that, it was left to me to persuade them not to lock you away in a secure facility. You know so much...”
“I just couldn’t do it any more, Jack. When Tom was killed... well, it just stopped making sense.”
“But I’ve never known anyone as strong as you. The things you’ve been through to keep the world safe, to help the Doctor... and the things you still could do.” Jack sighed. “Can’t I persuade you to come back to Torchwood for a while?”
Alesha shook her head. “That part of my life is over. Completely over.”
“But Martha...”
“And you can stop calling me that!” she said in an angry whisper. “I’m not Martha any more, I’m Alesha. I changed my name, I got a whole new identity. I’m working for the CPS now. Martha is dead.”
“But you haven’t changed, have you? You’ve tried to push your past away, but you’re doing exactly the same thing now. Trying to get justice for ordinary people, keeping them safe - that’s what drove you when you were with the Doctor and it still drives you now.”
Alesha just shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, Jack, but I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over, and so is this conversation.” With that she stood and walked out of the bar, leaving her cocktail untouched.
Jack let her go... for a few moments. And then he realised what she had said when they first got to the bar. I know you must be here about Luka Tartt. He jumped up from his seat and ran after her, almost bumping into a crowd of post-matinee theatre-goers coming in for drinks.
“Martha, wait!”
“Alesha!” she protested as he caught up and took hold of her hand, forcing her to turn towards him. “Just leave-“
“Who is Luka Tartt?”
She shook her head. “Nobody. It’s nothing, just leave it.”
“Oh no you don’t. If there’s something on your mind... maybe something you can’t tell anyone else about...”
Alesha sighed, the ethical debate rearing up in her mind. Because she wasn’t convinced she was doing the right thing by keeping her knowledge of Luka Tartt to herself. Perhaps she needed Jack after all.
---
Back at Alesha’s flat, she and Jack had a takeaway while she told him everything she knew. That wasn’t much - just some details about the crime, some names of people involved in the case, and the mention of the Time War. But it was enough to have Jack making enquiries on the phone to his team back in Cardiff, and before long he was convinced that Tartt must be an alien of some sort.
“No obvious cause of the fire was found, you said?” Jack mused. “So why is the evidence against him so strong?”
Alesha shrugged. “He was found watching the blaze, his clothes were singed, he had threatened to make the place go up in smoke the day before... Everything points to him being guilty.”
“Alright, well I’ll see what I can do. I’m afraid I think Tartt may be dangerous - he may not have needed anything to start the fire.”
“A fire-breathing alien? You know he’s just been waiting in a cell since he was arrested, don’t you? No attempts to escape, no reports of prison guards being burnt alive. Why do you think he’s an alien?”
“A hunch,” Jack said, turning fully towards her and holding her gaze. “You had the same hunch, didn’t you? You knew there was something not right about him.”
Alesha looked down, avoiding eye contact. He was right, dead right. But she wasn’t enjoying the feelings he was waking in her. Just to speak so freely about creatures from another world again was strangely stifling - not liberating, as she might have expected. For months now she had been wishing that she could open up to James and explain that she wasn’t some inexperienced trainee but a warrior who had been fighting for people’s rights more intensely than he could ever imagine. But now it came to it, she realised that she had just been making poor excuses for her lack of experience as a lawyer. She had so much to learn, but instead of studying she had been dwelling on her own past, taking pride in it rather than giving herself a reason to take pride in her new life. She hadn’t wanted this confrontation with Jack - but it was only making her more determined to solidify her reinvention of herself.
When Jack finally left, after long hours of speculation about who Luka Tartt might be, she went to bed feeling as though freedom really might be on the horizon after all.
---
The next day, Alesha arrived at the office with a smile, but her happiness was extinguished when she saw the look on James’s face. He was frowning over a set of papers, turning them over with his right hand while his left settled over his mouth, as though he were reading something he could not quite believe.
“This can’t be right,” he said over his shoulder, speaking to George who was standing by the window gazing out. “They can’t do this... surely.”
“What’s happened?” Alesha asked, realising that nobody had noticed her come in.
James just shook his head, too puzzled to speak as he was still processing the information, and so George turned and took it on himself to explain. “We got a message directly from the government this morning. The case of Luka Tartt is being taken off our hands - and out of the courts.” He shook his head, and then suddenly he exploded into rage. “The temerity of it! The sheer bloody... injustice! A case that is in the middle of its trial, removed suddenly from the court, by people who claim they are not answerable to any but the highest authority!”
“We represent the highest authority,” James said, suddenly standing, hands on hips, angry. “We represent the British people - this taskforce has to be answerable to them!”
Alesha wondered what to say. Then, as James and George continued their tirade, she realised she did not have to say anything. To them, she was just a junior member of the team, and she might well be as outraged as they were but she didn’t have the authority to speak about it. Except that she did. She knew what had happened - that Jack had passed the case on to UNIT and let them handle it - and James and George could never hope to know or understand.
Perhaps it was for the best, she thought. Jack had protected her by taking the decision out of her hands, and not telling her what would happen or involving her in the clean-up. For that she was grateful. On to the next case, and the rest of her long, normal life.