69 Memory Lane - Wednesday Morning

[time_watcher]

Jack and Ianto were hunkered down on their heels on either side of the brick columns that flanked the driveway up to their house. Jack was drilling holes in the morter while Ianto carefully feed through wires and occasionally stopped to check what looked like a PDA display resting by his left foot. Two travel mugs full of coffee were perched atop

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[pryor_child]

"But of home repair?" Nate asked, stopping to see what was going on. He did like to take a personal interest in things about town.

[time_watcher]

Poor Nate, out for a nice stroll and being so neighborly and now also standing there with one Webley revolver and one Glock SIG .357 pointed at his head and chest respectively.

It was the lack of the distinctive cyber twang to Nate's voice that kept both men from simply opening fire.

"Where the HELL did you come from?!"

[ooc: I can not think of any way shape or form that the guys wouldn't react 'badly' to Nate's cyberness. At least at first. ;)]

[pryor_child]

Nate could have gone straight for his own gun, but decided that might be a bad plan. He put up his hands. "Whoa now, gentlemen," he said. "I came by means of my feet, one after another, right down the street."

[times_companion]

Ianto frowned.

Months spent with Lisa had given him some experience with Cybermen and this guy didn't exactly sound like Lisa had, even when she'd been playing at human for his benefit. Still, he took his lead from Jack and the Captain wasn't showing any signs of relaxing anytime soon.

"What is your mission objective in this town?" Jack snapped, absolutely ready to pull the trigger and secretly surprised that he hadn't yet done so, just out of habit. "Here to establish a base of operation from which to assimilate the rest of the population?"

[pryor_child]

"Well if by 'assimilate' you mean 'make sure the kids get a proper education', then yes," Nate said. "I'm the school principal. Nate Summers. And you really don't want to shoot me." His arms were staying up, for now.

[time_watcher]

"Oh, I really do." Jack said in a flat tone that promised bloodshed.

"Sir, he doesn't..." The young Welshman began only to be sharply cut off.

"I don't remember asking your opinion!"

Though he was quick to discipline the younger man, Jack's eyes never left Nate and the gun remained fixed on him but Jack was obviously starting to get curious about this cyberman who wasn't acting like ... well ... a cyberman.

"How did you come to be here, in this town?" Jack asked and his tone was edging towards reasonable.

[pryor_child]

Well, crap. Nate was trying to invent a good lie in his head, real quick.

"I'm laying low from my position as dictator of the peaceful island nation of Providence, which you may not have even heard of because I'm betting it's in a different dimension than the one you're used to."

Well, so much for lying. But at least he didn't meantion the whole 'wanted by the US government' thing.

[time_watcher]

Now Jack was starting to look seriously confused, Ianto might have just looked impressed.

"I really want to shoot you," Jack said honestly but in the next breath he began to lower his weapon. "But the Cybermen I'm used to dealing with don't have that good of an imagination."

"Nor that rich a vocabulary," Ianto muttered, one more following Jack's lead and slowly lowering his own weapon.

Though both men kept tense grips on the guns, ready to snap them back up into position.

[pryor_child]

"Cyberman?" Nate lowered his hands real slow. "Gentlemen, this arm isn't cybernetics. It's techno-organic flesh, the remnants of a flesh-to-metal virus I was infected with during an assassination attempt when I was a kid."

He hoped the technobabble would somehow be reassuring.

[time_watcher]

Given the depth of Jack and Ianto's hatred for cybermen, it might not have been quite as reassuring as it could have been but at least the guns were still pointed downwards.

"Techno-organic flesh? That's like the ultimate contradiction in terms," Jack said, still made uneasy by what he was seeing but trying really hard not to shoot Nate just on principal.

"And you're responsible for the kids here?!?!"

Maybe he'd shoot him anyway.

[pryor_child]

"Did I mention I'm from the future... well, sort of. I was born in modern times, sent forward to the future, and came back in attempts to make sure that future didn't come to pass. And I really am friendly, assuming you're not out to kill me," Nate said.

[time_watcher]

That sort of caught Jack's attention and after a brief bit of thought, he gave Ianto a discreet motion and the two guns disappeared.

"What time in the future?"

Despite his reservation about all things that smacked of cybermen, Jack couldn't entirely ignore the possibility of meeting up with someone from his time.

[pryor_child]

"Right around the fortieth century," Nate said. "Give or take."

[time_watcher]

"Ah," Jack seemed to deflate a little but in the span of a breath he also appeared to bounce right back.

"Well, I'd normally say 'sorry to have almost shot you' but if you'd been a cyberman I wouldn't have been sorry in the least. Captain Jack Harkness," he offered and then nodded to the younger man beside him. "And Ianto Jones."

[pryor_child]

"Nathan Summers, like I said," Nate said, going to shake Jack's hand. "Captain of what, exactly?"

[time_watcher]

"RAF retired," Jack supplied readily and he stepped forward as if to draw Nate's attention, while Ianto dropped down and started back to work on the wires.

"So, dictator eh?"