VS3:11 -- "All In Good Time", Part Two
All In Good Time -- Part Two
Gwen closed the door of the interrogation room firmly behind them and sank down into the empty chair at the table. She smoothed her face, keeping her relief from showing. She wondered if she could get away with surreptitiously toeing off her shoes under the table. She'd had to stop wearing her customary black leather boots because her ankles swelled too much during the day. The good thing about her current shoes, though, was that she could slip them off and on at will.
"So! Me." Jack planted his fists on the table and leaned over, his face a hands-breadth from his younger face. Gwen felt she would go cross-eyed if she looked at them too closely, and settled for focussing her attention solely on Bogart. "Sorry about that interruption. Where were we?" Jack's voice was light and conversational, but Gwen recognised the thick thrum of tension hiding just under the surface. She gave a little shake of her head. Bogart was going to recognise it, too. She noticed him ever so slightly back away from Jack, eyeing him strangely.
"What he means," Gwen said, gently, "is that we would like to help you get to where you're going. Surely you didn't mean to wind up on a backwater planet with no Time Agency post?"
Bogart looked at her then, and she could practically see the wheels turning in his head: he could go with her explanation and maybe get their assistance in getting off the planet, but without whatever he had come for; or he could admit what that was and face the consequences; or he could attempt to lie to someone who knew all his tricks.
"You know I wouldn't disregard Agency orders lightly," he said to Jack. The solemn expression on his face didn't sit quite right, like icing on pie. Gwen's tummy rumbled (though she'd never understood the appeal of a Cherry Bakewell before).
"I know you would if you thought you could get away with it," Jack replied.
Bogart snorted. "And is that what you've done here? Look at you. No uniform, and you obviously aren't working with any other Agents. This isn't an Agency outpost. What was so important that you left?"
Jack grinned, all teeth like a shark. "I don't want to spoil the surprise."
"Let me guess." Bogart leaned back in his chair, tipping it up on two legs, and crossed his arms. "Can't just be the sex, though I have to admit he's got a nice ass. Do you have her, too? Is that your baby she's carrying? I don't have you - me - pegged as the domestic type."
Gwen kicked him in the shin under the table before Jack could respond, and Bogart fell back with a startled curse, landing on the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and chair. Jack gave her the ghost of a smile and walked around the table to look down on himself.
"Tell me what you're doing here before I retcon your ass back to Basic," he said.
Bogart's eyes widened and he stopped rubbing his arse. "You can't do that! I need… you need- Dammit, 'Jack', or whoever you are, we need our memories!"
"Of what?!"
"Gray!" The word was ripped from Bogart's chest, and Gwen's stomach clenched. Silence descended on the room. Jack turned away from Bogart, from her, and she could see his back muscles tensing beneath his braces.
She looked at Bogart, taking a steadying breath. "You've been tracking Gray here?" She was proud that her voice only betrayed the smallest of warbles. She had not said Gray's name out loud, none of them had, since that horrible night.
"You know about Gray? You know who he is?" Bogart's eyes travelled from Jack's back to hers, calculating.
"Yes. Look, Bogart, there are things-"
"Enough, Gwen." Jack turned abruptly and strode back over to the table. Gwen tried to catch his eye, but he avoided her gaze, instead fixing Bogart with a firm stare. "How did you find him? You answer that, and we'll think about letting you see him."
"What are you? I saw you-" Bogart stopped, cutting his eyes at Gwen. "Why are you holding my brother?"
Jack crossed his arms. "I'm doing the questioning here."
Gwen could hear Bogart grind his teeth. "I followed the signal here. It led right to this place."
She frowned and heard an answering frown in Jack's voice, "Gray's signal would be months old by now. Why did it take you so long?"
Bogart shook his head. "No, no. The signal I got was fresh. Still traceable. Or was, before your boy took my comp."
"Then you were following something else. Something that…" Jack's voice trailed off, and he shook his head, staring down at the floor.
"Jack? What are you thinking?" Gwen asked.
Jack opened his mouth to reply, but just then Ianto's voice sounded in both their ears, cutting him off. "Jack, reports of an attack near the city centre!"
Gwen rose abruptly, and Bogart stared between the two of them. "What? What just happened?"
Gwen tapped her comm. "Ianto, what is it? What kind of attack?"
"A 999 call. It's another victim, like our weevil earlier. But human. A girl reported being attacked - by a man - and then, she said that his head exploded. And there are more."
"More what? Heads exploding?"
"What?" Bogart stared at her, wide-eyed.
"Gray's trail." Jack crossed to him in two quick strides and hauled him to his feet. "How did you find it? What else could you have been following? When you got here, did you register any other biological traces? Some kind of very small creature that eats brain matter?"
Bogart shook himself out of Jack's grip with a glare. "Why? You mean like a ceredere? They're not that small-"
"A what?" Gwen asked, glancing at Jack.
Bogart continued as though she hadn't spoken, "-and they don't leave much in the way of tracks; they leap a lot." Bogart frowned at Jack. "You don't know about them?"
Gwen held her breath as Jack answered, "They sound familiar. It's just been a long time; the details are hazy." She let her breath out slowly as Bogart nodded.
"Argue later, people are dying now."
"Right, then." Jack reached up and tapped at his earpiece. "Ianto? You, me, Megan and my young self here are going to the city centre; Gwen will run the op from here. Get something together for... Bogart, would you? He's going to give us a tutorial on these creatures on the way there."
"What's in it for me?" Bogart challenged.
"You get to see your brother when we get back."
Gwen met Jack's eyes as Bogart broke into a wide smile. Shadows of retcon lurked in their depths and bile rose in her throat. "Follow me, Bogart," she said to the young man. "Jack, we'll talk when you get back." She tried to ignore his wince, turned on her heel and led them out of the interrogation room.
626 shifted in the backseat as "Jack" took a corner without applying any brakes. At least the rain had finally stopped. He gave the non-pregnant woman - Megan, they'd called her - one of his more rakish grins as their thighs bumped.
"I'm not interested," she said flatly, and shoved him back to his side of the vehicle.
"That's no way-" he began, but "Jack" interrupted.
"Enough, Agent." His voice was harsh and stern. 626 couldn't believe he'd ever sound quite like that. Perhaps the result of too many near-death experiences. How did he do that? "Tell us what you know about these creatures. Cerederes, you said." The vehicle came close to being airborne as they topped a small rise, and 626 smirked at the way Ianto, in the seat in front of him, gripped the hanging handle so tight his knuckles turned white.
"Cerederes feed off brain matter. They suction it out of the skull with their tails." He turned to Megan and smacked his lips. "They go in through the nose and suck and slurp. It's quite messy."
Megan frowned at him. "Do they ever go in through the ear at all?"
He blinked at her, then grinned widely. "I'm going to throw Pert Ass over for you in the future, am I right?"
"I'm really not interested," she said again as Ianto cleared his throat in the front seat.
"Gwen, have you been able to find anything in the database on cerederes?" Ianto asked loudly, tapping his antiquated earpiece.
Really, it was a wonder they could communicate at all, he thought, listening to her response in the earpiece they'd given him. They'd also given him one of his own blasters back and one long dagger. He would have been happier with a few more pieces from his own personal stash, but he'd already filched a couple of Monlurvian firestarters (tiny, but fierce) from one of the kits stored under the backseat.
"Sending a photo to your PDA," Gwen said. She and Ianto had such delightful accents. That Jack was a lucky bastard to be surrounded by that all day. He kicked the seat in front of him. All night, too. "Ianto, they're about the size of, well, baby pandas, and they look like Gremlins. Only with weird tails that have flipper-type ends."
"Cute," Ianto grunted. "Any special way of stopping them?"
"I'm not seeing one."
626 cleared his throat. "Hello? Remember me?"
"If you have words of wisdom, spill," Jack commanded. 626 wondered if he realised he did an almost perfect imitation of Commander J'Roc whenever he issued an order. "We're almost there."
"Explode their guts. Either shoot them or rip 'em open. And be careful, because they can really leap and those tails are long."
The vehicle came to an abrupt stop; all four of them yanked open their doors and tumbled out into the night. It looked like some kind of shopping area, with a stand selling frozen concoctions, another selling nuts, and about a dozen shop units lining a small, open plaza. Two dead bodies lay crumpled in the middle of the plaza, the busted streetlamps and the moon conspiring to highlight the mess of their faces. There were no cerederes in sight.
"Well-" 626 began, when a large splat landed at their feet. The ceredere gurgled at them from its spot atop a lamp post, and threw another chunk of gooey brain matter at them. A large, raucous hooting noise filled the plaza. "Did I forget to mention that they make this sound before they attack?" he shouted over it.
Ianto shot him a disgusted look as dozens of cerederes leapt off buildings and out of alleys, converging on the centre of the plaza, calling to each other with their strange ululations. They were trailed by a couple of humans, wandering dazedly behind them, blood dribbling from their ears.
"They're not nearly as graceful as the weevil was," Megan muttered beside him, frowning at the humans.
He didn't spare her a second thought, but raised his blaster and shot the leading ceredere directly in the stomach. It exploded in a spray of orange and green ichor, and then all hell broke loose.
Four more cerederes charged forward with their odd, bouncy gait, heading for his older self. Better him than me. Ianto rushed to cover Jack; 626 lost sight of the two men behind a wall of white and brown fur and long, blue-gray tails. "Come on!" he yelled to Megan, pulling her with him behind their vehicle. One good thing he could say about the lumbering transports of this time was that they provided a lot of cover when needed. Megan got off a shot that looked like it would go wide of their closest ceredere, but instead hit it square in the navel as it bounced up, into the shot. "Beginner's luck," he muttered under his breath, and took aim at the next ceredere advancing on their position.
Alien viscera flew through the air, along with tufts of white and brown fur and bits of tail. 626 taunted the aliens, roaring obscenities in his native language. Over to his left he could hear himself and Ianto, still alive, calling encouragement to one another and swearing at the aliens as they fought their way, step by step, back to the shelter of the vehicle. He didn't hear Megan make a sound until the cerederes pushed in closer and he was forced to use his dagger. He chopped off the end of one's tail; the small piece landed on Megan's face and began to crawl towards her nose. She shrieked, a bloodcurdling howl, and 626 grabbed her roughly around the waist, turning her to him and flicking the dagger out towards her face. A tiny piece of her skin came off with the tail, and blood poured down her cheek. Her eyes were huge in the moonlight, and grew even wider as she looked beyond his shoulder.
"They're still coming," she said, voice tight and barely contained. He glanced over his shoulder. She was right; there were so many. A whole colony must have come through their Rift.
626 reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the firestarters. He'd really wanted to save it for his and Gray's escape, but if he didn't do something now, there would be no escape. He shook the glowing stick, half crouched, and threw it as hard as he could into the swarm.
A fireball erupted and Megan grabbed his shoulders, yanking him down behind the vehicle before he could get a face full of dead alien. Bits of innards, bone and blood rained down on them. Silence descended on the plaza, except for the pitter-patter splatting of ceredere guts hitting the pavement, and the crackle of flames slowly dying out. 626 hoisted himself up and looked around.
It looked almost like a child's finger painting, if said child was a sadistic little creeper. Huge splashes of orange and green were smeared all around the plaza, mixed in with the deep crimson of the cerederes' human victims. He quickly counted eight feet. Four casualties.
"So, shoot them in the gut and nearly die yourself, or blow them up with a weapon stolen from Torchwood's arsenal." Jack's voice was harsh and hoarse. "Were you going to wait until we were all dead? Megan is dripping blood and Ianto was almost killed!"
"She has a flesh wound! And he seems to be doing just fine." 626 looked at Ianto, who was scowling at him from behind Jack's right shoulder. There was a small spray of green along the bottom of his trouser leg. "I think his suit will recover."
He was shoved up against the side of the vehicle before he could even blink, nose to nose with his own... nose. He looked furious, concerned. Afraid. Oh, bloody hell, you've gone and grown attached to this place and these people. Fool!
"Look, me, I didn't know there would be so many. I protected your people when it was necessary, didn't I?"
He held his breath as blue eyes pierced his own. Movement tickled the edge of his vision and he ignored it, focussing entirely on Jack. From the rustling, it sounded like Ianto was helping Megan staunch her bleeding cheek. He was rivetted on his own blue eyes, on the conflicting emotions he could see bubbling in there, but he had never been much of one for introspection.
The door to an eatery on the plaza banged open and they both turned at the interruption, smoothly raising their guns. Ianto cocked his eyebrow at them and walked forward to meet the newcomers, three humans. "DI Swanson, PC Davidson. Thank you for your phone call."
"Bloody hell, Jones!" the man gasped, staring around at the carnage. 626 gave him an appraising look. Cute. And the dark-skinned woman was quite beautiful. The light-skinned woman, though, had a distinct tinge of green to her, but he was willing to bet that it was only temporary.
The beautiful woman placed her hands on her hips and frowned at Ianto. "You lot will be cleaning this up, yeah?"
626 grinned at the mental image of Ianto, bending down in his fancy suit to mop up ceredere guts. "Ianto's looking forward to it, I can assure you. I'll be supervising. Perhaps you'd care to join me?" he said, stepping forward.
"Bloody hell," she whispered in a strange echo of the man, eyes darting between him and... himself. The man was doing an impression of a dying frog, lips moving noiselessly and eyes bugging. The woman shook herself. "If this is what Torchwood does, then fine. They can have it," she muttered, walking a few paces away.
Jack shot him a look of disgust. "Megan, could you help him into the SUV?" He barely waited for her nod before turning to face to the newcomers. 626 couldn't hear what he was telling them, as it sounded like the green-looking woman had finally lost her fight with her stomach.
"Dry heaving," he said conversationally to Megan. "Poor thing. Sure you don't want to go to her?"
Megan opened the back door to their vehicle - it was splattered with green and orange entrails - and hustled him inside. "Jones will take care of it." She was wincing a little with each step, but that certainly wasn't his problem.
He craned his neck to see around her. Ianto and the new bloke were crouched down by the stricken woman. Ianto had produced a bottle of water from somewhere and was holding what looked to be a couple of pills in his hand. Beyond them, Jack and the other woman were involved in an animated discussion. 626 wished he could hear what they were saying; it involved a lot of finger waving. Not the type of finger waving that led to an orgy, though. More was the pity.
While they were occupied, 626 mentally catalogued everything in the vehicle, adding it to the list of what he'd already seen in their base. Even if they did let him see Gray, there was no guarantee they'd let him go. And he wasn't leaving without his brother.
Jack wasn't entirely sure why, but he was anxious to get back to the Hub. "Ianto, lights and siren." He didn't wait for Ianto to comply, just put his foot down and floored it through the dark city streets.
"So, this is what I do now?" 626 said, from his place in the backseat. "No way. Why would I give up everything to be stuck here?" Ianto made a soft noise from the passenger seat and 626 kicked the back of his seat. "Sorry to be stealing your thunder, princess."
Jack abruptly slammed on the brakes, and his younger self, the only person not wearing a seatbelt, came flying forward, smashing his face against the seat in front of him. "Stop aggravating him!" He glared at 626 in the mirror. "You want to see your brother? Grow up and calm down." It's only taken a thousand years or so, but I have finally become my mother.
A hand crept across the space between the seats and squeezed his knee. Jack looked over at Ianto as he started the SUV up again; he was staring resolutely out the window while his thumb rubbed a soothing circle on Jack's knee. Jack took a deep breath, consciously unclenched his jaw, and loosened his grip a little on the steering wheel.
"Not to change the subject," Megan began, and Jack sought her out in the mirror. Her cheek had stopped bleeding, finally. "But do we know if those were all the cerederes in Cardiff? Will we have to chase down even more of these things?"
She turned to look at 626 and, in the mirror, Jack followed her gaze. 626 grumbled for a moment, and Jack could feel a flippant response on his own tongue before he thought better of it.
"They travel in packs," 626 said at last. "Not even a pair of them would want to go off on their own. I doubt you'll find any more of them."
The Millenium Centre loomed before them, and Jack slowed the vehicle. "We've got some clean-up to take care of, first. And then we'll see about your brother."
626 met his eyes for a final time in the mirror, and Jack's stomach did a flip-flop at the barely concealed hope and longing he saw there.
Gwen met them at the door and immediately took Dr. Muli down to the med bay to clean up the cut on her cheek. Ianto made a mental note to show Megan the dermal repair laser. Unless she liked scars? Right now, though, he had his hands busy helping Jack escort Agent 626 into his office, and his mind busy running a checklist: body bags (several), CCTV (erase and replace), cover story (they hadn't used the 'BBC filming on location' excuse in a while), new shoes (these were ruined!), dry-cleaning - he looked down at his trousers, covered in… well, it looked like pea soup with grated carrot, and Ianto was happy to make himself believe that.
They pushed the agent down into a seat in Jack's office; he folded his arms over his chest and glared up at Jack. "Where is Gray?"
Ianto chanced a glance at Jack, but Jack wasn't looking at him. Ianto wasn't sure if he should stay or go. Jack, for all he was good at putting up a front, looked weary… exhausted even, as he leaned back against his desk.
"How long have you been searching?" Jack asked. He waved his hand before 626 could answer, and said, "I mean, you've been… what? During a job, you take a little side trip? Get some information? Right?"
The agent's brow furrowed - it was Jack's face, but it wasn't - and he said, "Well, yeah. But if you're really me, then you already know all of this." He paused. "Don't you?"
"It's not-" Jack's eyes dropped to the floor and his voice was barely above a whisper. "Gray isn't the same as you remember him."
"Then he's really here?" The smile that spread over the agent's face was almost more than Ianto could bear.
This time Jack looked up at him, and Ianto got the message. He nodded, almost tried a smile, but it didn't feel right, stepped around the chair and went out the door, closing it behind him.
Through the window of Jack's office he watched them framed as if in split-screen - the way they did it in old films, showing the same person doubled. Jack was bent forward, elbows on his knees, speaking slowly to his younger self. And, boy, wasn't that one of those things Ianto had never truly imagined before Torchwood? He knew by the way Jack was holding himself that he was speaking in that low, controlled voice of his. Jack could barely say the name 'Gray' these days; Ianto wondered how it must be to hear about it as he watched 626 shaking his head vehemently and arguing back. He stood abruptly, knocking Jack off-balance, and jabbed a finger at him. Then he shouted something that was muffled by the glass, and marched over to the door, yanking it open.
Before 626 could take two steps, before Ianto even had time to react, Gwen was there with her gun trained on him. He stopped, glared at her and Ianto; his breath was coming in short huffs through his nose, his mouth was pinched tight, and his eyes looked a bit wet. In that moment, Ianto could actually see Jack, the Jack that he knew, in there.
Then Jack was standing behind the agent, nodding at Gwen to lower her weapon, a brief twitch of his lips indicating that he approved. He reached up and rested his hand on 626's shoulder, causing him to flinch away.
"I want to see my brother."
The moment was interrupted by the sound of an alarm.
"Captain!" Dr. Muli called to them from Gwen's workstation. "We've got… incoming."
They all hurried over to see, feet thundering on the grating floor. In the CCTV window of the Plass, three figures were marching toward the water tower, some sort of device - a scanner perhaps - held in the leader's hands.
In front of Ianto, Gwen cocked her head and leaned closer to peer at the screen. "Is that…?"
She didn't need to finish her question; Ianto could see perfectly clearly. He had no idea who the other two… people… were, but the smaller one on the left was John Fucking Hart.
"…and what's more, there are places on this planet where you cannot find Pez candies." Agent 888 paused for breath, his first one since they'd landed.
"Now I know you're lying, fish." Agent 721's left hand went up to his eye, again, and 888 batted it down.
"Who you calling fish, cyborg? I'm no rookie. And leave your eye in your fucking socket; they won't have cybernetic-hybrids here for another two hundred years."
"Less than a hundred, actually. And both of you," Commanding Agent Lo'Shin Zo opened wide her gills and bared her pointy teeth, "maintain silence." She snapped her gills shut and closed her mouth.
The other two agents stood up straight and saluted. Much better.
"Now. Our intelligence tells us that there is a base for Torchwood in this plaza, beneath our feet. 721!" she barked. "What can you tell us about Time Agency protocol in relation to Torchwood?"
Agent 721's mechanical eye bugged slightly out of its socket and Zo grimaced. It always did that when he was nervous. "We are not to interfere with the policies of Torchwood!" he answered promptly. Sweat broke out on his forehead.
"Indeed. And why is that, 888?" Zo asked, turning to him.
"Because the Big Man would light our arses on fire," Agent 888 muttered. 721 stepped on his foot, and Zo pretended not to notice. "Ah, because the Time Agency deems it prudent to avoid Torchwood."
"Keep that in mind, agents. We are here for a very simple retrieval. I will do the negotiating. You two, be quiet."
She waited for their salutes before glancing down at her scanner, and smiled. Clever.
There was a saying on Boeshane: 'The floods will always catch you with your knickers down,' was the rough translation, though less polite society would say, 'One lick on the cock means more to come.' (Jack would sometimes whip that one out on Ianto - only whenever he used it, the reverse was true.) On Earth they said, 'It never rains, but it pours,' usually followed by old women clucking their tongues and exchanging meaningful glances. Whatever the expression, Jack was reminded of it now.
Next to him, Agent 626 let out a string of curses in Osciarey-1o. Jack had nearly forgotten that he even knew Osciarey-1o.
"Oh, this is bad," 626 said, backing away from the group. He pivoted on his heel and began pacing. "They're going to kill me."
"What?" Gwen said, alarmed.
"No, they're not," Jack assured them all.
"Of course they're not. We won't let them," Gwen said to 626, then turned back to him. "Right, Jack?"
"You have no idea what we're dealing with. Look," 626 said, "just let me see Gray. I can fix him. I'll take him somewhere and they'll never find us."
Jack shook his head, sadly. "You can't. You know that."
"You can't let them take me," Jack's very young self pleaded.
"We certainly aren't letting John Hart anywhere near us again," Gwen said, hotly, one hand resting gently over her belly.
"Who?" 626 asked.
"That's not Hart," Jack told them, looking first into Gwen's eyes and then Ianto's. "I mean, he isn't yet."
"You mean 888?" 626 snorted. "He's nobody. What's he got to do with any of you?"
"Nothing," Jack said. "And don't worry. There's no way I'm letting them in my base."
"Uh, Jack," Ianto said, pointing up toward the ceiling. They all looked up as they heard the hiss and the slight rumble of the lift descending.
"Shit."
"Do something!" 626 hissed at them.
"Jack?" Gwen already had her weapon up again and aimed toward the lift.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw 626 turn to Ianto and grab the lapels of his jacket. Jack started over as 626 began to whisper, "Hide me. You have to! If he's really me, then you have to help me. I've seen the way you look at him!"
Ianto caught Jack's eye, holding his gaze for a long moment, and Jack froze. Ianto looked away, into 626's eyes. "You're not Jack," he said, knocking 626's hands away from him. "But you will be. Someday."
626 scowled at him, breathing heavily through his nose, then turned and stared at Jack. "I saw you! You healed! You can stand up to them! You don't have to take anything from them ever again."
"Maybe not," Jack said, chest tight, "but I have to look out for my team. My team."
626 set his jaw, and Jack felt his heart skip a beat at how close, but not quite right, it looked. "What good are you then?" 626 shot at him. "What's the point if you can't save us?"
Jack looked away. Ianto took one quick step forward, raising his arm to 626, and Jack caught at it. "Let it go," he murmured.
626 glared at Jack and shook his head slowly. "You don't remember."
The lift hissed as it came to a halt, slotting into place, and everyone sort of stood up straighter. Jack gave 626 one quick glance before squaring his shoulders and striding forward, placing himself between his team and the Time Agents. He drew his Webley. Ianto and Megan took up position on either side of 626, drawing their own firearms. Jack was pleased to note how steadily Megan held the weapon.
The three Time Agents stepped almost casually off the lift. The hulking one behind the leader popped his eye out of its socket and began to sweat profusely. Next to him, 888's eyes widened, darting back and forth between 626 and Jack. Jack ignored them both to focus on the leader, a tall humanoid female with short, black hair, a blueish tint to her skin, and gill-like slits above her eyes. She looked vaguely familiar.
"You can stop right there," Jack commanded. "Or does the Time Agency no longer recognise a drawn weapon as the universal symbol for 'back off'?"
The highest ranking agent blinked her gills, and Gwen let out a little grunt on Jack's left. "I am Commanding Agent Lo'Shin Zo," the leader said. "Or Agent 47, whichever you like. Some cultures prefer the numbering system."
Her voice gave no hint as to which form of address she preferred, and Jack suddenly remembered her from his first class at the Academy. Agent 47, who loved opera and oatmeal. It was amazing the type of information the human mind could retain. Still, Jack didn't lower his Webley.
"And your purpose here would be?" he asked. Never let it be said that Jack Harkness cannot play Captain Obvious.
888 snorted, though he still looked entirely unsettled. "Trying to prevent a time violation that could destroy the universe. But as we've failed and there are two of you here anyway, what would you say to the three of us-"
Ianto started forward, taking aim, but Jack held out an arm and he stopped.
"Enough," Agent 47 snapped.
Ignoring the anger radiating from Ianto's body next to him, Jack raised his voice to ask Agent 47, "What about Torchwood?"
"The Agency is not to interfere with Torchwood," she said. "We are only here for Agent 626 of the Boeshane Peninsula; he is in violation of Ordinances 48, 151, and 623-42. He is to be brought-"
Jack cut her off, "We don't need the speech. We're ready to comply."
"Jack, we can't!" Gwen said.
"No," 626 stepped forward and looked Jack right in the eye, "it's fine. Just… just let me see him. I just need to see him."
"The Time Agency cannot allow 626 to slip away again," 47 stated, eyeing him with distrust.
"Fine," Jack said, "you'll come with us. Those two," he pointed at the other agents, "can stay here. My team will guard them." He gave Gwen a nod and Ianto a stern look. She nodded back, gun in hand but no longer raised. Ianto's jaw clenched, but he didn't move otherwise. Megan stepped aside as Jack took 626 by the elbow and, almost against his will, noted how much bonier it felt compared to his own arm. Apart from that, he hadn't physically changed that much. They were exactly the same height, his shoulders were just as broad, his stride just as long. His hair… well. A few centuries would turn anyone a little grey.
This moment had happened to him so long ago.
Agent 47 took up the space on 626's other side, and Jack led them to the steps that went down to cold storage.
On the monitor up in the Hub, Gwen watched Jack take a deep breath before pulling open the drawer. A cloud of mist billowed out, obscuring them from the camera for a moment. Bogart - 626 - was shaking his head as the fog cleared, backing away from the open drawer. He appeared to be shouting, pointing a finger at Jack.
"Is there sound?" Megan asked from behind Gwen's left shoulder, startling her a bit. She glanced back to check the others in the room.
"No," Ianto said shortly, and Gwen looked at him because she knew there most certainly was audio, and that, with one click of the mouse, they'd be able to hear everything. But his eyes were glued to the screen.
Jack was standing to one side, arms folded across his chest, with his eyes cast up toward the ceiling. The Time Agent - Lo'Shin Zo, 47, whatever - stood to the other, hands clasped behind her back. 626 leaned over the open drawer, his upper body shaking.
Ianto reached out and switched off the CCTV feed.
"Aw, they were just getting to the good stuff," Hart - 888 - said behind them. Gwen turned with a snarl, but Ianto was even faster. His fist made a satisfying thunk against 888's jaw, and the agent went sprawling. Gwen gave Ianto a delighted smile and almost laughed outright at the look of shock on Megan's face.
"You can take the boy out of the estate…" Ianto murmured. He looked a trifle embarrassed.
Gwen caught at his hand. "Nah, I wanted to do that, too," she said, giving his hand a quick squeeze.
The strange cyborg agent shuffled his feet. Sweat rolled down his forehead and Gwen wrinkled her nose. Maybe his sweat was a form of weapon. "Ah. Erm," he said. Maybe he didn't speak English?
888 shot him a disgusted look and pulled himself to his feet, brushing down his uniform. "Bloody Torchwood," he grumbled.
They all turned as one at the sound of boots on the steps from cold storage. Agent 47 led the way, guiding 626 by the elbow. He looked… defeated, staring at his own feet as they shuffled across the floor. Behind them, Jack looked almost as bad.
"Prepare the prisoner for transport," Agent 47 ordered, nodding to her lackeys. They each took one of his arms, and 626 didn't resist.
"Jack." Gwen started toward him, and his shoulders twitched, but from the resigned expression on his face, she knew he must have been expecting it.
"Gwen, it's been a long day."
"I did notice that, Jack," she said dryly. She paused for a moment, then moved closer and laid a hand on his arm. "But we can't really just let this happen, can we?"
"It's already happened," he replied, leaning back against the workstation. Ianto moved next to him, close but not touching. "It's already done," Jack whispered, gaze unfocussed.
She looked across the Hub and watched as Agent 47 bound 626's arms, before holding some type of device up to his neck. Immediately, his entire body went slack and he slumped against the other agents. "But what will they do to him?" Gwen asked quietly.
"They can't kill him," Ianto said firmly, his voice sounding rough.
"No," Jack confirmed. "They won't kill him. He'll be taken to a facility to have his memory wiped and then held until his re-education can begin."
"He'll be retconned?" The thought of it left a sick, crawling sensation in the pit of Gwen's stomach. Never mind 're-education'.
"Not exactly. Where retcon leaves a person… sort of malleable, not removing the memories but muddling them, masking them, leaving them open to reinterpretation through the power of suggestion… this will be different. He'll wake up and the memories just… won't be there. Like it never happened at all. He won't even realise that anything is wrong at first."
"And you're just going to let them do that?" asked Megan, who'd been standing quietly for so long that Gwen forgot she was even there.
"It's not a matter of 'let'," Jack explained. "It's done. This happens. But just one thing…" With that, he pushed away from the desk and marched over to help the agents lift his younger self up onto the paving stone. As the cyborg struggled with the feet and 47's brand of supervision, Jack leaned in close to Har- Agent 888, and whispered something in his ear. He looked startled at first, then extraordinarily pleased, leering at Jack and licking his lips. Jack did something surprising then; he bent even closer to 888 and placed a soft kiss on his cheek, before pulling away and stepping off the lift.
As they ascended, Jack called up, "Zo, what about me?"
"The Agency is not to interfere with Torchwood," she repeated, her face like stone.
The invisible lift took them out of view; Ianto hurried to bring up the CCTV of the plass and they all gathered round to watch. Agent 47 stepped off the lift and opened her wriststrap device. The CCTV dissolved into static for a bare second and when the picture came back, the entire party was gone.
"We had the chance to change it, Jack," Gwen said. "After everything that's happened, what you know now about- You could have saved- You had the opportunity to prevent it. All of it!"
"No, I didn't. I can't change the past, Gwen. No one can."
Her hand went automatically to cradle her bump. "We changed the past, once." She had never dreamed of it, not ever, as if the image of Rhys covered in his life's blood was so horrifying she had banned it. But whenever she heard of a train derailment, or troops killed in Iraq, or a homicide, then the victims were all Rhys.
"That was different. Gwen, my whole reason for being here - me, we're talking about, me right here and now - is because of what happens to me out there. If we change things-" He stopped abruptly and met her eyes, but she didn't need him to continue.
Without the immortality, would there even be a Torchwood? Would Tosh and Owen still be alive right now? Would all the nameless people Jack had saved now be dead? She felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and cursed her hormones. "But… the memories, Jack."
"He can't keep that knowledge. I don't get to keep it." He turned to her then, his mouth trying to form his patented grin. "I've lived a long time now. What's a measly two years' worth?"
"Yeah." She nodded, dully. Two years. The same amount of time that she'd known him.
"What about Hart? Or whatever he's called," Ianto said, the first words he'd spoken in a while.
"He doesn't remember this, either," Jack said. "I mean, he won't, afterward." He heaved a great sigh, walked over to the sofa and dropped into a seat. "Eight- John busted- busts me out, but..." Jack paused, breathing deeply. "Then he gets caught, the Time Agency takes him back and they wipe this mission out of his head. The next time I ran into him, he remembered that I'd 'gone rogue' and that I'd escaped the agency, but he didn't know that he was the one who'd helped me."
"So…" Gwen frowned, trying to keep it clear in her mind. "So, he never remembered meeting us. Doesn't remember you being here, or Gray, or…"
"What did you say to him?" Ianto asked. "Before they left."
"Told him how and when to find me, and how, exactly, to get me out. Which he will then tell me when he finds me. 626-me. He always did like to brag."
"This is giving me a headache," Gwen said, lowering herself carefully onto the sofa next to Jack. "If it's all already happened, and we can't change anything-"
"Altering a set time-line would rip a hole in the universe," Jack said blithely, like a mantra, something that had been repeated many times.
"If the universe is really that fragile, maybe people shouldn't be allowed to travel in time." Ianto, hands stuffed in his pockets, casually walked over and sat on the other side of Jack. "I'm just saying."
Gwen nodded, rubbing a hand gently over her belly. Her stomach growled suddenly, and she wondered how much Chinese food was left. She thought about getting up, but decided against it. She dug her mobile out of her pocket, instead, thinking to call Rhys - it was quite a bit later than she'd expected to be home (though, he could still be out with his mates, for all she knew) - and discovered she had one missed call.
"Yeah, Gwen, it's Andy. Listen I have a box of, uh, alien parts that Swanson really wants to hang up in your tourist booth. Uh, Ianto never came back and we didn't hear from you lot. She's spitting rocks that we got left with this clean-up, by the way. Call me, yeah?"
Gwen sighed and looked up at Megan. "You want to get something from upstairs with me? I promise you'll like it."
Megan glanced over her shoulder at the autopsy bay. "What-"
"Dead things, Megan. Pieces of them."
Her eyes swivelled back to Gwen's face, and Gwen gave a tired smile and nodded her head. Megan almost, almost returned the smile. "Let's go, then."
Gwen noted Ianto slipping into Jack's office as they left. She hadn't noticed Jack ducking out while she'd listened to her mobile, but she had a good idea of where he was now. Good, Ianto can deal with that. Give me the bag of alien bits.
Ianto stepped off the final rung and turned to face the bed. Jack was sitting on the edge, elbows on knees and his face in his hands. Ianto leaned up against the ladder and waited.
"He told me Gray always thought he was the lystrieg that got away," Jack said finally, and looked up at him. "I'd forgotten that story."
Ianto shifted his weight to his other foot. "What's a lystrieg?"
Jack fell back onto the bed with a sigh. "A kind of flying fish. Really bony. There was this whale-like thing - a clostrav - that used to hunt them. Or will, I should say. Overdose of time travel physics today."
Ianto nodded absently, his fingers going into his jacket pocket to stroke the leather strap of the confiscated vortex manipulator. Overdose indeed.
"Ianto?" Jack asked, still looking up at the ceiling.
He drew his fingers out with a guilty start. "Yes?"
"What was your favourite nursery rhyme as a child?"
Ianto grunted. "Not what I was expecting," he muttered.
"Humour me, will you?" Jack said, patting the bed next to him. Ianto glanced back up the ladder. There was clean-up to do, he should call Andy and touch base, Janet still needed her second dinner, but none of them had gone through what Jack had that day. He shrugged off his jacket and hung it up in the wardrobe before stretching out next to Jack, his knees also bent and feet flat on the floor.
"Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry," he said. "You know that one?"
"I was thinking something more along the lines of 'There once was a girl from Nantucket…'" Jack said, smiling softly.
Ianto shifted on the bed until he could see Jack's face. The lines were pronounced around eyes that didn't reflect his smile. "What was your favourite?"
"Hmmm. I think… I think the one about the brothers of Valen." He smiled again, more naturally this time. "The older one was indestructible, and astonishingly handsome." Ianto snorted, and Jack placed a finger against his lips. "Hush. No mocking the brothers. Anyhow," his fingers moved down Ianto's neck to his waistcoat and began to play with the buttons, "the younger brother had halitosis, so they had to continually travel from town to town…"
If I were a poetic woman, Megan thought, I'd say that the silence was that of a grave. A grave covered in a hoary frost. Megan frowned at her dead weevils and the samples of ceredere Swanson had sent over for her. If Jack had been just a minute later, she would have ended the day in a grave herself. But, as I am not a poetic woman, I shall simply say that the silence is like that of deep space. She nodded to herself and pulled on a pair of gloves.
When she'd left the Hub proper, Gwen had been back on the phone with Swanson and Davidson, but all that leaked down the stairs to the autopsy bay was cold silence. Megan didn't know where Jack or Ianto were; still in the Hub somewhere. Maybe they had a secret hiding place for immortal bosses and their lovers. A secret handshake and a club password. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. She could see Ianto picking that, and Jack going along with it, all unaware.
She couldn't really blame any of them for their moods, all things considered. She thought about secrets, risks, near-death experiences - death experiences, for that matter. She and one Captain Jack Harkness needed to have a long talk in the very near future. But tonight, there were creatures to dissect, knowledge to gain, and there was a positive relief in letting the rest of Torchwood wait.
She started Dr. Harper's playlist and let the loud music wash over her as she began on the ceredere. There was something she wanted to check very quickly before delving into the orange and green exploded sacs in the stomach area. What would be the stomach area on most Earthbound beings, that was. She picked up the end of a tail with a pair of oversized tweezers (detached, and quite possibly not the tail of this particular ceredere) and brought it over to her weevils. The markings on the first two seemed to correspond to the shape of the tail just like the one clenched in her tweezers. Unconsciously, she held her breath as she brought it up to the final weevil.
It didn't match. The entry point was way too narrow and, up close, the hatch marks and the whisker-like protrusions on the end of the tail were not spaced at all similarly. In fact, now she was looking more closely, they didn't even look like hatch marks, not like the ones on the other weevils or the ones she had felt on her own face. She gave an involuntary shudder and ran up the stairs.
Gwen was murmuring into her mobile at her workstation, but hung up with a low, "Love you," when she saw Megan's face. Not Swanson and Davidson, then. "What is it, Megan?"
"I found... where are Harkness and Jones?"
Gwen turned away and hollered, "JACK! IANTO! GET YOUR ARSES UP HERE!" She turned back. "What sort of thing did you find? Something about the cerederes? Are there more of them, you think?"
"No, not them," Megan answered, shaking her head. Jack and Ianto appeared at the door to Jack's office. Jack looked a bit tight around the eyes, and Ianto's jacket was off, waistcoat unbuttoned.
"What is it, Megan?" At least Jack's voice didn't sound tired and drawn. Which was good, considering.
"I have three new weevils downstairs, and that other from cold storage," she started, taking a deep breath. "I've been comparing their wounds with the remains of a ceredere. In two of the weevils - two from today - the wounds are consistent with what could be inflicted by the ceredere. In the case of the third weevil from today…" she faltered, but soldiered on, "the one that… killed you, and the one from several weeks ago, in my medical opinion, the ceredere could not have caused those wounds."
Jack and Ianto both shifted closer to Gwen as she rolled her chair in their direction. Megan wondered if they were aware of the way the three of them tended to circle the wagons at bad news, or if it was just a subconscious thing. She surprised herself by taking a step closer to their little group, as well.
"So you're saying..." Gwen began, eyes travelling up to Jack's face.
"There's something else out there."
END