Fic: Reunited (8/15)
Title: Reunited (8/15)
Author: aibhinn
Pairings: Jack/Rose, Jack/Ten, Jack/Ten/Rose, Ten/Rose, mentions of (past) Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: Doctor Who through "Doomsday", Torchwood through "End of Days".
Summary: The Rift is much more active than it was, and has been disgorging aliens and out-of-time people at an alarming rate… including one person Jack never expected to see again.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This chapter gave me fits, and owes its current state to the awesomeness of my betas: wendymr, dark_aegis, larielromeniel, sensiblecat, rabid1st, and joely_jo. Every one of these lovely ladies contributed immense amounts in the way of suggestions, additions, and support. You rock, all of you!
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV
Jack followed Rose into the basement room he'd set up as a firing range, watching as she took it all in. "Not bad," she said, nodding. "Alien cut-outs for targets and all. And a nice variety of weaponry, too." She considered the array of firearms waiting on the table, then picked up the nine-millimetre and released the clip, checking to see that it was loaded. With practised efficiency, she snapped the clip back into place, flipped the safety catch to 'off' with her thumb, and then pulled the barrel back, chambering a round.
Jack's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. This was nothing like the Rose Tyler he'd known. When they'd travelled together before, she'd been very much a product of late-20th, early-21st century Britain: no acquaintance with firearms at all beyond the cinema. Clearly her time on the parallel Earth had changed all that.
"Torchwood is Torchwood," she said with a shrug, apparently noticing his reaction. "Aliens still don't respond to a truncheon as well as they do a bullet, especially if they're the invading sorts. And guns in general are much more common on the other Earth, even in Britain. More like America, really."
She reached over with her left hand and picked up the safety specs, sliding them on one-handed, and then handed a second pair to him, all the while keeping the gun pointed ahead of her and down. All very professional. Jack grinned and put his goggles on. "All right, Ms Tyler," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Show me what you've got."
Over the course of the next hour, Rose proved herself competent, indeed highly-qualified, with every firearm he brought out and a few he'd had to go into the weapons cupboard for. She even beat him once in an impromptu competition, much to his delight; though he'd got more rounds off in the time allotted, she had more bullets in kill zones. She laughed at him when he brought the targets forward and their scores were compared. "Not bad for an eighty-six-year-old bird," she said, grinning.
"Not at all." He set his gun down, then took hers gently away from her and set it beside his, before taking her in his arms. "Been a long time since anyone's out-shot me on the range. I'm damn impressed."
"That's not all you are," she observed, sliding her arms around his neck and arching against the hardness that pressed against her. "So, Captain, I take it you're one of these blokes who gets turned on watching a woman play with … hardware?"
"Especially when she gets as much enjoyment from it as you do," he agreed, smirking down at her. "Makes me wonder what other types of hardware you enjoy playing with."
She'd just opened her mouth to retort when his headset beeped. "Jack," Owen's voice shouted. "Did Ianto manage to pull you out of bed yet? We could use some help here."
Jack sighed for the broken mood, but answered. "Yeah, Owen, I'm here. What's happening?"
"This thing's on a rampage and we can't get it cornered. The police have evacuated the docks, but I'm not sure the two of us can keep it from escaping the cordon."
Sudden worry clenched Jack's gut. "We're on our way," he said immediately, and looked at Rose. "Want to get back into the field?"
"Oh yeah." Rose grinned.
"Then pick your weapon and let's go."
She chose the nine-millimetre, grabbing a box of ammunition and an empty second clip. He shoved a belt holster at her and they left at a run for the SUV. As she fell into step beside him he looked her over, unable to keep the pride out of his eyes. “Welcome to the team,” he told her.
She flashed a quick smile at him, signalling the end of intimacy for the moment. “Thanks.”
He smiled back, then reached up to press his hand against his headset. "Rose and I are heading out to provide backup for Tosh and Owen. Gwen, where are you? Have you found that boy in the medieval clothes yet?"
"Got him," Gwen answered. "We're just inside the castle walls, in the southeast corner. He's hiding in the trees. Near as I can tell, this boy's French, probably from five or six hundred years ago. No telling where he actually came through the Rift, but he seems to think the castle grounds are safe. I'll get him to the Hub as soon as I can." There was a pause. "Jack, you sure about bringing Rose into the field? She's not exactly in top condition."
"You haven't seen her shoot," Jack said with a note of satisfaction, and Rose shot a glance at him, clearly understanding that she was being talked about. "Ianto, go and see if you can pick them up," he continued as they entered the underground car park where the SUV was housed. "We need that boy back here ASAP. No telling what diseases he might be carrying." He swung into the driver's seat as Rose settled herself into the passenger side, buckling in swiftly and then setting herself to loading both clips with ammunition as he peeled out into traffic. "Owen, where exactly are you?"
"The Q section of the warehouse district by the docks. Near where you found the body of that bloke who'd been killed at the Weevil Fight Club."
"We're on our way." Jack disconnected the call and looked at Rose, who was now undoing her belt to slide the holster into place. "You all right?" he asked. Gwen's words had hit a nerve, though he didn't want to admit it. Rose had been so badly malnourished and dehydrated and who knew what else, and there was no way she was back to a hundred percent yet. Was he setting her up for injury or worse by taking her out on a call so soon?
But she smiled as she slid the holster onto the leather and refastened the belt. "I'm fine. They had me working a desk job for the last couple of years while Mickey was so bad, in case I needed to go home to be with him, so I might be a bit rusty. Other than that, no worries."
"Didn't look rusty on the range," he pointed out, as much for himself as for her. "Hold on." He took a corner far too fast, tyres squealing.
"Wow," Rose said, sounding impressed as they pulled out of the turn and skimmed around a pair of cars and an articulated lorry. "This has got to be a customed car if it'll corner like that. Lowered centre of gravity?"
Jack blinked, then laughed at himself. "I really need to stop being surprised that you know more than you did when I last saw you," he said.
"Comes from being married to Mickey the Car Enthusiast," she said, and grabbed onto the handle above the window, holding tight as he took another corner, weaving skilfully through the spotty mid-morning traffic. "What do we know about this alien?"
"Good question." Jack set his headset to speaker and called Owen. "What's this thing look like?"
"It's fuckin' huge, and green, and blobby. Looks like some four-year-old put it together out of bogeys."
Rose leant in toward the speaker. "About ten feet tall? With a great big hump on its shoulders?"
"Yeah," Owen said, sounding impressed. "You seen it before?"
"Once or twice. They liked our Earth for some reason."
Gunfire sounded in the background. "Well, then, tell us how to kill it, sweetheart," he yelled over the noise. "'Cos we're running out of ammo here, and it doesn't seem to care that we've put a good three dozen holes in it."
"Midriff," Rose called as Jack took yet another corner. She grabbed onto the handle again to keep from slamming into him. "About where a human diaphragm is. Careful, though, 'cos they heal fast. If you just nick the heart, they can survive it. You've got to put a bullet right through the middle of it. It's an eight-chambered job and about ten inches across."
"You're quite the walking encyclopedia, aren't you, sweetheart?" Owen said, but he sounded impressed.
"I learned from the best," Rose said cryptically. She wasn't going to let Owen intimidate her, Jack thought, that was certain.
Three more shots sounded over the line. "Looks like we've finally done some damage," Owen said. "It's slinking backwards towards the bay. Can these things swim?"
"Dunno," Rose told him. "I ran into 'em in the middle of Lincolnshire. Nothing but fields and sheep."
"Well, if we can't take it down, we might just find out."
"Get it away from the water!" Jack snapped. "Circle around it. The last thing we want is the bogeyman living in the bay."
"That had occurred to me!" Owen yelled over the sound of more gunfire.
Rose touched Jack's arm, and he glanced over to see lines of worry on her face. "Jack," she said, "we need to get there now. If it's wounded, it's unpredictable, and with only two of them on scene, we could be looking at a man down any second."
He felt the clench of fear in his gut tighten at her words. It had been years since he'd lost one of his own on a mission, but he'd never forgotten the way it felt. "We're nearly there," he said shortly as he rounded another corner. There was the police cordon about fifty yards ahead, with a pair of uniformed PCs standing guard by a roadblock. At the sight of the Torchwood vehicle, the PCs cleared the way, and Jack hardly needed to slow down as he entered the industrial estate. Another few streets and he was screeching to a halt.
Rose had her seatbelt off and door open before Jack had turned the car off, and was scanning the area, weapon at the ready. "All clear," she called. "Where are they?"
"The water's this way." Jack unholstered his own gun and led the way past a looming white building towards the docks and the water that was just barely visible. A deep, resonant roar confirmed they were heading in the right direction. They broke into a run.
As they came around the building, they saw it. It was just as Owen had described: Tall, green, and lumpy. It had no nose, just two enormous white eyes and a mouth that looked like a knife slash across its misshapen face. Four stubby fingers, one of which seemed to be opposable, clawed at the air as it swiped at Tosh and Owen, who were backed against a wall. Far from them having it cornered, it appeared to have them cornered.
"About bloody time!" Owen yelled as he ducked another swipe that would likely have killed him, had it connected. "Some of us didn't get a nice lie-in this morning."
Jack glanced at Rose, but Owen's words didn't appear to have fazed her; all her attention was fixed on the looming alien, and her whole manner commanded authority. "Cover me," she said to Jack, and before he could protest, she was slinking off to the side, stepping quietly and watching the creature carefully.
"Rose, dammit," Jack said under his breath, but didn't dare actually yell at her for fear of attracting the creature. Reaching up to his headset, he said quietly, "Owen, keep its attention on you if you can. Seems Rose has got a plan." I hope, he added purely to himself.
"What's she doing?" Tosh asked. Her gaze was switching back and forth from the monster to Rose.
"No idea," Jack admitted. "But she knows more about these aliens than we do."
"She'd better," Owen muttered. He began jumping up and down, waving his hands to make himself look bigger than he was. "Hey!" he yelled. "Tall, green, and slimy! That the best you've got?"
The monster roared and swiped one more time. They both ducked again, but this time the edge of its hand clipped the side of Owen's head and Owen fell against the bricks, dazed. Jack felt terror grab at his heart and had to restrain himself from running in to see to him. Oh, God, no, he thought, sick.
"Owen!" Tosh yelled, but the alien swiped again. It missed her by inches, and she had to jump back away from Owen's limp form, gun raised toward the monster as it pulled its hand back for another blow.
Motion caught the corner of Jack's eye, and he looked over at Rose. She'd managed to position herself directly behind the creature without its noticing. As he watched, heart in his throat, she raised her weapon, and with the same steady precision he'd seen on the range, fired three shots.
The alien froze in mid-gesture, arms raised and mouth hanging open in surprise. It made a choked "Ag-ag-ag-ag" sound, and then slowly, almost majestically, like a tree being felled, its legs collapsed out from under it. It crumpled to the ground and lay still.
Rose was on it and checking it for signs of life before Jack unfroze his muscles enough to move. "It's dead," she said, and lowered her weapon to 'rest' position. Raising her head, she met the open-mouthed stares of Jack’s team.
“Bloody hell,” gasped Owen.
Forcing away his shock, Jack ran to her, reaching for her arm. "Wow. That was something else. You all right?"
"Course I’m all right," she said. "I've dealt with these before, remember. Go check on Owen; I'll take a look at this bloke. Dunno if they're actually the same aliens I knew, or if there's something different between this lot and the lot in the other universe."
Jack put a hand on her shoulder. "Okay," he said. "If you're sure."
"I'm not the injured one!" she retorted, but with a smile that said she wasn't as irritated as her words might imply. "Go on, check on him."
Tosh was already kneeling beside Owen, who was slumped against the brick wall but, thankfully, seemed alert as Jack approached. "How you doin'?" Jack asked, crouching beside him.
"I've 'ad hangovers worse than this," Owen said dismissively, though his wince gave the lie to the statement. Tosh was checking his scalp where the alien had hit him, presumably for open wounds. "I'll 'ave a lump or two, but no worse. No concussion, at least."
"How do you know?" Tosh said without pausing in her examination. "When did you last have one?"
"The last time some enormous snot-ball of an alien came through and we had to take it down," Owen said, rolling his eyes. "That was, what, three months ago? What is it with aliens looking like something you'd sneeze out when you've got the flu?"
Jack laughed; he couldn't help it. Even Tosh cracked a grin, though all she said was, "You certainly sound like yourself. Got a pencil torch?"
Owen sighed, but reached into his jacket and pulled one out, then suffered the indignity of her checking the reactiveness of his pupils. "They seem to be normal," she said at last.
"Told you," Owen said with a roll of his eyes. "No blurred vision, no spots in front of my eyes. Can I get up now, Doctor Sato?"
"Just sit there a moment longer," Jack said firmly, putting a hand on Owen's chest as the younger man tried to lever himself up. "I'll call Ianto so we can get started on clean-up. Until he gets here, you stay put, understand?"
"Yes, sir!" Owen said, and saluted mockingly, but the fact that he didn't argue told Jack louder than words that he wasn't feeling as well as he said he was. Jack started to rise, but was stopped by Owen's hand on his sleeve. "By the way," he said, "your friend there is pretty handy to have around." He nodded toward Rose.
Jack smiled, unable to stop the flutter of pride at Owen's praise of Rose. "Tell her that yourself," he suggested, and stood. "Ianto," he said into his headset, "get over here as soon as you've got Gwen and her medieval boy back to the Hub. Cleanup duty. And let the police know that they can release the cordon once we're done."
Rose looked up as he approached her. "Looks like it really is one of my old friends," she said. She was kneeling beside the head. "At least, so far as I can tell; I never did more than the basics in xenobiology. But if I'm right, that begs the question: is this a race that's supposed to be this side of the Void, or did the Rift drag it through the way it did me?" She pushed herself to her feet and dusted off her hands on the legs of her jeans. "How's Owen?"
"No concussion, apparently, though we'll keep an eye on him. Just a headache and a goose-egg." He couldn't stop himself saying it, no matter how clichéd it sounded. "Thanks to you."
Rose shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed. "I just happened to know where to shoot." She slid her fingers into her pockets. "These aliens are usually loners, so I doubt we'll have to watch for a mate or anything like it, but if they've started coming through the Rift, that means it's opening wide enough for larger creatures to make it through."
Jack blinked, surprised. "You suggesting the Rift itself is changing in size?"
"You've had mostly smaller creatures so far, right? Human-sized, or nearly?"
"Well, if you don't count Abaddon, Breaker of Worlds," he said wryly. "But the Rift was opened for him. That's when this all started, actually."
Rose went very still, and Jack's grin began to fade. "What is it?" he asked.
"Abaddon. You mean the Beast?"
He could hear the capital B. "Big towering Titan kind of fellow," he said. "Teeth, horns, tall as a skyscraper." Her expression grew more serious yet, and he said, "You've met him." It wasn't a question, and its implications chilled him to the bone.
"Oh, yeah." She looked down at the creature dead at their feet and took a deep breath. "Looks like we need to have a bit of a chat, Jack. We've got to pool our information." Her gaze met his again, and there was a familiar, terrifying darkness in her eyes-a darkness he'd seen more than once in the Doctor's. "All of us."
Author: aibhinn
Pairings: Jack/Rose, Jack/Ten, Jack/Ten/Rose, Ten/Rose, mentions of (past) Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: Doctor Who through "Doomsday", Torchwood through "End of Days".
Summary: The Rift is much more active than it was, and has been disgorging aliens and out-of-time people at an alarming rate… including one person Jack never expected to see again.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This chapter gave me fits, and owes its current state to the awesomeness of my betas: wendymr, dark_aegis, larielromeniel, sensiblecat, rabid1st, and joely_jo. Every one of these lovely ladies contributed immense amounts in the way of suggestions, additions, and support. You rock, all of you!
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV
Jack followed Rose into the basement room he'd set up as a firing range, watching as she took it all in. "Not bad," she said, nodding. "Alien cut-outs for targets and all. And a nice variety of weaponry, too." She considered the array of firearms waiting on the table, then picked up the nine-millimetre and released the clip, checking to see that it was loaded. With practised efficiency, she snapped the clip back into place, flipped the safety catch to 'off' with her thumb, and then pulled the barrel back, chambering a round.
Jack's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. This was nothing like the Rose Tyler he'd known. When they'd travelled together before, she'd been very much a product of late-20th, early-21st century Britain: no acquaintance with firearms at all beyond the cinema. Clearly her time on the parallel Earth had changed all that.
"Torchwood is Torchwood," she said with a shrug, apparently noticing his reaction. "Aliens still don't respond to a truncheon as well as they do a bullet, especially if they're the invading sorts. And guns in general are much more common on the other Earth, even in Britain. More like America, really."
She reached over with her left hand and picked up the safety specs, sliding them on one-handed, and then handed a second pair to him, all the while keeping the gun pointed ahead of her and down. All very professional. Jack grinned and put his goggles on. "All right, Ms Tyler," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Show me what you've got."
Over the course of the next hour, Rose proved herself competent, indeed highly-qualified, with every firearm he brought out and a few he'd had to go into the weapons cupboard for. She even beat him once in an impromptu competition, much to his delight; though he'd got more rounds off in the time allotted, she had more bullets in kill zones. She laughed at him when he brought the targets forward and their scores were compared. "Not bad for an eighty-six-year-old bird," she said, grinning.
"Not at all." He set his gun down, then took hers gently away from her and set it beside his, before taking her in his arms. "Been a long time since anyone's out-shot me on the range. I'm damn impressed."
"That's not all you are," she observed, sliding her arms around his neck and arching against the hardness that pressed against her. "So, Captain, I take it you're one of these blokes who gets turned on watching a woman play with … hardware?"
"Especially when she gets as much enjoyment from it as you do," he agreed, smirking down at her. "Makes me wonder what other types of hardware you enjoy playing with."
She'd just opened her mouth to retort when his headset beeped. "Jack," Owen's voice shouted. "Did Ianto manage to pull you out of bed yet? We could use some help here."
Jack sighed for the broken mood, but answered. "Yeah, Owen, I'm here. What's happening?"
"This thing's on a rampage and we can't get it cornered. The police have evacuated the docks, but I'm not sure the two of us can keep it from escaping the cordon."
Sudden worry clenched Jack's gut. "We're on our way," he said immediately, and looked at Rose. "Want to get back into the field?"
"Oh yeah." Rose grinned.
"Then pick your weapon and let's go."
She chose the nine-millimetre, grabbing a box of ammunition and an empty second clip. He shoved a belt holster at her and they left at a run for the SUV. As she fell into step beside him he looked her over, unable to keep the pride out of his eyes. “Welcome to the team,” he told her.
She flashed a quick smile at him, signalling the end of intimacy for the moment. “Thanks.”
He smiled back, then reached up to press his hand against his headset. "Rose and I are heading out to provide backup for Tosh and Owen. Gwen, where are you? Have you found that boy in the medieval clothes yet?"
"Got him," Gwen answered. "We're just inside the castle walls, in the southeast corner. He's hiding in the trees. Near as I can tell, this boy's French, probably from five or six hundred years ago. No telling where he actually came through the Rift, but he seems to think the castle grounds are safe. I'll get him to the Hub as soon as I can." There was a pause. "Jack, you sure about bringing Rose into the field? She's not exactly in top condition."
"You haven't seen her shoot," Jack said with a note of satisfaction, and Rose shot a glance at him, clearly understanding that she was being talked about. "Ianto, go and see if you can pick them up," he continued as they entered the underground car park where the SUV was housed. "We need that boy back here ASAP. No telling what diseases he might be carrying." He swung into the driver's seat as Rose settled herself into the passenger side, buckling in swiftly and then setting herself to loading both clips with ammunition as he peeled out into traffic. "Owen, where exactly are you?"
"The Q section of the warehouse district by the docks. Near where you found the body of that bloke who'd been killed at the Weevil Fight Club."
"We're on our way." Jack disconnected the call and looked at Rose, who was now undoing her belt to slide the holster into place. "You all right?" he asked. Gwen's words had hit a nerve, though he didn't want to admit it. Rose had been so badly malnourished and dehydrated and who knew what else, and there was no way she was back to a hundred percent yet. Was he setting her up for injury or worse by taking her out on a call so soon?
But she smiled as she slid the holster onto the leather and refastened the belt. "I'm fine. They had me working a desk job for the last couple of years while Mickey was so bad, in case I needed to go home to be with him, so I might be a bit rusty. Other than that, no worries."
"Didn't look rusty on the range," he pointed out, as much for himself as for her. "Hold on." He took a corner far too fast, tyres squealing.
"Wow," Rose said, sounding impressed as they pulled out of the turn and skimmed around a pair of cars and an articulated lorry. "This has got to be a customed car if it'll corner like that. Lowered centre of gravity?"
Jack blinked, then laughed at himself. "I really need to stop being surprised that you know more than you did when I last saw you," he said.
"Comes from being married to Mickey the Car Enthusiast," she said, and grabbed onto the handle above the window, holding tight as he took another corner, weaving skilfully through the spotty mid-morning traffic. "What do we know about this alien?"
"Good question." Jack set his headset to speaker and called Owen. "What's this thing look like?"
"It's fuckin' huge, and green, and blobby. Looks like some four-year-old put it together out of bogeys."
Rose leant in toward the speaker. "About ten feet tall? With a great big hump on its shoulders?"
"Yeah," Owen said, sounding impressed. "You seen it before?"
"Once or twice. They liked our Earth for some reason."
Gunfire sounded in the background. "Well, then, tell us how to kill it, sweetheart," he yelled over the noise. "'Cos we're running out of ammo here, and it doesn't seem to care that we've put a good three dozen holes in it."
"Midriff," Rose called as Jack took yet another corner. She grabbed onto the handle again to keep from slamming into him. "About where a human diaphragm is. Careful, though, 'cos they heal fast. If you just nick the heart, they can survive it. You've got to put a bullet right through the middle of it. It's an eight-chambered job and about ten inches across."
"You're quite the walking encyclopedia, aren't you, sweetheart?" Owen said, but he sounded impressed.
"I learned from the best," Rose said cryptically. She wasn't going to let Owen intimidate her, Jack thought, that was certain.
Three more shots sounded over the line. "Looks like we've finally done some damage," Owen said. "It's slinking backwards towards the bay. Can these things swim?"
"Dunno," Rose told him. "I ran into 'em in the middle of Lincolnshire. Nothing but fields and sheep."
"Well, if we can't take it down, we might just find out."
"Get it away from the water!" Jack snapped. "Circle around it. The last thing we want is the bogeyman living in the bay."
"That had occurred to me!" Owen yelled over the sound of more gunfire.
Rose touched Jack's arm, and he glanced over to see lines of worry on her face. "Jack," she said, "we need to get there now. If it's wounded, it's unpredictable, and with only two of them on scene, we could be looking at a man down any second."
He felt the clench of fear in his gut tighten at her words. It had been years since he'd lost one of his own on a mission, but he'd never forgotten the way it felt. "We're nearly there," he said shortly as he rounded another corner. There was the police cordon about fifty yards ahead, with a pair of uniformed PCs standing guard by a roadblock. At the sight of the Torchwood vehicle, the PCs cleared the way, and Jack hardly needed to slow down as he entered the industrial estate. Another few streets and he was screeching to a halt.
Rose had her seatbelt off and door open before Jack had turned the car off, and was scanning the area, weapon at the ready. "All clear," she called. "Where are they?"
"The water's this way." Jack unholstered his own gun and led the way past a looming white building towards the docks and the water that was just barely visible. A deep, resonant roar confirmed they were heading in the right direction. They broke into a run.
As they came around the building, they saw it. It was just as Owen had described: Tall, green, and lumpy. It had no nose, just two enormous white eyes and a mouth that looked like a knife slash across its misshapen face. Four stubby fingers, one of which seemed to be opposable, clawed at the air as it swiped at Tosh and Owen, who were backed against a wall. Far from them having it cornered, it appeared to have them cornered.
"About bloody time!" Owen yelled as he ducked another swipe that would likely have killed him, had it connected. "Some of us didn't get a nice lie-in this morning."
Jack glanced at Rose, but Owen's words didn't appear to have fazed her; all her attention was fixed on the looming alien, and her whole manner commanded authority. "Cover me," she said to Jack, and before he could protest, she was slinking off to the side, stepping quietly and watching the creature carefully.
"Rose, dammit," Jack said under his breath, but didn't dare actually yell at her for fear of attracting the creature. Reaching up to his headset, he said quietly, "Owen, keep its attention on you if you can. Seems Rose has got a plan." I hope, he added purely to himself.
"What's she doing?" Tosh asked. Her gaze was switching back and forth from the monster to Rose.
"No idea," Jack admitted. "But she knows more about these aliens than we do."
"She'd better," Owen muttered. He began jumping up and down, waving his hands to make himself look bigger than he was. "Hey!" he yelled. "Tall, green, and slimy! That the best you've got?"
The monster roared and swiped one more time. They both ducked again, but this time the edge of its hand clipped the side of Owen's head and Owen fell against the bricks, dazed. Jack felt terror grab at his heart and had to restrain himself from running in to see to him. Oh, God, no, he thought, sick.
"Owen!" Tosh yelled, but the alien swiped again. It missed her by inches, and she had to jump back away from Owen's limp form, gun raised toward the monster as it pulled its hand back for another blow.
Motion caught the corner of Jack's eye, and he looked over at Rose. She'd managed to position herself directly behind the creature without its noticing. As he watched, heart in his throat, she raised her weapon, and with the same steady precision he'd seen on the range, fired three shots.
The alien froze in mid-gesture, arms raised and mouth hanging open in surprise. It made a choked "Ag-ag-ag-ag" sound, and then slowly, almost majestically, like a tree being felled, its legs collapsed out from under it. It crumpled to the ground and lay still.
Rose was on it and checking it for signs of life before Jack unfroze his muscles enough to move. "It's dead," she said, and lowered her weapon to 'rest' position. Raising her head, she met the open-mouthed stares of Jack’s team.
“Bloody hell,” gasped Owen.
Forcing away his shock, Jack ran to her, reaching for her arm. "Wow. That was something else. You all right?"
"Course I’m all right," she said. "I've dealt with these before, remember. Go check on Owen; I'll take a look at this bloke. Dunno if they're actually the same aliens I knew, or if there's something different between this lot and the lot in the other universe."
Jack put a hand on her shoulder. "Okay," he said. "If you're sure."
"I'm not the injured one!" she retorted, but with a smile that said she wasn't as irritated as her words might imply. "Go on, check on him."
Tosh was already kneeling beside Owen, who was slumped against the brick wall but, thankfully, seemed alert as Jack approached. "How you doin'?" Jack asked, crouching beside him.
"I've 'ad hangovers worse than this," Owen said dismissively, though his wince gave the lie to the statement. Tosh was checking his scalp where the alien had hit him, presumably for open wounds. "I'll 'ave a lump or two, but no worse. No concussion, at least."
"How do you know?" Tosh said without pausing in her examination. "When did you last have one?"
"The last time some enormous snot-ball of an alien came through and we had to take it down," Owen said, rolling his eyes. "That was, what, three months ago? What is it with aliens looking like something you'd sneeze out when you've got the flu?"
Jack laughed; he couldn't help it. Even Tosh cracked a grin, though all she said was, "You certainly sound like yourself. Got a pencil torch?"
Owen sighed, but reached into his jacket and pulled one out, then suffered the indignity of her checking the reactiveness of his pupils. "They seem to be normal," she said at last.
"Told you," Owen said with a roll of his eyes. "No blurred vision, no spots in front of my eyes. Can I get up now, Doctor Sato?"
"Just sit there a moment longer," Jack said firmly, putting a hand on Owen's chest as the younger man tried to lever himself up. "I'll call Ianto so we can get started on clean-up. Until he gets here, you stay put, understand?"
"Yes, sir!" Owen said, and saluted mockingly, but the fact that he didn't argue told Jack louder than words that he wasn't feeling as well as he said he was. Jack started to rise, but was stopped by Owen's hand on his sleeve. "By the way," he said, "your friend there is pretty handy to have around." He nodded toward Rose.
Jack smiled, unable to stop the flutter of pride at Owen's praise of Rose. "Tell her that yourself," he suggested, and stood. "Ianto," he said into his headset, "get over here as soon as you've got Gwen and her medieval boy back to the Hub. Cleanup duty. And let the police know that they can release the cordon once we're done."
Rose looked up as he approached her. "Looks like it really is one of my old friends," she said. She was kneeling beside the head. "At least, so far as I can tell; I never did more than the basics in xenobiology. But if I'm right, that begs the question: is this a race that's supposed to be this side of the Void, or did the Rift drag it through the way it did me?" She pushed herself to her feet and dusted off her hands on the legs of her jeans. "How's Owen?"
"No concussion, apparently, though we'll keep an eye on him. Just a headache and a goose-egg." He couldn't stop himself saying it, no matter how clichéd it sounded. "Thanks to you."
Rose shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed. "I just happened to know where to shoot." She slid her fingers into her pockets. "These aliens are usually loners, so I doubt we'll have to watch for a mate or anything like it, but if they've started coming through the Rift, that means it's opening wide enough for larger creatures to make it through."
Jack blinked, surprised. "You suggesting the Rift itself is changing in size?"
"You've had mostly smaller creatures so far, right? Human-sized, or nearly?"
"Well, if you don't count Abaddon, Breaker of Worlds," he said wryly. "But the Rift was opened for him. That's when this all started, actually."
Rose went very still, and Jack's grin began to fade. "What is it?" he asked.
"Abaddon. You mean the Beast?"
He could hear the capital B. "Big towering Titan kind of fellow," he said. "Teeth, horns, tall as a skyscraper." Her expression grew more serious yet, and he said, "You've met him." It wasn't a question, and its implications chilled him to the bone.
"Oh, yeah." She looked down at the creature dead at their feet and took a deep breath. "Looks like we need to have a bit of a chat, Jack. We've got to pool our information." Her gaze met his again, and there was a familiar, terrifying darkness in her eyes-a darkness he'd seen more than once in the Doctor's. "All of us."