Fic: The Oncoming Storm (Slash, AU, Janto 39/40 Act 7/7)
Author: d8rkmessngr
Pairing: Jack/OMC, Jack/?, Jack/Ianto eventually, het and slash
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He left Jack on the game station. Abandoned. But then…he came back…different. An AU look on what happens if things happened differently. Doctor Who 'verse with Torchwood later on.
Warnings: Please read each chapter's individual warnings. Some parts down the road may briefly mention non-con, abuse, and/or violence. Dark in the beginning. Please note there are some dark thoughts as my boys are broken…for now. Each chapter will be labeled for your convenience.
Author's Notes: Note that "the Year That Never Was" was suggested that it wasn't fun. I took it as a challenge to somehow still find a way to instill comfort in it. If it didn't work, I'm sorry. I suck. LOL.
Disclaimer: RTD and BBC owns them. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Warning For This Chapter: strong language, dark, angsty, VIOLENCE, torture (mostly implied, all a matter of reader interpretation), miscarriage, domestic abuse
Notes For This Chapter: Note there are events here that was referenced in DW's "The Sound of Drums", "Utopia", "Parting of Ways"
Prologue + Ch , Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31, Ch 32, Ch 33, Ch 34, Ch 35, Ch 36 Ch 37, Ch 38, Ch 39 1/7, Ch 39 2/7, Ch 39 3/7, Ch 39 4/7, Ch 39 5/7, Ch 39 6/7
Master Fic List: here
Chapter 39 "The Year That Never Was 2.0"
Act VII
Cardiff
Month Ten, Ver. 1
Owen rubbed his thumb under his lower lip. He grimaced. He wasn't accustomed to the goatee-damn Jonesy had altered his photo with facial hair when he had made this fake identification. Owen constantly found himself rubbing the bloody thing with the key around his neck and wishing for his razor that had been left sitting by the sink recharging.
Out of curiosity, Owen had driven by his flat once, but the building was gone, stripped of all its materials. All that remained were shreds of someone's dark grey curtains flapping around a steel girder that was left behind because it was too embedded into the foundation. He tore a scrap of the curtain off and kept it in his pocket like a charm.
Bloody Saxon. He'd just finished paying it off, too.
Night, without the light from Cardiff's buildings and cars blinking like stars, was exceptional dark here. It seemed colder, too. Even inside the cab of the truck, his own icy breath obscured Owen's view of the road. The only good thing about the chilling temperatures was that the Toclafane abhorred the cold and the dark. The skies were clear of those miserable beasts whenever the temperature dropped.
The truck quieted to a purr when Owen switched the engine into idle. He wished he could turn on the headlights but it would draw too much attention.
Owen stared at the dirt road and the rubble that lay before him. It used to be an arcade filled with noisy shoppers and loud and raunchy workers stumbling out of pubs smelling of drink. Now it was just dusty rock and shattered walkways void of the sounds of life. After a few minutes of staring at nothing but debris, he was half-tempted to turn the truck around.
Miserable ingrates, Owen thought as he scratched his chin with his thumb again. More food, more medicines for a bunch of people too scared to do anything more than promise they'll try. They were too scared to go up against millions and millions of stinking Toclafane; too scared to take those contraband plans and smash up those rockets any more than bits and pieces like stealing a piece of candy from a jar. They wouldn't talk to Owen, Gwen or even Ianto, only to the resistance members mixed in with the slave labor. And all the resistance would do was distribute the food, gather the bits of gossip they heard, and pass promises from a slave labor force too terrified to keep them.
"Useless shits," Owen muttered to himself but he settled back into the seat anyway for the wait. Hooded under the tall skeletal remains of shops and offices, it was an efficient meeting place for whoever was meeting him, that is. It changed every time. The resistance-even as desperately hungry and determined as they were-were a suspicious lot.
A tiny shadow peered around a lopsided light pole by what used to be a bookstore at the corner. It crawled out from an opening made by the rubble and the store's dented sign. Owen smirked, but he didn't move from his spot or get out of the truck. Owen kept both hands on the wheel and didn't smile as the shadow scampered over, tripped on some uprooted cobblestone, and stood on tiptoe by the door.
Owen merely stuck his head out the driver’s side window to scowl at the dirty face with the greasy mop of blond hair peering up at him. The child was wrapped in too many large shirts to discern age or true size. He looked like a little ball with legs.
"Evening, Dr. Fred," the little boy quipped. He set his small hands on the door as he craned his neck up to see.
"You get shorter and shorter each time I see you, Widget," Owen growled in return. "Are you shrinking?"
The growl only made the tentative smile on the dirt-smudged face widen. A tiny tap on his door and the shadow scrambled quietly back to his hiding spot. Three much larger shadows crawled out with it now.
Owen climbed down the truck, acutely aware of the gun tucked in the back of his waistband. He made sure his arms dangled visibly by his sides.
"Special delivery," Owen murmured. He wanted to shout it out, just to hear his voice again, but he didn't dare and only stood there while the three shadows became a trio of disheveled, narrowed eyed faces.
"Doctor Gorman?" a woman whispered. She poked the air with her rifle, one hand pushing back on the little one trying to peer around her.
"That's me," Owen said in an even voice. He raised his hands and set his jaw as one of the woman's friends took the gun from his waistband then prodded him with the muzzle of his weapon to peer under his jacket. Owen just stared straight ahead. "And you are?"
She nodded back to the others standing close behind her with assault weapons. She was dwarfed next to them. Their barrel-chested builds made her look like a child. "Rogers. Clark. And I believe you already know Widget."
Owen gave Widget an eyebrow that Widget returned in the form of a grin. Hm, the brat had lost another tooth. He made a note that there were no more bleeding gums at least in Widget's smile before he flicked his eyes towards the woman.
"Smith," the woman offered succinctly.
Owen resisted rolling his eyes. "Right…Smith. Can I put my hands down now?"
Brown eyes considered him before she nodded and her two comrades lowered their weapons. Rogers handed back his gun, his fist gripping the barrel too tightly as if he didn't want to let it go. After a tug, Owen reclaimed his weapon.
"Get your own, mate," Owen grumbled before he tucked it back into his waistband.
"Sorry," Smith offered, but it didn't sound sincere. "We lost two trying to get your information yesterday. We're all a little on edge."
Owen ignored the lilt that sharpened her words. "But you got it, right?"
"We got it," Clark bit out. "Professor Docherty."
Owen muttered the name to himself. "You sure?"
"We're sure," Smith said before her comrades could take a step towards him. "She works in the repair shed by Nuclear Seven. Whatever you have, she can sort it out for you. But her son-"
"Doesn't matter about her son if it's true," Owen told her.
"It's true," Clark snarled at Owen. "We're not the enemy here. We will meet our end of the bargain."
Owen bit back a sigh. "Then stop treating me like the enemy." Owen stared at Smith. She must have been pretty, Owen thought. It was hard to tell under the rag scarf wrapped around the lower part of her face but the shape of her eyes and nose were pleasant to look at despite the dark smears around the visible part of her face.
"There's food back there, some basic medical supplies, some clothing," Owen told her.
At Smith's nod, Clark and Rogers trotted to the back of the truck. After a few minutes, Clark returned.
"All there, like he says," Clark reported. There was a tremor in his voice, relief that made his tone unsteady.
"Nice to see the trust," Owen muttered under his breath. "I'd only been doing this for months now."
"Excuse us if we don't quite believe you, Dr. Gorman," Smith said smoothly. There was a hint of a smirk above the scarf. She didn't think that was his name either. "But it's hard to believe a group of people who put that much faith on the actions of one girl supposedly walking the earth."
Owen shrugged. "Hey, the Doctor wanted her to do that. I'm not exactly willing to sit back and let her have all the fun either."
Something flickered in the brown eyes before him.
"I see," Smith murmured. "We'll see what we can find out about Docherty for you." Smith watched Clark and Rogers unload the truck for a few moments.
"Come here, brat," Owen beckoned. Widget wiggled out from under Smith's grasp and looked up expectantly at him.
Owen rubbed the mop of hair vigorously and Widget squealed. Clark in the back shushed him and Widget, chastened, clamped his mouth shut and his eyes rounded huge as circles.
Owen sighed. It wasn't really that loud. Then again, Gwen nearly shot a rat that went scurrying by yesterday, upsetting a bucket in the dark. "Let me see those teeth again."
Unlike Smith and the others, Widget has no qualms about smiling. He bared his teeth in a stained grin.
"Hm," Owen grunted. "You been eating those vitamins I got you last time?"
"They tas'e funny," Widget lisped.
"It's vitamin C for scurvy, not chocolate, brat." Owen gave the head a light scuff. Then he pulled out two golden oranges from his pockets. He'd swiped them from the guards' quarters. Gwen and Ianto would have a fit if they knew he went in there though. Better get rid of the evidence here.
"Here, these might taste better. Now off with you, you smell funny."
Widget hugged the fruit to his narrow chest. Hands full, eyes shining, Widget could only head butt Owen's hip farewell.
"Go back to Luke and Maria, sweetheart," Smith hushed and nudged the boy back to where they were hiding. "Let the others know we're coming."
"Bye, Dr. Fred," Widget whispered.
"See ya," Owen quipped and he stared after the boy walking back with exaggerated care. When Widget reached the corner, he turned around, waved to Owen with his elbow then disappeared into whatever tunnel the resistance had made.
"Find any of his family yet?" Owen asked, his eyes was still staring at the spot he last saw Widget.
"We heard his little sister was sent into the mining tunnels."
"Little sister? He's what? Ten? Eleven?"
"Nine." Smith's eyes hardened. "Saxon would have had Widget crawling in those little tunnels mining too if you people hadn't found him first. Saxon's been working everyone to the bone."
Owen set his jaw. "Well…I didn't vote for Saxon."
Smith was studying him with unnerving intensity. "Neither did I, Dr. Gorman."
"Owen…" Owen scratched his chin. Damn beard. "Name's Owen H-"
"Safer if I know you as Dr. Fred." Smith tracked her men staggering with their crates marked "For the Valiant" across their sides.
Owen grunted.
"Where is she now?" Smith hesitated. "This Martha Jones."
"South Africa…somewhere." Owen shrugged again. Martha was vague. Well, as vague as one could be in a telegram.
"Is it true, what they're saying?"
Owen eyed their surroundings. He was tempted to pull out his key to wear. He didn't like being out in the open for this long. "About?"
"About what she wants us to do."
Owen met her challenging stare. "I don't know anything about it."
"What good will it do? What can she expect that will accomplish-"
"Not her. The Doctor."
There was another flicker across her face.
"You know him," Owen realized.
The eyes behind the scarf crinkled. "A lifetime ago."
"Then you know this could work."
Smith's eyes dimmed. "Perhaps. It seems so…insignificant."
Owen wanted to grab her by the arms but knew her two goons would stop him. "Then help us do more. The rockets. We have the plans. We gave them to you to send out. We can stop the rockets-"
"They're too scared-"
"If you think they're scared now, wait until those bloody things launch!" Owen hissed. He calmed and took a step back when he saw Smith tense. "Sorry."
"We'll try. That's all we can do. There aren't enough of us in the resistance to do this ourselves. I would tear those rockets down myself if that would be enough, but it won't. We need people. But the people are scared."
Owen sighed at the hard glare. "Sorry," he repeated lamely. Smith mimicked him and exhaled as well. No matter who was here to do the exchange, the conversation never changed. He studied Smith carefully. "Probably not a good time to mention this, but…what about the other thing?"
"We…" Smith hedged. "We found one from the list, but that doesn't mean anything. People were relocated, moved, names were changed-"
"Who?" Owen interrupted impatiently.
Smith looked over her shoulder back to where they came. A shadow detached from the others and slowly approached.
Recognition twisted Owen's mouth to a smile that was now unfamiliar to him. Closer, there was no reaction, just wary curiosity. No surprise, they were never properly introduced.
"Well," Owen drawled, "someone will be very glad to see you."
Valiant
Jack was still trying to remember what usually came first: the cut under his ribs or the slice under his arm. Psychos, Jack had decided, were still creatures of habit. They…they…
A cramp rippled from his groin and settled up around his middle like a throbbing pulse. Jack bit his lower lip and tried to ignore it. It'll go away. It always did. That freakish energy tainting his blood would always make sure of it. It was the same abnormality that had gotten him into this mess though. Jack sucked in his breath. The endless cycle of pain then healing grated him. Jack locked his knees together, fought the urge to vomit, the Master's voice ringing in his ears even if Saxon was long gone.
…thrum-thru-
"Shut the hell up!" Jack hollered because he knew no one would come to answer anyway. He yelled because it was loud enough to drown out the pattern the Master has been trying to bury deep into his skull.
The echoes rattled around him for a long time before Jack's breathing calmed. Jack stood there and tried to think of something that would distract him from the sensation of his skin stitching back together along the entire length of his back. Tried to think of anything but of Saxon standing behind him, his sneering voice, the heated hum of his damn laser screwdriver, the…
Jack closed his eyes. He could feel a wiggling at the edge of consciousness, like a flicker of movement at the corner of his eye. It felt warm and openly afraid, afraid for him. It…it shouldn't be here.
There was a plea that was wordless and soundless that begged as Jack tried to imagine a door and mentally nudged that warm spot of something through that door. Jack thought he could feel warm skin, hot tears, when he gave its essence a light brushing of lips before he gave it a firm push and latched the door in his mind.
"Jack…"
Think of something else, think of something else.
Jack blinked rapidly and stared up again at the spot over the door that sealed him away from everything else.
Steam had obscured the Torchwood insignia, but the letters Tosh had morbidly scribbled were still intact. Jack looked at every letter, followed every curve and stroke and took another breath, a cleansing one.
How long had it been? Jack wasn't sure. He had lost count of the times Tish came with his food and the Doctor never answered the rare times he appeared before him. Jack wished he could reach out to the Time Lord but he feared it would only open the doors for Ianto to come in and if his Ianto did, Jack knew he wouldn't have the strength to make him leave.
"Almost there," Jack whispered to himself. There was a plan. There was a plan.
Jack kept the four words like a mantra. He kept it in the far recesses of his mind like a piece of curled paper, folded and tucked away, never to be read. But Jack could sense its presence, reminding him that this…this was nothing.
"Nothing," Jack rasped. He squeezed his eyes tight. This…all this was nothing. The paradox machine. If they could destroy it, the Doctor said time would be reversed. All of this. This could be fixed. Fixed.
Jack couldn't help it. Jack laughed. He laughed and laughed but then it became something else entirely so he gritted his teeth and swallowed it back. It took a few tries, a few gulps, before the hitch in his chest smoothed out to the pained, ragged breathing again. Jack forced himself to straighten, exhale hard through his teeth and reopen his eyes.
He wasn't alone this time.
There was a boxy looking dog sitting just at the outer edge of the tarp Jack stood on. Brown with a black saddle, the wiry furred canine studied him with a tilt of his long, rectangular head, brown eyes barely visible underneath bushy fur over its eyes.
It sat there, unperturbed by the steam bursting out of the pipes behind it, or the heat of the room. A terrier of some kind, it just looked at Jack as if waiting for a stick to be thrown for fetch.
"This is…new," Jack managed as he stared at the whiskered dog. The Master did have a strange sense of humor though, but never this strange. At least it wasn't the Toclafane again, here to draw pictures on his back. "What are you suppose to do, nibble me to death?"
"I hardly think its teeth are sharp enough for the task, Jack."
Jack yelped and chains rattled as he swung out a leg, losing his balance in the process as he tried to get the dog away from him.
His foot sailed right through where the head should be.
The dog simply yawned. Its ears folded forward in a flop and there was a glimpse of little incisors when its mouth opened.
"Really Jack, if I was a real dog that would have only aggravated me."
"D-doctor?" Jack gasped. He sagged in his chains. "What the hell?" Jack locked his knees, standing taller so his shoulders wouldn't ache and he glowered at the canine. He could now see the ground through it, the sliver of light from under the doors.
"What are you doing?" Jack groaned.
"It took too much energy to manifest myself into human form to talk to you," the dog said. At least it looked like it did. It was hard to tell if the dog was talking or yawning.
"Thought a more simple carbon form would suffice." The terrier raised its front legs and pawed the air with its small feet. "Welsh terrier, eh? Thought it would be appropriate."
Nothing about this was appropriate, but Jack chalked it up as an odd eccentricity of Time Lords. Before, the Doctor had shown up as some guy in a scarf, then an old man, and later, one in a V-neck jumper. That one was kinda cute, though.
"Really, Jack."
The dog-Doctor frowned. Its bushy fur went over its eyes and the bearded muzzle bristled.
"I'm trying to decide if this is an improvement or not," Jack muttered. "I-wait a second…what do you mean 'too much energy'?"
"Ah." The whiskers drooped and the head dipped. "She can't keep maintaining the links, Jack. Even with the rift, it's a lot of energy she's using to keep us connected. Transferring our unconsciousness to each other is hard enough, but in some physical entity as well? The Master was starting to notice fluctuations in the paradox machine."
Jack nodded. He considered the dog by his feet.
"Besides," the Doctor went on, "it isn't too bad, is it?" The dog sat up and lifted one paw in the classic handshake position. "I think she chose rather nicely. Welsh terriers are nice breeds. Highly intelligent."
"She hurts, you know," Jack whispered instead of replying. It was an echoed ache in his gut that he knew wasn't his.
The Doctor shook its head and gave a full body shiver that was both dog and Doctor. "I know. I can feel it in my bones. She can't last much longer. That's why the Master wants to finish his empire quickly and find a new source to maintain the paradox."
Jack swallowed as he saw the beady eyes turn his way.
"That too?" Jack tried to joke, "I guess I'm a Jack-of-all-trades."
The Doctor/dog huffed a cross between a bark and a laugh.
"There was terrible."
"So says the neutered Time Lord," Jack shot back tiredly.
"Eh?" The little ears perked up and the dog stood on all fours and tried to see, raising one hind leg up.
"She did!" The Doctor sounded horrified, amazed, and incredulous at the same time. Only him. "I-w-what…why would she ever-hold on, how could you tell from there?"
Jack grimaced. "Trade secret." He tried to offer something else. There must be a lot of things he could say about the Doctor now being a perfect candidate for fleas. Anything. But bile kept rising up to his mouth. His throat constricted at the thought of perhaps being chained forever, fed on like a piece of meat, used like something less.
"We won't let it come to that, Jack. I won't let it."
It should have been laughable. The Doctor now sat on its haunches by Jack's feet, looking a little doggish, a little like he's waiting for a scratch behind his ears. Jack should be laughing but all he could think about was how the Doctor never showed his present state-the wrinkled, feeble man who crawled out of his wheelchair to write on the other side of the tarp with a bleeding finger.
"We're nearly there, Captain. I promise."
The dog settled its head on Jack's filthy boots and he shouldn't, but Jack thought he could feel the weight of a small head. It never moved, a curled body of imagined fur resting by his feet.
"Did you need me to pass on something?" Jack fought to keep his voice steady.
"No…not really."
Jack's brow furrowed. "Then why…"
"You were calling for someone, Jack. So I came."
"No I wasn't," Jack croaked. He rolled his shoulders and arched his back to iron out the twinges.
The dog jumped back to all fours again. Jack felt a coil of ice digging into his gut when he thought the Doctor was leaving, but instead, the Doctor merely shook its fur and settled back down again.
"The Master and his wife are elsewhere. We're left alone for now, Captain. Rest."
But Jack couldn't. Closing his eyes meant seeing Saxon again, seeing his thin smile every time Jack called him Doctor, feeling the hot, dry hands gripping him in the dark.
"When did you first realize?" Jack blurted out before Saxon's grip sharpened to claws on his thighs to spread him open. When he heard himself, heard the question, Jack balked and wanted to take it back.
"After we defeated the Daleks."
Jack averted his eyes. He knew. He always knew, even before the Master came and told him. The whoosh from the TARDIS back then was a farewell. It took decades of binge drinking, faceless and violent sex, and rage twisted into something numb to admit it to himself.
"When did you first realize?" the Doctor echoed Jack's question.
Jack didn't have to think about it. "Earth, 1892." He could still taste the sourness in his mouth. Someone said something, what, he didn't remember, not even what he sneered back. "Got in a fight in Ellis Island. A man shot me through the heart." Jack remembered the sobering shock of the bullet cutting into him like a branding iron then feeling cold, very cold.
"Then I woke up. Thought it was kinda strange. But then it never stopped." Jack felt the dog sit up to look at him intently.
"Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War I, World War II, poison, strangulation…" Jack smiled darkly to himself, "a stray javelin." He wasn't even trying that time.
"In the end, I got the message, I’m the man who can never die."
The dog with its brown eyes looked solemn sitting there in front of him.
"And you knew." Jack whispered, "All this time." Jack swallowed. "That's why you left, wasn't it? Because I was…I was…w-wrong."
"No…I was."
Startled, Jack raised his eyes towards the dog. Brown eyes round and dark met his gaze, looking very sorrowful, very old.
"Doctor," Jack stuttered, his voice suddenly thinned, "what happened to me?" Mouth dry, Jack's words tumbled out hoarse, almost breathless.
"Last thing I remember back when I was mortal…I was facing three Daleks. Death by extermination. And then I came back to life. What happened?"
"Rose."
The name wasn't one Jack expected. "I thought you sent her back home."
"She came back. Opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex."
Jack closed his eyes. "She brought me back to life. Ah, Rose", he sighed. Jack stiffened. "Wait, if she had absorbed the vortex-"
"It's why this happened. She couldn’t control it. She brought you back forever. That's not supposed to happen." The Doctor exhaled and the furry muzzle stirred.
"That’s something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."
Hope flared in Jack's chest. "Do you think she can change me back?"
The ears flattened, the tail dropped, and the canine slouched like a whipped dog.
"It was killing her so I took the power out of her. Killed me instead and I regenerated." The whiskers drooped and for a moment, Jack thought the fur grayed before him.
"She’s gone, Jack. She’s not just living on a parallel world, she’s trapped there. The walls have closed."
Jack cast his eyes to the tarp. "I'm sorry."
"Shouldn't I be saying that to you?"
Jack shook his head. "I…I don't think I can hear that right now."
"I understand." A foot pawed the air. "There is plenty of time for that later, my friend."
Jack smiled shakily. His throat felt stuck together. "Sure."
"We're nearly there, Jack. Once Martha is here, it will all begin. Just hold on."
The chains rattled when Jack shook his arms. "To what?"
The dog woofed.
"Seriously, this dog thing? Very disturbing."
The dog actually rolled its eyes at Jack.
"You're just showing off, aren't you?" Jack found himself standing steadier on the tarp, the skin on his back healed completely without him ever being aware of it.
The short tail wagged and the Doctor offered a wolfish grin with teeth.
"So how's that neuter thing working out for ya?"
The dog growled.
Torchwood, Cardiff
Gwen peered over Ianto's shoulder as he tapped the pedal. He clicked out a response to the fishermen in South Africa. They were forced to move it up from Jack's quarters. It had gotten too cold down there. Ianto's fingertips were turning red trying to type in the freezing space.
"Tell them don't forget to go by night," Gwen reminded him.
Ianto grunted and kept clicking out the instructions of where to find Martha.
"Oh, and if it gets too warm, tell them not to chance it. The resistance said they don't like the cold."
"I know," Ianto muttered. The laptop by him set his face in an odd blue glow.
"And the last part of the gun, tell them to-"
Ianto sighed and sat back from the telegrapher. He slapped his palms on his jeans and squinted at her in the dim light. His mouth was set in a grim line.
Gwen shrugged and offered a sheepish grin. "Of course, we told them this all before." She rubbed a tense shoulder next to her. She rubbed her thumb just under Ianto's right shoulder blade. Sure enough, she could feel a knot even under the thick black t-shirt.
"Better?" Gwen murmured when Ianto hissed.
The stiff posture Ianto had sported all morning deflated in front of her.
"Sorry," Ianto mumbled. "I've been an arse, haven't I?"
"Really?" Gwen patted his arm. "I haven't noticed." Her smile faded at Ianto's face.
"Still nothing from Jack?"
Ianto flinched. He mutely nodded.
Gwen looped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a brief hug. "Maybe the timing is bad and they're just being careful."
Ianto bobbed his head again.
"Nothing from Jack, nothing from Tosh either, Saxon hasn't been broadcasting, what's going on up there?" Ianto dropped his face into his hands.
"He's all right, Ianto," Gwen whispered. She planted a kiss on top of his head. "This is Jack Harkness we're talking about here."
Ianto sniffed but said nothing else. He coughed, shied away from Gwen and went back to the telegrapher.
Staring at his bowed head, Gwen's heart ached. There were times, he reminded her of Andy back in the days when they were partnered together. God that felt like it was a long time ago. She opened her mouth to try again when something outside the office clanged.
"Lights out!" Ianto hissed. He snapped the laptop shut, threw the covers over it and the cables and leapt over them to grab his weapon.
Gwen nearly stumbled as she blew out all the kerosene lamps before she grabbed Ianto by the sleeve and dragged him towards the hatchway opening. Wiggling past Jack's desk half covering the hole, Gwen climbed down as fast and as quietly as she could. She could feel Ianto's boots a hair's breath from her head as they descended, but already she could hear clattering noises out in the main area coming closer. Blast, why didn't the proximity alarms work?
A fist gripped her shoulder tightly and a weapon was pressed into her shaking hands. Gwen aimed towards the opening just as a shadow crossed the hatch. Ianto's shoulder bumped against her as they pressed close. Both their guns pointed towards the opening. Gwen scarcely breathed as she heard a scrape on the floor.
"Oi."
Gwen's arms went limp and Ianto next to her exhaled.
"Owen," Gwen hissed. "You were supposed to give us a signal to let us know you're coming!"
"I was," Owen defended. He popped his head in to smirk at them upside down. "I mean, I was going to," Owen amended, "until he tripped that bloody line of pots Ianto set up as a backup alarm. Still a stupid idea, by the way, Jonesy."
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Ianto huffed, still panting from the sudden burst of adrenaline. "Wait, who's he?"
Owen's grin was bright even in the dark. "Guess what I found?" Owen didn't wait for an answer and ducked out.
Before anyone could follow, another head popped in.
"So this is Torchwood? Doesn't look like special ops to me."
"Andy!" Gwen breathed.
Chapter 40 "The Last of the Time Lords" Act I
Additional Notes: Many thanks to soullessminion for betaing this chapter. And trtmx for her magic trick that saved my sanity! LOL.
Pairing: Jack/OMC, Jack/?, Jack/Ianto eventually, het and slash
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He left Jack on the game station. Abandoned. But then…he came back…different. An AU look on what happens if things happened differently. Doctor Who 'verse with Torchwood later on.
Warnings: Please read each chapter's individual warnings. Some parts down the road may briefly mention non-con, abuse, and/or violence. Dark in the beginning. Please note there are some dark thoughts as my boys are broken…for now. Each chapter will be labeled for your convenience.
Author's Notes: Note that "the Year That Never Was" was suggested that it wasn't fun. I took it as a challenge to somehow still find a way to instill comfort in it. If it didn't work, I'm sorry. I suck. LOL.
Disclaimer: RTD and BBC owns them. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Warning For This Chapter: strong language, dark, angsty, VIOLENCE, torture (mostly implied, all a matter of reader interpretation), miscarriage, domestic abuse
Notes For This Chapter: Note there are events here that was referenced in DW's "The Sound of Drums", "Utopia", "Parting of Ways"
Prologue + Ch , Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31, Ch 32, Ch 33, Ch 34, Ch 35, Ch 36 Ch 37, Ch 38, Ch 39 1/7, Ch 39 2/7, Ch 39 3/7, Ch 39 4/7, Ch 39 5/7, Ch 39 6/7
Master Fic List: here
Chapter 39 "The Year That Never Was 2.0"
Act VII
Cardiff
Month Ten, Ver. 1
Owen rubbed his thumb under his lower lip. He grimaced. He wasn't accustomed to the goatee-damn Jonesy had altered his photo with facial hair when he had made this fake identification. Owen constantly found himself rubbing the bloody thing with the key around his neck and wishing for his razor that had been left sitting by the sink recharging.
Out of curiosity, Owen had driven by his flat once, but the building was gone, stripped of all its materials. All that remained were shreds of someone's dark grey curtains flapping around a steel girder that was left behind because it was too embedded into the foundation. He tore a scrap of the curtain off and kept it in his pocket like a charm.
Bloody Saxon. He'd just finished paying it off, too.
Night, without the light from Cardiff's buildings and cars blinking like stars, was exceptional dark here. It seemed colder, too. Even inside the cab of the truck, his own icy breath obscured Owen's view of the road. The only good thing about the chilling temperatures was that the Toclafane abhorred the cold and the dark. The skies were clear of those miserable beasts whenever the temperature dropped.
The truck quieted to a purr when Owen switched the engine into idle. He wished he could turn on the headlights but it would draw too much attention.
Owen stared at the dirt road and the rubble that lay before him. It used to be an arcade filled with noisy shoppers and loud and raunchy workers stumbling out of pubs smelling of drink. Now it was just dusty rock and shattered walkways void of the sounds of life. After a few minutes of staring at nothing but debris, he was half-tempted to turn the truck around.
Miserable ingrates, Owen thought as he scratched his chin with his thumb again. More food, more medicines for a bunch of people too scared to do anything more than promise they'll try. They were too scared to go up against millions and millions of stinking Toclafane; too scared to take those contraband plans and smash up those rockets any more than bits and pieces like stealing a piece of candy from a jar. They wouldn't talk to Owen, Gwen or even Ianto, only to the resistance members mixed in with the slave labor. And all the resistance would do was distribute the food, gather the bits of gossip they heard, and pass promises from a slave labor force too terrified to keep them.
"Useless shits," Owen muttered to himself but he settled back into the seat anyway for the wait. Hooded under the tall skeletal remains of shops and offices, it was an efficient meeting place for whoever was meeting him, that is. It changed every time. The resistance-even as desperately hungry and determined as they were-were a suspicious lot.
A tiny shadow peered around a lopsided light pole by what used to be a bookstore at the corner. It crawled out from an opening made by the rubble and the store's dented sign. Owen smirked, but he didn't move from his spot or get out of the truck. Owen kept both hands on the wheel and didn't smile as the shadow scampered over, tripped on some uprooted cobblestone, and stood on tiptoe by the door.
Owen merely stuck his head out the driver’s side window to scowl at the dirty face with the greasy mop of blond hair peering up at him. The child was wrapped in too many large shirts to discern age or true size. He looked like a little ball with legs.
"Evening, Dr. Fred," the little boy quipped. He set his small hands on the door as he craned his neck up to see.
"You get shorter and shorter each time I see you, Widget," Owen growled in return. "Are you shrinking?"
The growl only made the tentative smile on the dirt-smudged face widen. A tiny tap on his door and the shadow scrambled quietly back to his hiding spot. Three much larger shadows crawled out with it now.
Owen climbed down the truck, acutely aware of the gun tucked in the back of his waistband. He made sure his arms dangled visibly by his sides.
"Special delivery," Owen murmured. He wanted to shout it out, just to hear his voice again, but he didn't dare and only stood there while the three shadows became a trio of disheveled, narrowed eyed faces.
"Doctor Gorman?" a woman whispered. She poked the air with her rifle, one hand pushing back on the little one trying to peer around her.
"That's me," Owen said in an even voice. He raised his hands and set his jaw as one of the woman's friends took the gun from his waistband then prodded him with the muzzle of his weapon to peer under his jacket. Owen just stared straight ahead. "And you are?"
She nodded back to the others standing close behind her with assault weapons. She was dwarfed next to them. Their barrel-chested builds made her look like a child. "Rogers. Clark. And I believe you already know Widget."
Owen gave Widget an eyebrow that Widget returned in the form of a grin. Hm, the brat had lost another tooth. He made a note that there were no more bleeding gums at least in Widget's smile before he flicked his eyes towards the woman.
"Smith," the woman offered succinctly.
Owen resisted rolling his eyes. "Right…Smith. Can I put my hands down now?"
Brown eyes considered him before she nodded and her two comrades lowered their weapons. Rogers handed back his gun, his fist gripping the barrel too tightly as if he didn't want to let it go. After a tug, Owen reclaimed his weapon.
"Get your own, mate," Owen grumbled before he tucked it back into his waistband.
"Sorry," Smith offered, but it didn't sound sincere. "We lost two trying to get your information yesterday. We're all a little on edge."
Owen ignored the lilt that sharpened her words. "But you got it, right?"
"We got it," Clark bit out. "Professor Docherty."
Owen muttered the name to himself. "You sure?"
"We're sure," Smith said before her comrades could take a step towards him. "She works in the repair shed by Nuclear Seven. Whatever you have, she can sort it out for you. But her son-"
"Doesn't matter about her son if it's true," Owen told her.
"It's true," Clark snarled at Owen. "We're not the enemy here. We will meet our end of the bargain."
Owen bit back a sigh. "Then stop treating me like the enemy." Owen stared at Smith. She must have been pretty, Owen thought. It was hard to tell under the rag scarf wrapped around the lower part of her face but the shape of her eyes and nose were pleasant to look at despite the dark smears around the visible part of her face.
"There's food back there, some basic medical supplies, some clothing," Owen told her.
At Smith's nod, Clark and Rogers trotted to the back of the truck. After a few minutes, Clark returned.
"All there, like he says," Clark reported. There was a tremor in his voice, relief that made his tone unsteady.
"Nice to see the trust," Owen muttered under his breath. "I'd only been doing this for months now."
"Excuse us if we don't quite believe you, Dr. Gorman," Smith said smoothly. There was a hint of a smirk above the scarf. She didn't think that was his name either. "But it's hard to believe a group of people who put that much faith on the actions of one girl supposedly walking the earth."
Owen shrugged. "Hey, the Doctor wanted her to do that. I'm not exactly willing to sit back and let her have all the fun either."
Something flickered in the brown eyes before him.
"I see," Smith murmured. "We'll see what we can find out about Docherty for you." Smith watched Clark and Rogers unload the truck for a few moments.
"Come here, brat," Owen beckoned. Widget wiggled out from under Smith's grasp and looked up expectantly at him.
Owen rubbed the mop of hair vigorously and Widget squealed. Clark in the back shushed him and Widget, chastened, clamped his mouth shut and his eyes rounded huge as circles.
Owen sighed. It wasn't really that loud. Then again, Gwen nearly shot a rat that went scurrying by yesterday, upsetting a bucket in the dark. "Let me see those teeth again."
Unlike Smith and the others, Widget has no qualms about smiling. He bared his teeth in a stained grin.
"Hm," Owen grunted. "You been eating those vitamins I got you last time?"
"They tas'e funny," Widget lisped.
"It's vitamin C for scurvy, not chocolate, brat." Owen gave the head a light scuff. Then he pulled out two golden oranges from his pockets. He'd swiped them from the guards' quarters. Gwen and Ianto would have a fit if they knew he went in there though. Better get rid of the evidence here.
"Here, these might taste better. Now off with you, you smell funny."
Widget hugged the fruit to his narrow chest. Hands full, eyes shining, Widget could only head butt Owen's hip farewell.
"Go back to Luke and Maria, sweetheart," Smith hushed and nudged the boy back to where they were hiding. "Let the others know we're coming."
"Bye, Dr. Fred," Widget whispered.
"See ya," Owen quipped and he stared after the boy walking back with exaggerated care. When Widget reached the corner, he turned around, waved to Owen with his elbow then disappeared into whatever tunnel the resistance had made.
"Find any of his family yet?" Owen asked, his eyes was still staring at the spot he last saw Widget.
"We heard his little sister was sent into the mining tunnels."
"Little sister? He's what? Ten? Eleven?"
"Nine." Smith's eyes hardened. "Saxon would have had Widget crawling in those little tunnels mining too if you people hadn't found him first. Saxon's been working everyone to the bone."
Owen set his jaw. "Well…I didn't vote for Saxon."
Smith was studying him with unnerving intensity. "Neither did I, Dr. Gorman."
"Owen…" Owen scratched his chin. Damn beard. "Name's Owen H-"
"Safer if I know you as Dr. Fred." Smith tracked her men staggering with their crates marked "For the Valiant" across their sides.
Owen grunted.
"Where is she now?" Smith hesitated. "This Martha Jones."
"South Africa…somewhere." Owen shrugged again. Martha was vague. Well, as vague as one could be in a telegram.
"Is it true, what they're saying?"
Owen eyed their surroundings. He was tempted to pull out his key to wear. He didn't like being out in the open for this long. "About?"
"About what she wants us to do."
Owen met her challenging stare. "I don't know anything about it."
"What good will it do? What can she expect that will accomplish-"
"Not her. The Doctor."
There was another flicker across her face.
"You know him," Owen realized.
The eyes behind the scarf crinkled. "A lifetime ago."
"Then you know this could work."
Smith's eyes dimmed. "Perhaps. It seems so…insignificant."
Owen wanted to grab her by the arms but knew her two goons would stop him. "Then help us do more. The rockets. We have the plans. We gave them to you to send out. We can stop the rockets-"
"They're too scared-"
"If you think they're scared now, wait until those bloody things launch!" Owen hissed. He calmed and took a step back when he saw Smith tense. "Sorry."
"We'll try. That's all we can do. There aren't enough of us in the resistance to do this ourselves. I would tear those rockets down myself if that would be enough, but it won't. We need people. But the people are scared."
Owen sighed at the hard glare. "Sorry," he repeated lamely. Smith mimicked him and exhaled as well. No matter who was here to do the exchange, the conversation never changed. He studied Smith carefully. "Probably not a good time to mention this, but…what about the other thing?"
"We…" Smith hedged. "We found one from the list, but that doesn't mean anything. People were relocated, moved, names were changed-"
"Who?" Owen interrupted impatiently.
Smith looked over her shoulder back to where they came. A shadow detached from the others and slowly approached.
Recognition twisted Owen's mouth to a smile that was now unfamiliar to him. Closer, there was no reaction, just wary curiosity. No surprise, they were never properly introduced.
"Well," Owen drawled, "someone will be very glad to see you."
Valiant
Jack was still trying to remember what usually came first: the cut under his ribs or the slice under his arm. Psychos, Jack had decided, were still creatures of habit. They…they…
A cramp rippled from his groin and settled up around his middle like a throbbing pulse. Jack bit his lower lip and tried to ignore it. It'll go away. It always did. That freakish energy tainting his blood would always make sure of it. It was the same abnormality that had gotten him into this mess though. Jack sucked in his breath. The endless cycle of pain then healing grated him. Jack locked his knees together, fought the urge to vomit, the Master's voice ringing in his ears even if Saxon was long gone.
…thrum-thru-
"Shut the hell up!" Jack hollered because he knew no one would come to answer anyway. He yelled because it was loud enough to drown out the pattern the Master has been trying to bury deep into his skull.
The echoes rattled around him for a long time before Jack's breathing calmed. Jack stood there and tried to think of something that would distract him from the sensation of his skin stitching back together along the entire length of his back. Tried to think of anything but of Saxon standing behind him, his sneering voice, the heated hum of his damn laser screwdriver, the…
Jack closed his eyes. He could feel a wiggling at the edge of consciousness, like a flicker of movement at the corner of his eye. It felt warm and openly afraid, afraid for him. It…it shouldn't be here.
There was a plea that was wordless and soundless that begged as Jack tried to imagine a door and mentally nudged that warm spot of something through that door. Jack thought he could feel warm skin, hot tears, when he gave its essence a light brushing of lips before he gave it a firm push and latched the door in his mind.
"Jack…"
Think of something else, think of something else.
Jack blinked rapidly and stared up again at the spot over the door that sealed him away from everything else.
Steam had obscured the Torchwood insignia, but the letters Tosh had morbidly scribbled were still intact. Jack looked at every letter, followed every curve and stroke and took another breath, a cleansing one.
How long had it been? Jack wasn't sure. He had lost count of the times Tish came with his food and the Doctor never answered the rare times he appeared before him. Jack wished he could reach out to the Time Lord but he feared it would only open the doors for Ianto to come in and if his Ianto did, Jack knew he wouldn't have the strength to make him leave.
"Almost there," Jack whispered to himself. There was a plan. There was a plan.
Jack kept the four words like a mantra. He kept it in the far recesses of his mind like a piece of curled paper, folded and tucked away, never to be read. But Jack could sense its presence, reminding him that this…this was nothing.
"Nothing," Jack rasped. He squeezed his eyes tight. This…all this was nothing. The paradox machine. If they could destroy it, the Doctor said time would be reversed. All of this. This could be fixed. Fixed.
Jack couldn't help it. Jack laughed. He laughed and laughed but then it became something else entirely so he gritted his teeth and swallowed it back. It took a few tries, a few gulps, before the hitch in his chest smoothed out to the pained, ragged breathing again. Jack forced himself to straighten, exhale hard through his teeth and reopen his eyes.
He wasn't alone this time.
There was a boxy looking dog sitting just at the outer edge of the tarp Jack stood on. Brown with a black saddle, the wiry furred canine studied him with a tilt of his long, rectangular head, brown eyes barely visible underneath bushy fur over its eyes.
It sat there, unperturbed by the steam bursting out of the pipes behind it, or the heat of the room. A terrier of some kind, it just looked at Jack as if waiting for a stick to be thrown for fetch.
"This is…new," Jack managed as he stared at the whiskered dog. The Master did have a strange sense of humor though, but never this strange. At least it wasn't the Toclafane again, here to draw pictures on his back. "What are you suppose to do, nibble me to death?"
"I hardly think its teeth are sharp enough for the task, Jack."
Jack yelped and chains rattled as he swung out a leg, losing his balance in the process as he tried to get the dog away from him.
His foot sailed right through where the head should be.
The dog simply yawned. Its ears folded forward in a flop and there was a glimpse of little incisors when its mouth opened.
"Really Jack, if I was a real dog that would have only aggravated me."
"D-doctor?" Jack gasped. He sagged in his chains. "What the hell?" Jack locked his knees, standing taller so his shoulders wouldn't ache and he glowered at the canine. He could now see the ground through it, the sliver of light from under the doors.
"What are you doing?" Jack groaned.
"It took too much energy to manifest myself into human form to talk to you," the dog said. At least it looked like it did. It was hard to tell if the dog was talking or yawning.
"Thought a more simple carbon form would suffice." The terrier raised its front legs and pawed the air with its small feet. "Welsh terrier, eh? Thought it would be appropriate."
Nothing about this was appropriate, but Jack chalked it up as an odd eccentricity of Time Lords. Before, the Doctor had shown up as some guy in a scarf, then an old man, and later, one in a V-neck jumper. That one was kinda cute, though.
"Really, Jack."
The dog-Doctor frowned. Its bushy fur went over its eyes and the bearded muzzle bristled.
"I'm trying to decide if this is an improvement or not," Jack muttered. "I-wait a second…what do you mean 'too much energy'?"
"Ah." The whiskers drooped and the head dipped. "She can't keep maintaining the links, Jack. Even with the rift, it's a lot of energy she's using to keep us connected. Transferring our unconsciousness to each other is hard enough, but in some physical entity as well? The Master was starting to notice fluctuations in the paradox machine."
Jack nodded. He considered the dog by his feet.
"Besides," the Doctor went on, "it isn't too bad, is it?" The dog sat up and lifted one paw in the classic handshake position. "I think she chose rather nicely. Welsh terriers are nice breeds. Highly intelligent."
"She hurts, you know," Jack whispered instead of replying. It was an echoed ache in his gut that he knew wasn't his.
The Doctor shook its head and gave a full body shiver that was both dog and Doctor. "I know. I can feel it in my bones. She can't last much longer. That's why the Master wants to finish his empire quickly and find a new source to maintain the paradox."
Jack swallowed as he saw the beady eyes turn his way.
"That too?" Jack tried to joke, "I guess I'm a Jack-of-all-trades."
The Doctor/dog huffed a cross between a bark and a laugh.
"There was terrible."
"So says the neutered Time Lord," Jack shot back tiredly.
"Eh?" The little ears perked up and the dog stood on all fours and tried to see, raising one hind leg up.
"She did!" The Doctor sounded horrified, amazed, and incredulous at the same time. Only him. "I-w-what…why would she ever-hold on, how could you tell from there?"
Jack grimaced. "Trade secret." He tried to offer something else. There must be a lot of things he could say about the Doctor now being a perfect candidate for fleas. Anything. But bile kept rising up to his mouth. His throat constricted at the thought of perhaps being chained forever, fed on like a piece of meat, used like something less.
"We won't let it come to that, Jack. I won't let it."
It should have been laughable. The Doctor now sat on its haunches by Jack's feet, looking a little doggish, a little like he's waiting for a scratch behind his ears. Jack should be laughing but all he could think about was how the Doctor never showed his present state-the wrinkled, feeble man who crawled out of his wheelchair to write on the other side of the tarp with a bleeding finger.
"We're nearly there, Captain. I promise."
The dog settled its head on Jack's filthy boots and he shouldn't, but Jack thought he could feel the weight of a small head. It never moved, a curled body of imagined fur resting by his feet.
"Did you need me to pass on something?" Jack fought to keep his voice steady.
"No…not really."
Jack's brow furrowed. "Then why…"
"You were calling for someone, Jack. So I came."
"No I wasn't," Jack croaked. He rolled his shoulders and arched his back to iron out the twinges.
The dog jumped back to all fours again. Jack felt a coil of ice digging into his gut when he thought the Doctor was leaving, but instead, the Doctor merely shook its fur and settled back down again.
"The Master and his wife are elsewhere. We're left alone for now, Captain. Rest."
But Jack couldn't. Closing his eyes meant seeing Saxon again, seeing his thin smile every time Jack called him Doctor, feeling the hot, dry hands gripping him in the dark.
"When did you first realize?" Jack blurted out before Saxon's grip sharpened to claws on his thighs to spread him open. When he heard himself, heard the question, Jack balked and wanted to take it back.
"After we defeated the Daleks."
Jack averted his eyes. He knew. He always knew, even before the Master came and told him. The whoosh from the TARDIS back then was a farewell. It took decades of binge drinking, faceless and violent sex, and rage twisted into something numb to admit it to himself.
"When did you first realize?" the Doctor echoed Jack's question.
Jack didn't have to think about it. "Earth, 1892." He could still taste the sourness in his mouth. Someone said something, what, he didn't remember, not even what he sneered back. "Got in a fight in Ellis Island. A man shot me through the heart." Jack remembered the sobering shock of the bullet cutting into him like a branding iron then feeling cold, very cold.
"Then I woke up. Thought it was kinda strange. But then it never stopped." Jack felt the dog sit up to look at him intently.
"Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War I, World War II, poison, strangulation…" Jack smiled darkly to himself, "a stray javelin." He wasn't even trying that time.
"In the end, I got the message, I’m the man who can never die."
The dog with its brown eyes looked solemn sitting there in front of him.
"And you knew." Jack whispered, "All this time." Jack swallowed. "That's why you left, wasn't it? Because I was…I was…w-wrong."
"No…I was."
Startled, Jack raised his eyes towards the dog. Brown eyes round and dark met his gaze, looking very sorrowful, very old.
"Doctor," Jack stuttered, his voice suddenly thinned, "what happened to me?" Mouth dry, Jack's words tumbled out hoarse, almost breathless.
"Last thing I remember back when I was mortal…I was facing three Daleks. Death by extermination. And then I came back to life. What happened?"
"Rose."
The name wasn't one Jack expected. "I thought you sent her back home."
"She came back. Opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex."
Jack closed his eyes. "She brought me back to life. Ah, Rose", he sighed. Jack stiffened. "Wait, if she had absorbed the vortex-"
"It's why this happened. She couldn’t control it. She brought you back forever. That's not supposed to happen." The Doctor exhaled and the furry muzzle stirred.
"That’s something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."
Hope flared in Jack's chest. "Do you think she can change me back?"
The ears flattened, the tail dropped, and the canine slouched like a whipped dog.
"It was killing her so I took the power out of her. Killed me instead and I regenerated." The whiskers drooped and for a moment, Jack thought the fur grayed before him.
"She’s gone, Jack. She’s not just living on a parallel world, she’s trapped there. The walls have closed."
Jack cast his eyes to the tarp. "I'm sorry."
"Shouldn't I be saying that to you?"
Jack shook his head. "I…I don't think I can hear that right now."
"I understand." A foot pawed the air. "There is plenty of time for that later, my friend."
Jack smiled shakily. His throat felt stuck together. "Sure."
"We're nearly there, Jack. Once Martha is here, it will all begin. Just hold on."
The chains rattled when Jack shook his arms. "To what?"
The dog woofed.
"Seriously, this dog thing? Very disturbing."
The dog actually rolled its eyes at Jack.
"You're just showing off, aren't you?" Jack found himself standing steadier on the tarp, the skin on his back healed completely without him ever being aware of it.
The short tail wagged and the Doctor offered a wolfish grin with teeth.
"So how's that neuter thing working out for ya?"
The dog growled.
Torchwood, Cardiff
Gwen peered over Ianto's shoulder as he tapped the pedal. He clicked out a response to the fishermen in South Africa. They were forced to move it up from Jack's quarters. It had gotten too cold down there. Ianto's fingertips were turning red trying to type in the freezing space.
"Tell them don't forget to go by night," Gwen reminded him.
Ianto grunted and kept clicking out the instructions of where to find Martha.
"Oh, and if it gets too warm, tell them not to chance it. The resistance said they don't like the cold."
"I know," Ianto muttered. The laptop by him set his face in an odd blue glow.
"And the last part of the gun, tell them to-"
Ianto sighed and sat back from the telegrapher. He slapped his palms on his jeans and squinted at her in the dim light. His mouth was set in a grim line.
Gwen shrugged and offered a sheepish grin. "Of course, we told them this all before." She rubbed a tense shoulder next to her. She rubbed her thumb just under Ianto's right shoulder blade. Sure enough, she could feel a knot even under the thick black t-shirt.
"Better?" Gwen murmured when Ianto hissed.
The stiff posture Ianto had sported all morning deflated in front of her.
"Sorry," Ianto mumbled. "I've been an arse, haven't I?"
"Really?" Gwen patted his arm. "I haven't noticed." Her smile faded at Ianto's face.
"Still nothing from Jack?"
Ianto flinched. He mutely nodded.
Gwen looped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a brief hug. "Maybe the timing is bad and they're just being careful."
Ianto bobbed his head again.
"Nothing from Jack, nothing from Tosh either, Saxon hasn't been broadcasting, what's going on up there?" Ianto dropped his face into his hands.
"He's all right, Ianto," Gwen whispered. She planted a kiss on top of his head. "This is Jack Harkness we're talking about here."
Ianto sniffed but said nothing else. He coughed, shied away from Gwen and went back to the telegrapher.
Staring at his bowed head, Gwen's heart ached. There were times, he reminded her of Andy back in the days when they were partnered together. God that felt like it was a long time ago. She opened her mouth to try again when something outside the office clanged.
"Lights out!" Ianto hissed. He snapped the laptop shut, threw the covers over it and the cables and leapt over them to grab his weapon.
Gwen nearly stumbled as she blew out all the kerosene lamps before she grabbed Ianto by the sleeve and dragged him towards the hatchway opening. Wiggling past Jack's desk half covering the hole, Gwen climbed down as fast and as quietly as she could. She could feel Ianto's boots a hair's breath from her head as they descended, but already she could hear clattering noises out in the main area coming closer. Blast, why didn't the proximity alarms work?
A fist gripped her shoulder tightly and a weapon was pressed into her shaking hands. Gwen aimed towards the opening just as a shadow crossed the hatch. Ianto's shoulder bumped against her as they pressed close. Both their guns pointed towards the opening. Gwen scarcely breathed as she heard a scrape on the floor.
"Oi."
Gwen's arms went limp and Ianto next to her exhaled.
"Owen," Gwen hissed. "You were supposed to give us a signal to let us know you're coming!"
"I was," Owen defended. He popped his head in to smirk at them upside down. "I mean, I was going to," Owen amended, "until he tripped that bloody line of pots Ianto set up as a backup alarm. Still a stupid idea, by the way, Jonesy."
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Ianto huffed, still panting from the sudden burst of adrenaline. "Wait, who's he?"
Owen's grin was bright even in the dark. "Guess what I found?" Owen didn't wait for an answer and ducked out.
Before anyone could follow, another head popped in.
"So this is Torchwood? Doesn't look like special ops to me."
"Andy!" Gwen breathed.
Chapter 40 "The Last of the Time Lords" Act I
Additional Notes: Many thanks to soullessminion for betaing this chapter. And trtmx for her magic trick that saved my sanity! LOL.