Ghosts in the Halls 3/?
Title: Ghosts in the Halls 3/?
Author: Nightchaser_sla
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: explicit m/m sex.
Crossover: Bad Girls/Torchwood.
Pairings: Helen/Nikki and Jack/Ianto. Implied Gwen/Rhys and Gwen/Owen.
Spoilers: Bad Girls season 1 and Torchwood episodes 1.01 - 1.06 aswell as 2.11.
Summary: When the apparition of a young girl starts terroizing the inmates of Larkhall Prison its up to Torchwood Three to investigate this strange rift activity. However all is not what it seems when Captain Jack Harkness meets Nikki Wade and realizes that a decision he makes a thousand years in the future may have ruined the past for everyone.
Prologue: http://community.livejournal.com/jackxianto/1925247.html#cutid1
Chapter One: http://community.livejournal.com/jackxianto/1925525.html#cutid1
Chapter Two.
It had been just over a year since the last time Ianto Jones had been in London, and the horrifying memories of searching through the smoking remains of Torchwood Tower for any survivors still haunted him today. More than haunted him in all honesty, there wasn't a night that went by where he didn't wake up covered in sweat and gasping for breath with the scorching sensation of flames against his skin still fresh in his mind.
He felt the usual panic twist his stomach as he stared out of the window of the crowded cab at the bustling streets beyond. His own rapid breathing was painfully loud in his own ears despite the loud bickering going on amongst the others. It was only Tosh, who was leaning against him and had intertwined their fingers, who had managed to match his silence. They hadn't really ever been close, both of them to quiet and introspective to really form a friendship, until their adventure in the countryside. It seemed that getting locked up in a basement full of dismembered body parts by cannibals was just the thing to form a lifelong bond.
Gently stroking his thumb over her knuckles, Ianto tore his gaze away from the window and to the top of Tosh's dark head which caused her to tip her face up and give him a sad smile. By God he loved her, and he thought that Owen was the worlds biggest twat for not noticing that this beautiful woman was pining away for him.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly, raising her free hand to softly stroke down his cheek.
"Of course I am," he answered, catching her palm with his lips.
It was at that moment he noticed sudden silence in the cab, and glancing up he found Gwen, Owen and Jack staring at them. Owen's face was filled with confusion; Gwen's eyes were full of shock joy; but the look in Jack's face was the same pure betrayal that he had portrayed when they had found out about Lisa.
"Ok." The smile on Tosh's face almost broke his heart.
"I didn't know you two were an item," said Gwen, leaning forwards in her seat and fixing Ianto with an interested stare.
"That's because we're not," he answered, as Tosh let out a ringing laugh. Some of the agony in his chest seemed to loosen at the sound, it was the first time he had seen her happy since the Brecon Beacons.
"Are you sure?" asked Gwen, the light of a woman in match-making mode filling her eyes.
"Leave it." Jack's voice had an edge to it that made Tosh grip his hand so tightly that the skin turned white.
Jack, to Ianto, was becoming increasingly more difficult to read. Before Lisa's rampage in the hub he had been outwardly flirtatious and even making blatant overtures, and even directly afterwards he had been surprisingly gentle towards him. Now though he was almost cold and distant, as if seeing Ianto injured had caused him to distance himself from the much younger man.
"So what exactly are we doing here Harkness?" asked Owen, arms folded across his chest and a harsh look in his eyes.
"Rift activity of course," answered Jack, seeming to brighten up at the chance to change the subject.
"Then why isn't somebody else dealing with it?" demanded Owen. "So we're supposed to leave Cardiff ... which is actually sitting on the rift remember ... unprotected because everyone else is just to damn lazy to do it?"
"And who else is going to deal with it Owen?" hissed Tosh, standing up to the doctor for once. "Torchwood Four? ... or Torchwood One?"
Memories of fire and screaming filled Ianto's mind at the very thought of Torchwood One, and he quickly turned his face away from the rest of the team so as to stare out of the window. A soft hand on his knee drew his attention to the concerned face of Gwen.
"Ianto," she whispered. "You didn't have to come."
Jack's head snapped up at that, and he fixed Gwen with a piercing glare. Ianto was familiar with that particular look, it was the same one he had received from Jack a week ago when he had told everyone that Lisa was the last person he had kissed. It wasn't that he had been denying the fact that Jack had kissed him whilst he was laying half-dead in the river which ran through the hub. The very idea of denying something like that was laughable, but he hadn't thought that Jack would want the rest of the team to know that he was feeling up the tea-boy while the rest of them were being attacked by said tea-boy's robotic ex-girlfriend. Then again Ianto still had no idea why Jack had kissed him in the first place, surely there were better ways to bring somebody back to consciousness, nor could he understand his own reaction to it ... laying there in Jack's arms like some damsel in distress while Owen knifed Lisa.
Yes he could see why Jack hated him ... why he thought he couldn't be trusted in the hub on his own.
"Yes I did," he whispered softly.
---
Helen Stewart clicked her perfectly manicured fingernails on her desk and then began re-organizing her out-tray. She wasn't very often nervous about meetings in Larkhall, after all this was her domain and she was queen within it. However Special Ops was different, and today this Torchwood was due to come in and start whatever classified work they were doing in G wing. Helen was unsure whether they were coming for the drug problem or there was a terroist threat ... though terroists in Larkhall seemed pretty unlikely.
A soft knock on her door made her lift her gaze as Lorna poked her head into the office.
"Miss. Stewart," she said. "Those people from Torchwood are here."
Helen nodded her head.
"What are they like?" she asked, it wasn't very often that she asked advice but this time she was completely out on a limb.
Lorna gave her a grin and then rolled her eyes.
"Most of them seem alright," answered Lorna. "But their leader is this American, and marm he's a bit of a charmer."
With a soft laugh Helen picked up the pile of papers in front of her and tapped them neatly into place on the desktop.
"I know how to deal with men who think they're Gods gift," muttered Helen.
Raising an eyebrow Lorna took a step backwards and pushed open the door to allow a tall man to sweep into the office, larger than life and with a charisma that seemed to fill the room. Immediately Helen knew that she had never met anybody quite like this before, there may have been one or two close, but none that made her want to lean back in her chair just to make room for him in the small office. His clothes were an obvious throwback to the 1940's, including a floor length military coat; yet it was the toothy smile on his face and the twinkle in his blue eyes that caught her attention.
"Good morning m'am," he said, falling into the chair opposite her and holding out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."
She shook his hand and then sat back.
"Well Captain," she said. "What exactly are you going to be doing in my wing?"
"Ah." He folded his arms across his chest. "That's classified."
In that instance Helen knew that she was going to have a fight on her hands, this man wasn't going to give her anything and she wasn't letting him disrupt the workings of G-wing unless he gave her the right answers.
"I am not letting you onto G-wing unless I decide that its for a good cause."
His face froze momentarily and his eyes became more calculating than amused.
"Ianto!" he snapped suddenly, causing Helen to jump in her feet.
The door opened smoothly and another man slid gracefully into the office. He was young, no older than twenty-five, dressed in a immaculate pin-striped suit and light blue shirt with matching tie. There was something about him, a familiarity that took her breath away but she just couldn't put her finger on who he reminded her of.
"Sir," answered the man, obviously this Ianto, in a strong Welsh accent.
Without missing a beat Harkness held up his hand and Ianto placed a file into it, which was handed straight to Helen.
"You'll find everything you need to know in here," he said.
She opened the file and gasped when she realized that the authorization documents inside came straight from both Buckingham Palace and Whitehall, this Torchwood was obviously far higher up in the chain than she had suspected. There was absolutely nothing that she could do to stop them getting whatever they wanted within Larkhall, and honestly that kind of pissed her off.
"Very well," she hissed, getting to her feet. "I'll take you to the wing."
Jumping up from his chair, Harkness swept past the young man and out of the office into the hallway. Moving past him, Helen look up into his face and stopped short when she saw the state that he was in. Beneath the perfect exterior he obviously worked hard on portraying, it looked like he had been hit by a truck. A nasty bruise covered his left temple and cheek, running down his neck and under his collar; several cuts, some of them stitched up, ran parallel to his hairline.
"Ma'm," he said, giving a small bow and gesturing that she should proceed him out of the door.
"Thank you," she whispered, taking one last glance at him before leaving his office.
---
It had been many years since Captain Jack Harkness had been in prison, and despite his many many years of walking the Earth (and various other planets) he had never actually had the opportunity to be inside a womens prison. Standing beside the pool table on the ground floor, he looked up to the upper landings to find many interested eyes looking down at him. An incredibly uncomfortable looking Owen and Tosh were pulling out the gear further down the floor, surrounded by their own security team of prison guards
"I really should have locked down the wing," muttered Miss. Stewart, her entire body tensing as another particularly vulgar cat-call floated down from the upper landings.
"I'm glad you didn't," he answered. "We need to discover if the activity is more pronounced around a specific person, that's easier to do when they're all together."
"Jack!" Tosh's call silenced anything that Miss. Stewart was going to say, and leaving the woman standing in the middle of the wing
Jack walked over to his tech.
"What is it?" he whispered, looking down at the laptop she was fiddling with.
Tosh glanced around at the people surrounding them, and then sidled closer to Jack.
"Apart from the expected rift activity there's another signal," she said, hitting a key and pointing at the unusual signal being displayed. "Its like nothing I've ever seen before ... do you recognize it?"
There was something slightly familiar about the particular pattern in the signal, but nothing that popped straight into his memory. Maybe it was something he had picked up somewhere in his travels, but had never had a need to memorize.
"Kind of," he answered, straightening up. "But nothing definate, do we have a location for it?"
Tosh tapped away on the keyboard for a moment, before looking up at him and shaking her head.
"All I can tell is that its somewhere in the building." She shrugged slender shoulders. "Its not exactly strong in the first place."
He nodded and patted her on the shoulder, glancing over at Owen who was trying his hardest not to look absolutely terrified at being in a maximum security prison.
"They can smell fear you know." he said conversationally, earning him a glare from the doctor.
Suddenly the level of whistling and cat calls increased, drawing his attention to where Ianto had just entered the wing. Naturally every straight woman in there was attracted to the young man as if he were the sexiest thing in the world. Watching him walking towards them, wearing his best suit and with his head up high, Jack just thought he might be the sexiest thing in the world. Ianto ignored every single pair of hungry eyes that were fixed on him, except for Jack's whose gaze he met dead on. Maybe, just maybe, that was the sexiest thing about him; while Ianto was outwardly subservient towards him and everyone else in Torchwood there was a fire just underneath the surface that Jack was desperate to touch.
"Oi Harkness do I really have to be here?" demanded Owen, from where he was standing beside Tosh. "I'm a doctor, there's not
much here I can do."
Jack waved him off, eyes fixed on where Ianto had moved to stand beside Miss. Stewart and was talking to her in a low voice. The woman, who had been scowling since they had arrived, suddenly smiled and looked up at Ianto with a warmth in her eyes ... Christ the boy had a gift.
"Shut up," he hissed at Owen, before affectionately tossling his hair.
---
"He's cute." Julie J's eyes were fixed on the tall man in the ridiculous coat, causing Nikki to roll her own eyes.
"If you say so," she muttered, poking her fork into her scrambled eggs and wandering if Dockley had spat into her food again this morning.
"Of course you don't think so," laughed Julie S, she turned to Julie J. "He's alright but I prefer the younger one."
Nikki nearly chocked on her mouthful of egg, glaring first at Julie S and then at the painfully young boy standing motionless beside his boss on the other side of the bars. Even calling him a man seemed stupid, he couldn't be any older than Dominic McCallister, barely twenty-five years old, and to Nikki he was nothing more than a boy.
"You're old enough to be his mother," she said, earning her a dark look from both Julie's. "That's disguisting."
Julie S shrugged her slim shoulders.
"I have a thing for cuties in suits," she said.
"And they're from Cardiff." Julie J leaned forwards to join the conversation. "You know what that means?"
Both Julie's leaned their heads together.
"Accents." They said in perfect unison.
A tray dropped onto the table beside Nikki, and she looked up to see Monica slide into the seat next to her.
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
"Julie's attraction to extremely young men," answered Nikki, watching as a small smile appeared on Monica's face.
"I didn't think that Mr. McCallister was your type," said Monica, looking over at the two Julies.
The moment that Monica glanced through the bars and into the main part of the wing her entire body went tense, mug of tea forgotten in her hands. That was when Nikki remembered Monica's story about having worked with these people before, in seemingly traumatic circumstances if Nikki was any reader of body language. She glanced over at the Julie's who gave a quick nod of their heads and then silently left the table.
"Are you alright?" asked Nikki, her desperate curiousity to understand people taking her over again.
"You see that man." Monica gestured towards the tall man in the coat.
"Of course," answered Nikki.
Even though she had never really been attracted to men there was something about this particular man that held her attention, maybe it was his outdated sense of dress or his obvious confidence in a difficult situation. She felt drawn to him in a way she had never ever felt about anyone.
"That's Captain Jack Harkness," she said. "Head of Torchwood Cardiff ... that's a very important man right there."
Nikki shovelled another forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth.
"Then why have they sent him here?" asked Nikki, swallowing quickly. "He must have really pissed someone off."
"Jack Harkness doesn't get sent anywhere by anyone," whispered Monica. "He's here for a reason."
"And what's that?" asked Nikki.
"Ghosts in the halls," answered Monica. "That's what he does."
Ghosts in the Halls.