Beautiful Iris 3/20
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Tosh/Owen
Summary: when a seemingly cut-and-dried incidnt calls out Torchwood early one morning all is not as it originally seems. Alien technology leads the team into a trap of danger and curiosity, propelling them to an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. Split into two, the team must find a way back before past events puts one member of Torchwood into danger.
Spoilers: season1 up to episode 7.
A/N : I haven't written anything for a while, so I decided to finish this fic. It now has 20 parts an an actual ending :) please r&r
Disclaimer these characters are not mine. I'm just borrowing RTD's toys and promise to put them back when I'm done :)
PART 1
PART 2
"Jack?” Owen was almost yelling at him over the communications system now. He had tried five times with no luck, and the most he got was a static noise that echoed out into the dark of the night. “Ianto? Gwen?” he was starting to sound desperate.
“No answer?”
“No.” Owen shone his torch down a hallway. “Maybe the tremor knocked their signal out.”
“Ours are still in tact.”
“They might have been closer to the centre of it, maybe that's why it didn't effect us.” Owen was making excuses now, and even he didn't believe them.
“I suppose it's not impossible.”
“They went down there.” He pointed into the darkness. “That's where they'll be.”
A beam fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Tosh and she backed away from the dust that rose into the air, then settled on the ground like a blanket of rusty snow.
“It looks unsafe,” she said. “What if something happened to them?”
“Well that's something that we need to find out.” Owen looked at his teammate, possibly the only one he had and took her hand in his. He moved closer to her in the dark and tilted her chin to look at him, trying to calm the terror that glistened in her dark eyes.“We'll be fine if we stick together and stay calm.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath and attempted a smile. “Calm.”
He started to make his way through the darkness, the light of the torch creating his only line of vision and kept hold of her hand. He tried to sound brave. “They're going to be fine. It takes more than a blast to get rid of Jack, Gwen is too stubborn to die, and Ianto wouldn't leave his precious coffee machine to the hands of anyone else, especially me, so quit worrying girl.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “We'll find them."
At first there was only a smell, not unpleasant one by any means, but unfamiliar. It was hard to pinpoint, but it was a sort of summery smell, like the hay in the fields behind his Grandmother's house that he remembered growing up. It was like freshly cut grass and rain, wood chips and wet soil.
After the smell of summer and rain and countless other things registered themselves in his senses, he felt something hard underneath him. Stone; cold, wet and very hard stone with rough pebbles that stuck into his hips through his trousers . He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. The burning in his left hand was intense and the heaviness on his chest made him feel like he was being held down by something; Ianto felt like he was being crushed from both sides, like something was stopping him from moving.
There didn't seem to be any sound, just the vibration of rain against the ground and the faraway gust of the wind through the trees.
Tress?
Cardiff in the winter just didn't smell of summer and a rotting rat infested warehouses just didn't have an aroma of wood chips. The Warehouse was in the docklands, far away from the trees, and the feel of the scuttling rats over his skin had gone.
He felt like he was in Oz. He didn't know much but without even opening his eyes he was certain of one thing; Ianto Jones wasn't in Cardiff any more."
The whole building was dark, darker than it had before and the light of the torch, as bright as it was, didn't light much of the path. Every time Owen heard a creek he raised his light to the ceiling to check the structure before leading Toshiko further into the never-ending darkness.
“I don't like the sound of this place,” she said. “It sounds like it's going to fall down at any moment.”
“Well.” Owen sighed and turned a corner, investigating the walls as he went. “We have three options. We can continue ahead until we find the others, turn back and hope they turn up, or get crushed to death by falling wooden beams. I'm kind of hoping it's either one or two.”
“According to my readings the structure is flimsy and rotting, but it seems to be holding." Toshiko looked at her hand-held scanner, tapping away at the screen with her stylus, squinting to see. “I can't see any heat signals other than the two that belong to us, but then again the screen keeps flashing up an error, so I don't think it's in complete working order.”
“What do you think we should do? Do we head back to the SUV or do we keep moving?”
“We've come this far and I know what Jack would do if it was the other way around; he'd search until he found us, alive or dead.” Toshiko could feel her confidence fading, and her voice shook a little as she said the last word. “Owen, what if--”
“They're not dead.”
Gwen groaned, touched her hand to her throbbing head and opened her eyes slowly. She looked around and tried to make out shapes in the dark, but everything just seemed to look sideways. It wasn't until she focussed on the ground that she realised that she was lying face down. Gwen cursed the throbbing in her head as she pushed herself up off the ground and sat up, looking around.
Her vision was a little blurred and she rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times to get it back. She tried to fight off the dull thud of her headache, but it felt like someone was trying to break out of her head from the inside with a metal bar. Gwen could taste what seemed to be her own blood in her mouth and her lip stung like it had been cut. She had no idea how long she had been there, but judging by the lack of blood it had obviously been a while.
It was dark, almost pitch black and it was hard to make anything out other than her immediate surroundings. She heard footsteps in the distance. The sound of heavy boots on stone echoed between the rain and the wind in the trees. She pulled her gun from her belt and pointed it blindly into the darkness.
“Who's there?” Gwen winced as she tried to pull herself to her feet. Her ankle felt weak and painful like it was broken and as much as she tried she couldn’t find the strength in it to get up.
“Are you alright Miss?” The voice was booming, but not unkind, with a thick Welsh accent.
“Stay back, I'm armed!” She warned, feeling around in her pocket for her pen torch . When she found it, she pointed it in his direction to try and see what she was dealing with. The light was weak and she couldn't see much, but she could just about make out a tall msn, wearing big leather boots and a tweed cap. He was wielding a shotgun, but it was folded harmlessly over his arm, probably unloaded. “Who are you?”
“I should be asking you that Miss, this is my courtyard.”
He moved closer, walking into the light of her torch and she glared at him, aiming her Glock. He was taller than he had looked before, touching on six three, with workman's boots, old mud-stained trousers and a brown tweed waistcoat. His face was kind, with dull blue eyes that seemed to look into her, with a shadow of rough stubble on his chin.
“Tell me who you are or I'll shoot.” She warned him again, this time loading the barrel. She pushed herself back towards a wall with her good leg. “I'm not kidding around. How did I get here?”
“I'm Joseph Hughes, I own this land so why don’t you just explain who you are first and we’ll take it from there..”
“Where am I?” Gwen ignored his request.
“On my land, now tell me your name Miss, or I have a good mind to call the police and report you for trespassing.”
“Gwen.” She gave in. “Gwen Cooper.”
“That's a local sounding name all right, but you're not from around here. I would know your face.”
“You won't tell me where I am so how would I know if I'm from around here or not.”
“You look hurt.” Mr Hughes walked towards her cautiously and put his gun down on the ground, moving towards her. “I've put my gun down, so there's no reason to be scared.”
“I'm fine, now back up a little and keep your hands where I can see them.”
He stepped back a little bit and put his hands up as instructed. “Let me help you up. I'm not going to hurt you”
Gwen pointed the gun again. “I mean it, keep your distance!”
Owen led Tosh into the last room in the building; it looked different from the others. Where the rest were filled with scuttling rats, this one was empty save for a black spiral in the centre of the room around six feet in circumference. The door had been blown off its rusted hinges, and lay on the floor cracked and burnt out.
“This doesn't look good.” Toshiko crouched down in the middle of the room and scanned the black ring with her device. “It's loaded with radiation.”
“Harmful?”
“Not unless you do something stupid like lick it, or touch it. No, it's contained to this ring but it's high in radioactive properties.”
“Apart from the radioactive licorice in the middle of the room, and the door blown off its hinges does anything else strike you about this room, Tosh?”
“The lack of infestation?”
“Exactly.” He sighed and moved his torch around the room. “Whatever happened here, it was big enough to make rats run for their lives. Those things stick around to gnaw the toes off half-living Weevils, so it had to be something pretty scary to make them scarper.”
“So where are Jack and the others?”
“Not here evidentially.” He focussed his light on an open door at the opposite end of the room. “Looks like the rats weren't the only ones to scarper.” He sighed. “Nice of them to let us know, ey?”
Jack awoke to the sound of heavy breathing against his ear and a strange sound that he couldn't quite describe, like someone trying to eat something that they couldn't quite bite through. He could feel his coat being pulled away from him and a smell of old hay wafted in the cold breeze. Opening his eyes, Jack stared directly into the face of a large white horse chewing on his coat.
“Usually I love waking up with a stallion,” he groaned, wrestling it for his coat before standing up. “Today, I'm not so enthusiastic. Funny that.”
The horse bucked, raising onto his hind legs and let out a cry as he moved towards him; Jack backed away a little and grabbed the reins, pulling it back down, then stroked the length of his nose to calm it. The horse moved into the palm of Jack’s hand and closed his eyes.
“Have you seen anyone else around here?” Jack asked. “Cute guy with cheekbones that you could cut diamonds on and painfully good tailoring?” The horse looked at him and started to chew on the lapels of his coat again. “No? What about a woman then, huh? Dark hair, an air of fuck you, and a nice tasty leather jacket?” He pulled his coat out of the horse's mouth again. “Don't chew the coat.”
The horse looked at him, letting out a noisy breath from its nostrils.
“You're not a very observant witness,” Jack said. “Although I suspect that you would do anything for a carrot.”
The Captain took a deep breath and let go of the reins, patting the horse on the nose.
“Well if you see them tell them Jack was looking for them.” He started to walk away and then turned back. “But, here's a word of warning.” He pointed his finger at the horse. “Whatever you do, don't chew Ianto's Jacket -- that man's tailoring is not to be messed with. If you ruin the line of his suit he'll ruin you.”
The horse took a step back towards the other side of the stable and Jack wandered over to the door to open it. He took a deep breath and inhaled the air; wherever he was, it wasn't Cardiff city, at least not twenty-first century Cardiff city. The sky was black with a scattering of yellow stars and a clear crescent moon. He looked out into the darkness and spotted what looked like a farmhouse in the distance.
“Okay,” he sighed to himself. “I wonder if anyone's home.”
Jack walked out and closed the door firmly behind him, locking it to keep the horse safely inside. He made his way towards the courtyard that surrounded the building, looking around as he went. He stood still and listened to a sound in the distance; voices, two voices, and one of them very familiar.
“I don't know what it is that you think I'm going to do to you Miss, but I can assure you I'm not going to harm you.”
“You just keep back, you hear me mate? Keep back.”
Jack smiled a little and ran over towards the voices, almost slipping on the slippery stone as he tried to stop. He came face to face with him, offering his hand in an handshake.
“Captain Jack Harkness. Nice place you have here.” He shook the man's hand and pulled Gwen to her feet, putting his arm around her waist to support her. “You okay?”
“Took you long enough, didn’t it?”
“You know me, I like to make a dramatic entrance.”
“Are you two together?” Joseph asked, relaxing a little.
“She's a little bit jumpy. We had a bit of a confrontation with a scary fellow a few days ago and ever since she's been a little bit defensive.”
“I see.”
“She's a harmless little kitten really.”
“Kitten?” Gwen snapped her neck to look at him. “Who the hell are you calling a--”
“She’s just jumpy.” Jack nudged her in the side. “Certainly nothing to be scared of.”
“You need to keep your woman under control, sir,” he said.
“Under--” Gwen started to speak, but Jack nudged her in the side again.
“I will.”
“Be on your way,” Joseph said.
“Look, clearly she's hurt. Would you be kind enough to let us come inside?” Jack asked. "Just for a moment until I see whether she needs a Doctor.”
“That thing.” Mr. Hughes pointed to the gun that she was holding. “What is it?”
“It's nothing,” Jack said. "Just something she bought it in the city. I told her it was no good but she insisted and you know what ladies are like; they see something pretty and they just have to have it.”
“Right.” Joseph looked at them with suspicion, but broke into a smile. “Follow me.”
Mr. Hughes led the way to the house and Jack started to follow, helping Gwen along. He grabbed the gun and put it in his pocket. “You had better not wave this thing around, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“No idea. I think the more important question is--”
“When are we?”
“Exactly.”
“Any guesses?” Gwen groaned as she hopped alongside Jack.
“Judging by his reaction and the way he's dressed, somewhere between the nineteenth century and the mid twentieth.”
“Well that's specific!” She scalded in a whisper. “How am I meant to get home? I told Rhys that I would be back tonight. He's making Indian and everything.”
“Calm down, Tosh will sort it. Technically you're not even born yet, so you can't be late home. I'm sure your curry will be still warm when you get there.”
“We're trapped in God only knows what century in the middle of nowhere, with a guy in a Tweed hat who seems to think that I'm some damsel in distress that needs controlling. I will not calm down.”
“Why can’t you do as I say, just this one time because you're really not helping things here.”
“Well excuse me for being just a little concerned about going back in sodding time!”
“Have you seen Ianto?” Jack asked suddenly, losing track of the conversation.
“I thought he must be with you.”
Jack stopped and darted his eyes around the courtyard, scanning the land with his eyes. “He has to be here somewhere.”
“Come on!” Joseph called. “The rain is holding off, but I can smell it in the air. We need to get her inside before she gets a chill on her chest.”
“Has there been anyone else pass through here tonight?” Jack asked, hurrying Gwen towards Joseph. “A young man, about--”
“No. Nobody passes through here, you're the first people we've seen in weeks.”
“It's important that I find him.”
“Do you want to come inside or not?”
“I need to find him,” Jack said desperately. "He's like a brother to me.”
“Alright.” Joseph stopped and turned towards Jack. “We’ll get her inside away from the cold. I'll wake my daughter and ask her to sit with her, then we'll come back out and find him.”
“Thank you.”
“We can't just leave them!” Toshiko shouted as they walked towards the SUV.
“They're not here.”
“They have to be!”
“They're not.” Owen opened the door to the vehicle and sat the driver's seat, turning to look at her. “There are no human heat signals in there, the alien do-hickey's are nowhere to be seen and we're searched the place over and over several times. Tosh, they're not there.”
“Then where are they?”
“Well they've either gone to the pub for a pint, which is highly unlikely, or something has happened to them.”
“Maybe the signal led them somewhere else?”
“No.” Owen shook his head defiantly. “Jack would not leave, not without telling us. If they're not inside and they're not here then something has happened.”
“Maybe they're just in a no coverage area.”
“This is Torchwood. People in Torchwood disappear; they get eaten, or sucked into the rift, or involved in something that you couldn't even dream of happening outside of Scooby Doo or Buffy the Vampire slayer. Expect the unexpected Tosh, because nine times out of ten you can't predict what's going to happen.”
“So what do we do?”
“We get back to the hub.”
“Okay.” Tosh gave up and ran around to the other side, getting in just in time for Owen to drive off.
“We need a plan.”
“I can check the rift monitor when we get back to see if there's been any recent spikes in the area. The worst case scenario is that they've slipped through and if that has happened then the monitor program should tell us when.”
“Then what?”
“Then I figure it out from there. I can check for Jack's wrist device signal and see what I find.”
“That's the best plan you've got?” Owen asked. “You search for his signal?”
“It's the only plan I've got.”
“And what's your plan B?”
“I don't have one.”
PART 4
Summary: when a seemingly cut-and-dried incidnt calls out Torchwood early one morning all is not as it originally seems. Alien technology leads the team into a trap of danger and curiosity, propelling them to an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. Split into two, the team must find a way back before past events puts one member of Torchwood into danger.
Spoilers: season1 up to episode 7.
A/N : I haven't written anything for a while, so I decided to finish this fic. It now has 20 parts an an actual ending :) please r&r
Disclaimer these characters are not mine. I'm just borrowing RTD's toys and promise to put them back when I'm done :)
PART 1
PART 2
"Jack?” Owen was almost yelling at him over the communications system now. He had tried five times with no luck, and the most he got was a static noise that echoed out into the dark of the night. “Ianto? Gwen?” he was starting to sound desperate.
“No answer?”
“No.” Owen shone his torch down a hallway. “Maybe the tremor knocked their signal out.”
“Ours are still in tact.”
“They might have been closer to the centre of it, maybe that's why it didn't effect us.” Owen was making excuses now, and even he didn't believe them.
“I suppose it's not impossible.”
“They went down there.” He pointed into the darkness. “That's where they'll be.”
A beam fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Tosh and she backed away from the dust that rose into the air, then settled on the ground like a blanket of rusty snow.
“It looks unsafe,” she said. “What if something happened to them?”
“Well that's something that we need to find out.” Owen looked at his teammate, possibly the only one he had and took her hand in his. He moved closer to her in the dark and tilted her chin to look at him, trying to calm the terror that glistened in her dark eyes.“We'll be fine if we stick together and stay calm.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath and attempted a smile. “Calm.”
He started to make his way through the darkness, the light of the torch creating his only line of vision and kept hold of her hand. He tried to sound brave. “They're going to be fine. It takes more than a blast to get rid of Jack, Gwen is too stubborn to die, and Ianto wouldn't leave his precious coffee machine to the hands of anyone else, especially me, so quit worrying girl.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “We'll find them."
At first there was only a smell, not unpleasant one by any means, but unfamiliar. It was hard to pinpoint, but it was a sort of summery smell, like the hay in the fields behind his Grandmother's house that he remembered growing up. It was like freshly cut grass and rain, wood chips and wet soil.
After the smell of summer and rain and countless other things registered themselves in his senses, he felt something hard underneath him. Stone; cold, wet and very hard stone with rough pebbles that stuck into his hips through his trousers . He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. The burning in his left hand was intense and the heaviness on his chest made him feel like he was being held down by something; Ianto felt like he was being crushed from both sides, like something was stopping him from moving.
There didn't seem to be any sound, just the vibration of rain against the ground and the faraway gust of the wind through the trees.
Tress?
Cardiff in the winter just didn't smell of summer and a rotting rat infested warehouses just didn't have an aroma of wood chips. The Warehouse was in the docklands, far away from the trees, and the feel of the scuttling rats over his skin had gone.
He felt like he was in Oz. He didn't know much but without even opening his eyes he was certain of one thing; Ianto Jones wasn't in Cardiff any more."
The whole building was dark, darker than it had before and the light of the torch, as bright as it was, didn't light much of the path. Every time Owen heard a creek he raised his light to the ceiling to check the structure before leading Toshiko further into the never-ending darkness.
“I don't like the sound of this place,” she said. “It sounds like it's going to fall down at any moment.”
“Well.” Owen sighed and turned a corner, investigating the walls as he went. “We have three options. We can continue ahead until we find the others, turn back and hope they turn up, or get crushed to death by falling wooden beams. I'm kind of hoping it's either one or two.”
“According to my readings the structure is flimsy and rotting, but it seems to be holding." Toshiko looked at her hand-held scanner, tapping away at the screen with her stylus, squinting to see. “I can't see any heat signals other than the two that belong to us, but then again the screen keeps flashing up an error, so I don't think it's in complete working order.”
“What do you think we should do? Do we head back to the SUV or do we keep moving?”
“We've come this far and I know what Jack would do if it was the other way around; he'd search until he found us, alive or dead.” Toshiko could feel her confidence fading, and her voice shook a little as she said the last word. “Owen, what if--”
“They're not dead.”
Gwen groaned, touched her hand to her throbbing head and opened her eyes slowly. She looked around and tried to make out shapes in the dark, but everything just seemed to look sideways. It wasn't until she focussed on the ground that she realised that she was lying face down. Gwen cursed the throbbing in her head as she pushed herself up off the ground and sat up, looking around.
Her vision was a little blurred and she rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times to get it back. She tried to fight off the dull thud of her headache, but it felt like someone was trying to break out of her head from the inside with a metal bar. Gwen could taste what seemed to be her own blood in her mouth and her lip stung like it had been cut. She had no idea how long she had been there, but judging by the lack of blood it had obviously been a while.
It was dark, almost pitch black and it was hard to make anything out other than her immediate surroundings. She heard footsteps in the distance. The sound of heavy boots on stone echoed between the rain and the wind in the trees. She pulled her gun from her belt and pointed it blindly into the darkness.
“Who's there?” Gwen winced as she tried to pull herself to her feet. Her ankle felt weak and painful like it was broken and as much as she tried she couldn’t find the strength in it to get up.
“Are you alright Miss?” The voice was booming, but not unkind, with a thick Welsh accent.
“Stay back, I'm armed!” She warned, feeling around in her pocket for her pen torch . When she found it, she pointed it in his direction to try and see what she was dealing with. The light was weak and she couldn't see much, but she could just about make out a tall msn, wearing big leather boots and a tweed cap. He was wielding a shotgun, but it was folded harmlessly over his arm, probably unloaded. “Who are you?”
“I should be asking you that Miss, this is my courtyard.”
He moved closer, walking into the light of her torch and she glared at him, aiming her Glock. He was taller than he had looked before, touching on six three, with workman's boots, old mud-stained trousers and a brown tweed waistcoat. His face was kind, with dull blue eyes that seemed to look into her, with a shadow of rough stubble on his chin.
“Tell me who you are or I'll shoot.” She warned him again, this time loading the barrel. She pushed herself back towards a wall with her good leg. “I'm not kidding around. How did I get here?”
“I'm Joseph Hughes, I own this land so why don’t you just explain who you are first and we’ll take it from there..”
“Where am I?” Gwen ignored his request.
“On my land, now tell me your name Miss, or I have a good mind to call the police and report you for trespassing.”
“Gwen.” She gave in. “Gwen Cooper.”
“That's a local sounding name all right, but you're not from around here. I would know your face.”
“You won't tell me where I am so how would I know if I'm from around here or not.”
“You look hurt.” Mr Hughes walked towards her cautiously and put his gun down on the ground, moving towards her. “I've put my gun down, so there's no reason to be scared.”
“I'm fine, now back up a little and keep your hands where I can see them.”
He stepped back a little bit and put his hands up as instructed. “Let me help you up. I'm not going to hurt you”
Gwen pointed the gun again. “I mean it, keep your distance!”
Owen led Tosh into the last room in the building; it looked different from the others. Where the rest were filled with scuttling rats, this one was empty save for a black spiral in the centre of the room around six feet in circumference. The door had been blown off its rusted hinges, and lay on the floor cracked and burnt out.
“This doesn't look good.” Toshiko crouched down in the middle of the room and scanned the black ring with her device. “It's loaded with radiation.”
“Harmful?”
“Not unless you do something stupid like lick it, or touch it. No, it's contained to this ring but it's high in radioactive properties.”
“Apart from the radioactive licorice in the middle of the room, and the door blown off its hinges does anything else strike you about this room, Tosh?”
“The lack of infestation?”
“Exactly.” He sighed and moved his torch around the room. “Whatever happened here, it was big enough to make rats run for their lives. Those things stick around to gnaw the toes off half-living Weevils, so it had to be something pretty scary to make them scarper.”
“So where are Jack and the others?”
“Not here evidentially.” He focussed his light on an open door at the opposite end of the room. “Looks like the rats weren't the only ones to scarper.” He sighed. “Nice of them to let us know, ey?”
Jack awoke to the sound of heavy breathing against his ear and a strange sound that he couldn't quite describe, like someone trying to eat something that they couldn't quite bite through. He could feel his coat being pulled away from him and a smell of old hay wafted in the cold breeze. Opening his eyes, Jack stared directly into the face of a large white horse chewing on his coat.
“Usually I love waking up with a stallion,” he groaned, wrestling it for his coat before standing up. “Today, I'm not so enthusiastic. Funny that.”
The horse bucked, raising onto his hind legs and let out a cry as he moved towards him; Jack backed away a little and grabbed the reins, pulling it back down, then stroked the length of his nose to calm it. The horse moved into the palm of Jack’s hand and closed his eyes.
“Have you seen anyone else around here?” Jack asked. “Cute guy with cheekbones that you could cut diamonds on and painfully good tailoring?” The horse looked at him and started to chew on the lapels of his coat again. “No? What about a woman then, huh? Dark hair, an air of fuck you, and a nice tasty leather jacket?” He pulled his coat out of the horse's mouth again. “Don't chew the coat.”
The horse looked at him, letting out a noisy breath from its nostrils.
“You're not a very observant witness,” Jack said. “Although I suspect that you would do anything for a carrot.”
The Captain took a deep breath and let go of the reins, patting the horse on the nose.
“Well if you see them tell them Jack was looking for them.” He started to walk away and then turned back. “But, here's a word of warning.” He pointed his finger at the horse. “Whatever you do, don't chew Ianto's Jacket -- that man's tailoring is not to be messed with. If you ruin the line of his suit he'll ruin you.”
The horse took a step back towards the other side of the stable and Jack wandered over to the door to open it. He took a deep breath and inhaled the air; wherever he was, it wasn't Cardiff city, at least not twenty-first century Cardiff city. The sky was black with a scattering of yellow stars and a clear crescent moon. He looked out into the darkness and spotted what looked like a farmhouse in the distance.
“Okay,” he sighed to himself. “I wonder if anyone's home.”
Jack walked out and closed the door firmly behind him, locking it to keep the horse safely inside. He made his way towards the courtyard that surrounded the building, looking around as he went. He stood still and listened to a sound in the distance; voices, two voices, and one of them very familiar.
“I don't know what it is that you think I'm going to do to you Miss, but I can assure you I'm not going to harm you.”
“You just keep back, you hear me mate? Keep back.”
Jack smiled a little and ran over towards the voices, almost slipping on the slippery stone as he tried to stop. He came face to face with him, offering his hand in an handshake.
“Captain Jack Harkness. Nice place you have here.” He shook the man's hand and pulled Gwen to her feet, putting his arm around her waist to support her. “You okay?”
“Took you long enough, didn’t it?”
“You know me, I like to make a dramatic entrance.”
“Are you two together?” Joseph asked, relaxing a little.
“She's a little bit jumpy. We had a bit of a confrontation with a scary fellow a few days ago and ever since she's been a little bit defensive.”
“I see.”
“She's a harmless little kitten really.”
“Kitten?” Gwen snapped her neck to look at him. “Who the hell are you calling a--”
“She’s just jumpy.” Jack nudged her in the side. “Certainly nothing to be scared of.”
“You need to keep your woman under control, sir,” he said.
“Under--” Gwen started to speak, but Jack nudged her in the side again.
“I will.”
“Be on your way,” Joseph said.
“Look, clearly she's hurt. Would you be kind enough to let us come inside?” Jack asked. "Just for a moment until I see whether she needs a Doctor.”
“That thing.” Mr. Hughes pointed to the gun that she was holding. “What is it?”
“It's nothing,” Jack said. "Just something she bought it in the city. I told her it was no good but she insisted and you know what ladies are like; they see something pretty and they just have to have it.”
“Right.” Joseph looked at them with suspicion, but broke into a smile. “Follow me.”
Mr. Hughes led the way to the house and Jack started to follow, helping Gwen along. He grabbed the gun and put it in his pocket. “You had better not wave this thing around, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“No idea. I think the more important question is--”
“When are we?”
“Exactly.”
“Any guesses?” Gwen groaned as she hopped alongside Jack.
“Judging by his reaction and the way he's dressed, somewhere between the nineteenth century and the mid twentieth.”
“Well that's specific!” She scalded in a whisper. “How am I meant to get home? I told Rhys that I would be back tonight. He's making Indian and everything.”
“Calm down, Tosh will sort it. Technically you're not even born yet, so you can't be late home. I'm sure your curry will be still warm when you get there.”
“We're trapped in God only knows what century in the middle of nowhere, with a guy in a Tweed hat who seems to think that I'm some damsel in distress that needs controlling. I will not calm down.”
“Why can’t you do as I say, just this one time because you're really not helping things here.”
“Well excuse me for being just a little concerned about going back in sodding time!”
“Have you seen Ianto?” Jack asked suddenly, losing track of the conversation.
“I thought he must be with you.”
Jack stopped and darted his eyes around the courtyard, scanning the land with his eyes. “He has to be here somewhere.”
“Come on!” Joseph called. “The rain is holding off, but I can smell it in the air. We need to get her inside before she gets a chill on her chest.”
“Has there been anyone else pass through here tonight?” Jack asked, hurrying Gwen towards Joseph. “A young man, about--”
“No. Nobody passes through here, you're the first people we've seen in weeks.”
“It's important that I find him.”
“Do you want to come inside or not?”
“I need to find him,” Jack said desperately. "He's like a brother to me.”
“Alright.” Joseph stopped and turned towards Jack. “We’ll get her inside away from the cold. I'll wake my daughter and ask her to sit with her, then we'll come back out and find him.”
“Thank you.”
“We can't just leave them!” Toshiko shouted as they walked towards the SUV.
“They're not here.”
“They have to be!”
“They're not.” Owen opened the door to the vehicle and sat the driver's seat, turning to look at her. “There are no human heat signals in there, the alien do-hickey's are nowhere to be seen and we're searched the place over and over several times. Tosh, they're not there.”
“Then where are they?”
“Well they've either gone to the pub for a pint, which is highly unlikely, or something has happened to them.”
“Maybe the signal led them somewhere else?”
“No.” Owen shook his head defiantly. “Jack would not leave, not without telling us. If they're not inside and they're not here then something has happened.”
“Maybe they're just in a no coverage area.”
“This is Torchwood. People in Torchwood disappear; they get eaten, or sucked into the rift, or involved in something that you couldn't even dream of happening outside of Scooby Doo or Buffy the Vampire slayer. Expect the unexpected Tosh, because nine times out of ten you can't predict what's going to happen.”
“So what do we do?”
“We get back to the hub.”
“Okay.” Tosh gave up and ran around to the other side, getting in just in time for Owen to drive off.
“We need a plan.”
“I can check the rift monitor when we get back to see if there's been any recent spikes in the area. The worst case scenario is that they've slipped through and if that has happened then the monitor program should tell us when.”
“Then what?”
“Then I figure it out from there. I can check for Jack's wrist device signal and see what I find.”
“That's the best plan you've got?” Owen asked. “You search for his signal?”
“It's the only plan I've got.”
“And what's your plan B?”
“I don't have one.”
PART 4