Torchwood/Dr Who - fic - The Torchwood Girls, Part 12, Jack, Joan, OCs, Harriet, PG-13/12
Part of this was posted a while ago, as "Midnight At The Lost and Found", I've shared some of the bit where a character dies and the art has also been previously posted. Please note, this part is rather dark.
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 12
Author - laurab1
Characters - Jack (x2), Joan Redfern, OCs, Harriet Derbyshire
Rating - PG-13/12 for semi-graphic character death, PTSD symptoms, and some language
Length - approx 1570 words
Spoilers - TW: general series, 2.3 To The Last Man, DW: to 3.11-13
Summary - Late in 1917, Sopwith Camels are delivered to Jack and his men. At the Battle of Cambrai, in November and December, Number Three finally becomes a fighter squadron.
Disclaimer: alas, not all of these people are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
Part 1, including art (original version)
Part 2 (original version)
accompanying art by _medley_
Part 3 (original version)
Part 4 (original version)
Part 5 (original version)
accompanying art
Part 6 (original version)
Part 7 (original version)
Part 8 (original version)
Part 9 (original version)
Part 10 (original version)
Part 11
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 12
One night, in March 1917, Jennifer’s investigating. With the vicious wire cutters, she once again cuts the length of metal in half, then aims the pen-like... thing at the pieces. Once again, the device, with a cone enclosed in a circle on the end, welds the two halves of the half inch wide titanium rod back together.
With no join. How on Earth did that work?
And this wasn’t the only thing it had done.
Amy had pressed something on it, and dragged several bats from their roost, and into the Hub. Jennifer had happened upon Penny... exploring its vibration capacities. And had backed out of the lab rather quickly. This device... Well, none of them had any idea what it was.
“We need help,” Jennifer announces, striding up to Joan and Eleanor, pen thing in one hand, length of titanium in the other. “Any ideas?”
There’s several minutes’ silence, then Eleanor grins. “Yes,” she says. “Bloody smart girl, St Hilda’s, I think, reading physics, don’t know how you and Jack missed her, Joan --”
“Eleanor,” Joan says, cutting her off, “get to the point, dear, please.”
“Harriet Derbyshire,” Eleanor says, and plucks the device from Jennifer’s hand. “Let’s go to Oxford and ask her opinion, Joan.”
***
Harriet recognises Eleanor immediately, and is sure she saw Joan wandering around once, accompanied by a handsome gentleman in a greatcoat.
“That would be our... captain,” Joan says. “Harriet, we’d like your opinion on this.” She hands the device to the physics student.
“What is it?” Harriet asks.
“No idea,” Eleanor says. “Just fell out of the... sky. We can’t categorise it. At all.”
Harriet raises an eyebrow. “Would that be a metaphorical sky, ma’am? And who precisely would the ‘we’ be?”
Joan and Eleanor look at each other, and nod.
And pointedly ignore the second question. “Yes,” Eleanor replies, “it would be, Harriet Derbyshire. Now, see if you can tell us anything about it.”
***
Later, Harriet agrees with Eleanor and Joan that the thing really does carry out all the functions they’d demonstrated and detailed.
“How should that even be possible?” Joan asks.
“I’d assume that it’s meant to perform a wide variety of functions,” Harriet says. “Did you not ascertain that?”
And, well, yes, they could have, but the world being what it was at the moment, common sense seemed to disappear, sometimes. “No. We did not,” Joan admits, looking at Eleanor, silently asking a question.
Eleanor nods at her, mouths, “Yes.”
Joan pulls a card from her coat pocket, hands it to Harriet. “How would you like to do more of this sort of thing?”
“Torchwood,” Harriet reads.
“That’s us,” Eleanor says.
Harriet grins. “I would love do more of this sort of thing.”
***
To Harriet Derbyshire’s credit, she does put up a fight and demand an explanation when a familiar American gentleman in unfamiliar clothing... shimmers into sight, one night, a few weeks after she starts.
He winces. “Damn. Hurts like hell, with no capsule.”
“Sir?”
Captain Jack Harkness smiles at her, closes a flap on what she knows is the Vortex Manipulator, strapped to his wrist, rather than Joan’s, and looks at the device on her desk. “There it is! Might even finally get to buy him that drink, if I bring this back.” He picks it up.
“Sir,” Harriet warns, as she suspects she should not acknowledge that she recognises him. “I do not believe that is necessarily yours to take.”
“He’d say just the same thing,” the man replies, grinning, all perfect white teeth. “See ya, gorgeous. Thanks for this.” He takes her hand and kisses her on the knuckles, very quickly, before disappearing again.
Harriet is left more than a little stunned.
***
The next morning, it doesn’t take long to come up with a reasonable explanation for how Jack was in the Hub, when they know for a fact he was in Europe, flying planes. They can only conclude Harriet saw a younger, happier version of their captain, with a functioning Vortex Manipulator.
And clearly with his beloved Doctor.
***
The summer sees the entrance of the USA to the war. In July, George V changes the surname of the British Royal Family from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor.
***
Late in 1917, Sopwith Camels are delivered to Jack and his men. At the Battle of Cambrai, in November and December, Number Three finally becomes a fighter squadron. Not that the recon wasn’t important, because it was absolutely vital, but Jack’s pleased with these new aircraft.
A considerably better looking plane than the de Havilland or the Farman, the Camel’s a single seat fighter, armed with small bombs and a pair of Vickers machine guns. Cambrai’s the first battle that makes considerable use of tanks. Planes fly up and down the area on 18th and 19th of November to cover the sound of tanks on the move.
In the course of his final dogfight, of several such occurrences with Albatrosses, the German secures a rare victory when Jack’s Camel is hit. Seconds later, she’s ablaze. Then his flight suit’s on fire and his skin’s melting and he’s lost control of his plane.
It’s far too much like being tortured.
Which pulls up more old memories and more recent memories and all the loss and sheer bloody waste of this war and holding it together in front of his men and falling apart on his own...
With all that, his brain just freezes.
The Camel can’t fly very high, so Jack’s not that far from the ground. He could just throw himself out of the plane, and suffer the risk of dying on impact with the ground, instead. It would be considerably better than this, trapped in here. He’s burning to death, and hell, it bloody hurts.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jack tells his plane, and shortly, both of them are down. With the very last of his energy, he pulls himself out of the aircraft, and just lies on the ground.
With a swallowed, "Fu -" he falls gratefully into the darkness.
***
Voices cut into the dark, and Jack revives with a gasp. And his clothes sticking to his still healing skin. That's unpleasant.
"He's alive!" one says, but Jack can't quite see who's speaking. Sounds like an officer, though. "Get a medic, Stevens."
"Yes, Captain," a younger voice replies, and runs off. He doesn't sound much more than eighteen. Private, then.
Jack forces his eyes open; an army captain soon swims into sight. And he’s blond and blue-eyed and looks so much like Algy that Jack has to blink and swallow a couple of times. Taking in his surroundings, he can see he’s been dragged into an Allied trench. “Hi,” Jack rasps, using his hands to lever himself up to a sitting position. ”Colonel Jack Harkness, Number Three Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. But I guess you figured some of that. Got any water?”
“About bloody time you lot decided to show up!” the captain says, to Jack’s accent of choice.
Well, yeah. He has a point. But... “Hey, I volunteered for you lot in August of ’14! But I do apologise for the late arrival of the US to this fabulous party.” And the next one.
The captain laughs, and reaches into his uniform jacket. “Well, in that case, you can have some very fine scotch, Colonel Harkness. Captain Alistair Roberts, Guards Division.”
Jack accepts the offered hip flask, opens it and takes a sip, savouring the burn of the whisky. “How’s my girl, Captain Roberts?” he asks, handing it back.
“Extremely burnt, I’m afraid. We threw some dry earth on her, to put her out.” He hides the flask away again. “I thought that sort of thing wasn’t meant to happen to the Camels? And couldn’t you have bailed?”
“It’s not. I just got very unlucky.” If my brain hadn’t stopped working, yes.
“I’d say.” The captain lets Jack ignore the second question. He then fixes him with a far too familiar look, and he can easily hear the ‘stupid ape.’ “You were dead, Colonel. No pulse. And then there was a pulse.”
Jack swears under his breath. “Did the kid notice?”
“No, thank God.”
“Did you, Captain Roberts?” he says, hoping his meaning is implied.
“No, Colonel Harkness, I did not,” the captain replies, after a minute or so, giving Jack the negative answer he was expecting.
“Good man,” Jack tells him, trying to smile.
There’s the sound of running. The captain risks a look up at ground level, informing Jack, “Here’s Private Stevens, now, Colonel.”
***
The Royal Army Medical Corps doctor, Captain James Smith, 3rd Field Ambulance, checks Jack over, and pronounces him okay, if a little shaken up. He’s given a change of uniform, and under cover of darkness, driven back to the air base.
***
In another Sopwith Camel, and possibly against his better judgement, Jack undertakes a couple more successful bombing missions.
And then the nightmares start.
Added to that, Jack cuts himself from the rest of the squadron; his men are used to him being very tactile, and notice that he’s being less so. He doesn’t want to go back in the air, and he’s extremely easily startled. The squadron’s medic gives Jack a diagnosis of neurasthenia, and he’s shipped back to the UK for treatment and recuperation.
On the 23rd of November 1917, Jack’s admitted to the officers’ psychiatric hospital, Craiglockhart, in Edinburgh.
crosspost:
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
torchwoodgenfic
dwfiction
new_who
galactic_conman
john_joan
Teaspoon
Continue to Part 13
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 12
Author - laurab1
Characters - Jack (x2), Joan Redfern, OCs, Harriet Derbyshire
Rating - PG-13/12 for semi-graphic character death, PTSD symptoms, and some language
Length - approx 1570 words
Spoilers - TW: general series, 2.3 To The Last Man, DW: to 3.11-13
Summary - Late in 1917, Sopwith Camels are delivered to Jack and his men. At the Battle of Cambrai, in November and December, Number Three finally becomes a fighter squadron.
Disclaimer: alas, not all of these people are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
Part 1, including art (original version)
Part 2 (original version)
accompanying art by _medley_
Part 3 (original version)
Part 4 (original version)
Part 5 (original version)
accompanying art
Part 6 (original version)
Part 7 (original version)
Part 8 (original version)
Part 9 (original version)
Part 10 (original version)
Part 11
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 12
One night, in March 1917, Jennifer’s investigating. With the vicious wire cutters, she once again cuts the length of metal in half, then aims the pen-like... thing at the pieces. Once again, the device, with a cone enclosed in a circle on the end, welds the two halves of the half inch wide titanium rod back together.
With no join. How on Earth did that work?
And this wasn’t the only thing it had done.
Amy had pressed something on it, and dragged several bats from their roost, and into the Hub. Jennifer had happened upon Penny... exploring its vibration capacities. And had backed out of the lab rather quickly. This device... Well, none of them had any idea what it was.
“We need help,” Jennifer announces, striding up to Joan and Eleanor, pen thing in one hand, length of titanium in the other. “Any ideas?”
There’s several minutes’ silence, then Eleanor grins. “Yes,” she says. “Bloody smart girl, St Hilda’s, I think, reading physics, don’t know how you and Jack missed her, Joan --”
“Eleanor,” Joan says, cutting her off, “get to the point, dear, please.”
“Harriet Derbyshire,” Eleanor says, and plucks the device from Jennifer’s hand. “Let’s go to Oxford and ask her opinion, Joan.”
***
Harriet recognises Eleanor immediately, and is sure she saw Joan wandering around once, accompanied by a handsome gentleman in a greatcoat.
“That would be our... captain,” Joan says. “Harriet, we’d like your opinion on this.” She hands the device to the physics student.
“What is it?” Harriet asks.
“No idea,” Eleanor says. “Just fell out of the... sky. We can’t categorise it. At all.”
Harriet raises an eyebrow. “Would that be a metaphorical sky, ma’am? And who precisely would the ‘we’ be?”
Joan and Eleanor look at each other, and nod.
And pointedly ignore the second question. “Yes,” Eleanor replies, “it would be, Harriet Derbyshire. Now, see if you can tell us anything about it.”
***
Later, Harriet agrees with Eleanor and Joan that the thing really does carry out all the functions they’d demonstrated and detailed.
“How should that even be possible?” Joan asks.
“I’d assume that it’s meant to perform a wide variety of functions,” Harriet says. “Did you not ascertain that?”
And, well, yes, they could have, but the world being what it was at the moment, common sense seemed to disappear, sometimes. “No. We did not,” Joan admits, looking at Eleanor, silently asking a question.
Eleanor nods at her, mouths, “Yes.”
Joan pulls a card from her coat pocket, hands it to Harriet. “How would you like to do more of this sort of thing?”
“Torchwood,” Harriet reads.
“That’s us,” Eleanor says.
Harriet grins. “I would love do more of this sort of thing.”
***
To Harriet Derbyshire’s credit, she does put up a fight and demand an explanation when a familiar American gentleman in unfamiliar clothing... shimmers into sight, one night, a few weeks after she starts.
He winces. “Damn. Hurts like hell, with no capsule.”
“Sir?”
Captain Jack Harkness smiles at her, closes a flap on what she knows is the Vortex Manipulator, strapped to his wrist, rather than Joan’s, and looks at the device on her desk. “There it is! Might even finally get to buy him that drink, if I bring this back.” He picks it up.
“Sir,” Harriet warns, as she suspects she should not acknowledge that she recognises him. “I do not believe that is necessarily yours to take.”
“He’d say just the same thing,” the man replies, grinning, all perfect white teeth. “See ya, gorgeous. Thanks for this.” He takes her hand and kisses her on the knuckles, very quickly, before disappearing again.
Harriet is left more than a little stunned.
***
The next morning, it doesn’t take long to come up with a reasonable explanation for how Jack was in the Hub, when they know for a fact he was in Europe, flying planes. They can only conclude Harriet saw a younger, happier version of their captain, with a functioning Vortex Manipulator.
And clearly with his beloved Doctor.
***
The summer sees the entrance of the USA to the war. In July, George V changes the surname of the British Royal Family from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor.
***
Late in 1917, Sopwith Camels are delivered to Jack and his men. At the Battle of Cambrai, in November and December, Number Three finally becomes a fighter squadron. Not that the recon wasn’t important, because it was absolutely vital, but Jack’s pleased with these new aircraft.
A considerably better looking plane than the de Havilland or the Farman, the Camel’s a single seat fighter, armed with small bombs and a pair of Vickers machine guns. Cambrai’s the first battle that makes considerable use of tanks. Planes fly up and down the area on 18th and 19th of November to cover the sound of tanks on the move.
In the course of his final dogfight, of several such occurrences with Albatrosses, the German secures a rare victory when Jack’s Camel is hit. Seconds later, she’s ablaze. Then his flight suit’s on fire and his skin’s melting and he’s lost control of his plane.
It’s far too much like being tortured.
Which pulls up more old memories and more recent memories and all the loss and sheer bloody waste of this war and holding it together in front of his men and falling apart on his own...
With all that, his brain just freezes.
The Camel can’t fly very high, so Jack’s not that far from the ground. He could just throw himself out of the plane, and suffer the risk of dying on impact with the ground, instead. It would be considerably better than this, trapped in here. He’s burning to death, and hell, it bloody hurts.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jack tells his plane, and shortly, both of them are down. With the very last of his energy, he pulls himself out of the aircraft, and just lies on the ground.
With a swallowed, "Fu -" he falls gratefully into the darkness.
***
Voices cut into the dark, and Jack revives with a gasp. And his clothes sticking to his still healing skin. That's unpleasant.
"He's alive!" one says, but Jack can't quite see who's speaking. Sounds like an officer, though. "Get a medic, Stevens."
"Yes, Captain," a younger voice replies, and runs off. He doesn't sound much more than eighteen. Private, then.
Jack forces his eyes open; an army captain soon swims into sight. And he’s blond and blue-eyed and looks so much like Algy that Jack has to blink and swallow a couple of times. Taking in his surroundings, he can see he’s been dragged into an Allied trench. “Hi,” Jack rasps, using his hands to lever himself up to a sitting position. ”Colonel Jack Harkness, Number Three Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. But I guess you figured some of that. Got any water?”
“About bloody time you lot decided to show up!” the captain says, to Jack’s accent of choice.
Well, yeah. He has a point. But... “Hey, I volunteered for you lot in August of ’14! But I do apologise for the late arrival of the US to this fabulous party.” And the next one.
The captain laughs, and reaches into his uniform jacket. “Well, in that case, you can have some very fine scotch, Colonel Harkness. Captain Alistair Roberts, Guards Division.”
Jack accepts the offered hip flask, opens it and takes a sip, savouring the burn of the whisky. “How’s my girl, Captain Roberts?” he asks, handing it back.
“Extremely burnt, I’m afraid. We threw some dry earth on her, to put her out.” He hides the flask away again. “I thought that sort of thing wasn’t meant to happen to the Camels? And couldn’t you have bailed?”
“It’s not. I just got very unlucky.” If my brain hadn’t stopped working, yes.
“I’d say.” The captain lets Jack ignore the second question. He then fixes him with a far too familiar look, and he can easily hear the ‘stupid ape.’ “You were dead, Colonel. No pulse. And then there was a pulse.”
Jack swears under his breath. “Did the kid notice?”
“No, thank God.”
“Did you, Captain Roberts?” he says, hoping his meaning is implied.
“No, Colonel Harkness, I did not,” the captain replies, after a minute or so, giving Jack the negative answer he was expecting.
“Good man,” Jack tells him, trying to smile.
There’s the sound of running. The captain risks a look up at ground level, informing Jack, “Here’s Private Stevens, now, Colonel.”
***
The Royal Army Medical Corps doctor, Captain James Smith, 3rd Field Ambulance, checks Jack over, and pronounces him okay, if a little shaken up. He’s given a change of uniform, and under cover of darkness, driven back to the air base.
***
In another Sopwith Camel, and possibly against his better judgement, Jack undertakes a couple more successful bombing missions.
And then the nightmares start.
Added to that, Jack cuts himself from the rest of the squadron; his men are used to him being very tactile, and notice that he’s being less so. He doesn’t want to go back in the air, and he’s extremely easily startled. The squadron’s medic gives Jack a diagnosis of neurasthenia, and he’s shipped back to the UK for treatment and recuperation.
On the 23rd of November 1917, Jack’s admitted to the officers’ psychiatric hospital, Craiglockhart, in Edinburgh.
crosspost:
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
torchwoodgenfic
dwfiction
new_who
galactic_conman
john_joan
Teaspoon
Continue to Part 13