Human Rights (a crossover fic)
Hello! I'm new here (this community was recommended to me by some people over on the Safehouse Professionals community), and have a crossover fic to share :)
Title: Human Rights
Rating: PG-13
Word Count/Length: 10,754 words
Notes: Nothing explicit, but there are a few references to sex - nothing more racy than you'd find in Dr Who or LoM (and more tame than Torchwood).
Summary: A crossover with Torchwood, featuring the character of Jack Harkness and a few other Torchwood/Dr Who references. However, it's all about Sam.
The Prologue
“He looks like me!” exclaimed the man in the suit. “He looks like me.”
Seeing that he was becoming angry, the woman in the fur coat touched his arm gently. “Maybe we can do something about it...” She stared at him with a rather blank expression, a very slight frown crossing her forehead.
“Well, I suppose there are only so many configurations of a humanoid appearance...” he said thoughtfully. “Don’t worry my dear, we’ll just get rid of him.”
1
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘human rights’, gov?” sighed Sam Tyler, leaning against the door to the cell with his arms folded.
“This little scrote,” Gene Hunt spat, swinging his fist again, “aint human, Sam. Watch and learn.” He sharply yanked the prisoner’s head upwards, twisting his fingers in his hair. “What are you, scum?”
The man, a swarthy foreigner whose country of origin they had not yet determined, frowned for a moment. “I am Jago Princep of the Hive of Thirsolan, on the planet Kluj,” he said quietly.
Gene grimaced and hit him hard in the solar plexus, causing him to stagger backwards and crumple on the floor, struggling to breathe. “You don’t joke with Gene Hunt!” shouted the DCI.
“Maybe he’s telling the truth, gov,” Sam ventured, but he was not in time to prevent the prisoner from receiving a sharp kick to the ribs.
“Telling the truth?” Gene said. “Are you kidding me? He just told us he was a little green man from Mars.”
“Gov wait,” Sam said, putting a hand on his arm to prevent, or more likely to postpone, further violence. “There’s a place called Cluj in Romania, isn’t there? Isn’t that what he said? Maybe we should make some inquiries before we... question him again.”
Reluctantly, Gene stepped back. “Alright, Sam. But if you haven’t found out who he is and why he was found swinging a sword at a WI meeting in the next twenty-four hours, I’ll have to give him another beating.”
---
“Chris, I want you to look through the records for a Jago Princep.”
“Isn’t he some foreign bloke?” asked DC Skelton with a frown. “Why would he have form here?”
Sam sighed, an action he seemed to be performing a lot since he had arrived in 1973. “Just because it’s unlikely, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. You can’t exclude a line of enquiry because you feel like it. That’s not how being a good copper works.”
“So being a good copper is about spending hours in the records room?”
“No,” Sam said, steering Chris through the office door and into the corridor. “Being a good copper is about doing what you’re told by superior officers.”
As Chris headed sullenly towards the records room, Sam heard the ding of the lift arriving, and instinctively turned to see who was in it. The doors opened, revealing Annie standing beside a tall man in a long military coat. Annie had a suspiciously large grin on his face, and a healthy flush to her cheeks.
“Are you Gene Hunt?” the man asked in a strong American accent.
“No, this is DI Sam Tyler,” Annie said to him, before adding, “Captain,” with a giggle.
The American flashed a smile at her. “Thank you, Annie Cartwright. I think DI Tyler can take things from here, but maybe I’ll see you downstairs later.” He winked, and she walked away blushing.
“And who are you?” Sam asked, bristling at the man’s overdeveloped charm.
“Captain Jack Harkness,” he said, holding out a hand.
---
“This gentleman wants to see you, gov,” Sam said as he opened the door to Gene’s office.
Gene looked up from his copy of Just Jugs with an eyebrow raised. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things you read in here, Sammy boy,” he said, whistling.
“I was under the impression you bought it for the pictures, gov.”
“Er, hello,” Jack put in. “I hate to interrupt your male bonding, guys, but this is kind of urgent.”
“It didn’t look too urgent when you were flirting with Annie,” Sam whsipered.
“I’m sorry, Sam Tyler, I didn’t mean to step on your toes there. Now then, DCI Hunt, you’re the man I’m looking for. Can we talk?”
“And who exactly are you?” Gene asked, standing up and stubbing out his cigarette. “The military?”
“Not exactly, no. I’m with Torchwood.”
“Well we’re not interested in making a bloody film about modern policing!”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Torchwood isn’t a film studio. And this is very serious, so I’d appreciate it if you’d give me some help here. I want to speak to one of your prisoners.”
---
---
2
Gene, who generally did not like his territory being invaded by charming men in long coats, and especially American ones with chiselled jawlines, was very reluctant to allow Jack to see Jago Princep. He was just in the middle of a tirade concerning yanks who swan around thinking they own the place when Jack raised his hands in the air with a look of resignation.
“Are you giving up?” Gene asked suspiciously.
“No, but don’t you worry, Gene Hunt, it’s all fine. I’ll just go and get permission from your Superintendent.” His voice began to rise. “I only came here first because you were the arresting officer and I didn’t want to be rude! What is wrong with the 1970s?”
Sam watched as he turned with a swish of his coat and strode out of the office. Everyone in the outer room stopped their work for a few moments as they watched him pass by. There was something annoying about men who can command so much attention so easily.
“What the bloody hell is he up to, Sam?”
Sam shrugged. “No idea, gov. But I might go and ask him about Jago Princep. He must know something if he’s come here especially to see him.”
Before Gene could put any objection into words, Sam was out of the office and following in Jack’s footsteps. He needed to talk to him, but he wasn’t sure why. Just a little thought niggling at the back of Sam’s mind. Gene was shouting something as he walked away, but he did not stop to find out what.
---
“Wait a minute!” Sam called as Jack was about to disappear into the lift. He ran to catch up and joined him. “The Super’s on the next floor up.”
Jack raised an eyebrow and pushed the button marked ‘2’. After a few moments the lift lurched into action. “Why are you helping me?” Jack asked. Not that he would object to help from such a cute guy.
“Why do you want to speak to Jago Princep?” Sam retaliated, holding Jack’s gaze.
After a very short Mexican stand-off, Jack laughed, feeling a sort of affection for the stubborn DI. “I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you more. But Torchwood deals with... classified information.”
The lift gave a ding as it arrived at the next floor and the doors opened. They stepped out into a corridor that was very similar to that on the floor below. Sam pointed Jack to the Superintendent’s office without saying much more, but then he waited in the corridor. Ten minutes later, the frosted glass door opened again and Jack reappeared. He was amused but unsurprised to see Sam standing there.
“I really am sorry,” Jack said with a shrug of the shoulders. “I can’t tell you anything.”
“Will Princep talk to you?” Sam asked, following as Jack tried to walk away.
“I don’t know yet.”
“I think he’ll take one look at you and decide he can’t trust you. But he’s already spoken to me.”
Jack sighed and turned to look at Sam. “And I’m guessing you’re only going to tell me what he said if you can tag along.”
---
Jack looked through the peephole in the cell door, and saw with astonishment that Jago Princep was lying on the ground, bruised and battered. “What the hell happened to him?” he yelled at Sam, who recoiled slightly at the loudness of his voice. “What did you do to him?”
Sam looked down, embarrassed. In all the time he had been in 1973, no authoritative figure had ever complained about the mistreatment of a prisoner. Why was Jack Harkness different? He was reacting just the way Sam had done when he first arrived.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Jack asked through gritted teeth.
Sam very much wanted to reply that it wasn’t him, that Gene Hunt was the culprit, and if it were up to him no prisoner would ever get roughed up again. And he wanted to add that he didn’t even belong here. But something inside him saw Jack as the outsider, and Gene as the person he owed some loyalty to now, whatever his misgivings. “He was being difficult,” he mumbled in the end.
To Sam’s surprise, Jack was not willing to let it lie, and a few moments later he was holding him up against a wall by his wide 1970s collar. “You think it’s fine, don’t you? Well it isn’t. No being should be treated like this. What is it about the 1970s that has turned everyone into thugs?”
Being attacked physically finally made Sam see red, and he pushed Jack away with as much force as he could muster. “Look, don’t have a go at me,” he shouted. “I don’t even belong here!”
For a few moments they were both silent, and it would have seemed to an onlooker that they were about to fight. But instead they both smoothed down their ruffled clothing and turned towards the cell door again, an unspoken truce easing the tension.
---
Sam folded his arms grumpily as he waited in the corridor. Jack had insisted on going into the cell alone to speak to Jago Princep, so it seemed their brief partnership had ended before it has begun. Phyllis walked past to check on other prisoners.
“Who’s the yank then?” she whispered on her way back to the desk.
“Not now, Phyllis.”
“Fine then,” she huffed, walking away.
Just then, the cell door opened, and Jack came out frowning. He walked straight past Sam, following Phyllis to the front desk. “I don’t suppose you could do me a favour?” he said.
Phyllis turned round, surprised. “What do you want?”
“I’m worried about one of the prisoners - Jago Princep. Could you just keep an eye on him and make sure he’s OK?” He flashed a smile at her, the smile that usually got him what he wanted.
“Look, sunshine,” Phyllis said, putting a firm hand down on the counter. “I don’t know who you are, but your charms don’t work on me.”
Behind Jack, Sam laughed. “It’s alright, Phyllis, he’s with me. And I’d appreciate it if you look after Princep.”
Phyllis reluctantly nodded agreement.
---
“I guess I should thank you,” Jack said as he and Sam went outside to the steps at the front of the building.
“Did Princep say anything?”
Jack frowned. “You know he didn’t. He’s terrified. He’s never going to trust a human again.” He did not pause long enough for Sam to question his choice of words. “Did you really have nothing to do with his beating?”
“Look mate,” Sam sighed, “I don’t know where you’re from, but things are a bit rough here. I don’t like it, but it’s not going to stop because I complain.”
“It’s so easy to stand by and do nothing, isn’t it?” Jack said wistfully. “Anyway, you said you had something to tell me. So tell me.”
“I want to know who Jago Princep is. We think he’s from Romania, but we haven’t-“ Sam cut off abruptly because Jack had burst out laughing. “What is it?”
“It doesn’t matter. Look, just tell me what he said to you.”
“Well, it’s a bit weird, but he said he came from Cluj - that’s in Romania, isn’t it? But he called it the planet Cluj, and he said the place where he lived was a hive, and it was in Thirsolan or something. It didn’t make much sense.”
“Actually, it makes perfect sense. Thank you, Sam Tyler.” With that he gave Sam a pat on the back and set off down the steps. Before Sam had a chance to follow or call after him, a black Ford Cortina had pulled up, and Jack Harkness was driven away.
---
---
3
“Tyler, get in here!” was the bawled greeting that awaited Sam when he got back to the office. “Now!”
Sam went in to Gene’s room sullenly.
“Now tell me what the hell is going on,” Gene said before taking a swig from a hip flask. “Who’s that bloody yank?”
Sam shrugged, realising that he had not been acting like a police officer. He followed Jack Harkness because his instincts told him to, but he had failed to find answers to any of the questions he had. What was Torchwood? Who was Jack Harkness? Why was he interested in Jago Princep? And who exactly was Jago Princep?
“The bloody Super’s been down,” Gene continued. “He was preaching about how we have to help other organisations in their investigations. What the bloody hell is Torchwood?”
“All I know is that they deal in classified information, gov,” Sam said apologetically. “I know what organisations were working in the 1970s, so why have I never heard of them?”
“Classified bollocks,” Gene spat. “Go and see what you can find out, Sam. I don’t want bloody yanks interfering with proper police work.”
---
Sam had forgotten that he had banished Chris to the records room, but when he arrived there he was faced with a very grumpy DC sitting on the floor in the middle of several heaps of paper and cardboard files. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck with Princep then?” he asked half-heartedly.
“I haven’t found anything, gov,” Chris said. He threw another file sideways so that its contents almost spilled out and mingled with everything else.
“Well I hope you know how to put those back in order,” Sam said, horrified at the mess.
“Can’t we get one of the WPCs in to do that?”
“No, Chris, we can’t. You know what though?”
“What?”
“Women love a man who can tidy up, so I’d work on your skills.”
“Oh right, nice one!” Chris said, suddenly enthusiastic. Unfortunately his idea of tidying the mess he had created did not include sorting through the files and putting them into any sort of order, but Sam decided the DC’s further training in administrative duties could wait for a while.
Just as Sam was about to walk out, he turned back to Chris. “You haven’t seen anything about Torchwood while you’ve been going through files, have you?”
“Torchwood?” Chris repeated. “What’s that, a film studio?”
“Never mind,” Sam sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a computer with a broadband connection right now...”
Just then, there was a sound in the doorway. “Why?” asked an unmistakable voice. Sam turned to see Jack Harkness leaning against the open door. “What are you trying to find?”
Sam and Jack looked at each other questioningly, before Chris piped up. “What are you talking about?”
Jack looked down at the inundated DC, whom he had not at first noticed. A smile crept across his face. “And who are you?”
“Er, I’m Chris Skelton... sir.”
“Nice to meet you, Chris Skelton,” Jack grinned.
---
“What are you doing back here?” Sam hissed when he and Jack were alone in the corridor, Chris having been locked in the records room with his filing to do.
“You sound like you’re not happy to see me,” Jack said. “And yet somehow I get the impression that you wanted to find out information about Torchwood.”
“Can you blame me? Noone here has heard of Torchwood, but you swan in like you own the place, asking questions and not giving any answers.”
“You sound a bit like your DCI,” Jack smirked, but then his expression became serious. “Look, I think we need to talk. Here’s the deal: you take me to the place where you found Jago Princep, and maybe I’ll answer some of your questions.”
Since he was hardly in a position to argue, Sam nodded reluctantly. He consoled himself that making a small concession like this would not give Jack too much ground, but it might make the world of difference to him.
---
Half and hour later, Sam found himself sitting inside the black Ford Cortina he had seen earlier. Whoever had been driving it then had disappeared, and he and Jack were alone. They pulled up with a screech of the tyres outside a boarded up brick building in a street on the edge of town.
“It was just through there,” Sam said, pointing at an alleyway.
Jack got out, and Sam followed, and soon they emerged from the alleyway into an open piece of ground with yellowish weeds growing up between patches of rubble. Sam knew it well: it was the place where he had woken up in 1973.
Jack strode forward, and seemed to be looking at his watch intently. But when Sam got closer, he could see that it was not a watch, but some sort of small machine built into a wrist strap. It was emitting a pulsing red light whose frequency was changing as Jack moved around. Then he stopped somewhere near the middle of the open ground.
“It was here,” Jack said, pointing down to indicate the spot where he was standing. “This is where you found him?”
Sam frowned. “How do you know that? What’s that thing you’re wearing?”
Jack was silent for a moment, but then he decisively closed the flap on his wrist strap. “I think it’s time we did some talking, Sam Tyler.”
---
---
4
Sitting back in the black Cortina, Sam was feeling strangely upbeat, as though he was nearing some sort of resolution. “You know about the internet,” he said firmly as Jack got in.
Jack sighed. “I think it’s more remarkable that you know about the internet. You’re not from round here, Sam Tyler. So where are you from? Or more importantly, when are you from?”
“I’m from 2006,” Sam said, turning to look Jack straight in the eye. There was no point in holding back when he could see that Jack knew about the future. “I was hit by a car, and then I wake up here. I don’t know how or why.” He put a hand on Jack’s arm, suddenly feeling a great surge of emotion sweep over him. “Do you understand? Can you help me?”
For a few moments Jack said nothing at all, but then he took a small implement out from his coat pocket. It was shaped like a pen, but was making a rhythmic beeping noise. He held it up to Sam’s face. “Just keep still for a minute,” he said quietly, moving the device up and down. The beeping became very loud.
“Well?”
Jack turned the device off and returned it to his coat pocket. “You’re sizzling with residual Rift energy, Sam Tyler. Do you ever black out unexpectedly? Maybe have hallucinations?”
“I...” Sam thought. “Yes, sort of. Well, I think so. I thought the images I was seeing were trying to... I don’t know, reconnect me with the future in some way. I thought I’d been hit by the car and was in a coma, and my mind had ended up in 1973...” He trailed off, knowing he sounded crazy. “Wait a minute, what exactly is Rift energy?”
“It might take a while to explain,” Jack said after a moment. “Look, I know you want to sort this out, but I have a tight schedule. I need to get Jago Princep back to my base as quickly and quietly as possible. But if you help me with that, then I’ll help you with your problem. Alright?”
“And where’s your base?” Sam asked.
“Cardiff.”
Before Sam could raise an objection, Jack had started the engine and was embarking on his plan.
---
When Sam and Jack arrived back at the station, there was some sort of commotion going on. Phyllis was scribbling something down while the telephone receiver was jammed between her chin and her shoulder, and she was shouting to Annie at the same time. Annie was being helped by another PC to bundle a shifty-looking man into the cells.
They were going to walk past and go up to CID when Phyllis beckoned Sam over. “We let that Princep bloke go,” she whispered, now pressing her palm over the telephone mouthpiece.
Jack turned with a look of astonishment. “What?”
“Take it up with DCI Hunt!” Phyllis hissed. “Can’t you see I’m a bit busy here?”
Jack pushed past some PCs and ran up the stairs, with Sam close behind him.
---
As Jack and Sam burst into Gene’s office, they found him poring over a case file with a cigarette in his hand. “Gov,” Sam asked, his voice urgent, “where’s Princep?”
“Let him go with a caution,” Gene said dismissively, barely looking up.
Jack smashed his fists down on the desk. “Why?” he demanded. “Where is he?”
“Are you questioning police authority?” Gene stood and squared up to Jack. “He waved a sword about a bit, so we gave him a caution. The cells were full, there was no point in keeping him there.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Jack said, exasperated. “Jago Princep was terrified after you gave him a beating! He thinks everyone has it in for him, and next time he has access to a weapon he’ll probably kill with it. Well done, Gene Hunt. That’s a fantastic way of protecting the people.”
“Look,” Gene growled, coming round the desk to stand face to face with Jack. “Don’t you bloody come in here shouting the odds, nancy boy. This is my city, and people feel safe because I take care of them and keep real criminal bastards off the street!”
Just as Gene’s voice hit the peak of its crescendo, Jack lunged at him, unable to restrain himself any longer. But Sam got hold of Jack by the shoulders, preventing his fist from making contact with Gene’s face. “Get off me!” Jack yelled, twisting out of his grasp.
“Don’t you think finding Princep is more important than defending your ego?”
Jack stopped and looked at Sam. He was right, and there was no denying it. He turned and stalked out of the office.
Before Sam could follow, Gene clasped his shoulder. “If you take his side over this,” he said in a low voice, “you’ll be back on the next train to Hyde faster than you can say ‘Britt Ekland’s knickers’.”
Sam shrugged his hand off. “Yeah, well maybe that’s what I want.”
---
---
5
“Phyllis, how long ago did you let Princep go?” Sam asked, pushing in front of a PC who was trying to make a half-dressed woman in high heels give her details.
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed in between scribbling down notes into a large black book on the desk and telling the person on the other end of the telephone to hold on. “Twenty minutes maybe? Why?”
Before that question could be answered, Jack and Sam were out of the door and racing down the steps at the front of the station. “He can’t have gone far!” Sam said breathlessly as they reached the Cortina.
Jack turned to him. “I’m sorry, Sam Tyler. It’s been fun, but you can’t tag along this time. Too dangerous.”
Sam shook his head in disbelief, but then he just pushed past him and opened the car door. “I’m a police officer, I already have a dangerous job. Now get in, or we’ll lose him.”
Jack could not help smiling as he obeyed, albeit reluctantly.
---
For an hour, Jack and Sam drove around the area of Manchester that was close to the police station. They stopped frequently, asking people on the street if they had seen someone of Princep’s description. But nobody had.
Just when it seemed as though they might as well give up, something ran out in front of the car, causing Jack to cry out and bring the Cortina to a sudden, jolting stop. They both leapt out and found that a middle-aged woman was standing in the road, inches in front of the car, shivering in fright. Before they could ask her if she was alright, she started screaming. “Blood!” she cried. “Blood!” Then she gave a strange sort of wail and threw her arms around Sam before continuing to sob on his shoulder.
“You have a way with women,” Jack said, flashing a quick grin before his face became serious again. “Did she say ‘blood’?”
“I think she did.” Sam tried to dislodge the woman from his shoulder and catch her eye. “Madam, are you alright? What blood are you talking about?”
Her voice and body shook as she spoke. “So much blood... those poor people!”
“What people?” Jack asked, putting his hand on her arm and trying to turn her towards him. “You have to tell us - what people? Where?”
She just gaped at him, unable to say any more. But she pointed at a tall building that was visible over the top of the houses in the street.
Jack broke into a run almost instantaneously, and Sam cursed. He was shadowing a gung-ho American, he had no quick way of calling for back-up because he had no radio with him, and something was about to kick off. He ran after Jack, stopping only to shout to a boy playing in the street. “Go and get an adult to call the police, and tell them DI Tyler said to send two cars round to the old warehouse on Neville Street!”
The boy looked bemused, but saw how serious Sam was and went into his house to carry out the strange man’s orders. If he could quite remember them.
---
“This way!” Sam whispered as they approached the building. He pointed towards a door that was slightly ajar.
Jack slid a pistol of some sort out of his inside pocket and put his hand gently on Sam’s shoulder. “I’ll go first,” he said softly. Feeling Sam’s muscles tense, and realising he was about to argue, he put a finger to Sam’s lips. “Don’t question it. Just let me go first.”
Speechless, Sam stood back to let him go past.
As they went inside, it took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then a terrible image began to appear. On the floor, six or seven bodies lay sprawled, their limbs at unnatural angles, their hair and clothes dripping with blood. White faces stared into space with dead eyes.
“Oh God,” Sam whispered, covering his mouth with his sleeve. It was all he was able to say as the smell of blood made his stomach heave.
Jack, meanwhile, was already picking his way through the corpses, making for the other side of the room. Sam realised then that there was an open doorway there, in the dark, and went after him, gingerly stepping over arms and legs.
---
The doorway led into a short passage, and at the end of that was another, smaller room. A candle flickered in the corner, illuminating a bundle of cloth on the floor. On the darker side of the room, Sam could see Jack kneeling on the floor, and behind him Jago Princep was standing with a long, thick blade in his hand.
Sam instinctively put his hands in the air. “Mr Princep, why don’t you put the weapon down?” he said gently, edging forward a little.
Princep hissed in a way that sounded more reptilian than human. “What is wrong?” he asked, his voice strangely calm, even polite.
Before Sam could say anything else, Jack spoke up. “He’s not like us, Sam. Where he comes from, killing isn’t a crime, it’s just normal.”
“Quiet,” Princep said, so firmly that even Jack was cowed into silence. “I like this world, I think,” he continued wistfully. “So many different creatures, so many different types of liquid. This blood that you have, it is quite a delicacy. And this one” - he put a hand on Jack’s shoulder - “he smells very tasty.”
“Look, Mr Princep,” Sam said, his voice wavering. He had some sort of nutter here, and negotiating with him looked like it would be difficult. Perhaps that was what Torchwood was, he thought - some sort of high security facility for people who were disturbed or violent. Perhaps that was how Jack was going to help him, having played along with his time travel fantasy...
Before Sam could utter another word, a chilling look crossed Princep’s eyes, and he raised the sword in the air. Sam shouted, but to no avail. A moment later, the blade was protruding from the back of Jack’s neck.
Just then, there was a bang behind Sam.
---
---
6
Gene was standing in the doorway, the smoke from his gun highlighted by the flickering candle in the nearby corner. “Bastard,” he spat.
Sam realised that he must have seen the carnage in the outer room, and remembering those pale bodies made him angry. First those innocent people had died, and now Jack, the only man who could have helped him... Before he knew it, Sam was striding towards Gene, and he grabbed him by the collar. “You could have stopped this!”
Gene pushed him away roughly. “No I bloody couldn’t!”
“You let him go, just to spite me!”
“No!” Seeing that Sam was refusing to listen, Gene pushed him up against the wall and pinned his arms there. “Just bloody listen to me, Tyler! I couldn’t have stopped him, because that wasn’t Jago Princep!”
Sam blinked. “What?”
---
---
7
“It must have been his twin brother or something,” Gene said.
“Gov, if you’re lying to me...”
“For crying out bloody loud, Tyler, go and have a look at him if you don’t believe me! Jago Princep was black and blue when he left the station. And he was still black and blue when we arrested him half an hour ago.”
Sam rubbed his face with his hands, trying to work out what had happened. He had been so sure that it was Princep who killed Jack. He looked like him, he sounded like him, he wore the same clothes. But Gene had to be right, because he bore no bruises. “I don’t understand,” he whispered.
Sam and Gene both went to have a closer look at the body, which was lying a couple of feet behind that of Jack. Whoever it was, he was clearly dead, and Gene called in uniform to deal with the corpse before going back to the other room, where Chris and Ray were looking decidedly green and trying to avoid eye contact with the dead victims.
Sam was left alone, and knelt down by Jack’s body. He had been so full of life, so loud and confident, but now here he lay, cold and silent. Sam felt for a pulse half-heartedly, knowing there was no use in it. And there was none to be found. He stood and turned away, unable to bear looking at him.
Just then, he heard a gasp.
---
“You... you can’t... you’re dead!” Sam exclaimed.
“Oh, do I look dead, Sam Tyler?” Jack said quietly, wincing as he tried to get up.
Sam tried to help, but then stopped dead. A handle was still protruding from the back of Jack’s neck, and the rest of the blade must have been buried in his torso.
“Don’t try to move!”
Jack ignored him and clambered to his feet, and then tried to get a purchase on the sword. “Do you think you could help me pull this out?” he asked his speechless companion. “Because it kind of hurts.”
“No!” Sam gasped, staring at Jack as if he was mad. “You’ll have to go to hospital, you’ve been unconscious, and if you pull that out it might-“
At that moment, Jack managed to get his hands around the handle, and he proceeded to slide the blade slowly upwards and out of his body. He grunted as he did it, his lungs too weak just then to cry out more forcefully. When it was out, he handed it to Sam and sank to his knees.
“Are you alright?” Sam asked, kneeling down next to him. “Can you breathe properly?” Jack just nodded. “You must have been out for a good ten minutes there.”
“Didn’t you even try to take my pulse?” Jack whispered, looking into Sam’s eyes.
“Yeah, but I was in shock, I didn’t...” Sam trailed off when he saw the expression on Jack’s face, an eyebrow raised in disbelief. “Hang on, you’re not saying you were...”
“Dead.” Jack finished for him. “I thought you of all people might have caught on a bit quicker!”
---
Sam was helping Jack to stand as Gene re-entered the room. “Oh,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”
Now feeling much better, Jack laughed and clapped Gene on the shoulder. “I didn’t know you cared, big boy.”
“Call me big boy again and you will bloody be dead,” Gene hissed, and Jack raised his hands and feigned an innocent look.
“Alright,” Sam said with a sigh, wanting to avoid the confrontation that was brewing. “We’ve got a massive clean-up operation to put into action, and we’ll have to question Princep. Shall we get started?”
---
---
8
Leaving uniform with the task of identifying bodies and contacting relatives, Gene led Jack, Sam, Chris and Ray outside and they headed back to the station.
It was not long before Princep was sitting in the lost property office waiting to be interviewed, and the others were standing outside in the corridor arguing.
“I’m sorry, Gene, but I can’t let you be in the interview.”
“This is my bloody prisoner!”
“Do you really want me to go over your head again?” Jack asked with a sigh.
“You just try it...” Gene growled, squaring up to him.
“Will you two stop it now?” Sam put in. “Look, I don’t know how Torchwood works, but this might be a dangerous criminal and we’re standing out here having a machismo contest! Jack, will you let me come into the interview?”
Initially, Jack was reluctant. But perhaps taking Sam in with him would be the best way of getting Gene off his back. Besides, considering the plans he had for Sam, and what Sam had already seen, it would hardly matter if he were present now. “OK,” he said at last.
Gene was far from appeased, but Sam took him aside for a moment. “He already trusts me. If you back down now, we might find out more in the long run.”
Gene frowned. “You mean you’ll spy on him? It’s not very manly, is it?” Ray and Chris nodded in consensus.
---
Princep’s face was puffy and bruised from the beating Gene had given him, and it was hardly surprising that he was unwilling to speak. Nevertheless, Jack was insistent, and a halting dialogue began to take place as Sam watched.
“We found another one of you,” Jack said.
That made Princep’s eyes light up for the first time. “Another?”
“Oh yes. But what I want to know is how many more of you there might be.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. What was Jack thinking? That Princep had several brothers?
Princep just shrugged. “Which of us have you met?”
“I don’t know his name,” Jack said after a slight delay.
“Because he’s already dead,” Princep finished for him. “He would not hide his name if her were not.”
Jack leaned forward, suddenly angry. “He killed some of our men and women, it was bound to happen. How many times do I have to tell you people that you need to act differently in this world? It isn’t the same as yours.”
Sam frowned, and nudged Jack with his elbow. “Can I have a word?”
---
Jack and Sam were alone in the corridor, but Jack insisted on speaking in a whisper. “What’s wrong? He’s opening up, we can’t lose momentum!”
Sam shook his head. “What exactly are you saying Princep is? An alien?”
Jack put his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “Look, I realise this is difficult for you. You’re only just finding out these things, and it all seems strange and scary and new. But please, Sam, we don’t have time to spare right now. I’ll explain everything later, I promise.”
Reluctantly, Sam nodded. “Later,” he said firmly.
---
For a while, Princep clammed up. Jack asked over and over again whether there were more, whether there was a breeding programme, whether a settlement had sprung up anywhere. The questions puzzled Sam, who contributed little to the conversation for a long time.
Eventually, when Jack was leaning back in his seat in frustration, Sam decided to speak up. “Why did your... brother... kill those people?”
Princep rolled his eyes. “Why should he not?”
“Because it’s wrong!” Sam exclaimed, flustered. “They were people - just like you, whatever world you come from. They had lives, and now they’ve got loved ones who miss them.”
Princep shrugged slowly. “Do you eat meat?”
Sam blinked. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Do you kill animals and eat them? Or have others kill your animals for you to eat?” Silence ensued, and Princep continued. “Why is that different?”
Sam was lost for a few moments. Was he really debating ethics with an alien? Should he continue with some philosophical argument? Could he make the Princep see the error of his people’s ways? Would it be best to ignore it, rather than acknowledging Princep with a counter-argument?
In the end, Jack saved him from the decision. “We need to talk,” he whispered. “Outside.”
---
---
9
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you in there,” Jack sighed. “Do you really think it’s a good idea arguing with him like that?”
“He thinks it’s alright to kill,” Sam hissed. “Aren’t we supposed to argue?”
“The Thirsolanians are a philosophical race, Sam. If your argument is weak, they’ll take it as confirmation of their own position. They’ll hold their own beliefs more strongly because you argued with them.”
Whether or not this was reasonable, it frustrated Sam, and he just held his hands in the air. “Fine. Whatever. So why exactly am I bothering to sit in on this interview then?”
Jack shrugged and gave a smile that was not unkind. “You asked to sit in. But anyway, he’s not going to say much more now. I’ll take him back to my base, and we’ll continue his questioning there.”
---
“He can’t bloody do that, this is my case!” Gene bellowed when Sam told him the news. Ray and Chris were standing close by, amused by the situation.
“This is special, gov,” Sam protested weakly. “If you found a spy, you wouldn’t object to MI5 coming in and taking them away, would you?”
“That’s different. And anyway, what exactly did you find out about Torchwood while you were ‘undercover’?” Gene swathed the last word in a particularly sarcastic tone.
Sam looked down, a little sheepish. Was he supposed to say that Torchwood investigate aliens? Gene would think he was even more mad than usual. “Not much, gov. It’s all classified information.”
“Classified information? What kind of spy are you?” That elicited a chuckle from Ray and Chris. “You’re about as much use as my deaf aunt Mabel’s telephone.”
---
Phyllis was out of breath by the time she got to CID, and she had Jack in tow. As they came into the large office, Gene ignored the former and was very close to swinging his fist at the latter.
“Phyllis, what’s up?” Sam asked, seeing her urgency.
“There’s something... kicking off in Canal Street,” she panted. “Some guy who looks... like that Princep you had in.”
Jack was now standing behind her with his eyebrows raised, and Gene turned to him. “Hadn’t you better get over there, pretty boy? It sounds like your territory. I know you don’t want real police officers getting in your way.”
For a moment Jack said nothing, and everyone in the room could feel the tension humming in the air. But then Jack broke into a wide and sincere grin. “Actually, I can’t do this all by myself. I need your expertise, Gene Hunt.”
Gene seemed unsure what to do at first, but then he gave a nod. “Well, it’s about time you trusted the Gene Genie, Harkness. Watch how proper policemen operate.” Feeling satisfied that he had got one over on Jack, he then turned to Phyllis. “Send uniform over there and we’ll be right behind them. Chop chop, we’ve got criminals to catch!”
---
When Gene pulled up sharply near the fracas, uniform were already there and there had already been deaths. Two men, apparently identical in every respect right down to their clothes, and identical also to Princep and his ‘brother’, were standing back to back and holding what looked like pieces of scaffolding. One of them beat his piece of metal against his hand to make a hollow smacking sound. Around their feet were three bodies, one of which was still twitching.
As he got out of the car, Chris whistled. “What are they, quadrupeds?” he said, frowning.
“Quadruplets,” Sam said, distracted. He turned to Jack. “But they’re not are they?”
Jack, who had come in his own car but was now standing with the others, leaned close to Sam and spoke very quietly. “As far as everyone else is concerned, they are.”
---
---
10
Two members of uniform had circled round the back of the two new Princeps, and Annie was one of them. When Sam saw her there, he felt a hollow fear in the pit of his stomach - whatever these aliens were, they were lightning fast, and ruthless. Jack had somehow come back from the dead, but Annie would not have that luxury.
“Don’t worry, Sam,” Gene whispered, showing an uncanny and previously unknown receptiveness to Sam’s feelings. He gestured to his pocket, where he kept a pistol.
When Jack saw the half-spoken exchange, he put a hand gently on Gene’s arm. “If you can keep them alive, it’ll be big for Torchwood,” he said softly, trying to sound unthreatening. “You might even be heading for a commendation...”
Gene turned on him, with an urgent look in his eyes. “If they come quietly,” he hissed, “they’ll stay alive. But if they harm so much as one hair on anyone’s head, they’ll be bloody dead quicker than you can say-”
“Britt Ekland’s knickers,” Chris sniggered, before he was elbowed quite painfully in the stomach by Ray, who had some idea that the situation was serious.
---
A short while later, Gene decided it was time to make contact, and took a step towards the Princeps. “Come quietly, lads!” he shouted with as much subtlety as he could muster, which was very little. “You’re surrounded by armed bastards!”
One of the Princeps turned to face him. “We know your intentions,” he said calmly, in a clear voice. “Let us go.”
“That’s not how it works, you murdering scumbags! Put down your weapons and surrender!”
Just at that moment, Annie and her colleague, a PC called Marvin, launched themselves at the Princeps. All four of them were knocked, sprawling, to the ground.
“Annie!” Sam shouted, starting forward. He could not make out what was happening in that tangle of limbs, but he was going to if it killed him. But just then he felt someone strong restraining him from behind. “Get off me, Jack!” he hissed, squirming.
“Be quiet!” snapped the voice in his ear. It was not Jack, but Gene. “Do you want them to fillet her alive?”
Sam calmed himself and stopped struggling.
---
“Good man,” Jack whispered, genuinely impressed that Gene was prepared to handle the situation sensibly. Before he could say any more, he was silenced by a scream.
One of the ‘brothers’ was now holding Annie tight with a hand around her throat, while Marvin was sinking to the floor and looking down in disbelief at the broken piece of scaffolding that was protruding from his abdomen.
The Princep who no longer had his hands full turned to those watching with a defiant look. “We will drink your woman’s blood unless you let us go,” he said simply.
---
---
11
“Gov, we have to negotiate with them!” Sam whispered.
“Negotiate?” Gene repeated with disdain. “Negotiating is for pansies, Sam.”
To their surprise, it was one of the Princeps who answered. “There is not time for you to get pansies. You must negotiate now, or she will die.”
“What’s he on about?” Chris murmured, to be greeted by a ‘Shhhh!’ from everyone present.
“How can he have heard me?” Gene said, bewildered. “I was whispering!”
“You have a whisper like a foghorn,” Jack replied quietly, intending that only Gene heard his quip.
Again, it was one of the Princeps who spoke in answer. “Stop talking now,” he said firmly and calmly. “Or your woman will die.”
---
Sam looked round to see why Jack was fumbling in his pocket, and realised he was pulling out a small leather wallet. Jack beckoned to him to come closer, and flipped the wallet open to reveal a white piece of paper where you might expect a photo or a credit card to be. Sam gave Jack a quizzical look, but Jack just gestured down at the paper, where words had begun to appear.
They can hear our whispers.
Sam was about to ask how Jack had written it without him seeing, but the paper pre-empted his question.
It’s psychic paper...
Just accept it, you can be amazed later.
Think what you want to say.
Jack handed the wallet to Sam, who stared incredulously as his thoughts began to appear in writing.
What the **** is this? Jack is crazy. It censors swearing? This isn’t happening.
With a half smile, Jack took the wallet back.
Yes, I am, and it does - standard Time Agent issue, don’t worry about it.
Now concentrate, Sam. They can hear us, so they must have incredibly sensitive hearing...
---
“What are you two looking at?” Gene snapped, wondering why his DI was huddling together with the yank all of a sudden. “Have you forgotten about Annie?”
Sam and Jack simultaneously put their fingers to their lips.
Gene shook his head, unsure whether to follow his instincts and launch into a tirade about how poncing around with a wallet wasn’t going to help the situation. But Sam was looking at him with such seriousness in his eyes that he thought better of it, even if Sam was a bloody nutter.
Jack took a pen out from his pocket and pretended to write on the psychic paper, and then showed the message to Gene.
We need a siren. Don’t say anything, just sort it out. Please.
Gene blinked. He was sure the ‘please’ hadn’t been there the first time he looked, but maybe he’d just gone too long that day without a drink. He pulled a hip flask out of his inside pocket and took a swig. Then he gestured for Jack and Sam to follow him.
---
---
12
Soon Gene had communicated to uniform, via messages scribbled on ordinary scraps of paper, that there was a plan, and it involved sirens.
Do you think he knows what he’s doing?
When Sam looked down and saw Jack’s question, he nodded his head insistently. Had he really settled in so much in 1973 that Jack seemed like the outsider to him, and not Gene? Did he really owe it to Gene to be indignant at charges of incompetence levelled against him? There was hardly time for Sam to mull these problems over just then, and so he pushed them out of his mind, took the wallet from Jack, and gave a simple thought:
Gene knows what he’s doing.
And, as if on cue, he was proved right a split second later as five sirens sounded simultaneously.
---
The blare of the sirens was deafening enough for humans, but for the Princeps it had the desired effect of making them sink to their knees with their hands clutched to their stomachs. Why it was their stomachs and not their ears, nobody was quite sure, even Jack. But rather than ponder on such insignificant details, Gene made sure that they launched into action.
Annie was almost sobbing as Gene pulled her away, punching one of the Princeps in the face, and pushed her gently in Sam’s direction. Then he personally saw to it that the Princeps were both restrained by handcuffs and unconscious. Moments later, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you have to treat them like that?” Jack asked, sounding disappointed rather than angry.
“They,” Gene replied, jabbing a finger at the Princeps, “are murdering scumbags. They deserve what’s coming to them!”
Jack sighed. “Well that kind of treatment isn’t what’s coming to them. Because I’ll be taking them back to Torchwood in the morning.” He turned and walked away before Gene could object.
---
Eventually, Annie had stopped sobbing, the Princeps were in custody, and Gene was half-sitting on his car bonnet swigging from his hip flask, with Sam beside him.
“You did well, Gov,” Sam said distantly.
“I have to agree,” said a voice from behind them, and they turned to see Jack, who was returning from a telephone call to his colleagues in Cardiff. “You might be a tough old bastard, but it’s been an honour to work with you, Gene Hunt.”
Gene grunted and took the hand that Jack offered for a manly handshake.
Despite the niceties, the atmosphere was somewhat subdued. They had caught the Princeps, but people had died and it hardly seemed like a triumphant moment. Sam sighed loudly. “So what now then? I suppose we all go to the pub...”
“Sounds like an excellent idea to me, Sam,” Jack said with a grin. “And the drinks are on me!”
“Well now you’re talking my language,” Gene said as he stood up and put his hip flask away.
---
When they reached the Railway Arms, Jack put what looked like a considerable amount of money behind the bar and instructed Nelson to serve his friends whatever they wanted until the money ran out. It was not long before Gene, Ray and Chris were taking full advantage of his generosity.
But Sam was standing a little way away from the bar and showing no interest in drinking.
Jack went over to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “OK, Sam. Time to talk, like I promised.”
---
---
13
A game of cards started up between the other as Sam and Jack stood at the bar, but they declined an invitation to join in for the moment. “So what kind of aliens were they?” Sam asked. He was afraid what he would find out when he asked the important questions, and so kept to more general enquiries for the time being.
“We don’t know so much about the Thirsolanians, apart from what I told you. We suspect the humanoid form is a cover for their real shape.”
“Is that why they all look the same?”
Jack shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know for sure. Every individual seems like a clone of every other. But I’m hoping we’ll find out more when we question those two.” Then he leaned closer to Sam and spoke more softly. “But that isn’t what you want to know about really, though, is it?”
Sam shook his head, but didn’t meet Jack’s eye. “Can you tell me why I’m here?”
---
It seemed a good idea to get a table to themselves, despite the sniggers of Chris, who was clearly whispering something to Ray about them. Ray burst out laughing, but Sam hardly noticed their derision.
“Jack, you promised. Tell me!”
“OK!” Jack said indignantly, holding his hands in the air. “Have you ever heard that patience is a virtue?”
“Jack...”
“Alright, alright. I made some enquiries - my colleagues have equipment that measures Rift activity. Sam, did you have any enemies in 2006?”
Sam blinked. “Enemies? What are you saying?”
“You know, people who didn’t like you. Especially anyone you might have thought had access to suspicious levels of technology.”
“I... I don’t think so,” Sam said. “Are you saying someone is behind this? Am I... am I dead?”
“No, no, you’re alive!” Jack exclaimed, taking Sam’s hand as if it proved the fact. “You’re in the wrong time, but you’re completely alive. But yes, someone is behind this. It looks very much as though the Rift was manipulated - it was an anomalous pattern that we’d never seen before. And there isn’t usually much Rift activity in Manchester, that was why my colleagues looked into it.”
“So wait,” Sam said, trying to get his head round it. “You’re saying that there’s a... ‘rift’... that connects different times with each other, and people can be sent through it? And someone did this to me deliberately?”
“Exactly!” Jack smiled, but not unkindly. He liked Sam, a lot. And what he had to say to him was going to be devastating, so he was trying to find a way to delay it.
“But why? And... how?”
“There are no easy answers there. I’m sorry, I really am.” Jack paused. “I have an idea - why don’t you let me tell you a story?” He didn’t wait for Sam to consent, but went on. “There was this man, and he lived in the fifty-first century. He joined an organisation known as the Time Agency, and they issued him with a Vortex Manipulator, so that he could travel in time using only a wrist strap.”
“Is that true?” Sam put in. He was more or less willing to believe anything now.
“Every word,” Jack said. “So this man worked with the Time Agency for a while, but they double-crossed him, so he took the wrist strap and set up on his own. He was quite... loose in morals back then, so he used the ability to travel in time purely for his own ends. He made money and then gambled it all away, and he lived so fast. Then, one day, he met this guy...”
Jack had paused for so long that Sam was not sure he was going to continue. “You might as well finish the story,” he said, trying to sound as though he was not overly eager to hear it.
“This Doctor.” Jack’s eyes widened. “And he was the most amazing man he’d ever known. He was fantastic, gorgeous, a genius... and he made this man better. He showed him what mattered, and he made him a better person. But then, one day in the year 200,100 he just abandoned him. Left him behind without so much as a word. So the man wanted to find the Doctor again, and he managed to use his Vortex Manipulator for one last trip before it broke. But his aim was a little out, and he ended up in the nineteenth century.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Sam asked. “I mean, I saw you stabbed and you didn’t die, so...”
“Yeah, the man’s me,” Jack said. “Was it that obvious?”
“And you haven’t found the Doctor yet?”
Jack shook his head. “I look out for him, but it’s your time when I know I’ll find him again. Maybe 2006 maybe 2007, I don’t know. Not 2005, or I’ll end up crossing my own timeline...” He trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, but the pity in Jack’s eyes was not for himself.
---
“G’night, Gov,” Sam shouted over to Gene as he and Jack went to walk out.
Amid some sniggers from the other poker players, Gene got up and went over to Sam. “Between you and me, Sam,” he whispered, “things are looking a bit suspicious between you and pretty boy. Best let him go and come and join us for a round of poker. People are talking.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I’ve got some business with Jack,” he whispered. “I think he’s going to tell me more about Torchwood!”
“So you’re... undercover?” Gene raised his eyebrows. “I suppose that’s alright then.”
Just then, Jack came closer and clapped Gene on the shoulder. “I doubt I’ll see you in the morning, DCI Hunt. So I just wanted to say that I’ve enjoyed working with you. Torchwood will be in touch about that commendation...”
“I don’t need a commendation from a secret bunch of fairies,” Gene said.
Jack decided Gene’s words probably represented a grudging acceptance, and smiled. “Oh, and by the way - nice coat!”
Gene nodded. “Yeah, well yours isn’t bad either.”
---
---
14
Jack went back to Sam’s flat with him - somewhere they could talk away from the others. When they got inside, Jack took the initiative to find two glasses and pour them both a drink from a bottle of single malt standing on the bedside table.
“Nice place,” Jack said, trying to be friendly.
“No,” Sam said. “It’s not nice. It’s wrong. I shouldn’t be here!”
“I’m so sorry, Sam.” Jack’s eyes were serious.
“Why? Is there no way back?”
For a moment, Jack was silent. He didn’t want to have to say it, but Sam was right - there was no way back. “I’m sorry, but my colleagues have not observed any further Rift activity since you - and the Thirsolanians - came through.”
“But can’t you... I don’t know, manipulate it? You said someone did that to send me here!”
Sam was beginning to sound desperate, and it was breaking Jack’s heart. “If I could, I would, believe me. But we can’t control it. The person who sent you through must have been some kind of genius. If I didn’t know the Doctor was the last of his kind, I’d say it must have been a Timelord.”
For a long time, Sam just sat there, trying to take this in. he poured himself a whisky, and then another. At the third, Jack put out a hand to stop him raising the glass to his mouth.
“Well I might as well drink myself into oblivion, if I’m going to live the rest of my life in this bloody place!”
“It’s the same place, Sam. You lived through this when you were a child. You’ll get back to 2006, I hope, you just have to take the long path.”
“But I’ll just keep getting older, won’t I? Not like you, Jack. So why exactly can’t you die?”
Jack shrugged. “I wish I knew. But it comes in handy sometimes.” He grinned, but then paused and leaned forward. “Sam, why don’t you come back to Cardiff with me?”
Sam snorted. “What, like a partnership? Fighting alien crime? You be Bodie and I’ll be Doyle.”
At that, Jack suddenly began to look for something in the inside pocket of his coat. Eventually he pulled out a small machine that looked somewhat like a prototype for a Gameboy. “Hang on...” Jack murmured.
“Is that some sort of computer?”
“Aha! The Professionals doesn’t start until 1977. So you’d better not mention it to anyone for another few years!”
“It’s a computer from the future?”
“Well, not exactly,” Jack said. “Last year there was major Rift activity in Cardiff, and we got half an hour of broadband connection beamed through. But the only website we could access was the Internet Movie Database, so...” He trailed off, and his broad smile froze when he saw Sam’s face, and the tears welling in his eyes that he was blinking back. Probably not just nostalgia over hours of looking up films on the internet. “I really am sorry,” he whispered.
“If there’s Rift activity in Cardiff, can’t I get home from there?”
“I told you, we can’t control it. You could end up in the Neolithic period, or a million years into the future. The chances of you getting to your home time if you step into the Rift are tiny.” Jack poured himself another whisky and sat back in his chair. “Besides, if it were that easy I would have taken the short road to your time myself - I’m pretty sure that’s where I’ll meet the Doctor again one day.”
Sam swirled the dregs of whisky round in his glass thoughtfully. “Well I hope you do,” he sighed.
---
---
15
They kept talking for a long time, and eventually Jack declared that it would be a good idea to make coffee. He put his hand on Sam’s shoulder to stop him from getting up, and went to the kitchen himself. He was very careful that Sam could not see him.
“Black for me!” Sam called, managing to slur even such a short sentence. He had put away a lot of whisky that evening, especially after they found the second bottle in the cupboard.
“Alright!” Jack giggled, making sure that he sounded just as drunk as Sam did - though in truth he had not drunk much less anyway. “Strong and black, coming up!”
Sam became quiet then, and when Jack re-entered the main room he found him dozing in his chair. He shook him awake gently and put the cup of coffee in his hand.
“Oh... thanks,” Sam said slowly. He took a sip and then, realising vaguely that it was good coffee - though he was unsure how good coffee had come to be found in his cupboard - he finished it off. Ten minutes later, he was fast asleep.
Jack carefully moved Sam from his chair to the bed, and put the covers over him. He stroked his hair with a gentle hand, and bent down to kiss him lightly on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, Sam Tyler. I hope they come true one day.”
With that, Jack put on his long coat and left.
---
Sam’s head was aching when he got into work half an hour late the next day, and his pain was not improved by Gene’s yelling that he wanted to see him in his office.
“Can you keep it down, gov?” Sam begged quietly when they were alone.
“No!” Gene shouted. “It’s not my fault if you can’t take your bloody drink, is it?”
Sam groaned, but said nothing.
“So why didn’t you get in early this morning? I thought you were going to deal with Harkness and sort the Princeps out. Phyllis said the yank just swept in like he owned the place, showed her some official-looking papers, and went off with them!”
Sam looked back at him blankly, but still said nothing.
“And did you find anything out about this Torchwood then? Apart from how good they are at drinking you under the table?”
Sam shook his head. “Gov, what are you talking about?”
---
---
The Epilogue
In 2007, Jack was still waiting for the Doctor to come. He was leading Torchwood now, and he loved his team, and he was sure the Doctor could not be far away. The twenty-first century is when everything happens - when Earth makes proper contact with other worlds, when people start to realise the extent of the universe... and when everything gets dangerous. The Doctor would not want to miss out on all that.
But for now, it was still the slow road. Aliens came and went, they saved the world a few times, and life passed by at the proper pace. Normal humans did what they usually did - shopped, had sex, argued, voted, watched TV and got themselves into danger occasionally. It didn’t really seem that anything was different.
But in those last few months, Jack started to get a feeling of deja vu. As if someone he was seeing every so often - not in person, but on TV or in the papers or somewhere - was someone he had met before.
It was not until the Doctor charged back into his life, and the Master was exposed, that Jack realised that Harold Saxon was the spitting image of Sam Tyler - and he realised at the same time who had sent Sam through the Rift, and why.
Title: Human Rights
Rating: PG-13
Word Count/Length: 10,754 words
Notes: Nothing explicit, but there are a few references to sex - nothing more racy than you'd find in Dr Who or LoM (and more tame than Torchwood).
Summary: A crossover with Torchwood, featuring the character of Jack Harkness and a few other Torchwood/Dr Who references. However, it's all about Sam.
The Prologue
“He looks like me!” exclaimed the man in the suit. “He looks like me.”
Seeing that he was becoming angry, the woman in the fur coat touched his arm gently. “Maybe we can do something about it...” She stared at him with a rather blank expression, a very slight frown crossing her forehead.
“Well, I suppose there are only so many configurations of a humanoid appearance...” he said thoughtfully. “Don’t worry my dear, we’ll just get rid of him.”
1
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘human rights’, gov?” sighed Sam Tyler, leaning against the door to the cell with his arms folded.
“This little scrote,” Gene Hunt spat, swinging his fist again, “aint human, Sam. Watch and learn.” He sharply yanked the prisoner’s head upwards, twisting his fingers in his hair. “What are you, scum?”
The man, a swarthy foreigner whose country of origin they had not yet determined, frowned for a moment. “I am Jago Princep of the Hive of Thirsolan, on the planet Kluj,” he said quietly.
Gene grimaced and hit him hard in the solar plexus, causing him to stagger backwards and crumple on the floor, struggling to breathe. “You don’t joke with Gene Hunt!” shouted the DCI.
“Maybe he’s telling the truth, gov,” Sam ventured, but he was not in time to prevent the prisoner from receiving a sharp kick to the ribs.
“Telling the truth?” Gene said. “Are you kidding me? He just told us he was a little green man from Mars.”
“Gov wait,” Sam said, putting a hand on his arm to prevent, or more likely to postpone, further violence. “There’s a place called Cluj in Romania, isn’t there? Isn’t that what he said? Maybe we should make some inquiries before we... question him again.”
Reluctantly, Gene stepped back. “Alright, Sam. But if you haven’t found out who he is and why he was found swinging a sword at a WI meeting in the next twenty-four hours, I’ll have to give him another beating.”
---
“Chris, I want you to look through the records for a Jago Princep.”
“Isn’t he some foreign bloke?” asked DC Skelton with a frown. “Why would he have form here?”
Sam sighed, an action he seemed to be performing a lot since he had arrived in 1973. “Just because it’s unlikely, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. You can’t exclude a line of enquiry because you feel like it. That’s not how being a good copper works.”
“So being a good copper is about spending hours in the records room?”
“No,” Sam said, steering Chris through the office door and into the corridor. “Being a good copper is about doing what you’re told by superior officers.”
As Chris headed sullenly towards the records room, Sam heard the ding of the lift arriving, and instinctively turned to see who was in it. The doors opened, revealing Annie standing beside a tall man in a long military coat. Annie had a suspiciously large grin on his face, and a healthy flush to her cheeks.
“Are you Gene Hunt?” the man asked in a strong American accent.
“No, this is DI Sam Tyler,” Annie said to him, before adding, “Captain,” with a giggle.
The American flashed a smile at her. “Thank you, Annie Cartwright. I think DI Tyler can take things from here, but maybe I’ll see you downstairs later.” He winked, and she walked away blushing.
“And who are you?” Sam asked, bristling at the man’s overdeveloped charm.
“Captain Jack Harkness,” he said, holding out a hand.
---
“This gentleman wants to see you, gov,” Sam said as he opened the door to Gene’s office.
Gene looked up from his copy of Just Jugs with an eyebrow raised. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things you read in here, Sammy boy,” he said, whistling.
“I was under the impression you bought it for the pictures, gov.”
“Er, hello,” Jack put in. “I hate to interrupt your male bonding, guys, but this is kind of urgent.”
“It didn’t look too urgent when you were flirting with Annie,” Sam whsipered.
“I’m sorry, Sam Tyler, I didn’t mean to step on your toes there. Now then, DCI Hunt, you’re the man I’m looking for. Can we talk?”
“And who exactly are you?” Gene asked, standing up and stubbing out his cigarette. “The military?”
“Not exactly, no. I’m with Torchwood.”
“Well we’re not interested in making a bloody film about modern policing!”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Torchwood isn’t a film studio. And this is very serious, so I’d appreciate it if you’d give me some help here. I want to speak to one of your prisoners.”
---
---
2
Gene, who generally did not like his territory being invaded by charming men in long coats, and especially American ones with chiselled jawlines, was very reluctant to allow Jack to see Jago Princep. He was just in the middle of a tirade concerning yanks who swan around thinking they own the place when Jack raised his hands in the air with a look of resignation.
“Are you giving up?” Gene asked suspiciously.
“No, but don’t you worry, Gene Hunt, it’s all fine. I’ll just go and get permission from your Superintendent.” His voice began to rise. “I only came here first because you were the arresting officer and I didn’t want to be rude! What is wrong with the 1970s?”
Sam watched as he turned with a swish of his coat and strode out of the office. Everyone in the outer room stopped their work for a few moments as they watched him pass by. There was something annoying about men who can command so much attention so easily.
“What the bloody hell is he up to, Sam?”
Sam shrugged. “No idea, gov. But I might go and ask him about Jago Princep. He must know something if he’s come here especially to see him.”
Before Gene could put any objection into words, Sam was out of the office and following in Jack’s footsteps. He needed to talk to him, but he wasn’t sure why. Just a little thought niggling at the back of Sam’s mind. Gene was shouting something as he walked away, but he did not stop to find out what.
---
“Wait a minute!” Sam called as Jack was about to disappear into the lift. He ran to catch up and joined him. “The Super’s on the next floor up.”
Jack raised an eyebrow and pushed the button marked ‘2’. After a few moments the lift lurched into action. “Why are you helping me?” Jack asked. Not that he would object to help from such a cute guy.
“Why do you want to speak to Jago Princep?” Sam retaliated, holding Jack’s gaze.
After a very short Mexican stand-off, Jack laughed, feeling a sort of affection for the stubborn DI. “I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you more. But Torchwood deals with... classified information.”
The lift gave a ding as it arrived at the next floor and the doors opened. They stepped out into a corridor that was very similar to that on the floor below. Sam pointed Jack to the Superintendent’s office without saying much more, but then he waited in the corridor. Ten minutes later, the frosted glass door opened again and Jack reappeared. He was amused but unsurprised to see Sam standing there.
“I really am sorry,” Jack said with a shrug of the shoulders. “I can’t tell you anything.”
“Will Princep talk to you?” Sam asked, following as Jack tried to walk away.
“I don’t know yet.”
“I think he’ll take one look at you and decide he can’t trust you. But he’s already spoken to me.”
Jack sighed and turned to look at Sam. “And I’m guessing you’re only going to tell me what he said if you can tag along.”
---
Jack looked through the peephole in the cell door, and saw with astonishment that Jago Princep was lying on the ground, bruised and battered. “What the hell happened to him?” he yelled at Sam, who recoiled slightly at the loudness of his voice. “What did you do to him?”
Sam looked down, embarrassed. In all the time he had been in 1973, no authoritative figure had ever complained about the mistreatment of a prisoner. Why was Jack Harkness different? He was reacting just the way Sam had done when he first arrived.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Jack asked through gritted teeth.
Sam very much wanted to reply that it wasn’t him, that Gene Hunt was the culprit, and if it were up to him no prisoner would ever get roughed up again. And he wanted to add that he didn’t even belong here. But something inside him saw Jack as the outsider, and Gene as the person he owed some loyalty to now, whatever his misgivings. “He was being difficult,” he mumbled in the end.
To Sam’s surprise, Jack was not willing to let it lie, and a few moments later he was holding him up against a wall by his wide 1970s collar. “You think it’s fine, don’t you? Well it isn’t. No being should be treated like this. What is it about the 1970s that has turned everyone into thugs?”
Being attacked physically finally made Sam see red, and he pushed Jack away with as much force as he could muster. “Look, don’t have a go at me,” he shouted. “I don’t even belong here!”
For a few moments they were both silent, and it would have seemed to an onlooker that they were about to fight. But instead they both smoothed down their ruffled clothing and turned towards the cell door again, an unspoken truce easing the tension.
---
Sam folded his arms grumpily as he waited in the corridor. Jack had insisted on going into the cell alone to speak to Jago Princep, so it seemed their brief partnership had ended before it has begun. Phyllis walked past to check on other prisoners.
“Who’s the yank then?” she whispered on her way back to the desk.
“Not now, Phyllis.”
“Fine then,” she huffed, walking away.
Just then, the cell door opened, and Jack came out frowning. He walked straight past Sam, following Phyllis to the front desk. “I don’t suppose you could do me a favour?” he said.
Phyllis turned round, surprised. “What do you want?”
“I’m worried about one of the prisoners - Jago Princep. Could you just keep an eye on him and make sure he’s OK?” He flashed a smile at her, the smile that usually got him what he wanted.
“Look, sunshine,” Phyllis said, putting a firm hand down on the counter. “I don’t know who you are, but your charms don’t work on me.”
Behind Jack, Sam laughed. “It’s alright, Phyllis, he’s with me. And I’d appreciate it if you look after Princep.”
Phyllis reluctantly nodded agreement.
---
“I guess I should thank you,” Jack said as he and Sam went outside to the steps at the front of the building.
“Did Princep say anything?”
Jack frowned. “You know he didn’t. He’s terrified. He’s never going to trust a human again.” He did not pause long enough for Sam to question his choice of words. “Did you really have nothing to do with his beating?”
“Look mate,” Sam sighed, “I don’t know where you’re from, but things are a bit rough here. I don’t like it, but it’s not going to stop because I complain.”
“It’s so easy to stand by and do nothing, isn’t it?” Jack said wistfully. “Anyway, you said you had something to tell me. So tell me.”
“I want to know who Jago Princep is. We think he’s from Romania, but we haven’t-“ Sam cut off abruptly because Jack had burst out laughing. “What is it?”
“It doesn’t matter. Look, just tell me what he said to you.”
“Well, it’s a bit weird, but he said he came from Cluj - that’s in Romania, isn’t it? But he called it the planet Cluj, and he said the place where he lived was a hive, and it was in Thirsolan or something. It didn’t make much sense.”
“Actually, it makes perfect sense. Thank you, Sam Tyler.” With that he gave Sam a pat on the back and set off down the steps. Before Sam had a chance to follow or call after him, a black Ford Cortina had pulled up, and Jack Harkness was driven away.
---
---
3
“Tyler, get in here!” was the bawled greeting that awaited Sam when he got back to the office. “Now!”
Sam went in to Gene’s room sullenly.
“Now tell me what the hell is going on,” Gene said before taking a swig from a hip flask. “Who’s that bloody yank?”
Sam shrugged, realising that he had not been acting like a police officer. He followed Jack Harkness because his instincts told him to, but he had failed to find answers to any of the questions he had. What was Torchwood? Who was Jack Harkness? Why was he interested in Jago Princep? And who exactly was Jago Princep?
“The bloody Super’s been down,” Gene continued. “He was preaching about how we have to help other organisations in their investigations. What the bloody hell is Torchwood?”
“All I know is that they deal in classified information, gov,” Sam said apologetically. “I know what organisations were working in the 1970s, so why have I never heard of them?”
“Classified bollocks,” Gene spat. “Go and see what you can find out, Sam. I don’t want bloody yanks interfering with proper police work.”
---
Sam had forgotten that he had banished Chris to the records room, but when he arrived there he was faced with a very grumpy DC sitting on the floor in the middle of several heaps of paper and cardboard files. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck with Princep then?” he asked half-heartedly.
“I haven’t found anything, gov,” Chris said. He threw another file sideways so that its contents almost spilled out and mingled with everything else.
“Well I hope you know how to put those back in order,” Sam said, horrified at the mess.
“Can’t we get one of the WPCs in to do that?”
“No, Chris, we can’t. You know what though?”
“What?”
“Women love a man who can tidy up, so I’d work on your skills.”
“Oh right, nice one!” Chris said, suddenly enthusiastic. Unfortunately his idea of tidying the mess he had created did not include sorting through the files and putting them into any sort of order, but Sam decided the DC’s further training in administrative duties could wait for a while.
Just as Sam was about to walk out, he turned back to Chris. “You haven’t seen anything about Torchwood while you’ve been going through files, have you?”
“Torchwood?” Chris repeated. “What’s that, a film studio?”
“Never mind,” Sam sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a computer with a broadband connection right now...”
Just then, there was a sound in the doorway. “Why?” asked an unmistakable voice. Sam turned to see Jack Harkness leaning against the open door. “What are you trying to find?”
Sam and Jack looked at each other questioningly, before Chris piped up. “What are you talking about?”
Jack looked down at the inundated DC, whom he had not at first noticed. A smile crept across his face. “And who are you?”
“Er, I’m Chris Skelton... sir.”
“Nice to meet you, Chris Skelton,” Jack grinned.
---
“What are you doing back here?” Sam hissed when he and Jack were alone in the corridor, Chris having been locked in the records room with his filing to do.
“You sound like you’re not happy to see me,” Jack said. “And yet somehow I get the impression that you wanted to find out information about Torchwood.”
“Can you blame me? Noone here has heard of Torchwood, but you swan in like you own the place, asking questions and not giving any answers.”
“You sound a bit like your DCI,” Jack smirked, but then his expression became serious. “Look, I think we need to talk. Here’s the deal: you take me to the place where you found Jago Princep, and maybe I’ll answer some of your questions.”
Since he was hardly in a position to argue, Sam nodded reluctantly. He consoled himself that making a small concession like this would not give Jack too much ground, but it might make the world of difference to him.
---
Half and hour later, Sam found himself sitting inside the black Ford Cortina he had seen earlier. Whoever had been driving it then had disappeared, and he and Jack were alone. They pulled up with a screech of the tyres outside a boarded up brick building in a street on the edge of town.
“It was just through there,” Sam said, pointing at an alleyway.
Jack got out, and Sam followed, and soon they emerged from the alleyway into an open piece of ground with yellowish weeds growing up between patches of rubble. Sam knew it well: it was the place where he had woken up in 1973.
Jack strode forward, and seemed to be looking at his watch intently. But when Sam got closer, he could see that it was not a watch, but some sort of small machine built into a wrist strap. It was emitting a pulsing red light whose frequency was changing as Jack moved around. Then he stopped somewhere near the middle of the open ground.
“It was here,” Jack said, pointing down to indicate the spot where he was standing. “This is where you found him?”
Sam frowned. “How do you know that? What’s that thing you’re wearing?”
Jack was silent for a moment, but then he decisively closed the flap on his wrist strap. “I think it’s time we did some talking, Sam Tyler.”
---
---
4
Sitting back in the black Cortina, Sam was feeling strangely upbeat, as though he was nearing some sort of resolution. “You know about the internet,” he said firmly as Jack got in.
Jack sighed. “I think it’s more remarkable that you know about the internet. You’re not from round here, Sam Tyler. So where are you from? Or more importantly, when are you from?”
“I’m from 2006,” Sam said, turning to look Jack straight in the eye. There was no point in holding back when he could see that Jack knew about the future. “I was hit by a car, and then I wake up here. I don’t know how or why.” He put a hand on Jack’s arm, suddenly feeling a great surge of emotion sweep over him. “Do you understand? Can you help me?”
For a few moments Jack said nothing at all, but then he took a small implement out from his coat pocket. It was shaped like a pen, but was making a rhythmic beeping noise. He held it up to Sam’s face. “Just keep still for a minute,” he said quietly, moving the device up and down. The beeping became very loud.
“Well?”
Jack turned the device off and returned it to his coat pocket. “You’re sizzling with residual Rift energy, Sam Tyler. Do you ever black out unexpectedly? Maybe have hallucinations?”
“I...” Sam thought. “Yes, sort of. Well, I think so. I thought the images I was seeing were trying to... I don’t know, reconnect me with the future in some way. I thought I’d been hit by the car and was in a coma, and my mind had ended up in 1973...” He trailed off, knowing he sounded crazy. “Wait a minute, what exactly is Rift energy?”
“It might take a while to explain,” Jack said after a moment. “Look, I know you want to sort this out, but I have a tight schedule. I need to get Jago Princep back to my base as quickly and quietly as possible. But if you help me with that, then I’ll help you with your problem. Alright?”
“And where’s your base?” Sam asked.
“Cardiff.”
Before Sam could raise an objection, Jack had started the engine and was embarking on his plan.
---
When Sam and Jack arrived back at the station, there was some sort of commotion going on. Phyllis was scribbling something down while the telephone receiver was jammed between her chin and her shoulder, and she was shouting to Annie at the same time. Annie was being helped by another PC to bundle a shifty-looking man into the cells.
They were going to walk past and go up to CID when Phyllis beckoned Sam over. “We let that Princep bloke go,” she whispered, now pressing her palm over the telephone mouthpiece.
Jack turned with a look of astonishment. “What?”
“Take it up with DCI Hunt!” Phyllis hissed. “Can’t you see I’m a bit busy here?”
Jack pushed past some PCs and ran up the stairs, with Sam close behind him.
---
As Jack and Sam burst into Gene’s office, they found him poring over a case file with a cigarette in his hand. “Gov,” Sam asked, his voice urgent, “where’s Princep?”
“Let him go with a caution,” Gene said dismissively, barely looking up.
Jack smashed his fists down on the desk. “Why?” he demanded. “Where is he?”
“Are you questioning police authority?” Gene stood and squared up to Jack. “He waved a sword about a bit, so we gave him a caution. The cells were full, there was no point in keeping him there.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Jack said, exasperated. “Jago Princep was terrified after you gave him a beating! He thinks everyone has it in for him, and next time he has access to a weapon he’ll probably kill with it. Well done, Gene Hunt. That’s a fantastic way of protecting the people.”
“Look,” Gene growled, coming round the desk to stand face to face with Jack. “Don’t you bloody come in here shouting the odds, nancy boy. This is my city, and people feel safe because I take care of them and keep real criminal bastards off the street!”
Just as Gene’s voice hit the peak of its crescendo, Jack lunged at him, unable to restrain himself any longer. But Sam got hold of Jack by the shoulders, preventing his fist from making contact with Gene’s face. “Get off me!” Jack yelled, twisting out of his grasp.
“Don’t you think finding Princep is more important than defending your ego?”
Jack stopped and looked at Sam. He was right, and there was no denying it. He turned and stalked out of the office.
Before Sam could follow, Gene clasped his shoulder. “If you take his side over this,” he said in a low voice, “you’ll be back on the next train to Hyde faster than you can say ‘Britt Ekland’s knickers’.”
Sam shrugged his hand off. “Yeah, well maybe that’s what I want.”
---
---
5
“Phyllis, how long ago did you let Princep go?” Sam asked, pushing in front of a PC who was trying to make a half-dressed woman in high heels give her details.
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed in between scribbling down notes into a large black book on the desk and telling the person on the other end of the telephone to hold on. “Twenty minutes maybe? Why?”
Before that question could be answered, Jack and Sam were out of the door and racing down the steps at the front of the station. “He can’t have gone far!” Sam said breathlessly as they reached the Cortina.
Jack turned to him. “I’m sorry, Sam Tyler. It’s been fun, but you can’t tag along this time. Too dangerous.”
Sam shook his head in disbelief, but then he just pushed past him and opened the car door. “I’m a police officer, I already have a dangerous job. Now get in, or we’ll lose him.”
Jack could not help smiling as he obeyed, albeit reluctantly.
---
For an hour, Jack and Sam drove around the area of Manchester that was close to the police station. They stopped frequently, asking people on the street if they had seen someone of Princep’s description. But nobody had.
Just when it seemed as though they might as well give up, something ran out in front of the car, causing Jack to cry out and bring the Cortina to a sudden, jolting stop. They both leapt out and found that a middle-aged woman was standing in the road, inches in front of the car, shivering in fright. Before they could ask her if she was alright, she started screaming. “Blood!” she cried. “Blood!” Then she gave a strange sort of wail and threw her arms around Sam before continuing to sob on his shoulder.
“You have a way with women,” Jack said, flashing a quick grin before his face became serious again. “Did she say ‘blood’?”
“I think she did.” Sam tried to dislodge the woman from his shoulder and catch her eye. “Madam, are you alright? What blood are you talking about?”
Her voice and body shook as she spoke. “So much blood... those poor people!”
“What people?” Jack asked, putting his hand on her arm and trying to turn her towards him. “You have to tell us - what people? Where?”
She just gaped at him, unable to say any more. But she pointed at a tall building that was visible over the top of the houses in the street.
Jack broke into a run almost instantaneously, and Sam cursed. He was shadowing a gung-ho American, he had no quick way of calling for back-up because he had no radio with him, and something was about to kick off. He ran after Jack, stopping only to shout to a boy playing in the street. “Go and get an adult to call the police, and tell them DI Tyler said to send two cars round to the old warehouse on Neville Street!”
The boy looked bemused, but saw how serious Sam was and went into his house to carry out the strange man’s orders. If he could quite remember them.
---
“This way!” Sam whispered as they approached the building. He pointed towards a door that was slightly ajar.
Jack slid a pistol of some sort out of his inside pocket and put his hand gently on Sam’s shoulder. “I’ll go first,” he said softly. Feeling Sam’s muscles tense, and realising he was about to argue, he put a finger to Sam’s lips. “Don’t question it. Just let me go first.”
Speechless, Sam stood back to let him go past.
As they went inside, it took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then a terrible image began to appear. On the floor, six or seven bodies lay sprawled, their limbs at unnatural angles, their hair and clothes dripping with blood. White faces stared into space with dead eyes.
“Oh God,” Sam whispered, covering his mouth with his sleeve. It was all he was able to say as the smell of blood made his stomach heave.
Jack, meanwhile, was already picking his way through the corpses, making for the other side of the room. Sam realised then that there was an open doorway there, in the dark, and went after him, gingerly stepping over arms and legs.
---
The doorway led into a short passage, and at the end of that was another, smaller room. A candle flickered in the corner, illuminating a bundle of cloth on the floor. On the darker side of the room, Sam could see Jack kneeling on the floor, and behind him Jago Princep was standing with a long, thick blade in his hand.
Sam instinctively put his hands in the air. “Mr Princep, why don’t you put the weapon down?” he said gently, edging forward a little.
Princep hissed in a way that sounded more reptilian than human. “What is wrong?” he asked, his voice strangely calm, even polite.
Before Sam could say anything else, Jack spoke up. “He’s not like us, Sam. Where he comes from, killing isn’t a crime, it’s just normal.”
“Quiet,” Princep said, so firmly that even Jack was cowed into silence. “I like this world, I think,” he continued wistfully. “So many different creatures, so many different types of liquid. This blood that you have, it is quite a delicacy. And this one” - he put a hand on Jack’s shoulder - “he smells very tasty.”
“Look, Mr Princep,” Sam said, his voice wavering. He had some sort of nutter here, and negotiating with him looked like it would be difficult. Perhaps that was what Torchwood was, he thought - some sort of high security facility for people who were disturbed or violent. Perhaps that was how Jack was going to help him, having played along with his time travel fantasy...
Before Sam could utter another word, a chilling look crossed Princep’s eyes, and he raised the sword in the air. Sam shouted, but to no avail. A moment later, the blade was protruding from the back of Jack’s neck.
Just then, there was a bang behind Sam.
---
---
6
Gene was standing in the doorway, the smoke from his gun highlighted by the flickering candle in the nearby corner. “Bastard,” he spat.
Sam realised that he must have seen the carnage in the outer room, and remembering those pale bodies made him angry. First those innocent people had died, and now Jack, the only man who could have helped him... Before he knew it, Sam was striding towards Gene, and he grabbed him by the collar. “You could have stopped this!”
Gene pushed him away roughly. “No I bloody couldn’t!”
“You let him go, just to spite me!”
“No!” Seeing that Sam was refusing to listen, Gene pushed him up against the wall and pinned his arms there. “Just bloody listen to me, Tyler! I couldn’t have stopped him, because that wasn’t Jago Princep!”
Sam blinked. “What?”
---
---
7
“It must have been his twin brother or something,” Gene said.
“Gov, if you’re lying to me...”
“For crying out bloody loud, Tyler, go and have a look at him if you don’t believe me! Jago Princep was black and blue when he left the station. And he was still black and blue when we arrested him half an hour ago.”
Sam rubbed his face with his hands, trying to work out what had happened. He had been so sure that it was Princep who killed Jack. He looked like him, he sounded like him, he wore the same clothes. But Gene had to be right, because he bore no bruises. “I don’t understand,” he whispered.
Sam and Gene both went to have a closer look at the body, which was lying a couple of feet behind that of Jack. Whoever it was, he was clearly dead, and Gene called in uniform to deal with the corpse before going back to the other room, where Chris and Ray were looking decidedly green and trying to avoid eye contact with the dead victims.
Sam was left alone, and knelt down by Jack’s body. He had been so full of life, so loud and confident, but now here he lay, cold and silent. Sam felt for a pulse half-heartedly, knowing there was no use in it. And there was none to be found. He stood and turned away, unable to bear looking at him.
Just then, he heard a gasp.
---
“You... you can’t... you’re dead!” Sam exclaimed.
“Oh, do I look dead, Sam Tyler?” Jack said quietly, wincing as he tried to get up.
Sam tried to help, but then stopped dead. A handle was still protruding from the back of Jack’s neck, and the rest of the blade must have been buried in his torso.
“Don’t try to move!”
Jack ignored him and clambered to his feet, and then tried to get a purchase on the sword. “Do you think you could help me pull this out?” he asked his speechless companion. “Because it kind of hurts.”
“No!” Sam gasped, staring at Jack as if he was mad. “You’ll have to go to hospital, you’ve been unconscious, and if you pull that out it might-“
At that moment, Jack managed to get his hands around the handle, and he proceeded to slide the blade slowly upwards and out of his body. He grunted as he did it, his lungs too weak just then to cry out more forcefully. When it was out, he handed it to Sam and sank to his knees.
“Are you alright?” Sam asked, kneeling down next to him. “Can you breathe properly?” Jack just nodded. “You must have been out for a good ten minutes there.”
“Didn’t you even try to take my pulse?” Jack whispered, looking into Sam’s eyes.
“Yeah, but I was in shock, I didn’t...” Sam trailed off when he saw the expression on Jack’s face, an eyebrow raised in disbelief. “Hang on, you’re not saying you were...”
“Dead.” Jack finished for him. “I thought you of all people might have caught on a bit quicker!”
---
Sam was helping Jack to stand as Gene re-entered the room. “Oh,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”
Now feeling much better, Jack laughed and clapped Gene on the shoulder. “I didn’t know you cared, big boy.”
“Call me big boy again and you will bloody be dead,” Gene hissed, and Jack raised his hands and feigned an innocent look.
“Alright,” Sam said with a sigh, wanting to avoid the confrontation that was brewing. “We’ve got a massive clean-up operation to put into action, and we’ll have to question Princep. Shall we get started?”
---
---
8
Leaving uniform with the task of identifying bodies and contacting relatives, Gene led Jack, Sam, Chris and Ray outside and they headed back to the station.
It was not long before Princep was sitting in the lost property office waiting to be interviewed, and the others were standing outside in the corridor arguing.
“I’m sorry, Gene, but I can’t let you be in the interview.”
“This is my bloody prisoner!”
“Do you really want me to go over your head again?” Jack asked with a sigh.
“You just try it...” Gene growled, squaring up to him.
“Will you two stop it now?” Sam put in. “Look, I don’t know how Torchwood works, but this might be a dangerous criminal and we’re standing out here having a machismo contest! Jack, will you let me come into the interview?”
Initially, Jack was reluctant. But perhaps taking Sam in with him would be the best way of getting Gene off his back. Besides, considering the plans he had for Sam, and what Sam had already seen, it would hardly matter if he were present now. “OK,” he said at last.
Gene was far from appeased, but Sam took him aside for a moment. “He already trusts me. If you back down now, we might find out more in the long run.”
Gene frowned. “You mean you’ll spy on him? It’s not very manly, is it?” Ray and Chris nodded in consensus.
---
Princep’s face was puffy and bruised from the beating Gene had given him, and it was hardly surprising that he was unwilling to speak. Nevertheless, Jack was insistent, and a halting dialogue began to take place as Sam watched.
“We found another one of you,” Jack said.
That made Princep’s eyes light up for the first time. “Another?”
“Oh yes. But what I want to know is how many more of you there might be.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. What was Jack thinking? That Princep had several brothers?
Princep just shrugged. “Which of us have you met?”
“I don’t know his name,” Jack said after a slight delay.
“Because he’s already dead,” Princep finished for him. “He would not hide his name if her were not.”
Jack leaned forward, suddenly angry. “He killed some of our men and women, it was bound to happen. How many times do I have to tell you people that you need to act differently in this world? It isn’t the same as yours.”
Sam frowned, and nudged Jack with his elbow. “Can I have a word?”
---
Jack and Sam were alone in the corridor, but Jack insisted on speaking in a whisper. “What’s wrong? He’s opening up, we can’t lose momentum!”
Sam shook his head. “What exactly are you saying Princep is? An alien?”
Jack put his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “Look, I realise this is difficult for you. You’re only just finding out these things, and it all seems strange and scary and new. But please, Sam, we don’t have time to spare right now. I’ll explain everything later, I promise.”
Reluctantly, Sam nodded. “Later,” he said firmly.
---
For a while, Princep clammed up. Jack asked over and over again whether there were more, whether there was a breeding programme, whether a settlement had sprung up anywhere. The questions puzzled Sam, who contributed little to the conversation for a long time.
Eventually, when Jack was leaning back in his seat in frustration, Sam decided to speak up. “Why did your... brother... kill those people?”
Princep rolled his eyes. “Why should he not?”
“Because it’s wrong!” Sam exclaimed, flustered. “They were people - just like you, whatever world you come from. They had lives, and now they’ve got loved ones who miss them.”
Princep shrugged slowly. “Do you eat meat?”
Sam blinked. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Do you kill animals and eat them? Or have others kill your animals for you to eat?” Silence ensued, and Princep continued. “Why is that different?”
Sam was lost for a few moments. Was he really debating ethics with an alien? Should he continue with some philosophical argument? Could he make the Princep see the error of his people’s ways? Would it be best to ignore it, rather than acknowledging Princep with a counter-argument?
In the end, Jack saved him from the decision. “We need to talk,” he whispered. “Outside.”
---
---
9
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you in there,” Jack sighed. “Do you really think it’s a good idea arguing with him like that?”
“He thinks it’s alright to kill,” Sam hissed. “Aren’t we supposed to argue?”
“The Thirsolanians are a philosophical race, Sam. If your argument is weak, they’ll take it as confirmation of their own position. They’ll hold their own beliefs more strongly because you argued with them.”
Whether or not this was reasonable, it frustrated Sam, and he just held his hands in the air. “Fine. Whatever. So why exactly am I bothering to sit in on this interview then?”
Jack shrugged and gave a smile that was not unkind. “You asked to sit in. But anyway, he’s not going to say much more now. I’ll take him back to my base, and we’ll continue his questioning there.”
---
“He can’t bloody do that, this is my case!” Gene bellowed when Sam told him the news. Ray and Chris were standing close by, amused by the situation.
“This is special, gov,” Sam protested weakly. “If you found a spy, you wouldn’t object to MI5 coming in and taking them away, would you?”
“That’s different. And anyway, what exactly did you find out about Torchwood while you were ‘undercover’?” Gene swathed the last word in a particularly sarcastic tone.
Sam looked down, a little sheepish. Was he supposed to say that Torchwood investigate aliens? Gene would think he was even more mad than usual. “Not much, gov. It’s all classified information.”
“Classified information? What kind of spy are you?” That elicited a chuckle from Ray and Chris. “You’re about as much use as my deaf aunt Mabel’s telephone.”
---
Phyllis was out of breath by the time she got to CID, and she had Jack in tow. As they came into the large office, Gene ignored the former and was very close to swinging his fist at the latter.
“Phyllis, what’s up?” Sam asked, seeing her urgency.
“There’s something... kicking off in Canal Street,” she panted. “Some guy who looks... like that Princep you had in.”
Jack was now standing behind her with his eyebrows raised, and Gene turned to him. “Hadn’t you better get over there, pretty boy? It sounds like your territory. I know you don’t want real police officers getting in your way.”
For a moment Jack said nothing, and everyone in the room could feel the tension humming in the air. But then Jack broke into a wide and sincere grin. “Actually, I can’t do this all by myself. I need your expertise, Gene Hunt.”
Gene seemed unsure what to do at first, but then he gave a nod. “Well, it’s about time you trusted the Gene Genie, Harkness. Watch how proper policemen operate.” Feeling satisfied that he had got one over on Jack, he then turned to Phyllis. “Send uniform over there and we’ll be right behind them. Chop chop, we’ve got criminals to catch!”
---
When Gene pulled up sharply near the fracas, uniform were already there and there had already been deaths. Two men, apparently identical in every respect right down to their clothes, and identical also to Princep and his ‘brother’, were standing back to back and holding what looked like pieces of scaffolding. One of them beat his piece of metal against his hand to make a hollow smacking sound. Around their feet were three bodies, one of which was still twitching.
As he got out of the car, Chris whistled. “What are they, quadrupeds?” he said, frowning.
“Quadruplets,” Sam said, distracted. He turned to Jack. “But they’re not are they?”
Jack, who had come in his own car but was now standing with the others, leaned close to Sam and spoke very quietly. “As far as everyone else is concerned, they are.”
---
---
10
Two members of uniform had circled round the back of the two new Princeps, and Annie was one of them. When Sam saw her there, he felt a hollow fear in the pit of his stomach - whatever these aliens were, they were lightning fast, and ruthless. Jack had somehow come back from the dead, but Annie would not have that luxury.
“Don’t worry, Sam,” Gene whispered, showing an uncanny and previously unknown receptiveness to Sam’s feelings. He gestured to his pocket, where he kept a pistol.
When Jack saw the half-spoken exchange, he put a hand gently on Gene’s arm. “If you can keep them alive, it’ll be big for Torchwood,” he said softly, trying to sound unthreatening. “You might even be heading for a commendation...”
Gene turned on him, with an urgent look in his eyes. “If they come quietly,” he hissed, “they’ll stay alive. But if they harm so much as one hair on anyone’s head, they’ll be bloody dead quicker than you can say-”
“Britt Ekland’s knickers,” Chris sniggered, before he was elbowed quite painfully in the stomach by Ray, who had some idea that the situation was serious.
---
A short while later, Gene decided it was time to make contact, and took a step towards the Princeps. “Come quietly, lads!” he shouted with as much subtlety as he could muster, which was very little. “You’re surrounded by armed bastards!”
One of the Princeps turned to face him. “We know your intentions,” he said calmly, in a clear voice. “Let us go.”
“That’s not how it works, you murdering scumbags! Put down your weapons and surrender!”
Just at that moment, Annie and her colleague, a PC called Marvin, launched themselves at the Princeps. All four of them were knocked, sprawling, to the ground.
“Annie!” Sam shouted, starting forward. He could not make out what was happening in that tangle of limbs, but he was going to if it killed him. But just then he felt someone strong restraining him from behind. “Get off me, Jack!” he hissed, squirming.
“Be quiet!” snapped the voice in his ear. It was not Jack, but Gene. “Do you want them to fillet her alive?”
Sam calmed himself and stopped struggling.
---
“Good man,” Jack whispered, genuinely impressed that Gene was prepared to handle the situation sensibly. Before he could say any more, he was silenced by a scream.
One of the ‘brothers’ was now holding Annie tight with a hand around her throat, while Marvin was sinking to the floor and looking down in disbelief at the broken piece of scaffolding that was protruding from his abdomen.
The Princep who no longer had his hands full turned to those watching with a defiant look. “We will drink your woman’s blood unless you let us go,” he said simply.
---
---
11
“Gov, we have to negotiate with them!” Sam whispered.
“Negotiate?” Gene repeated with disdain. “Negotiating is for pansies, Sam.”
To their surprise, it was one of the Princeps who answered. “There is not time for you to get pansies. You must negotiate now, or she will die.”
“What’s he on about?” Chris murmured, to be greeted by a ‘Shhhh!’ from everyone present.
“How can he have heard me?” Gene said, bewildered. “I was whispering!”
“You have a whisper like a foghorn,” Jack replied quietly, intending that only Gene heard his quip.
Again, it was one of the Princeps who spoke in answer. “Stop talking now,” he said firmly and calmly. “Or your woman will die.”
---
Sam looked round to see why Jack was fumbling in his pocket, and realised he was pulling out a small leather wallet. Jack beckoned to him to come closer, and flipped the wallet open to reveal a white piece of paper where you might expect a photo or a credit card to be. Sam gave Jack a quizzical look, but Jack just gestured down at the paper, where words had begun to appear.
They can hear our whispers.
Sam was about to ask how Jack had written it without him seeing, but the paper pre-empted his question.
It’s psychic paper...
Just accept it, you can be amazed later.
Think what you want to say.
Jack handed the wallet to Sam, who stared incredulously as his thoughts began to appear in writing.
What the **** is this? Jack is crazy. It censors swearing? This isn’t happening.
With a half smile, Jack took the wallet back.
Yes, I am, and it does - standard Time Agent issue, don’t worry about it.
Now concentrate, Sam. They can hear us, so they must have incredibly sensitive hearing...
---
“What are you two looking at?” Gene snapped, wondering why his DI was huddling together with the yank all of a sudden. “Have you forgotten about Annie?”
Sam and Jack simultaneously put their fingers to their lips.
Gene shook his head, unsure whether to follow his instincts and launch into a tirade about how poncing around with a wallet wasn’t going to help the situation. But Sam was looking at him with such seriousness in his eyes that he thought better of it, even if Sam was a bloody nutter.
Jack took a pen out from his pocket and pretended to write on the psychic paper, and then showed the message to Gene.
We need a siren. Don’t say anything, just sort it out. Please.
Gene blinked. He was sure the ‘please’ hadn’t been there the first time he looked, but maybe he’d just gone too long that day without a drink. He pulled a hip flask out of his inside pocket and took a swig. Then he gestured for Jack and Sam to follow him.
---
---
12
Soon Gene had communicated to uniform, via messages scribbled on ordinary scraps of paper, that there was a plan, and it involved sirens.
Do you think he knows what he’s doing?
When Sam looked down and saw Jack’s question, he nodded his head insistently. Had he really settled in so much in 1973 that Jack seemed like the outsider to him, and not Gene? Did he really owe it to Gene to be indignant at charges of incompetence levelled against him? There was hardly time for Sam to mull these problems over just then, and so he pushed them out of his mind, took the wallet from Jack, and gave a simple thought:
Gene knows what he’s doing.
And, as if on cue, he was proved right a split second later as five sirens sounded simultaneously.
---
The blare of the sirens was deafening enough for humans, but for the Princeps it had the desired effect of making them sink to their knees with their hands clutched to their stomachs. Why it was their stomachs and not their ears, nobody was quite sure, even Jack. But rather than ponder on such insignificant details, Gene made sure that they launched into action.
Annie was almost sobbing as Gene pulled her away, punching one of the Princeps in the face, and pushed her gently in Sam’s direction. Then he personally saw to it that the Princeps were both restrained by handcuffs and unconscious. Moments later, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you have to treat them like that?” Jack asked, sounding disappointed rather than angry.
“They,” Gene replied, jabbing a finger at the Princeps, “are murdering scumbags. They deserve what’s coming to them!”
Jack sighed. “Well that kind of treatment isn’t what’s coming to them. Because I’ll be taking them back to Torchwood in the morning.” He turned and walked away before Gene could object.
---
Eventually, Annie had stopped sobbing, the Princeps were in custody, and Gene was half-sitting on his car bonnet swigging from his hip flask, with Sam beside him.
“You did well, Gov,” Sam said distantly.
“I have to agree,” said a voice from behind them, and they turned to see Jack, who was returning from a telephone call to his colleagues in Cardiff. “You might be a tough old bastard, but it’s been an honour to work with you, Gene Hunt.”
Gene grunted and took the hand that Jack offered for a manly handshake.
Despite the niceties, the atmosphere was somewhat subdued. They had caught the Princeps, but people had died and it hardly seemed like a triumphant moment. Sam sighed loudly. “So what now then? I suppose we all go to the pub...”
“Sounds like an excellent idea to me, Sam,” Jack said with a grin. “And the drinks are on me!”
“Well now you’re talking my language,” Gene said as he stood up and put his hip flask away.
---
When they reached the Railway Arms, Jack put what looked like a considerable amount of money behind the bar and instructed Nelson to serve his friends whatever they wanted until the money ran out. It was not long before Gene, Ray and Chris were taking full advantage of his generosity.
But Sam was standing a little way away from the bar and showing no interest in drinking.
Jack went over to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “OK, Sam. Time to talk, like I promised.”
---
---
13
A game of cards started up between the other as Sam and Jack stood at the bar, but they declined an invitation to join in for the moment. “So what kind of aliens were they?” Sam asked. He was afraid what he would find out when he asked the important questions, and so kept to more general enquiries for the time being.
“We don’t know so much about the Thirsolanians, apart from what I told you. We suspect the humanoid form is a cover for their real shape.”
“Is that why they all look the same?”
Jack shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know for sure. Every individual seems like a clone of every other. But I’m hoping we’ll find out more when we question those two.” Then he leaned closer to Sam and spoke more softly. “But that isn’t what you want to know about really, though, is it?”
Sam shook his head, but didn’t meet Jack’s eye. “Can you tell me why I’m here?”
---
It seemed a good idea to get a table to themselves, despite the sniggers of Chris, who was clearly whispering something to Ray about them. Ray burst out laughing, but Sam hardly noticed their derision.
“Jack, you promised. Tell me!”
“OK!” Jack said indignantly, holding his hands in the air. “Have you ever heard that patience is a virtue?”
“Jack...”
“Alright, alright. I made some enquiries - my colleagues have equipment that measures Rift activity. Sam, did you have any enemies in 2006?”
Sam blinked. “Enemies? What are you saying?”
“You know, people who didn’t like you. Especially anyone you might have thought had access to suspicious levels of technology.”
“I... I don’t think so,” Sam said. “Are you saying someone is behind this? Am I... am I dead?”
“No, no, you’re alive!” Jack exclaimed, taking Sam’s hand as if it proved the fact. “You’re in the wrong time, but you’re completely alive. But yes, someone is behind this. It looks very much as though the Rift was manipulated - it was an anomalous pattern that we’d never seen before. And there isn’t usually much Rift activity in Manchester, that was why my colleagues looked into it.”
“So wait,” Sam said, trying to get his head round it. “You’re saying that there’s a... ‘rift’... that connects different times with each other, and people can be sent through it? And someone did this to me deliberately?”
“Exactly!” Jack smiled, but not unkindly. He liked Sam, a lot. And what he had to say to him was going to be devastating, so he was trying to find a way to delay it.
“But why? And... how?”
“There are no easy answers there. I’m sorry, I really am.” Jack paused. “I have an idea - why don’t you let me tell you a story?” He didn’t wait for Sam to consent, but went on. “There was this man, and he lived in the fifty-first century. He joined an organisation known as the Time Agency, and they issued him with a Vortex Manipulator, so that he could travel in time using only a wrist strap.”
“Is that true?” Sam put in. He was more or less willing to believe anything now.
“Every word,” Jack said. “So this man worked with the Time Agency for a while, but they double-crossed him, so he took the wrist strap and set up on his own. He was quite... loose in morals back then, so he used the ability to travel in time purely for his own ends. He made money and then gambled it all away, and he lived so fast. Then, one day, he met this guy...”
Jack had paused for so long that Sam was not sure he was going to continue. “You might as well finish the story,” he said, trying to sound as though he was not overly eager to hear it.
“This Doctor.” Jack’s eyes widened. “And he was the most amazing man he’d ever known. He was fantastic, gorgeous, a genius... and he made this man better. He showed him what mattered, and he made him a better person. But then, one day in the year 200,100 he just abandoned him. Left him behind without so much as a word. So the man wanted to find the Doctor again, and he managed to use his Vortex Manipulator for one last trip before it broke. But his aim was a little out, and he ended up in the nineteenth century.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Sam asked. “I mean, I saw you stabbed and you didn’t die, so...”
“Yeah, the man’s me,” Jack said. “Was it that obvious?”
“And you haven’t found the Doctor yet?”
Jack shook his head. “I look out for him, but it’s your time when I know I’ll find him again. Maybe 2006 maybe 2007, I don’t know. Not 2005, or I’ll end up crossing my own timeline...” He trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, but the pity in Jack’s eyes was not for himself.
---
“G’night, Gov,” Sam shouted over to Gene as he and Jack went to walk out.
Amid some sniggers from the other poker players, Gene got up and went over to Sam. “Between you and me, Sam,” he whispered, “things are looking a bit suspicious between you and pretty boy. Best let him go and come and join us for a round of poker. People are talking.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I’ve got some business with Jack,” he whispered. “I think he’s going to tell me more about Torchwood!”
“So you’re... undercover?” Gene raised his eyebrows. “I suppose that’s alright then.”
Just then, Jack came closer and clapped Gene on the shoulder. “I doubt I’ll see you in the morning, DCI Hunt. So I just wanted to say that I’ve enjoyed working with you. Torchwood will be in touch about that commendation...”
“I don’t need a commendation from a secret bunch of fairies,” Gene said.
Jack decided Gene’s words probably represented a grudging acceptance, and smiled. “Oh, and by the way - nice coat!”
Gene nodded. “Yeah, well yours isn’t bad either.”
---
---
14
Jack went back to Sam’s flat with him - somewhere they could talk away from the others. When they got inside, Jack took the initiative to find two glasses and pour them both a drink from a bottle of single malt standing on the bedside table.
“Nice place,” Jack said, trying to be friendly.
“No,” Sam said. “It’s not nice. It’s wrong. I shouldn’t be here!”
“I’m so sorry, Sam.” Jack’s eyes were serious.
“Why? Is there no way back?”
For a moment, Jack was silent. He didn’t want to have to say it, but Sam was right - there was no way back. “I’m sorry, but my colleagues have not observed any further Rift activity since you - and the Thirsolanians - came through.”
“But can’t you... I don’t know, manipulate it? You said someone did that to send me here!”
Sam was beginning to sound desperate, and it was breaking Jack’s heart. “If I could, I would, believe me. But we can’t control it. The person who sent you through must have been some kind of genius. If I didn’t know the Doctor was the last of his kind, I’d say it must have been a Timelord.”
For a long time, Sam just sat there, trying to take this in. he poured himself a whisky, and then another. At the third, Jack put out a hand to stop him raising the glass to his mouth.
“Well I might as well drink myself into oblivion, if I’m going to live the rest of my life in this bloody place!”
“It’s the same place, Sam. You lived through this when you were a child. You’ll get back to 2006, I hope, you just have to take the long path.”
“But I’ll just keep getting older, won’t I? Not like you, Jack. So why exactly can’t you die?”
Jack shrugged. “I wish I knew. But it comes in handy sometimes.” He grinned, but then paused and leaned forward. “Sam, why don’t you come back to Cardiff with me?”
Sam snorted. “What, like a partnership? Fighting alien crime? You be Bodie and I’ll be Doyle.”
At that, Jack suddenly began to look for something in the inside pocket of his coat. Eventually he pulled out a small machine that looked somewhat like a prototype for a Gameboy. “Hang on...” Jack murmured.
“Is that some sort of computer?”
“Aha! The Professionals doesn’t start until 1977. So you’d better not mention it to anyone for another few years!”
“It’s a computer from the future?”
“Well, not exactly,” Jack said. “Last year there was major Rift activity in Cardiff, and we got half an hour of broadband connection beamed through. But the only website we could access was the Internet Movie Database, so...” He trailed off, and his broad smile froze when he saw Sam’s face, and the tears welling in his eyes that he was blinking back. Probably not just nostalgia over hours of looking up films on the internet. “I really am sorry,” he whispered.
“If there’s Rift activity in Cardiff, can’t I get home from there?”
“I told you, we can’t control it. You could end up in the Neolithic period, or a million years into the future. The chances of you getting to your home time if you step into the Rift are tiny.” Jack poured himself another whisky and sat back in his chair. “Besides, if it were that easy I would have taken the short road to your time myself - I’m pretty sure that’s where I’ll meet the Doctor again one day.”
Sam swirled the dregs of whisky round in his glass thoughtfully. “Well I hope you do,” he sighed.
---
---
15
They kept talking for a long time, and eventually Jack declared that it would be a good idea to make coffee. He put his hand on Sam’s shoulder to stop him from getting up, and went to the kitchen himself. He was very careful that Sam could not see him.
“Black for me!” Sam called, managing to slur even such a short sentence. He had put away a lot of whisky that evening, especially after they found the second bottle in the cupboard.
“Alright!” Jack giggled, making sure that he sounded just as drunk as Sam did - though in truth he had not drunk much less anyway. “Strong and black, coming up!”
Sam became quiet then, and when Jack re-entered the main room he found him dozing in his chair. He shook him awake gently and put the cup of coffee in his hand.
“Oh... thanks,” Sam said slowly. He took a sip and then, realising vaguely that it was good coffee - though he was unsure how good coffee had come to be found in his cupboard - he finished it off. Ten minutes later, he was fast asleep.
Jack carefully moved Sam from his chair to the bed, and put the covers over him. He stroked his hair with a gentle hand, and bent down to kiss him lightly on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, Sam Tyler. I hope they come true one day.”
With that, Jack put on his long coat and left.
---
Sam’s head was aching when he got into work half an hour late the next day, and his pain was not improved by Gene’s yelling that he wanted to see him in his office.
“Can you keep it down, gov?” Sam begged quietly when they were alone.
“No!” Gene shouted. “It’s not my fault if you can’t take your bloody drink, is it?”
Sam groaned, but said nothing.
“So why didn’t you get in early this morning? I thought you were going to deal with Harkness and sort the Princeps out. Phyllis said the yank just swept in like he owned the place, showed her some official-looking papers, and went off with them!”
Sam looked back at him blankly, but still said nothing.
“And did you find anything out about this Torchwood then? Apart from how good they are at drinking you under the table?”
Sam shook his head. “Gov, what are you talking about?”
---
---
The Epilogue
In 2007, Jack was still waiting for the Doctor to come. He was leading Torchwood now, and he loved his team, and he was sure the Doctor could not be far away. The twenty-first century is when everything happens - when Earth makes proper contact with other worlds, when people start to realise the extent of the universe... and when everything gets dangerous. The Doctor would not want to miss out on all that.
But for now, it was still the slow road. Aliens came and went, they saved the world a few times, and life passed by at the proper pace. Normal humans did what they usually did - shopped, had sex, argued, voted, watched TV and got themselves into danger occasionally. It didn’t really seem that anything was different.
But in those last few months, Jack started to get a feeling of deja vu. As if someone he was seeing every so often - not in person, but on TV or in the papers or somewhere - was someone he had met before.
It was not until the Doctor charged back into his life, and the Master was exposed, that Jack realised that Harold Saxon was the spitting image of Sam Tyler - and he realised at the same time who had sent Sam through the Rift, and why.