Fic: Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (4/7)
Title: Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (4/7)
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Back to the Future
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Jenny, Madame Vastra, Strax, Parker, Martha, Gwen
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, character death, mention of sexual assault, prostitution, language, and severe bending of time travel plausibility even taking all three canons into account
Spoilers: through TW: "Exit Wounds" and through DW: "The Snowmen"
Words: 32,500 (3,500 this part)
Beta: tymewyse and fide_et_spe both had a hand in making this far more comprehensible than it would have been. All remaining aspects of wtfery are mine alone.
Summary: Accidentally shot into the past by a time-travelling car, Ianto has to fix his own mistakes or he won't have a future to go back to.
AN: Written for reel_torchwood Screening 6. Also fills the Trope Bingo space: au:fusion
Disclaimer: BBC, Universal, RTD, Steven Moffat, and Robert Zemeckis own these characters and situations, and want nothing to do with this ridiculous fluff piece of faux-Victoriana.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
***
Chapter Four
***
His position as Madame Vastra's butler and general manservant started that evening. Parker greeted him with less than enthusiastic cordiality. He showed Ianto the servants' entrance, gave him access to the wardrobe that held a few musty, mismatched uniforms, and otherwise stood aloof, his freshly-washed hair slicked back.
"I don't mean to step on anyone's toes," Ianto told him as he donned a more appropriate suit for his station. "This wasn't your job, was it?"
"No. I've been Madame's driver and handyman. I wouldn't know which spoon to use to eat an eyeball if you asked."
Eyeball? "I'm familiar with the normal etiquette guides."
"Things are hardly normal here. She ate the last butler, and we haven't kept a maid on for more than a week. Speaking of which, you're also the cook now. I'll have my supper cold from the pantry, but she'll want feeding."
Parker left him to stare about himself in the disturbingly unused kitchen. Ianto opened drawers and doors until he located the cold pantry. He found hard cheese, preserved meats and jams, and a few lonely vegetables. Searching turned up an old loaf of bread in a box which seemed passable once he scraped down the crust. With a knife that could use sharpening, he put together a passable cold plate suitable for noshing whilst going over midnight data scans yet again. His employer would probably not be thrilled but tomorrow he could run out to buy supplies, and ask for lessons on operating the hob.
Vastra kept a hothouse not dissimilar to the one they had at the Hub. The air was redolent with warm, green fragrance from fronds and ferns. As he brought the tray of nibbles, Ianto noted the plants he recognised and made a mental note to find out if their care was under his purview.
"Apologies for the small selection, ma'am. I'd like to visit the butcher's tomorrow. A bakery as well."
Madame Vastra indicated the table beside her. "You may. Parker will give you money."
So dismissed, Ianto left her side and gave himself a tour of the house. Most rooms appeared unused, the fine furniture covered with dust cloths, the cloths themselves dusty and forgotten. He discovered the small suite of rooms she lived in upstairs. Should he tidy? Was there a maid? Had she eaten the maid?
He considered this was not his most well-researched plan. He'd had a crash course in becoming Torchwood's handyman and Jack's occasional valet with great credit due to Google. He had hoped this wouldn't be much different, but as he stared at the fireplace, the tinderbox and what he could only hope was a warming pan, he knew he was far out of his depth. Eventually, Vastra rang for him to take away the tray as she read by lamplight in the humid room. He washed what he could, and fed himself from the remains of the cold pantry. Tomorrow would be a shopping day, and more practise with a monetary system he only knew from his dad's occasional complaints. If he was lucky, he'd put the rest of his plan into motion, too.
Ianto searched until he found the room Parker had shown him earlier with the uniform. He bed was almost as dusty as the beds upstairs, and he was certain something small and whiskery had taken up residence in the mattress since the last owner's departure. Nevertheless, he made himself a place to settle amongst the tired sheets, and was as grateful as he could be for the small comfort.
As sleep beckoned, he thought about Jack, which made him wonder if this Jack was working tonight. Jack had hated working for Torchwood in the beginning, Ianto remembered, yet looking at his life before it, he'd had good reason to stay on. A clean bed with the only other inhabitants his invited guests? That had to be heaven.
***
Morning found him at the butcher's shop where Vastra generally bought her meat. A few questions pointed him towards a baker with fresh wares, and a greengrocer's. Ianto paid for his purchases to be delivered later in the day, making his way into the poorer areas of the city. He was looking for disease, and he found it soon enough.
A makeshift infirmary stood on Molly Street, with patients and soon-to-be-patients loitering outside. Ianto saw boils and strange growths that he chose not to get too close to. Was it just another London disease, or had Torchwood's records been correct in identifying this as alien?
Within the infirmary, an elderly man who went by the moniker Doctor Brown treated everyone who came through the doorway. Ianto caught sight of two nurses and a much-harried assistant who looked far too young to be working. As Ianto wasn't ill, everyone ignored him or pushed past him. He asked questions of the sick people out in the streets, wishing he had hand sanitiser wipes with him. He caught the assistant running out on an errand.
"Please. What's going on?"
The youth, who might have been fifteen in a good light and a pair of tall shoes, gave him an impatient glance full of meaning. Ianto knew it well, having been the one to show that same expression to tourists dropping by the Information Centre just as he was closing up to go save the world from aliens. Feeling like a heel but hoping this was for the best, he handed the boy two shillings. The countenance didn't change, but he paused. "I'm fetching the iodine."
"What's made these people ill?"
He shrugged. "No-one knows. Some sailor came home to visit his mum, the next day half the street is coming down with it. Doc Brown thinks we ought to quarantine all of Molly Street to be safe."
"Do you?"
"I'm no doctor." A knavish smile flashed and was gone, and it whispered the word, 'Yet.'
Ianto played to his ego. "But you're a smart lad. You know a lot." This worked. The youth visibly brightened. Ianto reckoned many people took in his tender age and his dark complexion, and they instantly dismissed his intelligence. People did that in Ianto's time, too.
"If you ask me, all these people took ill without ever seeing that man. I think it's in the air, and that means we're not quarantining anything. Can't stop the air."
"Do you think something from outside might be poisoning them?" This could be his big break.
"No. I think the sailor was sick, right? And as soon as he sneezed, the whole street caught ill."
Not what Ianto had been hoping to hear. "Have you told Doctor Brown that?"
"Like I said, he doesn't listen to me." The youth took his money and headed away from Ianto. He still had his task to finish.
Mysterious illness. It would have to do.
***
"It's been spreading like plague in the poor districts."
Vastra tilted her head, unblinking stare penetrating through him. She was from the age of the dinosaurs. He knew exactly how his mammalian ancestors must have felt meeting that gaze. "While they have my sympathies, I don't see how another bout of typhoid is something I can change."
"It isn't typhoid," he said. "The disease could be alien in nature. I think it's worth an investigation."
"Even if you are correct, how on Earth do you think I will help? I am a warrior, not a doctor."
He straightened up. "If it's alien, someone is planting the infection and must be stopped. I have a friend who is familiar with alien disease and can help with the rest. Please, Madame."
She lifted her teacup to her mouth and did not reply. Vastra was not a woman to be rushed into anything. She drank her tea, a hint of inhuman tongue licking out at the end to take up the last drop. When she settled back into her chair, she faced him. "This is why you came to me asking for work."
"I'm sorry?"
"How did you know of the disease?"
"I heard about it."
"From whom?"
"From the young doctor who is risking his life to treat them." He held her gaze.
"I see you are going to insist on bothering me about things you want, Mr. Jones. Explain to me why it isn't going to be easier for me in the long run to eat you now."
He considered this. Her expression was nigh unreadable. He'd grown accustomed to sussing out Jack's moods, complex storms enriched with such a long past. Madame Vastra was even older, but he could only guess her thoughts. He went for broke. "Because you find me an entertaining puzzle to solve, and I have just brought you something new."
She muttered something. "Very well. Bring my veil. The black one. And have Parker ready the coach."
"Thank you, Madame."
***
He'd sent a message to Jenny and Strax via two pence given to a small boy he'd found outside. Part of him wondered if he was irreparably altering the timeline by changing the financial balance in the city every time he paid for something. He couldn't worry about that now. He saved his worries for all his other problems.
Jenny and Strax arrived just as Vastra's coach pulled to the kerb, depositing Vastra and Ianto before Parker drove away. Jenny, out of breath from running, smiled through her panting as soon as she saw him. "Ianto!"
"Thank you for coming. Madame Vastra, these are my friends. Mr. Strax is a nurse. He saved my life. And this is my dear friend Jenny Flint."
He held his breath as he introduced them, hoping he'd see sparks. Instead, Vastra inclined her head to them both with a perfunctory, "Charmed, I'm sure," and Jenny barely acknowledged her as she turned back to Ianto.
"What's going on?"
"There's plague running through Molly Street."
Strax said, "Hardly plague. When you humans stop building your middens next to your wells, you will overpopulate your puny world." He took in Ianto and Jenny's matching offended expressions and added, "With respect."
Vastra inspected Strax more closely. "You aren't one of the apes, are you?"
"Strax is a Sontaran," said Ianto. Neither of the others appeared to notice Vastra's odd mien. He wondered if there was a perception filter woven into her lacy black veil, making her visible only to those who already knew her secret. "Perhaps things would be easier if you showed your face."
"Perhaps I should remind you who is in command here." She strode towards the entrance to the alley that led to Molly Street. A policeman barred her way, with long wooden poles crossing the entrance. "Gendarme, let me pass."
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but we can't. This whole area is sealed off. Deadly plague. No one is allowed in or out."
Ianto said, "We are medical workers. Doctors and nurses." Jenny and Strax came up beside him.
"Sorry, Doctor, but the orders come from the highest authority."
Vastra reached under her cloak as Jenny changed her pose to something that promised bodily harm. They could easily take down this silly copper and any mates he had. Ianto spied movement in a close alley. The shadow moved and he caught a face.
"Madame," he said loudly, placing a hand on her arm. The glance she shot him pierced through her veil and promised he'd be losing that hand if he didn't remove it immediately. "This poor man is only doing as he was told. We'll return later."
"I don't think so," said Jenny. "I can make short work of him."
Ianto changed his attentions to her. "But you don't have to yet." He took her elbow, tugging her away and hoping Strax didn't decide now was a good time to begin wiping out Earth authorities.
With complaints from the others, he led them to the alley where he'd seen the shadow.
Jack waited there impatiently. "Come on."
"What are you doing here?"
"You didn't come home last night."
"I told you I was starting my new job."
Vastra coughed delicately. Ianto said, "Sorry. Madame Vastra, this is my friend."
"Captain Jack Harkness," he said cheekily, taking her gloved hand and kissing it. "I haven't seen a Silurian in years."
"You're familiar with my people?" Finally, she removed the veil, to a quiet gasp of surprise from Jenny and a grab for a weapon from Strax, which Jenny halted with a nearly automatic grasp of his fat wrist.
"I was, a long time ago. I gotta say, you're exactly as beautiful as I remember." This coloured Vastra's scales a darker green.
It was Ianto's turn to clear his throat. "Did you come here to flirt with my employer?"
"No, I came here because I think I know what the plague is. I think I've seen it before, and I think I can get us inside the quarantine zone." Jack looked pleased with himself.
As they followed him to the empty building that backed onto another part of Molly Street, Ianto whispered, "How could you have seen it?"
"I looked over that pamphlet again. I did some investigating on my own."
A suspicion dawned. "I didn't give you the pamphlet."
"It fell out of your pocket." Jack's face was utterly bland at the bald lie. Ianto let it go.
He glanced back, hoping to see the others making friends. No luck. "What is it?"
"I want to get inside to make sure." As they climbed the ruined stairs, Jack paused. "I think Ianto and Jenny ought to stay here. If I'm right, this is exclusively transmissible to humans."
Jenny moved past him, and reached the window exit that was their access point. "And if you're wrong, you'll need our help."
The situation had worsened. People lay where they'd fallen. Strax examined the first bodies he found. "They live, but I have not seen such a disease before." He muttered something about harnessing its power for the glory of the Sontaran Empire, but Jenny cleared her throat and he said simply, "I will see what I can do."
"We'll try the infirmary," said Ianto. The hospital ward burgeoned with the sick and the comatose. Doctor Brown lay in one of the beds, skin bursting with boils. The nurses were nowhere to be seen. Ianto's friend from earlier appeared to be the only one left on his feet, but even he had the beginnings of boils on the backs of his dark hands.
"Oh, it's you," he said, when he saw Ianto. The phrase wasn't relieved, or happy. It was simple acknowledgement of another human he'd seen before, who was likely bringing him more work to do.
"I brought friends."
"Can they change chamberpots?"
Strax came in. "Girl, where are your documents?"
The youth's eyebrows went up. Ianto said hurriedly, "Mr. Strax is a nurse."
"He's foreign," said Jenny quickly.
Jack and Ianto both turned to her. "Foreign?" Jack asked, in a clear tone of, 'And people believe you?'
"Right," said the boy, who clearly didn't. "I have some notes. The antifungals seem to work, but barely." Jack and Strax browsed the jotted notes.
"This is what I was afraid of," Jack said. "I've seen this on three planets. The fungus takes hold and gives the infected the urge to spread it. The next thing you know, the whole population has it."
Strax muttered to himself more. "I need room to work."
The youth turned to Ianto. "Is he any good?"
"I hope." He noticed Jack smiling at the boy, and said, "These are my friends. This is Jack, and Jenny. My employer, Madame Vastra." Vastra stood at the edge of the room. She clearly had been expecting battle. Simple sickness unnerved her. "Jenny, could you and Vastra check the perimeter? For security?"
"I thought I'd stay here with you and help."
Jack said, "Security is the bigger worry. If you could. Thanks a lot." He shushed her outside. Vastra would not be moved, but went under her own power, clearly grateful to be outside. "There. Standing guard at a hospital. Better than Spanish Fly."
"Really?"
"No." He turned to the young doctor-in-training, who was treating Doctor Brown. "Sorry, didn't get your name."
"Ignatius." He dabbed iodine onto the open sores as Brown cursed and pulled away. "That'll be Doctor Oshodi one day."
Ianto blinked. But of course he was. Doctor Brown said, "Hah. A coloured doctor? You continue to dream."
"He will be a doctor one day," said Ianto. Jack glanced at him, then smacked him lightly on the head.
"Spoilers."
"Sorry."
"You are rubbish at this."
"I know."
***
Strax cured the plague an hour later, thanks to future Doctor Oshodi's notes. Within three hours, enough of the patients in the infirmary had received the cure to walk on their own power. Jack took Ianto's arm. "We should go. They've got this."
Ianto tried to see if Jenny and Vastra had talked, if they were showing signs of perhaps enjoying each other's company, if anything at all. But as soon as Jenny saw Ianto again, her face broke into a grin, and she took his arm. "There you are." Should she even have noticed Jack still held the other, she didn't let on.
Vastra sent Ianto ahead to fetch Parker, making him disengage with both. Of course he had to work, and couldn't go off with Jack and the others. As Madame Vastra entered her coach, she said loudly enough for them to hear, "And now, Mr. Jones, we will talk about your wasting my time."
She gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the day, though not the sack. When he finally edged out into her presence again with supper, he found his employer by one of the windows, with the curtain just ajar. "It's beef, ma'am. Rare, as you said, with roasted vegetables." Rare meant that it was supposed to be underdone. He had located no herbs anywhere in the pantry or the markets, so he'd done what he could with black pepper.
"Leave it on the table. Please feel free not to tell me it's been set there by aliens."
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am." He remained standing.
She let out an exasperated sigh. "What now? Clockwork Cybermen in the scullery?"
"You know about the Cybermen?"
Her eyes narrowed. "I do. But you shouldn't. There was a timeline shift erasing them from memory. I suppose travelling through time does that to you."
"You're a time traveller?"
"Well-met. I travelled the fashionable way. I slept. How did you arrive?"
"Sorry, ma'am, what?"
"I tested you earlier today. I was humming a song I enjoy. You hummed along."
He thought back. "I did?"
With a rather pleasant voice, more so than he'd have thought, she sang quietly, "Pretty little maids from school are we."
"Oh that." He shrugged. "Picked it up somewhere, I suppose." That somewhere would be Jack and Lisa's interest in Gilbert and Sullivan. Ianto had been unimpressed with either's attempt to entrance him in the operettas, but he'd learned a little nonetheless.
"It's from The Mikado."
"Yes. I went to see that last season." As soon as he spoke, he felt the trap, and was floored by his own stupidity. Lies came easy to him, always had, but the lies had to be credible, and never to someone who could tell.
"A pity that show opens next week. One of the actors owed me a favour, and I listened in on an early rehearsal. But you did not. And you know of the Cybermen, and aliens, and you keep friends with non-humans. How far in the future have you travelled, Mr. Jones?"
"I've never travelled into the future," he said, scuttling back to honesty.
She smiled. He wasn't sure if this was a quiet, triumphant smile, or the smile of someone who's decided on a much better dish than rare beef with veg. "What year were you born?"
"Ma'am?"
"You have not lost your hearing in the last minute. Tell me the year you were born."
There was no room to run. She'd find him. She would make him speak. "1983."
"I see. Tell me, do you enjoy playing games with foolish people from the past, or have you simply come to destroy us?" He heard the anger banked in her tone.
The truth was not his friend, but it was his sole lifeline here in this room. "I'm here by accident. I'd like to get home."
"Are your friends also time travellers?"
"Not Jenny, but the other two are. They didn't arrive here with me. They're staying in 1885 until it turns to 1886, or a blue police box shows up on their doorstep."
His little joke was ruined as Vastra brightened up. "Oh, they know the Doctor?"
***
Chapter Five
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Back to the Future
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Jenny, Madame Vastra, Strax, Parker, Martha, Gwen
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, character death, mention of sexual assault, prostitution, language, and severe bending of time travel plausibility even taking all three canons into account
Spoilers: through TW: "Exit Wounds" and through DW: "The Snowmen"
Words: 32,500 (3,500 this part)
Beta: tymewyse and fide_et_spe both had a hand in making this far more comprehensible than it would have been. All remaining aspects of wtfery are mine alone.
Summary: Accidentally shot into the past by a time-travelling car, Ianto has to fix his own mistakes or he won't have a future to go back to.
AN: Written for reel_torchwood Screening 6. Also fills the Trope Bingo space: au:fusion
Disclaimer: BBC, Universal, RTD, Steven Moffat, and Robert Zemeckis own these characters and situations, and want nothing to do with this ridiculous fluff piece of faux-Victoriana.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
***
Chapter Four
***
His position as Madame Vastra's butler and general manservant started that evening. Parker greeted him with less than enthusiastic cordiality. He showed Ianto the servants' entrance, gave him access to the wardrobe that held a few musty, mismatched uniforms, and otherwise stood aloof, his freshly-washed hair slicked back.
"I don't mean to step on anyone's toes," Ianto told him as he donned a more appropriate suit for his station. "This wasn't your job, was it?"
"No. I've been Madame's driver and handyman. I wouldn't know which spoon to use to eat an eyeball if you asked."
Eyeball? "I'm familiar with the normal etiquette guides."
"Things are hardly normal here. She ate the last butler, and we haven't kept a maid on for more than a week. Speaking of which, you're also the cook now. I'll have my supper cold from the pantry, but she'll want feeding."
Parker left him to stare about himself in the disturbingly unused kitchen. Ianto opened drawers and doors until he located the cold pantry. He found hard cheese, preserved meats and jams, and a few lonely vegetables. Searching turned up an old loaf of bread in a box which seemed passable once he scraped down the crust. With a knife that could use sharpening, he put together a passable cold plate suitable for noshing whilst going over midnight data scans yet again. His employer would probably not be thrilled but tomorrow he could run out to buy supplies, and ask for lessons on operating the hob.
Vastra kept a hothouse not dissimilar to the one they had at the Hub. The air was redolent with warm, green fragrance from fronds and ferns. As he brought the tray of nibbles, Ianto noted the plants he recognised and made a mental note to find out if their care was under his purview.
"Apologies for the small selection, ma'am. I'd like to visit the butcher's tomorrow. A bakery as well."
Madame Vastra indicated the table beside her. "You may. Parker will give you money."
So dismissed, Ianto left her side and gave himself a tour of the house. Most rooms appeared unused, the fine furniture covered with dust cloths, the cloths themselves dusty and forgotten. He discovered the small suite of rooms she lived in upstairs. Should he tidy? Was there a maid? Had she eaten the maid?
He considered this was not his most well-researched plan. He'd had a crash course in becoming Torchwood's handyman and Jack's occasional valet with great credit due to Google. He had hoped this wouldn't be much different, but as he stared at the fireplace, the tinderbox and what he could only hope was a warming pan, he knew he was far out of his depth. Eventually, Vastra rang for him to take away the tray as she read by lamplight in the humid room. He washed what he could, and fed himself from the remains of the cold pantry. Tomorrow would be a shopping day, and more practise with a monetary system he only knew from his dad's occasional complaints. If he was lucky, he'd put the rest of his plan into motion, too.
Ianto searched until he found the room Parker had shown him earlier with the uniform. He bed was almost as dusty as the beds upstairs, and he was certain something small and whiskery had taken up residence in the mattress since the last owner's departure. Nevertheless, he made himself a place to settle amongst the tired sheets, and was as grateful as he could be for the small comfort.
As sleep beckoned, he thought about Jack, which made him wonder if this Jack was working tonight. Jack had hated working for Torchwood in the beginning, Ianto remembered, yet looking at his life before it, he'd had good reason to stay on. A clean bed with the only other inhabitants his invited guests? That had to be heaven.
***
Morning found him at the butcher's shop where Vastra generally bought her meat. A few questions pointed him towards a baker with fresh wares, and a greengrocer's. Ianto paid for his purchases to be delivered later in the day, making his way into the poorer areas of the city. He was looking for disease, and he found it soon enough.
A makeshift infirmary stood on Molly Street, with patients and soon-to-be-patients loitering outside. Ianto saw boils and strange growths that he chose not to get too close to. Was it just another London disease, or had Torchwood's records been correct in identifying this as alien?
Within the infirmary, an elderly man who went by the moniker Doctor Brown treated everyone who came through the doorway. Ianto caught sight of two nurses and a much-harried assistant who looked far too young to be working. As Ianto wasn't ill, everyone ignored him or pushed past him. He asked questions of the sick people out in the streets, wishing he had hand sanitiser wipes with him. He caught the assistant running out on an errand.
"Please. What's going on?"
The youth, who might have been fifteen in a good light and a pair of tall shoes, gave him an impatient glance full of meaning. Ianto knew it well, having been the one to show that same expression to tourists dropping by the Information Centre just as he was closing up to go save the world from aliens. Feeling like a heel but hoping this was for the best, he handed the boy two shillings. The countenance didn't change, but he paused. "I'm fetching the iodine."
"What's made these people ill?"
He shrugged. "No-one knows. Some sailor came home to visit his mum, the next day half the street is coming down with it. Doc Brown thinks we ought to quarantine all of Molly Street to be safe."
"Do you?"
"I'm no doctor." A knavish smile flashed and was gone, and it whispered the word, 'Yet.'
Ianto played to his ego. "But you're a smart lad. You know a lot." This worked. The youth visibly brightened. Ianto reckoned many people took in his tender age and his dark complexion, and they instantly dismissed his intelligence. People did that in Ianto's time, too.
"If you ask me, all these people took ill without ever seeing that man. I think it's in the air, and that means we're not quarantining anything. Can't stop the air."
"Do you think something from outside might be poisoning them?" This could be his big break.
"No. I think the sailor was sick, right? And as soon as he sneezed, the whole street caught ill."
Not what Ianto had been hoping to hear. "Have you told Doctor Brown that?"
"Like I said, he doesn't listen to me." The youth took his money and headed away from Ianto. He still had his task to finish.
Mysterious illness. It would have to do.
***
"It's been spreading like plague in the poor districts."
Vastra tilted her head, unblinking stare penetrating through him. She was from the age of the dinosaurs. He knew exactly how his mammalian ancestors must have felt meeting that gaze. "While they have my sympathies, I don't see how another bout of typhoid is something I can change."
"It isn't typhoid," he said. "The disease could be alien in nature. I think it's worth an investigation."
"Even if you are correct, how on Earth do you think I will help? I am a warrior, not a doctor."
He straightened up. "If it's alien, someone is planting the infection and must be stopped. I have a friend who is familiar with alien disease and can help with the rest. Please, Madame."
She lifted her teacup to her mouth and did not reply. Vastra was not a woman to be rushed into anything. She drank her tea, a hint of inhuman tongue licking out at the end to take up the last drop. When she settled back into her chair, she faced him. "This is why you came to me asking for work."
"I'm sorry?"
"How did you know of the disease?"
"I heard about it."
"From whom?"
"From the young doctor who is risking his life to treat them." He held her gaze.
"I see you are going to insist on bothering me about things you want, Mr. Jones. Explain to me why it isn't going to be easier for me in the long run to eat you now."
He considered this. Her expression was nigh unreadable. He'd grown accustomed to sussing out Jack's moods, complex storms enriched with such a long past. Madame Vastra was even older, but he could only guess her thoughts. He went for broke. "Because you find me an entertaining puzzle to solve, and I have just brought you something new."
She muttered something. "Very well. Bring my veil. The black one. And have Parker ready the coach."
"Thank you, Madame."
***
He'd sent a message to Jenny and Strax via two pence given to a small boy he'd found outside. Part of him wondered if he was irreparably altering the timeline by changing the financial balance in the city every time he paid for something. He couldn't worry about that now. He saved his worries for all his other problems.
Jenny and Strax arrived just as Vastra's coach pulled to the kerb, depositing Vastra and Ianto before Parker drove away. Jenny, out of breath from running, smiled through her panting as soon as she saw him. "Ianto!"
"Thank you for coming. Madame Vastra, these are my friends. Mr. Strax is a nurse. He saved my life. And this is my dear friend Jenny Flint."
He held his breath as he introduced them, hoping he'd see sparks. Instead, Vastra inclined her head to them both with a perfunctory, "Charmed, I'm sure," and Jenny barely acknowledged her as she turned back to Ianto.
"What's going on?"
"There's plague running through Molly Street."
Strax said, "Hardly plague. When you humans stop building your middens next to your wells, you will overpopulate your puny world." He took in Ianto and Jenny's matching offended expressions and added, "With respect."
Vastra inspected Strax more closely. "You aren't one of the apes, are you?"
"Strax is a Sontaran," said Ianto. Neither of the others appeared to notice Vastra's odd mien. He wondered if there was a perception filter woven into her lacy black veil, making her visible only to those who already knew her secret. "Perhaps things would be easier if you showed your face."
"Perhaps I should remind you who is in command here." She strode towards the entrance to the alley that led to Molly Street. A policeman barred her way, with long wooden poles crossing the entrance. "Gendarme, let me pass."
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but we can't. This whole area is sealed off. Deadly plague. No one is allowed in or out."
Ianto said, "We are medical workers. Doctors and nurses." Jenny and Strax came up beside him.
"Sorry, Doctor, but the orders come from the highest authority."
Vastra reached under her cloak as Jenny changed her pose to something that promised bodily harm. They could easily take down this silly copper and any mates he had. Ianto spied movement in a close alley. The shadow moved and he caught a face.
"Madame," he said loudly, placing a hand on her arm. The glance she shot him pierced through her veil and promised he'd be losing that hand if he didn't remove it immediately. "This poor man is only doing as he was told. We'll return later."
"I don't think so," said Jenny. "I can make short work of him."
Ianto changed his attentions to her. "But you don't have to yet." He took her elbow, tugging her away and hoping Strax didn't decide now was a good time to begin wiping out Earth authorities.
With complaints from the others, he led them to the alley where he'd seen the shadow.
Jack waited there impatiently. "Come on."
"What are you doing here?"
"You didn't come home last night."
"I told you I was starting my new job."
Vastra coughed delicately. Ianto said, "Sorry. Madame Vastra, this is my friend."
"Captain Jack Harkness," he said cheekily, taking her gloved hand and kissing it. "I haven't seen a Silurian in years."
"You're familiar with my people?" Finally, she removed the veil, to a quiet gasp of surprise from Jenny and a grab for a weapon from Strax, which Jenny halted with a nearly automatic grasp of his fat wrist.
"I was, a long time ago. I gotta say, you're exactly as beautiful as I remember." This coloured Vastra's scales a darker green.
It was Ianto's turn to clear his throat. "Did you come here to flirt with my employer?"
"No, I came here because I think I know what the plague is. I think I've seen it before, and I think I can get us inside the quarantine zone." Jack looked pleased with himself.
As they followed him to the empty building that backed onto another part of Molly Street, Ianto whispered, "How could you have seen it?"
"I looked over that pamphlet again. I did some investigating on my own."
A suspicion dawned. "I didn't give you the pamphlet."
"It fell out of your pocket." Jack's face was utterly bland at the bald lie. Ianto let it go.
He glanced back, hoping to see the others making friends. No luck. "What is it?"
"I want to get inside to make sure." As they climbed the ruined stairs, Jack paused. "I think Ianto and Jenny ought to stay here. If I'm right, this is exclusively transmissible to humans."
Jenny moved past him, and reached the window exit that was their access point. "And if you're wrong, you'll need our help."
The situation had worsened. People lay where they'd fallen. Strax examined the first bodies he found. "They live, but I have not seen such a disease before." He muttered something about harnessing its power for the glory of the Sontaran Empire, but Jenny cleared her throat and he said simply, "I will see what I can do."
"We'll try the infirmary," said Ianto. The hospital ward burgeoned with the sick and the comatose. Doctor Brown lay in one of the beds, skin bursting with boils. The nurses were nowhere to be seen. Ianto's friend from earlier appeared to be the only one left on his feet, but even he had the beginnings of boils on the backs of his dark hands.
"Oh, it's you," he said, when he saw Ianto. The phrase wasn't relieved, or happy. It was simple acknowledgement of another human he'd seen before, who was likely bringing him more work to do.
"I brought friends."
"Can they change chamberpots?"
Strax came in. "Girl, where are your documents?"
The youth's eyebrows went up. Ianto said hurriedly, "Mr. Strax is a nurse."
"He's foreign," said Jenny quickly.
Jack and Ianto both turned to her. "Foreign?" Jack asked, in a clear tone of, 'And people believe you?'
"Right," said the boy, who clearly didn't. "I have some notes. The antifungals seem to work, but barely." Jack and Strax browsed the jotted notes.
"This is what I was afraid of," Jack said. "I've seen this on three planets. The fungus takes hold and gives the infected the urge to spread it. The next thing you know, the whole population has it."
Strax muttered to himself more. "I need room to work."
The youth turned to Ianto. "Is he any good?"
"I hope." He noticed Jack smiling at the boy, and said, "These are my friends. This is Jack, and Jenny. My employer, Madame Vastra." Vastra stood at the edge of the room. She clearly had been expecting battle. Simple sickness unnerved her. "Jenny, could you and Vastra check the perimeter? For security?"
"I thought I'd stay here with you and help."
Jack said, "Security is the bigger worry. If you could. Thanks a lot." He shushed her outside. Vastra would not be moved, but went under her own power, clearly grateful to be outside. "There. Standing guard at a hospital. Better than Spanish Fly."
"Really?"
"No." He turned to the young doctor-in-training, who was treating Doctor Brown. "Sorry, didn't get your name."
"Ignatius." He dabbed iodine onto the open sores as Brown cursed and pulled away. "That'll be Doctor Oshodi one day."
Ianto blinked. But of course he was. Doctor Brown said, "Hah. A coloured doctor? You continue to dream."
"He will be a doctor one day," said Ianto. Jack glanced at him, then smacked him lightly on the head.
"Spoilers."
"Sorry."
"You are rubbish at this."
"I know."
***
Strax cured the plague an hour later, thanks to future Doctor Oshodi's notes. Within three hours, enough of the patients in the infirmary had received the cure to walk on their own power. Jack took Ianto's arm. "We should go. They've got this."
Ianto tried to see if Jenny and Vastra had talked, if they were showing signs of perhaps enjoying each other's company, if anything at all. But as soon as Jenny saw Ianto again, her face broke into a grin, and she took his arm. "There you are." Should she even have noticed Jack still held the other, she didn't let on.
Vastra sent Ianto ahead to fetch Parker, making him disengage with both. Of course he had to work, and couldn't go off with Jack and the others. As Madame Vastra entered her coach, she said loudly enough for them to hear, "And now, Mr. Jones, we will talk about your wasting my time."
She gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the day, though not the sack. When he finally edged out into her presence again with supper, he found his employer by one of the windows, with the curtain just ajar. "It's beef, ma'am. Rare, as you said, with roasted vegetables." Rare meant that it was supposed to be underdone. He had located no herbs anywhere in the pantry or the markets, so he'd done what he could with black pepper.
"Leave it on the table. Please feel free not to tell me it's been set there by aliens."
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am." He remained standing.
She let out an exasperated sigh. "What now? Clockwork Cybermen in the scullery?"
"You know about the Cybermen?"
Her eyes narrowed. "I do. But you shouldn't. There was a timeline shift erasing them from memory. I suppose travelling through time does that to you."
"You're a time traveller?"
"Well-met. I travelled the fashionable way. I slept. How did you arrive?"
"Sorry, ma'am, what?"
"I tested you earlier today. I was humming a song I enjoy. You hummed along."
He thought back. "I did?"
With a rather pleasant voice, more so than he'd have thought, she sang quietly, "Pretty little maids from school are we."
"Oh that." He shrugged. "Picked it up somewhere, I suppose." That somewhere would be Jack and Lisa's interest in Gilbert and Sullivan. Ianto had been unimpressed with either's attempt to entrance him in the operettas, but he'd learned a little nonetheless.
"It's from The Mikado."
"Yes. I went to see that last season." As soon as he spoke, he felt the trap, and was floored by his own stupidity. Lies came easy to him, always had, but the lies had to be credible, and never to someone who could tell.
"A pity that show opens next week. One of the actors owed me a favour, and I listened in on an early rehearsal. But you did not. And you know of the Cybermen, and aliens, and you keep friends with non-humans. How far in the future have you travelled, Mr. Jones?"
"I've never travelled into the future," he said, scuttling back to honesty.
She smiled. He wasn't sure if this was a quiet, triumphant smile, or the smile of someone who's decided on a much better dish than rare beef with veg. "What year were you born?"
"Ma'am?"
"You have not lost your hearing in the last minute. Tell me the year you were born."
There was no room to run. She'd find him. She would make him speak. "1983."
"I see. Tell me, do you enjoy playing games with foolish people from the past, or have you simply come to destroy us?" He heard the anger banked in her tone.
The truth was not his friend, but it was his sole lifeline here in this room. "I'm here by accident. I'd like to get home."
"Are your friends also time travellers?"
"Not Jenny, but the other two are. They didn't arrive here with me. They're staying in 1885 until it turns to 1886, or a blue police box shows up on their doorstep."
His little joke was ruined as Vastra brightened up. "Oh, they know the Doctor?"
***
Chapter Five