Sleeping Dragons 03.02
SLEEPING DRAGONS
Episode 03 - Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author’s notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
CHAPTER 02
By the time the field team returned to the Hub, Ianto had informed himself about what little was to be found in the Archives about the New Byzantine Calendar, Raxacoricofallapatorian technology and an alien species named the Hath - which, quite frankly, wasn’t much. He felt mildly frustrated by such extreme lack of reliable information. He preferred to have as many solid facts to his disposal as possible.
“Unfortunately, we have very little information beyond Jack’s own time,” he explained to Emma, who’d begun her training as junior archivist right after coming back from the honeymoon. Now that Beth Halloran had taken over the tourist office and the greater part of administrative duties, Emma could concentrate on her true job within Torchwood. “He tells me that Time Agents rarely visited their own future, so his knowledge relates to what was considered the past in the fifty-first century.”
“And the colonization of Messaline happened after that?” Emma asked.
“I’m not entirely sure how the New Byzantine Calendar relates to our current one; the data are controversial,” Ianto admitted. “But I think we can safely assume that our visitor comes from a time beyond Jack’s,” he transferred the available technical data to Trevor’s computer. “At least we know quite a bit about Raxacoricofallapatorian technology. That will prove helpful if her ship needs to be repaired.”
“Can we be sure that she’s trustworthy?” Emma asked. “Just because she’s young and pretty and can look at Captain Harkness with big baby eyes…”
Ianto shook his head. “Jack’s not that shallow, Emma; and he’s not a fool, occasional appearances notwithstanding. They’re bringing the girl here; Owen and Tom will give her a thorough physical check, and then we’ll know who - or what - she really is. If she proves to be harmless, then we’ll consider repairing her ship.”
“Ms Lloyd says she looks human,” Emma remarked, closing down the virtual databank they were done searching.
“There are several alien species that look human,” Ianto reminded her. “Looks alone don’t mean they’re not dangerous.”
“Or shape-shifters,” Emma added, remembering the Nostrovite incident with a shudder. Ianto nodded.
“Exactly,” he listened for a moment. “Well, the alarms have just been set off. I think we should go back up and play welcoming committee.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They reached the main Hub area in time to see Jack and Mickey descend via invisible lift, flanking a slender blonde girl in utilitarian clothes. At the same time, the cog door rolled to the side, too, allowing entrance to Owen, who was arriving last, as was his wont.
Well, ever since Gwen had been fired, that is.
The others were already there, gathering in the main working area, without making the slightest attempt to actually do some work. Most of them were staring at the blonde girl with unveiling curiosity; it wasn’t every day that a human beyond Jack’s time would crash-land in Cardiff. Only Trevor was sitting at his workstation, radiating barely concealed anger.
Ianto suppressed a sigh. He’d already talked to Tom about Trevor having been slighted by Jack - again! - in preference to Mickey, and knew he’d have to call Jack on his behaviour. Again. He hated those arguments, as they rarely led to any lasting effect, but he couldn’t allow Jack to keep treating Trevor like a… well, like a second-class member of the team.
Right now, however, he had more pressing issues to deal with. Ianto put n his best receptionist smile and went to greet their visitor.
“Welcome to Torchwood,” he said, extending a hand to her. “I’m Ianto Jones, Director of the Institute. I understand that you may be in need of our assistance?”
She shook his hand enthusiastically. “I hope you’ll be able to help. I’d like to return to my own time. No offence…”
“None taken,” Ianto assured her. “Why don’t you go with Owen and Tom to the medical bay first, though, so that they can give you a thorough check?”
“No need for that,” she replied. “I assure you, I’m in peak physical health.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Ianto said patiently, “but you may carry germs that could be harmful for us and vice versa, since you come from a completely different environment.”
She dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. “Oh, my immune system is capable of dealing with just about anything, really!”
“Perhaps,” Ianto said amiably, “but ours isn’t. So I’d thank you if you’d stop arguing and let our doctors do that medical check, for our own safety.”
His still friendly voice gained a faint edge of command, and to general surprise, the girl accommodated to it, as if a mental switch had been thrown somewhere inside her head.
“Yes, sir,” she answered crisply, and followed the doctors to the medical are without further argument.
Ianto shot Jack a curious look. “That was… odd,” he commented softly.
Jack nodded. “She does have these odd moments. When I introduced myself, she replied in some kind of military jargon… something about being a Generation 5000 soldier.”
“Generation 5000?” Ianto repeated in shock. “How long a war that needs five thousand generations to fight it can possibly be?”
“I don’t know,” Jack replied, “But she’s definitely on her own now. Some kind of adventurer, I think. She mentioned having to break the old habit of falling back into military jargon, so I assume she isn’t a soldier any longer.”
“That doesn’t make her any less dangerous,” Ianto said. “Tom told me something disturbing on the phone earlier; that she reminded him of the child soldiers he’d seen in Africa. Do you think they’ll still be doing it, thousands of years in the future? Using children as cannon fodder?”
Jack sighed. “I’d like to say no, but I’m afraid human nature will need more than just a few millennia to change profoundly.”
Ianto nodded in glum agreement, not liking the thought at all.
In the next moment, Owen’s yell broke their grim silence. “Oi, Harkness! Teaboy! Get down here, you gotta see this!”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They jogged down to the medical bay where Jenny was sitting on the examination table, with only the futuristic version of a sports bra covering on her upper body. There were several electrodes attached to her, which she endured with the stoicism of an old soldier. Tom was studying the readouts of the various instruments, while Owen was placing a stethoscope to Jenny’s chest, first on the left, then on the right side.
“What have you got?” Ianto asked.
Owen looked up to them. “Come down here and listen. You gotta hear this for yourself!”
After a moment of hesitation, Ianto jogged down the few steps leading to the sunken medical area and took the stethoscope from the doctor. Then he listened. Heartbeat on the left side… that was to be expected from a human… wait a minute, another heartbeat on the right side?
He stepped back and stared at the girl in shock.
“Two hearts,” he stated tonelessly. The possible implications made him dizzy.
“Exactly,” Owen replied with a grim nod and looked at Jack askance. “Does this mean she’s a…. what do you call a female Time Lord? A Time Lady?”
Jack shrugged. “Beats me. Never met one.”
“She’s not a female Time Lord,” Tosh, having watched the scene from the catwalk, interrupted. “Although she might be a Gallifreyan indeed. There aren’t that many species that look completely human yet have two hearts.”
“Excuse me,” Tom glanced up from his readings, “but what the heck is a Gallifreyan?”
“Gallifrey is the home planet of the Time Lords,” Tosh explained. “Well, it was anyway, as it’s been destroyed in the Time War… it’s a long story, you can look it up in the Archives when you have the time.”
“But if it’s their homeworld, then she is a Time Lord… Time Lady… whatever, isn’t she?” Tom argued.
“No,” Tosh said. “If I understand correctly what the Doctor had once told me, not all Gallifreyans are automatically Time Lords. Being a Time Lord is a special status, reserved for a selected minority. Promising Gallifreyan students could achieve the status of Time Lord via achievement in the Gallifreyan collegiate system, as only properly educated and trained individuals could safely use their powerful technology.”
“Which makes her… what exactly?” Tom asked, vaguely overwhelmed by the info dump Tosh had delivered in a single breath.
“I assume that she’s a Gallifreyan, although I’ll need to take a look at those readings to be sure,” Tosh replied. “That would mean she has the potential to become a Time Lord, but not the means to achieve all the knowledge that actually makes a Time Lord,” she walked down to the medical area to look at the readings. “Hearts beat at one-seventy beats per minute… internal body temperature fifteen degrees Celsius… respiratory bypass system… yep, seems like a Gallifreyan all right.”
Jack shook his head. “No way. She can’t be a Gallifreyan. Now that the Master is hopefully gone for good, the Doctor is the last Time Lord alive.”
After having listened to them with growing confusion, the girl’s ears suddenly perked up in excitement. “You know my Dad?”
Several jaws hit the floor of the Hub simultaneously, rendering the entire Torchwood team speechless for a while.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Your what?”
Naturally, Jack was the first to regain his ability to speak. The girl beamed at him.
“The Doctor. My Dad… well, my progenitor anyway; after all, we’ve all come from the machine.”
“From the what?” Jack knew he didn’t sound very intelligent, but he was too shocked to try for more coherent questions.
“The Progenation Machine,” she replied as if that were the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps for her, it was. “They process all newcomers and breed a whole platoon from a single tissue sample. Twenty generations, in just one day.”
“You mean this is some sort of cloning?” Owen, more used to futuristic and alien technology than Tom, was starting to understand.
“Not entirely,” Jack said, “although similar. I’ve heard about it. Progenation, like cloning, means reproduction from a single organism.”
“Means one parent is biological mother and father,” Owen added, for any potential idiots present.
Jack nodded. “Yeah. But instead of producing an exact copy of the tissue donor, progenation machines take a sample of diploid cells, split them into haploids, then recombine them in a different arrangement and grow.”
“Very quickly, too, if they can breed twenty generations in a single day,” Tom commented. “So, unlike cloning, progenation produces offspring with the same genetic material, but apparently a different person.”
“It’s very efficient,” Jenny said proudly. “The machine provides instant mental download of all strategic and military protocols in the process, too.”
“No wonder she has a hard time to break the conditioning,” Jack murmured. “It’s practically encoded in her genes. I bet the Doctor was delighted to have a perfect little killing machine as a daughter.”
Jenny nodded, her brightness fading a little. “He doesn’t like weapons. Or killing. He said we always have a choice to solve problems without killing.”
“Sounds like him all right,” Jack said in fond exasperation.
“Easy for him to preach,” Mickey commented sourly. “He never stays to pick up the pieces, does he?” he looked at Jenny. “Has he left you behind, too?”
The girl shrugged. “It wasn’t his fault. He thought I was dead. Well, I was dead… it took me a day or two to come back.”
“And by then, he was long gone, wasn’t he?” Mickey asked her grimly.
After a moment of hesitation, Jenny nodded, clearly a little dejected.
“I so hoped to find him eventually,” she confessed. “But no luck so far. And now that I’ve been taken from my own time, I guess the chances are like zero.”
“Oh, I won’t be so sure about that,” Jack grinned. “He’s known to return here from time to time to refuel his ship at the Rift. All you need to do is to sit tight and wait for your chance.”
“Yeah, we know how well that worked for you,” Ianto commented dryly. “How long did you wait for him? A hundred years? Two hundred?”
“Somewhere in-between,” Jack shrugged. “So what? She’s a Gallifreyan. She’s got the time.”
“But what am I gonna do while I wait?” Jenny asked with a frown. “I mean, if we can’ fix my ship and send me back in my own time.”
She looked at Jack instinctively again. Jack smiled.
“I don’t know. What would you like to do?”
“I could help you fight evil creatures,” she offered uncertainly. “I’m a good soldier… well, I was one. Every child of the machine was born with this knowledge, you see. It was our inheritance. It was all we’d known before my Dad arrived. How to fight. And how to die.”
There was something truly frightening in the simplicity of those words, silencing the entire team for a moment. Then Owen cleared his throat.
“Well, yeah, we’re trying to cut down on the dying part here, you know. We’re not much use for the people of Cardiff when dead. Well, most of us ain’t,” he added with a sideway glance at Jack.
Jenny’s expression brightened again. “I know. We always have a choice, don’t we?”
“Most of the time anyway,” Jack replied softly. When there wasn’t any other choice, he was the one doing the dying part; but he was not about to tell the girl that just yet. Who could tell how he was going to react to him being a fixed point of time - if she was truly anything like her father.
“So, can I stay here and help you?” Jenny asked hopefully.
Jack glanced at Ianto, who’d kept his stony-faced silence during the entire conversation. “Well, we can always use more field agents… but it’s Ianto’s decision, of course,” he back-pedalled hurriedly, when the Welshman’s face visibly darkened. “He’s the boss here.”
“How kind of you to remember,” Ianto said flatly.
It was the tone he only used when extremely furious; temperatures within the Hub suddenly dropped at least ten degrees. Being new to the team, Tom was a bit shocked by Ianto’s cold reaction to the girl and that he’d put such an emphasis on his position - usually, he didn’t stand on protocol when they were among themselves. He made a mental note to ask someone what it was all about - preferably Toshiko or Owen, who knew them the longest.
“She could be a great asset to the team, even if only temporarily,” Jack argued, obviously wanting the girl to stay very much. “She knows lots of species we never heard of, she knows her alien tech by default, she’s a trained soldier, and besides, she’s the…”
“… she’s the Doctor’s daughter, I know,” Ianto finished for him coldly. “Let’s hope she only inherited the genes, no the attitude.”
The silence that followed was positively deafening, making Tom very uncomfortable. This was the first time he’d witness an open confrontation between the two leading men of Torchwood, although he knew, of course, that less than a year ago Jack had been the leader of the team. He also knew who the Doctor was - in theory anyway - and that several members of the team used to have close ties to him. He always felt that Ianto - unlike Jack or Toshiko - didn’t have a high opinion of the time-travelling alien, but never before had he seen their boss go ballistic about him.
Typically, it was Toshiko who tried to negotiate between her fellow team leaders. She was second in command, after all, and the friend of both men.
“Jack does have a point, though,” she said gently.
Ianto’s expression softened just a bit by looking at her. “I’ll think about it, Tosh.”
“We can’t hire her officially anyway,” she pressed carefully. “UNIT would do everything in their power to get their hands on her, and they might even be able to forge some legitimate-looking reason. After all, the Doctor used to be their scientific advisor for a couple of years, in several of his incarnations.”
As always, she managed to smooth Ianto’s feathers and to catch his attention for the topic.
“What do you suggest, then?” he asked.
“She can come home with me, for starters,” Tosh offered. “I’ve got the place, and I know more about the Doctor - about his previous self in any case - than all of you. After all, I used to travel with him for two years. I’ve learned enough about Gallifreyan physiology to know what will be safe for her and what won’t - aspirin, to begin with. And we can do girly things together,” she added with a sly grin. “Like taking alien tech apart to see what makes it tick and then put it together again.”
“Oh yes!” Jenny declared happily. “I love girly things! And bananas!”
“Bananas?” Jack echoed, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the guts.
Jenny beamed at him with wide, excited blue-green eyes. “Yeah! Bananas are good! And running!”
“I think we’ve just been given the ultimate proof,” Mickey announced with a huge grin that reached from ear-to-ear, nearly splitting his face in two. “She is the Doctor’s daughter.”
“My Dad likes bananas?” Jenny asked in surprise.
“And running,” Mickey said, still grinning like an idiot, while Tosh and Jack were nodding in unison.
“Very well,” Ianto said with obvious reluctance. “Let’s try your way, Tosh. I entrust our… guest into your care for the time being. Take her home with you if you will, give her a crash course in twenty-first century customs and get her some clothes, too. We’ll see how we can integrate her if she has to stay for a longer period.”
“Do you have anything particular on your mind?” Tosh asked. Ianto shrugged.
“Updating the alien database would be the most obvious thing. We can never know what might come through the Rift, and I prefer to be prepared for all eventualities. I’d like a copy from her ship’s log, too. The data stored in there could prove valuable in the future. And, of course, a detailed report of the ship itself. We need to stay up-to-date with the development of Raxacoricofallapatorian technology. They have the depressing tendency to show up time and again.”
“Mickey can do that,” Jack suggested.
“Doubtlessly,” Ianto’s voice became frosty again. “However, engineering projects are Trevor’s area of expertise, so I’ll leave this in his capable hands.”
“It’s cool, man,” Mickey said to stop Jack from arguing on his behalf. “I’ve got my schedule full with field work, keeping the two SUVs in a respectable shape, and our little alien zoo in the basement. Unless, of course, you need help,” he added, looking at Trevor.
The engineer grinned. “I’ll holler if I need a hand.” The two of them actually went on well enough, having known each other from Mickey’s brief foray into Torchwood London. If their bosses didn’t fight out little power plays on their backs.
“Right, well,” Tosh said, “we’ll go and get Jenny settled, then. Get her stuff from the ship and take it to my place. We’ll be back in the afternoon - if Trevor can take over half my shift, that is.”
The bespectacled scientist nodded. “Sure; I’ll take a look at that ship when you’re back.”
“No,” Ianto said firmly. “When Tosh’s back, you’ll go home and rest. You’ve been here all night already. The ship can wait another day.”
Trevor grinned at him tiredly. “Don’t be such a mother hen, Jonesy. I’m used to work long hours.”
“I know,” Ianto replied, “and I’ll expect you to do so, if needs must be. Right now, though, it’s not necessary. Remember the rule: all team members are supposed to have at least eight free hours a day, unless there’s an emergency; which is not the case now.”
“Yes, Mum,” Trevor grinned and plummeted unceremoniously into the armchair at his workstation. Ianto rolled his eyes.
“Very funny. Emma, can you continue in the Archives without me for a while? I’d like to have a few words with Jack in private. It won’t take long.”
Emma nodded, collected her folders and left fort he Archives, flashing Rhys a brilliant smile on her way out. The afterglow of the honeymoon clearly hadn’t burned out yet. Tosh watched them for a moment with a slightly wistful smile, then she turned to Jenny.
“Well, Jenny, let’s get going. We’ve got a lot to do and just half a day to get it done.”
She shepherded the girl out of the Hub and towards the parking lot used by all Torchwood employees. Jenny went with her willingly.
“Owen, did you take DNA samples from her?” Ianto asked.
Their chief medic nodded. “Yeah, I guess you want Lloyd to run a test to compare it with the sample from the Doctor’s hand?”
“What?” Jack exclaimed while Ianto was answering to Owen’s question in the positive.
Owen rolled his eyes. “Did you really think I could withstand the temptation? Especially since you were treating that thing as if it had been the Holy Grail?”
“And a good thing you couldn’t,” Ianto said. “Now we can have solid proof whether the girl is who she says she is.”
“Why would she lie?” Tom wondered.
“There could be a number of reasons for that, some of them perfectly innocent,” Ianto replied with a shrug. “But even if Tosh is right and she is a Gallifreyan, that doesn’t make her harmless by default. On the contrary. We’ve all seen what a power-hungry Time Lord can do; even if not all of us can actually remember.”
“The DNA analysis is already running,” Lloyd told him. “I’ll compare the results with the Doctor’s data as soon as it’s finished, but that will take a few days.”
“Look out for possible signs of the cloning process, too,” Ianto instructed her. “Cell degradation, faulty DNA segments… that sort of thing.”
“Progenation,” Jack corrected.
“Whatever,” Ianto answered dismissively. “Just because she’s got two hearts, she could still have been lying through her teeth.”
“Will do,” Lloyd promised and vanished in her lab.
“And we’re gonna make ourselves a little more familiar with Gallifreyan physiology,” Owen said to Tom. “It’s gonna be fun. Oi, Teaboy!” he called after Ianto’s retreating back, “can you send me stuff about it from the Secure Archives to my computer before you start tearing Harkness a new one? I have the feeling that we’re gonna need it.”
“Sure,” Ianto said without looking back.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“So,” Jack said, when they reached the privacy of the office - they had, in unspoken agreement, stopped to mention whose office if was weeks ago; it was simply the office now. “What is this going to be about? The Doctor again?”
“No,” Ianto gestured him to take the chair behind the desk, while he leaned against the edge of the desktop himself; it was an old, familiar position both were more comfortable with that the other way ‘round, which would mirror their actual positions. “Although your reaction to the girl makes me wonder if we should dig out the sorry topic again.”
“How that?” Jack asked with a frown. Ianto sighed.
“You’d have taken her in, no questions asked, without whatever background check we might be able to run on her, based on the vague possibility that she may be related to him. After all that man had done - and, more importantly, had not done - to you, you’d still throw away everything to please him. Why? Why does he have such a hold on you?”
“You don’t need to be jealous,” Jack began, but Ianto interrupted him, sounding slightly insulted.
“I’m not jealous; give me some credit, will you? I just don’t want you to be hurt again. By him, by his so-called daughter - or both of them. I know you get lonely sometimes,” he added, his voice softening. “We’re just the blink of an eye for you. At least a Time Lord would last a little longer. But he’s poison for you, why can’t you see it?”
“That’s not true,” Jack would have liked to believe his own protests, but they sounded forced, even for him.
“Maybe he was different earlier,” Ianto went on, as if he hadn’t even heard said protests. “I have no reason to question Tosh’s judgement, although Mickey has some unpleasant memories about the previous regeneration, too. But what he’s know - who he’s now - never brought you anything but pain and sorrow.”
Jack didn’t answer to that because really, what could he possibly have said? Ianto was completely, depressingly right about the current Doctor.
“Jenny is not the Doctor,” he finally said.
“No,” Ianto agreed. “But if she’s told us the truth, she’s a combination of the Doctor’s full genetic inheritance. What if she’d inherited his arrogance, his blatant disregard for humans as well? His tendency to mess up things with the noblest intentions, and then leave the pieces for others to pick up?”
“She’s just a girl,” Jack said defensively. “She needs our help.”
“Which she will get, as soon as we can be sure she’s not an impostor,” Ianto replied. “But actually, I wasn’t going to talk to you about her. Or about the Doctor.”
“Oh?” Jack was genuinely surprised. “About what then?”
“Trevor,” Ianto replied curtly. “And the way you treat him. Or should I rather say mistreat him?”
Jack snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I’m not,” Ianto replied, his tone hardening a bit. “When I was… encouraged by Her Majesty to take over Torchwood, I made a promise. To myself, to the three of us who were still there. I promised that I won’t allow the sort of favouritism you were always showing towards Gwen-bloody-Cooper, just because she reminded you that self-centered girl who’d cursed you to live forever, sneak into the team again.”
“Oh, really?” Jack asked with a sneer. “Is that why you sought out all survivors of Canary Wharf and asked them to work for you, first thing right after you’d been made boss?”
“I sought them out because I knew them, and because they had the necessary qualifications,” Ianto’s voice was getting more of an edge. “And considering your more than questionable motivation by hiring both me and Gwen, I don’t think you’d have the right to criticize my search parameters. At least I didn’t hire anyone following my dick.”
“No; you followed your sodding Torchwood One conditioning,” Jack snapped.
“Yes,” Ianto admitted bluntly. “I hired professionals, with the necessary skills and after thorough background checks. And it worked! Nobody died in the last eight months, and the Earth didn’t get invaded by hostile aliens - well, aside from The Year That Never Was, but that was hardly our fault, was it?”
“No,” Jack muttered darkly. “It was mine. Had I not jumped the TARDIS mid-travel, we wouldn’t have ended up at the end of the world.”
“Wrong,” Ianto replied sharply. “Had your precious Doctor not tried to leave you behind - again! - you wouldn’t have to jump the TARDIS.”
Jack tried to interrupt him, but Ianto silenced him with a quelling look. “Martha told me what happened, so stop trying to find excuses for him. And had he not destroyed the career of Prime Minister Harriet Jones, just because she dared to defend the Earth from an alien invasion, there wouldn’t have been a convenient vacuum of power for Harold Saxon to fill without true competition.”
“You can’t blame the Doctor for everything that went wrong in the last few years on Earth,” Jack said.
“I can try,” Ianto answered dryly. “But mostly, I blame him for the way he treated you. I don’t care for his so-called temporal sensitivities; he had no right to treat you as some kind of freak. You didn’t ask to become what you are. And whatever he may think, there’s nothing wrong with it. It makes you the person you’ve become, and I wouldn’t want you any other way. None of us would.”
“A freak,” Jack repeated bitterly. “That’s what they called me, too: the Master, those bitches from Torchwood Cardiff, back in the eighteen-nineties… even Yvonne. ‘The freak of Cardiff’ that was her nickname for me.”
“And you called her ‘that frigid bitch from Headquarters’, so what’s the difference?” Ianto returned. “Mr Howarth often said that you were like two overgrown children in a sandbox; always fighting, always calling each other names… as if you’d been in kindergarten.”
“There’s some truth in that,” Jack admitted ruefully. He and the Torchwood One director had had some spectacular fights, and neither of them really cared whether or not there had been an audience.
“Bottom line is: whatever ongoing quarrel you had with Yvonne, Trevor had no part in it,” Ianto said. “Neither had I, or any of the other survivors… few as we are. Trevor is an excellent scientist; perhaps not a genius-level intellect, like Tosh, but not far behind, either. And he’s proved himself time and time again.”
“So has Mickey,” Jack said stubbornly. “And he’s good with alien tech.”
Ianto nodded. “I know. That’s why he’s on the retrieval team; because he’s experienced and reliable. But he’s not a scientist. He doesn’t have the advanced background knowledge. Trevor has. I won’t allow you to slight him again, just because you’re still holding some old grudge against Torchwood London.”
“You’re siding with them!” Jack sounded like a wounded child.
Ianto shook his head. “I’m not siding with either of you. Don’t try to make me choose; that wouldn’t work. Trevor’s an old friend of mine - and Tosh’s to a certain extent - he doesn’t deserve your contempt.”
“And what am I?” Jack asked quietly.
“You’re very important to me,” Ianto replied gently. “I’m still surprised by realizing how important with each new day. But you must understand that we can’t play favourites at work. That would cause a rift in the team, and we can’t afford that.”
He paused, looking at Jack in concern. “What has brought this inferiority complex forth? It’s not like you to question your place within the team… or in my life.”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. Jenny perhaps. If she’s really his kid…”
“… that won’t change anything,” Ianto interrupted. “She’s just a temporally displaced visitor like all the others. You, though… you’re Captain Jack Harkness, for God’s sake, and no-one can take that from you,” he leaned forward and kissed Jack briefly. “You are and will always be my hero.”
“Some hero,” Jack muttered darkly.
Ianto gave him a playful slap upside the head.
“A faulty one perhaps, but good enough for me,” he said. “Or are you questioning my taste in heroes, Captain my Captain?”
At that, Jack finally smiled. Not the usual wide, white, shit-eating grin, but a small, intimate smile that actually reached his eyes.
“No-one can question your excellent taste, Mr. Jones,” he replied, kissing Ianto back, unhurriedly. “You taste better than any other man I’ve kissed for a long while.”
“And you, Captain Harkness, are incorrigible,” Ianto laughed. “Now, would you stay here and play boss for a while? I need to work with Emma in the Archives; and besides, it’s your turn to do some paperwork again.”
Jack pulled a face. “I hate paperwork.”
“Who doesn’t?” Ianto returned. “Just because I’m more diligent in doing it, that doesn’t mean I’d actually like it.”
“Oh yes, you do,” Jack countered.
“Not enough to do yours as well,” Ianto said. “Plus, I’ve got more than enough waiting for me, down in the Archives. So please, feel free to use the office to do yours.”
“I could do paperwork a lot better when properly caffeinated,” Jack tried to wriggle out of the affair.
“Then I’ll send some coffee your way,” Ianto answered and left.
Jack looked after him petulantly for a moment. Then he sighed and pulled closer the nearest pile of documents, waited to be read and signed, and began to read.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ten minutes later Beth Halloran closed the tourist office for the usual coffee break and came down to the Hub to operate the coffee machine. Not the huge, old-fashioned, insanely complicated one with all the polished copper tubes and shiny chrome water tank - that was still off-limits to everyone save Ianto himself - but she was very skilled with the small, modern espresso maker.
So, while the older team members still mourned the time when coffee had exclusively been made by Ianto, even they had to admit that Beth made a decent cup. Not quite as good as Ianto’s - no mere mortal was capable of that - but it came close enough. Which alone was to say a lot, and Beth was understandably and justifiably proud of the fact.
Lloyd emerged from the DNA lab at the first sniff of caffeine vapours, wearing a white lab coat and a distracted expression on her pale, tired face. She and Beth had become fast friends in the recent months, which had surprised everyone, considering how very different they were, both in personality and in interest.
Apparently, there was some truth in the saying that opposites attracted each other.
Tom had found out early enough that he liked Lloyd, too. They often worked together, under Owen’s supervision, and she turned out a very funny person, with a wonderfully dry sense of humour, aside from being an excellent scientist. There was little about biochemistry that she wouldn’t know, and that extended beyond the current stand of the discipline. Working for Torchwood did have its advantages.
She was also a dog person, without actually have a dog of her own, as no pets were allowed in the bleak, monstrous block of flats in which she lived. So she often escaped to Splott to visit Molly. She came at least once a week, took her out for evening runs, played with her… even stayed to look after her when Tom had to pull a double shift.
Sometimes she stayed, even if Tom didn’t have to pull any double shifts. It was a mutually advantageous arrangement. Friends with benefits, no strings attached.
She now joined the two doctors at the coffee table and yawned.
“Waiting for test results can be so boring,” she complained, all but inhaling her coffee and the blueberry cones (home-made by the newly-wed Mrs. Williams) that came with it. “I need all my willpower to say alive.”
“Perhaps it would be easier if you didn’t pull so many all-nighters in a row,” Tom commented, savouring every bite of his own scone.
It was a good thing that he had to go out to run with Molly twice a day, or else he’d have put on y lot of weight already. He hadn’t eaten so many home-made meals or baked goods since his Granny had died. Rhys and Emma certainly fed the team well.
“Perhaps,” Lloyd allowed. “But working regular hours would drive me crazy. I’ve grown used to long hours at SOCO.”
“A habit you should break before you get Teaboy on your case,” Owen advised. “You know what he’s like. He lets you do it for a while, but…”
The sound of the Rift alarm interrupted him.
“Rift activity in Butetown!” called Sally, who’d finished the graveyard shift an hour ago but stayed for the usual scone-and-coffee breakfast before actually going home. “I’m transferring the coordinates to the PDAs.”
“So much about a quiet morning, doing paperwork,” Jack commented, draining his mug and finishing his scone in two bites. “Lloyd, Owen, PC Andy, you with me. Beth, inform Ianto that we’ve gone out to investigate an alarm.”
“I’ll take over the visit to Flat Holm, then,” Rhys added, coming out from his small office to have some coffee.
Jack nodded. Thanks, Rhys. Well, people, let’s get going!”
Chapter 03
Episode 03 - Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author’s notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
CHAPTER 02
By the time the field team returned to the Hub, Ianto had informed himself about what little was to be found in the Archives about the New Byzantine Calendar, Raxacoricofallapatorian technology and an alien species named the Hath - which, quite frankly, wasn’t much. He felt mildly frustrated by such extreme lack of reliable information. He preferred to have as many solid facts to his disposal as possible.
“Unfortunately, we have very little information beyond Jack’s own time,” he explained to Emma, who’d begun her training as junior archivist right after coming back from the honeymoon. Now that Beth Halloran had taken over the tourist office and the greater part of administrative duties, Emma could concentrate on her true job within Torchwood. “He tells me that Time Agents rarely visited their own future, so his knowledge relates to what was considered the past in the fifty-first century.”
“And the colonization of Messaline happened after that?” Emma asked.
“I’m not entirely sure how the New Byzantine Calendar relates to our current one; the data are controversial,” Ianto admitted. “But I think we can safely assume that our visitor comes from a time beyond Jack’s,” he transferred the available technical data to Trevor’s computer. “At least we know quite a bit about Raxacoricofallapatorian technology. That will prove helpful if her ship needs to be repaired.”
“Can we be sure that she’s trustworthy?” Emma asked. “Just because she’s young and pretty and can look at Captain Harkness with big baby eyes…”
Ianto shook his head. “Jack’s not that shallow, Emma; and he’s not a fool, occasional appearances notwithstanding. They’re bringing the girl here; Owen and Tom will give her a thorough physical check, and then we’ll know who - or what - she really is. If she proves to be harmless, then we’ll consider repairing her ship.”
“Ms Lloyd says she looks human,” Emma remarked, closing down the virtual databank they were done searching.
“There are several alien species that look human,” Ianto reminded her. “Looks alone don’t mean they’re not dangerous.”
“Or shape-shifters,” Emma added, remembering the Nostrovite incident with a shudder. Ianto nodded.
“Exactly,” he listened for a moment. “Well, the alarms have just been set off. I think we should go back up and play welcoming committee.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They reached the main Hub area in time to see Jack and Mickey descend via invisible lift, flanking a slender blonde girl in utilitarian clothes. At the same time, the cog door rolled to the side, too, allowing entrance to Owen, who was arriving last, as was his wont.
Well, ever since Gwen had been fired, that is.
The others were already there, gathering in the main working area, without making the slightest attempt to actually do some work. Most of them were staring at the blonde girl with unveiling curiosity; it wasn’t every day that a human beyond Jack’s time would crash-land in Cardiff. Only Trevor was sitting at his workstation, radiating barely concealed anger.
Ianto suppressed a sigh. He’d already talked to Tom about Trevor having been slighted by Jack - again! - in preference to Mickey, and knew he’d have to call Jack on his behaviour. Again. He hated those arguments, as they rarely led to any lasting effect, but he couldn’t allow Jack to keep treating Trevor like a… well, like a second-class member of the team.
Right now, however, he had more pressing issues to deal with. Ianto put n his best receptionist smile and went to greet their visitor.
“Welcome to Torchwood,” he said, extending a hand to her. “I’m Ianto Jones, Director of the Institute. I understand that you may be in need of our assistance?”
She shook his hand enthusiastically. “I hope you’ll be able to help. I’d like to return to my own time. No offence…”
“None taken,” Ianto assured her. “Why don’t you go with Owen and Tom to the medical bay first, though, so that they can give you a thorough check?”
“No need for that,” she replied. “I assure you, I’m in peak physical health.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Ianto said patiently, “but you may carry germs that could be harmful for us and vice versa, since you come from a completely different environment.”
She dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. “Oh, my immune system is capable of dealing with just about anything, really!”
“Perhaps,” Ianto said amiably, “but ours isn’t. So I’d thank you if you’d stop arguing and let our doctors do that medical check, for our own safety.”
His still friendly voice gained a faint edge of command, and to general surprise, the girl accommodated to it, as if a mental switch had been thrown somewhere inside her head.
“Yes, sir,” she answered crisply, and followed the doctors to the medical are without further argument.
Ianto shot Jack a curious look. “That was… odd,” he commented softly.
Jack nodded. “She does have these odd moments. When I introduced myself, she replied in some kind of military jargon… something about being a Generation 5000 soldier.”
“Generation 5000?” Ianto repeated in shock. “How long a war that needs five thousand generations to fight it can possibly be?”
“I don’t know,” Jack replied, “But she’s definitely on her own now. Some kind of adventurer, I think. She mentioned having to break the old habit of falling back into military jargon, so I assume she isn’t a soldier any longer.”
“That doesn’t make her any less dangerous,” Ianto said. “Tom told me something disturbing on the phone earlier; that she reminded him of the child soldiers he’d seen in Africa. Do you think they’ll still be doing it, thousands of years in the future? Using children as cannon fodder?”
Jack sighed. “I’d like to say no, but I’m afraid human nature will need more than just a few millennia to change profoundly.”
Ianto nodded in glum agreement, not liking the thought at all.
In the next moment, Owen’s yell broke their grim silence. “Oi, Harkness! Teaboy! Get down here, you gotta see this!”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They jogged down to the medical bay where Jenny was sitting on the examination table, with only the futuristic version of a sports bra covering on her upper body. There were several electrodes attached to her, which she endured with the stoicism of an old soldier. Tom was studying the readouts of the various instruments, while Owen was placing a stethoscope to Jenny’s chest, first on the left, then on the right side.
“What have you got?” Ianto asked.
Owen looked up to them. “Come down here and listen. You gotta hear this for yourself!”
After a moment of hesitation, Ianto jogged down the few steps leading to the sunken medical area and took the stethoscope from the doctor. Then he listened. Heartbeat on the left side… that was to be expected from a human… wait a minute, another heartbeat on the right side?
He stepped back and stared at the girl in shock.
“Two hearts,” he stated tonelessly. The possible implications made him dizzy.
“Exactly,” Owen replied with a grim nod and looked at Jack askance. “Does this mean she’s a…. what do you call a female Time Lord? A Time Lady?”
Jack shrugged. “Beats me. Never met one.”
“She’s not a female Time Lord,” Tosh, having watched the scene from the catwalk, interrupted. “Although she might be a Gallifreyan indeed. There aren’t that many species that look completely human yet have two hearts.”
“Excuse me,” Tom glanced up from his readings, “but what the heck is a Gallifreyan?”
“Gallifrey is the home planet of the Time Lords,” Tosh explained. “Well, it was anyway, as it’s been destroyed in the Time War… it’s a long story, you can look it up in the Archives when you have the time.”
“But if it’s their homeworld, then she is a Time Lord… Time Lady… whatever, isn’t she?” Tom argued.
“No,” Tosh said. “If I understand correctly what the Doctor had once told me, not all Gallifreyans are automatically Time Lords. Being a Time Lord is a special status, reserved for a selected minority. Promising Gallifreyan students could achieve the status of Time Lord via achievement in the Gallifreyan collegiate system, as only properly educated and trained individuals could safely use their powerful technology.”
“Which makes her… what exactly?” Tom asked, vaguely overwhelmed by the info dump Tosh had delivered in a single breath.
“I assume that she’s a Gallifreyan, although I’ll need to take a look at those readings to be sure,” Tosh replied. “That would mean she has the potential to become a Time Lord, but not the means to achieve all the knowledge that actually makes a Time Lord,” she walked down to the medical area to look at the readings. “Hearts beat at one-seventy beats per minute… internal body temperature fifteen degrees Celsius… respiratory bypass system… yep, seems like a Gallifreyan all right.”
Jack shook his head. “No way. She can’t be a Gallifreyan. Now that the Master is hopefully gone for good, the Doctor is the last Time Lord alive.”
After having listened to them with growing confusion, the girl’s ears suddenly perked up in excitement. “You know my Dad?”
Several jaws hit the floor of the Hub simultaneously, rendering the entire Torchwood team speechless for a while.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Your what?”
Naturally, Jack was the first to regain his ability to speak. The girl beamed at him.
“The Doctor. My Dad… well, my progenitor anyway; after all, we’ve all come from the machine.”
“From the what?” Jack knew he didn’t sound very intelligent, but he was too shocked to try for more coherent questions.
“The Progenation Machine,” she replied as if that were the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps for her, it was. “They process all newcomers and breed a whole platoon from a single tissue sample. Twenty generations, in just one day.”
“You mean this is some sort of cloning?” Owen, more used to futuristic and alien technology than Tom, was starting to understand.
“Not entirely,” Jack said, “although similar. I’ve heard about it. Progenation, like cloning, means reproduction from a single organism.”
“Means one parent is biological mother and father,” Owen added, for any potential idiots present.
Jack nodded. “Yeah. But instead of producing an exact copy of the tissue donor, progenation machines take a sample of diploid cells, split them into haploids, then recombine them in a different arrangement and grow.”
“Very quickly, too, if they can breed twenty generations in a single day,” Tom commented. “So, unlike cloning, progenation produces offspring with the same genetic material, but apparently a different person.”
“It’s very efficient,” Jenny said proudly. “The machine provides instant mental download of all strategic and military protocols in the process, too.”
“No wonder she has a hard time to break the conditioning,” Jack murmured. “It’s practically encoded in her genes. I bet the Doctor was delighted to have a perfect little killing machine as a daughter.”
Jenny nodded, her brightness fading a little. “He doesn’t like weapons. Or killing. He said we always have a choice to solve problems without killing.”
“Sounds like him all right,” Jack said in fond exasperation.
“Easy for him to preach,” Mickey commented sourly. “He never stays to pick up the pieces, does he?” he looked at Jenny. “Has he left you behind, too?”
The girl shrugged. “It wasn’t his fault. He thought I was dead. Well, I was dead… it took me a day or two to come back.”
“And by then, he was long gone, wasn’t he?” Mickey asked her grimly.
After a moment of hesitation, Jenny nodded, clearly a little dejected.
“I so hoped to find him eventually,” she confessed. “But no luck so far. And now that I’ve been taken from my own time, I guess the chances are like zero.”
“Oh, I won’t be so sure about that,” Jack grinned. “He’s known to return here from time to time to refuel his ship at the Rift. All you need to do is to sit tight and wait for your chance.”
“Yeah, we know how well that worked for you,” Ianto commented dryly. “How long did you wait for him? A hundred years? Two hundred?”
“Somewhere in-between,” Jack shrugged. “So what? She’s a Gallifreyan. She’s got the time.”
“But what am I gonna do while I wait?” Jenny asked with a frown. “I mean, if we can’ fix my ship and send me back in my own time.”
She looked at Jack instinctively again. Jack smiled.
“I don’t know. What would you like to do?”
“I could help you fight evil creatures,” she offered uncertainly. “I’m a good soldier… well, I was one. Every child of the machine was born with this knowledge, you see. It was our inheritance. It was all we’d known before my Dad arrived. How to fight. And how to die.”
There was something truly frightening in the simplicity of those words, silencing the entire team for a moment. Then Owen cleared his throat.
“Well, yeah, we’re trying to cut down on the dying part here, you know. We’re not much use for the people of Cardiff when dead. Well, most of us ain’t,” he added with a sideway glance at Jack.
Jenny’s expression brightened again. “I know. We always have a choice, don’t we?”
“Most of the time anyway,” Jack replied softly. When there wasn’t any other choice, he was the one doing the dying part; but he was not about to tell the girl that just yet. Who could tell how he was going to react to him being a fixed point of time - if she was truly anything like her father.
“So, can I stay here and help you?” Jenny asked hopefully.
Jack glanced at Ianto, who’d kept his stony-faced silence during the entire conversation. “Well, we can always use more field agents… but it’s Ianto’s decision, of course,” he back-pedalled hurriedly, when the Welshman’s face visibly darkened. “He’s the boss here.”
“How kind of you to remember,” Ianto said flatly.
It was the tone he only used when extremely furious; temperatures within the Hub suddenly dropped at least ten degrees. Being new to the team, Tom was a bit shocked by Ianto’s cold reaction to the girl and that he’d put such an emphasis on his position - usually, he didn’t stand on protocol when they were among themselves. He made a mental note to ask someone what it was all about - preferably Toshiko or Owen, who knew them the longest.
“She could be a great asset to the team, even if only temporarily,” Jack argued, obviously wanting the girl to stay very much. “She knows lots of species we never heard of, she knows her alien tech by default, she’s a trained soldier, and besides, she’s the…”
“… she’s the Doctor’s daughter, I know,” Ianto finished for him coldly. “Let’s hope she only inherited the genes, no the attitude.”
The silence that followed was positively deafening, making Tom very uncomfortable. This was the first time he’d witness an open confrontation between the two leading men of Torchwood, although he knew, of course, that less than a year ago Jack had been the leader of the team. He also knew who the Doctor was - in theory anyway - and that several members of the team used to have close ties to him. He always felt that Ianto - unlike Jack or Toshiko - didn’t have a high opinion of the time-travelling alien, but never before had he seen their boss go ballistic about him.
Typically, it was Toshiko who tried to negotiate between her fellow team leaders. She was second in command, after all, and the friend of both men.
“Jack does have a point, though,” she said gently.
Ianto’s expression softened just a bit by looking at her. “I’ll think about it, Tosh.”
“We can’t hire her officially anyway,” she pressed carefully. “UNIT would do everything in their power to get their hands on her, and they might even be able to forge some legitimate-looking reason. After all, the Doctor used to be their scientific advisor for a couple of years, in several of his incarnations.”
As always, she managed to smooth Ianto’s feathers and to catch his attention for the topic.
“What do you suggest, then?” he asked.
“She can come home with me, for starters,” Tosh offered. “I’ve got the place, and I know more about the Doctor - about his previous self in any case - than all of you. After all, I used to travel with him for two years. I’ve learned enough about Gallifreyan physiology to know what will be safe for her and what won’t - aspirin, to begin with. And we can do girly things together,” she added with a sly grin. “Like taking alien tech apart to see what makes it tick and then put it together again.”
“Oh yes!” Jenny declared happily. “I love girly things! And bananas!”
“Bananas?” Jack echoed, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the guts.
Jenny beamed at him with wide, excited blue-green eyes. “Yeah! Bananas are good! And running!”
“I think we’ve just been given the ultimate proof,” Mickey announced with a huge grin that reached from ear-to-ear, nearly splitting his face in two. “She is the Doctor’s daughter.”
“My Dad likes bananas?” Jenny asked in surprise.
“And running,” Mickey said, still grinning like an idiot, while Tosh and Jack were nodding in unison.
“Very well,” Ianto said with obvious reluctance. “Let’s try your way, Tosh. I entrust our… guest into your care for the time being. Take her home with you if you will, give her a crash course in twenty-first century customs and get her some clothes, too. We’ll see how we can integrate her if she has to stay for a longer period.”
“Do you have anything particular on your mind?” Tosh asked. Ianto shrugged.
“Updating the alien database would be the most obvious thing. We can never know what might come through the Rift, and I prefer to be prepared for all eventualities. I’d like a copy from her ship’s log, too. The data stored in there could prove valuable in the future. And, of course, a detailed report of the ship itself. We need to stay up-to-date with the development of Raxacoricofallapatorian technology. They have the depressing tendency to show up time and again.”
“Mickey can do that,” Jack suggested.
“Doubtlessly,” Ianto’s voice became frosty again. “However, engineering projects are Trevor’s area of expertise, so I’ll leave this in his capable hands.”
“It’s cool, man,” Mickey said to stop Jack from arguing on his behalf. “I’ve got my schedule full with field work, keeping the two SUVs in a respectable shape, and our little alien zoo in the basement. Unless, of course, you need help,” he added, looking at Trevor.
The engineer grinned. “I’ll holler if I need a hand.” The two of them actually went on well enough, having known each other from Mickey’s brief foray into Torchwood London. If their bosses didn’t fight out little power plays on their backs.
“Right, well,” Tosh said, “we’ll go and get Jenny settled, then. Get her stuff from the ship and take it to my place. We’ll be back in the afternoon - if Trevor can take over half my shift, that is.”
The bespectacled scientist nodded. “Sure; I’ll take a look at that ship when you’re back.”
“No,” Ianto said firmly. “When Tosh’s back, you’ll go home and rest. You’ve been here all night already. The ship can wait another day.”
Trevor grinned at him tiredly. “Don’t be such a mother hen, Jonesy. I’m used to work long hours.”
“I know,” Ianto replied, “and I’ll expect you to do so, if needs must be. Right now, though, it’s not necessary. Remember the rule: all team members are supposed to have at least eight free hours a day, unless there’s an emergency; which is not the case now.”
“Yes, Mum,” Trevor grinned and plummeted unceremoniously into the armchair at his workstation. Ianto rolled his eyes.
“Very funny. Emma, can you continue in the Archives without me for a while? I’d like to have a few words with Jack in private. It won’t take long.”
Emma nodded, collected her folders and left fort he Archives, flashing Rhys a brilliant smile on her way out. The afterglow of the honeymoon clearly hadn’t burned out yet. Tosh watched them for a moment with a slightly wistful smile, then she turned to Jenny.
“Well, Jenny, let’s get going. We’ve got a lot to do and just half a day to get it done.”
She shepherded the girl out of the Hub and towards the parking lot used by all Torchwood employees. Jenny went with her willingly.
“Owen, did you take DNA samples from her?” Ianto asked.
Their chief medic nodded. “Yeah, I guess you want Lloyd to run a test to compare it with the sample from the Doctor’s hand?”
“What?” Jack exclaimed while Ianto was answering to Owen’s question in the positive.
Owen rolled his eyes. “Did you really think I could withstand the temptation? Especially since you were treating that thing as if it had been the Holy Grail?”
“And a good thing you couldn’t,” Ianto said. “Now we can have solid proof whether the girl is who she says she is.”
“Why would she lie?” Tom wondered.
“There could be a number of reasons for that, some of them perfectly innocent,” Ianto replied with a shrug. “But even if Tosh is right and she is a Gallifreyan, that doesn’t make her harmless by default. On the contrary. We’ve all seen what a power-hungry Time Lord can do; even if not all of us can actually remember.”
“The DNA analysis is already running,” Lloyd told him. “I’ll compare the results with the Doctor’s data as soon as it’s finished, but that will take a few days.”
“Look out for possible signs of the cloning process, too,” Ianto instructed her. “Cell degradation, faulty DNA segments… that sort of thing.”
“Progenation,” Jack corrected.
“Whatever,” Ianto answered dismissively. “Just because she’s got two hearts, she could still have been lying through her teeth.”
“Will do,” Lloyd promised and vanished in her lab.
“And we’re gonna make ourselves a little more familiar with Gallifreyan physiology,” Owen said to Tom. “It’s gonna be fun. Oi, Teaboy!” he called after Ianto’s retreating back, “can you send me stuff about it from the Secure Archives to my computer before you start tearing Harkness a new one? I have the feeling that we’re gonna need it.”
“Sure,” Ianto said without looking back.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“So,” Jack said, when they reached the privacy of the office - they had, in unspoken agreement, stopped to mention whose office if was weeks ago; it was simply the office now. “What is this going to be about? The Doctor again?”
“No,” Ianto gestured him to take the chair behind the desk, while he leaned against the edge of the desktop himself; it was an old, familiar position both were more comfortable with that the other way ‘round, which would mirror their actual positions. “Although your reaction to the girl makes me wonder if we should dig out the sorry topic again.”
“How that?” Jack asked with a frown. Ianto sighed.
“You’d have taken her in, no questions asked, without whatever background check we might be able to run on her, based on the vague possibility that she may be related to him. After all that man had done - and, more importantly, had not done - to you, you’d still throw away everything to please him. Why? Why does he have such a hold on you?”
“You don’t need to be jealous,” Jack began, but Ianto interrupted him, sounding slightly insulted.
“I’m not jealous; give me some credit, will you? I just don’t want you to be hurt again. By him, by his so-called daughter - or both of them. I know you get lonely sometimes,” he added, his voice softening. “We’re just the blink of an eye for you. At least a Time Lord would last a little longer. But he’s poison for you, why can’t you see it?”
“That’s not true,” Jack would have liked to believe his own protests, but they sounded forced, even for him.
“Maybe he was different earlier,” Ianto went on, as if he hadn’t even heard said protests. “I have no reason to question Tosh’s judgement, although Mickey has some unpleasant memories about the previous regeneration, too. But what he’s know - who he’s now - never brought you anything but pain and sorrow.”
Jack didn’t answer to that because really, what could he possibly have said? Ianto was completely, depressingly right about the current Doctor.
“Jenny is not the Doctor,” he finally said.
“No,” Ianto agreed. “But if she’s told us the truth, she’s a combination of the Doctor’s full genetic inheritance. What if she’d inherited his arrogance, his blatant disregard for humans as well? His tendency to mess up things with the noblest intentions, and then leave the pieces for others to pick up?”
“She’s just a girl,” Jack said defensively. “She needs our help.”
“Which she will get, as soon as we can be sure she’s not an impostor,” Ianto replied. “But actually, I wasn’t going to talk to you about her. Or about the Doctor.”
“Oh?” Jack was genuinely surprised. “About what then?”
“Trevor,” Ianto replied curtly. “And the way you treat him. Or should I rather say mistreat him?”
Jack snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I’m not,” Ianto replied, his tone hardening a bit. “When I was… encouraged by Her Majesty to take over Torchwood, I made a promise. To myself, to the three of us who were still there. I promised that I won’t allow the sort of favouritism you were always showing towards Gwen-bloody-Cooper, just because she reminded you that self-centered girl who’d cursed you to live forever, sneak into the team again.”
“Oh, really?” Jack asked with a sneer. “Is that why you sought out all survivors of Canary Wharf and asked them to work for you, first thing right after you’d been made boss?”
“I sought them out because I knew them, and because they had the necessary qualifications,” Ianto’s voice was getting more of an edge. “And considering your more than questionable motivation by hiring both me and Gwen, I don’t think you’d have the right to criticize my search parameters. At least I didn’t hire anyone following my dick.”
“No; you followed your sodding Torchwood One conditioning,” Jack snapped.
“Yes,” Ianto admitted bluntly. “I hired professionals, with the necessary skills and after thorough background checks. And it worked! Nobody died in the last eight months, and the Earth didn’t get invaded by hostile aliens - well, aside from The Year That Never Was, but that was hardly our fault, was it?”
“No,” Jack muttered darkly. “It was mine. Had I not jumped the TARDIS mid-travel, we wouldn’t have ended up at the end of the world.”
“Wrong,” Ianto replied sharply. “Had your precious Doctor not tried to leave you behind - again! - you wouldn’t have to jump the TARDIS.”
Jack tried to interrupt him, but Ianto silenced him with a quelling look. “Martha told me what happened, so stop trying to find excuses for him. And had he not destroyed the career of Prime Minister Harriet Jones, just because she dared to defend the Earth from an alien invasion, there wouldn’t have been a convenient vacuum of power for Harold Saxon to fill without true competition.”
“You can’t blame the Doctor for everything that went wrong in the last few years on Earth,” Jack said.
“I can try,” Ianto answered dryly. “But mostly, I blame him for the way he treated you. I don’t care for his so-called temporal sensitivities; he had no right to treat you as some kind of freak. You didn’t ask to become what you are. And whatever he may think, there’s nothing wrong with it. It makes you the person you’ve become, and I wouldn’t want you any other way. None of us would.”
“A freak,” Jack repeated bitterly. “That’s what they called me, too: the Master, those bitches from Torchwood Cardiff, back in the eighteen-nineties… even Yvonne. ‘The freak of Cardiff’ that was her nickname for me.”
“And you called her ‘that frigid bitch from Headquarters’, so what’s the difference?” Ianto returned. “Mr Howarth often said that you were like two overgrown children in a sandbox; always fighting, always calling each other names… as if you’d been in kindergarten.”
“There’s some truth in that,” Jack admitted ruefully. He and the Torchwood One director had had some spectacular fights, and neither of them really cared whether or not there had been an audience.
“Bottom line is: whatever ongoing quarrel you had with Yvonne, Trevor had no part in it,” Ianto said. “Neither had I, or any of the other survivors… few as we are. Trevor is an excellent scientist; perhaps not a genius-level intellect, like Tosh, but not far behind, either. And he’s proved himself time and time again.”
“So has Mickey,” Jack said stubbornly. “And he’s good with alien tech.”
Ianto nodded. “I know. That’s why he’s on the retrieval team; because he’s experienced and reliable. But he’s not a scientist. He doesn’t have the advanced background knowledge. Trevor has. I won’t allow you to slight him again, just because you’re still holding some old grudge against Torchwood London.”
“You’re siding with them!” Jack sounded like a wounded child.
Ianto shook his head. “I’m not siding with either of you. Don’t try to make me choose; that wouldn’t work. Trevor’s an old friend of mine - and Tosh’s to a certain extent - he doesn’t deserve your contempt.”
“And what am I?” Jack asked quietly.
“You’re very important to me,” Ianto replied gently. “I’m still surprised by realizing how important with each new day. But you must understand that we can’t play favourites at work. That would cause a rift in the team, and we can’t afford that.”
He paused, looking at Jack in concern. “What has brought this inferiority complex forth? It’s not like you to question your place within the team… or in my life.”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. Jenny perhaps. If she’s really his kid…”
“… that won’t change anything,” Ianto interrupted. “She’s just a temporally displaced visitor like all the others. You, though… you’re Captain Jack Harkness, for God’s sake, and no-one can take that from you,” he leaned forward and kissed Jack briefly. “You are and will always be my hero.”
“Some hero,” Jack muttered darkly.
Ianto gave him a playful slap upside the head.
“A faulty one perhaps, but good enough for me,” he said. “Or are you questioning my taste in heroes, Captain my Captain?”
At that, Jack finally smiled. Not the usual wide, white, shit-eating grin, but a small, intimate smile that actually reached his eyes.
“No-one can question your excellent taste, Mr. Jones,” he replied, kissing Ianto back, unhurriedly. “You taste better than any other man I’ve kissed for a long while.”
“And you, Captain Harkness, are incorrigible,” Ianto laughed. “Now, would you stay here and play boss for a while? I need to work with Emma in the Archives; and besides, it’s your turn to do some paperwork again.”
Jack pulled a face. “I hate paperwork.”
“Who doesn’t?” Ianto returned. “Just because I’m more diligent in doing it, that doesn’t mean I’d actually like it.”
“Oh yes, you do,” Jack countered.
“Not enough to do yours as well,” Ianto said. “Plus, I’ve got more than enough waiting for me, down in the Archives. So please, feel free to use the office to do yours.”
“I could do paperwork a lot better when properly caffeinated,” Jack tried to wriggle out of the affair.
“Then I’ll send some coffee your way,” Ianto answered and left.
Jack looked after him petulantly for a moment. Then he sighed and pulled closer the nearest pile of documents, waited to be read and signed, and began to read.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ten minutes later Beth Halloran closed the tourist office for the usual coffee break and came down to the Hub to operate the coffee machine. Not the huge, old-fashioned, insanely complicated one with all the polished copper tubes and shiny chrome water tank - that was still off-limits to everyone save Ianto himself - but she was very skilled with the small, modern espresso maker.
So, while the older team members still mourned the time when coffee had exclusively been made by Ianto, even they had to admit that Beth made a decent cup. Not quite as good as Ianto’s - no mere mortal was capable of that - but it came close enough. Which alone was to say a lot, and Beth was understandably and justifiably proud of the fact.
Lloyd emerged from the DNA lab at the first sniff of caffeine vapours, wearing a white lab coat and a distracted expression on her pale, tired face. She and Beth had become fast friends in the recent months, which had surprised everyone, considering how very different they were, both in personality and in interest.
Apparently, there was some truth in the saying that opposites attracted each other.
Tom had found out early enough that he liked Lloyd, too. They often worked together, under Owen’s supervision, and she turned out a very funny person, with a wonderfully dry sense of humour, aside from being an excellent scientist. There was little about biochemistry that she wouldn’t know, and that extended beyond the current stand of the discipline. Working for Torchwood did have its advantages.
She was also a dog person, without actually have a dog of her own, as no pets were allowed in the bleak, monstrous block of flats in which she lived. So she often escaped to Splott to visit Molly. She came at least once a week, took her out for evening runs, played with her… even stayed to look after her when Tom had to pull a double shift.
Sometimes she stayed, even if Tom didn’t have to pull any double shifts. It was a mutually advantageous arrangement. Friends with benefits, no strings attached.
She now joined the two doctors at the coffee table and yawned.
“Waiting for test results can be so boring,” she complained, all but inhaling her coffee and the blueberry cones (home-made by the newly-wed Mrs. Williams) that came with it. “I need all my willpower to say alive.”
“Perhaps it would be easier if you didn’t pull so many all-nighters in a row,” Tom commented, savouring every bite of his own scone.
It was a good thing that he had to go out to run with Molly twice a day, or else he’d have put on y lot of weight already. He hadn’t eaten so many home-made meals or baked goods since his Granny had died. Rhys and Emma certainly fed the team well.
“Perhaps,” Lloyd allowed. “But working regular hours would drive me crazy. I’ve grown used to long hours at SOCO.”
“A habit you should break before you get Teaboy on your case,” Owen advised. “You know what he’s like. He lets you do it for a while, but…”
The sound of the Rift alarm interrupted him.
“Rift activity in Butetown!” called Sally, who’d finished the graveyard shift an hour ago but stayed for the usual scone-and-coffee breakfast before actually going home. “I’m transferring the coordinates to the PDAs.”
“So much about a quiet morning, doing paperwork,” Jack commented, draining his mug and finishing his scone in two bites. “Lloyd, Owen, PC Andy, you with me. Beth, inform Ianto that we’ve gone out to investigate an alarm.”
“I’ll take over the visit to Flat Holm, then,” Rhys added, coming out from his small office to have some coffee.
Jack nodded. Thanks, Rhys. Well, people, let’s get going!”
Chapter 03