Fic: A Lifetime to Be Found (1/2)
Title: A Lifetime to Be Found
Author name: nohwrah
Prompt: 96
Pairing (s): Jack/Ianto, Ianto/OMC
Summary: When Jack is dropped back on earth after the events of Journey's End, he intends to pick up where he left off: with Torchwood and with Ianto. But when he finds the Hub crawling with UNIT officers, that proves to be quite the problem.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If only.
Warning: Set after Exit Wounds (and, obviously, Journey's End). Maybe a tiny bit of Gwen-bashing, even though I just think it's a fair bit of character perception.
Word count: 16 822.
Author's notes: A great big thanks to my beta F, for reading on such short notice and putting up with me. Thanks to cyberamanda for the fantastic prompt- I hope it's at least a bit what you wanted. Title taken from "Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground" by Coldplay.
Now my feet won't touch the ground,
now my head won't stop.
You wait a lifetime to be found.
Now my feet won't touch the ground.
- "Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground" Coldplay
1.
'You know,' Jack said with a winning smile as he slipped his hand into Martha's, 'I'm not so sure about UNIT these days. Maybe there's something else you could be doing.'
'Oh no, Jack,' Martha said, smiling back, 'I can see you coming a mile away and the answer is no.'
'Why not?' he asked. Even if he could think of several reasons why, he still wanted to convince Martha to come back to Torchwood with him. 'Great colleagues, best coffee in the universe, charismatic boss. How can you refuse?'
'Because I'd be replacing some of those great colleagues, too,' she told him earnestly. 'And those are mighty big shoes to fill. Tell you what, though, I'll come and say "hi" to Gwen and Ianto.'
'They'd be angry if I let you leave without.’
'Hey, you two!' Jack suddenly heard a voice call, followed by a slap on his shoulder.
'Oh,' he said as he turned towards Mickey, trying to keep the smile off his face. 'I thought I'd got rid of you.'
'Doesn't happen that easy.' Mickey shot him a confident grin.
'Should have known.' Jack laughed. He had to hand it to him, the boy he'd once travelled with had finally grown up, no doubt because of all he'd been through.
As they came to a crossroads, they halted. To go back to Torchwood, Jack and Martha would have to go left, into the bay. Mickey, however, didn't seem to show any interest in going with them. Martha had noticed.
'So what are you up to now?' she asked.
'Back in the other universe, I was planning on going to a computer convention in Germany,' he answered, as if he'd expected the question. 'I thought I'd check that out. Technology was quite advanced back home, you know, 'cause we're ahead a few years. Maybe I learnt something back there that can be used here.'
'Sound like a plan,' Jack admitted. 'Just be sure-'
'-not to change the future too much with my revolutionary knowledge so the world won't implode,' Mickey finished for him. 'Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. It's not the first time I've done this.'
'All right,' Jack told him, as he gave him the captain's salute. 'Good luck, Mickey Smith.'
'And you, Captain.'
'If you're ever near Cardiff again-'
'I'll be sure to pay you a visit,' Mickey said as he turned right. 'If you ever need any help-'
'I'll know who to call,' Jack called out as he dragged Martha off to the left. Strangely, he felt almost sorry for letting Mickey leave.
'What about him?' Martha asked when she was sure he was out of earshot.
Jack gave her an incredulous look, the feelings of sorrow completely gone at the thought of Mickey working with him day in, day out. 'Mickey the Idiot? No.'
'Why not?' Martha pressed. 'He's good with computers, he has experience working for Torchwood. Seems to me he's exactly what you're looking for.'
He thought about answering with a quirk, saying that he didn't think Ianto could handle the competition, so soon after John Hart- but after all he'd been through with this beautiful woman, it just didn't seem fair evading her questions. So he sighed and told her the truth. 'Because he'd be reminding me constantly of what I'm trying to leave behind.'
'Life with the Doctor,' she said knowingly. 'And I wouldn't?'
'It's not just life with the Doctor. It's life with the Doctor-' He stopped, not sure if he even wanted to continue that sentence.
'Your first Doctor and Mickey and Rose,' Martha finished for him.
'Yes,' Jack admitted. 'And working at Torchwood is a different life entirely.'
'It's life with Ianto.' Martha gave a sly smile as she nodded at the Hub door right in front of them.
Jack quirked an eyebrow at her. That girl had a much dirtier mind than people gave her credit for. 'Oh, cheeky,' he said, grinning. 'But yes, life with Ianto and Gwen and-'
He caught himself, wondering how he could have forgotten -even if it had been for only a second- that it wasn't the five of them anymore, that that was the exact reason they'd got into this conversation to start with. He frowned for a moment, trying to stow away the feelings of guilt and sadness before he continued.
'When you've been alive as long as I have, you'd go crazy if you didn't compartmentalise. I've been so many different persons- working with Mickey, I'd mix two of those personalities up and that would overcomplicate things. Here, I'm Captain Jack Harkness, boss of Torchwood Three. With Mickey and Rose and the Doctor, I was a conman trying to redeem himself- I don't want to go back to that. I can't. Not anymore.'
Martha licked her lips and looked at him with such compassion, that Jack could see just how much she understood. She might not have been alive for hundreds of years (and Jack would never wish that on her), but he knew how big the difference was between the person she was at UNIT and the one she had been with the Doctor. And he was grateful to her for it, so he threw his arms around her, lifted her up off the ground and squeezed her tight.
'Well then, Captain Jack Harkness, boss of Torchwood Three,' she said, grinning, when he put her back down, 'ready to live this life again?'
'You have no idea,' he replied. 'Feels like I've been gone far too long.'
As he stepped into the Hub, he felt a familiar rush of belonging creep up on him. It still felt odd to realise that this (Torchwood, Cardiff, Earth) -of all places- had become home. After resisting working with Torchwood for as long as he had, after conning nations and worlds for his own well-being, he was now at his best trying to protect one.
He took a deep, contented breath as he looked around. The Information Centre was empty, but crisp and neat as if it had been cleaned ceaselessly for days on end -and knowing Ianto, that's probably exactly what he had done while Jack had been gone.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the beaded curtain sway slowly. Someone must've passed through it just a couple of moments before they got in, and Jack's mind was doing overtime with providing naughty ideas when he thought who it might have been.
'Oh, honey,' he called confidently, while winking at Martha. 'I'm home.'
When the curtain rustled again and a black young man -decidedly not Ianto Jones- walked back into the Centre, Jack's confidence had long changed into fear. He wasn't ready to lose even more members of his team.
He glanced at Martha, who was looking just as shocked as he felt; her mouth was slightly open and her brow was knitted together in confusion.
'I'm sorry, sir?' the man said, looking confused. He had an open face, was dressed immaculately in all black and had a neatly trimmed goatee. There wasn't a single thing Jack liked about him and not all his reasons for it had to do with him being seemingly quite at home in his base of operations. He looked -of all things- boring and that was one of the worst labels Jack could put on anyone. 'Can I help you?'
'Yes, you can help me,' Jack spat, whipping out his Webley. 'You can start by telling me who the hell you are and what you are doing in my-'
As he was speaking, the door to the Hub opened and a young woman with short white-blonde hair walked through. She, too, was dressed in all black, but there were two big differences with the man's outfit. She was wearing a red UNIT cap and carrying a gun. Jack felt his stomach clench as he recognised the uniform (and he vaguely wondered how it was possible he hadn't seen it earlier), when Martha spoke up.
'Oh my God! Seren!' she exclaimed as she saw the woman. 'What are you doing here?'
'You know her?' Jack asked angrily, leaning back to get a better look at Martha. She nodded, but it was the girl who answered.
'Doctor Jones was my supervising officer when we dealt with the Sontarans a while back,' she said in a thick Welsh accent. 'Seren Roberts, sir, field agent.'
Jack nodded at her, grateful for the introduction the man hadn't yet given him, and put his gun back in its holster.
'You have to be more careful,' the black man said in such a feeling voice that it made Jack dislike him even more. It also confirmed his suspicions that he was utterly by-the-book. 'You were lucky this time, but they could just as easily have been civilians.'
'You haven't had Information Centre-shifts often, have you? No one comes here unless they're looking for Torchwood. Besides, I recognised doctor Jones on the CCTV,' she said, laughing. 'You'll have to excuse Benjamin, sir, ma'am. He takes his job -as he does all other things- very seriously.'
Jack liked this girl. A lot. So he decided to turn to her for information. 'Seren, do you happen to know where my-'
'You could do to take a leaf from my book,' the man -apparently called Benjamin- told her, slightly flustered. He was ignoring Jack completely.
'It doesn't matter, anyway,' Seren said, slightly annoyed as she threw him and Martha an apologetic smile. 'Get your gear on, we've got to go.'
'Go where?' Benjamin called into the Centre as he ran to get something from behind the beaded curtain.
'Up north,' she answered, checking what seemed to Jack like a tracking device. 'Just outside of Caerphilly. They're sending us the coordinates. We need to leave.'
'Why?' Jack asked. 'What's happened? And who's they?'
'I'm sorry, sir,' Benjamin said as he rushed past them, still adjusting his red cap. 'I'm afraid we can't share that kind of information with you. Perhaps doctor Jones can help you find our bosses. They could tell you all you need to know.'
'And who are your bosses?' Jack asked again.
Both soldiers made to leave without another backwards glance or any intention to answer, but then Benjamin stopped dead. 'I left my stun gun in the Hub. You go ahead, I'll follow with my own car.'
'I've got one,' Seren said. 'Come on.'
'And what if you get hurt? Standard protocol, each one gun, each one stun gun,' Benjamin replied, shaking his head. 'Send me the coordinates over the comms, I'll be just a couple minutes behind.'
Jack stood entirely still for a moment -seething silently- until Benjamin had rushed past him again, clutching a stun gun in one hand and a tracking device like Seren's in the other. He shot a quick look at Martha, who was biting her lip as if she didn't know what to say.
'There's not,' she said, eventually, 'the smallest of possibilities that you'd find all of this just a tiny bit amusing, is there?'
He took a deep breath, telling himself that Martha had nothing to do with this. 'I don't see what could be amusing here, doctor Jones. The fact that UNIT and their guns have already wormed their way into Torchwood after two days of my absence or the fact that I have not yet seen anyone from my team?'
'You're right.' Martha nodded, looking as if she'd been chastised by one of her teachers. 'Do you want to go in, look for Gwen and Ianto?'
'Only if you'd help me find them,' Jack said with a grin, even if he could never feel it reach his eyes. He reached behind the counter and pressed the red button, giving them access to the secret corridor to the Hub itself.
As they made their way down there, Jack noticed, Martha stayed a few feet behind him- as if she wanted to make him feel how very much in charge he still was. He had to try very hard not to tell her off for it and kept reminding himself that this wasn't Martha's fault. She had been with him all along and as far as UNIT went, the soldiers were right: she was a higher authority than him. What worried him about all this was how exactly UNIT and Torchwood had come to merge in such a short time span when he'd spent decades trying to keep them out.
And where the hell were Gwen and Ianto?
If they know what's good for them, Jack thought as he clenched his teeth, they're down there, trying to fight off any remaining soldiers with their bare hands if they have to.
As the cog door rolled open to give him access to the Hub, he took a deep breath, ready to reprimand his team members for letting it come this far. Exactly how far that was, though, was something Jack was not at all prepared for. It knocked the air out of his lungs and wiped the carefully constructed (yet equally witty and suave) reproof completely from his memory.
A gasp from behind him told him that Martha felt pretty much the same. 'What is going on here?' she breathed.
Jack's eyes darted from side to side and up and down to take everything in, as he answered, 'That's exactly what I would like to know.'
***
2.
Jack looked down over the Hub at the -at least- ten UNIT officers buzzing all over the place, carrying what seemed like alien artefacts and case files. In the middle of the black scurry, he could discern only two colourful items: Gwen's bright red sweater and Ianto's matching tie. Neither of them seemed the least bit phased about what was going on. In fact, they seemed to be the only two who knew exactly what to do.
They were discussing something, it appeared, as Ianto pointed out things on a list and Gwen nodded and interrupted him every now and again. She put a hand on his arm, said something that made him smile and wink at her before he took off and disappeared from sight.
The gesture was so intimate and familiar that it nearly made Jack forget that the issue at hand wasn't how to get in on that conversation as quickly as possible or where it was that Ianto had gone to, but the very unwelcome invasion of UNIT.
It did make him wonder exactly how close those two had got over the past year and how confident with each other and their jobs they'd become. And, more importantly, how he had managed to forget that no one could wear red like Ianto Jones could.
His attention snapped back to reality as he heard Gwen's voice.
'Annie, have you sent out those coordinates to Seren and Benjamin?' she called after a woman with long, dark brown hair and a friendly, round face that had just passed by her. Actually, that was not the only thing that was friendly and round about her, Jack noticed as he took in her beautifully shaped body.
Even before Curvy Annie (as he'd dubbed her) had had a chance to answer, Gwen had turned toward someone who -Jack deduced from the coat- was a medic. 'Rock, I need you to be ready for whatever they bring in. Finish up whatever it is you're doing, this may be important.'
The man (Rock? Did he hear that right?) didn't even look up from the Weevil he was dissecting, but it didn't matter, because Gwen had rounded on someone else again. 'Eve, hi. You wouldn't mind getting us a cup of coffee, would you? I could use one.'
‘If you don’t mind,' Jack said loudly as he shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling that this was as good a time as any to let his presence be known. (He was right: almost every single UNIT soldier had their gun drawn within seconds.) ‘I could use one too, Eve. I’m curious, just how are you planning to distract Ianto long enough for you to get near the coffee machine and make some? He doesn’t like it when other people play with his toys, I know that from experience.'
He winked at Gwen, who was staring at him with wide eyes. He hopped down the couple of steps, not sparing any officer a sideways glance and walking past the guns as if he hadn't a care in the world. That's what he wanted it to look like, anyway, and from the confused and slightly admiring look on Eve's face he could tell he was doing a pretty good job of it. 'Captain Jack Harkness, at your service.'
The buzz that went around the Hub as he introduced himself, made Jack smirk with self-satisfaction. Gwen, however, looked like she wanted to take a swing at him.
'Not now, Jack,' she said, rather angrily. 'Eve, I'll still have that coffee. Ianto will have got everything ready by now, all you have to do is flick the on-switch. As always.'
Jack frowned at her and tilted his chin upwards, vaguely wondering how much coffee they could have drunk in two days for there to be an "always". He looked at Martha and shrugged.
When Gwen noticed her, she called Eve back, who had already been halfway toward the kitchen. 'Make that three coffees and bring them up to the boardroom. If you have any questions, ask Ianto. I don't want to be disturbed while Jack, Martha and I are up there.'
She gestured towards the staircase and finally flashed him a smile. ‘If you’ll lead the way, Captain Jack Harkness. I trust you still know it.’
Jack grinned at her, amazed at how relieved he felt, and walked up the steely stairs. He was almost at the boardroom, when the alarms started bellowing loudly. He froze mid-step, stomach doing backflips in fear and excitement as he recognised what the sound meant: trouble.
He turned around, ready to yell orders at his team, slipping back into the old routine without even thinking about it. But he found that all eyes were on Gwen. No one was paying him any attention at all (A definite first, he thought, and another good reason to dislike UNIT as much as I do.), except for her.
She was staring at him, eyes wide, as if she was waiting to see what he would do -if he would allow her to finish what she had started- as if she’d sensed the change of power. But the choice was made for both of them when Ianto ran up to her.
‘Comms have gone down. Seren still has a radio, but the signal’s too weak,’ he said hastily, while looking up info in a file. He hadn’t even noticed Jack. ‘This is exactly what happened when the police sent in their men last time. First the comms, then all radio signals. Next-‘
He fell silent, all colour draining from his face. Jack nearly spoke, but Gwen had recomposed and seemingly decided that this was her case to solve.
‘What was next, Ianto?’
When he didn’t respond, still staring at the paper in front of him, Gwen took it out of his hands and read for herself.
‘None of the officers survived,’ Ianto supplied finally. ‘What do we do, Gwen?’
She seemed to be thinking something over. Jack wanted to help, take the weight and the responsibility off her shoulders. But for some reason, he felt he couldn’t step in this quickly again. Whatever had passed here in the few days he’d been gone, it had been enough for them to fall into a pattern that he could not be part of.
‘Gwen. What do we do?’ Ianto asked again, slowly and slightly desperate for an answer.
That seemed to jolt her back into action. ‘Tell Annie to work on that radio signal. See if she can find a way to override whatever is blocking us out. Tell her to boost the signal and keep trying.’ As Ianto rushed off to give Annie her orders, she turned towards the medical bay, looking far more strictly business than Jack had ever seen her. ‘Rock, assemble a team to send out to Caerphilly and prep a medical kit, now. Don’t go yourself, we might need you back here.’
‘Get Ianto to help you,’ she added after a pause. ‘Eve, I sent back-up after Seren and Benjamin not long after they left. They should be around there somewhere. Contact them. Tell them to try and get close to the house, find out what’s going on there. If they see a chance to extract, they are free to use any means possible. Under no circumstances can they go into the house themselves.’
‘Send me,’ Jack said suddenly, making Gwen stop in her tracks.
She looked at him -as if considering what he’d just said- but eventually, she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Let me rephrase that,’ Jack told her earnestly, hands on his hips, ‘I’m going.’
‘No,’ Gwen said again. ‘No, Jack, I can’t let you. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what is out there.’
‘It’s too dangerous for a team, not so much for the man who can’t die,’ he said. When he saw she was going to fight him on this, he added, ‘Gwen Cooper, I don’t care how well you’ve run this ship, I am still your superior and I am going. Someone prepare the SUV.’
A few of the soldiers that were listening to the power play made a move to go- Jack’s authoritative voice was almost impossible to refuse. They caught themselves just in time, however, and looked at Gwen for approval.
She kept staring Jack right in the eye, showing how very much she did not agree with a) his plan of action and b) the way he has swept back in and tried to take over again, but she gave them a curt nod anyway.
Jack nodded back in gratitude.
‘I’m coming too,’ Martha said suddenly. When she noticed Gwen was going to protest to her as well, she added, ‘I won’t go in the house, but if you want your medic to stay here, I’m the best thing you can send in after your men. I’m a UNIT officer and a doctor.’
God, Jack loved this girl.
Of course, there was no way Gwen could disagree with this, and she knew it. She nodded gruffly, making sure to show how much she didn’t like this plan. ‘Have Rock brief you. I’ll go and see if they’ve supplied you with all the tech you need,’ she said. ‘Meet me in the garage in five.’
Jack and Martha made their way to the medical bay, to the doctor still jabbing things into a dead Weevil.
‘Ianto not here anymore?’ Jack asked.
In truth, he was very uncomfortable with how his return had gone, up until now. There were no warm greetings, no hugs, only a nest of UNIT officers running around his -well, he’d better just say it- home. The fact that he now had to run out to save some of those intruders, was only adding to his annoyance. By now, he was craving for Ianto’s Welsh vowels, if not his smile and his touch.
The doctor answered in a thick Northern accent, without looking up- eyes all concentration on the creature before him. ‘Nope, you just missed him.’
He then glanced at them and, as he recognised the people who’d come to see him, immediately grabbed one of the files on his table. He came towards them with an outstretched hand and a small smile.
It was only now that Jack got to take a good look at him. He had a natural elegance to him that he hardly even seemed aware of. His dark brown eyes were inviting and his square jaw was set in determination, without him seeming unfriendly or arrogant (unlike that Benjamin-fellow he was setting out to rescue). His equally dark brown hair was cut short, his teeth were white and his entire attitude struck Jack as entirely absorbed and impassioned by his job. He was -and there was no other way to describe it- absolutely gorgeous. In fact, he reminded Jack a lot of himself at that age, which made him unsure whether he should trust or even like him.
‘Rock, UNIT medic, pleased to meet you,’ he said in a low, confident voice.
‘Captain Jack Harkness, how are you?’ Jack asked him while taking his hand (Nice, firm handshake, he noticed). He felt Martha’s elbow prod him in the side. For the love of God, he wasn’t always flirting when he introduced himself. Well, maybe this time he was. ‘Unusual name.’
‘Unusual coat. It’s a nickname. Officially, I’m Harris Roxburgh, but no one’s called me that in ages,’ Rock answered. He turned to Martha and extended his hand to her as well. ‘Doctor Jones. I’ve heard a lot about you. All positive.’
‘Then I'm sure it's not true.’ She smiled at him, but then her face grew serious. ‘So, what do we need to know?’
‘Well,’ Rock said as he opened the file. He, too, switched immediately to an air of professionalism. ‘We got the call a few days ago. A house out in Caerphilly, in a pretty deserted neighbourhood. There are a few squatters around, though- it’s them who complained to the police, saying that at some points during the day, there’s a lot of noise coming from it. A couple of them went to check it out, but they were never seen again. The police sent in their men, a couple of days later during the time of the noise, but-‘
‘None of them came back out,’ Jack finished for him. ‘And now the same thing’s happened to your men. How could this happen? UNIT don’t do recon?’
If Rock was taken aback by his snide remark, he didn’t show it. He simply handed them the file to look through.
‘We did the recon. There was nothing: no Rift-activity in the last months in that area, our heat sensors picked up nothing, infrared scan, x-ray, you name it. It all came back blank. All we know is that at some points during the day, there’s a loud wailing noise.’ He sighed, as if discouraged. ‘The windows are boarded up from the inside out. All attempts at breaking through the wood have resulted in broken equipment. We don’t know what’s going on- the only solution was to go in.’
‘I’m impressed,’ Jack admitted reluctantly. ‘And intrigued. Doctor Jones, I think it’s time we left, we’ve got some saving to do.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, Captain,’ Rock asked, catching the file as Jack threw it back to him. ‘How do you plan on saving them? How will you make sure you won’t fall victim to whatever’s got to them?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll come back,’ Jack said with a wink. ‘I always do.’
*
They arrived at the house, which was now swarmed by UNIT officers, aiming their weapons at it as if it might attack any moment. Jack could hear they were still trying to contact Benjamin and Seren.
‘The house is not going to harm you, fellas,’ Jack called as he got out of the SUV. ‘And whatever’s in it obviously doesn’t need to come out to get the upper hand, so you can stop pointing a gun at it.’
He took off his coat and handed it to Martha, explaining to her once more -as he’d done on the ride over- to make sure no one tried to walk into the house or abort the mission as long as he hadn’t come out. He didn’t have time to worry about anyone but himself and the two officers he needed to get out alive.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ one of the officers who’d walked up to him said, still holding his gun at the ready, ‘what are you doing?’
‘Taking off my coat,’ Jack told him as if it was obvious (which, of course, it was- or should have been). ‘I kinda like it. I don’t want it to get dirty or torn. The cute little shop where I bought it closed about sixty years ago, so I don’t think I’ll be able to get a new one anytime soon.’
'I mean, sir,' the soldier insisted, albeit a bit hesitantly, 'do you have a plan?'
'Yes, and it doesn't involve you, so back off,' Jack snapped, annoyed. When he got a disapproving look from Martha, he sighed and added, 'Just make sure you're ready to help your colleagues when we get out.'
When the man had walked back to the other officers, Jack turned to her and said, 'How can you work with these people?'
'I'm pretty sure they're saying the same thing about you, right now,' Martha said, eyeing the group of soldiers, huddled around the man who'd been brave enough to ask Jack anything. 'You're being too hard on them, they're only doing their job.'
'If they'd done it properly, I wouldn't be here right now,' he barked as he took his braces and shirt off, as well. 'In fact, if they'd done it properly, they wouldn't be here right now.'
'That's not true, Jack,' she said, sounding so reasonable it made him even angrier. 'We don't know what happened while we were gone. For all we know, Gwen and Ianto could have offered to join forces.'
Jack gave her a pointed look, one eyebrow raised. ‘I’m going in.’
‘Be careful,’ he heard Martha say quietly to his turned back.
‘I’ll survive,’ he called as he walked towards the house. ‘Tell Ianto to have the coffee ready for when we get back.’
***
3.
Jack took out his Webley as he got to the front door, holding it in front of him when he went into the house. He crept through the corridor stealthily, trying not to make a single sound.
The noise was indeed very loud, like the wailing of a cat amplified by ten. Jack thought he might know it somehow, but he couldn’t be sure where from. Suddenly, it stopped, as if it had sensed him coming closer.
Jack swore internally. If it had sensed him, the element of surprise was ruined. And he loved a good entrance. He kept moving towards the living room, as the sound seemed to have come from there.
He was right. As he leant into the room -back still pressed firmly against the doorframe- he immediately recognised the small pod in front of him, which looked like a giant, oval edible ball bearing. He could even see himself reflected in its shiny surface. It had been a long time since he'd run into one of these.
‘Oh, Martha, this you’ve gotta-‘ Jack started saying, but he was cut short by a loud crackling in his ear. His comm had died, which meant that he’d indeed been discovered.
A loud throbbing pulse and bright red light suddenly emerged from the pod. A sharp pain, like needles being prodded carelessly into every square inch of his body (skin and organs), cut through him. Jack felt like he could hardly breathe.
‘It’s all right,’ he said to the ship, holding up a hand towards it. He hoped that whatever was in it was still alive and able to control its actions. ‘It’s all right, I’m here to help.’
Maybe it was only his imagination, but the pricks and the pressure in his chest seemed to decrease. Jack felt hopeful; this way, he could last long enough to help this alien and get Benjamin and Seren to safety before he himself would pass out. But he'd have to hurry- he took another step into the room, never taking his eyes off the pod.
'I'm just going to check if my friends are all right,' he said, almost spitting out the word "friends". He couldn't imagine a word less suited to describe the soldiers, but this was not the time to trip over semantics. 'I'm not gonna hurt you.'
He looked around the room, trying to locate the two. It wasn't easy: the throbbing in his head had waned a bit, but it hadn't subsided by a long shot and he'd been in the room long enough to be affected by it. He blacked out every few steps, as if the lights in his head were being flicked on and off constantly.
He found them -both out cold- and went over as fast as he could. He noticed the thumping growing slightly louder again, which meant he'd scared the creature inside the pod somehow. As soon as he'd established both officers were still alive (steady but slow pulse, steady breathing), he turned back to the spaceship.
'I'm not gonna hurt you,' he said again, concentrating hard on stringing his sentences together. 'I'm gonna help, but you'll have to let me. I know about your kind. I can't send you back to your flock, but I do know the coordinates of your homeplanet at some point in time. I guess that's better than nothing, right?'
Again, the throbbing increased. Jack took a deep breath and started talking again, hoping that keeping his mind busy would also keep it conscious.
'You wanna know how I know, I suppose,' he said, getting a little out of breath. He kept taking tiny steps closer to the ship. 'That's a funny story, actually. I went to a bar, had a couple of drinks by myself, when this gorgeous Merregh walks up to-'
He stumbled, blacked out for another moment and slammed hard into the wooden floorboards.
'Maybe not the right time for anecdotes,' he slurred. 'I'll tell you some other time.'
He got up, dusted off his trousers and took another step closer. He was now as close as he could get. If he shuffled forward even just a few inches, his entire body would be pressed into the ship- which was something Jack knew he had to avoid at all costs before he got the alien's permission to do so.
It was getting harder to breathe, still. His head was now throbbing in time with the pulse the ship was sending out. He only had a few more minutes.
'I need to touch you,' he said, closing his eyes for focus (and vaguely, his mind wondered why it didn't sound sexy, this time). 'I know you don't like it, but the only way I'll get those coordinates into your navigator is to insert them manually into your motherboard. You don't have to open up, but you have to take down your force field.'
Nothing. The pod didn't react, only kept on thumping.
'Come on,' Jack pushed. 'I'm the only one who can get you back. It's better taking a chance than to sit here, taking out humans while you wait-'
He swayed, nearly losing his balance again when he blacked out once more. For a moment, he completely forgot where he was or why he was there. Luckily, his mind caught up again soon. 'While you wait for them to find you.'
Again, nothing.
Jack's eyes rolled back into his head and he felt his knees buckle. It was too late. Finally, he said, 'You- you know they won't.'
Then, suddenly, the pulsing stopped. It had given him access. He crawled closer, still slightly hesitant to touch the pod. When he did, though, and nothing happened, he smiled. He rested his two palms flat on its surface and used his last bit of strength to pull himself up, locate the motherboard and quickly insert the coordinates.
He closed his eyes, feeling consciousness slip away even though the throbbing had gone. A wind swept across the room, which meant it had worked- the pod was on its way. He'd done his job and could finally welcome the darkness. But then he heard a crackling noise in his ear.
'Jack? Jack? Are you there?'
'Martha,' he said with a sigh. 'It's safe. Come and get your officers.'
And then he passed out.
*
'-know what it was, but Jack did, I think,' a vaguely familiar voice said from somewhere far away. 'No, I didn't get a chance to ask. No, no, none of them survived. We're coming back now, be there in ten.'
Jack blinked and opened his eyes, only to shut them quickly again. He groaned when the bright light made his head feel like it was on fire. This was the kind of headache he'd rarely experienced before (only the one time -in what he liked to call his "experimental phase"- when he'd tried to drink himself to death with seven bottles of bathtub vodka and a whisky chaser, he'd come back with a mouth that tasted like a rug and a head he'd wanted to cut off).
'Gwen, Jack's awake. I'll see you when we get back,' he heard Martha say, and then the flip of a mobile being closed. 'Jack? Are you all right?'
He turned his head towards the voice, which had come from right next to him, it seemed. Then, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes again, this time more slowly and tentatively. 'I told you I'd survive,' he said with a grin.
Jack looked around. He was in the backseat of the SUV, propped against one of the doors, with Martha sitting next to him.
'Thank God, you did,' she said, smiling. After shooting the driver -the same UNIT officer who'd come to ask him questions- a quick glance, she dropped her voice and said, 'I don't know how I would've explained you coming back to life in the middle of the ride back to Cardiff.'
'Where's your sense of adventure, Martha Jones?' Jack asked.
'My sense of adventure doesn't entirely cover scaring the hell out of my colleagues when they're driving the vehicle I'm in,' she answered. 'Call me old-fashioned, but I'm more of a "saving the world from impending doom"-kind of girl.'
'I like old-fashioned,' he said quietly. 'That's why I wear the coat.'
He slipped his hand into hers, which she squeezed softly. 'I'm sorry about Benjamin and Seren,' he said finally. 'I thought I'd made it in time.'
'Don't be,' Martha said, waving her free hand. 'They're off to the hospital and Rock is joining them. I'm sure they'll be up and about in no time, thanks to you.'
Jack frowned, puzzled. 'Then who died?'
When Martha returned the confused look, he clarified, 'On the phone to Gwen, you said none of them survived. I assumed-'
'Oh, no,' she said, her face falling slightly. 'The police officers that went in a while ago, we found them in the next room. It looked like they'd tried to get out, but they must've died before they managed to make it to the door. There's nothing any of us could have done.'
Jack sighed and put his other hand over Martha's, which was still holding his. Just as he was about to say something comforting, the officer behind the wheel turned around and said, 'Sir, Ma'am, we're here.'
*
'I'm still waiting for that coffee,' Jack called out as he walked into the Hub with Martha right behind him.
Gwen and Ianto, who were standing a couple of feet away from him discussing something, looked up. Jack's stomach jolted as he finally, after much too long, felt Ianto's eyes rest on him again. He drew himself up to his full height -like a child trying to impress its favourite teacher- feeling utterly ridiculous for caring so much about how he looked to Ianto.
He was being ridiculous. He'd kissed this man, slept with this man and done all the things in between and beyond with him (saved the world, shagged him underneath the water tower- the list was too long to name). Ianto adored the ground he walked on and they both knew it. What Ianto didn't know, was how Jack felt about him. Hell, Jack didn't even know properly.
Every time, he swore not to get involved anymore. Flirting was good, sex was even better- intimacy, however, was to be avoided at all costs. But, seeing Ianto again now -suit vest off and shirtsleeves rolled up but all the rest still impeccably in place- Jack knew it was too late. It had been for a while. He had fallen for him and much harder than he had ever expected.
So the first thing on his mind was that he had to let Ianto know, somehow. The second was that something was off with Ianto's behaviour. He'd turned red as a beetroot, eyes wide as saucers and mouth opened in shock- which could only mean that Gwen hadn't told him that he was back. (Why wouldn't she have?) Without saying anything, he turned on his heel immediately and left for the kitchen.
Again, this wasn't the kind of welcome he'd expected. All things considered, Jack really was having a bitch of a day.
Gwen didn't seem to have noticed, however, she smiled and walked up to him with outstretched arms. 'Jack, thank you,' she said as she hugged him. 'Let's go up to the boardroom and then you can fill me in on everything that's happened.'
When Jack didn't react, only stared in the direction Ianto had disappeared in, Gwen added, 'Don't worry, Ianto'll bring your coffee up.'
*
'So,' Gwen said as she sat down and gestured for them to do the same, 'what happened there, Jack? What can you tell us?'
Jack looked at her for a moment, eyebrows raised at the fact that she clearly wasn't giving up her leadership of Torchwood III just yet. 'I don't want to discuss this now. Later.'
'Come on, it's five minutes' work,' Gwen pressed. 'That way we can round up the file before Benjamin and Seren get back from the hospital and Rock will be able to diagnose them more precisely.'
He glanced over to Martha, who gestured for him to do as he was asked. So he did. 'It was a Purdian maternity pod,' he said with a sigh as he rested his arms on the glass table. 'We probably don't have them on record. Purds are an extremely anti-social race, so having one land here is an extremely rare case.'
Gwen nodded as she noted down in a folder what Jack was saying. 'So why was it here now? What did it want?'
'Not to be here,' Jack told her. 'You see, Purds have been hunted for centuries, because their meat is supposed to taste really good. That's why they're so anti-social and why they relocate to another planet every generation. They all travel in separate little pods but in great flocks. The males travel first, to find a new place to live- when they do, the females follow with the kids.'
'That's all very hunter-gatherer, isn't it?' Gwen said, while smiling at Martha.
'Hunted-gathered,' Jack corrected. 'They're the ones being chased by about ten different species. If they want to survive, they don't have a choice. Anyway, sometimes, one of these pods gets separated from the flock and they land somewhere among the way. That was what was in the house.'
'You mean to say that a little Purdian baby caused all this?' Martha asked, shocked.
Jack nodded. 'Like I said, they're being hunted and they're taking every precaution they can think of to survive. They are hugely intelligent and brilliant with technology. The pods they travel in look like an edible ball bearing- a giant round mirror. Plant it in almost any setting and you'll have to look real hard to know what you're seeing.'
'You make it sound like this great big victim.' Gwen shook her head. 'But it killed five police officers, Jack.'
'All precautions. The ship is programmed to protect the baby inside and do whatever it takes to get it back to the flock,' Jack continued. 'The noise the squatters heard is a distress signal it sends out at regular intervals. If one of the motherships picks it up, it can come and collect the baby, no harm done.'
'In this case, though, it seemed the others were already too far away to hear it. The safety measures are what killed the PC's,' he said when he noticed Gwen wanted to protest again. 'The ship detects what and who's around it and sends out a pulse identical to the threat's brainwaves, together with a flickering light. If you're around to hear and see that for too long, it'll knock you out and lull you into a coma from which you'll never wake up. Not unless you're me. Your soldiers never stood a chance.'
'That's almost a nice way to kill someone,' Martha said with a frown.
'It's not painless, if that's what you mean. The pulsing gives you a giant headache.'
'Like the one you're having now?' Martha asked. She grinned when she noticed Jack's confused look. 'I can see you're squinting ever so slightly, trying to shield your eyes from bright lights. Coffee's not good when you've got a headache, you know.'
'Ianto's is,' Jack countered.
'How do you know all this, Jack?' Gwen asked, still writing in the folder. 'I mean, if we haven't got it on file, how did you know what it was?'
'Long story,' he answered. 'It had to do with a lot of drinks, a case that I was working on and a Merregh whose gender I'm still not sure of. Bottom line: remember that time loop -the two weeks that were actually five years- that John Hart told you about?'
Gwen nodded.
'It was because of a Purdian ship. If you touch them, they send you off to wherever and whenever -as long as it's far away from them- and keep you there. I learnt my lesson after that.' Jack looked at Gwen, waiting for her to gesture she'd got all the information from him she wanted. When she did, he took a deep breath and said, 'I want UNIT out of here.'
'What? Jack!' Gwen said, eyes wide.
'By morning,' he told her, in his most stern voice. He gave her a look that meant there was no negotiating on this, but Gwen flashed him one that he knew all too well. If she had been a pit bull, she would've eaten half his leg, by now.
'We can't!' she said vehemently. 'We need them.'
Jack raised his hands at her and nodded. 'Fine. Give me a good reason and I'll let them stay. Tell me why UNIT is here.'
To his surprise, Gwen seemed a bit offended by his request. 'Well, why do you think they're here? To help us out, of course. There was only the two of us, so we needed a hand.'
'But UNIT?' Jack grimaced and ignored Martha's angry stare.
'What would you have had us do, Jack?' Gwen asked in return, getting a bit angry herself. 'No one knows what Torchwood really does, except for them.'
'You could have waited for me.'
Gwen rolled her eyes and sighed. 'Who knew when you'd be back. Or if.'
'I promised,' Jack replied, somehow hurt he'd been shoved aside so easily and so quickly. After all, he'd been working for Torchwood much longer than the others had been alive.
'Yes, but it could've taken you years,' Gwen told him, shaking her head. Then, she gave him one of her compassionate looks and said, 'We know the Doctor gets his timelines mixed up a bit. It's a good thing we didn't wait. We wouldn't have handled ten months on our own.
'You what?' Martha asked, looking more terrified than Jack had ever seen her.
'Ten months?' Jack asked incredulously. Yes, the Doctor didn't always get the timeframe right, but missing the right spot by almost a year seemed a bit much. 'We've been gone for ten months? What day is it today?'
'You didn't know?' Gwen seemed just as surprised.
'What day is it today?' Jack asked again, stressing every word.
'It's Sunday. Sunday, March 14, 2010,' she answered, slightly baffled. She gestured at one of the computers in the board room. 'You can check if you don't believe me.'
'Jack,' Martha said, fear still clear in her eyes. 'Ten months- I- Tom. I have to go, he'll have been worried sick.'
'Of course, get out of here,' Jack said, not taking his eyes off Gwen.
It was only when they'd heard the cog door roll shut again that Gwen asked once more, 'You really didn't know?'
Jack thought it was pretty clear that neither him, nor Martha had had any idea they'd been gone so long, so he didn't answer Gwen's question. What mattered to him now, was setting things straight: work-related, which meant getting UNIT out of there as quickly and quietly as possible, and personal stuff, which meant talking things through with Ianto. Of course, he hadn't wanted to speak to him. Obviously, he thought he'd left him. Again.
He sighed, deciding that he'd first work on the things he knew how to handle. So he said, 'You could've recruited people off the street, like I did with you. You didn't have to turn to UNIT.'
'There was no time for test runs, Jack,' Gwen answered fiercely. 'We needed capable people immediately. Earth had just been replaced, if you recall. We couldn't very well start handing out pamphlets on the street, saying, "Hello, love, any interest in chasing aliens?".'
'You would've had my attention.'
'Doesn't take a pamphlet to do that, does it?'
His eyes met Gwen's again, they both smiled and Jack knew that the anger that had passed between them was now gone. That's how it always was with Gwen. She'd be angry, he'd be angrier. She wouldn't give in, he'd be proven right. And then they'd crack a joke about it and all was well again.
With Ianto, however, things never were as easy and for the first time ever, Jack regretted it.
'They've helped us out really well,' Gwen said, obviously feeling more at ease now she didn't have to mind her words so much. 'We've found a way to make it work perfectly, and we've got Andy helping us out with police business too.'
'Now that I'm back, we can send them home,' Jack said simply.
'I would love that,' she said, nodding. 'But it would still only leave the three of us, and with all that's going on, I'm sorry, but your being back is just not going to cut it.'
'Harsh,' Jack told her, eyebrows raised. He thought for a moment and then took a deep breath. 'Fine. A trial period. Not even that, a bit of cooperation till we find proper replacements.'
'Thank you, Jack,' she said, genuinely grateful. 'If you'll talk to Ianto, you'll see we have been working on finding replacements.'
'Ianto taking care of job interviews, huh?' he asked with a grin. He could just imagine his scrutinising look passing over the candidates, checking the pleats in their suits.
'Yes, he's my deputy now. Seemed only right,' she said as she got up. 'He's in charge of what he likes to call "the three P's".'
'Personnel, paperwork and-' Jack trailed off, not able to think of a third word starting with a P.
'Preparation,' Gwen finished. 'He basically still makes sure we get everywhere on time with all we need and he does the follow-up afterwards, but he seems to like it.'
'He likes to organise,' Jack said, fondly. Then he fell silent.
Gwen was about to leave, saying,' I had better check up on Seren and Benjamin. Ianto was a little upset about the whole thing.'
'Gwen,' he asked hesitantly, grabbing her wrist so she couldn't leave. 'Does he still want to talk to me?'
'He had a rough time- but he pulled through, he always does. He's much stronger than people give him credit for, you know. And he's very forgiving,' she answered with a sigh and Jack was grateful to her for not pretending nothing had happened, but he could sense there was something she wasn't telling him. 'As I said before, we've found a way to make it work for everybody.'
'You sure you've still got room for me?' he asked, only half-joking.
'I always have,' she said with a small smile and left.
It took Jack a few seconds to realise she hadn't used the plural, that she hadn't included Ianto in her statement and that worried him more than even Ianto's behaviour had. He stood up -ready to follow her and compel her to tell him everything she knew- when he saw Ianto sitting on the sofa down in the Hub. He had a cup of coffee in front of him (which made Jack wonder vaguely why he hadn't received his yet) and his diary on his lap. Gwen was right, Ianto looked very shaken.
Taken with compassion for the young man, he made his way down the stairs, ready to confront him and even welcoming Ianto's anger.
'Rough day, huh?' he asked, leaning against the wall. This man would never stop amazing him. Ianto was almost as good as him at compartmentalising his own feelings -to the point of being able to completely shut them out, but the way he cared for others more than made up for it. It was always there and you could read it off him like you'd read a children's book, complete with big fonts and colourful drawings.
Ianto looked up, startled. He sighed deeply before nodding. 'I guess you could say that, sir.'
Jack frowned. Not at the 'sir', but at the complete lack of emotion when Ianto looked at him. As if his mind was somewhere else and he hadn't even registered that Jack was back. He thought he'd made a bit more of an entrée, to be honest.
'Listen, Ianto,' he started, still looking for the words he'd use. 'I'm- I don't know how this all happened. It was two- When I left-'
'Jack, it's all right.' Ianto gave a small smile. He said it so convincingly that Jack cursed him for being so good at lying it even made him doubt. 'I understand. You found your Doctor, this is what you do. Intergalactic men of mystery, right?'
Jack smiled back and nodded, wondering why he'd get off without as much as a scolding. He knew Ianto was good at pretending and that he did it far too often, but this was a bit much, even for him. Hoping he could bait Ianto, he asked, 'So, we're okay, you and I?'
'I think so, sir,' he answered. His thoughts seemed to be far away, as if he was thinking about something else, waiting for something- the conversation to be over perhaps, because clearly, they were far from okay.
Just when Jack was about to ask if he felt like getting some coffee, Rock walked up to them from the medical bay. Ianto's expression changed completely: his face was expectant, eyes locked only on the handsome doctor. When he spoke, his voice trembled, as if he was nervous. 'Rock? How-'
'It's all right,' Rock answered, his thick accent reminding Jack of his first Doctor. 'You can come in, now.'
The look of elation that Ianto gave Rock was something he'd rarely seen on him before, if at all. Jack hated it, but it looked good on him- it made him look like the young "boy" he actually was.
I found my Doctor, Jack thought sadly, and you clearly found yours.
He wanted to see more of that happiness he thought one couldn't feel when working for Torchwood, so he quietly followed the two of them to the medical bay. He caught a glimpse of Ianto hugging Rock and thanking him.
When Jack heard Gwen shuffle up behind him, he gave a mirthless laugh. 'I knew the moment I saw him that he was the one to look out for. He reminds me a lot of me,' he said, not taking his eyes off the two men in front of him. 'They seem to be really close.'
'Really close friends, yes,' Gwen said, as the doctor left the room. Ianto still stood in the bay, shuffling around nervously.
The happy feeling that shot through him at Gwen's words, was squashed just as quickly as it had come. Rock walked back into the room, helping a weakened Benjamin. When Ianto saw them, he ran towards them immediately. Instead of just helping the officer -as Jack had expected- he gave him a hug and then, he kissed him on the mouth.
'Them, however,' Gwen continued. 'They've been together for four months, now. I never thought I'd see him this happy again.'
Jack almost wished he hadn't stopped the Purd.
***
A Lifetime to Be Found - part 2
Author name: nohwrah
Prompt: 96
Pairing (s): Jack/Ianto, Ianto/OMC
Summary: When Jack is dropped back on earth after the events of Journey's End, he intends to pick up where he left off: with Torchwood and with Ianto. But when he finds the Hub crawling with UNIT officers, that proves to be quite the problem.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If only.
Warning: Set after Exit Wounds (and, obviously, Journey's End). Maybe a tiny bit of Gwen-bashing, even though I just think it's a fair bit of character perception.
Word count: 16 822.
Author's notes: A great big thanks to my beta F, for reading on such short notice and putting up with me. Thanks to cyberamanda for the fantastic prompt- I hope it's at least a bit what you wanted. Title taken from "Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground" by Coldplay.
Now my feet won't touch the ground,
now my head won't stop.
You wait a lifetime to be found.
Now my feet won't touch the ground.
- "Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground" Coldplay
1.
'You know,' Jack said with a winning smile as he slipped his hand into Martha's, 'I'm not so sure about UNIT these days. Maybe there's something else you could be doing.'
'Oh no, Jack,' Martha said, smiling back, 'I can see you coming a mile away and the answer is no.'
'Why not?' he asked. Even if he could think of several reasons why, he still wanted to convince Martha to come back to Torchwood with him. 'Great colleagues, best coffee in the universe, charismatic boss. How can you refuse?'
'Because I'd be replacing some of those great colleagues, too,' she told him earnestly. 'And those are mighty big shoes to fill. Tell you what, though, I'll come and say "hi" to Gwen and Ianto.'
'They'd be angry if I let you leave without.’
'Hey, you two!' Jack suddenly heard a voice call, followed by a slap on his shoulder.
'Oh,' he said as he turned towards Mickey, trying to keep the smile off his face. 'I thought I'd got rid of you.'
'Doesn't happen that easy.' Mickey shot him a confident grin.
'Should have known.' Jack laughed. He had to hand it to him, the boy he'd once travelled with had finally grown up, no doubt because of all he'd been through.
As they came to a crossroads, they halted. To go back to Torchwood, Jack and Martha would have to go left, into the bay. Mickey, however, didn't seem to show any interest in going with them. Martha had noticed.
'So what are you up to now?' she asked.
'Back in the other universe, I was planning on going to a computer convention in Germany,' he answered, as if he'd expected the question. 'I thought I'd check that out. Technology was quite advanced back home, you know, 'cause we're ahead a few years. Maybe I learnt something back there that can be used here.'
'Sound like a plan,' Jack admitted. 'Just be sure-'
'-not to change the future too much with my revolutionary knowledge so the world won't implode,' Mickey finished for him. 'Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. It's not the first time I've done this.'
'All right,' Jack told him, as he gave him the captain's salute. 'Good luck, Mickey Smith.'
'And you, Captain.'
'If you're ever near Cardiff again-'
'I'll be sure to pay you a visit,' Mickey said as he turned right. 'If you ever need any help-'
'I'll know who to call,' Jack called out as he dragged Martha off to the left. Strangely, he felt almost sorry for letting Mickey leave.
'What about him?' Martha asked when she was sure he was out of earshot.
Jack gave her an incredulous look, the feelings of sorrow completely gone at the thought of Mickey working with him day in, day out. 'Mickey the Idiot? No.'
'Why not?' Martha pressed. 'He's good with computers, he has experience working for Torchwood. Seems to me he's exactly what you're looking for.'
He thought about answering with a quirk, saying that he didn't think Ianto could handle the competition, so soon after John Hart- but after all he'd been through with this beautiful woman, it just didn't seem fair evading her questions. So he sighed and told her the truth. 'Because he'd be reminding me constantly of what I'm trying to leave behind.'
'Life with the Doctor,' she said knowingly. 'And I wouldn't?'
'It's not just life with the Doctor. It's life with the Doctor-' He stopped, not sure if he even wanted to continue that sentence.
'Your first Doctor and Mickey and Rose,' Martha finished for him.
'Yes,' Jack admitted. 'And working at Torchwood is a different life entirely.'
'It's life with Ianto.' Martha gave a sly smile as she nodded at the Hub door right in front of them.
Jack quirked an eyebrow at her. That girl had a much dirtier mind than people gave her credit for. 'Oh, cheeky,' he said, grinning. 'But yes, life with Ianto and Gwen and-'
He caught himself, wondering how he could have forgotten -even if it had been for only a second- that it wasn't the five of them anymore, that that was the exact reason they'd got into this conversation to start with. He frowned for a moment, trying to stow away the feelings of guilt and sadness before he continued.
'When you've been alive as long as I have, you'd go crazy if you didn't compartmentalise. I've been so many different persons- working with Mickey, I'd mix two of those personalities up and that would overcomplicate things. Here, I'm Captain Jack Harkness, boss of Torchwood Three. With Mickey and Rose and the Doctor, I was a conman trying to redeem himself- I don't want to go back to that. I can't. Not anymore.'
Martha licked her lips and looked at him with such compassion, that Jack could see just how much she understood. She might not have been alive for hundreds of years (and Jack would never wish that on her), but he knew how big the difference was between the person she was at UNIT and the one she had been with the Doctor. And he was grateful to her for it, so he threw his arms around her, lifted her up off the ground and squeezed her tight.
'Well then, Captain Jack Harkness, boss of Torchwood Three,' she said, grinning, when he put her back down, 'ready to live this life again?'
'You have no idea,' he replied. 'Feels like I've been gone far too long.'
As he stepped into the Hub, he felt a familiar rush of belonging creep up on him. It still felt odd to realise that this (Torchwood, Cardiff, Earth) -of all places- had become home. After resisting working with Torchwood for as long as he had, after conning nations and worlds for his own well-being, he was now at his best trying to protect one.
He took a deep, contented breath as he looked around. The Information Centre was empty, but crisp and neat as if it had been cleaned ceaselessly for days on end -and knowing Ianto, that's probably exactly what he had done while Jack had been gone.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the beaded curtain sway slowly. Someone must've passed through it just a couple of moments before they got in, and Jack's mind was doing overtime with providing naughty ideas when he thought who it might have been.
'Oh, honey,' he called confidently, while winking at Martha. 'I'm home.'
When the curtain rustled again and a black young man -decidedly not Ianto Jones- walked back into the Centre, Jack's confidence had long changed into fear. He wasn't ready to lose even more members of his team.
He glanced at Martha, who was looking just as shocked as he felt; her mouth was slightly open and her brow was knitted together in confusion.
'I'm sorry, sir?' the man said, looking confused. He had an open face, was dressed immaculately in all black and had a neatly trimmed goatee. There wasn't a single thing Jack liked about him and not all his reasons for it had to do with him being seemingly quite at home in his base of operations. He looked -of all things- boring and that was one of the worst labels Jack could put on anyone. 'Can I help you?'
'Yes, you can help me,' Jack spat, whipping out his Webley. 'You can start by telling me who the hell you are and what you are doing in my-'
As he was speaking, the door to the Hub opened and a young woman with short white-blonde hair walked through. She, too, was dressed in all black, but there were two big differences with the man's outfit. She was wearing a red UNIT cap and carrying a gun. Jack felt his stomach clench as he recognised the uniform (and he vaguely wondered how it was possible he hadn't seen it earlier), when Martha spoke up.
'Oh my God! Seren!' she exclaimed as she saw the woman. 'What are you doing here?'
'You know her?' Jack asked angrily, leaning back to get a better look at Martha. She nodded, but it was the girl who answered.
'Doctor Jones was my supervising officer when we dealt with the Sontarans a while back,' she said in a thick Welsh accent. 'Seren Roberts, sir, field agent.'
Jack nodded at her, grateful for the introduction the man hadn't yet given him, and put his gun back in its holster.
'You have to be more careful,' the black man said in such a feeling voice that it made Jack dislike him even more. It also confirmed his suspicions that he was utterly by-the-book. 'You were lucky this time, but they could just as easily have been civilians.'
'You haven't had Information Centre-shifts often, have you? No one comes here unless they're looking for Torchwood. Besides, I recognised doctor Jones on the CCTV,' she said, laughing. 'You'll have to excuse Benjamin, sir, ma'am. He takes his job -as he does all other things- very seriously.'
Jack liked this girl. A lot. So he decided to turn to her for information. 'Seren, do you happen to know where my-'
'You could do to take a leaf from my book,' the man -apparently called Benjamin- told her, slightly flustered. He was ignoring Jack completely.
'It doesn't matter, anyway,' Seren said, slightly annoyed as she threw him and Martha an apologetic smile. 'Get your gear on, we've got to go.'
'Go where?' Benjamin called into the Centre as he ran to get something from behind the beaded curtain.
'Up north,' she answered, checking what seemed to Jack like a tracking device. 'Just outside of Caerphilly. They're sending us the coordinates. We need to leave.'
'Why?' Jack asked. 'What's happened? And who's they?'
'I'm sorry, sir,' Benjamin said as he rushed past them, still adjusting his red cap. 'I'm afraid we can't share that kind of information with you. Perhaps doctor Jones can help you find our bosses. They could tell you all you need to know.'
'And who are your bosses?' Jack asked again.
Both soldiers made to leave without another backwards glance or any intention to answer, but then Benjamin stopped dead. 'I left my stun gun in the Hub. You go ahead, I'll follow with my own car.'
'I've got one,' Seren said. 'Come on.'
'And what if you get hurt? Standard protocol, each one gun, each one stun gun,' Benjamin replied, shaking his head. 'Send me the coordinates over the comms, I'll be just a couple minutes behind.'
Jack stood entirely still for a moment -seething silently- until Benjamin had rushed past him again, clutching a stun gun in one hand and a tracking device like Seren's in the other. He shot a quick look at Martha, who was biting her lip as if she didn't know what to say.
'There's not,' she said, eventually, 'the smallest of possibilities that you'd find all of this just a tiny bit amusing, is there?'
He took a deep breath, telling himself that Martha had nothing to do with this. 'I don't see what could be amusing here, doctor Jones. The fact that UNIT and their guns have already wormed their way into Torchwood after two days of my absence or the fact that I have not yet seen anyone from my team?'
'You're right.' Martha nodded, looking as if she'd been chastised by one of her teachers. 'Do you want to go in, look for Gwen and Ianto?'
'Only if you'd help me find them,' Jack said with a grin, even if he could never feel it reach his eyes. He reached behind the counter and pressed the red button, giving them access to the secret corridor to the Hub itself.
As they made their way down there, Jack noticed, Martha stayed a few feet behind him- as if she wanted to make him feel how very much in charge he still was. He had to try very hard not to tell her off for it and kept reminding himself that this wasn't Martha's fault. She had been with him all along and as far as UNIT went, the soldiers were right: she was a higher authority than him. What worried him about all this was how exactly UNIT and Torchwood had come to merge in such a short time span when he'd spent decades trying to keep them out.
And where the hell were Gwen and Ianto?
If they know what's good for them, Jack thought as he clenched his teeth, they're down there, trying to fight off any remaining soldiers with their bare hands if they have to.
As the cog door rolled open to give him access to the Hub, he took a deep breath, ready to reprimand his team members for letting it come this far. Exactly how far that was, though, was something Jack was not at all prepared for. It knocked the air out of his lungs and wiped the carefully constructed (yet equally witty and suave) reproof completely from his memory.
A gasp from behind him told him that Martha felt pretty much the same. 'What is going on here?' she breathed.
Jack's eyes darted from side to side and up and down to take everything in, as he answered, 'That's exactly what I would like to know.'
***
2.
Jack looked down over the Hub at the -at least- ten UNIT officers buzzing all over the place, carrying what seemed like alien artefacts and case files. In the middle of the black scurry, he could discern only two colourful items: Gwen's bright red sweater and Ianto's matching tie. Neither of them seemed the least bit phased about what was going on. In fact, they seemed to be the only two who knew exactly what to do.
They were discussing something, it appeared, as Ianto pointed out things on a list and Gwen nodded and interrupted him every now and again. She put a hand on his arm, said something that made him smile and wink at her before he took off and disappeared from sight.
The gesture was so intimate and familiar that it nearly made Jack forget that the issue at hand wasn't how to get in on that conversation as quickly as possible or where it was that Ianto had gone to, but the very unwelcome invasion of UNIT.
It did make him wonder exactly how close those two had got over the past year and how confident with each other and their jobs they'd become. And, more importantly, how he had managed to forget that no one could wear red like Ianto Jones could.
His attention snapped back to reality as he heard Gwen's voice.
'Annie, have you sent out those coordinates to Seren and Benjamin?' she called after a woman with long, dark brown hair and a friendly, round face that had just passed by her. Actually, that was not the only thing that was friendly and round about her, Jack noticed as he took in her beautifully shaped body.
Even before Curvy Annie (as he'd dubbed her) had had a chance to answer, Gwen had turned toward someone who -Jack deduced from the coat- was a medic. 'Rock, I need you to be ready for whatever they bring in. Finish up whatever it is you're doing, this may be important.'
The man (Rock? Did he hear that right?) didn't even look up from the Weevil he was dissecting, but it didn't matter, because Gwen had rounded on someone else again. 'Eve, hi. You wouldn't mind getting us a cup of coffee, would you? I could use one.'
‘If you don’t mind,' Jack said loudly as he shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling that this was as good a time as any to let his presence be known. (He was right: almost every single UNIT soldier had their gun drawn within seconds.) ‘I could use one too, Eve. I’m curious, just how are you planning to distract Ianto long enough for you to get near the coffee machine and make some? He doesn’t like it when other people play with his toys, I know that from experience.'
He winked at Gwen, who was staring at him with wide eyes. He hopped down the couple of steps, not sparing any officer a sideways glance and walking past the guns as if he hadn't a care in the world. That's what he wanted it to look like, anyway, and from the confused and slightly admiring look on Eve's face he could tell he was doing a pretty good job of it. 'Captain Jack Harkness, at your service.'
The buzz that went around the Hub as he introduced himself, made Jack smirk with self-satisfaction. Gwen, however, looked like she wanted to take a swing at him.
'Not now, Jack,' she said, rather angrily. 'Eve, I'll still have that coffee. Ianto will have got everything ready by now, all you have to do is flick the on-switch. As always.'
Jack frowned at her and tilted his chin upwards, vaguely wondering how much coffee they could have drunk in two days for there to be an "always". He looked at Martha and shrugged.
When Gwen noticed her, she called Eve back, who had already been halfway toward the kitchen. 'Make that three coffees and bring them up to the boardroom. If you have any questions, ask Ianto. I don't want to be disturbed while Jack, Martha and I are up there.'
She gestured towards the staircase and finally flashed him a smile. ‘If you’ll lead the way, Captain Jack Harkness. I trust you still know it.’
Jack grinned at her, amazed at how relieved he felt, and walked up the steely stairs. He was almost at the boardroom, when the alarms started bellowing loudly. He froze mid-step, stomach doing backflips in fear and excitement as he recognised what the sound meant: trouble.
He turned around, ready to yell orders at his team, slipping back into the old routine without even thinking about it. But he found that all eyes were on Gwen. No one was paying him any attention at all (A definite first, he thought, and another good reason to dislike UNIT as much as I do.), except for her.
She was staring at him, eyes wide, as if she was waiting to see what he would do -if he would allow her to finish what she had started- as if she’d sensed the change of power. But the choice was made for both of them when Ianto ran up to her.
‘Comms have gone down. Seren still has a radio, but the signal’s too weak,’ he said hastily, while looking up info in a file. He hadn’t even noticed Jack. ‘This is exactly what happened when the police sent in their men last time. First the comms, then all radio signals. Next-‘
He fell silent, all colour draining from his face. Jack nearly spoke, but Gwen had recomposed and seemingly decided that this was her case to solve.
‘What was next, Ianto?’
When he didn’t respond, still staring at the paper in front of him, Gwen took it out of his hands and read for herself.
‘None of the officers survived,’ Ianto supplied finally. ‘What do we do, Gwen?’
She seemed to be thinking something over. Jack wanted to help, take the weight and the responsibility off her shoulders. But for some reason, he felt he couldn’t step in this quickly again. Whatever had passed here in the few days he’d been gone, it had been enough for them to fall into a pattern that he could not be part of.
‘Gwen. What do we do?’ Ianto asked again, slowly and slightly desperate for an answer.
That seemed to jolt her back into action. ‘Tell Annie to work on that radio signal. See if she can find a way to override whatever is blocking us out. Tell her to boost the signal and keep trying.’ As Ianto rushed off to give Annie her orders, she turned towards the medical bay, looking far more strictly business than Jack had ever seen her. ‘Rock, assemble a team to send out to Caerphilly and prep a medical kit, now. Don’t go yourself, we might need you back here.’
‘Get Ianto to help you,’ she added after a pause. ‘Eve, I sent back-up after Seren and Benjamin not long after they left. They should be around there somewhere. Contact them. Tell them to try and get close to the house, find out what’s going on there. If they see a chance to extract, they are free to use any means possible. Under no circumstances can they go into the house themselves.’
‘Send me,’ Jack said suddenly, making Gwen stop in her tracks.
She looked at him -as if considering what he’d just said- but eventually, she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Let me rephrase that,’ Jack told her earnestly, hands on his hips, ‘I’m going.’
‘No,’ Gwen said again. ‘No, Jack, I can’t let you. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what is out there.’
‘It’s too dangerous for a team, not so much for the man who can’t die,’ he said. When he saw she was going to fight him on this, he added, ‘Gwen Cooper, I don’t care how well you’ve run this ship, I am still your superior and I am going. Someone prepare the SUV.’
A few of the soldiers that were listening to the power play made a move to go- Jack’s authoritative voice was almost impossible to refuse. They caught themselves just in time, however, and looked at Gwen for approval.
She kept staring Jack right in the eye, showing how very much she did not agree with a) his plan of action and b) the way he has swept back in and tried to take over again, but she gave them a curt nod anyway.
Jack nodded back in gratitude.
‘I’m coming too,’ Martha said suddenly. When she noticed Gwen was going to protest to her as well, she added, ‘I won’t go in the house, but if you want your medic to stay here, I’m the best thing you can send in after your men. I’m a UNIT officer and a doctor.’
God, Jack loved this girl.
Of course, there was no way Gwen could disagree with this, and she knew it. She nodded gruffly, making sure to show how much she didn’t like this plan. ‘Have Rock brief you. I’ll go and see if they’ve supplied you with all the tech you need,’ she said. ‘Meet me in the garage in five.’
Jack and Martha made their way to the medical bay, to the doctor still jabbing things into a dead Weevil.
‘Ianto not here anymore?’ Jack asked.
In truth, he was very uncomfortable with how his return had gone, up until now. There were no warm greetings, no hugs, only a nest of UNIT officers running around his -well, he’d better just say it- home. The fact that he now had to run out to save some of those intruders, was only adding to his annoyance. By now, he was craving for Ianto’s Welsh vowels, if not his smile and his touch.
The doctor answered in a thick Northern accent, without looking up- eyes all concentration on the creature before him. ‘Nope, you just missed him.’
He then glanced at them and, as he recognised the people who’d come to see him, immediately grabbed one of the files on his table. He came towards them with an outstretched hand and a small smile.
It was only now that Jack got to take a good look at him. He had a natural elegance to him that he hardly even seemed aware of. His dark brown eyes were inviting and his square jaw was set in determination, without him seeming unfriendly or arrogant (unlike that Benjamin-fellow he was setting out to rescue). His equally dark brown hair was cut short, his teeth were white and his entire attitude struck Jack as entirely absorbed and impassioned by his job. He was -and there was no other way to describe it- absolutely gorgeous. In fact, he reminded Jack a lot of himself at that age, which made him unsure whether he should trust or even like him.
‘Rock, UNIT medic, pleased to meet you,’ he said in a low, confident voice.
‘Captain Jack Harkness, how are you?’ Jack asked him while taking his hand (Nice, firm handshake, he noticed). He felt Martha’s elbow prod him in the side. For the love of God, he wasn’t always flirting when he introduced himself. Well, maybe this time he was. ‘Unusual name.’
‘Unusual coat. It’s a nickname. Officially, I’m Harris Roxburgh, but no one’s called me that in ages,’ Rock answered. He turned to Martha and extended his hand to her as well. ‘Doctor Jones. I’ve heard a lot about you. All positive.’
‘Then I'm sure it's not true.’ She smiled at him, but then her face grew serious. ‘So, what do we need to know?’
‘Well,’ Rock said as he opened the file. He, too, switched immediately to an air of professionalism. ‘We got the call a few days ago. A house out in Caerphilly, in a pretty deserted neighbourhood. There are a few squatters around, though- it’s them who complained to the police, saying that at some points during the day, there’s a lot of noise coming from it. A couple of them went to check it out, but they were never seen again. The police sent in their men, a couple of days later during the time of the noise, but-‘
‘None of them came back out,’ Jack finished for him. ‘And now the same thing’s happened to your men. How could this happen? UNIT don’t do recon?’
If Rock was taken aback by his snide remark, he didn’t show it. He simply handed them the file to look through.
‘We did the recon. There was nothing: no Rift-activity in the last months in that area, our heat sensors picked up nothing, infrared scan, x-ray, you name it. It all came back blank. All we know is that at some points during the day, there’s a loud wailing noise.’ He sighed, as if discouraged. ‘The windows are boarded up from the inside out. All attempts at breaking through the wood have resulted in broken equipment. We don’t know what’s going on- the only solution was to go in.’
‘I’m impressed,’ Jack admitted reluctantly. ‘And intrigued. Doctor Jones, I think it’s time we left, we’ve got some saving to do.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, Captain,’ Rock asked, catching the file as Jack threw it back to him. ‘How do you plan on saving them? How will you make sure you won’t fall victim to whatever’s got to them?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll come back,’ Jack said with a wink. ‘I always do.’
*
They arrived at the house, which was now swarmed by UNIT officers, aiming their weapons at it as if it might attack any moment. Jack could hear they were still trying to contact Benjamin and Seren.
‘The house is not going to harm you, fellas,’ Jack called as he got out of the SUV. ‘And whatever’s in it obviously doesn’t need to come out to get the upper hand, so you can stop pointing a gun at it.’
He took off his coat and handed it to Martha, explaining to her once more -as he’d done on the ride over- to make sure no one tried to walk into the house or abort the mission as long as he hadn’t come out. He didn’t have time to worry about anyone but himself and the two officers he needed to get out alive.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ one of the officers who’d walked up to him said, still holding his gun at the ready, ‘what are you doing?’
‘Taking off my coat,’ Jack told him as if it was obvious (which, of course, it was- or should have been). ‘I kinda like it. I don’t want it to get dirty or torn. The cute little shop where I bought it closed about sixty years ago, so I don’t think I’ll be able to get a new one anytime soon.’
'I mean, sir,' the soldier insisted, albeit a bit hesitantly, 'do you have a plan?'
'Yes, and it doesn't involve you, so back off,' Jack snapped, annoyed. When he got a disapproving look from Martha, he sighed and added, 'Just make sure you're ready to help your colleagues when we get out.'
When the man had walked back to the other officers, Jack turned to her and said, 'How can you work with these people?'
'I'm pretty sure they're saying the same thing about you, right now,' Martha said, eyeing the group of soldiers, huddled around the man who'd been brave enough to ask Jack anything. 'You're being too hard on them, they're only doing their job.'
'If they'd done it properly, I wouldn't be here right now,' he barked as he took his braces and shirt off, as well. 'In fact, if they'd done it properly, they wouldn't be here right now.'
'That's not true, Jack,' she said, sounding so reasonable it made him even angrier. 'We don't know what happened while we were gone. For all we know, Gwen and Ianto could have offered to join forces.'
Jack gave her a pointed look, one eyebrow raised. ‘I’m going in.’
‘Be careful,’ he heard Martha say quietly to his turned back.
‘I’ll survive,’ he called as he walked towards the house. ‘Tell Ianto to have the coffee ready for when we get back.’
***
3.
Jack took out his Webley as he got to the front door, holding it in front of him when he went into the house. He crept through the corridor stealthily, trying not to make a single sound.
The noise was indeed very loud, like the wailing of a cat amplified by ten. Jack thought he might know it somehow, but he couldn’t be sure where from. Suddenly, it stopped, as if it had sensed him coming closer.
Jack swore internally. If it had sensed him, the element of surprise was ruined. And he loved a good entrance. He kept moving towards the living room, as the sound seemed to have come from there.
He was right. As he leant into the room -back still pressed firmly against the doorframe- he immediately recognised the small pod in front of him, which looked like a giant, oval edible ball bearing. He could even see himself reflected in its shiny surface. It had been a long time since he'd run into one of these.
‘Oh, Martha, this you’ve gotta-‘ Jack started saying, but he was cut short by a loud crackling in his ear. His comm had died, which meant that he’d indeed been discovered.
A loud throbbing pulse and bright red light suddenly emerged from the pod. A sharp pain, like needles being prodded carelessly into every square inch of his body (skin and organs), cut through him. Jack felt like he could hardly breathe.
‘It’s all right,’ he said to the ship, holding up a hand towards it. He hoped that whatever was in it was still alive and able to control its actions. ‘It’s all right, I’m here to help.’
Maybe it was only his imagination, but the pricks and the pressure in his chest seemed to decrease. Jack felt hopeful; this way, he could last long enough to help this alien and get Benjamin and Seren to safety before he himself would pass out. But he'd have to hurry- he took another step into the room, never taking his eyes off the pod.
'I'm just going to check if my friends are all right,' he said, almost spitting out the word "friends". He couldn't imagine a word less suited to describe the soldiers, but this was not the time to trip over semantics. 'I'm not gonna hurt you.'
He looked around the room, trying to locate the two. It wasn't easy: the throbbing in his head had waned a bit, but it hadn't subsided by a long shot and he'd been in the room long enough to be affected by it. He blacked out every few steps, as if the lights in his head were being flicked on and off constantly.
He found them -both out cold- and went over as fast as he could. He noticed the thumping growing slightly louder again, which meant he'd scared the creature inside the pod somehow. As soon as he'd established both officers were still alive (steady but slow pulse, steady breathing), he turned back to the spaceship.
'I'm not gonna hurt you,' he said again, concentrating hard on stringing his sentences together. 'I'm gonna help, but you'll have to let me. I know about your kind. I can't send you back to your flock, but I do know the coordinates of your homeplanet at some point in time. I guess that's better than nothing, right?'
Again, the throbbing increased. Jack took a deep breath and started talking again, hoping that keeping his mind busy would also keep it conscious.
'You wanna know how I know, I suppose,' he said, getting a little out of breath. He kept taking tiny steps closer to the ship. 'That's a funny story, actually. I went to a bar, had a couple of drinks by myself, when this gorgeous Merregh walks up to-'
He stumbled, blacked out for another moment and slammed hard into the wooden floorboards.
'Maybe not the right time for anecdotes,' he slurred. 'I'll tell you some other time.'
He got up, dusted off his trousers and took another step closer. He was now as close as he could get. If he shuffled forward even just a few inches, his entire body would be pressed into the ship- which was something Jack knew he had to avoid at all costs before he got the alien's permission to do so.
It was getting harder to breathe, still. His head was now throbbing in time with the pulse the ship was sending out. He only had a few more minutes.
'I need to touch you,' he said, closing his eyes for focus (and vaguely, his mind wondered why it didn't sound sexy, this time). 'I know you don't like it, but the only way I'll get those coordinates into your navigator is to insert them manually into your motherboard. You don't have to open up, but you have to take down your force field.'
Nothing. The pod didn't react, only kept on thumping.
'Come on,' Jack pushed. 'I'm the only one who can get you back. It's better taking a chance than to sit here, taking out humans while you wait-'
He swayed, nearly losing his balance again when he blacked out once more. For a moment, he completely forgot where he was or why he was there. Luckily, his mind caught up again soon. 'While you wait for them to find you.'
Again, nothing.
Jack's eyes rolled back into his head and he felt his knees buckle. It was too late. Finally, he said, 'You- you know they won't.'
Then, suddenly, the pulsing stopped. It had given him access. He crawled closer, still slightly hesitant to touch the pod. When he did, though, and nothing happened, he smiled. He rested his two palms flat on its surface and used his last bit of strength to pull himself up, locate the motherboard and quickly insert the coordinates.
He closed his eyes, feeling consciousness slip away even though the throbbing had gone. A wind swept across the room, which meant it had worked- the pod was on its way. He'd done his job and could finally welcome the darkness. But then he heard a crackling noise in his ear.
'Jack? Jack? Are you there?'
'Martha,' he said with a sigh. 'It's safe. Come and get your officers.'
And then he passed out.
*
'-know what it was, but Jack did, I think,' a vaguely familiar voice said from somewhere far away. 'No, I didn't get a chance to ask. No, no, none of them survived. We're coming back now, be there in ten.'
Jack blinked and opened his eyes, only to shut them quickly again. He groaned when the bright light made his head feel like it was on fire. This was the kind of headache he'd rarely experienced before (only the one time -in what he liked to call his "experimental phase"- when he'd tried to drink himself to death with seven bottles of bathtub vodka and a whisky chaser, he'd come back with a mouth that tasted like a rug and a head he'd wanted to cut off).
'Gwen, Jack's awake. I'll see you when we get back,' he heard Martha say, and then the flip of a mobile being closed. 'Jack? Are you all right?'
He turned his head towards the voice, which had come from right next to him, it seemed. Then, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes again, this time more slowly and tentatively. 'I told you I'd survive,' he said with a grin.
Jack looked around. He was in the backseat of the SUV, propped against one of the doors, with Martha sitting next to him.
'Thank God, you did,' she said, smiling. After shooting the driver -the same UNIT officer who'd come to ask him questions- a quick glance, she dropped her voice and said, 'I don't know how I would've explained you coming back to life in the middle of the ride back to Cardiff.'
'Where's your sense of adventure, Martha Jones?' Jack asked.
'My sense of adventure doesn't entirely cover scaring the hell out of my colleagues when they're driving the vehicle I'm in,' she answered. 'Call me old-fashioned, but I'm more of a "saving the world from impending doom"-kind of girl.'
'I like old-fashioned,' he said quietly. 'That's why I wear the coat.'
He slipped his hand into hers, which she squeezed softly. 'I'm sorry about Benjamin and Seren,' he said finally. 'I thought I'd made it in time.'
'Don't be,' Martha said, waving her free hand. 'They're off to the hospital and Rock is joining them. I'm sure they'll be up and about in no time, thanks to you.'
Jack frowned, puzzled. 'Then who died?'
When Martha returned the confused look, he clarified, 'On the phone to Gwen, you said none of them survived. I assumed-'
'Oh, no,' she said, her face falling slightly. 'The police officers that went in a while ago, we found them in the next room. It looked like they'd tried to get out, but they must've died before they managed to make it to the door. There's nothing any of us could have done.'
Jack sighed and put his other hand over Martha's, which was still holding his. Just as he was about to say something comforting, the officer behind the wheel turned around and said, 'Sir, Ma'am, we're here.'
*
'I'm still waiting for that coffee,' Jack called out as he walked into the Hub with Martha right behind him.
Gwen and Ianto, who were standing a couple of feet away from him discussing something, looked up. Jack's stomach jolted as he finally, after much too long, felt Ianto's eyes rest on him again. He drew himself up to his full height -like a child trying to impress its favourite teacher- feeling utterly ridiculous for caring so much about how he looked to Ianto.
He was being ridiculous. He'd kissed this man, slept with this man and done all the things in between and beyond with him (saved the world, shagged him underneath the water tower- the list was too long to name). Ianto adored the ground he walked on and they both knew it. What Ianto didn't know, was how Jack felt about him. Hell, Jack didn't even know properly.
Every time, he swore not to get involved anymore. Flirting was good, sex was even better- intimacy, however, was to be avoided at all costs. But, seeing Ianto again now -suit vest off and shirtsleeves rolled up but all the rest still impeccably in place- Jack knew it was too late. It had been for a while. He had fallen for him and much harder than he had ever expected.
So the first thing on his mind was that he had to let Ianto know, somehow. The second was that something was off with Ianto's behaviour. He'd turned red as a beetroot, eyes wide as saucers and mouth opened in shock- which could only mean that Gwen hadn't told him that he was back. (Why wouldn't she have?) Without saying anything, he turned on his heel immediately and left for the kitchen.
Again, this wasn't the kind of welcome he'd expected. All things considered, Jack really was having a bitch of a day.
Gwen didn't seem to have noticed, however, she smiled and walked up to him with outstretched arms. 'Jack, thank you,' she said as she hugged him. 'Let's go up to the boardroom and then you can fill me in on everything that's happened.'
When Jack didn't react, only stared in the direction Ianto had disappeared in, Gwen added, 'Don't worry, Ianto'll bring your coffee up.'
*
'So,' Gwen said as she sat down and gestured for them to do the same, 'what happened there, Jack? What can you tell us?'
Jack looked at her for a moment, eyebrows raised at the fact that she clearly wasn't giving up her leadership of Torchwood III just yet. 'I don't want to discuss this now. Later.'
'Come on, it's five minutes' work,' Gwen pressed. 'That way we can round up the file before Benjamin and Seren get back from the hospital and Rock will be able to diagnose them more precisely.'
He glanced over to Martha, who gestured for him to do as he was asked. So he did. 'It was a Purdian maternity pod,' he said with a sigh as he rested his arms on the glass table. 'We probably don't have them on record. Purds are an extremely anti-social race, so having one land here is an extremely rare case.'
Gwen nodded as she noted down in a folder what Jack was saying. 'So why was it here now? What did it want?'
'Not to be here,' Jack told her. 'You see, Purds have been hunted for centuries, because their meat is supposed to taste really good. That's why they're so anti-social and why they relocate to another planet every generation. They all travel in separate little pods but in great flocks. The males travel first, to find a new place to live- when they do, the females follow with the kids.'
'That's all very hunter-gatherer, isn't it?' Gwen said, while smiling at Martha.
'Hunted-gathered,' Jack corrected. 'They're the ones being chased by about ten different species. If they want to survive, they don't have a choice. Anyway, sometimes, one of these pods gets separated from the flock and they land somewhere among the way. That was what was in the house.'
'You mean to say that a little Purdian baby caused all this?' Martha asked, shocked.
Jack nodded. 'Like I said, they're being hunted and they're taking every precaution they can think of to survive. They are hugely intelligent and brilliant with technology. The pods they travel in look like an edible ball bearing- a giant round mirror. Plant it in almost any setting and you'll have to look real hard to know what you're seeing.'
'You make it sound like this great big victim.' Gwen shook her head. 'But it killed five police officers, Jack.'
'All precautions. The ship is programmed to protect the baby inside and do whatever it takes to get it back to the flock,' Jack continued. 'The noise the squatters heard is a distress signal it sends out at regular intervals. If one of the motherships picks it up, it can come and collect the baby, no harm done.'
'In this case, though, it seemed the others were already too far away to hear it. The safety measures are what killed the PC's,' he said when he noticed Gwen wanted to protest again. 'The ship detects what and who's around it and sends out a pulse identical to the threat's brainwaves, together with a flickering light. If you're around to hear and see that for too long, it'll knock you out and lull you into a coma from which you'll never wake up. Not unless you're me. Your soldiers never stood a chance.'
'That's almost a nice way to kill someone,' Martha said with a frown.
'It's not painless, if that's what you mean. The pulsing gives you a giant headache.'
'Like the one you're having now?' Martha asked. She grinned when she noticed Jack's confused look. 'I can see you're squinting ever so slightly, trying to shield your eyes from bright lights. Coffee's not good when you've got a headache, you know.'
'Ianto's is,' Jack countered.
'How do you know all this, Jack?' Gwen asked, still writing in the folder. 'I mean, if we haven't got it on file, how did you know what it was?'
'Long story,' he answered. 'It had to do with a lot of drinks, a case that I was working on and a Merregh whose gender I'm still not sure of. Bottom line: remember that time loop -the two weeks that were actually five years- that John Hart told you about?'
Gwen nodded.
'It was because of a Purdian ship. If you touch them, they send you off to wherever and whenever -as long as it's far away from them- and keep you there. I learnt my lesson after that.' Jack looked at Gwen, waiting for her to gesture she'd got all the information from him she wanted. When she did, he took a deep breath and said, 'I want UNIT out of here.'
'What? Jack!' Gwen said, eyes wide.
'By morning,' he told her, in his most stern voice. He gave her a look that meant there was no negotiating on this, but Gwen flashed him one that he knew all too well. If she had been a pit bull, she would've eaten half his leg, by now.
'We can't!' she said vehemently. 'We need them.'
Jack raised his hands at her and nodded. 'Fine. Give me a good reason and I'll let them stay. Tell me why UNIT is here.'
To his surprise, Gwen seemed a bit offended by his request. 'Well, why do you think they're here? To help us out, of course. There was only the two of us, so we needed a hand.'
'But UNIT?' Jack grimaced and ignored Martha's angry stare.
'What would you have had us do, Jack?' Gwen asked in return, getting a bit angry herself. 'No one knows what Torchwood really does, except for them.'
'You could have waited for me.'
Gwen rolled her eyes and sighed. 'Who knew when you'd be back. Or if.'
'I promised,' Jack replied, somehow hurt he'd been shoved aside so easily and so quickly. After all, he'd been working for Torchwood much longer than the others had been alive.
'Yes, but it could've taken you years,' Gwen told him, shaking her head. Then, she gave him one of her compassionate looks and said, 'We know the Doctor gets his timelines mixed up a bit. It's a good thing we didn't wait. We wouldn't have handled ten months on our own.
'You what?' Martha asked, looking more terrified than Jack had ever seen her.
'Ten months?' Jack asked incredulously. Yes, the Doctor didn't always get the timeframe right, but missing the right spot by almost a year seemed a bit much. 'We've been gone for ten months? What day is it today?'
'You didn't know?' Gwen seemed just as surprised.
'What day is it today?' Jack asked again, stressing every word.
'It's Sunday. Sunday, March 14, 2010,' she answered, slightly baffled. She gestured at one of the computers in the board room. 'You can check if you don't believe me.'
'Jack,' Martha said, fear still clear in her eyes. 'Ten months- I- Tom. I have to go, he'll have been worried sick.'
'Of course, get out of here,' Jack said, not taking his eyes off Gwen.
It was only when they'd heard the cog door roll shut again that Gwen asked once more, 'You really didn't know?'
Jack thought it was pretty clear that neither him, nor Martha had had any idea they'd been gone so long, so he didn't answer Gwen's question. What mattered to him now, was setting things straight: work-related, which meant getting UNIT out of there as quickly and quietly as possible, and personal stuff, which meant talking things through with Ianto. Of course, he hadn't wanted to speak to him. Obviously, he thought he'd left him. Again.
He sighed, deciding that he'd first work on the things he knew how to handle. So he said, 'You could've recruited people off the street, like I did with you. You didn't have to turn to UNIT.'
'There was no time for test runs, Jack,' Gwen answered fiercely. 'We needed capable people immediately. Earth had just been replaced, if you recall. We couldn't very well start handing out pamphlets on the street, saying, "Hello, love, any interest in chasing aliens?".'
'You would've had my attention.'
'Doesn't take a pamphlet to do that, does it?'
His eyes met Gwen's again, they both smiled and Jack knew that the anger that had passed between them was now gone. That's how it always was with Gwen. She'd be angry, he'd be angrier. She wouldn't give in, he'd be proven right. And then they'd crack a joke about it and all was well again.
With Ianto, however, things never were as easy and for the first time ever, Jack regretted it.
'They've helped us out really well,' Gwen said, obviously feeling more at ease now she didn't have to mind her words so much. 'We've found a way to make it work perfectly, and we've got Andy helping us out with police business too.'
'Now that I'm back, we can send them home,' Jack said simply.
'I would love that,' she said, nodding. 'But it would still only leave the three of us, and with all that's going on, I'm sorry, but your being back is just not going to cut it.'
'Harsh,' Jack told her, eyebrows raised. He thought for a moment and then took a deep breath. 'Fine. A trial period. Not even that, a bit of cooperation till we find proper replacements.'
'Thank you, Jack,' she said, genuinely grateful. 'If you'll talk to Ianto, you'll see we have been working on finding replacements.'
'Ianto taking care of job interviews, huh?' he asked with a grin. He could just imagine his scrutinising look passing over the candidates, checking the pleats in their suits.
'Yes, he's my deputy now. Seemed only right,' she said as she got up. 'He's in charge of what he likes to call "the three P's".'
'Personnel, paperwork and-' Jack trailed off, not able to think of a third word starting with a P.
'Preparation,' Gwen finished. 'He basically still makes sure we get everywhere on time with all we need and he does the follow-up afterwards, but he seems to like it.'
'He likes to organise,' Jack said, fondly. Then he fell silent.
Gwen was about to leave, saying,' I had better check up on Seren and Benjamin. Ianto was a little upset about the whole thing.'
'Gwen,' he asked hesitantly, grabbing her wrist so she couldn't leave. 'Does he still want to talk to me?'
'He had a rough time- but he pulled through, he always does. He's much stronger than people give him credit for, you know. And he's very forgiving,' she answered with a sigh and Jack was grateful to her for not pretending nothing had happened, but he could sense there was something she wasn't telling him. 'As I said before, we've found a way to make it work for everybody.'
'You sure you've still got room for me?' he asked, only half-joking.
'I always have,' she said with a small smile and left.
It took Jack a few seconds to realise she hadn't used the plural, that she hadn't included Ianto in her statement and that worried him more than even Ianto's behaviour had. He stood up -ready to follow her and compel her to tell him everything she knew- when he saw Ianto sitting on the sofa down in the Hub. He had a cup of coffee in front of him (which made Jack wonder vaguely why he hadn't received his yet) and his diary on his lap. Gwen was right, Ianto looked very shaken.
Taken with compassion for the young man, he made his way down the stairs, ready to confront him and even welcoming Ianto's anger.
'Rough day, huh?' he asked, leaning against the wall. This man would never stop amazing him. Ianto was almost as good as him at compartmentalising his own feelings -to the point of being able to completely shut them out, but the way he cared for others more than made up for it. It was always there and you could read it off him like you'd read a children's book, complete with big fonts and colourful drawings.
Ianto looked up, startled. He sighed deeply before nodding. 'I guess you could say that, sir.'
Jack frowned. Not at the 'sir', but at the complete lack of emotion when Ianto looked at him. As if his mind was somewhere else and he hadn't even registered that Jack was back. He thought he'd made a bit more of an entrée, to be honest.
'Listen, Ianto,' he started, still looking for the words he'd use. 'I'm- I don't know how this all happened. It was two- When I left-'
'Jack, it's all right.' Ianto gave a small smile. He said it so convincingly that Jack cursed him for being so good at lying it even made him doubt. 'I understand. You found your Doctor, this is what you do. Intergalactic men of mystery, right?'
Jack smiled back and nodded, wondering why he'd get off without as much as a scolding. He knew Ianto was good at pretending and that he did it far too often, but this was a bit much, even for him. Hoping he could bait Ianto, he asked, 'So, we're okay, you and I?'
'I think so, sir,' he answered. His thoughts seemed to be far away, as if he was thinking about something else, waiting for something- the conversation to be over perhaps, because clearly, they were far from okay.
Just when Jack was about to ask if he felt like getting some coffee, Rock walked up to them from the medical bay. Ianto's expression changed completely: his face was expectant, eyes locked only on the handsome doctor. When he spoke, his voice trembled, as if he was nervous. 'Rock? How-'
'It's all right,' Rock answered, his thick accent reminding Jack of his first Doctor. 'You can come in, now.'
The look of elation that Ianto gave Rock was something he'd rarely seen on him before, if at all. Jack hated it, but it looked good on him- it made him look like the young "boy" he actually was.
I found my Doctor, Jack thought sadly, and you clearly found yours.
He wanted to see more of that happiness he thought one couldn't feel when working for Torchwood, so he quietly followed the two of them to the medical bay. He caught a glimpse of Ianto hugging Rock and thanking him.
When Jack heard Gwen shuffle up behind him, he gave a mirthless laugh. 'I knew the moment I saw him that he was the one to look out for. He reminds me a lot of me,' he said, not taking his eyes off the two men in front of him. 'They seem to be really close.'
'Really close friends, yes,' Gwen said, as the doctor left the room. Ianto still stood in the bay, shuffling around nervously.
The happy feeling that shot through him at Gwen's words, was squashed just as quickly as it had come. Rock walked back into the room, helping a weakened Benjamin. When Ianto saw them, he ran towards them immediately. Instead of just helping the officer -as Jack had expected- he gave him a hug and then, he kissed him on the mouth.
'Them, however,' Gwen continued. 'They've been together for four months, now. I never thought I'd see him this happy again.'
Jack almost wished he hadn't stopped the Purd.
***
A Lifetime to Be Found - part 2