Permanent Ink

Chocolate Box 2019

2019-01-04T20:57:16Z

Dear Chocolatier, I have been a very good girl this year (as long as you keep in mind what day it is). I am excited about the Valentine's Day goodie you are bringing!

My AO3 username is NancyBrown.

Likes: fix-its, friendly rivalries, sticky sweet schmoop, time travel, "you and me against the world," crossovers with neighbouring fandoms (Sarah Jane Adventures, Class, Static Shock, Batman Beyond -- not Supernatural or Teen Wolf because I don't watch them), tie-ins to fics I've written (what?), humour, case fics, romance, mystery, hopeful apocalypses, old fashioned horror, and porn.

Dislikes: character bashing (including making fun of anyone's name), non-fixed character deaths, noncon, issue fic, OC POV, A/B/O, mundane AUs, body horror, unrequested pairings unless you know for a fact I ship it. TW-specific DNWs: CoE and MD (though I like the CoE characters and enjoy AUs where they interact with the other cast and no one is dead and nothing hurts). Despite this, as stated above, I am weirdly good with apocafic as long as there's a hopeful ending or everyone everywhere is dead together. My issues, man. Don't ask about them.

Fandoms! The following prompts are ideas, and I'm not married to any of them. I am good with anything in the usual tropes lists. (For a nice long list, start here.) Mainly, use some or all of the characters I requested, don't focus on characters I didn't request, don't be mean to any of them, and I'm going to be pleased with whatever you make!

Gargoyles

Requested Pairings:
Xanatos/Fox
Owen & Xanatos
Owen/Xanatos/Fox

The nostalgia is real. Back when this show was on, I was obsessed with the ins and outs of the Xanatos extended family, and I shipped all the permutations of this triangle. I'd be happy to see Fox's parents or Papa Xanatos show up, or watch these three raise Alex together, or anything. The Manhattan Clan and the rest of the cast are welcome to join in.

- Date night
- Date night interrupted by the other supervillains in town
- Xanatos interfering in magic lessons
- The rest of the castle's residents figure out Owen isn't just David and Fox's friend
- Just because Xanatos is a reformed supervillain doesn't mean he and Owen aren't cooking up corporate shenanigans

Torchwood

Requested Pairings:
Ianto & Tosh
Jack/Ianto
Lisa/Jack/Ianto
Martha & Tosh
Lisa/Ianto

Jack/Ianto got me into this fandom, and I stayed for the long haul. I love everything about their dysfunctional mess of a relationship, including that one spark of hope that it wouldn't end badly. Canon-divergent AUs are my jam. I love Alice and Johnson and Lois from COE if you want to bring them along.

- Ianto and Lisa got out of Canary Wharf alive, and lived a happy life somewhere else
- They ended up in Cardiff after all and they both started sleeping with Jack.
- Jack broke time to fix what went wrong (for all definitions of "went wrong").

Tosh has complicated relationships with the rest of the team. We got so little of her spending time with Ianto but I love the glimpses we did. (Also, the bit during "In the Shadows" where he brings her a beer was formative.) Her relationship with Martha is going to be more fraught: Tosh was a UNIT prisoner, Martha knows things about her friends that she doesn't know, and a dozen other reasons why friendship will be hard for them. I love it.

- Tosh and Martha and UNIT between them
- Ianto and Tosh team up during Jack's absence because someone has to keep the place running
- Everybody lives AU

Doctor Who

Requested Pairings:
Thirteen/Missy
Thirteen/Missy/River
Thirteen/River
Twelve/River
Eleven/River

I love Thirteen and her companions! Please feel free to bring them along. If you're setting it during Eleven or Twelve's runs, I love all their companions, too, and would love to see them. A massive multi-Doctor multi-Companion team up would be fun, too. (Martha and Jack are my favorites from the earlier New Who runs.)

- Thirteen's new fam runs into one or two of her exes
- A missing adventure from the twenty four year long date at the Singing Towers
- Any of the time-hopping adventures when Eleven and River added extensively to their diaries.

Justice League & JLU

Requested Pairings:
Audrey/Diana
John/Shayera
Diana & Shayera & J'onn & Clark & John & Bruce & Wally

Audrey/Diana got me back into watching Justice League after a lackluster first season, and I am up for any story where they interact in any way. The Eternal Self-Loathing And Ultimate Getting Over It of Shayera Hol has been my jam for thirteen years. I love how things play out with her friends, both her old relationships and the new ones she's building. I am a sucker for simple John/Shayera fluff, or post-Wake the Dead angst, or wacky hijinks. I saw the team in the tag set and all I want is to see them together and happy and working as a unit. I am familiar with the Justice League Beyond comics future events but I am happy to ignore them if you are.

- What is the political fallout of the Queen of Kasnia dating the Princess of Themyscira?
- Secret dating!
- A happy moment between John and Shayera before Starcrossed, teaming up for an adventure together
- An angsty moment during JLU or after John tells her about Rex
- After everything, the classic team takes a mission together. The mission may involve paintballs, laser tag, or an escape room, or saving the world again.

Farscape
Requested Pairing:
Stark/Zhaan

This is a nearly non-existent pairing. One happy moment, any happy moment, even after she's dead would be great!

- Some quiet time on Moya before everything went to hell
- AU where Zhaan survived for Stark to take her to the healing planet
- Stark while he's helping to make the game in John Quixote

TW Fic: Got That Friday Feeling Again (4/4)

2015-09-28T02:06:20Z

Title: Got That Friday Feeling Again (4/4)
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Groundhog Day
Characters: Owen, Tosh, Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Archie, Twelve, Clara
Pairings: Owen/quite a lot of people, Jack/Ianto, past Owen/Gwen, Gwen/Rhys
Words: 18000 (4000 this part)

***
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
***
Chapter Four
***

He caught sight of the TARDIS again. This time, he watched it flicker into view in front of the old town hall, a building Torchwood had donated to the village about a million fucking years ago. Within a few minutes, the familiar engine noise had faded from earshot. Another year.

"What was that?" asked Saundra Boyd, soon to be Saundra Boyd-Stirling.

"Nothing at all." Owen wiped his face with his hand. "All right, are you ready? Because you know Rhona's already at the Registrar waiting for you. She's wearing that mad gorgeous dress you love, and she loves you."

Saundra chewed her lip. "You're sure it's the right thing to do?"

"I'm sure. I'll even be a witness."

She grinned and hugged him. If he held his arm out just right, she wouldn't choke him as she did. "Thank you. Thank you so much." She let Owen drag her towards the Registrar's office where her blushing bride to be would not get left at the altar today. Owen would sign the paper for them, and he would smile as they kissed, and he would go back to his damn room and shoot himself in honour of another year here before waking up tomorrow and talking Saundra into this all over again.

***

Toshiko said, "There's something wrong."

Owen looked up from his work. Nothing here to see, really. He'd mentally catalogued this room already, but she insisted on working here, and he'd been trying to find a way to talk with her. Nevertheless, they'd spent the last hour in silence. "What did you find?"

She stared at him. "Something's wrong with you. You're twitchy and upset." She set her scanner to one side and adopted a listening stance he knew very she well she was copying from Gwen's usual 'interrogate the witness' collection of interested poses. "What's going on with you?"

Her voice flooded with concern, but then it always did. He'd have to be blind, deaf, and stupid not to notice how she'd acted around him since the day he'd joined this mad organisation. Even his first week on, she'd covered for him. But she'd been too needy, too weak, and honestly, too willing. Anyone who could look at him and see someone worthwhile under all his well-sculpted bullshit, well, that meant they were either an idiot or dangerously perceptive. He see-sawed in his opinion of her, and held her at a contemptuous length.

"It's been a long day," he said, and rubbed his face. "A really, really long day."

She tilted her head. "You don't mean since we've been here at Torchwood House."

Dangerously perceptive. As she placed a comforting hand on his, he knew she was also dangerously kind. And he knew too that the contempt with which he held her at bay wasn't directed at her, and never had been. She was a kinder friend than he deserved, and he'd pushed her away.

"I'm caught in a time loop. I keep repeating the day over and over."

"My God. How long?"

"Years. I don't know how many."

She threw her arms around his neck. "I'm so sorry."

"You believe me? Because I've had to prove this before." Funny, though. He'd never told just Tosh before.

"I believe you." She pulled back from the hug.

"Don't tell the others? I can't live through another lecture from Jack about proper time loop etiquette."

She laughed, brushing her hair from her face. "How bad is it? Do you know what caused it?"

He shook his head. "The Doctor's stuck here, too. He's bounced in a couple of times."

She smiled softly. "I met him once. Did I tell you?"

"Yeah." And now that he knew everything he did, he wondered how much it had killed Jack not to take the space pig assignment himself, how long he'd sat listening through Tosh's comm and knowing he didn't dare interfere even after a century of waiting. Owen had only waited a few years, and he was half-mad with fear that he'd never get out of here.

"Owen?" Her face was sad, concerned.

He brushed away the terror. "Archie's ghosts are caused by a holoprojector in room seven. Gwen can make it work because she's kind of psychic. It's dull."

"All right. And no idea what's keeping you here?"

"I've been searching, Tosh. Nothing here could have done it."

She turned away, lifting her scanner and readjusting the settings. "I'll scan what we find."

Defeat sagged his shoulders. "We have already. A ton of times."

"Then we'll try again," she said with an unusual confidence.

True to her word, she didn't tell the others, not even when Jack called off the search due to the snow. "We could stay," she said to Owen, who only shrugged.

"We've stayed before," he told her. He'd meant to tell her more. Perhaps on the next loop.

Back at the village, Gwen talked Toshiko into going to the festival with her whilst Jack and Ianto made to sneak off and back to the B&B. There was a suspicious bulge in Jack's greatcoat pocket. Before they could go, Owen said, "Ianto, win him a Kewpie doll at the bloody festival."

"Ooo," Jack said, face suddenly lit up. "I do love Kewpie dolls." He linked his arm with Ianto's. "Did I ever tell you they're based on Turanian fertility idols?" He launched into his usual bullshit story, leading Ianto away.

"Come on," Gwen said, grabbing Owen's arm before he could object. "We'll all go. You can win us some Kewpie dolls as well."

Owen tried to beg off. He'd been to the festival once or twice on the pull and he'd not been impressed by the carnival games and pie contest, and he actively mocked the saddos who got sucked into the bachelor auction. He'd signed up one loop and been purchased by Mrs. McDaniels and Ms. Barlow, who between them were older than Jack. Never again.

Tosh smiled at him tonight and said, "It could be fun. Take your mind off things." He protested once more, but weakly, then let himself be dragged along.

As they reached the pie contest, Mrs. Pontroy waved happily. "Doctor Harper! Didn't expect to see you here!"

"Just looking at things," he said. "How's Mr. Pontroy?"

"Those tablets you gave him for his angina really cleared him up, thanks."

"Good, good."

"When did you give someone tablets?" Gwen asked, curious.

"Ah, well. I went out for the lunch orders, and ran into her." Also Mr. Thomas, who hurried up to Owen and gratefully shook his hand.

"Doctor, I can't thank you enough for what you did."

"What did you do?" Gwen asked. Tosh covered her mouth with a hand, giggling.

Owen said, "It was nothing, mate. Chew your food next time, right?"

"Nothing? You saved my life, sir. You probably hear that every day, but it means the world to me." Mr. Thomas clapped him on the shoulder. "Ladies, this is the best man I know."

When they'd wandered further off, Tosh prodded him. "Busy day?" Her eyes glittered.

"Bit." Over at the fairway, he saw faces, bodies. Joscelyn was helping her Aunt Fran Line up blokes for the bachelor auction, and over near the ducking for apples booth, he could see the pantomime of Jack trying to talk Ianto into signing them both up, an argument Owen knew for a fact Ianto won every single night. Maisie Stephens worked at a booth promoting fun activities at the library, and squealed when Owen and the girls came by.

"Doctor Harper!" she said, delighted. "Thank you for the generous donation. The trustees are going to redesign the children's section, and we'd love for you to attend the renaming ceremony after the work is completed next spring." She leaned in. "They're talking about naming it after you. But I didn't say anything."

"Owen?" Gwen asked, stunned. "What did you do?"

"It was nothing. I bought a Lotto scratchcard at lunch. Whim. I didn't need the cash."

"Gwen, I'm mad starving," Tosh said. "Could I beg you to get us some meat pies?"

"Only if Owen swears to say what's going on."

"Nothing's going on, Gwen. It's just been a long day." Together, they watched her get into the line for the pies, then Tosh dragged him around the corner of one booth. He half expected to be snogged.

"My God, Owen. How do you spend your days?" She shook her head. "Honestly? I would have expected to hear that you'd shagged half the village." Across the way, he saw Grace lead one of the kids to the pony rides. Steve carried the other kid, but then, he'd got an anonymous call this morning that he needed to step up or someone would tell his mother and his employer about his embarrassing personal problem.

She followed his gaze. "It sounds instead like you saved it."

"Maybe I did both." Another movement of people. There!

Owen grabbed Tosh's hand and dragged her over to the knife-throwing stall, ignoring her protests.

"Good evening, Doctor," he said to Eyebrows. He offered a tight smile to Clara. "Came to visit?"

"Doctor?" Tosh asked, looking between them. "Another face, another companion. You were with Rose when we first met."

"Who's Rose?" Clara asked.

"Never mind," said the Doctor.

Owen said, "Jack's right over there. I could shout and bring him over. You get us out of here yet?"

"I know very well where he is," said Eyebrows, rubbing his temple as if he had a headache. "No."

Clara took his arm. "He promised me a visit to the carnival on Galaxis Nine." She put on the current Doctor's broad brogue. "'A mile high Ferris wheel, Clara. Goldfish can win you in giant bowls!'"

"I never said anything about giant goldfish. And stop talking like that."

"You also never took me there. We're stuck in bloody Glasgow again. It's been days."

"Years," said Owen. Tosh squeezed his hand.

"Look," she said. "We're all caught here. May as well make the best of it, even if some of us won't remember in the morning." She laughed, catching his eye. "Typical day, then."

"Yeah."

Tosh's handbag began beeping. She stared at it. Owen stared at it.

"What's that?" Clara asked, as she pulled her scanner out.

"I left the scan running." She turned until the beep became a whine. "It's picked up something."

"Give me that," said the Doctor, but Owen grabbed it faster.

"This way," he said, out of breath and terrified. He ran, Tosh beside him and the other two at their heels. They passed Gwen, who held three meat pies in her hands.

"What's going on?" he heard her ask before she fell into the run with them. They followed the signal to the games booths at the fairway. As Owen watched, a ring flew into the air and neatly circled a milk bottle.

"Three," said Ianto, a bit smugly. He nodded to the boy behind the table. That would be James Paulk, Jimmy to his friends, a good kid if he'd stop hanging out with those hoodlums from the school. "That'll be one doll."

"The other one," Jack said, as Jimmy's hand went to grab one of several identically ugly dolls. Jimmy took the one Jack indicated.

Just before they reached the booth, the Doctor suddenly acted very casual, as though he were uninterested in the proceedings. He tilted his head obviously to Clara to look away. Gwen stared at the two of them curiously.

"Who...."

Owen cleared his throat and held up the scanner. "Give me that Kewpie doll, Jimmy."

"Sure thing, Doctor Harper."

"I just won that," Ianto said. Owen ignored him. The signal came from inside the toy.

"You are fucking kidding me."

Jack turned. "Where did these come from?"

Jimmy, surprised by the scrutiny, backed away. "Ms. Black found them, packed away in the back of the hall." He cleared his throat. "Hey, grandpa. Win a doll for your friend there? It's for charity."

Eyebrows continued his casual bystander act. Surprised, he said, "What? Us? Oh no."

Clara snickered, and in a terrible Scottish accent, she said, "Yeah, grandpa. Win me a Kewpie doll."

He took her arm and turned her away from the others.

Owen was thinking it all through. "Jimmy," said Owen. "You don't mean the old hall? The one on third street, with the bad pipes?" Jimmy nodded.

Jack followed his train of thought. "Torchwood Two used to own a building on Third Street. They sold it in the eighties."

Toshiko said, "They must have left some things behind. The Kewpie dolls."

"They're alien?" Gwen asked, a bit incredulous.

"That's what they look like," Jack said. "Earth toymakers got the idea when a couple of Turanian idols got loose."

He played with the doll, making it bounce. This being Captain Jack, even a dancing ugly toy seemed lascivious. Behind him, the Doctor waved a glowy wand, whilst placing his finger to his lips. The wand beeped, and he stuck it behind his back before Jack turned to see what the noise was.

Clara turned away. "Grandpa, silence your ring tone." She kept the bad accent. Eyebrows glared. She smiled sweetly back at him.

Gwen stared between the two of them until Toshiko tapped her own the shoulder. For Gwen and Ianto's sakes, she mimed with startling clarity that this was the Doctor, and that if they didn't want their boss fucking off again into outer space or destroying all of space and time, it was in everyone's best interests not to let on.

"Bloody hell, Tosh," said Owen. "Next time we do charades, I'm on your team."

Ianto put on a fake smile and placed a hand on Jack's shoulder, turning him back to face the booth and away from You Know Who.

"Let me see that scanner," Jack said. Owen handed it to him, sticking his body in the line of sight between him and the two time travellers. It didn't help that Eyebrows was about three feet taller than he was. It did help that Jack didn't often go for geezers.

"This is weird," Jack said.

"It's been altered," said the Doctor in a harsh whisper. "Time lock." He covered his mouth and turned away again.

Toshiko piped up, "What about a time lock? Could it be causing the time loop?"

"What time loop?" Jack asked. Tosh grabbed the scanner back.

Ianto said, "We'd like to see the rest of those dolls."

Jimmy stood back, but a quick look from Owen got him to take the set out of the box and place them in front of the team.

"These are normal," Tosh said. "I think."

Jack nodded. "For Turanian idols. Low level arousal field. Great party toy."

"For God's sake," came a quiet and exasperated voice from behind Owen.

"What's this one doing?" Gwen asked, pointing at the signal from the one Ianto had won.

"Looks like it was reprogrammed," Jack said. "If I'm reading this right, it's trying to start a time lock." He frowned. "Invasion technique. Lock the planet, take over at your leisure. It's malfunctioned, though. See?" He turned it around, showing the innards on the scanner's screen. "Whoever made this must have built the device as a trap. Looks like Torchwood Two got hold of the lot first."

"And forgot about the box," Ianto said.

Tosh said, "Owen, did you do something to the doll?"

He thought back. His first day here was lost in a sea of memories, sex, and suicides. Someone else could have won it, though, and bumped into him, and he'd never have noticed.

"Right," said Owen, who grabbed the doll. "Gwen, I saw you swipe that disintegrator. Still got it?"

Gwen shrugged and pulled an alien gun from her own handbag. Silently, she handed the weapon over to Owen.

"Wait," said Jack. "If we destroy the Turanian idol, we might set off the trap. We could freeze time on Earth."

"Could be," Owen said, and tossed the doll into the air, vaporising it.

He waited. Around them, the lights and sounds of the carnival went on.

"Didn't freeze the world," Owen said. He also didn't reset or feel different or anything.

"That was very stupid," Jack said.

Owen shrugged, a little disappointed. "I've been stuck in a time loop for four years. It was worth trying."

"You what?"

Ianto turned back to the booth, where Jimmy stood astounded at what he'd just witnessed. He placed another five quid on the table. "Three more rings, please."

Gwen offered Owen one of the meat pies, which had just started to get cold. Behind them, Clara informed Eyebrows he owed her a ride on the Ferris wheel.

"It could be worse," Tosh said a bit later. Gwen had gone off to heckle the bachelor auction, where Clara had put up Eyebrows for a night's rental. Jack and Ianto had disappeared shortly after the acquisition of four Turanian fertility idols from Jimmy's booth. "Jack's told me a little about that time loop with Captain Lunkhead. They died a lot. It was pretty terrible. You're here with us. That's got to be better."

"Yeah," said Owen. Around them, people milled and went on enjoying this same bright moment of their little lives that they'd relived for years on end. One good day ticked over and over in the gently falling snow, the lights of Glasgow proper hanging in an orange glow over their heads, and no one would ever grow old, ever get sick, ever die. They'd be here forever like figures in a snow globe. The whole world would, maybe. No more wars. No more death. No more growing up. No more growing old with someone.

"Tosh?"

She turned to look at him. The falling snow hit her hair in just the right way, made her lovely in a way she wasn't often. Or maybe he'd finally started noticing.

The words finally came. "You deserve a better man than I am. You deserve better everything than me." He closed his eyes. "That's why. When you wonder why, that's why. Because I'm not a good person, and you deserve the best. You won't remember this tomorrow, but you should know it."

Her cheeks flushed, and she took his arm again, walking with him through the crowd of faces he knew too well. As they walked, people waved, and shouted their thanks, or laughed merrily in his direction.

"You're a better man than you think you are," she said after a long time. "And some of us already knew it. Want to ride the Ferris wheel?"

She came back to his room after, and that was a bit weird as he cleared off a space for her to sit. The carpet was clean, but he could see the ghosts of the torn up papers on the floor, could read the invisible letters he'd scrawled on the wallpaper.

From the room next door, he heard laughter. He'd given Gwen his mobile after her battery died and he'd told her to call Rhys. Maybe they'd have phone sex. Maybe they would just enjoy each other's voices. He couldn't hear a thing from the next room over, and he was very, very glad.

"Talk to me," Tosh said. "Let's wait out the loop. Tell me all the things you did today." She scooted back on his bed, resting on one of the pillows. After a moment, he climbed in on the other side and rested.

"Well, I try to get you lot fed before I start, but usually I duck out first for a little shit named Louis Mayhew. He was there tonight."

"His mother was the one who kissed you on the cheek?"

"That's her."

"Tell me more."

***

"So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha"

Owen lay there listening, and buried his face in the pillow. He reached out to turn off the alarm, but met something in the way.

"Don't," Tosh said sleepily. "I like that one."

He sat straight up. "Tosh?"

"Hm?"

"You're here."

"I fell asleep. Sorry."

"Yeah." His mind spun. Tosh was here, and as weird as that might be on a normal day, he hadn't lived through a normal day in a very long time. Owen jumped out of bed, tangling his legs and falling to the floor as he did. "Ow."

"Are you all right?"

He didn't reply until he'd crawled over to the window. Pulse racing, mouth dry, he peeked out through the lace curtains.

A deep blanket of snow covered the garden outside his window.

"Yeah. I'm good."

"Good."

Tosh wiped the sleep from her eyes. She had morning hair and morning breath and morning face, and he'd never seen so glad a sight in all his days. "Tosh, if I never tell you again, you're the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

She frowned, and then her memories flickered over her face. "The time loop. Is it over? Owen, did you break it?"

"It had to be that fucking doll."

Toshiko reached for her handbag, which she'd left on the floor. She pulled out her scanner and began running it over him. "We should scan your brain when we're back at the Hub to look for neural growth. You said it's been years. Do you still remember everything that happened to you? You should really document the experience." She typed into the data pad. Owen stared at her for a moment, then took her hands and set the scanner down.

"It can wait."

She looked as though she were about to argue with him, and instead she wrapped him into a hug. "I'm sorry. I'm happy for you, Owen. You must be so relieved."

He was. Even as he accepted the hug, wave after wave of relief flowed through him. He thought about the things he had to do. He had patients he should check up on, including Archie. He should check up on Saundra and Rhona, and make sure Jimmy was staying away from his mates. And he had some decisions to ponder.

Five years here meant he knew everyone and everything. He carried a perfect mental catalogue of Torchwood Two's archives, and Archie was getting on in years. He could use help here, even train a replacement. Owen knew Toshiko didn't have much time left on the terms of her contract with Torchwood Three, and Jack was soft enough to let her out of it for the right reason. Not that Owen couldn't get on without her, he thought hurriedly, breaking the hug. But she was good to have around, and she liked it here.

Five years also meant he hadn't been in his own home in his own bed in half a decade. Cardiff was a hole, but he missed it, missed the city nights and the stinking Weevils and even the rain. He hadn't seen rain in five years. Settling down in a village he'd killed himself to escape on multiple occasions didn't sound like an idea the old Owen would have. He would need time away from this hellhole to decide if he'd grown to love the place and the people, or if he'd come down with a case of Stockholm syndrome in the midst of losing his mind. Maybe both.

Tosh's frown broke into his mental quandary. "You're thinking something."

"Usually am. Just getting my bearings. Tomorrow is another day and all that shit, yeah?" But tomorrow was today, for the first time in a long, long time, and he couldn't wait to see what that meant.

Outside, he heard a familiar grinding noise, the sound of the TARDIS fading away just out of sight. He almost burst out the bedroom door then, to pound on the walls and tell the world and wake up his friends with the truth of everything that had happened. Instead, he settled back onto the bed to relax. After a moment, Tosh sat beside him. He could let the others have a lie-in. Gwen had been on the phone all night and would be tired. The other two had spent the night exploring the uses of four Turanian fertility idols as well as an alien orgasm device. They might not be heard from for a week.

And besides, it was Saturday.

***
The End
***

Previous reel_torchwood fics:

Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
The Extraterrestrial (E.T.)
The Day the Dragons Came (Reign of Fire)
Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You (Clerks)
Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (Back to the Future)
The Valentine's Day Massacre (The Valentine's Day Massacre)

TW Fic: Got That Friday Feeling Again (3/4)

2015-09-28T01:56:27Z

Title: Got That Friday Feeling Again (3/4)
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Groundhog Day
Characters: Owen, Tosh, Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Archie, Twelve, Clara
Pairings: Owen/quite a lot of people, Jack/Ianto, past Owen/Gwen, Gwen/Rhys
Words: 18000 (4500 this part)

***
Chapter One
Chapter Two
***
Chapter Three
***

Eyebrows and Clara were nowhere to be found for the next loop, nor the one after. If they only popped in every several hundred loops, he might not see them for an entire year.

He shot himself twice more.

***

Breakfast was finished, and Owen had made a regular habit of making sure his co-workers were fed. Tosh could be tempted with the pastries if he ate one with her. Gwen could be flattered into abandoning her wedding diet for one day. Owen resorted to enlisting Jack's help in embarrassing Ianto into eating, but it worked, and he didn't have to listen to the hungry bitching later.

As they made their way to the SUV, Charlie the hobo asked for spare change. Before Gwen could dig some coins from her purse, Owen palmed him a handshake with fifty quid. "Don't hug me," he said at Charlie's grateful response. "I don't do hugs."

"Owen?" Tosh said, a bit amazed and a lot startled.

He shrugged off their stares as he walked. "Advanced ascites caused by cirrhosis of the liver. He may as well enjoy his last few days on Earth." Owen had tried buying him dinner, dragging him to hospital, treating him himself. Charlie was past help.

"Bless you!" Charlie shouted after him.

No. There were no blessings left for him, only the guilt at knowing there was nothing he could do.

***

He gave himself weekends. Five days of dusty work in a futile effort to find his way out of this mess could be followed by two days of fucking off. He'd spend a day with one of the ladies on his long list, or he'd take a day at the library reading journals, or he'd continue his slow self-taught lessons on the piano. Some days, he just sat and watched the snow all day, catching the flakes and noting the duplicates from last time.

There was a chance he'd gone mad. He might be in Cardiff right now, bunged into Providence Park with an alien lurking inside his brain eating his memories of one day. The thought inspired him, and he dosed himself with about a week's worth of Retcon.

He woke up to the Spice Girls and a headache.

***

If nothing else, he thought forcing himself into an encyclopaedic knowledge of Torchwood Two's archives would be useful in the future as a party game. Quick, name three alien artefacts that could disintegrate any object up to the size of a cat without leaving any radiation trace behind. Owen could jump up with, "Artaxian death ray, Unspecified Alien Firearm sixty-three B, and Holdor Dental Device." Then everyone else would be forced to take a drink whilst he basked in the glow of their esteem or some shit.

Too bad nothing in his inventory appeared to have any bearing on his predicament. When he found something promising, he told Jack about the time loop, sat through the lecture to make Jack happy, then was disappointed over and again when the device he'd so hopefully uncovered turned out to be a memory display, a faulty premonition activator, or an orgasm-extending marital aid which unsubtly found its way into a pocket of the Captain's greatcoat.

On the quiet days, Owen went through boxes of alien documents, talking Toshiko into running them through translation devices or making Jack scrutinise spindly extraterrestrial handwriting and do his best rough translations. Transit papers were filed away with bills of goods, some of which he could go back and cross-reference to items in storage elsewhere. Some of the documents were letters, lost in the galactic void instead of going home to five-armed Mum.

***

"It's me." He chewed his lip in nerves. Years, bloody years stuck here, and he hadn't made this call.

"Oh." He could hear her disappointment across the line. Had she been expecting a different call? "I'm on my way to work."

"Right. I just... I'll call back later."

"Fine."

***

"It's me." It was later, after her shift would be over, and over a week of Fridays since he'd got up the nerve to do this last time.

"Oh." He heard the same disappointment, but then, he'd been hearing that for years. "I was just on my way out."

"Right." He tugged on his own thin hair. "When are you home, Mother?"

"Later," she said, and the line went dead.

***

He called in the middle of the day.

"It's me."

"Oh."

Before she could make an excuse, he said, "Called in today, did you?"

"I left. They were bastards." She'd been sacked. Owen had run a search.

"How are you, Mother?"

"Fine." He could hear her light a cigarette on the other end, the quick hiss and the odd wash of noise from a cupped hand. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to say hello." He tried out all the words he wanted to say, could say knowing she'd forget them by the next time loop.

"Hello."

"I'm in Glasgow. For business. And I was thinking of you and thought I'd call." He stumbled quickly through the little he'd planned to say. "I'm learning to play the piano."

"Oh. That's. Hm. Nice." She took a drag on her cigarette. "Look, I was just on my way out."

"Right." He listened as the line went dead.

***

HELP HELP HELP HELP

I AM TRAPPED IN A TIME BUBBLE

The magic marker all over the nice chintz wallpaper bled and smeared as Owen wrote in increasingly desperate lettering across the walls. Ls and Ps dragged down, wiggly at the end or drawn out in slashed strokes.

He ignored the pounding on the door frame. He'd shoved the wardrobe in front, which always kept Jack out for twenty three and a half minutes. He ignored the sweat and tears and snot dripping down his face, down his mouth. He ignored the high-pitched singing from his own throat, "If you want my future, forget my past," chanted over and over.

HELP

The door frame gave way. Owen was ready with his gun, pointed at his own temple.

***

He caught sight of the TARDIS outside his window. As he watched, it flickered in and out of view, engines grinding angrily. The landing on the Plass, caught on the CCTV along with Jack's mad dash, had been a smooth purr in comparison. Eyebrows and Clara were bouncing off the day again.

He burst out the door in time to watch it fade from view, and broke down in tears.

Behind him, he heard running feet, and Jack's desperate, "Was that what I think it was?"

"How long did you wait for him?" Owen turned, seeing the others coming up behind their illustrious leader. They wouldn't let Jack leave again, not without them.

Jack stared at the empty pavement. "Almost one hundred and forty years."

"Shit." Owen punched the ground hard enough that he broke his hand. "SHIT!"

***

He spent one loop in his room writing up a detailed plan as to how he would seduce each of his colleagues. Gwen would be first. He knew all her buttons, and all her insecurities. She'd glare at him, and she'd fight with him, and he could take her dog style, wet for his touch and hating herself for wanting him. Jack should be even easier. He'd made his obnoxious flirty comments since the day Owen was hired, and by all accounts, his mouth was a national fucking treasure. For Tosh, Owen would throw in a touch of romance, which she'd eat up like a sweetie, full of blushes as he held her hand and made false confessions. She'd want to be spread wide on the duvet like a new virgin, and she'd cry when she came. Truth be told, Owen could spend the rest of eternity without tapping Ianto's pasty arse. He supposed he may as well collect the whole set, intentionally pushing their rivalry over the edge as he fucked his way into slick, tight heat.

He wrote down times, and patterns of movement, and who would say what when Owen said this or did that. He accounted for the occasional unpredictability in their responses. Something about the butterfly effect was in play: not every action had the exact same reaction every time.

Then he spent ten minutes shredding the paper into tiny bits, and dropped them like confetti on the carpet.

***

He let Gwen witter at him about the wedding. Most of her words cascaded over him, gradually soaking through.

"You're nervous," he told her during one loop. "You spend all this time wondering if you've made the right choice between your great lump and Captain Dental Care, but the truth is, you're worried you're not good enough for Rhys."

Gwen responded to this alternately angry and relieved. "Yeah," she said, looking away. "He stood by me, no matter what I did." Their affair hung between them unspoken in the air. Owen chose not to say the words this time. "I don't deserve him."

"Look, Gwen. A happy relationship is made up of two tossers who secretly believe the other is too good for them. At the level neither of you deserves the other, you and your haulage hunk will be married for the next seventy years. So finish your wedding plans, already. You know this is the right call."

She smiled at him, the first genuine smile he could remember from her in real months, not just these ersatz days piled on days. "Thank you," she said, and excused herself to go outside and call him.

***

In the mornings right after breakfast, he made up an excuse that Rhys had accidentally dialled his mobile, and that Gwen ought to phone him to check in. She returned from her daily call with her cheeks flushed and happy, and ready to climb into the SUV.

***

Ianto didn't speak to him when they worked. Owen had to drag every single conversation out of him.

"You haven't been sleeping," he said, on a particularly unsuccessful loop. "It's the bags under your eyes that give you away."

"You don't have to worry about my sleeping habits." This was where he normally made an excuse to stalk off. Owen stopped him.

"How long have you been having the nightmares?"

Ianto glared at him and tried to push past, but he always pushed left and Owen was a rock. "I'm your doctor. I need to know if your health is impacted by lack of sleep."

"I'm fine."

"Sure, and I'm the bloody queen. Tell me, or I'll make Jack make you tell me."

Ianto grumbled. "It's nothing. It's … It's been a year."

Owen had trouble with dates these days, but he could hazard a guess. A year ago, for everyone else, Gwen was just joining the team, which meant Ianto had been hiding his girlfriend down in the archives. Crazy wife in the attic, crazy robot in the basement, whatever. He'd been looking at a calendar which no longer applied to Owen, and coming up with a lot of bad memories of dead friends and lost love.

"Did I ever tell you about Katie?"

Ianto shook his head. Owen gave him the summary, the bones of what had happened, and watched the understanding crawl over Ianto's face. "The world goes on without her, and you can't imagine how."

"Yeah."

"But you're braver than I am. Me, I'd rather find a bird with no objections for one night, and never think about tempting that heartbreak all over. You? You're willing to go through it all for the sake of falling in love again."

Ianto looked away and down, not blushing but clearly uncomfortable. "It's not like that."

Owen shrugged. "It could be. Win him a Kewpie doll at the festival. He can't get enough of them, fuck knows why."

***

Toshiko was the hardest, and Owen delayed working with her whenever possible. He couldn't stand the look on her face, the need in her eyes.

***

Trying to chip through Jack's defences was like taking a jackhammer to a diamond, and just as pointless. Some days, Owen told him about the loop. Once or twice, he told him the Doctor was involved.

"So what the fuck was it with you two?" he asked Jack, both of them having abandoned their search for the day the minute Owen came clean about where the holoprojector was.

Jack tried to shrug the question off, but Owen pressed. "It's almost like watching two dogs fight, but not. Did you shag him?"

"That's none of your business."

"So no."

Jack paused for a long time. He hated giving up pieces of himself. "No."

"But you could have."

"Things were different when we travelled together. Rose was there. She was the glue."

"Hot?"

"Oh yeah," Jack said with a filthy chuckle.

"You shag her?"

Jack raised his eyebrows and said neither yes nor no.

Another day, another fresh slate. Owen acted as though he'd only been through a few loops instead of the hundreds he'd lost count of. Jack gave him the friendly lecture and told him to let Tosh ask questions. The familiarity of the litany almost gave him away.

"Why the smile?" Jack asked, halted in the middle of his reminiscence of his own regrets.

"No reason."

Jack wouldn't open up in loops when Owen didn't tell his own secret. Owen tried leading questions and he tried outright demands. His boss remained as inscrutable as an onion. At best he might pull out grains of truth about the others from Jack's vast stores, but of himself he gave away nothing on purpose. Still, Owen had found the best way to dig was the same advice Jack himself gave for effective interrogations: act like you know all the facts and are merely clarifying minor details. In this fashion, Owen had managed ten loops of persistent effort to discover the real story behind Toshiko's recruitment. Five more had revealed that Suzie's account of how she'd met Jack wasn't the complete bullshit he'd always believed the tale to be.

"Ianto told me about the nightmares," he said one afternoon, passing Jack a sealed box which he knew contained spare parts for a radio.

Jack went very still. "All right." Perfect. With the right prods, he'd give away more of what was going on with Ianto, which Owen could take back to Ianto in the next loop and use to get him to open up further. He merely had to play his own part carefully.

"It's not unexpected. Past trauma rears its ugly head at anniversaries and other reminders. Any armchair headshrink knows that."

"Yeah."

"I could prescribe something. It's not a good idea," he added, as Jack said abruptly, "No."

Owen offered up a quick, tight smile. "Interfering with the dream cycle isn't a good solution for the long term."

"I'll be fine," said Jack in a curt tone. "Thanks anyway." And shortly thereafter, he made an excuse and went to work in another room.

Oh.

Owen spent more of his brain power than he liked trying not to consider what the other two blokes on their team did in their off hours together. He didn't want to know, and what he did know told him that like any other workplace affair, his own included, it would end up exploding with the shrapnel hitting everyone around them. He preferred not to get involved past the regular STI tests he gave the entire team. None of his business, and he'd intended to keep things that way.

For the first time, he wondered. Ever since Jack had come back from the dead after Abbadon and everything, Owen had assumed whatever was going on, it was a mutual case of wanting someone around who was willing to suck the other off on request. (He'd learned not to walk into room fourteen between the hours of two and three in the afternoon, and he never, ever wanted to know what flap of the butterfly's wings meant which bloke wound up on his knees.) Now, despite himself, he wondered if it wasn't just about the sex. Dark dreams and regrets were a bitch. Someone else there in the night, someone who understood, might be the only thing standing between you and every horror you'd accidentally released and could never take back. The best anyone could hope for in this world was someone who'd wake you from your nightmares and hold you tight and say everything was going to be okay and tell you they love you.

And that, Owen thought, made whatever those two were doing not just an affair any longer, which in turn made it a lot more dangerous to the rest of them should it come to a sudden end.

***

"I'll do the lunch run today," Owen said as Ianto collected their orders.

"Are you sure?" He looked at Owen with suspicion.

"I'm sure." He knew his way around the village roads well enough to get out and back with no trouble, even with the snow. "I just want to get out of here for a bit."

"Fine. Thanks," he said with a grudging look, and handed Owen the keys.

"No problem, mate."

***

They had dinner at the manor house, effected by Owen's joining in with Archie when he suggested it, and broadly lying that the roads were shit. He wanted a chance to check out the private rooms tonight after the others had gone to bed. To sweeten the deal, he'd packed the picnic hamper with good food and plenty of beer over lunch, and had offered to cook. Cookery wasn't a skill he came to easily. Memorising one good recipe was enough to wow them, though, and he basked in the pleasing glow of his colleagues' thanks.

"Perhaps you'll see some ghosts tonight," Archie said to Jack, tipping back a beer. "I'm sure there are one or two spirits rattling around here who remember you fondly."

Jack chuckled, playing with his water glass. "More than one or two, I'd hope."

Ianto flashed a worried smile at Gwen. "And there was me thinking this place was creepy enough." He left off the unspoken fear of spectral intruders coming in to watch whatever it was Owen didn't want to think about them doing tonight.

"It's not so bad," Gwen said. "I've seen plenty of spooky places since I signed on, and this is more quaint than anything."

To his surprise, Tosh agreed, glancing around the dark corners of the great room. "I like it here. Perhaps get in a maid to deal with the worst of the dust, put in a broadband connection and some greenery, and the ghosts can pull up a chair if they like."

"You're both mad," Ianto said.

"I thought you liked antiques," Jack said. Owen was pretty sure Ianto kicked him under the table, but that only made Jack grin more widely.

He let the team search the archives for the next several hours whilst he made his way through the bedrooms. He'd spent his second night of the loop here, which meant this would likely be a bust. He was out of ideas, honestly. None of the artefacts helped, not even the ones he'd learned were misidentified. The only other two people caught in the loop with him were spending it time-hopping in a blue box, and were singularly unhelpful in getting out.

Also unhelpful was every item he found in tonight's search. No alien rubbish had found its way up here, unless Jack was pocketing that toy again for later in the evening. He found old papers, but nothing interesting. The private letters and such had been cleared for incriminating evidence and donated by the Institute to a museum ages ago. Stuffy people in paintings stared out at nothing and glared at nobody. He could research their names if he wanted, he supposed.

"What are you doing?"

Tosh stood in the doorway of the room. The light from the corridor behind her sent eerie shadows on the wood floor.

"Just looking around. I thought I saw something in here." He gestured at the paintings. "I see dead people."

"Hm." She came in. "She looks sad."

Owen squinted in the dull light. "Yeah. I suppose." He cleared his throat. His attempted search was interrupted, though it wasn't as if he'd expected to find much. "You sure this place doesn't give you the creeps?"

"No, it's nice here. Quiet. Even with the dead people." She nodded at the lady in the portrait. "Sorry," Tosh said to her. "About whatever happened."

He'd have expected Gwen to come up with some kind words or some shit for the old pictures, but even Tosh was able to scrape up a bit of empathy for someone who'd been dead for a century. A spot of guilt nibbled at him, unfamiliar and unwelcome, chasing him down the stairs as the pair of them rejoined the others in the main archives.

***

Archie smoked like a chimney and had a tiny speck of cancerous tissue in his left lung. Owen had scanned, prodded, poked, and questioned for loop after loop, knowing he'd find something. "It's the earliest possible detection," he assured Archie, who took the news with bad grace and a fumbled cigar. Owen read up on current cancer treatments in his evening hours, the noise of the festival coming in through his open bedroom window. The cold air helped him think. The rhythm of the same songs, the same happy screams, the steady bustle of people having fun despite the snow, these became a lulling background white noise to his research.

"It'll be fine," he assured Archie, showing him the test results for the first time. "I just read about a remarkable treatment that should have you right as rain. We can start tomorrow."

"Bless you," Archie said, and he clasped Owen's hand.

***

Mrs. McDaniels and Ms. Barlow lived together and owned one Vauxhall Viva older than Owen. Every day, Ms. Barlow popped a tyre on Buchanan Street, and should Mrs. McDaniels try to fix it herself, her heart would give out. Every day, Owen waited with a trolley jack and a spare, with a bullshit story about the auto club and a stern reminder for Mrs. McDaniels to take her tablets on schedule.

***

Louis Mayhew, aged 9, broke his arm every morning falling out of the tree he oughtn't have been climbing before school. Owen set the bone twice before he scrambled out of the bed, threw on clothes whilst the Spice Girls sang at him, and ran pell-mell five streets away to catch the little bastard before he hit the pavement.

"You never thank me!" Owen shouted at the retreating back of the boy.

***

"I'll do the lunch run," Owen said, just as Ianto was collecting their orders.

Ianto's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?" He clutched the keys in his hand, a nervous gesture Owen had learned to read.

"I'm sure. I've had more practise than you driving on icy roads." Too right, though he'd come up with a cover story for the times Ianto asked when on Earth Owen would have had a chance for that. No further questioning came. Owen added, "Need a break from this place anyway. My eyes are crossing."

"Fine." Reluctant gratitude crossed his face as he handed over the keys and the orders. "Thank you."

"No problem, mate. By the way, Captain Jack needs a hand in room fourteen." He always did on the days Owen remembered to lean that Olandan hoover on its side.

Mr. Thomas took lunch down the pub and ordered a steak, medium well, with a jacket potato. Not that the bloke couldn't do to miss a few meals, Owen always thought as he huffed and chuffed his way through the Heimlich manoeuvre to dislodge a piece of meat from the man's thick throat.

"You're welcome," he said, and yeah, he enjoyed the attention from the other customers quite a bit. No time to stick around for proper thanks. Kerry McWilliam would be slipping on the ice three blocks away soon enough, and if he grabbed her arm in time, she wouldn't crack her head on the pavement.

"You need better shoes," he told her, every day before he dashed off to prevent the bunting collapse, then had a quick chat with Jimmy Paulk before he made a terrible decision.

Some days, he forgot to fetch lunch entirely.

***

The fucking butterfly flapped its bloody wings. Almost every day went precisely as he planned. For all that rubbish about free will and independent thought, his ordeal had taught Owen a human was as easily programmable as an abacus. Move one bead, the others go this way, clean and easy. Compliment Joscelyn on her earrings, and pop open her legs. Hand the winning scratchcards to Maisie for the library, get a snog for his trouble and when he wanted, a fantastic evening later. Give Gwen a nudge, and she'd spend half the day on her mobile telling that fat lump how much she missed him; nudge her a different way and she'd spend the day shouting at him. Mention fucking Kewpie dolls to either Jack or Ianto, and they'd spend the day out of his hair and shagging like weasels that night.

He'd have expected Toshiko to be the most computer-like, considering. He could coax her into eating breakfast, and on the loops where Jack made Owen let her ask questions, she asked the same questions. Except sometimes, she didn't.

"What would you say your current psychological state is?" she asked, pushing her glasses up on her nose as she typed into her data pad.

"Half mental."

"Only half? I don't know how I would survive it," she said. "Nothing new under the sun ever? I couldn't do it."

But one time when she asked, and he replied, she said, "That has to be fascinating. You're experiencing life more fully than anyone ever has. You can live through every single possibility. You can explore every opportunity. There are no missed chances, no regrets."

"Yeah," he said, a little startled. "Done that."

"Everything?" she asked, with a hint of impish grin that covered what he could see was also a hopeful one.

And what to tell her? "Almost everything. I have to give myself something to do tomorrow, right?"

"Right."

The questions returned to their usual pattern, and the next time, she went back to her same old answers.

***

Chapter Four

TW Fic: Got That Friday Feeling Again (2/4)

2015-09-28T01:52:57Z

Title: Got That Friday Feeling Again (2/4)
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Groundhog Day
Characters: Owen, Tosh, Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Archie, Twelve, Clara
Pairings: Owen/quite a lot of people, Jack/Ianto, past Owen/Gwen, Gwen/Rhys
Words: 18000 (4000 this part)

***
Chapter One
***
Chapter Two
***

Tosh had questions, lots of questions: anything he'd observed yesterday, anything he remembered happening differently today, people he'd seen, anything he'd touched or dropped. She brought out three scanners from her bag that, strictly speaking, should never have left the Hub. Jack helpfully retrieved four more thanks to Archie's inventory. Each alien artefact hummed and scanned Owen until he was sure he'd wind up mutated with three-headed sperm.

"You'll be fine," Jack said, but he said it in his 'lying to get someone to shut up' voice.

Ianto went out for sandwiches at lunchtime and came back whinging about the snowy roads. Owen found himself facing the same bland sandwich he'd eaten yesterday as he listened to Gwen complain about not seeing Rhys. "Look on the bright side," Owen said. "If we really are in a time loop, he won't notice you're gone."

"I'll notice," she replied, but seemed appeased. She wouldn't notice, not the way Owen would.

The afternoon saw them all on the search for the ghost artefact, which Owen couldn't remember the location of, and for the time loop artefact, which could be anything, and any artefact Tosh might like to pop into the boot before they went home, which were many. Archie helped out, identifying unmarked boxes and telling the same stories he'd told yesterday. As the sky darkened, Jack offered to call off the hunt, but no one took him up on it. Owen supposed he ought to feel grateful. Instead he felt irritated, sure they'd expect his gratitude, and he grumbled as room after room turned up nothing.

Gwen said, "This place isn't so bad. Lots of space. We can kip here tonight. Might break the loop?" The expressions on Tosh and Jack's faces were dubious, Owen noticed, and they'd be in the best position to say.

"That sounds great," he said, because why the fuck not? Torchwood House was haunted, and the bed and breakfast was a time vortex.

Ianto ducked out to the SUV and came back with a hamper of food. "I thought we might stay. Provisions for later. Archie, is there a kitchen somewhere?"

Archie grinned. "Only the largest you've ever seen." He guided Ianto away, praising the culinary masterpiece that was the main kitchen of the manor house to someone who lived entirely on takeaway and caffeine.

As they returned to their task, Gwen sidled into the same room where Owen was working. "How are you doing, Owen? Only, this has to be pretty difficult to deal with, yeah?" She smiled kindly in the uneven light, flickering bulbs warning of the precarious electrical wiring installed throughout the older areas of the building.

"I'm fine." He kept the annoyance out of his voice. Gwen hadn't spoken to him much after they'd broken things off, until Jack went away and everything went to shit. These days she pretended nothing had ever happened, and had started mothering him along with the rest of the team. Even after Jack's return, she'd drop by for chats, or try to cozen them all into sing-a-longs in the car. She meant well. If Gwen sometimes mistook their top secret alien fighting organisation for a wayward Girl Guide troop, at least the biscuits were good.

"You've just done the one loop? Maybe it'll just be that, then."

"Sure." He offered her a quick smile. "Since you're here, can you help me inventory this room? We'll get done faster."

"My thoughts exactly." She dove right in, carefully marking off everything they found. Denebian flutes, three. Itching ray, origin unknown. Gr'nak herbicide, one kilo. Had there ever been any categorisation to this stuff?

He half-listened to Gwen's chatter as they worked, putting in grunts and nods as he thought appropriate. Wedding plans. Something her mum wanted her to reserve at the resort, and her bridesmaids agreed. An unexpected ache hit him in his sternum, caught in a quick memory of Katie fussing over dresses and table decorations and invitations for guests who never came.

"You know, Gwen, if I'm the one in a time loop, nothing you lot do matters. You could go right now and have one off with Captain Charm, and you wouldn't even feel guilty in the morning."

Gwen coloured red and looked as though she was about to punch him. Instead, she took a breath and said, "Good to know your experience hasn't changed you." She threw the inventory to the floor and stormed out.

Fine. He liked it quiet. After a few minutes, he knew he wasn't going to find anything. Too wound up, too annoyed. Whatever. He could stay here and not be bothered by concerned co-workers. God, he hoped he woke up tomorrow with whatever the fuck this was completed. He tried settling in for a nap, but woke almost immediately when Ianto came into the room.

His head swivelled, looking for Owen before finding him in his cosy little corner. His mouth turned in a disapproving frown. "If you're awake, Tosh has found something."

"Time loop?"

"The holoprojector you talked about." Ianto had remained sceptical all day about Owen's story. For the first time, he looked like he might actually believe Owen wasn't pulling some kind of prank.

"You lot play with the projector. I'm going to go back to searching."

"Pillows are in the chest down the hall," Ianto said.

"Fuck off."

By supper, none of them had found the time machine or whatever the fuck it was, and Gwen had worked out the basics of the stupid holoprojector. Whilst the others laughed and chatted in the ridiculously formal dining room, the large windows looking out onto the gathering snow, Owen prayed his day would end normally and turn into tomorrow.

He dove back into the storage areas with renewed vigour. Something in here had done this to him. Had to be. Much later, and still no luck, Archie helped them find the old bedrooms, of which there were plenty. The beds were musty and the sheets were forty years old, back from when this facility had still been active rather than a relic. The bedbugs colonies were probably older than some cities in the States.

"I have my own little room here," said Archie. "The office is in the city, but I like staying here of a night. Reminds me of better times."

Jack said, "You took over after the better times were almost done."

"Says you." He winked at Jack and turned in, wishing them all a good night. He unlocked five bedrooms. Owen half-expected Jack to suggest they pile into one room for safety's sake, and also for him to cajole them all into that orgy he'd been planning. But no. The girls went into their rooms, and Owen went into his, and he was positive the room next to his stayed empty, saving him from listening to two blokes fucking.

Now there was a thought. He knew if he knocked on Toshiko's door, tonight or any other night, she'd let him in. And that, he admitted to himself, was why he never did. He'd gone for Gwen because he'd known she loathed him, and herself for wanting him. That was a challenge, and challenge meant passion without emotion getting in the way of getting off. Tosh wanted emotion and shared breakfasts, and things Owen had no intention of ever experiencing again. Better to screw and sneak away. Better not to feel, and keep from feeling bad ever again.

Unable to sleep with these thoughts in his head, he had one himself and slipped into an unhappy sleep.

***

The Spice Girls woke him to tell him what he had to do to be their lover. Owen cracked his eyes open enough to see that he was back in his bed at the B&B. He punched the alarm until it broke, and settled back amongst the quilts.

Half an hour later, there was a knock on the door.

"It's going to snow, and the ghost artefact is in room seven. Call Archie."

"Owen."

He refused to answer, snuggling deeper into his blankets. Outside, he listened to one side of a conversation where Jack tried not to lose his temper with the director of Torchwood Glasgow.

"Owen? Say for a minute you're right. How did you know that?"

"I'm omnipotent."

The door broke down ten seconds later. Jack had his Webley out. The others hovered in the doorway. Owen blinked at them. He looked at Jack. "Time loop. I'm sleeping in."

Jack lowered his gun. He glanced at the rest of the team. "Take a walk. I need to have a talk with Owen."

"Skip it. You gave me the talk already." Owen rolled over. "You lot go play in the manor house. I'm staying here. Might go out for lunch." He refused to say another word.

When he was sure they'd gone, he pulled on his clothes. He stuffed the rest of his things into his duffle, grabbed a pastry from the table on his way out the door, and stepped into the cold September morning. There was the young mum, already down the road with her kiddies. The grannies were almost out of sight. The homeless bloke lurked in his usual place as Owen passed by, ignoring his muttered plea for spare change. Owen turned away from where the SUV had been parked and examined the vehicles he came across until he found an unlocked door.

Sliding into the driver's seat, Owen did his best to act like this was his car as he worked under the steering column. He hadn't lifted many cars in his youth, but he knew enough. Within five minutes, the car choked to life. Owen drove towards the highway. He could explain later. He just had to get out of this fucking village and get past the fucking time bubble. He could phone the team later.

He hit a patch of ice not a kilometre out of town. He had seconds to react, turning uselessly into the skid, mouth caught in an obscenity as he slammed into a tree.

***

"So tell me what you want, what you really really want!"

Owen swore.

He managed until breakfast and the tale of Archie and the missing loch. He excused himself back up to his room, where he shot himself.

Moments later, the Spice Girls told him what they really, really wanted. He spent the day feeling more hungover than usual.

***

On good days when he planned perfectly, he could go into Glasgow proper, but he was still stuck. He tried several times to buy his way onto a flight out of Scotland, but he never managed to get off the ground, and the one time he was desperate enough to steal a small private plane, he wound up dead.

He tried walking. He woke up in the same bed listening to the same song.

He tried sailing away on the Clyde. He drowned.

***

Time … passed.

It was impossible to track the passage of days, the same day again and again. He couldn't draw hash marks on his wall, or keep a diary, or write on his own skin, without greeting a bare, blank slate the next morning. He could keep a mental count, had he remembered to start before he lost track after at least a month of Fridays. The truth was, he couldn't recall how long he'd been here. He thought there had to be a difference from the very first day but fuck if he could sort it out.

Morning meant breakfast with the team and a trip out to Torchwood House accompanied by the weather report and Archie's apology. Owen would fuck around for about fifteen minutes, then go to the room where the fucking ghost holoprojector was, thus freeing up the rest of his day before the snow hit.

The young mummy with the kids was named Grace. She liked Oasis and sticky toffees, which Owen learned to fake an interest in around ten o'clock when she dropped the kiddies at pre-school. Their dads had left her when she was pregnant with each one, and she still hated Jim but Steve paid support on time and Grace missed him. She didn't ask a lot of questions. He could usually get into her knickers by noon, half-past on days he bought her lunch. Grace was wet and willing, making the same half-sob every day he slid into her for the first time. Owen tuned her out when she chatted after, taking in a light doze before he dressed and left her there shouting at him.

Finding further companionship wasn't any more difficult than avoiding Team Tossers with a little planning. Owen could meet up with Tamara MacCombe as she joined her mates for lunch at the pub, and he could eat out that night. Joscelyn Black worked on the committee for the Autumn Festival because her maiden Aunt Fran was the head, and Joscelyn was fucking amazing at head.

He spent what might have been months slouching his way from orgasm to orgasm. His days reset, leaving him satisfied and single every morning.

***

It was possible, if one spent several weeks and all his money, to purchase every Lotto scratchcard in a five kilometre radius. After that study, Owen could drop by three particular establishments and walk out with a total of five thousand pounds any time he wished, and a useless ticket in his pocket worth one hundred thousand he'd never be able to collect. As he didn't have to worry about investing in his future, he spent several more weeks discovering how much fun he could purchase in a single day.

This turned out not to be as much fun as he'd hoped. There were only so many more women he could impress flashing his extra cash around. The little village didn't have much of a night life. When he made it into Glasgow itself, he only wound up in trouble and often wound up dead. He could buy expensive meals for everyone he met, from the hot girls to Charlie the pan-handling hobo, but no one remembered or gave a shit the next day.

One day, he flicked open his mobile and began flipping through the contacts list. He would call his mother and he would tell her he was rich.

She would be impressed. Or she would be bored. She would say he'd finally made something of himself. Or she'd ask if he thought he was better than her. She'd ask him what he intended to do with the money, and remind him money couldn't buy one fucking minute of happiness unless he spent it on a whore. Or she'd ask him for a loan.

His hands shook as he reached her name. Before he could make himself press the number, he threw the phone against a wall, shattering it.

***

"So tell me what you want," said Ginger Spice, and Owen hit the alarm before Scary could get her say. He lay under the covers for a minute. Last night had been spent in Christie's flat, or was it Maisie's? No, Maisie had the distracting nystagmus, and Chrissie complained about her mum after sex. Kirstie's flat.

He got out of the bed he woke up in every morning, and for the first time in ages, decided he was bored enough to go in to work and search for what the fuck was causing this loop. He made his way downstairs, selected bacon and toast and several pastries, and then budged up a place at the Torchwood table.

"And then, Archie said, 'I swear, the loch was here yesterday!'" Jack laughed, the girls tittered, Ianto rolled his eyes. Just like every morning.

Owen said, "I don't intend to spend my day with three of you all bitchy from low blood sugar. Eat these." He shoved a large pastry each in front of Tosh, Gwen, and Ianto. "Prescription from your doctor."

***

Hiding the holoprojector was even easier than locating it every damn day. He had a nice spot behind three boxes where no one ever looked. Chuck it back in the corner, spend the rest of the day searching for his real problem. He started with random searches and realised rapidly that would get him nowhere, and only a methodical investigation in each room one by one would ever get him out of here.

He planned his days around searching, and the nights he didn't spend getting laid, he spent catching up on medical journals he'd meant to read, and trying unsuccessfully to teach himself extra-dimensional physics.

One snowy afternoon when he'd let the team find the holoprojector early, he wandered the shelves of the local library, vainly searching for the right book to read to get him out of this mess. As he turned a corner he'd turned a dozen times, he nearly crashed into a hot girl he didn't recognise. This was enough to startle him out of his thoughts. He'd met every hot girl in the village, and he knew every face in this library. He could set his watch by the exact minute each one would walk by.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

Behind her, an older bloke walked up in a hurry, all annoyance and grey eyebrows. "I told you this was pointless," he muttered in a local accent which didn't fool Owen for a second.

"I saw you. The first day we were here. I remember."

"Sorry, just leaving," said the hot girl with an absent smile. Owen grabbed her arm.

"Wait. You were here, and you haven't been here since." He was cracking up. He knew he'd been cracking up. Now the timeline was changing on him. "You're different!"

"Oh good, someone with half a brain," said Eyebrows. "Clara, I think we can break free of the bubble if we leave at the right time."

"It's a fucking time bubble!" Owen shouted, earning him stern glares from the approaching librarians. He ignored them. "You know about it!"

Clara tilted her head at him oddly. "Yeah. We know. But how do you?"

"I've been fucking stuck here for fucking months with you!"

Okay, the librarians were really quite close now, and very cross, and Owen didn't fucking care. He thought about his actual honest-to-fuck Torchwood training. He stared at Eyebrows. "You're the Doctor."

"Oh, you've heard of me?" Eyebrows asked, instantly flattered.

"Yeah, Jack can't fucking tell us enough."

"Sir," said Maisie Stephens. She was blonde and youngish and she'd worked at the library for six years and could be talked into bed with a lot of booze or a carefully-purchased book, "you are disturbing the other patrons. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Jack?" asked Clara, confused. "I know that name."

"Yes," said the Doctor, frowning.

"Sir!" said Maisie.

"You cannot tell Jack I'm here. I'm not from the correct part of his timeline. If we meet now, it could jeopardise his future involvement with my timeline and interfere with the natural occurrence of...."

Owen had already jammed his finger in his ear. "Jack, the Doctor is here. We'll meet you outside the library in two minutes." He smiled at Maisie. "Sorry, miss. We'll be going."

He grabbed Clara's hand, assuming the Doctor wouldn't abandon another companion as easily as he had Owen's boss. He half-escorted, half-dragged her to the entrance. An out of breath Captain Jack came running round the corner just as Eyebrows stepped outside.

Owen was sure he heard Eyebrows mutter a swear word before he said, "Jack! Didn't expect to find you here."

Jack stopped short when he saw them, trotting closer. Behind him, Owen heard more running. The other three followed, Ianto closest at Jack's heels, and wouldn't that be fun to watch, eh?

"Doctor. Changed things up, have you?"

Eyebrows put on the fakest smile Owen had ever seen. "Nothing to worry about. How many time loops have you been through so far?"

"A thousand or so," said Owen, as Jack said, "What time loops?"

***

They retired to the pub. Jack and the Doctor sat opposite each other. Owen sat in the middle, getting peppered with questions. The rest of the little group clustered around exactly as Owen would have expected, with Ianto and Gwen flanking Jack, Clara at the Doctor's side and her skirt unfortunately hidden from view under the table. Tosh sat across from Owen giving him sympathetic smiles.

"We've been through twice before," Clara said around her wine spritzer. "We keep bouncing back here."

"Small fuss," the Doctor said, locking eyes with Jack. "Hardly a bother. We'll get out this time."

"Are you causing this?" Owen asked. He'd caught up the others briefly on his predicament. They had accepted, with varying degrees of grace, his explanation that he'd been tired of telling them every loop. Ianto still didn't seem to believe him, even with the Doctor sitting right fucking there, but currently he was too busy trying to signal Clara to stop casting flirting glances at You Know Who to bother rolling his eyes at Owen.

"We didn't," the Doctor said. "We came for a quick visit. Something you did must have trapped us here."

"I didn't do anything," said Jack reproachfully. "This is the first I've heard about it." He gave a sidelong look to Owen, but he'd accepted the update without comment. "By the way, when we're done here, I need a word with Owen."

"Got the lecture, thanks. Won't shag Captain Bad Touch any time soon." This earned him glares from around the table and a shrug from Jack.

"Do you have any ideas?" asked Clara. This was addressed not to Owen or the Doctor, but to Toshiko, whom she'd successfully identified as the only person in the room less concerned with who was shagging whom and more with who was fucking with space-time.

"I have to know more about what's going on." Tosh looked at Owen with a weak smile. "You said you've gone through hundreds of loops. Can you remember if you touched anything in the first one that would have done something like this?"

Owen shook his head. "I've been through my original room. I've been through the rooms you lot went through the first day. I can't find anything."

The Doctor asked, "Is there some lesson you need to learn? There are some semi-omnipotent beings floating around who ought to know better but love to put humans through the ringer." He grinned without humour. "Done it myself."

Owen sat back. Could this be a simple matter of having to repent his sins? "They're not specific enough for me to know. And why would you lot be trapped in here with me?"

"For them, it's just one day. We've bounced back in the TARDIS twice. But you, you're reliving day after day. Maybe you were a naughty boy." The Doctor leaned close, leering. "What did you do?"

Jack kept his distance now, watching the two of them. He glanced over at Clara. "I've met two regenerations so far. I've watched seven others from a distance. You've got yourself an odd one on your hands."

Clara sipped her wine spritzer. "So I've noticed."

After another round of drinks and many rounds of questions, they adjourned to the TARDIS. Jack gave a quick explanation to the team, which Tosh drank up, Gwen nodded along to uncomprehendingly, and Ianto ignored in favour of making sarcastic comments under his breath. Owen went to the control in the centre of the room, getting his hands slapped for his trouble as he reached out.

"No," said the Doctor, as if scolding a dog. "She's already upset." He twitched his head over his shoulder at Jack.

"Hey," Jack said, resting his own hand on the console in a fashion that would have got him arrested in half a dozen of the clubs in Cardiff. "The TARDIS and I go way back. She likes me."

"Will this fix the loop?" Owen asked, not wishing to hear about that one time, or several times, his boss shagged the time machine.

"Could be," the Doctor said distractedly, and he threw a lever Owen swore had only grown there that minute.

Several things happened at once. They involved sparks, screams, and a powerful sense of a powerful being angry at him in a powerful and very personal manner.

Owen closed his eyes.

"So tell me what you want, what you really really want!"

He opened his eyes in his borrowed bed in the B&B.

"FUCK!!!!!"

***

Chapter Three

TW Fic: Got That Friday Feeling Again (1/4)

2015-09-28T00:24:49Z

Title: Got That Friday Feeling Again
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Groundhog Day
Characters: Owen, Tosh, Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Archie, Twelve, Clara
Pairings: Owen/quite a lot of people, Jack/Ianto, past Owen/Gwen, Gwen/Rhys
Words: 18000 (6000 this part)
Summary: Owen hates Fridays.
Warnings: suicide (Owen), character death (also Owen), mention of spray from "Everything Changes" (guess who)
Beta: rabecka, with enormous thanks for the edits and for all the sounding board assists while this came into shape. All remaining errors are mine.
Rating: Adult for language
Spoilers: up through Torchwood episode "Meat" and Doctor Who episode "Deep Breath"
Disclaimer: Groundhog Day is the property of Columbia Pictures. Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC.
Author's Notes: Written for reel_torchwood Screening 8, with a tip of the hat to the previous reel_tw Groundhog Day fic, but really, this plot is designed to be told over and over and over and ...

***
Chapter One
***

"So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want!"

Owen lay in the bed which wasn't his, and he listened to the Spice Girls. After a while, someone knocked on the bedroom door. It would be Toshiko, who always knocked first and tentatively, asking if he felt ill. If he lay still and didn't respond, Jack would thump on the door frame four minutes later.

Owen counted to twenty-seven as Jack growled at him through the wood, and then broke his way into the room.

He shook Owen by the right shoulder, face turning from annoyance to concern as he took in Owen's quiet but alive form still in the bed. Within five seconds, Jack would ask him if he was okay, and if Owen told him what was really wrong, Jack would ask Tosh to step out of the room so he could dispense some fucking useless advice stemming from that two weeks he spent doing too many drugs and having too much sex with Captain Homicide.

Every fucking day.

"Hey, you okay?"

Owen began to weep.

***

Owen crawled in to the Hub at half past dark with a snarl that turned into a yawn midway. His mood was not improved by the paper cup of coffee shoved in his direction, but he spared his automatic two fingered reply in hopes of not having the next cup spat into upon delivery. He sucked down three quarters of the cup before he made eye contact with anyone. When he finally looked up, he noticed the rest had duffle bags already lined up by the door to the underground garage.

"I thought you were joking about packing a bag."

Jack finished typing something into that stupid fucking strap on his wrist. Lights around the Hub flickered and dimmed with each press. "I never joke about packing an overnight bag."

"I am not going fucking camping again with you lot. Ever." By this time, he was awake enough to see winces cross the faces of his colleagues at the mention of their last expedition. Too late to take it back now. "I'm staying here."

Gwen said, "We're going to Glasgow." She pushed past him, annoyance writ large in every gesture. Come to think of it, their last camping trip had started them down their own shared path of terrible mistakes which had felt pretty fucking amazing at the time. The trip hadn't been all bad.

"Get what you need from Medical, then go home," Jack said. "We'll pick you up at yours with your bag packed for two to three days. Next time, listen."

Toshiko followed Owen down into the autopsy area, standing on the steps as he rummaged through his drawers looking for supplies. He tossed a handful of bandages onto the slab. "Any idea why we're going on this merry trip to hell?"

Tosh shrugged. "Archie called early this morning. Something's going on in the long term storage areas of Torchwood House."

"Fantastic. An artefact's gone haywire again. We don't all need to go. Send Ianto. You tag along if it's something technical. Solved."

"You're going," Jack's voice came down from the upper level, and that was that.

"What time is the flight?"

Tosh grimaced and Owen swore. "Six hours in a car with you lot?"

"It could be fun," she said, not sounding enthused.

"Shouldn't you be packing?"

"I'm packed. We're waiting on you. I could help." She wore that same hopeful smile she always did. It grated on his nerves, and grated more when he knew he shouldn't shout at her.

"Yeah," he said. "Why don't you grab the Bekaran scanner and make sure it's safe to travel." That would keep her busy and out of his hair.

"Sure."

***

By hour four, Jack's supply of car games, even the obscene ones, had dwindled to nothing. Gwen phoned Rhys then attempted to have a private conversation with him whilst four other people tried not to listen in. Ianto sat stewing beside Owen in the back, still angry and claiming Owen had cheated on the last game. Tosh had won the front seat at the last rest and was fiddling with the radio.

"Oh, I like this one," she said, and turned up the Spice Girls, who let the entire car know what they really, really wanted.

Jack reached over and dialled in a station he liked, then started singing.

Owen thumped his head on the glass. "Are we there yet?"

***

They disembarked at Torchwood House. Ianto took the keys and sped off, a little too fast, towards their lodgings in order to check in and drop off their bags. Archie met them at the gate, a stocky bloke who appeared to be constructed of layered jumpers and cigar smoke. He shook hands with Jack and flirted with the girls. He'd have had better luck flirting with Jack, but he'd been with Torchwood long enough to know that already.

"You said it was urgent," Jack said, striking a pose against the afternoon light. Anyone else would look like a prat. Jack made it work, the smug arse.

"I said it could be. Still not sure." A jumper peeled aside long enough for Archie to dig out something from one pocket. Owen expected alien thingamafuckery, but the old man only extracted a new cigar and lit it nervously. "We've got an infestation."

Tosh wrinkled her nose. She wasn't a fan of rats or mice. Gwen wiped her arms in that absent way she did when she thought there was a flying insect nearby. "Aliens?" Owen guessed. This was Torchwood, after all. If Archie had beetles in the wood, they probably spoke English and demanded voting rights.

"Ghosts," said Archie. Jack stared at him sceptically. "Or could be aliens. Told you I wasn't sure."

Jack folded his arms. He adopted a patient tone Owen had heard plenty of times, usually when some old dear had got hold of a bit of nasty alien rubbish, and their captain's usual tricks weren't panning out. He'd be very calm, and only a little flirtatious, at the same time no doubt digging through his memories to see if he was addressing one of the many notches on his camp bed post. "Why don't you tell us what happened? You wouldn't say on the phone."

"Phones are tapped."

"We know," Tosh said. "We're tapping them."

"Not us, lass. Them. Not everyone in the government likes the fact we outrank them. Lot of them are angry about that incident at One. They'll see us in the ground, Jack. They're listening for weaknesses."

Jack shrugged. "They can try." He offered a bright smile to quell Archie's paranoia, with a quick glance to Owen, which meant for him to give Two's director and sole employee a physical to check for advancing dementia or brain worms.

Archie led them onto the grounds and into the vast manor house that hid the bulk of Torchwood's remaining archives. Three had a nice little cache in Cardiff, but as they walked, Owen realised that was all they had.

"This place is enormous," said Gwen, a bit awestruck, a bit taking Jack's lead and flirting back with Archie. She took his arm. "I imagine there's a tonne of stories you could tell."

"Oh, I could." As Archie launched into a brief history of fuck this depressing place, Jack twitched his head, directing Owen and Tosh over to the entrance for the first locked vault. "I'll let Gwen do her thing. You two search in here."

"For what?" Tosh asked. She had a scanner in her hand, but it was turned off. "We've dealt with ghosts before. They're not real."

"No, but something may be triggering another time event or interdimensional tear. Or it could be a holoprojector." Jack finished tapping his wrist, and the lock turned green. The door slid open. He pushed Owen and Tosh into the room, and followed them, letting the door close behind them.

Owen said, "You better not have locked us in here."

"Relax. It opens from this side." Jack lowered his voice. "I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe there is an event. Maybe Archie's hallucinating. Owen, I want you to explore option B. Toshiko, welcome to Candyland." He gestured. "Archie doesn't usually let me poke around here. He thinks I'll want to take all the good toys back to Cardiff."

"Don't you?"

"Of course. And we will." The smile turned feral, and a little dark. Jack could play Happy Uncle, but he was just as quick to slit someone's throat if he thought their death was necessary. "You get to decide what we bring home."

Her eyes lit up, the proverbial kid at proverbial Christmas about to stuff herself with proverbial pudding. "Anything?"

"Within reason. We can't haul the whole thing back unless you've finished that mass transducer?" He turned it into a question, but she shook her head. "Well, they might have one in storage here. Look around."

"Right," Owen said, "and you will be doing what while she's stealing Two's loot and I'm examining Mister Jumper?"

"Looking for ghosts."

***

Four hours later and neither ghosts nor aliens spotted, Jack called off the search. "Archie? Join us for a drink?"

"Nah. I've seen you at pubs. You'll be in tomorrow to keep looking?" he asked with a worried look.

"First thing," Jack promised, and led the rest of them out of the darkening halls out to the SUV. Owen grabbed shotgun as Jack pulled the car down the drive. "How is he?"

Archie had smelt of smoke and droned on forever, and Owen had better things to do. He felt not one iota of guilt at the brevity of the exam he'd performed. "Bit of hypertension, no obvious sign of mental deterioration. He did keep going on about the lake monsters." Owen glanced at Jack.

"Those are real."

"Fine. No reason to think he's more bonkers than usual, then."

Gwen said from the back, "He seems nice. Lonely, though. He said it's been years since he's had anyone else working with him here."

Jack drove toward the village; Torchwood House stood quite a bit outside Glasgow proper, which was fine with Owen. The last time Archie'd brought them up here, Owen's wallet had been stolen when he'd gone to the city centre on an errand. He hated Scotland and suspected Scotland hated him right back.

Jack said, "The Glasgow location was where the Institute was founded. Queen Vicky established it right where we were standing today after a visit from two people in a blue phone box."

"But I thought Torchwood was originally founded to hunt down the Doctor?"

"I never said it was a good visit. Anyway, they used to be the big Torchwood team. The rest of us were satellite offices doing our own thing. The organisation got shuffled a decade ago."

"Fifty-two years," Ianto piped up from the back seat.

"Seems like last week," Jack said, annoyed by the constant interruptions. Owen worried there would soon be more singing. "It's just Archie now. The rest, well, you know Torchwood."

Gwen took the hopeful option. "Did any of them retire?"

"Yes," Jack said, confidently, which lifted the spirits of the four listeners. Then after a moment, he added, "Kind of. A few left on the disability plan." Ah. The mood in the car deflated. The disability plan wasn't better than getting sacked. Both came with a big dose of Retcon, and usually without the use of one or more limbs. The only employees to have crawled out of Torchwood with their memories intact had been the twenty-odd survivors of the London disaster. Several of those had topped themselves. Only one had been fucking stupid enough to come back.

The sombre group went into the local for supper. Owen wondered how hard it would be to shake free of the rest of the team and check out any willing and lovely members of the suburban Glaswegian culture. The beer wasn't bad, and the food wasn't good, and he rapidly gave up any hope of pulling tonight.

He went back to the bed and breakfast with the team, and was pleased to get his own room without having to complain. That was worth not harassing Ianto over how many rooms he'd reserved. There'd been five at St. David's. Owen only counted four keys tonight. Anything was better than kipping at that lonely old manor house, crowded with ghosts and, Jack had teased, werewolves. Owen could believe either. In contrast, the B&B was cheery and clean, quilts on every bed and a daft but pleasant smile on the landlady's face as she welcomed them to her roomy home away from home.

He went to his own room, considered the bathtub, then dropped onto his feather bed still clothed, falling asleep with his face in the pillow.

***

"So tell me what you want, what you really really want!"

Owen groaned and slapped the radio alarm clock until the Spice Girls shut up. He closed his eyes again until the thirty-second delay told him what he had to do to be their lover. Then he got out of bed, yawning and groaning and wishing he was anywhere but fucking Scotland.

He stumbled down the stairs to the dining room. The rest of the team had gathered at one small table, grumbling into their own breakfasts. Gwen was in dieting-for-the-wedding mode with only dry toast on her plate. Tosh, clearly not willing to be seen eating a full breakfast next to Gwen, satisfied herself with a very small bowl of porridge. Ianto was finishing his second cup of coffee, forgoing the food entirely and looking like Jack hadn't let him sleep a wink. Jack's plate was filled with bacon, toast, and pastries, all of which he enjoyed oblivious to anyone else's breakfast choices as he told stories about Archie from twenty years ago.

Owen stared at the spread on the sideboard, grabbed a pastry, then sat at the next table hoping enough coffee would still his pounding headache. Around him, the other guests chatted about the weather, and about some festival coming up. A bloke next to Owen jostled his elbow. "What you think about the snow, then?"

Owen blinked at him. Clearly he was being addressed. Snow? "It's September."

"Yeah but they're calling for thirty centimetres. What d'you think?"

"As a medical doctor, I advise you to see someone about those hallucinations."

"Owen," said Jack with a warning tone.

"Tell me we're driving back today."

"Tonight," Gwen said, with a sharp look to Jack, who sighed and nodded.

***

Whatever the fuck festival was going on, all the local idiots were aflutter bustling around. "Why couldn't this have waited?"

Tosh had her scanner out, discreetly pretending it was her mobile. "Maybe someone here caused the disturbance Archie saw."

Owen glanced around them as they walked to where the SUV was parked. A homeless bloke stinking of bad decisions mumbled for spare coins, staring at them with his one bloodshot eye. A mummy with two little snotty brats tagging along promised sweets if her darlings would shut the fuck up for a minute, only phrased for the Teletubbies crowd. An old fart who appeared to be ninety percent eyebrows argued with his far too young girlfriend about the time before storming off. Two old grannies toddled together down the road, speaking loudly to each other. Owen shuddered. The faster they found out what was up with Archie and got back home, the better. Cardiff was a hole in the ground, but it wasn't this bad.

Jack said, "All right, same plan as yesterday. Look for whatever is causing Archie's ghosts, and take inventory of anything we can take back with us." He was met with sleepy nods

As they drove back to Torchwood House, grey clouds gathered overhead. Gwen said, "Do you think it will snow? Only I promised Rhys I'd be home tonight." She missed the collective eye roll from the rest of her colleagues, which was for the best.

"Not this early in the year," Ianto said with a reassuring confidence which turned out to be one hundred percent misplaced.

Archie met them at the gate again, this time with a new jumper and an apology already on his face. Jack didn't even get out of the car before he asked, "What happened?"

"Well," said Archie, stretching the word to four delaying syllables, "I couldn't sleep so well last night. I took a look around the grounds myself. I may have set something off."

"May have?" Jack asked with a great deal of patience.

"Did," Archie admitted. "I was looking for the holoprojector. You remember that one." Jack nodded curtly. "I thought it was behind a few boxes. Well, I moved them, and I dropped one." He stared at Jack.

"And?"

"And the Chula Weather Remapper activated." He looked into the darkening sky. "I did turn it off, but we might be in for a spell of weather. Just a bit."

Jack followed his glance and did some mental maths. "If we leave right now, we can be stranded on M74 in a village we've never heard of. Who's interested?" He was greeted with grumbles and Gwen pulling out her mobile to phone Rhys with an apology which turned into a shouting match. Jack glared at Archie. "How long?"

"Day or two. You remember the Remapper. You lot unearthed it in Cardiff right after Christmas in '62 and chucked it here for safe keeping a few months later."

Beside him, Owen noticed Toshiko casually pull up weather data from December 1962 and January 1963. Her face fell as she read her tiny screen. He read over her shoulder and swore. Any hope of going home was lost with the oncoming storm.

They plodded into Torchwood House once more, Gwen lagging behind to keep her mobile signal. "Okay, kids," Jack said amiably. "Back to work. If it snows, I'll buy you all hot cocoas tomorrow." He handed out assignments to search the dusty old building and threatened to check up on each of them. As they came into the entrance hall, Tosh slung her handbag over her shoulder, knocking into Ianto beside her, who stumbled and tipped over a coat tree, which landed with a great clatter. Tosh murmured an apology as Gwen stifled a giggle. "And try not to break things," Jack said, helping him right it as a blush radiated over Ianto's whole face.

Owen headed towards his assigned room with bad grace, checking boxes against the inventory Archie had printed off for each of them. Yesterday hadn't turned up much. Today wasn't looking any more productive. Behind him, Gwen said, "Are you sure about this? I really don't relish the idea of being snowed in here."

"We will be fine," Jack said. "It might not even snow at all."

***

It snowed.

Great wet flakes drifted through the air as Ianto brought them lunch and complained about the road conditions. White lumps already spread over the lawns, thick as bird shit and just as welcome.

"It's worse to the south," Tosh said, checking the news feeds as she ate her sandwich. "The highways may shut down."

Ignoring Gwen's glare, Jack declared their plan to stay put a victory for road safety, and he refused to worry about the weather for the rest of their increasingly grumpy luncheon. Owen went back to his own search, only to be interrupted a few hours later by Jack's voice in his ear ordering them all to the main hall.

Another piece of alien junk sat on a small table in the hall. Tosh scanned the thing whilst Jack moved his hands around, careful not to touch although someone had clearly moved whatever it was already. Archie leaned his head over in curiosity.

"What's the good news?" Gwen asked.

"Holoprojector," Tosh said. "Activated by psychic energy. Anyone at a Psy level of two or higher can activate it, even by accident." She smiled kindly at Archie. "You're a four?"

"Last they measured me, yeah."

Jack folded his arms. "Interran party toy. Thirtieth century. This one was miscategorised as a diary." He glanced at Archie, who shrugged. "We can leave it, or I can try to pull the power supply. Your ghosts, your call."

"How do we control the holoprojector?" Gwen asked, stepping closer. "Couldn't we just turn the thing off by thinking?"

"Doubtful," said Jack. "Give it a go."

"Me?"

"You're a six. You should be a natural."

"What's that mean?" she asked, suspicion blooming over her face. Owen was dying to know as well, but wouldn't say.

"It's one of your recruitment tests. You were all evaluated when I brought you on."

Tosh frowned. "What?"

Jack waved his hand dismissively. Ianto coughed and said, "Torchwood standard procedure. Torchwood One had mandatory evaluation and training." Beside him, the directors of Torchwood Two and Torchwood Three eloquently expressed their shared opinion of One's policies without saying a word.

Owen didn't remember any psychic testing. He did remember more than one Retcon test. Bloody Jack gave him more tests then wiped his memory. The horny bastard probably snogged him, too.

Gwen looked sceptical but approached the device. "How does it work?"

Jack explained as Tosh typed notes quickly into her data pad. Gwen's expression melted into curiosity. Ianto coughed and disappeared out to the SUV. Owen was sure he'd been surreptitiously filling the boot with Tosh's better finds all day. Owen stood there bored, but not bored enough to help Ianto with the petty larceny of Two's goodies.

Eventually, with a twinkle of blue lights, the holoprojector filled the room with faces. Owen didn't know most of them. Tosh said, "That's Dot Branning." She glanced at Gwen. "You said you didn't watch Eastenders."

"I don't keep up with it," Gwen said, focusing on the holoprojector. "This is really something."

"Turn it off," Jack said. "Or, don't. I've got suggestions of some good holograms you could show."

"Please no," said Owen, horrified at the kind of videos Captain Jack would enjoy. Fortunately, the images faded, even Dot, and the blue lights dimmed to nothing. "Great. Ghost issue solved. Can we leave now?"

Archie tried talking them into spending the night. "It's a lovely manor. I have a night here now and then. And you've sorted out the ghosts."

"Maybe next time," said Jack.

Ianto came back in, snow melting on his jacket. "Are we staying or heading back to the village? The roads aren't getting better."

"We're going." Jack clapped Archie on the shoulder. "Need a lift back to yours?"

"I'll stay, thanks."

"Right. We'll be heading back to Cardiff tomorrow as soon as the roads are clear." They exchanged their goodbyes as the team loaded up the last of their own gear and whatever easily-pocketed items remained. Archie would blow a fuse when he discovered how many artefacts had walked out today. Not Owen's problem.

The drive back to the bed and breakfast went slowly and with a ton of Welsh-accented swearing at every slick patch, until at last they parked in the same spot as this morning.

Gwen said, "It's not so bad out right now. Who wants to visit the festival?" She flashed an extra encouraging smile, not directly reminding them all she wasn't home tonight with her idiot fiancé because of business and they owed her, but allowing that opening.

"Pass," said Owen.

Tosh said, "It could be fun."

Jack looked dreamily at the lights. "Rides, bobbing for apples. Kewpie dolls!" He flashed a grin towards Ianto. "Did I ever tell you that Kewpie dolls are based on Turanian fertility idols?"

"You didn't. We wanted to look at, ah, that thing?" said Ianto to Jack, who immediately nodded. Owen didn't want to know.

"Right. That." He smiled. "Have fun, kids."

"Owen?" Tosh asked, as the pair disappeared into the homey entrance of the B&B, no doubt to shag themselves stupid.

"Not my way to spend a Friday night, thanks." There was a pub with his name on it close by, and surely some bird who wasn't unwilling. He ignored the disappointed look on Tosh's face, before Gwen grabbed her arm and pulled her away towards the snow-covered bunting. He sighed and headed towards the pub.

He got a good seat at the bar, chatted up a few likely-looking candidates for Mrs. Right Here Right Now, and struck out with all of them. He'd give a lot to have that body spray back, he thought, checking out an otherwise pretty blonde with a slight case of nystagmus. Sure, Jack had shouted his ear off after, and told him in no uncertain terms if anyone was found using it again, they'd have to surgically remove his boot from their arse. Sure, looking at the situation from the perspective that "no" didn't mean "yes if you're a bit addled on alien sex hormones," he probably shouldn't use the stuff again. Still, checking out the legs on that girl, Owen would have been happy to balance the needs of the many against the needs of his cock.

More people bustled into the pub, bringing their funfair food and prizes and loud chatter, all of them spilling over onto him. Any chance he had of pulling tonight was smothered under a large stuffed blue bear and an ugly doll both carried by the fat bloke who grabbed the chair next to him. The doll squeaked mournfully as Owen squeezed it, shoving the mess out of his space. The fat bloke muttered an apology but didn't move.

Owen left in defeat and walked back to the B&B in the lightly falling snow.

***

"So tell me what you want, what you really really want!"

Owen groaned. He had a headache and he felt as though he'd barely slept. His hand reached for the snooze, eventually earning himself thirty more seconds of quiet. He groaned again.

He did the usual check when he wasn't home in his own bed. No partner asleep beside him, which meant no awkward slipping out. Slight smell of must under a shit ton of potpourri. Right. That same bed and breakfast in Scotland. Fuck. Maybe the roads had been cleared in the night and they could go back to fucking Wales. The thought was almost not worth getting out of bed.

Eventually he threw off the covers. His clothes from yesterday were back in his bag, as folded as they ever were. Owen gave them the sniff test, decided they passed, and dressed. He glanced out the window and noticed the grey sky with no snow. Even better. The temperature had warmed up overnight, melting the mess away.

In a slightly better mood, he made his way downstairs for breakfast. The others sat around one table. Jack shovelled a forkful of bacon into his mouth as he laughed. "And then, Archie said, 'I swear, the loch was here yesterday!'"

The girls made an attempt at smiles. Gwen had only a bit of dry toast on her plate. Once again, Toshiko had opted for the smallest bowl of porridge possible. Ianto looked just as rough as yesterday. Owen wasn't about to have a long talk with Jack about letting his whatever get a little more fucking sleep with a little less fucking. Not his problem.

He glanced at the table. Same selections as yesterday. The pastry hadn't been very good. He tried a small plate of bacon and toast and sat at the next table over.

"What you think about the snow, then?" The bloke beside him nudged Owen with one very brave elbow.

"Does it usually melt that fast?"

"Melt?" The bloke looked confused. "They're calling for thirty centimetres. What d'you think?"

"I think you're hungover, mate. The storm was yesterday."

"What storm?"

Jack had stopped talking about Archie, and he looked at Owen curiously. He didn't say another word until the time came to shuttle the team out the door. Owen followed last, his headache fading. Outside, the locals were out in force for whatever the fuck festival they had here in Scotland. Sheep would be involved somehow, he was certain.

Tosh pulled her scanner from her handbag, pretending it was her mobile. "Maybe someone here caused the disturbance Archie saw."

An alarm, just as obnoxious as the one which had awakened him this morning, played in the back of his head, and grew louder as he looked around. A homeless bloke pan-handled for spare coins, and Owen was positive Gwen had given him a coin the same way yesterday, even digging for her coin purse with the same polite smile. Not far away, a mummy dragged her two kiddies in a hurry, promising sweets, wandering right by two loudly inappropriate grannies.

Owen rubbed his head. Déjà vu. He really needed to get out of this bloody place and somewhere sane with aliens and Weevils.

Jack said, "All right, same plan as yesterday. Look for whatever is causing Archie's ghosts, and take inventory of anything we can take back with us."

"I thought we were headed home," Owen said. The others stared at him. "We found the artefact already."

"No," Jack said, with less patience than he might. "We're working today. We'll head home tonight."

As they drove, Gwen said, "Do you think it will snow? Only I promised Rhys I'd be home tonight."

At that moment, the alarm in his head blared loudly and a cold pit filled his stomach. "Stop the car."

Jack pulled over, and Owen climbed out of the SUV. Overhead, grey clouds threatened snow. He took several deep breaths of cold air, staring. Behind him, he heard the doors slam. "Owen?" asked Tosh, because of course she'd have come over. "You all right?"

He didn't say anything at first. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but not Tosh's. He turned and saw Jack there, flanked by the rest of the team. "Something you need to tell us?"

He gulped. "Any of you remember it snowing yesterday?" He was greeted with shaken heads. "Shit."

"Time loop," Jack said sympathetically. "First time through?"

"Yeah. This morning started out exactly like yesterday. It snowed yesterday. Closed the highway."

Tosh tapped her scanner looking for information. "There's a bad storm brewing."

Gwen said kindly, "There wasn't any snow yesterday."

"Not for us," said Jack. "Anyone else reliving the day?" The others shook their heads. He sighed, and then he took Owen by the shoulder. "Let's go have a chat. Ianto, phone Archie and tell him we'll be delayed. Gwen, take the keys and keep the car warm. It's a witch's tit out here. Tosh, find out what you can about this snow storm. Owen, step into my office."

When they had walked a bit away from the SUV and out of earshot of the rest, Jack paused. "Did you touch anything yesterday at Torchwood House?"

"A couple dozen things. God knows what you lot played with." He pointed up. "This storm? Archie broke the Chula weather remapper. Apparently you found it in '62 and caused a fuckup then?"

Jack grinned to himself, and Owen just knew he was remembering how he'd kept warm during that previous snowstorm. "Okay, I believe you. They might or might not. The fact that you're the only one who remembers anything says you're the one at the centre of it all."

"So where are the rest of you? Am I inside some fucking time bubble or something?"

"We all are. And we won't be able to leave until it's broken."

"You've broken out of these before, right? You and Captain Murder Spree."

A dark look crossed Jack's face. "Yeah, but it took us five years to figure the way out. You might be stuck for a long, long time, and none of us will know what's happened to you. For us, only one day will pass."

Owen tried to sort this out. "It's only been one day for me."

"True. You might be able to break out after one rotation. Usually that's sparked by a particular event: death, end of the world, that sort of thing, with a chance at a redo. I did one of those … " He stopped talking suddenly, face closing off like a trap. He didn't like talking about his ex, but whatever he was touching on now was absolutely out of bounds. "Anyway, sometimes someone else breaks the loop for you."

"In the meantime, what do I do?"

Jack shrugged. "When I was stuck with him, we had a lot of sex and did a lot of drugs, and I read a lot of books and learned a lot of card tricks. You could pick up a hobby. But Owen? You might think nothing you do in the loop has any consequences, and broadly, you'd be right. You won't go to prison. You won't get fat, or sick, and if you are looping the way I did, you won't even be able to die. But everything you do stays happened for you." He picked his words carefully, like wildflowers. "I undid the consequences of everything that happened during my time loop, but I can never undo having been the man who did those things, no matter how long I live."

Owen was freezing out here in the windy cold and gathering gloom, and his immortal boss was talking to him like a concerned dad before his first date. "All right. Advice noted."

"Good." Jack patted him on the arm. "Today we'll try to sort out what sent you into the loop. If you loop tomorrow, you'll have to explain it to us again. Tosh will ask a lot of questions. Let her. She's got the best chance of helping you."

Owen looked at Jack's wrist strap. "What about that? Didn't you say it let you travel through time?"

"Broken." A twitch of lip Owen couldn't read flickered over Jack's face and vanished. "Anyway, they wouldn't work in the middle of a time bubble. Sorry."

They returned to the SUV. Jack gave a shorter explanation than Owen would have. "You two," he pointed to Gwen and Ianto, "keep searching. Wider parameters this time. Anything that might have started this loop, bring it to me."

As soon as they arrived, Jack cut short Archie's apology about the impending snow and caught him up to speed on Owen's predicament. "Any ideas?"

"I can go through the inventory, but I can't think of a thing. Sorry, lad," he said to Owen, patting him on the arm sympathetically. Puffs of smoke came off today's jumper. As they walked inside, Tosh slung her bag over her shoulder, bumping into Ianto, who knocked into the coat tree. Owen winced as it clattered to the floor.

***

Chapter Two

O Great Pumpkin

2015-09-15T01:47:07Z

O Great Pumpkin, I present for your approval this very sincere pumpkin patch. I hope your trickortreatex is ghoulish and bright!

My AO3 username is NancyBrown. It is possible I enjoy Trick or Treat even more than I love Yuletide, and I love Yuletide a lot. I hope you enjoy it, too!

Likes: fix-its, friendly rivalries, sticky sweet schmoop, time travel, "you and me against the world," crossovers with neighbouring fandoms (Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures, Class, Static Shock, Batman:TAS, Superman:TAS -- not Supernatural or Teen Wolf because I don't watch them), tie-ins to fics I've written (what?), humour, case fics, romance, mystery, hopeful apocalypses, old fashioned horror.

Dislikes: character bashing (this includes bashing characters' names), non-fixed character deaths, noncon, issue fic, OC POV, A/B/O, mundane AUs, body horror, unrequested pairings unless you know for a fact I ship it. TW-specific DNWs: CoE and MD (though I like the CoE characters and enjoy AUs where they interact with the other cast and no one is dead and nothing hurts). Despite this, as stated above, I am weirdly good with apocafic as long as there's a hopeful ending or everyone everywhere is dead together. My issues, man. Don't ask about them.

Fandoms! The following prompts are ideas, and I'm not married to any of them. I am good with anything in the usual tropes lists. (For a nice long list, start here.) Mainly, use some or all of the characters I requested, don't focus on characters I didn't request, and I'm going to be pleased with whatever I find in my goody bag. Except bees or wasps. Don't leave bees or wasps in there, please. Issues. I told you.

Torchwood

Suggested prompts:
- Sticky sweet Jack/Ianto (could be literal) solving a case together
- Same pairing dealing with Alice and/or Steven and/or magically-acquired possibly-alien infant
- Lois and Ianto manage to take over the world together. Possibly they are the monsters.
- Cyberwoman AU: Lisa wins
- Cyberwoman never happened: Lisa and Ianto move to Cardiff post-Canary Wharf for typical Torchwood adventures, by which I mean sex with Jack
- full classic team (or parts thereof, or adding in Lois) have to deal with something horrible coming through the Rift, which they handle in typical Torchwood fashion (badly).
- on the creepier side, Jack and/or Alice are haunted by Ianto and Steve's ghosts
- Alice winds up as a Companion to one of the Doctors. (Maybe Thirteen? I'm also always happy with her having adventures with Jenny.)

DC Animated Universe

I am happy to see the rest of the League in a fic. I chose these characters as focus characters, and also I ship John/Shayera and Warhawk/Aquagirl like it's my job.

Suggested Prompts:
- The Justice League or the JLU Beyond team misses saving the world just one time.
- JLU Beyond team keeps up the League tradition of alternating between wanting to kill your coworkers and wanting to bone your coworkers
- John/Shayera with lil Rex fluff (I don't like the JLU Beyond comics, and I think they served Mari poorly, feel free to ignore them and show her living a long, happy life).
- Time loop shenanigans
- Zombies, pirates, zombie pirates?
- Trapped on the other side of the universe together and finding the way home.
- Sometimes it's fun to trick or treat in your own costume.

Gargoyles

- Xanatos gonna Xanatos. Just because the X-family is on the straight and narrow doesn't mean they're always on the straight and narrow. What plans within plans are they cooking this time?
- David/Fox/Owen is 100% my jam, raising Alex and causing mayhem on the side.
- How many more ghosts live in the castle?

New TW Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (Master Post)

2015-01-12T12:41:14Z

Title: The Valentine's Day Massacre
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Steven, Lois, Alice, Freda Evans, Original Characters, Agent Johnson, Martha, Mickey, Miss Valentine, Rhiannon
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Martha/Mickey
Rating: Some scenes only appropriate for adults
Words: 35,300
Beta: jo02, with greatest thanks
Warnings: murder most foul, graphic violence, background references to prostitution and noncon
Spoilers: references to all of TW canon as well as to the novels, audiobooks, and radio plays
Summary: Torchwood is caught in the middle of a war between two alien gangs.
Prompt: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1968)
Disclaimer: Torchwood characters and situations belong to the BBC. "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967) belongs to Twentieth-Century Fox. The real St. Valentine's Day Massacre as heavily dramatized in the film was a famous unsolved murder in Chicago in 1929. Click here to learn more about the original event.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Also available at AO3, fanfiction.net, and Teaspoon.

Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (6/6)

2015-01-12T02:43:42Z

The Valentine's Day Massacre (6/6)
Words: 35,300 (4500 this part)

***
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
***
Chapter 6
***

They already had the best weapons out and readied by the time Albert got back from London. Ianto had spent his time carefully selecting each one for range and fire power, ensuring the mechanisms were clean and oiled or otherwise charged. This did not prevent Albert from rechecking each one whilst Ianto quietly fumed at the slight.

"I do know how to do this. It used to be my job."

"Still not interested in getting killed because you fucked up."

"Boys," said Jack from across the room. "Can it."

He and Gwen went over maps of the area Freda had indicated. "Industrial estate just off Clydesmuir Road. Lot of hiding places." She pulled up photographs in one window, and the rental agreement in the other. "There are a lot of homes there, too."

"Yeah," said Jack. "And Mopolite's already digging in." He pointed to the map. Ianto couldn't make out where he meant, and leant in for a better view. "We'll set up here."

"That's right out there in the open," Ianto said. "They can't miss us."

"That's the idea."

Gwen smiled at him and patted his arm. "Look at it this way. If it doesn't work, we'll be the first ones killed and we won't have to bother with the fallout."

Lois looked up from getting her kit together. "Everyone says you used to be the optimistic one."

Pol said, "Everyone lies, dear."

Rhys stayed out of the way in the corner, occasionally casting glances at Alice, who had her own rifle. "Am I going to get one of those?"

"No, love," Gwen said.

"But Alice does."

Alice rolled her eyes, then unslung her weapon, and shot off a round at the target down the corridor. Three shots, dead centre. "Alice knows how to use this," she said, slinging it again.

"Ah." Rhys chuckled, and nodded at Jack, but before he could say anything, Jack interrupted.

"And that's why your mother was the best weapons trainer I've ever met."

Steven said, "Cool! When are you going to show me how to do that?"

"Never," Ianto said, at the same time Jack said, "Next week," and Alice said, "Not until you're much older." She glared at her father. Steven deflated.

Pol clucked and said, "For the best. Guns make trouble." This didn't, Ianto noticed, stop her from stashing a gun in her handbag to match the one in her holster. "Are we ready?"

Lois said, "No," but no-one listened.

Gwen kissed Rhys on the cheek. "Stay here with Alice. Keep an eye on Anwen and Freda for me."

"Keep yourself safe," he said, hugging her. "This is a mad plan."

"But it's the only one we have." She spent a longer moment fussing over her sleepy daughter, kissing her hair and her face and making quiet promises to come home soon.

Albert led the way to the car whilst Alice and Rhys took the children, and Freda, into the locked rooms in the heart of the new Hub. Lois had triple-checked the electronic codes and made sure everyone knew them by heart. That didn't stop the worry Ianto felt as Steven passed out of his sight, nor the leaden weight in his heart as he heard the door slam and lock. He'd be fine. His mother would protect him. This was just for tonight.

Jack grabbed his arm, holding him back as the rest walked out. "I need a minute with you."

"If you only plan to take one minute, I'll pass, thanks."

Jack smirked. "You know me. I would happily take all night. But someone says he has to sleep."

"Someone does, and so do you. Your minute's half up." He watched Jack's face. "I'm coming with you on this no matter what, and half a minute won't convince me otherwise."

Jack's eyes softened. "I know. Look, when we're out there, if this goes sour, I want you behind me."

Ianto straightened up a bit. "I'm always behind you, Jack. You know that."

"I mean, I want you standing there. Don't get any bright ideas about running out and being a hero. And don't get in front of me because the last thing in the world I want is to accidentally shoot you again."

Jack squeezed his arm as Ianto unconsciously stepped away, pulse hammering. He hadn't known. He hadn't wanted to know. "I asked you not to tell me."

"I know." Jack met his eyes. "I needed you to know. I'm sorry. Please don't get shot again, and do not die again because I can't take it. All right?"

Still perplexed, Ianto nodded. He could forgive Jack anything. He knew that, and Jack knew it as well. His own memories of that mad day were still clear whatever the timeline currently said. He remembered the grey skies, and his heartbreak when Martha didn't know his face. He remembered his sudden insight, that one artefact on Earth that might defeat a perception filter, and his own desperate grab for Martha's TARDIS key, which had startled Mickey, Gwen, and Jack into action. He remembered the cold metal in his hand, and Jack's shout to the others, before he'd thrown the precious key to Steven, before the sound of the shot and the ice cold pain.

Jack could never have been the one, and Jack wouldn't lie to him to protect Mickey Smith.

With a cold rush, Ianto found that, for all he'd claimed that the details didn't matter to him, the knowledge filled him like a balloon, leaving him full when he hadn't understood he'd been empty for so long. He couldn't forgive her what he hadn't exactly forgotten. His old injury twinged and throbbed. Yet as the ache returned, he noticed the pain was lessened even from this morning. The last cut, made with care, excised the last bit of emotional shrapnel he'd been hoarding from that terrible day. If he survived the night, he'd heal cleanly.

"Yes, sir."

***

The streetlights glared sodium yellow on the last of the snow. Cold air bit into exposed skin. Jack worried, remembering too many winters past when friends' fingers went too numb to shoot. This wasn't France during the hellish winter of '17. These friends had thermal lining and warm beds to get back to, if they lived.

He looked over them, as they nervously checked their weapons one last time. Every team was his best team. He couldn't function if he spent his life mourning those he'd lost from each iteration of Torchwood. He'd never forget any of them, not Harriet or Gerald, not Charles or Greg, not Lucia or Meg, and not Toshiko or Owen. When these good people passed on to that place he couldn't follow, he'd remember them.

Sparing a glance for the man beside him, he hoped he wouldn't lose his mind the next time. Because there would be a next time. It could be tonight. It could be seventy years from now. Jack would lose another of the great loves of his life, and he would have to go on.

Ianto caught his eyes. "This had better work. If we get killed, I intend to haunt you this time."

"You won't be alone," Gwen said. "I've been practising my chain-rattling."

Pol tutted. "You promised not to tell us about what Rhys likes to do in your bedroom."

Albert rolled his eyes. Lois admitted she could be up for making spooky noises, then asked timorously, "Is it too late for me to point out I'm just the admin, and go home?"

"Admins get eaten by insane cannibal villagers, too."

"Once!" Jack said, turning on Ianto in exasperation. "You almost got eaten by insane cannibal villagers once."

Gwen said, "I got shot that trip, don't forget."

Albert said, "You may get another chance tonight, unless you packed your Kevlar knickers."

"You also promised not to tell us about your knickers."

Lois asked if she should order the team a set of incontinence pants for their next mission. Ianto suggested brands. Polly disagreed with most of his suggestions, and touted the medical-grade brand from the hospital. Gwen refused, citing the bad fit under her jeans. Albert stared at the butt of his gun as though he'd like to start beating himself to death with it.

Jack watched them fondly as they bickered over underwear instead of panicking. "Does anyone need a rousing speech? I've come up with a good one."

"No," came the chorus of voices.

"Right."

In the shadows of the buildings around them, forms moved and readied. Jack was almost sure this would be ground zero, where the two groups clashed. But what if they went for the safety of doors and walls, and attacked one another from the rooftops? Midnight fast approached them, with too many variables.

Albert said, "Boss, do not fuck this up. The rest of you, it's been a honour and I'll buy the first round in Hell."

The alarm Jack had set on his wrist strap beeped, a purposefully tinny alarm reminiscent of the worst clock he'd owned in the mid-80s. He held up his arm. The alarm beeped and echoed between the buildings, from the windows and the metal doors.

"Do you hear that?" Jack shouted, letting his voice follow the reflected beeps, casting audible footprints down the road. "That's the warning. Two minutes to midnight. Two minutes until the truce is over."

He stepped out, a little away from the band of warmth that was his team.

"You know who I am." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "You know who we are. Some of you think we burned down your warehouse and stole a ship. Some of you think we stormed into a garage this morning and murdered seven of your people."

"You did, you bastards!" came a shout from a doorway, with as thick a South Glamorgan accent as Jack had ever heard.

"I'm standing here telling you we didn't. We didn't kill those people. We didn't take your things." He took a breath, stinging cold air filling his lungs. "And you've been fighting, but I'm here to tell you, you didn't kill one another, either. The assassinations, the thefts, yeah, some of it's been you, but a lot of the escalation has come from a third party."

"Torchwood," said a voice from a different shadow. A different accent, East London.

"Okay, a fourth party. There's a group, they keep quiet but you may have heard of them. They're called Firestone Finance. They set you up, set us up. They want us all fighting so we'll do their dirty work for them, and kill one another. They want us dead, and they want to swoop in and pick up our toys." And we almost missed their play.

He touched the playback button on his arm. Miss Valentine's voice boomed through the estate:

"I don't care if Mopolite cuts all the Bugs down. I don't care if the Bugs eat him and his people alive. I would enjoy watching both groups take your fossil of a dead organisation with them. It doesn't matter who wins this stupid little war. I'll be there at the end with a bag and a long list of ready buyers for the weapons, the trinkets, and even the bodies. Whatever happens, I win."

He shut off the recording. A moment later, his strap beeped again. He let the sound go five times before silencing it. "That's midnight."

"What if we don't believe you?" asked a shadow. Behind that shadow, voices rumbled in languages Jack had barely heard of.

"Then you come out here and you tear each other apart. Your people will be slaughtered, and Miss Valentine wins the game."

"Maybe we will start with you." This voice was much closer. Not all the species here tonight were entirely corporeal. Wouldn't be the first time he'd had to deal with a temperamental gas bag.

"Maybe you will. You'll have to go through us to get to each other."

He stepped back, until the back of his coat felt the heat of the other five standing together. His team.

"And I guess, since this is my town, I get to make the first play."

He gave the hand signal. The six of them lowered their weapons and placed them on the ground in front of their feet, metal clicking sharply against the asphalt. Jack raised his hands above his head.

"Your call," he said. "Fight each other and die for nothing." He pressed play again:

"They aren't people. They are clever animals, and I want their pelts."

"Your choice," Jack said, and he waited.

The Boss Bug walked out of the shadows. It approached him, walking into the thin light of the sodium lamps. Jack watched the tip of the weapon point at his head, and idly identified the model. That would shear off the top of his skull, shattering bone and spilling brain. He could not read the Bug's face at all. Close by, he heard Pol clutch at her handbag.

The Bug set down its weapon. "If this is another trap, you will wish you could die, Captain."

"It's not."

"It could be," said Mopolite's cultured tones, as he strolled into the light. He shook his mandibles at them. "I could kill you both right now and have this dreadful nonsense sorted."

"You could," Jack said. He kept his hands up. "You could kill them. You could spend time until you got bored trying to kill me. But I'm unkillable, and they're Welsh, and neither of us will ever give up. You've lost before you begin. Make a deal. Prove you're smarter than Miss Valentine thinks you are." He grinned. "I happen to have her Cardiff and London offices," he said, reaching into a pocket and gingerly retrieving a small bit of paper. "You can register a complaint with her."

Mopolite reached out a hand for the addresses, which Jack pulled back. "Gwen would like to have an extra word with you later, by the way. She has a few concerns about some of your business interests." Jack felt Gwen's eyes on the back of his neck. He'd promised her but he wasn't sure he should press his luck tonight. Shut down the war today, and she could shut down his brothels and the drugs ring tomorrow. It'd give her a project, assuming Jack hadn't just killed the entire deal and all of them as well.

He held his breath.

Mopolite tilted his head. Then he set down his gun with exaggerated grace. "Give me the address. We will talk."

***
February 15th
***

Lois took Dr. Pol back to her own house, and offered to stay and help the last of the clean-up. Albert joined them unasked. "You should be safe now," she assured the doctor in the car, catching Albert's eye as she did. They might have to offer to stay on tonight, one of them anyway, until Pol was more secure in her home. Invaded once, frightened forever.

Albert said, "They're not coming back. Ever."

Pol sat back in her seat. "I know the first fellow won't. I'm not sure about his friend."

"I am." And nothing either of them asked of him ever yielded a more detailed answer than that.

They parked in front of the house. As they stepped out with Pol and her bag, Lois took note of their surroundings. The slushy snow on her front walk had been ploughed. The door, which had been broken in its frame by the invaders, now sat tidily closed. The wood clearly needed fresh paint over the repair, but paint wouldn't set in this cold.

Albert glanced at Lois and got his gun ready as they approached the house. The door opened in front of them before they could reach it, and a young man with untidy hair and a nervous smile peeked out. Albert almost shot him. Pol's hand shot out and grabbed his arm.

"Darren, hello," she said loudly. "What are you doing here?"

Darren grinned. "You're back!" He opened the door to let them inside. As they entered, Lois saw how their quick clean-up effort from the other day had been completed. The carpet was cleaned of glass and blood, and a new (ish, her eye said; this was second-hand with years of scratches in the old wood but lovingly polished) coffee table in the centre of the room. Even the dishes in the sink had been scrubbed and tidied away.

Darren fumbled with his hands. "We, um, that is, the other neighbours and I. Well, you were gone. And your house was a tip. So we fixed it up, me and Miss Suwali and Mrs. Pettidear and everyone." The nervous smile was back. "You're so good at taking care of everyone, they all said. They wanted to take care of you for a change."

Pol sat heavily on her settee. Then she stared up at Darren. "Thank you," she said, a choke deep in her throat.

"It's all right, isn't it?"

Lois said, "It was very kind of you."

"Only we were worried," Darren nattered on,"because Torchwood showed up, and we thought maybe they'd take you away." He looked at Lois and Albert. "You know, on account of her being an alien and all."

"What's Torchwood?" Lois chimed in on cue.

"You think I'm a what?"

Albert said nothing, but Lois watched a knife drop smoothly from the sheathe in his sleeve into his hand. He stepped, casually but squarely, between Pol and Darren.

Darren raised his hands. "It's all right. Everyone knows. Except Mrs. Pettidear, I think, but she's a bit daft." He smiled again. "It's Cardiff, you know." He nodded at Lois. "When you've been here a bit longer, you'll learn. It's all aliens and such. Most of them are all right, like Dr. Pol here. The ones that aren't, that's Torchwood's business. You'll see them around the city. I met them once. They're okay. Bit weird but they mean well."

Pol smiled weakly at him. "So I've heard. You really aren't frightened of me?"

"Nah. None of us are."

Lois saw the knife shift and push back into place.

"Anyway, come round when you can. We're all doing supper for you this week, no arguments." He nodded amiably at Lois and Albert. "Your friends can come along, too. Make it a real party."

Before either of them could decline, Pol said, "That'd be lovely."

***

"I don't have to drive you home," Gwen said, as Freda stepped into her car. "If you don't want to go, you could stay with us."

Freda's shoulders slumped even deeper into her jacket. "I have to sort out the funeral," she said in a small, tired voice. Resident aliens didn't go much for burials, choosing cremation and disguise unless they had a religious prohibition.

Gwen had nearly forgotten Slaus had died, so caught up she'd been with not dying herself. She was forgetting too much these days. She used to be the one who remembered birthdays, and anniversaries, and who was getting married. It seemed that every time she turned around, she'd lost another thought. She didn't want to lose this one.

Gwen said, "Hold on a moment." She dialled Rhys. "All right, we're putting off dinner."

Rhys sounded confused over the phone. "But it's Valentine's. You said we had to go out."

"We'll make it up another time."

He let out a breath. "I'm allowed to say it this time. Bloody Torchwood again?"

"Not this time. Love you. I'll be home later." She rang off. To Freda she said, "That's my day cleared. I'm taking you back, and I will help you with this. All right?"

Freda shrugged again. "Yeah. Thanks."

And when the funeral was over, Gwen thought as she drove, she'd talk with Freda and with Rhys. They had gone through three nannies already. Perhaps Freda would be up for the job. It would do her some good to move out of her sad little flat with the terrible memories and into a home where she'd be cared for, and where Gwen wouldn't ever forget her again.

Not a perfect solution. Torchwood never offered those.

***

Jack told the rest of the team not to come in for the whole weekend unless the west coast fell into the Irish Sea. They were all tired, and they'd done him proud, he said, but only where Ianto could hear. Jack had a terrible habit of not praising his people when they did well, which only served to make them try even harder to please him. Ianto was of course above all that, except when he wasn't.

They drove Alice and Steven as far as the train station. Jack would happily drive them the entire way, but Alice insisted the train was better.

"But it's the weekend," Steven said, without much hope. "I get to stay over weekends."

Alice squeezed him. "Their flat is a wreck, and we need to get home. I've got to get things sorted out. Besides, we need to pick up Dribble and bring her home before Mrs. Emerson kicks her out."

"Her name is Batman," he said with a grumpy glare.

Ianto said, "I believe that dog generally answers to 'Supper,' actually."

Steven gave him a quick, somewhat embarrassed hug. He was getting old for hugs, especially hugs with someone who wasn't his dad. But he wasn't too old just yet. "Be good," Ianto said. "We'll pick you up next weekend."

Alice didn't have a hug for her father, though she shook Ianto's hand warmly before boarding the train. "Call him tonight," she said. "He'll settle in better back home."

"I will."

Steven waved, and then they boarded, and he couldn't see where they walked or sat. Beside him, Jack watched the train load, and slowly pull away from the station.

"Some day, that woman is going to like me again."

"Doubtful. She is working her way back to loving you, if that's any consolation." Ianto took his hand, mindful that people would stare and not caring. "We should go home. We have a mess to clean up, and a long weekend ahead of us to do it in."

Jack grimaced at the prospect of cleaning. "Maybe the west coast will fall into the sea?"

"Don't be that way, Captain. You, me, a broom, and a large pot of coffee. It'll be like the old days."

Jack squeezed his hand. "Hey, it's the day after Valentine's, and we never did anything."

"Romance isn't really us. You're not going to convince me to skive off."

"Pity."

They walked to the observation platform, listening to the trains, and the bustle of people around them. He admitted to a bit of fascination with trains ever since Rhys had had that odd experience at Grangetown Station. Watching now, he knew Jack had walked these platforms, and their predecessors, for years. Ianto himself had been shot just over there. Hell of a thing.

Jack said, "They found a dead body on a train that left here a few days ago. Weird thing was, the guy had deteriorated in place and no-one noticed he was there until this morning when someone sat on him."

Ianto wrinkled his nose. "Alien?"

"Human."

"Not our department, then."

"I suppose not." Jack pulled him away from the observation platform and towards the car park. "I didn't say thank you for the coral."

"You didn't have to. We were occupied." Ianto got in, picking the driving seat without comment. He really wanted a car of his own again. "I thought you might like having it back."

"She's a bit of TARDIS. She broke apart on the shore here seventy years ago. I've grown her from a piece the size of a pea."

Ianto, reaching for the key, stopped dead. "You kept a TARDIS as a desk ornament?" So many questions asserted themselves at once. Jack's obsession with the Doctor, with escaping Earth properly, and his returning here over and again despite both, and how the TARDIS of his dreams hated the very touch of him, and what it meant to keep a bit of one alive, like a broken-off piece of spider plant stuck in a hopeful glass of water. Which had watched them have sex numerous times.

Carefully, he turned the key. The engine growled to life. "You're growing another one, then."

"I was. Then after everything that happened, and I found out what happened to me, I thought, the TARDIS made me this way. She didn't mean to pour the whole Vortex into me, or turn me into a fixed point. She never intended for me to outlive everyone I've ever loved." As Ianto pulled out into traffic and headed towards their home, Jack said, "And I thought, maybe if this one grows up, I can ask her to take it all back from me."

Or place the same curse on someone else, Ianto thought but kept off his own face. Jack might not ever be cured, but there was a chance, however small, that he wouldn't have to go through eternity alone.

"I never knew why you had it. Her," he corrected himself.

"Thank you for finding her."

"You're welcome."

"I didn't get you anything."

"Like I said, we don't really do romance."

"Maybe we should."

Ianto turned on the radio, searching for something he liked. Driver picked the music, passenger shut up and listened, that was the rule. He looked for Red Dragon, and remembered it didn't exist any longer, the station was Capital South Wales now. Although he wasn't certain, he thought the current presenter might be one of the Welsh aliens from last night. Everything changed, even the radio. Even Jack.

He turned the car suddenly.

"Where are we going?"

"I haven't decided."

"Okay. What are we going to do?"

Ianto kept driving as he considered places to go, things to see. They'd promised to visit Rhiannon, but that was Sunday, which was a million years away from tonight. They could take in dinner and a film, and relive their first date, with fewer arrests for public indecency this go. They could drive to the country and watch the stars, or see if that nice place down the coast where they stayed last year had any openings.

He turned the car. "We're going to Barry."

Jack snorted. "There's nothing romantic in Barry."

"Ah, you're wrong there. We're married in Barry." He chosen the ruse for the rhyme, and saw the quirk of Jack's lips as he took in the joke. "The flat is rented through the end of next month. Seems a shame to waste it. Tonight we can pretend we're newlyweds. Tomorrow, we need to clean."

Jack sat back, listening to the next song start on the radio. "I like it."

***
The End
***

Previous reel_torchwood fics:

Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
The Extraterrestrial (E.T.)
The Day the Dragons Came (Reign of Fire)
Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You (Clerks)
Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (Back to the Future)

Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (5/6)

2015-01-12T02:42:18Z

The Valentine's Day Massacre (5/6)
Words: 35,300 (4800 this part)

***
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
***
Chapter 5
***

Gwen set the phone back in its cradle. She'd left voicemail for Albert. Dr. Pol would stay with Lois tonight. Her home had already been invaded once. Gwen looked around her own lovely little home, the one they'd bought after all the madness and the travelling. Her life had been a whirlwind ever since she'd started at Torchwood, and once again, the maelstrom threatened her in her home.

"Rhys, love, I think you should take Anwen and go stay with my mother for a while."

Rhys looked up at her from the sofa, where he'd been half-watching the telly but mostly listening in on her calls. "I think that's the bloody stupidest thing I've heard all day. We can't up and leave just because you're spooked. Also, it's started to shit down snow."

"There's going to be a war, and we're right in the middle." Her pulse raced, and there were fears she couldn't quite name, memories lurking in her mind she didn't want to examine. She'd do anything for this idiot, and for the little girl asleep in her bed. She'd tried to kill her best friend once for their sakes. The memory was clear as day. "I don't want you hurt."

"Then stop the bastards." He looked pleased with himself for thinking of this. She sighed.

***

Lois checked the deadbolts again. "I've got my gun. You?"

Dr. Pol yawned as she settled in the sheets Lois had made up for her as a bed on the sofa. "In my bag. I hate leaving it around."

"I'll leave my door ajar. You hear anything at all, call for me."

There was a strong knock at the door. Lois jumped. Pol was on her feet instantly, scrabbling through her bag. "Don't answer that."

Lois put off the safety, and said, "We didn't order a pizza."

"Good. I hate pizza," said Albert from outside. "Let me in."

Lois glanced at Pol, who lowered her bag. Lois kept the gun raised; this could be a trap. She unlocked the door. Albert stood there, snow blowing around him. "Those roads are a nightmare. Can I come in?"

She stepped aside, and he hurried in, bringing snow and melt to drip on her carpet. "What are you doing here?"

"The boss brought me an artefact to look up, some Arkellian thing. I got that sorted, got Gwen's call, and reckoned you and Pol would be here."

"And?" asked Dr. Pol.

"And I thought, the safest place in Cardiff tonight would be between the two of you to protect me." He smiled his thin, pained smile.

Pol looked at Lois and shrugged. Lois lowered her gun, which she still had ready. She locked the deadbolt again. "Fine. The floor is yours."

***
February 14th
***

The heater was for shit in this manky little Grangetown bedsit. The paper blind, torn in two places, let in the bright glare from the snow outside and revealed frost inside the single-paned glass. All the better for the excuse to conserve body heat under the generous pile of quilts, Ianto decided, wrapping his arm more snugly around Jack, and pressing flat against him. The quilts had the faintly mouldy smell of bedding left in the cupboard too long without air. He buried his nose in Jack's arm to block it out.

"We should get up," Jack said, sounding unconvinced.

"No, we should stay in bed and have sex all day. It's Valentine's Day."

This earned him a kiss on the head. "I suspect I've been a terrible influence on you."

"You have." Ianto turned his head, and moved in for a better kiss. "Let's scandalise the new neighbours."

"The ones who think I'm your brother?" Jack didn't sound upset, and the darkening glow in his eyes suggested this was a whole new game to play.

"We could have gone to Barry. We're married in Barry."

Alice and Steven were safe in Caerphilly under the identities Ianto had planted there. Jack had insisted on returning to Cardiff despite the worsening roads. They had one day left of the truce, and they'd lost too much time looking for Alice. Jack had to spend today preventing a disaster.

First things first, though. They fell into each other, kissing like horny teenagers, hands reaching for skin and tangling in hair, and legs wrapping around and between for the best friction to rub and rut. Ianto kept his voice down. Jack didn't, moaning loudly either because he didn't mind the neighbours hearing, or because he wanted them to know what a good time he was having.

"We'll go somewhere nice when this is over," Jack said in his ear, reaching between them to take them both in hand. Ianto's hand joined his, letting Jack guide the rise and fall of their grip, faster and faster. "I'll pick up some oils, those ones you like, and cover your back in warm slick. We can slide against each other all night. You and me." He bit down on the earlobe, and Ianto howled.

From outside, Ianto heard the sound of what could have been a car backfiring in the distance, but he couldn't make himself care.

***

Gwen cased the scene, hands in gloves too thin for today's weather. Andy had been right about the aliens. She just wasn't sure how bad this was. As Jack and Ianto pulled up in Jack's car, she walked over to them, appreciating the heat from the engine. "Mass shooting. There's seven dead in there."

As they got out, Jack asked, "Human?"

"No. Jack, it looks like four of the head Bugs, two of their bodyguards, and another alien. A Berana." She'd known the face of one of them. Andy had already left to tell poor Freda.

They reached the roped-off doorway, and Jack turned, horrified. "Four? That's most of their top hierarchy."

"That's not the worst part. Andy interviewed witnesses, and they all saw a black SUV with the word 'Torchwood' stencilled on the side, speeding away."

Ianto said, "I told you we needed to take the logo off everything. Secret organisation, I said."

"Ianto, love, our new car doesn't have it. We haven't done since ages ago. You lost the car. Remember?"

They both looked at her oddly. "The point is," Gwen said, "it wasn't us. It clearly wasn't us unless Lois has been going on shooting sprees."

"It could be Albert," Ianto said. They both ignored him.

Jack led the way into the ruined garage. Gwen had been here once already, the smell of strange blood all up in her nose. "They were lined up," he said. "This was an execution."

"I'll get the bags," Ianto said.

"No. Go to Caerphilly, get Alice and Steven, and bring them to the Hub."

"What?" asked Gwen, and Ianto asked, "Why?"

"Someone just framed us for murder. The Hub is the most secure place for everyone right now. Gwen, call Rhys and have him bring Anwen. Everyone stays together."

"Which is fine," Ianto said, taking the keys, "until they decide to bomb the Hub again."

Gwen pulled out her mobile and dialled Harwood's. The new office had a bad telephone line, but Mandy eventually picked up and put her through to Rhys. Gwen gave him the short version as Jack began loading bodies.

***

Jack went alone to see the new Boss Bug. There was a very good chance he'd be shot on sight. Worse things had happened to him.

The admin outside the Bug office wouldn't let him in. "The Boss thinks Torchwood has done quite enough," he said, with an icy politeness. The admin could pass for human to someone who didn't know what to look for, and Jack did.

In the alien's native language, Jack said, "I swear, it wasn't us."

To Jack's lack of surprise, the door behind the admin opened, and the new Boss came out. "Your own police say it was you. You dare come into this hive of mourning with lies."

"I brought your dead to you. You can give the bodies their proper funerals." Normally he'd have ordered an autopsy before the release. No point, really. Hundreds of rounds of bullets naturally killed most living creatures dead. Even the Bug who'd still been alive when the police arrived expired soon after. "I am deeply sorry for your loss."

"Not sorry enough. We will make you bleed."

"We didn't do this. Someone wants you to think we did. Someone wanted something from you."

"Did you take the item?" the Bug shrieked. Suddenly its rage flew into relief: it mourned its fallen hivemates, but desperately wanted something they'd had in their possession.

Jack shook his head. "I took nothing from the garage but your dead. Send your own people to retrieve your goods. We won't stop you."

"Our people have searched."

That was fast. He wondered how they'd got in. Perception filters? Chunks of the slab from their old invisible lift were going for thousands apiece on the black market. Ianto had collected half a dozen thus far, and Albert had just brought in another yesterday.

Then he realised he was thinking like an alien hunter instead of like a gang leader. "You have police officers on your payroll."

The Bug clicked and flicked its antennae at him. "You say you had nothing to do with the massacre."

"I give you my word."

"Then Mopolite murdered them, and placed the blame at your feet. And he will pay."

Jack hesitated, but the conclusion was obvious. Mopolite wanted the Bugs dead. He'd said a week. Maybe a week was different on his homeworld. "You can't go after him for this. It'll be nothing but bloodshed."

"His!"

"And yours. Let me talk to him again. Make him see reason."

"My brethren are dead, Captain. Leave me their bodies and begone. This does not concern you, if you are as innocent as you claim."

Jack couldn't argue. As he went to leave, a delivery came in: a huge array of red roses in condolence. He snatched the card from the nervous deliveryman's yielding grasp. The man kept staring at the Boss Bug. Jack said, "Haven't you ever seen someone in fancy dress?" The man fled without a tip.

Jack handed the card to the Boss. "I hate to say you were right." Mopolite had sent the roses.

Once the car was emptied of bodies, Jack phoned Mopolite directly. "You have a lot of nerve."

"You will have to be more specific."

"You shot those Bugs this morning and tried to blame us. Then you sent that tacky bouquet. What kind of game are you playing? You said we had until tomorrow."

"I heard about the regrettable incident this morning," Mopolite said, sounding as though he did honestly feel bad about the brutal deaths of several of his enemies. "I merely wanted to express my condolences to the family. I hear you killed them."

"You heard wrong."

"One more day, Captain." The line clicked over. Jack tore the bluetooth off his ear and threw it into the passenger seat.

***

The Hub felt crowded with frightened people. Ianto had closed shop in front for the day. Let patrons who might want to buy their sweetheart a nice antique clock pass on by. He was busy wondering if they should ready a war council or prepare for a siege. Placing money on the latter, he took Lois aside and began making a list of supplies they'd need to withstand several days here as a group. More alcohol would be choice, to start.

"Do you think they'll really come after us?" she asked him, scratching down non-perishables.

"Don't you?"

Albert was busy helping Jack and Gwen pore over CCTV images from before and after the shooting. As when Alice was taken, the cameras in the vicinity had been deactivated. They concentrated on side streets, pushing the search parameters for known aliens. Alice and Rhys had both rapidly reached "In the way and bored," and that would only worsen if they were all trapped in close quarters for any length of time. Dr. Pol had solved this by finding a deck of cards and insisting on teaching them both a form of poker which only existed on her homeworld, and which Ianto strongly suspected she was making up on the spot.

"No," she said to Alice. "That's a half-pair. It's worth double if you have a face card."

Steven sat on the floor with Anwen. She had her ponies, and he had his army men, and they swapped out. Anwen babbled a story at him, which he ignored. The army man in his hand made "pew pew" noises at the one in hers, and she giggled. Then he knocked her man over, and took the purple pony.

"Mine!"

"No, my dude shot your dude. I get his stuff."

"MINE!"

"Here," he said, handing her another army man. "Have your dude shoot my dude. Then we can both take their stuff."

Ianto watched them play. Above them on the table, the hastily-wrapped coral sat on its precarious perch. He was meant to give that to Jack today, a romantic gesture for a romantic day. Instead, it kept watch over the children as they systematically killed the little plastic men and took possession of the little plastic horses. He'd been so proud of himself, too, swiping the coral out from under Firestone's nose.

Ianto nearly didn't trust himself to speak. He felt the idea stretching off his fingers like taffy. "Albert?"

Albert looked up from his notebook. Bracing himself for their usual barbs, he said, "What?"

"What did Mopolite say about the warehouse fire yesterday? What was taken?"

"An Angredi lifepod. It had crashed. Mopolite claimed he was storing the wreckage for the Angredi for 'religious reasons.'"

"But what did he say about us?"

Albert shrugged. "One of the warehouse guards saw a black SUV speed away from the site, and they thought it was ours. Most of the ship was missing from the ashes. They think we took it and burned the rest."

Lois said, "But we didn't. And we didn't shoot those Bugs in the garage."

"No." Ianto watched the children. "The Boss Bug said something was missing in the garage. Did he say what?"

Jack shook his head. "Some artefact. We'll find it."

"We won't. It was taken." He looked at Jack and Gwen. "This isn't a war. This is a game. It's called, 'You two fight, and we'll nick your things.'"

Gwen gave a short laugh. "This isn't a game. Aliens have been dying."

"People," said Dr. Pol from the card table.

"People," Gwen agreed. "That's not playing soldiers."

Ianto said, "Do you remember the week we worked for G.R. Owens? You sold perfume. I worked in the men's department. Please say you remember that."

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

"You think Firestone is behind this?" Jack said. He looked sceptical. "This is a long-standing feud. They would have had to plan it for years."

"Not if they were just taking advantage."

Albert said, "Go into one gang, remind them how the other blokes knifed your mum. Send someone into the other gang, tell them those buggers ate your dog. Then sit back and watch them go at it and wipe one another off the map. I'm surprised we didn't think of it."

Ianto was too pleased that someone else saw the pattern that he didn't mind that someone was Albert, just this once.

Lois turned to her console and began running a search. "That's not quite right. The Bugs and the Machine aren't the largest threat. There's a third party with a huge collection of weaponry and alien artefacts. Strictly speaking," she said, pulling up the data in the fastest chart Ianto'd ever seen someone create, "the third gang would be the plum to pick."

"Us," Jack said, leaning in for a closer look at her numbers. "Hey, we're doing pretty good."

"I'll order us matching bandannas and tattoos next week," said Ianto. "Jack, I think Firestone has been fanning the conflict between the two gangs, and blaming us. It's her."

Gwen wrinkled her nose. She had no more love for Miss Valentine than Ianto did. The woman had nearly killed her the day they met. "She's a telepath. Remember how she pushed us when we were fighting her? She could be pushing them to fight right now." She stumbled a step back, and stared at Jack. "She could be pushing us right now. I can't tell you how many times over the last few days I've been thinking of something, and it's slipped out of my head. Like I'm trying to remember something but I forget that I've forgotten. I'm not going daft, shut up, Rhys," she finished without a pause.

The card game well and truly done, Rhys set down his hand and approached her like she was a feral cat. "Not any more than normal," he said in a cheery tone.

"What if she's in my head now? What if she's in all our heads? Making us think things. Or forget things."

Jack said, "Possible but unlikely. When we set up this place, I put in extra field dampeners. That includes dampening most outside psychic interference. You should be psychically deaf as a post in here."

"Not for everyone," said Dr. Pol, tidying up her cards. "I still pick up things."

"You're not a telepath," Albert said fondly. "You're just a weirdo." Pol harrumphed but didn't argue.

Ianto asked Jack, "Do you believe me?"

"I think there's a very good chance you're right. I also think we're going to have a very hard time proving anything."

Alice stared from one to another. "Why?"

"Why what?" asked Jack.

"Why prove it? Why step in? They're aliens." She glanced at Pol. "Sorry, but it's true. Torchwood's whole mission is to defend Earth from aliens. I learned to recite the line the same time I learned my alphabet. And if that's not enough, they are criminals in gangs. Let them fight. This isn't your problem."

Jack looked her way, and his eyes slipped to Pol, who sat watching him back. He sighed. "People, aliens or humans, don't join gangs because they're evil. They do it for protection, and for a sense of belonging."

Gwen said, "And crime."

Jack glared at her with a "You, too?" expression, but that had never daunted Gwen before and didn't now. "Yeah," he said finally. "Sometimes that too. And Mopolite is shoulder-deep in a lot. Not all his people are, and the Bugs have some rackets going, but they don't cause trouble for us. They police their own. None of them deserve to die because Firestone wants easy access to more tech."

***

Albert had all but begged for the job. Jack said no, pointing out how easily Miss Valentine got into human minds. "That's me, then," Pol had said, and refused to back down when Jack tried to talk her out of it.

She was the obvious choice, the only choice. Besides, she wanted payback.

With her handbag on her lap, and her hands folded primly, Pol waited in the second chair until Miss Valentine came into her own office, the small one she kept in Cardiff for local business. She stepped back, momentarily startled before she recomposed herself.

"Dr. Pol. What a pleasant surprise."

"I imagine it must be, yes. Did you think those men you sent managed to kill me?"

Valentine smiled politely and sat at her desk. She glanced over a pile of papers to one side, then returned her attention to Pol. "What men? No, I'm surprised you got past security."

"They'll recover."

"As you have." She tided the papers. "I'm rather busy. Did you have a reason for barging into my office?"

"I do. I'm here to make you an offer."

Valentine smiled thinly. "Jones can keep the coral. Our sources indicate it has little resale value."

"I'm offering you, right now and with no strings, the opportunity to prevent a war and at the same time, walk away with your life."

Pol felt a sharp prodding at the edges of her mind. Her own shields would not allow entry. Valentine appeared to notice this, frowned briefly, then smoothed her face into a bland disinterest. "Dr. Pol, I work in acquisitions and sales. I find items of interest to buyers, and I provide those items with a small surcharge."

"You're a weapons dealer."

"Firestone does provide some items of a stratotic nature. I can't judge my customers for any bellicose uses to which they might put their new possessions."

"And where do you acquire your items?"

"Where I can." Valentine fixed her with a stare. "Firestone is in the same business as Torchwood. We find alien artefacts and we take them."

"Torchwood doesn't go around starting gang wars."

Valentine sat back in her chair. The leather creaked. "I was under the impression the gangs in question were doing a fine job starting their own scuffles."

"They were. But you couldn't let them alone. You got involved. Your people have been assassinating key members of both gangs for months, and blaming each on the other side. You nearly had us caught up in the mess as well. You tried to frame the Machine for that break-in at Jack's place but the artefact you left was one you swiped from Ianto's collection. This morning, your people used our old car to frame us for the murders of seven Bugs, and you stole the artefact they had."

"That's a great deal of conjecture on your part. The way I heard the story, Torchwood had those Bugs killed in repayment for kidnapping Harkness's daughter."

"Which you assisted in. I can only assume you thought it would be good to distract Jack from what you were planning."

"Did it?" she asked, with a quirky smile.

Pol didn't reply. Instead, she opened her handbag and pulled out a sheaf of documents, which Lois had written up. "This is a confession for you to sign. We'll distribute the forms to the Bugs and the Machine. This can end cleanly, and it can end now." She handed the sheaf over.

"Why would I sign that?"

"It's the right thing to do."

"Not interested. Go home, Doctor. Bar your windows and lock your doors. You're intelligent for an alien. Stay out of this."

She ignored the 'for an alien' bit. "I can't. You see, I have sworn an oath to help suffering when I see it. These people are going to slaughter one another because of you. I have to do what I can to prevent that from happening." She leaned forward. "I'm not like you. I'm not as smart. I don't look at people as pieces in a game, and decide the winner myself. I can't see the board the way you do. I have to help the pawns. It's my job."

Valentine snorted. "Pawns exist to fall, Doctor. I don't care if Mopolite cuts all the Bugs down. I don't care if the Bugs eat him and his people alive. I would enjoy watching both groups take your fossil of a dead organisation with them. It doesn't matter who wins this stupid little war. I'll be there at the end with a bag and a long list of ready buyers for the weapons, the trinkets, and even the bodies. Whatever happens, I win."

"You'll set these people up to kill one another just to steal their things?"

"They aren't people. They are clever animals, and I want their pelts. It's just good business."

Pol looked down at her papers. She didn't meet Miss Valentine's eyes. "You could stop this."

"I have no intention of stopping it. Good evening, Doctor Pol."

Pol stood, placing the papers back into her bag and shutting it with a click. "Good evening, Miss Valentine."

She walked out as briskly as she could. The team had the exits covered, but that would be no help if she was killed on her way out. She made it to the door, and hated how her own alert levels flushed with relief as she stepped outside. A dark car pulled up at the kerb, and after one quick check to ensure her driver was a friend, she stepped in.

Jack sat in the back, waiting for her. "We got the recording."

"I have the backup," Pol said, pulling out her own microrecorder. "She's good. She almost didn't confess. Where are we?"

"Albert's halfway to London. Lois is trying to schedule a meeting for me with the Bugs."

At that moment, both comms crackled to life with Albert's voice. "Boss, we have a problem."

"Go ahead."

"I called ahead. Smith went in to let them know I needed a few minutes of their time. He says they've packed up."

"What do you mean? There are thousands of aliens in London."

"Yeah, and most of them aren't talking to us. The Machine's big hitters, and the man himself, they're not home. I think they're already in Cardiff, or on their way."

"Midnight," Jack sighed. "He meant it. Is everyone listening in?"

There was a short chorus. Lois cleared her throat. "The Bugs won't see you, and they won't listen when I tell them it's urgent. They're getting ready."

"Polly, I'm dropping you off. You're the only one who might get an answer out of the locals where this is going down."

Without further instruction, Ianto turned the car down a different street, headed towards the alien-heavy area of the city.

"Wait," Gwen said. "I have another idea."

***

Freda wouldn't even unlock her door. "Go away."

Gwen rested against the frame. She felt the eyes on her from the other flats in this building. Night had fallen, and she was alone in a place where everyone thought she and her friends had murdered a group of aliens this morning. "I need to talk to you. I know who killed your husband."

"It was you." She was crying on the other side of the door.

"No, sweetheart." She felt so bad for the girl. Lost in time, shunted from a world that hated her to a world where she was barely tolerated, and now a widow. "The people who had him and the rest killed wanted you to think so. I want to bring them to justice, but I need your help."

"You's lying. You always lies. You lied to me. You lied to Andy. You keeps lying!"

"I'm not lying now. I want to help you. I want to help your friends."

"He's dead," she said, whispering against the door. "Just like Gran, just like Mam. Killed for being what he was. Yous going to kill me next?"

"There's going to be a big fight tonight. Mopolite's Machine is already on their way. The Bugs are meeting them at midnight, somewhere in the city. They're going to fight and a lot of people are going to be killed. Please, Freda. If you know where they're going to be, you have to tell me. I can stop more people dying."

"Or kill us all in one place?"

Us. "You're not going tonight."

"Why shouldn't I? Got nothing left here. I can show those English ghost ies a thing or two. Better than waiting for them to come for me." Her breath hiccuped. "The Bugs say if we lose, Mopolite's going to make his thugs eat the men, and them's the lucky ones. The girls'll get grabbed for his brothels, or chucked into his harem."

"He's got two wives. It's hardly a harem." Besides, Martha had told her over drinks that his two wives were married to each other first and opted to marry him later. Gwen felt Freda would not care.

"I'd rather be dead than end up like that."

"No-one has to die. No-one is getting carried off. Freda, I can help you. I can stop this. You have to tell me where you're going tonight."

"What if you's lying again?"

Gwen grumbled in frustration. Freda didn't trust her, had no reason left to trust her. Then she said, "I can make you an offer. Let me in, tell me where this is going down, and I will give you the most valuable thing I have. I'll tell you where my daughter is tonight, and I'll take you there. You can be safe."

She waited for what felt like years. Then the chain rattled and the tongue slid in the groove, and the door cracked open.

***

Chapter 6

Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (4/6)

2015-01-12T02:41:07Z

The Valentine's Day Massacre (4/6)
Words: 35,300 (6600 this part)

***
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
***
Chapter 4
***
February 13th
***

Jack dragged in at ten past four in the morning. All his leads had turned up nothing. Martha had arrived in the early evening, muttering at Jack for not telling her sooner about Pol's injuries, and spent most of the night checking her over and catching up whilst Mickey went over everything he'd uncovered, which wasn't much. Jack had offered them the night at his flat, which they'd declined in lieu of reservations at St. David's and a leisurely ride home in the morning.

"I want a spa," Martha had said. "My back is killing me."

Mickey had said, "If you need us, the reservation's under the name Horowitz. Don't need us."

Home now, and trying to be quiet, Jack took a quick shower. He ran over every small detail he had in his head again. No-one had seen Alice be taken. None of the cameras in the vicinity had picked up anything unusual. None of the local or non-local aliens, even the ones Mopolite or the Bugs thought were on their payrolls, had heard anything about a hit or a kidnapping. No ransom demands. Mickey's leads had led to nothing.

He was beginning to think he'd been wrong. She may have been taken by a human after all, unrelated to the coming war. The abduction was a professional job, or insanely lucky. The Families? Did they remember? The last time he'd phoned Rex, the other man couldn't place Jack's voice and rang off.

Shower done, he looked in on Steven, who was sound asleep, and safe, and alive. Jack resisted the urge to go in, ruffle his hair and kiss his head. Apparently, some people (okay, Alice and Ianto and Gwen as well, at which point Jack had stopped asking around for opinions) thought it was weird for Steven's naked grandfather to kiss him goodnight, and no amount of Jack's pointing out he'd run about naked half the time back when he himself was a boy would change their minds.

He slid into bed next to Ianto, who stirred. "Good evening to you. You're freezing."

"Good morning. Get closer and I can warm up."

Ianto's gaze flicked over his face, and saw the lack of news without his having to ask. He leaned in for kisses, tilting his head when Jack gratefully took him up on the offer. Sure, he had come home to sleep, but Jack had never been found wanting when there was an offer of comfort sex, or any other sex, on the table. He rolled on top of Ianto, kissing him with the same intensity they'd first shared years back, the very first time Ianto had walked into his old office in the old Hub, with the old stopwatch in his hand ticking the very last second of ten minutes counting down to something new.

Things had changed. Things always changed. They'd broken this off. Jack had died numerous times. Ianto had died twice, once to the Toclafane and once to the 456, and his ghost had sacrificed himself again. Now the impossible had occurred, pushing them back together, and Jack felt his brain stutter to a halt every time he considered ever parting from this man. The only reason Jack hadn't suggested marriage was the existence of two wives he was certain were still alive somewhere after he'd faked his death with each. Marriages ended badly for him. But this? This was as close to forever as he could give to anyone.

Their kisses grew deeper, hands roaming over faces instead of flesh lower down. Jack loved the feel of his fingers in Ianto's hair, and always grinned at Ianto's face when his fingers got stuck on the product in Jack's. Not tonight, not with his hair damp from the shower, and his heart sore from worry and the oldest fears.

Ianto's hands found their way down first, grasping Jack loosely and stroking him. Jack arched and moaned at the feeling, enjoying the caress and the easy knowledge between them of what felt good. He bent in for more kissing, reaching as he did for the table with the pump bottle. The gel was cold, and colder still when he reached back and slid his fingers up inside his own body. He loved this, too, he had to admit. He'd make love to a hundred different species, and still enjoy his own hands and fingers best.

Almost best.

Jack moved his body, carefully lining up Ianto's cock against him with a few wet strokes, then slowly descending to impale himself. Ianto's hands never broke their rhythm of stroking him even as his breath caught. Not fully prepared, not quite open enough, Jack bore down on the burn and the stretch before rising and falling in their familiar patterns of push and fuck.

Ianto's hand sped its stroke as Jack lifted and fell, murmuring endearments in old languages. This was succour, skin against skin with someone he loved. This was forgiveness, in the gasp and tender gaze of someone who loved him. This was home, where hand grasped hand and hearts raced and lips whispered and met in the dark. Pleasure pushed away heartache for a few sweet minutes.

He came fast, and less intensely than he often did. The pain was a bit much, and his heart wasn't in it tonight. Changing positions to better use his knees, he began riding Ianto harder until he too fell over the edge, thrusting into flesh that hurt more than pleased now.

As soon as Jack rolled off, Ianto rolled into him, kissing him more, and stroking the hard lines Jack felt on his face. "It's going to be all right," Ianto said. "It's all going to be fine."

It wasn't. Alice could be dead. Alice could be worse than dead. Steven hadn't inherited his curse. The only way to know for sure Alice hadn't was for someone to end her life.

As if reading his mind, and doubtless he was, Ianto embraced him and held him tight.

***

Gwen stood on Andy's doorstep with a tea and a smile.

"Go away," he said in a more friendly fashion than she'd feared.

"I need your help."

"You always need my help, and then you shut me out. No thanks, Gwen." He made his way down the stairs and towards his car. Undeterred, she followed him, waving the tea like a flag of truce.

"There's a woman gone missing, Andy."

"I don't do missing persons. You'll have to talk to the DI on the case."

"We haven't reported it yet."

He turned on her. "Why the hell not? You're coming to me for yet another favour, and you haven't done the first step in finding her yourself?"

She dropped her voice. "Torchwood has been searching for the last two days. We can't find a trace. Her name is Alice Carter. We need to find her, Andy."

"Is she an alien?"

"No. She's a mum. Her son needs her." She dropped her voice further. "And we think she might have been taken by aliens, yeah, which is why this is the first you're hearing about it. Aliens are our division."

He grabbed the tea from her hand and gave her a stern look. On any other face, she'd have been worried. On Andy's, it was all she could do not to laugh, bless him. "What happened?"

She filled him in on the details, leaving out why Jack was so hellbent on finding Alice. Andy didn't need to know everything. He nodded, asking questions as they walked. Yes, they'd covered that. Yes, they'd looked there, too.

He shook his head. "Gwen, the trail's already cold. I'm sorry, but by now, I'd be dredging the Bay."

***

Alice paid attention to the guards outside her cell. The cellblock, as much as she could tell, extended down a narrow bricked hallway to one door at the end, where the guards stood except when Johnson came to visit her. Johnson had instructed them not to listen to her, which meant logic or begging wouldn't get her anywhere. The one time Alice had stolen a spoon from her dinner tray, two guards had immediately come in, held her arms, and taken the spoon right back.

She didn't hear any other prisoners around her. Despite the three other doors she'd managed to see, she was certain she was alone in this block, if not the entire facility, wherever she was being held.

As one act of rebellion, she'd thrown her pillowcase over the camera lens, giving herself some privacy. Johnson hadn't commented and the guards hadn't stopped her. For her second act of rebellion, she'd begun examining the springs of her small bed, and with some perseverance, was in the process of getting one loose. As her mother had taught her, anything was a weapon, and any non-traditional weapon meant a higher chance of living. "A shiv in the eye they don't expect is better than a gun they do."

If Jack wasn't going to show up and free her, she bloody well was going to free herself, even if she had to stab Agent Johnson with a bedspring to do so.

***

Ianto tried and failed to beg off a trip to the cinema with Rhiannon and the children today. He wasn't helping with the search, because Jack wanted him to act as Steven's bodyguard at all times. He hadn't gone on a retrieval in days, and wasn't Miss Valentine surely thrilled to have him out of her hair as her own people scooped up more alien trinkets?

That reminded him, with a sudden thump. Tomorrow was Valentine's Day. He had his gift ready for Jack, sitting unremarkable and unnoticed in a heap with other artefacts in the Hub. He'd thought perhaps a night away together would be nice, but they had Steven, and Jack was worried sick about Alice. It'd be grotesque to spend the day thinking about romance.

A cold breeze blew down his neck like a handful of razor blades. Beside him, Steven shivered in his new red coat. February was brutal this year. Lois had said it was all Climate Change, and bundled up more warmly. Albert said it was aliens. Jack wouldn't say, but Jack rarely did when it came to possibly spoiling humanity's future.

"It's not far," Ianto said as they walked more quickly. Suddenly, they were stopped by the sounds of shouts. A Gr'nak, high on alien crank, threw its body again and again up against a door to a florist shop. Steven opened his mouth to scream, and Ianto clamped his hand over his face, hard. "Don't. Don't make a sound."

He took Steven's hand in his. Steven was getting too old for this, but it was safer. "Look down," Ianto said in a pleasant voice. "Don't make eye contact. Just walk and look like you have something else to think about just now." Looking positively preoccupied, they crossed the road together, away from the alien without attracting its attention. The first shop Ianto saw was a coffeeshop. "Go inside, lock yourself in a cubicle in the loo, and stay in there until I come for you."

When he was sure Steven was safely inside, Ianto checked his weapon. He touched his comm. "There's a Gr'nak on Charles Street. I'm going to try to subdue it. Send the car."

"Don't go in," Jack said in his ear. "Just hold the scene."

"Whoops, signal's breaking up. See you soon." Ianto punched the button to silence the comm. This was a terrible idea, and would likely get him killed. Nevertheless, dozens of people were around now, and making enough noise that the beast had stopped paying attention to the delicious flowers and started noticing the delicious takeaways on legs.

"Oi!" he shouted, darting through cars to get closer. The Gr'nak paid him no mind, giving chase to a woman with an armload of shopping. Ah damn. Ianto ran faster, shouting and then shouting obscenities in an attempt to get its focus on him. The screaming wasn't helping.

A bloke beside him had a Venti, steaming in the cold air. Ianto said, "I need this, sorry." He overarmed the hot coffee at the Gr'nak, which roared in pain and turned. "Walk away very slowly," Ianto said to the man whose coffee he'd taken. "It won't chase you."

The bloke screamed and pelted away, catching the alien's attention again. Ianto sighed, and tried not to panic as a ton of muscle galloped his way. He steadied the shot and squeezed twice. Both bullets landed directly between its eyes. The momentum carried it the rest of the way, barrelling the corpse into him, and knocking the wind out of him as he fell, stunned.

The pavement was frozen and cold. The Gr'nak was steaming and stinking. Dead, though. Ianto felt woozy. He'd probably bumped his head on the hard concrete.

Hands helped move the Gr'nak off him, and voices chattered around him. He had to get up. He had to fetch Steven. Steven wasn't supposed to be out of his sight. Jack would be here any minute.

One of the voices clarified. "Let me through!" his sister demanded, as he was being helped upright. Rhi bent down to him. "God, Ianto, are you all right? I thought we were going to watch the film, not be in one."

He smiled. "It's fine. I'm fine." He glanced at the Gr'nak. "Fucking bear escaped from the zoo. Glad we didn't take the kids."

Rhiannon brushed her hand over his face. "That's not a bear, you muppet. That's an alien." She blinked. "You catch aliens for a living." Then she punched him in the arm. "Why didn't you tell me?"

***

Jack and Gwen sprinted out the door. Albert turned on one heel and went to their containment facility, which wasn't much more than a couple of locked rooms in the cellar. Pol was out of her bed, redirecting the CCTV cameras to watch the goings-on. She flinched. "We can tell Albert not to bother with the containment cells." She touched the comm. "Jack, hope you took a body bag. That Gr'nak is going to leak everywhere."

Lois cringed. She'd be the one to clean up that mess when they got back, she just knew it. Ignoring this, she pulled up a screen's worth of information on their search to make herself feel better about helping. Alice Carter had left work when she typically did. If she arrived home, she wasn't there by the time her son arrived an hour later.

Just because she could, Lois reran the CCTV records from one hour and then two hours before the kidnapping. She extended it out further, going fifty km in every direction, running their face-matching software and licence screens. Just as Gwen had found nothing over the last two days, no new information leapt out at her. She checked the satellite records again, but even those had been out of range. Or retasked.

Lois stared at her screen in thought.

She'd joined Torchwood initially as a helper. There'd been a case, a terrible government cover-up that still made her upset even to consider. PM Green had lost his position over it, and shortly after, his life when he'd chosen a home-rigged noose over a life in prison. But he'd hurt children. She remembered the children. The government had controlled everything, including the satellites. She'd made copies.

Not a single one had caught the area where Alice Carter would have disappeared from. Now that she had an idea of what she was looking for, Lois pored through the satellite records again, overlaying military, entertainment, Google, and the rest.

She looked for the hole in the picture.

***

Gwen had expected the Gr'nak's body, and the small crowd which Ianto wasn't managing to keep off. She hadn't expected the crowd to include Ianto's sister, and her children, nor for Rhiannon to turn instantly to Jack when he stepped out of the car and harangue him. Gwen gave him a look and told him his domestic problems were not her domestic problems, and she went to help Ianto with the onlookers.

"Animal control," Gwen said, flashing one of several badges she had. "We need you to back away so we can load this poor … "

"Bear," Ianto said.

"Bear into the SUV."

Behind her, she heard Rhiannon going on at Jack. "You put him into danger! This mad thing almost killed him."

"It didn't almost kill me."

Gwen shooed the last of the bystanders away. Not wanting to get involved in the personal drama, she fetched the body bag from the car.

"He got you killed, though. Christ, Ianto, I remember that!" She shouted at Jack, who backed away quickly. "You trying to do it again?"

That stopped her. Gwen looked at Ianto. "What's that?" Killed? But Ianto was right there. He was fine. Jack was the one who died all the time.

Memories of the Miracle flowed into her mind, and Gwen dropped the bag. How could she have forgotten that?

Jack held up his hands in case Rhiannon got it in her head to deck him. He asked Ianto, "Where is Steven?"

"Across the way. I told him to hide in the loo."

"I'll get him," said Gwen. Her mind was playing tricks on her, perhaps from the weird sunlight today, shining through air so cold it burned her cheeks.

Jack said, "I'll get him. Ianto, help us load this. Gwen, take it back to the Hub and let Polly sort out what happened. When she's done, there's a garage in Grangetown where you can leave the body." He checked over the Gr'nak and frowned. "I know this guy. He worked for the Bugs. They're not going to like this."

The three of them managed to get the corpse loaded into the back of the SUV. Gwen chose the better part of valour and got out before the real shouting started. Rhiannon was angry about something, and it sounded as though there were a lot of somethings. She kept saying her brother was dead, which was ridiculous. Ianto stood right there in front of her.

The Hub wasn't in much better condition when she pulled into the underground car park. Lois babbled excitedly about a hole in the satellites, which Dr. Pol overlaid her own natter on. The phone was ringing, and Albert picked up as Gwen came in.

"I'll put you on speaker," he said, and flicked the switch.

Mopolite's smooth voice filled the room, sending Lois and Pol silent. "Where is Captain Harkness?"

"He's out on a case," said Gwen. "Gwen Cooper. We've met. You can talk to me."

Lois scribbled quickly on a piece of paper and handed it to Gwen: I've found Alice. We need to go now.

"Mrs. Cooper, tell me, why did Torchwood burn down our warehouse last night?"

Surrounded with too much information at one time, Gwen said, "Mr. Mopolite, I'm going to hand you over."

"If you say I'm to be put on with your lovely admin, Miss Habiba, I assure you that I will gut her like a fish." Mopolite's tone never changed. Lois looked sick.

"My associate. Albert?" Gwen clicked off the speaker, and mouthed, "Deal with him."

Albert picked up the phone and said, "What warehouse?"

"Come on," Gwen said to Lois and Pol. By all rights, Lois should stay and sort out whatever was going on with the alien crime boss, and Albert should go with. Jack should as well, but Gwen had no intention of letting him ride along, not with the possibility that they'd be riding in to retrieve Alice's dead body. She couldn't risk that. There was no telling what Jack would do if someone he loved died.

***

Jack lacked the desire to shoot anyone around him, but that was going to change very quickly. Steven hadn't wanted to come out of the loo, claiming Ianto had specifically said to wait for him. On the one hand, Jack was glad. The bond between Ianto and Steven had only grown since their return home. Steven was closer to him than to his real father, and Ianto had trained himself to refer to the child as his godson to condition himself out of calling Steven his son. Ianto told Steven what to do and how to live and when to brush his teeth, and Steven listened. He wouldn't come out until Ianto said so, because Ianto was the only one who'd not abandoned him.

"I'm telling you, it's safe now."

"I have to stay here until I get the word."

That was another thing. Jack had accustomed himself to no longer being the centre of attention when the three of them were together for weekends or meals. The other two shared passcodes and shorthand jokes which left Jack mystified. He remembered this feeling from his early days on the TARDIS. Part of him was reassured, remembering also how swiftly that situation melted into warm camaraderie, creating his own jokes and stories with Rose and the Doctor. Part of him worried more, remembering what came after, remembering waking up alone and frightened, and discovering later he'd not been simply left for dead as he'd told himself for a century must have been the case.

He could face being shut out. He was not sure he could face being left again, no matter how many times he told Ianto to take Steven and go. Tomorrow promised nothing but a return to yesterday's loneliness. Today, Steven capitulated, with promises of ice cream from Jack.

They headed back into the street, where Ianto and Rhiannon were rowing. As they were rowing about aliens and coming back from the dead, and neither of them fools, they didn't shout and they argued in a shorthand he could translate very easily:

"You should have told me about your rowdy friends."

"First. You wouldn't have believed me. You'd have thought I was loony."

"You are loony, but I would have believed you."

"Second! I had signed … a promise not to talk about them. At all."

Jack approached, carefully holding Steven's hand despite the latter's reluctance. "It is true," he said to Ianto. "You are a loony." He kissed his cheek. "Are we done here?"

"You never come to see us any more." Rhiannon's expression was dark, not exactly angered but almost disappointed. "You might drop by. We don't bite and we've had our shots."

"Let's start with the cinema," Ianto said. "See if the kids get along. All right?"

"Fine. But you're coming for dinner on Sunday. No arguments."

"Great," said Jack before Ianto could argue anyway. "I'm going back to work. Enjoy the film."

He took a taxi back to the Hub, where he found Albert on a call and the rest gone.

"I assure you," Albert said in a strained voice, "no-one from Torchwood was in London last night. You're mistaken."

Jack took the phone out of his hand and said, "Captain Jack Harkness. Who am I speaking to?"

"Captain," said Mopolite. "Your week ends in two days. Do not spend it wasting my time." The line went dead.

"Funny. He spent the entire time insisting on talking to you."

"Yeah." Jack set the phone in its cradle. "Where's Gwen? And everyone else?"

Albert turned away, focusing on his console. "They went out on a retrieval. They'll check in later."

"Shouldn't we join them?"

"Won't be necessary."

***

She would never admit it, but Alice really wished her father were there. She had her tiny weapon wrapped in her knickers, which was the only small cloth she had available. Her mother's words and training running through her head, she readied herself for an opportunity, any opportunity. The guards didn't seem like the type to fall for the "sick prisoner" scam. Her only way out of the cell was when the door opened, and that meant taking down Agent Johnson.

So, problem solved. She wasn't getting out.

The door at the end of the cell block creaked open. Alice sat on her bunk, legs braced. If she pushed off against the floor and launched herself at the woman, she had one chance at taking her by surprise. The spring was 15 cm long, long enough for her to stab Johnson in the eye or ear. "A soft target is best," her mother had instructed. "Give them something personal to deal with instead of with you."

Boots clacked their way down the corridor. The window darkened, and the door opened.

Mouth sour with fear, Alice threw all her weight at Johnson, stabbing her arm directly at the woman's face. A black-clad arm blocked her blow, but the metal sliced home, ripping a gash into her flesh. The spring stuck, and Alice let go, shoving as Johnson cursed at her.

The door was still open. The guard was down the corridor. Johnson never came into the cell armed. Alice had no weapon now and no way to get another. She'd just attacked the one person who cared about keeping her alive. Mum's teaching helped her start; Dad's piss-poor planning skills would get her killed.

"Fuck," she said under her breath, and ran for it. Johnson shouted to the guard. Please be a stupid guard. Please be a stupid guard.

The uniformed man raised his weapon and trained the sight on Alice. "Halt or I will shoot."

Alice didn't even slow down, diving for his legs and confusing him for half a second. Two shots rang out. Alice screamed, feeling nothing but the pain in her hands where she'd hit the hard, concrete floor.

The guard fell, clutching his neck. A woman appeared in the doorway to the outer cell block. Alice recognised her from somewhere. Torchwood? Dark hair, gun, shouting Alice's name. Probably Torchwood.

Alice scrambled to her feet. She didn't look down at her captor. Behind her, she heard Johnson's boots.

"Come on," said the woman.

They ran down the outer corridor together. Alice hadn't been conscious on her way in, and now she followed the woman in a confused dash. The building was old, nearly abandoned. Where she expected guards, she noted empty workstations with panels and wiring ripped out.

"What is this place?"

"Old military holding facility." The woman reached a closed door, and stopped. She pounded three times.

Johnson hadn't stopped her pursuit. They'd outrun her for the moment, but Alice heard her catching them up. "What's wrong?"

"It's electronic. We blew the lock, but it must have shut. Damn!" She pounded again, unable to move the heavy metal door.

"Hold," Johnson said. Alice turned to see Johnson, bleeding from the arm, holding the stricken guard's weapon. "You're not leaving."

"Like hell," said her rescuer, aiming back at Johnson. Standoff. Lovely.

"I need the information Mrs. Carter has. I will free her myself after she cooperates."

"You don't need anything from me."

"I do. I need to know why I remember your son's death. I need to know why no-one else does. You're the only one who can give me answers."

"You're mistaken," said the other woman. Gwen. Alice had met her a couple of times. Definitely Torchwood. "Alice's son is alive and well, and I am taking her home to him."

"No! I was there. I remember. What happened? What changed?"

Gwen steadied her gun. "Look, I don't know what you think is going on, but Alice and I are going to leave now. Find yourself a nice analyst, talk through your issues about your mum, whatever." She blinked a couple of times, as though flies were at her face, or a bad dream. "Steven's not dead."

Johnson raised her gun.

"The Doctor changed time," Alice said. "Some woman he travelled with had the world in her head. People came back. That's why you remember. There were multiple timelines, not just two, but hundreds. They've sorted themselves out, and my son is fine, and I want to go home." It sounded mad. It was mad. But so was the rest of Alice's life. "The Trickster Brigade can see multiple timelines. You got infected. I'm sorry about that. I'd forget about the other timeline if I could."

"Other timeline?" Gwen asked, her own face gone blank and soft. "Steven died?"

"Things are better now," Alice said, in her same calming-the-crazy-person tone.

Johnson stared at both of them. "The Doctor? UNIT's old consultant? I thought he was a myth."

"He is," Gwen said, sounding more sure of herself. "He's also real. Questions answered?"

"How do I forget? I don't want these memories." She lowered her gun. "I don't want to see that, night after night."

"Join the club," Alice said wearily. "We'll make matching shirts."

"Stand back!" came a shout from the other side of the door. Gwen looked at Johnson, but she was no longer attacking. She seemed lost and sad. The three of them backed away from the door, which shuddered a moment later and fell down.

From the other side, two women held up their own guns. "Gwen!" shouted the first. A younger woman, hair cut short, looking terrified. The other woman was short, and a bit dumpy, and looked like she'd been in a fight with the guards outside.

"It's fine, Lois," Gwen said. "We're leaving." Despite this, the shorter woman stepped into the room and began feeling for Alice's pulse and examining her for any injuries. She glanced at Johnson, but did not offer aid.

Alice took one last look at her gaoler. She had a question of her own that burned for an answer. "Why now? Steven's been home for over a year."

"I needed to know. The woman said she knew your route from work, and I should ask you."

"What woman?" Gwen asked.

"She said her name was Mrs. Jones. I assume it was an alias. Are you leaving?"

Gwen nodded to her colleagues. No more questions today.

"I wouldn't have hurt you," Johnson said as Alice stepped outside. Alice didn't respond. She didn't believe her any more than she'd trusted her back during those terrible days that never were.

***

His mobile beeped as the credits rolled. Ianto's heart leapt as he checked the message from Gwen: "Alice ok. Meet us at the Hub."

"We have to go," he told Rhiannon and the kids, more excited than apologetic. "We're meeting up with Steven's mother in a few minutes."

Steven's head spun. "She's okay?"

"Let's go say hello, shall we?"

Rhi said, "You're still coming round for dinner. No excuses. Bring Steven's mum if you want to." She pecked him on the cheek.

The weather was frigid, and promised snow. He let Rhi talk him into dropping them off at the Chanticleer shopfront. "When you said you worked here, I thought you were just an antiques fancier." She placed delicate pauses around the words. Rhi did know what the name meant, but then, she'd taught him his first prick jokes when they'd been about David's age.

He ignored her unasked question. "I am. I love old things. I leave the alien-chasing to Jack. I'm strictly into collectables these days."

"Really aliens?" David asked. "Like, when your car got stolen from the estate, it had aliens in?"

"Thank you for the ride," he said, refusing to answer. "I'll see you Sunday." By Sunday, she may have forgotten again.

Steven burst through the doors as fast as he could run, and stamped impatiently until Ianto got the inner door unlocked. He ran down the corridor, Ianto walking more slowly behind. Moments later, Steven flew into the new Hub proper, and shouted, "Mum!"

Alice sat in the med area, Dr. Pol fussing over a tablet rather than the patient, and not even an I.V. started. Steven threw himself into his mother's arms, hugging her until she almost popped. Ianto grinned, a little tired, relieved and also (though he'd never, ever admit so) a touch sad. That boy was meant to be with his mother, always had done even when he'd been invisible to her and to everyone who'd known him. Steven was happy at home, usually, and when he went back after a weekend visit to Cardiff, he looked forward to seeing his mum and his friends. He came here for hugs, and an occasional recharge under Ianto's care and Jack's forceful personality, and then he went home. Ianto missed him every time.

"What happened? Where were you?" He came closer and took Alice's hand with a quick, friendly squeeze. She nodded at him over Steven's head, the closest she would come to thanking him for watching her son whilst she was missing. But that was Alice all around.

Gwen handed him a mug of coffee, which he drank and found a shot of bourbon in. "We're celebrating. Lois found her looking through the satellite records."

Jack said, "And Lois is getting a huge pay rise for it."

"I'll hold you to that," Lois said.

Ianto took a seat and let the story unfold in bits and bobs, as Alice filled Steven in, and Jack toasted the rescuers each in turn. Pol was looking much better today, either from Martha's care or from getting back to work. Albert, who hadn't gone, offered to fetch lunch, almost certainly as an excuse to get out from under the merriment.

Gwen said, "We'll have to do something about that woman, Jack. She's mad."

"I don't think so any longer," Alice said. "She wanted her answers. She got them."

"Mad," Gwen repeated. "She went on and on about Steven being … " She glanced at the boy. "Hurt. I don't trust her."

Pol said, "She said a woman told her how to get Alice. Said her name was Mrs. Jones. I would like to be the first to ask Ianto if he's got a wife stashed away somewhere." Steven giggled.

"We'll pay Johnson a visit," Jack said, and didn't say he'd force-feed her about five years' worth of Retcon, but then, Steven was still listening. "Not today."

"I want to go home," Alice said. "Thank you for coming for me. But Steven and I should get back. I've missed work, he's missed school." She glanced at her father. "You'll have fixed that, of course. Gone in and tampered the records."

"I'll have Albert cook something up when he gets back," her father promised.

"Good. Where's my car?"

The rest of them exchanged looks. Lois said, "We never found it. She may have towed it, or abandoned it somewhere we haven't looked."

Alice sighed. "I liked that car. I bought it the day you were released from hospital," she said to Ianto. "New life, new start, and all that."

Gwen sipped her adulterated coffee and frowned. "When was that, then?"

"Never mind," said Jack. "Steven's things are at ours. We'll go by, then drive you home." He sighed, and Ianto read the same half-sadness in his eyes before he hid the emotion away. His child would leave him again, too.

***

Jack drove the longer route back to the flat, extending the visit by a good ten minutes and not even running any traffic lights. Ianto had to know what he was doing, but Alice sat comfortably in the back, holding Steven next to her, and didn't object. She still hated him. He knew she did, and had, and would. She thawed a little more every week, every month, and possibly by the time Steven was old enough to marry, she'd return to liking her father again instead of merely tolerating his presence for the good of her son.

He pulled into the tiny car park beside their block. "Do you want to stay in the car, or come inside?"

"Inside," Steven said, even though he hadn't been the one Jack had asked.

The four of them walked into the building, Jack's nerves suddenly fraying. Something was wrong. He waved at Alice and Ianto. "Wait here," he said in a low voice, then walked up the flight of stairs alone. The door to their flat was open.

He pulled out his gun. He thought about shouting down to them, but didn't want to alert the intruders. Jack crept up to his door and looked inside. The flat had been turned upside-down. Books and CDs were all over the floor, the table and chairs were broken, as was one window, and the television was missing. The thieves were long gone.

"Come on up," he said. "We had a break-in." The door jamb was splintered, and had a kicked-in look to it. As the other three came to see, Jack noticed paint sprayed over the kitchen cupboards: graffiti too messy to read.

"Fuck," Ianto said, then covered his mouth with his hand as Alice shot him a look. "Oh, it's a mess. And the telly's gone."

Steven ran ahead to the little room he used. Alice followed. "It's messy," she called out, "but I think that's him."

Jack went back to their bedroom. The mattress had been tipped and the sheets slashed. Ianto stepped beside him, face falling. "None of the other valuables were taken. Not a normal break-in, then. Is it bad I'm praying it was a hate crime?"

"Not something to hope for," Jack said absently. He returned to the sitting room, toeing his boots through the mess until he found what he wasn't sure he'd been looking for. He grabbed a ruined antimacassar and picked up a broken piece of unfamiliar technology. "This wasn't our remote control. Got a bag handy?" Ianto ducked into the kitchen.

Alice came back out of the room. Steven had his suitcase. "We can stay a while until the police arrive."

"This wasn't a burglary. Someone targeted us. We'll tell the neighbours it was some hoodlums who saw us holding hands."

"Was it?"

"No." Jack showed her the item. He loved being able to identify the weird alien junk that washed ashore in his city, but he needed more research before he could definitively state where this one originated. "I told you, there are two gangs of aliens gearing up to start a war on my streets, and neither set likes me much."

"You do shoot aliens for a living."

Ianto came out of the kitchen and held the baggie open for Jack. "They take that personally."

Jack said, "You two can't go home. I can't guarantee they won't target you there."

Alice spread her arms. "We aren't staying here."

"It's all right. Steven and I found a place to stay." Ianto looked around, and Jack picked up on his worry. There was no telling what listening devices might have been left behind. "I'll just be a moment." He hurried into their bedroom, and Jack heard the sounds of his hurried packing.

"Dad."

"It's only for a few days. I need to know you'll both be safe."

"For how long, really? Until the next time you piss off someone important or green?"

"Alice, you just disappeared, and yeah, it was because of me. Can we not?" He went to the bookshelf and shifted it. Alice grumbled, then helped him move the heavy wooden frame to cover the broken window.

Ianto came out of the bedroom, an overstuffed suitcase in his arms. "Let's go. I'll tell you in the car. I'm driving. You can call Gwen and have her warn the others to be on their guard."

***

Chapter 5

Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (3/6)

2015-01-12T02:40:10Z

The Valentine's Day Massacre (3/6)
Words: 35,300 (6200 this part)

***
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
***
Chapter 3
***

Jack's reckless disregard of the speeding laws was legendary, and in the Torchwood official vehicle, passably legal. They arrived in record time, even for Jack. Ianto was at the door first, taking a breath before he knocked. The dog went off, barking like mad. He shouted through the door, "Shut it!" Upon recognising his voice, the dog went madder still. By the time Steven had the door unlocked, Dribble was chasing her own tail in excitement, and then tried to bowl Jack over with affection as the pair of them hurried inside.

Ianto took in the room, but nothing seemed amiss. Steven's homework was out on the table. In a calm voice, he said, "Let's go over this while I'm here, yeah?"

"Sure."

They'd taken turns on the phone with him for most of the trip. Ianto was better at chatting about small details of Steven's day, asking after his friends. Jack kept trying to ask about Alice, for obvious reasons, but Ianto didn't want to make Steven more upset. The last time Alice had been abducted, everything in all their lives had gone to hell.

"She might just be late getting home," he reassured Steven, checking his maths homework as Jack investigated the house.

Steven said, "She's not." He kept his own voice calm, but Ianto wasn't fooled.

"Is your dad still out of the country?"

"For two more weeks. He and Petra are having their second honeymoon." His eyes darted away, and he played with his pencil.

"Are they?"

"Petra's going to have a baby. They're travelling to enjoy the time they have before it's born. I'm not supposed to know."

"Well, that's exciting news," Ianto said. Joe couldn't remember Steven's death. He also couldn't remember Steven was twelve, not four, and that he paid attention to conversations around him.

Jack stopped his search. "You didn't tell your mother that, did you?"

Ianto followed his thought; if Alice knew her ex and his new wife were expecting, she might have taken it badly and needed time to go think. But Steven shook his head. "She'd just get sad. Mum's already sad Dad replaced her. She won't like finding out he's replacing me, too."

"Hey," Jack said, taking a chair at the table with them. "That's not what's going on. You're going to be a big brother. That's an important job." He managed not to sound the way he usually did when he reminded himself of Gray, even putting on a genial smile.

"No, it's all right," Steven said, putting his school books away into his satchel. "Dad and Petra can have a new baby, and Mum has me." He clicked his pack closed and looked at his grandfather. "Where is she?" The calm cracked.

"We'll find her," Jack said.

Ianto wondered who he was convincing. He came to a decision. "Steven, I'd like you to pack some of your clothes. You'll come stay at ours whilst we look for your mum."

Steven looked at both of them, and saw Jack's nod. "Okay." He scampered upstairs to pack. He'd once again outgrown the clothes he left at their flat, and Ianto ought to take him shopping for more. He also needed to contact the school and let them know Steven would be out for a few days. He could ask Alice's neighbours to watch the dog. Ianto began jotting down a quick list. Action items kept him sane. God alone knew what he would do, what Jack would do, if the worst had happened.

As soon as Steven's door shut, Jack said, "Your first priority is to watch him. The second you believe either of you is in any danger, I want you both on a train out of Cardiff. I trust you to keep him safe."

"He's safest with both of us."

Jack gazed up the staircase. "I don't know if that's true right now."

***

They reconvened at the Hub. Gwen thought Dr. Pol was already looking healthier, the colour restoring to her cheeks despite the bruising. "What's this about, Jack?"

"I need all of you on this," he said, face drawn in an icy stolidity. "Alice is missing. The Boss Bug made a threat the other day. I'm about to go pay it a visit. I need the rest of you to search every database and camera you can. Find out where she's been taken."

"We need to call in the police," Gwen said, as reasonably as she could in the face of Jack's meltdown. If it was her child, she'd be going mad. Just the thought sent her pulse shooting, and her mind scrabbled at her with horrible implication.

Albert said, "And tell them she's been abducted by aliens?"

Jack said, "No. Albert's right. The public has a problem remembering aliens exist."

"Andy remembers. They're not stupid."

"I can't risk it now. Off the table." Jack cut the air with his hand. "I'm going to talk. Do what you can."

"I'm going with you," Albert said. "You might need backup."

Gwen said, "So am I."

Jack glanced between the two of them. "Albert, with me. Gwen, I want you here. Lois, help her. Polly … "

"Don't give me any damn orders. Go."

Gwen went to her workstation and began her usual search routines. She could have the cameras in Alice's area under her command in less than a minute. Lois came to her elbow. Jack was out of the building already. Even so, Lois whispered, "Do you think she's still alive?"

"She'd better be," said Pol from where she rested. "He was bad enough last time."

"Last time what?" asked Lois, mystified.

Gwen shrugged. "Did she disappear before?"

Pol looked at them both, and said something under her breath. It sounded a bit like, "Humans." Then she sighed. "Lois, be a dear and bring me a tablet. I've got some ideas."

***

"Where is she?" Jack's fists hit the table which served as the Boss Bug's desk. The bodyguards had put up exactly as much objection as they could when faced with a man who couldn't die. Albert might be in more danger than he thought, but Jack wouldn't let himself worry.

The Boss Bug refused to be cowed. "She who?"

"Alice. You threatened me two days ago, and now she's missing. For your sake, she had better be completely fine, or I swear I will burn your hive to the ground myself."

"Strong words. No meaning. We don't know the woman you speak of."

Jack growled. "Two days ago, you told me to watch my young. My child is gone. Ring any bells?"

The Bug stared at him. "No."

"I swear … "

"Captain, we promise you we did not take your offspring. We have no quarrel with you. Mopolite hates you, and hates us. If any took your child, look to his," the Bug sputtered into a broken language even Jack didn't speak.

"No distracting. Mopolite wasn't the one who threatened her."

"What does that mean? Only that he wants us to quarrel."

"TELL ME!"

The Bug made a gesture, and Jack recognised the motion: regret, shared sorrow, grief for a friend. "Ask him. If you have faith in gods, ask them as well."

***

Alice's head ached. Her vision swam in front of her like water, and only gradually cleared. She was in a small cell. The room was clean, without the smell of old urine and regret she normally associated with prisons. She lay on a thin mattress with clean sheets and a small, firm pillow. She saw a steel sink and a steel toilet. By the closed door, a small tray sat with a covered lump which smelled mouth-wateringly of roast.

As she sat up, she fought the terror growing in her throat. Wherever she was, her captors, and she had to assume captors if she assumed cell, held her in decent conditions. They wanted her alive.

She tried to focus her memory. She'd left work and driven towards home. She'd stopped at a light, and someone had approached her car. She'd met the person's eyes, and her heart had stopped at the face from her nightmares.

A grill opened on the door. "Hello, Mrs. Carter," said Agent Johnson.

***
February 12th
***

Jack hadn't come home. He'd checked in via text, which meant he was currently alive and didn't want to answer questions on what leads he was following. Ianto traced his mobile's GPS to London and back. A meeting with Mopolite, then, and not productive.

Dragging himself up from two hours of sleep, Ianto fixed breakfast for himself and Steven, who came into the sitting room with his blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. Rather than insist on the table, Ianto spooned their porridge into bowls and handed one to Steven on the sofa.

"Jack will find her," Ianto said reassuringly. "He's been out all night."

Steven said nothing. He ate his porridge and stared out the window.

Ianto said, "After you've eaten and washed, we'll do some shopping. Get you some clothes, pick up food. You and I can cook together tonight."

"If Mum doesn't come back, can I live here with you?"

The question ought not have surprised him. Ianto set down his bowl, made Steven set down his bowl, and waited until the child looked him full in the face. "Steven, we are going to find your mother."

"Not alive. Maybe." He was holding himself together, barely. "The last time she was taken ... " Tears he wouldn't admit to moistened his eyes.

"I know."

"If she's dead, I want to stay here."

The thing was, of course Alice might be dead. They were dealing with monsters, literally, and any one of them could have murdered Alice in retaliation for Jack's past wrongs. Ianto and Steven were both witness to that path. Steven wasn't stupid, and he wasn't little. He was the closest Ianto would ever have to a son of his own, and he was growing older every day. Innocence had passed a long time ago.

"I promise we will do everything in our power to bring her home safe. You know Jack will tear the world apart to find her if he must." He took Steven's hands. "But if the worst happens, you will almost certainly go live with your dad and Petra. And I will call you every day, and come visit you every weekend, and when you're old enough to decide where you can go, you will always be welcome here. You always have a home with us. And if Jack buggers off and leaves the planet again, you will always have a home with me. No matter what, no matter when. Okay?"

Steven nodded, and the threatened tears began to roll down his face. Ianto bent to reach the box of tissues and handed him one.

"But we will find your mum. I swear."

***

"I have questions for you," said Agent Johnson. She'd opened the cell door and gestured to someone outside to lock her in. This did not comfort Alice in any fashion. While she believed herself capable of killing another human if necessary, she had no means, and the woman standing in front of her had obvious military training and no scruples.

"Let me go," she said, without hope.

"September 2009. Tell me what you remember."

Alice stared at her. She remembered everything. She didn't want to. The rest of the damned world had been allowed to forget that awful week. She remembered screaming. She remembered her baby's face as he bled. She remembered this monster she'd briefly trusted. And she had to make herself remember, because Steven's life depended on her knowing what had happened to him. She had to remind herself every day of his death just to keep him tethered here and alive.

"I don't recall."

Johnson frowned. "Don't you? Did you know your son has a death certificate on file for September 11th, 2009?"

She did. She'd looked at the paper once, and she'd set it face-down on the desk in front of her, and she'd cried and cried. "No."

"You're a terrible liar, Mrs. Carter."

"Why am I here?"

Johnson sat down on the floor in a crouch. Her face was wrong. Now that Alice paid attention to her features, little tics and motions cascaded over her skin and were gone. The woman in the cell with her was mad. Fantastic.

"I remember the day your son died. I remember the room, and the signal into the stars. I remember you. I can't stop remembering you, remembering him. I shot a man in the leg that day. I can remember the feel of my gun as it discharged. I remember.

"But I also remember that same day, that same time, being out on a mission. A small terrorist cell was operating in Edmonton, planning on setting a bomb on the Underground. We stormed their hideaway. I shot two of them, one in the shoulder and one in the foot. I can remember the feel of my gun. I remember."

Johnson's head twitched. "The others don't remember. They think you're here because we have information you're involved in some gang-related killings between Cardiff and Lewisham. I think they're aliens."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Johnson edged closer. "I dream about you. You were there. We spoke several times. Your son died, and now he's alive."

Alice let her panic set in. "Let me see him."

"He isn't here. I didn't need him."

"You don't need me for anything!"

Johnson got to her feet. "I need to know what you remember. I need to know you remember the same things I do. Tell me what you know."

Alice stayed seated on the small bed. She didn't reply.

Johnson turned and knocked twice at the door. "You'll be fed. You'll be comfortable. You're not leaving until you tell me what you know."

The door opened, and any thought Alice had of escaping was stopped by the sight of the armed guards outside. The cell door slammed.

As soon as the footsteps echoed down the hall and away, she rested her face in her hands.

***

Lois was on her sixth cup of coffee, and felt it. Torchwood meant going without sleep, and according to Gwen, many a week in the old days had been spent fuelled by nothing more than desperation and Ianto's industrial blend. Ianto said Gwen exaggerated about that, although he still refused to give Lois the final two ingredients of his secret brew.

She realised she'd been staring at her cup for over a minute, and quickly set it down. Gwen had gone home for a few hours. Lois ought to do the same.

Dr. Pol said, "Lois, as your physician, I order you to lie down for a quick kip. No falling over."

She smiled. "Pity there's someone in the spare bed right now."

Dr. Pol clucked. "Don't say that in front of Jack. You know what he'd say."

"Suggest we share it." She yawned. "Actually, budge up." Pol laughed but scooted a bit to make some space. Lois nestled, a bit uncomfortably, in the warm spot next to her. This was more awkward than she'd thought.

Pol said, "I should be getting up. Back on my feet can only do me good."

Lois made a quiet noise. Sleep really did sound nice. "Take your time to rest. We don't get much rest here." She closed her eyes, then let them drift open. At this angle, the Hub looked askew, strange and magical. Odd shapes caught her eyes. "What's that?" She couldn't make out what the lumpy brown package was from here.

Pol followed her arm. "I'm not certain. Ianto brought it in the other day. Said he acquired it before those horrid Firestone people could. It's been singing to me."

"Singing?" If she closed her eyes again (and wasn't that a tempting thought?) she could almost make out what Pol meant. Not quite music, not quite words, but very soothing. Whatever was inside the package, it made her feel good. "Probably toxic. Going to kill us all."

"Could be. Nice, though."

"Yeah."

She awoke with a start sometime later. The Hub had no windows, and no way to tell the time of day. She heard two people talking at the same moment she noticed she was alone on the camp bed.

Albert said, "I don't have a name, but I've got faces."

Pol's tired voice replied, "I don't recall faces. But I'll look, if that makes you happy."

They were supposed to be looking for Alice, though it sounded as though Albert was still following the leads on Pol's attackers. He was sweet on her, not in a romantic way but in the way he'd love a maiden aunt who might not quite be a maiden. They all fit together in this strange, broken little family Jack kept rebuilding from the ashes of families long gone. When she was gone, and Albert and Pol, and even Jack's two favourites, he'd go on and create a new team on their graves.

Lois wondered if she'd be strong enough to walk away before that.

Pol said, "Him."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be. You said the other was recently blinded?"

"That's what the hospital records say."

She paused for a long moment. "Good."

***

Ianto made a list of groceries and personal items, and added to his list a note to look at flats. He and Jack had chosen this one together, leaving Jack's sterile, quickly-chosen and unloved flat in exchange for a larger unit which fit their tastes and had a second bedroom for Steven's visits. All of his own personal possessions had been donated or lost, and most of Jack's had burned. Living together meant finding out what the other really wanted in a table, and a desk, and a sofa. (As it turned out, the primary concern was "hard-wearing and able to hold both of them without breaking." No surprise there.) That lamp was their lamp. This cushion was their cushion. The whole situation was sickeningly domestic. Ianto didn't mind at all.

But Jack had entrusted him with Steven's safety, and his own. Bolt holes were mandatory, and backup residences never hurt. They all had several sets each of false identities. Signing a short lease would be simple. A change of clothes left at each wouldn't hurt.

"I like this one," Steven said at the second shop, holding up a shirt that looked very much like the rest of the shirts.

"Not much style," Ianto said, placing it in the trolley. "Why not something like that?" He nodded at a display of t-shirts with animated characters all on.

"Not those. Those are for babies."

"Ah. My mistake."

"This one!" came a loud shout. Feet thundered towards the display, but it was only one set of feet, followed by two other sets walking much more slowly. Ianto's brain had registered the shout without identifying the owner. However, his sister was impossible to miss as she joined her son at the t-shirts, and she didn't miss him.

"Fine day for them," she said. He was afraid she was going to hug him, but instead she pecked a kiss on his cheek. "Say hello to your uncle."

"Hi," said David and Mica in unison, and both went back to the t-shirts, arguing over which character was the best.

"I didn't expect to see you here," said Rhi. "What're you doing?"

"Oh. Right." He nodded at Steven, who'd mostly hidden himself behind Ianto. "Steven needed clothes. He's outgrown the ones he keeps at ours."

Rhiannon craned her neck around. "Oh, hello there." She gave Ianto a look which clearly said, "Who's this?"

"Steven, you remember meeting my sister Rhiannon? She came to the hospital. That's David, and that's Mica. Who ought to be in school now, I thought."

Mica shouted, "The pipes froze and busted!" She returned to haranguing her brother over which character would annihilate the other.

Rhi said, "They're out the whole week. What about him?"

"Mum is out of town," Steven lied, watching the other two children.

"He's Jack's nephew. He's staying with us until she gets back." Ianto gestured at his niece and nephew. "You could go talk to them."

"No, thanks." He played with the sleeve of one shirt. "Besides, they're both wrong. Batman could kick everyone's arse."

Ianto wasn't sure how, but the next he knew, Rhiannon had decided the five of them would get lunch together, somewhere with tables if not with tablecloths. Steven warmed to David and Mica's five-year-long argument, throwing in his own observations about heroes Ianto didn't know. Growing up, he'd always looked askance at his friends and classmates who spent all their time nose-deep in comic books. Now that he was dating a superhero, the 2-D adventures of made-up people couldn't hold a candle.

"Where's Jack?" Rhiannon asked over her menu.

After everything, he still wasn't sure where she stood on Jack, and whether any innocent inquiry would twist into questions Ianto didn't want to answer or advice he didn't intend to take. "Work. He's busy with a project."

"He's always busy," she tutted. "He ought to take a break. You two can go somewhere nice for a change."

Ianto nearly choked on his glass of water. If there was one thing more horrifying than the thought of his sister disapproving of his relationship, that thing would be her getting involved and giving advice for same. "It's fine. We're fine. In fact," he said, placing the glass on the table, "we've been a few places together. We took a trip together to Switzerland, and one to India." He could just about think on their time on those missions without shuddering, too. Both near-death experiences had led to appropriately remorseful cuddling on Jack's part after, which was the very last item on a long list Ianto intended never to share with her. "We even took a cruise together. Rode in a submarine near Japan." Sort of near. Nearer than here.

Steven set down his fork and stared, and David and Mica followed. "Cool."

"That was a while ago," Ianto covered quickly. "And I would've told you, but I didn't know how." He dropped in a bit of truth amongst the half-truths. "I didn't think you'd take it well if I said I've started dating a much older man, and by the by, we're off to CERN for a holiday."

"I'd've taken it fine if I could've come along," Rhi said.

"Nah. Jack snores."

She laughed, and there was the smile he remembered from long ago. "You two should come visit more often. We're not that far." She nodded at Steven. "Bring him with you."

Now there was a thought. Ianto could take Steven to hers, spend time in Newport instead of Cardiff, risk their lives once again. As a very last resort, he could leave Steven with her, have him blend in with the gaggle of children in her new neighbourhood. He wondered if she ever thought about why they'd moved, and where the money had come from. He hoped she didn't. "Maybe later."

"Can we go to the zoo?" asked Mica. Despite the cold, and the impeding snow, she was obviously gauging how much she could get out of this unexpected visit.

"It's too cold out," said her mother.

Ianto remembered his last trip to the zoo. He'd gone on a date, and went home invisible and reeking of tiger shit. He reminded himself to tell Steven later. "That's for the best."

David said, "What about the cinema?"

"Steven and I have more errands we need to run today."

***

The CCTV between Alice's work and home had been deactivated an hour before her disappearance. Lois watched Gwen try every trick she knew to pull out the data, scanning in wider and wider circles searching for anything unusual before and after, and around the blackout area. Dr. Pol had busied herself with contacting her various acquaintances in both the human and alien communities. Her skills had often come in aid of those who needed unofficial help, or couldn't set foot in a normal doctor's office.

"How are the quintuplets doing?" she asked, voice full of marmalade, "Really? Their horns are coming in earlier than I'd thought. Remind me and I'll be by next week for a check-up. Now, I've got a question for you."

Lois let them both work. Albert had disappeared, saying he had to go pay a bill. Jack didn't seem worried about him, spending all his worry on the phone right now. He'd been trading calls with the Smiths since he got in. Dr. Smith wanted to come in, do an exam on Dr. Pol and also lend a hand on their search for Alice. Jack wanted her to stay where she was, but did want a list of their contacts. Lois gathered this through the open door at which she definitely wasn't eavesdropping.

She wasn't quite sure how to think of his relationship with the couple. She was almost certain he hadn't slept with one or both of them. Dr. Smith appeared to be second only to Gwen in Jack's list of best friends for life. Her husband was one of his favourite people to rag on whenever possible, yet if he ever did marry his boyfriend, he'd almost certainly ask Mickey to stand up as his best man. The whole arrangement confused her. Her own friendships were far more straightforward. No insults, not even a friendly "you cow." No mad chemistry making everyone around her wonder if she was sleeping with her mates. No time travel or alternate timelines, either. Her own friends were drifting away, one by one, though. She'd cut her hair, and she couldn't talk about work. Dating was hard, and listening to her friends chat about the men they were seeing, and their jobs, and the kids they wanted soon, was much harder.

She let her eye fall to the floor. Speaking of kids, Anwen hadn't cleaned up all her toys when she'd come in with her mum. Lois tidied them into a bin, shoving the lot under a desk. Perhaps this was her life now, cleaning up for everyone else and never managing a life of her own. And what good would it do if she did? Anwen was being raised knowing all about aliens, and her life had been in danger several times because of it. Jack's daughter was missing due to this life. Pol had almost died.

"Fine," Jack said through the door. "We'll see you this evening."

Lois chose that moment to bring him a new coffee. "Getting visitors, are we?"

"Martha and Mickey are coming by, yeah." He glowered from losing the argument.

"Any leads?"

"A few. But Mickey wants to check them out for himself. For some reason, he thinks I won't be 'reasonable' when I talk to their friends." He made air-quotes around the word himself. "It's not my fault that every time I try to talk sense I end up getting shot at." He was, she noticed suddenly, not wearing the same shirt he'd worn this morning.

She oughtn't ask, but she did anyway. "How many times have you died this week?"

Jack took a long drink of his coffee, and didn't answer. "Tell Gwen and the rest I'm going back out. I've got more heads to knock together."

***

Alice ignored the camera in her cell as she used the toilet. She'd tried to resist, hating the thought of some faceless person, or some person with a face she knew too well, watching her have a pee. She thought about refusing to eat, refusing to cooperate. She wasn't sure where that would get her, or if she'd wind up getting herself killed before someone got her out of here. It'd probably be her father, and he'd probably expect her to be grateful. This only added to her bad mood.

Johnson waited until the flush to let herself back into the cell with Alice. She attempted a smile, which came out wrong on her face. "Do you need an extra blanket? Is the food acceptable?"

Today she was Good Cop. Alice knew where she stood with Bad Cop. Good Cop could pull out the rug at any time. "I'm fine, thank you." She'd like a book, or her mobile, or a gun.

"I'm not your enemy."

"You killed my son."

Johnson's smile became genuine. "You do remember."

"Get out."

"I need to know what you remember, Alice. Dekker wasn't human. When we treated his wounds, we discovered the blood was alien. After some persuasion, he talked." Alice didn't want to imagine what kind of persuasion she meant.

"You should know," Johnson went on, "that he arranged it all. He contacted the 456. He told them to come. His people are called the Pantheon of Discord. They can change time. He knew if he cost the Earth the lives of millions of children, he could feed on the potential energy for every fate he changed, bringing each back for a price."

Alice shuddered, and did not reply. Nothing she'd learned during her lifelong association with Torchwood suggested Johnson was lying. But Jack had stopped that future, in the worst possible way, and Dekker couldn't even come to Alice to offer her a deal she'd have gladly accepted.

"I interrogated him myself." Johnson pulled her hands into fists. "Aliens bleed like anyone else."

She stepped closer to Alice, who stepped back in response. Johnson stopped. "In training, we're taught about blood-born pathogens, how to avoid contracting Hepatitis or HIV from enemies or prisoners. I contracted time. I can remember the day your son died, and I can remember the day he didn't. No-one else recalls the first any longer. It doesn't exist. But you remember. I need to know what you know. I need to know I'm not mad."

Alice stared at her. "You're going on about aliens and alternate timelines and murdering time-travelling aliens, and you want me to tell you you're sane?"

"You know what happened."

"Go away," said Alice, tired and sad. "Or let me out."

Johnson came closer. Alice wasn't sure if she would feel a strike against her chin, or if this obsessed woman was about to kiss her and force her down to the bunk. She tensed against both, closing her eyes.

When nothing happened, she opened them again. Johnson stood there, angry and immobile.

"Tell me what you know, and you'll be released."

"I suppose I have your personal promise on that, do I?"

Johnson turned, knocking at the cell door until the door opened and let her out.

***

Ianto answered an ad for a rental house in Caerphilly. He gave false credentials and two months' deposit to the manager for lodgings for his family. He was careful to refer to Steven's mother without actually calling Alice his wife, as she'd throttle him should she ever find out. Steven played along, asking plenty of questions about the local schools and other kids nearby. As they drove back, Ianto realised he hadn't driven this way since his ill-fated run-in with the Arcanis Servitorus during that business with Robert Craig. He shivered as he passed the turn-off which had nearly killed him five long, strange years ago.

They drove to Barry and rented a flat with a second set of credentials under the names Mr. and Mr. White. "My husband will be by to sign later," Ianto promised. "No, we don't have custody of Christopher. He lives with my ex, but he does visit us when he can."

As they headed back towards home, Ianto watched Steven sitting quietly in the other seat, gazing out the window. They'd fled this way once, driving to escape capture or worse. With the funds in his pocket and the clothing in the boot, they could run away now. He'd pick a place on the map, drive them to the train or the ferry, and leave the company car for Torchwood to find. The two of them could vanish together, just as Jack had asked.

"Steven?"

"Hm?"

"Would you be interested in going on a short holiday? You and me. We could drive up the coast, or take a trip to Scotland. Torchwood Glasgow has an old manor house we could visit."

Steven kept his eyes out the window. "Are we running away again?"

"We could. Jack thinks you'd be safer away from Cardiff."

There was no reply for a while. Ianto stole a glance as he drove. The clothing had been the first clue that Steven was growing again, was no longer the scared little boy he'd met in Amy Pond's kitchen. Due to the gap in their lives from death to resurrection, none of them could accurately give his age. Nevertheless, given the amount of hell this child had experienced, and everything he'd survived since, he'd grown enough to make some decisions for himself.

"I don't want to be safe. I want to be with you, and Mum, and Uncle Jack."

"All right."

Their third stop was back in Grangetown. "Two singles or one double?" asked the landlady.

"Whatever you have available is fine," Ianto said, signing his name 'Andrew Jacob.' "My brother may be by to see me. He's a bit of a rake, but don't mind him."

"No visitors, and no women," she said. "I don't want any trouble." Ianto soothed her over by putting his brother John alongside his name. "No visitors and no women," he agreed with a smile.

***

Albert had emigrated to England with his parents when he was two years old. They'd died by the time he was four, and he'd been passed from home to home without ever finding another couple to love him as their own. He'd been quiet, first by nature and then by lack of care, and had trouble connecting to his foster families. Later, much later, he realised he'd been lucky. He'd never been struck, never been touched inappropriately, never starved or hurt or neglected more than any other child in the large families he'd found himself briefly part of. He'd left the last family the day he turned sixteen, and never went back to visit.

In another life, one not too distant from the one he lived, he'd have become a criminal and died on the street. Albert had stolen more than once when times were lean, between what jobs he could pick up with no school and no connections. He was bright, and good with electronics and with weapons. He spent two years in the Army Reserves before deciding it wasn't for him, and took the extra training they'd given him into a new life of petty, nearly-victimless electronic theft with a side of breaking and entering.

Jack had almost shot him when he'd caught Albert breaking into the initial storefront he and Gwen had set up as their temporary headquarters. He would have, too, had Dr. Pol not laughed and laughed, and teased them both about the holes in their security. (Later, she told Albert how puffed up Jack had been about all the measures he'd taken. He hadn't stopped talking about how impregnable the place was but two minutes before Albert's breach.)

She'd saved his life, and had done so over and over ever since. Albert couldn't remember his mum. He'd like to think she had the same sharp sense of humour and kind spirit as Pol did.

The blind man in hospital hadn't been of much use. He didn't know the name of the person who'd paid him. He was expendable muscle, hired for cheap and handed a chip of concrete which rendered him difficult to see. Albert left him alive, and no more harmed than when he came in, but he did relieve him of the concrete chip. He knew all about perception filters, thanks.

The train station was at a lull when he arrived and bought his ticket. With the chip in his pocket, Albert passed unobserved through crowds, looking for the second face on his list. When he found one compartment with the shade drawn, he let himself inside. At the same time, he clicked the noise-dampener he'd nicked from the Hub. Ianto'd go mental when he found out Albert had taken it, but Ianto was a prat and he could fucking get over himself.

"Michael Pryce?" he asked.

The man hid his face further inside his hood. "Sorry, no." Thanks to his own filter, Albert saw him clearly.

"You visited Dr. Irene Pol at her home three days ago. You tried to kill her."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" said Pryce in a strangled voice. "If you're with the police, I have an alibi," he added, belying his first statement. He shuddered. "Anyway, whatever that thing was, it wasn't human."

Albert stepped forward, his knife clicking open. "I'm not with the police. If you tell me who hired you, this will be quick."

"I don't know! I never saw them!" wailed Pryce.

"How sad for you," said Albert.

***

Chapter 4

Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (2/6)

2015-01-12T02:39:08Z

The Valentine's Day Massacre (2/6)
Words: 35,300 (5500 this part)

***
Chapter 1
***
Chapter 2
***

Gwen came into work early. Technically today was a day off, but that meant the new people wouldn't come in. Dr. Pol had hosted another dinner party last night, and doubtless would be hungover for hours. Lois, while not quite as naive as Gwen herself had been when she'd started here, did still believe she could balance Torchwood and a social life, and was probably at brunch with friends. Albert was wherever Albert went when he wasn't at work. Reading to poor children or collecting stamps or sharpening his knife collection, God only knew.

Gwen liked the three of them very much. Lois was a dear, and Albert was a lamb, and Dr. Pol was better than everyone's mum. But she also liked her time here on ostensible days off, because she knew that eventually, Jack and Ianto would wander in, and for a little while, it would be like old days again.

Only this time, she didn't want them in just yet.

The Torchwood files were maddeningly spotty. After Tosh's death, Ianto had backed up all their data and sent discs to be securely stored in Glasgow. Gwen had spent weeks tracking down the discs and reinstalling all the old archives when she and Jack had set up shop here. The old records were as complete as they could be, minus a few CDs which had been damaged in transit.

She stopped herself mid-thought. Ianto had backed up the data, but hadn't helped her reload it. Jack had helped her set up the site here when they'd decided together that Cardiff was home and Torchwood belonged here. She couldn't recall what Ianto had been doing at the time. Perhaps he'd been in Glasgow, sorting out the records. He certainly hadn't been here, because they'd barely written anything down for months, so busy with cases, and he'd always insisted on the reports. Holdover from Torchwood London, he'd said.

Their records at the time of Freda's wedding said nothing about a missing child. The closest thing she found was a police report in Albert's files, a little boy who looked a bit like Steven. The cases she did find confused her more. She remembered some details. She remembered some faces. But everything was murky, like a play she'd seen rather than events she'd experienced personally.

She found a reference to an unusual case in America, and Jack had written a note to consult Rex. Gwen had to spend more than a minute trying to recall what he'd looked like, and came up with only a patchy visual. Worried, she pulled up what records they had on their impromptu team back then, and found herself looking at faces she wouldn't recognise if she saw them in a crowd now.

She found her father's file.

By the time Jack came in, his own features drawn in worry, she knew.

"Where's Ianto?"

"In the front office." Jack made his way to the coffee maker, and looked as though he might try to convince Ianto to come join them. Instead, he started the process himself. "I went to see Mopolite. He's giving us one week to deal with the Bugs ourselves before the Machine comes in after them."

"What's he going to do?"

"Make our lives difficult. I need to talk to the Boss today." The hot sputter of the coffee machine sent identical shivers through them. Perhaps they all did have a tiny addiction.

Gwen set the wedding invitation on the small prep table beside him, and saw him glance without comment.

"Jack, I need to ask you something."

"Sure."

Gwen tapped her leg nervously. "When did you Retcon me?"

Jack blinked at her over his mug, which he'd just spooned a bit of sugar into. "What?"

"My memories are all out of joint. I can't remember Freda's wedding. I barely remember what happened to my father. So I want to know. When did you give me Retcon, and how much of my life did you remove?"

Her voice was trembling by the end. She hadn't thought she would feel so betrayed, but as the enormity of her loss hit her, so did the rage. How much had she forgotten?

Jack set the mug down and stepped away from the coffee maker. Concerned, he asked, "Do you know what today is? Did it happen this week? I don't know who gave you Retcon, but we can find out."

"No. It's a whole span of time, Jack. I can remember bits, but it's like trying to remember the boy's name who sat behind me in school. Unless I try hard, I can't remember Vera's name. What happened to me?"

He held out his hand. She backed away. "Gwen, it's not what you think."

"It is. Somehow, you took away my memories. I can't remember half of when Anwen was a baby. I will never get that time back with her. Why did you do it?" She was shouting now, and she didn't care.

Jack watched her, but he didn't approach. "Gwen, I need you to listen to me. This isn't the first time we've had this conversation. I don't think you're going to remember this one, either. The Doctor reset time, more than once. Certain things that happened stopped having happened. You've got both sets of memories, but the current timeline is stronger. Try to remember."

The timeline. Jack telling her. She thought. Yes.

"You told me this before."

"Yes."

"Why can't I remember?"

He did approach her this time, and he took her hands. "Because it stopped being real. It's all right. You'll remember for a while, and it will go away again."

The memories trickled in around the edges, now they'd been unstoppered again. The missing child. He hadn't looked like Steven, that had been Steven they'd been looking for. He'd been lost, and …

Gwen stared at him. "Steven was dead. Ianto was dead."

Jack smiled, and it was the sad, broken smile she remembered from those bad days. "Yeah."

"They came back. And I … Oh God."

"You didn't know it was him. None of us did."

"You knew," Gwen said. At the end, just before the magic trick making the pair visible again, Jack had known the man they had in custody, the man Gwen had thought was threatening Martha. She wondered, then and now if, across space and time and death and wearing a face she couldn't see, she loved Rhys enough to know it was him standing before her. She wanted to believe the answer was yes.

"Don't tell him. Don't apologise. He doesn't want to know, and you won't remember you told him. All right?"

She nodded, guilt squirming away. Her gun had been heavy in her hand, and Martha's life was in danger. "I won't tell him. Jack, I don't want to forget again."

"I know." He kissed the top of her head. "You said that the last three times, too."

There was a crackle in her ear, at the same time Jack had a crackle in his. Albert's voice said, "I'm at Pol's. Get here now."

***

Mrs. Pettidear had her mobile out but the buttons were confusing her again. Her granddaughter insisted she keep this blasted thing on her. She might've spent more time indicating how it worked. She kept receiving calls from a nice young man who told her that her shirts were ready, and rang off.

The young man who stood in Irene's doorway looked like a hatchet had had a baby. She'd seen him with Irene from time to time but she didn't know his name.

"Did you see what happened?" he demanded.

"No. I heard the car pull away. Have you called 999?" She held up her mobile. "I can't get it to work."

A large SUV pulled up in front of the house, and three people poured out. Mrs. Pettidear thought they were Irene's friends. One of the men, a tall good-looking chap, said, "How is she?"

"Not good. Lois is in with her now."

Mrs. Pettidear said, "She needs an ambulance."

The woman smiled sadly. "She can't go to hospital. She's … "

"… allergic," said the second man. "Can't be around penicillin or latex."

And that was odd. Irene was a doctor, wasn't she? Before Mrs. Pettidear could ask, the four of them hurried into the flat, and the door shut tight. She stared down at her mobile again. Useless thing.

***

Lois followed Dr. Pol's mumbled instructions as best she could. She'd got extra towels to clean up the blood, and helped prod for broken bones. She found one of Dr. Pol's teeth on the floor, and swallowed her own cry, and swept it up with the rest of the mess. Albert was outside controlling the situation with Dr. Pol's neighbours. She wished he would swap with her.

"Can you sit up?"

"I think I might." With an effort, Lois helped her to the sofa, mindful of injuries they had yet to discover. "Thank you."

"Would some water help?"

"Not now. I need to think." Her eyes closed. Lois worried that she'd fall unconscious again, that she had brain injuries, that she would die here, now, in her flat with Lois helpless beside her. She heard a car door slam outside, and Jack's voice.

"Everyone's here now," she told Dr. Pol in a soothing tone. "We'll send for Dr. Smith. She'll know what to do."

Dr. Pol smiled grimly, showing sickly orange blood in her mouth. "I know what to do."

The door came open, and the rest of the team piled in. Jack knelt beside the couch. "Hey, Polly."

"Jack, if I find out those bastards tried to kill me in order to send you a message, I am going to break your legs." The sentence cost her. Her breathing went shallow. Lois hated this, hated having to wonder if her friend was about to die.

"Did you see who they were?"

She lay still. Finally, she said, "No. They were bundled against the cold. They may have been wearing perception filters. I couldn't see them properly." She held up her hand. "But I collected evidence, and I can identify one of them in a line-up. He'll be the one without eyes."

Albert said, "I collected samples from her. Permission to go analyse them?"

"Go," said Gwen, before Jack could reply. Albert nodded and was out the door like a shot.

"He was checking in on me," Dr. Pol said. "To see how my hangover was."

Jack asked, "Was it a good party?"

"The best."

Lois stepped back from the conversation, and noticed Ianto had grabbed the broom from where she'd set it. He tilted his head at her, and together they finished straightening up the mess while Jack talked to Pol, trying to see if she remembered anything about her assailants that would be helpful.

"It's got to be the Bugs," said Gwen, worry on her face. "Mopolite said he's staying away from Cardiff this week."

"Or he lied," said Jack flatly.

Lois's mobile pinged. "Albert says he passed the police and ambulance on his way. They're coming."

"I can't go to hospital," Pol said with a cough.

Jack stood. "Do you want to stay at the Hub, or with one of us? You can't stay here, and we have to go now."

"Hub."

For a moment, Lois was sure she wanted to say something else, but the sirens were in the distance. She glanced at their clean-up; it would have to do.

"Can you walk?" Jack asked her, helping her up.

"I don't think so."

Gwen said, "I'll bring the car to the back. They shouldn't see us carrying her out."

"Right. Lois, kindly tell the authorities when they arrive that this is a Torchwood matter. Ianto?"

Ianto was already there, catching Dr. Pol on the other side. The two of them lifted her as gently as they could and made their way to the back of the flat, as Gwen darted to get the car. Lois put on her professional face, and reminded herself to pack a bag for Pol as soon as she finished with the police.

***

The Bugs hadn't mastered the 'organised' part of 'organised crime' as yet. They kept the lid on the local aliens, finding them jobs with other aliens, moving merchandise, and making sure none of theirs ran afoul of the human authorities. Extraterrestrials and their Earth-born offspring were massively outnumbered. Every time the Daleks came, or the Sontarans, or the Cybermen, the resident aliens went underground and hoped the humans didn't start coming after them. For Jack, turning a blind eye to the somewhat law-abiding group meant less paperwork and overall a slightly safer city. Sometimes he had to lean on them. Sometimes someone overreached. But the arrangement worked, most days.

The Boss Bug was a matter of temporary assignment. The Hive currently in control of the other species had a shared mind. When one member was necessary to deal with someone, one of the Hive broke off and took on the role. If a Boss Bug was killed, another from the Hive took its place without a second thought. Efficient, Jack thought. Also annoying. He never knew if he was dealing with the same Bug.

The Bug sitting across from him now looked exactly like the last three Bosses, except Jack knew all three prior were dead. Mopolite's gang meant business.

"A week for what?" the Boss asked.

"He wants us to clean you out ourselves. Not really my style."

"Isn't it? Torchwood have hounded our people for decades."

Jack held its gaze, or what he was pretty sure were the active eyes this time. "That's in the past. You know I've left your people alone as long as they follow the rules."

"Your rules."

"Yeah, my rules. My planet."

The Bug chuckled. "Is that so? I was born here, Captain. My parents were hatched in Welsh soil." He extended a claw at the heavies in the room. One of them, he noticed, was Freda's husband. "They were born here. You were not. This is our world more than yours, and here you come, dictating to us how we should act."

"I've lived here longer than you, and I spent two thousand years in Welsh soil. We can argue all day about who belongs here. I don't intend to see you go. But as a friend, I wanted to warn you. Mopolite is giving you a few days. Don't let your guard down. When he comes in, he wants blood."

"And will you stand to protect us, Captain? Many of us are citizens. We pay taxes." The Boss enunciated the last word like a dark spell. "They are invaders. We will protect our own."

"Then you'll be slaughtered. He's given you a week. Spend it negotiating peace, or moving."

The Bug stood, two and a half metres of fury. "Mopolite will not have peace! We meet with him, and come home to find our young murdered, three times the fool for trusting his word!"

Jack got to his own feet. "I'm sorry for that. But it's a sign you need to barter, or the rest of your young will die, too."

"Go."

Jack turned to the door.

The Boss said, "Protect your own young, Captain, and we will protect ours."

***

Rhys greeted Gwen with her dinner when she finally wandered in and collapsed in a heap at the table. He didn't ask how bad her day had been, nor how long. He'd learned. Instead, he said, "She's awake if you want to see her."

"Thanks, I will." But she placed her head on her arms and ignored the food.

"Do you want to talk about it?" This was another thing he'd learned over the years.

"Dr. Pol was attacked in her home. We don't know why. Albert said the DNA was human, but that only means someone human is on the payroll."

Rhys liked Dr. Pol. She was on the round and jolly side, and had a great sense of humour for an alien from planet whatever. "Is she going to be okay?"

"We think so. Jack says Martha can't come help her, though." Her face went lost. "Rhys, would you hate me if I told you we might have to go into hiding again?"

He sat at the table but he stared in the direction of Anwen's bedroom. "Right now?"

"There's a war heating up between the two big alien gangs. My friend was nearly killed today, and I think it might be because of it."

"But she's an alien. Why'd they want to mess with her?"

"She's an alien working for Torchwood. That makes her a traitor to both sides." Gwen picked up her fork and twirled it instead of eating. "The more we try to help, the more we become targets ourselves. I don't want you and Anwen in danger because of me all over again."

"Then quit this business and take up sewing."

She shot him a look, but he stared back. "You know I won't."

"Of course I know you won't, love. So let's figure out what we're going to do this time."

She offered a tight smile back. "All right."

"By the way, did you sort out that thing this morning?"

"This morning?" She sighed. "Rhys, if the past is another country, this morning is at least a few streets away. Remind me, yeah?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. You said you were going in to look into something."

She frowned, then speared some vegetables onto her fork. "I probably did. I don't recall. Must not have been important."

***

Jack called Alice. She answered with, "What do you want?"

"Hello, Alice."

"Do not 'hello' me."

He backed down. Part of her would never, ever forgive him for what had happened. There was no point in telling her that most of him would never forgive himself, either. "I think it would be a good time for you and Steven to take a holiday."

Suspicion radiated like heat from the receiver. "What for?"

"Just for safety's sake. Take a trip. Come back in two weeks."

"He has school. If we went into hiding every time you did something stupid, we'd have to move every day. What did you do?"

"Nothing. I had a talk with someone today who made a threat. They could have been blowing smoke, or not, and I don't want to risk it. I don't want to risk you." He hoped he didn't have to add the 'again.' He knew he didn't have to remind her of the one time he couldn't protect her.

"Then stop them." Her tone was simple, flat. Despite everything, she still believed her father could fix anything. He'd even brought her son back from the dead.

"I'll do what I can."

"Dad?" Her voice had changed, was more ragged at the edge.

He switched gears instantly. "What is it?"

"I've been thinking about the timeline. The Doctor broke it, and brought back Steven by accident."

He'd done much more than that. Jack took note of jagged pieces resetting themselves each day. "More or less, yes."

"What will happen if he gets it into his head to fix things?" She took a hard breath. "Will he ... will they all just vanish? What happens to us if time is reset again?" She was nearly sobbing.

Speaking of extra horrors he didn't want tonight. Because he wasn't sure. The timeline had been reset half a dozen times or more. Jack himself had wiped out one timeline by killing that damn Paradox Device choking the poor TARDIS. Should the Doctor's mishaps reset things again, should he resolder the old pieces back into place, Jack could very well turn around one day to discover another hand in his had slipped away and was gone forever, would find an empty bedroom in Alice's house and an ache that would never end.

"I don't know. But if he does fix time and take them away from us, I swear I will do everything in my power to break it again. All right?"

There was a long pause, and he heard Steven running into the room, oblivious to his mother's fears. "All right. Goodbye, Dad." The line hummed.

***
February 10th
***

Lois woke with a crick in her neck. She'd offered to spend the first night with Dr. Pol, and she'd slept on the little camp bed they kept for overnights. Terrible, creaky thing. How anyone got sleep on that contraption, she'd never know.

Yawning, she padded over to the doctor. "Good morning, time to check your head."

"Bugger off," said Dr. Pol, with more amiability than anger. "I was sleeping."

"And now you're awake. How many fingers?"

Dr. Pol managed to raise her right hand. "Two."

"Naughty."

"Let me sleep."

Lois brought her a glass of water and two tablets. "You said you should take these every four hours. It's been four hours."

"Never trust a doctor's word." Pol took the tablets and the water. "When is Dr. Smith coming?"

"She's not." Lois resisted the urge to brush Pol's head. It would be annoying rather than soothing. "Jack says the Smiths are leaving the country."

"Ah. Don't want to be here for the war?"

"He didn't say. What would Dr. Smith have told you?"

"Sleep. Heal." Pol sighed. "X-rays. Blood work to ensure there were no toxins introduced. An MRI to check for soft tissue damage."

"We can do that."

"No, you can't." She turned her head away on the pillow. "Albert said they were human."

Lois nodded. "That's what the DNA said. He's running another scan right now to see if he can find out who."

"Did you know, I have spent the last twenty years of my life working as a doctor on this planet. I have cared for thousands of human patients. I've delivered babies, and healed coughs, and sat with the dead. I never got on with the aliens here. None of my people, none of my problem. You humans were enough for me." She sounded so sad.

Lois took her hand and squeezed, mindful of the wounds. "You're an amazing doctor." For all her protests, Lois knew very well any injured alien who dragged itself to Pol's door had found plasters and a warm smile, and she'd personally delivered a third of the alien infants born in Cardiff over the last few years.

"It doesn't matter. The moment I walked through a hospital door as a patient, I'd be an alien. A monster. Something to be studied or killed." She coughed.

"Jack wouldn't let that happen. None of us would."

"Wait and see. The aliens are fighting. The aliens are dying. When the humans start dying, all the aliens will look alike to you." She coughed again. "I can't even let the humans I live with know about me. They don't mind if I tend Mrs. Pettidear's bad leg or Mr. Clarence's gout. But tell them I'm not from Earth, and they'll be the first to stone me to death. You'll see."

Lois chewed at her lip. She could argue. She could point out she knew exactly how it felt for people to look at her and think she didn't belong there. She could tell stories of having to correct people over and over on her surname, and pretend she didn't hear them say she ought to go back. Back where, they didn't say, and she'd have to point out she was born and raised in Highbury.

But she also recognised a good snit, and a sad day, and it wasn't worth telling her now. Perhaps next week, or next month. They'd go for drinks, and talk.

"Get some rest."

***

Ianto had a lead on an item he wanted very badly from the old Hub. He hadn't even let himself consider most of their possessions were still intact. After the blast, much of what hadn't blown up had flooded. Still, piece after piece showed up in private hands. His friend Jessamyn at the paper put him onto the more unusual stories; her colleague David Brigstocke from the radio hounded him when he found out about the leads. Ianto ought to put Brigstocke onto Miss Valentine and let him break the story of a real, live telepath.

Jessamyn had interviewed the nice elderly gentleman whose owned the house where Ianto now sat. A war veteran, doddering and tired, Mr. Edson insisted on tea and cake before he'd even allow Ianto to speak.

Ianto carefully kept his gaze off his prize. "So you see, it's a rare piece, and I'd like to acquire it for my shop." He presented Mr. Edson with a business card. "I can offer you quite a sum of money. Two hundred pounds."

"Thanks," said the old pensioner, handing back the card. "But our Ainsley gave us that. She found it, special. Wouldn't want to hurt her feelings."

Ianto smiled kindly. "I understand, of course. But you see, and I hadn't wanted to mention, but I have a buyer who saw the piece in the article, and they dearly would love to add it to their collection. I can go up on the offer. Shall we say, two fifty?"

Edson looked pained. "Our Ainsley wouldn't like it." He made a sly face, and Ianto got a sinking feeling. "The lady on the phone offered us four hundred."

"Did the lady give you her name?"

"She might've." Edson wasn't budging. "I told her no."

If it was bloody Firestone again, all the man had done was guarantee a robbery. Ianto cursed inwardly but kept up his smile. "I can see you're devoted to your family, sir. My buyer is offering me five hundred pounds. However, they're the best client I have, and for you, just this once, I will dig into my own pocket. Six hundred for the piece, today. You won't get a better offer from anyone, and you can buy Ainsley anything she wants."

Edson took a loud slurp of his tea. "Mr. Jones, you have a deal."

Ianto counted out the money carefully, and a touch forlorn. He'd just spent next week's budget on a single artefact. He needed to raise his own operating capital, or resort to theft himself. The acquisition was worth every pound, though, and more.

"May I?" he asked, as Edson recounted the money. Edson nodded, and at last, Ianto turned to his prize, wrapping it with all due care in layers of cloths and putting the whole into a sturdy box.

"Thank you," he said, shaking the old man's hand. "You've made a good deal here."

As he walked Ianto to the door, Edson appeared doubtful. "I don't know why you want it. S'just a bit of coral."

***

Gwen took the early evening shift to help with poor Dr. Pol, and brought Anwen to play under what she hoped would be a close eye. Rhys was occupied with work, and they had no sitter.

Dr. Pol clucked disapprovingly, even as she reached out to snuggle "my favourite girl." Anwen giggled, and played a bit with the plasters until Gwen took her off Pol's hands. "None of that, now."

"Jack won't like it that she's been here."

"Jack can take it up with me," said Gwen firmly. "She's safe here."

"Nowhere is safe," Pol said, and rolled over with some effort. Gwen kept an eye on her, kept an eye on Anwen, and went through some of her files. She noticed a snap at her work station. Freda Evans. She'd just been to see her the other day, and that was her man with her. She flipped the card over. Old wedding invitation. Something nibbled at her thoughts.

Anwen giggled, and Gwen lost the thought, absently dropping the snap into a folder marked Miscellaneous. "What did you find, love?"

"I believe the horses are having a party with the army men," said Pol, half-asleep.

"Anna birds," Anwen said. The Angry Birds had become a steady fixture of her imagination play. Rhys said it was a sign her brain was developing normally. Gwen said he shouldn't have let her play on his mobile.

"I'll be fine, you know," Pol said through a yawn. "I'm not going to expire without someone here fluffing my pillows. I can wait until Albert comes in at midnight if you want to take this dear thing home."

"You take such good care of us, it's our turn to take care of you."

"Gwen, dearest, if I asked you for some soup right now, you'd burn down the Hub."

Gwen laughed in her sudden shock and mild outrage. "I would do no such thing!" She saw the disbelief in the doctor's eyes, and relented. "I'd get takeaway."

She'd brought takeaway to Freda's this afternoon. They'd fallen out of touch, and Gwen felt guilty. She'd meant to keep track of the girl. Woman, now, Gwen reminded herself. Her husband had been out. "At work," Freda had said around the hot chips she stuffed in her mouth. Always half-starved, that one.

"Jack said he saw Slaus with the Boss Bug. He's not mixed up in that gangs business, is he?"

Freda had gone cagey then, not answering questions. She was fine, thank you for the food, so sad you can't stay. Gwen took the hint, but said at the doorstep, "We can help you. Really, don't get involved in the gangs. That's dangerous business. I can get you a job in a shop somewhere. Your man, too."

"Thanks for your interest," Freda had said, but her eyes had been sad and wary, and asked where Gwen had been when that might have been helpful.

In the here and now, Anwen yawned. Gwen lifted her up and cuddled her. She couldn't fix the mistakes she'd made before. She could only try to do better going forward.

***
February 11th
***

None of Ianto's searches for the day panned out. Firestone had been there weeks before for the first ping, and the second 'artefact' was nothing but a souvenir from Gibraltar. Jack dragged him out for lunch and to look at cars. Which was, Ianto thought as his sulk faded, not a bad way to spend time together, especially when Jack panted almost as much over the 1971 Aston Martin Lagonda Limited (5.34 litre V8) as he did over the cute sales clerk. Neither had any chance of coming home with them, but the prospect of both made for a quick but frisky stop on their way back to work. No getting off now, but definitely a nice promise for later.

Jack slung his arm over Ianto as they drove their far less sexy car towards the new Hub. "We should go car shopping more often."

"I need a car. Something reliable."

"With a large back seat."

"Obviously."

Jack slouched. "The nicest car I ever owned was a 1930 Alfa Romeo. No back seat, but boy, that baby could handle."

"I'm picturing you with the driving goggles and scarf."

"But I look good in them, don't I?"

Ianto swore inside his head, because yes, even fantasy Jack in the stupid driving get-up was sex on a stick.

"Tell you what," said Jack. "I'll dress up in that for you later. Just the goggles, the scarf, and the driving gloves."

Between that, and the aborted make-out session, Ianto knew his trousers were going to be uncomfortable for the next hour. "You did that on purpose." Not only would he be frustrated now, they'd each chosen a different shift tonight to look after Dr. Pol.

Jack winked, and held his hand as they walked from the car park to the door. Perhaps the anticipation wouldn't be so tedious.

Ianto's good mood lasted until his mobile rang some hours later. "Hi."

Steven said, "Hi."

"How's your day going?" Ianto kept his tone upbeat, but worried. Steven didn't call often these days. Ianto made a point of calling him almost every day, and that seemed to be enough. When Steven didn't respond, Ianto's worry grew. "Is everything all right?"

"Mum's not here."

Ianto went to say something trite, but he stopped himself in time. Steven was clearly upset. He glanced at the time, and noticed it was past six. Alice was home by five at the latest. "Did she call?"

"No. I tried phoning her." His fear trembled in his voice.

"All right. I'll try phoning her right now, and I'll call you back. Stay in the house, all right?"

"All right."

He rang off and dialled Alice's number. It went to voicemail all three times he tried. He rang Steven again. "Maybe her phone isn't working. Look, I'm done here. I'll get in the car and come to yours, and we can wait together, all right?"

"All right."

"Just stay there. Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Eat something. Cereal. A sandwich. Don't use the hob. I'll be there as soon as I can."

He ran into the Hub proper and went into Jack's office without knocking. Jack looked up from a report. "What now?"

For half a second, Ianto didn't want to tell him, but delaying the news wouldn't make the words easier. "Alice hasn't come home."

***

Chapter 3

TW Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (1/6)

2015-01-12T02:37:32Z

Title: The Valentine's Day Massacre (1/6)
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Steven, Lois, Alice, Freda Evans, Original Characters, Agent Johnson, Martha, Mickey, Miss Valentine, Rhiannon, Andy
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Martha/Mickey
Rating: Some scenes only appropriate for adults
Words: 35,300 (7800 this part)
Beta: jo02, with greatest thanks
Warnings: murder most foul, graphic violence, background references to prostitution and noncon
Spoilers: references to all of TW canon as well as to the novels, audiobooks, and radio plays
Summary: Torchwood is caught in the middle of a war between two alien gangs.
Prompt: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1968)
Disclaimer: Torchwood characters and situations belong to the BBC. "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967) belongs to Twentieth-Century Fox. The real St. Valentine's Day Massacre as heavily dramatized in the film was a famous unsolved murder in Chicago in 1929. Click here to learn more about the original event.
Notes: Written for reel_torchwood. Part of Straysverse. (For those who came in late: Jack and Gwen have rebuilt the latest version of Torchwood Cardiff with Lois and a few new faces, while Ianto and Steven have returned to their old lives.)

***
Chapter 1
***
February 14th
***

The morning dawned cold and cloudy. Snowflakes cluttered the air, defiantly white against the grubby city until they turned to thin, cold, brownish slush in the streets, seeping through shoes and shivering down unprotected necks. It was a miserable snow, pale and mean, and wet from the Bay. Not enough fell to close the schools, not yet, despite the urgent prayers of Cardiff's children. Even above the usual noises of the city came the rushing hush of the snow, which muted the rest by its ancient cold magic.

The city bustle and the shushing snow both crackled with the sound of gunfire splitting the air. On the street outside the old garage, people darted from the echoing noise, loud and shocking in the air. Mobiles came out, and the CCTV cameras hummed, yet later, not a single photograph or video would be clear, not of the building, not of the four people who walked out, nor of their overlarge SUV speeding away from the scene.

The police arrived within minutes, and PC Davidson took the first crack at the witnesses as his colleagues secured the area. What did you see, did you snap a photo, where did they go? He'd done this a thousand times before.

"Oi, Andy!" came a shout from the door. Even as Andy nodded at the woman he'd interviewed, he could see past PC Grayden into the bloody mess. He saw what Grayden had seen instantly: the blood was blue and green, and no way had that ever been a human hand.

He sighed. "Best call Torchwood. That's their division." He glanced at the woman who'd followed him over, and he wondered how to hide the alien murders from her.

"Torchwood?" she asked. Cardiff's worst-kept secret might still be slightly secret, he thought. Then the woman said, "But they were the ones what did it."

***
February 7th
***

Their day began as their normal days did: grumbling at the alarm, grumbling more when Jack’s wrist strap beeped at them mournfully from the bedside table. Each cast a groggy eye to the time to determine if there was sufficient padding in the morning routine for a quick fumble under the warm bedspread before they showered. Fumble and shower achieved, and breakfast a promise in the car, Ianto let Jack take the wheel whilst he called Steven to confirm their plans for the following day.

Alice picked up, and said without a hello, ″He can only spend one night. We’ve got a dinner Saturday.″

Ianto knew better than arguing with her. She could have decided not to let him come visit. ″That’s fine. Are you coming to fetch him or should I plan on driving him home?″

″Bring him at six.″

The phone made a noise like it was being jostled, then Steven said, ″Hi.″

″Hi. Are we on for tomorrow?″

″Yep.″ Steven had the shy sound he adopted when he didn’t want to say something in front of his mum. ″When will you be here?″

″I’ll try to come before five.″

″All right.″ Again the quiet breath indicating there was more he wanted to express. Ianto could chat with him later. More and more this awkwardness had as much to do with the early signs of puberty as it did with Steven's recurrent nightmares about his death. They could get through both. They always did. Ianto had come back from the dead, and Steven had, too. They'd wound up one another's best friend by accident and necessity, as strange as that looked to everyone else. Even Jack, who died all the time, didn't understand them as well as they could each other at times.

″I'll see you then.″ They said their farewells and rang off. Ianto sent him a text on his own mobile: "U ok?"

The reply came immediately: "Im ok."

Jack gave him a not even remotely disinterested glance. ″Everything all right?″

″Fine. I’ll leave work early tomorrow. I hope the boss doesn’t mind.″

There were plenty of places for Jack to go with that obvious an opening. Ianto recalled days when Jack would jump in disparaging Ianto′s boss, or start suggesting lurid sexual acts for Ianto to curry said boss’s favour. He hoped for the former more than the latter, as an erection would be inconvenient now that they were pulling into the car park by the new office.

No-one had called this morning, and Jack's review of the overnight systems had offered no particular warnings of terror before they'd left the flat. They took a moment, casual and happy, for a quick kiss in the car. On the rare quiet days, so rare it had only happened twice, Ianto was happy to let Jack distract him from the doldrums of their paperwork and routine with sex. Today he made due with the taste of Jack's toothpaste in his mouth and the scent of his skin as they breathed over one another before reluctantly pulling away to start the day. The winter chill hit him when he opened his door, a bleak reminder of death and loss and sorrow after the blazing warmth of Jack.

"See you," said Ianto, drawing out his own keys for the front office. He let himself inside, booted up his work computer, and got to his day. Several of the regular search algorithms he left running on the server spit out their latest findings, and Ianto diligently read through each one. His self-created job was to track down the many artefacts and items once held by Torchwood Cardiff or London, since snatched up by collectors or worse, and return them to safe storage here in the vaults. His cover as an antiques dealer and purveyor of odd knick-knacks forestalled inquiries. The little shop front, which hid the true nature of the reborn Torchwood, held eccentric hours, advertised shabby old porcelain not even a granny could love, and served as the perfect backdrop for retrieving the alien tech which had gone wandering after one location had burned, and the other had blown up.

He named the shop Chanticleer, on a dare from Jack.

As he sorted through the pings, categorising those which looked promising, Lois popped in from the back. "Morning." She plunked a mug down on his desk, and plunked herself in the chair opposite.

Ianto raised his eyebrows. "That bad?"

"Open the overnight log and see for yourself." Lois frowned and rubbed the bridge of her nose as Ianto logged into the regular Torchwood servers.

"How many does that make this week?"

"Seven."

"Want a hand with the clean-up?"

She gave him a small but friendly smile. "I wish. No, we'll go stomping out, Jack will shout a bit, and nothing will change."

Her cynicism was a new acquisition. The alien gangs had been fighting for territory, and the skirmishes meant a rising body count. No humans had been killed, which meant that Torchwood might take an interest but had no authority. The human police played dumb, not a stretch for them. That left only the gangs themselves to watch one another, and they generally watched each other die.

"That's our day, anyway," she said, tossing in a breezy nonchalance she clearly did not feel. "What've you got today?"

He pulled up one of his searches. "Shopping."

"Lovely. Get us some crisps while you're out."

"Yes, ma'am."

As soon as Lois went back into the secret workplace behind the false wall, Ianto printed his list, closed the shop, and took his keys. He was back to using the company car again after Jack had borrowed his car for that unfortunate chase last month. The slim black towncar lacked the grace of his most recent short-lived Audi as he sped to the first address.

He needn't have bothered with the rush. As he parked, he saw a too-familiar vehicle parked in front of the semi-detached he'd come to visit. There was still a tiny chance, although as he exited the car, that chance extinguished. Firestone Finance had sent their acquisitions team, who were just leaving the house with a box in tow.

Ianto waited for them at the street. He ignored the two men, heavies who'd been hired for their ability to point a gun in the right direction two times out of three, and focused on the ringleader. "Miss Valentine."

"Late again, Mr. Jones," said Miss Valentine. Her expression snapped into focus, done with whatever mind games she'd been playing on the previous owner of the artefact now in her company's possession. "Really, it's hardly stealing," she said, plucking the thought out of his head half-formed. "We pay." What she'd paid in exchange for an Arkellian memory whip was not open for questions, nor were her plans for same. Valentine snorted. "Please."

Per Jack's instructions on dealing with her, Ianto began thinking of cans of soup stacked in neat rows. He delighted privately in the grumpy frown which flashed over her face. The soup slipped, and he thought of his next stop.

"Thank you. We'll visit them next."

He got a headache for his trouble.

On the way to the third stop, which he hoped he could reach before them, his mobile chirped with a text. Inviting wreck and ruin, he checked it. Steven had to cancel for this weekend after all. Ianto debated calling Alice and reminding her how much her son needed to spend time with them. She would probably remind Ianto that he'd been the one to cancel the prior two weeks.

Next weekend, he promised himself, before the sat nav interrupted his thoughts with directions.

***

Gwen dropped her latex gloves into the bin liner they'd brought to the crime scene. Dr. Pol had asked for an extra pair of hands to examine the latest corpse, but with a quick poke into the poor creature's innards, she'd pronounced it dead from the series of bullets ripping open its guts. No surprises. Gwen took a moment to look into the alien's face. She couldn't even recall the species of the last one, and this wasn't easier to identify.

"What was it?"

"She was an Armaxian."

"Oh." She watched as Pol wrote down her findings. Reports at Torchwood had been a joke since long before Gwen herself came aboard, but Jack said recording their work made the difference between being official and being nosy bastards. "Do we know which gang she was in?"

"Neither." Jack came into the room. "The family insists she wasn't involved. This was a drive-by."

Dr. Pol clucked to herself. "She had enough drugs in her system to be floating in the stratosphere. Someone sold them to her."

Gwen said, "If it's drugs, can't we … "

"Not our domain," Jack said.

She glared at him, which bounced off without landing. Either he didn't care, or he didn't think caring would help. "Can we link it to the rest? Surely if we put enough of these deaths together, we can stop them."

Pol said, "Those poor blokes yesterday wound up with two slugs in their heads each. Nasty business."

Jack said, "And we caught the slugs before they could get any human victims. That's our job. Are we done here?"

They walked out together to where Albert and Lois waited, the former standing guard and the latter being friendly and sympathetic to the family. That used to be her job. Gwen glanced away, and paid closer attention to the houses around her. The team came to this area of the city more and more often, the cheaper streets where the semi-legal alien immigrants lived and bred and worked for one another and paid their taxes. The ones who could pass for human, like Dr. Pol, could move into the nicer parts of Cardiff, even the suburbs. The rest made do by working nights, wearing hats and hoodies, and making an effort not to be noticed by anyone.

Freda Evans lived around here, Gwen remembered, with a sudden wash of jumbled memories. She hadn't thought about their part-alien refugee in months. She'd been more Andy's friend, of course, fond of her "squadman." But Gwen had been acting as a care coordinator, hadn't she? Social worker? But she'd stopped. Got busy. Guilt ate at her. It must have been when Anwen was a baby, she thought. She'd had too much to do back then. So many of her memories of the time rose and fell on her daughter.

"Jack, I'll meet you back at the Hub."

Before he could say a word, she turned and walked down the road, pulling out her mobile to search for the address. The others wouldn't even bring the body back to the base, and instead would allow the family to dispose of the dead girl's remains. As Freda Evans' name and address came up on her Google, Gwen realised she'd never even asked the dead alien's name. She would have done, once.

Freda's flat wasn't far. Gwen felt the eyes on her as she buzzed up. A male voice answered, but Freda broke through. "Come on, then." The lock buzzed, allowing Gwen inside the dark building. The spicy, strange smells of alien cookery seeped out from closed doors, had soaked into the woodwork. Gwen knew if she peeled off the crumbling floral wallpaper and sprinkled it into a soup, she'd taste the same meals which had been cooked here for decades. Freda's flat was up two flights of stairs, squashed between two other flats along that side of the building.

When she knocked, the door came open only to the latch. "We ain't done nothing," Freda said through the gap.

"I know that, Freda," said Gwen in her kindest voice. "I was in the neighbourhood and wanted to say hello."

Freda's face scrunched up in disbelief. She undid the latch and let Gwen inside. The tiny flat was filled by a bed, a miniature refrigerator, and a hotplate, with a toilet half-concealed by a curtain. Clothes hung neatly on a line strung across one side of the room. The space was very clean, with the proverbial hardwood floors scrubbed enough to eat the proverbial dinners off of, if Gwen could find an open spot large enough to set her meal.

The man standing beside Freda took up a lot of space all on his own. His skin was a disturbing shade of green and he had an extra arm Gwen was affecting not to stare at. "Hello," she said, sticking out her own hand in a friendly manner. "I'm Gwen. Freda's friend."

He didn't take the hand. "Never seen you before."

"I met Freda when she first came to Cardiff."

"Yeah," said Freda, which didn't help Gwen know how much she'd told her new friend. "She's a friend of Tony's."

Tony? Gwen scraped her memories. "Tony Pratt?"

The big man nodded, and turned away to sit down on the bed. Freda said, "Andy's been busy. Tony's been looking after us. Ain't that right, Slaus?"

Slaus grunted. Perhaps he'd exhausted his English. More likely, he'd exhausted his interest. To Gwen's great surprise, he picked up a novel from beside the bed and opened to a bookmark. To her greater surprise, the book was Fifty Shades. Good God.

"How've you been, Freda?"

"Ta, fine," said the girl, turning to get some Cokes from the fridge. She was in her early twenties now and no longer the scared teenager who'd fallen through the Rift from their future, but Gwen could still read the same spooked, cautious body language from long ago. She accepted the Coke, paying close attention to Freda's arms and hands.

"What's this?" she asked, reaching out for the thin ring on Freda's finger. It was gold ...ish, and sported a tiny chip of probably diamond. Gwen grinned. "When's the big day?"

Freda snatched her hand back. "Last year. Andy said yous was busy chasing a ghost."

Gwen laughed. "If he talks about Scooby-Doo, he means Torchwood."

"Nah, he knows Torchwood. Some case you had. Missing kid."

Gwen shrugged. "We do a lot of work." The words fretted at her. She always felt the worst about cases involving children. They all did. Ianto had a snap of a little girl he'd never even met on his desk alongside Steven's and two smaller snaps of his niece and nephew. Gwen kept hers on her phone, with hundreds of photographs of her daughter interspersed with the kids they couldn't save. For the life of her, she couldn't remember a case that would've caused her to miss Freda's wedding. It must have been important.

"Sorry," she said, and glanced back at Slaus. "He seems nice."

Freda's shrug said volumes from one woman to another. Maybe he was nice, maybe he wasn't, but he was a good man who treated her all right, and he'd be there for her, which was more than she could say for anyone else. Green and an extra arm and a flat in the bad part of town were exchanges for knowing he'd be there in the morning.

***

Jack stared at the white board in the new Hub. Lois had installed it one afternoon when the rest of the team had been out. The neat and precise angles cut out a space for detailed work in dry-erase colours and a perky yet passive-aggressive note: "Now you don't have to leave Post-Its everywhere." Jack had responded with his own trademarked variety of passive-aggression, which led Gwen to leave a note of her own: "Any body parts drawn on this board will be removed from the artist and timed to see how long they take to regrow." Jack had stuck one final Post-It to the board and succumbed to the inevitable, using the greying surface to make notes on their cases. He added another tick mark to the body count in one corner.

He heard Albert approach behind him. "A baker's dozen."

"We could divide them up. Seven from the Bugs, six from the Machine." Jack hacked a rough, red line between the sets of numbers. Mopolite's Machine ran most of south England. The alien gangster would be pleased to run Cardiff as well, if only to thumb his nose at Torchwood. The Bugs were the closest thing to an organised gang here, and they wanted nothing to do with Mopolite or his cronies. Self-rule, even if that meant no more than the dregs of alien culture left over from the days of the Rift and a fuckton of Weevils. Jack was bright enough never to say the Welsh aliens reminded him of Welsh humans, especially not in front of Gwen and Ianto. Lately, though, the Bugs had got into the murder game as well, shooting up the homes and businesses of Machine-leaning aliens. It was a mess.

"We could tell the police, boss." Albert floated the idea as he had the other three times: carefully, pretending as though he'd just thought of the notion.

"No."

"Right. Stupid of me to mention."

Jack checked his mobile again. Ianto had texted to let him know they wouldn't have Steven this weekend after all. "I'm going to pay a visit to our friend Mr. Mopolite."

"Want company?"

"Not this time."

***

Dr. Pol arrived home earlier than usual, and waved at her neighbour Mrs. Pettidear as she came up the walk to her own house. "Evening, love."

"Good evening, Irene." Mrs. Pettidear smiled, showing off her newest set of false teeth. She'd lost her previous two sets somewhere in the dusty recesses of her house. Pol had come over to help her look, and had had a quick tidy while she'd been at it, but the old woman's teeth had run off with the mice.

"Are you still coming over tomorrow for dinner?"

"Wouldn't miss it. I'll bring my sponge."

"Lovely." Dr. Pol let herself inside, hoping Mrs. Pettidear meant a cake. Sometimes she got confused, which was why Pol checked on her as often as she could.

She set her bag down, pulled the itchy wig off her head to rest it on the hat rack by the door, and sat down. She'd have to tidy her own home tonight if she planned on having company tomorrow. Another weekend, another dinner party. Last weekend, she'd had everyone from work over, as joyless as those gatherings tended to be. The only faces she didn't see every day were Rhys and dear little Anwen. Even were Albert or Lois seeing someone currently, they wouldn't bring them round to hers without a thorough vetting, and that was so tiresome. Better, much better, when she had the neighbours round, and knew which face to put on all at once: Irene Pol, immigrant as a child from Eastern Europe but lately of Swansea, GP and also baker of savoury casseroles. No talking about work, their successes marred by their many failures. No waiting for a stray mention of people who'd died before Jack had brought her on. Just cheery interaction with the humans around her, Ms. Suwali's best casserole, a bottle of good wine from Mr. Clarence, a bottle of cheaper wine from that young Darren who'd moved in last month, and Mrs. Pettidear's sponge to top it off.

In the five years she'd lived in Cardiff, she'd gathered friends almost as a hobby. She had arrived late in the night of that awful bombing, just another doctor come to help with the wounded. Something about the city intrigued her. She'd resigned her steady yet sedate position at home and started working in the brisk corridors of St. Helen's, until she met Jack and found another set of friends to gather and another duty at her feet.

Her people were communal. Had been. Meals were never shared with less than ten friends, and beds held twenty or thirty at a time. She'd been a bit of a strange one even then, preferring groups of no more than four or five. Her parents, all eight of them, had despaired she'd ever grow up and learn to enjoy normal interaction, and Pol had disappointed them. She'd gone to the stars as soon as she could, revelling in the smaller company of a spacecraft. Freedom had saved her life, and too many of her fellow survivors had expired of loneliness since.

Pol found that she missed the closeness of a dozen friends piled in with her at a table once in a while. Gatherings were a taste of home.

***
February 8th
***

Despite the four times he asked, Jack refused to allow Ianto to come with him to London. "It's far," he demurred. "You have things to do here," he reasoned. "I don't want to have to worry if this is a double-cross," he pointed out.

"If it's a double-cross, you'll need me there to cover the exits and watch your back."

The fourth answer was harder to pull out, because it was the truthful answer. "I don't want him to see us together. I don't want him using you to get to me."

Ianto frowned. He had an adorable pouting frown Jack loved to see even when he was the one who'd put it there. "You understand they must already know about us. There's no way that's still a secret."

"I know, but as far as he knows, you and I are just friends with benefits. Do this for me. Let me be a little less worried about you today."

Ianto relented and Jack drove alone, putting the radio on as high as he could to drown out his other worries. Cardiff had always been rough with aliens and the Rift. The average citizen had a five percent chance of getting ripped open by a monster from some interstellar hell, and a one in a thousand chance of being snatched up and sent to that same hell. When his own staff hadn't been attempting to plunge the whole city into ruins, they had to stop some blighter with a grudge from doing the same. Some of the worst trouble had settled after the Rift closed. He'd naively hoped Cardiff would grow into its new peaceful existence like any other city. Unfortunately for the human population, the change meant a lower risk of death from being eaten by aliens, and a higher risk of getting shot by one.

Remembering the night the Rift had closed never led him anywhere good. Every last stolen moment was mere prelude to another, more painful goodbye. Even now, the days he spent with the man he loved had the same end in distant sight, and no chance at altering that path for either. Ianto had one grave. Jack would stand at his next one, just as powerless to stop that fate as he had been to free his created ghost from oblivion.

These thoughts chased him down the road until he put as solid a damper as he could on the nightmares before reaching his destination. Telepathic species were common as muck. The last thing he needed was to give Mopolite an even bigger edge in their conversation.

The receptionist appeared human. Jack threw on his best grin as he told her he had an appointment. Her lack of interest made him wonder if she'd been forewarned about him, but a quick glance over the desk found a framed photo of her smiling with her probably wife or girlfriend.

He sat. The anteroom was simple enough for the desired purpose: a little claustrophobic, chairs not comfortable for any one species, current newspapers open to the sensational homicides, and just in range a radio tuned to a dull talk station. Supplicants, business partners, even allies, would endure this room as their nerves rasped into nothing prior to seeing the head of the Machine.

"Mr. Mopolite will see you now," said the receptionist.

As Jack entered the inner office, he was taken aback by the spacious room, stretching far above his head and surrounding him with tasteful opulence. Art pieces Jack recognised from their pattern if not their pedigree hung from every wall where the bookcases allowed. Rich, red draperies covered the tall windows, and a dark, luxurious carpet clung to his boots as he walked. Far above his head, the ceiling hung with lights. The head of the room was taken up by Mopolite's large desk, wide enough for Jack to comfortably squeeze his last six or seven playmates, with room for snacks.

Jack nodded internally; the effect was well-designed to throw visitors into confusion. He ought to consider the same for his own office. Gwen would argue, though, especially if he had to knock through the wall to take over her space in order to achieve the same kind of grandeur.

"Captain Harkness," said Mopolite, rising to greet him. He gestured to the two bodyguards and indicated the slumped figure occupying the chair in front of his desk. The guards, two hulking Hebraxians, easily lifted the limp body of an Athelite. No obvious injuries, Jack noted, and no obvious life signs. "Won't you sit down?"

Jack folded his arms, and Mopolite smiled, his mandibles twitching. "Apologies. Allow me." He removed a plastic tub from a drawer and pulled out a wipe. With exaggerated delicacy, he ran the wipe over the guest chair before dropping it in the bin. "All sorted. Please sit down."

Jack took the seat. "You know if you kill me, you're just going to get bored trying to make it stick."

Mopolite laughed with a short, urbane chuckle. "Captain, please. That scum had nothing to do with you. He was selling Neurotox to children."

And that's your job, Jack didn't say. There wasn't much point.

"Now, what did you wish to speak with me about?" His face radiated interest. Like everything about him, Mopolite's voice was smooth. Every vowel was perfect RP, every consonant crisp. He'd been born here, in an alien-heavy slum on the East End, but sounded like a graduate from a solid public school, a man with ambition who'd risen high.

"You're moving into my city. We've already got the Bugs. I'm getting tired of the body count rising on my doorstep."

Mopolite spread his arms wide. "It's a shame. My people are offering a better opportunity for the extraterrestrial community, but some choose to live in the past."

"Opportunity? For selling your drugs instead of the private suppliers? Or maybe you'd like to set up alien brothels in Cardiff to grow the business. There's a growth opportunity."

"Please, Captain. I do help provide certain amenities. Would you be surprised to know most of the clients for our houses of respite are human?"

Jack kept his features still, but Mopolite saw something. "You are. Did you honestly believe you're the only human who enjoys the pleasures of strange flesh? Our human clients think they're wearing costumes, but money is money even from fools."

"Too bad your workers won't see that money, or anything else. Your business stinks."

"Does it? My workers enjoy the best health care available for those of us who can't receive services from the NHS. They are protected in safe homes, and are paying into a very generous pension plan."

"If they live that long."

"It's a better and longer life than out on the street, Captain. Did you come here to complain about how well my people live, or to offer solutions to help them?"

"I came to ask you to stay out of Cardiff. I'm not getting in your way in London. I never interfered in Koris's business when he ran the mob. Let's stay on friendly terms."

Mopolite smiled. "I like you, Jack. I will let you in on something I haven't shared with many. On three occasions, I've met with the Boss Bug. We've talked. Tried to be friendly. Three times I came home to find one of my friends murdered while I was off negotiating peace. Every deal he's made, he's broken."

"Funny," Jack said. "He said the same thing about you."

"I'm sure." Mopolite reached into another drawer of his desk. Jack tensed. He might not be able to stay dead but dying hurt and also ruined his clothes. Mopolite removed a slim box and opened it, revealing long, thick, green cigars. "Do you smoke?"

"Thanks, no."

The alien gangster shrugged and selected one for himself. He delicately went through the various actions of preparing his cigar and lighting it, filling the air around the desk with a not-unpleasant smoke. "I'll tell you what. All this violence and nonsense is bad for business. Dead people don't buy merchandise. I will call a halt to our activities in your city for one week."

Jack waited for the catch. A week of fewer murders sounded good, but not if it meant twice the drive-by shootings next week. "In exchange for?"

"Nothing. I do this as a friend. My people and our organisation will stay out of Cardiff. That gives your little team seven days to solve the Bugs problem in your home. After that, my people will come back, and we will exterminate."

Jack fought the twitch, and failed. Mopolite couldn't possibly know. It had to be a shot in the dark, but it landed true, and Jack reminded himself he wasn't back on the station, wasn't clawing back from his first death. "Fine," he said, off balance. "One week."

Mopolite waved away the conversation without another thought, passing his hands over some papers on his desk. "By the by, please extend my warmest congratulations to the Smiths the next time you talk to them."

"I will." He had no idea what that meant, but damned if he was going to give up more now. "Are we done here?"

"I do have work to get back to. But please wait. I have a gift for you. To show my good faith." He touched the intercom button. "Marcie, would you send in the Captain's present?"

Jack stood. "I appreciate the thought, but you're right, I have work to do."

The door opened, and the receptionist ushered in two Abrani. Male and female twins, if Jack was any judge, and therefore highly prized for their intuitive link with each other and with the object of their interest. The bluish-grey of their skin made a soft background for the scarlet gems glittering over the scant clothing each wore, and the glittering black diamonds on their matching collars. One wore a long white braid on the left shoulder, and the other on the right.

"Captain, may I introduce Alana and Alani. They'd like to make your acquaintance for the next, let us say, three hours."

The male sidled closer to Jack and placed a cool hand against his wrist. "Captain," he said in a hushed tone. His sister approached directly, swaying as she stepped, mouth parted in an eager smile.

"My gift to you," Mopolite said.

This was a test, Jack knew. And he was going to fail.

***

Gwen tried to follow the plot of the book she read to Anwen. Apparently the purple pony was having a party with her friends but didn't understand the meaning of friendship. Every so often, Gwen glanced over the top of the book to see her daughter's rapt expression. "You really like this?"

"Ponies!" Anwen said. The tot was well into complete sentences and imagination play, but these big-eyes horses sent her back into infancy with delight.

"Okay," Gwen said with a smile, and put on the voices for when the purple pony discovered being a friend meant listening to your friends' needs, too. "That good?"

"You got Pinky's voice wrong," said her child, the delight of her days, the growing sprout in the garden of her love, etcetera. "But it was okay." Gwen kissed her and turned off the lamp for her nap.

"She's taller," Gwen said, plopping on the sofa beside Rhys. "How does she keep getting taller?"

"We could stop feeding her."

"Nah. She'll only break into the cupboards, eat all the food, and call the police on us."

"Shame. Guess we'll have to give her dinner tonight. Pasta?"

Gwen smiled. Rhys Williams was born to care for children. Gwen herself wasn't quite sure about the process. She'd given things her best, but after becoming an expert at nappies and bathtime, she discovered she hadn't a clue about what to do now that the child was toilet-trained and wanted playtime in the tub without her mum. Children were mysteries.

She frowned. "Rhys, do you remember Freda Evans?"

"Friend of yours?"

"A kind of friend. I met her on a case. She got married a while back. I didn't go to the wedding. I didn't even know about it."

Rhys scrunched his face. "You sure, love? I thought we got the invite. You had work."

"Maybe I did." The thought bothered her more. What on Earth would have kept her from Freda's wedding day? She got up from the sofa and began rummaging around on the desk. They had piles and files all over. Rhys tried to organise, and Gwen knew she didn't. But they rarely pitched anything, especially something personal.

Under a stack of receipts and two birthday cards, Gwen found the card. Nothing fancy. Freda didn't have money to waste on gold edging and lace and had instead used a photograph of herself and Slaus, both looking human enough to pass. Her handwriting was pretty, practically calligraphy, and she'd asked Gwen personally.

Gwen remembered receiving the card. As she held the stiff cardboard, she recalled with sudden clarity the conversation she'd had with Rhys. He had to get his suit pressed. She had to find a dress. They'd ask Mam to babysit.

But she hadn't gone.

She didn't remember not going, nor why she'd put work in front of a friend who needed her. A missing child, Freda had said. Gwen didn't remember any missing children cases since she'd come back to Cardiff.

Ianto might know.

She rang him on his mobile. "Ianto, sorry to bother you, love. Odd question. Did you make it to Freda Evans' wedding?"

There was a silence. "Hello to you, too."

"Sorry. I just wanted to know. Don't ask me why." She paused. "You remember Freda, yeah? She fell through the Rift from the future."

"I remember her. No, I didn't go to the wedding. When was it?"

"Bit over a year ago." Gwen read the date on the card, which only added to her anxiety as she read it off to him.

There was a much longer pause. Gwen wondered if the call had dropped. Bloody signals. Ianto finally said, "I was busy that day. Speaking of busy, I do need to go." He sounded out of breath. Oh God. Please let her not have interrupted her friends' love life yet again.

She said quickly, "All right. Thanks, Ianto." She rang off. Then she stared at the card, and the date, and she wondered.

***

Jack got home late. Ianto had made an attempt at cooking, which was better than most of his previous attempts. "Hungry?" he asked as soon as the door closed.

"Not really."

"All right." He'd lost his own appetite, and instead began loading the casserole into plastic for leftovers.

Jack watched him for a moment, then snapped out of whatever fog he was in. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." He wasn't. He knew he was favouring his shoulder where he'd been shot. The wound had healed completely according to Dr. Pol. According to Ianto, it only hurt when he thought about it, which meant Pol was probably right.

"Lying." Jack hung up his coat, and Ianto could tell it had been a long day.

"It's nothing. Gwen's asking about Freda Evans. Apparently she got married."

Jack shrugged. "Yeah. Last year. I sent a toaster."

Ianto rubbed his shoulder, the phantom pain throbbing like an old rotted tooth. "Guess what day."

"Oh." Jack came closer. Gingerly, he took Ianto's good shoulder and rubbed his thumb over his collarbone. "Guess I was busy then."

"We all were. Gwen doesn't remember why. I couldn't bear telling her again." The thing which had been eating at him since her call came back. "She doesn't remember any of it. For all either of us knows, she's the one who shot me." He glanced at Jack. "Do not tell me. I still don't want to know."

"All right." Jack turned his head slightly. Sometimes, his mannerisms were very alien, especially when he'd been spending time among them again. "Although, since you brought up the subject, I dropped by Martha and Mickey's on my way back. They say hello."

Ianto felt warmth flow back. Martha liked him. He didn't know if Mickey liked him or merely tolerated him, but both were easy to be around, even after. They hadn't forgot, not yet. "How are they?"

"Pregnant."

"What?"

Jack sat down at their table, and Ianto joined him. "Martha's due in late September. Somehow, Mopolite knew before I did."

"That's not good."

"No. I told them. They're probably going to be scarce for a while. Maybe a long while. They've got friends in the London alien community, but they've got a lot of enemies, too. I don't know which Mopolite is, but they're not taking chances."

"Where will they go?"

Jack shrugged. "I told them not to tell me. We're being watched, too. My guess is they'll leave the country within the next month."

"That's hard."

"Yeah." Martha was one of Jack's few friends who understood him, and Mickey was the only person on the planet who'd known Jack before the immortality. They'd have to leave behind Martha's whole family and strike out alone all because some aliens didn't like what the two of them did for a living.

"You said we're being watched. I take it the meeting didn't go well?"

"Well, the highlight reel doesn't sound bad. Mopolite has agreed to stay out of Cardiff for one week."

"That's all?"

"He wants us to deal with the Bugs, or he's coming in to deal with them himself."

"Are we?"

Jack sighed and rubbed his face. He looked very tired. "I'll talk to the Boss Bug." He breathed out. "There's more."

"He also wants you to agree to not interfere when he does come in?"

"He didn't say. He didn't have to." Jack reached over, but didn't take Ianto's hand. After a second, Ianto reached out and touched him instead. "He tested me. Part of the business is high-class, and not so high-class, alien prostitution. He offered me a pair of twin Abrani. Called it a gift. Well, more like a loan for a few hours."

Ianto remembered Jack's tales about the Abrani. Hell, he'd wanked to a few of those stories, with Jack's hand hot against his back and Jack's mouth against his ear. But Jack was here, and Jack was telling him this story. "And?"

"And I failed the test. I told him no. You would have been hurt, and I couldn't do that to you. So now he knows about us for sure."

"Ah. Well. Like I said, he had to know already." He gave Jack's hand a squeeze. "Everything will be fine."

Jack pulled away. "No, it really won't. I just painted a target on you. I think you should go away for a few days when the week is up. Get out of sight."

"Are you coming with me?"

"I can't."

"Then I'm not going anywhere." Ianto took a glance around the kitchen, but the washing-up could wait. He took Jack's hand again. "Come on. It's time for bed."

***
February 9th
***

Dr. Pol rose late. Today was a rare day off, and she was worn out from last night. Her guests had stayed late into the night, and while a few helped tidy, her flat was still a mess. She let herself rest as long as she could justify putting off her chores, then padded out of bed to wash herself before tackling the rest of her home.

She wasn't expecting company to come by, and had her music turned up high: Dvorak today. She almost didn't hear the knock on the door. When she finally noticed, she flew to the door, nearly not putting her wig on in time. Callers did get upset when they saw her egg-bald head.

Pol cracked open her door with a cheery smile. "Hello?"

"Dr. Irene Pol?" asked the figure on the left. They both wore dark clothes, heavy against the chilly air, and sunglasses against the glare.

"Yes?"

Her door flew open the rest of the way, knocking the wind from her as it pushed her to the floor. The two strangers burst into her home, quickly closing the door behind them. Pol scrambled for her feet, for her gun, but a kick sent her sprawling, and she hit her chin on the edge of the nice coffee table. Her teeth rattled in pain, which was only made worse when one of the two figures – she still couldn't make out their features – kicked her squarely in the ribs.

She threw out an arm to defend herself, found it smacked away by what felt like a brick. Her head swimming, she turned to see a bat coming down at her face. She jerked away from the blow but not enough to escape. She felt the skin tear on her cheek, and by her nose. She screamed.

The other man kept kicking, forcing her over onto her back. She lay stunned for a moment as they repositioned. Her thoughts grew sluggish and scared. Were they robbers? Were they going to assault her? Did they believe her cover story and were they here to kill the immigrant?

She tried to roll to her side. The next kick was right in her face. Her nose broke, pouring choking blood into her throat. Pol curled into as tight a ball as she could to protect her organs, even as she lay there crying. She had to gather herself, had to think, had to find a way.

The first intruder grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her on her back again, even as the other pulled down her legs, ready for more battery. Her hands were free, and they were close enough to the first's face.

Terrified and angry now, Pol shot out her fingers directly into her assailant's eyes, feeling the warm squish, and also the sudden shooting agony through the empathic link she shared when she touched someone this way. Startled, the other stepped back, but she shot out her other hand, grabbed an ankle from two metres away, and yanked her second attacker to the floor.

She had the surprise, if only for the moment. Her hand reached for and found her gun, which she immediately pulled back to herself. She aimed it at the head of the second figure; the first still writhed in pain, clutching his face.

"Get. Out." she breathed.

The second man ran for the door, stopping to grab the shoulder of his friend, who was moaning, "That bitch, that BITCH."

She fired one shot, but missed wildly. "OUT!"

They ran, and she crawled after them to the door. She didn't see their vehicle, only heard them screech away. Her head was heavy, so she lay it down. The door was open. She was cold. She managed to swing one hand out enough to close it.

Sleep. Tired.

Dying.

She pressed her ear, hoping the comm would activate. "Jack?"

There was no reply. Dvorak rumbled through the speakers, pompous and loud, and she slipped into unconsciousness to the sounds of the New World.

***

Chapter 2

TW Fic: Whiskey and Rye

2014-07-09T11:35:23Z

Title: Whiskey and Rye
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Lois, OCs (Steven and Alice mentioned)
Rating: NC-17
Words: 3000
Spoilers: Contains minor spoiler for GDL's comic "Shrouded" and "The House of the Dead." Compliant with both CoE and MD while flipping them off with both hands.
Warnings: past character death
Beta: eldarwannabe, with great thanks
Summary: Ianto never has done well with anniversaries.
AN: Part of Straysverse.

***

Cardiff has been quiet these last three days. Ianto keeps thinking the Rift has been quiet, the Rift will be active, but he is shocked all over again when he recalls that the Rift is closed. Despite this, Cardiff still finds herself the centre of too much alien-based action, though not this week. Perhaps the unseasonable heat has driven even the worst of them into their burrows, awaiting proper autumn crisp air to come aboveground and start shit. Perhaps the alien gang in charge of London's otherwordly population has put out feelers both real and figurative all the way out here, telling the locals to keep their heads, or head-equivalents, out of sight. The gangster Mopolite runs things, and he has little love for Torchwood.

It's a bad sign that Ianto's considering this possibility here and now, lost in his head when he should be enjoying the sensations going on elsewhere in his body. Given the quiet, Jack's decided they are going into work very late. He has spent the last several minutes carefully tying Ianto into a more or less comfortable position: his forehead against a soft pillow, his wrists bound behind himself, body resting on spread knees. His eyes are covered with a black velvet cloth. Jack places a hot kiss everywhere he places a binding, making Ianto's skin pulse with longing.

Ianto can feel the motions of the bed as Jack sits back. He doesn't have to see his face to know how self-satisfied Jack looks right now.

"How is it?"

Ianto tests his shoulders and hips for signs of fatigue. "All right."

"I'm considering a gag."

Ianto considers this with him. Jack's asking for a particular level of trust this morning. After the fuckup in Brynblaidd, they'd done this with ropes and gags, Jack helping Ianto desensitize. As things turned out, enough orgasms could move Ianto past any number of previous horrors. Gags are no more frightening than spiders.

"Not today," he decides out loud.

Jack makes a noise in his throat, part assent, part desire, and he leans in between Ianto's legs. The bastard spends the next hour, maybe more, driving Ianto insane. Soft licks over his backside, and teasing close, followed by the softest puffs of blown air. Gooseflesh raises over every inch of Ianto's body, which Jack nips away with warm breath. Then, with no warning, Jack's open palm cracks two sharp slaps to each side, followed by gentle kisses. He refuses to touch Ianto's cock, which Ianto feels is unfair as fuck.

In deference to the gag request, Ianto bites his lip and stays silent, even when he wants to shout in sudden pain or the accompanying pleasure stimulation. He can't stop the ragged edge in his breath, and he can tell Jack enjoys the sound. A slick finger breaches him each time Ianto gasps. Without his sight, he can only rely on the touch of skin to skin and the bed's motions to alert him to Jack's next move. At every shift, he expects Jack to line up behind him, shove bluntly in, and rut until they're both spent.

The penetration doesn't come, and more maddeningly, neither does Ianto.

"Tell me what you're feeling," Jack says, suddenly hot in his ear.

The game has changed, then, and Ianto considers keeping it going. No words, no sound, only the two of them in the dim half-light of the morning, making Jack guess. "Tell me," Jack insists. Ianto never can say no to him when he pushes, not when it matters, and typically even when it doesn't.

"Alive. My skin's on fire, cold and hot." He's ready to beg for release, almost. It's not a game if he doesn't make Jack play as well.

A warm hand strokes his side, teasing down to the soft joining of torso to hip, ticklish flesh so close to his hard, bobbing cock. "Something you want?" Smug, insufferable bastard.

"Yes. You can untie me so I can take care of myself."

Jack lets out a low laugh, and then he takes hold of the situation himself. His firm strokes are slick as oil, and Ianto's been on the edge for too long. He holds back as much as he dares, not willing to surrender entirely, but one good twist from Jack's wrist has him coming all over the sheets with an embarrassing whine.

When he recovers, Jack loosens the blindfold and bindings, helping him stretch his limbs and restore any lost mobility from the long positioning. Ianto grabs him into a kiss, which Jack returns as Ianto manoeuvres them to the unspoiled side of the bed.

"We should shower," Jack says, disentangling with softer kisses as he pulls away. He's hard, Ianto can tell with a glance, but not as hard as expected.

He rolls to sit, whilst Jack pokes around the wardrobe for a shirt. "You feeling all right?"

"Never better." Jack tosses a white shirt onto the rumpled duvet. The sybaritic louse probably had one off before he started torturing Ianto. "Come on."

***

They arrive at work decadently late, the last two to roll in. Ianto takes a coffee and heads to the outer office, the space he's been converting to a new cover operation. "Collector in antiques and oddities" works far better than "quasi-police with no oversight" when tracking down artefacts held by unsuspecting grannies or yobs looking for easy money to stuff in their veins. The fact was, Torchwood London's corpse had been picked over by carrion birds both official and not, and Torchwood Cardiff's shattered remains had suffered the same fate. Perhaps it is this last thought, made as he inspects the decoy merchandise of the shop, that spurs him to half-heartedly check the date in the corner of his computer window.

Ianto blinks, thinking he must have read the numbers incorrectly, but there in electronic digits is the day and the month, although obviously the years have gone by.

This is the day he died.

Panic and horror send his heart racing. His mouth fills with bile. Cautiously, almost delicately, he places his forefinger over the pulse at his wrist, not counting the hummingbird beats but acknowledging them as proof of life. He reminds himself this is not the first anniversary, nor the second, not even the first that he's been … back. Last year, he had a child to care for and a new identity unravelling around his ears, and he'd ignored the date. Today had belonged to another man with a name he didn't use and a life he couldn't return to. But he has returned, this is his life, and today is the day Ianto Jones died.

He closes up the shop, a ridiculous farce. He's hardly open during business hours most days, instead poring over records and searching for clues to the whereabouts of the rubbish he brings back here to store away safely. Today he makes his way into the back, past secret doors which aren't half as wonderful as the old secret doors.

The team looks busier than when they got in: Jack's holed up in his sterile, joyless office, his occasional shouts coming through the thin walls; Gwen's got her nose in her monitor; Dr. Pol is noisy in their medical bay, crashing and bashing her surgical tools into place; fuck-all what Albert's doing. Only Lois notices when he comes in, and smiles politely to him. Ianto nods back. He's not back to himself yet, and surrounded here with the reminders of the things he's lost, things they've all lost, isn't helping with his composure.

Gwen waves idly at him, not moving from her screen. The police found something, if he recognises the website she's cracked into. She's occupied. Besides, Gwen doesn't remember what today means. Time has stitched together in her mind.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, and not wanting to show the others how at sea he is, Ianto takes two steps towards Jack's office before veering to the med bay. As he reaches the doorway, Dr. Pol turns to see him. She's frustrated by whatever she's doing, that much is clear, but she spares a hello.

"Need any help?" he asks her, hearing the icy edge of his own sanity cracking in his words.

She stares at him, clearly noticing, then stretches out one arm. Her odd fingers sway in indication. "I can't put the fribbling tools away."

Grateful for a problem to solve, no matter how minor, Ianto instantly turns to the task of sorting out why all Dr. Pol's various scalpels, clamps, and prods won't fit neatly into their assigned places. It's physics with a side of Tetris, neither of which are his greatest strengths, but he manages whilst she stands aside, watching.

"You alright?" she asks, and he wants to laugh, just a bit. Dr. Pol's species is otherwise unknown on this world, she herself a member of a dying race not dissimilar to the bald potatoey Sontarans. But with her dark, curly wig and her broad Swansea accent, she can pass as a human with no comments. She's got a lovely little house on Meteor Street, and has her neighbours over regularly for dinners and games. Not, he reminds himself, the sort of dinners and games that would require Torchwood's interventions, either, at least not unless they brought a bottle of a good vintage and a dish to pass.

She's easy to be around, not like Gwen or Lois who were there but no longer remember, or Albert who's frankly odious when he's not saving the planet or rescuing kittens. Ianto exhales. "I'm fine. Had a bit of a scare. Nothing to worry about." He nearly calls her "Polly," but that's Jack's nickname alone. Ianto is still earning his place with her and the rest.

She squeezes his arm kindly. "It's that kind of day."

He wonders if she remembers, or if her memories have been sanded over the way Lois and Gwen's memories have been, the way Rhiannon doesn't recall that he died, or that he came back. It's still better than before, when he stood in front of her shouting and finally sobbing as she couldn't see who he was at all, when he went to Jack and Gwen and they couldn't see, when he returned and one of his friends shot him as a stranger.

It's better now.

He's only going a bit mad.

Like the sound of a heavenly choir performing their celestial warm-up, Jack's door slams open, rattling the frame. He's incensed at whomever he last spoke to, and that means this is usually the best time to go back to the outer office and hide.

Ianto stays in place, watching. Jack's in a growling mood. If he's bright, he'll go to Gwen's station first, because she's least afraid to snap right back at him and shake him out of it. He's not as smart today, and stomps over to pass his bad mood onto Albert. That's fine by Ianto, who takes the delayed opportunity to flee. It's not that he feels better; it's that as much as watching Jack tear into Albert would be fun, god knows where he'll turn next.

Back in front of his computer, Ianto sees one of his trace programs --- thank you, Tosh --- has picked up something likely to be alien. Rather than dart out, he makes himself sit and perform the basic research. What is it mostly likely to be, what are the potential harms, and how much is this going to cost him out of the false shop's small budget? He places a call to one of his contacts at the newspaper, whose online archives provided the seed.

Jessamyn Shirani is fifteen years his senior, and flirts with him like a schoolgirl. Ianto flirts back whenever possible, with a touch of the outrageous cribbed from Jack's best lines. Jessamyn knows about Jack, which makes her believe Ianto's a safe flirting partner. She's not wrong.

She's also a perfect source for recalling tidbits she wrote up months ago as human interest pieces: grannies who knit for the sick babies, kiddies with amazing maths skills, and people who perform semi-heroic rescues such as the lifeguard who does his job. It's that last which has caught Ianto's attention, and the miraculous span of time the man spent underwater rescuing a young girl. Jessamyn recalls the article, and the lifeguard, and enough details to make Ianto certain.

He drops the "Closed" sign over the door, and leaves his usual note for the others, along with the address. He signs and dates the note without thinking, and then he nearly rips it to shreds, settling for crumpling the paper.

***

There's no alien artefact, but there is an alien. The lifeguard's home planet is aquatic. He's keeping a low profile, and he's a vegan. Ianto gives him a Jack Harkness "we'll be watching" speech, abbreviated at the fish-bloke's eyeroll. The post arrives as they talk. Ianto catches a glance of bills, and an official-looking letter addressed from Lewisham. It could be Mopolite's legitimate business address, and it could be a coincidence. Ianto doesn't have the right to ask, not yet.

On the way back, he decides to phone Steven. They can chat about the dog, which Alice named Dribble for appropriate reasons and which Steven insists on calling Batman when Alice isn't listening. The poor pup doesn't know her own name, and Ianto is staying out of the argument as much as he can. As he starts to dial the number, he remembers Steven's at school today.

Steven is at school. Steven is alive. They are alive.

He stops by a shop he doesn't know to make a quick purchase. Instead of driving back to the new Torchwood base, Ianto takes his car --- the new one, the one Jack said he ought to have because some days they go different places, but the title is in both names --- for a drive. It's not long, not far, and he hasn't been here in years. From one point of view.

The day is too hot. He removes his suit coat, a sudden pain bobbing in his throat. The bag he got at the shop comes with him.

His parents are buried here. The shop only carried cheap flowers, the kind a bloke buys when he's in trouble and needs to mend fences between now and the next cigarette. Mam and Dad have separate plots, which Mam wanted. He drops a bloom on each. There's nothing to say to them, not here. Apparently his own ghost met up with his Dad again, as mad as that sounds. Jack got to meet him. Funny.

He's never been to see his own grave. Time has rewritten itself, bringing him back, erasing him, and at last reweaving him in just in time for the Doctor to (possibly, they suspect) break the whole universe once or twice again. He isn't entirely certain the grave still exists. How can it?

He has to know. He doesn't search long.

His gravestone is simple, but looks old, as though it's weathered all these time storms personally. Had he not known, he'd almost not be able to read his name or the inscription. "Always in our hearts, forever in our thoughts," contains not one but two words he tries never to use. He's childishly been hoping for something else like, "Saved the fucking planet," or even the truly embarrassing yet secretly considered, "Eternal beloved." But no. This will have to do, because this is what happened, even if Gwen and his sister can't even remember that it happened.

Ianto sets down his last burden beside his own stone.

Is another Ianto Jones under here? Is his body rotting under his feet? Which is them is real, and does it matter? The gravestone, uncared for these past several months, bears the remains of old flowers. Someone believed he was here. Part of him believes he's here. No matter what happens to him now or ever, he will be here again. Jack will have to bury him twice.

He has no idea how long he's been lingering when he hears the footsteps behind him. Ianto doesn't even turn.

"Hey," Jack says. "I wondered if I'd find you here."

"I saw the date on my computer when we came in to work. I had to know."

Jack steps up next to him, his own coat abandoned in the day's heat. He wore it before. Ianto remembers even if no-one else does. Jack's got a small spray of flowers. Ianto glances at them, then up at Jack.

"Honestly?"

"I remembered, all right?" His own voice is cracking, the way Ianto has been cracking these last few hours, the way Jack has been cracking since he woke needing to assure himself Ianto was still alive the best way he knew how. He's not recovered from the initial loss, not even now. Everything from the slump of his spine to the dead look in his eyes gives the game away. Ianto might or might not be laid to rest beneath their feet, but Jack's been dying each day since.

Tomorrow will only be worse.

Crawling across glass, Jack says, "What did you bring?" Without a word from Ianto, he reaches down and opens the paper bag. Dark chocolate bars fall out, littering the ground.

"I miss her, too." He bumps Jack's shoulder. "S'better than flowers, anyway."

That brings a fast smile to Jack's face, welcome and fleeting. "Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw you die?"

Only by squeezing his fist so tight he nearly draws blood does Ianto not react. He forces himself to think back. "Aboard the Valiant."

"Yeah."

They stand for a while, each of them in his own thoughts. Jack's got his long-carried burdens to bear. Ianto's sure he's losing his mind today, but perhaps only for today. He's dead, there's no question. The proof is at his feet, now slightly obscured with chocolate foil wrappers which are only going to stop the melting sweets for so long. Yet he is alive. The pulse in his hand, reaching for Jack who clasps him like a rope from a rescue ship, that gives him all the evidence he needs. He's the cat in the box: everything and nothing until someone looks in to find him. That someone is deep in his memories right now. Ianto died, but he's not the one who needs saving.

"The load's been light," Ianto says. "Let's take a day tomorrow and go see him."

Jack turns away from his contemplation of others' mortality. He nods. Ianto will have to arrange the visit. Alice won't mind hearing from him, not as much as from Jack, especially tomorrow. There's a strong chance she won't speak to her father at all, and a very slight chance she'll shoot him. But they'll be there for Steven, with a cake if necessary, getting him through his deathday.

Ianto isn't the only one whose day is today. He wasn't the one who woke up in a makeshift morgue surrounded by bodies. "How many people died today? I mean, then."

Jack shrugs. He carries their deaths with him as well, but the sack over his shoulder is lighter. "Too many. Some came back, the way you did."

They can ask the number from the Mr. Copper Foundation, if he wants the exact count. It won't be enough, not to make up for any of the worthless losses. He's alive today thanks to a fairytale woman, and that's what he needs to know.

"All right." The thick air in his chest loosens. This is the cemetery where his parents are, and various relatives he doesn't much remember. And some man at his feet, who happened to share his name. Nothing important remains. "We should go. Lois will have lunch in."

Jack pauses. He hasn't done anything so maudlin as to stroke the headstone, or even speak to the grass. He's left the flowers he's never going to send, and his eyes are closed for a moment, but Jack Harkness doesn't pray. At best, he sends notes of complaint or thanks to the universe at large, signed with a wet kiss and, knowing Jack, a soft bite.

"Right," Jack says at last. They walk hand in hand back to the cars.

***
The End
***

TW Fic: I Will Write Your Name on My Soul in Permanent Ink

2014-05-15T02:53:33Z

Title: I Will Write Your Name on My Soul in Permanent Ink
Author: nancybrown
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Rose, Gwen, Jack's family, Estelle, Alice
Pairings: ... yes?
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3800
Warnings: scenes of bodily mutilation and self-harm
Beta: Radical Hufflepuff
Summary: Five lifetimes where Captain Jack Harkness had a soulmate mark, and one where he didn't.
AN: Trope: soulmate name, trope subversion, AU

1. The One You'll Love Most

Genetic engineering combined with interbreeding on the sly with other species created unusual twists in the DNA of children born to the colonists on the Boeshane Peninsula. Just like the predisposition to lactose intolerance and the polydactylism, the colonists treated the soulmate mark as a physical feature variously to be proud of, annoyed by, or not spoken of in front of impressionable youths. Naturally, the impressionable youths therefore knew everything about it, or thought they did.

One morning, you'd wake up with the name of your soulmate, written in blue letters on your skin fashioned by a time variance in your own DNA.

"Why blue?" Jacht asked his mother. Gray and Dad had gone to purchase supplies, and maybe a treat for the birthday boy, leaving just the two of them.

Mum was a scientist by training, and a mischief-maker by avocation. Jacht never knew when she was deadly serious or joking. "It's your blood. The blood that hasn't reached your heart yet wants to know where your heart belongs."

That didn't sound right to Jacht, but he had a much bigger question preying on his mind. "Grandmother was married six times. Whose name was written on her skin?" Out of the six, including the three she married at one time, whom did she love the most? How did her skin know before she did?

Mum's eyes went sad. Grandmother had died over a year ago, but Mum always did have trouble letting go of those she'd lost. "You'd have to ask her."

Jacht knew the stories from his friends, the dirty tales passed down like jewellery from wise older child to awe-struck younger child since time immemorial. He'd heard about the girl who woke up one month early with the name on her body, and thus found out that her parents weren't her real parents. He knew the story about the boy who'd already got himself a boyfriend, and woke up the morning of his birthday with a different name written over his heart (some stories said it was written somewhere else) and got kicked out of bed. His friends had asked each other all the questions, like if you woke up and it was written in the crack of your bottom, would you dare ask your parents to read it for you, or what it meant when the name was written on the bottom of your toe. You had to be quick, though. The name would fade within a few hours, and if you didn't see it, you'd never know who'd you'd love more than anyone.

Thinking about it, Jacht pondered how the humans elsewhere felt, never given the name of the person they'd be chained to for the rest of their lives. He wondered if he could keep his eyes closed, keep covered, and not ruin the surprise for himself down the road.

"What if I don't want to fall in love with them?"

Mum smiled and kissed his head. "Then don't."

He couldn't fall asleep that night, no matter how hard he tried, until the wee hours when even the insects stopped buzzing outside and the only sound was the ever-present whoosh of waves on the beach. He woke up to excited noises in the kitchen. His parents were already awake, already eager to find out with their son the name of his one true love.

Jacht squeezed his eyes shut, hoping the word was covered by his pyjamas but with no way to know. He managed to get halfway across the room he shared with his brother, when Gray's giggles made him look. At first, he thought his eyes were going bad, but he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Jacht's jaw dropped open as Gray shouted for Mum and Dad.

His whole body from the chin down was covered in tight script, names written over names over more names, turning him into a solid sheet of blue ink.

He heard his parents coming down the hall to the bedroom, and heard Gray continue to snicker, but his eyes were delighted by his own reflection, and the slowly widening grin over his own face.

2. The One You'll Go Through Time With

"What's your tattoo of?" Wet from a dip in the pool, Rose sat beside him using her one towel to dry her hair. Jack had reckoned she'd use the fluffy terrycloth as a sop to modesty, but no. Every day he found more things to like about Rose Tyler, and he had one more to add to his list: Does not mind casual nudity in or out of the TARDIS swimming pool.

"Tattoo?"

She inclined her head with a gesture. Jack's towel was slung over his shoulder, leaving nothing to her imagination, either.

"Oh." An adulthood away from home full of secrets and lies worried at him, but he was trying to turn over a new leaf. A little truth couldn't hurt. "It's a word in the language of the place where I was born."

Rose smiled in delight. Another item on his list: Loves learning new things. "Say it? Please?"

He scrunched up his face as though in deep thought, but it wasn't as though he'd forget. The old syllables bounced off his tongue.

"That's nice. What's it mean?"

He hesitated, but she didn't know what she was asking, and that made telling easier. Item three: Is innocent in ways you never can be again.

"It's the name I was born with."

She burst out in peals of laughter.

"What?"

"Captain Jack Harkness, you are the only man in the universe who would walk around with his own name tattooed on his arse."

"Yeah," he chuckled, and he decided not to tell her the rest.

3. The One You Never Wanted

"No," the boy said out loud when the strange words appeared on his skin. Heart pounding, brain swirling in anger from watching his mother wither away in front of him after the loss of her own soul's true mate, he vowed that would never, ever be him.

His mother cried, noticing the wound on his arm where he'd taken the sharpest knife in the house to his own flesh. She bandaged his cut and took him to the doctor, where the laser stitching ensured he healed without a scar.

"We've seen this before," the doctor said, her hand a gentle comfort on Mum's shoulder. "He should talk with a counsellor."

Mum nodded and agreed, but after his arm healed neither of them spoke of seeing counsellors, or really, of much at all.

He didn't think about the name, a word he didn't know in a language he didn't yet speak. The memory faded until he found himself in a wet city far from home in a body much healthier than one shot by Daleks should be. He undressed for a wash and found the name on his right hip.

Jack trembled, reading and rereading the word. When he had scraped together money, enough for a large bottle of gin and a small bottle of acid, he screamed through etching away the word then drank himself into unconsciousness.

One death followed another, and his soul mark moved, returned, somewhere below his chin every time. Skinning himself caused excruciating pain by blade or flame. Jack affected to ignore the name when the blue moved onto his back, only to be reminded when lovers asked about his tattoo. He paid a surgeon a great deal of money not to ask questions when Jack showed up with a new mark to remove.

"You could just keep it," she hazarded after the fifteenth time Jack left her office with a large plaster under his clothes.

"I choose," he said to no-one as soon as the door slammed shut in his wake. "Not fate, not DNA, not anybody. Me. I choose who I love." He found a different surgeon. He learned to grit his teeth when he used his own sharp knife.

"Run-in with a Weevil," he told Ianto when pressed about the covered wound. But he couldn't meet Ianto's eyes when he spoke, and he guessed his own lies were as ineffective as ever. "Nothing to worry about."

"You should take better care of yourself," came the gentle rebuke. "You may not be able to die, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter when you get hurt." Rather than argue, Jack distracted him from further chiding.

A thousand years passed. Two. Ten. Fifty thousand years into his long life, Jack found himself on the wrong side of a Vortex containment field. He prayed to the gods of his childhood for a death he doubted he'd ever earn. Said gods, proving they were only sort of bastards, granted him a different wish as he shuddered back into life.

"Sir!" said his adjutant Carlew, horror on his asymmetrical features. He made a holy sign to ward off what he saw.

The man who'd dropped the name Harkness a long time ago dragged himself up, only to discover he had no legs. Or arms. In fact, he was feeling extremely strange. Another death, another life.

Weeks later, his recovery nearly complete, Carlew sat beside his biobed. "But you have lost all your limbs, sir. How can you be so calm?"

He couldn't turn his own head, not now, but he offered up a smile. "The trade-off has had one advantage. I'm open to discovering the rest."

4. The Right One (Right Now)

The name scrawled on his skin, formed there before his birth, was positioned perfectly to be hidden under his wrist strap. At last, he could stop many of the awkward questions he'd dodged over the years between leaving his colony world and finally graduating from the Academy. His classmates and playmates who'd heard of the Boeshane Peninsula all rolled their eyes or eye-equivalents at him, amused by the tradition of a backwater world. One love? Honestly?

No, no, he'd explain over and again, but explaining was hard when the truth was writ right there. Whomever he loved most, their name was written in blue for all to see, until he managed to cover it with a wrist computer instead of a lie and a smile. Much easier to get someone or several someones into bed with him when he didn't have to explain why his own body told them he was clearly in love with another.

The skin itched and burned when the name changed. That was another annoyance. When he'd been six, he'd loved his Mum and Dad more than anyone else ever. After the terrible day and the even worse weeks and months that followed, the blue skin on his forearm serpentined into his brother's name. With time and healing, the letters rearranged into the name of the first girl he kissed, the first boy he slept with, the last friend he betrayed before running away from home for good. The beginning of the end with the man he practically married for two incredibly long weeks was when his strap slipped, just once, and another's name shone out like a blue beacon. The end of another beginning marked itself in Gallifreyan runes which mocked him for decades.

"I love you, you know," Estelle said, her strong legs wrapped up with his. Jack, he was Jack even in his dreams these days, laughed and kissed her, pressing the words back into her mouth. He woke later that same night with a familiar, terrible burn on his arm. Without looking, he knew, and the soul-crushing terror stole away the last of his sleep.

"I'm sorry," he said into her hair.

Estelle's name stayed with him for years, replaced by others in their turn, always the damning blue refusing to lie. He could as easily paint a target on his head, and let his various enemies great and mean know how to destroy him. No, better to hide.

"I hate it," he told Lucia, who shrugged. She'd asked. They always asked when the skin showed. She didn't mind when her name wasn't written on her occasional lover's body. She had more pressing worries, and no intentions of making such an inconstant man a permanent fixture in her life. The last true kindness in her eyes for him shone on the day he removed his wrist strap to show baby Melissa her own name. Jack was certain she changed their daughter's identity to torture him in one more creative fashion.

The beginning of new romances, and the end of the Universe, and a long, long rest under the ground, and the soul mark shifted like a weathercock, pointing towards his truest love. Jack swore to himself that when he looped back around to the founding of his own colony, someone was getting punched in the genitals.

This burnt-out house used to be part of a trendy new area in Cardiff. The owners hadn't escaped, although Gwen's friend Andy had performed a spectacular job of getting the neighbours to evacuate. Gwen wasn't as lucky, and neither was Ianto. Jack, either, come to that. The aliens had eaten their tea with the former occupants of the destroyed home, and turned their attention to Cardiff's less than able defenders, who were currently bound and tethered to one wall.

Jack understood the aliens' speech, a dialect closely related to one he'd learned his first year of Academy. Listening to them discussing their plans didn't make him feel better. One had been here in disguise for some time, spying on Earth culture and scouting it out for a potential foothold.

"This planet is defended," he spat out in passable Ominish, gargling the syllables just as the textbook had taught.

"By such weak and stringy meat?"

"We have powerful weapons."

"What are you saying to them?" Gwen asked, the movement of her shoulders telling Jack she'd nearly got her bonds free.

"Just establishing that we're in charge here."

Ianto said, "Good. We wouldn't want them thinking they were in charge just because we're their helpless prisoners." He wiggled his hand where only the other two could see. A few more private practise sessions and he'd be able to get himself loose from anything Jack came up with. Assuming they got out of here alive.

The alien said, "You are the leader?"

"That's me." Jack was hauled to his feet. He made a hushing sound to his friends. Gwen was free now and waiting for the go-ahead. He'd wait, just for the moment, and not reveal their advantage whilst he played the aliens for information. A part of him he didn't want to acknowledge at the moment reminded him of their recent losses, and allowed how caution was the wisest course in keeping the last two members of his team safe.

"One of these is your mate." A third alien held its weapon loosely aimed at Gwen and Ianto. Even freed, they couldn't outrun a good shot.

Jack stayed quiet. His relationships were none of their business.

The alien, the scout who'd been on Earth longest, switched to English. "You are the leader. You may go. Tell us which is your favourite. The other will be our dinner guest."

"Thanks, no. My friends and I are leaving together." He nodded to the others, with a quick signal that meant, 'Get ready.'

"Boeshane," said the second alien, and sliced Jack's hands free. In a moment, he was relieved of his wrist strap. Ah, damn. Was it the accent? The good looks? His colony had been famous in their time, which was now looking like the aliens' home time.

"Hey, give that back!" Moment of caution was over. He swung but they grabbed his arm, and held the other as the scout read the damning scrawl on his arm. The alien spun and seized Gwen, thrusting her roughly into Jack's grip. The others' weapons were suddenly everywhere.

"Go," said the scout, nudging the two of them along with the muzzle of the gun. To its companions it said, "We have the advantage. As long as we have its mate, the leader will not stand against us."

The aliens shoved Jack and Gwen out of the ruined house.

"What the hell?" she asked, unsubtle in her attempt to get a look at Jack's bare wrist.

"Leave it. First things first, we need to get Ianto out of there and put these guys down."

Gwen twisted herself and took his wrist. "Why's his name on your arm, Jack?"

"Later."

5. The One You'll Never Lose

The name required a touch to activate. Shake hands, meet the one person who would love you until your death. The gods help you if your name didn't appear on their skin at the same time.

Jack loved touch, and he touched everyone he ever met. Most species, hell most humans, didn't have any sort of marking to show if Jack was their one true love, and he liked it that way. He liked knowing before they did. The first time he brushed a hand or stroked an arm, he gave a little gasp, wondering if this was the moment, if this was the soul destined to follow him to the end, if there was an end.

His skin stayed bare, through time and space and the Time Vortex itself. Hundreds of lovers, thousands of friends, yet the name never bloomed across him like a lighthouse. Twelve thousand years old, and he began to research, wondering if he'd missed his chance. Perhaps his soulmate had lived and died millennia ago, or wouldn't be born for a trillion years. Time travel opened his options whilst coming up empty on answers. Perhaps his soulmate was from an anemone species swimming beneath oceans yet to fill with water.

Perhaps there was no-one at all.

"Stop looking," said his fifty-second wife. "Your children need you."

He stopped the search. After a billion years, he forgot the planet of his birth, forgot the faces of the ones who never were, forgot most of the names he himself ever used, forgot that he'd forgotten.

Five billion years into his life, a young nurse newly joined to her order changed his dressings. Her name shimmered though him when they touched. Startled, a fragment of his memory jarred loose from long, long dormancy.

The nurse, barely more than a girl, startled back herself, whiskers twitching. The one who would be with him until he died, he knew now, and he knew what was to come. The end he'd earned would be granted to him within the lifetime of one confused cat.

His Excellency laughed.

6. The One You Want

"It's blue," he said, staring at the concrete lining the ceiling of his bunker. How they'd ever got on the subject of Jack's first home, or his physiology, remained a mystery. Ianto had taken the news about the lactose intolerance and the polydactylism without comment, but the writing had him intrigued.

"You wake up with the name of your true love printed in blue on your body?"

"Yep."

"That's brilliant." He rolled over, giving Jack a nice view of his naked back.

"You think so?"

"No more worries about dating. No more wondering if you've made a terrible mistake, or if you'll never find someone who's right for you. You already know their name, you just go find them."

"It's hell."

Ianto made a noise, then turned his head. His face went through an odd contortion. "It would be for you, wouldn't it? Knowing you had one person, one chance at happiness, and knowing you'll lose them forever. I'm sorry. I didn't think."

Jack watched his eyes. Ianto's back was a great sight, but Jack had melted in those eyes for years. Their fifth anniversary would be next week. When this began, Jack hadn't considered they'd last five nights.

"It's not that. It's the lack of choice in the matter. Imagine. You wake up one day, and there's a name written on you. That's it. No getting to discover for yourself. No going out on adventures and wondering if you'll fall madly in love with your partner before they betray you. No remarrying, either, not even if you're widowed, because you both know from the outset it isn't true love. No romancing multiple people to find out whose smile lights you up most, whose lips are the softest. You could wake up with the name of your most bitter enemy written across your chest, and no matter what you want, you're stuck with them. No matter how far you run, you'll never love anyone as much as them. No escape, and no choice."

"And you?" The question wasn't as shy as it would have been even three years ago.

"My parents were immigrants to the colony. They didn't have the genetic modifications yet when I was born. I can drink milk, and I have five toes on each foot, and I didn't ever wake up with the name of my soulmate written on my body. Kinda happy about that. Especially the milk. You know how I love a good cheese."

There was a long-suffering sigh beside him.

"I'd be afraid," Ianto said at last. "You're right. It sounds romantic, and it sounds like it'd be a relief not to have to worry, but I can picture the problem. If I had Lisa's name on me forever, I don't know how I'd bear to look in the mirror again knowing I could never feel that way again. And if I'd had yours, she never would have been with me in the first place. I would have lost one of you and never known it." His breath caught in pain at the mere thought.

Jack kissed him. "But you didn't. Normal people have to figure it out for themselves. I like being normal, and having a say."

He waited until Ianto's eyes closed, waited longer until he fell asleep, before Jack rolled out of the narrow bunk. They didn't sleep here often any more, choosing the comfort of their flat, but on the few late nights they stayed over, Jack was reminded of why he liked this space.

In the dark, Jack found the ladder and climbed up to his office. He opened his desk drawer, rummaging around until his fingers wrapped around what he needed. When he finished, he made his careful way down again and went back to bed

"I choose," he whispered into Ianto's shoulder, setting the promise with a kiss too light to wake. Blurred a bit by his sloppy lettering, the permanent blue ink written on Jack's arm dried in the cool night air.

The End

DW/TW Fic: Two for the Ferry

2013-11-27T02:50:15Z

Title: Two for the Ferry
Fandoms: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Eleven
Spoilers: Day of the Doctor, all TW
Words: 500
Summary: How the thing ended up at the place.
AN: Unbetaed fluff.

***

"I need a favour."

Jack didn’t look up from the paper in his hands. “You always need a favour.” His heart gave a thump, small, thinking on how much had changed, how he had changed. Once, he’d have already knocked over the table springing to action for the Doctor’s sake. Now, he made himself wait another three seconds before he even met the Doctor’s eyes. “What is it?”

"I need to borrow your Vortex Manipulator."

Jack’s eyebrows raised. “Is that all?”

"Yes." This face was young, odd, rubbery. Jack had seen photographs of this Doctor. They’d never met.

"Need to dangle it over my head again? Maybe use it for a quick hop around the galaxy before you break it in front of me one more time?"

"Not exactly. I’m dealing with a potential paradox. It’s easiest if you play along." He sat down in the other chair. The breezy summer air made his hair stick up. Across from the café, three kids hunched over a hand-held video game of some sort, chatting and laughing. Jack was relearning to spend time around children, retraining himself not to flinch. Time healed all wounds. He had the wounds, and he had the time.

"What sort of paradox?"

The young-faced, rubbery-faced, all-wrong Doctor shrugged. “Fate of the world. Usual stuff. Oh, and you’ll want to keep an eye out for Zygons.”

Jack let out a muttering sigh and set the paper aside. It wasn’t as if he’d been reading. “Them again?”

"UNIT will be working out a treaty. Not to worry. They’re in good hands." His eyes dropped to Jack’s left wrist. "But speaking of hands…."

Jack lay his right hand over his wrist strap. “I don’t want to lose it forever.”

"You won’t. My friend Clara will drop it off when we’re finished. You’ll like her, and no, don’t under any circumstances.” His face curled into a suspicious glare.

Jack considered his options, but his life had been a series of running low on options. His gaze travelled to the kids across the street. One had stowed the game in a carrier, and they walked off together, still chattering.

Wordlessly, he unbuckled the strap, and placed it on the table.

"Thank you," said the Doctor, lifting the VM and placing it into a deep pocket of his coat. When his hand returned, Jack’s eyes were caught by a glimmer. A shining, vaguely blue coin lay on the table.

He reached over, hesitating with a questioning look. The Doctor nodded. Jack picked up the coin. Coins. There were two. “Is this what I think it is?”

"A token. A day. Twenty-four hours to spend, anywhere, anywhen. Consider it a thank you for the loan."

Jack spread the pair of coins out. “There’s two.”

"I owed you interest for past thanks."

Two days. Two trips. Anywhere. To see anyone.

The children had walked down the street and were out of sight.

"Doctor…."

The Doctor stood. “Call me when you’re ready to go. You have the number.”

Jack threw down a few coins, normal ones rather than his precious new gift, for his abandoned meal. “As a matter of fact, I’m free now.”

The Doctor smiled. “I thought you might be. Let’s go.”

***
The End
***

TW Fic: Treats

2013-10-30T04:17:25Z

Title: Treats
Author: nancybrown
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Martha/Tom, Lois, Anwen, OC
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: past mpreg, parental angst, up through S4 (characters only), mild violence
Words: 3600
Summary: Fluffy Hallowe'en fic.
AN: You know that story you shouldn't write? The one that's so self-indulgent you're embarrassed sitting there as you type, unwilling to meet your own eyes in the reflection of your monitor's glow? That story? That's this story. Takes place in same storyverse as A Lantern in the Dark Autumn and Home, Take Two. Fills Trope Bingo square: kidfic. Probably sariagray's fault.

***

"Where are her ears?" Ianto dug into the drawers of the dresser, tossing aside tiny clothes in his frantic search.

"On her head?"

He glared at Jack. "I know I put them in here. We washed the costume, I put the extra parts away. You didn't move anything, did you?"

"No." Jack set Theia on the floor, where she happily scooted over to her toy chest and began extracting pastel ponies.

"No no," Ianto said, abandoning his search and scooping her up again whilst Jack sauntered over to dig around the drawers in his stead. Ianto pulled a pony with the bubblegum-pink mane out of Theia's fist. "Ponies later. We're going to the spooky tour." He enunciated slowly, "Spooooky."

Theia giggled.

"Got 'em," said Jack, and he tossed Ianto a headband with Minnie Mouse ears attached. Ianto caught the band and affixed it to their daughter's head as she squirmed. She'd have it off before they were in the car.

"It's unethical to glue the headband on the child's head, isn't it."

"If you have to ask, the answer's yes. Are you ready?"

"Almost." He nearly set her down, but instead passed her over before heading back to their bedroom for his cape. Ianto had decided to go full-on Dracula for his costume this year, minus the plastic teeth. He wasn't much for vampires, but as they'd browsed the shops for Theia's costume, Jack had wolf-whistled at the Dracula suit. Jack himself wore the same pirate outfit he'd worn last year, though he'd found a hat somewhere. The hat, alas, did not add to his charms. Also, Theia kept trying to grab it off his head. She of course was the aforementioned mouse, with red dress and polka dots. He'd briefly considered talking Jack into a group costuming affair, perhaps Theia dressed as Ariel and her dads as her fishy compatriots, or dress her as Dorothy with the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion at her side. But no. Before he'd even brought up the subject for discussion, he'd known.

In the car, Theia's headband was thrown to the floor. As Ianto drove, Jack reached back into the detritus of the back seat: spare bag with her change of clothes, spare snacks, old snacks, toys for the car, and half a dozen crayons mashed into the rug. Ianto wanted a tetanus shot whenever he had to look for anything back there. It didn't matter how often he cleaned, nor if he'd removed every single item in the car. Toddlers attracted filth, as well as producing it.

There were days he mused the only survival trait babies had was their amazing power of Cute.

He dropped Jack and Theia close to the Plass, and took the car to Torchwood's private carpark. Gwen's car was already here. Martha's had yet to leave from earlier. He ought to know the various vehicles on sight owned by their latest additions to the staff, but other than Lois's sensible Astra, he could only hazard guesses. Preoccupation would get him killed one of these days. Ianto sighed, parked, and got out the folding pram.

Jack had found Gwen and Rhys already. Theia had one fist mostly in her mouth, staring at Anwen's costume. "You made it," Gwen said warmly. Her hair was done in plaits and she wore Dorothy's blue-checked pinafore. Rhys was rather perfectly-cast in his lion's costume, and their child looked resplendent in Glinda's glittery white gown.

Just as well they'd dropped that idea, then, Ianto thought, before he swept his faux-satin cape around.

"Should we do the face painting first?" Ianto said, letting Jack set up the pram. Theia could walk, but she'd be less fussy this way.

Rhys squeezed Anwen's hand. "Nah. It'll mess up her costume."

"Right."

And of course, Anwen really did look pristine in the white dress. She giggled and spun around, waving her wand but not so much that it might accidentally smack someone. She was always very careful, that one.

He sighed again, but turned it into a token, "Blah!"

Anwen was the most brilliant child at her nursery school. Anwen knew her numbers and letters, and could read the pretty picture books about the adventures of Pinkie Pie and her friends. (Jack read these to Theia at night, adding commentary about the sex lives of the ponies until Ianto made him stop.) Anwen had walked at ten months, and talked at a year. Anwen was completely toilet-trained. And just like her mummy, she had a heart big enough for the whole world, regularly rescuing insects and caring for small birds.

If it weren't incredibly petty to resent a four-year-old girl, Ianto wasn't sure how he'd feel about his friend's daughter.

Anwen didn't have delays in learning to walk, so much so that her dad began devouring infant and child development books. Anwen didn't have a speech delay at the age of thirty-five months. Gwen and Rhys hadn't visited doctors who asked the same questions over and over, and they hadn't been forced to lie. Of course the pregnancy had been typical. No family history of anything unusual. Ianto wondered what the specialists would make of the truth. And what is the typical age for onset of speech in children gestated by one father who'd come from a future where many colonists were genetically modified in this fashion as well as others? "She'll talk when she's ready," Jack always said, which wasn't helpful at all.

"Come on," Anwen said, grabbing Theia's hand before she pulled off her ears again. "Spooky tour."

Gwen said, "Apparently we're going on the spooky tour." She took Anwen's other hand as Ianto buckled Theia into her pram.

Jack touched his ear. "Martha, are you joining us?"

In his own ear, Ianto heard her. "Not yet. Someone left a dead Wenfilish in my bay."

"Ooo, bring its arm and you can make grabby claw hands at people."

Gwen made a face. "Jack!"

"I'll see you soon," Martha said.

The spooky tour was not as spooky as advertised. No doubt because their own job involved so very many ugly scares, Ianto found himself no more than mildly amused. Rhys jumped at a skeleton. Then Jack started flirting with a zombie. Not too dissimilar from their usual evenings, Ianto thought.

The other shops along Mermaid Quay handed out sweets for the younger trick-or-treaters. Lois kept watch at the Tourist Information Centre, cooing over the girls' costumes and dropping chocolate bars into their sacks.

"I love your costume," Jack said with his usual mixture of frank appreciation and just-within-regulations restraint.

Lois looked down at her outfit. She hadn't opted for any one borrowed identity, choosing layers of skirts overlaid with bells and bangles which shimmered and tinkled merrily as she moved. "Thanks," she replied shyly, then laughed as Theia grabbed hold of one bell and wouldn't let go.

"Here," Lois said, and quickly untied the bell. She gave Ianto a glance, waiting for his nod of approval before she let Theia take the bell. It was too big to be a choking hazard, he was almost certain. He felt the worry creep up his neck as she took it, shaking the bell clumsily in too tight a grasp and muting the clear silver tone.

Give him aliens. Give him fiendish killer robots. Give him crazed cannibals ritualistically consuming human flesh. Ianto could cope. Sometimes he'd coped at the bottom of a pint glass, or, buried under blankets in Jack's spartan bed, but he'd coped. But navigating what was best for this miracle of a child? He was lost, terrified and second-guessing himself at every step. Jack tried. He knew Jack tried. But Theia wasn't Jack's first or only child. Ianto had pinned down she was probably Jack's fourth or fifth, and her next-closest sibling was nearly forty and had a teenaged son. Jack's approach to parenting was to love the child as much as possible, and assume everything would work out somehow.

Which was why Ianto had to yank the bell out of her hand as soon as it went to her mouth, whilst Jack just rolled his eyes and said, "She's fine."

"Here," Gwen said, pulling a ribbon off of Anwen's wand and swiftly tying one end to the pram and the other to the bell. "Sorted." She smiled proudly.

"See?" Jack said. "It's sorted."

Pushing Jack into the Bay would not solve anything. Nor would snapping that stupid eye patch against his face. Ianto settled for thanking Lois for the sweets and indicating that if Martha wasn't joining them yet, they ought to keep moving.

Jack said, "You'll let us know if anything comes up."

Rhys said, "You know he just wants to mess about chasing aliens in his pirate get-up."

Gwen said, "We call those Thursdays."

Ianto said, "I could stay and you could go trick-or-treating."

"Out with you all," Lois said, shooing them. "I've heard there's pony rides."

"Ponies!" shrieked Anwen

Theia perked up, instantly forgetting about her bell. She said, "Ba," which was her word for "pony," "daddy," "papa," "bottle," and most everything else. But she clearly meant "pony" in this instance.

Ianto glared, but Lois only winked back as they left, emerging just as another group of children approached. Ianto had helped Lois draped cotton spider webs all over the entrance last week. But none of the parents tottering behind the trick-or-treaters guessed that three of the four adults they passed on the way out worked in this office, saving their world from far weirder things than giant wire and foam spiders.

In a way, it was like another secret costume. They didn't have to dress up to pretend.

They hit up four more shops for sweets before Ianto put a stop to the sugar intake. Jack of course bolted into two more, just to show off his costume and come out with another handful of brightly-coloured wrappers which he dropped into Theia's sack.

Theia had rediscovered her bell. She shook it as they walked, getting more and more frustrated as it refused to make the pretty noise while stuffed in her fist.

"We have to come up with a name," Ianto said, counting fingers and toes for the fifteenth time even as he was hindered by the swaddling blanket. "We can't just call her, 'Oi, you.'"

Martha settled into a chair by the bed where Jack rested. "It does have a ring to it."

"I have an idea," Jack said. "I've been thinking about the way she crashed into our lives."

As Jack explained, a smile spread over Ianto's face. "Yeah. I think it'll be perfect."

'Perfect' wasn't the right word now, not with a lost chocolate melting into the white polka dots of her dress. Ianto was a dab hand with bloodstains, and in the last two and a half years he'd learned to do his best with poo and sick. Chocolate was a whole other realm. "We'll have to take this in," he moaned.

"It'll be fine," said Gwen, but Gwen always left her worst stains in the laundry pile at the Hub for Ianto to explain to the dry cleaner.

Anwen's dress remained perfectly white despite the handfuls of sweets she'd already eaten. Theia not only had chocolate stains, but her face had become a sticky red mess. Ianto knew he hadn't given her anything from her sack.

"If she's sick, you're cleaning it up," he said to Jack.

"She'll be fine," Jack said. He unbuckled her and swept her up to his shoulder as she squealed. "See, much better from up here."

"Ba!"

Cuddled in Jack's arms, and once again missing her Minnie ears, Theia could pass for a wee little pirate wench. As they walked, Ianto debated whether or not to fold the pram into umbrella size. He watched the other patrons goggle at the costumes around them. Gwen and Rhys collected loads of compliments on their choice. Even with her dirty dress, Theia now caught glances as people cooed over the wee little pirate and her pirate papa. He also noticed the sweep of eyes as they looked for a pirate mum and only found a drooping vampire having trouble folding the damn pram.

He wasn't bothered by stares, nor by what other people said or thought. His sister had accepted the story he'd fed her, that he and Jack had found a nice surrogate. The neighbours didn't stare much. The doctors asked questions they had to lie about, and read Torchwood-forged documents about Theia Jones. (Jack's insistence. Safer, he'd said with conviction. Easier to hide, Alice had pointed out with bitterness.) He didn't care. But part of him wondered if she would, one day. He wondered if she would resent the small and large hardships her life held in store entirely because she'd been conceived and born a bit unusually for this century.

Gwen and Rhys had a perfect little family and were in talks to add to it. Anwen was a lovely girl who would no doubt grow up bright and happy, and Jack and Ianto themselves had sworn privately they'd do whatever either could to make that happen.

He just wished he wasn't convinced Anwen was the only one who would be all right. He watched her colour, grabbing one crayon in a tight grip and very carefully staying in the lines. Theia hadn't been allowed any crayons though she kept tipping in Jack's arms as she tried to catch one. It'd wind up in her mouth or up her nose.

"What if we've ruined her?" he asked suddenly.

Jack turned his whole body to face him, bringing Theia around with him. "Huh?"

"Theia. What if we've already ruined her life?"

Jack blinked. "I only gave her two sweets. And I checked the wrappers first."

"I don't mean that." Ianto shrugged his cape. "What if you and I messed her up from the beginning? Her DNA. And then we've plunked her down in this life, with aliens and worse, and we can't even keep her clean for ten minutes." He was breathing faster. "What if we've completely wrecked her chance at ever having a normal life, Jack?"

Jack stared. Gwen coughed. Rhys said, "Ah, finally reached that stage, yeah?"

Gwen said, "Don't you start."

"What? The night you climbed onto the bed convinced Anwen was ruined for life because she spread poo all over her cot and it took us two hours to clean it all up?"

"Missed that story," said Jack.

"It was awful," moaned Gwen. "Poo was everywhere."

"Yeah, and you said we had to be the worst parents ever for leaving her alone in her room long enough."

Anwen was looking up from her colouring, scrunching up her nose. "Poo? Yucky."

Rhys grinned and knelt down, ruffling her hair with a big paw. "Very yucky."

"Well," said Gwen, "at least I didn't say we ought to take her back to hospital and find her a new home just because she wouldn't eat one day."

"She was starving herself," Rhys said. "Poor lamb."

They looked expectantly at Jack. "What?"

"Anything you'd care to volunteer?"

"I don't know what you mean. I'm a perfect parent." He grinned.

Ianto pulled out his mobile. He had Alice listed as number 8 on speed dial. Jack saw him go to press. "Put that away."

Just then, Martha came into view in the crowd. She wore a lab coat speckled bright red and goggles on her head.

Jack said, "Didn't wait to change?"

"It's my costume. Mad scientist." She glanced at the stains. "That's paint." Then she took in their faces. "What's wrong?"

Gwen said, "We're enumerating the reasons why we're awful people and ought to surrender our children for adoption by fit parents."

"Brilliant! I'll let Tom know. We'll adopt them both in the morning." She bent in to give Theia a pat and a cuddle.

Theia said. "Ba!" which meant "Auntie Martha." Then she looked at Jack and said, "Ba!" which meant "Bottle."

Ianto dug through her bag for a bottle. "Here you go. No more juice for you, young lady."

"How on Earth did you know that's what she wanted?"

He shrugged. "It's what she asked for."

Gwen said, "And that's why she's not talking, pet. You never let her."

"Ah, we're back to blaming me. Good."

***

Anwen started the yawns, and soon it was a contest between the two girls. Rhys picked up his own daughter. "It's time to take her home."

Gwen frowned. "So early? We could put her down for a nap."

"It'll wreck her sleep tonight. And where would we put her?"

Gwen smiled. It was Jack's turn to frown. "No kids in the Hub."

"We're right here."

"No."

"Theia was born there. Anwen would've been born there if my water had broken an hour earlier."

Anwen yawned again. "Can I pet the pterodactyl?"

"Home," said Rhys, and Ianto plucked Theia from Jack's arms in agreement.

Martha sighed. "You lot had kids and you're all homebodies now."

Jack said, "You could babysit."

"Good night," Martha said quickly, and popped a kiss onto Jack's cheek before moving off in search of other friendly faces. The rest of the team would be out here soon, having fun and not being scared by the Spooky Tour.

"I'll see you tomorrow," said Gwen, still looking disappointed. As she and Rhys headed toward the new caravan Rhys had insisted on, Ianto heard Gwen suggest some quick trick-or-treating along the way home.

Without their friends, and sure in the knowledge that the Hub would be empty by now, Jack and Ianto exchanged a quick glance. "We could go in for a few minutes," Ianto said.

"No. It's a good rule."

"You like breaking rules. Especially rules you wrote."

"I'm trying to set a good example. Let's go home."

Ianto could have argued, but chose against it. Jack acting responsibly ought to be rewarded in the hopes such behaviour would continue. They walked back to the car, Ianto still carrying Theia, Jack hoisting the folded-up pram over his shoulder like a very odd sword. If people stared, he chose not to care.

She squirmed as Ianto strapped her into her safety seat. Then she looked past him, little face gone very serious. "Ba!"

He didn't know this one. "You finished your bottle."

"Ba!" she shrieked, loud enough to get Jack's attention.

"Get down!" he shouted. Ianto instantly dropped, covering the safety seat with his whole body. Something sharp raked across his back, ripping into the cheap cape in parallel lines of pure fire. His instinct said to turn and fight, but his brain said to hold still else whatever it was took its next swipe at the child. The second swipe hurt much, much worse.

He heard Jack bolt around the car, felt more than saw the impact as Jack tackled whatever it was to the ground. Ianto made a quick, soothing noise at Theia then turned to join in if necessary. Weevil. It figured. Thinking back, he'd seen so many fake monster costumes tonight that it hadn't registered as anything out of the ordinary when he'd seen the thing in his peripheral vision a few minutes ago. Stupid.

Jack wrestled on the ground with the thing. Ianto's paralysis broke, and he dove into the glove box for what he hoped would be a spare can of spray. Success! He turned, tossing the can to Jack's waiting hands.

Then he sat heavily on the ground, still in front of the open door where Theia sat crying. "Sh," he said, the pain rushing back as he saw Jack subdue the creature. "Hush, now. It's all going to be fine."

"Ba," she said miserably.

***

Fortunately, Martha hadn't wandered far into the crowd. Ianto flinched as she disinfected his wounds, and tried to be grateful for how quickly she'd come.

Jack came down the stairs in the Med Bay. "She's settled for the moment."

"She won't stay there," said Ianto. "Ouch!"

"Sorry." Martha set down her swab and dug through a drawer. Ianto cringed away when he saw the needle in her hand, but one injection later, the pain smoothed away. "Better?"

"Thank you, yes." He stopped fidgeting as she returned to her work.

"How bad is it?" Jack asked, looking past Ianto.

"We've seen worse," said Martha. "I'll know more once this is cleaned. I don't think anything vital has been damaged. I'll run some scans before I start stitching, all right?" She patted Ianto gingerly on his good shoulder. "You'll have a few scars."

All three heads turned at a noise from up in the main Hub. Jack grimaced, bounding up the stairs again. He said, "Theia, it's bed time."

"Ba."

"Yes, bed."

"That doesn't mean 'bed,'" Ianto said.

Jack brought her over to the rail. "See, there's Daddy. Daddy is okay." His tone was strained, but Jack often fretted when Ianto was injured, then pretended he wasn't and didn't. "Do you want to give Daddy a kiss before bed?"

"Ba!"

Taking this as an affirmative, he brought her down the stairs. Martha said, "Careful. This is a bit gooey."

"Gooey."

Martha returned to her work. Ianto stared. Jack stared. Jack said, carefully, not trusting his luck, "Gooey?"

"Gooey!" She wriggled until he brought her closer to Ianto, who obediently kissed her on the cheek. Gooey? He'd been hoping 'Dada' would be first. It'd come in time, he knew. Everything did.

"Go to bed, sweetheart. We'll take you home later." But he watched Jack as he spoke, and he caught Jack's hint of a grin as Jack carried her up to bed.

***
The End
***

Previous Halloween-ish fics:
The Charm's Wound Up
The Faintest Restless Rustling Ran All Through
Bite Me
The Truth About Plums

DW Fic: Uncharted Territories

2013-09-26T13:45:08Z

Title: Uncharted Territories
By: nancybrown
Rating: PG
Character(s)/Ship(s): Eleven/River, the TARDIS
Words: 1550
Spoilers: up through TATM, references to SitL/FotD
Summary: River maps the interior of the TARDIS.
AN: Written for EleventyFest, for eve11

***

One day, River mapped the TARDIS interior out of curiosity. When the Doctor asked her hours later where she'd been, she gave him the mysterious smile she knew he hated, added milk to her tea, and refused to say. Besides, she wasn't finished yet.

"River."

"I was occupied."

Rather than argue with him, River took a long drink. She set the cup aside, smiled again, and made him forget every inquiry he'd ever made that wasn't, "Would you do that bit again?"

She hid the map in her own room. Although she far preferred the nights she spent in his, River never knew for certain from visit to visit if the Doctor she would meet had had her in his bed. She kept her diary, and she kept her notes, and she treasured the increasingly rare visits from the Doctor late enough in his timeline to know what she meant to him.

"Let's go to the Singing Towers of Darillium," she said one day over the remains of breakfast. The Doctor with her was on the young side, skittish and pliable and unfortunately not ready for marital bliss. He also lacked his later self's ability to hide emotions on this face.

"Boring." He swept the crumbs away and leapt to his feet. "We'll take a trip somewhere more interesting. Praetor Core. They have the most amazing sea turtles. Huge! You can ride them! Riding on sea turtles, can you picture it?"

"I know," River said. "You ought to take Amy there some day."

He leaned close. "Is that a spoiler?"

"Just a suggestion. I think she'd enjoy the trip."

Amy and Rory had disembarked for a while. Back to Earth, back to sanity. They'd be home in the TARDIS soon enough. "Perhaps I will."

Instead of going to visit the giant sea turtles, the Doctor curled up with a favourite book, and River resumed her map-making. She was an archaeologist by training and by joy. Discovering new places and carefully noting her findings thrilled her as much as any starlit chase. The TARDIS had so much to share, opening her doors before River could even ask.

River wondered at the spaces within spaces. The TARDIS contained infinity, and also a great deal of junk. Her love never could discard anything he once cared about, and he cared about so much and so very many. She found bedrooms, kept in stasis as clean or jumbled as their owners left them. She found storage rooms with artefacts some museums would have traded anything for, and some artefacts she suspected had been stolen from same.

She found the books.

Over dinner, River asked, "When were you planning to show me the Library?"

The Doctor held his plate of grilled lamb with vegetables, a meal the TARDIS had provided fully-cooked from some unknown site. He stared at River, food forgotten, face losing colour. "What?"

"The library. It's enormous. You've even got The Secret History of the Time War in there."

He glared. "You didn't read it, did you?"

She took a sip of champagne. "Me?"

River had only taken a quick glance. She'd marked down the location for a longer perusal later.

"Are you exploring the TARDIS?"

"Of course. She's a beauty. She likes me, you know."

He cast his eyes to the closest bulkhead. "I know." He looked down at his food, and set the place aside. "Let's go somewhere. You and me. We can visit the Horsehead Nebula back when it was still a colt." His grin was infectious. "Or we could go snorkelling on Hyneria. The Dominar owes me a favour."

"What about Darillium?" She spent her time reading his face, and got her answers.

"Dull. I told you."

She didn't press the issue again.

The next Doctor to pick her up wore an entirely new face, which wrinkled with surprise and delight when he saw her. She didn't have time to explore his TARDIS.

After that, she met up with the version she most preferred, with his bow tie and old man's mannerisms. He addressed her as his wife, and treated her as his lover. Preening with the attention, River ignored her maps. Not long after, she got a letter in a blue envelope, and she watched herself kill her love. That Doctor was followed on by a younger version hours later. River ticked off places in her diary, keeping watch over her parents as best she could.

When time allowed, she went through the corridors of the ship. Even when the Doctor didn't know her, the TARDIS did, keeping River's bedroom as she preferred, with the growing map in the same hiding place. She'd added more sheets of paper, attempting the impossible: capture multiple dimensions of layered space. The project kept her spirits up when Amy and Rory were nowhere to be found, or on visits when her bed was cold and lonely.

She asked about the Towers. She spoke about the Library. Younger Doctors changed the subject. Older Doctors merely looked away.

Something was coming. She didn't have to wonder how he would accept her death. With their timelines all askew, she knew her life with him was little more than his long mourning period as he sat up with the dead. When she was gone for him, truly gone, would he come into her room, see her things, find her map? Had he done so already?

Their timelines overlapped again when her parents died. She hadn't known how she'd lose them, how he would. She found she couldn't face walking out the door not knowing if the Doctor she met next would remember today, would know they were gone. Her own grief coloured her voice and her eyes too much to hide from him.

She tossed off her poor joke about psychopaths, then left him alone in the Control Room while she went to the kitchen for tea. Around her, the TARDIS hummed sadly.

"He loses everyone," River said to her as she filled the kettle.

The TARDIS reminded River the Doctor wasn't the only person who lost everyone. River sat in her chair and sobbed. She could write her book tomorrow.

When she woke the following morning in his bed, she donned a dressing gown and crept back to her own room. Her clothes hung in the wardrobe. Her hairbrush lay on the washing stand. Her map lay hidden under her bed. He would find her things and his hearts would break all over again. She would have to take away her personal items. She would burn the map.

"River?"

She turned. He stood in the doorway, his own dressing gown tightly-cinched at his waist, his hair wild.

"Sweetie. I thought you were asleep."

"You were gone." His face was so lost. She dropped her papers and went into his arms.

"I'm here." She turned, seizing her brush. "I wanted to fix my hair."

His eyes easily picked out the papers on the floor. "You made a map?"

"Oh. That. It's nothing."

He grabbed a sheet before she could stop him. "This is a map of the TARDIS."

"Yes."

"Your map."

There remained no point in deceit. "Yes."

"That you made."

Annoyance poked through her confession. "Are you sleepwalking? Should I worry about waking you and risk your legs falling off?"

The Doctor sat on her bed, fetching more papers. "This is...."

"I'm sorry," she said, hoping to stave off the rest, and hoping more she could snatch the map away and push him down to the bed properly.

He looked up at her. "It's amazing. You really did all this?"

She nodded.

"Can I have these?"

She hadn't expected that. "Why? It's your TARDIS."

"Yes, but," he looked down at her drawings and notes, "this is wonderful. I've never mapped her before. She doesn't tend to keep the same shape long."

"She knows you bore easily." River folded her arms.

"Never of her," he said, and reverentially tidied the papers. He smiled at River. "My girl is endlessly fascinating, inside and out, and I will care for her forever."

Oh. He was talking about feelings again. He was rubbish with feelings. She was rubbish with feelings. River sat down beside him and took his hand. "Sweetie, don't."

But his grin had come back, and if it was duller than it had been a day ago, she didn't blame him at all. "Let's go somewhere."

River sighed. That was always his solution. Feeling bad? Set a course for some place and time that could distract him from his self-loathing. "I really don't..."

The Doctor brandished the papers in his hand. "I was thinking we could go to the games room. I haven't been able to locate that for two hundred years." He pointed to a spot on the map she'd barely explored. Games had seemed ever so dull when she had all of time and space to play with.

She never could resist that smile, though.

"Let me get dressed first."

His eyes dropped. He set the map carefully aside on the floor. The smile stayed. River found one of her own to match. She ought to make a naughty comment about giving him something else to explore, or joke saucily about getting dressed later.

He kissed her before she could decide which to choose, which was, she decided, for the best.

***
The End
***

DW Fic: The Stars May Behold My Tears

2013-09-26T13:31:12Z

Title: The Stars May Behold My Tears
By: nancybrown
Rating: PG
Character(s)/Ship(s): Eleven/River, Amy/Rory, OC/OC
Words: 3100
Spoilers: up through TATM
Summary: Megan gets to know the regulars at the coffee shop, even the regulars who don't always know her.
AN: Written for EleventyFest, for juniperphoenix

***

His eyes are sad.

It's the third thing Megan notices after the stupid black reading glasses and the stupid red bow tie. She stumbles through giving him his change and wishing him a good day. Men walking into Hell will have better luck today, his eyes tell her.

"Thank you, Megan," he says gravely, and he leaves her an enormous tip, the kind that mean she and her flatmate Kellie will be eating sushi later instead of bad Chinese takeaway.

The man takes his tea, plain and hot, and he sits at a table by the window. Behind him, Aggie Choudhury has her headphones on whilst she studies and enjoys Java 254's free refills on regular coffees. Mr. Rahman will be in soon, ordering tea with ginger and winking at her like they're old mates. Peter Wilson from the university will be in after, ordering something expensive and difficult, then winking at her until she's uncomfortable. Ms. Foster will bring the twins by, buying herself something to fortify the coming night of teething-related restlessness from her offspring. The regulars, Megan thinks. But now it's just the sad bloke, and the low background of Aggie's iPod.

He comes again the next night. The glasses are gone, the bow tie is still there. He's got a wide grin, one arm around a gorgeous redhead with the longest legs Megan's ever seen. They take the same table he did last night, interrupting Aggie's homework with boisterous laughter. The girl's Scottish, Megan picks out, and she flirts with Mr. Rahman, who coughs and blushes and lets himself out again, and then she flirts with Peter Wilson, who seems like he'll take her up on it. Right in front of her boyfriend, Megan thinks, and she wonders. But the bloke with the bow tie and the ginger go off together, and Peter Wilson moons after her for days.

Megan comes home with stories about her customers, making fun of this one's clothes, and that one's nervous habit. Aggie Choudhury always picks the one table where Megan can best see her empty cup needing a refill. Peter Wilson always sits too close to the counter.

"But what about Granddad?" Kellie's been asking about him ever since that first night, because the bloke looked strange and the sushi tasted magnificent.

"Well, he did come back." She's not sure what to say, really.

"Did he bring his hot lady friend?"

"Yes and no." The hot ginger wasn't there tonight. Instead Granddad, as they call him, brought an older lady, old enough almost to be his mum. Wasn't no man who looked at his mum that way, though, and Megan doesn't blame him. The lady gave her a wink as they left. Megan's still a bit flushed. "New girlfriend," she says, and she changes the subject.

They come three nights in a row: Granddad, the ginger, the curly-haired cougar, and some poor bloke who looks lost. Megan's not sure what to make of them. She's got friends who are poly, sure. These four tumble and prod one another like puppies in a box. The ginger flirts with Granddad but she kisses the dour bloke. The woman with the curls and the very nice display of cleavage holds hands with the ginger, holds hands with the dour bloke, and leans over the table to offer a good view to Granddad. They're clearly tight. Megan manages to erase her mental photograph of the four of them sprawled asleep naked in a bed together, only to have it zoom into focus when she pours a refill for the ginger.

One night they don't come. Aggie takes her usual table and stays until closing. "No foursome tonight?"

"Guess not," says Megan. She's been wiping down tables for the last fifteen minutes, waiting for the clock to run out. Small talk might get her a little closer to done. "What are you studying?"

Aggie draws back. "Oh. The younger Romantic poets."

This rings bells somewhere in the dust-covered shelves of Megan's memory. "Like Byron, right?"

Aggie nods. The cork popped, Aggie chatters to Megan all about her thesis on Keats and Shelley, and Mary Shelley in the stolen summer of 1816. Megan pays some attention, not much. It's weird to see Aggie this animated about a topic. This is the longest conversation they've ever had, and she's not following most of it.

She tries to put Aggie's words together. "What you mean is that if you stick a load of people in a small space together, they'll have sex and go mad."

Aggie laughs. "Something like that." She walks Megan home, saying her flat is two streets over.

The next night, Granddad comes with the cougar. Megan makes excuses to refill his tea whenever she can. She's stretching the rules to refill the lady's triple-chocolate almond kiss but the bright, grateful smile she receives is well worth the earful she'll earn tomorrow when the receipts are checked.

Granddad has that face again as she holds his hand. "They wouldn't want you to bury yourself. You know that."

"I failed her, River."

"Amy chose. You know no-one could change her mind once she came to a decision."

"I should have talked to her more. I should have made her listen."

"She did listen. She didn't agree." River, her name is River, Megan likes that very much. River purses her lips. "You always hate it when we find someone we love more than we love you. You stomp around, you sneak away, you act like a child to prove you're best."

Megan moves away again. Poly. She thought so.

The pair of them come several times over the next two weeks. Some nights they sit opposite one another, reading to each other from old books. Romantic books, from the sounds of them, with weird adventures. Aggie turns up her music so loud Megan's sure she's going to blow out her eardrums. One night they have a row about multi-phasic wave dampeners. Granddad acts all smarter than everyone else. River does as well, and cites some expert, some Dr. Tards or something. Megan can't figure out if they're physicists or if they're those sci-fi nutters who read too much and snort at their own jokes about The Lord of the Rings.

Some nights, the quiet nights Megan remembers best later, the two of them spent the evening sitting next to each other, saying very little, and enjoying the baked nibbles that go half-price after ten. Granddad jokes about being dead. River jokes about being in prison. Megan doesn't eavesdrop much.

"Thank you, Megan," River says whenever she gets a top-off. Granddad watches her with a wry grin, then goes back to watching River like she's the hottest woman in the room. The other regulars come and go. Ms. Foster is closer to Granddad's young age. Megan sees her flirt a bit to Granddad's utter obliviousness. Peter Wilson ignores them, trying first to pull Megan, then trying to pull Aggie, then successfully pulling Ms. Foster.

"He's an arse," Megan doesn't say to Ms. Foster. Aggie rolls her eyes as they leave together.

"It will never last," Aggie does say when the door closes.

They're both startled when River says, "They have four children."

Granddad raises his eyebrows. "Spoilers."

"You keep saying that. What's the harm in peeking ahead?"

"River!"

They leave shortly thereafter, still quarrelling in the fashion that tells Megan the conversation is foreplay and they're going to have loads of sex now. She remembers those days, back when she and Diana were together. That draws a cloud over her evening, thinking about Diana and thinking that Ms. Foster was right now getting naked with Peter Wilson. Ick.

At the end of her shift, Aggie's still there. She surprises Megan with a gift. It's a book of poems. "I thought, since you were interested. You know. You might like it."

Reading, actual reading, looms in Megan's future whether she wants it or not. But the book looks antique, and Aggie looks hopeful. "Thanks," she says. "No one's ever given me poetry before."

That makes Aggie's face light up like a star. "Then I'll be your first."

Granddad brings Amy and their dour boyfriend the next night. Makes her own decisions, does she? Megan pays attention this time, and yes, the ginger's obviously the glue. Centre of the polyhedron, sparkle in everyone's step, that's her. Megan's a little jealous. She's never been thin and pretty, not like long-legged Amy who makes her own choices and damn the man. Her hair is too frizzy, not neat and slick like Amy's long red tresses, nor beautifully bouncy like River's haloed curls. Yet when Amy grins at her, Megan finds she doesn't mind at all.

They're going to Tokyo. No, they've just got back from Rome, and Amy is teasing her primary boyfriend, whose nickname is Stupid, about Centurions. Megan and Aggie both listen in unapologetically. Barcelona sounds nice, Megan thinks. But where is Pottervise and why are the three of them swearing never to go back?

She and Aggie come up with mad theories on their walks home. The foursome are spies. They're a secret team, and River's their boss. Megan spins an elaborate dream, where Granddad was a super-young super-spy who faked his own death. River, Amy, and Stupid are still in the business. Could be government, could be foreign, but River expects to go to prison some day for what she knows.

They're graduate students, Aggie counters, and it's all a mystery because River's not supposed to be dating any of them. Didn't Granddad call her Professor just yesterday? She's got to be a physics professor at the university, and Granddad is her post-doc. That's why they tease him and call him Doctor. They're obviously having a polyamorous affair, but Amy prefers Stupid over the two of them. Aggie will look them all up in the university online system to prove her point, but not tonight.

Megan stretches out on the bed, reading aloud:
"They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee so well--
Long, long I shall rue thee,
Too deeply to tell."

Aggie sighs. "Go on."

"I can't. This is too silly. It's all Dr. Seuss." Megan wilts under Aggie's glare. She's fierce about her poems, and she's cute when she's naked.

Megan looks back at the page and she recites:
"In secret we met--
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?--
With silence and tears.

Ugh. Byron needed to have more sex."

"Byron had loads of sex." Aggie buries her face in her pillow. "Haven't you ever loved someone you couldn't admit to knowing, because people wouldn't understand?"

This, Megan suspects, is less about poetry and more about why she is only invited over when Mrs. Choudhury isn't home. Secret affairs aren't as enticing when she's the secret. She sets the book down and kisses Aggie until they've both forgotten all about brooding boys.

Stupid doesn't come back. Megan doesn't notice at first. Who could, with gorgeous Amy there, or gorgeous River? She can't be expected to notice the lack of a bloke, not with the happy, warm feeling she gets because Aggie's waiting to walk her home each night. One evening, Megan goes back to the Ladies when River does, not missing the sour look Aggie shoots her.

"Haven't seen your friend lately," she says in conversation to River.

River stares at her. "Sorry?"

"That bloke. The one who looks like a kicked puppy." She doesn't want to call him Stupid. "Hasn't been in, has he?"

"No," she says, blinking, for once caught wrong-footed. "Megan, isn't it?" She's reading the name tag.

She nods, a little hurt. Last night, River called her by her name and Megan had been thrilled.

"My friends and I are a little unconventional. We may come at odd times. We may visit once and not for months after.

"You've been here nearly every night for the past month."

Her eyes widen. "Oh, I wish you hadn't told me that." She smiles weakly. "Thank you."

Megan has no idea what she means, but the water runs and they're out of the loo, and it's weird to continue your conversations out of the loo.

They stop coming.

Normally a few days go by and they come back, but a week passes into two, then three. She's met Mrs. Choudhury by this time. Peter Wilson has moved in with Ms. Foster and the twins. Still no foursome.

Aggie is more sensible than Megan, for all the poetry. "They've left town or found another coffee shop." Megan isn't so certain, not even cuddled here in Aggie's sensible arms.

"Try this," Aggie coaxes. Another old book, this one a travel journal or something. "Mary Shelley. She was hot. You'd like her."

Megan snorts, and reads aloud: "I communicated, with unlimited freedom, with one whose genius, far transcending mine, awakened and guided my thoughts. Now I am alone—oh, how alone! The stars may behold my tears, and the winds drink my sights; but my thoughts are a sealed treasure, which I can confide to none."

This stuff is depressing, but Aggie smiles whenever Megan reads to her. She likes that trade-off.

Six months pass. She's mostly forgotten Granddad and his friends. Amy's a memory of long legs. River is a fading memory of a nice bosom. One cool evening like any other, Granddad walks into the shop, Amy on his arm. Back to that, are they?

"Got your regular," Megan says breezily. Perhaps she can impress them with her memory as she pours off his tea and whips up Amy's caramel half caf half fat latte before they ask.

Amy smiles at her in delight. "Best service I've ever had. I didn't even have to...."

Granddad shushes her, his face more set. "The tea is legendary here. Best tea in England." Megan thinks that's an exaggeration, though she admits, she makes a good cuppa. Granddad says reproachfully, "I thought you might like it."

Amy accepts the latte instead and takes a long drink. "No, this is perfect."

Megan follows them. They're at a new table. She shouldn't press, but everything is all wrong. "You're not at your usual table?"

Amy says with half a laugh, "We have a usual table?"

Megan feels stupid, and she hates feeling stupid. She glances over to Aggie, but Aggie hasn't noticed the pair yet, and she's deep in her reading. "Yeah," she says. "You and River and that bloke, you sit over there. He has black coffee, River has triple-chocolate almond kiss with an extra dollop of cream. You used to come all the time."

"Who's River?" Amy asks, and Granddad pulls her away.

"Wrong appointment, sorry. Forgot. We'll be late."

Aggie glances up to see them go. "What the hell?" she asks.

"I don't know."

That's the last time she sees Granddad and Amy. At first she thinks she's offended them. Then she thinks she was right, they were spies, and they fled because she broke their cover by mentioning River. "They graduated," says Aggie, though she never has managed to find them in the student or staff directories.

A year passes. She and Aggie get a little place together. Another year goes by. Aggie's finished her thesis and is trying to find work. Megan answers an advert and becomes an estate agent. She keeps hours at Java 254 because she likes to help during the rush, and because extra money never hurt anyone. She's going to quit soon, though. Too much stress with two jobs. Once they've paid for the wedding, and Aggie starts teaching next month, they'll be fine. She offers to close for her last shift, staying after the little party and enjoying the quiet at the end of a long day. It's a peace she knows she's sacrificing for happiness.

She's about to take the machine apart for the night and clean it, when the bell over the door rings. It's been years. Megan doesn't still have a crush on a former customer. Honestly. But she smiles in delight, realising she's been waiting to say goodbye. "River!"

"Hello, Megan," she says. "It's been a while. Hasn't it?" The question ought to be rhetorical, but there's a real inquiry behind.

"Years."

River's face is sad. "I thought as much. It's your last night, isn't it?"

"Who told you? Was it the Wilsons?"

"Of course."

River orders tea, and she holds out a thermos. "For my husband. He's going to miss your tea."

Megan thinks he ought to have shown up more often. "Oh, did you marry that bloke, then?" She's dying to know what happened to the other members of their group, but she bit her tongue and told herself not to pry.

"Short answer, yes." She curls a smile. "How is Aggie?"

Megan smiles widely. "She starts teaching next month. The wedding is December."

"I wish you'd told me sooner," River says sadly. She takes her flask back. "I always loved her poems."

Aggie's still too shy to show her work to anyone, even Megan. Before Megan can ask more, River is out the door with a soft farewell, and though Megan goes both ways down the road to find her, she never does. Curious.

By morning, she's forgotten the incident, and eventually, she forgets their faces. In December, Aggie stands in front of their families and friends, reading the poem she's written to Megan: love branches out like a flame, like a disease, we catch love from our parents, catch love from our friends, catch love from strangers who burn us brighter than stars. We catch love but cannot keep love without passing love along.

It's melodramatic, and Megan thinks it could use some Dr. Seuss, but she's never heard a lovelier verse.

They find the gift as they're clearing up before they leave on their honeymoon to Barcelona. Aggie holds out the book, horrified: no gift tag, a slim volume of poems, Keats, first edition. Some prankster has defaced the frontispiece with a pretend autograph that looks fresh.

"The nerve," she says in outrage. "It was Peter, you know I'm right."

Megan kisses her, and she keeps kissing her until Aggie forgets all about it.

***
The End
***

DW Fic: Bounce

2013-09-25T13:30:58Z

Title: Bounce
By: nancybrown
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Ship(s): Vastra/Jenny, Strax, Canton, Eleven, Amy/Rory
Warnings: brief allusions to murder and non-specific violence
Words: 5400
Summary: A mysterious device affects the lives of the Doctor and his friends.
AN: Written for EleventyFest, for jjpor
AN2: No, I hadn't planned on writing another fic with this particular cast for the fest, but pinch hits happened.

***

After Christmas, after Clara, after the Doctor regained a small spark of what he'd once been and ran off in search of a mystery, things in Paternoster Row settled down to their more typical pace. However much the three loved him as a brother and desired his company, the Doctor was at his best whilst off and running. Thus relieved of the burden for his care, a certain ease passed over the three residents of the household. Strax regained the spring in his step as he happily pondered various means of obliterating the neighbours whose dog left a mess in the garden. Jenny's always-welcome smile graced her cheeks more often, rosy in winter's chill as she kept the fires stoked, and baked steamy loaves of bread, and diligently polished the swords until they gleamed like silver. Madame Vastra herself spent too much time in the humid environment of her hothouse, impatient for the cold to pass, but she read thick volumes of esoterica to pass her time, and she consulted on the cases brought to her from her contacts at the Yard.

One day, dark with cloud cover and too chilly for one born in a clutch amidst the warm fronds of a fern forest, Jenny came to her. "Inspector McIntyre to see you, ma'am."

"Send him in, my dear, and bring the tea."

Jenny bobbed and hurried out, returning minutes later with the red-faced inspector, the last of the snow on his boots still melting.

His coat and hat were gone, no doubt warming near the fireplace in the parlour. His hands were large, callused, and red with cold as he twisted them together. No gloves, then. He owned one pair of mittens, poorly-made, a fact which, matched with his thin wedding band, suggested they had been a gift from his wife. The lack of both wedding band and mittens suggested his wife had left him over the holiday, likely returning to her family in the north after one too many nights alone. McIntyre's face bore the distinct blotches of long alcohol abuse, though Vastra had observed him enough to believe he was a soppy drunkard rather than a cruel one, a man who spent his late hours after work at the pub, drinking to forget the horrors of the day. Not a good man, not a kind man, but a man she could understand and not despise.

All this she thought in a flash, as she indicated the chair for him to sit and Jenny hurried out again to make tea. "Inspector," said Vastra. "I'm sorry to find out about your wife."

McIntyre startled, though not as much as he did the first time they met and Vastra asked about his sister.

"Madame, I ask you not to work your sorcery on me," he muttered. "But thank you."

Hardly sorcery, she would say, merely observation, but now was not the time. "What mystery has the Yard uncovered that requires my services?"

He coughed. She listened for the worrisome sounds of contagion, but he appeared to have nothing more than a mild cough brought on by the chill in the air, working itself out here in the moist warmth. "That fellow you brought in last week."

"The strangler? I've been following the papers. Is he to be hanged?"

"Certainly, but when we went through his belongings, we discovered an item that is highly unusual."

"Mm." She left the sound non-committal. She'd discovered early on that 'unusual' for the dear apes at the Yard often meant 'I haven't seen it before so it must be demonic' when oft as not, the item in question was in fact nothing more than an aid to prurient indulgences, brought by a sailor from some foreign port. "Did you bring it?"

Jenny came in with the tea at just the right moment. Vastra's mouth curled into a smile. Jenny always loved watching their faces as Vastra explained, with gestures, the use of the unusual items.

"No!" McIntyre's whole expression changed. Vastra leaned closer with curiosity. Typically, McIntyre gave away his own suspicion with a hefty cough and a colour blooming on his already carmine features, but now he showed all the signs of terror. Fascinating.

"Tell me more."

With more bluster, many pauses, and two cups of Jenny's strong tea, McIntyre eventually gave Vastra the information she needed: the item did not look man-made yet it was clearly a constructed thing, it fit perfectly in the palms held together of a man, and it made that man vanish from sight not to be returned. Men, he'd said draining the second cup. They'd lost three before someone had the sense to leave the damn thing alone.

"The item is still at this man's residence, yes?"

"Yes, Madame. We're baffled on how to move it. I've got policemen stationed as guards, but they can't stay there forever."

"Tell them I'll be along directly. Thank you, Inspector." Jenny showed him out.

When she returned, Vastra stood, stretching her limbs in anticipation of going out. Jenny asked, "Will we need the swords, ma'am?"

"I don't believe so, but bring them just in case. Have Strax ready the coach." She read the hesitation in her pretty wife's face. "Tell him he can bring a grenade, but only one, and it must stay outside."

"I'll tell him."

***

The strangler possessed an easy-to-forget face with an easy-to-forget name who lived a forgettable life on an unremarkable street. Vastra credited all these details with his success. Researching his crimes she'd found a pattern that went back two decades. Her only regret was that she put an end to his grisly work in the company of some well-meaning bobbies, who'd insisted on leading him in front of a judge. Vastra came from an era before judges. Justice would have been simple.

Life amongst these creatures still grated on her at times.

The rooms the killer had lived in were low and dark, empty of the other possessions the police had already carted off. The disappearing device lay in the middle of the floor, resting where it fell from the hands of the last man to hold it.

"As you see, we can't just leave it here," McIntyre said as she paced in a circle around the faintly blue sphere.

There had been disappearances, she recalled from her research. He chose his victims well, but left traces. Scotland Yard believed the bodies had been dumped in the river or buried. They'd only discovered his crimes when someone had inadvertently interrupted him as he'd been in the process of killing some poor lad on his way home from the factory, although the killer had taken to his heels and escaped before he could be caught.

He might have made the bodies vanish with this. "Strax," she said. "Have you seen a device like this before?"

She didn't have to warn him. He got down on his belly on the floor, peering at the silver-blue orb. "Unknown. I've dealt with transmats in the past. Personal transmats are rare." He twisted his bulky body to glance up at her. "It could be."

"We daren't touch it," said McIntyre. "It vanishes whatever does touch it."

She glanced down again, noting how the object lay on the rug, how the rug lay on the wooden floor. "I think that is not the case." Vastra shrugged her cloak off, wrapping her hands before she bent down. With only the shortest hesitation, she scooped the device into her hands. Nothing happened.

"My people made objects activated by touch. There are scientific institutes which could study this," she said, holding it out as McIntyre pulled back. "However, I can think of but one where it will be stored and handled correctly. They are in Glasgow. I will give you the address. Do not touch the device as you wrap it and you should be safe, but include a letter that the scientists there do not make the same mistake."

Hardly a case worthy of her talents, she thought, though sad it was that the strangler had taken more victims, some of whom may have been living.

"We're not going to bring those men back?" Jenny asked as they climbed into the carriage.

"It might be worth travelling wherever the poor policemen were taken to see if we could rescue them from their fate, but for all we know, they've been transmatted into cold space, or the heart of a star, or the belly of a mountain."

"Perhaps they went somewhere nice, instead of that," Jenny offered. "Perhaps they ended up some place nice and warm."

Vastra leant back against her seat, the cold sinking into her. Jenny watched her hopefully, not wanting to acknowledge the deaths. She was a fighter, but her heart was soft, and Vastra could not complain. Jenny's heart was soft enough to let Vastra inside.

"Perhaps they did."

***

Maybe what happens is that you're not used to working after finding yourself kicked out on your ear for not hiding yourself well enough, only to have the President himself tell your boss to stuff it. Maybe you find yourself in the limelight of your former and current colleagues' glares, never mind the obnoxious comments. It's exactly the wrong place to be around the men and women you're risking your life for, and who are supposed to be risking theirs for you.

Maybe you're fed up with one too many snide comments at home about your space boyfriend who never came back, and who never met your real boyfriend. Maybe you snapped back a little too hard when you should have made a joke and probably should have said something nasty about said space boyfriend. You always did duck when you should have rolled, and vice versa. You definitely shouldn't have said anything about the space boyfriend being less crazy.

Maybe you should have done everything differently, starting with not following the space boyfriend and his pals into the blue telephone booth to begin with, and never mind that a very small part of you was still ten years old and hoped you'd find Superman inside.

Maybe.

And maybe you should stop talking to yourself and feeling miserable and sorry for your own bad choices.

Canton threw back the last of his drink, paid his tab, and walked out into the night. He kept his hat in his hand, partial to the dashing figure he thought it made him look, and aware of how most other people saw him as a nimrod, dressing like his father.

He ought to go home, crawl into bed, and get up in a few hours to do it all again. Instead, he waved for a taxi and went back in to work. He hadn't had too much to drink, not enough even for his hands to tremble as he used his key. Inside, he was alone, the overhead lights turned off except for the handful they kept for the overnight guards.

Canton waved to Larry as he made his rounds. "Working late again, Mr. Delaware?"

"Nah, coming in early to beat rush hour."

Larry laughed and moved off. Canton went to his office. He had a desk in a room he shared with five other guys. As the senior agent, and the one the President liked, his desk was screened from the rest by one wall made up of the backs of four filing cabinets.

The file was out on his desk. Bad habit, he knew. Most of what they did was classified, and he ought to put the manila folders back when he was finished. Paperwork accountability. Yeah. One glance at the other desks in the office showed him vast piles of manila folders, some slumping over like drunks on a bench, ready to tip to the floor. Ladies and gentlemen, America's best and brightest.

He hung up his coat and then sat at his desk, flicking on the lamp rather than the overhead. There'd been fifteen disappearances in the case that they knew of, probably more. Too many of the missing were involved in the antiwar movement, not exactly the high water mark of closely tracked locations on people. Some dumb college kid or cute coed would get caught up in peace signs and telling Nixon to go to hell, and before you could turn around, they were living on a commune in northern California, making friends with Mary Jane, and calling themselves Brother Turnpike or Sister Moonbeam. Distraught parents didn't know where to find their offspring, blaming kidnappers and cults instead of draft fears and normal teenage rebellion. Add a few crossed state lines, and suddenly it was the Bureau's problem.

Except....

Except not all the kids turned up in communes, or in Brother Turnpike's All-Volunteer Harem, or washed up across the border with a burned draft card and a sudden desire to see Toronto. Some people really did just vanish.

They ought to go in the Missing Persons dead end file, where the cold cases went to rot. Maybe one of the weirdos who dug into the serial killer cases would go looking for someone who fit a profile some day, and offer a grieving family a new reason to grieve. Maybe Janie War Protester would show up in ten years living as Sally Supermom.

But these files were different. For one thing, Canton had traced a line across the country with these, and could trace the vanishings with surprising accuracy. For another, one of the missing persons was the daughter of a Congressman. For a third, he had a witness to her disappearance.

Canton reread the witness statement:

Witness: She...uh. Okay, she picked it up? And it was blue?

Agent Sloane: What was 'it'?

W: A ball. Like a silver ball. But blue. Glowy. *giggle*

S: What happened next?

W: Like, she picked it up, and she just went poof gone bye.

S: She was disintegrated?

W: No. It was a pop, like you know when a balloon breaks and there's air?

Canton set the paper down. One of the eggheads he'd run this by said it was consistent with a sudden vacuum created by instant transfer of matter from one place to another. The hippie freak didn't have the science for that, being a hippie freak music major rather than one of the more troublesome hippie freak chemistry majors.

Transfer. Matter. Instant. And this was why it had landed on Canton's desk. When you meet a time-travelling alien in the Oval Office whom you later help to hijack the signal from the moon landing because of not-exactly-aliens who live standing right behind you, you get a reputation for weird. You also get a chain-smoking bastard asking you questions you don't intend to answer, and you're pretty sure that man is going to make your life hell one of these days. And you really gotta stop talking to yourself.

He'd tacked a map on the wall. Canton traced the journey of the vanishings. They headed straight here, the last one being Congressman Frost's little girl who'd last been seen at that chick school down the road in Frederick by her hippie freak boyfriend.

The hippie freak had never seen the face of the guy with the ball. Ten pages of questions, and all they had was, "Long hair, maybe?" The hippie freak was in jail for a drugs charge while they tried to figure out if he was lying, but Canton thought not.

He's coming to DC. There was no other thought, but it didn't help track down one maybe long-haired guy who might be trying to give the President blue balls. So to speak.

Canton stared at the map, the line across the country drawn like a hitch-hiker would.

He really wanted another drink.

***

They gathered around the console of the TARDIS. Amy leaned back against the metal, careful not to bump any of the levers, not like last time. That had been a fun trip, eventually, once they escaped the space lobsters. Her hair still smelled faintly of butter.

"Albertina the Seventeenth," said the Doctor, flipping switches and turning a dial Amy would swear hadn't been there yesterday. Ever since they'd met the TARDIS in a woman's body, she'd taken a more active role in redecorating her own insides, possibly as a way of saying hello. Rory said he'd love to get a better handle on the organic functions of their time machine now that they knew for a fact she was a sentient being as well as a ship, but Amy had said no. Best to ask.

"Who is Albertina the Seventeenth?" Rory asked, when Amy didn't respond. The Doctor got cross when no-one picked up his prompts.

"Glad you asked," said the Doctor, and Amy just smiled through her private, Of course you are. "Albertina was the Empress of the Twelfth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Interesting time in history. Haven't been that far forward in a while." Some shadow crossed his eyes, God knew what.

Amy rolled once to arrive at his side. She squeezed his arm. "Sounds like fun. Far futures, empresses."

"Lobsters?" Rory asked, worried.

"No lobsters," the Doctor promised him.

***

"As you know, giant space crabs do not count as lobsters."

***

They took what Amy hoped would be a holiday back home. The TARDIS materialised on a lovely estate with rolling fields all around, and a formidable-looking manor house at the end of the lane. The Doctor led them out, sniffing in the air, then out again with a sigh. "Welcome home, Amelia Pond."

She looked around herself. This wasn't anything like the town where she was little, nor Leadworth. "Doctor?"

"It's Scotland." He looked pleased with himself.

"Where in Scotland? Scotland is enormous."

Rory pushed past her. "Remember when we took that trip right after school?"

"Into Glasgow. You got robbed."

The Doctor said, "See? You've been here before."

Amy said, "We're in Glasgow? Why are we in Glasgow?"

The Doctor held out his arms. "To enjoy the Scottish air, and the Scottish fields, and the Scottish manor houses. Bagpipes. Haggis. Scottish things." He waved his hand vaguely.

Amy put her hands on her waist. "Have you ever even been to Scotland before?"

His hands stopped their waving and one rested on the back of his head. "Actually, I have. I've been right here before. It's been some time."

As if to emphasise this, Amy spotted something at the horizon, going by. "Oh my God," said Rory, "is that a flying car? An actual flying car?"

"2073, Scotland. Scottish flying cars." Ignoring the flying car, the Doctor headed off toward the manor house. Every so often, he'd stop, and he'd stare, as though looking at something not quite there.

Amy and Rory looked at each other. Flying car. They could go see the flying car. But the Doctor wore his old looking into hell face again. The pair of them dashed to catch up, reaching him as he stood in front of the gates.

"Torchwood," Amy read. "I know that name from somewhere."

"Yeah." Rory scratched his head. "I want to say we had company once?" He squinted, trying to scratch up a memory. Amy didn't have any better luck.

"Come on," the Doctor said. He soniced the lock on the gate, which rolled open smoothly. As they walked inside, everything was quiet and eerie.

Amy found herself walking closer to Rory, who was practically sharing the Doctor's clothes as he walked. It was like walking through a pyramid, some tomb that wouldn't mind seeing them dead. Then she thought about River, and she shoved that thought away as fast as she could. If she didn't think about River, and about Demon's Run, she could make herself believe none of that had ever happened. She could turn the bad dream into another fading memory like that thing she and Rory had just been talking about, tip of her tongue.

Rory asked, "Won't they mind us just walking in?"

"Not now," said the Doctor. "There are automatic alarms of course, but I disabled them at the gate. No-one's been here in a long time. The Institute mothballed the location after the last curator passed away. It's a museum now, but one no-one ever comes to visit because they've forgotten it exists."

Amy felt a sudden drop in her stomach like the loss of the idea of a friend. When her mum had sat her down, and told little Amelia that her great-grandmother had died, she'd cried even though she'd never met the woman. The same sad wave ran through her now.

The Doctor held up his screwdriver. "Through here."

After walking through fine corridors and large, elegant, dusty rooms, they found themselves in a room filled with boxes labelled with tape and marker. Amy recognised the names of some things: Cybermen, Dalek, Sontaran. Others were complete mysteries. "Doctor?"

But the Doctor was busy. His screwdriver glowed with a bright light the closer they got to one box. Rory lifted the box, and with a nod from the Doctor, tried to prise off the lid. No use. Amy searched the room before locating a pry bar stored in the corner, obviously for just this use. Together, the three of them wrenched the lid free.

Inside was a ball, silver, a bit blue, sitting on some old paper. It was gorgeous. Rory reached in just as the Doctor said, "Wait!"

Rory vanished.

***

Torchwood Glasgow stood proudly on the site where Her Majesty first said to build the Institute. Twenty men, and Miss Chesfield, manned the site, constant in their fight against mysterious visitors from other worlds and other phantasmagoria, ever vigilant in their search for the Doctor. The Queen asked for regular reports on their work. Young Miss Havisham, as she insisted they refer to her, had been here for training just a month ago, and had taken word of their latest accomplishments to the upstarts at the London site.

All in all, Torchwood Glasgow was a fine force, highly trained and prepared for anything the world of aliens might throw at them.

Almost.

The psychotic talking potato sat on Dr. Hendley's chest, brandishing a letter. "Repeat the instructions or face annihilation."

Dr. Hendley could barely breathe, and wondered why his backup had not yet appeared. "I am to place the letter with the device. I am not to remove the other letter. I am not to read the letter."

"Or?"

"Or you will come back and rip out my lungs, feed them to your horse, then you will eat the horse."

"Precisely!"

***

Amy let out a small scream as Rory disappeared. The ball dropped to the floor. The only thing preventing her from scooping it up herself was the Doctor's arm, strong as a bar against her chest. "Whatever you do, don't touch it!"

"Where is he?" Panic set in. Rory was.... Rory was everything. He shouldn't have been. She knew she could live without him, but she also knew from experience after experience that she didn't want to. "Doctor!"

The Doctor shrugged off his tweed coat and used it to pick up the ball. "He's inside the ball."

Amy looked down. But they'd fit inside the Teselecta, hadn't they? "What's going on?"

"This is a personal transport unit. Very popular in the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Hold on, pop inside, you're very nearly in stasis until it's time to pop out again."

"Nearly?"

"There are people in here," said the Doctor. "They're ageing very slowly. Or most of them are. One of them is awake enough to have sent me a message." He flashed his screwdriver. Music pulsed with the ball's pleasant blue light.

"That's.... What?"

"Rory's in here. He's not alone. We need to find a second ball. Connect the two, and everyone inside will pop out." He set the ball and coat gently at his feet.

"Great, let's get another ball. Which box is it in?" She turned around, but the Doctor was already digging in the open box. He pulled out two letters, scanning them quickly. Then he smiled.

"What's that for?"

"Letter from a friend." He set the letter back inside, put the lid back on the box, and put the box back into the stack. "There. Hardly a change, no-one will come looking. Let's go."

"Go where?"

"To visit a friend."

They were walking rapidly now. Amy had a bad feeling the security systems were about to come back online, and she didn't like the thought of armed guards appearing out of nowhere to ask why they'd stolen the little blue ball. "Who sent the letter?"

"Madame Vastra."

The stomach-drop again. Amy liked Vastra, and she'd appreciated her help on the very bad day she was trying desperately to forget, but remembering her wasn't helping the forgetting. "So we're going to see Vastra?"

They exited the gates, which slid shut behind them just as the warning light clicked on. "No. We're going to see Canton."

"Wait, why?"

"Because Vastra sent her thanks for returning the missing people, and sent her regards to our friend Mr. Delaware."

Amy stopped asking questions. It was easier.

***

Okay, so, just listing the things in the positive column, Canton was having a good day. To start with, when morning came and his head was clear enough to drive, he'd taken his own car to Frederick and he'd talked to the hippie freak in jail himself. The hippie freak didn't have a better description on the guy with the ball, but whatever brain cells he'd anaesthetised earlier had woken up enough to remember the motel where the guy'd been staying, and the motel had the guy's name. Then it'd just been a matter of making a million phone calls. He'd tracked down the suspect and here he was face to face with him in another anonymous motel room.

From one point of view, he'd done well for himself.

From the point of view where his backup had yet to arrive, he'd been riled up enough to go in alone without a partner, and as a result he was not only facing down the perp but as it turned out, the perp's two buddies, both of whom were armed, this was turning out to be a less than stellar day.

You've got to keep them talking because when they stop talking to you, they're going to kill you, and then it won't matter if you're talking to yourself because nobody is going to be left to listen.

"Boys, have you really thought this plan through? You're never gonna get close enough to the President."

One of the guys laughed. "We're not after Tricky Dick. He's a puppet. We want Laird and Abrams."

Canton raised his eyebrows; his hands were already in the air. "They'll just be replaced by the next two in line."

"Then we'll get them too." The second guy patted the blue glowy thing with a gloved hand. He had that look about him, the revolutionary who believed fervently if he just chopped off enough heads, the hydra would fall over. His pals didn't seem quite so sure, but most revolutions had plenty of guys who signed on to brag about their connections and impress girls. Revolutionary Guy brought his ball closer. "Put your hands on it, pig."

Revolutionary and idiot. Canton wasn't a cop. "Thanks, no."

The barrel of a gun poked the back of his head, hard. Probably In It For the Girls Guy Number Two said, "Hold it yourself or we'll wrap your hands around it when you're dead."

"Not the first time I've heard that," Canton said, "but you're not my type."

He heard the noise, and his heart jumped, knowing the sound before his brain kicked in. He cast a wild look around the small motel room. "Guys, it's about to get very crowded in here." Then he kicked back, pushing himself into the body of the guy with the gun and already twisted into wrestling him for it as the TARDIS materialised in the middle of the room.

The perps shouted and screamed. Canton punched the guy under him and grabbed his gun, as the TARDIS door popped open. The Doctor stepped out, saw the guns and raised his hands in that vaguely panicked way he had. Canton expected the other three to flow out behind him, but only Amy emerged, carrying a blue ball of her own wrapped up in something.

Canton swung his new gun around to Revolutionary Guy's buddy. "Drop your weapon," he ordered, "or my friends here with the blue space ship are going to vaporise your brainstems."

The Doctor turned to him, clearly offended, but the threat worked: the other gun fell to the ground. Revolutionary Guy fell back, still startled. Then he wet his lips and peeled off one glove. "You'll never take me alive!"

He pressed his hand against the metal globe and vanished. His friends gasped. Canton nodded to Amy and the Doctor. "Nice to see you. Can you help me hold these guys before my backup gets here to arrest them?"

"In a minute," said Amy, prancing over to the fallen blue ball. "Like this?"

"Yep," said the Doctor.

Amy placed the two balls together so that they touched.

Then the room got a lot more crowded, and nobody looked more confused about that than Revolutionary Guy. Canton pointed to Revolutionary Guy. "Rory, punch that guy."

Rory, who'd just appeared, blinked twice, then turned and socked Revolutionary Guy in the jaw. Then, shaking his fist, he said, "I've missed something, haven't I?"

(Later, when he had time to think things over, Canton would wonder if the TARDIS had extended her space-bending thing to help fit everything into the room, but by the time he came up with this theory, he'd already had four beers, and he forgot about it entirely by morning.)

***

The TARDIS appeared in the garden. Jenny was confused by this; normally the blue box set down in the parlour. Then the door opened and a large number of people emerged, confused and frightened.

"Ma'am," she shouted over her shoulder to her lady love, "we've got guests."

***

Maybe you get to spend a little extra time with the guy who isn't your space boyfriend, and two of his three best pals, and maybe you don't ask why they change the subject when you bring up Number Four. You figure there's some complications there, and it's none of your business. You do soak up the cool factor of being back inside the time machine, especially since this time you get to travel in actual time. You're not going to believe you went to the past, though, not when there were so many aliens, no matter how old-fashioned their clothes. Whatever. Those poor jerks who'd been caught inside the second blue ball for so long seemed glad to get back there. Meanwhile, you have a whole stack of formerly missing persons you're going to have to deal with reassimilating when you get home, a return trip the Doctor swears he can arrange so that it'll be like you were never gone.

You're not sure what to make of the fact that Amy then teases the Doctor about his driving, and something about five minutes. Worrying won't help, though.

Talking to yourself is a perfectly reasonable response to the weird turns your life has been taking lately.

The TARDIS came to a halt with a sudden jolt. Driving, huh? Canton held onto a strut. "Home," said the Doctor. "So good to see you again. Vastra sends her love."

"I know, I just saw her."

The Doctor waved his hand. "Call it avoiding a paradox."

The door opened. Canton paused. "Will I see you again?"

"Definitely," said Amy, though she didn't look happy.

Rory shrugged. "Take care."

"You too." He disembarked. This wasn't work, and wasn't his apartment. He turned around to tell the Doctor there'd been some mistake, but the TARDIS door was already shut and the blue box was disappearing.

He ought to be frightened, worried about where he'd been dropped like the survivors from the balls, but he did know this house and this neighbourhood. He'd stood in front of this door before, and the last time it'd been slammed in his face.

He ought to go home. But hadn't the Doctor just told him he was?

Canton swallowed. Give him a crime to solve, give him a weird alien device that vanishes people, give him revolutionaries who want to overthrow the government and end the war. Fine. Ask him to knock on his ex's door and say he's sorry for being a jerk, and can they talk? He wasn't sure he was up to that challenge.

He really wasn't sure.

Then he knocked, and he waited. The door opened.

"Hi."

***
The End
***

DW/TW Fic: Once There Was a Way

2013-09-25T12:54:10Z

Title: Once There Was a Way
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Amy, Rory, Ianto, Jack
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up through AGMGTW
Words: 1600
Summary: After Demon's Run, Amy and Rory were tired of waiting for the Doctor. They went looking.
AN: Written for EleventyFest, for kaydeefalls

***

There was a pause in their lives, like the breath you take before you leap off a cliff, like the hush before the first leaf teeters from its branch in Autumn. Amy breathed. Amy fell. Amy flew. She was tired of waiting. "We need to find him," she told Rory.

Rory reached for the binder he'd already collected. "I've been searching at work when there's down time. Websites vanish when I'm not looking, so I've been printing things out."

The binder (blue of course) was filled with chat logs, message boards, emails, rumours, anonymous sites. "How long have you been searching?" she asked, a little confused.

"About ten years."

"Rory."

"I never thought you were mad. All right, I did. But I believed that you believed in him. Funny thing, though. Around 2006, a lot of the sites went dead. Something about the Big Bad Wolf. I've got these, which isn't half of what there was. People rebuilt."

He flipped to another page. Amy read to herself the conspiracy theorists' crackpot ideas. Men in Black. Missing computers, missing memories, missing people.

"You could have said something." She was angry. She was angry at the Doctor for leaving her at Demon's Run, angry at River for refusing to answer any more questions after the most vital question, angry at Kovarian for the deceit and imprisonment and kidnapping, angry at herself for everything. Rory made an easier target. Amy punched him in the arm.

"Ow. You're supposed to say, 'Thank you, Rory. This is fantastic work, Rory.'"

"Where is he? And where is our baby?"

They locked eyes, and for all of Amy's anger, she could read Rory's horror and worry and frustration right back. He pressed his hand overtop hers. "I don't know. But I know he turns up here more than he should."

It was a photograph of a place she didn't recognise. "Is this in London?"

"Actually, it's Cardiff."

Her eyebrows raised. She'd pictured the two of them on a madcap chase across the Continent, following clues and rumours of a strange blue box and a mysterious man. Cardiff is... "Really?"

"What have we got to lose?"

Time. Effort. Melody. But they could gain all three if this worked, if they found him.

"Let's go."

***

The Rift had been a bastard for the last week. Three solid days without sleep, the rest with no more than two or three hours between crises, this had not been their best moment. Ianto wasn't any happier than Jack or Gwen about the overload of work or the lack of sleep, but now that things had cooled off, he did have a place to retreat, and he knew for a fact that Jack was holed up in his office pretending to work. Gwen could deal with the new people in the Hub proper. God knew he was afraid of getting close to the latest batch of new arrivals, not with Sheilagh and Rupesh wandering around somewhere with new memories, not with Miranda cooling in a drawer next to Toshiko.

Bad memories threatened to take over the rest of the day. He knew he ought to go home and crawl into his own bed alone for a while. His job looked much less bleak from the other side of his pillow, though to be honest, the other side of his pillow usually did have a nice view.

Ianto glanced up to the CCTV camera. Jack would be watching the feeds. "I'm thinking about going home," Ianto said. No response.

Before he could get up the energy to close the tourist shop, the door opened, admitting two people a little younger than he was. Ianto steeled himself for the standard barrage of questions as he asked, "Welcome to Visit Wales. May I help you?"

The woman was gorgeous: all long legs and red hair and a wicked smile. Her male companion had a lanky frame with the hint of knowing how to use every muscle. They'd ask stupid questions, but he could admire the scenery.

"Hi," she said. "We've got some questions for you. We think our…."

"Friend," they both said together.

"Might have been here recently?" She gave Ianto a hopeful smile. "He travels."

"A lot," supplied her boyfriend or husband or gay best friend.

The tourist office had been closed for two weeks. Even if their friend had come by, Ianto wouldn't have seen him. "Sorry. Have you checked the local hotels?" Automatically, he reached for a brochure as the man pulled out his mobile phone.

"Here," he said, handing it over.

Ianto stared at the snap. He'd never seen the man before in his life. He'd swear to it. The goofy young face, the fashion sense that reminded Ianto strongly of his grandfather at church, not a single detail was familiar.

He did however instantly recognise the blue box in the background.

"Oh."

The woman's face brightened as Ianto felt his own sag. "You've seen him? Was it recently?"

The man said, "He may have our daughter with him."

Several thoughts piled in at once. The Doctor was famous, in Ianto's mind at least, for kidnapping. Had he stolen this couple's young child as he'd stolen Jack?

The outside door burst open. All three heads snapped over to look.

Instead of one of the Doctor's many faces, Jack appeared, a bit out of breath, as though (for example) he'd noticed two attractive young people walking into the tourist office and decided to take the express lift to the Plass and run down here to meet them. Already his most flirtatious grin was plastered on his face.

"I see you have customers," he said, sticking out a hand to the man. "Captain Jack Harkness. And you are?"

"Rory. Rory Williams," said the man, a bit confused at Jack's charm on full-blast.

"Nice to meet you, Rory Williams," he said with a wink, and he turned with a bow to the woman. "Are you the gorgeous Mrs. Williams?

Her face broke into a real smile as Jack took her hand. "Amy Pond. Williams. Yes." She shook her head to clear it, then said to her husband, "If this is the welcome wagon, we need to come to Wales more often." Jack had not let go of her hand.

"Have you signed up for the tour? Ianto here gives amazing tours of the area. I take two or three per week, just for the experience."

Amy bent closer. "So you're an expert, then. I bet you could teach us everything you know."

"That would take a while."

"We've got time."

"Oh, I love the sound of that."

Rory cleared his throat. "Thanks. We're not really here for the tours."

Ianto realised he still had Rory's mobile in his hand. He walked around the counter to stand next to Jack, hiding the screen. "Are you finished?"

Amy said, "Oh, I hope not."

Jack transferred his smile effortlessly from Amy to Ianto. "You said your shift was almost over. Wouldn't it be nice to end the day with a quick tour of the area?"

They were both exhausted, and here Jack was suggesting they invite these two out-of-towners somewhere close by for a quickie. Ianto did cast his eyes over the pair again, and admitted to himself the prospect had some appeal. Perhaps later.

He held up the mobile phone.

"What?" said Jack.

Ianto glanced over. The screen had gone dark, spoiling his triumphant moment. "Hold on." He fumbled with the screen until Rory took it away and fumbled with the buttons himself. Jack had turned his attention back to Amy, whose face was not longer as bright. For a moment when Jack had walked in, she'd forgotten the reason she'd come to Cardiff. Jack had that effect on people; Ianto had enjoyed the same temporary lull when they'd first met.

Rory pulled the snap up on the screen again and passed the phone to Jack.

Jack glanced at the picture, his eyes moving off before being dragged back by blue. "Oh."

He looked at Amy and Rory again, this time with a different calculation than how easy would it be to convince the pair of them to join them in bed. He handed Rory his mobile.

"How do you know the Doctor?"

***

Over the comm system, Jack told Gwen, "Ianto and I are taking off. Don't call."

Gwen said, "That's fine. Make sure he eventually does get some sleep."

As they locked up, Jack told Ianto, "Call the restaurant. See if you can get us a reservation for four."

Ianto said, "I'll book at the hotel restaurant. They're usually available on short notice."

Over drinks, Jack told Rory, "I remember the echo of a memory of you. Something happened."

Rory said, "We rebooted the universe. You'll have to remind me."

In the hotel room, Jack told Amy, "It won't be the same when he comes back."

Amy said, "It never is."

***

Rory cracked an eye open. Amy's hair spilled over the pillow beside him. He tried to piece together the last few hours, but only when he saw her hand splayed on the broad, bare back on the other side of her did certain pieces fall into place. Without looking, he stretched out behind himself. His fingers found another warm body dozing easily in the oversized bed.

It wouldn't be morning for another hour. Tomorrow they would resume their search for the Doctor, for Melody, for some sense to their lives. Amy had waited. Rory had waited. Apparently Jack had waited, too. Ianto had never met the Doctor, but he glared at Jack when he said so, and Rory suspected he'd done some waiting of his own.

Rory closed his eyes again. Strong arms embraced him from behind, holding him protectively.

He'd waited thousands of years. He could wait until dawn.

***
The End
***

AN: Yes, I know I used the "Oh, you know the Doctor?" joke multiple times in Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional). It makes me giggle every time.

DW Fic: Tributary, Confluence, Distributary, Fork

2013-09-24T13:29:51Z

Title: Tributary, Confluence, Distributary, Fork
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, River, Eleven
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up through TATM and all seasons of TW
Words: 4000
Beta: With deepest thanks to tymewyse
Summary: Four hellos and one goodbye.
AN: Written for EleventyFest, for ljgeoff. Also fills Trope Bingo square: telepathy/mindmeld

***

The first time he meets her, he's in a bar on a space station he doesn't care to know the name of. He's halfway through dissolving enough brain cells to forget his own various names and pseudonyms. Funny that, because forgetting his own name doesn't mean blotting out the names and faces of the people he's lost, and the ones he's let down. He's going to carry those forever, and he does have forever. The prospect makes him order another hyper-vodka.

He is four thousand years old, and he's so tired of falling in love, of having a family, of watching them be ripped away again and again. Each injury is a reminder of all that came before. He stares into his drink, remembering the latest loss, courtesy of an asteroid collision that he -- of course -- survived. It's been twenty-two years since he resurrected on a broken world, and he's not yet ready to be sober.

She sits down next to him, all elegant dress and perfectly-coiffed curls, and the man who's trying to forget his own name plasters on a flattering smile. "Hi."

Her own smile is a bit cold, and more than a bit sad. "Hello, Captain."

Captain. That name. He stops himself from grabbing the glass in front of him or else he'll drive her off for certain. "Have we met?"

"Your reputation precedes you." She holds out her hand. "Dr. River Song."

He takes the hand into his, pressing his lips against one knuckle. "Nice to meet you, Dr. River Song."

"Let's go somewhere," she suggests, and he can't believe his luck. Even with his usual charm, it takes him a minimum of a few minutes of flirting before someone suggests getting cosy elsewhere. Of course, she does know who he is, or who he was before he started this plan to leave that life and all attendant failures behind him.

He is intoxicated enough to disregard the voice in the back of his head pointing out to him yes, she does recognise him, but his reputation doesn't guarantee she wants a shag in his rented bunk. A louder voice inside him doesn't care, and is happy to consider the possibility that this woman with the obviously false name is an assassin who will kill him several times for sport. That's better than dying from another bout of self-inflicted alcohol poisoning.

River studies his face, as though she can read each thought flickering behind his eyes. Jack makes a quick cover with a glint in his eye. "I have a place close by," he oozes. "Nice view, clean sheets, and they do a great breakfast in the morning."

"Let's go to mine."

Assassin, he muses, disappointed that he probably won't get to sleep with her. As they walk, he slides an arm around her yielding waist, and gets a nice view of her generous cleavage. A man could lose himself for hours between those, Jack thinks, and laughs at himself.

River doesn't have a rented room or even a luxury suite on this floating station parked at the intersection of two heavily-travelled trade routes. Instead, she has her own ship, docked and poised to go at the outer ring. The hatch opens with a press of her hand. Jack pays attention, in case he has to remove her hand later in order to escape. Unlikely as the possibility may be, he's been there before.

"I love what you've done with the place," Jack says, taking in the lush curtains covering the bulkheads, and the tasteful reproductions of old artefacts from worlds he visited in their primes. "Is that Alasta Dynasty?" he asks, indicating an urn with a pattern he sort of recognises. Small talk. It's what's for starters.

"I worked on a dig there," she says, and she gestures to a chair, insisting he sit. "Can I get you a drink?"

"What have you got?"

"I'll surprise you," she said, and two minutes later, River plunks down a travel mug. Wine glasses are for those who don't worry about their artificial gravity going on the fritz again.

Jack takes a swig, expecting poison or whisky or poisoned whisky. Instead, it's black coffee, and he almost spits it out in surprise. He covers again with, "Imported from Earth?"

"The ASDA in Leadworth always had good prices. I drop back to pick up some every so often."

His groggy and somewhat pickled memory slots those words against his enormous vocabulary of places and names. "You're a time traveller."

"Aren't we all, Captain? Most people travel through time the easy way, one day at a time. I've heard you're doing that again."

He shrugs, and he wonders where she's been getting her information about him. "I've got an infinite number of days to kill. Skipping ahead doesn't do me any good." Going into the past will kill him, as he rewatches his mistakes without hope of changing their outcome. Jack forges on with his initial plan. "Now, if you're looking into spending a nice time over the next few hours, I've got plenty of ideas." His eyes are drawn back to her breasts though he doesn't linger. Eye contact is much sexier.

River sits in her control chair, swivelling away from the little magnetic serving table. "Do you have any possessions left in your room back on the station?"

The question pokes through his dwindling hopes of sex. Does he? He's got the coat on his back, the sometimes functional mended strap on his arm, and the junk he's brought with him from his last life locked in a box beside his bed. Nothing of value. "No."

"Good." She reaches over and flips two switches. He feels a sudden jolt as he moves sideways but only in his belly. They've just made a jump, and unless he's mistaken, that includes a jump in time.

"What the hell?" He goes to stand, trying to reassert his timelegs. It's been a while, and he has to clutch the table. "Bondage is okay, but I don't like kidnapping."

"I haven't kidnapped you, Jack. I've given you a ride."

He goes to make a comment but she raises her hand. "Don't. It isn't that I'm not interested, and it isn't that my husband isn't interested, it's that I know nothing happens between us here."

He grins. "Is that a promise for later?"

"More of a warning. Eat your vegetables, Captain, and build up your strength first." Her smile is coy and knowing. Not a guarantee of sex, he reminds himself, but definitely not a rejection.

She turns to her controls and shifts them into landing mode. With a thump, they touch down wherever and whenever she's parked them. "Go on," she says.

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere you'll want to be."

"Not helpful." Has she brought him to be tortured and interrogated? Thrown head-first into a war? He doesn't like surprises.

River says, "Space and time aren't linear, not always. Sometimes there are gaps, folds, even short cuts between two places. Fords across the stream, if you will. Things come through, sailing between worlds, or splashing up into some forgotten gully of time."

"Yeah?" He'd researched wormholes once upon a time, and lived next to a rift. This is elementary stuff.

"Over three thousand people vanished from the other end of the Cardiff rift. Most of them fell out here. One hundred and forty years of refugees, Captain, arriving one at a time into a foreign land and forever exiled from their homes."

She opens the hatch. The planet outside is unrecognisable. The vision of a settlement on the horizon tells him the place is inhabited. What will the locals make of lost humans arriving suddenly from the unstable rift nearby? "I don't know what you want me to do," he says, but he does know.

"Be their guide. Help them adjust to this new world. Stand between the natives of this planet and their new immigrants, just as you did back on Earth. Someone must build a new colony. Someone must lead them. You closed the rift on Earth. Stay until it closes here, and complete your work."

He doesn't want this task to be handed to him. Jack holds on to the table, unsteady and weak. He can see the gift she's offering at the end of his task; he didn't close the rift alone. He's dreamed this dream. But he is afraid, both of the enormity of the work ahead, and of the memories it's going to dislodge, memories he's been trying to ablate from his own steel.

"I can't. I'm nobody's guide."

River stands. She presses a kiss against his neck, her curls tickling his face. "You are however very good at being a hero. The rift will open here for the first time tomorrow. You'd better be ready." She watches him go, and she doesn't say goodbye before she closes the hatch and lifts off into the sky.

Jack turns his face to the nearby settlement, and he sets out.

***

The first time she meets him, she lifts his wallet on the subway. Nobody suspects the chubby-cheeked six year old, not with her winning smile and her bouncing curls. Melody always chooses the busiest cars. When people see her, they assume she's with someone else, and they ignore her. They definitely don't assume she's living on her own, or that she's twelve, or that she can sense time, or anything. The man is standing, ignoring her, and she can feel him from three cars away. He's all wrong, all gnarled up in time like a rotting knot inside a tree. Taking his wallet is practically a good deed, righting the universe a little.

She hops off at the next stop, and scampers up the smelly stairs to the street.

The man is waiting there for her, his arms folded. He's smiling, but not the bright smile he gave to that pretty nurse on the subway. "Melody," he says casually.

She goes to run, but his hand clamps on her shoulder. She's not sure if he's gonna drag her to the cops, or drag her into an alley like some pervert. She screams, drawing the attention of the nearby pedestrians.

"You really want to quit that," he says quietly. "Come with me."

"No way."

Melody is a street kid. She's seen a lot of things too terrible to consider even for her real age, much less for this little body she's growing now. Grown men are bad news for little girls, end of story. Grown men whose whole bodies are an abomination to time and space can go far, far away.

Sure enough, her shouts draw the interest of a cop walking his beat, or maybe one of the people walking by tipped him off. It doesn't matter. Melody runs through her alibis. She's avoided the system so far but one arrest will see her in a foster home, or maybe juvie.

"Let me go," she tells the man holding her. "Let me go or I'll tell him you touched me."

"Sorry, officer," the man says as the cop approaches. "My daughter is making a scene again. Ever since the divorce, she's been playing the game where she tells everyone I'm not her daddy any more."

It's a bold-faced lie, and Melody's jaw drops in shock and fear. "That's not true!"

The cop looks at them both. Melody doesn't want to be brought in but she's more worried about this guy. How did he follow her so quickly? He stayed on the subway car she left. She's positive. "Can you prove this little girl is yours, sir?"

"I stuck my wallet in her jacket in case she ran off again," says the man. He extends his free hand to the police officer. "Jack Harkness. You can find my ID in her pocket."

The cop opens Melody's jacket, and sure enough, in her inside pocket, the man's wallet shows the same smiling face.

The officer frowns at them both, but Melody looks mixed enough for it all to be plausible, and Jack Harkness has already undermined her protests. "Your driver's license says you're from England."

"Wales," he corrects. "I had to move for business. Melody and her mother stayed here. May I please take my daughter home now? I only have custody until six o'clock, and we were going for ice cream until she tried to run off again." He scowls at her. "Don't think you're getting ice cream now."

The cop waves them off, and Jack Harkness drags her away. When they are out of earshot, Melody asks, "Are you going to kill me? Because you should know, that doesn't work."

"Can't die like other people? Join the club, kid." They walk until they reach a hotel, where Jack Harkness leaves the wallet at the front desk. "I'll be wanting that later," he says.

"How did you move so fast?" She's sure, for reasons she doesn't understand, that he's not going to kill her. She's almost sure he isn't going to be a pervert, either. Curiosity has settled in.

"Easy. I'll show you." He leads her off down the street from the hotel, and they wait. Ten minutes later, the same guy walks up the other way.

She looks between them. They're not twins. This man looks older than the one going through the doors of the hotel. "What?"

"Let me buy you dinner. You look like you haven't eaten in a while."

They sit at a booth in some greasy restaurant not far from the hotel. Melody eats two cheeseburgers and so many fries she's almost sick. Jack Harkness watches her eat, almost proud of how much she puts in her mouth. He was right. She's hungry.

"Better?"

"Ice cream?"

"You'll be sick. And I said no ice cream."

"What are you?" She drinks a thick milkshake made with strawberries. It's really good, and she's no longer afraid of anything.

He lounges back. "I'm a friend. You know about time travel. You stole my wallet from me back in 1974. It was returned later that day. You and I just returned it, without letting me know what happened. I did drop myself a note to pay attention, but I already received that note in 1974."

'Back in,' she noticed. "It's a loop."

"Yep."

"You're here from the future."

"Another gold star."

"Because I stole your wallet?"

"Because I didn't know that I recognised you then." He smiles at her, and it's sad, and genuine. "Are you finished?"

"Yeah. Okay." He leaves a huge tip for the waitress, and they do walk into an alley. Her heart starts pounding. Melody looks for an exit, but Jack opens the weird wristwatch he's wearing. "Come on." He holds out his hand. After a moment, she takes it.

Everything shifts. Melody cries out, but Jack is holding her up, keeping her strong.

This isn't New York. There's too much grass, too few cars, and everything smells wrong. "Where are we?"

"England."

"You said you were from Wales." She knows the difference. The monsters in her dreams that she can't remember told her to stay away from Wales.

"I work in Wales, or I did. This is England. That," he points, "is Leadworth. There's a family waiting to take you in."

Melody pulls back sharply. "I'm not going into any foster home."

"You are, because you will. The streets of New York aren't safe for a little girl. You need a family who will take care of you, and you need friends."

"I don't have friends."

"You will. There's a girl your age named Amy who lives down the lane from here."

Her head turns at the name. Leadworth. Amy. Pond. "I can't meet her," she says in terror, and a tiny bit of hope. Is she being returned to her mother? A girl her age, though.

"No, you can meet her. You just can't tell her, if you ever intend to be born. It's 1995, and she's moving here tomorrow. She could use a friend."

Melody is twelve years old, or about. She doesn't know really, not with the time travel, and now with more time travel. Amy Pond will be a frightened little girl from Scotland, not the mother Melody has let herself dream of late at night in cold brick buildings where the druggies squat and ignore her in their dope-filled haze. "I don't want to be her friend."

"Then let her be yours."

He starts walking, headed toward the house where she will discover he's already arranged paperwork and answered questions. He leaves an hour later, leaves her with the two strangers she'll obediently call Mum and Dad and their three children she'll never consider her siblings.

Jack Harkness, she makes herself remember. She hopes she'll see him again, if only to punch him in the face.

***

The first time the Doctor experiences another Time Lord's regenerations running through his body, he discovers the side effects: dizziness, bloating, mild cramps, and reliving brief snatches of the life experienced before the extra lives were ripped away.

Her memories of the Silence fuzz at the edges, merge in the middle, and make him ill if he looks at them dead-on. Kovarian is more distinct, a sharp and brutal image shining through even to her days as Mels. She's been dreaming of the eye-patched face. She told the counsellor at the school, but just once. Her foster parents said it might be memories of abuse, and they were half-right.

She remembers every story Amy made up about him, how the Doctor was this magic man who should have been able to save everyone ever. She made up her own stories, where he did rescue the Titanic, and stop Vesuvius, and prevent the Great War. The one story she never, ever told Amy was the one she told herself at night, the story of how the Doctor rescued Amy Pond and her baby, and how they were reunited with Rory, and lived together as a proper family in a little house, and loved each other.

It's worse than the TARDIS showing him Rose, Martha, and Donna.

And there's Jack. Of course there's Jack. The Doctor should have known Melody Pond has already met Captain Jack Harkness. He steels himself for the memory, but instead of Mels and Jack in a steamy embrace, he sees cheeseburgers, and a smile, and a new start in life for a child who needed her mum and dad.

He sees the first car she stole, and the first boy she kissed, and the first night she and Amy stayed up all night on the roof just watching the stars and making wishes. He sees the woman she thought she was going to be, a little wild and reckless, there to keep Amy's life interesting when her space boyfriend was away. He sees her playing with Rory, making up games to keep him talking to her, and wading into fights on his side when the bigger boys tried to bully him for being such a gentle, thoughtful lad.

He sees her, the good and the bad, and the amazing.

He opens his eyes, alive again, and knowing the woman who will be River Song inside and out. The intimacy startles him as he fumbles to his feet and talks to Amy and Rory as though nothing has happened. But as they take her into the TARDIS, as they make plans to deliver her into a safe future where she can grow, he watches her sleeping face, and he loves her.

***

The first time the Doctor sees him with these new eyes whilst wearing these new features, Jack's hair is edged with silver, and wrinkles sprinkle over his face. He's got a young wife and an old husband, and five children of various ages in the rambling family home he's built on this planet on the outskirts of civilisation. The Doctor doesn't know much about the history of this world, or why there are so many humans in a sector that should have none. He makes a point of learning more when he's not desperate for help.

"Jack," he says, ignoring the tea and biscuits in front of him. "I need you."

Jack kisses the child on his lap, some mop-haired tot who bears a resemblance to him, and shoos the little one away with a fond ruffle of hair. "Words I have always wanted to hear."

He doesn't tell Jack to be serious. "My friend Amy was taken by a group known as the Silence. I've tracked down her location, and I am gathering my friends to help me save her and her child."

"Save her from what?"

"Captivity. I have no idea what's been done to her, to them." Fury and cold calculation have been ascendant in his mind, in Rory's actions, but terror is never far away. "The TARDIS analysed the pregnancy, but there was a Ganger involved." Jack nods in understanding and does not interrupt. "We think she's having a little girl. We don't know why they want her or the baby. We have to rescue them."

"Amy," Jack says thoughtfully. "Amy Pond?"

"Yes."

"And her daughter."

"Yes."

Clearly he knows something. The Doctor chose a later period in Jack's life than he normally did, hoping his old friend would be past much of the loss and grief that he associated with the twenty-first century. This does not mean Jack hasn't found brand new griefs to blame on the Doctor's bad sense of timing.

"I can't."

The Doctor frowns. "Say that again."

"I can't help you."

Anger flames up, and harsh words come to his lips, dying before he speaks. He wants to demand the truth from Jack, wants to know how he dares say no when the Doctor needs him more than ever. But that's not his to say, not his to demand. He cannot claim to have come when Jack needed him in the past. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Will she live?" he asks instead. If Jack knows of the situation, of the woman and the baby, perhaps he can give some hope to their fate. Amy isn't the best friend he's ever had, but she is his best friend right now. He aches in fear for her.

Jack looks away. He watches his two youngest children play a game with cards and checkers. He watches his wife writing at her desk, covering the sheet with words they can't read, and watches his husband fiddle with an appliance in the kitchen, pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversation. The Doctor can't tell if he's pleased or sad when he says, "Everyone dies in the end, Doctor. Except for me."

Then he blinks the sadness away, and there is only love on his face for the people around him. "But sometimes you get a second chance to get it right. Go rescue your friend."

***

The last time the TARDIS sets down on a planet known to the natives as Halisteti, and to the thriving human colonists as Jack's World, the news travels fast. The youngest person who remembers when the Doctor came to visit before is now a great-grandmother. Her hair is still a mop, and she's still annoyed when her father ruffles it.

"Go see your friend," she tuts at him.

Jack walks out alone to the field where the blue box waits. He always makes a point of approaching her slowly, lest he scare her into the future like before. She doesn't run from him now. When the door opens, River's there.

"Dr. Song," Jack says amiably. He's had over two hundred years to collect information on her, even going so far as dropping back into his own timeline to sort out some rumours and start new ones.

"It's Professor Song these days, Captain."

"Is he...?"

"He's inside. He's sulking." Her face is drawn in grief, and he knows the off-hand cut is to ease her own pain, not minimise her husband's.

"Amy?" he guesses.

"Everyone dies in the end," says River. "I can't stay with him long, not and stay sane. Neither of us can be around you for much time. I think we could all work together for one good trip. You and I should take the opportunity to find someone to watch after him when he drops us off."

Jack doesn't know what she's talking about, until he parses her words more. She's having a conversation slightly out of order with him, that's all. "Are you inviting me along?"

She twitches. She's the hurt little girl he rescued from the life she didn't know she needed rescuing from, and she's the woman who dropped him on this world to work out his issues with work instead of booze. She's married. He's been widowed fifteen times, four since she left him here. They're finally in synch with their timelines. And the Doctor is in pain.

A friend is someone who helps you when you need them, even when you don't know you need help.

"Are you coming?" she asks.

He doesn't reply. He looks back at the colony he helped build here, constructing a new home for the lost souls who came through the rift, and their children, and their grandchildren. His grandchildren. It's been a good life, and a long one, and it's past time to let them live theirs.

Jack follows River into the TARDIS and shuts the door.

***
The End
***

DW Fic: I could never live with me before you came along

2013-09-24T13:13:30Z

Title: I could never live with me before you came along
Author: nancybrown
Rating: PG
Characters and Pairings: Canton Everett Delaware III/Original Character, Madame Vastra/Jenny Flint, Strax, Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Anthony Williams, Eleventh Doctor/River Song
Words: 8600
Warnings: none
Spoilers: through TATM
Beta: with all thanks to elainasaunt
Summary: Canton Everett Delaware III is on a mission from ~~God~~ River to put the band back together.
AN: Written for EleventyFest 2013 for coffeesuperhero. Also fills the Trope Bingo square: reunion

***

"You didn't believe me."

Canton did not receive an answer. Instead a distinct, 'You want to get into this now?' expression was glowered his way. Lou took one tentative step after another towards the centre of the TARDIS's control room. Canton remembered his own first vision of the interior of the ship, how awed he'd been, and how it had fallen to Rory to bring him up to speed on the whole bigger-on-the-inside deal.

He waited, less than patiently, for Lou to pop out with the same words. Instead, the occasional love of his life and eternal pain in his neck stretched his hand to one smooth panel, keeping a safe distance above the metal. "Huh."

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

"Very Star Trek," said Lou, with half a smile. He'd as much as accused Canton of falling asleep in front of the television with a beer one too many times, and dreaming of his own adventures with Mr. Spock. "I'm more concerned about why it showed up in our front yard."

"I know." Canton cast a wary look around them. No Doctor. No Amy or Rory. Only a handwritten note on the front in what he thought he recalled to be Doctor Song's scratchy handwriting.

Canton, we need your help.

"Do you know how to fly this thing?" Lou watched him furtively, still not trusting that this situation wasn't some kind of acid trip rigged up by the guys at the Bureau to mess with them. He'd allow for the possibility they were in a time machine that looked on the outside like some fibreglass port-o-john, but he'd rather believe someone was messing with him.

Canton approached the panel beside him. "Not as such, no. I watched." And by 'watched,' he meant, 'stood there while a lot of stuff I didn't understand went on around me, and did I mention the bigger on the inside deal?' Absently, he rested his hand on the panel.

The panel began to glow.

Together, they took a step back, Canton cursing a blue streak for letting himself be so stupid.

To his surprise, a see-through image of Doctor Song appeared in front of them. "Canton, so good of you to come aboard."

"Yeah, hi," he said. Realising he ought to introduce Lou, he said, "This is, ah, Louis. Louis Thompson. Lou." He hadn't told the TARDIS bunch about Lou, and now that he had the chance, his words failed him. From observing the four of them, he suspected referring to Lou as his other half and favourite thorn in his side would be sufficient, but how to be sure?

Doctor Song kept talking, oblivious to his discomfort. "I haven't time to explain. You'll see when you arrive. I've keyed the TARDIS to activate at your handprint, and she should be reaching your destination about now."

Sure enough, he'd noticed the familiar hum and grind of the engines around them. Lou's worried expression went nuclear as the ship trembled. Canton desperately waved a hand in front of Doctor Song's face.

"Doctor Song? Come on, I know I razzed you a little when we were undercover, but please stop kidding around. What's going on?"

With an absent and somewhat worried smile of her own, Doctor Song said only, "Good luck. And hurry!" before she winked out of sight. His retinas burned with her image another half-second, and with the image, the memory of her laser pistol or whatever in her hand. Wherever she was, she was prepared for trouble.

"A hologram," said Lou.

Canton turned. "A what?"

"A three dimensional image of something that isn't there." Lou saw Canton's confusion, and he shrugged self-conciously. "All right, sometimes when you fall asleep in front of The Twilight Zone, I watch for a little while."

A smile cracked over Canton's face. Lou liked to pretend he was the most humourless, by-the-books cop on the force. Canton loved knowing for a fact that he wasn't.

The TARDIS ground to a halt. Canton took one hard look at all the screens and readouts in front of him, and, admitting defeat, he popped open the door and peeked outside. Okay, some good news. The people walking by outside weren't screaming, and they looked human. The Doctor had looked human, though. Canton was willing to call it a win. Lou joined him by the door.

"Time machine?"

"Yeah."

"Earth?"

"I think so."

Lou glanced down at their clothes. Canton still wore his suit from work. Lou had changed from his uniform into casual clothing. Neither of them looked anything like the Victorian cavalcade walking by. "I see a problem."

"Actually, for this, I've got a solution." Canton grabbed his hand and slammed the door to the TARDIS shut. He hadn't had much of an opportunity to explore this bonkers excuse for a time machine, but he'd paid close attention when the need arose for a new outfit. As a bonus, the ship seemed to know not only the time period a body needed, but also the measurements, which had meant during those mad days that Canton always found the perfect suit for his own short frame hung right next to a lovely ensemble tailored for Amy's long, lean form.

Ten minutes later, and bedecked in what they both hoped were the latest threads, they strolled out onto the night-time streets of what Canton thought was London. He tapped his top hat and said, "Tut tut. Pish posh, old man."

Lou stared at him, looking fine in his own vest, er, waistcoat and did they call them jodhpurs? Or trousers? Anyway, he looked like a million dollars. Pounds. "Cheery-o," said Canton.

"Cut it out. You sound ridiculous."

"Just trying to fit in. Eh, nabbed meself a bobby, have I?"

Lou stepped away from him. "That's it. I am not going to be seen in public with you."

"I'm just trying to get in the spirit of things. I'll drop the accent, okay?"

Lou appeared to be mollified. Already his attention was distracted by the sights and smells around them. "This place is worse than the alley behind the Brickskeller on a Saturday night. Do you think they've invented soap yet?"

"Don't bet on it."

They made their way through the dark roads. Streetlamps shed their insufficient light on the faces around them, yielding no clues. Where was the Doctor? Or the Ponds? Canton found himself craning his neck to peer at face after face, heart skipping a beat when he thought he spied an overlarge forehead, or curls spiralling out of control, only to be met over and over with disappointment.

"You said he was cute."

As usual, Lou's voice cut into his thoughts. Also his tone. "I never said 'cute.'"

"Sure you did. You said he had a quirky kind of charm you couldn't quite identify."

"Exactly."

"Which means you think he's cute."

It was Canton's turn to glare but Lou affected to ignore him. "I don't mind. I mean, you run off for months with a cute spaceman and his friends, and as soon as he whistles, off you go again, but it doesn't bother me."

Canton stopped. A horse-drawn carriage rattled by. Normally, this would have been a really cool thing to witness, but apparently Canton had a big baby to coddle first. "Doctor Song was the one who called. She's not my type."

"She's not the one you said was cute."

"I didn't say he was cute!"

The horse had stopped, and the carriage was executing a weird U-turn manoeuvre. "You there!" shouted the driver.

Canton hadn't taken notice of the driver's strange face before, and suddenly he regretted leaving his revolver back inside the TARDIS. Alien? Worse? Had their spat attracted his attention, or was he about to give them the same hard time people did in 1972?

"Stay back," Canton warned Lou, knowing he wouldn't.

The carriage driver was oblivious to their alarm. "Are you the human known as Canton Delaware?"

Canton nodded. In case the alien didn't know body language, he added, "I am."

"Superb! Madame wants us back at the house as soon as possible. You may get inside." His body tilted. "Your maid may also join us."

Maid? Canton looked around, but the only person near him was Lou, who'd begun a deep frown. "You mean Louis?"

"Yes!" smiled the driver. "Hurry up. You and your maid servant."

As they climbed awkwardly inside the carriage, Lou said, "Oh, I am going to kill someone before tonight is over."

"That's the spirit!" said the talking potato.

The upholstery on the seats had seen better days, but the smell was marginally better. Lou peered out the windows into the night, while Canton sat back. A small door, large enough to pass snacks through, or a bottle, opened out onto the driver's seat. Canton spoke to the odd-looking creature, forcing himself not to crack a joke. "You said 'Madame' was waiting for us. Did you mean Madame Someone or a madame?"

"Madame Vastra," said the driver, as if that answered everything. "And we are late. I may have to submit myself to severe punishment as a result. I am considering shooting off my own hand, however I believe this would make my tasks more difficult in future." He drove for a moment in thought. "Perhaps I can offer to die in battle for the glory of Paternoster Row."

Canton closed the little window. "I am never looking at Sandy Donaldson's toys the same way again."

"You and me both. Where are we going?" asked Lou.

"I don't know."

"And we're being driven there by a crazy alien?"

"Apparently."

Despite this, they arrived safely at what he could only pray was their destination. The driver deposited them in front of an elegant house, not much different from those around them to either side. "I will join you shortly," announced the driver, jiggling the reins and heading towards the carriage house. Canton had a brief, awful flash of the alien eating the horse. Then he knocked on the old wooden door.

A maid answered. He'd hoped to be met by Amy or River, or someone he knew, but the plain girl simply ushered them inside. "About time you got here. Take your coats?" Canton handed over the nice wool coat he'd borrowed from the TARDIS's stores. Lou took an extra second, distrust all over his face. But the girl gave him a slightly empty-headed, slightly mad smile, showing no surprise at either of them, and Lou grudgingly gave her his coat as well.

"You don't have to," he muttered, but she was already brushing conscientiously at the fabric and hanging the coats properly on polished brass hooks.

"There," she said, pleased with herself. "Madame's taking visitors in the parlour. Come with me."

With little option, and not a little trepidation that they'd entered a high-class brothel, Canton and Lou followed the maid through a set of French doors into a humid room redolent with green plants and candles. A few oil lamps cast their own flickering shadows, giving the room the weird aspect of some jungle with firelight surrounding them.

"Do come in," said a rich voice, one that promised luxuries or sharp death, and the voice would be the one making that call.

Lou caught his eye, and mouthed, "Prostitute?"

Canton shrugged. The Doctor might be a genius, but he was just as much a space tramp and he'd made a not half-bad Christ. Maybe he did pal around with hookers like the Man Himself. Canton couldn't judge.

"Madame Vastra?" he asked, voice determinedly even.

"You are Canton Delaware?"

"Yes."

"Please sit," said the cloaked figure that came into view in the shadows and the smoke. One elegant arm indicated a single wicker chair. That would never do.

"We'll stand, thanks."

"Jenny can bring us another chair. Jenny, dear." Already the maid was huffing her way into the room with an extra chair, this one wood.

"Here you go," said Jenny the maid, and she seemed so happy with herself that it would be an insult not to accept. Canton took the wooden chair, letting Lou recline in the chair closer to the veiled woman.

"Thank you," he said to the maid, who surprised them both by perching on the arm of Madame's chair.

Madame Vastra said, "River indicated the TARDIS would bring you directly. Did you have difficulty navigating your way here?"

"No," said Canton. "With respect, ma'am, what is this about? I'm not used to finding a time machine in my yard and being whisked into Victorian London. Is the Doctor in trouble?"

"Yes and no."

Lou said, "Don't be so definite, lady. Some people might get worried."

Madame Vastra tilted her head to him. "Is this your servant?"

"No," Lou said, half a second before Canton said, "Absolutely not."

"A friend of the Doctor's, then?"

"Not exactly," said Lou. He indicated Canton. "But I go where he goes."

"Understood. We all have our fellow-travellers." She patted her maid's hand in a manner Canton found more than a little weird. He forgot this immediately as she whisked away her veil.

He shot to his feet, swearing. Lou fell back out of his chair. "Shit, alien."

Madame Vastra held her composure. "I am not. I was born on Earth just as you were. My people lived here long before humans."

Canton really missed his revolver. "Yeah, so did the Silence." Another thought struck him uncomfortably: the Silence were wiped out, more or less, in 1969. But this wasn't 1969 yet. They could be surrounded by dozens of the bastards and not know it. Nervously, he cast his eyes around, hoping he could remember what he'd seen. Only a few fragments of the monsters had stayed in his memory, but then, he watched reruns of the moon landing whenever he could.

"The Silence cannot come into this house," she said with such firmness that he believed her instantly. Perhaps her species was immune to their memory tricks. Perhaps the insane potato carriage driver shot them all. Who knew?

"What are you?" asked Lou, curious at her green, scaly skin. His initial shock gone, he didn't seem frightened, just curious, the same as he would be at some new immigrant washing up on his beat back home.

"Who," said the maid, interjecting with an edge in her voice. "It's polite to ask who someone is. This is Madame Vastra. She could slay you both where you stand, but she's not doing that any longer, is she?" This last bit had a corkscrew in the question, curling back onto the lizard woman. Canton recognised the tone from two hundred instances of, "If you finish the milk, don't put the empty back in the fridge. Dear. Sweetheart. Love of my god-damned life. Agreed?"

Canton glanced between the two women and swallowed his smile.

"Apologies," Canton said. "Madame Vastra, would you please catch us up on what's happened to the Doctor? I haven't seen him in a few years, and knowing him, it's been a lot longer on his end."

"That would be a good guess. Mr. Delaware, how old was Amy Pond when you saw her last?"

Canton thought hard. "Dunno. Twenty-three? Twenty-five?"

"She died at the age of eighty-seven. Her husband died at eighty-two."

His automatic 'I'm sorry to hear that' died on his lips. "What? That's not possible. I saw them three years ago."

"They have since been transported into the past, and they died there. The Doctor is alone."

Canton found his chair and sat heavily. He tried to picture vivacious Amy and adorably nerdy Rory. Eighties? Dead? They'd be grandparents. Great-grandparents. "How?"

"A species you haven't encountered. Enjoy your good fortune."

"What about Doctor Song?"

"Her timeline is complicated. The Doctor told me she died the day they met." A smile touched her green lips. "I have known her since she was an infant. Time is strange for friends of the Doctor."

"Is she dead, then?"

"She was alive to leave you the message. I contacted her when she was a professor. She could pilot the TARDIS. Not many can."

"All right," Canton said, sorting this confusion as best he could. "Everyone's dead, and the Doctor is dying?"

"No, he is alone, and he has come to us because he has no one else to ask."

"No one?" Canton figured the Doctor had friends in every port, or in his case, every decade. But maybe the Ponds showed what happened with those. Maybe he'd sweep into your life, and you'd wind up dead or destroyed. That jived with the little research Canton had dug up later, at least until his boss told him he'd been leaned on by some hush-hush Brit agency, so knock it off. Friends in every decade, sure. Dead friends, or worse.

Madame Vastra read the comprehension on his face. "I owe him a great debt, as do Jenny and Strax, and we care about him, as I believe you do also. He needs our help."

"What do you need me for?" It wasn't a dismissal. Canton had known as soon as the blue box appeared that he'd do whatever he was asked. He hoped Lou would understand.

"Time is malleable. It can be reshaped, but it cannot be broken. His friends will die, as we all must. Yet I believe we can pull them out of time, just for a little while. He can have them back again. His hearts are broken, Mr. Delaware. This will not mend them, but perhaps we can offer a chance at healing."

He thought about this. "How?"

"I need you to travel to a point in Amy and Rory's timeline, and retrieve them."

"In the TARDIS? But I can't fly that thing." She might as well ask him to fly the Saturn V, or a nuclear submarine. Hell, at least those were from Earth.

"River has already programmed the coordinates. The TARDIS will take you where you need to go."

"Then why do you need me? Doctor Song should be able to fetch them herself. Or you." He took another look at Madame Vastra, and amended, "Well, maybe your friend here."

"I can't go," Jenny said with a worried frown. "It's the far future for me, in a distant land. I'd be half-terrified just stepping outside, much less trying to track them down."

Canton settled more easily into his chair. So that was it. He had plenty of respect for the fairer sex, but obviously this was one task that shook the poor girl to the core. "Right. So I'll go to this distant future...."

"We'll go," Lou cut in, and Canton wasn't going to object.

"Right. We'll go, hunt down the Ponds, and take them somewhere?"

"River says she's found a neutral planet where we can all meet without damaging the timelines. To answer your previous question, no, she cannot bring them herself."

"Because?"

Madame Vastra shrugged. "It's possible the universe will collapse if she makes the attempt. She would know better than I. But she could borrow the TARDIS and program it for us. For you."

He stood. "Fine. Let's get this over with. Can you brief me? Where exactly is this far-flung future and distant land?"

***

Lou took his arm as they made their way back to the TARDIS. "1938. New York."

"Yeah." He guessed it would be a far-flung future to someone from 1892.

"And the only reason they called you is because you're American."

Offended, Canton said, "I don't think that was the only reason."

"Sure it wasn't."

The other three, bundled up in enough cloth to disguise the inhuman appearance of two, bustled behind them, and the moment was lost. Canton thought Lou would let go, but instead he adjusted the position of their arms, linking them like any two gentlemen out for a constitutional on this brisk evening, pip pip and all that rot.

Fine. He'd drop it.

None of the others seemed fazed by the TARDIS interior. Either they'd all been here before, or their own lives were weird enough for this to be just one more point on a Möbius curve. Given the number of swords the women carried, and the huge gun the potato alien lugged with him, Canton was willing to believe the latter. He found himself far more comfortable with his side arm back in its holster, and he couldn't help smiling at Lou's matching sigh of relief as he checked then holstered his own weapon.

Some couples did romantic moonlight dinners and extravagant luxury vacation to exotic locales. He glanced over at Jenny, who wiped a polishing cloth over Vastra's katana blade before handing it back to her mistress. Others preferred a more direct approach to the war of the sexes.

Speaking of war, Strax was circling the control panel and muttering about fire power. Vastra shushed him impatiently. "Mr. Delaware, your hand if you please."

"I did this already," he huffed, but Canton placed his hand on the control panel again.

River Song spectacularly failed to appear in real or holographic form.

Canton picked up his hand experimentally, placing it elsewhere on the panel. No hologram, no grind of TARDIS engines.

"Did you break it?" asked Lou.

"It's an emergency," said Strax, aiming his gun at the control panel. "TARDIS, I demand you take us to our destination at once."

Jenny took three rapid steps away from him as Vastra said, "Strax, do not threaten the most powerful device in the universe."

Miffed, Strax growled, then rested the gun on his shoulder. "I was merely trying to help."

"Start with being nice," suggested Jenny, resting her own hand on the panel.

Doctor Song appeared in a sparkle. "Good. Now that you've assembled the team, I'll direct the TARDIS to the new coordinates. Amy and Rory spend their lives in Brooklyn. However, the TARDIS cannot go near the time, nor their location. You will need to track them down on your own." Levers and lights on the control panel operated on their own volition. "I am setting you down in the year 1949. Location should be relatively near New York. Bring them back here when you've found them. Amy or Rory's hand print will activate the controls. Good luck."

She faded from view again.

Canton wondered if anyone else had noticed they had to finish their mission or else: no hand print, no working time machine. Great.

The TARDIS parked without fanfare. Lou looked down at his own Victorian clothes. "1949 Brooklyn? We'll have to change."

"Right."

The dressing room offered not only opportunities for appropriate clothing, but also for inappropriate kissing. Call it shock treatment, cut off only when Jenny burst in on them, a bit out of breath. "I'm coming along, in case of trouble."

For a second, Canton thought she meant they were to protect her. Then he caught on. "Uh, thanks, but we'll be fine."

"Nonsense. Now turn your backs."

"We'll just give you some privacy," Lou said, tugging Canton out.

"Thanks, then. Oh, the little alcove right before the control room is perfect for a hit and miss."

And with that nudge, she closed the door.

"A what?" asked Lou.

"You've got me. Come on."

Jenny took no time at all changing from her prim, button-up corseted dress into a seemly periwinkle number that hit her at the knee. She kept her bun, and she'd added a matching blue hat. She stood out against the dark suits they'd chosen. Lou carried his own hat with a grim expression. The fifties hadn't been great Lou's first time through.

Madame Vastra inspected them thoughtfully. "I think you should take Strax as well."

"It's a grab and go," Canton said. "We'll be fine."

***

'Fine' turned out to be a relative term. The TARDIS had arrived in Philadelphia, no doubt because the archaeologist who'd programmed her liked a historical dig as much as anyone. They had to catch a train to New York, a process made more difficult by having to cool their heels in Philly for four hours.

Philly in 1949 wasn't much different from Philly in 1967, the last time Canton had visited on business. This time, some poor schmoe was getting his butt kicked by three beefy guys, and Lou stepped in before any of them thought to stop him. Not an hour after that, a lady whose purse got snatched across the street from them found it returned ten minutes later. Jenny had kicked the thief in the teeth.

"We should buy our train tickets," Canton said. "And stop beating up people."

Jenny patted her hair back into place. "People ought to behave better in the future, not like barbarians."

"'Far-flung future,' you said?" Lou goaded her. "'Terrified to step outside,' you said?"

"Ah. Well."

Strax fussed with the large scarf he wore. "Are you certain this is appropriate camouflage for my disguise?"

"Oh yeah," Canton said. "With that bowler hat and fake moustache, nobody's gonna recognise you." He was more worried about the scarf slipping, but he couldn't resist the grin every time it did. If these guys were going to drag him out of his house and make him bop through time, only to send their own people to get Amy and Rory anyway, he was going to have a little fun of his own with the disguises.

Lou whispered, "You are going to Hell for this one."

"Worth it."

Canton discovered his own part in the plan as they reached the station. Thankfully, he'd brought his wallet and the cashier didn't inspect the ten dollar bills before handing over four round trip tickets. As Canton handed one to Jenny he said, "Am I the only American the Doctor knows?"

Her face coloured for some reason. She said, "You're the one we asked."

They washed up in New York City a few hours later with no place to stay and no idea how to start looking for Rory and Amy Williams. The phone book was no help. "We could go knocking on doors," Jenny suggested, ignoring the patent ludicrousness of asking ten million people if they knew the Ponds.

"We will demand they tell us! With force if necessary!"

Jenny sighed. "Strax, will you please look in the phone book on that corner? And remember, no fighting." He grumbled and crossed the street, startling a cab driver.

Canton scratched his memories. "I think my cousin lived in New York in 1949. I could make up a story and we could stay with her." The addition of Strax to the equation was not helping. There was no way Canton could make cousin Cheryl believe he was just from out of town.

Lou said, "Oh, like how you told your mother for five years that you were seeing someone named Louise?"

"I never said that," Canton said, dropping his voice. He shot a look at Jenny, but she'd been distracted by a shop window display and wasn't listening. "I told her your name was Lou, and she filled in the rest herself."

"And you didn't correct her."

"And I didn't correct her. And your grandmother thinks you're seeing someone named Connie."

"That's different. She's eighty-three. Her heart would stop if she met you."

Jenny was coming back over. Canton said, "Can we do this later?"

"I'm sure we will."

Jenny said, "Let's get them."

"Yeah," said Canton, "but we still don't know where to look."

With an impish grin, Jenny dragged him over to the window and pointed to a book on display. Author: Amelia Williams.

***

"We can't go."

After the hugs, Amy had assumed a cross-armed (and cross) posture. Her walk-up brownstone had a trim front yard, a door that was painted fire-engine red, and photographs on every wall boasting a smiling little boy. The earliest photo showed Rory holding an infant. The latest looked like it might have been taken last week, what with the tot ramming a toy wooden car into Canton's shoe. He wished he'd stayed outside with Strax, who was guarding the front steps from intruders. In fact, he wished he'd stayed outside instead of Strax, but nobody listened when he pointed out the giant potato would attract more attention than they wanted.

The car rammed into his shoe again.

"Anthony, stop it."

"Okay, Mommy." He set the car aside and busied himself with untying Canton's shoelace. Canton crossed his leg over and hoped the kid would cut it out.

"Rory's at work," she said to them, passing out mismatched teacups. "I've got loads of work to finish, and obviously Anthony can't go."

Lou took his tea gingerly. "Thank you. Why 'obviously'?" He looked from Amy to Canton, and paused on Jenny's suddenly guilty face.

Amy said, "I'm not losing this baby, too."

There had been something about a pregnancy, Canton recalled, but it had all been tied up with the Silence and he couldn't remember much. Jenny seemed to know more, hiding her face in her teacup. Amy narrowed her eyes. "What is it?"

"It's nothing."

"You've seen Melody, haven't you?"

Jenny nodded slowly. "She sent us to fetch you, not him."

Melody? Canton exchanged a glance with Lou, then took the opportunity to taste the tea. Nasty stuff. Give him some joe any day.

Amy's face contorted. "He didn't ask?"

"Begging your pardon, miss, but he said he couldn't come looking for you. Something about time fracturing and the universe being destroyed, or similar." Jenny's head bobbed up and down as she spoke, as if nodding in agreement with herself. "Doctor Song can't come, neither."

"But you're here. Now. No universe collapse." She glanced through the lace curtains out to the street. "Not yet."

"Well, you know Doctor Song. She likes to play games with the Time Vortex."

Amy sighed. "Only one, and that game is called Silly Buggers."

Lou leaned over. "Is it just me, or did they stop speaking English a few minutes ago?"

"You get used to it." To Amy, he said, "Look, I don't know anything about universe collapse or what, but if the Doctor says he can't come for you, when we just took the train in from Philly, then I'll believe him. And if Doctor Song says we can take you somewhere to meet him without destroying time, space, and apple pie, I'll believe her, too."

Amy took a long drink of her tea. Then she held out her arms until Anthony climbed into her lap, wrapping one chubby arm around her hair and sucking the attached thumb. "He never came looking for us. He said it would destroy time, so no, he never took a train from Philadelphia, or New Jersey. River never used that strap on her arm to come visit, only posted a letter." He could see the years in her face, the lines from sun and smiles and tears, and the silver shooting through the copper of her hair. "I stopped waiting for him a long time ago."

The door opened. Rory Williams came in, out of breath and more or less forcing Strax inside ahead of him. Canton heard him say, "Mr. Lerner is our neighbour. He's an inventor, not an invader."

"Daddy!" said Anthony, slithering off Amy's lap. Rory paused to take in the rest of them with a nod before kneeling down to give Anthony a hug.

"Where's River?" Rory asked, lifting Anthony into his arms. The years were more obvious on his face than Amy's: more grey, more wrinkles. He nodded greeting to Jenny and Canton, finally looking at Amy.

"River's not here."

"She had a note delivered to me at work. She said to get home right now." His eyes rested on Lou. "You didn't regenerate again, did you?"

Lou startled. Even Jenny looked as confused as Canton felt. "What?"

"No, that's not her." Amy slumped back in her armchair. "She sent them here to fetch us."

"We can't go," said Rory, holding Anthony closer.

"That's what I said."

He dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. He walked it over to Amy, placing a kiss on the top of her hair. "This is what she sent me."

Amy scanned the paper, then set it aside. Her eyes went a million miles away. "I wonder." She picked up the paper again, flipped it to the blank side, then held it up to the light. Canton made out white letters, almost like a watermark. A smile crossed Amy's face, the first since she'd hugged Jenny.

"One summer, Mels and I looked up ways to send hidden messages to each other," she explained, getting to her feet and yanking the teacups away. She stacked them on the tray haphazardly and walked them to the kitchen, where the sound of running water suggested they were getting a quick dunk. She wiped her hands on a towel as she joined them again. "Well, what are you waiting for? We'll need to pack him a bag. Get his nice blue jumper, and plenty of underpants." As an aside, she said, "He's toilet-trained, but he still has accidents."

"But, we just said we can't go."

"Now we're going. We'll take the car. We can be back at the TARDIS before dinner." Amy ran upstairs to pack. Rory followed her with their son.

Lou picked up the paper. "Your friends are crazy." He held it up to the light, as Amy had done.

Canton read silently: "Amy, stop moping and bring my brother to see the best fireworks in the universe. Love, Melody."

"Yeah," he said. "They really are."

***

The control room was getting crowded, and Anthony and Strax were taking up most of it. As soon as they came on board, Strax talked the TARDIS into creating miniature replicas of alien and human soldiers. These were now spread out over both levels and blocking the stairs. Strax made whooshing noises, and tiny "pew pew" sounds as little plastic soldiers shot the advancing foes. Anthony laughed and clapped, occasionally picking up one and turning it into Superman.

Amy bent down, retrieving a little Roman soldier at her feet. She showed it to her husband with a grin.

Canton tried not to step on anything.

Jenny nodded at the mess. "Ma'am, I'm not cleaning up his toys again."

"Nor should you. Strax will have to sweep them up himself."

"Preposterous!" he shouted, sitting awkwardly between two sorties. "These troops will all die in glorious battle together."

Canton wondered if scaly lizard not-aliens had the same exasperated expressions humans did, because Vastra was wearing one. Jenny placed a sympathetic hand on her arm, as Amy and Rory turned their attention to the controls. "We just touch this, then?"

"It's worked for everyone else," said Lou. He'd given up both exasperation and wonder, and had that face on where he was pretty sure he was dreaming. Canton considered pinching him, then thought better of it. For now.

The engines roared to life. A few minutes and four hundred glorious casualties later, they landed.

As the door to the TARDIS swung open, he could hear the Doctor's voice. "It's about time. River, do not ever send my ship off on autopilot again."

"Of course, sweetie, but our picnic guests have finally arrived."

The Doctor said something Canton couldn't make out, but it didn't matter. Amy and Rory were already out the door, Anthony in tow. Vastra and Jenny followed, with their own adopted root vegetable dragged behind them. Canton tiptoed around the last survivors of the third army, then felt a hand on his shoulder holding him back.

"What's out there?"

"Don't know."

"More aliens?"

"Could be. Could be an alien planet with," he bent and snatched up a squid-faced soldier, "evil face-stealing monsters."

Lou's eyebrows raised. "How many alien planets have you visited?"

"None yet," he admitted. "Want to see what this one's like?"

"Yeah, but." Lou was frowning again. "Is the Doctor going to be mad I came along?"

Canton leaned over. From the cracked doorway, he could just make out someone's arms thrown around someone else. "No."

Lou wasn't any happier. "Seriously. Is he going to be upset? About me. About you and me." He didn't ask if the Doctor, or anybody else out there, was going to throw the same fit Canton's mom did when she found out about "Louise." He didn't ask if things were going to be as awkward and unwelcoming as they tended to get when the two of them went out places together.

Canton didn't blame him for wondering. But he was pretty damn sure that, this time, the worry was for nothing. He kissed Lou on the cheek and took his hand.

"Come on. Come meet the rest of my friends."

***

Apparently, this planet was called Asgard. Apparently, it boasted the best fireworks in the galaxy during the annual celebration of the ruling dynasty's founding. Apparently, Doctor Song had been begging the Doctor for a visit here for ages. Apparently, she was related to the Ponds in some fashion nobody was explaining, and this all tied together with why she was cuddling little Anthony and playing with him as hard and delightedly as Strax was.

Apparently, they finished up their picnic just in time to catch the beginnings of the civil war that would end up reshaping the entire quadrant of the galaxy or whatever.

At least the sandwiches had been good.

***

"We need to form a strategy," said Madame Vastra. She paced back and forth in the cell, pausing at the walls to touch the stone. "Heaven alone knows what they're doing to the others."

The Doctor sat cross-legged by one wall, playing with a light-up wand. "We don't know that the others have been captured. I'm sure I saw River take Anthony and go."

"What's that?" came Amy's muffled voice from the next cell.

The Doctor shouted, "I'm sure River has Anthony!"

Amy shouted back, "That doesn't make me feel better!"

Canton slumped back against the opposite wall, wondering if he should start tapping out Morse Code. Did Lou know Morse Code? He'd done a tour in the Navy right out of high school, so maybe. Canton did an experimental tap on the stones, and discovered that his knuckles would break before he managed to knock hard enough.

Amy and Rory were having something between a discussion and an argument, which Canton heard only part of. Rory was of the opinion that River was the best possible protector for little Anthony. Amy was of the opinion that River had stolen marijuana and given it to Amy and Rory both? Or something? "And Jeff, too!" she shouted.

"Oh, Jeff!" said the Doctor happily. "I liked him."

Rory shouted through the wall, "He and Mels used to date!"

The Doctor shouted back, "Terrible man, that Jeff! Always something about him I didn't trust!"

Vastra paused her pacing. "We need to get out of here. Is your screwdriver capable of picking the lock?"

"Soon. Don't worry. I'm sure Jenny and Strax are fine."

There was a noise outside. Vastra tried to see out the tiny cracks in their door. From the opposite cell, Lou shouted, "Jenny's in here!"

"Is she all right?" Vastra yelled. All this yelling was getting on Canton's nerves. He rubbed his head, which brought his watch into view. He wondered if he could disassemble his watch and find some little gear inside to pick the lock. Busy work. He removed the watch anyway and popped the back.

Another noise came from outside, this one like a small explosion. Watch forgotten, Canton joined Vastra at the door. The Doctor stayed where he was, tilting his head as if listening. "Get back from the door. Do it now."

Moments later, with a WHOOMP and a cloud of dust, the door fell inside their cell, the hinges blasted away. Doctor Song stood on the other side, with her face a bit dirty and her smile absolutely filthy. "I'll spare you the 'Honey, I'm home' speech. Where are Amy and Rory?"

"Over here!" Rory shouted. "Do you have Anthony?"

"Right." The group of them emerged from the cell. Doctor Song made quick work of the other two cells. "I left Anthony with Strax. You'll probably have to deprogram him when you get home before he tries to invade your neighbours' house, but otherwise he's unharmed."

Vastra went into Jenny's cell. The other woman sat on the floor. Lou was checking her pulse and lifting her eyelids. He backed away as soon as Vastra came close. She knelt beside them. "Jenny, dear? Are you well?" When she didn't respond, the lizard lady turned to Lou. "Did you see what happened?"

"They just threw her in here. Her pupils are dilated. She might be drugged."

Rory was already beside them. "Let me check on her."

"We need to leave now," said Doctor Song. "We can examine her when we're safe."

Vastra looked as though she would object, but instead she propped Jenny onto one arm as Rory took the other side.

Canton wished he had a gun, but Doctor Song was the only one armed. He nodded to Lou, and they fell back to take the tail in case of trouble. They walked past several guards who lay still or moaning on the floor. Those who could move flinched away from Doctor Song.

"Your friends are weird," whispered Lou.

"I know."

***

Their luck held until they reached the upper exit to the dungeons. Doctor Song may have incapacitated the guards along the way, but reinforcements met them at the large metal door hanging suspiciously askew.

The guards, wearing the uniforms of the old regime, raised their weapons. Doctor Song raised her own. "Boys, you do not want to dance with me tonight."

As the Doctor stepped between River and the guards, his hands raised in a placating gesture, Canton felt a tug on his elbow. Lou tilted his head, indicating that Rory and the lizard lady had already started back into the dungeon levels, their burden between them. Right. Looking for a back door.

Canton watched as Amy shouted, balling her hands into fists and standing beside the Doctor, and accepted the distraction. The five of them booked down another corridor, and turned a corner.

"Here," said Vastra suddenly, pushing Jenny into his arms with some care. "Guard her."

"Me?" He looked into the young woman's dreamy face. Yeah, probably drugged. Had they questioned her? What answers could she have possibly given them? And why were Vastra and Rory turning with grim expressions back down the hallway to where he could just make out the sounds of Doctor Song's ray gun?

He shuffled Jenny to a better hold.

"What now?" Lou asked, checking out the corridor to either side. No obvious exits appeared, except for the cells themselves, most of which seemed to be empty after the first wave of revolutionaries had come through. Hell of a hiding place, but risky.

Canton had worked on a case once where a guy had hidden from the authorities by locking himself inside his own homemade fallout shelter, thinking they'd never look for him there. Thing was, the guy had built his shelter too well. They hadn't been able to go in after him, no, but neither had any air. Four days passed before they got the damn box open, and by then, it didn't matter.

He didn't have to consider this grisly prospect for long. Amy and the Doctor came dashing down the corridor shouting, Vastra and Rory right on their heels.

"Run," said the Doctor, barrelling past.

"You left her back there?" The others ran past, Vastra pausing long enough to scoop up Jenny from his arms.

He looked down the hallway, where River suddenly appeared, her own laser pistol missing. She waved wildly at him as she ran. Behind her, there was a high-pitched whine.

Canton grabbed Lou's hand and ran for it, catching the others up at the next bend. Doctor Song crashed into them a second later, and pushed the two of them to the ground. "Down!" Amy and Rory each grabbed a handful of tweed, dragging the Doctor to the floor. Vastra covered Jenny with a protective huddle.

Heat and light exploded over their heads from River's overloaded blaster. The building rumbled around them, stonework falling way too close to their heads, smoke choking everything.

Lou peeked up at Canton, tilting his head sideways. He was covered in grey dust. Canton knew he didn't look any better. "Canton?"

"Yeah?" Canton spit out dust.

"The next time you go running off with your weird friends, remind me not to come. You can introduce me later. Much, much later."

"Are you kidding? This is the fun part." He laughed, because they weren't dead and not being dead was great. After a moment, Lou laughed, too.

"Come on," said Doctor Song, climbing back to her feet. She paused a moment to sweep dust out of her curls before she extended a hand to the Doctor.

They headed back down the ruins of the corridor the same way they'd come. The Doctor paused to unlock the only cell door that still had an occupant. Obviously his fancy screwdriver was finally working.

"We don't have the time for this," Doctor Song scolded him.

The Doctor let Rory shoulder open the door, freeing two scared-eyed aliens. "Then we don't have the time for anything." He shooed them on ahead.

Together, they all reached the exit to the dungeons for a second time, minus the platoon of guards and plus one enormous hole in the side of the fortress.

Canton said, "Hey, look. I found the door."

***

By the time they reached Strax, he'd taught Anthony how to spell "thermonuclear detonator" and "disintegration ray." Doctor Song took responsibility for teaching him the swear words. Neither of them claimed responsibility for giving the fortress access codes to both the rebels and the royalists, but when the walls fell, there was in fact a huge display of accidental fireworks when the weapons cache exploded without being used by either side. Anthony clapped and said "Whee!"

They left.

***

Back aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor and Doctor Song began bickering over where they ought to take the group next, as soon as Rory was finished in the medical suite getting Jenny back on her feet. Space Florida? Diamond waterfalls? Canton had been to Barcelona once, but he had a feeling this would be some bizarre future Barcelona with Mr. Spock on every corner. Lou was starting to look kind of shell-shocked.

"Doctor, if it's not too much trouble, could you drop us off? I don't think we can handle much more relaxation."

He looked disappointed. "Are you sure? I have a friend who spends three centuries owning a pleasure planet in the outer Rim. I'm positive you'd have a good time."

Pleasure planet?

Doctor Song checked a readout on the control panel of the TARDIS. "This wouldn't happen to be the same pleasure planet that gets overrun by the Gilaxian Horde in 7823?"

"Home, please," Canton said, before the Doctor could turn to her and explain he wouldn't put them down at that time, honestly.

"Fine. That was 1969, yes?"

"1972," Lou said, shooting Canton a worried look. The last thing they needed was to get sent back to the wrong time.

"I'll drive," said Doctor Song with a false note of pleasantness. Barely a minute later, the TARDIS set down in what Canton hoped very much was his current front yard. "Coordinates check out, but you'd best be sure."

"Thanks," he said, poking his head out through the door. That looked like their street, and those were Doug Donaldson's ugly plastic flamingos next door. "Looks right."

The Doctor shook his hand. "Thank you for your help." He shook Lou's hand. "Good meeting you." He'd already turned away and had started talking to Doctor Song. "What do you say about ringing up Martha and Mickey for a visit? Martha and Rory would be best mates inside five minutes."

So dismissed, Lou shrugged and disembarked. Canton paused. "Doctor?"

"Yes? What is it?" The bonhomie of his goodbye had been replaced with vague annoyance of the 'Are you still here?' variety.

"Sorry. Still new to this. But I gotta ask, am I going to see you again?" Not cute, Canton told himself firmly. If anything, the Doctor was older than Methuselah and twice as crotchety, but he was a friend.

"Of course," he said, waving away the concern and focusing on the console. He flipped switches that looked like all the other switches.

Canton tried not to show how the indifference hurt. "Can I say goodbye to Amy and Rory?"

"They'd like that," said Doctor Song. "Medical is that way, two turns, and down the corridor. I'll let Lou know you're not heading off with us."

Canton found his way eventually, four turns and five corridors later. He wanted a map for the inside of this place but he had a funny feeling the map would change. Jenny was sitting up when he let himself inside, as Rory and Strax shouted at each other that the other was wrong on God knew what. Vastra ignored them both, speaking in a quiet, relieved voice to Jenny while holding her hand.

"Lou and I are headed out," he said, loudly enough to get everyone's attention. "Just wanted to say, um." Goodbye? To people he didn't know if he'd ever see again? "Where's Amy?"

Rory said, "She's putting Anthony down for a nap." He shook hands with Canton. "Thanks for coming for us."

"Are you staying on?"

Rory looked around, first at the TARDIS, then at the three odd time travellers. "I don't think so, not forever. But I'd like to see my mum and dad again. I want them to meet Anthony and River. We can go home after."

"Good luck," Canton said.

"You too."

He found Amy in the corridor on his way back, and received a giant hug. "Thank you for this."

"I just did as I was told."

She laughed. "That was your first mistake. Take care. You and him both."

"Hey, we're in Baltimore. If you find yourselves in 1972, look us up. We'll do a barbecue."

"I can't wait."

Amy walked him back to the control room, where the Doctor tried to get her on his side for the choice of their next destination. "We've been to Space Florida," she reminded him. "And you're rubbish at finding Barcelona. Why don't we go somewhere nice?"

"I have just the place," said the Doctor. "Canton, off with you."

"Yeah. Goodbye," he said.

Doctor Song waited outside with Lou, both of them staring up. Canton looked up, worried, but it was just the night sky, or at least the few stars they could see above the city lights. "Take care, Doctor Song."

"You as well."

"Just to warn you, I think Amy's on his side for where you're going next."

"I already know," she said with that maddening smile.

"Oh. Barcelona, then? Or that pleasure planet?"

"Not yet. I was just taking my bearings. I thought this was Maryland." She waved. Before the TARDIS door closed, he heard her say to the Doctor, "2013, January 1st. And you are not to wear that ridiculous top hat again"

With that, the door closed, and the TARDIS engines began to grind.

"Weird," said Lou. "I told you." He took Canton's hand and they watched the blue machine vanish.

"Yeah."

Had they really travelled for three days? The television was still playing the same episode of Emergency! they'd been watching before they'd left on the crazy trip. They'd been gone just long enough to miss one commercial break.

Without asking, Lou got out two beers from the fridge. "Think they'll come back?"

"Nah." He really had no idea if he would ever see the Doctor and the rest again. But he set his mental calendar for January of 2013, just in case.

***
The End
***

{A brief history of Amy and Rory's neighbour, George Lerner.)

DW Fic: Ghost Girl

2013-09-23T13:37:27Z

Eleventyfest has gone live! I was gifted a plethora of riches:

- Doubt is a pain too lonely by clocketpatch, which is just a perfect piece about Rita from "The God Complex," and a look at what might have happened if she'd lived. I LOVED this fic, omg.

- Two pieces of art, also by clocketpatch: Baby Makes Three and Dance Circuit, one with Strax as Vastra and Jenny's adopted potato, the other with River and Eleventy being their cute, awesome, dancing with a gun selves.

- Turn Me On by leiascully which is PORN, lovely, lovely PORN featuring River/Eleven and River/Liz Ten, both post-Library. Ghostly not-threesome sex. OMG.

I wrote, um, a lot. I'll be posting one or two per day so as not to overload my flist.

First up, a treat I wrote for astrogirl2, who was the reason I participated in the first place.

Title: Ghost Girl
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Clara, Eleven (unrequited Clara/Eleven)
Rating: PG
Warnings: character death
Spoilers: up through TNotD
Words: 450
Summary: She isn't a ghost. This isn't a ghost story.
AN: Written as a treat for astrogirl2 in Eleventy Fest.

***

"This isn't a ghost story, it's a love story."

Clara is not a ghost. Once, when she was four years old, she spent a week running about with a bedsheet over her head shouting "Woo!" to her mum, but Mum just said she wasn't allowed to watch any more Scooby-Doo cartoons. Dad said real ghosts didn't wear Little Mermaid bedsheets on their heads. Clara gave up on being a ghost.

She watches him at the TARDIS controls. Underneath the mania, she sees a thin crackle of terror peeping through every mad word, every rubbery expression. The Doctor isn't her boyfriend. She's not sure he's her friend. Today he is looking past her, through her. She's tempted to shout, "Woo!" simply to attract his attention back to the person in front of him.

She isn't a ghost. This isn't a ghost story. She doesn't know if his words imply she's in the other story.

Love. Heart-fluttering and terrifying. She thinks he does like her. She's sure he finds her attractive. Rather than dwell on the possibility of romance, Clara focuses on the elegance of his hands massaging the switches. The TARDIS is his true love; that's as plain to see as his chin.

***

Angie knocks on the door but doesn't wait for an invitation. "You in?"

"Obviously." Clara has a book open. She can't remember what she was reading.

"Is your boyfriend coming today?"

No amount of protests will budge Angie from her belief that Clara pops off every Wednesday to snog the Doctor senseless. "It's Saturday."

"Why doesn't he ever ask you out on weekends?"

"I'm busy. Wednesday's my day off."

"I bet he's married, really." She turns on one trainer and leaves the room before Clara can argue. It's her newest technique, picked up at school. Clara remembers being this age. It'll pass.

***

She flies apart. She's a ghost. She's less than a ghost. Clara Oswin Oswald stops existing. Claras and Oswins and Oswalds exist everywhere, everywhen. Splinters overlap, spending their lives ignorant of one another.

On Skaro, Ossie is a Thal who dies in the last great battle.

In Florence, Chiara the servant fights off Captain Tancredi, and dies with her discovery that Scaroth is the only being throughout history who might have understood her.

She dies. She dies. She leaves behind her ghost after ghost, echo after echo. Clara is all ghosts.

She can choose to stop. She chooses not to stop. She loves him. She loves him like a friend, like a hero. She loves him as a man who looks through her to love another.

But he's wrong. This isn't a love story. It's always been a ghost story.

Somewhere inside the splintered shards of herself, Clara shouts out, "Woo!"

Fic: Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (7/7)

2013-09-22T21:17:37Z

Title: Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (7/7)
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Back to the Future
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Jenny, Madame Vastra, Strax, Parker, Martha, Gwen
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, character death, mention of sexual assault, prostitution, language, and severe bending of time travel plausibility even taking all three canons into account
Spoilers: through TW: "Exit Wounds" and through DW: "The Snowmen"
Words: 32,500 (6,800 this part)
Beta: tymewyse and fide_et_spe both had a hand in making this far more comprehensible than it would have been. All remaining aspects of wtfery are mine alone.
Summary: Accidentally shot into the past by a time-travelling car, Ianto has to fix his own mistakes or he won't have a future to go back to.
AN: Written for reel_torchwood Screening 6. Also fills the Trope Bingo space: au:fusion
Disclaimer: BBC, Universal, RTD, Steven Moffat, and Robert Zemeckis own these characters and situations, and want nothing to do with this ridiculous fluff piece of faux-Victoriana.

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six

***
Chapter Seven
***

Ianto swore and ducked at another blast. Through the haze, he'd sworn he'd seen something Strax-shaped with a large laser weapon shooting at the clouds, but God alone knew if he was hitting anything.

"We need to find Jack," he said. Not only was he their best hope with the Lysans, Ianto needed to get to his car or he wasn't getting home. Home seemed farther away than ever.

"We shall. Gather these humans and tell them to run for cover."

Ianto watched them running. "I think they have that handled."

One of the Lysan ships came in for a landing, crushing an already-dilapidated tenement. Vastra ran to them, shouting a cry with her sword raised. Ianto followed, his cry more of fear. Two squishy blue aliens emerged from their vessel, only to have limbs sliced neatly from their forms. He watched her work for a moment, then set his own useless sword aside and grabbed the three nearest humans he could find.

"Help me. There will be people trapped under this."

He was met with frightened stares, and people who were surely about to run. He added, "And those who don't want to help can deal with my boss when she's done killing these aliens, yeah?"

He suddenly found himself with a surfeit of volunteers.

***

Jack headed directly to where he'd asked Strax to stash the car. For a moment, he again contemplated just climbing in, driving head-on into a Lysan's cannon, and zooming forward one hundred years. The last time he'd met the Doctor, it had been courtesy of a stolen time machine. Surely another wouldn't upset his karmic balance terribly?

He still wasn't used to having a proper conscience. On days like these, it weighed heavy on him, and he spent more time than he should those days watching the world from the bottom of a glass.

The Doctor wouldn't like that much, either.

The trick was getting the car up to speed just as the Lysans fired. He'd rigged the motor to operate again, but catalytic converters were ancient tech which he'd barely studied. Strax hasn't exploded when he turned the key. That didn't mean the whole thing wouldn't fly apart as Ianto drove at breakneck speeds through the city during an invasion which Jack really ought to think about stopping.

He'd mapped this out in his head and on a piece of paper. Given the acceleration needed, he was pretty sure that driving along the shore would work, if the fleeing humans didn't head there themselves. He'd be drawing the Lysans in that direction, and he'd have to hope the tide was high enough to make the river salty enough to repel the aliens.

Jack climbed into the car. As in any other cockpit, he felt instantly at ease. If the TARDIS was the home of his heart, the driving seat or cockpit of any vehicle was like the safety of a grandmother's house. Longing for this, he started the time car and drove her into position.

***

"Let me go," said the girl. She wasn't squealing yet, nor trembling. He'd have to do something about that.

"Shut your mouth if you want to live."

Buford Parker had learned some time ago that no-one cared what he wanted, and no-one asked what he did. If he turned up to work on time with his clothes freshly scrubbed and his body bathed, not even his reptilian employer cared to notice what he did with his time. He'd thought she would have observed how the young maids never stayed more than a few days. For some great detective, she believed his quick tales that they feared her and left, but she had so much trouble with human emotions. Why wouldn't she believe her monster of a face drove them away? Most had walked out on their own feet, eventually, except that last lass. He hadn't meant it. He liked the feel of his hand around a small throat, was all. He hadn't meant to squeeze so hard.

He should have spaced the maids out more, but now she'd brought in that mandrake of a butler.

When they didn't have maids in, there were always the dollymops with their painted faces. He could pick out the hungry ones who'd follow him back to a dark corner well away from their friends, and wouldn't snitch him out later. These too had stopped being fun after the maid. Even leaving welts all over some poxed fanny, he'd only found his end thinking about how she'd flailed and choked. He'd considered the complexity involved in recreating the experience, even going so far as to stake out which Judy he'd bring out here to his secret place where no-one would find them.

Since he'd seen this girl, a little older than he liked but unspoiled, his thoughts had turned back to the one he'd killed. They had much the same manner. Jenny had even donned her apron, a sight which had forced Parker to take a breath out in the stables when he'd seen her reaching for the duster. She would make a fine squeak as he hurt her. Holding her tightly now, he felt his pulse race with excitement in his ears. She'd struggle. He knew she would, biting and fighting him as he enjoyed her.

This area by the docks had been abandoned. He could keep her locked up here for weeks. Months. But as her breath came faster, with the rise and fall of her breast under her neat corset, he knew he wouldn't pass up his opportunity to feel her life draining away under his body.

"You're in a world of trouble," she warned him.

"Jones isn't coming for you, so don't even let your silly head imagine he will." Parker had spied into the kitchen yesterday when Mr. Jones had been alone with his "friend." He'd tell sweet Jenny when he was done, let her know her catamite sweetheart would find himself in prison as soon as Parker mentioned to his own friends in the Yard. Two problems sorted at once, he thought. No more annoying butler, and no-one to ask questions like why his winsome companion had stopped calling.

The trembling began, shaking up her arm. He breathed in, intoxicated by her fear. Jenny asked, "Does your mistress know what you are?"

"Does it matter? Perhaps I let her watch."

Jenny frowned. "No. You clean yourself too much. You're hiding from her. Beat up some street girl, come home smelling of roses. That's you. You know she'll kill you when she finds out."

"She's too stupid." He grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her in tight for a kiss.

The motion yanked the blade that had shot out of her sleeve directly into his abdomen. Parker gasped, pushing her away as she dragged herself closer, never losing the expression on her face. "I had to ask," she said, jerking her arm up in a rush of exquisite agony. His blood poured out through his gut. He couldn't speak through the pain.

As his vision greyed, he heard her say, "I had to know if I had to kill her as well." She raised her arm as he hunched over, one arm thrown out to ineffectively block her very precise, and very lethal, blow.

***

The aliens centred in on their location. Ianto hadn't noticed at first, being too busy with the impromptu rescue. Yet, as he worked, lifting broken bricks and digging for those he could hear crying under the rubble, he began to see more and more blasts in their area, scaring away many would-be rescuers.

Beside them, in the street, Strax had joined them, firing on each vessel with a delighted cry. As the Lysan craft fell, Madame Vastra made short work of their crew, her sword wet with gore.

Ianto pushed aside a broken plaster wall, and found a man huddled around his two children. His helpers moved in, helping the trio to safety. Strax or another doctor could look at them when time allowed. Ianto thought he'd caught a glimpse of Ignatius and Doctor Brown hurrying determinedly through the fleeing crowd, bent on assisting at another destroyed building.

"Hold this position!" Vastra shouted to Strax, as more Lysans came their way.

Ianto turned to the nearest rescue worker. "Keep at this." He lifted his abandoned sword. He'd likely cut off his own head if he wasn't careful. He had to lure one out, though. He had to get to the car, get up to speed, and get shot. As much as he wanted to help here, that had to be his priority.

Vastra cried out. Ianto was already at her side, as Strax set down his weapon and began pounding on it with his fist. "Blasted thing always jams when it's hot."

"Ma'am, how bad is it?" A blast had glanced off her, leaving a scorch down one side, and her sword arm gravely injured.

"I can fight," she said through gritted teeth, lifting her sword with her left arm. A second later, she tossed the broken katana aside in disgust. Without a word, Ianto handed his to her. She'd be better with his sword in her off hand than he would using both good ones.

Her breath came in gasps. Strax paused in his abuse of his weaponry to examine her arm. "I can heal this, but not if we're dead."

"Mr. Jones, is this how the world ends?" she asked him, gathering her strength as more ships loomed into view. They would lock onto their position any moment.

"No."

"They are aliens." Insulted pride stood high in her voice, and outrage. Her people owned the Earth before humans evolved. How dare these interlopers come from the skies and attack her home.

"Aliens invade us a lot. Sometimes they're vicious, sometimes they're lost tourists. They're interesting. They don't end the world, not here."

"No," she said, standing with the sword raised in challenge, and a growl in her throat. "Not here."

Over the shouts and screams, Ianto heard two noises. One was a carriage running out of control. The other was a car engine. Both were getting closer.

Moments later, the carriage won, skidding to a stop on the corner. Vastra only cast a quick glance. "Ah. Parker has arrived."

Instead of Parker, Jenny stepped down from the driver's box, her dress covered with blood. "I thought I'd find you lot here with all the bother."

Ianto went to ask her if she was all right, but she was already digging inside the carriage. "Strax, I went by our flat. I didn't know which ones to bring, so I brought 'em all." She tossed him a large pulse rifle. Another appeared, one Ianto recognised from long-term storage in sub-basement 2.

"I'll take that one," he said, grateful for the feel of a gun. "Madame?"

"My sword will do." She watched as Jenny swung a third rifle that was more tiny cannon, and fired on the closest Lysan ship. She smiled. "My dear, you may have arrived just in time to save us all. Tell me, where is Parker?"

Jenny made a face. "If I could explain that to you later, ma'am, it'd be best." Her eyes flicked down to the stains on her dress.

Vastra jerked back. "Did he suffer?"

"I made sure he didn't."

Before she could ask more, Jack brought the time car into position with a screech of tyres and a spin that would have given Jeremy Clarkson an erection. Jack popped out with his trademark grin. "Did I arrive in time to save the day?"

"No," said Vastra and Jenny at once. They stood next to each other, making a rather pretty, if blood-soaked, picture.

Jack pouted before he handed Ianto the keys. "Go. It's a straight shot from here to the river. If I know these guys, one will chase you. Get to speed, hold it there, and look like a target."

"Thank you." Ianto closed his eyes. "Jack, the night I left, something happened. It's important you know."

"Spoilers. Don't tell me. I'll see it soon enough." He clasped Ianto's arms. "It's been good knowing you, Ianto Jones. I'll see you again." Jack kissed him, quickly but firmly.

He looked at Jack, and behind him to the other three. Strax was mouthing something like, "Man one," but he was preoccupied with his gun.

Ianto handed the keys back to Jack. "I'm staying."

"You can't stay. You've already messed up the timeline by being here. If you stay longer, you'll wind up rewriting everything."

"I can't go," he said in a softer voice, hoping Jack heard him over the reports of the guns. Their friends blasted away at the invaders. "I can't leave you here like this. Besides, the two of them aren't together yet."

"Don't worry about it. They seem to be getting on fine."

"And that's the worst part. Jack, they're Torchwood's first case. Torchwood London will kill the three of them. That's how the site earns their charter."

Jack pulled away from him, dark clouds covering his face. "You knew this whole time?"

"I'm not completely rubbish at time travel. Just mostly rubbish."

Jack turned back to the two women. Jenny had brought down another ship. Vastra didn't look well, but she did appear determined as she stalked towards the small pod. "When?"

"Ten years from now." Long enough for Madame Vastra to be forever in love with her beautiful companion, for her to have no other thought than to go in after her mate should she be captured by a man with a grudge against non-humans.

"But if they're not, your future falls apart, and you can't go home."

"Exactly." Amid the explosions, his own voice sounded hollow. He brought his hand before his face, but everything had gone strange. Had he been shot?

Jack stared at him. "Ianto?"

He could feel himself fading out. He'd be in two places at once, one stuck in the past due to an accident at Torchwood, the other somewhere unknown, unknowable. The rifle fell through his hands.

"It's too late."

Like a ghost, he watched. Around him, the laser blasts grew more concentrated. One struck Jack, killing him instantly. Another ricocheted, hitting Strax in the leg. Ianto couldn't move. He'd fade away here, and someone else would replace him in another life, in another time. But as the cold clenched him, he knew that wasn't the case, whatever he'd told himself. Without Torchwood London and thus later Torchwood Cardiff, the world had indeed come to an end at the hands of some threat yet to come. Perhaps he'd been killed. Perhaps he'd never been born. Tosh, Owen, Lisa, they'd faded away from history, not to other lives but into this same non-existence oiling through him.

The laser fire began to focus, now that the Lysans had determined where the resistance came from, and they bore down like angry wasps.

"Run," Vastra told Jenny, pushing her. "Get to safety."

"There isn't any safety, ma'am," she said, hefting her own rifle with a grim expression.

Vastra watched her, exasperated, as Jenny poured a stream of laser fire at their attackers. "You are holding that incorrectly."

"Won't matter in a few minutes, ma'am." One of her shots brought down another ship. Ianto saw a second ship land. Three aliens emerged, squishy and annoyed, to bring the fight to them.

Neither woman saw them, focused as they were on the zippy little ships. He leaned heavily against the side of the car, but he felt it give in a sickening fashion, as though his body passed through the metal. He tried shouting. His voice came out in a whisper, unheard over the noise of the scene around him. With no strength, he pushed off anyway, shoving his rapidly-vanishing body at the oncoming attackers who crept up on his friends from behind. They'd be slaughtered.

He stumbled in front of the Lysans. They walked through him, and he fell to the ground. The squishy guy in the lead aimed his weapon at the back of Jenny's head.

With no strength, no energy, no air, and no hope, Ianto shouted in a whisper, "Jenny!"

Vastra turned. She shouted a war cry, and lifting her sword, parried the first blast. Then she swooped like a dancer, neatly slicing an arc of destruction through the three of them, and swinging back to deliver the coup. All had been with her left arm; the right hung useless at her side. Jenny kept firing, but glanced back at her, seeing the carnage.

She smiled.

Jack had described to him, when asked one night in the dark after a session of not-very-comforting comfort sex, how it felt to be dragged back into his life. His veins thrummed with blood, he'd said. His chest compressed and sucked in air, burning his throat with the first gasp. Broken glass scratched over every centimetre of his skin and inside his guts as each individual cell suddenly and painfully knitted back to its pristine state of rebirth.

Ianto's return to life from near-nothingness was exactly like that, and exactly the opposite. He'd never be able to describe the sensation of solidifying and coming fully alive. As he rocketed to his feet, he heard Jack's first gasp of resurrection, and reckoned Jack would understand regardless. He helped Jack up, and searched the ground for his abandoned rifle.

"Ah, the two of you finally joined us," said Vastra, her attention returned to the skies.

"Three," said Strax, huffing. He'd bandaged his leg expertly, and had his own weapon trained on the incoming ships. "I believe we should go on the attack."

This drew the attention of all four. "Why?" Jenny asked.

"How?" Ianto added.

"We will have the advantage of surprise! They will never expect us to bring the campaign to the skies."

Jack said, "That's because we can't fly. Also, we'd be obliterated before we made contact."

Vastra said, "Some of us would, Captain." They shared a look. So she had seen everything.

"Precisely why they would not expect such an attack!"

Jack said, "Ianto, take the car. Do like we planned, and drive to the river."

"But...."

"We've got this." Jack tilted his head at the Paternoster trio, all of whom wore matching expressions of determination. Ianto kept his eyes from pointing out that Madame was holding hands with Jenny. He was relieved, and alive.

And heartbroken.

"Stay safe," he told them, wishing he could say more. He climbed into the car without another word.

The dash hadn't changed. The controls fit his hands as easily as ever. She purred to life under his touch with the turn of a key. He paused. The controls were set to the exact time he'd left. If he arrived early, say half an hour, he'd easily have time enough to get Gwen and Martha out of the doomed warehouse before the cultists returned. Quickly, he punched in the new time. He gave one last look to his four friends, then he screeched his way into reverse, spinning around.

He could say this for alien invasions: the streets were cleared as everyone had gone underground or into hiding. Ianto floored it.

Buildings that would never see vehicles of this speed go whizzing by again stood still as photographs as he roared past. In the rear view, he could see one of the remaining Lysan ships break off from the cluster and give chase.

He peeled out faster, praying to any god who'd listen not to throw a small child or similar in his path whilst he sped, finally ticking over to 88 KPH. He maintained his pace, trying to hold at the red line on the speedometer.

The Lysan ship fired.

It missed.

Ianto found his way blocked by a fallen pile of masonry. He hit the brakes, nearly colliding with the broken tenement. The Lysan ship shot past him. "Shit shit shit." The car shook, unhappy with the abuse. He eased it out again, nosing around the destruction. Did he have the space to get up to speed again? There were no other options. He gunned the engine again.

The Lysan didn't pursue him this time, veering off to rejoin the others attacking Jack's position. "Fuck."

Ianto reversed the car and turned around. He zoomed back down the road he'd just come. "See me. Come on, see the nice car, you slithery blue bastards."

At last, the small ship noticed him, swinging around for another go. Ianto dropped into a hard reverse once more, surely killing the transmission. He backed into something that gave with a wet thud. With no time to check behind him, he dropped into first, grinding the gears. Then he punched it as the Lysan fired where he'd been.

The car screamed down the road, juttering over the cobblestones. The shocks were on their last legs. The body of the car had taken damage from the first impact, and he wasn't sure if it would continue to hold together. How much stress did a jaunt through the Time Vortex put on a secondhand frame out of the decline of Detroit?

The Lysan fired, hitting just ahead of him. 75 KPH. 80 KPH.

Ahead, he could see the road down to the river's edge. If he wasn't hit, he'd have to turn and race along the embankment, where scores of people had fled. 85 KPH.

He heard the whine of the Lysan's weapon. He watched the speed click over to the red line marking 88 KPH. He wondered if he had a future to go back to.

He was overtaken by white flame.

***

Mary Dalton, aged ten, watched the whole thing from where her mum and her gran had dragged her and her three smelly brothers when the weird stuff started to happen. When she was a grandma herself, she'd pull the little ones onto her lap, and she'd tell them what she saw:

- A shiny black thing like a fish, but more like one of them automobiles, sped down Kings Road as fast as anything,

- and a silvery thing like a bird, but maybe one of them aeroplanes, flew at it, like the others had been flying, spitting light.

- and as the car neared the river, one of the lights from the aeroplane hit it,

- and the car went all white-like and vanished,

- but the aeroplane kept going and crashed into the river, where it sank,

- then we all shouted hurrah.

The rest of the aeroplanes were gone after that, most of them exploding in a pile of smoke and not much else, especially after an odd man, foreign he said when Mary asked, dropped little balls inside them. He smiled a lot.

There was a fine lady, her face hidden behind a demure veil, who called orders for people to help clean up and find those who might be trapped. A girl helped her, assisting as the odd foreign man patched up the injured. And there was another man, a handsome man who made Mary blush when he winked at her then directed her mum to take her family home.

Mary could not think of a single person she'd known who'd died in the whole event, and since the buildings that had fallen were all in parts of the city that Themselves never bothered much with, there wasn't even much of a stir. Some people came by, weeks later. She remembered them because they were all Scottish. Belonged to some College or Institute or something. The Scottish people asked loads of questions and they even handed out boiled sweets after they got their answers. Mary couldn't eat sweets because of her bad tooth. After the questions and the sweets, hardly anyone seemed to remember the silver aeroplane or the black car.

She'd stopped talking about them after her mum threatened Mary with the switch if she didn't stop telling stories. She did wonder about the one dead body she'd seen, though.

***

They gathered around the sad lump of clothes and flesh.

Strax didn't need to take a pulse, but propriety demanded. "The laser appears to have evaporated half his skull."

Jack made a face. He'd seen all this before, of course. He'd also seen skidmarks before, and noticed how these ended directly at the body before shooting off again. If this fellow had been backed into by, say, a nicely-tuned vehicle that wouldn't be invented for years, perhaps hard enough to stun him, then he would have made a very easy target for the Lysans to pick off.

Speaking of picking, he leaned down to the man's clothes, but Jenny's hands were faster.

Madame Vastra startled. "You are surely not going to rob the poor man's corpse?"

Jack and Jenny exchanged glances. Dead men had no use for purses. "No," Jack said. "We should look for identification." He noticed Jenny slip her hand into his pockets anyway for loose coins. He'd have done the same. "Hm. Reginald Poopin. That's someone who was teased at school." He knew the name from somewhere.

He frowned. From his own pockets, a bit stained from his untimely death, Jack removed two pamphlets. He set aside "A brief history of alien invasions in London, 1875-1900" and flipped through the other title that had caught his attention when he'd looked inside the boot of the time car the other day. He held the pamphlet up against the man's half-remaining face, comparing the corpse with the photostatic copy of an old photograph gracing the bottom of one side of the paper.

"Oops." That could be a much bigger issue than whether or not Vastra and Jenny shagged.

Vastra said, "Write down his name. I'll send a note of condolence to the family when I have the time." She sighed. "I understand this is hardly an issue of any worth, but I must say, I've lost both my driver and my only servant today. That will make things difficult."

Jack took a look at the pair to either side of her. "Something will work out, I'm sure. You might want to consider alien-hunting professionally."

Strax sputtered, "I beg to differ!"

"Only the bad aliens," said Jenny. "Right? The good aliens are interesting."

Jack watched them again, watched how naturally Jenny fit leaning against Vastra's side. "They are." He wiped his hands on Poopin's jacket and stood. "I should take this opportunity to say farewell. It's time I got back to Cardiff." That's where he'd be when he had his adventures. Ianto had as much as told him so.

"Really, Captain?" said Vastra. "I was hoping you'd stay. Your unique ability seems like it would be of good use, especially should I take your advice in careers."

He took her gloved hand, the one not in a makeshift sling, and kissed her knuckle. "When you need me, I'm a telegraph away. Keep in touch." For fun and because he could, he kissed Jenny on the head, and then Strax.

He wondered what kind of future Ianto would find himself in without a Sir Reginald Poopin to found his precious Torchwood London. He also wondered when Jenny would notice Jack had lifted Poopin's purse.

***

White light blinded him, and Ianto screamed. The car emerged into clear daylight, speeding towards the Embankment. Ianto wrenched the wheel, skidding as he flew towards the Thames. "Fuck. Fuck. Turn!"

He got the car spinning 180 degrees and still going as his foot was glued to the accelerator. With an effort, he yanked his leg away, but momentum pushed him forward into traffic. Rushed with adrenalin and terror, almost certain that he was home and wondering if that meant he'd died and this was a dream, he decelerated to a more normal speed, inching through London evening traffic like someone who hadn't been very, very late to work.

Oh God, he was back. Oh God, he was here. And oh God, he was early. He had to get back to the warehouse. Gwen and Martha were still alive. Jack was still alive. He gunned the engine again, but it gave up its last, sputtering and dying just as he crossed a rail.

"Shit." Ianto pounded on the dash. Nothing. He cranked the key, but the starter was dead. Whatever Jack in the past had done to fix the car, Ianto's mad journey through the cobblestone streets of Victorian London had killed it again.

Ianto got out, to the annoyed honks of the cars stuck behind him. He waved them on, starting to push, when he heard the sound.

"Oh fuck."

The train gates came down, and he was on the wrong side of them. "Fuck!" He tried pushing the car, but even if he could get it moving, he'd run into the gate.

The train was coming, and it wasn't stopping. He took one last look at the car. He legged it.

He should probably have known that attempting to hail a taxi whilst standing beside the ruin of his time car, bloody-faced, wearing Victorian dress, and waving a broken piece of coral was not going to end well.

***

Ianto heard the rumble from the exploding warehouse from three streets away. He ran as fast as he could, but it was too late, far too late. He wouldn't cry. Sobbing would accomplish nothing, would not bring the dead back be they dead one hundred years or one minute.

He crested the small hill, and stared.

There was the time car, zooming with someone inside that looked a lot like him. There were the fucking Saxon loonies, chasing him until his car vanished in a bright flash, then confused by his disappearance although they'd built the accursed thing.

And there were Gwen and Jack, armed to the teeth, steeping out from behind a skip, shouting at them to surrender now or they were going to blow their damn heads off. Martha stood to one side, shouting on her mobile for someone to get here NOW.

Ianto was very confused, if pleased to note how angry they all were. They thought he was dead. He was a bit chuffed to see, as it were, a preview of his funeral and know for a fact his friends were properly upset. He owned up to how petty that sounded. Still, it felt good to hang back a moment and watch as Jack rounded up the remaining cultists and Gwen went into copper mode on playing at arresting them before Jack could stuff them so full of Retcon they would forget their toilet training.

A figure moved over the tyre tracks he'd left behind. Before he could shout a warning, the figure rose. Ianto stumbled back a step.

"I'm definitely getting temporal readings here," Toshiko said, pushing her hair from her face. "Do we know where he went?"

Jack said, "Best guess? 1885."

"Good guess," said Ianto, scrambling down to join them.

He met three relieved faces and one somewhat amused one, who said, "You're late."

"Got held up by a train. Which reminds me...." He trailed off, unable to meet Jack's eyes.

"You destroyed the car."

"I did. A bit. Sorry."

"I spent how long fixing that thing?"

Gwen broke in, "When did you fix it, Jack?"

Martha said, "Bad guys. Focus. You can play Top Gear later." But the distraction had cost them their advantage. At once, the cultists shouted and ran. Several grabbed broken bricks from the ruins of the warehouse, and lobbed them hard.

"Duck!"

Ianto dodged the first brick. That put him in perfect line-up for a second to hit him hard on the temple. Everything went black.

***
Epilogue
***

He woke up to the sound of the phone ringing, and groggily, he reached out to pick up the receiver. The warm body he met along the way prevented him from grabbing it. Ianto smiled, wondering when Jack had crawled into bed. He sat up to reach the phone, lifted the handset from the cradle long enough to hear "Good morning! This is your wake up call!" before he dropped it and let his head hit the pillow again.

His eyes drifted open, and shut, then popped open. He sat up hard, adrenalin drenching his system.

Beside him on the other pillow, Lisa mumbled, "Fucking concierge."

"Lisa?" he managed to ask in a breathless squeak.

"Urnf," she said, or something like it, yanking his pillow over to cover her own eyes like she always had.

Afraid, he prodded her shoulder: same warm, yielding yet gym-muscled flesh under her blue-grey t-shirt, same cute grunt that promised she would bat him away in another few seconds if he didn't knock it off. Ianto tossed the pillow. He took her shoulders in his hands, moving her to her back, and he kissed her. She even had the same morning breath she swore was his problem alone.

Lisa smiled around the kiss, and kissed him back for a second before pulling away. "Enough of that, now."

"You're here," he said, because he couldn't imagine explaining to her the terrible dream he'd had, of death and destruction, and time travelling cars. Come to think of it, most of what he remembered was taking on the eerie countenance of a bad dream, complete with dinosaurs and zombies. In another minute, his head would clear, and he'd remember he was some minor tour guide for a museum, and Lisa was his gorgeous wife.

The pleasant yet sad glimmer in her eyes said that might not be quite right, either.

"Of course I'm here. But I remind you that my boyfriend doesn't mind me having the occasional drunk weekend with my ex, as long as he's convinced you're hopelessly head over heels for your boyfriend."

Ianto lay his head on his own pillow again. The quickest check he could make told him he, too, wore rumpled clothes under the sheets. Lisa was alive. She had a boyfriend who wasn't him. He had a boyfriend. He touched his head, and felt a plaster wrapping. Bits of last night came back.

"I got hit on the head pretty hard," he said. "Boyfriend. Mine. A picture emerges. Tall, ridiculously good-looking, unfortunately aware of it, has no doubt propositioned you and your boyfriend several times?"

Lisa lay her own head on her own pillow. "I don't know what you see in him. All right, I know exactly what you see in him, but I think you're mad."

"Toss a lifeline to your concussed ex. Did he break us up?"

Lisa shook her head sadly as she made him open his eyes and stick out his tongue. "You know, if multiple doctors hadn't assured Jack you'd be fine as long as someone kept an eye on you last night, he'd have banged you into hospital instead of calling me up to babysit. You start in with the amnesia, and he certainly will."

"That's not a no."

"How's your headache?"

"Sore."

"I'm taking you downstairs. Get dressed." He let himself be pulled up, and she didn't object to one more quick kiss before she booted him into the en suite to change into fresher clothes.

Downstairs, the UNIT briefing had just broken up. Terror, out of proportion to the reality, shook him. Had he slept through his second meeting? Jack would be furious. But Lisa stopped to talk with two people he vaguely recognised, dressed as civilians rather than military.

"Any word?" she asked.

The taller of the two men shrugged. "Same as always. UNIT on our arses, complaints and turtles all the way down." Unexpectedly, he socked Ianto on the shoulder. "Your end came out all right. Commendation. Flash bastards." He smiled as he said the words, though.

"Oh." Ianto wasn't sure quite what to say. His head was still groggy, as though this was a fuzzy dream. Perhaps he should get checked out. The bloke's name was Gareth, wasn't it? Another Torchwood London casualty standing alive in front of him, smoothing his own hair. Ianto didn't miss the wedding band.

Then another voice joined them. "Well, if you twats would work harder, you'd wind up with shiny commendations of your own, wouldn't you?"

Ianto's breath sucked out of him like he'd been punched. "Owen?" He tried to make sense of the crazy image in front of him. "But you're…." It seemed rude to point out Owen was supposed to be dead. "You're in a suit."

Owen glanced down at his well-made if rumpled three-piece suit. "Yeah? What about it? I always wear a suit when I have to coordinate with UNIT wankers." Without preamble, he dragged Ianto closer. "Open your eyes and follow my fingers."

He'd no doubt resisted making this gesture through the meeting, and Ianto humoured him.

"Vision blurry? Headache?"

"Head hurts, my vision's fine."

"You'll live. No booze for a week, no driving for a day, no sex for a month."

Lisa said, "You'll kill him."

"Why no sex?"

"No reason," Owen said. "Just wanted to see if you'd believe me. You have your doctor's permission to go back to the site. Tell Jack I'll be along after the afternoon session."

Lisa rolled her eyes, leading Ianto out towards sunlight and coffee. "He really has to learn how to behave in public. Can't you do anything with him?"

"Never could," said Ianto. Bemused, he let Lisa shove a styrofoam cup of not-great coffee into his hand before she put him in a cab with a kiss on the forehead and a reminder he needed to come back to check out because she wasn't taking his things home with her again after the last time.

The warehouse was a ruin. Police tape covered everything, but Jack was clearly in charge of the scene. Beside him, Gwen pored over some scanner while Martha and Tosh discussed something.

Jack saw him and a smile lit his face. "You should be convalescing."

"Owen says I'm fine. Which is pretty interesting as Owen was dead when I left. Jack?"

"What?"

"What changed?" Ianto knew before he asked that Jack would say what he always did, that the twenty-first century was where it all happened, and he'd use the maddening 'everything changes' because God forbid Captain Jack Harkness give a straight answer.

Jack looked around them both. Then he shrugged. "A lot?"

***

Not all of the warehouse had been demolished by the blast. "It's an old Torchwood London holding," Jack explained. "It can take a lot of damage." He led Ianto, with hard hat, through the remnant of the building.

Ianto tapped his torch on. Fallen racks of jars greeted his eyes, and souvenirs from what had to be dozens if not hundreds of alien encounters. Only, these weren't quite right. No floating heads, or stuffed specimens. The wall of badly-filed pamphlets he passed included, along with "Gerald's New Genitals," titles such as, "Our Friends, the Atraxi," and "Learn Basic Enterian in Three Days."

Jack said quietly, "If it's alien, it's interesting."

"Well, yes."

"No." Jack pointed to a small plaque on a shelf, with 'If it's alien, it's interesting' engraved in bronze. "It's the motto."

"Well. Obviously. I knew that."

"No, you didn't," Jack said, gently. "There are going to be a lot of things you don't know, but I'll help you through."

"You changed all of it," Ianto said, wondering at this friendly new Torchwood London. Had Glasgow and Cardiff gone soft as well, or had they gone their separate ways?

"No. Just a few things here and there. You left a mess. I helped put the pieces back in place." He found a corridor half blocked with a fallen and twisted shelf. They budged it together, hefting the thing out of the way. "With a little help."

He dug into his pocket for two very old pieces of paper that once were pamphlets: one about alien invasions, one about the history of this branch of Torchwood.

"You stole those."

"Borrowed. See, I'm giving them back now." He handed both to Ianto.

"You shouldn't have read them."

"Time Agent, remember? I only took what I needed to know, and they didn't say much." He frowned. "They said nothing about Emily and Alice, for one example. Anyway, I thought you might like to see something. I checked last night to see if this part of the warehouse had survived."

Ianto followed him, curious, as they went into an old storage room with paintings on the walls. He lurched back, not wanting to see the painting of Poopin standing on Strax. Jack shone his own torch. There was a photograph, sepia-tone and old, blown up to portrait size. Three figures stared at the camera.

Of course Strax had tried to look stern. Even Jenny's face was serious. But Madame Vastra smiled across the years, finally pleased with him after all this time. The plaque at the bottom of the photograph read:

"Torchwood London, Est. 1895. The Founders."

***
The End
***

Previous reel_torchwood fics:
Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory
The Extraterrestrial
The Day the Dragons Came (by Mica Davies, Age 7)
Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You