fic: SJA / TW crossover, "The Other" (4/5)
Part 3
Part 4
Rosalie's was the same as always, shabby and cosy and cluttered, with half the tables taken up by women in twos and threes with shopping bags piled around their ankles. The cafe's only waitress, the grey-haired and slightly quivery Emma, was filling teapots at the counter, working at her usual unhurried pace.
There were, as usual, no men to be seen, and not many children – not many young women either, for that matter. Rosalie's was a bit too old-fashioned for the cool twenty-somethings of West London. They'd only got round to installing a coffee machine in the last year, and Emma still handled it as if she was waiting for it to jump up and bite her. But the tea was good and the cakes and sandwiches were always fresh, and nobody made a fuss if Sarah Jane wanted to sit in the corner for a couple of hours with a slice of apricot tart and a notebook, marshalling her thoughts with no interruptions.
Breakfast that morning hadn't been the trial she'd been dreading all night, after all. She'd kept it simple, just stating calmly that she'd spoken to Harkness and that they were meeting later that morning. Ian had nodded his thanks, looking thoughtful and saying nothing. Luke had only sighed, not glancing up from his bowl of Sugar Puffs. Too quiet, really. She should have guessed: when the phone call came and she'd dashed out of the house, Luke had been standing by the car.
"Luke, please – not now! I need to get to Rosalie's as quickly as I can."
Luke had shaken his head. "I'm not trying to stop you. I think I should come with you, though. In case this Captain Harkness tries – in case you need help, you know."
His urge to protect her made Sarah Jane's heart swell. "Oh, bless you! But there's nothing to worry about, I promise. Harkness may be a bit strange, but he won't do anything to harm me. Besides, I need you to stay here and help Ian, if he's still determined to mend my gazebo today. You can show him where everything is – and make sure he doesn't try to overdo it and fall off the stepladder!"
The cafe door opened and she glanced up, but it was just one frowning woman laden with Marks & Spencer bags, making a beeline for the big centre table. Sarah Jane checked her watch again. She'd only been there ten minutes - it had felt important to get here before Harkness, to be settled and calmly waiting when he arrived. But now she was fretting: what if he'd changed his mind? What if he'd found something at the factory, or had somehow guessed she knew something about Ian?
What if Harkness himself didn't know anything about Ian, though? Not that this seemed likely - why else would Torchwood's infamously self-important Captain have come on a three-hour drive all the way to London, if he wasn't involved in some way in that fire, and Ian being shot and abandoned in the Bubble Shock factory in the first place?
The cafe doorbell tinkled again. Ah, no mistaking this new arrival! Even if she hadn't seen the UNIT file photos of the infamous Captain Jack, it would have been impossible to miss the ripple of excitement running around Rosalie's, as the tall figure looked around the cafe, grinning and waving as he spotted her.
It wasn't just that, in person, Harkness really was devastatingly handsome, the broad shoulders and vivid blue eyes and artfully messy dark hair, that Hollywood-wattage smile. And it wasn't the eccentric clothes, the old-fashioned military greatcoat and braces that should have looked ridiculous, but on him were strangely dashing.
The man had presence. Sarah Jane watched, reluctantly impressed, as he sauntered towards her, weaving between the cluttered tables, flashing his bright grin at the suddenly flustered ladies to left and right who were rushing to pull shopping-laden chairs out of his way. In the background, Emma the waitress was staring wistfully after him as she smoothed her pinafore out in a most atypically flirtatious manner.
"Sarah Jane Smith!" He loomed over her, hand outstretched. "Wondered if I'd recognise you – not a problem but I'm telling you, UNIT needs to get better pictures for your personnel records, because – " he had the nerve to lean back, still holding her hand, and sweep his eyes from her face to her boots and all the way back up. Slowly. "- can I just say, Wow! If I'd known what I was missing, I'd have tried twice as hard to recruit you last time."
The shameless, handsome bastard. His hand enveloping hers was warm and strong. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss it, but instead he shook it again, oddly formal, before letting go. Stupidly, Sarah Jane felt a twinge of disappointment.
Emma was at their table before Harkness had even managed to pull his chair out. "What can I get you, Sir?"
"Black coffee and – hey, is that walnut cake?" Harkness reached over without a pause, breaking a corner off Sarah Jane's slice and popping it into his mouth. "Ohh yes! Definitely having some of that. Did you bake it yourself?" Emma shook her head wordlessly, giggling. "Pity – you look like a woman who really knows how to whip her buttercream into shape!"
Emma looked like a woman old enough to be his grandmother. Was Harkness flirting with her, too? Sarah Jane took a deep breath as the pink-cheeked waitress hurried off, beaming. "So, Captain, did – "
"- Jack, remember! Unless you want me to call you Miss Smith, and where's the fun in that?"
"So, Jack - did you find what you were looking for at the Bubble Shock factory?"
"No..." Suddenly, he wasn't smiling. "I guess it was kind of a long shot. There's nothing there, just a few cleared-out warehouses, some trashed processing equipment and a giant fuzz of baryon-9 radiation clinging to everything."
"What were you looking for?"
He gave a dry laugh. "You want to know the funny thing? Truth is, I have no idea!"
"Really? That must make it rather hard to find."
"Tell me about it!" – and then Emma was back in what had to be a world record time for her, carrying a full tray. Harkness took a long gulp of his coffee and beamed, making Emma giggle. "Everything in the world goes better with coffee, right?" When she was safely out of earshot, he leaned towards Sarah Jane. "Though possibly not this coffee! Do you think she got confused and poured me a cup of gravy instead?"
Sarah Jane smiled. "They only installed that fancy espresso machine a few months ago. I think Emma is still trying to get to grips with it."
"Yeah, I know how that feels!" Harkness sighed sympathetically. He drank again, grimacing. "Unpredictable machines... This thing I'm looking for, all I do know is that it'll be tech of some kind – alien tech. Chula, Olembride, could even be Bane for all I know. Something that runs on baryon compression – a marker buoy, scanner, homing beacon, that kind of thing."
"Don't you have any idea at all? I mean, how big will this machine be? Is it dangerous?"
"No idea," Harkness shrugged apologetically, spreading his hands. "Big as a car, size of your fist. Probably not dangerous, unless someone tries to interfere with it. We didn't even – " He broke off, gulping at the coffee again but so lost in thought this time, he didn't flinch. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "You know how it is with bananas? You have a bunch of bananas, it sits there by itself, no harm to anyone. Stick it in the fruit-bowl along with all the other fruit, and before you can blink, every apple's gone rotten and the peaches have ripened into mush, and someone's standing in the kitchen moaning that everyone knows bananas give off ethylene, when all you were trying to do was tidy the place up for once!"
It was almost like being back with the Doctor again: sitting in this quiet little cafe in Ealing, surrounded by people whose idea of a exotic adventure was watching Michael Palin riding alpacas over the Andes, with a larger-than-life man across the table, waving his hands and chatting casually about aliens and galactic technology, as if they were discussing a new toaster or the latest mobile phone.
Harkness straightened up. "Well, whatever it is, it's still out there, which means I have to keep looking. Which means we need to get down to business! Okay, so let's talk about you - all those rebuffs, and finally I get you chasing after me! I have to tell you, I was starting to get worried I was losing my touch... So what is it that I can help you with but the almighty UNIT can't?"
"You're not a fan of UNIT?"
He shrugged. "They have some good people there now. The uniforms are kind of cute. And I know you worked for them a while back, or you had some kind of liaison assignment with them, so I won't run your pals down. Let's just say UNIT and I don't always share the same view of who our friends and our enemies are, hmm?"
Of course. Harkness had clearly roamed around in who knew how many supposedly restricted UNIT files – he had to know about the Doctor's time with them! No wonder the head of Torchwood was bristling about UNIT. Did he perhaps even know that she and the Doctor had worked together – travelled together?
It was an unnerving thought. Sarah Jane sipped her cold tea, collecting herself.
"Well, I suppose UNIT does have a long history, just like yours – I mean Torchwood's, of course. There were bound to have been times when you didn't see things from the same perspective."
"You think so? Look around you. This is one lonely little planet, and the human race all still taking baby steps into the future. And it's a big bad universe out there, full of aliens who get that certain look in their eye whenever they notice us down here, like lambs in the meadow. You'd think UNIT might be more willing to put aside some of their precious military mindset when it's a question of a fellow human's well-being!"
"Maybe they'd be more willing to co-operate, if Torchwood wasn't so fond of ignoring everyone else's interests when they don't suit you!"
He raised his eyebrows. "Touchy. And yet, it's me you want to talk to now. Something UNIT's rule-book doesn't cover, I guess?"
"You're right, I'm sorry." Only sorry that he'd got under her skin, but a little fake contrition in front of Harkness wouldn't do any harm. Sarah Jane glanced away, feigning embarrassment. "And yes, UNIT can't help me with this. Jack, I need to ask you about – Retcon."
He laughed, but looked puzzled as he did. "Retcon, really? That's disappointing – from the way you were dancing around it, I was sure you were about to ask me out on a date! You know, last time I tried to lure you into my team, one of the things you told me was that you didn't want to work with the kind of organisation that would wipe people's minds to protect its secrecy. Right?"
"You're quite right. And I still – use of Retcon isn't a concept I feel at all happy about. It's just that, well, circumstances have changed, for me. I have Luke now – I need to protect him, and his friends. And, the thing is... I do tend to find myself in certain – situations, you might say."
"Like fighting a Bane invasion single-handed?" He gave her a little bow. "Still think you did a hell of a job there!"
"Yes, exactly like that! The Bane, and – well, it's like you said. You and I both know that this planet attracts a lot of, shall we say, visitors? Some of them are perfectly friendly, and some of them, less so."
"And some of them just happen to find their way straight to Number 13 Bannerman Road." He leaned back, smiling lazily. "Been wondering about that. Artificial weather patterns a few months ago, temporal hiccups rippling all the way over the Severn... What exactly are you hiding in your basement, Sarah Jane? Don't tell me there's a new Rift under Acton!"
He was joking with her, she hoped. Certainly he looked relaxed, the big smile easy and warm, hands clasped loosely in his lap. But the grin didn't quite reach his blue eyes, calculating and old as he studied her.
"I know!" she said, smiling back. "I don't think there's a Rift around here, though the number of times Luke loses his Oyster card, I'm starting to wonder. I mean, some of it is just my job. An investigative reporter does tend to, you know, investigate strange incidents. But maybe I picked something up while I was working for UNIT? Like your baryon radiation, perhaps. They told me that stuff lasts for years. Perhaps I'm some kind of alien magnet!"
"Yeah, maybe you are. If I was an alien, I'd certainly come calling!" The words were playful but the look he gave her was a long hard stare, and Sarah Jane knew he knew more than he was saying. There was a magnet, and it had nothing to do with her own penchant for investigating the paranormal. That residue of artron energy, from her time in the TARDIS, drew alien travellers to her as often as she sought them out.
But UNIT didn't have equipment that could scan for artron emissions. Did Torchwood? She took a breath, ploughing on. "So – your Retcon. I really do need to start thinking about taking a few precautions, maybe. I wanted to find out more about it."
"Such as?"
"Well – is it safe?"
Harkness shrugged. "Depends what you mean by safe. It's not toxic, we have no recorded incidence of allergic reactions. Short-term side-effects include headaches, dry mouth, sometimes mild nausea – pretty much like your average hangover after a good Friday night out on the town. Oh, and amnesia, of course. Long-term side-effects: amnesia. That's all."
"Do you use it a lot?"
"Depends what you mean by that. Not so much this last month, I guess – the Rift's been quiet since..."
He fell silent. "Since the bombings?" she said gently, and Harkness nodded.
"Since the bombings, yeah. I think the whole city's still in shock, or maybe that's just us, projecting. Sometimes it feels like the Rift is in shock too. We've had nothing happening recently, just a few bits of space junk washed up in the Bay. Quiet days, for a change. Plenty of time to tidy up the Archives."
He was looking at his half-drunk coffee, no longer smiling. After all the things she'd read and heard about Jack Harkness, seeing him like this was disconcerting. The flamboyant Captain Jack was supposed to care only for himself. Mourning for others? Maybe she'd missed things about Jack Harkness that the files and the saucy gossip didn't cover.
"No need for Retcon recently, then?" she asked, her voice casual.
Harkness shook his head thoughtfully. "Last time must have been four, five weeks ago now - before the attack. We didn't use Retcon at all in the clean-up - it would have meant dosing half the city. Though everyone swallowed the terrorist line anyway. Made it a little easier for us, I guess. People can't deal with the idea of aliens in their city, but humans killing other humans, that's just your everyday nightmare. They're used to coping with that."
But that couldn't be right. Whatever had happened to Ian couldn't have been much more than a week ago. The bullet wound on his arm had barely started to heal when she'd cleaned it up. So far, at least, she'd assumed Harkness had been telling her the truth. Suddenly, Sarah Jane was unsure again. Maybe even the look of loss in his eyes was just an act.
"I must admit, I'm surprised you didn't dose them anyway, if Retcon's so completely harmless."
He stared hard at her. "I don't care what crap UNIT's been telling you - we don't use it unless we have to. Listen, Retcon is simply a drug that does what it needs to, same as anything in your bathroom cabinet. You have a headache, you take a painkiller. You have nightmares because you saw a Weevil mauling some guy in an alleyway in Butetown, I give you Retcon and the nightmares go away."
"So you get to choose – what people can cope with and what they can't?"
"Yes I do, because I know what I'm dealing with, all the monsters and all the threats. I take responsibility for protecting people - like you right now, thinking about how best to protect the people around you. Which might mean using Retcon on your neighbours, maybe even your son and his schoolfriends, right?"
"Thinking about it, yes! But I'm a long way off making my mind up. I'd love to be as certain as you that everything I do is inherently right, but I know I'm not that perfect, Jack, even if you are. And I'm talking about children here – Do you even use Retcon on children?"
"Yep." He smiled mirthlessly. "Though sometimes I have to guess the dose. Kids these days, the way they act, you can't tell how old they are just by looking, have you noticed that?"
"You guess the dose? Is that a joke?" He stared at her, unmoving. "But what happens when you get it wrong?"
"I don't get it wrong."
"Who decides that? I mean, what about if you're, oh, trying to get someone to forget last night and you get a little carried away – do they forget the whole of yesterday? A week? A month? Their own identity? What's the limit?"
"The limit is what I decide. Retcon is a tool, a weapon in the war, and I'm prepared to use it any way I have to. Are you?"
"I – I don't know. But I don't think of my life as a daily battle. Maybe you need weapons because you always go looking for a fight?"
There wasn't a flicker of doubt about Harkness. He laughed harshly, leaning back in his chair. "And maybe you're hiding from what you know it's like out there. Let me tell you about this time a few months ago. We ran into a little gang of petty criminals – nothing to do with Torchwood, except it turned out they'd had the luck to find a creature that had come through the Rift. Now that alien was helpless, sentient, harmless, completely innocent - but for them it was just a thing they could abuse for profit. When we finally discovered what they were up to, they'd had it chained up and tortured for months, in agony you can't imagine. Too badly injured for us to save. What would you have done with those guys, Sarah Jane Smith?"
"Handed them over to the police," she replied promptly, even though she knew it was the answer he was hoping for.
"No point. We'd disposed of the corpse, and no alien meant no evidence. Not that I think the Merthyr constabulary are quite ready to figure out which charges to bring for kidnap and torture of a non-human lifeform."
"Well... UNIT, then."
"Five years ago, UNIT was still operating a policy of life internment without trial for the worst breaches of national security. Did you know that? It's supposed to have stopped now, of course, but sometimes I'm just not sure what UNIT gets up to, even with the few people I can rely on there. Alien contact, hostile engagement, threats to the state – three small-time wasters from the valleys? Those men would have been buried alive in the Category One bunker under Salisbury Plain. Is that your idea of justice?"
Sarah Jane shook her head. "No it isn't. But I have a feeling I'm not going to like yours any more than that."
"I Retconned them all, a massive dose. I wiped years out of their memories, at least five, maybe as much as ten - anything longer than six months isn't that much of an exact science with chemical amnesia. Yeah, I can see what you think - but I did those bastards a favour! No custodial sentence, no pain, no trauma. Hell, maybe this time around they won't grow up to be the kind of people who think mutilating a living creature to line their own pockets is a neat idea."
"Torchwood – my God, you never change!" She shook her head, appalled at herself as much as at the casually ruthless Harkness. How could she have ever been so stupid as to think anyone from Torchwood could be anything but a threat and a liability?
"We do what it takes, and I don't think you're ready for that yet." Harkness sounded amused. He reached for her forgotten cake, pulling off another piece. "I take it you won't be asking me for your own supply of Retcon, then?"
"No – no thank you. I'm clearly not ready to start following your lead, Captain." More than that, there was no way on Earth now that she'd even consider putting Ian into the hands of this man. Whatever had happened to him, they'd have to find another way to go forward, and a way that protected him from any more exposure to Torchwood and its brutal vigilante justice.
No wonder they thought of the Doctor as their Number One enemy! She couldn't imagine anyone less like her Doctor than the cold-hearted, arrogant man across the table, chewing her cake as he watched her, eyebrows quirked. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time today."
"No problem," Harkness grinned wolfishly at her. "It was good to put a real face to that seductive voice of yours at last. Make sure you get UNIT to update your personnel photo before the next time I try to recruit you!"
"Oh, I think we both know that would be a waste of even more of Torchwood's valuable time." She stood up, matching Harkness's wide, insincere smile as she held out her hand. "It was – very interesting meeting you, Captain. And I hope you find what you're looking for. Preferably without having to Retcon your way through too many people in the process."
"Until the next time, Sarah Jane!" He stood too, shaking her hand just as warmly as before. As she left, she glanced back: Harkness was sitting down again, legs stretched out, studying Rosalie's snack menu. So much for having no time to spare! She was starting to wonder if the man had said a single honest thing to her from the moment they'd met.
***
On the short drive back home, Sarah Jane seethed as the weight of her disappointment hit home. In spite of the things she'd heard and read about Torchwood, she'd never actually met anyone who worked for them. And Jack Harkness might be infamous throughout UNIT, but the scandalised asides and whispers had, more often than not, been tinged with envy and even a little respect at times.
It had been obvious - from the old files, and now the casually scattered references in his conversation - that, like her, the Captain had travelled a long way beyond this planet. She'd imagined meeting someone she could really talk to, someone she could make a connection with. After all, some sections of UNIT weren't the Doctor's biggest fans, either – not back when she'd first met him, and certainly not this latest incarnation, who'd managed to rub more than a few generals the wrong way when he'd breezed in and repelled the Sontaran invasion earlier that year.
She'd thought that meeting Harkness in person would be different. Maybe even that he'd be like the Doctor in some way – eccentric but compassionate, big-headed but good-hearted. Not the charming and utterly ruthless, utterly indifferent bastard sitting back in Rosalie's cafe, stealing the cake off her plate and smiling at her the whole time with that big, calculating, false grin.
Perhaps the most frustrating part was that she really had believed he would be able to help. Ian's desperation to find out who he was - to make sure he wasn't a threat to any of them - was painfully sincere. Enough to have let Sarah Jane think it was worth at least arranging to meet Harkness, and maybe to take the gamble of telling him about Ian.
Well, that had turned out to be naive of her, at best! Ridiculous, really. She shook her head at herself with a sigh. Harkness had agreed to meet her... Who could say why? Probably because he was bored, at best – more likely he'd enjoyed the idea of trying to rattle or shock her, with his lurid tales of Retconning helpless people back to adolescence. Perhaps it was his twisted idea of punishment for daring to turn down his recruitment offer two years ago? "Very courageous, Captain!" she said aloud, and the sound of her own voice, all wounded dignity and slighted pride, made her laugh as she turned into Bannerman Road.
By the time she'd parked the car, her bad temper had lifted. Well, so she couldn't look to Torchwood for help. Luke, bless him, had been right all along. Whatever Ian was afraid of about himself, he couldn't possibly be put into the hands of someone like Harkness. She'd have to find another way to help him...
Harry! Oh of course, why hadn't she thought of him before? She could call him that afternoon, see what he could come up with. Harry Sullivan might not swagger around in period military clothes like a man who seemed to think he was the star of a Hollywood war drama, but she knew which of the two men was the real hero.
She found Maria and Clyde in the living room, sorting diligently through a fresh pile of newspapers. "Still no sign of any missing millionaires!" Clyde said cheerfully as she peered in.
"No, but I'm sure the Ealing Herald will be grateful for the extra boost in circulation this week. Where's Luke?"
"In the garden with Ian," Maria said. "They're mending your gazebo. We did offer to help – but I think Luke still wants to keep Ian all to himself!" She grinned, patting Clyde's knee. "Clyde is taking his rejection like a man."
"Yeah, right – because poncing round the garden like Alan Titchmarsh was always top of my career wishlist!"
"At least Ian wasn't the one screaming and running away when one little spider in the shed landed on him!"
"Hang on, did you see the size of that thing? That wasn't a normal spider – not one from this planet, at any rate. Unless it's just come back from a nice holiday at Sellafield..."
She left them to it, suppressing a small shudder at the fleeting memory of Metebelis Three as she headed out through the kitchen. Clyde wasn't the only one who wasn't all that fond of monstrous great big spiders.
The garden was flooded in sunshine, brightening the young green leaves on all the shrubs and trees. At the far end, Ian was standing barefoot on top of her rickety stepladder, bracing the broken corner of her beloved gazebo. Below him, Luke was gazing up as he steadied the ladder.
Only three days ago, Ian had been a dishevelled wreck of a man hidden in a dirty cupboard, shaking with fear and fever. Out here silhouetted against the sunny sky, he was balanced effortlessly, the solid muscles of his shoulders and back flexing as he shifted his grip on the corner joint, dropping a tube of glue down to Luke. Even in jeans and t-shirt, there was something self-contained about him now, a physical confidence she hadn't seen before.
Luke seemed mesmerised: was he getting a bit of a crush on his new friend? The thought made Sarah Jane smile as she walked across to join them.
Ian noticed her before Luke, and smiled. Too late, she realised he'd mistaken her own grin for good news. She shook her head quickly, mouthing sorry as she spread her hands wide, and the pleased look on Ian's face vanished in a blink, replaced by a bland mask. He gave her the tiniest of nods before focusing his attention back on the gazebo, but his shoulders had sagged.
From ground level, Luke had completely missed the momentary exchange. His own expression as she joined them was undisguised worry. "Did you find anything out? Did he know?"
"Nothing, no. Sorry." The sorry was for Ian's benefit: Luke looked as if he'd been given an unexpected present. He rarely tried to hide his feelings, which was good in a way since he was generally hopeless at it. "Look, Captain Harkness was a waste of time but I've had another idea – someone I think we really can trust to help us figure this out. He's an old friend, sort of a super-diplomat now, has contacts in all sorts of organisations – and I absolutely know we can trust him. So why don't you both come in? We can have some tea and I'll tell you all about him."
"Sounds like a good idea," Ian said. He didn't look down. "You go in, I'll join you in five minutes. I've just put the epoxy in, it needs to cure off a bit before I can let go."
"I'd better stay, then," Luke said, "to keep the ladder steady."
Ian shook his head. "It's okay Luke, thank you. I'm not going to move at all. I'll be down in a few minutes."
Ian wanted to be alone, she understood that. It was clear that he'd built up his hopes that her meeting with Harkness would provide the answers he needed, every bit as much as Luke had been hoping it wouldn't. "Right! We'll get lunch ready," she said brightly, nudging Luke. "Come and give me a hand with that?"
Thankfully, he didn't argue. Back in the kitchen, Sarah Jane busied herself with peeling and slicing. Luke stood by the sink, staring out at the solitary figure at the end of the garden, posed almost sculpturally on the stepladder. "He really does need to find out, Luke," she said quietly, and Luke nodded.
"I know. I just didn't want it to be Torchwood that had the answers. I didn't like the sound of that man. What was he like in person?"
"Oh, every bit as arrogant as everything I'd ever heard about him, and then some!" She laughed at the thought of Harkness, sprawled in the corner of the cafe, ogling her and Emma and the cakes all at once, brimming with self-satisfaction. "I'll tell you all about it when Ian comes in – I expect Maria and Clyde will want to hear, too. Do you know, he actually thought we were meeting because I wanted to go and work for him?"
As she reached for the saucepan, Sarah Jane noticed Ian's shoes, lined up neatly next to the utility room door where she'd caught him yesterday. Now he wasn't fogged down with illness, she had a feeling he might simply decide it would be better to remove himself from the house sooner rather than later. Not that she wanted to trap him against his will, but even if he was physically better now, it would be absurd for him to head off into the unknown while he didn't even know his own name.
If the shoes were out of sight, then at least they wouldn't put any silly ideas into his head. She pointed. "Luke, could you do me a favour and pop those up in Ian's room for me? Just stuff them under the bed or something, so he doesn't trip over them."
"Good idea!" Luke hared off so quickly, she wondered if he'd had the same sneaky thought as her. She hoped not! He was far too young to start getting cynical yet. Even if his naiveté was something of a liability...
The doorbell rang. From the living room, Clyde yelled, "I'll get it!"
"Thank you!" The kettle boiled, and as the sound of the churning water died back, she could hear voices from the hallway. Then Maria was at the kitchen door, looking anxious.
"Sarah Jane, I think you'd better come out here!"
In the hall, Clyde was standing near the front door, fists clenched.
Facing him in the open doorway, one foot over the threshold, was Captain Jack Harkness.
Sarah Jane crossed quickly to join Clyde, resting a hand on his shoulder. Close behind her, Maria half-whispered, "Is that him?", and she nodded without looking away.
The same man, yet here inside her own home there was no trace of the casually smiling charmer of an hour ago. Harkness loomed in front of her, the dark greatcoat seeming to block the hallway completely. He stared, tight-jawed and coldly angry.
At her side, Clyde was bristling. "I didn't let him in, he just barged through the door! I told him he couldn't do that!"
She needed to stay calm, they all did. She nodded. "It's alright. Captain Harkness, this is - unexpected. What do you want?"
He ignored the question, nodding at Clyde instead. "This your son?"
"No, he's a friend, Clyde. And this is Maria. Now, you said you were a busy man. Was there something you forgot to ask me?"
"You could say that. Guess I should have asked you why you've been lying to me right from the start!"
"What?" The abrupt accusation took her completely by surprise. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"
Harkness reached into his overcoat pocket, pulling out a flattish black box that looked like an old-fashioned mobile phone. Blue lights flickered along the top. "Any idea what this is?"
"One of those online lie detectors?" Clyde scoffed. "They don't really work, you know. You've been ripped off, mate."
"Not with this one." The smile Harkness flashed briefly at Clyde was ice-cold. "It's a scanner, calibrated to detect a range of non-Earth-sourced background radiation, like Kappa-Teha or artron, say. Today, I set it to detect baryon-9..." He pointed the box at Sarah Jane: the array of blue lights danced wildly as the box emitted a torrent of tell-tale beeps. "So, want to tell me again how you haven't been to the Bubble Shock site?"
Damn. Sarah Jane stared at the blinking lights. Was he telling the truth? Maybe the scanner was picking up the artron residue from her time in the TARDIS! Not that she wanted to suggest that to Harkness either. Something else, another excuse...
"Wait a minute – you were there yourself this morning, just before we met. You shook my hand in the cafe. That thing's probably just picking up traces from the site that you transferred to me!"
"Nice try. Unfortunately for you, I've been using another handy bit of Torchwood tech this last week – looks like a loofah, scrubs off radiation. It would be kind of stupid to start cross-contaminating places I was checking out, after all. I cleaned myself up before I came to meet you. Which is why I couldn't understand why this thing lit up like Christmas when I picked it up after our little coffee-chat. Just on my right hand, where I'd touched you. And on your chair, and your cup and your plate. And since you were so certain you hadn't been anywhere near that factory site –"
"Well, not recently!" Sarah Jane managed a little laugh, to underscore to Harkness how absurd this all was. She hoped he couldn't see how hard she was gripping Clyde's shoulder. "Sorry, I didn't realise how paranoid you were. Obviously, I've been there once – a year ago, when the Bane were there. Baryon radiation can be quite persistent, for those of us who don't have Torchwood's super decontamination technology to clean us up."
"Oh, it's persistent – eighteen months half-life, at least." Harkness smiled agreeably at her, then the smile vanished. "Which doesn't explain this –"
He swung the scanner towards Clyde. This time, the stuttering lights and warning beeps were even more frantic than before.
"Or this – " At Maria this time, who crossed her arms defiantly as the scanner lit up. Harkness glanced past her, to where Luke was standing silently on the bottom stair, glaring at him. "And I'm guessing your son – this is your son, right? – will make it a full house of liars."
"No-one's lying to you!" Maria said angrily. "We went there yesterday – me, Clyde and Luke. We'd heard about the fire – we just wanted to see what it looked like. Sunday afternoon, we were bored, you know." She glanced at Sarah Jane, pretending to look contrite. "Um, I suppose we should have told you, only Luke thought you'd be worried it was dangerous, sorry!"
"You three kids went there?" Harkness asked quietly, and something about the low menace in his voice made Sarah Jane shiver. Whatever Maria had been hoping to do, she had a feeling it hadn't helped.
"Yeah, we went there," Clyde said. "Poked about, nothing to see, came back here. Big deal."
"Just yesterday?"
"Yesterday afternoon, like Maria told you!" Luke said indignantly. "And that's why we've all got your baryon radiation all over us. So now you know, you can go back to Torchwood!"
Luke... no! Sarah Jane could see the ripple of calculation as Harkness stared at her son. He moved closer, and it took all her strength not to flinch as he pointed the scanner at Luke, nodding as the beeping warning went into overdrive.
"Your mother tell you about Torchwood?" Luke nodded miserably. "What did she say?"
"That you're arrogant. You hurt innocent people, and you can't be trusted."
Harkness grinned. It wasn't reassuring. "Sounds about right. Though on the can't be trusted part, I'm starting to think you could teach me a few things. By the way, did you know that baryon radiation has no saturation limit on living tissue? Want to guess what that means, Luke? It means you're caked in it, layer after layer. So let me ask you again – When did you go to the Bubble Shock site? How many times have you been there? What did you do there?"
Luke crossed his arms, echoing Maria's defiance. "We already told you. We went there yesterday, we looked around, we came home. That's all!"
Harkness took another step closer, scowling.
"You're lying! Tell me what you did – you did something, I know it! You took something, activated it - disturbed something there. It has to be you – what the hell did you do? What did you take? Tell me!"
"That's enough!" Sarah Jane snapped. Yelling at her son like that – who did the man think he was? "We've told you what happened, and I don't care if you think we're all lying, you have no right to come into my..."
Her voice died. Where Harkness had been holding the scanner a moment before, now there was a black pistol in his fist.
"This is what I think." In the sudden silence of the hallway, his voice was quietly furious. "That I don't have time for your games. Start talking now!"
"What, or you'll shoot us all? An unarmed woman and three kids?" Clyde was trying to sound dismissive, but his voice was higher than normal.
Harkness didn't even look at him. "No need to shoot you all. But if one of you doesn't start talking right now, I will shoot her."
He cocked the gun and pointed it straight at Sarah Jane's face.
For a second, she closed her eyes, hearing Maria cry out and feeling Clyde jerk in shock. A moment later, Luke had barged past her, pushing himself between her and the gun.
"Luke, no!" She tugged desperately at his arm, but he was already half a head taller than her: in the next instant, Maria and Clyde were either side of him, shielding her, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.
"Leave her alone! She didn't do anything - it was me!" Luke was six inches from the end of the gun, face to face with Harkness. She could feel him shaking. "I went and I found him there last week, and he's safe now. But he's no threat to you! Whatever you did to him, he doesn't remember any of it. Your drug wiped out all his memories, so you can just go! Go back to Torchwood and leave us all in peace!"
The effect on Harkness was extraordinary. Before her eyes, Sarah Jane saw the anger drain from his face, replaced by open-mouthed shock. The hand holding the gun fell loosely to his side as he stared at Luke.
She waited, fists clenched. The only sound in the hallway was the wall-clock's noisy ticking.
Then Harkness sucked in a long, shuddering breath and whispered, "He's here?"
Luke closed his mouth and glared, refusing to give anything else away. But Harkness wasn't threatening them anymore. He looked past Luke, seeking out Sarah Jane, and the aching pain in his eyes was something she recognised, could not ignore.
"Yes, he's here," she said.
"Mum, no!" Luke exclaimed, horrified.
She squeezed his shoulder with a little laugh as the tension ebbed out of her. "It's OK – oh, Luke, I have been such an idiot! Look at him. Can't you see?"
Luke shook his head, frowning. Maria and Clyde were still flanking him, facing the enemy. She smiled, trying to reassure everyone. "Captain – Jack – do you have a photograph of him, perhaps? In case we're still... at cross purposes."
"Yeah, yeah, of course, wait a minute – " He shook his head, as if dazed, patting the pockets of his greatcoat. "On my mobile -" He dug out a phone and tapped away: something brought a twitch to his lips, quickly smothered. "Maybe not that one! OK, here you go..."
He held out the phone. The image on the screen was unmistakeably Ian, peacefully sleeping, his hair fanned in ridiculous spikes against the pillow.
"World's worst bedhead," Harkness said fondly. "Well, that's what he thinks. Actually, I wait until he's asleep then mess it up deliberately."
Maria stifled a giggle as she looked at the photo. "Why do you do that?"
"Because he won't let me do it when he's awake, of course." Harkness smiled at the image again for a moment before putting the phone away. "Look, I'm sorry – the gun, yelling at you. I just need to know he's OK, please! Is he OK?"
"He'd been shot when I found him," Luke said coldly, and Harkness flinched.
"Yeah, his arm – was it bad?"
"It's fine now, it's -" Sarah Jane began, but Clyde cut across her.
"How did you know about that?"
"Because I shot him." Luke stiffened and Clyde muttered, "I knew it!", but Harkness carried on talking as if they weren't there. "He was in the Archives, something got activated... By the time we found him, it had these – metal tendrils all over him, reeling him in. He told us to keep back out of reach, shoot it off, and I tried." He grimaced. "Bullet bounced straight off. Clipped his arm and he yelled and that was it, the whole thing just vanished, with him. It took him."
He had all their attention now, not that he seemed to have noticed. As he talked, he'd pulled the pistol back out of his pocket almost absent-mindedly. Sarah Jane tensed, but he gave her a quick smile as he emptied the bullets from the chamber. He dropped them back into his pocket and handed the unloaded gun to her with a brief nod of acknowledgement.
"You keep this for now. I shouldn't have threatened you, it's just when you lose... I've been searching – every hour, every day. Just me and Gwen, we didn't have anyone else, no real idea where to start. There was an empty storage box in the Chula section, and baryon radiation everywhere. No other clues, I didn't even know -" He broke off, frowning. "How long's he been here? Why didn't he call me?"
"Amnesia, I told you," Luke said. His shoulder under Sarah Jane's hand was still tense. "You Retconned him."
"God, no!" Harkness looked horrified. "Why would I do that to him?"
"Because you're Torchwood, and I told Luke that's what you do." Sarah Jane moved past Luke. "Ian dreamed about your logo, and I put it together with his amnesia, and the bullet-wound, and made - a stupid, stupid mistake. I'm sorry, I didn't realise, just didn't think."
"Didn't think what?" Clyde asked.
"Didn't think someone as nice as Ian could be Torchwood too," Maria said slowly. Luke stared at her, shocked. She glanced at Sarah Jane, then back at Harkness. "That's right, isn't it? Ian is yours - he works for Torchwood, for you?"
He nodded, with a puzzled smile. "Yeah, he's mine. You called him Ian?"
"He looks a bit like my uncle Ian, and he needed a name. He couldn't remember his own."
"I'm sure he liked that one. Does he remember me?"
Sarah Jane held out her hand. "We don't know. But why don't you come with us and find out?"
She took Luke's hand as she led the way through to the kitchen, for reassurance, not because he needed leading: there was no way he was going to let Harkness out of his sight.
Luke, and maybe Clyde, still had their doubts. But Sarah Jane knew Maria was right, and knew how wrong she herself had been, when she watched Jack Harkness staring through the kitchen window at the figure at the end of the garden, still balanced perfectly on her stepladder.
After a long silence, Harkness let out a shuddering sigh and relaxed visibly, though his hands were still gripping the edge of the sink, white-fingered. Sarah Jane reached over, resting her own hand lightly on his.
"Why didn't you tell me? In the cafe, you said you were looking for a thing, an artefact. Why didn't you say you were looking for him?"
He made a good stab at a casual shrug and grin, but his eyes were glittering. "Hay, back atcha. All that talk about Retcon, why not just tell me you'd found a guy who couldn't remember anything but Torchwood?"
It was her turn to smile, embarrassed. "That's fair enough. It's your reputation, you and Torchwood. You're not exactly known as user-friendly. Fear of the unknown, yes? It's so easy to let that steer you, especially when you're trying to protect someone else."
"Exactly!" He clutched at her hand. "You know what that's like. I couldn't take a chance on trusting anyone. I was feeling my way in the dark, couldn't risk doing anything wrong. I had to find him – couldn't lose him, not so soon after Tosh and Owen... not him, not him!"
She did know. That police car driving Luke away as the Slitheen's last trick pulled her world apart. Months ago now, but the memory of her frantic despair was still sharp and terrifying. Would she have done what Jack Harkness had done? Stormed into a stranger's house, threatened their children with a gun...?
She couldn't be certain that she would never do such a thing, to protect them: Maria or Clyde, or Luke... Who surprised her again: when she looked round, he was standing by the back door. He opened it, gave Sarah Jane a resigned smile, then nodded at Harkness.
"He's this way. Follow me."
No-one spoke as they all headed out into the garden and across the lawn, but something must have alerted Ian. As they drew near to the gazebo he turned, and Sarah Jane caught the exact moment when he spotted the tall figure of Jack Harkness in his distinctive coat.
They were a couple of yards away. Sarah Jane paused, signalling the others to stay with her as Harkness moved slowly towards the stepladder. Ian climbed half-way down then jumped off, landing lightly on the grass. His eyes hadn't left Harkness, but there was no fear at all in his face. He looked curious, puzzled.
Harkness stayed still, hands loose at his sides, as Ian came closer.
"Hey..." It was a hesitant whisper, no trace of his usual loud confidence.
Ian studied him, hands on hips. Eventually he said, "I know you."
"You remember me!"
A shake of the head. "No. But I dreamed about you."
"Hope it wasn't a nightmare!"
"Hmm," Ian said thoughtfully. "Not to begin with. We were watching... A film, maybe? We had beer. Then you kissed me."
Harkness gave a short bark of laughter. "I'll bet I did! Good kiss, or great kiss?"
Ian rolled his eyes with a sigh. At her side, Maria was grinning open-mouthed as she nudged Clyde.
"So we kissed, and...?" He tailed off: Ian was frowning. "What? You think you ought to censor the rest?"
"It's not that. You know how dreams are, it all jumps around. I'd lost something, I was searching in the dark, underground..." He shut his eyes and frowned, lower lip caught between his teeth. "Something grabbed me. Metal, metal fingers. I was yelling and you were there, you had a gun, you said... Stay still, don't move, I'll get it off you –"
His eyes flew open. "You said, stay right there, wait... Ianto, wait!"
Harkness nodded. There were tears on his cheeks, but he was smiling as Ian ran a hand through his hair.
"That's my – that's me. I'm Ianto."
"Yes. Ianto Jones, my Ianto." He reached out, brushing his fingers gently over the bandage on Ian's forearm, but Ian was still scowling in distress, fists tight. "What is it?"
"I can't – why can't I remember? Just fragments... Like you! I know you, I really know you, I know you matter but I can't remember you!"
"You will, it's OK, we'll figure it out, I promise. You trust me?" Ian nodded, and Harkness slid a hand around his waist, pulling him in close. "Then show me. Your dream. Show me how I kissed you."
No hesitation. Ian took Jack's face in his hands, leaned in, and kissed him on the mouth.
And kissed.
And kissed.
And Sarah Jane watched, mesmerised, one hand over her own mouth to hide her unthinking smile as she watched Jack wrap Ian - Ianto, she thought, Ianto - in the tightest of hugs, lifting him an inch or two off the ground, never breaking that passionate kiss.
She'd thought she had understood the man's desperation – to find a lost colleague, a friend even. Not quite. Jack Harkness had surprised her again.
Beside her, Maria breathed, "Oh, wow, that's brilliant!" and turned to grin at her, delighted.
"Well, this is all very lovey-dovey," Clyde announced cheerfully. If Harkness and Ianto heard him at all, they didn't react. "But I did happen to notice earlier that old Captain Torchwood came calling in a big shiny black SUV that looked like it escaped from a James Bond film. Flashing blue lights and secret-service glass - and it's parked right in your driveway, Luke. Want to see if he forgot to lock the door when he came storming in to rescue his boyfriend?"
For a moment Luke hesitated, watching the embrace. Then he smiled at Clyde.
"Yeah, let's check it out before he notices. Maybe we can even pick the lock?"
"Luke!"
"It's a joke, Mum!" He tutted at her and rolled his eyes, just like Ian had, before hurrying back into the house with Clyde.
"Come on, we should give them a bit of space too, I think!" she said, steering a reluctant Maria back towards the kitchen. Before closing the door, she stole a last look back. In the middle of her lawn the two men were clinging to each other, Jack's hand stroking Ianto's cheek tenderly, a thumb brushing his lip, before Ianto buried his face against Jack's neck. like the rest of the world had melted clean away.
***
Part 5
Part 4
Rosalie's was the same as always, shabby and cosy and cluttered, with half the tables taken up by women in twos and threes with shopping bags piled around their ankles. The cafe's only waitress, the grey-haired and slightly quivery Emma, was filling teapots at the counter, working at her usual unhurried pace.
There were, as usual, no men to be seen, and not many children – not many young women either, for that matter. Rosalie's was a bit too old-fashioned for the cool twenty-somethings of West London. They'd only got round to installing a coffee machine in the last year, and Emma still handled it as if she was waiting for it to jump up and bite her. But the tea was good and the cakes and sandwiches were always fresh, and nobody made a fuss if Sarah Jane wanted to sit in the corner for a couple of hours with a slice of apricot tart and a notebook, marshalling her thoughts with no interruptions.
Breakfast that morning hadn't been the trial she'd been dreading all night, after all. She'd kept it simple, just stating calmly that she'd spoken to Harkness and that they were meeting later that morning. Ian had nodded his thanks, looking thoughtful and saying nothing. Luke had only sighed, not glancing up from his bowl of Sugar Puffs. Too quiet, really. She should have guessed: when the phone call came and she'd dashed out of the house, Luke had been standing by the car.
"Luke, please – not now! I need to get to Rosalie's as quickly as I can."
Luke had shaken his head. "I'm not trying to stop you. I think I should come with you, though. In case this Captain Harkness tries – in case you need help, you know."
His urge to protect her made Sarah Jane's heart swell. "Oh, bless you! But there's nothing to worry about, I promise. Harkness may be a bit strange, but he won't do anything to harm me. Besides, I need you to stay here and help Ian, if he's still determined to mend my gazebo today. You can show him where everything is – and make sure he doesn't try to overdo it and fall off the stepladder!"
The cafe door opened and she glanced up, but it was just one frowning woman laden with Marks & Spencer bags, making a beeline for the big centre table. Sarah Jane checked her watch again. She'd only been there ten minutes - it had felt important to get here before Harkness, to be settled and calmly waiting when he arrived. But now she was fretting: what if he'd changed his mind? What if he'd found something at the factory, or had somehow guessed she knew something about Ian?
What if Harkness himself didn't know anything about Ian, though? Not that this seemed likely - why else would Torchwood's infamously self-important Captain have come on a three-hour drive all the way to London, if he wasn't involved in some way in that fire, and Ian being shot and abandoned in the Bubble Shock factory in the first place?
The cafe doorbell tinkled again. Ah, no mistaking this new arrival! Even if she hadn't seen the UNIT file photos of the infamous Captain Jack, it would have been impossible to miss the ripple of excitement running around Rosalie's, as the tall figure looked around the cafe, grinning and waving as he spotted her.
It wasn't just that, in person, Harkness really was devastatingly handsome, the broad shoulders and vivid blue eyes and artfully messy dark hair, that Hollywood-wattage smile. And it wasn't the eccentric clothes, the old-fashioned military greatcoat and braces that should have looked ridiculous, but on him were strangely dashing.
The man had presence. Sarah Jane watched, reluctantly impressed, as he sauntered towards her, weaving between the cluttered tables, flashing his bright grin at the suddenly flustered ladies to left and right who were rushing to pull shopping-laden chairs out of his way. In the background, Emma the waitress was staring wistfully after him as she smoothed her pinafore out in a most atypically flirtatious manner.
"Sarah Jane Smith!" He loomed over her, hand outstretched. "Wondered if I'd recognise you – not a problem but I'm telling you, UNIT needs to get better pictures for your personnel records, because – " he had the nerve to lean back, still holding her hand, and sweep his eyes from her face to her boots and all the way back up. Slowly. "- can I just say, Wow! If I'd known what I was missing, I'd have tried twice as hard to recruit you last time."
The shameless, handsome bastard. His hand enveloping hers was warm and strong. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss it, but instead he shook it again, oddly formal, before letting go. Stupidly, Sarah Jane felt a twinge of disappointment.
Emma was at their table before Harkness had even managed to pull his chair out. "What can I get you, Sir?"
"Black coffee and – hey, is that walnut cake?" Harkness reached over without a pause, breaking a corner off Sarah Jane's slice and popping it into his mouth. "Ohh yes! Definitely having some of that. Did you bake it yourself?" Emma shook her head wordlessly, giggling. "Pity – you look like a woman who really knows how to whip her buttercream into shape!"
Emma looked like a woman old enough to be his grandmother. Was Harkness flirting with her, too? Sarah Jane took a deep breath as the pink-cheeked waitress hurried off, beaming. "So, Captain, did – "
"- Jack, remember! Unless you want me to call you Miss Smith, and where's the fun in that?"
"So, Jack - did you find what you were looking for at the Bubble Shock factory?"
"No..." Suddenly, he wasn't smiling. "I guess it was kind of a long shot. There's nothing there, just a few cleared-out warehouses, some trashed processing equipment and a giant fuzz of baryon-9 radiation clinging to everything."
"What were you looking for?"
He gave a dry laugh. "You want to know the funny thing? Truth is, I have no idea!"
"Really? That must make it rather hard to find."
"Tell me about it!" – and then Emma was back in what had to be a world record time for her, carrying a full tray. Harkness took a long gulp of his coffee and beamed, making Emma giggle. "Everything in the world goes better with coffee, right?" When she was safely out of earshot, he leaned towards Sarah Jane. "Though possibly not this coffee! Do you think she got confused and poured me a cup of gravy instead?"
Sarah Jane smiled. "They only installed that fancy espresso machine a few months ago. I think Emma is still trying to get to grips with it."
"Yeah, I know how that feels!" Harkness sighed sympathetically. He drank again, grimacing. "Unpredictable machines... This thing I'm looking for, all I do know is that it'll be tech of some kind – alien tech. Chula, Olembride, could even be Bane for all I know. Something that runs on baryon compression – a marker buoy, scanner, homing beacon, that kind of thing."
"Don't you have any idea at all? I mean, how big will this machine be? Is it dangerous?"
"No idea," Harkness shrugged apologetically, spreading his hands. "Big as a car, size of your fist. Probably not dangerous, unless someone tries to interfere with it. We didn't even – " He broke off, gulping at the coffee again but so lost in thought this time, he didn't flinch. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "You know how it is with bananas? You have a bunch of bananas, it sits there by itself, no harm to anyone. Stick it in the fruit-bowl along with all the other fruit, and before you can blink, every apple's gone rotten and the peaches have ripened into mush, and someone's standing in the kitchen moaning that everyone knows bananas give off ethylene, when all you were trying to do was tidy the place up for once!"
It was almost like being back with the Doctor again: sitting in this quiet little cafe in Ealing, surrounded by people whose idea of a exotic adventure was watching Michael Palin riding alpacas over the Andes, with a larger-than-life man across the table, waving his hands and chatting casually about aliens and galactic technology, as if they were discussing a new toaster or the latest mobile phone.
Harkness straightened up. "Well, whatever it is, it's still out there, which means I have to keep looking. Which means we need to get down to business! Okay, so let's talk about you - all those rebuffs, and finally I get you chasing after me! I have to tell you, I was starting to get worried I was losing my touch... So what is it that I can help you with but the almighty UNIT can't?"
"You're not a fan of UNIT?"
He shrugged. "They have some good people there now. The uniforms are kind of cute. And I know you worked for them a while back, or you had some kind of liaison assignment with them, so I won't run your pals down. Let's just say UNIT and I don't always share the same view of who our friends and our enemies are, hmm?"
Of course. Harkness had clearly roamed around in who knew how many supposedly restricted UNIT files – he had to know about the Doctor's time with them! No wonder the head of Torchwood was bristling about UNIT. Did he perhaps even know that she and the Doctor had worked together – travelled together?
It was an unnerving thought. Sarah Jane sipped her cold tea, collecting herself.
"Well, I suppose UNIT does have a long history, just like yours – I mean Torchwood's, of course. There were bound to have been times when you didn't see things from the same perspective."
"You think so? Look around you. This is one lonely little planet, and the human race all still taking baby steps into the future. And it's a big bad universe out there, full of aliens who get that certain look in their eye whenever they notice us down here, like lambs in the meadow. You'd think UNIT might be more willing to put aside some of their precious military mindset when it's a question of a fellow human's well-being!"
"Maybe they'd be more willing to co-operate, if Torchwood wasn't so fond of ignoring everyone else's interests when they don't suit you!"
He raised his eyebrows. "Touchy. And yet, it's me you want to talk to now. Something UNIT's rule-book doesn't cover, I guess?"
"You're right, I'm sorry." Only sorry that he'd got under her skin, but a little fake contrition in front of Harkness wouldn't do any harm. Sarah Jane glanced away, feigning embarrassment. "And yes, UNIT can't help me with this. Jack, I need to ask you about – Retcon."
He laughed, but looked puzzled as he did. "Retcon, really? That's disappointing – from the way you were dancing around it, I was sure you were about to ask me out on a date! You know, last time I tried to lure you into my team, one of the things you told me was that you didn't want to work with the kind of organisation that would wipe people's minds to protect its secrecy. Right?"
"You're quite right. And I still – use of Retcon isn't a concept I feel at all happy about. It's just that, well, circumstances have changed, for me. I have Luke now – I need to protect him, and his friends. And, the thing is... I do tend to find myself in certain – situations, you might say."
"Like fighting a Bane invasion single-handed?" He gave her a little bow. "Still think you did a hell of a job there!"
"Yes, exactly like that! The Bane, and – well, it's like you said. You and I both know that this planet attracts a lot of, shall we say, visitors? Some of them are perfectly friendly, and some of them, less so."
"And some of them just happen to find their way straight to Number 13 Bannerman Road." He leaned back, smiling lazily. "Been wondering about that. Artificial weather patterns a few months ago, temporal hiccups rippling all the way over the Severn... What exactly are you hiding in your basement, Sarah Jane? Don't tell me there's a new Rift under Acton!"
He was joking with her, she hoped. Certainly he looked relaxed, the big smile easy and warm, hands clasped loosely in his lap. But the grin didn't quite reach his blue eyes, calculating and old as he studied her.
"I know!" she said, smiling back. "I don't think there's a Rift around here, though the number of times Luke loses his Oyster card, I'm starting to wonder. I mean, some of it is just my job. An investigative reporter does tend to, you know, investigate strange incidents. But maybe I picked something up while I was working for UNIT? Like your baryon radiation, perhaps. They told me that stuff lasts for years. Perhaps I'm some kind of alien magnet!"
"Yeah, maybe you are. If I was an alien, I'd certainly come calling!" The words were playful but the look he gave her was a long hard stare, and Sarah Jane knew he knew more than he was saying. There was a magnet, and it had nothing to do with her own penchant for investigating the paranormal. That residue of artron energy, from her time in the TARDIS, drew alien travellers to her as often as she sought them out.
But UNIT didn't have equipment that could scan for artron emissions. Did Torchwood? She took a breath, ploughing on. "So – your Retcon. I really do need to start thinking about taking a few precautions, maybe. I wanted to find out more about it."
"Such as?"
"Well – is it safe?"
Harkness shrugged. "Depends what you mean by safe. It's not toxic, we have no recorded incidence of allergic reactions. Short-term side-effects include headaches, dry mouth, sometimes mild nausea – pretty much like your average hangover after a good Friday night out on the town. Oh, and amnesia, of course. Long-term side-effects: amnesia. That's all."
"Do you use it a lot?"
"Depends what you mean by that. Not so much this last month, I guess – the Rift's been quiet since..."
He fell silent. "Since the bombings?" she said gently, and Harkness nodded.
"Since the bombings, yeah. I think the whole city's still in shock, or maybe that's just us, projecting. Sometimes it feels like the Rift is in shock too. We've had nothing happening recently, just a few bits of space junk washed up in the Bay. Quiet days, for a change. Plenty of time to tidy up the Archives."
He was looking at his half-drunk coffee, no longer smiling. After all the things she'd read and heard about Jack Harkness, seeing him like this was disconcerting. The flamboyant Captain Jack was supposed to care only for himself. Mourning for others? Maybe she'd missed things about Jack Harkness that the files and the saucy gossip didn't cover.
"No need for Retcon recently, then?" she asked, her voice casual.
Harkness shook his head thoughtfully. "Last time must have been four, five weeks ago now - before the attack. We didn't use Retcon at all in the clean-up - it would have meant dosing half the city. Though everyone swallowed the terrorist line anyway. Made it a little easier for us, I guess. People can't deal with the idea of aliens in their city, but humans killing other humans, that's just your everyday nightmare. They're used to coping with that."
But that couldn't be right. Whatever had happened to Ian couldn't have been much more than a week ago. The bullet wound on his arm had barely started to heal when she'd cleaned it up. So far, at least, she'd assumed Harkness had been telling her the truth. Suddenly, Sarah Jane was unsure again. Maybe even the look of loss in his eyes was just an act.
"I must admit, I'm surprised you didn't dose them anyway, if Retcon's so completely harmless."
He stared hard at her. "I don't care what crap UNIT's been telling you - we don't use it unless we have to. Listen, Retcon is simply a drug that does what it needs to, same as anything in your bathroom cabinet. You have a headache, you take a painkiller. You have nightmares because you saw a Weevil mauling some guy in an alleyway in Butetown, I give you Retcon and the nightmares go away."
"So you get to choose – what people can cope with and what they can't?"
"Yes I do, because I know what I'm dealing with, all the monsters and all the threats. I take responsibility for protecting people - like you right now, thinking about how best to protect the people around you. Which might mean using Retcon on your neighbours, maybe even your son and his schoolfriends, right?"
"Thinking about it, yes! But I'm a long way off making my mind up. I'd love to be as certain as you that everything I do is inherently right, but I know I'm not that perfect, Jack, even if you are. And I'm talking about children here – Do you even use Retcon on children?"
"Yep." He smiled mirthlessly. "Though sometimes I have to guess the dose. Kids these days, the way they act, you can't tell how old they are just by looking, have you noticed that?"
"You guess the dose? Is that a joke?" He stared at her, unmoving. "But what happens when you get it wrong?"
"I don't get it wrong."
"Who decides that? I mean, what about if you're, oh, trying to get someone to forget last night and you get a little carried away – do they forget the whole of yesterday? A week? A month? Their own identity? What's the limit?"
"The limit is what I decide. Retcon is a tool, a weapon in the war, and I'm prepared to use it any way I have to. Are you?"
"I – I don't know. But I don't think of my life as a daily battle. Maybe you need weapons because you always go looking for a fight?"
There wasn't a flicker of doubt about Harkness. He laughed harshly, leaning back in his chair. "And maybe you're hiding from what you know it's like out there. Let me tell you about this time a few months ago. We ran into a little gang of petty criminals – nothing to do with Torchwood, except it turned out they'd had the luck to find a creature that had come through the Rift. Now that alien was helpless, sentient, harmless, completely innocent - but for them it was just a thing they could abuse for profit. When we finally discovered what they were up to, they'd had it chained up and tortured for months, in agony you can't imagine. Too badly injured for us to save. What would you have done with those guys, Sarah Jane Smith?"
"Handed them over to the police," she replied promptly, even though she knew it was the answer he was hoping for.
"No point. We'd disposed of the corpse, and no alien meant no evidence. Not that I think the Merthyr constabulary are quite ready to figure out which charges to bring for kidnap and torture of a non-human lifeform."
"Well... UNIT, then."
"Five years ago, UNIT was still operating a policy of life internment without trial for the worst breaches of national security. Did you know that? It's supposed to have stopped now, of course, but sometimes I'm just not sure what UNIT gets up to, even with the few people I can rely on there. Alien contact, hostile engagement, threats to the state – three small-time wasters from the valleys? Those men would have been buried alive in the Category One bunker under Salisbury Plain. Is that your idea of justice?"
Sarah Jane shook her head. "No it isn't. But I have a feeling I'm not going to like yours any more than that."
"I Retconned them all, a massive dose. I wiped years out of their memories, at least five, maybe as much as ten - anything longer than six months isn't that much of an exact science with chemical amnesia. Yeah, I can see what you think - but I did those bastards a favour! No custodial sentence, no pain, no trauma. Hell, maybe this time around they won't grow up to be the kind of people who think mutilating a living creature to line their own pockets is a neat idea."
"Torchwood – my God, you never change!" She shook her head, appalled at herself as much as at the casually ruthless Harkness. How could she have ever been so stupid as to think anyone from Torchwood could be anything but a threat and a liability?
"We do what it takes, and I don't think you're ready for that yet." Harkness sounded amused. He reached for her forgotten cake, pulling off another piece. "I take it you won't be asking me for your own supply of Retcon, then?"
"No – no thank you. I'm clearly not ready to start following your lead, Captain." More than that, there was no way on Earth now that she'd even consider putting Ian into the hands of this man. Whatever had happened to him, they'd have to find another way to go forward, and a way that protected him from any more exposure to Torchwood and its brutal vigilante justice.
No wonder they thought of the Doctor as their Number One enemy! She couldn't imagine anyone less like her Doctor than the cold-hearted, arrogant man across the table, chewing her cake as he watched her, eyebrows quirked. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time today."
"No problem," Harkness grinned wolfishly at her. "It was good to put a real face to that seductive voice of yours at last. Make sure you get UNIT to update your personnel photo before the next time I try to recruit you!"
"Oh, I think we both know that would be a waste of even more of Torchwood's valuable time." She stood up, matching Harkness's wide, insincere smile as she held out her hand. "It was – very interesting meeting you, Captain. And I hope you find what you're looking for. Preferably without having to Retcon your way through too many people in the process."
"Until the next time, Sarah Jane!" He stood too, shaking her hand just as warmly as before. As she left, she glanced back: Harkness was sitting down again, legs stretched out, studying Rosalie's snack menu. So much for having no time to spare! She was starting to wonder if the man had said a single honest thing to her from the moment they'd met.
***
On the short drive back home, Sarah Jane seethed as the weight of her disappointment hit home. In spite of the things she'd heard and read about Torchwood, she'd never actually met anyone who worked for them. And Jack Harkness might be infamous throughout UNIT, but the scandalised asides and whispers had, more often than not, been tinged with envy and even a little respect at times.
It had been obvious - from the old files, and now the casually scattered references in his conversation - that, like her, the Captain had travelled a long way beyond this planet. She'd imagined meeting someone she could really talk to, someone she could make a connection with. After all, some sections of UNIT weren't the Doctor's biggest fans, either – not back when she'd first met him, and certainly not this latest incarnation, who'd managed to rub more than a few generals the wrong way when he'd breezed in and repelled the Sontaran invasion earlier that year.
She'd thought that meeting Harkness in person would be different. Maybe even that he'd be like the Doctor in some way – eccentric but compassionate, big-headed but good-hearted. Not the charming and utterly ruthless, utterly indifferent bastard sitting back in Rosalie's cafe, stealing the cake off her plate and smiling at her the whole time with that big, calculating, false grin.
Perhaps the most frustrating part was that she really had believed he would be able to help. Ian's desperation to find out who he was - to make sure he wasn't a threat to any of them - was painfully sincere. Enough to have let Sarah Jane think it was worth at least arranging to meet Harkness, and maybe to take the gamble of telling him about Ian.
Well, that had turned out to be naive of her, at best! Ridiculous, really. She shook her head at herself with a sigh. Harkness had agreed to meet her... Who could say why? Probably because he was bored, at best – more likely he'd enjoyed the idea of trying to rattle or shock her, with his lurid tales of Retconning helpless people back to adolescence. Perhaps it was his twisted idea of punishment for daring to turn down his recruitment offer two years ago? "Very courageous, Captain!" she said aloud, and the sound of her own voice, all wounded dignity and slighted pride, made her laugh as she turned into Bannerman Road.
By the time she'd parked the car, her bad temper had lifted. Well, so she couldn't look to Torchwood for help. Luke, bless him, had been right all along. Whatever Ian was afraid of about himself, he couldn't possibly be put into the hands of someone like Harkness. She'd have to find another way to help him...
Harry! Oh of course, why hadn't she thought of him before? She could call him that afternoon, see what he could come up with. Harry Sullivan might not swagger around in period military clothes like a man who seemed to think he was the star of a Hollywood war drama, but she knew which of the two men was the real hero.
She found Maria and Clyde in the living room, sorting diligently through a fresh pile of newspapers. "Still no sign of any missing millionaires!" Clyde said cheerfully as she peered in.
"No, but I'm sure the Ealing Herald will be grateful for the extra boost in circulation this week. Where's Luke?"
"In the garden with Ian," Maria said. "They're mending your gazebo. We did offer to help – but I think Luke still wants to keep Ian all to himself!" She grinned, patting Clyde's knee. "Clyde is taking his rejection like a man."
"Yeah, right – because poncing round the garden like Alan Titchmarsh was always top of my career wishlist!"
"At least Ian wasn't the one screaming and running away when one little spider in the shed landed on him!"
"Hang on, did you see the size of that thing? That wasn't a normal spider – not one from this planet, at any rate. Unless it's just come back from a nice holiday at Sellafield..."
She left them to it, suppressing a small shudder at the fleeting memory of Metebelis Three as she headed out through the kitchen. Clyde wasn't the only one who wasn't all that fond of monstrous great big spiders.
The garden was flooded in sunshine, brightening the young green leaves on all the shrubs and trees. At the far end, Ian was standing barefoot on top of her rickety stepladder, bracing the broken corner of her beloved gazebo. Below him, Luke was gazing up as he steadied the ladder.
Only three days ago, Ian had been a dishevelled wreck of a man hidden in a dirty cupboard, shaking with fear and fever. Out here silhouetted against the sunny sky, he was balanced effortlessly, the solid muscles of his shoulders and back flexing as he shifted his grip on the corner joint, dropping a tube of glue down to Luke. Even in jeans and t-shirt, there was something self-contained about him now, a physical confidence she hadn't seen before.
Luke seemed mesmerised: was he getting a bit of a crush on his new friend? The thought made Sarah Jane smile as she walked across to join them.
Ian noticed her before Luke, and smiled. Too late, she realised he'd mistaken her own grin for good news. She shook her head quickly, mouthing sorry as she spread her hands wide, and the pleased look on Ian's face vanished in a blink, replaced by a bland mask. He gave her the tiniest of nods before focusing his attention back on the gazebo, but his shoulders had sagged.
From ground level, Luke had completely missed the momentary exchange. His own expression as she joined them was undisguised worry. "Did you find anything out? Did he know?"
"Nothing, no. Sorry." The sorry was for Ian's benefit: Luke looked as if he'd been given an unexpected present. He rarely tried to hide his feelings, which was good in a way since he was generally hopeless at it. "Look, Captain Harkness was a waste of time but I've had another idea – someone I think we really can trust to help us figure this out. He's an old friend, sort of a super-diplomat now, has contacts in all sorts of organisations – and I absolutely know we can trust him. So why don't you both come in? We can have some tea and I'll tell you all about him."
"Sounds like a good idea," Ian said. He didn't look down. "You go in, I'll join you in five minutes. I've just put the epoxy in, it needs to cure off a bit before I can let go."
"I'd better stay, then," Luke said, "to keep the ladder steady."
Ian shook his head. "It's okay Luke, thank you. I'm not going to move at all. I'll be down in a few minutes."
Ian wanted to be alone, she understood that. It was clear that he'd built up his hopes that her meeting with Harkness would provide the answers he needed, every bit as much as Luke had been hoping it wouldn't. "Right! We'll get lunch ready," she said brightly, nudging Luke. "Come and give me a hand with that?"
Thankfully, he didn't argue. Back in the kitchen, Sarah Jane busied herself with peeling and slicing. Luke stood by the sink, staring out at the solitary figure at the end of the garden, posed almost sculpturally on the stepladder. "He really does need to find out, Luke," she said quietly, and Luke nodded.
"I know. I just didn't want it to be Torchwood that had the answers. I didn't like the sound of that man. What was he like in person?"
"Oh, every bit as arrogant as everything I'd ever heard about him, and then some!" She laughed at the thought of Harkness, sprawled in the corner of the cafe, ogling her and Emma and the cakes all at once, brimming with self-satisfaction. "I'll tell you all about it when Ian comes in – I expect Maria and Clyde will want to hear, too. Do you know, he actually thought we were meeting because I wanted to go and work for him?"
As she reached for the saucepan, Sarah Jane noticed Ian's shoes, lined up neatly next to the utility room door where she'd caught him yesterday. Now he wasn't fogged down with illness, she had a feeling he might simply decide it would be better to remove himself from the house sooner rather than later. Not that she wanted to trap him against his will, but even if he was physically better now, it would be absurd for him to head off into the unknown while he didn't even know his own name.
If the shoes were out of sight, then at least they wouldn't put any silly ideas into his head. She pointed. "Luke, could you do me a favour and pop those up in Ian's room for me? Just stuff them under the bed or something, so he doesn't trip over them."
"Good idea!" Luke hared off so quickly, she wondered if he'd had the same sneaky thought as her. She hoped not! He was far too young to start getting cynical yet. Even if his naiveté was something of a liability...
The doorbell rang. From the living room, Clyde yelled, "I'll get it!"
"Thank you!" The kettle boiled, and as the sound of the churning water died back, she could hear voices from the hallway. Then Maria was at the kitchen door, looking anxious.
"Sarah Jane, I think you'd better come out here!"
In the hall, Clyde was standing near the front door, fists clenched.
Facing him in the open doorway, one foot over the threshold, was Captain Jack Harkness.
Sarah Jane crossed quickly to join Clyde, resting a hand on his shoulder. Close behind her, Maria half-whispered, "Is that him?", and she nodded without looking away.
The same man, yet here inside her own home there was no trace of the casually smiling charmer of an hour ago. Harkness loomed in front of her, the dark greatcoat seeming to block the hallway completely. He stared, tight-jawed and coldly angry.
At her side, Clyde was bristling. "I didn't let him in, he just barged through the door! I told him he couldn't do that!"
She needed to stay calm, they all did. She nodded. "It's alright. Captain Harkness, this is - unexpected. What do you want?"
He ignored the question, nodding at Clyde instead. "This your son?"
"No, he's a friend, Clyde. And this is Maria. Now, you said you were a busy man. Was there something you forgot to ask me?"
"You could say that. Guess I should have asked you why you've been lying to me right from the start!"
"What?" The abrupt accusation took her completely by surprise. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"
Harkness reached into his overcoat pocket, pulling out a flattish black box that looked like an old-fashioned mobile phone. Blue lights flickered along the top. "Any idea what this is?"
"One of those online lie detectors?" Clyde scoffed. "They don't really work, you know. You've been ripped off, mate."
"Not with this one." The smile Harkness flashed briefly at Clyde was ice-cold. "It's a scanner, calibrated to detect a range of non-Earth-sourced background radiation, like Kappa-Teha or artron, say. Today, I set it to detect baryon-9..." He pointed the box at Sarah Jane: the array of blue lights danced wildly as the box emitted a torrent of tell-tale beeps. "So, want to tell me again how you haven't been to the Bubble Shock site?"
Damn. Sarah Jane stared at the blinking lights. Was he telling the truth? Maybe the scanner was picking up the artron residue from her time in the TARDIS! Not that she wanted to suggest that to Harkness either. Something else, another excuse...
"Wait a minute – you were there yourself this morning, just before we met. You shook my hand in the cafe. That thing's probably just picking up traces from the site that you transferred to me!"
"Nice try. Unfortunately for you, I've been using another handy bit of Torchwood tech this last week – looks like a loofah, scrubs off radiation. It would be kind of stupid to start cross-contaminating places I was checking out, after all. I cleaned myself up before I came to meet you. Which is why I couldn't understand why this thing lit up like Christmas when I picked it up after our little coffee-chat. Just on my right hand, where I'd touched you. And on your chair, and your cup and your plate. And since you were so certain you hadn't been anywhere near that factory site –"
"Well, not recently!" Sarah Jane managed a little laugh, to underscore to Harkness how absurd this all was. She hoped he couldn't see how hard she was gripping Clyde's shoulder. "Sorry, I didn't realise how paranoid you were. Obviously, I've been there once – a year ago, when the Bane were there. Baryon radiation can be quite persistent, for those of us who don't have Torchwood's super decontamination technology to clean us up."
"Oh, it's persistent – eighteen months half-life, at least." Harkness smiled agreeably at her, then the smile vanished. "Which doesn't explain this –"
He swung the scanner towards Clyde. This time, the stuttering lights and warning beeps were even more frantic than before.
"Or this – " At Maria this time, who crossed her arms defiantly as the scanner lit up. Harkness glanced past her, to where Luke was standing silently on the bottom stair, glaring at him. "And I'm guessing your son – this is your son, right? – will make it a full house of liars."
"No-one's lying to you!" Maria said angrily. "We went there yesterday – me, Clyde and Luke. We'd heard about the fire – we just wanted to see what it looked like. Sunday afternoon, we were bored, you know." She glanced at Sarah Jane, pretending to look contrite. "Um, I suppose we should have told you, only Luke thought you'd be worried it was dangerous, sorry!"
"You three kids went there?" Harkness asked quietly, and something about the low menace in his voice made Sarah Jane shiver. Whatever Maria had been hoping to do, she had a feeling it hadn't helped.
"Yeah, we went there," Clyde said. "Poked about, nothing to see, came back here. Big deal."
"Just yesterday?"
"Yesterday afternoon, like Maria told you!" Luke said indignantly. "And that's why we've all got your baryon radiation all over us. So now you know, you can go back to Torchwood!"
Luke... no! Sarah Jane could see the ripple of calculation as Harkness stared at her son. He moved closer, and it took all her strength not to flinch as he pointed the scanner at Luke, nodding as the beeping warning went into overdrive.
"Your mother tell you about Torchwood?" Luke nodded miserably. "What did she say?"
"That you're arrogant. You hurt innocent people, and you can't be trusted."
Harkness grinned. It wasn't reassuring. "Sounds about right. Though on the can't be trusted part, I'm starting to think you could teach me a few things. By the way, did you know that baryon radiation has no saturation limit on living tissue? Want to guess what that means, Luke? It means you're caked in it, layer after layer. So let me ask you again – When did you go to the Bubble Shock site? How many times have you been there? What did you do there?"
Luke crossed his arms, echoing Maria's defiance. "We already told you. We went there yesterday, we looked around, we came home. That's all!"
Harkness took another step closer, scowling.
"You're lying! Tell me what you did – you did something, I know it! You took something, activated it - disturbed something there. It has to be you – what the hell did you do? What did you take? Tell me!"
"That's enough!" Sarah Jane snapped. Yelling at her son like that – who did the man think he was? "We've told you what happened, and I don't care if you think we're all lying, you have no right to come into my..."
Her voice died. Where Harkness had been holding the scanner a moment before, now there was a black pistol in his fist.
"This is what I think." In the sudden silence of the hallway, his voice was quietly furious. "That I don't have time for your games. Start talking now!"
"What, or you'll shoot us all? An unarmed woman and three kids?" Clyde was trying to sound dismissive, but his voice was higher than normal.
Harkness didn't even look at him. "No need to shoot you all. But if one of you doesn't start talking right now, I will shoot her."
He cocked the gun and pointed it straight at Sarah Jane's face.
For a second, she closed her eyes, hearing Maria cry out and feeling Clyde jerk in shock. A moment later, Luke had barged past her, pushing himself between her and the gun.
"Luke, no!" She tugged desperately at his arm, but he was already half a head taller than her: in the next instant, Maria and Clyde were either side of him, shielding her, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.
"Leave her alone! She didn't do anything - it was me!" Luke was six inches from the end of the gun, face to face with Harkness. She could feel him shaking. "I went and I found him there last week, and he's safe now. But he's no threat to you! Whatever you did to him, he doesn't remember any of it. Your drug wiped out all his memories, so you can just go! Go back to Torchwood and leave us all in peace!"
The effect on Harkness was extraordinary. Before her eyes, Sarah Jane saw the anger drain from his face, replaced by open-mouthed shock. The hand holding the gun fell loosely to his side as he stared at Luke.
She waited, fists clenched. The only sound in the hallway was the wall-clock's noisy ticking.
Then Harkness sucked in a long, shuddering breath and whispered, "He's here?"
Luke closed his mouth and glared, refusing to give anything else away. But Harkness wasn't threatening them anymore. He looked past Luke, seeking out Sarah Jane, and the aching pain in his eyes was something she recognised, could not ignore.
"Yes, he's here," she said.
"Mum, no!" Luke exclaimed, horrified.
She squeezed his shoulder with a little laugh as the tension ebbed out of her. "It's OK – oh, Luke, I have been such an idiot! Look at him. Can't you see?"
Luke shook his head, frowning. Maria and Clyde were still flanking him, facing the enemy. She smiled, trying to reassure everyone. "Captain – Jack – do you have a photograph of him, perhaps? In case we're still... at cross purposes."
"Yeah, yeah, of course, wait a minute – " He shook his head, as if dazed, patting the pockets of his greatcoat. "On my mobile -" He dug out a phone and tapped away: something brought a twitch to his lips, quickly smothered. "Maybe not that one! OK, here you go..."
He held out the phone. The image on the screen was unmistakeably Ian, peacefully sleeping, his hair fanned in ridiculous spikes against the pillow.
"World's worst bedhead," Harkness said fondly. "Well, that's what he thinks. Actually, I wait until he's asleep then mess it up deliberately."
Maria stifled a giggle as she looked at the photo. "Why do you do that?"
"Because he won't let me do it when he's awake, of course." Harkness smiled at the image again for a moment before putting the phone away. "Look, I'm sorry – the gun, yelling at you. I just need to know he's OK, please! Is he OK?"
"He'd been shot when I found him," Luke said coldly, and Harkness flinched.
"Yeah, his arm – was it bad?"
"It's fine now, it's -" Sarah Jane began, but Clyde cut across her.
"How did you know about that?"
"Because I shot him." Luke stiffened and Clyde muttered, "I knew it!", but Harkness carried on talking as if they weren't there. "He was in the Archives, something got activated... By the time we found him, it had these – metal tendrils all over him, reeling him in. He told us to keep back out of reach, shoot it off, and I tried." He grimaced. "Bullet bounced straight off. Clipped his arm and he yelled and that was it, the whole thing just vanished, with him. It took him."
He had all their attention now, not that he seemed to have noticed. As he talked, he'd pulled the pistol back out of his pocket almost absent-mindedly. Sarah Jane tensed, but he gave her a quick smile as he emptied the bullets from the chamber. He dropped them back into his pocket and handed the unloaded gun to her with a brief nod of acknowledgement.
"You keep this for now. I shouldn't have threatened you, it's just when you lose... I've been searching – every hour, every day. Just me and Gwen, we didn't have anyone else, no real idea where to start. There was an empty storage box in the Chula section, and baryon radiation everywhere. No other clues, I didn't even know -" He broke off, frowning. "How long's he been here? Why didn't he call me?"
"Amnesia, I told you," Luke said. His shoulder under Sarah Jane's hand was still tense. "You Retconned him."
"God, no!" Harkness looked horrified. "Why would I do that to him?"
"Because you're Torchwood, and I told Luke that's what you do." Sarah Jane moved past Luke. "Ian dreamed about your logo, and I put it together with his amnesia, and the bullet-wound, and made - a stupid, stupid mistake. I'm sorry, I didn't realise, just didn't think."
"Didn't think what?" Clyde asked.
"Didn't think someone as nice as Ian could be Torchwood too," Maria said slowly. Luke stared at her, shocked. She glanced at Sarah Jane, then back at Harkness. "That's right, isn't it? Ian is yours - he works for Torchwood, for you?"
He nodded, with a puzzled smile. "Yeah, he's mine. You called him Ian?"
"He looks a bit like my uncle Ian, and he needed a name. He couldn't remember his own."
"I'm sure he liked that one. Does he remember me?"
Sarah Jane held out her hand. "We don't know. But why don't you come with us and find out?"
She took Luke's hand as she led the way through to the kitchen, for reassurance, not because he needed leading: there was no way he was going to let Harkness out of his sight.
Luke, and maybe Clyde, still had their doubts. But Sarah Jane knew Maria was right, and knew how wrong she herself had been, when she watched Jack Harkness staring through the kitchen window at the figure at the end of the garden, still balanced perfectly on her stepladder.
After a long silence, Harkness let out a shuddering sigh and relaxed visibly, though his hands were still gripping the edge of the sink, white-fingered. Sarah Jane reached over, resting her own hand lightly on his.
"Why didn't you tell me? In the cafe, you said you were looking for a thing, an artefact. Why didn't you say you were looking for him?"
He made a good stab at a casual shrug and grin, but his eyes were glittering. "Hay, back atcha. All that talk about Retcon, why not just tell me you'd found a guy who couldn't remember anything but Torchwood?"
It was her turn to smile, embarrassed. "That's fair enough. It's your reputation, you and Torchwood. You're not exactly known as user-friendly. Fear of the unknown, yes? It's so easy to let that steer you, especially when you're trying to protect someone else."
"Exactly!" He clutched at her hand. "You know what that's like. I couldn't take a chance on trusting anyone. I was feeling my way in the dark, couldn't risk doing anything wrong. I had to find him – couldn't lose him, not so soon after Tosh and Owen... not him, not him!"
She did know. That police car driving Luke away as the Slitheen's last trick pulled her world apart. Months ago now, but the memory of her frantic despair was still sharp and terrifying. Would she have done what Jack Harkness had done? Stormed into a stranger's house, threatened their children with a gun...?
She couldn't be certain that she would never do such a thing, to protect them: Maria or Clyde, or Luke... Who surprised her again: when she looked round, he was standing by the back door. He opened it, gave Sarah Jane a resigned smile, then nodded at Harkness.
"He's this way. Follow me."
No-one spoke as they all headed out into the garden and across the lawn, but something must have alerted Ian. As they drew near to the gazebo he turned, and Sarah Jane caught the exact moment when he spotted the tall figure of Jack Harkness in his distinctive coat.
They were a couple of yards away. Sarah Jane paused, signalling the others to stay with her as Harkness moved slowly towards the stepladder. Ian climbed half-way down then jumped off, landing lightly on the grass. His eyes hadn't left Harkness, but there was no fear at all in his face. He looked curious, puzzled.
Harkness stayed still, hands loose at his sides, as Ian came closer.
"Hey..." It was a hesitant whisper, no trace of his usual loud confidence.
Ian studied him, hands on hips. Eventually he said, "I know you."
"You remember me!"
A shake of the head. "No. But I dreamed about you."
"Hope it wasn't a nightmare!"
"Hmm," Ian said thoughtfully. "Not to begin with. We were watching... A film, maybe? We had beer. Then you kissed me."
Harkness gave a short bark of laughter. "I'll bet I did! Good kiss, or great kiss?"
Ian rolled his eyes with a sigh. At her side, Maria was grinning open-mouthed as she nudged Clyde.
"So we kissed, and...?" He tailed off: Ian was frowning. "What? You think you ought to censor the rest?"
"It's not that. You know how dreams are, it all jumps around. I'd lost something, I was searching in the dark, underground..." He shut his eyes and frowned, lower lip caught between his teeth. "Something grabbed me. Metal, metal fingers. I was yelling and you were there, you had a gun, you said... Stay still, don't move, I'll get it off you –"
His eyes flew open. "You said, stay right there, wait... Ianto, wait!"
Harkness nodded. There were tears on his cheeks, but he was smiling as Ian ran a hand through his hair.
"That's my – that's me. I'm Ianto."
"Yes. Ianto Jones, my Ianto." He reached out, brushing his fingers gently over the bandage on Ian's forearm, but Ian was still scowling in distress, fists tight. "What is it?"
"I can't – why can't I remember? Just fragments... Like you! I know you, I really know you, I know you matter but I can't remember you!"
"You will, it's OK, we'll figure it out, I promise. You trust me?" Ian nodded, and Harkness slid a hand around his waist, pulling him in close. "Then show me. Your dream. Show me how I kissed you."
No hesitation. Ian took Jack's face in his hands, leaned in, and kissed him on the mouth.
And kissed.
And kissed.
And Sarah Jane watched, mesmerised, one hand over her own mouth to hide her unthinking smile as she watched Jack wrap Ian - Ianto, she thought, Ianto - in the tightest of hugs, lifting him an inch or two off the ground, never breaking that passionate kiss.
She'd thought she had understood the man's desperation – to find a lost colleague, a friend even. Not quite. Jack Harkness had surprised her again.
Beside her, Maria breathed, "Oh, wow, that's brilliant!" and turned to grin at her, delighted.
"Well, this is all very lovey-dovey," Clyde announced cheerfully. If Harkness and Ianto heard him at all, they didn't react. "But I did happen to notice earlier that old Captain Torchwood came calling in a big shiny black SUV that looked like it escaped from a James Bond film. Flashing blue lights and secret-service glass - and it's parked right in your driveway, Luke. Want to see if he forgot to lock the door when he came storming in to rescue his boyfriend?"
For a moment Luke hesitated, watching the embrace. Then he smiled at Clyde.
"Yeah, let's check it out before he notices. Maybe we can even pick the lock?"
"Luke!"
"It's a joke, Mum!" He tutted at her and rolled his eyes, just like Ian had, before hurrying back into the house with Clyde.
"Come on, we should give them a bit of space too, I think!" she said, steering a reluctant Maria back towards the kitchen. Before closing the door, she stole a last look back. In the middle of her lawn the two men were clinging to each other, Jack's hand stroking Ianto's cheek tenderly, a thumb brushing his lip, before Ianto buried his face against Jack's neck. like the rest of the world had melted clean away.
***
Part 5