Fic: Lost Archives: Under T for "Timeshift"
Title: Lost Archives: Under T for "Timeshift"
Series: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Alex, mention of team members
Spoilers: Through S2 of Torchwood
Beta: knitchick1979
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. If you recognize it, it belongs somewhere else. I just like to play.
Author's Notes: Picking up the Lost Archives series once again, this time with the Letter "T." Inspiration comes from many places for these stories, and so does the research, but if I have to watch "Fragments" and "Exit Wounds" any more, I need to buy more tissues.
Lost Archives: Under T is "Timeshift"
New Year's Eve 1999/2009
If Alex was to be asked, he could not remember which sections of the archives he hid the files in. He knew it was against every law of temporal dynamics. He was not an idiot. He was part of Torchwood, although that wouldn’t be for much longer.
Alex ran a hand through his dark hair and then looked down at it. Rough and calloused from many years of labor, but all he saw now was blood. There was only a couple of small droplets dotting his knuckles, but to him, they covered his entire hand. His lower lip quivered and he shoved the hand inside of his brown leather coat, pulling out the file on the "great devourer."
He looked among the listings on the front of the filing cabinets. Suddenly “Fairies” seemed to jump out at him. A little innocuous, but perhaps some intrepid Torchwood employee would feel the need to clean up the archives one day and seeing “Abbadon” in the middle of “Fairies” would probably make them pull it, hopefully not too late.
Dragging open the metal cabinet drawer, Alex felt a draft of cold air cross the skin on the back of his hands. “Cold.” He looked around, not wanting to believe that voice belonged to him. Suddenly he closed his eyes, scrunching them shut. “They are cold. So cold… Will they still be saved?”
Alex’s eyes popped open, looking deep into the frigid wall in front of him. But what he saw was not wall, but the faces of his team. His dead team. Upstairs right now, floors above him, breathing no more. Even the last drops of blood had stopped flowing an hour ago.
Daffyd was the first one he had taken out. Shot him right in the brain. A hole right through his head, death was instant, the best way to go. He could still see the blood oozing out of the wound and then miring itself in his black hair.
Nell was next to die. She had been on the way out of the main door, perhaps to check on Jack’s progress. She was too horrified by Daffyd’s sudden loss of life, it gave Alex all the time he needed. He quickly turned on her, but it was the look in her eyes; the sudden look of condemnation, mixed with horror and disbelief. As he went to fire into her head, to make it quick, he faltered. Alex couldn’t shoot her in the head. He could not watch her eyes as the life left them, so he pointed the gun down and shot her in the chest. Nell remained standing, shock written across her face. Alex closed his eyes, and before she could scream he brought his gun up, opened his eyes and fired into her head.
Evan was the hardest. He had come running in from one of the labs where he had been working on his last experiment. He had heard the gunshots, Alex was certain of that since he had not used a silencer, and gunshots seemed to echo in the Hub, even beyond their ghosts. Evan had grabbed his gun from his desk, but seeing that it was Alex, he too faltered. Alex saw his eyes searching everywhere, even trying to peer into the dark recesses along the far wall, trying to see if there was anyone else that could have done these horrors.
Alex did not even wait. He fired twice into Evan’s chest, making sure that it was a quick death. Some small part of him died as he watched and recorded every detail of Evan’s fall from life, hanging over the bar of the mezzanine above them. He could almost count how many drops of blood fell from his hands - thirteen - before his blood, too, stopped flowing.
He took two deep breaths and closed his eyes, trying to wipe these last bad memories away. He wished he could take some B-67, really forget, but he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t do that to his team. Alex opened his eyes and shoved the file folder down into the drawer and slammed it shut. As the bang reverberated off the walls, the light above him flickered twice and then popped out for a second.
“I don’t deserve the light, it’ll only show me what’s coming.” Alex had resigned himself to his fate of being stuck, his memories wandering forever in the catacombs of Torchwood. All of a sudden, the lights came back on. Something seemed different, though. Even the lightbulb he stared at was different, perhaps softer?
Alex made his way up the stairs, exiting the archives and stopped in his tracks. This was a different Hub. This was not the Hub he was accustomed to. Yet, it still had the feel of death within it.
He looked around, spying a multitude of computer monitors and other screens. He saw the cog door, but not the second front door, it looked like it was trying to be covered, hidden from view but still accessible if need be. He could make out the architecture of the old train station. It was different, but it still held that old familiarity.
“Hands up where I can see them. You’ve picked a really bad day to piss me off!”
Alex put his hands up in the air and slowly turned around. He thought the voice sounded familiar, and he was right. From the metal staircase leading to some of the offices, he saw Jack, his Jack, standing there on the steps, a gun trained on him. Alex wanted to smile, he really did, but he knew what kind of fate time would eventually give Jack, and the entire world.
“Alex?” Jack’s voice seemed to catch in his throat, but his gun never wavered, it stayed trained on Alex. Jack took two steps down the stairs towards Alex. “Is it-- Is it really you?”
Alex swallowed hard, his eyes never leaving Jack. He nodded his head yes. There was so much he wanted to say to him, so much he had to tell Jack, but he knew he couldn’t. He had already interfered enough, rigging the files. At least Jack Harkness was still alive for now. The vision of him lying dead in Torchwood’s morgue, pale, dressed in white, mourned by a black haired beauty… That had not happened yet.
“This-- This can’t be you.” Jack’s boots tromped down the last couple of steps until he was on the same level as Alex. Jack stalked over to him and aimed his gun at Alex’s forehead.
It was the spot Alex hoped he could shoot himself in, but it was tricky to make it clean. That left him the side of the temple and under the chin. He wasn’t sure until he actually did it how it would happen. Alex sniffed and then looked up at Jack, looked him in the eyes. Jack’s eyes were puffy and red-rimmed as if he had been crying. Alex could not recall a time he had seen Jack cry. It scared him to think what could distress him so much.
“It is me Jack. Trust me. I don’t know what happened, why I am here, but it is me.” Alex slowly lowered his hands to his side.
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Jack’s upper lip trembled a moment and then he regained control. A steely gaze came over Jack’s eyes. Alex used to laugh at whatever hapless criminal, alien or human, would be in front of Jack when that gaze wandered into his eyes. That’s when Jack meant business, and Alex did not appreciate being on the receiving end of it, although he expected he would have been before the year was out anyways.
“What happened to you Jack?” Alex asked, wondering what Jack already knew.
“You ask me what happened? After you- You went-“ Jack never stammered, that meant he was catching himself.
Alex looked down, away from the gun. He knew Jack would never shoot him, he had plenty of opportunities to in the past. Jack knew. He knew Alex’s sins, and perhaps he understood them. He hazarded a breath after he noticed a small speck of blood on his trousers. Alex’s head snapped back up. He stared straight into Jack’s eyes.
“Tell me what happened Jack. Trust me, you need to tell someone.” Alex put his hand up and encircled the Webley, moving it down to the side, away from him.
At first, Jack did not say a word. He then holstered the gun on his belt and his shoulders sagged. “What day is it?”
“Now?” Alex asked. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“No,” Jack said. “What day are you living?”
“New Year’s Eve,” Alex stated. He didn’t bother to say the year, he knew it would be his last one.
That seemed to mean something to Jack. He barely pulled out a chair before he collapsed by a nearby desk. At least it looked like a desk, the computers and electronics looked different then what he was used to. Alex settled into a comfortable stance as Jack plucked a pair of eyeglasses from the desk and began to twirl them in his hands. He watched as Jack’s body became stiff.
“What time on New Year’s?”
“Late enough,” Alex replied. It was all he needed to say.
“How did it feel?” Jack looked up at him, gripping tight to the eyeglasses. “How did it feel to be surrounded by so much death, and to be alone with it all?”
“Wouldn’t you know the answer to that?” Alex manoeuvred past Jack and sat down on the edge of the desk across from him.
“Yes,” Jack said, his voice straining.
“What happened today, Jack?” Jack used to be able to talk to Alex. Before he took over as head of Torchwood Three he had known about Jack’s special gift. Jack had trusted him enough to tell him once upon a time.
“I lost two today.” Jack’s response was barely a whisper.
“Two what? Two employees?” That was the curse of Torchwood, of dealing with what they saw day after day, even before knowing what he did now.
“Two team members,” Jack choked out. “Two friends.”
Alex let out a sigh. Many years ago, the man who had recruited Alex had tried to instill in him to not become friend with the people he worked with. It would be much easier when you had to say good-bye the man had said. Yeah, that was it. That’s why he still mourned Nigel.
“Tell me about it, about them,” Alex stated. It was the least he could do for what he was about to put Jack through.
“Dear sweet Toshiko, and Owen…” Jack looked up and Alex could see a couple of tears trail down his cheek. “Owen gave up his life for Torchwood, and it’s all my fault. No chance to save him this time, not even a body left behind.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Alex folded his hands in his lap.
“Nothing exactly survives a nuclear meltdown,” Jack said.
Alex waited a moment and then he quietly asked, “What about Toshiko?”
“She died here, in my arms.” Jack tried to keep the tears at bay, his words being strangled in his throat. “Gray, he killed her. Gray killed Toshiko, and tried to kill the rest of us. He destroyed the city.” Jack buried his chin into his chest, trying to hide the tears that fell.
“How?”
“Bombs… attacks… carnage.” Jack took a deep breath and looked up at Alex with red-rimmed eyes. “Is this what you saw? Is it?”
Alex shook his head no. He had not seen bombs destroying Cardiff, but what he had witnessed… He found himself wondering if this was how it all began. He prayed to whatever gods still lurked over the Earth that he could forget what he had seen, what he had done.
“Were they good people?”
Jack sighed. “They were two of the best. I know we have to continue on, but I don’t know how we will.” Jack wiped away the tears. “I worry about Gwen and Ianto, what this will do to them. They have been through so much, so, so much.”
Alex stood up and walked over to Jack, putting his hand on Jack’s shoulder. He could feel Jack flinch under his touch, but he did not pull away. Jack’s body shuddered and he wondered truly what the man had been through. He would talk, but he rarely opened up his soul.
“Alex, don’t do it,” Jack said, pleading with him.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said, as the lights dimmed out.
---*---*---*---
Jack jumped up with a start as the lights came back on and he no longer felt Alex’s hand on his shoulder. Of all the people who could have shown up at the end of this long night… He wondered how Alex had ended up in the Hub that evening. Jack scanned Tosh’s computer and nodded his head. Of course, localized Rift energy, there were tons of them still opening and closing around the city. It had been a timeshift.
He held his head in his hand and let out a sob, mourning all those who had worked for Torchwood over the years. He had actually liked some of them, most of whom were stolen too soon from this life.
In the same breath, he found himself cursing whatever gods still ruled the universe that they had taken Toshiko and Owen, while he thanked them for sparing Gwen and Ianto. That his brother lived? He did not know how he felt about that, all he knew was that he could not be the one to kill his brother - he had done that too many times already.
Suddenly Alex’s words ran through his memory. He remembered that fateful night when all this had become his.
"Fill this place with purpose. Before it's too late. Please,” Alex had said.
“Alex, listen. It’s going to be okay.”
"No, it's not. It's really not. I looked inside, it showed me what's coming. They were mercy killings. It's the kindest thing I could do. So none of us see the storm. I'm sorry I can't do the same for you. 21st Century Jack, everything’s going to change. And we're not ready."
That was when Alex had shot himself, the coward’s way out. But Jack, he had to live with the past and the future, no matter what. Jack let out a shuddering breath and stood up. There was still work to do, and he would do it. He owed it to so many. Just like Owen had said to him not too long ago, “We owe it to them, you and me… let’s see if we can’t even that score.”
Perhaps it was a good thing he had forever, for he doubted he would ever even the score.
Series: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Alex, mention of team members
Spoilers: Through S2 of Torchwood
Beta: knitchick1979
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. If you recognize it, it belongs somewhere else. I just like to play.
Author's Notes: Picking up the Lost Archives series once again, this time with the Letter "T." Inspiration comes from many places for these stories, and so does the research, but if I have to watch "Fragments" and "Exit Wounds" any more, I need to buy more tissues.
Lost Archives: Under T is "Timeshift"
New Year's Eve 1999/2009
If Alex was to be asked, he could not remember which sections of the archives he hid the files in. He knew it was against every law of temporal dynamics. He was not an idiot. He was part of Torchwood, although that wouldn’t be for much longer.
Alex ran a hand through his dark hair and then looked down at it. Rough and calloused from many years of labor, but all he saw now was blood. There was only a couple of small droplets dotting his knuckles, but to him, they covered his entire hand. His lower lip quivered and he shoved the hand inside of his brown leather coat, pulling out the file on the "great devourer."
He looked among the listings on the front of the filing cabinets. Suddenly “Fairies” seemed to jump out at him. A little innocuous, but perhaps some intrepid Torchwood employee would feel the need to clean up the archives one day and seeing “Abbadon” in the middle of “Fairies” would probably make them pull it, hopefully not too late.
Dragging open the metal cabinet drawer, Alex felt a draft of cold air cross the skin on the back of his hands. “Cold.” He looked around, not wanting to believe that voice belonged to him. Suddenly he closed his eyes, scrunching them shut. “They are cold. So cold… Will they still be saved?”
Alex’s eyes popped open, looking deep into the frigid wall in front of him. But what he saw was not wall, but the faces of his team. His dead team. Upstairs right now, floors above him, breathing no more. Even the last drops of blood had stopped flowing an hour ago.
Daffyd was the first one he had taken out. Shot him right in the brain. A hole right through his head, death was instant, the best way to go. He could still see the blood oozing out of the wound and then miring itself in his black hair.
Nell was next to die. She had been on the way out of the main door, perhaps to check on Jack’s progress. She was too horrified by Daffyd’s sudden loss of life, it gave Alex all the time he needed. He quickly turned on her, but it was the look in her eyes; the sudden look of condemnation, mixed with horror and disbelief. As he went to fire into her head, to make it quick, he faltered. Alex couldn’t shoot her in the head. He could not watch her eyes as the life left them, so he pointed the gun down and shot her in the chest. Nell remained standing, shock written across her face. Alex closed his eyes, and before she could scream he brought his gun up, opened his eyes and fired into her head.
Evan was the hardest. He had come running in from one of the labs where he had been working on his last experiment. He had heard the gunshots, Alex was certain of that since he had not used a silencer, and gunshots seemed to echo in the Hub, even beyond their ghosts. Evan had grabbed his gun from his desk, but seeing that it was Alex, he too faltered. Alex saw his eyes searching everywhere, even trying to peer into the dark recesses along the far wall, trying to see if there was anyone else that could have done these horrors.
Alex did not even wait. He fired twice into Evan’s chest, making sure that it was a quick death. Some small part of him died as he watched and recorded every detail of Evan’s fall from life, hanging over the bar of the mezzanine above them. He could almost count how many drops of blood fell from his hands - thirteen - before his blood, too, stopped flowing.
He took two deep breaths and closed his eyes, trying to wipe these last bad memories away. He wished he could take some B-67, really forget, but he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t do that to his team. Alex opened his eyes and shoved the file folder down into the drawer and slammed it shut. As the bang reverberated off the walls, the light above him flickered twice and then popped out for a second.
“I don’t deserve the light, it’ll only show me what’s coming.” Alex had resigned himself to his fate of being stuck, his memories wandering forever in the catacombs of Torchwood. All of a sudden, the lights came back on. Something seemed different, though. Even the lightbulb he stared at was different, perhaps softer?
Alex made his way up the stairs, exiting the archives and stopped in his tracks. This was a different Hub. This was not the Hub he was accustomed to. Yet, it still had the feel of death within it.
He looked around, spying a multitude of computer monitors and other screens. He saw the cog door, but not the second front door, it looked like it was trying to be covered, hidden from view but still accessible if need be. He could make out the architecture of the old train station. It was different, but it still held that old familiarity.
“Hands up where I can see them. You’ve picked a really bad day to piss me off!”
Alex put his hands up in the air and slowly turned around. He thought the voice sounded familiar, and he was right. From the metal staircase leading to some of the offices, he saw Jack, his Jack, standing there on the steps, a gun trained on him. Alex wanted to smile, he really did, but he knew what kind of fate time would eventually give Jack, and the entire world.
“Alex?” Jack’s voice seemed to catch in his throat, but his gun never wavered, it stayed trained on Alex. Jack took two steps down the stairs towards Alex. “Is it-- Is it really you?”
Alex swallowed hard, his eyes never leaving Jack. He nodded his head yes. There was so much he wanted to say to him, so much he had to tell Jack, but he knew he couldn’t. He had already interfered enough, rigging the files. At least Jack Harkness was still alive for now. The vision of him lying dead in Torchwood’s morgue, pale, dressed in white, mourned by a black haired beauty… That had not happened yet.
“This-- This can’t be you.” Jack’s boots tromped down the last couple of steps until he was on the same level as Alex. Jack stalked over to him and aimed his gun at Alex’s forehead.
It was the spot Alex hoped he could shoot himself in, but it was tricky to make it clean. That left him the side of the temple and under the chin. He wasn’t sure until he actually did it how it would happen. Alex sniffed and then looked up at Jack, looked him in the eyes. Jack’s eyes were puffy and red-rimmed as if he had been crying. Alex could not recall a time he had seen Jack cry. It scared him to think what could distress him so much.
“It is me Jack. Trust me. I don’t know what happened, why I am here, but it is me.” Alex slowly lowered his hands to his side.
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Jack’s upper lip trembled a moment and then he regained control. A steely gaze came over Jack’s eyes. Alex used to laugh at whatever hapless criminal, alien or human, would be in front of Jack when that gaze wandered into his eyes. That’s when Jack meant business, and Alex did not appreciate being on the receiving end of it, although he expected he would have been before the year was out anyways.
“What happened to you Jack?” Alex asked, wondering what Jack already knew.
“You ask me what happened? After you- You went-“ Jack never stammered, that meant he was catching himself.
Alex looked down, away from the gun. He knew Jack would never shoot him, he had plenty of opportunities to in the past. Jack knew. He knew Alex’s sins, and perhaps he understood them. He hazarded a breath after he noticed a small speck of blood on his trousers. Alex’s head snapped back up. He stared straight into Jack’s eyes.
“Tell me what happened Jack. Trust me, you need to tell someone.” Alex put his hand up and encircled the Webley, moving it down to the side, away from him.
At first, Jack did not say a word. He then holstered the gun on his belt and his shoulders sagged. “What day is it?”
“Now?” Alex asked. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“No,” Jack said. “What day are you living?”
“New Year’s Eve,” Alex stated. He didn’t bother to say the year, he knew it would be his last one.
That seemed to mean something to Jack. He barely pulled out a chair before he collapsed by a nearby desk. At least it looked like a desk, the computers and electronics looked different then what he was used to. Alex settled into a comfortable stance as Jack plucked a pair of eyeglasses from the desk and began to twirl them in his hands. He watched as Jack’s body became stiff.
“What time on New Year’s?”
“Late enough,” Alex replied. It was all he needed to say.
“How did it feel?” Jack looked up at him, gripping tight to the eyeglasses. “How did it feel to be surrounded by so much death, and to be alone with it all?”
“Wouldn’t you know the answer to that?” Alex manoeuvred past Jack and sat down on the edge of the desk across from him.
“Yes,” Jack said, his voice straining.
“What happened today, Jack?” Jack used to be able to talk to Alex. Before he took over as head of Torchwood Three he had known about Jack’s special gift. Jack had trusted him enough to tell him once upon a time.
“I lost two today.” Jack’s response was barely a whisper.
“Two what? Two employees?” That was the curse of Torchwood, of dealing with what they saw day after day, even before knowing what he did now.
“Two team members,” Jack choked out. “Two friends.”
Alex let out a sigh. Many years ago, the man who had recruited Alex had tried to instill in him to not become friend with the people he worked with. It would be much easier when you had to say good-bye the man had said. Yeah, that was it. That’s why he still mourned Nigel.
“Tell me about it, about them,” Alex stated. It was the least he could do for what he was about to put Jack through.
“Dear sweet Toshiko, and Owen…” Jack looked up and Alex could see a couple of tears trail down his cheek. “Owen gave up his life for Torchwood, and it’s all my fault. No chance to save him this time, not even a body left behind.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Alex folded his hands in his lap.
“Nothing exactly survives a nuclear meltdown,” Jack said.
Alex waited a moment and then he quietly asked, “What about Toshiko?”
“She died here, in my arms.” Jack tried to keep the tears at bay, his words being strangled in his throat. “Gray, he killed her. Gray killed Toshiko, and tried to kill the rest of us. He destroyed the city.” Jack buried his chin into his chest, trying to hide the tears that fell.
“How?”
“Bombs… attacks… carnage.” Jack took a deep breath and looked up at Alex with red-rimmed eyes. “Is this what you saw? Is it?”
Alex shook his head no. He had not seen bombs destroying Cardiff, but what he had witnessed… He found himself wondering if this was how it all began. He prayed to whatever gods still lurked over the Earth that he could forget what he had seen, what he had done.
“Were they good people?”
Jack sighed. “They were two of the best. I know we have to continue on, but I don’t know how we will.” Jack wiped away the tears. “I worry about Gwen and Ianto, what this will do to them. They have been through so much, so, so much.”
Alex stood up and walked over to Jack, putting his hand on Jack’s shoulder. He could feel Jack flinch under his touch, but he did not pull away. Jack’s body shuddered and he wondered truly what the man had been through. He would talk, but he rarely opened up his soul.
“Alex, don’t do it,” Jack said, pleading with him.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said, as the lights dimmed out.
---*---*---*---
Jack jumped up with a start as the lights came back on and he no longer felt Alex’s hand on his shoulder. Of all the people who could have shown up at the end of this long night… He wondered how Alex had ended up in the Hub that evening. Jack scanned Tosh’s computer and nodded his head. Of course, localized Rift energy, there were tons of them still opening and closing around the city. It had been a timeshift.
He held his head in his hand and let out a sob, mourning all those who had worked for Torchwood over the years. He had actually liked some of them, most of whom were stolen too soon from this life.
In the same breath, he found himself cursing whatever gods still ruled the universe that they had taken Toshiko and Owen, while he thanked them for sparing Gwen and Ianto. That his brother lived? He did not know how he felt about that, all he knew was that he could not be the one to kill his brother - he had done that too many times already.
Suddenly Alex’s words ran through his memory. He remembered that fateful night when all this had become his.
"Fill this place with purpose. Before it's too late. Please,” Alex had said.
“Alex, listen. It’s going to be okay.”
"No, it's not. It's really not. I looked inside, it showed me what's coming. They were mercy killings. It's the kindest thing I could do. So none of us see the storm. I'm sorry I can't do the same for you. 21st Century Jack, everything’s going to change. And we're not ready."
That was when Alex had shot himself, the coward’s way out. But Jack, he had to live with the past and the future, no matter what. Jack let out a shuddering breath and stood up. There was still work to do, and he would do it. He owed it to so many. Just like Owen had said to him not too long ago, “We owe it to them, you and me… let’s see if we can’t even that score.”
Perhaps it was a good thing he had forever, for he doubted he would ever even the score.