Torchwood/Dr Who - fic - The Torchwood Girls, Part 1, Jack, TARDIS, Joan, PG (final version)
I've edited and expanded Parts 1 to 10 of The Torchwood Girls. I'm posting Parts 1 to 3, today.
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 1
Author - laurab1
Characters - Jack, TARDIS, Joan Redfern, OCs
Rating - PG
Length - approx 2130 words
Spoilers - TW: general series, DW: to 3.11-13
Summary - If he’s gonna have this female staff he’s been planning, once he loses all of his men to at least “the cause”, a woman as his second in command might be a good idea.
Ownership disclaimer - alas, not all of these people are mine
Hive mind disclaimer - I have used some ideas here that szm also used; we had similar ideas at the same time.
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 1
In the autumn of 1913, Captain Jack Harkness is alone in the Torchwood Cardiff Hub, with all his fifty-first century senses wide open, when he receives a telepathic message.
Repeatedly.
Attempting to draw what he’s received, from his mind’s eye, Jack ends up with a lot of circles and lines. Shapes he last saw thirty one years ago, on Post-It notes, haphazardly stuck all over the TARDIS console.
Those drawings were mostly considerably neater than the ones Jack now has. These... he thinks there’s panic and fear in them, along with joy at finding him. He pushes aside his bitterness at being abandoned, for the moment, because something appears to be very wrong.
“You never did translate his own language for us, beautiful,” Jack says, mostly to himself. “What’s he done this time?”
First, he needs to stop the panic, then he can communicate more effectively with her. Telepathy only needs ideas, so Jack creates each one in his mind, before passing them onto the TARDIS.
To calm the ship, he visualises caressing one of the coral struts, sending her that image and his associated emotions; loving and positive.
C’mon, sweetheart. Hush. It’s Jack, you found me, you clever girl.
Receiving each time slightly more coherent collections of shapes in response, Jack keeps repeating the embraces to her, until he finally gets what can clearly be interpreted as a smile, thank goodness. (There also seems to be a bit of eye-rolling, but whether that’s aimed at him, or the Doctor, or both of them is another matter. The third one’s the most likely answer.)
”Are you flirtin’ with my ship yet again, Captain?”
“She’s a incredibly beautiful woman, Doctor. What else am I gonna do?”
Jack breathes a sigh of relief. Now he can find out what’s happened, why the ship has sought him out. He visualises and transmits a question mark to her.
Suddenly, it feels like he’s a fox running from a pack of hounds, a kid playing hide and seek, and a teacher, complete with cane and mortar board. He hits the back of his own hand with the cane, and damn, that really hurts.
Jack forcibly drops the link, and as he comes back to himself, he works it out: somewhere in England, the Doctor is hiding from hunters, as a teacher.
He sends the TARDIS another question mark. “Where the hell is he?”
Again, he’s someone else; a boy with a gun. Jack spends the rest of the night researching the names of all the military academies in England.
***
On the night of November the 10th, Torchwood field agents in Norfolk call Jack, bearing reports of strange sky activity. The next night, there are reports of aliens, weapons, walking scarecrows, bombings.
And the Doctor.
The morning of the 12th, Jack puts Ioan Jones in temporary charge of the base, and he and Michael Davies take the train to Norwich. From there, one of the field agents drives them to their final destination, the school, in Farringham.
***
The school hall is over-run with people - boys, their parents, teachers, police, army officers. Keeping order over the mess is a woman in a nurse’s uniform.
Jack’s impressed. He needs people like her, people who won’t freak out when the world’s going to hell. And if he’s gonna have this female staff he’s been planning, once he loses all of his men to at least “the cause”, a woman as his second in command might be a good idea.
He catches the eye of a cute army guy, who’s probably gonna be dead, long before this time next year, disarms him with a smile and asks, “Do you know who the nurse is?”
“I believe her name is Joan Redfern, sir. She’s the school’s matron.”
“Thanks.” Jack gives the man another smile, before saying, “C’mon, Michael. Let’s go recruit her.”
***
“Nurse Redfern,” Jack says, approaching her.
“Yes?” She turns to him, still keeping her cool, despite the several boys hovering around her.
“Captain Jack Harkness, ma’am. Can I ask you some questions, please? Maybe we could find somewhere a little quieter, too.”
Joan looks the two of them up and down; Jack can see her calculating. “You are neither police nor army, gentlemen. What branch of the services do you represent? And what is it that you wish to know?”
Jack just says, “I’d like ask to you about the aliens, first, Joan. Then we’ll see where we go.”
“We can go to my rooms,” she decides, after a minute or so.
Jack turns to his colleague. “Michael, can you stay here? See if anyone needs... y’know.”
“Yes, sir.”
Leaving Michael to drug the more traumatised boys, Jack goes with Joan. She leads the way, asking a passing maid to bring them some tea.
***
They arrive at Joan’s rooms. Before taking a seat on the sofa, Jack stokes up the fire. The tea is brought; the maid pours it and leaves.
“Can I ask you about what happened here last night? My organisation received reports of strange sky activity, aliens, weapons, walking scarecrows, bombings and the Doctor.”
“It was all terribly strange, Captain. The Doctor made himself human, took the name of John Smith. He hid in this school and people died,” she tells him.
“Yeah. That tends to happen. Can you tell me about the aliens?”
“They were hunters, who took human form. They had weapons. They were... dealt with.”
“That also tends to happen. What about the Doctor? Did he have anyone with him?”
“Yes. A coloured girl, Martha Jones. She was John Smith’s maid, but she was also training to be a doctor.”
Again, Jack’s impressed. Joan isn’t freaking, she’s calmly telling him what happened. But what happened to Rose? Jack can’t believe that she just decided she couldn’t handle it all anymore. So, at some point, after the regeneration, after the werewolf incident which led to Torchwood’s founding, he lost her. And knowing him, fell apart again.
Just a few more questions, then he’ll tell who they are and give her a job. “Did you see a blue police box, Joan?”
“Yes. It was known as the TARDIS, I believe.”
“She, actually, not it. She’s alive, she’s telepathic. She contacted me, tried to get me here to help. But she’s old, and she’s never really worked properly. So we were a bit late.” Jack gives a small chuckle. “Sorry.”
Joan just says, “We did our best, Captain.”
“I saw.” Jack takes a breath. “Joan, I watched you talking to all those people. You didn’t panic, you calmed them down. My organisation needs people like that. I’d like to offer you a job, ma’am.”
She could tell him that she already has a job, but she doesn’t, for some reason. Half way there, then, apparently. Maybe she wants to get out of this place. Jack understands that feeling only too well.
“Again, Captain, you are neither police nor army. Why are you here?”
Putting his cup on the tray, Jack reaches inside his naval issue great coat (it’s had to do for ten years, but he’ll commandeer a Royal Air Force one after the war, when the RFC has renamed itself, and actually has money to make the damned things) and pulls out a business card. It bears their trademark: a ‘T’, enclosed within a hexagon. Passing the card to Joan, he says, “This is who we are: Torchwood. We’re here to investigate the incident with the Doctor, and the aliens. That’s what we do.”
“And who do you answer to, Captain?” She looks him straight in the eye.
“Now that would be telling, Joan. You’ll have to come and join us for the rest of my stories.” Jack laughs a little.
A calculation goes across her eyes. “Does your work hurt the Doctor in any way, Captain? He seemed so terribly... not entirely there, both as John Smith and the Doctor.”
Yes, that’s him. “Not at all, ma’am,” Jack half lies.
“John wrote... stories, Captain. Something is coming, next summer, and then again, fifteen years later.”
“He shouldn’t have told you any of that,” Jack says, sighing. Should have known better, Doctor.
“Well, he did. And I want to help. We have lost enough young men, lately.”
She’s right. It’s not that long since the Boer War. Who did she lose? “Yes, we have. How do you want to help, Joan?”
“I want to be a doctor, Captain. If a woman of Martha’s colour can do it, then there is no reason why a woman of my age cannot.”
The slight racism unfortunately goes with the times, but Joan otherwise has the nerves and heart to cope with a job at Torchwood. “I think that could be arranged. Ten months with us, then we get you into university next academic year. Will that do, Joan?” Jack smiles at her.
Okay, so it’s a carrot.
Works, though, as she replies, “Yes, Captain. Very much so,” smiling back. Placing her cup on the tray, Joan rises from her armchair and goes to a bookcase.
Returning, sitting beside him on the sofa, Joan passes Jack a book, and announces, “I have something to show you, Captain - ‘A Journal of Impossible Things’, John called it.”
“Or not...”
“Yes, Captain.”
Jack undoes the fastenings and opens the journal. Quickly flicking through, he sees pages and pages of scribbled words and sketchy art. Then he goes back to the beginning, this time to have proper look at the journal.
The TARDIS console, complete with wires hanging everywhere.
The sonic screwdriver.
A string of hexagons, presumably from a later Torchwood logo.
The people with gas-masks for faces.
A Dalek.
The Moxx of Balhoon and plastic men, all of whom he recognises from stories Rose told him, from the beginning of her travels with the Doctor.
Clockwork robots, in French gear.
Rose, who he misses like mad.
Cybermen, he thinks - they’re a different shape, so they’re possibly not from Mondas.
The TARDIS herself, the magic blue box.
Several men, including his Doctor.
Barbed wire, guns, mud, poppies, airships, Spitfires - the first two World Wars.
A pocket-watch.
A Raxacoricofalapatorian, one of the Family Slitheen.
Finally, the woman who gave him the book.
Why isn’t he in there? Memories flood back, all one on top of the other. Jack places the journal on the table, swiping at his eyes before he looks back at Joan.
She gives a minute, before saying, “Captain? You seem to understand most of the journal. Earlier, you spoke about the blue box with... love.”
“Yes, ma’am. I travelled with the Doctor for a while.”
“But did you understand him?”
“Never completely. Tried to, though.” Jack then swiftly changes the subject, saying, ”So, you wanna be a doc, then?”
“Someone has to attend to all those poor boys and men.”
Jack says nothing. Joan then looks away from him, and changes the subject straight back again. “He asked me.”
“To travel with him?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t ask just anyone, you know. He knew you could handle it, if you did go. Do you want to tell me why you turned him down?”
“He was no longer the man I fell in love with. John Smith turned back into the Doctor, but he had the same face. I didn’t fall in love with the Doctor.”
Jack remembers how quickly he did. Lust and friendship, then being in love, over a matter of days.
She is definitely no-nonsense, this one. She knows the Great War is coming, so he decides to detail the rest of his plan.
”Joan, next summer, following the assassination of an archduke, there will be a war. The European royal families will apparently forget that they are family. The treaties, agreements and alliances will break down. The empires will begin to crumble. And, yes, thousands upon thousands of boys and men will be sent into battle, my men among them. It will be four very long years before the war is over, and the ones who are still alive come back. I’ll be signing up with the RFC, the mad geniuses. I plan on hiring an all female team, just like the factories will be doing. Do you think you can handle me, a group of smart girls and a load of aliens?”
“Captain, after years of dealing with hundreds of boys, that sounds like child’s play. Now, leave me in peace so I can write a letter to the school board.”
Jack grins at her, and gives a salute. “Of course, ma’am.”
***
Leaving Joan, he makes his way back to the school hall. Michael approaches him, asking, “Did you employ her, sir?”
“Oh, yes, Michael. We’ll finish up here, and take her back to Cardiff with us. Joan Redfern will be a perfect addition to the team.”
crosspost:
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
dwfiction
new_who
galactic_conman
better_with_3
john_joan
Continue to final version of Part 2
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 1
Author - laurab1
Characters - Jack, TARDIS, Joan Redfern, OCs
Rating - PG
Length - approx 2130 words
Spoilers - TW: general series, DW: to 3.11-13
Summary - If he’s gonna have this female staff he’s been planning, once he loses all of his men to at least “the cause”, a woman as his second in command might be a good idea.
Ownership disclaimer - alas, not all of these people are mine
Hive mind disclaimer - I have used some ideas here that szm also used; we had similar ideas at the same time.
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 1
In the autumn of 1913, Captain Jack Harkness is alone in the Torchwood Cardiff Hub, with all his fifty-first century senses wide open, when he receives a telepathic message.
Repeatedly.
Attempting to draw what he’s received, from his mind’s eye, Jack ends up with a lot of circles and lines. Shapes he last saw thirty one years ago, on Post-It notes, haphazardly stuck all over the TARDIS console.
Those drawings were mostly considerably neater than the ones Jack now has. These... he thinks there’s panic and fear in them, along with joy at finding him. He pushes aside his bitterness at being abandoned, for the moment, because something appears to be very wrong.
“You never did translate his own language for us, beautiful,” Jack says, mostly to himself. “What’s he done this time?”
First, he needs to stop the panic, then he can communicate more effectively with her. Telepathy only needs ideas, so Jack creates each one in his mind, before passing them onto the TARDIS.
To calm the ship, he visualises caressing one of the coral struts, sending her that image and his associated emotions; loving and positive.
C’mon, sweetheart. Hush. It’s Jack, you found me, you clever girl.
Receiving each time slightly more coherent collections of shapes in response, Jack keeps repeating the embraces to her, until he finally gets what can clearly be interpreted as a smile, thank goodness. (There also seems to be a bit of eye-rolling, but whether that’s aimed at him, or the Doctor, or both of them is another matter. The third one’s the most likely answer.)
”Are you flirtin’ with my ship yet again, Captain?”
“She’s a incredibly beautiful woman, Doctor. What else am I gonna do?”
Jack breathes a sigh of relief. Now he can find out what’s happened, why the ship has sought him out. He visualises and transmits a question mark to her.
Suddenly, it feels like he’s a fox running from a pack of hounds, a kid playing hide and seek, and a teacher, complete with cane and mortar board. He hits the back of his own hand with the cane, and damn, that really hurts.
Jack forcibly drops the link, and as he comes back to himself, he works it out: somewhere in England, the Doctor is hiding from hunters, as a teacher.
He sends the TARDIS another question mark. “Where the hell is he?”
Again, he’s someone else; a boy with a gun. Jack spends the rest of the night researching the names of all the military academies in England.
***
On the night of November the 10th, Torchwood field agents in Norfolk call Jack, bearing reports of strange sky activity. The next night, there are reports of aliens, weapons, walking scarecrows, bombings.
And the Doctor.
The morning of the 12th, Jack puts Ioan Jones in temporary charge of the base, and he and Michael Davies take the train to Norwich. From there, one of the field agents drives them to their final destination, the school, in Farringham.
***
The school hall is over-run with people - boys, their parents, teachers, police, army officers. Keeping order over the mess is a woman in a nurse’s uniform.
Jack’s impressed. He needs people like her, people who won’t freak out when the world’s going to hell. And if he’s gonna have this female staff he’s been planning, once he loses all of his men to at least “the cause”, a woman as his second in command might be a good idea.
He catches the eye of a cute army guy, who’s probably gonna be dead, long before this time next year, disarms him with a smile and asks, “Do you know who the nurse is?”
“I believe her name is Joan Redfern, sir. She’s the school’s matron.”
“Thanks.” Jack gives the man another smile, before saying, “C’mon, Michael. Let’s go recruit her.”
***
“Nurse Redfern,” Jack says, approaching her.
“Yes?” She turns to him, still keeping her cool, despite the several boys hovering around her.
“Captain Jack Harkness, ma’am. Can I ask you some questions, please? Maybe we could find somewhere a little quieter, too.”
Joan looks the two of them up and down; Jack can see her calculating. “You are neither police nor army, gentlemen. What branch of the services do you represent? And what is it that you wish to know?”
Jack just says, “I’d like ask to you about the aliens, first, Joan. Then we’ll see where we go.”
“We can go to my rooms,” she decides, after a minute or so.
Jack turns to his colleague. “Michael, can you stay here? See if anyone needs... y’know.”
“Yes, sir.”
Leaving Michael to drug the more traumatised boys, Jack goes with Joan. She leads the way, asking a passing maid to bring them some tea.
***
They arrive at Joan’s rooms. Before taking a seat on the sofa, Jack stokes up the fire. The tea is brought; the maid pours it and leaves.
“Can I ask you about what happened here last night? My organisation received reports of strange sky activity, aliens, weapons, walking scarecrows, bombings and the Doctor.”
“It was all terribly strange, Captain. The Doctor made himself human, took the name of John Smith. He hid in this school and people died,” she tells him.
“Yeah. That tends to happen. Can you tell me about the aliens?”
“They were hunters, who took human form. They had weapons. They were... dealt with.”
“That also tends to happen. What about the Doctor? Did he have anyone with him?”
“Yes. A coloured girl, Martha Jones. She was John Smith’s maid, but she was also training to be a doctor.”
Again, Jack’s impressed. Joan isn’t freaking, she’s calmly telling him what happened. But what happened to Rose? Jack can’t believe that she just decided she couldn’t handle it all anymore. So, at some point, after the regeneration, after the werewolf incident which led to Torchwood’s founding, he lost her. And knowing him, fell apart again.
Just a few more questions, then he’ll tell who they are and give her a job. “Did you see a blue police box, Joan?”
“Yes. It was known as the TARDIS, I believe.”
“She, actually, not it. She’s alive, she’s telepathic. She contacted me, tried to get me here to help. But she’s old, and she’s never really worked properly. So we were a bit late.” Jack gives a small chuckle. “Sorry.”
Joan just says, “We did our best, Captain.”
“I saw.” Jack takes a breath. “Joan, I watched you talking to all those people. You didn’t panic, you calmed them down. My organisation needs people like that. I’d like to offer you a job, ma’am.”
She could tell him that she already has a job, but she doesn’t, for some reason. Half way there, then, apparently. Maybe she wants to get out of this place. Jack understands that feeling only too well.
“Again, Captain, you are neither police nor army. Why are you here?”
Putting his cup on the tray, Jack reaches inside his naval issue great coat (it’s had to do for ten years, but he’ll commandeer a Royal Air Force one after the war, when the RFC has renamed itself, and actually has money to make the damned things) and pulls out a business card. It bears their trademark: a ‘T’, enclosed within a hexagon. Passing the card to Joan, he says, “This is who we are: Torchwood. We’re here to investigate the incident with the Doctor, and the aliens. That’s what we do.”
“And who do you answer to, Captain?” She looks him straight in the eye.
“Now that would be telling, Joan. You’ll have to come and join us for the rest of my stories.” Jack laughs a little.
A calculation goes across her eyes. “Does your work hurt the Doctor in any way, Captain? He seemed so terribly... not entirely there, both as John Smith and the Doctor.”
Yes, that’s him. “Not at all, ma’am,” Jack half lies.
“John wrote... stories, Captain. Something is coming, next summer, and then again, fifteen years later.”
“He shouldn’t have told you any of that,” Jack says, sighing. Should have known better, Doctor.
“Well, he did. And I want to help. We have lost enough young men, lately.”
She’s right. It’s not that long since the Boer War. Who did she lose? “Yes, we have. How do you want to help, Joan?”
“I want to be a doctor, Captain. If a woman of Martha’s colour can do it, then there is no reason why a woman of my age cannot.”
The slight racism unfortunately goes with the times, but Joan otherwise has the nerves and heart to cope with a job at Torchwood. “I think that could be arranged. Ten months with us, then we get you into university next academic year. Will that do, Joan?” Jack smiles at her.
Okay, so it’s a carrot.
Works, though, as she replies, “Yes, Captain. Very much so,” smiling back. Placing her cup on the tray, Joan rises from her armchair and goes to a bookcase.
Returning, sitting beside him on the sofa, Joan passes Jack a book, and announces, “I have something to show you, Captain - ‘A Journal of Impossible Things’, John called it.”
“Or not...”
“Yes, Captain.”
Jack undoes the fastenings and opens the journal. Quickly flicking through, he sees pages and pages of scribbled words and sketchy art. Then he goes back to the beginning, this time to have proper look at the journal.
The TARDIS console, complete with wires hanging everywhere.
The sonic screwdriver.
A string of hexagons, presumably from a later Torchwood logo.
The people with gas-masks for faces.
A Dalek.
The Moxx of Balhoon and plastic men, all of whom he recognises from stories Rose told him, from the beginning of her travels with the Doctor.
Clockwork robots, in French gear.
Rose, who he misses like mad.
Cybermen, he thinks - they’re a different shape, so they’re possibly not from Mondas.
The TARDIS herself, the magic blue box.
Several men, including his Doctor.
Barbed wire, guns, mud, poppies, airships, Spitfires - the first two World Wars.
A pocket-watch.
A Raxacoricofalapatorian, one of the Family Slitheen.
Finally, the woman who gave him the book.
Why isn’t he in there? Memories flood back, all one on top of the other. Jack places the journal on the table, swiping at his eyes before he looks back at Joan.
She gives a minute, before saying, “Captain? You seem to understand most of the journal. Earlier, you spoke about the blue box with... love.”
“Yes, ma’am. I travelled with the Doctor for a while.”
“But did you understand him?”
“Never completely. Tried to, though.” Jack then swiftly changes the subject, saying, ”So, you wanna be a doc, then?”
“Someone has to attend to all those poor boys and men.”
Jack says nothing. Joan then looks away from him, and changes the subject straight back again. “He asked me.”
“To travel with him?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t ask just anyone, you know. He knew you could handle it, if you did go. Do you want to tell me why you turned him down?”
“He was no longer the man I fell in love with. John Smith turned back into the Doctor, but he had the same face. I didn’t fall in love with the Doctor.”
Jack remembers how quickly he did. Lust and friendship, then being in love, over a matter of days.
She is definitely no-nonsense, this one. She knows the Great War is coming, so he decides to detail the rest of his plan.
”Joan, next summer, following the assassination of an archduke, there will be a war. The European royal families will apparently forget that they are family. The treaties, agreements and alliances will break down. The empires will begin to crumble. And, yes, thousands upon thousands of boys and men will be sent into battle, my men among them. It will be four very long years before the war is over, and the ones who are still alive come back. I’ll be signing up with the RFC, the mad geniuses. I plan on hiring an all female team, just like the factories will be doing. Do you think you can handle me, a group of smart girls and a load of aliens?”
“Captain, after years of dealing with hundreds of boys, that sounds like child’s play. Now, leave me in peace so I can write a letter to the school board.”
Jack grins at her, and gives a salute. “Of course, ma’am.”
***
Leaving Joan, he makes his way back to the school hall. Michael approaches him, asking, “Did you employ her, sir?”
“Oh, yes, Michael. We’ll finish up here, and take her back to Cardiff with us. Joan Redfern will be a perfect addition to the team.”
crosspost:
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
dwfiction
new_who
galactic_conman
better_with_3
john_joan
Continue to final version of Part 2