Torchwood/Dr Who - fic - The Torchwood Girls, Part 19/20, Jack/OMC, Joan, Harriet, OFCs, 15/R
As already implied, these last two parts are going to be very sad indeed.
Fandoms - Torchwood/Dr Who/Pat Barker’s Regeneration
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 19/20
Author - laurab1
Characters/pairings - Jack/Peter (OMC), Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire, OFCs, Dr WHR Rivers
Rating - 15/R (semi-explicit m/m sex)
Length - approx 2120 words
Spoilers - TW: general series, 2.3 To The Last Man, 2.7 Dead Man Walking, DW: to 3.11-13
Story summary - While Jack Harkness serves in WWI, and suffers the consequences of doing so, Joan Redfern and some more very smart women save the world from aliens.
Chapter summary - The Captain goes home to his brave women.
Disclaimer - alas, not all of these people are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
Previous parts:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Part 16 Part 17 Part 18
cast list and story bible, for my own peace of mind
end of Part 18
Harriet thinks for a couple of minutes. “Temporal lock, I reckon,” she then offers. “Tied in with the Rift frequencies at the hospital, and the slice of the future that has been crashing into our time.”
“Could you write that up, as well?” Joan asks, taking the box from her and attaching the label to it. “See if Penny’s done, too, please?”
“Will do,” Harriet replies, rising from her chair. She opens the door and leaves Joan’s office.
She doesn’t envy Penny her specific task in the slightest, telling Tommy what they’re going to do, because they will need him at some unknown time in the future. The only thing Harriet can hope is that the whole experience does not break Tommy’s mind even further.
They are probably saving him from dying on the Front, but that’s incredibly small consolation.
***
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 19
A few days after the Tommy incident, it’s once again Joan’s turn to make the trip to Scotland. She’s so pleased to find Jack considerably happier than he was. His nightmares are only really traumatic about every other night, now, too. When he hugs her, in both greeting and farewell, he actually holds her close. It’s so different to the loose embraces he had been giving them. He even kisses her on the lips; closed-mouth, quick.
Harriet had returned from her visit with the news that he had flirted with her.
Properly.
If he’s willing to do those things, have that personal contact, he must be getting better.
And so Joan knows he’ll be back with them soon.
***
Picking up on a change in Peter’s mind, and so very aware of exactly what’s in his own hand, Jack takes his eyes away from his current task, and looks up at the kid’s face. Yeah, sure enough, the pupils in his beautiful hazel eyes are blown, once again.
“Jack,” Peter says, voice husky.
That tone does so many things to him. “I’m here, I’m here,” Jack replies, keeping his hand in place. Smiling, he moves into a position on the bed that will let him kiss his lover.
Or, more precisely, swallow his scream.
Watching him come, Jack takes his hand from its position between Peter’s legs, cups his face in both of his hands, and does that very thing. The kiss is slow, deep, and their tongues once again explore each other’s mouths.
“Your turn, now, Jack,” Peter says, when they finally need some air. “What would you like?”
“I thought you knew better than to ask me that kind of thing,” Jack replies, grinning.
“What would you like that I can give you, then?” Peter asks, instead, rolling his eyes a bit.
“The same as I did to you. That’ll be perfect.” Jack rolls off him, and closes his eyes, as Peter does what he requested.
And when they are both sated, they lick each other clean.
Holding each other close, they go to sleep.
***
At the end of June 1918, four months after his last one, Jack is once more eligible for a medical board. It takes place in one of the offices. Again, he answers questions from Rivers, and two more of the doctors.
Rivers reads from Jack’s file: “Colonel Jack Harkness, Number Three Squadron, RFC, has distanced himself from the rest of his squadron. The men are accustomed to him being very tactile with them, often offering a shoulder squeeze as encouragement, prior to a sortie. They have noticed a lack of such gestures, in recent days. He has no desire to return to air combat, at the Battle of Cambrai, and he is extremely easily startled. Diagnosis is neurasthenia, he is to be shipped back to Great Britain for treatment and recuperation.”
“You had suffered a severe aeroplane crash, Colonel?” one of the doctors asks him, from behind a table.
“Yes, at Cambrai,” Jack replies, sat opposite the three of them. He has to provide an altered version of the truth, for the rest of the story. “I almost died,” he continues, “but some Guards pulled me from my Sopwith Camel, when she was shot down. And that was just before she completely went up in flames.”
Jack catches Rivers’ eye, and sees the man nod, ever so slightly; that explanation of events worked, then. Good, because he can’t exactly tell the other two about the whole burning to death and coming back to life thing.
“And this plane crash ultimately caused you to experience nightmares, Harkness?” Rivers then says.
Those had been the worst part, of this whole dreadful experience. Jack’s heart begins to hammer; he takes a deep breath, calms himself. “Yeah. I went back up, in another Camel, a couple of times.” He pauses, laughs bitterly. “Not exactly the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“How often were those nightmares, when you first came here?” he’s then asked.
“Every night,” Jack replies.
“And now?”
“Not every night. And nowhere near as traumatic as they have been.”
“Harkness has recently even been able to assist a fellow patient in regaining his voice,” Rivers informs his colleagues. “Would you like to tell us about that, Jack?”
Again, he can’t reveal the whole story, on that issue. “Peter Henderson came here in March, following the Second Battle of the Somme,” Jack begins. “He reminded me of myself, in a number of ways. This hasn’t been the first time I’ve had such severe nightmares. I remembered how I was helped to get over them, and I used those same ideas with Peter. Just talking, encouraging, touching, that’s all.”
And now, sleeping in the same bed every night, sometimes in pyjama trousers, sometimes wearing nothing, and making love. None of which may be taken very well, so he’s not about to reveal that part. Thinking about Peter, naked and aroused as hell does make Jack smile, though. He then continues, “I’m really happy about what Peter and I achieved so quickly. He’s a good kid.”
“I think we have asked enough questions, now,” Rivers replies. “You may go, Harkness.
“Thank you,” Jack says, rising from his chair, and leaving the office.
***
A couple of days later, Rivers tells Jack the medical board’s decision.
Jack thinks about what he’s going to do for all of five seconds. Okay, so he’s been passed fit for General Service, discharged to active duty. But Jack has no intention whatsoever of returning to France. Someone else can finish the battle; there’s only another four and a half months of fighting to go, anyway. He personally has to get back to saving the world from aliens, rather than humans.
The aliens are considerably less hassle.
So, Jack tells Rivers, "There’s no way I’m going back up in a plane. I quit, on the basis of being Torchwood. I volunteered, my men volunteered; we chose King and country over the aliens. Now, I’m gonna turn all of that upside down; I’m gonna call Torchwood Cardiff, and tell my brave, smart, gorgeous women, who’ve been saving the world in their own way since August 1914, that their Captain’s coming home.”
Rivers is silent for a while, but then nods in understanding. Jack can see that he realises Torchwood has far more clout than the armed forces, about pretty much everything. “It’s hardly as if you can be shot for desertion or cowardice, is it?”
“Not exactly,” Jack says. “Well, I could be. It just wouldn’t stick.” He’d fortunately witnessed that just once, and the government wouldn’t publicly admit those executions happened for another fifty years.
“Captain?” Rivers then asks. “Not Colonel?”
“Hell, no, Dr Rivers. Always Captain Jack Harkness.”
“Very well, Captain,” Rivers replies, smiling. “I shall let you make your telephone call.”
“Thank you,” Jack says, and watches Rivers leave his own office. He picks up the phone, and starts his call, dialling the familiar number he’s given to a very select number of people over the last fifteen years.
Finally, he’s going home.
***
Peter has a medical board in June as well. With his voice regained, he too is deemed fit for General Service.
“They’re sending me back to France, Jack,” he says, as they lie in bed, one night, in early July. “I leave in two days. Back to the guns and the noise and the death.” He’s clearly frightened by the prospect.
“I know, Peter, I know,” Jack replies, sighing, and kisses him on the lips, before he tells yet another white lie: “They’re giving me a desk job.”
As they then make love, for one last time, Jack tries not to think about the fact that Peter is more than likely being sent back to Europe to die, in a muddy field, and he will never see the boy again.
Except, he hopes, as a name, carved onto a memorial.
***
Two days later, Jack kisses him goodbye; a peck on the lips. They’re both crying a little, and Jack dries Peter’s tears with his thumbs.
“King and country, Peter, just remember that.”
They salute each other, and Jack then puts the kid in a taxi, to take him to Waverley Station.
“Hell,” he swears, swiping at his eyes. He takes a walk around the hospital grounds, before he goes back inside.
***
The day after that, the time arrives for Jack to depart from Craiglockhart.
“Thank you very much for looking after me, Dr Rivers,” he says, at one last meeting with the man.
“I have enjoyed the task, Jack,” Rivers replies. “You really are a singular man.”
“You’ve got that right!” Jack exclaims, laughing. He rises from his chair. “Sir,” he then says, and salutes.
“Captain.” Rivers returns the salute. “Goodbye, Jack.”
“Goodbye, Dr Rivers.”
They shake hands, and Jack leaves the doctor’s office for the final time.
***
Joan meets Jack at Cardiff Station. He promptly sweeps her into his arms, greeting her as only he can. She notices that people are watching them. Informing him of this fact, Jack responds to that as only he can.
“Propriety can go to hell, Joan,” he says, when he’s finished kissing her. “I’ve seen far too much, I’ve lost far too many men, and I’ve missed you lot so much. We’re going out; we’re getting very drunk, and I’m dancing with every single one of you.”
“And then?” she asks, knowing her Captain far too well, and fully aware that that can’t possibly be all of it.
“This is me, Joan. Work it out,” he replies, quick as a flash.
Joan blushes. “All five of us?” she whispers.
Jack just keeps looking wicked, and with a glint in his eye, offers her his arm.
‘Dear God,’ Joan thinks, slipping her hand through the space, as they leave the station, and head for the van.
***
Back at the Hub, after kisses and embraces have been exchanged, Jennifer makes tea for everyone. They all sit in the main office to drink it, Joan in the chair she’s occupied for the last four years. They explain their last case to Jack; Tommy and the time shift. Listening to the girls, Jack suspects that he’ll be dealing with the end of that case, long after he’s lost all of them, and so many others.
“You’ll be wanting these back, I suppose,” Eleanor then says, standing. She unbuckles Jack’s holster from her belt and hands it, and the revolver it contains back to him.
“Hello, baby.” Jack smiles, and kisses the holster, making everyone laugh.
“Come along, ladies,” Eleanor says, “Let’s leave our COs to talk.”
Proud of them, Jack watches the women leave. Eleanor, the smart girl, closes the door behind her.
“You can have this back, too,” Joan says, removing the Vortex Manipulator from her wrist.
“Hello, to you, too, baby,” Jack repeats, and promptly straps the device on his own wrist. “Oh, I’ve missed the weight of that on my arm!” He looks back at his second in command. “Home stretch, Joan,” he tells her. “This time, it really will all be over by Christmas.”
***
Jack falls back into the routine with his girls instantly; it’s like he’s never been away.
“Oh, give me aliens, and the Rift, any day, Amy,” he says, one day in September, his naval issue greatcoat around him, as they watch a ship leave. Draping an arm around her shoulders, Jack adds, “C’mon, let’s go home.”
***
After what feels like far more than four and a half months with his women once again, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month finally arrives. Armistice Day, the end of the Great War, is November the 11th, 1918. The day will in the future, in Europe, and the British Empire, or ultimately, the Commonwealth, be known as Remembrance Day, or Sunday.
And after years of protest, only halted by the war, some British women are rewarded for their work in keeping the country going, while she lost so many of her men in battle. At long last, they are given the right to vote.
Drinking champagne purchased from where Faith tends to live, dealing her tarot cards (the place still gives Jack the creeps, he’d spent no longer than about five minutes in there, buying the stuff, and a bottle of whisky), they all toast these two important occasions.
“To saving the world --" Jack begins, teacup raised.
“-- And making our voices heard,” Joan finishes. “Now, do you know when I actually get to use this vote, Jack?”
“Afraid not,” he replies. “I’m just happy we’re not gonna lose any more young men, Joan.”
For a while, at least.
Continue to Part 20
Although it relates more directly to Part 3, this art gives an indication of what's in the next part:
Fandoms - Torchwood/Dr Who/Pat Barker’s Regeneration
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 19/20
Author - laurab1
Characters/pairings - Jack/Peter (OMC), Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire, OFCs, Dr WHR Rivers
Rating - 15/R (semi-explicit m/m sex)
Length - approx 2120 words
Spoilers - TW: general series, 2.3 To The Last Man, 2.7 Dead Man Walking, DW: to 3.11-13
Story summary - While Jack Harkness serves in WWI, and suffers the consequences of doing so, Joan Redfern and some more very smart women save the world from aliens.
Chapter summary - The Captain goes home to his brave women.
Disclaimer - alas, not all of these people are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
Previous parts:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15
Part 16 Part 17 Part 18
cast list and story bible, for my own peace of mind
end of Part 18
Harriet thinks for a couple of minutes. “Temporal lock, I reckon,” she then offers. “Tied in with the Rift frequencies at the hospital, and the slice of the future that has been crashing into our time.”
“Could you write that up, as well?” Joan asks, taking the box from her and attaching the label to it. “See if Penny’s done, too, please?”
“Will do,” Harriet replies, rising from her chair. She opens the door and leaves Joan’s office.
She doesn’t envy Penny her specific task in the slightest, telling Tommy what they’re going to do, because they will need him at some unknown time in the future. The only thing Harriet can hope is that the whole experience does not break Tommy’s mind even further.
They are probably saving him from dying on the Front, but that’s incredibly small consolation.
***
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 19
A few days after the Tommy incident, it’s once again Joan’s turn to make the trip to Scotland. She’s so pleased to find Jack considerably happier than he was. His nightmares are only really traumatic about every other night, now, too. When he hugs her, in both greeting and farewell, he actually holds her close. It’s so different to the loose embraces he had been giving them. He even kisses her on the lips; closed-mouth, quick.
Harriet had returned from her visit with the news that he had flirted with her.
Properly.
If he’s willing to do those things, have that personal contact, he must be getting better.
And so Joan knows he’ll be back with them soon.
***
Picking up on a change in Peter’s mind, and so very aware of exactly what’s in his own hand, Jack takes his eyes away from his current task, and looks up at the kid’s face. Yeah, sure enough, the pupils in his beautiful hazel eyes are blown, once again.
“Jack,” Peter says, voice husky.
That tone does so many things to him. “I’m here, I’m here,” Jack replies, keeping his hand in place. Smiling, he moves into a position on the bed that will let him kiss his lover.
Or, more precisely, swallow his scream.
Watching him come, Jack takes his hand from its position between Peter’s legs, cups his face in both of his hands, and does that very thing. The kiss is slow, deep, and their tongues once again explore each other’s mouths.
“Your turn, now, Jack,” Peter says, when they finally need some air. “What would you like?”
“I thought you knew better than to ask me that kind of thing,” Jack replies, grinning.
“What would you like that I can give you, then?” Peter asks, instead, rolling his eyes a bit.
“The same as I did to you. That’ll be perfect.” Jack rolls off him, and closes his eyes, as Peter does what he requested.
And when they are both sated, they lick each other clean.
Holding each other close, they go to sleep.
***
At the end of June 1918, four months after his last one, Jack is once more eligible for a medical board. It takes place in one of the offices. Again, he answers questions from Rivers, and two more of the doctors.
Rivers reads from Jack’s file: “Colonel Jack Harkness, Number Three Squadron, RFC, has distanced himself from the rest of his squadron. The men are accustomed to him being very tactile with them, often offering a shoulder squeeze as encouragement, prior to a sortie. They have noticed a lack of such gestures, in recent days. He has no desire to return to air combat, at the Battle of Cambrai, and he is extremely easily startled. Diagnosis is neurasthenia, he is to be shipped back to Great Britain for treatment and recuperation.”
“You had suffered a severe aeroplane crash, Colonel?” one of the doctors asks him, from behind a table.
“Yes, at Cambrai,” Jack replies, sat opposite the three of them. He has to provide an altered version of the truth, for the rest of the story. “I almost died,” he continues, “but some Guards pulled me from my Sopwith Camel, when she was shot down. And that was just before she completely went up in flames.”
Jack catches Rivers’ eye, and sees the man nod, ever so slightly; that explanation of events worked, then. Good, because he can’t exactly tell the other two about the whole burning to death and coming back to life thing.
“And this plane crash ultimately caused you to experience nightmares, Harkness?” Rivers then says.
Those had been the worst part, of this whole dreadful experience. Jack’s heart begins to hammer; he takes a deep breath, calms himself. “Yeah. I went back up, in another Camel, a couple of times.” He pauses, laughs bitterly. “Not exactly the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“How often were those nightmares, when you first came here?” he’s then asked.
“Every night,” Jack replies.
“And now?”
“Not every night. And nowhere near as traumatic as they have been.”
“Harkness has recently even been able to assist a fellow patient in regaining his voice,” Rivers informs his colleagues. “Would you like to tell us about that, Jack?”
Again, he can’t reveal the whole story, on that issue. “Peter Henderson came here in March, following the Second Battle of the Somme,” Jack begins. “He reminded me of myself, in a number of ways. This hasn’t been the first time I’ve had such severe nightmares. I remembered how I was helped to get over them, and I used those same ideas with Peter. Just talking, encouraging, touching, that’s all.”
And now, sleeping in the same bed every night, sometimes in pyjama trousers, sometimes wearing nothing, and making love. None of which may be taken very well, so he’s not about to reveal that part. Thinking about Peter, naked and aroused as hell does make Jack smile, though. He then continues, “I’m really happy about what Peter and I achieved so quickly. He’s a good kid.”
“I think we have asked enough questions, now,” Rivers replies. “You may go, Harkness.
“Thank you,” Jack says, rising from his chair, and leaving the office.
***
A couple of days later, Rivers tells Jack the medical board’s decision.
Jack thinks about what he’s going to do for all of five seconds. Okay, so he’s been passed fit for General Service, discharged to active duty. But Jack has no intention whatsoever of returning to France. Someone else can finish the battle; there’s only another four and a half months of fighting to go, anyway. He personally has to get back to saving the world from aliens, rather than humans.
The aliens are considerably less hassle.
So, Jack tells Rivers, "There’s no way I’m going back up in a plane. I quit, on the basis of being Torchwood. I volunteered, my men volunteered; we chose King and country over the aliens. Now, I’m gonna turn all of that upside down; I’m gonna call Torchwood Cardiff, and tell my brave, smart, gorgeous women, who’ve been saving the world in their own way since August 1914, that their Captain’s coming home.”
Rivers is silent for a while, but then nods in understanding. Jack can see that he realises Torchwood has far more clout than the armed forces, about pretty much everything. “It’s hardly as if you can be shot for desertion or cowardice, is it?”
“Not exactly,” Jack says. “Well, I could be. It just wouldn’t stick.” He’d fortunately witnessed that just once, and the government wouldn’t publicly admit those executions happened for another fifty years.
“Captain?” Rivers then asks. “Not Colonel?”
“Hell, no, Dr Rivers. Always Captain Jack Harkness.”
“Very well, Captain,” Rivers replies, smiling. “I shall let you make your telephone call.”
“Thank you,” Jack says, and watches Rivers leave his own office. He picks up the phone, and starts his call, dialling the familiar number he’s given to a very select number of people over the last fifteen years.
Finally, he’s going home.
***
Peter has a medical board in June as well. With his voice regained, he too is deemed fit for General Service.
“They’re sending me back to France, Jack,” he says, as they lie in bed, one night, in early July. “I leave in two days. Back to the guns and the noise and the death.” He’s clearly frightened by the prospect.
“I know, Peter, I know,” Jack replies, sighing, and kisses him on the lips, before he tells yet another white lie: “They’re giving me a desk job.”
As they then make love, for one last time, Jack tries not to think about the fact that Peter is more than likely being sent back to Europe to die, in a muddy field, and he will never see the boy again.
Except, he hopes, as a name, carved onto a memorial.
***
Two days later, Jack kisses him goodbye; a peck on the lips. They’re both crying a little, and Jack dries Peter’s tears with his thumbs.
“King and country, Peter, just remember that.”
They salute each other, and Jack then puts the kid in a taxi, to take him to Waverley Station.
“Hell,” he swears, swiping at his eyes. He takes a walk around the hospital grounds, before he goes back inside.
***
The day after that, the time arrives for Jack to depart from Craiglockhart.
“Thank you very much for looking after me, Dr Rivers,” he says, at one last meeting with the man.
“I have enjoyed the task, Jack,” Rivers replies. “You really are a singular man.”
“You’ve got that right!” Jack exclaims, laughing. He rises from his chair. “Sir,” he then says, and salutes.
“Captain.” Rivers returns the salute. “Goodbye, Jack.”
“Goodbye, Dr Rivers.”
They shake hands, and Jack leaves the doctor’s office for the final time.
***
Joan meets Jack at Cardiff Station. He promptly sweeps her into his arms, greeting her as only he can. She notices that people are watching them. Informing him of this fact, Jack responds to that as only he can.
“Propriety can go to hell, Joan,” he says, when he’s finished kissing her. “I’ve seen far too much, I’ve lost far too many men, and I’ve missed you lot so much. We’re going out; we’re getting very drunk, and I’m dancing with every single one of you.”
“And then?” she asks, knowing her Captain far too well, and fully aware that that can’t possibly be all of it.
“This is me, Joan. Work it out,” he replies, quick as a flash.
Joan blushes. “All five of us?” she whispers.
Jack just keeps looking wicked, and with a glint in his eye, offers her his arm.
‘Dear God,’ Joan thinks, slipping her hand through the space, as they leave the station, and head for the van.
***
Back at the Hub, after kisses and embraces have been exchanged, Jennifer makes tea for everyone. They all sit in the main office to drink it, Joan in the chair she’s occupied for the last four years. They explain their last case to Jack; Tommy and the time shift. Listening to the girls, Jack suspects that he’ll be dealing with the end of that case, long after he’s lost all of them, and so many others.
“You’ll be wanting these back, I suppose,” Eleanor then says, standing. She unbuckles Jack’s holster from her belt and hands it, and the revolver it contains back to him.
“Hello, baby.” Jack smiles, and kisses the holster, making everyone laugh.
“Come along, ladies,” Eleanor says, “Let’s leave our COs to talk.”
Proud of them, Jack watches the women leave. Eleanor, the smart girl, closes the door behind her.
“You can have this back, too,” Joan says, removing the Vortex Manipulator from her wrist.
“Hello, to you, too, baby,” Jack repeats, and promptly straps the device on his own wrist. “Oh, I’ve missed the weight of that on my arm!” He looks back at his second in command. “Home stretch, Joan,” he tells her. “This time, it really will all be over by Christmas.”
***
Jack falls back into the routine with his girls instantly; it’s like he’s never been away.
“Oh, give me aliens, and the Rift, any day, Amy,” he says, one day in September, his naval issue greatcoat around him, as they watch a ship leave. Draping an arm around her shoulders, Jack adds, “C’mon, let’s go home.”
***
After what feels like far more than four and a half months with his women once again, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month finally arrives. Armistice Day, the end of the Great War, is November the 11th, 1918. The day will in the future, in Europe, and the British Empire, or ultimately, the Commonwealth, be known as Remembrance Day, or Sunday.
And after years of protest, only halted by the war, some British women are rewarded for their work in keeping the country going, while she lost so many of her men in battle. At long last, they are given the right to vote.
Drinking champagne purchased from where Faith tends to live, dealing her tarot cards (the place still gives Jack the creeps, he’d spent no longer than about five minutes in there, buying the stuff, and a bottle of whisky), they all toast these two important occasions.
“To saving the world --" Jack begins, teacup raised.
“-- And making our voices heard,” Joan finishes. “Now, do you know when I actually get to use this vote, Jack?”
“Afraid not,” he replies. “I’m just happy we’re not gonna lose any more young men, Joan.”
For a while, at least.
Continue to Part 20
Although it relates more directly to Part 3, this art gives an indication of what's in the next part: