Torchwood/Dr Who - fic - The Torchwood Girls, Part 20/20 & Epilogue, Jack, Joan, Harriet,15/R
Here we are, then. This is the last part of the story. Thank you very much for sticking with me, Jack, the boys and the girls, over the year it's taken me to write this, and helping with plot points, when I got stuck. Please read the warning and summary; this part is very sad indeed.
Fandoms - Torchwood/Dr Who/Pat Barker’s Regeneration
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 20/20 and Epilogue
Author - laurab1
Characters - Jack, Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire, Alice Guppy, Emily Holroyd, OMCs, OFCs
Rating - 15/R (language and adult themes)
Warning - character death (canon and original)
Length - approx 4340 words
Spoilers - TW: to 2.12 Fragments, DW: to 3.13 Last of The Time Lords
Story summary - While Jack Harkness serves in WWI, and suffers the consequences of doing so, Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire and some more very smart women save the world from aliens.
Chapter summary - From November 1918, there is loss, followed by re-birth.
Disclaimer - alas, not all of these people are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
Thanks to boji and hellenebright for advice on this part.
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 Part 19
cast list and story bible, for my own peace of mind
research list, a whole load of links
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 20
It’s November the 22nd, 1918, early Friday morning. No-one else is in, yet. Jack’s trying to distract himself from the thought that tomorrow is the anniversary of his being admitted to Craiglockhart, and is actually doing some paperwork for once. He’s extremely happy to look up from his desk and put down his fountain pen, when a male voice he hasn’t heard for a very long time comes from his office doorway, saying, “Still alive, then, Harkness?”
“More or less, Andrew.” Jack rises from his chair, walks to the door.
“Thank you,” he whispers, to whatever benevolent spirits might be bothering to listen to him. “Could you send the rest of them back to me, too, please?”
“C’mere, you,” Jack says, grinning, as he reaches his doctor.
Andrew rolls his eyes, but he takes the couple of steps towards his captain. The two men embrace, holding each other very tight indeed for a good five, maybe ten minutes. They’re alive, they survived four years of hell. If either of them shed a few tears, of both happiness and regret, the other makes no mention of it. “Whisky?” Jack then asks, as he lets go, running his hands down Andrew’s arms. The sun’s nowhere near the yard arm, let alone past it, but who cares?
They’re alive.
Well, not that Jack couldn’t be otherwise, but he actually feels alive, for once.
“Oh, yes. Most definitely.”
“Sit, then.” Jack directs Andrew to a seat and pushes him down into it. “I’ll get the decanter and a couple of tumblers. Then we’ll talk.”
***
Over the drinks, Jack tells Andrew pretty much everything, including the plane crash and Craiglockhart. The doctor provides tales of being Captain Andrew Smith, 1st Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps. He talks about dealing with injured men and dead bodies, both far too many to count. They’re both rather hoarse, when they’ve finished.
“I’m not staying, Jack,” Andrew then says, pouring them each a second glass. “And I don’t want to be Retconned, either, so you can get that thought out of your head right now.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jack quickly replies, sipping his whisky. “What are you gonna do instead, then, Dr Smith?”
The other man uses Dutch courage as well, before saying, “Join the Imperial War Graves Commission, Captain Harkness, starting on January the 2nd. Help give God knows how many thousands of men their proper dues.”
Yeah. Jack nods, as he pictures the sights to come: rows and rows, almost never ending, of white marble headstones. It was no wonder the Commission wouldn’t finish their work until July 1938, just over a year before the Second World War started. “If I should die, think only this of me; That there's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England,” he quotes. “Rupert Brooke. The one Churchill gave that big, fancy eulogy to.”
“Quite. Can I have a secondment, then, Jack?” Andrew asks.
“Sure,” Jack replies. He’d chink his glass against Andrew’s, but that’s when his girls arrive. He drinks his whisky, sits back and watches the hugging, the welcoming home of a friend.
“Could you send the rest of them back to me, too?” he repeats, to his spirits. Yeah. He knows that’s probably not gonna happen. Tipping the last of his drink, Jack adds, “Oh, just have where and when they died on record, please. That’ll do.”
***
When it’s mid-December, and Michael, Ioan and Simon still haven’t been returned to him, Jack’s long since resigned himself to the unpalatable truth of the second option. If he wants to find out what happened, he’s gonna have to speak to the records office at Somerset House, and maybe also contact their battalion HQs.
“Can’t we just ask their families if they...?” Eleanor asks, standing in Jack’s office doorway, eavesdropping on the argument he and Andrew have been having about this very thing. She trails off, apparently not sure how to finish her question.
“No,” Jack quickly replies, then adding what she couldn’t: “I wrote far too many of those letters myself, and the act of doing that, so many times, was painful enough. We’re keeping this in-house, not hurting anyone else any more than we need to.”
“Miss Smythe does have a point, though,” Andrew says, sat opposite him. “Good God, Jack, you’re still such a stubborn bastard.” He shakes his head, seemingly in exasperation. “Never make things easy for yourself.”
“You’ve been aware of that since 1903, Andrew. I was a stubborn bastard long before you knew me, too. I needed to be. And I’m not gonna change any time soon.”
“Or ever, even?”
“Nope, probably not. You gonna give me a hand with this?”
“Do I have a choice in the matter?”
“Not really.”
Jack watches Andrew roll his eyes, before his doctor then says, “Just pick up the telephone and make the bloody call to Somerset House, Harkness. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” he feels the need to say. Armed with his men’s details: name, rank, serial number, regiment and battalion, he takes a deep breath and begins the call. Crunch time.
He needs to know.
***
The records clerk tells Jack:
2nd Lieutenant Ioan Jones, 4th (Service) Battalion of The South Wales Borderers: missing in action.
2nd Lieutenant Michael Davies, 9th (Service) Battalion of The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles): missing in action.
2nd Lieutenant Simon Reynolds, 5th (Service) Battalion of The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry: missing in action.
After asking about his own men, Jack decides he also needs to know what happened to Captain Alistair Roberts, 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, and 2nd Lieutenant Peter Henderson, 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards. Both men are listed as dead.
“Why them, Jack?” Andrew asks, when Jack’s finished the call. “On second thought, do I even want to know?”
“Captain Roberts just talked to me, and let me have some very fine whisky, Andrew, after the plane crash. After I’d burnt to death and resurrected,” Jack replies, and his voice cracks, just a little. “And, yes, he was handsome. Peter, well…” Tears threaten, so he stops talking.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?”
He tries to smile. “Oh, yeah. Twenty two, hot as hell. He came to Craiglockhart in March 1918 without his voice; the Somme had silenced him. I and my fifty-first century mind get his voice back. Then we’re kissing, and sleeping in the same bed, and having sex.”
“And you fell in love with him,” Andrew says.
“Yeah. Then I had to let Peter go, just before I came back here. God, what a mess.” Jack collects himself. “C’mon, we need to ring the battalion HQs. They’re gonna have the rest of what we need to know.”
“The Guards are more likely to respond to a telegram, Jack. I’ll organise that, you call about Ioan, Michael and Simon.”
“Thank you, Andrew,” Jack replies, grateful for the help. “Thank you for surviving, and coming back to us.”
***
December the 28th, 1918, all the replies to their requests come back.
Ioan’s battalion have him listed as missing at Gallipoli, 1915. Michael’s have him listed as missing at the Somme, 1916. And Simon’s have him listed as missing at Passchendaele, 1917.
In a bizarre twist of fate, the Guards have Alistair listed as dead at the 1918 Battle of Cambrai. Peter is listed as dead at Baupaume. God, just eight weeks after he went back.
Jack relays the information about Ioan, Michael and Simon to his ladies.
Then he locks himself in his office for the day, with his memories, and gets very, very drunk.
***
The following January, everyone bids Andrew farewell.
“Do our men proud, Dr Smith,” Jack says.
“I will, Captain. I promise.”
“You can come back, too, Andrew.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
They salute each other, shake hands, embrace.
With a strange mix of loss and pride, Jack watches Andrew’s car drive away until he can’t see it any longer, then he goes back inside.
***
“You have a package, Jack,” Joan informs Jack, one morning in April 1919. She comes into his office, and in her arms is the large box that’s just arrived, postmarked London. It seems to have come from some part of the military.
He beams at her, a very happy smile. “Joan! Thanks, put it on the desk, please!”
No sooner has she done that, he’s attacking the string with scissors, getting his parcel open.
“Oh, yes!” Jack says. Pulling out what Joan soon sees is a long, blue-grey greatcoat, he laughs. “God, I have missed you!”
“It is only a coat, Jack,” Joan informs him, a little concerned.
“Joan, Joan, Joan,” he replies, shaking his head. She watches him put it on, button it up. “This isn’t only a coat, it’s a RAF greatcoat. Complete with correct rank slides, too! They’re just about to celebrate their first birthday, and I’ve been waiting to have one of these babies again for fifty years.”
Once again, Joan reflects on the fact that Time is a very strange beast indeed. A thought then occurs to her that probably wouldn’t have, had she not encountered the even stranger beast that is Jack Harkness.
“You’re going to wear that to bed, aren’t you? That, and nothing more.”
“Joan!” She can see he’s pretending to be scandalised. “Yeah,” he admits, a wide grin on his face. “Might itch a bit, but what the hell.”
“I’ll leave you to it, Jack.” Joan smiles back at him, indulgently, and departs.
***
“Penny!” Dr White hears Jack yell. It’s June, and the heat’s been drawing a lot of aliens to the Rift, lately. They’ve been busy, and she really wants to go home, and sleep.
Jack barrels into the medical bay, trailing everyone behind him. Well, everyone but Harriet, who Jack’s cradling in his arms. She’s out cold. “Need some help, here!”
“Put her on the bed, Jack,” Penny says, trying to be the calming force, but worried, too. “Is she breathing?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?” she asks, examining Harriet. She notices the large wound on the woman’s shin.
Jack’s panicking, Penny can tell, watching him run a hand through his hair. “She got bitten by one of the Cerebraxians we were chasing. I then took it down, but the rest of the pack got away from us. The body’s in the van.”
“Don’t they carry poison in their teeth?”
“Exactly. Poison that’s fatal, if you don’t inject the antidote in time.”
“Well, come on, then, let’s hurry. Antidotes are in the cold storage case, Jack,” she replies, watching him look for the right one. But it’s then that Penny, stethoscope around her ears, hears Harriet’s heart begin to beat far too fast. “Quick, Jack!” she yells.
“Here!” he shouts back, handing her the prepared needle. Penny injects Harriet, keeps listening.
Then there’s nothing.
And not even CPR, a technique Jack taught her, will bring Harriet back. She lets Jack try his “surplus of life”, but that doesn’t work either. Everyone’s worried, crying.
“Harriet’s dead, Jack,” Penny says, gently pulling him away. “Leave her be.”
He dries his eyes with his fingers. “God, we need a defibrillator.” She watches Jack collect himself. “Right, arrangements,” he says. “C’mon, ladies, let’s let Dr White do her work.”
With that, he shepherds everyone out.
“Oh, Harriet,” Penny sighs, pushing Harriet’s hair off her forehead. It’s fallen out of its neat bun. “The very last thing Jack needed was another death on his conscience. One down…” she starts.
But as she herself begins to cry, Penny stops that train of thought, before it gets completely out of hand.
***
Two weeks after Harriet’s funeral, on a Wednesday afternoon, Jack receives a phone call.
“He's like fire, and ice, and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the Sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of Time and he can see the turn of the Universe. And he's wonderful,” the guy on the other end of the line says.
“He is,” Jack replies, smiling. He leans back in his chair. “Tim Latimer. Survived that bit of Hell, then?”
“Captain Harkness, sir. I knew I would.”
“You did, Tim, you did. When are you coming to see us, then? We need to work out if we can use you on our team, like I said to you, back in ’13.”
“Captain,” Tim then says, in a tone like the Doctor’s, when they faced the Emperor Dalek.
“Yeah?” Jack sighs. Tim knows, of course he knows, that’s why he’s ringing now.
“You need me on your team. You’re one down. My train’s booked for Friday.”
“Good man, Tim,” Jack manages to reply. “See you then.”
***
He meets Tim off the train, drives him to the Hub. In the five years since Jack last saw him, Timothy Latimer has grown up. Far quicker than he would otherwise have wanted to, of course.
They sit at Jack’s desk. Tim’s hired, there and then; they fill in all the necessary paperwork. The feedback loop of his own abilities and Tim’s clairvoyance is kinda hard to cope with; all those feelings and senses swirling around. They both have to close their eyes, briefly. From the web, Jack eventually manages to pull out that Tim’s concerned about exactly how his skills will be made use of.
He figures the kid has a point: Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd did abuse Jack’s telepathy and empathy, the mentally disturbed bitches. Often against his will, they’d tended to inflict on him the mind control and emotion manipulation devices that fell through the Rift. And if he’d died during one of the sessions, they really hadn’t cared.
It had all been far too similar to rape for his liking.
And, for all his flirting, and often casual, devil-may-care attitude to sex, the one thing Jack never does, is force himself on someone.
God, he’d been so happy when they were trying one of the instruments on themselves, and their experiment had gone awry. The end result had been a rather bizarre suicide pact. After they’d stowed the bodies, Jack had taken Dr Charles Gaskell all the way to Scotland, to the estate house. Arriving back in Cardiff, July 1903, he’d begun to assemble his own team.
The memory fades. “Tim,” he says, looking the young man straight in the eye. “I promise you, we will never abuse that brilliant mind of yours. Now, you want a tour of this place?”
***
June the 20th, 1919, CPR does work on Tommy Brockless, thank God. Penny watches Jack and the boy he’s going to be dealing with, year upon year, long after he’s said goodbye to all of them, and God knows how many others.
“Tommy, Tommy,” he says, trying to restrain the young man, stop him thrashing about. “C’mon, calm down.”
“Dr White,” Tommy then rasps, levering himself up. “Can I have some water, please?”
“Of course,” Penny replies. “I’ll fetch you a glass.”
“Who are you, then?” she hears, once Tommy can speak properly.
“Captain Jack Harkness, Private Tommy Brockless. You’ll be seeing a lot of me, kid.”
“Captain? Is it still not over?”
“It’s all over, Tommy. We won, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The war to end all wars.”
There’s a bitter chuckle after Jack’s last statement. He knows more than he’s telling, as usual, Penny suspects, but she really doesn’t want to consider exactly what it is that Jack’s not saying.
***
Spanish Flu, from 1918 to 1920, causes the deaths of more than twice the number of people who lost their lives in that so-called “war to end all wars”.
***
27th of August, 1920. 6pm, Jack comes out of his office, and bellows, “The sun’s shining. Go home, everyone. Enjoy the weekend. See you Monday morning.” They all say their farewells, and leave.
Eleanor arrives at her flat to find a letter on the welcome mat. Picking it up, she notices the Oxford postmark. It’s from Somerville, she realises, still recognising the College Secretary’s handwriting, after all these years. “What have you got to tell me, then?” Eleanor asks, sitting on her couch, and opening the envelope.
She almost can’t believe what she then reads:
The University of Oxford has made the decision that as of Michaelmas Term, academic year 1920/21, women will be:
1. Admitted to full membership of the University
2. Eligible to receive full degrees
Please could you inform us which degree ceremony at the Sheldonian you wish to attend. The available dates are...
“Bloody Hell,” Eleanor exclaims, grinning. “Finally.” Oh, this won’t wait until Monday. “Jennifer!” she shouts, going into the hallway. She calls her friend's telephone number.
“Had a letter, Jennifer?”
”Bloody Hell, Eleanor. At long last, after all that’s happened.”
“I know, I know.” She makes a decision. “Right, come over here, tomorrow morning. We’ll go back to the Hub, and tell Jack.” Jennifer agrees to the plan, and they say their goodbyes.
***
“Thought I said I didn’t want to see you until Monday, ladies,” Jack yells, hearing voices; Eleanor and Jennifer enter the Hub. He comes out of his office, arms crossed. The pair of them have great big Cheshire Cat grins on their faces.
“Yes, well, this wouldn’t wait until Monday, Jack,” Eleanor replies, and strides up to him. Jack takes the letter she’s offering, reads its contents.
“Oxford are finally going to give us our bloody degrees!” she exclaims.
“This is better than you, Joan and Penny being given the vote, I think,” Jennifer adds.
“Congratulations!” He hands the letter back. The grin Jack’s sporting then turns wicked; remembering just what the women have to wear at the degree ceremony, he says, in low voice, “I always did have a schoolmarm thing, y’know.” He kisses the girls, dances around the Hub with each of them; a quickstep. They all laugh, it’s loud, and happy.
But he then brings them back to reality, asking Eleanor, “How does it go for posthumous degrees? Will you be able to collect Harriet’s for her, as a student of the same subject?”
Eleanor looks away for a minute. “Harriet should be there, herself, Jack. It’s not fair.”
“I know, sweetheart," Jack sighs. "But we do our best, and carry on.”
That works, because the two women visibly pull themselves together, stand tall. “I don’t know what the procedure would be, but I’ll ring the College Secretary on Monday to find out,” Eleanor replies, resolve in her voice.
Jack nods, satisfied. “Good. Now get outta here, the pair of you!”
“Yes, sir!” they reply, saluting, smiling just a little.
Jack returns the salute. After watching them go, he returns to his office. Then he changes his mind, and goes to the morgue instead, to have a one-sided conversation with Harriet, because Eleanor’s right, she should be there, and it’s his fault she isn’t.
***
“You wanna go to Oxford, Joan?” Jack asks, on the Monday. “Seeing as you’ll actually get a degree, now.”
“I’m not sure that I could even get into Oxford, in the first place, Jack. But, yes, I would certainly like to go.”
Jack knows she’s smart enough, and has enough common sense to get in. But his conman skills haven’t left him, so… “You remember those stupid kids from Imperial? What did I say, then?”
“I believe it was, ‘money talks’,” Joan says. “What on Earth are you planning, Captain?” Oh, eyebrows raised, too.
“If they won’t give you a place on your own merit, and I certainly think they should, we’ll give the college some money.”
“Some?”
“Okay, a lot.”
“That all sounds terribly bad form, Jack.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure is.” He isn’t particularly repentant about it, though.
***
Joan Redfern finally begins her degree in medicine in January 1921. At Oxford, and entirely on her own merit. On recommendation from Jennifer and Eleanor, she’s a student of Somerville College.
“I kept that promise I made to you all those years ago, Joan,” Jack tells her, as they stand outside the college gates, shivering in the cold, winter air.
“You did, Jack. Thank you.”
“I’m gonna miss having you around, y’know.”
“I should hope so!”
“I’m so happy I met you, Joan Redfern.”
“And I’m very pleased I made your acquaintance, Captain Jack Harkness.”
“Think it’s a hell of a lot more than that, Joan.” His expression is wicked, the incorrigible man.
“Would you please hurry up and get back to Cardiff?”
“You know you love me, really.”
“Yes, I do,” Joan allows, turning serious. “And you love me.”
“Oh, yeah, Joan. You wouldn’t believe how much,” Jack replies, his tone matching hers. “Go get ‘em, gorgeous.” He pulls her into a hug, kisses her lips.
Joan kisses him back. All this, because of an alien who was hiding in her school. What a hell of a rush, as Jack would say. Now, she’s starting another new and exciting chapter of her life.
“I will, handsome,” Joan replies, when he lets her go. Walking though the Somerville gates, she hears Jack’s unmistakeable laugh.
***
“Eleanor!” Jack yells, the second he arrives back at the Hub, after leaving Joan in Oxford.
“Jack?” she replies, following him into his office.
“D’you wanna be 2nd in command, again?” He sits in his chair, looks up at her.
“Oh, yes,” she happily says.
“That’s that, then,” Jack declares. He gets up again, slips off his greatcoat, hangs it up. “Did I miss anything?” he asks.
***
A week after Joan begins her secondment to university, there’s a phone call.
“The Captain gave me this number,” a woman’s voice says, ”back in ’15.”
“Miss Louise Burns!” Jack exclaims, recognising her accent.
“Colonel Harkness. Decided, just before Christmas, that I didn’t want to be a secretary anymore. There’s only so much you can get out of hundred words per minute in Pitman’s shorthand.”
Jack files that away, for future reference. “And…?”
“Is your job offer for saving the world still open?”
“When can you get a train to Cardiff?” Jack asks, grinning.
***
Eleanor and Jennifer’s graduation ceremony takes place on a Saturday, in July of 1921. Leaving Tim to hold down the fort for the day, Jack and his girls travel to Oxford, by train. Joan meets them at the station, and there’s much hugging and kissing.
***
Eleanor is able to collect Harriet’s posthumously-awarded degree. And later, they’re all sitting in the sun in the University Parks, drinking champagne.
“We all have degrees or qualifications, now, or we’re working towards them,” Jennifer remarks. “At long bloody last. I thought Oxford was never going to enter the twentieth century.”
“A toast, I think,” Jack says. “C’mon, stand up.”
“What are we toasting?” Joan asks.
“All of you, the Torchwood Girls. You kept the place going, protected the world from aliens, through all those years of hell, and I am so proud of you.”
“To us, then,” Joan says, raising her glass. “And all our fallen comrades, male and female, soldiers and civilians. May they rest in peace.”
“I hope not,” Jack counters. “I hope, wherever they are, they’re still making a hell of a racket. Saving the world’s serious business, and it’s not a high you come down from very easily.”
“Very well,” Eleanor says, still wearing her mortar board. “May they not rest in peace until they consider their work to be done.”
At that statement, Jack knows these women will still be with him, long after they’ve died. Still being noisy, still arguing.
Still trying to help him make the world a better place.
***
Epilogue, They Shall Not Grow Old
click x3 for full size
11th of November, 1928
Jack repositions the poppy on his RAF greatcoat, pricking his finger on the pin in the process. Wincing, he sticks it in his mouth, sucks the blood away. Then he checks his medals, a 1914/15 Star and British War Medal, look okay.
He’s been taking his team to Remembrance Day services since 1921, and wearing a poppy since 1922 (his box is already on his desk, ready to welcome its seventh piece of red paper). Today, though, is the first Remembrance Day service at the Welsh National War Memorial, at Cathays Park. It was unveiled, back in June, by the current Prince of Wales. Jack’s so looking forward to the political crisis the man’s going to inflict on them as uncrowned King, eight years down the road.
Now, it’s a cold and wet Sunday morning, in mid November; they’re all sat around in the Hub, the women chatting quietly among themselves, Tim examining his watch.
The watch he’d been given by the Doctor, that had helped him save his fellow schoolboy. He was thinking about Hutchinson now, Jack didn’t need telepathy to tell him that.
Hutchinson had survived the war.
As for Simon, Michael, Ioan, Alistair, Peter and Harriet… Jack goes on, and remembers them, just like he’s done for everyone else who’s died, while he keeps living. He’d only died once. Burning to death hurt like hell. Jack shudders at the eleven year old memory that he isn’t going to be letting go of, any time soon.
“Jack?” a voice he hasn’t heard for a while says, pulling him out of his contemplation.
“Joan,” he greets, turning to face her, embracing the woman who is now a fully qualified doctor, has been for eighteen months. She’s been in London the last couple of months, helping establish the new Torchwood office. “You met Steven, then?” he asks, smiling.
“Yes, I met Steven,” she replies, acknowledging Jack’s newest recruit, up in the fake office. “And, yes, he’s a very handsome young gentleman. You really are still the most shameless man I’ve ever met, Captain Harkness.”
“You wouldn’t have it any other way, Doctor Redfern,” Jack tells her, before sobering. They’re all here, it’s time to go. He takes a deep breath, pulling himself together. “C’mon, people.” Everyone turns to him, and he notices the poppies: bright flashes of red on dark, sombre clothing. “Let’s go and remember our friends.”
~fin~
Fandoms - Torchwood/Dr Who/Pat Barker’s Regeneration
Title - The Torchwood Girls, Part 20/20 and Epilogue
Author - laurab1
Characters - Jack, Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire, Alice Guppy, Emily Holroyd, OMCs, OFCs
Rating - 15/R (language and adult themes)
Warning - character death (canon and original)
Length - approx 4340 words
Spoilers - TW: to 2.12 Fragments, DW: to 3.13 Last of The Time Lords
Story summary - While Jack Harkness serves in WWI, and suffers the consequences of doing so, Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire and some more very smart women save the world from aliens.
Chapter summary - From November 1918, there is loss, followed by re-birth.
Disclaimer - alas, not all of these people are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
Thanks to boji and hellenebright for advice on this part.
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 Part 19
cast list and story bible, for my own peace of mind
research list, a whole load of links
The Torchwood Girls
by Laura
Part 20
It’s November the 22nd, 1918, early Friday morning. No-one else is in, yet. Jack’s trying to distract himself from the thought that tomorrow is the anniversary of his being admitted to Craiglockhart, and is actually doing some paperwork for once. He’s extremely happy to look up from his desk and put down his fountain pen, when a male voice he hasn’t heard for a very long time comes from his office doorway, saying, “Still alive, then, Harkness?”
“More or less, Andrew.” Jack rises from his chair, walks to the door.
“Thank you,” he whispers, to whatever benevolent spirits might be bothering to listen to him. “Could you send the rest of them back to me, too, please?”
“C’mere, you,” Jack says, grinning, as he reaches his doctor.
Andrew rolls his eyes, but he takes the couple of steps towards his captain. The two men embrace, holding each other very tight indeed for a good five, maybe ten minutes. They’re alive, they survived four years of hell. If either of them shed a few tears, of both happiness and regret, the other makes no mention of it. “Whisky?” Jack then asks, as he lets go, running his hands down Andrew’s arms. The sun’s nowhere near the yard arm, let alone past it, but who cares?
They’re alive.
Well, not that Jack couldn’t be otherwise, but he actually feels alive, for once.
“Oh, yes. Most definitely.”
“Sit, then.” Jack directs Andrew to a seat and pushes him down into it. “I’ll get the decanter and a couple of tumblers. Then we’ll talk.”
***
Over the drinks, Jack tells Andrew pretty much everything, including the plane crash and Craiglockhart. The doctor provides tales of being Captain Andrew Smith, 1st Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps. He talks about dealing with injured men and dead bodies, both far too many to count. They’re both rather hoarse, when they’ve finished.
“I’m not staying, Jack,” Andrew then says, pouring them each a second glass. “And I don’t want to be Retconned, either, so you can get that thought out of your head right now.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jack quickly replies, sipping his whisky. “What are you gonna do instead, then, Dr Smith?”
The other man uses Dutch courage as well, before saying, “Join the Imperial War Graves Commission, Captain Harkness, starting on January the 2nd. Help give God knows how many thousands of men their proper dues.”
Yeah. Jack nods, as he pictures the sights to come: rows and rows, almost never ending, of white marble headstones. It was no wonder the Commission wouldn’t finish their work until July 1938, just over a year before the Second World War started. “If I should die, think only this of me; That there's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England,” he quotes. “Rupert Brooke. The one Churchill gave that big, fancy eulogy to.”
“Quite. Can I have a secondment, then, Jack?” Andrew asks.
“Sure,” Jack replies. He’d chink his glass against Andrew’s, but that’s when his girls arrive. He drinks his whisky, sits back and watches the hugging, the welcoming home of a friend.
“Could you send the rest of them back to me, too?” he repeats, to his spirits. Yeah. He knows that’s probably not gonna happen. Tipping the last of his drink, Jack adds, “Oh, just have where and when they died on record, please. That’ll do.”
***
When it’s mid-December, and Michael, Ioan and Simon still haven’t been returned to him, Jack’s long since resigned himself to the unpalatable truth of the second option. If he wants to find out what happened, he’s gonna have to speak to the records office at Somerset House, and maybe also contact their battalion HQs.
“Can’t we just ask their families if they...?” Eleanor asks, standing in Jack’s office doorway, eavesdropping on the argument he and Andrew have been having about this very thing. She trails off, apparently not sure how to finish her question.
“No,” Jack quickly replies, then adding what she couldn’t: “I wrote far too many of those letters myself, and the act of doing that, so many times, was painful enough. We’re keeping this in-house, not hurting anyone else any more than we need to.”
“Miss Smythe does have a point, though,” Andrew says, sat opposite him. “Good God, Jack, you’re still such a stubborn bastard.” He shakes his head, seemingly in exasperation. “Never make things easy for yourself.”
“You’ve been aware of that since 1903, Andrew. I was a stubborn bastard long before you knew me, too. I needed to be. And I’m not gonna change any time soon.”
“Or ever, even?”
“Nope, probably not. You gonna give me a hand with this?”
“Do I have a choice in the matter?”
“Not really.”
Jack watches Andrew roll his eyes, before his doctor then says, “Just pick up the telephone and make the bloody call to Somerset House, Harkness. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” he feels the need to say. Armed with his men’s details: name, rank, serial number, regiment and battalion, he takes a deep breath and begins the call. Crunch time.
He needs to know.
***
The records clerk tells Jack:
2nd Lieutenant Ioan Jones, 4th (Service) Battalion of The South Wales Borderers: missing in action.
2nd Lieutenant Michael Davies, 9th (Service) Battalion of The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles): missing in action.
2nd Lieutenant Simon Reynolds, 5th (Service) Battalion of The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry: missing in action.
After asking about his own men, Jack decides he also needs to know what happened to Captain Alistair Roberts, 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, and 2nd Lieutenant Peter Henderson, 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards. Both men are listed as dead.
“Why them, Jack?” Andrew asks, when Jack’s finished the call. “On second thought, do I even want to know?”
“Captain Roberts just talked to me, and let me have some very fine whisky, Andrew, after the plane crash. After I’d burnt to death and resurrected,” Jack replies, and his voice cracks, just a little. “And, yes, he was handsome. Peter, well…” Tears threaten, so he stops talking.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?”
He tries to smile. “Oh, yeah. Twenty two, hot as hell. He came to Craiglockhart in March 1918 without his voice; the Somme had silenced him. I and my fifty-first century mind get his voice back. Then we’re kissing, and sleeping in the same bed, and having sex.”
“And you fell in love with him,” Andrew says.
“Yeah. Then I had to let Peter go, just before I came back here. God, what a mess.” Jack collects himself. “C’mon, we need to ring the battalion HQs. They’re gonna have the rest of what we need to know.”
“The Guards are more likely to respond to a telegram, Jack. I’ll organise that, you call about Ioan, Michael and Simon.”
“Thank you, Andrew,” Jack replies, grateful for the help. “Thank you for surviving, and coming back to us.”
***
December the 28th, 1918, all the replies to their requests come back.
Ioan’s battalion have him listed as missing at Gallipoli, 1915. Michael’s have him listed as missing at the Somme, 1916. And Simon’s have him listed as missing at Passchendaele, 1917.
In a bizarre twist of fate, the Guards have Alistair listed as dead at the 1918 Battle of Cambrai. Peter is listed as dead at Baupaume. God, just eight weeks after he went back.
Jack relays the information about Ioan, Michael and Simon to his ladies.
Then he locks himself in his office for the day, with his memories, and gets very, very drunk.
***
The following January, everyone bids Andrew farewell.
“Do our men proud, Dr Smith,” Jack says.
“I will, Captain. I promise.”
“You can come back, too, Andrew.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
They salute each other, shake hands, embrace.
With a strange mix of loss and pride, Jack watches Andrew’s car drive away until he can’t see it any longer, then he goes back inside.
***
“You have a package, Jack,” Joan informs Jack, one morning in April 1919. She comes into his office, and in her arms is the large box that’s just arrived, postmarked London. It seems to have come from some part of the military.
He beams at her, a very happy smile. “Joan! Thanks, put it on the desk, please!”
No sooner has she done that, he’s attacking the string with scissors, getting his parcel open.
“Oh, yes!” Jack says. Pulling out what Joan soon sees is a long, blue-grey greatcoat, he laughs. “God, I have missed you!”
“It is only a coat, Jack,” Joan informs him, a little concerned.
“Joan, Joan, Joan,” he replies, shaking his head. She watches him put it on, button it up. “This isn’t only a coat, it’s a RAF greatcoat. Complete with correct rank slides, too! They’re just about to celebrate their first birthday, and I’ve been waiting to have one of these babies again for fifty years.”
Once again, Joan reflects on the fact that Time is a very strange beast indeed. A thought then occurs to her that probably wouldn’t have, had she not encountered the even stranger beast that is Jack Harkness.
“You’re going to wear that to bed, aren’t you? That, and nothing more.”
“Joan!” She can see he’s pretending to be scandalised. “Yeah,” he admits, a wide grin on his face. “Might itch a bit, but what the hell.”
“I’ll leave you to it, Jack.” Joan smiles back at him, indulgently, and departs.
***
“Penny!” Dr White hears Jack yell. It’s June, and the heat’s been drawing a lot of aliens to the Rift, lately. They’ve been busy, and she really wants to go home, and sleep.
Jack barrels into the medical bay, trailing everyone behind him. Well, everyone but Harriet, who Jack’s cradling in his arms. She’s out cold. “Need some help, here!”
“Put her on the bed, Jack,” Penny says, trying to be the calming force, but worried, too. “Is she breathing?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?” she asks, examining Harriet. She notices the large wound on the woman’s shin.
Jack’s panicking, Penny can tell, watching him run a hand through his hair. “She got bitten by one of the Cerebraxians we were chasing. I then took it down, but the rest of the pack got away from us. The body’s in the van.”
“Don’t they carry poison in their teeth?”
“Exactly. Poison that’s fatal, if you don’t inject the antidote in time.”
“Well, come on, then, let’s hurry. Antidotes are in the cold storage case, Jack,” she replies, watching him look for the right one. But it’s then that Penny, stethoscope around her ears, hears Harriet’s heart begin to beat far too fast. “Quick, Jack!” she yells.
“Here!” he shouts back, handing her the prepared needle. Penny injects Harriet, keeps listening.
Then there’s nothing.
And not even CPR, a technique Jack taught her, will bring Harriet back. She lets Jack try his “surplus of life”, but that doesn’t work either. Everyone’s worried, crying.
“Harriet’s dead, Jack,” Penny says, gently pulling him away. “Leave her be.”
He dries his eyes with his fingers. “God, we need a defibrillator.” She watches Jack collect himself. “Right, arrangements,” he says. “C’mon, ladies, let’s let Dr White do her work.”
With that, he shepherds everyone out.
“Oh, Harriet,” Penny sighs, pushing Harriet’s hair off her forehead. It’s fallen out of its neat bun. “The very last thing Jack needed was another death on his conscience. One down…” she starts.
But as she herself begins to cry, Penny stops that train of thought, before it gets completely out of hand.
***
Two weeks after Harriet’s funeral, on a Wednesday afternoon, Jack receives a phone call.
“He's like fire, and ice, and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the Sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of Time and he can see the turn of the Universe. And he's wonderful,” the guy on the other end of the line says.
“He is,” Jack replies, smiling. He leans back in his chair. “Tim Latimer. Survived that bit of Hell, then?”
“Captain Harkness, sir. I knew I would.”
“You did, Tim, you did. When are you coming to see us, then? We need to work out if we can use you on our team, like I said to you, back in ’13.”
“Captain,” Tim then says, in a tone like the Doctor’s, when they faced the Emperor Dalek.
“Yeah?” Jack sighs. Tim knows, of course he knows, that’s why he’s ringing now.
“You need me on your team. You’re one down. My train’s booked for Friday.”
“Good man, Tim,” Jack manages to reply. “See you then.”
***
He meets Tim off the train, drives him to the Hub. In the five years since Jack last saw him, Timothy Latimer has grown up. Far quicker than he would otherwise have wanted to, of course.
They sit at Jack’s desk. Tim’s hired, there and then; they fill in all the necessary paperwork. The feedback loop of his own abilities and Tim’s clairvoyance is kinda hard to cope with; all those feelings and senses swirling around. They both have to close their eyes, briefly. From the web, Jack eventually manages to pull out that Tim’s concerned about exactly how his skills will be made use of.
He figures the kid has a point: Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd did abuse Jack’s telepathy and empathy, the mentally disturbed bitches. Often against his will, they’d tended to inflict on him the mind control and emotion manipulation devices that fell through the Rift. And if he’d died during one of the sessions, they really hadn’t cared.
It had all been far too similar to rape for his liking.
And, for all his flirting, and often casual, devil-may-care attitude to sex, the one thing Jack never does, is force himself on someone.
God, he’d been so happy when they were trying one of the instruments on themselves, and their experiment had gone awry. The end result had been a rather bizarre suicide pact. After they’d stowed the bodies, Jack had taken Dr Charles Gaskell all the way to Scotland, to the estate house. Arriving back in Cardiff, July 1903, he’d begun to assemble his own team.
The memory fades. “Tim,” he says, looking the young man straight in the eye. “I promise you, we will never abuse that brilliant mind of yours. Now, you want a tour of this place?”
***
June the 20th, 1919, CPR does work on Tommy Brockless, thank God. Penny watches Jack and the boy he’s going to be dealing with, year upon year, long after he’s said goodbye to all of them, and God knows how many others.
“Tommy, Tommy,” he says, trying to restrain the young man, stop him thrashing about. “C’mon, calm down.”
“Dr White,” Tommy then rasps, levering himself up. “Can I have some water, please?”
“Of course,” Penny replies. “I’ll fetch you a glass.”
“Who are you, then?” she hears, once Tommy can speak properly.
“Captain Jack Harkness, Private Tommy Brockless. You’ll be seeing a lot of me, kid.”
“Captain? Is it still not over?”
“It’s all over, Tommy. We won, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The war to end all wars.”
There’s a bitter chuckle after Jack’s last statement. He knows more than he’s telling, as usual, Penny suspects, but she really doesn’t want to consider exactly what it is that Jack’s not saying.
***
Spanish Flu, from 1918 to 1920, causes the deaths of more than twice the number of people who lost their lives in that so-called “war to end all wars”.
***
27th of August, 1920. 6pm, Jack comes out of his office, and bellows, “The sun’s shining. Go home, everyone. Enjoy the weekend. See you Monday morning.” They all say their farewells, and leave.
Eleanor arrives at her flat to find a letter on the welcome mat. Picking it up, she notices the Oxford postmark. It’s from Somerville, she realises, still recognising the College Secretary’s handwriting, after all these years. “What have you got to tell me, then?” Eleanor asks, sitting on her couch, and opening the envelope.
She almost can’t believe what she then reads:
The University of Oxford has made the decision that as of Michaelmas Term, academic year 1920/21, women will be:
1. Admitted to full membership of the University
2. Eligible to receive full degrees
Please could you inform us which degree ceremony at the Sheldonian you wish to attend. The available dates are...
“Bloody Hell,” Eleanor exclaims, grinning. “Finally.” Oh, this won’t wait until Monday. “Jennifer!” she shouts, going into the hallway. She calls her friend's telephone number.
“Had a letter, Jennifer?”
”Bloody Hell, Eleanor. At long last, after all that’s happened.”
“I know, I know.” She makes a decision. “Right, come over here, tomorrow morning. We’ll go back to the Hub, and tell Jack.” Jennifer agrees to the plan, and they say their goodbyes.
***
“Thought I said I didn’t want to see you until Monday, ladies,” Jack yells, hearing voices; Eleanor and Jennifer enter the Hub. He comes out of his office, arms crossed. The pair of them have great big Cheshire Cat grins on their faces.
“Yes, well, this wouldn’t wait until Monday, Jack,” Eleanor replies, and strides up to him. Jack takes the letter she’s offering, reads its contents.
“Oxford are finally going to give us our bloody degrees!” she exclaims.
“This is better than you, Joan and Penny being given the vote, I think,” Jennifer adds.
“Congratulations!” He hands the letter back. The grin Jack’s sporting then turns wicked; remembering just what the women have to wear at the degree ceremony, he says, in low voice, “I always did have a schoolmarm thing, y’know.” He kisses the girls, dances around the Hub with each of them; a quickstep. They all laugh, it’s loud, and happy.
But he then brings them back to reality, asking Eleanor, “How does it go for posthumous degrees? Will you be able to collect Harriet’s for her, as a student of the same subject?”
Eleanor looks away for a minute. “Harriet should be there, herself, Jack. It’s not fair.”
“I know, sweetheart," Jack sighs. "But we do our best, and carry on.”
That works, because the two women visibly pull themselves together, stand tall. “I don’t know what the procedure would be, but I’ll ring the College Secretary on Monday to find out,” Eleanor replies, resolve in her voice.
Jack nods, satisfied. “Good. Now get outta here, the pair of you!”
“Yes, sir!” they reply, saluting, smiling just a little.
Jack returns the salute. After watching them go, he returns to his office. Then he changes his mind, and goes to the morgue instead, to have a one-sided conversation with Harriet, because Eleanor’s right, she should be there, and it’s his fault she isn’t.
***
“You wanna go to Oxford, Joan?” Jack asks, on the Monday. “Seeing as you’ll actually get a degree, now.”
“I’m not sure that I could even get into Oxford, in the first place, Jack. But, yes, I would certainly like to go.”
Jack knows she’s smart enough, and has enough common sense to get in. But his conman skills haven’t left him, so… “You remember those stupid kids from Imperial? What did I say, then?”
“I believe it was, ‘money talks’,” Joan says. “What on Earth are you planning, Captain?” Oh, eyebrows raised, too.
“If they won’t give you a place on your own merit, and I certainly think they should, we’ll give the college some money.”
“Some?”
“Okay, a lot.”
“That all sounds terribly bad form, Jack.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure is.” He isn’t particularly repentant about it, though.
***
Joan Redfern finally begins her degree in medicine in January 1921. At Oxford, and entirely on her own merit. On recommendation from Jennifer and Eleanor, she’s a student of Somerville College.
“I kept that promise I made to you all those years ago, Joan,” Jack tells her, as they stand outside the college gates, shivering in the cold, winter air.
“You did, Jack. Thank you.”
“I’m gonna miss having you around, y’know.”
“I should hope so!”
“I’m so happy I met you, Joan Redfern.”
“And I’m very pleased I made your acquaintance, Captain Jack Harkness.”
“Think it’s a hell of a lot more than that, Joan.” His expression is wicked, the incorrigible man.
“Would you please hurry up and get back to Cardiff?”
“You know you love me, really.”
“Yes, I do,” Joan allows, turning serious. “And you love me.”
“Oh, yeah, Joan. You wouldn’t believe how much,” Jack replies, his tone matching hers. “Go get ‘em, gorgeous.” He pulls her into a hug, kisses her lips.
Joan kisses him back. All this, because of an alien who was hiding in her school. What a hell of a rush, as Jack would say. Now, she’s starting another new and exciting chapter of her life.
“I will, handsome,” Joan replies, when he lets her go. Walking though the Somerville gates, she hears Jack’s unmistakeable laugh.
***
“Eleanor!” Jack yells, the second he arrives back at the Hub, after leaving Joan in Oxford.
“Jack?” she replies, following him into his office.
“D’you wanna be 2nd in command, again?” He sits in his chair, looks up at her.
“Oh, yes,” she happily says.
“That’s that, then,” Jack declares. He gets up again, slips off his greatcoat, hangs it up. “Did I miss anything?” he asks.
***
A week after Joan begins her secondment to university, there’s a phone call.
“The Captain gave me this number,” a woman’s voice says, ”back in ’15.”
“Miss Louise Burns!” Jack exclaims, recognising her accent.
“Colonel Harkness. Decided, just before Christmas, that I didn’t want to be a secretary anymore. There’s only so much you can get out of hundred words per minute in Pitman’s shorthand.”
Jack files that away, for future reference. “And…?”
“Is your job offer for saving the world still open?”
“When can you get a train to Cardiff?” Jack asks, grinning.
***
Eleanor and Jennifer’s graduation ceremony takes place on a Saturday, in July of 1921. Leaving Tim to hold down the fort for the day, Jack and his girls travel to Oxford, by train. Joan meets them at the station, and there’s much hugging and kissing.
***
Eleanor is able to collect Harriet’s posthumously-awarded degree. And later, they’re all sitting in the sun in the University Parks, drinking champagne.
“We all have degrees or qualifications, now, or we’re working towards them,” Jennifer remarks. “At long bloody last. I thought Oxford was never going to enter the twentieth century.”
“A toast, I think,” Jack says. “C’mon, stand up.”
“What are we toasting?” Joan asks.
“All of you, the Torchwood Girls. You kept the place going, protected the world from aliens, through all those years of hell, and I am so proud of you.”
“To us, then,” Joan says, raising her glass. “And all our fallen comrades, male and female, soldiers and civilians. May they rest in peace.”
“I hope not,” Jack counters. “I hope, wherever they are, they’re still making a hell of a racket. Saving the world’s serious business, and it’s not a high you come down from very easily.”
“Very well,” Eleanor says, still wearing her mortar board. “May they not rest in peace until they consider their work to be done.”
At that statement, Jack knows these women will still be with him, long after they’ve died. Still being noisy, still arguing.
Still trying to help him make the world a better place.
***
Epilogue, They Shall Not Grow Old
click x3 for full size
11th of November, 1928
Jack repositions the poppy on his RAF greatcoat, pricking his finger on the pin in the process. Wincing, he sticks it in his mouth, sucks the blood away. Then he checks his medals, a 1914/15 Star and British War Medal, look okay.
He’s been taking his team to Remembrance Day services since 1921, and wearing a poppy since 1922 (his box is already on his desk, ready to welcome its seventh piece of red paper). Today, though, is the first Remembrance Day service at the Welsh National War Memorial, at Cathays Park. It was unveiled, back in June, by the current Prince of Wales. Jack’s so looking forward to the political crisis the man’s going to inflict on them as uncrowned King, eight years down the road.
Now, it’s a cold and wet Sunday morning, in mid November; they’re all sat around in the Hub, the women chatting quietly among themselves, Tim examining his watch.
The watch he’d been given by the Doctor, that had helped him save his fellow schoolboy. He was thinking about Hutchinson now, Jack didn’t need telepathy to tell him that.
Hutchinson had survived the war.
As for Simon, Michael, Ioan, Alistair, Peter and Harriet… Jack goes on, and remembers them, just like he’s done for everyone else who’s died, while he keeps living. He’d only died once. Burning to death hurt like hell. Jack shudders at the eleven year old memory that he isn’t going to be letting go of, any time soon.
“Jack?” a voice he hasn’t heard for a while says, pulling him out of his contemplation.
“Joan,” he greets, turning to face her, embracing the woman who is now a fully qualified doctor, has been for eighteen months. She’s been in London the last couple of months, helping establish the new Torchwood office. “You met Steven, then?” he asks, smiling.
“Yes, I met Steven,” she replies, acknowledging Jack’s newest recruit, up in the fake office. “And, yes, he’s a very handsome young gentleman. You really are still the most shameless man I’ve ever met, Captain Harkness.”
“You wouldn’t have it any other way, Doctor Redfern,” Jack tells her, before sobering. They’re all here, it’s time to go. He takes a deep breath, pulling himself together. “C’mon, people.” Everyone turns to him, and he notices the poppies: bright flashes of red on dark, sombre clothing. “Let’s go and remember our friends.”
~fin~