TW Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (1/6)
Title: The Valentine's Day Massacre (1/6)
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Steven, Lois, Alice, Freda Evans, Original Characters, Agent Johnson, Martha, Mickey, Miss Valentine, Rhiannon, Andy
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Martha/Mickey
Rating: Some scenes only appropriate for adults
Words: 35,300 (7800 this part)
Beta: jo02, with greatest thanks
Warnings: murder most foul, graphic violence, background references to prostitution and noncon
Spoilers: references to all of TW canon as well as to the novels, audiobooks, and radio plays
Summary: Torchwood is caught in the middle of a war between two alien gangs.
Prompt: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1968)
Disclaimer: Torchwood characters and situations belong to the BBC. "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967) belongs to Twentieth-Century Fox. The real St. Valentine's Day Massacre as heavily dramatized in the film was a famous unsolved murder in Chicago in 1929. Click here to learn more about the original event.
Notes: Written for reel_torchwood. Part of Straysverse. (For those who came in late: Jack and Gwen have rebuilt the latest version of Torchwood Cardiff with Lois and a few new faces, while Ianto and Steven have returned to their old lives.)
***
Chapter 1
***
February 14th
***
The morning dawned cold and cloudy. Snowflakes cluttered the air, defiantly white against the grubby city until they turned to thin, cold, brownish slush in the streets, seeping through shoes and shivering down unprotected necks. It was a miserable snow, pale and mean, and wet from the Bay. Not enough fell to close the schools, not yet, despite the urgent prayers of Cardiff's children. Even above the usual noises of the city came the rushing hush of the snow, which muted the rest by its ancient cold magic.
The city bustle and the shushing snow both crackled with the sound of gunfire splitting the air. On the street outside the old garage, people darted from the echoing noise, loud and shocking in the air. Mobiles came out, and the CCTV cameras hummed, yet later, not a single photograph or video would be clear, not of the building, not of the four people who walked out, nor of their overlarge SUV speeding away from the scene.
The police arrived within minutes, and PC Davidson took the first crack at the witnesses as his colleagues secured the area. What did you see, did you snap a photo, where did they go? He'd done this a thousand times before.
"Oi, Andy!" came a shout from the door. Even as Andy nodded at the woman he'd interviewed, he could see past PC Grayden into the bloody mess. He saw what Grayden had seen instantly: the blood was blue and green, and no way had that ever been a human hand.
He sighed. "Best call Torchwood. That's their division." He glanced at the woman who'd followed him over, and he wondered how to hide the alien murders from her.
"Torchwood?" she asked. Cardiff's worst-kept secret might still be slightly secret, he thought. Then the woman said, "But they were the ones what did it."
***
February 7th
***
Their day began as their normal days did: grumbling at the alarm, grumbling more when Jack’s wrist strap beeped at them mournfully from the bedside table. Each cast a groggy eye to the time to determine if there was sufficient padding in the morning routine for a quick fumble under the warm bedspread before they showered. Fumble and shower achieved, and breakfast a promise in the car, Ianto let Jack take the wheel whilst he called Steven to confirm their plans for the following day.
Alice picked up, and said without a hello, ″He can only spend one night. We’ve got a dinner Saturday.″
Ianto knew better than arguing with her. She could have decided not to let him come visit. ″That’s fine. Are you coming to fetch him or should I plan on driving him home?″
″Bring him at six.″
The phone made a noise like it was being jostled, then Steven said, ″Hi.″
″Hi. Are we on for tomorrow?″
″Yep.″ Steven had the shy sound he adopted when he didn’t want to say something in front of his mum. ″When will you be here?″
″I’ll try to come before five.″
″All right.″ Again the quiet breath indicating there was more he wanted to express. Ianto could chat with him later. More and more this awkwardness had as much to do with the early signs of puberty as it did with Steven's recurrent nightmares about his death. They could get through both. They always did. Ianto had come back from the dead, and Steven had, too. They'd wound up one another's best friend by accident and necessity, as strange as that looked to everyone else. Even Jack, who died all the time, didn't understand them as well as they could each other at times.
″I'll see you then.″ They said their farewells and rang off. Ianto sent him a text on his own mobile: "U ok?"
The reply came immediately: "Im ok."
Jack gave him a not even remotely disinterested glance. ″Everything all right?″
″Fine. I’ll leave work early tomorrow. I hope the boss doesn’t mind.″
There were plenty of places for Jack to go with that obvious an opening. Ianto recalled days when Jack would jump in disparaging Ianto′s boss, or start suggesting lurid sexual acts for Ianto to curry said boss’s favour. He hoped for the former more than the latter, as an erection would be inconvenient now that they were pulling into the car park by the new office.
No-one had called this morning, and Jack's review of the overnight systems had offered no particular warnings of terror before they'd left the flat. They took a moment, casual and happy, for a quick kiss in the car. On the rare quiet days, so rare it had only happened twice, Ianto was happy to let Jack distract him from the doldrums of their paperwork and routine with sex. Today he made due with the taste of Jack's toothpaste in his mouth and the scent of his skin as they breathed over one another before reluctantly pulling away to start the day. The winter chill hit him when he opened his door, a bleak reminder of death and loss and sorrow after the blazing warmth of Jack.
"See you," said Ianto, drawing out his own keys for the front office. He let himself inside, booted up his work computer, and got to his day. Several of the regular search algorithms he left running on the server spit out their latest findings, and Ianto diligently read through each one. His self-created job was to track down the many artefacts and items once held by Torchwood Cardiff or London, since snatched up by collectors or worse, and return them to safe storage here in the vaults. His cover as an antiques dealer and purveyor of odd knick-knacks forestalled inquiries. The little shop front, which hid the true nature of the reborn Torchwood, held eccentric hours, advertised shabby old porcelain not even a granny could love, and served as the perfect backdrop for retrieving the alien tech which had gone wandering after one location had burned, and the other had blown up.
He named the shop Chanticleer, on a dare from Jack.
As he sorted through the pings, categorising those which looked promising, Lois popped in from the back. "Morning." She plunked a mug down on his desk, and plunked herself in the chair opposite.
Ianto raised his eyebrows. "That bad?"
"Open the overnight log and see for yourself." Lois frowned and rubbed the bridge of her nose as Ianto logged into the regular Torchwood servers.
"How many does that make this week?"
"Seven."
"Want a hand with the clean-up?"
She gave him a small but friendly smile. "I wish. No, we'll go stomping out, Jack will shout a bit, and nothing will change."
Her cynicism was a new acquisition. The alien gangs had been fighting for territory, and the skirmishes meant a rising body count. No humans had been killed, which meant that Torchwood might take an interest but had no authority. The human police played dumb, not a stretch for them. That left only the gangs themselves to watch one another, and they generally watched each other die.
"That's our day, anyway," she said, tossing in a breezy nonchalance she clearly did not feel. "What've you got today?"
He pulled up one of his searches. "Shopping."
"Lovely. Get us some crisps while you're out."
"Yes, ma'am."
As soon as Lois went back into the secret workplace behind the false wall, Ianto printed his list, closed the shop, and took his keys. He was back to using the company car again after Jack had borrowed his car for that unfortunate chase last month. The slim black towncar lacked the grace of his most recent short-lived Audi as he sped to the first address.
He needn't have bothered with the rush. As he parked, he saw a too-familiar vehicle parked in front of the semi-detached he'd come to visit. There was still a tiny chance, although as he exited the car, that chance extinguished. Firestone Finance had sent their acquisitions team, who were just leaving the house with a box in tow.
Ianto waited for them at the street. He ignored the two men, heavies who'd been hired for their ability to point a gun in the right direction two times out of three, and focused on the ringleader. "Miss Valentine."
"Late again, Mr. Jones," said Miss Valentine. Her expression snapped into focus, done with whatever mind games she'd been playing on the previous owner of the artefact now in her company's possession. "Really, it's hardly stealing," she said, plucking the thought out of his head half-formed. "We pay." What she'd paid in exchange for an Arkellian memory whip was not open for questions, nor were her plans for same. Valentine snorted. "Please."
Per Jack's instructions on dealing with her, Ianto began thinking of cans of soup stacked in neat rows. He delighted privately in the grumpy frown which flashed over her face. The soup slipped, and he thought of his next stop.
"Thank you. We'll visit them next."
He got a headache for his trouble.
On the way to the third stop, which he hoped he could reach before them, his mobile chirped with a text. Inviting wreck and ruin, he checked it. Steven had to cancel for this weekend after all. Ianto debated calling Alice and reminding her how much her son needed to spend time with them. She would probably remind Ianto that he'd been the one to cancel the prior two weeks.
Next weekend, he promised himself, before the sat nav interrupted his thoughts with directions.
***
Gwen dropped her latex gloves into the bin liner they'd brought to the crime scene. Dr. Pol had asked for an extra pair of hands to examine the latest corpse, but with a quick poke into the poor creature's innards, she'd pronounced it dead from the series of bullets ripping open its guts. No surprises. Gwen took a moment to look into the alien's face. She couldn't even recall the species of the last one, and this wasn't easier to identify.
"What was it?"
"She was an Armaxian."
"Oh." She watched as Pol wrote down her findings. Reports at Torchwood had been a joke since long before Gwen herself came aboard, but Jack said recording their work made the difference between being official and being nosy bastards. "Do we know which gang she was in?"
"Neither." Jack came into the room. "The family insists she wasn't involved. This was a drive-by."
Dr. Pol clucked to herself. "She had enough drugs in her system to be floating in the stratosphere. Someone sold them to her."
Gwen said, "If it's drugs, can't we … "
"Not our domain," Jack said.
She glared at him, which bounced off without landing. Either he didn't care, or he didn't think caring would help. "Can we link it to the rest? Surely if we put enough of these deaths together, we can stop them."
Pol said, "Those poor blokes yesterday wound up with two slugs in their heads each. Nasty business."
Jack said, "And we caught the slugs before they could get any human victims. That's our job. Are we done here?"
They walked out together to where Albert and Lois waited, the former standing guard and the latter being friendly and sympathetic to the family. That used to be her job. Gwen glanced away, and paid closer attention to the houses around her. The team came to this area of the city more and more often, the cheaper streets where the semi-legal alien immigrants lived and bred and worked for one another and paid their taxes. The ones who could pass for human, like Dr. Pol, could move into the nicer parts of Cardiff, even the suburbs. The rest made do by working nights, wearing hats and hoodies, and making an effort not to be noticed by anyone.
Freda Evans lived around here, Gwen remembered, with a sudden wash of jumbled memories. She hadn't thought about their part-alien refugee in months. She'd been more Andy's friend, of course, fond of her "squadman." But Gwen had been acting as a care coordinator, hadn't she? Social worker? But she'd stopped. Got busy. Guilt ate at her. It must have been when Anwen was a baby, she thought. She'd had too much to do back then. So many of her memories of the time rose and fell on her daughter.
"Jack, I'll meet you back at the Hub."
Before he could say a word, she turned and walked down the road, pulling out her mobile to search for the address. The others wouldn't even bring the body back to the base, and instead would allow the family to dispose of the dead girl's remains. As Freda Evans' name and address came up on her Google, Gwen realised she'd never even asked the dead alien's name. She would have done, once.
Freda's flat wasn't far. Gwen felt the eyes on her as she buzzed up. A male voice answered, but Freda broke through. "Come on, then." The lock buzzed, allowing Gwen inside the dark building. The spicy, strange smells of alien cookery seeped out from closed doors, had soaked into the woodwork. Gwen knew if she peeled off the crumbling floral wallpaper and sprinkled it into a soup, she'd taste the same meals which had been cooked here for decades. Freda's flat was up two flights of stairs, squashed between two other flats along that side of the building.
When she knocked, the door came open only to the latch. "We ain't done nothing," Freda said through the gap.
"I know that, Freda," said Gwen in her kindest voice. "I was in the neighbourhood and wanted to say hello."
Freda's face scrunched up in disbelief. She undid the latch and let Gwen inside. The tiny flat was filled by a bed, a miniature refrigerator, and a hotplate, with a toilet half-concealed by a curtain. Clothes hung neatly on a line strung across one side of the room. The space was very clean, with the proverbial hardwood floors scrubbed enough to eat the proverbial dinners off of, if Gwen could find an open spot large enough to set her meal.
The man standing beside Freda took up a lot of space all on his own. His skin was a disturbing shade of green and he had an extra arm Gwen was affecting not to stare at. "Hello," she said, sticking out her own hand in a friendly manner. "I'm Gwen. Freda's friend."
He didn't take the hand. "Never seen you before."
"I met Freda when she first came to Cardiff."
"Yeah," said Freda, which didn't help Gwen know how much she'd told her new friend. "She's a friend of Tony's."
Tony? Gwen scraped her memories. "Tony Pratt?"
The big man nodded, and turned away to sit down on the bed. Freda said, "Andy's been busy. Tony's been looking after us. Ain't that right, Slaus?"
Slaus grunted. Perhaps he'd exhausted his English. More likely, he'd exhausted his interest. To Gwen's great surprise, he picked up a novel from beside the bed and opened to a bookmark. To her greater surprise, the book was Fifty Shades. Good God.
"How've you been, Freda?"
"Ta, fine," said the girl, turning to get some Cokes from the fridge. She was in her early twenties now and no longer the scared teenager who'd fallen through the Rift from their future, but Gwen could still read the same spooked, cautious body language from long ago. She accepted the Coke, paying close attention to Freda's arms and hands.
"What's this?" she asked, reaching out for the thin ring on Freda's finger. It was gold ...ish, and sported a tiny chip of probably diamond. Gwen grinned. "When's the big day?"
Freda snatched her hand back. "Last year. Andy said yous was busy chasing a ghost."
Gwen laughed. "If he talks about Scooby-Doo, he means Torchwood."
"Nah, he knows Torchwood. Some case you had. Missing kid."
Gwen shrugged. "We do a lot of work." The words fretted at her. She always felt the worst about cases involving children. They all did. Ianto had a snap of a little girl he'd never even met on his desk alongside Steven's and two smaller snaps of his niece and nephew. Gwen kept hers on her phone, with hundreds of photographs of her daughter interspersed with the kids they couldn't save. For the life of her, she couldn't remember a case that would've caused her to miss Freda's wedding. It must have been important.
"Sorry," she said, and glanced back at Slaus. "He seems nice."
Freda's shrug said volumes from one woman to another. Maybe he was nice, maybe he wasn't, but he was a good man who treated her all right, and he'd be there for her, which was more than she could say for anyone else. Green and an extra arm and a flat in the bad part of town were exchanges for knowing he'd be there in the morning.
***
Jack stared at the white board in the new Hub. Lois had installed it one afternoon when the rest of the team had been out. The neat and precise angles cut out a space for detailed work in dry-erase colours and a perky yet passive-aggressive note: "Now you don't have to leave Post-Its everywhere." Jack had responded with his own trademarked variety of passive-aggression, which led Gwen to leave a note of her own: "Any body parts drawn on this board will be removed from the artist and timed to see how long they take to regrow." Jack had stuck one final Post-It to the board and succumbed to the inevitable, using the greying surface to make notes on their cases. He added another tick mark to the body count in one corner.
He heard Albert approach behind him. "A baker's dozen."
"We could divide them up. Seven from the Bugs, six from the Machine." Jack hacked a rough, red line between the sets of numbers. Mopolite's Machine ran most of south England. The alien gangster would be pleased to run Cardiff as well, if only to thumb his nose at Torchwood. The Bugs were the closest thing to an organised gang here, and they wanted nothing to do with Mopolite or his cronies. Self-rule, even if that meant no more than the dregs of alien culture left over from the days of the Rift and a fuckton of Weevils. Jack was bright enough never to say the Welsh aliens reminded him of Welsh humans, especially not in front of Gwen and Ianto. Lately, though, the Bugs had got into the murder game as well, shooting up the homes and businesses of Machine-leaning aliens. It was a mess.
"We could tell the police, boss." Albert floated the idea as he had the other three times: carefully, pretending as though he'd just thought of the notion.
"No."
"Right. Stupid of me to mention."
Jack checked his mobile again. Ianto had texted to let him know they wouldn't have Steven this weekend after all. "I'm going to pay a visit to our friend Mr. Mopolite."
"Want company?"
"Not this time."
***
Dr. Pol arrived home earlier than usual, and waved at her neighbour Mrs. Pettidear as she came up the walk to her own house. "Evening, love."
"Good evening, Irene." Mrs. Pettidear smiled, showing off her newest set of false teeth. She'd lost her previous two sets somewhere in the dusty recesses of her house. Pol had come over to help her look, and had had a quick tidy while she'd been at it, but the old woman's teeth had run off with the mice.
"Are you still coming over tomorrow for dinner?"
"Wouldn't miss it. I'll bring my sponge."
"Lovely." Dr. Pol let herself inside, hoping Mrs. Pettidear meant a cake. Sometimes she got confused, which was why Pol checked on her as often as she could.
She set her bag down, pulled the itchy wig off her head to rest it on the hat rack by the door, and sat down. She'd have to tidy her own home tonight if she planned on having company tomorrow. Another weekend, another dinner party. Last weekend, she'd had everyone from work over, as joyless as those gatherings tended to be. The only faces she didn't see every day were Rhys and dear little Anwen. Even were Albert or Lois seeing someone currently, they wouldn't bring them round to hers without a thorough vetting, and that was so tiresome. Better, much better, when she had the neighbours round, and knew which face to put on all at once: Irene Pol, immigrant as a child from Eastern Europe but lately of Swansea, GP and also baker of savoury casseroles. No talking about work, their successes marred by their many failures. No waiting for a stray mention of people who'd died before Jack had brought her on. Just cheery interaction with the humans around her, Ms. Suwali's best casserole, a bottle of good wine from Mr. Clarence, a bottle of cheaper wine from that young Darren who'd moved in last month, and Mrs. Pettidear's sponge to top it off.
In the five years she'd lived in Cardiff, she'd gathered friends almost as a hobby. She had arrived late in the night of that awful bombing, just another doctor come to help with the wounded. Something about the city intrigued her. She'd resigned her steady yet sedate position at home and started working in the brisk corridors of St. Helen's, until she met Jack and found another set of friends to gather and another duty at her feet.
Her people were communal. Had been. Meals were never shared with less than ten friends, and beds held twenty or thirty at a time. She'd been a bit of a strange one even then, preferring groups of no more than four or five. Her parents, all eight of them, had despaired she'd ever grow up and learn to enjoy normal interaction, and Pol had disappointed them. She'd gone to the stars as soon as she could, revelling in the smaller company of a spacecraft. Freedom had saved her life, and too many of her fellow survivors had expired of loneliness since.
Pol found that she missed the closeness of a dozen friends piled in with her at a table once in a while. Gatherings were a taste of home.
***
February 8th
***
Despite the four times he asked, Jack refused to allow Ianto to come with him to London. "It's far," he demurred. "You have things to do here," he reasoned. "I don't want to have to worry if this is a double-cross," he pointed out.
"If it's a double-cross, you'll need me there to cover the exits and watch your back."
The fourth answer was harder to pull out, because it was the truthful answer. "I don't want him to see us together. I don't want him using you to get to me."
Ianto frowned. He had an adorable pouting frown Jack loved to see even when he was the one who'd put it there. "You understand they must already know about us. There's no way that's still a secret."
"I know, but as far as he knows, you and I are just friends with benefits. Do this for me. Let me be a little less worried about you today."
Ianto relented and Jack drove alone, putting the radio on as high as he could to drown out his other worries. Cardiff had always been rough with aliens and the Rift. The average citizen had a five percent chance of getting ripped open by a monster from some interstellar hell, and a one in a thousand chance of being snatched up and sent to that same hell. When his own staff hadn't been attempting to plunge the whole city into ruins, they had to stop some blighter with a grudge from doing the same. Some of the worst trouble had settled after the Rift closed. He'd naively hoped Cardiff would grow into its new peaceful existence like any other city. Unfortunately for the human population, the change meant a lower risk of death from being eaten by aliens, and a higher risk of getting shot by one.
Remembering the night the Rift had closed never led him anywhere good. Every last stolen moment was mere prelude to another, more painful goodbye. Even now, the days he spent with the man he loved had the same end in distant sight, and no chance at altering that path for either. Ianto had one grave. Jack would stand at his next one, just as powerless to stop that fate as he had been to free his created ghost from oblivion.
These thoughts chased him down the road until he put as solid a damper as he could on the nightmares before reaching his destination. Telepathic species were common as muck. The last thing he needed was to give Mopolite an even bigger edge in their conversation.
The receptionist appeared human. Jack threw on his best grin as he told her he had an appointment. Her lack of interest made him wonder if she'd been forewarned about him, but a quick glance over the desk found a framed photo of her smiling with her probably wife or girlfriend.
He sat. The anteroom was simple enough for the desired purpose: a little claustrophobic, chairs not comfortable for any one species, current newspapers open to the sensational homicides, and just in range a radio tuned to a dull talk station. Supplicants, business partners, even allies, would endure this room as their nerves rasped into nothing prior to seeing the head of the Machine.
"Mr. Mopolite will see you now," said the receptionist.
As Jack entered the inner office, he was taken aback by the spacious room, stretching far above his head and surrounding him with tasteful opulence. Art pieces Jack recognised from their pattern if not their pedigree hung from every wall where the bookcases allowed. Rich, red draperies covered the tall windows, and a dark, luxurious carpet clung to his boots as he walked. Far above his head, the ceiling hung with lights. The head of the room was taken up by Mopolite's large desk, wide enough for Jack to comfortably squeeze his last six or seven playmates, with room for snacks.
Jack nodded internally; the effect was well-designed to throw visitors into confusion. He ought to consider the same for his own office. Gwen would argue, though, especially if he had to knock through the wall to take over her space in order to achieve the same kind of grandeur.
"Captain Harkness," said Mopolite, rising to greet him. He gestured to the two bodyguards and indicated the slumped figure occupying the chair in front of his desk. The guards, two hulking Hebraxians, easily lifted the limp body of an Athelite. No obvious injuries, Jack noted, and no obvious life signs. "Won't you sit down?"
Jack folded his arms, and Mopolite smiled, his mandibles twitching. "Apologies. Allow me." He removed a plastic tub from a drawer and pulled out a wipe. With exaggerated delicacy, he ran the wipe over the guest chair before dropping it in the bin. "All sorted. Please sit down."
Jack took the seat. "You know if you kill me, you're just going to get bored trying to make it stick."
Mopolite laughed with a short, urbane chuckle. "Captain, please. That scum had nothing to do with you. He was selling Neurotox to children."
And that's your job, Jack didn't say. There wasn't much point.
"Now, what did you wish to speak with me about?" His face radiated interest. Like everything about him, Mopolite's voice was smooth. Every vowel was perfect RP, every consonant crisp. He'd been born here, in an alien-heavy slum on the East End, but sounded like a graduate from a solid public school, a man with ambition who'd risen high.
"You're moving into my city. We've already got the Bugs. I'm getting tired of the body count rising on my doorstep."
Mopolite spread his arms wide. "It's a shame. My people are offering a better opportunity for the extraterrestrial community, but some choose to live in the past."
"Opportunity? For selling your drugs instead of the private suppliers? Or maybe you'd like to set up alien brothels in Cardiff to grow the business. There's a growth opportunity."
"Please, Captain. I do help provide certain amenities. Would you be surprised to know most of the clients for our houses of respite are human?"
Jack kept his features still, but Mopolite saw something. "You are. Did you honestly believe you're the only human who enjoys the pleasures of strange flesh? Our human clients think they're wearing costumes, but money is money even from fools."
"Too bad your workers won't see that money, or anything else. Your business stinks."
"Does it? My workers enjoy the best health care available for those of us who can't receive services from the NHS. They are protected in safe homes, and are paying into a very generous pension plan."
"If they live that long."
"It's a better and longer life than out on the street, Captain. Did you come here to complain about how well my people live, or to offer solutions to help them?"
"I came to ask you to stay out of Cardiff. I'm not getting in your way in London. I never interfered in Koris's business when he ran the mob. Let's stay on friendly terms."
Mopolite smiled. "I like you, Jack. I will let you in on something I haven't shared with many. On three occasions, I've met with the Boss Bug. We've talked. Tried to be friendly. Three times I came home to find one of my friends murdered while I was off negotiating peace. Every deal he's made, he's broken."
"Funny," Jack said. "He said the same thing about you."
"I'm sure." Mopolite reached into another drawer of his desk. Jack tensed. He might not be able to stay dead but dying hurt and also ruined his clothes. Mopolite removed a slim box and opened it, revealing long, thick, green cigars. "Do you smoke?"
"Thanks, no."
The alien gangster shrugged and selected one for himself. He delicately went through the various actions of preparing his cigar and lighting it, filling the air around the desk with a not-unpleasant smoke. "I'll tell you what. All this violence and nonsense is bad for business. Dead people don't buy merchandise. I will call a halt to our activities in your city for one week."
Jack waited for the catch. A week of fewer murders sounded good, but not if it meant twice the drive-by shootings next week. "In exchange for?"
"Nothing. I do this as a friend. My people and our organisation will stay out of Cardiff. That gives your little team seven days to solve the Bugs problem in your home. After that, my people will come back, and we will exterminate."
Jack fought the twitch, and failed. Mopolite couldn't possibly know. It had to be a shot in the dark, but it landed true, and Jack reminded himself he wasn't back on the station, wasn't clawing back from his first death. "Fine," he said, off balance. "One week."
Mopolite waved away the conversation without another thought, passing his hands over some papers on his desk. "By the by, please extend my warmest congratulations to the Smiths the next time you talk to them."
"I will." He had no idea what that meant, but damned if he was going to give up more now. "Are we done here?"
"I do have work to get back to. But please wait. I have a gift for you. To show my good faith." He touched the intercom button. "Marcie, would you send in the Captain's present?"
Jack stood. "I appreciate the thought, but you're right, I have work to do."
The door opened, and the receptionist ushered in two Abrani. Male and female twins, if Jack was any judge, and therefore highly prized for their intuitive link with each other and with the object of their interest. The bluish-grey of their skin made a soft background for the scarlet gems glittering over the scant clothing each wore, and the glittering black diamonds on their matching collars. One wore a long white braid on the left shoulder, and the other on the right.
"Captain, may I introduce Alana and Alani. They'd like to make your acquaintance for the next, let us say, three hours."
The male sidled closer to Jack and placed a cool hand against his wrist. "Captain," he said in a hushed tone. His sister approached directly, swaying as she stepped, mouth parted in an eager smile.
"My gift to you," Mopolite said.
This was a test, Jack knew. And he was going to fail.
***
Gwen tried to follow the plot of the book she read to Anwen. Apparently the purple pony was having a party with her friends but didn't understand the meaning of friendship. Every so often, Gwen glanced over the top of the book to see her daughter's rapt expression. "You really like this?"
"Ponies!" Anwen said. The tot was well into complete sentences and imagination play, but these big-eyes horses sent her back into infancy with delight.
"Okay," Gwen said with a smile, and put on the voices for when the purple pony discovered being a friend meant listening to your friends' needs, too. "That good?"
"You got Pinky's voice wrong," said her child, the delight of her days, the growing sprout in the garden of her love, etcetera. "But it was okay." Gwen kissed her and turned off the lamp for her nap.
"She's taller," Gwen said, plopping on the sofa beside Rhys. "How does she keep getting taller?"
"We could stop feeding her."
"Nah. She'll only break into the cupboards, eat all the food, and call the police on us."
"Shame. Guess we'll have to give her dinner tonight. Pasta?"
Gwen smiled. Rhys Williams was born to care for children. Gwen herself wasn't quite sure about the process. She'd given things her best, but after becoming an expert at nappies and bathtime, she discovered she hadn't a clue about what to do now that the child was toilet-trained and wanted playtime in the tub without her mum. Children were mysteries.
She frowned. "Rhys, do you remember Freda Evans?"
"Friend of yours?"
"A kind of friend. I met her on a case. She got married a while back. I didn't go to the wedding. I didn't even know about it."
Rhys scrunched his face. "You sure, love? I thought we got the invite. You had work."
"Maybe I did." The thought bothered her more. What on Earth would have kept her from Freda's wedding day? She got up from the sofa and began rummaging around on the desk. They had piles and files all over. Rhys tried to organise, and Gwen knew she didn't. But they rarely pitched anything, especially something personal.
Under a stack of receipts and two birthday cards, Gwen found the card. Nothing fancy. Freda didn't have money to waste on gold edging and lace and had instead used a photograph of herself and Slaus, both looking human enough to pass. Her handwriting was pretty, practically calligraphy, and she'd asked Gwen personally.
Gwen remembered receiving the card. As she held the stiff cardboard, she recalled with sudden clarity the conversation she'd had with Rhys. He had to get his suit pressed. She had to find a dress. They'd ask Mam to babysit.
But she hadn't gone.
She didn't remember not going, nor why she'd put work in front of a friend who needed her. A missing child, Freda had said. Gwen didn't remember any missing children cases since she'd come back to Cardiff.
Ianto might know.
She rang him on his mobile. "Ianto, sorry to bother you, love. Odd question. Did you make it to Freda Evans' wedding?"
There was a silence. "Hello to you, too."
"Sorry. I just wanted to know. Don't ask me why." She paused. "You remember Freda, yeah? She fell through the Rift from the future."
"I remember her. No, I didn't go to the wedding. When was it?"
"Bit over a year ago." Gwen read the date on the card, which only added to her anxiety as she read it off to him.
There was a much longer pause. Gwen wondered if the call had dropped. Bloody signals. Ianto finally said, "I was busy that day. Speaking of busy, I do need to go." He sounded out of breath. Oh God. Please let her not have interrupted her friends' love life yet again.
She said quickly, "All right. Thanks, Ianto." She rang off. Then she stared at the card, and the date, and she wondered.
***
Jack got home late. Ianto had made an attempt at cooking, which was better than most of his previous attempts. "Hungry?" he asked as soon as the door closed.
"Not really."
"All right." He'd lost his own appetite, and instead began loading the casserole into plastic for leftovers.
Jack watched him for a moment, then snapped out of whatever fog he was in. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He wasn't. He knew he was favouring his shoulder where he'd been shot. The wound had healed completely according to Dr. Pol. According to Ianto, it only hurt when he thought about it, which meant Pol was probably right.
"Lying." Jack hung up his coat, and Ianto could tell it had been a long day.
"It's nothing. Gwen's asking about Freda Evans. Apparently she got married."
Jack shrugged. "Yeah. Last year. I sent a toaster."
Ianto rubbed his shoulder, the phantom pain throbbing like an old rotted tooth. "Guess what day."
"Oh." Jack came closer. Gingerly, he took Ianto's good shoulder and rubbed his thumb over his collarbone. "Guess I was busy then."
"We all were. Gwen doesn't remember why. I couldn't bear telling her again." The thing which had been eating at him since her call came back. "She doesn't remember any of it. For all either of us knows, she's the one who shot me." He glanced at Jack. "Do not tell me. I still don't want to know."
"All right." Jack turned his head slightly. Sometimes, his mannerisms were very alien, especially when he'd been spending time among them again. "Although, since you brought up the subject, I dropped by Martha and Mickey's on my way back. They say hello."
Ianto felt warmth flow back. Martha liked him. He didn't know if Mickey liked him or merely tolerated him, but both were easy to be around, even after. They hadn't forgot, not yet. "How are they?"
"Pregnant."
"What?"
Jack sat down at their table, and Ianto joined him. "Martha's due in late September. Somehow, Mopolite knew before I did."
"That's not good."
"No. I told them. They're probably going to be scarce for a while. Maybe a long while. They've got friends in the London alien community, but they've got a lot of enemies, too. I don't know which Mopolite is, but they're not taking chances."
"Where will they go?"
Jack shrugged. "I told them not to tell me. We're being watched, too. My guess is they'll leave the country within the next month."
"That's hard."
"Yeah." Martha was one of Jack's few friends who understood him, and Mickey was the only person on the planet who'd known Jack before the immortality. They'd have to leave behind Martha's whole family and strike out alone all because some aliens didn't like what the two of them did for a living.
"You said we're being watched. I take it the meeting didn't go well?"
"Well, the highlight reel doesn't sound bad. Mopolite has agreed to stay out of Cardiff for one week."
"That's all?"
"He wants us to deal with the Bugs, or he's coming in to deal with them himself."
"Are we?"
Jack sighed and rubbed his face. He looked very tired. "I'll talk to the Boss Bug." He breathed out. "There's more."
"He also wants you to agree to not interfere when he does come in?"
"He didn't say. He didn't have to." Jack reached over, but didn't take Ianto's hand. After a second, Ianto reached out and touched him instead. "He tested me. Part of the business is high-class, and not so high-class, alien prostitution. He offered me a pair of twin Abrani. Called it a gift. Well, more like a loan for a few hours."
Ianto remembered Jack's tales about the Abrani. Hell, he'd wanked to a few of those stories, with Jack's hand hot against his back and Jack's mouth against his ear. But Jack was here, and Jack was telling him this story. "And?"
"And I failed the test. I told him no. You would have been hurt, and I couldn't do that to you. So now he knows about us for sure."
"Ah. Well. Like I said, he had to know already." He gave Jack's hand a squeeze. "Everything will be fine."
Jack pulled away. "No, it really won't. I just painted a target on you. I think you should go away for a few days when the week is up. Get out of sight."
"Are you coming with me?"
"I can't."
"Then I'm not going anywhere." Ianto took a glance around the kitchen, but the washing-up could wait. He took Jack's hand again. "Come on. It's time for bed."
***
February 9th
***
Dr. Pol rose late. Today was a rare day off, and she was worn out from last night. Her guests had stayed late into the night, and while a few helped tidy, her flat was still a mess. She let herself rest as long as she could justify putting off her chores, then padded out of bed to wash herself before tackling the rest of her home.
She wasn't expecting company to come by, and had her music turned up high: Dvorak today. She almost didn't hear the knock on the door. When she finally noticed, she flew to the door, nearly not putting her wig on in time. Callers did get upset when they saw her egg-bald head.
Pol cracked open her door with a cheery smile. "Hello?"
"Dr. Irene Pol?" asked the figure on the left. They both wore dark clothes, heavy against the chilly air, and sunglasses against the glare.
"Yes?"
Her door flew open the rest of the way, knocking the wind from her as it pushed her to the floor. The two strangers burst into her home, quickly closing the door behind them. Pol scrambled for her feet, for her gun, but a kick sent her sprawling, and she hit her chin on the edge of the nice coffee table. Her teeth rattled in pain, which was only made worse when one of the two figures - she still couldn't make out their features - kicked her squarely in the ribs.
She threw out an arm to defend herself, found it smacked away by what felt like a brick. Her head swimming, she turned to see a bat coming down at her face. She jerked away from the blow but not enough to escape. She felt the skin tear on her cheek, and by her nose. She screamed.
The other man kept kicking, forcing her over onto her back. She lay stunned for a moment as they repositioned. Her thoughts grew sluggish and scared. Were they robbers? Were they going to assault her? Did they believe her cover story and were they here to kill the immigrant?
She tried to roll to her side. The next kick was right in her face. Her nose broke, pouring choking blood into her throat. Pol curled into as tight a ball as she could to protect her organs, even as she lay there crying. She had to gather herself, had to think, had to find a way.
The first intruder grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her on her back again, even as the other pulled down her legs, ready for more battery. Her hands were free, and they were close enough to the first's face.
Terrified and angry now, Pol shot out her fingers directly into her assailant's eyes, feeling the warm squish, and also the sudden shooting agony through the empathic link she shared when she touched someone this way. Startled, the other stepped back, but she shot out her other hand, grabbed an ankle from two metres away, and yanked her second attacker to the floor.
She had the surprise, if only for the moment. Her hand reached for and found her gun, which she immediately pulled back to herself. She aimed it at the head of the second figure; the first still writhed in pain, clutching his face.
"Get. Out." she breathed.
The second man ran for the door, stopping to grab the shoulder of his friend, who was moaning, "That bitch, that BITCH."
She fired one shot, but missed wildly. "OUT!"
They ran, and she crawled after them to the door. She didn't see their vehicle, only heard them screech away. Her head was heavy, so she lay it down. The door was open. She was cold. She managed to swing one hand out enough to close it.
Sleep. Tired.
Dying.
She pressed her ear, hoping the comm would activate. "Jack?"
There was no reply. Dvorak rumbled through the speakers, pompous and loud, and she slipped into unconsciousness to the sounds of the New World.
***
Chapter 2
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Steven, Lois, Alice, Freda Evans, Original Characters, Agent Johnson, Martha, Mickey, Miss Valentine, Rhiannon, Andy
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Martha/Mickey
Rating: Some scenes only appropriate for adults
Words: 35,300 (7800 this part)
Beta: jo02, with greatest thanks
Warnings: murder most foul, graphic violence, background references to prostitution and noncon
Spoilers: references to all of TW canon as well as to the novels, audiobooks, and radio plays
Summary: Torchwood is caught in the middle of a war between two alien gangs.
Prompt: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1968)
Disclaimer: Torchwood characters and situations belong to the BBC. "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967) belongs to Twentieth-Century Fox. The real St. Valentine's Day Massacre as heavily dramatized in the film was a famous unsolved murder in Chicago in 1929. Click here to learn more about the original event.
Notes: Written for reel_torchwood. Part of Straysverse. (For those who came in late: Jack and Gwen have rebuilt the latest version of Torchwood Cardiff with Lois and a few new faces, while Ianto and Steven have returned to their old lives.)
***
Chapter 1
***
February 14th
***
The morning dawned cold and cloudy. Snowflakes cluttered the air, defiantly white against the grubby city until they turned to thin, cold, brownish slush in the streets, seeping through shoes and shivering down unprotected necks. It was a miserable snow, pale and mean, and wet from the Bay. Not enough fell to close the schools, not yet, despite the urgent prayers of Cardiff's children. Even above the usual noises of the city came the rushing hush of the snow, which muted the rest by its ancient cold magic.
The city bustle and the shushing snow both crackled with the sound of gunfire splitting the air. On the street outside the old garage, people darted from the echoing noise, loud and shocking in the air. Mobiles came out, and the CCTV cameras hummed, yet later, not a single photograph or video would be clear, not of the building, not of the four people who walked out, nor of their overlarge SUV speeding away from the scene.
The police arrived within minutes, and PC Davidson took the first crack at the witnesses as his colleagues secured the area. What did you see, did you snap a photo, where did they go? He'd done this a thousand times before.
"Oi, Andy!" came a shout from the door. Even as Andy nodded at the woman he'd interviewed, he could see past PC Grayden into the bloody mess. He saw what Grayden had seen instantly: the blood was blue and green, and no way had that ever been a human hand.
He sighed. "Best call Torchwood. That's their division." He glanced at the woman who'd followed him over, and he wondered how to hide the alien murders from her.
"Torchwood?" she asked. Cardiff's worst-kept secret might still be slightly secret, he thought. Then the woman said, "But they were the ones what did it."
***
February 7th
***
Their day began as their normal days did: grumbling at the alarm, grumbling more when Jack’s wrist strap beeped at them mournfully from the bedside table. Each cast a groggy eye to the time to determine if there was sufficient padding in the morning routine for a quick fumble under the warm bedspread before they showered. Fumble and shower achieved, and breakfast a promise in the car, Ianto let Jack take the wheel whilst he called Steven to confirm their plans for the following day.
Alice picked up, and said without a hello, ″He can only spend one night. We’ve got a dinner Saturday.″
Ianto knew better than arguing with her. She could have decided not to let him come visit. ″That’s fine. Are you coming to fetch him or should I plan on driving him home?″
″Bring him at six.″
The phone made a noise like it was being jostled, then Steven said, ″Hi.″
″Hi. Are we on for tomorrow?″
″Yep.″ Steven had the shy sound he adopted when he didn’t want to say something in front of his mum. ″When will you be here?″
″I’ll try to come before five.″
″All right.″ Again the quiet breath indicating there was more he wanted to express. Ianto could chat with him later. More and more this awkwardness had as much to do with the early signs of puberty as it did with Steven's recurrent nightmares about his death. They could get through both. They always did. Ianto had come back from the dead, and Steven had, too. They'd wound up one another's best friend by accident and necessity, as strange as that looked to everyone else. Even Jack, who died all the time, didn't understand them as well as they could each other at times.
″I'll see you then.″ They said their farewells and rang off. Ianto sent him a text on his own mobile: "U ok?"
The reply came immediately: "Im ok."
Jack gave him a not even remotely disinterested glance. ″Everything all right?″
″Fine. I’ll leave work early tomorrow. I hope the boss doesn’t mind.″
There were plenty of places for Jack to go with that obvious an opening. Ianto recalled days when Jack would jump in disparaging Ianto′s boss, or start suggesting lurid sexual acts for Ianto to curry said boss’s favour. He hoped for the former more than the latter, as an erection would be inconvenient now that they were pulling into the car park by the new office.
No-one had called this morning, and Jack's review of the overnight systems had offered no particular warnings of terror before they'd left the flat. They took a moment, casual and happy, for a quick kiss in the car. On the rare quiet days, so rare it had only happened twice, Ianto was happy to let Jack distract him from the doldrums of their paperwork and routine with sex. Today he made due with the taste of Jack's toothpaste in his mouth and the scent of his skin as they breathed over one another before reluctantly pulling away to start the day. The winter chill hit him when he opened his door, a bleak reminder of death and loss and sorrow after the blazing warmth of Jack.
"See you," said Ianto, drawing out his own keys for the front office. He let himself inside, booted up his work computer, and got to his day. Several of the regular search algorithms he left running on the server spit out their latest findings, and Ianto diligently read through each one. His self-created job was to track down the many artefacts and items once held by Torchwood Cardiff or London, since snatched up by collectors or worse, and return them to safe storage here in the vaults. His cover as an antiques dealer and purveyor of odd knick-knacks forestalled inquiries. The little shop front, which hid the true nature of the reborn Torchwood, held eccentric hours, advertised shabby old porcelain not even a granny could love, and served as the perfect backdrop for retrieving the alien tech which had gone wandering after one location had burned, and the other had blown up.
He named the shop Chanticleer, on a dare from Jack.
As he sorted through the pings, categorising those which looked promising, Lois popped in from the back. "Morning." She plunked a mug down on his desk, and plunked herself in the chair opposite.
Ianto raised his eyebrows. "That bad?"
"Open the overnight log and see for yourself." Lois frowned and rubbed the bridge of her nose as Ianto logged into the regular Torchwood servers.
"How many does that make this week?"
"Seven."
"Want a hand with the clean-up?"
She gave him a small but friendly smile. "I wish. No, we'll go stomping out, Jack will shout a bit, and nothing will change."
Her cynicism was a new acquisition. The alien gangs had been fighting for territory, and the skirmishes meant a rising body count. No humans had been killed, which meant that Torchwood might take an interest but had no authority. The human police played dumb, not a stretch for them. That left only the gangs themselves to watch one another, and they generally watched each other die.
"That's our day, anyway," she said, tossing in a breezy nonchalance she clearly did not feel. "What've you got today?"
He pulled up one of his searches. "Shopping."
"Lovely. Get us some crisps while you're out."
"Yes, ma'am."
As soon as Lois went back into the secret workplace behind the false wall, Ianto printed his list, closed the shop, and took his keys. He was back to using the company car again after Jack had borrowed his car for that unfortunate chase last month. The slim black towncar lacked the grace of his most recent short-lived Audi as he sped to the first address.
He needn't have bothered with the rush. As he parked, he saw a too-familiar vehicle parked in front of the semi-detached he'd come to visit. There was still a tiny chance, although as he exited the car, that chance extinguished. Firestone Finance had sent their acquisitions team, who were just leaving the house with a box in tow.
Ianto waited for them at the street. He ignored the two men, heavies who'd been hired for their ability to point a gun in the right direction two times out of three, and focused on the ringleader. "Miss Valentine."
"Late again, Mr. Jones," said Miss Valentine. Her expression snapped into focus, done with whatever mind games she'd been playing on the previous owner of the artefact now in her company's possession. "Really, it's hardly stealing," she said, plucking the thought out of his head half-formed. "We pay." What she'd paid in exchange for an Arkellian memory whip was not open for questions, nor were her plans for same. Valentine snorted. "Please."
Per Jack's instructions on dealing with her, Ianto began thinking of cans of soup stacked in neat rows. He delighted privately in the grumpy frown which flashed over her face. The soup slipped, and he thought of his next stop.
"Thank you. We'll visit them next."
He got a headache for his trouble.
On the way to the third stop, which he hoped he could reach before them, his mobile chirped with a text. Inviting wreck and ruin, he checked it. Steven had to cancel for this weekend after all. Ianto debated calling Alice and reminding her how much her son needed to spend time with them. She would probably remind Ianto that he'd been the one to cancel the prior two weeks.
Next weekend, he promised himself, before the sat nav interrupted his thoughts with directions.
***
Gwen dropped her latex gloves into the bin liner they'd brought to the crime scene. Dr. Pol had asked for an extra pair of hands to examine the latest corpse, but with a quick poke into the poor creature's innards, she'd pronounced it dead from the series of bullets ripping open its guts. No surprises. Gwen took a moment to look into the alien's face. She couldn't even recall the species of the last one, and this wasn't easier to identify.
"What was it?"
"She was an Armaxian."
"Oh." She watched as Pol wrote down her findings. Reports at Torchwood had been a joke since long before Gwen herself came aboard, but Jack said recording their work made the difference between being official and being nosy bastards. "Do we know which gang she was in?"
"Neither." Jack came into the room. "The family insists she wasn't involved. This was a drive-by."
Dr. Pol clucked to herself. "She had enough drugs in her system to be floating in the stratosphere. Someone sold them to her."
Gwen said, "If it's drugs, can't we … "
"Not our domain," Jack said.
She glared at him, which bounced off without landing. Either he didn't care, or he didn't think caring would help. "Can we link it to the rest? Surely if we put enough of these deaths together, we can stop them."
Pol said, "Those poor blokes yesterday wound up with two slugs in their heads each. Nasty business."
Jack said, "And we caught the slugs before they could get any human victims. That's our job. Are we done here?"
They walked out together to where Albert and Lois waited, the former standing guard and the latter being friendly and sympathetic to the family. That used to be her job. Gwen glanced away, and paid closer attention to the houses around her. The team came to this area of the city more and more often, the cheaper streets where the semi-legal alien immigrants lived and bred and worked for one another and paid their taxes. The ones who could pass for human, like Dr. Pol, could move into the nicer parts of Cardiff, even the suburbs. The rest made do by working nights, wearing hats and hoodies, and making an effort not to be noticed by anyone.
Freda Evans lived around here, Gwen remembered, with a sudden wash of jumbled memories. She hadn't thought about their part-alien refugee in months. She'd been more Andy's friend, of course, fond of her "squadman." But Gwen had been acting as a care coordinator, hadn't she? Social worker? But she'd stopped. Got busy. Guilt ate at her. It must have been when Anwen was a baby, she thought. She'd had too much to do back then. So many of her memories of the time rose and fell on her daughter.
"Jack, I'll meet you back at the Hub."
Before he could say a word, she turned and walked down the road, pulling out her mobile to search for the address. The others wouldn't even bring the body back to the base, and instead would allow the family to dispose of the dead girl's remains. As Freda Evans' name and address came up on her Google, Gwen realised she'd never even asked the dead alien's name. She would have done, once.
Freda's flat wasn't far. Gwen felt the eyes on her as she buzzed up. A male voice answered, but Freda broke through. "Come on, then." The lock buzzed, allowing Gwen inside the dark building. The spicy, strange smells of alien cookery seeped out from closed doors, had soaked into the woodwork. Gwen knew if she peeled off the crumbling floral wallpaper and sprinkled it into a soup, she'd taste the same meals which had been cooked here for decades. Freda's flat was up two flights of stairs, squashed between two other flats along that side of the building.
When she knocked, the door came open only to the latch. "We ain't done nothing," Freda said through the gap.
"I know that, Freda," said Gwen in her kindest voice. "I was in the neighbourhood and wanted to say hello."
Freda's face scrunched up in disbelief. She undid the latch and let Gwen inside. The tiny flat was filled by a bed, a miniature refrigerator, and a hotplate, with a toilet half-concealed by a curtain. Clothes hung neatly on a line strung across one side of the room. The space was very clean, with the proverbial hardwood floors scrubbed enough to eat the proverbial dinners off of, if Gwen could find an open spot large enough to set her meal.
The man standing beside Freda took up a lot of space all on his own. His skin was a disturbing shade of green and he had an extra arm Gwen was affecting not to stare at. "Hello," she said, sticking out her own hand in a friendly manner. "I'm Gwen. Freda's friend."
He didn't take the hand. "Never seen you before."
"I met Freda when she first came to Cardiff."
"Yeah," said Freda, which didn't help Gwen know how much she'd told her new friend. "She's a friend of Tony's."
Tony? Gwen scraped her memories. "Tony Pratt?"
The big man nodded, and turned away to sit down on the bed. Freda said, "Andy's been busy. Tony's been looking after us. Ain't that right, Slaus?"
Slaus grunted. Perhaps he'd exhausted his English. More likely, he'd exhausted his interest. To Gwen's great surprise, he picked up a novel from beside the bed and opened to a bookmark. To her greater surprise, the book was Fifty Shades. Good God.
"How've you been, Freda?"
"Ta, fine," said the girl, turning to get some Cokes from the fridge. She was in her early twenties now and no longer the scared teenager who'd fallen through the Rift from their future, but Gwen could still read the same spooked, cautious body language from long ago. She accepted the Coke, paying close attention to Freda's arms and hands.
"What's this?" she asked, reaching out for the thin ring on Freda's finger. It was gold ...ish, and sported a tiny chip of probably diamond. Gwen grinned. "When's the big day?"
Freda snatched her hand back. "Last year. Andy said yous was busy chasing a ghost."
Gwen laughed. "If he talks about Scooby-Doo, he means Torchwood."
"Nah, he knows Torchwood. Some case you had. Missing kid."
Gwen shrugged. "We do a lot of work." The words fretted at her. She always felt the worst about cases involving children. They all did. Ianto had a snap of a little girl he'd never even met on his desk alongside Steven's and two smaller snaps of his niece and nephew. Gwen kept hers on her phone, with hundreds of photographs of her daughter interspersed with the kids they couldn't save. For the life of her, she couldn't remember a case that would've caused her to miss Freda's wedding. It must have been important.
"Sorry," she said, and glanced back at Slaus. "He seems nice."
Freda's shrug said volumes from one woman to another. Maybe he was nice, maybe he wasn't, but he was a good man who treated her all right, and he'd be there for her, which was more than she could say for anyone else. Green and an extra arm and a flat in the bad part of town were exchanges for knowing he'd be there in the morning.
***
Jack stared at the white board in the new Hub. Lois had installed it one afternoon when the rest of the team had been out. The neat and precise angles cut out a space for detailed work in dry-erase colours and a perky yet passive-aggressive note: "Now you don't have to leave Post-Its everywhere." Jack had responded with his own trademarked variety of passive-aggression, which led Gwen to leave a note of her own: "Any body parts drawn on this board will be removed from the artist and timed to see how long they take to regrow." Jack had stuck one final Post-It to the board and succumbed to the inevitable, using the greying surface to make notes on their cases. He added another tick mark to the body count in one corner.
He heard Albert approach behind him. "A baker's dozen."
"We could divide them up. Seven from the Bugs, six from the Machine." Jack hacked a rough, red line between the sets of numbers. Mopolite's Machine ran most of south England. The alien gangster would be pleased to run Cardiff as well, if only to thumb his nose at Torchwood. The Bugs were the closest thing to an organised gang here, and they wanted nothing to do with Mopolite or his cronies. Self-rule, even if that meant no more than the dregs of alien culture left over from the days of the Rift and a fuckton of Weevils. Jack was bright enough never to say the Welsh aliens reminded him of Welsh humans, especially not in front of Gwen and Ianto. Lately, though, the Bugs had got into the murder game as well, shooting up the homes and businesses of Machine-leaning aliens. It was a mess.
"We could tell the police, boss." Albert floated the idea as he had the other three times: carefully, pretending as though he'd just thought of the notion.
"No."
"Right. Stupid of me to mention."
Jack checked his mobile again. Ianto had texted to let him know they wouldn't have Steven this weekend after all. "I'm going to pay a visit to our friend Mr. Mopolite."
"Want company?"
"Not this time."
***
Dr. Pol arrived home earlier than usual, and waved at her neighbour Mrs. Pettidear as she came up the walk to her own house. "Evening, love."
"Good evening, Irene." Mrs. Pettidear smiled, showing off her newest set of false teeth. She'd lost her previous two sets somewhere in the dusty recesses of her house. Pol had come over to help her look, and had had a quick tidy while she'd been at it, but the old woman's teeth had run off with the mice.
"Are you still coming over tomorrow for dinner?"
"Wouldn't miss it. I'll bring my sponge."
"Lovely." Dr. Pol let herself inside, hoping Mrs. Pettidear meant a cake. Sometimes she got confused, which was why Pol checked on her as often as she could.
She set her bag down, pulled the itchy wig off her head to rest it on the hat rack by the door, and sat down. She'd have to tidy her own home tonight if she planned on having company tomorrow. Another weekend, another dinner party. Last weekend, she'd had everyone from work over, as joyless as those gatherings tended to be. The only faces she didn't see every day were Rhys and dear little Anwen. Even were Albert or Lois seeing someone currently, they wouldn't bring them round to hers without a thorough vetting, and that was so tiresome. Better, much better, when she had the neighbours round, and knew which face to put on all at once: Irene Pol, immigrant as a child from Eastern Europe but lately of Swansea, GP and also baker of savoury casseroles. No talking about work, their successes marred by their many failures. No waiting for a stray mention of people who'd died before Jack had brought her on. Just cheery interaction with the humans around her, Ms. Suwali's best casserole, a bottle of good wine from Mr. Clarence, a bottle of cheaper wine from that young Darren who'd moved in last month, and Mrs. Pettidear's sponge to top it off.
In the five years she'd lived in Cardiff, she'd gathered friends almost as a hobby. She had arrived late in the night of that awful bombing, just another doctor come to help with the wounded. Something about the city intrigued her. She'd resigned her steady yet sedate position at home and started working in the brisk corridors of St. Helen's, until she met Jack and found another set of friends to gather and another duty at her feet.
Her people were communal. Had been. Meals were never shared with less than ten friends, and beds held twenty or thirty at a time. She'd been a bit of a strange one even then, preferring groups of no more than four or five. Her parents, all eight of them, had despaired she'd ever grow up and learn to enjoy normal interaction, and Pol had disappointed them. She'd gone to the stars as soon as she could, revelling in the smaller company of a spacecraft. Freedom had saved her life, and too many of her fellow survivors had expired of loneliness since.
Pol found that she missed the closeness of a dozen friends piled in with her at a table once in a while. Gatherings were a taste of home.
***
February 8th
***
Despite the four times he asked, Jack refused to allow Ianto to come with him to London. "It's far," he demurred. "You have things to do here," he reasoned. "I don't want to have to worry if this is a double-cross," he pointed out.
"If it's a double-cross, you'll need me there to cover the exits and watch your back."
The fourth answer was harder to pull out, because it was the truthful answer. "I don't want him to see us together. I don't want him using you to get to me."
Ianto frowned. He had an adorable pouting frown Jack loved to see even when he was the one who'd put it there. "You understand they must already know about us. There's no way that's still a secret."
"I know, but as far as he knows, you and I are just friends with benefits. Do this for me. Let me be a little less worried about you today."
Ianto relented and Jack drove alone, putting the radio on as high as he could to drown out his other worries. Cardiff had always been rough with aliens and the Rift. The average citizen had a five percent chance of getting ripped open by a monster from some interstellar hell, and a one in a thousand chance of being snatched up and sent to that same hell. When his own staff hadn't been attempting to plunge the whole city into ruins, they had to stop some blighter with a grudge from doing the same. Some of the worst trouble had settled after the Rift closed. He'd naively hoped Cardiff would grow into its new peaceful existence like any other city. Unfortunately for the human population, the change meant a lower risk of death from being eaten by aliens, and a higher risk of getting shot by one.
Remembering the night the Rift had closed never led him anywhere good. Every last stolen moment was mere prelude to another, more painful goodbye. Even now, the days he spent with the man he loved had the same end in distant sight, and no chance at altering that path for either. Ianto had one grave. Jack would stand at his next one, just as powerless to stop that fate as he had been to free his created ghost from oblivion.
These thoughts chased him down the road until he put as solid a damper as he could on the nightmares before reaching his destination. Telepathic species were common as muck. The last thing he needed was to give Mopolite an even bigger edge in their conversation.
The receptionist appeared human. Jack threw on his best grin as he told her he had an appointment. Her lack of interest made him wonder if she'd been forewarned about him, but a quick glance over the desk found a framed photo of her smiling with her probably wife or girlfriend.
He sat. The anteroom was simple enough for the desired purpose: a little claustrophobic, chairs not comfortable for any one species, current newspapers open to the sensational homicides, and just in range a radio tuned to a dull talk station. Supplicants, business partners, even allies, would endure this room as their nerves rasped into nothing prior to seeing the head of the Machine.
"Mr. Mopolite will see you now," said the receptionist.
As Jack entered the inner office, he was taken aback by the spacious room, stretching far above his head and surrounding him with tasteful opulence. Art pieces Jack recognised from their pattern if not their pedigree hung from every wall where the bookcases allowed. Rich, red draperies covered the tall windows, and a dark, luxurious carpet clung to his boots as he walked. Far above his head, the ceiling hung with lights. The head of the room was taken up by Mopolite's large desk, wide enough for Jack to comfortably squeeze his last six or seven playmates, with room for snacks.
Jack nodded internally; the effect was well-designed to throw visitors into confusion. He ought to consider the same for his own office. Gwen would argue, though, especially if he had to knock through the wall to take over her space in order to achieve the same kind of grandeur.
"Captain Harkness," said Mopolite, rising to greet him. He gestured to the two bodyguards and indicated the slumped figure occupying the chair in front of his desk. The guards, two hulking Hebraxians, easily lifted the limp body of an Athelite. No obvious injuries, Jack noted, and no obvious life signs. "Won't you sit down?"
Jack folded his arms, and Mopolite smiled, his mandibles twitching. "Apologies. Allow me." He removed a plastic tub from a drawer and pulled out a wipe. With exaggerated delicacy, he ran the wipe over the guest chair before dropping it in the bin. "All sorted. Please sit down."
Jack took the seat. "You know if you kill me, you're just going to get bored trying to make it stick."
Mopolite laughed with a short, urbane chuckle. "Captain, please. That scum had nothing to do with you. He was selling Neurotox to children."
And that's your job, Jack didn't say. There wasn't much point.
"Now, what did you wish to speak with me about?" His face radiated interest. Like everything about him, Mopolite's voice was smooth. Every vowel was perfect RP, every consonant crisp. He'd been born here, in an alien-heavy slum on the East End, but sounded like a graduate from a solid public school, a man with ambition who'd risen high.
"You're moving into my city. We've already got the Bugs. I'm getting tired of the body count rising on my doorstep."
Mopolite spread his arms wide. "It's a shame. My people are offering a better opportunity for the extraterrestrial community, but some choose to live in the past."
"Opportunity? For selling your drugs instead of the private suppliers? Or maybe you'd like to set up alien brothels in Cardiff to grow the business. There's a growth opportunity."
"Please, Captain. I do help provide certain amenities. Would you be surprised to know most of the clients for our houses of respite are human?"
Jack kept his features still, but Mopolite saw something. "You are. Did you honestly believe you're the only human who enjoys the pleasures of strange flesh? Our human clients think they're wearing costumes, but money is money even from fools."
"Too bad your workers won't see that money, or anything else. Your business stinks."
"Does it? My workers enjoy the best health care available for those of us who can't receive services from the NHS. They are protected in safe homes, and are paying into a very generous pension plan."
"If they live that long."
"It's a better and longer life than out on the street, Captain. Did you come here to complain about how well my people live, or to offer solutions to help them?"
"I came to ask you to stay out of Cardiff. I'm not getting in your way in London. I never interfered in Koris's business when he ran the mob. Let's stay on friendly terms."
Mopolite smiled. "I like you, Jack. I will let you in on something I haven't shared with many. On three occasions, I've met with the Boss Bug. We've talked. Tried to be friendly. Three times I came home to find one of my friends murdered while I was off negotiating peace. Every deal he's made, he's broken."
"Funny," Jack said. "He said the same thing about you."
"I'm sure." Mopolite reached into another drawer of his desk. Jack tensed. He might not be able to stay dead but dying hurt and also ruined his clothes. Mopolite removed a slim box and opened it, revealing long, thick, green cigars. "Do you smoke?"
"Thanks, no."
The alien gangster shrugged and selected one for himself. He delicately went through the various actions of preparing his cigar and lighting it, filling the air around the desk with a not-unpleasant smoke. "I'll tell you what. All this violence and nonsense is bad for business. Dead people don't buy merchandise. I will call a halt to our activities in your city for one week."
Jack waited for the catch. A week of fewer murders sounded good, but not if it meant twice the drive-by shootings next week. "In exchange for?"
"Nothing. I do this as a friend. My people and our organisation will stay out of Cardiff. That gives your little team seven days to solve the Bugs problem in your home. After that, my people will come back, and we will exterminate."
Jack fought the twitch, and failed. Mopolite couldn't possibly know. It had to be a shot in the dark, but it landed true, and Jack reminded himself he wasn't back on the station, wasn't clawing back from his first death. "Fine," he said, off balance. "One week."
Mopolite waved away the conversation without another thought, passing his hands over some papers on his desk. "By the by, please extend my warmest congratulations to the Smiths the next time you talk to them."
"I will." He had no idea what that meant, but damned if he was going to give up more now. "Are we done here?"
"I do have work to get back to. But please wait. I have a gift for you. To show my good faith." He touched the intercom button. "Marcie, would you send in the Captain's present?"
Jack stood. "I appreciate the thought, but you're right, I have work to do."
The door opened, and the receptionist ushered in two Abrani. Male and female twins, if Jack was any judge, and therefore highly prized for their intuitive link with each other and with the object of their interest. The bluish-grey of their skin made a soft background for the scarlet gems glittering over the scant clothing each wore, and the glittering black diamonds on their matching collars. One wore a long white braid on the left shoulder, and the other on the right.
"Captain, may I introduce Alana and Alani. They'd like to make your acquaintance for the next, let us say, three hours."
The male sidled closer to Jack and placed a cool hand against his wrist. "Captain," he said in a hushed tone. His sister approached directly, swaying as she stepped, mouth parted in an eager smile.
"My gift to you," Mopolite said.
This was a test, Jack knew. And he was going to fail.
***
Gwen tried to follow the plot of the book she read to Anwen. Apparently the purple pony was having a party with her friends but didn't understand the meaning of friendship. Every so often, Gwen glanced over the top of the book to see her daughter's rapt expression. "You really like this?"
"Ponies!" Anwen said. The tot was well into complete sentences and imagination play, but these big-eyes horses sent her back into infancy with delight.
"Okay," Gwen said with a smile, and put on the voices for when the purple pony discovered being a friend meant listening to your friends' needs, too. "That good?"
"You got Pinky's voice wrong," said her child, the delight of her days, the growing sprout in the garden of her love, etcetera. "But it was okay." Gwen kissed her and turned off the lamp for her nap.
"She's taller," Gwen said, plopping on the sofa beside Rhys. "How does she keep getting taller?"
"We could stop feeding her."
"Nah. She'll only break into the cupboards, eat all the food, and call the police on us."
"Shame. Guess we'll have to give her dinner tonight. Pasta?"
Gwen smiled. Rhys Williams was born to care for children. Gwen herself wasn't quite sure about the process. She'd given things her best, but after becoming an expert at nappies and bathtime, she discovered she hadn't a clue about what to do now that the child was toilet-trained and wanted playtime in the tub without her mum. Children were mysteries.
She frowned. "Rhys, do you remember Freda Evans?"
"Friend of yours?"
"A kind of friend. I met her on a case. She got married a while back. I didn't go to the wedding. I didn't even know about it."
Rhys scrunched his face. "You sure, love? I thought we got the invite. You had work."
"Maybe I did." The thought bothered her more. What on Earth would have kept her from Freda's wedding day? She got up from the sofa and began rummaging around on the desk. They had piles and files all over. Rhys tried to organise, and Gwen knew she didn't. But they rarely pitched anything, especially something personal.
Under a stack of receipts and two birthday cards, Gwen found the card. Nothing fancy. Freda didn't have money to waste on gold edging and lace and had instead used a photograph of herself and Slaus, both looking human enough to pass. Her handwriting was pretty, practically calligraphy, and she'd asked Gwen personally.
Gwen remembered receiving the card. As she held the stiff cardboard, she recalled with sudden clarity the conversation she'd had with Rhys. He had to get his suit pressed. She had to find a dress. They'd ask Mam to babysit.
But she hadn't gone.
She didn't remember not going, nor why she'd put work in front of a friend who needed her. A missing child, Freda had said. Gwen didn't remember any missing children cases since she'd come back to Cardiff.
Ianto might know.
She rang him on his mobile. "Ianto, sorry to bother you, love. Odd question. Did you make it to Freda Evans' wedding?"
There was a silence. "Hello to you, too."
"Sorry. I just wanted to know. Don't ask me why." She paused. "You remember Freda, yeah? She fell through the Rift from the future."
"I remember her. No, I didn't go to the wedding. When was it?"
"Bit over a year ago." Gwen read the date on the card, which only added to her anxiety as she read it off to him.
There was a much longer pause. Gwen wondered if the call had dropped. Bloody signals. Ianto finally said, "I was busy that day. Speaking of busy, I do need to go." He sounded out of breath. Oh God. Please let her not have interrupted her friends' love life yet again.
She said quickly, "All right. Thanks, Ianto." She rang off. Then she stared at the card, and the date, and she wondered.
***
Jack got home late. Ianto had made an attempt at cooking, which was better than most of his previous attempts. "Hungry?" he asked as soon as the door closed.
"Not really."
"All right." He'd lost his own appetite, and instead began loading the casserole into plastic for leftovers.
Jack watched him for a moment, then snapped out of whatever fog he was in. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He wasn't. He knew he was favouring his shoulder where he'd been shot. The wound had healed completely according to Dr. Pol. According to Ianto, it only hurt when he thought about it, which meant Pol was probably right.
"Lying." Jack hung up his coat, and Ianto could tell it had been a long day.
"It's nothing. Gwen's asking about Freda Evans. Apparently she got married."
Jack shrugged. "Yeah. Last year. I sent a toaster."
Ianto rubbed his shoulder, the phantom pain throbbing like an old rotted tooth. "Guess what day."
"Oh." Jack came closer. Gingerly, he took Ianto's good shoulder and rubbed his thumb over his collarbone. "Guess I was busy then."
"We all were. Gwen doesn't remember why. I couldn't bear telling her again." The thing which had been eating at him since her call came back. "She doesn't remember any of it. For all either of us knows, she's the one who shot me." He glanced at Jack. "Do not tell me. I still don't want to know."
"All right." Jack turned his head slightly. Sometimes, his mannerisms were very alien, especially when he'd been spending time among them again. "Although, since you brought up the subject, I dropped by Martha and Mickey's on my way back. They say hello."
Ianto felt warmth flow back. Martha liked him. He didn't know if Mickey liked him or merely tolerated him, but both were easy to be around, even after. They hadn't forgot, not yet. "How are they?"
"Pregnant."
"What?"
Jack sat down at their table, and Ianto joined him. "Martha's due in late September. Somehow, Mopolite knew before I did."
"That's not good."
"No. I told them. They're probably going to be scarce for a while. Maybe a long while. They've got friends in the London alien community, but they've got a lot of enemies, too. I don't know which Mopolite is, but they're not taking chances."
"Where will they go?"
Jack shrugged. "I told them not to tell me. We're being watched, too. My guess is they'll leave the country within the next month."
"That's hard."
"Yeah." Martha was one of Jack's few friends who understood him, and Mickey was the only person on the planet who'd known Jack before the immortality. They'd have to leave behind Martha's whole family and strike out alone all because some aliens didn't like what the two of them did for a living.
"You said we're being watched. I take it the meeting didn't go well?"
"Well, the highlight reel doesn't sound bad. Mopolite has agreed to stay out of Cardiff for one week."
"That's all?"
"He wants us to deal with the Bugs, or he's coming in to deal with them himself."
"Are we?"
Jack sighed and rubbed his face. He looked very tired. "I'll talk to the Boss Bug." He breathed out. "There's more."
"He also wants you to agree to not interfere when he does come in?"
"He didn't say. He didn't have to." Jack reached over, but didn't take Ianto's hand. After a second, Ianto reached out and touched him instead. "He tested me. Part of the business is high-class, and not so high-class, alien prostitution. He offered me a pair of twin Abrani. Called it a gift. Well, more like a loan for a few hours."
Ianto remembered Jack's tales about the Abrani. Hell, he'd wanked to a few of those stories, with Jack's hand hot against his back and Jack's mouth against his ear. But Jack was here, and Jack was telling him this story. "And?"
"And I failed the test. I told him no. You would have been hurt, and I couldn't do that to you. So now he knows about us for sure."
"Ah. Well. Like I said, he had to know already." He gave Jack's hand a squeeze. "Everything will be fine."
Jack pulled away. "No, it really won't. I just painted a target on you. I think you should go away for a few days when the week is up. Get out of sight."
"Are you coming with me?"
"I can't."
"Then I'm not going anywhere." Ianto took a glance around the kitchen, but the washing-up could wait. He took Jack's hand again. "Come on. It's time for bed."
***
February 9th
***
Dr. Pol rose late. Today was a rare day off, and she was worn out from last night. Her guests had stayed late into the night, and while a few helped tidy, her flat was still a mess. She let herself rest as long as she could justify putting off her chores, then padded out of bed to wash herself before tackling the rest of her home.
She wasn't expecting company to come by, and had her music turned up high: Dvorak today. She almost didn't hear the knock on the door. When she finally noticed, she flew to the door, nearly not putting her wig on in time. Callers did get upset when they saw her egg-bald head.
Pol cracked open her door with a cheery smile. "Hello?"
"Dr. Irene Pol?" asked the figure on the left. They both wore dark clothes, heavy against the chilly air, and sunglasses against the glare.
"Yes?"
Her door flew open the rest of the way, knocking the wind from her as it pushed her to the floor. The two strangers burst into her home, quickly closing the door behind them. Pol scrambled for her feet, for her gun, but a kick sent her sprawling, and she hit her chin on the edge of the nice coffee table. Her teeth rattled in pain, which was only made worse when one of the two figures - she still couldn't make out their features - kicked her squarely in the ribs.
She threw out an arm to defend herself, found it smacked away by what felt like a brick. Her head swimming, she turned to see a bat coming down at her face. She jerked away from the blow but not enough to escape. She felt the skin tear on her cheek, and by her nose. She screamed.
The other man kept kicking, forcing her over onto her back. She lay stunned for a moment as they repositioned. Her thoughts grew sluggish and scared. Were they robbers? Were they going to assault her? Did they believe her cover story and were they here to kill the immigrant?
She tried to roll to her side. The next kick was right in her face. Her nose broke, pouring choking blood into her throat. Pol curled into as tight a ball as she could to protect her organs, even as she lay there crying. She had to gather herself, had to think, had to find a way.
The first intruder grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her on her back again, even as the other pulled down her legs, ready for more battery. Her hands were free, and they were close enough to the first's face.
Terrified and angry now, Pol shot out her fingers directly into her assailant's eyes, feeling the warm squish, and also the sudden shooting agony through the empathic link she shared when she touched someone this way. Startled, the other stepped back, but she shot out her other hand, grabbed an ankle from two metres away, and yanked her second attacker to the floor.
She had the surprise, if only for the moment. Her hand reached for and found her gun, which she immediately pulled back to herself. She aimed it at the head of the second figure; the first still writhed in pain, clutching his face.
"Get. Out." she breathed.
The second man ran for the door, stopping to grab the shoulder of his friend, who was moaning, "That bitch, that BITCH."
She fired one shot, but missed wildly. "OUT!"
They ran, and she crawled after them to the door. She didn't see their vehicle, only heard them screech away. Her head was heavy, so she lay it down. The door was open. She was cold. She managed to swing one hand out enough to close it.
Sleep. Tired.
Dying.
She pressed her ear, hoping the comm would activate. "Jack?"
There was no reply. Dvorak rumbled through the speakers, pompous and loud, and she slipped into unconsciousness to the sounds of the New World.
***
Chapter 2