DW/TW Story: Wonderland (4/5)
Title: Wonderland (4/5)
Rating: PG-15
Characters: ensemble
Pairings: Yes. Many.
Spoilers: Nu!Who 'verse up through CoE, possible casting spoilers for '09 Christmas special
Warnings: extreme self-indulgence, angsty emo (mostly Jack), character death (also mostly Jack), child endangerment, mentions of torture circa The Year That Never Was, sentence fragments, and believe it or not given the other warnings, massive amounts of fluff. It is deeply twee, interspersed with moderate horror.
Beta: With greatest thanks to brinshannara for the translation and my beloved Ab for the read-through.
Author's Note: I hadn't intended to write a sequel to " Six Hundred Seconds" (and in fact suggest that anyone who enjoyed that story avoid this one). But then I looked down into the rabbit hole, and lo, the bunnies living there were so very densely fluffy that they changed the orbits of nearby stars. Title in honour of said rabbit hole and not the Who novel.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
***
Part Four
***
Tosh and Lois streamed information to their dash, while Gwen monitored the police channel. Two, possibly three, armed men had gone into the school. One teacher was wounded but had gotten out to call 999. The local media, following the same police frequencies, were already on the story, even as parents were still being notified. By the time they arrived, the scene was already a mess of police cars, reporters, and mums and dads just arriving.
"This isn't our jurisdiction," Johnson said, checking her weapons and then slipping them under her coat.
"Don't care," Jack said, swinging it into what would do for a parking spot. Five seconds later, the blue minivan slid into place beside it.
They poured out of the SUV. Gwen made a beeline for the police, while Jack turned to Lisa. "Are you cleared on these?" He handed her a pistol. She nodded, loading the chamber. "Good."
Behind him, the minivan's door opened and shut. Jack turned around and his jaw met Ianto's fist.
"What have you done?!" He pushed Jack against the SUV.
Jack blinked and rubbed his jaw and scrambled back to his feet as Mickey grabbed Ianto's arms.
"Not now, mate!"
"You! This is all you! If anything happens to her … " Lisa went to him and put her arms around his neck.
"Let him go," Jack said, and Mickey dropped his grip.
Gwen cut in over the comm: "They're releasing some of the hostages."
Jack touched his ear. "Tell them we're dealing with aliens, then get back here."
Johnson looked through her binoculars. "Here they come." She frowned. "They're only letting the boys go."
Ianto went pale. Watching him, Jack said, "We're going in." He pulled out a taser and handed it to Ianto. "You know how to use this."
"Why does Lisa get a gun?"
"I don't have time to find out how much you've practised, and you can't hit a barn when you haven't. Anyway, you're with me. We're going in the back to get the kids out." He turned to Johnson. "At my signal, I want you, Mickey and Lisa to go in the front. You're the distraction. Get their attention."
Gwen, huffing, came back. "Where am I?"
"Back here with the minivan. Keep an eye on the kids."
"The three of you are with me," Gwen said, ignoring him. "Same plan as before. They may be using the hostages as shields. Johnson, if you can get the shot, take it." She took Lisa's gun, emptied the clip, and handed it back to her. "Jack trusts you, I can't. Stay close. You've got one shot if you need it."
"Let's go," Jack said, and scrambled out to go around the long way. Ianto hurried behind him.
"Why am I with you?"
"Two reasons. First, you're the one who comes here with Callie every day. She'll know you. The other kids will know you. Second, if I don't, you'll go in anyway and get yourself killed. This way I can keep an eye on you."
They had reached the back of the building now, and pressed their backs against it. There was a door, locked, and a window which wasn't. Jack touched his ear as he yanked up the window. "Now!"
Half a second later, he heard the commotion from the front. "Let's go." They pulled each other in through the window. "One down," Gwen said in his ear. "One still out here."
The distinct sound of small children crying came from a door on the left. Jack moved to the door, peered through the window to see where creep number three was. He held up one finger, pointed towards that side of the room. "Get the kids down, I'll take him out."
Ianto nodded, and Jack held up three fingers, then two, then one. He kicked the door open.
"Girls, get on the floor RIGHT NOW!" Jack had half a second to be impressed with the timbre in Ianto's voice; that was a command that promised no supper before bedtime as the least of their problems.
The third creep had his hand on a little girl's shoulder, but she was small and he was tall, and Jack didn't intend to miss. As the man's body fell, he ran to scoop up the child and swing her tactfully away from the corpse. "It's okay, kiddo. Uncle Jack's got you."
Her eyes stayed on Ianto. "Papa?"
"Tout va être bien, ma petite." He was not going to be distracted by Ianto's speaking French. He was not going to be distracted by …
"Second one down," said Johnson over the comm.
"Third one down here," Jack said. "Kids are secured. Time for cleanup." He turned toward Ianto to hand Callie to him when a fourth creep came into the room, and this one knew what had happened to his friends.
"Move!" Jack shouted, and pushed the girl into her father and both out of the way as the bullets ripped into him, tearing heart and lungs, filling his mouth with blood.
He fell to his knees, stunned. They had maybe a second left before the gunman would turn on Ianto and the children. Jack howled, or tried, sputtering and coughing instead, anything to get his attention another few moments. He could see Ianto tell his daughter to stay down, and watched him tense, then spring onto the gunman. The man was ready to fire, but there was already a stun gun pressed to his groin and he fell. Ianto hit him with a second blast to make sure, and disarmed him as Jack collapsed to the floor.
He wanted to say, "Watch for another one just in case," but the blood was deep in his throat and Lois was going to be pissed at the dry cleaning bills again.
"Girls, keep down," Ianto said in a calm, soothing voice. "Everything is all right now." He reached Jack's side, and as Jack's eyes drifted shut, he could see the panic rising on Ianto's face. He grabbed the comm from Jack's ear, fumbling with the speaker. "Man down. Urgent! Man down! Two hostiles subdued, agent down."
Ianto's hand went to Jack's face, and oh, it had been such a long time, and then he was reaching for Jack's neck. Find. A pulse.
Jack died.
***
Coming back hurt like hell, and he choked his way into life. Ianto, with the comm still in his hand, scrambled backwards to his daughter, who was sitting up watching and shivering while her classmates were still down on the ground, crying softly. Jack coughed, spat blood to the other side, and did a quick check. Everything was still there, all systems back to what passed for normal.
"Hate that," he said casually, and grabbed for the comm out of Ianto's unresisting hand. "Gwen, report."
"You all right?" she asked.
"I'll be fine. We got the two back here. Added to your two that makes four. Tell Andy he can't count. They can come in when they want."
Jack turned to the kids. "You girls did great! You can get up now. Your mums and dads are going to come get you. Can you be good and wait for them here?" Some of the girls got up, most of them were still crying.
He stood, too aware of the blood on his shirt. He pulled his coat around himself and buttoned it. That would help a little. "Come on. We'll go out the way we came in. You can bring Callie." He held out his hand and helped Ianto to his feet.
"What are you?"
"We're not going to start that again are we?" And because he'd had that kind of day, and because temptation was something Jack was bad at resisting, he held onto Ianto's hand while Callie held tightly to the other, as they made their way back to the hallway and out the window.
"You were dead," Ianto said. "Then you weren't. I suppose that explains why you look the same from when I was a child."
"But still good-looking."
"Sorry," Ianto said. "About punching you back there."
"It's okay. I'd have punched me too."
They met the others back at the SUV, where Lisa took Callie and hugged her hard while Ianto checked on the two little ones in the van. Jack spied Gwen talked to the police, and gave her a little wave.
"Mama! Il a été vraiment blessé et après tout était bien!"
"What's that?" Mickey asked.
"Nothing," said Jack.
Lisa stroked her daughter's hair, and Jack didn't make out quite what she said until the last word: " … Superman."
Jack grinned, and bent down to Callie's level. "That's right. Can you keep the secret for me?"
Her eyes were round, and she nodded. Then she buried her face in her mother's neck. Jack watched her, amused, and noticed the fine cover of sweat over Lisa's face. If he was in the mood to be punched again, he'd say she looked more than a bit turned on. A far more knowing, if covert, glance back at Ianto gave the same impression. For Christ's sake, they were both enjoying the adrenaline rush! No wonder they had the kids so quickly. If they were running into half the dangerous things back in Paris that they'd said, they were probably going at it like rabbits every night.
Now that was a lovely picture to have in his head.
Gwen came back. "Are we done here?"
Jack turned to Ianto and Lisa. "Don't stick around for questioning. You don't want to start coming up with answers."
"What if they ask anyway?"
"Tell the police you're with us," Jack said, getting into the SUV. "And remind them they owe us a favor."
"They're with us?" Gwen asked when the doors were closed.
"Quiet. I'm Superman!"
"Oh good God," said Johnson
***
The police had already called once by the time they made it back to work. The only death had been the one Jack took down in the classroom. Gwen had told him that Johnson had shot the first one outside as he'd tried to hide behind a teacher; she hadn't even paused. Lisa had shot the second in the shoulder, textbook, with the one bullet Gwen had left her. Andy was asking questions about the new Torchwood agents, questions which Gwen was carefully deflecting.
Lois let him off easy about the laundry. After Jack had changed his shirt and sheepishly handed off his coat to be cleaned, he made a point of spending time with her in the front office, asking about what she was working on, ruffling through her paperwork, and generally driving her up the wall.
He tossed three balled-up pieces of discarded paper in the air.
"What are you doing?"
"Juggling."
"Don't you have something better to be doing?"
"Probably." He grabbed her hand and danced her around the room. "Did you hear? I'm Superman. I wonder if I can fly?"
"You can't, and you've already ruined one set of clothes today."
"Superman and Lois! We're a winning team!"
"You are going to be insufferable about this all day, aren't you?" She laughed as she said it, went back to her chair.
"Oh, yes." His eyes twinkled. "Talk to me, Lois." He sat on the edge of her desk. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Her eyes were on her monitor now.
"This is about earlier today, right?"
"I'm glad you got those kids out safely. You know, without me."
"You're getting much better," Jack said.
"I'm not. I love this work, I believe in what we do. You and Gwen don't trust me yet, and I can't blame you."
"We trust you."
"You put two civilians in today rather than me. And yes, Gwen told me about their backgrounds, but you haven't worked with either one and you still let them go on a mission." She sat back. "And they did fine. I can't even operate a stun gun properly."
"Maybe we should sign you up for the 'Paris sewer rat' training course."
"Maybe I shouldn't be here."
"Uh uh." Jack grabbed her hand. "No quitting. Lois Habiba, you're brilliant. You can work with people, which frankly, none of the rest of us have the first idea how to do. You get us places, keep us organised, and, against all history of this place, made us start thinking of this place as a career rather than a life sentence."
"I don't … "
"When we bring in new people, when I do, it's because we need a change. That's what you're bringing to us. We can always find someone to shoot a gun. Trust me, there is no end to the list of damaged people I can find who want to take out their personal pain on some deserving otherworldly scum. You're the first I've ever met here who can do the same thing with a stapler and a fax machine, and make the guy on the other end feel grateful at the end of it. You're amazing."
"I didn't join up to be a secretary."
"You’re not. I'm still trying to figure out what you are, but since I manage to upset people when I talk to them … "
"You think so?"
" … and Gwen is busy actually trying to run things, I'm pretty sure you're going to be our efficient, competent face that we show to the world. You deal with the politicians and the bureaucrats, and while you're at it, keep reminding us that we're alive. That's not a secretary, that's an ambassador."
Her face lit up at the job description. "Ambassador, hm?"
He grinned. "Someday, I'll tell you the story of my adventures in Switzerland with the Ambassador from Wales and his wife."
"Skip it." She pursed her lips. "I should be able to shoot a gun. It's part of the job description."
"If you want more training, we'll set something up at the police range with Andy. You can take your time."
"Because we have new people coming in."
"They're not coming in. That was … We were doing them a favour."
"Then I know my first ambassadorial action. Jack, I know you don't have much use for the rules, but we do have to follow them."
"We do."
"We have authorisation to handle firearms. You handed restricted weapons to two civilians today, and one of them shot someone on your and Gwen's okay."
"Gwen said she did a great job." He folded his arms.
"That doesn't matter. You told the police she was Torchwood."
"She was."
"But she's not now, and they're already asking questions."
"We don't have to answer them."
"That's what I'm trying to get through to you. We do have to answer to someone. We have to obey the laws. Torchwood operates within the law, and the law makes room for us to operate. We're allowed to shoot people. Lisa isn't, and if the police find out we lied about her being with us, she can go to prison."
"Oh." His eyes flicked to the phone at Lois' desk, and the light still on for Gwen's line. "Excuse me."
He went into her office without knocking, just as she hung up. "Was that Andy?"
"No, that was about the reconstruction of the Plass. Andy called before."
"What did you say to him?"
"I told him we had a false alarm that they were alien terrorists."
"Did he buy it?"
"He bought that we screwed up, sure. Since we got all four pervs and the kids were scared but not hurt, no one's complaining."
"What did you tell him about our pretend agents?"
"I said they were from the London branch." Gwen hated lying to Andy.
"Good. Did he ask you anything else?"
"Only for Johnson's number. I still haven't had the heart to tell him."
"Have you told her?"
"God, no. She'd break his nose."
"Why did we hire her? Refresh my broken memory?" The taste of concrete was in his mouth again.
"You have a thing for women with guns." Often true. He enjoyed the damsel in distress type sometimes and under certain circumstances, but give him a woman with a handgun and a gleam in her eye, and he'd already be half naked. Which admittedly caused problems on its own. "We needed her. We needed people."
"Right."
***
Bren patted the empty seat beside her. Jack sat across instead. "Hello, Bren. You alone today?"
"You didn't hear?" Gwen and Lois sat down beside them.
"Hear what?"
"That nursery school thing yesterday? That was Lisa's daughter's school."
"Oh my goodness," Gwen said. "That's awful!"
"Is she all right?" Lois asked. "I heard everyone was fine."
"Shaken up, the poor lamb. I gave Lisa a day off to be with her family."
"That's good," said Gwen.
Jack hid his smile around a bite of pasta.
***
Bren wasn't at lunch the next day, but Lisa was already waiting for Gwen and Jack at the table. "I handed her a report right as we were about to walk out the door," she said, "and she wanted to get it out now."
"Convenient," Gwen said. "How's Callie?"
"Fine." She fiddled with her sandwich. "We're taking her out of the school. We're telling them it's for the security, and several families are doing the same, but mostly we don't want the other kids remembering her Dad was the one who came in to save them."
"He had help," Jack said.
Lisa laughed. "Don’t worry, we know. Callie keeps asking about you. In fact," she said, looking over his shoulder, "your biggest fan just arrived."
The familiar double-pram was coming through the door, but Callie had already run down the ramp and was happily piling herself onto Jack. "Superman!"
Jack picked her up. "Shh! Remember, it's a secret."
Gwen said to Lisa, "Did you have to say that? He's been preening around like a peacock for two days."
"I have not!"
"What kind of a cock?" Ianto asked, parking the pram.
"You are twelve years old," Lisa said, and kissed him on the cheek as she picked up Isabelle. "Back soon."
Ianto went to get food. Jack bounced Callie on his lap as he ate. Tosh, Mickey, and surprisingly, Johnson came joined them before Ianto came back to the table.
Tosh glanced at Jack. "You've acquired a growth."
"I have." He hadn't been a lap in ages. "I like it."
"Ah, everyone's here," Ianto said, setting out places for the kids and unbuckling Kyle from where he squirmed in his seat. He noticed Tosh. "Hello."
"Toshiko Sato," she said, extending a hand.
"Ianto Jones," he said, taking it.
"You're getting famous around the office," she said, but she was watching Jack, a question in her eyes. He gave her a nod, and she offered a warm smile back to Ianto. "It's good to meet you."
"I've caught them, the last two," the Master giggles into his ear. "They'll be here tomorrow, and then we'll play!" He lets Jack off easy this time, just a gunshot to the head. Torturing him isn't as much fun when the Doctor isn't present, Jack guesses.
In the morning, Jack's cell door slams open. The Master is furious: Ianto and Tosh managed to kill themselves before their transfer to the Valiant. His plans cancelled, he spends a long, long day with Jack, peeling his skin away in narrow strips. Jack tries to separate himself from the pain. His mind keeps drifting back to the two of them, wondering which one suggested suicide, knowing they must have been terrified, hoping it was quick.
He dies, finally, but it never lasts.
"Is this everyone, then? Isn't Lois part of your … office?"
"She's at the dentist," Gwen said.
"I remember the dental plan," Ianto said wistfully. "That wasn't part of the package in Paris."
"Giant rats?" Mickey asked. "Really?"
"You had to be there. They were terrifying at first, and then just horrible in a very dull way."
"Weevils," said Johnson.
"What are Weevils?"
Gwen said, "Big, evil, dangerous, smelly things with too many teeth, and by the time you've caught your fiftieth one, you're praying for a damn Slitheen just to break the monotony."
"Slitheen?"
"Giant fart monsters," said Mickey. There were snorts of laughter down the table.
"Twelve," Lisa said, coming back. "The lot of you."
"What's wrong?" Ianto asked, standing up. "She's not hungry again?"
"You're sure you're not filling her up at home?"
"If she'd take a bottle from me, we wouldn't have to do this every day, would we?"
"They don't take bottles?" Gwen asked, faintly horrified.
"Just the stubborn ones," Ianto said, sitting down with Isabelle over his arm, absently bouncing and burping her. "Kyle refused a bottle until three months ago."
"And thank God he finally discovered them," Lisa said, taking her plate from Ianto's tray and diving in to her lunch. "I'm not a bloody cow. By the way, Gwen, when the doctors and nurses tell you that you won't be able to get pregnant while you're still nursing? Tell them they're liars."
"Done," Gwen said, the horror growing a bit. Jack made a mental note to chat with Rhys.
"So," said Ianto, "what exciting things are going on today?"
"Absolutely nothing," Jack said. "As far as you know, we're watching paint dry."
"Is it that paint we developed from the Landarian crash? The one that cloaks the walls if you're not careful?"
"That's great stuff," said Mickey. "Eugene painted the doors to the loos with it one time."
"That's brilliant," Ianto said, and Jack remembered when it had been Ianto's idea. Poor Owen.
Jack said, "Can we not talk about the top secret alien tech in front of people?"
"What people?" Gwen asked. "We're over here, and frankly, the rest of the building is afraid of you and Johnson. That's why they're sitting far away." She looked at Johnson. "Sorry."
"No offense taken."
"The kids. They shouldn't hear about this."
"They don't speak English," Ianto said, then petted Callie's head. "Well, not much."
"Besides," Lisa said, "they're going to know all about this sort of thing. Aliens killed everyone I worked with before they were born. It'd be irresponsible not to tell them."
Ianto said, "Callie's grown up with alien tech. The nursery was in the back of the office, which was also our spare storage room."
"It was a small office. We had to incarcerate monsters in the closet with the copy machine."
"Until that one off-world fellow figured out how to rewire the copier to transport himself back into space."
"That was amazing work," Lisa said. "I reverse-engineered it. Afterwards we always had to make sure we had it set to 'copy' when we wanted photocopies, or else we sent our reports into outer space."
"Lost two files and a paycheque that way."
"The paycheque was your own fault."
"I'm not the one who was using the copier as a means to save money on the garbage hauling and didn't set it back."
"Really a copier?" asked Tosh.
"You have to have the right model. I could show you. Once you see it done, it's mostly intuitive."
"That'd be great, thanks."
Gwen said, "Warn Lois, yeah? You break her copier and she may murder us all."
The room is a nightmare: blood everywhere, Owen on the floor, and Gwen about to have her brain sawed open. Jack knows this, has seen this all, saw the wreckage and destruction at One when they picked over the corpse. And it's been rebuilt right under his nose.
Jack said, "What part of 'Don’t talk about alien tech over lunch' turned into 'Lisa's making us a matter transporter out of the Xerox machine'?"
Mickey said, "The part where you lost, mate," and he got up from the table.
"We should be getting back," Tosh said. "Lovely meeting you both. When can you come round to show me the copier thing?"
"I'll be done around four," Lisa said. "I can come by then."
"Perfect. See you."
Ianto plucked Callie from Jack's lap. "Up now. Uncle Jack has to go," he said slowly and precisely.
"Yeah." He paused. "Why did you come back to Cardiff?"
"What do you mean?"
Jack waved his arm. "Aliens. The Rift. You had to know this place was dangerous when you left. Why come back here?"
"As opposed to where?"
"Anywhere. London."
"Oh yeah," said Lisa. "London's safe. Cybermen and Daleks, no problem there."
"Or giant spaceships shaped like the Titanic trying to crash on the palace."
"Or Christmas stars that shoot people. That was exciting."
"Okay," Jack said. "Not London. Canada, then."
"What, with all those sasquatches?" asked Lisa.
"They get more alien landings per capita than any other country. They're just better at keeping it quiet. Plus, they give aliens parcels of land in the north."
"What about Australia?"
Ianto frowned at him. "You really haven't researched Australia, either, have you?"
"The entire continent's fauna came from a downed spaceship thousands of years ago."
"Tasmanian tigers are shapeshifters, the spiders were specially bred as warriors, and the koalas … " He shuddered.
"The koalas are terrifying."
"Why?" asked Gwen.
"You don't want to know," Ianto said.
"America? You could move to, I don't know, Cleveland."
"Hellmouth," they said together.
Ianto said, "Honestly, if we're going to be around monsters and aliens … "
"And let's not forget mysterious forces that make the children all speak in unison … "
"We may as well be here." He smiled and took a drink of his coffee.
"Come on," Gwen said. "Back to work. Tell Bren I said hello."
As they went out the doors of the café, Johnson said, "I'm unclear. Would you say they qualify as merely cute, excessively cute, or nauseatingly cute?"
"Be nice," Gwen said.
"Nauseating," Jack said.
"I agree."
***
The first thing they put through the copier was a tracking device. Tosh located it in the asteroid belt some time later, and called Lisa at home to give her the good news.
They sent a few more test objects. Then they were bored. The boredom was a mistake in an office with a bit too much alien trash that couldn't be sent to the dump. Johnson was the one who pointed out the Bay was getting full of bodies.
***
Martha called him in the middle of that very same night. "He told me to tell you," she said, yawning and with a definite air of 'I am not your bloody voicemail,' "that if you play with another matter transporter this century, he will use it to transport bits of you into the sun."
***
Lois excused herself from their breakfast to answer the phone out front. Jack was already looking over the day's agenda, circling small hot spots in Rift activity that he, Mickey and Johnson would have to check out this morning, and wondering when Gwen was going to roll in so he could break the bad news about the transporter to everyone at once.
Tosh said, "I think I've got the sensors recalibrated properly now. If you look at the blip from five AM, you can see the dimensions of what came through. It's tiny."
"And alive," Mickey said, looking at the readings. "Space mouse?" Johnson made a face.
"That'll be fun to try and find," said Jack. "We'll have to bring the nets. What's up with you?"
"I hate mice," Johnson said. "When I was in the service, one crawled into my boot. I didn't know it was there." She shuddered.
"Space hamster. Space squirrel. Chipmunk," Mickey amended. "Better?"
"What's this?" Johnson said, ignoring him.
"Negative Rift spike," said Tosh. "Could be the Rift taking something or someone. I've already told Andy to keep an eye out for missing persons in that area last night." She hesitated. "You should go by and see if anything obvious is gone. Could be another vanished park bench."
Jack quirked his mouth around his coffee cup. Space-time was scattered with random minor landmarks, dogs, fireplugs, grave markers, and at least one unoccupied squad car from the greater Cardiff area. In the very long life he expected to have, he'd be a little disappointed if he never ran across the park bench donated by the Ladies' Auxiliary among polite fanfare and gobbled up by a negative Rift spike that same evening.
Lois came back in, notepad in hand. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, a little loudly, "Edward Rhys Williams was born at 3:26 this morning at University Hospital."
Jack led the clapping around the small table. "Good for Gwen."
Tosh said, "Isn’t he early?"
"A bit," Lois said. "He's in intensive care right now, but Rhys said it's mostly for observation. Gwen had a Caesarian. She's recovering, Rhys said, but he was very clear that we were not to visit today. Their families are coming and she needs her rest." Translation: Jack was to keep the hell away.
"Send them the biggest bouquet in the hospital shop," Jack said.
"Already ordered. The card reads, 'From the gang at work.' Seemed non-specific enough not to worry her family or break their Retcon. You did Retcon them after the wedding, yes?"
Jack looked to Tosh, who nodded. That would be something to ask her about later. There'd been someone in his timeline to chide him gently, and without a single hint of jealousy, that he'd acted like an idiot again, then to kiss away his pouting protests. How had he behaved here? He'd managed not to run into Rhys yet, but they'd be at the hospital tomorrow, and it helped to know.
"You hear Lois, people. Gwen is out for the next couple of weeks."
"Six," Lois said. "That was the standard for Torchwood when the policy was last updated."
"You mean London's policy."
"They're the ones who wrote the rules. If you'd like to change them, I can give you the forms."
"Six weeks," Jack said. "Anyone have a problem with taking orders from me officially again? Good. I'll clear things with Gwen when she's up to consulting, keep her in the loop."
"Point of notice," Johnson said. "If she tells us one thing and you tell us another, I'm still going to listen to her."
"Point taken and noted."
***
Jack spent most of the morning with Mickey tracking down the space hamster while Johnson inspected the site that might or might not have something missing. They followed the hamster's trail until the Rift energy dissipated from the tracks, and had to use their hands and knees to find signs after that. Jack did not comment on enjoying the view of Mickey's behind, mainly because Lois had emailed him her weekly reminder of the official Torchwood policies on sexual harassment.
This being daylight, their search attracted a bit of attention. Jack had to concoct a story about losing his mate's pet snake, which had the added bonus of scaring off passersby who might otherwise want to help.
Johnson called in. "Found it, or more precisely, what it used to be."
"Alive?"
"Negative. Street sign. Someone thousands of years from now in another solar system is being told to slow down."
"Good advice for everyone. Want to help come look for the space hamster?"
"I'll pass."
Jack looked at Mickey. "We have got to do something with that. I wonder if Steven would like some pet rats for his next birthday."
"Your funeral. Of course, you've had a few of those." Mickey squinted through some branches. "Wait, I think I found something." He shot his hand through. "Ouch!"
Jack hurried around to the other side and slammed his net over the fleeing, furry little form.
"He bit me!" Mickey said, holding his hand.
The space mouse, or whatever, spit out a high-pitched but distinct stream of alien that was part profanity, part "And I'd do it again!" Jack held it up to his eye level. The alien was smallish, furryish, bluish, and angry as hell. "Sorry, pal," Jack said, and transferred it to the portable storage facility, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a hamster ball.
"Johnson, come get us. We found the alien. It bit Mickey."
"On my way."
***
Gwen was only allowed two visitors at a time, so they went in shifts. Jack went in with Tosh first, since they'd known her the longest. They stopped outside the nursery first, but couldn't see Edward.
In her room, Jack bent over and gave Gwen a soft kiss on her forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been filleted."
"You look wonderful," Tosh said. "Are they treating you well?"
"Where's Rhys?" Jack asked.
"They're treating me fine. Rhys is in with Edward. He doesn't like it when he's out of our sight."
Jack moved things out of the way so Tosh could get close to Gwen's bedside. Tosh grabbed her hand and held it as they chatted about the baby. Jack just enjoyed being with them.
"Ah, was wondering when you lot were going to wander in," Rhys said. "Now don't you go getting her tired."
"It's fine. I'm fine," Gwen said.
"We won't stay," Jack said. "We just wanted to drop by."
"Jack," said Gwen.
"Hm?"
"We need more people. You're terrible at hiring, so make Lois do it, and sign whatever she gives you."
"Lois doesn't run Torchwood."
"Give her another month."
"No talkin' shop, now," Rhys said. "You can do all that without her today."
"Get some rest," Tosh said, and Gwen only winced a little when she leaned over to hug her.
Rhys took them out by the window to where Edward was. Tosh made wee little noises in her throat through the window. Jack watched the tiny fists wave and against all logic, he waved back.
***
He flung himself into a chair in the outer office. "Gwen says we need more people."
"We do," Lois said, not looking up from her screen.
"She wants you to do the hiring. She told me I need to sign whatever you hand me."
"I solemnly swear only to use my powers for good."
"Do you have someone in mind?"
"Gwen and I have been talking. She knew you'd be upset, but I know who she wants."
Myfanwy falls to the ground right where they had just been, but for this moment, Jack isn't thinking about the pterodactyl and clearly the man on top of him isn't, either.
"When are you going to extend the offer?"
"Lunchtime. I just sent the email."
"Great."
Her computer pinged. "And there's his reply. He'll meet me here for lunch, I'll make the pitch then. I figure he'll want to go see Gwen afterwards so I'm arranging it for just before visiting hours."
"There are some things you should know about the background check."
"We examined his background in great detail already."
"Good."
"Don't look like that. You'll get used to it." She smiled. "Anyway, he's quite good-looking. I'm sure you won't mind having a pretty boy on the staff."
"Believe it or not, I don't jump every person I see."
"That reminds me. You have your appointment with Dr. Sheffield this afternoon. Don't forget."
"Wouldn't dream of missing it."
"If Andy can start next week, I'll put him in for Friday sessions too."
"That's a good … Andy?"
"He always thinks he can handle what we do, but I'm sure after his first week, he'll want someone to talk things over with."
"I'm sure," he echoed. "Andy?"
"Andy Davidson. You've met, any number of times. Your memory isn't acting up again, is it, Jack?"
"No. Maybe." Lois was watching him closely now. While he might be able to pass this off, he found he didn't want to. "I could've sworn we were talking about someone else just now."
"Who?"
"Never mind."
"Ianto?"
"Don't worry about it."
"Gwen teases you about bringing Ianto and Lisa on because you twitch every time someone says their names. There, you did it just now."
"I did not."
"You did. You always do. Is it because they're both your type?"
"Excuse me? I don't have a type."
"Lisa." She watched him twitch. "She's gorgeous, brilliant, and she can pick off a target at fifty metres. Ianto." Dammit, he was going to have to fix that. "He's got that fragile, kicked puppy look you can't resist, but throw him in a situation where someone he loves is threatened and the other fellow is not going to walk out."
"You have not been around nearly long enough to have come up with that on your own."
"Tosh and Gwen and I may have chatted about this before." She smiled. Jack kept his smile inward. Tosh wouldn't have told Lois and Gwen the important part. "Johnson doesn't say much, but she's got a pretty good idea of your tastes, she says."
"Good to know I'm the largest subject of gossip among the hens at work."
"Mickey thinks your sole criterion is 'breathing' but he's still peeved about his ex."
"So. Andy?"
"Lunchtime. He'll say yes."
***
Andy said yes. Jack was watching from the usual table, for once his attention not focused on Ianto, or even the squirmy three year old who'd insisted on climbing on him again. He was hoping to see the exact moment when it sunk in, and then found out he didn't have to. Andy stood up and shouted in glee.
"What's going on?" Bren asked.
"Mr. Davidson just accepted a position at H3," said Tosh.
"Actually," said Johnson, "he'll be working for Smith & Jones. We outsourced the hiring to H3. They're … dynamic."
"Remind me, dear," Bren said. "What do you do at Smith & Jones?"
"Pest eradication," Mickey said. He was still nursing the sore spot on his finger. Jack kept teasing him about space rabies.
Ianto said, "I've done pest eradication. Nasty business."
"But exciting," Johnson said.
"There's that." He took a sip from his coffee, but his eyes were on Jack now.
Jack said, "I'm sure Andy will be up to the challenge."
Lois came over to the table with Andy. He was beaming. "Did you hear?"
"I think the whole cafeteria heard," Bren said.
Jack suddenly had a swift, bad feeling as Andy opened his mouth, but he wasn't fast enough to his feet to stop Andy from saying, "Torchwood! I can't believe it!"
Bren said, "What's Torchwood? That sounds familiar."
"It's an expression," Ianto said quickly. "Means 'unexpected luck.' From the children's rhyme. You know the one. 'The big bad wolf, he went to the torchwood, huffing all the way.'"
"Yeah," Mickey said. "I use that expression all the time. Welcome aboard, mate!"
"Thanks," Andy said, a blush starting across his neck.
Jack made a mental note to slip into the Retcon stash. "Ianto, have you ever made Brenda a cup of your world-famous coffee?"
"Not yet."
"Come by the office later. You can work some magic."
They left shortly after Lisa came back, and Lois mouthed to Jack, "So your type."
"Shut up."
***
TBC
***
Part Five
Rating: PG-15
Characters: ensemble
Pairings: Yes. Many.
Spoilers: Nu!Who 'verse up through CoE, possible casting spoilers for '09 Christmas special
Warnings: extreme self-indulgence, angsty emo (mostly Jack), character death (also mostly Jack), child endangerment, mentions of torture circa The Year That Never Was, sentence fragments, and believe it or not given the other warnings, massive amounts of fluff. It is deeply twee, interspersed with moderate horror.
Beta: With greatest thanks to brinshannara for the translation and my beloved Ab for the read-through.
Author's Note: I hadn't intended to write a sequel to " Six Hundred Seconds" (and in fact suggest that anyone who enjoyed that story avoid this one). But then I looked down into the rabbit hole, and lo, the bunnies living there were so very densely fluffy that they changed the orbits of nearby stars. Title in honour of said rabbit hole and not the Who novel.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
***
Part Four
***
Tosh and Lois streamed information to their dash, while Gwen monitored the police channel. Two, possibly three, armed men had gone into the school. One teacher was wounded but had gotten out to call 999. The local media, following the same police frequencies, were already on the story, even as parents were still being notified. By the time they arrived, the scene was already a mess of police cars, reporters, and mums and dads just arriving.
"This isn't our jurisdiction," Johnson said, checking her weapons and then slipping them under her coat.
"Don't care," Jack said, swinging it into what would do for a parking spot. Five seconds later, the blue minivan slid into place beside it.
They poured out of the SUV. Gwen made a beeline for the police, while Jack turned to Lisa. "Are you cleared on these?" He handed her a pistol. She nodded, loading the chamber. "Good."
Behind him, the minivan's door opened and shut. Jack turned around and his jaw met Ianto's fist.
"What have you done?!" He pushed Jack against the SUV.
Jack blinked and rubbed his jaw and scrambled back to his feet as Mickey grabbed Ianto's arms.
"Not now, mate!"
"You! This is all you! If anything happens to her … " Lisa went to him and put her arms around his neck.
"Let him go," Jack said, and Mickey dropped his grip.
Gwen cut in over the comm: "They're releasing some of the hostages."
Jack touched his ear. "Tell them we're dealing with aliens, then get back here."
Johnson looked through her binoculars. "Here they come." She frowned. "They're only letting the boys go."
Ianto went pale. Watching him, Jack said, "We're going in." He pulled out a taser and handed it to Ianto. "You know how to use this."
"Why does Lisa get a gun?"
"I don't have time to find out how much you've practised, and you can't hit a barn when you haven't. Anyway, you're with me. We're going in the back to get the kids out." He turned to Johnson. "At my signal, I want you, Mickey and Lisa to go in the front. You're the distraction. Get their attention."
Gwen, huffing, came back. "Where am I?"
"Back here with the minivan. Keep an eye on the kids."
"The three of you are with me," Gwen said, ignoring him. "Same plan as before. They may be using the hostages as shields. Johnson, if you can get the shot, take it." She took Lisa's gun, emptied the clip, and handed it back to her. "Jack trusts you, I can't. Stay close. You've got one shot if you need it."
"Let's go," Jack said, and scrambled out to go around the long way. Ianto hurried behind him.
"Why am I with you?"
"Two reasons. First, you're the one who comes here with Callie every day. She'll know you. The other kids will know you. Second, if I don't, you'll go in anyway and get yourself killed. This way I can keep an eye on you."
They had reached the back of the building now, and pressed their backs against it. There was a door, locked, and a window which wasn't. Jack touched his ear as he yanked up the window. "Now!"
Half a second later, he heard the commotion from the front. "Let's go." They pulled each other in through the window. "One down," Gwen said in his ear. "One still out here."
The distinct sound of small children crying came from a door on the left. Jack moved to the door, peered through the window to see where creep number three was. He held up one finger, pointed towards that side of the room. "Get the kids down, I'll take him out."
Ianto nodded, and Jack held up three fingers, then two, then one. He kicked the door open.
"Girls, get on the floor RIGHT NOW!" Jack had half a second to be impressed with the timbre in Ianto's voice; that was a command that promised no supper before bedtime as the least of their problems.
The third creep had his hand on a little girl's shoulder, but she was small and he was tall, and Jack didn't intend to miss. As the man's body fell, he ran to scoop up the child and swing her tactfully away from the corpse. "It's okay, kiddo. Uncle Jack's got you."
Her eyes stayed on Ianto. "Papa?"
"Tout va être bien, ma petite." He was not going to be distracted by Ianto's speaking French. He was not going to be distracted by …
"Second one down," said Johnson over the comm.
"Third one down here," Jack said. "Kids are secured. Time for cleanup." He turned toward Ianto to hand Callie to him when a fourth creep came into the room, and this one knew what had happened to his friends.
"Move!" Jack shouted, and pushed the girl into her father and both out of the way as the bullets ripped into him, tearing heart and lungs, filling his mouth with blood.
He fell to his knees, stunned. They had maybe a second left before the gunman would turn on Ianto and the children. Jack howled, or tried, sputtering and coughing instead, anything to get his attention another few moments. He could see Ianto tell his daughter to stay down, and watched him tense, then spring onto the gunman. The man was ready to fire, but there was already a stun gun pressed to his groin and he fell. Ianto hit him with a second blast to make sure, and disarmed him as Jack collapsed to the floor.
He wanted to say, "Watch for another one just in case," but the blood was deep in his throat and Lois was going to be pissed at the dry cleaning bills again.
"Girls, keep down," Ianto said in a calm, soothing voice. "Everything is all right now." He reached Jack's side, and as Jack's eyes drifted shut, he could see the panic rising on Ianto's face. He grabbed the comm from Jack's ear, fumbling with the speaker. "Man down. Urgent! Man down! Two hostiles subdued, agent down."
Ianto's hand went to Jack's face, and oh, it had been such a long time, and then he was reaching for Jack's neck. Find. A pulse.
Jack died.
***
Coming back hurt like hell, and he choked his way into life. Ianto, with the comm still in his hand, scrambled backwards to his daughter, who was sitting up watching and shivering while her classmates were still down on the ground, crying softly. Jack coughed, spat blood to the other side, and did a quick check. Everything was still there, all systems back to what passed for normal.
"Hate that," he said casually, and grabbed for the comm out of Ianto's unresisting hand. "Gwen, report."
"You all right?" she asked.
"I'll be fine. We got the two back here. Added to your two that makes four. Tell Andy he can't count. They can come in when they want."
Jack turned to the kids. "You girls did great! You can get up now. Your mums and dads are going to come get you. Can you be good and wait for them here?" Some of the girls got up, most of them were still crying.
He stood, too aware of the blood on his shirt. He pulled his coat around himself and buttoned it. That would help a little. "Come on. We'll go out the way we came in. You can bring Callie." He held out his hand and helped Ianto to his feet.
"What are you?"
"We're not going to start that again are we?" And because he'd had that kind of day, and because temptation was something Jack was bad at resisting, he held onto Ianto's hand while Callie held tightly to the other, as they made their way back to the hallway and out the window.
"You were dead," Ianto said. "Then you weren't. I suppose that explains why you look the same from when I was a child."
"But still good-looking."
"Sorry," Ianto said. "About punching you back there."
"It's okay. I'd have punched me too."
They met the others back at the SUV, where Lisa took Callie and hugged her hard while Ianto checked on the two little ones in the van. Jack spied Gwen talked to the police, and gave her a little wave.
"Mama! Il a été vraiment blessé et après tout était bien!"
"What's that?" Mickey asked.
"Nothing," said Jack.
Lisa stroked her daughter's hair, and Jack didn't make out quite what she said until the last word: " … Superman."
Jack grinned, and bent down to Callie's level. "That's right. Can you keep the secret for me?"
Her eyes were round, and she nodded. Then she buried her face in her mother's neck. Jack watched her, amused, and noticed the fine cover of sweat over Lisa's face. If he was in the mood to be punched again, he'd say she looked more than a bit turned on. A far more knowing, if covert, glance back at Ianto gave the same impression. For Christ's sake, they were both enjoying the adrenaline rush! No wonder they had the kids so quickly. If they were running into half the dangerous things back in Paris that they'd said, they were probably going at it like rabbits every night.
Now that was a lovely picture to have in his head.
Gwen came back. "Are we done here?"
Jack turned to Ianto and Lisa. "Don't stick around for questioning. You don't want to start coming up with answers."
"What if they ask anyway?"
"Tell the police you're with us," Jack said, getting into the SUV. "And remind them they owe us a favor."
"They're with us?" Gwen asked when the doors were closed.
"Quiet. I'm Superman!"
"Oh good God," said Johnson
***
The police had already called once by the time they made it back to work. The only death had been the one Jack took down in the classroom. Gwen had told him that Johnson had shot the first one outside as he'd tried to hide behind a teacher; she hadn't even paused. Lisa had shot the second in the shoulder, textbook, with the one bullet Gwen had left her. Andy was asking questions about the new Torchwood agents, questions which Gwen was carefully deflecting.
Lois let him off easy about the laundry. After Jack had changed his shirt and sheepishly handed off his coat to be cleaned, he made a point of spending time with her in the front office, asking about what she was working on, ruffling through her paperwork, and generally driving her up the wall.
He tossed three balled-up pieces of discarded paper in the air.
"What are you doing?"
"Juggling."
"Don't you have something better to be doing?"
"Probably." He grabbed her hand and danced her around the room. "Did you hear? I'm Superman. I wonder if I can fly?"
"You can't, and you've already ruined one set of clothes today."
"Superman and Lois! We're a winning team!"
"You are going to be insufferable about this all day, aren't you?" She laughed as she said it, went back to her chair.
"Oh, yes." His eyes twinkled. "Talk to me, Lois." He sat on the edge of her desk. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Her eyes were on her monitor now.
"This is about earlier today, right?"
"I'm glad you got those kids out safely. You know, without me."
"You're getting much better," Jack said.
"I'm not. I love this work, I believe in what we do. You and Gwen don't trust me yet, and I can't blame you."
"We trust you."
"You put two civilians in today rather than me. And yes, Gwen told me about their backgrounds, but you haven't worked with either one and you still let them go on a mission." She sat back. "And they did fine. I can't even operate a stun gun properly."
"Maybe we should sign you up for the 'Paris sewer rat' training course."
"Maybe I shouldn't be here."
"Uh uh." Jack grabbed her hand. "No quitting. Lois Habiba, you're brilliant. You can work with people, which frankly, none of the rest of us have the first idea how to do. You get us places, keep us organised, and, against all history of this place, made us start thinking of this place as a career rather than a life sentence."
"I don't … "
"When we bring in new people, when I do, it's because we need a change. That's what you're bringing to us. We can always find someone to shoot a gun. Trust me, there is no end to the list of damaged people I can find who want to take out their personal pain on some deserving otherworldly scum. You're the first I've ever met here who can do the same thing with a stapler and a fax machine, and make the guy on the other end feel grateful at the end of it. You're amazing."
"I didn't join up to be a secretary."
"You’re not. I'm still trying to figure out what you are, but since I manage to upset people when I talk to them … "
"You think so?"
" … and Gwen is busy actually trying to run things, I'm pretty sure you're going to be our efficient, competent face that we show to the world. You deal with the politicians and the bureaucrats, and while you're at it, keep reminding us that we're alive. That's not a secretary, that's an ambassador."
Her face lit up at the job description. "Ambassador, hm?"
He grinned. "Someday, I'll tell you the story of my adventures in Switzerland with the Ambassador from Wales and his wife."
"Skip it." She pursed her lips. "I should be able to shoot a gun. It's part of the job description."
"If you want more training, we'll set something up at the police range with Andy. You can take your time."
"Because we have new people coming in."
"They're not coming in. That was … We were doing them a favour."
"Then I know my first ambassadorial action. Jack, I know you don't have much use for the rules, but we do have to follow them."
"We do."
"We have authorisation to handle firearms. You handed restricted weapons to two civilians today, and one of them shot someone on your and Gwen's okay."
"Gwen said she did a great job." He folded his arms.
"That doesn't matter. You told the police she was Torchwood."
"She was."
"But she's not now, and they're already asking questions."
"We don't have to answer them."
"That's what I'm trying to get through to you. We do have to answer to someone. We have to obey the laws. Torchwood operates within the law, and the law makes room for us to operate. We're allowed to shoot people. Lisa isn't, and if the police find out we lied about her being with us, she can go to prison."
"Oh." His eyes flicked to the phone at Lois' desk, and the light still on for Gwen's line. "Excuse me."
He went into her office without knocking, just as she hung up. "Was that Andy?"
"No, that was about the reconstruction of the Plass. Andy called before."
"What did you say to him?"
"I told him we had a false alarm that they were alien terrorists."
"Did he buy it?"
"He bought that we screwed up, sure. Since we got all four pervs and the kids were scared but not hurt, no one's complaining."
"What did you tell him about our pretend agents?"
"I said they were from the London branch." Gwen hated lying to Andy.
"Good. Did he ask you anything else?"
"Only for Johnson's number. I still haven't had the heart to tell him."
"Have you told her?"
"God, no. She'd break his nose."
"Why did we hire her? Refresh my broken memory?" The taste of concrete was in his mouth again.
"You have a thing for women with guns." Often true. He enjoyed the damsel in distress type sometimes and under certain circumstances, but give him a woman with a handgun and a gleam in her eye, and he'd already be half naked. Which admittedly caused problems on its own. "We needed her. We needed people."
"Right."
***
Bren patted the empty seat beside her. Jack sat across instead. "Hello, Bren. You alone today?"
"You didn't hear?" Gwen and Lois sat down beside them.
"Hear what?"
"That nursery school thing yesterday? That was Lisa's daughter's school."
"Oh my goodness," Gwen said. "That's awful!"
"Is she all right?" Lois asked. "I heard everyone was fine."
"Shaken up, the poor lamb. I gave Lisa a day off to be with her family."
"That's good," said Gwen.
Jack hid his smile around a bite of pasta.
***
Bren wasn't at lunch the next day, but Lisa was already waiting for Gwen and Jack at the table. "I handed her a report right as we were about to walk out the door," she said, "and she wanted to get it out now."
"Convenient," Gwen said. "How's Callie?"
"Fine." She fiddled with her sandwich. "We're taking her out of the school. We're telling them it's for the security, and several families are doing the same, but mostly we don't want the other kids remembering her Dad was the one who came in to save them."
"He had help," Jack said.
Lisa laughed. "Don’t worry, we know. Callie keeps asking about you. In fact," she said, looking over his shoulder, "your biggest fan just arrived."
The familiar double-pram was coming through the door, but Callie had already run down the ramp and was happily piling herself onto Jack. "Superman!"
Jack picked her up. "Shh! Remember, it's a secret."
Gwen said to Lisa, "Did you have to say that? He's been preening around like a peacock for two days."
"I have not!"
"What kind of a cock?" Ianto asked, parking the pram.
"You are twelve years old," Lisa said, and kissed him on the cheek as she picked up Isabelle. "Back soon."
Ianto went to get food. Jack bounced Callie on his lap as he ate. Tosh, Mickey, and surprisingly, Johnson came joined them before Ianto came back to the table.
Tosh glanced at Jack. "You've acquired a growth."
"I have." He hadn't been a lap in ages. "I like it."
"Ah, everyone's here," Ianto said, setting out places for the kids and unbuckling Kyle from where he squirmed in his seat. He noticed Tosh. "Hello."
"Toshiko Sato," she said, extending a hand.
"Ianto Jones," he said, taking it.
"You're getting famous around the office," she said, but she was watching Jack, a question in her eyes. He gave her a nod, and she offered a warm smile back to Ianto. "It's good to meet you."
"I've caught them, the last two," the Master giggles into his ear. "They'll be here tomorrow, and then we'll play!" He lets Jack off easy this time, just a gunshot to the head. Torturing him isn't as much fun when the Doctor isn't present, Jack guesses.
In the morning, Jack's cell door slams open. The Master is furious: Ianto and Tosh managed to kill themselves before their transfer to the Valiant. His plans cancelled, he spends a long, long day with Jack, peeling his skin away in narrow strips. Jack tries to separate himself from the pain. His mind keeps drifting back to the two of them, wondering which one suggested suicide, knowing they must have been terrified, hoping it was quick.
He dies, finally, but it never lasts.
"Is this everyone, then? Isn't Lois part of your … office?"
"She's at the dentist," Gwen said.
"I remember the dental plan," Ianto said wistfully. "That wasn't part of the package in Paris."
"Giant rats?" Mickey asked. "Really?"
"You had to be there. They were terrifying at first, and then just horrible in a very dull way."
"Weevils," said Johnson.
"What are Weevils?"
Gwen said, "Big, evil, dangerous, smelly things with too many teeth, and by the time you've caught your fiftieth one, you're praying for a damn Slitheen just to break the monotony."
"Slitheen?"
"Giant fart monsters," said Mickey. There were snorts of laughter down the table.
"Twelve," Lisa said, coming back. "The lot of you."
"What's wrong?" Ianto asked, standing up. "She's not hungry again?"
"You're sure you're not filling her up at home?"
"If she'd take a bottle from me, we wouldn't have to do this every day, would we?"
"They don't take bottles?" Gwen asked, faintly horrified.
"Just the stubborn ones," Ianto said, sitting down with Isabelle over his arm, absently bouncing and burping her. "Kyle refused a bottle until three months ago."
"And thank God he finally discovered them," Lisa said, taking her plate from Ianto's tray and diving in to her lunch. "I'm not a bloody cow. By the way, Gwen, when the doctors and nurses tell you that you won't be able to get pregnant while you're still nursing? Tell them they're liars."
"Done," Gwen said, the horror growing a bit. Jack made a mental note to chat with Rhys.
"So," said Ianto, "what exciting things are going on today?"
"Absolutely nothing," Jack said. "As far as you know, we're watching paint dry."
"Is it that paint we developed from the Landarian crash? The one that cloaks the walls if you're not careful?"
"That's great stuff," said Mickey. "Eugene painted the doors to the loos with it one time."
"That's brilliant," Ianto said, and Jack remembered when it had been Ianto's idea. Poor Owen.
Jack said, "Can we not talk about the top secret alien tech in front of people?"
"What people?" Gwen asked. "We're over here, and frankly, the rest of the building is afraid of you and Johnson. That's why they're sitting far away." She looked at Johnson. "Sorry."
"No offense taken."
"The kids. They shouldn't hear about this."
"They don't speak English," Ianto said, then petted Callie's head. "Well, not much."
"Besides," Lisa said, "they're going to know all about this sort of thing. Aliens killed everyone I worked with before they were born. It'd be irresponsible not to tell them."
Ianto said, "Callie's grown up with alien tech. The nursery was in the back of the office, which was also our spare storage room."
"It was a small office. We had to incarcerate monsters in the closet with the copy machine."
"Until that one off-world fellow figured out how to rewire the copier to transport himself back into space."
"That was amazing work," Lisa said. "I reverse-engineered it. Afterwards we always had to make sure we had it set to 'copy' when we wanted photocopies, or else we sent our reports into outer space."
"Lost two files and a paycheque that way."
"The paycheque was your own fault."
"I'm not the one who was using the copier as a means to save money on the garbage hauling and didn't set it back."
"Really a copier?" asked Tosh.
"You have to have the right model. I could show you. Once you see it done, it's mostly intuitive."
"That'd be great, thanks."
Gwen said, "Warn Lois, yeah? You break her copier and she may murder us all."
The room is a nightmare: blood everywhere, Owen on the floor, and Gwen about to have her brain sawed open. Jack knows this, has seen this all, saw the wreckage and destruction at One when they picked over the corpse. And it's been rebuilt right under his nose.
Jack said, "What part of 'Don’t talk about alien tech over lunch' turned into 'Lisa's making us a matter transporter out of the Xerox machine'?"
Mickey said, "The part where you lost, mate," and he got up from the table.
"We should be getting back," Tosh said. "Lovely meeting you both. When can you come round to show me the copier thing?"
"I'll be done around four," Lisa said. "I can come by then."
"Perfect. See you."
Ianto plucked Callie from Jack's lap. "Up now. Uncle Jack has to go," he said slowly and precisely.
"Yeah." He paused. "Why did you come back to Cardiff?"
"What do you mean?"
Jack waved his arm. "Aliens. The Rift. You had to know this place was dangerous when you left. Why come back here?"
"As opposed to where?"
"Anywhere. London."
"Oh yeah," said Lisa. "London's safe. Cybermen and Daleks, no problem there."
"Or giant spaceships shaped like the Titanic trying to crash on the palace."
"Or Christmas stars that shoot people. That was exciting."
"Okay," Jack said. "Not London. Canada, then."
"What, with all those sasquatches?" asked Lisa.
"They get more alien landings per capita than any other country. They're just better at keeping it quiet. Plus, they give aliens parcels of land in the north."
"What about Australia?"
Ianto frowned at him. "You really haven't researched Australia, either, have you?"
"The entire continent's fauna came from a downed spaceship thousands of years ago."
"Tasmanian tigers are shapeshifters, the spiders were specially bred as warriors, and the koalas … " He shuddered.
"The koalas are terrifying."
"Why?" asked Gwen.
"You don't want to know," Ianto said.
"America? You could move to, I don't know, Cleveland."
"Hellmouth," they said together.
Ianto said, "Honestly, if we're going to be around monsters and aliens … "
"And let's not forget mysterious forces that make the children all speak in unison … "
"We may as well be here." He smiled and took a drink of his coffee.
"Come on," Gwen said. "Back to work. Tell Bren I said hello."
As they went out the doors of the café, Johnson said, "I'm unclear. Would you say they qualify as merely cute, excessively cute, or nauseatingly cute?"
"Be nice," Gwen said.
"Nauseating," Jack said.
"I agree."
***
The first thing they put through the copier was a tracking device. Tosh located it in the asteroid belt some time later, and called Lisa at home to give her the good news.
They sent a few more test objects. Then they were bored. The boredom was a mistake in an office with a bit too much alien trash that couldn't be sent to the dump. Johnson was the one who pointed out the Bay was getting full of bodies.
***
Martha called him in the middle of that very same night. "He told me to tell you," she said, yawning and with a definite air of 'I am not your bloody voicemail,' "that if you play with another matter transporter this century, he will use it to transport bits of you into the sun."
***
Lois excused herself from their breakfast to answer the phone out front. Jack was already looking over the day's agenda, circling small hot spots in Rift activity that he, Mickey and Johnson would have to check out this morning, and wondering when Gwen was going to roll in so he could break the bad news about the transporter to everyone at once.
Tosh said, "I think I've got the sensors recalibrated properly now. If you look at the blip from five AM, you can see the dimensions of what came through. It's tiny."
"And alive," Mickey said, looking at the readings. "Space mouse?" Johnson made a face.
"That'll be fun to try and find," said Jack. "We'll have to bring the nets. What's up with you?"
"I hate mice," Johnson said. "When I was in the service, one crawled into my boot. I didn't know it was there." She shuddered.
"Space hamster. Space squirrel. Chipmunk," Mickey amended. "Better?"
"What's this?" Johnson said, ignoring him.
"Negative Rift spike," said Tosh. "Could be the Rift taking something or someone. I've already told Andy to keep an eye out for missing persons in that area last night." She hesitated. "You should go by and see if anything obvious is gone. Could be another vanished park bench."
Jack quirked his mouth around his coffee cup. Space-time was scattered with random minor landmarks, dogs, fireplugs, grave markers, and at least one unoccupied squad car from the greater Cardiff area. In the very long life he expected to have, he'd be a little disappointed if he never ran across the park bench donated by the Ladies' Auxiliary among polite fanfare and gobbled up by a negative Rift spike that same evening.
Lois came back in, notepad in hand. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, a little loudly, "Edward Rhys Williams was born at 3:26 this morning at University Hospital."
Jack led the clapping around the small table. "Good for Gwen."
Tosh said, "Isn’t he early?"
"A bit," Lois said. "He's in intensive care right now, but Rhys said it's mostly for observation. Gwen had a Caesarian. She's recovering, Rhys said, but he was very clear that we were not to visit today. Their families are coming and she needs her rest." Translation: Jack was to keep the hell away.
"Send them the biggest bouquet in the hospital shop," Jack said.
"Already ordered. The card reads, 'From the gang at work.' Seemed non-specific enough not to worry her family or break their Retcon. You did Retcon them after the wedding, yes?"
Jack looked to Tosh, who nodded. That would be something to ask her about later. There'd been someone in his timeline to chide him gently, and without a single hint of jealousy, that he'd acted like an idiot again, then to kiss away his pouting protests. How had he behaved here? He'd managed not to run into Rhys yet, but they'd be at the hospital tomorrow, and it helped to know.
"You hear Lois, people. Gwen is out for the next couple of weeks."
"Six," Lois said. "That was the standard for Torchwood when the policy was last updated."
"You mean London's policy."
"They're the ones who wrote the rules. If you'd like to change them, I can give you the forms."
"Six weeks," Jack said. "Anyone have a problem with taking orders from me officially again? Good. I'll clear things with Gwen when she's up to consulting, keep her in the loop."
"Point of notice," Johnson said. "If she tells us one thing and you tell us another, I'm still going to listen to her."
"Point taken and noted."
***
Jack spent most of the morning with Mickey tracking down the space hamster while Johnson inspected the site that might or might not have something missing. They followed the hamster's trail until the Rift energy dissipated from the tracks, and had to use their hands and knees to find signs after that. Jack did not comment on enjoying the view of Mickey's behind, mainly because Lois had emailed him her weekly reminder of the official Torchwood policies on sexual harassment.
This being daylight, their search attracted a bit of attention. Jack had to concoct a story about losing his mate's pet snake, which had the added bonus of scaring off passersby who might otherwise want to help.
Johnson called in. "Found it, or more precisely, what it used to be."
"Alive?"
"Negative. Street sign. Someone thousands of years from now in another solar system is being told to slow down."
"Good advice for everyone. Want to help come look for the space hamster?"
"I'll pass."
Jack looked at Mickey. "We have got to do something with that. I wonder if Steven would like some pet rats for his next birthday."
"Your funeral. Of course, you've had a few of those." Mickey squinted through some branches. "Wait, I think I found something." He shot his hand through. "Ouch!"
Jack hurried around to the other side and slammed his net over the fleeing, furry little form.
"He bit me!" Mickey said, holding his hand.
The space mouse, or whatever, spit out a high-pitched but distinct stream of alien that was part profanity, part "And I'd do it again!" Jack held it up to his eye level. The alien was smallish, furryish, bluish, and angry as hell. "Sorry, pal," Jack said, and transferred it to the portable storage facility, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a hamster ball.
"Johnson, come get us. We found the alien. It bit Mickey."
"On my way."
***
Gwen was only allowed two visitors at a time, so they went in shifts. Jack went in with Tosh first, since they'd known her the longest. They stopped outside the nursery first, but couldn't see Edward.
In her room, Jack bent over and gave Gwen a soft kiss on her forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been filleted."
"You look wonderful," Tosh said. "Are they treating you well?"
"Where's Rhys?" Jack asked.
"They're treating me fine. Rhys is in with Edward. He doesn't like it when he's out of our sight."
Jack moved things out of the way so Tosh could get close to Gwen's bedside. Tosh grabbed her hand and held it as they chatted about the baby. Jack just enjoyed being with them.
"Ah, was wondering when you lot were going to wander in," Rhys said. "Now don't you go getting her tired."
"It's fine. I'm fine," Gwen said.
"We won't stay," Jack said. "We just wanted to drop by."
"Jack," said Gwen.
"Hm?"
"We need more people. You're terrible at hiring, so make Lois do it, and sign whatever she gives you."
"Lois doesn't run Torchwood."
"Give her another month."
"No talkin' shop, now," Rhys said. "You can do all that without her today."
"Get some rest," Tosh said, and Gwen only winced a little when she leaned over to hug her.
Rhys took them out by the window to where Edward was. Tosh made wee little noises in her throat through the window. Jack watched the tiny fists wave and against all logic, he waved back.
***
He flung himself into a chair in the outer office. "Gwen says we need more people."
"We do," Lois said, not looking up from her screen.
"She wants you to do the hiring. She told me I need to sign whatever you hand me."
"I solemnly swear only to use my powers for good."
"Do you have someone in mind?"
"Gwen and I have been talking. She knew you'd be upset, but I know who she wants."
Myfanwy falls to the ground right where they had just been, but for this moment, Jack isn't thinking about the pterodactyl and clearly the man on top of him isn't, either.
"When are you going to extend the offer?"
"Lunchtime. I just sent the email."
"Great."
Her computer pinged. "And there's his reply. He'll meet me here for lunch, I'll make the pitch then. I figure he'll want to go see Gwen afterwards so I'm arranging it for just before visiting hours."
"There are some things you should know about the background check."
"We examined his background in great detail already."
"Good."
"Don't look like that. You'll get used to it." She smiled. "Anyway, he's quite good-looking. I'm sure you won't mind having a pretty boy on the staff."
"Believe it or not, I don't jump every person I see."
"That reminds me. You have your appointment with Dr. Sheffield this afternoon. Don't forget."
"Wouldn't dream of missing it."
"If Andy can start next week, I'll put him in for Friday sessions too."
"That's a good … Andy?"
"He always thinks he can handle what we do, but I'm sure after his first week, he'll want someone to talk things over with."
"I'm sure," he echoed. "Andy?"
"Andy Davidson. You've met, any number of times. Your memory isn't acting up again, is it, Jack?"
"No. Maybe." Lois was watching him closely now. While he might be able to pass this off, he found he didn't want to. "I could've sworn we were talking about someone else just now."
"Who?"
"Never mind."
"Ianto?"
"Don't worry about it."
"Gwen teases you about bringing Ianto and Lisa on because you twitch every time someone says their names. There, you did it just now."
"I did not."
"You did. You always do. Is it because they're both your type?"
"Excuse me? I don't have a type."
"Lisa." She watched him twitch. "She's gorgeous, brilliant, and she can pick off a target at fifty metres. Ianto." Dammit, he was going to have to fix that. "He's got that fragile, kicked puppy look you can't resist, but throw him in a situation where someone he loves is threatened and the other fellow is not going to walk out."
"You have not been around nearly long enough to have come up with that on your own."
"Tosh and Gwen and I may have chatted about this before." She smiled. Jack kept his smile inward. Tosh wouldn't have told Lois and Gwen the important part. "Johnson doesn't say much, but she's got a pretty good idea of your tastes, she says."
"Good to know I'm the largest subject of gossip among the hens at work."
"Mickey thinks your sole criterion is 'breathing' but he's still peeved about his ex."
"So. Andy?"
"Lunchtime. He'll say yes."
***
Andy said yes. Jack was watching from the usual table, for once his attention not focused on Ianto, or even the squirmy three year old who'd insisted on climbing on him again. He was hoping to see the exact moment when it sunk in, and then found out he didn't have to. Andy stood up and shouted in glee.
"What's going on?" Bren asked.
"Mr. Davidson just accepted a position at H3," said Tosh.
"Actually," said Johnson, "he'll be working for Smith & Jones. We outsourced the hiring to H3. They're … dynamic."
"Remind me, dear," Bren said. "What do you do at Smith & Jones?"
"Pest eradication," Mickey said. He was still nursing the sore spot on his finger. Jack kept teasing him about space rabies.
Ianto said, "I've done pest eradication. Nasty business."
"But exciting," Johnson said.
"There's that." He took a sip from his coffee, but his eyes were on Jack now.
Jack said, "I'm sure Andy will be up to the challenge."
Lois came over to the table with Andy. He was beaming. "Did you hear?"
"I think the whole cafeteria heard," Bren said.
Jack suddenly had a swift, bad feeling as Andy opened his mouth, but he wasn't fast enough to his feet to stop Andy from saying, "Torchwood! I can't believe it!"
Bren said, "What's Torchwood? That sounds familiar."
"It's an expression," Ianto said quickly. "Means 'unexpected luck.' From the children's rhyme. You know the one. 'The big bad wolf, he went to the torchwood, huffing all the way.'"
"Yeah," Mickey said. "I use that expression all the time. Welcome aboard, mate!"
"Thanks," Andy said, a blush starting across his neck.
Jack made a mental note to slip into the Retcon stash. "Ianto, have you ever made Brenda a cup of your world-famous coffee?"
"Not yet."
"Come by the office later. You can work some magic."
They left shortly after Lisa came back, and Lois mouthed to Jack, "So your type."
"Shut up."
***
TBC
***
Part Five