Broken Threads 3/6?
Story: Broken Threads
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness; appearances by Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper
Rated: PG13
Spoilers: Doctor Who universe up to Voyage of the Damned and AU from there; Torchwood universe: reference to many S2 episodes, up to and including Fragments, but AU from Sleeper onwards.
Summary: “Knew you always wanted me, Jack. I thought that if I gave you what you wanted... you might say yes.”
With very many thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing and lots of brainstorming help.
Chapter 1: Proposition l Chapter 2: Tensions
Chapter 3: Decisions
He wakes to motion, and to cloth-covered arms around him and the sensation of being pillowed on someone’s lap. Ianto, he assumes, until a voice, so very close, says, “Welcome back.”
“Doctor?”
This, he didn’t expect. Not after what he said to the Doctor. Not after how obvious the Doctor made his disapproval of the way he treated Beth.
“I’m here.” The voice is low, matter-of-fact and so very comforting. He blinks his eyes open, confirming by sight what he’s already worked out. The Doctor’s cradling him on the back seat of the car, while Ianto drives.
“You all right, Jack?” Ianto’s turning to look at him now, his expression revealing worry and... uh-oh. Something that looks very like jealousy. Looks like there might have been a power-struggle, and the Doctor won. Odd, that. Ianto’s never seemed remotely possessive before; he’s treated their encounters every bit as casually as Jack himself has.
It’s possible, of course, that Ianto’s worked out who Doctor John Smith is - after all, they did travel out to the site together, and Ianto’s fairly skilled in the art of seemingly-casual questioning - and for the first time senses that there’s serious competition. Though, of course, he’ll soon see that he’s wrong, once the Doctor walks out of here alone, without looking back.
“You know me, Ianto. I’m fine.” Much as he’d prefer to stay where he is, he drags himself into an upright position. The Doctor allows him, with a flippant quip about ruining his suit - and, yes, there’s blood all over the Doctor’s jacket and tie. “What happened?” he asks. He needs to know, of course, but if it’s also going to defuse the tension in the car so much the better.
“Oh, all very anti-climactic,” the Doctor answers before Ianto can speak. “You died, Gwen got the device to work and switched off the agent’s forcefield, and Owen killed him. I wanted to use his transmitter to isolate the frequency and cancel it out, make sure no other sleepers wake up, assuming there are more, but his body blew up before I could. Obviously a default security setting.”
“You can get it from Beth, can’t you?” Ianto wants to know, and immediately Jack sees a shadow cross the Doctor’s face. Damn. What the hell did happen with Beth? How did the Doctor get the information about those nuclear missiles?
He doesn’t ask the question - he’s got the right as Torchwood commander, but he knows the Doctor feels he gave up the moral right back in the Hub - but the Doctor supplies the answer anyway.
“Beth volunteered to let me probe her again,” he says, sadness in his voice. “She knew it’d probably rule out any chance that I could help her be what she wants - as close to human as is possible for her. But she wanted to help. She’s mostly alien, Jack, yet she was willing to give up the part of her she most cherished to save this planet.”
Yeah, and could the Doctor make him feel any lower than he already does right now? “I handled everything badly. I’m sorry.”
The Doctor meets his gaze, and all he sees there is compassion. “Tell her.”
***
Of course he knows Jack’s apology is as much for the words he said to him in anger earlier as it’s for Beth. But here’s not the place to acknowledge it, not with Jack’s lover at the wheel and clearly unhappy about what he sees as a usurper occupying the position he would have taken.
Well, he’ll be gone soon, and Jack can sort things out with Ianto then.
For now, there’s something else. “I’m disappointed in you, Jack. Did you really have to impale yourself on that blade? I’d have expected a bit more imagination from you.”
Jack, as he anticipates, is instantly defensive. “I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to come up with a creative plan. It was me or you, and I’m kinda more able to bounce back.”
“I do too,” he points out mildly.
“You regenerate,” Jack says, his voice not much more than a murmur, but steel in it nonetheless. “Different body. And it’s not as if you’ve got an unlimited supply. I do - makes me a bit more disposable.”
“You make me sound like an endangered species,” he comments.
“Last of your kind, Doctor? I’d say you are.”
And that matters to Jack. Oh, yes, he can see it does.
Jack starts to say something else, then breaks off and presses a finger to his ear. Ah, the phones must be working again. “Toshiko? What’s up?” There’s a pause, then he adds, “Shit! Okay, we’re on our way. Ianto!” he calls, his attention switching from his headset to the driver. “We need to go to the hospital. Beth escaped from the Hub. Tosh is following her and says that seems to be where she’s going.”
Jack’s on the phone for most of the journey, giving instructions to Owen and Gwen in the other car, sending them back to the Hub to prepare whatever might be needed to contain Beth.
When Jack finally ends the conversation, the Doctor grips his arm. “Don’t assume that’s going to be necessary, Jack. I said leave Beth to me, and I haven’t finished with her yet.”
Jack blows out a breath. “She’s just escaped from custody. What am I supposed to do? Just trust her?”
“Wait and see before jumping to conclusions,” he suggests.
Turns out all Beth wants is to see her husband; to say goodbye, is his guess. Jack’s, too, judging by the way he flags Ianto to stand down and he waits by the door of Mike’s room, leaving Beth her privacy. That’s a relief; it’s reassurance to find that the Jack he knew is still there, not lost entirely as a result of the last century and a half of his life - or worse, because of the Master - and also because he really doesn’t want to have to countermand Jack in front of his team.
Once Beth leaves the room, she surrenders willingly - to him, not to Jack - and, once back at Torchwood, tells him that she wants him to use her to do whatever he needs to prevent any others of her kind harming anyone on Earth.
So he does. In a small lab back in Torchwood, using a combination of equipment from the TARDIS and around the Hub, he detects the frequency, decodes the language and cancels it all out. Kills the activation signals stone dead. Any other sleepers will never awaken now; they’ll live out their lives as humans. No-one will ever know the difference.
It’s too late for Beth, though. She knows it as well as he does, even though he doesn’t actually say it. Another failure; someone else who was counting on him to save her, and he’s let her down. Yet, even as he releases her, sadness in his eyes, she holds his gaze and says, “Thank you. I didn’t want anyone else to die.”
He nods. “I’m sorry.” And he is; so very sorry. There really was nothing more he could have done, but that doesn’t make it better.
“Not your fault.” Silently, she leaves the room, watched by Jack and Gwen.
Less than a minute later, there’s a gunshot. They run, all three of them, to find Owen standing over Beth’s body. “She stole my gun,” the medic’s saying, breathing heavily, looking appalled. “Stole it and shot herself before I could stop her.”
“Oh, god,” Jack mutters, and Gwen looks away.
“She had nothing left to live for,” the Doctor murmurs, going to Beth’s body and dropping down beside her. This isn’t a surprise, of course, but it doesn’t make it any less tragic. Gently, he closes her eyes. “She’d lost her humanity. She was something she didn’t want to be.”
“Yeah.” Jack crouches down beside him, laying a hand against Beth’s head. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “But we had to know.”
“You did.” He lays his free hand on Jack’s shoulder. “You had to protect the planet. But sometimes the methods we use make us no better than the ones we’re protecting the planet from. That’s what stopped me using the Delta wave, in the end, back on Satellite Five.”
Without waiting for an answer, he stands and walks back to the lab, leaving Jack with Beth’s body.
***
The Doctor’s going to be leaving soon. He knows it, just as he knows that when he leaves he’s planning to go alone.
He issues orders to his team - deal with Beth, take care of the clean-up at the missile base and across the rest of the city where the other agents struck, make sure no-one remembers seeing anything they shouldn’t. He dispatches Gwen to the hospital to break the news to Mike, Beth’s husband, and instructs Owen to ensure that Beth’s body is fit for burial and to provide a post-mortem certificate that’ll satisfy the authorities. And he avoids all attempts to question him about the Doctor. He’s none of their business.
Standing in the lab doorway, his team well out of the way, he watches the Doctor in silence for close to a minute. Eventually, the Doctor looks up and meets his gaze. “You should get changed, Jack. Your clothes are covered in blood.”
“So’re yours,” he points out, even if he doesn’t want the Doctor to have an excuse to disappear into the TARDIS. Not yet.
The Doctor glances down at himself, then nods. “Could be worse. Could be Dravidian blood. Never get that out, and the smell...” He shudders.
Jack smiles faintly, acknowledging the conversational overture. “Thanks for your help,” he says, though it’s far from adequate, and a long way from everything he wants to say, including the apology he knows he owes the Doctor.
The Doctor reaches into his pocket, produces something and throws it to him. “Catch.” It’s a mobile phone. Before he can ask the obvious question, the Doctor explains. “It’s Martha’s. She left it with me. Take the number; then you can call me any time you need me.”
He opens the phone, presses a key and memorises the number that appears, then tosses the phone back.
“So that’s it, then?” It feels like another betrayal, even if it is a huge step forward; the Doctor’s never before offered him a means of contacting him, much less implicitly offered to come to him when asked. It’s a betrayal because it’s a long way from what the Doctor was offering - asking for - a mere few hours earlier.
The Doctor shrugs. “What else? Unless you’re telling me there’s another imminent threat to the planet, I’m not needed here.”
And he really thinks that’s the only reason anyone would need him? Still, at least he’s in a better state than he was earlier. He’s acknowledging that he does save planets, that he does far more good than harm.
“I was going to say yes,” he blurts out before stopping to think. He regrets it immediately when the Doctor just raises an eyebrow in a quizzical manner.
“Were you?” he says after a moment, his tone mild, his stance so very much the Doctor, the one apart, the superior being who regards all of them as little more than children next to him and his kind. “That was kind of you. But it’s not necessary. You can see that now.”
“Not necessary for you, maybe,” Jack says, and hates himself for sounding so needy. For giving away that this means more to him than he’s pretended so far. “Though I think you need someone with you more than you let on,” he has to add, because it’s true and because he’s damn well not going to be the only one here who’s admitting to it. He hasn’t forgotten this morning, even if the Doctor’s pretending he has. For all of about five minutes, the Doctor needed him. Actually needed him.
And that’s why he’s ignoring it now, of course. Because the Doctor can’t ever admit that he needs anyone, can he? Unless, of course, it’s a renegade, murdering Time Lord - or a blonde named Rose Tyler.
The Doctor shrugs. “Aw, don’t worry about me, Jack! I always get by, you know that. I’ll find someone else sooner or later. You’ve got a life here. Couldn’t take you away from that even if you wanted to.”
“I’m not needed here,” he says, and it’s true. He’s known it since a few hours after he came back. The team managed fine without him. Oh, they’ve had a few sticky moments, including the one he rescued them from when he got back, but they’d have got out of it themselves anyway. They’re more of a team without him than with him, it seems. And Gwen did that, barely credible as it seems. He might be the one who put the team together, hand-picking each and every one of them, but what’s become clear is that he’s not the one to lead them.
What’s he done since he came back? Brought a dangerous interloper into their midst, almost succeeding in getting them all killed as a result, and now shown himself as incompetent over his treatment of Beth. He was far more ruthless than he needed to be, and as a result he almost screwed up badly. Would have, if the Doctor hadn’t been there to gain Beth’s trust and get the information they needed. And Beth died when she didn’t need to. If he’d gained her trust instead of her fear, they might have been able to help her.
This morning, when the Doctor came and practically begged him to come away, to travel with him again, it took everything he had to stop himself leaping at the offer, racing into the TARDIS there and then and vanishing from here without a trace. He didn’t because he knows the Doctor better than that, knew there had to be more to the situation than the Time Lord was letting on. Because he’s a better friend to the Doctor than maybe the Doctor deserves, and he wasn’t going to take the situation at face-value.
Now, because he cared enough to find out what was really going on, he’s lost that opportunity, it’s clear. Because the Doctor’s got past his trauma over what he sees as his failure on the Titanic and now he’s never going to admit a second time that he needs company - and he’s certainly not going to want the company of someone who’s seen him at his weakest over and over.
The Doctor comes closer, stopping a couple of feet away, and those unearthly eyes stare into his. “You’re running away, Jack. Never a good idea, that. And I say so, too, the universe’s greatest runner-awayer. Can I say that? Runner-awayer? Ah, well, you know what I mean.”
Running away? Is he? But there’s a big difference between running away and knowing the right time to leave. Taking the opportunity when it’s available.
And it is the right time. Today’s shown that - and not just today, but practically every day since he’s been back. In many ways, his team don’t need him any more, and in other respects they need him in ways that are unhealthy. Gwen, for instance, competent enough while he was gone to run Torchwood without him, and happy enough with her boyfriend to get engaged. But he knows - she makes it blatantly clear almost every time she looks at him - that all he’d have to do is crook his finger and she’d throw Rhys over for him. Or even, as she did with Owen, have an affair with him behind her fiancé’s back.
And there’ve been times when he’s been weary and frustrated enough with this life, and attracted enough to her, to let her. Even if it would end in disaster.
“No,” he protests. “I’ve just had enough, Doctor. Year after year after year, stuck in the same time, this same primitive time, having to hide away because I’m not normal and I don’t belong here.”
“And if you really meant that, Jack, you’d have said yes last time I asked.” Oh, he hates it when the Doctor looks at him like that, as if he can see right through him. Probably can. “But you said no. Said your team needed you. You needed them. Twenty-first century is where it all changes, and all that - and you’re right there.”
He nods. “I know. But you’ve seen them, Doctor. They’re trained. They know what they’re doing. And, believe it or not, they’re better off without me. I might have brought them together and trained them, but they’ve outgrown me.”
There’s a moment, just a glimpse of something in the Doctor’s eyes, that suggests he might understand. But then his expression changes to a knowing smile. “There’s that young man of yours, Ianto. He won’t be too happy if you leave.”
He looks away, shaking his head. He’s never cared, of course, whenever anyone else draws their own conclusions about him and Ianto. It’s just not important. But the Doctor - no, that’s different. “Ianto and I aren’t like that. He’s an itch I scratch occasionally, that’s all. And vice versa.”
“Crude,” the Doctor comments.
“But true. That’s all it is.” Well, yes, it more or less is, but he probably didn’t need to put it like that - and he wouldn’t to anyone else. And he does like Ianto, apart from the sex.
“Not judging by the way he looks at you.” The Doctor’s hand rests briefly on his shoulder. “You might not believe that you’re wanted here, Jack, but I’ve seen different today.”
He blows out a breath. “Yeah, maybe he wants more than I’m offering. I’m not blind. But it’s not gonna happen.”
“Just walking out on him - on your team - seems like something of an over-reaction, doesn’t it?” the Doctor says, his head tilted slightly. “Can’t you just tell him?”
“What?” He huffs out a harsh breath. “Tell him he’s wasting his time, that it’s just convenient sex and that’s all it’ll ever be? I did that, right from the start. He says he’s okay with it. And he was, but, yeah, I noticed what you saw today too.”
“And you’re really not interested?”
He feels like shouting at the Doctor, accusing him of being deliberately oblivious, and then shoving him up against the wall and kissing him until he gets the message. But there’s no point, is there? It’d be as much of a waste of time as Ianto’s meaningful glances today are, assuming they meant anything more than a crude attempt to guard his territory.
And, yes, if he stays he’s going to have to make sure Ianto understands - in fact, he’s probably going to have to end the relationship, such as it is. He’s been on the other side of unrequited love and knows how it hurts, how it eats away inside, and he wouldn’t wish that on Ianto.
“No,” he says curtly. “What’s the point, anyway? Any one of these days, he could be killed. Even if he’s not, he’ll be dead in fifty, sixty years anyway, and long before that he’ll be old and won’t be able to keep up with me any more. Me, I’ll look just the same as I have for the last hundred and forty years. Can’t see how that would work, can you? I’ve tried it. It doesn’t. Even if I wanted it to, it can’t.”
***
You wither and you die. Can you imagine what it’s like to watch that happen to someone you...
“Oh, Jack,” he says softly. Yes, he’s been rather preoccupied with himself, hasn’t he, instead of paying attention to his friend’s needs. Bad enough that he ignored Jack all that time, but surely worse still that he didn’t listen, either on Malcassiro or outside on the Plas just a few days ago in his timeline.
“Have you wanted to die?” he asks, though he remembers he’s already had that answer. He thought he did, Jack told him.
Jack shrugs and stares down at the floor. “Oh, sometimes. And sometimes I’m thankful that I can’t. Like today.”
Yes, when he can save a situation by dying. But what about living? “Immortality’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he comments.
Jack smiles faintly as he glances up. “At least I’m luckier than the Struldburgs. You’ve read Gulliver’s Travels, haven’t you?”
“The immortals who aged, yep. Like me on the Valiant, only worse. Losing their teeth, their hair, all their faculties, and not allowed to own any property once they’re decrepit, in case they end up owning everything. Could do with applying that rule to a few people on this planet, but... anyway. Yes. Could be worse. Jack, what was going on with you and Beth?”
He’s blindsided Jack, as he intended. But, after a moment, Jack says, thoroughly on the defensive, “She was a threat!”
“She would’ve co-operated if you hadn’t treated her like an enemy right from the start.” He’s keeping his voice soft; he’s not out to criticise Jack, not now. It’s not as if Jack doesn’t already know he was wrong; he can see it in his friend’s eyes, and of course it’s been obvious ever since Jack woke up in the car. “Course I know you’re capable of that sort of behaviour, Jack - I’m not naïve. But even your team thought you were going too far.”
Jack rubs a shaking hand across his eyes. It’s several moments before he speaks, and when he does his voice is unsteady. “Sleeper agents. It’s the worst kind of betrayal. You think you know someone, and then overnight they turn into a completely different person, someone who’ll kill you and everyone you care about without even blinking. And all this time you’ve trusted them, and you never even imagined the truth.”
“This is personal, isn’t it?” It couldn’t be anything else.
Jack moves away from the doorway at last, going to the table in the middle of the room and leaning his palms flat on it. “Yeah. It was in the sixties. We were lovers. God, I even thought I might love her. Then one day... Well, Rose is the only reason I’m still alive. She’d killed thirty people, including three friends of mine, before I could stop her.”
It’s a good explanation, but he can’t help wondering if that’s all there is; what Jack said about turning into a completely different person could equally apply to Harold Saxon. Jack had even planned to vote for him - and instead ended up being tortured and murdered by him for a year, and seeing his team and at least a quarter of the Earth’s population murdered too. And what did he do? Let both Jack and Martha walk away afterwards, back to their normal lives, without once asking whether they were all right. At a guess, Jack’s done more to help Martha than he did - but who’s helped Jack?
He lays a hand against Jack’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. And, yes, I can see how Beth would’ve reminded you. But that’s no reason to walk away from everything you’ve built here. You told me you rebuilt Torchwood in my honour. Got the feeling there that you wanted me to be proud of you. I am, you know.”
Jack turns, and his expression is bitter. “You shouldn’t be. Do you know why I joined Torchwood, all those years ago? More than a century now. I used Torchwood to find you, Doctor. I knew what its mission was, and I knew it was the best chance I had of finding you again.”
He shouldn’t be surprised, but he is. “You’ve been with Torchwood more than a hundred years?”
“Yes. And before you say it, I had no idea what Canary Wharf was up to.”
“Never thought you did.” He’s got no doubt at all about that. Jack would never have messed around with the Void, or with Cybermen.
What he had thought, or assumed, once he learned that Jack had been on this planet since the 1860s, is that, stuck in linear time, the Captain would have explored, travelled the world. Gone to witness every historic event between 1869 and the turn of the 21st century. It’s what he’d have done, and it’s what he imagined Jack would have had to do to avoid discovery of his immortality.
Did he join Torchwood willingly, or was he coerced? Was he discovered, and is that what kept him here? Was it what he had to do to live? Stuck in a century long before his time, with no identity, knowing no-one and no way to earn a living, risking discovery any time he got into a fight - which, knowing Jack, he would have.
It’s a story he should have asked more about when they met last, when Jack told him how long he’d been waiting to meet him again. A story for another time, perhaps. Certainly not now, with Jack’s team no doubt outside somewhere, wondering what’s going on.
What’s important now is that it’s long past time that he began to make up to Jack for all the wrong he’s done him. If he believed for a second that Jack really wanted to leave Torchwood, that this was more than just a reaction to a bad day, he’d reissue the invitation Jack claims to want.
On the other hand, isn’t it about time that he stopped deciding what’s best for Jack? Shouldn’t he just let Jack decide what he wants?
It’s more than that, too. Jack’s unhappy, and it’s looking like it goes deeper than what happened today. What gives him the right to tell Jack that he’s just got to stay here, to lie in the bed of his own making, when Jack wouldn’t be here at all if he hadn’t run away from him on the Game Station?
Oh, he’s had clues, if he was listening. Jack rebuilt Torchwood, in his honour. So what was it like before? Well, yes. Canary Wharf. Though Jack’s been in Cardiff - but still, what has he had to do over the years? Was he always in charge, or was he trapped, following orders he resented or went against the grain? Is this what’s made him hard, bitter, ruthless? Or is that all down to being abandoned?
No, that’s not it. It’s not just being abandoned, because if that was the case Jack would have left him alone to suffer imprisonment by the Master. He’d have ordered him off the premises this morning.
Yes, it’s definitely time that he asked Jack what he wanted, and exerted himself to do it.
Rocking back on his heels, he says, “I owe you something, Jack. No, not just because of that. Yes, I do owe you, but that’s not the only reason. You’re my friend, and it’s about time I started acting like it. So ask me. Anything you want, and if I can do it for you, I will.”
Jack’s expression shows that this is about the last thing he expected to hear, and he takes a few moments to answer. When he does, the answer’s far from anything the Doctor might have anticipated. A trip back to the future, perhaps, to somewhere close to Jack’s own century. A few journeys in the TARDIS and some adventures. Sex, even - after all, he did offer it earlier, even if Jack was more concerned with finding out why than taking him up on it.
Finally, Jack’s chin tilts upwards, his gaze hard. “Help me find my brother.”
***
tbc
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness; appearances by Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper
Rated: PG13
Spoilers: Doctor Who universe up to Voyage of the Damned and AU from there; Torchwood universe: reference to many S2 episodes, up to and including Fragments, but AU from Sleeper onwards.
Summary: “Knew you always wanted me, Jack. I thought that if I gave you what you wanted... you might say yes.”
With very many thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing and lots of brainstorming help.
Chapter 1: Proposition l Chapter 2: Tensions
Chapter 3: Decisions
He wakes to motion, and to cloth-covered arms around him and the sensation of being pillowed on someone’s lap. Ianto, he assumes, until a voice, so very close, says, “Welcome back.”
“Doctor?”
This, he didn’t expect. Not after what he said to the Doctor. Not after how obvious the Doctor made his disapproval of the way he treated Beth.
“I’m here.” The voice is low, matter-of-fact and so very comforting. He blinks his eyes open, confirming by sight what he’s already worked out. The Doctor’s cradling him on the back seat of the car, while Ianto drives.
“You all right, Jack?” Ianto’s turning to look at him now, his expression revealing worry and... uh-oh. Something that looks very like jealousy. Looks like there might have been a power-struggle, and the Doctor won. Odd, that. Ianto’s never seemed remotely possessive before; he’s treated their encounters every bit as casually as Jack himself has.
It’s possible, of course, that Ianto’s worked out who Doctor John Smith is - after all, they did travel out to the site together, and Ianto’s fairly skilled in the art of seemingly-casual questioning - and for the first time senses that there’s serious competition. Though, of course, he’ll soon see that he’s wrong, once the Doctor walks out of here alone, without looking back.
“You know me, Ianto. I’m fine.” Much as he’d prefer to stay where he is, he drags himself into an upright position. The Doctor allows him, with a flippant quip about ruining his suit - and, yes, there’s blood all over the Doctor’s jacket and tie. “What happened?” he asks. He needs to know, of course, but if it’s also going to defuse the tension in the car so much the better.
“Oh, all very anti-climactic,” the Doctor answers before Ianto can speak. “You died, Gwen got the device to work and switched off the agent’s forcefield, and Owen killed him. I wanted to use his transmitter to isolate the frequency and cancel it out, make sure no other sleepers wake up, assuming there are more, but his body blew up before I could. Obviously a default security setting.”
“You can get it from Beth, can’t you?” Ianto wants to know, and immediately Jack sees a shadow cross the Doctor’s face. Damn. What the hell did happen with Beth? How did the Doctor get the information about those nuclear missiles?
He doesn’t ask the question - he’s got the right as Torchwood commander, but he knows the Doctor feels he gave up the moral right back in the Hub - but the Doctor supplies the answer anyway.
“Beth volunteered to let me probe her again,” he says, sadness in his voice. “She knew it’d probably rule out any chance that I could help her be what she wants - as close to human as is possible for her. But she wanted to help. She’s mostly alien, Jack, yet she was willing to give up the part of her she most cherished to save this planet.”
Yeah, and could the Doctor make him feel any lower than he already does right now? “I handled everything badly. I’m sorry.”
The Doctor meets his gaze, and all he sees there is compassion. “Tell her.”
***
Of course he knows Jack’s apology is as much for the words he said to him in anger earlier as it’s for Beth. But here’s not the place to acknowledge it, not with Jack’s lover at the wheel and clearly unhappy about what he sees as a usurper occupying the position he would have taken.
Well, he’ll be gone soon, and Jack can sort things out with Ianto then.
For now, there’s something else. “I’m disappointed in you, Jack. Did you really have to impale yourself on that blade? I’d have expected a bit more imagination from you.”
Jack, as he anticipates, is instantly defensive. “I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to come up with a creative plan. It was me or you, and I’m kinda more able to bounce back.”
“I do too,” he points out mildly.
“You regenerate,” Jack says, his voice not much more than a murmur, but steel in it nonetheless. “Different body. And it’s not as if you’ve got an unlimited supply. I do - makes me a bit more disposable.”
“You make me sound like an endangered species,” he comments.
“Last of your kind, Doctor? I’d say you are.”
And that matters to Jack. Oh, yes, he can see it does.
Jack starts to say something else, then breaks off and presses a finger to his ear. Ah, the phones must be working again. “Toshiko? What’s up?” There’s a pause, then he adds, “Shit! Okay, we’re on our way. Ianto!” he calls, his attention switching from his headset to the driver. “We need to go to the hospital. Beth escaped from the Hub. Tosh is following her and says that seems to be where she’s going.”
Jack’s on the phone for most of the journey, giving instructions to Owen and Gwen in the other car, sending them back to the Hub to prepare whatever might be needed to contain Beth.
When Jack finally ends the conversation, the Doctor grips his arm. “Don’t assume that’s going to be necessary, Jack. I said leave Beth to me, and I haven’t finished with her yet.”
Jack blows out a breath. “She’s just escaped from custody. What am I supposed to do? Just trust her?”
“Wait and see before jumping to conclusions,” he suggests.
Turns out all Beth wants is to see her husband; to say goodbye, is his guess. Jack’s, too, judging by the way he flags Ianto to stand down and he waits by the door of Mike’s room, leaving Beth her privacy. That’s a relief; it’s reassurance to find that the Jack he knew is still there, not lost entirely as a result of the last century and a half of his life - or worse, because of the Master - and also because he really doesn’t want to have to countermand Jack in front of his team.
Once Beth leaves the room, she surrenders willingly - to him, not to Jack - and, once back at Torchwood, tells him that she wants him to use her to do whatever he needs to prevent any others of her kind harming anyone on Earth.
So he does. In a small lab back in Torchwood, using a combination of equipment from the TARDIS and around the Hub, he detects the frequency, decodes the language and cancels it all out. Kills the activation signals stone dead. Any other sleepers will never awaken now; they’ll live out their lives as humans. No-one will ever know the difference.
It’s too late for Beth, though. She knows it as well as he does, even though he doesn’t actually say it. Another failure; someone else who was counting on him to save her, and he’s let her down. Yet, even as he releases her, sadness in his eyes, she holds his gaze and says, “Thank you. I didn’t want anyone else to die.”
He nods. “I’m sorry.” And he is; so very sorry. There really was nothing more he could have done, but that doesn’t make it better.
“Not your fault.” Silently, she leaves the room, watched by Jack and Gwen.
Less than a minute later, there’s a gunshot. They run, all three of them, to find Owen standing over Beth’s body. “She stole my gun,” the medic’s saying, breathing heavily, looking appalled. “Stole it and shot herself before I could stop her.”
“Oh, god,” Jack mutters, and Gwen looks away.
“She had nothing left to live for,” the Doctor murmurs, going to Beth’s body and dropping down beside her. This isn’t a surprise, of course, but it doesn’t make it any less tragic. Gently, he closes her eyes. “She’d lost her humanity. She was something she didn’t want to be.”
“Yeah.” Jack crouches down beside him, laying a hand against Beth’s head. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “But we had to know.”
“You did.” He lays his free hand on Jack’s shoulder. “You had to protect the planet. But sometimes the methods we use make us no better than the ones we’re protecting the planet from. That’s what stopped me using the Delta wave, in the end, back on Satellite Five.”
Without waiting for an answer, he stands and walks back to the lab, leaving Jack with Beth’s body.
***
The Doctor’s going to be leaving soon. He knows it, just as he knows that when he leaves he’s planning to go alone.
He issues orders to his team - deal with Beth, take care of the clean-up at the missile base and across the rest of the city where the other agents struck, make sure no-one remembers seeing anything they shouldn’t. He dispatches Gwen to the hospital to break the news to Mike, Beth’s husband, and instructs Owen to ensure that Beth’s body is fit for burial and to provide a post-mortem certificate that’ll satisfy the authorities. And he avoids all attempts to question him about the Doctor. He’s none of their business.
Standing in the lab doorway, his team well out of the way, he watches the Doctor in silence for close to a minute. Eventually, the Doctor looks up and meets his gaze. “You should get changed, Jack. Your clothes are covered in blood.”
“So’re yours,” he points out, even if he doesn’t want the Doctor to have an excuse to disappear into the TARDIS. Not yet.
The Doctor glances down at himself, then nods. “Could be worse. Could be Dravidian blood. Never get that out, and the smell...” He shudders.
Jack smiles faintly, acknowledging the conversational overture. “Thanks for your help,” he says, though it’s far from adequate, and a long way from everything he wants to say, including the apology he knows he owes the Doctor.
The Doctor reaches into his pocket, produces something and throws it to him. “Catch.” It’s a mobile phone. Before he can ask the obvious question, the Doctor explains. “It’s Martha’s. She left it with me. Take the number; then you can call me any time you need me.”
He opens the phone, presses a key and memorises the number that appears, then tosses the phone back.
“So that’s it, then?” It feels like another betrayal, even if it is a huge step forward; the Doctor’s never before offered him a means of contacting him, much less implicitly offered to come to him when asked. It’s a betrayal because it’s a long way from what the Doctor was offering - asking for - a mere few hours earlier.
The Doctor shrugs. “What else? Unless you’re telling me there’s another imminent threat to the planet, I’m not needed here.”
And he really thinks that’s the only reason anyone would need him? Still, at least he’s in a better state than he was earlier. He’s acknowledging that he does save planets, that he does far more good than harm.
“I was going to say yes,” he blurts out before stopping to think. He regrets it immediately when the Doctor just raises an eyebrow in a quizzical manner.
“Were you?” he says after a moment, his tone mild, his stance so very much the Doctor, the one apart, the superior being who regards all of them as little more than children next to him and his kind. “That was kind of you. But it’s not necessary. You can see that now.”
“Not necessary for you, maybe,” Jack says, and hates himself for sounding so needy. For giving away that this means more to him than he’s pretended so far. “Though I think you need someone with you more than you let on,” he has to add, because it’s true and because he’s damn well not going to be the only one here who’s admitting to it. He hasn’t forgotten this morning, even if the Doctor’s pretending he has. For all of about five minutes, the Doctor needed him. Actually needed him.
And that’s why he’s ignoring it now, of course. Because the Doctor can’t ever admit that he needs anyone, can he? Unless, of course, it’s a renegade, murdering Time Lord - or a blonde named Rose Tyler.
The Doctor shrugs. “Aw, don’t worry about me, Jack! I always get by, you know that. I’ll find someone else sooner or later. You’ve got a life here. Couldn’t take you away from that even if you wanted to.”
“I’m not needed here,” he says, and it’s true. He’s known it since a few hours after he came back. The team managed fine without him. Oh, they’ve had a few sticky moments, including the one he rescued them from when he got back, but they’d have got out of it themselves anyway. They’re more of a team without him than with him, it seems. And Gwen did that, barely credible as it seems. He might be the one who put the team together, hand-picking each and every one of them, but what’s become clear is that he’s not the one to lead them.
What’s he done since he came back? Brought a dangerous interloper into their midst, almost succeeding in getting them all killed as a result, and now shown himself as incompetent over his treatment of Beth. He was far more ruthless than he needed to be, and as a result he almost screwed up badly. Would have, if the Doctor hadn’t been there to gain Beth’s trust and get the information they needed. And Beth died when she didn’t need to. If he’d gained her trust instead of her fear, they might have been able to help her.
This morning, when the Doctor came and practically begged him to come away, to travel with him again, it took everything he had to stop himself leaping at the offer, racing into the TARDIS there and then and vanishing from here without a trace. He didn’t because he knows the Doctor better than that, knew there had to be more to the situation than the Time Lord was letting on. Because he’s a better friend to the Doctor than maybe the Doctor deserves, and he wasn’t going to take the situation at face-value.
Now, because he cared enough to find out what was really going on, he’s lost that opportunity, it’s clear. Because the Doctor’s got past his trauma over what he sees as his failure on the Titanic and now he’s never going to admit a second time that he needs company - and he’s certainly not going to want the company of someone who’s seen him at his weakest over and over.
The Doctor comes closer, stopping a couple of feet away, and those unearthly eyes stare into his. “You’re running away, Jack. Never a good idea, that. And I say so, too, the universe’s greatest runner-awayer. Can I say that? Runner-awayer? Ah, well, you know what I mean.”
Running away? Is he? But there’s a big difference between running away and knowing the right time to leave. Taking the opportunity when it’s available.
And it is the right time. Today’s shown that - and not just today, but practically every day since he’s been back. In many ways, his team don’t need him any more, and in other respects they need him in ways that are unhealthy. Gwen, for instance, competent enough while he was gone to run Torchwood without him, and happy enough with her boyfriend to get engaged. But he knows - she makes it blatantly clear almost every time she looks at him - that all he’d have to do is crook his finger and she’d throw Rhys over for him. Or even, as she did with Owen, have an affair with him behind her fiancé’s back.
And there’ve been times when he’s been weary and frustrated enough with this life, and attracted enough to her, to let her. Even if it would end in disaster.
“No,” he protests. “I’ve just had enough, Doctor. Year after year after year, stuck in the same time, this same primitive time, having to hide away because I’m not normal and I don’t belong here.”
“And if you really meant that, Jack, you’d have said yes last time I asked.” Oh, he hates it when the Doctor looks at him like that, as if he can see right through him. Probably can. “But you said no. Said your team needed you. You needed them. Twenty-first century is where it all changes, and all that - and you’re right there.”
He nods. “I know. But you’ve seen them, Doctor. They’re trained. They know what they’re doing. And, believe it or not, they’re better off without me. I might have brought them together and trained them, but they’ve outgrown me.”
There’s a moment, just a glimpse of something in the Doctor’s eyes, that suggests he might understand. But then his expression changes to a knowing smile. “There’s that young man of yours, Ianto. He won’t be too happy if you leave.”
He looks away, shaking his head. He’s never cared, of course, whenever anyone else draws their own conclusions about him and Ianto. It’s just not important. But the Doctor - no, that’s different. “Ianto and I aren’t like that. He’s an itch I scratch occasionally, that’s all. And vice versa.”
“Crude,” the Doctor comments.
“But true. That’s all it is.” Well, yes, it more or less is, but he probably didn’t need to put it like that - and he wouldn’t to anyone else. And he does like Ianto, apart from the sex.
“Not judging by the way he looks at you.” The Doctor’s hand rests briefly on his shoulder. “You might not believe that you’re wanted here, Jack, but I’ve seen different today.”
He blows out a breath. “Yeah, maybe he wants more than I’m offering. I’m not blind. But it’s not gonna happen.”
“Just walking out on him - on your team - seems like something of an over-reaction, doesn’t it?” the Doctor says, his head tilted slightly. “Can’t you just tell him?”
“What?” He huffs out a harsh breath. “Tell him he’s wasting his time, that it’s just convenient sex and that’s all it’ll ever be? I did that, right from the start. He says he’s okay with it. And he was, but, yeah, I noticed what you saw today too.”
“And you’re really not interested?”
He feels like shouting at the Doctor, accusing him of being deliberately oblivious, and then shoving him up against the wall and kissing him until he gets the message. But there’s no point, is there? It’d be as much of a waste of time as Ianto’s meaningful glances today are, assuming they meant anything more than a crude attempt to guard his territory.
And, yes, if he stays he’s going to have to make sure Ianto understands - in fact, he’s probably going to have to end the relationship, such as it is. He’s been on the other side of unrequited love and knows how it hurts, how it eats away inside, and he wouldn’t wish that on Ianto.
“No,” he says curtly. “What’s the point, anyway? Any one of these days, he could be killed. Even if he’s not, he’ll be dead in fifty, sixty years anyway, and long before that he’ll be old and won’t be able to keep up with me any more. Me, I’ll look just the same as I have for the last hundred and forty years. Can’t see how that would work, can you? I’ve tried it. It doesn’t. Even if I wanted it to, it can’t.”
***
You wither and you die. Can you imagine what it’s like to watch that happen to someone you...
“Oh, Jack,” he says softly. Yes, he’s been rather preoccupied with himself, hasn’t he, instead of paying attention to his friend’s needs. Bad enough that he ignored Jack all that time, but surely worse still that he didn’t listen, either on Malcassiro or outside on the Plas just a few days ago in his timeline.
“Have you wanted to die?” he asks, though he remembers he’s already had that answer. He thought he did, Jack told him.
Jack shrugs and stares down at the floor. “Oh, sometimes. And sometimes I’m thankful that I can’t. Like today.”
Yes, when he can save a situation by dying. But what about living? “Immortality’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he comments.
Jack smiles faintly as he glances up. “At least I’m luckier than the Struldburgs. You’ve read Gulliver’s Travels, haven’t you?”
“The immortals who aged, yep. Like me on the Valiant, only worse. Losing their teeth, their hair, all their faculties, and not allowed to own any property once they’re decrepit, in case they end up owning everything. Could do with applying that rule to a few people on this planet, but... anyway. Yes. Could be worse. Jack, what was going on with you and Beth?”
He’s blindsided Jack, as he intended. But, after a moment, Jack says, thoroughly on the defensive, “She was a threat!”
“She would’ve co-operated if you hadn’t treated her like an enemy right from the start.” He’s keeping his voice soft; he’s not out to criticise Jack, not now. It’s not as if Jack doesn’t already know he was wrong; he can see it in his friend’s eyes, and of course it’s been obvious ever since Jack woke up in the car. “Course I know you’re capable of that sort of behaviour, Jack - I’m not naïve. But even your team thought you were going too far.”
Jack rubs a shaking hand across his eyes. It’s several moments before he speaks, and when he does his voice is unsteady. “Sleeper agents. It’s the worst kind of betrayal. You think you know someone, and then overnight they turn into a completely different person, someone who’ll kill you and everyone you care about without even blinking. And all this time you’ve trusted them, and you never even imagined the truth.”
“This is personal, isn’t it?” It couldn’t be anything else.
Jack moves away from the doorway at last, going to the table in the middle of the room and leaning his palms flat on it. “Yeah. It was in the sixties. We were lovers. God, I even thought I might love her. Then one day... Well, Rose is the only reason I’m still alive. She’d killed thirty people, including three friends of mine, before I could stop her.”
It’s a good explanation, but he can’t help wondering if that’s all there is; what Jack said about turning into a completely different person could equally apply to Harold Saxon. Jack had even planned to vote for him - and instead ended up being tortured and murdered by him for a year, and seeing his team and at least a quarter of the Earth’s population murdered too. And what did he do? Let both Jack and Martha walk away afterwards, back to their normal lives, without once asking whether they were all right. At a guess, Jack’s done more to help Martha than he did - but who’s helped Jack?
He lays a hand against Jack’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. And, yes, I can see how Beth would’ve reminded you. But that’s no reason to walk away from everything you’ve built here. You told me you rebuilt Torchwood in my honour. Got the feeling there that you wanted me to be proud of you. I am, you know.”
Jack turns, and his expression is bitter. “You shouldn’t be. Do you know why I joined Torchwood, all those years ago? More than a century now. I used Torchwood to find you, Doctor. I knew what its mission was, and I knew it was the best chance I had of finding you again.”
He shouldn’t be surprised, but he is. “You’ve been with Torchwood more than a hundred years?”
“Yes. And before you say it, I had no idea what Canary Wharf was up to.”
“Never thought you did.” He’s got no doubt at all about that. Jack would never have messed around with the Void, or with Cybermen.
What he had thought, or assumed, once he learned that Jack had been on this planet since the 1860s, is that, stuck in linear time, the Captain would have explored, travelled the world. Gone to witness every historic event between 1869 and the turn of the 21st century. It’s what he’d have done, and it’s what he imagined Jack would have had to do to avoid discovery of his immortality.
Did he join Torchwood willingly, or was he coerced? Was he discovered, and is that what kept him here? Was it what he had to do to live? Stuck in a century long before his time, with no identity, knowing no-one and no way to earn a living, risking discovery any time he got into a fight - which, knowing Jack, he would have.
It’s a story he should have asked more about when they met last, when Jack told him how long he’d been waiting to meet him again. A story for another time, perhaps. Certainly not now, with Jack’s team no doubt outside somewhere, wondering what’s going on.
What’s important now is that it’s long past time that he began to make up to Jack for all the wrong he’s done him. If he believed for a second that Jack really wanted to leave Torchwood, that this was more than just a reaction to a bad day, he’d reissue the invitation Jack claims to want.
On the other hand, isn’t it about time that he stopped deciding what’s best for Jack? Shouldn’t he just let Jack decide what he wants?
It’s more than that, too. Jack’s unhappy, and it’s looking like it goes deeper than what happened today. What gives him the right to tell Jack that he’s just got to stay here, to lie in the bed of his own making, when Jack wouldn’t be here at all if he hadn’t run away from him on the Game Station?
Oh, he’s had clues, if he was listening. Jack rebuilt Torchwood, in his honour. So what was it like before? Well, yes. Canary Wharf. Though Jack’s been in Cardiff - but still, what has he had to do over the years? Was he always in charge, or was he trapped, following orders he resented or went against the grain? Is this what’s made him hard, bitter, ruthless? Or is that all down to being abandoned?
No, that’s not it. It’s not just being abandoned, because if that was the case Jack would have left him alone to suffer imprisonment by the Master. He’d have ordered him off the premises this morning.
Yes, it’s definitely time that he asked Jack what he wanted, and exerted himself to do it.
Rocking back on his heels, he says, “I owe you something, Jack. No, not just because of that. Yes, I do owe you, but that’s not the only reason. You’re my friend, and it’s about time I started acting like it. So ask me. Anything you want, and if I can do it for you, I will.”
Jack’s expression shows that this is about the last thing he expected to hear, and he takes a few moments to answer. When he does, the answer’s far from anything the Doctor might have anticipated. A trip back to the future, perhaps, to somewhere close to Jack’s own century. A few journeys in the TARDIS and some adventures. Sex, even - after all, he did offer it earlier, even if Jack was more concerned with finding out why than taking him up on it.
Finally, Jack’s chin tilts upwards, his gaze hard. “Help me find my brother.”
***
tbc