AN: Pete has always fascinated me as a character, perhaps because I too am a Daddy's girl, and have always empathized with this storyline. It should be pretty obvious from the start that the Pete we are talking about is the one from Pete's world, but in case that isn't clear, might as well throw it out there. This is all a "what if", how do we get that Pete and who is he? I'm having fun playing with it. Enjoy! BA
It wasn't the first fight they had like this. Hell, it wasn't even the second or third, Pete Tyler assumed it was somewhere in the hundreds, but he had lost count somewhere after the first week they'd been together. It was so predictable now it followed a script almost, a familiar pattern that he could recognize nearly before the angry words came spilling out of his mouth. Like an oncoming storm he watched it, helpless to stop it, as first Jackie screamed, and then he screamed, and she threw something at him. And as usual their shouting had earned thumping on the walls of their flat and curious looks out of neighbors windows as Pete grabbed his trainers and stormed out, taking only his jacket and cigs into the drizzle of late-evening, June rain. He could hear Jackie's shrieks from above him as he stalked across Powell Estates, the sound ringing off broken concrete to echo hollow in his ears.
Fucking, stupid cu….
He stopped his thoughts before he went that far. Jackie was many things, but even he had a limit in his mental cursing of her. Why in the hell had she started in on him this time? The muddy shoes in the doorway? The smell of perfume on the collar? The dirty dishes left since breakfast on the coffee table? Hell, he couldn't remember, and honestly he didn't care. Bad enough he had spent the entire day at Rog's, up to his eyeballs in notes and prototypes, trying to figure out marketing strategies and gimmicks on a dime, all to sell a crappy, health drink. Vitex was what the guy making it called it. Scam was what Jackie called it, and Pete hated to admit he was inclined to agree with her. But still, he'd agreed to sell it, and like bloody hell he was going to back out on it. It wasn't a bad product. And he had ideas for it, ideas to make it a better product, if he could get enough sales, get enough money together to buy the guy out. All he needed was time, time when he wasn't having to appease the hoyden he was married to.
Appeasing Jackie Prentiss...well Tyler now. Pete wasn't even sure that was possible. Her raging accusations still rang through his ears, even blocks away now, cutting and harsh. It had been that way a lot lately, so much so that he had forgotten what it was like when he and Jackie had gotten along. They had been happy once, back in the day, before they had married. Back when he'd been in the band, and he had met her at a party, and she had fluttered her overdone, blue eyes at him under her fringe of poofed up, peroxide blonde hair. That hadn't been what had turned him on to her, though, cause there were loads of women in London who did that to him. What had happened later, in the parking lot, when Jackie had thrown herself at some drunken arse who had wanted to pick a fight. No more than eight stones, if that, she had thrown herself on top of a man twice her size, all nails and heels, taking him down neatly as he lay groaning and sobbing on the pavement. She had turned, smiling up at him and asked him for drinks. Pete was still not sure whether he agreed out of admiration or terror, but he had said yes.
Drinks of course turned into more serious things, and one day Pete had found himself using his meager savings to purchase a chip of diamond on a silver band, and presenting it to her in front of her crying mother and taciturn father. Neither of them believed that Pete Tyler could care properly for their Jackie, and didn't mind saying so in loud voices behind closed doors. But they willingly ponied up for a nice wedding, because her mother refuses to have her only daughter married off in some office. Still, even their money couldn't extend to a fancy church service with a cotton-candy confection of a dress, but Jackie pretended she didn't care. She borrowed her suit off a girlfriend, her father used connections to get a nice reception room for the service, they paid for a lunch for everyone. Of course, there had been muttering. Pete had heard it, and remembered, even if Jackie had lifted her chin and said her wedding was perfect for the two of them.
Those had been the good times.
They had spent the first months living in her parent's place, making love frantically in those moments when her father had the telly on so loud the neighbors could hear it. He looked for work without success. Times were hard, no jobs to be found for a guy who's only experience was in playing in a band. But Pete Tyler knew how to hustle and he could make a sales pitch like nobody could. So he took the odd sales job here and there, all for crap really. But he learned. He was always doing that, learning, gathering up big ideas and changing them. Even when he was a kid he could do that, improve on inventions, come up with new ones, he had a knack for it. He was always telling Jackie about how he could make things better, whatever new gadget he was being asked to sell. She'd smile at him, and nod, and tell him to take the garbage out.
Pointed looks had turned to muttered suggestions over the dinner table, as silent conversations ran between Jackie and her parents. Even Pete got the message finally and knew his in-laws welcome had run out. He had a mate who lived in Powell Estates, not exactly ideal, but okay for the two of them, just starting out. Jackie had balked initially, fearful of the graffiti and grime, but had acquiesced when he assured her it was only temporary. The next big job he got, the next big idea he sold, they would be out of there, living the sort of life her parents wanted for her.
All he needed was the next big thing.
Oh he had ideas, plenty of them, and he was always trying to spin them out. Schematics filled notebooks on the coffee table, and the closet was stuffed with the odds and ends of tests and trials. Jackie had put up with it at first, proudly showing off his drawings to their friends as if they were his collection of bowling trophies earned on their nights out. But soon her eyes began to roll like theirs when he would hold up the sheets of ruled paper sketched in his quick, neat hand. And then she would ask how much this idea would cost them, and had he made his commission on his last sale yet because rent was due and their cupboard was bare. Hurt, he shot back something smart, and she would grow angry, and that was when the yelling began.
The good times went away soon after that.
Now, the fighting seemed to be the only communication that they had. Even their trips out bowling had turned into pissing contests between them, with Jackie's stage whisper hissing through space about Pete not living up to his potential. He pretended to hear nothing, just cooly rolled the ball down the varnished wood, the rumble of its passing briefly covering up the hums of agreement from her pack of girlfriends. His mates, the husbands and boyfriends of many of them, would nod at him in sympathy, all of them having gone through the gauntlet of personal failings themselves that evening. Pete would say nothing, merely swoop in to plant a kiss on Jackie's heavily made-up cheek and brag about his nearly perfect score.
And so it went, night after night, Jackie whinging about bills and late payment notices, and Pete assuring her that just around the corner was the next big thing. He knew she believed he was never going to make it. And frankly, he was starting to believe it himself. This Vitex gig was supposed to be the thing that finally broke them out of the cycle. With all the health-craze going on in this world, who couldn't be talked into a vitamin drink? Except it tasted like horse piss and smelled even worse, for all that it was supposed to make you healthier. He knew how to fix it, of course, had told the owner so, and he had lazily replied that if Pete could buy him out of his investment in it, he could do whatever the hell he wanted with it. And so Pete had agreed, in principle. Jackie, however, had thought he was mad. Now months on, he had a living room filled with Vitex, a wife so disappointed she couldn't bother being civil, and a mountain in debt that looked as if he would never climb it.
This was not the life that Pete Tyler had signed up for.
When he was a child he had told anyone who would listen he'd be a great inventor and make millions. They had humored him then. Now as an adult they simply thought him barmy and irresponsible. And he couldn't say that they were wrong, least of all Jackie. Jackie, the one person he was trying so hard to earn these millions for...the one person, if he admitted it to himself, whose opinion mattered the most to him.
He stopped, turning to stare back down the street, to the distant block of lights that was his home. There Jackie waited, likely crying as she called her cousin, or maybe watching telly cursing his name. God, he loved her, despite it all, despite the anger and abuse. He wanted to do this for her, to prove to her that she wasn't wrong in marrying him. And if he were half-a-man, he'd go back this second, beg forgiveness from his wife, promise to lay off the dreams for a while and get a real job, and then shag her all night till they couldn't walk. He would go home and settle down, finally, no matter if he hated it, get a job working in a factory or a shop, come home to telly and chips of a night, and go out for bowling. He'd lay off the dreams and focus on what mattered the most to him, when he admitted it, Jackie. All he had to do was turn right back around and walk down the street and ask for forgiveness.
Every cell in his body ached to do it. Suddenly, he wanted Jackie in his arms, her lips against his, pressing her body into the creaking springs of their worn-out mattress. He wanted to beg her forgiveness and promise to make everything right. His feet lifted, moved, his body and thoughts returning to the scene where just an hour before he had been screaming at her.
"Peter Tyler?"
He paused, turning in the drizzle, squinting into the darkness to find the voice. It wasn't that unusual in the council estates for someone to call out his name, he was well known enough, but no one called him Peter, not since his mother died. No one was about this time of night, save a single woman, standing beside a red sedan, an umbrella over her golden head.
"Can I help you?" He could be polite at least. She didn't seem to be trouble, at least not what accounted for trouble in these parts. She was too...nice for that. Not tall, very young, looked to be no more than a uni kid, with hair so flat Jackie would itch to reach for her curlers. It was pulled back in a sensible bun. She didn't look the sort who would normally hang around the estates. And she wasn't someone who should know his name.
The girl smiled at his question, shaking her head. "No, you can't. Help me, that is. But that's not why I'm here."
He stared at her across the pavement. "Who are you?"
"My name is Yvonne."
Nothing about that rang a bell. "Look, Yvonne, I don't know what you are up to, but it's late, and my wife is waiting, and I'm not interested in anything you're selling, so maybe we should just go our separate ways…"
"I'm not selling anything, Mr. Tyler," she replied coolly, all the while making Pete cringe at the "mister" title. "And it is late. Your wife is waiting, but I know that since you two argued, she's not expecting you back anytime soon. So take a few minutes and chat with me."
"About?"
She lifted her shoulders in her long, brown trench coat. She reminded him, absurdly, of one of those black and white movies with Humphrey Bogart, or a spy movie with people meeting in dark alleys. Her enigmatic smile stayed still, however, and he swore lightly, glancing to the lights of the Powell Estates in the distance. Curiosity always got him in trouble, he couldn't help it, and it wasn't everyday he was propositioned by a woman on the street, no matter what Jackie said.
"All right," he muttered, tossing his cigarette butt in the gutter and crossing the street. The girl opened the passenger's side door for him, indicating he should get in. He went, glad for a moment to get out of the dreary drizzle as she rounded the car and got in at the driver's side.
Later, hours later, he stepped out of the non-descript sedan, into the lightening sky and misty rain, lighting another cigarette with shaky hands. He pulled on it, hard, his pale skin gray in the pre-dawn light. Beside him, Yvonne rounded the car, her umbrella over her head, her enigmatic smile firmly in place.
"Do we have an agreement, Mr. Tyler?"
He turned red-rimmed eyes to glance at her for long, silent moments, smoke curling out of his nostrils. Finally he nodded, a jerky shake of his head. She seemed pleased.
"Good. Representatives from Torchwood will reach out to you shortly." She reached into one of her pockets, pulling out a business card. Torchwood Institute was emblazoned on it in neat, block letters, like a university. There was a seal on it. His thumb grazed the upraised, embossed writing. Her name was printed clearly on the bottom. Yvonne Hartman, Associate Director of Public Relations.
"Public relations?" He laughed at that, a bitter sound in the cool, morning air. "Is that what you call it?"
"I don't think intelligence and corporate espionage plays well when one is supposed to be a research institute," she replied dryly. "Per our agreement, Torchwood will take the necessary steps on your behalf."
An image he remembered from some movie long ago, about a devil and someone selling their soul, leapt to mind. "I get to do what I want? It's still my thing, right?"
"Everything will be as we agreed," she assured him smoothly, her eyes flickering to the gray block of Powell Estates emerging out of the darkness in the distance. "Things will change for you, Peter Tyler, for you and your wife. Do you think you can handle it?"
Pete looked at the card, rubbed his thumb over it once more, then placed it into his front, breast pocket, beside his cigs. "Yeah."
"Then we will be in touch." The woman nodded politely, her smile widening brightly. "I think you and I will get along famously Peter."
The look she gave him as she walked away spoke to a hope that they would. Pete gulped at that, moving away from the car as the girl got in and drove away. Had it only been seven hours since he got into that car with this woman and had everything changed? It had been as simple as a car ride, out of the dingy grime of the area he lived, to the tall office building on Canary Wharf, where an offer was made that he couldn't refuse. An offer that would change everything.
His heart thumped painfully in his chest as he considered the night and then his steps were rushing, running, racing over the slick pavement, towards the estates, across the scummy bricks and up the stairway that smelled like vomit and piss. He was back through the door, lungs heaving, skin sticky with rain and sweat as he tossed himself first towards his empty, darkened bedroom, then towards the sitting area, where sure enough, Jackie lay curled on the sofa, asleep in a ball, as the silent television glowed in the corner.
He smiled softly, reaching a hand to stroke his wife's platinum hair, tumbled amongst pillows. She didn't stir, but snored slightly as he chuckled, squatting down beside the couch, studying her make-up smeared face, slack in slumber.
"It's going to be all right, Jacks...finally." He murmured, eyes filling inexplicably with tears. "For the first time, it's all going to be all right, I'll show you."
He wished he could wake her. He wished he could tell her. But he couldn't, he knew that. Torchwood told him that. But he knew, he believed them, that it was all going to be better soon. And he would be able, for the first time ever, to prove himself to his wife.
Everything was going to be perfect.