You Were Something Special
Disclaimer: I own nothing to my great sadness.
Summary: Sometime after Jack returns in the second season and before Martha shows up. Everyone is alive and well. Jack gets a blast from his past when Rose shows up and starts talking about the things he hasn't thought about in awhile.
Rose/Jack friendship reunion. Eventual Jack/Ianto.
Author's Note: Please keep in mind that this is fiction so if you read this and some of the info makes you go wtf? It was most likely thought up in the maze I call my mind. Enjoy and please read and review.
"So that was a complete bust," complained Owen as the Torchwood team parked the SUV and started walking to the Hub. They had just been checking out some rift activity that turned out to be raccoons. And to think Owen pulled himself out of bed on his day off.
"Yeah, I know I was dying to get into it with some gross alien. Man, am I upset." Gwen replied sarcastically.
The rest of the team just smiled at them until Jack stopped walking altogether. He froze at the site of a blonde woman standing in front of the millennium center. The others looked at him curiously.
"Jack? Is something wrong?" Tosh asked.
At hearing Jack's name the woman turned around with wide eyes. They stared at each other for a minute before she pulled a device out of her pocket, hit a button, and she disappeared with a bang. Jack couldn't believe his eyes. Rose has just disappeared from his life again.
Jack had not said a word since they entered the Hub. The others were concerned he had gone catatonic but weren't sure what to do. They decided to research the girl. Tosh pulled her face off the CCTV and was looking for a match. Ianto was doing his thing with coffee and worrying about his lover. Owen was staring off into space not really caring and Gwen was calling Rys that she would have another long night. Tosh called them all to the conference room when she had information. Jack just stood there processing what had just happened.
"Ok so I got a name. Rose Tyler," Jack flinched at the name being said out loud but no one seemed to notice, "She grew up in London, the Powell Estate. Had a normal life until she was nineteen when she went missing for a year."
"The rift?" Ianto asked.
"Not sure. She showed up again having no idea that she was gone so maybe. Oh, this can't be right," Tosh looked at her computer screen for a second, "It says here that Rose Tyler died in the Battle of Canary Warf."
"How is that possible? We just saw her outside." Owen wondered.
"I don't know. Let me see something." She typed more stuff into her computer.
Gwen was throwing out possibilities, "Maybe they made a mistake. Wasn't the battle pretty bad? Maybe she was mistaken for someone else. Or maybe we saw her ghost."
Jack spoke for the first time since everything started happening, "She's not dead. She was only put on the list of the dead so people wouldn't go looking for her."
They all looked at him expecting him to say more but he just went back to staring and thinking.
Tosh found something, "Oh pictures. Some of the pictures have you in them Jack." She put them up for them all to look at. There was a picture of Rose, Jack, The Doctor, and Mickey in the restaurant in Cardiff. A picture of Rose walking in a street. One of her and Jack smiling and laughing with each other in a street. And one of Rose and her mother shopping.
"So obviously you know her." Owen pointed out.
"Who is she, Jack?" Gwen asked him softly. He didn't answer her.
"There is also an audio clip in the archives that came up in my search. It's from 1941. " Jack turned to her confused at that. She played it and Rose's and Jack's voices rang through the room.
"That's so lame."
"I was gonna send for another one but someone's gone and blow up the factory."
Jack's eyes went wide as he realized what he was listening to.
"Oh, I know—first time I met him, he blew up my job. That's practically how he communicates."
"Ok, that door should hold it for a bit."
"The door?! The WALL didn't stop it!"
"Well, it's gotta FIND us first! Come on, we're not done yet! Assets, assets!"
"Well, I've got a banana, and in a pinch you could put up some shelves."
"Window—"
"Barred, sheer drop outside. Seven stories."
"And no other exits."
"Well, the assets conversation went in a flash, didn't it?"
"So, where'd you pick this one up, then?"
"Doctor…"
"She was hanging from a barrage balloon, I had an invisible spaceship. I didn't stand a chance."
"Ok, one, we want to get out of here. Two, we can't get out of here. Have I missed anything?"
"Yeah…Jack just disappeared. Ok so he's vanished into thin air. Why is it always the great looking ones who do that?"
Jack could not believe what he was hearing. How could someone have recorded this without him knowing about it? At Rose's complement he smiled a little. The others were at a complete loss at to what was going on. They had never seen this side of their boss.
"I'm making an effort not to be insulted."
"I mean…men."
"Ok. Thanks. That really helped."
"Rose? Doctor? Can you hear me? I'm back on my ship. Used the emergency teleport. Sorry I couldn't take you. It's security-keyed to my molecular structure. I'm working on it—hang in there."
"How are you speaking to us?"
"Om-com. I can call anything with a speaker grille."
"Now there's a coincidence."
"What is?"
"The child can Om-com too."
"It can?"
"Anything with a speaker grille. Even the Tardis phone."
"What, you mean the child can phone us?"
"And I can hear you. Coming to find you. Coming to find you."
"Doctor, can you hear that?"
"Loud and clear."
"I'll try to block out the signal. Least I can do."
"Coming to find you, mummy."
"Remember this one, Rose?"
"Our song."
Ianto didn't much like the sounds of Jack and some girl having a song. He and the rest of the team always knew that Jack had a past that he didn't like to talk about. He's a mysterious man and they were glad to finally find something out about him but they were also very confused about what they were hearing.
"What you doing?"
"Trying to set up a resonation pattern in the concrete. Loosen the bars."
"You don't think he's coming back, do ya?"
"Wouldn't bet my life."
"Why don't you trust him?"
"Why do you?"
"Saved my life. Bloke wise, that's up there with flossing."
Jack smiled again. That was such a Rose thing to say.
"I trust him 'cause he's like you. Except with dancing and dating."
At that his smile fell. Rose trusted him because she thought he was like the Doctor. At the time she couldn't have been more wrong. He was a coward.
"What?"
"You just assume I'm…"
"What?"
"You just assume I don't…dance."
"What, are you telling me do…dance?"
"Nine hundred years old, me. I've been around a bit. I think you can assume that at some point I've danced."
"You?!"
"Problem?"
"Doesn't the universe implode or something if you dance?"
"Well, I've got the moves but I wouldn't want to boast."
"You've got the moves. Show me your moves."
"Rose, I'm trying to resonate concrete."
"Jack'll be back, he'll get us out. So come on—the world doesn't end 'cause the Doctor dances."
"Barrage balloon?"
"What?"
"You were hanging from a barrage balloon."
"Oh, yeah. About two minutes after you left you. Thousands of feet above London—middle of a German air raid—Union Jack all over my chest."
"I've traveled with a lot of people, but you're setting new records for jeopardy friendly."
"Is this you dancing? "Cause I've got notes."
"Hanging from a rope a thousand feet above London. Not a cut, not a bruise."
"Yeah, I know. Captain Jack fixed me up."
"Oh, we're calling him 'Captain Jack' now are we?"
"Well, his name's Jack and he is a captain…"
"He's not really a captain, Rose."
"Do you know what I think? I think you're experiencing captain envy."
The tape ended and Jack was still in shock. Talk about blast from the past. He hadn't thought about the day he met Rose and Doctor in a long time.
"We're not in the room anymore," Rose said suddenly. They all looked up in surprise. None of them had seen her come in or figure out how she got in without setting off an alarm, "You teleported us out, just like I said you would." She had a slight smile on her face and she didn't seem to notice anyone other than Jack.
Jack was stunned but glad to see her, "I didn't know someone was recording us then."
"Me either. If I had I probably would have been less forthcoming about how sexy I thought you were." She joked in a way that let him know everything was alright. They never had a problem talking to each other.
Owen was the first of the others to speak, "Excuse me, how did you get in here?"
She ignored him completely and didn't look away from Jack. Jack couldn't seem to acknowledge his team either, "You trusted me, because you thought I was like him."
"You are like him. And if I were to take a guess I'd say you were more like him now then you were then."
"You're wrong," He said simply. "Do you remember what I was when we met?"
Ianto didn't like the intense stares they were giving each other but wanted to know what Jack was like when they had met. The others had decided to stay quiet and let them talk, also interested in Jack's past.
"Yes. You were a man on a mission. I take it you never fulfilled that mission."
He looked away sort of sad, "No. It's been 140 years, I've kind of stopped looking."
"You'll never stop looking," she told him, knowingly.
"You're wrong. I was a coward." He said, avoiding the true statement she just made.
"You were a good man and still are. I owe you my life."
"I owe you all my lives," he said forcefully, "Every time I've died and come back to life in the last 140 years, I owe to you. You made me the man that I am today. In more ways than one."
The team sat there soaking in all the information that was being passed between the two. So she is the reason that Jack always comes back to life. That was the biggest mystery about him, that he never stayed dead no matter how many times you kill him.
She stared at him with sad eyes, "Do you remember the last thing you ever said to me? That day?"
He closed his eyes. Of course he remembered. How could he forget? He opened his eyes and sighed, "I told you that you were work fighting for."
"And then you kissed me goodbye."
"I didn't know it was goodbye." He said quickly.
"Yes you did. You knew. You just didn't know how. You thought we would all be dead. Never thought we'd leave you behind." She had a pained expression on her face, "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. But, what were you thinking? You looked into the Tardis. Why would you do that? You could have died."
"Where would you be if I hadn't? Your corpse would be rotting away on Satellite Five, 200,000 years in the future."
All this blew right passed the rest of them. They had no idea what the hell they were talking about but they didn't like that this girl knew so much about Jack and they knew practically nothing.
Rose sighed and started to look around wanting to change the subject. She finally took in the Hub and the other people in the room. She smiled and looked at Jack again, "Cardiff huh? Do you remember the last time you and I were in Cardiff together?"
He couldn't help but smile back at her as he remembered, "Yeah, I do. Bit of trouble with a Slitheen."
"Caused an earthquake."
They continued to grin at each other until Rose sighed, "I missed you."
"I missed you." He walked over and pulled her into a long awaited hug.
The others finally spoke up at this new bit of information.
"Wait, a second, that earthquake was you?" Gwen asked.
"I remember that day. You made us stay inside even though there was a major crisis going on." Owen complained.
Tosh was fascinated, "So there were two of you in Cardiff on that day?"
Ianto remained quiet at his lover's happiness to see this girl. He looked away as they hugged. He'd never seen Jack smile like that, let alone been responsible for it.
Speaking to his team for the first time he explained, "I made you stay inside so you wouldn't run into my past self. I knew everything would work out."
"Oh well gee, thanks for letting us know." Owen said sarcastically, "So glad this random girl knows everything about you while us, the people you work with everyday, know nothing."
Rose replied matter-of-factly, "I'm hardly a random girl and there is no one in the universe, in the whole of time and space, that knows Jack better than I do."
That shut Owen up and made the quiet Ianto even quieter. Could this get any worse for him?
"Rose, how did you get here? I heard that you were, you know, stuck." Jack asked, getting back to the important things.
"How did you hear that?" he didn't answer her and his silent was answer enough, "You've seen him?"
"Yeah, recently." He said quietly.
Rose gave him a knowing look, "What's her name?"
"Who's name?"
"The new girl. My replacement."
He sighed, "Martha. But she's not there anymore. She left. I don't know who it is now."
"Someone brilliant I would imagine. He only travels with the best." She looked away before answering his question, "I'm not suppose to jump between worlds. I didn't even really mean to do it. Slip of the finger I guess. After I left you outside, I wasn't going to come back but I couldn't not, you know?"
He nodded, understanding wanting to see each other again.
Gwen took this moment to ask her own question, "I'm sorry, but I still don't understand how you got in here. This place has numerous alarms."
"Much like our own."
"What?"
Rose smiled, "I work for Torchwood in the parallel universe."
Jack couldn't believe it, "You do?"
"Yup. And not just me. My dad and Mickey."
Jack made a face, "Eh."
"What?"
"Mickey works for Torchwood?"
"Yes. Is that a problem?"
"Maybe not for you but I would never have him on my team." He told her.
"Oh really? And why not?"
He looked at her like it was obvious, "We called him 'Mickey the Idiot' for a reason, Rose."
"Oh, you are impossible."
Tosh spoke up this time, "As interesting as this is, I'm still not clear on how you got in. The systems may be similar but the codes couldn't possibly be the same."
Rose paused, not wanting to answer until she sighed and pulled a sonic screwdriver out of her pocket. Jack's eyes went wide.
"Oh my god. How…?"
"Jealous?" she grinned.
"Damn right I am. How did you get one?"
The others looked at it confused, never having seen one before and not really sure what it was.
"How do you think?"
He stopped staring at the device and looked up at her stunned, "He gave it to you?"
"Um, not so much. I sort of found it. He has extras and I took one just in case before the Battle of Canary Wharf. I also took…" She pulled out Jack's sonic blaster out of her pocket and smiled sheepishly.
"Is that my gun?!"
"You left it."
"Because it was broken."
"I fixed it." She said simply.
"You what? How did you even find it?"
"It was in your room."
"You went—," he paused looking at her hard, "What else did you take?"
"Nothing!" She protested, "Your pillow and blanket walked into my room on their own."
He rolled his eyes and the others sort of chucked at their exchange. Looking at them, you would never be able to tell that they hadn't seen each other in years. Their banter seemed so normal for them.
"Why did you take my pillow and blanket?"
"Because it's not like you were using them and they were comfy and," she smiled and said softly, "because, do you remember when you used to sing to me at night when I couldn't fall asleep?"
He smiled for what seemed like the millionth time since she'd arrived. Ianto couldn't stand this. He used to sing to her? And what was with that smile? He couldn't help thinking that Jack was in love with this girl.