Title: Don't Snog and Tell Jack
A/N: Thanks to Helen Pattskyn for helping me with this fict and letting me play with her toys. Thanks to graphite-monster for the title. This is the first fict in my Torchwood London series, which will follow Torchwood One's employees. If you haven't read Helen's series, I would skim at least Here Comes the Night, that covers CoE, and should fill you in pretty well. This is mostly un-Beta'd other than Helen's quick run through, so please let me know if I goofed. Enjoy.
Warning: Snogging, Jack (not a lot).
Disclaimer: Like I said, I'm playing with other people's toys. Torchwood belongs to BBC and RTD. The AU'verse this is set in is Helen Pattsyn's.
Lois Habiba had been a normal person. Not that long ago, actually, she'd just been a temp, just filling in, living from pay check to pay check. Just a temp, whose mother wanted her to find a man, despite her own personal reservations. Just a young woman who used to worry more about whether or not the coffee shop would still have fresh crumpets when she got there more than if aliens were going to try to invade Downing Street or if the Prime Minister was going to order her assassination. Some how she'd ended up sitting in a room of alien technology, cataloging. Actually, she knew exactly how she'd end up here.
It started and ended with the 456 that had terrorized billions of parents just over a month ago. It started and ended with Gwen Williams, meeting her at a coffee shop, giving her those contacts, giving her a leg up to commit treason. It started and ended with Jack Harkness, who had called her on that first day, trying to talk to John Frobisher, and seeming very annoyed that he'd gotten stuck with a temp. It all started and ended just over four weeks ago and now she was sitting at a table examining records to make sure that none of Torchwood London's stored alien… stuff, for lack of a more encompassing term, was missing from THIS floor, the third floor of storage, and , thank god, the last storage floor belonging to the old Torchwood London branch.
Lois was reading every detail, as slim as the folder was in comparison to folders for other major event in Torchwood's archives, about the Battle of Canary Warf. Considering most of the employees had been converted/killed before The Doctor put a stop to the Cybermen and Daleks. The accounts we from the 27 employees who survived long enough to write a report. A lot the names were listed as deceased on the database, an awful amount of suicides. She was surprised to find Ianto Jones' statement. He didn't seem like someone who'd seen his girlfriend converted in front of him. Martha knocked on the doorframe before she could ponder him any further, slightly startling Lois.
"Sorry, didn't mean to start you. I ran over to the Starbucks and grabbed some coffee. What are you looking at?" Martha handed the former temp her coffee.
"Accounts of Canary Warf." Lois sipped the coffee, thinking, once again, of the Welshman who made the coffee for the Cardiff branch of Torchwood, Maybe I could get Ianto or Wendy to show me how they make coffee so perfectly…
"I have a friend who was there for the battle. He actually helped stop the Cybermen and the Daleks." Martha said.
"You mean you know 'The Doctor'?" Lois gave her a slightly incredulous look. Martha's smile said all she needed to know concerning the validity of the claim.
"I met shortly afterwards. Well, for him it was shortly afterwards, for the rest of the world it had been a couple of months."
"What's he like?" Lois found herself in awe of Martha Jones once again, as she had been for the last couple of weeks, not as much as she used to, but in awe none the less.
"Oh, when I first saw him, I thought he was mad." Martha laughed at the memory of The Doctor walking out in front of her, and taking of his tie. Like so…
"He showed me so much that I'd never even dreamed of. That's how I met Jack." She shook her head, seeing the Captain come back to life after clinging to the TARDIS, and then again after electrocuting himself. Was someone kissing me?
"Sounds amazing" Lois said as she closed the file an stuck it back in the proper box. "Speaking of Captain Harkness, have you heard from him?"
"Yeah, they've got everything under control, other than Tim and Sara getting zapped by a 'rift gift', everything is well on its way to being normal. Well, you know, as normal as Torchwood can be. Also, he might have someone interested in working here."
"Hmm. Who's this mystery some one?"
"His name's Shane Bruster. He and Jack are… distantly related."
Lois took half a second to consider how distantly some one could be related to the immortal Jack Harkness. She came to the conclusion she didn't want to know.
"Well, I hope they get put back together soon, cause I'm not a dino-sitter. I realize Myfanwy can't stay there, but do you realize how big Pteredon droppings are? I really like her, just not when I have to clean up after her. I bet you she never gives Abby or Ianto this kind of trouble." She put the box up on a shelf and pulled the next one down, and looked at the side to read the ID code, so she could pulled up any digital files on it. It was faded and torn. "Great, another unreadable label."
Martha gave her a sympathetic look. "We are definitely going to have to get a better system to keep these boxes sorted." she looked around the room. All the rooms, at all three storage floors looked like this, boxes lining every self, on each wall. Jack would probably want to have Abby or Mickey come over and look for anything useful to them as soon as they finished cataloging.
"So," Lois said as she set the box down and blew off some dust, "What has my boss been doing while I slave away in this mundane room of…?" she shrugged, waving vaguely around, and smiled at Martha.
The other woman smiled, sitting on the table. "Seeing a doctor for lunch."
"You were on a date, while I make sure some alien curling iron didn't get misplaced?" She lifted the lid of the box, and pulled it's contents, a small box and a thin folder, out onto the table.
"I am the boss. Don't worry, it was just today, Tom had a free hour to get some fish 'n chips. I'm just realizing I never asked, but do you have a boy friend?"
"No, my mum wants me to, but…" she trailed off as she opened the box and pulled out what looked suspiciously like a perfume or cologne bottle. It shimmers slightly in the dull light.
"What's this then?" Martha asked, walking over to read the file that was tucked in with the box.
Lois turned it around in her hands. It looked like something you could buy from a classy boutique. I wonder if alien perfume smells any good? she thought, and sprits it. What happened next was a bit a blurry shock.
Lois found her herself pulling Martha into a kiss, demanding entrance to her mouth, deepening the kiss as soon as she got it, a moment of pure bliss, unaware of every thought, insecurity. Her tongue starting to roam Martha's teeth. Then, it was gone.
Martha pulled away, holding Lois at a good arm's length from her.
"What the hell was that?" Both of them were breathing heavily.
Lois quickly realized what she'd done. "Christ, I don't know. I.. it was so… strange. I felt…" she shook her head as she trailed off. She felt confused. Like a jumble of emotions, like someone who knows they should be happy and actually feels the opposite. Like something her head was at war with her heart. Then, she felt… wrong.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have sprayed that stuff. I'm sorry." Lois started putting the bottle and folder away.
Martha grabbed the folder from her. "You stop and sit while I read this, then, if I say so, you can get back to work." She grabbed the younger woman's shoulders and forced her to sit.
---- *** ---- *** ---- *** ---- *** ---- *** ---- *** ---
After determining the world wasn't going to end, Martha consulted with Bobby, to find out if they knew what was in the bottle. The bottle contained a powerful alien hormone that caused some of the chemical balances in Lois' brain to go haywire, affecting judgment and cause to effect. Mostly, she'd just acted on some suppressed urge.
"So, by suppressed urge you mean…" Martha had said. Apparently, Ianto and Jack had been listening to their video conference, not that she was surprised since Torchwood Cardiff was pretty much being run out of their living room at the moment, cause Jack finished her statement from off screen,
"She wanted to kiss you, just she knew better. Which is kind of unfortunate, I could've invited you two over for the night." She could hear him smiling.
"Married, Jack. And last I checked, you were, too." Her tone was harsh, but she was trying not to laugh.
"You could always bring you're husband."
"Bye, Jack. Bobby. Ianto. " She turned of the video conference.
She walked out into the main area of the warehouse that they were running Torchwood One out of. Same warehouse they'd hid out in during the 456, same one that Jack had been shot in. She shuddered remembering everything that had happened. She still couldn't believe that someone could even think, let alone consider, that trapping anyone in concrete was a good idea. How someone could think that putting a bomb in Jack was a way to kill off Torchwood.
Lois was sitting at their make shift break table, nursing a cup of now cold coffee. She seemed to be staring off into space.
"Hey, you okay?" Martha asked, stirring Lois from whatever she'd been thinking about.
"I'll be fine, just… I'm sorry about earlier."
"It's okay. If I were like Jack, I'd probably make a joke about you being a good kisser." Martha said sitting next to her. She smiled, one of those smiles that people make when they want to make nice.
Lois remain silent for a few minutes, as she and Martha sat in an uncomfortable silence.
"I… I guess…" Lois stumbled, trying to find the right words to vocalize her thoughts, her fears, her admission, her twisted gut. "I've known for awhile, since I was in secondary, really, that I felt different when I looked at the guys around school. I always saw them as friends, not much else. I mean, I had a boyfriend my last year of school…"
Martha scrunched up her eyebrows, trying to figure out what Lois was attempting to vocalize.
"Sorry, you don't need to hear about my relationship history." Lois got up and dumped the cold coffee out. Martha followed her and stood beside her.
"Not at all. If you need to talk about what happened, by all means, talk. It's not as if you can go to shrink to talk about this without getting written off as a nutter, not to mention getting yourself and the doctor retconned." Martha smiled at the end, trying to coax a smile out of Lois.
It worked, she snorted. She turn full on toward Martha. "What did Bobby say?" she asked, not quite changing the subject, but steering away from her emotion. For now, Martha followed.
"Oh, just that you're going to be fine. Apparently they have something similar in the Cardiff vaults that a former employee used on a couple and they were fine. Also, Jack offered to invite us over for the night."
Martha and Lois smirked in unison, both knowing full well how Jack could be.
"That's good. I mean, me being fine. I'm not quite sure about getting an invitation too Jack's bedroom, seems like it would be a new, but very scary situation. Side, I don't 'swing' that way."
Martha was smiling up until that last part. It's not that she didn't stop smiling, just changed from a 'that's funny' smile to a 'you're kidding' smile.
"Wait… you're…" Martha was trying not to sound like a cavewoman. "You like girls,."
Lois looked like she was about to swallow her tongue. "Yeah, I guess you could put it that way."
Her tone was like week old milk.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so blunt. I've got nothing against, I mean, Jack is, well, Jack and he's one of my best friends."
Lois seemed to sense the sincerity that Martha was trying to make clear. "I'm sorry, I've gotten little support from, well, anyone really. When my mum found out, she disowned me for a little while. She would've been fine with it, just she found cause she walked in on me and a girl a met my first year of college.""Ouch, it's bad enough when you're parent walk in and it's what they would've expected. I can't imagine…"
"Yeah." she gave Martha a tight smile. "I haven't had a girlfriend in a while, so it's just a little weird that he first person I've kissed in a couple of months is my boss."
Martha just nodded. "How 'bout we go out, get some coffee, and talk about Shane Bruster?"
"Who's he again?" Lois asked, walking over to grab her coat.
"Jack's new hire for us."
"Ah."
And the two women strode off into the night, to discuss the virtues of an Irishman.
FIN
A/N: Thanks to Helen for helping me describe the scene with the snogging. I'll get another fict out soon. This is set at pretty much the same time as Stars. Please Review, I'm working on another story already. Oh, yeah. Quick add on, congrats to Helen for over 700,000 words of Torchwood Fanfiction. Yes, I did the math.