Exchange Programme - Chapter One

Author: Milady Dragon

Author's Note: Here it is, the next story in the Dragon-Verse.

This one takes place after "Tony Stark's Guide to Scenic Cardiff", and deals with the personnel exchange programme that Jack and Nick Fury had talked about in "A Conversation Between Two Directors". It's also a rather vague sequel to "Ghosts of the Collider", in that the story is mentioned as being the first time Jemma and Fitz found out about Torchwood. It's also another story that's a bit lighter in tone, although there are angsty bits in it.

There are also mentioned cameos in this, but I didn't add them to the character list, in that they don't really have any dialogue and only appear in passing.

12 April 2010

Aberdeen, Scotland

The flight arrived right on time, which pleased Jemma Simmons greatly.

She was exhausted. She and Fitz had been in the air for nearly nine hours, plus the added time in the airport before their flight. Jemma was a little put out by the fact that they'd had to fly commercial, but then she honestly couldn't expect a Quinjet to take them to their newest assignment, even though it would have been far more convenient than having to catch the flight from Dulles. She wasn't even counting driving time into the equation.

The time difference didn't make it any easier to deal with, either.

Fitz looked just as frazzled as she felt. Jemma could tell he was already regretting accepting the assignment, even though it had meant a bump in security level and outside lab experience. The chance to study something new was exciting for Jemma, and it usually was for Fitz as well…but this time, not so much. It certainly didn't help that the assignment was in Scotland, the one place Fitz hadn't really wanted to return to. She knew her partner didn't have many fond memories of his birth country, and that was too bad. At least they weren't being stationed in Glasgow. Jemma sincerely doubted that she would have gotten Fitz out of Washington DC if they had been.

Still, after they'd been read into this new project somewhat, it had been far too good to pass up. Jemma wasn't fooling herself into thinking they'd been told everything; security was understandably tight, and there were certain things that she and her partner simply weren't cleared to know.

She was certain that, if they hadn't already heard of Torchwood, they might not have even been given the name of the organisation they would be working for temporarily.

But Jemma knew enough to realise what a plum posting this was going to be. Certainly, it was only for six months, with the possibility of it going longer depending on circumstances, but it was still exciting. The opportunity to study alien biology and technology was something she'd never even thought about being able to do.

Director Fury himself had explained a little of what the temporary posting had entailed, accompanied by Agent Coulson himself, who didn't seem very happy with the Director's caginess about the actual assignment. Jemma had never actually met either man before, and neither had Fitz, and she'd been impressed and terrified in equal measure. Both men were legends within SHIELD, and it was only the knowledge that Agent Coulson was a close, personal friend of Agent Barton – and the rumours about the pair often claimed it was a lot more close and personal than was commented on in polite society – that had kept her from panicking at the idea that she and Fitz were about to be read into a secret only the highest echelons of SHIELD had been aware of.

In fact, Agent Barton had come to them the day before they'd been scheduled to leave, and had congratulated them both. He'd then explained that he was well aware of what they would be doing, and wished he'd been able to go with them, but he'd had another mission to complete. It had been just the sort of thing that had made Jemma much less nervous about the entire endeavour, knowing Agent Barton the way she did. There had been that mess in Geneva, for one thing, and he'd been one of their security escort for that, and she thought she'd come to know him fairly well during that. The SHIELD archer had also been known to hang around the labs and pester the scientists for special arrows and she'd seen him there several times. Fitz had managed to get into several eyerolls at the requests Agent Barton tended to make.

Boomerang arrow? Really?

Jemma had always thought that there was more than just life on Earth. Statistically, it was impossible for their own planet to be the only one with any sort of lifeforms at all. Still, to know there had been an agency out there with such direct knowledge was almost humbling. SHIELD hadn't been much involved in any sort of intergalactic threat as of yet, but if the briefing had been true then there had been at least the one agency that had, and that they'd been working behind the scenes for years.

When she'd been growing up in Devonshire, there had been stories around London, about alien invasions and such, but Jemma hadn't really believed it. But now she was being told that it had all been true; and, in fact, there was so much more of it than she'd heard of. It was hers and Fitz's chance to study the phenomena and to gain more knowledge that would help SHIELD in the future.

Still, they needed to get to their final destination first, and Jemma had no idea where that would be. She only knew that someone was supposed to be waiting at the airport for them.

Collecting their luggage took only a few minutes; it was Customs that was going to be a bugger to get through. Heightened security had the lines backed up fairly long, and Jemma despaired of getting off her feet and to their accommodations any time soon. And food. A meal would be lovely.

Fitz wasn't being very talkative, but them Jemma could hardly blame him. Being back in Scotland brought memories back that Fitz had done his best to put behind him. She wondered if her friend still had family in the country, and if he ever talked to them. Surely it wasn't their fault that his father had abandoned them all, and had been a right prat about it.

Jemma barely stifled her tired and exasperated sigh. The line wasn't moving, and her stomach was telling her it was hungry. Her watch claimed it was 5:10pm in Washington DC; it would be after 10pm now in Aberdeen. She wondered if she'd be able to talk their contact into stopping for a bite. The food on the plane had been bland and not very filling, and she'd wished she'd brought her own snacks along. She thought longingly of the stash of chocolate she kept in her lab back at the Triskelion, knowing it would have been discovered and devoured by the time their assignment was done.

Hitching her laptop case higher onto her shoulder, Jemma leaned a little to the left in order to see down the queue. She frowned as she saw a white-haired man wearing a kilt speaking to one of the security guards, and Jemma wished they'd been able to get some sort of SHIELD exemption in order to by-pass Customs totally, especially since this person seemed determined to hold things up. As she watched, the man clapped the security guard on the shoulder, and then headed down the queue, his eyes searching for someone.

It wasn't until he saw her and smiled that Jemma realised the man was there for her and Fitz.

The man's reaction to Fitz was somewhat different from the pleasant smile he'd give her, however.

"Leopold!" the man exclaimed, his accent a bit thicker than Fitz's. "Tis good to see you again, lad!"

Fitz's eyes were wide with surprise. "Uncle Archie?" he gasped.

The man grabbed a hold of Fitz and pulled him into a fierce hug. Fitz tensed for a split second, and then he was returning the hug, relaxing into the embrace. "Welcome home," he murmured just loud enough for Jemma to hear. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too," she heard Fitz admit.

But then her friend was pulling away, frowning at the man who looked to be near tears at seeing Fitz once more. "How did you know we were coming?"

"Why don't you introduce me to ye're friend and I'll explain once we're in the car."

Fitz nodded, as if shaking his manners back into place. "This is Jemma Simmons, my best friend. Jemma, this is my great-uncle, Sir Archibald MacLeish."

Jemma was blushing at Fitz's words even as she was offering her hand. She could see a vague resemblance between the older man and her partner, mostly in the eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir Archibald."

Archibald MacLeish was a little shorter than Fitz, but wider in the shoulder, as if he worked out quite frequently. Jemma had to admit the man had the legs for the kilt he was wearing; it was coupled with a crisp white shirt and a waist-length jacket made of black leather. The sturdy boots he wore were well broken in and, while Jemma wasn't at all someone who knew about fashion, looked to be hand-made.

His blue eyes were flashing merrily as he accepted her handshake. "Tis my pleasure, Dr Simmons. And please, if you must be a wee bit formal then it's Sir Archie, although it's Archie to my friends. Ye're welcome to either."

"Thank you…Sir Archie." It would take her a little getting used to being even just a little informal with Fitz's great-uncle. "Then you must call me Jemma."

He gave her an even wider smile at that. "Come on," Sir Archie urged. He reached out for Jemma's suitcase, and as her mother hadn't raised her to be impolite she let the older man take it from her. "We can skip this nonsense. I've cleared it with airport security." He winked. "Makes me glad of my clearance sometimes. I can pretty much do whatever I want."

Sir Archie led them past the queue, through a security gate where a uniformed guard waved them past, and then out of the airport, to where an older model Land Rover that would have been dark green if not for all the mud-splatter on it was parked illegally at the kerb. An airport security vehicle had stopped behind it, and the officers within waved at the trio as Sir Archie put their cases into the rear of the vehicle. He gave the security guards a jaunty wave back, which they must have taken for being dismissed, because the vehicle took off back into departing traffic.

Jemma took the back seat, letting her friend take the front so he could sit next to his great-uncle. The seat was faded leather, but well-taken care of, the floorboards littered with leaves and dirt, and she had to tuck her feet around a small metal box that took up a bit of the space. The box was slightly scratched, and it had a lock on it, of a type that Jemma couldn't identify. She reached around and found the shoulder harness, buckling herself in firmly.

She wondered why Fitz had never mentioned Sir Archie, but then she only knew about Fitz's dad because of some sort of father-son thing at SHIELD Academy in their first year, when he'd refused to attend; he'd explained things then, and Jemma had felt honoured that he'd shared that with her. Fitz was notoriously tight-lipped about his personal life, and Jemma couldn't blame him, not after what he'd told her.

Sir Archie maneuvered the Land Rover into traffic. "I'm guessing the pair of you are right starving. We'll stop on the way out of town and pick up something. Is that fine?"

"Perfectly, Sir Archie," Jemma agreed. Her stomach let her know it was impatient, but thankfully neither Fitz nor their escort seemed to notice.

"Now, as to why I'm picking you up," Sir Archie went on, "it's because I volunteered, once I found out SHIELD was sending you as part of their exchange programme with Torchwood."

Fitz was shaking his head, and Jemma thought it might have been in denial. "Are you telling us…"

"That I've been working for Torchwood all this time?" Sir Archie finished for him. "Aye, lad. I run their Glasgow office…although that's about to change, and I can't say I'm not glad for it. And, until the current Director took over, no one much cared that I was up here all on my lonesome, just me and Nessie up at the loch. But, now they're re-opening the main Archive for business, as it were, and I'll be in charge of it after everything is said and done, so I'll be officially moving away from Glasgow and then to just outside Aberdeen, which will put me even closer to dear Nessie."

She had to wonder just who 'Nessie' was. From Sir Archie's tone, he was certainly sweet on whoever it was. She wondered if Fitz knew, she'd have to ask later, when they were alone and a bit less tired…

While Jemma couldn't see much of Fitz's face, seated behind him as she was, she could still tell he was shocked at the news that his great-uncle had hidden this for so long. But then, the security clearance on Torchwood had been so very high, it wasn't a surprise to her that Fitz hadn't known about just what his relative had been up to all these years.

"We'll be heading out to the Archive tonight," Sir Archie went on. "It's not that much of a distance, and I suspect ye'll be happier in a big, comfortable bed instead of sleeping in a motel room on the way."

"At this point," Jemma answered truthfully, "I could sleep just about anywhere."

The Scotsman laughed. "I understand. Tis quite a flight from the States. I was a bit surprised ye're Director didn't arrange something else. I know SHIELD has those fancy Quinjet things…"

"From what I understand, there wasn't anything available to bring us this far." Jemma was still a bit irritated by that, to be honest. Although she wasn't about to demand that resources that could be used elsewhere be rerouted just for their comfort.

"Well, it did give me the chance to surprise ye."

Jemma saw him glance over at Fitz, who seemed to be looking out the window and not paying any attention to the conversation. But she knew him; Jemma was aware that her friend was listening quite intently, he simply didn't feel like contributing. He had been shocked at the sudden appearance of his great-uncle, and would need a chance to regroup.

"Can you give us any more information that wasn't included in our briefing packet?" Jemma requested.

"Well, lass, I'm not sure what you were told, and what's going to be included in ye're briefing in the morning, but I can give ye a little background on Torchwood if ye're interested."

"Very interested. All we were told was that Torchwood was the premier alien incursion group in the UK, and that SHIELD wanted to have people learn what they knew. Also, that we'd be studying alien biologies and technologies with an eye to improving SHIELD's own knowledge on the various subjects." There hadn't been a lot more, but really, that had been the upshot of the information she and Fitz had received from the Director and Agent Coulson. "We also know that Great Britain has the highest recorded and unrecorded incidents of alien invasion on the planet, which I find quite fascinating. Oh, and that Torchwood was involved with the attempted incursion at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva a couple of years ago, because Fitz and I were there. Otherwise, we wouldn't even know that piece of information."

"Well, they certainly didn't tell ye much, then. Not surprised, really. I can certainly give ye a history of the Institute. It'll give us something to talk about on the drive up to Torchwood House."

"That sounds wonderful, thank you."

"To begin," Sir Archie said, sounding very much like one of Jemma's instructors at SHIELD Academy, "the Torchwood Institute was charted in 1879 at the behest of Queen Victoria, after she was targeted by a Lupine Wavelength Haemoveriform…which is really just a fancy name for an outer space werewolf…"

"There are outer space werewolves?" Jemma squeaked. The biochemist in her was racing to come up with any sort of explanation for such a thing, and was failing horrifically. She needed to get her hands on that file like she needed air to breathe…

"Aye," Sir Archie answered seriously. "It was a MacLeish that helped with that little incident, and there's been a MacLeish with Torchwood ever since. In fact, Torchwood House had once belonged to the clan, until Her Majesty Victoria commissioned it for Torchwood's first base after what occurred. From what I understand, Lady Isobel was glad to see the back of it, after Sir Robert's death at the hands of the creature. As Sir Robert died without issue, it was a relief for Lady Isobel anyway, even if it hadn't been for the circumstances involved. My branch of the family is descended from Sir Robert's younger brother."

They pulled though a McDonalds – of all places! – for sandwiches. Jemma ate silently, wolfing down her burger and chips as Sir Archie explained that the Institute had grown up to include bases in London, Cardiff, and even India for a time. One of their branches had even mysteriously disappeared, no one knew where to.

"And Torchwood London is gone," Sir Archie continued. "It was destroyed by the Daleks and the Cybermen, back in '06."

Jemma knew about the Daleks, of course; she and Fitz had been at the Academy for further education during that time the aliens had stolen the Earth – and it was still being debated about, because no one had yet come up with even a theory of how it had been done. But she wasn't at all familiar with the Cybermen, so she enquired about it.

It wasn't escaping her notice that Fitz was letting her ask all the questions. She'd add it to the list of things to talk to him about, later, because usually he was as curious about science as she was.

"The Cybermen are nasty buggers," Sir Archie answered. "They were once human, but they began replacing parts of their bodies with technology. That in itself wouldn't have been a bad thing, but it got completely out of control. Before they knew it, they'd even got rid of their emotions and decided the best thing they could do for the rest of the universe was upgrade everyone in it, to bring them all up to the Cyber 'ideal'. They can be nigh-on unstoppable."

Jemma shivered. Yes, she was all for prosthetics and such, but what Sir Archie was describing… "Is there nothing out there in the universe that isn't trying to either conquer us or kill us?"

"Oh, aye," he assured her. "Ye'll meet a couple up at the House tomorrow, after ye're rested. Torchwood not only deals with the aliens who want to take over, but the innocent ones that are trapped here on Earth. We set them up in homes, get them jobs…make sure they're assimilated into our society as best we can. Cardiff has quite the population of resident aliens, as does London…"

Jemma was glad of that. She had an optimistic soul, and wanted there to be friendly beings out in the universe as well. She couldn't wait to meet a real, honest to goodness alien lifeform.

It was about another half an hour before they reached their destination, Sir Archie keeping them entertained with stories of Torchwood House and its former owners. Jemma was surprised to learn that the house itself dated back to the 16th century, and that there had always been a MacLeish living there until the death of Sir Robert, in the aforementioned dust-up with the space werewolves. She wasn't overly surprised that Fitz had never mentioned anything about his family owning such a house at one point, but then he really hardly ever talked about family. Jemma was getting a crash course in MacLeish history, and she found herself enjoying it immensely, even though she got the distinct impression that it made her best friend uneasy.

But then, she could certainly understand his reluctance. After all, she was learning more than he'd ever been comfortable saying. It was giving her a few insights into her best friend, as their host drove through the night toward their destination.