Author's Note: For my new readers, this story is fourth in an ongoing series, starting with "The Shadow Proclamation", continuing in "What Power", and being lead into by "A Mission Before Dying". I'd strongly recommend starting at the beginning; it'll make a lot more sense!

The usual disclaimers apply: I own nothing but my love for these shows and the creative teams that make them possible.


Jack is only sure it's 1994 because the letter says it is.

It's gotten harder to keep track of it all. He's been on the slow path for one hundred and twenty-five years, and it all kind of starts to blend together. The decades, the years. He pays attention to the days, though, and he's positive that it's April thirtieth. And April thirtieth is the day he needs to find the Winchester boys, according to the letter he's received.

He turns the letter over in his hands, as he's done countless times in the past forty-eight hours. The deep blue envelope is tucked in his backpack, the only luggage he's brought on this cross-continental trip, but the letter stays in his pocket, where he can reach it. Rough off-white paper, thin, manic script, ink made from substances that shouldn't have been seen on this planet for centuries, if ever. It contains his instructions: towns, addresses, names, ages, aliases, types of death he might find visited upon his person and an apology in advance, contacts that might be useful, people who owe favors to Time Lords, and detailed explanations of how to non-fatally stop various extraterrestrials from killing two young human boys when they are very, very set on the idea.

He thinks, as he watches the small American town they're passing through blur by out the window of the bus, that maybe if he does this, the Doctor will find him again, and actually talk to him this time.

Or maybe not, he reminds himself. Either way he has to do it, because if he doesn't, it creates a paradox. The letter tells him that there are big things ahead for these boys, although the Doctor is predictably vague about what those things are, and that if they are killed tomorrow, it would be universe-rendingly bad. It would, of course, also be normal-bad that a fifteen-year-old and a ten-year-old were going to be murdered.

Paper-clipped to the letter are two pictures. They are blurry and candid, carefully snapped from a distance so as not to alert the subjects to the photographer's presence. Both boys are in each picture, each picture with a different brother in the foreground. It's like there wasn't a point where they could be photographed separately. Jack pulls the pictures off of the letter and studies them individually.

The older one. Tall and tense, a shotgun dangling casually from his hand as though it were an extension of his arm. Jack folds the letter and recalls its contents. Dean Winchester is fifteen years old, currently enrolled at Hamphire High School in Romney, West Virginia under the pseudonym David Jackson. Dean is extremely proficient in ranged weapons and has advanced hand-to-hand combat skills, as well as exhibiting what the Doctor characterizes as severe paranoia and trust issues. He hasn't met the kid yet, but Jack isn't sure he agrees with that. He wonders if one can fairly call it paranoia, when the monsters are really after you; if you can blame a kid for trust issues when he's basically been allowed to know two people who aren't trying to kill him.

The younger one. Still a child, thin and small, serious eyes peering out from beneath a shaggy mess of brown hair. Samuel Winchester, called Sam or Sammy by his family, is ten years old (almost eleven—it will be his birthday in two days), enrolled at Romney Elementary School under the pseudonym Evan Jackson. Sam has limited proficiency in ranged weapons combat and is too small yet to be very good at hand-to-hand combat, but he is evidently a very good runner. The Doctor warned Jack in the letter that while Sam himself isn't much of a threat quite yet, his older brother is extremely protective of him, and is in fact more dangerous when Sam is threatened than when he himself is.

In the background of the picture of Sam is an older man, with a grizzled beard and an unhappy expression. The letter tells Jack that this is John Winchester, the boys' father. He's taken them to Romney on the trail of what he's calling a Black Annis, but is probably a nasty type of haemovore from the Kaldean Cluster. Jack isn't so fond of that word, "probably", but it's not like he's usually one hundred percent sure of what he's doing. John, the letter says, is likely to be out and about without his boys most of the time, as he won't want to expose them to the Black Annis, who is a known child-eater. The boys will likely either be at school, or at their motel. If John finds Jack near the boys he's likely to shoot him, the letter warns, and then with what Jack interprets as a cheerful tone reminds him that it probably wouldn't matter because Dean would probably have already put a couple of bullets in him before John knew what was going on.

Jack holds the photo with Sam in the foreground, in which all three Winchesters are visible. There are no smiles to be seen, just anxiety bordering on fear, and grief buried so deep he wonders if they even notice anymore. He knows what happened to them. But he's lost so much, lost so many, that he wonders how the death of a mother—a loss so many endure—could break a family like this.

He tucks the pictures back into the letter and puts it in his pocket as the bus pulls into the station. The vehicle rocks back slightly as it stops, and Jack grabs his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder and standing with one hand on the seat in front of him. He flashes a grin at the driver as he passes, and exits the bus.

April in West Virginia is muggy and hot, a far cry from Cardiff. Jack wishes he'd brought a lighter shirt. Or jeans, at least. He gets more than one curious glance as he walks down the streets of the town, dressed sharply in a pale blue shirt, red suspenders, and gray slacks. A couple of the glances he returns with a sunny smile, and notes with satisfaction how their owners stumble a step before continuing on.

The motel isn't hard to find. The town is small and easy to navigate, and besides, the letter left him very clear instructions on that matter, like everything else.

Jack sticks his hands in his pockets as he surveys it, wrinkling his nose. Not the kind of accommodations he's used to, if he's going to be honest. A little dingy. A little no-tell motel for his tastes. But this isn't about his tastes. This is about two boys and the fate of the Universe.

And the Doctor.

Always the Doctor.

He walks up to the girl at the front desk. She has stringy brown hair and hazel eyes that could be startlingly pretty if she had some life in her, and there's a Walkman on the desk and a gossip magazine in her hands. He has to clear his throat to get her attention.

She looks up, disinterested, but Jack is gratified to see her eyes widen a little as she takes him in. She takes the headphones off of her ears. "C'n I help you?" she mutters.

"Room for three nights, please." He really only needs it for two nights. If it takes longer than forty-eight hours he's failed anyway, but he'll want to crash for the night after the battle's done.

"'Kay." She pops her bubble gum as she takes his money and hands him a receipt and a key. Jack looks at the number on the tag. Twenty-three. Just like the letter said it would be. Three rooms down from the Winchesters. He flashes a winning smile at the girl, who ignores him and puts her headphones back on. His smile fades, and he shrugs his backpack higher onto his shoulder.

His room faces the parking lot, and he walks down a sidewalk under eaves painted with cracked green paint to get to it. It's nearly three o'clock. He wonders if the boys are back from school yet. The thought, which sounds so domestic in his head, gives him pause for a moment. Captain Jack Harkness, wondering if the kids are off school. The things he does for the sake of the integrity of Time.

Jack wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, and ponders how hot it is so early in the year. He wonders if it's weird weather. For all his accent suggests differently, he hasn't spent much time in America. He's used to the mild summers of Cardiff, and—

"Uh!"

He staggers back just a step, his free hand instinctively heading for his concealed pistol. He lets it fall, though, when he looks up and sees a boy, scrambling on the ground for the books that spilled out of his unzipped backpack.

It's Sam Winchester, and as he realizes this, the kid stops his dash for the books. He is looking up at him with what Jack knows is supposed to pass for apology but really just looks like fear. "I'm really sorry, sir," he says. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

Jack smiles reassuringly at him, crouching to help Sam pick up the books. You only get one shot at a first impression, after all. "No problem," he says, handing the kid his English language arts book. "I was distracted, too. You okay?"

Sam looks confused, and stares at Jack for a long moment. When Jack gets a little too close, leaning over to pick up Sam's math book, the kid rears away, his nose wrinkling in something that looks like disgust. "Um. Uh, yeah," he says, shaking himself out of his surprise and evening his expression. "Yes, sir, I'm fine. Are you?"

"Just fine," Jack replies, making note of the nose-wrinkling, and thinking so much for that first impression. Sam stands, and Jack does so, as well, sticking his hand out. "I'm Jack."

Sam stares at the hand, gripping the straps of his backpack. "Ev-evan," he replies after a moment, not taking his eyes off of Jack's hand, like he wasn't convinced it wasn't going to attack him. "Listen, I gotta—"

The door to room twenty-six opens, and another boy steps out, keeping one hand hidden behind the door frame. Gun, Jack thinks, sharpening at the thought. The boy—Dean—narrows his eyes. "Hey, Evan, you all right?" he calls. Jack notices with wry amusement, past his fading adrenaline, that Dean puts a little too much emphasis on his brother's pseudonym. For all the years of living this life, evidently the kid needs a little more practice with the finer points of espionage.

Sam turns around, and his relief at hearing his brother's voice is visible, almost palpable. "Yeah, I'm fine," he calls back, shoving his books firmly into his backpack. This time, he zips it up.

"Get on in," Dean says firmly, and Sam obeys. Dean stays at the door, watching Jack, until his younger brother is safe inside the motel room. Jack can see the fight happening in Dean's head. The kid's tight posture, his single clenched fist, tells Jack that he wants to say something. Wants to pick a fight, on the off chance that Jack did something to Sam, but there's no reason to do that. No evidence that anything happened to Sam. And a man like John Winchester wouldn't have raised his boys to pick fights they didn't need. So Dean doesn't say anything, but instead closes the door behind them. It shuts just a second after Jack sees the midday sun glinting off the metal of the shotgun.

He stays there for just a moment, an extra heartbeat, and allows himself the luxury of pity for the two kids he's come to save.

And the luxury of pity for himself, because these kids aren't going to want to be saved, not by him. And it's going to be an uphill battle.

He sighs deeply, wallowing for just a moment, and walks into his room.

It's as classy on the inside as it is on the outside, and he falls one notch further into self-pity. He used to live such a good life. The best rooms, the best food, and the best companionship that good looks and charm could steal. Then the Doctor came in and everything changed.

"I was better off as a coward," he'd told the Time Lord.

Well, too late for that now.

He drops his backpack by the door, and goes to the bed, sitting on it reluctantly. (Not that he's any kind of paragon of clean living, but he does have standards.) He fishes the letter out of his pocket.

Jack. I am so sorry, but I need your help.

Etc, etc. He skims down the part that he's read over and over, the part about how the Doctor needs him, because this isn't about self-aggrandizement, not at this point. That was the gearing-up on the way. Now, he needs to figure out how to save these kids and prevent a paradox from destroying the Earth.

Regular Torchwood stuff. But, he reminds himself, for the Doctor. And on his own terms, this time.

John Winchester is following what he thinks of as a Black Annis, the Doctor had written. Mythology, which is what John is following, describes the Black Annis as a blue-faced witch with iron claws. She's called a flesh-eater and, according to legend, has a taste for children. There are, as I'm sure you know, several creatures from known planets that more or less fit this description, at least well enough if you factor in decay of veracity through the years.

Jack snorts. Decay of veracity. The Doctor's way of saying "humans playing Telephone with their tales of aliens".

Likeliest answer is one of a number of haemovores from the Kaldean Cluster. There's no real evidence saying that they attack children, but like any predator they will hone in on the weakest members of a herd. In an era that sequesters its sick and dying in facilities that can be difficult to gain access to, children are the weakest, most visible targets, so we can't confirm or reject a Kaldean haemovore based on that bit of information, and I'm rambling.

If it's a Kaldean haemovore it's probably not traveling by itself, so be careful. They tend to travel in groups of three to five. They have some pretty glaring weaknesses, though. First, they sequester themselves in their bowers during the day, usually found on cliffs. They hide themselves pretty well from humans but I don't doubt you can find them, especially since you're looking. (Point here: John Winchester will also be able to find them. You might want to try to get to them before he does, as he'll just kill the lot of them, unless they kill him first.)

Second, they are very sensitive to sound. Legend associates them with the night because they can't be around human society during the day due to the noise levels. Your sonic blaster (which I still don't like, Jack) should be able to incapacitate them. But the stories aren't lying about their iron claws. (Well, they're not technically iron, but their chemical structure is similar enough for all practical purposes, and these stories weren't written with the aid of twenty-first century science.) They're fast, too, so you'll need to catch them off-guard. If they get their hands on you it could take even you some time to recover, and time is something you don't have to waste.

That's where the good news stops. Let's get to the bad news. The bad news is that there's a chance that they might not be working alone, as in they might have an associate of another species.

Jack recalls that scotch he was drinking back in Cardiff when the letter came, and wishes he had it now. He leans back on the bed, holding the letter up.

If they're not, contact a woman named Missouri Mosely. She might be able to help you figure out who it is controlling the Black Annis.

You need to understand this, Jack. I can't tell you the reasons, and you know why I can't, but these boys are important. And not important like every human life is, that's not what I mean. I mean that their actions later in their lives are integral to this timeline, and if they aren't around to complete those actions, it will be devastating. They have many enemies, and they've always had many enemies. John Winchester won't be able to help you; he won't know. And anyway asking him would likely only end with another too-long period of recovery. Missouri's number is at the end of this letter with the other contacts you might need. She knows me. But she'll probably know who you are, too. She's a bit wibbly-wobbly herself.

The boys have enemies, Jack. What they need is friends.

Jack folds the letter, placing it gently on the bedside table. His hand lingers over it for a moment.

Black Annis. He's spent enough time in the United Kingdom that he was familiar with their legends, and he's heard of the Black Annis before. Vague sorts of stories, something something child eater something something evil woman something something awful and scary. She was half crone, half primitive boogeyman. He seems to recall something about her skinning children and wearing their hides, which he'd thought, at the time, to be an unnecessarily gruesome little embellishment to the tale.

In the past he had dismissed it as typical folklore misogyny, but he supposes he could have tried to think harder about aliens the Black Annis resembled. Kaldean Cluster haemovores would have taken some thinking, but it makes enough sense. They are blue-skinned, they do have claws that resemble iron more closely than any other terrestrial substance, and they are flesh-eaters. Vicious predators, not content to settle for blood like most other haemovores. He's not sure about the hide-wearing, although it makes sense. Given that they take the whole corpse rather than just exsanguinating it like normal haemovores, maybe they decided to be efficient with their hunting. When he thinks about it in terms of children from his own species it sounds horrible, of course, but thinking like a Kaldean haemovore, it's just frugality. Besides, they don't have human children in the Kaldean Cluster, not until at least the fortieth century.

He doesn't recall any subspecies of Kaldean haemovore being particularly clever, which is the first good news he can recall apart from the bit about their sonic sensitivity the Doctor mentioned. Not sneaky, just...brutal. But brutal he can deal with, because technology trumps brute force, and he still has his sonic blaster, and other, more lethal guns, as well. If it comes to that.

Whether or not the Doctor would approve, he adds a touch defensively.

So. Hard to kill and fond of killing, but not clever. So what about not working alone? That one puzzles Jack. Kaldean haemovores aren't the stupidest creatures he's ever encountered, but they're pretty far down the list. Why would some more intelligent being recruit them for any reason? With the exception of one subspecies, which doesn't have the telltale claws that would convince John Winchester that it was a Black Annis, the Kaldean haemovores don't even have a translatable language—more a series of rhythmic grunts that serve perhaps ten different purposes, ranging from procreative invitation to alerts to danger. How could someone recruit them for anything?

Maybe the Doctor's wrong.

Jack laughs, once, a quiet yet harsh sound.

Yeah, right. That sounds likely.

He stands up, the bed creaking beneath him. He needs some air.

He steps out of his room, closing the door quietly behind himself. There's not much of a view outside of the room; just the parking lot, really. But the sky is lovely. At night, he's sure, the stars will be, too. Bright in the sky without the light pollution of the cities that Jack tends to stick to. He'll be able to find a couple of stars whose systems he's visited, probably. He thinks back longingly to the days when he wasn't stuck, wasn't trapped on Earth.

He doesn't understand why.

Why the Doctor has abandoned him. If he knew where Jack was, why didn't he say something? Why didn't he knock? Why didn't he explain? Because, dammit, he owes Jack an explanation. If nothing else, he owes him that.

Jack gave his life on Satellite 5 for the Doctor, and for lovely Rose. He gave his life, and they'd taken his death, too. And they'd clipped his wings.

Jack isn't sure he believes in a higher power. Not higher than the Doctor, anyway. But if he did, he'd ask why he had to end up trapped like this. Because he would have come back. From wherever and whenever he was, whatever beautiful, exotic, fantastic planet he was on and whatever exciting century he was in, he would have come back to the middle of nowhere, America, in 1994, to save these kids.

He would have done it, if the Doctor had asked him to.

They didn't have to ground him on Earth, in a century that didn't even have holographic television.

A small noise startles him (alerts him, he corrects himself, Captain Jack Harkness does not get startled), and he glances to his left.

The door to room twenty-six is open, and Dean Winchester is in the process of stepping out of it when he notices Jack.

Their eyes meet. Knowing that there's nothing he could do or say that would make this meeting less bad than it is, Jack settles for watching the boy's face carefully. It's an open book. His expression starts off startled (actually startled, Jack thinks), then quickly shifts quickly to a hint of fear before settling on anger and aggression. He scowls, his eyes narrowing like before, but Jack can see that the lack of a shotgun in his hands is making him anxious. He doesn't have that air of surety that he had before. A gun can do wonders for a boy's confidence.

Dean, keeping his eyes on Jack, steps back inside and closes the door with perhaps a bit more force than is strictly necessary.

Jack sighs, glaring up at the yet-invisible stars as though the Doctor could see him.

Yes, definitely so much for first impressions.