Sleeping Dragons
Episode 01 – A Big Fat Torchwood Wedding
by Soledad
Title: A Big, Fat Torchwood Wedding
Author: Soledad
Fandom: Torchwood AU, with inevitable elements of Dr. Who.
Genre: Action-adventure, Angst, Drama, Romance.
Rating: Teens, for now, just to be safe.
Disclaimer: Dr. Who and Torchwood – settings and characters – belong to the BBC. I am just borrowing them. No copyright infringement intended and no money made.
Timeline: Torchwood, Season Two, with certain canon events moved back and forth from the original chronology. The same is true for events taken from Dr. Who's Season 4.
Series: Sleeping Dragons, an Alternate Series Two for Torchwood
Summary: "Everything Changes" ended with Emma and Rhys announcing their upcoming wedding. "Sleeping Dragons" starts off a couple of months later, with just that wedding taking place. With Rhys' mother organizing things, and considering that this is Torchwood, things naturally would take an interesting turn.
Note: I moved the story from Crossovers to Torchwood, because it takes place in the Torchwood settings in Cardiff, only with guest characters from Dr. Who.
Chapter 01
Author's note: The idea to give Tom the ex I gave him came from watching "Merlin", where Tom Ellis plays King Cenred. Consequently, Dr. Emilia Fox is played by the Morgause actress and has been named after her.
Reconstructing Harry Sullivan's speech patterns was damn hard work. I hope I got them right and apologize for everything that might not ring true.
And yes, I have messed up the Torchwood/Dr. Who timeline a bit, moving the Sontaran invasion back in time a little. But since this is an alternate reality, I doubt that it would make such a big diffference.
Mike Halloran was a man of simple tastes. Always had been. Welsh to the bone, he enjoyed a good rugby game (although he hadn't actually played it since high school), a beer or two with his mates in the local pub, having picnics on the seaside, going to the cinema for monster movies and the music of local bands playing in pubs. He liked his job at Harwood's, and his big dream was to visit New York one day.
But first and foremost, he loved his wife. His beautiful Beth, whom he called Cygnet for her resemblance of a graceful black swan and whom he'd just married half a year ago. To tell the truth, he still couldn't understand why Beth would choose him, of all people. While not exactly an ugly person, he wasn't really a looker, either; in his early thirties, rather ordinary-looking with his slightly pudgy face, dark blond hair and blue eyes. Just your friendly neighbourhood guy.
Beth, on the other hand, through a few years older than him, was a real beauty. She had the regal carriage and the dignity of a queen, out of some ancient legend. The Queen of Saba must have looked like her – small wonder that King Solomon had fallen for her.
And Beth was a good person, too, with a heart big enough to take in every stray cat and to give a few coins each homeless junkie begging for money on the streets. Not to mention donating as much money as she could afford to various projects in Nigeria; the country her parents had come from. The parents she had lost eight years ago due to a freak car accident.
They had met at work first, at Harwood's, where Mike had worked as an assistant manager first; then, after Rhys Williams had got fired, as manager. Beth had worked there as a temp, typing and filing most of the time. When Alison, Rhys' secretary had been promoted to the PA of Mr. Harwood Sr, she had become Mike's secretary.
They married two months later.
There had been much talk, of course. People generally would not give their marriage more than three months. Well, after twice so long a time, they were still together and still very much in love. They had even discussed having children but postponed it until they had saved a bit of money. Besides, they were still young; they still had time for having children later. First, they wanted to build a home together.
Buying the flat at 114 Brodsky Gardens, four months ago, was the first step towards that, and they were both very happy with their place. They'd spent weeks with hunting down the right sort of furniture – something they both liked. Beth had a soft spot for rattan and African art, and so their home, while cosy and warm, gained a certain artistic flair that Mike found very attractive. He did not understand much about art, himself, but he knew he liked what Beth had done with the place. It was small, but it was theirs, and it would be enough even with a child or two in the future.
The only cloud on the horizon of their happiness was Mr. Harwood Jr: a notorious womanizer who, after his torrid affair with Gwen Cooper – the very thing that had ultimately led to both her and her ex-fiancé, Rhys Williams, lose their jobs – was looking out for fresh prey. And Mr. Harwood Jr was not the man who'd take No for an answer. He pretty much considered all female employees his possession, and if someone wasn't inclined to service him, they soon found themselves first mobbed and then fired.
Although being too willing – or even clingy – could lead to the same results, as Gwen Cooper's example had proved. She'd tried her best to get Mr. Harwood Jr marry her – even going as far as telling everyone (including their senior boss) about her affair with him. Well, it hadn't worked out as she'd hoped. Mr. Harwood Jr had dropped her faster than a hot potato, declaring loudly – and quite publicly – that she was a nutjob with adhesive pads, and if she thought that being good in the sack would make her suitable wife material, she was sorely mistaken.
In the end, Mr. Harwood Sr had grown tired of the scandal and fired both her and poor Rhys who'd brought her to the firm in the first place. The reputation of the firm was very important for the old gentleman; it was bad enough that he could not bring his own son to consider how much his behaviour harmed it.
Beth, of course, hard no intention of becoming Mr. Harwood Jr's shag-of-the-month. So she and Mike started looking for job offers in the newspapers before the actual mobbing would begin.
Unfortunately, job-hunting turned out to be much harder than they had expected. After three weeks and dozens of applications, Beth still hadn't gotten as much as a job interview, and they were beginning to despair. They needed both paychecks to keep the flat and pay back their loans. Beth was seriously considering taking a job way below her qualifications, just to be able to leave Harwood's on her own terms.
At the beginning of the fourth week, Mike took a break and went to a nearby pub he hadn't had the time to check out yet. He just wanted to shut off the rest of the world for a while, without running into anyone familiar. It was a reasonable expectation, considering that they hadn't really made any friends in their new neighbourhood yet. So he could hope to be left alone with his thoughts and worries.
He realized the epic failure of his plan when he spotted Rhys Williams, of all people, only two tables down the room. The man was with some mates, an all-male drinking company, and they were drinking rather heavily, as if they had something to celebrate. Something really good, by the high spirits they seemed to be in.
Rhys spotted Mike, too, and beckoned him to join them; which was the last thing Mike really wanted, but he knew better than argue with someone so obviously drunk. So he obediently picked up his beer and walked over to their table. There he was introduced to various people by the names of Andy, Mickey, Owen, Trevor and Marvyn. The last one was a young, blond bloke with a marked resemblance to Prince William; that one he already knew. It was Rhys' best friend, by the bizarre nickname of Banana Boat.
"He'll be my best man, too," Rhys explained, thumping his best friend on the back.
Mike almost choked on his beer. "What? You're marrying that slut; after all she's done to you?"
It was now his turn to be thumped on the back by Rhys, which his ex-colleague did with enthusiasm.
"Not Gwen!" the weasel-faced man with the sour expression on his face – Owen, if Mike remembered correctly – explained. "He came to his senses and found himself something with a little more… class."
"Look at the pot telling the kettle," the tall, curly blond young man by the name of Andy muttered. Owen shot him an unfriendly look.
"I never intended to marry her; and if I'm not mistaken, neither did you."
Mike was grateful that he hadn't tried to drink again yet. Apparently, Rhys ex-fiancée had gotten around a lot within their circle of friends.
"So, are you having a bachelor party or whatnot?" he asked, just to change the topic, because Rhys seemed really uncomfortable, which he didn't deserve. "And who's the bride?"
"This ain't the real bachelor party yet," the black bloke with the short-cropped hair explained. "That would include our bosses, who're in London right now. We're just… practicing for the grand event. The girls, including the bride, are running the shop in our absence."
"At this time?" Mike wondered; after all, it was after 8 pm.
The black bloke, whom the others called Mickey Mouse, shrugged. "It's only fair; we'll pull an all-nighter when she'll be having her hen night."
"You work at night, too?" Mike asked, feeling a bit sorry for them.
"Well, the labs can't shut down for the night," Trevor, a bald bloke with wire-rimmed glasses and the unmistakable looks of a lab rat replied. "Some investigations run for twenty-four hours or longer. We work in three shifts, so everything is covered."
"Barely," Any added. "Which is why our bosses are looking for new personnel right now."
Mike frowned and looked at Marvyn and Banana Boat who hadn't contributed anything to the conversation yet. Banana Boat shrugged.
"Don't look at me. I'm just an old mate of Rhys; and so is Daff. We don't work with them."
"Wouldn't do that for the world," Marvyn added darkly, but nobody seemed to take him seriously. In fact, there were rather unmanly giggles all around the table; doubtlessly because of the amount of alcohol that had already been consumed.
Mike found those answers a little suspicious. "Are you working for the police now?" he asked Rhys; for some reason, that question made Andy giggle even louder. "Or SOCO or whatnot?" The fact that Trevor had mentioned labs that needed to run non-stop justified the questions; none of the others really looked like scientists.
"No," Trevor replied lightly. "We work for Torchwood."
"Torchwood," Mike repeated blandly, hair-raising stories he'd been hearing all his life resurfacing in his memory. "You, Rhys Williams, work for bloody Torchwood now. The very organization you've been cursing for at least a year, for eating up Gwen's time, so that she was practically never at home."
Rhys nodded and giggled. "Yep. Sweetest vengeance I could have thought of."
"And when, exactly, did you become a secret agent?" Mike asked.
"I didn't," Rhys shrugged. "I'm the general support bloke, responsible for getting the others fed, organized and delivered to the places where they ought to be. It's not that different from working for Harwood's – and it pays better."
"So you're not carrying a gun, running around and dealing with weird shit?" Mike clarified.
Rhys shook his head. "Nah, that's their job," he waved in the direction of Andy, Mickey Mouse and Owen. "My job is the logistics, and it's work enough for one man, I tell you. A good thing that Emma works for Torchwood, too; I wouldn't have had the time to actually look out for a suitable bride."
"What is she doing?" Mike was definitely curious now.
"Administration," Rhys answered simply. "She's the secretary of the boss, and she helps me with the logistics."
"That's a lot for one person," Mike said.
Rhys nodded. "Yeah, that's true. We're constantly looking for new personnel, but it isn't easy to find someone who'd fit our requirements. What about you and Beth, though? Have you gotten used to my old job? It wasn't an easy one, either."
"That's not the problem," Mike admitted. "The problem is Mr Harwood Jr."
"Oh, no!" Rhys understood the hint at once. "Is he after Beth now?"
"You have no idea," Mike replied sourly. "Actually, if anyone, I guess you do. It's gotten so bad lately that we started looking for a new job for Beth – but we haven't had any luck so far."
"Why not?" Rhys was surprised. "She was the best temp I've ever met; one hundred words a minute are an impressive achievement. And she's good at spelling and grammar and all that stuff, not to mention well-organized…"
"But she's also a newly-wed young woman, and people always suspect that such women would quit as soon as they get pregnant," Mike reminded him. "And for the more mundane jobs she's over-qualified. We haven't even got an answer, positive or negative, in three bloody weeks!"
"By the current unemployment level, it isn't easy to find a job," Mervyn said in understanding; then he looked at Rhys. "What about your organization, though? You've said yourself that you're looking for new staff, and that Emma is overworked, doing the jobs of at least two people. Can't you guys hire his wife?"
"It's not that easy," Trevor interfered. "Even though Rhys and Emma are working for logistics and administration, there's a lot of confidential shit they get in touch every day. And it can be dangerous sometimes, even for them."
"Dangerous in what way?" Mike asked, his initial excitement about Rhys probably being able to help Beth getting a new job deflating quickly. Trevor looked at him over the rim of his glasses.
"Ever heard about Canary Wharf?" he asked. Mike nodded.
"Yeah; it was destroyed by terrorists, right?"
"I was there," Trevor told him. "I'm one of the twenty-seven survivors, of over eight hundred people working there. That was Torchwood London. Granted, Torchwood Cardiff never got involved in disasters of that magnitude, but we still deal with dangerous stuff. And you don't have to work in the labs themselves to be at risk."
"You're still looking for new personnel, though," Mervyn pointed out. "You'll have to put someone at risk in any case. And it's not so as if you can advertise for Torchwood by telling the truth. Hell, you never even told us the truth about your work at Torchwood."
"Be glad he didn't," Mickey deadpanned. "We would have to kill you if he had."
More inebriated giggles answered his comment; then Rhys looked at Mike, somewhat more seriously.
"I tell you what, mate; I'll have our experts run a full background check on you and Beth," seeing that Mike wanted to protest, he raised a hand. "I'm sorry, but that's the minimal requirement before we'd even consider hiring anyone. I don't think either of you would have anything to hide, but if you do, our experts will find it. They're the best. If you turn out clean, I'll talk to the boss, check Beth's credentials and see if I can lay in a good word for her."
"Jonesy would want to meet them before an official interview," Trevor said. "He prefers an informal first meeting."
Rhys nodded. "I know. Look, Mike, why don't you two come to our wedding? That way, you can meet the bosses, no strings attached, see all the people Beth would be working with and decide if she wants to work for us in the first place."
"Why wouldn't she?" Mike asked in surprise.
The others grinned like one man. It was Mickey who finally answered.
"Well, if she survives the first encounter with Captain Cheesecake, she'll survive everything."
Trevor cuffed him upside the head. "Shut up, Mickey Mouse, you're scaring the man!" He turned to Mike. "Don't worry. Captain Harkness tends to flirt with everything that breathes – and with a few things that don't – but that's just who he is."
"Besides," Owen added sourly, "he won't risk making Teaboy mad at him – now that he's almost cajoled himself back into his good graces."
"You should stop calling our boss Teaboy, you know," Andy warned. "Or do you really want to test the limits of his patience?"
Owen just shrugged dismissively, apparently not concerned about that the least. Mike felt a little bit bewildered. Was that how the agents of a government organization should talk about their boss? But Rhys seemed fairly comfortable with the whole thing, and Mike had learned to trust Rhys' ability to judge character back when they'd still been working together. If Rhys wasn't bothered by all this, then it had to be acceptable.
"I'll have to talk about this with Beth," he said.
"Of course," Rhys wrote several phone numbers on a paper napkin. "Call me. The one above is our landline – we live just a few streets from here – the one below my mobile phone. I'll send you an invitation to the wedding – you still live at 114 Brodsky Gardens, I presume?" Mike nodded. "Then we're almost neighbours. Work permitting, we could get together some time, even if the thing with the job won't work. I'm sure Emma and Beth would get along just fine."
Mike promised he would call them; then he paid for his drink and left for home, as it was getting late. And besides, he had a lot to discuss with Beth.
When Doctor Thomas Milligan finally emerged from the operations room of the A&E, it was nearly two hours after the actual end of his shift. He was so tired he could barely walk. Having qualified as a surgeon and getting this position of an assistant surgeon at A&E was a great opportunity, as no-where else would he have the chance to treat so many very different injuries, assist to so many different operations. So he was still glad he'd got the job half a year ago, even if it paid considerably less than having a nice little practice in paediatrics would have.
But it took the last ounce of energy out of him. The long working hours, the constant pressure, the responsibility… sometimes it was barely possible to deal with all that. And, of course, it made sheer impossible to have any kind of private life.
He hadn't been surprised when Emilia decided that enough was enough and broke up with him. Though half a decade older, she was an attractive and highly successful therapist, who enjoyed a rich social life and rightly expected her partner to give her due attention. What good would a younger lover do to her when all he was able to do after a long shift was to fall onto the bed like a log and pass out?
And then, there were the dreams. Recurring dreams of fleeing across a desolate country, with a beautiful black woman, presumably also a doctor, pursued by flying metallic discs that could – and would – slice one to ribbons. Alive. Dreams that always ended with him being killed. Dreams from which he always woke up screaming and sweat-soaked and trembling. Which woman would put up with that on the long run?
Emilia suspected that his mind was playing games with him, combining his hidden fears with some stupid horror flick or past-apocalyptic sci-fi movie he'd seen, but Tom wasn't so sure about that. The dreams almost felt like memories, even though he knew they couldn't be. Granted, he had seen a great deal of horrible things while working for Doctors Without Borders in Africa, but nothing like that.
And he would have remembered such an experience, had he had it. He didn't exactly have total recall or eidetic memory or whatever the shrinks liked to call it these days, but his memory was better than the average, especially when it came to minute details. It came in handy in his chosen work, as it helped recognizing the smallest symptoms of any possible diseases, so he was fairly certain that his memory wasn't playing games with him. It had never done before.
Which didn't explain where the dreams came from, of course. He'd tried a different way, googling all old schoolmates, fellow students and colleagues he had ever worked with, hoping to find the woman in his dreams. He'd tried to get access to the files of female patients he had treated – still nothing. And the dreams kept coming, so that by now he was positively afraid to go to bed; they were too frightening. He sometimes asked if he was slowly getting mad – and how long it would take until he made a fatal error in the OP and killed somebody due to the chronic lack of sleep.
His current living conditions didn't help things, of course. He'd given up his flat before going to Africa, and since Emilia had thrown him out, he'd slept in the emergency doctor's ready room in the hospital, so what little sleep he could get was always interrupted. But that couldn't be helped at the moment. He simply didn't have the time to go flat-hunting.
He yawned and was heading to the shower when there was a knock on the door and Meagan, the head nurse of night shift looked in.
"Doctor Milligan, you've got a visitor."
"A visitor?" Tom replied in surprise. He never had visitors; having spent the last two years in Africa and being new here, he didn't know that many people. Unless…"Is it Doctor Fox?"
"No," Meagan said. "It's an elderly gentleman in a naval uniform. Quite handsome, too;" she added; she had a soft spot for older, more distinguished gentlemen. "I led him to the breakroom, it's currently empty."
"And he didn't say who he was or what he wanted?" Tom asked, not having the faintest idea what this might mean.
Meagan shook his head. "No, doctor. Just that he needed to speak with you… and that it was of some urgency – that's how he phrased it."
That sounded like a quote of an Agatha Christie novel, Tom found, and he grinned tiredly. Well, he could as well go and see what the old-fashioned gentleman wanted.
"Tell him I'll be there in a moment," he said, looking around for a clean white lab coat. It never hurt to make a good first impression.
The man waiting for him in the breakroom looked like one of those stereotypical old colonels from an Agatha Christie novel indeed. He was tall, carrying himself very straight, with thick, curly grey hair, abundant, well-groomed sideburns and a prominent chin. He was wearing a blue naval uniform with more stripes on it than Tom had ever seen on any uniform, save from those of self-proclaimed African dictators. The multi-coloured ribbon on his chest revealed that were he wearing the medals themselves instead of just the ribbons, he would probably keel over from the weight of them.
For all that he was obviously a Very Important Person™, he had a friendly enough manner, though.
"Doctor Milligan?" he asked, extending his hand to Tom. "I'm Commodore Harry Sullivan. But since we're of the same trade, I say Doctor Sullivan would suffice."
"Doctor Harry Sullivan?" Tom was shocked, but in a good way. "The chief medical officer of UNIT? The one who'd created the vaccine we saved millions of lives in Africa with? That Doctor Sullivan?"
"Er, well, I suppose there isn't any other by that name and reputation," the naval officer replied, clearly embarrassed a little. "Now, you see, you don't have to make such a big fuss about it. I was just doing my duty, after all."
"You did far more than just your duty, Commodore, and everyone knows that," Tom replied, still a little breathless in the presence of such a living legend. "What could I possibly do for you, then?"
"Oh, well, I should think it's me who could do something for you," the commodore replied. "I've come to offer you a job."
"I do have a job, Commodore," Tom pointed out reasonably, although he did feel flattered by the offer. The commodore waved off his protest.
"Blimey. There's jobs and there's jobs, and I say the one I've in mind for you would serve you better than your current one," he gave Tom's gaunt face a critical look. "I must say, doctor, you don't look that grand. Too much work, too little sleep, isn't it?"
"That's A&E for you, sir," Tom replied with a shrug. Sullivan nodded.
"Quite right, old chap, quite right. But with your skills and experience, there are places where you'd be of more use than here; and working conditions would be more comfortable."
"I'm not joining any military forces," Tom said firmly. He was a pacifist at heart, which had cost him a lucrative job at the RAF right after graduation, but he stuck to his principles nonetheless.
"That won't be necessary, you know," the Commodore replied. "You're making a fuss about nothing at all."
"Then what are we talking about, sir?" Tom asked, just a little impatiently, as exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him.
"Torchwood," Sullivan answered simply. Tom frowned.
"Torchwood? But the Institute has been shut down after that terrorist attack two years ago, hasn't it?"
That wasn't exactly common knowledge, of course, but Emilia had been counselling some of the handful of survivors for years and felt like a failure when a few of them had committed suicide nonetheless.
"That was Torchwood London," the Commodore explained. "I'm speaking of Torchwood Cardiff. Totally different branch and all."
"Cardiff?" Tom repeated. "You want me to move to Cardiff, to work for some shadowy government agency, instead of helping people who actually need help? You gotta be kidding, Commodore!"
Sullivan arched a thick grey eyebrow. "Oh, you'd think so, wouldn't you? Well you'd be wrong, doctor. I assure you that by working for Torchwood, you'd be helping more people in a month than you can by working at A&E for a hundred years."
"Yeah, sure…" Tom wasn't buying it, despite the obvious seriousness of the older man. Sullivan sighed.
"Look, all this argumentation is pretty pointless, isn't it? I'm just the messenger. If you wish to learn more about the offer, you ought to meet the Director of Torchwood and discuss matters with him."
"I can't just off and go to Cardiff!" Tom protested. "I've work to do here!"
"Well, it's a jolly good thing, then, that Director Jones is visiting London at the moment, isn't it?" Sullivan asked. "I say, I ought to be able to set up a meeting in the home of an old friend. Completely unofficially, of course."
Colonel Alan Mace was not a happy man. He hadn't been happy ever since he'd been transferred from the Tower of London base to this godforsaken outpost outside Cardiff three months ago. He looked out of the window of his office in disgust. Base! They called this a base? It was nothing there but a grassy outside place with some brick buildings and a road leading to the security gate. And only a handful of soldiers, hiding behind their painfully inadequate security netting.
And the mineshaft below the base, of course. With the nuclear warheads sealed off in storage within. That's what he'd become: the babysitter of nuclear warheads. After all that he'd done to save this ungrateful planet!
Just a short time ago, he'd been in charge of the British division of UNIT, replacing Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood in 2005. During the Sontaran crisis, he'd taken personal command over Operation Blue Sky. He'd been the one co-ordaining the UNIT counter-offensive to regain the ATMOS factory, having the soldiers rearmed with rad-steel coated bullets that, unlike copper ones, remained uneffected by the Sontaran's negation field. He'd been the one to call in the Valiant to clear the gas around the area.
Hell, he'd personally killed Skorr, the Sontaran commander, with a pistol! And what did he get for all his efforts? A disciplinary transfer to Cardiff, of all places!
And all that just because he'd happened to fall in love with one of his subordinates. Who, in turn, had happened to return his feelings and – after defeating the Sontarans – was impulsive enough to kiss him before all eyes.
That had been enough for the brass to condemn him. Saving the planet was apparently less important than violating the non-fraternization rule. Really, he sometimes wondered if UNIT had come with the rest of the world to the twenty-first century!
Marion had offered to quit service, so that the rule would no longer be of importance, but he wouldn't have that. As a member of the Royal Engineers, Captain Marion Price was too valuable for UNIT to lose her. And she was needed at the London base, where they dealt with all that alien technology. Not many people had her experience with that.
So it had been Mace who'd had to leave. He'd lost his position as the commanding officer of the entire British division to Augustus Oduya, that pompous arse, and got exiled to Cardiff, to sit over a mine full of nuclear warheads, with barely a chance to contact Marion.
That was what bugged him most. Despite everything that had happened, he still could not regret having fallen in love with her. In fact, he still loved her; and he missed her friendship, too. For the time being, though, their only way of contact was a virtual one. Private Carl Harris, a young soldier who, by some miracle, had survived both the Sontaran conditioning and his injuries and was now serving as one of his adjutants, had mcgyvered together a secure MSN connection for him.
The young man was very talented when it came to technology. He'd probably never recover enough to be battle-ready again, though. Which was the reason why he, too, had ended up here, outside Cardiff, together with other semi-crippled comrades, like Steve Grey or Ross Jenkins. They had all very nearly died during the Sontaran invasion – without the presence of Commodore Sullivan, with his extensive knowledge about alien weapons and how to treat injuries caused by them, they would have died, all three of them. There was something to say for a man who had travelled with the Doctor in his youth.
Even so, according to Doctor Jones, the young soldiers would have to remain on light duty for a long time yet. But at least they were still alive, which couldn't be said about a great many of their comrades. And they had faced hostile aliens already. Serving this close to the Cardiff Rift, that was a definite advantage. They couldn't rely on Torchwood entirely, even if their current job didn't involve actively fighting aliens.
Torchwood! Colonel Mace suppressed a groan, remembering how many times he'd clashed with the notorious Captain Harkness during his time as the commanding officer of UNIT. At least the Queen had the wisdom and foresight to put that Jones character in charge of Torchwood while Harkness had been missing. Granted, the man was almost shockingly young… at least on paper. No-one who'd survived the Battle of Canary Wharf could really be considered young anymore.
In any case, Jones was highly organized and reliable – things Colonel Mace greatly valued. And he made the best cup of coffee on the planet. Dealings with Torchwood had been so much easier since he'd been in charge. Even now that Harkness was back, Jones remained Director of Torchwood, which meant that Colonel Mace didn't get yelled at through the phone twice a week. He preferred to deal with people who actually had manners.
There was a discrete knock on the door and Private Jenkins came in, holding a bunch of printed-out messages. He was a tall, handsome young man, almost too pretty, but the looks were misleading. He still held the longest-lasting records on the shooting range and hoped that one day his hand would be stable enough again to break them himself. Until then, he reconciled himself with a desk job, glad that he had, at least, been able to remain within UNIT. Not many people with severe nerve damage got that chance.
"Today's post, Colonel," he handed the papers to Mace, who preferred printouts to reading the message onscreen. "There's one for your eyes only, though, that I couldn't open."
"Where from?" Mace asked, scanning the usual reports, requests and bulletins with half an eye.
"Headquarters, sir," Jenkins replied. "It requires a voice print recognition and a retina scan. You can do it at your computer, though; the web cam has a direct feed to the security system.
Apparently, Carl Harris wasn't the only technically savvy invalid under his command. But what would have made Oduya paranoid enough to take such extreme security measures?
"The message isn't from Colonel Oduya, sir," Jenkins explained. "It's from the Brig himself… erm, I mean from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, of course. Sorry, sir."
That was a piece of news that made Mace extremely worried. The Brig, as the Great Old Man of UNIT was affectionally called by all his subordinates, had retired for quite some time but was still called aboard if the occasion was important – or threatening – enough. He was a living legend, somebody who had worked with the famous Doctor for years; with several incarnations of him, in fact.
He was also the man who had shaped UNIT like nobody else had. Whatever was going on, if the brass needed to call in the Brig again, it couldn't be good. Mace sighed. It was better to face the music right away.
"Well, Private, why don't you leave me alone with my secret orders, then, so that I can actually view them?" he asked with exaggerated patience.
Jenkins snapped to attention – and nearly lost his balance, due to his nasty inner ear problem, another result of his injuries. The list of those was quite long.
"Aye aye, Colonel!" he said crisply and marched out with markedly less enthusiasm than before but with a lot more stability in his step.
Mace sighed again, activated the web cam attached to his computer and leaned closer to it, so that the security system could perform its required retina scan.
"Colonel Alan Mace, ready to receive orders," he said, adding his service number.
His loud cursing alerted Jenkins in the anteroom of the office moments before he would tear the door open and bellow.
"Get me Harris, right away! I want him to hack into the personal files of MI5 and find out who the hell this Agent Johnson is!"
"Sir?" Jenkins was duly shocked by that demand. Everybody knew that trying to hack into the database of MI5 was a suicidal attempt. Even if someone from UNIT tried to do it.
"You heard me, soldier!" Mace fumed. "If they're sending us a mole to sniff around us, I want to know who exactly that mole is and what she's capable of. Now, move!"
"Aye aye, sir!" suitably intimidated, Jenkins scurried away to carry out his orders.
Colonel Mace stared after him in grim satisfaction. "That'll show them!" he muttered, before returning to his office.