Spoilers: Major spoilers for Doctor Who episode Boom Town.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own it, more's the pity.
According to the Doctor Who Wiki (tardis . wikia), the events of DW: Boom Town happened in Sept 2006. The Battle of Canary Wharf was either June or July 2007, and Ianto Jones convinced Jack to give him a job at Torchwood Cardiff in August 2007. So, much to my displeasure, there is no Ianto here :(
I've always been keen to know what Jack did when his younger self was running around Cardiff during the events of Boom Town. Especially since -depsite over 100 years of Torchwood colleagues knowing about his immortality and odd history -Jack had decided not to tell his own team anything much about himself at all. In the TW novel "The Twilight Streets" it mentions that Jack locked down the Hub and wouldn't let anyone out until it was over. I've always wanted to know how exactly he would have gone about that.. so here's my take on it.
Jack was in the doorway of his office.
"Tosh!" She spun around. "In my office, please." Toshiko obediently stood, saved the work she had been tapping away at on her computer, and headed over to Jack's office. Owen swung round lazily in his chair and raised his eyebrows at her. She shrugged. Suzie was working in her corner on the far side of the hub and wasn't paying any attention.
Toshiko entered Jack's office.
"Close the door," said Jack. She did, then approached his desk, a questioning look on her face. She had no idea why she would be called in, and it was highly unusual for the office door to be shut.
"I need you to do me a favour," said Jack. "I need you to go shopping."
Tosh raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Shopping?" A thought occurred to her. "Is this undercover work?"
Jack laughed. "No, I mean, I actually need you to go buy some stuff."
"Ah, ok," she smiled. "Two questions then. Why me, and -obviously -what do I need to get?"
Jack grinned. "Firstly, because you are discreet and will obey orders. Unlike the other two out there. Secondly, I need you to buy whatever food and other comforts you think we'll need if we were to be locked down in the Hub for the rest of the day."
"Locked down in the Hub? Why would you intentionally lock us in the Hub? What if there's rift activity or we're needed for something else?" Tosh was confused.
Jack suddenly looked serious and leaned forward in his chair. "Tosh, I need you to trust me on this. I need the Hub to be locked down by midday, with all of us inside, and for us to stay here until about 11pm or midnight. And I need your help to do this, because obviously Suzie and Owen are going to be mad."
Tosh looked at him critically, trying to judge whether something else was going on. Was he crazy, or was there some alien controlling his actions? But he seemed to be all Jack.
"But.. why?"
Jack sighed. "I can't tell you. I just need you to work with me on this."
Toshiko felt herself caving. This was the man who had saved her from UNIT, and saved her many times since in the field, and had given her life a bigger purpose than she'd ever expected to have. She could -and would -give him her support.
"Alright. I'll play along. But if I find out there was some nefarious purpose behind this -or you're just playing a prank on us -I will never trust you again."
Jack's broad grin returned as he handed a Torchwood credit card over. "Good. Now, we'll need lunch and dinner, a variety of snacks, and some more coffee. And maybe a board game or something, keep us occupied tonight?"
As Jack had expected, it had been a quiet day. Tosh's surprise lunch for the others had gone down well, especially when she produced packets of chocolate biscuits for afternoon tea. Jack had ordered everyone to use the lack of rift activity to catch up on paperwork and any maintenance tasks.
It had been a boring day for Owen, and he was looking forward to having a few drinks, and finding someone random to spend the night with. He looked at the clock -5:30pm -and stuck his head into Jack's office.
"Hey Jack, been a quiet one today, so I'm gonna head off."
"Ah, no, I think you should stay a bit longer," said Jack.
Owen, having already turned away, turned and came back, standing inside the doorway this time as he gave Jack a quizzical look. "What for?"
Jack shrugged. "Give it a bit longer, just in case."
Owen grumbled but headed back to his desk.
Fifteen minutes later, Suzie wandered across the Hub to Jack's office.
"Hey Captain. Here's those expenditure reports for last month. If there's nothing else you need right now I thought I'd head home."
Jack looked around in a panic until his eyes landed on a pile of paperwork that had arrived just yesterday. "Actually, Suzie, I was wondering if you could deal with these UNIT requests for me?"
Suzie's eyes narrowed. "Those are new, and you never respond to UNIT requests in the same month they arrive. And last time I dealt with some of those, you banned me for being too nice to them."
Jack put the papers back down, and grabbed some other forms. "These ones then?"
Suzie folded her arms defiantly. "I said 'if there's nothing else you need right now'. It doesn't look like there's anything urgent for me to do tonight, so I'll see you tomorrow."
She strode out of Jack's office feeling slightly annoyed. Owen, being the closest to Jack's office, had overheard, and he grabbed his wallet and joined her. Suzie crossed the Hub and grabbed her bag, and they headed for the cog door.
It didn't move.
Suzie and Owen hovered in front of the door, moving back and forth slightly to try and trip the proximity sensors.
"Tosh, the door's broken," said Owen. Toshiko looked up from her work.
"No it's not."
"Then why won't it open?" asked Suzie.
"Because the Hub is in lockdown," said Toshiko matter-of-factly. She went back to her work.
Owen moved towards the stairs angrily. "So that's why Jack was trying to stop us leaving? So we wouldn't figure that out? Why is the hub in lockdown?
"I honestly don't know," said Toshiko. She smiled up at them. "Should I go start dinner then?"
"You have stuff to make dinner?" asked Owen. "Wait, that means this was planned. And you knew ahead of time, and you didn't say anything?"
"How long have we been in lockdown?" asked Suzie.
"Since midday."
"And you don't know why?"
"No she doesn't." Jack had decided to relieve Toshiko of her interrogation. He walked over from his office. "And I'm not telling." He grinned down at his two sour employees. "Don't worry, it's only for a few more hours."
"A few more hours!" Owen exploded. Jack shrugged and went back to his office, Owen and Suzie following and expressing their discontent loudly. Tosh went to make dinner.
An hour or so later they were just finishing dinner in the boardroom. Tosh had turned out to be quite a good cook -even with the limited kitchen facilities the Hub provided -and good food had helped reduce the hard feelings. Tosh began to clear up the plates and Owen stood to go back to his workstation. Jack checked his watch and cleared his throat.
"You sure you don't want to stay here a few more minutes guys? You know, just to chat and.. stuff.." he trailed off at Owen's glare. "I believe Tosh may have picked up a game for us to play?"
"You can make me stay in the Hub without reason, Captain, but you can't make me stay in the same room and engage in small talk if I don't want to. I'll be at my workstation if anyone needs me. Unless you actually want to share what the hell is going on after all?"
A moment of silence. Owen started to walk out again.
"Ah, well there is one thing I need to mention to you about tonight.." Jack began slowly. Three pairs of alert eyes were suddenly on him. Before he could continue though, everything began to shake and alarms started blaring.
"Earthquake!" cried Tosh. She dived under the table and the others quickly followed. The shaking was quite violent and seemed to be going on for ages. Tosh looked around at her colleagues and was surprised to see a distant look on Jack's face, as though he were thinking about something else entirely.
"Jack?" asked Suzie. She had noticed it too.
Jack focussed. "What?"
"Shouldn't we be doing something? That's the Rift alarm going off! The Rift is causing the earthquake. It shouldn't be going on so long!" cried Tosh. She'd had plenty of experience growing up in Japan. "If we don't get down there and do something, it'll destroy the city!"
"No, I think it'll be fine," said Jack, disconcertingly calm. Out in the main hub, bits of concrete ceiling started to fall down. The glass windows of the boardroom shattered and Owen shuffled further backwards under the table.
"You sure about that?" he yelled.
"Pretty sure.." Jack responded, although he sounded slightly less certain than he had a few moments ago. Now that he thought about it, he had been inside the TARDIS the whole time and didn't get a good look at the damage outside. He vaguely remembered seeing cracks running down the Plass on the TARDIS's external view. But Rose had gone running out of the TARDIS again to find Mickey when it was all over, so the ground surface can't have been too badly damaged... right? It must be fine.
Of course, at the time, he hadn't been aware there was anything underneath the Plass, and he certainly didn't know that an older version of himself was down there. He wondered how easy it would be to get those cracks fixed without anyone finding out about the Hub. He sighed. They'd probably have to retcon the building contractors again.
There was one bonus to this: he was pretty sure that the Rift would be quieter than normal for a while. The TARDIS refueled by soaking up the excess energy leaking from the Rift; with that energy gone, the rift would be less active. At least for 10 days or so, when enough had leaked through again..
Finally, the shaking stopped. Jack was out from under the table and on his feet in moments.
"Right, team. Let's go assess the damage. Suzie, you and Owen check the lower levels and the cells, make sure none of our residents have escaped or been hurt, make a list of any and all damage you find. Tosh, with me, we'll do the same for the main Hub and the upper levels."
The others emerged more cautiously. "What about aftershocks?" asked Tosh.
"I don't think there'll be any," said Jack, and walked off before they could question his confidence.
A short while later, Tosh was running diagnostics to see if any of their technical systems had sustained damage. Considering the severity of the shaking, she was reasonably pleased with the low level of physical damage. Most of the bits of ceiling had fallen close to the centre of the hub and avoided their workstations, though there was a thick layer of dust over everything. The cracks through the roof were disconcerting, but no doubt the council would cordon off the area until the surface was relaid, so they didn't need to worry too much unless it rained.
Results from the scans started to come through, and Tosh was relieved to find that everything seemed to be working. Except the CCTV cameras in the Plass, and around the boardwalks along the Bay. In fact...
"Jack?" she called out. Jack came bounding across the Hub.
"What's wrong?"
"Why have the CCTV cameras in the Plass and along the boardwalks been turned off since I went out for my shopping trip this morning?"
Jack looked guilty. "Uh, they have?" Tosh gave him a stern look.
Just then Owen and Suzie emerged.
"All clear on the lower levels, Jack," reported Suzie. "The damage was less the further down we went. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was focussed on the main part of the Hub."
"That's just about right," said Tosh, looking through more reports as they popped up on her screen. "The main centre of the earthquake -or Riftquake, I think is a more accurate term -was right above us, beside the water tower, surface level. And we have no CCTV of what went on up there." She glared at Jack again.
"Alright, out with it," said Owen. "How did you know?"
"How did I know what?" asked Jack, innocent face plastered on convincingly now.
"How did you know this was going to happen?"
Jack laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. How could I have known there would be an earthquake?"
An hour later, Jack figured it was safe.
"Alright, Tosh, lift the lockdown. You can all go home."
Tosh tapped a few commands into her workstation as Owen and Suzie stood and gathered their things, grumbling about insane captains and their ridiculous whims. Jack emerged from his office again.
"Tosh, what are the current Rift energy readings?"
She looked confused. "There's no activity, if thats what you mean.."
"No, I mean the low-level background readings that we normally get."
She looked again. "Um, oh. They're quite low. Much lower than normal. Ever since the Riftquake stopped."
"That's what I suspected. Good. As a reward for putting up with me tonight, you all have a week off."
"A week?" said Suzie. "But what if.."
"I think we'll find this to be an unusually quiet week, Suzie," said Jack. "I'll call someone if there's any weevil alerts I need help with, but otherwise, go enjoy yourselves."
Owen, Tosh and Suzie exchanged glances, then decided to take the opportunity while it was being offered. After all, it was unusual to get weekends off with Torchwood, let alone holiday time. They grabbed their belongings and practically ran out the door.
Jack sighed and slumped back into his office chair. He was disappointed that he'd had to turn off the cameras, but he couldn't risk his team finding any footage of him. That would be hard to explain. Let alone explaining what the TARDIS was and what had happened with the Rift tonight.
However, there was one place there would still be some.. He turned to his computer and accessed the Cardiff Council's CCTV. A few moments more and he'd found it -a shot of himself, Mickey, Rose and the Doctor walking up the entrance stairs and stopping to make their plans for catching the mayor. He smiled as he watched them interact silently -was a shame the council's CCTV didn't have sound. He laughed at his own clothes, wondering what his team would think if they'd seen a version of him wandering around in a blue t-shirt and a bomber jacket. And he smiled fondly at the other three, especially Rose and the Doctor. He wondered what Mickey was up to now. Maybe he should look him up and offer him a job.
And he also knew with some relief that this was the last time he'd have to avoid the Doctor. He was seeing them now, just a short while before the Gamestation battle. From here they'd made a brief trip to Raxacoricofallapatorius, and then found themselves transmatted onto the Gamestation. And then it had all happened.
So next time the Doctor came to refuel in Cardiff -and Jack knew he would -he would be waiting.
There is a picture of Jack looking at the CCTV here: http:/flic . kr/p/8P85Aa (just take out the spaces either side of the full stop). (Yes, I heart Photoshop).
Please Review?