Author's Notes: So, I said originally that the title of this story would be Reaping the Whirlwind, but the more I looked at it, the more 'off' it seemed. Reap The Whirlwind sounds much better to my ears/eyes/whatever. In any event, in this chapter, we have the events leading up to Esther and Rex's discovery. In the next chapter, Natalie's choice will become clear and the rescue of Ailsa will take place, and then the rest of the story deals with the Tregarths' (and Jack's) response and reactions to the whole mess (including what happens to Ailsa's kidnapper). There's also been a slight change of plan with regard to the villains in this story.
Chapter One
Fear Itself
Tregarth Homestead, Oklahoma
Forty-five minutes earlier
"How is Natalie handling Ailsa's first field trip?" Sophia Tregarth asked her oldest daughter as they emptied the dishwasher. Over the last few weeks, since Priscilla told Natalie about the end of her relationship with Will, the growing friendship between the book-end sisters, as Jack called them, slowly grew stronger. Priscilla sighed deeply, and Sophia grinned at her daughter, saying, "It could be worse. I happen to remember having what's now called a meltdown when you went to London, and you were ten years old."
"I remember that, too. It's just. . .I'm realizing that maybe we haven't been fair to Nat. And before you say it, I know, life isn't fair, and anyone who says it is, is selling something. It's just that. . . We tell her one minute that we have to be on our guard; and in the very next, mock her for having separation anxiety. The thing is, she has every right to feel this way. With everything that's gone on, just in the last two years, I'd honestly be more worried if she didn't have separation anxiety," Priscilla replied as she finished stacking the plates. She shook her head, adding, "God forbid if anything were to happen to Ailsa, because Natalie will never forgive us for not taking her worries seriously."
"You really think that's possible? Not that Natalie won't forgive us, because I know that you're right about that, but that something will happen?" her mother asked. Priscilla just paused long enough from putting the plates in the cabinet to give her mother a Look, and was rewarded with, "Right. How silly of me to even ask. We're Torchwood, after all, and the impossible is mundane. And the Families are still out there, along with other individuals and groups that Torchwood has pissed off. Maybe Natalie isn't being such a worrywart, after all." Priscilla nodded. Yes, exactly. Her mother hummed a bit under her breath.
After a moment, she looked back to Priscilla and said, sounding very determined, "All right. You finish up in here, since this is your domain. I need to give Esther her assignment for today, since Octavia is coming with us, and then check with Owen, make sure he's doing okay in his new med-bay. And then, we'll head into town for Adriane's dress. I'll have Jason and Lucas send anything untoward to my cell. That way, we can monitor the situation, even if Natalie turns out to be wrong, without shorting Adriane." Priscilla needed only a minute to think about that, and then she nodded. Yes, that was the best solution all around. She and Natalie were becoming friends, and she didn't want anything to endanger that.
Mama kissed her cheek, adding, "And Priscilla? If your sister has cause to worry, we're going to make an example out of whoever has made the mistake of targeting Ailsa and Natalie. In some ways, they're the most vulnerable, with the least amount of training, so they would be the first targeted. So, if they've made the mistake of harming my youngest daughter or granddaughter, they will pay dearly. That, I promise you." Her mother's cool, matter-of-fact observation sent chills down Priscilla's spine, even as the younger-looking woman left the kitchen to carry out her mentioned errands.
Okay. That was a bit on the scary side. While her mother tended to be a gentle person (a lot like Natalie, in fact), that very gentleness made her dangerous when she was pushed too far. People made the assumption that Priscilla was gentle, because she was more of a pacifist than her father and middle sister. The truth was just the opposite. She was an avowed pacifist because her own rage terrified her; because she knew that once the djinn was freed, she would be hard pressed to put it back into the bottle. She had the same potential for deadly violence that both of her sisters did, that Jack did, that her parents did. What set her apart wasn't her pacifism, but her understanding that it didn't make her superior. She knew better. She was a pacifist because she couldn't control her rage once it was set free.
The last time her rage was allowed free rein; well, it was shortly after her Juliana died. Even now, twenty-six years later, the memories were enough to bring tears to Priscilla's eyes. She held her daughter in her arms, marveled at how beautiful and how perfect she was, and twenty-four hours later, her baby was dead. At first, Priscilla was too stunned, too shocked, too devastated by the loss of her child, still too weak from childbirth. And then, as the weeks passed and her strength returned, the numbness gave way to a white-hot rage that she wouldn't feel again until her brother-in-law David was murdered. About a month after Juliana's death, maybe twenty minutes after Nat left for school, Priscilla was wandering around in the house when she made her way into Natalie's room. There, she found her sister's diary, in which she wrote in big letters about how excited she was to be a big sister soon, followed by an entry in which she talked about being sad, and being sad for her mommy. Rather than comforting her, rather than making her cry, Priscilla's rage ignited. When she returned to herself, her daughter/sister's room was completely destroyed. All of the furniture was gone, reduced to pick-up sticks.
Priscilla's fury gave way to devastation and she collapsed to her knees in Natalie's room, howling her grief and rage and guilt and heartbreak. Once her tears were spent, she shakily pulled herself to her feet, lurched out of the room, and asked her father to take her shopping for furniture. He took one look at her ravaged face and quietly went into Natalie's room. When he came out, he was hollow-eyed with shock, but took her hand and led her to the car. There was a beautiful bedroom set she caught Natalie eyeing with longing the last time they went to the furniture store, looking for new lamps. Between Priscilla and their father, they figured out a way to pay for the entire set at one time and have it delivered that day. Natalie was overjoyed, of course, but Priscilla still saw the shadows in her baby sister's eyes, and knew that Natalie suspected there was more to her new room than the explanation she was given: that she took such good care of Priscilla after Juliana's death, they thought she deserved it.
Oh yes. She knew what the consequences were for losing her temper, the consequences to herself and to others. She trashed her baby sister's room after losing her older daughter, and completely destroyed a woman for igniting a feud that resulted in harm to that same baby sister. It would have been overstating things to say that she was proud of what she did, but she certainly wasn't ashamed of it either. One of the last things Ryder Halloran said before the Newman family left town after their stupid feud nearly got Natalie killed nearly a decade earlier was that the matriarch should be pleased Priscilla held her temper. Considering what Priscilla did to her reputation, she wasn't entirely sure if the idiot believed Ryder or not, but he was right. Once she accepted in her heart, as well as her mind, that her sister would be okay, she wanted to beat the self-centered bitch to death. Instead, she chose to ruin her. And she had no issue with doing it again. Just because she was a pacifist didn't mean she didn't believe in punishing the guilty.
TWTWTWTWTWTW
Well, his med-bay was starting to take shape. Owen Harper looked around appreciatively. All of the medical software was uploaded down here, and he would take it upstairs in a few minutes to upload it in the house. Natalie already had the filing cabinets in good condition: not only were his medical files in the cabinet in proper alphabetical order, but she scrubbed the cabinets clean. Evidently, she and Esther both took to cleaning things when they were upset. Earlier in the week, Nat argued with Octavia (evidently, about Natalie's obvious attraction to Jack), and came down to the base to clean up the file cabinets, since Esther had the bunkhouse.
And speaking of the bunkhouse, he had to admit, he was impressed. Carlyon Tregarth showed him pictures of that place before Esther attacked the dirt, cobwebs, and blood (and after he started moving things downstairs into the base). She did one helluva job on it. Now, from what he heard, her current project was to furnish it as an apartment. At the moment, they were working out plumbing, so it was suggested that camping gear would be used for the shower and toilet. Owen didn't go camping, so he didn't know what was available until Natalie pulled up some websites in the main house to show him. He looked at her, looked at the website, looked at her again, and muttered, 'holy hell, that might actually make camping tolerable.' She laughed at that, patted his cheek, and went back to what she was doing.
According to Sophia, Esther's next project would be to start figuring out the sizes of the mattresses in the base to buy bed sheets and blankets, along with duvets (or comforters, as they were called here). Owen raised his eyebrows at that, as it was hardly something that he thought about in Cardiff, and Sophia observed, "Well, I'm a woman, Owen, I look at things like that." Right. And let it go at that. Instead, he next asked if Esther knew about that. Sophia smirked and replied, "Not yet, but she'll find out soon enough." Owen could only think of a comment that Natalie made sometimes: see my previous response, then lather, rinse and repeat. He said as much to Sophia, and was rewarded with a peal of laughter.
The room where Tosh was kept was tentatively called the morgue. Her coffin/sarcophagus was the only one upright. All others were flat on the floor, and some of them were stacked up to the ceiling. All of them were refrigerated, much to Owen's relief. They were all former Torchwood operatives, and Carlyon was still working out what would be done for future dead bodies. There was some scuttlebutt around the house about another house in another state, but he didn't hear anything to confirm that, and Owen was loath to simply accept that.
During quiet times, he learned more about Jack's past with Torchwood from Carlyon, and wasn't that a story and a half? Hearing the details made Owen cringe, especially when he realized how an immortal human being would be used. And he didn't think Alex whoever did Jack any favors, but Owen couldn't deny that Jack was the only one strong enough to make the ugly choices that were so necessary. Given what he learned, it really wasn't a surprise that Jack left Earth after Ianto and his grandson's deaths. It was more of a surprise that he didn't leave earlier. Everyone had their limits, after all, and Owen knew that there would come a time when Jack would find it necessary to make those ugly decisions once more. The difference was, Carlyon acknowledged, he would have people beside him now who would support him, instead of castigating him for being heartless. Owen flinched, but couldn't argue.
For now, however, Jack was the field team leader, which took that heavy burden from his shoulders. As yet, Owen hadn't accompanied him on a mission. Partly because Owen was still getting his med-bay in order, but also because Jack figured out that it was Owen who decked Matheson. Esther swore upon the lives of her young nieces that she didn't tell him, and Owen believed her. No, Jack figured it out on his own, and he was keeping Owen and Matheson separate as much as possible until they worked things out. Which they largely had, but Owen was still learning to trust Matheson. Well, he was still learning to trust them all, but Matheson was a special breed of annoying. He was too much like Owen sometimes, and gave the doctor an all-new appreciation for what he put Jack through.
He also sometimes found Octavia annoying, though not as nearly as annoying as her boyfriend. Yeah, they were shagging, sometimes rather loudly, and the next time Matheson gave Jack a hard time for 'playing hide the salami' with Owen, he'd deck him (again). He and Octavia could be heard throughout the entire house, while Jack and Owen had the sound-proof room. He found that out the hard way (or was it easy way?) when his night terrors brought no one running. Owen asked about it the following morning at the breakfast table, only to learn that no one heard his screams, and Jack was out checking something in the base. Natalie was extremely apologetic and just as worried, but once he knew that no one came because they didn't hear (rather than didn't care), Owen reassured her that everything was fine.
She evidently didn't believe him, because each afternoon he took a nap after a bad night, he woke up to find Ailsa cuddled up against him. Evidently, while he was sleeping, Natalie either carried her daughter into the room he shared with Jack, or encouraged the little girl to go to Owen. And he was still wrapping his mind around that, because Ailsa dubbed him the 'silly, sad man.' When she first met Jack, she called him the 'pretty and sad' man, while Matheson was 'the silly and funny man,' and apparently, Owen was a combination of the two. He wasn't very comfortable around kids, but as was the case with Jack, Ailsa didn't let that stop her. She routinely crawled into his lap or cuddled with him if she thought he was sad, whether he wanted her to or not. Natalie admitted ruefully that the child's birth mother Beatriz was the same way.
He wondered briefly if anyone bothered to warn Natalie that Torchwood had enemies almost literally coming out of the woodwork. She probably figured that out on her own; it seemed she figured a lot of things out on her own, from what Owen observed during the last few weeks. She laughed when people called her 'empathetic' or even 'compassionate,' much less 'intuitive.' But did have a gift for cutting through the bullshit, and she probably did know that she would be a target, thanks to her father being a Torchwood director. Really, it didn't take a member of Mensa to know that (or, as he heard Priscilla say once or twice, it didn't take a Rhodes Scholar).
Never mind the Families, Torchwood had other enemies, including the Colasanto bint (yeah, she was dead, but there were others of her kind, no doubt). Regardless of what he was told, Owen still believed that she was working with the Families. If she wanted Jack's attention, all she needed to do was sending him a cryptic text or email, ignite his nearly-legendary curiosity. Instead, she used innocent people, and if the Families hadn't blown her to Kingdom Come (along with their tool and another agent), he would have done it himself. On the other hand, didn't that suicide bomber survive getting blown up and having his head separated from his body? Maybe she and the others were alive, and just wished that they were dead. Either way, Owen wouldn't waste tears on her. Not after what she did.
Anyhow, Owen might not be a father, but he could understand why Nat would be anxious about her daughter's very first field trip. Hell, Jack agreed with him, familiar shadows creeping back into his eyes. Owen tried not to think about Jack's family, because every time he did think about it, he wanted to smash something. So, when Octavia started teasing her sister that morning about wanting to wrap Ailsa in cotton to keep her safe, Owen did what he always did when he had an opinion about something: he put his two bits in, this time by defending Natalie. Octavia still blew him off, but Owen didn't care. They had enough trouble, thanks to the Rift and the Families: there was no reason to go borrowing more.
Not for the first time, he wished that Ianto or Tosh was here. If someone told him years earlier that he'd miss Ianto, he probably would have laughed in their faces or decked them. Maybe both, depending on his mood. Tosh, there was no question of missing Tosh. For all her love of technology and gadgets, she was also one of the most humane people he'd ever known. He had only to remember her after she and Jack returned from 1941, how she quietly went into his office to comfort him. He remembered how she ran into Jack's embrace after his return from the dead, after he died for their stupidity, for their selfishness. Owen blinked back tears, remembering those horrible days.
Could he do that again? Could he betray Jack's trust again? Doing it once nearly destroyed him, and Owen shuddered. No. No, he couldn't go through that again. What they never told you was that when you betrayed someone, you didn't just hurt that person. Oh, no. No, you also hurt yourself. It cut slices out of your soul, and each betrayal cut more away until there was nothing left. People who thought they could betray other people and not pay a price were just deluding themselves. Sooner or later, a price would be paid.
TWTWTWTWTWTW
She was being stupid. Really, she knew she was being stupid. Before the Miracle, children went on field trips all the time. Natalie had vague memories of being very small when she went to the Oklahoma City Zoo with her class and clinging to her mother/sister's hand, because Priscilla was one of the chaperones. This wasn't exactly a field trip, although that's what they were calling it. In the months after Miracle Day ended, the school was stripped of everything and while it was being put back together, they were holding classes in various locations. To reward the kids for their patience with the constant changes, the principal of the school decided that all six grades of the elementary school would have an outing to a local park.
Ailsa had been bouncing off the walls all week, so excited about her very first field trip. So excited, in fact, that Jack refrained from making a comment about 'having an outing,' for which Natalie was extremely grateful. She wasn't sure she was ready to explain that yet. On the other hand, it may not have mattered. Ailsa's standard response to any comment that she didn't understand was to roll her eyes and tell whoever said it that they were silly. Right. And leave it at that, at least for now.
All of which left Natalie feeling at loose ends. She volunteered to be a chaperone, but was told by Ailsa's kindergarten teacher that they had enough adult supervision. The mother of Ailsa's best friend Tessa was among the chaperones, as was the principal of the school, and Natalie knew that Magdalena would watch over Ailsa like a mama bear. She was probably just dealing with an early onset of 'empty-nest.' She and Ailsa were rarely separated since the little girl's birth, aside from those months she spent undercover. Her little girl was growing up, taking her first steps into a larger world, and there would come a time when she wouldn't need Natalie any more. She wondered briefly if this was how Sophia felt when she realized that Priscilla raised Natalie, and shuddered a little at that.
Natalie sighed and tried to turn her attention to her current Torchwood project. Before the original Hub was destroyed (and Jack along with it), her father spent the previous nine years hacking into the CCTV and archives information, and downloading everything. Natalie's job as Jack's chief administrator was to print out everything, so they had a hard copy of all files, in addition to having the files electronically. One copy would remain in the base, while the other copy would be put into safety deposit boxes in the bank. Oh yes, and there would also remain a copy on the flash drive. This morning, her father added to her misery by informing her that before leaving Cardiff more than forty years earlier, he scanned all the documentation in the archives (admittedly leaving it one helluva mess) and she needed to include that information. And oh yes, he was giving her this project to keep from fretting overmuch about Ailsa and mitigating her separation anxiety. She briefly considered shoving the hard-copy files she had printed out so far up his ass, but decided against it. That would be a waste of three hours of work, and Natalie didn't feel like starting over from scratch.
Jack wandered in and out of the room which would be the file/archives room when she was finished (sometime in 2013, if she was lucky), and if he didn't seem too fidgety, she'd let him help by stapling things together, or by attaching labels to the files. She couldn't imagine the memories this room and this information was bringing back for him. She couldn't imagine living as long as he had, even before his brother buried him underground for all those years. That was something that she talked about with her sisters one afternoon while Jack was secluded with their father: Jack's brother Gray. Natalie couldn't imagine ever hating either of her sisters that much. Even as devastated as she was when she found out that Priscilla was her sister, rather than her mother, it wasn't because she was truly angry or upset that Sophia was her mother. It was because they lied to her for nearly thirty-five years. What kind of torment would be enough for her to turn against Priscilla and Octavia like that?
She didn't know. And as much as she hated what Gray did to Jack, to Tosh (who sounded beautiful), to Owen and to Cardiff as a whole, she hated the monsters who took him even more. He was just a little boy, for God's sake, and she hoped that they were wiped out in turn. She had no trouble forgiving Jack, she found. He believed that he let go of Gray's hand, but how could he be sure? Did he remember releasing Gray's hand? How could he, given how chaotic it was? Natalie shook her head, muttering under her breath about thinking too hard that happened three thousand years in the future, or twenty years in the past, or two thousand years in the past, depending on your perspective.
A third year was completed (thus improving the likelihood of her finishing with the project sometime this year) when her cell rang, and Natalie asked absently (without looking at the number), "This is Natalie Tregarth." A low chuckle turned her blood to ice, and raised the hair on the back of her neck. Someone who responded to your greeting with a laugh wasn't a very good sign. It was like being back at college, when she and her roommate were the targets of obscene phone calls. But she wasn't in college any more. More to the point, the list of people who had her cell phone number was very, very short. The list of people who had her cell phone number and didn't belong to her family was even shorter. Trying for bravado, she added, "You have exactly ten seconds to tell me who you are and what you want. After that, I do a backward trace on this call and believe me, you won't like the consequences." There was a moment of stunned silence, as if the caller expected her to react in any way other than that.
"Oh, all right. I suppose it was too much to ask that you wail and gnash your teeth," an altogether-too-familiar voice said begrudgingly, almost sulking. Natalie's heart seemed to take up residence in her throat. She knew that voice. She heard it every time she picked up her daughter at school. This was a bad thing. This was a very bad thing. Even so, she maintained a stony silence as her caller sighed, "And your silence sounds pissed off, rather than cowed. Fine, then, I'll cut to the chase. If you ever want to see your daughter again, you'll bring Jack Harkness to a set of coordinates I'm sending to your phone. Oh, and bring your own car. We have it bugged. It really was quite easy. I just had to walk your brat to your Jeep and wait until your attention was on her." She was bragging about this? And then the other part of the paragraph caught up with her brain.
Lola Wycliffe told her that she needed to bring Jack to a rendezvous. Natalie felt as though she'd been punched in the chest. They wanted her to betray Jack. Oh God. What was she supposed to do? Natalie didn't know what to do, except buy time. She swallowed hard, trying for what her sister Octavia called their mother's 'please, biatch' tone, "And why should I believe that? I mean, really? For all I know, this could be somebody's idea of a prank. There are people with incredibly cruel senses of humor, after all. And I swear to you right now, if anything happens to my little girl, I will beat the ever-living shit out of whoever's responsible."
"You're asking for proof? Fine. To prove that we bugged your Jeep, you and that bimbo were discussing Captain Harkness and the likelihood she has of getting him onto the dance floor, the last time the two of you went into town," Ms. Wycliffe retorted, her amusement sounding strained. Natalie closed her eyes. Yeah, they did. They also giggled over which outfit he might wear, because hot damn, he was friggin' gorgeous no matter what he wore. Her Jeep was bugged. Her Jeep was bugged, her daughter was depending on her, and she had to do what was best for Ailsa. The trouble was, she couldn't think right now what was best for Ailsa. Wycliffe added rudely, "And don't make promises you can't keep."
"Well, fine, you bugged my Jeep, bully for you. Oh, wait a minute, that's right, that's exactly what people like you are: bullies. What's to stop me from taking another car? I don't trust you to return my daughter even if I turn Jack over to you!" Natalie retorted bitterly. They had her little girl, they had her baby! What was she supposed to do? Not for the first time, she wished she asked Octavia more questions about her police training once she joined Torchwood. No matter who had her daughter, she should have realized that Ailsa would be a target.
"If you take another car, then I will call you back and let you listen while I blow your little brat's brains out! And if you don't leave within the next five minutes, I'll do the same!" came the stressed response. Natalie would have smiled, especially after she heard the other woman curse and cry out in pain, as well as Ailsa yelling at her teacher. However, right now, another option was taken away from her. And she knew for certain that the bitch really did have her daughter. The Jeep was bugged. The bitch would kill Ailsa if she didn't take the Jeep. She couldn't do this alone, and she didn't know how to ask for help. God, why couldn't she think properly? All she could think of what she would do if someone hurt her baby.
Her mind was working furiously, trying to come up with a plan and discarding each one as too risky. She had only five minutes to get on the road, which meant she had a grand total of two minutes to get Jack to come with her. Maybe she could figure out a way to warn him on the way, but how did she do that when the Jeep was bugged? It wasn't as if she could use hand signals or write things out as she was driving! Well, she supposed she could, but it would be a really, really bad idea all around.
Taking her silence for acquiescence, her daughter's (bitch) teacher continued, "Now, I'm transmitting the coordinates. And don't be late." Natalie shuddered, holding the phone away from her as the coordinates were transmitted. Whatever else happened, she had to get on the road, now. The rendezvous site was thirty minutes from the house. That was thirty minutes she could use, figuring out a plan that might actually work. She had to save her daughter, but could she really do that to Jack?
TBC
