They fell in a crumpled heap onto the immaculate lawn of a small country home.
Tanwyn was the first one up, brushing grass and dirt off of her coat.
Jack scrambled up and grabbed her arm.
"Look lady. You have a lot of explaining to do."
Tanwyn walked up to the porch and pulled a key from atop the door frame.
"I know you have questions Jack. And I will answer as many as I can. But first, let's get inside."
Jack followed her into the house. The place looked cozy. It had the clutter and smell of a lived in home, but was somehow missing anything that would make it seem personal. Jack noticed no photos on the walls or tables.
He followed Tanwyn into the kitchen.
"Is this your house?"
Tanwyn laughed. It sounded tired.
"No. This is a Torchwood Temporal Safehouse."
Jack nodded.
"Temporal Safehouse. That's good. Who came up with that one?"
"My father."
Jack flinched.
Tanwyn began brewing a pot of coffee.
" I came here direct from 2009. I found a much more provocative Jack Harkness there. But the date was wrong. "
"I don't remember that."
That's because I didn't look like this." She leaned against the counter and ran her fingers under the edge of her hair , peeling off the wig she had been wearing. Close cropped brown hair laid mussed underneath. Jack vaguely remembered her then.
"Wait, weren't you the The Pizza girl? The one from New York? "
She nodded.
"Yes sir! And thank you for ordering Dominos. Can i get you anything else?" Her Thick Welsh accent disappeared, replaced with an overly friendly American one.
Jack chuckled. He slid into the breakfast nook.
"Well I'll be a son of a bitch."
Tanwyn smiled. The Coffee maker gurgled out the last few drops of coffee. She grabbed two mugs from the cupboard.
"I do a mean American Accent when I want to." Her Welsh accent was back, but less exaggerated. She sounded like someone familiar. Someone Jack could almost place.
"I'll say. Also 2 sugar-"
"No cream. And a cinnamon stick. Got it."
Jack leaned his elbows against the table.
"You really are Torchwood then."
Tanwyn nodded. She slid into the booth across from Jack and yawned.
"Glad you believe me. I was prepared to start dishing out details of your private life until you caught on. "
ack sipped his coffee. It was perfectly brewed. The best coffee he had had in years. Really since-
Jack slid the mug away. He couldn't think of that right now. It was still too fresh. Even after all these years.
Tanwyn sighed and took a long sip of her coffee.
"I'm sorry Jack. I should have remembered."
He looked up at her and saw her gazing out the window.
"It's okay. As far as I know, you had no idea."
She looked him straight in the eye.
"I have every idea. It's how I knew you would be in Cardiff today. How I knew you would be at that pup, this late at night. I'm so sorry to have to bring you into this, today of all days, but know that I - we- Torchwood wouldn't have done so if it' wasn't necessary."
Jack nodded, He played with the cuff of his jacket.
"So what is the top secret Earth shattering mission that your Torchwood sent you here for?"
Tanwyn took another long sip of coffee and ran her fingers through her hair.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" Jack crossed his arm and leaned back in his seat.
"I know what the outcome is. I have seen that timeline. It's not pretty, and I know the date of the divergence. It's three days from now My contact has the target and the objective. I was supposed to deliver you here and he would meet us to brief us on what's going on. "
Jack nodded once more.
"Divide to preserve the integrity of the mission. Very old school."
Tanwyn shrugged.
"You speak from experience." Jack leaned forward.
"You're not wrong." Tanwyn grimaced.
Tanwyn swirled the last few sips of her coffee in her mug.
There was a moment of silence between them, with Jack recognizing a kinship with woman across from him. He wasn't sure why, but he was sure he could trust her.
"So tell me Tanwyn, if that is your real name-"
"It is."
"What was with the whole police thing earlier?"
Tanwyn blushed. Jack once again noticed something familiar about her, but could not place it.
She pulled out her wallet and flipped through some notes.
She sheepishly produced a stack of 10 quid notes.
At first glance they looked perfectly normal, but upon closer inspection it was clear that the Queen was not present on the notes, but rather the Duchess of Cambridge. An older, more mature version of her.
"You gave her future money." Jack laughed.
"I gave her future money. "
"That's a rookie mistake."
"Well at least I didn't ask to pay with retina scan."
Jack smiled and shrugged.
"Fair enough. So when are you from, anyway?"
"2046."
Jack let out a low whistle.
"That's not too far off. Are you sure you aren't too close to."
"No. I am most certainly too close to do this mission. On a number of fronts. But unfortunately Torchwood is on some hard times-"
"As is tradition."
"Right. So it was either I come and deal with this, Or the director comes himself, and he has a bit more to handle at the moment."
Jack shrugged again, this time pulling is coat from his shoulders and draping it over the back of his chair.
"Fair enough. My next question has to do with that."
He pointed at her arm. She rolled up her coat sleeve to show off her Vortex Manipulator. The matte black leather still looked fresh and the edges of the cover, usually worn or tattered, were nearly pristine.
"How did you get that?"
Tanwyn bit her lip.
"Torchwood gave it to me."
He rolled his eyes.
"Bullshit. Twenty seven years is not enough time for those to be developed by Torchwood. I couldn't fix my existing one for over 100."
Tanwyn sighed. She pinched the bridge of her nose and held her head back.
"Well Jack if you must know in my time Torchwood has vastly superior engineering capabilities than you did ten years ago. And we also have better engineers. Or we did."
She looked back down at the table.
Jack could almost feel the sadness rolling off of the woman in front of him. He reached out and gently patted the top of her hand.
"We've all lost people. It's the unfortunate nature of the work."
She nodded and surreptitiously wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.
"I know. It just, It still hurts is all. One of the- of the casualties of the divergence. She was my, I was-" Tanwyn sighed heavily. "We were close. Really close. Her not making it was- it took a lot out of me."
Jack squeezed her hand and smiled at her.
"Will stopping this divergence bring her back?"
Tanwyn recoiled, She was surprised by how casually he pointed out her main conflict of interest.
"No. No even with a repaired timeline she won't come back. She was erased. Wiped from the face of Time. Even if a version of her was brought back. It wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be her. I - I don't know if I could be with a different version." Her voice quivered slightly. It was clear to Jack this was fresh.
Jack sighed. He rubbed his neck and tried to come up with a response, but failed. He knew he had struck a nerve, but instead of being rebuffed, she had been honest. Jack respected that.
"Well hey. We should get some rest. This place have a couch or something?"
Tanwyn nodded.
"The guest rooms are upstairs."
She pointed out of the kitchen.
"I'm going to make a quick call and I'll be off to bed. Goodnight Jack."
"Night. " Jack slipped out of the room and slowly made his way up the stairs. He paused and tried to listen in on her conversation. But heard nothing. Disappointed, Jack found his way into a room, and collapsed onto the bed. Exhaustion enveloped him swiftly.
