A week past. Most of the time Harry was under mild sedation in order to keep the equipment monitoring his condition, making sure his heart kept beating, would work for longer than it would if he were awake. Martha was with him every time he woke up. She asked him questions about his life, his age, his home. He could answer simple things directly related to his body, his family, and some of his friends; but anything beyond that was just missing. Both doctor and patient were deeply disturbed by this finding. Harry would never let it show, but he was terrified. In a place he hardly knew, no one coming to get him, no one he knew to tell him that everything was going to be okay. Only this strange lady doctor who looked at him like he was crazy half the time, and with unfathomable pity the other half.
The Lady Doctor pulled every string she had to keep Dresden in the hospital. It was a miracle his body was still functioning going by the scars she could see, and the scars she couldn't see. In her free time, which occurred mainly in the wee hours of the morning, Martha sat with him and listened to the mumbled horrors that came to him in his sleep. Guilt pained the good Doctor during these visits. Being the hospital was never fun for anyone, and this man has been there for a week under sedation. Not that he had been laying in the same bed for that long. Night time was the only time he would allow himself to be moved, claiming he didn't want to disturb the other patients with his clumsy movements, so on nights when Dr. Jones was off duty she would take him for walks around the grounds. There wasn't much room for wandering, but the few little courtyards allowed for at least a few lung-fulls of semi-fresh air.
The call to report Dresden's appearance to Torchwood became calls to Torchwood. No one was answering. Eventually, Toshiko found a phone line that had been gnawed upon by a rat and repaired it. When it was fixed, everyone's cell phones started to ring at once with calls that never made it through.
"I modified all the mobiles that we get in with alien tech," explained Tosh under the strained looks from her teammates. "We all function off of the national grid. We have all our own records and what not, and if the authorities need a copy of them, I've given myself a backdoor into a popular carrier. Everything is legitimate; just a little more private is all." Jack shot her a look somewhere between admiration and anger.
"I've been getting calls and voice mails from Martha Jones in London about Dresden." Tosh dropped the mobile in her hand. Everyone knew about the skull that sat on the table right in the middle of the in the window of Jack's office that claimed to be waiting a mysterious "wizard" named Harry Dresden. It had been Jack's pet project for about a month.
"London?" asked Ianto. "We haven't seen any rift activity in London in years."
"He could have travelled," replied Jack, who was swinging his long coat over his shoulders and heading to the door. "Regardless, I'm going. Martha wouldn't call unless she was certain."
"I thought she left UNIT," interjected Owen. His curiosity was peeked; the doctor lady's face was still with him since her last visit. "How would she have known to contact us about Dresden if she didn't see the memo?"
"This is Martha Jones we're talking about!" yelled Jack from the door. "Not your typical physician, Owen. If something made her call, I need to be there yesterday." And with that, he was gone. He phoned the authorities on the way, letting them know that Torchwood had an emergency and that speed and time was of the essence. The patrols left him alone all the way to London and Martha's hospital.
Dr. Jones had just gotten Dresden settled back into bed after one such walk, when her pager screamed to life in her coat pocket; and just as most electronics did around the man, it squacked and let out a tiny curl of blue smoke. "The blokes in IT are going to have my arse for this," she mumbled as she walked out of the room. The nurse's station on that floor told her there was a man in reception who refused to speak to anyone but her. Apparently, one of the nurses had followed the mystery man into the building. There was a particular spring in her step that can only come from flirtations from a specific man. Martha dashed to the elevator and spent the entire trip down tapping her foot.
The doors opened on a nearly empty reception area save for one slumped over form in an ageless wool coat. Something inside the doctor snapped and she stormed over to the snoring form and slapped the one cheek that was exposed beneath the folds of the coat. The man attached to the cheek jerked upwards and came to his feet in a reflexive fighting stance. "Captain Harkness, I hardly think that is the way to greet a friend." Jack blinked his eyes several times before the light behind them winked on.
"Martha!" Instantly, his arms were around her, crushing her in an attempt to say hello. The lady doctor tapped him on the shoulder.
"I need air, Jack." With an apologetic look, the captain released her from his grasp only to be meant with an expression that could have burned through the TARDIS. "Where have you been? I contacted Torchwood a week ago!" His smile faded just a little.
"Would you believe me if I told you we forgot to pay the bill?" The glare continued. "I didn't think so. There was a small portion of our house server that wasn't working and it took us a while to figure which part."
"Your... server?"
"Tosh played with it a little bit, it's really quite impressive, but apparently there was a lose... wire in the main frame."
"A lose wire."
"Right! The alien tech attached to that portion of the server shorted out and so a good... 40... 9 percent of our operations weren't operating."
"So you haven't been operating for a week?"
"No, it was a progressive thing. The alien tech has a little issue with sentience. The whole thing got up and moved around the room, but the process took roughly 3 years. It took a week to put it back together." She raised her hands in surrender.
"Regardless, I'm happy to see you, Jack." She reached up and hugged him with a little less enthusiasm than before. "Now, tell me what you know about a man named Harry Dresden." Jack stopped and stared at her like she has sprouted another head.
"How do you know him?" the captain asked slowly.
"He's upstairs. He's been here for a week."
... A 3 foot pile of paperwork, and several hours later...
Something is different; that was the first thing that popped into my slowly clearing head. There was no scent of hospital soap in the air, and the bed had somehow acquired a metal cover while I was sleeping. Strangest of all was that Dr. Jones was not there; she was always talking quietly to someone or to herself as I came to, but that wasn't happening.
I don't think we're in London any more, Toto.
Great, I'm reduced to making Wizard of Oz references.
I tried to move my fingers and toes, check and check; my toes even felt like the were inside something other than socks. Which could be a good thing... may be. My arms and legs seemed to be functioning properly as well, along with my neck. One thing about coming out of a sedative like that is my head always pounds, so I knew not to move that around too much.
I groaned. The first thing they teach you at "So, you've been abducted" school is not to alert your captives to a change in your state if you were unconscious.
Umm... Oops?
"Hey cap! I think he's coming 'round." A voice near by. A familiar voice. I let my min...
I know that voice!
I tried to say something, but there was a pounding of feet and a subsequent pounding in my head and all desire to make noise ran for the hills.
"Good!" Now that was not a voice I knew. "Maybe now we can ask the giant man why my instruments are failing."
"Yes, Doc. Let's ask the man who has been under sedation for a week why your equipment isn't up to par. Great idea."
I definitely knew that voice. From behind my eyelids, I saw lights blink on. Bright lights, the kind that I wanted to hex for the hell of it. I raise my arm, feeling it drag IV tubes and wires with it to cover my eyes. A large, gentle hand caught my wrist.
"Whoa there, partner. I'll just switch those off." And the lights were gone. I nodded, kind of, in thanks. I tried to say something, but words never made it past my parched tongue. And like magic, a straw appeared at the corner of my mouth. I drank, slowly, and waited before a rough thank you came out.
"You're welcome." This voice was just as gentle as the hand that caught me, and the guy was obviously American. "Give yourself a minute or two to kick the rest of the sedative out of your system." I nodded a little more firmly this time and drank more water. "I'm Jack, by the way, Captain Jack Harkness."
"Harry," I croaked.
"Oh, we know who you are." That was the first female I had heard. She sounded far away, or maybe behind something, but definitely female. "Your friend made sure of that." I screwed up my face a little, and must have gotten my confusion across. "The perverted one in the skull." So, Bob was here. I wonder how that happened...
"You just relax, big boy." Captain Jack put his hand on my shoulder. "We'll be here when you're ready to get up and start moving around."
I laid there a little longer listening to what what going on around me. The troll who had taken up residence in my skull was appeased by the lack of light, and was not terribly annoyed by the noises around me, so I let them flow through. The clack of fingers on a least two keyboards, the hiss and whir of an expensive sounding coffee maker, the hurried steps of four... no five people moving around a large space... What really caught me off guard was the screech of something that sounded vaguely reptilian, but huge and the sound of freely falling water.
Eventually I felt the drugs kick in, and the troll receded back in to the recesses of my mind that I didn't even want to venture to. I groaned, and everyone came a runnin'. There was a clatter as what sounded like bone hit a metal tray right by my head. "You would think that I was a bomber," I muttered.
"From what Bob has told us," responded Jack. "You very well could be, Technology is how we do business here, we can't have you blowing our operations to kingdom come, pal."
"Where exactly am I?" I cracked my eye at him for the first time.
"Harry Dresden," he said, looking me directly in the eye, "Welcome to Torchwood." I rolled my eye.
"Thank you?" I groaned.
"You're in the main base of Torchwood in the middle of Cardiff, Wales."
"Come again, Bob. I was in Lake Michigan, then I was in London, and now you're telling me that I'm in Cardiff?" I tried opening my eyes again. There was less of a reaction for the troll in my head, so I opened them all the way to find five people and a skull staring at me. That was an unnerving sight, to say the least.
Slowly, and with help, I managed to get myself into a sitting position. Apparently, without a doctor to monitor everything, coming out of sedation is hell. I was moved (Jack basically carried me, both of my legs were still asleep) to a well worn couch. Bob followed. We spent the better part of the rest of the day (I assume) sharing what happened. Apparently, my duffle bag fell through something called a Rift into a dimension not my own. According to Bob, it's nothing like the NeverNever, though I've never seen a fricking pterodactyl in my reality.
"Aliens? As if my life wasn't complicated enough already." I slumped further into the cushions. This was the kind of couch I had in my apartm… "So, what are we talking about here, Bob? Little green men with big ass eyes that want to probe me?"
"It's not like you're getting any action, you never know." I glared at the skull, and it was meant with a snort of acquiescence. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure they're aliens. From what I've seen, they could be trolls."
"You've seen them?"
I swear he nodded. "They have 'em in the basement."
"Most people have canned goods in the basement, not aliens. Granted I had…" I trailed off. "Who has aliens in the basement?" I said, a little too loud.
"We do, wanna see?" Jack had somehow snuck up on me. He offered me a hand up. I tested my legs and let him haul me off the couch. "Come on, I'll show you."
We went slowly. In one hand I had Bob, and I had the other on the wall to make sure I didn't fall over. There was something manly in me that forced me to decline Jack's offer to be a crutch. I learned quickly that stairs were the enemy, and they we had several flights of them to conquer. Needless to say, it was a long journey; almost worthy of Tolkein.
Our journey ended in a dank hall lined with Plexiglas walled cells. In each of them was a creature that looked so familiar, but in a twisted, mutated way. Not Ninja Turtle mutated, more enraged Hulk mutated only less green. I took a few steps closer to the nearest cell, placing my hand on the Plexiglas to steady myself.
"We call them Weevels." Jack was right behind me, nearly touching me. I looked a little longer, then the thing gave me a profile, and it hit me.
"This is a troll."