Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Torchwood'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.
A/N: Though I've reams of notes for later episodes, I didn't really have much for 'Day One'. So, though this won't always be the case, this episode isn't going to vary much from how it was aired, despite Jenny in Gwen's place. Ergo, I'm trying to focus more on the characters than the plot. You'll need to tell me how well I'm doing. (Note – this episode will encompass two chapters).
Synchronicity
Chapter Three: Whys
22 October, 2006
21:44
Jack leaned on the railing of the walkway that linked his office to the cobbled-together hothouse, watching his team working below. He'd told them to finish up their reports on what'd happened with Suzie, then head on home, but it appeared that none of them had taken the second half of his advice. Tosh was geeking out over Jenny's MPEA while the blonde attempted to describe how it worked. Owen was shamelessly eavesdropping while seemingly reading something-or-other on his computer. Ianto emerged from the kitchen, a fresh mug of something hot and steamy in his hands. He smirked a little, letting the boy's figure momentarily distract him from what he'd been forced to do to his Second. I'm certain that's a new suit. Tailored, too, unless I miss my guess.
"…draws energy from my Second Skin," Jenny's voice drifted up.
"And what's that?" Toshiko replied, fingers poised over her keyboard, taking notes.
Jack let the technobabble wash over him. It was both familiar and somewhat disconcerting – it strongly reminded him of the Doctor's more manic moments, when his enthusiasm was nearly palpable, but to hear it in Jenny's sweet voice was jarring. If he were completely honest, Jenny reminded him of Rose, too. That streak of stubborn's the same… though, to be fair, the Doctor was the most stubborn man I've ever met. But Jenny does it in style. Like Rose did. He sighed a little. How is it I still miss them? I miss the adventures, sure, but not as much as I used to, not since working here full-time. I miss Rose the most. His memory flashed back to receiving the list of the dead from the Battle of Canary Wharf, to reading Rose Tyler's name in stark black-and-white print. I shoulda tried harder to get there. I don't care that the rift didn't like what Hartman was doing in London – spiking violently every time those damn ghosts showed up. I shoulda let the team handle the spikes and gotten my ass to T1. Maybe I coulda saved you, Rosie.
"…account for the discrepancy in body weight? Everyone's weight fluctuates at least a tiny bit on a day-to-day basis, how does your Second Skin account for that?" Tosh asked over the noise of her typing.
Jack experienced yet another tiny stab of jealousy that Tosh could say one thing while typing or writing another – it was a skill he'd never been able to master. He tuned out Jenny's reply. Rose, I hope it was quick. I hope the Cybermen didn't get to you first. I don't think I could handle it if they'd 'upgraded' you first. I have to wonder what you'd think of Jenny. I can see bits of our Doctor in her, but she's definitely her own person. Hell, Rose – I wonder what you'd think of me now. So much time's passed. I've changed more than I thought I ever could. Some of that was because of you, you know. Maybe more than the Doctor's influence, though I have to admit he did have a hand in it. What is it about him that makes you want to be someone he'd say he was proud to know? Why does he make people want to be the best version possible of themselves? Or was it you? I used to be a scoundrel. I can admit it – hell, I was proud of it at the time. Then you showed up and simply wouldn't believe it. Wouldn't let me believe it anymore, either. A sad, small smile twitched the corners of his mouth and eyes. I might not understand how I wound up being what I am, Rosie, but I wouldn't trade our time on the TARDIS with the Doctor for anything.
"Oh, now you're just talking out your ass!" Owen's voice cut through the Hub like a knife. "Synthetic spider-silk? Come on! They've been trying to make that crap for decades."
"I never said I bought it here, now did I?" Jenny shot back. "I know the formula for making it, but I don't know how successful I can be in integrating the 'Skin's other functions with the current technology."
"Okay, it serves as, essentially, a giant battery for your computer. Bio-electricity," Tosh said, recapping what Jenny'd told her so far. "But what are these other 'features'?"
"Where'd you get it, then?" Owen asked, still flavoring his words with thinly-veiled scorn aimed at Jenny. "London?"
"How can you work here, of all places, dealing with aliens and things lost to time every fucking day and still manage be so small-minded I'd need a microscope to find it!" Jenny returned the volley.
Jack mentally applauded her. Someone needs to keep Owen on his toes. And who knows? Maybe her being here is what will finally get the Doctor to drop in for a visit. UNIT records indicate his race is telepathic with one another – maybe he'll be able to sense her and we can both get some answers. Owen had just opened his mouth to reply when a loud chime sounded, interrupting the brewing argument. Ianto stepped over to Suzie's – now Jenny's – workstation and checked the messages. "UNIT says they're tracking what seems to be a meteorite. Its path puts it down just east of town. They want to know if we'll check it out, or if they need to dispatch a team," Ianto said, his voice pitched to carry up to Jack.
"A meteorite?" Jack asked.
"Too small to be anything other than that or an escape pod, but UNIT scans of the neighborhood don't reveal any large ships in the vicinity, sir," Ianto replied. "The SUV is fully stocked, sir."
Jack thought about it for all of half a second. Nobody seems tired in the least. Simple recovery sounds like a good way to distract myself from Suzie… and Rose. "Okay, folks. Let's go see what piece of junk the universe is throwing at us this time."
Twenty minutes later, and Tosh, Owen, Jenny, and Jack were in the company car, Owen at the wheel, heading towards the meteorite's landing site. Tosh was working on the car's internal computer system. Jenny spent a couple of minutes poking around in it. "Don't see why you're so interested in my MPEA, Toshiko. You seem to be doing alright with your own gear," she commented, leaning back in her seat.
"Partially, it's the portability I'm jealous of," Tosh replied. "It would be inordinately handy to have all this," she nodded at the computer screens and keyboards and such, "fit in the palm of my hand."
"You got the location, yet?" Owen interrupted.
"Yes, about a hundred meters ahead, on the right."
A moment later, Owen parked the SUV with a muttered, "Shit." Jenny peered out the heavily-tinted window and spotted regular army personnel, as well as a handful of police and fire services crew, milling about outside a floodlit army tent. "The amateurs got here first," Owen bitched.
"Do you do anything but complain, Dr. Harper?" Jenny sweetly asked, then escaped any sort of snarky comeback by simple expedient of exiting the car.
Jack grinned. Definitely a keeper. "What're you grinning at, Jack?" Owen growled at him.
"Nothing much," Jack blithely replied, then climbed out of the SUV. Tosh and Owen quickly joined him and Jenny in gathering their field kit from the back. "Come on, then, people – usual formation," Jack ordered, striding towards the tent.
"What's the usual formation?" Jenny asked Tosh, as Owen grabbed his own kit and, grumbling under his breath, followed Jack.
"It varies," Tosh replied. "To be honest, I think he makes this stuff up half the time." She gave Jenny a quick smile, then picked up one of the cases and hurried after their boss.
Shaking her head a little, Jenny picked up the last case and caught up with Tosh as she reached the tent. They ducked inside in time to hear one of the soldiers say, "…through there, sir," to Jack. The soldier indicated the rear entrance of the tent.
Another soldier made a crack as Jenny walked past, "Looks like Torchwood's hiring them younger than ever, ain't they? Little girl like that can't have even passed her A-levels yet."
Jenny rolled her eyes. "You're just jealous I'm prettier than you are," she said, looking at the guy who'd spoken. "Then again, an anglerfish is prettier than you are. You must get slapped at pubs a lot." She spun on her heel and flounced after her team, the sound of the man's friends' laughter following her.
"Remind me to stay on your good side," Tosh quipped, setting her case of instruments down near the crashed meteorite.
This was definitely a good idea, Jack thought, smiling, though he wasn't sure himself whether he meant hiring Jenny or the recovery trip. "What do we know?"
Owen shrugged. "Bog-standard space debris," he said authoritatively. He looked at Jenny and added, "That's a technical term."
"Maybe in Owenland," Jenny countered. "In the real world, however, it looks more like either a basic meteorite, or possibly the escape pod from half a dozen different ships. The Sycorax, in particular, tend to favor ships that can hide in an asteroid belt and not raise any eyebrows, but they're not the only ones."
"So take all the readings and figure out which it is," Jack interrupted before they could erupt into an argument.
Jenny stood back and watched as the team worked on the giant rock. I wonder if it's always going to be like this? She couldn't dispute she'd quite liked the unpredictability of things so far. If I'm stuck here, there are far worse places to be stranded than working for Torchwood. Jenny's thoughts were inevitably interrupted by Owen. "Make yourself useful, sweetheart, and hand us the big chisel from the toolbox."
"Call me 'sweetheart' again and I'll break both your legs," Jenny stated, her tone completely and totally serious. She stooped down and picked up the chisel, then walked it over to the medic.
Owen took it with a casual, "Thanks, sweetcheeks."
"Alright, I have had it!" Jenny yelled, then sprang on Owen, intent to maim writ in fifty-foot letters all across her face.
The pair tumbled into the dirt, Owen losing the chisel in the process. Jack strolled over, evaluating the pair of them. Jenny fights like a wildcat, he noticed. And Owen could do with some more time in the gym. He winced in sympathy as Jenny managed to knee Owen in the groin. Can't say he didn't have it coming, but she fights dirty, doesn't she? He let Jenny continue humiliating Owen for a solid minute, then let out a shrill whistle.
The pair quit wrestling in the dirt and looked over at him. Jenny's hair-tie had gotten lost in the scuffle, and she had a smear of dirt across her nose, but Owen had the beginnings of a black eye and a trio of fingernail gouges along his left cheek. "Get this crazy bitch off me!" the doctor demanded, sounding both slightly panicked and more than a touch petulant.
"Enough you two," Jack calmly said, inclining his head to the soldiers watching through the open tent-flap. "Not in front of the peasants. Save it for when we get back home."
Jenny climbed off of Owen's chest and managed to look like nothing more than a queen rising from her throne. Owen, on the other hand, laid there for a moment, catching his breath, before sluggishly stumbling into a vertical posture. "She's not even breathing hard," he grumbled. "Not fair."
Jenny ignored him. Spotting her hair-tie, she scooped it up, and in less than twenty seconds looked just like she had on climbing out of the SUV, save for the streak of dirt across her nose. "Fair warning, Dr. Harper – if you call me anything but my name ever again, I'll add biting to the repertoire." She noticed the chisel, bent and grabbed it, then thrust it into the medic's hands.
"Jenny?" Jack called out her name and motioned for her to join him on the other side of the rock.
Grateful to put some distance between herself and Harper, Jenny joined him on Tosh's side of the meteor. "Jack?"
"Though I can understand the sentiment, please try to keep our medic in one piece in the future," Jack said quietly, smirking at her. The tap-tap-tap of Owen working underscored his comment.
"I don't promise anything," Jenny replied, keeping her own voice from carrying further than Jack. "But I'll try to keep from breaking any bones the next time he provokes me."
"You sound so sure it's going to happen again."
"Won't it?"
"You made quite an impression, Jenny, but I'll have a talk with him just to make sure it's stuck," Jack assured her, over the noise of Owen's chisel. "Now how about you have Tosh –"
"What the fuck!?" Owen's voice cut off what Jack had been about to say. A cloud of pink smoke or fog was pouring out of a crack in the rock. Jack moved faster than he thought possible, wrenching open one of the kits and tossing gas-masks to his team. For once, Owen managed to say precisely the right thing as the cloud sped off into the night, "Shit."
Five minutes later, and the team were packed back into the SUV, heading at a breakneck pace back to the Hub. Owen, for once, was keeping quiet while Jack drove. Tosh was focused on looking something up on the computer. Jenny had the box containing the chunk of the meteor Owen'd separated from the rest in her lap. Wriggling a little, she retrieved her MPEA from its holster, then slid the wireless 'wand' out of its compartment along the side of the palm-sized rectangular gadget. She opened the appropriate feature on the device, then ran the wand around the outside of the box of meteorite. A moment later, the scan results popped up on the screen. Nothing dangerous. She flicked the latches and opened the box, then repeated the same scan on the chunk of rock.
Tosh glanced over at her. "What are you doing?"
"Seeing what we've got," Jenny replied, focusing on her MPEA.
"And what is it?"
"Mostly alloys – I'm not familiar with this specific blend, though. Definitely manufactured, though." She looked up and glared through the computer screen and seat to the back of Owen's head. "So much for 'bog-standard space debris'."
"Let me see?" Tosh leaned to the side.
Jenny turned her MPEA so that Tosh could see the screen. "Do you recognize it?"
The screen displayed images of half a dozen molecular models, paired with small text in an unfamiliar language. Tosh frowned. "What language is that?"
Jenny glanced at the screen. "Sorry," she said, then tapped a few commands into the device. "Better?" she asked, turning it back so Tosh could read it.
"Much," Tosh replied, adjusting her glasses and peering at the small screen. "Iron, yttrium, osmium, titanium… Doesn't sound much like anything I've seen before, either. What about these?" she pointed to a secondary set of readings along the bottom of the screen.
"Not part of the shell of the ship," Jenny replied. "Those are traces – I'd guess it's from whatever it was that Owen let out."
"Vorax and suranium," Tosh read aloud. "Neither sound familiar."
"Can you trace them?" Jack asked, making a sharp left-hand turn.
"Maybe," Tosh allowed. "Have a few ideas," she said, typing furiously. "If I tweak the atmospheric reading program for our PDAs…" her words trailed off as she matched actions to ideas.
A couple of minutes later, Jack pulled the SUV into its parking place and everyone piled out. He took the case containing the shell fragment of the 'ship' and led the way down into the Hub. "So," he said on reaching the main floor. "Not quite the simple retrieval I'd pictured." He sat the case he was carrying down on the nearest workbench. Tosh maneuvered around him and went back to whatever programming adjustments she'd conceived of while still in the car.
Ianto joined the group milling around the area behind their resident technology genius. "It didn't go well, I take it?" he asked, eyeing Owen's black eye.
Jack shrugged, "When does it ever?" He flipped the latch on the case. "On the upside, we've got some decent evidence."
"What happened?" Ianto asked, gaze flickering to the rock.
Jenny rolled her eyes. "Oh, just Dr. Gormless over there," she flung an accusatory arm at Owen, "released a cloud of potentially toxic gas from the rock or ship or pod or whatever-it-is."
"I was doing my job!" Owen defensively ground out. "Some of us don't have the luxury of just standing about, looking pretty!"
"Owen," Jack warned.
"Oh, come off it, Captain!" Owen was in full rant-mode. "Just 'cause you'll shag anyone who'll stand still long enough is no reason to bloody hire Miss Jailbait here!"
Jenny growled and was just about to spring on Owen again when Jack stepped between them. "Neutral corners! Owen, I hired Jenny because I thought she'd be an asset to the team. You can hardly expect her to know what she's doing on her first day. And Jenny, lay off Owen. Any one of us could have wound up releasing that gas." Meeting first Owen's, then Jenny's eyes, he waited until they backed down. "Okay, then – Tosh, how're you coming on that upgrade?"
"Nearly done," she said, returning her attention to her keyboard.
"Ianto, has anything come through the system that might be related?" Jack turned to their resident dogsbody.
"I'll check," Ianto replied, stepping over to a spare computer. A couple of moments later, he nodded. "Yes – there's been a death at a nightclub phoned in to 999. Circumstances sound a little unusual."
"Send the address to the GPS in the SUV," Jack ordered. "Tosh?"
Hitting a few final keystrokes, she smiled triumphantly. "Done."
"Good," Jack grinned. "You're with me. Owen, you start analysis on that rock. Ianto, you show Jenny around, maybe give her a rundown on the regs." As Tosh finished transferring the updated program to her custom PDA, Jack leaned to whisper in Ianto's ear, "Keep them from killing each other. Stun guns might be necessary."
The faintest hint of a smirk twisted Ianto's expression. "Certainly, sir."
Ten minutes later, and Jack was following the GPS instructions towards the nightclub. Tosh finished double-checking that her PDA was set and ready to go, then tucked it into her coat pocket. "Jack?"
"Yeah?" Jack distractedly hit the toggle switch that 'coerced' the traffic lights to turn green as they approached.
"Why did you hire Jenny? Don't get me wrong, she's a sweet girl, and probably smarter than I am, but she's…"
Jack resisted the urge to sigh. "Like I said, Toshiko – I think she'd be good for the team. Was working for the Cardiff police until today, well, yesterday."
Tosh couldn't keep the surprise off her face. "Really? She seems too young for that."
Jack just shrugged. "Look her up if it'll make you feel any better." Because I really can't say 'she's older than she looks' because that's not strictly accurate, is it? And even with everything Tosh's seen, I don't think she'd quite grasp the intricacies of a force-grown 'clone'. Oh, come on – you know she could grasp it. You just don't want to take the time right now to explain it. Besides, explain Jenny and you're gonna wind up having to explain your own situation, aren't you? Then again, it's been years and none of them have bothered looking me up in the archives. Thank all the gods that are or ever were for that. Shoulda gone through and deleted myself from the archives before hiring Suzie… Hell, what am I supposed to do about you, Suzie?
The GPS beeped, dragging his attention back to the task at hand. Jack parked the car and, with Tosh at his side, marched up to the yellow tape barring entry to the nightclub. "Torchwood," he invoked, letting himself past the lanky redheaded PC.
Moments later, and he and Tosh were shown in to the ladies' WC. A small pile of dust marred the otherwise surprisingly-clean floor. Tosh immediately knelt and scanned the pile with her newly-upgraded PDA. "This is all that's left?" she asked, addressing the club's manager.
The man nodded. "How's that possible?"
Jack let out a small huff. "No, the question is – how do you know this used to be a body?"
The manager jerked a thumb to the CCTV camera in the corner. "Bit of a shock, I tell you," he said, a hint of embarrassment coloring his face, though he still seemed more stunned than anything else.
"We're gonna need to see the tape," Jack said.
Back at the Hub, Ianto was just finishing up showing Jenny around when his mobile rang. "Yes?" he answered it quickly, then listened for only a moment before saying, "Understood, sir." He closed the phone and returned it to his pocket. "Come along, Miss Thomas. You're about to get a crash-course in mopping up."
"Told you to call me Jenny," the blonde replied, hurrying to keep up as the suit-bedecked Welshman headed into Jack's office and turned on the computer. He hooked an earpiece around his ear while he waited for it to boot up. A couple of seconds passed, then the machine chimed. Ianto watched the screen for what felt like an eternity before hitting some keys. The printer in the corner whirred to life. Jenny walked over and picked up the printout. It was a still from a security camera of a guy in his early twenties. "Who's this, then?" she asked, handing the photo to Ianto.
"Who we're mopping up," Ianto explained.
"So that gas – it killed someone?" Though Ianto didn't look like he was hurrying in the slightest, Jenny had to jog slightly to keep up as he headed out of the office.
"That is a safe assumption, yes," Ianto distractedly replied.
They paused outside a pair of double-doors as Ianto swiped his keycard. Jenny did as she'd been doing for most of the last hour and simply followed, though once she was in the room proper, she had to stop and stare. The room wasn't very big in floor-space, but the circular area projected upwards to what, she estimated, was only a couple of feet below street level outside. The walls were nothing more than row upon row of small square doors. "Is this a morgue?" she asked.
Ianto nodded, grabbing a clipboard from a peg next to the door and began flipping through the sheaf of papers it contained. "Yes. Human only. The alien morgue is beneath us." He ran a finger under a line of text. "Ah, here we are. Drawer 214."
Jenny actually managed to feel somewhat useful in helping Ianto roll a set of stairs over to the proper place. He turned down her offer of assistance on carrying the body, however. "It's easier just to do it myself, Miss Thomas. This won't be the first body I've retrieved."
"Told you, it's Jenny," she said, backing away from the base of the stairs. She watched as Ianto pulled open the door marked '214', then slid the drawer out far enough to unzip the bag. He held the photo up to the body and nodded. Tucking the photo into the bag, he re-zipped it, then manhandled the corpse into a fireman's carry.
As he carefully descended the stairs, he said, "Do you see that control box over by the door?"
Jenny glanced over and spotted a grimy yellow box sporting a handful of grimy buttons. "Yes. What do you need me to do?"
"It's the controls for the hoist. Press the down-arrow."
She followed his instructions, and a metal stretcher descended on steel cable from the ceiling. She let up off of the button when it was at roughly table-height from the floor. "Now what?" she asked.
"Hold it steady for me." Ianto deposited the body bag on its surface, then grabbed one of the cables attached to its corners.
A few minutes later, and they'd gotten the body into what Ianto claimed as his 'prep room'. She watched as he donned a protective plastic apron, then set about artistically demolishing the body's face, obscuring the minor points that made it different from the face in the photograph. "Is this your job, then?" she asked, jumping into a seat on a spare bit of counter. "You're the 'mop up' guy?"
Ianto let out a vaguely amused noise. "It certainly feels that way."
"Sorry for being blunt, but that sounds like a shit job," Jenny said. "How come you landed with it?"
Ianto looked up at her. "I would imagine that Captain Harkness simply doesn't trust me to handle anything else. Either that, or he simply doesn't know what to do with me."
"How's that?" Jenny asked, purposefully using a tone of voice that she knew made her seem childishly sweet.
"I was a junior researcher at Torchwood London before it fell," Ianto explained, sounding like he was reading a particularly uninteresting history text than recounting his own past. "Afterwards… Well, Harkness didn't particularly want me. He never trusted Torchwood One. I would imagine that distrust extended even to those of us who had simply viewed it as a job."
"How'd you wind up here, then?" Jenny kept up the 'innocently interested' tone.
A humorless smile flashed across his face fast enough Jenny wasn't entirely sure she'd seen it. "I stalked him into hiring me."
The way he said it was enough to tell Jenny two things: Firstly, that there was definitely more to the story. Secondly, that the subject was now closed. She frowned a little, then obliged him by changing the subject. Sliding off the counter, she picked up the photo. "This the death you said was phoned in to emergency?"
Ianto nodded. "Yes."
"And what happened to his body? Why," she gestured to the man Ianto was working on, "him?"
"The video Tosh forwarded indicates the gas released was an alien entity. It's either taken a human form or a host and managed to render the man in the photo into a pile of dust," Ianto said, setting aside the chisel he'd been using on the corpse's chin. He picked up a pair of pliers.
And since they're still stuck on trying to hide alien existence, they can't really come right out and tell the guy's family what happened to him. Jenny looked from the photo to the corpse and back. "Question."
"Yes?" Ianto sounded slightly put-out.
"How can you be sure this body will wind up being identified as the guy in the photo? Won't they do blood tests? What if the guy from the night club had tattoos you can't see in the video?"
Ianto shrugged. "A mild dose of retcon can ensure it," he said, using the pliers to systematically remove the corpse's teeth. "But it's never been a problem in the past."
"So this happens often, does it?" Jenny wondered just how many bodies out there had been forcibly misidentified thanks to Torchwood. Am I still sure this is the best way to go about getting back to when I belong?
"Yes," Ianto said, pulling another tooth. He worked in silence for a bit, then set his tools down. "That ought to do it," he said, stepping back from the table."
Jenny looked. The corpse now looked like the man from the photo – albeit after having plowed face-first into a slab of concrete. She grimaced. "I honestly don't know if 'good job' really applies to something so nauseating."
That actually managed to get the rather stoic Welshman to smile at her. Granted, it wasn't a particularly large nor bright smile, but it was still an honest expression. "I believe I know what you mean… Jenny."
"What next?" she asked, returning his smile with one of her own.
A/N2: The animosity between Jenny and Owen sorta came right out of left field. It wasn't my intention, and it actually surprised me. Though most times, I hate it when the characters run away with the story, I kinda like it in this case. How about y'all? Whacha think? Should they continue on with the bickering, or should they manage to calm it down and learn how to get along?
Kindly let me know what y'all think. Thanks in advance.