There was another flash, this time with the old man who had held the door open for them in the middle. Jack was confused, but turned to the camera anyway. As soon as the pictures were taken, Jack moved to get going. First the woman, and now this. He needed to be back in the Hub. "I should be heading off…"
The other Jack Harkness, who Jack liked to think of as Captain Jack, looked crestfallen. "But I didn't catch your names."
Think fast, Jack, this is important. Tosh was quicker and let her name fall out. "Toshiko Sato."
Must remember to get her a raise after this…"I'm Captain James Harper. 71st."
Captain Jack was visibly impressed. "71st? That's where I am hoping to be posted next. What's your poison?"
He started for the bar, but Jack stopped him. "Maybe later. My friend and I were in the middle of something."
With something akin to regret, Captain Jack walked away. "Sure."
He was scarcely out of earshot when Tosh, who was close on Jack's heels, began asking questions. "Why does that man have your name?"
Jack stared straight ahead. There had to be a reason for this. In all his years of travel with the Doctor, the one thing he learned was that everything happened for a reason. There were no such thing as accidents. Something (or someone) had brought him to this precise point in time for a damn good reason, and he intended to find out why.
"I'm lost enough here without you holding back on me!" The tone of her voice was not like the Tosh he knew back at the Hub. There was a renewed energy that made her seem almost dangerous.
He stopped then and turned slowly. Best to tell her the truth – some of it at any rate. "It's not my name. It's his. I took his. But – I didn't realize he was…so hot!" He laughed to himself a bit, knowing it would get a response.
"Jack!" Tosh scolded like she was his mother. Like someone else who was just playing on the edge of his memory, trying to come through.
He shook it all from his mind. "I know too much."
"Then, share."
His face suddenly went more serious than she had ever seen him. "You wouldn't want that. Trust me."
Toshiko was left to stare at her boss. She was at a loss for words. How could he keep so much to himself?
"We have to get back," Jack reminded her. "What's in here?"
Tosh realized he was pointing at her laptop and answered. "I've got half the equation in here. The other half is back at the Hub. If I can find some way of getting these figures back to base, then they can combine them, open the rift and bring us back through."
Deciding that was the best idea yet, Jack took her hand and led her down the hall. "Come on."
Jack spotted a room that looked empty and ushered Tosh inside. He looked around as Tosh hurried to scribble down the rest of the equation. The caretaker and owner of the office startled them just as she finished. After a few exchanged pleasantries, they left his office, Tosh feeling a little more than creeped out by the man.
The couple went down the stairs, Toshiko stopping Jack at the first landing to talk to him. "Pearl Harbor, Jack…"
He could barely hear her as he watched Captain Jack just a few feet away, smoking a cigarette. He resisted the urge to span the space between them and slap it away from him. He wasn't sure where that was coming from and it bothered him to no end. "Doesn't happen to the end of the year."
He was flustering Toshiko. "Granddad stayed in London, but he was persecuted. If I stay stuck here, what will happen to me?"
What was it about this man that was holding Jack so rapt? It was more than a sexual attraction – there was something else there, something in the pit of his stomach, and memory that he felt he should be able to pinpoint but still found just out of reach. He tore his eyes away to answer her in barely a whisper, "I'll take care of you."
It was a promise he made easily. A promise he would not ever break again. He had gotten her into this situation and he would damn sure be the one to make the best of it for her. If he could just remember where he had seen the man's face. If he could figure out why he felt he needed to talk to him so badly. He was still watching from above as Tosh changed the mood.
"This period, you look like you fit in. Have you been here before?" Such an innocent question, but so loaded at the same time.
How do you explain to someone that you want to tell everything to, yet keep everything from? Jack drew in a breath and began to speak before his senses caught up with him. "Yeah. I can't explain, but I served in the war in 1941." That was right! That must have been where he had seen the woman! "I was undercover. I needed a false identity, so I took…" Jack motioned with his chin to the man below, "his name."
Going out on a limb, Tosh asked, "Who were you before you took his name?" She watched Jack's face fall – as if he were lost in a memory. "Why him?"
Not moving his eyes, Jack answered her simply. "It was convenient."
Realizing what he has just said to her, she continued. "But if you chose his identity to steal then he…"
"Dies…" Jack's voice had more than a little pang of regret in it. It was one thing to take a man's name, but quite another to watch the man walk below you and know that he is going to be gone soon and knowing you can do nothing to change that. "In battle."
"When?" She didn't really want to know, but she had to ask, for Jack's sake.
"Tomorrow."