Jack exhaled loudly as if deep in thought, and swiveled his chair around to face his two guests. Rose was sat on the other side of his desk in an identical chair wearing a smile that showed without a doubt just how happy she was to see him again. The Doctor stood behind her, a look of mild annoyance apparent on his face. He had managed to convince the rest of Torchwood to stay downstairs and help clean up the mess the TARDIS had made of Gwen's desk and the workspace around it, leaving him and them alone finally. Which was very good as far as Jack was concerned; he had been getting annoyed at Gwen's persistent, bitchy questions, and he had stuff he wanted to ask the Doctor himself.
"So what do I have to thank for this unexpected visit?" Jack asked, moving his gaze towards the Doctor as he said it. He knew that even if he had addressed the question specifically to Rose, the Doctor would probably have answered him anyway. He seemed to have a bad habit of needing to prove his brilliance whenever possible, and of liking to hear himself talk.
"Aw, well, that's quite simple..." the Doctor said, trailing off towards the end as if he almost didn't want to finish his sentence at all. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other in the closest sign to an admittance of embarrassment as he was likely to ever give anyone. "We just sorta crashed." He said this last part almost too bluntly, as if wanting to admit to himself and his captive audience that the whole affair was no big deal at all.
Jack couldn't help chuckling a little when he heard this. The Doctor always liked to assert that he was in control of the situations he found himself in, and with the way he almost effortlessly came up with ingenious ways to get out of them, it was hard to argue with him on that point. So Jack found it quite amusing that he so obviously had no clue what was going on. Then again, it was probably just because that highly self-assured side of the Doctor reminded Jack in so many ways of himself. He often wondered if it was a characteristic common of people in a leadership position to pretend like they always knew exactly what was going on, even if he only did it to try to reassure the others.
Rose smiled a little back, but the Doctor's face contorted into a serious stare. "Haha, its very funny, only not really." His voice quickly lost its usually cheerful quality. "You see, the TARDIS just suddenly lost power. I've never seen anything like it. Which is saying a lot; after 903 years, I thought I'd finally seen everything. The thing is though, with the cause unknown to me, we may or may not have an immediate problem on our hands." He sounded genuinely overwhelmed, which was more than a little disconcerting to Jack.
*
Gwen just stood, flabbergasted, staring wide-eyed at the blue box (what had the Doctor called it, a TARDIS?) that now stood in the place of her desk. She supposed she should be grateful that it was mostly just paperwork that was now irretrievably stuck underneath it, although she had the funny feeling that she might have put her cell phone on the corner of her desk earlier, in which case it was now not even worth the effort of finding.
Tosh and Owen were slowly sorting out the papers that had flown off of the stacks on their desks and were now scattered across the floor, and Ianto had run off, presumably to get them all cups of coffee. It seemed as if they were trying their hardest to avoid her, but its not like she could blame them. She had just gone completely bezerk on Jack, and she was definitely still not in the best mood.
It was quite infuriating how Jack kept so much about his own life as well as Torchwood hidden away from them all. After all they knew about the Doctor, it was almost inconceivable to think that the one detail Jack had declined to mention was that the two of them were personal friends! However, Gwen was quickly interrupted from this train of thought as Owen broke the awkward silence by stating an idea she was sure she would have gotten to soon anyway.
"So, what do you guys think of this "Doctor" character anyway? I mean, can we trust him?" He stopped sorting paperwork as he said this, turning around to look first at Tosh, and then Gwen. She had also turned around by this point, although she was moderately certain that she was still giving Owen that same dumbfounded stare she had been directing toward the "TARDIS" a second earlier.
"Well, he is Jack's friend... " Tosh, always one to try to avoid and prevent arguments, replied. However, she said it so softly that the thought carried a very unconvincing tone. It was obvious none of them knew what to make of their unexpected visitors.
"That he never told us a thing about!" Gwen interjected, her voice once again coming out loud and angry. She couldn't help it, the idea of some alien they knew next to nothing about marching around their home away from home, and wrecking her stuff, just because he was "Jack's friend" was more than mildly annoying to her. It was just plain irritating to be honest! "He left before with this man, what if he does it again?" From the look in Tosh and Owen's eyes, she could tell that in that last short sentence she had summed up what was really bugging all three of them.
"Would that really be so bad?" Owen said in such a dry and hollow tone as to have the effect of implying the exact opposite.
"Don't even say that. You know it would," Ianto replied sadly, reappearing at that moment with a tray of coffee mugs. He handed one to each of the three of them, and then took the last for himself. He then took a long sip from the cup as if just the idea of Jack leaving made him need the comfort it provided.
They took that moment to just stand there, each in their own thoughts, but taking comfort in each other's presence. They really were more than just a team; They were each other's family.
[Danny]
