Atonement

by Soledad

Author's notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

Remember, this is a very different Jeannie McKay than the canon one we got to see in Stargate: Atlantis. Same family, different career choices.

My heartfelt thanks to Linda Hoyland for taking a look at certain problematic parts of this chapter.

Warning: some canonically disgusting image near the end of the chapter!

Chapter 06 – A Day in the Hub, Part 2

Jeannie McKay was a bright light hidden under a bushel; had been all her life. Not because she'd have chosen to be but because she was never given any other chance. Having grown up in the shadow of a brilliant, abrasive, socially inept brother who demanded – and promptly got – everyone's attention focused on him, could do that to a person.

That she was born with a genius-level intelligence and put her gift to good use from a very early age didn't count. Rodney had always been just a smidgeon better – and definitely much, much louder. Loud, brilliant, demanding and always getting his way.

Starting off as a shy child, Jeannie had grown into an introverted young woman – not because it was her true nature but because she never had had any other chance. She'd also fought bouts of depression – rather successfully and without any outside help until Canary Wharf – from roughly the age of ten. What would she need a shrink for? She was a genius, she could do the most complicated calculations in her head without even paper and a pencil; science gave her ample opportunities to occupy her mind.

She hadn't become suicidal until her mid-twenties. Until her brother suddenly decided that science was dull, just like his first name, and left to become a world famous concert pianist. He succeeded, of course. He had the talent and the strength of will to excel in whatever he put his mind to.

He switched to using his middle name, and Meredith McKay became the enfant terrible of his generation of talented young musicians. Their parents were shocked and excited about it at the same time. The fact that Jeannie had achieved two different scientific degrees in the meantime went completely unnoticed.

That was when she thought of dying for the first time. Eyeing high rooftops and corrosive chemicals in the kitchen. Flirting with her granddad's cutthroat razor, kept in the bathroom for nostalgic reasons.

No-one ever learned about it, since her flirting with death never actually escalated into self-harm. No-one ever noticed her slow but steady downward slide into darkness. Her parents were too busy with Rodney's – Meredith's – fame. Her brother was totally preoccupied with himself, as usual and her friends… she never really had any. Just people who faked interest as long as they got some advantage through being associated with her – and then dropped her like a hot potato.

The chance to leave all that behind and go to London to work for the government – or so she'd thought back then – came like the last straw for a drowning woman. Caleb was more than willing to cross the pond with her; they'd just married and she was pregnant with Madison, so a separation was out of the question. She liked her work at Torchwood One, it was finally a true challenge, and Caleb was more than happy to play nanny housekeeper for their little daughter. It wasn't so as if he'd have much of a chance to get any other work. The locals had enough English majors of their own; ones that actually spoke their own version of English.

For the first time ever, her life seemed to be on the right path. She should have known it wouldn't last. Good things never did.

She'd just never expected things to go to hell in such a spectacular way.

And yet now, years after Canary Wharf, she was slowly getting back to her feet again. The depression was still there, like a constant, dull ache. It never really left and flared up unexpectedly at the slightest, most ridiculous stimuli. By the layout of a familiar website changing, for example, that made her feel like a complete failure again, until she figured out how to use the re-organized features… and lasted long afterwards.

And then there was the PTSD. She still dreamed of the rotating blades descending towards her, unstoppably. She could feel the searing pain of the impact in her shoulder and woke up with her throat raw from screaming and cold sweat covering her entire body.

And she missed her little daughter terribly. How could Caleb be so cruel? How could he take Madison with him and leave her behind? Small wonder that she couldn't deal with the additional shock and broke down in the middle of an important test, endangering the entire lab and all her colleagues. That cost her the job at UNIT, and all her income, save for the compensation granted to all Canary Wharf survivors.

But she was getting better, slowly, baby step by baby step. Ianto was looking after her and Trevor and Toshiko did their best to cheer her up and Doctor Fox – no, Emilia – was a great help. She liked to work for Torchwood Three, menial though her task was at the moment. She knew that if she made suitable progress, she'd be given more important things to do. She'd be allowed to do true research again.

Ianto had promised, and Ianto always kept his promises. Besides, he was the Torchwood director now, he could make it happen.

She glanced at her wrist watch: it was 11:40. By now, Ianto would have finished physio and had his weekly meeting with Emilia. They would go to the Hub, soon. She was looking forward to it. Work was good, and she'd grown to like her new colleagues, especially Jenny. Under that tough soldier girl exterior Jenny had the peculiar innocence of a young child, despite the memories she carried. She made Jeannie miss Madison just a little less.

Her mobile phone beeped, signalling the incoming text message. It was from Owen.

Teaboy's ready to go. Don't dawdle. O. – it said.

Jeannie smiled. Unlike most people, she found the abrasive manners of Owen Harper refreshing. She was sick and tired of people walking on eggshells around her. She might be broken, but she wasn't made of glass.

She looked around to check if she'd forgotten anything. She had a slight tendency to become anal retentive, which was probably one of the reasons why she got on with Ianto so well. Finding everything in proper order, she grabbed her bag and her laptop case and hurried down to the foyer, where Ianto and Owen were already waiting.

They all got into Dr. Fox' car who drove them back to the Hub. On their way Ianto gave the therapist a brief summary of Adam's story and how he'd ended up several years back in his own past. He made no secret of the fact that he didn't really trust the young man and explained the security measures taken in order to monitor him all the time.

"I doubt that he'd try anything in the next couple of weeks," he added. "I expect him to bid his time; try to lure us into a feeling of false safety. Then, when he thinks that our vigilance has begun to slip, he'll make his move."

"Why are you so sure about that?" Dr. Fox asked.

Ianto gave her a bland smile. "That's what I'd do," he answered simply.

"Yeah, but you're a sneaky bastard," Owen said.

"And he's a certified computer genius," Ianto reminded him. "To underestimate him would be a serious mistake. He may not be able to outsmart Mainframe, but that doesn't mean he couldn't find other opportunities. In fact, he does look like somebody with a very keen eye for opportunity."

"You mean he's greedy and corrupt?" Owen grinned.

Ianto shrugged. "He'd hardly be here otherwise, would he? But who am I to judge him? My reasons to join the Cardiff branch weren't purely altruistic, either, so I'm willing to give him a second chance – if for no other reason than because the Doctor wouldn't. What he makes of it is his choice.

"Does he really have a cybernetic implant in his head?" Jeannie asked, shivering. Ianto shook his head.

"No. He has a cranial interface that enables him to directly download information from computers. Nothing more, nothing less."

"'Cept that it opens up his head in the process, so that you can see his brain through a hole," Owen commented.

"Shut up, Owen!" Ianto hissed angrily, giving Jeannie a concerned glance. She turned a little green as if she was about to get sick. "Jesus, you're such a twat sometimes!"

Owen pulled in his neck. "Sorry. Didn't mean to."

"But you didn't think, either, did you?" Ianto returned. Then he squeezed Jeannie's hand gently. "Don't worry. He'll be working with Tosh in the main Hub; you won't even get to see him most of the time. If you do, just remember not to click your finger around him and you'll be all right. He isn't so eager to show off that thing, fortunately."

"'Specially as too much usage would fry his brain," Owen muttered.

"Can't we remove the implant?" Jeannie asked, her scientific interest piqued.

Owen shook his head. "'Fraid not. The technology – apparently, it's called picosurgery, whatever that's supposed to be – won't exits until two hundred thousand years in the future, give or take a millennium."

"That's sad," Jeannie said. "I mean, it was stupid of him to gave the thing installed in the first place, but it's always so with boys and shiny new toys. No-one's deserved to lead the life of a pariah for one mistake, no matter how stupid. I mean, he hasn't got anyone killed, has he?"

"No," Ianto admitted, "but that could change, should he fall into the hands of UNIT or MI5 or any other such organization. Like it or not, we must keep him on a very short leash until he can be reintegrated into his own timeline. Luckily, 2013 isn't so far away,"

"Far enough if we'll have to watch him all the time," Owen commented sourly. "I still think a cell next to Janet's would be a better solution."

"If I were you I wouldn't say something like that within Tosh's earshot," Ianto warned. "We're not UNIT and I certainly don't intend to copy their methods. Now, Doctor Fox, if you could just let me out on the Plass I would be grateful. Somehow I don't feel like crawling along all those tunnels right after physio."

Adam spent the entire morning shift at his desk, checking a colourful mix of extraterrestrial artefacts that had been unceremoniously dumped next to said desk in big crates with the digital database. So far he hadn't found anything that hadn't already been catalogued… or could be in any way useful, save for Andy's alien toaster.

Basically, it was a big heap of alien junk.

"A lot of what we find usually is," Toshiko dismissed his complains with a shrug. "Which is why we've begun to sort out the physical Archives. But from time to time we come across something really big – and then it usually ends badly."

"Why that?" Adam was bewildered. He thought finding something big was a good thing. Mr Van Statten certainly thought so.

"Because our world isn't ready to deal with technology hundreds or thousands of years ahead of us," Toshiko replied grimly. "Haven't you learned anything from your encounter with the Dalek? Can't you imagine what a doomsday weapon from the future – or alien technology that would enable us to build one – could do in the hands of terrorists? Or even in the hands of our own, potentially trigger-happy military?"

"Well… I never thought about it that way," Adam confessed sheepishly.

"Then you should perhaps begin to grow up and think about it," she said, returning to her own work.

And for the rest of the morning Adam did think about that indeed, realising for the first time that by all his wealth and genius, Mr Van Statten was just a clueless amateur who was endangering the whole planet, right at the moment. In fact, his own younger self was busily helping the man with building up the catastrophe that would occur in 2012. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

At least the people at Torchwood were professionals who knew they were dealing with potentially dangerous stuff. Well, this bunch appeared to. If he remembered correctly, the London branch had screwed up monumentally, to.

Around 10 a.m. they had a break and were served coffee and scones by an elegant black woman the others called Beth. She apparently ran the cover shop – some kind of tourist information shack that hid the other entrance of the Hub – and helped to file moderately confidential stuff. She was chatting with Emma amiably enough, and Adam figured out from their conversation that she was married and her husband, some bloke named Mike, had been a colleague of Rhys, before Rhys would come to work for Torchwood.

Captain Harkness and Jenny were markedly absent all morning. Adam remembered Emma saying something at breakfast about them working on Jenny's ship and was dying to learn what sort of ship that might be.

"A rather wrecked one," Toshiko replied when he finally brought up the courage to ask. "We're trying to patch it together again, but even a spaceship of Raxacoricofallapatorian design gets battered if shot at by high-energy laser weapons."

For a moment Adam was absolutely speechless. He opened and closed his mouth several time, painfully aware of the impression he must be making: that of a dumbfounded goldfish.

"A spaceship?" he finally creaked in an embarrassingly high-pitched voice. "She's got an alien spaceship?"

Toshiko shrugged. "Well, she's an alien, after all."

Had she suddenly grown a second head it couldn't have shocked Adam more. "A-an alien? She's a bloody alien?"

Toshiko shrugged again. "As I said, all sorts of things – and people – fall through the Rift. And not all aliens look like the little green men from those silly 1950s American films. You should know best; you used to travel with one yourself."

"But-but she looks so normal!" Adam protested. "Like any other girl next door. Sure, she's a soldier, a blind man could see that. But aside from the military stance…"

"And yet she comes from such a far corner of our universe that not even our databases have anything about the place… not yet anyway," Toshiko replied. "That's the Rift for you. Our end of it is fixed here, under Cardiff – the other one jumps around erratically in space and time. That's why it has to be watched continually."

"Can't you simply close it altogether?" Adam asked. "I would save you a shitload of pain."

"I wish we could," Toshiko sighed, "but that would be a task beyond even the Doctor's abilities. It's a natural phenomenon; and while we may have a very small measure of control through the Rift Manipulator, which also helps us predict activity along the Rift, we can't close it any more than we could, say, stop a hurricane. It's both unpredictable and highly volatile."

Adam frowned at that. "But doesn't that mean that we – this entire base, your whole team – are sitting atop a ticking bomb?"

"Oh, yes, it does," Toshiko answered seriously. "But, unlike other people, we are at least aware of that fact."

"What do you mean other people?" Adam asked.

"The Rift can take you from anywhere – or anywhen," Toshiko explained. "Look at Emma: she boarded a plane in Bristol, back in the 1950s, and an hour or so alter she landed in Cardiff, two years ago. She managed to fit in; her travelling companions didn't. One committed suicide, the other one, the pilot, fled through the Rift, God only knows where."

She paused, allowing the information to sink in and the shock to settle a bit before continuing. "So, you see, you ain't the only temporally displaced person here. Luckily for you, at least you only have to wait a few years for a fix. Emma is trapped here for good, as we can't change the past."

For the second time in just a few minutes Adam was completely baffled. That the Torchwood director's prim and proper little secretary had made an accidental jump of half a century in time was too weird to believe. And yet it explained a lot about her somewhat stilted behaviour and occasionally outdated speech patterns. Of course she would sound strange if she mentally still lived in the 1950s!

"She seems to have adapted to our time well enough, though," he said, remembering with such practiced ease Emma had handled the alien-enhanced PDA and other high-tech gizmos during his interview.

Toshiko nodded. "She and Rhys were made for each other. She couldn't have fit in without Rhys, and Rhys wouldn't get over his ex half so fast without her – and they take care of us as if we were their kids, not their colleagues."

"Which she could be, age-wise, had she not fallen through that Rift of yours," Adam said thoughtfully. "This is… really weird."

"This is Torchwood," Toshiko replied. "Weird doesn't even begin to describe it," she glanced up at the direction of the cog door as the alarm klaxons started blaring and the orange lights blinking. "Oh, I see Mickey's back to feed the menagerie."

Adam blinked in surprise. "You've got animals down here?"

"Not exactly; but not every alien is friendly or harmless… or particularly sentient," Toshiko explained. "Those who are clearly non-sentient and don't represent a threat – like those spidery mouse things Jack hates so much – we pass on to an alien zoo, run by an old acquaintance of us. For friendly sentients we find places where they can blend in, or at least hide safely. But there are some that are hostile or dangerous – those we simply keep here. Either in cryogenic suspension or in the cells."

"Why don't you simply kill them?" Adam asked.

"Sometimes we do," Toshiko admitted. "If there's no other chance; when it's clear that they've come with the express intention to harm us. But if they ended up here by accident, like the Weevils…" she shrugged.

"The Weevils?" Adam repeated, frowning.

"Well, that's how we call them," Toshiko said. "We don't know what they call themselves… we ain't even sure that they can actually speak at all," she called over to Mickey. "Hey, Mickey, why don't you take Adam down to the cells and introduce him to Janet?"

Mickey shot them a doubtful look. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

Dr. Milligan looked up from his computer where he'd been studying something… weird on the screen. "He'll get a glimpse of the Weevils sooner or later. Ianto said he can move around freely within the base. It's better if he does it under… erm… controlled circumstances. Less chance for him to freak out completely."

"Admit it, you can't wait to see him faint," Mickey grinned.

"Or hear him scream like a girl," Emma added, reappearing from the Archives at the very moment with another crate of alien junk, which she dropped next to Adam's desk.

Adam looked from one to another in bewilderment. "Is this some kind of weird initiation ritual?"

Dr. Milligan nodded. "In a way… yeah, it is. We all had to go through it, one way or another, so why should you have it better? Besides, it gives us the chance to bet again. I say he'll scream," he looked around. "Any takers?"

"Scream," Emma agreed. "That's what I did, and he does have a girlish air about him."

"Faint," Mickey said. "Or swoon, at the very least. He seems to be the fainting type."

Toshiko shook her head. "I don't know, Mickey. He survived a Dalek on the rampage."

"That's a different matter," Mickey argued. "C'me on, Tosh, faint or scream? Or maybe he'll take the crying option, like Owen."

"That was hay fever," Toshiko laughed, clearly not believing it herself.

"That's what Owen says," Mickey countered, grinning like a loon, "and we both know it wasn't true. So, what's your bet?"

"All right, all right," Toshiko considered the options for a moment. "Swoon," she finally decided.

"Two to two," Dr. Milligan summarised. "Okay, we still need Lloyd's vote," he came up from the medical area and knocked on the door of the DNA lab briefly. "Sara, you have a moment?"

The tall blonde in the white lab coat looked out in concern. "Is something wrong?"

Dr. Milligan shook his head. "Nah, Weevil test. What's your vote? Faint, scream or cry like a baby?"

Dr. Lloyd gave Adam a measuring look. "I think he'll throw up," she said.

"That's not one of the usual reactions," Dr. Milligan reminded her, but she just shrugged.

"There's a first time for everything. Anyway, that's my vote and I stick to it. Ten quid as usual?"

"Twenty," Mickey said promptly. "Since a new option has been added to the mix, the chances to win the pot have been limited," he took a twenty-pound bill from his pocket and handed it to Emma. "The winner pays the first round in the next pub night."

"I thought winning a bet should be good for the winner," Dr. Milligan protested, but he was laying his bet at the same time. "A round for the whole team would cost more than the pot itself."

"Not for the whole team," Mickey clarified. "Just for us. It will be a small celebration."

"I'm in," Toshiko handed her own twentier to Emma. "Hurry up before the others would arrive. It's more fun this way. We'll watch you on the CCTV."

"I thought there weren't cameras on the sublevels," Dr. Milligan said in surprise.

"There are none in the Archives," Toshiko corrected. "The cells have always been monitored, for security reasons. Well, Mickey, what are you waiting for?"

"Yeah, you guys should hurry up," Dr. Milligan said. "The others are on their way; if they arrive too soon, we'll have to share."

"That would be a real shame," Mickey agreed; then he grinned at Adam. "C'mon, Adam, be a man – that's something everyone has to go through. I'll buy you a drink afterwards."

"Where?" Adam asked sceptically. "I'm restricted to the base, remember?"

Mickey waved off his concerns. "I'll bring you one. Now, man it up and let's go."

The others gathered around the CCTV screen to watch Mickey and Adam ride the lift down to the sublevel where the cells were situated. Adam himself was more than a little nervous; he couldn't even begin to imagine what he was about to see. As much as he was aware of the existence of extraterrestrial life, he doubted that he could really face aliens that had made these tough Torchwood agents either faint or scream by the mere sight of them.

Mickey led him down the same tunnels that would lead to his own temporary lodging, only that at one point he turned into a different direction and down another trail of stairs. There they passed through a heavy metal door and ended up on a corridor lined with concrete cells, bared by glass doors with round holes in them.

Quite a few of the cells were empty. But some of them were occupied by strange creatures, roughly the size of grown men, wearing… identical jumpsuits?"

"Why do they wear clothes?" Adam asked. "And why coveralls?"

"Camouflage," Mickey explained. "They live in the sewers, and this way, if they come to the surface, people who see them from afar won't panic at once. Of course, when they come closer, that's a wholly different matter."

"Why?"

"Cause then they can see the faces," Mickey hauled Adam in front of the first inhabited cell, so that he was staring directly into the flat, wrinkled, sallow face of the bald-headed creature.

The Weevil bared its teeth; there was such untamed wildness and so much malice in its dark eyes that it made Adam's stomach hurl up to his throat.

"Oh, my God," he moaned. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

He backed away from the cell until he hit the opposite wall with his back and wretched. Mickey and the others around the CCTV monitor watched with morbid fascination a vomit coloured ice-cube pop out of his mouth. Adam took it between his fingers, looked around, found a metal bin and dropped the cube into the bin with a resounding clang.

"What the hell was that?" Mickey demanded, looking close to becoming sick himself.

"Vomit-o-matic," Adam explained with a shrug. "I got it installed at the same time as the infospike; it was a special offer. Basically, they placed nano-termites in the lining of my throat. In case I get sick, t hey freeze the waste."

Mickey frowned. "You mean you can't even get sick properly? Man, that sucks."

Adam looked at him in surprise. "Why? It's a lot more hygienic this way – until the ice melts, that is."

"Yeah, but a lot less cathartic," Mickey commented. He waved in the Weevil's direction. "This is Barry, by the way. He's new here. Got him in a couple o' days ago, cause he was attacking people in Bute Park. Those who show aggressive behaviour we won't herd back to the sewers like we do with the rest."

"Which one is the oldest lodger?" Adam asked.

"That would be Janet, at the end of the corridor, but we ain't supposed to bother her," Mickey explained. "Jenny's working with her and had made considerable progress, so we won't interfere with that. C'mon, let's go back up."

They returned to the main Hub Area, where Adam got pestered with a thousand questions about the vomit-o-matic; questions that he couldn't really answer, to everyone's regret. The performance at the cells earned him the questionable pleasure of Dr. Milligan taking several tissue samples from the lining of his throat, until he finally caught one with nano-termites in it… which Toshiko and Lloyd promptly confiscated and triumphantly vanished with it in one of the labs.

By then, Captain Harkness and Jenny returned, and so did Director Jones with Dr. Harper, their shrink and a harrowed blonde woman whom they called Jeannie and who kept staring at Adam as if expecting him to grow a second head any minute. She'd clearly been told about the infospike and was clearly afraid of seeing it in action.

Well, Adam wasn't so eager to show it off, either, so that was fine with him.

To his surprise, the entire team had lunch together in the conference room – some home-made sandwiches, courtesy of Emma, baked over in the microwave – and then the morning shift went off-duty… officially, at least. In fact, Emma was the only one to actually leave, after having filled the dishwasher and started the programme. The others all stayed, for one reason or another; mostly to work on personal projects.

Director Jones checked Adam's computer and seemed content with the work he'd done so far.

"One sees that you've got some experience with this kind of work," he said, "Keep doing so, and after your trial period we might let you onto the really interesting stuff. Now, are the items in these crates all identified?"

Adam nodded. "Those on the left are already in the database, labelled as harmless and mostly useless. Those on the right are also identified as harmless items of potential use, like Andy's toaster. The few on the desk are not in the Archives; I haven't gotten to the rest yet."

"You've done more than enough for one day," the Torchwood director said. "There's no pressure. We've got enough junk to last for several lifetimes; I don't expect you to get through all of it in days. Earlier Torchwood teams tended to host stuff unnecessarily. If you can work your way through the last two years' founds it will be a relief. At least the physical Archives won't become even more cluttered than they already are."

"Do you want me to get the stuff I'm finished with down there again, Mr. Jones?" Adam asked, burning with curiosity what else might have been stored in the Vaults. Perhaps he could find his little personal teleportation device, eventually.

As if reading his thoughts, the Torchwood director smiled blandly.

"Ianto would do; we're roughly the same age, after all, and I'm not your boss. Just leave the stuff here. They won't go back to the Archives; we're gonna melt the junk to recycle the metal and put the useful things… well, to good use."

"What am I to do with the rest of my day them?" Adam was a bit disappointed but not overly so. He hadn't really expected them to grant him access to the restricted areas right away. His time would come.

"You've been scheduled to have a session with Doctor Fox in…" Director Jones – no, Ianto – glanced at his watch, "exactly twenty-six minutes. After that, your time is your own. You can use the digital database to learn. Or you can read; we've got a virtual library of e-books, as well as a broad selection of films and TV-shows on DVD. Or you can go online if that's what you want. It's up to you."

"What if I want to continue with the alien junk?" Adam asked. He actually liked playing around with the stuff.

Ianto shrugged. "You can do that, too, of course. I'm afraid it will become deadly boring all too soon. But you can always stop after your shift if you've had enough. Now go and see Doctor Fox while the rest of us deals with the joys of paperwork – Rift permitting."

~TBC~