These fics are in response to a challenge on the Torchwood Australia Forums
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Challenge Seven: Create a story using the following line:
Jack: You never do what I tell you to. Why start now?
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Jack looked at his team suspiciously.
"You never do what I tell you to. Why start now?"
It had been a very strange day. Firstly, everyone had arrived to work on time for once. Even Owen. And that never happened.
Secondly, every time he'd so much as even started to think about asking someone to do something, someone else had come into his office and announced that it was done. Before he'd even thought it, let alone mentioned it.
And then, when he had managed to come up with something no one else had thought of or done yet, his request had been granted immediately! No arguments, no complaints, no whining!!
There was something very fishy going on here.
"Don't you think you're over reacting a bit Jack?" Ianto asked as he passed around fresh cups of coffee and placed a plate of cake and biscuits in the middle of the table.
Jack looked at him over the rim of his cup with something akin to disbelief in his face.
"It's three o'clock in the afternoon, everything that had to be done today has been done and you're all asking if there's anything else. Doesn't that strike any of you as a bit odd??"
As he sipped at his cup of coffee he didn't notice the furtive looks exchanged by his team as Gwen began to speak.
"You're so suspicious Jack, just because everything's run smoothly for once doesn't mean there's anything unusual going on." she smiled brightly at him and his suspicions immediately deepened. Gwen only ever smiled like that when she was trying to cover something up.
He frowned slightly but before he could say anything everyone's phones rang all at once, and there was a general rush to answer the calls, Ianto answering both his own mobile phone and the internal phone as well.
"Sir, for you." he handed Jack the phone and disappeared out of the room, following the rest of the team who had already made their escapes.
"Captain Jack Harkness."
"Ahh, Captain, this is Detective Kathy Swanson. How is everything there at the moment?" the voice on the other end of the phone was bland and unemotional but Jack sensed that there was an undercurrent of something that he couldn't quite figure out.
"Unusually quiet actually." He replied, "Why, do you have something for us?"
Detective Swanson chuckled, "Possibly. Can you come around straight away?"
"Sure." Jack replied, "What's the address?"
He wrote the address down, chatted aimlessly for a few more minutes and then hung up the phone and bounded out of his office.
"Owen, Gwen, Tosh! We've got a …"
He broke off in mid sentence. The hub was empty. "Ianto?" he trotted down the stairs, "Gwen? Tosh!?"
There was no sign of any of them. They'd all just … disappeared! After several minutes of searching everywhere he could think of he swore copiously and headed for the garage where he jumped in the car and headed off on his own to the address Detective Swanson had given him.
Fifteen minutes later Jack pulled up in front of a dilapidated old house, two stories high, with an over grown garden surrounding it, and no sign of Detective Swanson. He climbed the front steps and knocked on the door, which opened at his touch. He pushed it open carefully, peering cautiously into the entryway. It was empty.
He pulled out his gun and held it carefully in front of him as he made his way down the hall. It was silent in the house, all he could hear was the creaking of the trees against the eaves, the wind whistling past the windows and someone shushing someone else up in front of him somewhere. Hang on, shushing?? There was someone else here!
Jack moved faster, instinctively knowing that all the rooms on the bottom floor of the house were empty. He reached the stairs and hurried up them, his sharp hearing catching hints of whispers and undertones. There was definitely something going on here, and he was going to find out just what it was!
He paused briefly at the top of the stairs, and then turned sharply to his left, followed the short hallway to its end and stopped in front of the large double doors. He waited for a moment, catching his breath and listening carefully. All noises had stopped now, and he wondered if he had imagined the sounds he had heard earlier.
He rested his head gently against the door. He was so over today, his teams' strange behaviour, and this unusual call out from the police of all people. Where was Detective Swanson anyway? Surely she should have arrived by now?
Resisting the urge to bang his head against the door he carefully eased the door knob to the open position, braced himself and took a deep breath, ripped open the door and barged in…
"SURPRISE!!!"
The large room was filled with streamers, balloons, party lights, and someone had even installed a disco ball! His team, Detective Swanson, her team and several other police officers whom they regularly had contact with were standing in the middle of the room, next to a small table on which was sitting a large cake which had several sparklers jauntily sparkling away.
Jack just stood in the doorway as everyone began singing Happy Birthday, and Ianto handed him a hat, a whistle and a sparkler.
"But it's not my birthday?" Jack said in a dazed voice.
"Actually sir," Ianto smirked, tucking his arm through Jack's. "We've no idea when your birthday is, but we figured this was as good a day as any! Come on, there's a Tardis Piñata over here for you to have a bash at."
Ianto carefully removed Jack's gun from his hand and gave him a gentle push into the centre of the room, where he was quickly surrounded by friends and well-wishers. It had been worth all the extra effort of anticipating the boss's orders this morning to see the look on Jack's face when he burst through the door.
Smiling to himself, he followed Jack to the middle of the room where he was being loudly encouraged to cut the cake and make a wish.
