Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author's note: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.
Jeannie McKay has been borrowed from Stargate: Atlantis. Obviously. However, she has a very different fate here, although not necessarily a different background. I needed a brilliant scientist, and she was so wasted in that other series, so I thought I'd bring her aboard.
Warning: disturbing images in this chapter.
Chapter 10
An hour later the Torchwood team – plus Martha Jones and Kathy Swanson yet minus Ianto, Rhys and Owen – was sitting in the conference room. This being a scientific investigation (for the time being), Tosh was calling the shots. Jack held back, keeping Jenny at his side. She'd been invited in the hope that she'd be able to provide some more insight into the methods of their enemy.
"The substance under the second victim's fingernails was chitin," Lloyd told them. "The molecular structure is similar to that of the carapace of our local insects; however, the chemical compound is nothing I've seen before. Also, it's extraordinary hard and resistant, although the molecular chains seem to be braking down – that's how it got under the girl's fingernails, most likely. She couldn't have scratched it off. But if it was already crumbling, even so slightly…"
"Do we know who the girl was?" Emma asked quietly.
Swanson nodded. "Dr. Sato's face recognition software has managed to identify her in record time. Her name was Maggie Hall; she was a student and worked in a 24-hour deli shop. She was heading for home when she was attacked and killed, the poor thing."
"I'm so, so sorry!" Jenny's eyes were full of tears. "It's my fault. The eraser was looking for me, but it couldn't have a very good image, so it went after someone similar. And now two girls are dead because of me."
"Three," Swanson corrected. "I've just got the call: the third victim has been found."
"Where?" Jack asked.
"In Splott, near the crash site," Swanson raised a hand. "I know what you're gonna say: that Jones couldn't possibly be there and so he can't be the murderer, at least not in this case. Well, I'm sorry, but he could. The third victim was killed well within the time he was missing from the hospital. In theory, he would have had enough time to murder her and get back to kill Maggie, too."
"But if he did, we'd have found him, passed out, laying next to that girl's corpse, and Maggie would still be alive," Trevor pointed out.
"That's what we think," Tosh corrected. "We can't prove that his blackouts have anything to do with the murder cases; or that he hadn't killed them during a completely confused state. For the police, only hard proof counts."
"I'm afraid so," Swanson agreed.
"No, that's all right," Tosh said. "That's the way of things, so we'll have to find acceptable proof. What about the other substances found at the crime scene?"
"The blood test came back clean," Lloyd reported. "The girl – Maggie – had neither alcohol nor drugs in her system. Hair analysis shows that she hadn't taken any drugs in the last six months, either. Probably never. She must have been a good girl; a bloody shame that she had to end like this, but life is rarely fair as we know."
"And the white stuff?" Tom asked. Lloyd shrugged.
"Analysis is still running. We know what it's made of, we know it's organic… fairly acidic, too. But I have no idea what it is – not yet. It's similar to the body fluids of certain Terran insects – fire ants, to name one – but…" she shrugged again, clearly at a loss.
"But it is alien, isn't it?" Tosh asked. Lloyd nodded.
"Oh, yes. It's got a low meson energy reading, just like the chitinous substance. That's usually a sign that something's come through the Rift."
"Not very surprising," Jack muttered; then he looked at Jenny. "Any ideas?"
"I don't know much about the Hithon; nobody does," Jenny admitted. "But it's said – well, the Shanelan told me – that their assassins have a biomechanical armour that enables them to survive in space, at least for a short while. Their brains and some inner organs are transplanted into those armoured suits, and they meld with their armour."
"Now, why does this remind me of the Cybermen?" Jack asked rhetorically, and Tosh became deathly pale. Jenny, though, shook her head.
"No, it's different. Erasers are given different bodies for each mission, depending on the species living on their target planet. If they survive the mission, they get extracted from the armour and put into a stasis tank – until they're needed again. The more missions they complete, the less of their original body is left."
"And how does that help us?" Mickey asked.
"It doesn't," Jenny said. "I think, though, that this eraser is injured; its suit was probably damaged by crossing the anomaly… I mean, the Rift. That white stuff must be either blood or some fluid that allows it to operate the suit. Like many insects, they have a way to communicate chemically; telepathy wouldn't be enough for dealing with machinery."
"Biotechnology, eh?" Lloyd asked, perking up in interest. Jenny nodded.
"I think so, yes. I can't be completely sure, of course."
"Those hypothetical injuries didn't slow it down, it seems," Andy said thoughtfully. "How are we supposed to kill it? Somehow I don't think that even the Big Gun could take it out."
"Chemical warfare," Jack said. "Lloyd, try to figure out which chemicals could erode or destroy its suit. Without protection, it would be vulnerable."
"Let's hope so," Andy muttered while Lloyd gave a simple nod.
"What kind of weapons do these guys have anyway?" Mickey asked. "Laser pistols? Exploding bullets? Flamethrowers? Or do they spit acid in our face?"
"On the large scale, Hithon ships use plasma cannons against other ships," Jenny replied with military precision. "If they want to destroy entire planets, they send in the Xi'sa. The true strength of an eraser lies in stealth and sudden attacks, though; and in telepathic warfare."
"What do you mean with telepathic warfare?" Tom frowned.
"Hithon assassins are capable of kill other beings with the power of their minds alone," Jenny told them matter-of-factly. "They suggest their victims a certain way of dying and the victims will even show the symptoms."
"So these poor girls…" Swanson trailed off because it sounded too outlandish – and too horrible – to be killed by suggestion. How could she protect a city full of unsuspecting blonde girls from that?"
"They had the very real experience of life being squeezed out of them, slowly and mercilessly," Jenny said. "It only happened in their minds, of course, but that doesn't change the outcome, as we could see."
"How could we know that the alien didn't simply throttle them?" Mickey asked doubtfully.
"Full body armour," Lloyd reminded him. "Gauntlets made of this chitinous stuff would have caused extensive bruising."
"The second victim had bruises on her neck," Swanson pointed out. Lloyd nodded.
"Yes, but only to the extent one would expect by a victim throttled by an average man. Besides, those were likely psychosomatic symptoms. What I don't understand, though, is how the traces of the armour and of that white liquid got onto the girl. If the assassin didn't even need to touch her…"
"It still had to get close to her," Jenny replied. "They're short range telepaths; can't kill somebody from across the town, fortunately. The closer the get, the quicker the kill… unless they want to play with their victims first. This one clearly didn't."
"What about Ianto?" Jack asked. "Why didn't it kill him? To use him as a scapegoat?"
"Well, he surely makes a convenient one," Swanson commented dryly.
"True, but I think the eraser did try to kill him first," Jenny said. "However, his mind is too strong… or his shields work too well for that. Excellent training, by the way. In any case, he must have formed an accidental bond with the eraser and most likely sees things through its eyes from time to time."
"Which makes him extremely suspicious, of course," Jack muttered unhappily. "But how did he get to the crime scenes each time?"
"He's probably drawn to them by the eraser's presence," Jenny replied thoughtfully. "If he's close enough to begin with."
"And that's why he wasn't found in Splott, out like a light, after the third victim got killed," Swanson concluded. "He was probably too far away to be influenced. We'll have to view the CCTV records of the time period when the third murder happened. If we can find him somewhere else, that would be a big step to clear him from suspicion. Cos I doubt that Detective Inspector Henderson would buy into the idea of a telepathic killer."
"Wait a minute!" Tosh interrupted, a frightening idea occurring to her suddenly. "This telepathic bond – does it work both ways?"
"I really don't know," Jenny confessed, "but logically, it should. Why do you ask?"
"Because if it does, then Ianto's in danger," Jack replied, understanding at once what Tosh was thinking. "If this alien killer is drawn to him, too, it could find him by simply following their link. Mickey, Andy, let's go!"
"Where?" Mickey asked, while Andy was already on the move. Police training could do that to an ex-constable.
"To Flat Holm," Jack replied. "We'll try to catch up with Rhys' car before the eraser does."
"And if you run into it, what then?" Swanson asked. "Do you have a gun big enough to knock it out?"
"We'll take the biggest calibre and pray," Jack said with a shrug.
"No," Tosh rose from her seat. "This is not a question of calibre. You'll need something different… and earplugs."
After that mysterious statement she hurried off to her lab. A minute later se returned with a hand gun that looked a lot like a Star Trek phaser – the original version of it.
"What is this?" Jack eyed the thing doubtfully.
"A sonic blaster," Tosh replied. "Just a prototype, of course, but I hope it'll do the trick. I haven't figured out yet how to counteract the very unpleasant sound effect, hence the need for earplugs. Just don't let any stray Time Lords switch it with a banana again."
"Bananas are good," Jenny stated innocently. Tosh pulled a face.
"Not for me; and they won't help against a crazed alien assassin, either. This might."
"I can help you with the sound effect later," Jenny offered.
"Later," Tosh agreed. "Jack, it won't kill the assassin, based on what Jenny has told us, but hopefully will knock it off long enough for us to divest it from its armour."
"How?" Jack asked. Tosh shrugged.
"I don't know. Biochemistry is Lloyd's area of expertise."
"I can't whip up a biochemical weapon at will, out of nowhere!" Lloyd protested.
"Just find me the chemicals that would eat away the sodding armour," Jack said. "We can always find a drugstore on our way and go shopping."
"You make it sound so simple," Lloyd muttered.
"He's right, though," Tosh supported Jack. "If the Slitheen could be beaten by simple vinegar, who knows, perhaps this guy has a chink on its chitinous armour, too."
"In theory perhaps," Lloyd replied, not really buying the idea. "All right, I'll do what I can, but no promises."
"SUV is ready," Mickey reported via earpiece.
"Thanks, Tosh, you're the best" Jack pocketed the sonic blaster. "Well, Tom, PC Andy, let's go."
"And me," Jenny said determinedly.
Jack shook his head. "No way. I can't put you at risk."
"Don't be ridiculous, Captain," Jenny said sharply. "I'm a soldier. I'm the one who knows the most about our common enemy, since I've already fought them. And, most importantly, I'm its target. If noting else, I'll be able to distract it while you do whatever you can to knock it out."
"Yeah, and what if it manages to kill you before we knock it out?" Jack asked. "What am I gonna tell your father, should he ever show his face again?"
'It would take a stronger telepath than a Hithon assassin to kill a Gallifreyan," she replied. "And don't drag my Dad into this; it's not his business. Besides, could he have been bothered to stay for my funeral, he knew I was alive. I'd probably be travelling with him right now, and we wouldn't have this problem to begin with."
"It isn't his fault," Jack protested, but Jenny was not in a forgiving mood.
"Yes, it is. I love him and I miss him terribly, but he should drop the habit of running away and leaving it for others to pick up the pieces."
That was unquestionably true; Jack still dreaded the possibility of telling the Doctor that he'd got his daughter killed by some murderous alien assassin.
"Ianto would have my head for this," he murmured.
"No, he won't; unless we take out the eraser, he won't be around long enough to skin you alive," Jenny warned. "Let's go."
"Remind me again, who's supposed to give the orders here?" Jack muttered, but he was heading to the cog door already.
The eraser had found refuge in an abandoned factory hall, somewhere outside Splott, where it could hide between the rows of shut down machinery till nightfall. Things were not going well, and it needed to rest and work out a new strategy. Contact to the War Masters or to the Tactical Division would be welcome in its situation, but there was no chance for that. So it had to continue on its own.
Its body armour had been damaged in several places while it had crossed the anomaly, allowing the dangerously high ultraviolet radiation of the planet's sun to reach its vulnerable organs through those small chinks. It wasn't too bad yet, but the cumulative effects would eventually kill it.
If it didn't starve first, that is. The fluid nutrients filling the armour, keeping it alive and enabling it to use the complicated machinery at the same time, were slowly seeping through the hairline breaches; and it had no means to repair those breaches, or to replenish the nutrients. Time had become an issue. It had to complete its mission before initiating self-destruction, so that the bipedal primates populating this world wouldn't be able to track his way back to the Hive.
So far, it had been unsuccessful. Three times had it thought to have hit its target – only to realize that it had hit one of the locals instead. It had suggested them a death that would seem convincing, of course, but the danger of being caught before it could have completed its mission grew with each wrong target. It was not good, not good at all.
And then there was the local male it had accidentally met while hitting its first target. His mind was remarkably ordered and too well-shielded to accept any death suggestions – and he apparently knew the eraser's true target. Why else would he be drawn to the dead females? As if he instinctively knew where the eraser would hit next.
Could he be tracing it telepathically? No, his species was too primitive for that. Perhaps they'd simply become linked at the first encounter by accident, in which case he didn't represent any true danger for the mission, merely an annoyance.
It didn't matter. Once the mission was fulfilled, the eraser would be dead, too, and all traces wiped out. The locals would probably think the young male had hit all the targets and execute him for murder. A perfect solution.
First, however, the true target had to be found, and the fact that the homing beacon had been neutralized was a serious setback. The eraser had returned to the crash site, in the hope to find any traces that would lead him to the locals who had taken the target's ship, and with their involuntary help the target, too.
So far no good, and it was running out of time.
Still, it couldn't leave as long as the central star of the system was high upon the sky. The radiation was well beyond safe levels – how could these primitive bipeds survive under such conditions? Without its armour, the eraser would already be dead, and with the armour damaged, the end wasn't too far.
It had to find its target, soon. Failure was not acceptable. It had to protect the Hive. To die before removing the threat it had been sent to remove was out of question.
At about the same time, Dr. Emilia Fox was sitting in the consultation room of Dr. Martha Jones at the UNIT base outside Cardiff. She was typing up her report about the therapy sessions with the three young UNIT soldiers currently unfit for full duty. Commodore Sullivan expected daily, coded reports from her about any progress the three might be making – especially his grandson.
Unfortunately, the only one of the three Dr. Fox had any real hope would make full recovery was Private Harris. The big, burly, ruggedly handsome soldier still had the occasional nightmare, but otherwise seemed to have overcome the lasting effects of Sontaran mind control.
His fine motorics were still not up to his usual standard, but physical therapy could deal with that. Dr. Fox estimated that Carl Harris would be declared fit for duty in another two, perhaps there months, tops.
His close friend, Stevie Grey, was a different matter. Physically everything was in perfect order with Private Grey; he could have been cleared for duty any time – had he not suffered panic attacks whenever he had to face a commanding officer. Even such a jovial, easy-going superior as Sergeant Zbrigniew could intimidate the living daylight out of him.
He lived in mortal fear of Corporal Bell, the elderly secretary of Colonel Mace, who – granted – wasn't called the Iron Hag of UNIT for nothing, And even worse, he nearly wetted himself every time he was called into the colonel's office.
According to Harris, Grey had always respected his superiors beyond usual measure. But it had only risen to such paranoid levels after his encounter with the Sontarans. Otherwise he was competent and level-headed, not to mention a crack shot, yet in Dr. Fox's opinion it would take years of intensive psychotherapy before he could return to normal duty – if ever.
Dr. Fox shook her head and turned her attention to her main concern and hardest case: Private Ross Jenkins.
There she had very little hope. As Dr. Jones had suggested, the psychological problems of Jenkins originated in his physical injuries. Before those were healed, there was no chance that a therapy would do any good.
His newfound addiction to computer games didn't help things, either.
If Torchwood really had access to nanotechnology, and if they could find somebody who actually knew how to use it – and that was a very big IF – then perhaps there was hope to heal Jenkins physically.
Whether he'd ever truly fit in with UNIT as a common soldier while everyone knew about his family connections was another question.
Perhaps it would be better for both sides if Jenkins got an honourably discharge and found himself a different job. But who would hire a damaged ex-soldier who could no longer even drive a car?
Dr. Fox sighed, finished her report, encoded it and sent copies to Colonel Mace, the Brigadier and Commodore Sullivan. She had the feeling that the commodore wouldn't be happy with the results.
Then she checked her schedule and saw with relief that she had only one appointment left for today: to visit an old patient, one of the survivors of Canary Wharf, who'd lived in a psychiatric hospital called Providence Park in Cardiff for the last two years. Ever since she suffered a complete breakdown in the UNIT lab where she'd worked after the destruction of Torchwood London.
A shame, really. She'd been such a gifted scientist, and everybody had thought that she'd make it back to a semi-normal life. Very few of the survivors did, but she'd been a promising candidate.
So far, only Ianto Jones and Trevor Howard had been able to put their lives back together, without extensive therapy and ungodly amounts of psychopharmacy. Dr. Fox wondered if working for Torchwood had anything to do with that – and if yes, whether it could be a solution for others, too.
She powered down her laptop, put it back into its case and slung the strap over her shoulder. She was glad to leave the UNIT base. It was a rather depressing place.
Especially with the near-invisible presence of that MI6 agent – what was her name again? Jones? No, Johnson! – looming at the horizon all the time. Freaking out everyone by her mere presence. Nominally, she was here to smoke out a supposed terrorist cell in Cardiff. Her true intentions, however, remained unknown, and the consensus was that they had to be something a great deal more sinister.
Emilia Fox shook her head, annoyed with herself. The last thing she needed was to get infected by her patients' paranoia. Besides, she had things to do. A patient waited for her in Providence Park.
Providence Park turned out to be a relatively new hospital as hospitals in Cardiff went. It was barely forty years old, a plain, white building in the style of – well, whatever counted as modern in the 1970s. Upstairs, on two levels were twelve bedrooms for the residents – it was a private institution, so all patients had their own chambers – and downstairs the dining room and lounge was for their use as well.
Two consultation rooms – for the psychiatrists – were also downstairs, together with the small offices of the hospital administrator and the head doctor. There were also bunkrooms for the staff, in case they had to remain in the hospital beyond their duty shifts.
"Ms McKay is waiting for you, Dr. Fox," the receptionist sitting behind a desk in the lounge said when she checked in.
"That's Doctor McKay to you," Dr. Fox corrected coldly. It always angered her how patients in such institutions always got degraded automatically, as if what they had done and achieved before their hospitalization didn't count anymore.
This was particularly true for Jeannie McKay. The young Canadian scientist was absolutely brilliant. She had two doctorates – in theoretical astrophysics and in mechanical engineering – as well as a Master's degree in computer sciences. She'd been hired by Torchwood London right after her postgraduate year because of her groundbreaking theories and her instinctive understanding of previously unknown technologies. She had been exactly the kind of young, bright and eager person Torchwood Headquarters usually went for.
She'd been working for Torchwood barely a year when the Battle of Canary Wharf happened. She'd been saved in the last moment from the cyber-conversion unit – the Cybermen had just been about to start her conversion when the Void opened and swallowed them up. That she'd managed to work for UNIT afterwards, at least for a while, was a miracle in itself.
That her marriage with a good-natured but absolutely clueless English teacher had not survived those horrors, on the other hand, was far less surprising. Neither was the fact that she'd completely lost it when her still-husband had left to go back to Canada and took their little daughter with him.
Dr. Fox knew that efforts had been made to secure Jeannie the right to at least see her daughter on a semi-regular basis. It run through UNIT-channels, as she'd been working for UNIT lately; a process started by the Brigadier and not yet stopped by Colonel Oduya's cost-saving tendencies. But for those efforts to succeed, Jeannie would have to become an ambulant patient at the very least; and she was still light years away from that status.
In fact, she was still on suicide watch seven-twenty-four, by two very capable and experienced nurses, paid by Torchwood Three. Ianto Jones kept an eye on all sixteen survivors of Canary Wharf who hadn't killed themselves in the recent years – or hadn't chosen Retcon to begin with.
Not that choosing Retcon would have saved anyone by default. Three out of the seven choosing that option had managed to die in the meantime, due to freak accidents they could have easily avoided. The human mind was a strange thing, always good for a surprise; not always for a pleasant one.
This being her first visit in Providence Park, Emilia Fox accepted the offer of a young orderly to escort her to a small outbuilding in the garden, where the particularly complicated cases were housed. It was connected to the main building by a roofed walkway but still offered the more traumatized patients some privacy, even within the hospital itself. The outbuilding had six bedrooms altogether, only three of which were currently occupied.
"We don't have here many of those at the moment," the orderly explained. "Aside from Dr. McKay only two other ladies; although calling them ladies is probably an exaggeration. One of them is an ill-tempered former policewoman with a memory loss. The other one a very young girl who believes that she's murdered at least a dozen men."
"And? Has she?" Dr. Fox asked. The orderly shrugged.
"Not according to the police, she has not. Detective Swanson says she'd been assaulted outside some night club and the shock must have unhinged her somehow. A shame, really. She's such a nice girl, this Carys, and it breaks one's heart to see her father visit her, trying to get through to her, while she's just sitting there with those vacant eyes, mumbling about the people she's supposedly killed."
"That's harsh indeed," Dr. Fox agreed; she'd seen enough similar cases to know how little the chance of at least partial recovery was. "Just out of curiosity, how exactly does she think she's killed those people?"
The orderly gave her a funny look. "That's the weirdest part of all," he replied. "Apparently, she killed them with sex."
"During sex, you mean?" Dr. Fox clarified, but the orderly shook his head.
"No, doctor. She's deadly serious about having killed a dozen or so blokes with sex. Don't ask me how she thinks she did it, but she can't be talked out of the idea that that's what happened," he shrugged. "I told you it was weird."
"Sounds completely impossible," Dr. Fox agreed. "What about the policewoman with the amnesia?"
"Oh, she's a different one," the orderly pulled a face, clearly not fond of the patient in question, which was somewhat unprofessional, but it happened. "She was supposedly involved in some undercover operation, got a head injury and forgot the last couple of years of her life."
"Completely?" It was not such a rare phenomenon, but sometimes the memories resurfaced all by themselves.
"Well, more or less," the orderly said. "She does get those weird flashbacks from time to time, but that's all."
"That's promising nonetheless," Dr. Fox' interest was piqued, even though she'd come to see a different patient originally. "What causes the flashbacks? Is there some sort of stressor?"
"Now that's the really unusual part of it," the orderly admitted reluctantly, as if not expecting her to believe him. "They happened whenever she occasionally met Carys in the lounge or the dining room."
"Then you should encourage such meetings," Dr. Fox suggested. "Make them happen 'accidentally' and see what happens."
"We can't," the orderly sighed. "Whenever it happens, it causes Carys tremendous stress. Her blood pressure would skyrocket, she'd go into spasms; in fact, we have to see that they never run into each other. That's why we separated them from the other residents; in the outbuilding they get their meals in their chambers." He stopped in front of a half-open door at the far end of the outbuilding. "Here we are. Go on in, you're expected."
"Thanks," Dr. Fox knocked briefly, waited for Jeannie's Enter! And then went in, looking around with interest to get a first overall impression of the place.
She liked what she saw. It was a bright, sunny room, with windows on two sides, overlooking a wide stretch of ground and the driveway and lawns, respectively. It had a very airy feel, good for someone with heavy depressions and irregular yet frequent panic attacks. One could breathe her, and gloomy moods had very little chance to linger-
Jeannie McKay was sitting in a comfortable, stuffed armchair near one of the windows, reading something that had a great deal of mathematical equations in it. She was a lovely, though rather plain blonde in her early thirties, with haunted blue eyes. She wore her hair in a loose and rather unruly French twist and no make-up at all.
Both the armchair and her civilian clothes were clearly her own. Permanent residents of Providence Park were allowed to bring in any personal items that didn't represent a threat for them – or for the other patients – and nobody was ever forced to wear one of those horrible hospital gowns. Conditions in the hospital were meant to ease any depressive tendencies, not to increase them.
Jeannie spotted Dr. Fox and recognized her at once, of course. She'd been in therapy by Emilia for almost a year after Canary Wharf, and they got along very well.
"Em, it's so good to see you!" she exclaimed, rising from her chair; they hugged like old friends that, in a sense, they were. "I wasn't sure you'd be able to make it."
"I'd have called in time if I couldn't," Dr. Fox replied. "You know I'd never let a patient – or a friend – hang like that. So, Jeannie, how are you doing in these days?"
"Getting better; slowly, in small steps. In very small steps," Jeannie admitted with a sigh.
Dr. Fox nodded in understanding. "Anything I could do to help?" she asked.
Jeannie shook her head. "I don't think so. I mean, the doctors here are very good at what they do, and the rest simply has to sort itself out… it's just so lonely here. So lonely and so… so boring, you know? I hardly ever see anyone butt he staff and the other residents. I mean, sure, Ianto and Trevor come to see me from time to time, and we can at least talk about the past, which, I think, we all need. But they're so very busy, and I'm… I'm just bored, you know? I'm a scientist, a good one – my brain needs to be occupied."
"You could write a book while you're here," Dr. Fox suggested.
"And who would ever read it?" Jeannie pulled a face. "My research was related to scavenged alien tech, experienced with in secret labs that no longer even exist. I could never publish anything; even if sitting in a psychiatric hospital hadn't ruined my reputation beyond repair."
Dr. Fox nodded thoughtfully, because all this was very true indeed. Anyone who'd ever worked for Torchwood and hadn't died a horrible dead at a young age – or taken Retcon – could only hope to work for another secret government organization for the rest of their lives. And Jeannie had already blown her chances with UNIT – not that it had been her fault, but that didn't really count. It was a shame, really, having her brilliance wasted in Providence Park, while she could have done so much in just the right place.
Speaking of which… Dr. Fox suddenly got an idea, remembering her own considerations earlier in the afternoon. Sure, those had ranked around the UNIT soldiers damaged in the Sontaran invasion, but perhaps there would be a solution for Jeannie, too.
"Have you thought about working for Torchwood again?" she asked.
~TBC~