Time Trap - Chapter Ten

Author: Milady Dragon

3 June 2014

London

Patrick's knees threatened to buckle; the only thing keeping him upright was the death grip he had on the edge of the holotable. Jack reached over and slammed a hand over the pause button, growling under his breath. A hand touched Patrick's elbow as if to support him, and he took a deep breath and nodded his thanks to whoever it was, even though he couldn't tear his eyes away from what they were viewing in order to see who it was.

On the screen, the tableau had stilled once more. From what he could tell from the scene, Clint had gone still; sniper-still and that was obvious even with the recording stopped. He could imagine his friend's thoughts the moment Bayl had called Pendragon by his Uncle Phil's name, because they were most likely the same as the ones Patrick himself were having in that moment.

Pendragon's last name was actually Coulson? How was that possible?

What the hell was going on?

And what was that Director of SHIELD shit? SHIELD was gone; brought down by two well-meaning people who hadn't quite put enough thought into what damage they would cause by throwing open SHIELD's files and exposing more than they had any right to expose. Besides, his uncle had died long before SHIELD had crashed and burned, another reason there could be another Director, let alone one from the 52nd century with the same name as his Phil Coulson.

Jack had turned on Hart, storming over to him. "You want to explain?" he snapped, his anger making his eyes go darker than normal.

Hart straightened up, and he looked completely serious. "Jack, I can't. You know about the timelines –"

"Does this happen to have anything to do with the guest Ianto has back at the Hub?" Jack accused, leaning deep into Hart's personal space, glaring. If looks could kill, Patrick was certain Hart would have been burned to ash.

The ex-Time Agent's eyes widened. "Wait…that's now?" His surprise would have been comical if it wasn't so very real.

Patrick stared at Jack, remembering the phone call that he'd made on the roof after their apprehending of Hart. "What's going on at the Hub?" he demanded, wondering if it was such a good idea to be asking at all, but it had something to do with what had occurred, if Jack was mentioning it.

"What the hell is going on?" Jack grabbed the front of Hart's jacket, shaking him roughly; the force of it would have had Hart up and out of the chair if the ex-Time Agent hadn't been handcuffed to it. "And don't give me any of that shit about your girlfriend and you doing her a favour! Who is that man who came from the future? Because Bayl has him, and we have to assume it has to be related to what's going on in Cardiff!"

Hart looked cornered, but the fear in his eye wasn't anything to do with his former partner. He stared Jack right in the eye, and it was obvious he'd come to a decision he didn't care for at all. "That man Bayl took is Phillip Coulson, Grand Master of the Imperial Shieldsmen, although he's been going by the name Pendragon for ages now. And, if what you're saying is true about the man in Cardiff, then we're all fucked and not in a pleasant way. My coming back here was supposed to have been in time to stop this, but obviously it didn't work that way…and I'm gonna have words with them when I get back, that's for sure."

He'd been certain that Hart had been hiding something, but this only confused Patrick even more. "So…what? He's a descendant of the Coulson family?" Patrick asked, feeling as he did so his team gathering around him, supporting him. He ignored the 'them' for the moment in order to deal with what was being revealed. His brain didn't even want to consider the "Director" part of Bayl's statement, because Patrick didn't think he was quite able to handle just what that entailed. It wasn't the entire story, but it was still too much, too fast.

Hart actually had pity in his eyes when he turned in Patrick's direction. "No, sorry." He glanced back up at Jack. "You should tell him, mate. Tell him your suspicions, 'cause I'm sure you've got 'em."

Jack didn't say anything for a full minute, just staring at Hart as if he was seeing him for the first time. His eyes widened as whatever conclusion the other man wanted him to come to hit. "But it's not possible! What you're…it's not possible!" His denials were weak, like Jack wanted to forget what he'd deduced but couldn't.

Patrick's father-in-law was breathing rapidly, practically hyperventilating. He wanted to reach out and touch Jack, to let him know that he was there, but he didn't. Something was going on, something that he knew shouldn't be even if he really hadn't a clue, and he needed answers more from his boss than to comfort Alice's Dad.

"Look," Hart sighed, apparently taking pity on Jack, "I don't know the whole story. I do know that it involved lots of pain and despair and alien blood and unintentional magic and shouldn't have ever happened, but it did. It screwed him up royally, there's no denying that, but he's here and survived and yeah…he's immortal. Though not in the same way you or Eye Candy are, but whatever the hell was done to him changed him and made him nearly impossible to kill."

Jack's knees folded, and he ended on up the concrete floor before anyone could keep him on his feet. He was white, as if he'd seen a ghost, horror flooding his face. "Does he know?" he asked faintly.

"Not right now, from what I've been told," Hart answered softly. "But he does find out soon. I'm just not sure how."

"Will someone tell me what the fuck you're talking about?" Patrick shouted, tired of hearing them talk in circles and not telling him what it was they were so concerned about, and knocked so far off his game he didn't know if he could ever get his balance once more.

Although, he thought he understood, he just didn't want to admit it. He needed to hear it from either Hart or Jack, because otherwise he wouldn't believe it, because it was impossible, as Jack had insisted it was.

This couldn't be happening. Patrick was wishing that he would wake up at home, a warm and sleepy Alice at his side, and everything would be back to normal once more.

Judging from the looks on his teams' collective faces, no one else was getting it. He didn't know if he was grateful for that or not, although Patrick wished that at least one of them would because he really needed someone to tell him he was dead wrong in his suppositions.

Jack's eyes were old and incredibly sad. "I called Ianto after we captured John," he said slowly, "and he told me there was a guest in the Hub. Ianto…he said there was something up…" he swallowed hard. "He told me that Phil Coulson was in the Hub…a very much alive Phil Coulson, who was looking for help in rebuilding SHIELD."

Patrick felt suddenly dizzy. No, this couldn't be…he'd seen his Uncle Phil in his coffin, and there was no way coming back from what Loki had done…

Once again he felt someone take his arm, and he tried to smile at Martha as she steadied him, but he just couldn't.

His uncle was alive…and no one had bothered to tell either him, or Clint, or the rest of their family. His mother had mourned her only brother, the strongest woman he'd ever met crying until she was totally empty of any more tears. Steven had been stoic until the actual funeral, and then his adopted son had finally fallen apart, and was just now really putting himself back together. That didn't even count what Clint had gone through, knowing he'd lost his only chance to get his ex-lover back; or Patrick himself, not being able to make up his mind if he was proud or furious that his uncle had put himself between Loki and the rest of the Helicarrier and had paid for that gesture with his life.

The hot agony of anger flared up in his chest, leaving him practically breathless. His uncle had lied and hidden himself away and no one had known about it. What had he been doing all this time? Where had he been hiding? What had been more important than telling his own damned family that he was alive, that somehow he'd been brought back from the dead?

And just what was that 'Director' bullshit?

God, and poor Clint! Patrick suddenly didn't want to watch the rest of the recording, but he'd have to, to know what had been done to his best friend; the better to rescue him from wherever he'd been taken. He didn't want to see the entirety of Clint's reaction when he'd finally realised that the man they'd saved last night was actually his former lover, the one person above all others that Clint had mourned the most, so much he'd left SHIELD and the Avengers and came to London to the people he considered his family.

And his Uncle Phil was immortal, due to something that had been done to him. He'd seen what immortality did to people, and the cost of it had been horrible; he didn't want to think of his two fathers-in-law having to survive past him, Alice, Steven, and Gracie. It mitigated the anger just a bit, but Patrick knew it would be a while before he could forgive his uncle for pretending to be dead for two years.

"I'm not gonna ask if you're okay," Martha murmured.

Patrick was forever grateful for that.

And then he considered that thought, and fought back the urge to vomit.

"Let me see if I've got this straight," Josh said, sounding terribly patient but really, Patrick knew differently; all of his years as a television presenter had given Josh a façade of affability that only a few people had seen behind, and Patrick could tell he was just being nice on the outside. "The guy who came back in time is Phil Coulson, who everyone was calling a hero of the Battle of New York, and who was supposed to have been killed by a maniac Norse god…"

"He was killed by a maniac Norse God," Martha corrected.

"Who was killed by Loki, the maniac Norse God in question," Josh amended. "There was a big funeral and everything, so it was a pretty forgone conclusion that it had really happened and wasn't some sort of mass hallucination fuelled by too much alcohol and too little sleep."

"I saw the body," Patrick whispered. "So did Ianto, Clint, Alice, and Steven."

"So there are witnesses, including a huge section of the intelligence community and the Avengers," Josh rolled on. "But, somehow he was brought back to life after however long, we don't know how only that it was done, and it made him immortal. Am I right so far?"

"Go on, beautiful," Hart encouraged.

Josh didn't even react to Hart's endearment. "So he lives until the 52nd century, when he's kidnapped and brought back in time just as his past self is approaching Torchwood for assistance. So far, so good?"

"Brains and beauty…what a combination," Hart complimented. "I can see why he's on the team."

"But what I don't understand is why? Why kidnap the guy and bring him back in time? What could possibly be the purpose of that?"

Patrick wanted to kiss him for putting things so succinctly, because he was pretty damned sure he wouldn't have been able to.

Even as Josh was laying things out in a way everyone could understand, Patrick was watching Jack as his father-in-law was working things out, which was why he knew exactly when Jack realised that this was indeed bad. Judging from the expression on Jack's face, it was actually more than just bad.

"The Blinovitch Limitation Effect," was what Jack said.

From Martha's gasp and Mickey's cursing, they must have gotten exactly what Jack meant. Hart looked just plain ill, although he must have known all along what was going on. "Care to explain to those who aren't scientifically inclined?" Patrick demanded.

It was Luke who answered. "The Blinovitch Limitation Effect was named after Aaron Blinovitch who, back in 1928, postulated that two people from different parts of the same timeline cannot come into contact with each other without causing a paradox or other such damage to the existing timeline."

That didn't sound good at all, but it certainly explained why all the resident time travellers had heard of it. "So you're saying that this Bayl person wants to create some sort of paradox by bringing present Coulson and future Coulson together?" Tish asked.

"It's more than that," Jack said, seeming to finally get himself under control and was climbing to his feet. "Under normal circumstances, the damage wouldn't be all that severe…maybe not even a paradox, but certainly some form of time loop or energy burst. But, there's a codicil to the actual theory that says the farther apart the two sections of timeline are, the greater the energy created. It's only one of the many reasons I always try to avoid myself when I have to cross timelines…being from the 51st century, can you imagine what would happen if I met a past self? It could be catastrophic."

Patrick finally understood what was really going on. "So, you're saying that getting the two of them together would be a really bad idea, then."

Jack nodded. "All those centuries between both of them…yeah, the energy release would be incalculable. It would most likely wipe out a huge part of Cardiff."

"Or the timeline itself," Hart added.

Jack's head whipped around to so fast Patrick was surprised his neck didn't snap with the effort. "What the hell? Are you saying…?"

"That Bayl wants to destroy the Coulson timeline? Yep…at least that's what the theory is."

"Is he insane?" Mickey demanded. "'Cause that much history…gone like that? Just how many important events is this gonna wipe out?"

"You have no idea," Hart answered, but he didn't elaborate.

"But if both Coulsons are immortal," Martha asked, "how is that even going to work?"

"And why not do this before the original Coulson got immortality in the first place?" Josh added. "Wouldn't that cause more damage in the long run? I mean, the paradox alone…"

"Josh makes sense," Patrick said, trying to get answers for his own questions. "Wouldn't the paradox or whatever be even worse if an immortal Un…Coulson came into contact with a mortal one?" It was too hard to say 'Uncle Phil' out loud.

"It would, yes," Jack allowed. "Unless there's something that Bayl thinks has to happen before he could put his plan into effect…" He looked straight at Hart.

Hart shrugged as well as he could with his hands tied behind his back to a chair. "That I don't know, sorry. I only know what I was told and that wasn't part of it. I just know that whatever's going on is affecting the one time sensitive of my acquaintance, and it's bad."

Jack had his phone out, and was dialling before Hart had finished speaking. "Ianto? Is he still there?...Okay, keep him there and lock down the Hub…total lockdown, including Tosh's time lock…yes, it's bad. I'll have to explain later, I don't have the time right now…I don't care what you tell him, but he absolutely cannot leave the Hub. It's imperative that Phillip Coulson not go anywhere until I release the lockdown…yes, it does have to do with what's going on here…alright, I'll get back as soon as I can…Love you." He hung up. "Okay, so Bayl isn't about to get to the present Coulson while he's in the Hub."

"Now we just need to find where the future Coulson is," Patrick sighed, "and hopefully Clint is in the same place. Let's finish up the video and see if there are any clues on it."

He could only hope they'd be able to get Clint back.