Hello! Real quick, spoilers for episode twelve and thirteen of season one of Torchwood. I wasn't entirely sure I'd be able to do this chapter because they took Torchwood off of Amazon Prime, and I had nowhere else to find it. Luckily, I stumbled across the episodes online somewhere. I hope this turns out okay - I did say Rose would be helping Jack where she could, and this has always felt like something she particularly would be interested in helping handle.
(I know I said I'd put A/N's at the end but… you know, spoilers.)
Enjoy and remember to review!
The Rift
Rose grabbed her phone and read the text again. It was odd in that it sounded different from how Jack spoke to her typically, but it came from his phone and he asked for help, so she'd give it to him. She set her phone down and focused on landing the TARDIS outside of Torchwood Three on the exact right date - January 1st, 2007.
"'Please come immediately, Jan 1st, 2007,'" the Doctor read, holding her phone. She glanced over.
"It's all I've gotten," she explained, pulling her leather jacket on. "Ready?"
"I suppose," he said with a dramatic sigh. Rolling her eyes, she slipped out of the TARDIS with the Doctor, Mickey, and Ross in tow. She'd landed them inside of Torchwood base, to her surprise, and glanced around.
"Owen!" she called, gaining his attention. He looked up from his computer lazily. "Where's Jack? I got a text."
"Not from Jack," he answered her, crossing his arms. "That would be us."
"The SUV's here," a voice called through the computer. "They must be here somewhere."
"What is this place?" Mickey asked in wonder. Rose glanced back at him and hurried over to Owen.
"Where is Jack?"
"We've no fucking clue."
"Gwen's looking now, but their phones are dead, we can't track them through GPS, and the rift is active," Ianto explained to her. She looked to the computer monitoring the rift activity and frowned.
"It's been especially active lately, hasn't it?" she hummed, reading through recent activity. "Where was Jack last that you know of? And who was he with?"
"Jack and Tosh were checking out some activity in an old building downtown," he told her as Ross came to stand at her side and look over the recent activity of the rift with her. "But they just disappeared, and then the rift started acting up."
"And you called me because?"
"Jack has always said that if he's missing or dead, to call you."
"We cannot come every time," the Doctor stared at her. She understood what he meant - they couldn't come every time he died.
"Doctor, Jack is capable of handling himself and his team," she assured him. "Whatever's going on now, we'll figure it out. If you're going to be rude about it, you can go give Mickey a tour of the TARDIS."
"I'm not being rude."
Rose rolled her eyes and turned back to Jack's friends. "Do you know anything about the building itself?"
Ianto glanced at Owen and led them around a few bends and into what seemed to be a large meeting room. Owen grabbed some rolled up papers and spread them out on the table for everyone to see.
"Right. The Ritz dance hall opened in 1932, shut down in 1999, due to be demolished in one week. That music is from the 1940s," Owen finished, dropping one of the papers.
"Music?" Ross questioned.
"People have heard music coming from the building despite no one being in there," Ianto explained quickly.
"It's a ghost job, taking them this long," Owen muttered.
"Look," Ianto exclaimed, getting to his feet. He pulled up one of the pictures moving across the screen in front of them. "There."
It was a picture of Jack shaking a man's hand and Tosh standing next to him.
"I heard music earlier," the woman's voice called through the computer in that room. Either Ianto had moved it or their computers were smart enough to let her follow them, but they weren't sure which. "If I can hear them, maybe they can hear me."
"This sounds like a temporal shift," Rose realized, gathering stares from the Doctor and Ross.
"We haven't talked about those yet," he told her. "How do you-,"
"You," she answered simply. "I'll tell you about it later."
"Who is that?" the woman wondered.
"Rose and the Doctor," Ianto answered easily. "And a couple of their friends."
"You called Rose?" she asked, irritated. "We can handle this. Jack's going to be annoyed that you bothered her."
"Yeah? Well find him and I'll apologize," Owen snapped.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
About ten minutes later and Mickey was bored. He'd walked around the entire place and as soon as he'd stumbled into cages filled with Weevils, he'd opted to go back into the TARDIS. The Doctor took him in so that he wouldn't get lost, leaving Rose and Ross to follow Ianto and Owen back to their computers in the middle of their base.
"Okay," Owen said, rounding the corner and coming to stand at his computer. "So we use Tosh's information to open the rift and bring them back."
"Woah," Rose put her hand up. "I've seen this rift open before and it almost destroyed the future."
"Besides, half the equation's missing," Ianto added, pointing at the screen. "We can't."
"It must be somewhere else," Owen argued, pushing his way to the keyboard. "Let me try."
"It's not there," Ianto snapped. "Tosh had it on her laptop, which she never goes anywhere without."
"Shit."
"Okay, hold on," Rose said, looking between them. "Do you guys have an idea where exactly they are?"
"1940s," Owen answered.
"I can go get them," she said. "Simple."
"Rose, you'd need an exact date," Ross disagreed. Rose glanced between him and the other men.
"No, I don't. I'll look for Jack in the 1940s. I've got some technology that can take me straight to him."
"I told you it was a good idea to call her," Owen muttered to Ianto.
"Ross, stay here and make sure nothing happens," Rose requested, hurrying back over to the TARDIS. "I'll be right back with both of them."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
The Doctor and Mickey sped into the console room together when the TARDIS began moving. More than moving, it was shaking and rocking in protest, clearly unwilling to go wherever Rose was trying to send them. She ran hurriedly around the console, working quickly to try and stabilize them. There was a loud bang and some sparks flew nearby. The TARDIS jolted so abruptly that all three of them fell to the grating just before the ship stilled completely.
"Wow," Rose said, jumping to her feet. "I wonder why she's so upset."
The Doctor hummed and got to his feet just as she got to the door and opened it. "Wait, Rose, don't-,"
She flung the door open and froze at the sight before her. Mickey came to stand behind her and blinked rapidly.
"That's you!"
"Shush," she hissed, covering his mouth with her hand. She saw her and Jack spin around for a moment before they both shrugged and turned back to their conversation as they walked. Quietly, she spoke. "Why'd she send us here, Doctor?"
"It looks like we can't get to where you wanted to be," the Doctor replied, staring at the screen. "I knew the forties were a mess, but I didn't realize it's this bad. We can't go get them with the TARDIS."
"Why are we looking at you?" Mickey asked, still lost. Rose watched as Jack took her arm and they walked together, discussing what was happening and their lives so far. He made some sort of joke and she threw her head back with a big, happy grin.
"Time travel," she answered softly. "This is the day Jack met me for the first time in 1941."
"Mummy? Are you my Mummy?"
"Nope!" the Doctor exclaimed. He rushed over and shut the door quickly before sending them back into the time vortex. "He can om-com, and we shouldn't be there."
"The hell was that?" Mickey asked, startled.
"That was Jamie," Rose answered, sighing. She sat down and put her head in her hands. "How do we find them, Doctor? Worst case, Jack can live through the next sixty-seven years. Tosh is completely human, though."
"Brilliant, too," the Doctor nodded. "She worked with UNIT when the mermaid crashed into Big Ben."
"That was Tosh?"
"Yep. We'll figure it out. We should get back to Torchwood and let them know, though. Maybe try and figure out what year they're in exactly."
The two of them landed the TARDIS. To their surprise, it was still difficult. Not nearly as hard as setting down in the forties, but still difficult enough that they were sent to the floor again. Rose ran out just as it happened. Her Time Lady mind allowed her to process the situation much quicker than she would've before, than humans would.
Owen stood in front of the rift machine with a disk in his hand. Ianto stood across from him with a gun pointed at him. Between the two and a bit off to the side, Ross was with his arms out, looking between them in concern.
And then Ianto's finger twitched.
Ross jumped at Ianto, throwing them both to the ground as Owen threw the disk into the rift machine. As the machine began to light up and work, Ross also lit up. Blood poured from his chest and as he prepared to regenerate, Rose sped over and grabbed onto him.
"Get away!" she yelled at Ianto, who scrambled away from them. The Doctor, having heard the gunshot, made his way over as well and grabbed the gun from the floor. Ross screamed in pain as he regenerated and she used a Time sense she didn't realize she had to take his excess regeneration energy and send it to a future regeneration of his that would need it. It did a lot to help with regeneration sickness, which meant that instead of passing out, he just looked vaguely sick but definitely awake. Instead of his dirty blonde hair, he now had a light blonde hair that was somewhat longer than the very short hair he'd had. His eyes were light green, and his face was full of angles and cheekbones.
When she was sure he was okay, she zoned back into the chaos around them. The Doctor was no longer yelling at Ianto and had moved over to the rift machine. He reached his hand in to try and remove the disk, but it burned his arm. Rose let out a pained hiss at the feeling through their bond.
"What the hell is happening?" Mickey yelled over the noise.
"I've found him!" a voice called from the computers. "They're here, they're safe!"
"We're not," the Doctor said darkly, eyeing Rose. She returned his grim look. "You've no clue what you've done, do you?"
"I got them back," Owen argued back. "Unlike you, disappearing for hours."
"We tried," Rose snapped. "Something's wrong with the forties, the TARDIS doesn't like it. We'd have gotten them!"
"Instead, you tried to destroy the world," the Doctor agreed. Finally, the rift machine calmed down, so he pulled the disk out and sonicked it to turn it off. Ross began shifting in Rose's lap. She pushed his hair out of his face quietly, watching him.
"What regeneration is this?" she wondered quietly. He grimaced.
"The third. These people are horrible. I have no clue how you're friends with them."
"Jack is my best friend," she disagreed gently. "I haven't worked with them much yet. What happened? Why'd he shoot you?"
"We tried to stop him from opening the rift," Ross said, screwing his face up in pain as she helped him sit up. "I disagreed with his use of a gun."
"Are we okay?" Rose asked the Doctor.
"It doesn't seem like anything's happened," Mickey told her. "It's fine."
"No, it isn't," the Doctor glared. Not at Mickey - he just glared in general. "The last time this rift was open, billions of gas creatures tried to come through it to kill all humans and possess their bodies."
"So what exactly could happen?"
"Time will break," Rose answered easily. "This rift, it's a tear in not only space, but also time. It'll leak through here onto earth and do…. Anything."
"Anything?"
"Anything."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Jack walked into Torchwood tiredly. He hadn't expected to run into the real Jack Harkness. He hadn't expected to fall into a temporal shift - he hadn't even heard of them on earth, if he was being honest.
Tosh and Gwen walked behind him, speaking quietly together. Ianto was sitting with Owen at the computer, arguing, and he most definitely did not have the energy for that, so he looked away and walked into his office.
Rose slammed into him, squeezing him in a tight hug. He didn't see her, but he'd hugged her enough times to recognize her and the smell of her shampoo. He dropped his bag on the floor and held her tightly, allowing her to comfort him quietly.
"Who called you?" he asked after what felt like a very long time and absolutely not long enough. She squeezed him tighter for a moment before pulling away and grabbing his hand in her own.
"Ianto and Owen," she answered. "And I'm glad they did. What happened?"
Jack sighed and pulled her over to his chair. She jumped up to sit on the desk and he sat in his chair, and once they were settled, they held hands again. He took a moment to consider her question. His immediate instinct was to lie or brush it off, but he didn't do that, not with her. "We met Captain Jack Harkness."
Rose grimaced. "What'd you do?"
"Fell for him," he shook his head in frustration. "I took the name, the identity of a brilliant man that died before he should've. I knew how he died, Rosie, but not that he was… kind. I didn't know he stood up for people that couldn't stand up for themselves. I didn't know he was hot."
Rose let out a small, sympathetic laugh. "Jack, you're brilliant. You're kind. You stand up for people that can't stand up for themselves. You're hot. Regardless of whether or not he'd have approved, you use his name now to do wonderful things. You protect the people of earth from whatever falls through the rift. You've saved the world before. You deserve his identity, Jack."
Jack pulled her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it gently. "Tell me what happened here."
Rose sighed. "We got here hours ago, according to your friends. They gave me a year and place and, using my chip, I tried to find you there. The issue is, the forties are messed up. We can't figure out what happened there, but it's extremely difficult to land there. We were skipping time tracks all over the place until we ended up exactly where we were in 1941. I saw you and I walking to find the Doctor."
Jack's lips twitched into a soft smile. "That's the day I fell in love with you."
Rose let out a small laugh and shook her head fondly. "So we came back here and when I walked out, Ianto had a gun pointed at Owen. Instead of shooting Owen, he shot Ross and made him regenerate."
Jack's eyes shot to the window where Tosh had broken up their argument and was speaking with Ianto. Owen had stormed off to his computer in his small medical area. "Why the hell was he trying to shoot him?"
"Because Owen wanted to open the rift to bring you back," Rose said, frowning down at him. "Jack, it's bad. The rift can't- we tried using the TARDIS to control it, but it didn't work. The Doctor is certain that this is only the beginning of it."
Jack ran his fingers of his free hand through his hair in stress. "It's you, the Doctor, and your friend Ross?"
"Mickey was here, but he went to find my Mum since she won't answer her phone," Rose shook her head. "The Doctor helped Ross into the Zero Room and took them into the time vortex to give him some time to heal. They'll be back in a few hours tops."
"Well, let's get to work controlling this," Jack decided. "Whatever happens, we'll handle it."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Spaceships above the Taj Mahal.
Men in historic dress shooting at police in London.
Guillotines appearing in Paris.
Samurai warriors on rampage in Tokyo.
The Beatles appearing on Abbey Road.
It was chaos.
"Abbadon," Ianto read. "The great devourer, who will lead the world into shadow."
"Yeah, thanks," Jack interrupted. "I can do without the superstition. You people love any story that denies the randomness of existence."
"It's not random," Rose spoke up for the first time in hours. She sat at Jack's desk with her head in her hands, frustrated. She hadn't said much in the last five hours, choosing rather to go over the blueprints to the rift machine and attempt to tweak it. When she'd given up on that, she'd grabbed out her phone and began texting the Doctor. None of them had gone through.
Owen looked at her with a scowl. "This isn't random? The bloody fucking Beatles isn't random?"
"No, it isn't," she confirmed, rubbing her temples with a wince. "Did you know humans used to be telepathic?"
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
Jack grimaced. "Rose is telepathic. Are you okay?"
She nodded. "Only a few of them were, so only a few are here. It's just more than I'm used to, and they're all very confused and very angry."
"Great! Add onto our list some weird fucking telepathic humans," Owen snapped. Tosh shot a glare at him but did as he said.
"I've been fielding calls all night," Jack told his team. "The government, UNIT, the CIA-,"
"What are they doing here?" Rose blinked, momentarily confused. With new people in her head, it was tough to keep her mind straight.
"What, in England?" Ianto wondered. "They're everywhere."
"Not the CIA, the CIA," Jack told her. To everyone else, his words made no sense, but Rose nodded her understanding. "Half the western world and a good portion of the eastern are all asking the same question - is this anything to do with us?"
"And is it?" Gwen asked, entering.
"Yes," Rose said as if it were obvious.
"I've run a profile on every reported temporal anomaly and tracked any physical or temporal pattern," Tosh announced. She pressed a button and a map popped up on a nearby screen, prompting Gwen to curse.
"The cracks in time trace back here to the rift," Jack said, glancing at Rose.
"Another one popped up," Ianto said. "Outside-,"
"Rose," Jack said, hurrying over. Her eyes lit up brightly but she put a hand on his arm to calm him.
"Let's go get her," she suggested. She got to her feet and, with Jack following her, made her way outside. They took the visitor ride out because it was faster and closer. Just outside the building was a very confused and scared woman in Victorian clothing.
"Who is she?" he whispered as they approached. Rose held her hand out and grabbed the woman's hand, prompting the amber glow around her to dissipate. Jack gasped. "Gwen?"
"It's okay," Rose assured her. "You're okay. It's me, see? Just me."
"What have you done?" Gwyneth asked, horrified. "Miss, it had to, I had to-,"
"And you did," Rose promised. "Look at my eyes, see? Bad Wolf still happened."
"Rose, who is she?" Jack asked, a bit more firmly this time.
"You've found him," Gwyneth breathed in relief upon spotting Jack. "Oh, you're halfway there, Miss. You're so close."
"Jack, this is Gwyneth," Rose introduced. "She's the wonderful woman that helped open and close the rift the first time when the Gelth tried to come through."
"She looks like-,"
"Gwen," Rose agreed. "They may be related somehow."
"Miss, what happened? I'm… lost."
"Someone opened the rift again," Rose explained. "It's been a very long time since you did it, around a hundred and fifty years."
"I was pulled through," Gwyneth realized, looking around. "Oh, no, Miss, everything is wrong here. You must fix it, you must make it right."
"We're working on it," Jack promised. "Why don't we go back downstairs and we can keep working?"
"I'll take her in through the side," Rose suggested. She didn't think Gwyneth would appreciate a floating piece of cement. "That'll give you a moment to either explain to Gwen or get her out of there."
Jack nodded his agreement and they separated. Gwyneth was rather quiet as they made their way through and Rose, feeling her in her mind, knew she was referring to Rose's thoughts and feelings on everything to know that it was all normal and okay. When they got back to the conference room, Gwen was still there and looked… confused.
"All good?" Rose asked the girl gently. When she nodded, Rose nodded at Jack to continue what he'd been saying.
"What we're seeing is ripples and aftershocks around the world," Jack told them, turning to look at Owen with a glare. "The rift is splintering because of you."
"What?" Owen asked, breathing out softly.
"You opened the rift without knowing what you were doing," Jack told him. Rose held her tongue. Jack knew just what had happened after they'd had a long talk about it, so he knew how to punish his team. It wasn't her place. "You've caused the temporal cracks to widen. Time is seeping through."
"If it wasn't for me, you two would still be in 1940," Owen reasoned angrily.
"Rose would have gotten us out," Jack disagreed sharply, loudly. "Just because she tried once with the TARDIS doesn't mean she can't get us out using other means!"
"What other means?" Owen yelled back, getting to his feet now. "As far as I can tell, only her stupid box can travel through time!"
"Jack," Rose interrupted before he could continue yelling. "It's not important. What's done is done."
Jack took a moment to compose himself. He straightened and looked at Gwen. "Bring those who've fallen through time back here - into the vaults."
"And do what with them?" Owen asked with a glare.
"We'll deal with phase one first, then I'll tell you about phase two," Jack snapped.
"You can't control time, you can't send them back," Owen shot back, his voice getting louder again. "The Doctor took the TARDIS and left! What are you gonna do?"
"Right now, it's not about sending them back," Rose said softly, gaining their attention. "Right now, it's about damage control. Get them here, keep them out of the regular world. I'll get UNIT's help doing that. What we need to focus on is dealing with the rift. If we don't heal it, then rounding them up won't matter anymore because more will keep coming."
"This is not the end of the world," Jack said, his voice softening as he looked at his team. "We'll handle this."
"But he's right," Gwen said slowly. "The Doctor took the TARDIS and left."
Rose looked at her friend. "How many times exactly have I met them?"
"Only a few times," he explained. Understanding passed through her as he turned back to them. "We've got something a hell of a lot better than the TARDIS or the Doctor, okay? We've got Rose."
"Yeah, you keep saying that," Owen glared. "But what exactly is it that she can do aside from disappear for hours?"
"I'm not doing anything right now," Rose told them, looking around. "Controlling the rift would kill me, it's too powerful. I can do it, but I'd rather not die if I don't have to yet."
"So, do what I said and get them here," Jack told them. A computer beeped rapidly and Ianto turned around to look at it.
"Priority one attendence at the hospital," he told them. Jack wavered. That was not good. "Mortality rate has gone through the roof. They're sealing off the area and designating a hot zone."
"I'll go," Owen decided, putting his earpiece on.
"Tosh, go with him," Jack ordered without looking up.
"Uh, no thanks, I'm fine on my own," Owen assured him.
"And you'll be even better with me alongside," Tosh sighed, walking out, muttering for him to shut up along the way.
Gwen's glare at Jack was finally noticed by the man. "Did you have to pick on him in front of everyone like that?"
Rose blinked at the woman in shock. "You have no clue the damage he's done. I left Ross here because he's smart enough to know what is and isn't dangerous, even if you lot don't and you know what happened? Ianto shot him and Owen did it anyway. Ross was trying to prevent the literal end of the world. I've seen it once, almost died, and I'd rather avoid doing so again."
"All of our actions have consequences," Jack agreed.
"But all your staff have feelings, Jack! Even Owen!"
"Well, you would know," Jack muttered before walking out of the room. Gwen stared at him in a mixture of horror and anger.
"Jack knows," Rose said after a couple of quiet moments, startling Gwen. The woman looked at her in confusion and concern. "Jack more than anyone knows that everyone has feelings. He's one of the most if not the most sensitive people I've ever met. He yelled at Owen but not nearly as much as the Doctor, Ross, or I would've. Jack doesn't even fully understand the extent of what Owen's done because it goes beyond the machine."
"But Owen didn't understand," Gwen argued. "It's not his fault."
"It's his fault as much as a toddler breaking something they shouldn't have touched is at fault," Rose agreed. "No matter how much you tell the toddler not to touch it, they still want to."
"We're not babies," the woman snapped. Rose shrugged.
"I'd have said the same thing a few years ago. Now that I am what I am and I have the knowledge that I have… I understand where the Doctor is coming from much better."
"What is it, exactly, that you can do?" she asked, irritated. Rose eyed her for a moment before she turned to Gwyneth.
"I think I'm going to send you back now. You're a fixed point in time and I don't want to risk ruining that."
"Of course, Miss," Gwyneth agreed. "But… do me a favor, will you?"
"Anything."
"Be wary of your friend," she requested. "The best people can, with some twisting, become your demons."
Rose frowned. "Which… friend?"
"I am ready."
Rose shook herself and nodded. Glancing at Gwen only once, she let Bad Wolf take over. Bad Wolf touched Gwyneth's shoulder and suddenly, the woman was covered in golden energy and sent back to the moment she'd been taken from. Once she was gone, Bad Wolf faded back again and Rose shook herself a bit.
"Holy shit."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"And that's all he said? 'I'm sorry?'"
"That's it," Gwen confirmed, frustrated. She'd been visited by Bilis in the police station, but when she'd looked away, he'd disappeared. Rose stood there, lost. She'd come down to inform them of the black death that Owen had diagnosed in the hospital and found only more confusing things.
"More weevils on the loose," Ianto told them, shoving that one into the cell. Rose shivered at the sight as it pounded on the door, remembering the last time she'd been down there. "Sightings are on the increase."
"I really need to figure out where they're coming from," she muttered, mostly to herself. "Maybe we can plug up the hole on their side of the universe."
"Everything's on the increase," Jack sighed, frustrated.
"Can we stop them from making that noise?" Gwen requested.
"If you've got any ideas how," Ianto scoffed.
"Maybe they're time sensitive," Jack suggested, looking at Rose. "Rose?"
She felt out with her time senses and winced. "It's like it's trying to cling to my atron energy. They're not aliens, they're… time leeches. Probably attracted here because of the rift."
"Any news on the Doctor and Ross?" Ianto questioned, earning a few head shakes.
"Can't get through to them and they probably landed late," Rose explained. "The disturbance with the rift was hard enough to land during and with that and trying to land in the forties, the TARDIS is probably refusing to land until this is over."
"So we can't expect help from them," Gwen summoned up.
"As for these guys," Rose waved at the mostly full cells. "I think we should take the non-violent anomalys to UNIT. I told the Brigadier that we might need help and that I only want to work with him and he's ready to give us whatever we need, including a place to put the bloody Beatles."
"Alright," Jack nodded. "Let's go."
The three of them turned to leave, not paying attention as Ianto stood behind, staring at a wall where he saw his girlfriend that had been turned into a Cyberman and she told him to open the rift.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"What happens when another carrier comes through, Jack? Someone carrying ebola or smallpox or something from the future that we don't even know about yet? What do we do then?"
"Yeah, well, it's not doing us any good standing around speculating," Jack told him, trying to walk to his office with Rose. Owen got in their way, raising his voice.
"We need to be prepared!" Owen told him. "I mean help us. All we're doing is putting plasters on gaping wounds!"
"That's not true," Rose snapped, irritated with him. He had the gall to be upset with Jack while Owen was the one that caused the issue to begin with? That wasn't right. "We need to round them up, cut down on public confusion while we work on figuring out how to seal up the rift again! Then either the Doctor and I can take them all home or I'll do it myself."
"And you!" Owen shouted. "I don't even know what the hell it is that you do! Far as I can tell, you just follow Jack around all over the place and fuck him!"
"Owen," Jack snapped angrily, his voice dark. The calm mask he had on disappeared and was replaced by the protective anger that coursed through him. "Don't."
"I'm just saying, why the hell did you tell us to call her in the first place? She's not done a single fucking thing! She's fucking useless and the bloody world is ending!"
"Shut up, Owen," Gwen said before Jack could blow up. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Ianto, put the cells up on the screen," Rose requested. Lost, he did as she said. Jack grabbed her arm.
"Rose, don't," he warned. "The TARDIS isn't here. You don't know how much it could hurt you. You haven't even been able to get a text to the Doctor."
Rose tilted her head. He was right, she had to admit. So she grabbed a pen and piece of paper, wrote down the date, the time, and the instructions to just lock onto her to find her and began with that. Shaking off his hand, she let Bad Wolf be pulled to the surface. The first thing she did was send the piece of paper to the TARDIS.
"Holy fuck," Owen whispered.
Next, Bad Wolf closed her eyes and sent everyone in the cells that had come through because of the rift back to where they belonged. That was about fifty four people in total, so when she was done, she let go of Bad Wolf and leaned heavily against Jack, who wrapped his arms around her and glared angrily at Owen.
"Rose shouldn't have to prove herself to you for you to shut the fuck up," he snapped, rubbing her arm comfortingly. "Get out."
"What?" Gwen breathed in shock, speaking at the same time as Owen.
"You know what we protect here?" Jack asked, only keeping his voice low for Rose's sake. "We protect earth, and we protect Rose Tyler, and not in that order."
"She's just a woman!" Owen yelled, lost.
"After all that, you still think she's just a-,"
"Jack, leave it," Rose told him. "Just leave it. He's scared and frustrated."
Jack eyed Owen, a dangerous aura about him. "Watch yourself. I don't care what you say about me, but Rose is off limits. Do you understand me?"
Owen nodded stiffly, angry and scared but also just confused.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
After the bad decision of becoming Bad Wolf and sending everyone back home, Rose needed a walk. Ianto had escorted her up to the street while Jack sat down to talk to - yell at - Owen. Once Ianto left, she took in a deep breath and began walking. It was around eight in the morning, and they'd been there all night.
When she turned the corner, her phone rang. Caller ID told her that it was Mickey and not the Doctor as she hoped. Still, she sighed and answered it. "Hey, Mick. How's Mum?"
"I don't want to alarm you," he said, his voice in panic and doing nothing to keep her from panicking. "But she's gone."
"Gone," Rose repeated. Her mind rushed as she thought about it and she came up with two ideas, one of which was so awful she refused to properly consider it. She hurried over to a nearby bench and picked up the discarded newspaper. She let out a breath of relief at the reminder of the date. "It's January, 2007."
"Yeah, and?"
"Nothing," she shook her head. "I think I know where she is. It's okay, Mick."
"But Rose, the entire flat is empty," he continued on, still worried. "Like she doesn't even live here anymore."
"I know, it's okay."
"But mine is empty, too!"
She hesitated then. "Look, it's got to do with your future, but I promise you that you're fine, okay? Do you trust me?"
"'Course," he sighed into the phone. "I'm gonna get some breakfast and then head back."
"Right. Call me when you get here."
He grunted his confirmation and hung up. She let her phone and hand fall to her side. It was 2007. That meant that either they'd done it and Mickey and Jackie had stayed in the other universe, or… something else. She didn't want to consider that something else.
Someone tapped her shoulder, prompting her to turn. Standing a few paces away and smirking was the face she always dreaded to see.
"I'm here, love," he told her. She wasn't sure he was real because she couldn't see his timelines, but she also didn't really think she was hallucinating him. "Come find me, Rose, or I'll find you."
"Isn't that the same thing?" she pointed out. He let out a low laugh. "You get what you want in the end either way, so I'm hardly going to help you, am I?"
"Come find me or I'll find Jack," he corrected. That got her hearts racing. Before, she'd figured Jack could handle him. Now… there was so much going on that needed his attention and she knew that if she even hinted that Jimmy was somewhere around, he'd drop everything to find him. She looked back at the small shop by the water that she'd left from and when she glanced back to Jimmy, he was gone.
Cursing in Old High Gallifreyan, she balled her hands up into fists and walked toward the bus stop.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"Some of this stuff must go back centuries," Gwen commented idly as she leaned over to look at one of the many clocks in the shop they'd entered. It was Bilis's shop and they'd gone there to find the man.
"Scavenges pieces from the past, brings them back here, sells them for a profit," Jack nodded. It was certainly something he'd have done if he hadn't been the type of con man he'd been. "Not a bad business plan."
"We all have to earn a living," Bilis told them, walking down the spiral staircase behind them. The two spun around in surprise.
"You're from 1940," Jack stated.
"As you were," Bilis agreed, walking over to the case behind them. He nodded at Gwen. "Hello again."
"How can you be in two times at once?" Gwen wondered. They turned around together to look at him as he set down the things he was holding.
"I can step across eras like you would walk into another room," he told them simply. "At first, it was the most incredible gift. Now I know the reality… it's a curse."
"Why?"
"I can see the whole of history… but I don't belong anywhere within it," he concluded. He shook himself from whatever daze he was in and glanced back at them. "So your return to this time had a price. Time is splintering."
"What do you know about that?" Jack asked, his voice even.
"This city exists on a rift in time that your Miss Tyler had a part in opening. The only way to make it right is to fully open that rift and let it suck back what fell through."
"No way," Jack shook his head, eyeing the old man. "It's too dangerous."
"Can we even do that?" Gwen wondered, looking between Bilis and Jack.
"Of course, you can," Bilis confirmed. "Isn't that right, Captain?"
Gwen looked back to her boss. "Jack?"
"You've seen what happened," he told her. "If we open that rift fully, millions of lives will be at risk. Rose would never allow it."
"Rose isn't in charge, you are," Gwen snapped.
"And if you don't, more will fall through," Bilis added. "Lives will be lost."
Jack laughed and leaned back. When he turned back to the man, he had a gun pointed at his face. Gwen stepped back nervously. "You know so much, you're coming back with us."
"I'm sorry," Bilis disagreed. He popped right out, disappearing from there completely.
"Damn it," Jack cursed, tucking his gun away. "Trace the temporal activity around this location. We need to find out where he is, come on."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
When they returned to the hub, Owen and Rose were both gone. According to Tosh, Owen had gone for a drink while Rose had gone for a walk. Not long after Jack returned, Gwen showed up with Rhys, who was passed out in the back of her car. Ianto carried him into the hub and, under Jack's orders, put him in a cell. When he woke, Gwen was there to talk to him. He didn't take being in a cell very well, but in his defense, no one would.
When Gwen got back upstairs, she pushed her hair out of her face in frustration. Jack looked away from Tosh and Ianto. "Did he wake up?"
"Yeah," she confirmed, overwhelmed. "Yeah, he did. Tosh, can you bring up the CCTV of the vaults? Ah… just leave it on the screen. I know it sounds crazy, but-,"
"Sure," Tosh said, giving her a small, reassuring smile. "No problem."
"It'll be okay," Ianto tried to assure her.
"I can't understand how Bilis was able to show you that vision," Tosh admitted.
"It was so real, Tosh," Gwen muttered. "I was in my flat. It smelled like my flat. It had all the sounds… of my flat. I touched the blood - I can still feel it on my hands! Rhys's blood."
Jack cut her off by taking her hand to calm her down. "Not gonna happen." When she breathed out and nodded, he looked back to the others. "Come on, there's still work to be done. Did Rose or Owen say when they'd be back?"
"Owen said give it an hour, Rose said… huh," Ianto frowned at his watch. "She said a half hour. It's been forty-five minutes."
Jack frowned. Rose wasn't usually late for anything - it was when the Doctor drove that they had issues. Since they were on earth without the TARDIS, there was only more reason for concern. Unfortunately, his worries were cut off by the lights dimming before turning off completely. An alarm was sounding somewhere in the hub as the lights began flashing dimly.
"What's going on?" Ianto questioned, glancing at Tosh's tablet.
"We've got a security breach," she answered with a frown.
"Alright," Jack nodded slowly. "Nobody panic."
"Rhys!" Gwen yelled in a panic.
"I literally just said not to panic."
She spun on her heel and sprinted down the hall and then down to the cells where he'd been put. Jack followed her the entire way there. Despite Rose having sent back everyone earlier, more Weevils had popped up already, so the cells had slowly begun filling up again.
When they got down there, he hadn't been attacked by a Weevil.
No, he'd been stabbed. Twice.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Owen stared at Jack for what felt like an eternity before he took the stairs two at a time and tried to pull Gwen out of his arms. Instead of letting him comfort her, she shouted at him, hit him, and moved back over to Rhys's body. He looked between her, Rhys, and Jack tiredly. "How many more people have to suffer?"
Jack didn't answer.
"I'm gonna fix this," he decided. "I'm opening the rift."
As Owen sped off, Jack met Ianto's eyes. The man moved to run up the stairs, much to Jack's relief. "Make sure you stop him."
Ianto turned around and summoned all of the courage in him. "No."
Tosh walked up the last two steps nervously. "We're going to help him."
And then Gwen went after them, pausing only to look back at her friend. "What if Bilis is right? He said open the rift and everything will go back to normal… Owen's right. I'm going to get Rhys back."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Rose stared at the building before her. It was one she was very familiar with. Anxiety filled her at the sight, and so she pulled out her phone. Her first instinct was to text Jack, but she knew he'd come after her straight away. Instead, she sent a text with the address, flat number, and a very specific time - ten minutes from then - to Sarah Jane with the instructions that should she not text her again in ten minutes, Sarah Jane needed to call Jack and the police and send them to her.
Once the woman had replied that she would do so, along with an inquiry into whether or not Rose was okay, Rose entered the building. It was exactly the same. It looked the same, it smelled the same, and it sounded the same. She rushed up the stairs until she reached the correct floor. Once there, she sucked in a deep breath and used the key she still kept on her to open the door.
It was very much unchanged. The flat was a bit messy, but overall clean. There was a pair of sandals peeking out from under the coffee table, suggesting they'd been kicked off when she'd sat down there. Dust had collected everywhere. Worst of all, there was a small trail of blood from the bedroom to the middle of the living room. She knew it hadn't come from her, which suggested it was from the last time she'd been there.
A quick look into the bedroom and then the bathroom made it clear to her that Jimmy wasn't there. She supposed that was smart of him. She'd caught the Doctor making calls to an old friend of his about keeping the flat under surveillance. Normally she'd be worried about that, but with everything going on, she was sure everyone had more important issues at the moment.
Rose picked up her phone as she left the flat and sent Sarah Jane another text assuring her that she was fine. She locked the door behind her and turned around to head to the office where Jimmy had worked during the day when he wasn't skipping it to either drink or set up for whatever gig he had that night.
It was going to be a long, stress filled day.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
"Enter emergency protocol one," Ianto explained. Owen typed rapidly, glancing back every once in a while to make sure Jack wasn't trying to stop them. Gwen walked up and shoved him back.
"Out of the way, I'll do this," she said firmly.
"Get away from the computer, Gwen," Jack ordered, coming to a stop a few feet away from her. Owen put himself between them, his hands up. "This is a trap. All these cracks around the world, they're diversions. This is what Bilis wants."
"What are you afraid of, Jack?" Owen asked, shaking his head. Jack pulled his gun when Ianto gave Gwen the password for protocol one.
"I said move," he said loudly. It was enough that Gwen looked back at him.
"What the hell are you doing?" Tosh asked, horrified.
"Final warning."
Gwen stepped away from the computer and walked toward him and his raised gun. "Come on, Jack. I know what Rose means to you, I can see it. Would she want you to raise your gun at your friends?"
Jack hesitated, his hands falling just a tad. It was enough that Owen stepped forward and punched him. When he fell to the ground, Owen swiped the gun away from him and pointed it at him instead.
"We're relieving you of your command, Captain," he said loudly. "We're opening that rift and getting back what we lost!"
Gwen turned back to the computer and stared at it in frustration as the words 'retina prints of all Torchwood personnel required for authorisation' popped up. "Shit!"
Jack got to his knees, much to Owen's displeasure.
"Stay down!"
"Are you going to be in charge, Owen?" Jack asked, taunting him. He got to his feet and, to everyone's shock and horror, he shot Jack in the head.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
It was different being somewhere in the time vortex and being so close to Jack while he died. With her right there, Rose felt the pain of the fixed point trying to reset itself, to put things right. Horrified understanding passed through her and she immediately abandoned her quest to find Jimmy and used Bad Wolf's powers to show up in the Torchwood hub.
Rose landed on her knees just a moment before Jack hit the ground. His dead body slammed into her and, still glowing with the Bad Wolf, she let out a scream. There was a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead and his eyes were open.
As much as she wanted to kill whoever had killed Jack, she focused on him. She knew what was coming, she could feel it, so she sat there brushing his hair out of his face and holding his limp hand. The only reason Bad Wolf was still active was because of her fury - something had to hold it back and the part of the Bad Wolf that was the TARDIS was best suited for the job.
It was maybe five minutes later when Gwen approached Rose and Jack. Rose paid her no mind as she scanned his eye.
She should have.
Even the aggressive alarm and the red and white flashing lights didn't pull her from her thoughts as she held Jack in her arms. When he gasped awake, she pulled him into a hug. "Shh, it's okay. I'm here."
"Rosie," he managed. "Rose, I-,"
"I know," she promised. "I know."
"Oh my god!"
Jack looked around and glared up at his friends. Rose helped him carefully to his feet. "What have you done?"
"The rift," Rose realized, watching the rift machine. She mentally kicked herself for not bothering to ask them what the hell they were doing, but she had been scared and worried and had almost thought he wouldn't come back at all with how long it had taken him.
The building shook violently. The Weevils in their cells went crazy, growling and hissing and hitting. An office with glass walls exploded and with that, Rose decided to take them all out of there and set them down outside. With what she'd done earlier, she felt a bit queasy, but was otherwise fine.
When they all looked up, they saw Bilis.
"From out of the darkness, he is come."
"What is he talking about?" Gwen asked, not in the mood for the old man's bullshit.
"Son of the beast," Bilis continued. "Cast out before time, chained in rock and imprisoned beneath the rift."
"That sounds like…" Rose breathed. "It can't be."
"Oh, yes," Bilis confirmed. "It is, Miss Tyler."
"But we beat him!"
Bilis looked up toward the sky. "All hail Abbadon, the Great Devourer. Come to feast on life!"
The group looked up and Rose covered her mouth in shock and horror. Jack held her tight in his arms. She clearly knew this Abaddon and was not fond of him. Although, he thought, if Abaddon had to trick them into opening the rift, he probably wasn't a good person to begin with.
"The whole world shall die beneath his shadow," Bilis proclaimed. The creature - Abaddon - growled mightily at them as they stared at it in shock and horror. He walked away from them and every time someone stepped under his shadow, they died. "Hear me, god, and know my work… is done."
The group all at once decided to run for it. They found a seemingly calm place and began to pace together.
"How do we stop it?" Gwen demanded to know.
"In my experience?" Rose frowned. "By tricking it into staying put. The Doctor and I kept him in chains but… it looks like that didn't hold. He should've fallen into that black hole! The planet lost its orbit, there was nothing keeping it from falling in anymore."
"It doesn't matter why it didn't fall in," Ianto cut in. "What matters is how the Doctor kept it locked up."
"By trusting me," Rose frowned. "He trusted me to realize Toby was still possessed and get him the fuck out of there, and I did. I shot the window open and unbuckled him and he fell into the black hole."
"He must've… somehow come out somewhere," Tosh frowned.
"What do we do, Jack?" Gwen asked. Jack looked between everyone and then settled on Rose.
"Just you," he decided. "We need to get to an open space."
Rose nodded, grabbed onto him, and sent them away. They appeared in a large clearing nearby Abaddon. "What's your plan?"
"If Abaddon is the bringer of death, let's see how he does with me," Jack explained. As much as she wanted to argue, she also knew his plan was perfect. It would be a very, very long time before the fixed point failed him and couldn't bring him back anymore. He grabbed her and carefully kissed her lips. Fearing for him, she kissed back for just a second before he backed up. "Get out of here, Rosie. I'll be fine."
"I'll take care of you," she promised him. "Don't die forever, Jack."
"How could I?" he winked at her, patting her hand. "You'd be lost without me."
Shaking her head fondly, Rose popped back to his team.
"Where the hell is he?" Ianto asked her. She stared at the monster as it neared her best friend.
"With Abaddon."
"What?" they yelled together. She put a hand up, but Tosh spoke first.
"He'll die!"
"There's a lot about Jack that you guys don't know," she assured them. "Why d'you think I sat there with him?"
"You knew he'd come back," Owen realized. "But how the hell did he come back? He had a bullet in his brain!"
"I did it," she answered offhandedly, focusing more on the monster than them. "It's a long story, but he'll be fine. He's the only man in the universe that could face this monster and come out without a scratch. Might need a light nap, though."
Abaddon began growling and yelling in pain, twisting his body about as it couldn't handle Jack's lives. A light shot from the ground where Jack knelt and slammed into Abaddon, beginning to crack him apart. Abaddon was sent to his knees momentarily before he collapsed completely, dead.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Of course, it was three hours after everything had ended that the TARDIS found herself able to land in the hub again. When the Doctor rushed out the doors, all he found was Ianto, Owen, Tosh, Gwen, and Mickey, who had returned and luckily lived through the Abaddon ordeal.
"Where is she?" the Doctor asked them. Through their bond, he could feel her impatience and concern.
"She's in the morgue," Ianto answered. Despite feeling her feelings, he looked at the man in alarm. "Oh, no, not- it's Jack."
Understanding passed through him and he relaxed. "How long has it been so far?"
"A few hours," Gwen told him. "I don't get it. Jack must've stood under Abaddon for three minutes. How does she expect him to come back from that? She didn't even try CPR."
"Jack always comes back," the Doctor muttered. "A bit like gnats that way."
Aren't you supposed to respect the dead?
Only if they're not going to come back and annoy me more.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
When Jack finally woke up, it had been much longer than anyone had anticipated. Rose insisted on staying there and had suggested the Doctor take Ross and Mickey to do things they couldn't do with her, like go to the planet with the wonderful waterpark that happened to believe that women were all sirens who would kill men the second they set eyes on them.
Goodbyes with Jack took longer than she'd expected, too. They sat and talked for around eight full hours as if they hadn't spoken in years. It made her a bit sad and she resisted the urge to ask him along multiple times.
To Rose's complete disagreement, Jack forgave his friends. All of them, completely. When Owen had seen him and walked up, Jack grabbed him in a hug and the younger man just began crying. It was an emotional day and at the end of it, reluctantly, Rose and Jack parted once more.
It was after Rose had left that an alarm on Jack's vortex manipulator went off and he shot to his feet, ran out of the hub, and left his team there for much longer than he'd originally intended.
OoOoOoOoOoOo