Chapter Twenty-Five

***December 3rd****

As Christmas got closer, Archie finally contacted Jack to let him know he would accept a member of his team coming round to see him and explain the new system. I had officially taken my place as Jack's second, and as the second most knowledgeable person in regards to the Torchwood system, they decided it was a good idea for me to go too Scotland. And I also had the paperwork for Archie's two 'stationaries' to officially join Torchwood, as well as another two blanks for when he decided he wanted new employees, as long as they were cleared by me and Jack first.

Jack had given me the keys to his car. It was a black Volkswagen Scirocco, and much like the SUV it had been kitted out with various defences, advanced locking and Jack had even made the shell bullet proof. I hadn't been aware he even owned a car, before he let me into the garage, were there were not one, but nine cars he owned and had driven during his time. Every twenty or so years, he brought a new car 'too keep up with the times' but that didn't mean he neglected the older models. It amused me greatly to discover that Jack was a gear head.

The drive to Scotland was boring, since I was the only one in the car. The only time the monotonous drive was broken up, was when Jack called to fill me in on what was happening at the hub, or when I pulled over at a café or serves station to take the time to update myself on the files I had been sent by the police.

Eventually, I reached the base of Torchwood 2. Despite the fact that it was an old country mansion, surrounded by fields, and were Queen Victoria began the institute, Torchwood house was deemed unsuitable for the main base of operations. Even when the institute was first set up, Torchwood House was mostly research, with a couple of highly trained soldiers their just encase. Archie had been running this branch for nearly thirty years, and he never agreed with what Yvonne was doing over at Torchwood 1.

Pulling the car up in front of the house, I got out and looked around. The house didn't seem to have had any repair work or adaptions made to it since it was first built. Grabbing the briefcase and my laptop bag from the back of the car, I entered the building.

The front doors led to a long hallway; coming off on the left-hand side was a kitchen, an old armoury and the cellar. The first door on the right was a living room, then a dining room before I finally came across the office room.

Archie was sat at his desk, which was covered in files. Archie himself was an elder gentleman in his late fifties, with a grey moustache, fading grey hair and a rounded stomach. There were two other people in the room, at their own desks and deeply engrossed in their work. The first was a woman who appeared to be in her thirties, with brown hair pulled back into a bun and she gave me the distinct impression of a non-nonsense teacher. Finally, the other young lady appeared to have just entered her twenties, had blond hair and sharp blue eyes.

"So, this stationary, how much did you want to pay them?" I asked, making the group jump and look to me sharply.

"You must be Raven? I apologise for not noticing you sooner." Archie said, jumping up and hurrying out from behind his desk to great me.

"It's quite all right, Archie. I'm used to walking around unnoticed." I offered the slightly embarrassed man a smile. "Can I know the name of the two ladies so that I can official make them part of the team?" I asked, getting straight down to business as I placed my brief case on an empty desk, and pulled out four stacks of paper.

"I'm Mary Danial." The elder one spoke first.

"How long you been working here?" I asked next. When Mary looked slightly hesitant, I offered her a smile. "Torchwood pays well, and the money you've been getting under 'stationary' isn't nearly close to what you should have been getting. I've been given permission to back pay you for all the pay checks you've missed." I explained.

"I've been working here since November 1984. So, it's been twenty-one years." Mary answered confidently.

"Okay," I filled in that information as well. "Right, you need to read and sign this. It's your employment contract. You also need to read and sign the Official Secrets Acts – whether you've signed it before or not is irrelevant." I pushed two of the stacks of paper to Mary, who nodded and went back to her desk to begin reading.

"I'm Sarah Nightingale." The young lady introduced herself. "And I've been working here since January of 2004. So, it's been nearly two years."

"Thanks." I smiled and filled in the information before offering her the paperwork. "Archie, do you mind if I get a tour of the place before I fill you in on the new system?"

"No, no not at all. Sarah is the techy of the group, so she'll probably be the one you want to talk to rather than me." Archie admitted as he led me from the room.

"I'll explain it to you both, so you know what changes we've done. But if Sarah is your head of technology, then I'll make sure she has Tosh's number so that if she needs help, she knows who to call." I told him, not letting him back out of learning how to use the system.

"Alright," Archie signed. "Right then. We have two archives. The first is in the cellar and has all the artefacts in them, split into dangerous, potentially dangerous and non-dangerous."

"I'll look at that one last." I told Archie, knowing it would take some time to compare his artefacts against the Torchwood 1 and 3 archives where they had a greater access to alien artefacts and Jack's knowledge from his time with the Doctor and as a time agent.

"Then we have the paper archives. The doors are all passcode protected. We have seven full rooms, and have enough space for another three before I'm going to have to contact you about more space. The first room has our oldest records, and we go forward through time with each room." Archie stopped at one of the doors which was labelled: 1878-1900. The seven subsequent doors were labelled: 1901-1943, 1944-1958, 1959-1973, 1974-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-.

"Do you have back-up copies of all these files on the Torchwood data base?" I asked, deciding to wait to look through the files later.

"All the ones from 1981 and onwards are on the shared data-base but nothing before that. And why did I get the funny feeling we're about to get a lot of work?" Archie raised an eyebrow.

I offered him a smile. "We're going to need you to scan all those files onto the shared data base once I've updated your system. You may have some of the missing information from our own files." I told him, not feeling remotely guilty for the shear amount of work I had just given him since Ianto easily had twice the work and he had started three years ago.

"Mary isn't going to be pleased." Archie informed me as he showed me the two bedrooms and library that were left from when the house was first built. The library was very impressive and I had to remind myself that I had nine days to get my work done, and if I finished early then I would go through the library and not before.

"I've got an additionally two employee contracts. As long as one of the people you find has basic first-aid training, and you clear them with me or Jack first, you have clearance to introduce them to your team." I told him as they entered the observatory room which had the famous endeavour still standing proudly.

"Two employees?" Archie questioned. "Well, I've been scouting for some fresh young talent. I'm not getting any younger you know."

"Indeed." I told him with an amused smile.

****December 3th-22nd ****

I had been at Torchwood House for nineteen days. I spent the few days updating their system with Sarah, while informing the other two of what had changed and how they could now use the shared archive, as long as they had access to their specific passcode.

I also gave them their individual shutdown codes – if they ever felt Torchwood House or themselves were compromised then entering the code would prevent anyone from accessing the information without me or Jack entering the counter code. I had also linked this knew shutdown in with the House's own defences system, which automatically placed four-inch steel walls around all Archive areas and a double deadlock system that Jack and Tosh had adapted from alien technology. Not even a nuclear bomb would be getting through those defences, although Archie had called it an excessive measure when it was instilled five years ago he was more than happy for it when the cyber men attacked because it gave him and his people somewhere safe to take cover and shield as much of the Torchwood data base as they could.

After that, I went through the object archive, helping them identify some of the technology that they had seen before in Cardiff. Despite the Torchwood three base being under the rift, and therefore getting more alien technology, there were still about 20% of the archive that went unclassified beyond a possible general purpose from similar makes or designs I had seen while helping Ianto and Tosh.

It took roughly seven days to get that done, before I began searching through Archie's paper archives. This was the second main reason I had been sent down. Jack and Ianto had discovered that they were missing several important pieces of paperwork, and Jack was sure that they had sent copies of the information to Scotland since it held relevant research potential. I had been given a list of five dates, and had read what remained of the files, so that I could identify if Archie had the complete file.

While Sarah and Mary were going through the slow process of scanning everything online – starting from 1980 and working backwards – I disappeared into the earlier rooms looking for the relevant files. It took nearly four days before I found the complete paperwork. Using Archie's photocopier, I copied everything and then replaced the original copies and filled out the necessary paperwork that would go with my copy back to the base to let future generations know that this was the copy of the copy sent to the House, following the miss-placement and possible destruction of the original.

"So, is that everything that you need to do?" Archie inquired when I sealed the briefcase.

"Yes, I've achieved everything that I was set out to achieve. I should be getting back to Cardiff, apparently three people have appeared through the rift from the 1950s." I offered Archie a smile, I had only meant to stay for nine days bit I couldn't leave until I had found the files so I ended up staying for nearly a month. "It was a pleasure meeting you, and thanks for letting me sleep here."

"It was a pleasure having you. We don't get much contact with you lot throughout the year, and you've made my job much easier." Archie tapped the employee contracts that were still blank. He was currently looking through portfolios of some promising young genius. "Besides, no one sleeps in those beds outside of time sensitive research projects."

"Jack or I will be in contact." I promised before getting in Jack's car and heading back to Cardiff, hopping to make it in time to help Jack who was in slightly over his head in trying to help three people adapt to the current time period. Although he could read people, and he could be emotionally sensitive, he knew he had trouble connecting with people and getting them to open up to him – especially with the number of secrets he kept.