So, jumping back in with Jack. The chapter lengths are starting to get longer, but I don't want them to get to long so I will be splitting them at where I believe there are transition points.
Writing John Hart is fun, and the way he changes Raven's interaction with Jack is interesting and I hope that it comes across in this chapter and the next two.
Chapter Forty: Stepping Back In
"Owen, why aren't you in the autopsy area?" Jack and Raven asked in stereo as they stepped into the base to find Tosh and Owen sipping coffee while stood with the computers. Ianto was stood nearby, not quite with the two, but close enough to be able to converse with the two of them. Gwen was stood with a frown, clearly waiting for Jack to arrive.
"Um…" Owen cast around, looking for a rescue which Gwen happily provided by decided to target Raven.
"Are you sure no more like him came through?" Gwen demanded of Raven with a frown.
"He was alone," Raven confirmed. "Ianto, this isn't the first of this species to come through to Cardiff there should be records in the archives. Tosh, the rift was still showing low level activity please keep an eye on it. Owen, you have a body to autopsy. And everyone, be aware that this is the last mission that I have the lead in as Jack is back and I am handing him the reigns. The transition has begun."
"I don't give orders twice." Jack reminded the team.
"On it," Ianto turned to the computer that he now had on the main floor so he didn't have to go down into the archives in order to search the database or bother Tosh.
"My program will pick it up if there's a fluctuation." Tosh promised.
"I'm on it," Owen sighed.
"That's it? You're just going to fall into line?" Gwen asked. "He's been gone for three month and he just returns without warning or word."
"He left a message with Raven that he was leaving to meet with The Doctor," Ianto pointed out softly.
"And he also left a message saying that he would come back. But three months without a word?" Gwen snorted.
"Rift alert." Tosh announced, breaking up the argument before Raven or Jack could snap back at Gwen. Normally this attitude wouldn't cause Jack to snap back so quickly, but based on the reactions of the team, Jack could see that this behaviour had become very normal place for Gwen and that wasn't acceptable.
"Location?" Jack demanded, taking the chance to turn away from Gwen and put that problem aside for the moment. Perhaps simple falling back into the normal role of leader and subordinate for a little while would help before he spoke with her about her attitude. He'd also need to get a complete picture of the last three months.
"It's the same parking lot that the blowfish came through." Tosh announced, surprised.
Jack drove Raven's car while Owen drove the SUV with the rest of the team. Raven did her best not to be in the same vehicle has Gwen even when the rest of the team was present, especially if the other woman was already on one. Without the support of Jack, there was no one there to keep her in check even if her competence as a field member of Torchwood has improved in the last three months. She still had her stupid moments, but she'd become more seasoned and lost just a little of that naivety that had made her so dangerous.
"So, Gwen?" Jack asked, looking away from the road to ask his exhausted second. He could see it now, the shadows under her eyes, the grey paler to her skin and the lack of life in her hair. Because she'd looked so much worse the last time that he'd seen her it hadn't really hit him that she was still under so much stress which she shouldn't feel while only working a normal day at Torchwood even when he wasn't there. The team should have been there to support her. Despite how exhausted she looked, Raven's shoulders were still set back and her back straight as she turned from assessing the data she was being fed from Tosh to Jack.
"I'm an eighteen-year-old child who got to her place of authority by sleeping with the boss, how could she ever respect or listen to someone like me?" Raven parroted something that Gwen had spat into her face a couple of times over the last three months.
"I… really… how much pay have you docked over the last three months?" Jack demanded, restraining his anger out of respect for the fact that he was on the way to deal with an incident.
"Not as much as I would have done if I hadn't brought Ianto out. I made Ianto my standard partner and split us up as often as possible. My typical punishment for Gwen was to dump paperwork on her, even those stupid things that Yvonne created for her field agents and we scrapped. When there is more paperwork than her in tray, I lock her in the conference room with them." Raven explained. "Had to lock her in three times, but the paperwork has been almost continually adding up. there are cliff notes in the top right draw of your desk."
"And how many times have you done that to Owen?" Jack asked, his lips twitching in amusement as they pulled up.
"It's all in the cliff notes." Raven shot him an amused smile before slipping on her serious face and getting out of the car to go and speak with the cops.
Fortunately, the team were hanging back with the SUV to wait for her and Jack before they approached the crime scene. After Owen had gotten in a dust up with a cop when he'd tried taking over a scene before Raven had arrived and she had gotten together with the prescient Captain to punish him the whole of Torchwood had learnt better then to just rush in and force the cops back.
"Captain Sulston," Raven greeted with an easy smile. "Do you mind if we take a quick look?"
"One of yours?" he asked surprised, turning from where he was observing his men cording off the area.
"We think there might be a connection," Raven shared. "We'd like to take a loose, either rule this incident in or out."
"Alright then," Sulston turned to his boys and whistled sharply. "Boys, take a step back! Davidson, radio SOCO and tell them not to rush. It's all yours, Raven."
"Thank you, Captain. We won't be long," Raven said gratefully before waving the others forward.
"They've actually gotten better at letting you take over scenes," Jack observed.
"Well, you did make me liaison for a reason," Raven smiled briefly as they all crouched around the body. Tosh already had her scanner out and running.
"Fragments of Rift energy around the neck, arm and shoulders." Tosh reported.
"He was grabbed and pushed," Jack made the deduction.
"Explains the residual energy cluster." Tosh agreed.
"How did you ever manage without me?" Jack teased.
"So, there's a potential killer on the loose. Bipedal, maybe humanoid." Owen frowned.
"Are we looking out for any other alien tech, Tosh?" Gwen asked.
"No readings to suggest that."
"Okay, let's get back and see what we can piece together." Jack stood up straight, with the rest standing alongside him.
"You taking him?" Sulston questioned, noting that they were done and stepping forward.
"No, you've got him. I think your killer is one we're looking for though, so if we find him before you do, we'll send you a copy of the final report so you can close your files. If you find him before we do and you think you need support, you let us know. If we get an ID, we'll send it to you so you know who to detain or avoid with more information." Raven clasped hands with the captain.
"Thanks Raven, it's a pleasure as always." Sulston smiled before addressing Jack. "And it's good to see you back, Captain Harkness. You're amazing second here has been running all over Cardiff these last three months."
"Captain Sulston, wasn't it?" Jack offered his hand for a shake. "It's good to be back, and I couldn't have chosen a better Second."
"We could do with a woman like her, that's for sure." Sulston chuckled.
"We'll leave you to let SOCO in," Raven motioned to the vans pulling up on the crime scene.
They headed to the cars but were prevented from separating and heading back to the base by Jack's bracer beeping.
"Whoa, that never beeps." Ianto stared at the bracer in shock.
"That's what I was thinking." Jack frowned at his wrist which he'd risen to chest hight of the whole team.
"Jack…" Raven looked up at her lover, concerned.
He shot her a confident grin even as there was concern in his eyes. He's talked about his time in the Time Agency, and about what his Vortex Manipulator did as she'd been curious about its functions. There were very few reasons for that bracer to be beeping with an incoming message and the most likely reason was that another Time Agent had come to town.
Jack flipped the strap to reveal his manipulator in its entirety instead of just partially, before pressing a few buttons which cause a hologram of a man to appear.
"I can't believe I got the answer machine. What can you be doing that's more important than me?" The holo-gram pouted. Standing at Jack's shoulder, Raven felt the reflective and defensive tensing of his muscles even as his posture didn't change.
"Anyway, you've probably traced the energy shift, found the body. All me. Sorry about the mess." There was nothing apologetic about that statement. In fact, the man's body language was playful and flirty, with eyes that danced and his body language was definitely seductive.
"Bill me the clean-up," he continued like murdering someone was as simple as dry cleaning. "Now. Drinks. Retrolock the transmission coordinates, that's where I am. And hurry up. work to do."
The holo-gram clasped his hands together, bend his knees and turned to the side in an imitation of Princess of Leia. "Help me, Ob-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
Jack's face shut down as he opened the driver side door of the SUV. "Stay here. Don't come after me." He ordered.
"Who was that?" Gwen asked as Raven stepped back, not arguing with Jack. She would follow him, but he needed to face this man on his own in the first instance before having the back up of he needed and didn't realise that he actually wanted.
"Stay here." Jack repeated, slamming the door before driving off with screeching tires.
"Hey, Jack. Wait!" Gwen shouted at the back of the SUV, annoyed.
"You see that?" Owen flapped his hands frustrated. "He swans back in and then he shuts us right out."
"I'm not having this," Gwen said through gritted teeth as Raven walked to her car and Ianto went to hale a taxi.
Only four of them would fit into her car, so Ianto knew they'd need another vehicle. Raven closed and locked her car doors before the others could get in and drove off after Jack, wanting to be there for Jack, even if it was only a minute ahead of the other others.
While driving, Raven found her destination as she put her phone on the clip she installed on her steering-wheel, grateful that she and Jack had spent so long working together on the Vortex Manipulator and he'd explained how to get it hooked up to the Torchwood system which means she knew how to find the embedded co-ordinates in that message that he'd just been sent. Once she had her destination, Raven found that there was a police alert for an armed men entering so she contacted the responding team and called them off with the unique code that told them Torchwood was responding. Fortunately, all civilians had already left the bar that was her destination and no one was reported to be injured.
Raven parked out front of the bar/night-club, blocking the entrance with her car. She could hear what sounded like quite a vicious reunion between Jack and the other Time Agent based on the grunts of impact and broken glass.
"Can I get a punch in?" Raven asked, entering the bar to find Jack hitting his dance partner of the night hard across the face. She'd kept her gun holstered for the time being, but she had a blade within easy reach of her hand and the trap keeping the gun in her hip holster was released so she could easily draw it.
Her interruption seemed to be the single to end the fisty-cuffs because both Jack and his partner draw their guns together and pointed them at the others respective chests. Jack was using his standard revolver while the other had drawn the two pistols that had been hanging loosely from his shoulders.
"You're putting on weight," the stranger observed of Jack, ignored Raven as she moved forward and came to stand at Jack's shoulder, her gun in hand and pointed directly at his head. Although Jack couldn't be killed and would be able to fire his own gun before the other killed him, she would make damn sure he went down if this little stand-off actually did take that turn.
"You're losing your hair," Jack countered.
"What are you wearing?" the Time Agent questioned Jack, despite the fact that he was wearing a skin coloured and dirty shirt under a red-jacket army coat and black jeans with a low swung belt. He looked like a cow-boy street walker.
"Captain Jack Harkness, note the stripes." Jack introduced himself in a way that made Raven realised that he was given the other Time Agent his name for this time period and giving the other his way opportunity to do the same. The recognition in the name suggested that this Time Agent was familiar with Jack using this code name, which didn't surprise Raven as it was one of if not the first names that Jack had picked up and then taken as his own – only taking on other code names when he needed to.
"Captain John Hart, note the sarcasm." John introduced himself in turn.
"Hey, I worked my way up through the ranks." Jack protested.
"I bet the ranks were very grateful," John was quick with the innuendo. Raven would have commented, but Jack had slept around a lot back then, more so when he ended up trapped instead of voluntarily laned in the war. "I need a drink."
"I thought you'd never ask." Jack accepted the cease-fire offered and lowered his arms in sync with John. Raven was half a beat behind Jack, not as trusting of this stranger who was clearly here with a purpose but she trusted Jack. Jack slid a glass to Raven and they clinked cups, but before they could take a sip they paused to watch as John picked up a nearly full bottle of vodka and drank it all.
"So, how was rehab?" Jack asked, taking a drink.
"Rehabs. Plural." John slammed the empty bottle on the table.
"Drinks, drugs…" Raven started the list.
"Sex and…" Jack knew that there was another on the list based on Johns face but wasn't sure which of the many future rehabs he could have ended up in as they had such a variety.
"Murder."
"Well, you clearly relapsed in the drink and the murder, I'm guessing sex failed as well. How's drugs going for you?" Raven asked as Jack barked an amused laugh at the last one.
"Meh," John used the either-or gesture with his hand. "And who might you be, sweetheart?"
"Raven, I'm Jack's second in command." Raven introduced herself easily before downing her drink.
"So, how's the Time Agency?" Jack asked before following Raven's example and downing his own shot.
"You didn't hear?" John asked in surprise. "It's shut down."
"You're kidding me."
"No. There's only seven of us left now." John grabbed one of the still filled shits from the counter that he'd likely poured before his fight with Jack. The residue on the bar suggested that there had been an entire line of shot glasses, and there wasn't enough alcohol in the broken glass around the bar for those to have been fall when broken. Which means, that John was likely very drunk right now.
"Wow," Jack whispered. He'd left the Time Agency because of what they'd done to him, but he had some good times and done some good with them. Yes, there was corruption in the upper ranks and they made poor decisions, but the idea of what they were doing – some of it was needed. He'd always thought that instead of being shut down they just needed to be reformatted.
"It's good to see you. it was never the same without you." John gave Jack a very heated look.
Jack leaned in close, as though he was going to kiss him before he smirked. "You need to go. I don't want you on my territory."
"What?" John pulled back started, slamming his glass down hard enough to break it. "Time was you couldn't get enough of me on your territory!"
On shouting that, John pulled his gun and shot out the glass in the door at the front and then the back. Jack stood, his body open and hands raised to the doors in a holding gesture as he really didn't want to turn this into a shoot-out with Raven stood right at his shoulder. Raven herself positioned herself so she could get behind the bar quickly if bullets started flying, her hand on her gun but not drawing it.
"All right, everybody out!"
"Everything all right, Jack?" Gwen called as the others cleared the room with their guns before pointing their weapons directly at John despite Jack's posture.
"It's okay, okay, okay." Jack placated both the team and John who fortunately lowered his weapon even though he didn't put it away.
"You've got a team. I thought your little girl there was just being polite saying she was your second. How sweet." John caught sight of Tosh behind Owen. "Oh, pretty little friends." He turned to Jack. "No blond though. You need a blonde."
"God, he's worse than Jack." Owen muttered, disgusted. He wasn't happy with Jack's flirting attitude, but he'd gotten used to that but this was a stranger and he didn't have to get used to it.
"Oh, oh, do you have a team name? I love team names. Go on." John asked excitedly.
"Torchwood." Jack announced proudly.
"Oh. Not Excalibur? Blizzard? Bikini Cops. No? Torchwood. Oh, dear." John said, disappointed.
Jack sighed. "Gwen Cooper, Ianto Johns, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper," Jack pointed to each member of the team that John hadn't met yet, causing them to lower their weapons with the introduction. "Meet…"
"Captain John Hart." John interrupted with a flirty smirk.
"We go back." Jack sighed leaning back on the bar next to Raven.
"Excuse me." John turned to Jack, hands over his heart offended. "We more than go back. we were partners."
"In what way?" Ianto asked with morbid curiosity.
"In every way. and then some." John weeked at Ianto.
"It was two weeks." Jack informed John.
"Oh… Time bubble guy." Raven realised. She'd thought that the description of this man was starting to sound familiar. Jack only had a handful of partners that he worked with regularly at the Time Agency as he typically worked alone, so when she asked stories of those people had come up. of course, John hadn't been John during that time.
"Time loop," Jack automatically corrected her terminology.
"We were together five years. it was like having a wife." John informed them.
"You were the wife." Jack was quick to rebuff.
"You were the wife," John tried to counter.
"No, you were the wife."
"Oh, but I was a good wife." John positioned himself very camply with that statement.
"I bet you were." Tosh muttered, drawn in by the argument.
"What?" Owen looked to Tosh, disgusted.
"Don't pretend you haven't noticed. He's cute." Tosh blushed.
"They're just shy," John winked at Tosh.
"What are you doing here?" Jack finally got down to business.
"I was wondering when we'd get to that." John revealed his own Vortex Manipulator, which was visible smaller than Jack's revealing that he'd never been promoted up the ranks like Jack had been.
"That's the same as yours." Tosh looked to Jack as the whole team moved in closer.
"A little smaller," Jack countered with a smirk.
"But lasts much longer. Get two Time agents in the same room together, it's always about the size of the wrist strap." John mocked, having clearly noticed that Raven was the only one with any sense of understanding about Jack's past and the Manipulator.
"Yes, sorry, what's a Time agent?" Owen questioned.
"What, he's never told you about his past?" John mocked.
"No, he hasn't." Gwen glared at the silently observant Jack who was watching John suspiciously. Gwen however turned her gaze to John, interested in this new source of information on Jack and his past.
"Anyway," John projected a hologram before them of a canister. "I'm working with this woman. Beautiful, clever, sexy, yadda yadda yadda, and we both get shot. And as she's dying, she begs me. She tells me about these radiation cluster bombs she'd been working on."
"I don't like the sound of that," Owen muttered with a thrown.
"Three canisters, contents beyond toxic, swallowed up in a rift storm."
"And ended up here," Tosh finished.
"Bingo. That's the downside of your city being built on a rift in space and time. now, left to their own devices, the radiation will break down the canisters and then infect your people and planet. They need to be neutralised." John ended the holo-gram.
"What do you get out of this?" Jack asked suspiciously.
"Dying woman's wish. Now, there's only one problem. I don't know where they are. Hoping local knowledge might help." John looked to Tosh hopefully, having picked up that she was the most sympathetic to him.
"When we get back to the Hub, I can run a citywide scan on radiation surges and cross reference that with the rift activity during that time span." Tosh suggested.
"What are you, the brains and the beauty? You see, together it's an easy job." John looked to Jack with an innocent smile.
"We do this, you get out of here when its finished. Right away." Jack ordered, a frown on his face. He was not happy with this and nor was Raven. This man had come through the same place that the Blowfish had come through, and then immediately made contact with Jack. The blowfish which had an uncomfortable amount of knowledge on the team and she didn't like co-incidents.
"Does this mean I get to see your house?" John asked brightly.
"You ride with me, Captains. Everyone else, take the SUV back." Raven split the team, knowing that Jack wasn't going to take a man he didn't trust through the proper entrance to the base and so they'd be taking the scenic route.
"Ooh, a woman who takes charge. I see why you like her." John practically pranced behind Raven as she led the way to her car. The SUV was parked on the other side of the road so the team had to go passed them to get to it.
"Tosh, release the bar to the cops, tell them Raven will contact them later!" Jack called after Tosh before forcing John into the back of the car and then sliding in the front. He recognised the model of the car and knew that Raven could lock the doors at the back, which was exactly what she did the moment that Jack closed the door on a pouting John.
"So… why is that only this little beauty knows abut your past? More importantly, why is she the only one who knows about me?" John asked as they set to driving.
Raven strictly abided to the speed limits and didn't take the direct route, allowing the rest of the team time to get back to the Hub and put things away as per the regulations when they have a guest incoming. Or at least, she hoped that they would be following that protocol.
"That has nothing to do with you," Jack kept a close eye on John using the rear-view mirror even as he snapped an answer.
"Where are we going? There was a time you used to teleport everywhere?" John sighed with a pout.
"That was fine in the future, but not in the early 21st century." Jack countered. "Teleportation isn't a thing in this decade."
Raven smiled slightly. There was no way that Jack was going to admit to the fact that his teleport didn't work. Raven had no doubt that the Doctor had stopped that function from working once more before Jack had parted from the man. With Jack's personality and the Doctor's resistance, as hidden as it was, towards him, Raven knew that the Time Lord would restrict Jack in his ability to travel through time without monitoring.
"Besides, didn't you come through to Cardiff by manipulating a weak-point in the rift? Instead of using your Vortex Manipulator? If you'd just used your manipulator, we wouldn't have tracked your arrival." Raven challenged.
"But that wasn't the point, was it? How would I have gotten your help if I hadn't gotten your attention, sweetheart?" John flirted.
"I feel like vomiting." Raven muttered in disgust at the direct flirting from the man.
"You need me to grab you a vomit bag from the glove box?" Jack was quick to tease and direct the attention onto himself.
"Really? Do you not find me attractive?" John asked, putting on a hurt face.
"I really don't." Raven confirmed as she brought her car to a stop.
"No, don't tell me you live in a sculpture!" John said in disbelief as Jack grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the car.
As they walked to the scenic route, Raven swiftly typed on her phone to send Jack his knew codes so that he could activate the invisible lift. He'd been gone long enough that the codes had all automatically changed, and she hadn't had the time to give him the new ones yet as they'd gotten distracted on first arriving at the Hub and then left for the call out.
"Could you be any more pretentious?" John mocked.
"Get on," Jack forced John onto the invisible lift and Raven silently barricaded him in on the other side.
"So, your team not allowed in this way?" John questioned, looking around for the others.
"This is the entrance for tourists." Jack answered, looking down at his brace and typing, trusting Raven to keep John in place.
"I remember the last time you said that." John leered, before jerking as the slab began descending. "Where the hell are we…"
"It's roomy, I'll give you that." John looked around as they descended. "Your taste in interior design hasn't got any better, though. What is this, sewer chic?"
Jack stopped John from proceeding more than a single step off the concrete slab as Ianto approached holding a silver tray – prepared to take and secure John's weapons.
"Weapons," Jack ordered.
John sighed and handed over his two pistol as well as the sword that had been strapped to his waist. Jack made sure that all the weapons had been rendered safe before giving them over to Ianto.
"And the rest." Jack ordered when John stopped.
"Oh, you know me. I'm a two-weapon man." John tried to play him, but Tosh had designed a scanning device specifically for this purpose and Gwen had it in hand and ready.
"One pistol strapped to each leg, laser knife beneath left elbow, seventeen small explosive charges in the lining of his coat…" Gwen listed off without looking up from the scanner which had a full body image of John in thermal, along with a list of weapons that they'd seen before. If there was a potential weapon on John's person that they hadn't encountered before, it would simple be descripted by energy or shape, and its placement on John's body. With the continued cataloguing of the archives, where they'd finally reached Torchwood One's things, the scanner was always being updated with knew weapons.
"It slipped my mind," John said without an ounce of apology in his voice even as Gwen kept listing weapons that he kept pulling them out of hiding spots on his person. On the upside, they were all small and easily concealed.
"Gwen you're with me. Raven, watch him. Owen, Tosh scan the city." Jack barked his orders once John had been fully disarmed, turning his back on John and walking away.
"Hay, what?" John started, visible shocked at the dismissal from Jack.
"Ianto, could you bring me a tea when you have a few moments?" Raven requested, even as she gripped John's arm tightly and escorted him to the conference room.