A/N: This is one of the longest chapters yet, cause I was trying out putting one episode in a single chapter...
Chapter Twenty
******November 15th 2007******
It had been ten days following the country side incident. The team had all returned to work, and were mostly ignoring what had happened.
I still talked with Jack late at night/early in the morning, when I woke from a nightmare, but mostly we talked of other things. Tosh was quieter than normal, but I got her to open up after taking her out for a drink. After that night, I knew that she was at least coping with what had happened, finding ways to deal with this new understanding of humanity.
Ianto was still having his bi-weekly 'counselling' sessions with either me or Jack so we knew he was coping with everything as well as could be expected. That he wasn't going to retreat back into his shell and fall back into the depressed state he had lived with for so long.
Owen was simply drowning his anger and pain in drink and sex. At first it seemed that Gwen had compartmentalised what had happened, and then it came to mine and Jack's attention that she was cheating on her soul-mark with Owen. We decided that we weren't going to do anything about it unless it started to affect their working relationship.
It was their personal life, and they had no right to interfere. Especially since Jack came from a society were polygamous relationships were quite normal, although all parties were typically aware of the other and in many cases joined in. Of course, Jack took that to a whole new level with his flirtatious nature and the sex appeal that he practically oozed.
The team had had a quite few days, small retrieval of alien devices and containing Weevils. Ianto and Tosh had made a decent dent in the Archives, with occasional help from me, Owen was still working on improving the Weevil spray and trying to understand some of the suspected medical equipment. Gwen had spent the time catching up on the paperwork she had been neglecting, but she didn't have any side projects like the rest of the group.
Jack spent his time working through his paperwork, working the budgeting and checking on his Flat Holm patients that he had finally told me about in an attempt to get my opinion on improvements to the island. The first time I had been there, I had nearly collapsed from the pain and despair that had overwhelmed my developing empathy. It took a while for me to adapt to the pressure, increasing my walls, before I was able to do a complete tour of the facilities and help advice Jack.
He had delegated the inter-government relationships to me since I was better at handling other offices and didn't have any official projects beyond helping Ianto and Tosh. This new position of official liaison with outside government agencies meant that I had a significant pay rise since I was no longer just a field agent.
Our interaction with UNIT was about the same as before since they had tried taking advantage of having a 'newbie' communicating with them, but I refused to back down. In the end I had gotten them to agree to leave Cardiff alone unless we called them in and we would ignore anything happening outside of Cardiff unless we were directly threatened or they had called us in. We had the most information and knowledge about what was happening, and in order to maintain the Official Secrecy Act (OSA) that each employee signed we couldn't reveal too much to UNIT, whether they knew about aliens or not. We had agreed to release information on specific aliens/artefacts/events if UNIT where dealing with them, but only if one of our agents (me) could go and debrief them in person. In turn they had agreed to send ALL the files they had on aliens and their current alien related cases to Torchwood. The fact that the Queen had effectively over-ruled UNIT meant they had no choice but to give them the files she asked for.
However, with constant contact with the police, and someone who wouldn't lie to them even if I couldn't tell them everything, our relationship with the police improved. Normally I would talk with the chief of the department or the lead investigator when we stepped on their toes, giving them forewarning when we were about to take over the scene. In return the police knew that when they came across something odd that they couldn't explain, they were to send the information directly to me. I would then look through the information and pictures, decide if it was worth Torchwood's attention (or just my own) and either deal with it or bounce it back, informing them it was outside our jurisdiction but offering what advice I could.
Because of our improved relationship, when a body and unknown artefact was discovered in a field, we were called in. After showing Jack the photographs that the police had taken, he agreed and mobilised the team. It was because of this that the Torchwood SUV pulled up next to the police and forensic vehicles parked next to a field and entered the tent that had been set up to protect the evidence from the elements and keep the public from observing what was happening.
"Once, just once, I'd like to walk into one of these tents and find it's a party. You know, food, drink, people dancing, a girl crying in the corner." Jack said, jumping into the hole that had been dug and helping me down so we could ferry Tosh's equipment down safely before the technician joined them.
"Is it alien?" Gwen asked, staring at the device that had three pincer type things on either side.
"And how? I'm picking up traces of ilmenite, pyroxene, and even Dark Matter." Jack said reading from the device he was holding while I took down the readings from his Manipulator since it no-longer stored the readings. The device Tosh was using was connected to the computers in the hub so the information was being sent there for further analysis.
"Any idea what it is?" Gwen asked next.
"Not a clue. Could be a weapon, or a really big stapler." Jack responded, turning to Owen. "How's our friend there?"
"She's dead." Owen responded seriously.
"Yeah, thanks, Quincy. She?"
"Judging by the size of her skull." Owen responded, motioning to said skull.
"How long have they been here, Tosh?" Jack asked next.
"From the depth they found them, a hundred and ninety-six years, eleven to eleven and a half months. The earth's been disturbed so I'm afraid I can't be more accurate." Tosh responded, like nearly to the week was too far out.
"Tosh, I think that's bloody impressive. If a normal archaeologist had been trying to date these remains, they would be lucky to get it to the right century let alone within a few weeks." I told her seriously.
"Thanks." Tosh blushed lightly. Normally the rest of the team would overlook the work she put into trying to find information or identify alien devices, but since Raven had joined the team she had taken to praising her and even Jack was more likely to offer his complements or congratulations of her work which he hadn't been so quick in doing before Raven entered their lives.
"What killed her, the stapler?" Gwen asked. I exchanged a looked with Jack, you would think after three months of working at Torchwood she would have broken from her police habits by now.
"Nah. See those shattered ribs? I reckon she was shot." Owen responded, motioning to the whole in the skeletons rib cage about the size of a small fist.
"Well, let's get her back to the Hub and find out." Jack ordered, climbing from the whole and helping me and Tosh out along with all the equipment. The Stapler went with us, but Owen would have to stay behind and try and get the skeleton out intact or at least get it out in such a way that the bones would be undamaged even if he had to put the skeleton back together in the hub.
Later that day I had just returned from helping Ianto in the archives to find Owen and Gwen playing around beneath Tosh's desk. Before I could ask them what they were doing Tosh came in and the two pulled apart.
"I'm really sorry, I think your computer might be dead." Owen said, trying to keep a straight face.
I came up silently behind them, but didn't announce my presence just yet, interested in hearing what they had to say before I formed an opinion of what had happened and an appropriate cause of action that would prevent Tosh from going on a killing rage.
"You're kidding. What happened?" Tosh rushed forward, abandoning her coffee cup on the desk as she tried typing something into her computer.
"Okay, so she said I was no good at sport," Owen began pointing at Gwen who smiled slightly. "Hello? So I said, throw something to me and…"
"What happened to the computer?" Tosh demanded cutting Owen off, not in the mood for his long winded explanations that danced around the question particularly when he didn't want to answer.
"Oh. I kicked out the plug." Owen answered in a flippant manner like it didn't matter to him.
"What? It was running a translation programme I'd written. I'd collated every scrap of alien language we've got, and broken it down into binary threads to see if there was a common derivation." Tosh said furiously and I winced slightly.
She had started working on that about seven weeks ago when she realised how many artefacts and letters they had in the archives with alien languages and no way of translating them. Since she had to break each individual language down to the binary threats and there had been so many different languages, it had taken her until yesterday to put the last piece of data they had so far collected in the program and begin the athematic sequence to find a common thread.
I had helped her since I knew so many different languages, but that only sped the process up a little bit since only a few of the alien languages we had come across were written using similar characteristics to us. But by breaking down the earth languages I knew to their binary threats it gave Tosh a starting point for the alien languages. With the plug being knocked out, she'll be lucky to recover half the language data they had inputted and none of the athermancy sequence would be saved. It will take close to four days to return to where they were before this, and that's if both Tosh and I can dedicate the majority of our time to it.
"That's a bit of a mouthful." Owen replied swiftly, obviously not caring how much of Tosh's work – and time – he had just belittled.
Gwen giggled, but tried stifling it when Tosh glared at her. "Sorry. Private joke. Er, stupid joke."
"We're supposed to be professionals. We've got a job to do."
"And you both still have paperwork to hand in. Didn't Jack say he wanted it by the end of the day?" I interrupted before Gwen or Owen could reply. "And just so you know, Jack will be informed that you just set Tosh's deadline back a minimum of four days because of your childish actions. He will then have to relay that message to the Crown in a way that won't see him ordered to fire you. Which means you have not only wasted Tosh's time, but also Jacks. And neither of you seem remotely apologetic about it."
I narrowed my eyes slightly on the two. I may not hold the official title of Second in Command, but I had the highest clearance besides Jack since it was required as the one doing all the public communications. Jack was thinking about signing the paperwork that would make me Second since, at the moment, the role was open and he feared that when the Doctor turned up he would be gone for an extended period of time without warning.
"She's right." Gwen nodded turning to Tosh hurriedly. "You're right, Tosh. I'm sorry."
"Do you know what, Tosh? Sometimes I think even that stick up your arse has got a stick up its arse." Owen stormed off to the medical room without looking back, while Gwen shuffled off to her desk.
"Is there anything I can help you with?" I asked Tosh hesitantly as she went about getting the program running again.
"No," Tosh sighed. "I should have only lost the data obtained. Luckily I had it running through the server so I only lost the break downs the computer had manged."
"Well if you need anything, even if it's just someone to commiserate with, you know where to find me. And Jack still keeps those jammy dodgers in his desk, if you want to stop by and kick me out. Neither of us will mind." I smiled gentle at Tosh before heading over to my desk. Speaking about paperwork had reminded me that I had some police reports to go through. It felt like these days my pile of paperwork never ended.
*****16th November 2007*****
"Raven." Ianto's voice broke through my concentration.
Jack was trying to identify the stapler, and there hadn't been a rift alert which meant that everyone was meant to be getting on with paperwork or individual projects. Tosh was coming in at eleven since she preferred to come in late some days instead of taking several days off. Ianto had been in at his normal eight o'clock to begin his daily routine, Owen had stumbled in about nine thirty and started doing the paperwork he was meant to have given in the day before, while Gwen was trying to educate herself on some of the things Torchwood had found in the past.
Before Jack and I had started on our current activities, we had sent a couple of Weevils back to the sewers after tagging them (as was the policy unless they had attacked, in which case they would cool off in the cells for a few days) and logged an alien artefact which they had tracked to a rundown building. They had finished this all before seven, and so were focusing on their individual tasks while the computers monitored the situation encase something else occurred that required theirs – or the teams – attention.
Instead of dealing with Owen and Gwen's flirting I had retreated to the conference room the moment Jack and I had gotten back to base. I had set some music playing in the speakers as background noise and was going through the patient reports, costings and various other files associated with Flat Holm. As Jack asked, I was going through it to see if there was anything I could do to help, even if it was just reducing the cost spent in certain areas to increase the patient's quality of life, or find a way of improving their mental stability since I was the closest person to a psychologists Jack had access too.
"Hay Ianto." I greeted, looking up from the paperwork to check the time. It was nearly eleven, Tosh should be in soon.
"I'm about to do a coffee run, would you like one?" he asked politely. Out of all the team, I was the least likely to want a coffee when Ianto was doing his coffee run since I had never really had the luxury of coffee before and I didn't like the idea of falling into dependency now.
"Do we still have any tea left?" I asked curiously. Since me and Jack were now both living in the hub, the kitchen was more likely to be stocked with actual food since, when we had the opportunity, I would cook us a meal instead of ordering take-out.
"I believe we still have Yorkshire, Green Tea, Jasmine, Caramel and Assam Black." Ianto listed back having memorised the contents of the kitchen.
"A cup of Yorkshire would be lovely, thank you Ianto." I smiled gratefully. I wasn't feeling tired so the insanely strong Assam Black wouldn't be needed, nor did I feel like relaxing so the Jasmine and Caramel were out. Of the last two, I preferred Yorkshire over green tea which was normally drunk by Tosh when she didn't need the caffeine boost but wanted a warm drink.
The next time I was brought out of my focus it's because Jack and the rest of the team entered the conference room with lunch. Quickly, but not suspiciously, I closed the files I had been working on and created a neat pile which I placed on the small table behind me, which was there for this exact reason. Since the work areas were so open, it wasn't uncommon for someone to retreat to the conference room to do some paperwork in piece. When someone else was using the conference room, I would normally retreat to Jack's office where he was thinking about adding an extra desk since the majority of the paper work I was doing was his originally and required a degree of privacy from the rest of the team.
"How are you Tosh?" I enquired curiously, hoping she hadn't spent too much time on the programme the other day.
"I'm fine, thanks." Tosh smiled hesitantly back, guessing at the reason I was asking and grateful that someone else cared enough about the technical side of everything that Owen and Gwen's actions weren't being pushed aside.
"How far are you set back on that translator programme?" Jack asked curiously as everyone accepted their take-away carton. It seemed Ianto had ordered Chinese that day.
"Only a couple of days, but if we don't get a rift alert or otherwise interrupted, I should have it back and running in two days and my dead line won't change." Tosh answered confidently. Fortunately, when she had put the deadline in for the translator programme, she had taken into consideration their normal case load which took the majority of their time. It was rare that they actually got a series of quiet days, or even quiet half days.
"Alright, but I don't want you stressing over this. If you can't get it back on track, then I'll push the deadline back." Jack said seriously.
"Owen, how's the paperwork going?" Jack asked next, turning to him.
"I've been busy with the autopsy." Owen protested.
"The paperwork was supposed to be in three days ago, I extended the deadline to yesterday and you've had four weeks to get it done. Also, I know for a fact that you've spent the last three hours at your desk." Jack responded promptly.
"Alright fine, I've done some of it. Everything up to the 1st of this month is finished and signed." Owen responded, rolling his eyes.
"Good, I want that handed in and you need to finish the rest by tonight. The autopsy can wait. As relaxed as I am about paperwork, there is a limit at which I can relax the rules especially when we aren't dealing with a crisis. We still answer to the Crown." Jack reminded them.
"Gwen, you haven't been down to the training range in twenty-three days. If you don't practise then you can't take a gun out of the base, and I can't let you on the field. Even Tosh practises more then you and she hates using her gun." Jack turned to the next employee he had a problem with. He seemed to spend most of his time criticising Gwen and Owen.
"I'll head down after lunch." Gwen promised mournfully like it was a great chore to go to the range to fire her gun.
"Ianto, what's the progress down in the archives?" Jack asked next.
"Slow." Ianto responded immediately. "I've sorted sections 1 through 16, but I've still got another ten storage unites for just the Torchwood 3 stuff."
"Right, let me know when you get to Torchwood 1 storage and I'll get in contact with Archie down in Scotland. Have him send copies of his files and everything down." Jack nodded.
"Or you could send me up. Archie doesn't know about the recent updates to his system and I could see about budgeting in his two employees that he's currently got listed under 'stationary'." I suggested, finishing with an amused smile. It had amused me when I realised what the head of Torchwood 2 was doing.
"I'll contact Archie. See when's a good time to send you up, unless something happens down here." Jack agreed after a moment's thought. "You're better at juggling the budget then I am, and Archie doesn't come across a lot of alien tech. They're mostly research and development now."
When lunch was over, I returned to my paperwork, determined to have a plan for Jack by the end of the day. He had been helping the people from the rift for nearly forty years, when he realised what was happening. There wasn't any way for him to predict when someone was going to be taken, all he could do was make a note of the name, and bring them somewhere safe if they are ever returned. Every time he went out to visit the people at Flat Holm it hurt him nearly as much as it hurt me although he couldn't feel their actual emotions. He just wanted to be able to help these people any way he could.
****17th November 2007****
Owen had called them all down to the autopsy room before lunch the next day. Me, Jack and Ianto were stood on the gallery watching as Gwen and Owen bickered childishly. Tosh was the last person to arrive, having been dealing with something before arriving at the hub.
"Plodders." Owen muttered, glaring at Gwen.
"The leg bone's connected to the hip bone…" Gwen sang, dancing on the steps.
"Please stop singing. Anything to stop you singing." Owen complained, fighting a smile. "Stop singing. Please don't sing. Please don't sing. Not listening. Omm."
Owen placed his hands over his ears attempting to block out the noise. Ianto, Jack and I all exchanged a look, tempted to do the same since Gwen was a terrible singer. Jack was about to step forward and ask why they had been called, when Tosh arrived.
"Oh, dem bones…"
"What's going on?" Tosh asked, holding a file to her chest protectively.
"You know the skeleton we found at the site? Well, Amanda Burton here has just completed the post mortem." Gwen said, jumping in before Owen could.
"Okay, I can explain." Owen tried to interrupt.
"As you may remember, at the building site Owen said this was a woman killed by a single gunshot."
"I'd been there, like, a minute?" Owen protested.
"Since then he's had to tweak some of his initial conclusions. The first being that this isn't, in fact, a woman, but a man."
"A young man. A very girly man." Owen tried justifying himself.
"But still ultimately a man. Then there was the cause of death. Owen said GSW. Ah ahh. The correct answer was…" Gwen pointed at Owen dramatically in a similar way to a game show host.
"…unidentified trauma. But…" Owen tried to explain again, but this time it was Tosh who cut him off.
"Unidentified trauma?"
"Mmm. You see it in RTAs, when something like a steering column or a post goes into a body at great velocity. But the one thing that could be ruled out was?"
"Gunshot wound."
"Gunshot wound." Gwen cheered. "Was there, in fact, any part of your prognosis that was right?"
"I got that it was a skeleton." Owen said sullenly.
"Yes, you did. Yes, you did." Gwen agreed. I shared a look with Jack before deciding that Owen and Gwen had just wasted our time and leaving the autopsy room. Ianto went to the kitchen while Tosh followed Jack up to his office.
"Jack? Er, do you know anything about Greek mythology?" Tosh asked hesitantly.
"Security visa 45895 Harkness." Jack said into his phone. "A little, Raven would know more, why?" Jack asked curiously, turning to face Tosh while keeping half his attention on the phone. This was why Raven had taken over communication with outside agencies – she actually paid attention. But he couldn't keep burdening her every time he needed to make a phone call, it would be ridiculous and impractical.
"You ever heard of Philoctetes? It came up in a pub quiz." Tosh asked, almost hesitantly. Her behaviour was reminding him of her first few months working at Torchwood before she had started coming out of her shell, and that worried him.
"You went to a pub quiz?" Jack asked sceptically.
"Yeah. No, I love pub quizzes. Down at the Prince of Tides." Tosh trailed off slightly.
"Philoctetes was an archer recruited to fight in the Trojan War. He got into an argument and was marooned on the island of Lemnos for about ten years." Jack answered Tosh question since it was one of the stories that had stuck with him. After all the Doctor had just left him behind and he had been marooned in the 19th century.
"Just left there?" Tosh asked softly, sadly.
"Hey, what's happening with that list for UNIT?" Jack asked, suddenly remembering that Tosh was compiling a list of alien weapons that they had identified to send to UNIT so they knew what to watch out for. It was something that Raven had come up with to keep the peace between the two groups.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. I'm still working on it." Tosh admitted, blushing slightly.
"Right. Well, you know, when you're ready." Jack waved her off as his phone call connected. "Prime Minister, is this a secure line?... Can you tell me why Torchwood operations have become part of your security briefings to the leader of the Opposition?" Jack asked sharply, Raven had alerted him to the problem the moment she noticed. Since Jack was still the one to deal with the PM, it was his job to go and stop it. "The deal is no…"
Having done what I could with the paperwork, I had handed it into Jack who was still arguing with the Prime Minister before retreating to my computer desk. Jack had been talking about the Doctor, and something he said caught my interest – the Doctor always travelled with companions and he loved Earth.
So I started looking into it, finding everything I could about possible companions of the Doctor and doing additional research on them. The file I made on the Doctor and the number of times he had saved Earth to date was impressive, although the most often confirmed information was when a man known as the Brigadier came up, or in historical documentation where there was talk of a lonely hero and his blue magic box. There was a couple of times where I had to put the possible alien encounter under 'maybe' when the information wasn't concrete enough for me to confirm the Doctor's presence.
Of his companions I could only identify two individuals. A Miss Sarah Jane Smith who lived in London and was an investigative journalist, stopping various alien encounters. I kept a tab on her, just encase she needed help. The other was an impressive woman named Joe, who had fourteen grandchildren, a fifteenth on the way and was very active in the Middle East, South America and various other out of the way places. For a woman going on eighty, she was very active. They were the only companions I could identify that were alive.
I looked up from my work when Jack came down from his office and approached Tosh.
"So I've just come from a really interesting conversation with a Detective Inspector Henderson." He said casually and I raised my eyebrow. Why hadn't Henderson contacted me? Unless he thought the information he had was important enough that he was willing to put up with Jack's flirting?
"Right." Tosh said confused about why Jack was talking with her.
"Interesting because, firstly, the man had the biggest hands I've ever seen. And secondly, because of the story he told me about you saving a woman and her kid from being murdered by her ex-husband." I raised my eyebrow at that, hitting save and closing my document before wondering over to Tosh's desk.
"Yeah. No, I was going to tell you about that." Tosh scrambled to say.
"So why didn't you?" Jack challenged.
"I don't know, it wasn't a work thing, just a thing-thing. Stuff happens all the time that's not pertinent to here." Tosh tried to wave him off.
"You do this all the time? So, you secretly fight crime, is that it, Tosh?" Jack asked, and I gave him a look out of the corner of my eye. He must have noticed that Tosh wasn't acting herself and figured that her act in saving that family was part of the reason why.
"I didn't want it to look like I was showing off."
"The guy they arrested, Henderson said you heard him muttering to himself as he was walking along, and that's what tipped you off."
"Mmm. I couldn't really work out what he was saying at first, and then it was like, Jesus!"
"That's weird. Because when I'm about to murder someone, I'm careful not to talk to myself about it while I'm in the street."
"No, sure. I mean, that's lesson one. I was wondering how you were getting on with this." Tosh motioned to the stapler she had been observing in an obvious attempt to change the topic.
"It's ongoing." Jack responded.
"By which he means he hasn't the faintest idea what it is yet, but he's being stubborn." I butted into the conversation, hopping to lighten the suspicion that Jack was obviously feeling towards Tosh. If something was wrong, then they really didn't want to go tipping of the wrong person to early – especially regarding unknown alien artefacts.
Jack mock glared at me, but his eyes had brightened slightly when he realised that I was there.
"Are you going to dismantle it?" Tosh asked hesitantly after smiling at me slightly in welcome.
"Like I said, it's ongoing." Jack shrugged. Tosh started to walk away but stopped. I was glad that I was facing away from Tosh, because a blinding pain suddenly flared through my mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jack step away from the contraption and look to where Tosh was stood.
"What? Have I got something on my face? Is it food?" he asked childishly.
"No. Sorry. I zoned out." Tosh responded absently.
"Well, listen, that was a good save, Tosh. Well done." Jack said.
The moment Tosh had left the room and was out of sight, my legs crumpled under me and Jack caught me in his arms.
"What was that?" I demanded, resting my pounding head on Jack's shoulder.
"That was something trying to enter your mind. Tosh has been wearing a new pendent recently, and I think I know what it does." Jack responded darkly.
"It would explain why she looks so disappointed in Owen and Gwen and sad and worried for Ianto." I muttered carefully straightening myself up. The pain had begun to fade now.
"It would." Jack agreed. "And now we know that your shields are strong enough to stop an unexpected mental invasion." He smiled softly at me.
"Have you figured out what the stapler does? It could be connected to what's happening with Tosh." I asked, allowing Jack to help me to my feet. He didn't release me once I was standing, but I didn't mind, he wasn't normally affectionate where the rest of the team could see us outside of his normal flirting attitude, but in this case his strength was soothing.
"I think it might be a transporter, a two-person transporter. I'm still trying to figure out what type." Jack admitted.
"Let me know when you do, I've got some work to finish." I kissed him lightly on the lips before returning to my desk where Ianto had left a fresh cup of Jasmine. I wasn't sure how he knew I wanted something to sooth me, but I wasn't going to complain.
I was doing further research into Miss Sarah Jane Smith and setting up an alert system around her house encase she was ever tracked down and attacked (by aliens or by UNIT). Tosh had left by the time I was pulled out of my work by Owen shouting for Jack.
"What is it Owen?" Jack and I asked as one, running to the autopsy room with our hands on our guns but not drawing them yet. The worry and panic in Owen's voice could simple be a result of a discovery, but they were better of being prepared to react in the event of something going wrong.
"I found out what I was missing." Owen answered quickly bringing up hundreds of files on the screen, but leaving it on a woman named Lucy Marmer. "Before I joined Torchwood, I worked on this case. Her name was Lucy Marmer, her diagnostic was the same as the skeleton. Heart removed, and ribs punctured. I looked at the other cases on Operation Lowry, and the diagnostic is always the same. The ribs are always punctured and the heart removed, going back to the early 1800s. From the date Tosh gave, I think this…" Owen motioned to the skeleton on his autopsy table, "Was the first victim. Or at least the oldest victim we've found."
"That probably is our first victim." Jack agreed with a frown. "The device we found with the body is a transporter, a prison transport for a race known as the Arcateenian. From the increasing body count, I imagine that it was the prisoner who survived and not the guard."
"So, what do we do?" Gwen asked having also responded to Owen's shout.
"We wait for her to come to us, then I give her the transporter and activate it." Jack shrugged.
"Where will you send it?" Gwen continued to ask for details.
"How do you know the alien is female and coming to Torchwood?" Ianto asked picking up on the subject that Jack was using. Usually Jack would use it or they when talking about aliens unless he actually knew their gender or species.
"Because only a female would wear the telepathy pendants, and she's taken an unhealthy interest in Tosh. And I'll send her to the sun."
"Or you could send her to the intergalactic police?" I suggested. The alien had worked its way into Tosh's heart and I would rather not be the one to kill it. We'd already had one member of Torchwood dealing with the death of someone they loved by a member of the team, they didn't need a second one.
"The Shadow Proclamation." Jack acknowledged with a nod. "Hmm… I think I still have the co-ordinates for them somewhere." He agreed after thinking it through.
He could be brazen, and regularly overlooked over people's feelings in his attempts to stop a threat to the earth, but with Raven's suggestion he realised that it probably wouldn't be conductive to Tosh's mental health. He knew her mental health was still fragile after her time in a UNIT prison facility, and he had helped her recover and become a healthier citizen. But that didn't mean she didn't still have cracks.
Tosh had never had a relationship since that time, and with Owen's brazen disregard for Tosh's feelings, Jack knew that this relationship with the alien target could ruin any of the progress he – and Raven – had made in getting Tosh to open up. That, and her trust in him might be shattered if he took the action to have her executed. With that in mind, Jack decided to go and hunt down those co-ordinates from his time as a time-agent.
***18th November 2007***
Jack had given Tosh the day off so that he could finish fiddling with the transporter, getting it ready so that when the alien arrived the plan could work. When Ianto informed everyone that Tosh was approaching the hub with an unknown woman, Jack sent Gwen, Owen and Ianto to the conference room, awaiting his signal. I stayed at my desk since I had the shields to keep the alien out and it would look less suspicious if the base wasn't completely empty at this time of night. Jack was waiting in his office for the right moment to arrive.
I turned around in my chair when the cogs sounded and an unknown voice began quoting Samuel Coleridge. "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alpha the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea. So, where is it, lover?"
"Tosh." I called, making her jump and the blond women to turn to me. "Who's this?" I asked curiously, getting up and stepping down onto the bridge that surrounded the overflow pond that was at the base of the water tower.
"This is Mary." Tosh answered. "Do you know where the device that Jack was examining is?"
"This what you're looking for?" Jack appeared, holding the device in his hand as he leant against the banister.
"Jack." Tosh breathed in shock.
"Friend of mine." Jack began, walking down the stairs calmly. "Let's call him Vincent - that was his name after all. Regular guy, girlfriend, likes his sport, likes a beer. He starts acting a little strange, a little distracted. Suddenly he disappears for a couple of months. He comes back, and we've got to start calling him Vanessa. Since then I've always been a little nervous when a friend behaves out of character. I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced. Jack Harkness." Jack turned to Mary. "My guess is you're not from around these parts." He put on a Texan accent before returning to his normal voice. "Now this? This is incredible. You know what it is?"
"It's a transporter. Mary was a political prisoner. She was exiled here. Look, Jack…" Tosh tried explaining, stepping closer to him.
"You've got half of it right. Mary, it is Mary, isn't it? You want to tell her the really interesting bit? No? Chatty, isn't she? I don't know how you got a word in edgeways, Tosh. It's a two-man transporter. Or whatever you people may be. You might be squids, for all I know. A two squid transporter. Room for one prisoner and one guard. You want to tell us what happened to the guard, Mary?"
"I killed him. But I was disturbed." Mary answered as the rest of the team entered the room. I was the only one with a gun which I held in hand, but not pointing it at Mary. We couldn't risk arming the others because we didn't know the extent of Mary's telepathic abilities. "Then another came. A soldier. He tried to shoot me. So, I plunged my new human hand into his chest and plucked out his heart."
"And that's what you've been doing ever since." Owen said in disgust.
"This form needs to be fed." Mary responded, running her hands down her body's curves.
"All the punctures were all about the size of a fist. My God, all those people. You killed all those people." Owen shook his head. There had been hundreds of bodies going back two hundred years.
"I fled before any more soldiers came. I had so much to explore. And how I loved this body. So soft, so wicked. The power such a body has in this world. Within a few years the forest had gone, transporter was safely buried under the spread of the city. I didn't care, I wasn't exactly in a hurry to get home."
"And you've been killing ever since." Jack said darkly.
"I knew there might come a time when my situation here became complicated, but I was safe as long as I knew where the transporter was." Mary responded. Out the corner of my eye I noticed Tosh putting on the pendent and braced myself for the attack I knew was to come.
"The way she looks at you with those eyes. She's like an animal." Tosh heard Gwen's voice first, her eyes flickering between Tosh and Mary.
"When they brought that girl into the hospital, I had only been qualified six months. I wanted to throw up." Owen's voice sounded next, hallow but angry.
"And then the machine was uncovered." Jack continued, catching my eye and acknowledging that Tosh had put on the pendent.
"As soon as the air touched its surface, I could feel it." Mary said, smiling.
"She's just talking. She's not even frightened of us, she's just talking."
"So, I found my Toshiko. My beautiful Toshiko."
"Gonna go for it now."
"Owen, no!" Tosh shouted as Owen went to take a step forward. Alerted by Tosh's shout, Mary moved faster than any of us could track her and was suddenly holding a knife to Tosh's throat.
"Let her go, Mary. Let her go!" Jack ordered, holding the transporter with one hand now as he stood within four feet of Mary and Tosh.
"Toshiko, tell them to give me the transporter." Mary ordered.
"I can't, Mary." Tosh said, her voice choked up with tears as she realised, she had been betraying her team. That the women she thought she could love showed who she really was.
"It's ridiculous. We're unarmed. We're just shouting at her." Owen's mind was frustrated now. He had suggested they carry guns but Jack had shot that down since there was a good chance Marry had been using the pendent long enough that she no longer needed it to pick up on their thought which meant there was a strong possibility of her being able to control them.
"Not again. Please, God, not again." Ianto's voice was filled with despair and a flash of Lisa's face appeared in his mind before he focused on Tosh and trying to think of a way of getting her out unharmed.
"Knife has incisors on the blade. It'll tear Tosh's throat out." Gwen's voice was cold, mechanical and almost detached from the situation.
"You, how's this? I'll exchange Toshiko for that one. Your choice." Mary motioned to Gwen.
"No, no, no. Not Gwen." Owen's mental voice was worried. "Just put the knife down." Owen asked, shuffling forward a bit.
"Did you hear him? He didn't want to, did he?" Mary spoke to Tosh, and I winced realising that Owen's mental voice would have been more concerned about Gwen and that would have hurt Tosh deeply since he was her soul-mark.
"Please, don't." Tosh whispered.
"That's what they think of you. That's who you've been working with for all these years." Mary taunted.
Having enough, I lowered my shield's just enough for Tosh to hear me. "Tosh, ignore everything else. Just focus on me and Jack."
"Don't move. Don't alert Mary." Jack added.
"You need to listen to us." I continued, Tosh's eyes moving to watch me since Jack was out of her line of sight.
"Don't do anything until I say." Jack ordered.
"Okay. You want the transporter, we want Toshiko. I think that's a fair swap." Jack said, speaking up as he lifted the transporter. "Keep the knife and I'll give you the transporter myself." Jack bargained.
Mary released Tosh who ran to were Ianto and I were stood not wanting to deal with Owen and Gwen right now. Since I was still the only one holding a weapon, Ianto pulled Tosh into a hug, grateful she was out of danger.
"You smell different to them." Mary said, grabbing half of the transporter from Jack who had yet to let go.
"That's nothing. It's when you compare teeth with a British guy, that's when it's really scary." Jack responded, flirting so as to distract Mary from him pressing buttons.
"What are you?" Mary questioned.
"I don't know." Jack answered honestly.
"And you would have put me in a cage?" Mary asked with a cynical smile that fell as the device made a noise, indicating that it had been activated. Jack released it and stepped back. "What's happening?"
"Oh, that. I reprogrammed it for you. It's set to enable." Jack smiled as Mary gasped and was surrounded by a ball of light which then flew out of Torchwood. "Sort of now."
"What did she…? Has she gone home?" Tosh asked, stepping away from Ianto.
"I reset the coordinates." Jack responded.
"Where to?"
"The Shadow Proclamation." I answered, causing Tosh turning to look at me. "They're like the police. She'll be trialled for the deaths she caused on Earth and for whatever she had been arrested for on her own planet." I explained.
"It's funny. Such a small thing. It could be the most powerful piece of technology we've ever found. It could tear down governments, wipe out armies. What do we do with it?" Tosh asked.
She was holding the pendent in her hands, sat next to Jack on a bench on Roald Dahl Plass. Owen, Gwen and Ianto had headed home and Raven was doing something inside the hub, she wasn't sure what but she had hugged Tosh before Jack had taken her up to the Plass.
"Your call." Jack answered simply.
"It's a curse." Tosh said bitterly, dropping the pendent and crushing it under her heal. "Why couldn't I read your mind, or Raven's?"
"I've had encounters with telepathic aliens before, I learnt to shield myself. I've been teaching Raven to. So, as to help her cope with emotions." Jack shrugged lightly. "I want that list for UNIT on my desk tomorrow, or I'll... What do bosses do in situations like these? You know, regular bosses. Do I get to beat people?"
"We've got rules for that." Tosh responded with a slight smile through her tears.
"Argh. Red tape." Jack complained with a light laugh.
"Jack." Tosh said, turning serious. "Something Mary said. Probably the only honest thing she ever did say. I asked her why she gave it to me, and she said, after a while it gets to you. It changes how you see people. How can I live with it?"
"There are some things we're not supposed to know. You got a snapshot, nothing more." Jack responded, turning to face Tosh.
"I don't mean about Gwen and Ianto and Owen. I mean the whole world. It doesn't matter."
Instead of saying anything straight away, Jack gentle stroked her face in a comforting manor. "I know that Raven made the offer to you, so I'll make it again. If you ever want to talk, I still have those jammy dodgers in my desk." And Jack walked away, leaving Tosh with something to consider.
