TITLE: Emergence
AUTHOR: NNWest
DISCLAIMER: Sadly, none of them are mine...but I like playing with them.
AN: This story is complete speculation, written before Torchwood ep 1 aired, and is already AU based on the few series spoilers we've seen. I wanted to get it out before I get 'Russelled' any futher.
Much thanks to my betas LJ's darkaegis and wendymr, with supporting credit going to lablackey and ponygirl72!
Chapter 1, Part 1
Former Detective Chief Inspector Gwen Cooper snapped her eyes and the manila folder on the desk in front of her closed, sickened not by the grisly photograph contained within the file, but by the image conjured in her head by it. In fact, her mental image actually bore very little resemblance to its trigger aside from some of the damage done to the corpse's throat and jaw.
Jacob. God, who knew there could be so much blood?
She drew a calming breath and held it, releasing it slowly after a moment, carefully and completely banishing the vision from her mind's eye. It had been nearly three years since she had witnessed Jacob's death, but she could still remember every detail of the scene as she'd found it, remember the heat of his lifeblood on her hands, the pounding of her own heart as she attempted the impossible and tried to staunch the bleeding.
When she opened her eyes, she found Jack Harkness standing at the edge of her desk, the usual glimmer of amused mirth in his expression dampened by what looked to be concern. He'd seen her reaction. "That bad?" he ventured in his flat American tones.
The decision to lie to him warred inside her. To answer yes would be to risk appearing weak. She certainly hadn't fought her way up through the ranks to be looked down on as a weak-stomached woman, to be seen as someone who got queasy over a coroner's report. She'd worked homicide investigation, damn it. Or to answer no and have to explain the severity of her reaction. To have to talk about the death of DI Jacob Daniels and deal with the awkwardness such things create.
Then she had to remind herself where she was and who was asking. She didn't work for the police any more. There was no one here to rail against, no one who exhibited any desire to shield her or keep her from taking on even the most horrific cases. Certainly not Jack. And, though he was technically her superior and director of Torchwood's Cardiff office, Jack went out of his way not to make her feel that way. Not that he was a push-over by any stretch of the imagination. She'd seen that firsthand. When warranted, there was no question he held final authority. Besides, there was the fact that Jack seemed to be able to spot an untruth half a mile away, and she knew it would take a much better liar than her to stand a chance of pulling it off.
In the end, Gwen opted for neither response, sliding the file away from her as she rose from her chair. "I need a coffee. You?" It came off too glibly to her ears, but she covered it by pulling open the desk drawer to root though the stash of change that invariably collected there.
Jack lifted a vaguely sceptical eyebrow, but let the non-answer pass, smiling and shaking his head in reply to her question to him. "No, thanks. Mind if I look while you're gone?" She paused in her coin search, granting her leave with a wave of her hand, and he flipped open the file to leaf through it. He grimaced when he reached the picture that had disturbed her. Whether that was his natural reaction or whether he did it for her benefit, she couldn't be sure.
Triumphant in her scavenging, she picked up her empty mug and headed in the direction of the office coffee pot. "Back in a mo', then."
"Yeah," was his already preoccupied reply as he absorbed the case details.
In the five minutes needed for her to drain the mostly empty pot and set a new one brewing, Jack had taken over her chair. As she let her eye linger for an infinitesimal second too long on the graceful curve of his body as he read, she noticed he was drawing another's attention as well. Elizabeth, who had the desk next to hers, studied him over the plane of her monitor.
She gave a wry smirk when Gwen caught her eye. "Gorgeous," she mouthed.
Shaking her head as she felt her own smirk try to tug at her lips, she mouthed back, "Stopping right there."
The other woman shot back a theatrical pout, but disappeared behind her monitor. Despite being happily married, Elizabeth amused herself by, as she put it, shopping for future ex-husbands. And as soon as Jack made his way back to his office, Gwen was sure she would be ready to update her on their boss's current ranking on the ex-husbands candidate list. But right now they didn't need Jack looking up and realising the scrutiny he had garnered, either.
She would admit there was something about the man that just exuded sex. Her first sight of him--leaned back, stretched like a cat, his feet propped on the desk in the little back office of the tourist shop the organisation ran as a front upstairs--had set her imagination running. Dark hair and piercing blue eyes, he was dashingly handsome in a too smooth sort of way and bewitchingly charming to boot, like he'd just stepped off a television set. Like if you looked around, you'd find his entourage of scriptwriters and lighting technicians lurking behind a camera crew somewhere.
Years of being a cop and a cynic had led her to write him off right then as too good to be true and very probably gay. But he had no want of admirers, whether he knew it or not. It wasn't only Elizabeth in his thrall. Productivity had to take a nosedive him every time he set foot out of his office, to judge from the way the eyes followed him. Rumour even had it that one of the junior techs downstairs in a drunken moment had declared that, if anyone could make him give up his allegiance to heterosexuality, it was Jack Harkness.
Yet now that she'd been working closely with him for a few months, she also knew him to be extremely intelligent and perceptive, as well as an incurable flirt. That captivating charm was his weapon. He put people at ease around him and used that ease to get what he wanted. And to get around revealing too much about himself, she'd noticed. When he couldn't escape a direct question, half-truths and evasions did the job. That tendency alone made the cop in her want slam him against an interrogation room wall simply to see what she could get him to confess to. She firmly refused to contemplate that the urge might also have something to do with her still running imagination.
Jack looked up then. "I think you might've found something here."
She moved around to read the case summary sheet. "You mean, you did," Gwen pointed out. "I'd not got round to reading it yet."
He shrugged with a good-natured smile. "Found it on your desk, you get the credit."
"Brilliant. And have I won some fabulous prize?" Somehow she suspected fieldwork was coming her way, which wouldn't be bad if it was in the city. But the likelihood of that was nil as the file that had arrested Jack's attention had come from the North Wales Police.
"A trip to scenic..." He flipped back a page to point to the location information, and without a trace of irony, finished, "Denbighshire." Which was, as expected, nowhere near Cardiff.
"Oh, sounds lovely," Gwen answered with only a small note of sarcasm. "Well then, Mr. Harkness, I suppose you should fill me in on exactly what it is I've found."
"Little under a month ago, hiker--a local--found dead on the moor. Three days exposure to the elements didn't leave much to go on. Death was listed as natural causes. Damage to the body--as I think you saw before, the guy's jaw was torn off and his throat ripped open--listed as post-mortem animal attack." He didn't produce the photo, but she could visualise it well enough.
She felt his eyes on her, studying her reaction, but the spectre of her slain partner stayed silent this time. So, if he was looking for anything more than a simple confirmation, she disappointed him. "Probably no real investigation carried out, then. Hikers get themselves into trouble on the moors all the time." She was about to ask him why he found the case so interesting when something clicked in her mind.
Denbighshire. A hiker dead on the moor in Denbighshire. She'd just seen that in one of the other case files she'd reviewed. Gwen set down the mug to sort through the pile of files on her desk. Opening folders and scanning summary sheets, she asked, "Denbighshire where?"
The third file down held what she was looking for.
oOoOo
He had to move out of Gwen's way as she shuffled papers on her disorganised desk in her search. Whatever had bothered her about the case earlier showed no signs of reappearing.
He glanced at the sheet under his hand again to answer her question. "Couple of miles east of Llangynhafal."
"You didn't even stumble over that," she praised him distractedly.
Not so difficult when planet names like Raxacoricofallapatorius used to be part of his everyday vocabulary--both before and after travelling with the enigmatic alien who would only name himself as the Doctor. But it'd taken him longer than usual to get an ear for the Welsh lilt in this century. It seemed having everything he heard instantly converted to his native Colonial Standard by the TARDIS translator had dulled the linguistic edge he'd honed conning his way across the galaxy, and he still very occasionally got socked in the arm for misunderstanding Gwen's English when she was in a pique. And as troublesome as the accent was, the Welsh language itself proved itself to be something of a nuisance for him as well--its over-affinity with consonants was only one problem.
"Here it is." She laid the folder in her hands down in front of him. "Another one, same area, dated four days before. No visible damage to this one other than what could be explained by two days post-mortem exposure to the elements. Autopsy ruling was sudden cardiac arrest."
Jack looked over the details of the new file. She was right. The details were surprisingly similar. "Twenty-six. Kinda young for a heart attack." The century was a bit backward, but medical science was better than that, wasn't it? He was still getting used to what could be done here and what had yet to be invented.
She shrugged. "Stranger things have happened. See it a lot on the beat with druggies."
"And why is it the local authorities didn't seem to notice the similarities here? Less than a week separates the incidents."
Gwen slid the top folder to the side. "Here. Different investigating officers. The one usually assigned to the ward must have been absent for some reason. And as I said, people get careless and get themselves into trouble on the moors all the time."
Her brown-eyed gaze and full attention came to rest squarely upon him. "So I find myself asking, what's our interest in these cases?"
Jack found himself grinning up at her. Curious and clever, he knew he made the right choice in recruiting her. "Call it a hunch?" he teased.
The set of her mouth as she continued to regard him stonily told him she wasn't going to play. "You've got more evidence than that. And if you're thinking of sending me to Llangynhafal on a weekend, you're going to spill." Clever and could see right through him a startling amount of the time.
He stood up from her chair and gathered the two folders. Tipping his head in the direction of his office as an indication for her to follow, he led her across the floor.
They stepped into the office and he pushed the door shut behind them, blocking out the noise from the floor outside. "Call it I've got another report that came through on the wire this morning--the possibility of two missing persons last seen in the same area," he said as he crossed to the desk and unlocked the terminal. "Add to that these two bodies and Skywatch's report of a good-sized meteor over the area a little over four weeks ago--"
"And you've got evidence enough to warrant a look-see," she finished, coming around to read over his shoulder as he closed the policy change proposal he'd been fiddling with the wording on for a week now and opened the email he'd received earlier from a contact in the North Wales Police.
"The missing persons report isn't official yet. Enough time hasn't elapsed. I want to get out there and make sure we're only being paranoid before the local police get it in their heads to do a full-scale search of the area and more people wind up mysteriously dead. Or worse, they offend whatever might be out there and it escalates into more than our negotiators can fix." He seriously hoped there was nothing in Denbighshire to find.
"Hey, I only took the job here because I thought I got to be the cynic. But you want to get out there?" She seemed surprised by that. Surely it hadn't been that long since he'd escaped the office and done any fieldwork. Jack was astounded to realise that was exactly the case as far as his staff beyond the guy in motorpool and Price in tech downstairs knew. The truth was he was in the field most weekends or whenever the paper-bound drudgery of his directorship would let him go, off for a private look into this or that, or whatever had caught his attention from the information that crossed his desk. Checking out situations that might turn out to be something worth worrying about, things he might need to send his team after or things that were best handled by his own experience and training.
And before Gwen had produced those two bodies, he'd been ready to head out there on his own for a cursory check on the weight of the missing persons and Skywatch reports alone. He had a vehicle and everything he needed reserved already. Now with her coming with him, he'd finally get the opportunity to see in person what her glowing service record and the field reports of others told him. Everything he'd seen of Gwen Cooper so far told him she was the best candidate for his purposes. Sooner or later, through one circumstance or another, he would have to leave Torchwood, leave Cardiff and probably even the twenty-first century if the Time Agency caught up with him, and right now he had Gwen pegged as his replacement.
"That fabulous prize I mentioned earlier..."
"My expenses-paid trip to the country?" Gwen deadpanned.
"That's the one." He smiled wryly and dropped his voice into the playfully seductive register that melted hearts and obliterated obstacles--usually. "What would you say if I told you you got to take me along?"
She regarded him evenly for a long moment. "I'd say you're driving and I get to pick the radio station."
oOoOo
In the end, Jack made all the arrangements and she'd agreed to let him pick her up from her flat at six the next morning. Five minutes to, as she was yawning over the news headlines pouring out of some overly cheerful talking head, he tapped at her door.
She flipped off the television and slung her bag over her shoulder. "I'm off," she called in the general direction of the bedroom as she unfastened the door latch and tugged it open. Before she could say a word of greeting to Jack, he shoved a tall paper coffee cup under her nose and she accepted it gratefully. Sipping from it--latte, and still hot--she sighed contentedly. "Oh, that's lovely. Thanks."
He was smothering a laugh; she had to admire his survival instincts. "My pleasure," he assured her, smiling in amusement.
"It will be when this"--she lifted the cup--"hits my bloodstream." Turning, she caught sight of Grant shambling sleepily into the lounge to see her off. "Grant, this is Jack Harkness. Jack, my boyfriend, Grant Butler."
Jack grinned brightly in response to Grant's uncoordinated half-wave. "Grant, good to meet you. Sorry to drag you out of bed at this hour and sorry we don't have more time to get to know each other. Here, Gwen," he said, putting out a hand, "give me your bag and I'll meet you downstairs."
She complied. "Thanks. Be there in a tick." And he was off.
Grant came over and wrapped his arms around her. He was still warm and she longed to follow him back to bed and crawl back in with him. "Kill that morning person for me, will you? We can't let them breed," he mumbled into her hair.
Smiling faintly at his joke, Gwen kissed him. "Jack's not all that bad. He brought me coffee."
Grant smiled then too, coffee being one of the essentials in his estimation as well. "I suppose we can let him off with a maiming, this time. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I'll call or have the office get in touch if something changes. I'll try to ring tonight." One last kiss and she left the flat.
Outside, Jack was propped against the front end of one of Torchwood's black Range Rovers, looking like a casualwear advert in the burgeoning morning light, and she was unsurprised to find he looked just as good in jeans as he did around the office.
"He's cute in a half-conscious sort of way," he said, pulling open the passenger door for her. But then, as far as she could tell, there weren't many people who didn't meet Jack's criteria for 'cute', 'sexy', or 'interesting'. And she was still working out the lexicon as to what each of those classifications actually meant to him.
"He wants you dead."
It was an effort not to laugh at Jack's immediate incredulity. "Wha-- why?" The man was clearly used to being instantly adored, or at least liked, which, of course, made ribbing him even more fun. "I didn't even say anything," he complained. "And believe me, the things I could've..."
It was a sign the caffeine was beginning to work as she wondered just how many times he'd been in trouble because of what he failed not to say. She suspected the instances far outnumbered the stars in the heavens. "Yes, but you were chipper while you were not saying it."
"Tough audience." Checking she was settled, he thumped the door shut and circled to the driver's side. Climbing into his own seat, he picked up where he left off. "If I ever try to get the pair of you into bed, remind me this is the morning after I'd have to look forward to."
"That assumes that you had a chance of a night before."
He chuckled and started the engine. Before the stereo's CD player had a chance to spin up and produce a single note, he reached across, jabbing the player's eject button. "As requested, radio duty's all yours," he told her, discarding the disc onto a leather CD wallet on the floor.
Gwen picked up the wallet and the CD--a home-burned disc labelled, This week's lesson--and slotted it into an empty space. "This week's lesson?" she asked, idly flipping through the other discs--show tunes, big band and swing, Glenn Miller, Sinatra, Cole Porter. Musically speaking, Jack and her grandmother would have a grand time together.
"That's just Price--you've met Angela down in tech, right?" Street traffic was light enough this early on a Saturday that he spared her a glance as she nodded. She'd met Angela Price in passing fairly early on, but didn't know much about her. Jack laughed at some private joke and added, "She's trying to fix what she calls my antiquated taste in music."
She smirked. "Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but I think my gran has most of these on original, very old vinyl."
Jack grinned suddenly, cocking an eyebrow and adding a layer of devilishness to his dashing features. "I like her already--"
The thought of Jack flirting with her gran was too much, so she cut across him with, "No, Jack, you can't have my gran, either," and consoled herself with the idea that, if Jack ever got the chance, the sharp old lady would shoot him down as quickly as Gwen herself had.
He was unfazed, his grin untarnished. "So anytime I go down there, she's got a new CD for me."
"And this one was?"
"Thrash metal."
Gwen blinked, momentarily caught out by the incongruity of that detail and its relation to the white-haired Torchwood techie. "Thrash metal? Loud, fast, driving, speeding-ticket-inducing thrash metal?" He glanced over to her with a smug smile and a nod, and she recovered from her astonishment. "Huh," was the only thing she could think of to say and went back to perusing the wallet, noticing a few more of Angela's contributions tucked into the back, these more helpfully marked with genres. In the end she found one labelled 1980's Rock and pulled it, slotting it into the player.
Several long, wordless minutes passed as Jack threaded their way out of Cardiff and through the northern outskirts of the city while Gwen let the ride and the cityscape sliding by outside her window lull her, her mind drifting in sleepy nostalgic memories of her teen years courtesy of Angela's eighties mix.
Without preamble, Jack asked, "Hey, gone back to sleep on me yet?" He'd said it softly; if she'd really been asleep, he wouldn't have woken her.
"Nope, still here." She roused herself and straightened herself in the seat.
"Do me a favour and look back there for the map." He tossed a thumb over his shoulder and she looked into the back seat. "I think I'm supposed to be looking for a new road here shortly. Should be a packet of all that stuff in the laptop bag." Gwen found the folder easily and handed it to him, taking the opportunity to pull out the bundle of paperwork she had stowed in the front pocket of her own rucksack that Jack had thoughtfully tossed onto the back seat within her reach. Beyond the seat back in the Range Rover's cargo area, she noticed the three large crates each stencilled with the Torchwood insignia.
Turning back and shuffling through the stack of papers from her bag, she said, "Don't know how much of this will be useful, but Elizabeth put together the topo maps and some local area info for me--"
"Speaking of, how am I doing in Liz's ranking this week?"
She knew she really shouldn't have been surprised by the question. There was no putting anything past the man; why should the fact that he was on Elizabeth's future ex-husbands list be any different? "You know about that, eh?"
He was amused by that. "Who doesn't? The office isn't that big. And it's not as if she hides it." He paused for a second as he found the turning and navigated it. "So?" That one word hinted at impatience. He really was interested.
"Well, at last update, you were between Matthew McConaughey and Colin Firth." Gwen watched him as he appeared to give serious consideration to the information.
"McConaughey and Firth, you say? I used to be in the Jason Statham-Christian Bale range. I'm slipping," he said with a sudden grin and a slightly rueful shake of his head.
Gwen found she had to smile. It was insane, yet somehow she felt as if she should pat his hand and console him over the loss in standing. "The list has had a bit of a shuffle recently. Seems there's this new scifi show on BBC1. She's fairly enamoured with the lead at the moment. Still, the only non-actor on the list isn't bad." Reassurance offered, her curiosity led her back to the transport crates in the back. "What've you got back there?"
He looked to see where she was pointing. "A few of Price's toys. Some caving and climbing gear just in case."
Climbing gear? "What in creation do you expect to find? I thought we were going up to talk to investigating officers, poke around the files they didn't send down, very possibly check out the area where the bodies were found." He had warned her to bring outerwear, but she hadn't expected too much to come of it. "Satisfying paranoia, you said." She couldn't imagine they were going to find anything other than an unusual density of people underestimating the ruthlessness of Mother Nature.
"Satisfy paranoia, sure, and make sure there's nothing to find. I do intend to make a fairly thorough search of the area." She must have appeared concerned because he continued, "Before you worry overly much, I've got the sensing and scanning equipment in. Shouldn't take much more than a few hours to buzz out to Llangynhafal and run the check after we meet with the ward officer in Denbigh. After that, we'll find a good restaurant, have dinner on the company dime and head back to Cardiff bright and early tomorrow morning. All right?"
"All right. Except for that 'early' part." Gwen was somewhat cheered. She felt more confident that Jack had told her all he knew about what they were headed into and what she initially construed as overkill in the back was only him being prepared for something he didn't think was likely to happen either.
