CHAPTER SIX: CAMARADERIE

Maybe Remus's phone book stalking had gotten more results than he'd originally thought. Thirty-six hours later, there was an assertive knock on his door. He heaved himself out of bed (it was a Sunday, three days before the full moon, so he was allowed to sleep through the afternoon if he wanted to) and stumbled towards the door, pulling an old jumper over his pyjamas as he did so.

He didn't bother looking through the peephole when he reached the door—it'd been smashed during the last tenancy, and the landlord wasn't interested in Remus's gentle-yet-persistent complaints.

Behind the door was a man. Remus's first thought was:

"Nice try, mate, but you're never going to blend in with clothes like that."

Because it was a wizard. Who would traverse Muggle London in a period coat? It appeared to be Second World War military dress.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," the man said. "Here from Torchwood." He was American.

"I have no idea what that means," Remus readily admitted.

The man raised an eyebrow, lip curling into a smirk. "Of course you don't. Can I come in?"

Remus hesitated. There was a strange man on his doorstep, claiming to be from some mysterious organisation. But Remus had barely spoken to anyone in days, except when he was working the till at work, and he'd only just woken up from a fourteen-hour nap, still in his PJs, and he wasn't quite sure how to say no in a clever enough way that it wouldn't get him in trouble from this 'Torchwood'—who, come to think about it, could be a werewolf-murdering cult, or something.

Fuck, he needed a cuppa.

"It's a bit of a state," Remus said, deciding to risk it (mostly, stupid as it was, he was bored), "But if you overlook the mess, sure."

The man—Captain Jack Harkness—just swanned in like he owned the place, glancing around as he did so. Remus noticed the man wince at the sight of mould creeping out from under a rip in the wallpaper.

"I did warn you it was a dump," Remus had grown out of his embarrassment about the places he lived in. Or maybe it was that he had no-one to impress anymore. "Why are you here, again?"

"I'm Torchwood," the Captain replied. "Here to investigate some phone calls made from this house."

Remus blinked. "Look, I don't know what Torchwood is, but I'm not a criminal." And could this man be a wizard, as he had first thought? What did the Ministry know of phones?

"You called the first ten Tylers in the phone book," the man told him.

"I know. Do you want a cup of tea?"

"No thanks," the man answered. Bloody Americans. "Why?"

Remus decided to stay as close to the truth as he could, to avoid tying himself in knots of lies. "I was looking for a friend of mine." He filled the kettle, then set it on the hob, which he cranked up. He covered his panic by calmly going about his usual business.

"A five-month-old baby?" The man had taken a seat on the only comfortable chair in the flat—it was a weathered armchair which Remus had brought in from his cottage in Yorkshire.

With that question, the Captain—Captain of what? Since when did Remus attract military attention?—had gone straight to the attack, which set a hundred warning lights off in Remus's head. And then, on a whim, he attacked back, voice icy calm:

"So you're monitoring Rose Tyler."

That stopped Harkness in his tracks. He swallowed uncomfortably before speaking. "What do you know about Rose?"

"Not much. What about you?" Fuck. He was going to get shot for this—there was an old pistol at the man's belt. (He couldn't be a wizard, with a weapon like that.)

To Remus's relief, the man didn't seem keen to shoot him. He just smiled, albeit tightly. "She's a friend."

"A five-month-old baby?" Remus mimicked.

The kettle started whistling. He fished a mug from the top cupboard and set it on the side. He tensed his hand slightly to stop it shaking. "You sure you don't want tea?"

"You got any coffee?"

He didn't have the money for coffee, and it tasted like shit anyway. "No."

"Then I'm sure."

Lucky; he only had a handful of teabags left in the box. They wouldn't last him long (if he survived this encounter, that is.). Tea was the only thing Remus was willing to spend an extra few pence on—even when his funds were running on empty, he couldn't bear to buy cheap teabags. He dropped one in a cup, then poured the boiling water in after it.

There was a moment of hesitation—the man's first moment of weakness—before the interrogation resumed. "Look, you're either a friend or an enemy. Do you know the Doctor or not?"

Remus froze and stared into his brewing tea. "What if I do? What does that make me: friend or enemy?"

"You tell me."

He sighed. "Jesus Christ. This is the worst fucking conversation I've had in a while. Not that there've been many."

Harkness let out a full laugh, straight from the belly. Remus looked up in surprise.

"Yeah, I suppose it hasn't exactly been smooth, has it? Look, just tell me why you were looking for Rose, and I can leave."

"Unless you shoot me." Remus really hated guns. The tea wasn't brewed as well as he'd usually leave it, but he fished the teabag out with a spoon and dropped it into the half-full bin. A splash of milk was all he could spare.

"Well, I'll try to restrain myself."

Remus looked at the man—really looked at him. The smile still lingered on his face and seemed genuine. His posture wasn't as relaxed as he wanted it to appear. The man was … scared? Worried? Maybe he did know Remus was a werewolf.

"I'm not here to harm Rose Tyler," Remus said gently, taking a sip of his too-hot tea. "I've never even met her."

"Okay," the man said. "Good."

"And you? Why are you so interested?"

"I told you: I'm a friend."

"But … not yet, I'm assuming. For her, anyway." He kept his voice very careful, probing.

"So you do know the Doctor, huh?"

Remus hesitated for a beat, then nodded. "I did."

"Same here. Did he leave you, or what?"

"No," Remus said, smiling wryly (regretfully). "I left him."

Jack laughed after a moment. "Good for you."

They stayed silent for a few minutes, Jack seated in Remus's chair and Remus standing awkwardly by the hob.

"You sure don't want a cuppa?"

"What is it with you Brits and tea? Honestly."

"It's … it's a comfort, I suppose. Something monotonous and normal to reassure ourselves that everything's going to be fine, eventually. Seeing as everyone here's too stubborn to admit their real feelings."

Another laugh. They seemed to be coming easier now. "That sounds about right. Stiff upper lip is right."

"So you're from America?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, go on. You can't leave it like that."

"Fifty-first century. Boeshane peninsula. It's an Earth colony."

Remus let out a heavy breath in disbelief. "Why are you wearing that then?"

The Captain looked vaguely offended, looking down at his clothes. "I like this coat."

"At first, I thought you were—" he cut himself off, blinking. It seemed his lack of recent conversation had loosened his tongue. He was going to have to watch out for that.

"Thought I was…?"

He laughed. "Nothing."

"Sorry about the whole interrogation thing. I've made it my personal mission to protect her, which is harder than you'd think, seeing as I live in Cardiff. You're not an alien, are you? Not that it's an issue, but—"

"I'm not," Remus said, but he swallowed uncomfortably. He wasn't an alien, but he wondered if 'Torchwood' would classify him as human either.

"You seem doubtful about that."

"It's complicated."

"Everything is when it comes to the Doctor."

Remus snorted in agreement, looking down into his tea again. It was half-finished. "How d'you know him, then?"

"I travelled with him for a while. And with Rose."

Somehow, Rose hadn't seemed real until now. She was just a story, just someone the Doctor would mention every now and again, before quickly changing the subject and hiding the pain on his face. The fact that this man had known her too seemed to make her more solid, closer to reality. "You know her?"

Harkness shrugged. "Knew. I'm guessing you're … after."

"Yeah."

"What happened? Wait, you shouldn't tell me." The other man started looking around uncomfortably. "Look, why don't you sit down? Have you got any other chairs?"

Remus winced, looking around his flat in disdain. "No. There's not much, I'm afraid."

"Then why did you leave?"

He frowned. He'd done his best to keep his thoughts away from the Doctor. But his moods cycled as predictably as the moon did, and more than once he'd found himself stuck in a whirlwind of doubts and regrets, unable to do anything but drown it all at the nearest pub. "I…" He trailed off. "Every day I doubt the decision a little more. I suppose I have a duty here. But bloody Du—I mean … someone's stopping me from doing that anyway. So what was the whole bloody point?"

The Captain didn't say anything, just looked at him.

Remus kept going. "And it's so fucking unfair. I came back because I wanted my life back, but I'd forgotten how much of it was gone. And now I'm living in fucking London, alone, in this flat, which is falling apart as we speak, waiting for a chance to meet a kid who won't even remember me! I can't get a job, and I'm growing old here on Earth when I could've been out there in the stars!"

"What happened?"

"What?"

"You said your life's gone. What happened?"

Even after five years, the thought of explaining it stung. But there was something about the man on Remus's only armchair that made him want to say. Harkness had known pain and seen death. He also knew the Doctor and Rose. Remus knew he should still be suspicious, still be wary, but he had never spoken to anyone who knew about life in the TARDIS, not after he'd left. More than anything, he wanted a friend.

"My lover killed my three best friends," Remus said. One sentence. And he said it flatly, jaw clenched, hand shaking around the mug of tea. He met Jack's eyes directly.

"And then he found you?"

Remus was grateful Jack didn't say he was sorry. He was grateful he didn't try and give his own tragic story, or whatever.

He answered: "Yeah. I was going to kill myself."

"Have you tried to do it again since then?"

"It's not really that simple."

"I know." And, clearly, he did. "And what are you doing now?"

"I work. I earn money. Then I spend it on travel until I run out of money again, and then I find another job. Not that there are many around for people like me." The bitter last words were purely for himself, but Jack answered:

"People like you?"

"Yeah."

And Remus didn't elaborate, and Jack didn't ask. They were perfectly comfortable sitting with a thousand secrets between them, but the knowledge that one of those secrets—that of the Doctor—linked the two of them in ways no-one could imagine.

"Are you sure you don't want a cuppa?"

A groan (but Jack's smile didn't waver), "Are you trying to make me leave?"

Though he found her when he was twenty-six, it was only when Remus reached the age of thirty-one that he met Rose Tyler.

He was good friends with Jack. He had a vague idea of what Torchwood was, but when they met, they never talked about Jack's work, and they never talked about the magical side of Remus's life.

"You all right?" Jack would ask now and again, eyeing a fresh bruise or scabbing wound on Remus's skin. He'd be frowning, as if trying to solve a riddle he'd been given a very long time ago.

Remus, in return, would give a clearly fake excuse, or mutter an "I'm fine." Sometimes he'd tease and tell Jack he was used to it, or he'd smirk and say "You should see the other guy."

Jack himself, for all his suggestions of a dangerous line of work, seemed perpetually in full health. When they went out for coffee (tea, for Remus), Jack always paid, and Remus didn't protest; he couldn't afford to. All he earned went first towards food, and then towards his travels. He bought the odd piece of clothing from the cheapest places he could find.

Jack offered him a job once, and Remus smiled before changing the subject.

It was a Thursday afternoon, 1991. Remus's paper cup of tea was hot against his cold fingers. Both his and Jack's breaths fogged in the air.

"You should meet her," Jack said, out of nowhere. He'd been flirting non-stop all afternoon, but his face had suddenly hardened into a grim seriousness.

Remus blinked sleepily. His night had been wracked by age-old nightmares, leaving him weary and slow. "Who?"

"Rose."

That woke him up.

"Meet her? You mean—"

"Well, I thought we could just … walk by."

Remus had lost his job three days ago ("You spend half the month sick! How am I meant to keep this place open if my employees never show up?"), and the moon was a week past. It had been ten years since James and Lily died. It had been ten years since he'd seen Harry Potter—they boy must be eleven now. Was he at Hogwarts, at this very moment? He nodded at Jack, shocked at the offer. In the past, Jack had always insisted they not interfere.

In return, Jack gave him a wicked grin and started walking. Remus limped after him, leg aching as he did so, but his head was as light as it had been for a very long time. He wasn't even going to talk to Rose, but at this point any and every connection to the Doctor made his heart race.

The buildings on the Powell Estate were stark, litter spilling from the lips of bins and from the gutters, but the people within it seemed to shine all the brighter in their murky backdrop. A group of children laughed in the playground; a young couple bore matching infectious smiles as they walked hand-in-hand down the pavement.

Remus was reluctant to call it luck that they saw Rose Tyler on that day, but what else could it be? As he and Jack passed the block of flats that Jackie and Rose lived in, a little girl skipped past, wrapped in a thick pink puffer jacket, blonde hair protruding from beneath the hood. Her mother bustled after her, pleading with her to slow down as she handled a large array of empty shopping bags.

Jack elbowed him in the side sharply, and Remus realised he'd been staring. He quickly averted his gaze to his feet and continued walking next to his friend.

Merlin, what the fuck was he doing? This was the most exciting thing that had happened for months, and it was spying on some little girl.

"It felt creepy to me too, the first time," Jack said, as if reading his thoughts. "And it is, really. But I couldn't resist."

"You do this often?" Remus asked incredulously.

"Only when I have to. There've been a couple alien lifeforms around these parts recently. I'm worried."

"D'you need my help?"

"No. I just thought you deserved to see her, even if it was only the once. I imagine he mentioned her a lot. They were … they were very close."

"Yeah." He scuffed his years-old shoes on the floor, frowning. "It almost feels like a dream. I'm glad I know you, Jack. I think I'd go crazy if I didn't have constant proof that I didn't just … make it all up."

They walked on. Remus pulled his old coat tighter against his throat to block out the January chill.

"Look, Remus, I don't know what crazy shit you get into," Jack said, eyeing Remus's fresh scratches and old scars, "But you can always call me if you need to, all right?"

"I will."