They allowed themselves roughly half a second to sprawl on the floor of the library cupboard, before Steven pushed the secret wall shut, and Jack jammed the mechanism again with the bar. The library seemed deserted, so Jack ventured out into it, tearing down several curtain cords with which to tie up Charles. Steven gagged him with the least oily part of a very oily rag he had found in a pocket, then they left him shut in the cupboard, and turned their attention to the library door. It had a keyhole, but there was no key in evidence. Jack considered dragging furniture across it instead, but didn't want to risk making too much noise.
"I'd suggest making a run for it, but I can hear voices," he said. Steven came to stand next to him.
"Making a run for it with Charles? That'd be fun."
"I like a challenge." They smiled at each other, then Steven shrugged, and gestured around.
"There'll be a key here somewhere. My father was the Paranoia King, remember? Where would you be, if you were a key?"
"Desk drawer?" There was no desk. "Hook on the wall?" There didn't appear to be one of those, either. "Maybe we should just hide. If they find the door's locked, they'll know we're in here anyway."
"We need to talk, Jack. We can't do that if we have to keep hiding." Steven had begun to look on the bookshelves, which, given the nature of the room, was likely to take him a long time. "Can you hear anything?"
"Just those few voices down the corridor. I think they're in the stairwell. The others are probably investigating the tunnels by now."
"Great." Steven winced. "I hope there's nothing too incriminating in there."
"More family secrets?"
"Precisely. Old rivals buried in the plaster. Well, you never know." He sighed. "I can't see a damned thing."
"Sorry." Jack began to fiddle with the torch, trying to figure out what had stopped it from working. It was supposed to draw its power from its user, and theoretically could last forever. "So much for 'guaranteed shock proof'."
"Where'd you buy it?"
"I didn't. Found it in the wreckage of a spaceship in Pembrokeshire." He gave the thing a shake. "You'd think if it could survive being smashed into a hill at several hundred miles an hour, it could cope with being dropped on the floor."
"That's technology for you." Steven looked up suddenly. "Jack, you're a genius."
"I know." Jack ceased fiddling with the torch momentarily. "Why am I a genius today?"
"Technology. And bloody annoying technology at that." He whistled softly, and from across the room came an answering beep. He grinned, though Jack could barely see it. "See? Doesn't have to be alien to be hi-tech. And aggravating. Now I just have to track the blasted thing." He set off across the dark room, tripping over occasional obstacles, and periodically whistling. By the time he returned, the key in his hand, Jack was half convinced that his friend had hurt his head in the fall.
"There." The lock clicked into place, and Jack's torch clicked into life a second later. Steven pulled the curtains closed, and Jack kept the beam directed at the ground. With luck nobody outside would notice the light. Not that luck was in particularly great supply at the moment.
"Safe," said Steven. Jack nodded, looking around the room. Huge cases of books, clearly all ancient, lined the walls. This didn't seem like a library that was ever used - more a museum to the ancient treasures of an old family. He rather liked it. As a time agent he he had always had a fondness for history, and living through some of it had only reinforced that. Besides, there was something about huge old libraries that reminded him of the TARDIS - and that was always good.
"So now what?" he asked, sitting down on the arm of a large, overstuffed armchair. It had a definite fifties air about it, and looked as though it hadn't been dusted since then, either. Steven was silent for a moment.
"Room to breathe," he said. "Space. Hopefully a bit of time. You know what I want." Jack's grin was predictably lascivious, and Steven smirked, going over to sit down on the armchair. "I don't mean that. Exactly. I want to talk." One hand trailed up Jack's spine. "About Charles."
"You need to work on your seduction. The request comes after the playing nice bit is finished, not before it's hardly got started." Jack caught the hand that had been on his back. "He's a murderer."
"Then hand him over to the police."
"You don't know how complicated that is. How do I explain to them that the body of his victim is in pieces at my place, instead of waiting for their experts to dig it up? Look, there's stuff I can't tell you... and stuff I sure as hell can't tell them. You just have to trust me on this."
"I don't want you taking his memories. He's my twin. We've never got along as well as I'd have liked, but that doesn't mean that I want you messing about with his head like that. You could do more damage than good. Far more damage. He can't heal if--"
"If he doesn't know he's done anything wrong. Yeah, so you said." Jack let go of Steven's hand, and it wrapped itself around his. "This is so much easier with strangers."
"Steal memories a lot, do you?"
"I don't 'steal' memories. I hide them, for everybody's good. There's things that people can't know. I don't make these decisions lightly. It's not like I think it's fun."
"Let me take him with me."
"You chose to go into space, Steven. He hasn't. It could be a worse sentence than any prison term. I've been marooned on planets, you know. One particular planet, for a long time."
"He might come back. I'm not going to keep him prisoner - just help him to heal. There's people out there who can really help him. You know that. And think of everything he can see. Puts everything into perspective, all that space, all those stars. I know I can make things right."
"And if he just tries to kill you again? You haven't seen him in a long time. Do you really know what sort of a man he is?"
"Yes, I think I do." Steven smiled faintly. "He's a bit of a creep, truth be told. Always has been. But he's not so different from me, you know. I'm no angel, and you know it."
"You're not a murderer."
"I've killed. I've killed a lot of people. Oh, I always felt that I needed to at the time, but we both know that it wasn't always necessary. Think about the people that you've killed, and tell me that they all deserved it. I won't judge my brother, Jack. I suppose my sense of morality isn't quite the same as most people's; but all Charles wanted was the inheritance. He'd never have killed that person, whoever they were, if our father had divided the money equally between us, like he should have done. That doesn't make Charles any different to half of the people I know. Out there, I mean, where the laws are different."
"That's quite a speech."
"And one that makes sense. Jack, please."
"Maybe." He gave the hand a gentle squeeze, and summoned a hesitant smile. "Maybe. I've gotta think."
"Think quickly."
"I will. You wouldn't be taking on an easy case, though, you know. He needs a doctor. I'm not worried about his shoulder, but his head is a different matter."
"I know. He's a mess. Seeing that I was alive really shook him up, didn't it." Steven looked guilty. "He must have been terrified. And what did we do? Dropped him through a floor, and threw half a house on top of him. And don't laugh."
"I'm not laughing at him getting a house dropped on top of him. Honest." Jack couldn't fight the grin that threatened to take over his face, and didn't bother to try. "I'm laughing at you, being so worried. I'm not usually this nice to people who try to kill me."
"Yeah, but you're not as nice as me." Steven leaned back, and with a quick pull of his hand, toppled Jack off the chair arm and onto his lap. "I'm a paragon of virtue, me."
"A paragon, huh?"
"Yep. Not entirely sure what one is, but whatever it is, I'm it."
"It's from the Greek. Something about rocks." Jack smirked. "Also means a perfect diamond, bigger than 100 carats."
"You would know that." Steven smiled. "I like the idea of being a priceless diamond. I think I'll stick with being a paragon."
"Of virtue?"
"Maybe not."
"Good. Virtue makes me nervous." Jack stretched. "We should get up. This place is still crawling with police officers. They're gonna find us if we just sit here."
"I could teleport Charles out, and then come back for you, I guess." Steven's arms had entangled themselves quite satisfyingly around Jack, and were reluctant to let go. "It's not much good for repeated use, though. Takes a while to recharge."
"Machadi technology." Jack sounded like a man who was too comfortable to be properly scathing. "They're so laid back it hurts. Don't even have a word in their language for urgency."
"Really?"
"Really. Best they've got is something kinda like 'hurry along please'." He thought of the Machadi refugee currently living in Cardiff Bay, and winced. "Poor sods. They didn't stand a chance when the invasion began." Steven's hand brushed affectionately across his hair, and he smiled faintly. "So what's the timeframe?"
"I could transport myself there and back pretty quickly, but with Charles as well I'd probably be looking at five to ten minutes or more before I could come back for you. I don't like the idea of leaving you alone here like that."
"The police can't do anything to me, even if they do get in."
"Maybe. Even so, I don't like running out on you. We could--"
"Fly out the window?"
"Maybe get out through the passages, I was going to say."
"They're blocked off, remember? They're also a deathtrap, and full of cops. And we can't move all that fast with Charles to think about."
"We're not leaving him behind."
"Did I say that? Hell, the whole point of this little adventure was to get him."
"And suck his brains out, yeah."
Jack sighed. "I think this is where I came in." He clambered off the chair, extricating himself from the tangle of Steven's arms. "Maybe you'd better just take Charles and get back to the Hub. I'll follow in my own time."
"Jack..." Steven went after him, across to the window, reaching out to hold the other man's shoulders. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
"Didn't mean what? I have to make decisions, Steven - and you don't know the half of them. You don't have a clue what I have to deal with every day. You think I want to have to worry about your brother on top of everything else?"
"I'm sorry. Just don't expect me not to be interested in his welfare. I don't care how cracked or evil you think he is. I just-- Oh, to hell with it." He stopped whatever argument had had been about to make, and instead turned Jack to face him. He had expected resistance - he wasn't nearly strong enough to make the other man do something that he didn't want to do. Maybe Jack was caught off guard, or maybe he wasn't as annoyed as he had appeared - at any rate he spun on demand, winding up almost nose to nose with Steven, and half-tangled in a curtain. They kissed, and Jack started to laugh.
"Do I taste as dusty as you do?"
"Probably. The cobwebs add something, don't you think?"
"It's different, that's for sure." They returned their attention to each other, until the tangled curtain became an irritation that they both had to fight to escape from. This time it was Steven's turn to laugh.
"Ever get the feeling the universe is trying to tell you something?
"It might have a point." Half out of breath, Jack shook off the last of the curtain's embrace. "This might not be the best time to start making out."
"Do mine ears deceive me? Is Jack Harkness suddenly worried about the proper time and place?"
"Hell no." He got a particularly enthusiastic kiss to prove it, Jack's relentless energy, as ever, a pleasant surprise. "But I keep thinking that I hear policemen in the walls. And we've got your brother tied up in the closet..."
"Screw my--" Steven broke off. "Actually, please don't." They were backed up against a shelf now, fumbling like adolescents, hot and bothered and energised. Jack giggled slightly at Steven's comment, and Steven smirked.
"If you're going to try arguing against us doing this right now, don't giggle. You know I can't resist it when you do that."
"I don't know what you mean." The bookcase that they were wedged against wobbled as they moved, and Steven laughed.
"The house doesn't believe you. It thinks you're taking advantage of me."
"Maybe it's jealous." Had he not had his hands full at that moment, Jack might have give a wall or a shelf a friendly pat. He felt Steven's smirk against his own.
"I know your reputation, Jack, but if you think you're getting me into a threesome with a house..."
"Remind me to tell you about Arbutron one day." He had to break off momentarily, as Steven made it impossible for him to talk. "They live in bio-domes. Semi... semi-telepathic... What was I talking about?"
"Shagging houses, I think." Steven switched them around, so that Jack was pushed up hard against the bookcase. It wobbled again, and a dusty brass ornament fell with a clatter onto the floorboards.
"I don't think so. Oh yeah. Arbutron. Semi-telepathic bio-domes. They communicate with each other. Transmit emotion. They're... a close knit community on Arbutron. Not big on privacy."
"You mean..."
"If somebody else is having some fun, so are you." Jack started to laugh again, Steven with him. "Ow. Damn it, this bookcase doesn't like me."
"There's a perfectly nice chair over there. And a number of nice... thick... rugs in the middle of the... the floor."
"Uh huh. We really ought... to be thinking about... about getting out, though."
"I know. But I'm supposed to be the level-headed one, and I can't drag myself away, so hard luck." Steven pulled him over towards the chair. "Thick doors, remember. "Who's going to hear?"
"When did I ever give a damn about people hearing?" They tripped over the edge of a rug, nearly ending up on the floor. "Might be kinda compromising, though, doing an emergency teleport back to the Hub right in the middle of things." His words made them both start to laugh again, and Steven, who was trying to lead, stumbled. They fell against the armchair, and Jack grunted in pain. At the same moment, somebody tried the handle of the door. Caught off guard like a pair of teenagers caught by a parent, Jack and Steven looked immediately towards the sound. They couldn't hear anything else, but it was obvious what was going on in the corridor just now. Moments later there was a heavy banging on the door.
"Damn." Jack sat down on the arm of the chair. Steven swore rather more eloquently.
"How did they know? We didn't leave a crack in the curtains, did we?"
"Probably torchlight showing under the door. Or maybe they were just checking all the rooms again anyway. Does it matter?"
"They won't get in easily." Steven's hand trailed up Jack's spine again, but Jack shook his head.
"And hurry things? If you're gonna do something, do it properly." He smirked. "Sex under siege is an artform, you know." He pulled Steven's head down for a quick kiss. "Come on."
"Where? Out the window?"
"With Charles? Hardly. We're getting him out the closet, and you're getting him out of here."
"Not without you."
"Right, fine. So we let him teleport himself, do we? That'll work. You can go retrieve his atoms from all over South Wales as soon as we can shake the police."
"Jack..."
"Go." Jack crossed to the cupboard door, hauling it open. Trussed up inside, Charles blinked out at him. Maybe it was the darkness and the confinement, but his eyes looked a little clearer now, as though he were regaining some control. Jack pulled him to his feet, and manoeuvred him out of the door. Over to his left, the banging on the door had redoubled. He could hear Kathy Swanson's voice now, yelling for those inside to open the door. She called out his name too, though he was more or less certain that that was through pure guesswork rather than knowledge of his presence. Steve raised an eyebrow.
"They like you."
"First rule of residency. Always make friends with the local law enforcement agency. Or if that fails, make 'em hate you. At least then you won't be bored."
"What'll they do to you if they get in?"
"Nothing. They can't. They'll glare, I'll smile, they'll get really angry and leave. They might arrest me, if they're feeling lucky. Seriously, though, they can't touch me. Now get out of here."
"I'll see you back at the Hub then. If you're really sure?"
"I'm sure. And no you won't." Jack leant Charles up against the wall, then gave Steven a long, hard kiss. "Get him to your ship. You ready for take off?"
"If the generator did its job, yeah. There are some checks still, but I can do most of them in orbit, if I really have to."
"How long until you can take off?"
"Check the power levels, get the generator unplugged if it's all okay... say five minutes maybe. But Jack--"
"Forget it." Jack had one hand hooked around the back of Steven's head, and he drew them both in for another kiss - a softer, more lingering one this time. "Just don't leave it too long before you come back. We have some serious unfinished business."
"Tell me about it." The thundering on the door increased in volume. "Oh, somebody tell them to bugger off for heaven's sakes. Jack..."
"Go. Before I change my mind."
"Your job. Your friends. I--"
"It's not exactly the usual kind of employment. And the others'll roll their eyes and wonder what makes me tick. So what else is new. Just go, Steven. Quickly."
"You could come."
"I don't think so. That ship of yours is crowded for two, let alone three. And I don't think Charlie here would appreciate our in-flight entertainment." Something heavy thudded against the door, and he winced. "Go on. I don't want them wrecking this place. Promise you'll visit, and I'll see that it's looked after. Now for goodness sakes, will you get out of here!"
"We're going." Steven went over to Charles, putting an arm around his shoulders, and holding him tight. "And I will visit. I promise."
"And if you see me up there..."
"Yeah, I know. Never mention anything we've done together unless you mention it first. It'd make life a lot easier if you'd live your life in a straight line, you know."
Jack grinned. "Can't do that. Too easy to get caught. Take care, Steven."
"Always." Steven tightened his grip on Charles, who was currently eyeing him extremely oddly. Great. It struck him that there were going to have to be a hell of a lot of explanations in the near future. What fun. "Be seeing you."
"I'll be waiting." He raised a hand in farewell, just as the familiar shine of a teleport beam drowned out the torch, for a moment lighting up much of the room. Before it all faded from view, Steven caught a last glimpse of Jack - a vision in blue, standing in the middle of the room. With anybody else, such a glow of light might have seemed angelic. Not with Jack. His eyes glinted bluer than ever, and his teeth gleamed in a brighter than usual version of the Harkness Grin. Steven smiled at the sight. It was a good image to take with him on what could well be the toughest flight of his life.
After the others had gone, Jack waited for some time, listening to the pounding on the door; before finally he took pity both on it and on the police. He turned the big old key as quietly as he could, purely so as to catch the police by surprise when he swung the door open wide.
"Hi." There were half a dozen of them out there, two covered in cobwebs. Since they matched his own decorations, he didn't have to wonder how they had come by them. Six pairs of eyes blinked back at him, only one set not showing surprise. That set, and the person behind them, were rewarded with the grin that annoyed as often as it delighted. With her, he suspected that it was almost exclusively the former. "Kathy. Hi."
"Harkness. I knew you were here. I bloody knew it." She stalked into the room, looking left and right. "Where is he?"
"Who?" He smiled at all and sundry, the picture of one who was eager to help. She glared.
"Steven or Charles, or whoever he is. He was here with you, wasn't he."
"No, sorry. I'm alone." He gave a little shrug. "Got a tip that those stolen goods of yours were hidden here, but there's nothing in the house. Must be outside."
"There's nothing out there. We've looked." Her voice showed a controlled fury, though he suspected that it wouldn't stay controlled for long if he pushed her. He was almost tempted to try. In the meantime he maintained the affable smile in the face of her ferocious expression. Somebody turned on the light, and the angry gleam in her eyes brightened accordingly.
"I'm having you for this, Harkness." Her anger was already showing signs of bursting forth. A good hundred and one decidedly risquИ ripostes leapt into life in Jack's head, but he fought the urge to pick one, and let his smile drift away. Around them, policemen were coming into the room, searching it, examining the huge cupboard, failing to discover the mechanism for the secret passage. They tugged back the curtains, too, clearly checking that there was nobody hiding behind them. The windows looked right towards the outhouse where even now Steven should be disconnecting the stolen generator, running his pre-flight checks, and preparing to taxi out into the great outdoors. With the lights on in the library, though, the dark world outside was invisible.
"You're barking up the wrong tree, Kathy." Voice gentle, and low enough to avoid its being heard by the other officers, Jack let her see that his expression was genuine. The teasing and the amusement with which he usually greeted her were gone. "Whatever you think is going on here - it isn't."
"But I only seem to have your word on that." Her frown deepened. "Okay. So what is going on? You can't claim that I'm wrong, and then not elaborate. The rest of them, they just accept it. They think that 'Torchwood' is explanation enough for anything. Not me. Tell me what this is about."
"You must know that I can't do that." For a second she thought that there was a sadness in his eyes, as though he genuinely would like to take her into his confidence. She frowned at that. What did he know? If it was sadness, though, it didn't last long. The glint of humour was back almost straight away, and with it the early dawn of yet another grin. She scowled.
"Secrets. Your secrets are going to undermine us all, Harkness. Torchwood has already put innocent people in danger - killed innocent people. And you seem to be involved more and more often with my cases. I am going to find out what it's all about."
"Maybe." It sounded almost like a dare; almost as though he wanted her to keep pushing. Her eyes narrowed at that, and she was about to query it; about to ask him if it was some kind of challenge; when she saw him look suddenly towards the window. What it was that she saw on his face, she was never entirely sure; never certain what exactly had alerted her and how. She knew only that there was something out here that he was looking towards. Something that was invisible in the blackness that lay beyond the windows. She swore, causing him to look back towards her, eyebrows raised.
"Language, detective." It was the mild scold of a teacher or a father, and it was the last trigger for Swanson. Her exasperation leapt forth in a rush, and she ran for the light switch. Doused in blackness, the other police officers present shouted out in annoyance, but she ignored them, pushing past them, racing to the nearest window. It was still too dark to see much, but there was something out there now. Some faint glow of light that illuminated something. Something purple? Something... she couldn't see for certain, but whatever it was, it was beginning to move. Her first thought was that it was a car, and she fumbled with the window, wrenching it up to shout out to any of her colleagues who might still be left outside. The words never left her mouth. With a howl such as nothing she had ever heard before, something streaked upwards into the sky, leaving a shower of lights and tiny stars in its wake. Her eyesight blurred, and she rubbed at her eyes in annoyance, the brightness of the light show imprinted on her retina. Somewhere, far up in the sky, she could just make out something - something purple? - moving further and further away. Only then did she remember the car; but when she looked back for it, it had gone.
"It's a nice night." Jack had followed her to the window, and stood beside her now. So did most of her colleagues, alerted either by her fight with the window, or perhaps by the light show. She looked across at him.
"What the hell was that thing?"
He shrugged. "Meteorite? Been a lot of them lately."
"I may be no astronomer, 'captain', but I do know that meteorites tend to travel in the other direction. They go down. That went up."
"True." He smiled. "But then they all have to start somewhere, don't they. You know, I think if you go down there, to where that little black car is parked, you'll find those stolen goods you were so worried about. Just a theory."
"I told you, we already looked outside. There's nothing." He didn't answer. He wasn't even looking at her now, and didn't seem to be hearing her either. Instead he was staring up at the dark night sky, with what could almost have been a wistful expression on his face. He smiled suddenly, though, and glanced back.
"You don't look hard enough, that's your trouble. I told you I'd had a tip off, didn't I?"
"You seem to be dating the thief, Harkness. I don't know if that counts as a tip off or pillow talk."
"Call it both. Still, it's your career. If you don't want to listen..."
"I have got no reason to trust you."
"No reason at all." He was grinning again, and even though the only light left in the room came from the corridor outside, and the almost forgotten torch in his hand, she could see his face clearly. The glint of the eyes, the gleam of the smile, the hint of so much mystery it drove her mad. "Little black car," he told her. "Put her back in the garage when you've finished. She's a classic."
"Little black car, huh." She didn't know why she was even listening, but she turned to look anyway, the move instinctive. It was too dark to see, of course, from all this way away. She couldn't see anything that might be a car - not anymore. "Where exactly-?" But even before she turned back from the window, she knew that he had gone.
It was a long walk back along the drive. Jack hadn't given much thought to what he was going to do when he got to the end of it, but he wasn't very surprised to see the SUV waiting for him outside the gate. Gwen opened the door as he came near.
"Busy night?" she asked. He smiled.
"It's been interesting."
"It looks it. Are those cobwebs?"
"Yeah. Just a few." He shook his head when she offered him the driving seat, instead climbing into the passenger's side. "They've gone," he said, in answer to her unasked question. "Both of them."
"I wondered about the fireworks." She seemed about to say something else, but didn't, instead turning on the engine.
"I don't know if it was the right thing to do," he told her, apparently mirroring her thoughts in his own. "But it's done."
"You think it's safe, sending your old friend off into space with some murderous brother breathing down his neck?" It didn't sound safe to her; but she had long ago learned that Jack had a different concept of safety.
"Steven will be alright." Jack was staring out of the window, and Gwen reached out to him, putting one hand on his arm. The move seemed to surprise him.
"You okay?" she asked. He smiled faintly.
"Yeah. Just thinking."
"I thought you said he'd be okay?"
"He will be. But don't you get it, Gwen? Charles has gone with him. That means two of them out there. Two of them who could be having kids one day." She understood now, and he saw it in her eyes.
"So the person that Charles killed...?"
"Could have been his own son, yeah. Or grandson. Same difference." He heaved a sigh, and flopped back in the seat. "Tosh never called. She get a result on the DNA test?"
"Yes. Close match, she said. But then you were expecting that, weren't you."
"You could say that." He stared bleakly out of the windscreen, then gestured after a moment to the controls. "Come on. Get us out of here. I want to go get cleaned up."
"Are you wishing you'd said something now?"
"To Steven? No. What if I'd told them, and they decided not to have kids? Think what that would do to the timeline. Knowledge of the future is a curse, Gwen. Didn't I tell you that once before? And it's a curse we keep to ourselves. One day, however many years from now, one of them is going to have a child. I'm as sure of that as anything. And that child, or maybe its own, is going to get the idea of visiting the old family home. I'd go, if it was me. Seeing where we'd come from. Maybe try to see it before it got run down, or before it changed hands? And whoever that kid is, they're going to wind up on our table, with Owen trying to fit all their pieces back together." He shrugged. "Nothing we can do about that. In a sense it's already happened."
"But his own son..."
"It's done now." He shot her a sharp look. "We're not responsible. Charles is."
"I know." She started up the engine, reversing the SUV out onto the quiet road. "That doesn't exactly help."
"It's not meant to." He sighed. "He's going to figure it out one day, too; you can count on it. When whichever kid it is doesn't come home, and questions get asked and answered, he's finally going to work out who it is that he killed; and his mind's going to shatter into more pieces than it's in now. Maybe that's poetic justice. I don't know."
"Neither do I." She glanced across at him, fighting the urge to reach over and brush away some of the cobwebs. He looked so young sitting there, his mind far away in dark places. "You need a change of scenery, Jack," she told him, wanting to help in the best way she could. "Soon as you've cleaned up a bit, we should all go out for a meal somewhere. Rhys is working late tonight, so I'm in no hurry. Cheer us all up a bit. Our time travelling corpse has put everybody in a bit of an odd mood."
"Yeah, maybe." The idea of going out as a group did appeal. They made a rowdy group; or three of them did. Tosh laughed at all the jokes, but hung back from joining in with the noise and the story-telling. Ianto, too, kept a lower profile; a gentleman out dining with the rabble. They were a good bunch to be with. He nodded, decided. "Okay, Gwen Cooper. Put your foot down. I'm hungry."
"Sure?" He hadn't looked, moments before, as though he was in the right frame of mind for a night entertaining the troops. He smiled.
"I'm sure. You lot choose the place, and I'm there. Just as long as I can get rid of the cobwebs. I gotta reputation to live up to, you know." He tried to look at himself in the rear-view mirror, a strange image doused in plaster dust and other debris. Gwen smiled to herself and sped up a little, far too conscious of the law, always, to go as fast as the others so often did.
"I know all about your reputation," she told him, "and I can't see cobwebs damaging it. Not unless... There aren't any giant, intelligent spiders out there anywhere, are there?"
"Oh yes." His expression was pure innocence. "Boy can they hug."
"You are joking...?" She glanced across at him, but he seemed absorbed now in the road ahead, thinking thoughts that were unknown to her. If he was joking, there was no means of knowing it. With Captain Jack, that was so often the way.
Jack disappeared into his office as soon as they got back to the Hub, leaving Gwen to bring the others up to date, as far as she was able. If anybody was surprised that he had let both twins leave, they didn't show it, at least not openly. If anything, Owen seemed amused by the notion of escaping capture by blasting off into space. Eventually, leaving him and Tosh arguing over where they most wanted to eat, Gwen went in search of Jack, anxious to make sure that he really was in the mood for one of their inevitably raucous nights out. She heard laughing as she approached the office, which at least dispelled some of her doubts; and going inside, found Jack just climbing out of his underfloor quarters.
"What's going on?" she asked. Negotiating the ladder one-handed, he was apparently eyeing himself somewhat critically in a handheld mirror. Ianto, nearby, was as ever tidying things up.
"Don't ask," her young countryman told her, his expression suggesting that, whatever it was, he had heard it before. Probably more than once. Jack made as though to throw the mirror at him.
"You're a hard man, Ianto. You have a heart of steel."
"No sir, I have a sense of proportion." Ianto set aside a dustpan, which appeared to be full of debris that he had just brushed off Jack's coat. "You know, I did suggest wearing a tie..."
"You do enough tie-wearing for the both of us." Jack flashed a sudden grin, and flipped Ianto's sombre black tie out of alignment, before vanishing back down the ladder again. His voice floated up from below. "And you look cute doing it, even if you are heartless and cruel."
"Thankyou. I think." Straightening the tie again, the young Welshman flashed a half smile at Gwen. "He'll be ready in a few minutes."
"Oh, there's no rush." She had hardly been expecting Jack to hurry, and certainly hadn't been expecting to find him in such apparently high spirits. It was proof, perhaps, that there was no tonic quite like the company of friends. "Is there any particular reason why you're heartless and cruel, or shouldn't I ask that either?"
"I think it's because I've never been a poster boy." Ianto's voice suggested that this was an old joke, which made Gwen feel oddly like an outsider. "I don't understand about fragile egos."
"Poster boy...?" She glanced towards Jack, who was climbing up the ladder again, the mirror still in one hand, his gunbelt in the other. "You were a poster boy?"
"Oh, don't encourage him, please. Not if you want to eat tonight." Ianto eyed Jack critically. "And do you really need a gun to go to a restaurant?"
"Always be ready, Ianto." For a second there was real seriousness in the blue eyes; a flash of the soldier beneath the jokes; a flash of the man still grappling with everything he had learned that day. Then he smiled again. "And yes, I was a poster boy."
"Although for some reason the where, when and why changes every time you tell the story." Ianto took the mirror so that Jack could fasten the gunbelt. "And if you're going to make me suffer through it again, you're the one who's heartless and cruel."
"You see what I have to put up with?" Jack took his coat off its hook, and shrugged it on. "Makes me shower alone, and then mocks me in my moment of pain."
"Moment of...?" She was floundering now. Jack nodded, and gestured to the top of his head.
"Grey hairs," he said, in a tone of voice that suggested this should explain all. "Two of them. See?"
"Grey hairs?" She peered at his head, just to show willing. "Oh yes. Two whole grey hairs. It's not like you're going to get many more, though, is it. Unless we stress you out that much."
"You lot stress me out all the time." He sighed theatrically, ignoring an eyeroll from Ianto. "Just as well Steven didn't notice, or I'd never hear the end of it. Honestly, if somebody puts your life on an eternal reset, they could at least have the decency to do it before you start going grey. I keep pulling them out, but they keep growing back."
"They home," piped up Ianto. Jack glared at him.
"See what I mean?" he growled. "Heartless. And cruel." Gwen had to laugh.
"I'm sorry Jack. I love you, really, but you can be... how do I put it... a little vain at times." She reached out suddenly, ruffling the spiky hair, and losing the stray grey hairs beneath the brown. "Come on. The others will be wondering where you are."
"Have they decided where we're eating yet?" asked Ianto. Gwen smiled at the implication that the other two were arguing about that.
"Not unless they've had a breakthrough since I came in here, no. Tosh wants Italian. Owen wants Thai."
"So split the difference, and go for something from the Middle East." Apparently now content with his appearance, Jack headed for the door. "What do you fancy, Ianto? Second thoughts, don't answer that in polite company."
"I resent that, sir." Ianto quite clearly didn't. "It's a nice night, though. We should eat outside."
"We are not having chips on the pier again. Not for a while, at least." Gwen held open the door. "We nearly caused a riot last time. Nice though it is to taser the local skinheads, we can't go doing it every night."
"It was kinda fun," commented Jack, leading the way to where the others were waiting. Tosh glanced up from the computer magazine that she was holding.
"That's as may be." Gwen jerked a thumb at Jack. "All this time, you'd think he'd know that not everybody likes being flirted with."
"Oh, everybody likes being flirted with." Jack flashed her a decidedly lascivious grin. "It's just that not everybody wants to admit it. So, do we know where we're eating?"
"We thought sushi?" Tosh set aside her magazine. "I quite fancy the food, and Owen fancies the waitress who served us last time. So we found something to agree on."
"Fine by me." All swirling coat and gleaming, cobweb-free shoes, Jack led the way to the door. "So are we going, or would you all rather sit here and see if the sushi place delivers? 'Cause it doesn't."
"Well, I..." Owen gestured towards the autopsy area. "The body's still down there. Shouldn't we--"
"He's not going anywhere." For a moment the reflective look was back in Jack's eyes, but it was gone soon enough. "I'll take care of him later. Don't let it spoil the night."
"Sure?" asked Tosh. "I could do it if you'd rather." He smiled at her.
"I'm sure. I figure he's my responsibility anyway, one way or another. Now come on. I got the feeling we're gonna be getting a lot of phone calls from the local police sooner or later, so someplace else is gonna be a good place to be."
"Sounds like good thinking to me." Owen grabbed his coat. "Although I don't think not answering the phone is going to make them piss off. Especially that Swanson woman."
"You got a point there." Jack sounded spectacularly unconcerned. At some point he had managed to put one arm around Ianto and another around Gwen, and they looked, thought Tosh, as she followed on in their wake, like a very unconventional threesome. Owen snorted.
"You three want to be alone?"
"You wanna stay the night, Owen?" Jack glanced back over his shoulder, as ever not missing a beat. "Maybe we could teach you something." The young doctor's expression was priceless, and Gwen and Tosh shared a smile.
"Some of us are actually hungry, you know." Nipping neatly into the lead, Tosh hid her own smile from Owen. "For food. Honestly, at times it's like being stuck in a schoolyard."
"You must have gone to a more interesting school than me," Owen told her, as he followed on after. "We didn't have a secret underground schoolyard with a pterodactyl in it. Or if we did, nobody told me."
"That'll be because it was secret," observed Ianto. Owen opened his mouth to reply to that, but clearly couldn't think of a suitable riposte. He muttered something rude in the end, and stalked off out of the door. Behind him, arms still comfortably full, Jack just grinned.
And far, far up above them, a small purple and silver spaceship left orbit, setting off on its journey into space - whilst alone in a garden in Cardiff, Detective Kathy Swanson sat in a small, black, vintage car, and pondered the scorch marks that had blackened the grass nearby. Something was going on, and she knew it. She just hadn't worked out yet what it was - but she would. And leaning back in the car seat, listening to her colleagues manhandle the stolen generator out of an outbuilding that they would all have sworn had been empty before, she stared up at the skies.
And thought, dreamily, of meteorites.
THE END