Here is my second chapter of promise. I hope this is going to seem as thrilling as I thought it was. Probably not, but you'll understnad why I tried to drag out the ending a little bit.
Jack and team had set out over twelve hours or so ago, and Alice had ripped open every box, document, and folder that had anything to do with her, Jack, or time travel; which was most of it. The documents were piled from floor to ceiling in the little conference room. This was where Alice was spending all her time. Hunting down names and trying to find anyone to call family. File after file, book after book, she was relentless. She found boxes of files under old floorboards, inside hidden documents on the computer, and many blacked out words. She stayed there for days; no one came or went, until she was hungry, for Jack had left with his crew, so she lingered behind with more desire for a discovered parental bond than a monster hunt. She found many hints, here and there about Jack that she never knew; he was more than a hundred years old and still looked about 31. She noticed that he came from the middle of nowhere, and was first seen dressed in something that didn't come around for years. Another person out of time, waiting for someone to being them back home.
Alice dove in and out of all the files she had collected, even her own file. She discovered one about Charlie, the candy shop man, another on Jack's aged wife. She wanted to learn everything she could compress into her brain, with it restoring old memory, new ones needed to make a mark. She had flashes, recognizing Rose and the Doctor, replaying her life in her head, putting as many 2-and-2's together as she could. There were still parts of it that didn't connect, didn't complete her story, but that didn't hold her back. Her entire history, her life, all depended on how much information and data she could dig out of the whirlwind of papers.
At first she had just starting tearing through everything, only realizing her mistake after she'd thrown papers everywhere. She needed to get organized. She started her own spider wed, first with herself, soon adding in Jack, Rose, and whatever was written down about the Doctor. So other characters came into play with her web, seemingly unimportant, but she discovered their huge role in her life. Jake's wife was one that she supposed wouldn't have had an effect on her, but she discovered a longer, more complicated relationship that had shape Jack into the man he is today.
Taking notes on Jack's wife, Alice absentmindedly flipped through the photos, not really noticing anything striking. They were pictures of Rose and Jack, a few hit-and-miss photos of the Doctor, who was oh so sneaky about avoiding the camera. Where had he gone, in fact? He sort of just, left. Alice hadn't realized that he had disappeared until this moment, trying to visualize when he had made his exit. To no avail, though, the Doctor had a quick way of disappearing and showing up eight years older and a new face younger.
So Alice returned to her old box of photos she had found in Jack's desk, mostly of things like fairies and aliens, nothing too new to Alice. Others were of a younger woman, all black and white photos, who Alice found very beautiful. It had a sweet little message on the back, something about the love of his life. She found it darling, that Jack had had a sweetheart that he loved so dearly. It also made her sad, because she knew that this woman would be either very old, or dead. That was one thing she had discovered about Jack, his immortality. He suffered from lost friends and family, who he had outlived, and probably will outlive for the rest of his years. She just hoped that Jack would stick around long enough for her to say a loving Farwell.
Which reminded her, she needed to send Jack the info. And data she had discerned from the piles and piles of paperwork. He was always so silly about her being punctual, but she knew that this was something beyond anything he had ever undertaken, and was trying hard not to panic. She sent a picture of her web, and photos of the information, including a written out portion of the documents. Now that that's done, back to research! She was being ever insistent about finding her family.
Digging through more of the photos, her fingers brushed a very old envelope, one she had missed her search through. A photo was inside, she could feel it, and it had been tucked inside the brown envelope that had not yet been opened. It was addressed to Jack Harkness, and had been mailed almost fifty years ago. A small note was on the front of the photo, mentioning something about the girl's college years. It was a school portrait, and she was making a silly face. It was of the same young woman; at least, she thought it to be the same, but almost hoping it wasn't. As she gazed into the eyes of the girl, she felt as if she was staring into a very small mirror. The shock of this discovery almost scared her into throwing the picture away from her. But something greater inside her stopped this motion; this was who she had been searching for all this time, her mother. It had to be.
Jack was reading up on texts that Alice was sending him every half hour or so about facts that might point them in the right direction. It would make a sweet little bell noise, like a Christmas bell, every received text. He transferred as much as he could onto a computer to work with while Gwen drove the monster of a vehicle. They were on a witch hunt for the Goblin, knowing that it was after Alice was a good enough reason for everyone else to join in quickly. As Toph worked with the data, Owen and Jack analyzed the information that Alice was feeding them.
What has alarmed Jack a bit was when the bells had not jingled in almost a two hour time period. But they were in mountains in America, and blamed the reception, not his old phone. Alice was probably just got caught up in something really important, and she'll remember. She's never one to be tardy on something like mission information. Although, she did seemed to be interested in the fact that I had a wife when I lived back in the day, maybe that made her upset with me; for not telling her. Jack almost panicked, if it were not for Gwen's expert decoding skills about Alice.
"Jack! She'll be alright! She's probably found something that's more important to deal with than sending you a message every second!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know! It's just hard thinking that our little Torchwood girl is growing up!" His dashing smile reviled again, displaying how nervous he was about the whole situation. He just wanted to get this creature away from this planet, universe, for that matter, and back to where he knows it's safe. Back where he knows Alice is safe. He wouldn't lie, that child was more like his own, if he had had any, everyday. She was becoming someone all her own, no longer depending on him to show her how things worked. Her memory was almost completely regained, meaning that his importance in her life was slowly starting to dwindle into nothing. But this wasn't something to concern himself with at the moment, they were almost to the site, which meant that it was all going to come to an end soon enough.
Jingle Jingle! Jack read his newest message, sighing with relief, but it was short lived when he tensed. The image she had sent was from so long ago, and he had never even opened the envelope it had rested in. It was a picture of his someone he thought he'd never see again, his wife, and later, his mother. But this was not what shocked him, it was the fact that she looked just like Alice did, minus the brown hair. Jack was starting to put the puzzle together, and it's image was becoming more distinct and shocking. Jack was related to Alice, the only question is, is she his sister or his daughter?
I just want to know how many people saw that coming, and be honest. I really want to see if I managed to fool maybe one person. Because you paid attention near the beginning, you could tell that something like this was coming. Seriously, I tried dropping hints.