Finally! FPTTW wrote that bloody chapter!
I had originally written these characters in before the new Doctor Who Special was broadcast. But after it was, I had to rewrite the chapter because RTD ideas and my ideas conflicted ever so slightly. But to keep it the way it was would have made my story inaccurate to the real story written by the Doctor Who team. So here is the new version. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. Reviews would definitely be appreciated for this chapter.
FlowerPetalsToTheWind
The room was surprisingly large. The wall space was covered with filing cabinets, book shelves, computer monitors and such. To Jack, it reminded him of the Hub and so he felt, for the first time in a very long time, a little at home. The only wall not covered by this stuff was the one to Jack's right which had two simple looking, polished, wooden doors leading to the unknown. As his concentration returned to the back of the office, where a large desk spread to most of the back of the room, he met the gorgeous dark eyed glare of Gwen. The raven haired leader gave a short nod which Jack took as a hint to stop standing at the door staring like an idiot but sit down and prepare for a bollicking. He sat down in the chair provided and stared back at Gwen. He bit back a comment which he knew, by the steely glare he was looking at, would probably earn him a slap. She seemed to be waiting, staring expectantly. Jack laughed to break the silence, "I turn my back for a minute and look what you get up to. I mean-"
"Seven years Jack." Gwen cut in.
"Yeah about that-" Jack started.
"The world was coming to terms with the five days of terror and you disappear into the sky." Gwen tone was low and dangerous, her police interrogation instincts shining through.
"Gwen I'm so sorry, I-" Jack tried again,
"Look Jack I don't have time to listen to an apology. I'm not looking for one. I expected it. We all have different ways of dealing with things. Running away just seems to be your way. Mine is to buckle down and help as many people as I can, which is why after you left I landed back in the police force." Gwen's glare had softened as her large dark eyes bore into Jack's dazzling blue ones. Jack hesitated,
"So is Torchwood a police thing now?" He said his lip curling slightly in disgust.
"God no, it has no ties to the police. But where else do I go Jack? The Hub was destroyed. I didn't even know if Torchwood would exist anymore. But you know what it's like Jack. You can't go back after Torchwood, can't have a normal job." Gwen sighed bowing her head as if to inspect her folded arms. Jack kept gazing at her. She looked tired. She looked older than he remembered.
"Seven years." He mumbled to himself. Gwen looked up again.
"Seven years." She repeated, almost like confirmation. Jack didn't like the silence or the subject and so decided to change it,
"Is this it then? Torchwood?" He took a second look around the room.
"No, not all of it. This is just my office slash boardroom." She gestured. "I may be head but I'm not vain Jack, this bloody great desk isn't just for me." She said. Jack smiled seeing a familiar glint in her eye. But he could still see the cold steel there staring at him. Unforgiveness. But it was mixed with warmth that only Gwen showed. He was a little confused so uncharacteristically didn't say much. Gwen stood up. Jack copied the motion. She came round the desk and stood next to him.
"I see you hired Lois." Jack commented.
"Of course." Gwen smiled. "But it's not just Lois and I." Gwen walked over to one of the doors Jack had noticed earlier. "There is no longer a Rift manipulator but we make do with salvaged technology and are able to monitor it from here and what comes through. Though it's nearly as good as it was by the tower, things often slip under the radar but we do what we can." She opened the door. "Our head of computing and monitoring is in charge of this room and it's contents but of course he doesn't sit in here alone, we all give a helping hand." Showing Jack her new work seemed to have cheered Gwen up a bit and she was smiling as she headed into the room which was just as big as the one they had left if not bigger. It was full of technology, some that Jack recognised, and others he didn't. There were computers, monitors, gadgets, weapons and work stations suspiciously similar to those that had been in the Hub. Jack noticed someone sitting at one of the workstations. It was Lois; she had somehow entered this room obviously through another entrance. She was laughing with a man sitting in a chair at another of the work stations, who had his back to Gwen and Jack. Gwen walked over to him, "This is our Head of Computing and Monitoring." She said. The man turned around and grinned as he looked up at only man he knew that wore an old RAF great coat.
"Look at you Captain Jack!" He said with a London accent. Jack looked gob smacked,
"Mickey!" He exclaimed with utter surprise. "Mickey Smith! Is that you?"
"The one and only." Mickey replied still grinning.
"I'd never actually met Mickey until five years ago when he contacted me when he heard Torchwood Three was back online." Gwen explained. "Now, I don't know where I'd be without him."
"What can I say Boss? Computer genius that's me." Mickey grinned cheekily.
"Mickey helped me reboot the Torchwood system." Gwen continued to explain. "I had some of the technology; remember what we used in the warehouse? I just needed to expand it and reboot it; Mickey seemed to know what he was doing straight away so of course I had to persuade him to stay." Gwen finished smiling at Mickey. Jack grinned too.
"Ah persuasion, my forte." He said, his eyes glazing slightly, obviously reminiscing.
"Not you're sort of persuasion Jack." Gwen sighed, Mickey laughed. "Anyway, we have a tour to complete and you have work to do." Gwen directed the last bit at Mickey.
"Course Boss." Mickey twirled back round in his chair to face his screen. Gwen rolled her eyes, she'd been trying to get Mickey to stop calling her "Boss" for as long as she could remember but just call her Gwen. He never seemed to kick the habit though. Gwen walked over to Lois with Jack behind her. He felt like a child being shown around a new school.
"You've already met Lois." Lois turned around and smiled.
"Ah Lois Habiba, I remember you. Our dazzling little helper." Jack grinned.
"Yes well, she's a little more than a helper now. What would you say your job is Lois?" Gwen asked.
"Well we all just mingle together, but I suppose if you wanted to give me a job title, I'm very much like a secretary? Oh and the Archivist." Lois responded. Gwen nodded in agreement. Jack felt a stab of pain in his chest. He just nodded without saying anything. Gwen looked up and saw that fresh sadness in his eyes. She took his hand.
"Thank you Lois." She said and pulled gently to get Jack to move with her. They left the room the way they had come in and were back in the boardroom. Gwen opened her mouth but Jack shushed her.
"I know Gwen. It's just hard. I'm sorry." Jack said sadly.
"No Jack, I'm sorry." She pulled him in and hugged him tightly and she felt him choke back some tears.
"I think I really loved him." Jack said pulling away slightly to look into Gwen's face.
"I know that he really loved you." Gwen said, now also holding back tears.
"So who makes the coffee now?" Jack asked, with a short hiccup of laughter.
"No one. We go to the coffee shop around the corner." Gwen said quietly. Jack nodded.
"Yeah." Was all he could say. She took his hand again.
"I have a couple more places to show you." She said and led him to the second door. They walked through together and Jack was greeted by a powerful smell of sterilisation. This room was brighter than the other two had been. It was whitewashed with shining white tiles. Jack knew straight away that this was a medical room. There were two rooms off to the side that had three out of four walls that were made of glass. They held comfortable beds and numerous amounts of medical equipment within them. Back in the main room there was also numerous medical instruments and other various pieces of equipment. Some which didn't look very Earth like. The room had a gurney which sat in the corner with various other things that looked like equipment for emergencies, including a portable surgery kit lying on top of it and settled in a glass cabinet that was on the corner of the room, so it was triangular with two glass doors. The room also held a mortuary slab right at the back of the room behind another glass wall and door, which someone was bent over, clearly examining something that was lying on the slab. Gwen strode straight over to the mortuary. At the door there was a call button. Gwen pressed it. The person that was examining the corpse straightened up carefully and laid her instruments down with the same care. She switched off the recorder that was recording the autopsy and turned around. For the second time that day Jack was in complete shock. Martha Jones stepped through the glass door and shut it again with a push of a button on the control panel. She smiled graciously at Jack.
"Look at you Martha Jones!" Jack exclaimed scooping her into a hug. Martha laughed and hugged Jack back. "I didn't think I'd see you back in Cardiff." Jack said still smiling.
"Yeah well, got married and wanted to settle down." Martha answered waggling her left hand which held a beautiful, dainty diamond ring and a wedding band. "I'd worked in London with my husband for a few years but we wanted to settle more. Plus hubby had been pursuading me for a long while to leave UNIT. It was through UNIT that I heard Torchwood had reappeared. I had gone freelance for a bit but you know, I did actually miss you guys. I've been working for Gwen for, how long is it?" Martha asked. Gwen shrugged trying to remember when Martha had come over.
"Two or three years now, isn't it?" Gwen replied. Martha lit up remembering now,
"Oh yeah. Three years next month." She agreed.
"So who's the lucky man?" Jack said to her still laughing.
"Didn't he tell you when you were in Room 3? It's Mickey." She replied, also laughing. Jack's eyebrows rose. He certainly was a little surprised. Martha laughed more seeing his face. "Well I didn't expect to see you back in Cardiff."
"Who could stay away from Cardiff?" Jack said humorously, "And Gwen." He added, looking her up and down suggestively. Gwen rolled her eyes for the second time that day. Everybody laughed.
"So if Mickey's been here five years how come you've only been here three?" Jack asked when he remembered Mickey talking to him earlier.
"Like I said, I've been freelance. Mickey had come here to help Gwen when we heard she was restarting Torchwood. Mickey's been helping her start up the Torchwood system here, in London and up in Glasgow. But he decided he liked Wales and it took two years to persuade me to settle down."
"Martha Jones, you are stubborn." Jack said, a smile creasing the corners of his mouth and an eyebrow rose smartly. They all began laughing again. When Gwen had sobered she finally said,
"Well, I have one more room to show you Jack and we can't keep Martha distracted as you can see, she's in the middle of an autopsy." Jack finally had view of the corpse on the slab. It was humanoid in shape but it was whiter than the tiles behind it.
"We were called in on this one last week." Gwen told him. "Found him in a flat not far from here. Complete mess everywhere. It looked like he'd been attacked. But you never know, he could have been the attacker who underestimated his prey but I doubt that. His face suggested more, it looked scared or horrified." Gwen said softly. "But we'll leave it to Martha to find out. Come on, one more room." She took Jack's hand again they both waved back at Martha who was applying a new set of gloves and getting back to work.
Again they were back in the boardroom. Jack looked around but couldn't see another door so was wondering where they would go. Gwen led him back the way he had first come in. Back in what appeared to Jack as Torchwood's new Reception area, Gwen let go of his hand and walked over to the small desk that Lois had been sitting at when Jack had first arrived. She picked up the telephone and pressed line 3. She waited a few moments before she got an answer,
"Hi Lois, can you unlock Room 4 please?" She asked. She paused as she got an answer. She smiled, "Thanks." And put the phone down. Suddenly a panel in the wall to the left opened. Jack raised an eyebrow, he was a little surprised, he had to admit. Gwen walked over to the new hole in the wall and waited. "Are you coming then?" She asked. Jack smiled, his old shine back,
"Hell yeah!" He bounded over eager to know what Gwen had hidden behind this secret panel. He followed her into the corridor which was lit with small lights at intervals. The corridor looked relatively long however after a few yards it turned sharply to the left. Gwen who had been in front of him disappeared briefly as she rounded the sharp bend. Jack noticed the corner and rounded it too. However he stopped short. It appeared Gwen had disappeared. He stopped. He had come face to face with a blank concrete wall. "Well, if you wanted to dump me you could have just said." Jack said with an eyebrow raised. Suddenly the concrete wall in front of him shuddered. It then began to rise. When it had finished, there was yet another hole in the wall.
"I never realised I'd picked you up to begin with." Gwen answered; she looked quite smug standing on the inside of the wall next to a leaver. Jack walked through the new door way. "This is the part of Torchwood that not even our landlord above knows about." Gwen's eyes glanced upwards to the Police HQ above. Jack grinned,
"So what do you hide in here?" He asked.
"What we don't want found." She replied cryptically. She continued to walk down the new corridor and Jack followed. This corridor was a little longer than the last. Jack continued to follow Gwen as she walked purposefully forwards.
"You know if you wanted to play Seven Minutes in Heaven you could have picked a smaller closet." Jack commented as they walked on still. Gwen didn't even bother to turn around. They finally arrived at an opening and Jack smiled. There were rows and rows of shelves, glass tanks, and cabinets and then Jack noticed a flight of metal stairs. "Where do they lead?" He asked Gwen nodding at the stairs. Gwen smiled,
"The hothouse." She said, "Did you want to see?" She headed towards the stairs.
"Hang on, what's this place first." Jack asked as he headed over to meet Gwen at the bottom of the metal stairs.
"This is basically our archives. But we keep anything here that we don't want found by anyone who might accidentally find us. Obviously we're not as secure as we were back at the Hub, so, the morgue is down here, we have a couple of vaults, untested alien technology, a small, well very small firing range, but we use the Police's firing range as well. But sometimes Mickey and Martha like to test our foreign tech and weapons down here so they use the firing range." She explained.
"Is that what they tell you they're doing down here?" Jack's eyebrows were raised yet again. Gwen's lips twitched with a smile.
"We also keep most of our other weapons down here, any junk that has come from the Rift, any thing that has come through the Rift and any plant that has come through the Rift. Speaking of plants let me show you the Hothouse." She started to head up the metal stairs. Jack followed; his hand twitched as he thought of giving her behind a quick slap but forced himself to stop as he knew that he would surely get a slap back, or worse.
They reached the top of the stairs and Jack realised that he was on a platform, not another level. In front of him was what appeared to be a giant greenhouse. Gwen was already inside. Jack had noticed that she appeared particularly excited about the hothouse, more than any other part of, what Jack could only described as her Empire. He entered the hothouse and could immediately smell the typical odours of greenery. Again Gwen took his hand and lead him to a bench that was lower that all the others. She started speaking to Jack again but he suddenly had no idea what she was on about, "Jay seems to love the Hothouse, he's always down here with Lois. This seems to be his pet project," she gestured at a plant that is in the middle of the bench, it looked like a typical plant except it kept spurting bubbles out of it's blossoms, "They're doing plants at school-" When Gwen said this, alarm bells rang in Jack's head and he cut her off,
"School? Gwen, have you put Torchwood on the Work Experience lists or something? Who's Jay?" Jack was completely confused. Gwen's smile slipped slightly,
"Jay's my son Jack. Remember? I was six months pregnant when you left." She answered. Suddenly everything slotted into place as Jack had a brief flashback of seeing Gwen at the top of that hill, Rhys standing a little way behind and she stood there with a small bump protruding out, moments before he pressed that button on his wrist strap. She had a son. He would be about seven, nearly eight now. Jay.
"You bring him to Torchwood?" Jack asked incredulously. Gwen looked down at the floor, she looked genuinely uncomfortable.
"I didn't want to but I was stuck for a babysitter one day. He loved it so much; it's hard to keep him away." She said, her eyes shining. Jack didn't know if they were tears or pride welling in her eyes.
"So let me guess, he wanted to take this extra-terrestrial plant in for show and tell?" Jack asked still in disbelief.
"You don't understand Jack. He's so different. He takes things on board that other kids wouldn't think twice about. He learns things so quickly. Add that to his natural curiosity and it would be punishing him to not let him come back." Gwen sounded a little exasperated. Jack frowned. "You're not in charge anymore Jack. And you certainly can't tell me how to be a parent." Gwen finished. She stood there for a moment and they were locked in a stare. But she quickly broke it and stormed back down the stairs. She continued back the way they had come in and left Jack alone. He stood in the hothouse on his own. The only sound breaking the silence was a little pop as Jay's plant spurted more bubbles.