Smiths & Joneses

by Soledad

Author's note: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

And no, this is not that Flat Holm episode. Part of the chapter simply takes place on Flat Holm Island, that's all.

Warning: disturbing images in this chapter.

Chapter 11

Andy Davidson determinedly took the driver's seat while Mickey was helping Jack to load the individual parts of Torchwood's Big Gun™ into the back of the SUV and was not the least moved by Mickey's angry protests.

"With you or Jack driving, we'd have a lethal accident – or get stopped by the police – within ten minutes," he pointed out. "Besides, even if I do go beyond speed limits, my ex-colleagues are more likely to look the other way than when either of you does it."

That was certainly sure, and so Mickey shut up and let him be. Andy grinned at Jenny.

"Care to take the passenger seat?"

Jenny nodded enthusiastically, ignoring Captain Harkness' unhappy expression.

"What is this Flat Holm where we're going?" she then asked, in a voice too low for the other two on the back seat to hear. Somehow she had the feeling that her curiosity might not be appreciated in this particular case.

"It's a limestone island the middle of the Bristol Channel," Andy explained, also keeping his voice low. "In earlier times, it was used as the starting point for the Mission of Seafarers, being the most southerly point of Wales; then it was the site of a sanatorium for cholera patients, then an important part of the defence line. Right now, however, it's just deserted scrubland."

"And why are we going there?" Jenny asked, because this clearly wasn't the whole truth. "You aren't planning to set out your boss on a deserted island, are you?"

Andy snorted. "Of course not. But Torchwood has a… an asylum on Flat Holm Island. One where we hide the Rift victims from the rest of the world."

"What are those Rift victims and why would you want to hide them?" Jenny asked with a frown.

"People who have accidentally fell through the Rift and were returned somehow," Andy explained in a whisper. "I don't really understand how it happens – you should ask Tosh. Or Trevor. Fact is, they experience… something out there and come back in a state that makes them unable to lead a normal life. They're… they're sick in ways you could never imagine. Well, you probably can, being who or what you are, but the rest of us… Anyway, Captain Harkness set this place up when he took over Torchwood Three, to have them cared for. Told the staff they were experiments that had gone wrong."

"And they believed it?" Jenny was honestly surprised. Andy shrugged.

"People always believe everything when you tell them the bloody government is to blame," he said cynically.

Jenny shook her head in bewilderment. "And you're planning to leave your boss in that place?"

"What else can we do?" Andy sighed. "It's a real shame, though; Ianto's the most decent bloke you'll ever meet, well, save for Rhys perhaps, but Flat Holm is the only place to keep him safe. The security measures are stronger than in Fort Knox, and the staff knows how to deal with dangerously delirious patients. We…"

He was interrupted by a blue streak of swears coming from Captain Harkness on the back seat, in a language that Jenny's brain automatically identified as Galactic Standard. She refused to consider how she could know that.

"What's wrong?" she asked instead; in English, for the two locals' sake. She doubted they'd understand Standard.

"They're on the ferry already," Captain Harkness muttered. "Rhys must have broken all speed limits in the book."

"So what's the problem?" Mickey asked. "Putting a few hundred cubic miles of sea water between him and that homicidal bug… this is good, ain't it?"

"Ask Jenny, she's the expert," Captain Harkness replied tersely.

Jenny shrugged. "If you're asking me if an eraser can swim, the answer is that I don't know," she answered in all honesty. "But that armour of theirs can withstand the vacuum of space. I don't think a little salt water would do it any harm."

"So, even if it can't swim, it can walk the bottom of the sea; and a telepathic link ain't a scent that could be washed away by water," Captain Harkness summarized.

Jenny nodded. "Afraid so, Captain. Which means you'll need a boat, too."

"That isn't a problem," Andy said. "I know a lot of boat-skippers here. Some of them owe me a favour or two, back from the time when I was still with the police. We won't have to wait for the return of the ferry; but it will cost us a good tip, and we'll have to carry the boxes for the Big Gun. Those boats can't carry the SUV."

"There are two of us; we'll deal," Captain Harkness replied. "Floor the bloody accelerator, will you? I don't think we can afford to dawdle."

Andy did as he'd been ordered, and fifteen minutes later they reached the coast – just in time to catch a glimpse of the ferry in fair distance, looking smaller than a nutshell.

"And that would have been our regular transport," Mickey commented unhappily.

Jenny raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Why would there be regular transport to an uninhabited island?"

"The ferry goes around the coastline quite a bit," Andy explained. "We pay them a regular fee to stop at Flat Holm Island three times a day, just in case there's an emergency. And we need to get the supplied there somehow."

"And nobody asks why?" Jenny wondered. Andy shrugged.

"Nah, they just say 'bloody Torchwood', charge us twice the sum they'd charge anyone else, and that's that," he looked at Captain Harkness. "Give me a moment, Captain. I see one of my old pals on his boat, and he seems ready for passengers."

He walked over the gangplank to the neat-looking little boat with the name CHARA painted on its heck. They saw him go aboard, talk to the owner and then shake hands with him. In less than ten minutes, he was back again, looking only remotely smug.

"That's settled then," he announced. "Fifty quid."

"Fifty?" Mickey asked incredulously. "What sort of thieves and cutthroats owe you favours, man? Offer him thirty-five, that's more than enough for such a short trip,"

Andy rolled his eyes. "Mickey, I'm not being funny. If you wanna haggle, go to Morocco."

"It's all right," Captain Harkness interrupted before the argument could have gotten out of control. "Fifty quid it is; Torchwood can afford it. Grab the boxes and off we go."

"Open waves, here we come!" Andy sang and obeyed.

The boat owner looked sceptically at the four people, all four of them carrying large cases and crowding into his small vessel.

"Those things look heavy!" he protested. "What if you overburden the Chara?"

Captain Harkness rolled his eyes impatiently. He placed his case on the desk and fished some more money out of the pocket of his heavy coat.

"That's unlikely, but I'm willing to reward you for the risk you're taking," he said. "Do this for me, and I'll give you a hundred quid."

The boat owner looked at the money and stopped protesting.

"All right," he said, "but only if you all put on lifejackets. I shan't lose my licence because of you."

"We will, we will, just stop arguing," Captain Harkness replied testily.

Another five minutes later they were all standing on the deck, wearing lifejackets, the wind blowing their hair… well, with the exception of Mickey, of course. All he had on his head was stubble. Very short stubble. Jenny, on the other hand, enjoyed the feeling of her hair fluttering in the wind as she leaned onto the railing, looking out onto the grey water.

"I've never seen an actual sea before," she said, "It's… stimulating, with the wind and the salty air and stuff. I think the Hath would like it, too. But why is the water so grey? Actually, the sky is pretty grey, too. Isn't it supposed to be blue?"

"Not in Wales," Andy said, and the others grinned briefly, sharing a joke Jenny couldn't get, of course. Then they continued to stare forward, trying to figure out if the ferry had already moored at the island.

When they reached Flat Holm themselves a short time later, the ferry was gone and there was no trace of the Torchwood SUV. Captain Harkness didn't seem worried, though.

"They had quite the advantage on us," he said. "Let's go."

Jenny looked around with interest. All she could see was barren rock; there wasn't even a visible path – so how did the SUV actually get to… whatever their destination was? The only building she could see was a slender, once white tower with a reed cap, built of withered stone.

"What is this?" she asked.

"A lighthouse," Andy replied absent-mindedly; seeing her blank expression, he sighed and added. "It's a signal tower. At night, or in foggy weather, light signals are sent from the upper chamber, to help the ships find their way back to the harbour. Well… used to, before the invention of the radar anyway. Look, I'll show it you from the inside once we've dealt with the current crisis, all right? I promise. Right now, we must hurry up. Captain Harkness starts getting edgy, and trust me, you don't want him edgy. It's not a pretty sight."

Jenny realized that Captain Harkness was already hurrying forward, following a path that existed in his memory only, balancing one of the cases on one shoulder, Mickey hot on his heals. Jenny and Andy grabbed their respective cases and followed suit.

They were heading down the invisible path for some clumsy, withered concrete block buildings, dug into the ground so that they couldn't be seen from the shore. Suddenly, there was a path, after all; then a long string of stairs leading downwards, and finally a large metal door, painted brown to blend in with the rest of the building.

Captain Harkness tossed the door open with his free shoulder and went in, without a backward glance. Mickey did the same, but Andy stopped for a moment to get his troche out and switched it on.

"It's bloody dark in there and somebody who ain't familiar with the layout can easily stumble and fall," he said. "Stay with me, okay?"

They went down some more steps behind the door and got into a brick-walled corridor. At least Jenny thought that it was brick. Even with the torch, it was very dark in there indeed. There was a buzzing electrical sound, and the dripping of water could be heard somewhere near, but no other sing of life. Not the most inviting of places, Jenny decided, feeling sorry for the young Torchwood director; she certainly wouldn't want to stay here, not for a single night.

"What's that sound?" she asked. 'That buzz."

"Security system," Andy replied. "A bit outdated, perhaps, but very reliable. They have their own generator here, so power shortages ain't an issue."

That made sense, if they had dangerous – or endangered – inmates to protect, Jenny found.

In the meantime Captain Harkness had reached the end of the corridor, where their way was blocked by another door. He opened a wall panel, revealing a red light and a button, which he pushed briefly, twice in rapid succession. The buzz became louder, and then a deep female voice asked.

"All right, who are you?"

"Torchwood," Captain Harkness replied, stepping closer to the wall panel, so that the retina scan could confirm his identity. "It's me, Helen. Let us in."

"You were supposed to warn us about visitors," the voice answered in clear amusement.

"You know Captain Cheesecake;" he's a law unto himself," Mickey commented, and the voice laughed.

A moment later static hissed and a metallic thud could be heard; then the door opened. Behind it, the corridor was belighted – barely – and a big, dark-skinned woman stood in the doorframe, wearing a red T-shirt, a dark read sweater, dark trousers and a blue headcloth.

"And you know that we'll always forgive you," she said to the captain with a gentle smile. "Come in, all of you."

"Have the others arrived?" Captain Harkness asked in barely veiled anxiety. The woman, whose name was obviously Helen, nodded.

"Doctor Harper and Mr. Williams are about to get Director Jones settled," she answered. "It's a sad thing to see the poor boy in such a sorry state. But we'll do our best to help him."

"You can't," Captain Harkness said grimly, "but keeping him safe will be enough. I've called in help."

Helen looked at the cases in suspicion. "What is in these things?"

"Trust me Helen, you don't want to know."

"I do, if you've brought weapons in here."

"Weapon," Captain Harkness corrected. "In singular. Don't worry; we won't use it in here. But Ianto needs protection," he turned to Mickey. "All right, Mickey Mouse, let us put the Big Gun together and take up position at the lighthouse. PC Andy, you can give Jenny the guided tour; then you send Rhys home and take over watching Ianto's room."

"What about me?" Jenny asked.

"You can join us, once you've had your tour," Captain Harkness promised. "All right, people, let's do it. We have no time to waste."

He and Mickey were already opening the cases, taking out the different parts of the Big Gun and putting them together like pieces of a three-dimensional puzzle. Only that this particular puzzle resulted in something resembling of a rocket launcher – of the high-tech variation of it.

"Come on," Andy said to Jenny. "I'll show you around as long as we still can."

The inside of the building didn't look much better than the corridor leading to it. It must have been some sort of abandoned military outpost before Captain Harkness would turn it into an asylum. The corridor walls were made of concrete in here, painted a particularly ugly shade of blue, and metal doors, marked with chalkboard tables with names on them and peepholes in eye height opened left and right at regular intervals.

Could it have been a military prison once? Jenny wondered. Or an insane asylum? Or was this the remains of that cholera hospital?

In some distance, somebody was playing a string instrument of some kind: the same short, monotonous melody over and over again. At the end of the corridor somebody in a wheelchair was pushed along. Jenny glanced at the chalk board, reading the names. Jules. Alice. Earl. Saeed. Caroline. Only given names; nothing that could have revealed the identity of the inhabitants.

One of the doors stood open, revealing some sort of lounge, with a telly in a cage – why in a cage, Jenny wondered briefly – and watched by a few people with vacant eyes. One of them, a young woman with long blonde hair, had scars on one side of her face. When she caught Jenny standing in the door and looking in, she pulled her hair forward to cover them and left quickly, returning to the room with the name tag "Caroline".

It seemed that the inhabitants weren't all locked into their rooms, after all. Only the dangerous ones, most likely.

"What happened to her?" Jenny asked quietly. Andy shrugged.

"We don't know. She's been here for nearly four years by now but never spoke a word… or made any sound, for that matter. Unlike others, who can't stop for hours," he added, when somebody started to scream deeper inside the building.

The screaming swelled on, rising in pitch and volume, until it became a primal howl, something not even remotely human-sounding. Jenny held her hands over both ears, a flash of memory not her own resurfacing: that of a young boy, staring into a glowing gap in… nowhere, screaming in terror… and screaming… and screaming.

When she came to, she was outside, under the open sky again, lying on the ground, and Captain Harkness was bending over her in concern.

"I'm sorry," he said. "The first visit to Flat Holm is difficult for everyone. I should have warned you, but…"

"You were worried about Ianto," Jenny interrupted. "It's quite right, Captain; that wasn't what got to me."

"What was it then?" he asked gently.

"A… a memory, I think," she answered haltingly. "Not one of my own, though. I think I was reliving one of my Dad's memories."

"Which one?" he seemed so very intent to know; she couldn't possibly keep it from him. Even if her Dad would disagree with her decision.

"It's a childhood memory, I think," she began. "Gallifreyan children are taken from their families at the age of eight and admitted into the Academy. Novices are then taken to an initiation ceremony before the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality that looks into the Time Vortex. Of those that stare into it, some are inspired, some run away and others go mad," she gave him a coy smile. "My Dad ran away, you know."

"No, I don't," he replied slowly. "How could I? He never deigned me with any detail of his life… of any of his lives. Not even when he was his former self, and trust me, that regeneration of him was a great deal more decent than the current one."

He sounded so bitter that Jenny's hearts went out to him.

"I'm sorry that my Dad treated you badly," she said in all sincerity. "I'll share with you all memories that my resurface in the future if you want."

But he shook his head. "Thank you, but no, thanks. Those are not your memories to share; not really. If he wanted to keep them from me, I have no right to spy on them through you."

"That's your choice, of course," Jenny accepted his help to get to her feet again. "You must remember, though, that those memories are mine now, to a certain extent. The Machine gave them to me, so that I can build up my strength upon them. They are mine to use, and I am willing to share. Whatever my Dad's done to you, I want to make it right again."

Captain Harkness gave him a small, genuine smile, the likes of which she'd only seen him aim at Ianto so far.

"That's kind of you, Jenny, but I don't think you can. Not even your father could fix my condition."

"I'm not talking about the piece of Vortex that's within you," seeing his shock, Jenny smiled. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? I'm the daughter of a Time Lord; I share his sensitivities."

"All of them?" Captain Harkness asked. "Do I feel wrong to you as well?"

Jenny looked at him and opened her subconscious for the Vortex – something she'd just figured out how to do a short time ago. He felt… strange, indeed, but she could find nothing wrong with that. She opened herself a little more, and then… then she could finally feel it.

"You don't flow with Time," she whispered in shock. "You're… anchored, and Time is flowing around you, like a river around a rock in the middle of its bed. Who… what are you?"

"I'm a fixed point in Time, or at least that's what your father says," he replied, his face hard and emotionless. "And that's why he couldn't even bear to be in the same room with me. That's why he left me behind, on a battered space station, full of corpses and Dalek dust, two hundred thousand years from now. I'm an impossible thing, apparently," the bone-deep hurt was clearly audible in his voice, and for a moment he looked older than the world itself.

"That's just plain stupid," Jenny declared forcefully. "Nothing impossible can really exist. You do exist, therefore you can't be impossible. It's that simple."

"Your father saw it differently," Captain Harkness murmured, his voice bitter.

"Then it's my Dad who's wrong," Jenny said mercilessly. "The others say he was wrong before; and rarely willing to admit it. You don't feel wrong to me. Strange, yes; different, yes. But there's nothing wrong with that."

"Says you," he replied dryly, and Jenny nodded.

"Says me, yes. I may not be a Time Lord… Time Lady… whatever, but I am a Gallifreyan, with an in-born sense for Time, and I say that you're all right."

Captain Harkness sighed and turned away. "I wish I could believe it."

"You can try," Jenny replied. "What do you have to lose?" she didn't wait for an answer; instead, she switched into soldier mode again, scanning the parameter with the small hand-held scanner she'd borrowed from Toshiko. "All clear, Captain. What are we doing now?"

"We go to the lighthouse and wait," he answered.

The eraser could tell through the telepathic link that its familiar had been moved. It could barely trace the connection across the new, increased distance. That was not good, not good at all. Without its familiar, it couldn't hope to find its target. And time was becoming more and more of an issue.

Waiting for the system's sun to set was no longer an option. If the familiar got beyond its reach… it wasn't a long-term telepath, it couldn't follow such a weak link across an entirely town. Not even across a town full of telepathically blind creatures, where no other thought impulses could interfere.

Waiting near the crash side had been a mistake, it realized. It should have followed the link during the dark period of the planet and hide somewhere near its familiar. It might have already found its target in the meantime. Found and erased… the target and itself. Apparently, the injuries suffered as a result of having been exposed to the polluted atmosphere of this miserable planet had already clouded its sense of judgement.

Well, that couldn't be helped now, and hindsight was counterproductive anyway. Reasoning was irrelevant. Past mistakes didn't count – only results did. Logic dictated that – in order to achieve those results – the eraser had to leave its hiding place and take the risk of further exposure by following the fading link to its familiar. Now.

It made a quick mental check, made possible by the sensors of its biomechanical armour feeding the data directly into its brain. The armour was damaged, yes, but still fully functional. The weapons were in acceptable condition, too. That was good. It could no longer afford taking the time for a clean and subtle kill, like it had done with the previous targets, the ones that had turned out wrong. The only way to go was now to erase the target, the familiar and everyone else in contact with them – all who might know of its presence – quickly and brutally, and then trigger the self-destruct.

The armour sent a warning that – due to the slow but constant leaking – the nutrition fluid had reached a dangerously low level. The eraser allowed itself an ironic cackle. Typical. It was always the weakness of the organic parts that endangered any given mission. Armours and weaponry could function, even if damaged. The soft organs of the living creature could not.

Unfortunately, the reliable technology needed the unreliable organic brain to operate it. Such missions couldn't be carried out by fully automated drones. The War Masters had tried that – and failed. A conscious mind was still needed.

Erasers had no regrets. In fact they didn't even understand the concept of regret. There was only that which had to be done for the good of the Hive: the furthering of the species, the expanding of their territory, the subjugating and erasing of other species. There was only success – or death.

And for this particular eraser, death was an old acquaintance. They had brushed shoulders repeatedly during previous missions. So far, it had managed to dodge Final Failure – for what else could be death if not that? – but it knew that one day it would lose. That was the order of things: everything that lived had to die, their energy absorbed by the great darkness from where there was no return.

Everyone but the War Masters, that is. But the War Masters didn't really live to begin with, not like other creatures did. They existed as memory engrams, engraved into the collective consciousness of each and every Hive, so that their knowledge and vast experience would be available to all leaders in its fullness and to every individual to a certain level. To the exact level they needed it.

The loss of an entire Hive – unlikely though it was, but in deep space everything could happen – would not lessen that knowledge, as it was shared by all Hive leaders; and added to and expanded by each new battle won, by each new mission accomplished, by each new world they had subjugated. It could not be erased, because it was shared by all, save by the eliminating of the entire Alliance, and that was not happening. No enemy could be powerful enough to beat them.

The eraser still could remember its first and only encounter with the War Masters. Still a fully organic being, selected for the role of an assassin due to its outstanding natural abilities, it had been taken to the memory banks, hidden deep within the Hive ship, and merged with the central interface. The War Masters had tested its abilities, found it adequate for its assigned task and shared with it a small part of their immeasurable knowledge. Knowledge of stealth and weapons and technology and of the ways to kill inferior creatures with the power of its mind alone.

It was the regular way of initiation for each Hithon, no matter what task they had been chosen for, and the most important moment of their entire lives. A moment they'd always remember. A moment that would drive them on for the rest of their lives.

The Hithon had no concept of any higher beings, and therefore no religion of any kind. They considered themselves the highest form of life and the entire universe as their rightful inheritance. Still, the initiation was the closest thing they could ever come to a religious experience; their very own epiphany.

No, the eraser had no regrets; but if it had, its chief regret would have been that it wouldn't be able to share its recently gained knowledge with the Hive. About the anomaly and the dangers of crossing it. About a whole new, unknown sector of the galaxy, ripe for the taking. About the difficulties of hunting among a primitive species that generally lacked any exquisite powers of the mind.

All this new knowledge would be lost due to the Final Failure that was closing up with each wasted moment. That was unfortunate, of course. But others would come, eventually, and rediscover the lost knowledge; and this planet, like so many others before, would become part of the Alliance's immeasurable territory. There was no way around that; it was only a matter of time.

For that to come true, however, the local primates had to remain ignorant of what was coming in their future. It would be unacceptable for them to know and prepare themselves, no matter how useless such preparations would be. The alliance despised wasting resources, and the success of the eraser's mission would ensure that no such wasting took place.

Mentally bracing itself against the exposure to pollution, high ultraviolet radiation and other lethal circumstances under which the indigenous primates seemed to thrive, the eraser prepared to leave its lair and to begin the Hunt anew.

In the private wing of Providence Park, Dr. Jeannie McKay stared at Dr. Emilia Fox as if the psychotherapist had suddenly grown a second head.

"Working for Torchwood again?" she asked in stunned disbelief. "Surely you must be kidding! After all that happened?"

"Yes, especially after what happened," Dr. Fox replied seriously.

Jeannie kept glaring at her. "You do realize that it's because of Torchwood that I'm living in a psychiatric institute, don't you?"

"No," Dr. Fox countered. "You're living here because that bastard of your ex left you when you'd have needed him most and took your little girl with him. It's because of her that you must try to find a way out of here."

"And that way would lead through Torchwood, of all places?" Jeannie asked doubtfully.

Dr. Fox nodded. "Think about it: you're a brilliant scientist. What are you doing here, vegetating from one day to another? You'll never get better this way. At Torchwood, you could do meaningful work. They need people with knowledge like yours who are aware of alien life and alien technology. The Cardiff branch is still understaffed, and you have the necessary security clearance to work for them."

"I also have a post-traumatic sterss syndrome with a less than encouraging prognosis," Jeannie reminded her. Dr. Fox shrugged.

"So what? Nobody at Torchwood Cardiff is completely undamaged. I think they'll be able to deal with your problem."

"I doubt that Jack Harkness would want to hire another one of 'Yvonne Hartmann's leftovers', as he liked to call us," Jeannie returned with a watery smile.

Dr. Fox raised an eyebrow. "Captain Harkness is no longer the leader of Torchwood Three," she pointed out. "Ianto Jones is. And since he's also ex-Torchwood London and knows who you are and cares for you, I believe he could be persuaded to hire you."

Jeannie shook her head doubtfully. "That won't work, Em. I'm in no shape to live on my own; or even to drive a car. I'm… I'm too damaged for that."

"Perhaps you are," Dr. Fox agreed after a moment of consideration. "But there's another way. You can remain here, in Providence Park, and continue your therapy. They can send someone to take you to work and bring you back afterwards. And at work you won' be alone, either. You'd work with old colleagues you already know. You'd be able to occupy that brilliant mind of yours – it would hep your recovery enormously."

Jeannie was still not entirely convinced. "I'm really not sure, Em. Why would they want me to work for them?"

"Because you're a certified genius and hard-working; and because you need to work for them as much as they need you to work for them," Dr. Fox replied calmly. "Let's face it, Jeannie: once Torchwood, always Torchwood."

She deliberately fell silent, allowing that statement to sink in for at least five full minutes, while watching the internal struggle clearly displayed all over Jeannie's face.

"I can at least ask them if they're interested in hiring a new scientist, without naming you specifically," she offered.

Jeannie gave her a smile of tentative hope.

"We can try," she replied slowly.

~TBC~