Title: Tish's Years.
Chapter 01 : Harsh Realisation
Character, pairing: Jack Harkness, Tish Jones.
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who Universe.
Plot: At the end of our millennium, as the Human race is forced to plan an evacuation of Earth because of over-pollution, the ex-Captain Jack Harkness, former Torchwood Three Director, is playing middle man, using his small Chulan craft to scout out suitable worlds for colonization. He finds, in no particular order: an old friend, an unexpected son, a fabulous starship, a sonic screwdriver, and a new reason to go on. Oh, and there are some inhabitable planets, too.
Series' rating: Mostly PG-13 and exceptional NC-17.
Disclaimer: Tish, Jack, the Chula ship, the Tardis, the sonic screwdriver, Torchwood, and some other characters motioned here don't belong to me but to RTD and the BBC, all the rest is mine.
Author's Note: This series is part of the stories I wrote to bring Ianto back. He's not actually in it though, but as for Children of the Past, it's the building of the world he will come back in. Chronologicly speaking this series is set between Jack's and Ianto's Private Archives and Children of the Past.
Beta: tempusdominus10
….
Tish woke up in a bed she couldn't recognise. Her environment looked as an unnatural crossing between a Jules Verne designed cockpit and the inside of a futuristic submarine, all of which could have fit in her London room!
On top of that she was completely naked under the sheet with Jack sitting five feet away, in what appeared to be the only seat of what was, undoubtedly, a very small spaceship.
He was staring at her incredulously, his hands resting in a fairly funny way on her handbag.
Tish wasn't the kind to be easily destabilised... After all, at only 23 years old she had confronted the misguided scientist Professor Lazarus after his failed experiment transformed him into a giant part-alien insect... and sometime later, during the Year that Never Was, she'd faced down the Master and his horde of horrors. Then, of course, there was always her family... her mother in particular.
This kind of stuff, once you managed to survive, was the kind that made you stronger.
So when she'd turned the corner of Osborne Street to find herself in the midst of a ruined city unlike anything she knew, she immediately concluded that she was going to need. But she had never given up; she'd forced herself to walk, to look, to hope until Jack's unlikely features had appeared before her blurring eyes ... Jack!
Jack had come to her, across the field of rubble, while she couldn't any longer bring herself to believe. She couldn't let herself.
Even still, she had called for him from the depths of her spirit, the dust of her soul... him and the Doctor, because she had long stopped relying on the almighty.
It had been a fool's errand to think anyone of them would actually hear her pleas, though. And yet here he was, looking just as bewildered. Just as disbelieving.
"Tish ...? Tish Jones?" he whispered with a strange croaking voice she hardly recognized.
"Jack, tell me you're real ..."
He came to retrieve her, eventually, sitting himself on the edge of the strange bed. She simply threw herself into his arms, trying to prove that the reality of him was exactly that... real, tested by all her sense, with all her senses. So she smelled him first. His scent spoke of musk and spicy-sweet gingerbread, special. Unique. And that uniqueness was most noticeable at the small of his neck, where the pheromones were the strongest, the most productive. Her tongue darted out, flicking over her lips like a hummingbird at a new flower, in case her nose had lied to her, or been deceived. She clutched at him, her fingers melting at the softness of his skin and the so-vital warmth of him, feeling the sheer, weighted presence of his reassuring strength...
"Hey hey! Easy... Easy Tish, shuuuut, easy..." Jack's soft voice whispered. He looked a bit uncomfortable, not knowing what to do with her strange display. He pulled the bed sheet to wrap her in, while keeping her tightly against him.
"I'm here Tish, it's me ..."
Tish couldn't help but cling to him, digging her nails deep into his skin as she repeated her mantra of, "Is that you Jack? Tell me you're real."
Tish! Look at me!"Jack ordered finally, his voice soft but firm.
She withdrew a little to look, but still, she couldn't... see him. Couldn't... believe.
"Not like that, Tish! Look at me... look for me."
So she closed her eyes, and searched for him.
Just like before, he was standing on their beach, waiting for her. She walked toward him. He gently took her hand in his and together they walked on the sand of an alien world, in that private place they used to hide during the Year, where the Master couldn't find them...
...
"Room service!" she heard jack's voice announce as she half-slept.
"Hmm?" Tish opened a lazy eye. She was still so ensconced in her peaceful dream. And it was warm, and comforting...
Jack! Jack was standing there, by her side with a tray in his hands. The air smelled of bacon and eggs and toast, a real English breakfast! But however she was still there on board this ridiculously small ship! It wasn't a dream.
"Where did you get all this from?" she asked, eyes darting to the food.
"Synthesizers!"
"Like in Star Trek?"
"Yep! If you want!"
"...?"
"This one is less capricious!"
"Convenient!"
"Essential. There's no way to store enough food for a long journey in so little a place."
"Indeed!" she agreed, looking about her once more, her mouth full of bacon.
"And what about clothes?" she asked, readjusting the sheet in which she was still wrapped.
"Pretty much the same; you get what you ask it for, barring any adjustments for size..."
"It makes sense," she answered, determined not to get unsettled by his nonchalance. "And do you happen to have toilets in your little palace?"
"Toilet, shower, all in one! It is the door right here," Jack replied, gesturing toward the only door.
"Fantastic!"
"Isn't it?"
"At least! The good point is I'm not going to lose myself walking hours in corridors," she conceded remembering what Martha had told her about the Tardis.
"No way, even trying hard," Jack replied playfully.
"May I?" she asked, indicating the little door.
"Of course, make yourself at home ... Oh, uh, just in case, there is also a synthesizer in there, if you need anything you can't find; Just ask for it. I've reprogrammed it to understand English."
Now, Jack seemed more destabilized than her, as if he'd suddenly became aware that his ship was really ridiculously small.
The hygiene cabin, was proportionately sized and comfortable once the retractable toilet and sink were, of course, retracted. Enjoying a shower was going to be very nice... but there was no water!
"Jack! There's no water!"
"Nope; Sonic shower!"
"Oh! I bet that's why the basin has that funny shape, then."
"Yep, among other things!"
It was a weird feeling. It was her first sonic shower. Instinctively she wanted to rub; she knew it would have been useless, but still... she was used to showers with water, after all. So she took it in stride, not rubbing, enjoying the sensation of being cleansed by sound waves screeching across her body at the ultrasonic level.
Then she noticed it.
It wasn't a bad feeling, exactly, just, more of an... absence. Something was missing, and for once, it felt like a good thing. She ran her hands over her body, checking for moles and burns, even old scars from the Year. Then she gasped, her breath catching in her throat only briefly as she considered her new self. All those things were gone, all her scars, all those burns... vanished. Everything that would have marked her, marred her, was gone.
"Jack, how long did I stay unconscious?" she asked as she got out of the shower.
"Two hours thirty four minutes ..."
"What happened to my skin? I was so burnt ... it was falling in tatters ..."
"Nanogenes! Very effective mini-medics!" he said, snapping his fingers.
Immediately, a cloud of glittering dust enveloped his hand.
"Wow, that's beautiful!"
"Nice and efficient!"
"Okay! I give you that; your ship is small but brilliant!"
"I like it too," he replied, patting the console gently.
"How far are we?" she asked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Earth. How far are we from home?"
Jack took a renewed interest in the console, avoiding her gaze in the hopes of avoiding the answer.
"Don't tell me you don't know where we are?"
"Oh, I know exactly where we are: sector AB4 of the 9prime circle."
"Is that very far from Earth, in terms of duration I mean? Because I'm not sure distance would mean something to me..." she said.
"No, but time is the main issue. In terms of distance, we're not very far away at all."
"So?" she asked, fully aware that Jack was about to break some very bad news and didn't know how to go about it.
"Currently Tish, I'm looking for planets that can accommodate Human settlement ..."
"Did I miss something?"
"Something like nine centuries," he replied with a very sad smile.
"Oh!" she gulped sitting down on the bed edge.
She stayed like that, eyes fixing a point in space over Jack's shoulder, her brain unable to integrate the information. It was impossible! It had to be impossible... didn't it? Yet she'd just had a rough turn on an alien planet. And a rescue. And a sonic shower. Hell, she'd even had bacon and eggs with Jack Harkness in a tiny little ship!
Not only had she fallen through space, but also through time. And she was so very far away from everything she loved; her family, her home... her place in Time.
Everything was gone... except for Jack.
To be continued ...