Title: Tish's Years.
Chapter 03: Timey-Whiney sort of.
Character, pairing: Jack Harkness, Tish Jones.
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who Universe.
Summary: Jack rescued Tish who after falling through the rift had found herself on an abandoned planet centuries in the future.
Beta: tempusdominus10 and Orion Lyonesse.
...
"Where did you find it?"
"?"
"This ship."
"Hum, long story."
"Fantastic! I've got nothing else going on," Tish replied, settling herself cross-legged on the corner of the bed.
Tish was taking the situation not too badly. In fact, she was reacting rather well, trying to deal with this by keeping her mind busy as much as she could manage. The result, in a large part, was an unending flood of questions like: What is it? How does it work? Where does it come from?
For Jack, it was more difficult. He had chosen this lonely life, far from Human stupidity, only stopping by, from time to time, in a spaceport where he would enjoy a good slice of pie. He never stayed long. Since he'd left Earth, he'd just kept running from his own kind – not very difficult, as humans were just beginning to travel out of the solar system. And of course, out of all that, he'd lost the habit of using English.
"Jaaaack!" she called, pulling him out of his reverie.
"In fact, everything started with cannibals…"
"Cannibals?"
"Yep, cannibals. In fact, you wouldn't believe how many times there've been in my life when someone's wanted to eat me."
"I can't say why, but it doesn't surprise me that much," she said with greedy eyes.
He didn't seem to notice.
"So, I was hunted by a bunch of cannibals, like back then with your sister ... but without your sister, or the Doc…"
"But with cannibals."
"Yep. And they were pretty determined."
"So were you, I'm guessing?"
"Yes, rather, because it doesn't feel good to get eaten, trust me."
"I trust you," she replied, frowning, and not daring to ask for confirmation of what she would deduce.
"In short, I desperately wanted a place to hide and time to catch my breath and sort things out a bit... Did I tell you this was happening in an old, decrepit spaceport?"
"No. But now it's done. Terrestrial or satellite?"
"Humm?"
"Your spaceport? Can't you focus?"
"Oh, land. I had crashed, or at least the carrier on which I was travelling crashed, but obviously the other passengers did not survive."
"Indeed."
"So I was looking for a hideout. I went into this warehouse. It wasn't the first I tried, but each time they would find my track ... and then I bumped into it."
"This ship?"
"Yes, this one and none other. You can tell how amazed I was!"
"Well, from where I stand... A spaceship in a warehouse in a spaceport ...?" Tish summarised, not finding anything particularly amazing due to a long-cultivated knowledge of science fiction.
"Not a ship, this ship, Tish. My Chula ship."
"Yeah, but before you found it, it wasn't yours. Does the fact you found it make you its owner, by the way?"
"No, Tish. You don't get the point: this ship is the one I arrived on Earth with in 1941."
"Did it continue on its own, without you?"
"No, it blew up."
"Blew up?"
"A German bomb. It was during the Blitz."
"You mean this precious little ship wouldn't withstand a primitive bomb?"
"Well, obviously not from inside."
"From inside? What the hell were you doing with a German bomb inside your ship?"
"I sort of took it as hostage," he explained with a grin.
"Very smart of you, I'm sure. There're times when I wonder if anything runs smoothly at home. What happened that you had to take a bomb hostage?"
"It's complicated. And that's another story, Rose's story."
"Rose?"
"Rose."
"... all right. Fair enough. Let's put Rose on standby for now. So, how can we be on board a ship destroyed in 1941?" Tish asked. She had already heard a lot from her sister about the Doctor's Rose; but for now she was more intrigued by the ship.
Jack scratched his head as he tried to figure out where to start.
"Jack, can this ship travel in time?"
He looked up, startled. "No! Of course not! At least, not yet..."
"What do you mean by not yet?"
"Well, when I left the Time Agency, I was sort of... spiralling downward, emotionally. Then I came across an ex-time cop who'd gone completely off, off the radar, off his rocker. We… sort of got involved. See, if he'd kept his Vortex Manipulator as I had, then he'd also stolen a timeship... which he had. That thing lasted us awhile, until it finally had to be scrapped. Of course, that should have limited our travel plans for a bit, but the dead ship's Manipulator was still working, so we commandeered another ship, plugged that in and cut out. The two types of tech were easily compatible. Piece of cake," Jack summarised.
"And this was it? This ship?"
"Actually, it will be this ship."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Well, as you probably don't know because I didn't point it out, the civilization that built it was gone for millennia before I, erm, acquired it. That, and it had the same code, either way."
"The same code? Code for what?"
"The same unlock code. Because it was the same ship. Do you think people just park their ships somewhere, go for a drink and leave them open to anyone just passing by?"
"So, that's how you escaped the cannibals?"
"Yep. There was really no point in not trying, so I did and it worked. The ship was mine."
"I guess you changed the code once you got out, then?"
"I can't."
"Why? Is it stuck, like the Doctor's phone box thing?"
"No, but it would generate a paradox!"
"How's that?"
"If I change the code now, it will necessarily be different."
"That seems obvious..."
"Yes, but just think about it. It can't be different, it has to be that code, because otherwise how could I remember it for centuries?"
"So that code must have been special to you?"
"It happens to be my home world's absolute coordinates."
"Okay. So if I've got you right, some day you're going to steal us your own ship?"
"Very probably."
"That...doesn't seem to disturb you much at all..."
"The thing is, I can't remember at all where or when it happened or will happen."
"How's that?"
"We couldn't stop bouncing from one era to another, throughout all known and less known space. And to make it worse, most of the time we were running on hypervodka for practically all of it, nearly twenty four hours out of twenty four hours, if you take my meaning."
"And apart from hypervodka, did you have other reasons to bounce or was it anything goes?"
"Well, to be truthful, we had the Time Agency on our heels because we were time-surfing illegally on a stolen ship while eking out a living as flagrant, unrepentant con-men."
"Great. So, because of this crap, we're bound to get this ship stolen, by you, in a relative future? Right."
"Yep, but in the same time...you know...I mean, when I say where or when, it's on a very large scale. It could be tomorrow, could be today, could be a week from now...forty weeks...months... a millennia."
"Lord. You're truly a walking catastrophe, you know that?"
"That was the Doctor's opinion, too," he replied sadly.
There was a little painful flutter deep inside him. Jack returned his attention to his screen controls for awhile.
"I didn't mean that."
"I know. Me either. He used to say that a lot before..."
"What do you mean? What was he saying?"
"That I was a walking catastrophe. That I created more problems than I solved."
"Nothing to do with you being immortal, then?"
"No, just something that stuck with me," he replied with a grin.
"Did you ever see him again?"
"Who?"
"The Doctor, of course."
"Maybe..."
"Maybe? What does that mean? Is it yes or no?"
"I kind of had a glimpse of him once."
"But you didn't get to talk to him? Why?"
"Didn't get the time. He was gone before I'd the chance to make a move."
"Maybe he just didn't see you…" She tried to comfort him, knowing very well the Time Lord could sense Jack's presence a mile away.
"No way! He was staring straight at me. I'd even go so far as him being there for me, but then, and before I realized, puifff, he was gone!"
"That's a shame."
"Dunno, I was spinning a bad way at the time, but he did seem to me not to be fine either..."
"What about you here and now?"
"Hmm?"
"How do you get on? How are you doing now? You know, that sort of thing."
"I don't know, and I'm not even sure it's still relevant. And it doesn't matter anymore anyway."
"What does matter, Jack?"
He pondered for a moment, returning to his console's dials, tapping on one or two of them, before he finally admitted, "You being here. You being alive..." He paused, taking a deep breath to calm the pain he felt rising within him. "Because you're the only Human still alive that I'm willing to talk to."
A/N: After The Year That Never Was, Tish had been Jack's only confidant. And after what she herself had been through, she'd spent most of her time supporting and comforting the Veterans from the End of the World, as Martha had named them. And Jack had been one of them.
To be continued.