Title: Tish's Years.
Chapter 06: Fellow Travellers
Character, pairing: Jack Harkness, Tish Jones.
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who Universe.
Plot: Jack rescued Tish who, after falling through the rift, had found herself on an abandoned planet centuries in the future.
Summary: Jack and Tish have resumed their travelling, Jack promising Tish to teach her piloting the Chula ship.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Doctor Who Planet of the dead, Torchwood: Martha's episodes.
Warnings: none
Beta: Orion Lyonesse on ffnet.
...
The Chula ship wasn't the Tardis; it was ridiculously small and didn't travel in time and moreover stubbornly refused to make coffee. Tish wasn't really surprised when Jack told her he could no longer stand the smell of it and deprogrammed the function.
By the way Jack had shut himself in, she concluded she had unwittingly hit a raw nerve: Ianto.
Even if after The Year That Never Was, when she and Jack spent unending nights talking over the phone, he never called his teammates by name. Of course she knew the Earth resistance leader was a Jones, but, when talking about his lover, Jack would only refer him as He on those long nights. She'd learned his birth name from Martha. After coming back from Cardiff, if Martha wasn't telling Tish what she'd already known from Jack about the living-dead doctor, she talked a lot about Jack's boyfriend. About Ianto and his fantastic coffee.
Of course Martha didn't knew about the phone calls, about Ianto being the leader of the resistance during that terrible year, or about Ianto dying on the Valliant in Jack's arms. Martha still believed her sister was just a little girl fancying Jack, but Martha was wrong. Tish did not fancy Jack, she wasn't in love with him, either. What was between her and Jack was different. She didn't know how to call it but it was strong, stronger than whatever they'd been put through.
Tish was never jealous of Ianto, but she couldn't help seeing how his death still affected Jack. There was a hole right in the middle of his heart, a scar that didn't want healing. Jack was just trying to ignore it.
She could do with tea. The Chula ship was doing a pretty good tea.
...
They went back to M4C9p, but they didn't set foot on it.
"Too soon, or too late," Jack explained. "Depending on the point of view."
"I guess. That means it's doing fine?"
"Yep!"
They were content to make passes at low altitudes, registering various measures which, even with much goodwill on both sides, she persisted in not understanding even the beginning of it.
He gave her the ship's control for a long time so she could have fun. It was a lot more fun than flying in the vastness of interstellar space. More dangerous too, and Jack remained ready to resume control in case of a false move. Which, in short, meant she had to pilot sitting on his lap, with Jack's nose in the hollow of her shoulder. She wasn't going to complain for that.
In the end, cohabitation in restricted areas with Jack wasn't that hard. Most often, the ship was on autopilot, and they spent their day playing ... playing everything and anything. Jack had taken aboard an incredible amount of virtual games of all kinds. Thus there were 14 versions of checkers and more for chess. There were card games, dice games with incredible dice of all sorts. Board games, video games and hand games. Tongue and whole mouth games, because sex, for Jack, was just a game and because he was an incredible partner, creative and loving, he gradually managed to reconcile her with sex, because, truth to tell, since the Master Tish had retained some reservations about sex.
Jack also read a lot, but usually while she slept or studied, always remaining available to answer her questions.
...
They ultimately arrived on M7C9 where no one had set foot over a millennia. The planet was just sand, sand everywhere, nothing else.
"Sand, and still only sand to be seen," she commented, initiating a final pass while Jack completed readings at her side. This time he'd let her have total control over the ship but then, there was not much chance of crashing into an obstacle either.
"There's water, but deeply buried under the sand... and also some traces suspended in the atmosphere," he stated.
A very advanced and prosperous civilisation had once lived on that planet, Jack had been told, but there was no vestige of it now, absolutely no trace.
"What could possibly have happened?" she asked when they finally set foot on the deserted planet.
"Rumours, but no reliable testimony," he replied. "A whole civilisation vanished overnight-just like that."
A long shudder shivered down her spine, despite the vast desert that ran out of sight before her. There was something oppressive about the never-ending sand.
Jack was still collecting samples and making analyses.
"Come on, let's have a walk, a bit of exercise will do us good," he said, pulling her out of her reverie.
"Because we don't do enough exercise, perhaps?" she said, trying to joke, but this planet was giving her goosebumps. "Aren't you worried whatever happened, it could happen again?"
"I don't think so. The menace went on."
"Went on? And suppose it come back?" she asked, searching the horizon for threats.
"This was nothing less than a whole civilisation digested within hours."
"Is that what the rumours said?" Jack hadn't mentioned that before.
"No, that's what my analyses are saying," he corrected.
"How can that be?" she yelped.
Jack closed his eyes like if he was listening to music only he could hear.
"There are a lot of forms of life throughout the whole universe. Looks like some can do that," he replied sadly when he'd reopened his eyes. "They won't come back because there is nothing left for them to come for. Whatever did this was a highly voracious predator, devouring whole cities in less time than it takes to say it."
"But if you're right, they've gone on attack elsewhere?"
"Probably," he said, nodding. "And preferably highly technologically advanced and populated planets."
"That's awful! But why technologically advanced?"
"Because they have eaten up everything, to the last little piece of metal. This planet is nothing more than sterile dust now."
"Do you mean we can't sow it?"
"Oh, we could," he said, looking around the desolate landscape. "But it would take too long and I can't spend a kit on it, especially as it should get two, to be sure it would work."
Tish couldn't help but feel sorry for the planet, like they were abandoning it to its fate, but, at the same time, she was relieved to leave there.
"Let's go elsewhere, see if we can find a better place..." Jack suggested, dragging her gently into his arms before going back to their ship.
They went elsewhere, here and there, from MC5P9 to Z7A8, stopping by Sisko, Beta Gemma and even Balchan. During the next three years, Tish get to see a lot of things, but not one single Human, apart from her fellow traveller. Jack sometimes shared data with Torchwood, but they never met anyone from the Institute.
Since Jack and Tish spent much of their time together, even when it wasn't one above the other in the 3m3 cockpit, as soon as they stopped by a known port, they parted to enjoy a bit of space.
When on Balchan, as now, Tish had her own little routine: first a sea bath with Jack, but, as he quickly swam too far for her, she would come back to the shore alone, then share grilled octopus with Sil'k et Pob. After that she would go for a walk through the city, making a detour by the market.
It didn't take Tish long to spot the Dakonite following her. She knew that, for the slave dealer, she was a very tempting specimen, quite exotic. She also knew he wouldn't try anything before making sure she was alone and defenceless, and in any case he would do nothing in public.
She telepathically warned Jack but he wasn't immediately available to accompany her.
*Don't panic; act naturally as if you haven't noticed him; don't let him drive you into a lonely place; and keep you tazer at the ready in your hand.* he advised her.
Jack had found her a small pocket tazer that was very easy to hide. She always had it with her, and of course she would keep it at the ready, she wasn't stupid. Of course she would wait here in the marketplace full of passersby, especially as the Dakonite might not be alone. She wasn't even nervous, everything was fine...until a very familiar sound filled the air...
*Jack! Jack! Can you hear it?*
*What?*
*The Tardis, I can hear the Tardis.*
*Tish, stay where you are! Tish, listen to me!*
But she wasn't. The only thing she could hear was the familiar sound, a sound that, once you'd heard it, you'd recognize till the end of your life. The Tardis, the Doctor, a chance to get back home, or, at the very least, get some news. It was completely irrational and she knew it, but nothing could have stopped her.
*Tish, you can't be sure it's the Doctor; it could be another Tardis. Tish, listen to me!*
Before she'd realised it, Tish was alone in a narrow street with the Dakonite, flashing a predatory grin, waiting for her at the other end. And she couldn't go back, as a huge Baltag was coming in behind her.
The sound had paused, then started again; it was coming from a cross lane she hadn't seen. She ran for it. Still no Tardis. Jack's telelpathic message came again.
*If it's not ours, you won't see her because of the perception filter, remember.*
Jack was on his way and the lane was taking her back to the market, but the Dakonite wasn't giving up, so she sprinted ahead.
It was only after she tripped on it that Tish saw the bag, even though it was such a big fat travelling bag. She was lying down in the middle of the lane, defenceless, her tazer six foot away from her. The Dakonite and his accomplice swooped in to catch her.
Tish grabbed the bag and used it, in a nice upper cut, to hit the Dakonite, sending him into the Baltag's legs. While she had retrieved her tazer and managed to get back on her feet, she was now facing the two bullies armed only with a travelling bag and a tiny tazer.
Strangely they seemed to hesitate, and then cautiously started retreating.
*Come to me, Tish, but backward. Don't turn your back on them.*
Jack was there; he'd arrived by the market and was holding a disintegrator, far more dissuasive than her weapons. The two slave dealers didn't insist and vanished.
"So, that Tardis?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Didn't see it, just heard."
"Probably not ours, then," Jack said, comforting her while dusting her clothes. "Nice bag, very East India Colonial Company, if you ask me."
"Isn't it? And it makes a very effective weapon, too."
"Where did it come from?"
"Absolutely no idea. Tripped over it."
To be continued...