Surprisingly, Sherlock actually (nearly) kept his promise about allowing Jack and Owen do all the talking at the Pharm with Dr. Copeland. He roamed the office space, poking at Copeland's books and pretended to examine his art work. It was only when the Pharm's director asked Jack about the mysterious man in the turned-up coat collar that Sherlock spoke up. He didn't even wait for Jack to finish the introduction before he lit into Copeland about one of his early published studies and how he kept the trial going with new subjects long after the preliminary results indicated that the treatment could be causing neurological damage in the human subjects. It was a black spot on Copeland's career that had nearly had his license to practice revoked, and one that he tried hard to keep from being associated with his current work and reputation.
Once out in the SUV, and having established via Jack's wrist strap (which Sherlock squinted at from the backseat) that there ware definitely alien species in the Pharm compound, Owen turned to Sherlock.
"So, can you do that thing where you figure out his password from his surroundings? Help us break in?"
Sherlock tapped his lips with his finger tips. "No…" he said with a far away look in his eyes. "Copeland is pragmatic, distrustful. Since being burned by the overzealousness of his youth, he still takes risks and oversteps boundaries but he takes extreme measures to cover his tracks. All the access codes will be meaningless number sequences that are created by a random password generator and changed on a regular basis. And if Dr. Copeland is backed into a corner, he will come out swinging and kicking and throwing sand in the eyes of his attacker. For all the cleanliness of his current reputation and his office, he is willing to fight dirty. And right now he is sitting in that well-staged impressive office trying to figure out Torchwood's next move, and he will be preparing for it."
Jack chimed in "So he is trying to stay one step ahead of us, and we will need to anticipate two steps ahead of him. Super. Not hard at all."
Sherlock slid down in the back seat, still running his fingertips along his bottom lip. Slowly, a smile spread. "That's why you have me on the case Captain." Under his breath, the consulting detective murmured "out of their depth…"
Sherlock kept muttering to himself with animated hand gestures most of the ride back. They pulled into the hub's parking space. Jack and Owen got out, only to look back and see Sherlock still in the backseat, deep in conversation with himself.
"Go one ahead, Owen. I'll take Sherlock through the guest entrance." said Jack.
Jack opened the back door to the SUV and stood there for a few moments, watching Sherlock. He had to suppress a smile when he heard a singular name muttered a few times in between sentence fragments."
"Do you know you do that?" asked Jack good-naturedly.
Sherlock looked about as if coming out a a daze, but did recover quickly. Immediately the annoyed look was firmly plastered on the younger man's face. "Do what exactly?" he asked placidly while exiting the car.
"You don't talk to yourself when you do that. You talk to John. I heard you say his name a few times." Jack responded.
Sherlock's face briefly faltered and flushed.
"I find supplying his possible responses to be elucidating to my thought process. John may not be meet my level of intelligence but he is not as idiotic as the masses and as a conductor of light for my deductive process he is most…" Sherlock's mouth stopped, as if his brain reined it in with just a moment to spare before he gushed too much. He opened and closed his mouth a few more times with no words. Finally he settled on his response with unconvincing aloofness "useful."
Jack was leading Sherlock across the Plass at the time, towards the looming water tower monument. There was a cold mist raining down on them. It seemed to be the default weather for Cardiff bay. Jack stopped in his tracks. Sherlock stopped two steps afterwards and turned back towards Captain Harkness with a questioning eyebrow raised.
"Useful? That's the best you can do for someone who means so much to you?" Jack asked, arms crossed.
"Oh shut up!" countered Sherlock, a six foot six-year-old wrapped in a flowing Belstaff.
"Why are we even up here anyway? Or is there some super-secret trap door or something that you want to impress me with?" Sherlock asked in annoyance.
Jack's face and bravado dropped a touch.
"Oh god, there is a trap door isn't there? Of course there is. Dull…" said Sherlock, studying his finger nails in an act of disinterest.
Jack rolled his eyes. They were at the water tower by then. The sound of rushing water created echoes of white noise off the Millenium Centre.
"Do me a favor, genius boy. Turn that way, count to five, and then let's play hide and seek." said Jack. He indicated for Sherlock to turn away from the water tower monument.
With a huff, Sherlock followed the direction. He turned back around. Jack stood on the invisible lift wearing his best cocky smile. He was happy to get one over on the arrogant consultant. But his face dropped when he realized Sherlock was looking him dead in the eyes. Sherlock shrugged his shoulders in a dramatic gesture of annoyed questioning.
"Wait, you can see me?" cried Jack.
"I'm not supposed to be able to see you right in front of me?" countered Sherlock.
"Well, no…perception filter…oh never mind! Just come here and stand with me, the elevator will take us down to the Hub." Jack grumbled.
Sherlock and Jack rode the elevator down in silence. Before it reached the ground Jack was already yelling to Tosh to run a diagnostic on the perception filter. She said it was functioning fine. Jack shot more grumbling in Sherlock's direction before stepping off the lift. Ianto greeted him soon afterwards, deftly removing Jack's great coat and subtly running a hand soothingly down Jack's back. As soon as the coat was off, a steaming, striped cup was placed into Jack's hand. The fingers of the two men briefly intertwined as the dark coffee was handed over. Even before the first sip, Sherlock noted that the stress indicators that Jack exhibited were already melting away. Anticipation of the caffeine rush, or was it sentiment?
As Sherlock was still filing away these dynamics between the Captain of Torchwood and the archivist/field agent, he removed his own coat and scarf. Sherlock spun around awkwardly, looking for someplace to throw them. He was about to dump the damp items on Gwen's chair when, without a word, John appeared and swept them out of his hands. John shot him a softly chastising look, knowing where the coat was originally headed, and trotted them instead to a series of hooks on the wall just above the med bay. When John returned to Sherlock's side he brought with him a fresh cuppa. He handed it to Sherlock, not caring to move his hand from it's solid grip on the whole mug to make room for Sherlock's long fingers. Sherlock hooked his thumb through the handle, his fingers sliding over the back of John's hand as the exchange was made. It was a practiced move that they quietly enacted back on Baker street numerous times a day. Sherlock took a sip and felt the warmth seep in. He felt more focused already. It must be from the tea. John always remembered the two sugars.
It was late in the evening when the plan to infiltrate the Pharm via its open call for new research subjects was hatched. The Chinese from earlier in the day had been reheated, the cartons scattered between the group as they all stood about yawning.
The travel and other events of the day must have been catching up with Sherlock finally. John at least had napped on the train. Sherlock picked dumplings from the carton in front of John and had removed is suit coat.
"But don't you see?" Sherlock interjected. "Copeland is on alert! He'll be expecting Torchwood to make another move to get in. The recruitment program is the obvious choice! He'll be waiting for someone to show up on his doorstep. But, oh! Oh! That's it! He's expecting you to send someone. Some ONE. So we will send two. One will be an red herring. Fit the bill enough to be an obvious Torchwood member. But the second will be our your plant."
"That's actually pretty good. It's sound reasoning." said Gwen.
"Of course it is. And John is the obvious choice. He's a terrible actor but charming enough to make a convincing go of almost getting in." Sherlock said, popping another pilfered dumpling in his mouth.
John experienced his familiar confusion about whether to be flattered or insulted, then just shrugged it off. He was too knackered to think about it too much.
Sherlock continued "Stick as close to the truth as possible. Should give them enough reason to reject you. They probably won't want to mess with someone who has a professional medical background, and not sure if even they have the clearance to wipe medical records from military databases, so there's that as well. You are also probably a bit over the ideal age range they are looking for."
"Thanks so much for that, Sherlock." replied John, rubbing his eyes. He sank back a little further in his seat and looked about for somewhere to put up his feet. Sherlock had his legs kicked up on a small box. Perpendicular to Sherlock, John helped himself to propping up his crossed ankles on Sherlock's bony shins. Sherlock didn't seem to notice or care.
"You're welcome, John." yawned Sherlock.
After a bit more deliberation, it was decided that Martha would be the one to truly infiltrate the Pharm.
"Ok team! Looks like everyone could use some rest. Head home. Meet back here first thing and we'll see that the good doctors Jones and Watson are fit with aliases for their visit to the Pharm. Ianto, will you have enough time to make up the ID's and all?"
"Yeah." said Ianto, stretching. "I'll just spend the night here, will save me some time. I can get them done in the morning before everybody arrives."
"Sure, that's why you want to spend the night." teased Tosh as she helped Ianto to bin all the discarded take-away boxes.
Ianto responded with a scandalous eye brow wag that had John chuckling.
"C'mon boys. You're with me. Jack put me up at a little place with two flats that Torchwood keeps in town for 'out of town visitors'. I crashed at the 1 bedroom last night, but the other flat is a studio with 2 beds."
"Sounds like just what the Dr. ordered, Dr. Jones." aid John.
"Then shall we, Dr. Watson?" said Martha, taking John's arm and heading for the exit.
"Now would this be the location on 5th street, the one on Loudoun, or did they send you all the way out to that god forsaken island bunker?" asked Sherlock, following the pair out the cog door.
"Well, just goes to show, even genius boy can't get all the deductions right when he's tired." said Gwen as they all watched the trio leaving.
Owen shrugged. Tosh nodded in sleepy agreement as she powered down her work station.
Only Jack and Ianto exchanged a concerned look, a look that they were mindful that the others did not catch.
Author's note:
Sorry so much for the delay in this posting! Been busy and my Torchlock muse has not been cooperating! In case you are not entirely familiar with Torchwood, there is an "invisible lift" that leads from the monument above to the vast Hub hidden beneath it. The lift is concealed by a perception filter, a bit of alien technology, that makes anyone standing on it virtually invisible to those passing by. It would give the observer the feeling that they are just missing something out of the corner of their eye. In my story, it doesn't work on our consulting detective. Jack is disappointed that his favorite trick doesn't work.
Also, the island that is eluded to at the end of the chapter is Flat Holm, not mentioned until the later episode of Torchwood entitled Adrift. There is a secret compound there where damaged rift refugees are taken care of, funded by Jack. It is revealed in that episode that the only Torchwood personnel to know of it are Jack and Ianto. And now Sherlock. In my head cannon about my own story, Sherlock noticed strange activity on google earth around the locations that he mentioned and attributed them to being associated with Torchwood.
As always, feel free to contact me with questions or constructive criticism. If you feel moved to write a review please know that they absolutely make my day!