Three days later, Jack was still working on the office. Daine had not been kidding; the mess was extensive.
It made him think of Ianto, frankly. Brilliant, beautiful Ianto, who would've had the place clean and alphabetized in a half hour flat. And then he would've walked up to Jack, said something witty, and propositioned him. They would have then spent the rest of the time pretending to clean, and really doing something far more enjoyable.
God, but he missed Ianto.
"Numair, what the hell is this?" Jack stuck his head out from under the mage's cluttered desk and muttered, "It looks like the freaking Time Vortex in here."
Numair, leaning against the doorway, craned his neck over a pile of books to see. "Oh. That. That's waste disposal." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
Jack gave him a disbelieving look. "That's waste disposal?"
"Yes. You may not want to stay under there for too long." The mage grimaced, looking a little anxious.
Jack rolled his eyes, but remained where he was under the wooden desk in the dust, with a light that pulsated disturbingly behind him. "Have you ever heard of a garbage bin?" he demanded.
"A what?"
Jack sighed and got up. Dusting off his knees, he walked over to the other side of the room, where he had been putting all the stuff deemed "waste" by Numair. He picked up a very small log that Numair had been using as a place to stack books, like a strange end table.
Actually, he'd been using it as something to trip over, but that was neither here nor there. "Drill a hole in it," he told the mage.
Numair blinked at him.
"Hollow it out," Jack explained, shaking the log a little for emphasis, "and then put your waste disposal inside it, instead of under your desk. That way your feet won't get disposed, and you have a place to put things."
"Oh," Numair replied, looking enlightened. He took the log and then crouched under his desk. Whispering a few words, he made the blue-and-purple luminous thing disappear from the wall, and reappear on the log. Numair lifted his face from under the desk, and then looked at the log, which was now glowing. "But I'll trip over it," he said plaintively.
Jack sighed, put upon. "We'll put it on something high up."
Numair frowned doubtfully. "Alright."
In all honesty, though, this was rather entertaining. Numair, whom Jack had forbidden to help, stood in a corner and cried, "Don't touch that!" or "You'll break it!" or "Oh, I've been wondering where that was," while Jack got his hands dirty. As far as jobs went, it was one of the most pleasant that Jack had in ages. Sometimes, Daine even came around and brought food. This whole manservant thing really had its perks, Jack thought wryly, kneeling underneath the desk again. He got food and board, good company, relative safety and no one was getting hurt. It had been a while since he'd been this amused on a harmless job, never mind that it was just cleaning.
"Numair!" Daine's voice bellowed suddenly from downstairs. He and Numair glanced at each other in surprise, and Numair held out a hand to Jack, who was still kneeling under the desk.
"Thanks," Jack muttered, taking the offered hand and coming to his feet. The mage smiled in response, and then bounded over to the stairwell.
"Is everything alright, sweet?" Numair called down as they reached the landing. Daine, standing at the bottom, looked grim. A raven perched on her fist, and she had a scroll of some kind in her hand. No paper, Jack thought, amused. Of course not.
"Bad news from Ouna," Daine called back up. "Something's happened on the road to Corus."
"Isn't she on her way back from Galla?" Numair asked, beckoning to Jack as they walked down the stairs. Jack gave him an inquisitive look, wondering who Ouna was, but followed anyway.
"Yes, near where I met you. Here, have a look." She passed Numair a scroll when he got close enough.
Numair frowned, reading the letter. Jack stepped down the last stair and walked over, trying and failing to read over his shoulder. The man was just too tall. "This is something we should go and see," Numair said softly, looking up. "We should tell the king as well. He won't be pleased."
"What is it?" asked Jack, trying to see without being obvious about it. They both glanced at him.
"It might be a new Immortal," Numair said after a pause, passing the scroll to him.
The scroll was parchment and yellowed, heavier than paper, and it curled around the edges. Jack smoothed it out, and a hastily sketched drawing at the bottom caught his eye before the short written message did. He glanced at it first and he had to stop himself from gaping in disbelief.
"Oh, no."
.
.
Jack's face had gone dead white, and his eyes widened in what looked like recognition. Daine blinked in surprise. "Have you seen anything like it?" she asked. Blackfeather, the raven on her fist, was a warm weight, and he shifted with Daine's discomfort.
It took Jack a moment to respond, as though he had to drag himself out of whatever world he'd gotten lost."Yes. I have," he said quietly, sounding angry or frightened or both. "That's a weevil."
"A what?" Daine replied, not expecting that answer. Weren't weevils insects that infected crops?
"A weevil," Jack growled, now glancing at the written part of the message. "It looks like a weevil. They live in sewers, eat detritus and things like that, but every so often one goes rogue and wants meat." He scowled, skimming Ouna's note.
"You said something about them before," Numair said carefully, and Daine looked at him sharply. He shook his head slowly, and Daine took it to mean that Jack hadn't told him anything helpful.
Jack gritted his teeth and passed the note back, but he didn't meet Daine's eye. "Yes. I used to work—" he paused, as if the words were painful to say. "I used to catch them," he finished flatly. "As part of my job."
"What did you do with them?" Daine asked, dread knotting somewhere in her stomach. She accepted the letter back uneasily and Blackfeather looked at her with sharp black eyes, ruffling his feathers. She patted his wing absently, and the raven was soothed.
"We used to kill them, at first," Jack sighed, and he looked at the raven, not Daine. "Then I was in charge, and we just detained them. Sometimes we'd put a sort of tracking device on them, see where they went. Sometimes we studied them." His face had gone carefully blank, clear of all emotion.
"We ought to inform the king," Numair said again, holding out a hand. Daine gave him the letter, and the mage skimmed it for the second time. "And then I believe we should go out and track this thing." He looked up, smiled and patted Jack's shoulder. "Since we have someone with experience."
For a moment, Jack looked ill. Then he shook himself, and nodded. "Yeah, we should probably get it off the streets. Or out of the woods, as the case may be." He straightened, all business now.
"That's settled then," Numair said, making to go back into his office. "I'll get some more parchment. Love, will you ask your friend to deliver it to the king?"
Daine nodded. "No problem." She stroked Blackfeather. Will you take another letter? Daine asked him silently.
Gladly, the raven replied, preening a wing feather proudly. Why does the wrong man stand like that?
Wrong man? Daine asked.
Him. The bird nodded at Jack, who had not moved. He had watched Numair go up the stairs, standing ridged.
"Jack?" Daine said tentatively, and his shoulders tensed further, before he turned to her and smiled charmingly.
"I don't suppose I'll get to finish Numair's office, then," Jack told her wryly.
"You'll finish eventually," Daine smiled back at him, surprised by this sudden humor. Then she frowned, stroking Blackfeather. Jack had relaxed noticeably, but something about his smile was still wrong. "Are you alright? You look sick."
"Fine," Jack replied easily, but his eyes were flat and expressionless. " If you don't mind I'd—like to go groom Red," he asked awkwardly, and almost ran out the door when Daine nodded.
Daine watched him go. Numair thudded back down the stairs, holding a new scroll and a quill. He came up to her, smiled, and swiftly scribbled a message to the king before handing it to Daine. She smiled back, blew on the wet ink to dry it and then gave it to Blackfeather.
To the castle in Corus, she instructed the bird. The man with the crown—our king. Blackfeather gave a raspy caw in agreement and took the letter, leaping from her shoulder to fly out the window. Daine turned to Numair, who was still smiling at her warmly. She smiled back, and leaned into his hand when he tucked a curl behind her ear. Then he frowned a little and looked around.
"Where'd Jack go?" The mage asked after a moment, as though just realizing that Jack had vanished. Daine laughed a little and shrugged.
"He said he was going to groom Red," she told him. "He looked upset at the mention of these weevils, Numair."
Numair frowned. "I think," he said slowly, tugging Daine's hand to lead her to a couch, "that this is something he'll tell us, in time."
"I doubt it," Daine replied, sitting next to him and leaning on his shoulder. "I feel like he's just going to leave after we get his coat back."
Numair shook his head, wrapping an arm around her. "Pain like that eventually spills over, especially if it's confronted. These weevils may be just the thing for our mysterious friend."
"You think he is a friend, then? He's been good to us, but it's only been a few days. He keeps saying what a terrible person he is." Daine's voice was sympathetic. She leaned her head on him, and Numair rested his chin on her hair thoughtfully.
"I think I have good instincts about this, sweet," he said after a moment. "I expect that our Captain Jack Harkness is going to be a good friend to have."