Chapter 13

Lois and Clark had decided to move to another table to give the old team mates time to catch up. Before they did however, Lois spoke to Jack in a formal tone, "You are none other than Captain Jack Harkness, former leader of a secret British organization called Torchwood that is tasked with protecting humanity from the threat of alien invasion. One the jobs of your team is to determine if the visitors from afar are hostile and to take appropriate actions against them, up to and including deadly force. If that doesn't work, you woo them into your bed and shag them senseless." The last part she managed to say with as much of a straight face as the rest of her speil. "I believe you owe us a night out on the town."

Jack clapped his hands and flashed his perfect white teeth, "Great job, Lois. I'm very proud of how well you assimilated to the fact that there are aliens here on Earth. Most people couldn't deal with it half as well as you did." Jack shot Clark a pointed stare.

"Why is he staring at Smallville? I thought he handled it just as well as I did," Lois thought. "I watch America's Got Talent, half of those contestants must be aliens," Lois quipped. She stood and walked to another table with Clark in tow. Soon after Chloe followed.

"I figured Gwen and Martha needed some time alone with Jack," Chloe said. "So what do you think about them?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," Lois admitted. Clark nodded his head. He remembered that Jack had told Jor-El that he often lied to his Torchwood superiors to protect other aliens and now the current head of the organization was here in Smallville. "I can tell you that I like Martha, there is something about her that impresses me. Gwen seems nice, but she just doesn't seem to be in the same league as Jack and Martha."

Chloe thought about what Jack had told her about his friends and what they meant to him. He had told her about Gwen being his second in command and being a capable member of the team. When she asked about Martha, he paused and told her the whole story. She cried along with him as he relayed what had happened to him and how Martha had saved him. Chloe decided to share a little of the information so that Lois and Clark could feel more at ease. "Lois, Jack told me all about Gwen and Martha and I should tell you a little bit about them. Jack recruited Gwen from the local police force when he caught her snooping after one of their cases. He was impressed by her work and offered her a job. She brought compassion to their team, which he said had been sorely lacking for some time. He calls her the soul of Torchwood. Jack says that he trusts the morals of Torchwood now even more than when he was in charge."

"And Martha?" Clark asked.

Chloe looked back over her shoulder at the trio of friends at the other table laughing and hugging. Martha and Gwen were crying. A tear slid down Chloe's cheek as well. "Martha and Jack saved the world after it was taken over by the British Prime Minister, who just happened to be one of the most evil aliens in the entire Universe," Chloe said. Lois and Clark looked at her blankly. "I know, I know, I didn't get the memo either. The Earth was subjected to a living hell for an entire year. Jack had been captured by this alien and subjected to unimaginable tortures. Martha led the human resistance. She was able to free Jack and another powerful alien called the Doctor. The three of them were able to stop the evil alien and reverse time so that that year never happened." Chloe paused to take a breath and again looked over her shoulder at the man she loved and his friend who had done so much for their planet. "There was a price that the three of them pay for what they did. The Doctor, Jack, and Martha are all time travelers and have become immune to paradox. Well the Doctor exists outside of time and space and was always been immune. Jack and Martha became immune by traveling with him during the event, but I think Jack might be immune for another reason that I won't talk about yet. Anyway, their immunity to paradox brings pain. While it never happened for us, they remember everything that happened. Jack and Martha refer to it as the year that never was."

Lois and Clark were stunned. Lois had suspected there were great depths to Martha and even Jack, but she had never dreamt it was anything like this. "How many times?" Lois mumbled, awe in her voice. "How many times have they saved the world?"

Chloe shrugged her shoulders, "Martha, 20 or 30 times I guess from what Jack tells me. Him, we haven't had time for him to tell me all the stories, but I'm guessing it's in the hundreds."

Lois couldn't say anything. She was having a hard enough time meshing the concept of her flirty friend with the leader of a top-secret, alien chasing group. Now she had to add on the fact that he was also a time traveling hero who routinely saved mankind. The moment was shattered however when Martha, the other savior of mankind, high-fived Gwen and Jack groaned loudly. Gwen motioned for them to come over. She had an evil grin on her face.

When Chloe, Lois, and Clark got back to the original table, Gwen was beaming in malicious glee. She leaned over to Clark, stood on her toes, and whispered in his ear. He laughed and nodded. Gwen addressed the rest of the gathering. She spoke in her Welsh accent, "Chloe, my wonderful and wise, new friend suggested that Martha and I come up with something to get back at Jack here for not letting us know he was back and for making us endure that dreadful flight across the pond." Chloe nodded and Jack turned a mock snarl on her. "Now Jack, behave. Like your beautiful girlfriend here said, you deserve this, so pipe down. Anyway, we have come up with the perfect punishment for our dashing Captain." Gwen paused for effect. "Jack is ever so fond of his choice in clothing. I remember how upset he got when he had to wear sweats for an entire day, so with the help of young Mr. Kent here, we will have Jack wearing a different outfit for a day."

Jack looked over at Clark and then took on a pained expression. "Oh, no. You wouldn't. That's too cruel," he pleaded.

Lois caught on, "Don't worry Jack; Smallville has plenty of flannel shirts and jeans you can borrow."

Chloe covered her mouth with her hand as she giggled. "Shit!" Jack muttered.

Jack had taken Martha and Gwen around Smallville during the day. They had teased him mercilessly when he had shown up at the Talon wearing a red flannel shirt, blue jeans, and work boots. He looked utterly miserable, like a whipped puppy. They laughed even more when they saw his belt. "What the hell is that? I'm pretty sure that didn't come from Clark," Gwen said. Jack was wearing a leather belt with metal studs. The belt-buckle was a Union Jack made out of rhinestones.

"It's the only belt I own. Suspender guy, remember?" Jack moaned. "Ianto gave it to me as a gag gift," he admitted.

"It's you, Jack," Martha said, trying to keep a straight face, but failing. "Come on, shopping awaits."

Around lunch time Clark showed up at the Talon. Before coming over he had gone to the farm and changed into his regular flannel work clothes. He had taken the afternoon off and offered to take Jack to lunch. He figured Jack would be miserable. He couldn't think of anything worse than being forced to shop with two women friends while dressed in something that made you uncomfortable. Gwen and Martha released their hold on Jack for the afternoon, on the condition that he stay in his current clothes for the rest of the day. Jack hung his head in submission and agreed.

Lana Luthor was driving around Smallville, watching all the little people go about their mundane business. She stopped at the local burger joint for lunch. She normally didn't eat there but had chosen it because she saw Clark's truck in the lot. She thought she would toss him a scrap of affection and watch him roll over and do tricks, begging for more. She walked in and saw Clark sitting in a booth with a man dressed similarly to him. She did a double take when she realized how similar they looked. The other man was in his late 30s to early 40s. Like Clark he was tall with black hair. They were laughing and joking together. Lana ordered her food and snuck into the booth behind them.

Clark sipped his soda, enjoying the time with Jack. His relationship with this man kept changing and he figured it probably would never have a definite category. He was acting like the younger, cool uncle that let you in on the family secrets that you never knew you had. Clark also realized he shared a bond with Jack that both men felt that would transcend time. They had both had to save the world and they knew they would probably have to do it again. They didn't do it for fame or money, they did it because it was the right thing to do.

"Tell me more about my father. What was he like?" Clark asked. From the way Clark said it Lana knew he wasn't talking about Jonathan Kent.

Lana revised her estimate on the other man's age, "He doesn't look old enough to have known Clark's biological father. He must age well."

"He was pretty stiff most of the time, but once he got a few phantom zones down him he became quite the party animal," Jack chuckled. Jack thought for moment. "There was this one story that takes place a few years before you were born that deals with a stolen vehicle. I guess I can tell it to you. I took care of the legal issues." Clark raised an eyebrow. "You see, we were the ones who stole it," Jack left the story hanging, knowing how to set up an audience.

"Come on, cough it up," Clark laughed.

"I guess I should start at the beginning. Things had been kind of rough at home, so your father had decided to take a break. He remembered our last visit and he swung by my office to see if there had been any record kept of it. I told him I would keep him out of my report, but I guess he wanted to see for himself," Jack said.

"How long had it been since you two had seen each other?" Clark asked.

"To give you an idea of how long it had been, my office had been moved next to the airport," Jack said. Clark nodded, understanding what Jack was implying. The first time Jack and Jor-El met had been in the late 1800's.

Lana hadn't been this excited in a long time. She and her husband, Lex, had been trying to figure out Clark's secret for years. Now a man tied in with Clark's biological father showed up in Smallville. Hearing him talk, it sounded like Clark's father wasn't nearly the boy-scout his son was. She couldn't wait to tell Lex. Never being patient, Lana slid out the booth, her food untouched. She quickly made her way to the exit and out to her car.

"Your father broke in and started going through the case files from that year that had my name on them. I had set up an alarm on file room that would let me know when my old files were accessed," Jack continued. "The look on his face was priceless when he saw me standing in the doorway watching him. When he got over the whole 'you haven't aged' thing, we headed back to my flat to catch up. We started comparing war stories, drinking, singing bawdy folk songs from different regions of the galaxy, and drank some more."

"We had gotten pretty sloshed and he told me that he had seen a Teglian saucer parked out near York on his way in to London. He said he thought they looked pretty silly. I agreed, but told them they were a blast to fly. One thing led to another and while the little gray pervert was probing a farmer, we swiped his ship," Jack said in between bites of his burger.

"You guys stole a space ship?" Clark asked incredulously.

"A saucer to be specific. Anyway, we were having a blast flying the thing around the planet. We kept dodging in and out of different countries radars, hovering for a few moments over towns, you know the usual pranks," Jack said. "Things went pretty good until we got to the U.S. Jor-El and I were trying to figure out how to work the stereo and I forgot that he had set the thing to ground skimming mode. Well…we weren't exactly looking where we were going and sort of clipped an electrical line. Turns out Teglian saucers aren't grounded worth a damn. We ended up crashing the thing; trashed it pretty good. Jor-El super-sped me out of there right before the Teglians dropped off the owner. He was not happy when the U. S. military showed up and took him into custody." Jack smiled wistfully.

Anytime Clark heard about another alien being taken by the military, his heart froze. "The military has a saucer and alien in their custody? When did this happen?" Clark asked.

"Come on, Clark. Everyone knows this one, July 2, 1947," Jack said.

Clark thought about the date for a moment and then began laughing so loud that the whole restaurant looked over at him. Clark brought himself under control, barely. "Are you trying to tell me that you guys were the ones piloting the craft that crashed near Roswell, New Mexico?" Clark said wiping tears from his eyes.

"Considering how drunk we were, I don't think you can call what we were doing flying," Jack said with smile.