After the young man had relayed that information into the phone, he quickly hung up the phone and came around the desk. "My name is Ianto Jones, Ma'am. The Captain has asked that I take you to him right away. I'm sorry but I'm required to search you."
She just arched an eyebrow up at him before lifting her arms up high. "Do what you must." He'd never find all the weapons she had hidden anyways, she'd been hiding weapons in unlikely spots for centuries.
He was quick and thorough, turning up two knives and one small pistol before he seemed satisfied. She just smiled at him before he turned and flicked the open sign on the door to closed and pressed a button behind the counter that slid open a secret panel in the wall opposite the entrance.
Not exactly the most ideal location for a secret passageway as it was nearly in plain view of the door, but she supposed beggars couldn't be choosers. As Ianto walked past her, she shrugged her shoulders just slightly to adjust the tiny derringer that nestled between her shoulder blades. People always missed that one, especially with the voluminous cloaks that she favored from times gone by.
Her gaze was always moving, cataloguing everything she saw in the passageway and on the lift ride down into what she presumed was Torchwood's secret base. Ianto made sure she stepped out of the lift first before he followed her and carefully swiped his pass over the entry panel next to a large blast door.
The blaring of an alarm echoed through the large space beyond as the door slid open, and Ashildr stepped into the domain of the man for which she had been searching for nearly five centuries. The base wasn't much to look at though it was filled with very impressive tech on several levels, plus it boasted an incredibly well stocked weapons room just down a ramp to her right.
The steel column from up above obviously was a continuation of the fountain in the main square and allowed her to get her bearings. There was only one other person in the base, he stood up on a landing several steps away, his hands on his hips openly displaying the gun at his side.
She held her breath when she finally saw his face, it was the face she had seen in so many photos of her search for the Doctor over the decades since technology had allowed such searches. He hadn't aged a day since the photos of him in the late 19th century when he had first appeared on Torchwood's roster and though those files were classified at the highest level, she had had no trouble hacking their system on a regular basis. She had become a master hacker rather early in the computer era, and her skills only continued to grow with every passing year.
She had chosen her clothing very carefully, making sure that she looked just modern enough to pass through the world above, but with some old world touches that only historians would ever recognize. She saw him take her attire into account, the soft arching of one brow the only indication that he was intrigued.
"I don't know the name Ashildr, and it doesn't show up in any of the Doctor's files that we have on record. What kind of con are you trying to pull?"
She laughed lightly as she stepped away from Ianto's side, her steps gliding sure and unhurried across the landing and up the steps to stand directly in front of him. "I assure you Mr. Harkness, I am attempting no con." She stated with all the authority she had retained from her days masquerading as the Lady Me, if he was impressed than his loutish American ways didn't let him show it.
"You obviously know enough about me to know that you can't do much harm to me, and at least you know the Doctor's name, so I'll give you five minutes to explain yourself before I decide whether I let you stay or throw you out."
He stepped back and pointed imperiously towards an office that was tucked back into a corner of the level they were standing on, the dingy doors in desperate need of cleaning but they would afford the two of them a modicum of privacy.
She looked up at him and with a gracious smile, a lady deigning to grant a peasant a request, she swept across the intervening space and settled herself in a chair facing the desk.
Jack just shook his head, though his heart was pounding with fear that this person meant the Doctor harm. If she knew enough to know about Torchwood and that Jack was hard to kill, or impossible to kill, then she knew enough to be of a danger to the Doctor. He had to find out just what she knew and then he had to warn that crazy Time Lord that there was someone on earth that had found out about him and that she had come looking.
"Ianto, get several doses of retcon ready just in case. I don't know if I trust her, though there's something about her that has piqued my curiosity. Also get us coffee, bring in the cream and sugar just in case then leave us be. I can't get her to talk if she thinks she's being watched, but make sure you're recording everything that goes on in my office just in case we need it later." He paused with a distant look on his face, wondering why the sense of urgency had settled in the pit his stomach but he decided to try to find out more before he gave the Doctor a call. "I'm not sure she doesn't actually mean the Doctor harm and isn't trying to use me to get to him."
Ianto let his gaze flick from Jack to the mysterious Ashildr before he nodded. "Just be careful, Jack."
The answering grin was brilliant. "Hey, I'm always careful! Besides, I have ways to get information out of beautiful women."
Ianto just rolled his eyes before he turned to the monitors beside them and typed in a few codes to key up the cameras hidden in Jack's office.
Jack turned back to his office and with a deep breath, slowly made his way towards it. She sat with her back to the entrance like she didn't have a worry in the world, she hadn't turned her head or moved a muscle since she sat though he knew she had already catalogued every nuance of his messy work space. Some days it was just harder to be tidy then others. He closed the doors behind him, wincing when they squealed on slightly rusty hinges.
"You're not what I expected Captain Harkness."
He sat down behind his desk, leaning forward so that he could gaze into her dark eyes intently. "And just what did you expect, Ashildr. IF that is your real name?"
She pursed her lips looking at him, her eyes dancing with mirth before she responded. "Someone a little more… cultured I suppose, for an immortal anyways."
Jack's thighs tensed beneath the desk, ready to jump to his feet though the rest of his body gave away nothing of his tension, his gaze melted into that teasing flirty smile that he knew had melted hearts for centuries. "Oh come on gorgeous, I am very cultured. I just don't always show it."
Ashildr smirked at the display, having been on the receiving end of those looks for far too many centuries to be fooled by it. "Hardly. I know your type, have known them many times over the years and you always think your pretty face can get you anything you want."
"Over the years? You don't look a day over 20."
She just grinned, a positively wicked grin before leaning back at the sound of the door opening and Ianto entered bearing a tray with two cups and a pot of coffee. He looked from Ashildr to Jack, unable to miss the tension between the two before he set the tray down on the desk and retreated from the office once more.
"I've been around Captain." She stated once she heard the click of the door closing.
"Why did he send you to me? What do you want?" Jack pressed, feeling that they could dance around each other for centuries without getting anything done.
"He didn't send me per se, but he did mention that he used to travel with you. Said that he had traveled with an immortal, and he said that people like you couldn't travel together because you lost perspective."
Jack sat back hard, his eyes widening as he heard almost the exact echoes of something the Doctor had once said to him. Something that had seemed like a lifetime ago now that he thought about it. No, she was guessing. She was on to something and had stumbled across it while digging for the Doctor.
"When was this? When do you meet him? Where? Why would he tell you about me?"
She leaned forward as if she had all the time in the world, her delicate hand reaching out for the steaming coffeepot before she tilted it to one cup and filled it, leaving two fingers of room before she set the pot aside. She let him see her deliberate actions and that she had no fear that he would poison her or that she just didn't care while she stirred in cream and sugar before taking the cup and leaning back in her seat, taking a sip with a contented sigh. "Trust a Welshman to always brew a great cup of coffee."
Jack just chuckled at the ploy, knowing she was toying with him but somewhat off guard as he was usually the one to be playing the games. "Ianto is good at a lot of things."
"Yes, he was very observant up in your little shop. Never quite let his guard down even though I did give him my best shot."
Jack's grin was positively cruel. "You're not his type."
Her lips turned down into a playful little moue, the cup resting against her mouth for a moment before she set it aside with a sigh. "The Doctor told me this in a tavern after we had journeyed together for a brief time."
Jack's brows furrowed at her comment, the feeling in the pit of his stomach growing ever so slightly. "What did the Doctor look like?"
She made a face at that question before responding. "Older gentleman with silver hair and sunglasses. He had a companion that he called Clara, though she wasn't with him when he visited me the second time. I thought he had come back for me actually." She said in a moment of weakness. "I was wrong."
Jack's head was spinning when he heard her response, the name Clara had popped up a few times in the archives though it had been with incarnations different than the Doctor that he currently knew, the one that was properly in line with his time stream. Those incarnations hadn't fit any of the Doctor's previous timelines and Torchwood and Unit were positive those companions had to be from his future incarnations which he had chosen to keep away from the agencies that so carefully tracked him. The fact that Ashildr knew this future companion's name settled some of the doubts in Jack's mind, but now he was truly curious as to this young woman with the sorrow that tinged so many of her words. "Why did you think he would come back for you Ashildr? He doesn't always do that."
She looked to him with the torment of centuries in her eyes, and suddenly he knew. "Because he abandoned me here Jack. He abandoned me without any guidance on what my life was supposed to become after him or how I was supposed to understand or survive what he did to me. I so desperately wanted to ask him why."
"Ashildr?" Jack asked very slowly, almost hesitantly. "When and where did you first meet the Doctor?"
Her eyes flashed to his, the memory that had been nearly forgotten for thirteen hundred years surged to the surface once again. "I met him in my village, Jack. In what modern day historians would term ninth century Scandinavia."
Jack sat thunderstruck, but she wasn't finished. "I then met him again in the 1600's when I thought he had come back for me, that's when he told me about you Jack. And I've been searching for you ever since."
There was a soft crash as the cup of coffee dropped from Jack's numb hands and shattered on the floor.