Author's note: For obvious reasons, I am waiting for the end of series 9 before really delving into current events with Jack and Ashildr but there is still plenty of back story to be told!
The silence in the hub was unnerving as Jack sat at his desk staring off into nothing. He had spent most of the night in that back room with Ashildr, talking to her about what she could remember from the past century or so in order to see if he could catch her in any obvious lie.
He couldn't explain why he had been so cautious with her when he had first felt an overwhelming urge to share everything with her, but some instinct had kicked in when they had walked to Frank's bar and he had always been one to listen to his gut.
She had said all of the right things, knew the right companions for the various Doctors but it was still strange that she had so many gaps in her memory when he had no such issue. It highlighted once again the difference in how they had each been made and he found himself wondering once again if that might not have been the better way. Some nights he wished for the blessing of forgetfulness, the never ending torment of his achingly long existence might be easier to bear if he could every once in a while forget the nightmares of the past.
The blaring of the alarm echoed through the hub and he jumped when he realized it was already eight am and that Ianto would most likely be worried about what had happened the night before. It didn't take him long to make his way to Jack's office, his appearance as always perfectly groomed though there was a certain air of uncertainty about him as he held two cups of coffee in his hands.
Ianto paused in the doorway, trying to gauge Jack's mood before while he stood rooted to the spot. Jack was sitting with both elbows braced against the desk and was fingering what looked to be a business card of some sort in his hand, his eyes had risen when Ianto had come into the room but he had otherwise not acknowledged his presence.
Ianto couldn't forget the look of hunger that he had seen on Jack's face when he had realized that the woman who sat across from him was another immortal, that desperate need to share in the agony of the ages and it had once again reminded Ianto of how very lonely Jack would unfortunately always be.
Yes there were flashes of brilliance, like the time that they were able to spend together now where they could share as much of a normal life as was possible working for such a crazy institution like Torchwood but it hurt Ianto to know that all too soon his death would be just another to add to the long list of the dead. It was why he always tried his hardest to make Jack laugh, to help him to let go of some of the burdens that he carried if even for a while. Sometimes it worked, but he worried that this would not be one of those times.
"Are you just going to stand there till the coffee gets cold?"
Jack's voice jerked Ianto out of his morose thoughts, the smile that instantly turned up the corners of his mouth were enough to force Ianto into motion. He made his way to the desk and perched a hip on the edge of it before setting Jack's coffee down in front of him, his gaze dropping to the card that was lying face up on his desk.
Jack took the coffee, his gaze following the downward flick of Ianto's eyes before they travelled back up to lock with his own. "How'd the talk go?"
"It was intriguing, frustrating and infuriating all at the same time to be honest. There are so many holes in her memory that it's hard to tell what is true." Jack lifted the cup to his lips, replaying their parting words in his head over and over again. She had handed him a very expensive embossed card, much like a calling card that you would have seen at the turn of the 20th century with merely a name and an address on it.
He had since been researching everything he could find out about this Lady Me as she called herself and the results had only troubled him even more. She hadn't been as circumspect about her movements as she had thought she had been, but it still confounded Jack that she had managed to stay off of everyone's radar for as long as she had. It was almost like someone else was helping her.
"Is she telling the truth though, Jack? Is she an immortal like you?"
Jack shook his head with a sigh then he reached over to his vortex manipulator and began to play with the dials on the device, fingers tapping a complex series of commands before a holographic medical scan appeared hovering over the desk.
"She's definitely human or at least was at one point." Ianto pushed off the edge of the desk so that he could better see the medical scan that Jack had been able to obtain of the woman who called herself Ashildr. The readings all fell within the norm for a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties. It was however the shining red dot in her head that caused Ianto to lean forward with a frown.
He reached out and deftly manipulated the image, having long since grown comfortable utilizing the advanced technology from Jack's vortex manipulator. He zoomed into that glow and was surprised to see tendrils spreading out through her entire body. It seemed that the red wisps had invaded every organ and had even seeded themselves into her blood, where the energy looked to be carried in the very cells of her body. "What the hell is that?"
Jack scowled softly as he gazed at the scan before he shook his head and shut the image down. "That is the source of her immortality. It is alien in origin. She had mentioned the species name, the Mire and I did a little digging with some of my sources. They haven't been to earth in this time period as of yet, at least not that we knew of but now we know that they visited earth in the 9th century and some future incarnation of the Doctor was there to deal with them."
He pushed back from the desk with a frustrated sigh, crossing his arms over his desk and kicking his feet up before he let himself look up at Ianto with an expectant raise of his brow.
Ianto was thinking long and hard, trying to remember everything that Jack had told him of the Time Lord as well as everything that he had learned of the man in the few brief times that he had met him. He did not at all seem like one who would ever want to repeat the mistake that had been made with Jack, but then obviously something had happened to change his mind. "Did she remember why the Doctor made her an immortal? It seems to be anathema to everything you've told me about him over the years."
Jack snorted in reply, his hands rising up to rub his eyes as he tried to focus on the enigma that was Ashildr. "That's just it Ianto. The Doctor didn't make me, Rose did when she had absorbed the heart of the Tardis. He said that she didn't know how to control the power that she had absorbed and so had brought me back forever, but that when he drained that power out of her he had also destroyed the only chance I ever had of getting back to normal." Jack's jaw was clenched as he struggled with the emotion that he still felt when he thought of the conversation he had had with the Doctor at the end of the universe, when the last of his hopes to ever be mortal again had been so well and truly dashed.
He had heard the regret in the Doctor's voice that he couldn't fix him, and so he had felt that the Doctor had been asking for his forgiveness. His invitation to later travel with the Doctor had been the final expression of his sorrow for ever calling him wrong, but he couldn't leave Torchwood and now especially he couldn't leave Ianto.
Ashildr had called the mortals around them mayflies, she had said her version of the Doctor had referred to them as such and that she had adopted that term as it was fitting. Jack had been shocked when he had heard that, the callousness that such words displayed showed that her version of the Doctor was a man that Jack wasn't sure he would ever be able to understand. It sounded like however long it had been for the Doctor, he had evolved once more into the unreachable, incredibly alien being that the Time Lords of old had been.
"I can't begin to understand why the Doctor would deliberately inflict this on another being, even though I was not directly his fault, I was definitely created because of his involvement in my life. I don't know if we'll ever know really, but that's neither here nor there. There's something else going on here that I can't quite put my finger on."
Ianto grabbed the chair across from the desk, hiding his smile as he saw the look of determination on Jack's face as the game seemed to be afoot. "Well I would think the biggest question would be, why did she wait over a century to contact you Jack? She said that she had tracked you for most of the 20th century before deciding to come and see you. Why now all of the sudden?"
Jack's answering grin was positively diabolical. "That's why I love you Ianto. You always ask the hard questions. Why did she wait indeed? I couldn't get a straight answer out of her except for some rubbish of the fact that I wasn't ready. Which I could tell immediately was utter bullshit. With her horrible memory, she has to reread her journals often so that she can even remember certain events, I should have long since faded from her memory. Unless there was something else that was driving her. I need to find out what it is, because she was far too interested in the Doctor and his whereabouts for me to be entirely comfortable that she only wants a family reunion."
Ianto's gaze drifted back down to the card on his desk. "Is that her address?"
Jack picked the card back up, fingering the expensive stock and print for a moment before he deftly flicked it across the desk to Ianto. "Yes it is, one of them anyways. She says she has a place in London as well that she spends some time in. Though she obviously keeps that place under an alias as I couldn't find any trace of anyone remotely near to her name or description on any property records in London."
"You know better than anyone that property records can be forged Jack."
Jack just nodded his head with a laugh. "My past as a con artist catching up with me again it seems."
Ianto cocked his head at that comment, holding the card to his nose for a moment before he asked. "Do you think she's trying to pull a con?"
"If she is, she's not doing a very good job at it. I'm not sure though. I wanted to trust her instantly simply because we both have been cursed by knowing the Doctor, now I am wondering just what it is she wants with me. It's definitely not my devilish good looks." Jack finished with a playful pout.
Ianto just rolled his eyes before he set the card back on the desk. "You're planning on going to visit her aren't you Jack?"
Jack's steel blue eyes rose to Ianto's, the tension in the young man's voice was easy to pick out. "I am. I want to see these journals of hers, I want to see if I can pick anything else out. If her journals are as extensive as she claims they are AND her memories are as bad as she says, I may find something that she has forgotten to exorcise."
"Do you want backup?"
Jack shook his head. "Not this time Ianto. I need to gain her trust this time around. I may be jumping at shadows and if I am then I would like to maybe have her liaise with Torchwood, especially if she does have a place in London. There's too much activity in London for my liking and we just can't keep an eye on it and the rift with how depleted our resources are."
Ianto nodded though he hadn't really expected any different answer. He knew that Jack was going in with his eyes wide open and he truly was the only one who would be able to spot anything that might be amiss. "I'll be on the comms if you need me Jack. Do you want me to tell Gwen where you've gone?"
Jack paused for a moment before he nodded. "Tell her what's happened and that I'm going to investigate it. In the meantime, I want you to research the title transfer history of that property in Gloucester. It's too close to Cardiff to be entirely a coincidence and I want to see if we can pinpoint exactly when she bought the property."
He stood up and slid open the top drawer in his desk, pulling his gun out and double checking that it was loaded before he slipped it into the holster on his side. "We will operate under the assumption that she is exactly what she states and that she is more than 1300 years old, but that her intentions towards us and the Doctor are uncertain and we will treat her as a possible threat. Should she come liaise with Torchwood, we will restrict her access though I know that she has master hacking skills. She doesn't have any experience with the algorithms from the rift technology that we have for encryption, so we will lock everything under the alien encryptions should we get to that point."
Ianto nodded and rose to his feet with Jack, moving around the desk to grab his coat for him so that he could help him shrug it on. His hands tightened around Jack's shoulders for a moment before he leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss against the back of Jack's neck. "You be careful out there Jack. I know she can't keep you dead for long, but as we all know there are far worse things than death."
Jack paused when he felt the brush of Ianto's lips against his neck, turning suddenly to grab the young man and press his lips to his in a searing kiss that spoke all the promises that Jack could never bring himself to say. He let his forehead rest against Ianto's for a moment more, his eyes closed as he sought the peace that so many times eluded him before he entered into a potentially dangerous situation. "I'll come back Ianto. I came back after two thousand years, you're not getting rid of me that easily."
Ianto just smiled in response before pulling back and assuming his proper role so that Jack could walk into the unknown with his head held high and his heart unburdened with unnecessary worries. "I'll keep the channels open Jack and I'll bring Gwen in to help."
Jack nodded curtly to Ianto, settling back into the roles that they both were far too comfortable assuming before he turned on his heel and made his way down into the Torchwood garages.