Chapter Forty: He Is The Key

"Jack! It's so good to see ya!" Gwen Cooper embraced her Torchwood colleague and closest friend as soon as he, Henry, and Gold arrived in the lobby of the Livingston Hotel. "It feels like forever since I last seen you!"

"I've been a little busy since last time." Jack gestured to Henry, who looked as if he was waiting anxiously for Jack to catch up with his fellow Torchwood member before he had a chance to meet her. "And speaking of little, this fella's name is Henry. He's been pretty anxious to meet you."

Gwen smiled immensely, focusing on Henry. "Has he now? How sweet."

"Jack's told me a lot about you and Torchwood on the way here." Henry said. "I almost couldn't believe half of the things he's told me. Is it true that when you first discovered Torchwood that you pretended to be a pizza delivery girl?"

She glanced over to Jack, somewhat scolding him with a playful glower. "You have told him a lot about me."

Harkness heartily laughed, but his fun was quickly disrupted by Gold, who reminded them all of his presence by rudely injecting himself into the conversation. "May we move on with the pointless pleasantries? We're on a tight schedule."

Surprised by the insolence of Gold, Gwen looked his way and asked Jack, "And who's this character supposed to be?"

"One of the two reasons why I'm in New York." Jack said.

"The name's Gold, dearie, if it pleases your little Welsh heart to know. And I'm not here to watch you and Captain Harkness catch up on old times – I'm here to find my son. And the sooner we take care of whatever inconsequential business we have here, the closer I'll be to finding him. Now, with that said, let's carry on, shall we?"

Gwen only knew Gold for a mere few minutes, and she felt like that was enough time to judge what type of character he was. Just being in the presence of him on the way to her hotel room made her uncomfortable, which was why she kept herself so close to Jack. Noting her awkwardness around Gold, Jack seemed a bit amused. He wished that he could have told Gwen who Gold really was, just to see how she felt about him afterward. But he had chosen to keep that information discreet for the time being. The less Gwen knew about the things he had seen and been through in Storybrooke, the less likely it was she would go there when Jack, Gold, and Henry had to leave Manhattan. She was only back in America to help him find the Doctor – if that was a possibility.

Once they arrived in Rhys and Gwen's hotel room, Jack received a less-than-welcoming greeting from the husband of Gwen Cooper as he sat down on a fancy red leather couch and watched a flat-screen television set. "Well, if it isn't the devil himself, and I mean that literally."

"Nice to see you, too, Rhys." Jack said in heavy sarcasm.

"We're never gonna have a normal life with you always around, are we?" Rhys remarked with some sarcasm of his own.

Jack smirked. "What is 'normal' these days?"

Rhys chuckled. "Touché." He then noticed Henry and Gold entering with Jack and Gwen, growing curious. "And who are these two? Are they part of your newest insanity that you've got my wife mixed up in?"

"Rhys." Gwen muttered in a cautionary tone of voice.

They heard Anwen crying from Rhys and Gwen's bedroom. Gwen reacted to the sound as if to go to her daughter herself, but Rhys quickly stood up and moved ahead of her. "I'll calm her down. You just…do your thing." He gave her his permission in that same moping way he always did, and – as usual – it drove Gwen mad, making her feel guilty for ever getting involved with Jack. At the same time, she loved him for it, because it meant that he understood what she had to go through as not only a mother and wife, but a member of Torchwood as well.

Left with Jack, Henry, and Gold, Gwen went right to work. "Right then. Follow me into the kitchen. That's where the postcard your Doctor left for me is." They followed her into the aforementioned section of their hotel suite and, as Gwen pointed out, the Storybrooke postcard was kept on the table.

Jack picked the postcard up from the table and looked at the Doctor's message. He frowned upon analyzing the text. "You said that the message on the card read, 'Jack Harkness is here and he needs to find us,' right?"

"Right. That's exactly what it said." Gwen confirmed.

"Yeah, well, read what it says now." Jack handed the postcard to Gwen, who appeared perplexed from what the immortal captain just said.

Gazing upon the same postcard that she received in the mail back in Wales, Gwen was even more baffled to discover the new message written on the card. The new message had said "Find Him – He Is The Key" and gave an address located right in Manhattan. Of course, Gwen was more focused on something other than the message itself. "H-How did it say one thing and then say another thing entirely?"

Harkness snickered, catching on to the trick. "Oh, that clever bastard."

"If you know something, Captain Harkness, then spare us the egocentricity and tell us." Gold impatiently demanded.

"The Doctor often uses something called 'Psychic Paper' to get himself around certain places." Jack explained. "Psychic paper enables its user to get the one reading the paper to see whatever he or she wishes them to see printed on it. The Doctor wanted Gwen to see his message about me, and he wanted me to see his message about…whoever this 'Him' is."

"So he used psychic paper out of an ordinary postcard?" Henry said with high amusement. "That is so cool!"

Gold snatched the postcard out of Gwen's hands and glanced at the information written on it. "I know this address. It's where my son is." Suspicion began to befall upon him. "Why does the Doctor want you to find my son?"

Harkness smiled. "Because your son is our 'key' to finding him."