Hey, this update totally didn't take four months. *fistpump* I still don't own Doctor Who, and I still don't own Torchwood, so that's athing. I guess. Anywho, go forth and enjoy!
In Which Owen Makes Questionable Decisions, Jack is Protective, and the Doctor is Not a Major Antagonist
~oOo~
Jack stopped next to the medlab and turned back around to face Tom.
"And there you are." He concluded.
"That was the grand tour of Torchwood?" Tom asked.
"Yes it was." The other man confirmed.
Tom nodded slightly and was silent, thinking of what he had just seen; archives full of alien tech, an overly dramatic rolling metal door, an entire underground morgue that even the apparently shameless Captain Jack Harkness had been reluctant to speak about, and the most sophisticated coffee and tea brewer Tom had ever set eyes upon.
"...This place is insane." He decided.
"It can be." Agreed Jack.
"No, it's properly mad. I mean, who the hell would come up with an official task force devoted entirely to fighting aliens?" Tom questioned, incredulous. Jack gave a small shrug.
"Queen Victoria."
Tom cocked his head to the side and fixed Jack with a stare that was half disbelieving, half serious consideration of his claim.
"I honestly don't know what to believe at this point." He admitted.
"It's true." Jack insisted. "Shame I wasn't in Scotland when it was formed though."
Tom gave an uneasy smile.
"Well, yeah, but there's no way you could have been there at that time. It was over a hundred years ago, wasn't it?" He said, the smallest hint of doubt working itself into his voice. Tom tried to force that doubt out of his mind. Despite everything he'd seen today, he liked to belive that what he had just said was true. No way the man before him was over a century old.
Jack gave Tom a look of amusement that landed like pity and turned away, starting towards the stairs that led up to his office.
"Did I mention I'm immortal?"
~oOo~
"How're the Rift reports coming along?"
Gwen turned around and found herself face to face with Jack.
"Hmm? Oh, fine. They're coming along just fine..." She trailed off, staring past Jack and into empty space. The Captain raised an eyebrow.
"Really?" He asked, clearly skeptical of Gwen's less than sure sounding answer. "Only it seems like there's something you're not telling me?"
Gwen paused a moment before answering.
"It's nothing. Just..."
"Just what?" Jack prompted.
"We filed away that case from a couple of months back just a bit ago. The one with all the suicides. You remember it, yeah?"
"'Course I remember. What about it?" Jack inquired, intrigued.
"Like I said, it's nothing really. I just can't help feeling like we missed something important."
Jack was silent.
"Jack? You still with me?" Gwen asked after a moment. The Immortal took a sharp breath and nodded.
"Yeah, I'm still here." He said, looking at Gwen again. "You're right, it's probably nothing. Even if it was, they've stopped, right? Nothing we can do with it now. Whatever it was, if it ever was something, it's long gone by now."
Gwen bit the bottom of her lip slightly and nodded.
"Right. Nothing we can do about it now." She agreed.
If only she could believe it.
~oOo~
"He's immortal?" Tom asked, disbelieving.
"Yeah. He's immortal." Martha confirmed. "Takes a bit of getting used to at first."
"You don't say?"
Martha laughed.
"Don't worry, you get settled into here pretty quickly." She assured. "Sort of have to."
Tom nodded a bit.
"I'll try to keep that in mind, thanks." He paused. "By the way, what do you do here? I know Jack wants you here 'cause the Doctor showed up, but other than that?"
"I help Owen when he needs it. Not that he'll ever admit that he needs it, but still."
"And when you're not doing that?"
Smiling, Martha took Tom's hand in her own.
"Come on, then, Tom. Let me introduce you to the fascinating world of Rift reports."
The pair started towards the stairs, when, with no warning whatsoever, a loud and rapid alarm began to ring throughout Torchwood.
"Or the fascinating world of unidentified aliens."
~oOo~
The Doctor sat in his cell, having been alternating between turning the disruptance detector over in his hands and thinking idly for the last several hours.
Quite suddenly, he was yanked from his thoughts by a light in the corner of his eye. He turned some and his hand grasped the small cube he'd constructed from beside him, bringing it before him.
The small light he had wired in was flashing.
Something was happening.
Jack might come down for him, and he might not. Chosing to hope for the former, the Doctor shoved his contraption into his coat pocket and began forcing himself to his feet, leaning against the cell wall the entire time.
Thank Rassilon for accelerated healing, his injuries were already beginning to recover to the point where he was regaining some of his maneuverability.
Taking his hands off the wall, he started towards the opposite side of his cell, over to the clear wall, and waited.
~oOo~
"The computers say it's Weevils again, Jack." Said Tosh.
"Yeah, but last time it sure wasn't Weevils." The Captain pointed out.
"Valid point."
Jack turned away from Tosh, addressing his team as a whole, scattered throughout the Hub at the moment.
"This might be Weevils, it might not be!" He shouted, voice ringing through the building. "I want you prepared for anything!"
Owen rushed past Jack, seemingly heading for the stairs that led down to the cellblock.
"Where the hell are you going, Owen?!" Jack asked.
"Where does it look like?"
"Why are you going down to the cellblocks?" The Immortal inquired, voice hard and deadly calm. Owen hesitated for a fraction of a second.
"He's our best chance, Jack." He replied, trying to reason with the other man.
"At what?!" Jack snapped. "Last time I checked, he fucked everything up!"
"He also figured out damn near everything we know about these aliens!" Owen argued heatedly, tone equal to Jack's.
"...You can't be serious. You actually want to bring him?"
"The way I figure it, he might be useful. I doubt he's going to try to pull anything this time around, seeing what you did to him last time."
Jack stared at Owen, incredulous.
"Fine. Fine. Do whatever the hell it is you need to get him up here."
"I think he already knows. If what he built works, he should."
"Then go and get him. But, if he does try anything, I'll have your ass, Owen."
Owen nodded his understanding.
"I'll be back in less than five minutes." He said, starting towards the cellblock.
"Make it less than three!" Jack yelled after him.
"Fine!"
The Captain turned from where Owen was heading towards and instead made his way over to the archives, mind whirling.
Owen did have a point, he thought. The Time Lord had been the only one to notice that the aliens had teleported, an anomaly which had not been previously considered. He had been the one who had made sense of the mistaken energy signatures. Perhaps he could figure something else out.
Jack arrived at the archives, hurrying down to find Ianto, rushing to put his papers and documents back in a timely manner.
"Just leave it, Ianto. We should have everything we need upstairs ready by now."
Ianto nodded and stood up, brushing himself off before racing up the stairs alongside Jack. They reached the top and very nearly plowed into Martha and Tom. Giving them a quick glance over, he pointed to the Torchwood jeep.
"Martha, get Tom in the van. Ianto, go with them."
"Right." The Welshman agreed. "Come on." He said, starting towards the vehicle.
"Hurry it up, Owen!" Jack shouted, casting a final glance around the Hub to doublecheck that everything was in place. Tom, Martha, Ianto, Gwen, and Toshiko were already in the jeep. Owen could handle himself, Jack decided as he ran towards the vehicle and took his place in the driver's seat.
"Where's Owen?" Gwen asked.
"Getting the Doctor." Jack replied evenly.
"What?!" Ianto asked, disbelieving.
'Are you serious?" Martha questioned.
"Very."
"Why is he coming?" Toshiko asked.
"Because me and Owen figure that he might actually be useful to have around."
"He might not be, though." Gwen pointed out.
"I know that, Gwen!" Jack snapped.
There was the distinct sound of metal hitting metal from the back of the jeep, followed by what sounded like a string of alien swears. The back door opened and Owen clambered in.
'He's there." He said, motioning behind him with his hand. "Not terribly happy about being shoved in the back, mind you, but what are you gonna do about it?"
Jack gave something resembling a biter scoff, then stepped on the gas, pulling out of Torchwood's parking garage and into the streets of Cardiff.
Speeding through Cardiff on their way to a possibly hostile group of aliens with an amateur and a seriously pissed off Time Lord in tow?
What could possibly go wrong?
~oOo~
Jack screeched the vehicle to a stop and just over a second later the Torchwood team was out of the jeep, finding themselves instead in an alley which was connected to a web of empty back streets just like it.
Tom clambered out, not quite as adept to the whole leaping-out-of-moving-vehicles thignas everyone else seemed to be, and watched as Owen sped over to the back, opening it up and letting the Doctor come out. The Time Lord worked his way around the van, over to where the other six people stood, rubbing at the back of his neck gingerly and glaring at Jack in question.
"Rassilon, Harkness..." He muttered. "Learn how to drive your bloody transportation sometime, alright?"
Despite himself, Jack smirked slightly.
"This coming from you, of all people?" He chastised. "The man who can't even hit the right quadrant of the galaxy half the time, much less the right century?"
The Doctor glowered at Jack.
"I operate a Type 40 TARDIS, which is hundred of years older than I am and was considered obsolete before I was even bon. Not to mention the fact that it's actually supposed to be piloted by six people and I do it by myself. All things considered, I think I do a decent enough job."
Jack stared at the Time Lord for a minute, trying to determine how much of what the Doctor had just spouted was bull and how much actually rang true.
"...Whatever you say, Doc."
Th Immortal turned to his team, Toshiko specifically.
"You know where they are?" He asked, getting himself back on track. There were aliens to confront. Now was not the time to get in petty arguments with the Doctor about his (lack of) piloting skills.
Toshiko nodded.
"They should be just around that corner." She said, pointing to their right, just beyond the corner of a brick building.
"Right then." Said Jack, starting towards where Tosh had motioned to, reaching towards his gun holster to make sure he could whip out the revolver at a moment's notice. After the last time, he felt as though this were a necessary precaution. Though he himself couldn't die, permanently at least, and he honestly wasn't sure how he would feel if the Doctor were to get himself killed, he would not allow for his team to get hurt.
Jack turned the corner of the alley, team in suit, took five steps further, and stopped.
One.
One alien.
Same purple skin, same yellow eyes, same black hair.
But there was only one.
"...Okay," Owen started, clearly just as confused as Jack. "What the hell is going on?"
"...I don't know." Jack answered.
After all, there had been three last time. If they were coming back, then shouldn't there be more? Surely they knew what had happened to the other thee, and if they had wanted to get past Torchwood, then shouldn't they have sent more than one person?
"Anybody care to explain what's happening?" It was Tom who spoke this time around.
"Martha, tell him what you need to know." Instructed Jack, not taking his eyes off the being before him. Martha did as the Captain instructed, her and Tom disappearing into whispers.
"Owen"
"Yeah?" The medical doctor asked.
"Your bag. What's in there?"
Beat.
"I've got the all species sedative, if that's what you mean." Owen replied.
"That's exactly what I meant. Get it out."
There was a soft thud and the sound of zippers being undone alongside papers and miscellaneous objects being moved as Owen rummaged through the bag in search of what he was looking for. After a moment, he stood back up and made his way over to Jack, pressing a syringe into his hand. Jack accepted it.
"Knock yourself out, Jack." Owen said, stepping back once more. Though his voice was light, there was a tension is his slight frame he couldn't quite mask.
Chosing not to reply, Jack started towards the alien, who stood only about ten feet in front of him, having been remarkably still this entire , cautiously, Jack walked towards it, syringe in hand, ready to pounce at any moment.
He was seven feet away.
Five.
Four.
Jack stopped and swallowed.
What was happening? Last time he'd been at least fifteen feet away and he'd still ended up at gunpoint. Why was he being allowed to just approach like this?
Ignoring the growing uneasiness, Jack continued his advance until he stood directly in front of the alien, staring into its narrow yellow eyes.
It knew what was happening, that was for sure.
Carefully, Jack raised the syringe, showing it to the alien. It glanced at it momentarily, then returned its gaze to Jack. The two made eye contact, slow and steady, as Jack worked up his nerve.
Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, Jack tackled the alien, leaping and bringing it to the ground. Despite showing no earlier signs of defiance, the alien was struggling now and Jack fought to keep at least one of its arms pinned to the ground as he aimed the syringe at what he hoped would be an effective spot. With a grunt of effort, the Captain thrust his arm down, jabbing the needle into the alien's neck. He drew the plunger up, then forced it down and watched as the drug entered its system. It fought for a few moments more, movements becoming weaker with every passing second, until its efforts finally ceased, becoming limp.
Breathing heavily, Jack stood up, wiping his hands on his jacket, examining his handiwork. He turned back to his team.
"There we are then." He said, brandishing the now empty syringe. "All taken care of." He knelt down and picked up the now unconscious alien, starting towards the alley that their vehicle resided in. He walked past his team, who, after a moment of hesitation, began walking with him. Owen sped up as to walk directly next to Jack, training his gaze on the being in his Captain's arms.
"What are we gonna do with it?" He asked.
"Study it." Jack replied. "Interrogate it. Find out what the hell is going on and exactly how concerned we should be."
"Sounds like a plan."
"It's what I've got right now."
Jack stopped walking, standing in front of the back of the vehicle. "You mind opening that up, Owen?" He requested. Owen fumbled with the back door for just a moment before it opened up, allowing for Jack to place the body in the back. He turned back to face his team.
"Everybody back in. We're heading back to the Hub." Said Jack. He paused for a fraction of a second. "And somebody order us some food."
The Torchwood team got clambered back inside the jeep, the Doctor climbing into his spot in the back, now shared by the alien as well, and closed the door behind him.
Now in the driver's seat, Jack heard the Time Lord's voice, slightly muffled by the seats separating them.
"Try not to run over every pothole you see this time, Harkness!" He barked, clearly irritated.
Rolling his eyes some, Jack started the vehicle, beginning to drive through the alleys and back to the Hub. There were a few moments of silence before anyone spoke.
"...Apparently I'm not the only one who think that your driving could use some work." Martha noted mildly. Ianto laughed.
"You were never the only one who thought that."
What's up with these aliens? I totally know 'cause I've got the next four chapters written out. Guess you'll just have to keep reading and *clears throat* reviewing as well if you want to find out. Even if you don't leave a review, many thanks for sticking with the story so far, have a brilliant day, and DFTBA!