Long Lost Feeling
Jenny
Normally, she wasn't a fan of teleports. When she was younger she sometimes went decades without being able to stomach using the vortex manipulator again, which got her stuck in all kinds of places after using it to escape a tight spot. Then there was the TARDIS emergency teleporter, and she had only used that thing once, to get away from Old Twelvey when she was caught half-naked in Beta Clara's bedroom a few months ago. Again, a dire situation. But the Singularity was nothing like it. It was smooth, not jarring, and gave Jenny the impression that instead of her moving, time and space were shifting to her will. Or, Jack's will, whatever that was.
The pleasantness of the teleport experience, however, did not really outweigh the unpleasantness of where they ended up. It seemed like 'Jack's will' was landing them in the coldest, foggiest place possible, going from one stormy planet to another. It was much too cold to still be the tropical pole of Rospaonus, and the foliage was too mossy and dark green. It wasn't too hard to work out that they had ended up on Earth somewhere, though. The texture of the mud under her fingers more than anything gave that away. There was just something about Earth mud that was so much… muddier than mud from another planet (god, she really did sound like her father sometimes.)
"Jenny – Jenny, get over here," River pleaded. Jenny staggered to her feet and saw River lying maybe fifteen entire feet away with the Conqueror. There was no sign of Jack, but the Singularity was lying in the mud nearby. It wasn't quite raining, but there was a thick fog and the air stank of salt. It was probably sea mist in her nose. They must be near the coast.
"Where's Jack?" she asked, picking up the Singularity and putting it in her transdimensional bag. She was reunited with both of her guns, at least, Aphra and Josephine.
"Cliff," River said. Jenny looked around and noticed that they were right next to the edge of a cliff. She carefully walked over to get a look and saw it was a low point of the cliffs, they were only twenty-feet up, but Jack was down there alright. He'd wound up impaled on the edge of a sea needle. Jenny winced when she looked down at him. He wasn't dead. There was a shale beach directly beneath, and despite the rough weather the tide was out.
"You'll be alright finding your own way up, won't you?" she called down. He was flailing a bit, but she was sure he'd be fine. Eventually. He sort of deserved it, anyway.
"Jenny, he's going to-"
"He's fine," Jenny said, leaving the edge and going back over to River.
"Of course Jack's fine, I mean-"
"I know who you mean, you mean this piece of work," she said, nodding at the Conqueror, "Good thing one of us has a sense of smell. Ordov hasn't broken through the stomach or it would stink, and if he'd pierced a major artery he'd be dead already. He'll be alright, just needs to be sewn back up. Come on. I assume that whatever Jack was looking for it isn't a deserted island, there must be someone around here."
"What makes you think it's someone he's after?" River asked, helping the Conqueror to his feet, Jenny joining, both of them carrying him along.
"Jack's always after someone. Now, then, you," Jenny turned to their charge, "Mr. Conqueror. What's your actual name? You ought to grace the only real Time Lord you've ever met with that information, at least."
"What's your name?" he questioned, "The Hero? The Thief?"
"It's Jenny, actually, Jenny Young at the moment. Major Jenny Young if you want to be formal about it," she said, "And who are you when you're not being an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur?q"
"Corly," he said, "Corly Moss." 'Moss' was fitting, because wherever they were there was moss all over the place. It crawled on old stones strewn around the uneven knolls and was dark with moisture from the fog.
"Well, I suppose I can see why you want people to call you 'the Conqueror.'" When she looked back she couldn't see where they had landed, it was blotted out completely by the grey mist.
"There's no reason to be so courteous," River muttered.
"Your bedside manner is appalling. Let's worry about the fact he's obnoxious after I save his life," Jenny told her, then returned to speaking to the Conqueror – or Corly Moss, as she would rather call him, "This fine example of company here is Professor River Song, she's a grave robber."
"Archaeologist," said River, "And you're a hypocrite."
"Mmm, well, she was a Time Lord as well, once," Jenny said, "In fact-"
"Is that a house?" River interrupted. They paused on their walk, but it did look like a house, a little cottage out there in the middle of nowhere that swam towards them like a ghost in their rural wasteland. It was small and quaint, the type of place kids might have been evacuated to, an antique straight out of a model railway. And as luck would have it there were very clearly lights on inside, electric ones. And a TV aerial mounted on the wall.
They dragged Corly all the way up to the door and Jenny banged her fist on it loudly. There were noises within, so someone was definitely home. She just hoped they had towels. She already had a sewing kit in her bag, because you never knew when a sewing kit might come in handy.
A young man with dark hair in his late-twenties, opened the door, and gawked at them. They were all filthy, Jenny with one of her hands pressed over the top of Corly's to apply enough pressure to the wound while he was growing dangerously faint, hanging off her shoulder like dead weight.
"Hi," Jenny managed her sweetest smile, "This man's dying, can we come in?"
"What? I mean – yes," he said, stepping aside and holding open the door. She thought he was familiar, but she didn't have time to try and work out where she knew him from, if she wasn't just imagining a resemblance. All she really picked up on was that he was Welsh. Did that mean they were in Wales somewhere? "Who are you? How did you get here? You know there isn't a hospital for miles?"
"No, but, don't worry. I'm… um… a nurse. Sort of," Jenny said unconvincingly, dragging Corly through the compact kitchen/living room towards the sofa. It looked like the type of cottage old people might live in, with musty furniture and knitted quilts and everything very cramped.
"Since when were you a nurse?" River questioned her, helping her lift Corly onto the small sofa and sort him so he was lying down.
"I did my part in the war effort, you know," she said, holding her hands down over the bleeding bullet wound, "Spent a lot of time in Plymouth, treated a lot of nasty injuries in the blitz even if I never went overseas."
"Sorry, the blitz, did you say?" the house's tenant asked, watching from nearby. He was more perturbed by them showing up there at all than by their mauled ward.
"Yeah, long time ago, do you mind getting me some towels? He's been shot," Jenny said, "Lots of blood. Abdomen. Nasty. Probably also some spirits."
"Which war?" he asked, staring at the scene.
"Towels and vodka, sweetie," River said to him, "Go fetch."
"Right, yes – back in a mo." He disappeared up his stairs. It was a bit like he was used to being ordered around. River stared after him, presumably at his rear. Jenny elbowed her and indicated that she should take over applying pressure to the wound.
"There are definitely worse places to end up with a dying gunshot victim," River remarked, distracted. Jenny shook her head and started searching through her bag with her blood-soaked hands until she pulled out a first aid kit, which she'd gathered herself after that minor incident recently where she'd been shot in the arm and had to sterilise the wound using Conor Finnegan's rather sorry excuse for medical equipment in the Green Bayou.
"Go and get me some scissors so we can cut his weird golden robes off," Jenny said. River laughed and got up to go over to the kitchen, Jenny taking over with trying to stop the bleeding again. The fireplace was roaring away though, and there was a working TV. What year were they in?
"I bet you're the prettiest girl who's ever offered to take that boy's clothes off," River drawled from the corner. "I hope Clara won't be jealous."
"Clara doesn't really get jealous," Jenny said, pushing both her hands down on Corly's side. Well, not that she knew of.
"Why are you helping me?" Corly asked her hoarsely. At least he was still conscious, that boded well.
"Well, you know, people often change when they go through a near-death experience," Jenny said, "My dad changes his whole face. And besides, I can't stand by and let someone die if I can do something about it."
"No, you always have to help everyone," River jibed, returning with a pair of kitchen scissors, "It's one of your few flaws." The man returned from upstairs with a handful of bath towels while Jenny was carefully threading proper surgical thread through a sterile needle, again having swapped the wound with River. She was definitely going to have to give her woollen scarf a gently but vigorous wash later, over a sink because there was no way she was going to let her favourite possession get ruined in a tumble dryer.
"Now, I'm sorry about this, Corly," Jenny said when they had torn his robes apart to reveal the gut shot in all its gruesome glory, "But it's probably going to hurt." It was a good thing she had River there to help, because it most definitely did hurt him, and he kept writhing around. Jenny couldn't blame him, she knew exactly what it was like to get shot. That was how she had died the first time, after all. The worst part was that the bullet from Ordov's sidearm was still buried somewhere in Corly Moss's liver, and they had to resort to enlisting the help of the man whose house they were invading to get him to shine a torch from above. "This reminds me of when I had my eyes gouged out," Jenny commented at one point. Unfortunate they didn't have any anaesthetic, but Corly was just going to have to fight through the pain. He was yelling in enough agony that they knew he was alive without having to check, though.
The only snag in this amateur 'surgery' was Jenny's gammy thumb not being quite as mobile as it needed to be, but she managed well enough. It wasn't like she trusted River to take over. She was still angry at River for killing Ordov. Jenny didn't know how long it took to remove the bullet (which she had to do with her fingers) and then stitch Corly back up again, she supposed she grew very focused and ceased paying attention to the time, but she did not stop until she was done. She didn't think it was a job half bad, either, and was pretty proud of her impromptu surgical skills. Looking at the scar on her thumb knuckle, though, it was nowhere near as neat as Martha Jones' expert stitching.
"What do you think?" Jenny asked River. River shrugged, and frowned.
"I suppose it'll do. I'm not sure you should have been the one to do the stitches though, with your hand the way it is," River nodded at Jenny's bruised hand and Jenny flexed it and winced. She had forgotten her brace on her spaceship and was now suffering the consequences. There were titanium screws holding the bones in her thumb together now.
"Now then, Corly Moss," Jenny addressed him. He was swearing profusely and a little grey, "I'm not entirely sure whether you might need a blood transfusion or not, and we'd definitely better get you some antibiotics as soon as possible… apart from that I think you'll be alright." She smiled. She thought Corly may have smiled, too, but could not be sure.
The man they were imposing on finally cleared his throat and begin to speak, "Now might be a good time to tell me who you are? And how you got here? They're supposed to send word over the radio if any boats or helicopters are coming."
"What is this? Some sort of island?" River asked him.
"It's Scarba, in the Inner Hebrides," he explained, narrowing his eyes and looking between them both, "How did you get here? There's a storm brewing and the whirlpool's been acting up."
"Whirlpool?" Jenny and River exclaimed together. They had both been kneeling down next to the sofa still, a pile of bloody bath towels around them, but River got to her feet at this point.
"The Corryvreckan whirlpool. Keeps boats away from this side of the island. Nobody else lives here."
"What are you, a serial killer on the run?" River asked him, "Why do you need to be out here?"
"How did you get here is a better question," he repeated himself coolly. "I've shown you hospitality, you owe me an explanation. And don't try to play me, I know Time Agents when I see them." River and Jenny exchanged a look, and Jenny stood up very slowly as well. Why did he think Time Agents were looking for him?
"We're not Time Agents, we're just-"
"Freelancers," River finished Jenny's sentence for her, "No loyalty to any sect. We came here by accident, trying to escape from somewhere else. We'll leave as soon as our friend gets here."
"Friend?" the stranger asked, "You've been here half an hour and there hasn't been a 'friend.'"
"No, well, he got himself into a bit of tight spot," River said, "We went on without him. I'm sure he'll catch up."
"Tight spot? Tight spot like what…?"
"I've seen you somewhere before…" Jenny said, squinting at him. She could swear, his identity was on the tip of her tongue, "In a photograph, or something…" He looked at her for a moment, but did not register the same recognition that she did.
"Nothing," said River, "Fell into the sea, that's all."
"The sea is all needles and rocks around the whole island."
"Yes, he might be slightly impaled. He'll sort himself out though. He always does," said River. The stranger made a start, seemed to lose his balance for no apparent reason and shake.
"Jack?" he asked.
"What?" said River.
And then it clicked with Jenny where she had seen this stranger's face before, and she realised exactly what Jack had been doing this entire time. It made her want to kill him. And as luck would have it, that was when he chose to make his dramatic arrival, ramming the door with his and breaking the latch in the process. He was a mess. She spoiled the whole thing by taking the word right out of Jack's mouth.
"Ianto," she said, loud enough that Jack's attempt to whisper the name of his favourite flame was snuffed out. Plus, she was holding a gun on him, she'd whipped her loaded revolver out in a flash and cocked it and pointed it at Jack's head. "You utterly worthless waste of space! I can't believe that you would – that the Singularity – risking everything – so that you could get your end away!"
"I told you to leave! I never asked you to come in the first place!" Jack shouted right back at her. He was desperate to get to Ianto, but he didn't want their reunion to be put off by his ex shooting him in the head. And she definitely would shoot him in the head if it came down to it, she was seething. She hadn't been this angry with him since she'd caught him inside Christina de Souza, perhaps more angry than even that since at least when he'd slept with Christina, her own life hadn't been pointlessly endangered.
"Your whole quest was just about this, wasn't it!? You went to get the Singularity because it can find people, right? Find them anywhere, tell you any information you want in the world! That's why you jumped down after me and grabbed it! Because you didn't want to risk me destroying it so that you couldn't get to him!" Jenny yelled all these realisations. Ianto Jones made to step towards Jack, but Jenny held up a hand at him. "Don't you dare. You have no idea what you've missed being dead."
"Dead?" River asked her, then turned to Jack, "Jack, what's going on?"
"It was Kent," Jack finally explained, "Liam Kent. He told Oswin and Martha and they told me, before I ran off, about his greatest failure and his greatest success. His success 'under the name of Jones.' But he said Esther was his failure, so I thought – his success – and I was right. Kent was obsessed with Torchwood, but Ianto and Esther were the only two dead Torchwood members with bodies still intact. Gwen's still alive, Rex is still alive, Owen and Toshiko's bodies were both destroyed in explosions, and so were the bodies of every other Torchwood agent killed in action and kept in the base. If he went all the way to Washington to resurrect Esther, then the chances were pretty high that he also went to Cardiff to resurrect Ianto."
"He seemed a bit… wrong," said Ianto, "Kent. Whatever you said his name was. Fancied himself Dr Frankenstein, I think."
"Ha, you're lucky the alien technology he was using didn't malfunction like it did with Esther. He tried to bring her back during a thunderstorm and channelled a whole lightning bolt into her corpse, and now she needs to drain electricity from things to survive," Jack explained. He was trying to edge closer to Ianto.
"You stay right there," Jenny said, brandishing the gun. Jack stopped moving.
"Oh come on, don't you think I've suffered enough? I've been locked in a shack being tortured for a week and then I got my legs crushed saving your life and I just got impaled and had to climb out of the sea to get up here! Not to mention when I saved you from falling into the pit!"
"Which only happened because you didn't trust me to get the stupid Singularity in the first place so you triggered the weird self-destruct!"
"You would have destroyed it!"
"Why would I have destroyed it when we needed it to leave!? And all you were trying to do saving me is make up for this stunt!"
"I'm sorry that I'm not indifferent to you and I don't want you to die, Jenny!"
Jenny laughed coldly, "You just don't want to have to deal with my father. I'll tell him about this."
"How old are we? Twelve? Telling on me to daddy? What's he gonna do, huh?"
"Sorry, who's her father? Can someone fill me in? Who are you?" Ianto interrupted, speaking mainly to River, who was sighing and shaking her head and tapping her foot, very impatient with Jack and Jenny's constant sparring.
"I'm River," she said, "This is Jenny. She's the Doctor's daughter." Ianto's jaw dropped.
"The Doctor? The Doctor? His daughter?" Ianto stared at Jack. "Jack, what have you been up to?"
"I… well... what!? She's cute!"
"I will shoot you in the face," Jenny said.
Sarcastically, Ianto looked at her and said, "Yes, how cute. The Doctor lets you go around threatening to shoot people in the face?"
"He does, actually," said Jenny, "Not that it's-"
"What? Any of our business? Just admit it, Jenny, you haven't got a leg to stand on. You're just jealous," said Jack.
"Jealous!?" she exclaimed.
"Yeah, jealous."
"Jealous?"
"You heard me. Jeal-ous. JEALOUS."
"Are you saying," Jenny paused, "That you think I'm jealous?"
"Oh my god!" River shouted, "Shut up! I will shoot both of you in a minute and make a horrible mess of the rug in here. We've already had one near-fatal gunshot victim, we don't need two more. Now, Ianto, is it? Jack's dead ex-boyfriend? These two used to be married for a very short amount of time." Both Jack and Jenny scoffed and claimed their marriage was not real, but River shushed them again. "Then they had a wonderful competition revolving around cheating on each other and Jenny has a new girlfriend and I suppose now Jack has you again. So it's a nice happy ending, isn't it?"
"No," said Jenny, "I could have died today!"
"Jenny. You didn't die today. Get over it. Put the gun down, you're being a baby. We all know Jack's an idiot, you don't need to kill him again to prove it. It won't make you feel better," she said firmly. Jenny clenched her jaw and glowered.
"I'm not putting the gun down," she said, "I'll shut up though." River rolled her eyes.
"Whatever."
"Who's this electric girl you were talking about?" Ianto asked.
"Lightning Girl," said Jenny, breaking her promise to shut up instantly, "We call her the Lightning Girl. She lives down the road from my girlfriend. They hang out all the time."
"Do they?" Jack asked.
"Yes, we have a group chat."
"A group chat? Just you three?"
"No, Sally's in it too, obviously," said Jenny.
"Seriously?" River asked.
"What? It's mainly Sally and Clara's thing, I don't know, they make fun of each other on it," Jenny said. "There are some people who actually like Clara, you know. Anyway, Welsh boy, why are you in hiding on a remote Scottish island?"
"Last I checked everyone in Torchwood was wanted by the government, and everyone thinks I've been dead for years. Didn't think anyone would want to see a corpse walking about the country. Besides, I like it here. It's quiet," Ianto said, "How did you say you found me, again?"
"There's this ancient Time Lord device called the Singularity, it's complicated. It's… where is it?" Jack looked around.
"I've got it," Jenny said, reaching into her bag to retrieve it. Jack made as though to take it off her when she revealed it, but she stepped back. "Oh, no. You're not having it. I'm the Time Lord, I'm going to give it to dad. You've found him now, you don't need it for anything else."
"Yeah, well, it's a device that harnesses the whole power of the time vortex and makes whoever possesses it into a god, more or less," Jack spoke to Ianto, "The Time Lords locked it away because they're all a bunch of egomaniacs who couldn't bear to destroy it, and I went to get it so that I could find you once I heard that you were alive. And I got captured, and River convinced Jenny to come on a rescue mission and I'm very grateful for the fact that she stayed and helped us get the Singularity since the ancient vault recognised her as a biological Time Lord. Although she still hasn't let me say hello to you properly."
"Well we all know what happens when you say hello to people," Jenny muttered.
"Okay here's the thing, Jenny, I love him," Jack said definitively, "I always have. In fact, I'll show you exactly what I came here to do, alright?" And then he fumbled around behind him for a moment.
"What are you doing?" River asked as he dug around, and then produced something in a tiny plastic bag. "My lord, it's like you're a volunteer drug mule."
"Yeah, a drug mule of romance."
"What is that, Jack?" Ianto asked as Jack dropped something into the palm of his hand out of the little bag. Something shiny, and small, and made of white gold.
"Is that an engagement ring!?" Jenny shouted at him.
"Uh-oh…" River muttered.
"You complete-! How long have you had that!? For him!? You didn't have the dignity to get me a ring!" Everyone knew that Jack's lack of getting her a ring was one of her biggest gripes with their 'relationship.'
"Jenny…" River warned.
"You've made it so I've played an active part in you performing some incredibly romantic gesture for someone else when you never did anything remotely romantic for me!? Ever!? And you wonder why – you are a piece of work, Harkness, you do not deserve to have taken his name!"
"Won't you-" River kept trying to speak to her, but Jenny continued to ignore.
"Because I knew him too, the real Captain Jack Harkness, and he-"
"He led a girl on pretending to be straight and then fell in love with me. A boy," Jack said, "And you need to take a look at your hand."
"I – what?" she looked down, but it was too late. That was what River had been trying to notify her of; the Singularity she was holding. It was glowing, bright gold, and she was too emotional to notice. She was sucked out of spacetime clutching the device in one hand and her revolver in the other, without an inkling of where she was going to end up. But really, she would rather be anywhere but there.