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rosie_ruesTitle: From Swerve of Shore to Bend of Bay (3/5)
Disclaimer: I have no rights over this world or these characters. Shame, really.
Words: 2705
Rating: PG-13ish for a few swears.
Characters: Jack, Jenny, John Hart, various past Torchwood members
Spoilers: Torchwood up to CoE, The Doctor's Daughter
Summary: Meet the new Torchwood London.
One | Two
“Now, before you get your coat tails in a knot,” Dishy Redcoat continues, “I should mention that it would be an awfully bad idea to hop straight to Cardiff. Rift open, timelines fraying and splicing, potential for the end of the world, etc, etc. So, get yourself to London. Little place in Soho, above a little place I’ve sure you remember – banana daiquiris, bartender with hidden tentacles, big kaboom, six months of scrubbing latrines after we got dragged back to the Academy after that little jaunt. If that doesn’t ring a few bells, no need to fret. If you don’t find us, we’ll find you. Clothing is, of course, optional, but I’ve got a sweet little surprise for you, so wear the coat unless you want to make her blush.” Then he winks out, with a little fluttering wave.
“He’s pretty,” Jenny says appreciatively.
“Only on the outside,” the Captain mutters, glowering at the empty space where the hologram had been.
“So, we’re going to London, then?”
“No. Don’t trust him.”
She sighs. “Always the pretty ones. What’s this rift, then?”
“Rift in space and time which runs through the middle of Cardiff. We – my team used to monitor it. Collect what came through.”
“And it’s open?” Jenny squeaks. “An open, critical space-time rift!” She closes her eyes, taking a slow breath and trying to feel the way time is flowing around her. The more she hops around history, the more sensitive she’s getting.
There’s a knot down there, something blackened and twisted and ugly, like a slow shrapnel wound through the flow of time. She’s never felt anything so strongly before, and takes an involuntary step back, swaying into the Captain (Jack, the other man called him. Is it even moral to use his name when he hasn’t offered it to her?)
“You know this place, this London, right?” she says, hanging onto his lapel for balance as space spins by outside them, stars swinging past the curve of the planet. “Where’s the best place to park a spaceship?”
“Don’t get involved with this,” he tells her, voice bleak.
She pokes him in the ribs. “Hello, saving planets, rescuing civilisations, not letting the fabric of space and time get irretrievably fucked up.”
“The Doctor will come.”
“Well, he’d better turn up soon,” she says. “Because if what I can feel down there is Cardiff, he’s almost out of time. Strap yourself in, Captain. I’m taking us to land.”
“Don’t,” he says, with a different note. “They’re only just making official first contact, and it hasn’t been happy. They’ll shoot you down if they see you, and your cloaking device doesn’t work well enough.”
“Nice planet,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. She can see the scars of pollution from orbit, and the blazes of cities full of light.
“Sometimes it is,” he breathes. “Sometimes it’s fucking beautiful.”
“Then we’re definitely going to save it. If I can’t fly down, use the wristband Am I dressed right?”
“It’s London,” he says. “No one would say anything if you weren’t. They’d just avoid sitting next to you on the Tube. Now the English prize the ability to be rude tactfully – unlike the Welsh who like to-”
“Okay, okay,” Jenny says, patting him on the shoulder and grabbing the jar of communication mists out of the drawer in the console. “Now I haven’t met your time agent friend yet, so he probably doesn’t know me. I’ll go in first and gauge whether it’s a trap.”
He takes the jar out of her hand and puts it away again. “Don’t use those. If you have green smoke coming out of your ear, he’ll spot you at once. If there’s trouble, shout and run.”
“Okay,” she says, bouncing on her toes. “Running I can do.”
#
They come to earth in an alley behind a theatre. The sky is overcast and the air smells of burning fossil fuels and rotting rubbish and layer upon layer of sweat and perfume and pheromones. It’s heady, and Jenny shudders from head to toe as she breathes it in.
“Where now?” she whispers. There’s a man asleep between two bins, huddled under flakes of cardboard, and people rushing by the head of the alley, never turning to look.
“Follow me. Just walk as if you know where you’re going, and no one will look twice.”
She slips her arm through his, and they wander out into the street. She lets him steer her through the crowd, too thrilled to worry about where she’s walking. Each new city they visit is a revelation, all the infinite, familiar ways that people create societies. She sees lovers and madmen and clutches of friends, young men who walk as if the world belongs to them and girls in starkly tailored suits and fragile heels. It takes her a while to realise why it seems so very, very alien – there are humans of every type here, but only humans. There’s not a tail or feathered head in sight, unless you count the ubiquitous birdlife. The buildings are grimy and only a few stories high, but their windows gleam. Every surface and post at ground-level is covered in layers of posters, their edges curling like the scales on a butterfly’s wings.
“Cut through the next alley,” the Captain murmurs. “When we come out, the bar is on the other side of the street to the right. I’ll stay in the alley, you just walk past casually. Don’t take any risks.”
“You’re not my dad, you know.”
“He might show up yet. He likes this planet.”
“According to you, everybody likes this planet.”
“What’s not to like?” he protests, pouting a little, but she slips away, strolling across the road. There’s a grubby little alcove beside the bar, with a row of labelled buzzers beside the door. Two are too faded to read, but the third is labelled in precise handwriting: Torchwood London.
That’s a familiar name, so she presses the button, and waits.
A tinny, female voice says, “Yes?”
“Hi,” Jenny says brightly. “You called for repairs.”
“Sorry. You have the wrong address.”
“Torchwood, right? It was a guy who called. Cute accent, kind of flirty. Something to do with, er-” She tries to think of something which transcends time. “A paper jam.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, John,” the woman mutters, and then, a little louder: “Look, we’re sorry for your trouble, but we really don’t need any help. Goodbye.”
Jenny pokes the button again. “No, look, sorry, my boss is a dick. I really need a signature to say I turned up, or he’ll dock my pay.”
The door clicks open. She’s halfway up the uncarpeted stairs before she realises she needs something for them to sign. Oh, well. She’s got a portable chronodetector in her pocket, and she can tell them it’s some gadgety thing and make them sign the screen.
When she gets to the top floor, it’s disappointingly quiet. She follows a short passage past papered over windows, and through a doorway with peeling paint. The office inside is bigger than she expected, long desks heaped with technology that she really doesn’t think should be here. There are two women in the main office, one focussed on a row of computer screens that stretches across the back room, the other behind a neater desk, flicking through a sheaf of documents. There’s the soft sound of voices from another room.
Jenny starts cataloguing immediately, and she’s managed to spot a Judoon scanner, three Artaxian shells and the component parts of a Movellan battle computer before anyone notices her.
The pretty woman at the nearest desk gets up and comes to meet her. “Hello. I’m Lois. Before I sign anything, are we going to be liable for a call-out fee? We really don’t need anything fixing.”
“Jenny,” she offers. “Hey, I’m not the money person, but you guys did call us, so I don’t know what my boss will say. Look, when’s your next service due? If I look over the machine now, then you can push that back a bit and get back some of the cost. That’s the best I can do.”
“Most obliging photocopier engineer I’ve ever met,” the woman at the back of the room says, without looking away from her screens.
Jenny shrugs, trying her most disarming smile (it’s one she learnt from the Captain and it shows a few too many teeth for some species). “Hey, like I said, my boss is a dick. Longer I can stay out the better.”
“Just one problem with that, blondie,” a cheerful voice says from behind her, and she swings round to find herself looking at Agent Pretty, two guns pointing right at her. “I didn’t phone for an engineer. I mean, really, broken photocopiers? What will they try next?”
“You should have seen some of the things Jack fell for,” the woman at the back says, spinning her chair round and walking forward, a scanner in her hands. She’s pretty too, in an intense, intelligent way. They’re all gorgeous, and maybe that explains why the Captain likes this planet so much. Now pretty tech girl pushes her hair back behind her ear and says, “She’s got lots of alien tech on her, but no obvious weapons.”
“Well, we’ll be having all of that then. Shall I shoot her first, or shall I wait?”
“That really isn’t a good idea,” Jenny protested, glancing sideways to see Lois circling her, also with a gun. “I mean, you do realise I have backup, right?”
“Oh, backup, she says. Can we shoot blondie’s backup too? You haven’t let me kill anyone for months.”
“With that little gun?” she scoffs.
“Oh, I’ve got bigger. Much bigger.”
She rolls her eyes. “Compensating for something, are we?”
She can hear footsteps pounding up the stairs already, and she’s not really surprised, because he’s much better at loving people than he is at trusting them. Rolling her eyes, she turns back to Agent Pretty. “Look, do me a favour, okay. If you do shoot him, please try not to get blood on the coat. He’s cranky for days when the coat gets stained.”
“What?” says Tech Girl, her eyes widening, but then the door bursts open and the Captain makes his entrance, coat swirling one way, gun sweeping the other, as he roars, “Jenny!”
“Hi,” she says, waving a little.
“He’s back!” Lois gasps, eyes widening.
Agent Pretty lowers his guns in disgust. “Bloody hell. I should have known.”
“See,” Jenny says to him smugly. “You did call us.”
But the Captain isn’t paying any attention. As Jenny starts to worry about him, he breathes, “Toshiko!”
“Jack,” Tech Girl says, clasping her hands, her expression halfway between hope and heartbreak. “I- I’m not from your timeline. The Rift – it’s merging different timelines, throwing people from one to another, and I ended up here. I’m not your-”
“You’re not dead,” he says. “Where you come from, you didn’t die.”
There are tears running down her cheeks now. “No. Everyone else did.”
He swoops on her then, gathering her close. They both have tears sliding down their cheeks, but neither say anything.
Jenny tiptoes round them, and quietly takes the gun out of Lois’ hand, whispering, “Nasty things, those.”
Behind her, Agent Pretty drawls, “Sorry to break up the reunion, but now you’ve bothered to turn up, we’ve got a lot to do. Rifts to close, fabric of space and time to patch up, the usual.”
“We came as soon as we got your message,” the Captain says.
“We’ve been broadcasting that for two years, Jack,” Toshiko says, stepping back and hurriedly swiping a finger under her eyes. “That’s even longer than we’ve been trying to call the Doctor.”
“He hasn’t come?” the Captain asks, face falling.
“Even Martha can’t get through to him.”
“Well, we’ll just have to save the day without him. Where is Martha?”
“Right here,” a childish voice says. In the doorway to the back room is standing a girl of about twelve. She’s at a gawky age, but Jenny can see the promise of beauty in her stance and the tilt of her head. Once she registers that, she can see the woman she met once before hidden in the face of the child.
“What happened?” the Captain breathes.
“Oh, it’s temporary,” Martha says. “Could be worse. Yesterday, I woke up and I was forty. How are you, Jack? Hey, Jenny!”
“Hey,” says Jenny, beaming. It’s surprisingly nice to meet someone who recognises her.
“But what happened?” demands the Captain. He’s looking stricken again, and, really, where was this outburst of feelings back on Hraktar Somm, where they could have lived in luxury for months if either of them had emoted like this in front of an audience?
“The Rift is reaching out beyond Wales now,” Toshiko says. “The effects are erratic, but it seems to have a particularly strong effect on time travellers.”
“The others?” Jack demands.
“I’m fine,” Agent Pretty announes, waving his wrist in the air. “Isomorphic Regulator in the wrist strap.”
“Sarah Jane’s in much the same state as I am,” Martha explains, perching on the edge of a table. “Donna – Donna’s in UNIT protective custody. They’re keeping her sedated.”
The Captain’s face contorts, and he spins round. Jenny sticks her leg over the doorway, but Toshiko and Martha have grabbed his arms before she needs to trip him.
“Jack, stop!” Toshiko protests. “You can’t help her! We have to fix the Rift! If we close the Rift, everything will stop changing!”
“Fix the Rift,” the Captain says flatly. “How do you propose you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Toshiko snaps. “We have to get closer to even get some readings on what’s going on.”
“We’ll have to go to Cardiff,” Lois says, clearing her throat shyly. “The trains are still running as far as Bristol, so I can arrange tickets.”
“What happens after Bristol?” Jenny asks. For her, Bristol is a solar system, out beyond the Medusa Cascade.
“We don’t really know. Technology doesn’t work very well once you cross the Welsh border. Torchwood Three send couriers when they can, but it’s been a while since anyone made it out with a letter.”
“Gwen’s still going?” the Captain asks, beaming. “Did she name the baby after me?”
“They called her Ffion, after Gwen’s Gran,” says Martha, rolling her eyes. “And she’s fine, last we heard. Right, who fancies a trip to Cardiff?”
“Me,” Jenny says, shivering with delight. She was made for this.
“And who exactly are you?” drawls Agent Pretty, eyeing her with interest. “I mean, you’re kind hot and all that, but I don’t remember inviting you along for the party, and it’s frightfully gauche to gatecrash the end of the world.”
“I’m Jenny,” she says automatically. “And he’s – oh, you know that bit. He travels with me.”
“You travel with me.”
“It’s my ship.”
“Okay, cute. Captain John Hart, just thrilled to meet you. You know, old boy, when I told you that you needed a blonde, I wasn’t expecting anything quite so perky.”
“Well, I’m just surrounded by military men, aren’t I?” she says, grinning at him. “And what are you a captain of?”
He sidles closer. “Anything you want me to captain.”
“Leave her alone,” her Captain says. “She’s seven years old and not human.”
“Eleven now,” Jenny corrects.
Captain Hart doesn’t seem to be deterred, capturing her hand. “When did you get so narrow minded, old boy? So, you look human, smell pretty human-”
“My gene donor was from Gallifrey,” she tells him and he freezes, colour draining from his face. Behind them, Martha snickers.
“You’re a Time Lord,” he breathes, and Toshiko makes a startled noise.
“Oh, not really,” she reassures him. “Haven’t seen my dad since I was twelve hours old.”
“Holy fuck.” He turns to stare at her Captain. “You’ve been running around space and time with an untrained Time Lord?”
“Running’s the word.”
“You always were a crazy, crazy bastard. Well, this changes everything, ladies.”
“Why?” Lois asks.
“Because you’ve now got the faintest hope in hell of being able to put things right,” he says. “He brought us a fucking Time Lord.”
Disclaimer: I have no rights over this world or these characters. Shame, really.
Words: 2705
Rating: PG-13ish for a few swears.
Characters: Jack, Jenny, John Hart, various past Torchwood members
Spoilers: Torchwood up to CoE, The Doctor's Daughter
Summary: Meet the new Torchwood London.
One | Two
“Now, before you get your coat tails in a knot,” Dishy Redcoat continues, “I should mention that it would be an awfully bad idea to hop straight to Cardiff. Rift open, timelines fraying and splicing, potential for the end of the world, etc, etc. So, get yourself to London. Little place in Soho, above a little place I’ve sure you remember – banana daiquiris, bartender with hidden tentacles, big kaboom, six months of scrubbing latrines after we got dragged back to the Academy after that little jaunt. If that doesn’t ring a few bells, no need to fret. If you don’t find us, we’ll find you. Clothing is, of course, optional, but I’ve got a sweet little surprise for you, so wear the coat unless you want to make her blush.” Then he winks out, with a little fluttering wave.
“He’s pretty,” Jenny says appreciatively.
“Only on the outside,” the Captain mutters, glowering at the empty space where the hologram had been.
“So, we’re going to London, then?”
“No. Don’t trust him.”
She sighs. “Always the pretty ones. What’s this rift, then?”
“Rift in space and time which runs through the middle of Cardiff. We – my team used to monitor it. Collect what came through.”
“And it’s open?” Jenny squeaks. “An open, critical space-time rift!” She closes her eyes, taking a slow breath and trying to feel the way time is flowing around her. The more she hops around history, the more sensitive she’s getting.
There’s a knot down there, something blackened and twisted and ugly, like a slow shrapnel wound through the flow of time. She’s never felt anything so strongly before, and takes an involuntary step back, swaying into the Captain (Jack, the other man called him. Is it even moral to use his name when he hasn’t offered it to her?)
“You know this place, this London, right?” she says, hanging onto his lapel for balance as space spins by outside them, stars swinging past the curve of the planet. “Where’s the best place to park a spaceship?”
“Don’t get involved with this,” he tells her, voice bleak.
She pokes him in the ribs. “Hello, saving planets, rescuing civilisations, not letting the fabric of space and time get irretrievably fucked up.”
“The Doctor will come.”
“Well, he’d better turn up soon,” she says. “Because if what I can feel down there is Cardiff, he’s almost out of time. Strap yourself in, Captain. I’m taking us to land.”
“Don’t,” he says, with a different note. “They’re only just making official first contact, and it hasn’t been happy. They’ll shoot you down if they see you, and your cloaking device doesn’t work well enough.”
“Nice planet,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. She can see the scars of pollution from orbit, and the blazes of cities full of light.
“Sometimes it is,” he breathes. “Sometimes it’s fucking beautiful.”
“Then we’re definitely going to save it. If I can’t fly down, use the wristband Am I dressed right?”
“It’s London,” he says. “No one would say anything if you weren’t. They’d just avoid sitting next to you on the Tube. Now the English prize the ability to be rude tactfully – unlike the Welsh who like to-”
“Okay, okay,” Jenny says, patting him on the shoulder and grabbing the jar of communication mists out of the drawer in the console. “Now I haven’t met your time agent friend yet, so he probably doesn’t know me. I’ll go in first and gauge whether it’s a trap.”
He takes the jar out of her hand and puts it away again. “Don’t use those. If you have green smoke coming out of your ear, he’ll spot you at once. If there’s trouble, shout and run.”
“Okay,” she says, bouncing on her toes. “Running I can do.”
They come to earth in an alley behind a theatre. The sky is overcast and the air smells of burning fossil fuels and rotting rubbish and layer upon layer of sweat and perfume and pheromones. It’s heady, and Jenny shudders from head to toe as she breathes it in.
“Where now?” she whispers. There’s a man asleep between two bins, huddled under flakes of cardboard, and people rushing by the head of the alley, never turning to look.
“Follow me. Just walk as if you know where you’re going, and no one will look twice.”
She slips her arm through his, and they wander out into the street. She lets him steer her through the crowd, too thrilled to worry about where she’s walking. Each new city they visit is a revelation, all the infinite, familiar ways that people create societies. She sees lovers and madmen and clutches of friends, young men who walk as if the world belongs to them and girls in starkly tailored suits and fragile heels. It takes her a while to realise why it seems so very, very alien – there are humans of every type here, but only humans. There’s not a tail or feathered head in sight, unless you count the ubiquitous birdlife. The buildings are grimy and only a few stories high, but their windows gleam. Every surface and post at ground-level is covered in layers of posters, their edges curling like the scales on a butterfly’s wings.
“Cut through the next alley,” the Captain murmurs. “When we come out, the bar is on the other side of the street to the right. I’ll stay in the alley, you just walk past casually. Don’t take any risks.”
“You’re not my dad, you know.”
“He might show up yet. He likes this planet.”
“According to you, everybody likes this planet.”
“What’s not to like?” he protests, pouting a little, but she slips away, strolling across the road. There’s a grubby little alcove beside the bar, with a row of labelled buzzers beside the door. Two are too faded to read, but the third is labelled in precise handwriting: Torchwood London.
That’s a familiar name, so she presses the button, and waits.
A tinny, female voice says, “Yes?”
“Hi,” Jenny says brightly. “You called for repairs.”
“Sorry. You have the wrong address.”
“Torchwood, right? It was a guy who called. Cute accent, kind of flirty. Something to do with, er-” She tries to think of something which transcends time. “A paper jam.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, John,” the woman mutters, and then, a little louder: “Look, we’re sorry for your trouble, but we really don’t need any help. Goodbye.”
Jenny pokes the button again. “No, look, sorry, my boss is a dick. I really need a signature to say I turned up, or he’ll dock my pay.”
The door clicks open. She’s halfway up the uncarpeted stairs before she realises she needs something for them to sign. Oh, well. She’s got a portable chronodetector in her pocket, and she can tell them it’s some gadgety thing and make them sign the screen.
When she gets to the top floor, it’s disappointingly quiet. She follows a short passage past papered over windows, and through a doorway with peeling paint. The office inside is bigger than she expected, long desks heaped with technology that she really doesn’t think should be here. There are two women in the main office, one focussed on a row of computer screens that stretches across the back room, the other behind a neater desk, flicking through a sheaf of documents. There’s the soft sound of voices from another room.
Jenny starts cataloguing immediately, and she’s managed to spot a Judoon scanner, three Artaxian shells and the component parts of a Movellan battle computer before anyone notices her.
The pretty woman at the nearest desk gets up and comes to meet her. “Hello. I’m Lois. Before I sign anything, are we going to be liable for a call-out fee? We really don’t need anything fixing.”
“Jenny,” she offers. “Hey, I’m not the money person, but you guys did call us, so I don’t know what my boss will say. Look, when’s your next service due? If I look over the machine now, then you can push that back a bit and get back some of the cost. That’s the best I can do.”
“Most obliging photocopier engineer I’ve ever met,” the woman at the back of the room says, without looking away from her screens.
Jenny shrugs, trying her most disarming smile (it’s one she learnt from the Captain and it shows a few too many teeth for some species). “Hey, like I said, my boss is a dick. Longer I can stay out the better.”
“Just one problem with that, blondie,” a cheerful voice says from behind her, and she swings round to find herself looking at Agent Pretty, two guns pointing right at her. “I didn’t phone for an engineer. I mean, really, broken photocopiers? What will they try next?”
“You should have seen some of the things Jack fell for,” the woman at the back says, spinning her chair round and walking forward, a scanner in her hands. She’s pretty too, in an intense, intelligent way. They’re all gorgeous, and maybe that explains why the Captain likes this planet so much. Now pretty tech girl pushes her hair back behind her ear and says, “She’s got lots of alien tech on her, but no obvious weapons.”
“Well, we’ll be having all of that then. Shall I shoot her first, or shall I wait?”
“That really isn’t a good idea,” Jenny protested, glancing sideways to see Lois circling her, also with a gun. “I mean, you do realise I have backup, right?”
“Oh, backup, she says. Can we shoot blondie’s backup too? You haven’t let me kill anyone for months.”
“With that little gun?” she scoffs.
“Oh, I’ve got bigger. Much bigger.”
She rolls her eyes. “Compensating for something, are we?”
She can hear footsteps pounding up the stairs already, and she’s not really surprised, because he’s much better at loving people than he is at trusting them. Rolling her eyes, she turns back to Agent Pretty. “Look, do me a favour, okay. If you do shoot him, please try not to get blood on the coat. He’s cranky for days when the coat gets stained.”
“What?” says Tech Girl, her eyes widening, but then the door bursts open and the Captain makes his entrance, coat swirling one way, gun sweeping the other, as he roars, “Jenny!”
“Hi,” she says, waving a little.
“He’s back!” Lois gasps, eyes widening.
Agent Pretty lowers his guns in disgust. “Bloody hell. I should have known.”
“See,” Jenny says to him smugly. “You did call us.”
But the Captain isn’t paying any attention. As Jenny starts to worry about him, he breathes, “Toshiko!”
“Jack,” Tech Girl says, clasping her hands, her expression halfway between hope and heartbreak. “I- I’m not from your timeline. The Rift – it’s merging different timelines, throwing people from one to another, and I ended up here. I’m not your-”
“You’re not dead,” he says. “Where you come from, you didn’t die.”
There are tears running down her cheeks now. “No. Everyone else did.”
He swoops on her then, gathering her close. They both have tears sliding down their cheeks, but neither say anything.
Jenny tiptoes round them, and quietly takes the gun out of Lois’ hand, whispering, “Nasty things, those.”
Behind her, Agent Pretty drawls, “Sorry to break up the reunion, but now you’ve bothered to turn up, we’ve got a lot to do. Rifts to close, fabric of space and time to patch up, the usual.”
“We came as soon as we got your message,” the Captain says.
“We’ve been broadcasting that for two years, Jack,” Toshiko says, stepping back and hurriedly swiping a finger under her eyes. “That’s even longer than we’ve been trying to call the Doctor.”
“He hasn’t come?” the Captain asks, face falling.
“Even Martha can’t get through to him.”
“Well, we’ll just have to save the day without him. Where is Martha?”
“Right here,” a childish voice says. In the doorway to the back room is standing a girl of about twelve. She’s at a gawky age, but Jenny can see the promise of beauty in her stance and the tilt of her head. Once she registers that, she can see the woman she met once before hidden in the face of the child.
“What happened?” the Captain breathes.
“Oh, it’s temporary,” Martha says. “Could be worse. Yesterday, I woke up and I was forty. How are you, Jack? Hey, Jenny!”
“Hey,” says Jenny, beaming. It’s surprisingly nice to meet someone who recognises her.
“But what happened?” demands the Captain. He’s looking stricken again, and, really, where was this outburst of feelings back on Hraktar Somm, where they could have lived in luxury for months if either of them had emoted like this in front of an audience?
“The Rift is reaching out beyond Wales now,” Toshiko says. “The effects are erratic, but it seems to have a particularly strong effect on time travellers.”
“The others?” Jack demands.
“I’m fine,” Agent Pretty announes, waving his wrist in the air. “Isomorphic Regulator in the wrist strap.”
“Sarah Jane’s in much the same state as I am,” Martha explains, perching on the edge of a table. “Donna – Donna’s in UNIT protective custody. They’re keeping her sedated.”
The Captain’s face contorts, and he spins round. Jenny sticks her leg over the doorway, but Toshiko and Martha have grabbed his arms before she needs to trip him.
“Jack, stop!” Toshiko protests. “You can’t help her! We have to fix the Rift! If we close the Rift, everything will stop changing!”
“Fix the Rift,” the Captain says flatly. “How do you propose you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Toshiko snaps. “We have to get closer to even get some readings on what’s going on.”
“We’ll have to go to Cardiff,” Lois says, clearing her throat shyly. “The trains are still running as far as Bristol, so I can arrange tickets.”
“What happens after Bristol?” Jenny asks. For her, Bristol is a solar system, out beyond the Medusa Cascade.
“We don’t really know. Technology doesn’t work very well once you cross the Welsh border. Torchwood Three send couriers when they can, but it’s been a while since anyone made it out with a letter.”
“Gwen’s still going?” the Captain asks, beaming. “Did she name the baby after me?”
“They called her Ffion, after Gwen’s Gran,” says Martha, rolling her eyes. “And she’s fine, last we heard. Right, who fancies a trip to Cardiff?”
“Me,” Jenny says, shivering with delight. She was made for this.
“And who exactly are you?” drawls Agent Pretty, eyeing her with interest. “I mean, you’re kind hot and all that, but I don’t remember inviting you along for the party, and it’s frightfully gauche to gatecrash the end of the world.”
“I’m Jenny,” she says automatically. “And he’s – oh, you know that bit. He travels with me.”
“You travel with me.”
“It’s my ship.”
“Okay, cute. Captain John Hart, just thrilled to meet you. You know, old boy, when I told you that you needed a blonde, I wasn’t expecting anything quite so perky.”
“Well, I’m just surrounded by military men, aren’t I?” she says, grinning at him. “And what are you a captain of?”
He sidles closer. “Anything you want me to captain.”
“Leave her alone,” her Captain says. “She’s seven years old and not human.”
“Eleven now,” Jenny corrects.
Captain Hart doesn’t seem to be deterred, capturing her hand. “When did you get so narrow minded, old boy? So, you look human, smell pretty human-”
“My gene donor was from Gallifrey,” she tells him and he freezes, colour draining from his face. Behind them, Martha snickers.
“You’re a Time Lord,” he breathes, and Toshiko makes a startled noise.
“Oh, not really,” she reassures him. “Haven’t seen my dad since I was twelve hours old.”
“Holy fuck.” He turns to stare at her Captain. “You’ve been running around space and time with an untrained Time Lord?”
“Running’s the word.”
“You always were a crazy, crazy bastard. Well, this changes everything, ladies.”
“Why?” Lois asks.
“Because you’ve now got the faintest hope in hell of being able to put things right,” he says. “He brought us a fucking Time Lord.”
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-19 05:49 pm (UTC)“Only on the outside,” the Captain mutters, glowering at the empty space where the hologram had been.
LOL. So true.
Can't remember if I've said this before (I'll risk saying it again!) but I love how much being a Time Lord is instinct for Jenny, particularly that she can feel time. Also, her inventiveness/resourcefulness is pretty fantastic, too!
She can hear footsteps pounding up the stairs already, and she’s not really surprised, because he’s much better at loving people than he is at trusting them.
Lovely commentary on Jack. Also, I love that he kinda slides into protective-mode when John's trying to chat up Jenny.
If, in some future Torchwood series we do learn the name of Gwen's baby, I really, really hope they follow your idea of naming it for Gwen's Gran. (Cause I'll be super-annoyed if it's named for Jack or Ianto.)
And, of course, John! And Lois! And Martha! And TOSH!! ♥
Another great chapter (very exciting, too!). I can't wait to see the next part!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 08:44 pm (UTC)