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Torchwood Fic: Memory and Time (4/?)
Title: Memory and Time (4/?)
Author: Emma
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, 10th Doctor, Torchwood Three, others
Rating: Starts PG, but hey, it’s got Jack and Ianto in it!
Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
Spoilers: None. This takes place in my Homecoming AU, twelve years after Invincible Summer
Summary: Something is trying to mess with Jack’s time line…
Author’s Note: From now on, POV will alternate between Toshi (every other chapter) and others.
Part one is here; Part two is here; Part three is here
Police stations, Andy reflected with a grim sort of amusement, looked the same everywhere and everywhen. Especially in the areas of town where the relationship between the police and the policed was at best watchful and at worst a fucking mess. Tired-looking furniture, outdated equipment, and unhappy cops fought it out for space in a windowless box of a building that stank of disinfectant and warmed-over curry.
Marcus Allen was an amazingly handsome man, the kind that belonged wrapped around a Jaguar and a blonde in a magazine ad, but he was all cop, and it showed. It was in the eyes. Disillusioned, shrewd, they cut through nonsense without effort. Those cop’s eyes gauged the two men sitting on the other side of the desk, and Andy knew the brain behind them was drawing conclusions. He would have to watch his step with this one.
“So what’s
“You’d be surprised.” Andy took a sip of his tea and nearly gagged; Torchwood had definitely spoiled his tastebuds. “We’re looking for a Thomas Eversole. We think he was involved in a series of violent break-ins last summer in one of our better tourist areas.”
“Tommy Eversole wouldn’t say boo to a penkingese,” Allen said dismissively. “His idea of crime is nicking sweets from the corner shop.”
“That’s as it may be, but we would like to ask him a few questions.” Andy crumpled the paper cup and tossed it in the garbage. “If he wasn’t involved, we can be on our way back home tonight. If he is, well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
“I suppose.” Shoving off with one foot against the side of the desk, Allen sent his chair rolling back to the wall of filing cabinets behind him. “Let’s see here. Tommy’s last permanent address was with his dear old bitch of a mother. Took better care of her pussies than her kids…Arnie, answer my phone, will you? Thanks, mate… but after she went off to the great cattery in the sky he’s bounced from one depressing little bedsit to another all over the
“You’re not coming?”
“Nah. If it turns out the little weasel really did something, bring him here… yeah, Arnie?”
A very young-looking eager puppy of a constable bounced into the office. “That friend of yours from that weird group up in
Andy stood up, holding a hand out for the card. “Sounds like you’re going to have a better afternoon than we will, so I’ll get out of your way.”
“I certainly will. The man can get a table in any restaurant in
“Thanks. We’ll get back to you if something turns up.”
They managed to make an unremarkable exit. As they stepped outside into the dreary early afternoon, Ianto scanned the area, then pointed Andy to a narrow lane running between the station and a dilapidated Victorian factory building. They hurried out of sight just as a tall man in a swinging military coat turned a corner at the other end of the street.
Andy couldn’t help but cackle like a lunatic. “Trust Jack to find the handsomest cop in
“Trust him to find the handsomest alien in
“Allen is not human?”
“Alien as a weevil,” Ianto confirmed. “But with a whole better makeup. Let me see that card. Hang on.”
They materialized in an unintrusive corner of a street whose better days were so far behind it they probably wore cloche hats and rolled stockings. Now it was lined with take-aways, launderettes, charity shops, and cheap cafes. Above them, dinky flats housed recent immigrants, poor students, and the odd pensioner with nowhere else to go.
Andy pointed at one of the buildings. “That one. Second floor.”
They looked around until the found a café whose window tables had a clear view of the building. They ordered food they had no intention of eating – though the coffee was actually decent – and waited.
Evening came and with it the street filled with late shoppers and early drinkers. They paid up and walked out, strolling slowly and keeping an eye on the building. Finally, Eversole emerged. He was a smallish, unremarkable man that no-one would look at twice. He seemed oddly disconnected from everything around him, as if reality was somewhere else and the people he avoided were phantoms.
“Looks high as a kite.”
“No,” Ianto sniffed, to Andy’s mind a bit like a blood hound. “More like… possessed. Come on, Andy.”
They trailed Eversole for nearly two hours, as it grew late and the streets emptied. After a while they entered newer residential area, all concrete blocks and steel piping with no aesthetic pretence. As they turned a corner, the street widened into a small square. In the center a sorry excuse for a playground tried for cheerfulness. Andy had walked a couple of dozen places like this one in his years as a street cop. They were pretty much identical – a bureucrat’s idea of decent housing for the working class.
Ianto tapped Andy on the shoulder and pointed at the two children sitting on the swings. Their heads were close together as they whispered and giggled. The girl already showed traces of the beauty she would grow into, while the boy was a miniature copy of his older self.
Eversole stopped by the chain link fence that separated the playground equipment proper from the rest of the square, then turned back to collapse onto one of the rusty benches lined up with military precision along the walk. Andy and Ianto took cover in the shadow of two buildings that formed an “L” directly across from where their quarry sat.
“What are we going to do?” Andy whispered.
“Maybe you should let me help with that.”
The voice made them both whirl around. Marcus Allen was leaning against a lamp post, hands in pockets, grinning in a way that reminded Andy uncomfortably of Jack.
“How the hell did you know where to find us?” he hissed.
“I didn’t.” Allen joined them. “But I did know where to find Tommy. And there you were.”
“What made you suspect something?”
Allen smirked and gestured towards Ianto. “He’s a great poker player. You? Probably good enough to beat any human, but not me. You spooked when Arnie mentioned Jack’s name. That means one of two things. Either you’re aliens on the run from Torchwood or you are Torchwood, but you don’t want Jack to find out what you’re up to. Which is it?”
“Look, Allen, I’d tell you if I could, but the one thing Jack can’t know in this time is that we exist. It gives me palpitations just to think how many things can go wrong.”
“So. You know Jack, but he doesn’t know you… yet?”
“Allen…”
The alien seemed to come to a decision. “All right. Never mind. I think I see your problem. But exactly what are you doing here?” He held up his hand, stopping Andy before he could get started. “And no, I’m never going to tell Jack anything. That lunch was goodbye. My people are coming for me. I’ll be out of
“That guy,” Andy indicated Eversole, “is Bad Santa.”
“Fuck! You sure?”
“Yes.” Ianto made a chopping-off gesture with one hand. “And we have to get those kids away from him unharmed or some very important things are going to hell in a handbasket. So let’s think of something right now, because he looks about to snap.”
“OK.”
Before they could stop him, Allen strolled out from between the buildings. “Oi, you two! It’s late. Go home!”
The girl muttered something Andy couldn’t hear, but given his experience with the
“Cheeky brat. I’d run you in, except I’d have to deal with your mother in the morning. Come to think of it, I’ll just call her. See what she ways when she finds out you’re out here instead of where she left you.”
Faced with that particular horror, the kids jumped off the swings and zoomed out of the playground. Allen turned to the man on the bench.
“Hey, Tommy, it’s been a long time. Where’ve you been?”
Eversole muttered incoherently, waving his hands about. His eyes were wild with terror. Andy could almost smell it, and he was sure Ianto could. Suddenly Eversole threw back his head and started to howl. Above his head, a rip appeared in mid-air, and a huge black shape started to push through. Its oversized hands grasped at the edges of the hole and shoved, fighting to escape the clinging… whatever it was. The air was filled with the smell of rotting flowers.
Eversole keened in panic and threw himself aside. Andy and Ianto started running towards Allen, who seemed paralyzed by the sight. But as the creature pulled its monstrous body out, Allen raised his hands above his head. Ianto skidded to a halt and pulled Andy back by the collar. Andy tried to free himself, but the sight in front of him stopped him cold.
Light started to gather between Allen’s hands, a blinding white ball that burned into Andy’s retinas. The creature tried to push himself back into the rip, as a spear of light shot from the ball and sealed it shut. The light kept on growing brighter and brighter, until Andy was completely blinded. He heard something like an explosion, but somehow he knew it was happening inside his head. There was a high-pitched whine like an overloading generator, and then everything was dark.
Andy’s eyesight returned slowly. Allen was gone. Eversole was on the ground, unconscious. Above him stood a man in battered trainers, jeans, and a leather jacket. A man he had never met, but whose sardonic grin he had stared at every day for over ten years, in a photograph above the sideboard of the Torchwood Three conference room. Something in his mind refused to accept it. He looked at Ianto and encountered an even deeper shock in his best friend’s face.
“Hey, Tea-Boy. Just like old times. You get into trouble, I get you out.”
Andy had to strain to hear Ianto’s whisper.
“Owen?”
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So is it Owen or not.
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***thud***
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Another great chapter. More soon please?
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Shades of MIB, and plausibly developing the passage of time, and giving Andy a plausible and likeable and useful reason for being, and making the kids work, (not just in the sense of WORKING), and always paying attention to Ianto and Jack's relationship. Please, please, keep it up.
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Owen?
Owen?????
OWEN?????
I love you!!!!
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BTW, I like.
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