Title: Memory and Time (5/?)

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: Yes, I'm making you wait a little for Owen. It's worth it, I promise!

            While everyone else was watching her uncles dematerialize, Toshi was watching the Doctor. His attention was on the Captain. Toshi had always known that the relationship between the Time Lord and her uncle Jack was deeper and more complex than either of them would admit. There was mutual respect tinged with a bit of competitiveness, a comfortable familiarity with each other’s quirks, and a tightly leashed sexual attraction. But at the core there was the unshakeable trust of men who had fought monsters together, and had saved each other's lives a dozen times over.

            On the Doctor’s part, though, there was something else: guilt. He had used the Captain as a weapon more than once, and the Torchwood leader had paid the price. The fact that he had done it cheerfully and without question was even worse. The weight of that perfect faith lay heavily on the Time Lord’s shoulders.

            Toshi wondered if the Doctor knew exactly how much he loved the Captain. Probably not. In some things, the Time Lord was a past master at self-deception.

            He also was constitutionally unable to sit and wait while someone he cared about was in danger. She bet herself a new pair of evening sandals that it would take him less than five minutes before he remembered what her mother had said. She promptly won her bet.

            “You said I had a job to do. What is it?”

            The Torchwood Three boss looked up from the open files in front of her. “Huh?”

            “You said I had a job to do,” he repeated impatiently. “What is it?”

            She gave a heavy sigh and spoke as if to a recalcitrant four-year-old. “You have to find out who’s behind all this. Otherwise they’ll keep coming after him.”

            “It doesn’t work that way,” the Doctor said. “Playing about with time lines tears holes in the fabric of the Universe, so it protects itself by making it almost impossible to do. Trying it twice at the same point in spacetime would create such a boomerang effect that whoever was doing it would wink out of existence between one breath and the next. The TARDIS stopped the attempt on Jack. If Ianto and Andy succeed in protecting Rose, Jack’s time line will be safe.”

            “Couldn’t they try to change other events in his life?”

            “Not really. There are only a few points in a person’s life significant enough to trigger major change if outside pressure is applied. You can change your own time line by simply making a choice, but the Universe makes other people work really hard before they can budge it.”

            “So we’re assuming,” John said, “that the only vulnerable points in Jack’s time line are his loss of Gray and meeting you and Rose Tyler.”

            “I would say so,” Toshi was shocked by the weakness in the Captain’s voice. “Well, that and…”

            “The Time Agency wiping your memory,” John said.

            “I think I’ve just run out of luck,” Jack smiled at the Doctor. “I don’t remember anything about those years, Doc. I don’t know what happened or where.”

            “Oh, you still have some luck left,” John moved to sit next to Jack. “Me. After you left me, I made myself into the Universe’s living expert on Jack Harkness, from what you had for breakfast on the morning of your tenth birthday to the con you ran on the Caipernians that got you the ticket out of Agency space. Between us we probably have enough information to at least narrow the search area. The problem is time.”

            “What do you mean, time?” Gwen asked.

            “We’ll need to correlate huge amounts of data, including our personal memories and all the information in our wrist straps, and then make some extrapolations…”

            “Wild-ass guesses,” interjected the Captain, grinning.

            “Exactly.  You and I can data dump all we know into mainframe using a neural link. She can do the correlations, but intuition takes a different set of cognitive abilities. Mainframe’s neural network is in place, but she hasn’t yet developed those.”

            “I can help with that," TARDIS said. “Teacher and I have been watching mainframe for a while now. Her sentience is dormant, but it’s there. Usually the leap upward is triggered by a catastrophic event and emergence can be quite traumatic. I can guide her and soften the impact.”

            “So what are we waiting for?” Gwen asked.

            “It’s not that simple, Gwen!” John snapped. “AI’s are very fragile things. If we rush into waking up mainframe we could end up with a psychotic child, and just turning her off would not be an option! The very few successful AI’s have awoken by themselves and lived only a few years.”

            “That’s where having me as midwife can be useful,” TARDIS said to John. “I can give her as much time as she needs within the link.  I can also pull the plug if I have to.”

            John seemed to shudder. “Any other possibilities we should consider?”

            “Not really. There might be a surprise or two. Well, don’t look at me like that, Sweet Cheeks! Nothing involving intelligence is ever straightforward.” She shrugged. “Your decision.”

            John and the Captain exchanged a long look. Toshi got the impression that there was some secret between them, something about mainframe that only they knew. Finally, without breaking eye contact, John gestured to TARDIS.

            “Go ahead.”

            She moved to stand between them. Her hands ghosted over their heads and came to rest gently on their shoulders. To those watching, only a few minutes passed, but they felt a noticeable change in the atmosphere of the room. The air grew stale and dry and dust motes settled into a fine covering over the furniture. Toshi could hear the distant whine of the Rift containment field generators as clearly as if she were standing in the engine room. The sound rose in pitch as if something was draining energy directly from the Rift then it gradually returned to its normal rumble.

            The Doctor had been watching the monitors, shifting from one foot to the other in his usual manic fashion. They had been displaying the usual Torchwood screensaver, but suddenly information started scrolling rapidly up, text and graphics wrapping around each other in weirdly organic patterns. Reading it seemed impossibly difficult to Toshi, but the Doctor seemed to follow it without any problem.

            “Stop!” He barked abruptly. “Go back. There.” He turned to Jack with a bemused look. “Only you, Jack. Only you would have tangled with the Ageroi and lived to tell about it.”

            “I did?” The Captain looked into his own monitor. “Well. I’ll be damned in spades. I did. I must have been nuts.”

            “Who are these Ageroi?” Gwen asked.

            “Just about the most dangerous bastards you will ever meet. Sontarans cross the street when they see them coming. Theirs is the only sector that has never had a Dalek eruption.” John started to laugh. “And Jack spent at least two weeks of his life in an Ageroi ship and can’t remember anything about it.”

            “Actually,” Jack said slowly. “I do remember some of it now…”

            The Doctor jumped up. “That’s it. We have to go now. Mr. Hart, I might need some help. Will you accompany me?”

            “I can’t, Doctor. By this time, Jack and I are… well, let’s just say we know each other very well. And don’t really like each other at all. He’s likely to do the absolute opposite of whatever I tell him just to piss me off.”

            “That’s true,” Jack said.

            Gwen straightened up with that look on her face everyone knew to interpret as an executive decision has been made, now hop to it. “Toshiko Gwendolyn, you will go with the Doctor.”

            “No!” The Time Lord  and the Captain bellowed at the same time.

            “Why not?” Gwen said angrily. “My daughter is a Torchwood agent. She knew exactly what she was doing when she signed on the dotted line. God knows I tried as best I could to discourage her. But now, at this moment, she’s the best qualified. In fact, she has been training for this all her life.”

            She gave the Doctor a look that had him looking down at his trainers. “You need someone with the skills John has. My daughter has them. She lacks his experience, but I expect you to supply that. We don’t have time for an argument. Go!”.