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Torchwood Fic: Then and Now (4/6)
Title: Then and Now (4/6)
Author: Emma
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, 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?
Summary: Jack meets the greatest detective of all time – twice.
Author’s Note: After reading Invincible Summer, someone sent me an anonymous email asking me how Jack and Ianto ended up with Sherlock Holmes’s house in
Author’s Note: God knows how this is going to turn out. Dear God, Arthur Conan Doyle is spinning in his grave hard enough to be able to sell electricity back to the grid.
Author’s Note: This takes place between The Siege of Annwfn and The Hour of the Wolf.
Part One is here ; Part Two is here; Part Three is here
Now: The Stradivarius Treasure
Ianto Jones
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this that Jack Harkness is an exhibitionist. No, let me rephrase that: Jack doesn’t believe that there is anything shameful about sex. Our twenty-first century reluctance to dish the intimate dirt over coffee and biscuits honestly bewilders him. So I was not surprised that he insisted I tell this story with all the good bits left in. I don’t suppose it will matter much after several centuries.
*******
It started when Gwen, Andy and John came down with Hexalg flu. Not dangerous, but between the projectile vomiting and the green all-over flush, it was clear they were not going to make any public appearances for a while. Then Tom’s mother died suddenly while on vacation, and he and Martha had to fly out to
After our little adventure in Annwfn, I’d been spending my days training with Teacher. It was a hard slog; I was trying to bend my adult brain around concepts of time and space that were the absolute opposite of what I had internalized through forty plus years as a human being. I needed to process all the information. When Jack came home one night reeking of blood, I informed him I was going back into active duty. The fact that he accepted without a single argument told me how exhausted he really was.
Everything was quiet for a couple of days. All we had to do was chase down Weevils. Gwen, Andy and John had turned a lovely shade of emerald – Jack said it meant that they were past the contagion stage – and were living on liquids and digestive biscuits. Rhys was home keeping up the fiction of Mom being away on business but kept a steady flow of Mrs. Bolton’s home-made meals coming through. John even took time to guide me through basic Vortex mathematics.
Then suddenly Mainframe started to report large energy spikes at random times and places. Jack and I were kept on the run, but we had damn little to show for it. Usually spikes that big meant movement in or out of the Rift, but whatever was doing it left no evidence behind. Police reports showed no surges in the number of missing persons or in unusual sightings reports. John swore Mainframe was sulking because she couldn’t detect any patterns in the residual energy after an event, either in strength or frequency.
The evening of the third day the spikes clustered around an area in
The street was deserted. We could hear music coming from one of the houses at the far end, near
*Can you sense anything?*
*One person. Shallow breath and erratic heartbeat. There seems to be something wrong with his head. His? His. Unconscious?*
Jack’s face twisted. There was a good chance we would find a new inmate for Flat Holm. He would have rather had an Ixen queen in full brooding plumage or a squad of pissed-off Judoon.
We went into the house. It was in the finishing stages; the smell of fresh paint was still strong but there was carpeting underfoot. I tried the light switch by the door and the Florentine chandelier over the staircase came on, casting a soft glow on the body of the man sprawling face down on the steps. There was blood on his hair and the back of his jacket.
Jack knelt over him and palpated the area. *Not too bad. He’s stopped bleeding. Won’t even need stitches. Help me turn him over*
I knelt by the man’s head and cradled it, keeping it immobile as Jack turned him. The sudden blast of recognition and shock rocked me back on my heels.
*Jack?*
*Remember Martha’s dinner party when we were all playing that which-historical-characters-you-would-like-to-have-an-orgy-with game? Well, one of your wishes just came true*
I looked down at the man on my lap. Too many sharp angles and a prominent nose and thin lips kept him from traditional good looks, but even unconscious he was compelling. I ran my fingers down his arm and took his hand in mine. It was large, with a wide palm. There were a few stains and burns on the thin, elegant fingers. I looked up at Jack, mouth hanging open.
*Ianto Jones, meet Sherlock Holmes*
*You’ve met him before* Jack was usually quite open about all the people he had met and… “Like Estelle?”
“No. I met him briefly when he was in his sixties and already retired. He helped me with something. But he talked to me as if he knew me already. He even knew about the Doctor. I have been expecting him for decades, I think.” He stood up. “Let’s get him to the Hub.”
“No, Jack, we can’t. If you met him in the past, he has to have gone back at some point, right?” He nodded. “We have to limit his access to information, especially about Torchwood. His time is full of powerful people who would have loved Yvonne Hartman. A single small slip on his part could change the future of
“You’re right. All right, we’ll take him to our place.”
We hoisted him up and made out way carefully back to the SUV. I sat in the back, still holding Holmes’s head on my lap. Jack contacted the Hub while he drove. John reported that the energy spikes had died down completely.
“Not even a burp. Mainframe is going around in circles.”
“Let’s give her something to do, then. I need you to figure out a way to send someone through the Rift to a specific location without a wrist strap. Consider every resource.” He turned briefly and smiled at me. “Including our resident proto-TARDIS.”
“Any specific reason?”
“We found someone at the site. He still has a lot of history to make, John. We need to find a way to send him home.”
“All right. When you get here...”
“We’re not going back to the Hub. We need to him keep him as isolated as possible. Put me on speaker, will you?” He waited for John’s go-ahead. “Gwen, call
“I’ll do my best to live up to your example, tad.” Gwen’s deadpan answer made Jack snort. “I’ll get Mickey down here too. Do we get to know what this is about?”
“John will fill you in. I’ll call tomorrow.” He ended the call. “How is our guest?”
“Awake. Listening.” I pressed my hand to Holmes’s chest. “No, don’t sit up yet. You got hit on the head. Sudden movement may not be the best idea right now.”
“Where am I?”
“
“What year?” He made an impatient sort of noise when we remained silent. “Gentlemen, I am in a moving vehicle, but I cannot hear either horses or rails. One of you spoke to two different people neither of whom is present. One of them was a woman, yet his words implied she would be in charge of your organization while he was away. It is not difficult to deduce that I have somehow crossed either space or time. You say I am in
“Face it, Ianto, he can think rings around either one of us.” Jack laughed.
“Indeed. Exactly as advertised.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Mr. Holmes, I need to ask a question but I am having trouble finding a way to phrase it without breaking a large number of rules. What year was it…”
“Eighteen ninety-three.”
“Records say that in eighteen ninety-three you were living somewhere else under a different name. What were you doing in
“I will answer that question if you explain who you are and why you would keep records on me.”
"We can do that after we get your wound treated," Jack said. "We're home.”
He maneuvered the SUV into the garage and into its designated spot. I waited until he had turned the engine off, and then helped Holmes sit up. He let Jack help him out of the SUV and held on until he was more or less steady on his feet. He looked around the garage.
“Horseless carriages?”
“These days we call them cars.”
Holmes’s reaction to the lift was only a raised eyebrow and a speculative look. We rode up in silence. It wasn’t until we entered the flat that he spoke again.
“You have the better of me, gentlemen. You seem to know who I am, but I do not know you.”
“I am Captain Jack Harkness and this is my partner Ianto Jones.” Jack ushered him into the living area. “Let’s get you cleaned up and…”
He stopped as he realized Holmes was not listening. Our visitor was staring open-mouthed at the spectacular night time view beyond the French doors.
“Is that…”
“
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Wonderful update.
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(I love that Ianto is the one documenting - like Watson XD)
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I'm sure I can hear Conan Doyle, he's spinning, of course it could be my boiler.
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As for the slash --no comment! :D
Don't mention boilers... our water heater is starting to gasp!
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I just love that Holmes is so calm about moving in TIME. I have the feeling that the Doctor would've loved him!
DW/TW makes me positively giddy at any mention of time-change/alternate universe/alternate reality/paradox/etc. I have sing-songly giggled "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff~" during the newest Star Trek movie a number of times. BTW that movie is totally FTW. Kirk/Spock OTP...
PS: LOVE the last line! I hear epic music going when I read it!
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You're the fifth or sixth person who's told me the movie is great. I was so worried it would turn out to be meh. Now I have plans for the weekend!
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Oh this is so good.
Of course, now it is obvious, Holmes had met Jack before.
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