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By Earth standards Jack Harkness had been out among the stars two years, seven months, and twelve days. He had yet to run into the Doctor and, if he was honest with himself, he was glad. He had no idea how the Doctor would react to the news of what had happened on Earth, or of Jack's participation in the precursor event.
He had not run into the species the authorities on Earth had named 4-5-6, either. That, he reflected, was sort of a shame because he really wanted to kill whatever remained of them. He was looking for them. He didn't think he could ever stop looking for them, not until he had physically destroyed every last one of them. He knew that law enforcers from all corners of the galaxy were in search of their home nest. The Barquin, as they were officially designated, were under interdict from everyone from the local cops on Sigoun VII to the Shadow Proclamation. But Jack was the only one looking for them with this degree of venom.
Those were his dark thoughts as he sat in the quiet and somewhat elegant passenger lounge at the Dorianus Space Station, awaiting his ship to Arabell where there were rumours of a new drug trade popping up. He had nursed his drink about as long as he could, so he drained it and returned to the bar, asking the attendant 'droid for a refill. In his left peripheral vision, a flash of something familiar captured his attention.
He didn't turn to look directly. He was far too cautious for that. He looked as hard to the left as he could without moving his head. Yes, there it was again. Pink. Charcoal with pink trim. Definitely female. Oh, shit, this isn't good, he thought. He started to move away from the bar and head in the opposite direction but the female in charcoal suit with pink trim was too fast. He felt her hand around his wrist, sighed, and turned to face her.
"I'm out of the Agency," he said, his tone belligerent. "I don't report to your boss anymore. So can we bypass the remember whens and just pretend this never happened?"
The woman, the top of whose head reached almost to his shoulder, smiled brightly. "What's your name these days?" It was almost as if she hadn't heard him at all.
"Why do you need to know?" he countered.
"Oh, come on, be nice. We used to be friends. Remember that time on...."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Oh, JESUS, Thelma, do we have to go through this?"
"Thelma? Where do you get Thelma from?"
"You always had a pseudonym starting with T. I took a guess."
She laughed warmly. "I'm here to find you. The Agency sent me. Don't..." She gripped his wrist tighter. She had a surprising and tenacious hold on him. He stood still. "Seriously, what is your name now? You can call me Tessa. It starts with a T!" She made it sound like a child's joke.
"Captain Jack Harkness. I came by the rank honestly, well, I did eventually." He sat on a nearby bar stool, and Tessa sat beside him. She still had her hand on his wrist. Jack knew he wasn't going to escape her easily, if at all.
"Jack...what happened on Earth? Why did you leave?" she asked, suddenly quite serious. "I'm not trying to hurt you or make anything worse. We got a blip from the early twenty-first and there you were in the middle of it all. We don't have the whole story, but something happened wrong, something went the wrong way. I need to know what happened so I can fix it."
Jack stared at the small woman. Surely she was toying with him. "Fix WHAT?" he demanded. "Bad things happen around me. A bad thing happened. I left so that no one else would have to suffer because of me."
There was a pause, then Tessa spoke softly. "Something happened to you in that mess. Whatever it was, it's my job to fix it. Please, tell me. I can help you. We can do this mission together."
He snorted. "You'll help me? Lady, YOU WERE THERE. When they took my memories. I woke up and you were there. You're not gonna help me. You betrayed me once and that's all you get."
She looked puzzled. "Took your memories? When? Who? How did I betray you? How was I there?"
"Two years' worth." Jack's voice was flat. "Right before I left the Agency. I woke up and found myself in the mindwipe room. In restraints. And it was you in the waiting room. You took me back to my rooms, fed me, and while you were doing I-don't-know-what in the next room I left before you could do this to me." He indicated the hand she still had on his wrist.
Tessa was staring at him. Finally she said, "Mindwipe? They had you in mindwipe? Shit, I didn't know. They said you'd had a seizure. What two years did they take?"
"Why the hell do you care?" Jack was frustrated and confused now. "I remember going on that mission on Rigel, in their 19th dynasty. I remember coming back. Then it's a blank until I came to in those restraints. What do you mean, I had a seizure?"
Tessa looked puzzled. "I wasn't on the Rigel mission. They'd already recalled me from the field by then. I don't remember what you were doing after Rigel. I may not have ever known. I have access to records if you want me to look it up but a full mindwipe can't be undone. I'm sorry."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, her hand steady on his wrist but the atmosphere between them becoming more companionable than adversarial.
Jack heaved a huge sigh and seemed to have made a decision. "What is it you need to fix? And why are you in the field after all this time? I thought the Commander was keeping you in the office near him. Frankly, I thought you were his concubine."
Tessa spluttered. "Me? Doing Commander J'baar? Oh, Jack, you can't imagine how sick that suggestion makes me feel. No, he realized he needed someone to keep him organized, someone with sufficient clearance to put his files in order and type his notes and write memos and prepare mission briefings. And I'm organised. He made a proprietary grab, or some such thing. I'm on this one because I pitched a fit. As soon as I saw you in the middle of things I knew that if he sent anyone else it would be with a restrain and retain order. So long as I was on the mission I could control that kind of thing. So, please, Jack, tell me what happened."
His shoulders slumped. He gazed at the floor for a few minutes, then straightened. His jaw stiffened and for a long time just sat there, staring over Tessa's shoulder. Then he seemed to come to a decision. "I was doing good there. I quit the con game and became a public servant. Can you believe it? Me, doing good things. I was helping twentieth, twenty-first century Earth arm itself for the future. It was... it meant something. I worked with people there..." He sighed and looked briefly towards the ceiling before going on. "I worked with the best people, honest, brilliant, wonderfully special people. I trained them and worked them hard and we did good things. We saved lives, we... and they all died. All but one. And she was pregnant. I couldn't risk her, too. I left her safe, with her husband..."
Tessa interrupted. "Husband? You gave up without a fight?"
Jack smiled somewhat vacantly. "She was that special, really. So was her husband. Are, they still are. They're alive because I left them."
Tessa shook her head gently. "The Bad Boy from Boe has gone all self-sacrificing. Who'da thunk it?"
He scowled. "And look at all the good it did me. Dammit, when I'm a sneak and a cheat, the world is all great and hunky-dory. Then I get the urge to do good for the world and I get my ass kicked from here to the outer planets and back. I give up!"
She released his wrist and stood. "Fine, then. You're giving up. The man who never gave up. The man who pulled my ass out of the Sorian volcanic belt, the one who spent a year linear in a time loop because exiting it would have compromised the mission. You're giving up. I guess I can understand that." She turned her back on him and walked determinedly away from him.
It was less than a full second before he was on his feet and grabbing for her arm. "Wait! Wait, what is your mission? What are you setting right? Why the hell are you going to the twenty-first century?"
Tessa stopped and stood, but did not turn to look at Jack. "My mission? It's to find out what went wrong and fix it. It's just a standard Agency mission. Are you going to let me go about it or are you going to make me restrain and retain?"
Jack kept hold of Tessa's arm. "You aren't going to RR me. You need me. You're rusty in the field and you've never been to the twenty-first."
With an exaggerated sigh, she turned and faced him. "You know as well as I do, my least favorite cousin is on Earth now. I think he's still in his early Prussian costume phase. But I think he's been there long enough to show me the basics."
"Hart? Yeah, he goes by John Hart now. Calls himself a captain, got the title by honest theft. He can't help you. He's drinking his way across the Mediterranean. Sobered up for fifteen minutes, long enough to help me get off planet. Face it, Tessa, you need me."
She relaxed and grinned. "I was hoping you'd see it my way. Okay, then, are you ready to find out who or what we're supposed to save?"
*****
Ten days and three transport holds later, Jack and Tessa were standing on a hilltop in south Wales.
"This is the last place I stood on Earth," he said. "We'll have to backtrack from here."
She looked at the screen of something that might be mistaken for a very current Blackberry telephone unless one were to look closely. "So the pivotal events were the children chanting, someone trying to assassinate you, and the death of your grandson. I really hope that's what it ends up being, Jack. Or at least that whatever the error is turns out to spare him. I mean it," she added hastily when she was the look on his face. "Those aren't empty words, Jack. He was a child. No child should suffer that." When he looked at the sky again, she decided to let it drop. "So from here we go to... what? To that scene. What was the exact date?"
His reply was flat. Tessa shrugged, set her vortex manipulator, grabbed his wrist, and held her breath as they transitioned to a date two years and eight months previous. She followed Jack as he wordlessly lead her to the front of Thames House. She measured distance and found a coffee shop close enough by to monitor events without taking the chance of Jack meeting himself.
She took a small piece of equipment from the pocket of her vest. Once it was placed on the table and she flipped the switch at the top, its screen lit up to show a wave pattern. She got up and purchased two large cups of coffee. The one she put in front of Jack seemed not to interest him, but as the minutes clicked by, he started to tremble and he held it to steady himself.
"I'm sorry," Tessa said. "I wish I could do this without you. I wish I could let you go and change things. But you know the danger in that. I'll do everything I can, Jack. I promise." She smiled at a memory. "Do you remember when your name was... what was it, Stanley? No, you'd never be a Stanley. Sean, then? Sam?"
"Seamus," Jack interrupted. "You're talking about the mission in France, in the eighteenth. I remember that one. Someone went back to keep them from beheading Marie Antoinette. What a shame she had to die. There I was, the dashing and slightly dangerous, rustic Scotsman, and there she was, the lovely and spoiled Queen of France. It was not to be. Sad." He sighed. "You're good, lady. I taught you well. I almost forgot."
"Remember how you almost couldn't escape? And then, once you did, you had to come back to extract me?"
"The Dauphin," he said, remembering. "You wouldn't let us leave until we'd managed to save him and bring him into the fifty-first."
She nodded. "No child should suffer for the sins of his father. I will never let that child's death be permanent. I will find a way, Jack, I promise."
His head sank into his hands and she let him be for a while. After a few hours of drinking coffee, eating muffins, and waiting, Tessa saw a familiar figure exit the building. She grabbed at Jack's wrist, more to keep him from running out to do something to his past self than to comfort him. But Jack grabbed at her hand, holding it tightly as he watched himself, blinded by guilt and sorrow, run down the street and out of sight.
When past Jack was gone, Tessa took the time monitor and checked the readout. She shook her head. Whatever had gone wrong, this wasn't it. "It was earlier," she said, injecting as much hope as she could into the statement. "Let's go back to the attempted assassination." She adjusted the settings on her wrist unit, started to grab for Jack's hand, then stopped, looking thoughtful. "How did your time circuit get fused? Might that be related?'
He grinned, the first genuine grin she'd seen on his face since she'd accosted him on the space station. "Nope. That was the Doctor's doing. A year ago, more actually. He thinks I'm a danger to the time-stream."
Tessa turned her scanner on Jack. "Wow. He may be right. How did this happen?"
"Later," he said. "We have a time anomaly to correct."
She saluted, privately acknowledging that this was the "Captain Jack Harkness" she'd known. Granted, he'd taken quite a reduction in rank to become a mere Captain, but this was her old friend. Her confidence in the mission increased and she smiled, then followed him out the door. They walked away from the direction taken by the contemporary Captain, found a discreet spot in an alley, and shifted into the time-stream.
From a spot across the street from Raold Dahl Plass, hidden behind a dead lamppost and a few trees, they watched the Hub explode and destroy the entire Plass. When she saw the pretty brunette fall from the explosion's impact, she glanced at Jack. He saw the glance and acknowledged it with a nod. "Gwen Cooper. She's -- well, she WAS -- my second in command. Even when I had a full team."
"Pregnant by her husband, I take it?" Tessa snorted. "You are slipping, my friend. You'd never have let such a beauty get away from you before."
A fluttering sound drew their attention skywards to see a large winged shape silhouetted against the city lights. A moment later, before Tessa could comment, Jack drew her attention to the ruins behind the Plass. There she saw a young man in what she was sure had been an expensive suit making his way through the wreckage, keeping a low enough profile that she would have missed him had Jack not already known where to look. "Ianto Jones," he said. "My archivist, admin, domestic caretaker, god of coffee..."
"So that's how you managed to spare Gwen Cooper's virtue. He's not really your type, is he, all suited up and proper? But he certainly has your heart tied up." Tess grinned, then froze when she saw Jack's face fall. "You were hoping he was the pivot if it wasn't the child, weren't you?"
Jack grabbed the scanner out of her hands and began to adjust it. "This isn't the pivot, either," he said flatly.
She gently took the scanner back and read the readout. "For whatever it's worth," she told him, "it's before this, not after. Chances are he'll be there once we correct this."
Jack took a deep breath, then pointed to her wrist unit. She nodded, and began to reset it. A moment later there was emptiness where they had stood previously, and only a slight smell of ozone left behind them.
The betrayal and death of Dr. Rupesh Patanjali proved too late in the timeline. The first time the children stopped was too late. In frustration, Tessa punched in a date several years earlier.
For a few dizzying moments, Jack wondered if they had overshot. The weather was chilly and damp but there were no city lights visible and the only sound was a mournful caw that he recognized as being from a prehistoric flying mammal. True, there was one in twenty-first century Cardiff, but that was in the Hub, underground and in the heart of the city. Just as the thought crossed his mind, he realized what he was seeing.
A darkened warehouse sat partially hidden by a copse of trees. Almost silently, a loading dock door slid open. No human was visible, but a soft voice was imitating the caw of the flying beast. Something clattered onto the dock. Jack turned to Tessa and whispered, "I'd lay odds that was a big block of dark chocolate."
Whatever it was, the giant bat-like creature swooped down and began to poke its beak at the bait. As soon as it (She, Jack corrected in his mind) had backed most of the way into the warehouse, the door came swiftly down and they could hear another door open and close quickly. Jack was grinning. Ianto had caught Myfanway, and he knew that the next thing that would happen is he himself would be drawn in by the bait of the beautiful Pteranodon that the Rift had sent to him. Sent to him complete with an amazing, brilliant, gorgeous man. He swiped at the tear that had leaked from his eye.
Tessa smiled at him. "Good. I'm glad you're still in there. Sorry. This is definitely not the pivot point but I wanted to be sure you were still with me. I followed Jones' timeline for a bit and found this one. I remembered your Pteranodon and put the pieces together. He was a determined little sot, wasn't he?"
"In this time, he still is," Jack corrected. "Okay, I'm back with the program. How much further does it look like we'll need to go? We've passed all the pivot points. Are you sure we don't need to go up there," and he pointed to the sky, "to wipe out the bastards wherever they make their nests?"
Tessa continued to study the screen on her handheld device. "No, the one thing I'm sure of is that it's on Earth. It has to do with the Barquin. You know the Agency and the Interstellar Banned Substance Task Force and about a dozen other agencies have been trying to wipe out the Barquin for centuries, right? If I can wipe them out, or cripple them, in the process of saving your world, I'll get quite the commendation. I might even share some of the reward with you. I could send you and your coffee god on a lovely vacation. Now get that fantasy out of your mind and let's get on with the mission. Fantasy for later."
He turned a wicked grin, with sparkling eyes, on her. "Oh, I can't tell you, Tessa, how long it's been since I've had that satisfying a fantasy without choking on it. Let's go, lady! Onward, into the past! I'm thinking we might want to check out the late nineteen-nineties."
It was a bit disappointing for both that the death of all Jack's co-workers on the eve of the year 2000 was not the relevant pivot point. Nor was the unfortunate death of Diana, the former Princess of Wales, to which Jack now had to be an inadvertent witness to himself being an inadvertent witness. The thought would have made them both laugh had it not been such an ugly moment. The only blips from the nineteen-eighties were minor and involved Jack and a few badly chosen dalliances.
The pair decided to rest for a few days in the nineteen-seventies, mostly because Jack enjoyed the sight of himself in a polyester suit under his greatcoat, as he floated from disco to disco. Tessa, on the other hand, found herself horrified by the music, the dancing, the fashion, and the excess of mind altering substances in the era. While Jack lost himself briefly in memories, she checked to be sure the drug-exploiting Barquin weren't somehow active on Earth at that time. But her scanner insisted the event she needed to correct was still earlier.
After a week of seventies partying and investigation, Tessa brought up to Jack the thought that they might need to somehow stop him from participating in the original trade-off of the first dozen children with the Barquin. When he grinned at the thought, clearly relieved, she vowed to find some way to make it right even if that wasn't the solution. Jack was a better man than he'd ever been when she first knew him. And she'd liked him back before he'd changed. She felt pride for him now. He'd saved her then, more than once. She felt she owed him.
A ping on her scanner made her glance guiltily around the small pub they were sitting in. It was 1972 and less than a month after the bloody events in Northern Ireland on January 30. Any strange sound might make those around her think she was carrying a bomb. No one appeared to have heard her, and the London crowd continued to swirl anonymously around Jack and her.
"We're damn close right now," she said quietly.
"Promise me we can go to China with Nixon," Jack said, and she was unsure if he were serious.
"No, still in the UK," she muttered. "I'm trying to fine tune it right now. Wait. What year did you folks first have contact with the Barquin?"
"1965," he said. "But if I have to go back there it'll kill me."
Tessa considered the possibility of letting him off the hook. She could tell this was going to be hard on him. There were protocols, in the Agency, about letting your partner back out of an assignment without consequences. This seemed like a situation where it might apply.
"When do you want to be while I go, Jack?" she asked softly. "A time and place where you won't run into yourself. Or anyone else. And definitely no one from the Agency."
He told her. She fought back tears and agreed. They chose a time for her to return and retrieve him, then took him back. On a windswept plain in first century Wales, he sank to the ground next to a recently filled-in grave. Tessa may have had doubts, but she decided to trust him not to dig himself up. It seemed to give him comfort to keep himself company as he lay beneath the dirt, alternately dying and reviving, for centuries. He'd forgiven his brother, he said, but he needed to forgive himself. Watching as he did penance for being a bad person seemed to help. She dropped off a supply of food and water and stood a bit away from him.
Twisting dials on her wrist unit, Tessa took herself not to 1965 Scotland, but to 2010 and a tavern in Psiri in Athens. She found the man she was looking for at an outside table, a bottle of strong smelling alcohol in front of him and a cigarette dangling from his lips.
"Those'll kill you," she said, "And I'll dance on your grave."
"Tootsie!" he exclaimed, looking genuinely glad to see her.
"I've never been Tootsie, you goof," she said, pulling over a chair and sitting opposite him. She grabbed the bottle and was amazed at how full it was. "Let's use Tessa for now."
"Close enough to the original," he agreed. "Although why you were named for my father I'll never understand."
She had tipped the bottle up to taste its contents and nearly spilled it all over herself when she couldn't stop the laugh. "So you're going by CAPTAIN HART now?" she asked, awkwardly recovering herself and dabbing at the drops of wine that had escaped onto her jacket.
He grabbed the bottle away from her, took a quick gulp, and thumped it back onto the table. "Yeah, it's as good as any other name and Jack seemed to remember it well enough. I'm getting old, Tess. I'm not pretty anymore. Not even pretty enough to console him for losing the latest."
"He's not losing the latest," she insisted. "Nor the grandson, nor anyone. We had a blip. Surely you were alerted."
He held up his wrist, showing her that his wrist-strap was damaged and deactivated. She saw the scar on his arm and was sorry she'd said anything.
"It works, usually," he explained. "I probably did get an alert. I have it turned off most of the time. Last time I turned it on before finding Jack a way off this heap was to find out what the bit with the kiddies was all about. I recognized Barquin handiwork and decided to hide. Didn't want to cross them and sure as hell didn't want to help them."
"I need your help," she said. "I need you for backup. I was working with Jack because he is at the center of this mess but he couldn't take it anymore. Will you come back to 1965 with me and try to figure out what the hell went wrong?"
Some negotiation was apparently necessary. Her cousin might love her dearly but he, like almost all Time Agents, was cynical and self-centred. Those were necessary traits in an agency like theirs. In the end, he agreed, although the more he thought about it, the more he thought he would regret it.
While they sat in the trees, protected from the hissing rain by an impermeable weather shield, Tessa explained her concern to John. "He might have to go with them. What will happen then? I found him all over this century until nearly the thirtieth, but what if that WAS the problem?"
He snorted. "You worry about too much shit, Tess," he said. "If he does have to go with them, he'll destroy them. You know he will. He'll figure out what they're up to and blow them all up. He's the best person to do it. The kiddies will die but he'll save the galaxy from them. And live to tell the tale. Somewhere. To someone."
"Never see his grandson," she added. "He might appreciate that as a form of justice."
They saw the headlights approaching before they heard the bus engine noise over the clatter of the rain. They watched as Jack stepped out, encouraging the children to get off the bus and walk towards the clearing. A light appeared at the centre of the clearing, and Jack was trying to alternately bully and cajole the children into walking towards it.
"Shit dammit FUCK!" Hart spat. "I just remembered. Jack and I...we're here. I'm down the road a few kilometers at an inn, trying to pinpoint the problem. Jack never came back. I always figured he'd deserted. Maybe..."
Before he could finish the thought, they saw a figure lurking in the trees to their right. Build and shape revealed it as Jack Harkness, wearing clothing suitable for the weather and the time period, but his eyes were younger. His hair was longer, and it struck Tessa that this was her Jack, the one she'd learned from at the Time Academy when he was two classes ahead of her. The one who fell in and out of love with her cousin on a regular basis. The one she felt familial towards. This was Time Agent Jack, then known as... she hunted her memory and finally came up with his name at the time.
"JACOB!" she hissed. The shadowy figure jumped, then saw her. Hart had wisely drawn himself deeply into the shadows. He wasn't going to meet himself here, he was sure, but there would surely be a consequence to his partner seeing him.
Jack/Jacob hurried towards her. "That's ME!" he whispered. "What the FUCK is going on, Tonya? I'm fucking SELLING HUMAN CHILDREN!"
She grabbed his hands to keep him from flying towards his future self. "I'm not sure," she said. "I'm here from a different time stream. I can't say anything; don't want a paradox." Still holding him, she glanced at the scanner she had hooked to her belt. Here it was. Here was the absolute junction. Whatever had twisted time was about to happen if she couldn't stop it.
Suddenly a child broke off from the crowd Torchwood's Jack was herding towards the alien light. He backed off slowly at first, then started to move faster and faster. Torn between worry about what would happen if he went after the boy or what would happen if he left the larger group untended, Jack apparently decided to stay with the group. The child came close to where Jacob, Tessa/Tonya, and the hidden Hart were watching the event. The child stumbled and nearly fell.
Wrenching himself from Tessa's hold, Jacob approached the child. "Hey, kid, it's okay," he said. "We'll keep you safe."
The dials and lights on Tessa's scanner began to turn and twist and flash. This was it. This child was the pivot point. "No!" she said. "Leave him. Don't interfere." She raced forward and slammed into Jacob's body, dropping him to the ground just as a voice from the light said, "Is this all?"
Jack glanced around and spotted the missing child standing, staring at a spot which to Jack seemed empty. "No, let me get that last one," he said blandly. It sounded to Tessa like he had no emotions in that body. She slipped her hand over Jacob's mouth. She noticed John sneaking up on them, a hypo-spray in one hand. A moment later, Jacob was unconscious.
Jack grabbed the last child from where he was rooted to the spot. John and Tessa held a collective breath, hoping Jack wouldn't spot them less than three feet away mostly hidden by the foliage. So intent was Jack on his task that he didn't look anywhere but at the child. "Come on, Clem," he said. "Your friends all went already. We need you to go with them. Can't have you running loose around the countryside in this weather." And he took the child by the shoulder and marched him toward the light. He took the final few steps into the light and disappeared as his friends had.
The light faded and after a few moments of silence, Jack returned to the bus and started its engine. He drove it back the way he had come.
A few moments later, Jacob started to regain consciousness. He glared at John. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" he demanded. "I could have saved that kid."
Tess shook her head and turned his face towards her. "No. He was a time pivot. He had to go with the others. I don't know what mission had you sending them but you had to do it."
"I damn well didn't HAVE to do it!" he fumed. "Do you know who they were? Do you fucking remember the Barquin from your xenosociology classes? We could have destroyed them!"
John brightened. "Hey, I just figured it out. I know why we all crossed paths right now. I know why Jacob ditched me on this assignment. This is too, too perfect. Tess, check the relative date back at agency HQ."
She consulted her scanner, then looked up in shock. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked. "I can't do it. I'll cross myself. Can you handle it? Will you?"
He nodded. "For him? Yeah, I'll do it."
Tessa slipped a larger hypo-spray from her pocket and, before Jacob could object, stabbed it into his neck. John gathered him up and nodded. "Did you get the date they come back?"
She held out her scanner, then pulled it back. Instead she reached for his wrist unit and began resetting switches and correcting items in its readout. "It's got everything you'll need. Everything the agency'll need. Hell, it's got everything anyone could ask for. I recorded the soundwave. Tell the bastards to keep this unit and give you a new one. You've earned it. Tell them I want at least half credit." In response to his scowl she added, "I did the first half of the footwork for you, cuz. And I promised Jack something very special."
John sighed and punched a button on his wrist unit. He and the unconscious Jacob/Jack disappeared.
Tessa gathered up the remaining equipment and punched her own wrist unit. It was a warm sunset when she arrived at the side of the waiting Jack Harkness. As promised, the grave remained undisturbed. "I kept a bunch of animals from burrowing," he told her. "But since I have no memory of any burrowing animals bothering me I think we're okay."
"I doubt any squirrels' descendants are going to remember you fondly, but you're right," she agreed. "I think it's all fixed now. We can check along the way if you want."
"What was the final key?" he asked. "Is it all changed now? Was it just one person?"
"We won't know until we get back," she said carefully. "But let's go watch."
The children stopped just like they had before. Jack saw himself racing to his daughter's house. Shortly thereafter, he saw Ianto driving off in the SUV, and he knew he was going to visit his sister and her children. When Gwen strolled across the Plass, deeply in thought, he jerked slightly. "She's not supposed to be there," he said. "She's supposed to be in England, seeing Clem what's his name. The one who escaped in 1965." Then his eyes clouded as memories adjusted to the corrected timestream. "Got it. But you said I was the center of it all."
"You were," she said. "I just had to stop you from doing something."
"No one stopped me from doing anything," Jack insisted, his brow furrowing as he thought.
Tessa shrugged. "It'll settle; you know what a time slip can be like. Don't overthink it."
When the Hub exploded, the only person climbing through the ruins was Ianto, and he managed to evade capture by simply remaining in the ruins until the shadowy figures disguised as emergency rescue workers left, convinced there were no survivors. From the direction he seemed to be headed, Jack decided he must be heading towards Gwen and Rhys' flat. "I wonder if she knows she's pregnant yet," Jack wondered, grinning. "At least this time Rhys will find out before I do."
Tessa flipped them forward a few days, and they watched as Rhys found the now trashed SUV abandoned in a deserted industrial area not far from Ianto's sister's estate. He repaired it well enough to get it driving, and called Gwen, who joined him a few minutes later. Ianto's sister was behind the wheel of the car that brought her. "That's new," Jack commented. "I wonder where Ianto is."
In answer to the question, another car drove up behind the first. Ianto was arguing with his passenger. "No, you can't get involved, Johnny!" he thundered. Jack cringed. An angry Ianto was a formidable Ianto. "Give it up, go home and watch out for Mica and David. I have a job to do!"
Ianto's sister joined into the argument, and Jack couldn't hide the grin. This was a good family picture. Families that fight like this love each other. Even if they had a hard time showing it.
In the end, Rhys drove off in his car with Gwen and Ianto drove off in the SUV. Johnny tried to follow but Rhys let the SUV pass him almost immediately and planted his car directly in front of Johnny. A few moments later, they took the turn towards the estate, and Johnny obviously had to give up. After a half hour, Rhys' car, with Gwen at the wheel, headed out in the same direction taken by the SUV, and no one seemed to be following her. Tessa pushed a button and they found themselves back at the coffee shop across from Thames House. This time, they saw Jack and Ianto marching purposefully towards the building. Jack almost went to the door to shout a warning, but held himself back. He was relieved when the two men went off in opposite directions at the last minute. Jack pounded up the steps into Thames House, and Ianto headed to a newsstand a short distance away, apparently to keep watch. Jack grinned. "I planted that idea," he said. "Thousands of years ago, while I lay there between life and death, I planted an idea in my own mind that Ianto would be of more use outside of Thames House."
Tessa raised an eyebrow at him, a move that he realized reminded him of himself. "Gods and Demons, Tessa, you really did pick up a lot from me."
"But none of the diseases," she snorted, returning her attention to the scene at Thames House.
It wasn't much longer until they could see people running towards doors that had obviously been locked to keep them in. Jack looked towards where Ianto stood, hand on his ear indicating that he was in communication with someone.
Suddenly, Ianto pulled his headset off and threw it to the ground. Looking around, Jack and Tessa saw everyone wearing a headset doing the same. Some threw their mobile phones to the ground. Dogs in the distance began to howl. Then the sound hit them.
It was horrible. It echoed through the body and shook up vision to the point where seeing triple was almost a relieving normality. The pitch dropped, then raised, then dropped again. And suddenly, the sky was filled with fire. A few moments passed, and the sound stopped. The doors to Thames House came open and all the people who had been trying to escape raced out. Medics, their uniforms identifying them as from UNIT, rushed forward to examine them.
There was a beep from Tessa's wrist unit. "It's me," said John. "I owe you, apparently. We work good, you know? Anyhow, the IBS Task Force was able to trace back to their home planet and there's going to be some changes made. We're heroes, you and me. And Jack, although he won't remember it."
Jack stared at Tessa's wrist for a moment after she acknowledged the communication and shut it off. "There's something you're not telling me," he said softly.
"I don't know for sure," she admitted. "But I think you'll have the chance to find out. You've got a few hours, max, til the paradox resolves and you fade out. Or fade into that guy." She jerked her thumb towards the window, through which they could see Jack Harkness, his towheaded grandson in his arms, joyfully bouncing out of Thames House and racing up to where Ianto was waiting. Introductions seemed to be taking place. Smiles covered all three faces, and when the dark-haired woman Tessa recognized as Jack's daughter joined them, even she had a shadow of a smile fighting to grace her face.
Tess turned back to the Jack at her table. "It wasn't you. Well, not that you. It was you as time agent. You and my cousin. I think he was Percy at the time. You were Jacob. The agency sent you to investigate the same thing I was investigating, but they didn't make the connection. Percy, well, John figured some of it out. Why they took two years' worth of memories, I don't know. I'd think a half hour should have been enough. But perhaps you'd been chasing this paradox for two years. I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't know then that I was the one who sent you back. And if I hadn't had to I wouldn't have. But all those children had to go to the Barquin. I think they were the conduit the agency and the IBS Task Force and who knows who else used to feed in the sound-wave you figured out in paradox timeline. I think this paradox is part of the genuine timeline."
He nodded. He already felt the tug on his reality that would soon have his existence merged with that of his proper counterpart. "It doesn't make me any less resentful, but it's good to know that I lost those years so people I love could be saved." He stood up. "Maybe... maybe it had to happen because I was responsible for all those kids dying." Before Tessa could say anything to contradict him, he said, "I'm going to slip out the back. I want to head to the sea. Watch the waves as I turn back into... into him." Without a backwards glance, he left.
She stared for a few moments at the chaos outside, then had an idea. Slipping around a corner and away from prying eyes she adjusted her wrist unit.
It was steamy and foul smelling inside the blast proof room on the thirteenth floor of Thames House. Even her personal air filter couldn't block the stench. She had to move fast. The sound was reaching a crescendo, and she knew it was only seconds before the Barquin kingpin exploded, taking the entire room with it. She reached blindly for the small child and yanked as gently as she could. The Barquin barely noticed as she pulled its drug source away and pulled the child into her personal blast shield. There was no time to 'port out. She had to hope the shield held.
A few moments after the explosion, coughing and retching, she checked on the bald, nearly dead child. She couldn't tell if it were a boy or a girl. She breathed the relatively clean air from her respirator and started CPR. The child began to cough and wheeze. Over the sounds of the child and of the fallen roof settling around them, she heard boots running in their direction. She ruffled the child's bald head and teleported herself to a different place and time.
The team from UNIT was not expecting any survivors. They were expecting, at best, some body parts they could examine. Instead they found a small, barely breathing, child. As the medics rushed in, one of the man gathered the child into his arms and held him. "What's your name, do you know your name?" he asked.
"Clem," the child whispered. "Clem McDonald. Where is the angel?" He lapsed into unconsciousness but the medic nodded, indicating that he could be saved. His future was unsure but his life was spared. No one asked aloud what they were all thinking: what miracle had this been? They all knew they would likely never find an answer.
*****
Six months later, there was a knock on the door of the construction trailer that stood where the tourist office used to be. Ianto looked up from the plans he was reviewing, and checked the CC monitor. It was an unfamiliar woman, short but pretty, wearing of all things, a pink hardhat. He opened the door carefully. "Can I help you?" he asked blandly.
"I'm looking for Captain Jack Harkness," she said. "Could you tell him Tessa wants to talk to him? Oh, wait, tell him it's Thelma. That might get a laugh."
Ianto was about to ask for more details but Jack's voice came booming from the speaker on the trailer's wall. "Trudy! What the hell brings you here? Coming to visit your poorer relatives? Wait, I'm gonna send someone up for you."
From somewhere behind the barrier that surrounded the center of the Plass came the sound of a construction lift. There were two people on it, and while Tessa couldn't make out the words, she could tell they were bickering. One of them was Gwen Cooper, hugely pregnant and obviously annoyed. The other was a shorter, sandy haired man she didn't recognize. As they drew closer, Tessa could hear that the man was complaining about Gwen having to be accompanied on the lift and wishing she'd work in the trailer and let Ianto do her job.
"Don't tell me you fancy our Ianto, Andy Davidson!" Gwen growled. "Because if you do, then I've misread you for years. Plus you'll have to go through himself to get within a metre of him!"
The discussion would have continued but Gwen reached out a hand to Tessa. "Hi, I'm Gwen Cooper, and this is Andy. He's one of our newest recruits and he thinks he knows everything. I'm on my way to the doctor but Andy'll take you down the lift. Jack tells me you're an old friend of his?" She looked hopefully at Tessa, apparently wanting to hear something Jack hadn't told her.
She knew better than to fall for the bait. Shaking the other woman's hand, she said, "Yes, we go back a ways. I believe you've met my cousin, the one with the disturbing flair for costuming."
Gwen dropped her hand instantly. "I think I know the one," she said, and she turned to Andy, murmuring something about keeping an eye on Tessa. Andy nodded and, to Tessa's surprise, seemed to brighten at the prospect. She gave the man a harder look and decided she'd enjoy his attention.
Gwen strode away, and Andy took Tessa's arm. "Another of Jack Harkness' mysteries, are you? Not a former girlfriend or something, I hope!" They climbed on board the lift and headed into the ruins of the Hub. Just another day at Torchwood, Ianto thought as he returned to his task.