Chapter Text
‘They grow up so fast.’ No, it’s they grow up without Jack.
That’s the first line of the story, the story of ‘Jack Harkness’ as he weaves through the wet street towards the front door. It’s the door to his daughter’s home – her latest home, to be exact. James and Mary Sangster have taken Alice all over the shot. Last week, it was Arundel, and before that, Taunton, Bishop’s Castle, Hastings, Darvel, and Hexham. For seven years, Jack has chased them all around the UK, but it’s only now they’ve settled for London…
Cardiff would be better. That’s where Torchwood Three is, after all. But if Jack Harkness’ daughter is on Yvonne Hartman’s soil, he has no complaints. Better that she has Torchwood One on her doorstep, rather than none at all –
And especially today.
Knock, knock, knock, the door goes. On the staircase inside sits Alice, wriggling out of her school shoes. Now, I’m going to jump back and forth from her and Jack’s heads a lot today, so just stay with me, but what you need to know about Alice’s head is that it has a seven-year-old’s emptiness. She hears the knocking but has no interest in it – not like her foster parents. They stand hovering in the hallway, lowly whispering, and it’s a good minute or so before James edges up to the door and opens it – still on the safety chain.
“No!” James forces it closed, “Why can’t you just stay away?! Why do you keep having to torment us like this?!”
“If you don’t let me in right now, it’ll be alien squid tormenting you!” A voice behind the door warns.
Alice’s head snaps up. First of all, because of those strange words. Alien squid? What do they mean? Second of all, Alice tunes in because of what that voice sounds like. It’s an American accent – something that she’s only heard on TV. Up until now, Americans didn’t exist.
But this person, who shouldn’t exist, storms through the door. Then, he sees Alice and he… backpedals. Just a step. But enough.
“Alice, get upstairs,” James orders, “now.”
Alice doesn’t want to. This man… she knows who he must be – the man that they’re always running away from. Their ‘stalker’ Mary calls him. Alice has always imagined that he’d look monstrous but… he doesn’t. Alice isn’t very good at estimating ages, but this man looks a lot younger than James and Mary, and a lot cooler. James and Mary are starting to wrinkle around the eyes. The stalker’s brown hair looks silky and his chin looks like Superman’s.
The stalker’s eyes seem softer now. They’re staring, right at Alice, and her reflection fills the emptiness of them.
“Do what your father says, Alice.” He murmurs.
Alice wants to correct him. She wants to shout “James is not my father!” Not because there’s anything wrong with James. He’s okay. Just a bit boring. Only talks about model trains… No, Alice wants to correct their stalker because it just feels wrong, coming from his mouth. There’s even a slight delay when he says the word ‘father.’
As for his instruction: Do what James says. There’s something about the stalker saying it that makes her legs want to do it. So, she climbs up the stairs – on all fours – and squats on the landing. There’s a special position there, right beside an air vent, that if she leans over allows her to listen in on conversations in the dining room. And into the dining room, the adults go.
A lot of the conversation is in rapid whispers, so she only hears half of it and only half of what she does hear is in vocabulary she understands.
“But why are they after Alice?” Mary asks at one point, “You still haven’t explained.”
“Not Alice, the energy inside of her,” the stalker replies, “The Time Vortex. We didn’t realise… She must’ve inherited some of it from me.”
There’s a pause as the stalker seems to take out something. Alice can tell by the chinking sound.
“She needs to wear one of these,” he then says, “Ariana made it. Torchwood tech. Should dampen Alice’s energy readings. Keep any nasty surprises away.”
“Let me see,” James sniffs. Another minute and he laughs, “And for how long is she meant to wear this?”
“The rest of her life! You think a few space squid are all that’ll be interested?”
“Well, she won’t wear it. She’ll refuse. She doesn’t do anything we tell her to,” James grumbles.
“Do you ask nicely?” the stalker drawls.
“Of course I do! What sort of parents do you take us for?!”
“Well, maybe it’s time someone else tries.”
The moment falters. The three adults sit there, spitting a harsh silence through the vent at Alice.
And then a chair interrupts. You can hear it scraping back, making a decision – one of them is going to leave. Alice pushes her face against the vent, trying to make out who it is, but then the stairs start groaning. Alice shoots her head up and tries to scrabble away from the vent, but it’s too late. Mary’s shadow stands over her. This woman, the woman who's not really her mother, eyes the vent, then eyes her daughter.
“Alice,” she eventually swallows, “I want you to come and meet someone.”
The girl might be seven, but that’s still seven years of life experience. That’s enough for her to understand what it means if an adult hangs their head slightly and wrings out their hands. And so, Alice hesitates to get up from the floor. She only gets up when Mary offers a hand, and even then, as Alice is descending the stairs, she feels a nervousness belting her.
Any curiosity she has about the stalker dissipates. She was used to him following them, but this is new territory. An actual conversation, at their dining room table, like one of the family…
When Alice enters the dining room, she expects to be sandwiched between Mary and James – like at every parents' evening at school, when her teachers say, Alice is a very bright and gifted child, but she does have a gob on her. Instead, Mary beckons James to the door.
James hesitates at first, standing rigidly at Alice’s shoulder, an overly protective hand squeezing it. But the stalker’s eyes blast blue warnings. James then scuttles away. The door closes on them. And caged in these four walls: just Alice and the stalker.
He does not hesitate to explain the alien situation, his eyes not moving an inch from Alice’s through each word. Alice is sort of held captive by it. She doesn’t dare look away, nor does she want to. There’s some familiarity in his face that she can’t pinpoint, to start with, and that distracts her, so she only takes in half of his words, and then her mind – in its nervousness – vomits out the other half.
“Who are you?” She soon blurts.
“Just… a family friend,” he says.
“But we run away from you,” Alice argues, examining the way the stalker now avoids her eyes, “You said I in-herry-ted something from you.”
“Inherited.”
“What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“I think it means,” she considers her thoughts, “that you’re my… Daddy…”
It dawned on her just before her questions, that this could be where the familiarity lies. The stalker’s eyes might be so intimidating because they don’t belong on that face. They belong on hers. As does that nose. As does that hair colour, though his is straight, hers is curly.
But if I jump back to Jack’s head... My God... The way Alice has clocked onto that... Gray was eerily sharp too. Her Uncle Gray. Feels weird to say that… Even weirder to see the shadows of Jack’s face within her. Up until now, he’d never seen her. There was always a door separating them. But finally, he sees her, his blood and bones pressed into the shape of a seven-year-old girl.
Of course, Alice isn’t smart enough to read these thoughts. All she sees is the stalker’s straight face and a sequin in his eye.
“She’s a smart one, too,” he muses, “So, you know you must never take this off.”
He holds up a necklace. It is what he was explaining to her.
“Uh huh…”
“Turn around, then.”
Alice hesitates. But then the stalker smiles at her, and that familiarity floats back into her brain – the familiarity of a father she is just meeting. She trusts that smile enough to turn away from it, so she swivels. This time, she hears no chair pushing back. The stalker – her father – has the silence of a cat. And even his shadow stays hidden from Alice, so she only knows that he's moved the minute his hands slip the necklace around her.
“There,” he says, voice thick with smiles, “pretty as a picture.”
And maybe it's the magic – her father said something about this necklace being magic, about it being able to protect her – but Alice feels different with it around her neck. It tingles, and feels like an extra weight, keeping her “grounded.” Mary is always saying Alice will fly away if she's not careful, and that she must stay on the ground.
Alice's father walks to the door.
“Must be off,” he says.
“Will you visit again?” Alice asks.
“Probably not.”
He looks down at his hand, still on the door handle, as if it’s giving him other instructions.
“Your other dad,” he tries again, swallowing, “your… real dad. He won’t allow it.”
The pain in his voice, as he says it, is real. And Alice holds it back again, that urge to correct him. James is not her dad, but the stalker is. And he’s been following her all these years because she belongs to him, but now he’s going away? Giving up? It doesn’t make sense!
Not to Alice, anyway. She may be smart, but still too young to understand some things. And so, the stalker gazes at her, one last look at his daughter, and that’s it.
He stares at her for a long time, the painful goodbye screamed by his eyes. And then he leaves.