donutsweeper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
donutsweeper) wrote2009-06-06 10:29 pm
donutsweeper) wrote2009-06-06 10:29 pm
Entry tags:
Break And Brace
Title: Break And Brace
Pairing/Warning/Rating: Torchwood/Doctor Who (classic) crossover, spoilers for DW S3, rated PG
Word Count: 21483
Betas: The wonderifficly saintly![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_medley_ and superawesomesause jadesfire2808
Summary: With the rift unusually active, the Torchwood team struggles to find a pattern in what has come through and determine who or what is behind it.
Autnor's Note: This can be read at the TARDIS Big Bang website in one piece, along with the amazing art made for it, here.
We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch.
John F. Kennedy
"So." Jack leaned in the doorway to the conference room. "Anything blow up yet?"
Gwen gave him a hard look over the piles and piles of rift debris currently taking over the table. "You could help, you know."
Jack held up his hands. "It's not like I've been sitting back, twiddling my thumbs here. I've catalogued over 100 different pieces of alien and future technology in the past four days alone. And that's not counting all the time I've spent out in the field collecting them."
"I know, I know," she muttered, running a hand through her hair and offering him a tired smile. "Sorry. Sorry, it's just been a long couple of weeks."
"Hasn't it just?" Tosh stepped around Jack to enter the room, carrying a bunch of printouts and news clippings. "I'm still running a few more computations, but I haven't been able to pinpoint any reason for this sudden increase in rift activity."
"Bloody good thing it's been mostly junk so far," Owen commented a minute later as he walked in, drying his hands on a towel. "Finished the autopsy on the kendravole. Most likely coming through the rift killed it, or maybe the big old splat when it hit the ground. Either way, I don't think there's anything to worry about. It was completely clean, relatively speaking. There were no viruses or pathogens or little insect hitchhikers to get loose into the native population."
"This whole thing is very odd." Ianto balanced the tray of coffees carefully as he stepped over some of the boxes on the floor of things that had been identified, catalogued, but not yet archived. "The way these things are coming from everywhere."
"And everywhen," Jack added, snagging a coffee as Ianto walked by him.
"I can't find a single reference to a time we've had so many localized rift incidents that were from so many different points of origin." Tosh shifted through her papers, pausing to take her coffee from Ianto. "Thanks. There have been two hundred and fifty-three rift openings that we've managed to track within the past two weeks alone. The items that have slipped through have ranged in size from what is the thirty-first century's equivalent of paperclip to what we believe to be full samurai battle armor dating back to the Kenmu restoration period in Japan. And there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to the era that any of these things come from. So far we've established dates of origination as being from about two thousand years ago to hundreds of thousands of years from now."
Gwen gave a nod of thanks as Ianto placed her coffee on the table before bringing up a map on the plasma. There was a spattering of blue dots over the countryside with a greater and greater number as they approached Cardiff. "The only pattern so far is that everything's crashed here within a twenty kilometer radius of the Hub."
"Which tells us what? The rift's here, isn't it?" Owen said, tossing the towel into the rubbish bin before grabbing his coffee. "Cheers, mate."
"Well, yes. While technically that is true, remember that the last time the rift went haywire even though the epicenter of the chaos was here the cracks and splinters of temporal shifts were seen around the world. Now, it's only happening here."
"Good point, Tosh," Jack said, nodding. "Go on, Gwen."
Gwen clicked a few buttons and the dots changed to various shades of red with a few black ones interspersed. "Using black for as of yet unidentified items this chart shows the year the items traveled from with light pink being the earliest and dark red the oldest. But, as you can see, there is no discernable pattern." With another few clicks the red dots changed to various shades of yellow. "And here we see the identified items' places of origin, the lighter the color signifying the further from Earth they traveled. And again, no pattern."
"Great, so we got a fat load of nothing," Owen complained as he drained his coffee.
Ianto, however, walked up to the plasma. After studying it for a few minutes he turned and asked, "Jack, how many of these were we able to identify because you recognized them?"
Jack frowned, and considered the question. "A fair few I suppose, why?"
"Gwen, how many were catalogued due to information from the archives?" Ianto asked, pondering the map.
"Not that many. Maybe a dozen or so?"
"Ianto?" Jack asked, but Ianto was concentrating on the list so strongly he didn't respond. Jack walked up and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "What are you thinking?"
"It may not amount to anything," Ianto cautioned.
"Which'll be different than where we are now, how?"
"Owen's right, Ianto. My computer simulations can only tell us so much. Any additional data we can plug into the equations would be very helpful." Tosh carefully cleared off a chair by moving the pile of papers on it into an empty box before sitting down.
"Of course I'm right," Owen said, sitting down himself, shoving the three smashed up fifty-first century goggles that had been grouped together on the chair onto the floor.
Ianto looked over at Jack, who nodded and made a go on gesture, and took a deep breath. "You've always been a great resource, Jack. You've been with Torchwood a long time and had a long and varied career in," he smiled a little sheepishly, "other endeavors, shall we say. But even with all your knowledge and skill you're usually only familiar with a fraction of the things that come through the rift, yet this time you managed to identify somewhere between seventy-five and eighty-five percent? Doesn't that seem a bit unusual to you?"
"So what," Gwen interrupted, "Are you suggesting the rift being more active has something to do with Jack? Who he is or where he's been?"
Ianto shrugged. "I don't know, but I do think we should explore that possibility."
"You may be onto something here, Ianto." Tosh reached over and grabbed the plasma's remote from off the table, bringing up the list of rift items collected and began scrolling through it. "There's a big difference between recognizing something, like, oh, an abacus, because you've seen a picture as opposed to knowing what it is because you were actually in ancient China and used one." She brought up a picture of the first bit of rift debris. "This came through fifteen days ago and Jack, you recognized it right away as a credit bar from the 'Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire' practically right away."
"Yeah, about that," Owen said, "Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire? That implies there's a first, second and third, doesn't it? So, when are they? And why'd you waggle your eyebrows like that when said it? Out of all the stories you're constantly telling us you never go into details about those sorts of things."
"Owen," Gwen warned, "This is not the time or the place for that sort of discussion. Go on, Tosh."
"Right. So, Jack, what I was wondering was how exactly it is that you knew all these things? Was it because you saw descriptions in books or data crystals or remembered them from what you've read in the archives or…." Tosh trailed off and took a deep breath, as if she was unsure how to ask the next part of her question.
Jack crossed his arms and looked at his team and weighed his answer for a minute before saying, "For the most part, I was there. I used credit bars like that. I owned a set of goggles similar to the ones over there. I shot plasma rifles like the ones we found, only mine hadn't been flattened by rift travel." He smiled. "I was even bitten by a kendravole once, although it was a baby, not like the full grown one that came through and Owen dissected in the morgue. I have a scar." He started to unbutton his left sleeve before stopping with a quick laugh. "Never mind, since it's just on my arm I suppose you're really not all that interested in seeing it. Now if it were on my hip, then that would be a different story, right?"
"Of course, sir. All the difference in the world since you wouldn't have hesitated, it being an excuse to drop your trousers in public and all."
"You never told us," Gwen said, her tone a cross between hurt and accusatory.
"You knew I wasn't from around here," Jack gave a small shake of his head and huffed softly. "Figuratively, literally, or linearly. All of the above. I never made that a secret about me."
"Anyway," Owen said, "back to the minor problem of Cardiff being bombarded with rift debris. All this stuff comes from places and times you've been then, Jack?"
"A lot of it, yes. But just because that happens to be the case doesn't necessarily mean these things showing up here now has anything to do with me."
"Maybe if you gave us a list of all the places you've been, and when you were there, we might have enough data points to extrapolate some sort of pattern to these incidents?"
"Tosh," Jack said gently, shaking his head. "A list like that? It'll take days to put together. Weeks maybe."
"You sure got around, didn't you, Jack?" Owen asked, not quite hiding a leer.
"It's a wide, wide universe out there, Owen. I had a job that took me to a lot of it. And I," he paused, thinking of the right word, "enjoyed seeing the sights."
"And dabbling I assume, sir," Ianto said with a smile.
Jack laughed. "Oh yes. I dabbled with the best of them."
"Jack!" Gwen gave Jack a horrified glare. "Now is not the time or the place for that."
"True, true." Jack winked at Ianto. "We'll table this discussion until later. Okay," he rubbed his hands together. "So, where were we?"
"Things are falling through the rift and they seem to correlate to places in time and space that you have been. But, we are no closer to figuring why this is, or how it's happening, or anyway of tracing what will come next or when, let alone discovering any way of stopping things from coming through the first place."
"Well, that cleared it right up, didn't it?"
"No need to be a prat, Owen. Tosh was just laying it all out for us. Just ignore him and go on with what you were saying, Tosh."
Tosh gave Gwen a quick smile before continuing. "That's all we have really, I'm afraid. I can tweak some of the parameters in the rift monitoring program to see if we can pin anything else down, but that's a long shot."
"Long shot's better than nothing, thanks, Tosh," Jack said, shooing her on her way. "All right, Gwen, follow up with your contacts in the police, make sure they call us in on any suspicious looking parcels they come across, unexplained refuse piles, or even unusual looking plant pots."
"Got it!" she called out over her shoulder as she headed out of the room.
"Owen, not too much organic material has come through. Are there any other tests you can run, looking for frequencies, radiation levels, anything that might show some sort of tie between them or me?"
Owen shrugged, but got to his feet. "Not much a chance of me finding anything that didn't show up earlier, but I'll give it a shot."
"Thanks," Jack said, waiting for him to leave before turning to Ianto. "So. You really think this has something to do with me?"
"I really do."
"How come no one saw it before today?"
Ianto shrugged. "I had noticed that you seemed to recognize a lot of what we were collecting, but I never really stopped to think of just how many things you had recognized until I was looking at the map today. Besides, it's not like we've had a lot of time for considering the issue. It's been rather busy around here lately."
"That it has, you've practically been living here as a result." Jack walked over and put a hand on Ianto's shoulder. "Sorry about that."
"Not your fault, sir."
"If you're right about all this somehow being connected to me then I am responsible in some way."
"Jack."
Ianto turned, opening his mouth to say something else but Jack just waved it off with a quick, "It's not really the same thing, being connected and being at fault, I know. It's just," Jack sighed. "So far, these rift incidents have been more of an annoyance than anything else, but I want to get to the bottom of them before anyone gets hurt." He headed for the door, but paused, looking at how many things were still strewn randomly around the room and added, almost as an afterthought, "Or the archives get full."
"Could always put some things up on Ebay. Only the stuff that was harmless, innocuous, of course. It'd clear a lot out the archives and maybe even make a little money for the Torchwood coffers. Think of what a great way it would be of shoring up that coffee fund you were always talking about. We could finally purchase some of those more expensive beans you've been dreaming of: Jamaican Blue Mountain, Hacienda la Esmeralda Geisha from Panama, Island of St. Helena Coffee Company, even the extremely rare and ridiculously expensive Indonesian Kopi Luwak coffee. Sell a few trinkets and the £50 needed for 100 grams could be yours in no time at all," Ianto teased.
With a devilish grin on his face and far away look in his eye Jack said, "Coffee made from beans extracted from the droppings of the palm civet, just what I've always wanted."
Ianto cracked his knuckles. "So, should I set us up an account?"
"It's a great idea, but why don't we keep that as a backup plan. Just for now."
"All right, Jack," Ianto said with an exaggerated sigh, "if you insist."
"I do, indeed," Jack said airily as he left.
"Spoilsport!" Ianto retorted.
"I heard that!" Jack shouted back with a quick wave, and walked over to autopsy with Ianto's laughter trailing after him.
"Owen? Anything so far?" Jack leaned against the wall, his arms crossed.
"Not yet, but it's been," Owen looked up from the samples he'd been taking and checked his watch, "a whole five minutes. Maybe if you give me, oh, I don't know, an hour? Then, just maybe, I'd actually be able to run some tests and have a chance to get their results?"
"Are you implying that I'm being unreasonable?" Jack put his hand to his heart and staggered back a few steps, as if mortally wounded.
"Me? No," Owen dragged out the word as he shook his head. "Well, maybe. Just a little."
"Fine. An hour. Far be it for me to be even the slightest bit unreasonable."
"Oh, right. What was I thinking?" Owen gestured to the vials he'd been working on. "Now are you going to badger me some more or can I get back to work?"
"By all means, get back to work. I'm not the type to prevent you from doing your duly appointed duties," Jack said, pushing off the wall and giving Owen a slap on the arse as he walked past. "I'll go see how Gwen's coming with her police inquiries."
"And I bet she'll really appreciate that," Owen muttered as Jack left.
Jack didn't get a chance to check on Gwen. When he was walking past Tosh's work station the rift alarms went off, signaling something else was coming through. He bit back a curse before asking, "What have we got, Tosh?"
"Rift activity." She clicked a few buttons before answering, "It looks like only one thing this time, but it's a bit bigger than the last few things that have come through."
"All right, I'll go and bring it in. Can you feed the coordinates to the SUV?"
"Doing it right now," she said as she typed.
"Thanks, Tosh." Jack turned to the rest of the team. "Ianto, you're with me. The rest of you stay here and see if you can come up with anything while I'm gone."
The conversation between Ianto and Jack in the SUV was practically nonexistent, basically limited to "turn here" and "continue straight for a bit longer, sir" as Ianto directed them to the coordinates Tosh had sent them until Jack asked, "Any guesses on what it'll be this time? A bottle of hypervodka would be too small, a spitfire too large. Now a-"
"On your right," Ianto interrupted, "Tosh's readings pinpoint the source of the rift activity just up ahead, another hundred meters or so."
"Got it," Jack said as they pulled up to a car park, long abandoned and half overgrown with weeds a moment later.
"We're here, Tosh," Ianto said into his earpiece. "But I don't see, oh wait," he trailed off as Jack nudged him and pointed to a mound hidden partially by the shadows. "There it is. We'll check it out and send the scans back to you in a few minutes."
"Only the one thing, just like she said, but," Jack reached over and grabbed Ianto's arm to prevent him from getting out of the car. "The initial scans come back as it being organic. Even though everything else has been clean, doesn't necessarily mean this one is. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea if I take a look alone and get some more readings, just to be on the safe side."
Ianto considered Jack's suggestion for a minute and then nodded. "Not a bad idea at all. Take the kit and make sure you keep your radio on. After initial tests, if it all comes back clean, I'll help you with containing the site."
Jack opened the door and gave a sloppy salute before getting out. He dug into his coat and slipped on his earpiece and gave it a tap to activate it. "Reading me all right, Ianto?"
"Loud and clear, Jack."
Slowly, Jack walked across the car pack, his coat billowing in the wind. "Whatever it is, it hasn't been here that long, there's only a fine layer of dust and pollen on it." Jack took a sweeping look of the car park. "Good thing about this place being so empty. There are no witnesses to worry about."
"Since when has Torchwood worried about witnesses?" Ianto's soft laugh could be barely heard over the radio. "You know for a secret government agency we don't really go out of our way to make sure we keep a low profile."
"Well, when you look as good as me," Jack started to joke when his scanner beeped interrupting him. "Damn it, scans say it registers as human. We have our first fatality here; you'd better let the others know."
"Got it," Ianto replied. "Switching frequencies now, back in a second."
Jack grunted his assent, busy studying the readings. The scan of the corpse and the immediate area didn't show any thing that might be dangerous to the team, in fact everything so far had come back negative across the board. He walked up to the body to get a better look; who knew, maybe the poor bastard had been dead for years before being pulled through the rift? Unlikely, but possible.
He approached cautiously, pulling out his camera to preserve the scene. He took some wide shots of the entire car park, panning the camera slowly across before zooming in on the body. It was in a heap, like a pile of laundry that had been dumped straight out of the hamper. The clothing had not survived the trip through the rift all that well, badly torn and sporting burn marks, therefore giving no clues as to the planet or time of origin. The victim was male, judging by the hair and overall build. The face wasn't visible, but in general, from what Jack could see the victim wasn't terribly young or all that old, mostly likely whatever accounted for middle aged where ever he came from.
Squatting down, filming with one hand he reached out with the other and grabbed the jacket and gave it a strong tug. The body uncurled, giving Jack a good look at its face. He dropped the camera in surprise, took several steps back and cursed loudly.
"Jack," Ianto called over the radio, "Owen said that the..." Ianto trailed off when Jack gave no response. "Jack?"
Jack didn't answer. He just stood there, completely frozen, staring at the body.
"Jack? What's wrong?" When there was still no reply, he added, "Talk to me, Jack," sounding a bit worried.
Scrubbing a hand across his face, Jack cleared his throat and activated his radio. "It's safe to come out." He swallowed audibly. "And there's, there's something you really need to see."
Complying quickly Ianto hopped out of the SUV and was within a few steps of Jack before he stopped with a sharp, "Oh my god, Jack," when he saw the body.
"Yeah," Jack said, wryly. "Pretty much my reaction exactly."
"But, Jack." Ianto couldn't cover the shock in his voice. "It's, he's you."
Jack swallowed roughly. "Yeah. Yeah, he is."
They stood in silence for a few minutes staring at the body. "So, what does this mean? Will he," Ianto made a vague, dismissive gesture, "You know, like you do?"
Jack leaned forward a bit to examine the dead man a bit better. "He looks like an older version of me. So, yeah, probably. No idea how long it'll take though. I assume going through the rift would cause a lot of trauma."
"Not to mention the landing."
"Ah, yes. That too. Good point."
Ianto stepped forward. "We really shouldn't leave him out here. Torchwood could do without the unwanted attraction of a reanimating corpse."
At that Jack swept his eyes over the car park again. "I suppose we've been lucky with me so far on that front. Although," he started to say, bringing up his scanner again, "I wonder. I have the strangest sensation of-" but he was interrupted when the dead version of himself came to life with a loud gasp.
"Steady, steady." Ianto got down on his haunches, next to the reviving man. "It's all right, I've got you. You're all right."
Coming alive and awake in one fell swoop, he rolled to his feet, taking a defensive stance against Jack and Ianto. "What happened?" he shouted, "Where am I?" then he looked, really looked at Ianto and Jack and in a much smaller voice asked, "When am I?"
"You fell through the rift. You're on Earth," Ianto answered softly, as calmly as possible. "Wales, or Cardiff to be more specific. And the year is 2008."
"2008," the other Jack said, hunching his shoulders as if to make himself a smaller target. Despite looking drawn and exhausted, his face was carefully blank.
"When are you from? Where-"
"Ianto," Jack interrupted quickly. "No, don't ask." He looked over at his other self. "And don't you even think about telling him anything."
"I wasn't going to," the other Jack sighed tiredly. "I know better than that."
"We'd better get you back to the Hub. Ianto, help him up. The sooner we get out of here, the better."
Ianto reached out slowly, the other Jack skittishly jerking away for a minute before giving himself some sort of mental shake and allowing the helping hand. "Sorry," he murmured as Ianto helped him to his feet. "The rift. I'm a little," he waved his other hand in a shaky, flittery way.
"It's understandable." Ianto supported much of the other man's weight. "Bit of a rough patch, this is."
Jack bounded to his feet and strode ahead of them to the SUV, calling the Hub on the radio on his way. "Owen? I'll need you to meet us when we come in."
"I'm preparing for the autopsy now, Jack."
"No, forget that. There's no need."
"No need? What do you mean, no need?"
"It's too hard to explain over the comm, just be waiting for us. Oh, and Gwen and Tosh will need to be there too."
There was a slight scrabble of conversation back at the Hub before Owen got back on to say, "Tosh says all rift activity's stopped dead. It's just gone, like nothing ever went wrong in the first place."
"Can't say I'm surprised to hear that."
"What? Why?"
"Never mind. It's just a theory. I'll explain later. Make sure you're there when we pull in, Owen. Jack out." He opened the door to make it easier for Ianto to help the other Jack inside and then slipped behind the wheel. Using the rearview mirror he looked his other self in the eye. "We're in for it now, aren't we?" The other Jack grimaced slightly and shrugged.
"Jack?" Ianto asked, looking back and forth between the two men.
"We'll figure this out," Jack said as he started up the car. "We have to."
Ianto nodded and turned to the rear seats to address their passenger as Jack pulled away from the car park to drive them home. "Are you all right? We'll be back at the Hub in a few minutes and I can get you anything you need."
Keeping his eyes on the floor, the other Jack smiled sadly at that. "Change of clothes would be nice," he said, fingering what was left of his trousers after his trip through the rift. "These are about done in."
"Not a problem. I'm sure you can borrow something of Jack's. It would fit you, wouldn't it?" When, even after a few minutes, there was no answer from the other Jack, Ianto shifted back into his seat and buckled his seatbelt. "Never took you as the quiet sort, Jack. Sir. You, Jack, I mean, my current boss Jack, Jack." He ran a hand over his face. "This is going to get confusing."
"You mean it's not already?" Jack joked as he switched lanes, approaching the turn off for the Hub.
Chuckling, Ianto continued, "We can't have two Jack Harknesses running around. And most of the qualifiers are just ridiculous: future Jack, older Jack, rift Jack, current Jack, Captain Jack, leader Jack, now Jack... Wait, which one of you is older?"
"I am," the Jack in the backseat answered with quiet certainty.
"We need to figure out this name situation before we get back to the Hub, god knows what sort of names Owen might think up for the two of you. Any suggestions?"
The two Jacks exchanged a look. "The last alias I used was Captain James Harper," Jack said softly after thinking about it for a moment. "And I suppose you could say it was under similar circumstances as these, oddly enough."
"James Harper… from the 71st squadron?" The other Jack gave a tired smile at the nod of affirmation. "That could work."
"Similar circumstances? What do you mean? How?"
"Time slip through the rift." Jack's eyebrows raised. "Tosh did check, didn't she? We're certain that there's no way this is Bilis playing his games with us again?"
"No, no, Jack. It's not Bilis. It can't be." Ianto reached out and laid a hand on Jack's arm. "You killed Abaddon. We don't know what happened to Bilis, but even if he isn't dead he would never risk coming back after us again."
Jack nodded, but he didn't look terribly convinced.
Speaking up from the back seat, 'James' said, "It's not Bilis. Or at least I don't think so. It felt completely different, going through the rift this time, I mean."
"Tosh's report said she hadn't even realized you two had crossed into 1941 until suddenly there were people everywhere. This time, it looked a little more… noteworthy." Ianto winced at his wording choice when he saw James shudder in response.
"I think that would be putting it mildly," Jack said dryly.
The rest of the ride to the Hub was made in a tense silence; as Jack drove he gripped the steering so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Ianto spent the ride typing up notes based on the readings they had taken while shooting concerned glances into the back seat while James stared out the window, worrying his bottom lip.
onto part two
Pairing/Warning/Rating: Torchwood/Doctor Who (classic) crossover, spoilers for DW S3, rated PG
Word Count: 21483
Betas: The wonderifficly saintly
_medley_ and superawesomesause jadesfire2808Summary: With the rift unusually active, the Torchwood team struggles to find a pattern in what has come through and determine who or what is behind it.
Autnor's Note: This can be read at the TARDIS Big Bang website in one piece, along with the amazing art made for it, here.
John F. Kennedy
"So." Jack leaned in the doorway to the conference room. "Anything blow up yet?"
Gwen gave him a hard look over the piles and piles of rift debris currently taking over the table. "You could help, you know."
Jack held up his hands. "It's not like I've been sitting back, twiddling my thumbs here. I've catalogued over 100 different pieces of alien and future technology in the past four days alone. And that's not counting all the time I've spent out in the field collecting them."
"I know, I know," she muttered, running a hand through her hair and offering him a tired smile. "Sorry. Sorry, it's just been a long couple of weeks."
"Hasn't it just?" Tosh stepped around Jack to enter the room, carrying a bunch of printouts and news clippings. "I'm still running a few more computations, but I haven't been able to pinpoint any reason for this sudden increase in rift activity."
"Bloody good thing it's been mostly junk so far," Owen commented a minute later as he walked in, drying his hands on a towel. "Finished the autopsy on the kendravole. Most likely coming through the rift killed it, or maybe the big old splat when it hit the ground. Either way, I don't think there's anything to worry about. It was completely clean, relatively speaking. There were no viruses or pathogens or little insect hitchhikers to get loose into the native population."
"This whole thing is very odd." Ianto balanced the tray of coffees carefully as he stepped over some of the boxes on the floor of things that had been identified, catalogued, but not yet archived. "The way these things are coming from everywhere."
"And everywhen," Jack added, snagging a coffee as Ianto walked by him.
"I can't find a single reference to a time we've had so many localized rift incidents that were from so many different points of origin." Tosh shifted through her papers, pausing to take her coffee from Ianto. "Thanks. There have been two hundred and fifty-three rift openings that we've managed to track within the past two weeks alone. The items that have slipped through have ranged in size from what is the thirty-first century's equivalent of paperclip to what we believe to be full samurai battle armor dating back to the Kenmu restoration period in Japan. And there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to the era that any of these things come from. So far we've established dates of origination as being from about two thousand years ago to hundreds of thousands of years from now."
Gwen gave a nod of thanks as Ianto placed her coffee on the table before bringing up a map on the plasma. There was a spattering of blue dots over the countryside with a greater and greater number as they approached Cardiff. "The only pattern so far is that everything's crashed here within a twenty kilometer radius of the Hub."
"Which tells us what? The rift's here, isn't it?" Owen said, tossing the towel into the rubbish bin before grabbing his coffee. "Cheers, mate."
"Well, yes. While technically that is true, remember that the last time the rift went haywire even though the epicenter of the chaos was here the cracks and splinters of temporal shifts were seen around the world. Now, it's only happening here."
"Good point, Tosh," Jack said, nodding. "Go on, Gwen."
Gwen clicked a few buttons and the dots changed to various shades of red with a few black ones interspersed. "Using black for as of yet unidentified items this chart shows the year the items traveled from with light pink being the earliest and dark red the oldest. But, as you can see, there is no discernable pattern." With another few clicks the red dots changed to various shades of yellow. "And here we see the identified items' places of origin, the lighter the color signifying the further from Earth they traveled. And again, no pattern."
"Great, so we got a fat load of nothing," Owen complained as he drained his coffee.
Ianto, however, walked up to the plasma. After studying it for a few minutes he turned and asked, "Jack, how many of these were we able to identify because you recognized them?"
Jack frowned, and considered the question. "A fair few I suppose, why?"
"Gwen, how many were catalogued due to information from the archives?" Ianto asked, pondering the map.
"Not that many. Maybe a dozen or so?"
"Ianto?" Jack asked, but Ianto was concentrating on the list so strongly he didn't respond. Jack walked up and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "What are you thinking?"
"It may not amount to anything," Ianto cautioned.
"Which'll be different than where we are now, how?"
"Owen's right, Ianto. My computer simulations can only tell us so much. Any additional data we can plug into the equations would be very helpful." Tosh carefully cleared off a chair by moving the pile of papers on it into an empty box before sitting down.
"Of course I'm right," Owen said, sitting down himself, shoving the three smashed up fifty-first century goggles that had been grouped together on the chair onto the floor.
Ianto looked over at Jack, who nodded and made a go on gesture, and took a deep breath. "You've always been a great resource, Jack. You've been with Torchwood a long time and had a long and varied career in," he smiled a little sheepishly, "other endeavors, shall we say. But even with all your knowledge and skill you're usually only familiar with a fraction of the things that come through the rift, yet this time you managed to identify somewhere between seventy-five and eighty-five percent? Doesn't that seem a bit unusual to you?"
"So what," Gwen interrupted, "Are you suggesting the rift being more active has something to do with Jack? Who he is or where he's been?"
Ianto shrugged. "I don't know, but I do think we should explore that possibility."
"You may be onto something here, Ianto." Tosh reached over and grabbed the plasma's remote from off the table, bringing up the list of rift items collected and began scrolling through it. "There's a big difference between recognizing something, like, oh, an abacus, because you've seen a picture as opposed to knowing what it is because you were actually in ancient China and used one." She brought up a picture of the first bit of rift debris. "This came through fifteen days ago and Jack, you recognized it right away as a credit bar from the 'Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire' practically right away."
"Yeah, about that," Owen said, "Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire? That implies there's a first, second and third, doesn't it? So, when are they? And why'd you waggle your eyebrows like that when said it? Out of all the stories you're constantly telling us you never go into details about those sorts of things."
"Owen," Gwen warned, "This is not the time or the place for that sort of discussion. Go on, Tosh."
"Right. So, Jack, what I was wondering was how exactly it is that you knew all these things? Was it because you saw descriptions in books or data crystals or remembered them from what you've read in the archives or…." Tosh trailed off and took a deep breath, as if she was unsure how to ask the next part of her question.
Jack crossed his arms and looked at his team and weighed his answer for a minute before saying, "For the most part, I was there. I used credit bars like that. I owned a set of goggles similar to the ones over there. I shot plasma rifles like the ones we found, only mine hadn't been flattened by rift travel." He smiled. "I was even bitten by a kendravole once, although it was a baby, not like the full grown one that came through and Owen dissected in the morgue. I have a scar." He started to unbutton his left sleeve before stopping with a quick laugh. "Never mind, since it's just on my arm I suppose you're really not all that interested in seeing it. Now if it were on my hip, then that would be a different story, right?"
"Of course, sir. All the difference in the world since you wouldn't have hesitated, it being an excuse to drop your trousers in public and all."
"You never told us," Gwen said, her tone a cross between hurt and accusatory.
"You knew I wasn't from around here," Jack gave a small shake of his head and huffed softly. "Figuratively, literally, or linearly. All of the above. I never made that a secret about me."
"Anyway," Owen said, "back to the minor problem of Cardiff being bombarded with rift debris. All this stuff comes from places and times you've been then, Jack?"
"A lot of it, yes. But just because that happens to be the case doesn't necessarily mean these things showing up here now has anything to do with me."
"Maybe if you gave us a list of all the places you've been, and when you were there, we might have enough data points to extrapolate some sort of pattern to these incidents?"
"Tosh," Jack said gently, shaking his head. "A list like that? It'll take days to put together. Weeks maybe."
"You sure got around, didn't you, Jack?" Owen asked, not quite hiding a leer.
"It's a wide, wide universe out there, Owen. I had a job that took me to a lot of it. And I," he paused, thinking of the right word, "enjoyed seeing the sights."
"And dabbling I assume, sir," Ianto said with a smile.
Jack laughed. "Oh yes. I dabbled with the best of them."
"Jack!" Gwen gave Jack a horrified glare. "Now is not the time or the place for that."
"True, true." Jack winked at Ianto. "We'll table this discussion until later. Okay," he rubbed his hands together. "So, where were we?"
"Things are falling through the rift and they seem to correlate to places in time and space that you have been. But, we are no closer to figuring why this is, or how it's happening, or anyway of tracing what will come next or when, let alone discovering any way of stopping things from coming through the first place."
"Well, that cleared it right up, didn't it?"
"No need to be a prat, Owen. Tosh was just laying it all out for us. Just ignore him and go on with what you were saying, Tosh."
Tosh gave Gwen a quick smile before continuing. "That's all we have really, I'm afraid. I can tweak some of the parameters in the rift monitoring program to see if we can pin anything else down, but that's a long shot."
"Long shot's better than nothing, thanks, Tosh," Jack said, shooing her on her way. "All right, Gwen, follow up with your contacts in the police, make sure they call us in on any suspicious looking parcels they come across, unexplained refuse piles, or even unusual looking plant pots."
"Got it!" she called out over her shoulder as she headed out of the room.
"Owen, not too much organic material has come through. Are there any other tests you can run, looking for frequencies, radiation levels, anything that might show some sort of tie between them or me?"
Owen shrugged, but got to his feet. "Not much a chance of me finding anything that didn't show up earlier, but I'll give it a shot."
"Thanks," Jack said, waiting for him to leave before turning to Ianto. "So. You really think this has something to do with me?"
"I really do."
"How come no one saw it before today?"
Ianto shrugged. "I had noticed that you seemed to recognize a lot of what we were collecting, but I never really stopped to think of just how many things you had recognized until I was looking at the map today. Besides, it's not like we've had a lot of time for considering the issue. It's been rather busy around here lately."
"That it has, you've practically been living here as a result." Jack walked over and put a hand on Ianto's shoulder. "Sorry about that."
"Not your fault, sir."
"If you're right about all this somehow being connected to me then I am responsible in some way."
"Jack."
Ianto turned, opening his mouth to say something else but Jack just waved it off with a quick, "It's not really the same thing, being connected and being at fault, I know. It's just," Jack sighed. "So far, these rift incidents have been more of an annoyance than anything else, but I want to get to the bottom of them before anyone gets hurt." He headed for the door, but paused, looking at how many things were still strewn randomly around the room and added, almost as an afterthought, "Or the archives get full."
"Could always put some things up on Ebay. Only the stuff that was harmless, innocuous, of course. It'd clear a lot out the archives and maybe even make a little money for the Torchwood coffers. Think of what a great way it would be of shoring up that coffee fund you were always talking about. We could finally purchase some of those more expensive beans you've been dreaming of: Jamaican Blue Mountain, Hacienda la Esmeralda Geisha from Panama, Island of St. Helena Coffee Company, even the extremely rare and ridiculously expensive Indonesian Kopi Luwak coffee. Sell a few trinkets and the £50 needed for 100 grams could be yours in no time at all," Ianto teased.
With a devilish grin on his face and far away look in his eye Jack said, "Coffee made from beans extracted from the droppings of the palm civet, just what I've always wanted."
Ianto cracked his knuckles. "So, should I set us up an account?"
"It's a great idea, but why don't we keep that as a backup plan. Just for now."
"All right, Jack," Ianto said with an exaggerated sigh, "if you insist."
"I do, indeed," Jack said airily as he left.
"Spoilsport!" Ianto retorted.
"I heard that!" Jack shouted back with a quick wave, and walked over to autopsy with Ianto's laughter trailing after him.
"Owen? Anything so far?" Jack leaned against the wall, his arms crossed.
"Not yet, but it's been," Owen looked up from the samples he'd been taking and checked his watch, "a whole five minutes. Maybe if you give me, oh, I don't know, an hour? Then, just maybe, I'd actually be able to run some tests and have a chance to get their results?"
"Are you implying that I'm being unreasonable?" Jack put his hand to his heart and staggered back a few steps, as if mortally wounded.
"Me? No," Owen dragged out the word as he shook his head. "Well, maybe. Just a little."
"Fine. An hour. Far be it for me to be even the slightest bit unreasonable."
"Oh, right. What was I thinking?" Owen gestured to the vials he'd been working on. "Now are you going to badger me some more or can I get back to work?"
"By all means, get back to work. I'm not the type to prevent you from doing your duly appointed duties," Jack said, pushing off the wall and giving Owen a slap on the arse as he walked past. "I'll go see how Gwen's coming with her police inquiries."
"And I bet she'll really appreciate that," Owen muttered as Jack left.
Jack didn't get a chance to check on Gwen. When he was walking past Tosh's work station the rift alarms went off, signaling something else was coming through. He bit back a curse before asking, "What have we got, Tosh?"
"Rift activity." She clicked a few buttons before answering, "It looks like only one thing this time, but it's a bit bigger than the last few things that have come through."
"All right, I'll go and bring it in. Can you feed the coordinates to the SUV?"
"Doing it right now," she said as she typed.
"Thanks, Tosh." Jack turned to the rest of the team. "Ianto, you're with me. The rest of you stay here and see if you can come up with anything while I'm gone."
The conversation between Ianto and Jack in the SUV was practically nonexistent, basically limited to "turn here" and "continue straight for a bit longer, sir" as Ianto directed them to the coordinates Tosh had sent them until Jack asked, "Any guesses on what it'll be this time? A bottle of hypervodka would be too small, a spitfire too large. Now a-"
"On your right," Ianto interrupted, "Tosh's readings pinpoint the source of the rift activity just up ahead, another hundred meters or so."
"Got it," Jack said as they pulled up to a car park, long abandoned and half overgrown with weeds a moment later.
"We're here, Tosh," Ianto said into his earpiece. "But I don't see, oh wait," he trailed off as Jack nudged him and pointed to a mound hidden partially by the shadows. "There it is. We'll check it out and send the scans back to you in a few minutes."
"Only the one thing, just like she said, but," Jack reached over and grabbed Ianto's arm to prevent him from getting out of the car. "The initial scans come back as it being organic. Even though everything else has been clean, doesn't necessarily mean this one is. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea if I take a look alone and get some more readings, just to be on the safe side."
Ianto considered Jack's suggestion for a minute and then nodded. "Not a bad idea at all. Take the kit and make sure you keep your radio on. After initial tests, if it all comes back clean, I'll help you with containing the site."
Jack opened the door and gave a sloppy salute before getting out. He dug into his coat and slipped on his earpiece and gave it a tap to activate it. "Reading me all right, Ianto?"
"Loud and clear, Jack."
Slowly, Jack walked across the car pack, his coat billowing in the wind. "Whatever it is, it hasn't been here that long, there's only a fine layer of dust and pollen on it." Jack took a sweeping look of the car park. "Good thing about this place being so empty. There are no witnesses to worry about."
"Since when has Torchwood worried about witnesses?" Ianto's soft laugh could be barely heard over the radio. "You know for a secret government agency we don't really go out of our way to make sure we keep a low profile."
"Well, when you look as good as me," Jack started to joke when his scanner beeped interrupting him. "Damn it, scans say it registers as human. We have our first fatality here; you'd better let the others know."
"Got it," Ianto replied. "Switching frequencies now, back in a second."
Jack grunted his assent, busy studying the readings. The scan of the corpse and the immediate area didn't show any thing that might be dangerous to the team, in fact everything so far had come back negative across the board. He walked up to the body to get a better look; who knew, maybe the poor bastard had been dead for years before being pulled through the rift? Unlikely, but possible.
He approached cautiously, pulling out his camera to preserve the scene. He took some wide shots of the entire car park, panning the camera slowly across before zooming in on the body. It was in a heap, like a pile of laundry that had been dumped straight out of the hamper. The clothing had not survived the trip through the rift all that well, badly torn and sporting burn marks, therefore giving no clues as to the planet or time of origin. The victim was male, judging by the hair and overall build. The face wasn't visible, but in general, from what Jack could see the victim wasn't terribly young or all that old, mostly likely whatever accounted for middle aged where ever he came from.
Squatting down, filming with one hand he reached out with the other and grabbed the jacket and gave it a strong tug. The body uncurled, giving Jack a good look at its face. He dropped the camera in surprise, took several steps back and cursed loudly.
"Jack," Ianto called over the radio, "Owen said that the..." Ianto trailed off when Jack gave no response. "Jack?"
Jack didn't answer. He just stood there, completely frozen, staring at the body.
"Jack? What's wrong?" When there was still no reply, he added, "Talk to me, Jack," sounding a bit worried.
Scrubbing a hand across his face, Jack cleared his throat and activated his radio. "It's safe to come out." He swallowed audibly. "And there's, there's something you really need to see."
Complying quickly Ianto hopped out of the SUV and was within a few steps of Jack before he stopped with a sharp, "Oh my god, Jack," when he saw the body.
"Yeah," Jack said, wryly. "Pretty much my reaction exactly."
"But, Jack." Ianto couldn't cover the shock in his voice. "It's, he's you."
Jack swallowed roughly. "Yeah. Yeah, he is."
They stood in silence for a few minutes staring at the body. "So, what does this mean? Will he," Ianto made a vague, dismissive gesture, "You know, like you do?"
Jack leaned forward a bit to examine the dead man a bit better. "He looks like an older version of me. So, yeah, probably. No idea how long it'll take though. I assume going through the rift would cause a lot of trauma."
"Not to mention the landing."
"Ah, yes. That too. Good point."
Ianto stepped forward. "We really shouldn't leave him out here. Torchwood could do without the unwanted attraction of a reanimating corpse."
At that Jack swept his eyes over the car park again. "I suppose we've been lucky with me so far on that front. Although," he started to say, bringing up his scanner again, "I wonder. I have the strangest sensation of-" but he was interrupted when the dead version of himself came to life with a loud gasp.
"Steady, steady." Ianto got down on his haunches, next to the reviving man. "It's all right, I've got you. You're all right."
Coming alive and awake in one fell swoop, he rolled to his feet, taking a defensive stance against Jack and Ianto. "What happened?" he shouted, "Where am I?" then he looked, really looked at Ianto and Jack and in a much smaller voice asked, "When am I?"
"You fell through the rift. You're on Earth," Ianto answered softly, as calmly as possible. "Wales, or Cardiff to be more specific. And the year is 2008."
"2008," the other Jack said, hunching his shoulders as if to make himself a smaller target. Despite looking drawn and exhausted, his face was carefully blank.
"When are you from? Where-"
"Ianto," Jack interrupted quickly. "No, don't ask." He looked over at his other self. "And don't you even think about telling him anything."
"I wasn't going to," the other Jack sighed tiredly. "I know better than that."
"We'd better get you back to the Hub. Ianto, help him up. The sooner we get out of here, the better."
Ianto reached out slowly, the other Jack skittishly jerking away for a minute before giving himself some sort of mental shake and allowing the helping hand. "Sorry," he murmured as Ianto helped him to his feet. "The rift. I'm a little," he waved his other hand in a shaky, flittery way.
"It's understandable." Ianto supported much of the other man's weight. "Bit of a rough patch, this is."
Jack bounded to his feet and strode ahead of them to the SUV, calling the Hub on the radio on his way. "Owen? I'll need you to meet us when we come in."
"I'm preparing for the autopsy now, Jack."
"No, forget that. There's no need."
"No need? What do you mean, no need?"
"It's too hard to explain over the comm, just be waiting for us. Oh, and Gwen and Tosh will need to be there too."
There was a slight scrabble of conversation back at the Hub before Owen got back on to say, "Tosh says all rift activity's stopped dead. It's just gone, like nothing ever went wrong in the first place."
"Can't say I'm surprised to hear that."
"What? Why?"
"Never mind. It's just a theory. I'll explain later. Make sure you're there when we pull in, Owen. Jack out." He opened the door to make it easier for Ianto to help the other Jack inside and then slipped behind the wheel. Using the rearview mirror he looked his other self in the eye. "We're in for it now, aren't we?" The other Jack grimaced slightly and shrugged.
"Jack?" Ianto asked, looking back and forth between the two men.
"We'll figure this out," Jack said as he started up the car. "We have to."
Ianto nodded and turned to the rear seats to address their passenger as Jack pulled away from the car park to drive them home. "Are you all right? We'll be back at the Hub in a few minutes and I can get you anything you need."
Keeping his eyes on the floor, the other Jack smiled sadly at that. "Change of clothes would be nice," he said, fingering what was left of his trousers after his trip through the rift. "These are about done in."
"Not a problem. I'm sure you can borrow something of Jack's. It would fit you, wouldn't it?" When, even after a few minutes, there was no answer from the other Jack, Ianto shifted back into his seat and buckled his seatbelt. "Never took you as the quiet sort, Jack. Sir. You, Jack, I mean, my current boss Jack, Jack." He ran a hand over his face. "This is going to get confusing."
"You mean it's not already?" Jack joked as he switched lanes, approaching the turn off for the Hub.
Chuckling, Ianto continued, "We can't have two Jack Harknesses running around. And most of the qualifiers are just ridiculous: future Jack, older Jack, rift Jack, current Jack, Captain Jack, leader Jack, now Jack... Wait, which one of you is older?"
"I am," the Jack in the backseat answered with quiet certainty.
"We need to figure out this name situation before we get back to the Hub, god knows what sort of names Owen might think up for the two of you. Any suggestions?"
The two Jacks exchanged a look. "The last alias I used was Captain James Harper," Jack said softly after thinking about it for a moment. "And I suppose you could say it was under similar circumstances as these, oddly enough."
"James Harper… from the 71st squadron?" The other Jack gave a tired smile at the nod of affirmation. "That could work."
"Similar circumstances? What do you mean? How?"
"Time slip through the rift." Jack's eyebrows raised. "Tosh did check, didn't she? We're certain that there's no way this is Bilis playing his games with us again?"
"No, no, Jack. It's not Bilis. It can't be." Ianto reached out and laid a hand on Jack's arm. "You killed Abaddon. We don't know what happened to Bilis, but even if he isn't dead he would never risk coming back after us again."
Jack nodded, but he didn't look terribly convinced.
Speaking up from the back seat, 'James' said, "It's not Bilis. Or at least I don't think so. It felt completely different, going through the rift this time, I mean."
"Tosh's report said she hadn't even realized you two had crossed into 1941 until suddenly there were people everywhere. This time, it looked a little more… noteworthy." Ianto winced at his wording choice when he saw James shudder in response.
"I think that would be putting it mildly," Jack said dryly.
The rest of the ride to the Hub was made in a tense silence; as Jack drove he gripped the steering so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Ianto spent the ride typing up notes based on the readings they had taken while shooting concerned glances into the back seat while James stared out the window, worrying his bottom lip.
onto part two