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fannishlisstitle: A Routine Tech Bust
author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fannishliss
rating: gen, no warnings
pairing: none
characters: Jack Harkness, Dorothy McShane
length: 2,972 words
summary: Jack breaks into the offices of A Charitable Earth and finds more than he was looking for.
For the Who@50 celebration: a study of the Seventh Doctor, reflected in the life and opinions of his protégé, Dorothy McShane
---
“Hands in the air, now,” a woman’s hard voice ordered.
Jack heard the voice of command and immediately complied. By the accent, she’d been born a working class Londoner, but now mingled with the privileged here in New York. Jack hadn’t known what to expect from Dorothy McShane, CEO of A Charitable Earth, but it hadn’t been that steely voice – much less a steady gun.
“Move into that corner, face the wall, everything nice and steady or I will shoot.”
Jack did as he was told. He heard soft footsteps approach, felt the bite of a handcuff locked around his right wrist. He made no move to resist as his right hand was brought sharply down and around.
“Now the left, if you please,” she said.
Slowly he lowered his left hand. The cuff of his vortex manipulator took up a broad expanse of his wrist.
“Careful with my strap, please,” he said lightly. “It’s sentimental.”
McShane made no answer, briskly snapping the cuff around his left wrist.
“Now out,” she ordered, and Jack followed her as she backed out of the vault.
“Sit,” she said, indicating the leather sofa farther down along the office’s library wall from the sliding panel that had hidden the vault.
“I prefer to stand,” Jack said.
“I prefer you sit,” the woman ordered. She was dimly outlined against the floor to ceiling view of tall buildings and starry night sky behind her: medium height, medium build. He’d briefed himself on her appearance – medium brown hair very tastefully highlighted in gold; her round face youthful for a woman in her forties. In her publicity photographs she had a ready smile and kind brown eyes. In this situation, she kept her back to the light, giving her the advantage in reading Jack’s expressions before he could read hers.
Jack sank down into the low sofa, sitting on the very edge, back straight, hands clasped behind him to loosen the cuffs.
“What are you doing in my office?” McShane asked. Kindness was far from the quality she was seeking to project.
“Looking around. The view is great.” It was cold out there, Jack thought, and the air was clear. So many stars.
“Why break into A Charitable Earth? No reason to expect to find anything valuable.”
Jack kept his mouth shut. There was no way McShane didn’t know what she had.
She waited. He said nothing. She waited some more.
“I could just call the police.”
“Sure you could.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“No reason,” Jack echoed, but he could tell she was intrigued.
Finally she stopped waiting.
“What’s that wrist strap about anyway?” she asked.
“Sentimental,” Jack said.
“Okay,” she returned. “Then you give it to me and I let you go, no hard feelings.”
She regained the upper hand quite smoothly, Jack thought.
“I really can’t bear the thought of letting it go,” Jack said.
“Parting gift?” she asked.
“You could say that,” Jack said, thinking of all the parting he’d done in his many, many days.
Jack’s eyes had almost adjusted to the dimness of the office. He could almost see the expressions flit across her face, but it was still too dark to see her eyes. She was staring, that much was obvious.
“There’s something off about you,” she murmured.
Jack was stung despite himself. How could she tell? Surely he’d learned the twenty-first century well enough by now that he could fit in. Surely he’d adapted, adopted the protective coloration of his kind; he wasn’t alien after all, just ahead by a few thousand years.
She paced a little closer, but her grip on her gun remained well-practiced, professional. There was no record McShane had ever served in the military, but Jack knew the bearing. There was precious little on her at all, and what there was, seemed awfully convenient the more he thought about it.
“Who are you, really?” Jack asked.
She stopped, just beyond the reach of a lunge. Staring at him, assessing. She drew in a deep breath, held it, concentrating--- and then huffed it all out, in a whoosh.
“You’re from the future!” she accused. She rapidly backed away, gun now even more aggressively trained on him.
“What?” Jack said, hoping his bafflement would read as ignorance.
“What do you want with me?” she asked.
Jack couldn’t really answer. All he wanted was to divest her office of the alien tech his scanners had picked up. No civilian should be in possession of such things – but now it seemed she wasn’t as much a civilian as her resume portrayed.
There was only one thing he could say. If it worked maybe they could form a truce. If it didn’t work, she didn’t know what she had, and he’d just have to steal it from her another day.
“Dalek,” he said.
She gave a violent twitch and almost pulled the trigger.
He didn’t even flinch. He’d been killed too many times.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
“You’ve got Dalek technology in that vault. I’m here to take it away before something very, very bad happens.”
She held motionless for the longest time, gun trained right on his head. Head shots were the worst, Jack thought.
Finally she ground back into life, crossing the room to the library side, the shelf nearest the right hand side of her desk. Keeping her eyes trained on Jack, she pressed a hidden lever and the board at the base of the shelf sprang free. Not in the vault after all – easier for her to reach quickly if she needed to. She slid out a heavy locked case and placed it on the desk.
“You think you know what’s in here?” she said.
“You clearly know what a Dalek is, so, yes I do,” he said.
She placed her free hand flat on the top of the case, which glowed briefly, and opened with a snick.
“Isomorphic lock,” Jack said, nodding.
“Of course,” she said.
She switched her handgun to her left hand and pulled out what was in the case with her right.
It was a Dalek energy weapon, adapted for the human hand.
Jack couldn’t fully suppress his shudder of revulsion.
“You shouldn’t have that,” he stated.
“And you should?” she countered.
She had a point.
“Why do you want it?” she demanded.
“I don’t want it,” he denied, “I don’t think anyone on this planet should have it.”
“I’m bloody well keeping it,” the woman pronounced.
They stared at each other in silence.
“You know what they do,” she said.
Jack nodded.
“So I have this, to do it to them before they do it to me,” she argued.
Jack barked out a laugh, surprising himself.
“How many Daleks have you taken by surprise?”
“Enough!” she said.
“Who are you, really?” he asked.
“Who do you think I am?” she returned. She sat down at her desk, leaned back in her chair. Starlight glinted off her thick, golden brown hair, outlining the curve of her face.
“Sign on the door says Dorothy McShane, A Charitable Earth,” Jack said.
“That must be me then,” she sighed.
“A woman who shoots Daleks with one of their own weapons doesn’t sound like the CEO of a non-profit to me.”
“Why not?” she challenged.
Jack paused. “It just sounds – too dull. Too normal. Rubbing shoulders with patrons. Glad handing. Pressing the flesh.”
“You can’t sit there smelling like that and talking about flesh,” McShane said.
“Smelling like what?” Jack asked. Usually humans of this day and age never noticed.
“Like sex on legs,” she said in velvety tones. “How did you think I knew you were from the future?”
“You knew by my smell?” Jack said, impressed.
“Among other things. Humans don’t smell that good for another couple thousand years.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you?”
They were at an impasse again.
“I used to travel with someone,” McShane said slowly.
“Great hair?” Jack asked.
“Not especially, no,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Blue box?” he tried.
“Bleeding Hell!” Dorothy said. “You know him too?”
“Yes!” Jack laughed. The tension melted out of the room.
“Have you ever been inside?” she asked, still testing Jack, though a smile had lit up her face.
“Of course – I’ve even helped fly her,” Jack smiled.
“You have not!” McShane laughed. “Did he try to draft you for the Time Lord Academy like he did me?”
Jack felt his jaw drop. He blinked, struggled for words.
“How long – how long ago did you know him?” Jack finally managed.
“Ah, you know how it is with the Professor... he comes and goes, don’t he.” McShane’s accent had gone all the way back to its youthful origins.
Jack tried to wrap his mind around it. Apparently she was still in touch with the same Doctor she’d always known.
“That he does... that he does,” Jack said. He hoped the bitterness had faded from his voice, but apparently not.
“What did he do to you?” McShane asked, softly. She gently returned the Dalek weapon to its case and clicked it closed, transferring the handgun back to her right hand, now trained slightly away from him.
Jack just shook his head. “How much time do you have?” he said, grimly. “But hey – I’d rather hear about you. What are you doing here with a Dalek weapon? And why are you packing a Glock?”
She stared at him some more and finally eased the gun back into its resting place under the desk.
“I’m expert in several hand-to-hand forms, so don’t get cocky,” she warned with a grin, bringing up the lights and uncuffing him.
“I like you,” Jack smiled as she undid the lock.
“I like your smile,” she returned. Something locked into place between them, some kind of mutual respect. Jack felt it in his gut that he could trust this woman, and she seemed to feel the same way.
“Scotch?” she offered.
“Sure,” he said.
She opened a neat sideboard, pulled out two tumblers and a bottle, and poured them each two fingers.
Jack swirled the single malt, appreciated the delightful smoky odor. McShane took an infinitesimal sip and he followed suit, just enough to let the warmth burn around his tongue and down his throat.
McShane leaned back against her desk, still keeping herself defensively distant from Jack.
“So tell me,” he said, “please – tell me about your time with the Doctor. He changes, you know--“
“Yes, I know – I’ve recently been in contact with Sarah Jane Smith – you know her?”
“I have had the pleasure, yes,” Jack smiled. “But she didn’t mention you.”
“She’d just recently looked me up. My organization has been able to help her out once or twice.”
“But—“ Jack said. “I still don’t get it. You’re all handguns and time travel. How are you running a charity?”
McShane cocked a grin. “You have no idea, do you?”
“No!” Jack laughed. “This was meant to be a routine tech bust. I checked you out enough to make sure you weren’t a Dalek agent and then I broke in.”
McShane nodded. “I’m not a Dalek agent. Just the opposite. A Charitable Earth makes investments – we’re a base foundation for the future of humanity.”
Jack squinted at McShane. “What does that even mean?”
“Haven’t you made investments?” she asked, weighting her words.
Jack scoffed. “No! The minute this planet goes south, I’m out of here.”
“So, what – no sympathy for your homeworld?” she asked.
“I’m from a time – not a planet,” Jack quipped. “My home is three thousand years from here.”
“Earth is always home,” McShane said. “Always. And that’s where A Charitable Earth comes in.” McShane peered at him closely. “Maybe you’ve heard of Torchwood?”
Jack felt his face turn to stone.
“Torchwood?” he said, innocently.
“Torchwood – British anti-incursion organization, paramilitary. You might wonder why ACE is set up here instead of back home.”
“Why?” Jack said faintly. All his work – so many years – and still Torchwood rang of fascism to those who had any inkling of its existence.
“Because ACE isn’t Torchwood. Just the opposite. A Charitable Earth – we know we’re going to make contact. We don’t want to fight. We need allies.”
“But – it’s a charity – a trust,” Jack insisted.
McShane sucked her teeth. “Yeah, and I’m Time’s Vigilante. Do the math.”
Jack stared. “You’re manipulating history,” he breathed. “Can you do that?”
McShane took a bigger sip of Scotch, savored it a while. “The Professor’s a bit of a renegade, you know?”
Jack nodded, though he really didn’t know what the Doctor had been in the eyes of his people, besides a weapon to deploy in the last emergency.
“He was tried in high court for crimes against Time. Even before that, he was exiled to Earth for meddling and got two of his friends’ minds wiped.”
“Wow,” Jack said.
“But he never gave up,” McShane insisted, tracing the rim of her glass. “He kept trying to help, from whatever vantage point in the time line he could find. I hated him, you know – really hated him, more than once—the way he worked things, always twisting things around to his angle. But eventually, I understood.”
“What did you understand?” Jack whispered. How he could leave you, to die or to live, like he just didn’t care anymore? How he could look you in the eye and call you abomination, and then ask you to die for him again and again? How you’d do it, no second thoughts? How he’d vanish from your life for decades, centuries, then reappear, and expect to pick up just where you’d left off?
“He sees it all. He sees the whole picture. Alpha to Omega, you might say.” She gave a little smirk that Jack didn’t share. “I know too, now, some of what will happen... I have to do my part laying in what we need – ideas, mostly – seeds of ideas to prepare us for being more than who we are. We’re the future: the great and glorious Human empire. We have to deserve that when the time comes. More than they did.”
“They?”
“His people. Right tossers, the lot of them!”
“No argument there, sister!” The year Jack had spent on the Valiant had been one long chain of unspeakable horrors. A whole planet of Time Lords Jack could do without.
“I don’t know why he’s any different. I think... he’s a bit of a mystery, even to himself. He still visits me sometimes, just to check in. Less and less, though. And I don’t think much of his time is passing at all. Though, he did retool the Tardis.”
“I love the coral,” Jack said, remembering.
“Gothic cathedral,” McShane said, shaking her head. “He just sits there, drinking tea and pondering. No sign he’s got anyone else along. I think – he’s got wind of something.”
“Probably,” Jack says, remembering the horrors he’d seen in the eyes of the man he’d first met.
“Well, don’t tell me any details, cause I mustn’t give him any hints,” McShane said. She paused. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Jack snorted. “Aren’t we all?”
McShane shook her head. “Sarah Jane had it bad – but not me. He was more to me than that.”
“More?” Jack said, a little offended. The Doctor had remade him when he was broken – then broken him again, and again, and again – but each time he broke, he remade himself again in the Doctor’s name, and every time he got a little bit stronger.
“He was training me up, you know? Wanted me to study on Gallifrey. Me! I never even finished my O levels!”
The more things changed, Jack thought. The more things changed.
“He believed in me. He wanted me to be like him. To see things the way he does. To do things the way he does. To take those chances – those crazy risks. Is that what he did for you?”
“Yes,” Jack said, and as he said it, he knew it was true. The Doctor had loved him, Jack knew, in his own way – but Jack had never before really understood that the Doctor had set him free to be more than he could have been if he’d kept him close.
“I was his Wolf,” McShane mused, swirling the last of her Scotch. “A Wolf of Fenric – a sport in the flow of time, an agent of Chaos. I learned to use it though – the chaos -- work it in my favor, yeah? Bad wolf good wolf, it’s all how you spin it, innit?”
Jack stared at her.
McShane stared back, unblinking, her brown eyes deep and wild.
Was there a trace of gold in her temporal aura? Jack was out of practice, but he seemed to see a glow. And was that an echo of the vortex singing in the back of his mind, the faintest howl?
Jack put down his Scotch and stood, slowly, holding out his right hand.
“Jack Harkness,” he said – a stolen name he’d made his own.
“Torchwood Three,” she breathed. He watched her piece together the name, the face, and the legend.
He waited, hand open, until she reached out and took it.
“Wow,” she said, looking into his eyes. “Have we got a lot of stories to tell.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Jack said, lightly shaking her hand, not letting go.
McShane blushed and laughed.
“What?” Jack asked.
“This could be the start of a beautiful friendship,” she quipped.
“It already is,” Jack replied, feeling better about the twenty-first century than he had in a long time. Now is when everything changes, he thought: maybe, this time, for the better.
author:
fannishlissrating: gen, no warnings
pairing: none
characters: Jack Harkness, Dorothy McShane
length: 2,972 words
summary: Jack breaks into the offices of A Charitable Earth and finds more than he was looking for.
For the Who@50 celebration: a study of the Seventh Doctor, reflected in the life and opinions of his protégé, Dorothy McShane
---
“Hands in the air, now,” a woman’s hard voice ordered.
Jack heard the voice of command and immediately complied. By the accent, she’d been born a working class Londoner, but now mingled with the privileged here in New York. Jack hadn’t known what to expect from Dorothy McShane, CEO of A Charitable Earth, but it hadn’t been that steely voice – much less a steady gun.
“Move into that corner, face the wall, everything nice and steady or I will shoot.”
Jack did as he was told. He heard soft footsteps approach, felt the bite of a handcuff locked around his right wrist. He made no move to resist as his right hand was brought sharply down and around.
“Now the left, if you please,” she said.
Slowly he lowered his left hand. The cuff of his vortex manipulator took up a broad expanse of his wrist.
“Careful with my strap, please,” he said lightly. “It’s sentimental.”
McShane made no answer, briskly snapping the cuff around his left wrist.
“Now out,” she ordered, and Jack followed her as she backed out of the vault.
“Sit,” she said, indicating the leather sofa farther down along the office’s library wall from the sliding panel that had hidden the vault.
“I prefer to stand,” Jack said.
“I prefer you sit,” the woman ordered. She was dimly outlined against the floor to ceiling view of tall buildings and starry night sky behind her: medium height, medium build. He’d briefed himself on her appearance – medium brown hair very tastefully highlighted in gold; her round face youthful for a woman in her forties. In her publicity photographs she had a ready smile and kind brown eyes. In this situation, she kept her back to the light, giving her the advantage in reading Jack’s expressions before he could read hers.
Jack sank down into the low sofa, sitting on the very edge, back straight, hands clasped behind him to loosen the cuffs.
“What are you doing in my office?” McShane asked. Kindness was far from the quality she was seeking to project.
“Looking around. The view is great.” It was cold out there, Jack thought, and the air was clear. So many stars.
“Why break into A Charitable Earth? No reason to expect to find anything valuable.”
Jack kept his mouth shut. There was no way McShane didn’t know what she had.
She waited. He said nothing. She waited some more.
“I could just call the police.”
“Sure you could.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“No reason,” Jack echoed, but he could tell she was intrigued.
Finally she stopped waiting.
“What’s that wrist strap about anyway?” she asked.
“Sentimental,” Jack said.
“Okay,” she returned. “Then you give it to me and I let you go, no hard feelings.”
She regained the upper hand quite smoothly, Jack thought.
“I really can’t bear the thought of letting it go,” Jack said.
“Parting gift?” she asked.
“You could say that,” Jack said, thinking of all the parting he’d done in his many, many days.
Jack’s eyes had almost adjusted to the dimness of the office. He could almost see the expressions flit across her face, but it was still too dark to see her eyes. She was staring, that much was obvious.
“There’s something off about you,” she murmured.
Jack was stung despite himself. How could she tell? Surely he’d learned the twenty-first century well enough by now that he could fit in. Surely he’d adapted, adopted the protective coloration of his kind; he wasn’t alien after all, just ahead by a few thousand years.
She paced a little closer, but her grip on her gun remained well-practiced, professional. There was no record McShane had ever served in the military, but Jack knew the bearing. There was precious little on her at all, and what there was, seemed awfully convenient the more he thought about it.
“Who are you, really?” Jack asked.
She stopped, just beyond the reach of a lunge. Staring at him, assessing. She drew in a deep breath, held it, concentrating--- and then huffed it all out, in a whoosh.
“You’re from the future!” she accused. She rapidly backed away, gun now even more aggressively trained on him.
“What?” Jack said, hoping his bafflement would read as ignorance.
“What do you want with me?” she asked.
Jack couldn’t really answer. All he wanted was to divest her office of the alien tech his scanners had picked up. No civilian should be in possession of such things – but now it seemed she wasn’t as much a civilian as her resume portrayed.
There was only one thing he could say. If it worked maybe they could form a truce. If it didn’t work, she didn’t know what she had, and he’d just have to steal it from her another day.
“Dalek,” he said.
She gave a violent twitch and almost pulled the trigger.
He didn’t even flinch. He’d been killed too many times.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
“You’ve got Dalek technology in that vault. I’m here to take it away before something very, very bad happens.”
She held motionless for the longest time, gun trained right on his head. Head shots were the worst, Jack thought.
Finally she ground back into life, crossing the room to the library side, the shelf nearest the right hand side of her desk. Keeping her eyes trained on Jack, she pressed a hidden lever and the board at the base of the shelf sprang free. Not in the vault after all – easier for her to reach quickly if she needed to. She slid out a heavy locked case and placed it on the desk.
“You think you know what’s in here?” she said.
“You clearly know what a Dalek is, so, yes I do,” he said.
She placed her free hand flat on the top of the case, which glowed briefly, and opened with a snick.
“Isomorphic lock,” Jack said, nodding.
“Of course,” she said.
She switched her handgun to her left hand and pulled out what was in the case with her right.
It was a Dalek energy weapon, adapted for the human hand.
Jack couldn’t fully suppress his shudder of revulsion.
“You shouldn’t have that,” he stated.
“And you should?” she countered.
She had a point.
“Why do you want it?” she demanded.
“I don’t want it,” he denied, “I don’t think anyone on this planet should have it.”
“I’m bloody well keeping it,” the woman pronounced.
They stared at each other in silence.
“You know what they do,” she said.
Jack nodded.
“So I have this, to do it to them before they do it to me,” she argued.
Jack barked out a laugh, surprising himself.
“How many Daleks have you taken by surprise?”
“Enough!” she said.
“Who are you, really?” he asked.
“Who do you think I am?” she returned. She sat down at her desk, leaned back in her chair. Starlight glinted off her thick, golden brown hair, outlining the curve of her face.
“Sign on the door says Dorothy McShane, A Charitable Earth,” Jack said.
“That must be me then,” she sighed.
“A woman who shoots Daleks with one of their own weapons doesn’t sound like the CEO of a non-profit to me.”
“Why not?” she challenged.
Jack paused. “It just sounds – too dull. Too normal. Rubbing shoulders with patrons. Glad handing. Pressing the flesh.”
“You can’t sit there smelling like that and talking about flesh,” McShane said.
“Smelling like what?” Jack asked. Usually humans of this day and age never noticed.
“Like sex on legs,” she said in velvety tones. “How did you think I knew you were from the future?”
“You knew by my smell?” Jack said, impressed.
“Among other things. Humans don’t smell that good for another couple thousand years.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you?”
They were at an impasse again.
“I used to travel with someone,” McShane said slowly.
“Great hair?” Jack asked.
“Not especially, no,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Blue box?” he tried.
“Bleeding Hell!” Dorothy said. “You know him too?”
“Yes!” Jack laughed. The tension melted out of the room.
“Have you ever been inside?” she asked, still testing Jack, though a smile had lit up her face.
“Of course – I’ve even helped fly her,” Jack smiled.
“You have not!” McShane laughed. “Did he try to draft you for the Time Lord Academy like he did me?”
Jack felt his jaw drop. He blinked, struggled for words.
“How long – how long ago did you know him?” Jack finally managed.
“Ah, you know how it is with the Professor... he comes and goes, don’t he.” McShane’s accent had gone all the way back to its youthful origins.
Jack tried to wrap his mind around it. Apparently she was still in touch with the same Doctor she’d always known.
“That he does... that he does,” Jack said. He hoped the bitterness had faded from his voice, but apparently not.
“What did he do to you?” McShane asked, softly. She gently returned the Dalek weapon to its case and clicked it closed, transferring the handgun back to her right hand, now trained slightly away from him.
Jack just shook his head. “How much time do you have?” he said, grimly. “But hey – I’d rather hear about you. What are you doing here with a Dalek weapon? And why are you packing a Glock?”
She stared at him some more and finally eased the gun back into its resting place under the desk.
“I’m expert in several hand-to-hand forms, so don’t get cocky,” she warned with a grin, bringing up the lights and uncuffing him.
“I like you,” Jack smiled as she undid the lock.
“I like your smile,” she returned. Something locked into place between them, some kind of mutual respect. Jack felt it in his gut that he could trust this woman, and she seemed to feel the same way.
“Scotch?” she offered.
“Sure,” he said.
She opened a neat sideboard, pulled out two tumblers and a bottle, and poured them each two fingers.
Jack swirled the single malt, appreciated the delightful smoky odor. McShane took an infinitesimal sip and he followed suit, just enough to let the warmth burn around his tongue and down his throat.
McShane leaned back against her desk, still keeping herself defensively distant from Jack.
“So tell me,” he said, “please – tell me about your time with the Doctor. He changes, you know--“
“Yes, I know – I’ve recently been in contact with Sarah Jane Smith – you know her?”
“I have had the pleasure, yes,” Jack smiled. “But she didn’t mention you.”
“She’d just recently looked me up. My organization has been able to help her out once or twice.”
“But—“ Jack said. “I still don’t get it. You’re all handguns and time travel. How are you running a charity?”
McShane cocked a grin. “You have no idea, do you?”
“No!” Jack laughed. “This was meant to be a routine tech bust. I checked you out enough to make sure you weren’t a Dalek agent and then I broke in.”
McShane nodded. “I’m not a Dalek agent. Just the opposite. A Charitable Earth makes investments – we’re a base foundation for the future of humanity.”
Jack squinted at McShane. “What does that even mean?”
“Haven’t you made investments?” she asked, weighting her words.
Jack scoffed. “No! The minute this planet goes south, I’m out of here.”
“So, what – no sympathy for your homeworld?” she asked.
“I’m from a time – not a planet,” Jack quipped. “My home is three thousand years from here.”
“Earth is always home,” McShane said. “Always. And that’s where A Charitable Earth comes in.” McShane peered at him closely. “Maybe you’ve heard of Torchwood?”
Jack felt his face turn to stone.
“Torchwood?” he said, innocently.
“Torchwood – British anti-incursion organization, paramilitary. You might wonder why ACE is set up here instead of back home.”
“Why?” Jack said faintly. All his work – so many years – and still Torchwood rang of fascism to those who had any inkling of its existence.
“Because ACE isn’t Torchwood. Just the opposite. A Charitable Earth – we know we’re going to make contact. We don’t want to fight. We need allies.”
“But – it’s a charity – a trust,” Jack insisted.
McShane sucked her teeth. “Yeah, and I’m Time’s Vigilante. Do the math.”
Jack stared. “You’re manipulating history,” he breathed. “Can you do that?”
McShane took a bigger sip of Scotch, savored it a while. “The Professor’s a bit of a renegade, you know?”
Jack nodded, though he really didn’t know what the Doctor had been in the eyes of his people, besides a weapon to deploy in the last emergency.
“He was tried in high court for crimes against Time. Even before that, he was exiled to Earth for meddling and got two of his friends’ minds wiped.”
“Wow,” Jack said.
“But he never gave up,” McShane insisted, tracing the rim of her glass. “He kept trying to help, from whatever vantage point in the time line he could find. I hated him, you know – really hated him, more than once—the way he worked things, always twisting things around to his angle. But eventually, I understood.”
“What did you understand?” Jack whispered. How he could leave you, to die or to live, like he just didn’t care anymore? How he could look you in the eye and call you abomination, and then ask you to die for him again and again? How you’d do it, no second thoughts? How he’d vanish from your life for decades, centuries, then reappear, and expect to pick up just where you’d left off?
“He sees it all. He sees the whole picture. Alpha to Omega, you might say.” She gave a little smirk that Jack didn’t share. “I know too, now, some of what will happen... I have to do my part laying in what we need – ideas, mostly – seeds of ideas to prepare us for being more than who we are. We’re the future: the great and glorious Human empire. We have to deserve that when the time comes. More than they did.”
“They?”
“His people. Right tossers, the lot of them!”
“No argument there, sister!” The year Jack had spent on the Valiant had been one long chain of unspeakable horrors. A whole planet of Time Lords Jack could do without.
“I don’t know why he’s any different. I think... he’s a bit of a mystery, even to himself. He still visits me sometimes, just to check in. Less and less, though. And I don’t think much of his time is passing at all. Though, he did retool the Tardis.”
“I love the coral,” Jack said, remembering.
“Gothic cathedral,” McShane said, shaking her head. “He just sits there, drinking tea and pondering. No sign he’s got anyone else along. I think – he’s got wind of something.”
“Probably,” Jack says, remembering the horrors he’d seen in the eyes of the man he’d first met.
“Well, don’t tell me any details, cause I mustn’t give him any hints,” McShane said. She paused. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Jack snorted. “Aren’t we all?”
McShane shook her head. “Sarah Jane had it bad – but not me. He was more to me than that.”
“More?” Jack said, a little offended. The Doctor had remade him when he was broken – then broken him again, and again, and again – but each time he broke, he remade himself again in the Doctor’s name, and every time he got a little bit stronger.
“He was training me up, you know? Wanted me to study on Gallifrey. Me! I never even finished my O levels!”
The more things changed, Jack thought. The more things changed.
“He believed in me. He wanted me to be like him. To see things the way he does. To do things the way he does. To take those chances – those crazy risks. Is that what he did for you?”
“Yes,” Jack said, and as he said it, he knew it was true. The Doctor had loved him, Jack knew, in his own way – but Jack had never before really understood that the Doctor had set him free to be more than he could have been if he’d kept him close.
“I was his Wolf,” McShane mused, swirling the last of her Scotch. “A Wolf of Fenric – a sport in the flow of time, an agent of Chaos. I learned to use it though – the chaos -- work it in my favor, yeah? Bad wolf good wolf, it’s all how you spin it, innit?”
Jack stared at her.
McShane stared back, unblinking, her brown eyes deep and wild.
Was there a trace of gold in her temporal aura? Jack was out of practice, but he seemed to see a glow. And was that an echo of the vortex singing in the back of his mind, the faintest howl?
Jack put down his Scotch and stood, slowly, holding out his right hand.
“Jack Harkness,” he said – a stolen name he’d made his own.
“Torchwood Three,” she breathed. He watched her piece together the name, the face, and the legend.
He waited, hand open, until she reached out and took it.
“Wow,” she said, looking into his eyes. “Have we got a lot of stories to tell.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Jack said, lightly shaking her hand, not letting go.
McShane blushed and laughed.
“What?” Jack asked.
“This could be the start of a beautiful friendship,” she quipped.
“It already is,” Jack replied, feeling better about the twenty-first century than he had in a long time. Now is when everything changes, he thought: maybe, this time, for the better.
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Date: 2013-06-16 02:26 am (UTC)