gracie_musica | Footnotes -- The Deviant Strain

Title: Footnotes
Chapter Four: The Deviant Strain
Date Written: 11/13/08
Rating: PG-13/T
Word Count: 1,966
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper, (mentioned) Martha Jones, Valeria Mamentova, Rose Tyler, Ninth Doctor
Spoilers: Season 03 of Doctor Who, Torchwood 02, and for the Ninth Doctor Adventure novel The Deviant Strain
Warnings: mentions m/m relationship
Author's Notes: Thanks so very much to my darling betas

totally4ryo and

katestamps. I wrote another pro-Gwen story. Someone check to see if I've been possessed. Also, this book is one of my favorites. It's a wonderful Jack character study.

Summaries for the books can be found at Wikipedia, at the Doctor Who wiki, and at Doctorwhoguide.com.

Previous chapters found here.

Captain Jack Harkness, child of the future, was a history nerd. Self-professed, so it wasn't like Gwen was throwing stones.

Sometimes Jack would go manic around certain worldwide events, following them obsessively on websites and television and radio. Particularly political races, which Gwen thought was sort of cheating because he knew who was going to win anyway. She'd made the mistake of mentioning this to him one day and he rattled off the names of the next six prime ministers to her.

Ianto told her once that Jack's love of history had been one reason why he'd signed up for that Time Agency of his. When he'd been offered the chance to see history as it happened instead of reading about it in books, he'd almost tripped over himself to sign up.

"Ianto?"

The Welshman made a questioning noise from behind the beaded curtain in the information booth. They'd both arrived at roughly the same time, and Ianto had offered to make some of the blessed life force that was coffee before she went down into the Hub proper.

"What's supposed to happen today?" Gwen asked, cocking her head to the side as she studied the hanging calendar tacked up to the wall. There was a red circle around the date and two letters scrawled in the bottom corner of the square. She leaned in, squinting to try and read it. "MP? Do we have inspections by the government?"

"No, no inspections, no meetings today," Ianto said. He ducked back through the curtain. He was closer to the calendar, and could read Jack's handwriting a bit better. "N.P.," he declared. "Not M."

"What's NP mean?" Gwen wondered aloud.

"No idea, he doesn't tell me anything," Ianto deadpanned, handing over two cups of coffee -- hers and Jack's. "Go for it."

"And if I can't get it out of him what are you going to do, shag it out of him?" Gwen teased.

"A gentleman never tells," Ianto replied, pressing the button underneath the desk. The hidden door slid back and he grinned. "And that says so much about Jack, doesn't it?"

-----

Their Captain was on the phone when Gwen went to his office. She hesitated in the doorway, about to turn and give him his privacy, but Jack waved her in.

"Martha, please, I'm begging you," he was saying, sounding just a bit desperate. He paused as she spoke to him, nodding a little. "No, I know you don't have any authority, just give me the name of someone who does."

Gwen raised a questioning eyebrow at Jack as she handed over his coffee. He gave her a cocky grin and mouthed his thanks. He laughed at something Martha said. "No, I'm not about to go invading Russia. Aliens land there, they can freeze to death for all I care. Cardiff's already to cold for me."

The Welshwoman covered her mouth to muffle her laugh. That was often his excuse for wearing his greatcoat during the summer, that he'd grown up on a desert planet. Ianto would just roll his eyes and mutter about heat stroke.

Jack scribbled a name and phone number on a scrap of paper. "Thank you, Martha Jones. I owe you," he said. "Love to that family of yours," he added before snapping his phone shut.

"Am I allowed to guess that this has something to do with NP?" Gwen ventured. Jack looked at her, confusion crossing his features, and she gestured towards the roll door -- and the Information Booth -- with her mug. "You marked it on the calendar."

Jack sat behind his desk, nodding a little. "The Novrosk Peninsula," he said, as if that explained everything.

"Sounds Russian," Gwen commented.

Jack looked up at her and gave a bit of a grin. "Are all the Welsh this snarky, or are you just spending too much time with Ianto?" he asked. "He said the exact same thing."

"It's a gift," Gwen said, doing her best not to crack a smile. She failed horribly.

Jack chuckled a little. "It's a former Soviet naval base," he said. "Quite a number of nuclear subs are still there, stuck in the frozen sea."

How reassuring, Gwen thought, but didn't say aloud. Instead she moved to sit in the chair across from Jack. She got the feeling that this was a long story.

She tried to ignore the fact that her little inner voice of snark had sounded like Tosh. It was something that had started before they'd died, before Jack had even left. Now that she and Owen weren't there anymore, Gwen would imagine how they would act, what they would say. It was something she'd always done.

God, she still missed them. She probably always would.

"I went there with the Doctor, back before I... Well, before Torchwood," Jack said. "Him and Rose and me, one of our first trips together." He sat back in his seat, smiling a little as he remembered. "It was one of the first times he trusted me to fly the TARDIS on my own, and I answered a distress signal. Thought it would be fun," he said with a laugh. "An adventure, getting thrown into the thick of things."

He does get bored during peacetime. Hello 'Weevil hunting'. Owen.

"So we landed in the middle of this tiny little town," Jack continued. "They'd found a body the day before. This old, twisted up man. Or so we thought." He waved a hand. "Turns out he was a kid from the village. Only 18, 19, I can't remember exactly."

"What had happened to him?"

Jack leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. "His life force had been sucked out of his body. The town's superstition had been that he'd been attacked by some sort of vampire."

"Was it true?" Gwen asked. "I mean, werewolves from alien microbes in the blood. Is it so far-fetched that vampires could work the same way?"

"Not at all," Jack replied. "But that's not what had attacked him."

He paused and took a sip of coffee. Gwen had to fight back a laugh at the look of pure bliss that crossed his face. Jack and his coffee. Hell, those boys and their coffee, and their stopwatches and their Weevil hunts. Torchwood screwed with people's head, it did.

Ooh, that was Owen too.

"He'd also been out with a girl that night, Valeria. She hadn't come back home. So I joined the search party and went looking for her. And I was the one who found her." He looked down at his hands, as if forming what he was going to say next. "Gwen... When the Doctor first found me, I wasn't a good person by a long shot. I wasn't as bad as John, but I was rather ruthless."

"You said that before," Gwen admitted. "That you'd been a con man and the Doctor had changed you, had made you want to change Torchwood."

"Yep." He smiled a little. "But it wasn't just the Doctor, not really. Rose did too, but... Valeria's always stuck with me, through centuries."

"Did you love her?"

"Not exactly," Jack said with a laugh. "She was almost as bad off as the kid they'd found. She couldn't speak, could barely walk. From a teen to a pensioner in what was probably mere seconds."

"Poor thing," Gwen said sympathetically, resisting the urge to shudder. It was a very legitimate hazard of their trade, and that scared her to think about.

"Valeria trusted me from the second she met me," Jack said, still sounding amazed by the idea. "She trusted me with her very life. The Doctor..." he trailed off and shook his head. "He didn't. Still doesn't. Rose had faith in me, but only so much. She knew what I could do. Valeria trusted me unconditionally, and she'd never even met me."

"Seems to me that she didn't misplace that trust," Gwen said. "You are a good man, you just have to do hard things." She smiled at him. "Ianto and I wouldn't stay if we thought you a tyrant."

"I don't know," Jack said, the corners of his mouth curving upwards. "You both seem to like pain."

"All right then, answer me this." Gwen leaned forward and put her elbows on the desk. "Did Valeria survive whatever happened -- is happening -- will happen -- to her?"

Jack grinned at her flub, but nodded. "She did."

"And how many times did you save her life while you were there, besides finding her?" Gwen asked.

"I had to practically drag and carry her around the entire village," Jack told her, "but she was alive when I left. She hugged me good-bye."

"And now you're making sure that UNIT, or some equivalent thereof, is going to help the survivors, of which Valeria is one," Gwen clarified.

"Yes, I am."

She smiled at him. "You're still taking care of her after 100 years of your time. I'd say she couldn't have had faith in anyone more worthy."

"Flattery will not get you a raise," Jack told her. "And you're getting off the subject. Plenty of people died. Good people."

"You were probably almost one of them, too," Gwen argued back.

Jack was quiet for a few moments, looking back down at his hands. "This is one of the things I hate about time travel," he admitted. "I can't change the way things happen."

"You're making sure they'll be cared for after saving their lives," she said. You're doing more than what that Doctor of yours does.

Hey. Where had Ianto come from?

Jack gave her a warm smile. "Thanks, Gwen."

"So, what was it really?" she asked. "What drained their life force?"

"There was an alien ship buried in the cliffs," Jack said. "It used human life force to power it. They touched the bits that protruded out -- they looked like black rocks -- and..." He made a sucking sound. "Sucked dry. They even sent these blob aliens out to gather up energy."

"Alien blobs?"

Jack chuckled. "Ever seen Futurama?"

"That American cartoon you strangely adore?" Gwen asked, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"The green blob monster from that show looked almost exactly like their scouts, minus the eyes." Gwen stared at him, and he added, "They hunted through heat sensors."

"You are so strange."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Jack said with a grin. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Ms. Cooper."

"You have a phone call to make," Gwen finished with a laugh.

-----

"He's being twitchy," Gwen said, both of them watching Jack pace in his tiny office.

"I was thinking suggesting we all go out for lunch today," Ianto added. "Get him out of the Hub, away from the computer. Maybe hide his mobile."

"You're doing that one," Gwen told him. "I'm not brave enough to even attempt it."

Jack was watching them watching him. "Stop plotting against me in Welsh!" he demanded.

Gwen looked up at Ianto and said, loudly and in Welsh, "He's so paranoid."

"I know, but we love him anyway" Ianto replied in kind, giving Gwen a wink.

"Don't tell him that."

"Oi, I said stop!" He marched out of his office, the mock-anger clearly an act. "I should whip the pair of you."

"Oh, please, no. Anything but that," Ianto deadpanned. Gwen grinned and giggled quietly at Jack's playful growl. "Would you like to accompany Gwen and me to lunch, Jack?"

"Sounds great," Jack replied. When Ianto turned to get his greatcoat, the older man leaned over and kissed Gwen's cheek. "Thank you."

Gwen just smiled back, watching him go over to attempt to molest Ianto. Their Captain saved them from the world, sometimes they had to save him from himself.

God help them.