| Date: 10 December 2007
Characters: Jack Harkness, Owen Harper Location: hotel hallway, hotel bar Link to IJ: thread #897 |
 He'd walked away from Gwen, and stalked and staggered across the uneven field to face Abbadon. Deperation, panic and a last-ditch effort to stop this thing his team had set loose, while there was still something alive on this planet to save.
He hadn't been ready for the pain, the twisting aching pull that threatened to turn him inside out. He couldn't stop the scream that ripped out of him, any more than he could stop the pull of energy. He stayed on his feet as long as he could, but as however long it felt, it wasn't very long. He collapsed to his knees, still screaming. Saw his vision going dark around the edges, and wondered if, this time, death would last. Except he didn't fall into death. He just fell. Slipping slide through too bright light and he was somewhere else. He was on his knees in the upstairs hall of the hotel. There were rooms stretched along either side of him, all the doors closed with brass numbers. He lifted a hand to his face, rubbed his eyes and climbed to his feet. It took more effort than he would admit to; he turned to lean against the wall while he opened his wristband. "What the-" he started. He paused, for a split second, at the sound of someone - or something- moving toward him. "Hell?" he finished. |
 "When I get back, I'm changing the lock on my office. How the hell did you get in there, anyway, Jack?" Owen glared at Jack a moment, before peering at him closer. "Did you die again?" |
| "No," he answered, flatly. "What are you doing here?" |
| Owen snorted. "Getting away from ickle Gwennie's chiding on how I treat my minions, as usual. Bloody woman thinks I shouldn't make them clean up the lab quite so much." |
| Jack nodded, slowly. He was actually pretty gray, but his brain was firmly back on line. "Does this," he asked, very deliberately (patronizingly) and with accompanying hand-gestures, "look like anywhere you're supposed to be?" |
| Owen rolled his eyes, giving Jack an annoyed glare. "It was after you told me to go home for the night when the door showed up, so it's bloody well where I'm supposed to be. It's not like Suzie's going to let me come by her flat tonight." |
| He nodded, again. "What year was it when you left?" |
| "2007." Owen frowned. "What are you on about, Jack?" |
| He shook his head. "I don't remember this." |
| "Remember what?" Owen took a step closer to Jack. "Are you sure you didn't die again? Or is it the Master decided to kill you again?" |
| "The last time I died, you killed me," he said, and rather than leaving the wall held his hand up, palm out toward Owen. "The who?"
Oh, hell. |
| "The Master." Owen stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Don't tell me you've forgotten. And what do you mean, I killed you?" |
| "You --or some version of you-- shot me. Repeatedly. Tell me about the Master." |
| Owen sighed. "The Master. Director of Torchwood since 1976. No one knows how old he is. You keep going back to London, about once every couple month, usually when there's a memo from Hartman that the Master's planning to destroy something again. Never really talk about it, though you always come back with new clothes after. And Hartman usually sends gifts and profuse thanks about a week later." He shrugged. "Runs a company called Masterwork Creations, makes rockets and ships. Built the Guardian. Air-carrier, first of its kind. You dragged the whole team to the launch." |
| He shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping, just a little. "Definitely not my universe," he mumbled. "Sounds like me, though." He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, very briefly, and tried to think. He probably would have been better off if he had died, he thought sardonically. |
| "Huh. At least I don't have to actually change the lock on my office." Owen looked back over his shoulder at the stairs. "I think I need another drink, though. You?" |
| "A drink's a good idea," he agreed, following Owen's gaze toward the stairs. "That way, I assume?" |
| Owen nodded. "There's a bar. Any drink you can imagine. And all sorts of people. Ran into the archivist from Glasgow once. Different point in time, though, so I try to avoid him. Jones is a bit strange, even for someone from the Archives." |
| "If they've got every drink I can imagine, I'm sure they can manage water." He pushed himself away from the wall with a quick, precise motion and headed for the stairs. "You can explain Jones to me as we go." |
| Owen smirked, falling into step beside Jack. "Ianto Jones, in charge of the archives up in Glasgow. Last time he was in Cardiff, my interns got to clean up the aftermath. You..." he trailed off, grimacing. "Jack, anway. Gave Gwen a month of holiday, and paid for her therapy after she found your body, copious amounts of blood, and Jones wanking off in the middle of it." |
| His steps faltered and he turned to look at Owen abruptly enough that his coat snapped around his ankles. His face was a complicated mixture of horror, disgust, and utter bewilderment. He wasn't --quite-- speechless, but it was close. All he could come up with was: "What?" |
| Owen raised an eyebrow, looking over at Jack. "What? Jones less of a freak in your version of reality?" He had a hard time imagining Ianto as any less far from normal than he was. "Wears a suit everywhere, has a girlfriend in London, lets his interns archive absolutely everything that they shouldn't just to drive Hartman nutters...?" |
| Still lacking energy, coherent thought, and brain-power, all Jack could do with the new information was echo himself. "What?" |
| Owen rolled his eyes. "You could vary yourself." He made a beeline for the bar as soon as it was in sight, claiming a couple of stools near one end. "One something interesting, and one water." He turned so he could face Jack. "So, what's Jones like where you come from, if you can't believe what the Jones I know is like?" |
| He took his seat, met the bartender's eyes and held them while he nodded, to let him know he agreed with the order. "Did I say I didn't believe you?" he asked. He answered the question, anyway. "Wears a suit everywhere, has a dry sense of humor, hid a Cyberwoman in the basement and makes incredible coffee." |
| "Cyberwoman?" Owen frowned. "Nothing like that in Cardiff, never has been. Probably a good thing." He shrugged one shoulder. "Don't know about the coffee of Jones in my world, never tried it. Seems the suit is a constant, though." He paused, drumming his fingers against the bar a moment. "Why did I kill you? Did you do something to get Suzie killed? Or a minion of mine?" |
| "That's a good thing," Jack agreed. "You killed me because you were fucking insane, and I tried to stop you from ripping the planet apart. Suzie's been dead for the better part of a year, and you don't have minions." |
| "I do to!" Owen retorted indignantly, before reaching for the glass of something green and steaming slightly. "Well, in my world, I have minions." |
| He took his water, swirled it around and took a small drink and held it in his mouth for a bit before he swallowed. "With the force of your personality, I'm sure people fall all over themselves for the chance." |
| Owen shot him a sharp look. "Only if they're insane, and want to spend their time in a cave looking after alien beasts and patching up other people insane enough to run around chasing the flotsom that comes through the Rift. Including their boss, from time to time."
He took another sip of his drink. "Who runs Torchwood in your world? Hartman?" |
| He drank his water, slow and steady, while Owen gave him that look and talked. By the time there was a question to answer, he'd drained the glass. "It doesn't sound like your place is suffering from a shortage of crazy people." He pushed his glass back at the bartender for a refill. "I do." |
| "You?" Owen smirked. "Your world can't lack nutters, either, if they're letting you run Torchwood." |
| "Torchwood - the bulk of it, anyway - was wiped out years ago, in an invasion. There's a shortage of nutters, because most of them got converted or killed." |
| "Bugger." Owen shrugged, downing another long gulp of his drink. He didn't know what else to say, and pretended to keep his attention mostly on his drink, his gaze flicking towards Jack every few minutes. The man drinking water beside him wasn't anything like the Jack he worked for. Starting with the drink, for one.
"Why don't you order something other than water?" |
| He kept an eye on Owen keeping an eye on him, and pretended not to notice. When his water came back he took another long drink, though he didn't actually drain the glass this time. "Several reasons I'm sure you're not really all that interested in hearing. Tell me about the Jack you know." |
| Owen shrugged. "Not much to tell. He runs Torchwood Three, he goes off to London every couple of months and comes back with new clothes. He actually drinks, instead of trying to be the designated driver. He threw a party for Gwen when she announced she and Rhys had finally decided to get married. He goes up to Glasgow a couple times a year, and we get a chunk taken out of our budget." |
| "That's what he does," Jack agreed, turning his glass between his palms. "What's he like? Do you like him?" |
| Owen sighed. "Well enough. There are days I want to kill him, because he doesn't care about us - the people who work for him - enough to actually tell us what the hell is the point of him going to London every couple of months only to get himself killed in whatever inventive way the Master thinks up. For days after he comes back, he's harder than normal, colder. Shuts himself off, and no one bloody knows why. Not that he ever lets anyone close to him in the first place." |
| "Believe it or not, it's just possible that you don't need to know what he's dying for, or that he's not telling you because he does care." He drank more of his water, and briefly considered hyper-vodka. Very briefly. |
| Owen snorted, and shrugged, ordering another of... whatever he'd been drinking. "So long as he doesn't get all creepy like Jones and the older Hartman, maybe it doesn't matter. Still fucking annoying. And I have to listen to ickle Gwennie fret herself to pieces." He paused, taking a swallow from his new glass. "Hope she doesn't take that home with her. Bloody Rhys has to be a saint to deal with her." |
| "Would you please stop insulting Gwen before I feel compelled to defend her dubious honor?" |
| "No. She's as insane as the rest of us, and gives as good as she gets." Owen looked sideways at Jack. "She a bit more fragile in your world?" |
| "She's not fragile, but she's certainly not insane." |
| "Not yet, she's not. How long has she been working for Torchwood?" |
| "I don't think that's actually any of your business, Owen." |
| Owen shrugged. "Gwennie's been working for Torchwood for two and a half years now, my world. She might have still been sane when she started, but not now. Just wondering if yours has been working their long enough for Torchwood to corrupt her." He looked down at his drink. "And it will. Always does." A wry smile crossed his face. "Who knows, maybe Jones was even normal once." |
| "My torchwood and your Torchwood are not the same place. The sooner you understand that, the better we're going to get along, so I'd strongly suggest you start processing now." |
| Owen chuckled, smirking. "How different, Jack? You don't chase after Weevils and aliens and whatever other flotsom and jetsom floats through the Rift into Cardiff? Don't deal with people who don't know how to cope with being out of their time? Don't answer to the Queen, ultimately? Have a smaller budget?" He shrugged. "Different, but still Torchwood. And I doubt Torchwood really is as different as you'd like to think." |
| "Sounds like there are some similarities, but I can tell you with absolute knowledge that Ianto's never jerked off over my body, that you're not quite so opposed to Gwen, given the amount of time you spend in her bed, and you're not just capable of love, you're capable of crying and breaking and killing for it. It's Torchwood, maybe, but only in function? The people? " he shook his head. "My crew's a lot better than the mess your working with, and I don't need you to confirm that. You confirm it just by speaking." |
| Owen shoved away from the bar, a scowl on his face. "Maybe a mess I'm working with, Jack, but it's my mess, and my batshit collegues. I wouldn't sleep with Gwen - even if I didn't respect her relationship with Rhys too much to try and ruin it, I have a healthy sense of self-preservation, and Suzie would kill me for doing that. My Jack is cold and a wanker, but he's a decent enough boss, and for all the Master is batshit, he's done Torchwood better than any of the directors before him. Saved London from getting swallowed up by the breach developing above Canary Wharf, expanded the archives, made the whole damned thing public." He started to stalk away, throwing one last comment over his shoulder. "Come and tell me yours is any better when you've made Torchwood something for the world to be proud of." |
| "I don't need validation from the world," Jack said, easily, and stood. "That makes it better, too." He stretched, confidently, and walked out opposite Owen. |