Fans Fiction Tango of the Exiles by Christopher E. Fain Pt 1

By Christopher E. Fain
Part One:

Dear Jack

There's no way for me to predict whether you will return to Earth in this time zone.  Once, I could've said that you wouldn't because you didn't, but I'm not such a fool as to believe your timeline is fixed in any such manner.  The very nature of your existence suggests you to be beyond such petty temporal theories. 

I write this to you and half-heartedly hope you'll never know it exists, for if you ever read this letter, it means you've altered the timeline which I understand to be reality.  By doing so, you might erase my memories. 

A man may pray to his gods for such an end.

Sometimes, I pray for such an oblivion.  Sometimes, I wish to be a different man, a man who could fall through the Cardiff Rift for some other reason than the one which brought me here.  Mostly I wish I was a different man, one who didn't fall.  There are days when I wish I'd never met you.  What might my life have been if I'd never devoted my heart and body, my mind and soul? 

I don't curse your name, Jack, but I have my regrets. 

Forgive me that, as you long ago forgave me for the horrors I unleashed in my desire to help you and protect my home world.  You haven't been there yet, it all lays before you still.  As I don't expect to ever see you again, I'll have to console myself with the knowledge that, if you knew the truth, you would understand the magnitude of what I accomplished in your name.  I like to think that, if you did know, you'd recognize the depth of my devotion and maybe you would even see me with new eyes, without pity. 

You always looked at me with pity, in this time zone.  You pitied my face, my ruined body.  I could read the pity in your heart and it tempered my resolve to never give you any more information than I did.  Why would I ever tell you the truth of us when you looked at me with such compassionate anguish?  There was a time when your eyes would've held laughter and love and happiness when we were together, but no more.  I couldn't tell you.  It wasn't just for the sake of temporal continuity, Jack.  The truth of me hurts.

Sometimes, I wish I could wake up and not remember how I came to be on this planet so far from my own home world, so far from you and from all that I love. 

On the other hand, if you do return to Earth, such a small temporal paradox might change nothing of my memories.  What's a few more decades on Earth for a man like you, in the face of a thousand years?  It might make no difference at all in the grand scheme of things.  Time's a great and terrible river and it can adjust to a shift in its flow as long as the fixed events exist unchanged.

If you do return, I suspect you'll come looking for me.  That's not ego on my part, just an abiding awareness of what you're capable of and an understanding of how you think.  You'll have figured out that I knew what was going to happen to Ianto Jones and your grandson and you'll want answers for why I dropped a forewarning when I'd never done so before, no matter how difficult the situation for Torchwood.

Here's the answer to that question, in the hopes that it'll give you some peace.  I didn't mean to say anything.  I meant to let you go without anything that could've been construed as a warning.  I meant to take your face in my hands, kiss you for the last time, and let you walk away shocked at my audacity and perhaps sickened at the feel of my broken mouth against your undying flesh.  I didn't want that hateful bit of cloth between us, but I don't believe I could have survived your disgust.

Every time I gave you information, you asked for clarification.  For more.  You wanted to know so much about me, about what I am and where I came from, why I was here and how I could know all that I did.  Your heart rang out like a bell all those questions and more every time I spoke of events I was not witness to.  I can't help but wonder why you didn't ask for answers one last time.

If you had demanded to know, I don't think I could've refused you.  Not on your last visit.  I think I would've spilled my guts on the floor between us if you had insisted I explain myself.  More than anything, I wanted to leave Flat Holm at your side with a determination to alter a fixed event.

If I had, then I would never have known you, would never have done all the things which led me to this end.  The paradox may well have rewritten your life and prevented us from ever meeting.  It would have been the greatest act of my life, an altruistic suicide for the sake of you.  It would have been my third attempt at saving you through the sacrifice of myself and they do say third time pays for all. 

Once, a long way from here and now, you told me I didn't look like a suicidal lunatic.  At the time, I made some comment designed for humor, to defuse the situation, and you let me.  It was a special day, one that lives untarnished and treasured in my memories.  Even then, you didn't understand why I did half the things I worked at, but you forgave me then and I hope you'll forgive me now.

It's a sad fact that people who love you, who believe in you, will always throw themselves on grenades for your sake.  You should know that now, if you're reading this, and it's appropriate that it should come from me; let the knowledge temper your heart.  Forgive yourself for having that effect.  If Ianto was with you to ask, I think he'd agree that it's never your fault.  By being a hero, you show us how to become worthy and how can that be wrong?

I wonder what might've happened if I had left Flat Holm with you.  If I had, it would've been me at your side in Thames House.  I'd have made sure of that.  I would've kept my mouth shut about the 456 and their demands and ridden out the storm with you.  Some events couldn't be altered but I could've taken his place and given you a means to save this world without sacrificing Stephen.  The saving of their lives was within my power, Jack, and for your sake, I'd have done anything.  That was always the truth of us.

I hope you don't find me.  I don't want to see you.  I'd sooner not be continually reminded of what I've lost.  In fact, I'm content to die on this world.  It is, after all, my father's home world.  Here, I am unknown and unloved, a scarred stranger who can't quite fit in, and I prefer that ending.  For my crimes, it's a fitting prison.

If you do read this letter, I ask only two things of you.  Please, don't look for me.  Let me go.  Forgive me for not being willing to risk destroying a fixed event just to protect your heart and save their lives.  If I could've saved them without altering the timeline, I would have.  You must believe this.  Believe me when I say I've earned my fate.

Go on being my good man. 

Lyn

***

The file was red.  It contained typed reports.  Alex's reports, the truncated police reports, the Hub medic's reports.  There were other papers.  It contained A-4 sized photographs in colors so lurid as to make his eyes hurt.  It was all dated January-July 1997 and held the interconnecting pieces of a story he'd read more than once. 

Funny how, when he'd read the file in 2000, he hadn't noticed that last line on the archivist's report. 

Jack sat back and fingered the braces away from his shoulders, slumped with exhaustion.  He needed to give in and let himself actually sleep for a few hours but was determined to review the entire file once more.  For the third time since he'd received it from UNIT.  He rubbed his aching brow, dragged the palm of his hand down the plane of his cheek to scratch at the stubble pricking through.

He was in his study.  He'd already drawn the curtains, clicked on the lamp.  Earlier, he had gone out for dinner, a table for one, and returned to this rambling pile of walls and doors and windows he now called home, intending to make an early night of it.  There was an endless progression of reality shows to take his mind off work and his undersized team, if he wanted to be a couch potato.  But, once again, the file had called to him from his desk and he'd abandoned the TV in favor of darker fare. 

Crap telly couldn't compare to this.

Archivist's report.  He scanned the onion-skin page, his mind sluggish in making the adjustment between smudged Courier and red felt-tip pen.  He was almost too tired to focus on what the words meant.

The ship was being stored at a UNIT complex under the old Scarman Estate, in Hampshire.  The pilot's possessions had been put in a lead-lined box and placed in the Hub's archive behind a heavily-locked door but, since the Torchwood Hub was defunct, the archive was now in the same location, the Scarman Estate.  No one was ever meant to dig through the contents, it seemed.  At Alex Hopkins' orders.  The only other person who could request them from the archive was the pilot himself.

Who, in a way, had also been archived. 

The archivist, a woman named Natalie Prudhoe, whose face had always made Jack think of a horse's backside, had written notes on the typed page.  Her script was loopy but compact; he squinted to make out the last comment, scrawled at the bottom.  The last word was almost lost, scorched with brown from the fire that had nearly claimed the delicate paper.  All the pages were like this, damaged from the explosion that had claimed the Hub's life.  He was lucky to have it at all; he had used up a few owed favors to get this file.  UNIT was willing to play ball, but only on their terms and Torchwood was still getting back on its feet.  He hadn't called Martha yet, but it looked like he might need to.

Why had he never noticed this last comment?

'5/7/97.  Archived interviews and investigation cassettes.  File Box 79365x.  Do not inventory.'

He needed to talk to Martha.  He needed to examine the ship.  He needed to find that box of audio cassettes.  He needed to find the man who had written that letter to him, who had confessed so much while managing to hold back the most important information, which---he knew better than anyone, maybe---was just what could be expected from a cagey bastard like Lyn.

Alex's reports had suggested there was some need to handle Lyn's situation quickly and without making ripples.  It had all been kept quiet.  A handful of staff were involved and all of them but Alex and Youngston had been retconned in the aftermath.  Even Sheila Yeadon, Alex's personal assistant, had gotten a dose. 

The medic, Robert Youngston, had worked on the injured pilot without having a clue who or what he was; his first words about the off-worlder was a question concerning Lyn's species.  Lyn was human, but something else too.  He was different enough from Earth humans to be recognized as such through a simple DNA scan.  His report, easily three dozen pages long, often read like a study in battlefield medicine; Youngston had come to Torchwood as a retired RAMC officer. 

Lyn had died twice within the first twelve hours of his new life on Earth and was forced back to the land of the living through resuscitation procedures which had only added to the damage of his flesh.  After the catheter and IV cannula were removed and the induced coma lifted, the alien man had needed to be strapped down to a bed to prevent him from excessive movement while his wounds healed. The pilot recovered faster than he should have, with such injuries.

Three suicide attempts had been thwarted in those first six months, all occurring after the pilot was finally capable of independent movement, in months four and five.

He didn't hold it against Lyn, that desire for death.  The list of injuries made his skin draw up in tense commiseration, the photos made it real.  The ship's cockpit had caught fire as it fell through the Rift and into the bay.  The pilot had apparently tried to bail, had lost control, probably as a result of being burned alive.  The front of Lyn's body had taken the brunt of it.  Youngston described second degree burns that had destroyed the skin on both legs and the right arm, both hands and feet.  The front of the man's torso and neck had also suffered severe damage, extending over the lower half of his face.  The upper half of his features and his head itself had escaped being burned by the sheer dumb luck of being covered in a flight helmet and its visor. 

To wake up alive after a crash and remade by ruinous fire, the pain must have been maddening.  To wake up and know himself twisted beyond recognition, Lyn must have felt swept under a tide of despair.  What price his survival if it came with monstrous deformity that covered and hid the gentle, intelligent soul underneath?

He probably wouldn't have wanted to live, either.

The photographs in the medic's report were taken over six months' time, from the wreck until the off-worlder was given a clean bill of physical health from Youngston.  The pictures were embedded on his memory, now, a series of images captured for the purposes of recording injuries and the degree of healing.  They were gruesome, among the worst he'd ever seen.  

The only glossy image in the sheaf worth revisiting was the tattoo, photographed as a form of identification in the course of examining the wounded man.  On Lyn's left shoulder blade was a crest-like mark which Youngston described with detail.  He'd never seen the tattoo with his own eyes, had never pushed Lyn to explain, but now found himself ever more curious to discover the intended meaning behind the familiar Latin words 'Regina et patriae'.

Had Lyn been a soldier on some distant world?

The tattoo's placement had prevented it from being destroyed by fire.

Less than forty-eight hours after the crash, retcon had been used.  After the retcon was administered to the agents and staff, only Alex and Youngston had retained any useful knowledge about the off-worlder in the locked, windowless cell which had been outfitted as a burn unit.  Only the team leader, the medic, and Sheila had even known of Lyn's silent, unregistered presence, the PA following orders without understanding why.  All of this had happened while he was in the States, working with the CIA.  He'd been gone eight months that time, Christmas to August, and missed the entire thing.

There were so many questions.  Why had retcon been used on four agents and a personal assistant, everyone who'd had contact with Lyn during his first day here?  Why had Alex hidden the stranger in the Hub, making him effectively a secret prisoner, a modern day Eustache Dauger sans an iron mask?

He needed the contents of those two boxes from the archive.  Jack dropped the archivist's report on the stack of papers and fumbled at the cluttered desk, digging through the detritus of his own bad organizational skills to find a pen, the thick pad of yellow Post-It notes.  He jotted the file designation, the name of the UNIT research facility.

With an eye to his watch, he thumbed a button on his mobile.  It dialled as he forced a smile onto his face with an intention to make his voice sound pleasant.  He waited for the Woman Who Walked the World to answer his call for help.

***

He'd been back for just over five months, almost six; it was late October and the weather had turned brittle and chilly as the year crept towards its death.  Torchwood wasn't going to have a real Hub for a while, if ever.  There was just too much clean-up to do.  Right now, they were working out of the residence he'd taken for himself, one of his old properties in Cardiff.  It was the closest thing they had to a centralized base. 

Gwen and Rhys and their young daughter Anwen were roosting in a flat within walking distance.  The Rift was closed, but they still needed a place to call home; big assignments were slow, came in sporadically, and could take them anywhere in the world, while small assignments were often linked to remnants of Rift activity and seemed spread across the lower half of the United Kingdom.  The funding was there, thanks to UNIT and the Crown, but it was nowhere near the obscene grants he'd once seen pouring into the accounts.

He had to jump through hoops, for official reasons.  He hated playing politics.  He hated having to answer to a so-called higher power, divine or human.  He didn't think the government had any right to interfere, but he'd always felt that way.  If on his own, he wouldn't have bothered.  But Gwen and her family needed more protection than he could offer; they needed the paycheck, if nothing else.

It didn't hurt that an official status gave them some immunity from prosecution when the team---what there was of it---crossed legal lines to carry out their mission to protect Earth from hostile alien intrusion.

He found it difficult, being back in Cardiff.  Everywhere he looked, he saw traces of his old life and the people he'd loved and lost.  He'd seen Ianto's sister at Tesco two months ago, would've pretended not to notice if her son hadn't pointed him out.  The ensuing conversation had been stiff and awkward.

Both reassuring and painful, Rhiannon Davies' familiar blue eyes. 

Tortured by guilt after, he'd contacted the bank and diverted a portion of funds to Ianto's remaining family; it should've gone to them in the first place, the premature death insurance, but things being what they were...he wasn't surprised that Johnny and Rhiannon had kept their heads down, hadn't tried to claim anything.  For Ianto's sake, he had pushed to get the insurance payment reinstated and back-dated.  Christmas would be very good this year, with a settlement for the children.

He hadn't visited the grave since he'd returned.  He didn't want to.  What was there but a small, understated stone, a weight around his heart?  Instead, he kept himself busy and working, when it was possible.  When it wasn't possible, his mind went over the details of things which couldn't be changed or fixed; there was little to distract him, in those moments.  He knew he ought to be recruiting, finding agents and scientists to join the team.  He needed to convince the government to rebuild the Hub, but as of yet they were little more than a fly-by-night operation with two official members.

It was in his first black mood that he'd gone to Flat Holm and found it silent and empty.  He had wanted a conversation with the man who could've prevented the upheaval of his life in July 2009.  He'd prepared himself for lies and subterfuge and half-answers and quiet but steely refusals only to be thwarted by an isolation facility full of echoes and shadows and cobwebs.  He'd walked the clammy-damp corridors and found himself studying the names which still labeled each door.  He'd ripped Lyn's down, crumpled it in his fist.

A phone call had given him the news that, when UNIT had taken over Flat Holm, the facility was moved to a converted barracks at the British Army's training camp at Okehampton.  Rather than demand verbal confirmation from a clerk who had no access to classified files, he'd made the drive to West Devon and Dartmoor, calling in a favor as he did.  He had wanted instant access to the new facility and its inmates, and it was granted.

But, Okehampton was a dead end.  Of sorts.

The man he was seeking had left Flat Holm the day after Ianto died.

Lyn hadn't been confined to the facility, had chosen to voluntarily stay until he...didn't.  There was no record of where he had hared off to, either.  He had packed his things and left, giving the address of a homeless shelter in Newport as his next likely destination.  Over the years, Lyn had tucked away money. Jack had refused to accept his strange, scarred friend working at Flat Holm for free, had found funds for a small monthly stipend.  A stipend that Lyn hadn't spent, it seemed.

Jack had been preparing to leave Okehampton when a soft-faced girl, one of the nurses who'd made the transition from Flat Holm, had approached and said that she was holding something for him.  Lyn had left a letter, addressed to Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood.  It had been sealed in a way which made it impossible for anyone to have impeached its contents without being obvious.  He recognized the method, it was one of his.

He had taken his letter and gone for a walk out on the moor.

Sitting alone on a tor, he'd read and re-read the thing, glad for his solitude.  He was certain no one needed to see his unfiltered reactions to a confession of such magnitude.

Coming back to Cardiff after, already running late for a mission that Gwen had taken for them, he'd made a decision.  He would find the missing off-worlder, one way or another.  There had to be some answer for the things Lyn had written in that damn letter. 

Since then, he had run into more dead ends and blank faces.  There was no record of anyone fitting Lyn's description at the homeless shelter in Newport or anywhere else, for that matter.  Lyn had covered his tracks well, it seemed.  There was no sign of him anywhere.  Every angle Jack could think of turned up nothing, not even a trace of that man's presence.  It was almost as if greying, ruined Lyn had vanished into thin air. 

He was still deeply angry; he wanted answers for many things.  But, this was tempered by a genuine concern for an alien human who had known him in another time zone, on other worlds.  The words Lyn had bequeathed him suggested so much more than he'd ever suspected before.  Who the hell was Lyn?  What was he?  How could the man have known him for nine years, carrying around the burden of elephantine secrets, and never let even a hint of the truth escape his lips?

He'd once despaired of ever knowing Lyn's real identity.  He suspected 'lovers' might be a label which applied to them at some later date in the distant future; he hadn't needed to read between the lines to find the affection and love obvious in Lyn's words.  Lyn had believed he wouldn't return but had hedged his bets, like any good time traveller.

Now, the letter was worn, growing thin at the folds and frayed at the edges.  He had dripped coffee on it, carried it in his wallet. 

The recovered paper files had been brought to him from the warehouse where UNIT had started storing items found in the Hub's blasted core.  He had dug through them and found the records for Lyn's arrival in 1997.

They offered the opposite of resolution, the antithesis of consolation.

As of yet, he had kept Gwen Cooper out of the search.  He wasn't ready to explain to her.  He wondered if he would ever get enough answers to warrant bringing his second in command up to speed on the matter of a missing off-worlder with an addiction for tea and music...a man who had once answered the question of 'what are you?' with a muttered chuckle and a raised brow and the words 'a clockmaker'.

He hoped Doctor Martha Smith-Jones could help.

***

When the line connected, he put his mobile on speaker and laid it down on the open red file.  Beside it lay Lyn's letter, unfolded and seemingly fragile, belying its importance.  He took a deep breath and then another, holding his smile like a shield.

The voice on the other end was wary and hesitant.  He had a new mobile, a new number.  She didn't know who was calling at this time of night.  "Hello?"

Jack Harkness closed his eyes and, pushing his head back, tipped his chin to the ceiling as the chair reclined a few inches.  He hadn't spoken with Martha since her wedding to Mickey Smith, less than a month before Ianto's death.  He wondered if she still smelled like vanilla ice cream and tangerines. 

"In the dark of a cruel night, there sang a nightingale."

There was silence, a pause of curiosity, and then.  "Jack?"

"Doctor Martha Smith-Jones, you could be my saviour again."  His smile wavered.

"God, Jack, why is it always dramatic with you?"  She gave a breathy laugh that squeaked at the end and flooded him with memory. 

Here, where no one could listen to their conversation, he relaxed and accepted that she knew him.  She'd been to the end of the universe with him.  She'd saved the world and was a hero, strong and wise beyond her years.

"Is your prettier half around tonight?"  He hoped not; he liked Mickey well enough, but this needed to be a private talk.  Once he involved her, and her threads of power within UNIT, it became a mission.  If it became necessary to involve Gwen and Rhys, then Mickey would be briefed and as a group they could hunt every possible avenue.  Who knew but that they might have to go so far, to find Lyn. 

Lyn had to be found.

"No."  Jack imagined she shook her head; how was she wearing her hair these days?  "Mickey's undercover right now.  I'm not even really sure where he is.  Probably southeast Asia."

He bit his lower lip, at a loss for what to say next.  He'd had this planned out in a vague sort of way.  It was difficult to remember when, behind his eyes, he could see that very first photograph of Lyn, the one taken of him on the quay in the dark of a cold winter's night, his body lit up by a sun-bright torch.

Olive green flightsuit, the kind used by space flitter pilots in the 31st century, its protective uber-canvas mostly burned away from a long, skinny body with arms and legs akimbo, a bloodied and burned angel after the Fall.  Yellow hair wet with sweat and blood, a face destroyed, a pair of eyes full of hell.

Lyn had been conscious, aware.  Despite the pain.  Despite the shock.

Jack pushed it down and away from him, the image.  There was no time for nightmares.  He caught the tail-end of Martha's words, her sad tone.  "....didn't get to talk, after.  I'm so..."

"Sorry, I know."  He interrupted.  "I know.  Everyone was.  Is.  No one more than me.  But, he died a hero and he wouldn't have wanted it any other way."

A lie.  He could give Martha a lie and hope she believed.  She'd known Ianto. 

"Be careful, Captain."  There was a fierce edge to her words.  "That makes it sound like you're turning friends and lovers into good little soldiers."

It was the javelin all over again.  He winced at the sourness in her tone.

And just like that, he said what was on his mind and didn't care how he sounded.  Someone else would misunderstand the change in subject.  "He didn't save us.  He didn't show up.  He always shows up."

"He never promises, Jack.  We can't hold him to something like a promise.  He couldn't have known."

"You think he'd be angry with me?  It was my fault, you know."  There.  He'd said it aloud.

"No, I don't."  He could picture her giving it real thought, with raised brows.  "I really don't.  You're human.  Like me, like Ianto, like Owen and Tosh, like Gwen."

"Like Mickey."  Jack teased, trying for a more casual tone to the conversation.

Martha laughed.  "He's not human.  He's something else."

He chuckled back at her, using the fingers of his right hand to trace the leather lens cap of his wrist strap.  "Oh, so he's Superman now?  Wish I'd known that back when we were in the TARDIS together.  I'd have tried harder with him."

"I'll thank you to not think those kinds of thoughts about my husband, Jack."  She was being coy.  But, then she turned serious, cleared her throat.  "Jack...it's getting close to midnight and I've got an early project briefing.  You didn't call me to talk about the old days.  You sound all wrong for that."

"That bad, huh?"

He could imagine.  He probably sounded the way he had when Owen Harper died.  The first time.  Considering what had happened then, perhaps he ought to step back and re-think the situation.  Was he using his brain or his heart or both?  Should he use both?  He wanted to find Lyn, but maybe it wasn't a good idea.  Maybe there was a good reason for why Lyn didn't want to be found.  And...if he did find the time traveler, what did he intend to do about it?  Could he convince Lyn to come back to Cardiff with him?  The man was alone on Earth, outside of his own time zone.  He knew what that was like.  He could help Lyn, if he was allowed.

He just wasn't sure why he wanted to.  How much of this was sympathy?  How much curiosity?  The letter was haunting, suggested so much that could hurt.  If he let it.

"What's wrong, Jack?"

He pressed down on the supple surface of his wrist strap’s band, his fingertip stroking deep into the grain.  He kept his eyes closed, his face tilted up as if he could escape the scorch-edged red file.  "I have a problem, a missing person's case I'm doing on my own.  I need help from UNIT, but it has to go through unofficial channels for right now.  It's...complicated.  Maybe too complicated to talk about on the phone.  If I drive to London, think you'll have some time for me tomorrow?"

She never did anything without considering the consequences any more, a legacy of her adventures with the Doctor.  It took a full minute for the English physician to respond and when she did, she sounded hesitant.  "Sure, Jack.  It'll be just like old times.  We could go for coffee after I get out of that briefing.  Say eleven hundred hours?"

"Let me buy you lunch.  How's that sound?"  He offered, his mood lifting as he realized that he'd jumped the first hurdle with no difficulties.  "Gwen was down that way a couple of weeks ago and said there's a new place on the Strand, one that does weird things with chips.  I'm always up for weird chips."

"Maybe the owners are aliens."  Martha was teasing again.

"Maybe.  That's what Gwen thought, too."  Jack dropped his hands to his lap and gave his thighs a hard scrub before he explained.  "She was investigating reports of renewed Rift-like activity along the Thames. This time it was a temporal loop at number three Cheyne Walk."

"La-di-da, must be exciting, a temporal loop in a place like that."

"Not as exciting as you'd think.  Just emotional echoes caught in a temporal loop.  Echoes of Keith Richards, from the Rolling Stones of all people.  Had the neighbors frightened, that's all.  I'd forgotten he lived there."

"Any idea what was causing the loop?  Oh, wait...are you sure it's connected to old Rift activity?  Not my area, but I thought we had people taking care of any...hiccups."

By people, she meant UNIT's scientific research department, headed by Kate Stewart.  Stewart was the woman who'd suggested the Doctor---or more specifically, his TARDIS---might be drawn to London because of the latent Rift activity which could be observed along the city's river, pockets and cracks where spatio-temporal energy just seemed to seep up like steam off a dormant volcano.  Just because the Rift was closed in Cardiff didn't mean there wasn't some validity to UNIT's claim.  One reason for that concern was in how the interdimensional activity seemed to have increased since the Battle of Canary Wharf.  It was part of why they wanted Torchwood working with them, a subdivision instead of its own entity. 

He had no intentions of allowing Torchwood to be controlled like that again.

Jack agreed.  "One of the tenants of the next flat is an old friend.  They decided to call me instead of UNIT."  And so he'd sent Gwen and Rhys to investigate.  They'd shut down the building and used a chronon signal booster to stop the chronic hysteresis.  No harm, no foul.

It had to mean something that the phenomenon manifested itself like a ghost which repeated the same set of actions in the same space every day at the same time.  He just didn't have anyone with the expertise to deal with the logistics of temporal science.  Humanity on Earth was only now beginning to see chronology in its proper context and it would take them thousands of years to reach time travel.

"So, we do lunch and coffee, your treat...text me when you get to London, tell me where to meet you."  Martha gave one of her patented squeaky laughs.  "I'll show you the new flat, too, if you like."

"Sure."  He pushed himself upright, making the leather chair creak.  He opened his eyes, focused on the desk and its sprawling junkyard of artifacts and files.  There were three empty coffee cups.  How did he manage to forget them every time he left the office?  "I can show you what's left of my Hub.  I've got pictures."

The humor was instantly gone; Martha took it as seriously as he did.  "I've seen it, Jack.  I'm more interested in seeing what's left of you."

The call finished, Jack leaned a little farther forward to switch off the gooseneck lamp.  Now, he sat in the dark office and watched the shadows of night stretch up and away as cars went by on the narrow road outside, casting headlights through the slit of curtains and along the poster-sized photographs, framed and hung.

One of them was a oblique shot of an industrial complex in black and white, Ianto's work.  Gwen had suggested it, had collected it from storage.  He'd said yes.  This was the office, after all.  He studied it as the gleam rolled away from its surface and left him in darkness once more.  He regretted the loss.  Right now, he wanted something---anything---that could erase the visceral reds and blacks and yellows of scorched flesh that lingered in his mind.

What if it was true?  What if Lyn could've saved Ianto and Stephen?  How was he supposed to handle that, when he found the missing off-worlder?  And it would be when, not if.  He wouldn't give up until he'd run the time traveller to ground, one way or another.

What could he possibly say to Lyn, after the letter had laid bare secrets he could never have guessed at?  Yet, he couldn't imagine not finding him.  If only to make sure the other man was okay, alive and well.  Even if Lyn told him to piss off, it would be better than not knowing.  He could consider it a box ticked off on the things he needed to review and re-collect, gather or discard.

What access Torchwood had to CCTV footage was limited just now.  That was changing.  In the meantime, what access they did have wasn't very helpful.  It was turning up nothing.  He needed Toshiko's expertise, Ianto's. 

He had resources.  He could use them. One of those resources instantly came to mind.  Unlike Martha Smith-Jones, who was a friend and who would do what she could to keep all interested parties from nosing around, there was always a price to pay when he involved the ginger spymaster he'd once known simply as M.

He needed to see the wrecked space flitter, the box of audio cassettes, the box of personal effects...yes, all of that was important, but he also needed to find Lyn.  That wasn't something Martha would be able to do much with, he suspected.

However, there was always M.

In trepidation, Jack clicked the lamp on again and went to work on it.  He used his mobile to take pictures of the missing man's most recent photographs, those kept by Flat Holm staffers and handed over to him with minimal fuss at Okehampton.  He wrote down the most pertinent information he knew, from the medical files.  Height, weight, coloring, the scars, the voice. 

Then, he searched his memory for the right telephone number.  Would it have changed?  The last time he'd needed M, he'd gone to the Diogenes Club in London...and been told in a very subtle way to never do it again.  Mobile calls were the best way to conduct business with M. 

His heart beat out of time as he punched in the number he could remember.

It didn't matter that it was now midnight.  In fact, that was appropriate, somehow.

Twelfth hour.  Wasn't that just another way of saying it was too late?

The female voice on the other end of the line didn't sound like someone roused from sleep.  "Captain Harkness, it is very good to hear from you.  M has been expecting your call."

Instantly, Jack looked around the dimly lit office, paranoia on the rise.  Shit.  He was bugged.  Well, that let him know how dangerous the British government considered him.  He knew better than to think he'd find all the wires and cameras, either.  He never had, before.

"If you will be patient for a few minutes, M shall call you back.  He's currently in a meeting."

And then the line went dead.

In a meeting at midnight?  That was M.

He heaved a sigh and dropped the mobile to his chest as he fell back in the chair once again. 

He'd first encountered M shortly after having command of the Hub at Torchwood 3 thrust into his hands.  In the process of arranging matters for Flat Holm, he'd found himself being watched.  It was an instinct, to know without seeing.  Through a matter of catching suits and coercing answers out of them---not easy, not with those boys and girls---he'd eventually made contact with their boss, who called him ham-fisted and uncouth without actually using those words.

But, M had proven useful.  He'd returned the favor on a few, memorable occasions.  Each time they'd had contact, he had found it necessary to sweep for bugs.  Even in the Hub.  Which was an alarming idea.

He hadn't thought to look for them in this house before now.  How long had this room been giving away Torchwood secrets?  The entire time? 

When his mobile rang, he let it.  Four chimes.  Then, a fifth.  If the smug, pompous bastard was watching, that was even better.  Answering, he didn't bother with a smile.  "Do I have to remind you that I'm not an enemy?"

"Good evening to you, too, Captain Harkness.  Do you suggest I'm having your private residence monitored?"  That damned voice.  It never changed.  "I've had a long day, Captain.  Let's just agree that it's always a good idea to know what your allies are concerning themselves with in this changeable world.  You're not a man who engages in useless pleasantries, so shall we...cut to the chase?"

Jack wished he had a drink in hand.  Some of the silky Cardhu would be nice.

He explained about his missing off-worlder, leaving out the off-worlder part.  He had a man missing, someone he needed to find and quickly.  The man fit this set of descriptions, had a vaguely Welsh-like accent, and may have decided to avoid large cities because of the scars on his face.  He didn't need to give a reason for his hunt; M would see through him. 

He also didn't explain that he couldn't find Lyn on CCTV footage and he didn't need to.  "Public security cameras are not easy to manipulate without our notice.  This would suggest he isn't in an area where cameras could capture his image, but there are other explanations.  What a pity that Miss Sato is no longer with you.  You wouldn't have needed to put yourself out for this, Captain.  Continue with your plans and allow my office to find your missing man."

And then the call was finished.  Click.  That simple, with no promise of future communication. 

Damn spooks.  He had done his fair share of work for them, with them, but it never put him any closer to ease.  He'd have to wait for the tall, robust spymaster again.

Jack laid his mobile down and scrubbed a hand through his hair with another heavy sigh.

***

He could see faint traces of orange-yellow pollen in her hair, a light dusting in the black sweep that followed the curve of her head.  She wore it elegantly coiffed in a chignon that had been pinned into a bun that would do any librarian proud.

Martha sat across the small table from him, dressed like a sleek panther in a black leather jacket that made him think of the one Gwen had favored before.  She looked healthy, happy, pleased to see him.  She hadn't removed it when they sat down but that hadn't stopped him from hanging his greatcoat, relaxing into the crowd of lunch time diners who filled the restaurant.

He wondered if they could talk without being overheard.  Which of these people was M's agent?  Could there be more than one?  Probably. 

He'd chosen Smollensky's main site on The Strand, in Covent Garden, rather than the smaller location in rebuilt Canary Wharf.  They'd been given a table in the quietest corner.  It nearly qualified as a nook. 

Under the jacket, Martha wore a champagne silk blouse that showed a lot of perky breast.  She had filled him in on her news and he'd shared his and now her gaze rested on the red file folder that lay in front of him, a glaring bright question mark at the tip of his fingers.

"What I'm going to show you is Torchwood's.  It happened to us, not UNIT."  Jack Harkness lowered his head and studied the young, dark-skinned woman with a serious frown.  "But, the current circumstances mean that UNIT has what I'm looking for, in storage.  I'm going to give you this folder and go for a walk.  The top page is an overview of what the file says.  I'll be back in fifteen minutes."

"Get the next round in, too?"  She lifted her pint and drained it to the foam, her mouth curling into a moue.  "Why'm I looking at this alone?"

"Because I don't want to see your expression when you realize what you're looking at."  It was as good a reason as any and had the added bonus of being mostly true.  He also didn't want to hear her gasp in shock at the idea of an alien human crash-landing into the bay with injuries that would've killed another in similar straits.  He didn't want to see how her dark eyes would widen at the photographs.  He knew she'd be sick to her stomach and that was meant to be a private affair, the queasy.

When he'd read the reports in 2000, he hadn't dwelt on the medical aspect.  It had been enough to see the pictures, to get a gist of what Youngston understood about the Hub's new guest.  Like the archivist's final comment, it was something he'd ignored for the sake of expediency. 

Over the last two weeks, he'd read and re-read this story and was no closer to reconciling its place in his life.  He needed to find Lyn.  How did someone survive a crash like the one that had been written off by the Cardiff police, influenced by Torchwood and a heavy round of retcon, as a meteor?  The witness reports alone read like something out of a Stephen King novel, if the famous horror writer dealt in howling spatio-temporal mayhem.

The Rift had looked like a blazing aurora in the winter sky the night Lyn fell.

Jack got up from the table and walked away, leaving Doctor Smith-Jones with the file.  He relieved himself in the washroom and then went outside to stand on the street, his eyes following the looming skyline of The Strand.  He would give her a half-hour; their food would arrive and by the time he returned, his dish would be be cold, but he didn't care.  It wasn't about lunch, really. 

Without his coat, the air was bracing.  He let it wash over him.

Returning, he stopped at the bar and ordered two more pints.  At the table again, he sat down to a plate of jambalaya creole that he no longer wanted to eat.  He could see, from the look on Martha's face and the way she stirred her own rice around, that her appetite was stripped away.  She looked up at him, dark eyes wide.

"Jack...who is this man?"  She asked, laying her fork to the side.  Her slim fingers traced the closed folder's burnt edges.

"I'm not sure."  He admitted, taking a sip of his beer.  "I don't know.  But...he knows me.  From my future.  He's a time traveller.  Maybe."

How could he be sure of anything until he talked to Lyn and asked a lot of questions?

"He's not...he's human, according to what the medic wrote, but not like an Earth human.  Not like you, either, I imagine."  She gave a quirk of a smile, sickly.  "Where is he?  I would love to meet him.  It's like a chance to see our progress of evolution as a species...isn't it?"

What she wasn't saying, what they were both thinking, was that Lyn had to be an evolved form of human but not so far into the future as those poor unfortunates they had met on Malcassairo a trillion years away from here and now.  And yet those humans had been simply human, no more and no less.  Lyn seemed to be something more, something perhaps hybrid.

It was the brain scans and blood work report that must have electrified Martha's interest.  He knew that, as a scientist for UNIT, she would realize that the future held many different angles for human evolution.  As the species had spread across the universe, the human genome had changed and adapted and perhaps, in response to external stimulation, produced Lyn, who should've died upon impact.

Lyn, for Martha, after all they had been through with the Doctor, would represent hope for humanity.

He wondered if she had nightmares about the Master, about that lost year when Earth and her peoples were nearly destroyed because of one mad Time Lord.

"That's the problem, the reason I called you."  Jack reached for the file and then changed his mind.  He leaned back, folded his arms.  "His ship is at Scarman Estate, in Hampshire.  So are his personal effects, the things Torchwood found in the cockpit with him.  The things that weren't destroyed by the crash or the fire.  There's also a box of audios, Youngston had a habit of recording his procedures.  He apparently taped things from the time they got Lyn into the Hub.  You saw the notes on that.  He died twice before Youngston got him stabilized and there's no explanation for why it worked.  Youngston thought he'd be performing an autopsy within the first forty-eight hours."

Lyn had healed, had survived beyond the odds.  The scars were bad, but not debilitating.  Even without the scans and examination of DNA, it was obvious that the off-worlder wasn't an Earth human.  An Earth human wouldn't have lived, wouldn't have healed so well, and six months was fast for the types of injuries sustained.

Martha nodded, her fine brow knotting up.  "You want me to get you the rest of this.  The audios and the ship, all of it.  Where is he?  Lyn?  Is he still alive?"

He gave a frown of his own.  "I don't know.  I believe so.  He left Flat Holm before it was turned over to UNIT."

"Jack..."  Her voice went soft, her eyes even softer.  "Do you understand why he's called Lyn?"

He didn't respond, waited.

"It's all he could tell them, when they asked for his name.  His mouth, the damage to his jaw and cheeks, it's probably all he could do.  Our lips create more than half the sounds we use."  There was regret in her.  He could hear the regret.  "How's his speech, now?"

"Fine.  Better than fine.  Martha, a slur of the mouth might've named him Lyn but he never corrected the assumption after he was healed.  He refused to give a name, said it was important that I didn't know his true identity."  Jack glanced at the folder and then at his friend.  "Will you help?  Can you get me access to the space flitter and his things?"

The time he'd spent away from Earth, after the deaths of Ianto and Stephen, had given him a better understanding of what loss meant for a man in his situation.  He wasn't going to die for good any time soon, it seemed.  He could never be sure.  He had lost so much and would always be losing.  Knowing that Lyn was so deeply connected to him made Jack feel a need for more than just answers.  He wanted to know if Lyn really believed the words he'd written in the letter.  Were they friends, or more?  Did it matter?  They would know each other very well someday and he wanted a confirmation of his soul.  Lyn believed him worthy of what seemed to be an enduring devotion.  He wanted to hear it from the man himself, wanted to see it reflected in those deep grey eyes.

Maybe it would remind him of what he was doing here, on Earth.

She agreed.  "I'll need to make a call.  If you'll wait...?"  Martha was already on her feet, mobile in hand.  She paused, her lips tightened with concern.  "Can you find him?  With scars like this, a face that can't hide?  He can't be impossible to locate."

"I've got someone working on that."  He gave her a sharp, flat smile.  "Try to get us into Scarman Estate tonight, if you can.  Or tomorrow.  The earliest."

With a nod, she disappeared in the direction of the ladies room, already dialling.

***

There were no pictures of the ship in the file and Alex had sent the wreck to UNIT for storage, unsure of the potential dangers of leaking radiation.  Jack had believed the words that described it and believed he'd be seeing a 31st century space flitter.  The description had suggested a much larger vessel than the one he was currently standing over.

It wasn't even a ship.  It was an escape pod, a solar engine one-seater, something built in the 31st century---Alex had gotten that much of it right, had been drawing his identification from what little Torchwood did know about the strange debris that washed up like driftwood and garbage on the shore of an impossibly vast spatio-temporal sea.

The pod wasn't leaking any kind of recognized radiation, either, according to UNIT's prolonged study of it.  The fumes and drips came from a crack in the solar conversion tank, but they weren't hazardous.  Just not from this time zone.  The scent was vaguely familiar, made him think of green growing things.

"How does someone survive a crash like this?"  Martha, at his side, was shaky.  She could laugh any moment, that quavery chuckle of hers.  "Look at the cockpit.  He must've thought he'd gone to hell."

Jack nodded, his eyes moving over the broken bubble.  "The fuselage is warped.  Probably happened at impact on the bay.  Witnesses said the thing was going so fast that it caused a tsunami-like wave.  If he'd hit the ground, this thing would've probably disintegrated."

A cold hand reached inward and squeezed his heart. 

"And him with it.  Do you think that's what he intended?"  She asked.  "I saw the report, what Alex Hopkins and Doctor Youngston said about Lyn's behavior when he realized he'd survived."

He didn't know.  What he did know, however, was that ships didn't usually fall through the Rift going fast enough to catch fire from friction.  The Rift wasn't in the outer atmosphere, for one thing.  There really wasn't enough distance between the edge of it and the planet's surface for a burning entry.  The ship may've already been on fire when it came through the interdimensional crack.

Maybe Lyn had realized that he was a dead man and sped up, to ensure a fast end.

Something in that thought made him think of the tattoo, with its military connotations.

The escape pod sat in the middle of a ballroom-sized concrete space; there were red-capped soldiers standing at every doorway, outside of earshot but watchful.  It wasn't alone, was surrounded by other bits and pieces of ship.  A dozen small vessels and, yes, even a space flitter...the kind used to jaunt between planets within a star system.  The pod was no more than twelve feet long and shaped like an oval.  The cockpit was designed to hold the pilot in a sedentary position with the controls all located on the sides, within reach of hands that would also have been able to touch the strong, protective finitoglass which served as interstellar windscreen. 

Lyn had fallen through the Rift in this thing.  It was frightening in its implications.

He moved in, squatted by the burned wreck.  The cockpit was scorched, the finitoglass shattered.  He reached into the pod and ran his fingers over the bed-like seat.  It was the only part of the cockpit that wasn't covered in burn marks and fire scars.  Here, the tall off-worlder had laid.  Here, mere flesh and bone had protected the leather-like padding. 

From the streaks of black ruin visible at the crumpled end of the vessel, it was easy to imagine how it might've happened.  Lyn had entered the airspace over Cardiff feet-first, the fire moving over the pod probably obscuring part of his vision.  The cockpit had caught fire and the pilot had---maybe?---done what he could to steer himself away from the lights of the city.  The bay had been a better option, not for survival but for statistically lowering the amount of damage done by his fall.

Even aware of what Youngston had written in his reports about Lyn's explanation, Jack didn't know any of it for certain, but he had a suspicion that Lyn's mind worked that way.  It was in the conclusions he'd drawn about the off-worlder after many Sunday afternoons spent in conversation.  Lyn, in his small experience, was the kind of man who thought of the greater good.

The fire had destroyed the controls, the computer.  It should've killed Lyn.

How could anything have survived?

Martha was standing closer to him; if he turned his head even an inch, her denim-clad leg would be in his peripheral vision.  She'd driven with him to Hampshire, easing information out of him with gentle questions about the life Lyn had known here on Earth since 1997.  He knew he could trust her to keep it to herself unless the matter became dangerous enough to warrant involving either Torchwood or UNIT.

He spoke to her, the palm of his hand resting on the pod's buckled side.  "I need to see his personal effects."

***