Torchwood Is Yours 5/12

[humantales]

Title: Torchwood Is Yours
Author: humantales
Beta: quean_of_swords
Artist: rotaryphones
Character: Captain Jack Harkness, OC's
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,034
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: When Jack lands over a hundred years past where he was aiming, he has some time to fill. Why not spend it baby-sitting the Rift?

Masterlist

1872

It took over a year of sex before Percy would consider spending the night with Jack. "What will people think?"

"Percy," Jack said with a sigh, watching his lover pull his clothes on, "it's the middle of the night. You spend the night here plenty of times; no one cares."

"I spend the night in the main room," Percy said, looking for a stray sock, "on nights when we've been run ragged."

"Who knows?" Jack asked. "Even your mother comes here to look for you, no matter the hour. No one goes to your rooms; you're here most of the time."

Percy sat down on the bed, swallowing hard. "Sarah would know," he said quietly. "So would little Mattie, and he'd ask."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Sarah would throw a party and bake a cake," he said. "Mattie would help; he's always asking after you when he wakes up in the night. Please, just stay." He gave his young lover his best seductive smile. "You know you want to."

Closing his eyes, Percy sat down. "You're certain Sarah won't be upset?"

Smiling in triumph, Jack started removing Percy's clothes. "Positive."

Jack didn't know how long he'd been asleep when he felt a tug on his hand. "Want in bed," Mattie said.

Looking down at the little boy, Jack smiled. "What's wrong?"

"Bad dreams," the little boy said. "Up."

Jack glanced at the clock; he'd only been asleep an hour or so. Grabbing Mattie by the waist, he hauled him up into the bed.

When he saw Percy, Mattie grinned and took a deep breath. Jack put his hand over the boy's mouth. "Don't wake him up," he whispered. "He needs his sleep."

"Yes, sir," Mattie said in a little-boy whisper. Jack didn't think it could be heard for more than a couple of blocks. "Percy stayed," he crowed.

"Yes, but he won't want to again if you wake him up," Jack said, tucking the child into the bed between the two men. "Go to sleep."

Already halfway back to sleep, Mattie nodded and smiled.

Some time later, Jack was woken by Sarah hissing, "Budge over, you."

"Oh," Percy said, "I'll leave."

"Stop it," Sarah said, sounding irritated. "Just move over so I can get in."

"No," Percy said, stiffly. "I'm too much a gentleman to leave you on the edge; you can climb over me. Or I'll get up—"

"Stay," Sarah ordered. Jack kept his eyes closed and his breathing even while the bed bounced around for a few minutes. Mattie started grumbling, but Sarah murmured to him and the little boy went back to sleep.

After the bed had stopped moving, Percy said, "I thought you'd be upset. Wait a tick, when did Mattie get into the bed?"

"Why would I be upset?"

"Most people reckon you're Jack's mistress," Percy said. "I'm not taking him away from you; I'm just a bit of fun."

Jack bit his lip to keep from snapping. Percy was much more than a 'bit of fun', and Sarah was in no way his mistress. Except that she'd been running his household for the last couple of years.

Sarah's response was all he could have asked for. "I'm not his mistress," she said firmly, "and, no matter what people think, Mattie's not his."

"Is he really your nephew?" The question sounded as if Percy had wanted to ask it for a long time.

"No," said Sarah, snorting. "Jack's the only one who believes that." Well, no, even Jack didn't believe it. He'd found the bastard who'd raped her as well, and had exacted what he considered appropriate vengeance. Yet another thing he hated about this time; that a rich toff would be believed before a young poor girl. "He thinks I'm sweet and innocent." And she was, no matter what she'd lived through.

"Clearly deluded. Innocent you may be, but you're certainly not sweet."

The bed moved around for a few minutes; Jack thought they might be tickling each other or something. After it had stilled, Percy asked, "Do you and Mattie sleep here every night? Won't my being here cause trouble?"

"Stop being silly," Sarah said. Jack was pleased to hear how sure she sounded. "Wherever Jack grew up, to hear him tell it, they threw the whole family into the same bed. I don't know if he's telling the truth or not, but he hates sleeping alone. It's nice," she said, her voice a little tentative. "You don't mind, do you? I mean, I know you and Jack are . . ."

"It's nice," Percy said, sounding surprised. "Best go back to sleep; morning comes early."

"Too right you are," Sarah mumbled as she got comfortable. It took a few more minutes, but the other two finally settled down.

Jack fell asleep again, smiling. The bed finally felt right.


"Be careful," Sarah said as Jack walked into the Warehouse after meeting with his banker. "Percy's on the rampage."

Jack stopped and ran over his activities since Percy had left the night before. He hadn't entered the archives at all, which was what usually sent his aide and archivist into fits of fury. All of his paperwork had been put into the right places. He thought so, anyway. Deciding it was best to get it over with, Jack called out, "What have I done this time?"

"This," Percy said, holding the set of boxes Jack and Sarah were supposed to sort their paperwork into. They were in pieces, wood mixed in with paper. It was a spectacular mess and Percy's expression reflected exactly how much extra work it was causing.

"Not me," Jack said, raising his hands. "They were where they belonged, in one piece, when I locked up last night."

Percy took a deep breath and shook his head. "No, it's no one's fault. There was an extra large Rift spike last night," which Jack knew, because he'd been chasing four Sontaran bombs and a Hoix for most of the night. "The scanner couldn't handle it and," Percy paused, biting his lip. "Saying it blew up is a slight exaggeration, but—"

"It blew up," Sarah said, rolling her eyes.

"And, judging from the evidence, it landed on the filing boxes," Jack said, nodding.

"You know your air gun?" Percy asked. Before Jack could make the expected comment, he continued with, "Ladies present. The same principle could move the papers from your desk down to the storage area. Put the paper in the box, where it will shoot the paper into the related box in the archive. Then I can file it without worrying about exploding scanners."

Sighing, Jack tried to remember what he knew about pneumatics. With the exception of guns, he'd never really paid attention to it, but he knew it had been used. "Can you create it?"

"Er, I was hoping Sarah would. Or you," Percy said.

Even as Sarah's eyes lit up and nodded, Jack shook his head. "Nope. You're going to do it. And Sarah doesn't get to help, because then she'll do the whole thing for you. I'll come up with another project for you, sweetheart," he said to the now-pouting Sarah. "You can ask me if you get stuck, but I want you to do it."

Both Sarah and Percy groaned. Jack gave it a week. If Percy hadn't made significant progress in a week, he'd give it to Sarah, who'd probably finish it within the day.

It took Percy six days to finish, and looked a whole lot nicer than if Sarah had done it. "See," Jack said, "Told you."

"Yeah," Sarah said, "but he had to take two of the air guns apart to do it."

"What?" Jack shouted.


Jack came to with a gasp, knocking his head into Percy's. "Captain," Percy said, his face unusually serious, "we have to discuss this. It's been three times now—"

"Four," Jack said wearily.

"So, you already knew?" Percy asked, trying to cover the hurt.

"I explained it away," Jack said as he sat up. Looking down, he sighed. It wasn't just the shirt that was destroyed; the coat was as well. "Thought their weapons had been drained or something. Then, I managed to convince myself that I wasn't really drowned."

"I believed you," Percy said. "But you should have been hurt if not killed by that fall and this . . . No man gets up after taking a dozen bullets in the chest and belly."

"I was killed in the fall," Jack said, admitting out loud what he'd been suspecting and trying to suppress for months now.

"So, you are an angel."

Jack looked up, about to snap at Percy for teasing a man when he was down, when he realised that Percy wasn't teasing. "Percy, I'm no angel. You know that better than anyone."

"Angels aren't God," Percy said, no doubt in his face. "I s'pose an angel could be guilty of sin. Lucifer was thrown out of Heaven for the sin of pride. The sin of lust might just lose you your memory."

Jack groaned. Percy was shaping up to be a decent field agent, and he was already a superb assistant and lover, but once he made a decision, there was no moving him. From his tone of voice, Jack knew that Percy had already considered all the evidence and objections and had his own interpretation of events. "Can we maybe leave angels out of this?" he asked. "I'll admit that I'm not from Earth; can't that be good enough?"

"Don't worry," Percy said, the patronising tone in his voice setting Jack's teeth on edge. "Mam'll still make you her fish stew; you're family in everything but name."

"Morgan," someone called from outside the alley, "is the Captain up yet?"

"Do we know what we're facing yet?" Jack called out. At least it was one of the constables he knew.

"Thieves and procurers," Lloyd said as he walked into the alley. "Sweet Jesus, did they hit you? Morgan said you dove out of the way and hit your head."

"Bit of a scratch, it just bled like mad," Jack answered as he looked down at himself. "Why did they call us in?"

Lloyd shrugged. "You caught them, didn't you?" He walked over to help Percy help Jack stand up.

"Look," Jack said, wavering between anger and pride, "there's only three of us." Before Lloyd could make his standard objection, Jack snapped, "And, yes, Sarah counts; she's a better field op than most of your men. Still, you lot can't be calling us in for everything. Just the weird stuff, or I'm gonna stop answering."

"I'll make sure they know," Lloyd said.

Two days later, Percy brought a very young policeman along with Jack's morning coffee and newspaper. "Captain, this here is Officer Thomas Rees. They've sent him along to work with us." Rees was tall, slender but broad-shouldered, with blond hair, hazel eyes, and a thin white scar running the length of his face near his left ear.

"Official Warehouse Liaison," Rees said, his voice cracking just a bit. He was standing stiffly at attention, but at least he wasn't terrified.

Jack looked at the young man, who was probably even younger than Percy, and sighed. "Give him the tour; we'll start training tomorrow." How had keeping out of trouble while waiting and hoping the Doctor came to visit late-nineteenth-century Cardiff become baby-sitting the Rift and collecting a bunch of young Victorian alien-hunters? He set his coffee and newspaper down and bent back over his latest try at a Rift-energy detector. "If they really loved me," he shouted, "they'd've sent me a physicist. Or an engineer."

"Why would a physicist or engineer want to come to Cardiff?" Percy shouted back, well-used to Jack's complaints.

"To study the Rift," Jack said, throwing his arms wide to indicate the glorious wonders of the Rift. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying attention and knocked the coffee cup to the floor.

"You're cleaning that up," Sarah said as she walked into the room, Mattie's hand in hers. Rees watched the interplay wide-eyed. Jack gave him three days to lose the shock.

It took eighteen hours and another damned Blowfish.

1873