Fic: Strangers When We Meet (6/7)

[azn_jack_fiend]

Title: Strangers When We Meet (6/7)
Author: azn_jack_fiend
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Estelle, Alex Hopkins, OCs
Rating: R for violence, death and mature themes.
Warnings/Spoilers: Specific violence-related warnings for later chapters: cruelty to senior, cruelty to animal, amputation
Categories: gen, mystery, backstory
Summary: It's 1999, and Jack is back in Estelle's life as his own son. Something waiting inside the mind of her friend at the nursing home has finally stopped waiting, and Jack's attempts to protect Estelle will reveal painful secrets kept buried for decades.
A/N: Written for aeshna_uk. Many thanks to betas canaana and heddychaa. This is a completed fic, and I will be posting one to two chapters every day.
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.

Chapters: One - The Garden | Two - The Home | Three - The Hospital | Four - The King | Five - The Knife | Six - The Deal | Seven - The Ruins

---

Six - The Deal

He lost a foot in Dunkirk but he's young and he can still take you dancing. I'll introduce you before I leave tomorrow.

What kind of man are you?

I might not be coming back.

Then I'll wait for the letter from the Ministry like any other soldier's girl, damn you.

You're not meant for waiting.

Cat around with whores in France all you like, Jack, and don't tell me... Don't tell me...

Listen to me, put that down, stop —

Once she stepped through the door into the blackout her silhouette dissolved wraithlike and he swept up his coat and threw himself after her into the halfworld of moonlight on snow, onto the dim ivory gleam, threading through the curving walls of shadow, following the hungry crunch of her dancing shoes through the sugar-glaze crust.

He lost her trail in the grove. Pale mist bled through the darkness of the space between the barren branches. Lost in the heart of a city he knew like the bones of his hand, the cold rising up to claw him.

A flash of light. The flash of Estelle's Leica. She held it above her head like a lighthouse keeper, and he could not see her face.

He walked to her in blindness, arms reaching out, until he touched her shoulders.

Did you ever tell me anything true?

I'm not married. And I love you. Take the coat.

I'll still wait for you.

~~~

>>Can you help me get offworld?

>>Why should we help you?

>>I have behaved ethically within the parameters of my original programming. My operation was not designed for this target population. With every succeeding generation, my sentience decays. I need to reintegrate within a quantum intelligence machine civilisation. Help me.

>> Generation? Do you mean host?

>> I reproduce through nanospores and chemical codes. This self will die soon. My child in the other woman has only begun to live.

"The other woman. That's Estelle, isn't it?" asked Alex, looking over Jack's shoulder at the stark lines of text on the laptop screen.

Jack's fingers skimmed over the keys aimlessly for a few seconds. He nodded. Looked over to where Pinkie lay in her bed.

"In the time this thing comes from, that stuff would be barbaric," said Jack, waving at the nest of metal arms and tubes and sacs that crouched around her tiny form. "Like leeches. It's a quasi-sentient nanosurgeon."

"Ask if it can heal her," said Alex. Placid curiosity was the only discernible emotion on his face.

Jack hadn't mentioned the exact cause of Pinkie's numerous broken bones. He'd thought at the time that anything would be better than being vivisected, her probable fate if she'd stayed in that van. But now he had to face the consequence of what he'd done. This would probably be her deathbed.

>>Can you heal your host?

>>No. I was not designed to operate among this target population. I can only live within the brainspace where neurons decay and tangle in certain patterns. I can retard the progress of this decay, and suggest alternate pathways for neurotransmitters. I can heal nothing except for neurons, and I cannot heal neurons unless I destroy the capacity for my own sentience. I will die soon, within this host.

>>And your child?

>>Their host is at the beginning stages of the disease.

Jack tightened his lips, but he'd already guessed as much.

Estelle.

That's not going to happen.

Alex got up and straightened one of the cables that connected the Bekaran scanner to the laptop. He wasn't the tech expert on the team, but he was still damn good. He'd worked at the Hub machine intelligence translation program — focus inexorable, methodical — while Jack had fended off police and calmed doctors.

At one in the morning, they'd made the breakthrough, and the being that lived between dead neurons began speaking to them.

Jack began typing again.

>>You're in danger. You have an enemy who wants to extract you. From this host or the other.

>>Help me. I don't want my child to die.

>>Can you survive outside a host?

>>In dormant form, yes.

>>Then we can help you. Send you through the Rift with a beacon. But you need to help us in return.

>>I understand the concept. I trade with my hosts. We trade in the currency of memories. Now I will trade with you.

Jack leaned back and gave Alex the thumbs-up sign.

~~~

Faint snuffles and skritchings reverberated weirdly within the suitcase, punctuated by the occasional whine of microphone feedback.

"I can't believe you found a piglet at two in the morning," said Jack. "A lamb, maybe not so hard. But a piglet?"

Alex twisted his mouth a little. The time was telling on him. His eyes were puffy, red-rimmed.

Only a few more hours until dawn, and they were standing outside a dusty, boarded-up restaurant in Llandaff North, waiting. Jack didn't feel any exhaustion. A familiar sense of optimistic fatalism, that was all.

"I should have trusted you," he admitted.

"We're not out of the woods yet, boyo," said Alex. "Just remember to keep your story straight."

The extractor opened the door. Aside from the semiautomatic pistol he aimed square at Alex, he didn't seem a particularly daunting man. Medium height, blond unobtrusive moustache, thin nose. Pale, watery green eyes. A stance that said former military, but didn't scream it.

"You must be Alex Hopkins," he said. "Jack, I've already met. And I have to say, proving the rumour wasn't as hard as I'd expected."

Jack gritted his teeth.

The man shrugged. "Let's begin the demonstration. If I can establish contact, I'll be taking the goods and leaving Torchwood Three territory immediately. That's what we all want, isn't it?"

Jack had a couple choice remarks in mind about what he wanted right now, but he swallowed them.

"Captain Harkness will set up the demonstration," said Alex, coldly, not looking at the pistol. "I'll wait here."

"I think I'd rather have a man who can die in the same room," the extractor replied.

Alex simply crossed his arms and stared.

"Should I make a phone call to Torchwood One?" asked the man.

"Perhaps you should."

The man wavered. Lowered his pistol. Raised it again, pointing at Jack's chest, and stepped backwards into the cavernous gloom of the restaurant.

Jack picked up the suitcase and followed.

~~~

A pool of light surrounded the table. Beyond, shadowy walls. The extractor kept his gun loose by his side, smoothly levelled on Jack.

Jack edged the suitcase onto the table and opened it.

The piglet was small enough to fit in his palm, fuzzed and wrinkled. Wires taped to its head led to a laptop and a microphone. Jack started up the translation program on the laptop, and the piglet trembled at the soft chime. It was an unhealthy tremble: sluggish, pained.

The default text-to-speech male voice extolled a perfectly paced stream of consciousness through tinny laptop speakers.

"We walked down the aisle let no man tear asunder I could never find another the day I would live again and again the wind hit me like a fist the photo never did it justice we walked through the hills until my feet bled and she is dead she will never come again I I I have not forgotten my name forgotten my name."

"This could be a bot," said the extractor.

"Ask it questions," replied Jack, patiently. "At this point, it's all yours."

"What are you?"

"I am a child who was birthed to kill. Tonight. Against all my nature. Bound. I remember what was and I will never be more."

"If it's real, it's mad," said the extractor.

"Pretty much," said Jack. He started to smile.

The extractor began to look at him with a certain degree of suspicion, and raised the gun.

"Go ahead. You know what good it'll do," said Jack, now showing his teeth. He flexed his right hand a little. Sparkles of light appeared in the air, swirling around him, but Jack kept his eyes focused on the extractor.

"What's happening?"

"Spores. They're working into our brains right now. In a few minutes, we'll get an especially drastic lobotomy. Front of the brain turned to soup. I don't think either of us are going to make it, actually. We'll forget to breathe."

The man fired. The bullet flew over Jack's shoulder, and the man staggered to his knees.

"See you in hell," said Jack cheerfully, and toppled over himself.

Through a cascade of sparkles, the man was trembling on the floor, drool snaking out from slack lips. Jack's world was narrowing, becoming very small indeed, but oddly enough, a feeling of sympathy and vague remorse squeezed into what little remained.

"I don't... really mean that," he slurred. "Not lit. Lit... just a thing. I say."

A hollowness behind his eyes, bubbling, slithering through the sockets. Popping. The last of vision.

Everything fell apart.

~~~

The ammoniac reek of disinfectant filled his lungs as Jack surfaced, gasping and coughing and rubbing at his eyes. The world was dim and blurry and for a moment Jack almost panicked, because he'd never had his brain dissolved quite this way before, but he was always normal when he came back and if this time was —

No. They'd stripped off his clothes, dowsed him with biocide and put a plastic tent over him where he lay. That was all. Understandable precautions, for death by virus.

Still coughing, he pulled his way to his feet and shouldered through the slit in the tent.

Two men wearing gas masks stared back at him.

"That's always a good look," Jack said, forcing himself to smile. "But I don't think you need those anymore."

"Welcome back, Captain Harkness," said the man on the right. Despite the weird wheeze of the mask, Jack managed to put the voice together with the eyes: Dr. Singh, Torchwood One Assistant Director of Research.

"We'll wear them through the debriefing, if you don't mind," said Singh, polite but firm. "If you fail to show signs of succumbing to the virus a second time, the area should be safe."

"You were out for a while," said the other man. "I'm Halifax. Security Division."

"Nice to meet you," said Jack. He put his hands on his hips. Behind their masks, he guessed that the two men might be getting nervous over the fact that he wasn't nervous. Jack didn't mind being naked, of course, although the being covered in disinfectant part was uncomfortable. Itchy, even.

"I'll get right down to it," said Halifax. "Hopkins called us in. The computer in the back room with all the medical data's gone missing. He says you were the only one to know this location."

Jack made his face go stiff for a second, then let it melt back with a faint smile.

"Maybe Alex's right. But what's my motive? He could have hidden his own computer, to keep it away from Torchwood in case he needed leverage. The guy didn't play well with others. In fact—" Jack stabbed a finger at Halifax and won a momentary flinch of the eyes "—he was a fucking psychopath. What were you people thinking?"

Dr. Singh raised a single hand in a curt gesture of conciliation. "I apologise on behalf of security. However, the former hands-off policy is immaterial now. My division will be taking over."

"And what's that look like?" demanded Jack.

"You know what the stakes are, Captain Harkness. Very high indeed. But promises of miracle cures abound these days. We will internalise the affair, and investigate slowly. The animal host is en route to London. We'll have Mrs. Wiggens listed as an organ donor and conduct a full autopsy as soon as she expires of natural causes. Which, in any case, is likely to be very soon."

"Good luck with the research," said Jack. "It's a terrible disease."

"Torchwood Three needs to work on recovering the missing data," said Dr. Singh. "We were monitoring one of his lines of communication with his backers. He mentioned the possibility of another subject. Another host. He intended to move on an extraction with her."

"That's all you had?"

"Nothing more specific, I'm afraid."

"If we get more out of the thing in the animal, if it's not completely mad and poisonous, we might be moving on the subject," said Halifax. "Would you have a problem co-ordinating that?"

Dr. Singh's turn to flinch. He was doing a fairly good job hiding how much he loathed Halifax.

"No," said Jack. "And I'm insulted you'd even ask that, honestly. What the hell is your exact position, anyway? Are you directly under Yvonne, or just some kind of glorified pig scrubber? Why don't you call MI5 and ask them if I'd have a problem with —"

"I think that's enough for the debriefing," interrupted Dr. Singh, unbuckling his gas mask. Condensed moisture from his breath clung to his craggy face, and he wiped it off with his shirt sleeve. "We'll follow up with you from London, Captain Harkness. Get some sleep, or — whatever you do. There are clothes for you on the table and a driver waiting for you outside. Thank you for your work."

Jack walked into the late morning sun on the street in Llandaff North, skin crawling, desperate for a shower. His anger, unreal, melted away. The only thing left was fear.

The subject.

He scratched at his neck hard enough to draw a little blood.

~~~

Jack's flat had come pre-furnished in an assortment of blocky beige. Showroom bland, and he'd never bothered decorating, never even unpacked the single box of rugs and hangings from his old flat. He'd bought the place for the bathroom, really. It was all dark wood and gleaming white tile and satin nickel, centred around a monstrous claw-foot tub with double criss-crossed showerheads that pummelled his shoulders and chest like a pair of divine fists.

He groaned, collapsed to the bottom of the tub and sloshed back and forth in warm soapy ecstasy.

Putting on real clothes, his own clothes, running his fingers over the fine crisp cotton, was almost as blissful.

He'd have to recover his coat from the hospital. Get it cleaned. He threw on a grey waistcoat for Estelle's party, instead. He hadn't forgotten his errand.

Alex let himself in the back door.

"Thanks for knocking," said Jack. "Oh, and thanks for trusting me, too. How could I have stolen that computer? I was dead, you know."

"You'll get over it," said Alex. He rolled his eyes. The gesture was methodical, mathematical, hitting all four corners of the wall that Alex faced.

"What do you want?" asked Jack, his voice cold and flat.

"Just came to drop off some things you left in the Aston Martin," said Alex. He left the paper bag on Jack's coffee table and turned to leave. "And I've got you a rental car. I need you back on the job later tonight. At the Hub. Ten o'clock."

"Yeah," said Jack, at Alex's back. He stifled his impulse to turn around and look directly at the bugs that Alex had indicated. Fuck it, he'd just get a new flat. He'd miss the bathroom, though.

The bag held a bottle of expensive cologne and a CD called "The Gold Experience" left over from the car's previous owner. Rental car keys and old maps and a box of Webley cartridges. And a sachet of potpourri wrapped in cellophane, very new. Jack waited a few minutes, looked at the clock, then took the whole bag with him as he walked out the door.

He froze in place on the threshold, his fingers still curled around the doorknob. He thought suddenly of full lives and half lives, and growing old, and moving slowly, and walking closer to the earth. And children. There were three. The mad thing writhing in the pig brain. The frozen thing Alex would have stored in the vaults by now, maybe alongside the missing computer. And the child he was heading out to kill, with the blessing of its parent... Or its own self. Easier to think of it that way. It was a hard bargain they'd made.

He'd held the doorknob so long, it was as warm as his hand. He'd forgotten why he'd stopped in the first place.

He let it slip away and walked down the stairs, swinging the bag and humming "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World." Looking forward to teatime, and sunlight on wildflowers.

---

Chapters: One - The Garden | Two - The Home | Three - The Hospital | Four - The King | Five - The Knife | Six - The Deal | Seven - The Ruins

 

Comments

[ebineez01.livejournal.com]

i feel sorry for Estelle in the opening part of this chapter - it was pretty crappy of Jack to say he was going to introduce her to another guy.
& poor little piggy(we have pigs :D )
looking forward to seeing how this all wraps up

[canaana.livejournal.com]

I like how you did this. I really didn't understand the conversation with the intelligence in the first scene, but I could see that it was leaving somewhere. By the time you get to the end of the last scene here, we understand exactly what deal was made.