Hunger Moon: Chapter Twenty-one

[amberfocus]

                                                                            Banner by angelfireeast

A/N:  Sorry for the long delay in an update for this story. A Sky Without Zeppelins has been a very bossy story and not given me much time for the others. I'll try not to let it be quite so dominant and at least post once a week for this one. Twice if I can manage it.  References to "he who must not be named," and Voldemort are of course from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, though in my universe it's Henry Potter.

                                                                           Back to Business

They floated in the Vortex for a few days while Pete recovered from his injuries. Almost everyone was getting severe cabin fever, even in a ship the size of the TARDIS, and Rose was desperately wishing she could chuck her entire family and her friends out into deep space by the third day. If they’d been in deep space and not in the Vortex. She wasn’t exactly quite sure how that worked. The Doctor, on the other hand, as long as he was getting beneath Rose or above her or behind her often enough to satisfy his capacious sex drive, was quite content.

It surprised her because it was driving her crazy to have so many other people around during what she still considered to be their honeymoon phase and she found it extremely irritating that as long as he got his he was as sweet as could be. Not irritating enough to limit his access to sex, she’d never do that even if she could. Hell, she wouldn’t want to and wasn’t the sort of woman who would withhold from him out of annoyance. It was certainly the only thing she looked forward to and was enjoying at the moment, finding ways to sneak away and new rooms to do it in, but certainly enough that if she had to listen to her mother whine one more time about needing fresh air she was going to smack her.

Kyle and Sarah had turned the huge, old, empty swimming pool into a skateboard park and Rose was seriously considering giving it a go just to alter the mind-numbing boredom of standing still when everyone else seemed to have things to do. The Doctor was still trying to unravel the cracked sphere. The boys were all running and rerunning scenarios for dealing with the alien threat that she’d already long since memorized. Pete was still healing and Jackie was flitting back and forth between him and the twins. Suzie was an occasional ear for Rose but she was preoccupied with her pregnancy and looking after the twins when Jackie was unavailable. Someone had to keep a constant eye on them after one too many new incidents with Kyle and the TARDIS wiring. Small explosions had become the boy's specialty.

Rose checked her watch. It was too soon to go meet the Doctor in the laboratory for their two o’clock shag. That was another thing that annoyed her about all the people. They’d taken to scheduling their lovemaking. She missed the random spontaneity of doing it against the wall of the TARDIS corridor if they felt like it. Now it was nothing but locked doors and quiet sex. She was tempted to break out the Lurvins again just to do something unpredictable.

At least those little creatures were thriving. The Doctor kept them in a tank in the bedroom and they fed off the psychic sexual energy released by the randy couple. The Doctor said he’d never seen healthier looking Lurvins in his life. And they’d been quite sickly when they’d first come on board. She glanced at her watch again. No, still too soon to have sex. Damn it! Would her hormones ever calm down? Would she ever stop wanting to constantly shag the Doctor? She really needed a distraction.

Rose was about to step onto Kyle’s skateboard when Jake found her. “There you are. Been looking all over for you,” he said. He glanced across the pool to where Suzie sat watching the twins play and gave her a little wave.

“What’s up?” Rose asked him hoping desperately that something was.

“I wanted to talk to you about our next course of action. We can’t keep hanging about in the Vortex. The Earth has been invaded and the longer we stay away the worse it is going to get,” Jake reasoned.

“Well, but we’ll go back in time to the day after we left. It won’t be that long,” Rose explained.

“Maybe so, but…I don’t know, it feels wrong not being there, not getting our hands in,” Jake said. “And what if something goes wrong and we end up too far ahead and can’t fix things? Mickey says that the Doctor was forever mucking things up and landing in the wrong time. You lost an entire year once.”

Rose looked at him startled. “You talk about that?”

“We talk about everything, Rose.”

“Well, doesn’t matter. This is a different man and a different ship. The landings in time and space have been accurate every time.” Well, apart from getting sucked into the CVE and pocket universe, but then that had been preprogrammed into the TARDIS so technically that was accurate as well. She sighed. “It’ll be fine.”

“I’ve spent the morning talking to your dad, Rose. Torchwood London is completely corrupt as far as he can tell. It’s not safe for him to go back there. Davin’s suggesting we go to Torchwood Cardiff or Torchwood Scotland. We’re going to need help if we’re going to remove this infestation from London,” Jake told her.

“What can Torchwood Scotland do? It’s three people and a laptop,” Rose said. This wasn’t precisely true, but it was a standard running joke that all the best equipment and manpower went to London first, Cardiff second, and Australia third. The Americas and the First Nations were self-funded. Scotland had always been an afterthought, more of a tracking station, because if anything serious happened there one of the London teams would be mobilized and sent up to help. And by help, she meant take over.

“You’re thinking Torchwood Glasgow. I said Torchwood Scotland,” he said carefully.

“What’s the difference?” Rose asked confused.

“Quite a bit if we need there to be one,” said Jake. “No one would suspect their true capabilities. It’s always been need to know, Rose, and even your father doesn’t know about it, but they’re hiding a much bigger operation than most people are aware of. Still, blowing their cover is really a last resort here.”

“What do you mean even my dad doesn’t know? Who does know? And why have I never been told?” Rose asked, hurt.

“Because you’re a Tyler,” said the quiet voice of Davin McBain from behind her. Rose whirled.

“What’s being a Tyler got to do with being out of the loop on this?” she demanded.

“Your dad is the most visible employee of Torchwood on the planet,” Jake explained. “Not many people know you are, but they do know he’s your dad and they do expect that where he goes Torchwood follows. We’ve always tried to keep him away from the Scotland branch in case there was ever a true crisis and he or London became contaminated.”

“But why? Why would you do that? Torchwood is Dad’s baby. He’s always been in charge.”

“Not always,” said Davin. “The Torchwood Institute originated in Scotland. There’s been a long history of the Scottish running it before your dad ever stepped up to the plate. The only reason he’s in charge is because he was in the right place at the right time during the heart of the Cyberman crisis.”

Rose frowned and then very quickly things began to click together in her mind. “The Scottish were running Torchwood before? You mean like you?”

“The McBains have had a hand in for the last century,” he said quietly.

“And you never told me? You didn’t trust me?” She was indignant. “We were going to be married!”

“Not the best card for you to be playing right now, Rose,” he said darkly. “Besides, I’ve been trained all my life to protect that secret.”

“Then why are you telling me now?”

“We need every resource available to help us. Hopefully Scotland will remain a last resort, but the world is at stake now. You needed to know your options. I’d still prefer we keep it from Pete,” Davin said.

“I’ll not keep it from the Doctor,” Rose replied.

“Wasn’t expecting you would,” said Jake quickly when Davin looked like he might complain.

“Jake,” he began.

“No. The Doctor is our most important resource. And I’ve already told him. He wants to save Scotland as a backup plan if we need it. We’re already on our way to Cardiff.” Jake turned to Rose. “He sent me to come find you. He wants to make plans.”



The Doctor’s plan was really less than impressive. It involved little more than deciding to take them to the Cardiff headquarters and more or less having them take over operations for the duration of the threat. “Oh, no,” said Mickey. “That’s not going to work. You can’t just waltz in there and take over that little empire.”

“Why not?”

“Ianto Jones, for starters. He runs the Welsh division and he’s not going to give it up without a fight. And you don’t want to see how dirty Mr. Jones can fight,” Mickey said.

“Bad man?” queried the Doctor.

“Hard man,” replied Jake. “He lost a lot to the cybers. His wife and his daughter. And he’s resentful of aliens, too. He’s gone hand to hand on more than one occasion with Weevils and won. And he lost an eye to a Sycorax sword one Christmas when he defended the planet.”

Rose hissed at the alien name. “Sycorax?” she questioned Jake.

“It happened when you were sick, Rose; when you were in treatment right after the Teroc’manu. Ianto was with the president, President Jones, no family connection, just after she took office. He was her personal assistant. He had no choice and he stood up for this planet when no one else would or could and he challenged them to a duel for the planet. Fortunately he was an expert swordsman and he won, but not without a price,” Mickey explained.

“When he’d mostly recovered she put him to work at Torchwood Cardiff, because she wanted to know how the hell the Sycorax had gotten into the system without anyone knowing. London was close-mouthed but Cardiff was talking. He was mostly there as her eyes and ears at first, but he proved himself to the then current head and worked his way up. When Dylan retired he took over. Ianto fights hard and sometimes dirty, but he gets the job done and the president adores him. He’s untouchable. He’s been running this division for four years now and he won’t let it go without a fight,” said Jake. “So we’ll have to work with him. As partners.”

“Then it’s best to keep Dad out of it altogether. He has a penchant for barging in and taking over,” Rose said.

“I’m not too happy with the idea of Pete doing anything just yet, anyway,” said the Doctor. He’s survived physical torture before, but the telepathic torture, well…that takes a lot longer to recover from.”

“Yeah. It does.” Rose turned away from him, swallowing hard. The Doctor stepped closer to her and took her hand, not letting her withdraw.

“He’s certainly not ready for field work with mind-destroying aliens and that’s what this’ll be,” the Doctor said.

“So how do we keep him out of this?” Mickey asked.

“Oh, easy enough. I’ll have a word with Mum. He might be one of the most powerful people in the U.K., but he has nothing on Jackie Tyler,” Rose replied.

“I so wouldn’t want to be your father right now,” Mickey muttered.

“Me, either,” replied the other three men in unison. Rose snorted.

“We’ll be landing soon,” the Doctor said ignoring the sound she’d made.

Mickey glanced at his watch. “So then, meet up with Ianto at around two o’clock then?” he asked.

“Let’s make it 3:30,” the Doctor said smoothly. “I’ve got a few things I need to lock down in the lab before then.” He turned his attention back to his wife and she blushed. She knew exactly what the Doctor needed to lock down first. “You best go talk to your Mum about Pete and then I need your help in the lab…securing things.”

The meeting broke up and the Doctor hurried off to the lab. As Rose headed towards her mother’s rooms she heard Mickey laughing behind her. “Like we don’t know about their daily 2:00 shag,” he said.

“Like clockwork, those two,” snorted Jake. “But at least they’ll be able to keep their minds on what needs to be done afterwards.”

“Leave off,” said the hurt voice of Davin. Rose cringed. She hurried away at the sounds of abject apology from the other men. She really hoped that Davin would find a way to get over her. Soon. She had a feeling though that it simply wasn’t going to be that easy.



“How’s it coming?” Toshiko Sato looked up from the fiddly work she’d been doing on the orb-shaped robotic device in front of her and switched off her little soldering iron. She lifted her safety glasses off her face and tucked them into her hair. Dr. Katie Harper had settled herself on a nearby table and was eyeing the Asian woman with interest.

Tosh pushed her black locks out of her face and sighed. “I’m not sure. Every time I think I’ve got the bugs sorted out another one crops up. If he’d let me use alien technology I’d have had it finished by now.

Katie picked up the little bionic eye and glanced at the optical interface and sighed. “You know how he is about alien tech. The last thing he wants is some A.I. device taking over his brain.”

“Where is he who must not be named anyway?” Tosh asked with a grin. Ianto was in no way as bad as Rowling’s Voldemort, least not to those in the inner circle, but to the outside world he could be cold and hard.

“Are you taking my name in vain again?” Ianto asked dryly from the doorway.

“He’s behind you,” said Katie helpfully.

“Thanks, Katie,” she said rolling her eyes. She turned to the doorway and addressed her boss. “Only a little bit.”

“Is it…?” he asked nodding to the eye.

“Give me another week,” she said with a sigh. “Sorry, Yan, that’s the best I can do.”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it.” He fingered the eye patch and then traced the pale white scar that split across his cheekbone.

Neither thing did anything to hinder his good looks, fortunately, thought Tosh. He certainly didn’t need help with women. They hit on him freely enough when they all went out drinking. Not that he went looking for women to pull. Not when he was still grieving the loss of Lisa and baby Rhonwen ten years on.

“This a closed meeting or can anybody join?” Andy Davidson asked entering the room and observing the rest of his team standing around doing nothing.

“What’s up, Andy?” Ianto asked. “You have that look on your face again.”

“I’ve had a word with my old partner in the police department,” he said. “She’s quite adamant that something ‘alieny,’ as she put it, is going on.”

“What’s Gwen on about now?” Tosh asked wearily.

“Mysterious disappearances and floating spheres,” he said simply. “And people waking up with severe memory loss and the symptoms of head trauma.”

“Wasn’t there something like that being reported out of Torchwood London a few weeks ago?” Tosh asked pushing away from her work desk and sliding her chair over to her computer station. She typed in a few words to the Torchwood database search engine.

“Yes, it is,” commented Katie before the results flashed on Tosh’s screen. “And come to think of it, Owen’s mentioned a few odd things about people coming into hospital with similar reports. A&E's been full of head traumas with no visible cause.” Her husband, Owen Harper, was second in command at the biggest hospital in Cardiff.

The small communication device that Ianto always had perched on his ear must have dinged because he reached up and flicked it on. “Yes?”

The harsh West London accent of Ianto’s secretary came loudly over the line. “Mr. Jones? Suzie Symmonds-Smith is at the front gate. She’s brought both her husbands, some lanky man in leather and…well, sir, she’s brought Rose Tyler.”

“Wonderful,” snapped Ianto. “That is the last thing I need.”

Ch. 22:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/142473.htm l