Part 29: Torchwood
“I see her as a slightly warped Mary Poppins. She's quite austere. She's a strong woman. When I first read the script, I thought, oh, well, of course she's a baddie... but the more I read it, I thought, 'No, she's doing what she's doing for legitimate reasons.'” -Sarah Lancashire on her character Miss Foster
“Donna does a little mime: “I came here, trouble, read about it, internet, I thought, trouble = you! And this place is weird! Pills! So I hid. Back there. Crept along. Looked. You. Cos they…” -Russell T Davies, ‘Partners in Crime’ shooting script
“So who was Jack to you? Or who is he to you, I mean?” Twilight had to ask as the TARDIS returned to a few days before the whole Adipose incident was due to take place. “...Oh, for Celestia’s sakes. Been traveling with you for a long while now and still haven’t gotten these tenses right…”
“Eh, you figure it out eventually… Everyone does,” the Doctor remarked before sighing. “Oh, Jack… Good old Jack, or poor old Jack. Depends on how you view him. He’s… well, he’s a character. To say the least!” the Doctor laughed. Twilight got the feeling he was deflecting from the issue, as he tended to do. “Have I ever mentioned him before?”
“Maybe a few times, yes,” Twilight deadpanned. “Isn’t he the one who… Well, you mentioned he had sex with a tree. And a dozen rat-beings at once. Amongst other things.” she said with a small facial flush.
Rainbow peeked her head up in shock and licked her lips. “Man oh man… I would love to meet him…” she commented and Twilight let out a small growl of jealousy. Unaware of this or possibly not caring at all, Rainbow continued on. “Seriously, he sounds like one of the only people able to keep up with the Dash…”
“Pretty sure bestiality is illegal on Earth, Rainbow…” Twilight muttered back as a reply even if she didn’t entirely believe that would actually stop her friend.
“I don’t know…” Rainbow mused to herself as she desperately tried to keep her wings down at the sheer thought of the human both the Doctor and Twilight were describing. He must have been quite the good time. In oh so many ways. “From the sounds of it, if it moves he’s quite willing to-”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence Rainbow Dash,” Twilight replied sternly. “Seriously, just… don’t.”
“Man, Twilight, you’re such a buzzkill. What, is being a professional fun killer in your job description?” Rainbow asked with a small roll of her eyes. “Seriously, half the time it seems like growing up with the Princess made you oh so stingy. What you need, if you ask me is a coltfriend or marefriend. Might very well loosen you up, in oh so many ways!” she cackled.
“Is she always like this?” the Doctor asked leaning over towards Twilight and the mare could only nod and sigh. Unaware of this, or again possibly not caring Rainbow continued on.
“...That is of course,” she said with a lecherous grin as she turned back to look at Twilight. “You and the Doc aren’t… well, you know. He does suit you. About as frantic about something when he wants to be, and about as eggheady.”
“We aren’t… He isn’t…” Twilight stammered out which to be quite honest didn’t really do any matters in helping her case truth be told. “We are most certainly NOT!” she shouted.
“Can’t say if I’m sure I believe you really, but suit yourself. Deny it all you want, but if you ask me the Doctor would make quite the catch!” Rainbow replied with a small shrug of her wings.
“I’m… I’m already taken thank you very much…” the Doctor mumbled to himself with a small flush of his own. Rainbow looked on and studied his reactions. With a careful eye, she observed them. Not just current ones, but prior ones as well.
Truth be told, Rainbow was… concerned for the Doctor. Celestia knew she’d seen his reaction to that Donna ma… er, woman telling him this Jack was dead or captured in that potential future. It hadn’t been pretty, and while Rainbow certainly wasn’t the smartest of ponies -not by a long shot really- but even she knew what desperation could do to a pony. She knew it could drive them to do things they never thought possible and things that they would normally hate themselves for. Goddess only knew what it could do to someone like the Doctor, who from as far as Rainbow had seen was intent on saving everybody no matter how impossible it was or who they exactly were. He sorta saw himself as this messiah of sorts. Maybe he didn’t want to admit it, at least in public setting but that’s exactly what he saw himself as. Even Rainbow could see that. So, the obvious question was how did she and more importantly how did she and Twilight -way smarter mare than her- stop him from doing anything so completely stupid that would have disastrous consequences that if not for them, but for him.
Well, Rainbow mused to herself. This was going to be quite a challenge. But, she mused as well. Nobody ever said the best things in life were easy to accomplish. Rainbow was scared. There were things not just ponies, but anybody else couldn’t possibly understand and the Doctor was about one of the only beings she knew that was capable of stopping them. Case in point, the Changelings. Sure, she may have… helped but that was by pure chance and suspicion. She figured the Doctor given just a few short seconds and being put in the room with one in disguise would have figured out how to stop them and expose them all in just under a minute. He was like that Forelock Hooves character in a way. Not that Rainbow would ever admit to knowing who Forelock Hooves was. Twilight would probably never let her live it down.
Twilight. Now, there was a strange mare or to borrow something from the Doctor’s dictionary a curiosity. Rainbow had known a few mares like her back in Cloudsdale. Always stuck up in their rooms, generally becoming those crazy old cat mares. Truth be told, as grumpy as Twilight was Rainbow knew she didn’t exactly deserve to become one of those she thought with a shudder. Okay, maybe there were a few unresolved issues there Rainbow admitted if only to herself but she knew Twilight certainly deserved better than living with a dozen or so cats as her only companions.
Well, she certainly didn’t have that issue now Rainbow admitted. But it definitely scared her to think on what Twilight could have become had she… no, she and her friends not stepped in.
“Actually,” Rainbow wondered to herself. “Actually, what might I have become had I not met Twilight and the others? Okay, a Wonderbolt probably, I am that awesome after all. But… but what else? ...Might have become like Gilda, so caught up in my own ego I… I probably wouldn’t have made a single friend. Not even Fluttershy…” she trailed off before shuddering at the thought. Fluttershy, she was her rock. What kept her sane at times she freely admitted. Or at what at least kept her from doing some moronically stupid things. Like challenging something way beyond her weight class, at least by herself. If Fluttershy wasn’t around… Well, Rainbow suspected one day or another she would do something that bordered on suicide. Like bucking a dragon in the face.
(Okay, yes, she had done that already but she had her friends to back her up including Fluttershy who gave that dragon a chewing out for the ages. Rainbow had never been so proud of her.)
While yes, it was entirely possible she may have met some other group and became awesome on her own with their help, Rainbow also knew from talks with her friends that they had all seen a certain ‘incident’. All of the Mane Six were connected by her -her! That could not be stressed enough- Sonic Rainboom because they got their cutie marks as a result of that outcome.
“For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”
It would be years before Rainbow would ever hear that quote and fully understand it. With the benefit(?) of hindsight would look upon that moment thinking of that exact quote and shudder slightly upon hearing of a certain battle between Twilight and another unicorn who equaled her in power levels. She would, years on, be told of so many possible outcomes of her never firing off that Rainboom. None of them were particularly nice possibilities. But what of the obvious question? What if she still fired off that Rainboom and yet still never met her friends? Would she stay in Ponyville? Or go back to Cloudsdale? There were numerous possibilities, for the want of a nail.
“...Okay, so what exactly are we looking for here, Doc?” Rainbow asked as she walked around the area known as Roald Dahl Plass. Off in the distance, Rainbow swore she thought she saw some sort of serpent-like creature swimming in the waters, golden in scale color. For a brief moment, she flashed back to Roam and those creatures and sighed. Yep, that one was definitely going to come back to bite her. “...For a big bad secret organization you call Torchwood, this… hardly seems like the place. I mean, there’s just a monolith and a few buildings.”
“Kinda the point, isn’t it?” the Doctor asked with a wily smirk as he walked up to said monolith, the Water Tower as it was called. “If you have a secret base, then… put it in a spot nobody would suspect!” he chimed in before banging on the monolith to the tune of a shave and a haircut.
“...Oh,” Rainbow laughed nervously. “Right… Silly me.”
“Genius as always… Doc.” a man in a black coat said as the base of the monolith opened up. “...Wait, doc? Is that you? Why are you a…?”
“Horse?” the Doctor asked. “Well, pony technically. Think calling me a horse would be racism or species misrepresentation. Something or other like that.”
“Oh, the jokes I can make! If you get a cough, I could probably say “Are you feeling a little horse?”
“...Please, no puns.” the Doctor groaned rubbing his temples although there was a faint ghost of a smile visible if you looked closely enough. “Especially horrible ones.”
“Oh, but bad puns are practically the foundation of the universe! I mean, we would both know given you took me to see that!” Jack replied. “Who’d have thought, the universe was formed by one bored guy and girl making terrible jokes!”
“Wait, was it really?” Twilight asked, blinking and it was then Jack finally took notice of the Doctor’s two newest companions.
“Wow Doc, guess as you get older your companions do get weirder!” Jack laughed. “Where’d you even find these two? They look like something out of a little girl’s cartoon!”
“An awesome little girls’ cartoon, I’m sure.” Rainbow huffed.
“Equus, a planet of ponies,” the Doctor replied without any trace of sarcasm or anything like that. “Trust me, it weirded me out as well.”
“I should say so!” Jack laughed and as the two exchanged barbs back and forth, Twilight suddenly found herself scooped up and hugged tightly. Rainbow fell over laughing as she watched her friend get scooped up by a black-haired woman.
“Awwwww… they’re so cute! Really, Jack, you shouldn’t mock! I mean, come on! A real-life unicorn and pegasus!” Gwen exclaimed hugging Twilight even tighter. Jack wondered if she could even breathe by now. The pony, not Gwen.
“Yep, there goes the perception filter, right out the window…” the Doctor thought to himself before looking at Gwen and blinking. “Blimey…”
“You from Cardiff?” he asked. “...You look like someone I knew once… Has to be down to spatial genetic multiplicity.”
Gwen just looked at him in confusion before turning to Jack. “...You didn’t tell me he was a horse.”
“Oh, surely this can’t be a courtesy call,” Jack remarked as he watched the Doctor trot around the Hub. He sighed to himself. A trotting Time Lord. Yep, that was going to take some getting used to, that was for sure. Oh well, at least he had plenty of puns and jokes he could make to and about the Doc now he supposed.
“What, you don’t think I can’t just drop by for a quick chat over tea and scones?” the Doctor asked holding up a cup that Ianto kid had brought him. “Really, I should start making this a habit!”
Truth be told, Jack was more than a bit nervous about why the Doctor had come to call. As much as he would have liked it to be the truth, the Doctor never just stopped by to say hello. The Time Lord -Or was that Time Pony now?- always had a reason for visiting and really, given he was ‘prejudiced’ of a sorts against his frankly rather unique condition he usually actively tried to avoid him. As the Doctor put it, he was a fixed point in time and space, not exactly something the Time Lord was supposed to be running into at every chance he could take. Which was fair enough he supposed. God knew he wouldn’t want to jump headlong into World War 1 at any and every chance he could take. Far too many bombs and guns really, and coming back to life was a right pain in the arse.
But that still didn’t change the fact that something was off about the Doctor. Well, okay something was a bit more off than usual about him, which was really saying quite a lot really. He had this odd look in his eyes, something the Captain couldn’t quite place really. It was that same -well, maybe not the same, but something similar at least- sort of look he usually got whenever he or someone else talked about Rose. So it stood to wonder, who did the Doctor lose this time?
Jack of course, he wasn’t going to pry. At least not this early, and it wouldn’t have worked anyhow. The Doctor, he knew, would have closed himself off to any further questions the moment the former Time Agent started asking around. Besides, he had a fair bit more tact than that anyhow.
In the meantime, he had to wonder did the Doctor ever find anybody else? Or anypony else he supposed. Jack sorta guessed his sexual preferences were a lot more reserved than his own. Being the sibling he thought himself as to the Doctor, he knew he would have to track down this new love of his and give them the ‘responsible big brother’ type talk. And threaten them that if they ever hurt the Doctor, he would come and hunt them down to the ends of the Earth. Or whatever that new pony planet he found himself on was called.
(With hindsight, Jack would later learn that even with being practically immortal, nothing prepared you for finding out the Lord of Time was dating a pony princess who controlled her planet’s sun. That was just bloody weird.)
Twilight meanwhile was bombarding Gwen with more questions -in true Twilight fashion- than the poor officer could probably handle while Rainbow just sat back and laughed her head off. Which was honestly fair enough one supposed, given it was an amusing sight seeing Gwen befuddled by a pony of all things.
“...But hold on, if no one can see it when the elevator’s coming up, there's a great big hole in the floor. Don't people fall in?” Twilight just had to question.
Gwen laughed before wiping a tear from her eye. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, it’s just you remind me of myself when I came here. The first question I asked when I came here, remember Ianto?” she asked with the man in question nodding. “The Captain goes ahead and he shows you something fantastic; you find fault with it. You are a Welsh woman at heart you are, Twilight.”
“What’s a Welsh woman? And what do you mean I’m finding fault with this? It’s a perfectly logical question!” Twilight asked and Gwen only laughed harder. Twilight could only tilt her head in confusion and look at the Doctor. “What’d I say?”
“Well, at least the misses are getting along…” Jack murmured to himself.
Rainbow meanwhile underwent a hasty explanation of the Rift via Ianto.
“...Trust me, giant devil-like aliens named Abaddon? That’s only the tip of the iceberg. They kinda just slip through the Rift, use it as a door if you like. All sorts of things get washed up here. Creatures, timeshifts, space junk, debris. Flotsam and jetsam. And him.” he said, gesturing to the Doctor. “Usually him.”
“Oi, you want to rephrase that?” the Doctor asked before turning back to Jack. “Makes great tea, your boyfriend, but rather rude at times.”
“...Where does he get these friends of his?” Rainbow wondered aloud before turning to Gwen. “No hugs from you please. I don’t do hugs. So uncool.”
“Reminds me of the jocks back in high school…” Gwen muttered. “Even smells like a locker room. She just needs the jersey and the basketball. And probably the beer.”
“It’s a habit we’re trying to break of hers, trust me. The smell, and the manners,” Twilight said with a small nod. “Trust me, she could do with a few pointers on how to be more of a proper lady as Rarity calls it.”
“Ha!” Rainbow mocked. “That’ll be the day! I swear, if you even try and put me into one of those girly frilly frou-frou dresses I’m bucking you into the next century Princess’ personal student be damned!”
“This is going to take some getting used to,” Gwen murmured. “Colorful ponies with their own society, and swearing like sailors at times. Not at all like the cartoons I grew up with…”
“...You got any cider around here?” Rainbow asked. “I’m going to go raid the kitchen. ...Well, soon as I find the kitchen. Trust me, being awesome? Works wonders on the metabolism!”
“If you find any pitayas, tell me, okay?” Twilight asked.
“Honestly Twi, I don’t understand what it is with you and that-” Rainbow started before swallowing nervously as she was given a truly withering glare. “Oooooookayyyyy, I’ll let you know if I find any. But I swear, one of these days you’re going to turn into a pitaya…Mark my words...” she muttered to herself walking off.
“Welp, you’ve got her whipped,” Gwen remarked giving Twilight a fistbump. Or hoofbump really. “You’re already close to marrying her as it is.”
This garnered two reactions. One, Twilight sputtering and blushing and Rainbow looking practically indignant at marrying a ‘egghead’.
“So, tell me about Jack,” Twilight asked as she watched with curious eyes as Myfanwy -a pteranodon of all things, named after a local goddess- fly above her. “What’s he like? And how does the Doctor…”
“Know him? Well, that’s a bit of a story honestly,” Gwen admitted. “One I don’t actually have all the answers to. Mind you, those two? I can tell you this. Blood brothers. Just hearing the way Jack talks about him, I can tell you that much.”
“They don’t seem like the type, the playboy and the warrior,” Twilight mused. “Then again… odder friendships there are on my world. I mean, I know Rainbow Dash, amongst others. Not the sort you’d expect me to get along with…” she shrugged.
“I’m still not convinced you two aren’t shagging each other,” Gwen remarked and watched as Twilight’s face went red. “But yeah, I get what you mean. The Doctor and the Captain. Sounds like a terrible idea, like something out of a bad buddy cop movie but somehow…”
“It works?” Twilight returned. “So, what exactly is Torchwood anyways?”
“The last line of defense against aliens. The Doctor won’t always be here for us, as Harriet Jones said so she allowed us to… take over if you will. Lightens his load, and keeps the human race safe in the bargain. Win-win for everyone involved. The Doctor doesn’t have to like our methods, but the results…” Gwen trailed off. “This is Torchwood Three. This is Torchwood Three. Torchwood One was London, destroyed in the Battle. Torchwood Two is an office in Glasgow. A very strange man... Torchwood Four's apparently gone missing, but we’re on the lookout for it.”
“You’re very odd, all of you. You do know that, right?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow and Gwen snorted.
“As I said, true welsh you are. But yeah, I admit we’re a little odd.”
“...How’d you get involved in all of this?”
“Long story, really. Involves me being a pizza delivery girl, a serial killer and a chance meeting. And here I am, on Earth’s weirdest beat with an immortal man and a desk jockey turned into whatever the hell Jack needs him to be.”
“Wait, so Jack’s really immortal?” Twilight asked eyes widened in shock. “I thought the Doctor was…”
“Exaggerating?” Jack asked piping in. “Yeah, the thing about the Doc here? He rarely if ever does that. I’d appreciate it if you don’t go spreading me not being able to properly die around. Sorta has this tendency to freak people out,” Jack remarked. “Long story, took place very far from here. Sorta figured out the whole thing around 1892. 1892. Got in a fight on Ellis Island; a man shot me through the heart… then I woke up. Then flash forward a few years, and one nasty javelin throw later… I figured it out. I’m the man who can’t die.”
“...Just when you think you’ve seen it all…” Twilight muttered feeling rather woozy.
Jack fought back a smirk before turning back to the Doctor his expression turning serious.
“Okay, cut the crap Doctor, I know you’re not here on a social call. You never come for that,” he stated narrowing his eyes. A lesser man probably would have run off in fear at the look in them. “Trust me, wish you would but whenever you come it’s always because something bad is about to happen.”
“Okay… two days from now you will be captured and a good amount of the world’s population, about half by my counting will die horribly. Don’t look into Adipose Industries, whatever you do. Please.”
“And hearing this is supposed to stop me?” Jack growled. “Like hell. Hearing that actually makes me want to help you, I don’t care where you got your information but I will help you. Trust me Doc, I cannot stand by after hearing something like that.”
“Did you hear the part about you being captured?” the Doctor asked eyes narrowed. Even as a pony, the effect was still intimidating to say the least given who the Doctor was. You could put him in a different body, but the Oncoming Storm would always find a way to remind you of his reputation.
“So, been captured before. I’m sure future me will find a way to bust out,” Jack laughed and the Doctor gave him a look. How could he be so flippant about this? Jack could only sigh. “Honestly Doctor, you need to remember you’re never alone in this. You never have been. Let us help you, just this once. I know you’re hardly a fan of Torchwood and you have every right to hate the group after what they pulled at Canary Wharf, but this… This is our jurisdiction and our specialty. And this time we will be helping you. So… please. Let us.” Jack pleaded.
The Doctor ran a frantic hoof through his mane before sighing and giving his answer.
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yay! more of this :D
Oh, hey, you’ve been resurrected! Cool! Can’t wait to see what will happen next.
9660568
Resurrected? Don't you mean... puts on sunglasses regenerated?
a grate chapter and having Captain Jack Harkness makes it 20% cooler. or should i call Captain Jack bye hi other name the face of boe.
I’m already imagining that meeting
Sorry I'm late.
Great comeback.