Wishes to Reality

“Gas traces confirmed as Vorax and Suranium,” Tosh said from a computer screen. Jack looked over her shoulder and sighed slightly.

“Great, my two favorite gases,” Jack said sarcastically, “Can we do a check, and find out what we know about them?”

“I'm all over it,” Owen stated, clacking away on his own computer.
Ianto comes into the hub carrying a tray of cups for everyone.

Meanwhile, Gwen came up beside Toshiko, looking at the computer screen the tech was working at. I knew there’d be a grainy picture of what’s-her-name that got possessed by the sex alien on the left, and a bunch of quickly flashing pictures on the right.

“What's this doing?” Gwen asked.

“I've taken an image of the girl from the CCTV footage. This cross-checks her face with the UK population,” Tosh explained matter-of-factly. Jack took the cup Ianto offered , smiling at the admin. I smiled brightly at him as well, earning me a confused stare.
Ianto clearly isn’t used to getting attention.

“You can't have every face in the UK on there. That would be against civil
liberties, data protection, all that stuff ...” Gwen argues, disbelieving.
Toshiko stops and glances back at Jack.

“Still doing that "you" instead of "we" thing?” Jack drolled, sipping from his dragonfly mug.

The computer finishes the scan. It reads: 119 possible matches

“Ah. A hundred and nineteen suspects. This thing’s supposed to give us a
single match!” Owen complained. I frowned at the computer, my mind darting briefly to Hawaii 5-0. Granted, that was in 2010 whereas this is supposed to be 2006/2007, but Torchwood was supposed to have futuristic and/or alien tech. Sigh. I’d have to have a chat with Jack about that. Perhaps with Jezzy first.

“The CCTV was too low res. I've tried magnifying and augmenting but it just
breaks up. Which means that the software can't function properly,” Toshiko sighed. Ah yes, when technology fails, Toshiko gets a tad confused. That’s okay, I have a hard time living without my wifi as well.

“It's narrowed the numbers down. I could check through the rest. You know,
the old fashioned way - with my eyes,” Ianto sassed, pointing to his eyes and earning himself a small smile from Gwen, Jez and I.
Gwen looks back to Tosh’s computer screen.

“What about the fingerprints I took off the alley wall?” Gwen asked logically.

Toshiko runs the print – NO MATCH FOUND

“It was a long-shot, anyway,” Gwen sighed, shaking her head.

“Just a bit,” Owen snarked. I glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow. I’d completely forgotten about this interaction.

“At least I'm trying to do something!” Gwen snapped at him.

“No, you're trying anything,” Owen argued back at her, probably going for a more scathing follow-up, but he was interrupted by Jack.

“The CCTV must have picked up her arrival at the club. Tosh, can you reformat
the image recognition software to trace her journey backwards via the street camera
network?”

“It'll take a while to process. Every possible turn on every street corner
means hundreds of thousands of probabilities,” Tosh sounded like this would be neither an enjoyable or rapid process.

“Have a go. At least we'll know where she started the evening,” Jack insisted, turning away to -assumedly- go do other stuff.

“We could cross reference that with the addresses on the remaining face matches,” Gwen interjected, most likely drawing from her experience in police work. By the look on Jack’s face, he had forgotten that Gwen actually had more experience with investigation processes than any of his other employees.
Owen snapped his fingers.

“Good one, newbie! That's a bit more like it!” the medic exclaimed, returning to his computer.

I walked over to Jack, who was returning to his office.

“Jack, we need to have a conversation about your technology,” I stated when I finally caught up to him.

“Oh? What about it?” he asked distractedly. He’d started fidgeting with some papers.

“Come on, Harkness. It’s not nearly as advanced as it could be. I’ve seen the future, and I know you have too. Where’s the quarter-inch thick touch-screens? Advanced photo re-construction? High-quality graphics? Dude, seriously,” I insisted, sneaking under his arm so that I could stand in front of him and poke him in the chest indignantly.
He sighed, a frown marring his pretty features.

“I know. But I have no idea how to obtain any of it, Dev. My wrist-strap is nonfunctional, remember? I did the best with what we had, advanced the technology available with alien tech we had on hand. What we’ve got is still infinitely better than anything out there!” his left arm sneaked around my waist while his right gesticulated.
I was now trapped between the Immortal Flirt and his desk, which was perfectly fine by me.

“But you were a Time Agent!” I insisted, “Shouldn’t you know how to replicate most of this stuff? Or at least how to fix the time-travel components of your Vortex Manipulator.”
Jack frowned at me, clearly wondering how I came to know all this stuff.
It quickly cleared from his face however, and I assumed that he had attributed my knowledge to (apparently, according to what I let him believe) knowing him in the future.

“Yeah, but I was a Field Agent! I wasn’t one of the scientists, I don’t know how the sciency parts work! Why do you think I hired Toshiko in the first place? But even she, with all her skills and all her knowledge, can’t replicate what she can hardly imagine! And you? Can't you do it? You are, after all, from the future, aren't you?" He demanded, eyebrows knit together in frustration.
I paused for one moment, considering exactly how relevant his point was. Unfortunately, it was entirely valid. I was holding him at a double-standard.

I sighed, squinting at him with mock-skepticism, before nodding.

“Fine. You’re right. I’m sorry,” I ran a hand down my face, resisting the urge to groan at my defeat, “I’m going to miss all the future tech, though. A friend of mine, he was a hacker, his computing systems were more advanced than what you have here. Hell, they were more advanced than what the CIA had at the time. Fuck, man, he had a 3D printer and the knowledge to program it to make basically anything he wanted.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully.

“Was he attractive?” he settled on finally. I assumed it was to release the tension. I worked, and caused me to have a small giggle fit.

“Yeah, he really was! Married to his work, though, unfortunately,” I pretended to sigh wistfully, which sent the both of us into a gigglefit, longer this time than before.

A knock came at the open door before Owen stuck his head in.

“Jack, we have something”

It didn’t take me long to figure out that the white jumpsuits were ridiculously uncomfortable. Not to mention the gas masks, which I had refused to wear at first.
Jack decided that Owen could drive, for once, so that he could spend the entire drive shoving the damn thing onto my face.

There had been a couple elbow-to-the-face moments for the other unfortunate occupants of the SUV, but Jack was successful and I sulked the rest of the way to Carys’ current position.

Harkness demonstrated his love of theatrics by kicking down the door, everyone pointing their guns towards the possessed girl.

“What's going on?!” the guy Carys was straddling asked, sounding surprisingly calm considering the circumstances.

“Put your trousers on and get out,” Jack states without looking at him.

“Now!” he insisted loudly when the guy just looked around confusedly. Owen follows him briefly, presumably to make sure the dude actually left the premises.

“It always breaks my heart to say those words,” Jack deadpans. No one seems to really care, like they’re used to it, but neither Jez nor I can hold back a small snort of amusement.

Tosh scans the area around Carys with a yellow hand-held plastic device, which I’m pretty sure is made out of a walkman, before announcing that the air quality’s okay.
I assumed that meant I didn’t need the gas mask any more, so I took no time in snapping it off my face and tossing it across the room.

Everyone is slightly slower in doing the same, so carys takes the opportunity to bolt the fuck out of dodge.

“Gwen, look out!” Jack shouts as the possessed girl runs by the previously mentioned ex-police officer.
Gwen is a bit slow on the uptake, so Jezzy clocks Carys across the face on her way through, giving us time to apprehend the poor girl.
Unfortunately, Owen forgot to recalculate his plan and managed to trap both Jezebel and Carys in the blue force-field thing.

“What’s that?” Gwen asked breathily.

“It’s a sort of inflatable cell, power runs down after an hour. The battery
life's bollocks.” Owen answered helpfully.

“Who said you could use that?” Jack asked, turning his head to Owen and giving him a bitch-face.

“Um, I just stopped a prisoner escaping,” Owen pointed out in retaliation, his tone of voice insinuating the ‘obviously’.

"And trapped my sister!" I snapped crankily at him.

“You know the rules. None of that stuff leaves the building without my
expressed permission” Jack states, sounding incredibly annoyed, though not at all surprised. It was clear that this wasn’t Owen’s first offense. By the looks on everyone else’s faces, this seemed to be a pretty routine speech.

“Fine then, don’t thank me,” Owen snarks back, taking a few steps down the stairs.

“Oh I’ll show you thanks,” I growled, and smacked him heavily behind the head. I masked Jack’s sigh as he tapped a few buttons to take down the cell’s light field.
Gwen grabbed the arm on Carys that jez wasn’t holding and the girls started escorting our possessed prisoner back to the car.

Jack grabbed the rock-looking thing and put it in his pocket, giving Owen a look as he passed him by.

“How is everyone going to fit in the SUV?” I asked to no one in particular.

Turns out, not everyone fit in the SUV.
Jack got to ride with me on my newly-acquired motorcycle, because no one else trusted my driving. I blamed this on Jezzy refusing to get on any form of motorcycle ever.

When we got to the hub, Jack immediately put Gwen on interrogation duty, causing her to shoot him an alarmed look.

“Aren’t you gonna help me? I don’t know what I’m doing,” she states, enlightening our prisoner to the fact that Gwen was clearly a newbie.
Jezebel and I rolled our eyes at her in sync.

“Brief her on interrogation techniques, I’ll babysit the prisoner,” Jez stated, taking Carys’ arm and taking her down towards the cells.
I assumed that she had gotten the tour of the place, because I had zero ideas as to where the hell the cells were situated. It’s not like the TV show came with a detailed map of the hub.

I looked briefly behind me to see that everyone had left to go do their jobs, which left me with the task of teaching Gwen how to do her job. Joyful.

“Just... I don’t know, connect with her. Learn stuff about the alien, like where it came from ,why it’s here. Come on, you were a cop, PC Cooper, just do your job. Get intel on the perp. Go!” I said, shooing her towards where I saw my sister heading.

I sighed, and jogged over to Toshiko’s work station.
“Could you record the interrogation for me, please? Thank you.”

I had to make sure to remember to check out the make-out scene at a later date.

While everyone was focusing on their various jobs and stuff, I dragged Jezebel off to a secluded corner to chat about the timeline I’d begun establishing.

“Look this over, and if you remember anything more than I have, write it down. Here,” I said, handing her my notebook and pen.
She started reading from my notebook, writing a few words here and there where she remembered stuff.

“Does this actually happen?” she asked, looking over the few words I’d written down about the episode Random Shoes.

“Yeah. From what I remember, the dude is actually pretty good at physics. I think it might be a useful skill to have in Torchwood, considering what we deal with. Of course, I’ll see if we can’t talk Jack into paying for his education at some university or whatever. I mean, from what I remember he’s like the ultimate nerd, all the way to still living at his mom’s, so he needs some... I don’t know, life experience or something. A make-over, certainly”

Jezzi nodded, but didn’t look like she remembered the dude at all. She was trusting my judgment, which was probably a good thing.

“Why do you want to hire Andy? He’s a total pussy,” she said, her eyes still glued to the notebook.

“Because he actually helps Gwen a lot in season 2 when Jack’s off with the Doctor. We’d only hire him after that though. And we need to get a new hub made for when this one blows up,” I explained. She nodded, and kept flipping through the notebook.

“What are we doing about Cyberwoman?” she asked, though she was at the Miracle Day portion of my booklet.
I gave her a startled look, her question having taken me completely by surprise.

“Oh shit, that’s right. I had totally forgotten about that. I’m kind of hoping to avoid it altogether. I’m still working on how, but it includes befriending our favourite Welsh,”
Jezebel agreed with me.

That was when Ianto asked us what we wanted for chinese, and we put away the notebooks to go hang out with him.

After we’d had food, Gwen had a small melt-down in regards to the case. She was convinced that we weren’t doing enough, and she blew a gasket at us.
Granted, it was mostly aimed in Jack’s direction, but everyone felt aimed by her hissy fit.
The Captain took no shit from her, snarking right back and telling everything that the machines were doing to figure the case out.

She still went off and plastered her whole station with information on Carys that she wasn’t going to need, since we weren’t going to let the girl run off.

Before we knew it, it had happened. Owen was naked in a cell and our prisoner was out of her cell, running through the halls of the Torchwood Hub.

Jezebel and I mostly stood back, waiting for our time to strike.
While Carys was having her little rough and tumble scene with Jack, I grabbed the gun from Gwen’s belt and kept a close eye on the girl.
It had been a while since I’d hit the range, but I used to go regularly, and my scores were excellent. I knew I could get her in a place that wasn’t fatal.

The moment she reached for the Doctor’s hand in a jar, I shot her in the shoulder, making her drop to the floor with an agonized scream.

That hadn’t been part of the plan that Jezebel and I had agreed on, but I couldn’t think of a better way to keep her from killing a bunch of people while Owen did his research.
To be fair, though, we hadn’t really discussed the details of this particular case, we’d talked more about the episodes that were relevant to the plot.

After he’d patched up Carys and she’d been returned to her cell with Jezebel watching her, Owen went on to show the rest of us what would happen in the long term.
Rat Jam.
After that, while everyone was trying to figure out how to fix it using what they knew best, I went to talk with Jack.

“Jack, I have an idea,”
He looked up from the papers on his desk, and signaled for me to continue.

“We know that the alien can’t live long outside of its host body. We know that the host can’t live that long with the alien riding it. So, I was just thinking that if we could lure it out of its host, we could trap it in the little rock prison thing that Owen used. The one I know you have in your pocket,” I suggested, remembering the end of the episode.
Jack got a thoughtful look on his face, like he was contemplating my idea.

“I assume you have an idea on how to lure it out?”

“I’ll offer myself as host. Point out that I’m stronger than she is, that I’d last longer. Then I’d back up and stand beside you, and we wait for it to take the bait, we capture it and BAM. Done. Case solved, we save the girl, the whole nine.”
Jack gave one sharp nod, and off we went to the cells.

I winked at Jezzi when we passed by her, and she rolled her eyes at me. Clearly, she’d figured out what we were about to go do.

The plan went off without a hitch, and now we got to retcon Carys before sending her back home safe and sound.

“You travel halfway across the universe for the greatest sex. You still end up
dying alone,” Jack says mournfully, dragging a hand through the pink dust left on the floor of the cell.
I surged forward and kissed him, letting it be as soft as the moment called for. I could always snog the life out of him at another time, but this moment called for something sweet, thoughtful.

I placed a hand on the side of his face to help me balance, and scooted closer to Jack.
As he wrapped an arm around my middle, I heard Jezebel pull Carys out of the cell, and trusted her to get the girl back to where she belonged.

I pressed myself closer against Jack, but we were mostly just breathing into each other mouths, foreheads pressed together.
“Thank you,” I whispered breathily, my lips brushing against his.

He kissed me again, holding me tightly.

It was just a breath before Owen’s voice came on over the speakers, asking for us upstairs to close up the case.

“No rest for the wicked, huh?” we chuckled together, before going to supervise the return of our previously possessed ex-prisoner to her normal life.
Presumably because no one really knew where Jack hid the retcon pills.