Title: The Memorandum
By: Sonicpen
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Warning: WiP
Summary: The Torchwood team is baffled by a mysterious alien signal. But when the clues fall into place, everything spells out danger and the team is forced to go farther than they've ever gone before.

***

4:12 am

Cardiff was sleeping soundly under a velvet night sky. It was silent all over, the streetlamps dropping cones of dirty light onto its streets, which were all vacant except for the large and gleaming black jeep that zipped along the avenues. It ripped through the silence and serenity, looking terribly out of place. The large tires squealed and left trails of dust as it rounded tight corners. Curious bright blue and white lights could be seen from within: Toshiko's computer screens in the backseat.

"I've got a lock on it," she was saying. Her eyes were wide as she observed her readings. Her slim fingers tapped and prodded the keyboard. A large map glowed on the screen in front of her with a large red dot right in the middle, as well as the small white marker that was them - Torchwood. Gwen was at her shoulder, her large eyes narrowed as she observed the dot. "The object itself is small," Tosh continued as her eyes swept the screen, her expression that of bewilderment. "But it's one of the largest amounts of alien energy I've ever seen."

Jack, seated in the front passenger seat, pursed his lips at this and glanced in the rearview mirror at the two women. "How much energy?" he asked, suddenly clutching the dashboard with both hands as Owen haphazardly soared over a speed bump and sent everyone about an inch in the air.

Tosh pressed a few more buttons and a small graph appeared to the left of the map, the wavy red lines upon it ripping and spiking violently. "A lot. The readings are similar to those I get when there's rift activity, but it's smaller, more controlled. And more powerful. Make a right here and stop at number seven, Owen."

"You got it," Owen replied as he ripped the wheel to the right. It was a small residential street. He skidded to a halt outside the fourth house on the right. Everyone quickly evacuated the truck, guns in hand. The house looked normal; like all the others on the street. The windows were dark, curtains were drawn, and there was even a small garden out front.

"Don't look like the home of an alien," Owen murmured as the team approached the house. "But then again, they never do."

Jack kicked the front door inward with a swift movement of his leg. "We could have knocked first!" Gwen whispered sharply as she followed him inside. Jack ignored her. If this thing was as powerful as Tosh described, it needed to be taken on suddenly. Warning it wouldn't be clever.

Within, the team observed the small front hall by the light of their torches. It was a normal home, conservatively decorated and tidy. "It was coming from the second-" Tosh began, a small palm-pilot type computer beneath her nose, but was cut off.

"Who in the bloody hell are you!?" came the loud, panicked voice of a woman as the hall light switched on. At the top of the stairs stood a woman in a tatty bathrobe, holding a broom aloft like a baseball bat. She was plump, with ginger hair that was going steadily gray from her temples.

The team lowered their guns at once. "Torchwood," Jack said immediately as he began up the stairs. "We received signal of something-"

"I don't care what you got, you didn't have to kick the damn door in like a bunch of animals!" the woman yelled and Jack stopped as she lowered the broom.

"Please, ma'am, we believe there's something wrong upstairs, we need to take a look!" Jack demanded.

Tosh stepped forward, holding her handheld computer aloft. "Jack, the energy's disappeared!"

"What d'you mean, something's wrong? It's just me and me daughter here. You mean gas or summat?"

At her words, a teenage girl of about eighteen appeared at the top of the stairs, a hand in her disheveled red hair. "Wuzgoinon?" she muttered thickly.

Jack was staring at Tosh. "What do you mean, disappeared? Where'd it go?" Owen whispered harshly.

"Nowhere… it's just gone!"

There was a pause, during which the team stared at each other.

"Well?" the woman asked, staring daggers at them. "What'd you wake us up for? Torchwood… aren't you like the police?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. …?"

"Ms. Sanderson."

"Ms. Sanderson," Jack said, grinning sheepishly. "We are the police. Basically." He flashed his badge. "We need to take a look up there."

Despite her less than warm welcome, Ms. Sanderson moved aside after only a moments' hesitation. "Abigail, go back to bed," she snapped at the girl as the team ascended the stairs.

"Torchwood, did you say?" Abigail asked softly as Gwen passed her, ignoring her mother.

Gwen nodded, but barely looked at the girl as she entered each room, gun held at the ready. Owen and Jack were doing the same, Tosh scanning each room with her palm pilot. Nothing.

"Well?" Ms. Sanderson asked again tartly. She was following right behind Jack as he moved through the house.

"Quite the assertive one, you are, aren't you! " he said jovially, lowering his gun. "I like that in a woman, you know." She didn't take it as a compliment. His smile faltered a bit. "We, um, we've seem to made a mistake. Readings must have been wrong. No disturbance here."

"'Cept for you lot!"

"And we're very sorry to have woken you." He tried to usher everyone down the stairs before they looked any stupider.

"Should report you, I should!" Ms. Sanderson yelled after them as they shut the door quickly after themselves.

*


5:23 am

"Bloody horrible, that was," Owen mumbled, striding to his desk back at the Torchwood hub. "Embarrassing." The Torchwood Pterodactyl, almost in response to his words, screeched as it soared above them.

"Like you were so much help," Jack said hotly, glaring at him and throwing his jacket onto the couch.

"And like you just had to kick the door in like the ruddy police — No offense, Gwen," Owen added.

But Gwen was staring at Tosh's computer screen over her shoulder again and Tosh's words cut off Jack's defense. "It's back! There it is; same place as before!" Both men rushed over. "It was like it disappeared when it noticed we were there, but then just now… it's back!"

"We should have gone upstairs," Jack said darkly. "Whatever it is knows how to hide or mask its energy. And that just makes it all the more dangerous."

"Do the creatures that come through usually give off energy like that?" Ianto asked. The rest of the team started as they butler entered silently with a tray of coffee, to which everyone absently helped themselves to as he joined the cluster around Tosh's computer.

"If anything comes through the rift, it gives off a sort of residue from the rift itself which we can track," Tosh replied, cupping her mug in both hands. "But there's been no rift activity for days now. It got here all on its own."

Owen shrugged and returned to his chair with his drink. "Maybe it got through on the last one and you just didn't see it."

"I would have noticed this much energy." Tosh couldn't seem to take her eyes off the radar.

"Maybe it was hiding," Gwen suggested.

"Gwen could be right," Jack muttered. "Tosh, could you track that thing? Make sure it doesn't move. If it does, we're going back to find it."

Tosh nodded. "It could just be a temporary fracture - a mini-rift as an extension of ours. I've heard they exist but I've never seen one. If it is, it should be gone in a few days."

"I suppose it's a possibility," Jack muttered.

Gwen glanced at her watch. "Shit, I've got to get home. Rhys is expecting me."

Jack sighed. "Yeah, it's late. Everyone, go home and get some rest," he said. Usually, he sounded rather despondent when he said this; the loneliness they all knew thrived within him hiding behind his words. But tonight, he was staring at the ominous red blotch and seemed completely unlike himself.

"I'll keep an eye on that. Mini-rift or not, I don't like it."

*


5:35 am

The team had evacuated the hub one by one, except for Jack and Ianto. Jack stood in sock feet with his suspenders hanging loosely down at his sides a few feet away from Tosh's computer. He was staring hard at the screen, arms crossed over his broad chest. Ianto was leaning against the doorframe leading into Owen's medical area, looking more at Jack than at the monitor.

"What do you think it is, sir?" he queried softly.

Jack breathed deeply before answering. "I don't know. Tosh's explanation about the mini-rift was plausible. Number seven wasn't on the rift, but quite close to it. But the way it disappeared when it knew it was being hunted, and then reappeared once we left… it's something conscious. Or else it was being controlled by something conscious." He sighed. "I don't trust it, I know that much. It's far too powerful and far too clever to be taken lightly."

"So you're just going to stay here alone all night, staring at it till something happens?" Ianto asked as Jack turned and sat on the sofa against the wall.

"Who says I'll be alone?" Jack smiled. He held out a hand towards the younger man, beckoning him closer. Shyly, Ianto suppressed a grin as he joined his employer on the couch. Jacks arm slipped about Ianto's waist as he sat, and Ianto boldly nestled himself against Jack's side. Ianto laid his head against Jacks' shoulder and Jack kissed his lovers' temple.

However, within a moment his eyes went back to the small red dot that seemed to stare right back at him from across the room.

"Are you sure this is… professional, sir?" Ianto muttered, a bit of sarcasm lacing his words.

Briefly distracted, Jack glanced down at him. "You're helping me monitor alien activity. How much more work-related could you get?" Ianto smiled as he felt Jack's throat vibrate against his forehead with each word. The warm hum of his voice was something he adored; the gorgeous charismatic secrecy that was Jack Harkness.

"From where your hand is, it seems there's something else you want to monitor," Ianto replied cheekily. "Sir."

The corners of his mouth turning upwards, Jack squeezed Ianto's thigh and lowered his head to kiss him.

*


7:13 am

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Jack's eyes burst open. Above him, the ceiling of the hub was tinged pink with the early morning light. Down: Ianto's head on his chest, stirring but still not fully awake. Right: Tosh's computer. The map was still there. But the red marker had gone.

"Get up," he said quietly, giving Ianto's bum a tap and easing himself out from under him. Groggily, Ianto clambered off of Jack, rubbing his eyes. "Has it moved?" he asked.

Stumbling (he had a bit of trouble getting to his feet as his pants were still around his ankles) Jack rushed to the monitor just to make sure it really wasn't there. It wasn't. Ianto smiled as Jack bent down to pull his trousers up.

"C'mon. We're going down there," Jack said, grabbing his jacket off a chair and shrugging into it as they headed for the large circular entranceway.

"Oh, and about that stopwatch of yours…" Jack said they stepped into the lift. "Next time, I get to press the button. I think you cheated." Ianto blushed as the doors closed them in.

***

5:49 am

Gwen inhaled deeply as soon as she lay down. Her pillow smelled like lavender. The scent washed over her and she smiled. Rhys must have changed soaps, knowing lavender was her favorite.

She opened her eyes. Rhys' mouth was open and there was a wet patch spreading on the pillow just below his lip. His short hair stuck up at odd angles, as it often did when he tossed and turned at night. Suddenly overwhelmed with tender sympathy and fondness, Gwen reached out a hand and smoothed his hair down. Rhys wrinkled his nose a tad and snorted as his eyes slowly opened.

"Gwennie?" he whispered, still half asleep.

"Hey, you big lump."

Gwen felt his hand grasp her hip and pull her closer. "When'd you get in, then?" he asked her, his voice surprisingly void of the accusatory tone she would have expected.

"Only a few minutes."

His face fell as she saw him glance at the clock over her shoulder. "When are they gonna let you take a holiday?" he asked grumpily. She smiled, continuing her ministrations through his hair.

"Soon, love. I promise."

Guilt seemed to tap her on the shoulder; that's another promise to be broken. She was lucky to have him at all; working at Torchwood tended to abolish any hope of a normal life. She only wondered how much longer she would be able to hold onto him. Or how much longer he would be able to hold onto her.

*


5:45 pm

"Jack, come in here a moment?"

Gwen having called in sick and Ianto expecting a pizza upstairs, the hub was quiet with only three team members in today. Looking up from the paperwork from UNIT that he was skimming, Jack glanced out at Toshiko. She was holding up a small device, about four inches long, metal with a blue tip and buttons around what seemed like the handle.

At her side in an instant, he grabbed it. He clutched it at eye level, gazing at it was like he was witnessing someone who had awoken from death.

"What, have you seen it before?" Tosh asked, turning back to her computer which had just completed analyzing the results of the scan of the object. "Came through the rift this morning. Made of some kind of metalloid-"

"Where did you find it?" Jack interrupted harshly. Tosh shrunk slightly under his piercing look and the hardness in his voice.

"Just outside, funnily enough," she muttered, feeling as though she were being accused of having stolen it. "It was just lying on the ground." She returned to her computer. "It seems to be able to-"

"I know what it does," Jack said quickly, hurrying back into his office.

Bewildered, Tosh considered for a moment whether or not to press him about it. She found it and she wanted to know what it was, exactly. And how Jack knew about it. It could use sound waves to apply physical force on an object, could detect radiation, and a number of other things. It was unlike anything she'd seen on Earth or beyond. And she'd seen plenty. She found it magnificent.

Tosh glanced to where Owen was sitting, a miniature telescope under his nose and his fingers twiddling the dial on the side. "Don't bother," he said, without looking up. "If it's something from his past, he's not gonna talk about it. ‘Specially not to you."

Stung, although unsurprised, Tosh turned away from him. Typical Owen. Typical, scathing, painfully honest Owen. "Like he tells you anything more," she whispered, half hoping he would hear her.

"What's that, Toshie?" Owen's voice hit her right between the shoulder blades. The nickname was anything but endearing. She stiffened, suddenly wracked with nerves at the possibility of confrontation.

"Nothing," she said innocently, smiling at him over her shoulder. And to her surprise, he dismissed it, resuming the study of his specimen, forgetting. Tosh grinned warmly to herself, savoring her own secret little triumph.

*


6:00 pm

"Martha, it's Jack. I found his screwdriver. The sonic-screwdriver. It came through the rift into Cardiff."
There was a pause.

"I- I don't know what this means. See if you can contact him. Anything. Just… just call me back and give me some good news?"

The suggestion sounded overly-hopeful. Faux-casual.

"Uh, hope you're well."

Martha Jones knew at once that something was wrong. For one, Jack always greeted her with a large and unnecessary "Martha Jones!" There was always so much exuberance in his voice, or else the unmistakable sense of drama and danger if it was bad news. Martha had never heard her old friend sound so worn. So worried. And on top of the news he presented, it was probably one of the worst messages she'd ever gotten.

After dialing her old mobile number, Martha crossed to the large window in her office. She looked up at the half-moon that hung in the sky like a glow-in-the-dark Christmas ornament and almost smiled as she remembered that that was where she first met him. But the frown remained plastered on her face as the phone just rang and rang.

He would have the phone on board; sitting right on the main console in case she could call. She could just see him now; jumping at the chance to answer it.

Right?

Martha ended the call and braced herself against the windowsill. For all she knew, he could be out on another adventure. Out in some wonderful time period, meeting amazing people. Or off on some distant planet, sprinting down corridors away from dangerous aliens. She smiled now. She wouldn't call Jack back just yet, but she would try the call again tomorrow.

*


6:36 pm

It was back. Twice as strong as the first time.

So, the Jack was back in the SUV, the excitement from the first time having diminished. He'd told Owen and Tosh to stay at the hub. He had gone over with Ianto that morning, only to find no one home. He figured the source would disappear AGAIN once he arrived, but he had to check it out.

And he knocked this time.

He was surprised when Abigail answered the door. She was tall and thin, straggly ginger hair; plain looking, except for a light scar across her forehead. Her eyes held a level of sadness and defeat that didn't suit her youth, although she's witnessed more than she would have preferred to.

"Torch-"

"Torchwood, I know," she said with a shadow of a smile, not even looking as Jack pulled out his badge.

"It's gone again, Jack," came Tosh's voice from his earpiece. Jack's heart sank.

"You know… I think I've dreamt about you lot."

"S-Sorry?" Jack sputtered, this news taking his mind momentarily away from their mysterious alien Houdini.

"Yes, just a few moments ago," she said, handing him a cup of tea. They were seated in the Sanderson's living room and Abigail had insisted on making him a drink. "I'd just gotten home from work and I was taking a nap. Strange dreams I've been having lately…"

"What about?" Jack asked, not touching his tea.

Abigail frowned. Her gaze fixed on something out of the window and she seemed to be struggling. "I don't remember now," she breathed. "They're always like this. I forget so quickly after I wake up."

"It's okay," Jack said at once, leaning forward in her direction. She seemed troubled and he attempted to utilize that old Harkness charm to alleviate whatever it was that was unsettling her. "Why don't you just tell me about you."

Abigail didn't redirect her attention from outside, but spoke. "I'm going to University. Studying internal medicine. Working in a shop so I can move out of my mums' place. That's it, really. That's all there is to me." She looked at Jack and smiled sadly.

"What about your mom?" he asked, trying to keep her going. Whatever was going on in the house seemed to be somehow connected with her. It was one of those gut feelings, devoid of any form of evidence or support that would persuade the others. But Jack knew this girl was important. Harmless, but in some way linked.

"She works as a receptionist at Tardis Gallifrey, down on Main."

"What?"

Abigail blinked at him. "Trades Gallery. It's on Main Street."

"Oh." It must have been his concern about his former companion that tricked his ears. But his heart beating a frantic tattoo against his ribcage said otherwise. He could have sworn…

"My mate's in the police," Abigail said suddenly. "She told me about Torchwood. How you swoop in whenever something weird is going on and solve it all. ‘Special operatives' she said." Life suddenly returned to Abigail's eyes and it was like she had been set on fire. "What kind of weird things do you find?"

Jack stared at her; that gut-instinct stronger than ever and her words pulled the truth out of him. "Alien things," he said, and he began to explain everything to her. The rift, Torchwood, all the things they find and the one curious source that they were hunting at the moment. She drank in his words hungrily, listening eagerly. The delight that covered her face seemed oddly, scarily, familiar.

***