Legacy

[fajrdrako_fic]

Title: Legacy
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Gwen Cooper, Alice Carter
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of the BBC.
Notes: Spoilers for Torchwood Children of Earth, series 3. With thanks to my excellent beta readers, blackbird_song and kelticbanshee. Cross-posted to my Dreamwidth account, my LJ, and torchwood_fic.


Legacy

The card was left on their doorstep, tucked into the door jamb so it fell out when Rhys opened the door. He came back to the bedroom, standing in the doorway. "Something for you," he said to Gwen, who lay sleepily on her side, trying to find a comfortable position in advanced pregnancy.

Rhys frowned. "It's from Torchwood."

Gwen had been considering luring him back to bed, but for once, he'd succeeded in turning her mind from sex. She sat up. "What? Let me see that!" She reached and snatched it out of his hand.

On the back of the envelope, embossed and uncoloured, was the Torchwood insignia. On the front of the envelope was printed Gwen Cooper, without address or title.

"Blast from the past," said Rhys. "What's that about? There is no Torchwood any more."

"Just us," said Gwen, staring at it. She wondered if she should dust it for fingerprints. She was Torchwood now, all that was left, with Torchwood One fallen to the Daleks, Torchwood Two reduced to uselessness, and Torchwood Four missing. Torchwood Three, her Torchwood, was blown up and buried: the knowledge, the memories, the history. Jack had left, but she had not, and Torchwood was not gone. Not as long as she lived.

"You didn't send it to yourself."

She shook her head. "Spooky."

"Well, open it." Rhys wandered back to the kitchen to make tea. Barefoot, she followed him.

She opened the envelope with a kitchen knife. Inside, the letterhead showed the Torchwood insignia again, embossed and uncoloured, with a Cardiff address she didn't recognize. It was dated today. It said: <>Please come to this address at 10 a.m., to discuss Torchwood business. Torchwood House Cardiff, 2, Queen Victoria Square. There was no name, no phone number, no e-mail address.

She read it out loud to Rhys.

"Some nutter?" he suggested, pouring her tea. He added sugar before handing it to her.

"But why?"

"One way to find out."

"A stupid waste of time. I have things to do."

"So don't go, then. Throw it out."

She looked at the letter. It looked more like a summons than an invitation. Stupidly, it made her feel so nostalgic she wanted to weep, remembering Ianto fetching the paper supplies from his neatly arranged storeroom, remembering Owen making paper airplanes of them, remembering Tosh smiling at his antics.

Damn. Sometimes it hit her hard, still. Perhaps it always would. The best and worst time of her life.

"I have to find out," she said. "If it's a nutter, what sort, and why. If it's not - who it might be, trying to set themselves up under the name of Torchwood."

"Another Jack?" suggested Rhys, grinning.

"Another Yvonne Hartman." Gwen thought. "No, worse. Maybe another Frobisher."

~ ~ ~

Even with Gwen's sure knowledge of the city, it took a map and considerable care to find Queen Victoria Square. The address was one of three large houses, set back from the street, with trees and hedges making it difficult to see them clearly from the road. No. 2 had also a stone wall, where a small brass plaque by the entrance read Torchwood Institute in firm block letters. She parked on the street and walked along the neat flagstones. The door was surrounded by paned glass, the windows curtained. The place looked more like a home than a business.

Bloody hell.

Gwen knocked.

The hawk-nosed young man who opened the door said, "Gwen Cooper? Please come in. My name is Lionel Dark. Please follow me."

She had no reason not to. He reminded her of Ianto: self-contained, giving nothing away, comfortable with his own secrets. She itched to ask Lionel questions, but she had the feeling no answers would be forthcoming - not from him.

He opened a door and announced her. "Gwen Cooper, ma'am." He stood aside for Gwen to enter.

It was an office - a rather splendid one. Sunlit, because a large part of the back wall consisted of windows looking onto a garden.

And at the windows, a figure stood. Gwen thought Jack! before her mind caught up with the impossibility of it: Jack was gone, and she had seen him go. She might still be seeing him around every street corner, looking twice at every tall man who passed in a long coat, turning hopefully at every American voice – but Jack was gone.


So much for delusions. This was a woman. Her hair was dark, like Jack's, but worn longer; her overcoat was long, like Jack's, but cut for a woman. Her stance was Jack's, hands clasped behind her back.

Lionel closed the door behind Gwen without entering the room, leaving them alone.


The woman turned. It was hard to guess her age - neither young nor old. Her expression was guarded. "Gwen Cooper," she said. "Torchwood's strong right hand."

"Do I know you?" asked Gwen, and that earned a half-smile that was so breathtakingly familiar that she realized at once who this must be.

"You knew my father," said the woman.

"You're Alice Carter." Jack's daughter. The one he'd never mentioned, except once, to Ianto. Jack's well-kept secret. The one whose son Steven had died to save the world, shattering Jack's life.

The woman nodded, acknowledging the guess. "Sit down, please. I was hoping we could talk."

Gwen sat in the chair she indicated.


And here, living in Cardiff right their noses, a daughter. And a grandson, before.

"I'm sorry about the death of your son," said Gwen. It seemed inadequate.


Alice Carter gave a brief nod of thanks, but didn't reply.

She turned to sit in the padded leather chair behind her large wooden desk. It was imposing, though more magisterial than regal. It reminded Gwen obscurely of Jack's desk, now blown to smithereens, although it was in a different style, much newer, with square corners. Although neater than Jack's desk had ever been, it looked as if it ought to have yellow coral on a plate, and memorabilia of an elusive alien Doctor. It had none of those things: a closed laptop, a fountain pen, a photo of a fair-haired child in a wooden frame. Steven?

"Jack never mentioned you," said Gwen. "Not till the very end, when you were being held by Frobisher's people. He told Ianto then. He felt we needed to know."

"Jack never mentioned you to me," replied Alice. "I never asked about his friends or colleagues or lovers. I didn't want to know. I imagine he loved you."

"I couldn't say," said Gwen vaguely, lying. "He was a loving man."

"Many people loved him." It was impossible to tell whether that was meant to be sarcastic, but there was no hint of it in her tone, and Gwen was ready, provisionally, to give Alice the benefit of the doubt. "Is your child his?"

Gwen smiled with false politeness. "That's no one's business but mine."

Alice looked down at her desk, as if losing her composure for a moment. Gwen waited. When Alice looked up, her expression was apologetic. "This may be a painful subject, but I think I do have a right to know. With Steven's death, I have lost the last of my family. It would be good to know if I am about to have a half-brother."

God. Had she been bullying this woman she hardly knew? Who had, in any way you measured it, suffered enough? More than enough?

"I'm sorry," said Gwen. "It's just that you aren't the first person who's asked me that. I wish people would give Rhys the credit from time to time. My husband fathered this baby. Let me ask you something." Alice nodded. "Why do you wear a long coat indoors?"

"Image. My father believed in image. Not so much to make an impression as to give me courage."

"Courage?"

"Something my father had in abundance."

"I think you must have it, too. You put 'Torchwood House' on your door. Isn't that dangerous?"

"You think I'm inviting trouble?"

"I think you're inviting bombs. Aliens. Terrorists. Weevils looking for lunch."

"Stray pterodactyls, along with the stray people? Yes, he told me about that. Frankly, Gwen, keeping Torchwood secret, even an open secret, didn't protect my father. I prefer hiding in plain sight."

"So you're reopening the Torchwood Institute."

"Someone has to."

"Why?"

"The Rift is still there. This is still the 21st century, where everything changes, and we've gotta be ready." For a moment, her voice took on Jack's American cadence.

"Is this for Jack's sake? Or to spite him?"

"He was a good father for a child. Those stories! He had so many. I believed them for years. Then I decided it was all lies, nothing but lies - Time Agents and the lot of it. Then I... developed uncertainty with age." Her smile was wry. "Torchwood was real. His commitment to it was real. I loved him, you know."

"Hard not to. Do you think you can forgive him for what happened? Maybe not now, but someday?"

"I am not angry with him, Ms Cooper."

Gwen raised her eyebrows. "No?"

"Jack and my son saved the children of the world from an unspeakable evil. What I feel is not anger. It's sheer, unrelieved pain. Forgiveness is beside the point."

Maybe not for Jack, Gwen thought. Maybe if you'd been able to accept him and talk to him about what happened to Steven, he might have stayed with us. Do you know how much it hurt him, too? She didn't say it aloud.

Maybe when pain reached that magnitude, it didn't matter how many people shared it. Gwen thought about her own little embryo, precious from the beginning. "The alien footballer", Rhys had taken to calling him, which was, she supposed, better than "Edward".

The expression on Alice's face was rather like one Gwen had often seen on Jack's. "What I want to do," said Alice, "is rebuild defences this planet is going to need."

"Do you think you can? You never worked for Torchwood, did you?"

"My parents did. My parents taught me to handle weapons before I started school. My mother knew Torchwood better than anyone, and made sure I had every skill she could teach me. I think there is no one more capable or rebuilding Torchwood. Except you."

She paused, but Gwen did not reply.

"When I was very young," continued Alice, "I used to have nightmares about aliens. My father told me that aliens were just like people: some were good and some were bad. Some were monsters, and some were just like you and me. It was important to learn which were which. I don't want a world in which we kill aliens because they are unlike us. After the 456, people will be afraid and angry. More aliens will come here, more problems will arise. I want Torchwood to be able to handle it. I want Torchwood to help the future."

"What are you asking me, then?"

"Not for permission. I am asking you for help. You are a living part of the Torchwood team. You understand the danger, and proved you can face it. As much as I am, you are Torchwood."

"It won't be the same without Jack."

"Of course not. Were you there just because of him?"

Maybe she was, but she wasn't going to say so. "I was there for a lot of reasons."

"Do you want to think it over?" Alice leaned forward, moving her hand in a gesture that unconsciously recaptured her father. "Must I beg, Ms Cooper?"

"No," said Gwen, and grinned, holding out her hand to shake. "I'll work with you. But you'll have to call me Gwen."

~ ~ ~