“And just like everything else we do around here, it’s about to get weirder.” - doesn't it sound like a Torchwood line?
Upon receiving his reassignment to Cardiff to aid in the resurrection of Torchwood Three, St. John Colchester is not pleased.
Nothing against Cardiff. Cardiff is a lovely city, albeit a bit cold and damp for Colchester’s aging body, but he’s been filled in on the so-called legacy of Torchwood, especially its Cardiff branch, over the years and wouldn’t exactly call himself a fan. Plus, he and Colin have been settled in their lovely cottage in Hove for several years now.
So, after much good-natured squabbling as with all couples, Colchester and Colin finally move down to Cardiff, and soon, Colchester reports in for his first day of work at Torchwood Three, which is currently still in the process of being dug back out underneath the Roald Dahl Plass. And he meets Ms. Gwen Cooper-Williams or better-known in the debriefing files that he was given, as Gwen Cooper.
She greets him with a warm smile and a firm shake of his hand and a cheerful “How do you do, Mr. Colchester?” which has him immediately knowing that this is a woman with a large heart but a backbone of steel and he’s going to respect her immensely.
“Lovely to meet you, Ms. Cooper,” he tells her politely, and allows her to lead him to the battered-looking shack of a tourist office, which she tells him was the first part of the former base to be reconstructed. He pretends not to notice how her green eyes are the slightest bit shiny with tears.
Gwen gives Colchester the tour and an encapsulated history of Torchwood Three, leaving out many details that Colchester already knows. She guides him over the small Torchwood set-up in a backroom of the tourist office - nothing too fancy, just a Rift monitor and some basic weaponry. She tells Colchester that his new job is to supervise the reconstruction of the Hub while she and their currently-absent leader, Captain Jack Harkness, chase Rift flares over Cardiff.
“And where is our esteemed leader currently?” Colchester asks. He’s heard quite much about Jack Harkness and is determined to form his own opinion.
Her expression becomes sheepish. “In Bristol,” she says with a slight shrug. “Tracking down an alien artifact.” She glances away, hiding a fond smile. “Jack has rather...unique tactics when it comes to leadership, but they are quite effective at times.”
Considering the affection in Gwen’s tone, Colchester can tell that she immensely respects and adores Captain Harkness even if she doesn’t agree with him frequently.
“Either way, you’ll have to forgive him a bit. After...everything that happened, Jack has changed. He’s become a tad more flighty and unpredictable.”
Ah, yes, “everything that happened,” which, to Colchester’s knowledge, encapsulates the loss of Torchwood Three’s technique Toshiko Sato and their doctor Owen Harper, both personally recruited by Harkness. And a year later, the death of Torchwood Three’s general support, Ianto Jones, against the 456.
Colchester’s heard rumors about just how close Harkness and Jones were.
Still, he doesn’t get to meet Harkness until several days later when he walks into the tourist office one morning and finds a tall, broad-shouldered man in a greatcoat hunched over his computer. He has a sudden sneaking suspicion who this man is but still clears his throat with a raspy cough.
“Pardon me, but who are you and what are you doing at my computer?”
The man glances up, and Colchester is immediately struck by how handsome he is - twinkling blue eyes, a smirk a tad artificial, and sharp cheekbones. The feeling of awe fades a moment later, because Colchester is happily married, and Harkness has nothing on his Colin in terms of attractiveness.
“C’ptn Jack Harkness,” Harkness says enthusiatically, sticking his hand out for Colchester to shake, which Colchester does, albeit a bit stiffly. “You must be Mr. Colchester. I do love myself a silver fox.” His smirk grows. “Say, have you seen Gwen?”
“Ms. Cooper is across the city checking out a Rift alert,” Colchester tells Harkness. “She texted me an hour ago.” A beat. “She must have texted you as well.”
“Oh.” Harkness grimaces, pulling a mangled device with wires poking out from his pocket. That must be the remains of his smartphone, a device advertised to be undamageable. “I sorta...got it crushed.” He looks sheepish.
Colchester sighs, watching Harkness bounce slightly on his heels. Privately, Colchester thinks that no grown man should act this way. He keeps this opinion to himself. “I’ll work on getting you a new one, sir,” he tells Harkness with every inch of civility he possesses.
“Sir?” A strange sadness flares in Harkness’s brilliant eyes but is immediately hidden. Harkness’s smirk stretches wider, and it becomes apparent to Colchester just how strained the expression is. “No need for ‘sir.’ Just call me Jack.”
“I think I’ll just call you by your title, Captain,” Colchester says instead, and ignores Harkness’s attempted protests.
He turns an assessing eye to Harkness, and it doesn’t take a trained soldier to notice that Harkness is fraying at the edges. He’s a man of stitched together pieces and at his own threads. Colchester doesn’t want to be there when Harkness snaps, but he has a feeling that he won’t have a choice not to be.
“What would you like me to get started on?” he asks Harkness, cutting the other man’s rambling off.
Harkness shrugs. “Perhaps getting us some decent wifi? We’ve been borrowing,” - and he winks at Colchester, who can barely suppress his scowl - “from the fusion restaurant across the Plass, but it’s high-time we get our own router set up.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Captain,” Colchester promises. He sighs before asking a question he knows he will regret: “And what exactly do we do around here anyways?”
“We deal with the unusual, the weird.” Harkness’s grin turns a bit more genuine. “And just like everything else we do around here, it’s about to get weirder, especially with you here.”
Yes, St. John Colchester is not pleased at all to be here in Cardiff, especially with Jack Harkness, but as he always does, he’ll do his job and do it well.
