m_findlow

Title: Wrongful arrest
Fandom: Torchwood
Prompt: Arrest at hc_bingo
Wordcount: 24,947 words
Rating: M
Warnings: N/A
Summary: UNIT are on the warpath, and they've got Jack in their sights.

Martha Jones flashed her credentials at the two guards and fixed them with a stern look that dared them to challenge her. Instructions hadn't been passed down yet that Jack was completely off limits so she made the most of it. The guard pulled open the heavy door and allowed her to step inside. The second guard made to follow her in. She turned to him.

'I don't need a bodyguard,' she instructed, before he retreated and the door was shut once more with a clang, leaving her alone with the prisoner.

'Martha Jones! Voice of a nightingale. Come to bust me out?'

Martha spared him the briefest of hugs. 'Oh, Jack.'

'Well that doesn't sound good.' He said, trying to make light of the situation.

'They've got you charged with treason Jack!' she chastised.

Jack tried to spare her the frustrated look. 'Except it wasn't me!'

'I know that, and you know that, but you're going to have a hell of a time convincing UNIT. They've got video and they've got your DNA. As far as they're concerned, that's enough evidence to keep you locked up here permanently. I think we both know what that means.'

Jack sunk back down to the floor. Martha felt awful.

'I honestly don't know what's going on. Could it really have been me? Could I have been drugged?' He paused for a moment. 'Retcon, what about retcon?'

'I checked your blood work. No traces.'

'So something else then?' He was clutching at straws and the desperation was starting to show in his voice. If he was going to get out of this, he needed to keep it together.

'What about Ianto? Does he know? Is he okay?'

'He's fine. We're working as many angles as we can.'

She hesitated slightly before continuing. 'Listen, we think there's another version of you that did this. I need you to tell me Jack, have you been here in the past? Your past, I mean.'

'An earlier version of me in this timeline? No. It wouldn't make any sense. If I were here now, my future self, me now, would remember, and if my past self changed his future, well, I wouldn't be here talking with you right now.'

'Well that kills that theory.' She still wasn't sure she fully understood what he'd just explained, but Jack having discounted the possibility was good enough for her.

Jack paused for a moment. 'Future self is another matter.'

'You really think a future version of you would come back here and kill people for the sake of stealing some piece of alien tech? I'm sorry Jack, but that's not you. Besides, a future version of you that would know you'd be locked up here now for God knows how long?'

Jack groaned. 'I always hated Time Agency Grandfather Theory. Things get way too complicated when you start crossing your own timeline. It's why we had such strict rules about it.'

Martha crouched in front of him and rested her chin on her hand.

'So if not a past version, or a future version, then what?'

Jack fixed his gaze with hers.

'Then we're in big trouble.'

Ianto rang in to check on Martha.

'How is he?'

'Okay for the moment.'

Ianto breathed a sigh of relief. 'Anything at you end?'

'I don't know. Maybe it's nothing.' She sounded hesitant. 'I performed the autopsies on the men that were killed. Straightforward cause of death from their gunshot wounds, caused by bullets with the same calibre as a firearm identical to Jack's.'

'That doesn't sound like it helps us.'

'Not exactly. But one of the guys had several perimortem bruises from the altercation. There were traces from the bruised areas and parts of his clothing that had this weird particle residue. I've never seen it before and there's nothing in UNIT's databases that even recognises it.'

'Can you send me a sample?'

'Already on its way. Might be nothing but right now every little bit helps, yeah?'

'Yeah, thanks Martha. Keep in touch.'

The database search bleeped unexpectedly with a result. It had been a long shot, but it seemed finally they might have a lead.

Ianto consulted the screen. Torchwood One database archive. It wasn't a proper archive entry, it was barely even registered in their systems. Nothing more that a command and keystroke log. One single command entered, that tapped into whatever these particles were, and instructed the system to lock onto them.

He checked the other records to run a search around it for a date and time and anything associated. Anything that might indicate what the key log entry was all about.

Then the date stamp for the entry came up and Ianto knew.

Doomsday. The battle of Canary Wharf.

The logon records might have indicated another user, but it was clear that the command had been entered by The Doctor. The particles had to have been from the void. The gap between universes.

Torchwood Three had done a little digging after the event and pieced together a few sparse details of what had happened, since there was no one alive left to tell it, apart from a few lucky survivors who had escaped or hidden, but no one who'd been with The Doctor at the time, that could speak as to how he'd saved the whole planet from being overrun with daleks and cybermen. Even Jack had been convinced that Rose Tyler had died in the battle, before he caught up with The Doctor years later and found out the truth.

Void particles, Ianto thought. Could something have come through from another universe? Another Jack? Suddenly it all made sense. That was why the DNA matched perfectly. That was why UNIT were convinced it was Jack. Because it was Jack.

It was proof. Just not the kind that UNIT would likely believe, especially since it was predicated on the assumptions of the Torchwood Three team at the time Torchwood One fell. That made it subjective and potentially biased.

What he still really needed was to find this other Jack. The one he now knew with certainty existed.

Serendipitously another program began bleeping at him. His original CCTV scan. Cardiff Central train station to be precise. A few short frames caught by one of the platform cameras from the early hours of yesterday morning, but there was no mistaking it was Jack. He quickly set up a program to log the GPS location of each CCTV frame when it found a match for Jack, now able to narrow the time and location search parameters, speeding up the search results markedly, and had the details sent to his PDA before grabbing the keys for the SUV. There wasn't time to call Martha. He needed to get to Jack right now.

Ianto was at a complete loss as to where Jack was actually headed. His CCTV search results had tracked him since his arrival in the city, and followed him from Mermaid Quay, all the way up Lloyd George Avenue and onto St Mary's Street, past the castle and along North Road. There were half a dozen government buildings there. Could he be targeting one of them? UNIT wouldn't even tell him what it was that had been stolen, so God only knew what could happen. He decided he could risk it and made to intercept him. He slowed the car to a stop about a block away and waited for Jack to pass him on the opposite side of the street.

Resolved, he got out of the car.

'Jack! Where have you been?' Ianto called out, as if having a perfectly normal conversation.

Jack turned his head. Well at least that confirmed he was still going by that particular name, Ianto thought.

Jack did a slight double take, obviously not expecting someone to recognise him, and the tiniest hint of concern washed over his face that there was another version of him already floating about in this timeline. That could complicate matters.

For a moment it looked like he was going to approach and play along with the charade, but he must have seen something in Ianto's gaze from the other side of the sodium lit street that gave him away. He quickly turned on his heel and ran.

'Shit,' Ianto cursed, bolting after him.

Chapter five...