sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 10:05 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 10:05 am
Entry tags:
The Rules Of Torchwood Three: Nicholas Redux 1 of 4
Title: The Rules Of Torchwood Three: Nicholas Redux 1 of 4
Rating: PG-13 for shenanigans and greenhouses.
Characters: Jack, Team, OMC. Canon pairings.
Summary: After Jack disappears, Torchwood hires a new tea boy -- someone to fetch and carry and take some of the burden off Ianto's shoulders. Nicholas knows his place is in the shadows, but he watches and listens as the dramas of Torchwood play out around him. And he learns all the rules.
Warnings: None.
Notes: AU for the second season, but only slightly. Spoilers through 2.12. Hopefully, if I've done this right, it will be a sketch of characters as seen through new eyes, rather than a horrifying Gary Stu. Let's cross our fingers, shall we?
Now available at AO3
***
The Rules Of Torchwood Three
"There are some things you need to know," Mr. Jones says, and his voice and face are very serious. Nicholas has, up until now, thought that Jones was rather fun; he chuckled twice during Nicholas's first interview, and took him to a pub for his second one, and for his third one took him on a long walk round Cardiff. Now there is no hint of amusement in his face, and Nicholas knows that he has the job.
The words rush over him in a blur, though. There's no leaving this job; if you're in, you're in for life. If you go, you won't remember. Anything. Your hours will be irregular, and you can give up on a social life except whatever you can catch on the fly. There will be mortal peril. You will clean things you never knew existed out of the most improbable places. You will catalogue things you don't know the meaning or construction of. You will learn to use computers that haven't been invented yet.
All he can think about is calling his girlfriend. And he wonders if Mr. Jones is a mind-reader, because at the end Mr. Jones smiles.
"You will have a two week trial period. During this time you will not tell anyone you have been hired. At any time, if you are unsatisfied, or we are unsatisfied, you will be given this."
Nicholas eyes the white pill that Mr. Jones puts between them, as if it might explode.
"And you will forget that any of this happened."
Nicholas nods, eyes still on the pill.
"Are you in?"
Nicholas nods again. "I'm in."
Mr. Jones looks quite sad, somehow.
"Welcome to Torchwood, Nicholas."
***
We do not mess with the rift.
No, really, we do not mess with the rift.
Nicholas's first day is amazing. There is a pterodactyl that he's itching to study. There's an archive full of alien technology, a supercomputer, a secret base underground. Everywhere he looks he is filled with wonder, and the only dark spot is that nobody else seems to understand why. They're all waiting for him to show some other emotion, but Nicholas has no room in his heart for anything but curious fascination and joy.
The team of interviewers who vetted him after his first meeting with Mr. Jones are introduced again, and he realises that they are not the Human Resources department, they are the entire operation. There is a ghost among them too; his name is Jack, and Nicholas assumes he was the last man to fill this position. They all talk around the mysterious Jack, carefully. Maybe he died.
"Do you have any questions?" Mr. Jones asks at the end of the day. "Anything unclear?"
Nicholas bites his lip.
"Go on then."
"If we aren't allowed to use it, why is it called a Rift Manipulator?" he asks. "Doesn't it Manipulate the Rift?"
Mr. Jones gives him a sort of perplexed look.
"That's what you want to know?" he asks.
"Well, that and, I mean. Who's in charge? I thought it was you, but you take an awful lot of backtalk from Doctor Harper if so."
A gentle smile. "Gwen's in charge. Owen is the senior agent. Tosh ranks with Owen, and I am the dogsbody. If you've been sucking up, it's definitely been to the wrong man."
Nicholas grins a bit at this and goes back to the hotel that night -- Torchwood paying, until his trial period is over -- and doesn't even think about how deftly Mr. Jones waltzed him around the question he wanted to ask.
***
We do not put pizza boxes on top of alien artefacts even if there is no other room on our desk.
We do not put pizza boxes on top of Jack's biology experiment simply because there is a heat lamp there.
Nobody is allowed in Jack's office but Mr. Jones. Nicholas doesn't think it's a spoken agreement, it's just, nobody else ever goes in there. He's realised, without managing to make an ass of himself, that "Jack" is Captain Jack Harkness, the head of the branch. He's vanished; Gwen Cooper has been kicked up to leader, and Mr. Jones has had to step up to fill the empty place on the team. Nicholas is doing Mr. Jones's job.
Except for this. If there is a file in Jack's Office, or if something needs to be fetched from there or the safe needs to be accessed, Mr. Jones goes to do it. Nicholas has been told he needn't tidy there in the course of his duties. Not that there's ever anything to tidy, in an office that nobody goes into.
The third day of his trial period, he stops in the doorway. It's late, and the others have gone; he's been catching up on the archival backlog, which is the result of turning your archivist into a field agent.
Mr. Jones is in the office, standing in front of the desk, looking down at a bit of coral under a lamp. He has a clipboard in his hand.
"Come in; it's all right," he says, without looking up. Nicholas leans in the doorway, not entirely certain it is.
"What are you doing?" Nicholas asks.
"Tending the Captain's experiments. Wouldn't do to have him come back and all his plants dead, eh?" Mr. Jones says. Under it is the current that seems to link up all four of his new colleagues -- if he comes back at all.
"That's an experiment?" Nicholas asks, nodding at the coral.
"Apparently so. It's precious to him. I don't know why."
Nicholas likes Mr. Jones immensely, and it confuses him that the dry-witted man training him is sometimes so very unhappy. He wonders why.
***
We do not microwave anything in tinfoil. You are all certified geniuses. Learn cause and effect.
On his fifth day, Doctor Harper blows up the microwave. Mr. Jones rolls his eyes and goes to Petty Cash for a new one, but Nicholas can sense that Doctor Harper is testing him. He picks up the microwave, studies it, jimmies the back off, and sets to work.
"I like him," he hears Doctor Sato say later, to PC Cooper. (He hasn't quite got the hang of calling them Tosh and Gwen in his head yet; he doesn't think he'll ever be able to call Mr. Jones by his first name.)
Nicholas warms to the compliment, and redoubles his efforts.
***
We do not smoke anything found growing in the cells even if we are 100% certain we know what it is and ifSuzie Ianto ever finds out who planted it, there will be Words.
Nicholas goes back to the hotel every night with the vision of the white pill in his head. There are other visions now: Doctor Harper patching up Mr. Jones after a Weevil attack, Jones sleepy and dull from the painkillers; Gwen (he's managed now, it's hard not to with Gwen) with slime all over her, laughing because the slime is just slightly psychotropic; Doctor Sato's fingers moving on the computer keys so fast that Nicholas wonders if she's on speed.
But mostly it's the little white pill.
***
We do not steal Owen's surgical gloves. They are not Marigolds, balloons, or insulation.
We do not switch off the oxygen feed on Suzie's welding rig simply because she makes amusing faces when she is annoyed.
On the seventh day, Torchwood did not rest, and Nicholas got his first look at a real live alien. It was a giant bug, and it bit him. That was unpleasant.
"Did you see it?" he asks excitedly, trying not to move as Doctor Harper puts the stitches in his arm. "It was all -- and then -- "
"Yep," Doctor Harper says, looking irritated. "Hold the fuck still."
"Here you are," Mr. Jones says, holding out a PDA for Nicholas to study. "Report on the Tragla. We've had two before. The last time they were less...bitey."
The dead Tragla (Tosh pummeled it to death with a piece of pipe, Nicholas likes Tosh a lot) is sitting on the floor, awaiting its xenopsy. Nicholas studies the Torchwood Official Report, written by S. Costello, and is happy to see there is no poison in its bite.
He looks up at Mr. Jones.
"Who is S. Costello?"
Both men go rigid with tension at the name.
"Old employee," Doctor Harper says.
***
We do not steal artefacts. We do not abuse the power of stewardship with which we have been entrusted in order to get laid.
Sometimes Nicholas wonders about the staff. A lot of the time he thinks Doctor Harper and Gwen must be shagging, even if Gwen says she has a boyfriend. Other times he thinks it's a rank impossibility, because nobody in their right mind would shag Doctor Harper.
Tosh, he thinks, might have the hots for Gwen, or they might just be good girlfriends. Tosh definitely likes Doctor Harper, and Nicholas is confused as to why. Surely anyone, given the choice between Doctor Harper and Mr. Jones, would choose Mr. Jones.
But Mr. Jones doesn't appear to be shagging anyone. Doesn't even appear interested. Maybe Mr. Jones is one of those Asexuals that Nicholas has read about in trendy blogs. Or maybe S. Costello was his girlfriend.
"How are you settling in?" Mr. Jones asks him, on the tenth day.
"All right. I miss Amy, though," Nicholas admits. "Be glad when the trial is over and I can tell her. She's dying to move to Cardiff, she hates Edinburgh." He pauses, but curiousity wins out. "Have you got a girlfriend then?"
"I had," Mr. Jones says. "She died."
Ah. So that's why Mr. Jones is sad.
***
We do not touch the coffeemaker. If we want coffee we will ask Ianto.
We do not refer to Gwen as "Rookie", "Angel", or "Flatfoot".
We do not throw tools.
Nicholas thinks he's getting the rhythm of this now. When a call comes in, if he's there, his job is to stay on comms, to do whatever Tosh tells him to do to the computer, and to make sure that everything's in order in the medical bay. Otherwise he is to perform his duties as usual. Mr. Jones will page him when they're getting ready to come back in, so that he may put the coffee and tea on in time, and sometimes he gets enough warning that he can run out for pastries or put in a food order.
If he's not there, Mr. Jones will text his mobile, and Nicholas will get up and dress and hurry to the Hub. The team has filled his head with stories of twenty-six-hour shifts, of forty-five-hour shifts, but Mr. Jones says that's not all that common.
"Still," he says, "You should be prepared. Keep some things at the Hub."
Nicholas quickly packs an overnight bag and installs it in an unobtrusive corner. He is prepared! He is prepared for anything.
***
Only Jack is allowed to throttle members of the staff.
We do not find rubber duckies floating in the Hub pool amusing.
Tosh's handwriting: We didn't know they would clog the filters. Sorry.
Nicholas catches Doctor Harper with Tosh's dinner, throwing chunks of food up for the pterodactyl to catch. This is bad for Myfanwy; it spoils her appetite and puts her off-schedule.
"You shouldn't do that," he says, and Doctor Harper ignores him. Nicholas glances at Mr. Jones, who is watching with faint amusement. No help there, then.
"Doctor Harper, stop that."
Doctor Harper gives him a scornful look and keeps throwing. Nicholas tries to block a throw, but only succeeds in getting shoved off the walkway. He lands, fortunately still on his feet, in the pool.
"Doctor Harper, stop."
Doctor Harper doesn't stop. Nicholas climbs up out of the pool, approaches, and punches Doctor Harper gently in the stomach. It's nothing more than a tap; he's given worse to his kid brothers, but he doubles over with a whoofing noise, and Nicholas retrieves the food.
"And you are a very naughty dinosaur!" he calls over Doctor Harper's back, to Myfanwy.
Mr. Jones, when he looks again, is smiling. Even Doctor Harper looks cheerful as he pokes at his new bruise later that day. The next time Nicholas tells him to stop, he stops.
And that is how Nicholas decides it's okay to call him Owen.
***
We do not press buttons on artefacts simply to see what will happen when we do.
We do not under any circumstances take home any aliens no matter how attractive, fuzzy, harmless, or delicious they appear to be.
On the last day of his trial two weeks, Nicholas is certain he will be fired.
It's not that he meant to switch the device on to cause mischief. It's just that the notes said it was a musicbox, and Nicholas wants to hear it. He'd ask Mr. Jones for a demonstration, but Mr. Jones is out with the team.
When they return and find that he's been standing there for two hours, unresponsive, trapped in the music, he's positive he'll be sacked and the white pill will make sure he doesn't even remember this. He's close to tears.
But instead Mr. Jones and Gwen take him to the conference room and fix him something warm to drink, and they telegraph looks back and forth across his head until Mr. Jones clears his throat.
"We aren't going to do that again, are we?" he asks.
"Nosir," Nicholas says hastily. Mr. Jones nods and leaves, and Nicholas is alone with Gwen.
"You all right then?" she asks.
"Am I sacked?"
Gwen smiles, and Nicholas's world is a little warmer.
"No, love," she says. "Not hardly. Ianto likes you too much. He was that worried when you didn't answer your page."
Nicholas nods miserably.
"So," she says brightly. "When's your girlfriend coming down? I'm dying to meet her. So's Tosh. We'd like to show her Cardiff."
***
We do not drink anything, ever, around Tosh's station unless we are Tosh.
Owen's handwriting: Wasn't me.
"Why don't I get a coaster?" Owen asks.
"Because you're an ass," Mr. Jones answers.
"That's hardly a reason. If he's all that concerned with rings on the tables, he should give me a coaster because I'm more likely to make a mess, aren't I?"
Nicholas listens from across the Hub and smiles. Mr. Jones doesn't get a coaster either, but that's because Mr. Jones never stays still long enough. Tosh gets a special alien coaster that prevents spills, and Gwen gets one that says BOTTOMS UP WALES, but Owen doesn't get a coaster because he is an ass.
"I don't think rings on the tables are the reason he gives us coasters," Mr. Jones says, and Nicholas realises that while he's been watching everyone else, they've been watching him.
***
We do not wear any articles of clothing, armor, or headgear that do not belong to us.
There are some things the team never mentions, but Nicholas is good with computers. He stumbles across it while he's studying the mysterious S. Costello whose notes are all over the database.
A glove that can resurrect people, if only for two minutes. Perhaps so they can say their goodbyes. Destroyed in the Hub in connection to a string of murders this past year.
Nicholas shudders and hopes that wherever S. Costello is -- there's no personnel file for the name -- S. Costello doesn't remember the glove.
***
Owen's handwriting, scratched out with a heavy marker pen:We do not store our girlfriends at the Hub.
Jack's handwriting: We do not throw stones when we live in glass houses. Owen.
We do not refer to Rhys as The Civilian.
Three weeks in, his girlfriend Amy moves to Cardiff. She's found a job in a bookshop, and Nicholas visits her if he has time off during the day. He's introduced her to Gwen and Tosh, who he understands have given her tips on where to eat and where the best shoe shop is. Girls. Honestly.
She's met Mr. Jones too, though Mr. Jones doesn't know Nicholas knows that. Mr. Jones bought four books from the shop, chatted with her for a while, told her Cardiff welcomed her, and left.
Nicholas isn't stupid. Mr. Jones is making sure she won't be a liability, same as Captain Jack Harkness must have done with Rhys, Gwen's lad.
He loves Amy, and she never asks about his job, which is a relief. She probably doesn't even know he works for Mr. Jones.
***
We do not borrow Ianto's earpiece because we cannot find ours. We will ask Ianto first if he can find ours.
His first week at work, Nicholas wore a suit, because he'd worn a suit to the interview and because Mr. Jones wore a suit. Nobody else did, though; they wore t-shirts and jeans, clothing good for running and jumping and shooting in. Tosh wears nicer clothing than the other two, but it's still easy-to-clean, doesn't-show-wrinkles gear. Besides, the suit is sort of Mr. Jones's signature look, and Nicholas wouldn't want to be unoriginal.
He stops wearing a tie. He switches over to jeans. Sure, he doesn't go out on missions, but he does clean the SUV and the Hub, and it'll be so much easier in comfortable clothing. On Fridays he even wears a t-shirt instead of his usual Oxfords.
Sometimes, this helps him differentiate the days of the week, because once in a while he will otherwise forget what day it is and wonder why Cardiff is so crowded that evening. Then he remembers that normal people go out on Fridays, and don't work on weekends.
Mr. Jones appears to observe casual Friday, in his own quiet way, by wearing brown instead of black.
***
We do not leave the keys in the SUV. Ever.
Owen's handwriting: We do not take Owen on camping trips.
We do not denigrate the fine men and women of the local police authority and if they write us parking tickets we do not expect Torchwood, Gwen, or Ianto to get us out of paying.
It is Owen, oddly, who takes Nicholas out for his first defensive driving training. They spend hours in empty parking lots and on backroads, and Nicholas has never had so much fun in his life. He loves speed, he loves dodging around traffic cones, and he loves, he loves that the SUV has clearance to go anywhere at any speed.
The next day, Mr. Jones sends him out with the team.
"You drive, and you do nothing else," he says. So Nicholas does. He drives.
Gwen and Owen bicker about why Owen is letting the new boy drive; they are definitely shagging.
***
We do not play first-person shooters, MMORGs, or Tetris on Tosh's computers. We do not install The Sims on any Torchwood servers.
Or maybe not. Because Owen seems genuinely pleased and gives Gwen a very nice hug when she announces her engagement. Nicholas does too.
He covertly looks up the file on Rhys that evening, and finds it is read-only -- already open on another screen. He glances across at Mr. Jones, at his own desk. Mr. Jones is looking at him.
"Only sensible," Nicholas says. "Keeping an eye on the team."
"Maybe you deserve a raise," Mr. Jones says thoughtfully.
***
We absolutely do not shag anything we cannot verify as human.
Jack's handwriting: Ianto, this seems very xenophobic to me. There are lots of perfectly charming shaggable species out there who aren't human.
Amendment: Unless we are Jack, who knows what he's doingand it's not like you could stop him anyway.
Jack's handwriting: Don't make me discipline you.
In his fourth week, Nicholas realises that aliens are EVERYWHERE. Tosh takes him on a walk round Cardiff and points out four different shops owned by humanoid aliens, and three people who are aliens in disguise.
"But they're all vetted and harmless," she says. "They're basically immigrants."
"Are there ever...non-harmless ones?" he asks, and suddenly Tosh looks like Mr. Jones, on one of his bad days.
"Some," she says. "It doesn't do to get too close to them."
Nicholas wonders how you stop from getting close to aliens, when they are all around.
***
We do not trust the undead. We do not take the undead on field trips.
Nicholas worries, sometimes, that he's getting far too good at disposing of bodies.
***
We do not use Gwen's soymilk even if we are out of cream and not man enough to drink our coffee black.
We do not borrow Ianto's car without asking. We have our own cars.
His coffee is not perfect, but Mr. Jones is very tolerant. The others hardly notice; they just want the warmth and caffeine.
"Where did you learn to make coffee?" Nicholas asks.
"Coffee bar. First job when I was sixteen. Brilliant place, closed down now," Mr. Jones says. "You?"
"You've read my CV."
Mr. Jones grins. "Your CV is the reason you were hired. An honours in library science, combined with training at one of the best service schools in Europe? If you'd said you used to be a police cadet I wouldn't even have bothered with the interview."
Nicholas is grateful for the opening, and wonders for the umpteenth time if Mr. Jones can read his mind.
"About that, sir," he says. "I don't suppose I might get some weapons training?"
Gwen giggles for some reason, and Mr. Jones shoots her a dirty look.
"Next week," he replies.
***
WE DO NOT MESS WITH THE RIFT.
Jack's handwriting: We do not shoot our superiors OR colleagues.
But Nicholas doesn't yet get his weapons training because then the world almost ends.
It's okay though, since they stop it from ending, and Mr. Jones wipes his forehead with his sleeve and Owen gives Gwen four stitches in her thigh and Tosh says the computers will be fine.
"Does this happen often?" Nicholas asks, pouring whiskey all round. Mr. Jones had warned him there would be times when coffee would be insufficient, and he feels this is one of those times.
Tosh checks her PDA.
"We're right on schedule. About every four weeks," she says. "Who won the pool this time?"
"There's a pool on world near-endings?" Nicholas asks, fascinated. He realises he should probably be horrified. He can't be bothered. This job is so cool.
"Owen," Ianto says, without looking. "He had all of today and most of tomorrow."
Nicholas is about to ask who the last winner was, but something makes him stop.
Maybe the last end of the world was when Jack disappeared.
***
Gwen's handwriting: We will leave a note if we intend to be missing for more than two hours, days, weeks, months...
Jack's handwriting: We're sorry.
Blowfish in sports cars. Seriously. He'd write a book if he thought that anyone would believe it and also that Mr. Jones would not personally assassinate him.
Nicholas loses comm with the team briefly, but he's not worried; he's to check in every hour with Mr. Jones, and failing that Mr. Jones will page him when they're returning. So he goes about tidying, and keeps an eye on the SUV, which is parked outside a bar. Pulling up the police reports, he sees that there's a disturbance at the bar; below it is a code that he knows off by heart. It means "Torchwood is handling it".
"Nicholas."
Nicholas touches the comm in his ear. "Yes, Mr. Jones."
"We're en route. About ten minutes. We have two guests who will be accompanying us."
Just before Ianto shuts his comm off, he hears a male voice, American, say "Who the hell is Nicholas?" in the background.
Torchwood doesn't have guests.
Mr. Jones sounded...strained.
Nicholas puts two and two together. He fetches, from behind the coffee machine, the mug that nobody drinks from, with the four blue stripes.
When they arrive he is just putting out the tea and coffee, and there's only the four of them.
"I thought -- " he begins, but Tosh and Owen rush past him. Gwen stops, looks at him as if he's the cause of all her worries, and then hurries onwards. Mr. Jones looks agitated, but he still moves smoothly, taking Nicholas by the arm and guiding him aside.
"Captain Harkness is back," he says. "He'll be the man in the blue coat -- " he stops, seeing the striped mug on Nicholas's tray, and then grins bigger than Nicholas has ever seen. "Well done. The man in the red coat is Captain Hart. He's a guest. He is to be treated with courtesy and nothing even approaching trust."
"Where are -- " Nicholas begins, but then he hears the invisible lift, and doesn't bother finishing his sentence. "Shall I make myself scarce, sir?"
"Stay handy," Mr. Jones says, and lifts the mugs off Nicholas's tray and onto Gwen's desk, taking the tray itself.
The others have formed up in a loose line, Mr. Jones a bit ahead of them with the tray; they look like they're awaiting inspection, and Nicholas wonders how military the title Captain is. He always assumed it meant Captain of Torchwood.
The men on the lift look like they've wandered out of a costume ball, but they wear it well. Captain Harkness is much younger than Nicholas imagined, and looks like an action hero. Captain Hart looks like an oik.
Nicholas watches from the shadows as Mr. Jones takes up a position to the right and just behind Captain Harkness when he steps off the lift. Captain Harkness disarms Captain Hart thoroughly, placing the weapons on Mr. Jones's tray.
He wonders if, now that their Captain is home, Mr. Jones will take up the position permanently -- the one Nicholas has been filling, to the right and just behind the leaders.
He wonders if he'll be sacked, now that he's no longer necessary.
Chapter Two
Rating: PG-13 for shenanigans and greenhouses.
Characters: Jack, Team, OMC. Canon pairings.
Summary: After Jack disappears, Torchwood hires a new tea boy -- someone to fetch and carry and take some of the burden off Ianto's shoulders. Nicholas knows his place is in the shadows, but he watches and listens as the dramas of Torchwood play out around him. And he learns all the rules.
Warnings: None.
Notes: AU for the second season, but only slightly. Spoilers through 2.12. Hopefully, if I've done this right, it will be a sketch of characters as seen through new eyes, rather than a horrifying Gary Stu. Let's cross our fingers, shall we?
Now available at AO3
***
The Rules Of Torchwood Three
"There are some things you need to know," Mr. Jones says, and his voice and face are very serious. Nicholas has, up until now, thought that Jones was rather fun; he chuckled twice during Nicholas's first interview, and took him to a pub for his second one, and for his third one took him on a long walk round Cardiff. Now there is no hint of amusement in his face, and Nicholas knows that he has the job.
The words rush over him in a blur, though. There's no leaving this job; if you're in, you're in for life. If you go, you won't remember. Anything. Your hours will be irregular, and you can give up on a social life except whatever you can catch on the fly. There will be mortal peril. You will clean things you never knew existed out of the most improbable places. You will catalogue things you don't know the meaning or construction of. You will learn to use computers that haven't been invented yet.
All he can think about is calling his girlfriend. And he wonders if Mr. Jones is a mind-reader, because at the end Mr. Jones smiles.
"You will have a two week trial period. During this time you will not tell anyone you have been hired. At any time, if you are unsatisfied, or we are unsatisfied, you will be given this."
Nicholas eyes the white pill that Mr. Jones puts between them, as if it might explode.
"And you will forget that any of this happened."
Nicholas nods, eyes still on the pill.
"Are you in?"
Nicholas nods again. "I'm in."
Mr. Jones looks quite sad, somehow.
"Welcome to Torchwood, Nicholas."
***
We do not mess with the rift.
No, really, we do not mess with the rift.
Nicholas's first day is amazing. There is a pterodactyl that he's itching to study. There's an archive full of alien technology, a supercomputer, a secret base underground. Everywhere he looks he is filled with wonder, and the only dark spot is that nobody else seems to understand why. They're all waiting for him to show some other emotion, but Nicholas has no room in his heart for anything but curious fascination and joy.
The team of interviewers who vetted him after his first meeting with Mr. Jones are introduced again, and he realises that they are not the Human Resources department, they are the entire operation. There is a ghost among them too; his name is Jack, and Nicholas assumes he was the last man to fill this position. They all talk around the mysterious Jack, carefully. Maybe he died.
"Do you have any questions?" Mr. Jones asks at the end of the day. "Anything unclear?"
Nicholas bites his lip.
"Go on then."
"If we aren't allowed to use it, why is it called a Rift Manipulator?" he asks. "Doesn't it Manipulate the Rift?"
Mr. Jones gives him a sort of perplexed look.
"That's what you want to know?" he asks.
"Well, that and, I mean. Who's in charge? I thought it was you, but you take an awful lot of backtalk from Doctor Harper if so."
A gentle smile. "Gwen's in charge. Owen is the senior agent. Tosh ranks with Owen, and I am the dogsbody. If you've been sucking up, it's definitely been to the wrong man."
Nicholas grins a bit at this and goes back to the hotel that night -- Torchwood paying, until his trial period is over -- and doesn't even think about how deftly Mr. Jones waltzed him around the question he wanted to ask.
***
We do not put pizza boxes on top of alien artefacts even if there is no other room on our desk.
We do not put pizza boxes on top of Jack's biology experiment simply because there is a heat lamp there.
Nobody is allowed in Jack's office but Mr. Jones. Nicholas doesn't think it's a spoken agreement, it's just, nobody else ever goes in there. He's realised, without managing to make an ass of himself, that "Jack" is Captain Jack Harkness, the head of the branch. He's vanished; Gwen Cooper has been kicked up to leader, and Mr. Jones has had to step up to fill the empty place on the team. Nicholas is doing Mr. Jones's job.
Except for this. If there is a file in Jack's Office, or if something needs to be fetched from there or the safe needs to be accessed, Mr. Jones goes to do it. Nicholas has been told he needn't tidy there in the course of his duties. Not that there's ever anything to tidy, in an office that nobody goes into.
The third day of his trial period, he stops in the doorway. It's late, and the others have gone; he's been catching up on the archival backlog, which is the result of turning your archivist into a field agent.
Mr. Jones is in the office, standing in front of the desk, looking down at a bit of coral under a lamp. He has a clipboard in his hand.
"Come in; it's all right," he says, without looking up. Nicholas leans in the doorway, not entirely certain it is.
"What are you doing?" Nicholas asks.
"Tending the Captain's experiments. Wouldn't do to have him come back and all his plants dead, eh?" Mr. Jones says. Under it is the current that seems to link up all four of his new colleagues -- if he comes back at all.
"That's an experiment?" Nicholas asks, nodding at the coral.
"Apparently so. It's precious to him. I don't know why."
Nicholas likes Mr. Jones immensely, and it confuses him that the dry-witted man training him is sometimes so very unhappy. He wonders why.
***
We do not microwave anything in tinfoil. You are all certified geniuses. Learn cause and effect.
On his fifth day, Doctor Harper blows up the microwave. Mr. Jones rolls his eyes and goes to Petty Cash for a new one, but Nicholas can sense that Doctor Harper is testing him. He picks up the microwave, studies it, jimmies the back off, and sets to work.
"I like him," he hears Doctor Sato say later, to PC Cooper. (He hasn't quite got the hang of calling them Tosh and Gwen in his head yet; he doesn't think he'll ever be able to call Mr. Jones by his first name.)
Nicholas warms to the compliment, and redoubles his efforts.
***
We do not smoke anything found growing in the cells even if we are 100% certain we know what it is and if
Nicholas goes back to the hotel every night with the vision of the white pill in his head. There are other visions now: Doctor Harper patching up Mr. Jones after a Weevil attack, Jones sleepy and dull from the painkillers; Gwen (he's managed now, it's hard not to with Gwen) with slime all over her, laughing because the slime is just slightly psychotropic; Doctor Sato's fingers moving on the computer keys so fast that Nicholas wonders if she's on speed.
But mostly it's the little white pill.
***
We do not steal Owen's surgical gloves. They are not Marigolds, balloons, or insulation.
On the seventh day, Torchwood did not rest, and Nicholas got his first look at a real live alien. It was a giant bug, and it bit him. That was unpleasant.
"Did you see it?" he asks excitedly, trying not to move as Doctor Harper puts the stitches in his arm. "It was all -- and then -- "
"Yep," Doctor Harper says, looking irritated. "Hold the fuck still."
"Here you are," Mr. Jones says, holding out a PDA for Nicholas to study. "Report on the Tragla. We've had two before. The last time they were less...bitey."
The dead Tragla (Tosh pummeled it to death with a piece of pipe, Nicholas likes Tosh a lot) is sitting on the floor, awaiting its xenopsy. Nicholas studies the Torchwood Official Report, written by S. Costello, and is happy to see there is no poison in its bite.
He looks up at Mr. Jones.
"Who is S. Costello?"
Both men go rigid with tension at the name.
"Old employee," Doctor Harper says.
***
We do not steal artefacts. We do not abuse the power of stewardship with which we have been entrusted in order to get laid.
Sometimes Nicholas wonders about the staff. A lot of the time he thinks Doctor Harper and Gwen must be shagging, even if Gwen says she has a boyfriend. Other times he thinks it's a rank impossibility, because nobody in their right mind would shag Doctor Harper.
Tosh, he thinks, might have the hots for Gwen, or they might just be good girlfriends. Tosh definitely likes Doctor Harper, and Nicholas is confused as to why. Surely anyone, given the choice between Doctor Harper and Mr. Jones, would choose Mr. Jones.
But Mr. Jones doesn't appear to be shagging anyone. Doesn't even appear interested. Maybe Mr. Jones is one of those Asexuals that Nicholas has read about in trendy blogs. Or maybe S. Costello was his girlfriend.
"How are you settling in?" Mr. Jones asks him, on the tenth day.
"All right. I miss Amy, though," Nicholas admits. "Be glad when the trial is over and I can tell her. She's dying to move to Cardiff, she hates Edinburgh." He pauses, but curiousity wins out. "Have you got a girlfriend then?"
"I had," Mr. Jones says. "She died."
Ah. So that's why Mr. Jones is sad.
***
We do not touch the coffeemaker. If we want coffee we will ask Ianto.
We do not refer to Gwen as "Rookie", "Angel", or "Flatfoot".
We do not throw tools.
Nicholas thinks he's getting the rhythm of this now. When a call comes in, if he's there, his job is to stay on comms, to do whatever Tosh tells him to do to the computer, and to make sure that everything's in order in the medical bay. Otherwise he is to perform his duties as usual. Mr. Jones will page him when they're getting ready to come back in, so that he may put the coffee and tea on in time, and sometimes he gets enough warning that he can run out for pastries or put in a food order.
If he's not there, Mr. Jones will text his mobile, and Nicholas will get up and dress and hurry to the Hub. The team has filled his head with stories of twenty-six-hour shifts, of forty-five-hour shifts, but Mr. Jones says that's not all that common.
"Still," he says, "You should be prepared. Keep some things at the Hub."
Nicholas quickly packs an overnight bag and installs it in an unobtrusive corner. He is prepared! He is prepared for anything.
***
Only Jack is allowed to throttle members of the staff.
We do not find rubber duckies floating in the Hub pool amusing.
Tosh's handwriting: We didn't know they would clog the filters. Sorry.
Nicholas catches Doctor Harper with Tosh's dinner, throwing chunks of food up for the pterodactyl to catch. This is bad for Myfanwy; it spoils her appetite and puts her off-schedule.
"You shouldn't do that," he says, and Doctor Harper ignores him. Nicholas glances at Mr. Jones, who is watching with faint amusement. No help there, then.
"Doctor Harper, stop that."
Doctor Harper gives him a scornful look and keeps throwing. Nicholas tries to block a throw, but only succeeds in getting shoved off the walkway. He lands, fortunately still on his feet, in the pool.
"Doctor Harper, stop."
Doctor Harper doesn't stop. Nicholas climbs up out of the pool, approaches, and punches Doctor Harper gently in the stomach. It's nothing more than a tap; he's given worse to his kid brothers, but he doubles over with a whoofing noise, and Nicholas retrieves the food.
"And you are a very naughty dinosaur!" he calls over Doctor Harper's back, to Myfanwy.
Mr. Jones, when he looks again, is smiling. Even Doctor Harper looks cheerful as he pokes at his new bruise later that day. The next time Nicholas tells him to stop, he stops.
And that is how Nicholas decides it's okay to call him Owen.
***
We do not press buttons on artefacts simply to see what will happen when we do.
We do not under any circumstances take home any aliens no matter how attractive, fuzzy, harmless, or delicious they appear to be.
On the last day of his trial two weeks, Nicholas is certain he will be fired.
It's not that he meant to switch the device on to cause mischief. It's just that the notes said it was a musicbox, and Nicholas wants to hear it. He'd ask Mr. Jones for a demonstration, but Mr. Jones is out with the team.
When they return and find that he's been standing there for two hours, unresponsive, trapped in the music, he's positive he'll be sacked and the white pill will make sure he doesn't even remember this. He's close to tears.
But instead Mr. Jones and Gwen take him to the conference room and fix him something warm to drink, and they telegraph looks back and forth across his head until Mr. Jones clears his throat.
"We aren't going to do that again, are we?" he asks.
"Nosir," Nicholas says hastily. Mr. Jones nods and leaves, and Nicholas is alone with Gwen.
"You all right then?" she asks.
"Am I sacked?"
Gwen smiles, and Nicholas's world is a little warmer.
"No, love," she says. "Not hardly. Ianto likes you too much. He was that worried when you didn't answer your page."
Nicholas nods miserably.
"So," she says brightly. "When's your girlfriend coming down? I'm dying to meet her. So's Tosh. We'd like to show her Cardiff."
***
We do not drink anything, ever, around Tosh's station unless we are Tosh.
Owen's handwriting: Wasn't me.
"Why don't I get a coaster?" Owen asks.
"Because you're an ass," Mr. Jones answers.
"That's hardly a reason. If he's all that concerned with rings on the tables, he should give me a coaster because I'm more likely to make a mess, aren't I?"
Nicholas listens from across the Hub and smiles. Mr. Jones doesn't get a coaster either, but that's because Mr. Jones never stays still long enough. Tosh gets a special alien coaster that prevents spills, and Gwen gets one that says BOTTOMS UP WALES, but Owen doesn't get a coaster because he is an ass.
"I don't think rings on the tables are the reason he gives us coasters," Mr. Jones says, and Nicholas realises that while he's been watching everyone else, they've been watching him.
***
We do not wear any articles of clothing, armor, or headgear that do not belong to us.
There are some things the team never mentions, but Nicholas is good with computers. He stumbles across it while he's studying the mysterious S. Costello whose notes are all over the database.
A glove that can resurrect people, if only for two minutes. Perhaps so they can say their goodbyes. Destroyed in the Hub in connection to a string of murders this past year.
Nicholas shudders and hopes that wherever S. Costello is -- there's no personnel file for the name -- S. Costello doesn't remember the glove.
***
Owen's handwriting, scratched out with a heavy marker pen:
Jack's handwriting: We do not throw stones when we live in glass houses. Owen.
We do not refer to Rhys as The Civilian.
Three weeks in, his girlfriend Amy moves to Cardiff. She's found a job in a bookshop, and Nicholas visits her if he has time off during the day. He's introduced her to Gwen and Tosh, who he understands have given her tips on where to eat and where the best shoe shop is. Girls. Honestly.
She's met Mr. Jones too, though Mr. Jones doesn't know Nicholas knows that. Mr. Jones bought four books from the shop, chatted with her for a while, told her Cardiff welcomed her, and left.
Nicholas isn't stupid. Mr. Jones is making sure she won't be a liability, same as Captain Jack Harkness must have done with Rhys, Gwen's lad.
He loves Amy, and she never asks about his job, which is a relief. She probably doesn't even know he works for Mr. Jones.
***
We do not borrow Ianto's earpiece because we cannot find ours. We will ask Ianto first if he can find ours.
His first week at work, Nicholas wore a suit, because he'd worn a suit to the interview and because Mr. Jones wore a suit. Nobody else did, though; they wore t-shirts and jeans, clothing good for running and jumping and shooting in. Tosh wears nicer clothing than the other two, but it's still easy-to-clean, doesn't-show-wrinkles gear. Besides, the suit is sort of Mr. Jones's signature look, and Nicholas wouldn't want to be unoriginal.
He stops wearing a tie. He switches over to jeans. Sure, he doesn't go out on missions, but he does clean the SUV and the Hub, and it'll be so much easier in comfortable clothing. On Fridays he even wears a t-shirt instead of his usual Oxfords.
Sometimes, this helps him differentiate the days of the week, because once in a while he will otherwise forget what day it is and wonder why Cardiff is so crowded that evening. Then he remembers that normal people go out on Fridays, and don't work on weekends.
Mr. Jones appears to observe casual Friday, in his own quiet way, by wearing brown instead of black.
***
We do not leave the keys in the SUV. Ever.
Owen's handwriting: We do not take Owen on camping trips.
We do not denigrate the fine men and women of the local police authority and if they write us parking tickets we do not expect Torchwood, Gwen, or Ianto to get us out of paying.
It is Owen, oddly, who takes Nicholas out for his first defensive driving training. They spend hours in empty parking lots and on backroads, and Nicholas has never had so much fun in his life. He loves speed, he loves dodging around traffic cones, and he loves, he loves that the SUV has clearance to go anywhere at any speed.
The next day, Mr. Jones sends him out with the team.
"You drive, and you do nothing else," he says. So Nicholas does. He drives.
Gwen and Owen bicker about why Owen is letting the new boy drive; they are definitely shagging.
***
We do not play first-person shooters, MMORGs, or Tetris on Tosh's computers. We do not install The Sims on any Torchwood servers.
Or maybe not. Because Owen seems genuinely pleased and gives Gwen a very nice hug when she announces her engagement. Nicholas does too.
He covertly looks up the file on Rhys that evening, and finds it is read-only -- already open on another screen. He glances across at Mr. Jones, at his own desk. Mr. Jones is looking at him.
"Only sensible," Nicholas says. "Keeping an eye on the team."
"Maybe you deserve a raise," Mr. Jones says thoughtfully.
***
We absolutely do not shag anything we cannot verify as human.
Jack's handwriting: Ianto, this seems very xenophobic to me. There are lots of perfectly charming shaggable species out there who aren't human.
Amendment: Unless we are Jack, who knows what he's doing
Jack's handwriting: Don't make me discipline you.
In his fourth week, Nicholas realises that aliens are EVERYWHERE. Tosh takes him on a walk round Cardiff and points out four different shops owned by humanoid aliens, and three people who are aliens in disguise.
"But they're all vetted and harmless," she says. "They're basically immigrants."
"Are there ever...non-harmless ones?" he asks, and suddenly Tosh looks like Mr. Jones, on one of his bad days.
"Some," she says. "It doesn't do to get too close to them."
Nicholas wonders how you stop from getting close to aliens, when they are all around.
***
We do not trust the undead. We do not take the undead on field trips.
Nicholas worries, sometimes, that he's getting far too good at disposing of bodies.
***
We do not use Gwen's soymilk even if we are out of cream and not man enough to drink our coffee black.
We do not borrow Ianto's car without asking. We have our own cars.
His coffee is not perfect, but Mr. Jones is very tolerant. The others hardly notice; they just want the warmth and caffeine.
"Where did you learn to make coffee?" Nicholas asks.
"Coffee bar. First job when I was sixteen. Brilliant place, closed down now," Mr. Jones says. "You?"
"You've read my CV."
Mr. Jones grins. "Your CV is the reason you were hired. An honours in library science, combined with training at one of the best service schools in Europe? If you'd said you used to be a police cadet I wouldn't even have bothered with the interview."
Nicholas is grateful for the opening, and wonders for the umpteenth time if Mr. Jones can read his mind.
"About that, sir," he says. "I don't suppose I might get some weapons training?"
Gwen giggles for some reason, and Mr. Jones shoots her a dirty look.
"Next week," he replies.
***
WE DO NOT MESS WITH THE RIFT.
Jack's handwriting: We do not shoot our superiors OR colleagues.
But Nicholas doesn't yet get his weapons training because then the world almost ends.
It's okay though, since they stop it from ending, and Mr. Jones wipes his forehead with his sleeve and Owen gives Gwen four stitches in her thigh and Tosh says the computers will be fine.
"Does this happen often?" Nicholas asks, pouring whiskey all round. Mr. Jones had warned him there would be times when coffee would be insufficient, and he feels this is one of those times.
Tosh checks her PDA.
"We're right on schedule. About every four weeks," she says. "Who won the pool this time?"
"There's a pool on world near-endings?" Nicholas asks, fascinated. He realises he should probably be horrified. He can't be bothered. This job is so cool.
"Owen," Ianto says, without looking. "He had all of today and most of tomorrow."
Nicholas is about to ask who the last winner was, but something makes him stop.
Maybe the last end of the world was when Jack disappeared.
***
Gwen's handwriting: We will leave a note if we intend to be missing for more than two hours, days, weeks, months...
Jack's handwriting: We're sorry.
Blowfish in sports cars. Seriously. He'd write a book if he thought that anyone would believe it and also that Mr. Jones would not personally assassinate him.
Nicholas loses comm with the team briefly, but he's not worried; he's to check in every hour with Mr. Jones, and failing that Mr. Jones will page him when they're returning. So he goes about tidying, and keeps an eye on the SUV, which is parked outside a bar. Pulling up the police reports, he sees that there's a disturbance at the bar; below it is a code that he knows off by heart. It means "Torchwood is handling it".
"Nicholas."
Nicholas touches the comm in his ear. "Yes, Mr. Jones."
"We're en route. About ten minutes. We have two guests who will be accompanying us."
Just before Ianto shuts his comm off, he hears a male voice, American, say "Who the hell is Nicholas?" in the background.
Torchwood doesn't have guests.
Mr. Jones sounded...strained.
Nicholas puts two and two together. He fetches, from behind the coffee machine, the mug that nobody drinks from, with the four blue stripes.
When they arrive he is just putting out the tea and coffee, and there's only the four of them.
"I thought -- " he begins, but Tosh and Owen rush past him. Gwen stops, looks at him as if he's the cause of all her worries, and then hurries onwards. Mr. Jones looks agitated, but he still moves smoothly, taking Nicholas by the arm and guiding him aside.
"Captain Harkness is back," he says. "He'll be the man in the blue coat -- " he stops, seeing the striped mug on Nicholas's tray, and then grins bigger than Nicholas has ever seen. "Well done. The man in the red coat is Captain Hart. He's a guest. He is to be treated with courtesy and nothing even approaching trust."
"Where are -- " Nicholas begins, but then he hears the invisible lift, and doesn't bother finishing his sentence. "Shall I make myself scarce, sir?"
"Stay handy," Mr. Jones says, and lifts the mugs off Nicholas's tray and onto Gwen's desk, taking the tray itself.
The others have formed up in a loose line, Mr. Jones a bit ahead of them with the tray; they look like they're awaiting inspection, and Nicholas wonders how military the title Captain is. He always assumed it meant Captain of Torchwood.
The men on the lift look like they've wandered out of a costume ball, but they wear it well. Captain Harkness is much younger than Nicholas imagined, and looks like an action hero. Captain Hart looks like an oik.
Nicholas watches from the shadows as Mr. Jones takes up a position to the right and just behind Captain Harkness when he steps off the lift. Captain Harkness disarms Captain Hart thoroughly, placing the weapons on Mr. Jones's tray.
He wonders if, now that their Captain is home, Mr. Jones will take up the position permanently -- the one Nicholas has been filling, to the right and just behind the leaders.
He wonders if he'll be sacked, now that he's no longer necessary.
Chapter Two
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