Fic: Collaborazione (1/3?)

[aibhinn_fics]

Title: Collaborazione
Author: aibhinn
Pairings: Jack/Rose
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: Doctor Who through "Utopia", Torchwood through "End of Days".
Summary: Jack, Tosh, and Gwen travel to Florence to assist the Polizia in solving a string of killings—but they're not the only ones tracking the alien.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Betas: dameruth, invisible_lift, jlrpuck, souleswanderer, and sensiblecat—all of whom are AWESOME.
Author's note: The title means 'Collaboration.' Written for the available_very Jack/Rose ficathon, for surrexi. Her prompts will be listed at the end of the fic.



Jack and Gwen stood outside the crime scene tape, watching as the vigile closed the doors on the coroner's van and slapped it twice in a 'go ahead' signal, and the van moved off. The two of them were talking to Paolo Scola, their liaison from the Polizia Urbana, while Toshiko scanned the area with her handheld unit. It felt odd, Jack thought, to be at a crime scene without Ianto or Owen, but the two of them had stayed behind to monitor the Rift back home while the others travelled to Italy on what was anything but a holiday.

"No question that this was another of the strange killings we have been seeing," Scola told them. "Like the others, this victim was disembowelled and her liver taken. The doctor could not tell more until he completes a proper autopsy, but when he has done so, I will send you the report."

"We'd appreciate it," Jack told him. "And the forensics reports as well. The more we know about this creature, the more likely we are to be able to find and stop it."

"If you can do that, you will win the gratitude of every person in Florence," Paolo said soberly. "The people are afraid, and I cannot blame them. There seems to be nothing connecting the victims—men, women; young, old; different parts of the city, different everything. It has been sighted all over the city, but nothing we have done stops it."

"You were right to call us in," Gwen told him. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

Jack smiled inwardly. That's her PC Cooper voice, he thought with faint amusement. Sympathetic, with an undercurrent of businesslike competence. No wonder people trust her so easily.

"Grazie." Paolo glanced around. "If there is nothing more with which I can assist you, I should return."

"Sure," Jack said. "We'll call you if we need anything else."

"And I, you, when we discover anything more." With a smile, Paolo left, slipping around the corner to the police cars that were parked at the kerb.

They watched him go, waiting until he was out of sight. "I'm not sure I like this," Gwen said at last.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "I hope not," he said dryly. "If you did like the thought of people being killed and their livers taken, I'd start to worry."

"That's not what I meant," Gwen said, rolling her eyes. "They've got nothing, Jack. Nothing at all to go on—no DNA, no eyewitnesses, no CCTV. I don't know where to start."

Jack looked at the third member of their team. "Got anything, Tosh?"

Tosh shook her head, frowning at her scanner. She held it up to show the others its readout. "I'm afraid not. No energy signature, no psychic residue, no radiation. Not that we can trace, at any rate."

"Just a creature that likes to rip people apart and take their livers." Jack rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "Well, it's not beginning well, I'll give you that, but how many of our cases do?" Gwen gave him an exasperated look, and he chuckled. "Let's get back to our office—such as it is—and take a look at what they've given us so far while we wait for this new report. Maybe we'll see something they missed."

The car they'd been given the use of was a tiny thing, so small even Gwen felt cramped. As Jack pulled out into traffic, Tosh said, "Do you remember how to get there?"

"Oh, yeah," Jack said off-handedly, darting sideways into the next lane. Both Gwen and Tosh grabbed for the handles. "This city's an old friend. Did I ever tell you about the time when I was here in the mid-Eighties? There was this woman, Maria, I was supposed to be working with. Man, was she something…."

***

In a narrow alleyway not far from the crime scene, a flare of bright gold light appeared in the air. A young woman stumbled out of it, half-falling against the stone wall of the building. She leaned there a moment, catching her breath, then reached up to brush her blonde hair out of her face before pulling a device out of her shoulder bag and punching a few buttons. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, for she nodded abruptly. "That'll do," she said to herself. She pushed another button, then placed a round Bluetooth-type earpiece over one ear. The blue LED light on the receiver flashed at the same rate as the light on the handheld device. She slipped the device back into her bag and started towards the main street.

***

"Jack!"

Jack and Gwen both looked up from their copies of the autopsy report that Paolo had just had delivered. "Yeah?" Jack asked.

Tosh was beaming. "I think I've worked out a way to track whatever-it-is that's been killing these people. At the scene today, the scanner picked up a faint but distinct trace of a rare isotope of carbon in the area. They found that same isotope in the wounds of all five victims so far. Including today's, according to the report."

"How rare?" Jack asked, sitting up from his half-lounged position and feeling the first stirrings of hope.

"It's never been found naturally on Earth. Scientists have only ever been able to create it in the lab."

"So this is an alien," Gwen said with some relief. Jack looked at her quizzically, and she said, "After the cannibals in Brynblaidd, I learned not to underestimate how horrific human beings can be to each other."

"Point taken." He looked at Tosh again. "Would there be enough of a trace left now to track the thing?"

Tosh frowned, considering. "It's been several hours, but the air's been fairly still today. We might yet be able to pick up something. It's worth a try."

"Then that's what we'll do." He put the autopsy report aside and bounded to his feet. "Let's go."

***

The blonde woman walked steadily down the Florentine streets, her bag slung over one shoulder with her elbow clamped tightly against the leather, holding it closed. She'd heard enough stories of the pickpockets on Italian streets to be careful.

The contents of this bag weren't supposed to exist in this universe.

The faint beeping in her earpiece was slightly faster than it had been where she'd appeared, but still reasonably steady. She was catching up with the creature she'd been tracking; it was still ahead of her, but not by much. If she was really, really lucky, she might be able to find it before it jumped universes again. The Rift manipulator her team had cobbled together worked, but it was anything but fun to travel that way—not to mention that they didn't know how much damage she was doing by hopping around like this. She hoped that she wasn't actually creating damage, just following the trail the creature was leaving like crawling through a tunnel created by a drill, but she couldn't know for sure.

It was also possible—maybe even probable—that when she finally managed to destroy the creature, she'd be trapped in yet another parallel world, with no trail to follow home. That was why she'd volunteered for this mission in the first place; she had more experience with foreign cultures and cross-universe travel than anyone else, and she was the one most likely to be able to create a life for herself wherever she wound up. With that in mind, she'd invested a good portion of her inherited fortune in gems and hid them in a pouch she wore under her clothes, against her skin. They were more portable than gold or silver, and worked wherever you were. She had more than enough wealth on her to set herself up pretty much anywhere, and enough of the right sorts of identification to convince any universe's version of Torchwood that she was who she said she was, and eminently employable.

Starting over yet again. Not a pleasant concept, but she could do it. Though she was trying very hard not to think of the possibility that she might end up in one particular universe….

Unexpectedly, the beeping sped up significantly and she jerked to a stop, suddenly alert. Which way? She turned on the spot, holding her bag forward so the sensor inside could pinpoint the direction more easily.

Left, across the street. She held her breath, then darted forward with several other pedestrians. Traffic halted for them, amid a chorus of irritated Italian voices, as she jogged across the street. The signal was growing faster and higher-pitched, and she tried to shove her excitement away. She wasn't there yet; she didn't want to get her hopes up too far.

But she was gaining on it. She was definitely gaining on it.

***

Gwen followed Tosh down the pavement, praying they wouldn't lose the trail again as the sensor struggled to keep a bead on the faint traces of carbon isotope that remained. Jack was in the car, keeping close just in case they needed a quick getaway; they didn't know how far the trail would lead them, and didn't want to be trapped halfway across Florence from their parking spot. Gwen could see him parked just ahead, watching them in the rear-view mirror and keeping tabs with them via their comms.

"It seems to be getting stronger," Tosh said. She held the black box in her left hand, a wand-like sensor in her right. They were getting some odd looks from people on the street, but Gwen wasn't worried about that. She kept scanning the area for anyone who thought they might look like easy pickings; this wasn't the best part of town. Some part of her wished Jack could be with them too, but someone had to be in the car, and she knew she wouldn't be able to negotiate Florence's roads with anything like Jack's familiarity. "It goes off to the left here, across this street." She looked up, saw the thick wave of traffic that just kept moving, and blinked. "I guess we go down to a pedestrian crossing; we'll never get across this in one piece"

"Just start walking," Jack advised over the comm.

"What?"

"Just step off the kerb. They'll stop for you."

"Are you sure?" Tosh asked, with perfectly understandable reluctance. "I'm not keen on getting killed."

"It's the way it works here. Trust me. Step off the kerb and they'll stop."

Gwen exchanged an unhappy look with Tosh, then took a deep breath. "Okay, I'll try it," she said. "Tosh, you wait to see if it works; we don't want the sensor damaged."

"We don't want you damaged, either!" Tosh protested.

Nervously, Gwen walked right to the edge of the kerb. She took another deep breath, and then stepped off. To her surprise, Jack was right: traffic came to a halt and let her cross, though not without shouts of annoyance from the drivers. Tosh ran to catch up, and the two of them hurried across to the other side of the street. "I'll never complain about Cardiff traffic again," Gwen said, watching as the sea of cars started moving again. Jack chuckled in her ear.

"It takes some getting used to. Tosh, got the trail?"

Tosh looked down at the sensor again, holding it up to the fading light. It was nearing sundown, Gwen realised. "Yes. Right down this road."

"Go on. I'll catch up with you as soon as I can get the car over there."

They carried on down the road, Tosh's whole attention on the readout screen. "It's getting stronger yet," she said, a note of excitement in her voice. "Much stronger, almost three times the concentration of isotope that we found at the crime scene. I think we're getting close."

"Be careful," Jack warned. "Keep an eye out. We've no idea what this thing looks like."

Tosh sped up; so, perforce, did Gwen. "The saturation is increasing exponentially," Tosh said, almost to herself. "We must be almost on top of it!"

"Tosh, stop," Jack ordered. "I don't want you getting any closer yet without me there. We don't know what we're facing and I want as many eyes and guns as possible."

"Where are you, Jack?" Gwen asked as the two of them came to a halt. She swung round, looking for him.

"Nearly there. I had to go down a few streets to find a place to turn around. Be there in a minute or so."

"This thing has got to be close," Tosh said, holding out the wand part of the sensor and moving it about. "It doesn't matter which direction I look, the saturation's almost identical."

"But I don't see anything," Gwen said. She put her hands on her hips, frowning. "Nothing at all out of the ordinary."

"Maybe its lair is near?" Tosh suggested.

A blonde woman sitting on the edge of a marble fountain with a statue of a nude young man—a new fountain, Gwen noticed; its lines were sharp, the marble unsullied by pollution, the basin dry—looked up sharply at them. She wore an odd, round Bluetooth device on one ear; its blue LED light was flashing so quickly it almost looked like it was burning steadily.

"Could be," Jack admitted. "I'm coming up the street now; I can see you."

Sure enough, the car was zipping towards them. He parked illegally and got out of the car, coat billowing around him as he closed the door and strode over to them. "Show me what you've got," he said.

Tosh raised the sensor to show him, but before she could, the blonde woman spoke in shocked tones, with a London accent. "Oh, my God," she said. "Jack?"

Jack's head whipped around to look at her, and his jaw dropped. "Rose?" he asked incredulously.

Then they were in each other's arms. Jack swung the woman—Rose—around and around in circles in giddy delight, and she held on tight, laughing. He put her down and cupped her face in his hands. Gwen was struck by the intimacy of the gesture. "How did you get here?" he demanded incredulously. "You were in another universe, the Doctor said. How'd you get back?"

"I could ask the same thing of you!" she said. "How'd you get back to the 21st century from Satellite Five?"

His face sobered. "Long, long story; we don't have time for it. I'll tell you everything later, I promise." He searched her face for a moment, then smiled. "God, it's good to see you!"

"And you." Rose reached up to touch Jack's cheek as well. "I missed you so much. The Doctor said you were helping to rebuild the Earth."

Helping to what? Gwen thought, startled. There was definitely more to this reunion than met the eye. And back to the 21st century? Where was this Rose from, anyway? Wherever it was, she'd known Jack very well indeed; the connection between them fairly crackled with energy, even more so than when Captain John had appeared. She glanced over and caught Tosh's eye; the other woman was wide-eyed, watching Jack and Rose with a startled expression that Gwen thought probably mirrored her own.

"Not exactly," Jack said. Was that a bit of discomfort? "Like I said, long story."

"But you've seen him?" Rose pursued. "You've been in touch with him?"

Jack shook his head. "I saw him, yes," he said. "But I don't know how to reach him, Rose."

"Oh," Rose said quietly. Gwen was surprised by how disappointed she seemed. Rose rallied, though, and said, "But you're here! I can't believe it."

Jack smiled and kissed her forehead. "I'm here," he agreed. Gwen got the feeling she was missing some sort of subtext between the two of them, some unspoken message Jack was giving her. "Let me introduce you to my friends." He turned, sliding an arm around her shoulders. "Rose Tyler, this is Toshiko Sato—" Toshiko nodded in a friendly manner, and Rose reciprocated. "—and Gwen Cooper." Gwen echoed Tosh's nod. "They work for me," he went on. "We're actually on the job right now."

"Funnily enough, so am I." Rose's head cocked to one side. "Toshiko, you said something a minute or two about a creature's lair, and saturation?"

"Yeah." Tosh looked as though she wanted to go on, but wasn't quite sure how much to share. She looked at Jack.

"We're tracking an alien," Jack said, and Gwen felt a jolt of utter shock. He was telling her the truth? Even if he knew this woman, it wasn't the sort of thing you told people. "It's been on a hunting spree recently, and the Florence police called us in to help. Five victims so far, no apparent connection between them."

Rose raised her eyebrows. "Let me guess," she said. "It kills people by disembowelling them, then takes the liver and leaves the rest. And the saturation you're talking about is the trail of carbon isotopes it leaves behind."

Another jolt of shock. "Yes," Gwen blurted before she could stop herself. "How do you know?"

Rose quirked a corner of her mouth in a grimly amused expression. "Because I'm tracking it too." She reached into her bag and brought out a compact, oddly attractive black device with a blinking blue light that matched the one on her earpiece. "I've been tracking it for weeks now, across three different universes. We don't know what it is or where it comes from originally, but what we do know is that it's been punching holes between universes as it hunts, and that's not safe. My mission is to find it and destroy it before it makes Swiss cheese of the space-time continuum and causes the collapse of any of a number of universes."

"Your mission?" Jack asked, eyebrows raised. "What did you do, join the military after Canary Wharf?"

Rose chuckled. "Not exactly." She glanced about, and Gwen understood her meaning; she didn't want to say more about her employer in public, even in a foreign country. Though why not, when she seemed perfectly willing to describe her mission in detail, Gwen wasn't certain. "I followed it here," Rose continued, "but the trail dead-ends in this spot. I've been here for over an hour, trying to work out where it went. It didn't jump universes; there's not enough huon energy for that. It's just…disappeared."

Gwen was struck by how competent this Rose sounded. She must have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. But—other universes? Then how had she known Jack?

Jack ran a hand through his hair. "Tosh, what does your sensor tell you?"

Tosh punched a button or two, then shook her head. "The same thing. Every direction from here shows a decrease in the isotope levels. The creature has to be here, but it's not."

"Could it be invisible?" Gwen asked.

Rose shook her head. "I've been able to get a couple of descriptions over the past few weeks," she said. "It's visible. It's just very good at hiding."

"It might be able to bend light around itself," Jack suggested. "Or maybe it can generate some sort of perception filter?"

"What's a perception filter?" Tosh asked.

"It's the thing that keeps the invisible lift from being noticed up on the Plass," Jack explained. He paused, then the corners of his eyes creased with amusement. "Sort of like when you fancy someone, and they don't even know you exist."

"I understand that one," Tosh said under her breath.

"So we would look right past it," Rose said, nodding. "That's possible. Damn. It could even be able to disguise itself like some ordinary thing. A fire hydrant, a tree, a park bench—"

Something caught Gwen's eye, and she did a double take, feeling her stomach sinking. "A marble fountain?" she asked.

"Yeah, anything," Rose agreed. "We could look for years, and—" Rose stopped abruptly, eyes wide, as Gwen's meaning penetrated. She, Jack, and Tosh swung around almost as one to look in the direction of Gwen's gaze, towards the fountain Rose had been sitting on.

It was gone, as though it had never been.

"Hell," Rose said with feeling.