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Great. Just great. You screw up a few missions, granted royally, and suddenly you find yourself touring each and every form of therapy and rehab, one by one. Something about insurance, they had said. Insurance, right. He knew the real reason. And to top it all off of course your financial credits go down because you're demoted. But of course it didn't end there, did it? Nooooo…
He was being assigned a new partner as well. Some pioneer hick from the bloody Boeshane peninsula.
He'd really pissed them off this time.
It wasn't all his fault though.
Nobody had ever asked him if he'd wanted to be partnered with a General's son.
He sighed and kicked the ground, leaving a black scuff mark for the robots to clean off the shiny white floor.
"Hello, are you John?"
Well, well, well. Maybe he hadn't done such a bang up job of pissing off his superior officers as he'd thought. This one was positively eye candy.
He nodded.
"Jack Harkness."
He stuck a hand out, only to find himself pulled into a kiss.
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"So what happened to your last partner, Eye Candy?"
"Parasite from the Azisjan Nebula."
"Work related?"
"No, he was on vacation when it happened."
"Azisjan huh? Thought they were all symbiotic over there?"
"They are."
"So what's the problem?"
"He's not Vincent anymore. Now he's Vanessa."
"So he changed his name. What Time Agent doesn't?"
"If it were just a name change, there wouldn't be a problem. The parasite took over his personality. Completely. Same face, new person."
"Weird."
"Yeah. Now your turn."
"You want to know how I got stuck with you, Boeshane? "
Nod.
" I pissed off a General."
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Another shot, another question.
"All right, I've got one for you. What's your favorite part about being a Time Agent?"
"Real strawberries."
"Strawberries?"
"Real strawberries. Not the preserved kind. They didn't grow very well on the Peninsula, so they were kind of a rare treat when we had them."
"So you joined the Time Agency for the food." He held a hand up. "Excuse me. I'm sorry. You joined the Time Agency for the strawberries."
"Nope. The strawberries were just a bonus."
"Any favorite time periods for strawberries?"
"They were best before they were bred for transport. Of course, then you have to make sure you bring enough dental spray and toilet paper. I guess that makes it a bit of a toss-up."
"I guess," he dryly agreed. A pioneer hick from Boeshane alright. He was definitely going to need more liquor.
Still, pretty eyes.
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“Time to go!”
“What? But we just got here.” A beat as he stared.” Is that a giant ball of yarn rolling towards us?”
“Yeah.”
The sound of a thousand voices hissing filled the once peaceful afternoon air. Shrapnel rained down from ray gun struck statues as they ran.
“Are those Felinetta chasing after the ball of yarn, or you?”
“Bit of both, really. C’mon!”
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“You pressed something wrong.”
Bloody froth flowed from between the cracked lips of the gaunt figure on the floor. Male or female, who could say? There they lay, covered in pustules and the stale smell of their own vomit and waste. Another convulsed beside them.
“You distracted me.”
“Water…water…please, I beg you…just a sip…”
“Give it to me! You’re going too slow. Your stupid fat fingers get in the way of everything.”
“Stupid fat fingers?!”
“Were going too slow. Pompeii pre-volcano day, here we come!”
A triumphant smile flashed.
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“Is that?”
“Smoke. The volcano’s erupting.”
Glowing lava, red and gold, exploded and flowed down the sides of Mount Vesuvius.
“RUN!”
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“Let me see if I have this right…You tried to trade your partner for a bottle of Cognac, a Cuban cigar, and a spaniel named Fluffernutter?”
“I guess I was expecting a bit too much out of the trade.”
“A bit too much?!”
Damn. He’d spilled his drink.
“It was good Cognac. And the spaniel could bring me my slippers in the morning. S’more than that useless lump ever did.”
“Do you wear slippers in the morning?”
“If you play your cards right, you’ll find out.”
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“Just be still, and bite on this.”
John muttered incoherently, then moaned in pain as the block of wood knocked against his teeth.
Shit. The physician already had the bone-saw out and John was beginning to regain consciousness. Jack knew he had to act fast. The bullet in John’s arm was completely survivable without surgery- at least in their own century. The Time Agency even kept their own flock of doctors for cases such as this. No need to explain pesky anachronistic details that way.
Sergeant Little had been pissing him off all week, and the mission was a bust anyway. Jack shot him in the leg. Then he shoved a chloroform soaked handkerchief in the man’s face. Down for the count. Picking the Sergeant up, Jack ran for the medical tent, where John was already struggling.
“Get your hands off me! Get away from me, you butcher!”
“Calm down,” one of the men restraining him attempted to say soothingly. “Let the Doctor do his job.”
“You don’t want to die of infection like Miller, do you? ”
“Yes I do! I damn well do! JACK!”
“Doctor,” Jack called, feigning a sense of urgency. “Sergeant Little has been shot.”
With a choice between a higher ranking (and significantly more cooperative) officer, or John, all attention was turned to Little.
“Took you long enough,” John grunted, as Jack supported him.
“You owe me.”
“Just get us both back before I bleed to death.”
Jack snorted as he teleported them both the hell out of there. It was just a minor wound.
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“You!”
John spared a glance from the bartender’s tender eyes…and far less tender looking thighs. If there was a fight about to break out, he wanted to know who was going to be doing the fighting, so he could decide whether to take bets or take part. He loved a good brawl, but some species didn’t play fair. At least not by his definition.
What was this? There were four of them. And they were all looking at Jack. Well then. He slammed his shot back, cracked his knuckes, and snatched a bottle of hypervodka from the Slitheen lady on his right. Not like she would have drunk it all anyway. She was all by herself and had been all evening. Nice label though. Pity to waste the good stuff.
“Do I know you?”
“Do I know you, he says. You stole my warship!”
Well this was getting interesting.
“Look, guys, I’m sorry about your warship, and I hope you find the guy who did it, but it wasn’t me. I swear.”
His face said he meant every word. Too bad.
“Get him!”
He smashed his bottle against an edge and leapt at the biggest one. The stabbing didn’t seem to faze him, and examining his weapon, John could see why. There weren’t enough long jagged pieces hanging off- something about the way the bottle was made, he guessed. Had to be. He’d broken hundreds, if not thousands of bottles in bars, and he’d never had any trouble with that before. Shifting his grip, he swung it as hard as he could at his adversary’s head. Out cold.
Chairs clattered and screeched,and the other patrons shrieked as the only one left standing after Jack’s left hook and thrown table, the man who’d accused him in the first place, suddenly pulled a gun.
Some busybody doctors were already attending to the fallen men.
“You there, with the bottle! Do you know this man?”
In a battle between gun versus bottle, any fool could tell you who’d win.
“I just like a good brawl is all. Never seen him before in my life.”
“Back to your booze then.”
Very sportsman-like.
“Sorry about the mixup.”
Jack stood, hands raised, watching him turn back to the bartender, then actually appeared surprised when he turned back with a gun in his hand and shot the man who’d just audibly released his safety.
“I get to pick the bar, next time,” he said as he grabbed his partner’s arm. “Place like this, nobody jumps in to help. Now that place with the lizards, can’t ever remember the name, clear sign of a great place to drink, if he’d tried to start something like that there, the authorities would be sorting it out weeks later. The whole place would be covered in blood and broken glass, and nobody would have seen anything by the time it was over. Plenty of helping hands there. So who were they?”
“I have no idea.”
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Apparently their jail cell would be a stall in a barn. Which hadn't been properly mucked out in a while. A long while. Battered and confused- things had been going so well- and now they were stuck standing in hundred degree heat in a stinking pile of manure and a slight scattering of moldy hay, knowing they were likely to be executed by the morning. He wasn't exactly surprised when the next thing he heard after the thunk of his own body hitting the back wall was Jack's voice shouting at him.
"What the hell did you do?"
"Nothing, I swear!"
"John, we've just been arrested as spies. Now, before I die, I'd at least like to know what the hell you did so I have some idea of WHY I'm being killed."
"You're not dead yet…"
If looks could kill…
And he glared right back.
Which might have been a mistake, it occurred to him as he slid a bit on a wet brown spot and fell.
He got up, and brushed some of it off. The rest just stuck and smeared.
Of course, if Jack wanted a shoving match…
Jack's foot also found a wet spot, and he too slid into the mess.
A wrestling match ensued and resulted in no clear winners as the sky above them thundered and rain poured down upon the leaky roof and the formerly dry musty particulates of unknown origin dissolved and became rotten smelling slime.
Streaked and reeking, he gave up. For now.
A hand to stand.
Rain poured down onto them, and pooled in putrid puddles at their feet.
Pacing as much as he could in the slippery grime, he spoke. "I set the language adapter to American English. Then I set the chronometer to 19."
Jack watched him, arms crossed, waiting.
"I'd noticed earlier that he seemed to have a thing for accents, so I decided to go with an accent."
"An accent? Then why would they think…John, what kind of accent?"
"I don't know, I set the damn thing to random."
"So you pressed AE 19, then random?"
A shrug and a nod.
"This is set for Sudan. You set it to translate to 19th century American English with a Sudanese accent."
"Is that so bad?"
"Well, for starters, Sudan isn't even on this continent."
"Oh. Well that explains a lot. Can you fix it?"
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"Come on, just admit it."
"We didn't have sex."
"Bullshit."
"We. Didn't. Have. Sex."
John stared pointedly down at Jack's very pregnant belly. "What's the big deal anyway? I mean, it's not like you're a bloody nun." He snorted.
"And I've never pretended otherwise. So why don't you just believe me when I tell you we didn't have sex?"
"Because that never could have happened if you didn't have sex and remembered your pill."
"But we didn't-"
"Oral sex is still sex."
He blinked because he actually hadn't known that.
"Mr. Harkness, the doctor is ready to see you now.”
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"You honestly didn't realize you could become pregnant from oral sex, did you?"
"No!"
"No need to get defensive. Seriously though, how in the Universe did you get to be a Time Agent and not know you could get pregnant from oral sex?"
A glare was his only answer.
"Your mother never told you, your teachers never said anything, nobody ever happened to mention...? I mean in all the time you've been sexually active-"
"No."
"I mean, I guess I could sort of understand everyone else not opening their big mouths, something in it for them after all if they just shut it, but your mother? If I were your mother, I'd have been slipping contraceptives into your sandwiches, sprinkling it on top of your morning cereal, stirring it into your milk, and coffee, and tea. Huh. I bet that's what she did."
"Shut up."
"Oh yeah, 'cause that's done you a whole world of good hasn't it? People keeping quiet around you."
Jack ground his teeth.
"Maybe that's what I'll do. I'll do what your mother did. I won't say a word. I'll just fill everything you eat with birth control."
"If you even come near my food-"
"Touchy…Must be those pregnancy hormones."
"Why are you still here, John?"
"Well, if you must know, the Agency doesn't fancy pairing me off with anyone else. So for however long this takes," he said gesturing at the roundness under the hospital gown, "I'm here for you. Up to and including the full duration of your paternity leave, if that should apply."
"My-"
"Whatever you decide. I'll be here," he said as he patted Jack's arm.
Jack said nothing because he knew there was absolutely no point at all in saying anything. Whatever he said, John would still be there. Every day of every week of every month. Resignation and an impending sense of doom must have had some sort of outward effect on his person, because his silence was suddenly disrupted by "Whoah there, Eye Candy. Are you going to be sick? If you are, do it in this," a trash canister was waved in front of his face until he grabbed it.
"Doctor," John shouted as he peered out the door. "Hey! Doctor! Could you grab some nausea pills and bring them here? Never mind, I'll get them myself. Where do you keep them?"
John turned back to him and said: "I'll be just a moment. Have you picked out any names yet?"
Alone at last, he let the canister clatter to the floor.