Out of the Rift - Chapter 9

[theatre_girl79]

Title: Out of the Rift

Rating: R (for some violence and some eventual nudity and innuendo... hell, it is Torchwood)

Synopsis: A disturbance in the Rift, and the aftereffects are not exactly what they team figured it would be.

Disclaimers: If you recognize them, then they belong to BBC, RTD, and all those wonderful people. I'm just letting them play for a couple of days.

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

Chapter 9


Carole hung up after finishing her conversation with John. The boy was stuck at home for the moment, so they made plans to pick him up on the way to the next problem that had aroused itself. Carole slid her phone into her pants pocket and turned to the people sitting at the table.


“John will be ready to go in five minutes. So, as soon as we get to his place, he’ll be ready to roll.” She sauntered over and grabbed a slice of bacon from the remaining breakfast food. “Mary Jo, Joanna, Naomi, the Doc and Donna will be here any minute, too.” She munched away on the bacon. “Just need to clean up the dishes.”


“I can do that,” Ianto said as he stood up. “By the way, do you have any coffee?”


“Oh shoot, did I forget the coffee? I usually just get it at work. The grinder is in the cupboard by the sink and so is the French press.” Carole started picking up the dishes from in front of Tosh and Gwen.


“And the coffee?”


“Oh yeah. Bottom shelf of the cupboard, help yourself to whichever one you want.” She picked up her plates, along with Jack’s and Ianto’s and put them in the kitchen sink.


Ianto let out a gasp as he opened the stand-alone cupboard and spied the accumulation of coffee that Carole had stored there. “Any one? Any one of these?”


“What do you have there,” Jack asked.


Ianto stooped down and started going through the stockpile. “Kopelani, must be a popular one. Goldcoast, Espresso Roast, Brazil Ipanema Bourbon, Sulawesi. Espresso Regalo-“


“Mmmmm.. that one is quite good. It was a rare one, about 16 dollars a half-pound.” Carole smiled at herself.


“Well. Let’s see, Veronna, another Goldcoast, Christmas Blend, Anniversary Blend….”


“How much coffee do you have?” Owen turned and stared at Carole.


“At what point did I not mention that I work at Starbucks and that I am a coffee master?”


“I think I’m going to like it here,” Jack said, a big grin on his face.


“Since you are in Chicago, may I make a suggestion?” Carole finished filling up the sink with dishwater. “Go for the Goldcoast, it was created in honor of Chicago. Enjoy it here.” She then turned and combined the remaining scrambled eggs, bacon, tomatoes, cucumbers and English muffins onto one big plate.


Ianto came over with the coffee and took the dishrag out of her hand. “You cooked, we will clean.”


Carole regarded him a moment and then just shrugged her shoulders and headed for the living room/dining room, or rather, in her case, living room/office. She headed over to her computer and signed online. It had been a couple of days since she was able to check her email, and her inbox was flooded. Most prevalent this time around were emails from the BARROWMANONLINE community. Carole chuckled inside. If only they knew.


She clicked on a link and turned away, scanning her bookshelf next to the computer. Youtube popped up and started playing “Anything Goes,” as sung by John Barrowman. Being a musical theatre geek, Carole got taken away by it for a moment, until Ianto popped his head around the corner. Carole quickly fell forward in her swivel chair and covered the screen as she fumbled for the mouse, pulling her theatre company’s website up as Barrowman continued to sing from her computer’s speakers.


“Who may I inquire, is that singing?” Ianto stepped into the office area.


“Just an actor,” Carole flippantly said. She quickly searched out and hit the keyboard controls for the speakers muting it. “He does a lot of musicals.”


“Funny, he sounds a lot like Jack does in the shower.” Ianto shrugged and then headed back towards the kitchen. He pulled the kitchen towel off of his shoulder and went back to the dishes, humming “Anything Goes.”


Carole chuckled and swiveled around, nearly jumping out of her chair as Owen was sitting on the second desk next to her.


“Jesus Christ! Make some noise next time you do that!”


“Why? Where’s the fun in that?” Owen reached down and started clicking her mouse.


“Excuse me! What are you doing?”


“Call it curiosity. Something we discussed earlier this morning.” Owen shot her a look and started to click on and minimize her online windows. “You had to have a MAC?”


“Of course, better for multimedia. And don’t you know, curiosity killed the cat.”


“Good thing I don’t have to worry about that.” Owen smiled and clicked on the Youtube window, only to have the clip be done. “I’ll guess we’ll just have to play it again.”


“What part of ‘trust me’ didn’t you understand earlier,” Carole asked through clenched teeth.


“Exactly,” Owen stated as he hit the play button and turned up the volume.


“What are we watching, something fun? Something risqué?”


Carole nearly jumped for the ceiling, as Jack said those words from right behind her. She quickly hit the F11 button making the windows disappear off of the screen, and yet Barrowman sang on, as if he was the band on the Titanic as it sank. Suddenly Carole’s cell phone rang in her pocket. She pulled it out, saw it was Mary Jo and quickly answered.


“Hello?”


“Yeah, we’re outside, let us in,” Mary Jo said.


“Sure, no problem, come to the back door.”


“And what the hell is playing in the background?”


“Don’t ask.”


“And you told me to be careful!” Mary Jo hung up the phone.


Carole turned to Jack and Owen. “Mary Jo, the Doctor and the rest of them are outside. We should let them in.”


“I got it,” Gwen said from the hallway.


“I’ll go with you!” Jack nearly tackled Gwen as they both hit the doorway to the kitchen together.


“I really wonder who this Doctor is,” Owen seemed to be thinking out loud. He stared after Jack.


“The Doctor is definitely someone we can all trust. That’s for certain, even if we can’t trust each other, trust him.”


Owen turned to Carole. “Now that I do believe, and I don’t know why.”


They both stood up and Carole turned off her computer before Owen could try any more snooping. They headed into the kitchen and were greeted by Mary Jo right away.


“I think I might have almost killed the Doctor this morning!” Mary Jo seemed winded and then noticed Owen standing next to Carole. “Oh, hey, good morning,” she said nonchalantly.


Carole looked at Owen and then grabbed Mary Jo by the arm and dragged her into her bedroom. She closed the door tightly behind her.


“All right, what happened,” Carole asked.


“Last night I had told them, especially the Doctor and Donna to not go into my room for anything. Even if they hear screaming, just call 911 and do not come in. You know ALL the ‘Who’ paraphernalia I have in there! Well, when you gave me the wake up call, the Doctor tried to sneak in.”


“Is that what I heard?”


“Yes! While on the phone I had to practically vault from my loft bed, and I slammed right into the bedroom door just as it was opening. I think he fell.”


“Okay. That was the scurrying and the loud thump, and you forgot to mention you screaming at him.” Carole let out a small chuckle.


“Well he deserved it!”


“Whatever you say.”


“And what was with John Barrowman in the background when I called? You told me to be careful with what they saw, and you go and-“


Carole held up her hand to stop Mary Jo’s rant. “I was careful. Although I did get a little interrogation from Owen this morning.”


“Interrogation? Are you kidding me?”


“We know too much. And anyway, Barrowman was an accidental link I clicked on from my email, and then Owen trying to see it. I can see him being the little brother character.”


“Well right now these characters are alone in your kitchen.”


“Right,” Carole said as she stood up and opened the door. She came face to face with Jack on the other side. “Whoa! Hi there! What can we do for you?”


“I was rather thinking what I could do for you? Menage a trois?”


“No Jack, no, no, no. Only in your world do you need to go at it like bunnies before any mission.”


“Hey, it’s a theory that has worked well for me,” Jack said, a glint in his eye. He walked around them and grabbed his coat. “Tosh is just finishing downloading the coordinates to her PDA for the new energy spike.”


“Great, then we should get John and get going.”


“Wait a minute,” Mary Jo said. “What new energy spike?”


“This morning, while my aunt paid us a visit, Tosh’s computer picked up a new energy spike at Milwaukee and Golf.”


“Wait, wait, that’s Golf Mill Mall!”


“Yeah, and it’s summer, so it’ll be even more populated than normal for a weekday,” Carole chimed in as she headed into the kitchen. She stopped short as she saw the Doctor with a perplexed look on his face, chewing something. “Can I help you?”


“Yes right, interesting bit of food this is.” He seemed to be licking the roof of his mouth. “It appeared to be bacon, but doesn’t quite taste like it. It seems rather not quite bacon.” He picked up the last piece of bacon and licked that strip. “Nope, nope, definitely not regular bacon. Very interesting. What exactly is it?”


“It’s turkey bacon. Lower cholesterol, less sodium, supposed to be healthier,” Carole replied.


“Right, well, fantastic! That explains it.” He looked to the assembled group. “Are we ready to go then. This lovely lady-“


“Tosh,” she supplied, looking up at the Doctor from her position at the table.


“Tosh, my you are cute,” the Doctor smiled at her. “Right, apparently we have some more strange things happening not too far from here. So shall we? Allonsay!”


Carole and Mary Jo each had a grin on their faces as the Doctor uttered one of his catchphrases. Naomi positively seemed to melt in adoration. Carole shrugged her shoulders and grabbed her repacked bookbag and shouldered it.


“To the vehicles then,” Carole said.


“Great, another tight squeeze,” Owen muttered.



Carole put the car into park in John’s driveway. It was really lucky that his house in Niles was on the way. As she stepped out of the car his three dogs began to go nuts, barking at her through the window. John’s mom peeked out from behind the curtains and seeing Carole smiled and waved at her. Carole waved back. She turned back to her car and looked at Naomi and the Doctor.


“Sorry guys, you need to switch places.” She gave Naomi an apologetic look and motioned to the back seat. Naomi and the Doctor got out of the front seat and Donna got out of the back seat. Tosh snuggled up next to Owen to let the other two in the back.


Because she had the bigger car of her and Mary Jo’s she got the option of having six people in the car, without anybody on anyone’s lap, although she figured Ianto could get used to it, depending whose lap it was. Now they were about to test the limits with seven in the vehicle.


Carole looked up as John came ambling out of his house, two bags in tow. He waved at Carole and she trotted over, grabbing his small duffel.


“Got everything,” Carole asked heading back to her car as she popped the trunk with the remote.


“Yep. Got my laptop and even some changes of clothes. I am prepared this time. I know you people, and I am ready.” John sauntered over and put his laptop into the trunk and Carole fit his duffel in between the equipment boxes and the other bags.


“It’s a tight squeeze for the moment, but we promise to get another car soon,” Carole replied, indicating the front seat.


Tosh opened her car door and leaned out. “We have a problem. I’m picking up a major energy spike not just at the original location but a blanket of energy covering most of this town.”


Carole turned towards Mary Jo’s car and could see their expressions. Something was wrong, and she didn’t know if they were ready.