The House That Jack Built: The House That Jack Built

space-time he had come through. The tips of his fingers tingled as they found the fluctuation in the air, and he stepped through into an upstairs room in Jackson Leaves.

The house wouldn't keep still as time ebbed and flowed around it. The walls kept changing, wallpaper and paint flowing and vanishing as every moment in its history played out, fighting to find a constant. History had been altered around the building and now he had altered it again — a ridiculously dangerous thing to do, but the only option he'd had open to him.

Now time was trying to find a steady path, acting out every conceivable permutation. The house was built in 1906, then it wasn't. He bought it, then he didn't. As he walked out of the room and into the hall, it was like trying to fight his way through a piece of speeded-up film in which he was the only constant. Alison — the real Alison — was there, running naked down the stairs chased by the ever-hungry appetite of her strange lover.

Miles appeared as Jack reached the next landing. Even at a glance, Jack could tell he was pleased to see him…

'If only you could have been as happy in your body as I was,' Jack whispered, holding out his hand to stroke the ethereal chest of one of the many men he had once loved. His fingers jolted as if he had brushed an electric fence, and the image of Miles vanished.

Jack kept walking, fighting the urge to look into the other rooms. He could hear other lives playing out in them, couples fighting and making up, children laughing, as they ran from one room to another before vanishing altogether, perhaps never to have existed there at all.

He stood for a moment on the landing, as he felt the most bizarre sensation wash over him. Just over a hundred years ago, he had stood at this very same spot, showing Alison the house. The words he had spoken bubbled up from him, but when they reached his ears he knew it was his past self that was speaking them.

'Do you like the house?' he had asked, leaning over the banister.

'It could be lovely,' Alison replied, as she moved up towards him, 'with a woman's touch.'

The ghost of Jack, smiled down at her. 'I say again: just like its owner, then.'

'Anyone's touch will suffice for him,' came Alison's reply.

'But your touch is the sweetest.'

The present-day Jack found himself cringing at the way such easy lies and promises fell from him time and time again.

Alison stepped onto the landing, and he had to remember that she was not looking at him but rather the man he had been all those years ago. 'So you say today,' she said, 'but who will it be tomorrow?'

Ah… and didn't he know the answer to that from his vantage point in the future?

His past self took Alison in his arms. 'Stay the night and find out.'

Jack reached out to them, spreading his arms to cover them both, ignoring the sting of temporal flux that clung to the lovers' shoulders. The ghost of Alison shivered.

'You all right?' asked the Jack from her time.

She nodded. 'It felt like something touched me.'

Jack let go and stepped back. They were not his to hold any more.

'Give me a few moments and it certainly will,' his past self replied.

'Really…' Alison said. 'Perhaps you've got ghosts…'

He certainly did. Moving past the translucent figures, Jack ran down the stairs, knowing that by the time he reached the bottom they would have vanished for ever.

The fluctuation was near breaking point by the time he got to the front door, the roar of the hundreds of residents who had lived — or might have lived — between these walls becoming deafening in his ears. He grabbed the door handle, wrenched it open and stepped out into…

… daylight and shouting.

The SUV was still parked at the front of the house (though it was now pointing out towards the road), and Alexander was lying on the pavement cradling his broken wrist.

'How dare you!' he roared at Ianto, who was standing over him. 'Do you know who I am, boy? I will not be treated like that by anybody, let alone a jumped-up little shit like you.'

'Shut up,' Gwen muttered, wheeling the old man's wheelchair over from where she had found it further up the road. 'You should be glad you're alive. Not everyone is, thanks to you.'

'Problem?' asked Jack as he joined them on the pavement.

Ianto grabbed him and gave him a stifling hug. 'Not that I was worried or anything,' he muttered self- consciously as he let him go. 'Plan worked, then?'

'Guess so.'

Jack turned and stared up at Jackson Leaves. It looked the same and yet… not. It was tidier, more looked after, no longer the abandoned relic it had once been. 'What happened?'

'We made it out,' Alexander hissed, pulling himself into his chair and gritting his teeth against the pain in his wrist. 'No thanks to your lot, I might add.'

'He killed the girl,' said Gwen, suddenly feeling even worse as she realised she didn't even know her name.

'I dealt with that lunatic you saddled us with,' Alexander replied. 'The girl was caught in the crossfire. If I hadn't acted, I doubt any of us would still be here. If you got down from your high horse for a moment, you would do well to realise you should be thanking me rather than wailing about a little collateral damage.'

' Thanking you?' Gwen said. 'If I had my way, we'd be locking you up.'

Alexander smiled, and it was one of the most unpleasant things Gwen had seen all night. 'You just try it, girl. I've dealt with worse than you've got to offer.'

'Shut up, Alexander,' said Jack, 'before I do what Gwen suggests. Let's just look after these two.' He pointed at the still unconscious Julia and Joe, whose exuberant mood had well and truly faded, leaving him confused and hung over, leaning against one of the lamp posts.

'By all means,' Alexander replied, unable not to have the last word in the matter. 'Just so long as you remember you would do well to keep me sweet. I could be a considerable irritant to you otherwise.'

'You mean you're not already?' Ianto lifted Julia into the back seat of the SUV as Gwen took Joe's arm and led him over.

Jack looked down at Alexander. 'Don't do it,' he whispered.

'What, my dear boy?' Alexander replied, that oh-so-false smile still in place.

'Bite off more than you can chew.'

Alexander shrugged. 'I don't want to make enemies.' He gave Jack a look that was altogether more powerful than one would expect from such a frail-looking man. 'So don't force me to.'

Jack shook his head dismissively, and they headed over to the vehicle.

They dropped Alexander back at the rest home.

'What about my wrist?' the old man whined as Jack pushed him towards the building.

'Physician, heal thyself,' Jack replied, leaving him at the front door and dashing back to the car.

'You're just going to leave him?' Gwen asked as he got back in. 'Knowing what he does?'

'His biology is so far removed from ours, I wouldn't have the first idea what to do about it,' Jack admitted as he turned on the ignition and drove away.

'Well, I don't trust him,' Gwen said.

'Me neither, but he'll have to be a problem for another day. We've enough to deal with for now.'

'At least the house is safe,' Ianto piped up from the back.

'No more ghosts,' Gwen added with a half-smile.

'Oh, I don't know about that,' said Jack and drove back to the Hub.

TWENTY-FOUR

TORCHWOOD CARDIFF: INCIDENT REPORT

Unexplained Conflagration