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The ship was rattling around them as they entered Earth's atmosphere. The heat was threatening to melt their shields to nothing.
"Throttle, gently," Jack said, keeping an eye on the instruments and red blinking lights.
"Done this before."
Alonso Frame, former midshipman on the glorious Titanic, temporary marine, then rogue companion and traveler, as he fancied himself, had indeed flown ships before, even if those had been far newer models than the one they were about to crashland on the dark side of the Earth. The sun disappeared behind the curve of the planet and they plunged free from orange atmosphere fire.
Jack knew he should take over, but he was too busy staring at the Earth's surface that was racing closer and closer. He was coming home, and the pang in his heart resolved into boom and unconsciousness when they hit the ground.
***
"Rain. Wales' contribution to the Human Empire," Jack said and couldn't help but laugh. He crawled out of the ship.
"...something," Alonso was saying from the other side of the metal lump, then retched onto Welsh soil. "Should've brought something," he clarified as he stumbled around the ship and into Jack.
"You insisted we take this one. I told you they'd rigged it with an alarm," Jack said.
"I didn't think you'd leave all our things on the planks."
The rain was running into Jack's collar. An umbrella would've been nice. Ten point two minutes and the novelty of Earth's rain would wear off.
"Is it always this wet?"
Maybe less.
***
"We'll wait for the sun to come up, take a hike down there, hit a road in a few hours, catch a ride, and I'll show you what's, well-" Jack hesitated and gnawed on the piece of chocolate Alonso had found in one of his pockets. "I'll show you Torchwood."
Alonso knocked against the side of the ship. They were relatively dry. A metal panel fell off as a gust of wind blew rain in. They had been relatively dry. They had chocolate and a bag of stimulants, some caffeine paste and a few crumbs of tobacco, but no fire.
"It'll be good, yeah?" Alonso asked and glanced at Jack.
"Yeah," Jack said and bit off another piece of chocolate. Lies came easier. "I love you, you know." Much easier.
"Don't," Alonso replied, then, "I want to see a rabbit, like the one from the painting."
They saw a bat a few hours later and Alonso settled for that as something of 'proper Earthian culture'.
***
Jack jerked alert when bright lights hit the hull of the ship. The low rumble of a motor announced a car a moment later.
"Company," he muttered into Alonso's ear.
They were pressed to the side of the crater not ten seconds later, each of them with a gun out, Alonso peeking over the side. They'd both seen too many wars if fighting came this easy to them, and Jack didn't remember what he'd been thinking when he'd promised Alonso Torchwood like it was, quite literally, paradise on Earth.
"Stand down!" rang out to them in the crater as Jack was sliding open his wrist strap for localization and sit rep.
"Woman," Alonso said. "Late-thirties, dark hair, human, big..."
"...eyes."
"I was about to say gun, actually. You know her? You crashland us in coordinates somewhere and you-"
"She's-"
"Torchwood!" the voice said.
Jack closed his eyes. "That's Gwen."
"Gwen who you..." Alonso trailed off, peeked out through the crater and then looked back at Jack. "I take it you didn't expect her." And Alonso had the audacity to laugh like he'd been grown up on Welsh rain and with rugged edges he was hiding underneath suits.
***
"Real, Gwen," Jack said. "Human. A bit older and wiser, but not changed, I-"
"Shut it, Jack," she pressed out between tight lips and she looked at him, just looked into his eyes even as she made them strip off in the rain for a thorough search and confiscated the things from their pockets, their guns and his wrist strap.
"His name's Alonso," Jack said.
"Right," Gwen replied, and didn't say anything else for a long time.