Wishverse 1.07 - Part 6 of 6
Aug. 8th, 2009 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartTitle: The Many Departures of Gwen Cooper
Author: Soledad
Fandom: Torchwood
Category: Heavy-duty Gwen bashing.
Rating: 14+, just to be on the safe side.
Genre: Romance/Angst, for this part. Plus some dark humour.
Series: Wishverse.
Warning: repeated character death(s) in each chapter.
Timeframe: "Greeks Bearing Gifts". Major spoilers. This is an AU, though.
Summary: Many different ways to get rid of Gwen Cooper, while keeping the episodes as canonical as possible.
Disclaimer: the usual: don’t own, don’t sue! Everything belongs to RTD and BBC. I used a great deal of rewritten original dialogue, though.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 6
Author’s notes: Continued from Part 5. Obviously.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Andy could barely sleep that night and arrived way too early to the Torchwood base. The tourist office wasn’t even open yet. But after just a few minutes of indecisive waiting, Ianto stepped out of nowhere to greet him – or so it seemed.
“You’re early,” the Torchwood archivist said. “The others aren’t even in yet. Well, save from Jack, that is, but he kinda lives here, so he doesn’t count.”
“I thought you were the one who lived here,” Andy said.
“Well, sometimes I have that impression, too,” Ianto admitted. “But I actually do have a flat, not too far from here. I even go home to sleep from time to time.”
“Not last night, though,” Andy guessed, based on the younger man’s reddened eyes,
“No,” Ianto admitted. “That, too, happens. Now, since I haven’t opened the tourist office yet, I came to take you down the direct way.”
“There’s another entrance?” Andy asked in surprise.
“Only if someone lets you in from the inside,” Ianto replied. “Come on, stand next to me. It only works when we both stand on this particular slab.”
“What works only…” Andy started to ask, but Ianto didn’t listen to him.
“Take us in, Jack,” he said into his headset, and in the next moment the concrete block they were standing on began to sink with them, slowly but steadily.
Andy quickly grabbed Ianto's arm to keep his balance. “But how do you use this thing when the Plass is full of people?” he asked.
“The same way we’re doing now,” Ianto answered with a shrug. “They can’t see us. Well, they can, sort of, but we don't quite register. Just like something in the corner of your eye. It's called a perception filter. It only works on this exact spot.”
“Wow! Way cool!” Andy exclaimed, already down to street level to his ears. “How does it work?”
“I’m not really sure,” Ianto admitted. “We know how to use it, not how it happens. Jack likes to tell people that there was once a dimensionally transcendental chameleon-circuit placed right on this spot, which welded its perception properties to a spatio-temporal rift.”
“Yeah, sure,” Andy said doubtfully.
Ianto grinned. “Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? That’s why we simply call it invisible lift. Bottom line is, there must be some sort of alien technology at work, which isn’t documented in the Archives – at least I haven’t found any description so far – but it has been working for at least a hundred years, as far as I know. Don’t worry, it’s quite safe.”
“I’m not worried,” Andy declared. “I’m… overwhelmed.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Ianto replied. “That is, if I finally manage to talk Jack into hiring you as a freelance agent. This way.”
When they exited the lift, the Hub was empty and almost eerily quiet, save from the screeches of some huge winged creature that was circling around, right under the ceiling.
“What’s that?” Andy asked. “It’s too big to be a bird.”
“Oh, that’s just Myfanwy,” Ianto answered with a dismissive shrug. “Our pterodactyl. Somehow she found her way through the Rift and has got trapped here.” He looked at Andy searchingly. “Your uncle has mentioned the Rift to you, I presume?”
Andy nodded. “It was one of his favourite stories. Made it sound like mad sci-fi, though, so I never guessed it was a real thing, until Gwen joined you lot. So, pterodactyl? And you keep it as a pet?”
“Well, the local zoos aren’t exactly equipped to deal with dinosaurs,” Ianto said.
“And you are?” Andy shook his head in amazement.
“We’re… highly adaptive,” Ianto replied. “I was just about to feed her when you arrived. Would you mind to watch the CCTV for me while I do it? You can use Gwen’s workstation again. Usually, it’s her job – assuming she manages to arrive on time.”
“And how often does that happen?” Andy had an educated guess about that, remembering what it had been like when the two of them had still been partners.
“Once out of five days, approximately,” Ianto said. “Are you sure you don’t mind…?”
“Nah, I’m used to do her job aside from my own,” Andy sat down at the state-of-the-art terminal that was so far beyond the antiquated equipment the police was forced to work with that it wasn’t even funny. “What am I supposed to watch out for?”
“For anyone else but Gwen, Owen or Tosh trying to get in,” Ianto replied. “Jack and I have figured out last night what purpose that alien thing might serve, and there’s a distinct possibility that our killer would want to retrieve it.”
“Really?” Andy felt positively galvanized. “What else have you found out? Are you allowed to tell me?”
“Later,” Ianto looked up to the pterodactyl whose circles were visibly narrowing now. “Survival instinct tells me that the feeding of Myfanwy is top priority at the moment. I’ll be back in no time with coffee, and then we can talk.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ianto didn’t come back as immediately as promised. Andy could see him enter Jack’s office with the obligatory coffee but didn’t leave again. As far as it could be seen from the lower level, they were working on that alien gadget again. They really must have made a breakthrough last night. Andy wondered if he’d ever learn the whole truth about this weird case or would end up with a hole worth of two or three days in his memory.
About half an hour later Owen arrived via invisible lift (Andy was still trying to wrap his mind about the mere concept of such a thing), and then Gwen, only fourteen minutes late. Which was early for her, assuming that her behaviour hadn’t changed since leaving the police.
“Where’s Tosh?” she asked, almost accusingly; then she glared at Andy. “And what are you doing at my computer?”
“I’m doing your job, unless I was unformed mistakenly,” Andy replied. “It’s like old times, eh?”
“Some things apparently don’t change,” Owen commented. “But really, where is Tosh? It’s not like her to be late.”
“That’s right,” Jack said, stepping out onto the walkway, alien gadget still in his hands. “And I’ve learned to become very suspicious when a friend suddenly starts behaving out of character. Perhaps PC Andy here can tell us something about the company Tosh has been keeping lately?”
“Me?” Andy asked, a little nervously. He didn’t want to reveal anything Toshiko had told him in confidence, but he had the feeling that those bright blue eyes of Captain Jack Harkness could see right through him.
Jack shrugged. “You seem to have spent a lot of time with her lately. If you know something, you should tell us now. It’s in her best interest, cos I have the feeling that she’s been under some unhealthy influence in these days… and it hasn’t been you. At least I don’t think so.”
“There isn’t much I can tell you,” Andy replied evasively. “All I know is that she’s seeing some chick she met in a bar… a Mary something. I never got her surname.”
“I seriously doubt she’d have one,” Jack said grimly. “At least not one we’d recognize. What does this Mary person look like?”
“Slim, blonde, smokes a lot… tends to wear very short skirts,” Andy answered, not quite sure what to say. He’d only ever got a glimpse from the woman he considered… well, competition.
“Like the one just entering the tourist office with Tosh?” Owen, who was watching the CCTV monitor, asked.
“What?” Ianto whirled around to glare at the screen as well. “I haven’t even opened yet!”
“Yeah, but Tosh has a key,” Owen reminded him. “I’m a bit stunned that she’d bring a complete stranger in there, though. She ought to know better.”
“She does know better,” Jack said. “But we all do stupid – or dangerous – things out of love sometimes.”
Everybody studiously avoided looking at Ianto, but the hint was clear, even to Andy, who didn’t know what was being hinted at. Ianto stared at the monitor, stone-faced, but the darkening of his eyes spoke volumes.
The Hub alarms went off as the cog door rolled open and Toshiko hurried in, followed by a blonde woman in an extremely short, purple skirt and a top that left nothing to imagination. Absolutely nothing. Strangely enough, Andy didn’t find the sight particularly appealing. Perhaps because he’d watched the woman act around Toshiko suspiciously for a while.
The blonde caught Toshiko just as she was trying to pass.
“Be quick,” she said, running a hand down Toshiko’s face, who shivered under her touch. “I've a long journey ahead of me.” Her voice became strangely distorted as she added. “I might need something to eat before I go.”
Toshiko smiled at her tremulously; then she nodded and hurried up to Jack, who was still standing on the walkway, holding that alien… thing in his hands.
“This what you're looking for?” Jack asked, starting to walk towards them slowly. He looked at Mary. “I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced. Jack Harkness. My guess is you're not from around these parts. Now this...” he held the alien gadget just a little higher, “this is incredible. You know what it is?”
“It's a transporter,” Toshiko answered. “Mary was a political prisoner – she was exiled here. Look, Jack...”
”You've got half of it right,” Jack interrupted. “Mary... It is Mary, isn't it? You want to tell her the really interesting bit? No? Chatty, isn't she? I don't know how you got a word in edgeways, Tosh.”
There was a brief, tense pause between the three of them. Andy could see Owen prepare to lounge at the woman and Gwen staring at them in that stupid, cow-eyed manner that revealed to everyone who knew her that she didn’t have a clue what was going on. Not that that would have been surprising.
“It's a two-man transporter,” Jack continued in a calm, even voice. “Or whatever you people may be,” he added, turning his attention back to Mary. “You might be squids, for all I know. A two-squid transporter. Room for one prisoner and one guard. You want to tell us what happened to the guard, Mary?”
The blonde shrugged nonchalantly. “I killed him. But I was disturbed. By a woman who happened to walk across us. So I’ve just taken over her body. Best disguise possible. Makes people believe you’re one of them.”
Jack nodded. “I can see how that can come handy.”
Mary gave him a broad, inhuman grin. “You’ve got no idea… Then another came – a soldier. He tried to shoot me,” she snorted derisively. “So I plunged my new human hand into his chest and plucked out his heart.”
”And that's what you've been doing ever since,” Owen growled. “Dozens of times… hundreds.”
Mary shrugged again. “This form needs to be fed.”
Owen shook his head in shocked disbelief. “All the punctures were all about the size of a fist. My God, all those people. You killed all those people.”
Mary ignored him, her eyes going vacant with memories. “I fled before any more soldiers came. I had so much to explore! And how I loved this body. So soft. So wicked. The power such a body has in this world. Within a few years the forest had gone, transporter was safely buried under the spread of the city. I didn't care; I wasn't exactly in a hurry to get home.”
“And you've been killing ever since,” Jack finished for her.
“I knew there might come a time when my situation here became… complicated,” Mary replied with another shrug. “But I was safe, as long as I knew where the transporter was.
“Look the way she stares at you with those eyes,” Gwen whispered, her breath hot on Andy’s nape. “She's like an animal.”
Which was a surprisingly accurate statement from someone like Gwen Cooper. Perhaps there was something in the theory that in grave danger one developed unexpected abilities. Too bad that the effect was said to be temporary.
“And then the machine was uncovered,” Jack said.
Mary nodded. “As soon as the air touched its surface, I could feel it. I hurried to the building site, but you guys were faster. You got there before me. It was most… inconvenient, I must say.”
“And then you picked Tosh as the means to get it back,” Jack continued. It wasn’t really a question, but Mary nodded anyway.
“My beautiful Toshiko,” she said half-mockingly. “She was such an easy target, the poor lamb. You’ve made it so easy for me, all of you – belittling her, excluding her, giving her menial tasks… she was ripe for the plucking.”
“And so you gave her that bloody pendant, to make her more docile!” Andy spat angrily.
Those luminous, inhuman eyes turned to him, seizing him up in malevolent delight. She didn’t seem the least afraid, surrounded by several people, all hostile towards her, some of them possibly armed. She just stood there and talked to them, mocking them.
“Are you jealous, young man?” she added sweetly. “Well, I’m ever so sorry… have you gotten there earlier, she might not been perceptive to my seduction, but you were late. Your loss – my gain. Cos I’m not gonna let you have her.”
Before Andy could have reacted in any way, two things happened simultaneously. Owen lounged to attack Mary, who moved away with superhuman speed, grabbed Toshiko, pulled out a nasty-looking knife and held it to her throat. The knife, Andy realized, had incisors on the blade. One bad move and it could tear Toshiko's throat out.
He also realized that Toshiko was wearing that bloody pendant again. When had he put it on? It hadn’t been on her when she’d entered the Hub!
“Let her go, Mary!” Jack said in a warning tone. How could he be so calm? As if it hadn’t bothered him at all to see Toshiko in mortal danger!
For the first time in all his years of service, Andy deeply regretted that police constables didn’t go armed to the teeth. Had he a gun on him, he could save Toshiko now. Unlike most of his colleagues, he was a crack shot. Practiced on the shooting range every week. But right now, he had nothing more threatening on his person than a Swiss Army knife.
“Toshiko, tell them to give me the transporter!” Mary ordered.
Toshiko swallowed hard, causing the blade to scrape the soft skin of her throat. “I can't, Mary.” A thin streak of blood began to trickle down her throat where the knife nicked it.
Ianto closed his eyes for a moment, his pain palpable. “Not again,” he whispered, audibly only for Andy, and only because they happened to stand close to each other. “Please, God, not again.”
Andy had no idea what he was talking about, but it couldn’t have been a good memory.
“How's this?” Mary challenged Jack. “I'll exchange Toshiko for that one,” she nodded towards Gwen, who was still staring at her open-mouthed. “Your choice.”
Owen’s eyes widened in panic at that offer – despite all that snapping and bickering, he apparently did have feelings for Gwen, after all – and Mary grinned that broad, inhuman grin of hers again.”
“Did you hear him?” she asked Toshiko. “He didn't want to, did he? He’d sacrifice you but wouldn’t endanger her. See what you’re worth for him – for them all?”
“What?” Owen shouted, forgetting the dangerous situation for a moment in his outrage. “She read my thoughts? She actually read my bloody thoughts?”
“Please, don't...” Toshiko begged; Andy wasn’t sure whom.
“That's what they think of you,” Mary hissed in Toshiko’s ear nastily. “That's who you've been working with for all these years.”
”It's not true, Tosh,” Owen protested. “Don't listen to her!”
“But not me,” Mary continued, as if the doctor hadn’t said a thing, her voice acquiring that distorted, singsong quality again. “Whatever I've done, it doesn't change the way I feel about you. We have a connection, Toshiko, something real.”
But Andy could tell that Toshiko wasn’t listening to Mary anymore. She was staring at jack; there was definitely some kind of communication going on between the two of them. After a moment Toshiko signalled her consent by closing her eyes briefly, as she couldn’t nod, due to the knife still held to her throat.
“Okay,” Jack said, seemingly coming to a decision. “You want the transporter, we want Toshiko. I think that's a fair swap.”
“Jack, for God’s sake, you can’t negotiate with terrorists!” Gwen intervened angrily. “Let me handle this! I've been trained for hostage situations…”
And failed in each and every simulation quite spectacularly, Andy added in thought, now seriously worried about Toshiko’s life. Still the idea of setting a murderous alien free disagreed with his own training.
“Keep the knife and I'll give you the transporter myself,” Jack said, ignoring Gwen’s indignant sputtering.
“Is he just going to let her go?” Andy whispered to Ianto.
“I think it's a bluff,” Ianto breathed, “and with Jack pulling it, it might even work.”
Jack slowly, carefully approached Mary, allowing her to grab the transporter but not letting go of it just yet. Thy stood alarmingly close, Toshiko wisely using her chance to slip out from between them. She rushed over to Ianto, who simply hugged her and held her, allowing her shaking to cease gradually.
Andy would have given an arm to be in Ianto’s place right now.
Mary didn’t pay them any attention. She was focusing on jack completely, sniffing him in a manner that was as far from discreet as humanly – or inhumanly – possible.
“You smell... different to them,” she murmured, her tone revealing that she found the difference quite appealing.
“That's nothing,” Jack returned with one of those almost-too-bright smiles of his. “It's when you compare teeth with a British guy, that's when it's really scary.”
“Who are you?” Mary asked. “You’re not one of them… and yet you aren’t a completely different species, either. What are you?”
“I don't know,” Jack replied simply, making the little cogwheels in Andy’s head whirl like crazy. According to Uncle Meirion, Jack Harkness had been working for Torchwood Three for how long? Decades? Longer? How came he didn’t seem any older than in those stories Andy’s uncle told about him twenty years ago?
Mary looked at Jack, shaking her head. “And you would have put me in a cage? Have you ever considered what they’d do to you, once they recognized your true nature?”
“That’s my problem to deal with,” Jack replied with a shrug and let go of the transporter. Something within its metal wickerwork began to hum in a low tune.
Mary frowned. “What's happening?”
”Oh, that,” Jack waved nonchalantly. “I re-programmed it for you. It's set to enable. You can leave any time you want.”
But because Mary could have hit the start button, Gwen stepped between the two of them and got hold of the transporter.
“I can’t allow this, Jack!” she declared in that lecturing tone she always used when trying to tell smarter and more experienced people what in her opinion they ought to do; the tone that had made everyone hate her at the police station. “This… this creature has murdered dozens of people, hundreds perhaps during the last two hundred years. We can’t simply let her go.”
To everyone’s absolute shock, Mary began to flow and performed a metamorphosis, becoming a slippery, shiny thing with the face of a Roswell alien and long, sinuous tentacles wriggling around her head and in the place of her fingers.
“I don’t think you’d have a say in this, sweetheart,” it said in a strange, distorted voice. “But you can come with me if you wish to. I might need some food on my long journey, and fresh from the source is always the best.”
“Gwen, let her go!” Jack ordered in a hard, authoritative voice that made Andy snap to attention involuntarily. Gwen, however, wasn’t one to give up easily, direct order or no direct order.
“No, Jack,” she said stubbornly. “I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to,” the creature song-songed. “The capsule has place for two; even if one traveller only serves as a convenient food source,”
It touched something in the heart of the machine, and it began to glow eerily, giving a quiet, beeping noise. Then there was a bright flash of light, and in the next moment both creature and capsule were gone.
From Gwen, only a pile of pale ash remained in the middle of the Hub’s concrete floor.
Toshiko, still standing wrapped in Ianto’s arms, teary-eyed and shaking, looked at Jack. “What did she…?”
“She activated the transporter,” Jack replied simply. “Unfortunately for Gwen, human flesh isn’t made to endure this kind of travelling.”
“What about Mary?” Toshiko asked. “Has she gone home?”
Jack shook his head. “That’s rather unlikely. I reset the co-ordinates.”
“You did? Where to? “
“To the centre of the sun,” Jack said. “It shouldn't be hot. I mean, we sent her there in the early morning and everything.”
Toshiko’s eyes teared up again. “You killed her.”
“Yes,” Jack answered in a rather hard voice. Then he looked at Ianto. “Go with Tosh into the meeting room. Make notes of every detail she can remember. This is a species we haven’t met before, but if Torchwood One’s records are any indication, they’ve visited Earth repeatedly. I want them researched as thoroughly as possible. Next time, we need to be ready for them.”
Ianto nodded and left, shepherding a softly sniffling Toshiko on their way out. Jack sighed; then he turned to Andy.
“Ianto has been hounding me to hire you as a freelance agent for a while; it seems he was right about you. You do have the skills to make a Torchwood agent, and you’re apparently capable of teamwork – I value that. We’ve got a vacancy right now. Are you interested?”
“Jack!” Owen protested. “Are you gonna replace Gwen just like…”
“Like I replaced Suzie?” Jack asked. “Yes, I am. What else could I possibly do? We can’t run this place with only four people, especially with Ianto doing two different jobs already. Besides, it was her own damn fault. Without her self-righteous stupidity, she could have gotten out of this mess without a scratch. So yeah, we do need a new agent, and I intend to hire one. I hope I’m gonna make a better choice this time. Well, Andy, what do you say?”
“Oh, I am interested all right,” Andy said. “But I’d rather keep my job at the police. That way, I could pass on information unofficially both ways, without being completely absorbed by Torchwood. I’d like to keep at least part of my life, if it’s possible.”
Jack nodded. “That’s acceptable. As long as you help us out with field missions, we can manage as a four-man team. Until we get someone better suited than Gwen was, that is. But we’ll keep you as a freelance agent anyway. You’ve proved yourself, and having one of us own within the police would not only be convenient, it would also relieve Ianto from dealing with them.”
“It’s a deal,” Andy glanced at Gwen’s rather unspectacular remains and sighed. “Well, I’ll have to call Rhys; and Gwen’s parents, too. If I only knew what to tell them…”
“Wait until tonight and we’ll come up with a convincing story as well as a corpse,” Jack said. “We’ll even arrange the funeral. No one needs to know that there’ll be a false corpse in the coffin. Owen, put the ashes away and go home. Ianto and I will take care of the rest.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The funeral of Torchwood agent (formerly Police Constable) Gwen Cooper was a simple yet moving one – with a very small crowd gathered around the sealed casket that, in truth, contained the hurriedly unfreezed corpse of some unfortunate homeless person, who’d died in some freak accident and had been made unrecognizable for exactly such purposes. Standard Torchwood procedure, as Ianto had explained to Andy.
The official cause of death was that Gwen had been unfortunate enough to catch some particularly virulent, flesh-eating virus that had damaged her too badly to be publicly shown. Considering all the weird illnesses surfacing unexpectedly in recent years, no-one questioned that reasoning. Of course, the perfectly dosed Retcon, served in the coffee, courtesy of one Mr. Ianto Jones, helped the story forward considerably.
After the funeral, Toshiko and Andy were sitting in that old-fashioned little pub again, reflecting on the recent events.
“You know what the worst thing is?” Toshiko asked, nursing her drink, her eyes dry but full of suppressed pain. “Even when I didn't have the pendant on… even when there was nothing, I couldn't forget the things I've seen… the things I've heard. It was like a curse, something the gods sent to drive someone mad. I had… I hoped I'd see something… some little random act of kindness, that could make me think we were safe, that there was some essential good in us…”
“And…?” Andy asked gently.
She looked at him with those haunted eyes of hers. “There wasn’t any.”
“None at all?” Andy asked. “Are we truly all so horrible?”
She hesitated for a moment, remembering what she’d seen in his thoughts, the one time he’d invited her to take a look. “No,” she finally said. “Not all. But it was still… still horrible. What I did was an invasion. I wasn't in control, I realise that now. But even so, I can't... I have to live with this. Not what I heard, but what I did to you... to all those the privacy of whom I’ve violated.”
“Perhaps,” Andy said. “But don’t let it get to you. We all make mistakes. It’s… it’s only human. Where’s the pendant now?”
“I destroyed it,” Toshiko answered quietly. “Jack allowed me to make the choice, and I found it was the safest thing to do. It seemed like such a small thing, but it could have been the most devastating weapon we ever encountered. It could have torn down governments, wiped out armies. Mankind isn’t ready for dealing with such a thing yet. Perhaps never will be.”
“You’re probably right,” Andy said. “I’m glad you had the strength to give it up, though. Not everyone would have.”
“I know,” she said. “There was something Mary said… Probably the only honest thing she ever did say. I asked her why she gave it to me. And she said, 'After a while it gets to you. It changes how you see people’. Jack meant I only got a snapshot, nothing more… but even that was too much. I wasn’t meant to know those things.”
“Most likely not,” Andy agreed. “But there’s no use to torture yourself about it now. Snapshots can fade, given enough time, and you have to look into the future, not into the past.”
“Owen is really mad at me,” Toshiko whispered dejectedly.
Andy shrugged. “Given the way he’d already treated you before he knew anything about the pendant, I’d say he doesn’t have the right to occupy the moral high ground. Besides, it was clear even without any alien mind-reading device that he was shagging Gwen, so… just ignore him. Come on, it was a long couple of days. I’ll drive you home.”
“You don’t have to, you know,” Toshiko murmured. “It’s not such a long way. I often walk to work.”
“I know,” he smiled at her, “but I’d like to. Don’t you wanna make a simple police officer happy?”
For a moment, Toshiko seemed to hesitate. Then she smiled – it was a very weak smile, but a smile nevertheless – and accepted his gentlemanly arm.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
~The End – for now~
Author: Soledad
Fandom: Torchwood
Category: Heavy-duty Gwen bashing.
Rating: 14+, just to be on the safe side.
Genre: Romance/Angst, for this part. Plus some dark humour.
Series: Wishverse.
Warning: repeated character death(s) in each chapter.
Timeframe: "Greeks Bearing Gifts". Major spoilers. This is an AU, though.
Summary: Many different ways to get rid of Gwen Cooper, while keeping the episodes as canonical as possible.
Disclaimer: the usual: don’t own, don’t sue! Everything belongs to RTD and BBC. I used a great deal of rewritten original dialogue, though.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 6
Author’s notes: Continued from Part 5. Obviously.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Andy could barely sleep that night and arrived way too early to the Torchwood base. The tourist office wasn’t even open yet. But after just a few minutes of indecisive waiting, Ianto stepped out of nowhere to greet him – or so it seemed.
“You’re early,” the Torchwood archivist said. “The others aren’t even in yet. Well, save from Jack, that is, but he kinda lives here, so he doesn’t count.”
“I thought you were the one who lived here,” Andy said.
“Well, sometimes I have that impression, too,” Ianto admitted. “But I actually do have a flat, not too far from here. I even go home to sleep from time to time.”
“Not last night, though,” Andy guessed, based on the younger man’s reddened eyes,
“No,” Ianto admitted. “That, too, happens. Now, since I haven’t opened the tourist office yet, I came to take you down the direct way.”
“There’s another entrance?” Andy asked in surprise.
“Only if someone lets you in from the inside,” Ianto replied. “Come on, stand next to me. It only works when we both stand on this particular slab.”
“What works only…” Andy started to ask, but Ianto didn’t listen to him.
“Take us in, Jack,” he said into his headset, and in the next moment the concrete block they were standing on began to sink with them, slowly but steadily.
Andy quickly grabbed Ianto's arm to keep his balance. “But how do you use this thing when the Plass is full of people?” he asked.
“The same way we’re doing now,” Ianto answered with a shrug. “They can’t see us. Well, they can, sort of, but we don't quite register. Just like something in the corner of your eye. It's called a perception filter. It only works on this exact spot.”
“Wow! Way cool!” Andy exclaimed, already down to street level to his ears. “How does it work?”
“I’m not really sure,” Ianto admitted. “We know how to use it, not how it happens. Jack likes to tell people that there was once a dimensionally transcendental chameleon-circuit placed right on this spot, which welded its perception properties to a spatio-temporal rift.”
“Yeah, sure,” Andy said doubtfully.
Ianto grinned. “Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? That’s why we simply call it invisible lift. Bottom line is, there must be some sort of alien technology at work, which isn’t documented in the Archives – at least I haven’t found any description so far – but it has been working for at least a hundred years, as far as I know. Don’t worry, it’s quite safe.”
“I’m not worried,” Andy declared. “I’m… overwhelmed.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Ianto replied. “That is, if I finally manage to talk Jack into hiring you as a freelance agent. This way.”
When they exited the lift, the Hub was empty and almost eerily quiet, save from the screeches of some huge winged creature that was circling around, right under the ceiling.
“What’s that?” Andy asked. “It’s too big to be a bird.”
“Oh, that’s just Myfanwy,” Ianto answered with a dismissive shrug. “Our pterodactyl. Somehow she found her way through the Rift and has got trapped here.” He looked at Andy searchingly. “Your uncle has mentioned the Rift to you, I presume?”
Andy nodded. “It was one of his favourite stories. Made it sound like mad sci-fi, though, so I never guessed it was a real thing, until Gwen joined you lot. So, pterodactyl? And you keep it as a pet?”
“Well, the local zoos aren’t exactly equipped to deal with dinosaurs,” Ianto said.
“And you are?” Andy shook his head in amazement.
“We’re… highly adaptive,” Ianto replied. “I was just about to feed her when you arrived. Would you mind to watch the CCTV for me while I do it? You can use Gwen’s workstation again. Usually, it’s her job – assuming she manages to arrive on time.”
“And how often does that happen?” Andy had an educated guess about that, remembering what it had been like when the two of them had still been partners.
“Once out of five days, approximately,” Ianto said. “Are you sure you don’t mind…?”
“Nah, I’m used to do her job aside from my own,” Andy sat down at the state-of-the-art terminal that was so far beyond the antiquated equipment the police was forced to work with that it wasn’t even funny. “What am I supposed to watch out for?”
“For anyone else but Gwen, Owen or Tosh trying to get in,” Ianto replied. “Jack and I have figured out last night what purpose that alien thing might serve, and there’s a distinct possibility that our killer would want to retrieve it.”
“Really?” Andy felt positively galvanized. “What else have you found out? Are you allowed to tell me?”
“Later,” Ianto looked up to the pterodactyl whose circles were visibly narrowing now. “Survival instinct tells me that the feeding of Myfanwy is top priority at the moment. I’ll be back in no time with coffee, and then we can talk.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ianto didn’t come back as immediately as promised. Andy could see him enter Jack’s office with the obligatory coffee but didn’t leave again. As far as it could be seen from the lower level, they were working on that alien gadget again. They really must have made a breakthrough last night. Andy wondered if he’d ever learn the whole truth about this weird case or would end up with a hole worth of two or three days in his memory.
About half an hour later Owen arrived via invisible lift (Andy was still trying to wrap his mind about the mere concept of such a thing), and then Gwen, only fourteen minutes late. Which was early for her, assuming that her behaviour hadn’t changed since leaving the police.
“Where’s Tosh?” she asked, almost accusingly; then she glared at Andy. “And what are you doing at my computer?”
“I’m doing your job, unless I was unformed mistakenly,” Andy replied. “It’s like old times, eh?”
“Some things apparently don’t change,” Owen commented. “But really, where is Tosh? It’s not like her to be late.”
“That’s right,” Jack said, stepping out onto the walkway, alien gadget still in his hands. “And I’ve learned to become very suspicious when a friend suddenly starts behaving out of character. Perhaps PC Andy here can tell us something about the company Tosh has been keeping lately?”
“Me?” Andy asked, a little nervously. He didn’t want to reveal anything Toshiko had told him in confidence, but he had the feeling that those bright blue eyes of Captain Jack Harkness could see right through him.
Jack shrugged. “You seem to have spent a lot of time with her lately. If you know something, you should tell us now. It’s in her best interest, cos I have the feeling that she’s been under some unhealthy influence in these days… and it hasn’t been you. At least I don’t think so.”
“There isn’t much I can tell you,” Andy replied evasively. “All I know is that she’s seeing some chick she met in a bar… a Mary something. I never got her surname.”
“I seriously doubt she’d have one,” Jack said grimly. “At least not one we’d recognize. What does this Mary person look like?”
“Slim, blonde, smokes a lot… tends to wear very short skirts,” Andy answered, not quite sure what to say. He’d only ever got a glimpse from the woman he considered… well, competition.
“Like the one just entering the tourist office with Tosh?” Owen, who was watching the CCTV monitor, asked.
“What?” Ianto whirled around to glare at the screen as well. “I haven’t even opened yet!”
“Yeah, but Tosh has a key,” Owen reminded him. “I’m a bit stunned that she’d bring a complete stranger in there, though. She ought to know better.”
“She does know better,” Jack said. “But we all do stupid – or dangerous – things out of love sometimes.”
Everybody studiously avoided looking at Ianto, but the hint was clear, even to Andy, who didn’t know what was being hinted at. Ianto stared at the monitor, stone-faced, but the darkening of his eyes spoke volumes.
The Hub alarms went off as the cog door rolled open and Toshiko hurried in, followed by a blonde woman in an extremely short, purple skirt and a top that left nothing to imagination. Absolutely nothing. Strangely enough, Andy didn’t find the sight particularly appealing. Perhaps because he’d watched the woman act around Toshiko suspiciously for a while.
The blonde caught Toshiko just as she was trying to pass.
“Be quick,” she said, running a hand down Toshiko’s face, who shivered under her touch. “I've a long journey ahead of me.” Her voice became strangely distorted as she added. “I might need something to eat before I go.”
Toshiko smiled at her tremulously; then she nodded and hurried up to Jack, who was still standing on the walkway, holding that alien… thing in his hands.
“This what you're looking for?” Jack asked, starting to walk towards them slowly. He looked at Mary. “I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced. Jack Harkness. My guess is you're not from around these parts. Now this...” he held the alien gadget just a little higher, “this is incredible. You know what it is?”
“It's a transporter,” Toshiko answered. “Mary was a political prisoner – she was exiled here. Look, Jack...”
”You've got half of it right,” Jack interrupted. “Mary... It is Mary, isn't it? You want to tell her the really interesting bit? No? Chatty, isn't she? I don't know how you got a word in edgeways, Tosh.”
There was a brief, tense pause between the three of them. Andy could see Owen prepare to lounge at the woman and Gwen staring at them in that stupid, cow-eyed manner that revealed to everyone who knew her that she didn’t have a clue what was going on. Not that that would have been surprising.
“It's a two-man transporter,” Jack continued in a calm, even voice. “Or whatever you people may be,” he added, turning his attention back to Mary. “You might be squids, for all I know. A two-squid transporter. Room for one prisoner and one guard. You want to tell us what happened to the guard, Mary?”
The blonde shrugged nonchalantly. “I killed him. But I was disturbed. By a woman who happened to walk across us. So I’ve just taken over her body. Best disguise possible. Makes people believe you’re one of them.”
Jack nodded. “I can see how that can come handy.”
Mary gave him a broad, inhuman grin. “You’ve got no idea… Then another came – a soldier. He tried to shoot me,” she snorted derisively. “So I plunged my new human hand into his chest and plucked out his heart.”
”And that's what you've been doing ever since,” Owen growled. “Dozens of times… hundreds.”
Mary shrugged again. “This form needs to be fed.”
Owen shook his head in shocked disbelief. “All the punctures were all about the size of a fist. My God, all those people. You killed all those people.”
Mary ignored him, her eyes going vacant with memories. “I fled before any more soldiers came. I had so much to explore! And how I loved this body. So soft. So wicked. The power such a body has in this world. Within a few years the forest had gone, transporter was safely buried under the spread of the city. I didn't care; I wasn't exactly in a hurry to get home.”
“And you've been killing ever since,” Jack finished for her.
“I knew there might come a time when my situation here became… complicated,” Mary replied with another shrug. “But I was safe, as long as I knew where the transporter was.
“Look the way she stares at you with those eyes,” Gwen whispered, her breath hot on Andy’s nape. “She's like an animal.”
Which was a surprisingly accurate statement from someone like Gwen Cooper. Perhaps there was something in the theory that in grave danger one developed unexpected abilities. Too bad that the effect was said to be temporary.
“And then the machine was uncovered,” Jack said.
Mary nodded. “As soon as the air touched its surface, I could feel it. I hurried to the building site, but you guys were faster. You got there before me. It was most… inconvenient, I must say.”
“And then you picked Tosh as the means to get it back,” Jack continued. It wasn’t really a question, but Mary nodded anyway.
“My beautiful Toshiko,” she said half-mockingly. “She was such an easy target, the poor lamb. You’ve made it so easy for me, all of you – belittling her, excluding her, giving her menial tasks… she was ripe for the plucking.”
“And so you gave her that bloody pendant, to make her more docile!” Andy spat angrily.
Those luminous, inhuman eyes turned to him, seizing him up in malevolent delight. She didn’t seem the least afraid, surrounded by several people, all hostile towards her, some of them possibly armed. She just stood there and talked to them, mocking them.
“Are you jealous, young man?” she added sweetly. “Well, I’m ever so sorry… have you gotten there earlier, she might not been perceptive to my seduction, but you were late. Your loss – my gain. Cos I’m not gonna let you have her.”
Before Andy could have reacted in any way, two things happened simultaneously. Owen lounged to attack Mary, who moved away with superhuman speed, grabbed Toshiko, pulled out a nasty-looking knife and held it to her throat. The knife, Andy realized, had incisors on the blade. One bad move and it could tear Toshiko's throat out.
He also realized that Toshiko was wearing that bloody pendant again. When had he put it on? It hadn’t been on her when she’d entered the Hub!
“Let her go, Mary!” Jack said in a warning tone. How could he be so calm? As if it hadn’t bothered him at all to see Toshiko in mortal danger!
For the first time in all his years of service, Andy deeply regretted that police constables didn’t go armed to the teeth. Had he a gun on him, he could save Toshiko now. Unlike most of his colleagues, he was a crack shot. Practiced on the shooting range every week. But right now, he had nothing more threatening on his person than a Swiss Army knife.
“Toshiko, tell them to give me the transporter!” Mary ordered.
Toshiko swallowed hard, causing the blade to scrape the soft skin of her throat. “I can't, Mary.” A thin streak of blood began to trickle down her throat where the knife nicked it.
Ianto closed his eyes for a moment, his pain palpable. “Not again,” he whispered, audibly only for Andy, and only because they happened to stand close to each other. “Please, God, not again.”
Andy had no idea what he was talking about, but it couldn’t have been a good memory.
“How's this?” Mary challenged Jack. “I'll exchange Toshiko for that one,” she nodded towards Gwen, who was still staring at her open-mouthed. “Your choice.”
Owen’s eyes widened in panic at that offer – despite all that snapping and bickering, he apparently did have feelings for Gwen, after all – and Mary grinned that broad, inhuman grin of hers again.”
“Did you hear him?” she asked Toshiko. “He didn't want to, did he? He’d sacrifice you but wouldn’t endanger her. See what you’re worth for him – for them all?”
“What?” Owen shouted, forgetting the dangerous situation for a moment in his outrage. “She read my thoughts? She actually read my bloody thoughts?”
“Please, don't...” Toshiko begged; Andy wasn’t sure whom.
“That's what they think of you,” Mary hissed in Toshiko’s ear nastily. “That's who you've been working with for all these years.”
”It's not true, Tosh,” Owen protested. “Don't listen to her!”
“But not me,” Mary continued, as if the doctor hadn’t said a thing, her voice acquiring that distorted, singsong quality again. “Whatever I've done, it doesn't change the way I feel about you. We have a connection, Toshiko, something real.”
But Andy could tell that Toshiko wasn’t listening to Mary anymore. She was staring at jack; there was definitely some kind of communication going on between the two of them. After a moment Toshiko signalled her consent by closing her eyes briefly, as she couldn’t nod, due to the knife still held to her throat.
“Okay,” Jack said, seemingly coming to a decision. “You want the transporter, we want Toshiko. I think that's a fair swap.”
“Jack, for God’s sake, you can’t negotiate with terrorists!” Gwen intervened angrily. “Let me handle this! I've been trained for hostage situations…”
And failed in each and every simulation quite spectacularly, Andy added in thought, now seriously worried about Toshiko’s life. Still the idea of setting a murderous alien free disagreed with his own training.
“Keep the knife and I'll give you the transporter myself,” Jack said, ignoring Gwen’s indignant sputtering.
“Is he just going to let her go?” Andy whispered to Ianto.
“I think it's a bluff,” Ianto breathed, “and with Jack pulling it, it might even work.”
Jack slowly, carefully approached Mary, allowing her to grab the transporter but not letting go of it just yet. Thy stood alarmingly close, Toshiko wisely using her chance to slip out from between them. She rushed over to Ianto, who simply hugged her and held her, allowing her shaking to cease gradually.
Andy would have given an arm to be in Ianto’s place right now.
Mary didn’t pay them any attention. She was focusing on jack completely, sniffing him in a manner that was as far from discreet as humanly – or inhumanly – possible.
“You smell... different to them,” she murmured, her tone revealing that she found the difference quite appealing.
“That's nothing,” Jack returned with one of those almost-too-bright smiles of his. “It's when you compare teeth with a British guy, that's when it's really scary.”
“Who are you?” Mary asked. “You’re not one of them… and yet you aren’t a completely different species, either. What are you?”
“I don't know,” Jack replied simply, making the little cogwheels in Andy’s head whirl like crazy. According to Uncle Meirion, Jack Harkness had been working for Torchwood Three for how long? Decades? Longer? How came he didn’t seem any older than in those stories Andy’s uncle told about him twenty years ago?
Mary looked at Jack, shaking her head. “And you would have put me in a cage? Have you ever considered what they’d do to you, once they recognized your true nature?”
“That’s my problem to deal with,” Jack replied with a shrug and let go of the transporter. Something within its metal wickerwork began to hum in a low tune.
Mary frowned. “What's happening?”
”Oh, that,” Jack waved nonchalantly. “I re-programmed it for you. It's set to enable. You can leave any time you want.”
But because Mary could have hit the start button, Gwen stepped between the two of them and got hold of the transporter.
“I can’t allow this, Jack!” she declared in that lecturing tone she always used when trying to tell smarter and more experienced people what in her opinion they ought to do; the tone that had made everyone hate her at the police station. “This… this creature has murdered dozens of people, hundreds perhaps during the last two hundred years. We can’t simply let her go.”
To everyone’s absolute shock, Mary began to flow and performed a metamorphosis, becoming a slippery, shiny thing with the face of a Roswell alien and long, sinuous tentacles wriggling around her head and in the place of her fingers.
“I don’t think you’d have a say in this, sweetheart,” it said in a strange, distorted voice. “But you can come with me if you wish to. I might need some food on my long journey, and fresh from the source is always the best.”
“Gwen, let her go!” Jack ordered in a hard, authoritative voice that made Andy snap to attention involuntarily. Gwen, however, wasn’t one to give up easily, direct order or no direct order.
“No, Jack,” she said stubbornly. “I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to,” the creature song-songed. “The capsule has place for two; even if one traveller only serves as a convenient food source,”
It touched something in the heart of the machine, and it began to glow eerily, giving a quiet, beeping noise. Then there was a bright flash of light, and in the next moment both creature and capsule were gone.
From Gwen, only a pile of pale ash remained in the middle of the Hub’s concrete floor.
Toshiko, still standing wrapped in Ianto’s arms, teary-eyed and shaking, looked at Jack. “What did she…?”
“She activated the transporter,” Jack replied simply. “Unfortunately for Gwen, human flesh isn’t made to endure this kind of travelling.”
“What about Mary?” Toshiko asked. “Has she gone home?”
Jack shook his head. “That’s rather unlikely. I reset the co-ordinates.”
“You did? Where to? “
“To the centre of the sun,” Jack said. “It shouldn't be hot. I mean, we sent her there in the early morning and everything.”
Toshiko’s eyes teared up again. “You killed her.”
“Yes,” Jack answered in a rather hard voice. Then he looked at Ianto. “Go with Tosh into the meeting room. Make notes of every detail she can remember. This is a species we haven’t met before, but if Torchwood One’s records are any indication, they’ve visited Earth repeatedly. I want them researched as thoroughly as possible. Next time, we need to be ready for them.”
Ianto nodded and left, shepherding a softly sniffling Toshiko on their way out. Jack sighed; then he turned to Andy.
“Ianto has been hounding me to hire you as a freelance agent for a while; it seems he was right about you. You do have the skills to make a Torchwood agent, and you’re apparently capable of teamwork – I value that. We’ve got a vacancy right now. Are you interested?”
“Jack!” Owen protested. “Are you gonna replace Gwen just like…”
“Like I replaced Suzie?” Jack asked. “Yes, I am. What else could I possibly do? We can’t run this place with only four people, especially with Ianto doing two different jobs already. Besides, it was her own damn fault. Without her self-righteous stupidity, she could have gotten out of this mess without a scratch. So yeah, we do need a new agent, and I intend to hire one. I hope I’m gonna make a better choice this time. Well, Andy, what do you say?”
“Oh, I am interested all right,” Andy said. “But I’d rather keep my job at the police. That way, I could pass on information unofficially both ways, without being completely absorbed by Torchwood. I’d like to keep at least part of my life, if it’s possible.”
Jack nodded. “That’s acceptable. As long as you help us out with field missions, we can manage as a four-man team. Until we get someone better suited than Gwen was, that is. But we’ll keep you as a freelance agent anyway. You’ve proved yourself, and having one of us own within the police would not only be convenient, it would also relieve Ianto from dealing with them.”
“It’s a deal,” Andy glanced at Gwen’s rather unspectacular remains and sighed. “Well, I’ll have to call Rhys; and Gwen’s parents, too. If I only knew what to tell them…”
“Wait until tonight and we’ll come up with a convincing story as well as a corpse,” Jack said. “We’ll even arrange the funeral. No one needs to know that there’ll be a false corpse in the coffin. Owen, put the ashes away and go home. Ianto and I will take care of the rest.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The funeral of Torchwood agent (formerly Police Constable) Gwen Cooper was a simple yet moving one – with a very small crowd gathered around the sealed casket that, in truth, contained the hurriedly unfreezed corpse of some unfortunate homeless person, who’d died in some freak accident and had been made unrecognizable for exactly such purposes. Standard Torchwood procedure, as Ianto had explained to Andy.
The official cause of death was that Gwen had been unfortunate enough to catch some particularly virulent, flesh-eating virus that had damaged her too badly to be publicly shown. Considering all the weird illnesses surfacing unexpectedly in recent years, no-one questioned that reasoning. Of course, the perfectly dosed Retcon, served in the coffee, courtesy of one Mr. Ianto Jones, helped the story forward considerably.
After the funeral, Toshiko and Andy were sitting in that old-fashioned little pub again, reflecting on the recent events.
“You know what the worst thing is?” Toshiko asked, nursing her drink, her eyes dry but full of suppressed pain. “Even when I didn't have the pendant on… even when there was nothing, I couldn't forget the things I've seen… the things I've heard. It was like a curse, something the gods sent to drive someone mad. I had… I hoped I'd see something… some little random act of kindness, that could make me think we were safe, that there was some essential good in us…”
“And…?” Andy asked gently.
She looked at him with those haunted eyes of hers. “There wasn’t any.”
“None at all?” Andy asked. “Are we truly all so horrible?”
She hesitated for a moment, remembering what she’d seen in his thoughts, the one time he’d invited her to take a look. “No,” she finally said. “Not all. But it was still… still horrible. What I did was an invasion. I wasn't in control, I realise that now. But even so, I can't... I have to live with this. Not what I heard, but what I did to you... to all those the privacy of whom I’ve violated.”
“Perhaps,” Andy said. “But don’t let it get to you. We all make mistakes. It’s… it’s only human. Where’s the pendant now?”
“I destroyed it,” Toshiko answered quietly. “Jack allowed me to make the choice, and I found it was the safest thing to do. It seemed like such a small thing, but it could have been the most devastating weapon we ever encountered. It could have torn down governments, wiped out armies. Mankind isn’t ready for dealing with such a thing yet. Perhaps never will be.”
“You’re probably right,” Andy said. “I’m glad you had the strength to give it up, though. Not everyone would have.”
“I know,” she said. “There was something Mary said… Probably the only honest thing she ever did say. I asked her why she gave it to me. And she said, 'After a while it gets to you. It changes how you see people’. Jack meant I only got a snapshot, nothing more… but even that was too much. I wasn’t meant to know those things.”
“Most likely not,” Andy agreed. “But there’s no use to torture yourself about it now. Snapshots can fade, given enough time, and you have to look into the future, not into the past.”
“Owen is really mad at me,” Toshiko whispered dejectedly.
Andy shrugged. “Given the way he’d already treated you before he knew anything about the pendant, I’d say he doesn’t have the right to occupy the moral high ground. Besides, it was clear even without any alien mind-reading device that he was shagging Gwen, so… just ignore him. Come on, it was a long couple of days. I’ll drive you home.”
“You don’t have to, you know,” Toshiko murmured. “It’s not such a long way. I often walk to work.”
“I know,” he smiled at her, “but I’d like to. Don’t you wanna make a simple police officer happy?”
For a moment, Toshiko seemed to hesitate. Then she smiled – it was a very weak smile, but a smile nevertheless – and accepted his gentlemanly arm.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
~The End – for now~
