m_findlow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
m_findlow) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly2024-04-28 12:19 pm
m_findlow) wrote in fandomweekly2024-04-28 12:19 pm
Entry tags:
[#218] RETURN TO SENDER (TORCHWOOD)
Theme Prompt: #218 - Caught in the rain
Title: Return to sender
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Jack prayed that the day would never come when he’d have to face the consequences of what the rift can do.
Jack slumped back on the sofa and assessed his situation. Pizza and reruns of movies from the early nineties on television. Just a normal night at the hub, Jack remarked to himself. Just like most nights, he realised. When had he become such a homebody? Probably when he’d started being the one single-handedly running Torchwood Cardiff. Not that he wanted it any other way. People got killed in this line of work. Too many people, and people he’d come to care about on a lot of occasions. Better that the job fall on the shoulders of someone who couldn’t die, begrudging as that was.
He lifted up a slice of pizza from the box in his lap and took a bite, immediately regretting the decision to try something new. Greek lamb pizza was never going to take off in his humble opinion, chewing through it, wishing he’d stuck to pepperoni and mushrooms like he usually did. He liked consistency, from the clothes he wore to the pizza he ordered. He’d seen and been forced to adapt to enough change in his life of hopping across time and space. Sometimes you just needed things to keep you grounded.
He took another bite, masticating through too generous a dollop of salty yoghurt and feta when the computers began to bleep at him, sparing him temporarily from more of the same. ‘Weevils, please come save me from a fate worse than boredom,’ he muttered, picking himself up off the sofa and walking over to the nearest computer.
His relief quickly turned to a stomach lurching fear. No, it couldn’t be, Jack thought, seeing the readings on the screen. Their mainframe must've gotten it wrong. Eight months without a negative rift spike and now he was looking at unequivocal evidence of one.
He’d been dreading this day, ever since he’d connected the dots and learned the awful truth of the people he’d found locked down in the deepest recesses of the hub. People that had been taken by the rift and returned months, or years, later; damaged, scarred and broken. What had Alex been thinking, keeping them down there? He’d been a good guy – one of the best Jack had ever worked for – but he’d left them down there to rot like they were nothing. They were human. Residents of the city that Jack had come to love. The city that had destroyed their lives all because it sat on top of a rift in time and space.
Jubilee’s El Greco Special and Notting Hill would have to wait.
The spike was only a few miles away as Jack followed the data on his heads-up display. He got out of the car and started scanning the quiet night-time streets for movement. The heavens opened before he’d made it more than half a block down the road. Not just the usual Cardiff damp, but a downpour that immediately formed deep puddles through which his boots sloshed, splashing his trousers and seeping quickly through his coat. He grimaced and let out a vexed sound that was drowned out by the slap of water on bitumen before muttering to himself. ‘And today just keeps getting worse.’ Why hadn’t he thought to bring an umbrella?
Through the blur of rain he finally spotted someone, half standing, half hunched, leaned in against a wall. Injured perhaps. Frightened, confused, and undoubtedly freezing and soaked to the skin.
‘Hello!’ Jack called out.
The head of a young red-headed man turned, a grimace of horror etched all over his face as he kept his arms clutched protectively around his middle. ‘Go away!’ he cried, sobbing the words out rather than an aggressive instruction for Jack to back off.
‘It’s okay!’ Jack yelled back. ‘I know what happened to you.’ The man flinched and backed away several yards. Jack cursed himself. Stupid! What the hell did he know? Only that the rift had taken him and dumped him here. Beyond that, he didn’t have a clue what the man had been through. All he had a right to assume was that he hadn’t been happily lounging somewhere tropical. For all the guy knew he was someplace even worse than he had been, and that Jack was about to cause him a world of pain.
The rain came down even harder, soaking all the way through his coat and into his clothes underneath. More of it dripped from his hair as it clung to his scalp, running down his face, into his eyes and the taste of ozone dribbling into his mouth. He took a few tentative steps forward, arm reaching out in what he hoped was a friendly way. ‘I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help. Come with me somewhere safe and dry.’
‘Please just go away!’
Jack chewed the inside of his lip. He hadn’t expected it to be this hard. It had been easier to empathise with the people he found down in the cells who’d at least had time to reconcile with where they were. He took a few more steps, slowly closing the gap between them. ‘You’re back in Cardiff,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but it’s true. Please,’ Jack begged again. ‘I can help.’ He didn’t know how, but there had to be something he could do to atone. If he didn't at least try, he’d never know.
The young man's face trembled at the word Cardiff, then he sobbed before crumpling down to the ground. Jack only just managed to catch him before he hit the puddle laden ground, arms falling loose for Jack to finally see the huge bleeding gash across the man’s torso, red blood washing away with the rain under the pale sodium streetlight. Crap. No time for the hours-long trip out to Flat Holm Island, where Jack had people on hand. He needed a doctor now. He hefted the man in a fireman’s lift, wishing he could go back to pizza and a movie.
Title: Return to sender
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Jack prayed that the day would never come when he’d have to face the consequences of what the rift can do.
Jack slumped back on the sofa and assessed his situation. Pizza and reruns of movies from the early nineties on television. Just a normal night at the hub, Jack remarked to himself. Just like most nights, he realised. When had he become such a homebody? Probably when he’d started being the one single-handedly running Torchwood Cardiff. Not that he wanted it any other way. People got killed in this line of work. Too many people, and people he’d come to care about on a lot of occasions. Better that the job fall on the shoulders of someone who couldn’t die, begrudging as that was.
He lifted up a slice of pizza from the box in his lap and took a bite, immediately regretting the decision to try something new. Greek lamb pizza was never going to take off in his humble opinion, chewing through it, wishing he’d stuck to pepperoni and mushrooms like he usually did. He liked consistency, from the clothes he wore to the pizza he ordered. He’d seen and been forced to adapt to enough change in his life of hopping across time and space. Sometimes you just needed things to keep you grounded.
He took another bite, masticating through too generous a dollop of salty yoghurt and feta when the computers began to bleep at him, sparing him temporarily from more of the same. ‘Weevils, please come save me from a fate worse than boredom,’ he muttered, picking himself up off the sofa and walking over to the nearest computer.
His relief quickly turned to a stomach lurching fear. No, it couldn’t be, Jack thought, seeing the readings on the screen. Their mainframe must've gotten it wrong. Eight months without a negative rift spike and now he was looking at unequivocal evidence of one.
He’d been dreading this day, ever since he’d connected the dots and learned the awful truth of the people he’d found locked down in the deepest recesses of the hub. People that had been taken by the rift and returned months, or years, later; damaged, scarred and broken. What had Alex been thinking, keeping them down there? He’d been a good guy – one of the best Jack had ever worked for – but he’d left them down there to rot like they were nothing. They were human. Residents of the city that Jack had come to love. The city that had destroyed their lives all because it sat on top of a rift in time and space.
Jubilee’s El Greco Special and Notting Hill would have to wait.
The spike was only a few miles away as Jack followed the data on his heads-up display. He got out of the car and started scanning the quiet night-time streets for movement. The heavens opened before he’d made it more than half a block down the road. Not just the usual Cardiff damp, but a downpour that immediately formed deep puddles through which his boots sloshed, splashing his trousers and seeping quickly through his coat. He grimaced and let out a vexed sound that was drowned out by the slap of water on bitumen before muttering to himself. ‘And today just keeps getting worse.’ Why hadn’t he thought to bring an umbrella?
Through the blur of rain he finally spotted someone, half standing, half hunched, leaned in against a wall. Injured perhaps. Frightened, confused, and undoubtedly freezing and soaked to the skin.
‘Hello!’ Jack called out.
The head of a young red-headed man turned, a grimace of horror etched all over his face as he kept his arms clutched protectively around his middle. ‘Go away!’ he cried, sobbing the words out rather than an aggressive instruction for Jack to back off.
‘It’s okay!’ Jack yelled back. ‘I know what happened to you.’ The man flinched and backed away several yards. Jack cursed himself. Stupid! What the hell did he know? Only that the rift had taken him and dumped him here. Beyond that, he didn’t have a clue what the man had been through. All he had a right to assume was that he hadn’t been happily lounging somewhere tropical. For all the guy knew he was someplace even worse than he had been, and that Jack was about to cause him a world of pain.
The rain came down even harder, soaking all the way through his coat and into his clothes underneath. More of it dripped from his hair as it clung to his scalp, running down his face, into his eyes and the taste of ozone dribbling into his mouth. He took a few tentative steps forward, arm reaching out in what he hoped was a friendly way. ‘I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help. Come with me somewhere safe and dry.’
‘Please just go away!’
Jack chewed the inside of his lip. He hadn’t expected it to be this hard. It had been easier to empathise with the people he found down in the cells who’d at least had time to reconcile with where they were. He took a few more steps, slowly closing the gap between them. ‘You’re back in Cardiff,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but it’s true. Please,’ Jack begged again. ‘I can help.’ He didn’t know how, but there had to be something he could do to atone. If he didn't at least try, he’d never know.
The young man's face trembled at the word Cardiff, then he sobbed before crumpling down to the ground. Jack only just managed to catch him before he hit the puddle laden ground, arms falling loose for Jack to finally see the huge bleeding gash across the man’s torso, red blood washing away with the rain under the pale sodium streetlight. Crap. No time for the hours-long trip out to Flat Holm Island, where Jack had people on hand. He needed a doctor now. He hefted the man in a fireman’s lift, wishing he could go back to pizza and a movie.
no subject