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fandomweekly2024-06-21 01:03 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2024-06-21 01:03 pm
Entry tags:
[#224] Shamed (Torchwood)
Theme Prompt: #224 – Guilt
Title: Shamed
Fandom: Torchwood.
Rating/Warnings: PG / None
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Owen is weighed down with guilt, feeling like he didn’t try hard enough to save Katie, especially when Ianto tried so much harder to save Lisa.
Up until Ianto’s cyber-girlfriend, the one he’d had hidden in the basement for MONTHS without anyone knowing, had gone on the rampage through the Hub, intending to turn the team into soldiers for her metal army, Owen hadn’t really cared one way or the other about the Teaboy. He’d been efficient enough at clearing up messes, made good coffee, and took care of all the boring stuff no one else could be arsed to do. But that was about it.
After the whole cyber-debacle though…
When Ianto returned to work after his month-long suspension, Owen had confronted him, seething with rage and disgust. “If it’d been up to me, I would’ve shot you and tossed the body in the furnace. Or maybe not bothered wasting a bullet, just tossed you in there anyway. You almost got us all killed, or converted. You got any more metal monsters hidden away we should know about?”
Ianto hadn’t so much as flinched, just said tiredly, tonelessly, “You know I haven’t. Jack told me you’d searched every room and every level, top to bottom.”
“I hate you. Just stay out of my way. I don’t even wanna see you. Mess up again, and it won’t be Jack you’re dealing with. You’re fuckin’ insane! How could you love that thing?”
“Her name was Lisa, and the conversion wasn’t complete when I found her. I thought there was still a chance I could save her.”
“Then you’re stupid as well as crazy.” Owen had shoved Ianto hard in the chest, sending him staggering back several steps before he’d regained his balance. “Once conversion starts it can’t be reversed! Your precious Lisa was gone the moment she was strapped to the conversion unit!”
“I didn’t know that. I just… I did what I had to do.”
“You should’ve just killed that thing instead of trying to help it!”
“You don’t understand. No one does. I would’ve done anything to save her.” Ianto had turned and walked away then, shoulders slumped in weary defeat, grief, whatever, leaving Owen standing there with no outlet for his anger, so he’d kicked a nearby rubbish bin across the room, scattering its contents everywhere, feeling a kind of savage satisfaction at making more work for the pathetic idiot who’d brought a monster into their fortified base.
What got to Owen Harper the most was that he DID understand. A few short years ago, he’d had not just a girlfriend, but a fiancée, Katie, a vibrant, beautiful, smart, funny, sexy woman who’d won his heart practically the day they’d met. She’d been special, wonderful, and she’d loved him; he hadn’t deserved her, but when he’d proposed, she’d said yes. Everything had been so perfect, until she’d started forgetting things, and by the time he’d really started pushing for answers, it had been too late.
He should have realised something was wrong sooner, should have tried harder to get to the bottom of it, shouldn’t have let them both be fobbed off with a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s, not when there’d been no symptoms at all until the forgetfulness had started. Even then, he’d brushed it off at first, put it down to Katie being tired and under a lot of stress from working long hours at the same time as trying to plan their wedding. Junior doctors were always overworked.
If he’d taken the problem more seriously right at the start… She’d gone downhill so fast. He should have demanded more tests, higher resolution brain scans, greater magnification of the scans that had already been taken. He should have done SOMETHING! The woman he loved had been slipping away from him millimetre by millimetre, and he hadn’t done enough!
Maybe, if they’d found the parasite in her brain sooner, they could have operated and removed it before it became so dangerous, or used radiation or chemo to kill it before its defences were operational. There had to have been more he could’ve done, but she’d died during surgery because that option had been left too late and the thing in her head had defended itself. He’d loved her more than anything, but all he could think now, even three years after the fact, was that he hadn’t fought hard enough to save her. Even if it had ultimately been hopeless, he should have tried harder.
He hated Ianto for showing him what true devotion meant. The kid had dragged his half-converted girlfriend from a burning building teeming with metal monsters and armed soldiers. Traumatised and reeling from the nightmare events of the Canary Wharf battle, he’d somehow transported her over a hundred and fifty miles to Cardiff, hidden her somewhere, and started trying to get a job with Torchwood Three.
Then he’d overcome all their security programmes to sneak his cyber-girlfriend into the Hub without anyone knowing about it, had hidden her in the basement for seven months, caring for her while working his arse off every day. As if all of that wasn’t already more than one scared, exhausted kid should have been capable of, he’d then proceeded to contact a cybernetics expert, arranging for him to fly to Cardiff from Japan, booked accommodations, and slipped the cyberneticist into the Hub, bypassing security protocols a second time… Even when she’d gone berserk, killed Tanizaki, tried to convert Gwen, and thrown Ianto bodily across the Hub, he STILL hadn’t given up, so desperate to save his girl that he would have done anything.
It put Owen to shame. A twenty-three-year-old kid had shown more courage and determination in trying to save the woman he loved than Owen himself had. He’d kept trying, refused to let anyone or anything stand in his way, had been willing to sacrifice his own life in order to save Lisa, had worked himself practically into the ground juggling his responsibilities, and yeah, he’d failed, but he’d TRIED.
What had Owen done? Not enough, and that was the source of his guilt. Ianto wouldn’t have given up so easily.
The End
After the whole cyber-debacle though…
When Ianto returned to work after his month-long suspension, Owen had confronted him, seething with rage and disgust. “If it’d been up to me, I would’ve shot you and tossed the body in the furnace. Or maybe not bothered wasting a bullet, just tossed you in there anyway. You almost got us all killed, or converted. You got any more metal monsters hidden away we should know about?”
Ianto hadn’t so much as flinched, just said tiredly, tonelessly, “You know I haven’t. Jack told me you’d searched every room and every level, top to bottom.”
“I hate you. Just stay out of my way. I don’t even wanna see you. Mess up again, and it won’t be Jack you’re dealing with. You’re fuckin’ insane! How could you love that thing?”
“Her name was Lisa, and the conversion wasn’t complete when I found her. I thought there was still a chance I could save her.”
“Then you’re stupid as well as crazy.” Owen had shoved Ianto hard in the chest, sending him staggering back several steps before he’d regained his balance. “Once conversion starts it can’t be reversed! Your precious Lisa was gone the moment she was strapped to the conversion unit!”
“I didn’t know that. I just… I did what I had to do.”
“You should’ve just killed that thing instead of trying to help it!”
“You don’t understand. No one does. I would’ve done anything to save her.” Ianto had turned and walked away then, shoulders slumped in weary defeat, grief, whatever, leaving Owen standing there with no outlet for his anger, so he’d kicked a nearby rubbish bin across the room, scattering its contents everywhere, feeling a kind of savage satisfaction at making more work for the pathetic idiot who’d brought a monster into their fortified base.
What got to Owen Harper the most was that he DID understand. A few short years ago, he’d had not just a girlfriend, but a fiancée, Katie, a vibrant, beautiful, smart, funny, sexy woman who’d won his heart practically the day they’d met. She’d been special, wonderful, and she’d loved him; he hadn’t deserved her, but when he’d proposed, she’d said yes. Everything had been so perfect, until she’d started forgetting things, and by the time he’d really started pushing for answers, it had been too late.
He should have realised something was wrong sooner, should have tried harder to get to the bottom of it, shouldn’t have let them both be fobbed off with a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s, not when there’d been no symptoms at all until the forgetfulness had started. Even then, he’d brushed it off at first, put it down to Katie being tired and under a lot of stress from working long hours at the same time as trying to plan their wedding. Junior doctors were always overworked.
If he’d taken the problem more seriously right at the start… She’d gone downhill so fast. He should have demanded more tests, higher resolution brain scans, greater magnification of the scans that had already been taken. He should have done SOMETHING! The woman he loved had been slipping away from him millimetre by millimetre, and he hadn’t done enough!
Maybe, if they’d found the parasite in her brain sooner, they could have operated and removed it before it became so dangerous, or used radiation or chemo to kill it before its defences were operational. There had to have been more he could’ve done, but she’d died during surgery because that option had been left too late and the thing in her head had defended itself. He’d loved her more than anything, but all he could think now, even three years after the fact, was that he hadn’t fought hard enough to save her. Even if it had ultimately been hopeless, he should have tried harder.
He hated Ianto for showing him what true devotion meant. The kid had dragged his half-converted girlfriend from a burning building teeming with metal monsters and armed soldiers. Traumatised and reeling from the nightmare events of the Canary Wharf battle, he’d somehow transported her over a hundred and fifty miles to Cardiff, hidden her somewhere, and started trying to get a job with Torchwood Three.
Then he’d overcome all their security programmes to sneak his cyber-girlfriend into the Hub without anyone knowing about it, had hidden her in the basement for seven months, caring for her while working his arse off every day. As if all of that wasn’t already more than one scared, exhausted kid should have been capable of, he’d then proceeded to contact a cybernetics expert, arranging for him to fly to Cardiff from Japan, booked accommodations, and slipped the cyberneticist into the Hub, bypassing security protocols a second time… Even when she’d gone berserk, killed Tanizaki, tried to convert Gwen, and thrown Ianto bodily across the Hub, he STILL hadn’t given up, so desperate to save his girl that he would have done anything.
It put Owen to shame. A twenty-three-year-old kid had shown more courage and determination in trying to save the woman he loved than Owen himself had. He’d kept trying, refused to let anyone or anything stand in his way, had been willing to sacrifice his own life in order to save Lisa, had worked himself practically into the ground juggling his responsibilities, and yeah, he’d failed, but he’d TRIED.
What had Owen done? Not enough, and that was the source of his guilt. Ianto wouldn’t have given up so easily.
The End
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