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fandomweekly2025-10-12 01:10 pm
m_findlow) wrote in fandomweekly2025-10-12 01:10 pm
Entry tags:
[#277] ALL WE ARE (TORCHWOOD)
Theme Prompt: #277 - Abandoned mansion
Title: All we are
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Gwen is left wondering whether knowing their place in the universe brings any comfort at all.
Gwen paused on the long driveway, staring up at the now abandoned mansion. Gone were the security men that flanked the property and the constant surveillance feeds from cameras that pockmark the walls. It had probably once been a grand old place, but now it just seemed sad and empty, unloved and neglected.
‘It's sad, don't you think?’ she said, voicing the thought as Owen and Ianto trundled up the driveway, carrying a crate between them. Who knew just how much stuff was hidden away in cupboards, placed on shelves in pride of place or tucked away in dusty boxes in the basement.
‘I'm dead, Gwen,’ Owen replied. ‘Dead blokes aren't supposed to think about things like happiness and sadness,’ he said as they overtook her.
Gwen didn't believe him for a moment. If anyone had a right to feel sad about the person who'd once occupied this beautiful old house, it was Owen. He'd been here when the man had passed away. Gwen could scarcely imagine what it must be like to be a doctor trying to save a life doing CPR and then realising with horror that the one thing you needed to do it effectively, to give the breath of life, was the one thing Owen could now no longer do. He walked and talked and moved amongst them but that didn't make him alive. There was no breath in his lungs, no beat of his heart, no blood moving through those veins of his. He was the undead, and no one else knew what that must be like.
Gwen stepped over the threshold. The house still held some of its grandeur thanks to the many hands who had bustled around between its walls keeping it that way. Whilst its main occupant may have been bedridden and long beyond the years of dusting and polishing, if ever he'd done that in the first place, all of those people were now long gone. All it was left now was to empty the house of anything valuable. It didn't matter about personal effects; all Torchwood was interested in was anything alien and that felt inherently wrong.
Gwen's fingers gently traced along a polished mahogany sideboard leaving behind small trails in the dust. There were no photographs, just an ancient vase with long-wilted flowers drooping. Dry brown petals scattered around its base, like fallen autumn leaves. She brushed them off into her hand, then took the arrangement from the vase, carrying it to the kitchen to dispose of the now dead remains. Everything else that was dead in this house had long been gone and cleared away.
‘Oi!’ Owen called out from halfway up the stairs. ‘You coming to give us a hand or not? He's going to have kept all the good stuff upstairs close by.’
‘Yeah,’ Gwen replied absently, still clutching the flowers. ‘I'll be there in a minute.’ She found the kitchen, dropping the bouquet into a bin and brushing the pollen from her hands before following Owen up the stairs.
She ran into Ianto halfway up. ‘Can I give you a hand with anything else?’ he asked.
She tried to force a smile but found she couldn't muster the effort. ‘We'll be okay. Why don't you fetch us all a nice cup of tea, hey?’
If he’d been expecting a more important assignment, his face didn't show it, simply nodding. Gwen waited until he was out of view then carried on up the stairs and into the bedroom.
Owen was wearing latex gloves as he pottered about the large bedroom prying through drawers. She moved towards the window and drew back the heavy curtains, catching the scent of dust that still clung to them as she disturbed them from being closed to the outside world; just another symbol of a man who'd become completely isolated in his latter years. Just him in his collection of alien artifacts.
‘Poor Henry,’ she said. ‘What leads a man to live such a sad, lonely life?’
‘Having a shitload of money, probably,’ Owen replied, pushing one drawer shut and opening the one underneath it, pawing through old man's clothes. ‘Can't buy you happiness,’ he added, ‘but it can buy you a ton of stuff off eBay.’
‘Hmm…’ Perhaps it was no different to collecting coins or stamps or porcelain figurines of dogs. ‘Why all this, though?’ she asked as Owen found something tucked in the drawer, holding it up, adjudging it to be alien and then popping it into a small foam-lined box before setting it inside the crate. ‘What good is having all of this alien stuff? He couldn't have even known what it did or where it came from.’
‘Because there's something just so inherently human,’ Jack replied, suddenly there, leaning in the doorway. ‘We all need to believe that there's more to life than just living. We all need to think that there's a wider purpose to our existence. That we aren't just some tiny speck in the universe, a product of complete improbability and sheer dumb luck. People go their whole lives just hoping that maybe that's true, always searching for proof. Henry Parker found proof,’ Jack replied, picking up the large alien device that he had clung to in his final hours praying it would give him long life. ‘All the material wealth in the world pales in comparison to this,’ he said holding up the device. ‘And it still took him until the very end to realise it.’
‘Life's a bitch and then you die, huh?’ Owen said.
Jack had an unreadable expression on his face. ‘You and I know that better than anyone, don't we, Owen?’
Gwen turned away, gazing out the window. Someone else would buy it soon. She wondered if they would be as sad and isolated as Henry Parker had been, or whether they would look out and instead of seeing the tiny existence of their own mortality simply embrace the joy and wonder that the world existed at all.
Title: All we are
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Gwen is left wondering whether knowing their place in the universe brings any comfort at all.
Gwen paused on the long driveway, staring up at the now abandoned mansion. Gone were the security men that flanked the property and the constant surveillance feeds from cameras that pockmark the walls. It had probably once been a grand old place, but now it just seemed sad and empty, unloved and neglected.
‘It's sad, don't you think?’ she said, voicing the thought as Owen and Ianto trundled up the driveway, carrying a crate between them. Who knew just how much stuff was hidden away in cupboards, placed on shelves in pride of place or tucked away in dusty boxes in the basement.
‘I'm dead, Gwen,’ Owen replied. ‘Dead blokes aren't supposed to think about things like happiness and sadness,’ he said as they overtook her.
Gwen didn't believe him for a moment. If anyone had a right to feel sad about the person who'd once occupied this beautiful old house, it was Owen. He'd been here when the man had passed away. Gwen could scarcely imagine what it must be like to be a doctor trying to save a life doing CPR and then realising with horror that the one thing you needed to do it effectively, to give the breath of life, was the one thing Owen could now no longer do. He walked and talked and moved amongst them but that didn't make him alive. There was no breath in his lungs, no beat of his heart, no blood moving through those veins of his. He was the undead, and no one else knew what that must be like.
Gwen stepped over the threshold. The house still held some of its grandeur thanks to the many hands who had bustled around between its walls keeping it that way. Whilst its main occupant may have been bedridden and long beyond the years of dusting and polishing, if ever he'd done that in the first place, all of those people were now long gone. All it was left now was to empty the house of anything valuable. It didn't matter about personal effects; all Torchwood was interested in was anything alien and that felt inherently wrong.
Gwen's fingers gently traced along a polished mahogany sideboard leaving behind small trails in the dust. There were no photographs, just an ancient vase with long-wilted flowers drooping. Dry brown petals scattered around its base, like fallen autumn leaves. She brushed them off into her hand, then took the arrangement from the vase, carrying it to the kitchen to dispose of the now dead remains. Everything else that was dead in this house had long been gone and cleared away.
‘Oi!’ Owen called out from halfway up the stairs. ‘You coming to give us a hand or not? He's going to have kept all the good stuff upstairs close by.’
‘Yeah,’ Gwen replied absently, still clutching the flowers. ‘I'll be there in a minute.’ She found the kitchen, dropping the bouquet into a bin and brushing the pollen from her hands before following Owen up the stairs.
She ran into Ianto halfway up. ‘Can I give you a hand with anything else?’ he asked.
She tried to force a smile but found she couldn't muster the effort. ‘We'll be okay. Why don't you fetch us all a nice cup of tea, hey?’
If he’d been expecting a more important assignment, his face didn't show it, simply nodding. Gwen waited until he was out of view then carried on up the stairs and into the bedroom.
Owen was wearing latex gloves as he pottered about the large bedroom prying through drawers. She moved towards the window and drew back the heavy curtains, catching the scent of dust that still clung to them as she disturbed them from being closed to the outside world; just another symbol of a man who'd become completely isolated in his latter years. Just him in his collection of alien artifacts.
‘Poor Henry,’ she said. ‘What leads a man to live such a sad, lonely life?’
‘Having a shitload of money, probably,’ Owen replied, pushing one drawer shut and opening the one underneath it, pawing through old man's clothes. ‘Can't buy you happiness,’ he added, ‘but it can buy you a ton of stuff off eBay.’
‘Hmm…’ Perhaps it was no different to collecting coins or stamps or porcelain figurines of dogs. ‘Why all this, though?’ she asked as Owen found something tucked in the drawer, holding it up, adjudging it to be alien and then popping it into a small foam-lined box before setting it inside the crate. ‘What good is having all of this alien stuff? He couldn't have even known what it did or where it came from.’
‘Because there's something just so inherently human,’ Jack replied, suddenly there, leaning in the doorway. ‘We all need to believe that there's more to life than just living. We all need to think that there's a wider purpose to our existence. That we aren't just some tiny speck in the universe, a product of complete improbability and sheer dumb luck. People go their whole lives just hoping that maybe that's true, always searching for proof. Henry Parker found proof,’ Jack replied, picking up the large alien device that he had clung to in his final hours praying it would give him long life. ‘All the material wealth in the world pales in comparison to this,’ he said holding up the device. ‘And it still took him until the very end to realise it.’
‘Life's a bitch and then you die, huh?’ Owen said.
Jack had an unreadable expression on his face. ‘You and I know that better than anyone, don't we, Owen?’
Gwen turned away, gazing out the window. Someone else would buy it soon. She wondered if they would be as sad and isolated as Henry Parker had been, or whether they would look out and instead of seeing the tiny existence of their own mortality simply embrace the joy and wonder that the world existed at all.