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fandomweekly2026-03-08 02:52 pm
m_findlow) wrote in fandomweekly2026-03-08 02:52 pm
Entry tags:
[#291] AFTER THE STORM (TORCHWOOD)
Theme Prompt: #291 - Safe harbour
Title: After the storm
Fandom: Torchwood.
Rating/Warnings: PG. Spoilers for Season 1.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Jack is torn between wanting to resist and accepting the inevitable.
The island is scarcely more than a spec on the horizon, getting smaller and smaller with each passing moment. Quick, but not quick enough. There’s a prayer in there somewhere, that some great hole will open up in the middle of the ocean and suck the whole thing down inside of it. Perhaps it might suck us all down along with it. That might be for the best. There's no going back to how things were before we all came here. What lives out there is worse than even the most terrible nightmare, and if it weren't for me, the place wouldn't even exist. I did that. I created the monster. It’s my fault.
Nikki Bevan is completely inconsolable. She spent the first half of the trip back howling at the cruelty of the world and what it has done to her son. The howling is nothing compared to the sounds her son makes twenty hours a day, when demons and horrors so completely unimaginable tear at the inside of his mind and it’s all he can do to suffer through the visions. That incessant scream rips through every crack and crevice on the island so that there’s nowhere it can't be heard. It tears at the soul and claws through your skin scraping right down to your bones. Nikki can’t hope to replicate it, but her grief cuts just as deeply.
Gwen tried to be there for her – a warm arm wrapped around her and a kind voice spilling soothing words in her ear – but all of it was pointless. Gwen can scarcely process the shock and the pain herself. She’s sitting on the deck, knees pulled up to her chest, tears running silently down her face as the salt winds try to scrape them away. She can’t even look at me because she knows now what I knew before we came here. I knew what Nikki’s son would do and how horrific it would be to see and watch a human become so broken that they can't ever be fixed. She knows now that bringing Jonah’s mother out here was the worst thing she could have ever done. She won't be able to ever forgive herself for what she's inflicted on another human being, and she knows that I let it happen. I said no, but Gwen never takes no for an answer, so instead I let her come here again, knowing what she’d find. Knowing that she couldn't be left alone to face that terror when it finally showed its face.
I hate this place. It’s not a haven for victims of the rift; not a place where they can heal and rejoin the world that they were taken from. It's just a prison where the nightmare carries on inside their minds, where they can never escape and never go back to how they were before. It's hardly better than leaving them in the cells to rot for eternity. All I've done is take them out of sight, where their tortured bodies and minds can only haunt you if you pause to think about them. The great experiment to try and make their lives better doesn’t do what it says. It doesn't even make me feel better.
The boat’s engines shift gears and slow. The water underneath begins to bob the vessel up and down more as mass and gravity eschew velocity. A large orange buoy bobs off to the port side of the boat, signalling the approaching shoreline. Not long now until that island is gone again and the real world comes sidling back up beside us. It doesn't know what we’ve witnessed, and it never can.
Gwen pulls herself shakily to her feet. She wipes her sleeve across her face and sniffs, pulling strands of windblown hair from her face. Her head turns in my direction, just for a second, before turning away again and heading below to retrieve a still inconsolable Nikki Bevan. I picture what it will look like: Gwen's arm looped through hers as they walk slowly arm in arm to her car, the tea that will be brewed but never drunk, the blanket that will wrap around Nikki Bevan’s shoulders as she fails to find words, and then Gwen, slowly and silently leaving, unable to offer her any sort of comfort. A failed mission to reunite a mother and her long lost son. No happy endings.
The boat finally pulls in alongside the dock and bumps up against the pylons. Overhead the seagulls are swarming in circles, squawking and surveilling the vessel in the hopes we’ve brought fresh fish back with us. No such luck. I watch Gwen and Nikki disembark, not moving even as I watch them all the way along the dock until they finally disappear from sight. Only then does it feel safe to get off, when their accusing stares are far behind me.
The wooden dock feels unsteady under my feet, like I'm still bobbing in the water, unable to find my legs. Just need to make it as far as the SUV at the end of the dock, forcing my legs to carry me there without help. Then a figure emerges beside the SUV, tall and dressed in a suit. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t told Gwen, is my first thought, then I reign it in. Gwen would have found out no matter what. Then she’d hate both of us for keeping it from her.
A sob tries to force itself out of me at the sight of Ianto standing there. I’m stronger than this, I tell myself as my feet keep moving me forward until I'm right there in front of him. His arms open, offering an embrace and I fall straight into it. Ianto is the only one who gets to see me fall apart, not because I want it, but because I need it.
It feels like forever before he finally lets go. ‘Let’s get you home,’ he says.
Title: After the storm
Fandom: Torchwood.
Rating/Warnings: PG. Spoilers for Season 1.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Jack is torn between wanting to resist and accepting the inevitable.
The island is scarcely more than a spec on the horizon, getting smaller and smaller with each passing moment. Quick, but not quick enough. There’s a prayer in there somewhere, that some great hole will open up in the middle of the ocean and suck the whole thing down inside of it. Perhaps it might suck us all down along with it. That might be for the best. There's no going back to how things were before we all came here. What lives out there is worse than even the most terrible nightmare, and if it weren't for me, the place wouldn't even exist. I did that. I created the monster. It’s my fault.
Nikki Bevan is completely inconsolable. She spent the first half of the trip back howling at the cruelty of the world and what it has done to her son. The howling is nothing compared to the sounds her son makes twenty hours a day, when demons and horrors so completely unimaginable tear at the inside of his mind and it’s all he can do to suffer through the visions. That incessant scream rips through every crack and crevice on the island so that there’s nowhere it can't be heard. It tears at the soul and claws through your skin scraping right down to your bones. Nikki can’t hope to replicate it, but her grief cuts just as deeply.
Gwen tried to be there for her – a warm arm wrapped around her and a kind voice spilling soothing words in her ear – but all of it was pointless. Gwen can scarcely process the shock and the pain herself. She’s sitting on the deck, knees pulled up to her chest, tears running silently down her face as the salt winds try to scrape them away. She can’t even look at me because she knows now what I knew before we came here. I knew what Nikki’s son would do and how horrific it would be to see and watch a human become so broken that they can't ever be fixed. She knows now that bringing Jonah’s mother out here was the worst thing she could have ever done. She won't be able to ever forgive herself for what she's inflicted on another human being, and she knows that I let it happen. I said no, but Gwen never takes no for an answer, so instead I let her come here again, knowing what she’d find. Knowing that she couldn't be left alone to face that terror when it finally showed its face.
I hate this place. It’s not a haven for victims of the rift; not a place where they can heal and rejoin the world that they were taken from. It's just a prison where the nightmare carries on inside their minds, where they can never escape and never go back to how they were before. It's hardly better than leaving them in the cells to rot for eternity. All I've done is take them out of sight, where their tortured bodies and minds can only haunt you if you pause to think about them. The great experiment to try and make their lives better doesn’t do what it says. It doesn't even make me feel better.
The boat’s engines shift gears and slow. The water underneath begins to bob the vessel up and down more as mass and gravity eschew velocity. A large orange buoy bobs off to the port side of the boat, signalling the approaching shoreline. Not long now until that island is gone again and the real world comes sidling back up beside us. It doesn't know what we’ve witnessed, and it never can.
Gwen pulls herself shakily to her feet. She wipes her sleeve across her face and sniffs, pulling strands of windblown hair from her face. Her head turns in my direction, just for a second, before turning away again and heading below to retrieve a still inconsolable Nikki Bevan. I picture what it will look like: Gwen's arm looped through hers as they walk slowly arm in arm to her car, the tea that will be brewed but never drunk, the blanket that will wrap around Nikki Bevan’s shoulders as she fails to find words, and then Gwen, slowly and silently leaving, unable to offer her any sort of comfort. A failed mission to reunite a mother and her long lost son. No happy endings.
The boat finally pulls in alongside the dock and bumps up against the pylons. Overhead the seagulls are swarming in circles, squawking and surveilling the vessel in the hopes we’ve brought fresh fish back with us. No such luck. I watch Gwen and Nikki disembark, not moving even as I watch them all the way along the dock until they finally disappear from sight. Only then does it feel safe to get off, when their accusing stares are far behind me.
The wooden dock feels unsteady under my feet, like I'm still bobbing in the water, unable to find my legs. Just need to make it as far as the SUV at the end of the dock, forcing my legs to carry me there without help. Then a figure emerges beside the SUV, tall and dressed in a suit. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t told Gwen, is my first thought, then I reign it in. Gwen would have found out no matter what. Then she’d hate both of us for keeping it from her.
A sob tries to force itself out of me at the sight of Ianto standing there. I’m stronger than this, I tell myself as my feet keep moving me forward until I'm right there in front of him. His arms open, offering an embrace and I fall straight into it. Ianto is the only one who gets to see me fall apart, not because I want it, but because I need it.
It feels like forever before he finally lets go. ‘Let’s get you home,’ he says.