This is just a silly little idea I had earlier this morning about the tiny, insignificant interactions that members of the Torchwood team might have had with aliens (real or otherwise) as small children. It's fun, it's fluffy, it's got no substance. It's cute, in other words, and I had a lot of fun in writing it. I hope you like reading it!
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Gareth David-Lloyd. I'm working on that problem.
At age seven, Toshiko Sato had her feet planted firmly on the ground. She had a plan for her life that involved a minimum of either pink or unicorns—such things were fanciful, and she didn't have enough time for them. Or, at least, that was her parents' view. In deference to their wishes, Toshiko limited her interactions with either the silly color or the fantastical beast to wistful glances.
Izumi Ishikawa had brought her new toy to school. It was a wind-up alien that inched its way along the desk on fuzzy feet, huge cantaloupe-head making it wobble comically. Toshiko could hear the tiny "bleep-bleep" noises that it made as it moved, but she did her best to concentrate on the maths problems in front of her. They were easy, but not too easy, which was her favorite level of difficulty. She chewed on her eraser as she stared at the paper, aware that the rest of the class had gathered around Izumi's desk to stare at the toy. She wished that they would all be quiet or go away. She wanted to work.
Ebisu Takahashi, in his enthusiasm for Izumi's toy, surged past Toshiko without paying close attention, and jogged her desk. Toshiko groaned in annoyance as her pencil smudged on her paper, leaving a jagged line after her latest answer. She turned to angrily tell him off, but before she could do it, he lobbed the toy at her. She caught it.
It was ridiculous, really. Such a small, funny-looking thing. But the huge, almond black eyes stared up at her from her lap, and she found herself smiling slightly in spite of herself. The doll had a little smile stitched onto its own face, one that (in her seven-year-old mind) seemed to promise new things, different things. It promised a life outside of crowded, noisy Tokyo, one where she could be more than just the maths-girl or the weirdo-quiet girl.
A hand reached down from just outside of her field of vision and patted the alien on the head. Toshiko looked up and saw Izumi standing in front of her. The other girl smiled. "Sorry about Ebisu," she said. "He's a bit of an idiot."
Toshiko smiled and nodded, then offered her classmate back her toy. Izumi giggled. "Thanks!" she said, taking it under her arm. The teacher, standing at the front of the room, clapped her hands. It was time for the lesson to begin. Toshiko watched the toy, and the promise of freedom, as Izumi skipped back to her seat.
xXx
Owen Harper didn't have much time for lessons. There was too much fun to be had, and time was no good when it was wasted sitting in a boring classroom. By age eight, he was already skiving off lessons to go down to the shopping center. This attitude was only enhanced by his mother's apathy. Every day, she sat in front of the telly in the morning, when he left for school (or wherever), and she was sitting in the exact same spot when he returned.
But when he applied himself, he was actually quite brilliant. This wasn't something that Owen readily admitted to his mates, who viewed intelligence as a sort of horrific disability. He hid his good grades in the bottom of his rucksack so they wouldn't find out and went around loudly complaining about the tyranny of teachers and the grading system so that he would fit in.
That shame didn't mean he wasn't proud of himself. One time he received near perfect marks from his teachers (especially in science—all of his teachers gossiped laughingly that maybe that one little Jack-the-Lad in training would be a famous doctor one day), so after school he went down to the shopping center by himself and bought a pack of those little glow-in-the-dark stars to put on his ceiling. He'd been craving them for the past few months, ever since he'd seen that Johnny Thomson had a set on his own ceiling. Of course, Johnny also had rocket sheets and a set of parents who cared about how he spent his time, but that was why Owen wanted to take matters into his own hands. He walked back from the shopping center with the little bag swinging from his hand, a large grin on his eight-year-old face.
He passed his mother, who was sitting in the living room in her customary spot on the couch, without a greeting. This wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Instead, he ran straight up to his room and began sticking the stars onto his ceiling. As soon as he was done, he closed his shades and turned out his lights. Owen lay flat on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. The stars glowed green against the darkness. They were magical.
That night, Owen Harper dreamed of the stars.
xXx
"You've got to come see this, Gwen!" Addiena Llewellyn tugged on Gwen Cooper's sleeve, pointing over towards the side of the field. The pair of best friends was attending Rhiain Wynn's seventh birthday party, and both had identical looks of wonder on their faces. Seven was fast approaching for both of them, and it was difficult for either to fathom being so old. "There's a spaceship! A real spaceship!"
"Addy, don't be stupid!" Gwen lectured her friend, though her curiosity was piqued. "There's no such thing as aliens!"
"There must be!" Addy insisted. "Look! You've just got to look!"
Gwen followed the direction of Addy's frantic finger and she had to admit that the spaceship that had apparently landed amidst the birthday party looked very impressive to her six-year-old eyes. She looked at her friend, green eyes wide with wonder and astonishment. "Come on!" she said, taking off towards the point of interest. Addy followed, lagging slightly behind.
"Oh, I dunno, Gwen. D'you suppose we're allowed to?" she wanted to know. Gwen ignored the queries, maintaining a steady pace. "I mean, we could get in trouble! It could be dangerous!"
Gwen wasn't listening. They'd arrived at the base of the spaceship, and a tall alien had stepped out. Gwen walked up to him, even more awestricken than she had been at the prospect of turning seven.
"Why hello!" the alien boomed. Gwen blinked. It sounded exactly like Rhiain's father and—come to think of it—it looked slightly like him as well, if Rhiain's father put on about a pound of blue makeup on his face and wore a strange jumpsuit. "Take me to your leader!"
"You're not an alien!" Gwen told him. Addy punched her arm.
"Gwen, don't make it angry!"
"It doesn't matter," Gwen told her friend. "'S not an alien!"
The man laughed a big, booming laugh. "Of course I am!" he said. "Just look at my spaceship!"
Gwen, following his instructions, looked at the spaceship. "It's made of wood," she commented. "You can't travel through space in wood."
The man appeared to be growing uncomfortable. "Why of course you can!" he said. "Why, I just popped 'round Neptune the other day!" He knocked on the side of his spaceship. It wobbled. "See? Steady as a rock!"
Gwen was about to call him on this bluff as well, when a strange zipping sound caught her ear. She looked up just in time to see a small rock tumbling from the sky at an alarming fast pace. She stepped back just in time, and the rock hit the ground right where she had been standing.
"Jesus Christ!" the "alien" cursed. "Oh—scared the shit out of me." He looked at the two inquisitive faces in front of him and frantically tried to cover up his slip. "I—I mean—it scared the—the—it scared me," he concluded lamely.
Gwen, curiosity aroused once more, asked, "What is it?"
The man shrugged. "Must be a meteorite. You can keep it if you want." The little girl prodded the stone with hesitant fingers, then picked it up, regarding it with eyes grown wide again with wonder.
"Come on, Gwen!" Addy had got bored with the spaceship and was tugging at her sleeve again. "Let's go ride the merry-go-round!" Gwen took a last look at the stone, then up at the sky from whence it had come. Then, tucking it safely into her pocket, she followed her friend to their next destination.
xXx
The invitation had said "fancy dress party," but Ianto Jones' mum scoffed and said that was far too elaborate language to use when describing a party thrown for eight-year olds. Ianto didn't care. He just wanted to go. He wanted to go, and he wanted a really good costume. Looking credible had always been important to Ianto.
When he'd expressed this desire to his father, the man had chuckled and promised Ianto the best costume ever to be worn by an eight-year-old boy. Three days later, he'd come home from work with an alien costume impressive enough to rival those featured by any major film company. It was totally handmade, as well—Mr. Jones had sewn it together in between working for his customer's at the tailor shop. Ianto had embraced the huge, stuffed head of the costume gleefully.
The costume had been fantastic. The party was not. It was loud and noisy and close and full of dirty children in pirate and princess costumes chasing one another and throwing food and drink everywhere. Ianto hated this sort of entertainment. He didn't understand the rationale behind throwing food or drink, and his elaborate costume made it very difficult to either run or scream. He needed to get away from the noise. He went outside.
Ianto wished he'd brought along his journal (and it was a journal, not a diary like his mum said. Diaries were for girls.) to pass the time, but there hadn't been any room, and besides, it would have been a risky move anyway. He wrote down absolutely everything, and if anyone besides himself ever read it—he shuddered to think of the consequences.
Instead, he passed the time by staring up at the stars and letting his mind wander. He'd always loved the night sky. It seemed magical in its endlessness, and the stars were like little streetlamps on the way to infinity.
Ianto didn't know how long he sat on the lawn, staring up at the sky, but when a strange, loud noise burst through the nighttime silence, he nearly jumped a mile. It was an eerie sound, half-grinding, half-tearing. He searched frantically for the source and discovered—to his astonishment—a long, blue telephone box appearing on the sidewalk in front of him. He gulped. The door swung open, and a tall man in a black leather jacket stepped out. The man looked around himself for a moment with a satisfied smile on his face, before turning around and saying to someone in the box, "Well, come on, then." A blonde girl stepped out behind him. She began to look about, but stopped still when she saw Ianto.
"Doctor…" she pointed at the boy on the grass. The man squinted at him.
"Oi, that's funny," he said. "I could have sworn we were on Earth. We must have overshot. Where's this, then?" He squinted at Ianto. "Nephrobax? No, not enough tentacles. Alteron? Oh, give us a clue!"
Ianto didn't know what to say. He shook his head.
"No, Doctor—it's a boy. A boy in a costume," the girl said, tapping the man on the shoulder. "D'you see the zip?"
The man squinted again, and then another grin spread across his entire face. "A zip! Of course! Fantastic! I get the coordinates right!"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Sorry, love," she apologized to Ianto. "Don't mind us."
"Ianto!" A voice from behind him made Ianto turn. It was the woman who'd organized the party. "Ianto, where've you got off to?" He could see her silhouetted against the light from the house's windows. She spotted him and began to walk over. "Now, Ianto, don't be silly. You can't just wander off whenever you feel like it!"
When Ianto turned back around, the box, the man and the girl were all gone.
There you go! I hope that you enjoyed it. I couldn't think of what to write for Jack. He's such a mystery as it is. Oh, well. You'll live.
Review, please!