Limits
Summary: A young girl is in the wrong place at the wrong time. But nothing seems to have happened to her. The team struggle to help her, and as tension begins to rise, so does something else – something with no limits.
Rating: T to be safe, for later chapters.
Author's note: This is set early on in the first series, but after cyberwoman. I'm trying to show that Gwen is a bit inexperienced at this point, and she also relies on Jack a lot to know what to do and to have all of the answers. This is unbeta'd, so I apologise for any mistakes! They are all mine, as much as I would like to blame someone else. This is also my first fan fic ever, so please review and tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: RTD owns Torchwood and its amazing characters, which is unfortunate seeing as he does not know what to do with them *cough* Ianto *cough*.
"Gwen, get over here," Jack's voice crackled into life over the comms.
Gwen took one last sweeping look at the room around her, and then left it to see what Jack wanted. She turned from the room to see Jack watching Owen, who was crouched on the floor over what seemed to be a body. As Gwen drew nearer she could see that it was a young girl of about twelve. Her white-blonde hair was spread across the floor as Owen checked for a pulse.
"She's still alive, just unconscious," he said, standing up.
"What is she doing here? And what exactly does she have to do with the Rift?" Gwen asked.
"I don't know," Jack said distractedly. "Did you find anything in the other room?"
"Nope, nothing," came the reply.
"Ok," Jack looked around. "We need to get her back to the Hub, do some tests, find out what is going on here," he touched the comm in his ear. "Tosh, we're coming back to the Hub. Make sure you and Ianto have everything ready for our guest."
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The cogwheel door rolled open to admit Owen, Gwen and Jack, who had the girl hanging limply from his shoulder. Ianto came hurrying over to them, giving the girl a quick glance before turning his attention to his team mates.
"We weren't sure what exactly we needed to prepare for, but I think what we have done should be fine," Ianto said.
"I'm going to take her down to the cells. Have Tosh get ready to run a full bio-scan on her."
"Already set up and ready to go," Ianto replied promptly.
"Good. Then get everyone into the conference room for a meeting."
Ianto turned to walk away, when Jack called after him.
"And Ianto, some coffee would be much appreciated."
Ianto nodded, and watched as Jack slowly made his way down to the cells. Jack lay the girl's unconscious body on the cold stone bed in the cell, and watched her for a minute. Her hand twitched as she started to stir, and Jack backed off to give her a bit of space, as he knew how alarming it was to wake up in an unfamiliar place with a stranger staring at you. Her eyelids flickered, and finally opened as her eyes began to relay information to her brain. When she saw Jack her eyes widened, and she pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging herself into a tight ball.
"Where am I? Who are you? What do you want with me?" she fired the questions out, panicked and scared.
"Shh, you're safe. You're in Torchwood, and we're here to help you," Jack said, allowing time for this information to sink in.
The girl looked at Jack with obvious confusion.
"Torchwood? Isn't that some weird special ops organisation?"
Jack chuckled.
"I guess that's one way of putting it," Jack gave her a calculating look, before saying, "I need to go now, but I'll be back soon, ok?"
"Do I have to stay here?" the girl asked, looking around nervously.
"I'm sorry, but you do. Rules and regulations."
The girl gave a small, nervous laugh.
"Torchwood was said to be many things, but a follower of rules and regulations was not one of them."
Jack smiled at her, and then exited the cell, pressing a button on his wriststrap to seal her in.
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"Her vitals are all normal, there are no changes in the air around her, she appears to be perfectly healthy," Tosh was reporting in the conference room.
"Yeah, but it's more than that," Owen said. "As far as I can tell, she is one-hundred percent human. Not an alien trace on her."
"But then what was she doing in an abandoned building filled with Rift activity?" Jack mused.
Ianto took a sip of his coffee, before saying, "Why don't we try talking to her? See if she can remember anything?"
"Good idea. Ok, Gwen, you go down there and talk to her. Tosh, I want it all recorded and analysed, and keep an eye on the bio-scan, just in case. Owen can help you with that. Ianto, you go and see if you can dig anything up in the archives similar to this."
"Are you sure you want Gwen to do the investigation? After all, her interrogation technique seems a bit…cosy to me," Owen smirked, remembering how Gwen had 'interrogated' Carys.
Gwen glared at him but otherwise ignored his remark. Jack clapped his hands together and said "Ok, let's go people!"
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Tosh and Owen watched Gwen peering in at the girl. She had a sympathetic look on her face, and the girl stared back at her with large eyes.
"What's your name?" Gwen asked softly.
"I'm Maggie. Maggie Hollis. What's your name?" the girl asked shyly.
"I'm Gwen Cooper, and I'm going to help you."
"Is it true what that man said? Am I really in Torchwood?" Maggie asked, with a slight gleam in her eyes.
"Yes, you are. You're not in any trouble, we just need to find out what you were doing in that building."
"What building?" Maggie asked, confused.
"We found you in an old abandoned building. You were unconscious on the second floor," Gwen peered at Maggie, trying to see a response to any of this.
She was not disappointed. Maggie clutched at her head and groaned.
"What's wrong? Are you ok love?" Gwen asked kindly.
"I…I'm not sure," Maggie shook her head, as if slightly dazed.
"Allright, what's the last thing you remember?" Gwen asked, in full police mode.
"I was with my friend, Jake, and we were…we were cycling. It was his birthday yesterday, and he had just got a new bike. A mountain bike, he's convinced that he needs it," Maggie took a deep, shaky breath.
Gwen smiled encouragingly she did not need to know all of this, but she knew that Maggie needed to figure out what had happened to her in her mind.
"I went with him on my bike, you see we always went cycling together. We cycled past a really creepy building that Jake insisted on exploring, but I didn't want to go anywhere near it. Jake teased me of being a scared girl," Maggie had a faraway look in her eyes and a soft smile playing about her lips. She looked up at Gwen then, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Well, I couldn't have him saying girls were cowards, so I lead the way into the house, even though I didn't want to go in. He knew it, so he held my hand," Maggie's voice faltered.
"And then?"
"Then…nothing."
"There was nothing in the house?" Gwen asked.
"No, there was nothing. No house, no Jake, no…me. Everything just stopped existing."
Gwen shivered.
"And then it all came back. Life, colour, people, things, when I woke up in this cell," Maggie said quietly, ghosting her hand over the wall next to her.
"Did you feel any different when you woke up here?" Gwen asked.
"No, I felt just like me, Maggie. I didn't remember any of this until now. What's happened to me?" Maggie asked, for the first time feeling truly terrified.
"I don't know, but we're going to find out." Gwen turned away from Maggie's pitiful face, and touched her comm. "Tosh, can you pull up CCTV around the building and go backwards until you see Maggie going in?"
"Yep, I'll let you know when I get something," came the reply.
"Gwen, if you're finished down there, I could use you up here," Jack's voice told her.
"On my way up," Gwen said, and left without a backwards glance at the young girl behind her.
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"So she doesn't know what happened to her?" Jack asked Gwen in his office.
"No, she just said that there was nothing."
"Nothing?"
Gwen stared at her hands.
"Have you ever come across something like this?" she asked Jack, looking up at him with big, hopeful eyes.
"No," he said simply, and Gwen's eyes dropped back to her hands.
"What do we do? There's nothing to fight."
"Of course there is," Jack said loudly.
"What? Nothing happened to her."
"Gwen, things don't just become nothing and then something again. Something changed her, changed her perception of the world, and so her mind must have taken time to readjust," Jack said.
"Oh…so what was it?"
"I don't know. We got nothing on the bio-scans," Jack was interrupted by Tosh's voice on the comms. "Gwen, I've got the footage."
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Deep below Cardiff, Maggie shivered in her small cell. She wished that she was wearing something warmer than her t-shirt, and she rubbed her arms up and down her arms. One of her fingers brushed against the material, and suddenly her hands were not rubbing against her skin, but against a thick wool cardigan. Maggie stared down in disbelief for a second, then jumped off the stone bed with a yelp, lifting her arms into the air as she jumped. The cardigan disappeared, and her t-shirt came back, but Maggie sank down against one of the walls, sobbing uncontrollably as she wondered desperately what had happened to her.
This did not exactly come out the way I wanted it to, but I hope you enjoyed it. If you think I should continue please say so! And please review anyway, it's good to get feedback ;)
