by Bluestar1, aka Crystalshard
Disclaimer: Torchwood is not owned by me, it is owned by the BBC.
Warning(s): Spoilers for pretty much every episode.
Summary: A series of seven snippets focussing on the Torchwood crew. In more-or-less chronological order.
One arm around each other, Owen and Tosh staggered unevenly out of the pub to wait for the taxi Owen had called. "That," Owen said with some concentration, "was a bloody good Christmas party."
One arm around each other, Owen and Tosh staggered unevenly out of the pub to wait for the taxi Owen had called. "That," Owen said with some concentration, "was a bloody good Christmas party."
Tosh nodded, and the reindeer head-band she was wearing bobbed. "Yeah, I saw you. Did you really get caught 'accidentally' under the mistletoe with that blonde?" A drunken grin was pasted on Tosh's features. Right now, anything was funny, and she was rather glad of that at the moment.
Owen grinned at her. "Not at all, sweetheart. Must say, though, there was definitely too much mistletoe to miss."
This struck Tosh as hilarious, and her laughter set Owen off too.
When they had their breath back, Tosh reached up to adjust her headband and felt something plant-like caught in the antlers. She pulled it off, then held it up in delight. "Owen, look. Mistletoe!"
"Well then, only one thing we can do, then. Eh?" Owen smirked, then leaned down to kiss Tosh on the lips. With both participants being several over the limit, it was a rather haphazard effort, but Tosh didn't mind.
Honk. Honk.
Owen pulled away as the taxi driver beeped his horn. For a fleeting second, Tosh hated that driver.
Gwen was surprised to see the lights on when she finally got home that night. At half past eleven, most people in the area were in bed by then. With the thought that she might have been burgled insinuating itself into her tired thoughts, she found the energy to take the steps two at a time.
When she opened the front door to her flat, however, her nose identified the smell of cheese and ham. Rhys must have heard the click, as he was in the entryway before Gwen had a chance to do more than breathe in. He was still in his day clothes, she noticed absently.
"Something wrong, love?" She searched his face for signs of worry, but found no more than the usual ones he'd been wearing lately. She felt a twinge of guilt at the knowledge that she had put them there.
"No, nothing's wrong. Just wanted to see you come home for a change. Oh, and I made you some sandwiches. They're under a plate in the kitchen."
"Thanks." Gwen looked up at her boyfriend and smiled gratefully. "Don't know what I'd do without you to come home to."
Ksssh-kaaa. Ksssh-kaaa. Ksssh-kaaa.
Lisa's ventilator, looking very much like a pair of bellows, pumped ceaselessly in the background as Ianto opened the basement door. Jack and the others were off on some overnight case up at a caravan park in Llanrug, and wouldn't be back until at least tomorrow afternoon.
Jack had waved goodbye with a cheerful, "Take tomorrow morning off for a change!" Not that Ianto would, of course. There were far more important things to do. And the most important of those was here, in front of him.
"Ianto?" came the thin, pained voice from the metal platform that dominated the room.
Ianto smiled. She was awake. "Lisa." He walked over and kissed her, savouring the softness of her lips. The Cybermen hadn't taken that away from her, no matter what else they'd done to her. And it was still his Lisa under that metal overlay. They hadn't reached her mind yet. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine, for now. But I think the painkiller is starting to lose its effectiveness." She smiled up at him, obviously trying to reassure him.
"I'll see what else I can find, he promised. He hated to see her in pain, but there wasn't much he could do. Every time he tried her on a new painkiller, it worked for a while, but only until her cyber-augmented body got used to the drug. Then it would stop working, and the pain would return.
"Have you found someone who can fix me?" Lisa looked at him, showing only the barest flicker of hope for an answer that wasn't the 'not yet' it had always been before.
Ianto gripped her hand, metal over flesh and bone. "I did. There's a Doctor Tanizaki, he's the head of the Cybertechnology Institute of Osaka. He says he'll come."
Joy lit Lisa's eyes. "Really?"
"I promise."
Another day, another mission, another time when Gwen reminded him that there were people at stake, not just alien technology. Benign technology, for once – an alien machine that was keeping a dying man from feeling the pain of his illness.
Jack fell into his chair and rolled the tiny, clear bauble backwards and forwards in his hand. Before Gwen, they'd have swept it up without finding out whether this was affecting anyone. But at her insistence, they'd kept a watch on the old oak tree it had fallen into. They'd seen the old man, stumbling along in agony until he reached the tree. Then touching it, standing straighter, and walking off without a hint of pain.
They'd followed the man home, and learned his story. And they'd watched him die, painlessly, thanks to the effects of that tiny bit of alien tech. Gwen had taken the bauble out of his dead hand, tears standing in her eyes.
As if his thoughts had called her, Jack heard Gwen's soft voice from his office door. "There are worse ways to go."
"Yeah. Painlessly, with his friends and family around him. There are a lot of worse ways to go." Jack's eyes darkened as he focussed on the sphere in his hand.
Gwen always understood. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to remind you . . ."
Jack waved a hand. "It's okay. One day, I'll find him. Maybe then he can help me."
Jack looked over at Torchwood's newest employee. She looked slightly baffled, but Jack wasn't surprised. She didn't know. But one day, he would find the Doctor. And then maybe, just maybe, he'd be free.
They were all silent when they returned. This wasn't unusual, Ianto knew. Coffee usually helped at this point in the mission. The rest might think the mission over, but Ianto knew that until the mess had been cleared away – physical, mental and emotional – it wasn't really over. He'd readied the kitchen earlier, knowing it'd been needed.
Owen's, sugar, no milk, in his "Doctors know you Inside Out" mug. Tosh's, milk, no sugar, fairly weak. Gwen, both, in the Cardiff RFC mug Rhys had given her. Jack's, changing depending on how bad a day he'd had.
Ianto poked his head out of the kitchen and looked across at Jack, sat slumped in his office.
Extra strong and sugar today, then.
It wasn't until he carried the tray to the three quiet figures in the sitting area that he noticed something wrong at a deeper level.
". . . believe he just let her go," Gwen said as he approached. She sounded angrier than he'd ever heard her before.
"I've never known Jack to back down from an alien threat before. And her poor mother!" Tosh chimed in. Disapproval was written large in her body language. "Oh, thanks, Ianto," she added as he silently handed over her coffee. Gwen and Owen murmured their thanks as he placed their mugs in front of them, and the three continued their low-voiced conversation as he slipped silently away. Ianto didn't wait to hear it. He'd find out soon enough.
Ianto took a deep breath before stepping into Jack's office. Their leader had his face in his hands, not even looking up as Ianto said, "Your coffee, sir."
"Thanks," Jack said, his hands muffling the sound. Ianto waited patiently, unmoving, until Jack looked up at him. "What is it, Ianto?" Jack looked and sounded tired, as if he is expecting rejection from Ianto even though there was no way the young Welshman could know exactly what had happened.
Instead, Ianto smiled shyly. "I'm sure you did what had to be done, sir."
Owen propped himself up on one elbow and watched Gwen sleep in the reflected lights from the city beneath. He'd done his best to exhaust her, understanding her wordless need to forget the horror that her own kind could perpetrate. And now she slept, the sheen of sweat still drying on her flushed body. Gwen didn't twitch as he reached across to brush a lock of her hair aside from her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek. She simply slept, curled under his sheets, a soft smile on her face that Owen bet even Rhys had never seen.
He wondered if she knew how beautiful she was. If Rhys knew how lucky he was to have a woman like this in his life. He knew Gwen still loved her boyfriend, and somehow he was okay with that. Owen Harper wasn't the kind to get jealous.
It was enough that she'd turned to him for this, knowing she could get what she needed from him. He'd listened to her talk, between times. Held her as she raged, wept, stuttered in shock. He'd been there.
He understood.
It was late at night in the Hub; so late that even Ianto had gone home. There was someone Jack needed to visit tonight. He'd been putting it off, knowing they wouldn't mind, but he couldn't put it off forever.
So here he was, standing in Torchwood's morgue. He above all people knew that the dead couldn't hear you, but he'd long since realised that it wasn't the dead who needed to hear. It was the living that needed to talk.
"Wonder what you'd have thought of this latest mission, Suzie? Not that your glove would have been much help there, I'm afraid. Violent deaths, oh yeah, lots of those. Don't think the glove would have worked on what was left after those cannibals were finished, though.
"Gwen's tough. Tougher than she'll ever know. She's not your replacement, Suzie. I don't think anyone could be. But she's good at what she does.
"Wish you were still here, Suzie. Wish I'd realised what was going on before you got so obsessed with that glove. Wish I'd been able to do something. Don't know what, even now, but I would've tried. Wish you'd told me. But then, you never did, did you? My Suzie, always so private."
Suzie didn't answer, but Jack hadn't expected her to.
"Sleep well, Suzie."