Torchwood with Rose

Author's Note: I decided to skip Day One, as it's not my favourite episode, and I'm not very comfortable with writing sex related scenes. So yeah, moving on to Ghost Machine.

Ghost Machine

Chapter One

Tosh was using the CCTV around Cardiff to guide her colleagues. "Owen, Rose. Left into the alley. Right, thirty meters."

"Wha' is it?" Rose asked through her earpiece, running at full speed. "Wha' can you see?"

"I can't get a visual. Just a signal, definitely alien in origin. Diagonal right, towards the castle. Jack, sharp right, twenty meters."

Jack drove the SUV with Gwen by his side. "Can you identify the target?" He asked Tosh.

"Still trying to get a visual. Twenty seconds to contact. Fifteen seconds."

"No heroics." Jack warned his team. "We've got no idea what we're dealing with."

"Ten seconds." Tosh cut in. "Got it! Got a visual, suspect is wearing a hoodie. Go, Rose!"

They ran through the High Street Arcade, but their quarry ducks under the security gate as it comes down. Rose just managed to roll under, but Jack, Owen and Gwen are trapped inside.

"Come on, open it up!" Jack shouted at the security guard. "Open it up!" The security guard obeyed, and the gate began to slowly roll up.

The running man jumped over the barrier. Rose caught up to him and grabbed at his jacket, but the man shrugged it off and gets away.

"Damn!" Rose swore, getting her breath back.

"You star, you did it!" Tosh cheered.

Rose didn't understand. "Oh, I was tha' close."

"No, you've got it."

"I've lost him Tosh, I've lost him."

"I swear. Whatever it is, you're holding it." Tosh confirmed. "Let me check the cameras."

Rose checked the jacket pockets and found a hand-sized device with small flashing lights. She pressed the button on the top and suddenly the station is empty. A steam train puffed away, and Rose saw a young boy in short trousers and a school uniform coming out of the Booking Office. He was carrying a teddy bear by its legs, a suitcase and has a luggage label with his name on it fastened to his blazer.

"Hello?" Rose called out, wondering if the boy could hear her. "Who are you? Can you hear me?"

"I want to go home." The young boy said, apparently unable to hear her. "Who are you? Can you hear me?"

"I want to go home. No one knows who I am here. I'm lost."

"Come back." Rose said. "Come back."

The young boy walked away, and Rose returned to the present. Jack and the others appeared in front of her.

"I'm sorry, that damn gate cut us off." Jack apologised, then caught Rose staring into space. "Rose? Are you alright?"

"I've just seen a ghost."


Back at the Hub, Tosh was analysing the footage. "This is the feed from the station camera. Rose grabs the kid. She's got his jacket, and he just slips out."

"You ok with this?" Jack asked Rose, who was watching the footage on the wall projection.

"An' then?" Rose questioned Tosh, urging her to continue.

"Jack, Gwen, and Owen arrive. And then nothing. Sorry."

Rose shook her head. "No. It, it was as real as this is. More real. I didn't just see tha' little boy. I could hear wha' he was thinkin'. I could feel it. Like I was lost."

"Intense emotion can be part of a neurological event." Owen pointed out helpfully, although it came out as sarcasm. "Hallucinations, dementia."

Rose shot him a glare. "I wasn't hallucinating, Owen. An' I'm not bloody senile."

Jack picked up the device that Rose had found. "You pushed this button, and that cause this apparition moment?"

"Yeah." Rose nodded.

"Jack, don't." Tosh said, realising what Jack was going to do.

"Jack, please don't." Rose pleaded.

"As if." Jack sighed, placing the object back down.

"But tha's how it felt." Rose explained. "Like an apparition. A ghost."

"Toshiko, where do we start?"

"The guy you were chasing, I've got lots of CCTV, so tracking him down's going to be easy. The little boy? You said there was a name on the card around his neck?"

"Flanagan." Rose recalled. "Tom Erasmus Flanagan."

"Unusual name." Jack remarked. "That'll help. Run a full check. Births, marriages, deaths, criminal record, passports. However long it takes, wherever he is, we'll find him."

"Found him." Owen called from the autopsy room. "Flanagan, Thomas Erasmus. 74 Brymaeron Terrace, Butetown. He's in the phonebook."


Jack had sent Gwen and Owen to speak to Tom Flanagan, leaving himself, Rose, and Tosh at the Hub. Ianto was around here somewhere, but he typically did his own thing. Jack made some drinks and placed a cup of tea by Rose's desk.

"You ok?" He asked, noting how quiet she had been since her interaction with the ghost.

"I can see things tha' you lot can't, so no, not really." Rose snarked back, clearly frustrated. She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her hands over her face. "Sorry. It's a lot. The emotions were real, everythin' tha' Thomas felt, I felt. He was frightened, an' he was lost. There's nothin' scarier than bein' lost for a child. He must be alrigh' now though if he's livin' nearby."

"Exactly. I'm sure he's fine." Jack reassured her. "Once Gwen and Owen get back we'll figure out what happens next."

Rose nodded, reminding herself that it would all work out in the end. Eventually.

"Our friend with the alien machine in his pocket is one Sean Harris, aka Bernie." Jack confirmed, the team now sat in the conference room.

"And what he's doing with an alien machine is anyone's guess. Nineteen years old. String of convictions. Burglary, shoplifting, credit cards."

"Are you sure he didn't come from the Powell Estates?" Rose snorted. "He sounds like one of the kids I grew up with."

"Do warn me if he's dropping in." Ianto joked, handing everybody a hot drink and a donut.

"The theft conviction. He was stealing tyres off a car when the owner turns up, gives him so much grief, he apologies." Tosh was amused as she read through Bernie's criminal records. "Starts putting them back on again, which is when the police show up. And here. Shoplifting conviction. Bottle of vodka and three Pot Noodles."

"Definitely sounds like one of the kids from the estates." Rose commented, playing a game on her phone.

"A criminal mastermind." Owen muttered. "It's a wonder you didn't turn out like him."

Rose looked up at him, raising a single eyebrow and daring him to say something else.

"Don't let her innocence fool you." Jack joked. "Rose is not as innocent as she makes out."

"Now that I can believe." Owen agreed. "Got anywhere with that mystery object?"

"Alien of course. Gorgeous nanotechnology, makes NASA look like Toys 'R' Us."

Owen rolled his eyes. "Well, you've really narrowed things down, haven't you?"

"At the station it was doin' this." Rose pointed out. "When I held it, it lit up an' went mad."

"It's not doing it now, is it?" Owen said.

"No."

"So, what next?" Tosh wondered, before the two of them could start bickering. Again.

"This kid, Bernie, where does he live?" Jack asked.

"Splott." Tosh answered.

"Splott?" Owen frowned.

"I believe estate agents pronounce it as Sploe." Ianto clarified.

"Don't ever say I don't take you lot anywhere."