Disclaimer: Just thought I'd clarify, as NikkieSheepie brought this to my attention, my OCs aren't based on any characters from Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis or any variations of the franchise, so any similarities are coincidental. Sorry for any confusion.
'Rift readings, Torchwood Organization, Weevil sightings, people to Retcon'. These were the type of words that Samantha viewed for the next hour and a half. Every so often she would stop and look up at the door or listen for the sound of approaching footsteps before turning her attention back to the papers in front of her. She didn't know what to make of them. She thought that they were the formulated basis, the fictional stories of a group of people obsessed with the supernatural or science fiction, a group of delusional people with one dissosiative purpose.
She stared down at the sheets of paper incredulously: it sounded ridiculous, like one of those cheap, poorly made sci-fi movies that played occasionally in the middle of the night. If it was a possibility, she would consider it later. At that moment, she needed to keep her mind and her eyes opened for any possibilities.
She went back to leafing through the papers, scanning them quickly for anything that looking informative. Empirically, she deduced from her research that she was in the Torchwood Institute, some sort of privately funded organization, maybe military. She deduced that their work had something to do with what they called the Rift. What the Rift was, she couldn't figure out. One possibility was that it was a location where they worked frequently; another was that it was a codename for something else.
The one thing she couldn't figure out was why she had such open access to that information. If her captors had been so careless as to leave her, then there were only two possible explanations: they were amateurs who didn't even consider the possibility that she would find out anything about them, or they didn't view her as a threat. They only wouldn't view her as a threat if they weren't planning on her escaping. Which meant that they didn't plan on letting her go.
Her heart jumped at that revelation, but she pushed it from her mind. She couldn't afford to break down again.
She came across a single sheet of paper addressed to a Captain Jack Harkness. She stopped, the name triggering a feeling of deja vu.
Where have I heard that name before? she thought. She stopped, wracking her brain and overloading her recall system, trying to remember. When she came up with nothing, her eyes scanned the letter. It was mostly pleasantries at first, but after few lines, it was clear that it was a formal letter. The sender was requesting Jack Harkness's presence at some sort of delegation, in which he were to answer any and all questions on the current status and affairs of their organization. It was signed Queen Elizabeth II, sole authority and sponser of the Torchwood Institute.
Samantha read that last part again. Torchwood, whatever it was, was a royally funded institute? She almost laughed at how ridiculous she sounded. This is mental.
The sound of the lock rustling startled Samantha so much that for a moment, she couldn't move, frozen with fear. After a second, instinct kicked in and she tried to rearrange the papers like they had been a few hours ago in a matter of seconds before moving away from the desk. She stood in the middle of the room. She crossed her arms and stared at the door, bracing herself for what was going to happen next.
The door opened and the man-Jack-stepped inside, making sure that she wasn't near the door. He closed the door behind him before turning to her.
"Sorry about the wait," he said nonchalantly. "I thought I'd give you time to calm down before I tried to explain anything to you."
Samantha felt a sharp reply come to her lips, but she suppressed it, the need for answers greater than her pride.
"Who the hell are you people?" she demanded in an even voice, surprising herself. "What do you want with me?"
Jack looked at her with an expression of mild surprise. "Well, you certainly cut to the chase, don't you?" he asked, his patronizing tone making her want to throttle him. He took a step toward her, but she stepped back.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. She stared at him, not believing it.
"Like I haven't heard that before," she snapped.
He did not respond at first. "What do you mean by that?" he asked quietly.
Samantha stopped momentarily before glossing over his question, instead getting back on point. "What do you want with me?"
Jack raised his eyebrows, but instead of answering, he withdrew a revolver from the holster on his belt. Feeling a surge of fear, she started to back away, but he raised his hands in surrender.
"If I were going to kill you, I could do it in two seconds flat right now," he said, trying to reassure her, "And if I didn't want to create a commotion, I could easily do it in under fifteen," he added, pulling out what looked like a tranquilizer gun. "Just so there isn't any confusion about our intentions," he added. He held up both of them without aiming them before putting them back in their holsters. Samantha released the breath she had been holding.
"That still didn't answer my question," she said, unwilling to let him distract her.
"Right, sorry," he said, laughing. That was what made her angry; how he could stand there, laughing at her, as if everything that had happened to her in the past few hours was just a joke to him, some cruel joke.
His joking demeanor was replaced with an authorative one. "I think you should sit down."
"I think I'll stand," she countered.
He chuckled. "Suit yourself."
He walked around to his desk, passing by her. She jumped, thinking he was going to attack her, but he merely brushed past her and went to sit behind the masses of papers in front of him. She looked from him to the door, weighing the odds of her chances of escaping. His attention wasn't even on her, like she expected. Instead, he casually picked one up and scanned his eyes across its contents.
"So," he said nonchalantly without taking his eyes off the paper, "Find anything interesting?"
Samantha felt her heart stop, but he didn't seem angry or surprised. He sounded like he expected it.
"Don't be alarmed," he said, putting the paper down and propping his elbows on the desk, "Actually, I would have been surprised if you hadn't. I know that if I got thrown into a room by a bunch of complete strangers and there was something worth looking at, especially lying right in front of me, I wouldn't be huddled in a corner waiting for them to make the first move. I'm impressed. Oh," he added as she edged toward the door, "I've got the base wired at all the exit points and I've got several of my team members on point, so no chance of escape."
Samantha looked from the door back to him with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, realizing that she was overpowered and outnumbered.
"You might as well sit down," he repeated, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
Samantha looked at him, debating, before hesitantly going over to the chair in front of the desk and sat down. She did not drop her wary posture, her suspicious gaze.
"Are you hungry?" Jack asked as he rearranged the papers she had tried to do earlier, "It's probably been a while since you've had anything. I could have something sent up."
"What I want is for you to tell me what you want with me," she said, her expression unfathomable, but once the words were out of her mouth, her brave facade fell, and her cold, unyielding expression became one of pleading.
"Please, just let me go," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "I promise, I won't tell anyone about you. I won't go to the police, I promise, just please..."
She trailed off when she realized that he was staring at her, listening intently with a look of regret on his face, like he had no intention of letting her go.
"Please, I have to find my brother," she said pleadingly, "He's only seven years old and he's out there somewhere, lost and alone and I-"
She tried to go on, but found that no words would come out; her throat closed up. Only as the words left her mouth did the full impact of what had happened settled over her. She had been attacked, mugged, and left for dead, leaving her brother God only knows where all by himself, scared and alone.
"You mean to tell me," Jack said, staring at her, one eyebrow raised, "that you've been mugged and kidnapped all in one night, both separate instances, by people who could be axe murderers or lunatics for all you know, and you're worried about your brother?"
Samantha did not answer. Having him casually lump the events of the day together as if he were merely commenting on the weather only made it more real, the realization more fresh on her mind. Then the tears did come.
Jack watched her in silence as she tried to hide the tears by wiping them from behind her hands. After a moment, he handed her a napkin from his desk drawer. Her eyes flicked from the napkin to his face with a look of confusion, surprise, like she didn't know what to make of him. Hesitantly, she took it, hastily wiping her eyes.
"As I said," he continued as though nothing had happened, "I'm-we're-not going to hurt you, nor do we have your brother."
"Then how do you know who I am?" Samantha asked. "What do you want from me?"
He stared at her for a minute with his gaze, so penetrating, before speaking.
"Do you know what happened today?" he countered, not dropping his gaze.
She started to answer, but found that, when she thought about it, she really didn't know what happened. She had just assumed...but what had really happened? Suddenly the answers that she thought she had made her stop, her mind whirring at a hundred miles an hour to try and remember what had happened.
"There was...this light," she tried to explain, to put into words what she couldn't form a thought of, "and then...just darkness. It was like I was falling, and then...I thought only a moment had passed because it happened so quickly, but then I woke up and it was like hours had passed. I don't even know what day it is," she added, just now realizing.
"Today's date is January the fourth," Jack responded.
She nodded absently; so it was still the same day. "What time is it?"
"11:00 p.m."
She did the math. She had been there for almost two hours, she assumed. She must have been unconscious for about seven hours.
"Where's your wallet?" Jack asked, taking her aback.
Instinctively, she checked her jacket pocket. Her wallet, her car keys, they were both there.
"But...I was mugged," she said, although now she wasn't so sure. "Why didn't they take...?"
Jack leaned forward, looking her in the eye. "You weren't mugged, Samantha. You weren't hit by a car and you weren't drugged and left somewhere in the city."
"Then what happened?" she asked angrily. Suddenly she found herself on her feet. She was getting tired of his games, the way he dodged her questions and left her with riddles that she was too tired to decipher. She wanted answers. In a rage, she slammed the palms of her hands on his desk. He started, and she felt a thrill of triumph at finally wiping that cocky, self-satisfied look off his face.
"I've had just about enough of all of this," she said furiously. "Okay? I can't take anymore! I've gone from one unexplained event to another and I'm not just going to sit here while you play... cryptic psycho-babbler! For once, give me a straight answer and tell me what the hell is going on!"
"You didn't ask what year it was," Jack said calmly, once again dodging her question.
"Do I—?" she repeated angrily before the confusion took over, "What?" She was sure she had heard him wrong. "Of course I know what year it is. I was knocked out; I wasn't in a coma," she snapped derisively.
"What year is it, Samantha?"
"It's 1987," she answered, feeling like an idiot for humoring him in whatever sick game he was playing.
He stared at her, like this was the answer he was expecting, but not like it was the one he wanted to hear.
"Samantha, there's something you should know," he started, but then stopped.
"Well?" she prompted him.
"You're in a place called the Torchwood Institute. We're an underground organization, outside the government, beyond the police. We deal with events that people-ordinary, everyday people-aren't equipped to deal with. What happened to you...it was one of those events."
"What do you mean?"
"There's this thing called a Rift," he explained, "It runs through Cardiff, underneath the city. It's a line of constant energy. It's always there, always emitting energy, but it's harmless to the human race. Sometimes, though, random waves of energy will converge. When that happens, it powers the Rift and opens it, creating a sort of entryway between two designated points."
Samantha found her head spinning. She couldn't figure out where this information was going.
"When that kind of energy activates the Rift, for that one moment, two points are connected in time and/or space. Usually, the energy loses power and the portal dissipates on its own before it has time to affect anyone. In some cases, though, people fall through."
"So," Samantha said, piecing together what he was saying. "You're saying that this Rift, this line of convergence, opened and I fell through."
She couldn't help it; she laughed. This was absurd. She had studied principles like that in theory, but to believe that she had actually been subject to one of them empirically was ridiculous. Against her better judgment, she decided to humor him.
"All right, then. You have all the answers. Let's say I did fall through this-this doorway, this portal. Where did I come out?"
Jack was careful to answer. Reaching into the pocket of his jacket hanging off the back of his chair, he pulled out a rolled up newspaper. He laid it out in front of her.
"Read the date," he said.
Samantha didn't look at first. For some reason, she was scared of what she would find. It was something in Jack's eyes, so full of pity, so regretful at having to tell her something that he clearly didn't want to. Finally, after she couldn't take the suspense, the not knowing, she picked up the paper and looked in the upper left corner for the date.
January 4th, 2007.
