maybe there's a light that's always on

DOLLHOUSE: The Christmas Spirit

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:08:14 GMT

Title: The Christmas Spirit
Characters/Pairing: Claire and Topher
Word Count: 786
Rating: PG
Summary: Topher has the Christmas spirit (sort of). Claire definitely does not.
Notes: Written for harbek. ...the fandom and characters is the only part of her request I actually managed. Still. It's Dollhouse! And Christmas!
Disclaimer: Dollhouse and all characters belong to Joss Whedon. I am not him, and am not making any money from this.

Nobody notices Christmas in the Dollhouse. Or at least, they pretend not to, though the handlers with families to go home to start to get cranky and irritable when engagements keep them from going home, and everyone without anywhere to go does their best to pretend they don't mind that they don't. The Dollhouse is a place set outside of time and the rest of the world, untouched by all of it - including holidays.

Except that there's a Christmas tree in Topher's office.

Claire doesn't even know where it came from - she's pretty sure Topher leaves the Dollhouse only slightly more often than she does - and she's not sure how he got it inside. She decides to ignore it, and manages for a week and a half, until India comes back from an engagement red-eyed and sniffling. Claire gives her an antihistamine, sends her to dinner, and reluctantly heads up to Topher's office.

He doesn't seem to notice her when she first steps inside. She waits for a moment, hovering near the doorway, weighing the options of backing out now and just writing up a very stern memo - which he will never read. That won't do anyone any good, and India will still be sneezing. She clears her throat.

Topher yelps and swings away from his computers to face her, hands held up like he expects some kind of attack. Claire stares at him for a second, as if to say did you really just do that? After another second or two, they both seem to silently agree they'll both pretend that didn't happen. "What?" Topher asks, a little too indignant in order to cover embarrassment.

Claire folds her arms over her chest, gives him a skeptical look for just a moment longer, and then nods to the stunted Christmas tree in the corner of his office. "You need to get rid of that."

Topher eyes her for a second, lips pressed together, eyes skittering over her face like he's afraid to let them rest there too long, like he's fighting not to focus on the scars. They weren't ever friends, but since the incident, he's... uncomfortable around her. She can't blame him. "What, is there some new rules regarding holiday shrubs? ...shouldn't Dom or DeWitt be enforcing that sort of thing?"

"India's allergic to pine," she answers dryly. "I haven't checked, but I assume there are rules about not triggering allergic reactions in the Actives..."

He sighs a little and steps away from his computers, moving across the room like he feels the need to place himself between her and the tree. "Iiii'll make sure her treatments are quick. In and out, limited exposure."

"She was up here for two minutes, Topher. Any longer and it could have been serious." She can't imagine what his attachment to the stupid thing is, unless now he's just arguing to keep it to annoy her. Topher narrows his eyes a little, squinting at her with an expression she can't even begin to parse.

"Come on, Saunders, where's your Christmas spirit?"

"Misplaced with my sense of humor, I'm sure. Get rid of it."

He doesn't quite pout, but his expression flickers through something similar enough, like a sulky child. "Is India really that bothered by it? Give her a good dose of antihistamines before and after her treatments, she won't even notice!" He pauses a moment, shrugs, and then swing back towards his computer. "Or you could always tell DeWitt and see what she says..."

Ordinarily, Claire would do just that, but the easy confidence of that comment rankles something. The assumption that she wouldn't go to DeWitt, or the certainty she'd take Topher's side if she did... She stands there eyeing him for a moment longer, and then turns and walks out of his office, back down to her own. Topher's already turned his attention back to his work by the time she does, and doesn't even seem to notice her leaving.

That night, at three AM, there is a small, incredibly localized fire in Topher's office, something to do with Christmas lights or spontaneous combustion or God knows what. Topher's asleep when it happens; the janitorial staff has it out in minutes, and DeWitt makes it clear that Topher's not to make any further additions to his office décor without running it by her.

When Topher wakes up and finds out what happened to his tree, he stands at his window for what must be half an hour, glowering in the direction of Claire's office until she happens to pass where she can see him. She catches his eye, raises her eyebrows, and smiles back at him, saccharine sweet and too innocent to ever be believed.

TORCHWOOD/HIS DARK MATERIALS: Departure

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:58:51 GMT

Title: Departure
Characters/Pairing: Jack, Gwen, and their respective daemons
Word Count: 365
Rating: PG
Summary: Jack is leaving, with or without his daemon.
Notes: Written for daemonprompts. Spoilers for Children of Earth.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and all characters belong to the BBC. Daemons belong to Philip Pullman. I am not affiliated with either, and am not making any money from this.

"Jack Harkness, don't you dare!"

"Jack Harkness," Azaria whispers, a growl lacing each word, "don't you dare."

Jack can see the hope sparking in Gwen's eyes, that his own daemon's arguing with him. Colby's ears flick forward, and he glances hopefully toward Azaria. Jack's jaw tightens, even as his lips twitch into a hard, humorless smile.

"Could be worse," he says quietly, and can't be sure if he's speaking to Gwen or Azaria. "At least I've said goodbye." This time, the last time, and isn't that enough? They can't stay, and she knows it as well as he - he's caught her staring after every small hound daemon, starting at every laughing blond child with a bird wheeling about his head.

He reaches for his wriststrap to send the signal, and Azaria takes one slow step backwards, pressing her whole body against Gwen's legs. Gwen gasps and tenses, and Jack just freezes, suddenly breathless. It's like an electric current running through him. It's like an empty place being filled. It's like cold, hungry fingers winding around his heart, and he could step away, if he likes, but he'd leave his heart behind.

Azaria doesn't growl again, just speaks quietly, perfectly deliberate. "You can go, but I won't. Could you really leave us both?"

He has to close his eyes to shut out Gwen's pleading face, Azaria's gaze seeking his. He doesn't think of that. He thinks, instead, of a thousand deaths, darkness closing in and terrible, terrible loneliness, and that empty, gasping moment just after he returns to life, and he opens his eyes to give them both a terrible, sick smile.

"I do it all the time," he says, and hits the controls to send the signal. Gwen shouts something indistinct, and Azaria snarls and bristles and bares her teeth at him, while the blue glow of the teleport reflects on both their faces. Jack meets Azaria's eyes, and just chokes back the words "I'm sorry." The blue light flares nearly white, Azaria's nerve breaks, and at the last moment she lunges toward him with an anguished howl. He feels her collide with his legs, and the next moment, they're both a million miles away.

DOLLHOUSE: Blood and Tears

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:51:35 GMT

Title: Blood and Tears
Characters/Pairing: Claire and Topher
Word Count: 855
Rating: PG
Summary: It's been a week since Alpha appeared in the Dollhouse again, and Claire hasn't slept through a single night.
Notes: Written for yetregressing for the ~~alphabet~~ drabble meme. Set shortly after "Omega".
Disclaimer: Dollhouse and all characters belong to Joss Whedon. I am not Joss Whedon, and am not making any money from this.

Claire wakes up to hear a high, soft whimper somewhere nearby. It takes her a second or two to realize that it's her, and when she does, she swallows hard, chokes it off. She holds her breath and waits for the silence to settle in around her again before she slides out of bed and begins to get dressed. She's getting uncomfortably used to this. It's been a week since Alpha appeared in the Dollhouse again, and she hasn't slept through a single night.

As she tugs on her labcoat, she can't help but reach up to her face, one finger tracing over the scar on her cheek. She'd half expected to find open wounds, not scars, but when she pulls her hand away, there's no blood. She wipes her hand off on her lapcoat anyway though there's nothing there, an almost unconscious gesture, and steps out of her tiny sleeping area into the hall, tugging the door shut behind her.

The back hallways are dark, quiet and empty, entirely unsurprisingly. It's four in the morning, after all. No one is awake in the Dollhouse at four in the morning except for the security staff and her. She likes it that way. This morning, though, as she steps through the door in the back of her office, her attention is immediately drawn to a light on the second floor, across the house. Topher's domain, and just what he's doing both here and awake at this hour, she doesn't want to know. She's almost certain his work ethic is nowhere near that strong.

Unless maybe he's found something particularly entertaining. One more thing she doesn't want to know about. She walks to the door, footsteps almost silent even on the hardwood, and gently closes it before flicking on a light and moving back to her desk. She has reports to write, if not many at this point. If nothing else, all the nightmares are doing wonders for her job productivity.

She's been sitting there for half an hour, staring at the keyboard and forcing herself not to look at the door or listen for footsteps outside her office, because there's no one there and nothing to worry about, when the phone rings. She doesn't scream, but only because her throat locks up as her whole body jerks backward. The phone rings again, and forces herself to relax, shooting the phone a glare like it's personally responsible for all of this. Claire takes a breath and reaches for the receiver.

"This is Dr. Saunders."

"Yeah, I noticed from how it's... your office I'm calling."

Claire grimaces and almost hangs up. Instead, she sighs, glancing in the vague direction of Topher's office. There's a wall in the way, and he can't possibly see her from here. Which means he's only calling because he noticed the lights on in her office. She knew she should have just gone ahead and worked in the dark. "What do you want, Topher?"

"You're... awake."

"So are you."

"Yeah, but you went to bed... what, three hours ago?"

Claire moves before she even thinks, stalking to the window with the phone still in hand, and there he is at the window of his own office, the master looking out over his domain and his creations. He's looking straight at her, and she glares back. "Are you stalking me?"

"I just... happened to notice!" he answers, a touch too defensive. She can't read his expression from here. "It's not like I have to go out of my way..."

Realization sinks in, sudden and bitter. "You're monitoring me. Afraid I'm starting to lose it? Starting to wonder if my brain needs a tune up?" She doesn't give him a chance to answer. She hangs up the phone, eyes locked on his across the building. He doesn't call her back, just stands there, staring down at her, and after a moment, Claire shakes her head and turns to stalk back to her desk.

Her hands are shaking when she sits down. She wonders if Topher would still be able to pull up her vital signs if he wanted. If he's looking at a computer screen right now and reading anger, disgust, fear... She is fine. She is fine and functional and she doesn't have a choice in the matter, because if she's not, they'll find another use for the broken Doll. If Topher walked down here now and said the word "treatment", would she be able to say no? She can't say for sure, but she knows she'd do anything to avoid that chair. She hasn't slept a night since Alpha, and she is going to keep every damn one of those awful, bloody nightmares because they are hers.

After a minute or two, she notices her cheeks are wet. She reaches up a hand and scrubs at them, taking a few deep breaths and struggling back to some semblance of calm. There's no earthly reason it should be blood on her face instead of tears, but she glances at her fingers anyway when she drops her hand to the desk. Of course, there's nothing there.

DOLLHOUSE: (Imaginary) People

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:43:12 GMT

Title: (Imaginary) People
Characters/Pairing: Claire and Topher
Word Count: 583
Rating: PG
Summary: It might be simpler, Claire thinks, if she were one of the people who never has doubts.
Notes: Written for sunday_reveries.
Disclaimer: Dollhouse and all characters belong to Joss Whedon. I am not Joss Whedon, and am not making any money from this.

Claire wonders sometimes how long she can do this, how she can do this. She knows all the lines - we are helping people, giving them what they need, improving lives, saving lives - and recites them to herself when her faith starts to waver. Still, she knows that's all they are, pretty lies to reassure you, when you start to wonder about the lives you help destroy without batting an eye.

She's not the only one who wavers, she's certain. Boyd never says a word, but he doesn't hide his doubts half as well as he thinks. DeWitt is unwavering and fierce, as far as anyone can tell, but Claire's seen the look on her face sometimes, when she starts to think about the lives in her care.

It might be simpler, she thinks, to be one of those rare people who never has doubts.

Topher bounds toward her as she enters his office, head slightly ducked, hands in his pockets, reminding her vaguely of an apologetic puppy. "Okay, so, hypothetically. If an Active happened to tumble down some stairs and, uh... fracture his skull-"

"What?" She rises to her feet, unthinking, and steps out from behind her desk. If it had happened in the Dollhouse, she would have heard before Topher wandered into her office, so...

He raises his hands defensively. "Hypothetically, I said hypothetically! And... okay, it's a little literal."

"Which Active, Topher?"

"Uh... Charlie. He's on his way back with his handler, I'm sure he's perfectly fine besides the slight concussion and, you know, broken bones, but I would like to make it clear that it was absolutely not my fault."

Claire takes a slow breath, and rubs at the bridge of her nose. "So why are you the one telling me about it?"

"I... happened to be the one monitoring his vital signs at the time." He pauses. Claire waits a moment, certain that he'll keep talking soon enough. "And the imprint I gave him... is apparently epileptic."

"He had a seizure?"

"And fell down some stairs. I really didn't anticipate the flashy lights."

She groans and starts walking toward the door, while Topher backs up like he's afraid she's going to hit him, matching her step for step. Claire just rolls her eyes and goes on, "And you somehow failed to notice this when you made the imprint?"

He spreads his hands with an apologetic smile that only lasts until he accidentally backs into the door frame. "It's... never come up. But it'll never happen again, Charlie's fine, and... now you get to treat a skull fracture! You never get those! So... hooray?" He waves one hand in the air in some odd celebratory gesture. He stops at Claire's unamused glare. "I'll just... go back upstairs now."

Claire nods, with a cool and tight-lipped smile. "You do that."

She wonders if he ever even bats an eye at all of this. No one ever dies, hardly ever, and it can't really matter that whole people are created and destroyed and stored away in little wedges on vaguely ordered shelves, whole lives imagined and forgotten in a flash of light, dozens every day. They were never real anyway. She watches him bound up the stairs, two at a time, obviously already moving on to whatever fascinating, theoretically bloodless puzzle he has in front of him now, and she thinks she hates him. She can't bear to think that it might be just because hatred is easier than jealousy.

DOLLHOUSE: The Edge of the World

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:32:47 GMT

Title: The Edge of the World
Characters/Pairing: Adelle and Topher
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Summary: Adelle's world is narrowing, piece by piece.
Disclaimer: Dollhouse and all characters belong to Joss Whedon. I am not Joss Whedon, and am not making any money from this.

Adelle's world is narrowing, piece by piece.

For months, she's always in her office, fielding phone calls, trying to minimize damage, sometimes just staring out her window, watching the slow slide to hell.

For a while, she paces Topher's office, feeling these walls contain everything that matters, her world and all the lives under her care, and that's horrifying and comforting at once.

For now, she sits beside Topher's pod, stroking his hair while he sleeps. Actions have consequences. If the end of their world is a few breaths away, it's only because they came to stand at the edge.

DOLLHOUSE: Damage

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:51:39 GMT

Title: Damage
Characters/Pairing: Claire, mention of Topher, Alpha and DeWitt
Word Count: 550
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Nothing in Claire's life feels real anymore, but that's only natural.
Notes: Written for sunday_reveries. Set pre-canon, after the Alpha incident.
Disclaimer: Dollhouse and all characters belong to the Joss Whedon. I am not affiliated with Joss Whedon, and am not making any money from this.

Claire doesn't go home, after it happens. She'd never have made the drive home anyway - the whole thing's a hazy mess of blood loss and narcotics and shock, and as she wanders to the small room in the hall behind her office where DeWitt's had a cot set up for her, she's not sure that's entirely faded. Everything feels distant and soft-edged - her own office, when she passes through it, seems like a part of someone else's life. It's only natural, she guesses, with this kind of trauma, but it's unsettling when all she wants is to be somewhere comfortable, and safe, and familiar.

She falls into the chair behind her desk anyway, the same place she always sits (isn't it?), where there's a book open and face-down set to one side of the desk, and an empty coffee mug in front of her. She doesn't remember reading the book. She doesn't remember drinking the coffee. But that's only natural too - you forget the stupid, everyday things that come before, when what happens after is so... very... far from that. She doesn't remember how to do the everyday just now.

Sitting there, staring at the faint smudges of dust on her desk (outlining what might have been picture frames, and that's strange, isn't it, when she never had pictures there), memories fall slowly into place. Talking to Adelle, staring into a mug of tea and trying not to cry because the painkillers haven't kicked in yet. Waking up in Topher's chair, and he's standing right there, tripping over himself to explain that she's only there because they had too many bodies in her office. Screaming, and blood on the hardwood floors, light glinting off a blade and Alpha, Alpha, Alpha...

Claire shivers and pushes herself out of the chair, shaking her head a little. It doesn't quite shake loose the memory, and she didn't expect it to. Healing doesn't happen overnight. The cut on her lip has cracked open, and she can taste copper on her lips. It stings when she licks the blood away, but that, at least, feels real.

She can't decide what she's supposed to do now, what they expect her to do, except maybe to stay out of the way until everyone stops wincing when they look at her. She could read the book on her desk, listen to music, try to forget. She could call her sister, and cry, but she hasn't spoken to any of her family in four years, and what would she ever say to them now? A stray thought crosses her mind - I just want to go home - and she almost laughs at that. Home won't help anything. The Dollhouse is as good a place to be as any, now.

In the end, she walks quietly to the other room. She swallows two of the painkillers they'd handed her, and falls into a bed that's too hard and smells like sandalwood and rose water and nothing real, just the Dollhouse. There's still blood on her lips, and on her tongue, but when she falls asleep, she doesn't dream of blood - just light, and electricity, and the man standing over her isn't Alpha at all.

She wakes up, hours later, and she doesn't remember a thing, but that's only natural.

TORCHWOOD: Ghosts

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:58:43 GMT

Title: Ghosts
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto, unnamed Time Agent
Word Count: 1000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What's left of the Time Agency wants Jack on their side, and they've brought an unexpected bargaining chip.
Notes: Written for writerinadrawer round 3.07. Spoilers for Children of Earth. This fic is... something of a warm-up for a much longer fic I intend to write some day.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC (except for the Time Agent, who belongs to trollopfop. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

"You know, stalking is not as charming as you people seem to think."

The Agent across the table didn't smile. Se never smiled, which only brought this whole thing to new heights of irritation. If the tattered remnants of the Agency had to track him across the known universe, they could at least have a sense of humour when he snapped back.

"I'm not here to charm you. I'd like to talk business." Se laced many-jointed fingers in front of hir, and eyed him with an expression of utmost calm. The worst part was that se probably meant it. In the Agency... stalking might as well be a polite hello.

He looked down and speared something on his plate. He wasn't sure what it was, possibly some sort of alien potato, but it was infinitely more interesting than former Time Agents who couldn't let go of the past. "Funny thing. I don't care about your business. I just want you to leave me alone."

Hir expression didn't shift, but somehow became a few degrees cooler. "We can't do that."

Jack set down the fork and shoved the plate to one side. "Why not?" Hir eyes fell pointedly to his wriststrap.

"Because you're walking around with a badge of Agency authority." Se didn't even bother sounding threatening — at most, he caught a hint of amusement. "You don't want to help rebuild, I won't force you; just give us the wriststrap. It's your choice."

He'd heard enough. He stood up and leaned forward, hands braced on the table. "I don't think you're in a position to make ultimatums. The Agency's gone, and you can find someone else to help you play out the sequel. I'm done. Follow me again, I will shoot you." He started for the door. Se didn't follow, though he half-expected hir to.

Instead, two steps out the door, he felt a presence over his shoulder, falling into step just behind him. "I think that last threat may've been a bit much," said a familiar voice. He couldn't breathe, couldn't turn to look. "She didn't look impressed."

*

"You're dead."

"I was there."

Ianto sat on Jack's bed, looking at him like he might be an idiot, or crazy. Jack was starting to agree with him on at least one count. He set his back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest.

"So you can't be here." He shouldn't have to point out that a dead person couldn't follow him halfway across the universe. He also shouldn't have to deny what sat right in front of him, when a few months ago, he'd have given anything to see Ianto apparently alive and well, even eyeing him with an expression of mild and growing annoyance.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Ianto answered wryly.

Jack pushed himself away from the wall with a soft growl. Moving closer, he noticed details — Ianto was dressed the same as the day he died, but less dishevelled, no bruises, no gash on his cheek. Just as Jack remembered him, and that was the problem. He stopped a metre away and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"I figured if I was ever going to start losing my mind and hallucinating, it would've been a long time before now." Silence, for a moment. "You're not real."

He dropped his hands, and was almost startled to see that Ianto was still there, rising to his feet now, stepping toward him. Jack reached up, unthinking, to brush his cheek. His fingers tingled, like passing through a faint electric field, but nothing met his fingertips.

Ianto shied away from his hand; Jack couldn't blame him. He wouldn't want someone's hand passing through his face either. "Given past experience, you might be a little more accepting of the idea that there might be such a thing as ghosts. We've both seen stranger."

"That's... different." Even as he said it, he knew it sounded stupid. "I don't believe in ghosts. I believe in gloves, echoes of emotion, certain techn—" He dropped his hand abruptly, and lunged for the door.

*

"What the hell did you do?"

It hadn't been hard to find the Agency bitch. He thought se might stick around, and pale berry-purple was not a common skin colour on Beren. Se turned to face him, coolly tucking a few strands of hair behind fringed ears. "You're going to have to be more specific. I've done a lot of things."

"Ianto," he ground out.

Se didn't answer for a moment, and then rolled hir eyes, and reached into hir pocket. He expected a weapon, but what se held up was a small, thick disc. When se tossed it to him, he caught it instinctively. "I thought you might be just a little grateful."

He inspected it — buttons, red blinking light — and looked back to hir suspiciously. "What is this?"

"Psychic recorder and projection unit. Amazing what you can do with something like that, in combination with a functional vortex manipulator... which, by the way, you could have, if you'd only—"

Jack's hand tightened on the disc, careful not to hit any of the buttons. "So what, he's a bargaining chip? 'Join our stupid club and we won't switch off your—'"

"I'd considered it an act of good faith. A gift, if you like."

He looked down at the disc — at Ianto's consciousness, in effect, blinking in his hand. Good faith indeed. You can always count on a Time Agent to come to the negotiating table; the question is whether they'll poison the drinks. He slipped it into his pocket despite the feeling he'd just been handed a ticking bomb. "If you're waiting for me to say thank you—"

Hand on hir wriststrap, se was gone before he finished speaking. Jack blinked blue-white spots from his eyes and turned away, painfully aware of the weight in his pocket. He almost wished he believed in ghosts, now; given a choice between that and Agency games, he'd take superstition.

DOCTOR WHO: Love Me Just Enough

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:19:51 GMT

Title: Love Me Just Enough
Characters/Pairing: Tenth Doctor/River, mention of Rose, Martha, Donna
Word Count: 291
Rating: PG
Summary: As a rule, the Doctor doesn't fall in love.
Notes: Written for sunday_reveries.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

As a rule, the Doctor doesn't fall in love. It's one thing to have a friend along for the ride (a hand to hold), but love... Love complicates things. Love is messy, sticky, sharp-edged, explosive, confusing, terrifying, and something he let go of long ago.

It's too hot on Cerdin this time of year, too hot in the narrow bed, too hot with River's bare skin pressed against his, furnace-hot. Even so, the Doctor doesn't get up, doesn't pull away. There's something comforting in human heat, the weight of a body beside him, just the presence of someone there. It's too hot, but still he presses closer, forehead to her shoulder, loose curls tickling his nose.

The Doctor doesn't sleep often, doesn't need to, and certainly doesn't need to be here, in bed, on an alien planet in the sixty-third century, when there are a hundred other things he could be doing. But River murmurs in her sleep, and rolls over restlessly, and tucks her face into the space between his shoulder and his neck, and he can't even imagine moving from this spot just now.

The Doctor doesn't fall in love, as a rule, but even so, even without that, he ends up in the same place every time, crying alone in the TARDIS orbiting a dying star, or standing there watching her walk away with a dull ache in his chest, or walking back to the TARDIS in the rain with an empty goodbye ringing in his head, or watching helplessly in a small, red-lit room in a massive library, handcuffs biting into his wrist.

The Doctor doesn't fall in love, as a rule, but rules were made to be broken, and usually by him.

TORCHWOOD: Prismatic

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:13:03 GMT

Title: Prismatic
Characters/Pairing: Gwen, Jack, Owen, Ianto and Tosh
Word Count: 700
Rating: PG
Summary: You just know it's going to be a long day when your teammates start glowing various colours.
Notes: Written for writerinadrawer round 3.05.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

Gwen's head is throbbing, and not just because Owen seems to be glowing an obnoxious chartreuse. She can't decide if that's supposed to be the colour for curiosity or sadism. He ties off a tourniquet above her elbow, reaches for a syringe; she closes her eyes and tries to ignore the prick of the needle. Compared to her headache, it's not bad.

She can still see colours behind her eyelids, which is even more annoying - Owen chartreuse, and ranged at intervals around the autopsy room balcony, there's Tosh (pale green), Ianto (dull amber), and Jack. Jack isn't a single colour, or even several easily identifiable colours. In her head, behind her eyelids, he's opalescent, flickering red, gold, blue. Maybe it's Jack giving her the headache, not Owen.

"When did this start?" he asks. Her eyes snap open again, and she winces as the light hits her eyes.

"Last night, and before you ask why I didn't tell you, I thought I was just tired. When you're awake for forty-eight hours, things do get a little... fuzzy around the edges."

The needle slides out of her arm, and Owen unties the tourniquet. Gwen watches him, but her attention swings back to Jack momentarily. "There's a difference between fuzzy around the edges and glowing, Gwen."

"No, I hadn't noticed."

She sighs, sliding off the autopsy table. The moment she's on her feet, the world tips alarmingly; before she tips with it, she reaches out, catches herself on the side of the table and hangs on tight. The glow surrounding Jack flares orange, stabbing into Gwen's temples. Typical Jack, she thinks. Pretty, and can't help being a pain.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine," she says through gritted teeth, and sits back down. "Just-"

"Feverish," Owen finishes for her, "and if we're all very lucky, not contagious. I do not want to die of an alien virus."

"Thank you, Owen." Gwen smiles wanly, and reminds herself she'll only fall over if she tries to hit him.

*

Ianto hands Gwen a mug of tea before sliding into his seat at the boardroom table. Gwen smiles gratefully; after an hour, her head's pounding more than ever, and she feels accomplished just for making her way up the stairs. And it's only ten in the morning. It's going to be a long day.

"So what's wrong with me?" She tries not to look at Owen as she asks.

"That question's going to take a while to answer." Chartreuse, Gwen decides, is the colour for obnoxious twat. "I can tell you that whatever it is that's infected you, it's definitely alien. Kind of weird, though."

Jack raises an eyebrow. "Weirder than, you know, aliens?"

"Weird in that it's got similarities to influenza."

Tosh frowns and leans forward. "You mean like it's... mutated? Or crossbred?"

Gwen groans. "Bloody brilliant. I just got the flu jab the other day. I only wanted my mum to stop nagging me."

"Does taking your mother's advice ever go well?" Ianto wonders aloud. "Not your mother specifically, Gwen. I'm sure she's lovely."

Jack looks thoughtful. "My mother used to give me advice in the form of zen koans. This was a problem. ...does anyone else know what the hell 'if you meet the Buddha, kill him' means? Because I don't think she was actually advocating murder."

Ianto turns to stare at Jack in open-mouthed confusion. Jack gleams blue-purple. Gwen resists the urge to throw her mug at him, and clears her throat. "Can we please get back to the alien virus and my newfound synaesthesia?"

"I'm not sure it's technically-" Tosh cuts off at a glance from Jack, as he rises to his feet, hands on the table.

"Alright. Owen, we're going to that flu jab clinic. Tosh, Ianto, I want you checking hospital records; see if you can find anyone with similar symptoms. See what we find, work from there."

They rise to their feet and start out of the boardroom. Jack lingers for a moment, and Gwen lifts her head, eyebrows raised. "And what am I supposed to do?"

"You barely made it up the stairs, Gwen. My suggestion? Sit here, drink your tea. Though if you really wanted, you could go professional with that aura-reading thing. What's my colour?"

She considers, and finally answers, smiling faintly, "Smug bastard."

TORCHWOOD: The Naming of Things

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:06:32 GMT

Title: The Naming of Things
Characters/Pairing: Jack, various OCs
Word Count: 956
Rating: PG
Summary: Four people Time Agent 462O1 has been, and one he won't be again.
Notes: Written for flashfic_hub's five things challenge. Spoilers for Children of Earth.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

i. "Captain― James Harper,"
he introduces himself after hitting the transport bay, only the slightest hesitation between the rank and the name. An old alias, but no one alive will recognize it, and that's the important thing.

He says the name, and a story slots into place. He can be an exile, from Alera or Sulloria, a long way from home - or maybe that falls too close to the truth. In the end, the backstory doesn't matter; the alien operating the transporter smiles wryly and says simply, "Welcome aboard."

James shrugs his shoulders, settling both his coat and his new identity around him, and smiles back. "So I never asked - what's your destination?"

ii. "Jason Holt."

There's something to be said for Agency naming codes - a new name, a new self, is always right there at your fingertips, right on the tip of your tongue. It's not such a difficult habit to fall back into. Keep the initials, don't mention ranks or affiliations unless absolutely necessary, change the rest to suit time and place and circumstance.

The man who asked his name eyes him, in the dim half-light of the bar. Funny, how bars in any time, anywhere in the universe are all basically the same, tending toward dim light and too much noise and one too many talkative drunks. Maybe that's only the bars Jason ends up in.

Jason's only watching out of the corner of his eye, but he notices the man's gaze flicker to the coat. "Just get back from the war?" he asks finally, and Jason nods wordlessly. He doesn't know what war. It doesn't matter. All wars - or maybe just the wars Jason ends up in - are basically the same.

iii. "Judas?"

He reacts to the name immediately, looking up before he remembers on a conscious level that that is what he's going by now. He stopped bothering with surnames about four planets back; no one on Correne is aware of the symbolism in the one left. Just a name, and it's his now.

"What?"

"C'n I ask you a question?"

He almost smiles. You just did. "Yeah."

He's been playing the mercenary for a while now, and this is the first job he wishes he hadn't taken. Taking out the kidnappers had been no problem, and he barely even minds the complications after, but this kid he's been hired to rescue... The kid doesn't even look human, thin and fragile, taller than a human child, with too many joints in his limbs, but he keeps watching Judas with wide eyes a too-familiar shade of blue. Like he's something special. Like he's something to admire.

Judas wishes he'd stop.

"'m I going home tomorrow?"

"I'll be taking you back to your family, yeah." He looks down again, across the small room he's holed up in, at anything but this kid.

"Will you stay with us?" This time, Judas laughs softly, and it feels rough in his throat. People never get tired of asking him that question.

iv. "Captain!"

A good title goes a long way; he learned that a long time ago. After a while, most people stop asking for a proper name, and for the few that do, it's easy to shake them off with a simple 'just the (doctor) Captain'.

Lissan still smirks when she says it, but she doesn't question it anymore. The Captain swings to face her, flashes a smile. The sterile corridors of the Shadow Proclamation make him feel a little claustrophobic, a little uneasy, but it's home base for now, and if there's one thing he's glad to come back to, it's Lissan, white hair and red eyes and a ready smile.

"When did you get back?"

He shrugs. "A few hours ago. It was a short trip." The Shadow Proclamation is not unfamiliar - like a younger, more hopeful Agency, and the Captain wonders if it's worth trying to steer them in a different direction, knowing the history. In the mean time, it's something to do with himself, and he's useful, and more tactful than the Judoon, when something more than brute force and less than diplomacy is called for.

Lissan doesn't hug him - her species tends toward a disappointing aversion towards physical affection - but she falls into step beside him in the corridor, and her hand brushes his. The Captain's smile grows a bit. One day, he'll have to walk (fly) away from here, before he gets too close, but he'll miss her when he does.

Maybe that's a sign he needs to be leaving sooner, rather than later.

v. "Captain Jack Harkness?"

He freezes. He barely breathes. He resists the urge to move for a weapon. No one should know that name, no one should be calling him that, but spilling a little blood isn't going to fix that.

He schools his expression to something calm and detached, and turns slowly. At a glance, he doesn't recognise the slender, silver-skinned woman in front of him, can't imagine why she thinks she knows him. Memory seeps back slowly, rising from parts of his past he has no interest in returning too. A long-ago interrogation for Torchwood One, a Silbek girl who'd crash-landed on Earth, all that old sympathy and pity and helplessness he'd felt when he looked at her then...

You got out, he thinks, and considers questioning how. Considers asking why she remembers that name, when he's been trying to forget for so long. Instead, he smiles, brittle and empty, and says, "Sorry, you've got the wrong guy."

He doesn't wait for her to speak again. Captain Jack Harkness turns, and walks away.

TORCHWOOD: Moving On

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:22:01 GMT

Title: Moving On
Characters/Pairing: Jack, Tosh, Gwen, Ianto, Owen, with incidental mentions of Tosh/Suzie and Tosh/Owen
Word Count: 600
Rating: PG
Summary: If there's anything Torchwood teaches you, it's how to move on.
Notes: Written for tw100. ...I got carried away, and was way too late to actually post it in time for the challenge. Whatever.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

The whole place smells of blood and bleach. Jack thinks both have soaked into his skin by now, wonders how long until it fades away. With all the bodies of Alex's team placed with no ceremony in drawers in the morgue, the blood mopped up, everyone's flats cleared out... Jack's at a loss about where to go from here.

The Time Agency taught him that you don't clean up the messes, you don't deal with the fallout. You pick up your things, and you move on as fast as possible. He never learned what to do when that's not an option.

*

Tosh always knew, intellectually, that Torchwood life expectancy was... lower than average. Three years, five, eight or ten if you were extremely lucky... Knowing is one thing. Standing by the drawer where Jack's keeping Suzie... That's something else.

Her chest aches and her eyes sting, but she's not crying. She cried last night. Now she just feels hollowed out, hopeless. She thinks she should say something, but it doesn't matter; Suzie won't hear. She doesn't know how long she stands there silently, but finally she turns, walks away, and goes back to work. It's just another day at Torchwood, isn't it?

*

For a while, they all think he might come back. Nobody says anything, but you can tell, that silence in the Hub, like everyone's holding their breath, that reluctance to act without him

You can tell, too, when they give up waiting. They talk too much, filling the silence where Jack should be. Gwen moves into Jack's office, and no one argues. Ianto stops waiting up in the tourist centre, stops expecting Jack to waltz through that door any minute.

Historically, Torchwood has always managed to move on, and change, and survive. They'll find a way to survive now, without Jack Harkness.

*

The stages of grief are all shit. Owen's always thought so, but he's even more certain of it now. Then, they were always meant for the dying, not the already dead, and maybe that's his problem. Maybe his problem is that he's stuck on anger, and how do you get past that, with no one to bargain with?

Except sometimes, every now and then, he thinks he may have slipped sideways into a sort of acceptance. Dancing with Tosh after Gwen's wedding, for a moment, but for the fact that he can't feel her hand in his, everything feels right.

*

The Hub's too quiet without them. Jack and Ianto don't cry, all accustomed to loss, and Gwen follows their lead, but her chest and throat keep aching like she's about to. She glances across the Hub, and for a second is startled when there's only Jack in his office, and Ianto tucked into his corner on the opposite end of the too-large room. Her stomach drops. Her eyes burn.

It's almost worse, she thinks, when she stops looking for them, when she gets used to their absence, when the only thing left of them is a picture by her computer.

*

If there's anything Torchwood teaches you, it's how to move on. Gwen thinks that must be how Jack survived all this time, just like this. Days pass in a whirlwind of funerals, moving house and calling in favours, so there's no time to think about what she's leaving behind. She does what she has to, puts the world back in order. Days turn into months, until one day she looks up and finds there's almost nothing left of the way things were.

Aliens and technology aside, that's the real lesson: the only way to keep sane is to keep moving.

TORCHWOOD: Break the Loop of Habit

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:00:34 GMT

Title: Break the Loop of Habit
Characters/Pairing: Gwen and Martha, mention of Jack
Word Count: 499
Rating: PG
Summary: Making retcon is nowhere near as simple as you would think.
Notes: Written for writerinadrawer round 3.04. Spoilers for Children of Earth.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

Finding the recipe for retcon on Torchwood's servers hadn't been difficult. Learning how to prepare it was another matter - the notes were a patchwork combination of Jack's original recipe and the notations of some Torchwood medic before Owen, and neither of them had bothered to mention that the compound was temperamental about temperature, timing, and apparently whether or not you breathed while preparing it.

Martha turned, holding up a beaker of clouded, milky liquid. "Does this look right to you?"

Gwen pressed her lips together and tilted her head to the side. "Dunno. I've only ever seen it as a pill... The color looks a bit odd, doesn't it?"

Martha swirled the beaker, then grimaced. "Yes, it does. Also, it smells." She set the beaker on a counter and sighed, "So that's attempt five gone wrong."

Gwen folded her arms over her chest. They'd been in this borrowed UNIT lab for hours now, and while Gwen didn't have to be here, it didn't seem fair to dump this in Martha's lap and then just leave her to the whole monotonous process. That didn't mean she wanted to spend the rest of her day here. She tried for a smile. "Are you saying you don't enjoy this? Just a little? The scientific method, all that?"

"I'm saying... I feel like I'm trying to build a calculator with a bit of wiring, safety scissors and paste."

Gwen stifled a laugh in her hand and did her best to look sympathetic. "You're probably doing a bit better than that."

"I appreciate your confidence," Martha said with a faint smile, her tone that perfect balance between sarcasm and sincerity. She picked up the printout of the retcon recipe, and the smile slipped away. "If we could just get hold of Jack and ask him..."

Gwen's gaze found its way to the uninteresting tile floor. "Yeah, well, that's not going to happen."

"Even if we do get it right... how are we supposed to test it? There aren't many people volunteering to have their memories wiped. Or be poisoned, if I've got it wrong..."

"After the last half a year? I'm sure we could find someone who wouldn't mind forgetting." Soldiers, politicians, ordinary people who stood by and watched... She wouldn't mind forgetting, if not for Torchwood, responsibilities and duties and all.

"Why are we doing this?" Gwen looked up sharply, and found Martha watching her with a frown. "The thing is... this isn't the way you- we do things. This is Jack's Torchwood, with the retcon and all the secrets and... It just seems a bit pointless now. As long as Jack's not coming back, we may as well try it our way."

Gwen glanced from Martha to the row of beakers containing retcon attempts one through five, and finally smiled, reaching for her coat. "Get rid of that, then, and let's get out of here. I'll buy you lunch; consider it an apology for not having this conversation three hours earlier."

Story Catalog: Crossovers (22)

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:57:50 GMT

SERIES
Addicts
Sports Night/Rent, Dan/Roger

Addicts
819 words | Dan knows what an addict looks like...

Compare and Contrast
1136 words | Sometimes they don't know why they're together... and then they remember.

The Shape of a Soul
Doctor Who/His Dark Materials

You Can Tell the Sun
Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Rose | 734 words | When a Time Lord regenerates... well, his daemon couldn't very well stay the same, could she?

The Debatable Idiocy of Humans
Tenth Doctor, Mickey | 368 words | "And good luck. Mickey the Idiot."

The Urge to Fall
Tenth Doctor, Ida Scott, Rose | 552 words | It's not the urge to jump, it's deeper than that...

Questions About Nothing
Tenth Doctor/Martha | 380 words | The Doctor does something that means nothing at all, and Loreana does not understand the appropriate time to ask questions.

Narrow Escapes (are more fun anyway)
Tenth Doctor, Martha | 353 words | Nearly dying is half the fun, and everyone but Ozzy understands this.

Fairytale Monsters
Tenth Doctor, Toclaphane | 160 words | In which the Doctor realizes what the Toclafane are, and can't help but pity them.

Travelling Alongside
Tenth Doctor, various companions | 365 words | Five daemons the Doctor's daemon is especially close to.

Departure
Jack, Gwen | 365 words | Jack is leaving, with or without his daemon.

DOCTOR WHO

The Button-Pushing Type
Pushing Daisies + BtVS crossover | Tenth Doctor, Olive, Andrew | 372 words | The Doctor has a new companion. His present companion isn't so sure about this.

Echoes of a Forgotten Life
Chess crossover | Molokov/Walter | 426 words | Molokov keeps dreaming of running...

The Magic of Christmas (or Something Like It)
Studio 60 crossover | Cal, Lucy, Tenth Doctor, Rose | 522 words | A mysterious couple comes to pick up the demented Santa Claus.

FIREFLY

Aftermath
Studio 60 crossover | Matt/Harriet, Danny | 267 words | "These are just a few of the images we've recorded..."

Burn the Land, Boil the Sea
Rent crossover | Ensemble | 696 words | The captain of a Firefly-class transport comes to make a stand with a group of old friends on his home world after a heist goes bad.

Landscape
Rent crossover | River/April | 400 words | ...so River decides she's going to show her the way.

Why They Call It Falling
House crossover | Kaylee/Cameron | 1000 words | Kaylee always had a thing for cute doctors.

RENT

Familiarity
Good Omens crossover | Benny/Famine | 461 words | Benny's almost tempted to go back...

Out for Coffee
Studio 60 crossover | Danny, the Man | 437 words | Danny told Matt he was headed out for coffee.

Some People Analyze Every Detail (DVD Commentary)
Last 5 Years crossover | Roger/April, Jamie | 1481 words | Birds of a feather... apparently hate each other's guts.

Sort of Life
Firefly crossover | Maureen, River | 378 words | A strange girl has an unsettling question for Maureen.

Tainted
Good Omens crossover | Roger/Pollution | 458 words | Maybe Roger hates him, but that doesn't matter.

Talismans
Buffy crossover | Roger/April | 745 words | Roger carries around many things that remind him of the past – and one that doesn't.

TORCHWOOD: beneath the unsaid word

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:37:55 GMT

Title: beneath the unsaid word
Characters/Pairing: Suzie, Jack, mention of her parents
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Suzie's life is a tangle of signs and symbols it would take a cryptographer to pull apart.
Warnings: Highlight to read - Non-explicit mention of suicide and rape/incest
Notes: Written for writerinadrawer round 3.03, using sign #4. trollopfop deserves a lot of credit for making Suzie an actual person - most of my Suzie characterization has been ~~stolen from~~ influenced by her.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this. Quotes in the story are from, in order, "The Last Night That She Lived" by Emily Dickinson, "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, "O Captain! My Captain" by Walt Whitman, and "Cartographies of Silence" by Adrienne Rich (which the title is also taken from).

Suzie's life is a tangle of signs and signals and symbols it would take a cryptographer to pull apart.

It's no surprise. Growing up, she learned to read between the lines when an adult told her mum would be gone for a week, a month; they never said the word hospital, not in front of her, but she heard it. They never said suicide either, but she knew the meaning behind all their words was that Suzie hadn't been reason enough to stay.

Understanding was as easy as slipping between the lines in mum's careworn books of poetry, only the words weren't as pretty in reality.

We noticed smallest things, --
Things overlooked before...

Later, she began to search for meaning in different things. No more words, just the weight of night, the lines in her father's face, the sound of a footstep down the hall, the creak of a door somewhere too near. Innocent by themselves, but heavy with meaning, fear, dread, hate--

Daddy, daddy, you bastard...

Torchwood is easier in some ways. All the codes are formalized. Jack teaches her the numbered and coded maneuvers, the usual formation, the hand signals he may or may not have made up himself: one gesture for danger, stop (you're about to step on an explosive you bloody idiot), one for assistance required (before this Weevil tears my throat out), one for everything's gone to hell, so in three seconds we're gonna make a break for the SUV and regroup somewhere safer, and a hundred other things.

It's Jack she struggles to read. He's an enigma - his changing expressions, his fluid grace, all too calculated to tell her much at all. Suzie's always been good at reading beneath the surface, but Jack is a still, dark pool, impossible to guess what lies beneath.

Here Captain! dear father...

There are signs posted around the Hub, and Suzie thinks that, like the dragon mural, they must be left over from a time before it was just Jack. Coughs and sneezes spread diseases and do not touch under pain of death!! and one particularly baffling sign that reads simply:
NOTICE
THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THIS NEW NOTICE.
YOUR NOTICING IT HAS BEEN NOTED
AND WILL BE REPORTED TO THE AUTHORITIES.
Suzie noticed Jack watching her, the first time she read it; she'd turned, asked him half-jokingly what authorities that would be. He'd smiled, slow and catlike, and said simply, "Just me. You really think it would be anyone else?" She thinks that might have told her more about Jack, in a few words, than all the signs and coded signals ever would.

Suzie reads all the signs Jack will give her, the things he won't tell her but lets slip in a smile, a gesture, a predatory look. Suzie collects all the silent signals, keeps them in the back of her mind like a book of wordless poetry. One day, she thinks, it may save her life.

Silence can be a plan
rigorously executed...

TORCHWOOD: In a Strange Land

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:51:33 GMT

Title: In a Strange Land
Characters/Pairing: Jack
Word Count: 400
Rating: PG
Summary: Finding himself in foreign places is perhaps the only constant in Jack's life.
Notes: Written for writerinadrawer round 3.02.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

Jack's hand closed on his wristband, eyes fixed on the silent planet below the Game Station. His fingers found the controls, moved instinctively to program a jump as far back as it'd take him at once.

Light flared. Reality bucked and twisted around him; he opened his eyes on a too-loud city street. He checked the coordinates, and smiled grimly. Only another hundred and fifty thousand years to go.

*

He shouldn't be here. He wished he could say his presence in New Argos was an accident; the most he could say was that maybe so many jumps in rapid succession brought on time-sickness leading to temporary insanity.

Jack had few friends left in a city owned by the Time Agency; he did have people who owed him favours. Finding the Doctor on his own would be hit-or-miss. Set a Time Agent or three on his trail, though, and–

And he'd betray the one man who'd expected more from him. Jack eyed Agency headquarters for one minute longer, and reached reluctantly for his wristband.

*

Jack’s head hadn’t stopped throbbing since landing. Then, that was exactly as expected, travelling hundreds of thousands of years in a few not-so-short hops. Not to mention dying...

His footsteps echoed on the empty street, one lonely sound in the otherwise quiet Cardiff night. His wristband felt too heavy on his arm, no longer a useful tool, just dead weight, a shackle to this time.

He'd been to Cardiff once before, not long ago, but Cardiff in 2006 was a world away from Cardiff in 1869. This foreign country, it seemed, would be home now. His heart felt, suddenly, as heavy as the wristband.

*

Jack didn't realize how much he'd missed the background hum of the Hub, in the year he was gone, the year that didn't happen. Now, prowling around empty desks, he couldn't believe he'd forgotten.

He stopped in the door to his office, turning to survey the atrium from that familiar vantage point. In a few hours, the others would be filtering in. None of them had asked, yet, the question on everyone's mind: would he stay this time, or leave again in a month, six months, a year...?

Jack hoped they wouldn't. He'd missed this place, how it felt like home, but some promises he couldn't make. After so long waiting for the chance to fly away, home was almost a foreign concept.

TORCHWOOD: Remnants

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:38:34 GMT

Title: Remnants
Characters/Pairing: Gwen/Ianto, Rhiannon
Word Count: 100
Rating: G
Summary: Gwen keeps going to see Rhiannon, once a month.
Notes: Written for writerinadrawer round 3.01. This one I actually did submit. Spoilers for Children of Earth.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

Gwen keeps going to see Rhiannon, once a month. They don't talk about Torchwood - Rhi doesn't want to hear, and Gwen doesn't want to say - but Rhiannon does tell her about Ianto, the parts of him Gwen never got to see.

Sometimes they don't talk, and Gwen just watches the children. Then she stops thinking about how she feels like an elephant, or what's left of Torchwood, or everything she's lost.

She thinks, instead, about one night of "company indiscretion"; about whether the baby will be slender, dark-eyed, and watchful; about what Ianto would think of his daughter.

TORCHWOOD: Among the Dead and Dying

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:31:31 GMT

Title: Among the Dead and Dying
Characters/Pairing: Jack and Ianto
Word Count: 100
Rating: G
Summary: Jack goes searching through a room full of dead things.
Notes: Once again, written for writerinadrawer round 3.01. Not submitted for that, because I liked the other one better.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

This room's filled with dead things. Jack's rifling through shelves containing alien bones, trepanned human skulls, the massive skull of what might be a crocodile. Ianto wishes he'd leave the searching to him; Jack never puts things back where they were.

He doesn't say anything, just watches from the doorway, makes note of what goes where. Jack will find what he wants; Ianto will tidy up.

Watching him, Ianto wonders if it's always like this for Jack. Not just this room, but the whole Hub, this whole world. Everything dies; Jack remains, shuffling through books and photographs, rearranging dead things.

TORCHWOOD: The Man Who

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:58:25 GMT

Title: The Man Who
Characters/Pairing: Jack, mention of Steven
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack Harkness is not a good man.
Notes: SPOILERS FOR CHILDREN OF EARTH (Day 5, specifically). Yes, I did write this for writerinadrawer before realising I left out the secondary prompt entirely. Yes, I fail. Oh well.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

Jack Harkness never claimed to be a good man. He acts the part and everyone buys into it, but that's not, has never been who he is.

Jack Harkness is the man who bloodies his hands so no one else has to, carries rivers and lakes of blood in his past.

Jack Harkness is the man who gives the orders no one else will, who bears the condemnation, the horrified stares.

Jack Harkness is the man who does the math. Millions of children across the planet. One child he loves dearly, desperately.

The choice isn't easy, but it is simple.

BEYOND THE RIFT: Conversations Going Nowhere

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:07:40 GMT

Title: Conversations Going Nowhere
Characters/Pairing: Grace and Des
Word Count: 380
Rating: PG
Summary: Grace and Des are stuck in the elevator. Grace isn't exactly surprised by this.
Notes: Written for the alphabet drabble meme, for the prompt "ulcer".
Disclaimer: Grace is mine, Des belongs to kawaiispinel, and beyondtherift is a place where getting stuck in an elevator would be the least of your problems.

Grace stared intently at the roof of the elevator for a long time, as if it might divulge some great secret of the universe, like where the missing socks from dryers went to, or how many roads a man must walk down after all (since the elevator doors had seemed so curious about it), or what she had ever done to deserve her ward. When, after a while, it didn't tell her any of that, she sighed and turned to look at Des.

"How long do you have to sit in one place before your journal shows up?"

Des shrugged. "A couple hours, at least? Why?"

She sighed, and rubbed her forehead. It didn't seem to have any effect on her growing headache. "I was thinking I could write and ask the Doctor for help."

Des turned to shoot her a betrayed look. "Why would you do that?"

"Well, he has that screwdriver... I thought he might be able to fix it before... whoever it is that normally fixes elevators."

"Yeah, and he'll also point and laugh at me. We're not calling the Doctor."

Grace stared at him for a second, and then rolled her eyes, making a mental note to never leave her journal at home again. "I hope you realize you're a twelve-year-old girl."

She thought he might be pouting a little, but she'd fixed her eyes on the ceiling again and wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of looking at him. After a moment, if he was pouting, he gave it up and said, "Look on the bright side, Gracie. At least it's not the sewers. It doesn't smell, there's no weevil tea..."

"I thought you liked that tea."

"Yeah, well, I was high at the time. My point is..." He trailed off, sounding slightly lost.

"You don't have a point, do you?" she asked, trying hard not to smile and just barely succeeding.

"My point is- No, I really don't. But we could always go to a diner and get pie when we get out of here. What do you think?"

"I think you're going to give me an ulcer one of these days."

"But... not from the pie, right?"

Grace lost the battle with not smiling right about there.

BEYOND THE RIFT: Methodology

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:11:34 GMT

Title: Methodology
Characters/Pairing: Casey, Gray, Lt. James and some more NPCs
Word Count: 1469
Rating: PG
Summary: There are things you're just supposed to ignore, to let go. Casey was never much good at that.
Notes: Written for the alphabet drabble meme for the prompt "methodist". It turned into an unexpectedly long backstory fic, because the "drabble" in "alphabet drabble meme" is a lie.
Disclaimer: Casey actually does belong to me. Gray Raines and Lt. James belong to kawaiispinel, and beyondtherift eats brains.

"How do we know?"

"What?" The officer stopped two and a half steps from her desk, pointedly not looking at the folder he'd just dropped on her desk.

Casey wasn't sure why it took anyone by surprise that she asked these questions. Honestly, it was like they didn't know her at all - or maybe they just hoped that if they said things very quickly and walked away fast, she wouldn't get the chance to. That seemed more or less idiotic to her.

"How do we know this girl's a runaway?" She flipped open the folder, her eyes settling on the picture paperclipped to the top page. It looked like the girl's last school photo, red hair and a big smile. "Happy family, good grades in school, her sixteenth birthday, for God's sake... It doesn't make any sense. I mean, unless she left a note to say she ran away, and even then-"

"We know," the man said, and Casey knew that tone all too well. We know what's going on, which is why we're done with this case. We know this is a bad explanation, but it's the only one we can give. We know enough to pretend we don't. Casey hated that tone.

She bit back a growl, flipped the folder shut, and rose to her feet. "If I just go talk to the family, just once-"

"Let it go, Wyatt. The kid ran away, end of story."

He walked away, and this time Casey let him. For a second, she watched him go, and then looked down at the file, hand going to her forehead. "I guess it's too much to ask if you've ever heard of children's angels," she murmured under her breath.

*

There are things you're not supposed to do in CPD. Things you're not supposed to talk about, because there's fuck all that you can actually do about it. The law doesn't recognize angels and demons, there's no way to punish someone for the murder of someone who doesn't exist, and if they just pretend that it's all not there... that's at least more time to focus on the things you can do something about.

Casey was never very good at ignoring those things. Casey's like a terrier - she just can't let things go.

"James," she said, tapping her fingers on his desk as she walked past, "I'm taking a cigarette break."

Casey doesn't smoke. James looks up at her nevertheless, nods a little, and then busies himself with pretending he knows absolutely nothing of interest now. As Casey steps outside, she fishes her cellphone out of her pocket, flipping her journal open with her other hand, and scrolls down the contact list. Normal people do not sneak off to call the morgue on their free time. Casey hasn't been normal for a long time.

"Lonnie!" she says, too quickly, when someone picks up the phone. "I need to know if you've had any unidentified bodies lately, anything unusual about them... You know what I mean. Could have been random violence, maybe a suicide..."

The man on the other end of the line pauses a second, and then says slowly, "Ah... no. Were we... expecting something?"

Casey takes a breath, and winces. She likes Lonnie - he's a lot less willing to close his eyes to the place this city really is than most of the people she comes into contact with in her work life, but he still likes explanations, facts and numbers and proof and sometimes it's impossible to really give them. "Something's coming. Something pretty nasty. Just... keep an eye out for me, will you?"

"How do you know? I mean, that something's coming. What-"

Casey looks down at the open page of her journal, to the entry that makes her chest tighten and her stomach flip. "I just have a feeling." She knows she can't stop this. She knows no one in the department will move on this even if she can show them the bodies, she knows she's just standing there with her finger in the dike, but one day... One day, maybe her job's going to be something more than numbering the unnamed dead.

*

Casey didn't fall sick until the plague had hit nearly half of the city. It was only a matter of time, when more and more officers were falling sick, and someone had to cover their shifts... She sneezed once, and suddenly James was watching her like a hawk - and he, of course, was still healthy, the bastard. When she started to show signs of a fever, when his hands felt like ice and her skin felt to him like it was burning, he sent her home.

She made herself tea and soup, dosed herself into near-unconsciousness with the cold meds in her medicine cabinet, and then fell into bed. She didn't wake up for over twenty-four hours, and when she did, it was to a ringing phone and a throbbing head.

Casey survived the plague. Her father died, the day before people throughout the city started to get better. She went to the funeral the same day she went back to work. It was a short ceremony - they all were, those days. So many people to bury, so little time.

She didn't cry at the funeral. Her mother did enough of that for both of them, and Casey would have spent the night at her house, but enough of the police force had died alongside everyone else that taking the night off wasn't even close to an option. But the next morning, after she got off an exhaustingly long but thankfully quiet night, she ended up on Gray's doorstep, rang the doorbell and prayed he wasn't at the hospital.

Nothing happened. She rang again, and waited a minute or three, and finally turned away with a sigh. Of course he was at the hospital, they were still dealing with the fallout from the plague, but-

She heard the door creak open behind her, and turned around. There was Gray in the doorway, wrapped in a ridiculous Superman bathrobe and blinking at her sleepily. It wasn't hard to tell she'd just woken him up from what was probably a very deep sleep. "Case? Something happen?"

Casey stared at him for a second, not sure whether she wanted to laugh, or shake her head and tell him never mind, it wasn't that important, or... "I just..." She rubs at the back of her neck, trying to ignore the way all her joints still ache, the fact that every fibre of her is exhausted in one way or another... "I had to be sure you were still alive." The words come out soft and a little breathless, less serious than she meant it, more serious than she'd hoped it would sound.

Gray rubbed at his eyes, ran a hand through his hair, and seemed oblivious to the fact that it was sticking straight up. "You know, there's this awesome invention called a phone... You couldn't've just called?"

She moved before she realized she meant to, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face against his chest. Tomorrow, later today, a few hours from now, she would pretend this never happened, but... "I didn't want to find out like that," she mumbled into his chest, not caring that he might not understand a word she was saying. "I just had to know... I'm glad you're not dead."

*

Casey doesn't use the journals much, as a rule. She reads them, sure, but when it comes down to it, she'd rather be talking to people face-to-face. Words on a page always seemed too cold and stale next to changes in expression, shifts in tone, the patterns of a person's breathing. Casey spent a long time learning how to read people - on the journals, there are no cues telling her who to trust.

But every now and then, someone starts talking - about war, or about peace, about banding together, standing to fight - and she reaches for a pen. She always stops before any words make it onto the paper, because what could she possibly say?

Angels, demons, wanderers, it all seems so simple for them, by comparison. By and large, choosing their side is just a matter of blood, where they ended up, who they know, calling and instinct and loyalty. And here she is on the sidelines of a war she can't even acknowledge where anyone can see her. She realizes, eventually, that she keeps meaning to write the same thing, every time.

What are you even fighting for? How do you know it's worth it?

THE DRESDEN FILES: The Little Things

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:48:12 GMT

Title: The Little Things
Characters/Pairing: Harry and Murphy
Word Count: 642
Rating: PG
Summary: This is how you know someone really cares about you.
Notes: Written for justprompts. Ordinarily, I wouldn't write Harryfic in third person (IT HURTS MY BRAIN), but I needed a third person fic to use for an RP sample, so... it happened. Just this once.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden and all related characters belong to Jim Butcher. I am not him, and am not making any money from this.

Harry never had been able to work out why he ended up in Murphy's car quite so often these days. It just sort of... happened every other month or so, without fail. Every time his cases crossed paths with local law enforcement, they called her, like they'd all gotten convinced at some point he was like a puppy that belonged to one Sergeant Karrin Murphy. Every now and then she'd call for his help and swing by to pick him up, claiming she didn't trust the Beetle as a reliable mode of transport to get him where she needed him on time. And then there were the times that probably fueled that suspicion, when the Beetle actually did break down and he had to make a call from the junkyard. And then call Murphy after all when his brother didn't pick up his phone.

Harry stood on the corner as Murphy's car rolled up to the curb, hands in his pocket, head ducked and tilted to the side a little in order to see her through the window. Recognizing that somewhat annoyed, mostly resigned look she shot him, he decided to pretend he hadn't noticed it at all and pulled open the car door, sliding into the shotgun seat. "Thanks, Murph. Again. I owe you one."

"You already owe me one," she answered calmly. She waited for him to finish shifting the seat back to make room for his legs and shut the door before she pulled away from the curb. "You owe me about twenty at this point, and I hope you realize that I have better things to do than chauffeur you around."

"Yeah, but I'm sure none of those things could be half as entertaining and enjoyable as the pleasure of my compa- heh." He cut himself off abruptly, seeing the glare she turned in his direction, and flashed her his most winning smile. It wasn't that he was afraid of her, honestly. Okay, maybe a little, but considering she was one of the most intimidating people he knew, there was absolutely nothing embarrassing about that. Mostly, it was just that he hadn't quite gotten rid of his latest collection of bruises, and didn't want to add another one on top of it.

"You want to rephrase that, Dresden?" she asked coolly, her eyes on the road ahead.

He paused for a moment, calculated the odds that she would actually punch him while operating a moving vehicle, and decided his odds weren't all that bad, considering. "Rephrase what?" he asked innocently.

She glanced over at him just long enough to shoot him a little half-glare, though he thought he might have noticed her lips quirking in a bit of a smile. After a minute when she didn't say anything more and didn't make any move to injure him, he grinned to himself and leaned back in the seat just a little, closing his eyes. Another minute passed, and the car rolled to a stop, presumably at a red light or stop sign - he didn't open his eyes to check.

Only a few seconds later, he did open his eyes as a small, nevertheless very painful fist slugged him hard in the arm. So much for that avoiding fresh bruises plan... "I deserved that," he admitted after a moment, rubbing at the spot where she hit him with one hand.

"Damn right you did." Murphy watched him a moment longer, smiled slightly to herself, and turned her attention back to the road.

Harry waited a moment, watching her, and then smiled faintly to himself too, even through the pain in his arm that probably wasn't going away any time soon. Coming from her, he knew, it wasn't that bad at all, practically a love tap. It was the little things that let you know someone really cared...

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: At the Time

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:18:45 GMT

Title: At the Time
Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Willow
Word Count: 369
Rating: PG
Summary: The kissing seemed like a good idea at the time.
Notes: Written for starletfallen for the alphabet drabble meme, for the prompt "inrush". Post-S7. I only read the first few S8 comics, and I barely remember what happened in them so... don't blame me if it's not comic-compliant. However, despite my dislike of Kennedy, it is S7-compliant. Even the Kennedy bits.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Movie night with just the two of them, judicious quantities of alcohol, and a movie plot they lost track of twenty minutes in led, naturally, to talking, which led to good-natured teasing, which led to a comment about Buffy going soft in her old age (of twenty-two), which, in a roundabout way, led to a pillow to the head, a short wrestling match, and Buffy pinning Willow to the bed by her wrists. And then the kissing. It really did seem perfectly natural at the time.

"At the time" lasted maybe forty-five second, a solid minute at the outside.

That's about when Buffy's brain catches up to the alcohol, and she jumps back at about the same time Willow rolls out from under her, hands flailing. "Hey, whoa, back up! Kennedy! Girlfriend! Remember? Also... since when are you gay?"

Buffy can feel her face getting hot, and she can't figure out if it's from the alcohol or embarrassment. Then, she guesses there's no reason it can't be both... "I'm not gay, I'm drunk. I didn't mean... I was just..." Words. She knows lots of words. None of them seem to be working for her.

"Okay, good. Because I did this before, back when I was into Xander and... boys... and I'm over that."

Buffy frowns a little. "Are you comparing me to Xander?"

Willow frowns back, like she isn't sure where that came from. Come to think of it, neither is Buffy. "What, would you rather I be... the opposite of over you?"

"Under me?" The words are out of her mouth way ahead of any actual conscious thought. Conscious thought would have seen that coming a mile away and stopped it. "...Oh God, I didn't mean that. Should we just... stop talking about this?"

"And pretend it didn't happen?" Willow suggests, sounding hopeful.

Buffy nods firmly. "Sounds like a plan."

"The best plan."

"I think the best plan also involves no more alcohol right now." Buffy presses her lips together and tells herself they're just tingling from the alcohol, and that she doesn't wish that "at the time" had lasted just a little longer.

DOCTOR WHO: The Art of Patchwork Repair

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:23:59 GMT

Title: The Art of Patchwork Repair
Characters/Pairing: The Doctor and Martha
Word Count: 309
Rating: PG
Summary: Martha has legitimate questions about certain bits of the TARDIS console.
Notes: Written for the alphabet meme, for the prompt "oakum" from jaeled. ...when I don't know what to do with a prompt, I get all metaphorical.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

It took the Doctor a minute to realise that Martha wasn't watching him, or watching the time rotor, or any of the things she usually did when the TARDIS was in flight. Instead, she was... staring intently at the console itself. The Doctor stopped, and frowned at her. "What... what're you doing?"

"Is... is that a heart probe?"

"What?"

"Right there," she said, pointing. "That's a heart probe, isn't it?"

The Doctor moved around the console to see what she was pointing at. "That's a switch," he said, doing everything he could to imply she was just being silly. "'s why it's on the console."

"Yes, and you've also got a bicycle pump. What was it before it was a switch?"

The TARDIS rocked, and the Doctor bounded around to the opposite side of the console to steady it. "It was... a heart probe."

"So what, do you just walk into hospitals and take random things when you need to repair your spaceship? You can't do tha-"

"Oh, I didn't take it! I just sort of... pulled it out of me. Out of my heart."

Martha's eyes widened as she leaned around the console to stare at him. "And you just kept it?"

"Well, I did try to give it back. The doctor who put it in me wouldn't take it. Since you're standing there, would you mind flipping that switch just about... now?"

She looked down at it mistrustfully, like she thought it might bite her. "Do I actually have to, or do you just want to make me touch it?"

"Well, unless you want to crash into the 1980's..." He broke off as the TARDIS shuddered, grabbing onto the console to keep from toppling over and waiting a moment for the TARDIS to steady before he spoke again. "Too late."

DOCTOR WHO/TORCHWOOD: Jealousy

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:17:11 GMT

Title: Jealousy
Characters/Pairing: The Doctor/Rose, Martha/Doctor, Doctor/Joan Redfern, Jack/Ianto, mention of John Smith and Donna
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Summary: It's silly to be jealous of a memory.
Notes: Written for justprompts.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

i.
It's silly to be jealous of a memory.
But he turns a corner in the TARDIS, bumps into Rose, and for a second, she looks at him like a stranger.
Words flicker in the back of his mind, half-remembered and possibly never heard at all. The real Doctor, the proper Doctor... He can't blame her looking at him like a stranger when he is.
"Ready to go?" he asks with a smile, like he didn't notice.
"Where are we going, then?" She grins back at him. She'll get used to the new him, one day soon, and so will he.

ii.
It's silly to be jealous of a memory.
That's what she tells herself, lying with her back to the Doctor, staring into the darkness in 1599. After all, she's here, with him, and this Rose is... somewhere else, it doesn't matter where. But the Doctor says Rose would know what to do, Martha hasn't a clue, and she's so jealous her chest aches.
She can hear the Doctor breathing behind her. He hasn't moved. He can't be sleeping. She shifts back toward him after a moment.
She's not jealous of a girl who's only in his memory. That would be silly.

iii.
It's silly to be jealous of a memory. Of a man who only existed for a few months to begin with - a story, a fiction, a fantasy.
As he walks away from Joan, though, knowing he won't see her again... He could have been that man. He could have been any one of a hundred men, someone she might love.
Except that John Smith would have been the man to stay, and there was the one thing he could never do. Still, he exists now, and John Smith doesn't, so if anyone has cause to be jealous, it isn't him.

iv.
It's silly to be jealous of a memory, and pointless to maintain jealousy around Jack anyway. Ianto knows this, and that's why for a while he'll only barely meet Jack's eyes. He can think of a few bigger turn-offs than possessiveness, but not many. He can only force himself not to wonder what else would persuade Jack to leave them, consider the chances it could happen again...
Jack lets himself into the hotel room he rented while they're avoiding themselves, Ianto looks up at him, meets his eyes, and smiles finally. He gave up jealousy with Jack some time ago.

v.
Once upon a time, the Doctor had a brand new body, a universe to see with new eyes, and a friend to see it with him.
Once, the Doctor had someone who'd do anything for him, walk the world and through hell for a handful of words whispered in her ear.
Once, the Doctor had a best mate who never let him lie to himself, said forever and meant it.
They're gone, and the men he was with them. He tells himself he's not jealous of the man he used to be. It's silly to be jealous of a memory.

TORCHWOOD: Come Back and Haunt Me

aubrey@beyondtherift.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:15:51 GMT

Title: Come Back and Haunt Me
Characters/Pairing: Tosh/Suzie
Word Count: 644
Rating: PG
Summary: Dead girlfriends are fairly common with Torchwood. Honesty is less common.
Notes: Written for draegonhawke for the alphabet meme prompt "xenophilia". Missing scene from "They Keep Killing Suzie."
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all characters belong to the BBC. I am not affiliated with the BBC, and am not making any money from this.

Suzie is harder and colder than Tosh remembers her, and she can't decide if that's the lingering after-effects of death, or if she was always this way, if Tosh just failed to see...

She tries not to look at her, but it's not easy with Suzie just over her shoulder, with no one else in the Hub. It's so quiet she can hear Suzie breathing, and she's inexplicably bothered by that. Maybe it's just that she's not supposed to be breathing at all.

Suzie shifts a little closer - Tosh doesn't even see, she just hears the scrape of the chair, feels the weight of presence, and shifts instinctively away. If she just keeps her eyes on the computer screens, as if there's anything there to keep her occupied, if she just waits until the others return...

It's Suzie who speaks first. It always is. Was.

"I suppose it's too much to ask if you missed me?"

Tosh can feel her throat closing up before she even gets close to a response. Yes, is the answer she wants to give her. Yes, it's too much to ask. What right does she have to know anything when she never said anything, not that mattered, when she never bothered with a goodbye... No, is what she wants to tell her. No, she didn't miss her, because she got rid of all her things, all the little things, notes and pictures and all, because she put Suzie Costello in a little box under her bed, in a closed and locked compartment in the back of her mind, and did all she could to forget about what could have been love.

"Does it matter?" is what she ends up asking, voice quiet and rough, without turning to look at her.

Suzie is silent behind her, just the sound of her breathing, too loud in the otherwise silent Hub. Somehow that makes it worse. Tosh had already braced herself for the response, and even when it seems there's nothing coming, she's still holding her breath, her shoulders tensed like she's expecting a physical blow. She turns in her chair, finally, because that's easier than waiting.

"I had a girlfriend. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I've moved on?" The words are out before she can think, before she can stop them, and that's not what she meant to say. Not like her to say anything without making time to consider it, but her nerves are stretched so tight, calm balancing on a knife's edge, and Suzie's pale face is just so composed, nothing in there to tell what she thinks of this, if she feels anything at all.

Suzie just watches her for a second, while Tosh remembers to breathe, slow and even and calm, damn it, while Tosh tries to keep her hands from shaking, while Tosh fights to keep every trace of an emotion under control, and anger leaks out anyway because that's safest, that's the only thing that's safe now.

"What happened to her?" Suzie asks after a moment, softly. Tosh doesn't know what to make of her tone. Jealousy or sympathy or concern or pain, none of them seem to fit this cold woman who looks and sounds like someone she used to love. Maybe she's only hearing what she wishes was there.

"She's dead," Tosh says, spinning her chair away from Suzie again, her mouth twisting into a pained grimace. She'd laugh, if she thought she could force it believably. "It's getting to be a habit with me."

With her. With Torchwood. Hazards of the job, and she's done everything she can to convince herself that's acceptable, not just unavoidable. I didn't miss you and I've moved on and I didn't, don't, never loved you. There's not a one of those that isn't a lie.