'O' by a_silver_story | Part One | Chapter 01: Intuition
Title: O (Part One)
Chapter: 01/11
Author: a_silver_story
Characters/Pairings: Janto, Gwen/Rhys
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild Horror
Disclaimer: Based on “The Ring” as directed by Gore Verbinski, with adapted screenplay by Ehren Kruger. Samara Morgan/Sadako Yamamura belong to Kôji Suzuki, as do all situations or characters recognisable to The Ring, The Ring Two or the short film Rings; and either Ringu, Ringu 2 or Ringu 0: BÂSUDEI films and novels.
Torchwood and associated recognisable situations and characters belong to the BBC and Russell T. Davies.
This is a work of fanfiction and is not written for profit, only for funsies.
Summary: Jack and Ianto adopt a little girl who isn't all that she seems - but shortly after her eighth birthday she disappears, presumed dead. Five years later, Alice Carter is found curled up in her walk-in wardrobe, her features twisted into a macabre expression of horror. The cause of death leads the remnants of Torchwood straight to a mysterious videotape that apparently kills all those who watch it in seven days - and for Torchwood, the clock is ticking. Torchwood crossed over with Kôji Suzuki's 'Ringu' universe.
Beta'd by alt_universe_me and dm811
Art by holyfrell
“What?”
“'Denied',” Ianto repeated, sinking down into the couch and letting the letter fall away from his hands, deflated.
Jack snapped it up, read the first three lines and sank in a similar fashion to sit beside Ianto. They both stared into the middle distance, lost in their own thoughts for a moment, before Ianto finally broke the heavy silence.
“I thought … I thought I'd be a good dad. I thought they'd see it.”
“There are other options, Ianto. You will be a good dad - that's why I agreed to help you, remember? We can find a surrogate, okay?”
Ianto let out a heavy breath. “I wanted to adopt an older child. There's too many in care homes because people use surrogates or adopt babies - because that's what they want. The baby, not a child. I want a child. I want to be a dad - I want to take care of someone, put them on the right track, help them learn and develop and make their way through life. Not just … aww. Baby.”
Jack was unsure what to say, but he couldn't just not say anything. “If you still want this - if you still want that - you're going to have to bring a new life into the world to get it.” Ianto raised his eyes to him, dejected, and nodded slowly. Jack continued, “We'll start searching for a surrogate the moment we can, okay?”
“What surrogate will agree to help people turned down by Social Services?” Ianto replied. Sighing heavily, he started getting up from the couch. “I think I'm gonna …” He jerked his head in the direction of his bedroom.
Jack bit his lip. His own eyes were dampening and getting near to burning point, salt tears building up and a strange numbness settling over his stomach - what state Ianto would be in the moment he let himself let go? Jack could sense his devastation. “Are you going to think about it?” Jack asked, keeping his voice steady and not turning to face Ianto in case he was crying, too.
“Yeah … I'll … I'll think about it. See how I feel after … y'know. “ After it's sunk in. “I … uh … I think I need to go to bed now.”
Jack scratched his nose and surreptitiously wiped his eyes before turning around to look at him. “You … do you want company?”
“Erm …” Ianto checked his watch.
“I could go and get pizza. We could eat it in bed and see how many times The Color Purple makes us cry this time?”
Ianto gave a weak laugh, sniffed and nodded. “Sounds good.”
Jack paused in the hallway outside Ianto's flat and took a deep, calming breath. He had grudgingly agreed to help Ianto fulfil his need to constantly have someone to take care of - and eighteen years on desk duty - by agreeing to pose as his long-term partner, (which he wasn't. Definitely wasn't,) in order to help him adopt a child, he hadn't realised how hard it was going to be on both of them. It had taken a good six months for Ianto to plan out and persuade Jack that it was all a good idea, and then the best part of a year of interviews, assessments and a helluva lot of form-filling to get to this point.
To then be denied.
Just another slap in the face, really.
Social Services reps had come to the conclusion that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by a 'terrorist attack' in which only two dozen or so people survived may affect his abilities as a parent, while Jack's own lengthy record for recklessness hadn't been overly helpful. He hoped Ianto wouldn't blame him. He just wanted him to be happy.
Jack decided to walk to the nearest pizza place rather than driving all the way to Jubilee so that he could clear his head a little. It would only take him about fifteen minutes longer overall if he cut through the park - and it also meant Ianto would have fifteen more minutes to compose himself, if needed.
The fluorescent lights of the fast food place were so bright, Jack was very nearly feeling the need to squint under the clearly recently-replaced tubing. He paid for a half-and-half pizza, texted Ianto to tell him he'd ordered and then sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs while he waited. The street outside the shop was pretty much empty, what with it being Monday night and very few people wanting to be out. A handful of drifters ambled past, but all were heading home with determined expressions, chatting animatedly on mobile phones or listening to music so loud Jack could hear the beat of it through the glass windows from their bass-heavy earphones.
Finally, his order was up. Jack balanced the box carefully in his arms and used his back to push the door open as he started making his way home. It was getting past twilight, the only real illumination coming from the street lamps, but since he had his gun Jack decided it was all right to cut back through the park in near blindness anyway.
As he wandered along, pizza box warm in his hands, Jack began to feel a despondent numbness settling over him. He might have had no plans to be a guardian other than on paper to whatever child Ianto was going to adopt, but once again he'd found himself emotionally involved, and even excited at the prospect of being a Dad again. He had just wanted to make Ianto happy. Thinking about it, making Ianto happy seemed to matter a lot these days - and, of course, he had allowed his own happiness to become tied in with that.
Lost in thought as he walked along, Jack almost missed the young girl in the white hospital gown stumbling over the lawn toward the fountain in the centre of the park. Her gown stood out in stark contrast to the gloom of the deserted park around them, her long, dark hair falling past her waist, almost disguising her from the back as she moved from the sparsely moonlit path to the grass.
Jack followed her with his eyes as she began to move from his line of sight, hesitating as instinct prickled at the back of his neck. He thought he could just make out her carrying something in her arms, maybe - not necessarily a heavy thing, but requiring both hands. Her gait was possibly affected by it, as she walked with more of an unsure stumble onward, definitely heading in the direction of the fountain.
Tucking the pizza under a bush, Jack stuck to the edge of the grass and, as quietly as he could, followed her. He was moving quicker than she was, and as he got closer he could see she was no more than fifteen or sixteen … and of course, she just had to be carrying a baby, didn't she?
The closer they got to the fountain, the more agitated the baby was becoming (and no wonder, since it was being held wrong, head lolling strangely), and the girl in white tried singing to it softly. The melancholic harmony cut through the pressing silence of the deserted park, muffled but audible despite the baby beginning to moan in discomfort. The course to the fountain wasn't changing, and Jack quickened his pace to catch up.
The fountain was less than a metre away, and the girl showed no signs of slowing or stopping. Jack saw her raise her foot as she carefully stepped up onto the stone surround. Jack's heart leaped into his throat, and without a second thought he broke into a run over the last few metres. The baby was screaming, but the girl in the white hospital gown didn't break her song, stepping down into the two-foot-deep water and letting it swill around her knees.
“Sun comes up … we live and we cry …” she sang, slowly lowering the baby toward the water. “Sun goes down … and then we all di- NO!”
Her song was cut off into a cry of anguish as Jack fell forward and dragged the child from her arms. “What are you doing?” he demanded, bewildered but unwilling to show it.
The girl in white lunged forward and missed, the water sloshing around her ankles, cold and dark. “Give her back!” she ordered, desperation in her tone. “You don't understand! Give her back!”
“Stay where you are!” Jack warned, cradling the baby girl to his shoulder as she continued to bawl. “What's your name? Whose child is this?”
“She's mine. Mine. There was no father. No father.”
“What? … why? Why are you trying to drown your own child?” Jack ticked off the reasons in his head: post-partum depression; mind control; sadistic pleasure; insanity … all of the above?
The girl in the fountain stared at him for a couple of seconds, then replied simply: “Because she asked me to.”
Jack hadn't quite expected that answer. He decided to opt for 'insanity'. “What?” he breathed, trying to keep his voice in control and level. The baby girl was calming a little, snuffling and hiccoughing as her head rested on his shoulder.
“She asked me to,” repeated the girl, “So I could save her.”
Jack set his jaw. “She asked you to? The baby?”
“To save her.”
“To save her … from what?”
Again, the girl looked at him as if he was strange, and cocked her head to the side. “From herself.”
Jack cleared his throat. “Okay … okay,” he said, as gently as he could, trying a different tactic while attempting to keep calm in this strange situation. “What's your name?”
“Evelyn Morgan.”
“Okay, Evelyn … And your baby? What's your daughter called?”
“Samara.”
“That's a beautiful name. It suits her.”
“It means 'Gift from God'.”
“... right. How about we get you out of the water now, okay, Evelyn?”
“What's your name?”
“I'm Captain Jack Harkness. I'm trying to help you, Evelyn.”
“Only drowning will work,” she said, her fists clenching in frustration. “Give her back. Please,” she begged.
“You … you need to explain it to me - all of it,” Jack said, stepping away from the fountain. “Make me understand, okay? How old are you, by the way, Evelyn?”
Evelyn didn't move from the fountain. “Sixteen.”
“And how old is Samara?”
“Six weeks.”
“... and at six weeks old, she spoke to you?”
“She … showed me. In my dreams.”
“Okay,” Jack said, more for the sake of buying time than because he actually had anything more to say. “Erm … Evelyn, is there anyone I can call to pick you up? You Mom? Your Dad?”
“My Mam's dead. My Dad kicked me out when …”
Her voice trailed off, and her eyes drifted to the baby. Jack figured it out. “You're wearing a hospital gown. Who'll be looking for you, Evelyn?”
“I'll be back before morning.”
Jack hadn't anticipated her sudden move, being caught off-guard as she lunged forward, water swilling around her ankles, dark and icy. She let out a scream of frustration as Jack made a startled leap back, and on the slippery, slimy floor of the fountain Evelyn lost her footing, falling to her knees in the water. She started crying, reaching out and curling her fingers into Jack's coat. “Please, Captain. Please. Let me do what's best for my daughter …”
“Evelyn - I … No.”
She stared up at him, the water soaking into her white gown and dampening the ends of her long, dark hair. “Then …” she breathed, “Oh no … no, no, no. I know what you're going to do. No, no, no. Let it end now … let it end now …”
Jack was, needless to say, rather confused by Evelyn's words. Samara in his arms was breathing deep and even, perfectly calm, and he squeezed her slightly as Evelyn moved slightly closer, almost stepping up onto the stone edge of the fountain.
A thousand scenarios zipped through Jack's mind as he wondered what might happen next, all of them ending the same way; the image burned into Jack's mind as if someone else had put it there, carved it in so that he couldn't escape it or think of anything else.
He could see it so clearly, and he was consumed by the need to make it happen.
Ianto, so happy, glowing, smiling … with Samara Morgan cradled safely and securely in his arms.
| Next Part | O Masterlist |
Chapter: 01/11
Author: a_silver_story
Characters/Pairings: Janto, Gwen/Rhys
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild Horror
Disclaimer: Based on “The Ring” as directed by Gore Verbinski, with adapted screenplay by Ehren Kruger. Samara Morgan/Sadako Yamamura belong to Kôji Suzuki, as do all situations or characters recognisable to The Ring, The Ring Two or the short film Rings; and either Ringu, Ringu 2 or Ringu 0: BÂSUDEI films and novels.
Torchwood and associated recognisable situations and characters belong to the BBC and Russell T. Davies.
This is a work of fanfiction and is not written for profit, only for funsies.
Summary: Jack and Ianto adopt a little girl who isn't all that she seems - but shortly after her eighth birthday she disappears, presumed dead. Five years later, Alice Carter is found curled up in her walk-in wardrobe, her features twisted into a macabre expression of horror. The cause of death leads the remnants of Torchwood straight to a mysterious videotape that apparently kills all those who watch it in seven days - and for Torchwood, the clock is ticking. Torchwood crossed over with Kôji Suzuki's 'Ringu' universe.
Beta'd by alt_universe_me and dm811
Art by holyfrell
“What?”
“'Denied',” Ianto repeated, sinking down into the couch and letting the letter fall away from his hands, deflated.
Jack snapped it up, read the first three lines and sank in a similar fashion to sit beside Ianto. They both stared into the middle distance, lost in their own thoughts for a moment, before Ianto finally broke the heavy silence.
“I thought … I thought I'd be a good dad. I thought they'd see it.”
“There are other options, Ianto. You will be a good dad - that's why I agreed to help you, remember? We can find a surrogate, okay?”
Ianto let out a heavy breath. “I wanted to adopt an older child. There's too many in care homes because people use surrogates or adopt babies - because that's what they want. The baby, not a child. I want a child. I want to be a dad - I want to take care of someone, put them on the right track, help them learn and develop and make their way through life. Not just … aww. Baby.”
Jack was unsure what to say, but he couldn't just not say anything. “If you still want this - if you still want that - you're going to have to bring a new life into the world to get it.” Ianto raised his eyes to him, dejected, and nodded slowly. Jack continued, “We'll start searching for a surrogate the moment we can, okay?”
“What surrogate will agree to help people turned down by Social Services?” Ianto replied. Sighing heavily, he started getting up from the couch. “I think I'm gonna …” He jerked his head in the direction of his bedroom.
Jack bit his lip. His own eyes were dampening and getting near to burning point, salt tears building up and a strange numbness settling over his stomach - what state Ianto would be in the moment he let himself let go? Jack could sense his devastation. “Are you going to think about it?” Jack asked, keeping his voice steady and not turning to face Ianto in case he was crying, too.
“Yeah … I'll … I'll think about it. See how I feel after … y'know. “ After it's sunk in. “I … uh … I think I need to go to bed now.”
Jack scratched his nose and surreptitiously wiped his eyes before turning around to look at him. “You … do you want company?”
“Erm …” Ianto checked his watch.
“I could go and get pizza. We could eat it in bed and see how many times The Color Purple makes us cry this time?”
Ianto gave a weak laugh, sniffed and nodded. “Sounds good.”
Jack paused in the hallway outside Ianto's flat and took a deep, calming breath. He had grudgingly agreed to help Ianto fulfil his need to constantly have someone to take care of - and eighteen years on desk duty - by agreeing to pose as his long-term partner, (which he wasn't. Definitely wasn't,) in order to help him adopt a child, he hadn't realised how hard it was going to be on both of them. It had taken a good six months for Ianto to plan out and persuade Jack that it was all a good idea, and then the best part of a year of interviews, assessments and a helluva lot of form-filling to get to this point.
To then be denied.
Just another slap in the face, really.
Social Services reps had come to the conclusion that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by a 'terrorist attack' in which only two dozen or so people survived may affect his abilities as a parent, while Jack's own lengthy record for recklessness hadn't been overly helpful. He hoped Ianto wouldn't blame him. He just wanted him to be happy.
Jack decided to walk to the nearest pizza place rather than driving all the way to Jubilee so that he could clear his head a little. It would only take him about fifteen minutes longer overall if he cut through the park - and it also meant Ianto would have fifteen more minutes to compose himself, if needed.
The fluorescent lights of the fast food place were so bright, Jack was very nearly feeling the need to squint under the clearly recently-replaced tubing. He paid for a half-and-half pizza, texted Ianto to tell him he'd ordered and then sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs while he waited. The street outside the shop was pretty much empty, what with it being Monday night and very few people wanting to be out. A handful of drifters ambled past, but all were heading home with determined expressions, chatting animatedly on mobile phones or listening to music so loud Jack could hear the beat of it through the glass windows from their bass-heavy earphones.
Finally, his order was up. Jack balanced the box carefully in his arms and used his back to push the door open as he started making his way home. It was getting past twilight, the only real illumination coming from the street lamps, but since he had his gun Jack decided it was all right to cut back through the park in near blindness anyway.
As he wandered along, pizza box warm in his hands, Jack began to feel a despondent numbness settling over him. He might have had no plans to be a guardian other than on paper to whatever child Ianto was going to adopt, but once again he'd found himself emotionally involved, and even excited at the prospect of being a Dad again. He had just wanted to make Ianto happy. Thinking about it, making Ianto happy seemed to matter a lot these days - and, of course, he had allowed his own happiness to become tied in with that.
Lost in thought as he walked along, Jack almost missed the young girl in the white hospital gown stumbling over the lawn toward the fountain in the centre of the park. Her gown stood out in stark contrast to the gloom of the deserted park around them, her long, dark hair falling past her waist, almost disguising her from the back as she moved from the sparsely moonlit path to the grass.
Jack followed her with his eyes as she began to move from his line of sight, hesitating as instinct prickled at the back of his neck. He thought he could just make out her carrying something in her arms, maybe - not necessarily a heavy thing, but requiring both hands. Her gait was possibly affected by it, as she walked with more of an unsure stumble onward, definitely heading in the direction of the fountain.
Tucking the pizza under a bush, Jack stuck to the edge of the grass and, as quietly as he could, followed her. He was moving quicker than she was, and as he got closer he could see she was no more than fifteen or sixteen … and of course, she just had to be carrying a baby, didn't she?
The closer they got to the fountain, the more agitated the baby was becoming (and no wonder, since it was being held wrong, head lolling strangely), and the girl in white tried singing to it softly. The melancholic harmony cut through the pressing silence of the deserted park, muffled but audible despite the baby beginning to moan in discomfort. The course to the fountain wasn't changing, and Jack quickened his pace to catch up.
The fountain was less than a metre away, and the girl showed no signs of slowing or stopping. Jack saw her raise her foot as she carefully stepped up onto the stone surround. Jack's heart leaped into his throat, and without a second thought he broke into a run over the last few metres. The baby was screaming, but the girl in the white hospital gown didn't break her song, stepping down into the two-foot-deep water and letting it swill around her knees.
“Sun comes up … we live and we cry …” she sang, slowly lowering the baby toward the water. “Sun goes down … and then we all di- NO!”
Her song was cut off into a cry of anguish as Jack fell forward and dragged the child from her arms. “What are you doing?” he demanded, bewildered but unwilling to show it.
The girl in white lunged forward and missed, the water sloshing around her ankles, cold and dark. “Give her back!” she ordered, desperation in her tone. “You don't understand! Give her back!”
“Stay where you are!” Jack warned, cradling the baby girl to his shoulder as she continued to bawl. “What's your name? Whose child is this?”
“She's mine. Mine. There was no father. No father.”
“What? … why? Why are you trying to drown your own child?” Jack ticked off the reasons in his head: post-partum depression; mind control; sadistic pleasure; insanity … all of the above?
The girl in the fountain stared at him for a couple of seconds, then replied simply: “Because she asked me to.”
Jack hadn't quite expected that answer. He decided to opt for 'insanity'. “What?” he breathed, trying to keep his voice in control and level. The baby girl was calming a little, snuffling and hiccoughing as her head rested on his shoulder.
“She asked me to,” repeated the girl, “So I could save her.”
Jack set his jaw. “She asked you to? The baby?”
“To save her.”
“To save her … from what?”
Again, the girl looked at him as if he was strange, and cocked her head to the side. “From herself.”
Jack cleared his throat. “Okay … okay,” he said, as gently as he could, trying a different tactic while attempting to keep calm in this strange situation. “What's your name?”
“Evelyn Morgan.”
“Okay, Evelyn … And your baby? What's your daughter called?”
“Samara.”
“That's a beautiful name. It suits her.”
“It means 'Gift from God'.”
“... right. How about we get you out of the water now, okay, Evelyn?”
“What's your name?”
“I'm Captain Jack Harkness. I'm trying to help you, Evelyn.”
“Only drowning will work,” she said, her fists clenching in frustration. “Give her back. Please,” she begged.
“You … you need to explain it to me - all of it,” Jack said, stepping away from the fountain. “Make me understand, okay? How old are you, by the way, Evelyn?”
Evelyn didn't move from the fountain. “Sixteen.”
“And how old is Samara?”
“Six weeks.”
“... and at six weeks old, she spoke to you?”
“She … showed me. In my dreams.”
“Okay,” Jack said, more for the sake of buying time than because he actually had anything more to say. “Erm … Evelyn, is there anyone I can call to pick you up? You Mom? Your Dad?”
“My Mam's dead. My Dad kicked me out when …”
Her voice trailed off, and her eyes drifted to the baby. Jack figured it out. “You're wearing a hospital gown. Who'll be looking for you, Evelyn?”
“I'll be back before morning.”
Jack hadn't anticipated her sudden move, being caught off-guard as she lunged forward, water swilling around her ankles, dark and icy. She let out a scream of frustration as Jack made a startled leap back, and on the slippery, slimy floor of the fountain Evelyn lost her footing, falling to her knees in the water. She started crying, reaching out and curling her fingers into Jack's coat. “Please, Captain. Please. Let me do what's best for my daughter …”
“Evelyn - I … No.”
She stared up at him, the water soaking into her white gown and dampening the ends of her long, dark hair. “Then …” she breathed, “Oh no … no, no, no. I know what you're going to do. No, no, no. Let it end now … let it end now …”
Jack was, needless to say, rather confused by Evelyn's words. Samara in his arms was breathing deep and even, perfectly calm, and he squeezed her slightly as Evelyn moved slightly closer, almost stepping up onto the stone edge of the fountain.
A thousand scenarios zipped through Jack's mind as he wondered what might happen next, all of them ending the same way; the image burned into Jack's mind as if someone else had put it there, carved it in so that he couldn't escape it or think of anything else.
He could see it so clearly, and he was consumed by the need to make it happen.
Ianto, so happy, glowing, smiling … with Samara Morgan cradled safely and securely in his arms.
| Next Part | O Masterlist |