Ficlet: Masterpiece
Title: Masterpiece
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Tosh is expecting, so a nursery needs to be set up at the Hub. Only problem is, the walls are so dull.
Word Count: 590
Written For: My own prompt ‘Any, any, Painting a rainbow on a dull wall,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
A lot of things have been changing lately for the Torchwood team, and most of the changes have been good ones: new team members, new relationships, marriages, and now the start of a new family, which requires yet another change, this time to the Hub itself. Torchwood’s secret base isn’t exactly designed with children in mind, but with a little ingenuity there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be. At least, that was what Jack and Ianto said when Tosh and Owen told them the news.
The room that’s been picked for the Hub’s new nursery is in a good position, easily accessible from the main Hub, close to a bathroom, and in an area they can lock down securely in the event of any kind of danger; Ianto, as always, has thought of every eventuality.
It’s a good room, not too big and not too small, with a sturdy wooden door and plenty of space inside for all the equipment new babies need. Unfortunately, like the rest of the Hub, its walls, ceiling, and floor, being constructed of dirty grey concrete, hardly made it an appealing place for a baby. It didn’t offer any kind of sensory stimulation whatsoever.
Obviously it couldn’t stay like that, for one thing it would have been impossible to keep clean, so the team have already put in a lot of work to make it more suitable for its new purpose. Between them they’ve fitted a raised wooden floor to allow for underfloor heating, which has now been installed. Then they smoothly plastered the walls and ceiling, and once the plaster was completely dry, painted the walls a soothing pale blue and the ceiling cream. The final touch was to add hard-wearing carpeting in a deeper blue that hopefully wouldn’t show stains, but now the small room looks as bland and uninteresting as a hospital waiting room. The furniture they’ve picked out will help to a certain extent, but something more still needs to be done with it.
It’s Tosh who comes up with the idea; they bought lots of tester pots of paint in order to decide which colour would work best for the walls, so she decides a mural would be just the thing brighten the place up. After all, this will largely be for her baby’s benefit, so why shouldn’t she be the one to choose the décor? Plus, she’s the most artistic member of the team, although she hardly ever gets the opportunity to use those talents, and she finds painting very relaxing. But what should she paint? What would a baby like?
Smiling, she decides she’ll turn the bleak little room into a place of beauty and wonder instead, with grass and flowers around the bottom of the walls, rabbits and deer grazing, perhaps a tree or two, with squirrels and birds in the branches, and a sleepy owl occupying a cosy hole in the trunk. There’ll be bright butterflies fluttering among the flowers, and fleecy white clouds in the sky, then on the longest wall, she’ll paint the sun peeping from behind another, bigger cloud, and a rainbow, arching from one end of the room to the other, with swallows swooping beneath it. Maybe she’ll add some dragonflies too. The bright colours will engage her child’s eyes, give the baby something beautiful to look at instead of the current drabness.
Dressed in one of Jack’s old shirts, Tosh dips her brush into the first pot of paint and sets to work on her masterpiece. It’s going to look wonderful!
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Tosh is expecting, so a nursery needs to be set up at the Hub. Only problem is, the walls are so dull.
Word Count: 590
Written For: My own prompt ‘Any, any, Painting a rainbow on a dull wall,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
A lot of things have been changing lately for the Torchwood team, and most of the changes have been good ones: new team members, new relationships, marriages, and now the start of a new family, which requires yet another change, this time to the Hub itself. Torchwood’s secret base isn’t exactly designed with children in mind, but with a little ingenuity there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be. At least, that was what Jack and Ianto said when Tosh and Owen told them the news.
The room that’s been picked for the Hub’s new nursery is in a good position, easily accessible from the main Hub, close to a bathroom, and in an area they can lock down securely in the event of any kind of danger; Ianto, as always, has thought of every eventuality.
It’s a good room, not too big and not too small, with a sturdy wooden door and plenty of space inside for all the equipment new babies need. Unfortunately, like the rest of the Hub, its walls, ceiling, and floor, being constructed of dirty grey concrete, hardly made it an appealing place for a baby. It didn’t offer any kind of sensory stimulation whatsoever.
Obviously it couldn’t stay like that, for one thing it would have been impossible to keep clean, so the team have already put in a lot of work to make it more suitable for its new purpose. Between them they’ve fitted a raised wooden floor to allow for underfloor heating, which has now been installed. Then they smoothly plastered the walls and ceiling, and once the plaster was completely dry, painted the walls a soothing pale blue and the ceiling cream. The final touch was to add hard-wearing carpeting in a deeper blue that hopefully wouldn’t show stains, but now the small room looks as bland and uninteresting as a hospital waiting room. The furniture they’ve picked out will help to a certain extent, but something more still needs to be done with it.
It’s Tosh who comes up with the idea; they bought lots of tester pots of paint in order to decide which colour would work best for the walls, so she decides a mural would be just the thing brighten the place up. After all, this will largely be for her baby’s benefit, so why shouldn’t she be the one to choose the décor? Plus, she’s the most artistic member of the team, although she hardly ever gets the opportunity to use those talents, and she finds painting very relaxing. But what should she paint? What would a baby like?
Smiling, she decides she’ll turn the bleak little room into a place of beauty and wonder instead, with grass and flowers around the bottom of the walls, rabbits and deer grazing, perhaps a tree or two, with squirrels and birds in the branches, and a sleepy owl occupying a cosy hole in the trunk. There’ll be bright butterflies fluttering among the flowers, and fleecy white clouds in the sky, then on the longest wall, she’ll paint the sun peeping from behind another, bigger cloud, and a rainbow, arching from one end of the room to the other, with swallows swooping beneath it. Maybe she’ll add some dragonflies too. The bright colours will engage her child’s eyes, give the baby something beautiful to look at instead of the current drabness.
Dressed in one of Jack’s old shirts, Tosh dips her brush into the first pot of paint and sets to work on her masterpiece. It’s going to look wonderful!
The End