it's like a song i can hear playing right in my ear that i can't sing || i can't help listening

[alien_catcher]

Characters: Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Time Period: Modern
Location: The Kitchen
Relative Date: A few days after the [ dance]
Status: CLOSED

Comments

[teaboy_ianto_j]

Ianto had been sitting in the kitchen for a short while now, waiting for Gwen to show up, even though he himself had been running a bit late in getting to the castle this morning. He had made some coffee to help himself try to focus a bit better, since he was still a bit shaken by the dream he'd had the night before.

It had all been so vivid, he could still remember the details of it quite clearly. Especially when he died in Jack's arms. He had felt slightly out of breath and alarmed when he woke up right after that had happened. Checking his pulse to make sure he was still quite alive. It all had seemed so real, but how could it be when they'd been stuck here for quite some time now. Then again, strange things did tend to happen around here.

He glanced at his watch again, hoping Gwen would show up soon. He absently sipped at his coffee, trying not to dwell on the dream he'd had, all the details still fresh in his mind.

[alien_catcher]

Gwen hustled through the halls of the castle and near-burst through the door of the kitchen, huffing what could have been construed as a sigh of relief - for whatever reason - to see Ianto at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee.

"Oh, Ianto, thank God," Gwen said, trying to resist this sudden urge she had to go hug him. Christ, Cooper, since when did you let dreams get to you like this? She shook it off, swaying in the doorway awkwardly, before making her way over to the cupboards.

"Hope you don't mind if I have a cuppa before we head off," she said conversationally, pulling a mug down onto the counter. "And maybe some toast. I'm absolutely starving."

She was rambling now, she knew, trying to fill some sort of void of awkward silence that didn't actually exist. She cleared her throat and offered Ianto a halfhearted smile. "How are you?"

[teaboy_ianto_j]

Ianto looked up as the door burst open and Gwen entered the room. Watching her as she rambled on and tried to make herself busy with getting coffee. Waiting for the moment where she'd finally realize that she was rambling.

He smiled slightly back at her. "I'm doing alright, Gwen. How are you?" He could tell that something was up. She usually had something on her mind if she rambled on, sometimes without realizing that she was doing so. Ianto himself tended to just stay a bit quieter when something was bothering him. He tried to push the dream out of his mind so that it wouldn't get to him while he was here with Gwen.

[alien_catcher]

Gwen dug through the refrigerator, pulling out a jar of blackcurrant jam and popping a piece of bread into the toaster. She took her time making her coffee.

"Oh you know, same old. Stuck in a castle with no viable means of escape for God knows how long but... Things could be worse, yeah?" She frowned a little at that, wondering if absolutely every stupid thing she would say all day would remind her of that awful nightmare. She sighed and sat down at the table with her coffee, her toast already forgotten, and tilted her head. "To be honest, I didn't sleep too well last night. I think I'm a bit loopy."

[teaboy_ianto_j]

Ianto nodded slightly at Gwen's comment. "Yeah, they could." Flashes from his bad dream coming once again to the forefront of his mind as he thought of how things could be worse.

He looked over at Gwen as she sat down. Thinking it was a bit odd as she said hadn't slept well last night, slightly curious as to why, seeing as how he didn't have a very good sleep last night, as well. "You didn't sleep well last night, either?"

[alien_catcher]

Gwen raised her eyebrows subtly. "I'm not the only one, I take it?" she inquired, taking a sip of coffee slowly.

If nothing else, no matter what had transpired between them (And it was certainly compounded by that nagging darkness the dream had filled her mind with, the clear sensation of what it had been like to feel, even for a second, she had lost him forever), she always knew she could talk to him. If nothing else, Ianto had always been a friend to her.

"I had a dream... A nightmare, really. It was just... so bloody vivid, I think it just shook me up, really," she admitted.

[teaboy_ianto_j]

"You did?" Ianto paused for a moment, wondering if he should admit to having something similar happen to him. He knew that he could talk to Gwen about it. "I...I had a bad dream as well. It was extremely vivid. I wasn't quite sure when I woke up if it had just been only a dream or not at first. It certainly didn't seem like any normal dream or nightmare that I've had in the past."

[alien_catcher]

Gwen tried not to gape, a little thrown off that Ianto had an equally realistic dream as her own. "Same here," Gwen said, still hesitant, however, to admit what the dream was about. At least in present company. "It was so real. You... Well, you were in it. And Jack, and Rhys. Honestly..." She paused, putting her hand to her head. "Even now, it's doesn't really feel like a dream. More like a memory. Lots of memories."

She sighed. Of course, Ianto should be proof enough, sitting right in front of her, for her to know it couldn't possibly be.

[teaboy_ianto_j]

Ianto thought it was quite strange that Gwen would have a dream with the same people in it as he did. Especially since both of them admitted to it feeling all too real. "That's what mine is like as well. I can't push away the details of my dream, easily. It just doesn't seem normal."

Ianto took a few sips of coffee, wondering if he should bring up that the same people were in his dream. It might be relevant somehow, so he figured he should. "You know...you, Jack and Rhys were in my dream as well. Along with some of my family. It's a bit strange that the same people would show up in our dreams last night. Equally strange that we can't seem to shake the memories of them. I wonder if we had the same dream. It doesn't seem like that would be too far-fetched considering the similarities we've already brought up."

[alien_catcher]

Gwen grimaced. She didn't hope she and Ianto had the same dream. And, to boot, it seemed entirely far-fetched... Didn't it? That was the type of thing that happened in movies.

Of course, so were unicorns, so that didn't really help her case.

"Well, I suppose it's possible." She took a breath, preparing herself for some sort of summary. "In my dream, we were still in Cardiff. These aliens, they wanted to take all the children. We stopped them. Well, Jack stopped them. And then he left and you... You died."

Even the words themselves were almost too much to say, and Gwen tried to swallow back tears. The image of Ianto's still body was burned into her mind, so painful and so real, as was the pain of watching Jack leave her forever. They were two things she couldn't fathom having to live with, and she suddenly felt as if she was going to be sick.

She decided, for now, to leave out the part about her being pregnant in the dream. That seemed entirely insignificant, compared to the rest.

[teaboy_ianto_j]

"I...I'm pretty sure that we had the same dream. In mine we were in Cardiff, aliens came wanting children. They had been there before, years ago, though. The Hub had been blown up so we were using an old Torchwood warehouse as a temporary base of operations. The last thing that happened in my dream was that Jack and I went to where the aliens were."

Ianto paused for a moment, the memory of that point of the dream becoming all too vivid in his mind. His eyes focusing on the table in front of him, not able to look at Gwen as he recalled how he died in the dream. "We threatened them. They released some kind of gas into the air. I breathed it in. There was no escaping the building we were in because it went into some sort of lock down. I died in Jack's arms...and then, I woke up."

He knew there was stuff he left out, but if Gwen had had the same dream as him, he felt he didn't need to recap it all. Wondering what it all meant if they really did have the same dream. Were these events taking place back home while they were trapped here?

[alien_catcher]

Gwen buried her head in her hands for a moment, before looking up at Ianto. She suddenly felt exhausted again.

"My dream kept goin'. Past when... well, you know." She rubbed her eyes. It was pretty clear, at this point, that Ianto was right, and their dreams had been identical. It seemed pointless to weigh the trivial details. "What do you think this means? D'ya think it has something to do with this place?"

Maybe mind control, or some kind of experiment. It made more sense than any of it being real. It couldn't be real, especially... No, Gwen thought, it being real was definitely not an option.

[teaboy_ianto_j]

Ianto sighed slightly, thinking about it for a moment, before responding to Gwen. "I'm not really sure what it means. Maybe it's just something that whoever brought us here wanted to do just to mess with us. Or maybe it actually happened, somehow. Like it's what would've happened if we were still back in Cardiff instead of being stuck here. It certainly felt real enough. It was like I was living through it. Though, if that was the case, then you'd be pregnant."

[alien_catcher]

Gwen barked a laugh at Ianto's suggestion, though it was more out of shock and completely devoid of humour. She composed herself quickly.

"No, um, no. No way, Ianto." She waved her hands dismissively and sat back in her chair. "It might have felt real, but it wasn't. I can't be pregnant."

How long had they been at the castle anyway? Weeks? Months? She would have known by now, if she was pregnant. Unless... Well, she internally argued, that wasn't an option. Best to put it out of her mind right away.

"Besides, if I was, wouldn't it make some sense that you would be dead?" She winced at that, and offered Ianto an apologetic look. "Even if it's something that could have happened, had we stayed in Cardiff, I just don't see how we could have been affected physically by it."

[teaboy_ianto_j]

"Well, yes, but this place has proved that even the dead around here don't tend to stay that way. I'm just trying to make some sense of it. It seems odd that we'd have the exact same dream on the exact same night. And it's stuck around like it's a memory of something that actually happened, instead of just fading away as dreams usually do. I wonder if Jack had the same dream we did." Pondering out loud at the end. Hoping that Jack hadn't had the same dream as them last night. But Ianto was sure they would've heard something from him by now if he did. Considering all that happened during it.

[alien_catcher]

Gwen took a sip of her coffee, nodding in agreement. "No, you're right, whatever it was, it must have been more than just a dream."

She sat forward again, resting her cheek on her hand wearily. "Maybe we should ask Jack. Maybe he's... heard of something like this happening before? And if he had the dream too, well, that will tell us something."