Sanctuary
Title: Sanctuary
Author: crystalshard
Rating: PG
Characters: Torchwood ensemble, the Doctor
Warnings: Vague spoilers through first season
Summary: Those who seek sanctuary sometimes find it. Or does it find them?
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, it belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Beta'd by the wonderful jadesfire2808 and miss_zedem. There's a tiny bit of 'spot the very obscure TV/game reference'.
The universe is a wider place than most could dream. By its very nature, it contains everything that ever is or was or could be. Humans, aliens, plants; stars, planets, asteroids, elements.
Emotions.
The human race is not unique in its capacity to feel emotion. Almost every species in the universe has them, though they might be unrecognisable to other races. They can love and laugh, hate and cry, feel fear and want to rush to safety.
Every intelligent race in the universe, including the artificial Siuth and the genetically engineered GREL supersoldiers, has some concept of a safe haven.
The universe is a wider place than most would believe, and hidden in one corner is the place known as Sanctuary.
The few who know about it don't go there. Even the Time Lords, who once played with time as if it was string to knot as they pleased, never knew who built it. A planet circling around an aging red giant, at first glance it appears to be the remains of an abandoned civilisation. The buildings are low, open and seem to have been poured from dirty white stone. Winds brush lifeless dust against them and into them, giving a brown tinge that seems to almost be smoke damage. The buildings never erode, never change. On the outside, at least.
Outside, lakes are clear, dead and scarce on this planet, and seas are unknown. From horizon to horizon stretch the small white buildings, clustered here and there in a haphazard fashion but always, always there.
On the inside of the buildings, it is a different story.
Pale blue ghosts, voiceless and insubstantial, move within the countless buildings. Here, a human woman weeps soundlessly in a toilet stall. There, a D'hursi metaform plays a complex instrument that is all hollow metal and grass fibre. A human male and a Janest female twine together; an Orion child closes out its parents' arguments by immersing itself in a virtual reality game; an orange-skinned Parthus bites into a tree and greedily sucks its sap.
These are the echoes of those who seek sanctuary and find it. A place, a person, a thing, it makes no difference. As long as they can hide from the world, just for an instant, then that is Sanctuary.
The echoes are only present for a short while. Hours at most, until the feeling of being utterly safe disappears, as it always does. Time matters nothing to Sanctuary; the past, the present and the future are all there in the universe.
No-one knows why it was built. Some surmise that it was meant to remind any visitors that there are places where sanctuary can still be found. Others find it unnerving. Some simply accept it as it is. But whatever the reason, it is rarely visited.
Images flicker in the buildings, blue spirits that echo the emotions that they embody. Humans, mostly, this time around.
A young Asian woman sits at her computer, typing quickly.
A London boy, ten years old, huddles on the roof of the block of flats he lives in.
An old Welsh woman, the gap in her teeth showing as she grins broadly, is surrounded by grandchildren.
Two men lie tangled around each other in a bed. One is stroking the other's back, both on the verge of sleep.
An alien with ancient eyes stands in a blue box that is bigger on the inside. Around him is curled the otherwise invisible soul of the being that somehow is that box.
Sanctuary is not joy. Sanctuary is not happiness. Sanctuary, at the end of the day, is not even safety.
It is just a place where you can pretend, for a moment, that the world has gone away.
Author: crystalshard
Rating: PG
Characters: Torchwood ensemble, the Doctor
Warnings: Vague spoilers through first season
Summary: Those who seek sanctuary sometimes find it. Or does it find them?
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, it belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Beta'd by the wonderful jadesfire2808 and miss_zedem. There's a tiny bit of 'spot the very obscure TV/game reference'.
The universe is a wider place than most could dream. By its very nature, it contains everything that ever is or was or could be. Humans, aliens, plants; stars, planets, asteroids, elements.
Emotions.
The human race is not unique in its capacity to feel emotion. Almost every species in the universe has them, though they might be unrecognisable to other races. They can love and laugh, hate and cry, feel fear and want to rush to safety.
Every intelligent race in the universe, including the artificial Siuth and the genetically engineered GREL supersoldiers, has some concept of a safe haven.
The universe is a wider place than most would believe, and hidden in one corner is the place known as Sanctuary.
The few who know about it don't go there. Even the Time Lords, who once played with time as if it was string to knot as they pleased, never knew who built it. A planet circling around an aging red giant, at first glance it appears to be the remains of an abandoned civilisation. The buildings are low, open and seem to have been poured from dirty white stone. Winds brush lifeless dust against them and into them, giving a brown tinge that seems to almost be smoke damage. The buildings never erode, never change. On the outside, at least.
Outside, lakes are clear, dead and scarce on this planet, and seas are unknown. From horizon to horizon stretch the small white buildings, clustered here and there in a haphazard fashion but always, always there.
On the inside of the buildings, it is a different story.
Pale blue ghosts, voiceless and insubstantial, move within the countless buildings. Here, a human woman weeps soundlessly in a toilet stall. There, a D'hursi metaform plays a complex instrument that is all hollow metal and grass fibre. A human male and a Janest female twine together; an Orion child closes out its parents' arguments by immersing itself in a virtual reality game; an orange-skinned Parthus bites into a tree and greedily sucks its sap.
These are the echoes of those who seek sanctuary and find it. A place, a person, a thing, it makes no difference. As long as they can hide from the world, just for an instant, then that is Sanctuary.
The echoes are only present for a short while. Hours at most, until the feeling of being utterly safe disappears, as it always does. Time matters nothing to Sanctuary; the past, the present and the future are all there in the universe.
No-one knows why it was built. Some surmise that it was meant to remind any visitors that there are places where sanctuary can still be found. Others find it unnerving. Some simply accept it as it is. But whatever the reason, it is rarely visited.
Images flicker in the buildings, blue spirits that echo the emotions that they embody. Humans, mostly, this time around.
A young Asian woman sits at her computer, typing quickly.
A London boy, ten years old, huddles on the roof of the block of flats he lives in.
An old Welsh woman, the gap in her teeth showing as she grins broadly, is surrounded by grandchildren.
Two men lie tangled around each other in a bed. One is stroking the other's back, both on the verge of sleep.
An alien with ancient eyes stands in a blue box that is bigger on the inside. Around him is curled the otherwise invisible soul of the being that somehow is that box.
Sanctuary is not joy. Sanctuary is not happiness. Sanctuary, at the end of the day, is not even safety.
It is just a place where you can pretend, for a moment, that the world has gone away.