[Fanfiction] Small Talk, by callieach
Title: Small Talk
Author: callieach
Fandoms: Bones & Torchwood
Character(s)/Pairing: Angela Montenegro, Gwen Cooper (with mentions of Angela/Jack Hodgins, Gwen/Owen, Gwen/Rhys, and Gwen/Jack Harkness)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2 206
Disclaimer: Ha! I own nothing to do with either of these shows, for the record.
Authors Notes: An interesting crossover, I know, but the idea got in my head after "Exit Wounds" and wouldn't leave. So there are TW spoilers up to there and Bones spoilers till the end of S2, too, though it's future-y. Even if you're not familar with both fandoms, I'd be thrilled if you read and reviewed. :)
Summary: "That's incredibly philosophical for a drunk woman."
This story starts out with two women sitting at a bar. Less than women, even, maybe. Shells of women, broken and empty from death and heartbreak and how much they need a career change.
The pale one speaks first. “I wonder if the bar is always this empty in the middle of the afternoon,” she ponders aloud in her thick Welsh accent, made all that thicker by the two rounds of beer.
“I wouldn’t know. It’s my first time here.” It’s the first hint at a real conversation she’s had since she flew in two days ago. Sure, she’s booked a room and ordered alcohol and called taxis, but she hasn’t really talked to anyone since the fight.
“Is that an American accent you have?”
“Ya. I stick out like a sore thumb, don’t I?” She laughs bitterly and tosses her dark hair over her shoulder.
“I’m used to it. My boss sounds… is American, too.”
If the word choice is weird, the other woman doesn’t point it out. “Oh. I’m Angela, by the way.”
“Gwen,” is the reply, with an extended hand and brief handshake across the countertop.
“So, Gwen, what’s your opinion on small talk?” Angela asks.
“I think it’s what I need right about now,” Gwen answers.
“Me, too.”
“May I ask what brings you to Cardiff?”
“I needed a change.” Angela picks at the label on her beer bottle. “I left my fiancé. He was holding me down and I told him I was a free spirit and he just let me go.” There’s a pause. “So I packed my bags and picked a plane.”
“I can see why you left him if he didn’t put up a fight.”
Angela laughs, though it’s a laugh only be definition, not in essence. “He fought hard enough to get me, I think he realized I wasn’t worth the trouble. Now your turn. How’d you wind up here?”
“Born and raised, rarely leave.”
“This bar?”
“Cardiff.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re drinking the afternoon away.”
“Two of my coworkers… No, two of my friends,” Gwen corrects, “died.”
Angela asks if it was the explosions.
Gwen nods, staring at her drink to hide the tears in her eyes. “You could say that.”
“But what would you say?”
“I’d say they died saving the world.”
An hour later, Angela’s told everything about the job she’s already promised herself she’d never go back to and Gwen’s barely gotten past that she was recruited from the police.
“If nothing else, I’ve learned a lot because of that job and the people I work with,” Gwen says suddenly, after a long silence. Angela waits for her to go on. “I’ve learned that you can’t hold on to anybody, in case you let go.”
“But that’s the whole thrill of living, isn’t it?” Angela asks. “To love and be loved, even knowing that it could all be over at any moment?”
“Ya, and what if the person you let go of comes back to bury you alive?”
“Don’t think about that. Sometimes you get buried alive when you don’t even deserve it.”
Gwen tilts her head and tells Angela she wasn’t talking about it metaphorically. Angela replies that that’s good, because she wasn’t, either.
There’s a silence, then Gwen asks, “Was it you, or someone you love?”
“My best friend and the man who finally managed to win my heart.”
“And after that, you would still leave him on a whim?”
Angela shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”
“If Jack wanted me, I wouldn’t leave him.” Gwen says softly.
“What?” Angela suddenly sits up straighter. “You don’t even know him!”
Gwen looks at her with narrowed eyes for a few long seconds. “We’re not talking about the same Jack, I don’t think.”
There’s the thud of Angela putting her elbow on the counter and slumping to rest her chin on her palm. “Right.”
Just when Gwen’s about to say something, her cell phone rings. She takes it out of her jacket pocket, looks at it, sets it on the counter, and, when she’s asked why she’s ignoring it, says, “My husband wouldn’t understand how much it hurts right now.”
“You can’t keep it in.”
“The only person I could ever talk to my job about is gone for good. How can I not keep this in?”
“Tell me. I’m just a tipsy American stranger in a bar with an ex-lover named Jack.”
Angela watches Gwen turn her tumbler around slowly in her hand. Gwen stares at what’s left of the golden liquid inside as it sloshes around.
“His name was Owen. He was a doctor and the best fuck I ever had. He knew it, too,” Gwen says, then stops turning the glass. “Even when we ended it, we were still close. I could still talk to him about work and how bloody hard Torchwood is on relationships.”
“What kind of doctor?”
“Medical.” Gwen lets the tumbler go unceremoniously and laughs a little. “You wouldn’t believe the number of times he’s saved my life.”
“He sounds cocky.”
“Oh, he was.”
“In my experience, doctors get like that.”
“Was your Jack a doctor?”
“Ya, a scientist,” Angela says, then rubs at the counter as if there’s dirt she’s trying to get rid of. “Three PhD’s. One of those guys who was smart but rarely acted it.” Now she bites her lip. “Until he got angry or nervous. The first time he asked me out, he compared us to neodymium.”
“What’s that?”
“A rare metal.” Angela laughs, but it sounds hollow. “That’s just the point, Gwen.”
If Gwen couldn’t see the point, she didn’t say. “It sounds like you liked him.”
“I did.”
“Why don’t you anymore?”
Angela holds her head in her hands as if it hurts to think about it. “I don’t know why.”
Gwen downs the rest of her drink. Then she says, “You shouldn’t’ve left,” and excuses herself to the washroom.
When she comes back with water sloshed down her front, Angela’s brown eyes are red-rimmed. Neither woman gives an explanation for their state.
“Tell me about your other friend,” Angela says after a few long seconds of silence.
“Toshiko was one of the most amazing woman I’ve ever known,” Gwen starts, and ten minutes later she’s told Angela all about the people she works with and how every one of them fits with everyone else.
“So about Torchwood,” Angela asks at the end of this, “What exactly do you do?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“We catch aliens.”
“That sounds so much cooler than drawing dead people for the FBI.”
“But a lot less safe.”
Angela narrows her eyes to look at Gwen. “You’re not joking, are you?”
Gwen just laughs.
A few minutes later, they order around round of drinks. Angela gets in one sip before a rock song starts blaring out of her purse. She pulls it out and flips it open before Gwen can figure out what it is in her foggy state, but it sounds familiar.
“I thought I’d turned you off,” Angela mutters to the phone. The she holds it up to her ear. “Hello?”
Angela listens for a moment, then says: “I’m out drinking with my new Welsh best friend.” A pause for her to listen in. “In Wales, of course.” Pause. “A pub-ey place in downtown Cardiff.” More listening. “Oh, sure you’re going to fight for me now, but you didn’t even try to stop me from leaving. … You know I don’t say things I don’t mean. Well, yes, ‘cept that one time.” She runs her fingers through her long wavy hair as the man on the other end says something else. “Who cares if I’m drunk? I’m drinking with my new best friend, remember? It’s allowed.” A listening break; now she drums her fingers on the countertop. “You don’t have to worry about me, Hodgins, I’m not yours anymore.”
She covers the mouthpiece to say, “I should never have answered,” to Gwen. “Yes, I can walk away that easily,” she says into the phone. “And I did, in case you were too busy in your own little dirt and bugs world, making sure you had that goddamn rubberband to snap when I walked out the door to notice.” Suddenly, she closes her eyes and her tone it softer. “I know. But we’re over now. I’m not coming back.” There’s a beat as if she’s listening, then she exclaims, “No, you’re not coming to get me. And even if you try, even if you track me down, I won’t go back with you. No, I won’t. No.”
And that’s when Angela snaps the phone shut, almost catching her earring in it, and tosses it onto the counter.
“I’m guessing that was your Jack,” Gwen says, almost sympathetically.
“Yes… but he’s not mine anymore.”
“Mhm. Right.”
The American woman twirls her drink, takes a swig, and says, “So, you catch aliens, huh?”
“In a nutshell.”
“My Jack would love you.”
“I wish mine would,” Gwen replies, though she’s just about to take a drink for her voice is muffled.
“What did you say?”
“I thought he wasn’t yours anymore.”
“Touché.” Angela takes another long drink.
There’s a tinkling of bells as the bar’s front door opens. Standing there, framed by the afternoon light with his coat bellowing in the non-existent wind is a man. Gwen groans and drops her head to the counter. Angela watches the new patron with interest. The man does a visual scan of the establishment before heading towards the drinking buddies.
“Gwen,” he says, clasping her on the shoulder. “Last time Rhys called he’d thought of seven very different, very painful ways to kill me. He’s going to use them all if you’re not in his sights soon.”
She lifts her head and gives him a dirty look. “He acts more and more like my mother all the time.”
“He’s not your mother, he’s your husband and, in case you’ve forgotten, the city was just under attack and you’re not answering your phone.”
“And you still managed to find me.”
“I would’ve been here half an hour ago if it wasn’t so hard to use Tosh’s equipment to find you.”
The silence that follows that statement is long and painful. Eventually, Angela says, “So this must be your Jack,” jump-starting the conversation.
“Of course, how rude of me.” Jack extends a hand and a flirtatious grin that doesn’t change his emotionless eyes. “Captain Jack Harkness. And you are…?”
Angela puts her hand in his and daintily shakes it, saying “A captain? Really?” to Gwen, then “Hi. I’m Angela,” to Jack.
“Angela, it’s a pleasure. I see you’ve been getting to know Gwen.”
“Oh, not really. We’re just drinking. And getting mad at our cell phones when they ring,” Angela replies, still holding onto Jack’s hand.
“Can I ask why?”
“Her husband wouldn’t understand and my Jack, my ex-fiancé, is… trying too hard too late.”
“It’s never too late.”
“If you’ve got all the time in the universe, maybe. But not if you’ve only got the one life to live. Then you’ve gotta go live it. And if that means that I have to walk away and never look back, so be it.”
“That’s incredibly philosophical for a drunk woman,” Jack comments non-judgementally.
“It’s a habit I picked up from some geniuses. It goes away when I’m near photocopiers and video cameras.”
The man laughs and, with a bit of effort, pulls his hand away from Angela. “So, Gwen, can we get going before Rhys has an even ten ways to do me in?”
“Fine,” Gwen mumbles, then downs the rest of her drink and throws a couple of pounds from her pocket onto the counter. “Well, Angela, it’s been a nice chat…”
“Ya. It has. You don’t realize how little you really talk until you start.”
Gwen smiles a crooked smile. Jack asks if Angela needs a ride anywhere.
“I don’t have anywhere to be, so I think I’ll stay for a bit longer,” is her answer. The bartender shoots the group a dirty look. They don’t notice.
When Gwen stands up, she stumbles. Jack catches her, saying “Woah, careful there.” Angela bites her tongue to keep from asking aloud why she thinks he doesn’t love her. She’s seen that look before, she muses as they walk to the door and out into the sunlight. Booth gives it to Brennan when she’s being stubborn and hiding her feelings. And her Jack gives it to her when… well, all the time.
Slower than she probably thinks she’s moving, she picks up her phone and presses the 1, holding it until the speed dial kicks in.
“Jack? Hey, it’s me. I’m not promising anything, but if you want to talk, I’m willing to listen.”
Ten minutes later she’s got a rendez-vous planned for the next day. She figures if she leaves this bar right now, she’ll have gotten rid of the hangover in time. Headaches make her cranky.
She pays her tab and waves so long to the barkeep.
One woman walks out of a bar into the bright light of day. She’s feeling better, her head’s rushing pleasantly, and not just because of the alcohol, but because of hope.
Author: callieach
Fandoms: Bones & Torchwood
Character(s)/Pairing: Angela Montenegro, Gwen Cooper (with mentions of Angela/Jack Hodgins, Gwen/Owen, Gwen/Rhys, and Gwen/Jack Harkness)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2 206
Disclaimer: Ha! I own nothing to do with either of these shows, for the record.
Authors Notes: An interesting crossover, I know, but the idea got in my head after "Exit Wounds" and wouldn't leave. So there are TW spoilers up to there and Bones spoilers till the end of S2, too, though it's future-y. Even if you're not familar with both fandoms, I'd be thrilled if you read and reviewed. :)
Summary: "That's incredibly philosophical for a drunk woman."
This story starts out with two women sitting at a bar. Less than women, even, maybe. Shells of women, broken and empty from death and heartbreak and how much they need a career change.
The pale one speaks first. “I wonder if the bar is always this empty in the middle of the afternoon,” she ponders aloud in her thick Welsh accent, made all that thicker by the two rounds of beer.
“I wouldn’t know. It’s my first time here.” It’s the first hint at a real conversation she’s had since she flew in two days ago. Sure, she’s booked a room and ordered alcohol and called taxis, but she hasn’t really talked to anyone since the fight.
“Is that an American accent you have?”
“Ya. I stick out like a sore thumb, don’t I?” She laughs bitterly and tosses her dark hair over her shoulder.
“I’m used to it. My boss sounds… is American, too.”
If the word choice is weird, the other woman doesn’t point it out. “Oh. I’m Angela, by the way.”
“Gwen,” is the reply, with an extended hand and brief handshake across the countertop.
“So, Gwen, what’s your opinion on small talk?” Angela asks.
“I think it’s what I need right about now,” Gwen answers.
“Me, too.”
“May I ask what brings you to Cardiff?”
“I needed a change.” Angela picks at the label on her beer bottle. “I left my fiancé. He was holding me down and I told him I was a free spirit and he just let me go.” There’s a pause. “So I packed my bags and picked a plane.”
“I can see why you left him if he didn’t put up a fight.”
Angela laughs, though it’s a laugh only be definition, not in essence. “He fought hard enough to get me, I think he realized I wasn’t worth the trouble. Now your turn. How’d you wind up here?”
“Born and raised, rarely leave.”
“This bar?”
“Cardiff.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re drinking the afternoon away.”
“Two of my coworkers… No, two of my friends,” Gwen corrects, “died.”
Angela asks if it was the explosions.
Gwen nods, staring at her drink to hide the tears in her eyes. “You could say that.”
“But what would you say?”
“I’d say they died saving the world.”
An hour later, Angela’s told everything about the job she’s already promised herself she’d never go back to and Gwen’s barely gotten past that she was recruited from the police.
“If nothing else, I’ve learned a lot because of that job and the people I work with,” Gwen says suddenly, after a long silence. Angela waits for her to go on. “I’ve learned that you can’t hold on to anybody, in case you let go.”
“But that’s the whole thrill of living, isn’t it?” Angela asks. “To love and be loved, even knowing that it could all be over at any moment?”
“Ya, and what if the person you let go of comes back to bury you alive?”
“Don’t think about that. Sometimes you get buried alive when you don’t even deserve it.”
Gwen tilts her head and tells Angela she wasn’t talking about it metaphorically. Angela replies that that’s good, because she wasn’t, either.
There’s a silence, then Gwen asks, “Was it you, or someone you love?”
“My best friend and the man who finally managed to win my heart.”
“And after that, you would still leave him on a whim?”
Angela shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”
“If Jack wanted me, I wouldn’t leave him.” Gwen says softly.
“What?” Angela suddenly sits up straighter. “You don’t even know him!”
Gwen looks at her with narrowed eyes for a few long seconds. “We’re not talking about the same Jack, I don’t think.”
There’s the thud of Angela putting her elbow on the counter and slumping to rest her chin on her palm. “Right.”
Just when Gwen’s about to say something, her cell phone rings. She takes it out of her jacket pocket, looks at it, sets it on the counter, and, when she’s asked why she’s ignoring it, says, “My husband wouldn’t understand how much it hurts right now.”
“You can’t keep it in.”
“The only person I could ever talk to my job about is gone for good. How can I not keep this in?”
“Tell me. I’m just a tipsy American stranger in a bar with an ex-lover named Jack.”
Angela watches Gwen turn her tumbler around slowly in her hand. Gwen stares at what’s left of the golden liquid inside as it sloshes around.
“His name was Owen. He was a doctor and the best fuck I ever had. He knew it, too,” Gwen says, then stops turning the glass. “Even when we ended it, we were still close. I could still talk to him about work and how bloody hard Torchwood is on relationships.”
“What kind of doctor?”
“Medical.” Gwen lets the tumbler go unceremoniously and laughs a little. “You wouldn’t believe the number of times he’s saved my life.”
“He sounds cocky.”
“Oh, he was.”
“In my experience, doctors get like that.”
“Was your Jack a doctor?”
“Ya, a scientist,” Angela says, then rubs at the counter as if there’s dirt she’s trying to get rid of. “Three PhD’s. One of those guys who was smart but rarely acted it.” Now she bites her lip. “Until he got angry or nervous. The first time he asked me out, he compared us to neodymium.”
“What’s that?”
“A rare metal.” Angela laughs, but it sounds hollow. “That’s just the point, Gwen.”
If Gwen couldn’t see the point, she didn’t say. “It sounds like you liked him.”
“I did.”
“Why don’t you anymore?”
Angela holds her head in her hands as if it hurts to think about it. “I don’t know why.”
Gwen downs the rest of her drink. Then she says, “You shouldn’t’ve left,” and excuses herself to the washroom.
When she comes back with water sloshed down her front, Angela’s brown eyes are red-rimmed. Neither woman gives an explanation for their state.
“Tell me about your other friend,” Angela says after a few long seconds of silence.
“Toshiko was one of the most amazing woman I’ve ever known,” Gwen starts, and ten minutes later she’s told Angela all about the people she works with and how every one of them fits with everyone else.
“So about Torchwood,” Angela asks at the end of this, “What exactly do you do?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“We catch aliens.”
“That sounds so much cooler than drawing dead people for the FBI.”
“But a lot less safe.”
Angela narrows her eyes to look at Gwen. “You’re not joking, are you?”
Gwen just laughs.
A few minutes later, they order around round of drinks. Angela gets in one sip before a rock song starts blaring out of her purse. She pulls it out and flips it open before Gwen can figure out what it is in her foggy state, but it sounds familiar.
“I thought I’d turned you off,” Angela mutters to the phone. The she holds it up to her ear. “Hello?”
Angela listens for a moment, then says: “I’m out drinking with my new Welsh best friend.” A pause for her to listen in. “In Wales, of course.” Pause. “A pub-ey place in downtown Cardiff.” More listening. “Oh, sure you’re going to fight for me now, but you didn’t even try to stop me from leaving. … You know I don’t say things I don’t mean. Well, yes, ‘cept that one time.” She runs her fingers through her long wavy hair as the man on the other end says something else. “Who cares if I’m drunk? I’m drinking with my new best friend, remember? It’s allowed.” A listening break; now she drums her fingers on the countertop. “You don’t have to worry about me, Hodgins, I’m not yours anymore.”
She covers the mouthpiece to say, “I should never have answered,” to Gwen. “Yes, I can walk away that easily,” she says into the phone. “And I did, in case you were too busy in your own little dirt and bugs world, making sure you had that goddamn rubberband to snap when I walked out the door to notice.” Suddenly, she closes her eyes and her tone it softer. “I know. But we’re over now. I’m not coming back.” There’s a beat as if she’s listening, then she exclaims, “No, you’re not coming to get me. And even if you try, even if you track me down, I won’t go back with you. No, I won’t. No.”
And that’s when Angela snaps the phone shut, almost catching her earring in it, and tosses it onto the counter.
“I’m guessing that was your Jack,” Gwen says, almost sympathetically.
“Yes… but he’s not mine anymore.”
“Mhm. Right.”
The American woman twirls her drink, takes a swig, and says, “So, you catch aliens, huh?”
“In a nutshell.”
“My Jack would love you.”
“I wish mine would,” Gwen replies, though she’s just about to take a drink for her voice is muffled.
“What did you say?”
“I thought he wasn’t yours anymore.”
“Touché.” Angela takes another long drink.
There’s a tinkling of bells as the bar’s front door opens. Standing there, framed by the afternoon light with his coat bellowing in the non-existent wind is a man. Gwen groans and drops her head to the counter. Angela watches the new patron with interest. The man does a visual scan of the establishment before heading towards the drinking buddies.
“Gwen,” he says, clasping her on the shoulder. “Last time Rhys called he’d thought of seven very different, very painful ways to kill me. He’s going to use them all if you’re not in his sights soon.”
She lifts her head and gives him a dirty look. “He acts more and more like my mother all the time.”
“He’s not your mother, he’s your husband and, in case you’ve forgotten, the city was just under attack and you’re not answering your phone.”
“And you still managed to find me.”
“I would’ve been here half an hour ago if it wasn’t so hard to use Tosh’s equipment to find you.”
The silence that follows that statement is long and painful. Eventually, Angela says, “So this must be your Jack,” jump-starting the conversation.
“Of course, how rude of me.” Jack extends a hand and a flirtatious grin that doesn’t change his emotionless eyes. “Captain Jack Harkness. And you are…?”
Angela puts her hand in his and daintily shakes it, saying “A captain? Really?” to Gwen, then “Hi. I’m Angela,” to Jack.
“Angela, it’s a pleasure. I see you’ve been getting to know Gwen.”
“Oh, not really. We’re just drinking. And getting mad at our cell phones when they ring,” Angela replies, still holding onto Jack’s hand.
“Can I ask why?”
“Her husband wouldn’t understand and my Jack, my ex-fiancé, is… trying too hard too late.”
“It’s never too late.”
“If you’ve got all the time in the universe, maybe. But not if you’ve only got the one life to live. Then you’ve gotta go live it. And if that means that I have to walk away and never look back, so be it.”
“That’s incredibly philosophical for a drunk woman,” Jack comments non-judgementally.
“It’s a habit I picked up from some geniuses. It goes away when I’m near photocopiers and video cameras.”
The man laughs and, with a bit of effort, pulls his hand away from Angela. “So, Gwen, can we get going before Rhys has an even ten ways to do me in?”
“Fine,” Gwen mumbles, then downs the rest of her drink and throws a couple of pounds from her pocket onto the counter. “Well, Angela, it’s been a nice chat…”
“Ya. It has. You don’t realize how little you really talk until you start.”
Gwen smiles a crooked smile. Jack asks if Angela needs a ride anywhere.
“I don’t have anywhere to be, so I think I’ll stay for a bit longer,” is her answer. The bartender shoots the group a dirty look. They don’t notice.
When Gwen stands up, she stumbles. Jack catches her, saying “Woah, careful there.” Angela bites her tongue to keep from asking aloud why she thinks he doesn’t love her. She’s seen that look before, she muses as they walk to the door and out into the sunlight. Booth gives it to Brennan when she’s being stubborn and hiding her feelings. And her Jack gives it to her when… well, all the time.
Slower than she probably thinks she’s moving, she picks up her phone and presses the 1, holding it until the speed dial kicks in.
“Jack? Hey, it’s me. I’m not promising anything, but if you want to talk, I’m willing to listen.”
Ten minutes later she’s got a rendez-vous planned for the next day. She figures if she leaves this bar right now, she’ll have gotten rid of the hangover in time. Headaches make her cranky.
She pays her tab and waves so long to the barkeep.
One woman walks out of a bar into the bright light of day. She’s feeling better, her head’s rushing pleasantly, and not just because of the alcohol, but because of hope.