BEYOND THE RIFT: At the Ragged Edge of the Silence
Title: At the Ragged Edge of the Silence
Characters/Pairing: Gwen, Ianto, Tosh and Owen, mention of Rhys
Word Count: 1316
Rating: PG
Summary: Gwen the new recruit, still learning the ins and outs, watching as everyone she worked with vanished one by one.
Notes: Written for meritinabox prompt #7, "falling prey to cruelty or misfortune". I wrote it on a plane while sleep-deprived, so... tell me nicely if I've written anything stupid. Please. I've been meaning to write this fic for a while, but the OMGANGST of Jack leaving really spurred me to do it this time. And yes, I steal my summary from threads. Hush.
Disclaimer: All Torchwood characters belong to the BBC.
Gwen dropped onto the couch and glanced to Ianto, who, for the moment, had taken over Tosh's desk - mainly because neither Gwen nor Ianto wanted to get too close to some of the things on Owen's desk. The other week, Ianto expressed concern that something might be developing sentience underneath the piles of paper and God knew what else, and Gwen couldn't get that out of her head.
"Are we sure this isn't important?" she asked after a moment.
Ianto blinked, turning to look over his shoulder at her. "I'm sorry?"
"Tosh and Owen," she clarified. "Should they really be out there alone?"
"Just a little unusual Rift energy Tosh wanted to look at." Ianto gestured vaguely to the map on one of Tosh's computer screens. "We didn't even pick up any life signs in that building - it's just a lot of abandoned flats - so unless Owen falls into a pothole somewhere..."
"While not out of the realm of possibility, we'll deal with that when it happens." Gwen smiled and twisted around on the couch to lie on her back. She reminded herself she could not fall asleep, because the second she did, something disastrous would happen, without a doubt. Anyway, if she was going to fall asleep in the Hub, there were probably more comfortable places to do it than on the couch. She occupied herself counting the bricks on the wall.
"This doesn't make any sense." Gwen glanced over to Ianto, hearing Tosh's voice on the comms.
Owen's voice followed, more distant, like his headset wasn't transmitting, it was just Tosh's picking him up as background noise. "What doesn't make any sense? The fact that there's sod-all here despite what it said back at the Hub? That it's always you and me doing the dirty work while Ianto and Gwen sit back and gossip?"
"That's not true!" Gwen said as she sat up, not that Owen could hear her.
"I meant the first part."
Ianto tapped the comm button and announced over the comm, "Also, I heard that."
Neither Owen nor Tosh responded, and Gwen announced after a minute, "I think they might be ignoring you."
Ianto rolled his eyes, though not without a faint smile. "So it would appear."
A few seconds passed in silence, and Gwen moved to stand behind Ianto. Just as she reached him, the speaker connected to the comm system crackled loudly, and Gwen jumped. She'd never heard the slightest hint of static over the Torchwood comms, and this was... more than slight.
Tosh's voice came through the static, recognizable but too garbled to pick out actual words. Ianto frowned and moved to adjust something, mumbling about how this shouldn't be happening. Gwen had to agree with him on that particular count.
"Tosh?" he said, static still drowning out anything she or Owen might be saying. "Tosh, Owen, can you hear me?"
The static abruptly cut out, replaced by complete silence. An odd chill ran down Gwen's spine.
"Tosh?" Ianto asked again, cautiously, and neither of them answered.
The warehouse, when they reached it, was empty. No sign of Tosh and Owen. No blood on the floor, which was encouraging in a way, if completely useless. Scuffed footprints in the dust that abruptly vanished in the middle of a hallway. No strange energy signatures, not a trace of aliens of any sort. Nothing but darkness and silence and the sound of Gwen and Ianto's breath in the otherwise still air.
*
Gwen had been arguing with Ianto for days. the firs time he suggested closing Tosh and Owen's personnel files, she'd whirled on him, all white-hot fury, and when she shouted at him, Ianto actually shouted back, until Gwen stalked off because the hollow echo of their raised voices in the silence only made it worse. Now it was just dull pain and stubborn resistance. They weren't dead. They weren't. They were just... gone, and eventually she and Ianto were going to find a way to get them back that didn't involve opening the Rift and the end of the world.
She stopped thinking they'd come back the day Ianto disappeared. It was less than dramatic. He just went to the cells to feed the Weevil and didn't come back. Gwen searched the Hub from top to bottom with a gun and a bioscanner, even into the parts of the vaults not even Ianto ever wandered into, narrow dark hallways with stone walls and damp floors, lights spaced at regular intervals with patches of shadow between.
Not unexpectedly, she found nothing at all.
Gwen locked down the Hub as securely as she knew how, drove home, and actually managed to make it there before she started crying. Rhys only asked once what happened, what was wrong, and afterwards didn't question again why she was crying, or why she stayed home for the next two days. He'd mostly learned not to ask anyway, by now. Gwen kept checking her mobile, vaguely expecting some message from Ianto, and her heart sank every time there wasn't and reality settled back in.
He wasn't dead. People didn't die without leaving behind some indication of what happened. Even in Cardiff, even on the Rift. He was just... gone.
When she returned to the Hub at last, Myfanwy hissed and gave her what she could have sworn was a disapproving glare. Machinery hummed in the background, the Hub pool splashed quietly, and Gwen's footsteps echoed like gunshots.
*
Torchwood Cardiff was never meant to be a one man operation. Since Jack left, actually, Gwen had started to think that even four people wasn't quite enough.
People died. People she'd met, people whose bodies she only found afterwards, cleaned up and hid it as best she could and made it look like a suicide or car accident or anything but what it was.
Things fell through the cracks and gaps. Some alien device exploded in an office building, and Gwen tried to comfort herself by thinking she was just one person, she couldn't catch everything. She didn't cry, just logged the specifics of the explosion, the names of the dead, and spent the next week on a razor's edge, waiting for the next explosion.
Rhys proposed to her. He said he would have waited, but there never seemed to be a good time, and there wasn't. Gwen said yes, because it was the most normal thing that had happened to her in months, and she felt like if she said no, even that thin thread of normality might just snap.
She started sleeping in the Hub, more and more often. If she stayed away too long, she might miss something. If she stayed away too long, the world might fall apart while she was looking the other way. People had started to talk, more than usual, about creatures, monsters in the streets. People started warning each other to stay indoors at night, and who was she kidding, the world was already falling apart. She got used to sleeping to the rustle of Myfanwy's wings and the soft beeping of monitoring programs rather than Rhys' breathing, learned to wake in an instant at the sound of anything like an alarm.
The world didn't fall apart. One day it simply tore open, just a little, and she stepped accidentally from the Hub into a room with a bed and a couch and a television and a twisted machine in the corner.
She tries now not to worry about what might be happening in her absence, whether or not the Rift's just opened up and swallowed all of Cardiff. She doesn't have time to worry if that world might be lying in ruins, when she's doing her best just to help keep this one together.
Characters/Pairing: Gwen, Ianto, Tosh and Owen, mention of Rhys
Word Count: 1316
Rating: PG
Summary: Gwen the new recruit, still learning the ins and outs, watching as everyone she worked with vanished one by one.
Notes: Written for meritinabox prompt #7, "falling prey to cruelty or misfortune". I wrote it on a plane while sleep-deprived, so... tell me nicely if I've written anything stupid. Please. I've been meaning to write this fic for a while, but the OMGANGST of Jack leaving really spurred me to do it this time. And yes, I steal my summary from threads. Hush.
Disclaimer: All Torchwood characters belong to the BBC.
Gwen dropped onto the couch and glanced to Ianto, who, for the moment, had taken over Tosh's desk - mainly because neither Gwen nor Ianto wanted to get too close to some of the things on Owen's desk. The other week, Ianto expressed concern that something might be developing sentience underneath the piles of paper and God knew what else, and Gwen couldn't get that out of her head.
"Are we sure this isn't important?" she asked after a moment.
Ianto blinked, turning to look over his shoulder at her. "I'm sorry?"
"Tosh and Owen," she clarified. "Should they really be out there alone?"
"Just a little unusual Rift energy Tosh wanted to look at." Ianto gestured vaguely to the map on one of Tosh's computer screens. "We didn't even pick up any life signs in that building - it's just a lot of abandoned flats - so unless Owen falls into a pothole somewhere..."
"While not out of the realm of possibility, we'll deal with that when it happens." Gwen smiled and twisted around on the couch to lie on her back. She reminded herself she could not fall asleep, because the second she did, something disastrous would happen, without a doubt. Anyway, if she was going to fall asleep in the Hub, there were probably more comfortable places to do it than on the couch. She occupied herself counting the bricks on the wall.
"This doesn't make any sense." Gwen glanced over to Ianto, hearing Tosh's voice on the comms.
Owen's voice followed, more distant, like his headset wasn't transmitting, it was just Tosh's picking him up as background noise. "What doesn't make any sense? The fact that there's sod-all here despite what it said back at the Hub? That it's always you and me doing the dirty work while Ianto and Gwen sit back and gossip?"
"That's not true!" Gwen said as she sat up, not that Owen could hear her.
"I meant the first part."
Ianto tapped the comm button and announced over the comm, "Also, I heard that."
Neither Owen nor Tosh responded, and Gwen announced after a minute, "I think they might be ignoring you."
Ianto rolled his eyes, though not without a faint smile. "So it would appear."
A few seconds passed in silence, and Gwen moved to stand behind Ianto. Just as she reached him, the speaker connected to the comm system crackled loudly, and Gwen jumped. She'd never heard the slightest hint of static over the Torchwood comms, and this was... more than slight.
Tosh's voice came through the static, recognizable but too garbled to pick out actual words. Ianto frowned and moved to adjust something, mumbling about how this shouldn't be happening. Gwen had to agree with him on that particular count.
"Tosh?" he said, static still drowning out anything she or Owen might be saying. "Tosh, Owen, can you hear me?"
The static abruptly cut out, replaced by complete silence. An odd chill ran down Gwen's spine.
"Tosh?" Ianto asked again, cautiously, and neither of them answered.
The warehouse, when they reached it, was empty. No sign of Tosh and Owen. No blood on the floor, which was encouraging in a way, if completely useless. Scuffed footprints in the dust that abruptly vanished in the middle of a hallway. No strange energy signatures, not a trace of aliens of any sort. Nothing but darkness and silence and the sound of Gwen and Ianto's breath in the otherwise still air.
*
Gwen had been arguing with Ianto for days. the firs time he suggested closing Tosh and Owen's personnel files, she'd whirled on him, all white-hot fury, and when she shouted at him, Ianto actually shouted back, until Gwen stalked off because the hollow echo of their raised voices in the silence only made it worse. Now it was just dull pain and stubborn resistance. They weren't dead. They weren't. They were just... gone, and eventually she and Ianto were going to find a way to get them back that didn't involve opening the Rift and the end of the world.
She stopped thinking they'd come back the day Ianto disappeared. It was less than dramatic. He just went to the cells to feed the Weevil and didn't come back. Gwen searched the Hub from top to bottom with a gun and a bioscanner, even into the parts of the vaults not even Ianto ever wandered into, narrow dark hallways with stone walls and damp floors, lights spaced at regular intervals with patches of shadow between.
Not unexpectedly, she found nothing at all.
Gwen locked down the Hub as securely as she knew how, drove home, and actually managed to make it there before she started crying. Rhys only asked once what happened, what was wrong, and afterwards didn't question again why she was crying, or why she stayed home for the next two days. He'd mostly learned not to ask anyway, by now. Gwen kept checking her mobile, vaguely expecting some message from Ianto, and her heart sank every time there wasn't and reality settled back in.
He wasn't dead. People didn't die without leaving behind some indication of what happened. Even in Cardiff, even on the Rift. He was just... gone.
When she returned to the Hub at last, Myfanwy hissed and gave her what she could have sworn was a disapproving glare. Machinery hummed in the background, the Hub pool splashed quietly, and Gwen's footsteps echoed like gunshots.
*
Torchwood Cardiff was never meant to be a one man operation. Since Jack left, actually, Gwen had started to think that even four people wasn't quite enough.
People died. People she'd met, people whose bodies she only found afterwards, cleaned up and hid it as best she could and made it look like a suicide or car accident or anything but what it was.
Things fell through the cracks and gaps. Some alien device exploded in an office building, and Gwen tried to comfort herself by thinking she was just one person, she couldn't catch everything. She didn't cry, just logged the specifics of the explosion, the names of the dead, and spent the next week on a razor's edge, waiting for the next explosion.
Rhys proposed to her. He said he would have waited, but there never seemed to be a good time, and there wasn't. Gwen said yes, because it was the most normal thing that had happened to her in months, and she felt like if she said no, even that thin thread of normality might just snap.
She started sleeping in the Hub, more and more often. If she stayed away too long, she might miss something. If she stayed away too long, the world might fall apart while she was looking the other way. People had started to talk, more than usual, about creatures, monsters in the streets. People started warning each other to stay indoors at night, and who was she kidding, the world was already falling apart. She got used to sleeping to the rustle of Myfanwy's wings and the soft beeping of monitoring programs rather than Rhys' breathing, learned to wake in an instant at the sound of anything like an alarm.
The world didn't fall apart. One day it simply tore open, just a little, and she stepped accidentally from the Hub into a room with a bed and a couch and a television and a twisted machine in the corner.
She tries now not to worry about what might be happening in her absence, whether or not the Rift's just opened up and swallowed all of Cardiff. She doesn't have time to worry if that world might be lying in ruins, when she's doing her best just to help keep this one together.