Fic: Princess - Chapter 2
Title: Princess
Chapter: 2
Series: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through Season 1 (TW)
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original characters and places are my property.
Notes: Chapter 2 in a what-might-have-been for Torchwood.
Chapter 1 can be found here.
Princess - Chapter 2
“Jack, this is freaking me out enough already! You need to tell me what is going on.”
Jack sat down at his desk. “Toshiko, I wish I knew. We know very little beyond what you know.” Jack folded his hands on the desktop, sitting on the edge of his chair. He had no right to sit on the edge of his chair, this had no bloody thing to do with him. Fucking wanker.
“Then why is Owen here?” Tosh whipped her head around, dark hair flying, staring almost through Owen.
“I need samples,” Owen stated flatly. There was no way he was going to tell Toshiko who the girl’s father was. This was already weird enough. He did not need her thinking a future with him was possible. It could not be possible. She deserved much more. He crossed his arms as he sat down on the edge of Jack’s desk.
“Is she from the future?” Tosh was starting to calm down, which meant that she was starting to accept the fact that possibly, just possibly, she could have a daughter somewhere, somehow.
“We don’t know,” Jack stated as he leaned forward over his desk, looking at both of them. “I need you two to do every test you can think of to find out where she came from.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but tracing the origin of Rift spikes is still something I am working on.” Tosh placed her hands on the back of her hips, her eyes drifting off somewhere, probably running some mathematical equation, working out just how to trace the origin. Owen applauded her quick reaction to these things, they had saved his arse more than once.
“There might be a test or two I can run on her, see if there is any temporal disturbance in her body, but I might need Tosh’s help,” Owen grunted as he stood up straight.
“I think you two might be the help she needs,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair.
Owen shot Jack a particularly nasty look. He knew what Jack was thinking, or figured he knew exactly what Jack was thinking. Whether he would make them act on it, that remained to be seen.
“Jack,” Tosh intoned. “What do I do?”
“About what Tosh?”
“She called me Mummy. How do I treat her?” Tosh crossed her arms across her body. To Owen it looked like she was hugging herself.
Jack seemed to be thinking, until he let out a sigh. “She is still an unknown, so we treat her with caution. But, she is a still a little girl. If it helps keep her calm, and gets information from her, then you are her Mummy.”
Tosh looked like she was about to say something, but caught herself. She instead raised her chin and swung open the door to Jack’s office, striding out into the Hub. Owen shot Jack one more beleaguered look and then scurried after Tosh, nearly colliding with her, as she had stopped dead by the railing outside of Jack’s office. From that point anyone could see most places in the Hub. Owen followed her gaze downwards and to Gwen’s desk. There sat the little girl, scribbling some inane junk on a piece of paper. The girl stopped, looked upwards and seeing both of them, she grinned and gave a big wave, using her entire arm. Tosh meekly raised her right hand, and gave a small, polite wave.
Tosh turned to Owen, her face close to his. “I don’t think I can do this. I have to lie to that little girl.” Her lips pressed together.
Owen put his right hand on her waist, and gave it a squeeze. “This, you can do Tosh. You are way stronger than you think.”
She looked him in the eyes, her gaze never wavering. A ghost of a smile seemed to waft across Tosh’s lips, and then it disappeared. She looked down at their feet and stepped back from Owen. “Maybe you should get those samples now. What do you need Owen?”
“Uh, yeah, right. I have blood and DNA samples on record, but fresh ones are always the best. It will just take a couple of minutes.” Owen shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. He looked down into the Hub and saw that the little girl was busy scribbling away again, staying by Gwen’s elbow.
“We’ll get mine and then you can get hers.” Tosh’s gaze drifted to the little girl also.
Owen nodded his head and headed downstairs to autopsy, Tosh behind him.
~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~
All he could hear was the constant thump-thump-thump from behind him. Owen took a deep breath and rolled his eyes upward. Garnering all the patience he could muster up, Owen turned around and smiled at the little girl.
“All right, the needle might pinch just a little, but it will be… we just need to do some tests.” Owen pulled forward the syringe and needle, taking the cap off of the end.
“You never hurt me Papa, no matter how many tests you take.” Her small feet kept thumping in a regular rhythm on the underside of the gurney.
“And how many tests have we taken?” Owen asked as he rolled her long sleeve shirt up.
“I don’t know how many in all, but I do know you have done six tests in the last, ummm…” The little girl pressed her lips together in thought. “In the last three weeks!” She put her fists on her hips and seemed to “hmph!” him. She seemed pretty proud of herself. “With so many tests Papa, you should be even smarter now than you were before.”
Owen looked at her confused a moment and then smiled. It was a funny way of looking at tests. She was a smart girl. He took her arm and found a vein on her arm. She instinctively made a fist. She was a really smart girl. He pushed into her vein and drew the vial of blood.
“You sit there a bit. I don’t want you jumping around and getting dizzy.” Owen pulled out a pen and wrote some notes down and marked the vial: Unknown Female. He then put the date down.
“Papa! I know that!”
She started humming to herself, a soft tune. It took Owen a moment to realize that she was humming “Save Me” by Queen. He smirked at the irony of it, and found himself wondering if he had taught her that. He quickly shook the thought out of his head. It was not him, it could not be him. He pulled out his own sample and Tosh’s and started to analyze the results. As she finished the song, he turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Put that down!”
The little girl’s body jumped where she sat as his scream seemed to startle her. He quickly snatched the scalpel and hemostat out of her hands. Doing so, Owen almost sliced his own hand open.
“Are you okay,” he asked as he took her wee hands in his. He turned them over, looking for any nicks or cuts.
“Yes Papa. I always play with the instruments. You tau’t me.” She looked so crestfallen. “You said, you said if I was going to play I should know how ta play prop’rly.” Her lower lip trembled a little.
“Everything all right in here,” a strong male voice said from above them.
Owen’s head snapped up and he let out a breath he had not realised he was holding. He dropped the little girl’s hands and turned back to the DNA test. “Yes Ianto. What the bloody hell do you want?”
Ianto smiled as he descended the stairs into autopsy. He had gotten rid of his suit coat, and his waistcoat was open. The man was getting too comfortable around here, one would think he lived here. Owen’s mind flashed to a probable sleeping arrangement and he tried to remove the images with mental acid.
“I picked up a some things for the little one.” Ianto held out a shopping bag from one of the local department stores.
“Oh! Is it my birthday gift? You promised me!” The little girl hopped off of the gurney and snatched the bag from Ianto’s hand. She reached in and pulled out another set of clothes, and a pair of pajamas, and then another shirt. A pout that could rival Ianto's seemed to cross her face and Owen nearly burst out laughing.
“I, uh, I guess I forgot.” Ianto buttoned up his waistcoat. Owen would have bet the Ianto was trying to hide behind his in-control exterior.
“But you never forget Ianto.” She sat down on the bottom step of the staircase, her elbows propped up on the stair behind her, her head down.
Ianto rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. He sat down next to the little girl. “What is it I promised you myn?” He put one hand on her knee.
She looked up at Ianto with pure hope and adoration. It killed Owen to see anyone look at Ianto like that. Owen quickly spun on his heels and bent over the labwork he was doing.
“You promised me a diary, just like yours.”
“You can write well enough for a diary?”
“You said no more teasing! You taught me! And I can type like Mummy and I can read like Papa.”
Owen’s head snapped up and he quickly looked at the duo over his shoulder. No one knew how much he loved to read. Computers were great, but even reading the bleeding phone book often revealed a lot of information. He could feel his breath catch in his throat.
Ianto jumped up. “Then you stay right here. I will be right back.” Ianto dashed up the stairs and hurried out stage right.
All Owen could do was look at the little girl. She smiled meekly back at him. All of a sudden the computer beeped behind him. Slowly he turned back to check out the preliminary results as the computer finished the final labs. Behind him, he could hear footsteps slap the cement.
“Come over here, myn.” Owen looked at Ianto out of the corner of his eye as he typed away on the computer. He silently wondered just what the fuck Ianto was doing by his desk. He looked away as the little girl came over and sat down in his chair. Without meaning to he found himself looking back at her.
“What is it Ianto?” She slouched back in the chair and jutted her chin out. Owen felt like he was looking in a mirror, a younger, female mirror.
“The diary I promised you,” Ianto replied as he handed over a hardcover red book.
Her little hands grasped the binding, and she ran a hand reverently over the fabric. She looked like, well she looked like a kid with a gift. Her eyes seemed to take in every inch of the book, and how pristine and new it was. Ianto put down a very nice silver pen on the desk next to the girl.
“But this looks like your old diary,” the girl said, her eyes flicking to the Welshman.
“Even a diary keeper has to start somewhere,” Ianto said, not missing a beat. “And do you know what you have to do first?”
“Write in it.” The girl looked so serious.
Owen smiled at her little quip.
“Well, yes. You need to put your name in the cover, so people will know it is yours and not go snooping through it.” Ianto leaned over the girl.
Owen could swear he said the end of that sentence extra loud. Just what was he referring to? Owen would never snoop into his diary, not when he and Jack did nothing to hide their nighttime, and daytime activities. Owen snorted and turned back to the beeping computer as the little girl picked up the pen and hunched over the open book.
He scrolled through the basic analysis and came to what he was looking for. Well fuck, there it was, right there on his computer screen. Owen closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He exhaled really slowly as his mind processed what this could mean.
“Papa, perhaps you should come over here and see how nice and neat Himeko has written her name.”
Owen’s eyes snapped open at Ianto’s voice. He slowly turned around and saw the younger man looking back at him, his blue eyes very serious, too serious. Owen wanted nothing to do with this and yet his feet moved forward. He came up behind her and looked over her shoulder. Right there, on a crisp white page of the diary, in neat block letters was her name: Himeko Toshiko Harper.
Chapter: 2
Series: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through Season 1 (TW)
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original characters and places are my property.
Notes: Chapter 2 in a what-might-have-been for Torchwood.
Chapter 1 can be found here.
Princess - Chapter 2
“Jack, this is freaking me out enough already! You need to tell me what is going on.”
Jack sat down at his desk. “Toshiko, I wish I knew. We know very little beyond what you know.” Jack folded his hands on the desktop, sitting on the edge of his chair. He had no right to sit on the edge of his chair, this had no bloody thing to do with him. Fucking wanker.
“Then why is Owen here?” Tosh whipped her head around, dark hair flying, staring almost through Owen.
“I need samples,” Owen stated flatly. There was no way he was going to tell Toshiko who the girl’s father was. This was already weird enough. He did not need her thinking a future with him was possible. It could not be possible. She deserved much more. He crossed his arms as he sat down on the edge of Jack’s desk.
“Is she from the future?” Tosh was starting to calm down, which meant that she was starting to accept the fact that possibly, just possibly, she could have a daughter somewhere, somehow.
“We don’t know,” Jack stated as he leaned forward over his desk, looking at both of them. “I need you two to do every test you can think of to find out where she came from.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but tracing the origin of Rift spikes is still something I am working on.” Tosh placed her hands on the back of her hips, her eyes drifting off somewhere, probably running some mathematical equation, working out just how to trace the origin. Owen applauded her quick reaction to these things, they had saved his arse more than once.
“There might be a test or two I can run on her, see if there is any temporal disturbance in her body, but I might need Tosh’s help,” Owen grunted as he stood up straight.
“I think you two might be the help she needs,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair.
Owen shot Jack a particularly nasty look. He knew what Jack was thinking, or figured he knew exactly what Jack was thinking. Whether he would make them act on it, that remained to be seen.
“Jack,” Tosh intoned. “What do I do?”
“About what Tosh?”
“She called me Mummy. How do I treat her?” Tosh crossed her arms across her body. To Owen it looked like she was hugging herself.
Jack seemed to be thinking, until he let out a sigh. “She is still an unknown, so we treat her with caution. But, she is a still a little girl. If it helps keep her calm, and gets information from her, then you are her Mummy.”
Tosh looked like she was about to say something, but caught herself. She instead raised her chin and swung open the door to Jack’s office, striding out into the Hub. Owen shot Jack one more beleaguered look and then scurried after Tosh, nearly colliding with her, as she had stopped dead by the railing outside of Jack’s office. From that point anyone could see most places in the Hub. Owen followed her gaze downwards and to Gwen’s desk. There sat the little girl, scribbling some inane junk on a piece of paper. The girl stopped, looked upwards and seeing both of them, she grinned and gave a big wave, using her entire arm. Tosh meekly raised her right hand, and gave a small, polite wave.
Tosh turned to Owen, her face close to his. “I don’t think I can do this. I have to lie to that little girl.” Her lips pressed together.
Owen put his right hand on her waist, and gave it a squeeze. “This, you can do Tosh. You are way stronger than you think.”
She looked him in the eyes, her gaze never wavering. A ghost of a smile seemed to waft across Tosh’s lips, and then it disappeared. She looked down at their feet and stepped back from Owen. “Maybe you should get those samples now. What do you need Owen?”
“Uh, yeah, right. I have blood and DNA samples on record, but fresh ones are always the best. It will just take a couple of minutes.” Owen shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. He looked down into the Hub and saw that the little girl was busy scribbling away again, staying by Gwen’s elbow.
“We’ll get mine and then you can get hers.” Tosh’s gaze drifted to the little girl also.
Owen nodded his head and headed downstairs to autopsy, Tosh behind him.
~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~
All he could hear was the constant thump-thump-thump from behind him. Owen took a deep breath and rolled his eyes upward. Garnering all the patience he could muster up, Owen turned around and smiled at the little girl.
“All right, the needle might pinch just a little, but it will be… we just need to do some tests.” Owen pulled forward the syringe and needle, taking the cap off of the end.
“You never hurt me Papa, no matter how many tests you take.” Her small feet kept thumping in a regular rhythm on the underside of the gurney.
“And how many tests have we taken?” Owen asked as he rolled her long sleeve shirt up.
“I don’t know how many in all, but I do know you have done six tests in the last, ummm…” The little girl pressed her lips together in thought. “In the last three weeks!” She put her fists on her hips and seemed to “hmph!” him. She seemed pretty proud of herself. “With so many tests Papa, you should be even smarter now than you were before.”
Owen looked at her confused a moment and then smiled. It was a funny way of looking at tests. She was a smart girl. He took her arm and found a vein on her arm. She instinctively made a fist. She was a really smart girl. He pushed into her vein and drew the vial of blood.
“You sit there a bit. I don’t want you jumping around and getting dizzy.” Owen pulled out a pen and wrote some notes down and marked the vial: Unknown Female. He then put the date down.
“Papa! I know that!”
She started humming to herself, a soft tune. It took Owen a moment to realize that she was humming “Save Me” by Queen. He smirked at the irony of it, and found himself wondering if he had taught her that. He quickly shook the thought out of his head. It was not him, it could not be him. He pulled out his own sample and Tosh’s and started to analyze the results. As she finished the song, he turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Put that down!”
The little girl’s body jumped where she sat as his scream seemed to startle her. He quickly snatched the scalpel and hemostat out of her hands. Doing so, Owen almost sliced his own hand open.
“Are you okay,” he asked as he took her wee hands in his. He turned them over, looking for any nicks or cuts.
“Yes Papa. I always play with the instruments. You tau’t me.” She looked so crestfallen. “You said, you said if I was going to play I should know how ta play prop’rly.” Her lower lip trembled a little.
“Everything all right in here,” a strong male voice said from above them.
Owen’s head snapped up and he let out a breath he had not realised he was holding. He dropped the little girl’s hands and turned back to the DNA test. “Yes Ianto. What the bloody hell do you want?”
Ianto smiled as he descended the stairs into autopsy. He had gotten rid of his suit coat, and his waistcoat was open. The man was getting too comfortable around here, one would think he lived here. Owen’s mind flashed to a probable sleeping arrangement and he tried to remove the images with mental acid.
“I picked up a some things for the little one.” Ianto held out a shopping bag from one of the local department stores.
“Oh! Is it my birthday gift? You promised me!” The little girl hopped off of the gurney and snatched the bag from Ianto’s hand. She reached in and pulled out another set of clothes, and a pair of pajamas, and then another shirt. A pout that could rival Ianto's seemed to cross her face and Owen nearly burst out laughing.
“I, uh, I guess I forgot.” Ianto buttoned up his waistcoat. Owen would have bet the Ianto was trying to hide behind his in-control exterior.
“But you never forget Ianto.” She sat down on the bottom step of the staircase, her elbows propped up on the stair behind her, her head down.
Ianto rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. He sat down next to the little girl. “What is it I promised you myn?” He put one hand on her knee.
She looked up at Ianto with pure hope and adoration. It killed Owen to see anyone look at Ianto like that. Owen quickly spun on his heels and bent over the labwork he was doing.
“You promised me a diary, just like yours.”
“You can write well enough for a diary?”
“You said no more teasing! You taught me! And I can type like Mummy and I can read like Papa.”
Owen’s head snapped up and he quickly looked at the duo over his shoulder. No one knew how much he loved to read. Computers were great, but even reading the bleeding phone book often revealed a lot of information. He could feel his breath catch in his throat.
Ianto jumped up. “Then you stay right here. I will be right back.” Ianto dashed up the stairs and hurried out stage right.
All Owen could do was look at the little girl. She smiled meekly back at him. All of a sudden the computer beeped behind him. Slowly he turned back to check out the preliminary results as the computer finished the final labs. Behind him, he could hear footsteps slap the cement.
“Come over here, myn.” Owen looked at Ianto out of the corner of his eye as he typed away on the computer. He silently wondered just what the fuck Ianto was doing by his desk. He looked away as the little girl came over and sat down in his chair. Without meaning to he found himself looking back at her.
“What is it Ianto?” She slouched back in the chair and jutted her chin out. Owen felt like he was looking in a mirror, a younger, female mirror.
“The diary I promised you,” Ianto replied as he handed over a hardcover red book.
Her little hands grasped the binding, and she ran a hand reverently over the fabric. She looked like, well she looked like a kid with a gift. Her eyes seemed to take in every inch of the book, and how pristine and new it was. Ianto put down a very nice silver pen on the desk next to the girl.
“But this looks like your old diary,” the girl said, her eyes flicking to the Welshman.
“Even a diary keeper has to start somewhere,” Ianto said, not missing a beat. “And do you know what you have to do first?”
“Write in it.” The girl looked so serious.
Owen smiled at her little quip.
“Well, yes. You need to put your name in the cover, so people will know it is yours and not go snooping through it.” Ianto leaned over the girl.
Owen could swear he said the end of that sentence extra loud. Just what was he referring to? Owen would never snoop into his diary, not when he and Jack did nothing to hide their nighttime, and daytime activities. Owen snorted and turned back to the beeping computer as the little girl picked up the pen and hunched over the open book.
He scrolled through the basic analysis and came to what he was looking for. Well fuck, there it was, right there on his computer screen. Owen closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He exhaled really slowly as his mind processed what this could mean.
“Papa, perhaps you should come over here and see how nice and neat Himeko has written her name.”
Owen’s eyes snapped open at Ianto’s voice. He slowly turned around and saw the younger man looking back at him, his blue eyes very serious, too serious. Owen wanted nothing to do with this and yet his feet moved forward. He came up behind her and looked over her shoulder. Right there, on a crisp white page of the diary, in neat block letters was her name: Himeko Toshiko Harper.