Fic: A Table of Green Fields (Torchwood, PG-13)
Title: A Table of Green Fields.
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Torchwood.
Rating: PG-13. Angst and violence.
Characters/Pairing: Jack Harkness, Anwen Cooper-Williams.
Disclaimer: All the Beeb’s. Not for profit.
Summary: Truth or... no, just truth. Daring really doesn’t come into it.
Word Count: 716.
A/N: Small spoilers for Torchwood to 4x01 “The New World”, and for Doctor Who to “The Wedding of River Song”. Anwen adapts a saying of Fran Lebowitz.
He found her propping up a bar on Sto.
A lot of the patrons in this place could pass for human. She didn’t stick out like an opposable thumb. But even from the door, with the dark head turned away, Jack would have known her, because Anwen drank like Gwen. The long legs were braced firmly against the floor; the shoulders were hunched as though to bull her way upstream against the booze. She looked the very image of her mother.
You know how it is, Jack, Rhys had said. No one else can find her, when she takes off. She wasn’t the only Earth girl who did that, these days. Aliens hadn’t been completely under Terran radar for a good couple of decades now. They were an open secret - open like a relationship. Or a wound. But Anwen ran further, faster, and smarter than anyone else. It had taken calling in a favour with Rani for some time on Mr. Smith to catch the scent. Jack sighed, and made his way to the bar.
“Anwen. I’m here to take you home.”
She smiled sleepily up at him, and pushed off her stool. But the drunken stumble into his arms was off - too graceful, too artful, too staged. There was nothing drunk about the glitter in her eyes as he recognized the cold pressure of the taser against his ribs.
As Jack tumbled into the blackness, he thought again: So like her mother.
***
Loam’s rich reek in his nostrils, when he came around, and the scratchy caress of grass. She had brought him to fields. You could almost have thought that they were back on Earth. Almost, but not quite: the gravity was a little out of tune.
Anwen sat on the sward a couple of feet away, wiping the bloody blade of a knife clean on the grass. She noticed the direction of his gaze, and smiled.
“The blood’s yours, in case you’re wondering. I kept you dead for most of the trip from Sto, to save the pennies. Luggage restrictions in this galaxy are a proper bitch. No wonder they build tin dogs for company.”
“Where...”
Cat-quick, she lunged, and set a finger against his lips.
“No. Don’t ask. If you ask, I’ll have to tell you. Plenty of time later to ask me that.”
He pulled his head away. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because for you, Jack Harkness, this might as well be Hell. There’s a legend about this place, you see. Nothing to do with you, which makes a change. You have no idea what I went through to find it.”
“This is all wrong, Anwen.” Jack tested his bonds, knowing before he began that it was hopeless. Cuffs, not rope; fastened to a pole behind the body, not in front; legs forced out straight on the ground to limit leverage. Anwen had imbibed Terrorism 101 with her mother’s milk. “We never intended any of this.”
“Yes, well, intended consequences have never been your strong suit, Jack. There was a joke Dad used to tell when I was a kid: ‘Always a godfather; never a God’. With you, it’s always been the other way around.” She angled the bright triangle of her blade against the sunlight, while the grasses whispered. “Do you think that there’s hope for me?”
Yes. Yes, of course. You’re young, and hurting, and so angry, but I can make this right. I can always make this right.
“No. You were raised to face the world of your mother’s fears. And so you became what she was afraid of.”
She bit her lip, and blinked as she looked away. “You tried to lie just then, didn’t you? But you couldn’t.”
“Yes - I did. And no - I couldn’t.” Again the words were out before he could check them. “Where have you brought me, Anwen?”
“The Fields of Trenzalore. Where no living creature can speak falsely, or fail to answer. Like I said, Jack: for you, this place might as well be Hell.”
His mouth was dry. “Don’t do this, Anwen. All it can bring is pain.”
“I’m sure you’re right. So, let’s get started.” She leaned forward. “Were you in love with my mother, and do you think she’d still be alive if you’d never met?”
FINIS
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Torchwood.
Rating: PG-13. Angst and violence.
Characters/Pairing: Jack Harkness, Anwen Cooper-Williams.
Disclaimer: All the Beeb’s. Not for profit.
Summary: Truth or... no, just truth. Daring really doesn’t come into it.
Word Count: 716.
A/N: Small spoilers for Torchwood to 4x01 “The New World”, and for Doctor Who to “The Wedding of River Song”. Anwen adapts a saying of Fran Lebowitz.
He found her propping up a bar on Sto.
A lot of the patrons in this place could pass for human. She didn’t stick out like an opposable thumb. But even from the door, with the dark head turned away, Jack would have known her, because Anwen drank like Gwen. The long legs were braced firmly against the floor; the shoulders were hunched as though to bull her way upstream against the booze. She looked the very image of her mother.
You know how it is, Jack, Rhys had said. No one else can find her, when she takes off. She wasn’t the only Earth girl who did that, these days. Aliens hadn’t been completely under Terran radar for a good couple of decades now. They were an open secret - open like a relationship. Or a wound. But Anwen ran further, faster, and smarter than anyone else. It had taken calling in a favour with Rani for some time on Mr. Smith to catch the scent. Jack sighed, and made his way to the bar.
“Anwen. I’m here to take you home.”
She smiled sleepily up at him, and pushed off her stool. But the drunken stumble into his arms was off - too graceful, too artful, too staged. There was nothing drunk about the glitter in her eyes as he recognized the cold pressure of the taser against his ribs.
As Jack tumbled into the blackness, he thought again: So like her mother.
***
Loam’s rich reek in his nostrils, when he came around, and the scratchy caress of grass. She had brought him to fields. You could almost have thought that they were back on Earth. Almost, but not quite: the gravity was a little out of tune.
Anwen sat on the sward a couple of feet away, wiping the bloody blade of a knife clean on the grass. She noticed the direction of his gaze, and smiled.
“The blood’s yours, in case you’re wondering. I kept you dead for most of the trip from Sto, to save the pennies. Luggage restrictions in this galaxy are a proper bitch. No wonder they build tin dogs for company.”
“Where...”
Cat-quick, she lunged, and set a finger against his lips.
“No. Don’t ask. If you ask, I’ll have to tell you. Plenty of time later to ask me that.”
He pulled his head away. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because for you, Jack Harkness, this might as well be Hell. There’s a legend about this place, you see. Nothing to do with you, which makes a change. You have no idea what I went through to find it.”
“This is all wrong, Anwen.” Jack tested his bonds, knowing before he began that it was hopeless. Cuffs, not rope; fastened to a pole behind the body, not in front; legs forced out straight on the ground to limit leverage. Anwen had imbibed Terrorism 101 with her mother’s milk. “We never intended any of this.”
“Yes, well, intended consequences have never been your strong suit, Jack. There was a joke Dad used to tell when I was a kid: ‘Always a godfather; never a God’. With you, it’s always been the other way around.” She angled the bright triangle of her blade against the sunlight, while the grasses whispered. “Do you think that there’s hope for me?”
Yes. Yes, of course. You’re young, and hurting, and so angry, but I can make this right. I can always make this right.
“No. You were raised to face the world of your mother’s fears. And so you became what she was afraid of.”
She bit her lip, and blinked as she looked away. “You tried to lie just then, didn’t you? But you couldn’t.”
“Yes - I did. And no - I couldn’t.” Again the words were out before he could check them. “Where have you brought me, Anwen?”
“The Fields of Trenzalore. Where no living creature can speak falsely, or fail to answer. Like I said, Jack: for you, this place might as well be Hell.”
His mouth was dry. “Don’t do this, Anwen. All it can bring is pain.”
“I’m sure you’re right. So, let’s get started.” She leaned forward. “Were you in love with my mother, and do you think she’d still be alive if you’d never met?”
FINIS