Fanfiction - Connection 1/?
Title: Connection
Author:
veronikazita
Characters: Owen Harper, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato, Gwen Cooper
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto, Owen/Tosh
Fandom: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Angst, Friendship
Spoilers: The story is set between the episodes 'A Day in the Death' and 'Something Borrowed'
Rating: R
Beta: loveeleventhdoctor (ff.net)
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood and its characters, they all belong to Russell T. Davis and the BBC.
Summary: Jack only wanted to help by bringing Owen back to life, but instead he messed everything up. Now each and every member of the team has to face the consequences of his thoughtless action.
"You know, you get to live forever. I get to die forever. It's funny that."
Owen Harper/'A Day in the Death'
"We've been through this a couple of times by now, Owen," Jack snapped. "No field trips for you, in your state it's quite out of question! I'm going alone and when I say alone, I mean that no living soul, or dead man is coming with me," he tried to make his point clear for Owen, while he got his coat down the rack and wrapped himself in it.
"But it's just a blowfish, Jack, not the bloody apocalypse!" Owen whined. "Also, you said you've been monitoring him for days and all he's got is a shiny gun he stole from a copper. No technology, no bestial alien house pets he owns, so how could he harm me?"
Owen spoke passionately. He knew it was his only chance to break the monotony his life - or rather his death - had become. He could sense the hesitation in Jack's voice and he was painfully aware that if he didn't break down his defenses in this battle of words, he would have to come to terms with the idea of ending up changing positions with Ianto permanently and since that was his current personal nightmare, he felt it was high time for him to come out with all the good arguments he had up his sleeve.
Hearing his reasoning, Jack turned to him and looked deep into Owen's eyes.
"He can shoot a hole in you with that shiny gun. A hole that never heals," Jack said simply, raising an eyebrow and waiting curiously for the doctor's response.
Owen started to chuckle as if he had heard something incredibly funny.
"Not likely if the poor sod is facing two of that toy."
Jack shook his head disapprovingly and let out a sigh of annoyance before walking out of the office casually, leaving Owen alone and suggesting that he's not willing to continue their pointless fight. Although, he couldn't get rid of Owen that easily. The man was at his heel as Jack strode past the workstations heading for the cogwheel door.
Tosh and Gwen, who'd - the fight being as loud as it was - heard the whole squabble, exchanged a disapproving look as the two men went by. They both shared Jack's point of view when the discussion came to Owen's safety, but knowing Owen they knew it was inevitable for him to push Jack about the matter. They could only hope Jack wasn't going to bend to the doctor's will.
Owen grabbed his coat before he followed Jack down the steps to the door, but he didn't get any further than that, because the Captain turned once more and made Owen come to a halt pressing one hand against his chest.
"Owen, don't you understand?" Jack started. "He doesn't even need a gun to hurt you. He hits you, or kicks you and you get marks on your body you can't just charm away. I would say Torchwood can't afford the bandage, but that wouldn't be true. The truth is, I don't want you to look like a fucked up monster from a cheap horror movie." he explained, hoping Owen would consider his words.
But the person in question was Dr. Owen "Hotheaded" Harper after all, so instead of giving in, he fought back of course, in a tone that suggested he was about to lose his temper.
"Yes, I can get some bruises, but you can't keep me locked in forever, Jack!" he yelled. "Can't you see? I'm doing the same things every day, all the meaningless stuff. My usefulness was thrown out of the window along with my life and it drives me crazy." He lowered his head and pushed his palms against his forehead. "I'm choking in here, I need to do something." he murmured.
"Go for a walk," Jack suggested.
"You're going for a walk. Why can't I go with you?" Owen asked, lifting his head up again.
"I'm driving there actually," Jack said. "According to the computer our frumpy friend is currently wandering around Cardiff University and that's not in the neighborhood. Anyway, what you need now is to clear your head and that's definitely not something you can do in the SUV. Being as jumpy as you are, you'd only get a headache among those lights inside."
"I can't get a headache," Owen reminded him.
But Jack had enough of him already.
"Whatever," he growled with a grim expression, and swinging around he walked out of the Hub.
Owen glanced up at the girls, who observed the situation from the top of the stairs and showed them a grin of smug satisfaction before he scurried after Jack.
"I can't believe Jack gave in," Gwen complained to Tosh with a half disappointed, half surprised look on her face.
"Well, he didn't say he could go, actually," Tosh suggested. "I'm afraid Jack will drive off without him and he'll be out of control all evening."
"No, Tosh." Gwen shook her head. "Owen won this time. Jack wouldn't have allowed him to step out of the Hub if he wasn't going to let him join him tonight. He would have dragged Owen to the Autopsy room and cuffed him to his medical slab if he found it necessary."
"So you think Jack doesn't mind taking Owen with him and he only made a fuss to tease him?" reasoned Tosh.
"Oh, no," answered Gwen seriously. "I think he does mind he has to take him."
Tosh looked at her intrigued. "Then why?" she asked.
"He just can't see him suffer any more."
Gwen finished the sentence at the same time that the cogwheel door clicked to its place.
*T*O*R*C*H*W*O*O*D*
Jack parked the car right in front of the university building. It's just started to rain outside, not heavily, but the drumming of the raindrops on the top of the SUV did the trick for Owen: it replaced the sinister silence that had been lingering around him since Jack got out of the car and shut the door behind him.
They hadn't even had to bother looking around to find their guy, because the blowfish had been kind enough to get himself hit by the SUV as he crossed the pavement on his way to the woody area on the other side of the building.
They didn't have time to ask him if he was hard of hearing or - as Owen guessed - he was simply dumb enough to ignore a big black vehicle approaching him at considerable speed, because after staring at them through the glass for a short moment, the blowfish rubbed itself off the windshield and vamoosed as abruptly as he appeared. Jack didn't waste time either; he jumped out of the car and rushed after his prey.
Owen stayed where he was, squirming in the passenger seat as the feeling of being worthless washed over him stronger than ever before.
"You can come if you promise me something." Jack had told him back in the car park of the Millennium Center.
Owen had just reached for the handle of the car door when he felt Jack's hand on his.
"Anything," Owen nodded, wondering what the condition would be.
"You stay in the car. All along," said Jack, still keeping his hand captured, up until the moment he heard Owen's reaction to his offer.
"I will." Owen promised. "I'll stay in the car."
And so he was sitting there, watching as the rain washed away the slime the blowfish had left on the windscreen and for a moment he considered himself lucky that Jack hadn't been driving too fast and the alien's brain didn't splash all over the glass, because he guessed his new scope of activities included the cleaning of the SUV too.
Brilliant. One day he dissects and analyses alien corpses using rubber gloves, the next he only gets near to their body fluids when he is forced to wipe them off of a car with some ragged cloth. He really hated his prospects for the future right now and was grateful for the rain, which was doing at least some of the cleaning job instead of him this time.
Minutes passed and there was still no sign of Jack, or the blowfish. Owen didn't want to break his promise, but he really wondered what was going on amongst those trees far ahead of him.
The bad weather made outside hide-and-seek hard, though he knew it wasn't really Jack's choice to play the game. Moreover, in a confrontation between a human and a half fish creature rain was a definite disadvantage for the human. He could imagine how Jack's range of vision narrowed in that downpour outside and he didn't doubt for a second the blowfish would benefit from it.
Owen knew that Jack could take care of himself, but he still thought they could finish this mission much easier if he was by his boss' side. Slowly, as another three minutes went by that he spent tapping his fingers on the car's control panel, he convinced himself that there wasn't any point of sitting on his butt any more.
Owen had always thought Jack knew him well; he'd been more than surprised the Captain had made him promise to stay put anyway. Jack should have known there were two things Owen Harper rarely did: the first was apologies, and the second, keeping promises. So why had Jack asked…
Suddenly, three gunshots sounded, cutting his train of thoughts. They were coming from the distance, but he could hear them clearly. He couldn't see through the glass anymore because the rain blurred the surface of the windscreen. If Owen had still been alive, he was sure his heart would have been hammering in his chest. All of a sudden he felt a strong urge to find out what happened, so he pushed the car's door open.
"Fuck that promise, Jack. If you got yourself killed I…" he mumbled as he pulled his gun out of its holster and ran until he reached the front side wall of the university, looking desperately for figures in the dark ahead of him.
The only brightness came from the floodlit façade of the building, which didn't expand to the level of the ground floor, so Owen felt relatively safe in the semi-darkness. He slowed his pace as he went on beside the wall, silently approaching the side of the building while he listened carefully for any sound of movement.
By the time he was only a few steps away from the corner of the building, he could make out two voices and this fact itself filled him with confidence and relief. It wasn't the sharp sputter he heard first that took the weight off his mind, rather the smooth, yet firm tone that answered to it. Owen flattened himself against the wall just about the corner and let out a breathless sigh. Jack was still very much alive.
"Why don't you make this easy for both of us, and come with me voluntarily?" asked Jack, pointing his gun at the alien.
The blowfish stood a few meters away, his figure half covered in the gathering mist that slowly descended with the rain. His position was the same as Jack's - gun targeting the loathed human in front of him, gills stiffened in concentration.
"You wish," he bubbled. "You think you're saving your planet by capturing us one by one, but you know how you would do the whole Universe a real favour?" his voice was full of contempt as he gave the answer to his own question: "If you'd lock yourself into one of your rotten cells, human filth…"
"Hey, I'm trying to be kind here and that's what I get back…," Jack endeavored to sound as if he was offended, then abruptly changed to a much flatter tone. "But I tell you what, fishy fish: bombarding my self-confidence won't work. I'm afraid that's unshakeable."
"I would still try and see if a bullet can shake it up. I bet nobody has attempted to break it this way yet," the fish talked back spitting out some slime and saliva along with the words.
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Jack gave him a wide grin.
Meanwhile, Owen managed to peek out from behind his shelter without being noticed and estimated his chances for a lucky shot. Unfortunately having Jack's back and the blowfish's face turned to his direction he realized that if the situation required him to shoot, he'd have only one chance to take the fish down before it'd have time to fire its gun. Although he wasn't about to swing into action until it became really necessary, Owen kept gripping his revolver, waiting without a sound beyond the corner.
Author:
veronikazita
Characters: Owen Harper, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato, Gwen Cooper
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto, Owen/Tosh
Fandom: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Angst, Friendship
Spoilers: The story is set between the episodes 'A Day in the Death' and 'Something Borrowed'
Rating: R
Beta: loveeleventhdoctor (ff.net)
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood and its characters, they all belong to Russell T. Davis and the BBC.
Summary: Jack only wanted to help by bringing Owen back to life, but instead he messed everything up. Now each and every member of the team has to face the consequences of his thoughtless action.
"You know, you get to live forever. I get to die forever. It's funny that."
Owen Harper/'A Day in the Death'
"We've been through this a couple of times by now, Owen," Jack snapped. "No field trips for you, in your state it's quite out of question! I'm going alone and when I say alone, I mean that no living soul, or dead man is coming with me," he tried to make his point clear for Owen, while he got his coat down the rack and wrapped himself in it.
"But it's just a blowfish, Jack, not the bloody apocalypse!" Owen whined. "Also, you said you've been monitoring him for days and all he's got is a shiny gun he stole from a copper. No technology, no bestial alien house pets he owns, so how could he harm me?"
Owen spoke passionately. He knew it was his only chance to break the monotony his life - or rather his death - had become. He could sense the hesitation in Jack's voice and he was painfully aware that if he didn't break down his defenses in this battle of words, he would have to come to terms with the idea of ending up changing positions with Ianto permanently and since that was his current personal nightmare, he felt it was high time for him to come out with all the good arguments he had up his sleeve.
Hearing his reasoning, Jack turned to him and looked deep into Owen's eyes.
"He can shoot a hole in you with that shiny gun. A hole that never heals," Jack said simply, raising an eyebrow and waiting curiously for the doctor's response.
Owen started to chuckle as if he had heard something incredibly funny.
"Not likely if the poor sod is facing two of that toy."
Jack shook his head disapprovingly and let out a sigh of annoyance before walking out of the office casually, leaving Owen alone and suggesting that he's not willing to continue their pointless fight. Although, he couldn't get rid of Owen that easily. The man was at his heel as Jack strode past the workstations heading for the cogwheel door.
Tosh and Gwen, who'd - the fight being as loud as it was - heard the whole squabble, exchanged a disapproving look as the two men went by. They both shared Jack's point of view when the discussion came to Owen's safety, but knowing Owen they knew it was inevitable for him to push Jack about the matter. They could only hope Jack wasn't going to bend to the doctor's will.
Owen grabbed his coat before he followed Jack down the steps to the door, but he didn't get any further than that, because the Captain turned once more and made Owen come to a halt pressing one hand against his chest.
"Owen, don't you understand?" Jack started. "He doesn't even need a gun to hurt you. He hits you, or kicks you and you get marks on your body you can't just charm away. I would say Torchwood can't afford the bandage, but that wouldn't be true. The truth is, I don't want you to look like a fucked up monster from a cheap horror movie." he explained, hoping Owen would consider his words.
But the person in question was Dr. Owen "Hotheaded" Harper after all, so instead of giving in, he fought back of course, in a tone that suggested he was about to lose his temper.
"Yes, I can get some bruises, but you can't keep me locked in forever, Jack!" he yelled. "Can't you see? I'm doing the same things every day, all the meaningless stuff. My usefulness was thrown out of the window along with my life and it drives me crazy." He lowered his head and pushed his palms against his forehead. "I'm choking in here, I need to do something." he murmured.
"Go for a walk," Jack suggested.
"You're going for a walk. Why can't I go with you?" Owen asked, lifting his head up again.
"I'm driving there actually," Jack said. "According to the computer our frumpy friend is currently wandering around Cardiff University and that's not in the neighborhood. Anyway, what you need now is to clear your head and that's definitely not something you can do in the SUV. Being as jumpy as you are, you'd only get a headache among those lights inside."
"I can't get a headache," Owen reminded him.
But Jack had enough of him already.
"Whatever," he growled with a grim expression, and swinging around he walked out of the Hub.
Owen glanced up at the girls, who observed the situation from the top of the stairs and showed them a grin of smug satisfaction before he scurried after Jack.
"I can't believe Jack gave in," Gwen complained to Tosh with a half disappointed, half surprised look on her face.
"Well, he didn't say he could go, actually," Tosh suggested. "I'm afraid Jack will drive off without him and he'll be out of control all evening."
"No, Tosh." Gwen shook her head. "Owen won this time. Jack wouldn't have allowed him to step out of the Hub if he wasn't going to let him join him tonight. He would have dragged Owen to the Autopsy room and cuffed him to his medical slab if he found it necessary."
"So you think Jack doesn't mind taking Owen with him and he only made a fuss to tease him?" reasoned Tosh.
"Oh, no," answered Gwen seriously. "I think he does mind he has to take him."
Tosh looked at her intrigued. "Then why?" she asked.
"He just can't see him suffer any more."
Gwen finished the sentence at the same time that the cogwheel door clicked to its place.
*T*O*R*C*H*W*O*O*D*
Jack parked the car right in front of the university building. It's just started to rain outside, not heavily, but the drumming of the raindrops on the top of the SUV did the trick for Owen: it replaced the sinister silence that had been lingering around him since Jack got out of the car and shut the door behind him.
They hadn't even had to bother looking around to find their guy, because the blowfish had been kind enough to get himself hit by the SUV as he crossed the pavement on his way to the woody area on the other side of the building.
They didn't have time to ask him if he was hard of hearing or - as Owen guessed - he was simply dumb enough to ignore a big black vehicle approaching him at considerable speed, because after staring at them through the glass for a short moment, the blowfish rubbed itself off the windshield and vamoosed as abruptly as he appeared. Jack didn't waste time either; he jumped out of the car and rushed after his prey.
Owen stayed where he was, squirming in the passenger seat as the feeling of being worthless washed over him stronger than ever before.
"You can come if you promise me something." Jack had told him back in the car park of the Millennium Center.
Owen had just reached for the handle of the car door when he felt Jack's hand on his.
"Anything," Owen nodded, wondering what the condition would be.
"You stay in the car. All along," said Jack, still keeping his hand captured, up until the moment he heard Owen's reaction to his offer.
"I will." Owen promised. "I'll stay in the car."
And so he was sitting there, watching as the rain washed away the slime the blowfish had left on the windscreen and for a moment he considered himself lucky that Jack hadn't been driving too fast and the alien's brain didn't splash all over the glass, because he guessed his new scope of activities included the cleaning of the SUV too.
Brilliant. One day he dissects and analyses alien corpses using rubber gloves, the next he only gets near to their body fluids when he is forced to wipe them off of a car with some ragged cloth. He really hated his prospects for the future right now and was grateful for the rain, which was doing at least some of the cleaning job instead of him this time.
Minutes passed and there was still no sign of Jack, or the blowfish. Owen didn't want to break his promise, but he really wondered what was going on amongst those trees far ahead of him.
The bad weather made outside hide-and-seek hard, though he knew it wasn't really Jack's choice to play the game. Moreover, in a confrontation between a human and a half fish creature rain was a definite disadvantage for the human. He could imagine how Jack's range of vision narrowed in that downpour outside and he didn't doubt for a second the blowfish would benefit from it.
Owen knew that Jack could take care of himself, but he still thought they could finish this mission much easier if he was by his boss' side. Slowly, as another three minutes went by that he spent tapping his fingers on the car's control panel, he convinced himself that there wasn't any point of sitting on his butt any more.
Owen had always thought Jack knew him well; he'd been more than surprised the Captain had made him promise to stay put anyway. Jack should have known there were two things Owen Harper rarely did: the first was apologies, and the second, keeping promises. So why had Jack asked…
Suddenly, three gunshots sounded, cutting his train of thoughts. They were coming from the distance, but he could hear them clearly. He couldn't see through the glass anymore because the rain blurred the surface of the windscreen. If Owen had still been alive, he was sure his heart would have been hammering in his chest. All of a sudden he felt a strong urge to find out what happened, so he pushed the car's door open.
"Fuck that promise, Jack. If you got yourself killed I…" he mumbled as he pulled his gun out of its holster and ran until he reached the front side wall of the university, looking desperately for figures in the dark ahead of him.
The only brightness came from the floodlit façade of the building, which didn't expand to the level of the ground floor, so Owen felt relatively safe in the semi-darkness. He slowed his pace as he went on beside the wall, silently approaching the side of the building while he listened carefully for any sound of movement.
By the time he was only a few steps away from the corner of the building, he could make out two voices and this fact itself filled him with confidence and relief. It wasn't the sharp sputter he heard first that took the weight off his mind, rather the smooth, yet firm tone that answered to it. Owen flattened himself against the wall just about the corner and let out a breathless sigh. Jack was still very much alive.
"Why don't you make this easy for both of us, and come with me voluntarily?" asked Jack, pointing his gun at the alien.
The blowfish stood a few meters away, his figure half covered in the gathering mist that slowly descended with the rain. His position was the same as Jack's - gun targeting the loathed human in front of him, gills stiffened in concentration.
"You wish," he bubbled. "You think you're saving your planet by capturing us one by one, but you know how you would do the whole Universe a real favour?" his voice was full of contempt as he gave the answer to his own question: "If you'd lock yourself into one of your rotten cells, human filth…"
"Hey, I'm trying to be kind here and that's what I get back…," Jack endeavored to sound as if he was offended, then abruptly changed to a much flatter tone. "But I tell you what, fishy fish: bombarding my self-confidence won't work. I'm afraid that's unshakeable."
"I would still try and see if a bullet can shake it up. I bet nobody has attempted to break it this way yet," the fish talked back spitting out some slime and saliva along with the words.
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Jack gave him a wide grin.
Meanwhile, Owen managed to peek out from behind his shelter without being noticed and estimated his chances for a lucky shot. Unfortunately having Jack's back and the blowfish's face turned to his direction he realized that if the situation required him to shoot, he'd have only one chance to take the fish down before it'd have time to fire its gun. Although he wasn't about to swing into action until it became really necessary, Owen kept gripping his revolver, waiting without a sound beyond the corner.