Ficlet: True Grit
Title: True Grit
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, OCs.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: It’s more than a century and a half into the future and Torchwood is still going strong. Jack and Ianto are interviewing potential new recruits.
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt 59: Grit at anythingdrabble.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
“Torchwood is no cushy nine-to-five job,” Jack announced, panning his gaze across the half-dozen potential new recruits standing before him. “It’s long hours, hard work, and danger. It takes a particular kind of person, one who believes in equality, is free from prejudices, and willing to go the extra mile to help an ally but won’t back down in the face of an enemy. Above all it takes true grit!”
Ianto threw his lover a sharp glance; Jack had been on a classic Western kick lately, binge watching a lot of John Wayne movies in particular. So much so that he’d started to swagger like the Duke, as well as drawling his words. He thought it spiced things up between them, and that it made him look more impressive for the potentials, but mostly it just made Ianto want to laugh. It was the year 2152; these kids had probably never even heard of John Wayne.
A hand was raised, a slim and pretty young woman with dark hair in a pageboy cut who reminded Ianto of Tosh.
“Yes, Ms Chang?”
“What do you mean by ‘true grit’, Captain Harkness? The term is unfamiliar to me.”
“Courage, determination, nerve, fortitude, strength of character,” Ianto replied for his lover, stepping forward to join Jack; as joint heads of the Torchwood Institute, recruiting new agents was one of many tasks they shared. “Torchwood requires dedication. The safety of others, alien as well as human, has to come first. We can’t have agents who turn tail and run at the first sign of danger.”
“That’s right,” Jack agreed. “When everyone else is running away from danger, it’s our job to run towards it. If you don’t think you can do that, then you might as well leave right now.”
None of the potentials moved. They didn’t even glance uncertainly at each other; that was a good sign. There’d been twenty applicants to start with, but over the course of a thorough medical and several interviews they’d been whittled down to these six. Ianto had a good feeling about them all, which was unfortunate since there were only four vacancies. The team had expanded over that last century and a half, now numbering thirty personnel, plus Jack and Ianto.
Everyone had a specialty, medical, technology, weapons, or linguistics, on top of being fully trained for fieldwork. Three of their current agents were stepping down to become freelance consultants, one to start a family, one because she’d reached retirement age, and one for medical reasons. They’d also lost a promising young agent to a tragic and surprisingly non-Torchwood related accident a couple of months earlier. He’d been hit by a car on his way home one night; it had been snowing, the roads hadn’t been gritted, the car skidded and the driver lost control. Very sad.
Life went on though. Torchwood handled all alien encounters, from first contact to invasions. They needed to be ready, and Jack was right; they needed people with true grit.
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, OCs.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: It’s more than a century and a half into the future and Torchwood is still going strong. Jack and Ianto are interviewing potential new recruits.
Word Count: 500
Written For: Prompt 59: Grit at anythingdrabble.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
“Torchwood is no cushy nine-to-five job,” Jack announced, panning his gaze across the half-dozen potential new recruits standing before him. “It’s long hours, hard work, and danger. It takes a particular kind of person, one who believes in equality, is free from prejudices, and willing to go the extra mile to help an ally but won’t back down in the face of an enemy. Above all it takes true grit!”
Ianto threw his lover a sharp glance; Jack had been on a classic Western kick lately, binge watching a lot of John Wayne movies in particular. So much so that he’d started to swagger like the Duke, as well as drawling his words. He thought it spiced things up between them, and that it made him look more impressive for the potentials, but mostly it just made Ianto want to laugh. It was the year 2152; these kids had probably never even heard of John Wayne.
A hand was raised, a slim and pretty young woman with dark hair in a pageboy cut who reminded Ianto of Tosh.
“Yes, Ms Chang?”
“What do you mean by ‘true grit’, Captain Harkness? The term is unfamiliar to me.”
“Courage, determination, nerve, fortitude, strength of character,” Ianto replied for his lover, stepping forward to join Jack; as joint heads of the Torchwood Institute, recruiting new agents was one of many tasks they shared. “Torchwood requires dedication. The safety of others, alien as well as human, has to come first. We can’t have agents who turn tail and run at the first sign of danger.”
“That’s right,” Jack agreed. “When everyone else is running away from danger, it’s our job to run towards it. If you don’t think you can do that, then you might as well leave right now.”
None of the potentials moved. They didn’t even glance uncertainly at each other; that was a good sign. There’d been twenty applicants to start with, but over the course of a thorough medical and several interviews they’d been whittled down to these six. Ianto had a good feeling about them all, which was unfortunate since there were only four vacancies. The team had expanded over that last century and a half, now numbering thirty personnel, plus Jack and Ianto.
Everyone had a specialty, medical, technology, weapons, or linguistics, on top of being fully trained for fieldwork. Three of their current agents were stepping down to become freelance consultants, one to start a family, one because she’d reached retirement age, and one for medical reasons. They’d also lost a promising young agent to a tragic and surprisingly non-Torchwood related accident a couple of months earlier. He’d been hit by a car on his way home one night; it had been snowing, the roads hadn’t been gritted, the car skidded and the driver lost control. Very sad.
Life went on though. Torchwood handled all alien encounters, from first contact to invasions. They needed to be ready, and Jack was right; they needed people with true grit.
The End