Fic: Not Herself
Title: Not Herself
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh, Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Owen, OCs.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Torchwood investigates the case of a woman who suddenly starts behaving very strangely.
Word Count: 1237
Written For: Prompt 150 - Paradox at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Torchwood didn’t make sense at the best of times; it was a secret organisation that practically everyone in Cardiff had heard about, even if they weren’t clear on exactly what it was Torchwood did. Their leader was an immortal man from the future who, thanks to a rather big mistake on the part of a friend, couldn’t die and yet frequently did, only to come back to life again. Oh, and they had a secret base underneath the Roald Dahl Plas, the main entrance to which was through a Tourist Information kiosk tucked away down by the water where most tourists would never think to look. Understandably, it wasn’t especially busy, which was fortunate since it was seldom open for business. Not that kind of business anyway.
In contrast, Torchwood itself was always open, although not to the general public. The team had a vitally important job to do, protecting the city and its residents from alien threats of all kinds, and that kept them busy to the point of being run off their feet at times.
It was all because there was a Rift in space and time running through the city, dragging aliens and their technology from across the universe, past, present, and future. Someone had to deal with the problems it caused, and so that was what the Torchwood team did, to the best of their ability.
There were displaced aliens, both sentient and not, to be looked after, dangerous or unfathomable technology to be retrieved, investigated, and where necessary, disabled, and ruthless invaders to be repelled. It was a full-time job, but while it paid well it didn’t make the team popular. The trouble with working for a secret organisation was that they couldn’t explain to members of the public what they did or why they did it, leaving everyone convinced they were at best a nuisance to be tolerated. If people knew the truth, most of them would no doubt panic and either leave Cardiff to live somewhere safer, or never have a good night’s sleep for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes, however, it was necessary to tell certain people the truth in order to help them.
OoOoOoO
“Who are you? What do you want with me? Are you kidnapping me?” Annabel Hughes was terrified and angry, which was understandable but not especially helpful.
“No,” Tosh assured her. “We’re not kidnappers, Mrs Hughes; we’re Torchwood, but you need to come with us, for your own safety. You need treatment.”
“Are you saying I’m crazy? I’m not crazy!”
Her husband Robert would have disagreed with that statement. Robert knew his wife to be a quiet, gentle woman, an animal lover with a habit of bringing home strays, but for the last couple of days she hadn’t been acting like herself. She’d found an injured creature while out for a walk, brought it home with her to try and help it, but it hadn’t survived. As it was dying, it had bitten her, and ever since then she’d been a bit… strange.
He'd worried that the creature might have given her rabies, except she wasn’t foaming at the mouth, and she wasn’t afraid of water or anything. But he’d woken this morning and found her in the kitchen, with her sharpest kitchen knife in one hand and one of their cats in the other. She’d said she was hungry and needed its blood, and that just wasn’t normal, because she’d been a vegetarian for as long as he’d know her. Then, when he’d managed to rescue the cat and disarm his wife, she’d tried to bite him.
Not knowing quite what he should do, he’d locked her in the cupboard under the stairs and called the police, only it hadn’t been the police who’d shown up on his doorstep half an hour later. It had been Torchwood.
They’d asked to see the animal that had bitten his wife, which meant he’d had to dig the body up from where his wife had buried it, and then things had got REALLY weird.
OoOoOoO
“Oh, that is not good,” Jack said as he studied the corpse.
“What is it?” Ianto asked, peering over his shoulder.
“A besnyth. They’re kind of like cuckoos, except they don’t lay eggs. Instead, when they’re nearing the end of their lifecycle, they implant their offspring into a host creature where they grow and develop until they reach maturity, at which point they eat the host. Sounds like Mrs Hughes is playing host to a litter of besnyth spawn. It would explain her craving for blood.”
Ianto shuddered. “You’re right; that’s not good. So what do we do?”
“We’ll have to take her back to the Hub, so Owen can surgically remove them. It’s only been a couple of days so it shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s unlikely they’ve migrated far from the implant site. Once they attach to the internal organs, that’s when it gets tricky, but that usually takes seven to ten days. It’s a good thing we caught this early. A minor operation on her arm, a shot of Owen’s anti-parasitic serum, and she should be back to normal in a day or two.”
Mr Hughes had been looking back and forth between his uninvited visitors like a man watching a tennis match as they’d been talking, but now he’d had enough.
“You’re out of your minds, the lot of you!”
“Calm down, Mr Hughes.” Gwen used her most soothing voice, but it didn’t help.
“No, I will NOT calm down! This conversation is ridiculous! You’re all ridiculous! Everything that's happened in the last few days is intensely ridiculous! Why should I listen to a word you’re saying?”
“Because you love your wife, you want to help her, and we can do that,” Ianto said, looking him in the eye. “I know it sounds insane, but everything we’ve said is the truth. Aliens are real, your wife has been bitten by a particularly nasty one, and now her life is in danger. Without our help, she will die a very unpleasant and painful death, so we need to take her where we can treat her. You’re welcome to come with us, but you need to let us do our job. I promise she’ll be fine.”
So Mr Hughes had let his wife out of the cupboard, allowed her to be restrained, and gone with Torchwood. Or he thought he had, only now it was morning, and he’d woken in his own bed with his wife still sleeping beside him. What a weird dream that had been! But already the details were growing fuzzy, and then Annabel stirred, opening her eyes and smiling up at him.
“Morning, love.” She stretched, then winced. “Ouch!” There was a bandage around her forearm, where the alien had bitten her…
Robert shook his head, dismissing the ridiculous thought. Alien? It had been a mangy stray cat, although his wife had needed to go to hospital in case it had been rabid. He’d had to dig the body up and take it to be examined. Thankfully it turned out not to have rabies, but it had still been scary.
“You should take it easy with your arm, it’ll be a few days before the stitches can come out.” Robert smiled at Annabel. “Almost time for your antibiotics; I’ll go and fetch them. Maybe this will teach you not to bring home every stray you come across.”
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh, Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Owen, OCs.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Torchwood investigates the case of a woman who suddenly starts behaving very strangely.
Word Count: 1237
Written For: Prompt 150 - Paradox at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Torchwood didn’t make sense at the best of times; it was a secret organisation that practically everyone in Cardiff had heard about, even if they weren’t clear on exactly what it was Torchwood did. Their leader was an immortal man from the future who, thanks to a rather big mistake on the part of a friend, couldn’t die and yet frequently did, only to come back to life again. Oh, and they had a secret base underneath the Roald Dahl Plas, the main entrance to which was through a Tourist Information kiosk tucked away down by the water where most tourists would never think to look. Understandably, it wasn’t especially busy, which was fortunate since it was seldom open for business. Not that kind of business anyway.
In contrast, Torchwood itself was always open, although not to the general public. The team had a vitally important job to do, protecting the city and its residents from alien threats of all kinds, and that kept them busy to the point of being run off their feet at times.
It was all because there was a Rift in space and time running through the city, dragging aliens and their technology from across the universe, past, present, and future. Someone had to deal with the problems it caused, and so that was what the Torchwood team did, to the best of their ability.
There were displaced aliens, both sentient and not, to be looked after, dangerous or unfathomable technology to be retrieved, investigated, and where necessary, disabled, and ruthless invaders to be repelled. It was a full-time job, but while it paid well it didn’t make the team popular. The trouble with working for a secret organisation was that they couldn’t explain to members of the public what they did or why they did it, leaving everyone convinced they were at best a nuisance to be tolerated. If people knew the truth, most of them would no doubt panic and either leave Cardiff to live somewhere safer, or never have a good night’s sleep for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes, however, it was necessary to tell certain people the truth in order to help them.
OoOoOoO
“Who are you? What do you want with me? Are you kidnapping me?” Annabel Hughes was terrified and angry, which was understandable but not especially helpful.
“No,” Tosh assured her. “We’re not kidnappers, Mrs Hughes; we’re Torchwood, but you need to come with us, for your own safety. You need treatment.”
“Are you saying I’m crazy? I’m not crazy!”
Her husband Robert would have disagreed with that statement. Robert knew his wife to be a quiet, gentle woman, an animal lover with a habit of bringing home strays, but for the last couple of days she hadn’t been acting like herself. She’d found an injured creature while out for a walk, brought it home with her to try and help it, but it hadn’t survived. As it was dying, it had bitten her, and ever since then she’d been a bit… strange.
He'd worried that the creature might have given her rabies, except she wasn’t foaming at the mouth, and she wasn’t afraid of water or anything. But he’d woken this morning and found her in the kitchen, with her sharpest kitchen knife in one hand and one of their cats in the other. She’d said she was hungry and needed its blood, and that just wasn’t normal, because she’d been a vegetarian for as long as he’d know her. Then, when he’d managed to rescue the cat and disarm his wife, she’d tried to bite him.
Not knowing quite what he should do, he’d locked her in the cupboard under the stairs and called the police, only it hadn’t been the police who’d shown up on his doorstep half an hour later. It had been Torchwood.
They’d asked to see the animal that had bitten his wife, which meant he’d had to dig the body up from where his wife had buried it, and then things had got REALLY weird.
OoOoOoO
“Oh, that is not good,” Jack said as he studied the corpse.
“What is it?” Ianto asked, peering over his shoulder.
“A besnyth. They’re kind of like cuckoos, except they don’t lay eggs. Instead, when they’re nearing the end of their lifecycle, they implant their offspring into a host creature where they grow and develop until they reach maturity, at which point they eat the host. Sounds like Mrs Hughes is playing host to a litter of besnyth spawn. It would explain her craving for blood.”
Ianto shuddered. “You’re right; that’s not good. So what do we do?”
“We’ll have to take her back to the Hub, so Owen can surgically remove them. It’s only been a couple of days so it shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s unlikely they’ve migrated far from the implant site. Once they attach to the internal organs, that’s when it gets tricky, but that usually takes seven to ten days. It’s a good thing we caught this early. A minor operation on her arm, a shot of Owen’s anti-parasitic serum, and she should be back to normal in a day or two.”
Mr Hughes had been looking back and forth between his uninvited visitors like a man watching a tennis match as they’d been talking, but now he’d had enough.
“You’re out of your minds, the lot of you!”
“Calm down, Mr Hughes.” Gwen used her most soothing voice, but it didn’t help.
“No, I will NOT calm down! This conversation is ridiculous! You’re all ridiculous! Everything that's happened in the last few days is intensely ridiculous! Why should I listen to a word you’re saying?”
“Because you love your wife, you want to help her, and we can do that,” Ianto said, looking him in the eye. “I know it sounds insane, but everything we’ve said is the truth. Aliens are real, your wife has been bitten by a particularly nasty one, and now her life is in danger. Without our help, she will die a very unpleasant and painful death, so we need to take her where we can treat her. You’re welcome to come with us, but you need to let us do our job. I promise she’ll be fine.”
So Mr Hughes had let his wife out of the cupboard, allowed her to be restrained, and gone with Torchwood. Or he thought he had, only now it was morning, and he’d woken in his own bed with his wife still sleeping beside him. What a weird dream that had been! But already the details were growing fuzzy, and then Annabel stirred, opening her eyes and smiling up at him.
“Morning, love.” She stretched, then winced. “Ouch!” There was a bandage around her forearm, where the alien had bitten her…
Robert shook his head, dismissing the ridiculous thought. Alien? It had been a mangy stray cat, although his wife had needed to go to hospital in case it had been rabid. He’d had to dig the body up and take it to be examined. Thankfully it turned out not to have rabies, but it had still been scary.
“You should take it easy with your arm, it’ll be a few days before the stitches can come out.” Robert smiled at Annabel. “Almost time for your antibiotics; I’ll go and fetch them. Maybe this will teach you not to bring home every stray you come across.”
The End