Ficlet: Not Ready
Title: Not Ready
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Alex Hopkins, mentions Jack.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Fragments.
Summary: Alex has seen what’s in store for Torchwood and the earth.
Word Count: 374
Written For: caz251’s prompt ‘Torchwood, Alex Hopkins, They weren't ready,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Torchwood had found the necklace a few weeks ago, another gift from the Rift but such an innocuous little object, much like a simple locket. Ever since they’d found it, various members of the team had been trying to open it, but it had resisted every attempt.
Until tonight.
Jack was out, battling the Millennium Bug, while the rest of the team were busy working on their own projects. At a loose end, Alex had picked up the locket, turning it over and over in his hands, pressing here and there, not expecting anything to happen. It had just been something to do with his hands while he waited for a new century to begin.
When the locket had suddenly sprung open, he’d been excited, jubilant, and he’d eagerly turned it so he could see the interior… Now he wished it had remained closed, that he’d consigned it to the incinerator, crushed the fragile, delicate piece of jewellery beneath his heel, or found some other way of destroying it.
It would have been better for everyone if he’d never seen what was inside. Instead of a picture, there had been a clear crystal, and as he’d gazed into its depths he’d seen such unimaginable horrors, dreadful things that defied description. His mind had quailed from them, and he’d felt his sanity start to splinter. This was what lay in store for his team, for Cardiff, for the whole of the planet.
They weren’t ready.
They were too few, too weak, too naïve to face a threat of this magnitude, and there was no way he could protect any of them when the time came. There was only one way out, for him and for the rest of his loyal team, his friends. At least he could spare them the suffering he saw ahead of them.
Opening his desk drawer, he took out his Torchwood issue firearm and loaded it, saying a silent prayer for forgiveness. He had no choice. The death he gave his team would be quick and clean, they’d never see it coming. It was the best he could do.
He only wished that he could grant Jack the same way out instead of leaving him to face the coming horrors alone.
The End