Sci-Fi Big Bang - Children Through Time - David's Book
Title: Children Through Time - The Book of David
Chapter: 2
Rating: R
Characters: Team Torchwood, David Ortiz, OC's
Spoilers: Children of Earth
Disclaimers: I do not own Torchwood or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original characters and places are my property.
Author's Notes: The series of events in Children Through Time take place after Children in Time. It is not necessary to read Children in Time but it can be found here.
Special Thanks: To my awesome beta faithharkness, and to my artist laura_guerin, and great cheerleading from knitchick1979, chicago_girl_07 and all the others. It was rough going this time, but we did it.
Chapter 1 - The Book of David
Chapter 2
David slowly poked his stomach. He could feel the poke, but the pain was nearly non-existent. He let out a little giggle, as the nurse came in. “Nope! Nothing yet, nothing at all. You got that? No-thi-ing!”
The brunette nurse, whose name was actually Kathy, let out a sigh and picked up his chart, making a notation. “Maybe we should adjust your dosage, Mr. Ortiz.” She gave him a friendly smile, her blue eyes looking him over.
“Actually, this is kind of fun. Do you think I could borrow some to slip in his coffee when I need a break,” a woman with long brown hair said to the nurse, pushing a strand of hair back behind an ear.
“I’m sorry Miss, but that’s not a nice thing to do to your father, although he can be grumpy sometimes,” the nurse replied.
“Oh no, he’s not my father.”
“Sorry, I just assumed. You’ve been here so often and look a little young-“
“I’m not that either,” the woman said as she chuckled. “But I have been called worse. I’m Melissa Graf, I’m Mr. Ortiz’s assistant. And yes, he can be quite grumpy at times. And that’s putting it nicely.”
“Excuse me, I’m still in the room and I still have to sign off on your paycheck.” David shot both of them a look. He really hated it when people talked about him and he was right there. He would show them. David would be nice for once and make a rather large donation to the local nursing college, with a couple of stipulations added. The next class of nurses would have to be way nicer then.
“Sign my paycheck? No one signs paychecks anymore,” Melissa replied, crossing her legs.
“You know what I mean,” David grumbled, elbowing his pillow.
“Number 6-8-2-3-4-7. Your authorization code I believe?”
The nurse looked between them, a smirk on her face. Some days he wished the universe hadn’t thrown him back yet. If it was going to fuck with him, at least it could have dropped him into a time that he would have been a god.
“Pinchy. I should have fired you when I hired you. Puta.” David narrowed his eyes at her, daring her.
“Are you going to let him talk to you like that?” Kathy the nurse looked at Melissa shocked.
Melissa shrugged her shoulders. “That? That’s nothing.”
“How can you work with that?”
“That? I’m fucking right here,” David growled. “That’s it; I want to see your supervising nurse right now.”
The nurse looked upset all of a sudden. He couldn’t imagine why, she brought it on her herself. He was tired of all these flipping nurses either treating him like shit or being too afraid to come near him. He smugly watched as she dropped the chart on his side table and scurried off to find her boss or a corner to cry in. Either way. he would be happy.
“For God’s sake!” Melissa quickly stood up. Smoothing down her grey skirt, she then stalked over to the side of David’s hospital bed. “You had no right to treat her that way.”
“Treat her what way? I’m the customer, I’m right. They aren’t exactly the nicest people in the world in this hospital,” David retorted.
“You’re not a customer, you’re a patient! And as for being nice, have you looked in the mirror lately?” Melissa asked as she put her hands on her hips. “Or did it break when it saw your sour puss?”
David clenched his hands into fists, grinding them down into the bed. The blood pressure monitor attached to him started beeping even faster. Melissa looked at the monitor and then looked at him, raising an eyebrow. David let out a low growl and relaxed his hands as the monitor slowly subsided to a normal rhythm. Melissa curtly turned away from him, and started packing up his laptop.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Just where the fuck do you think you’re going with that?” David slammed his hand down on top of Melissa’s, pinning it and her hand to the small moving table they kept in every hospital room.
“I am just taking it back to the office,” Melissa said, not even looking at him.
“It stays with me,” David coldly said.
Melissa yanked it out from under his hand. “And if I leave it here, you will not get any rest.” She put the laptop into its padded carrying bag.
“If I get any more fucking rest I’ll be shitting rainbows.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Melissa seemed to be looking at him as if he had five heads all of a sudden.
“How the fuck should I know?” David replied. “It stays.”
“You are not communicating with anyone, much less a client or the opposition when you can’t even swear at me and make sense. That I know you can do in your sleep.”
“I do not swear at you in my sleep,” David chuffed.
“Yes you do. Last time was a month ago. You fell asleep in your big, comfy chair in the office and you talk in your sleep.”
“You don’t know I was swearing at you.”
“How many other Melissa’s do you affectionately call puta?”
David opened his mouth to say something and then shut it quickly.
“Exactly.” She put the laptop to the side. “Now then, before I go for the night, or before the nurses form a posse and string you up in autopsy, there is one other piece of business we have to take care of.” She pulled a manila envelope from her oversized bag and handed it to him.
“What the hell is this and why does it have the seal of the city on it?”
“Apparently the city is looking to build a new auxiliary administration building on Randolph Street, but there is one piece if land that they do not own. They would like the owner of that piece of land to willingly sell it to them.” She pulled the papers out and laid them across the little rolling table that was over his bed.
“No,” he succinctly said.
“Mr. Ortiz, that gallery has not been used for 16 years. No one knows who Allison Reynolds is, but I do know that you are listed as the building owner, and it could help the city, a lot.” She turned over one paper and pointed at a set of numbers. “Plus, they are willing to offer way more than the property is worth, even in the best of times.”
“No.” David stretched out his back, adjusting how he sat on the bed. He didn’t even look at Melissa. It was a huge sin of David’s that his own assistant didn’t even know Allison. They had been married, and he had loved Allison, his Allie, more than anything. That didn’t matter now: the universe had just yanked her out of his life, with the help of an idiot driver. The accident took her, and their baby she had been carrying. He gave Melissa a sour look. “Plus, in case you weren’t aware, that site is still being used as an arts building.”
“What?” He could see she was thinking over his files. “Wait, you mean to tell me that’s why you let St. Augustine School use it for their recitals and school benefits?”
“Well, duh.” David smirked at her. “As long as it is used approximately once a month in that capacity they cannot touch it as derelict or abandoned property.”
“And I thought you were actually doing something nice for once,” Melissa grumbled.
“What-the-fuck-ever,” David replied nonchalantly. He didn’t tell her about Allison, and he definitely wouldn’t tell her that St. Augustine was where Allie had mentored the students and showed them how much fun the arts could be.
“Well, if you’re going to be as stubborn as you normally are, I’ll tell the city we decline their offer,” she curtly said as she picked up the papers and stuffed them back in the envelope. “Although, you could be doing a whole lot better if you donated the building to St. Augustine or sold the property to the city and donated the money to the school.”
“I could,” David replied. “But that property is in my holdings. And that is where it is going to stay.” Allie had performed the first show David saw her in at that space. Samantha had dragged him along so he would get his nose out of the computer and the stock market for a couple of hours. Samantha had known the playwright and did not want to go alone, in case it was horrible.
The script? The script needed work, but Allie was beautiful. Her acting actually moved him. He never told anyone except her, and the first time he had told Allie that, she thought he was lying. He had fallen in love with her that night and had tried to get close to her after the show, but she was hanging all over the lead actor so he figured they were a couple. He couldn’t have been more wrong - a week later he saw the lead actor and his boyfriend at a pub down the street from the gallery. He started hanging around that pub more often, so much he got hit on by a guy in a kilt, until she finally came in one night after the show.
It was probably the cheesiest pick-up line he had ever used, but it made her laugh enough she stuck around for a drink, and then four more. Getting a call on his mobile phone close to closing time, he stepped outside so he could talk to his client in the U.K. Watching everyone shuffle out of the 4a.m. spot, he hurried back in, looking for her, realizing he hadn’t gotten her phone number. David saw her gracefully slumped against the corner of the booth they had been sharing. He went up her, just looking at her for a moment. To him, she was the most beautiful person in the room. Well, at 4a.m. after a night of drinking, she was probably the most beautiful person still around.
David nudged her on the shoulder, shaking her softly. “Allison? Hello, Allison?” He shook her shoulder a little more heartily. “Hey! Allison? Yo, Allie,” he said even more loudly.
“Don’t! Don’t call me Allie,” she mumbled, not even opening her eyes.
“Okay, why not?” He plopped down in the seat next to her, despite the glare the bartender was shooting him. David chose to ignore said bartender.
“Only my brother calls me Allie, and no one else can unless they have permission from him,” she muttered. Parting her eyelids wearily, Allison looked at him with dark brown eyes, “and he’s not supposed to be in town until next month.”
“I guess I have to stick around until next month then,” David replied as he picked her up under the arm and helped her out of the booth. They had shared a cab ride back to her place, and he saw her in.
“Fine. I’ll be leaving now,” Melissa stated as she gathered up her jacket and briefcase. “Promise me you’ll give the nurses a break and actually rest for once.”
“Just wish my stomach would quit killing me,” David replied.
“Your stomach always kills you. Maybe they can figure out what’s wrong with it that no amount of antacids and pain pills seems to completely make go away.” She looked at him meaningfully. “I’ll check on you tomorrow. Now, I get to go home so my daughter remembers she has a mother.” Melissa took off and left him alone.
David picked up the television remote, just turning it over in his hands. He didn’t feel like watching anything right now. He tossed the remote to the table and leaned back in the bed. He watched the slow drip of the morphine as machines beeped around him, a rhythm that eventually made his eyelids droop.
Akira loved watching “Reading Rainbow.” It was something he and Caron both liked. He just wanted to know why he couldn’t see his Dad. His Dad had not been around in forever. Now both Uncle Jack and Uncle Ianto had left him and Caron watching “Reading Rainbow” in the back of the really big, black car.
“I want dat book,” Caron said, her eyes never leaving the screen. “Can Mummy get me dat book?”
“Maybe,” Akira said. “I want the dolly from the other book.”
“You want a dolly?”
“Shut it, Caron.”
“I want the dragon from this book. I like dragons, see,” Caron said as she held out the red dragon necklace she wore. Uncle Rhys had given it to her. Uncle Rhys hadn’t given him anything besides a birthday gift. Of course she got to live with Uncle Rhys and her Mummy. Akira sometimes stayed with Mum, but lately he had been staying with Dad, except for the last couple of nights.
“When’s Uncle Jack coming back? If anyone can find us a dragon, he can,” Akira said.
Suddenly a loud boom shook them side-to-side. Akira grabbed his car seat in his lean fingers. Caron started to cry as things began to hit the outside of the car. The window in the front shattered, and Akira did not like the noises around him. As soon as it started, there was silence, except for Caron’s sobs.
“What happened? Where’s Da?” Caron choked out.
“I don’t know,” Akira stated.
“I want Da!”
“I know.”
There was a dusty cloud outside of the car. Akira tried to look through it. All of a sudden, he saw beams of light bobbing towards them, and then into the car. He held his hands up to his eyes. The door next to him opened, and Akira choked on the yucky tasting dust. He could hear Caron coughing next to him.
“Sir! There’s children in here.”
Akira squinted against the bright beam being shown in his eyes. He could hear Caron’s soft sobs from next to him. Everything else in the car had shut off. Except for the rumbling of people outside, it was too quiet. He really wanted his Mum. He wanted his Mum, his Dad, Uncle Jack, Uncle Ianto and Auntie Gwen.
“How can their be chil- Hell. Where did Torchwood get these kids?”
“What should we do with them Sir?”
A very angry looking woman leaned in to the car, her long black hair falling forward. “Were children this young affected?”
“Not that I’m aware, Sir.”
“Find out. In the meantime, contact our boss and find out what he wants done with them.”
The Angry Woman didn’t touch him or Caron. Instead, she just peered at him like he smelled. She scared him. She leaned back out of the car, and another guy wearing a black helmet stuck his head in, a gun in front of him. Akira sank bank into his car seat. At the back of his mind was something his Mum had drilled into him, time after time, repeating it to him for as long as he could remember.
“Torchwood 6-8-2-3-4-7,” Akira stumbled out.
The guard looked at him oddly. “Sir! You better get back here.”
The Angry Woman stuck her head back in to the car. “What is it?”
“Listen.” The man glared at Akira. “Say it again.”
“Torchwood 6-8-2-3-4-7,” He said, very nervous.
“Find out what that means. Now!” The woman crossed her arms across her chest, as if she was staring through Akira, while the man quickly disappeared.
“Just what are you telling me?” she said.
“Akira…” Caron softly cried next to him.
“Shhhh… Mum said the numbers will make it okay.”
The black-haired woman looked up as the man came running back over. “They belong to Torchwood,” the man said.
“Belong? To Torchwood? How do children belong to Torchwood?”
“I don’t know, Sir. But the numbers correspond to a government directive that is about two years old. ‘Anyone who mentions this specific number sequence falls under the protection of Torchwood and is to be held in safety until they can be returned to an official representative of Torchwood.’ One of the official representatives listed is Captain Jack Harkness.” The man lowered his weapon.
He mentioned Uncle Jack! Akira hoped he knew who Uncle Jack was: it would make it better if they could find Uncle Jack. The woman looked behind the man at the debris.
“I really doubt that’s happening anytime soon,” she stated. Her head quickly snapped to the side as her eyes narrowed, looking at Akira and Caron. “Take them back to the base until we get further instructions.”
“But children, Sir?”
“We won’t harm them, but with what is going on, God knows what Torchwood would have done with them. And if Torchwood is that interested in them, we can get closer to the three remaining targets and complete the mission.” The woman walked away without a second glance at them.
Akira watched as the man holstered his gun and then leaned in and started unbuckling the car seat. Someone else entered on the other side of the car and undid Caron’s car seat, pulling her out of the car. The man put his hands under Akira and pulled him free, also. It was still sunny out, it was still daytime, but the smelly smoke was worse than the fog. Akira buried his nose against the man’s shoulder, as they carried them around whatever had gone boom.
“Da!” Caron cried out, her hands flailing. Akira’s head popped up as she cried. “Da!”
He looked around, his head waving wildly, and swore he saw Uncle Ianto far away. Before he could say anything, they were tucked into another big black car. He wanted to hug Caron, but neither man would let them go. Instead they rode on in a quiet car, for a very long time, while Caron’s sobs slowly stopped.
When the car stopped, the men carried them into a very dark looking building, holding their heads down. They trooped down a grey corridor and stopped before a really big, scary looking door. Another man in black swung the door open. It made Akira think of the cells downstairs at the Hub. The two men put them down on the floor, and then the door slammed shut on Akira and Caron.
Akira sat down on the ground, not knowing where to go, and not liking this at all. He was really scared. Even that one time one of the Weevils had picked him up had not scared him. He just punched it in the nose. But, all of a sudden, he had not seen his Dad for a while and now all the adults were acting weird.
Caron sat up on her knees and crawled over to Akira. She gave him a big hug, and he didn’t push her away. “I want Mummy,” she said. “I want Da.”
“I know,” Akira said. “But I did what Mum said, we gave them the numbers.”
“Right,” Caron said, holding him even tighter.
Akira leaned back against the wall, Caron moving with him, and let out a big yawn. “I’m tired.”
“Mummy usually wants me to take a nap,” Caron said, laying her head against Akira.
Akira felt his eyelids drooping and fell asleep sitting on the cold floor of wherever the Angry Woman had wanted them to go. As he slept he dreamed of fighting robots with his Dad, and training them to do his bidding once they defeated the robots. Then he would make them pull Caron’s pigtails
Both of them awoke with a start as they heard awful screaming. Akira’s heart jumped as he heard the screams again. He mashed his hands against his ears, trying to make it stop. Whatever was screaming wasn’t in the room with them, but was close enough. A gust of air blew down on Akira and he looked up at the grate in the ceiling. The howling wouldn’t stop. It was making his skin crawl. Caron was holding her ears shut as well and tears were streaming down her face.
“Make it stop!” Caron started hiccoughing from crying.
Akira shook his head no, he couldn’t. He wanted to, but couldn’t. Suddenly, the big door opened again and the two men from earlier came in and picked up Akira and Caron, carrying them up stairs. He was afraid to take his hands off his ears. They walked down a hallway and reached a small room, glass on one side, and the men closed the door. Only then did Akira dare to listen again. He couldn’t really hear the screams.
Another man brought in the little duffel of theirs Uncle Ianto had grabbed that morning. He pulled out two pairs of pull-ups and handed them over. Caron bit her lower lip, and tugged at her jumper. She only did that when she hadn’t made it to the potty. Akira let the one man change him, even though he didn’t need to be. He didn’t care, he just kept hearing those screams in his head.
The other man left and came back with some food for them. Caron only nibbled on her carrots, while Akira just pushed his around the plate. None of the men said anything, and the silence only let him wonder what had made those noises downstairs.
After what felt like forever, the men took them back downstairs and tucked them away in their cell. At least they had brought Caron’s blanket from the duffel bag this time. The two of them buried themselves inside the corner under her blanket, but they could not sleep.
There was a knocking on the door, and Akira scrambled to his feet. He grabbed Caron’s hand and pulled her up. They stood together, Caron still clutching her blanket. The door swung open and he saw his Mum’s face peer in. Akira bolted for her, dragging Caron along behind him.
“Auntie Tosh!” Caron wrapped her arms around her leg while Akira grabbed his Mum’s hand.
“Shhhhh…. You two have to be quiet. We’re getting you out of here.” Mum picked him up in her arms and then picked up Caron. She exited the cell and they hit the hallway.
Akira saw one of the men in a pile on the floor, not moving. He clutched at his Mum’s neck, not wanting to let her go. Looking up he saw his Dad by another door. Akira waved his hands at him.
“Not yet, sport,” Dad said as he worked with Mum’s scanner on the other door.
“Uncle Rhys!” Caron gave a shout as Uncle Rhys came around the open door.
“Shhhhh…” Uncle Rhys said as he took Caron from Akira’s Mum. “They know we’re here and are on their way down. I set the boobytrap, but there’s a bloody lot of them here.”
“Got it!” Dad said, as he then swung open the other door. “Bloody hell, Ianto was right. I didn’t think any human would do that.”
Akira held on as his Mum ran over and they looked at what seemed like another wall. He didn’t know what the adults were talking about, or why someone would lock up a wall, unless it was a beast that could turn into a wall.
There was an explosion down the hall, and Akira held onto his Mum for dear life. Suddenly the sound of many footsteps could be heard running their way. Mum snatched the scanner away from Dad and typed in something, and then pocketed the scanner.
“Ianto’s initiating Plan B,” she said as she switched Akira to her left hip and pulled out a gun, holding it in front of her. “We need to get out of here now.”
Akira’s eyes widened as Dad pulled out a gun and Uncle Rhys held Caron close to him. Dad checked around the door and headed for the end of the hall, Uncle Rhys behind him, when Dad suddenly stopped. Mum began to backtrack, heading for the opposite end of the hallway when she stopped all of a sudden. Akira looked up and saw the Angry Woman with very many of the men in black behind her, all with guns.
“Put the weapons down and no one gets hurt,” the woman calmly said.
“That’s fucking unlikely,” Dad muttered, his voice hard. He looked towards the woman, his gun pointing straight at the men in front of him. “If you even think of fucking touching them again, I will personally kill you. And I’m already a little pissed about what you did to me in the hospital.”
Akira watched as his Mum covered the Angry Woman at the other end of the hallway with her gun. He put his hands up near his ears, knowing that if it went off it would be really loud. Uncle Rhys stood between them, covering Caron, his back to the locked up wall.
“If we have to shoot you, we will probably hit the children.”
Mum and Dad exchanged a quick look with each other. Mum let Akira down, never wavering, her gun still aimed at the men. She pushed him towards Uncle Rhys, who pulled Akira in tightly to his legs. Uncle Rhys kept a hand on Akira’s head.
“What does Torchwood want with children anyway?”
“They are Torchwood,” Mum said coldly. Before anyone could say anything else, there was a loud rumbling and the wall behind the door moved, making it sound like crashing all around him.
David opened his eyes, peering around the dimly lit hospital room. He looked up and saw an orderly picking up things from the table that he had apparently knocked over. The orderly looked at him sheepishly.
“Sorry,” the young man said as he picked up a couple of more things, putting them back on the table.
“Get the fuck out of my room,” David growled, flipping over in the bed. Damn it! He couldn’t even get a couple of hours of sleep in a hospital. Next thing they’ll be doing is waking him up again to give him another sleeping pill. He waited until he heard the orderly leave and then let out a sigh. Whatever good this morphine did, it made him have some weird ass dreams. Yet they seemed so real.
David let out a big yawn, trying to shake the sound of that poor soul’s screams from his mind. Tomorrow, once he got his computer out of hock with Melissa, he would have to look up the name Torchwood. For some reason, the word was forefront in his mind, but he had never heard of it before. David closed his eyes, burying his head against the sheets.
Chapter: 2
Rating: R
Characters: Team Torchwood, David Ortiz, OC's
Spoilers: Children of Earth
Disclaimers: I do not own Torchwood or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original characters and places are my property.
Author's Notes: The series of events in Children Through Time take place after Children in Time. It is not necessary to read Children in Time but it can be found here.
Special Thanks: To my awesome beta faithharkness, and to my artist laura_guerin, and great cheerleading from knitchick1979, chicago_girl_07 and all the others. It was rough going this time, but we did it.
Chapter 1 - The Book of David
Chapter 2
David slowly poked his stomach. He could feel the poke, but the pain was nearly non-existent. He let out a little giggle, as the nurse came in. “Nope! Nothing yet, nothing at all. You got that? No-thi-ing!”
The brunette nurse, whose name was actually Kathy, let out a sigh and picked up his chart, making a notation. “Maybe we should adjust your dosage, Mr. Ortiz.” She gave him a friendly smile, her blue eyes looking him over.
“Actually, this is kind of fun. Do you think I could borrow some to slip in his coffee when I need a break,” a woman with long brown hair said to the nurse, pushing a strand of hair back behind an ear.
“I’m sorry Miss, but that’s not a nice thing to do to your father, although he can be grumpy sometimes,” the nurse replied.
“Oh no, he’s not my father.”
“Sorry, I just assumed. You’ve been here so often and look a little young-“
“I’m not that either,” the woman said as she chuckled. “But I have been called worse. I’m Melissa Graf, I’m Mr. Ortiz’s assistant. And yes, he can be quite grumpy at times. And that’s putting it nicely.”
“Excuse me, I’m still in the room and I still have to sign off on your paycheck.” David shot both of them a look. He really hated it when people talked about him and he was right there. He would show them. David would be nice for once and make a rather large donation to the local nursing college, with a couple of stipulations added. The next class of nurses would have to be way nicer then.
“Sign my paycheck? No one signs paychecks anymore,” Melissa replied, crossing her legs.
“You know what I mean,” David grumbled, elbowing his pillow.
“Number 6-8-2-3-4-7. Your authorization code I believe?”
The nurse looked between them, a smirk on her face. Some days he wished the universe hadn’t thrown him back yet. If it was going to fuck with him, at least it could have dropped him into a time that he would have been a god.
“Pinchy. I should have fired you when I hired you. Puta.” David narrowed his eyes at her, daring her.
“Are you going to let him talk to you like that?” Kathy the nurse looked at Melissa shocked.
Melissa shrugged her shoulders. “That? That’s nothing.”
“How can you work with that?”
“That? I’m fucking right here,” David growled. “That’s it; I want to see your supervising nurse right now.”
The nurse looked upset all of a sudden. He couldn’t imagine why, she brought it on her herself. He was tired of all these flipping nurses either treating him like shit or being too afraid to come near him. He smugly watched as she dropped the chart on his side table and scurried off to find her boss or a corner to cry in. Either way. he would be happy.
“For God’s sake!” Melissa quickly stood up. Smoothing down her grey skirt, she then stalked over to the side of David’s hospital bed. “You had no right to treat her that way.”
“Treat her what way? I’m the customer, I’m right. They aren’t exactly the nicest people in the world in this hospital,” David retorted.
“You’re not a customer, you’re a patient! And as for being nice, have you looked in the mirror lately?” Melissa asked as she put her hands on her hips. “Or did it break when it saw your sour puss?”
David clenched his hands into fists, grinding them down into the bed. The blood pressure monitor attached to him started beeping even faster. Melissa looked at the monitor and then looked at him, raising an eyebrow. David let out a low growl and relaxed his hands as the monitor slowly subsided to a normal rhythm. Melissa curtly turned away from him, and started packing up his laptop.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Just where the fuck do you think you’re going with that?” David slammed his hand down on top of Melissa’s, pinning it and her hand to the small moving table they kept in every hospital room.
“I am just taking it back to the office,” Melissa said, not even looking at him.
“It stays with me,” David coldly said.
Melissa yanked it out from under his hand. “And if I leave it here, you will not get any rest.” She put the laptop into its padded carrying bag.
“If I get any more fucking rest I’ll be shitting rainbows.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Melissa seemed to be looking at him as if he had five heads all of a sudden.
“How the fuck should I know?” David replied. “It stays.”
“You are not communicating with anyone, much less a client or the opposition when you can’t even swear at me and make sense. That I know you can do in your sleep.”
“I do not swear at you in my sleep,” David chuffed.
“Yes you do. Last time was a month ago. You fell asleep in your big, comfy chair in the office and you talk in your sleep.”
“You don’t know I was swearing at you.”
“How many other Melissa’s do you affectionately call puta?”
David opened his mouth to say something and then shut it quickly.
“Exactly.” She put the laptop to the side. “Now then, before I go for the night, or before the nurses form a posse and string you up in autopsy, there is one other piece of business we have to take care of.” She pulled a manila envelope from her oversized bag and handed it to him.
“What the hell is this and why does it have the seal of the city on it?”
“Apparently the city is looking to build a new auxiliary administration building on Randolph Street, but there is one piece if land that they do not own. They would like the owner of that piece of land to willingly sell it to them.” She pulled the papers out and laid them across the little rolling table that was over his bed.
“No,” he succinctly said.
“Mr. Ortiz, that gallery has not been used for 16 years. No one knows who Allison Reynolds is, but I do know that you are listed as the building owner, and it could help the city, a lot.” She turned over one paper and pointed at a set of numbers. “Plus, they are willing to offer way more than the property is worth, even in the best of times.”
“No.” David stretched out his back, adjusting how he sat on the bed. He didn’t even look at Melissa. It was a huge sin of David’s that his own assistant didn’t even know Allison. They had been married, and he had loved Allison, his Allie, more than anything. That didn’t matter now: the universe had just yanked her out of his life, with the help of an idiot driver. The accident took her, and their baby she had been carrying. He gave Melissa a sour look. “Plus, in case you weren’t aware, that site is still being used as an arts building.”
“What?” He could see she was thinking over his files. “Wait, you mean to tell me that’s why you let St. Augustine School use it for their recitals and school benefits?”
“Well, duh.” David smirked at her. “As long as it is used approximately once a month in that capacity they cannot touch it as derelict or abandoned property.”
“And I thought you were actually doing something nice for once,” Melissa grumbled.
“What-the-fuck-ever,” David replied nonchalantly. He didn’t tell her about Allison, and he definitely wouldn’t tell her that St. Augustine was where Allie had mentored the students and showed them how much fun the arts could be.
“Well, if you’re going to be as stubborn as you normally are, I’ll tell the city we decline their offer,” she curtly said as she picked up the papers and stuffed them back in the envelope. “Although, you could be doing a whole lot better if you donated the building to St. Augustine or sold the property to the city and donated the money to the school.”
“I could,” David replied. “But that property is in my holdings. And that is where it is going to stay.” Allie had performed the first show David saw her in at that space. Samantha had dragged him along so he would get his nose out of the computer and the stock market for a couple of hours. Samantha had known the playwright and did not want to go alone, in case it was horrible.
The script? The script needed work, but Allie was beautiful. Her acting actually moved him. He never told anyone except her, and the first time he had told Allie that, she thought he was lying. He had fallen in love with her that night and had tried to get close to her after the show, but she was hanging all over the lead actor so he figured they were a couple. He couldn’t have been more wrong - a week later he saw the lead actor and his boyfriend at a pub down the street from the gallery. He started hanging around that pub more often, so much he got hit on by a guy in a kilt, until she finally came in one night after the show.
It was probably the cheesiest pick-up line he had ever used, but it made her laugh enough she stuck around for a drink, and then four more. Getting a call on his mobile phone close to closing time, he stepped outside so he could talk to his client in the U.K. Watching everyone shuffle out of the 4a.m. spot, he hurried back in, looking for her, realizing he hadn’t gotten her phone number. David saw her gracefully slumped against the corner of the booth they had been sharing. He went up her, just looking at her for a moment. To him, she was the most beautiful person in the room. Well, at 4a.m. after a night of drinking, she was probably the most beautiful person still around.
David nudged her on the shoulder, shaking her softly. “Allison? Hello, Allison?” He shook her shoulder a little more heartily. “Hey! Allison? Yo, Allie,” he said even more loudly.
“Don’t! Don’t call me Allie,” she mumbled, not even opening her eyes.
“Okay, why not?” He plopped down in the seat next to her, despite the glare the bartender was shooting him. David chose to ignore said bartender.
“Only my brother calls me Allie, and no one else can unless they have permission from him,” she muttered. Parting her eyelids wearily, Allison looked at him with dark brown eyes, “and he’s not supposed to be in town until next month.”
“I guess I have to stick around until next month then,” David replied as he picked her up under the arm and helped her out of the booth. They had shared a cab ride back to her place, and he saw her in.
“Fine. I’ll be leaving now,” Melissa stated as she gathered up her jacket and briefcase. “Promise me you’ll give the nurses a break and actually rest for once.”
“Just wish my stomach would quit killing me,” David replied.
“Your stomach always kills you. Maybe they can figure out what’s wrong with it that no amount of antacids and pain pills seems to completely make go away.” She looked at him meaningfully. “I’ll check on you tomorrow. Now, I get to go home so my daughter remembers she has a mother.” Melissa took off and left him alone.
David picked up the television remote, just turning it over in his hands. He didn’t feel like watching anything right now. He tossed the remote to the table and leaned back in the bed. He watched the slow drip of the morphine as machines beeped around him, a rhythm that eventually made his eyelids droop.
Akira loved watching “Reading Rainbow.” It was something he and Caron both liked. He just wanted to know why he couldn’t see his Dad. His Dad had not been around in forever. Now both Uncle Jack and Uncle Ianto had left him and Caron watching “Reading Rainbow” in the back of the really big, black car.
“I want dat book,” Caron said, her eyes never leaving the screen. “Can Mummy get me dat book?”
“Maybe,” Akira said. “I want the dolly from the other book.”
“You want a dolly?”
“Shut it, Caron.”
“I want the dragon from this book. I like dragons, see,” Caron said as she held out the red dragon necklace she wore. Uncle Rhys had given it to her. Uncle Rhys hadn’t given him anything besides a birthday gift. Of course she got to live with Uncle Rhys and her Mummy. Akira sometimes stayed with Mum, but lately he had been staying with Dad, except for the last couple of nights.
“When’s Uncle Jack coming back? If anyone can find us a dragon, he can,” Akira said.
Suddenly a loud boom shook them side-to-side. Akira grabbed his car seat in his lean fingers. Caron started to cry as things began to hit the outside of the car. The window in the front shattered, and Akira did not like the noises around him. As soon as it started, there was silence, except for Caron’s sobs.
“What happened? Where’s Da?” Caron choked out.
“I don’t know,” Akira stated.
“I want Da!”
“I know.”
There was a dusty cloud outside of the car. Akira tried to look through it. All of a sudden, he saw beams of light bobbing towards them, and then into the car. He held his hands up to his eyes. The door next to him opened, and Akira choked on the yucky tasting dust. He could hear Caron coughing next to him.
“Sir! There’s children in here.”
Akira squinted against the bright beam being shown in his eyes. He could hear Caron’s soft sobs from next to him. Everything else in the car had shut off. Except for the rumbling of people outside, it was too quiet. He really wanted his Mum. He wanted his Mum, his Dad, Uncle Jack, Uncle Ianto and Auntie Gwen.
“How can their be chil- Hell. Where did Torchwood get these kids?”
“What should we do with them Sir?”
A very angry looking woman leaned in to the car, her long black hair falling forward. “Were children this young affected?”
“Not that I’m aware, Sir.”
“Find out. In the meantime, contact our boss and find out what he wants done with them.”
The Angry Woman didn’t touch him or Caron. Instead, she just peered at him like he smelled. She scared him. She leaned back out of the car, and another guy wearing a black helmet stuck his head in, a gun in front of him. Akira sank bank into his car seat. At the back of his mind was something his Mum had drilled into him, time after time, repeating it to him for as long as he could remember.
“Torchwood 6-8-2-3-4-7,” Akira stumbled out.
The guard looked at him oddly. “Sir! You better get back here.”
The Angry Woman stuck her head back in to the car. “What is it?”
“Listen.” The man glared at Akira. “Say it again.”
“Torchwood 6-8-2-3-4-7,” He said, very nervous.
“Find out what that means. Now!” The woman crossed her arms across her chest, as if she was staring through Akira, while the man quickly disappeared.
“Just what are you telling me?” she said.
“Akira…” Caron softly cried next to him.
“Shhhh… Mum said the numbers will make it okay.”
The black-haired woman looked up as the man came running back over. “They belong to Torchwood,” the man said.
“Belong? To Torchwood? How do children belong to Torchwood?”
“I don’t know, Sir. But the numbers correspond to a government directive that is about two years old. ‘Anyone who mentions this specific number sequence falls under the protection of Torchwood and is to be held in safety until they can be returned to an official representative of Torchwood.’ One of the official representatives listed is Captain Jack Harkness.” The man lowered his weapon.
He mentioned Uncle Jack! Akira hoped he knew who Uncle Jack was: it would make it better if they could find Uncle Jack. The woman looked behind the man at the debris.
“I really doubt that’s happening anytime soon,” she stated. Her head quickly snapped to the side as her eyes narrowed, looking at Akira and Caron. “Take them back to the base until we get further instructions.”
“But children, Sir?”
“We won’t harm them, but with what is going on, God knows what Torchwood would have done with them. And if Torchwood is that interested in them, we can get closer to the three remaining targets and complete the mission.” The woman walked away without a second glance at them.
Akira watched as the man holstered his gun and then leaned in and started unbuckling the car seat. Someone else entered on the other side of the car and undid Caron’s car seat, pulling her out of the car. The man put his hands under Akira and pulled him free, also. It was still sunny out, it was still daytime, but the smelly smoke was worse than the fog. Akira buried his nose against the man’s shoulder, as they carried them around whatever had gone boom.
“Da!” Caron cried out, her hands flailing. Akira’s head popped up as she cried. “Da!”
He looked around, his head waving wildly, and swore he saw Uncle Ianto far away. Before he could say anything, they were tucked into another big black car. He wanted to hug Caron, but neither man would let them go. Instead they rode on in a quiet car, for a very long time, while Caron’s sobs slowly stopped.
When the car stopped, the men carried them into a very dark looking building, holding their heads down. They trooped down a grey corridor and stopped before a really big, scary looking door. Another man in black swung the door open. It made Akira think of the cells downstairs at the Hub. The two men put them down on the floor, and then the door slammed shut on Akira and Caron.
Akira sat down on the ground, not knowing where to go, and not liking this at all. He was really scared. Even that one time one of the Weevils had picked him up had not scared him. He just punched it in the nose. But, all of a sudden, he had not seen his Dad for a while and now all the adults were acting weird.
Caron sat up on her knees and crawled over to Akira. She gave him a big hug, and he didn’t push her away. “I want Mummy,” she said. “I want Da.”
“I know,” Akira said. “But I did what Mum said, we gave them the numbers.”
“Right,” Caron said, holding him even tighter.
Akira leaned back against the wall, Caron moving with him, and let out a big yawn. “I’m tired.”
“Mummy usually wants me to take a nap,” Caron said, laying her head against Akira.
Akira felt his eyelids drooping and fell asleep sitting on the cold floor of wherever the Angry Woman had wanted them to go. As he slept he dreamed of fighting robots with his Dad, and training them to do his bidding once they defeated the robots. Then he would make them pull Caron’s pigtails
Both of them awoke with a start as they heard awful screaming. Akira’s heart jumped as he heard the screams again. He mashed his hands against his ears, trying to make it stop. Whatever was screaming wasn’t in the room with them, but was close enough. A gust of air blew down on Akira and he looked up at the grate in the ceiling. The howling wouldn’t stop. It was making his skin crawl. Caron was holding her ears shut as well and tears were streaming down her face.
“Make it stop!” Caron started hiccoughing from crying.
Akira shook his head no, he couldn’t. He wanted to, but couldn’t. Suddenly, the big door opened again and the two men from earlier came in and picked up Akira and Caron, carrying them up stairs. He was afraid to take his hands off his ears. They walked down a hallway and reached a small room, glass on one side, and the men closed the door. Only then did Akira dare to listen again. He couldn’t really hear the screams.
Another man brought in the little duffel of theirs Uncle Ianto had grabbed that morning. He pulled out two pairs of pull-ups and handed them over. Caron bit her lower lip, and tugged at her jumper. She only did that when she hadn’t made it to the potty. Akira let the one man change him, even though he didn’t need to be. He didn’t care, he just kept hearing those screams in his head.
The other man left and came back with some food for them. Caron only nibbled on her carrots, while Akira just pushed his around the plate. None of the men said anything, and the silence only let him wonder what had made those noises downstairs.
After what felt like forever, the men took them back downstairs and tucked them away in their cell. At least they had brought Caron’s blanket from the duffel bag this time. The two of them buried themselves inside the corner under her blanket, but they could not sleep.
There was a knocking on the door, and Akira scrambled to his feet. He grabbed Caron’s hand and pulled her up. They stood together, Caron still clutching her blanket. The door swung open and he saw his Mum’s face peer in. Akira bolted for her, dragging Caron along behind him.
“Auntie Tosh!” Caron wrapped her arms around her leg while Akira grabbed his Mum’s hand.
“Shhhhh…. You two have to be quiet. We’re getting you out of here.” Mum picked him up in her arms and then picked up Caron. She exited the cell and they hit the hallway.
Akira saw one of the men in a pile on the floor, not moving. He clutched at his Mum’s neck, not wanting to let her go. Looking up he saw his Dad by another door. Akira waved his hands at him.
“Not yet, sport,” Dad said as he worked with Mum’s scanner on the other door.
“Uncle Rhys!” Caron gave a shout as Uncle Rhys came around the open door.
“Shhhhh…” Uncle Rhys said as he took Caron from Akira’s Mum. “They know we’re here and are on their way down. I set the boobytrap, but there’s a bloody lot of them here.”
“Got it!” Dad said, as he then swung open the other door. “Bloody hell, Ianto was right. I didn’t think any human would do that.”
Akira held on as his Mum ran over and they looked at what seemed like another wall. He didn’t know what the adults were talking about, or why someone would lock up a wall, unless it was a beast that could turn into a wall.
There was an explosion down the hall, and Akira held onto his Mum for dear life. Suddenly the sound of many footsteps could be heard running their way. Mum snatched the scanner away from Dad and typed in something, and then pocketed the scanner.
“Ianto’s initiating Plan B,” she said as she switched Akira to her left hip and pulled out a gun, holding it in front of her. “We need to get out of here now.”
Akira’s eyes widened as Dad pulled out a gun and Uncle Rhys held Caron close to him. Dad checked around the door and headed for the end of the hall, Uncle Rhys behind him, when Dad suddenly stopped. Mum began to backtrack, heading for the opposite end of the hallway when she stopped all of a sudden. Akira looked up and saw the Angry Woman with very many of the men in black behind her, all with guns.
“Put the weapons down and no one gets hurt,” the woman calmly said.
“That’s fucking unlikely,” Dad muttered, his voice hard. He looked towards the woman, his gun pointing straight at the men in front of him. “If you even think of fucking touching them again, I will personally kill you. And I’m already a little pissed about what you did to me in the hospital.”
Akira watched as his Mum covered the Angry Woman at the other end of the hallway with her gun. He put his hands up near his ears, knowing that if it went off it would be really loud. Uncle Rhys stood between them, covering Caron, his back to the locked up wall.
“If we have to shoot you, we will probably hit the children.”
Mum and Dad exchanged a quick look with each other. Mum let Akira down, never wavering, her gun still aimed at the men. She pushed him towards Uncle Rhys, who pulled Akira in tightly to his legs. Uncle Rhys kept a hand on Akira’s head.
“What does Torchwood want with children anyway?”
“They are Torchwood,” Mum said coldly. Before anyone could say anything else, there was a loud rumbling and the wall behind the door moved, making it sound like crashing all around him.
David opened his eyes, peering around the dimly lit hospital room. He looked up and saw an orderly picking up things from the table that he had apparently knocked over. The orderly looked at him sheepishly.
“Sorry,” the young man said as he picked up a couple of more things, putting them back on the table.
“Get the fuck out of my room,” David growled, flipping over in the bed. Damn it! He couldn’t even get a couple of hours of sleep in a hospital. Next thing they’ll be doing is waking him up again to give him another sleeping pill. He waited until he heard the orderly leave and then let out a sigh. Whatever good this morphine did, it made him have some weird ass dreams. Yet they seemed so real.
David let out a big yawn, trying to shake the sound of that poor soul’s screams from his mind. Tomorrow, once he got his computer out of hock with Melissa, he would have to look up the name Torchwood. For some reason, the word was forefront in his mind, but he had never heard of it before. David closed his eyes, burying his head against the sheets.