Sci-Fi Big Bang - Children Through Time - David's Book
Title: Children Through Time - The Book of David
Chapter: 5
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 5
David’s head pounded so badly, every time he moved his whole body ached. What had those bastards done to him? He felt like vomiting, but his body wouldn’t let him. The lights in the room were so bright it hurt his eyes, and made his head swim even more inside his skull.
Despite the overwhelming sense of nausea, David paced the tiled room. This wasn’t right, like hell this was right. Stopping and holding on to one wall for support, he spied the camera in his peripheral vision. He ambled towards the corner the camera was in and with nary a second thought, grabbed one of those general industrial metal chairs every government organization had in surplus and jumped onto the couch, smashing the camera lens with the chair leg.
Dropping the chair, letting it clatter to the ground, David sunk down onto the couch and tried to breathe as the room swam around him. He was not surprised when a minute later the door across the room opened and a gun muzzle was the first thing he saw, followed by a stern looking guy dressed all in black and wearing a red beret. David shuddered and shrunk back into the corner of the couch as a remnant of some forgotten memory popped into his head.
“We’ll be fine,” a voice said behind the soldier, and Dr. Andrew Graf walked into the room, lab coat on.
“Are you sure, Sir?” the soldier asked, never taking his eyes or gun off David. “He took out the camera, Sir.”
“I guess he wants privacy,” Andrew stated. “You may go.”
The soldier saluted the doctor and then left. Andrew closed the door behind the soldier and turned back to David. He picked up a digital pad from the table next to him and started looking at it.
“What the hell did you just have them do to me?” David nearly growled.
“We needed a comprehensive medical file if you want me to help you as best as I can,” Andrew stated.
“There are enough body scans and fuck knows what else on file for me from a couple of months ago when I had the kidney stone that wasn’t from hell but ruled in Beelzebub’s place.”
“Yes, but our equipment is a bit more advanced than the average hospital’s,” Andrew replied.
“Does your sister know that you’re torturing me?”
“That? That was not torture,” Andrew stated as he righted the chair David had used and sat down on it. “And no, my sister does not know exactly what UNIT does. She had the choice years ago to take the route our father chose or not. Apparently, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart did not impress her much.”
“If that’s not torture, than why the fuck do I feel so sick?”
“You tell me,” Andrew said, crossing his legs and looking intently at David.
David leapt up from the couch and grabbed Andrew by the lapels of the lab coat, tightening his hold and wrapping the coat collar around Andrew’s neck until he heard the doctor’s breath catching in a choke.
“What did you do to me?” He pulled up on the lab coat, making Andrew rise up out of the seat, the digital pad clattering to the floor.
“We… didn’t… do it,” Andrew choked out. “The aliens did it.”
David looked at Andrew incredulously and simply let go of the lab coat, letting the doctor fall with a thump back into the chair. He stumbled backwards and fell onto the couch. Once the hamsters stopped tap-dancing in his head, he looked at Andrew.
“What do you fucking mean, the aliens did it?”
Andrew unbuttoned his lab coat and loosened his tie. He took a breath and then glared at David. “At some point, at least one alien species experimented on your body.” Andrew picked up the digital pad and scanned it. “There is an unknown metallic substance attached to your blood cells. It bears some kind of alien code, numbers we believe, most likely tracking codes. Also, your lymphocytes have mutated, which means you have been exposed to temporal displacement.”
“Temporal…” David’s voice trailed off as the hamster in his mind ran so fast it was bouncing off the inside of his skull. If he was subjected to temporal anything, then that could explain how he had missed five years. He hadn’t lived through them, he had simply bypassed them. “Are you sure about the temporal misplacement?” he asked Andrew.
“Yes, the tests-“
“Son of a bitch!”
“What?” Andrew asked.
David stood up quickly, grabbing at his head, but still started pacing the room. “Fucking shit! That could explain what happened? Something took us…” David stopped and stared straight ahead. “Something took all of us, oh God.” David closed his eyes as his mind flashed him a remnant of his drug induced dreams of late, then it was gone before he could fully grasp it. He looked down at his stomach, hands gingerly touching it. “They did something to me.”
“You and your friends did disappear while in Cardiff,” Andrew said calmly, having not even moved from his chair. “There has always been an inordinate amount of missing persons cases in and around Cardiff.”
“They should put that in the fucking brochures,” David growled.
“That would keep away the tourism, but they only got worse in the last fifteen years,” Andrew stated. “Should we talk about the problems with your stomach?”
“What about it?”
“Well to start with, off the record, Melissa has always mentioned how much discomfort you always seem to have.”
“Discomfort? This is not discomfort. Why don’t I rip open your stomach and shove in a porcupine studded troll with ice picks chipping away at your intestines?” David leaned up against a nearby wall.
“Right. According to one of the bioscans we have taken, it appears that something was done to your stomach, or rather your liver and kidneys, along with part of the intestines.” Andrew glanced at the digital pad.
“What is it? Why couldn’t any other hospital tell me about this?”
“Like I said, our equipment is a bit more advanced. Also, what we found, they would have just thought was a glitch in the system.” Andrew took a deep breath and looked David up and down. “The electrons in the cells of your midsection have been fried on the atomic level.”
“What?”
“It looks like the atomic and subatomic structure of your cells was ruined, and then something tried to put them back together but didn’t quite understand human physiology.”
A wave of nausea swept over David and he slid down the wall. Sitting on the floor, he leaned back, hearing the thump where his head hit the concrete wall, but not fully registering it. Putting a hand over his mouth, David tried to remember to breathe. What Dr. Graf had just told him explained so much, but raised so many more questions, questions he was in no way ready for.
Feeling little pinpricks of heat behind his eyeballs, David covered his eyes, not intending to let anyone see him cry. If this is what had happened to him, what had they done to the girls? Although the bigger question that remained was where were the girls?
“Mr. Ortiz, if this is distressing you too much, we can discuss this tomorrow.”
David didn’t even look up. “I’m not coming back tomorrow.”
“No. you’re not coming back. We have a room set up for you in the South Wing.”
His head snapped up, and David found himself staring at Andrew in disbelief. “You have a what for me?”
“A room. Something foreign to Earth soil has messed with you, so we need to keep you here until we know the extent of what they did.” Andrew put the digital pad down and uncrossed his legs, sitting up in the chair. “I will contact Melissa for you, and she will keep your business running until it is determined what will be done for you.”
“You mean with me,” David coldly said.
“Excuse me.”
“You want to hold me here, indefinitely, until you can determine if I am harmful to society because of what some alien might have done to me?” David crawled his way back up the wall, holding on to it with both his hands, until he was standing up, fully erect. “Fuck no.”
“Mr. Ortiz, David, you have no say in the matter,” Andrew stated.
“Oh, I have plenty to say about the matter,” David said as he stalked across the room and grabbed Andrew by the lapel, straddling the sitting man.
“David, please, it is because of Melissa that I have been able to arrange for you to have a room even.”
David tightened his grip, nearly strangling Andrew. “Or what? You would have thrown me in a cell? In a fucking padded white room?” David closed his legs around Andrew’s, pinning him to the chair. “No. No one is holding me here against my fucking will.”
“Then they will put you in a cell,” Andrew choked out, his hands around David’s, trying to pry them away from his neck.
“I have a proposition for you then. You work for me.”
Andrew shook his head no as David started digging his fingers into the younger man’s neck.
“Oh, I think so. I know you have done as much research on me as I have done on you. UNIT could very well make my life a living hell, but my life is that already, so I would welcome the challenge. You lock me up, I will find a way out eventually, and then UNIT will regret ever doing that. I will not be locked up like some animal in a cage without any rights.” David took a breath, adjusting his grip and staring down Andrew. “I have a proposal for you. You will let me walk out of here today. Whatever you tell your commanding officer is up to you. You give me all the research and all the tests you have on me and I will make sure your sister and your niece are well taken care of.”
Andrew pried away one of David’s hands and yanked it to the side. The doctor then dug that hand into David’s shoulder, his fingertips jabbing between the bones. David gritted his teeth, trying to keep from crying out. Suddenly, David felt himself flying backwards as pain blossomed across his chest from where the doctor had punched him. David’s breath was knocked out of him and he doubled over, struggling to breathe.
He watched Andrew get up from the chair and start sprinting towards the outside door. David let out a guttural growl and took off after him. His longer strides helped cover the distance and David tackled the doctor, both of them sprawling on the concrete floor. David scrambled to his knees first and, grabbing Andrew by his lab coat, flipped the younger man onto his front. Straddling Andrew, David intertwined one leg with David’s and put the other knee in the small of Andrew’s back. He then grabbed the man’s right arm, twisting it slightly, pulled the hand behind the back and up to his shoulder. Andrew cried out in pain.
David leaned close to Andrew’s ear. “You leave me in this facility, I will make your life a living hell.” David twisted Andrew’s right hand even more, making the man unable to breathe. “Your sister and niece will also be out of a job and unable to work anywhere, except maybe picking up trash on the beach for both of their lives. You help me, I might be amicable: I might even let you in on some of my findings. I need to find the people I disappeared with, and you have the resources to help me.”
“We can’t let you go,” Andrew rasped out.
“I have been back for 11 years. If the aliens had wanted me to take over the world, don’t you fucking think it would have happened by now?” David took his free hand and put it against Andrew’s head, pushing his face into the ground. “I don’t want to hurt you, it would kill Melissa. I just want to walk out of this facility a free man. If your sister has told you anything about me, you should realize how persistent I can be.”
David sat there a minute, pressing Andrew into the hard floor and then he let go of the man’s head. Bringing his arm around the doctor’s neck in a chokehold, David got up off his back and hauled Andrew up to his feet. Feeling exerted, but not giving up the control, David breathed heavily right into Andrew’s ear.
“It’s your choice what the future is for you, your family and UNIT,” David said, his voice barely above a whisper, calm and collected.
He then released his hold on Andrew and pushed the man away from him. Andrew stumbled forward and turned on his heel, keeping an eye on David. He slowly straightened his shirt and tie and readjusted his lab coat. Walking backwards, Andrew headed for the door as David continued to stare at him. Andrew opened the door and motioned for the guard to enter.
Unsure of which way things would go, David resigned himself to whatever fate did to him in the next minute. The soldier walked in, gun at the ready and David felt his heart grow heavy. He wouldn’t be able to find the girls if he had to battle UNIT for his life.
“Mr. Ortiz here,” Andrew said to the soldier, “is being released. Please make sure he is escorted away from this facility and that he doesn’t attempt to come back inside.”
“Are you positive, Sir?” the soldier asked Andrew, never once taking his eyes or gun off of David.
“Yes, corporal,” Andrew said, quickly looking away. He picked up David’s leather coat and slipped the digital pad inside one pocket. “Make sure he stays far away from this facility.”
“Yes Sir,” the soldier said and then stood by the door. “Whenever you are ready Mr. Ortiz.”
David walked over, taking his coat from Andrew. “Thank you,” he said as he slipped it on.
“If anything happens to Melissa or Stacy, you will find yourself in a UNIT cell faster than you can think, and no one will be able to find where you went. No one,” Andrew stated, his voice harsh and cold.
David nodded his head in understanding and walked out the door, the man with the gun right behind him.
Chapter: 5
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 5
David’s head pounded so badly, every time he moved his whole body ached. What had those bastards done to him? He felt like vomiting, but his body wouldn’t let him. The lights in the room were so bright it hurt his eyes, and made his head swim even more inside his skull.
Despite the overwhelming sense of nausea, David paced the tiled room. This wasn’t right, like hell this was right. Stopping and holding on to one wall for support, he spied the camera in his peripheral vision. He ambled towards the corner the camera was in and with nary a second thought, grabbed one of those general industrial metal chairs every government organization had in surplus and jumped onto the couch, smashing the camera lens with the chair leg.
Dropping the chair, letting it clatter to the ground, David sunk down onto the couch and tried to breathe as the room swam around him. He was not surprised when a minute later the door across the room opened and a gun muzzle was the first thing he saw, followed by a stern looking guy dressed all in black and wearing a red beret. David shuddered and shrunk back into the corner of the couch as a remnant of some forgotten memory popped into his head.
“We’ll be fine,” a voice said behind the soldier, and Dr. Andrew Graf walked into the room, lab coat on.
“Are you sure, Sir?” the soldier asked, never taking his eyes or gun off David. “He took out the camera, Sir.”
“I guess he wants privacy,” Andrew stated. “You may go.”
The soldier saluted the doctor and then left. Andrew closed the door behind the soldier and turned back to David. He picked up a digital pad from the table next to him and started looking at it.
“What the hell did you just have them do to me?” David nearly growled.
“We needed a comprehensive medical file if you want me to help you as best as I can,” Andrew stated.
“There are enough body scans and fuck knows what else on file for me from a couple of months ago when I had the kidney stone that wasn’t from hell but ruled in Beelzebub’s place.”
“Yes, but our equipment is a bit more advanced than the average hospital’s,” Andrew replied.
“Does your sister know that you’re torturing me?”
“That? That was not torture,” Andrew stated as he righted the chair David had used and sat down on it. “And no, my sister does not know exactly what UNIT does. She had the choice years ago to take the route our father chose or not. Apparently, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart did not impress her much.”
“If that’s not torture, than why the fuck do I feel so sick?”
“You tell me,” Andrew said, crossing his legs and looking intently at David.
David leapt up from the couch and grabbed Andrew by the lapels of the lab coat, tightening his hold and wrapping the coat collar around Andrew’s neck until he heard the doctor’s breath catching in a choke.
“What did you do to me?” He pulled up on the lab coat, making Andrew rise up out of the seat, the digital pad clattering to the floor.
“We… didn’t… do it,” Andrew choked out. “The aliens did it.”
David looked at Andrew incredulously and simply let go of the lab coat, letting the doctor fall with a thump back into the chair. He stumbled backwards and fell onto the couch. Once the hamsters stopped tap-dancing in his head, he looked at Andrew.
“What do you fucking mean, the aliens did it?”
Andrew unbuttoned his lab coat and loosened his tie. He took a breath and then glared at David. “At some point, at least one alien species experimented on your body.” Andrew picked up the digital pad and scanned it. “There is an unknown metallic substance attached to your blood cells. It bears some kind of alien code, numbers we believe, most likely tracking codes. Also, your lymphocytes have mutated, which means you have been exposed to temporal displacement.”
“Temporal…” David’s voice trailed off as the hamster in his mind ran so fast it was bouncing off the inside of his skull. If he was subjected to temporal anything, then that could explain how he had missed five years. He hadn’t lived through them, he had simply bypassed them. “Are you sure about the temporal misplacement?” he asked Andrew.
“Yes, the tests-“
“Son of a bitch!”
“What?” Andrew asked.
David stood up quickly, grabbing at his head, but still started pacing the room. “Fucking shit! That could explain what happened? Something took us…” David stopped and stared straight ahead. “Something took all of us, oh God.” David closed his eyes as his mind flashed him a remnant of his drug induced dreams of late, then it was gone before he could fully grasp it. He looked down at his stomach, hands gingerly touching it. “They did something to me.”
“You and your friends did disappear while in Cardiff,” Andrew said calmly, having not even moved from his chair. “There has always been an inordinate amount of missing persons cases in and around Cardiff.”
“They should put that in the fucking brochures,” David growled.
“That would keep away the tourism, but they only got worse in the last fifteen years,” Andrew stated. “Should we talk about the problems with your stomach?”
“What about it?”
“Well to start with, off the record, Melissa has always mentioned how much discomfort you always seem to have.”
“Discomfort? This is not discomfort. Why don’t I rip open your stomach and shove in a porcupine studded troll with ice picks chipping away at your intestines?” David leaned up against a nearby wall.
“Right. According to one of the bioscans we have taken, it appears that something was done to your stomach, or rather your liver and kidneys, along with part of the intestines.” Andrew glanced at the digital pad.
“What is it? Why couldn’t any other hospital tell me about this?”
“Like I said, our equipment is a bit more advanced. Also, what we found, they would have just thought was a glitch in the system.” Andrew took a deep breath and looked David up and down. “The electrons in the cells of your midsection have been fried on the atomic level.”
“What?”
“It looks like the atomic and subatomic structure of your cells was ruined, and then something tried to put them back together but didn’t quite understand human physiology.”
A wave of nausea swept over David and he slid down the wall. Sitting on the floor, he leaned back, hearing the thump where his head hit the concrete wall, but not fully registering it. Putting a hand over his mouth, David tried to remember to breathe. What Dr. Graf had just told him explained so much, but raised so many more questions, questions he was in no way ready for.
Feeling little pinpricks of heat behind his eyeballs, David covered his eyes, not intending to let anyone see him cry. If this is what had happened to him, what had they done to the girls? Although the bigger question that remained was where were the girls?
“Mr. Ortiz, if this is distressing you too much, we can discuss this tomorrow.”
David didn’t even look up. “I’m not coming back tomorrow.”
“No. you’re not coming back. We have a room set up for you in the South Wing.”
His head snapped up, and David found himself staring at Andrew in disbelief. “You have a what for me?”
“A room. Something foreign to Earth soil has messed with you, so we need to keep you here until we know the extent of what they did.” Andrew put the digital pad down and uncrossed his legs, sitting up in the chair. “I will contact Melissa for you, and she will keep your business running until it is determined what will be done for you.”
“You mean with me,” David coldly said.
“Excuse me.”
“You want to hold me here, indefinitely, until you can determine if I am harmful to society because of what some alien might have done to me?” David crawled his way back up the wall, holding on to it with both his hands, until he was standing up, fully erect. “Fuck no.”
“Mr. Ortiz, David, you have no say in the matter,” Andrew stated.
“Oh, I have plenty to say about the matter,” David said as he stalked across the room and grabbed Andrew by the lapel, straddling the sitting man.
“David, please, it is because of Melissa that I have been able to arrange for you to have a room even.”
David tightened his grip, nearly strangling Andrew. “Or what? You would have thrown me in a cell? In a fucking padded white room?” David closed his legs around Andrew’s, pinning him to the chair. “No. No one is holding me here against my fucking will.”
“Then they will put you in a cell,” Andrew choked out, his hands around David’s, trying to pry them away from his neck.
“I have a proposition for you then. You work for me.”
Andrew shook his head no as David started digging his fingers into the younger man’s neck.
“Oh, I think so. I know you have done as much research on me as I have done on you. UNIT could very well make my life a living hell, but my life is that already, so I would welcome the challenge. You lock me up, I will find a way out eventually, and then UNIT will regret ever doing that. I will not be locked up like some animal in a cage without any rights.” David took a breath, adjusting his grip and staring down Andrew. “I have a proposal for you. You will let me walk out of here today. Whatever you tell your commanding officer is up to you. You give me all the research and all the tests you have on me and I will make sure your sister and your niece are well taken care of.”
Andrew pried away one of David’s hands and yanked it to the side. The doctor then dug that hand into David’s shoulder, his fingertips jabbing between the bones. David gritted his teeth, trying to keep from crying out. Suddenly, David felt himself flying backwards as pain blossomed across his chest from where the doctor had punched him. David’s breath was knocked out of him and he doubled over, struggling to breathe.
He watched Andrew get up from the chair and start sprinting towards the outside door. David let out a guttural growl and took off after him. His longer strides helped cover the distance and David tackled the doctor, both of them sprawling on the concrete floor. David scrambled to his knees first and, grabbing Andrew by his lab coat, flipped the younger man onto his front. Straddling Andrew, David intertwined one leg with David’s and put the other knee in the small of Andrew’s back. He then grabbed the man’s right arm, twisting it slightly, pulled the hand behind the back and up to his shoulder. Andrew cried out in pain.
David leaned close to Andrew’s ear. “You leave me in this facility, I will make your life a living hell.” David twisted Andrew’s right hand even more, making the man unable to breathe. “Your sister and niece will also be out of a job and unable to work anywhere, except maybe picking up trash on the beach for both of their lives. You help me, I might be amicable: I might even let you in on some of my findings. I need to find the people I disappeared with, and you have the resources to help me.”
“We can’t let you go,” Andrew rasped out.
“I have been back for 11 years. If the aliens had wanted me to take over the world, don’t you fucking think it would have happened by now?” David took his free hand and put it against Andrew’s head, pushing his face into the ground. “I don’t want to hurt you, it would kill Melissa. I just want to walk out of this facility a free man. If your sister has told you anything about me, you should realize how persistent I can be.”
David sat there a minute, pressing Andrew into the hard floor and then he let go of the man’s head. Bringing his arm around the doctor’s neck in a chokehold, David got up off his back and hauled Andrew up to his feet. Feeling exerted, but not giving up the control, David breathed heavily right into Andrew’s ear.
“It’s your choice what the future is for you, your family and UNIT,” David said, his voice barely above a whisper, calm and collected.
He then released his hold on Andrew and pushed the man away from him. Andrew stumbled forward and turned on his heel, keeping an eye on David. He slowly straightened his shirt and tie and readjusted his lab coat. Walking backwards, Andrew headed for the door as David continued to stare at him. Andrew opened the door and motioned for the guard to enter.
Unsure of which way things would go, David resigned himself to whatever fate did to him in the next minute. The soldier walked in, gun at the ready and David felt his heart grow heavy. He wouldn’t be able to find the girls if he had to battle UNIT for his life.
“Mr. Ortiz here,” Andrew said to the soldier, “is being released. Please make sure he is escorted away from this facility and that he doesn’t attempt to come back inside.”
“Are you positive, Sir?” the soldier asked Andrew, never once taking his eyes or gun off of David.
“Yes, corporal,” Andrew said, quickly looking away. He picked up David’s leather coat and slipped the digital pad inside one pocket. “Make sure he stays far away from this facility.”
“Yes Sir,” the soldier said and then stood by the door. “Whenever you are ready Mr. Ortiz.”
David walked over, taking his coat from Andrew. “Thank you,” he said as he slipped it on.
“If anything happens to Melissa or Stacy, you will find yourself in a UNIT cell faster than you can think, and no one will be able to find where you went. No one,” Andrew stated, his voice harsh and cold.
David nodded his head in understanding and walked out the door, the man with the gun right behind him.