Fic: Adventures in Cardiff
Title: Adventures in Cardiff
Series: Torchwood
Characters: Gwen, Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Owen, Rhys, OC
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Meat (TW 2.4)
Beta: Jooles34
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original storylines, characters and places are my property.
Summary: Erin Giles never expected to come face-to-face with Torchwood, especially not in her bedroom in the middle of the night.
Author’s Notes: A belated birthday gift inspired by erin_giles. A new look at the Torchwood team.
Adventures in Cardiff
It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for him. I had remained indoors all day, for the weather had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and the Jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence. With my body in one easy-chair and my legs upon another, I had surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers until at last, saturated with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the envelope upon the table and wondering lazily who my friend’s noble correspondent could be.
Erin placed The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on her bedside table as her mouth opened in a wide yawn. Glancing at the digital alarm clock glowing back at her, she snuggled down under her covers as she saw that it was half past midnight. Tomorrow was a big day, she had to find a job if she was going to keep her flat in Cardiff.
She smiled; gazing around the room Erin nearly clapped in glee, finally glad to have her own place - no flatmate and no parents to drive her batty. Granted, it had taken some pretty fancy talking to get her parents to realise how safe of a city Cardiff was, barely anything happened there. Switching off the lamp next to her bed, Erin clutched her rugby jersey wearing teddy bear tight.
There was a sound of heavy breathing above her head as Erin woke up from a lovely dream about Scotland. There shouldn’t have been anything breathing above her head, next to her in bed, or by the door. She snaked her arm out from under the duvet, aiming for the lamp when the fixture smashed to the ground, the bulb breaking. Erin curled her legs up under her as she inched towards the headboard, her own breath catching in her throat.
The bed moved as something - something very heavy - stepped across it, rolling Erin around. She tried to not scream and found herself forgetting to breathe. Her head snapped towards the window, hoping for some sign of what was going on and she realised she couldn’t see anything. Her fingers hurt as they clutched the duvet, remembering she had specifically left the curtains open because it was a full moon. Now she couldn’t even see the stars. Her eyes darted towards the digital clock on her nightstand and she screamed as reflected in the red from the numbers was two pairs of slitted eyes.
The door to her bedroom banged open, thumping against the wall, making Erin’s voice catch. Beams of bright white light circled the room and all she saw was shiny scales moving in many directions around the bed. Suddenly the bed jumped, knocking her onto the floor, swimming in her bedclothes. Two of the beams of light fixated on her face and she held up a hand to block the brightness.
“This one’s human,” a female voice said.
“Get her out of here,” a disembodied male voice barked as footsteps clomped past her into the bedroom.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Erin tried to scramble to her feet, but fell back on her bum as her feet tangled in the duvet and slipped on the hardwood floor.
A set of hands grabbed her by the arms and helped pull her up, as someone or something else pulled the bedding from between her legs. She stumbled forward, knocking down the stranger that had been helping. From the feel of things, Erin knew it was a guy she had landed on.
“Get her out of here,” the same male voice bellowed. A crack was heard in the direction the voice had come from. “I need some help here!”
“I’ve got her,” another woman stated as she took Erin by the shoulders and nearly shoved her out into the hallway. The woman grabbed Erin’s elbow and dragged her out through the door of her flat.
Erin was surprised that the lights seemed to be out in the entire building. She tried to keep pace with the person handling her, but it was hard to watch the torch beam bobbing along the stairs. They finally pushed through the door onto the street, and Erin sucked in big cool breaths of dusty Cardiff air. Doubling over, clutching her knees, Erin tried to get her wits about her. Her ginger hair fell forward, shrouding her face, allowing her to get a good glimpse of the mysterious woman’s boots and jeans.
Slowly standing up, Erin took a step back as she looked at the brunette haired stranger holding not just a torch, but a gun as well. Erin stumbled backwards, cracking her head against the brick wall of the building. Clutching her skull, she watched warily as the woman approached her, compassion in her eyes despite the weapon.
There was a crashing sound above them, prompting the stranger to look up, her eyes growing too wide for her face. Quickly tucking her gun in a pocket, the woman grabbed Erin by the neck and pushed her around the corner as debris began to fall from the sky. Erin fell to her knees, the woman beside her. With a sickening thud, a charred carcass fell in front of them, pieces flying up as it hit the pavement.
“Can you walk?”
“I think so,” Erin choked out, trying to not to vomit the crisps she ate while watching the late show. It wasn’t the sight of the charred flesh, but the smell, and the thought that more could hit them.
“Then come on,” the woman said, quickly standing up.
Erin pressed her palms against the building and stood up on shaky legs. If she survived whatever hell had landed on top of her, she was going to be bruised to hell in the morning. The woman put a guiding hand on the small of Erin’s back and pushed her down the street towards a black SUV that had blue lights running along the side of the window.
The woman opened the front passenger side door and practically shoved Erin into the seat. “Stay right here.” She pulled her gun out again and started heading back to the building.
“Where are you going? You can’t leave me here!”
The stranger stopped and looked at Erin. She then looked up towards the roof of the building. Erin followed her gaze and an invisible lump caught in her suddenly dry throat as she saw that something had completely covered the top floors of her building. Whatever was in her flat hadn’t closed the curtains, it had just closed off the building.
“What the bloody hell is that?”
“That would be the transport ship.”
“A what?”
“Transport ship. It’s supposed to transport the residents of the building.”
“And transport them where?”
“London. They’re set to attack any minute now. They’re the advance fleet, waiting around until the right moment.” The woman glanced down at her watch. “Which should have been in ten minutes until we got in the way.”
“And who are you?”
“My name’s Gwen.”
“Great. Mine’s Erin- no! Bloody hell, who are you guys?”
“Torchwood.”
“Oh fuck no,” Erin said as she hopped down out of the vehicle and started pacing up and down the length of it. She combed her fingers through her frizzing hair. “This is all a joke. Who put you up to this? I bet it was my mates from Uni… Torchwood is just something people tell each other while camping in the countryside. It’s a bloody urban legend.”
“I’m sorry sweetheart, we’re not.”
Erin bent over at the waist, still in her pyjamas, fingers entwined in her hair, pressing against her skull. This couldn’t be happening. Someone had to be playing a practical joke on her. But, if it was a prank, what about the ship? What about the vehicle? What about the bruises? She absently poked at her knee as the blood welled up in the grooves from the scratches when she fell.
She continued to stare at the ground as Gwen’s legs came into view. “I just heard from my team. We need to get you far away from here,” Gwen said, softly placing a hand on Erin’s back.
Erin slowly straightened herself nodded minutely at Gwen. Without saying a word she climbed back into the passenger seat and closed the door in Gwen’s face. Erin stared forward as Gwen clambered into the driver’s seat and started the SUV. Neither one said a word until they pulled up in front of the little cafe two blocks from her flat.
“Why don’t we get some tea? Or a coffee? Coffee would be good.”
“In my pyjamas?”
“It’s 3:00 a.m. on a Thursday night, no one will notice,” Gwen said, turning to Erin and give her a tiny, hopeful smile of reassurance. “Trust me.”
Erin merely shrugged her shoulders as she opened the door to the vehicle and dropped down to the pavement, her stockinged feet not making a sound. In a daze she slumped through the door that Gwen held open and shuffled to a back booth in the cafe. The fluorescent lights buzzed in her eyes as she huddled in the corner. What was happening to her life?
Gwen sat down with two mugs of tea and pushed one in front of Erin. She wrapped her fingers around the mug, delighting in the heat that radiated from it, but never took a drink. Gwen kept sipping at her tea, casting glances out the windows at the street. Erin looked down and saw a discarded newspaper. Picking it up, she tried to make herself concentrate on the recent rugby matches, but even the forecast for the Five Nations rugby league couldn’t pique her interest.
She saw it out of the corner of her eye. The flickering flames danced in the windows of the black SUV, and then the explosion rocked the diner, rattling their cups, spilling tea over the side of Erin’s mug and soaking the newspaper. The lone waitress and two gentlemen - the only other customers in the place - ran to the windows looking for what had caused it. Deep down Erin knew - Torchwood.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“Find you a new place to live.”
Erin chuckled. She couldn’t help it. Bloody Torchwood blows up her block of flats and they’ll find her a new place to live? “What about my clothes? My photos?” Pushing the mug across the table, not even caring how much tea spilled onto her hand, Erin stood up and faced Gwen.
“Why don’t you sit down, sweetheart?”
“Don’t sweetheart me you bitch.” Erin had enough. She ignored the looks from the waitress and other customers as she started yelling at Gwen. “Everything I had was in that flat. My entire life is gone! What are you going to fucking do about it?”
“I don’t think everything is gone,” a familiar sounding male voice said from right behind Erin. Her favourite red duffel was tossed onto the table, stuffed to its gills.
Erin whipped her head around only to come face to face with a gorgeous man with dark hair and blue eyes that could see into your soul. He had on an old grey military coat, but his mouth was turned up in a look of contention.
“We’ll have to pick up the rest of your bags later, good thing you had so many in your wardrobe. Tosh insisted on letting you keep some of it. We’ll have to check the rest out to make sure none of their stuff got mixed in with yours.” The man picked up her tea cup, gave it a sniff, grimaced, and put the cup back down on the table.
“What did you do?”
“Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere else.”
“No. I want to know now.”
“Gwen…” The man nodded his head as he dropped a fiver on the table.
Gwen hurriedly stood up, yanking the duffel off the table and put a hand on Erin’s shoulder. She jerked away from the woman, glowering at the man. His was the voice that kept barking orders in the darkness of her flat. She kept telling herself the only reason she followed them is that they would have answers, and they still had her stuff.
Gwen slid into the back seat, leaving Erin the front, with the man she wanted to punch. She had spent years in school playing and coaching rugby, but doubted she could ever actually punch someone, but this man’s entire demeanour was pressing her buttons the wrong way.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked again.
“What do you think we should do with you?”
“Well, you haven’t killed me yet.”
“We don’t go around killing people,” Gwen piped up from the back seat.
“Thirty-four people lived in my apartment building. I’m the only one standing here.”
“Thirty-four people?” The man looked at her, eyes dark.
“Yeah. The Jones had two flats on the first floor, one was theirs and one was their son’s who was the building manager. Then the MacCrimmon’s on two, old Mrs. McGillicuddy there as well-”
“That’s a problem,” the man said as he touched his earpiece. “Ianto, we have a problem. There should be thirty-three bodies, but Owen and I only accounted for thirty-one.”
“Bodies! And you don’t kill people?”
“They aren’t people,” the man snapped.
“Have you ever had Mrs. McGillicuddy’s banana bread? Watched little Rhona Jones tease her brother? They were people.”
“No they weren’t,” the man said as he quickly pulled the vehicle over and threw it into park. Erin tried to wrap her mind around the fact that she couldn’t remember him actually start driving. He turned his body in the seat, moving slightly into her space. “They were aliens.”
“Aliens?”
“Yes, and you would have been incinerated with them as well if it wasn’t for Gwen making sure Tosh scanned you. You were the only human in a nest of Dekavan assassins. Little Rhona? That’s what she wanted to show you. Try a four foot thing with razor sharp teeth and a bad dress sense. A thing that could have killed you in your sleep without disturbing a dust particle. What do you think tried to kill you tonight?” The man sat back in his seat. “But why did they wait so long?”
“Why would Rhona try to kill me? I stepped in when the dicks from the other street were harassing her. And Mrs. McGillicuddy loved it when I told her stories about living in Scotland. She said they reminded her of home. And then Mr.-”
“How long have you lived there?” the man asked.
“Three weeks.”
“They should have killed you by now.”
“Jack!”
“Gwen, this goes against their training.”
“But, Jack, you don’t tell someone-”
“Then why didn’t they kill me?”
Silence settled over the car as Jack and Gwen exchanged looks. “I really don’t know,” Jack muttered.
“All right then,” Erin said, sinking back into her own seat. “And I ask again, what are you going to do with me?”
“I’ll let you know,” Jack said as he threw the car back into drive.
Erin wasn’t sure where they were taking her, but tried to remember every turn they made. It wasn’t long until they were in a nicer part of town, and Jack was pulling the SUV around the back of a complex, along the river. He pulled into a spot and parked the car, hopping out as soon as the ignition had switched off.
“Come on,” Jack said as he opened the back door and grabbed the duffel.
Pulling a rather large keyring from the pocket of his coat, Erin mutely followed as Gwen brought up the rear. The shuffled up several floors until Jack led them to one specific flat. Searching through the keys he opened the door and stepped inside, motioning Erin forward as well. Flipping on the overhead light, Erin gasped in amazement.
Spread out in front of her was a two bedroom flat, fully furnished with sofa, a stocked kitchen, and shelves along one wall crammed with books. She slowly stepped in, running her hand along the table, the lamp, the easy chair. Spinning the chair on its axis, her heart dropped.
“What does this mean?” Erin asked.
“You have a place to stay, for now.” Jack dropped the duffel on the sofa and pulled a spare key from one of the drawers in the kitchen island. “This is yours while we get things sorted.”
“Sure.”
“It’s not your fault your building had to be destroyed.” Gwen tried to look cheerful about it. All Erin wanted to do was punch her in the face - or punch something, a wall would do nicely. As it turned out, the kitchen counter worked well, and hurt like fuck.
“Bollocks!” As Erin shook out her hand, noticing neither Torchwood person moved when she became violent, she remembered she was supposed to be interviewing for a job early in the morning.
“You okay?”
“No,” Erin snapped at Gwen. “I have no home, I have no job - I won’t make the interview this morning, I probably have nothing left, and how do I explain this to my parents? They’ll probably want me on the next train back to Glasgow before I get off the phone with them.”
“Don’t say anything to your parents - don’t say anything to anyone,” Jack said. “We’ll figure out the rest.”
“Great.” Erin tried to hide the yawn, but it was no use.
“We’ll check in on you in the morning,” Gwen said as she nearly dragged Jack out the door. “Make sure you lock up tight.”
Erin snorted at the comment and pushed the door shut behind them, locking both deadbolts. Turning to the main room, she opened the curtains and could see the Millennium Centre and the Bay in the close distance. She cocked her head to the right, wrapping her arms around her, watching the sunrise over the city, and over her new perspective on this crazy life.
Dropping her arms to her side as she fought to stay awake, Erin ambled over to her duffel and pulled out a fresh change of pyjamas, along with a pair of jeans and a top. Heck, they even remembered to grab her trainers, but not her book. Pursing her lips, Erin looked over at the bookshelves. Running a finger along the titles as she read them off in her head, she nearly crowed as she found The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Holding the book in front of her like a shield, she headed off in search of a bedroom, wondering if it had a bed in it as well.
*** *** ***
It had been days and Torchwood had barely talked to her, but Gwen had come by with some more of her stuff that they had salvaged, and an address with a lead on a job. Now Erin found herself in front of the building wondering if it was another prank. Taking a deep breath, she swallowed her pride and pushed open the door.
“I’ll be there in a minute mate, just give me a second- Oh, hello,” A dark haired man said as he juggled a stack of folders and clipboards.
Erin snatched one of the clipboard as it sailed off his pile, before it could crash to the floor. She quickly grabbed half the stack from him. “Where do you need this?”
“In the other room on the desk,” the man said. “Uh, welcome to Harwood’s.”
“Not a problem,” Erin said as she neatly piled the papers on a corner of the desk. She held out a hand to the man. “I’m Erin Giles.”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” he muttered as he deposited his pile on the desk as well. “Rhys Williams. You must be the one they said would come in.”
“Temp to perm secretarial job I was told.”
“Yeah, my normal secretary, Ruth - her name’s Ruth, she’s out for a couple of weeks. Says she found the bloke of her dreams and needs some time to meet his family.” She watched as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck and looked around at the pile of papers. “I’m the manager here, but I have to handle the routes and keep things running.”
“Not a problem.” Erin opened the top file folder and looked over the roster and chart. “Seems like something I could manage.”
“You could?”
“If not, I got a mate who’s still in Uni, but could pop down here for the day and show me what to do.”
“That would be perfect. When can you start?”
“I could start today.”
“Don’t tell my fiancee, but I think I love you.”
Erin tried not to chuckle at the look of relief on Rhys’ face. The job might work, and it would leave her time to write at night. Bloody hell, any job nowadays was good, and if nothing else, Harwood’s was a decent sized firm in Cardiff, it would be a good recommendation on her CV.
She couldn’t help think how surreal her life was as she flipped on the telly, Primeval playing in the background, and scooped out some leftover spag bol to heat up. She flopped down on the sofa and cracked open Sherlock Holmes.
*** *** *** *** ***
“Anything yet, Tosh?” Jack peered over his tech’s shoulder at the computer screen and watched as Erin began to read while the telly blared in the background.
“Nothing out of the ordinary, and I have monitoring all her email, phone, mobile, everything.”
“Well, we’ll keep an eye on her a bit longer.”
“Do you honestly think she’s alien?” Owen asked as he walked by carrying something that looked like a spleen, dripping pus on the floor.
“Can’t be too sure these days,” Ianto said as he handed out coffee for the late shift. “And you will be cleaning that up when you’re done.”
“I always do.” Owen grabbed his cup and headed down into autopsy.
Ianto rolled his eyes and stepped up behind Tosh. “I’m almost done checking over the rest of her clothing and personal effects. Everything clears so far.” He looked at Jack. “Why are you so sure she’s alien?”
“They didn’t kill her.” With that, Jack folded his hands behind his back and walked to his office.
“Doesn’t he think it’s because she was just human enough?” Tosh muttered and continued watching the CCTV.
Series: Torchwood
Characters: Gwen, Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Owen, Rhys, OC
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Meat (TW 2.4)
Beta: Jooles34
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original storylines, characters and places are my property.
Summary: Erin Giles never expected to come face-to-face with Torchwood, especially not in her bedroom in the middle of the night.
Author’s Notes: A belated birthday gift inspired by erin_giles. A new look at the Torchwood team.
Adventures in Cardiff
It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for him. I had remained indoors all day, for the weather had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and the Jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence. With my body in one easy-chair and my legs upon another, I had surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers until at last, saturated with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the envelope upon the table and wondering lazily who my friend’s noble correspondent could be.
Erin placed The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on her bedside table as her mouth opened in a wide yawn. Glancing at the digital alarm clock glowing back at her, she snuggled down under her covers as she saw that it was half past midnight. Tomorrow was a big day, she had to find a job if she was going to keep her flat in Cardiff.
She smiled; gazing around the room Erin nearly clapped in glee, finally glad to have her own place - no flatmate and no parents to drive her batty. Granted, it had taken some pretty fancy talking to get her parents to realise how safe of a city Cardiff was, barely anything happened there. Switching off the lamp next to her bed, Erin clutched her rugby jersey wearing teddy bear tight.
There was a sound of heavy breathing above her head as Erin woke up from a lovely dream about Scotland. There shouldn’t have been anything breathing above her head, next to her in bed, or by the door. She snaked her arm out from under the duvet, aiming for the lamp when the fixture smashed to the ground, the bulb breaking. Erin curled her legs up under her as she inched towards the headboard, her own breath catching in her throat.
The bed moved as something - something very heavy - stepped across it, rolling Erin around. She tried to not scream and found herself forgetting to breathe. Her head snapped towards the window, hoping for some sign of what was going on and she realised she couldn’t see anything. Her fingers hurt as they clutched the duvet, remembering she had specifically left the curtains open because it was a full moon. Now she couldn’t even see the stars. Her eyes darted towards the digital clock on her nightstand and she screamed as reflected in the red from the numbers was two pairs of slitted eyes.
The door to her bedroom banged open, thumping against the wall, making Erin’s voice catch. Beams of bright white light circled the room and all she saw was shiny scales moving in many directions around the bed. Suddenly the bed jumped, knocking her onto the floor, swimming in her bedclothes. Two of the beams of light fixated on her face and she held up a hand to block the brightness.
“This one’s human,” a female voice said.
“Get her out of here,” a disembodied male voice barked as footsteps clomped past her into the bedroom.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Erin tried to scramble to her feet, but fell back on her bum as her feet tangled in the duvet and slipped on the hardwood floor.
A set of hands grabbed her by the arms and helped pull her up, as someone or something else pulled the bedding from between her legs. She stumbled forward, knocking down the stranger that had been helping. From the feel of things, Erin knew it was a guy she had landed on.
“Get her out of here,” the same male voice bellowed. A crack was heard in the direction the voice had come from. “I need some help here!”
“I’ve got her,” another woman stated as she took Erin by the shoulders and nearly shoved her out into the hallway. The woman grabbed Erin’s elbow and dragged her out through the door of her flat.
Erin was surprised that the lights seemed to be out in the entire building. She tried to keep pace with the person handling her, but it was hard to watch the torch beam bobbing along the stairs. They finally pushed through the door onto the street, and Erin sucked in big cool breaths of dusty Cardiff air. Doubling over, clutching her knees, Erin tried to get her wits about her. Her ginger hair fell forward, shrouding her face, allowing her to get a good glimpse of the mysterious woman’s boots and jeans.
Slowly standing up, Erin took a step back as she looked at the brunette haired stranger holding not just a torch, but a gun as well. Erin stumbled backwards, cracking her head against the brick wall of the building. Clutching her skull, she watched warily as the woman approached her, compassion in her eyes despite the weapon.
There was a crashing sound above them, prompting the stranger to look up, her eyes growing too wide for her face. Quickly tucking her gun in a pocket, the woman grabbed Erin by the neck and pushed her around the corner as debris began to fall from the sky. Erin fell to her knees, the woman beside her. With a sickening thud, a charred carcass fell in front of them, pieces flying up as it hit the pavement.
“Can you walk?”
“I think so,” Erin choked out, trying to not to vomit the crisps she ate while watching the late show. It wasn’t the sight of the charred flesh, but the smell, and the thought that more could hit them.
“Then come on,” the woman said, quickly standing up.
Erin pressed her palms against the building and stood up on shaky legs. If she survived whatever hell had landed on top of her, she was going to be bruised to hell in the morning. The woman put a guiding hand on the small of Erin’s back and pushed her down the street towards a black SUV that had blue lights running along the side of the window.
The woman opened the front passenger side door and practically shoved Erin into the seat. “Stay right here.” She pulled her gun out again and started heading back to the building.
“Where are you going? You can’t leave me here!”
The stranger stopped and looked at Erin. She then looked up towards the roof of the building. Erin followed her gaze and an invisible lump caught in her suddenly dry throat as she saw that something had completely covered the top floors of her building. Whatever was in her flat hadn’t closed the curtains, it had just closed off the building.
“What the bloody hell is that?”
“That would be the transport ship.”
“A what?”
“Transport ship. It’s supposed to transport the residents of the building.”
“And transport them where?”
“London. They’re set to attack any minute now. They’re the advance fleet, waiting around until the right moment.” The woman glanced down at her watch. “Which should have been in ten minutes until we got in the way.”
“And who are you?”
“My name’s Gwen.”
“Great. Mine’s Erin- no! Bloody hell, who are you guys?”
“Torchwood.”
“Oh fuck no,” Erin said as she hopped down out of the vehicle and started pacing up and down the length of it. She combed her fingers through her frizzing hair. “This is all a joke. Who put you up to this? I bet it was my mates from Uni… Torchwood is just something people tell each other while camping in the countryside. It’s a bloody urban legend.”
“I’m sorry sweetheart, we’re not.”
Erin bent over at the waist, still in her pyjamas, fingers entwined in her hair, pressing against her skull. This couldn’t be happening. Someone had to be playing a practical joke on her. But, if it was a prank, what about the ship? What about the vehicle? What about the bruises? She absently poked at her knee as the blood welled up in the grooves from the scratches when she fell.
She continued to stare at the ground as Gwen’s legs came into view. “I just heard from my team. We need to get you far away from here,” Gwen said, softly placing a hand on Erin’s back.
Erin slowly straightened herself nodded minutely at Gwen. Without saying a word she climbed back into the passenger seat and closed the door in Gwen’s face. Erin stared forward as Gwen clambered into the driver’s seat and started the SUV. Neither one said a word until they pulled up in front of the little cafe two blocks from her flat.
“Why don’t we get some tea? Or a coffee? Coffee would be good.”
“In my pyjamas?”
“It’s 3:00 a.m. on a Thursday night, no one will notice,” Gwen said, turning to Erin and give her a tiny, hopeful smile of reassurance. “Trust me.”
Erin merely shrugged her shoulders as she opened the door to the vehicle and dropped down to the pavement, her stockinged feet not making a sound. In a daze she slumped through the door that Gwen held open and shuffled to a back booth in the cafe. The fluorescent lights buzzed in her eyes as she huddled in the corner. What was happening to her life?
Gwen sat down with two mugs of tea and pushed one in front of Erin. She wrapped her fingers around the mug, delighting in the heat that radiated from it, but never took a drink. Gwen kept sipping at her tea, casting glances out the windows at the street. Erin looked down and saw a discarded newspaper. Picking it up, she tried to make herself concentrate on the recent rugby matches, but even the forecast for the Five Nations rugby league couldn’t pique her interest.
She saw it out of the corner of her eye. The flickering flames danced in the windows of the black SUV, and then the explosion rocked the diner, rattling their cups, spilling tea over the side of Erin’s mug and soaking the newspaper. The lone waitress and two gentlemen - the only other customers in the place - ran to the windows looking for what had caused it. Deep down Erin knew - Torchwood.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“Find you a new place to live.”
Erin chuckled. She couldn’t help it. Bloody Torchwood blows up her block of flats and they’ll find her a new place to live? “What about my clothes? My photos?” Pushing the mug across the table, not even caring how much tea spilled onto her hand, Erin stood up and faced Gwen.
“Why don’t you sit down, sweetheart?”
“Don’t sweetheart me you bitch.” Erin had enough. She ignored the looks from the waitress and other customers as she started yelling at Gwen. “Everything I had was in that flat. My entire life is gone! What are you going to fucking do about it?”
“I don’t think everything is gone,” a familiar sounding male voice said from right behind Erin. Her favourite red duffel was tossed onto the table, stuffed to its gills.
Erin whipped her head around only to come face to face with a gorgeous man with dark hair and blue eyes that could see into your soul. He had on an old grey military coat, but his mouth was turned up in a look of contention.
“We’ll have to pick up the rest of your bags later, good thing you had so many in your wardrobe. Tosh insisted on letting you keep some of it. We’ll have to check the rest out to make sure none of their stuff got mixed in with yours.” The man picked up her tea cup, gave it a sniff, grimaced, and put the cup back down on the table.
“What did you do?”
“Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere else.”
“No. I want to know now.”
“Gwen…” The man nodded his head as he dropped a fiver on the table.
Gwen hurriedly stood up, yanking the duffel off the table and put a hand on Erin’s shoulder. She jerked away from the woman, glowering at the man. His was the voice that kept barking orders in the darkness of her flat. She kept telling herself the only reason she followed them is that they would have answers, and they still had her stuff.
Gwen slid into the back seat, leaving Erin the front, with the man she wanted to punch. She had spent years in school playing and coaching rugby, but doubted she could ever actually punch someone, but this man’s entire demeanour was pressing her buttons the wrong way.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked again.
“What do you think we should do with you?”
“Well, you haven’t killed me yet.”
“We don’t go around killing people,” Gwen piped up from the back seat.
“Thirty-four people lived in my apartment building. I’m the only one standing here.”
“Thirty-four people?” The man looked at her, eyes dark.
“Yeah. The Jones had two flats on the first floor, one was theirs and one was their son’s who was the building manager. Then the MacCrimmon’s on two, old Mrs. McGillicuddy there as well-”
“That’s a problem,” the man said as he touched his earpiece. “Ianto, we have a problem. There should be thirty-three bodies, but Owen and I only accounted for thirty-one.”
“Bodies! And you don’t kill people?”
“They aren’t people,” the man snapped.
“Have you ever had Mrs. McGillicuddy’s banana bread? Watched little Rhona Jones tease her brother? They were people.”
“No they weren’t,” the man said as he quickly pulled the vehicle over and threw it into park. Erin tried to wrap her mind around the fact that she couldn’t remember him actually start driving. He turned his body in the seat, moving slightly into her space. “They were aliens.”
“Aliens?”
“Yes, and you would have been incinerated with them as well if it wasn’t for Gwen making sure Tosh scanned you. You were the only human in a nest of Dekavan assassins. Little Rhona? That’s what she wanted to show you. Try a four foot thing with razor sharp teeth and a bad dress sense. A thing that could have killed you in your sleep without disturbing a dust particle. What do you think tried to kill you tonight?” The man sat back in his seat. “But why did they wait so long?”
“Why would Rhona try to kill me? I stepped in when the dicks from the other street were harassing her. And Mrs. McGillicuddy loved it when I told her stories about living in Scotland. She said they reminded her of home. And then Mr.-”
“How long have you lived there?” the man asked.
“Three weeks.”
“They should have killed you by now.”
“Jack!”
“Gwen, this goes against their training.”
“But, Jack, you don’t tell someone-”
“Then why didn’t they kill me?”
Silence settled over the car as Jack and Gwen exchanged looks. “I really don’t know,” Jack muttered.
“All right then,” Erin said, sinking back into her own seat. “And I ask again, what are you going to do with me?”
“I’ll let you know,” Jack said as he threw the car back into drive.
Erin wasn’t sure where they were taking her, but tried to remember every turn they made. It wasn’t long until they were in a nicer part of town, and Jack was pulling the SUV around the back of a complex, along the river. He pulled into a spot and parked the car, hopping out as soon as the ignition had switched off.
“Come on,” Jack said as he opened the back door and grabbed the duffel.
Pulling a rather large keyring from the pocket of his coat, Erin mutely followed as Gwen brought up the rear. The shuffled up several floors until Jack led them to one specific flat. Searching through the keys he opened the door and stepped inside, motioning Erin forward as well. Flipping on the overhead light, Erin gasped in amazement.
Spread out in front of her was a two bedroom flat, fully furnished with sofa, a stocked kitchen, and shelves along one wall crammed with books. She slowly stepped in, running her hand along the table, the lamp, the easy chair. Spinning the chair on its axis, her heart dropped.
“What does this mean?” Erin asked.
“You have a place to stay, for now.” Jack dropped the duffel on the sofa and pulled a spare key from one of the drawers in the kitchen island. “This is yours while we get things sorted.”
“Sure.”
“It’s not your fault your building had to be destroyed.” Gwen tried to look cheerful about it. All Erin wanted to do was punch her in the face - or punch something, a wall would do nicely. As it turned out, the kitchen counter worked well, and hurt like fuck.
“Bollocks!” As Erin shook out her hand, noticing neither Torchwood person moved when she became violent, she remembered she was supposed to be interviewing for a job early in the morning.
“You okay?”
“No,” Erin snapped at Gwen. “I have no home, I have no job - I won’t make the interview this morning, I probably have nothing left, and how do I explain this to my parents? They’ll probably want me on the next train back to Glasgow before I get off the phone with them.”
“Don’t say anything to your parents - don’t say anything to anyone,” Jack said. “We’ll figure out the rest.”
“Great.” Erin tried to hide the yawn, but it was no use.
“We’ll check in on you in the morning,” Gwen said as she nearly dragged Jack out the door. “Make sure you lock up tight.”
Erin snorted at the comment and pushed the door shut behind them, locking both deadbolts. Turning to the main room, she opened the curtains and could see the Millennium Centre and the Bay in the close distance. She cocked her head to the right, wrapping her arms around her, watching the sunrise over the city, and over her new perspective on this crazy life.
Dropping her arms to her side as she fought to stay awake, Erin ambled over to her duffel and pulled out a fresh change of pyjamas, along with a pair of jeans and a top. Heck, they even remembered to grab her trainers, but not her book. Pursing her lips, Erin looked over at the bookshelves. Running a finger along the titles as she read them off in her head, she nearly crowed as she found The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Holding the book in front of her like a shield, she headed off in search of a bedroom, wondering if it had a bed in it as well.
*** *** ***
It had been days and Torchwood had barely talked to her, but Gwen had come by with some more of her stuff that they had salvaged, and an address with a lead on a job. Now Erin found herself in front of the building wondering if it was another prank. Taking a deep breath, she swallowed her pride and pushed open the door.
“I’ll be there in a minute mate, just give me a second- Oh, hello,” A dark haired man said as he juggled a stack of folders and clipboards.
Erin snatched one of the clipboard as it sailed off his pile, before it could crash to the floor. She quickly grabbed half the stack from him. “Where do you need this?”
“In the other room on the desk,” the man said. “Uh, welcome to Harwood’s.”
“Not a problem,” Erin said as she neatly piled the papers on a corner of the desk. She held out a hand to the man. “I’m Erin Giles.”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” he muttered as he deposited his pile on the desk as well. “Rhys Williams. You must be the one they said would come in.”
“Temp to perm secretarial job I was told.”
“Yeah, my normal secretary, Ruth - her name’s Ruth, she’s out for a couple of weeks. Says she found the bloke of her dreams and needs some time to meet his family.” She watched as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck and looked around at the pile of papers. “I’m the manager here, but I have to handle the routes and keep things running.”
“Not a problem.” Erin opened the top file folder and looked over the roster and chart. “Seems like something I could manage.”
“You could?”
“If not, I got a mate who’s still in Uni, but could pop down here for the day and show me what to do.”
“That would be perfect. When can you start?”
“I could start today.”
“Don’t tell my fiancee, but I think I love you.”
Erin tried not to chuckle at the look of relief on Rhys’ face. The job might work, and it would leave her time to write at night. Bloody hell, any job nowadays was good, and if nothing else, Harwood’s was a decent sized firm in Cardiff, it would be a good recommendation on her CV.
She couldn’t help think how surreal her life was as she flipped on the telly, Primeval playing in the background, and scooped out some leftover spag bol to heat up. She flopped down on the sofa and cracked open Sherlock Holmes.
*** *** *** *** ***
“Anything yet, Tosh?” Jack peered over his tech’s shoulder at the computer screen and watched as Erin began to read while the telly blared in the background.
“Nothing out of the ordinary, and I have monitoring all her email, phone, mobile, everything.”
“Well, we’ll keep an eye on her a bit longer.”
“Do you honestly think she’s alien?” Owen asked as he walked by carrying something that looked like a spleen, dripping pus on the floor.
“Can’t be too sure these days,” Ianto said as he handed out coffee for the late shift. “And you will be cleaning that up when you’re done.”
“I always do.” Owen grabbed his cup and headed down into autopsy.
Ianto rolled his eyes and stepped up behind Tosh. “I’m almost done checking over the rest of her clothing and personal effects. Everything clears so far.” He looked at Jack. “Why are you so sure she’s alien?”
“They didn’t kill her.” With that, Jack folded his hands behind his back and walked to his office.
“Doesn’t he think it’s because she was just human enough?” Tosh muttered and continued watching the CCTV.