Should have Gone to Paris
Title: Should have Gone to Paris
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Series: Just a Human With Two Hearts
Characters/Pairings: Owen and Lacey, Donna and Ten mentioned
Summary: The Doctor takes Lacey on vacation and Owen tags along. of course, it's the Doctor, and nothing ever goes right.
Author's Notes: Mentions of past rape but no explicit sexual content, in fact, it's almost fluffy. Written for hc_bingo Prompt: Dungeons
Owen paced the dank cell, wondering how he managed to end up here. Well, scratch that, he knew exactly how he ended up here. He let his best friend talk him into coming with her when her git of a brother finally offered her a trip. And somehow, the Doctor managed to get all of four of them involved in local politics. Which is how he ended up being captured by the government and stuck in the dungeon that time forgot. He was expecting to see medieval torture devices.
He could hear the Doctor’s companion yelling from what were probably five cells down. Donna Noble was nothing if not vocal. It reminded him a bit of Lacey. Which had him worried; he couldn’t hear Lacey. Which meant that either she had gotten away, was on a different floor, or was too injured to scream. He really hoped she hadn’t managed to get herself caught. As sure as Donna seemed from her shouting that the Doctor was coming, he felt better thinking that Lacey would be coming. The Doctor may be some great hero saving everyone at the last minute, but he knew Lacey always had his back. And as long as he imagined her as being free, the less time he spent worrying about what they might be doing to her.
He’d accessed his injuries once he came to in the cell. A minor concussion was his most serious wound, the others minor cuts and bruises. Still, he wanted nothing more to be on the Tardis and cleaning each and every one. Who knew what alien disease was lurking in this dirty room. He paced some more, his mind drifting once again to Lacey and worrying about her. This trip was supposed to be a vacation for her. The job had been getting to her, especially since she was assaulted in that alleyway. He still hated himself for not being there. He could have easily gone with her. And now she was in another situation that could lead to her getting attacked, or even raped again. He’d been lucky, he thought, and from the sounds of it, so had Donna, so maybe these people weren’t the kind who attacked people that way. It did nothing for his nerves.
Donna had stopped shouting, but Owen was pretty sure she had just gone to sleep or lost her voice. No one had been in the hall since dinner was slid in, alien food that looked half rotten and Owen’s stomach was too twisted in knots to worry about food. He was still trying to figure out how he could escape, realizing that the Doctor was either captured or busy bringing down a government and it was up to him to get out, get Donna out, and find Lacey. So he paced, and plotted, and threw out a half dozen ideas. This is why he wasn’t the leader. This wasn’t earth, or Cardiff; he didn’t know the layout of the dungeon or even what planet they were on. He’d been too distracted by the fact that they were on an alien planet to pay attention to that part.
He paused mid pace, hearing what sounded like footsteps coming down the hall. They stopped for a moment, and he thought he had imagined them. He started to pace again, and the footsteps in the hall started again, almost like they were using the sound of his pacing as cover, but they always stopped just a few seconds after he did. Someone was out there, and trying to be sneaky about it. Owen tried to look through the small window in the door, but all he could clearly see was the hall directly in front of the door. The footsteps were moving closer, and Owen knew it was his captors. He looked around desperately in his cell for something that he could use as a weapon. He was pretty sure he could knock out anyone who came into the cell and run, if he could find something to use. Not for the first time, he wished the Doctor had let he and Lacey bring their guns.
The only thing in the cell was a pair of manacles that also looked like they belonged in medieval Europe, but they looked heavy enough to do the trick. He stood pressed against the wall near the door, and waited. The person might not even be coming for him, and this might all be for nothing. At least there was no one in the cell to see his embarrassment if they just passed him by. The footsteps stopped outside his door, he could just see the shadow of the person on the other side. They must be short, he thought, the shadow was basically a bit of his head. He heard the sound of something that could have been an electric key, and he raised the manacles. The door opened.
“Owen?” It was only with quick reflexes that he managed to not slam the manacles into Lacey’s head. She turned to see him there, and jumped back a foot. “Christ Owen! Don’t scare me like that.”
“Scare you?” He stared at her like she’d lost her damned mind. “You’re the one sneaking around in these dank old dungeons, I thought you were coming to kill me!”
“If I were coming to kill you I wouldn’t have needed to sneak around, now would I?”
He stared at her for a few more minutes, before pulling her close and holding her. He pulled back. “I was worried they’d caught you,” he admitted, while not admitting what his imagination had been torturing him with. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I got away with some help from the kid the Doctor befriended. Of course, getting away meant crawling through sewers…”
“I thought you smelt a bit rank.”
“Thank you so much, Owen,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You know, I could just leave you down here.”
“How’d you know I was down here?”
“Tosh and Ianto aren’t the only ones with mad hacking skills. I hacked into the computer mainframe, found the dungeons and where you and Donna were being held. Speaking of, we’d better go get her, or the Doctor will never hear the end of it.” She grabbed his hand, and he didn’t feel the need to comment how right it felt as she dragged him off to get Donna and make a mad dash back to the Tardis.
Hours later, safe in the Tardis, Owen lay awake in the room the Doctor had provided him, staring at the ceiling. Every time he tried to sleep, his mind conjured up another image of how that adventure could have gone. Currently, his mind loved to conjure up the image of Lacey lying broken in another cell, dead. Which was silly since she would have more than likely regenerated, but his imagination thought that too kind. He sat up with a sigh, he was getting no sleep this night, and there was no sense in dwelling on it alone in a room when he had a ship that was bigger on the inside to explore. Owen threw his dressing gown over his pj’s and wandered out into the hall.
He was heading back to his room after spending some time in the Library, when he saw a familiar red head walking out of a different room. “Lacey?”
She jumped a bit, turning at his voice, “Oh, hi. Couldn’t sleep either?” He shrugged. “I was just talking with Theta. He’s apparently in the dog house with Donna.” She smirked. “She was royally pissed that it took him that long to mount a rescue, and it ended up being me instead of him.”
“Really?” He said, “I personally was much happier seeing your face than your brother’s.”
Lacey gave him a little confused look as she started walking back to her room, Owen tagging along. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know your brother like I know you.” He said, shrugging again. “I knew if you were free, you’d get us out.”
“You said you were worried they’d caught me, is it because then you’d have had to rely on the Doctor?” she said, with a little unsure smirk on her face as they reached her room.
A thousand different things ran through Owen’s head, some indifferent, some dangerously close to the truth. He looked at her, and realized she had been just as worried about him as he had about her. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he could just…read it in her face, the way she looked at him. He moved to kiss her, hesitantly, giving her a chance to stop him.
She didn’t, if anything, she leaned in and their lips met. It wasn’t the first time they’d kissed. With the number of times they’ve shagged, they’d had their fair number of kisses. This one, however, was different from all the others. Soft and sweet and about as innocent as is possible for two people who use sex as an escape. He pulled back after a moment, looking almost surprised at his action.
Lacey looked at him, not so much surprised as understanding. She smiled a bit. “Why don’t you come inside? Neither of us seem all that tired, and it gets boring laying there counting the stars or what have you on the ceiling.”
He chuckled and nodded, letting her pull him into the room, pausing to stare. The room was a fairy princess’s dream, all pinks and pale purples, with child’s drawings of castles and horses and white knights and good and evil wizards. In many ways it was child’s room, but then, in many ways, its occupant was still that child. A fairy princess trapped in the dungeon of hate, waiting for the good wizard to save her, or at least her knight. He looked at her. “You weren’t kidding when you said it was a bit girly.”
“Oi, I liked it when I designed it as a child, and I still like it now,” she pointed out. “No one’s forcing you to be in here.”
He shrugged again, smiling at her as she moved to the bed and sat down. “You tell anyone back at the hub that I even touched that girly bed, and I will deny everything,” he said, eying the purple unicorn sheets and sheer pink canopy.
“Oh, stop complaining and get over here, you big baby,” she said, shaking her head as he sat down on the bed next to her.
They sat against the headboard, her head on his shoulder and his arm loosely around her. It was a big bed for a childlike room. “Was the bed always like this?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I loved all the old stories I’d hear about the princess and her fairy bed. I always enjoyed the larger beds.”
“Ah,” he looked around; the drawings could belong in any young girl’s room, with the exception of the world depicted. Orange skies and red grass, Silver trees with two suns setting as the knight rides off with his princess. “These your drawings too?”
She blushed, and nodded. “Yeah, I used to draw all the time. I stopped sometime after mum died,” After I learned that fairy tales don’t come true, the unspoken statement they both knew. “How’s your head?”
He chuckled. “I’ve had worse, nothing but a light bump, really.” They sat in silence for a while, before he asked, “Is it always like this, traveling with your brother?”
Lacey shrugged. “I guess. It’s what everyone seems to say, and the one time I did travel with him, yeah, it was mostly running for your life and blaming him for missing the beach again.”
“Or Barcelona. I’m beginning to think there’s no such planet. You lot talk about it, but none of us have ever seen it.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how they do it. Give me the Rift and Weevils any day, this is definitely not my idea of vacation.”
“Yeah, not mine either.” She agreed. “You were right, we should have just had him drop us off in Paris.”
“Still could.” Owen grinned. “Besides, it will be nice to see the dungeon the way we were meant to.”
“As tourists,” Lacey agreed, settling down under the covers, still resting against him. “Night,” she said, sleepily.
He chuckled, then yawned, “Yeah, get some sleep. Our real vacation begins tomorrow.” He closed his eyes, and minutes later the two were both asleep.
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Series: Just a Human With Two Hearts
Characters/Pairings: Owen and Lacey, Donna and Ten mentioned
Summary: The Doctor takes Lacey on vacation and Owen tags along. of course, it's the Doctor, and nothing ever goes right.
Author's Notes: Mentions of past rape but no explicit sexual content, in fact, it's almost fluffy. Written for hc_bingo Prompt: Dungeons
Owen paced the dank cell, wondering how he managed to end up here. Well, scratch that, he knew exactly how he ended up here. He let his best friend talk him into coming with her when her git of a brother finally offered her a trip. And somehow, the Doctor managed to get all of four of them involved in local politics. Which is how he ended up being captured by the government and stuck in the dungeon that time forgot. He was expecting to see medieval torture devices.
He could hear the Doctor’s companion yelling from what were probably five cells down. Donna Noble was nothing if not vocal. It reminded him a bit of Lacey. Which had him worried; he couldn’t hear Lacey. Which meant that either she had gotten away, was on a different floor, or was too injured to scream. He really hoped she hadn’t managed to get herself caught. As sure as Donna seemed from her shouting that the Doctor was coming, he felt better thinking that Lacey would be coming. The Doctor may be some great hero saving everyone at the last minute, but he knew Lacey always had his back. And as long as he imagined her as being free, the less time he spent worrying about what they might be doing to her.
He’d accessed his injuries once he came to in the cell. A minor concussion was his most serious wound, the others minor cuts and bruises. Still, he wanted nothing more to be on the Tardis and cleaning each and every one. Who knew what alien disease was lurking in this dirty room. He paced some more, his mind drifting once again to Lacey and worrying about her. This trip was supposed to be a vacation for her. The job had been getting to her, especially since she was assaulted in that alleyway. He still hated himself for not being there. He could have easily gone with her. And now she was in another situation that could lead to her getting attacked, or even raped again. He’d been lucky, he thought, and from the sounds of it, so had Donna, so maybe these people weren’t the kind who attacked people that way. It did nothing for his nerves.
Donna had stopped shouting, but Owen was pretty sure she had just gone to sleep or lost her voice. No one had been in the hall since dinner was slid in, alien food that looked half rotten and Owen’s stomach was too twisted in knots to worry about food. He was still trying to figure out how he could escape, realizing that the Doctor was either captured or busy bringing down a government and it was up to him to get out, get Donna out, and find Lacey. So he paced, and plotted, and threw out a half dozen ideas. This is why he wasn’t the leader. This wasn’t earth, or Cardiff; he didn’t know the layout of the dungeon or even what planet they were on. He’d been too distracted by the fact that they were on an alien planet to pay attention to that part.
He paused mid pace, hearing what sounded like footsteps coming down the hall. They stopped for a moment, and he thought he had imagined them. He started to pace again, and the footsteps in the hall started again, almost like they were using the sound of his pacing as cover, but they always stopped just a few seconds after he did. Someone was out there, and trying to be sneaky about it. Owen tried to look through the small window in the door, but all he could clearly see was the hall directly in front of the door. The footsteps were moving closer, and Owen knew it was his captors. He looked around desperately in his cell for something that he could use as a weapon. He was pretty sure he could knock out anyone who came into the cell and run, if he could find something to use. Not for the first time, he wished the Doctor had let he and Lacey bring their guns.
The only thing in the cell was a pair of manacles that also looked like they belonged in medieval Europe, but they looked heavy enough to do the trick. He stood pressed against the wall near the door, and waited. The person might not even be coming for him, and this might all be for nothing. At least there was no one in the cell to see his embarrassment if they just passed him by. The footsteps stopped outside his door, he could just see the shadow of the person on the other side. They must be short, he thought, the shadow was basically a bit of his head. He heard the sound of something that could have been an electric key, and he raised the manacles. The door opened.
“Owen?” It was only with quick reflexes that he managed to not slam the manacles into Lacey’s head. She turned to see him there, and jumped back a foot. “Christ Owen! Don’t scare me like that.”
“Scare you?” He stared at her like she’d lost her damned mind. “You’re the one sneaking around in these dank old dungeons, I thought you were coming to kill me!”
“If I were coming to kill you I wouldn’t have needed to sneak around, now would I?”
He stared at her for a few more minutes, before pulling her close and holding her. He pulled back. “I was worried they’d caught you,” he admitted, while not admitting what his imagination had been torturing him with. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I got away with some help from the kid the Doctor befriended. Of course, getting away meant crawling through sewers…”
“I thought you smelt a bit rank.”
“Thank you so much, Owen,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You know, I could just leave you down here.”
“How’d you know I was down here?”
“Tosh and Ianto aren’t the only ones with mad hacking skills. I hacked into the computer mainframe, found the dungeons and where you and Donna were being held. Speaking of, we’d better go get her, or the Doctor will never hear the end of it.” She grabbed his hand, and he didn’t feel the need to comment how right it felt as she dragged him off to get Donna and make a mad dash back to the Tardis.
Hours later, safe in the Tardis, Owen lay awake in the room the Doctor had provided him, staring at the ceiling. Every time he tried to sleep, his mind conjured up another image of how that adventure could have gone. Currently, his mind loved to conjure up the image of Lacey lying broken in another cell, dead. Which was silly since she would have more than likely regenerated, but his imagination thought that too kind. He sat up with a sigh, he was getting no sleep this night, and there was no sense in dwelling on it alone in a room when he had a ship that was bigger on the inside to explore. Owen threw his dressing gown over his pj’s and wandered out into the hall.
He was heading back to his room after spending some time in the Library, when he saw a familiar red head walking out of a different room. “Lacey?”
She jumped a bit, turning at his voice, “Oh, hi. Couldn’t sleep either?” He shrugged. “I was just talking with Theta. He’s apparently in the dog house with Donna.” She smirked. “She was royally pissed that it took him that long to mount a rescue, and it ended up being me instead of him.”
“Really?” He said, “I personally was much happier seeing your face than your brother’s.”
Lacey gave him a little confused look as she started walking back to her room, Owen tagging along. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know your brother like I know you.” He said, shrugging again. “I knew if you were free, you’d get us out.”
“You said you were worried they’d caught me, is it because then you’d have had to rely on the Doctor?” she said, with a little unsure smirk on her face as they reached her room.
A thousand different things ran through Owen’s head, some indifferent, some dangerously close to the truth. He looked at her, and realized she had been just as worried about him as he had about her. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he could just…read it in her face, the way she looked at him. He moved to kiss her, hesitantly, giving her a chance to stop him.
She didn’t, if anything, she leaned in and their lips met. It wasn’t the first time they’d kissed. With the number of times they’ve shagged, they’d had their fair number of kisses. This one, however, was different from all the others. Soft and sweet and about as innocent as is possible for two people who use sex as an escape. He pulled back after a moment, looking almost surprised at his action.
Lacey looked at him, not so much surprised as understanding. She smiled a bit. “Why don’t you come inside? Neither of us seem all that tired, and it gets boring laying there counting the stars or what have you on the ceiling.”
He chuckled and nodded, letting her pull him into the room, pausing to stare. The room was a fairy princess’s dream, all pinks and pale purples, with child’s drawings of castles and horses and white knights and good and evil wizards. In many ways it was child’s room, but then, in many ways, its occupant was still that child. A fairy princess trapped in the dungeon of hate, waiting for the good wizard to save her, or at least her knight. He looked at her. “You weren’t kidding when you said it was a bit girly.”
“Oi, I liked it when I designed it as a child, and I still like it now,” she pointed out. “No one’s forcing you to be in here.”
He shrugged again, smiling at her as she moved to the bed and sat down. “You tell anyone back at the hub that I even touched that girly bed, and I will deny everything,” he said, eying the purple unicorn sheets and sheer pink canopy.
“Oh, stop complaining and get over here, you big baby,” she said, shaking her head as he sat down on the bed next to her.
They sat against the headboard, her head on his shoulder and his arm loosely around her. It was a big bed for a childlike room. “Was the bed always like this?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I loved all the old stories I’d hear about the princess and her fairy bed. I always enjoyed the larger beds.”
“Ah,” he looked around; the drawings could belong in any young girl’s room, with the exception of the world depicted. Orange skies and red grass, Silver trees with two suns setting as the knight rides off with his princess. “These your drawings too?”
She blushed, and nodded. “Yeah, I used to draw all the time. I stopped sometime after mum died,” After I learned that fairy tales don’t come true, the unspoken statement they both knew. “How’s your head?”
He chuckled. “I’ve had worse, nothing but a light bump, really.” They sat in silence for a while, before he asked, “Is it always like this, traveling with your brother?”
Lacey shrugged. “I guess. It’s what everyone seems to say, and the one time I did travel with him, yeah, it was mostly running for your life and blaming him for missing the beach again.”
“Or Barcelona. I’m beginning to think there’s no such planet. You lot talk about it, but none of us have ever seen it.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how they do it. Give me the Rift and Weevils any day, this is definitely not my idea of vacation.”
“Yeah, not mine either.” She agreed. “You were right, we should have just had him drop us off in Paris.”
“Still could.” Owen grinned. “Besides, it will be nice to see the dungeon the way we were meant to.”
“As tourists,” Lacey agreed, settling down under the covers, still resting against him. “Night,” she said, sleepily.
He chuckled, then yawned, “Yeah, get some sleep. Our real vacation begins tomorrow.” He closed his eyes, and minutes later the two were both asleep.