Torchwood Fic: A Depressingly Average Morning (for Torchwood)

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Title: A Depressingly Average Morning (for Torchwood)
Author: out_there
Fandom: Torchwood
Disclaimer: Oh, seriously, does anyone think I actually own rights to a spin-off from a show that's older than I am? I didn't think so.
Rating: G.
Wordcount: 1000.
Summary: Slippery-dips, psychic fields, and a Jack-with-a-box: a depressingly average morning for Torchwood.
Notes: Written for the picfor1000 challenge for this prompt. Adjusted, encouraged and petted in all the right places by 0bake (in other words, simply not possible without her). All the errors -- if there are any left -- belong to me.



"A girl fell off her swing and ran away crying," Owen says, pulling his jacket tighter and squinting into the early morning light. "Ianto was right. This required our immediate assistance."

Gwen shoots him a disapproving look. "Someone got out of the wrong side of bed."

"Speak for yourself, love. Some of us haven't been to bed yet. Remember what it's like to go out and have fun, or has it been too long since you and Rhys have?"

Gwen scowls and Owen grins back. If he has to be here and be miserable, the rest of them can suffer too.

"After the first girl ran off, the remaining twenty-six children on the playground suddenly started crying and ran away," Ianto supplies, glancing at his clipboard. "And Toshiko's computer noticed an irregularity in electromagnetic fields, most pronounced in this area."

"So I got dragged out here before seven on a Saturday morning to poke around a playground and take readings? God, I love this job."

"Good to hear," Jack says, with the type of smile that could only be Jack Bloody Harkness at an hour that God clearly forgot. Or should never have made in the first place. "Now start scanning the area and find what's causing today's strangeness."

"I thought Tosh knew the source?"

Toshiko, wearing a bright green scarf that makes Owen's eyes water, is perching on the back on the SUV, laptop open. "It's within a five-metre-radius, most likely centred somewhere within this playground. I'm trying to recalibrate the scans for a smaller search area, but so far--"

"So far your lauded IT skills have left us walking around a kiddie playset like paedophiles wandering outside a school," Owen finishes.

"Oh, I don't know, Owen," Gwen says with a gap-toothed smile. "With your mental maturity, you fit right in here."

Then with a swirl of Jack's coat -- normally, Owen can handle the melodramatics, but an open coat on a windy, icy morning is plain stupid -- everyone's assigned a corner. Ianto gets the jungle-gym and carefully, in black suit, pressed shirt and woollen overcoat, climbs the rope-ladder and peers inside plastic primary-coloured tubes designed for five-year-olds. It's amusing, and if Owen didn't have his fingers warming in his pockets, he'd take a few incriminating pictures with his mobile phone.

Then blow them up and stick them around the Hub. Just to see how long it takes Ianto to pull them all down.

Gwen gets the sandpit and a few rocking... things -- might be livestock, might be cars; the bubbled outlines aren't exactly accurate -- and walks in straight lines, stepping out a grid.

Jack spends more time standing near the picnic tables, fiddling with his wrist, than moving about and taking readings. Owen's muttering to himself about the unfairness of bosses in coats taking the only wind-protected area when Jack looks up and frowns.

"Owen. Readings. Slide," Jack yells out, punctuating each word by jabbing the air with a finger, and pointing towards it. "Now."

Walking over, Owen pitches his voice loud enough to carry. "Yeah, this is why I joined Torchwood. The mystery, the adventure, the slippery-dips."

He tries at ground level and gets nothing. Five rungs up the ladder -- climbing a slide at 7.15am in the morning makes dealing with patients look appealing -- there's a brief blip, but any higher and it disappears. At the top, he gives the slide a cursory glance, then starts climbing back down the ladder.

"Oi, Tosh!" he yells out when he's back to the fifth rung. She's still in the back of the SUV, so he's under no obligation to be nice. "Did you factor in height?"

She sticks her head out, staying inside heated comfort as much as possible. "What do you mean, height?"

"The only time I get a reading is six foot off the ground."

"Me, too," adds Ianto sombrely, standing behind a row of plastic palings. In a strip-club, Ianto would still look like a minister at a funeral: Owen's seen him do it.

Gwen stretches up, scanning above her head, her short jacket revealing a stretch of skin Owen remembers tasting. "They're right, Tosh. Nothing on the ground, but it's picking up something higher."

Pushing himself off a picnic table, Jack saunters over. "Do me a favour, Gwen. Sit on the swing."

Gwen's mouth drops open. "Seriously?"

"I'll even push," Jack adds with a grin.

"Seriously?"

Owen clambers down. He has to see this.

Jack heads over to one of the swings -- older, just a plank of wood attached to metal chains -- and holds it until Gwen cautiously sits down.

"The first girl was on this swing when the incident happened." True to his word, Jack pulls her back and pushes when the swing returns. "If this thing only reads above ground-level, maybe the kid swung right into it."

Jack gives another push, and Gwen's face goes from happy and sheepish to suddenly horrified. "Stop! Stop it, Jack."

Grabbing hold of the chains, Jack pits his weight against the swing and brings everything to a halt. "You okay? What happened?"

"It's wrong, it's cold. It's--" Gwen jumps off the thing, hugging her arms to her chest. "It made me feel... wrong. Like I shouldn't be here."

Jack steps back, staring up at his wrist. Presses a few buttons, frowns up at the space, and then gives an annoying snap of his fingers. "Scweadeiam psychic field. You'd think I'd remember those more clearly."

Jack pulls a glass tube out of his coat pocket -- the 'no alien tech leaves the base' rule only applies sometimes -- and waves it around. There's a glowing amber light, then the empty space forms a black cube the size of a jewellery box.

"What is it?"

"Nothing that'll end the world," Jack says, pocketing the object and herding everyone to the SUV.

Owen grimaces. Slippery-dips, psychic fields, and a Jack-with-a-box: a depressingly average morning for Torchwood.

At least they get coffee.