trace_of_scarlet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trace_of_scarlet) wrote2010-11-20 01:13 am
trace_of_scarlet) wrote2010-11-20 01:13 am
Fic: Fight Like A Girl (2/3) (Torchwood, PG)
Fic: Fight Like A Girl – Gwen Cooper
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Words: 1152
Warnings: None. No spoilers.
Previous Chapters: Toshiko
Notes: A love song to the wonderful women of Torchwood, and also to my adored home city. Betaed by my lovely housemate,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dowwdor_shal.
Summary: Character study: if each of the Torchwood girls is isolated and confronted by something from the Rift, how do they cope saving Cardiff whilst flying solo? Different women find different ways to win, but fighting like a girl doesn't mean you don't fight hard.
An ominous rumbling beneath her feet interrupts her thoughts and cruelly wrecks the careful landscaping of the Memorial Gardens. (Someone, in a few weeks’ time, will probably even notice the damage.) Gwen stares at the thing – now apparently attempting to snack on the City Hall’s doors – with wide eyes. What the hell is she supposed to do? It seems to be generating some kind of reaction in the Rift so she can’t just leave it, especially not while it’s causing the sort of stampedes only normally seen in Cardiff while the Millennium Stadium is offering free international rugby tickets or there’s an all-you-can-eat sale on at Thornton’s – that is, never. She doesn’t feel particularly inclined to shoot it, either: if a human were to do that much damage to City Hall they’d probably be due at least a small ornamental statue, and anyway the poor thing is probably just lost and hungry. Besides, right now she isn’t even very clear on what precise part of it she should shoot at. All of which leaves her with basically one option: first contact. And she’s pretty sure ‘take me to your leader’ won’t cut it...
Every police training course she’d ever been on, back when she was a copper, said to put yourself on a level with the suspect or witness, show them you’re equal, make them want to be mates. It’s a load of bollocks, of course, but right now it’s the only idea she’s got. The problem is that even her favourite Faith boots with their three-and-a-half-inch heels won’t put her anywhere near on a level with this guy. What she needs is a platform – and ideally a megaphone as well, but let’s not get too demanding here. Gwen looks at the cars parked outside the City Hall – one of Torchwood’s SUVs amongst them, thanks to a helpfully Tosh-forged parking voucher – and realises that she does at least have one out of the two.
She’s still not sure what she thought she was going to be getting herself into, back when she first joined Torchwood, but standing on the roof of a black Vauxhall Corsa (Z-reg) in order to make first contact with a very ugly alien lifeform before it can eat Cardiff city centre was definitely not even in the top one hundred. But before she can speak, her mobile buzzes self-importantly: it’s a text from Jack.
‘ALIEN HAS DESTABILISED THE RIFT. GET IT BACK IN OR KILL IT. XXXX JACK.’
Oh, brilliant. What is she, a traffic cop? Gwen clicks the phone shut and cups her hands around her mouth, taking a deep breath.
“OI!”
Okay, it’s not exactly the opener to a Martin Luther King speech, but at least it gets the alien’s attention and he puts the half-chewed door down, for the moment. Can he understand her? Only one way to find out.
“Do you mind?” she demands. “I expect you’re tired and hungry, but you’re making a right mess of my city!”
If BBC Wales are filming this and she survives she’s going to die of embarrassment at the 6:30 news tonight, but oh well: at least it’s stopped. Gwen takes another deep breath.
“Look, do us a favour and just head back the way you came, please?” she shouts. “And we’ll say no more about it, all right?”
The creature’s answer is pretty much emphatic, in that it throws the door at her. Gwen leaps down from the car roof just in time to avoid being flattened by twenty stone of highly-polished (slightly chewed) oak, feeling her knees squelch in what she hopes is mud as she rolls. So much for that approach, then.
She pokes her head above the car bonnet briefly, clutching the wheel as the ground rumbles once again. Behind the alien she can see the Rift as it shimmers and boils in the air outside Cardiff Crown Court, hungry for something to close it. “All right, alien-boy,” she mutters, eyeing the shifting air nervously. “Let’s try it your way.”
Getting to the SUV requires some ducking and diving – since the alien now appears determined to play Whack-A-Mole with her head – but she finally hoists herself into the driver’s seat without mishap, fumbling for the keys. It occurs to her as she revs the engine that even if she survives and this works, it is going to flaming wreck, but what choice does she have? The fate of the world could be at stake here. Rhys will kill her if she dies, though...
Gwen closes her eyes just a second too late to miss the impossibly confused look on the alien’s face when the car hits him. She doesn’t open them again until after the horrible sucking-scrunching noise has died away.
She has to force the car door open: when she manages it, she slides down onto suddenly wobbly legs to survey the damage. Half of the SUV’s bonnet has been ripped away to a destination unknown and the court’s steps will never be the same again, but at least the immediate problem seems to have been conclusively solved and the crack of Rift has been shut. Jack’s going to kill her, she realises dazedly, and bursts into slightly hysterical laughter.
She’s still giggling as she picks up her bag and switches her mobile off before heading into town, having decided that she’ll risk waiting until after her date with Rhys at the New York Deli to see Ianto’s heartbreak at the remains of his favourite SUV. Still, it could be worse: at least it’s not raining.
Yet.
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Words: 1152
Warnings: None. No spoilers.
Previous Chapters: Toshiko
Notes: A love song to the wonderful women of Torchwood, and also to my adored home city. Betaed by my lovely housemate,
dowwdor_shal.Summary: Character study: if each of the Torchwood girls is isolated and confronted by something from the Rift, how do they cope saving Cardiff whilst flying solo? Different women find different ways to win, but fighting like a girl doesn't mean you don't fight hard.
An ominous rumbling beneath her feet interrupts her thoughts and cruelly wrecks the careful landscaping of the Memorial Gardens. (Someone, in a few weeks’ time, will probably even notice the damage.) Gwen stares at the thing – now apparently attempting to snack on the City Hall’s doors – with wide eyes. What the hell is she supposed to do? It seems to be generating some kind of reaction in the Rift so she can’t just leave it, especially not while it’s causing the sort of stampedes only normally seen in Cardiff while the Millennium Stadium is offering free international rugby tickets or there’s an all-you-can-eat sale on at Thornton’s – that is, never. She doesn’t feel particularly inclined to shoot it, either: if a human were to do that much damage to City Hall they’d probably be due at least a small ornamental statue, and anyway the poor thing is probably just lost and hungry. Besides, right now she isn’t even very clear on what precise part of it she should shoot at. All of which leaves her with basically one option: first contact. And she’s pretty sure ‘take me to your leader’ won’t cut it...
Every police training course she’d ever been on, back when she was a copper, said to put yourself on a level with the suspect or witness, show them you’re equal, make them want to be mates. It’s a load of bollocks, of course, but right now it’s the only idea she’s got. The problem is that even her favourite Faith boots with their three-and-a-half-inch heels won’t put her anywhere near on a level with this guy. What she needs is a platform – and ideally a megaphone as well, but let’s not get too demanding here. Gwen looks at the cars parked outside the City Hall – one of Torchwood’s SUVs amongst them, thanks to a helpfully Tosh-forged parking voucher – and realises that she does at least have one out of the two.
She’s still not sure what she thought she was going to be getting herself into, back when she first joined Torchwood, but standing on the roof of a black Vauxhall Corsa (Z-reg) in order to make first contact with a very ugly alien lifeform before it can eat Cardiff city centre was definitely not even in the top one hundred. But before she can speak, her mobile buzzes self-importantly: it’s a text from Jack.
‘ALIEN HAS DESTABILISED THE RIFT. GET IT BACK IN OR KILL IT. XXXX JACK.’
Oh, brilliant. What is she, a traffic cop? Gwen clicks the phone shut and cups her hands around her mouth, taking a deep breath.
“OI!”
Okay, it’s not exactly the opener to a Martin Luther King speech, but at least it gets the alien’s attention and he puts the half-chewed door down, for the moment. Can he understand her? Only one way to find out.
“Do you mind?” she demands. “I expect you’re tired and hungry, but you’re making a right mess of my city!”
If BBC Wales are filming this and she survives she’s going to die of embarrassment at the 6:30 news tonight, but oh well: at least it’s stopped. Gwen takes another deep breath.
“Look, do us a favour and just head back the way you came, please?” she shouts. “And we’ll say no more about it, all right?”
The creature’s answer is pretty much emphatic, in that it throws the door at her. Gwen leaps down from the car roof just in time to avoid being flattened by twenty stone of highly-polished (slightly chewed) oak, feeling her knees squelch in what she hopes is mud as she rolls. So much for that approach, then.
She pokes her head above the car bonnet briefly, clutching the wheel as the ground rumbles once again. Behind the alien she can see the Rift as it shimmers and boils in the air outside Cardiff Crown Court, hungry for something to close it. “All right, alien-boy,” she mutters, eyeing the shifting air nervously. “Let’s try it your way.”
Getting to the SUV requires some ducking and diving – since the alien now appears determined to play Whack-A-Mole with her head – but she finally hoists herself into the driver’s seat without mishap, fumbling for the keys. It occurs to her as she revs the engine that even if she survives and this works, it is going to flaming wreck, but what choice does she have? The fate of the world could be at stake here. Rhys will kill her if she dies, though...
Gwen closes her eyes just a second too late to miss the impossibly confused look on the alien’s face when the car hits him. She doesn’t open them again until after the horrible sucking-scrunching noise has died away.
She has to force the car door open: when she manages it, she slides down onto suddenly wobbly legs to survey the damage. Half of the SUV’s bonnet has been ripped away to a destination unknown and the court’s steps will never be the same again, but at least the immediate problem seems to have been conclusively solved and the crack of Rift has been shut. Jack’s going to kill her, she realises dazedly, and bursts into slightly hysterical laughter.
She’s still giggling as she picks up her bag and switches her mobile off before heading into town, having decided that she’ll risk waiting until after her date with Rhys at the New York Deli to see Ianto’s heartbreak at the remains of his favourite SUV. Still, it could be worse: at least it’s not raining.
Yet.