Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Ianto, Gwen, Owen, Tosh

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 2,436 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 302 - Gravity

Summary: Things around the hub have taken on a life of their own.


It’s funny how things can go from blissfully boring to outright chaos in a matter of seconds. I used to think it was something to do with Jack – his unique brand of chaotic leadership that lead to so many disastrous consequences. Now I realise it’s just Torchwood. It wouldn’t matter who was running the show. It would be anarchy in every conceivable instance.

Two minutes ago I'd been putting away groceries. The hole I burned in the Torchwood credit card was enormous. It feels like I must have bought half the shop, but then again, we've been so busy that it must have been weeks since the last time we stocked up on provisions. No one has managed to do more than pick up milk from the local Spar, and even that's just to keep the coffee supplies moving. The recycling bin can't fit anymore pizza boxes in it but thankfully tomorrow is bin day. If the newspapers report that there's a national shortage of pepperoni, Torchwood is likely to blame.

On the plus side at least the groceries were put away before everything went pear-shaped.

When things start to levitate off the desk in front of you, two thoughts occur simultaneously. One, has something alien just happened, and two, have I finally completely lost my mind and this is all just some hallucinogenic symptom? The answer as to which of these is the correct assertion isn't always easy to determine

'Tosh!' Owen's voice rings out loud and clear across the hub. The ayes seemingly having it for answer number one - alien. There always a small speck of relief that a mental breakdown hasn't occured.

Gwen leans out over the railing on the floor above. She's been taking calls in the boardroom again. It's a new development in the last two weeks. Whenever she has Torchwood business, she disappears up there to speak to whoever it is. She wants a private space and Jack's office is off limits. No one has said as much, but it's clear from the looks on everyone's faces. It's been decided unofficially and that's that.

Gwen has that harried and slightly annoyed look on her face. Leadership isn’t quite working out how she planned it, assuming one can plan for being in charge of a top secret organisation that deals with all things alien. There’s no MBA for that. She's not a bad person. In fact, she's a remarkably good person, but she has a strange way of going about it sometimes. Still, she's a lot better at this than the rest of us. After Owen's disastrous three weeks in charge, voted in by a majority of two to one if you exclude Owen having voted for himself, Janet could have very well ended up in charge. At least he had the good sense to recuse himself. Owen might not like taking orders, but it turns out he likes giving them even less.

'Would someone like to tell me why all the glasses in the boardroom have suddenly decided to go floating off?'

Gwen's words hit me. Oh no. I’ve just seen it. The kitchen. Scrambling across the hub, through Jack’s office and out the other side confirms my fears. That would be everything that wasn’t locked in a cupboard floating away. Cups, saucers, teaspoons, someone’s used teabag - probably Gwen's – and half a piece of abandoned chocolate cake. Damn. That was mine, left over from the paltry celebration of Tosh's birthday. Two minutes ago that space had been a picture of perfection, everything neatly put away where it belonged, cups stacked in rows across the top of the coffee machine, tea towel folded at the side, jars for biscuits, crackers and sugar side by side on the bench. All now drifting three feet in the air above the bench. A stiff breeze would probably send them out into the hub. I grab for the first cup I can and open the cupboard to shove it inside, but everything in there is also hovering and now trying to escape. I slam it quickly back shut. At a loss of what to do with the cup in my hand, I chance letting it go. It just stays there, floating for no reason. Oh well, at least it isn't going anywhere for the moment. Time to face the rest of the hub and the team.

Any minute now you can bet Tosh is going to fix whatever is wrong and they’re all going to go crashing to the ground, smashing into a million pieces. That kind of thing always happens the minute you turn your back. Call it a fatalist view of the world but you know what they say – set your expectations low and you’ll never be disappointed.

'What’s going on?' Gwen demands, streaming down the spiral staircase.

Tosh gently pokes the flash drive hovering in front of her face. It's just one of a dozen things that's gone floating off the surface of her desk, surrounding her like fireflies in summer. 'Some kind of localised gravitational field,' she reports back as if this is just commonplace – which in some respects I suppose it is. Normal is, after all, a relative concept.

'Well, so long as my scalpels are only floating harmlessly and not coming flying at us,' Owen says, carefully making his own way up the medical bay steps to avoid colliding with any of the sharp implements that have filled the air around him. 'That’s all we’d need.' He snorts out a disgruntled sound. 'Like there aren’t enough things around here trying to kill us.'

Gwen sets her hands on her hips and surveys the scene, giving each one of us a look. Nobody panic. That’s what Jack would day if he were here. 'Okay. Nobody panic,' Gwen says. Well, it seemed she learned something from watching Jack: how to be immensely unhelpful and not particularly reassuring. Around here that’s almost a fine art. Who's panicking? It's only everything in the hub that isn't nailed down and weights less than two pounds having taken leave of the laws of gravity. Please let this be only within the confines of the hub. Trying to come up with a plausible cover story for this if it's affecting all of Cardiff is going to utterly ruin my day.

'So how come we're not taking off like Mary Poppins?' I ask, intensely curious since we don't appear to be in any immediate danger.

Tosh is already on her computer, trying to get readings from the dozens of pieces of diagnostic equipment at hand. 'It would have to be very weak so as only to affect things without a lot of mass.'

'Looks like your ego is safe, Owen.' I get a finger for my trouble but it's worth it.

'How far has this spread, Tosh?' Gwen asks, already sliding into the seat beside her at her own computer. The question is something of a courtesy since she's already trying to find out the answer for herself.

'Social media is quiet,' I say, studying Twitter on my phone. Follow the hash tag #Torchwood and you'll generally know about something happening before any of the local authorities had even been called. Secret agency status, fail. Social media presence, epic.

Tosh pushes her glasses further up her nose and seats away a pen that has drifted in front of her face. 'Just us from the looks of things.'

'Okay, good.' Gwen pulls a face. 'Well, not good, obviously, but...'

'So, who's been futzing around with something they shouldn't?' Owen demands to know, hands on hips and in one of those huffy, Owen moods.

'The three packs of orange cream biscuits I just put away protest their innocence.'

'Right, so Teaboy's off the hook. I was up to my armpits in paperwork and Gwen was off pretending to be Jack. That just leaves you, Tosh.'

Tosh by rights looks mildly annoyed by the accusation. As much as she fancies Owen, even she has her limits of what she'll put up with. 'Analysing rift data so we can better predict rift alert and what it likely to have come through.' Her reply is so level and cold that it has surely sent a chill down Owen's spine, but instead he just shrugs it off.

'Just eliminating the obvious.'

Wrest back control, Gwen. Get them back on topic. That's what Jack would do. That, or start rambling about some completely unrelated and thoroughly inappropriate story about a time when he snogged or shagged some alien. Either way it stops people from being at each other's throats.

'What about that thing we collected yesterday?' she asks, throwing a sideways glance at the object still in its containment box on the floor.

'I was going to take a look at it later,' Tosh replies. 'But it was inert yesterday when we packed it up.' She bends down and flips open the clips on the case, lifting then lid open. It doesn't look any different, still the same nondescript red box. A nice paperweight if that's what you wanted, and probably quite useful now give the circumstances. It was obviously heavy enough not to be affected because it's just sitting in the case without moving. A stapler on the desk starts floating up, having given in to the inevitable. Slamming it back down halts its ascension for only a few moments. Trying to argue with it seems pointless so I let it go.

Tosh looks around her desk, before lifting her head and studying through air around her. 'Has anyone seen where my PDA got to?'

Everyone is staring at the multitude of objects floating around, trying to locate it. It's like a bad Where's Wally puzzle or an occupational health and safety nightmare.

'There,' Owen says, pointing up but just unable to get a fingertip to it.

I step over and pluck it from the air, giving Owen a victorious grin as I do. 'Lucky someone of us are more than five feet tall.'

'I'm tall, where it counts,' Owen counters.

'Can you two have your pissing contest later?' Gwen snaps. Owen doesn't look the least bit contrite so neither do I. Jack at least would have sent the funny side and Gwen should be well versed in Owen's particulars. Thankfully we don't score points on one another's tragic love lives. They all rate pretty poorly and no one ever wins the moral high ground.

'Thanks, Ianto,' Tosh says as I hand her the PDA. It doesn't take long for her to confirm it's the culprit. She turns it over on the desk and finds three tiny buttons nestled in a row on one corner. Almost microscopic which means anyone could have missed spotting them, or accidentally pressing them. You have to give credit to alien tech. They've simplified everything down to its absolute essence. On Earth you'd invent a button for every single function. Aliens mainly rely on the user remembering the right combination of just a handful of buttons. If they'd designed the jumbo jet, instead of a cockpit full of instruments and switches, they'd have three buttons: take off, fly and land.

Tosh frowns as she studies it further. 'Okay, either this is going to turn it back off, or I'm probably going to increase the strength of the field, in which case, I suggest you grab hold of something.'

'I always knew there was a reason for all these railings,' I say, grabbing hold on it with one hand and the other on Tosh's shoulder. No one else seems to have reached the conclusion that Tosh weighs less than all of us. If anyone is going to end up in Myfanwy's nest, it's her.

'We're ready,' Gwen announces, keeping her eyes fixed on Tosh and the box in her lap. There's a collective breath holding as she uses her small fingers and the tip of a ballpoint pen to manipulate the buttons. The gravitational field stops suddenly and completely. There’s too many things floating about to worry about watching them go crashing to the floor. I can hear things clattering in cupboards as well. I spot Jack’s mug just in time and clutch it before it joins the rest of them in a shattered mess. By rights it shouldn't be anywhere near here. How it's floated all that way from the kitchen is completely baffling. It's almost like it's following me, haunting me. Everywhere you go around here you can't ignore the fact he's gone and maybe not coming back. I hope you bloody appreciate it, Jack, I think, cradling the mug like an idiot. That’s another trip to Ikea to stock up on crockery. Everything is broken all apart from one sodding mug for a git who isn’t even here. Thanks for that.

'Well, that’s just great,' Owen complains. 'I only spent all morning sorting those,' he says, pointing down at the papers now fluttering all about the medical bay floor. 'What kind of stupid alien would want something that lifts up small objects?'

I hold my tongue. Several reasons spring to mind, not the least of which is thas it would make cleaning and dusting a whole lot safer without having to remove everything first or risk knocking something off. Best to wait until the proverbial dust has settled before asking Tosh if she can get the thing working properly. It would definitely come in handy.

Gwen beams at Tosh. 'Good work.'

'It must have been on a delayed timer or something,' she replies, setting it back on the desk. Maybe we triggered it when we picked it up, or maybe it was already set that way. There's really no way of knowing. I can run some more tests on but it might not answer the question.'

'Preferably do it somewhere else,' Owen says, slapping random pages back on his desk in a messy pile.

Gwen places a reassuring hand on Tosh's shoulder. 'No harm done.'

'No, not much,' Owen adds with as much sarcasm as he can muster. 'Just a bloody mess everywhere.'

'Well, if a mess is the worst we can complain about, we got off easy,' Gwen reminds him. That is true. The place is a mess and it's going to take the rest of the day to right it. Still, I'll take a day of sweeping up broken crockery over a day of sweeping up the broken and shattered remains of a hub brought to the brink of destruction. Assuming Jack ever does decide to come back, the least we can do is make sure it's still here when he does.