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m_findlowTitle: Buried in the sands of time
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 126 - Illusion at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
fandomweeklySummary: Owen knows he's seen more than just a haunted memory.
The whisky burned warm at the back of Owen's throat as he dispensed with the tumbler glass and instead drank it straight from the bottle. He could taste the smokiness on his tongue and smell the oak barrel it had matured in for the last fifteen years, yet none of it felt as real and visceral as the memory of his experience earlier that day. He didn't have the ghost machine with him right now, but he didn't need it. He remembered all of it with perfect clarity despite the haze descending over him from the alcoholic buzz.
He wished he hadn't messed with it, but like Gwen the night before, as soon as it was in his hand, he could feel it growing warm, buzzing from the energy around them, trying to convert it the way it had been designed to do. Raw human emotion transformed into light and sound, enabling the holder to relive the moment. Owen pressed the button and activated it without thinking. He expected to see nothing more than what Gwen had - some lost soul from forever ago who was alive and well in the present day. He hadn't expected to bear witness to a murder.
Jack could say it wasn't real all he liked but he hadn't been there. He hadn't seen what Owen had seen. For Owen, it had been like being transported to that other time and place, fifty years in the past. He could feel the chill in the air and the recent rain clinging to the muddy ground. Day had turned to night in an instant. The stench coming off the river filled the underpass with its malodorous scent, and the scraggly grass was flattened and slippery underneath his shoes from the many people who'd used the underpass as a shortcut onto Penfro Street.
He'd seen Lizzie Lewis there, dressed to the nines in her Saturday night best, all covered in that fancy pink coat she'd probably saved up for months to buy. It was a night for coats as the rain and the wind buffeted them from all sides, tugging at her wispy blonde hair. She was only a few feet away from him, pressed to the damp brick walls. He was sure he could smell lily of the valley perfume dabbed on her wrists and neck. Then there was Ed Morgan, a dark, suave looking bloke with a sinister glint in his eye. Lizzie must have thought all her Christmases had come at once attracting a fellow like him. How wrong she'd been. Poor kid, only seventeen years old and prey for this wicked man.
Jack's words to him were harsh. No one had ever been charged. To reopen the case there needed to be new evidence, witnesses. Actual proof that Ed Morgan had killed her. There'd been no witnesses to the murder but Owen had seen it, or at least the precursor to it. He'd seen Ed Morgan open out his switchblade and press it to Lizzie's perfumed neck. He didn't need to know what happened next. He'd seen enough to put Ed Morgan in prison for life. Alien technology had brought the illusion of events long ago back to life.
He wanted to go back there to see what other clues he might unearth, but all of that had been washed away by five decades of progress. He'd need the device to take with him, hoping upon hope that activating it again might take him back to that exact same time and place. How many other strong memories could be locked in that place? He might get taken back to some time in the nineties when two teenagers had smoked a bong and then had naked sex in the underpass.
Who knew what might happen if he tried to use it again. Even if it worked, did he really think he'd been aware of his own lack of physical presence in that moment; enough to scout around for anything that might help him narrow down who the man was that had murdered that poor girl. Or would he get caught up in the emotion of it like last time, frozen to the spot like a deer in the headlights, feeling a terror that wasn't his own? He knew how scared Lizzie had been because he felt what she'd felt. It was her memory he was lost in. It was more than just seeing it play out. For a brief moment their timelines had intersected - Owen in the future, Lizzie in the past, connected by the brutal horror of her murder.
He tipped back the whisky bottle again and took a long swallow. It didn't stop the shiver that ran down his spine even as the liquid burned down his throat. Ed Morgan could still be out there somewhere. Who knew whether Lizzie had been his only victim or just one in a series of heinous crimes. Perhaps he could go back through the files from the sixties, track down the last known place for each victim and see if he couldn't get the ghost machine to show him what had happened there as well. Somewhere along the way he had to have made a mistake and left behind some telling piece of evidence. Of course, that would also mean convincing Jack to let him have the device. He didn't like his chances. Jack knew when he'd become fixated on a case and did everything he could to stamp it out.
Owen's gaze drifted from the coffee table to the bookcase, crammed with tattered novels and two volumes of unused Cardiff phone books. A thought struck him. Maybe Ed Morgan, never captured or convicted, was still around. Gwen's little lost boy had been just around the corner in Butetown.
He reached over and grabbed the thick L to Z volume, resting it on his lap, flipping pages with his right hand and nursing his bottle with his left. 'If you're still here, I'll find you,' Owen promised.
The whisky burned warm at the back of Owen's throat as he dispensed with the tumbler glass and instead drank it straight from the bottle. He could taste the smokiness on his tongue and smell the oak barrel it had matured in for the last fifteen years, yet none of it felt as real and visceral as the memory of his experience earlier that day. He didn't have the ghost machine with him right now, but he didn't need it. He remembered all of it with perfect clarity despite the haze descending over him from the alcoholic buzz.
He wished he hadn't messed with it, but like Gwen the night before, as soon as it was in his hand, he could feel it growing warm, buzzing from the energy around them, trying to convert it the way it had been designed to do. Raw human emotion transformed into light and sound, enabling the holder to relive the moment. Owen pressed the button and activated it without thinking. He expected to see nothing more than what Gwen had - some lost soul from forever ago who was alive and well in the present day. He hadn't expected to bear witness to a murder.
Jack could say it wasn't real all he liked but he hadn't been there. He hadn't seen what Owen had seen. For Owen, it had been like being transported to that other time and place, fifty years in the past. He could feel the chill in the air and the recent rain clinging to the muddy ground. Day had turned to night in an instant. The stench coming off the river filled the underpass with its malodorous scent, and the scraggly grass was flattened and slippery underneath his shoes from the many people who'd used the underpass as a shortcut onto Penfro Street.
He'd seen Lizzie Lewis there, dressed to the nines in her Saturday night best, all covered in that fancy pink coat she'd probably saved up for months to buy. It was a night for coats as the rain and the wind buffeted them from all sides, tugging at her wispy blonde hair. She was only a few feet away from him, pressed to the damp brick walls. He was sure he could smell lily of the valley perfume dabbed on her wrists and neck. Then there was Ed Morgan, a dark, suave looking bloke with a sinister glint in his eye. Lizzie must have thought all her Christmases had come at once attracting a fellow like him. How wrong she'd been. Poor kid, only seventeen years old and prey for this wicked man.
Jack's words to him were harsh. No one had ever been charged. To reopen the case there needed to be new evidence, witnesses. Actual proof that Ed Morgan had killed her. There'd been no witnesses to the murder but Owen had seen it, or at least the precursor to it. He'd seen Ed Morgan open out his switchblade and press it to Lizzie's perfumed neck. He didn't need to know what happened next. He'd seen enough to put Ed Morgan in prison for life. Alien technology had brought the illusion of events long ago back to life.
He wanted to go back there to see what other clues he might unearth, but all of that had been washed away by five decades of progress. He'd need the device to take with him, hoping upon hope that activating it again might take him back to that exact same time and place. How many other strong memories could be locked in that place? He might get taken back to some time in the nineties when two teenagers had smoked a bong and then had naked sex in the underpass.
Who knew what might happen if he tried to use it again. Even if it worked, did he really think he'd been aware of his own lack of physical presence in that moment; enough to scout around for anything that might help him narrow down who the man was that had murdered that poor girl. Or would he get caught up in the emotion of it like last time, frozen to the spot like a deer in the headlights, feeling a terror that wasn't his own? He knew how scared Lizzie had been because he felt what she'd felt. It was her memory he was lost in. It was more than just seeing it play out. For a brief moment their timelines had intersected - Owen in the future, Lizzie in the past, connected by the brutal horror of her murder.
He tipped back the whisky bottle again and took a long swallow. It didn't stop the shiver that ran down his spine even as the liquid burned down his throat. Ed Morgan could still be out there somewhere. Who knew whether Lizzie had been his only victim or just one in a series of heinous crimes. Perhaps he could go back through the files from the sixties, track down the last known place for each victim and see if he couldn't get the ghost machine to show him what had happened there as well. Somewhere along the way he had to have made a mistake and left behind some telling piece of evidence. Of course, that would also mean convincing Jack to let him have the device. He didn't like his chances. Jack knew when he'd become fixated on a case and did everything he could to stamp it out.
Owen's gaze drifted from the coffee table to the bookcase, crammed with tattered novels and two volumes of unused Cardiff phone books. A thought struck him. Maybe Ed Morgan, never captured or convicted, was still around. Gwen's little lost boy had been just around the corner in Butetown.
He reached over and grabbed the thick L to Z volume, resting it on his lap, flipping pages with his right hand and nursing his bottle with his left. 'If you're still here, I'll find you,' Owen promised.
