Torchwood: Fanfic: Foggy heads

[m_findlow]

Title: Foggy heads
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,615 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, Infectious yawning" at fic_promptly
Summary: Something is getting inside the team's heads

Jack leaned his elbow on the window frame and sucked in another huge yawn.

'Please don't do that', Tosh said, watching Jack's reflection in the rear view mirror. 'You'll set me off again.'

'And me,' added Gwen from the passenger seat. 'How long did they say they'd be?'

'An hour. Two tops.'

'You said that an hour ago,' Tosh complained.

'Obviously they're having trouble finding the car. Of all the days to break down in the middle of nowhere. We've got fuel, but a car that refuses to work, and no heating.'

'I wish you hadn't said that,' Gwen replied, yawning and pulling her jacket tighter around her. 'You've just reminded me about the cold.'

They'd been on their way to investigate some reports of mysterious signals in the very isolated countryside of mid Wales. If anything, the signal seem to have found them first, completely killing the SUV's engine. It also had the bizarre effect of knocking out their phones and electronics. They were lucky at all to get a call out on a very low frequency radio line to request roadside assistance to get the SUV towed back to the nearest town. Until then they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, and now night had fallen, as had a thick layer of fog in the plummeting temperatures outside. At this rate, they might even get snow.

Jack yawned again. He shouldn't be this tired, but the waiting with nothing else to do was exceedingly boring. He turned to face his teammates in the back seat. Ianto had been the first to concede defeat, sat in between Tosh and Owen, head lolled to one side in peaceful slumber. At some point Owen had joined him, and bizarrely, was somewhat snuggled up against his side. Jack really ought to take a photo of the semi adorable pair. Owen would die when he found out. Just watching them sleep made his eyelids feel heavier.

He squirmed in his seat trying to keep himself awake. He'd get out of the car and go for a walk, despite the subzero temperatures if he thought it would help, but given that they were surrounded by potentially mystery "something" in the dark and with low visibility, it was probably better to stay inside for the moment. He let out another huge yawn.

'I don't think anyone's coming,' Gwen said. 'Maybe we should just wait until morning. The fog might have cleared enough for us to walk to the nearest town for help.'

'Maybe you're right. What do you think Tosh?'

'Without any equipment that works don't see what choice we have,' she replied sleepily, already tucking herself in close against Ianto's other side and resting her head on his shoulder.

Jack leaned his head back against the headrest, shutting his eyes for a moment. He hadn't done anything all day except drive and sit here in the middle of nowhere. There was no way he should be this tired. Usually he hardly slept at all, much to Ianto's annoyance. He lifted his head and clicked it to one side, then the other, trying to eke out the stiffness and the weariness, whilst he caught Gwen trying to curl herself more comfortably in her seat, facing the door. He stared out of the window at the darkened wilderness around them, well off the normal roadways when they'd gone chasing after the mysterious signals emanating from this patch of countryside, and all around for several miles, but strongest here. That was, until the signal went dead, along with pretty much everything else.

The fog outside was beginning to hang lower and it seemed to swirl slightly in the pale light of the moon that was rising overhead in the clear night sky. He let his eyes slip shut for just a moment before pulling them open again, not prepared to quite fall asleep yet.

That's when he saw it. Just a split second as the tiny grey wisp floated out of the car's heating vent. He blinked. Had he imagined it? He stared at the vent for a minute or two, waiting to see it again, but there was nothing in the darkness. For some reason it unsettled him enough the reach up and flip on the interior light, about the only thing that still worked.

'What are you doing?' Gwen muttered, annoyed at the light, now that she'd resigned herself to trying to get some sleep. Jack ignored her for a minute until she repeated his name again.

'Nothing,' he said. 'It's nothing, as he flicked the light switch back off, convinced that it was just his overactive imagination. Then he saw it again. A grey tendril of smoke curling out of the tiny opening. Despite keeping his eye on it, he felt more tired than before. This was like no fog he'd ever seen before. Fog didn't come creeping into your car, for one thing.

'Gwen,' he called out.

'What now?' she grumbled, refusing to move from her huddled position.

'I think we found what's causing our mysterious readings. Or more to the point, I think it's found us. I don't think that's normal fog outside.'

'That's nice,' she intoned.

'No, seriously. I think there's more to this than meets the eye.'

'It'll still be there tomorrow. Get some sleep.'

'Sleep,' Jack repeated, feeling tired again. Then his eyes flew open. 'No, sleep. Gwen!' He threw an arm out in her direction and whacked her arm gently. 'Don't go to sleep.'

'Argh, you're pushing you're luck Jack,' she complained, but unfurled herself anyway to better position herself for swatting him away.

'Wait. Just watch the air vents and tell me if you see anything.'

It seemed silly, and she was always grumpy when she was tired but she humoured him just the same.

'I have no idea what you're-, wait, was that fog coming in through the vents?' She whipped her head around to guage his reaction.

'I don't think it's fog. Tosh, what readings did we get before our equipment conked out?' Tosh didn't reply. Jack reached around behind his seat and gently placed a hand on Tosh's shoulder.

'Tosh?' he called, hoping to rouse her so that she could give them some readings from what little power her PDA could manage. She didn't budge. 'Tosh!' Jack frowned. He grabbed Ianto's knee and squeezed it tightly, calling his name instead, whilst Gwen tried to rouse Owen.

'I can't wake him,' Gwen said, as she watched Jack failing to wake either of the other pair. 'They're not?'

Jack reached further back, checking for a pulse. 'No, they're just sleeping,' he said, relieved.

'Is it the fog?' Gwen asked, trying to stifle another yawn.

'What else could explain why we're all suddenly so tired. Close the air vents,' he instructed. 'I don't know if the effect is temporary or not, but at least we can stop most of it getting inside.'

'What is it, do you think?'

'I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's not the normal local weather phenomena, and that it's probably part of the source of the weird readings we were getting.'

'What do we do?'

'If we've stopped it from getting in, let's wait and see if the others wake up.'

They waited ten minutes and tried again to wake the others, but all three of them appeared to be sound asleep and not looking like waking any time soon. Gwen let her head droop forward and her eyes close.

'No!' Jack shook her hard. 'Don't fall asleep.'

'It's not working Jack. What do we do? If we stay here and fall asleep, we might never wake up.'

Jack had been thinking the exact same thing. They couldn't stay here. But in saying that, it meant they'd have to leave the safety of the SUV. And the rest of the team.

'We have to go and find help. How far was the nearest village?'

Gwen flicked the overhead light back on and consulted a large, well worn paper map that Ianto kept in the glove box. In case they got lost and had no GPS, he'd explained, though none of them ever thought that particular scenario would eventuate. She tried to pinpoint their last known coordinates and study the nearby landmarks.

'There should be a village about eight miles northwest of here,' she looked up and found Jack with his head leaning against the window. 'Jack!' She belted him with the map, startling him back awake. 'What, what?' He said, twisting around to look at her.

'You were falling asleep.'

'Damn it. This stuff is bad news.'

'And we're about to go out walking in it.'

Jack reached back, pulling something from Ianto's pocket and grabbing a bottle of water from the side door compartment, dousing it.

'Here,' he said, passing her Ianto's unused handkerchief, before grabbing his own from his pocket, and repeating the process. 'Hold this to your mouth. It might stop some of the fog.' She pocketed it for a moment, before raiding the glove box for a compass and torch to accompany the map. She wasn't taking any chances that they get even more lost.

'Okay?' Jack asked.

'Ready,' she said determinedly, before another yawn slipped out of her mouth. 'Let's go.'

They both reluctantly left the confines of the car and stepped into the dense fog.

'It's freezing out here!' Gwen cried, before Jack indicated to her to hold up her makeshift mask, having temporarily forgotten the potential danger posed by the thick grey blanket, on account of the frigid conditions.

The two of them trudged across the hilly woodland in the last known direction of the township.

'What happens if this thing spreads as far as the village? They might all be asleep too,' Gwen speculated.

'We can't think about that. We have to try and get there and hope for the best. If we're lucky, someone there will be able to get us some transport and we can come back for the others.'

'Do you think this is why no one came to pick us up in the first place?'

'Could be. Or maybe the signal didn't get through. Or they might be stuck halfway in between. Who knows? If we can get back to the team first, then we can go searching for any others stuck out here.'

The cold was helping keep them somewhat alert, but despite the bracing chill, they could still feel themselves growing unnaturally weary. It was all too tempting to yawn wide and suck in some much needed oxygen, but knowing that they might also be sucking in a potent sleeping fog deterred them. The fog seemed to descend further down and thicker, forming an impenetrable wall on all sides that could barely be split apart by the light of their torches.

After a few miles, and what seemed like hours, of staggering through bracken and rock, getting caught in branches that were all but invisible, hiding in the fog until the last moment when they finally had you in their clutches, they both began to struggle. Jack pulled his handkerchief away from his mouth and wrapped his free arm around Gwen's, holding on to her and forcing them both forward, as they ploughed thought the misty soup.

'We need to stay awake,' Jack said. 'Keep talking.'

'What do you want me to say?'

'I don't know. Anything. Just make sure that I answer you back.'

'Okay, what about a word game? We'll take turns to think of things that start with each letter of the alphabet. Let's start with names of foods.'

'Apple.'

'Banana.'

'Cake.'

'Dairy.'

'Dairy? That's not a food.'

'It's a food group.'

'Okay, close enough. I would have said donuts.'

'Eggs. God, all I can do is think of warm foods. It's freezing out here!'

And so they continued on until they couldn't think of a food beginning with the letter X. From there they listed countries and cities, musical instruments, animals, flowers and trees and so forth until they reached a steep ridge that jutted out, blocking their path and forcing them to scale it to reach the other side. Gwen collapsed to her knees at the sight of it.

'I can't go on Jack. I'm so tired and cold. There's no way we're getting up that ridge.'

'Yes we can,' he said tiredly, kneeling next to her and gripping her shoulders. ' We have to keep going. The others are counting on us. The village can't be far now.'

'I just need a few minutes rest. We've been going for miles.'

Jack leaned back on his heels, feeling equally exhausted. 'Okay, just a minute or two and then we need to move on.'

Gwen leaned forward so her head was resting on his shoulder, and he wrapped the long tails of his coat around both of them for a bit of extra warmth. He didn't notice his own head doing the same thing as Gwen's, dipping to rest against hers, as heavy lids slipped shut for the last time.

'Jack? Jack!' He faintly heard someone calling his name. There was a hand gently shaking his shoulder and a familiar face came into view.

'Ianto?' he said, still addled from sleep. Ianto helped him sit up. Somehow, it was light outside now. Was it morning?

'What are you doing out here?'

'Where's here?'

'In the middle of bloody nowhere,' came Owen's voice. 'We've been hiking for flipping miles trying to find you.'

'Gwen?' he said, looking around, only to find her practically on top of him, next to her, with Tosh at her side.

'Where's the fog?' he asked, confused.

'What fog?'

'The one that sent you all to sleep?'

Now it was Owen's turn to looked confused. 'Beats me what they're on about. We woke up this morning to find you both missing. We thought maybe whatever was out there had you. All our GPS equipment was back up and running so we traced your wrist strap signal all the way out to here, and found you two cuddled up on the ground.'

'We were headed for the village to get help.'

'The village?'

'Pentre-ty, er, something,' he replied lamely.

'That's about fourteen miles in the other direction.'

'Bloody hell,' Gwen cried. 'How did we get that lost? We had a map and everything.'

'We were pretty tired. I guess it would have been easy to make a mistake. And the fog was so thick I'm not sure what direction we were travelling in. It might have been messing with our compass.'

'My God, though. If we'd not found help, we could have all been stuck out here for God knows how long. I don't even remember falling asleep.'

'Nor me. I guess we were just lucky that the fog, whatever it was, has gone. We should still run some tests though and make sure it isn't planning on coming back, or that it hasn't just moved along to the next unsuspecting town. Are you guys okay?' he asked, addressing his three teammates who'd been left behind.

'We're fine, I think,' Ianto replied. 'We were more worried about you. It's a wonder you didn't freeze to death out here.'

'Never better. So much for us going out for help. You ended up having to come rescue us,' Jack responded, before letting out an enormous yawn.

'Don't do that. You'll start the rest of us yawning. It's infectious, you know.'

'Well, it's just been one of those kinda nights. What say those that have had a proper nights sleep lead the way back to the SUV so we can all go home and get some rest?'

Comments

[bk_forever]

And the strange alien fog will forever remain a mystery... I wonder what it wanted.

Thanks for the fill!