Torchwood: Fanfic: Coming up roses

[m_findlow]

Title: Coming up roses
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 4,459 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, flower power" at fic_promptly
Summary: The hub is being taken over... by flora.

The tiny flower shop was in a very odd location on the outskirts of the city. It was unusual in the sense that it was smack bang in the middle of an industrial park where no one was likely to think to stop off for a nice bunch of carnations on their way home from work, or for that odd birthday surprise. And yet, that was where their latest set of strange rift signals appeared to be emanating from.

As Jack and Tosh stepped out of the SUV, they viewed the poor little shop with a look of disdain. It was shabby and run down, and looked to be the very sort of place that no one ever visited.

That was why they were so remarkably surprised as the tiny bell above the door tinkered away happily, to find that on the inside was the most glorious display of flowers either of them had ever seen

'Wow, wasn’t expecting that,' Jack muttered. 'Must be one of those city secrets Ianto keeps telling me about.'

They’d not been in the shop for more than a minute before a tiny man came out from the office behind a beaded curtain and greeted them.

'Oh, hello, can I help you? We have some loving gerberas in today.'

Jack looked inquisitively at the little old man. 'Do you sell a lot of flowers?'

'Oh, barely a posy,' he chuckled.

Jack frowned, confused by the response. 'So how are you planning on selling all these before they wilt? More to the point, why would you buy so many if you knew you weren’t going to sell them?'

'Oh, I didn’t. They just sort of popped up.'

Jack still looked very confused

'See,' the shopkeeper explained, 'I just signed a contract to sell the business. I didn’t get much for it mind, but no matter. It’s just such a load off my mind not having to worry about it anymore. I’ve not been this happy for years.'

'Tosh, anything?' Jack asked, having let her roam about the shop on the premise of browsing, all the while scanning for strange readings, whilst he was distracting the proprietor with idle chit chat.

'There’s something over in that corner, that’s where it's strongest,' she said pointing at a display of vases. One in particular seemed to look completely out of place. Whilst the rest were reasonably modern looking, all cut crystal and glossy, or glazed in various colours, this one looked decidedly more ancient.

'Dangerous?' Jack asked, before reaching out for it.

'Don’t think so,' Tosh confirmed.

Jack picked it up off the shelf and examined it more closely. It was intricately designed, with long strands of vines covering its surface, lined in fine gold paint, and with large blossoms decorating the rest of the surface, and two solid handles tapering away from its hourglass neck almost all the way to the base.

'Lovely, isn’t it?' the shopkeeper said, coming over to admire the piece himself.

'What do you think, Tosh? Shall we buy it?'

'It would be a shame not to.'

'Wonderful!' cheered the shopkeeper, clapping happily. Unbeknownst to them, it was the first thing he’d sold for weeks.

'Please take a bunch of orchids as well,' he insisted. 'They’d look lovely in that.'

'I didn’t see any orchids before,' Jack replied, looking around the shop.

'Neither did I, but here they are!'

All the way back to the hub, the rain had started coming down, and the traffic had in turn become horrendous as every car on the road slowed to meet the changing conditions. The slow crawl back to the hub annoyed Jack who tried to zip down side streets and one way alleys to avoid the madness, muttering all the while to Tosh that people should really learn how to drive properly. In her defence she chose to say nothing about Jack’s own skills behind the wheel, which whilst handy in life or death situations, showed a complete disregard for normal road laws the rest of the time.

'How’d it go?' Owen asked as they trudged back into the hub, slightly sodden.

'Fine,' Jack replied. 'Here, I bought you these,' he said, thrusting the bunch of complimentary flowers at Owen.

'You’re all heart, but I’m more of a chocolates man myself.'

Jack chuckled, his mood lifting at the friendly banter, before proceeding to his office and placing their new vase on his desk for further inspection.

Ten minutes later, Ianto was forthcoming with a much needed cup of steaming hot coffee.

'Bless, you’re a lifesaver,' Jack praised him, giving him one of those warm smiles he reserved only for him.

Suddenly a bunch of red roses appeared to spring forth from the vase.

'Nice trick,' Ianto said. 'I hope you didn’t waste the whole morning retrieving a magician's vase.'

'Hmmm, didn’t do that before,' Jack mused. 'Though the shopkeeper did say that the flowers in the shop did seem to pop up out of nowhere. Get Tosh to look into it.'

Ianto picked up the vase and pulled the roses out. 'I suppose you’ll be wanting these back?'

'Keep them. Red is your colour.'

Tosh had started running scans on the vase and was getting Gwen to help her with some of the trickier pieces of equipment that required two people to properly operate it.

'It’s so pretty,' Gwen murmured, looking at the painted details close up, before her phone started ringing, interrupting her.

Tosh was trying not to eavesdrop on her conversation, but it was hard not to since she seemed so animated on the other end of the phone. By all accounts it sounded like Rhys had organised some sort of surprise for her. She knew she shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations, but she couldn’t help but look over and see that somehow a whole bunch of daisies had just erupted seemingly out of the floor, surrounding Gwen’s chair.

'Ah, Gwen,' she said just as soon as she'd hung up, still glowing.

Gwen turned around and saw the sight beneath her feet.

'Oh, where did they come from? They’re so lovely!'

As soon as she'd said it, even more of them began to flourish all around her, in differing hues of white and yellow, pink and mauve.

Tosh couldn’t help but be enthused by the display, despite knowing that it was completely illogical. Before she knew what had happened, there was a sapling sprouting near her desk. She watched on, fascinated as it grew taller and taller, trunk becoming wide until it spread its branches and burst into green leaves and tiny pink blossoms. It was a cherry blossom, she realised.

'Oh, that’s so pretty!' Gwen squealed. More daisies erupted from the floor and began making a beeline to surround the base of the tree, and started creeping along the stairs and down into the autopsy bay.

'What the hell?' Owen exclaimed, running up the steps and stomping on not a few of the flowers as they sprung up uncontrollably under his feet.

'Where did all that muck come from?'

'I don't know,' replied Gwen, 'one second it everything was normal, and then it was just here.'

'Hey, what's going on out here,' Jack called out, striding from his office. 'Woah!' he said, seeing the newest additions to hub's decor.

'Tosh, have you been playing with our new present?'

'What, no! I barely started running basic scans on it!'

At that point Ianto joined them. 'What on,' he stopped dead, 'Earth? When did we install a garden?'

'Isn't it pretty?' Gwen asked, smiling as more daisies began springing up between his legs.

'Uh, yeah,' he said, stepping out of their way, but backing into a sapling cherry blossom that sent him tumbling backwards.

Jack laughed at the slapstick moment, and a large rosebush spurted up out of the concrete, flushing with large red rosebuds, and taking him by surprise.

'Oh, uh, that's kinda weird. Tosh, what's happening?'

'I don't know, but, well, it could be worse I suppose.'

'Hmm,' he said plucking a blossom from the cherry tree and holding it up for closer inspection. 'Are we sure these are normal earth plants? Owen, you're our resident botanist. I wouldn't mind knowing what we're dealing with, in case it's alien. In the meantime, I think maybe we should give them a wide berth.'

Half an hour later Owen had managed to take samples of all the plants in the hub and confirmed that they were definitely your garden variety earth type plants, pardoning the pun.

'But where have they come from, and why?'

'It must be connected to the vase we brought back,' Tosh said. 'I just don't know how yet.'

'It's funny though, every time I see them, more of them seem to grow,' Gwen confessed, a few more sprouting while they sat there.

Ianto was passing out another round of coffee whilst they discussed their current situation. Jack sipped the heavenly brew and enjoyed it for a moment, before noticing that a few more tall rose bushes began cropping up near where he was leaned back against Gwen's desk amongst the daisies.

The rest of them looked at him curiously.

'I wasn't looking at them, I swear. I was too busy enjoying the coffee,' he replied, giving Ianto a grateful look. The rosebush nearest him, which had been only in bud before, suddenly burst into full bloom with deep red roses.

'There must be more to it than just thinking about it. How can coffee be connected to plants growing?'

'What if it's not the coffee? And yes, I can't believe I just said that,' Ianto suggested.

'What do you mean?'

'What if it's feeding off our thoughts?'

'Our thoughts?'

'Like so,' he said fwapping Owen over the back of the head, receiving a grunt from Owen, but boisterous laughter from Jack. At the same moment, a massive rose sprung out of the ground, bursting forth in masses of flowers.

'Fucking twat,' Owen griped, rubbing the back of his head. Tosh couldn't help but giggle, and one of the cherry blossom saplings began growing taller and wider, erupting into more tiny pink blossoms.

'Okay,' Jack said, witnessing it with his own eyes. 'I'm almost prepared to believe that theory. What are we saying. It's reacting to happy thoughts?'

'Seems as good a place to start as any.'

'Good work, Ianto.'

Ianto didn't blush at the compliment, but there were a handful of daffodils beginning to sprout nearby. Jack raised his eyebrows at the sudden display and then Ianto did blush, embarrassed.

'Well, let's work on that for the moment. Tosh, think we can up our testing on that vase?'

'I can run a few more scans and put in through our neural interface. See what comes up.'

'Okay. In the meantime let's try and not think about anything too cheery, unfortunate as that sounds.'

'Well, it's lucky that Owen is always such a grump then,' Ianto said. 'At least he won't be adding to the problem.'

'Shove it, Teaboy.'

'See what I mean.'

Despite Owen's consistently bitter moods, even he managed to generate an unusually high amount of positive thoughts, though all he could manage was to leave a trail of straggly four foot weeds in his wake, with the odd wildflowers poking through here and there, almost as surprised to be there as the rest of them were to see them. Jack had no hesitation in arranging for weed spray to kill off whatever greenery Owen generated. The rest of it was much harder to get rid of, on account that it was too pretty to kill, and every time they went to destroy some of it, more just grew in its place as soon as the sadness about getting rid of it dissipated.

'Where are we at, Tosh?' Jack asked, having to duck his head under a low hanging blossom branch which had taken up residence over Toshiko's work station.

'It's definitely the vase that's causing this. It seems to be channeling positive and cheery thoughts, and reorganizing the atoms in the air to constitute plant life.'

'Okay, how is that even possible? You can't just whip up living things from atoms.'

'I'm still working on it.'

'Better yet, have we figured out a way to stop it?'

'Stop being happy?' she suggested.

Jack chuckled, regretting it just as soon as a mini carpet rose started flourishing at his feet. 'That might work for Owen, but I don't think the rest of us are going to be able to show the same restraint.'

'I'll keep working on it.'

'By the way, I've sent Gwen home.'

Tosh looked at him, somewhat shocked. 'What? Why?'

'Believe me, it wasn't an easy decision to make, but every time she saw the daisies, they made her so cheery that she'd cause even more to grow. No matter what we did, she just couldn't contain herself. They whole hub would have been overrun in a matter of hours.'

'I know how she feels,' Tosh replied, looking sadly at the cherry blossom as a few more pale pink petals fell from its branches, showering them. At least she'd somehow manged to keep her focus on the problem at hand. She'd only created three more trees since the problem had started getting out of hand, but she did have to admit, they were very beautiful trees.

'Tosh!' Jack yelled, spying another sapling beginning to take root right near her desk.

'Oh, sorry.' She cleared her throat and tried not to look at them. 'Focus,' she repeated.

'I'd tell you you're doing a great job, but I'm worried about the increase in vegetation.'

'That's okay. Thank me after we fix it.'

Jack spied Ianto sitting very quietly at his desk on the main level of the hub. The expression etched on his face was one Jack wasn't accustomed to seeing. It was a mixture of guilt and embarrassment. Curious, he walked over, determined to find out what had the young man in such a state.

Jack sighed in slight annoyance as a trail of rose petals seemed to appear in his wake. At least they're not full grown, he though, relieved that he'd managed to temper his feelings somewhat, hard as it was.

'Ianto? I thought you said you had a pile of work to do down in the archives?'

Ianto turned an even brighter shade of guilty pink, looking very sheepish. 'I did.'

'So why are you back up here? Not that I'm complaining of course,' Jack said, watching as a rose started springing up at his feet. Drat.

'If I asked you not to go down there under any circumstances, would you listen to me?' Ianto asked.

'Not when you say it like that. What happened?'

'They're everywhere!' he cried. 'Every spare inch of floor is covered in daffodils! I was nearly buried alive down there.'

Jack burst out laughing, ignoring the four foot tall blooms that began erupting all around them.

'Oh, Ianto Jones,' he said, still trying to contain himself. 'You're just too adorable.'

'It's not funny!' he huffed. 'What are we going to do? I'm going to spend the next ten years pulling them all up. Humph, maybe that's what I should do. It'll make me mad enough that no more will appear.'

'And then just when you start to feel like you're getting somewhere, and that the archives are being restored to their proud, tidy state, they'll just start up all over again. Your own pride will be your undoing.' He smiled longingly at Ianto. Bless him and his kind heart.

'Damn,' he moaned. 'You're right. What are we going to do?' he said, plucking off several roses that were getting a little too close to his face, and stuffing them in the vase on his desk, which was beginning to get very full indeed.

'Tosh is working on it. For now, perhaps you should avoid the desire to clean anything,' Jack suggested.

'Humph,' Ianto grumbled again.

'That's the spirit.'

Jack was hardly one to talk. Ianto only had to go near his office with a file, or coffee, or just himself, and tall stemmed roses began springing up all over. The whole office was almost jammed packed with the things. He couldn't bring himself to confess to Ianto that his entire bunker had been overrun. He'd only gone down there for a few minutes, but the mere sight of their clothes still piled on the floor from last night's escapades had sent his brain into lust filled overdrive. It had been all he could do to race for the ladder before he became trapped down there, closing the hatch tightly after him, as the rose bushes tried to push their way out, hot on his heels.

'I love you, but this is getting ridiculous,' Ianto said, battling his way through the sea of red, the odd daffodil popping up here and there as he ploughed his way through to get to Jack's desk.

'I can't help it,' Jack said. 'Just the sight of red roses makes me think of you.'

'Good to know I'm capable of making you so happy.'

'You have no idea,' Jack replied, a few more roses coming into bloom at the comment.

'No, for once I think I really do,' he said, feeling his head begin to swim for the heady perfume that the roses were started to emit. Of course Jack would only manage strong scented roses.

'The only concession I can think of is that at least you had the decency to grow the thornless variety.'

It reached the point that they had to move out of the hub the prevent it from being completely overrun.

Tosh and Ianto packed up some of their equipment and drove the four of them out to one of the many abandoned warehouses that was on Torchwood's balance sheet. They could continue working on the problem there, in the knowledge that at least any more flora could be confined to a limited space, and not interfere with the delicate equipment of the hub. In particular, they were worried about the rift manipulator, which was becoming very close to being consumed, and Lord only knew what might happen then. Owen suggested that they might get lucky and the rift might open and suck all the flowers back through, but the thought only caused a cheery sensation in him that produced even more weeds.

The drive across the city to the warehouse was a sombre one as they each tried desperately hard not to think of anything cheery. It helped that Ianto had threatened them all with decaf, if he found so much as a petunia in the glove box, let alone his wrath should any of them destroy the upholstery of the SUV with random plant life.

Once they were set up, they began their investigations in earnest. It was much easier to concentrate when you weren't about to be engulfed by flowers, or so distracted by their beauty that you inadvertently caused more to appear. After a few hours at the task, they'd only managed a sparse array of jonquils and hyacinth, three rhododendron bushes and a sad looking cumquat tree that they were all convinced was Owen's handiwork, though he staunchly denied it.

As the hours wore on with no success, their demeanor shifted into one of gloom at ever solving the problem, which at least stopped any more flowers from randomly cropping up.

'Shame it doesn't work in reverse when you don't feel happy,' Ianto muttered, idly tapping at his laptop, scrolling through pointless data readings that didn't make any sense.

'Plants need food to grow. I guess it was feeding off our positivity,' Tosh replied.

'Hang on, you might be on to something there, Tosh,' Owen said.

'I am?'

'It's not feeding off happiness, it's feeding off the thing that makes up happy.'

'Okay, that's about the vaguest explanation you've ever come up with,' said Jack.

'Just shut up and let me think!'

The three of them stood there in silence whilst Owen was appearing to have a conversation with himself.

'Yes, that's it. Ianto?'

'What?'

'Take Jack somewhere and make him laugh. A good twenty minutes at least, then bring him back. I want a sample of his blood when he gets back.'

It was a bizarre request, but they knew better than to argue with Owen when he got like this. Ianto drove Jack in the SUV several miles from the warehouse and returned half an hour later as instructed.

'Is it done?' Owen asked,

'Yep.'

'What did you do?'

Ianto held up the laptop. 'Benny Hill.'

'Oh, he's so funny,' Jack giggled, still wiping tears from his eyes and leaving a glorious trail of snapdragons in his wake.

Owen drew several vials of Jack's blood, trying not to trip over the hydrangea that had grown under the table whilst Jack had been trying hard not to replay the funniest bits in his head.

Owen returned from his makeshift lab half an hour later with a small spray bottle.

'Now is probably not a good time to water the plants,' Ianto said.

'Quiet. Now watch.'

Owen sprayed the bottle near the vase and suddenly a whole bunch of lilies burst through the floor from nowhere.

'Endorphins,' Owen announced. The vase is reacting to the endorphins in the room. Whenever you're happy, the body releases endorphins. I don't know how it does what it does, but that's what it's doing.'

'So how do we stop it?'

'Regular containment won't work, but a specially designed case with a cyclical hormone inhibitor, should stop it from reacting to external forces.'

With some very technical help from Tosh, the pair of them were able to build the required containment device. They tested its effectiveness by spraying quantities of Owen's new endorphin laced solution all around the tank, relieved to find that not a single posy was to be found nearby.

With the vase contained, they returned to the hub, Gwen included, to begin the massive cleanup task of removing several dozen skip loads of flowers. It took them days just to clear out Jack's office, plus two trips to the hardware store for fresh sets of gardeners gloves and sharp new blades for secateurs and saws. They were even more disheartened when Jack showed them his efforts underneath the hatch to his bunker.

Ianto consulted some botany experts at the National Botanical Gardens on non invasive weed killers, and managed to spray most of the archives, eliminating the plants without damaging anything else. Once they were starting to making inroads into the archives, Jack was able to find and unpack a disintegrator device that could reduce the bulk of it to a small pile of atoms, much more easily swept up and vacuumed. It also worked a trick on the much larger cherry blossoms that no one was looking forward to having to take an axe to.

After several days of hard work, they were all finally able to collapse on the sofa and in chairs, having reclaimed the hub, with not a single petal left in sight, and a large pile of pizzas as their reward.

'So how long do you think the man in the flower shop had the vase?' Gwen asked, biting hungrily into her slice of pepperoni pizza.

'Who knows?' Tosh replied. 'He seemed so miserable at the lack of custom, it could have been there for months. Even if he had a good day, he probably never noticed the few odd extra flowers.'

'Well,' Jack said, 'I think after everything, the secure archives is the only safe place for it, wouldn't you agree?' he added, passing the vase's case to Ianto. 'I'm not sure what use a manic plant generating vase is going to be to anyone.'

'I would agree, but perhaps there is something it could be used for.'

When Ianto had bundled them both into the SUV, with the vase tightly locked away in its endorphin proof casing, Jack had no idea what Ianto had up his sleeve. Judging by the direction they were headed, he was taking them home, but then at the last minute he turned right, instead of left, and took two more left turns, before pulling up along the kerb.

Jack peered out the window at the sad old brick building.

'Bluebell Meadows retirement home?' he asked, before his expression grew worried. 'Hang on, you're not thinking of putting me in there are you?'

Ianto laughed. 'I wouldn't dream of subjecting all those poor little old ladies to your antics. Besides, they're all far too young for you.'

'Humph,' Jack grumbled, crossing his arms like an impetuous child.

'Come on', Ianto said, already pushing the door open and clambering out, tucking the containment unit under his arm. Jack followed him as he crossed the street to the opposite side, where there was a large vacant block with a few tufts of sad yellow grass, fighting to hold on.

'So if you're not putting me out to pasture, then why are we here in this dump?'

'It's not a dump, it's a park. Well, it used to be, anyway. There was an article in the local paper a few weeks ago. The neighbourhood had petitioned to have the council allocate funding to restore the park, so that the residents and the locals would be able to enjoy it. As with all things, the council rejected the petition, because the site was much more valuable for development into a seven storey apartment block.

'So why are we here?' Jack said, still not following as Ianto pulled the vase out of its casing.

'We're about to ruin some councillor's day.'

He walked to the centre of the dilapidated parkland and placed the vase at his feet. Already, there were some shoots of green grass beginning to pop up out of the ground at his feet. That's when Jack realised what Ianto meant.

'Think happy thoughts, Jack.'

Jack didn't need any encouragement. Instead he lunged forward and wrapped Ianto in a tight embrace, kissing him hard enough to make his toes curl.

All around them started to spring up fresh green grass, beds of petunias and violets, camellias, lavender, silver birches, soft pink peonies and bright yellow acacias. And of course, lots of daffodils and deep red roses. It didn't take long before the entire park had been transformed into a lush and colourful garden, and finally they broke apart to witness the creation.

'Not bad, Ianto Jones,' Jack remarked. 'It seems you have quiet the green thumb. We should do this more often.'

'I'll book us a spot at Chelsea then, shall I?'

Comments

[jo02]

Ha! This was delightful! I had a great time imagining how the Hub looked with the roses and daffodils and daisies and cherry blossoms - it made me very happy too :)

[bk_forever]

Now all they have to do is take the vase with them on their nocturnal wanderings and transform all the ugly wasteland areas and unkemp grdens into floral paradises ;)

Adorable! I loved Ianto sprouting daffodils throughout the archives - he's so content down there - and Jack's beautiful roses expressing his love for his Welshman. I kind of hoped Owen would sprout cacti everywhere he went, but the weeds were more appropriarte to the setting. Great fic!