m_findlow

Title: Lost in a fog
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen, Gwen, Tosh, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,948 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, Where'd the road go?" at fic_promptly
Summary: The weather is playing tricks on the team

'Waste of bloody time,' Owen grumbled, pressing his foot down on the accelerator just that little bit harder.

'Well, we had to check it out,' Tosh said from the back seat. 'Never know what it could have been.'

'All because some stupid computer bleeps out a meaningless warning, we've got to go traipsing all over the country to check it out,' he continued his tirade.

'Oh, quit your whining, Owen,' Gwen sulked, folding her arms in the front seat and looking equally annoyed.

She'd really hoped they'd go out there and find something interesting. Even since Jack had left, she'd been waiting for an opportunity to flex her new leadership muscle, but all they'd managed so far was a few bits of flotsam and jetsam, and a random mini tornado that spat out alien comic books in the middle of a supermarket. She wanted aliens in distress and crashed spaceships, but all she'd done that had gotten her blood pressure up so far was keeping up with the endless number of reports and expense claims that Ianto kept piling on her desk, insisting that they needed to be authorized before he could officially file them. That was the job of whomever was in charge of Torchwood, he explained. The rest she'd avoided - the phone calls with government authorities, getting updates from alien contacts living in the city. Ianto had handled all of that, on the basis that none of the team wanted people to know Jack was gone. That chaos that would ensue didn't bear thinking about. What would happen long term if he didn't come back no one knew. They wouldn't be able to keep up the charade forever, but for now they were making it work.

'Sodding countryside,' Owen groaned again. 'Why can't the rift dump stuff a bit closer to home?'

It was true that they'd had to travel a long way out into the valleys to locate the source of the weird spike. This was coal country: lush green hills that stretched on for miles, dotted by patches of brown and black where lay long forgotten heaps of slap from mines that hadn't operated for years. On a good day, with clear blue skies and sunshine, it was pretty, and on a grey, cloudy day it was moody and rugged. Today however was turning out to be a bit of a mixed bag. When they'd headed out, it had been clear, but as the day wore on, the clouds had rolled in, turning the sky to steel. Worse though was the fog that had begun to sink down, first leaving a pale grey haze over the tops of the valley hills, but now quickly descending down to the valley floor, filling the vale with a thick white mass.

'It's a real pea souper out there,' Ianto muttered, finally adding to the conversation.

'Last time I remember fog this bad was when Rhys took us to Barry Island for the day,' Gwen said. 'We were right at the top of the ferris wheel but we couldn't see anything. After that, Rhys spent the rest of the afternoon riding the roller-coaster. I swear that was the only reason he took me.'

'I hate roller-coasters,' Ianto said.

'Me too,' Tosh added. 'I much prefer the merry-go-round.'

'And the dodgem cars,' he grinned, remembering better times.

Suddenly the car came to a screaming halt, their seat belts digging in hard as Owen hit the brakes.

'Bloody hell!'

'Oh my God.'

'Owen, what the hell?'

Owen looked at them, face a little pale, as if his actions had taken even him by surprise.

'Why'd you stop?' Gwen asked.

'Take a look for yourself,' he said, pointing out the front window.

Gwen peered out the window, whilst Tosh and Ianto pushed forward to look through from the back seat.

'Uh, where'd the road go?' Ianto asked, seeing nothing but white.

'Exactly,' Owen replied. 'One second we were good, and the next I can't see a bloody thing, winding road in the valleys with a sheer drop on one side and a flipping mountain on the other. No way I was going to be able to see where we were going.'

'I'm sure it's just a thick patch,' Gwen said. 'It'll blow over, or it might be only a few dozen yards before it clears. Fog gets like that out in these parts. If we just drive slow, we should drive out the other side of it.'

Owen started the car up again, beginning the slow crawl, with his teammates peering out their side windows in case he should stray too far to one side, but after thirty yards of crawling at a snail's pace, it was clear that the fog patch was much bigger than they thought, and that driving through it was terribly dangerous.

'It's no use,' Owen said, finally conceding defeat. 'Even I'm not mad enough to try and get us through that. We'll end up rolling off the edge and crushed at the bottom of the valley.'

They each hopped out of the car to inspect the unusually thick fog. It condensed on their faces, leaving them cold and damp, eating into the fabric of their clothes as well, leaving them feeling sodden.

'It's like being stuck in a cloud,' Tosh remarked, waving her hand in front of her face, causing the dense vapour to swirl.

'Definitely not your regular Welsh fog,' Ianto added. He could barely see a yard or two in front of him.

He began waking through it, trying to find out just how close to the edge of the road they were. If they couldn't drive through it, they'd need to pull over, in case some other nut decided to try their luck, ending up slamming into their invisible vehicle at the last minute. He took a couple of paces, sure he'd find the metal barrier signalling the edge of the road, but there was none. He tentatively took another step, watching the ground beneath his feet, in case this section of road didn't have barriers, only gravel and dirt. Another step and another and still he was on solid ground. That was odd. Maybe he'd gotten turned around in the fog and was heading back down the road instead of across it.

Tosh was the first to notice when Ianto hadn't returned to the car, just near where she was standing. He should have only been gone a minute. She took a few steps off in the direction she'd seen him heading, but there was nothing but more white.

'Ianto,' she called out, but the fog seemed to absorb her call. She called out again, before turning back towards the SUV. It was completely invisible in the fog, even though she'd not gone more than a few yards away. As she walked back, it didn't come back into view. She took a few more steps, certain it was just there, but instead she found herself surrounded by more fog. Bugger, she thought.

Gwen and Owen were debating their next move, taking a trek up the road to find out just how far the fog went. Surely it would clear up a bit further along. 'These valleys have a tendency to collect fog,' Gwen explained. 'If we can get below it before it gets any lower, we can get out of here.'

The road didn't have any dividing marks on it, so they just followed it along as best they could, feeling it slowly decline around the side of the valley.

'It's not getting any better,' Owen said.

'What?' She was only three feet away but it sounded like Owen was miles away.

'I said it's not getting any better!' he yelled this time, facing her, but finding it impossible to see her now.

'Gwen!' he shouted again, trying to close the gap between them. Only Gwen wasn't there.

She could have sworn Owen had been right next to her. 'If he's gone and wandered off in this,' she thought.

'Owen, where are you?' Owen didn't reply. Bollocks.

'Come on, it's not funny,' she said, annoyed that he'd play practical jokes at a time like this. He was probably standing right behind her, readying to grab her from behind and force a surprised scream from her.

'I'll have Ianto put you on decaf if you don't stop this right now,' she warned.

Still Owen didn't respond, and she started to get a sick feeling that Owen wasn't fooling around. Determined to get back to the SUV, she started off back in what she thought was the right direction, but the longer she walked, the more she was convinced that she should have come up on the SUV by now. The ground beneath her feet was now invisible, the faithful strip of bitumen gone. In a fleeting moment of panic she realised she was lost.

The cold, damp chill of the fog had been the last thing Ianto remembered, as he'd been shouting out for Gwen and Tosh and Owen. He'd turned back for the SUV but he couldn't find it or the others, no matter how he tried, the fog wrapping around everything, turning it invisible. There were no trees, no mountain hillside, and more disturbingly, no road, which made no sense whatsoever. Then, in an equally bizarre turn of events, he felt himself waking up in the back of the SUV, curled up against the window. On the other side of him was Tosh, and in front were Gwen and Owen, each asleep. Outside the car's windows, night had fallen, and he could make out the faintest twinkling of stars in the midnight blue sky. There was not a cloud to be seen, and more importantly, no fog. Had he fallen asleep in the back of the car and dreamt the whole thing up? If he had, then why were the others asleep too? Shouldn't Owen have been driving them back to Cardiff?

Gwen stirred in the front passenger seat. He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder and she jumped, looking rattled and confused.

'Sorry,' he apologised.

'Ianto? What? How did we?' She struggled to finish any one question.

'You remember it, too? 'he asked, referring to the mysterious fog that had enveloped their car, of walking off to find the end of it, and getting lost in it instead.

Before she could reply, Owen started awake and Tosh was stirring as well.

'Wha? How the fuck did we get back here?' he said, looking around confused.

'That's a very good question,' Ianto replied. 'One I don't have an answer for.'

'I was looking for you,' Tosh said, 'but then I got turned around in the fog and couldn't find the SUV again.'

'And I thought you'd disappeared off the edge of the mountain,' Gwen said to Owen.

'Assuming I could've found the edge,' he replied. 'Couldn't see a bloody thing anywhere.'

'That still doesn't explain how we got back here, and why we have no memory of it,' Tosh said.

'What chance that weird reading we got back at the hub and the crazy fog were somehow connected?' Ianto suggested.

'Are you saying we got abducted by alien fog?' Owen asked. Just the thought of being poked and probed by something alien whilst he was out of it creeped him out.

'You know what? Why don't we just get out of here and worry about it back at the hub,' Gwen said, equally disturbed by the prospect.

'No argument from me,' Owen said, quickly starting the engine and speeding them down the road. He didn't want to stick around in case it decided to come back for them.