Torchwood: Fanfic: Haunted

[m_findlow]

Title: Haunted
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Rhys
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,103 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Torchwood, any, Haunted by the ghost of an inanimate object" at fic_promptly
Summary: The team are being haunted by something they never wanted to see again.

'Oh, you didn't,' Ianto muttered as he entered Jack's office with his tray to collect the dirty dishes.

Jack himself was nowhere to be found, which Ianto had thought made it the perfect opportunity to go in and tidy up, but he hadn't expected there to be anything new on Jack's desk that hadn't been there this morning. Yet there is was, the heavy metal gauntlet, just sitting there, as if it had been waiting for him.

Where on Earth had Jack gotten that? he wondered. And when? He'd been here practically all day as far as Ianto could remember. The rift had been quiet and only a brief disturbance at the Cardiff Central police station had interrupted their morning. Surely this hadn't been the reason for the call from a harried sounding Detective Swanson.

He set down his tray and stared at the glove. He didn't dare touch it. The first one had always given him a creepy sensation when he held it, and he'd certainly never put it on. After what had happened to Gwen, he was glad he hadn't ever tried. And as for the second glove, well, that had taken on a life all its own, attacking poor Martha and draining her youth like water squeezed from a sponge.

But if Jack had been here and this had also been here, why hadn't it been locked away? It was too dangerous to keep lying around, even assuming it had no energy of its own. These gloves were evil. It didn't bear thinking about that this was number three and that meant somewhere out there was probably a fourth. Because gloves always come in pairs, he reminded himself.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Jack.

'Hey there, gorgeous,' Jack answered. 'What's up?'

'Where are you?'

'Oh, just down at the local cop shop tying up loose ends with the Detective,' he replied. 'You know, I think maybe she's starting to warm up to me.'

'Well, then there's definitely something alien down there,' Ianto teased.

Jack chuckled at the comment. 'You're probably right. So, did you just call because you missed me?'

Ianto rolled his eyes. He was about to ask Jack about the glove, watching it on the desk, but then, in the split second he blinked, it was gone. It hadn't scurried away. It was just there one second and gone the next. The sudden disappearance startled him.

What the? Ianto thought. He placed a hand on the desk, right where the glove had been, but there was nothing there. It wasn't invisible, it was just gone.

'Ianto....' Jack purred.

Could he have imagined it? There was no way it could just be there and then not be there. He looked around the room, in case it had reappeared somewhere else, but it didn't seem to be anywhere.

'Are you still there?' Jack asked. 'I'm not hearing any heavy breathing,' he taunted.

Don't say anything, Ianto decided. He was either going mad, or just in need of a really good night's sleep if he was imagining things like that. 'I'm here,' he said.

'Everything okay? You sound a little distracted.'

'Your office is a mess,' Ianto deftly replied. 'There's a lot here to distract.'

'You called me to tell me I'm a pig?'

'Your words, not mine.'

Jack huffed. 'Okay, well I still love you, anyway, but I'm getting the evil eye from the Detective so, can this wait until I get home?'

'Sure.' Hopefully by then, he'd have rationalised what he'd seen and decide whether to say anything about it. 'Love you, too,' he added.

Jack smirked at the little admission as he hung up the phone. Ianto was like putty in his palm as soon as he turned on that old Jack Harkness charm. A shame he couldn't say the same as he smiled congenially at Detective Swanson, who was now rapping her foot impatiently as he held up her afternoon.

'Sorry about that,' he apologised. 'Work never ends, you know.'

'Somehow I don't think you are sorry,' she replied. 'And that didn't sound much like work. Now can you please get on with it and help sort this mess out?'

Jack threw his hands up in mock surrender. 'Lead on. So, how are the inmates since this morning?' he asked.

'They're fine now, except for one who's still sitting in the corner and suckling his thumb, but I think he was deranged when they brought him in.'

Jack chuckled at that. A swarm of alien locusts that could pass through walls was likely to freak anyone out.

'Cooper promised me you'd caught them all, but one of my officers swears he saw something buzzing around down in our evidence locker. Normally, I wouldn't care, but the DCI is already on the warpath about this morning and a second incident is not what I need.'

'Understood,' Jack said. He thought they'd done a pretty good job of rounding them up, but there was always a chance they'd missed one or two. Only their specialized nets and an anti-proton field container could prevent them from passing right through and escaping. He'd brought a small one with him, hoping to catch whatever was still lurking around the station.

Swanson took him down the concrete steps to the basement, swiping her access card and giving the officer at the door a firm look. 'He's with me on my authority,' she said, when the officer gave a questioning look as to why she was letting a civilian into their evidence locker.

'Torchwood clearance,' Jack added, scrolling off the code that had gotten him out of a lot of police scrapes over the years. It wasn't necessary, but he liked the way it irked the Detective to remind her he had his own authority.

He passed the containment unit to Kathy and instructed her to hang on to it, whilst he took the small butterfly net in hand, ready to catch the locusts at the first sight of movement.

'They could be down here laying eggs,' Jack explained as he scoured the room, searching for any trace of them.

'You mean we could have more on our hands?'

'Not if we catch them first,' Jack grinned. 'Their mating is quite graphic before the female is ready to lay her eggs. A shame we might have to interrupt it. It's quite something to watch.'

'I'll take you word for it,' she replied blandly.

Jack began pawing between objects and boxes. If they were down here, they'd have chosen a nice dark spot to engage in their lovemaking. He stepped over a pile of evidence crates and carefully moved back a few bags of cocaine, before spotting something that made him jerk backwards.

'How long has that been down here?' he asked, seeing the sinister metallic gauntlet sitting at the back of the shelf.

'I can't see anything from here through your fat head.'

'Give me the containment unit,' he demanded, reaching out for it. Without argument she passed it over. Jack turned back, about to grab the glove and shove it inside the containment unit for safety's sake but it was gone.

'Where'd it go?' He began fanatically searching the vicinity, afraid he'd disturbed it already

'Where'd what go? Did you find them?'

There's was a skittering sound and Jack twirled at the noise, expecting the glove to come lunging at him, ready to attack and attempt to drain his immortal life away. He lifted a cardboard box, ready for it, only to find the pair of locusts going hard at it underneath. It took a second for the moment of confusion to pass, before he gripped the net and threw it over the top of them, scooping them up and twisting off the top to seal them inside. He unclipped the net from the small frame and loaded into the waiting containment unit.

'That's it?' Kathy asked.

Jack's brow was furrowed as he pondered the strange events. 'Everything that ends up down here gets logged and tagged, right?' he asked.

She gave him a strange look. 'Yeah,' she slowly replied. They weren't idiots.

'Good. Make sure you keep a close eye on anyone coming or going through here.'

'You mean in case there's more locusts?'

'Yeah,' Jack added distractedly.

By the time he reached the SUV outside, setting the containment onto the seat next to him, he'd already pulled up the database on his phone. He searched the evidence locker records for anything that fell under the description of glove, gauntlet, armor, or metal hand, but nothing came up. So, what exactly was it he'd seen down there?

'Where'd do you hide that oil burner?' Rhys asked.

'Um, I think I stashed it in the hall cupboard,' Gwen replied, tugging cling film over the salad bowl and shoving it in the fridge. She paused and thought about the question for a moment 'The place doesn't smell that bad, does it?'

'Hard to tell. You and I are used to the smell of alien slime these days.'

She sighed. Rhys was probably right. The last thing she needed was Rhys' parents coming over for dinner and thinking they were living in squalor. Maybe a few scented candles wouldn't go astray either.

She bent over and pulled open the kitchen cupboard door, reaching in to get the plates out. When she turned, she came face to face with a metal glove, sitting there on their kitchen bench where moments ago it had been empty. Gwen yelped and the plate in her hand went crashing to the tiled kitchen floor, smashing apart.

'Oi!' Rhys yelled out. 'That better not have been one of the new dinner set plates,' he warned. 'Mum will have a fit if we've broken them. Only got them last Christmas.'

Gwen could care less about what her mother in law thought. Without thinking, she grabbed the empty pan from the stove - the one that had been meant for the chicken she'd been about to cook. She lofted it over her head, ready to brandish it as a weapon.

'Rhys! Get my gun, now!' she yelled out.

'Eh?' came the confused question.

'Gun, Rhys! Now!'

Moments later, Rhys was there, her gun gripped carefully. She whipped it out of his hand with lightning speed, flipping back the slide and turning it back towards the bench, ready and ready to blow the glove to smithereens. Only it was gone.

'Gwen, what the hell?'

'Where'd it go?' she demanded, swiveling her head left and right. 'Did you see?'

'See what?'

'The glove!'

'What glove?'

'It was...' she trailed off, '...right there.'

'Gwen,' Rhys pleaded.

'No, just give me a minute. It's got to be here somewhere.' She inspected the kitchen from top to bottom, gun still gripped in her hand.

'Do not tell me aliens are in our flat on the one night my parents are coming over,' Rhys complained.

Gwen frowned as the kitchen appeared empty. No, she'd definitely seen it.

'Ianto! I'm back!' Jack yelled out, announcing his presence. From somewhere, though Jack never could tell where, so quietly did he move, Ianto appeared.

'All sorted?'

'Yeah,' Jack replied. 'Weird day, though.'

Ianto rolled his eyes. 'Tell me about it.'

Jack was about to regale Ianto with the strange tale of his trip to the evidence locker, when he phone started ringing.

'Gwen! What's up? Didn't I give you tonight off?' His jovial mood disappeared as he listened to her on the other end of the line. 'Woah, woah, Gwen. Slow down. You saw what?' Jack paused and listened carefully as Gwen tried to explain. 'No, actually, that isn't crazy at all.' He cast a look at Ianto, sharing his concerned frown. 'I saw one too. It's gone now, though, right?' Jack nodded. 'Okay. Just get to the hub when you can.' He hung up and huffed out a breath.

'Gwen saw a resurrection glove, didn't she? Ianto asked.

Jack spun at the question. 'How did you?'

'Because a few hours ago, I saw one on your desk. Only then it was gone. I thought I must have imagined it.'

Jack let out another heavy breath. 'Me too. Only it was in the evidence locker at the police station. I only looked away for a second and then it was gone. Like it was never there.'

'Did you touch it? Do we know if it was real?'

'I didn't get a chance. You?'

Ianto shook his head. 'So, did we have some kind of mass shared hallucination, or is something trying to get our attention?'

'They've got it,' Jack assured him.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Oooh, creepy! I hope the glove doesn't keep haunting them!