m_findlow

Title: Shaken to the core
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack, Tosh, Owen, Suzie
Word Count: 500 words
Rating: PG.
Notes: Written for Challenge 149 - Shake at anythingdrabble
Summary: The hub gets hit by an earthquake of Timelord proportions.

Had he not been procrastinating, Jack might not have noticed it. Not at first anyway. Paperwork was the bane of his existence, and it wasn't shrinking as the years wore on. If anything, it was growing.

He was staring of into space, or to be more precise, the glass of water on the desk in front of him, when he saw the tiny ripples disturb its surface. He blinked, unsure he hadn't imagined it, and then it happened again. Just a split second as concentric circles emanated from the centre of the glass, spreading out and hitting the sides before rebounding back on themselves.

He dismissed it as anything to worry about. The hub was always whirring and grinding away. A little vibration every now and then would be nothing extraordinary. It had probably been happening for years and he'd never even noticed it. A council truck might roll over the Plass and send a rumble all the way down through the water tower to their lair below for all he knew.

There was another ripple in his water glass, except this time he noticed it because he felt it himself. Just a slight vibration on the desk that made everything rattle a little. There wasn't time to ponder it because seconds later, the whole hub shook violently. He grabbed his desk hard as the walls shook and glass rattled. Loose items tumbled to the floor and for a panicked moment, Jack thought the whole place was about to cave in on them.

Ten seconds or ten minutes, it was hard to tell. It felt like an eternity before the shaking stopped and he could let go. He stood on shaky legs, his immediate concern for his team.

'Everybody okay?'

Tosh was under her desk, Owen gripping hard to the medical bay railings, and Suzie on the floor surrounded by all the welding equipment that had been knocked off her workbench. A few bruises perhaps, but otherwise all okay.

'What the hell was that?' Owen asked.

'Earthquake,' Tosh replied, already at her workstation. It was the image from the CCTV that caught Jack's attention, right before it had cut out. A blue police box right there up the Plass.

He jogged over to his hand in the jar which looked just the same as always, then he flipped open his wrist strap and check it. 2006, he remembered. Still too early for his version of the doctor. Worse, he was up there right now, him from a hundred and forty years ago in this timeline, tinkering with the TARDIS, or at least he had been. What he wouldn't give to switch places right now and change his own past. The century had turned twice. How much longer would he have to wait?

'We should go up there and take a look around,' Suzie suggested.

Jack shook his head. 'Not this time, Suzie Costello.'

She frowned at him. 'Why not?'

'You're just going to have to trust me on this one.'