Torchwood: Fanfic: A Christmas Tale - Part two

[m_findlow]

Title: A Christmas Tale
Author: m_findlow
Characters: Torchwood Team
Rating: PG
Length: 22,304 words
Prompt: Torchwood_fest Prompt #6, submitted by badly_knitted(Members of the team have to assist Santa's elves by temporarily becoming elves themselves)
Summary: Santa is in trouble, can Torchwood save the day?

Owen followed Brady's instructions on how to find the infirmary. The building itself was like a mini city within a city, having facilities for almost everything you could possibly need and plenty of signage to indicate the various functions contained in each room and corridor. It was like a bigger version of the hub.

When he finally rounded the corridor to the infirmary, it was a bit of a shock. It was like being in a war zone. There weren't nearly enough spaces to fit all of the maligned. They were pressed up toe to toe across the floor on makeshift mattresses and some of the lesser sick huddled upright and swathed in blankets.

'Oh, thank heavens you're here,' said a frantic looking brunette. 'Santa said you were on your way.'

Owen was taken aback by the pretty young women. She wasn't much shorter than him. Slotting his professional mask in place he introduced himself.

'Owen Harper.'

'Sandy,' she said, extending her hand to shake his, 'Pleased to meet you Owen. Sorry it's bedlam in here.' Her hair was falling out of its neat bun and across her face, but she didn't seem to notice it, or if she did, simply didn't have time or inclination to do anything about it. It made her instantly appeal to Owen.

'Tell me what you can,' he instructed.

'Started a few days ago. Elf came in and reported spots on her arms and legs and chills. No one could find anything wrong apart from that, so she was sent back to work. The next day she collapsed right on the workshop floor and they sent her back up here. Then others reported spots and feeling unwell. Before we knew it, there were dozens of cases.'

'Where are the staff?'

'What staff? It's just me.'

'You've been looking after all these people by yourself?'

'No choice,' she replied, whilst bending down to touch an elf's forehead, checking their temperature. 'Everyone  else is sick.'

'And how come you're not? You are an elf aren't you?'

'Of course I am!' she replied indignantly.

'Sorry, you just don't look like an elf.' He looked around at the sick and realised that none of them really looked how he expected.

'You mean short and dressed in pointy shoes with bells?'

'I guess so. First time meeting elves,' he explained by way of an apology. 'Sorry.'

'No, I should be sorry. Snapping at you like that.' She heaved a sigh. 'I don't know what's going on, only that it's getting worse.' For the first time Owen noticed her accent, heavy and northern, Yorkshire at a guess, even though that didn't make any sense.  

'This is all of them?'

'Not by a long way. The infirmary was only ever designed to house about a half dozen patients. We've got nearly seventy in this room and four others. A lot are too sick to make it here. The rest know we don't have the space. They're staying at home, doing what they can for family members.'

'So not everyone is sick yet?'

She continued to answer his questions as she moved about the room from patient to patient. He followed her, observing what he could.

'Estimates put the sick at nearly ninety percent of the population. With the rate of infection, it's only a matter of time before the remainder are affected.'

'And you're a trained medic here?' He tried not to make it sound patronising.

'Our resident doctor is in a bad way. He got sick three days ago. I know basic elf physiognomy, but I'm no expert. Please tell me you can help.'

'I'll do my best.'

She smiled briefly and he realised it was the first time he'd seen it. She was cute when she smiled.

'Let's start with Jessie. According to Santa, she's patient zero and maybe she can give us some clues about what we're dealing with.'

'This way,' she said.

 

 

Gwen and Rhys followed Santa down to a large office space. It seemed to be the one room in the whole place so far that actually had decorations hung. It was indeed the Christmas cavern she'd expected the whole place to look like.

'Eh, now this is more like it,' Rhys commented.

'Welcome to my office,' Santa declared.

'Nice to see a bit of tinsel and tree,' Gwen replied approvingly.

Santa chuckled. 'The elves think I'm mad keeping all this stuff about. "Don't you get enough of this in every house all year round?" They say. Well, the younger ones in any case. They don't remember the old days like some of us. Christmas spirit might be all around here, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to be reminded.'

A sudden flutter of paper came rushing through a small flap in the wall near Santa's very large desk. It caused both Gwen and Rhys to jump in alarm.

'Oh, don't worry about that. Just some more letters coming through at the last minute, probably west coast USA and Hawaii.'

'Bit late for that isn't it?' asked Rhys. 'I mean, factory's not working and the rift's good and all, but it's not like you've got time to read them now, is it?'

Santa smiled knowingly. 'Optical character recognition and automatic spellchecker. All the letters computerised and catalogued, and the requests inputted for manufacture. Computers! Sometimes I wonder how we ever managed things before them!'

'I think I figured out what I want for Christmas,' Rhys observed. 'That'd make processing delivery dockets a hell of a lot easier!'

'Ah yes, I forgot you worked in logistics.'

'Eh?'

'Harwoods isn't it?' he asked, floating away towards his desk, leaving Rhys staring dumbfounded at Gwen.

'Bloody hell, he really does know everything Gwen,' Rhys hissed.

Gwen had to admit, even she was mightily impressed.

'The lists are in a bit of a mess, I have to admit,' Santa said despondently.

'Why's that?'

'Well with everything that's been going on, they haven't all been checked twice yet.'

'Well I'm sure we can help sort things out, can't we Rhys?' Gwen was doing that innocent smiling thing she did when she knew you were going to dig your heels in.

'Yeah, yeah,' Rhys stuttered, having just been dragged into the task.

'Most of Asia and Europe are done. We've still got most of the British Isles and all of the Americas to go.'

'Oh boy.'

'Anyway, it's all there in the main database. All the lists have been processed initially, but we always review the naughty list twice and make sure any recent behaviour is taken into account. Kids are always much better behaved in the lead up to Christmas and it would be a shame for one of them to miss out when they've made a genuine effort to be good. All you need to do is click here to approve them for the nice list, or here to verify them for the naughty list.'

'Okay, well we'll split them up between us. Get through them twice as fast.'

'Can I leave you two here on your own? I've got to get down to dispatch and help get Jack set up. If we don't get cracking on delivering what gifts we already have, it won't matter how much of the lists we review.'

'We'll be fine,' Gwen assured him. 'We've got our comms if we get stuck.'

'Excellent. Once you've got the lists approved, they'll be notified to Brady and final dispatch orders issued. If you can head down to dispatch afterwards, you can help with sorting and loading gifts.'

'How's that work, then? asked Rhys.

'Once the gifts pass through the main factory, they're boxed, wrapped, tagged and logged in the system as completed.'

'How do you know if you're giving the right gifts to the right house?'

'I'm Santa! I know every child in every house, and every gift.'

Just before Rhys was about to pull a contrite looking face, Santa interrupted him.

'But, each gift is wrapped with a tiny GPS chip embedded. If any gift's location doesn't match the GPS signal,  base camp will get an alert. The last thing anyone wants is to get the wrong gift on Christmas morning.'

'I had no idea Christmas was so complicated,' said Gwen.

'Not complicated, just well organised. Brady's been doing this for so many years now that I think he secretly thinks he's in charge. I humour him though. To be perfectly honest, these days I'd probably be lost without him. With so much to do and organise,  it's nice to have someone you can count on. And all the other elves of course. Funny to think that once upon a time it was just me, hand carving a few knick knacks for the local villagers. Anyway, enough chit chat, I need to be off. Good luck!'

The two of them watched as the large man shuffled back out of the office.

'You and me, Rhys. Team Torchwood out to save Christmas.'

'That's one for the scrapbook.'

 

 

 

Tosh knew she'd like Fletcher from the moment she laid eyes on him. There was something familiar and identifiable about watching a fellow computer geek tearing their hair out because whatever was meant to be working clearly wasn't. It was a frustration she'd felt plenty of times before.

His wayward ginger hair stuck out at angles from underneath his peaked cap as he tapped madly at the keyboard, then turned over to one of the machines and pressed a button. It whirred and cranked then out issued a tiny tag doll with plaited green hair.

'Argh! Why won't you work? Please!'

Tosh quietly cleared her throat. Fletcher spun around, startled by the sudden interruption. He hadn't noticed her standing there for the past five minutes.

'Oh, hello. Um, don't mind me. Everything's under control.'

'I think Santa would disagree,' she said jokingly.

'You're probably right.' He sighed and pulled off his cap, more wild hair freed from its confines. 'Sally's meant to be a red head.'

Tosh picked up the rag doll and gently ran her hand over the soft green woolen pigtails, just like she used to do with her dolls when she was a little girl.

'I quite like the green,' she said, trying to make him feel better.

'You got a thing against redheads?'

'No,' she quickly responded.

Fletcher laughed. 'Just kidding! I'm Fletcher.'

'Toshiko, but everyone calls me Tosh.'

'Lovely name. You should keep it. Do you know anything about computers and machines Toshiko?'

'A bit,' Tosh conceded.

'Good, because I thought I knew computers back to front, but these machines have got me baffled. Umberto was our whizz mechanic but he's sick. The whole production line seems to have jammed up somehow and until I can get the programming working again, it's preventing all the other toys from being made.'

'You don't make them by hand?'

Fletcher laughed and pulled his peak cap firmly back on his head.

'Back in the old days, but seven billion people? It would take four pole years to make that many by hand.'

'Victims of industry,' Tosh observed.

'Don't worry, they're all still elf made. Here,' he drew her over to a nearby desk and extracted a toy from the small cupboard underneath. It was a wooden train set. It was exquisite. It looked hand carved and painted, detailed right down to the individual faces of passengers filling it's carriages.

'It's beautiful. Your machines made this?'

'Quality control sample. This is one that didn't make the grade.'

'Wow, you have really high standards!'

It has to be as good as if it were made by hand. Sometimes machines break down, so elves just pick up the slack and start making by hand again. That said, the machinery is never down for more than an hours or two, or sometimes a day if it's for scheduled maintenance. But now that everyone is sick, there's no one to make toys. So you can see why getting the machines back online is vital. We're still short about thirty percent of the toys we need to deliver this evening. If children woke up on Christmas morning and didn't have any toys under the tree, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.'

'Then we'd better get to work!'

 

 

 

It was true that Jack had flown many things in his lifetime, but a sleigh lead by reindeer was not one of them. The first thing that struck him was just how incredibly large the reindeer were. They towered over Jack's six foot two frame and their antlers stood tall and angular, and as thick as his forearm. He didn't fancy being on the receiving end should one of them decide to take a dislike to him.

'I'm giving you Prancer, Vixen and Cupid. They're the most placid and shouldn't give you any trouble.'

'I though you said we had to go halves. Who's the fourth?'

'Blitzen. He's a bit fiesty but he's the best navigator, and I think you'll need him. But you're going to have to win him over before he'll let you pilot the sleigh.'

'Never met anyone I couldn't charm,' Jack stated casually.

'Reach out your hand and let him smell you.'

Jack was glad the others weren't here to witness his trepidation. He hoped that his 51st century pheromones worked as well on reindeer as they did humans. He stretched out his arm towards the large creature. Blitzen huffed angrily and bowed his head, forcing his lethal antlers forward in a threatening way.

'Back up a bit,' Santa warned.

Jack quickly jumped out of striking distance. This was not going as well as he'd planned.

'Do you want to ruin Christmas for everyone?' Santa chastised. 'Jack's here to help us save Christmas.'

The reindeer appeared to looked contrite, or as much as was possible for reindeer.

'Try again,' Santa instructed

Jack raised his eyebrows. 'You sure?'

Jack reluctantly put forth his hand again. Blitzen looked about to bite it off, then pulled back and nudged his nose against Jack's outstretched palm.

The sensation was surprising. What had looked like soft downy fur on his nose was actually quiet thick and bristle like. Jack chanced running his hand up and down the bridge of his nose and was relieved when Blitzen obliged him.

'He's a good boy really,' said Santa, running a hand up Blitzen's neck and scratching behind his ear. He almost purred in delight at the motion.

He instructed Jack carefully on harnessing the reindeer to the sleigh. He got the hang of it after the first two,  hooking up Cupid and Prancer. Even Blitzen was harnessed with minimum fuss. 'I think he's coming around,'  Jack said, reaching up to scratch his ear and nearly getting gouged in the process. 'Or not,' he backtracked.

'He's just showing off for Vixen. It wouldn't do to make a fuss in front of the lady. He has quite a thing for her.'

'You dog,' joked Jack.

Blitzen made a gesture that seemed to indicate he understood Jack.

'Ready for your first flight?'

Jack got that determined glint in his eye. 'Let's do this.'

Continues at part three...  http://m-findlow.livejournal.com/79917.html

Comments

[bk_forever]

That's the first time Jack's ever had to charm a reindeer! Probably.

I do hope Owen can find out what's wrong with the elves and come up with a cure. And that Tosh can figure out how to fix the machinery! Looks like everyone has got their work cut out for them.