Out of the Rift - Chapter 2

[theatre_girl79]

And one more to get you guys started. I do hope you guys like this and will comment and want more. I know some people already looking for more.

Title: Out of the Rift
Rating: R (for some violence and some eventual nudity and innuendo... hell, it is Torchwood)
Synopsis: A disturbance in the Rift, and the aftereffects are not exactly what they team figured it would be.
Disclaimers: If you recognize them, then they belong to BBC, RTD, and all those wonderful people. I'm just letting them play for a couple of days.

Prologue
Chapter 1


Chapter 2

The girls continued to quibble as they ducked into the main lobby of the Edgewater Beach Apartments. Mary Jo was still punching away at her cell phone.

“Why can’t I get a signal,” Mary Jo asked.

“I don’t know. What I want to know is what is going on,” Carole said.

“Is anything going on,” Joanna asked.

“Do you think anything is going on,” Mary Jo quipped.

“I don’t know,” Joanna whined.

“I wish John had come with us,” Mary Jo said as wandered around the lobby area trying to find any cell signal.

“John doesn’t walk, he really can’t,” Carole replied, thinking of their handicapped friend who was stuck in the upstairs condo by himself when the girls went out for their walk.

“I know, and he is alone in my condo,” Joanna whined.

“Don’t worry, he’s just on your computer, he is not going through your secret drawers. If nothing else, you might have a new desktop among other upgrades,” Carole said.

Joanna and Carole waved at the security clerk at the main desk as they headed to the elevators. The little, older Asian man smiled back at them, and gave them a wave.

“I cannot believe this,” Mary Jo said in frustration, as she proceeded to jam her finger at multiple buttons on her cell phone.

“I still don’t get it. What is so wrong,” Joanna asked. The girls entered the elevator and hit the button for the 17th floor.

“There are a lot of things wrong,” Mary Jo hurriedly said.

“Did you not see what we saw,” Carole asked.

“The pink thing, yeah, what about it,” Joanna replied.

“’What about it’ is that things are very, very wrong,” Mary Jo said, still concentrating on her phone. “I wish I could just sonic screwdriver this thing.”

The girls didn’t pay attention as the elevator stopped on the first floor and several people got on, wet. The wetness and smell of chlorine did not bother them, knowing there was an entrance to the pool on the first floor. They automatically made room for the newcomers, their minds a million miles away.

“But what was wrong out there,” Joanna asked again, looking confused.

“There was a fucking blowfish sunning itself in a 3-piece suit on the lakefront,” Carole exclaimed, finally losing it.

“Well that’s interesting,” a male voice said from next to them, a familiar sounding male voice.

The three girls looked up and were stunned. Mary Jo slowly closed her cell phone and slipped it into her pocket. Carole leaned back against the wall of the elevator. Joanna’s mouth dropped open. Standing before them were all five members of the Torchwood team, dripping wet.

“Um, what floor are you headed to,” Carole asked, while in her mind ran all the possible scenarios of how this could go very badly, and all the scenarios of how cool this could be.

Jack looked over at the elevator console and then replied, “Floor 17.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Carole said as she turned to Mary Jo and raised her eyebrow in question.

“I like the coat,” Ianto said, looking at Mary Jo. Mary Jo appeared to be trying to hide the smirk that kept trying to plaster itself across her face.

The elevator stopped at the 17th Floor and the girls got off the elevator with the Torchwood team behind them. Joanna started heading towards her condo when Carole reached out and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back. She then turned around and faced the newcomers.

“But I thought we were-,” Joanna started to say.

“Hush,” Mary Jo said as she turned around to look at them, too.

“Just where are you going,” Carole asked.

“Wherever you are leading,” Jack said. He looked serious, too serious. Jack crossed his arms across the front of his chest.

“You don’t happen to also go by the name of John Barrowman, do you,” Carole asked.

“John who?”

Carole looked to Mary Jo, and then pulled the girl in close to her. “If we aren’t being pranked, there is only way to tell if it is really Jack, but do we want to test that if we are wrong,” Carole whispered to her. Mary Jo shook her head no.

Carole looked back at the group. “How do we know who you are?”

Jack looked at the others, and then back at the girls. Placing his hands on hips he said, “We are Torchwood.”

“And dripping all over the carpet,” she curtly said. If it was a prank, this was very elaborate, and would be way too costly. No one she knew had the kind of money to stage a blowfish, and the five cast members of Torchwood in Chicago. She exchanged a look with Mary Jo and then turned around and headed down the hallway.

“Let’s go,” Mary Jo said, leading the way.

“What,” Joanna said as she hurried past them to her door.

“Might as well let them in and let them dry off,” Carole said.

“We wouldn’t want to be rude,” Mary Jo finished.

Joanna grumbled and unlocked the door the eight of them had crowded behind in the narrow hallway. The girls entered the condo first.

“I don’t have enough towels for all of them,” Joanna complained.

“It’ll be okay. Hey John, we’re home and we have company,” Carole said out loud. Ianto closed the door behind all of them.

“Finally,” John said as he came out of Joanna’s bedroom, “what happene-.” John looked up at the five strangers, then looked at the girls. “Madre de Dios.” He turned back around and headed back into the bedroom. “I’ll be on the computer selling everything I own.”

“John, get back out here,” Carole said. “Joanna, go get some towels please.” Joanna and John squeezed through the doorway at the same time, bouncing off of each other.

“Gee thanks,” John said, then looked at Carole. “Just tell me, did they bring the Tardis with them?” Mary Jo and Carole looked at Jack.

“No, no Tardis,” Jack said as he looked around the room.

“What’s a Tardis,” Gwen asked, stepping in front of Jack.

Jack exchanged a look with Ianto and then looked back at Gwen. “The Doctor’s.”

“What Doctor,” Gwen replied.

Jack had just opened his mouth to respond when Joanna appeared from the bathroom with three towels.

“Here,” she said handing them to Carole. “I told you I don’t have a lot of towels.” Carole took them and looked around at the group. Jack could tough it out, and Ianto probably would too, especially if Jack was. She handed one to Gwen and one to a Tosh, who still did not say a word, but was glancing down at her PDA every couple of moments. With one towel left she looked at Owen. Carole noticed a bandage wrapped around his left hand and her mind went to work. He only wore a bandage after he died and injured his hand, she smiled at herself knowing this knowledge. She handed him the towel.

“I’ll be fine,” Owen said, not reaching out for the towel. She knew he wouldn’t get sick, but he also did not have the body heat to start drying himself off naturally, and if he squished all over her couch, Joanna would really be upset.

“Just take it,” Carole said, tossing it over his shoulder. “It would make me so happy,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him. He begrudgingly took the towel and started drying his hair.

“I have a hair dryer. They could dry off with the hair dryer,” Joanna supplied.

“We’ll be okay,” Jack said, taking off his coat and handing it to Ianto who hung it up on the coat hooks by the front door.

“Okay, fine.” Joanna walked over and stood by the windows, overlooking the expanse of Lake Michigan. The sky shone a brilliant blue behind her.

The newcomers made the cheerfulness of the day seem almost absurd, well, them and the blowfish. Mary Jo sat down on the couch, setting her bookbag next to her second bag of gadgets, which probably included the kitchen sink. John leaned against the table by the bedroom doorway, constantly looking from person to person. Carole stood next to Owen, right next to the front door. The other members of Torchwood were scattered in between them, and there was a moment of silence and a pseudo-face off.

“So,” Carole drew out, “what’s new? Why so wet?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Gwen said, holding up her hand and stepping into the center of the room. “This is all a little odd.”

“Exactly,” Carole and Owen said at the same time. They looked at each other as everyone else in the room looked at them.

“Anyway,” Jack said and then gestured to Gwen to continue.

“We don’t even know who you are,” Gwen stated.

“How about introductions then,” Carole asked looking around the room. It would be nice, and then they would officially know the names of the Torchwood members instead of accidentally calling them by their names, which they shouldn’t know. “I’m Carole,” she said, then looked left to Owen, who looked like he was trying to get the water out of his ears.

He looked up, draping the towel around his neck. “Owen.”

“John,” he said while leaning against the nearby end table. “Sorry, my back is really killing me.”

“Mary Jo.”

“Ianto Jones.”

“Toshiko.”

“Joanna.”

“Gwen. Gwen Cooper.”

“Captain Jack Harkness.”

“All right, what brings you here,” John asked as he shifted his weight to his other foot. Both palms planted on the table he stared at Jack.

“We really can’t-“ Jack started when he was interrupted.

“Jack,” Tosh said quickly. “I think I-“

Suddenly Carole felt light-headed and leaned back against the wall, holding herself up with her arms. Her eyeballs felt like they were swimming in warm pools for a moment. She must have made some kind of audible noise because when she refocused, everyone was staring at her. Her body felt warm, and it felt like she was trying to sweat. She took a couple of deep breaths in through her suddenly dry mouth.

“What’s wrong,” Mary Jo asked.

“I don’t know.” Carole said, pushing herself away from the wall, but still keeping her hand there as a brace as the feelings started to subside.

“Could it be,” John intoned.

“I don’t think so,” Carole said.

“How do you know,” John asked, his voice hard.

“Fine!” Carole pushed off of the wall and stormed towards the bathroom, through the bedroom. Before she left the living room, she grabbed her black book bag from behind the armchair in front of the windows. Carole dropped her bag on Joanna’s bed and pulled a small black pouch out of it and went into the bathroom. Pulling out an alcohol swab, she cleaned two fingers on her left hand. As she waited for them to dry, she looked up and saw Owen standing in the doorway.

“You don’t have to be here,” she snapped.

“Doesn’t matter, I am.” He said, blocking the doorway.

Carole shrugged at him and pulled out the little gray machine. She pulled back and prepped the lancet and then pressed it against the tip of her ring finger. After a beat she pushed the button, sending the lancet breaking through the callused skin. She pulled it away and pushed the finger together, drawing out a droplet of blood. Picking up the machine, she held the test strip next to the blood and it sipped the sample in and the machine gave off a beep.

“Alien metabolism booster?”

“No.”

“Well hey, I thought this would be fun.” He looked down at the machine. “Diabetic?”

“Yep. Type II.” The machine beeped and she looked down at the readout. “105? Then what made me feel like that? I knew this wasn’t it.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out,” Owen said.

Carole looked at him. She swore she could feel sympathy emanating from him. Even if he only existed in a fictional universe, Dr. Owen Harper was a damn good doctor, and it was a shame he had to die to learn how to live. Carole looked away before her eyes could betray her. She disposed of the testing strip and put the pouch back together. Owen stepped back and let her through the bathroom door, back into the bedroom. She tossed it back into her book bag, zipping that up and hefted it back into the main room.

“So,” John asked from the armchair. His back had given up on the standing thing.

“I’m fine,” Carole said as she sat her bag down next to Mary Jo’s and flopped onto the couch.

She saw Jack and Gwen shoot Owen look and was happy when the doctor shook his head yes. John seemed satisfied for the moment and leaned back in his chair.

“Jack, I have something unusual here,” Tosh said as she looked up from her PDA.

“Oh goody,” Owen retorted as he leaned back against the doorjamb, crossing his arms.

“Right before she,” Tosh said, pointing to Carole, “felt sick, there was a huge spike of energy and then just as she got sick, it bottomed out. Now there is nothing, no readings.” Tosh punctuated this by tapping one last button.

“Oh no, this isn’t my fault,” Carole said as she closed her eyes and leaned back into the couch.

“An energy spike, is that why our cell phones weren’t getting any signal and barely working,” Mary Jo asked.

“Is that why the t.v. and the internet didn’t work up here,” John wondered.

“And why our communications devices didn’t work before,” Jack stated.

“Well, now there is nothing. It’s all quiet,” Tosh said.

Quiet? This wasn’t quiet, this was odd. This was way too odd. Carole couldn’t help remembering some of the more odd times in her life. Things hadn’t seemed this crazy since she used to traipse the halls of their university. Now that was some weird ti- Carole sat up like a bolt.

“Quiet! That’s it! It’s too damn quiet!”

Owen stood up straight and looked at Carole. She could see Joanna and Mary Jo trying to follow her line of thinking. Instead she looked straight at John, figuring he would get it quickly enough.

“It’s too quiet here,” Carole said to him. “No one is around. Nothing is out there, not even the Lady in Purple.”

“The Lady in Purple,” Ianto asked.

“The Lady in Purple is gone and so are her friends,” Carole stated, sitting on the edge of the couch. She could see the light bulb in John’s eyes, and then she could see a seed of fear start to take hold as he mouthed the word “no.” She heard Mary Jo make a sound and looked around at the group. “This whole building is silent.”

Before the Torchwood team could ask about the Lady in Purple, Mary Jo’s cell phone beeped with a message, the tone, the voice of Captain Jack Harkness.

“I guess the phones are working again,” Mary Jo said, hushing her phone. She looked down at the message quickly. “Naomi and Omni are finally on their way here.”

Comments

[paxieamor.livejournal.com]

Okay, I was pointed over here by knitchick1979 and I have but one question:

WHERE THE HELL IS THE REST OF IT!!!? You can't leave a girl hanging like that! I love little stories like this, they're made a of WIN! Please write more? Pretty please?