FIC: "Recognition," PG

[remindmeofthe]

TITLE: "Recognition"
AUTHOR: catslash/Cathryn
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: 500
CHARACTERS: Owen, Jack, the Doctor. Genfic; no pairings.
SUMMARY: Torchwood has a visitor. Crossover with Doctor Who.
NOTES: This is an expansion of a drabble I wrote a couple weeks ago, from one hundred words to five hundred. I fully expect (though I have NOT read any spoilers!) to get Jossed (Russelled?) this weekend by one show or the other or probably both, so I decided to post while the posting was still good.
DISCLAIMER: Torchwood and Doctor Who are not mine and I make no claims otherwise.
SPOILERS: Up through 2x08 for Torchwood; very vague ones for 3x11 for Doctor Who.



Owen arrives to work late that day and misses the first round of introductions. He doesn't need an exchange of names, though, to place the identity of the stranger wearing a pinstriped suit and trainers, wandering round the Hub with a mug of Ianto's coffee and remarking on things as if he has every right to be there. The way Jack watches him, with an air of anxious pride that puts Owen in mind of a child nervously awaiting a parent's appraisal of his efforts, tells the whole story. Owen glances at Gwen, Tosh, and Ianto. They're grouped off to the side, watching the Doctor with the same guarded tension that's rising in Owen's mind. If he tries to take Jack away again, Owen thinks, he's going to have a very difficult time of it.

Owen looks over at Jack to find Jack looking at him. For a split second, Jack's expression looks frozen, distinctly unhappy. Like he's seen something he knows Daddy isn't going to be very happy about. He banishes it with a welcoming smile when Owen's eyes meet his, but Owen's known Jack long enough to know a Harkness Bullshit Special when he sees it. He frowns, stung, and turns away from Jack, calling stridently across the Hub,

"Have we passed inspection, then, Doctor?"

The Doctor turns, mouth open to speak. When his gaze lands on Owen, though, whatever he was going to say gets lost as his eyes go wide. The sound of his coffee mug shattering on the floor makes everyone jump except himself and Owen.

"And this is Owen Harper." Jack's voice is empty and resigned. The Doctor ignores him, stepping across the mess on the floor to stride through the Hub toward Owen. He doesn't stop moving at a respectable distance, but gets right up close, studying Owen with a horrified fascination that any doctor would recognize. He knows somehow, Owen realizes. He knows what Owen is. Knew the second he saw him. And Jack knew he would.

Owen glares, resisting the urge to shrink under the Doctor's intent gaze.

"What the fuck?" he demands, anger spiking. He may be something of a freakish specimen, but he is still aware and this is just fucking uncalled for. He readies himself to pull in enough air to start shouting - though whether at the Doctor or Jack, he can't quite decide - but the Doctor interrupts, murmuring,

"Oh dear." Some of the hard curiosity fades from his face. It's replaced not with the pity that Owen has come to know and despise, but with an inexplicable understanding. Owen stops, derailed. The Doctor looks into his eyes. Owen can see the sparks of anger beginning to build there even as his own starts to calm.

"Jack," the Doctor says, a hardness in his voice that wasn't there a few seconds ago, "what have you done?"





Please do not mention spoilers for unaired eps of either show in comments. I am unspoiled and would really like to stay that way. Thank you!

Comments

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Oh yea.

I missed the original drabble, but this was spot on.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

My drabbles all stayed on my journal. I'm too lazy to pull them together for a community posting. *g* Glad you liked!

[lynnenne]

Nicely done, especially this:

Owen's known Jack long enough to know a Harkness Bullshit Special when he sees it.

And yes, Daddy would not approve.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Sure, Jack can charm strangers right to pieces, but I bet the team have names and designating numbers for everything in his repertoire. *g*

[lyndalynn.livejournal.com]

That is awsome. Very.

And I agree....I have this overwhelming feeling of an inmending "Jossed" finale.

*readies the box of tissues*

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comment! I just hope we don't get Jossed so hard that I can't concentrate for DW the next day.

. . . yeah, we're totally screwed. :D

[lieutenants.livejournal.com]

Fantastic. That was perfect.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Somehow I think if Owen and the Doctor ever met, it wouldn't be good for Jack at all. The Doctor really doesn't go in for that kind of unnaturalness, and having the Doctor upset with you is a really... really... really uncomfortable thing.

Personally, I could see Jack trying to hide Owen. Of course, then the Doctor would know Jack was hiding something from him and that insatiable curiosity would kick in.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. First the Doctor would clean up Jack's mess (c'mon, you know the real reason this won't happen is because the Doctor could fix Owen in five seconds flat), and then he'd deal with Jack. And not in a fun way.

Personally, I could see Jack trying to hide Owen.

Hmm. Yeah, I can see this, if he has enough advance warning. He could send Owen off on some errand to try and keep him away while the Doctor's around, and it would totally backfire because it wouldn't take long for the others to figure out what he was doing. I think he'd try to be discreet, though, not only to fly under the Doctor's radar but because he's not quite far gone enough to be actively cruel to Owen by doing something like that to his face. That's an interesting scenario, though, I hadn't thought of that.

[jo02]

Jack's going to be spending some time in the Naughty Corner, isn't he?

Loved it - thank you.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Why yes, I do believe he is.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for the comment.

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

It makes me wonder if there's some way--some strange, impossible, plot-hole way--that the Doctor could fix him. Because isn't that what the Doctor does, is fix other people's messes?

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Of course there is! Just because it's impossible for Torchwood doesn't mean the Doctor couldn't do it. In "The Doctor Dances," he says in response to Rose's surprise over the nanogenes that restoring life is easy - it's "just nature's way of keeping meat fresh." I'm guessing the tricky part tends to be making sure that the person ends up back in his or her body when it's brought back to life; technically, the gas mask zombies never really left theirs (she said, fanwanking madly), and Owen's stuck solidly in his, so no problems there. The more troublesome detail would probably be the energy that's keeping Owen in place. If you didn't want to have the Doctor swooping in and totally making everything all better, you could have him not be able to dissipate or absorb it because it's an energy from beyond this level of reality or whatever, so the upshot would be that he could bring Owen back to life, but not be able to promise that he'd leave his body properly the next time it died. In terms of characterization for the Doctor, I think that would be more realistic; I don't think he'd want to have a hand in helping Owen stick around after he's supposed to be gone, but if he couldn't do anything about that, he wouldn't leave Owen stuck in a corpse, either.

Not that I have put a ton of thought into this since I wrote that drabble or anything.

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

XD I love reading your speculation, though. It always has such wonderful textual support!

[mossymermaid.livejournal.com]

Wow. I love this fic, and how you have captured the characters. You describe with the minimum of words and fuss.

Terrific.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's partly why I limited myself to five hundred words - it makes it more challenging, but it also forces me to tell the story I'm trying to tell without doing too much narrative wandering. I'm really happy that people are enjoying the result.

[phineyj.livejournal.com]

an air of anxious pride that puts Owen in mind of a child nervously awaiting a parent's appraisal of his efforts That's a really excellent summary of how they both behave.

Harkness Bullshit Special, heh, a perfect Owen way to put it.

I like the characterisations in this a lot. Will you be continuing it?

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. I'm really not comfortable writing the Doctor; I feel like I got away with something in this, because it's so short that I didn't get much chance to screw him up. Characterization is always the thing I worry most about when I write a fic. The idea of writing him in a longer fic makes me nervous. I do have ideas, though, and I'll probably be all fired up after the series four premiere this weekend, so - we'll see, I guess?

Thanks for the comment, too!

[phineyj.livejournal.com]

Oh, do let those ideas out to play post-finale! I'm doing a fic too, and I'm deliberately waiting to finish it till then as I don't want my plot retconned. Anyway, we need something to keep us going over the summer, right? I thought your characterisations were very good (although I haven't seen many DW eps with Tennant in - I am still sulking about Chris Ecclestone leaving).

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

I've just got my fingers crossed on the megafic that I may or may not ever actually finish. It spans most of TW to date up through 2x10ish, and I'm not really sure what could happen to completely screw it up - well, I can think of lots of things that COULD happen, but not too many that are likely to happen.

I can manage Ten in small moments, I think, but he's so mercurial and all-over-the-place and so very, VERY easy to get wrong that I'm intimidated by the very thought of trying a longer fic with him. I just don't click with him on a writing level at all. Though it probably wouldn't kill me to challenge myself occasionally.

[theatervine.livejournal.com]

Good, I'm glad someone's finally calling Jack on his absolutely unacceptable and horrifying decision to violate Owen that way.
Shame it won't happen on the show.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Precisely why I wrote this. Jack never, ever has to reap the consequences of his actions, and it gets tiresome. I thought the Doctor would be the perfect person to give him what he deserves for doing this to Owen, since anger and contempt would likely be among the mildest reactions he'd have if he ever found out.

[theatervine.livejournal.com]

So. Much. Word.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Oh that was perfect. The last line was really powerful.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That was the first part that popped into my head when I came up with this. Glad you liked!

[bagatellery.livejournal.com]

God this is brilliant. Love the emotions you draw out here- very intense and powerful- and somehow the Doctor's last line just gave me that bit of hope, you know? That he might be able to fix this mess, and all.

Wonderful fic.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I put a lot of thought into portraying emotion and response here - there are some very strong reactions from Owen, Jack, and the Doctor, and I didn't give myself much space for dealing with all of them. I'm glad people seem to be picking up what I was trying to get across.

Of course the Doctor can fix it! He's the Doctor!

[(Anonymous)]

That was brilliant. I just want to keep reading, even though there is NO more ;p

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you! Thus muse has been a bit restless on this subject ever since the finale, so - we'll see, I guess. But I promise nothing!

[scarletumbrella.livejournal.com]

omg yes. Love love LOVE this. Perfect characterization of Owen and the Doctor and Jack, and just YES. I'm with the Doctor on this one. ;P

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yeah, I'm siding with the Doctor myself. Jack is so lucky that this will never actually happen.

[scarletumbrella.livejournal.com]

F'srs!

[irradiatedsoup.livejournal.com]

♥___♥

CONTINUATION PLZ.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

I really should. It needs one. And I think I'm more comfortable with the idea of writing Ten than I used to be. I mean, there's been an entire series since I wrote this fic.

[irradiatedsoup.livejournal.com]

See, that means you totally have to.

*PEER PRESSURES YOU INTO IT*

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

OH NOES PEER PRESSURE.

*listens to loud music and does the drugs*

[irradiatedsoup.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of a Tim Minchin joke where he's talking about how the pressure to have babies gets really strong when you're married and in your thirties and you get all "Aw, I want to be in the cool gang too, I want to make a human." Which has nothing to do with anything, but let's pretend this was relevant. Um, the Doctor! ...He likes to be in the cool gang and ...have humans too.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

It's true! He can't make any, so he collects them instead.