for writers_muses 118.6: Pied Piper

He's 19 years old and sitting in a booth in a bar in Boeshane. It's not the place it used to be. Not the place he remembers from his childhood; the place where he'd hide in the sand dunes and play games with his father and brother. A lot has changed since then. Since the creatures came. He has had to grow up too soon.

He's been to war. By the age of seventeen he'd seen his friends killed in front of him. It was never what he expected his life would be. He always thought maybe he'd work in the clockwork factory with his dad, or if he was lucky he'd get to fly a ship. If he was really lucky. But he gave up on luck a long time ago.

And now, here he is, home again. But it doesn't feel like home any more, and he isn't sure what's left here for him.

He sits in the bar with a glass in his hand, and he looks into it and at the residue of dried wine on the rim as though the stains might tell him something. As though they might be able to guide him and tell him which path he should take.

( He's been offered jobs since he got back. So many were pleased to see him return. The boy that left had become a man and he thinks he ought to be proud of that. )

Muse: Captain Jack Harkness
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Word count: 1671

for brigadiertardis Ghost in the machine

Torchwood didn't keep hours. Torchwood couldn't keep hours. Not with the sort of work they did. Alien invaders didn't really respect when people might like to have a nice night in in front of the telly, or sleep in late in the morning. They didn't care if you wanted to start at nine and finish at five.

But sometimes, Jack just had to accept that even his staff needed lives of their own. Admittedly, of course, that would often be when Gwen picked up her bag and declared she was going home, without giving Jack option either way. But accept it he did. He knew people needed time to themselves, and times away from the underground confines of the Hub. And so some nights he'd end up there alone, an old record player on echoing out a cracked recording of Gracie Fields and a self made (infinitely worse than Ianto's) cup of coffee in hand.

This was one of those nights.

He sat in his office, listening to the sound of the music as he jotted down notes on paperwork he'd left waiting for weeks. To his side a computer ran a regular nightly scan for any activity in the area. Nothing, just the way he liked it. Cardiff safe.

Nothing strange (which was almost strange in and of itself), nothing out of the ordinary or abnormal. Nothing that was until a little alarm started sounding.

He ought to have known things would never run smoothly.

Pushing aside his papers he leant forward and prodded keys on the keyboard. Strange, he thought, the reading wasn't something he recognised. Some sort of transmission. It seemed to be harnessing the rift, but how? He keyed a little more and then the screen flickered, putting him on edge.

Something wasn't right.