likesthecoat | [filtered]

Entry tags:

lisa,
lorne

[filtered]

[Filtered to Lorne]

I promised you a story. This is a story about Lisa.

I'm recycling it from what I wrote for Sam a while back. I hope that's all right.

Lisa and I both worked for an organization called the Torchwood Institute. Torchwood was founded to protect Earth, specifically the British Empire, from alien invasion. (Our current motto is "If it's alien, it's ours." Which should tell you something of the hubris the Institute has acquired over the years.)

The head of Torchwood London, our boss Yvonne Hartman, got her hands on some alien technology--a giant brass sphere--and spent months trying to get it to function. None of us knew what it was or what it was for--our instruments didn't even register it as existing--but because we were the mighty Torchwood no one cared. It was ours, after all.

During all of this, we got a visit from a man called the Doctor. I don't know much about him, aside from his mention in the Institute charter: one of our missions is to detain and question him whenever possible. So Yvonne detained him, asked him what he knew about the sphere, and he said it was a void ship and should be sent back whence it came.

(This is Martha's Doctor, I am 99% sure of this.)

Yvonne had to show off Torchwood's power over alien technology--she'd claimed possession of the Doctor's ship (I think it was ship, anyway, though it looked like one of the old police boxes from the 50s)--and so she ordered the ship to be opened. What came through . . . they're called cybermen. Cybernetic beings: robotic bodies, human brains. All traces of humanity are gone--they exist only to perpetuate themselves, and to wipe out humanity in the process.

Most of Torchwood London, including Lisa, was captured by the cybermen. It was sheer dumb luck that I got away: the Doctor managed to send the cybermen back through the void before it was my turn in their conversion machines. Lisa was not so fortunate: she was halfway through the process when the machines shut down. She was in agony, I was terrified, there was no one to help us--I couldn't turn to the Doctor, of course, he'd gone as soon as the cybermen were gone as well, and when Torchwood Cardiff showed up to help us I believed Lisa would be no safer with them than with the Doctor.

You must understand that at this point I knew nothing of Jack except what I'd heard, and rumors were rife about him at Torchwood London. (Some of them turned out to be true, but not in the way I expected.) So I had no reason to trust him with Lisa, particularly since that out of the twenty-seven of us who survived, most were encouraged to leave all traces of the lives with Torchwood behind. Still, I offered my services to Torchwood Cardiff, hoping that I could look after Lisa properly and find her help with their resources. She instructed me on how to convert a cybernetic conversion machine into a life support system for her, and I hid her in one of the rooms at Torchwood Cardiff. (The Hub, as we call it, is labyrinthian. It took me a month to figure out all of its corridors.)

I had her there for nearly a year while I worked for Jack and looked for people to help me get her back to being fully human again. I spent as much time at the Hub as possible, to be with her and to research, and fortunately this just impressed on the rest of the staff that I was dedicated. (Which was also true. I left no task undone--I just did it faster than anyone knew.)

I finally found a cybernetics expert called Tanizaki who was willing to come to Cardiff and help Lisa. I waited until the others were gone, and then Tanizaki operated on Lisa to get her breathing on her own for the first time in months. He was successful. Before we could go any further, however, the others returned to the Hub and I had to hide Lisa and Tanizaki and attend to them; and while I was gone, Lisa killed Tanizaki by putting him in the conversion machine.

Lisa using the conversion unit caused the Hub's power to fluctuate, and I said the generators been having problems and went down to investigate--which is where I found the body of Tanizaki. Lisa told me he was incompatible to the upgrade she'd tried to give him.

That should have been a warning to me, I know this now. I should have realised that my sweet girl would never have done such a thing, and that this--this creature with her face was not her at all. But you don't think rationally when you're in love.

So I told her she was suffering from post-traumatic stress and I'd take care of it, and I dragged the body away to a place I could hide it until I could get him properly stored in our morgue. Meantime the generators were still having problems and Jack was asking me what was going on through our earpieces, and of course I couldn't tell him yet. I still had hope I'd get all this fixed somehow. He sent Gwen and Owen down to the basement to see what was happening, and they found the conversion unit and Lisa. Lisa knocked out Owen and put Gwen into the conversion unit, but by this time Jack came to the storeroom and I came back as well. I stopped him from shooting her and Lisa escaped, and he got Tosh to shut off all the power in the Hub in order to turn off the conversion unit, putting us into lockdown.

Jack was . . . understandably upset with me. What had I done, what was I thinking, bringing a cyberman into Torchwood. I carried Owen back upstairs with a gun in my back, and when Jack started to question me I--I lost it. I said things I'd been thinking for months but never found a reason to say. I did whatever he put to me, no questions asked, I cleaned up after them, I did everything the way he wanted, but what had he ever wanted to know about me and my life.

(It is rather obvious to me now that by this time Jack meant more to me than merely my boss. We'd always had a flirtation going on, from the day I started at Torchwood Cardiff, but I never thought it was more than mutual appreciation. His rage with me, mine with him . . . things got deadly serious between us, very fast.)

I told them Lisa had been hurt at Canary Wharf and we owed it to her to find a cure. Jack said there was no cure, and I'd endangered all of Cardiff, all of the world, by bringing her here. I said I loved her and wouldn't give up, and I said, "Haven't you ever loved anyone that much, Jack?" The look on his face . . . at the time I took his non-answer to mean no. He's said since he has, but it was a long time ago.

I tried to talk to Lisa: I said I loved her and she had to stop this, and she said she could put my brain into her body and then we'd be together forever, just like lovers should be. I said that's not love. She said we were incompatible and threw me across the Hub, at which point I passed out.

The next thing I remember is Jack kissing me. He hushed me and got me to my feet: Lisa was searching the Hub for us, while Gwen and Owen hid and Jack was reviving me. Meantime Tosh had been able to get some of the power restored from upstairs, so Jack got me, Gwen and Owen onto a lift that takes us to the street. And then he squirted Lisa with the protein sauce we give the pterodactyl's food so she'll know what she's supposed to eat, and while the pterodactyl attacked Lisa we got out of the Hub by the lift.

(Yes, we have a pterodactyl. We call her Myfanwy.)

Once we were safe on the street I punched Jack in the face and said someday he'd need me and I'd watch him suffer and die. Tosh said she'd got all the power back on and the doors were unlocked, so I ran back inside to save Lisa from the pterodactyl, and when they tried to stop me I drew my gun on them. Jack got the gun from my hand and said if I didn't kill Lisa he'd kill us both, and I told him he was a monster and I wouldn't do it. Still, he let me go and said he'd give me ten minutes, and so I went back into the Hub.

This entire story is horrible, but this is the part I'm most ashamed of. Earlier that evening I'd ordered a pizza for our late dinner, and it arrived while we were escaping by the lift. Lisa got hold of the delivery girl--Annie, was her name--and somehow transferred her brain into Annie's body. When I got back to the main level of the Hub Lisa's body was on the floor, unmistakably dead, and Annie said she was Lisa. She said things only Lisa would know about us, and said Hold me, I need you to tell me it will be all right. I was weeping, enraged and horrified, and pointed my gun at her.

I couldn't fire, even when she said we could be upgraded together. But by this time Gwen, Owen and Tosh were in the Hub as well, and they could. And did.

Lisa is stored in our morgue now, as are Dr. Tanizaki and Annie. I took off the name label from the drawer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ooc: *clasps Ianto to breast*]

[ooc: Ianto: *curls up and sighs*]

[ooc: Martha: *cuddles you and lets you use breasts for pillows and wants to make you feel happy*]

God, Ianto. There's nothing I can say to that. *holds you close*

But I suppose I promised you a story in return, didn't I?

I moved around a lot as a kid. A whole lot. It was very rare for me to be at one school for an entire school year. My senior year, though, we were in the same town all year.

I learned pretty quickly that if I was going to have any friends at all, I was going to have to be really friendly. So I made friends quickly. Really quickly, and really good friends.

When we moved to Kentucky, there was this girl, Tammi, who lived down the street from us. She was...perfect really. She was smart and funny and she played sports and was president of the science club. And I loved her.

We got engaged just before graduation. She was going to the University of Colorado in Boulder, and I was off to the Academy in Colorado Springs. I wanted to get married right away, and she wanted to wait. And I gave in. I said we could wait until I graduated.

And then my dad died. And I was desperate to have something permanent in my life. I was convinced that I could lose anyone I cared about in the blink of an eye. So Tammi agreed to elope. We drove up to Colorado together, and we took a detour to Vegas and got married in a cheesy little Elvis chapel. We bought the rings at a K-Mart we came across on the way.

I didn't tell anyone at the Academy, and neither of us told our parents. (It was in my file, so my instructors knew, but no one else did.) When I could get a weekend free, I'd drive over to Boulder to see her, and when I couldn't, she'd drive to the Springs to see me. Christmas at home was torture, because we were still pretending we weren't married. We figured we could make it four years, and then have a big wedding with our families there, and no one needed to know we were actually renewing our vows.

One weekend in May, when we were both just about finished for the year, I couldn't get away from the Academy, so she was going to come and see me. There was a really bad rain storm that night, and I knew she shouldn't have been on the roads, but I wanted to see her so badly.

I got a call from the highway patrol saying that there'd been an accident, and when I got to the hospital, they said she'd been dead before anyone got there. A semi lost control, swerved into her lane and side-swiped her car. I saw the wreckage. There was no way anything could have survived that.

Only three people, including you know this whole story.

Oh, Lorne. God. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

There's nothing to say. There never has been.

I feel like I should know, though. Aren't I supposed to make things better? Isn't that my place in your life?

Or I could just hold you. Rock you and kiss you and hold you tight.

You can't always make things better. Some things can't be made better. Can I make things better for you?

You could just hold me. That would help.

Yes. You do, Lorne.

I'll hold you.

Really? This thing with Lisa, I make that better?

Thank you.

Yes, you do.

Think about it: how does grief heal? With time, with care, with other people showing you that you can be valued in the way you thought you lost.

...wow.

I guess that's true. It's just been a long time since Tammi, and I think it's gotten as good as it will for me.

"As good as it gets" doesn't sound very hopeful.

I...I don't want to forget her. And I can't remember her without remembering that it was my fault. It's always my fault.

Recovery from grief isn't forgetting. I'm quite certain of this.

That's just the guilt talking.

Recovery from grief isn't forgetting. I'm quite certain of this.

That's just the guilt talking.

{ooc: sorry this is so brief tonight. I'm dozing off and will pick up tomorrow.]

I know that. I do.

But I don't know how to get rid of the guilt. I can't forgive myself for that, and I'm not sure that I want to.

[ooc: Is okay. Rest well.]

I know what you mean about guilt. I have my own to deal with.

I think it's not something you get rid of: it's just something you live with. The trick, I suppose, is to not let it make your decisions for you.

Easier said than done, I suppose.

Which would you rather be: happy in the present or mourning the past?

I'm not even going to answer that, because you know what I would say. It's not always that easy. I'm sure you know that. It almost never is.

Yes, I do, and I know what I would say as well, but there's the knowing it and then there's the living it. I know how hard it is to actually live sometimes.

. . . and I've just realized why you worry about me so much. Oh, Lorne.

Because I'm worried I'll lose you like I lost her? Because I'm afraid I'll do something stupid and it will cost you?

Yeah, I think that's probably why.

I can't think of a single thing you could do that would cost me my life. Not a thing.

And I'm careful. As careful as I can be. And I'm looked after--we look after each other.

I know. I just can't help feeling responsible.

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