likesthecoat | [filtered]

Entry tags:

lisa,
lorne

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[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

I love to bury my face in your neck and wrap my arms around you tight. I love to hold you closer and closer as if I'd press you into me.

I love to close my eyes and breathe you in. I love to imagine we're the only two people in the world.

I love to run my fingers over your chest and up and down your arms. I love to whisper to you--in Welsh, of course--how much I love you.

I wish I had some idea of what that would sound like. Your voice I can imagine, but I don't really have any frame of reference for the Welsh.

To say "I love you" you say "Dw i’n dy garu di", and it sounds like "Doo ee'n due garee dee."

I have a feeling I would be completely hopeless at pronouncing anything in Welsh. But it does definitely sound better than German. In German it would be "Ich lieb dich." And it would sound like "eech leeb deech", but the "ch" sound is hard, like in loch.

The rules of pronunciation don't change much (unlike a certain other language I could mention), so once you learn the basics you're set. (The English like to say Welsh is guttural and rough, but don't believe it for a second.)

Ever tried to teach someone to read English? It's a pain in the ass because nothing makes sense.

(Actually, guttural and rough is just another way of saying sexy. But I'm sure it's a beautiful language, and I very much look forward to hearing it someday.)

*points to self* English is my second language, remember? Didn't really start learning it until I was a schoolboy.

(It's a very beautiful language, and I will speak it to you to your heart's content.)

You don't count. You were probably a model student.

(Excellent.)

I was only a model student because I was too shy to cause trouble.

You keep saying how you're so shy, but you're practically gregarious here. I'm having a hard time picturing this.

Though the idea of you has a shy, little schoolboy is...well...it's kind of adorable.

(Did I just say "adorable"?)

It's different online. Nobody tripping over my feet because my legs are too long to fit under the desk, for instance.

(Yes, you did just say adorable. Does it help the picture to know I had to wear a uniform, too? Blue and grey with a white shirt and little tie . . .)

Fair enough.

(Aww...did you have a little hat, too? I bet you were an awfully cute kid.)

(Yes, I did. Also grey.

I was . . . oh, hell. Yes, I was adorable. Big blue eyes and all of it.)

(Ha! I knew it.)

:P I suspect you'd find me adorable even at my most spotty and sulky.

So tell me what you were like as a kid, flyboy. Aside from periodically rebellious and good to your mom.

I'm sure I would.

Me? I was pretty much the same. Just shorter. It was the seventies, so there were bellbottoms and polo shirts, and too short shorts in the summer. And my ears stuck out.

But you were adorable, of course, even in bellbottoms.

I doubt they stuck out much.

I'm never introducing you to my mother. She'd pull out the baby pictures, and I'd never hear the end of it.

Yeah, they did, actually. Quite a bit.

Ah! Don't tempt me with baby pictures and then pull them away in the same breath. Terribly unfair.

They don't stick out much now--I find it hard to believe you had to do that much growing to grow into them.

Okay, fine. You can meet my mother. I'm sure she'll love you.

They didn't stick straight out, and they weren't huge or anything, they just...stuck out. Noticibly. Until I was in junior high.

Brilliant. My mum will also love you. My dad will look at you oddly for a bit and then decide you're all right, for an American.

*pets your hair* Well, nobody looks good at the onset of puberty. My ears still stick out.

Oh god. I haven't had to meet someone's dad in years. I've always been very good with mothers, but dads kind of frighten me.

Your ears are perfect, Ianto, just like the rest of you.

My dad is a big working-class Welshman. That's enough to terrify just about anybody. The secret is, he's also a teddy bear--especially when the granddaughters are around.

Oh, Lorne. *blushes*

I'm no good at this--I want to say "you're perfect too" and--and--lots of other things but I have no idea what except that I love you.

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