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muses_gonewild... Misspelled Names
Jan. 14th, 2009 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thecopperIt started as a hiccup in the system, a miss-spelled name.
Gwen Coooper.
“Bloody hell, Ianto,” I barked, hitting the keyboard after my third failed log-on attempt. I was trying to not be angry, to not want to slam the taunting computer screen with my fist, but to no possible avail. I was worried I would start crying. “It’s not letting me do a thing. I can’t log into the damn system.”
Ianto came up behind me, his presence working like a soothing cream across the flashes of anger that surged. I wasn’t sure what to do without him, and Jack. The Hub, once filled with laughter and smite and, yes, sometimes even sex, had faded into an echo of silence. Sometimes, alone at night, I thought I could hear the echo of the weevils crying in the dark. It was like every ghost story come to life.
“What do you mean?” he asked, peering over my shoulder.
“My account has been corrupted,” I replied. “Or… something. I don’t know, it was working fine yesterday.”
He pointed at the screen. “Your name is miss-spelled.”
“I know that. It keeps telling me I need a system administrator password to make changes.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, we can just ask T-” his words seemed to choke in his throat, and my hands stilled carefully over the keyboard.
It wasn’t like him, to forget. It wasn’t like any of us.
I turned to look at him, his face a mix of pink-hued embarrassment and abject horror. As if he was a man of the cloth, using the Lord’s name in vain. As if we didn’t spend everyday, in a shroud of regret, thinking it was all a dream, knowing that one of them would just walk in through the door, and suddenly the world would wake up and life would continue as we expected it to; as it should.
My arms stung with the need to hug him, to wrap him in my arms as if it would make anything better, as if it would take away any sort of pain that we carried in silent. But he recovered quickly, clearing his throat again and staring at the computer like nothing had been said.
“We’ll have to get Jack to reset the system passwords,” he said. “It must be a glitch in the system, though I don’t recall it ever happening before.”
“Yeah,” I said glumly, tapping my finger against the side of the desk calmly. “Is he even in?”
“No, he’s not, actually.”
“Great,” I muttered.
Ianto wandered away, returning a moment later with a note and a scribbled password. “Just use his account until we get it sorted,” he said, handing me the paper.
I didn’t ask what he was doing with Jack’s Top Secret logon information, and I didn’t intend to. Instead, I just stared at the screen.
“Do… D’ya think we’ll need a new tech specialist?”
Ianto raised his eyebrows. “I imagine Jack has every intention to hire a new tech and doctor.” It didn’t sound like a response, so much as a general statement. I clenched my teeth.
“Seems a bit cold, doesn’t it? To go about hiring new people when Tosh and Owen haven’t been gone even a week.”
Ianto went about his busywork, as if only to avoid looking at me. It annoyed me how he did that; shutting me out without looking as such. “Torchwood isn’t set up to run on three employees,” he responded, in that tone again.
“Why not? I mean, it isn’t as if we do anything. Tosh was always the one fiddling with the things down in the vault, and Owen poked of bits of alien when he got the chance. And you clean up and I remind everyone of how nice it is to have a life outside, and Jack just comes and goes as he pleases.”
Ianto paused, casting me a look I didn’t understand, like fire reflected in ice and kindness masked in anger. Then he turned away again.
“We all have our place. It’s a job, Gwen, and empty slots need to be replaced.”
But people can’t, I thought.
But there was that tone in his voice, that tone, warning me I was going too far, that his response was not from disagreement but rather simple truth.
I tried to imagine a new person, hunched over Tosh’s computer, fiddling with some alien object I wouldn’t understand, or spending hours on end coding a new Rift program that may or may not ever work. Or another person, rushing around Owen’s make-shift infirmary, peering at alien gobs and throwing cotton balls at me over the railings. But whatever random face my mind could conjure always mutated into those two faces who had been my friends.
Besides my gran, I’d never known anyone that died. Well, Suzie and Eugene and those who I knew in the memory of what other’s told me, but no one I loved. Certainly no one I’d slept with. And there wasn’t anything, no amount of failed coding or tossed cotton balls that could plug up a wound that bled from so deep inside. And it seemed to spread, with every memory, even misspoken word, every miss-spelled name.
I buried my face in my hands, trying to choke back tears that forced their way to my eyes. I had spent the first night wondering if retcon would fix it, if forgetting would fill the hole that gaped inside of me, if losing everything would be worth the cost.
Could I do that? Take a pill, go to sleep, and just forget the pain that came with remembering? Of course I could, but I wouldn’t. I would not allow myself that simple, selfish luxury of being able to forget them. I would not deny them that simple, small victory of being remembered.
I stood up and rattled around Tosh’s desk drawers. Curiosity eventually getting the better of him, Ianto finally sighed impatiently. “What are you looking for?”
“If someone’s gotta do it, it might as well be me,” I said. Heart was getting me nowhere, other than circles. “I’ll learn to work the bloody programmes until Jack finds someone else.”
Ianto didn’t reply, but he didn’t scoff, either. It was oddly comforting.
I started with the basic manuals, using Jack’s password to log in and fix my username, and inadvertently reset all the passwords in the Hub, almost locking down the whole compound just in time for Jack to show up looking worn and rattled.
And when Ianto told him what had happened, Jack just laughed.
Two days later, after getting a better grasp of the more complicated portions of Rift monitoring I had never really thought about, I ran across a scribbled note buried between two fat textbooks about quantum mechanics and advanced engineering.
Tosh, if you find me dead in the Hub tomorrow, Jack did it. He also was the one that reset the passwords on the computers. I swear.
I covered my mouth to hide my grin, and slipped the note in my pocket. It was so Owen, something he would have done too, a treasured lifetime before.
------------
Cut for Length
------------
Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: Misspelled Names
Verse: Open/Canon
Word Count: 1195
Gwen Coooper.
“Bloody hell, Ianto,” I barked, hitting the keyboard after my third failed log-on attempt. I was trying to not be angry, to not want to slam the taunting computer screen with my fist, but to no possible avail. I was worried I would start crying. “It’s not letting me do a thing. I can’t log into the damn system.”
Ianto came up behind me, his presence working like a soothing cream across the flashes of anger that surged. I wasn’t sure what to do without him, and Jack. The Hub, once filled with laughter and smite and, yes, sometimes even sex, had faded into an echo of silence. Sometimes, alone at night, I thought I could hear the echo of the weevils crying in the dark. It was like every ghost story come to life.
“What do you mean?” he asked, peering over my shoulder.
“My account has been corrupted,” I replied. “Or… something. I don’t know, it was working fine yesterday.”
He pointed at the screen. “Your name is miss-spelled.”
“I know that. It keeps telling me I need a system administrator password to make changes.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, we can just ask T-” his words seemed to choke in his throat, and my hands stilled carefully over the keyboard.
It wasn’t like him, to forget. It wasn’t like any of us.
I turned to look at him, his face a mix of pink-hued embarrassment and abject horror. As if he was a man of the cloth, using the Lord’s name in vain. As if we didn’t spend everyday, in a shroud of regret, thinking it was all a dream, knowing that one of them would just walk in through the door, and suddenly the world would wake up and life would continue as we expected it to; as it should.
My arms stung with the need to hug him, to wrap him in my arms as if it would make anything better, as if it would take away any sort of pain that we carried in silent. But he recovered quickly, clearing his throat again and staring at the computer like nothing had been said.
“We’ll have to get Jack to reset the system passwords,” he said. “It must be a glitch in the system, though I don’t recall it ever happening before.”
“Yeah,” I said glumly, tapping my finger against the side of the desk calmly. “Is he even in?”
“No, he’s not, actually.”
“Great,” I muttered.
Ianto wandered away, returning a moment later with a note and a scribbled password. “Just use his account until we get it sorted,” he said, handing me the paper.
I didn’t ask what he was doing with Jack’s Top Secret logon information, and I didn’t intend to. Instead, I just stared at the screen.
“Do… D’ya think we’ll need a new tech specialist?”
Ianto raised his eyebrows. “I imagine Jack has every intention to hire a new tech and doctor.” It didn’t sound like a response, so much as a general statement. I clenched my teeth.
“Seems a bit cold, doesn’t it? To go about hiring new people when Tosh and Owen haven’t been gone even a week.”
Ianto went about his busywork, as if only to avoid looking at me. It annoyed me how he did that; shutting me out without looking as such. “Torchwood isn’t set up to run on three employees,” he responded, in that tone again.
“Why not? I mean, it isn’t as if we do anything. Tosh was always the one fiddling with the things down in the vault, and Owen poked of bits of alien when he got the chance. And you clean up and I remind everyone of how nice it is to have a life outside, and Jack just comes and goes as he pleases.”
Ianto paused, casting me a look I didn’t understand, like fire reflected in ice and kindness masked in anger. Then he turned away again.
“We all have our place. It’s a job, Gwen, and empty slots need to be replaced.”
But people can’t, I thought.
But there was that tone in his voice, that tone, warning me I was going too far, that his response was not from disagreement but rather simple truth.
I tried to imagine a new person, hunched over Tosh’s computer, fiddling with some alien object I wouldn’t understand, or spending hours on end coding a new Rift program that may or may not ever work. Or another person, rushing around Owen’s make-shift infirmary, peering at alien gobs and throwing cotton balls at me over the railings. But whatever random face my mind could conjure always mutated into those two faces who had been my friends.
Besides my gran, I’d never known anyone that died. Well, Suzie and Eugene and those who I knew in the memory of what other’s told me, but no one I loved. Certainly no one I’d slept with. And there wasn’t anything, no amount of failed coding or tossed cotton balls that could plug up a wound that bled from so deep inside. And it seemed to spread, with every memory, even misspoken word, every miss-spelled name.
I buried my face in my hands, trying to choke back tears that forced their way to my eyes. I had spent the first night wondering if retcon would fix it, if forgetting would fill the hole that gaped inside of me, if losing everything would be worth the cost.
Could I do that? Take a pill, go to sleep, and just forget the pain that came with remembering? Of course I could, but I wouldn’t. I would not allow myself that simple, selfish luxury of being able to forget them. I would not deny them that simple, small victory of being remembered.
I stood up and rattled around Tosh’s desk drawers. Curiosity eventually getting the better of him, Ianto finally sighed impatiently. “What are you looking for?”
“If someone’s gotta do it, it might as well be me,” I said. Heart was getting me nowhere, other than circles. “I’ll learn to work the bloody programmes until Jack finds someone else.”
Ianto didn’t reply, but he didn’t scoff, either. It was oddly comforting.
I started with the basic manuals, using Jack’s password to log in and fix my username, and inadvertently reset all the passwords in the Hub, almost locking down the whole compound just in time for Jack to show up looking worn and rattled.
And when Ianto told him what had happened, Jack just laughed.
Two days later, after getting a better grasp of the more complicated portions of Rift monitoring I had never really thought about, I ran across a scribbled note buried between two fat textbooks about quantum mechanics and advanced engineering.
Tosh, if you find me dead in the Hub tomorrow, Jack did it. He also was the one that reset the passwords on the computers. I swear.
I covered my mouth to hide my grin, and slipped the note in my pocket. It was so Owen, something he would have done too, a treasured lifetime before.
------------
Cut for Length
------------
Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: Misspelled Names
Verse: Open/Canon
Word Count: 1195
