| Date: 12 January 2008
Characters: Gwen Cooper, Koschei Location: outside Link to IJ: thread #33204 |
 Gwen ran her hand over her forehead as she looked up and down the unfamiliar street. Where was she? "Think Gwen," she commanded, her hand reaching down to rest at the hilt of her gun. "Where were you just now?"She and Owen had heard there was a few people hiding out in a factory. They were going to see if they wanted to seek shelter somewhere slightly safer. What had happened? She looked around for Owen, she nearly shouted for him but then she remembered. Shouting brings attention, attention brings the Toclafane. That's how they had lost Tosh. "Don't think about her right now." She took a deep breath and sat down on a nearby curb. It wasn't often that Gwen had let her guard down but this was just too confusing. |
 Koschei had just been taking a look around, having given up on finding any sort of answer in his books. It was the first time in a long time that they had actually let him down. But it seemed like he was going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Good, solid detective work.And that was when he stumbled across a young woman looking quite confused. Not that he could really blame her. "All right, there?" He called, crossing from where he was standing over toward her. "You look a bit lost." |
| "Where am I?" asked Gwen looking over at the man. He looked so much like Harold Saxon that it took all her restraint to stay calm. "I guess I am lost." |
| "Wish I could answer that question, darling," Koschei said, shifting and settling down on the curb next to her. "I'm not exactly positive myself. Best I can guess is that it's some sort of dimensional nexus which exists either outside of time and space or circumvents it somehow. But still, that's just a theory. Nothing concrete until I can make a better assessment of the area." Koschei grinned after he'd finished his dialog, turning to her and offering her his hand, "But I won't bother you with all that science babble. Where were you before?" |
| She took it warily. "Earth," she replied "I was...There is man...I'm sorry, you look so much like him." She took a deep breath. "I was following a lead about a group of people hiding out in a factory. I must have hit my head or something. Owen is probably having a laugh." They had all developed slightly morbid sense of humors. |
| "Oh. Oh, dear. Yes, well. That probably would be me," Koschei said, raising a hand to rub at his neck. "Or at least, in a relative sense, it would be the me for your universe. I seem to have come across some...divergences that are...well, disturbing to say the least. This bloke wouldn't by any chance be called The Master, would he?" Koschei shook his head at her statement, "It's a bit more complicated than that, my dear." |
| She pulled her hand back. "Yes...he is," she said softly, her hand drifting to her gun. She knew logically that she couldn't hurt him but still, the urge was there, "What do you mean a relative sense?" She nodded. "It was wishful thinking. I've had about all I can take of complicated. A nice concussion would be a pleasant change." |
| "In the sense that while we share the same DNA, our histories diverge in several senses," Koschei said, flickering a glance down and noticing the gun. He only tensed ever so slightly. He really, really, really didn't want to do anything that would get him shot. |
| She noticed his glance and took her hand down. "I'm sorry," she said looking down. "It's a force of habit, I'm afraid. I'm Gwen Cooper. Please don't ask me to call you the Master." She pulled her jacket back down over the gun. |
| "Quite not," Koschei said at the request. "I'd never refer to myself in such a pompous and hubristic way. I'm not nearly that much of a megalomaniac. My name is Koschei, Miss Cooper. And you'll find that I'm not the least bit like my less than judicious counterpart." Standing, Koschei turned and offered Gwen a hand up, "I can only imagine how off putting this must be for you. If I could change my face without wasting a perfectly good life, I would." |
| "Please, call me Gwen," she said "Miss Cooper doesn't feel like me." She took his hand and stood. "It's a little off putting," she admitted "But...It's hardly your fault. You aren't responsible for what he does." She closed her eyes for a minute. "What am I going to do?" She opened her eyes and shook her head. "Another mess I've gotten myself into." |
| "Gwen it is, then," Koschei said, smiling a bit as her before shaking his head. "It's not your fault, my dear. I certainly didn't mean to end up here. I doubt most people mean to. So that usually means that there's a way to get back out. It's only fair." |
| "I hope so," she said softly "Because Owen and Ianto...they're all I've got left and I'd like to think that maybe they need me as much as I need them." She smiled humorlessly. "I'm sorry, I swear I'm not normally this overemotional." |
| "All things considered, I do believe you have every right to be overemotional," Koschei said, offering her his arm. "I was on my way to look around, see if I could find some answers about this place. Care to accompany me?" |
| "That just tends to get people killed," she said her eyes drifting down as she thought of Rhys and Tosh. She took his arm. "I think I'd like that." |
| "But if you don't let it out now and then, you'll end up going quite mad. And that's nothing that anyone wants to be," Koschei said, frowning softly to himself. "Even the idea of it is enough to make me shudder." Especially know that he knew that that was actually a potential reality for him. |
| "I can't," she said softly "People rely on me. On Torchwood. Sure as hell can't rely on Jack anymore so it's up to us." She laughed softly. "I'm sorry, Koschei. I haven't been sleeping well." At all she thought. "So I tend to ramble." |
| "Jack? Would that be the infamous Captain Harkness, then?" Koschei asked. It only seemed likely, after all. With the way this place seemed to be running. "And it's fine, my dear. There are plenty of places to sleep here, if you need somewhere to lay down. It seems to be a quiet place, all things considered." |
| She nodded. "Jack bloody Harkness," she replied "I had such faith in him, I kept telling them he'd come back and he never did." She smiled and nodded. "A good sleep would be nice." If the nightmares would stay away. "Owen has been trying to get me to take a sedative. Finally, I just started faking taking it and closing my eyes until he left me alone." |
| "I can help," Koschei said with a glance over at her. "If the reason that you can't sleep is because you're mind is working overtime." |
| She smiled slightly. "It's these damn nightmares," she said "I can't get them to stop." Seeing two people you cared deeply for be murdered the way the Toclafane killed took a toll. |
| "Nightmares are just the products of random neurons firing during the deepest parts of the sleep cycle," Koschei said. "If those neural impulses are dampened, the images cease to be. There's equipment back on my ship to induce a dreamless sleep... If you feel you need it." |
| "Yeah...Well...when you can't shut the screams out of your head, that hardly seems like that's all they are," she said shrugging. She nearly said yes before she looked at him. "I don't mean to offend you but why help me?" |
| Koschei looked over at Gwen curiously, tilting her head to the side, "Because you need it?" He said, sincerely confused by the question. "Do I need a reason to help someone who needs it?" |
| She smiled weakly. "I'm sorry," she said softly "I'm just having trust issues lately. A lot of the people I've met lately are happy to help...at a price." She ran her hand over her face. "If it's not too much trouble, I will definately think about it. Though, acting this way isn't going to make me any friends." |
| "Charity does seem to disappear when it is needed the most," Koschei said, shaking his head sadly. "One of the most worrisome things about humanity." |
| "People see vulnerability as a trait to be exploited," she said. "Which makes others have to do all sorts of unsavory things to survive." |
| Koschei shook his head slowly, "Such potential tends to work in both directions. It just all depends on which facet you want to focus on how one tends to see humans. Most of my people tended to focus on the bad. But, well, that's how they always looked at Level civilizations." "And I'm babbling. I have a bad habit of doing that, talking and talking and saying nothing." |