Title: Spirit Mirror, Part Two of Four

Author: Emma

Characters: Canonical Torchwood Three members… sort of.

Rating: Some chapters definitely not safe for work.

Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?

Summary: A cursed mirror sends Owen on a quest for justice… and Gwen stumbles upon a secret.
Author's Note: This, in canon, would be Ghost Machine

            When Gwen and Ianto exited the station, they found Jack and Owen waiting for them.

            “What are you doing here?” Gwen asked the doctor. “I thought it was your day off.”

            “So did I.” Owen made a sour face. “I was getting ready to dissect a perfectly adequate chop and two veg, followed by a night out on the tiles, and I get a call that the boss needs a chauffeur.”

            Jack gave him a big grin before turning to Gwen. “Did you get it?”

            “Yeah. But…”

            “What happened?”

            “I had a vision.”

            “I’m not surprised,” Owen said. “Place this big with so many people passing through every day, must have at least a dozen accidents, heart-attacks, and suicides every year.”

            “No, Owen, you didn’t hear me. I didn’t see a ghost. I had a vision.” Gwen pushed back her fringe impatiently. “That’s a very new experience for me.”

            “May I suggest we head back to the cars?” Ianto interjected. “We can get some useful work done at the Hub. Where are you parked?”

            “Right next to you,” Owen said. “If we go through the park we can avoid most of the festival nutters.”

            Jack wound his arm through Gwen’s. “So tell us what happened.”

            She told them as they walked, trying to give them a sense of the wrongness she had felt. “I didn’t have a sense of death or anything like that. I think I was getting a vision of something that happened during the war. The memory remained strong because the boy’s feelings were so strong. It was more like…” she groped for the words, “the way I was getting the message was wrong.”

            “Let’s use the train underpass,” Ianto said. “It’ll get us out of here faster.”

            “Is anything wrong, Ianto?” Jack asked.

            “No. It’s just that…no. I’m sorry. It’s nothing.”

            They started out along the train tracks. The underpass was overhung with vines and there was water pooling everywhere. The only light came from a lamppost at the other end, where the overpass ended on one of the park’s bike trails.

            “Was it like psychometry?” Owen asked.

            “I don’t think so. I wasn’t getting impressions about the mirror. It was… it was like the mirror was helping me see Tom Flanagan. And it felt wrong somehow.”

            “Can I see it?”

            She pulled it out of her pocket and handed it over, He examined it as best he could in the poor light. “It’s ugly, isn’t it? And it’s not glass…” As he looked into it, the twinkling lights drew him in and his eyes closed.

            When he opened them, he was alone. The underpass looked different; the vines were not so overgrown and the lights were brighter. He heard someone behind him, running, and turned to see a young woman, a girl really, wearing a pink outfit and big fluffed hair with a big bow that screamed nineteen sixties. She leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

            “They’re all bastards. Mum was right. I shouldn’t have left with him.”

            “Liiiiizzziiiiieee…. Liiiiziiieee Leeeee…”

            Owen watched a man come down the slope towards the girl. He was wearing a cheap suit but a good overcoat; odd thing to notice, he thought, but there it was. He was handsome in a flashy sort of way but there was hardness around the eyes.

            “Stay away from me, Ed. The girls said not to go with you…”

            “But you made your own decision, Lizzie. That’s what I like about you. You’re smart.”

            He crowded her against the brick and kissed her. It was rather sweet and gentle at first, but when she tried to pull away he grabbed her by the back of the neck. Owen heard the snick of a flick knife.

            The girl managed to get free. “I told my mum I would be home by nine, Ed. She’ll be looking for me.”

            “Shhhh…. Shhhhh…”

            “Please don’t hurt me, Ed. Please.”

            Owen watched helplessly as he pushed her down on the first and sliced her clothes away. The rational part of his mind realized this had happened a long time ago, but the human part demanded  he do something, anything, but there was nothing, and it tore at him. He watched as the man raped the girl and then slit her throat.

            “I didn’t want to hurt you, Lizzie,” the man said as he staggered to his feet. “I didn’t!”

            “Owen! Owen!” Gwen’s voice made him blink and look up. His teammates were running back towards him. “We looked around and you weren’t there! What happened?”

            “I couldn’t help her, I couldn’t…”

            Ianto pulled out a handkerchief the size of a football field. “Here. Give me that.” When Owen handed him the mirror, he wrapped it carefully and passed it to Jack. “I think you should carry it, sir.”

            “Yes, Ianto. Thank you. Owen what did you see?”

            “A man,” Owen took a big breath and forced the words out, “raped and killed a girl here back in the sixties.”

            Gwen took his arm and pulled him along gently. She could feel the shivers still running through him. “Jack, I think…” She tapped her earpiece, “Tosh.”

            “What the hell is going on? You went into the underpass and I lost you!”

            “Sorry. Full report later, I promise. Could you see if you can find a Thomas Erasmus Flanagan anywhere in the records? If he’s alive he could be anywhere in the UK, but try London and Cardiff first.”

            “All right. Give me a few minutes… Thomas Erasmus Flanagan.” She rattled off an address. “About ten minutes from where you are.”

            “Thanks, Tosh. I don’t know what I would do without you and your machines.”

            Tosh giggled. “Actually, I started with the phone book.”

            “What are you thinking, Gwen?” Jack asked.

            “We’ve had two experiences with the mirror. In both instances they involved people feeling terrified. Now, if this man Tosh found is the little boy I saw, and he’s alive and well, then the mirror isn’t so much a scrying tool as a… projector, I guess.”

            “And if it picks up and projects strong emotions without a sensitive to operate it…?”

            “Can you imagine having people walking around tapping into everybody else’s emotions at will?”

            “Ugh.” Jack grimaced. “All right. You and Ianto go ahead and check on Mr. Flanagan. We’ll head for the Hub and start work on the mirror.”