Domestic Violence
Emma was rather enjoying herself, humming a tune while walking down one of the many corridors of PPC Headquarters. She didn't know where she was. All the corridors where painted and carpeted in the same dull grey and the doors showed non-sequential numbers. She wondered if HQ had once been used as ransom payment. Then she heard a familiar sound, or rather sounds, a loud beep followed by some choice words by the responding agent. She recognized the voice of the agent, it was her partner, but she was unfamiliar with her choice of words. She didn't think Tasmin was prone to swearing. This must be a rather unique mission.
Emma stopped humming her tune and quickly picked up pace to find out what was going on. When she turned into her response centre Tasmin had already opened up a portal.
"Emergency exorcism," was all the agent said before she jumped into the fic.
Emma quickly looked around if there was anything she should take. She figured her partner had already taken care of everything that was needed and she jumped through the portal after her.
-oOo-
Emma did not have much time to assess the situation: Gwen was on the ground crying and Rhys was hovering over her in a threatening manner. He pulled his fist back, but before he could punch Gwen there were two PPC agents hanging onto his arms trying to wrestle him to the ground. Rhys wasn't a tall man, but he was considerably heavier than the two PPC agents. In a joint effort, the latter managed to get the upper hand and a moment later Rhys was lying face down on the ground and the two agents sat on him.
"What's going on here?" Emma asked.
Tasmin briefly gestured towards the Words before she started digging through her duffel bag.
"Domestic Violence," Emma read.
"Yeah, someone thought it a good idea to drive a wedge between them by turning Rhys into a wife beater."
"That's insane. Rhys isn't abusive of Gwen. He never even calls her a bad name. He's as cuddly as he looks."
"As Martha says, later in this story, people change."
"Not like this."
"That's why we have to do an exorcism."
"All of them." Emma nodded towards the Words.
"No, I think we will be all right once we've sorted out Rhys. If he doesn't beat Gwen the rest of the Team doesn't get involved. Here." Tasmin gave Emma a box of candles. "You set these up while I get the rest of the stuff."
Emma scrambled up and started setting up the candles in a circle around Rhys. Both he and Gwen looked at the agent kind of sheepishly. After lighting the candles Emma joined her partner on the outside of the circle.
Tasmin had lain the Torchwood series one DVD box set on Rhys and held series two in her hand. She raised her voice. "Begone, Author of this fic. Get the behind me contrived plot device! Get the behind me corrupter of Rhys's character! The power of Russell T Davies compels you. You have no more power in this continuum."
The shades of the Author rose from Rhys's back forming into one figure hovering above him.
The shade moaned, "Rhys is no good for Gwen."
"You may think that, but that doesn't mean Rhys is an abusive husband. He's loving and carrying," Emma argued. "Heck, he's too good for Gwen."
"Begone, Author of this fic!" Tasmin repeated.
The shade moaned some more and then evaporated.
"Good. I guess we should clean up in here." Tasmin returned the DVDs to her bag.
Emma started blowing out the candles and gathering them up. She returned them to their box.
"Do you have some Retcon around the house?" Tasmin asked Gwen. Gwen nodded slightly. "I won't ask why, but I suggest that the two of you take some to forget about this whole episode." Gwen nodded again.
When everything that Tasmin had taken from her bag was returned to it, she grabbed the remote activator and opened a portal. Shaking their heads the agents went back to their response centre.