Claustrophobia

Calle Dybedahl

The cells in Torchwood Three are built to keep all kinds of unpleasant creatures in. They're very well built. A lot of imagination went into their design, into trying to figure out every conceivable nasty thing that might need to be contained. Gwen is very grateful that such a lot of effort was spent, because it also means that the cells can keep nasty critters out.
"Deadly," Ripley said when Gwen asked what they were. Which Gwen had already figured out by herself, from the way the first one messily exited from Owen's chest. And the way they found the two halves of Ianto several meters apart.
She doesn't like to think of the team. To keep the thoughts out, she wraps her arms harder around Ripley in the cell bunk, presses her entire naked body against the taller and more muscular woman. Ripley responds in kind, running a hand along Gwen's back and nuzzling her hair.
"Scared?" Ripley whispers.
Gwen thinks that she shouldn't be. She's a policewoman, and she's worked for Torchwood for a couple of months. She should be able to handle most anything the universe throws at her. But somehow these aliens get at her. The way they hiss, the way you can only almost see them, the way they breed.
"Yes," Gwen says. "A lot. Distract me."
Ripley's hand moves a little further down to grab Gwen's ass, her lips move down and Gwen tilts her head up to meet the kiss.

The thing came out of the rift, of course. Not at ground level like most things, but almost a mile up. It came fast, and before it hit a freshly tilled field it had traveled the best part of five miles outside Cardiff. They were there before the police, and got the whole thing back to the Hub without anyone else knowing what it had been. Meteorite, was the official story. The less official story was a good-looking woman in what Jack claimed was a 24th century hibernation capsule, a very dead young girl in another capsule that had been broken out of from inside, half a robot and what turned out to be an alien egg. The last of which ejected a spider-like thing that attached itself to Owen's face. By the time they managed to wake Ripley up and got the whole story, the alien had already burst out of Owen and the Hub was in lockdown until they could find it.
While they were looking for the creature they found the eggs it had laid in the armoury.

Fear is a powerful aphrodisiac, Gwen has found. It's something about knowing another person is near you, something about affirming you're still alive, something about trying to get the good stuff while you still can. It also provides a sense of urgency.
They're lying facing each other, still kissing, Ripley still fondling Gwen's ass. She can feel Ripley's stiff nipples, and it's not enough. She slides her free hand down Ripley's flank until she too is fondling a buttock, but she doesn't stop there. She reaches further down, and finds enough wetness there that she has no problem getting her hand in between the thighs. Ripley moves her leg, bends it and rests her knee on top of Gwen's hip, giving Gwen easier access to her target.
In better times, Gwen would take her time and play around. Stroke the labia, gently play with the clitoris. But these are bad, bad times, and instead she just slides a finger inside, as awkward as the angle is. She can feel Ripley tense, and if they hadn't been kissing she probably would've gasped.

"You can't leave here," Ripley said after they found the eggs. "Not until we're absolutely sure we've got every one of these creatures."
"Can't we just make sure that nobody's... impregnated," Tosh says. She stumbles on the word. "And then leave and let them starve in here?"
Ripley shook her head. "We have no idea how many years those eggs survived for on the planet where we found them. We know the queen can survive unaided in vacuum. And they are intelligent. Maybe not as much as us, but much more than your average cat or dog."
"We could blow the hub up after us," Gwen said.
The grim smile that spread over Ripley's face made Gwen shiver.
"You'd need a nuke," Ripley said.
"And setting off one of those in the middle of Cardiff might be frowned upon," Jack said. "And we don't have one. So we hunt them."
Tosh looked scared out of her wits, which might have been the most rational reaction of anyone in the room.
"Hunt them?" she said. "Those things?"
"We've got weapons and brains," Jack said. "And the alternative is sitting around waiting for them to come kill us."
So they handed out the guns, split up in pairs and left. Gwen and Ripley went down towards the holding cells. Jack and Tosh headed for the operating room, and that's the last Gwen saw of them.

After Ripley comes, hard and fast, she pushes Gwen over on her back and spreads her legs. There is nothing gentle about it. Normally, Gwen wouldn't have stood for that kind of treatment, but now it's just a welcome distraction. She keeps her legs where Ripley wants them, and is soon rewarded by a knowing tongue probing her sex. Gwen gasps, calling for a God she has long lost belief in. Her hands grab hold of the rough blanket covering their bunk. Her eyes squeeze shut, and for a little while she doesn't think of the fear.

When Ripley shot the head off the first alien, its acid blood ate its way through two levels of floor and destroyed their generator.
"I guess that's bad?" Ripley asked.
Gwen nodded, invisible in the sudden darkness. "When we're in lockdown, we sever all connections to the outside," she says. "And there's a failsafe, so only Jack alone or two of the rest of us together can lift the lockdown."
"Great," Ripley said. "So we're locked in, it's dark and there's at least one, maybe three, aliens out there hunting us."
Every sound in the darkness suddenly sounded like an alien claw against steel or stone.
"We're dead, aren't we?" Gwen asked.
"We need a safe base," Ripley said. "We have guns, we have ammo, we even have food and water. But we need somewhere they can't get into to hide in."
Gwen smiled into the dark.
"I know just the place," she said.

Even with their current needs sated, Gwen clings to Ripley like her life depended on it. Maybe it does. Ripley have dealt with these creatures before and lived. She knows how to deal with them. She's safe. She's big and strong and not afraid, and right now Gwen badly needs someone like that, because she herself feel far from any of those.
Ripley strokes her hair. "Don't worry," she says. "We got two of them, so there can't be more than one left. They need a host to spawn. They got that Iago guy, Tosh and Jack. Three hosts, three critters. Tomorrow, we find the thing, kill it real dead and then we start figuring out how to get out of here."
"Ianto," Gwen says. "His name was Ianto."
"Whatever," Ripley says. "We're going to fix this. Don't worry."
Gwen wouldn't describe her feelings as worry. Paralyzing terror would be more apt. For the millionth time she wants to tell Ripley about Jack, and finds that she can't. She can't tell her only lifeline to sanity that they really are doomed. That there isn't just one more alien to kill. There's more, lots more, and they're going to keep on coming.
"Absolutely," Gwen lies. "We kill the last one, we get out."
And as she starts kissing her way down from Ripley's breasts again, she hopes that this time it'll be enough to drown out the images she sees in her mind. The images of a man who can't stay dead, his chest bursting again and again and again, one alien after another crawling out to kill them.