Vermin on Cargo Docks: Fan Fiction

Author's Note: This story is still in progress. Torchwood stars Eve Myles, John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Naoki Mori and Burn Gorman. Sherlock stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.


Chapter 1

Jack was tired. He sat in his office, his hands behind his head, silent and thinking. For the past two weeks, nothing had been happening – nothing at all – and for some reason, watching TV and eating Chinese food day in, day out seemed to wear him out so much faster than when he was working.
         He felt a bit lonely, too; not only because of the fact that his immortality meant that his best friends and past lovers from decades ago grew old and passed away while Jack remained a young man, but because his boyfriend (Lover? Partner?) was upset with him after he turned down a romantic date with him that he'd taken hours to plan and arrange, and his only excuse for declining the night out was that he was "too busy". He just felt as if he wanted no contact with anyone whatsoever. Sometimes, being alive forever, whilst watching people close to him age, depressed him so much that all he wanted to do was hide away. Now he came to think about it, he missed his special coffee boy.
         Somehow, today, it was as if Ianto sensed his loneliness. There was a soft knock on Jack's office door and Ianto stepped inside. The quiet click of the door shutting made Jack look up. His eyes sparkled when he saw Ianto, the man he'd missed so much, stood wearing one of the black pinstriped suits that Jack loved. He had his hands in his trousers pockets and was looking directly as Jack. He went to step forward, but hesitated and stayed still at the door.
         "Jack." Ianto said quietly and calmly, nodding once.
"Ianto. Finally decided to come and see me, then."
"I couldn't wait any longer, sir. Plus, I bought you coffee. Starbucks. It would be a waste if it went cold." Ianto gently put the cardboard cup of latte, Jack's favourite, on the small table in the centre of the room. As he moved his hand away, Jack stopped him by resting one hands on his, causing Ianto to look across at him. He looked beautiful, his eyes shining like diamonds. Ianto stood up straight again, Jack still looking at him in the eyes.
         "Come and sit." Jack tapped on the seat next to him on the sofa with his free hand whilst gently pulled Ianto's hand with the other. Ianto obeyed and sat down next to Jack. They still hadn't left each other's gaze and Ianto felt uncomfortable, so he looked down towards the floor. This movement broke Jack's eye contact and he smiled, blinked and looked away.
         "Sorry," Jack said gently, "Are your eyes a maze? Because I just got lost in them." Jack flirted.
"Flirt," Ianto teased, as Jack put one hand on Ianto's knee. Ianto glanced at Jack's hand and back up to his face.
"Yep, that's me. King of flirt."
"Yes. Anyway, Jack, I…"
"You're going to apologise for overreacting and that you want to be forgiven."
"Well, yes, you took the words out of my mouth," Ianto replied as Jack slowly moved one thumb back and forth on his knee, "but please remember than it was you who turned me down for a date after I made a bit of an effort to sort it out. You've got to understand why I felt a bit… annoyed. Disappointed."
         A pang of guilt shot across Jack's face. "Yeah, uh… sorry about that. I just didn't feel like it. This is sort of a date though, huh?"
"A date in an office. Romantic!" Ianto laughed.
"Hey you," Jack said, tapping the tip of Ianto's noise with one finger, "some of the best things happen in an office." Ianto wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be an innuendo. Knowing Jack, is probably was.
         Jack winked and moved his face closer to Ianto's. Ianto shot back a half smile, looked down flirtatiously and put his hands on Jack's arms. Jack kissed Ianto's forehead, and then his lips. He'd been waiting to do that for almost a week. Ianto moved his hands from Jack's arms and placed them either side of Jack's face. He returned his kiss, still smiling at the same time. Getting intimate with Jack was something that he'd only just realised how much he'd missed. Suddenly, as Jack moved his hands towards Ianto's shirt collar to pull off his tie, the door swung open with a jolt and Tosh rushed in with a beaming smile.
         "We have rift activity, something we've been waiting for. First big reading in two weeks, and it really does seem important; it covers a one-mile radius, that's much bigger than usual readings," Tosh babbled, "Oh, sorry… am I interrupting something?" she said apologetically, turning to leave the office to leave them alone.
"We, uh…" Ianto stuttered as he refastened the top button of his shirt and pushed his tie back into place. He and Jack pulled away from each other.
"Looks like we got a bit carried away," Jack said, winking at Ianto again, "It's 11:30pm, I didn't think you'd still be here."
"Got nothing else to do, figured I might as well stay here. Good job we did, eh? Anyway, doesn't matter. I see you two made up. Ianto's been planning on it for two days but couldn't think of what to say. But I can see he did just fine," Tosh babbled again. Tosh didn't usually speak this much; either she was excited about the new rift discovery, embarrassed about walking in on Jack and Ianto, or she'd had too much coffee. Any of them were likely.
         "Yeah, he did great," Jack replied with a smile, before quickly kissing Ianto's forehead again, jumping up off the sofa and dashing over to Tosh. He put his hands on each of her shoulders and shot a beaming smile at her. It was as if Ianto's arrival ten minutes ago brought a spark of happiness back into him again.
         "Thanks Toshiko, you're a star. We've actually got something to do. Something to do!" He kissed Tosh's forehead, removed his hands from her shoulders and jumped to the side of her. He dashed out of the door, bounding down the steps towards the rift-tracking device, where Owen was waiting. Ianto just remained sat down on the sofa with a look of bewilderment on his face. He looked at the untouched cup of coffee on the table and sighed. He was used to Jack darting off at any random moment. He was like a puppy – when he was happy he couldn't stay still for more than a few seconds but when he was unhappy, he would cower away in a corner until someone gave him some fuss and attention. One part of him liked his enthusiasm and excitement, but another part of him disliked him ruining their first moment of intimacy in almost a week. But it was his job, what he had to do, and more importantly, what he loved to do. Most people's hobbies consisted of simple things such as horse riding or reading books or stamp collecting. Jack's however, uncluded often saving the lives of people from extra-terrestrial creatures of people from thousands of years ago, who escaped through a rift through the centre of Cardiff.
         So for Jack, in simple terms – this was exciting.

"John?"
There was no reply.
"John!"
There was still no response.
"John Watson!"
"What?" There was finally a distant reply from the other side of the flat of 221B Baker Street.
"I'm bored. Come here."
"Excuse me, what?"
"Bored. Come here!"
         There was a long silence before John Watson walked into the messy lounge with only a white towel around his waist. Sherlock Holmes was sitting in an armchair; his hands pressed tightly together, his chin resting on his fingertips. He looked up at John with an odd expression, his hands still in place.
"Why are you in a towel?" he asked in his deep voice.
"I was in the shower. You called me out of the shower."
"Oh. Get me your laptop."
"Mine?"
"Yes, yours."
"Why? Where's your own?"
"In the other room. Yours is better than mine."
"It's on the table next to you!"
         Sherlock raised his eyebrows at John, and that was enough to make him give up and shake his head. He hesitated, then stamped over to the table, picked up his laptop, and threw it heavily onto Sherlock's laptop. Sherlock glared at John as he sauntered out of the lounge and slammed the bathroom door. Sherlock smiled before opening the laptop, and clicking the bookmark to his well-known website (he refused to call it a 'blog'), The Science of Deduction, to moan about his boredom. Anything to prevent him from shooting Mrs Hudson's already destroyed walls.
Soon after, there was a knock on the door to 221B and Mrs Hudson popped her head through.
"Is everything alright in here? I heard a lot of slamming about. Have you two been arguing again? I can't keep up with you boys! Anyway, never mind about that. I'm just popping to the…"
"Some milk, please, Mrs Hudson, and some biscuits would be nice. Take a few quid from John's wallet on the table."
"Oh, alright then. Sure there's nothing else? Oh well, if there is anything else you'll have to go and get it yourself. You sit at that laptop too long."
"Thanks, Mrs Hudson." Mrs Hudson stepped away and shut the door gently. Sherlock tapped his fingers in a steady rhythm on the laptop, thinking of witty replies to people's comments on his forum. He typed for a few seconds, hit enter, slammed the laptop shut and stared forwards towards the wall. He replaced his hands to their usual praying position below his chin.
         John returned from the bathroom five minutes later wearing his jeans and cream-coloured jumper. Sherlock didn't look at him, even when John called his name. Twice. He sat down on the sofa opposite Sherlock and called him again, still with no response.
"You are so arrogant, you know that?"
"I'm concentrating."
"Doesn't mean you can sit there like the bloody king of everything and ignore anyone who tried to get a response out of you."
         Sherlock finally looked over at John with both of his eyebrows raised. John looked at him and narrows his eyes at him.
"Did you run out of your favourite shower gel or something?" Sherlock asked sarcastically with a glint in his eyes.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Oh. I know what the matter is. What was your argument about?"
"What – " John was confused, which wasn't unusual when Sherlock attempted one of his deductions which were, on the whole, correct.
"You've argued with Sarah again. I can tell. It's obvious."
"How do you know this time, Mr Deduction?"
         "You went to her house this morning, yes? Probably around 10am, if I remember correctly, but you kept looking at your watch and the door,
and often looked a bit flustered, which suggests that you were probably running later than you anticipated. Then, just as you were leaving, I clearly remember you saying that you would bring Sarah home for a while if you'd had a good day. However, seeing as you came home only an hour or so after you left with no Sarah and an unhappy face, I sort of got the obvious impression that it has gone too well at Sarah's, hence why I left you alone when you got back. So, that settles it, you had another argument or a falling out. Am I correct?"
There was a long silence.
"You can never explain anything simply, can you?" John replied, frowning and shaking his head.
"Am I correct?"
"Yes. Hang on, what do you mean by 'another argument'?"
"The same thing happened yesterday, too. You should really stop giving me such obvious hints if you don't want me to interfere."
         John exhaled heavily and looked away. Somehow, again, Sherlock was correct almost down to every detail, as he usually was. He hated it when he could just dive inside his head and make (true) assumptions about his relationship problems. Sometimes, he wished he could just live his personal life without constant deductions about every move he made.

 

Chapter 2

Gwen loved Monday mornings. She was aware that Monday mornings weren't usually seen as the best day of the week by most people in general, but for Gwen, it was her day off from the insane, non-stop world of Torchwood. This was a plus for Rhys, her husband, too; although he usually had to leave for work at 9am, he could still wake up next to his wife and cook her breakfast, instead of waking up to discover that his wife has already left for work two hours earlier.
        Gwen awoke at around 10:30am. She could vaguely remember being woken up by Rhys at 8:30 to tell her that his boss and co-worker had phoned in sick, so it was pointless him going into work on his own, meaning he had the day off today too; but she must have fallen asleep again straight after. She was glad; she needed as much sleep that she could get with her job.
        The sunlight streamed though the partly open blinds when she awoke, warming her insides. The duvet had been rested gently over the top of her and even better; she could smell the gorgeous smell of pancakes diffusing up from the kitchen downstairs. She was surprised not to be woken up by Rhys shouting and swearing as he attempted to flip the pancakes in the pan, something that didn't usually manage to do successfully.
        Gwen stretched and sat up slowly. She got dressed into what she considered her 'slouching around the house' clothes – black jeans, red t-shirt and bunny slippers that she received from Rhys for her Birthday – and made her way into the kitchen. The smell got stronger as she got closer to the kitchen, and her stomach rumbled like thunder. Rhys looked in her direction when she dragged herself through the door to the kitchen and gave her a big smile.
        "Morning love, I left you asleep as long as possible, what with that job keeping you up till all hours," Rhys said as he tipped a pancake out onto a plate which already had another large pancake on. He handed the plate to Gwen along with the bottle of syrup, but Gwen put the back down onto the kitchen counter again. She smiled back at Rhys and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug.
        "Thanks Rhys, really appreciate it," she beamed, pulling away and kissing him for a second or two. Rhys snaked his arms around Gwen's waist and kissed her back.
        "Aw, no problem. You looked so shattered yesterday, thought I would cook. You'll probably choke and die as soon as you bite into it, but it's the thought that counts."
        "Shut up, it's probably fine. You've made pancakes before and we're both still alive, aren't we?"
"Yeah, I suppose we are!" Rhys laughed, "I love you."
"Love you too. Come on, they'll be cold."
        Gwen and Rhys picked up their plates and the syrup bottle and sauntered to the kitchen table together. Gwen noticed that the cutlery, lemon juice and a bowl of sugar were already laid out on the table, and she smiled a beaming smile again.
"So. What'd you want to do today? We've got the whole day," Rhys asked, taking a bite of a pancake.
"Don't know, really… we could go to the bay, just have wander?"
"Mm… too close to home. I fancy going somewhere different for a change."
"We could go to Barry or Porthcawl, sit on the beach, If you fancy a beach day? I heard the weather's meant to be alright down Barry way."
"Yeah, could do…" Gwen half-heartedly agreed.
"You don't sound too convinced."
"You know, I was just thinking that we could spend a day at home. Watch a film or something, have an early night." Gwen looked Rhys in the eyes and shot him a half smile.
"Oh, yeah, could do, if that's what you fancy doing. Sounds nice."
        Their small-talk conversation went on for the duration of their breakfast, and when they finished, they held hands over the table and talked some more. They hadn't had chance to just sit and talk for a while and they both enjoyed it. It was a shame they both had to go back to work in the morning.
        The next few hours consisted of sitting in the lounge with popcorn and a box of chocolates, watching endless rom-coms on the TV. Gwen made Rhys promise not to moan, and said that he could choose the next film. She sent Rhys out to the nearest shop after the first film finished to buy some alcohol and he came back with as much cheap wine and beer as he could get with £20. Money was a bit tight recently so they couldn't afford to be extravagant, but all the same, they still enjoyed themselves. Sitting down with wine and junk food wasn't something either of them could do often, so now that they had the chance to do it together, they made the most of it.
        After the second movie of the day, Rhys said "What do you want to do tonight?"
"Don't know, what are you thinking?" Gwen replied. She had her head resting on Rhys's chest, and she lifted herself up to look at him while she spoke.
"Well, seeing as you're usually working late, I thought I'd take you out somewhere for a meal. Anywhere you want, and I'll pay."
"Sounds good to me," Gwen said quietly as she kissed Rhys. He gently ran his fingers through her hair as he returned it, and traced soft patterns on her back with his fingers. Gwen laid her head back down onto his chest and made small circles on his waist with one finger. By now it was only 4pm, and Gwen was falling asleep already.
        The next thing Gwen heard was Rhys saying her name quietly and running his hands through her hair again. She slowly opened her eyes and blinked a few times, adjusting to the light of the room.
"What happened?" Gwen mumbled as she looked around the room and then back at Rhys.
"You fell asleep, love. You must be tired." Rhys told her. He reached across to the coffee table and picked up a mug. "I made you a cuppa."
"Oh, thanks love. Why didn't you wake me up?"
"I didn't want to. You looked so shattered; I thought I'd leave you where you were."
"What's the time? How long was I asleep?" Gwen asked. She yawned, sat up with her feet up on the sofa, stretched, and pulled a brown fluffy blanket over her legs. Rhys must have put it there when she fell asleep. She shivered, and Rhys put his arm around her waist.
"About an hour or so? It's five o'clock," Rhys replied, kissing Gwen's forehead. Gwen wrapped herself Rhys and tightly hugged him. "Are we still going out tonight? I quite fancy a steak, myself, and I'm too lazy to cook," he asked.
"Yep, definitely! What time shall we go?"
"Soon? If we go and get ready, we could be out by six, then we could aim to be back by about nine and have an early night." Gwen nodded in approval and smiled.
        An hour or so later, Gwen and Rhys were ready to go. They decided to go to a place called Giovanni's in Cardiff City Centre. Rhys had been sat in the lounge waiting for Gwen for about fifteen minutes. This usually happened when they went out somewhere – why did females take twice as long as males to get ready? However, at 6pm, Rhys took back his thoughts when Gwen walked into the lounge in the sexiest dress he'd seen. The dress was black, and came just below her knees, and she matched it with a sparkly black cardigan. Her hair was curled into tight curls. Her shoes were also black – they were four inch stiletto heels, and she made walking in them look easy. Overall, she looked stunning, and from Rhys's facial expression, he seemed to agree.
        "Babes, you look… I can't even think of an adjective. Wow!" Gwen laughed at him.
"Come on, man, control yourself!" Gwen joked. She had a small black clutch bag in her hand which she put down onto the kitchen counter to check if she had her purse and phone. Rhys stood up from the sofa, walked towards Gwen, and while putting an arm around her waist, he said "How can an ugly mug like me manage to marry someone as beautiful as you, Miss Cooper?"
"Shut up. You're gorgeous," she said as Rhys pulled a stupid face. She laughed, showing the gap in her front teeth. "Let's get going, muppet."

 

Chapter 3

Tosh and Jack made their way down to the centre of the Hub, towards the screen telling them about the new rift reading, and where Owen was sat waiting. As soon as he heard footsteps behind him, he turned abruptly in his swivel chair and grinned.
        "Jack boy!" Owen shouted, obviously in a good mood, "How's it going?"
"Great! What put you in such a good mood?" Jack replied.
"Ah, nothin' much; just the fact that for two weeks we've been sat here with bugger all to do, and now something's finally decided to happen!" Owen said (or rather bellowed) excitedly.
        Jack smiled and raced over in four long strides to the computer screen to have a look. He looked closely at the satellite view of Cardiff and hit a button to zoom in closer towards the source of the rift reading. A pulsing red dot appeared over what looked like a harbour or embankment.
"That looks like some sort of river bank?" Tosh guessed, peering closer to the screen.
        "Cargo Docks, about ten minutes away from here by car. Never really had a problem with docks before… could be interesting, but first, we've gotta find the problem," he informed Owen and Tosh. They all turned around when they heard Ianto's voice behind them.
"Cargo Docks? My mate works there, will he be alright?"
"Don't worry about it right now. We don't know what's come through the rift yet; it could just be another weevil, could be something completely harmless," Jack assured him. Nevertheless, Ianto still looked worried.
        Jack stood up straight and got to work (or 'work' in the sense that he barked orders at the rest of his team and they got to work).
"Tosh, check the exact coordinates. Try and find people we can contact, people who work at the docks, and people who live close by. See if there are any sightings of anything out of the ordinary or unusual. Owen, you… you find something to do. Ianto, get in contact with your friend who works at the docks, see if he's seen anything himself, and keep looking great. I'll text Gwen."
        With that, Jack grabbed a phone from the desk nearest him and ran back up the steps towards his office, taking two steps at a time. It was clear just watching how fast he moved how much of a thrill he got from working, seeing as this was the first time he'd left his office in two weeks. Ianto thanked himself for that.

After the meal, in which Rhys had his long awaited 8oz steak, Gwen had lasagne and they both shared a giant both of profiteroles with ice cream and chocolate sauce, they walked together to the taxi point hand in hand. It was quite a long walk from Giovanni's back to the car park, especially when they had stomachs full of food and Gwen wore four inch stiletto heels. Gwen, to her embarrassment, tripped over a few times; partly because of her shoes on the uneven floor, but mainly because of the two whole bottles of wine Rhys kept buying her throughout their meal. She giggled uncontrollably as she almost fell twice, and Rhys grabbed her and pulled her upright by putting his free arm around her waist to steady her. His other hand was occupied by Gwen's bag which was somehow thrust upon him when they left the restaurant. Rhys didn't drink as much himself, but enough to make him feel lightheaded and giggly like Gwen. Also, for Rhys, this meant his voice was double the volume as usual, and his strong North Wales accent rolled out even stronger. They both guessed this would happen before they left the house, so they booked a taxi instead of driving.
        "Have you phoned a taxi?" Gwen asked Rhys as they walked.
"No, did you hear me phoning for one?"
"Uh… no. Ha!"
"Muppet!"
"Phone for one now then!" Rhys felt in his pockets for his phone and looked confused.
"I didn't bring my phone. I'm sure I put it in my pocket…" he slurred in a daze.
"I'm sure you did, Rhys-y boy. I'll phone it, see if you have it."
"I haven't got it." Gwen managed to dial Rhys's number (it wasn't hard, he was on speed dial number 1). Rhys's phone vibrated in his pocket. Gwen and Rhys collapsed laughing.
"It was in your pocket, you dingbat!" Gwen shouted, wiping tears away from her eyes. They were getting odd stares from passers by, whilst others just rolled their eyes. To most people, they were just rowdy drunks passing through Cardiff City Centre.
        The moment they threw themselves into the taxi, both in the back seat with their hands locked together, Rhys told the taxi driver their address, and then kissed Gwen hard when the taxi started moving.
"Woah there, sonny boy! Save it for tonight, gorgeous!" Gwen found herself blurting out. She jokingly hit Rhys on the leg and he laughed, hitting her back. They hit each other in a mock cat fight and squealed all the way home. When asked for £8.50 for the taxi fair, Rhys spent thirty seconds trying to count out the correct change. Gwen snatched the wallet out of his hand, handed over a ten-pound note, took the change and threw his wallet back to him, shaking her head.
        "Wait there a second," Rhys told Gwen when she started to get out of the car. Rhys clambered out of his side, slammed the door, and ran to the other side. He reached down and lifted Gwen out of her seat to carry her into the house. Gwen screeched.

"What are you doing? I'm surprised you can lift me with my stomach full of food and with your weak arms!"
"Weak arms? Weakarms?" Cheeky bitch!" Rhys lowered his head and kissed her while Gwen reached into her bag and found her door key, taking three attempts to fit the key into the lock. She laughed every time she failed and her contagious laugh spread to Rhys.
        When the door was finally open, Rhys carried Gwen into the house and slammed the door shut. They went straight upstairs and into their bedroom. He put her down onto the bed, took off her cardigan and tossed it to one side, before taking off his own jacket. She un-looped his belt slid it off. She still had her bag to one side of her, leaning against her hip. As she fiddled with Rhys's shirt buttons, her phone jumped into life inside her bag. She reached for her vibrating phone, and stopped kissing Rhys to click it open and read the new message. The text was from a blocked number, and all the message said was,
        TORCHWOOD. VERY IMPORTANT. COME PRONTO. JH XXX
"Shit!" Gwen shouted. She quickly typed a message back:
        WHY NOW? DAY OFF. SEE YOU TOMORROW. GC.
Almost straight after she pressed send, her phone vibrated again with a reply. Rhys sighed impatiently as she read it.
        VERY IMPORTANT. COME PRONTO. PRONTO MEANS QUICKLY. JH XXX
"Why now, Jack? Damn you!" She shouted again.
"Who's Jack?" Rhys asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Jack Harkness, my boss. The bastard wants me to go to work this late on my day off!"
        Rhys sighed again. The happiness that lit up his face a minute ago faded away and the look of pure disappointment showed clearly in his eyes. He sunk down onto the bed next to Gwen and stared at the ceiling. Gwen bit her lip and his her hand on Rhys's chest.
"Please don't be angry with me, Rhys. I'm sorry. I really am. It's just that with my job, I don't really… have much control over when I work. I can called in at any random moment, whenever something comes up, and…"
        "What the hell do you do, Gwen? Why don't I have a single clue what you do for a living? I should be the first to be told, and I still don't know what the hell you do! I don't even know where you disappear to at seven every morning when you tell me you're going to work!" He argued, increasing in volume.
"Rhys, please, I… it's not really my right to tell anyone about my job…"
"Not even your bloody fiancé? Do you know how unwanted and cast out that makes me feel, Gwen?"
        "You're not unwanted, not in the slightest! It's just… I wish I could tell you, I really wish I could, but I can't! You don't know how hard it is for me, and how selfish it makes me feel not telling you, but it's not my right. Maybe you will find out, maybe one day, but for now, it's better for you not to be involved. It's probably much safer. I want to keep you safe Rhys, and that's why I can't let you get involved. I love you so much, it would kill me if you got hurt because of my job." Rhys lay still. He breathed in and exhaled heavily. There was a long silence.
        "Well, my sex mood has disappeared now," Rhys said blankly. A smile spread across Gwen's face and she couldn't help but laugh. She gripped his hand tightly.
"I really do love you."
"I love you too. Go to work, I don't want you getting fired."
"Thanks Rhys," Gwen said, kissing him quickly.
        She grabbed her phone and sent a text to Jack – "COMING NOW, 10 MINS. HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY. GC." – and sat up. Her head span from the alcohol as she got changed out of her 'sexy dress' and into her jeans and t-shirt, put on her boots and coat and stumbled down the stairs. Rhys followed her and kissed her goodbye before she ran out of the door to catch a taxi on the main road.
        Rhys slumped onto the sofa in the lounge, turned on the TV, and wondered why nothing ever went the way he wanted it to.

 

Chapter 4

Gwen burst in through the sliding doors of the Torchwood Hub fifteen minutes later with her bag under her arm. Tosh and Owen looked up when the sirens sounded. The sirens always went off when the main door was opened; it was just part of Torchwood's hi-tech security system. Gwen hated it. She swore loudly as she walked in – her bubbly excitement had disappeared right back when Jack sent her that text, and it was replaced with boiling anger. She walked over to a table and threw down her bag. She didn't really have a justified reason to be angry (apart from the fact that Jack interrupted her at the time when she least we wanted to be interrupted) – it was probably the alcohol getting to her.
        "In a bit of a bad mood, are we?" Owen teased, swinging in his chair. Gwen glared at him, strong enough to burn through stone. He held both of his hands up and swung back around to face the desk with his usual smug grin. Jack appeared on the stairs leading up to his office, and he waved at Gwen once.
        "Hey there! I had to call you in quickly. Rift reading, big one," Jack told her in heavy loud American accent. He didn't really speak loudly, but however loud he spoke, his voice seemed to travel a hell of a long way. Gwen jumped and looked up at him.
"Jack, could you at least give me some warning before you shout? And you couldn't just let me have one night off, could you? Just because you practically live here and you have no life outside of work, it doesn't mean…" As Gwen continued to rant on at Jack, he rolled his eyes and went to see Tosh at the rift-tracking device. Gwen's rant turned into a slurred mess of meaningless words, like she wasn't even thinking as she spoke (she probably wasn't). Owen raised his eyebrows as the words tumbled out of her mouth and Tosh smirked, trying to hold back a laugh. You didn't have to be a mind reader to know that they all knew Gwen was drunk.
        Soon, it was as if Gwen's brain registered that all she was saying was a mixed up mess of pointless insults, so she shut up and looked at the others. She put a hand on her head and drunk down into the chair nearest her. Her hands covered her face as she sighed, closing her eyes, and then lifting her head up slowly, she mumbled, "Sorry about that. I went out with Rhys and I… well, let's just say I had quite a lot to drink."
        "I can tell, doesn't take a genius to figure that out. How much?" Owen asked, looking at her from where he was sat at his desk.
"Uh… two or three bottles of Rosé? Couple of glasses of cider?"
"Thought it was Rosé, I can smell it on you."
"Excuse me, rude! I don't smell that bad… do I?"
"I thought a travelling pub arrived in here or something, I could smell you as you came through the door," Owen smirked as he turned around the type something on the computer. Gwen couldn't see the screen properly, the glare made her feel sicker than she already felt.
"Hey, shut it, you," she replied, smiling, "before I come over and slap you!"
"Come at me then!" Owen looked at her again, both arms held out straight at his sides.
        "Stop arguing, flirting, whatever you want to call it. We've got serious work to do," Jack interrupted. "Tosh and Ianto have contacted people and there's been no unusual sightings yet, which sort of draws out weevils seeing as their not exactly hard to distinguish. We'll need to get out to the docks ASAP."
"Hang on, what? What docks?" Gwen asked, confused.
"Oh yeah, I forgot you only just arrived – it's Cargo Docks, not too far from here. Rift scanner picked up something new."
        Oh great, Gwen thought, I'd prefer just to go back to bed… why didn't I just say I was ill? Idiot! I feel sick… She launched herself out of her chair and ran to the bathroom whilst the others watched her. Owen looked amused, Tosh looked worried, Jack shook his head, and Ianto followed after her to see if she was alright and if she needed anything. Maybe it would be a good idea to send her home instead of forcing her into a car driven by Jack at 85 miles an hour.

        *  *  *

"Get off me!"
"I'm not even touching you!"
"Yes, you are."
"I'm not!"
"Shut up, the pair of you. You're like children!" Jack demanded from the front seat of the SUV. He was fed up with Gwen and Owen arguing every time they had to sit together in the back seat. Ianto and Tosh had just learned to put up with it.
        "Anyway, how come you get to sit in the front seat all the time?" Owen asked Ianto, poking him hard in the shoulder. He had a point; since Jack and Ianto had made up two days ago, Ianto had jumped in next to Jack in the font of the car, even when they just drove to collect their Chinese takeaway.
"Back to shagging the boss, I think!" Gwen grinned. Ianto looked back at her from the front seat with his eyes narrowed. He didn't deny anything, though. He smiled so Gwen knew that he took her comment as a joke. They all knew the truth; they all knew what went on in Jack's office upstairs. In a way, Ianto felt sort of proud of his achievement – it was as if their boss liked him the best.
        It was a cold April morning in Cardiff and Gwen wished she were in bed. It must have been about 4 degrees, and even wearing a coat and boots and sitting between Owen and Tosh didn't increase her body temperature. Seeing as it was only 8am, she hoped it would warm up a bit… or maybe it was just her dreadful hangover making her shiver.
        "Are we there yet? I'm going to be sick if we stay in this car for much longer," Gwen moaned. She seemed to be moaning a lot recently.
"No. Almost," Jack replied.
"Step on it, then. I just want to get there, see what shit we have to put up with and get the hell home."
"Somebody's not in a good mood again! Time of the month, is it?" Owen snapped sarcastically. Gwen responded with a heavy thump on his arm.
        A few minutes and several argumentative comments later, Jack stopped the SUV and everyone got out to take in their surroundings. The rift-tracking device and the satellite navigation had taken them to a vast brown space, not far from the docks. There was no one else in sight, not even any workers. Jack used another of his strange electronic devices to see if there was anyone around. The device told them if there was any human life within a half-a-mile radius. Apart from themselves, there was no one – no one at all.

 

Chapter 5

"There's no one here," Ianto said, peering over Jack's shoulder at the screen.
"Hmm. That is weird. Where're the workers, the people in boats?" he replied.
"We should go and have a look around, see if we can find anything," Gwen suggested, looking around at the open space around them. Jack nodded in agreement and led the team southwards, towards a small two-storey warehouse building in the distance. Although there was no signal on the scanner to tell them to go in that direction, Jack always seemed to sense where the interesting things were in this kind of situation.
        Once inside the warehouse, Jack suddenly jolted to a stop and held his head up high, his eyes narrowed and his mouth tightly closed. He remained like this for five or six seconds, his only movements being the up-and-down of his chest when he breathed and the flickering of his irises in his eyes. He didn't even blink. After the short silence he whirled into action again, firing up a set of rickety old wooden stairs. They didn't look safe at all, and anyone would have been scared to set foot on them. However, for Jack, if anything didhappen to him (say, for instance, the stairs came crashing down and he were to fall through), he would heal pretty quickly. That was, Jack supposed, an advantage of being immortal.
        Gwen, Owen, Tosh and Ianto remained on the bottom floor, guns and tranquillisers in hand for safety, and wondering if Jack was mad. They all knew the answer to that one… he probably was. They heard dangerous-sounding cracks and creaks of the floorboards above them, and they were all ready to dash in fear of the ceiling collapsing at any given moment.
        "Come up here. I've found something, something bad," Jack called from above. They each managed to brave the wooden steps. Gwen went first, gingerly placing her left foot lightly on the first step while tapping the next step a few times with the right to test its sturdiness. She made it to the top of the stairs and breathing heavily, she nodded at the other three to tell them that it was safe enough. The three of them followed, almost as carefully as Gwen did.
        As Owen, Tosh and finally, Ianto made their way towards the top of the stairs, Gwen continued walking across the second floor of the small warehouse to see what Jack had found. When she saw it, she had to turn her head away again almost immediately as Jack was knelt down on the floor next to a body.
        "Is he dead?" Gwen asked with her head still turned away. Jack continued to look at the body, seemingly not affected by it - or if he was, he didn't show it. Gwen had only been on the Torchwood team for a short while, so she hadn't learnt to do that as well as Jack and maybe some of her other teammates had.
"Yeah."
"How?"
"Don't know."
"Well, did a creature do it?" Gwen asked.
"Not sure. It's a man, I'd say late twenties, maybe early thirties; about six feet tall, looks like he's just come from working somewhere, he's wearing one of those glow in the dark orange safety jackets."
        "How bad is it?" Owen called as the three walked towards Gwen from the steps.
"There's a man dead. Gwen, I think you should come over a second. You're a police officer, you might know things I don't." She doubted it, but it was worth a try. She slowly turned her head and knelt down next to the body, the opposite side to Jack. She looked down at the man before her and her eyes narrowed. Jack had undone the zip of the man's safety jacket to reveal a small, bullet-like hole in the man's chest. The hole was deep… probably deep enough to be a bullet hole.
"So if he was shot, what the hell are we dealing with?" Gwen asked as she zipped the safety jacket back up again to protect the wound ready for further inspection later.
"Again, I don't know. Could be anything. Murder, suicide, accident, anything."
"There's no gun," Ianto pointed out, looking around the floor to double check that there wasn't one in sight, "apart from the ones we're holding, of course – and we were all downstairs."
        "What are we supposed to do now?" Gwen asked.
"Well, I suggest we take him back to the Hub and I can do an autopsy, see what I can find," Owen suggested.
"We can find the bullet and see if we can get any fingerprints or see if we can match the bullet to the ones of anyone who owns a gun nearby. Might be a big hard and would take a long time, but it would get us answers," Tosh added. "I could look through my contacts or track through the system to find anyone who could help, anyone who knows about this sort of stuff."
        "Gwen's a police officer, won't she do?" Owen argued back.
"I haven't been one for very long, though… I haven't long completed my training," she confessed.
"Fat load of good, then!"
"Shut it."
        Owen and Jack lifted the body bag containing the corpse of the man onto the surgery table in the autopsy room. Jack had told Gwen and Ianto to stay in Cargo Docks, to see if they could find anything else suspicious or more importantly, more bodies. He wasn't sure how well they'd work together, but it was worth a shot. Tosh had come back with Owen and Jack to trawl through thousands of pages of records, just to see if there was anything of any use.

        *  *  *

Owen unzipped the bag and slid it out from underneath the corpse, undid his safety jacket and carefully cut off his t-shirt from around the open wound. After the t-shirt was cut, he passed the knife to Jack to sterilise. Jack reached for a new knife and passed it over to Owen to cut open the wound, to investigate what had actually happened to this man.
        "He doesn't seem like he's been dead long," Owen told Jack, "the wound still seems pretty new, and the body hasn't started degrading at all, by the look of him."
"Yeah," Jack agreed, jumping as Owen's mobile phone jumped into life on the table across the room.
"Can you get that for me please, Jack?" Owen asked as Jack walked over to the table with the vibrating phone on and lifted it up to see who was calling. It was Gwen.
        "Hey Gwen, what's up? Yeah… yeah… okay. I'll be right there, stay exactly where you are so I can track your location, see you in a few minutes." Jack pressed a button on the phone and put it back down on the table. "There's another two bodies found, close to the warehouse, two at once, within a small distance of each other. Would you mind staying here and finishing this while I go check them out and bring them back here? Tell me if you find anything important," and with that, he rushed up the slope towards the Hub, grabbed his coat from the banister, quickly shrugged himself into it and disappeared out of the doors. Owen looked down at the body, sighed and raised his eyebrows and continued with the autopsy. It wasn't the first time Jack had left him alone in the autopsy room with a corpse, and probably not the last.

 

To be continued