Ianto stood behind the desk in the dark entrance way they pretended was the tourist information office. Idly he flicked the pages of yesterdays Western Mail and read some good news story about an actor visiting a dogs home. Why he still bothered with the pretence of this office was beyond him, hadn't he proved he was better than this recently? The Senedd needed a reason for the over spend answered Jack, when he had asked and Ianto smiled, nodded and went upstairs again. Who wanted tourist information today anyway? A soggy Welsh April afternoon and if one more person asked why it was called the Norwegian Church, well he knew a nice piece of alien technology with their name on it.

Just then the door opened, in walked a youngish woman, on the edge of middle age perhaps, windswept – and not in a nice way – and ever so slightly down at heel. He could appreciate a fellow smart dresser, but she had let it slip, the light blue rain coat was dirty at the edges, the kitten heels dull and scuffed, the skirt hem starting to come undone. She closed the door and pulled a finger through her hair as if to smarten up.

"Nasty out" she said with a slight Geordie burr.

Ianto smiled and went back to his paper, another lost teenager in Splott.

For a few minutes she browsed through leaflets on tourist attractions South Wales, pits run for the amusement of tourists, Cardiff Castle, a folly to Victoriana. Presently she came to the desk,

"Do you have any information on the apartment blocks out back?"

Ianto looked up from the rugby report,

"You need the sales office on the main road, next to the Council offices I'm afraid." He went back to the rugby. She stepped nearer the counter.

"Any idea what time they shut?"

Ianto straightened up properly, what was he, Rightmove?

"I should imagine before 5:33" he said looking at his watch, "anything else I can help you with?" This little play could have ended three minutes ago and he was still here, he could smell the coffee, taste the pizza. She smiled, more grimaced and went to open the door.

"Actually yes, is their an animal shelter round here?"

Now that he could help with, he handed her the paper and stabbed at the article he had seen earlier,

"Try here love" he said, she gave him the same sad smile and left.

Ianto walked to the door and caught a snatch of the sound of a crowd going towards the Millennium Stadium, the rain pattered against the door as he pulled the blind, the woman stood looking out across the bay, a jumper if ever he had seen one. Not his problem, not now. He flicked the lock and went to the wall as it slid back to show a tiled staircase, espresso called.

Owen sat at his normal station, one screen showing a map of Penarth, another showing some computer game.

"Coffee anyone".

Neither of them really looked up, Tosh smiled, she wasn't really there she was making love to some algorithm again, but it would do. Owen gave him a look to kill, which was quite funny if you considered his situation and then spoke,

"I think you should turn right, the signal is coming from Dryden about half way." Owens eyes flicked back to the game and pushed a few buttons to kill the gun touting image on the other screen, really he needed to take this seriously, thought Ianto. Jacks voice crackled over the loud speaker

"What number?"

The map showed two small black dots speeding across the page, Owens eyes barely left the screen as he answered, the red dot placed over the house showed they had identified a non-human life form, probably blowfish. Easy to contain then, he went to make coffee.

The chase was still on when he came back, bored Ianto started checking the Plass through the CCTV, just looking he told himself, but really he needed to check that she wasn't swimming. It was half an hour since he told himself, she would be long gone, especially in this weather. He panned round and stopped, there she was, he sighed and found an angle that showed her face. It was a nasty evening out there, it was getting dark early and the wind whipped her hair, frizzy from the mild drizzle, round her face. Tosh walked up behind him cradling the steaming mug of coffee.

"Who's that?" she asked as Ianto tried to get a better angle.

"Dunno, some sad case who came in the shop earlier." He said as Tosh went back to her station like a mouse scuttling across the metal decking.

Suddenly Owen leapt into life, well there wasn't an allegory that described what Owen did anymore, thought Ianto wryly,

"Guys you've got to hear this." Said Owen toggling the speaker switch and suddenly Jacks voice filled the Hub.

"Boy but this guy is fast" he shouted, the squealing in tyres and the suppressed scream from Gwen told them that Jack was driving the SUV in his own style.

"Metallic Blue, probably a Merc, heading East towards the Red Dragon Centre" said Gwen trying her best to be professional while seeing her life flash before her eyes. Owens fingers flashed over the keyboard, he was adapting to having two of them strapped together permanently. Images flashed up, an overhead view and three smaller views from static CCTV cameras, Tosh was proud of this one of her programmes.

Two cars flashed by, edging steadily towards the Plass and the hub beneath, the Blowfish was ignoring every rule of the road but some how managed to miss the dregs of the evening rush hour traffic, until now.

"Whooh" shouted Owen as the Merc slide sideways and wrapped itself round a lamppost behind the Senedd. The Blowfish was out of the car and running,

"What are those things made of? How the hell did it survive a crash like that?" Said Owen watching as the SUV skidded behind it. Suddenly another form emerged from the broken Merc and started following the Blowfish in a slower fashion, more camera images showed it was another Blowfish – wearing a skirt and heels.

"Well take a look at that, Mr and Mrs Blowfish out for a drive." Said Owen swinging his feet up on the desk.

Ianto peered at the grainy image seeing Jack and Gwen jump out of the SUV, drawing their weapons and following the directions that Owen was shouting. He flicked his eyes back to the courting Blowfish and saw the male pull out his own weapon that had the look of a Tommy gun, followed by the female an alien, Bonnie and Clyde. These weapons weren't popguns either, these were the type of guns that armies would literally kill for.

"I'm going to the armoury," said Ianto moving away quickly, "I think they might need help up there."

The windswept woman sat on a bench facing out into Cardiff Bay, she took a small wooden box out of her oversized handbag and turned hand over hand. She wasn't prone to talking to herself so she kept her own thoughts as she got up and walked down the steps in front of the Pier Head building and to the boardwalk. There was no-one else around on a grimy day like this, which was why the thundering of steps on the wooden decking of the Plass stood out. No it wasn't thundering she thought as she turned to look, it was a slapping like fins from a diver. It could have been a fancy dress parade, two fish heads, a bloke in a long military coat and lagging behind a woman carrying a gun like something out of Cagney and Lacey. Well she thought must be the right place, she just hoped it was the right time.

She stepped back into the shadows of the bridge to watch the show, the man shouted and raised his weapon, surely he couldn't hope to hit anything with something that old. He stood in a military fashion pointing the gun at the Blowfish, smiling but with a menace that showed whatever he was saying wasn't nice. Something suddenly surfaced in her brain, she knew the gun, the stance, she looked, she knew the face, but that was impossible – but so was she. The Blowfish blew a raspberry, how typical of their kind then let off a volley with its gun, the laser burnt a whole in the decking but got no closer as the man in the coat took a shot, winging the creatures arm. The Blowfish would have taken another shot but the female started pulling hysterically at the male and they turned and ran towards her.

The chase began again, straight towards her. The Blowfish couple had about 30 metres head start and ignored her as they slapped past her down to the water, where she knew they would jump in and disappear. She looked back at the couple running after them, there were two more figures running behind carrying more substantial weapons. There was another noise too, behind her a young couple laughing oblivious of the scene in front of them. The running man had heard it too and he looked up as he ran past her looking at the couple and shouted at them to get out of the way. He hadn't seen her but she looked at his face and gasped, it was Gerald, a man who should have been dead at least 40 years ago and certainly shouldn't look that good. Suddenly he looked at her, even after all these years the eyes still had it, shock registered on his face and his gun dropped slightly.

The slapping had stopped she looked at the Blowfish couple who were stood with their back to the water and he was raising the weapon. It was a split second decision and the world seemed to go into slow motion, from the corner of her eye she saw the flash of red and she pushed forward, the bag falling from her arm. There were about ten meters between them, the rest of the team had come to a standstill just on the far side of the bridge weapons raised and somehow she registered the shock on their faces as she came into their line of vision. Sound came out of her mouth, she didn't know what the sound was but it sounded like a name to the rest of the Torchwood team.

The slow motion suddenly stopped and she saw the beam of the laser scything towards him and the last two steps took nothing. She barrelled into Jack pushing him to the floor, but she was a nano second too late if the pain in her shoulder was anything to go by and the bellowing noise coming from below her. She turned her head to see the Blowfish lower the weapon and point it at her again, the pain in her shoulder was starting to mist her vision and she couldn't tell who was screaming more. She kept wondering if this was what the end was supposed to be like, but even now it wouldn't be. Just more pain.

Ianto couldn't really take in what he had just seen, but it saved him the problem of explaining why plan A was to shoot Jack and hope the bullet travelled through him to Clyde before he either killed the whole team or destroyed the whole Plass, the clear up was going to take some doing as it was. However now he had a clear shot and he took it, blasting the Blowfish with a death wish into the waters of the Bay, to be swiftly followed into the water with a swan dive by it's girlfriend, the evil weapon cart wheeling upwards before landing of the edge of the pontoon, but none of the Torchwood Team even saw that as they ran towards their leader.

The pool of blood under the pair of tangled bodies was immense even to Owens medically trained eye, Jack, well he could get on with it as he normally did but there was another body to deal with here. Swiftly he knelt down and felt for a pulse, the woman was lying face down on top of Jack, who as normal was struggling but Ianto was there holding his head shouting at him to calm down, cute really thought Owen. The laser had hit her right shoulder and gone straight through, the movement as they had flown through the air had left a hole about four inches long that could be easily mistaken for a messy gunshot wound, Shouldn't have hit anything too vital but the blood loss was worrying, the pulse was there but he was shocked when her hand grabbed his arm.

She struggled to turn over

"Don't try and move my love" he said restraining her movements "I'm a doctor you're in safe hands now, I'll patch you up and get you to hospital."

She struggled more violently and rolled off Jack, screaming again as her shoulder fell against the cold hard stone. Jack scrabbled backwards but Ianto stopped him moving too far, the scorch marks on his shirtfront showed that the laser had gone straight through the woman but by now there would be little more than a fading mark on his skin, the only thing to mark the injury would be the "bear with a sore head" routine they were all subjected in the hours after Jack was injured.

"No hospital, please." She said, blowing bright red bubbles as she spoke. Her eyes showed abject terror at the thought. Owen pressed down on the wound with one hand and tapped his ear with the other,

"Tosh, call an ambulance will you, civilian casualty, gunshot, collapsed lung, loosing blood fast."

"No hospital, fine." She gasped at him as Owen took the syringe loaded with morphine he carried round with him "just in case" this happened, which it frequently did, and pushed it into the top of her arm.

Owen looked round, Jack was stood behind him

"You should be dead." She was gasping her eyes rolling back in her head fighting the blackness that was marching in.

"So should you," he said hunkering down and taking her hand, "I'll take better care this time"

"Tosh, cancel the ambulance, Owen time to prove you are the super doctor you always tell us you are, Ianto give me a hand here."

"Jack I can't, we aren't set up for this" said Owen checking the pulse again as her eyelids flickered for a second or two more and a smile passed her lips before she finally passed out, Owen quickly checked she was still breathing and was pleased to hear the fluttering breath even if it sounded painful.

Jack lifted the woman and grunted the new wound grating slightly as he took the weight, Ianto there as always, lifted her instead and ran towards the fountain, Owen darted towards the information office doorway, he should make it before them if he took the stairs two at a time. Gwen ran after him carrying the dropped handbag and the strange little box, another excuse for Rhys forming in her mind.