Cardiff was a nice town. Quiet. Peaceful. Alright weather. It was interesting, for Wales. It had Roald Dahl, that one author whose books were sensational. It had the Roald Dahl Plass with the Millennium Building right next to it. If someone visited the town, they'd have to agree. Cardiff was an alright place.
Of course, if you lived in the town long enough, you might notice weird stories in the news. People who claimed to have seen monsters and creatures from hell in their own living rooms.
Cardiff was alright.
Sure. Just keep telling yourself that.
"Owen!" Jack warned, as he felt himself getting shot twice in the arm.
"I'm working on it!" the medic yelled back, producing a sedative he'd made from items found in the nearby convenience store. Another Weevil sighting had been reported and this was just one of the many late routine checks around Cardiff. Owen took a syringe and let it suck the sedative.
"Owen!" Jack yelled again, this time taking a bullet to his leg. Clever Weevil found a way to wield a gun. This was not amusing.
"Okay!" Owen cried and ran behind the Weevil. "Just distract it!"
"Who'd be interested in you?" Jack panted, shooting the ground and regaining the Weevil's attention. Owen stabbed the needle into the Weevil's bloodstream and the alien fell down on the asphalt road.
"Bloody hell!" the convenience store clerk exclaimed, watching the spectacle.
"Have some coffee," laced with Retcon Ianto offered, holding a cup out. The clerk took the cup and gulped down its contents, immediately slumping to the ground.
"A little faster would have been nice," Jack winced. He limped over to the rest of the team.
"If that stupid clerk over there wouldn't stop shouting at me!" Owen shot back.
Jack rubbed his leg as the bullet fell out and healed itself. "Oh that's disgusting!" the medic declared as the bullets in Jack's arm also fell out.
"A little faster next time and maybe you won't have to watch it," Jack said, receiving the cuffs from Gwen. "Just be glad it wasn't you." The captain restrained the knocked out Weevil and ordered Ianto and Owen to put the alien in the trunk of the SUV. Jack pushed a button on his Bluetooth. "Tosh, anything?"
"No rift activity at all. The Weevil just appeared out of nowhere. Did you catch it?"
"Yeah. We got it. We're on our way back right now. Keep looking."
"Aye aye captain," Tosh said as Jack closed comms.
"Come on guys," Jack said, getting into the driver's seat. "Let's get back."
A little girl woke up after a horrible nightmare, crying. She was barely five years old. Tomorrow was her birthday. Five years. Half a decade. Her mummy would be so proud of her. So would her daddy. But her mummy and daddy were gone. The sisters told her they'd gone to be with the good Lord. The little girl was happy for her mum and dad, but sad to as why she couldn't have gone with them.
One of the sisters entered into the room. "How are you dear?" she asked, holding the little girl in her arms.
"I'm scared," the green-eyed girl cried.
"Pray and you will feel better," the sister suggested. "Do you want me to pray with you?"
The girl nodded dumbly as she listed off the things she was thankful for and prayed to have a goodnight's sleep. The sister kissed the girl lightly on the forehead and promised to stay until the girl had fallen asleep.
The next day, the sister was dead.
"So!" Jack said the next day at exactly nine in the morning. "We have Weevils slipping through the rift with no activity. Any suggestions?"
"The world is ending," Owen said.
"The world's always ending. Anyone else?"
"Maybe one of them got loose," Gwen said. "Maybe it was ours."
"Impossible," Ianto said, handing Jack his coffee. Their eyes met briefly before Ianto continued. "They were all there last night before we went out. I checked."
"And the DNA samples don't match the Weevils that we have," Tosh added.
"Worth a shot," Gwen shrugged.
"Long shot," Owen muttered.
Gwen rolled her eyes as her mobile rang. "It's Andy," she informed them.
"Answer, then hang up," Jack told her.
"He might have something useful."
"Right," Owen said. "Because he's going to know where the Weevils are coming from."
"Unless he's got inexplicable evidence of why aliens are crossing the rift without any energy spikes, hang up on him," Jack said, sipping his coffee.
Gwen answered the phone. "My boss wants me to hang up on you unless you've got a good reason why aliens are crossing the rift without any energy readings."
"No, I don't know whatever you just said, but… there's a murder mystery," Andy told her.
"Murder mystery," Gwen informed her boss.
"Tell him we don't do red tape," Jack called.
"He says to tell you that he doesn't do red tape."
"No but wait!" Andy desperately called. "It was a nun. One of the sisters at the St. Teresa Orphanage. She was killed. No weapon or anything. The medics ran tests and there was no poison. She went up to comfort one of the girls in the middle of the night and stayed there after the girl fell asleep. She was dead the next morning."
"Old age?" Gwen proposed.
"She was 24."
Gwen relayed the information back to Jack, who still seemed reluctant. His eyes flickered to Ianto. "Worth checking out," Ianto shrugged.
"Tell Andy we'll be there in fifteen minutes," Jack said, before retreating to his office.
"Fifteen minutes Andy," Gwen repeated and hung up.
Once Ianto and Jack were out of earshot, Owen said, "Typical."
"What?" Gwen asked, pocketing her cell phone.
"Jack doesn't consent until Teaboy over there suggests it."
"Don't listen to him," Tosh told Gwen.
"But what's Ianto got to do with it?" Gwen asked. Tosh and Owen just stared at her. "What?" she asked again.
"You haven't noticed?" Owen inquired.
"Noticed what?"
"Teaboy's gotten field work."
"So?"
"Camera images from Jack's office get deleted on some nights," Tosh said.
"And then," Owen added, "Teaboy's always early on those days. Plus, you should see the way Jack looks at him."
"What?" Gwen demanded.
"Ever since the year that never was."
"What's going on?" Gwen demanded. Owen stared at her expectantly. "No…" Gwen realized. "No way."
"Yep," Owen confirmed. "Jack is-"
"I'm what?" Jack asked, putting on his grey coat and stepping out from his office.
"Out of your mind for going after a case that has police written all over it," Owen said quickly, silently praying that his boss hadn't been eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Could be interesting," Jack shrugged. "Come on. Let's go."
PC Andy paced impatiently on the gravel road, waiting for that black SUV with "Torchwood" engraved on the side to arrive. Finally, the black car pulled up and out stepped five people. They all wore Bluetooth headsets. If they were all dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, Andy might have thought that he'd just stepped into a MIB movie.
"So, what do you got?" Jack asked the police constable.
The little girl shivered and muttered incoherent words. The man was here. He was here. But who was he?
PC Andy led them to the room. The nun had already been removed. "Nothing," Andy stated. "No blood, no fingerprints of anyone that shouldn't have been in here. Cold case."
"Right. So we take on an unsolvable police case," Owen grumbled.
"What's your problem?" Jack snapped.
"Nothing… nothing," the medic muttered.
"OK. So Andy, if you could kindly leave. Some of this is need to know only. Thank you, goodbye." With that, the captain shoved the PC out the door and closed it.
"That was rude," Gwen commented.
"Right so first. Any ideas?"
Tosh took out her PDA and scanned the room. "Trace residual energy," she noted. "Too little for this to have happened last night. Look," she pointed at the wavelengths. "Barely any spikes. It's like something is suppressing it. Even the Hub scanners didn't pick anything up."
"Jack look," Gwen said, reading a book that was found under the girl's pillow. "Sketchbook."
Jack took the leather bound book and studied the first picture. A rainbow, nothing out of the ordinary. He flipped through the ivory pages until he stopped short. The picture was that of a satellite. The interior of a satellite. An interior he knew only too well. He flipped to the next page. Golden spheres on a suit of metal iron. The page next to it depicted a spaceship of an extinct species. As he flipped further and further, he grew more and more scared.
Impossible. Even after all his years fighting aliens and etcetera, he had never encountered this.
"We need to see that girl."
Oooh... What's this? A sketchbook with drawings of _________________. --fill in the blank. I think you know!
BTW, "MIB" = Men in Black just for those who are clueless.
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood.