A/N: Again, I apologize for starting something new… this hit me (literally, it unfurled start to finish in my head) a couple of nights ago. I had hoped to get it finished by the time I started posting, but I have a hard time sitting on anything. It's just a short piece, though, under 10 chapters, with half that already written.

I haven't abandoned Blood Moon; I've got a couple of chapters written, they just need to be polished… give me another week? Pretty please?

This story was (unintentionally, I'm sure) inspired by Hotflower901. The comment about whether or not Tim has the nerves for Torchwood niggled at my brain… but not in a bad way. There will be many things Tim needs to cope with. This story is in no way meant as an explanation of how he gets through but rather an exploration, as well as a chance for me to really dig into his head… so to Hotflower901, a special, huge thank you!

Timeline: Picks up right where Black Rose left off…

Rating: T... There's nothing overly sexual in this one, just a few four letter words. And of course Jack Harkness… he should probably come with his very own special parental advisory… ;-)

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Chapter One: Down the Rabbit Hole

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Tim looked around the Hub as he followed Jack down the steps from the boardroom level; Ianto was brining up the rear, carrying their empty coffee cups.

Abby was back from the city morgue and at her station wearing earphones, looking busy. She had three large tables set up in a U with all of her lab equipment and several computers on two and a third set up as an empty work space. It was like someone had taken her entire lab from NCIS and condensed it down to one small work station… and added a few things Tim didn't recognize.

Near her station, Mickey Smith was still working on the thing that looked like it had been designed by H.R. Geiger… Although at the moment working on it seemed to entail staring at it in an almost Zen like fashion, as if it would suddenly explain itself if he just stared hard enough. (To be honest, Tim wasn't sure he could have come up with a better tactic. If it was a curling iron, he didn't want to know it was supposed to curl…) Mickey had almost as many computers set up as Abby, but only two tables and no lab equipment, just some tools stashed under one of the tables.

A third desk sat near by... it was a cluttered mess of papers, pamphlets, knick nackes and framed photographs, mostly of the same man. A big guy with a broad, happy-go-lucky grin. A copy of What to Expect when You're Expectinglay open (pages down, ruining the spine) over the keyboard.

"Gwen's desk," Ianto told him quietly from behind. "She's due in about seven months. Her husband Rhys," he added of the photographs. Over the last few weeks, Gwen had seriously gone overboard on the whole personalizing her space thing. He hoped she would get over it after the baby came... his mother had mentioned something called 'nesting syndrom.'

Ianto hid a private smile, glancing at Jack, wondering if he'd done something similiar when he was pregnant with Jason... my God, how weird has my life become? he suddenly wondered.

Mickey looked up as the three of them reached the main level fo the Hub. "Oi, mate," he flashed a bright grin at Tim. "You in or did Captain Dimples scare you off?"

Tim waited for the obligatory slap upside the head (or some sort of more serious reprimand).

"Watch it," Jack warned the other man, but it was obvious he wasn't offended by the insubordination.

"I erm… I guess… I'm in," Tim wasn't quite sure what to say. He wasn't even sure when or why he'd said yes to the job, but at least he had Abby… who was oblivious to the world around her, head bobbing to the music only she could hear as she worked.

He felt a familiar knot in his gut as he remembered his first few weeks at NCIS. His first day… but he was older now. Wiser. He had field experience. He wasn't technically a probie any more. He shouldn't be nervous, it was just a job…a job that entailed cleaning up after a rift through time and space and lending the occasional hand against invading aliens.

Just then Abby looked up and smiled that bright Abby-smile at Jack and even though it wasn't directed at him, Tim felt better for seeing it. "I'VE GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU," she yelled.

With a sigh, the Captain walked over and removed the headphones from her ears so they could all hear the music pounding out of them. "Yes, Abbs?"

Abby ducked her head, "Sorry." She hit the remote and turned down her music. "The victim was human," she gave Jack a sour, accusatory, glare before continuing on in a brighter tone. "But what killed him definitely wasn't," she brought the autopsy bay up on the centre most computer scren.

Tim stepped up just close enough to get a peak over the Captain's shoulder without getting in the way. He was having a hard time assessing what the expected 'office' protocols were, other than it was obvious that Jack always went first. Just the same, the Captain stepped to one side, allowing the younger man a better look at the screen.

"Smile, Bobby, you're on Candid Camera!" Abby hollered into the microphone on her desk.

The blond medic looked up; Tim was struck by the fact that he wasn't wearing a protective faceplate, like Ducky always wore in autopsy. He wasn't even wearing a mask, just gloves and a lab coat, his shaggy blond hair falling around his face. (Gibbs would have had a fit if someone had shown up looking like that for work… but Jack wasn't Gibbs, Tim reminded himself.)

The blond smiled up at the camera before going back to work.

"Hang on," said Abby; a few keystrokes later and Tim could see the group of them in a corner section of the computer screen. He noted the web cam atop her computer…

"This is Timothy McGee," her tone was gleeful. "Jack just hired him!"

"He warn you about his pet pterodactyl yet?" was the medic's wry greeting.

The Captain cleared his throat, his hands settling on his hips in an irate stance, "I believe you were about to tell me something interesting, Ms. Scuito."

"Oh, right," she rolled her chair over to another monitor. "See… this is the DNA from our John Doe… completely human," she pointed to the screen as if she expected Jack to be able to see that it was normal, human DNA… and, Tim realized, as if it might not be any more surprising if it hadn't been normal human DNA, even though the badly mangled corpse on the autopsy table looked more or less human. "But this," she brought up a second image, "Is the DNA I collected from one of the wounds…"

"Whatever chewed into this guy was big, Jack," said Bobby, looking up into the camera. "I'll have a better picture how big when I take a cast off the impressions it left in the bones."

Jack nodded, turning his attention back to Abby.

"I'm running this through the data base, but so far nothing," she told him.

"What does that mean?" asked Tim, then cursed himself for asking a stupid question.

"It means it's something we may have never run into before," Jack's tone was anything but derisive.

Tim blinked, more surprised by Jack's attitude than the statement itself. Just the same, it was the statement he addressed. "Do you get that a lot?"

"At least once a week," Ianto told him.

It wasn't a very comforting statement. "So erm… when do I start?" he asked.

Jack turned and flashed another one of those big bright smiles, "No time like the present…" as if in cue, the rift monitor beeped over at Mickey's desk.

"On it, Boss," the young man said before Jack could say a word. "Rift spike. Near city hall," he answered the next unasked question. "Something probably dropped through."

Another alarm sounded at Abby's computer.

"Satellite warning," she brought up the image. "We've got something coming down in… Cow… Cowbridge?" She asked, instinctively looking to Ianto. "You have a city called Cowbridge?"

"Be grateful it's called that instead of some long Welsh word," said Mickey.

"Cowbridge is a market town," Ianto informed her. "Lovely place, actually. It's in the Vale of Glamorgan."

"Sounds swell," her tone was ripe with sarcasm.

Jack cleared his throat.

Abby went back to her computer. "It's about a metre across maybe…definitely falling, not landing… or landing so it looks like it's falling. Doesn't look like it's breaking apart… hang on…" she hit another round of keys.

"Is that the CIA's satellite?" Tim asked as a new picture came up.

Abby winked at him over her shoulder, "I won't tell if you don't."

"Abby, you and Mickey go see what's landing in Cowbridge," said Jack, "Ianto, Tim, you're with me. We've got the SUV…"

"We really ought to get a second vehicle, Jack," the Welshman told him. His tone gave the impression that this wasn't the first time he'd brought the subject up.

Jack's randy smile made his partner groan. "Maybe we'll tackle that on our next day off," he raised his eyebrows suggestively. Then in a more serious tone, he leant towards the microphone, "Bobby…"

"I'll man the fort," the medic cut him off. He was elbow deep in flayed corpse anyway.

"Call Wendy in if anything comes up before we get back," Jack advised him.

The other nodded.

Tim blinked in surprise when a few moments later, Ianto handed him a 9mm from the armoury. "I'm not licensed in this country…"

"Repeat after me," the young Welshman instructed in a dry tone. "'I'm with Torchwood.'"

"But…" he swallowed back an argument; arguing with the office manager, whether or not he was married to the boss, was never a good idea.

Abby and Mickey were already gone; Tim desperately wished he'd been paired with her for his first assignment. There was too much he felt like he was missing…

"Come on, Kids, time's wasting…" grinned Jack as he headed out the door, leaving the other two men to either follow in his wake or get left behind.