Just so you understand the story, there had been 5 cases of murder of young males dotted around Cardiff. The Police couldn't understand the Modus Operandi ( as there doesn't seem to be one) and so have reluctantly handed the case over to Torchwood to investigate, the only lead being that all the murders have happened in a half mile radius of a nightclub.

Thought I would spare you having to read a whole chapter on it as, well lets face it, it's pretty boring. But you're up to date. So now read on and enjoy.

And please Review, thank you!

FlowerPetalsToTheWind (does not own Torchwood)

"Coffee?" Ianto entered the hub's Boardroom and offered his expert coffee to everyone. The atmosphere was tense, Ianto soon regretted coming in as everyone looked like the last thing they wanted was coffee. This, in his experience, was always a bad thing. He decided just to leave the steaming mugs on the table before shuffling out.

Toshiko looked around at all the grim faces, as everyone stared at the new report on another mysterious male death near a Cardiff nightclub.

"What I don't get is there is no cause of death." Jack suddenly piped up. Everyone looked up at him, so he continued his trail of thought, "I mean, not even you, Owen, could find anything wrong with them. I don't even know why we have to look into this; I mean how could it be alien if there wasn't any Rift activity?"

"There might have been something." Tosh mumbled quietly.

"Sorry Tosh, I thought I just heard you there might have been rift activity." Jack said, genuinely puzzled.

"You-you did." Tosh whispered.

"Poison!" Gwen almost shouted, like a Eureka moment, blocking out Tosh's confession.

"Untraceable. Colourless, odourless, tasteless maybe, but still poison." She explained to a stunned team.

"I don't know, Gwen, I think I would have picked it up…" Owen started but Jack cut in,

"Poison! Of course, that was stupid of us, well of you, why didn't we think about it before?" Jack sat back in his chair.

"Because I did think of poison but I did countless tests and there is no possible way that they were poisoned." Owen said, through gritted teeth.

"Owen's right Jack, I also did research on poisons and all are traceable with the technology Torchwood has." Toshiko stated.

"Yes, all human poisons. Did you look at all alien poisons, Tosh?" Gwen asked, excitement building up at this possible breakthrough.

"Yes, all known alien poisons are logged in our database. I checked alien poison before I did anything. The poison data logger is something I added so if anything like this came up I wouldn't have to take time on researching extra-terrestrial possibilities, we would just know. Any poison that has not been produced on Earth but has been recorded is on our system, even those that were illegally recorded, even by foreign countries, I have them all Jack." Tosh sounded exasperated. Jack just looked at her as if she'd slapped him in the face. He silently got up to leave the room,

"This meeting's over." He said before retreating to his own office.

The rest of the team sat in the boardroom stunned. Tosh was almost relieved that everyone had forgotten her little confession. Though she knew she would have to admit her mistake sooner or later. She chose later and sunk deeper into her chair almost like she was trying to hide from the rest of her colleagues.

Gwen was still pondering over her poison theory. She was quite huffy with Owen and Toshiko for stamping on her idea quite so determinedly. It's a possibility. Torchwood doesn't have every poison in the entire universe logged on Tosh's silly logger thingy. If it's poison, it might be something we haven't come across yet, Gwen thought to herself.

Owen was sitting with his arms folded going over absurd possibilities about the men's deaths. Then when he could come up with nothing particularly plausible he thought about how much money was in his wallet and whether he should go to the pub or go for the cheaper option of buying a few cans and get drunk at home that night. After different thoughts, the Torchwood team's feelings all fell upon thinking about Jack.

The team had never seen Jack get so worked up over a case before. Maybe it was the fact they had no leads, maybe it was because five men had died for no apparent reason, or maybe it was something more personal. These thoughts were going through everyone's heads as they sat there again looking at the new report on the projector.

Ianto suddenly appeared with fresh coffee. Seeing no-one had even touched the first lot, he subtly came in and quietly cleared away all the refreshments he had previously left on the table, as well as the second mugs of coffee he had just brought in. On his way back to his own desk Jack called him.

"Ianto, I'd like a bit of that fresh coffee, if you don't mind." He asked, in his American accent Ianto loved so much. He gave Ianto a wink before settling himself in his office.

Jack sat there quietly for a few moments with the case files spread out in front of him. Five faces stared back at him. Not giving any clue as to who their killer might be. There wasn't even a mark on their bodies for Pete's sake! If there wasn't the small fact they were dead, their bodies gave no indication of any health problems or injuries. Internal or external. Nothing showed anything.

Jack pushed the files away, before his head exploded. He was frustrated. He always hated it when he couldn't understand something. He enjoyed a challenge, but this wasn't fun anymore. People were getting hurt. Killed. And Jack couldn't work out how to stop it. It was like he wasn't doing his job properly or something.

A knock on his door pulled him out of his deep train of thought. Ianto entered with Jack's industrial strength coffee in hand. He smiled at Jack who looked very absent at that moment. Jack smile back but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Ianto noticed but didn't say anything. He decided to carry on working and left the Captain in his office, knowing Jack probably didn't want to talk about it yet.

Jack roped the scattered files back to the centre of his desk to continue raking through them, hoping something would turn up magically in front of his eyes. He sipped his coffee. Still the best he'd ever tasted.