Chapter 1 -

Gwen Cooper groaned in frustration and turned in her bed to face her digital clock , 2:01am.

Some idiot was continuesly banging on her front door at stupid o'clock in the morning and she wasn't happy. She clambered out of her warm bed,slipping out of her nightie and pulled an old T-shirt over her head then swiggled into a pair of jeans flung over a chair near the bedroom door and into a pair of trainers which she always kept beside her bed 'becase you never know when your gunna need them',

"Will you wait?!", she called as the knocking continued.

She unbolted the door and swung it open, "What the hell do you...", she stopped in mid sentence. There stood Captain Jack Harkness in his usual uniform, absolutly dripping wet from the rain and the Torchwood SUV was visible behind him,

"Jack! What's happened, what's wrong?",

"Time for work",

"Why didn't you call me?"

"We never had time. Tosh had a track on an alien and we didn't want to loose it."

Gwen grabbed a coat from the rack just behind her and flung it on. She shut the door and followed Jack down the steps,

"Your lucky Rhys wasn't it!", she called to him, "He would've gone for you, your lucky he works nights!"

Gwen joined Tish and Ianto in the back of the suprisingly warm SUV. Owen put his foot on the excelirator and they were off down the street.

Ianto pulled a flask out of a bag which was near his feet and poured Gwen a cup of steaming liquid which she accepted greatfully,

"This is gorgeous! Did you make it yourself?"

She could see Ianto's face blush as they passed street lamps,

"Well I thought I'd try something diffrent instead of my amazing coffee so I chose chicken soup"

Gwen laughed and took another sip, "So what's the emergency?"

Tosh turned from her computer screen to face her, "We saw something crashland near Porthcawl. I've managed to infultrate the police database and there are descriptions and eye-witness accounts of what ever the creature is and I've put together a basic picture of it. That a look at this thing!",

She swung one of the monitors round to show Gwen,

"What the fuck is that?!", she gasped almost spilling the chicken soup which Ianto took off her quickly before she could scold anyone.

It was the scariest thing she had ever seen since working with Torchwood. It looked like a mixture of Gollum, Quasimodo and the faeries they had encountered a few weeks ago and by the measurements on the side of the picture it was about seven feet high. It's skin was a greyish blue and it's eyes. That was the first thing Gwen noticed. They were a fantastic shade of lime green and if you stared long enough it gave you a headache and the weird thing was that this 'creature' had no pupils,

"Right guys we're here", Owen announce, breaking Gwen's thoughts and abruptly stopping the car.

They all collected their boxes of equiptment and followed the sound of the police sirens to the crash site. The place was completely crowed by police officers and forensics who had put up a tent to protect whatever was inside from the pouring rain. A swarm of people had gathered and were now trying to find out what was going on.

Gwen wrapped her coat tighter around her and followed. They passed the usual officers and walked into the tent. The sight that greeted them wasn't plesant but then again she never expected it would be after seeing Tosh's mock up of the alien.

As far as Gwen could tell there were two victims and they were covered in what could only be described as wallpaper paste. Everyone put their boxes down and let Owen do his job,

"By the looks of things", he muttered, "This fucked up alien likes to keeps his food perserved for a bit before feeding"

"So you mean this 'paste' keeps the food fresh and free from decaying?", Jack asked and bent down next to him,

"That's what preservation means Jack"

Jack frowned, "But that means he was planning to come back later for them"

"Looks like it", said Owen as he walked over to the other victim and did the same analysis again, "I can tell you that we have a male and a female but I can't say anymore until we get this shit off them"

"Right then, let do what we do best shall we? Gwen could you help Owen get the stuff off the victims, Tosh could you find anything else out about our 'friend' and Ianto could you take pictures of these guys?"

"What are you going to do?", Tosh asked as she took out her hand held computer from her pocket and began pressing diffrent digits,

Jack smiled, "I'm gunna have a talk with the few people from the crowd. See if anyone knows or saw anything"

Everyone took their orders and split up. Gwen grabbed a pair of gloves out of Owen's box, slipped them on and joined him,

"You like sleeping without the curtains drawn cause you can see everything and you looked gorgeous in that little number," he smirked, "Never seen that one before"

"Because that ones for Rhys and not you", she whispered back and began to scrap the murky paste off the male victims body

Little flashes of light went off as Ianto did as Jack had told him and began to take the pictures they needed later on,

"Nice to know you two are still getting it on since what happened between me and you but what I wanna know is this,", he flicked some of the goo off his trousers, "Who's the better performer?"

Gwen shook her head, "Typically Owen! Always wanting to know how well he-"

Gwen froze, her hands in mid scoop, her eyes wide and frightened,

"Gwen, sweetheart..."

Owen looked from her to the body and back again then it hit him, "Babe-" he began but was cut short by Gwen running out of the tent,

"What the hell happened?", Tosh was looking up from her computer at Owen with a consurned look on her face "What did you say to her?!"

"Tosh shut up will ya'! It Gwen's boyfriend!"

"What Rhys?"

"Yeah,the male victim's Rhys "

TBC