Authors Note: This is my 2010 NaNoWriMo story -my first attempt at NaNo and I succeeded! Since the story is already complete and will only require light editing before each chapter is posted, I'll be updating daily.

This is set after TW: Something Borrowed, (and after the TW novel Skypoint if you read those). Possible spoilers/references for anything in S1 and S2 up to that point. I've written this as though it were an official Torchwood novel, so Jack & Ianto's relationship is out in the open at this point in the story, however there are no explicit sex scenes.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Torchwood characters or settings and won't be making any money from this.

Hope you enjoy!


Owen Harper slowed down as he walked silently through the park, eyes alert for any sign of movement. He was looking for a weevil, a grotesque humanoid creature from who-knew-where in the universe.

In the old days, a 'weevil hunt' had meant two or three of the team would head out to find a single weevil. They would take weevil spray and tranquilliser guns, only using their actual bullets as back up. If it was a new weevil, tag it and fit it with a boiler suit so it's alien nature was less apparent to a casual glance. Then the violent ones would be taken back to the hub, and the not-so-violent ones released into the nearest sewer entrance.

That was then. This was now. Now, Owen grumbled to himself, it was just him. Every bloody time. Every time a weevil alert sounded, the others just looked at him expectantly. And there was no tranquilliser guns, no spray, just the dead man himself. Because Owen was dead. He'd died a few months ago, a bullet to the heart, and then Jack had brought him back. But not to life, oh no -to a sort of un-death. Which was just great. Came with all sorts of perks, that did. He couldn't eat, he couldn't drink, he couldn't sleep, and with no blood circulating through his body, he couldn't get it up. So no sex either. Which ruled out all his favourite pastimes: eating, getting drunk, getting laid. Sleeping off the morning after. Sometimes he didn't think there was any point to existing anymore.

There had been some interesting side-effects though. The most unexpected one had been the weevils. Before he'd died, he'd been studying them and had discovered they had low-level telepathic abilities. Apparently that also allowed them to sense death, because now the weevils all got down and grovelled before him whenever he was nearby. He was king of the weevils. Which was how he'd ended up on permanent weevil duty. He sighed and hit the comms device in his ear.

"Ianto, I can't see it anywhere. Got any hints?"

"About 50 metres straight ahead."

"Thanks mate." He strode forward with a bit more purpose, peering ahead into the shadows of the trees. Movement caught his eye, and he slowed to approach the alien. He watched as it got down on its knees facing him. He gave it a moment -they never seemed to want to get up again straight away -then started talking to it.

"Come on, up you get, let's go back home eh? I'm sure there's some nice, er, sewerage, waiting for you." Christ, was this what he'd been reduced to? Murmuring sweet nothings to weevils at eleven on a Saturday night? Admittedly, even before he'd died he wasn't going out on the pull all that often anymore, but this, this was dropping to a new level of lame.

Thankfully the weevil had gotten back up and was ambling away obediently. He wondered if their telepathy extended to understanding the thoughts of other species. Weevils had been ridiculously easy to order about once he'd tried. He followed, shepherding it towards the sewer entrance a bit further ahead -probably the same one it had come from. A few minutes later, he watched as it disappeared into the dark sewer. He hit his comms again.

"Weevil is home, I'm heading back."

"See you soon."

He headed back across the dark reserve, cutting directly across to the carpark where the SUV waited. He'd barely gotten in and started it up when his comms crackled into life again.

"Owen, we have another weevil alert, in the city this time."

"Can't you and Jack handle it then?" Owen grumbled. Jack's voice came over the comms.

"No Owen, it's on Crockherbtown Lane, over near Bute Park. You have the SUV, so we wouldn't get there quickly enough. There's a few nightclubs along there, and I don't want anybody getting hurt, so get a move on."

Owen swore and put his foot down. At least traffic was fairly light on -mostly taxis taking drunk kids home. "Ianto, which end of the street is it?"

"It's behind the Oceana Club." Owen knew the one, he'd frequented it quite a lot in his time. He swung into the lane, ignoring the one way street signs, and screeched to halt. He jumped out, and swore again as he spotted the weevil bearing down on a young couple who'd obviously snuck round the back for a bit of privacy. He sprinted over.

"Oi! You! Back off!" The words weren't so important -he could be shouting the lyrics to a Madonna song and the weevil would still back off as soon as it noticed his presence. But it made more sense to the innocent bystanders this way.

The weevil was close to the couple and they were cowering in fear against the wall -the boyfriend standing half in front in an effort to defend his girl, but obviously terrified himself. The weevil turned to face Owen and started getting down on it's knees. Owen sighed, and waited the mandatory moment before it would get up again.

"Alright, get back up, time to go home," he said to the weevil, and it started to move. He sidled round until he was behind it and urged it towards the nearest sewer entrance. He glanced over to the couple. "Don't move. Stay right where you are until I come back." They stared at him with wide eyes but the guy managed a nod.

He got the weevil back into the sewer easily enough, sprinted back to the SUV and grabbed his medkit.

"Either of you hurt?" he asked. The guy looked down at himself.

"Uh, just a.. there.." he trailed off. Owen looked down and saw blood through a slash in the guys jeans.

"Sit down." He tore the jeans a bit more to check the wound, but it was just a superficial gash. He'd been lucky, wouldn't even need stitches. Owen grabbed the antiseptic from his kit and handed a water bottle to the girl.

"Have some. It'll help you feel better."

"Who- who are you?" she asked shakily.

"I'm a doctor." He nodded at the bottle. "Seriously, drink." She did as she was told, and had a few mouthfuls before handing the bottle to her boyfriend, who did the same. Owen figured that would be enough -they'd had a fairly brief encounter, and the alcohol they'd already had would increase the effects of the retcon anyway. He finished sticking a dressing over the guy's leg and helped him up. "Let's get you two back, eh?" He saw them to the front of the club, and fed the bouncer some line about they guy tripping and landing on broken glass.


Finally Owen made it back to the hub. He walked in to see Jack sitting at Tosh's terminal, checking the alerts.

"No more tonight, please?"

"Doesn't look like it. Any witnesses at the nightclub?"

"None that'll remember."

"Good."

Owen threw himself into his own chair at the workstation he now shared with Gwen, and swung round to face Jack. "Where's Ianto?"

"I sent him back to bed. Speaking of which..." Jack stood and grinned. Owen raised his hands to stop Jack finishing that sentence.

"Don't wanna know, Captain."

"Right. Well, call if the world is ending."

"Will do."

Jack headed into his office to join Ianto in the bunker underneath. Owen turned back to his computer and opened the game he'd been playing. There were few pleasures left in his world, but he'd found complicated RPG computer games were good for occupying the empty hours.


Owen had played away the hours of the next night too. Ianto emerged from the bunker looking fresh and neatly attired in a dark suit as usual.

"Morning Owen." Ianto walked past, heading for the coffee machine. Owen grunted in response. Ten minutes later Jack emerged, and took a deep breath.

"Mmm, that beautiful smell. Wish I could wake up to that every day."

"Jack, you do wake up to that almost every day," snorted Owen.

"I know," said Jack. "I just wish there weren't any exceptions." He grinned as Ianto handed him his coffee.

"I'm going to head out and grab some breakfast," said Ianto. "Either of you need anything?" Getting the expected negative responses from both men, he headed out.

Fifteen minutes later he returned with Toshiko in tow, both munching on croissants from the bakery up the street. He handed another in a paper bag to Jack.

"Cheese and ham, your favourite." Jack looked delighted.

"Anything interesting over the weekend?" asked Tosh, logging into her workstation and checking the reports.

"Just two weevils, taken care of by yours truly of course," said Owen, not even pausing his game. Jack walked past on his way back to the office and glanced at Owen's screen.

"Owen, work time now."

"But Gwen's not in yet." They all knew Gwen would be another hour.

"Don't care. I'm still waiting on finished autopsy reports for at least the last two months." Owen knew it was more like three months, but he wasn't about to correct the captain. He sighed and closed the game.

A shrill alarm started sounding.

"Jack! Rift activity!" called Toshiko.

"What is it?" They all instinctively headed for Toshiko's desk.

"Can't tell, something big. Although, I think I've seen this pattern before..."

"Stay there and see if you can figure it out. Ianto, Owen: let's go." Ianto had already grabbed Jack's coat and within seconds they were heading out the door to the SUV.

"Toshiko, where are we going?" Jack asked as he climbed into the driver's seat.

"Over to the Docks." Tosh gave them the address and Jack put his foot down.

"Tosh," asked Ianto. "Why didn't this come up on the predictor program? We usually have plenty of warning for large activity."

"I don't know. I'm still running it through the system to see why it looks familiar." Tosh sounded tense.

"Any idea what we're looking for?" asked Owen.

"No, sorry. There's no CCTV over there."

There was an uneasy silence for a few minutes as Jack drove recklessly towards the docks. For once the other two men didn't mind. Large-scale Rift activity was less common than the regular small activity they usually encountered, but it was always trouble. Owen and Ianto took the opportunity to check their weapons.

"Jack, I've found the similar rift activity pattern; we've only encountered it once before."

"What was it?"

"It was John Hart's arrival."


Barely five minutes later they pulled up outside a warehouse, all three leaping from the vehicle and drawing their weapons almost before it had stopped moving. They ran towards the main doors of the building and broke the padlock to let themselves in. It was a storage warehouse for a online store, with tall shelves stacked with pallets of goods waiting to be posted out. But at least it was empty of any workers at this hour of the morning.

They moved quickly and quietly towards the back of the building where Toshiko had indicated, but found nothing there.

"Been almost 10 minutes since the activity happened; if it is another time traveller, they could be anywhere by now," grated Jack.

"We just broke the lock to get in here," said Owen. "Surely that means they're still here somewhere?"

"Not necessarily."

Ianto pulled out the portable Rift Activity Monitor he'd scavenged from Torchwood One all that time ago, and span in a slow circle. To anyone else, it just looked like a PDA, and actually, it had a lot of normal functions too. Torchwood One had been good like that.

"Actually, I think it's worse than that," came Tosh's voice. "This activity pattern is similar to Hart's, but bigger. Unless we're talking about a time traveller from a much bigger species, we're probably looking at more than one person."

"In that case, I'd guess three people," said Ianto, still looking at his activity monitor. Jack raised an eyebrow at him.

"Three would be my guess too, Ianto, how did you figure that?"

"There's a trail of rift energy that follows anything that comes through, only a few metres long, but it's there."

"And?" said Jack impatiently.

"Well, there's three of them here. Three trails. Whoever they were, they split up."


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