Thanks for all who reviewed; it was love! Sorry for the wait, my computer crashed and we had to get a new one... FAIL D:

I'm also in serious need of a beta. Is anyone interested?

--

"Where is it?" Jack barked. "I want to have it pinpointed, and now Tosh!"

Tosh let out a little whimper at Jack's commandeering tone, but within a few seconds, the she had a trace on the activity. She adjusted her glasses and looked Jack straight in the eye. "Behind the brewery, Twenty-Two and Morgue."

"Good. Now I want you to-"

"I'm going to dial Owen. Do you want Gwen as well?"

"Christ no. Owen's good enough, just make sure he's not plastered and armed. I don't want to be throwing two things in the cells tonight."

"'Kay," Tosh hesitated, but then asked, "Do you want us to meet you there?"

"Owen, yes; you, no."

"What? Why?" Tosh squealed, tossing Jack a Magnum.

"We need you monitoring the CCTV and the Rift Monitors, not out in the field."

"But I-"

"Yes, I know that you're a damn good shot, but we need you here so we're not the ones being shot."

Tosh, sighed, tapped a few keys, and Owen's mobile popped up onto the screen. She clicked the number twice, and ringing filtered out through the sound speakers. After half a ring, he picked up.

"Tosh, darling, you're bloody amazing." He sighed, "I've been praying all night that you'd call."

Tosh blushed, "We need you to get to the corner of Twenty-Two and Morgue."

"The one behind the old brewery?"

"That's the one. Rift activity." She shifted back over to the Tracker Monitor. "It doesn't seem to be moving, so either it's feeding, sleeping, or dead."

"I'm leaving." Jack yelled from the door. He was dressed in his everyday fashion, but with an added addition of a semi-automatic slung over his back, and a .22 in hand, the Magnum resting snugly in his thigh-holster. "Tell Owen to look out for me; I'm taking the SUV."

"Owen?"

"Yeah?"

"Got your gun?"

"Er…hang on…" Tosh could hear Owen fumble with the phone, a car beep, and then a door open. She heard more shifting, a pop, and then…

"Brilliant. I do."

"Great. How close are you?" She asked.

"Close."

"Okay."

"And Tosh, love?"

"Y-yeah?"

"I really owe you one. You don't see someone for almost four years, and you don't have one damn thing to say. Good lord, it was like talking to a retarded puppy."

Tosh giggled nervously, "Hurry."

"Will do." And the window on the screen read 'Call Disconnected' in flashing lettering. Tosh let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding, and pushed her chair away from the desk. Now there was nothing more to do than wait.

"Bugger."

--

Jack glanced at the rift tracker again, wondering if he should be going after Ianto, and not this alien. Was he doing the right thing? He sure as hell hoped so.

He turned the SUV on a dime, swerving around the stop sign and narrowly missing it. The blip on the tracker flashed but was still in the same place, or so it seemed. He looked closer at the dot, bring his eyes almost to the screen, and stared at it for a moment to see-

Bloody hell, it was moving! Slowly but surely, almost as if at a crawling pace, the dot was moving.

"Oh boy…" Jack murmured.

The brewery came into his line of sight, and Jack instinctively reached for his gun, which was lying on the dashboard. He pulled the car to a screeching halt, and jumped out onto the street.

In his ear, his comm clicked to life.

"Owen's just around the bend, you should see him any second."

He pressed his fingers to the device, "Thanks, I see him now."

Jack pressed his back to the SUV, making sure that he was out of the creature's visual range. Cocking the Magnum, Jack touched his comm again, "Tosh, does Owen have his comm?"

"No. I'm staring right at it."

"Damn."

"Owen's moving in, you best do the same."

"Right."

He peeked his hand around the SUV, and sure enough, Owen was glancing over at the SUV. Jack gave a quick wave and Owen nodded back, creeping over to where Jack was. Crouching low, Owen snuck around his car – which was parked in a sort of barricade-like motion with the SUV – and gave a sarcastic smile to Jack.

"Lovely night for a mission, eh Jack?" He whispered as he stood from his trek.

"I know, couldn't be better?"

Owen cleared his throat, "Do we even know what we're after?"

"We know it's not a Weevil." Said Jack.

"Great, now there's only a million or so other things it could be."

"Well, a little more than a million."

"Uplifting," Owen mused, "But not what I was looking for."

Jack rolled his eyes, "You go left and I'll go right." And he was gone in a flash, Magnum in hand, .22 loaded and ready to be used.

This time, Owen rolled his eyes, "I always go left."

--

Toshiko bit her lip as she tried calling Ianto again. She was tempted to call Gwen, but the last time she had woken her up for a Rift alert, she had moaned into the phone that all of Torchwood 'bloody needed to get a life.' She really didn't need to deal with her bitching at the moment, but it seemed that she needed the operative, seeing as though she herself couldn't go out and look for Ianto.

Hello, you've reached Ianto Jones. I'm not here right now so please leave a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as-

"Damn it!" Tosh hissed as she x-ed out the computer window. It looked like she had no choice now. Her hands flew furiously across the keys, typing in Gwen's full name. Her number popped up on screen and Tosh hesitated, for a second, remembering Jack's words about not needing Gwen for this.

She double clicked the number – Gwen's home phone – and waited patiently for it to ring. It rang and it rang until the answering machine picked it up. The automated message began playing and Tosh rolled her eyes. Why couldn't Gwen ever-

"There better be a bloody good reason why you're calling me now." Sleep and anger were evident in Gwen's voice.

"We need your help."

"With?"

"We think something's happened to Ianto."

"Do you think, or do you know?" Gwen snapped. "Because maybe like me, he just wants SLEEP and isn't answering your calls."

"He called Jack up, vomited over the phone, and then the line went dead." Tosh stated matter-of-factly. The temptation to hang up on Gwen was overwhelming, but she needed her to be here, and she couldn't really blame the woman for being snappy at the moment. Tosh wanted nothing more than to sleep as well, but Ianto's safety was more important than Tosh's petty needs at the moment.

Gwen was quiet for a moment, and Tosh thought that she had hung up on her, until the other woman sighed. "Where do you want me?"

Tosh smiled. Gwen always came through in the end. "His last call was dialed from…" She pulled up the file from her toolbar and read it over quickly. "Just in front of O'Hara's Bar n' Grill."

"By the firehouse?"

"No, it's on Fifth Avenue. From your place...if you take Adam, and then make a right on Decker and follow it all the way down, it should come up on your left."

Gwen yawned, "Right. Call you when I get there." And she hung up.

Tosh leaned back in her chair wondering, and not for the first time, why things couldn't be normal in her life.

--

Gwen, who refused to fully change, sat in her car in a jacket and pajama pants, running shoes and a handgun. Rubbing excess sleep from her eyes, she pulled he car out of the driveway, cursing the fact that she had agreed to work for Torchwood. She whipped the car around the bend; following Tosh's exact in instructions.

"Adam leads to Decker, Fifth on my left." She reminded herself. Gwen's cell phone began ringing. She rolled her eyes and looked at the caller ID. Rhys.

"Bless his soul." She smiled and picked it up, "Hello?"

"Gwen…it's two in the bloody morning."

"I know," She took the right on Decker and sped the car up. "Duty called though, honey."

"Well, seeing as though I'm up what do you want for breakfast?"

"Breakfast?"

"Yeah, an…early…breakfast?"

"Rhys, go back to bed, if I'm lucky, I'll be home within the hour."

"And if your not?"

"Then I'll be home within the day."

Rhys laughed, "Right then, be careful."

"Okay," Gwen hung up the phone and swerved to make the turn onto Fifth. She slowed the car, almost to a crawl, and made her way gently down the street. She was tempted to call Tosh, but all she was sent out for was to make sure that Ianto wasn't dead.

"I can do this."

--

"Owen!" Jack called out, "Help!"

"I'm a bit…tied up at the moment!" He choked out.

The alien creature, which Jack had no time to check Tosh for what it was, had turned out to be a Flan in which Jack had previous encounters with. It had no eyes but a mouth the size of a car tire, with fine pointed teeth that looked like nails. Its body shimmered in the lighting, and if Owen weren't being choked by one of its eight tentacles, then he would have sworn that this Flan…alien…thing was made of Jell-o.

Jack was on one side of the Flan, firing bullets into its gooey flesh, while Owen was pinned to the alley's brick wall, being throttled by the angry beast's tentacle.

"Any bombs in the SUV?" Jack yelled.

Now Owen was pissed. "I don't know, let me go check." He spat. Gasping, Owen knew that if he stayed pinned like this for much longer, he'd end up oxygen deprived, and dead.

"Drama queen," Owen heard Jack mutter. He raised the gun, and with three shots, blew the tentacle off of Owen. The medic fell to the ground gasping for breath, but within seconds he was back up on his feet, ripping his handgun out of his belt. He fired the entire round – thirteen bullets – into the fleshy goop of the creature. Absolutely nothing happened.

"Owen?" Jack made a gesture for the car, "Bombs?"

Gritting his teeth, Owen sprung away to the SUV. Ripping open the passenger side door, he did a quick survey of things that could explode. Maybe if he could make a hole in the gas tank and spew some of the fluids onto the creature…no; Ianto would kill him if he had to repair the car again.

"Shit." Jack yelled from behind him.

"For the love of…" Owen shook his head. Gas tank explosion it was then. Grabbing a water bottle off of the floor, and taking a pocketknife out of his jacket, Owen carefully maneuvered under the vehicle to where the gas tank was. Unsheathing the knife, he carefully placed the water bottle to the gas tank and punctured a hole in it. The liquid drained quickly, and in no time all 22 ounces of the bottle were filled. He slammed the knife into the hole, to stop any more excess fluids from dripping, and rolled out.

"Owennnnnn," Jack whined.

"Shut up!" Grabbing napkins from the ground (for once he was glad the SUV was this messy) he jammed them into the bottle. Owen grinned manically, "Molotov cocktail."

He took out his lighter and ran towards the beast.

"Oi, ugly, over here!" he shouted. The Flan turned around and roared, charging at him with a sluggish pace. Lighting the Molotov, he waited…waited…and threw it just as the beast screamed. The Flan swallowed it just as the wick burned to the gas, and it halted abruptly. Owen, with a smug look on his face, flipped off the creature as it screamed and internally exploded.

Ice blue goop slapped against the walls of the alleyway and splattered Owen and Jack. It was as if someone dropped a bowl of blueberry ice cream on the men, for the bodily fluids of the Flan were cold to the touch, and sticky as well as stinky.

It was Jack who spoke first, "Creative thinking."

"You think?" Owen returned, acting mildly surprised.

"Oh yes," Jack spit out a mouthful of the creature's goo. "I'll taste this for weeks to come."

"Joy."

At his side, Jack's phone rang. He looked at Owen, "I'm amazed this still works."

Owen shrugged and set to work pulling the slime out of his hair and off of his clothes.

"Hell-o?"

"Jack, its Gwen."

Jack cocked an eyebrow. "Gwen? What are you-"

"I've found Ianto."

"You did?" He cocked his other eyebrow.

"Yeah, and it's not good."