The whole team was gathered in the boardroom for the briefing and Ianto was passing out beverages. Miranda accepted the empty glass and soda can from Ianto with a nod of her head and a smile. The Welshman handed her both with a slight flourish and wry smile the rest of the team were used to. As always, Miranda popped the top of the soda can and drank, ignoring the empty glass.
"That is so unsanitary, Mandy," Ianto said with mock seriousness. "I've started wiping the rim."
"Is that what you're calling it these days," Gwen chuckled from Jack's left and Ianto blushed.
"I don't understand how you can drink that stuff first thing in the morning, Evie," Fish said with a shake of his head.
"I've had my coffee already," Miranda said, eyes twinkling from behind the can.
"All right, everyone," Jack said from the head of the table. "Yesterday, Fish and Ianto were on a Weevil hunt and found a body."
"Tripped over is more like," Fish said with an eye roll and there was a slight ripple of laughter.
"Anyway," Jack said sternly, "he was murdered and it's something we've seen before. Will?"
Miranda tapped the tablet in front of her and the screen above filled a man's picture.
"Our victim. His name is Michael Howard, age forty. He was a barrister and lifelong Cardiff resident," Miranda said. "Cause of death was brain haemorrhage."
She slid her finger along the tablet and another picture, this one of the skull wound, came into view.
"Mr. Howard was completely drained of his cerebrospinal fluid via this hole in the back of his head," Miranda said.
"And that would cause a brain haemorrhage?" Gwen asked.
Miranda nodded. "The human brain weighs over a kilogram and the tissues are incredibly delicate. Without the cushion of cerebrospinal fluid, the brain would crush itself under its own weight."
"You said we've seen this before?" Fish asked.
She nodded and continued. "Since the turn of the twentieth century, there has been a cyclic pattern of twelve bodies appearing every twelve years. First one body pops up and then in four days another and so on. Once we have the twelfth body, the killing stops. The same happened at the turn on the millennium and again back in 1988."
"The first incident recorded by Torchwood was in 1916, one body," Jack said. "They found two in 1928 but once we knew what to look for, we found them all during the next cycle. All twelve were found in 1940 and in 1952."
"So whatever this is, it's emerging every twelve years and killing twelve people," Gwen said. "One for each year it's dormant?"
"We don't know but that possibility has been raised," Miranda said.
"We've never managed to catch this thing? After all this time?" Fish said, an air of disbelief in his voice.
"We didn't even know what was going on until the forties and by then the war was on. After that?" Jack said with a shrug. "Frankly, no one cared."
"What?" Gwen and Fish both exclaimed.
"You lot don't understand. All you've known is Torchwood under Jack Harkness," Miranda said as she sat back down, steepling her fingers in front of her face in her usual Spock-like pose. "The first time I saw one of these bodies was in 1964. Tabby Rutherford was in charge back then. She had Gabe Morris and Jack load the body bag into the incinerator without an autopsy."
"Nothing?" Gwen asked, shocked.
"We didn't have a doctor then and Charles Cromwell didn't want to be bothered with an autopsy when he already knew what the cause of death was. To them? This was a non-issue. We already knew what was going on. We knew it was alien. It wasn't escalating so no one cared," Jack said with a shrug.
"But you and Jack-" Gwen sputtered.
"Jack and I weren't even remotely in charge back then, Gwen," Miranda snapped. "We followed orders."
"Focus people," Jack said. "Regardless of what Torchwood's done in the past, we're putting a stop to this now. This is going to be the last cycle."
Gwen furrowed her brow and Miranda could tell she was going into her investigation mode. "Is there anything about the victimology that could help us?"
Miranda tapped the screen of the tablet and the pictures changed. Three were black and white, old macabre photographs of the bodies but the rest were modern colour snapshots either of the victims in life or death. "Like I said, we don't have much to go on. There are very few autopsies and little identification. The one in 1916 was Edith Wyn, a local washerwoman. There's no background information there. An autopsy was done just to determine cause of death and then she was buried. The two in 1928 weren't even identified and were also autopsied just to find cause of death. The rest of the bodies were just photographed and unless they had some sort of identification on them, we didn't bother with it."
"We still have all that information?" Gwen asked.
"Ianto has it organised. We'll bring it in here after the meeting, Gwen, so you can go over it with Will," Jack said.
"The autopsies didn't start up again until the eighties, after I got my medical degree. I missed the cycle in the seventies but I came back to Torchwood in 1984. Samuel Aubrey was in charge then. He thought it was a waste of time so he only let me autopsy one of the bodies - the first victim, a young girl named Hannah Prichard, a teenage runaway and crack addict. Again, we just have photographs of the other bodies. Any Jane or John Does went unidentified," Miranda said with a sigh.
She took a quick sip of her soda before she continued, "When the killing started up again at the turn of the millennium, Jack and I were swamped. It was just the two of us. I autopsied as many of the bodies as I was able and we tried to identify who we could. I only managed to do four autopsies and we were only able to identify two of the unidentified victims."
Miranda tapped the screen and the twelve pictures lined up. "For the last cycle, we have identities for ten of the twelve victims. All of them were residents of the city from a variety of ethnicities, occupations and socio-economic backgrounds. The only common thread between all of them was that they were all being treated for severe mental illness with a number of psychotropic medications or they were drug addicts. Each one of the people we identified being treated for mental illness was on no less than three medications simultaneously."
"The same mental illness?" Gwen asked.
"No," Miranda said, shaking her head. "There was a wide variety from major depressive disorder to schizophrenia. After things got less hectic, we went back through the other identified victims from the past century and found the same pattern, either they were on massive amounts of psychiatric medications or they were drug addicts. Our latest victim was being treated for major depressive disorder. He was on a number of medications."
Jack stood up. "Gwen? Will? I need you two to coordinate all our prior information. No one's tried to paint the picture before so now we have to. Fish, I want you and Ianto to go through the CCTV footage. I think that it may have spooked the Weevil you two were chasing."
"Great I really want to be looking for something that managed to spook a Weevil," Fish said under his breath.
"I meant what I said, people. We're not going to be back here twelve years from now doing this again," Jack said.
Ianto and Fish wandered off into the main Hub to start sifting through the CCTV footage and Gwen and Miranda began laying out the various Torchwood reports across the boardroom table. The two women set to work, reading through reports and examining photographs. They continued to read and sift through the pieces of information, both of them growing more and more frustrated. Most of the reports were shoddy and half written or not written at all, consisting just of photographs and a date. Some of them didn't even have the location where the body was found. Miranda had felt her temper flare when she'd found a letter Samuel Aubrey had attached to her autopsy report. Bloody twat… It detailed how he felt the autopsy was unnecessary and that it wasted valuable time and resources. She was about to crumple the letter and toss it away when a noise brought her head up. Gwen had slammed the report she was reading down onto the table.
"What a bag of wank," she snapped. "Some of these reports are useless."
"Jack and I didn't have time to go over the old reports twelve years ago. All we did was look at the victim names and did some quick background checking," Miranda said, frustrated as well. "I had no idea they were such a bloody mess."
She pushed the letter Aubrey had written towards Gwen who picked it up and started reading. Her eyes growing wide at first and then narrowing further and further with anger.
"What a bloody twat!" she snapped, crumpling the paper and tossing it into the bin. "I can't believe things were really so different before."
"Jack runs a very different ship, Gwen. It's a good change," Miranda said. "It's one of the reasons I've floated in and out. Usually I've left because I couldn't take the uphill battle anymore. Aubrey was the reason I left in eighty eight."
"That was the same year the bodies started, was that why?" Gwen asked, pointing over her shoulder at the bin.
"I wish it was," Miranda said with a rueful shake of her head. She was a bit offended that Gwen thought she'd do something so petulant as to leave Torchwood over a note attached to her autopsy report. Then again Gwen didn't know she'd just read it for the first time. "I left because of what happened to Sarah Trowbridge. She was a Torchwood agent who died in the line of duty around Christmas of that year."
"Were you two lovers?" Gwen asked.
"No, just friends" Miranda said, suppressing an eye roll. Gwen always assumed that she and Jack had shagged everyone who'd ever worked for Torchwood. "To Samuel Aubrey the team members were expendable. An alien artefact had fallen through the rift at an abandoned warehouse, some sort of fuel rod. Its casing was cracked and it was leaking radiation. Jack and I were doing a different artefact retrieval… something that could have waited. Instead of calling us and waiting, Aubrey ordered Sarah to place the radiation sponges around the rod."
Gwen knew about the radiation sponges. There were half a dozen available for Torchwood's use. They had no idea how they worked but they soaked up any radiation greater than high ultraviolet. They'd been found in the early seventies, part of the cargo of a crashed ship. Gwen's already large eyes went wide with anger and shock. For the sponges to work, they had to be positioned near the radiation source.
"She'd have to be exposed to properly place them!" she exclaimed.
"There were no civilians in the area. Jack and I were only minutes away," Miranda shook her head, angrily. "Sarah received a lethal dose. She died nineteen days later."
"Why did she do it?" Gwen asked. It sounded to Gwen as if the woman had blatantly thrown away her life for nothing.
"Aubrey lied to her. He told her the danger was greater than it was. In truth, he was worried about his own hide. He didn't want to be exposed so he sacrificed her to save himself," Miranda said.
"That bastard!" Gwen said, eyes wide. She wasn't a doctor but she knew radiation poisoning was a horrific and agonising way to die.
"A death easily preventable by waiting for me and Jack," Miranda said, ruefully.
"Man like that always gets his comeuppance," Gwen said, reaching for another folder.
"He did," Miranda said. "Me."
When Miranda had joined the team four years ago, Gwen had been resistant. It had felt too much like they were replacing Tosh and Owen. Even though Miranda and Gwen were now friends, there was something that had sometimes felt off to Gwen about Miranda. She'd never been able to put her finger on it until two years ago while Gwen had watched on helplessly as Miranda had put a bullet into the head of a ten year old boy possessed by an alien consciousness. The immortal woman hadn't blinked or even hesitated. She'd just aimed and pulled the trigger. It was right at that moment Gwen knew what had felt off about Miranda. The two women went shopping and drooled over the latest shoes. They watched romantic films and giggled over wine together. But Gwen never forgot precisely what her friend was - a stone cold killer.
Gwen sat back and continued to work. If Aubrey had indeed become the victim of Miranda's wrath, then Gwen didn't want to know his fate. While Gwen shuddered inwardly, Miranda was lost in the memory of what had happened the day Sarah Trowbridge had died. The woman insisted on fighting but Miranda had run the numbers, there was no hope. When Sarah had finally slipped into a coma, Miranda had administered a lethal dosage of anaesthetic, putting an end to the woman's suffering. Miranda hadn't bothered with an autopsy. Sarah Trowbridge had been violated enough. She washed Sarah's body, dressed her in white scrubs and laid her to rest in a morgue drawer. She'd left a note for Jack in their rooms and had packed a few of her things. She'd stalked Aubrey back to his flat and gained entry under the guise of seduction. She'd incapacitated him easily, dragging him to a sewer entrance near a known Weevil nest. Once Aubrey had woken, Miranda had buried her dagger into his belly, spilling his intestines. She'd watched, crouched at the base of a tree, as the Weevils had descended upon him, dragging him kicking and screaming into the sewer. She'd left Cardiff that night. It'd been the start of her longest stretch away from Torchwood, twelve years. She hadn't returned until the millennium, after Alex Hopkins had left Jack the last man standing.
Miranda flipped through a few more photographs and then let out a frustrated growl. "There isn't even a reference scale on most of these photographs, Goddess below! I knew that most of the Torchwood leaders didn't see the point in investigating these deaths but I had no idea the rest of the team felt that way too. Probably happy for an excuse to skive off. There was a lot of that back then."
"What do you mean?" Gwen asked, flipping through another report.
"Torchwood has always attracted the adrenaline junkie. A lot of the people who worked here wanted the interesting stuff, the simple things like Weevils and Blowfish didn't interest them so they couldn't be arsed with it," Miranda said with a shrug and rubbed at her eyes. "If they didn't think an artefact was something useful or interesting, they didn't bother trying to identify it. There was just too much other work. Something like this? Where we already knew what was going on just got shoved aside."
Ianto walked into the boardroom, carrying a small sack. "I hope you ladies don't mind, I took the liberty of ordering sandwiches from that new shop."
"Lunchtime already?" Gwen said, looking at her watch.
"Actually, this is a late lunch, it's nearly half two," Ianto said as he distributed the food.
Miranda uttered an ancient curse and Gwen and Ianto looked at her strangely. The immortal woman dug her mobile out of her pocket and saw four missed calls and several texts. She stood up and started to walk towards the boardroom door but then stopped, turned around and sat back down.
"Everything all right Miranda?" Gwen asked, a little amused at Miranda's abortive exit as she bit into her sandwich.
"A friend of mine is visiting, I was supposed to pick him up at the train station a half hour ago but it seems his flight was cancelled. He's not arriving until tomorrow," she said as she started to unwrap her sandwich. "So, yes, everything is fine now."
Ianto and Gwen both chuckled a little as Jack walked into the boardroom. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his lover. "Ianto? I thought we were having lunch together."
"Sorry, Jack, I got side tracked," Ianto said, following Jack out of the boardroom.
The two women watched the lovers leave, Jack giving Ianto a playful slap on the arse as they walked away.
"Why do I get the feeling that those two will be doing anything but eating?" Gwen asked with a shake of her head.
"Oh they'll be eating all right," Miranda said, "just not food."
The two women dissolved into a fit of giggles. They'd both pushed aside their work, taking a break so they could eat. Gwen watched as Miranda was examining her sandwich. She'd already taken a bite but was disassembling it.
"Something wrong?" Gwen asked, smiling a little.
"I thought I tasted a pepper," Miranda said.
"What's wrong with peppers?" The immortal woman wasn't usually picky about her food.
"Nothing, I just don't think they belong on a bacon sandwich," Miranda said. Unable to find the offending vegetable, she put the sandwich back together and continued eating.
"So spill, who's this bloke?" Gwen asked. "Someone you're seeing?"
"Hardly," Miranda said, laughing slightly at the idea.
"Are you seeing someone?" Gwen asked lightly.
"Why so interested in my love life, Gwen?" Miranda asked, peeking into her sandwich again.
Gwen sipped at her coffee and tilted her head a little. "We're all a bit worried about you, Miranda."
"What? Why?" she asked, confused. She opened up the small crisp bag and offered it to Gwen, who took a few.
"Ever since you and Nora broke up-"
"Stop right there, Gwen," Miranda snapped. She dropped her sandwich onto the paper plate and wiped her mouth.
"That maternal tone may work with the boys, Miranda, but it won't work on me," Gwen scolded. "You've been sulking. We've all noticed. It's not good for you, sweetheart. It's been months."
Four months, two weeks and three days… Miranda thought ruefully. She didn't answer Gwen, she just picked up her coffee and drank it down in a few gulps.
"Don't you dare think about bolting from this room, Miranda Ryan!" Gwen said in her own maternal bellow. "We know you miss her, sweetheart, but you don't need to go through this alone. We're your friends."
"There's nothing you can do, Gwen. I just need time," she said. Miranda balled up her paper napkin and tossed it onto the table.
Gwen smiled and said, "You know, Rhys has this mate-"
"No, Gwen," Miranda snapped. "I'm sorry. I know you're only trying to help."
She was trying to be patient with Gwen but the last thing she wanted was to end up on blind date after blind date with Gwen and Rhys's single friends and acquaintances. The former PC regularly played matchmaker with Fish and Miranda swore that she set Fish up on a date every month. Miranda had no idea where Gwen found all these women. Given Miranda's preferences, there would be a wider selection of men and gay women for Gwen to chose from. Miranda found herself dreading it already.
"You're pining, sweetheart," Gwen said. "It's not healthy."
With a frustrated sigh, Miranda asked, "Why isn't it healthy, Gwen?"
The question caught Gwen completely off guard. "Because it just isn't."
"But why, Gwen? Go on, explain it to me," Miranda said, patiently.
"Because it's a waste of time-"
'Exactly, Gwen. You think it's a waste of time," Miranda said, trying not to sound condescending. "I have nothing but time."
Gwen furrowed her brow and gave Miranda a hard look. "After Owen and Tosh, I was in a bad way. I was sad all the time and it just turned into the way things were. I forgot what it was like to be happy. Just because you have plenty of time to waste brooding over Nora doesn't mean you should. It only took me a few weeks to forget what happy felt like. What if you go around sulking for a hundred years?"
Most of the time Miranda wanted to rip Gwen's bleeding heart right out of her chest and beat her with it. But Gwen did have a point. She always had this simplistic way of putting things into perspective for Miranda. Miranda hadn't realised how lonely she was until Nora had stepped into her life. Now that their relationship was over, Miranda was painfully aware of how solitary her existence was. She had spent a great deal of her life alone, sometimes going decades without a relationship and maybe Gwen was right, that wasn't healthy. Still, she had no desire to be part of Gwen's matchmaking efforts.
"I don't know if I'm ready yet, Gwen," Miranda said, reaching across the boardroom table for another folder.
"Well, think about it," Gwen said, reaching for another folder as well. "He's a nice bloke, Rhys's friend."
Miranda said, "All right, Gwen, I'll think about it… Maybe after this is all over and done with."
Gwen beamed. "I'll call him."
Miranda suppressed a groan. I should just get 'sucker' tattooed on my forehead…
