Author Notes: Hi everyone! Here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy. I will answer IndeMaat's question at the end.

Chapter 4

This was insane. Jack sat next to Owen, who had slipped into yet another fever induced sleep. The others were still upstairs, likely talking about what they had found. It wasn't fair. Owen's own family had kept his heritage from him. It was wrong. And now, now when Jack could tell him the truth, he lay dying on the floor of one of their containment cells. They had thought about moving their friend earlier, but he had started to have panic attacks and fits, and in the autopsy room, he was more like to hurt himself.

Christina Harper had done some strange things. Apparently, she had not agreed with what was happening to her brother, and so had done some research out of Torchwood's jurisdiction. It was as if she had left a paper trail, only accessible through a code from Torchwood Three, in case of her demise. Her research was not just astounding, it was mind boggling. Jack sighed, remembering the opening message to the documents. A letter of someone who knew they would die.

Dear Toshiko Sato and Capt. Jack Harkness.

While you will never meet me - they are already tracking me - you already know my brother, Owen Harper. Enclosed in my Torchwood personnel file, the one place they would never look, is my research concerning my family, specifically my brother. I know of you, and hope that you are the only ones who might look for this. I would presume that by finding my research, you have been looking through my brother's file, and so I can only presume that his Epsilon gene (E-89-G-dtl) has finally activated, as Torchwood hoped it one day would.

All I can ask of you is that you read my research, and that you keep Owen safe. While you might not realise it, Torchwood Three was never commissioned like the others – it was set up to keep an eye on Owen, the rift was just a convenience. They expect you to report Owen's changes, but I orchestrated the recruitment of the both of you. I know you will keep him safe.

DO NOT TRUST TORCHWOOD.

Christina Harper

Jack sighed again. The documents had been beyond imagination. They had contained complicated blood works, historical documents, family trees, and medical files. From what they could gather, Owen's maternal family had been all women. They had never had a son, only ever one daughter per generation, and one story. According to Christina's telling of it, a strange plague had once hit the home of their family in 1438, different from the one that had ravaged so many others. This one had made you cry tears of blood and sing to the stars. By the time it had run its course, only one girl was left alive, maddened, screaming of daemons in the night. From that time onwards, her family was cursed. They never had a son again.

As science evolved, the curse spread to the ears of the Victorian monarch, centuries later, who likened it to experiences of her own. She took the girl of the time under her wing, trying to find explanations for this strange trend. As understanding of DNA increased, a startling discovery was made. The women in this family had an abnormal gene, seemingly dormant, and yet definitely not natural to the human genome. It was something completely new, implanted in the strongest, yet most innocent human that the 'daemons'could find.

But authority changes hands, the greedy and ambitious take hold. When a son of the new age was born to the line of women, Torchwood immediately snapped him up, the mother making a mysterious disappearance, the older sister too young to understand. Tests were run, and a slightly different variation of the gene was identified. Like its predecessors, it was dormant, but this version seemed to have the potential to become active. And so Torchwood Three was established. The sister, brother and father were allowed to grow up as every generation of the cursed line had been before, until the children came of age to be trained, the boy never knowing of the reasoning behind it all, the sister only knowing a bedtime story.

The fact was Owen had an alien gene, one that was fully evolved and activated over generations of his family; incubated in an undiluted maternal DNA line until it was strong enough to surface. It was this that had allowed for his advanced interaction with the technology and god knew what else. The only problem was, this gene was killing him. There was clearly something missing from the tale, some stabilising element required. But Jack had no idea what.

Tosh came running into the cell, face pale. For a second she froze upon seeing the dying form of her friend, but then started speaking in a rush, "Christina worked it out. The day before she died, she met with a man who she thought would give her the answer. He did, sort of; he gave her a time and place. When he would come and help."

"And?" It came out harsher than Jack had intended.

"Here, today, two hours from now. We have surveillance photos. They match another branch of research – on the Doctor. She met with a man designated Ninth."

"What?" Jack scrambled up, "Stay with Owen, call if his condition changes."

Jack ran up to where Ianto was sitting, showing Gwen a printed black and white photograph. He snatched it out of their hands. "Oh my god…" The picture was of a pretty woman, much more alive than her Torchwood photograph had ever made her, talking with a man in a black leather coat. "The Doctor's coming here…"

Gwen blinked, "Erm, who?"

"You'll see." Jack grinned, a smile not seen since Gwen's unremembered first meeting with the man, "Everything's going to be okay. The Doctor can sort this out."

Ianto had risen, and was looking at the screen which displayed the street above, "I think we have another problem."

Gwen and Jack moved up to see what had troubled him, "Shit." Gwen cursed.

Three black cars, marked Torchwood, had just pulled up, and men with guns were jumping out. Jack was furious, "How the hell did they find out?"

"If what Christina was saying was more than paranoia, then I think we can assume that it wasn't just being left to us to keep an eye on Owen." Gwen said.

Jack growled, "Torchwood Two. Must be." He glared at the screen for one second as a man in a black suit stepped neatly out of the first car. No. He would not let them take Owen. He was not theirs to take. He belonged to Torchwood Three, where his friends were, where people would look at him as a talented person, not a lab rat. "Guns, explosives, anything, just get it. This is our home; all we have to do is hold it for two hours. As soon as you've got the weapons out, put us into Lockdown. Move!"

This was his home, these were his friends. Jack felt no allegiance towards the Torchwood agency in itself, only this one building, which, as far as he was concerned, was about to become as lost as Torchwood Four. He was beginning to understand their reasoning for disappearing.

To Be Continued…

Author Notes: What do you think? Please let me know!!

As for IndeMaat's question, it was pure creativity on my part. I thought that, as they were dealing with aliens on a daily basis, a Torchwood position wouldn't be inherited and the secrets of the organisation wouldn't be passed down through a family, instead using head-hunters and scouts to find perfect employees. The only reason that would force them to keep a whole family within Torchwood would be if the family had a certain skill or talent that was hereditary.