Disclaimer: I owe none of the recognisable characters or storyline, I do own Jane, Matt, Paul and Carly though. This chapter and the next has influences from an X-Files episode and I credit the writers for that storyline, I have however tweaked it for my own uses.

AN: Big thank you to Kem-liu, Lynka Read, My-Rebel-Within, twilightluva786 for their reviews on my last chapter, so I dedicate this chapter to everyone who has reviewed and kept me going, hope you enjoy it.

Like I said before, this is inspired by an X-Files episode I saw, but tweaked to fit the Whoniverse only the bare skeleton of the story could be recognised.

# #

Chapter 13.

* Death is always around the corner, but often our society gives it inordinate help.
-Carter Burwell *

# #

Jack and Ianto continued to spend time together in the evenings, having dates or just evenings in alone, they hadn't told any of the team about their relationship yet since Ianto was a very private person and Jack was extremely happy to just have Ianto with him again.

The incident with Mary went pretty much the same as it had before, Jack was wary about changing things since she was extremely dangerous and difficult to track down. Jack spoke with Tosh at length afterwards and made sure that she was alright, he invited her around to spend an evening with him and Ianto to make sure that she would be fine.

Tosh started spending more time with Ianto and they became close friends quickly and Jack was very happy with that.

# #

When Eugene Jones died and Gwen took it as her personal mission to solve the case Jack stood back and let her go about it as she needed, it was good experience for her in investigating a case solo and doing all kinds of jobs involved in that. She barely asked for anything from the rest of the team, knowing what she needed to solve the case.

Ianto and Tosh took the time during the Eugene Jones case to complete their separate projects as well as spend time with friends and Ianto was getting more and more confident in his relationship with Jack.

When the plane from the 1950's slipped through the rift near Christmas Jack attempted to handle it much better. He ended up spending time with John in an attempt to help him adjust better, instead the events pretty much circulated the same way as he remembered, John stole Ianto's car and attempted suicide in it, Jack found him and sat with him making sure that he at least wasn't alone in the end.

Jack also found out that Owen and Diane had a relationship much to Jack's attempt to run interference and that Gwen had taken in Emma.

Owen was self destructive after Diane left him and took her plane out to attempt to go through the rift again and Jack didn't know what to do apparently some things had to happen the same way.

Jack wearily went back to the hub after John's death, he had told Ianto to go home once he found his car and John and now John was dead and Jack failed him again.

"Jack?"

Jack turned and saw Ianto was still in the hub.

"I said you could go home Ianto." Jack said wearily as he took off his coat and tugged at his shirt collar.

"I know." Ianto said taking Jack's coat off him and hanging it up. "What happened?"

"John's dead. Killed himself." Jack muttered in a dead voice sitting down heavily at the couch in the hub.

"Oh." Ianto muttered as he sat down next to him.

Jack put his head in his hands, carbon monoxide poison gave him a massive headache and nausea, even after coming back to life.

"Are you OK? You look sick." Ianto asked.

"Fine." Jack muttered.

"Yeah right." Ianto muttered. "Come on." Ianto pulled at Jack's arm trying to get him to stand up, Jack followed Ianto meekly as Ianto took him down into his room under his office. Ianto undressed Jack and got in the shower with him, washing him gently as Jack was semi unresponsive.

Once clean Ianto put Jack to bed and curled up next to him, holding him tightly as Jack fell asleep uneasily. Jack clung tightly to Ianto as he fell asleep.

# #

Mid-January.

Andy had been putting together cases from the police that he thought might be something for them to investigate, he brought it up to Jack first who agreed to call a staff meeting and go over the cases.

Andy stood at the top of the table and brought out a box of files.

"Each of these files is missing persons; they have a link, although it's a weird one so the police are reluctant to say they are connected. As far as I can tell its spread across the UK I sent out a request to other constabulary's and have been sent these files." Andy clicked the remote and the wall screen lit up with this police email address.

"Holy shit!" Gwen exclaimed.

"In three hours I had twelve files sent to me, in three days I've got several dozen and more keeps trickling in. I've not even got to the oversea's cases that were forwarded to me."

"What is the case?" Ianto asked opening the box of files and withdrawing the top one.

"Abductions under mysterious circumstances."

"Alien abductions?" Owen scoffed. "That's a little vague."

"They are specific conditions in each case that I had. These people are missing, they were abducted or disappeared and none have returned. And well they are all kids."

"What's the link?"

"Children aged between 3 and 15 have all disappeared, some from locked rooms, others simply being there one moment gone the next. But each time the parent, in one case a foster parent, or the nearest or closest person to that child sees a horrifying premonition of the childs death. They blink and its gone." Andy explained.

"That doesn't mean anything." Owen said.

"But in each case the child disappears within 24 hours, no leads, no clues, no body."

"What do you think it is Jack?" Gwen asked.

"Don't know, not dealt with something like this before, it could be a coincidence, or some form of psychic link to the child, I've seen that before, but then the child disappearing?"

"The latest case is of 5 year old Marie Rose Richardson." Andy clicked the remote and brought up her file, it showed a photo of the young girl hugging a doll.

"She went missing whilst her mother was driving to Swansea four days ago. Her mothers car was carjacked and she was thrown out, she begged to get her daughter and the car-nappers opened the backseat to chuck her out too but she was gone, her backpack still there but her booster seat empty."

"She didn't notice her kid disappear."

"I spoke to the mother myself, they stopped in services ten miles previously and they had a drink, used the bathroom then got into the car together. When she went onto the quieter roads she swore Maria was still there singing those kids songs."

"So somewhere between the services and the car being stopped she disappeared."

"That's not all, the police have connected Maria with the paedophile they arrested yesterday."

"Does he have something to do with it?"

"A full psychoanalysis is being done on him right now but, he has tapes of Maria playing so he was at the very least planning on doing something. The police are still trying to find his primary hideout we've got a few tapes he must have brought home with him but nothing concrete to condemn him yet. He also denies taking Maria."

"I thought you reckoned there was something going on." Ianto said, if this paedophile was the reason behind the abduction it wasn't their jurisdiction.

"I do, look, none of the other cases are connected to him, so I'm joining the guys on a few leads we have on the hideouts to see if he was responsible for Maria's disappearance or if she really is one of these cases. I don't think that he's the suspect in all these cases. I'll let you know if I find something."

"Andy, if this guy has taken this girl, it's not our responsibility." Jack said faintly wearily.

"Not our responsibility!" Gwen cried. "This man's a paedophile!"

"And as much as he deserves to die painfully and slowly for that, it is not our job to do."

"Sounds almost like you wouldn't mind offing him yourself" Owen told jack.

"Wouldn't blink an eye." Jack replied grimly. "And probably take immense pleasure in killing him."

"You sound like all those dads who's kids have been taken by paedos." Andy commented.

"Find the connection between the missing kids, Marie and this guy." Jack ordered. "And let's find out if the rift is to blame, Tosh check for any sort of readings coming from that strip of road in-between the service stop and where she was carjacked, even if its a blip I want it examined."

"Got it." Tosh got up and left.

"Andy join the guys and search those places, do you want Gwen?"

"I was keeping Torchwood out of this for now, some of the guys are still funny."

"Not a problem, we'll be on standby for your call." Jack promised. "Everyone else, we need to go through all these files, Gwen you start with Andy's emailed files while we'll start on the hard copies. Ianto, anything in the archives that rings a bell?"

"If it's an alien species involved I haven't come across it. There's only one mention of an alien species being interested solely on children, but there's no case file only a vague reference from 1965."

"That's different." Jack assured him, hoping to whatever deity existed that it was true.

"You know what case I was talking about?" Ianto looked surprised.

"Yes, it's nothing like this." Jack replied firmly.

Ianto nodded and took more files from the box and handed them out whilst Gwen went to her workstation, Jane took pity on her and went to her desk and told Gwen to forward some to her.

# #

Andy went to the Police Station and sat in the conference about how the searches were going down. There were seven possible places in which they believed that the primary hideout was, seven teams were being carried on at the same time. Each target was an isolated house with land or natural barriers preventing a decent cursory look around the place. Three of the locations were directly connected to the suspect, but it looked too obvious. The other targets were indirectly connected to him and were more likely to be the right place. This man had evaded justice for years, he was clever, but they had him now.

Andy's was leading a team up to a farmhouse that had belonged to the suspects Uncle, the uncle lived out of the country these days but the farmhouse was considered to be too derelict to be rented out and it was never put on the market.

There were seven others in Andy's team and they went there in two unmarked cars and a Police Van. The two cars went first and covered both sides of the farmhouse whilst the Police van went straight to the farmhouse. All eight police officers raided the farmhouse entering the property through the front and back doors.

"Clear,"

"Clear."

Once the all clear was given Andy directed the officers to search through the junk that was scattered around to find something to do with the suspect.

"Andy. Have a look at this." Andy was called over to the study room.

"What we got?" Andy asked as he stepped through.

"I think there's something here." One of his officers, Carly said.

"What?"

"Well, I saw the blueprints of the place and this doesn't add up." Carly pointed to the wall.

Andy stepped forward and took a look, before turning around and looking behind him. He frowned and traced the room in his mind.

"You're right." Andy stepped over to the window and opened it before sticking his head the entire way out and looking at the external wall. "The outside wall extends further."

"I was thinking that." Carly said. "The room is two foot shorter than it should be."

"So what is he hiding here" Andy mused looking at the wall.

"We could break the wall down, it's probably just plywood, or plaster." Carly said knocking lightly on the wall and hearing it echo.

"No, if he done this, there must be a way inside, we are going to need to preserve the evidence." Andy said decisively.

"OK." She smiled, glad that he didn't want to just break through it.

"Right, get everything pulled from this side of the room, uncover the carpets if you need to." Andy said stepping outside. He quickly organised people to take a closer look in the fields outside and the edges of the woods on the property.

"Anything?" Andy asked as he stepped back inside the study.

Carly popped her head up. "Not yet, but look."

Andy went over and took a closer look at the wall.

"There's lines in the wallpaper," Andy traced them with his finger.

"The wallpaper is new too, do you think he was trying to cover his tracks?"

"Possibly, but look." Andy showed her another part of the wallpaper. "These are older, it looks like this particular strip was replaced recently."

"Interesting." Carly said taking a closer look and seeing the faint edges of dust and wear that occurred when wallpaper or paint was covered by furniture hiding some parts from damage.

"I think we should rip this down." Andy said.

"Agreed." Carly was the forensic scientist (SOCO-scene of crime officer) attached to Andy's team, she was also a very experienced forensic officer and she volunteered for this mission, she was the one more likely to notice discrepancies in the house and she had done her job beautifully so far.

Carly retrieved her forensic kit from the Police van putting on a sterile bodysuit over her clothes, handing Andy a set of latex gloves and face mask as well as booties to cover his shoes.

"We need to try and pull this down carefully, we need to try and get this intact." Carly instructed Andy.

"Got it." Andy was tall enough to gently grasp the edges of the strip of wallpaper they needed to pull down. He gently pulled it down.

"What if it rips?" Andy asked carefully as the wallpaper started to tag.

"It won't be the end of the world Andy, no worries, but it would be for the better if it came down whole,"

Andy and Carly carefully pulled off the wallpaper, it didn't come off in one go so Carly made sure that the pieces were rearranged in their original orientation to ensure that forensic work could be carried out efficiently.

Once the wallpaper was off they could get a proper look at the fake wall underneath.

"What now?" Andy asked as they looked at a wooden wall.

Carly didn't reply instead she probed the wood lightly pressing on it and was surprised to find that it was on some sort of a hinge.

The wooden door swung sideways, a small hinge at the top allowed it to move with enough pressure.

Carly swung the door open and held it.

"Pretty sophisticated." Andy whistled. "It had to have been built by the suspect himself, since it was too flimsy for any builder to agree to it without remembering it well.

Carly moved something in the way to hold the 'door' open.

Andy took a step inside and turned on a torch shining it on the hidden room.

Carly followed him in turning on her own torch.

"Sick bastard!" Carly cried as she looked around.

"True." Andy said calmly, almost too calmly as his hands shook lightly.

Inside the small 2x8 foot room there were shelves stacked to the brim of home videos, one shelf was piled high with papers and photographs.

There was a small table on one side with a chair in front, on the table there was a television attached to a vcr.

"Is this his room?" Carly asked Andy.

"We need empirical proof, you know that." He replied.

Carly rolled her eyes and nodded taking a look around, she went for the most obvious places first. She dusted for prints on the VCR and television and found several decent prints which she carefully put in an evidence bag to be processed later.

"How long will it take to process those?" Andy asked pointing at the prints.

"If you want a preliminary I can run the prints on the database." Carly answered. "The best bet is to run these downtown with an officer."

"Do that." Andy nodded and called over the radio for an officer to take custody of the prints and drive them to the forensics lab.

Once the prints were gone to be compared to the suspect they had in custody. Carly did a thorough sweep of the hidden room, she pretty much packed the entire room.

They uncovered photos dating back decades, and videos were grouped in sections, detailing each child separately.

Andy had an officer bring out the folder of photos of victims they believed to have been linked to the suspect and compared them to the videos and photos he had, the names on the tapes matched several of the victims in recent years, whilst a large portion of the photos also matched the names.

"Andy!" An officer, Paul Williams ran through to them. He paused and his face turned almost white as he comprehended the room that Andy and Carly were in.

"What is it Paul?" Andy asked.

"You both need to come with me, we found something." Paul said..

Carly finished sealing the evidence bag she had and placed it in the box she was filling up. She nodded and stood up and followed Andy and Paul out of the room.

"You said to look through the fields thoroughly, and we were doing a standard box search, combing the fields for evidence systematically. One of the officers found something."

Paul led Andy and Carly halfway down the field where three officers were standing in a circle looking down on something.

"Make room." Paul said softly as they approached.

The three officers backed away slowly.

Andy took a look on the ground, it was early morning, always the best time for a raid and the ground was seeped in a low level fog that gave the entire field an eerie look, as he looked on the grassy field he noticed several things that were abnormal. The ground was uneven, more so than a normal field would be, the second was that the area they were surrounding seemed to have sunken.

Carly dropped to a crouch by the area. "It looks like the ground has fallen, its not uncommon, especially if there is an old underground river or stream or if the water table has shifted." She stated.

"It's not that." Paul said.

"What then." Andy asked looking at him.

"It's this." Carly interrupted having found the point of interest. She photographed and the picked up a small object, turning it over in her hand.

"What is that?"

"It looked like bone, my wife watches CSI all the time, its porous, I'm pretty sure that means its bone, right." A slightly upset officer said.

"He's right, porous generally means it could be bone, there are porous rocks of course, but not here, and this is definitely bone. If I hazard a guess, it could be a finger or a toe bone, but that would depend on the size and age of the victim." Carly rattled on.

"Educated guess?" Andy asked.

Carly looked up at him. "Definitely a child, at the very latest a petite teenager." She said solemnly.

Andy nodded. This was the site, they had the photos, the videos and now a bone in a field, he cast a look over the field back to the farmhouse. The sheer distance from the house was strange.

"What are you thinking?" Carly asked as she sealed the bone in an evidence bag.

"Isn't it strange?" Andy asked.

"That he buried a body here? That man is sick!" One officer spat out angrily.

"No, not that." Andy said eerily calm in the face of this monster, he supposed that Torchwood had done that to him, disconnect from the moment to keep going, fall apart later.

"Why here?" Andy asked turning around and facing the officers. "Think about it, we're in the off centre of the middle of this field. If he relished in the fact that a victim was buried here, it'll be closer to the house."

Carly nodded following him.

"If he was ashamed in any way after the fact, he would bury the victim over by the tree line, far away from the line of sight." He continued.

"Looking out of the farmhouse you couldn't directly see this place, unless you were in the attic or the first floor spare room." Carly said looking at the house and the two windows she could see.

"Exactly, if that was indicative of feeling remorse…"

"We would expect the victim to be much farther away, even into the woods." Carly continued.

"So why here?"

Andy looked around the field once more and back at the farmhouse.

"What if this isn't the only one?" Andy asked in a shadow of a voice.

"What?" Carly asked even though each officer heard the words clearly as if he had yelled them.

"None of the bodies were ever found." Andy continued. "We need to uncover this site, if it's a grave. Paul get the crime scene tape and mark out this area."

Paul nodded and ran off to the cars down the route they already cleared the floor of evidence.

"I'm going to call for more help. I think we definitely have site 1." Andy said.

"Are you going to call Torchwood?" Carly asked as Andy took a few steps away to call the police station.

"What makes you think that?" Andy said nonchalantly.

Carly smiled. "I know that you're their 'liaison officer' or whatever, and I know that you disappeared for an hour or so before the meeting started, we had to wait for you."

"Doesn't mean anything." Andy replied.

"Is this a Torchwood thing?" Carly asked almost wanting it to be.

"I don't think so." Andy replied. "They offered to help." He added.

Carly nodded and went back to the scene and left Andy to his call.

# #

Twelve officers arrived within the hour bringing along more SOCO's with them, they also brought the news that the prints all matched the suspect. Andy requested some ground penetrating radar to be brought to search the area to see if there were any more graves and the request was granted. The radar and a specialist would be with them as soon as possible.

The first site was carefully marked off and Andy watched as Carly very carefully dug into the ground, each trowel of soil was placed in a sieve in case of more small bones and evidence. She carefully undug the grave and they soon found a shallow grave that a tiny body was laid out in.

Once the body was uncovered mostly Carly made sure she took plenty of photographs of the scene and stood back.

She picked up a voice recorder that she had been using earlier in the house to document what she found.

"A grave was discovered in the field, approximately 200 yards from the main house, a small bone, possibly a finger or toe led to the discovery of the grave. The ground under the grave has receeded, either from poor burial, or shift of the ground underneath. The victim looks to have been buried for some time, there is almost no soft tissue or organs left and any residual has long since dried away or seeped into the ground around the skeleton. The victim, is young, likely between 7 and 10, sex in unknown." Carly pressed stop on the record and took a breath.

"You don't know the sex?" Andy had to ask.

"Hard to tell in young children when its just skeleton, we might be able to use some of the bone marrow, if there's any left to determine a sex, or use facial reconstruction and compare it to the list of possible victims we have."

Andy nodded.

Carly put the tape recorder back on. "Victim is stretched out, arms placed across their body, legs outstretched, indicating that the victim was dead when buried. There appears to be some strands of cloth attached to the femur, sample taken for analysis and sealed separately. There are also several strands of hair, blonde in appearance still attached to the skull, two strands taken for analysis and sealed separately, judging from the length of the hair it is likely that this is a female. From preliminary looks, there is no obvious cause of death, a camp will be set up in site to deal with the possible multiple victims before taken to county morgue for autopsy. Recommend bone marrow biopsy and facial reconstruction." Carly turned the tape recorder off and placed it on the ground next to her kit.

"We need to move the victim now." She stated. Carly arranged a plastic sheet on the ground next to the grave, she carefully kneeled next to the skeleton and showed Andy where to hold. They carefully picked up the skeleton and placed it on the plastic sheet. Carly picked up the few bones that fell apart from the main skeleton.

"I was afraid we would have to move them piece by piece." She said quietly.

"Are you alright?" Andy asked as she reverently wrapped the skeleton in the plastic sheet before sealing the entire thing with evidence tape and marking it.

"Yeah, fine. Just have a weird feeling about this place." She said looking around.

"I know what you mean, there's more here." He said.

Once the ground penetrating radar arrived it went across the field and a flag was placed at each site where there was reason to dig. The officers used that time to properly finish clearing the house of material and set up the make shift camp, once several vans were filled with documents seized from the property and sent for analysis Andy took that moment to look back out at the field.

"Oh shit!" He whispered.

"And here I thought you weren't going to react." Carly smiled as she came up next to him. She looked out on the field as well as the specialist and the officer planting the flags were almost done with their circuit.

"Holy shit!" Carly whispered.

There were about 30 flags merrily waving in the small breeze conflicting with the melancholy reason for the flags.

"How many?" Carly whispered.

"Let's not overreact here." Andy said quickly. "Carly I need you to pair a SOCO with an officer and get them to go to each flag. Tell them what they need to do, I'll arrange more people here, we work across the field ok."

"OK." She said shocked before shaking her head and going to retrieve her kit.

# #

Andy called in hours later saying they found the place. Jack, Ianto, and Owen went there and saw a gloomy field set next to an old house.

"Thank god you're here." Andy came up to them looking ten years older.

"What's happened?" Jack asked.

"We found the site." Andy said leading them around the house to see the field properly.

What they saw shook them, dozens of police officers and dozens of scene of crime officers were working together digging large numbers of holes. As they drew nearer, Jack realised that they were uncovering bodies. Owen set his case on the floor. "I'm going to help them Jack." He said putting some latex gloved on and striding forward.

Owen immediately announced himself to Carly, the SOCO in charge offering his help as a Doctor and as a mortician.

"It looks like he's had dozens of victims over the years." Andy said wearily. "They are all buried here. So far 12 bodies have been recovered, tapes show kids aged between 3 and 12, boys and girls, seems he had no preference. We're recovering the bodies and investigating whether Maria is here."

Jack and Ianto joined in to help Owen, the entire graveyard for that was what it was, was eerily silent, not a single person spoke louder than a hushed whisper and only when necessary. Many of the men and women working on uncovering the bodies were in tears.

Even though this wasn't a Torchwood case, they couldn't walk away from such a site.

Ianto and Jack uncovered a small skeleton that must have been years buried in the ground. Most of the children were wrapped in a plastic bag to be buried, which helped the investigators in preserving evidence in the most recent victims. Jack picked up a small ribbon that had fallen out of the torn bag the child they uncovered had.

"This one must be a girl." Jack whispered mostly to himself the faded yellow and pink ribbon inbetween his gloved fingers.

Ianto nodded and brought an evidence bag closer before Jack and Ianto reverently moved the skeleton into the new bag. Jack carried the girl up to the line they made at the top of the field. He marked her number and site of burial before joining Ianto at the next place.

Owen soon started on examination of the skeletons and bodies, he requested that the newer victims be brought to him first since they were more likely to hold evidence. He worked alongside Carly who documented the victims as they came in, whilst Owen tried to determine cause of death, date of death and identification.

# #

Hours later when it was too dark to work even with floodlights they brought in, Jack and Ianto found Owen sitting on the floor head between his knees as he recovered.

"You alright there?" Jack murmured as he too slid down the wall to sit opposite Owen.

"Peachy." Owen grumbled rubbing his face.

"Update?" Jack asked as Ianto sat down gracefully next to him, taking Jacks hand from under the folds of his coat.

"Small miracles, no sign of sexual abuse pre or post mortem, deaths are inconclusive on the skeletons, the most recent victims however show signs of suffocation, if that were the case with all of them unless it was particularly violent enough to cause fractures, it wouldn't show up in the autopsy of the skeletons." Owen told them.

"So why did he kidnap and kill them? Has Maria been found?"

"No, so far she hasn't, I don't think she's here either. There are no freshly dug graves in the field, and she certainly wasn't in the house."

"So where is she?" Ianto voiced.

"Andy said that children went missing, bodies never recovered, I've been running dental checks on the list he had and so far none. What if this isn't the centre of this case. What if this was only connected to Maria?"

"So he had his eye on Maria and someone took her away to stop it?"

"But what about the other missing person?" Jack asked. "We need to get these victims identified to see if this is part of the case."

Owen nodded. "I'll get the dental work done and send duplicates to the hub, Ianto, I'll need you to run comparisons in the list of cases that Andy has gathered."

Ianto nodded.

"If this has nothing to do with the other cases than we'll need to pull out." Jack said hesitantly.

Owen nodded slowly. "I get that, but I want to help here, just give me a few days, until we do the dental checks."

"That's fine, I'll get Tosh to get the dental records for the list of possible victims for Ianto to compare." Jack nodded.

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Review please.

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