Disclaimer: If it was mine, I wouldn't need to be job-hunting.

Chapter 13 - Cardiff Calling: In the weeks following the bunker disaster, the entire team was subdued. Leek's betrayal would have left them shaken, but to have it cost Stephen's life... Well, they were still reeling from the shock. Nick, Ashley knew, was shattered by Helen's 'revelation' that he'd been right about the timeline change. Ashley had offered to help him find out how to fix it, but he was blowing her off. "We've caused enough damage already. I won't make it worse," he'd explained. She rather thought he was trying to be noble at the risk of losing his mind, but she figured that in the end it was his choice.

She was convinced, however, that Helen had been lying. It seemed to be all the woman did, for one thing. Moreover, if the timeline had been altered, she was sure there'd have been a paradox by now. In which case everyone would be forced to believe Nick - the world ripping itself apart wasn't something one could ignore. But she could tell he wasn't in any mindset to listen to her, so she let it go for now. Besides, she had other things on her mind.

Someone was following her. She could feel it. The question was who, and why. She'd thought Daniel, at first, but no. It wasn't his style; too cliché. She was hoping it was a reporter trying for an angle on the project. That had happened once, back at Torchwood, and while inconvenient, such a situation was more or less innocuous. Other situations were unlikely to be.

One night she was getting off her bike, going to her flat, when she heard a sound behind her. Footsteps. She froze, trying to locate the source.

"Ashley." That voice had her spinning around, whipping her gun out as she did so.

"Helen," she said evenly, the gun trained on the other woman's chest.

"You don't want to shoot me."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes." Helen stepped fully out of the shadows, and Ashley's eyes narrowed. Helen looked different, and it wasn't the hair that had suddenly grown past her shoulders. The woman was a time traveler, there was hardly anything odd about that. No, it was the eyes.

When she'd first seen Helen that day on the motorway, the coldness of the other woman's eyes had unsettled her. But now Helen didn't have that look. The Helen Ashley had seen that day was a sociopath; this Helen was not. It was that simple. But people did not just stop being sociopaths. Therefore something was wrong.

She lowered the gun but didn't holster it. "What do you want?"

"You were right."

"Right about what?"

"Nick is in the wrong reality."

"Two weeks ago you said it was a timeline change."

"That wasn't me."

"Of course it -" Ashley began impatiently, before a sudden thought silenced her. It couldn't be... but why not? "That was the Helen from Nick's reality, and you're the Helen from this one. We haven't seen you at all, have we?"

"Not since the future predator incident, no."

"You and your counterpart set up both Nicks, didn't you?"

"Yes."

Of course. Why hadn't she thought of that before? But if it were true, then... "Why reveal yourself now?"

"Stephen's dead because of her. I told her if she wanted revenge on Nick, go right ahead, but leave Stephen alone. She didn't listen." Fury blazed in the dark eyes. "So I'm ruining her grand plan."

"Why'd you do it in the first place?"

"She approached me. In her world, Nick had moved on, and she couldn't stand it. She couldn't handle watching him forget her and turn to someone else."

"Claudia."

"Yes, that was the woman's name. Anyway, she wanted revenge. I wasn't as... driven as she was, but Nick had rejected me too, and I was angry with him. But now, after what happened to Stephen, it's her I want revenge on."

Ashley turned it all over in her head. It made a twisted sort of sense, actually. Which was why she put the gun away. Not that she would trust Helen – any Helen – completely without hard evidence. "All right, prove it."

"And how exactly do you expect me to do that?"

"I need a blood sample."

"Why?"

"I want to be sure you're telling me the truth."

Helen studied her for a moment. "Fine." She took out a knife and two white handkerchiefs. She sliced her hand open and wiped some blood on one of the handkerchiefs, handing it to Ashley. Then she tied the other one around her hand as a makeshift bandage. "Will that do?"

"Yeah."

"Good." She turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows. Ashley stared after her for a minute before shaking herself and racing inside. She didn't have much time.

She only stayed in her flat long enough to pack a bag and grab her other bits of evidence. That amounted to a blood sample from Nick (which she'd gotten a few days before the bunker) a candid team photo nicked off Connor, and a copy of the photo of Nick and Claudia. She'd 'borrowed' the original and made a copy.

The blood samples were needed for the reality marker test - people from different realities had slight differences in their blood work - while the photos were visual proof if she needed it. Like if Harkness caught her. Which he almost certainly would - there was only one place with the facilities she needed for the test, and that was Torchwood. So she had no choice; she was going to Cardiff.

She caught a train at midnight and managed to get some sleep en route. When she was near Cardiff, she called Ianto - and got a different voice on the line. A different male voice.

"Um, is Ianto there?"

"Yeah, hang on." There was rustling in the background, and then Ianto's voice came over the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Ianto. So who picked up?"

"Ashley! What's going on?"

"I'm coming for a visit. Who picked up the phone?"

"Um... Jack. It's Jack."

"You're shagging your boss? Damn, Ianto..." She'd known Ianto was bisexual – hell, so was she – but she hadn't expected him to start sleeping with his boss. It was so... not professional, and not Ianto. But then, she wasn't one for casting stones at people's love lives, shocked or not. Which didn't mean she wouldn't tease him. He was one of her best friends, after all; that made teasing mandatory.

"Ashley, what do you want?" he asked tiredly, well aware that he wouldn't be living this down for quite some time.

Ashley sobered as she remembered why she'd called. "I need to get into the Hub."

"What? Why?"

"I'll tell you later. In person."

"What are you playing at?"

"I'm not playing at anything, Ianto. This is serious. Can you get me in or not?"

"I - sure. I can get you in."

"OK, now what the hell is going on?" Ianto demanded that night as he let her into the Hub. Ashley sighed.

"I want to see if I'm right about Nick being from the wrong reality."

"And you need to come here for that?"

"I've got a test to run. Do you really think I'd find the facilities anywhere else?"

Ianto couldn't argue with that and he didn't bother to try. He just led her to the medical bay, where he left her alone.

It didn't take her long to run the test and the results were what she'd expected. Using her own blood as a template (because she knew she was from this reality), she found that Helen belonged to this reality - and Nick didn't. She needed to tell him, but she wasn't sure he'd listen.

But the test results weren't the only proof she needed, and with Ianto off somewhere, she went looking on her own. The computer system was unattended and in plain sight, and luckily, her old username and password for the Torchwood Archives still worked. She needed the old London files on alternate realities - and more importantly, she needed the files on opening doorways between realities.

"You know, considering what happened the last time one of my people let an outsider in, I really should just shoot you now," said a male voice from behind her. Ashley turned the swivel chair she was sitting in around slowly, not wanting to make any sudden movements in case he had a gun out already.

He didn't, but he was watching her coldly. She'd recognized the voice from the phone call earlier and now that she saw his face she remembered him from personnel files. "Relax, Harkness, I'm not sabotaging anything."

"Ianto vouched for you, so I'll believe that much, Stafford. But for whatever reason, he won't tell me why you are here." He paused, a clear indication for her to elaborate.

She handed him her results from the RM tests and the two photos. "The man in both photos is Nick Cutter. He's also the one who's in the wrong reality."

"Who's the woman?"

Assuming he was talking about Claudia and Jenny, Ashley shrugged and said, "Depends on the reality."

"Oh." Silence for a moment, then - "You know, I would think someone from Torchwood London would have more sense than to mess with alternate realities."

Ashley swallowed hard. She'd been trying not to think about the last time she'd seen realities cross, but Harkness' comment had brought it all flooding back. "You know nothing about it," she snapped.

"I was there for the clean-up. I've faced down Daleks, and while Lisa was working alone, I have an imagination. I can work out what it was like."

"No you can't." She couldn't quite keep her voice steady.

"You sound terrified."

Ashley met his gaze but couldn't speak. He was right. Damn him. Finally she managed to say, "Maybe, but I'll just have to live with it."

Harkness frowned, the coldness in his eyes replaced by curiosity. "Why?"

It was the lack of hostility in the question that she responded to. "Because Nick's my friend, and his situation sucks."

Harkness leaned against one of the desks, studying her. "That's not the the kind of reasoning I'd expect from one of Yvonne's people."

"Yeah, well, there's a reason I stopped being her golden girl."

"You were working on the realities project three years ago and you told her things would go to hell. She didn't believe you and you were transferred out of the department. And you were right."

"Cold comfort, isn't it? So, you've read my file then."

"Yeah. That bother you?"

"No."

"Now that's typical Torchwood One." He actually smiled at her. "Just don't rip the universe apart."

"I'll do my best."

He shook his head and turned to go. Ashley touched the chain around her neck, thinking about what hung from it. "Harkness?"

"Yeah, Stafford?"

She thought about how to word it. "Did you ever hear of there being other survivors of Canary Wharf? People who were declared dead but weren't?"

"Why?"

"I've gotten a sort of message, suggesting that a... friend of mine is still alive."

Harkness sighed. "You're playing a dangerous game if you get involved in this."

"So you have heard something."

"A handful of people were taken as government spooks. Would your... friend be any good for that?"

"Yeah. He would. Thanks."

"Don't thank me, Stafford. I've probably just given you an excuse to commit suicide." With that, he left the room.

Ashley turned back to the computer. She didn't doubt that Harkness was right. Probing into Dan's 'death' probably was dangerous. But she didn't care. She would do it anyway - just as soon as she figured out how to help Nick get home.

A/N: And so Helen's not always evil and we finally get a few answers.