A/N: Hello again! It's pretty much impossible for me to pick a favourite episode from season one, but this on is certainly a contendor! (if you're interested others include cyberwoman and countrycide). Hope you enjoy the read! Hannah xxx
Jack and Gwen discovered some one capturing a Weevil last night, which all seemed highly peculiar; I thought we were the only ones who knew about Weevils, as did Jack. I was a bit miffed when I discovered that Jack had been Weevil hunting without me, or rather with Gwen instead of me. I hope I managed to hide it when he was giving me his account of it after calling us all in to work at 1.00 am. I gave him the information I had found on a rise in strange and vicious injuries being reported, I don't know if it's related I hadn't even thought to link them back to the Weevils until now, but the Captain seemed to think it was a good place to start. He thinks there may have been an increase in Weevils escaping through the rift.
There was no sign of Owen; he appeared to be ignoring Gwen's calls. Since the Christmas party he has let down his front, everyone can tell how much he is missing Diane. He's been fowl and snappy for days now, but I'm still being as nice as nice, as ever, I don't want to make the situation any worse. He's probably off by himself, just wanting to be left alone.
I had heard some strange noises coming up through the ventilation shafts, and decided it was coming from the vaults so I went down to investigate. The Weevils were behaving rather strangely; it sounded almost like they were crying out with pain, but they were only in their cells as normal. I had no idea what could be causing it, so I called for Jack on the comms. He told me about Owen's findings, apparently Weevils have a low level of telepathic ability which allows them to share emotions. That it was possible for Janet to be feeling the pain of another Weevil.
I hope someone out there isn't kidnapping Weevils just to torture them; they are a complete nuisance and can be quite vicious when they want, but no living creature deserves that. Tosh managed to trace the van that had the Weevil in it to a disused building near the bay and the CCTV footage of them after parking had been wiped, she and Jack are off to investigate. Jack said it was a character flaw of his, to want to go after those who are trying to keep themselves hidden – as if he has any flaws…
I got a call from Jack on an unknown number, he wanted me to trace all of the calls made and received from it in the last 24 hours. It didn't seem too difficult, but someone has erased the entire call history, Jack's not going to like that.
They found a body in the building, the Body of Dan Hodges. Owen reckons it was a definite Weevil attack, no doubt about it, but that somebody had beaten him up beforehand. The whole situation seemed a little odd to me. Why bother to beat someone up, and then set a Weevil on them?
Gwen and Owen had gone off to together to tell Dan Hodges' wife that he had been killed, but Gwen returned alone. She walked straight in past her desk to sit in the conference room by herself, she looked upset, and so I took her a coffee.
"Thank you Ianto, impeccable timing as ever" She said with a small smile. "No problem, any time."
I replied with a warm grin, "Was there anything you wanted to talk about?" I offered.
"No. Well yes, but I don't want to bother you, you must be busy. And besides that I don't want you to think badly of me." She replied.
I could tell that she really wanted to get something off her chest, so I reassured her: "Don't worry, I can make up the time easily, and I could never think badly of you, not after some of the things that I have done. I'm all ears".
"Well, oh God, I slept with Owen. I can't believe I did it to Rhys, I love him so much. I just don't know why I did it, I don't even like Owen half of the time. Oh God what have I done" She poured out breaking down towards the end, so I pulled her in to a hug.
"Gwen, don't worry, you've realised it was a mistake and that's the main thing. There is no point torturing yourself with regret, what's done is done. The best thing you can do now is to try and forget about it." I said soothingly.
"I'll still feel awful though, knowing what I've done to poor Rhys. I think it was because I couldn't talk to him about Torchwood, I cut myself off from him. Maybe I should tell him about it, about everything?"
"You could do, but I don't think Jack would be over the moon about him finding out about us. But if you think it would help you put things behind you to tell him about Owen, then maybe you should talk to him about that. I mean, if he freaks out or threatens to leave, then there's always retcon…" I said, jokingly, she laughed at that.
"Thank you Ianto, you always go above and beyond."
"I'm only doing my job, as both a Torchwood employee and a friend" I reminded her, as I left her to mull things over a little longer.
Gwen doesn't usually open up like that with me; it was nice for her to feel like she can talk to me. Between her and Tosh I am starting to feel like the group's agony aunt! I wish I could talk to one of them about Jack; I'm still so confused about where I stand. Yes I'm having a wonderful time and I'm happy, but will it last? How does he see us?
Tosh reckons that the people kidnapping Weevils must have known that the building they were driving to was empty before they got there, as they left the car park with the Weevil in tow and drove straight there. So we're sending Owen to the Estate Agents undercover, pretending to need a warehouse by the docks, that way we'll know which buildings are empty.
The sight of Owen in a suit was most amusing; I accused him of taking my place. Owen replied with a:
"Well I look better in a suit than you do anyway teaboy" and a wink, showing me that he was only joking.
Never the less I was touched when Jack came up to me a little later to reassure me that I was the only who could pull off a suit around here, and gave my behind a squeeze. I hope nobody saw…
Tosh and I created Owen's website this afternoon, in case the estate agent decided to Google him; I think we made a pretty convincing job of it. 'Harper's Jellied Eels'. Whilst doing this I had another check at the latest hospital reports, more Weevil-like injuries. Better report to the Captain.
After letting Jack know about the information on the hospital, I was most pleasantly surprised that he asked me to accompany him. And even more so, when he insisted that Gwen should go home rather than join us. Perhaps he did notice that I was a bit bothered when he reported his little Weevil hunting session with Gwen earlier.
Despite myself, I enjoyed questioning the victim, Jack and I ended up performing an almost comic routine trying to get him to confess how he really sustained his injuries. It was odd that he was being so guarded about it all determined to stick to the mugging story.
When we got back to the hub I noticed that a bottle of retcon was missing, I think perhaps Gwen took my idea seriously….
I wasn't sure about Jack's idea of letting Janet out in the middle of Cardiff, even our Weevil didn't end up kidnapped and tortured, she may well be sighted or worse injure someone. But Jack always has a cunning master plot hidden behind every decision, always thinking ahead. It'll turn out to be the right thing.
After releasing her, we finally tracked Janet down, only to find that the device had been torn from the boiler suit and got caught on a fence. At first I thought it was all a lost cause now, we'd just sent a (somewhat) innocent Weevil into the hands of a kidnapper. But then we got a call from Gwen, a postcode has been texted through to Dan Hodges phone. It just has to be connected; we are on our way over to investigate now.
What we found when we arrived was horrifying. There were queues and queues of men lining up to risk their lives in a cage with a Weevil. Not only was this a completely inhumane way to treat the Weevils, no matter that they aren't actually human, but it was also completely heart wrenching at the same time as to how little these men valued their own lives.
We were all so shocked to see Owen inside that cage, not even putting up much of a fight. This whole thing with Diane has really got to him, messed with his head. I can understand why he did it, after everything that happened with Lisa; I just wanted to black out and to forget. I don't know what I would have done if anything really serious had happened to him, it's going to take him a while to recover, but I'm so glad he's alright. Well he's physically alright at least; I think he'll need a while to recover properly mentally. Jack told me when we were back at the hub, and it was just us two left, that Owen hadn't wanted to be rescued. Again he doubted whether or not he had done the right thing, but I reassured him that he had.
Tonight was lovely, for the first time since Jack and I… had taken our relationship to the next level, we sat and talked all evening, rather than the 'wham bam and thank you Ianto' as Jack had nicknamed it. We sat all evening, curled up on the sofa peacefully talking about nothing in particular. I was surprised at how cosy everything was; I'd never pictured Captain Harkness as the cosy type.
I so wanted to ask him about us, what was happening, but I didn't want to spoil the moment. He really looked like he needed someone to talk to right now; I think Owen's comments to him really had hit him hard. I've said it before, but as the leader, Jack always seems to get the blame when things go wrong and it really isn't fair. He told me that I had done a good job today, on the mission and that he'd like to see more of my talents. Innuendo is never very far away from Jack's mind. But I hope he meant it seriously as well, I know I keep saying it, but I think I might finally be ready for proper fieldwork.