Title: Tears of the Weevil

Summary: Gwen gets a history lesson in weevils.

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Don't own Torchwood, the characters or anything related to the show.

"Torchwood needs to be stopped!" Jack and the others sat watching the lunchtime news as the chief of police addressed the public. "They are a menace to society! I urge you not to approach these radicals, but if you have any information relating to their whereabouts then please contact the police immediately. Remember, it is thanks to these terrorists that the Weevil virus exists, now they wish to prevent us from curing a disease which has effected millions…well I say no more-"

Jack switched the monitor off and sighed. Within hours of Emmerich's news conference their contacts had either been arrested or had gone underground. Torchwood, the great untouchable agency, was on its own. They'd even arrested the old man in Torchwood Two. "What do we do?" Gwen broke the uneasy silence.

"We fight." Jack snapped as though the answer was obvious. "We're Torchwood damn it!"

"They're right though." Owen looked sullenly down at his feet. "Weevils exist because of Torchwood; because of me."

"You keep saying that!" Gwen looked frustrated as she raised her voice. "What the hell happened? How can you be responsible for all this? The Weevils are from another planet. You told me that!" She rounded on Jack, her cheeks flared in anger and confusion.

"We thought they did…I thought they did." His gaze dropped and he looked as defeated as the cockney doctor. "I was wrong. They came from Owen. All of them-"

"How? Tell me!"

EARLY 2008 "The meteor hit twenty minutes ago!" Toshiko informed the others from the back of the SUV while Owen drove like a madman through early Monday morning traffic. "It's in an isolated area of countryside, nothing around for miles."
"Oh joy, more bloody countryside." Owen grumbled as he manoeuvred around a people carrier at eighty miles an hour.

"Don't worry sweetie, just take the keys out of the car and everything will be fine." Gwen teased earning a scowl from the disgruntled Doctor. "The police have been instructed to put up road blocks in a three mile radius."

"Good. Remember people this could just be a meteor or it could be an alien ship, keep your wits about you."

They arrived at the crash site and carried their equipment towards the small crater that had been created from the impact. "Initial scans show no sign of life-" Toshiko abruptly stopped as the piece of space rock, no bigger than a football began to crack and smoke.

"Masks on!" Jack ordered even though the whole team were already grabbing their gasmasks and pulling them over their faces.


Gwen froze as she found a gaping hole in her mask. Seeing it Owen quickly removed his mask and placed it over her head, putting her useless mask over his face in attempt to have some defence against the gas at least. Placing one hand over the hole and the other held Gwen's mask in place, stopping her from removing it to help him.

Jack looked up to find Owen protectively guarding Gwen; he failed to notice the gaping hole in his mask. It wasn't until he saw Owen clutching at his throat that he realised something was wrong.

Owen's lungs were on fire. The gas had enveloped them and the torn mask had proved useless. Gasping he fell to his knees, still clutching his throat. Gwen slung his arm around her shoulders and dragged him as far as she could before they both collapsed to the damp grass. Jack and the others quickly followed to check on their team-mate. Owen wheezed as he inhaled one sharp lungful of clean air after another. "It's…localised." He gasped in between breaths. "Short range dispersal." His throat ached and itched as he forced the words out.

"It seems to have stopped." Toshiko informed them as she conducted scans of the area. "I'll place the meteor in a secure unit for testing and collect soil samples… We'll need to test Owen too."

"Negative?" Jack quizzed. "You're sure?"

"There was no effect on the surrounding area and the meteor is clean…if something was inside it then…"

"It's in Owen."

"How are you feeling?" Gwen stood behind the clear glass wall that housed Owen in a sterile airtight room.

"Could do with a lemsip." He smiled, unable to force a laugh from his swollen throat. "So am I safe?" Gwen shrugged, unable to give him an answer. They'd taken blood samples from him, but they were still waiting for the results.

"You're absolutely fine." Jack appeared beside Gwen. "Besides from a sore throat you've got a clean bill of health." He entered the code to open the door to the room and let Owen out. "Tosh thinks it was just hot air from the impact. You and Gwen can have the day off. You can play doctors and nurses." Jack smirked as Gwen took hold of Owen's hand and shook her head at him.

"I agree. I need to spend the rest of the day in bed."

"Oh really?" Gwen pulled him in for a quick kiss, hesitant to linger with his throat still being tender.

It wasn't until three days later that Owen began to feel strange. His stomach churned at the thought of eating and he felt restless as he lay beside Gwen in bed. She was fast asleep, her soft pale flesh illuminated in the moonlight that streamed through the glass wall of his apartment. He found himself licking his lips as he ran his hand along her jaw line. She batted his hand away in her sleep and turned over, mumbling something incoherent.

He had to get out of the flat. He could feel the urge to sink his teeth in to her flesh rising within him. Pulling on his jeans and a jacket he quickly left and found himself wandering the streets of Cardiff aimlessly. That was until a drunken young man approached him, swaying on his feet and grinning.

"Y' alright mate?" He sounded English; probably a northerner on holiday who'd got separated from his friends.

"I'm fine, mate." The man barely had time to open his mouth to scream before Owen was upon him, sinking his teeth in to the man's throat and tearing a chunk of flesh from it.

The young northerner screamed and pushed him away, completely sober and scared for his life. Shocked by what he'd done Owen headed back to the flat but then stopped. He couldn't go back to Gwen, not covered in blood and craving human flesh.

He decided to go to the Hub. Jack would be there and maybe he could offer some explanation why he'd suddenly become a cannibal. "Bloody countryside!" He cursed.

When day broke Owen eventually stumbled in to the hub, covered in blood that wasn't his own and his teeth elongated like a wolf's. "Owen!" Gwen screamed as he dropped to his knees, exhausted and in pain.

Ianto helped carry him to the sofa where they lay him down and checked him over, believing the blood on his clothes to be his own. "What happened?"

"Dunno." He mumbled, his brow feverish and his eyes rolling back in his head.

"Must have been some night." Jack stood with his arms crossed and his expression grim. "Thirty eight people were bitten by some sort of wild animal last night. Twenty of those later went on to bite others. If you're infected with something then almost sixty other people have it."

"I couldn't…needed flesh…Gwen…" He rambled, the fever affecting his mind. He groaned in pain as he felt pain surge through his entire body. "Make it stop!" He screamed, writhing in agony. Jack pushed Ianto aside and delivered a solid punch to Owen's jaw, knocking him out.

"What?" He questioned at Gwen's furious glare. "He's better off unconscious for now."

"Jack!"

"I know Tosh, I'm sorry I hit Owen." Jack rolled his eyes, still facing Gwen.

"Jack!" Ianto shouted more insistently.

"For God's sake I didn't hit him that hard-" He was cut off as Ianto grabbed his arm and forced him to look down at Owen; or what had been the young Doctor.

Now in his place lay an abomination. A mixture of weevil and human. His hair was receding and his fangs and claws growing. His face became twisted and barely recognisable. "Oh sh-" His feral eyes snapped open, the beast he had become seemed barely able to recognise them. Sitting up he growled at Jack who had reached for his Webley and was pointing it at the creature that had bee Owen Harper.

"No Jack, don't! Owen…" The weevil turned towards Gwen, looking curiously at her until he sniffed at the air and then seemed to settle, content that he wasn't in any danger. He didn't see Toshiko standing behind him with a heavy book, and once he realised she was there it was too late. She brought the thick text crashing down against the back of his skull, temporarily knocking him out. The team stared down at the weevil as it began to writhe and twitch. Within moments it was Owen Harper again, fully human.

"He's…he's a weevil." Toshiko choked out. "How is this possible?" They all turned to Jack, their faithful leader, for advice.

"It's started."

"Within weeks over half of Britain was infected. Only a handful of Weevils were like Owen." Jack explained to the shocked Gwen. "There were microbes on the meteor, just simple bacteria…but when they mixed with Owen's DNA it created the weevil virus. Everyone he bit became infected and those with DNA close enough to his own became Higher Weevils with the ability to retain their humanity. The rest became the weevils you knew back in '07."

"You knew?" Gwen quizzed, picking up on Jack's guilt. "Didn't you! Was that what you were always warning us about? The twenty-first century is when it all changes?" He nodded solemnly.

"I met a man who was a higher weevil, he fell through the rift and told me what he was after he changed from a weevil to a man right in front of me. He told me when it would start but he had no idea what caused it. I had no idea that Owen's DNA would be responsible for over three quarters of the population becoming weevils." The Captain admitted, a rare instance of acknowledgment that he did not in fact know everything. "What I do know is that Emmerich wants to 'cure' all the surviving weevils, the ones that didn't keep their humanity. She's trying to resole monsters…these creatures have killed people they once cared about, countless innocents. Giving them their humanity back would destroy them. We can't let that happen."