A/N: This story has thirty-five finished chapters, so it's taking me a while to get through them. I hadn't realized how much I'd written for this story. I should have been uploading these chapters a while a go so I didn't overload you with updates, but that was a mistake I made long ago I can't change.
Chapter Sixteen
"This is the youngest girl, and the girl's cousin." Tosh said, showing the Cottingly Fairies photographs.
"I blame it on magic mushrooms." Ianto said, dropping everyone's coffee off.
Ianto had been back for more than ten days now, but Owen and Gwen still had problems looking him in the eye. Both Jack and I understood why Ianto did what he did and we had no problem interacting with him like we had done before the invasion (if not better). We had both forgiven him for his actions, and he in turn had forgiven Jack and me for what we did or said. Tosh wasn't completely the same around Ianto as she used to be, but she was more relaxed in his presence then the others since she understood doing anything (even endangering others) for the sake of someone she loved. She had started relaxing the more time she spent working with him on sorting through the archives, although Ianto had needed someone with him the first few times he had gone down into the basement.
"What you do in privet is none of our business." Jack said with a smirked to Ianto. He had been trying to include the archivist in the team more, reduce the tension between him and the others but it wasn't going as well as he would like. He was starting to think a group activity would be a good idea – a way of bonding in which Ianto couldn't disappear. He kept such a small team because it fostered bonds and trust between them, but he had clearly failed in that when Ianto hadn't come to him or the others for help but he wouldn't fail again.
"But these photographs were fake." Gwen said.
"Cohan Doyle believed in them." Owen pointed out.
"He was gaga at the time." Gwen refuted.
"And Houdini." Owen added.
"Actually, he didn't. Houdini knew too much about slight off hand, illusion and tricking the mind to believe in illusions. Despite his wish to believe in life after death, he spent much of his adult life denouncing spirituality and fairies. It was Doyle's belief in the Cottingly Fairies that eventually broke their relationship." I added before Gwen could refute Owen again.
"Why do you know that?" Ianto was the one to ask.
"Because I'm a literature and history student. Sherlock Homes is a great piece of literature and I needed to look into Doyle. I came across information about his friendship with Houdini and I looked into it because I was curious," I responded, shrugging.
"So where was this sighting, then?" Tosh asked, bringing them back on topic.
"In a place called Roundstone Wood." Jack told her so that she could see if there had been any rift activity logged from that area.
"I know it. It has an odd history." Owen told them with a frown.
"How do you mean, odd?" Jack asked curiously, wondering if the wood was linked with the rift and he hadn't been alerted because it was a standardised peak that had been factorised into the programming frequency.
"It's always stayed wild. In the ancient times it was considered bad luck to walk in there or even to collect timber. Even the Romans stayed clear of it."
"Is today the day we all reveal weird and random knowledge that actually comes in useful?" I asked, amused.
"I've had no report of any sighting." Tosh said.
"You won't. These things come in under the radar, but they play tricks with the weather, so set up a programme for unnatural weather patterns." Jack said darkly.
"Right." Tosh nodded and immediately got to work.
"Are you saying our machines can't pick them up?" Gwen asked concerned.
"Nothing can." Jack said seriously.
While Tosh was working on the predictor programme, Jack, Owen, Gwen and I headed out to Roundstone Wood in the hopes of picking up some readings that might be useful.
"The stones in those photographs." Jack said as they came to what was nearly the centre of the wood.
"You know, this whole area was forest in primeval times. Most of the development areas have been built on ley lines." Owen said, scanning the gas patterns in the area.
"Anyone could have made this circle." Gwen denied, refusing to admit that the fairies could be real.
"Why do you keep doubting me? I spell out the dangers, you keep looking for explanations." Jack demanded.
"That's what police work's about." Gwen responded. I rolled my eyes; you would think that after two months Gwen would have gotten her head around the fact that we weren't police.
"This isn't police work." Jack told her seriously.
"All right then, science." Gwen rolled her eyes, while I stiffened looking around at the trees suspiciously. It felt like we were being watched.
"It's not science." Jack denied again.
"It's like something in the corner of your eye." I added softly, looking out of the corner of my eye and seeing the beings that were watching me. They were tall, around six feet, their bodies were green and looked to almost be the texture of the trees that surrounded them.
"Raven?" Jack asked concerned, catching the tone of voice I had used and the sudden alertness of my posture.
"Keep your eyes open." I told Jack tightly. "We need to leave. This is their home."
Jack raised an eyebrow but nodded his assent. He could see the fear in Raven's eyes, and right then they couldn't afford to face the fairies, so if Raven could see them, they needed to get out - immediately.
Later that night we got called to the police station due to a suspicious murder. Tosh, Jack and I were the ones to respond since Gwen was behind in her paperwork (again) and Jack was punishing her for her constant questioning of him.
"I thought I'd seen everything until now. I mean, we had him locked up, for Christ's sake, on his own. He was shouting the odds when he was brought in. Said things were following him." The sergeant was saying.
"What kind of things?" Jack asked, waiting outside the cell with the body. They had started to get an idea of what these beings looked like since, when we got back to the hub earlier, I had begun a sketch. However, I had only done an outline before we got called in.
"Shadows, he said. And he was going on about being choked."
"There were four other prisoners. They saw nothing." Tosh informed them as she approached with another police officer.
"Where are they now?" I asked her.
"I've had them transferred." Tosh told them.
"CCTV?" Jack asked, completely ignoring the sergeant who was just stood there.
"I'm dealing with that." Tosh nodded as she typed rabidly on her devise.
"At first I thought he was a drunk or a nutcase, or both." The sergeant continued nattering.
"Right, I want this place locked off." Jack ordered, finally having enough.
The sergeant opened the cell door to reveal a man lying on the floor, dead.
"Name?" Jack asked.
"Mark Goodson. Worked in town. Business consultant." Tosh responded immediately.
"Cause of death?" Jack asked.
"Well, going by the pinpoint haemorrhages on the eye lids and around the hairline, I'd say oxygen deficiency." I told him, kneeling next to the body. Although Owen was the official doctor of the team, he had been teaching me the basics encase he was unavailable for one reason or another. He was also teaching Tosh how to use the medical equipment.
"But it's odd. There's no fingertip bruising on the face, no areas of pallor. No signs that pressure has been applied." Tosh agreed.
"Hold on there's something." I said, reaching for a pair of tweezers. Being careful I opened the man's mouth and pulled a red petal out of his mouth. It was exactly like the one Jack found on his desk.
"I've never seen anything like that before." Tosh muttered in horror.
"I have." Jack said darkly and I looked up at him in concern.
"We know the dead man was a convicted paedophile, used to hang around schools." Jack said as the CCTV footage showed the death of the man. The creatures had been able to hide themselves from the camera so they didn't see them as they murdered him.
"But why the petals in his mouth?" Gwen asked, she was still having trouble believing that the Fairies were actually real. She could handle aliens, but not the supernatural. That was just the stuff of bed time stories in her opinion.
"Just a bit of fun on their part." Jack responded darkly.
"You call that fun?" Gwen demanded horrified.
"They're like children." I explained before Jack could, trying to put into words the feeling and theories I had been collecting since this entire case started. "They're playing games, protecting their own. Some of the cruellest beings in the world can be children because they don't understand that what they are doing or saying will hurt others. And if they do know it will hurt, they don't care for the consequence – they believe that it can't affect them negatively because they just want the problem gone so they can go back to their games."
"They protect their own. The Chosen Ones. Children and the spirit world, they go together." Jack agreed.
"So how do we stop them?" Tosh asked, getting to the point where they actually started being helpful.
"First we have to find out who they want. And we can't trap them. They have control of the elements. Fire, water, the air that we breathe. They can drag the air right out of our bodies. Sometimes I think they're part Mara."
"Mara?" Tosh asked confused.
"Kind of malignant wraiths. It's where the word nightmare came from. They suffocate people in their sleep." Jack expanded on the connection he had made.
Owen went to say something but was cut off as Jack's phone rang.
"Yeah?" he asked, not even looking at the caller ID.
"What is it?" he asked who ever was on the phone, concerned.
"Estelle, we're on our way. Stay where you are. Don't go anywhere near them, do you understand?" Jack ordered sharply as I grabbed Jack and pulled him out of the base. Now wasn't the time to hesitate.
Owen was the one driving, while Tosh was back at the hub keeping an eye on readings. Gwen had also made it to the SUV before Owen sped off. Owen seeing the concern radiating from me and Jack, put his foot down and broke as many traffic laws as he could in order to make it to their destination in time.
"It makes no sense. It's a fine night yet the weather map says there's rain over only one house." Tosh spoke over the coms.
"Estelle? Estelle! Estelle!" Jack shouted as he jumped out of the SUV. When no response came from the house, he drew his gun and ran around the back. Gwen and Owen followed him, while I kicked the front door in.
Swiftly I cleared the house, ensuring that there was no danger. When I got to the living room, I found that the glass windows had been blown in, and on the floor was some type of Celtic summoning circle. Dread filled my stomach as I realised that Estelle must have ignored Jack's warning and tried to call upon the fairies.
Heading to the garden I found the other's surrounding a body. Owen was knelt on the ground, checking for signs of life, while Jack hovered worriedly. As I stepped up next to Jack, choosing to be silent about my findings for now, Owen looked up and shook his head. That one motion was enough to let us know that she was dead.
"How?" I asked, knowing that Jack wasn't ready to say anything as he stared in well concealed sorrow at his old lover.
"Looks like she died from drowning. The rest of the garden's dry as a bone." Owen stood, noting that he wasn't wet from kneeling on the ground despite what his findings told him.
Jack knelt and closed Estelle's eyes, before taking her in his arms and rocking her back and forward gently. Owen, realising that this was probably someone Jack new very well, turned and left the garden, taking Gwen with him when she made to wait. I knelt at Jack's side and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
He may have been old and lost many people in his time, but it still hurt him when someone he cared for died.
