Torchwood: Divergence
Book One: Dychwelyd

Chapter 23

The number of Rift spikes steadily increased as the Scieron spawned backlog shook loose and all the build up behind it began to make appearances across Cardiff. They'd been too busy for Ianto to worry about his lingering affliction, on the go so much that he was lucky to get the two hours of sleep his body now required each day. There hadn't been many opportunities for him and Jack to "dabble" let alone anything more involved, but that also meant there hadn't been a chance for the older man to worry over much if his partner got hurt on a mission. There had been a couple of occasions when Ianto had admitted to Gwen and the Captain that he felt out of place in public, fearing that being a Changeling made him too different and dangerous to be around. Reassurances helped, until the next incident brought the doubts crowding back again. Plus, he and Harkness both had ended up with their share of serious injuries, knowing they could heal much faster than the rest of the team and so always at the fore in any dangerous situation… but the older immortal had scolded him for it each time. Everyone at Torchwood had scrapes, bruises, and strains to nurse, but major damage to the normal humans had been kept to a minimum. Exhaustion however, was something they all found waiting at the end of the day, even their immortal leader learning that he wasn't entirely immune.

They were now three weeks into the "flood" from the Rift and pretty much had a system in place for handling the incursions. Major alien issues fell to Jack and Ianto, with Gwen, Turlough and Martha offering back up as needed. Potentially dangerous Tech or weapons were Turlough's main concern with other team members assisting when available. Any other minor items or harmless refugees fell to whomever wasn't already engaged on a mission, while Gwen, Martha and Turlough traded off who worked the Hub with Lois to pull information and co-ordinate communications. In the event that Habiba was the only one at the base or was actually needed on the field, she'd been taught how to engage Tosh's auto system and the AID feature.

The cells in the Vaults weren't near as full as any of them had been predicting however. It seemed the majority of aliens and Time lost individuals being dropped by the Rift were extremely violent and not willing to come quietly. Most were too dangerous to chance leaving alone until they calmed down, so unfortunately there'd been the need for a lot of UNIT clean up. Though that did mean their own alien and regular morgues weren't being overloaded, which was a plus. And UNIT were pleased with the excuse to maintain the new permanent dedicated base just north of Newport they'd constructed in 2010, complete with containment facilities and special cremation bunkers. They'd set up on the sly, and could have been forced to vacate the area now that Torchwood was back on the scene, so the offer for co-operation had been a pleasant surprise.

Jack had made time between crises early on to take Ianto by the storage facility in Splott to get all his various footwear, what few items of clothing still fit him fairly decently, and anything else he wanted at the Hub. They'd also gone by Mr. Simmons', who'd been only too happy to work up several new suits for the young Welshman, having sorely missed his business and shocked by his altered physique from the "illness" that had supposedly caused his prolonged absence. So, Jones was back to looking his well-dressed self during working hours, and only his partner ever saw him in any of his old street clothes, t-shirts, polo shirts, button down plaids, thermals, jumpers, or blue jeans after the rest of the team had gone home, usually when there was messy cleaning or storage work to be done around the base.

This morning, the two Hub residents had been roused from their room at 4:15 am by the Rift alarm. The system had pinpointed a spike along the southwest arm of the Bay near a notorious group of old, collapsing caves in the cliffs near Penarth. No CCTV meant they were operating blind, but they figured it was better to at least do a reconnaissance of the area before the team made it in, rather than wait and have something really nasty get a solid foothold. So, Jack had driven them to a point where they could safely continue on foot, and they were preparing to take a look inside the rock caverns that were fortunately well away from the current tide line.

"Nothing from the first opening," Ianto stated evenly, the blue light from his PDA casting its ghoulish glow over his face as he looked closely at the readings it was producing. "Strongest concentration of Rift energy is from the second cave... there are three life forms about thirty-two metres in, type unknown. They don't seem to be doing much, but that could change fast if they see, hear, or smell us."

"Still want to take a look?" Harkness prodded as his eyes wandered up and down the forever twenty-six-year-old's body, silently thinking about how good his partner looked in the dark grey three piece he'd donned this morning, and that the deep crimson of the shirt beneath really intensified the blue of his eyes when they were in normal light.

"Only if you go first or promise to stop staring at my arse," the Archivist countered, well aware that the other man's focus wasn't entirely on the Rift issue they'd come to investigate. "Viewing rights are all yours, but after we don't have to worry about aliens with deadly weapons, big teeth, or both."

"Guilty as charged," Jack grinned, un-holstering his recently acquired antique Webley replacement, even as the younger brunette pocketed his PDA and pulled out the sleek black laser-site augmented 50 calibre Desert Eagle XIX his Captain had mysteriously produced from storage for him the week before. "I'll go first. Let's see what we've got."

Both men levelled their weapons, hand torches on and ready as they moved into the damp darkness of the correct cave. They panned the lights up, down, and to either side as they cautiously proceeded, not chancing that the PDA had missed something and all too aware that some enemies like to creep along the ceilings. As they went deeper, a strange sound grew louder. Somewhere between a chitter and a growl, the tenor of it indicated that whatever waited ahead was probably human sized and not in a good mood.

The water carved cavern gradually started to open up into a vaulted area, and something moved at the far edge of Jack's torch beam. It was big, fast, and had a strange wet sheen to its pale reddish bulk, but neither of the Torchwood agents had gotten a clear look at it. The chittering sound turned to a barking squall, and one of the creatures rushed the men at high speed.

"Don't let it get behind us," Harkness warned, trying to illuminate the beast so one of them could get a clear shot.

"Dead or alive?" Ianto asked simply as the unknown creature thundered toward them.

"Dead," his partner decided, having caught a glimpse of a lot of long, sharp teeth.

He took a shot, heard the beast shriek in pain as the bullet did who knew how much damage. The fact that it kept coming indicated he hadn't hit anything vital, though it veered somewhat, possibly looking to escape but likely just trying another angle of attack. The latter was apparently the case, whatever it was turning back to make a jaw snapping lunge for the Captain's gun hand, only to have silver flash unexpectedly in the torch beam. The attacking beast went spinning past the coat clad brunette to crash against the nearest wall where it crumpled and lay still, giving the men a chance to get a good look at what they were facing before the other two visitors decided to charge.

It was nearly six feet tall, and looked horrifically like a bloody, skinless dinosaur of the Raptor type. It was also in two pieces, the head lying a few feet behind and to the side of the body, both sections pouring blackish red blood onto the cavern floor. There was a clearly visible bullet hole in the centre of its chest, a glint of metal showing that the slug hadn't made it past bone to penetrate far enough to hit any internal organs.

"Nasty," Ianto murmured, then whirled when the creature's companions squalled in apparent preparation for a charge. "Think they're intelligent enough to reason with?"

"My first impulse is to say no, but I've honestly never seen these before so I could be wrong," the self-proclaimed Neo-American stated truthfully, trying to get his light trained on the incoming beasts. "Why?"

"I just don't want to kill them if they're willing to back off and try to communicate," Jones explained, fielding his hand torch from his jacket pocket where he'd put it when he'd manifested a sword to stop the first creature. "Should we at least try?"

"Let's get our backs against a solid wall first," Jack said by way of agreement.

Three steps got them where they wanted to be, and the suit clad brunette raised his voice.

"Oi! Stop attacking and hear us out!"

To their surprise, both of the zombie hided beasts gave a shrill whistle and came to an uncertain halt, warily approaching the men with lowered heads and wide nostrils.

"We realise you're in a strange place," Jack stated slowly and clearly, taking the sudden change in stride. "And this isn't a safe world for you. We don't want to have to hurt you, but you need to understand that humans are not on the menu. Come with us quietly, we'll try to find a better place for you to stay, yeah?"

The strange creatures were only a few metres away now and they cocked their heads at the undying Captain as though weighing his words. The slightly larger one made a coughing sound at its companion, which churled in response, then they both looked at the men with the lights. The nearer entity stretched its neck out, sniffing at Jack and Ianto curiously. Ianto watched it with a neutral expression, but he started getting an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then he saw the beast's pupils dilate and its neck muscles tense, as one skinless lip curled back from its formidable teeth.

"Don't," he warned firmly, quicksilver already pooling in the palm of the hand he held the torch with.

But the creature never hesitated as it shrieked and made a gape-mouthed try for the Scieron Guardian, its companion launching itself at Jack. Ianto met the spike toothed attack with his left forearm, the metal he's summoned having covered the limb from finger tips to elbow like a medieval gauntlet. The silver crumpled and dented in sharply as the beast closed its massive jaws with a terrible crunch, wringing a brief cry of pain from the young Welshman. But it didn't stop him from firing two 50 calibre rounds into his attacker's left eye and liquefying its brain. Jack's revolver boomed at the same time, the smaller monster going down mid-leap as the shots entered its mouth and blew out the entire back of its head.

All was quiet in the cave, save the rush of waves outside and the accelerated breathing of the armed men who leaned wearily against one damp, water-hewn wall.

"Not how I like to start my day," Harkness complained, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a whoosh. "Damage?"

"Just bruised black," Ianto reassured, the metal having reabsorbed back into his body so he could shift both sleeves up on that arm and assess what lay beneath in the light of the other man's torch. "More importantly, the suit's in perfect shape. Not even a snagged thread."

"Thank God," the older brunette sighed with a lopsided grin. "You look way too good in that one to have it scrapped by some quasi-undead dinosaur with a crappy attitude."

"Priorities," Jones shrugged, gingerly putting his sleeves back down properly before panning his torch over the corpses at their feet. "Do we call UNIT on this one, or see if Rhys can get a lorry in close enough to load them up and take them to the crematorium at the base in Newport?"

"UNIT," Jack stated decisively, gesturing for the twenty-six-year-old to head for the cave mouth. "They volunteered to take care of disposals in return for us not demanding they shut down the new base in Wales neither Torchwood nor the Crown signed off on last year, so we let them do what they promised. Saves space in our morgues, and I want them to really see what we've dealt with on a regular basis because of the Rift all these years."

"It's only 5:16," Ianto pointed out, peering at his watch in the light of his hand torch since it was still a little too dim to see well even after they emerged onto the beach. "I'd offer to cook you breakfast, but I don't have a flat anymore, and though the renovations mean the kitchenette at the Hub is geared to cook small meals, I've not had time to stock anything other than milk, bottled water and juice."

Harkness smiled as they walked back to the SUV, pulling his mobile from his coat pocket and hitting a speed dial.

"Hey, Gwen," he called cheerfully in full American mode. "Ianto and I are just finishing up a crack of dawn Rift run. We were wondering if you and the family would mind a couple of guests for breakfast."

"Tell her I'll cook and do the washing up as long as she lets me make the coffee," his lover offered, climbing in on the passenger side of the Torchwood SUV and fastening his safety belt.

"Ianto says he'll do the cooking and dishes if you promise to let him handle the coffee as well," Jack relayed, putting the mobile on speaker as he took the driver's seat and got the big black vehicle started.

[Rhys wants to know why 'Captain Cardiff and Barista Boy can't make their own bloody breakfast at the Hub',] Cooper's voice replied over the line, her amusement obvious.

"'Captain Cardiff'?" Harkness repeated in disbelief, then smirked. "Tell 'Rhys the Rant' we're lacking necessary supplies because of how manic the Rift's been, and he's making a huge mistake if he refuses to let my faithful Barista Boy cook breakfast for him."

They could faintly hear their friend passing along the message, then heard her laugh before she came back on the line. [Come on over... oh, do you know where we live now?]

"Your address is on your profile, I have sat-nav, and the man who ran the Tourist Information Centre kiosk for nearly three years," the Captain reassured. "We'll be there in about ten minutes. Thanks, Gwen."

[Anything for my boys,] the one-time PC chuckled, disconnecting the call.

Jack terminated the connection as well, glancing over at his partner who'd produced a laptop from somewhere and was typing away on it. He finished in fairly short order, then stowed the device in its housing inside the glove box... something new since the vehicle had been recovered and in UNIT's possession.

"I altered UNIT to the Zombie Raptor mess back there and they said they'd dispatch a team to take care of it, promised to send necropsy results to Martha for later comparisons," Jones informed the older man, unconsciously rubbing his left forearm. "I also routed the alert system for the Rift Monitor to buzz your wrist strap and my PDA if there's another surge while we're away from the Hub."

"Perfect," the immortal Captain smiled, typing Gwen's address into the SUV's satellite navigation module. "What will you do when we get to the house to discover they have cheap ground coffee or just instant?"

"Cry," Ianto replied soberly, his expression mournful. "Then I'll soldier on and make do somehow."

His partner laughed, taking the first indicated turn as the sun finally cleared the heavy clouds in the east. Another brilliant early autumn day was dawning over Cardiff, promising warm rays, possible rain, and more Rift activity. But at the moment, all Torchwood was ready for was breakfast.

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AN: They've started the day off with a bang… wonder what the Rift will throw at them next.

Thank you to those reading the story. And thank you to those who have followed, favourited, and reviewed. NM