Dialogue taken from the Torchwood episode "Sleeper" and other random bits from various Buffy episodes. I didn't come up with it, I just changed it in this non-profit fanfic.

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Buffy sat down across from Jack and tentatively took that first sip of coffee. Not poisoned—yet. Jack gave the barest roll of his eyes, but he continued to go through the papers on his desk.

"There are two things I don't believe in: leprechauns and coincidences," she said. He just grinned, so she continued. "So here I am a slayer with UNIT experience who just suddenly quits her day job and runs off to another country—to a city with its own not-so-secret group of alien fighters. A city that slayers aren't really supposed to be in. And then when a complete stranger whose name I just happen to know asks me to join his merry little band of alien fighters, I say yes without any questions or hesitation."

She paused for effect, hoping he'd catch on. He still didn't say anything, so she continued once more.

"It's not a coincidence that I came here."

"So why did you?" He looked up from the paper he was holding.

"You." She gave a light laugh. "Turns out my deadbeat dad really isn't my dad at all. Owen told me you know."

"You want to talk about this now?"

"You mean talking about it while waiting for a burglar to wake up and tell us who the psycho alien was that ran him through with an as-of-yet unidentified weapon is a bad time?"

"There's a lot to cover and we may not have much time," he said.

"It shouldn't take that long. You probably have more questions than I do." She sighed. "I just wanted you to know that I know that you know that… too many knows. The questions can wait for now."

"Sure."

"And could we keep this just between us for now? Being the boss's daughter is a bit awkward."

"Yeah." He was smiling, but there was a sadness there she hadn't seen before. She didn't have any time to think about it, though. Tosh came in and said that Gwen had called. The man had died crying out to keep the woman away from him.

Soon the woman, Beth, was dragged into the Hub and down to the interrogation room. Buffy stood with Ianto and Owen while Jack and Gwen were playing Good Cop, Bad Cop. She had to admit that her dad was good with the scary. He would have been great beating Willy for information.

Jack stormed back up to them and Buffy watched Gwen play Good Cop with a bit of disinterest. Good Cop was never Buffy's strong suit, so she listened to Ianto and Jack instead of Gwen.

"'Just us, and this room, for as long as it takes?'" Ianto quietly repeated to Jack. "Terrifying."

"Really?" Jack asked.

"Absolutely. Shivers down my spine." Ianto's even and ironic tone briefly reminded Buffy of Oz—the sarcastic voice much like the serious voice.

"You don't look scared," Jack said.

"Oh, it… passed."

Jack growled and raised a fist. As he turned he caught Buffy's eye, and she just shrugged.

"Tosh, anything on the body scan?" Jack sat at his desk while everyone else gathered round in the office.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," she said while still looking at the computer screen.

"What about the light? Power surge?"

"Nothing from us. There was an electromagnetic build-up around her, but I can't see how she caused it."

"Same thing happened at the hospital, Jack." Owen said. "Can't be a coincidence."

"Or a leprechaun," Buffy said and everyone except Jack looked at her as if she had just said she was the Queen of England. "Because I don't believe in either of them."

"It's her, I know it is." Jack sat forward. "Okay, let's do some tests, see who or what we're dealing with."

"I'm on it." Owen left for his area.

"Leprechauns aside, what do you think?" Jack asked Buffy while Tosh continued typing at the computer.

Buffy shook her head. "She feels human."

"But?"

"There's something else, but it's just a nagging little feeling in the background. If she is an alien, I don't think she knows. I think it's buried deep inside. She's possessed, maybe?"

"Possessed?" Jack's eyes widened as he acknowledged the possibility.

"Is that likely?" Tosh asked.

"Of course," Jack said. "There are all sorts of hitchhikers and parasites in the universe. Remember Carys?"

Buffy didn't know who Carys was, but by Tosh's blush it was bound to be one hell of a story. "I know there are at least the Koosbanian shape stealers, the Pyroviles, or the Eknodines." She gave a shudder at the memory of the eye stock that came from the human host's mouth. The shape stealer was a more pleasant memory—since they stopped it before it took over a host—and she had only heard of the Pyroviles from Donna. "Also there's ghost or demon possession. Hyena possession is especially not of the good."

Tosh gave her a look that clearly said 'are you kidding me' while Jack laughed, then sobered.

"But that doesn't really explain how she did it? Where's the weapon?" He went to talk to Gwen. Buffy still hated hospitals, so she decided to steer clear of the medical tests with Beth. She stayed with Tosh while Ianto's voice cut through the hub.

"We don't sniff the subetheric resonator."

Buffy had no idea what that was, why no one should sniff it, or why anyone would even want to sniff it. She watched Tosh work for a moment, and she realised that Tosh was a bit like Willow before the magic. If she was, then she'd be a good friend for Buffy in the group.

"So who is Carys?" Buffy asked in an attempt to make small talk.

"She was a girl possessed by a gas-based alien that fed on human orgasmic energy."

"When you say…"

"Yeah," Tosh interrupted so Buffy didn't have to finish. "Jack put it best when he said her victims 'came and went.' They turned into piles of dust after..." She rolled her head to finish the sentence.

"Wow." Buffy had seen strange things, but that was definitely up there with the strangest.

"It was Gwen's first day too."

They both started laughing. That was one hell of a first alien to handle.

"So you're a vampire slayer?" Tosh asked out of nowhere.

"God, did someone send out a memo that I don't know about? Or am I worse than I thought at the secret identity thing?"

"Who else knows?" Tosh asked with amusement, not too fazed by Buffy's dramatics.

"So far, Jack and Owen. How do you know?"

"I looked at your UNIT records. Ianto probably has too."

"Gee, everyone wants to know about me. How keen. You don't seem too surprised by the whole vampire and slayer thing."

"With this job?" Tosh laughed. "Also, my family is from Japan, and they tell a lot of stories about spirits, demons, and warriors. There's the possibility some of them could be based on fact. I've always thought there were more than just humans on this planet. Aliens and science or demons and magic, it's all the same in the end, isn't it?"

"Good thing too or I'd be out of a job. Huh, maybe it's actually a bad thing."

Tosh smiled. "You don't like our job?"

"Protecting the world against the wigsome? When I was first called to be the Slayer, I hated it. Now I don't know anything else."

They were then serious and quiet. Jack was yelling and then he took Beth down to the cells.

"What happened?" Tosh asked Owen.

"Bloody woman snapped the needle and the scalpel," he grumbled.

"What?" Buffy asked.

"I couldn't put so much as a dent in her skin, and still she says she's human."

"The scans show…" Tosh began.

"Then the scans are wrong. There's no way that woman is human."

Tosh quickly turned back to her computer; she was faster with it than Buffy was in a graveyard fight. It wasn't too long before Jack returned alone.

"Where's Beth?" Gwen asked as they all now stood together.

"In the cells," Jack said curtly. "Ianto, Owen, I need you both with me."

They left and returned with a strange chair, heavy cables, and a box. When Jack opened the box, Tosh frowned.

"You said we weren't allowed to use that again."

"It's just a mind probe," Jack said firmly.

Ianto looked up behind him. "Remember what happened last time you used it?"

"That was different," Jack said without turning while Ianto and Owen set up the chair. "And that species has extremely high blood pressure."

"Oh, right, their heads must explode all the time." Jack turned to glare at Ianto while Gwen's and Buffy's eyes went wide. Tosh tilted her head with disapproval.

"Jack, you can't do this," Gwen said. "What if you're wrong? If she is human, it'll kill her."

"I second that 'you can't do this,'" Buffy said. This was getting a bit too much like the Initiative. Cells full of vicious creatures, scientific equipment that fries the brain…

"I'm not wrong," Jack said. "We have to find out what she is."

"Take it easy, Jack," Tosh warned. "Stop at the first sign of trouble."

"Or the first sign of exploding," Ianto said while sitting in the chair and running his hand over the arm restraints.

"Gwen," Jack said quietly. "Bring her up."

Gwen reluctantly agreed and left. Ianto began shaking and acting like he was being electrocuted. Jack yelled at him and he stopped and got up. Owen just shook his head at the Welshman.

"Jack," Buffy said. "Interrogation methods are one thing, but this is sounding more like torture."

"We do what we have to do," he answered.

"No, we do what's right."

"Buffy, there are some things that require harsher methods. We have to find out what she is, and if this is the only way to do that… then we'll do it."

"Is it the only way?" Buffy persisted.

"Do you need to leave while we do this?"

"No, someone has to be here to stop you."

"No," he said slowly in a tone she hadn't heard from him before. "You are here to take orders. If you can't do that, then you are going to have to leave."

Tosh and Owen were staring at her. Just from his face, Buffy could tell that Jack wasn't going to back down. It eerily reminded her of those early days when Professor Walsh gave her orders instead of answers to her questions.

Gwen then returned with Beth and they got her situated in the chair. Then Jack began explaining the probe to Beth.

"Will it hurt?" Beth asked, as anyone would.

"Yeah," Jack said simply.

"Your bedside manner's rubbish," Beth said.

"You should see his manners in bed," Gwen rambled nervously. "They're atrocious. Apparently. So I've heard."

"Oh, they are," Ianto agreed. "I remember this one…"

Jack cleared his throat pointedly. Buffy looked at Ianto and her father. They were sleeping together? Which team did her father play for?

Gwen told Beth a little more about how things were going to go to comfort her. Then Jack told Tosh to start. Almost immediately Beth starting crying out in pain. Owen said it was safe, but Buffy didn't believe it. Jack asked what she was and where she was from, but Beth insisted she was human.

"Go deeper," Jack ordered.

Tosh hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Do it!" he shouted.

"Jack, stop this!" Buffy said and started going into slayer mode. He must have seen that, because he then gripped her arms and brought his face angrily close to hers.

"Go," he said quietly; he didn't need to shout the order.

He then nodded to Ianto. Ianto gently, but firmly, guided Buffy to the cog door. With one last look at the painful scene, Buffy left. She wanted to be near her father, to get to know him. She wanted to continue being part of a group protecting the earth. But if that meant being part of this… she wasn't sure if she could do it.

All her frustration and anger built up in the need to hit something. Back in Sunnydale there was Spike's nose, and with UNIT there was a sandbag just for her. Here, there was the wall.

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After the probe was taken off Beth, Jack had Gwen take her back down to the cells. He asked Ianto to go retrieve Buffy and then everyone meet for a debriefing. Ianto came into the tourist office and found Buffy sitting on the floor and a fist-shaped hole in the brick wall.

"Um… uh…" He was unable to articulate any sort of coherent thought.

"I didn't like the look of that wall. Needed a bit of the Martha Stewart touch."

"Right," Ianto said with a calm nod. "Jack wants everyone for a meeting. He knows what Beth is. She's doing fine now, by the way. And she is an alien."

With a scoff, Buffy stood and walked back down into the Hub. Ianto followed.

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A monitor was set up to keep an eye on Beth in her cell. Buffy was shown the video of Jack talking to the alien part of Beth, and then everyone at the table looked to Jack for an explanation.

"She's a sleeper agent. It all clicked when I saw the implant."

"A sleeper agent?" Owen asked. "Who for?"

"No one knows very much. They don't leave survivors. Official designation is Cell 1-1-4. They infiltrate planets, adapting their bodies, gathering intelligence, sometimes for years, watching, until they're ready to take over."

Gwen said what they were all thinking, "Okay, that's... creepy."

"If we're lucky, she's the first," Jack continued. "They send an advance guard to gather intel. Give them false memories so they blend in. She has no idea she's not human. Her real self must have taken over briefly, killed the burglars. Self preservation."

"Told you she did it," Owen said quietly to Gwen.

"The point is, by the time they attack, they know every single thing about the planet. Tosh."

Tosh stood. "The implant gathers information. Normal X-rays don't show it. She's projecting a false image. It's got all this data stored inside it."

Everyone stared at the images on the screen, shocked. Ianto's mouth hung open.

Tosh continued. "This is a force-field generator—it creates an impervious layer above the
skin, just a nanometre thick. That's why you couldn't get the needle inside her."

Owen rolled his head. "Right, well… God, look, they even know about us."

Sure enough, up on the screen were profiles of the Torchwood team.

"They know more about this place than I do." Ianto angrily hit the table. "Nobody knows more than I do."

"You wanna bet?" Buffy asked him with a smirk. He just glared at her. She then addressed everyone else. "Okay, how many are there? Do we have a plan?"

"For a start," he answered, "I think we should tell her."

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Once again Jack and Gwen spoke with Beth. When they came back the discussion of what to do about her started. Tosh suggested freezing her and everyone agreed… albeit somewhat reluctantly. Everyone except Buffy, but she didn't say anything. She felt like an outsider and see wasn't sure if she wanted in. She was so used to killing and asking questions later—not poking it for information and keeping it locked up. She was regretting leaving UNIT now. Her team had been sent out to search and destroy, or search and persuade to leave peacefully. There had been a small lockup area and a few interrogation rooms, but nothing like here at Torchwood.

And yet, Jack had travelled with the Doctor, and the rest of the team seemed like good people.

So Buffy watched in silence while they froze Beth and put her away in storage. For the one full alien among them, she seemed the most human. Buffy was glad that Jack promised just to kill Beth if nothing could be done for her, to prevent her from hurting anyone. Death was better than eternal sleep.

After they took care of the frozen woman, everything was quiet and back to normal, as if Beth hadn't even been there. But then the lights went out and the alarms went off.

"Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on?" Jack demanded.

"Oh, shit!" Gwen exclaimed.

"What happened?" Jack asked her.

"Beth's gone."

"I thought she was frozen!"

"She was!" Owen shouted. "All her vitals were at zero."

"Checking systems, command history," Tosh said as she typed.

Jack walked over to her. "What did she do? Iii-is it a virus, a lockdown?"

"No, she just turned off the lights."

"What is it with her and light bulbs?" Jack growled. The lights then started turning back on.

"She went through the tunnels," Tosh said.

"Time to change the locks again," Ianto frowned.

"No, no. She knew everything about this place. It was all in her arm. The tunnels, layout, security codes. She could've shut us down, blown us up—anything!

"But she didn't," Gwen said.

"She wouldn't," Buffy added. "Remember her last words to you, Jack?"

"No, I swear, she was frozen," Owen said.

"Tosh, you switched off the transceiver?" Jack asked.

"Yes".

"Are you sure?"

"Well, I was until you asked. Unless it was another false image."

Owen looked like he was getting an idea. "Hang on, hang on, hang on. Everything about her was a lie. All of her vital signs were a false image. She can fool the equipment. She can tell it what we're expecting to see. So, you know, she gets scared and it projects an increased heart rate. We try and freeze it and it does the opposite."

Tosh was catching on too. "Simulating that much information would need a huge amount of energy. No wonder she had a big electromagnetic field."

"Well, that's why the lights blew every time she got upset."

"So they blew up because she was using a lot of energy to fake an increased heart rate? To look like a scared human instead of a calm alien?" Buffy asked to clarify Owen's theory. He nodded.

"So, what's she doing?" Tosh asked. "Did we activate her?"

"No," Buffy said, thinking she had a good idea of what happened. If someone just found out she wasn't what she thought, that she had to be locked up, she'd want to say goodbye and get that last bit of familiar comfort.

"She couldn't be activated," Jack said. "If she was, we'd all be dead. We took her off the network. She has some other agenda."

"She wants to see her husband," Buffy said like a true Southern Californian blonde stating the obvious. The "duh" was evident enough in her tone. Cordelia would have been proud.

Everyone looked at her and then to Jack for orders.

"Gwen, with me. The rest of you stay here and let me know if you see anything happening."

"Shouldn't I go with you?" Buffy asked. She was recruited to be the muscle, and it might be needed to convince Beth to come back.

"You aren't armed yet," Jack said. "You stay here."

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Buffy was sitting and playing with a yo-yo while they waited. Tosh had her comm on so that everyone could hear when Jack called.

"Tosh?" Jack's voice came through. "We got her. It's all over. We're on our way."

Then they heard an explosion and the whole Hub shook.

"What's going on?" Tosh asked as she looked at her monitors.

"What the hell was that?" Jack's voice asked.

"Petrol tanker," Tosh answered. Owen was coming up to join them. "Looks like someone wanted to take out the M4 link road for some rea… No! It's not the road. There's an underground fuel pipeline. It's a special fuel supply for the military. They use it in emergencies."

"Not anymore," Owen said. "Hold on. I've got a report coming through. Uh… Patrick Grainger's been murdered."

"Who?" Buffy asked.

"Leader of the council, stabbed several times in the chest, and once in the forehead. Sound familiar?"

"Nope, not a bit," Buffy muttered sarcastically.

"Why would anyone want to kill him?" Gwen's voice asked.

Ianto spoke up from his screens just below. "He's also the city co-ordinator. Takes charge of the city in case of major emergencies. Has all the security protocols."

"Well, how do you know that?" Owen asked.

"I know everything," Ianto said and pointed. "And it says so on the bottom of the screen."

Jack's voice came through the comm again. "Tosh, Owen, it's starting. It's happening right now!"

The four of them all started going through the incoming reports and telling Jack, but then a painful feedback sound echoed over the comm.

"Ow!" Buffy said. "That wasn't good."

"No," Tosh agreed. "They just took down the entire telephone network."

"That's really not good," Buffy said.

"Can't you just hook something up?" Owen was trying to dial on his cell phone.

"No, I can't just hook something up!" Tosh said. "The entire telephone network is down!"

"What about mobile connection?" Owen asked.

Tosh repeated it slowly. "The entire telephone network is down!"

Ianto joined them while talking. "Mobiles, landlines, tin cans with bits of string. Everything. Absolutely everything. No phones, phones all broken. Hello? Anyone there? No, 'cause the phones aren't working."

Buffy couldn't help the small laugh at Ianto holding up his hand like a phone and explaining it to Owen. It seemed Ianto could be funny when he wasn't trying to poison her. But she could be funny in a crisis too.

"I think they're saying we can't call Jack, Owen," Buffy said, continuing the sarcasm at his expense.

"What about we try…"

Tosh interrupted him angrily. "There is no way of getting in touch with Jack! No way!"

Then there was that mechanical feedback noise and Jack's voice through a radio. "Tosh, Owen, can you hear me?"

"Jack!" Tosh shouted as she ran to the radio and picked up the handheld speaker. "Thank God. What happened?"

"There's a cell, it's active. Four including Beth—two are dead. We're tracking the last guy now. If we can get to him before he does anything, we can stop this."

"What can I do?" Tosh asked.

"He's heading for an abandoned farm just outside the city. I need to know what's out there."

The guys looked at the map while the girls read the information on Tosh's screen.

"Where the hell's he going?" Owen asked. "There's nothing there."

"Nothing on the surface," Buffy answered.

Ianto had run to get something and was talking while he walked back down to them. "This is as far back as they go. There used to be a coal mine in the cliff. The Army sealed it off in the '40s… doesn't say why."

Tosh adjusted her glasses. "Let me see if I can get into the military files. Come on, guys, that wasn't even difficult. You disappoint me."

"It's almost obscene what you do to security systems," Ianto muttered.

"Oh, God," Tosh said.

"What is it?" Jack asked from the radio.

"The mineshaft. The military are using it for storage. Nuclear warheads. Ten of them. Nobody's supposed to know, not even us."

"That's how it starts," they heard Gwen say.

"No heavy weapons," Jack said.

"Exactly! They don't need any! They use our own against us."

"We left the key under the doormat. All you need is to walk in and take over."

"Please tell me you can stop this," Tosh said to them.

"Going as fast as we can," Jack answered with a false calm. "If we don't, we won't feel a thing. We're all at the centre of the blast radius."

"That's comforting," Tosh said.

"Like a bed of nails," Buffy muttered.

Jack's voice came over the radio cheerfully. "Come on! Have a little faith! With a dashing hero like me on the case, how can we fail?"

Ianto nodded. "He is dashing; you have to give him that."

Owen broke the radio connection. "And what if they can't stop it?"

"They'll stop it." Tosh didn't sound completely confident.

"Yeah, but if they can't?" Owen persisted.

"Then it's all over," Ianto stated.

Owen gave a slight sigh. "Let's all have sex."

The other three stared at him blankly.

"And I thought the end of the world couldn't get any worse."

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Buffy was playing with her yo-yo again, this time in the lab. Beth came in and just looked at the odd beakers and tubes off to one side. Then she looked at Buffy.

"I don't know how you can be so calm like that. Everyone almost died because of me. I could have been the one to destroy the world."

"Nah," Buffy said. "On the great apocalypse scale, I'd say that was only a three. It's when you get over seven that I'd start worrying."

"You're American, but you're not like him. You're not a soldier."

"No, I'm a warrior."

"What's the difference?" Beth asked.

"I don't do orders well?" Buffy gave an ironic laugh. "No. And yes. It's about duty, but not to commands and orders. It's a duty to keep fighting for what's right, for all the little everyday parts of life, for humanity."

"But I'm not human."

"No, you're the most human of all of us… and a warrior. They've put you through hell, and you've fought for your humanity and held on to it."

"But I can feel it slipping." Buffy could hear the fear. But before she could answer, Gwen walked in.

"We're set with the cryogenics when you're ready."

"Will it work this time?" Beth asked.

Buffy left to let Gwen comfort Beth. Gwen had been closer to Beth, and she was the best one to help Beth get ready. But Buffy felt that being frozen was a bit like running away from the problem. Then again, Buffy's natural slayer instinct was always going to be to fight. In this case there wasn't much else Torchwood could do.

Just as Buffy was down in the Hub and looking at the autopsy bay, there were shouts from back up in the lab.

"I won't let you freeze me!" Beth shouted while holding her arm-blade to Gwen's neck. "I'll kill you all!"

"Let her go!" The whole team came running with their guns out. Jack, shirt still open, pushed Buffy behind him while they all pointed their guns up at Beth.

"No!" Gwen shouted. "No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, don't shoot! It's a trick. She won't hurt me. She won't hurt me."

"Move away from her now!" Tosh shouted.

"Everybody, calm down!" Jack shouted and then spoke softer. "Beth… you don't want to do this. Let Gwen go."

"I'll kill her first, then all of you, then the rest of your miserable species!"

Buffy could hear the hesitation in her voice. "Jack…"

"Beth, please!" Gwen kept pleading with her. Like Buffy, she knew what was happening. "They will kill you. You have proved to be better than that; you helped us to stop the invasion. You can be human. Please! Beth!"

"Jack, if I could just…" He kept one arm in front of Buffy while the other still pointed the gun.

"Not human enough."

"Beth…"

"Goodbye, Gwen. Good luck." The last words were no more than a whisper, but Buffy heard them clearly.

"Jack, just let me…"

Beth pulled back and raised her blade. Gwen fell out of the way while the bullets fired and shot Beth down. Owen and Jack each raced up the opposing staircases and kept their guns on Beth's body.

"She wanted you to shoot her!" Gwen shouted. "She used her last shred of humanity to do this."

"We couldn't take that chance," Owen told her. "She must have known that."

"She did," Jack said. "She just wanted to make it easier for us."

Buffy understood Gwen's pain and anger, but she didn't share it. Beth had chosen this, chosen how to end it. And in Buffy's eyes, even though she didn't like it and would have changed things, Beth had won her war with the alien.

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Everyone was slowly heading home. Gwen left Jack's office and shouted a goodbye to everyone. Owen hurried out not long after. Buffy walked into Jack's office and watched him looking at the blade that had broken from Beth's arm.

"See, you need me carrying a sword, not a gun," she said.

"And here I thought you would have seen that you need a gun. Why do we keep having this conversation?"

"I don't do orders well, and I definitely don't do guns."

"Buffy, with this job, you have to take orders. What happened today… it's your first official day on the job, so I'll over look it. But I can't have you defying me all the time."

"Do I want this job anymore after today? Owen said I'm not human. Are you going to hook me up to that probe if I don't tell you what I am?"

"No," Jack answered. "I would never…"

"But you did it to her. You did it to her." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Jack, but from what I've seen today, I don't know."

"What would you have us do?" he asked becoming defensive and angry.

"Act like decent human beings! Mind probes, locking up Weevils indefinitely, probably doing who knows what sort of experiments—doesn't that register as wrong?"

"We don't experiment on the Weevils; we just observe."

"You say that now, but how long until that changes?"

"We do what we have to do. You need to learn that some things have to be done for the greater good. If killing Beth is a problem with you…"

"It's not the killing. I look at the Weevils and think that if they're a danger to humans, you kill them. If a dog is rabid, you kill it instead of just locking it up. What happens if all the Weevils you've got go all Cujo on you?"

He didn't answer.

"You don't know anything about me. You say you know what a Slayer is, but do you? What do you know? That there was one in every generation to stand alone against the vampires? That's how I've been… the one and only called to make the scary things in the night run in fear. And I didn't have a choice! There were so many times I wanted to be normal: normal hanging with friends, having a normal boyfriend. Instead some mystical energy turns me into a killer, the ultimate hunter. Death is my gift. Everyone around me dies or leaves. I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, since you chose this line of work that you'd understand… that I could have a family again." She stopped and wiped the tears that had fallen.

"I'll stay for now, but if there isn't another side to Torchwood…" She let the threat hang unsaid and left.

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And yes, the Eknodines are from the weird dream in a Dr11 episode, but there is nothing to suggest that they aren't real just because they were part of a mass hallucination.