Title: Tears of the Weevil

Rating: PG

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

A/N: Huge apologies for the wait. To cut a long story short technology hates me, and my 80Gb hard drive is nothing more than an attractive paperweight. I lost pretty much every piece of fic/writing that wasn't posted, which was a few chapters of TotW so had to rewrite them along with a few other things I'm working on.

"But sir, there are British citizens in- Yes sir, no sir. Understood." Emmerich hung up the phone and sighed, causing Gwen to fidget nervously as she stood in front of her desk.
"Everything alright?"

The woman shook her head, causing strands of hair to fall loose from her ponytail. "Let's just say you chose a good time to switch sides." She looked troubled by what her superior had told her over the phone but Gwen could not press for details for fear of spooking her. Catching Gwen's wary gaze she smiled and pulled out a CD-Rom. "Time to start earning your keep. There are over five hundred names on this list. I need you to check if they've been admitted to hospital or arrested in the last two weeks."

"Weevil or human?" The questioned slipped out as though she were back at Torchwood questioning Jack when he asked her to check someone out on various national databases.

"Human." Emmerich scowled, obviously not used to being questioned by a subordinate. "Pretty soon weevils will be a thing of the past. We've already returned over fifty percent of the weevil population to their former selves. This is just a routine check up to make sure they're fitting in. Here at the British Alien defense squad we care Gwen." She smiled as the well rehearsed line left her lips and ushered her out of her office and in to a smaller office across the hall where three other workers sat at computer terminals running the same checks.

"Took your time." Owen smirked as Lacey finally got in to the SUV and slung her book bag in to the back. She winced as she hit the computer screen that was attached to the chair Toshiko had always sat in. "It'll get easier kiddo."

"Really?" She quizzed, not able to imagine a day when the loss of Toshiko would not still be fresh on her mind. "Or are you just saying that to make me feel better?"

"That's what dad's are for." He draped an arm around her in a crush in hug until she pushed him away, embarrassed at hugging him while her classmates from university were walking past the car; even though to them an older attractive man was simply hugging her. "I'm not going to lie. You're not going to suddenly wake up one morning and everything's going to be hunky-dory, but it will get a little easier eventually. I prom-" His sentence was cut short by an ear splitting explosion nearby.

They simultaneously looked up to see part of the university in flames. Lacey tried to get out of the car but Owen pulled her back and pointed across the street where a man in a parked car sat with a camera trained on them. "I think it's time we left."

By the end of Lunch every newspaper and television network were covering the 'terrorist' attack on the university. As Gwen sat at her desk finishing off her lunch she noticed a 'breaking news' alert on the Internet homepage her computer was on. Clicking the link she looked in horror, as a picture of Lacey appeared on the screen with the accompanying article 'Med Student kills eight'. She scanned the page curiously. It claimed Lacey had left an explosive device in the office of the head of the medical department; a man who'd worked with the government developing the so-called cure for weevilism.

She knew arguing Torchwood would never kill a man because of who he worked for would be naïve, but they would never risk the lives of innocent students to get to him. She suddenly knew what Emmerich had been uneasy about earlier. She knew the explosion was going to happen. It was a way to make Torchwood seem like the enemy in the eyes of the public. A respected doctor and five innocent students were dead, and Torchwood was getting the blame.

She wanted to phone Lacey to check she was safe with Jack and Owen but she knew that it could easily be a rouse to get her to break her cover. She kept her mobile in her pocket and continued working, praying her shift would end quickly. After resuming her work she began to notice a pattern emerging in her searches of the previous weevils. Out of the four hundred she'd already processed three in five of them had died in hospital and a further one in five in police custody after being arrested for a violent crime.

Emmerich glanced up from her paperwork as Gwen stormed in to her office. "They're dying aren't they? The people who were turned back in to humans. Only ten percent of them are living and most of them are violent!"

"Actually it's more like twenty percent that are living and yes some of them are having trouble returning to society, being turned in to vicious animals can have a bad effect on the psyche."

"Then you have to stop changing them!" Gwen demanded angrily.

Emmerich shook her head. "Two living humans are worth more than eight dead weevils Gwen."

"People will realize what's going on!"

"No, they won't. After all cause of death has been listed as murder. The powerful shady organization known as Torchwood will be blamed. By this Friday the British Alien defense squad will have rounded up every last weevil and forced them to be turned. The weevil threat will be erased. And we'll have won." She stressed her choice of words as though reminding Gwen where her loyalties now lay.