Author's Note: I haven't forgotten about you guys! We've had a death in the family, so it's been a rough couple of weeks this end. The funeral was this week so I'm now slowly getting my mind set back onto other things. On the bright side - have a new chapter! No scene breaks in this one so I don't have to deal with 's obsurd desire to delete anything indicating those. Hope you're all well :) Love, Kal

A Chance in a Million

Chapter Twelve

"To Haydn Williams!" said Andy, lifting his glass.

"To Haydn," came the chorused answer, three more glasses striking his in a timely celebration. Everyone took a sip of their drinks before replacing the glasses on the wooden table top, which was irritatingly devoid of beer mats, meaning every time someone placed their hands on the surface, they came away sticky and wet.

After Ianto had returned to the Torchwood office, leaving an exuberant Rhys and exhausted Gwen at the hospital, he had found Andy and Jamie sitting on the edge of Gwen's desk, jerking away from each other guiltily. He pretended not to notice that the back of Jamie's shirt had been hitched up or the mess of Andy's hair from exploring hands, effectively ignoring what he had almost walked in on and storing it for future use. He proceeded to tell them as much as he knew about Haydn which, with his uncanny knack of remembering several tons of useless facts, was quite a bit. Jamie pestered him for information whilst Andy sat back, using his hands to prop his body up, and listened to Ianto's replies with a happy smile on his face. He asked how Gwen was and when Ianto told him she had fallen asleep as he was leaving Andy had decided to wait until the next day to visit his friend and newborn.

A quick discussion over whether they could leave the office early ended in a unique "yes" and they proceeded to a nearby pub to wet Haydn's head. Ianto snuck a Rift monitoring device into his pocket, just in case.

"I'm so excited for her and Rhys," Mel said, a grin almost splitting her face in two. "I want to get Haydn and Gwen a present but I don't really know her that well yet so I don't know what to get. What do you think she would like? Should I just the baby a present or should I get Gwen something as well?" she babbled until Jamie reached over and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Just get the baby a stuffed toy and Gwen some chocolate," Jamie said with a grin. "Okay?" when Mel nodded she removed her hand. "That was easily solved."

"I talk too much don't I?" Mel asked, a flush tainting her cheeks.

"Yes," winked Jamie, "but don't worry about it."

Mel sipped her lager and sat back in her seat, an amused and embarrassed smile on her face. They all laughed together. It was nice, being outside of work, relaxing and celebrating a friend's first child. It was like they all had normal jobs and didn't fight aliens or keep Cardiff safe from the debris which fell through the Rift in Time and Space. They were just colleagues, having a drink and chatting about normal things. They weren't discussing the latest alien tech they had to deal with or where exactly they were going to house the latest weevil capture. They were discussing how long Gwen should take off work and how long they should wait before going to visit her at home. Normal things.

"So I sliced up the flying dog," Mel said in a lull of conversation. She flinched when Jamie flicked a soggy piece of lemon at her, which she'd fished out of her gin and tonic. "What?"

"Do you really have to bring that up now?" Jamie teased, good naturedly. "We were discussing whether Gwen will give Haydn a middle name and what it'll be."

"That conversation had ended," Mel said, defensively, tossing the piece of fruit back towards her friend.

"Find anything interesting?" Andy asked, putting a stop to the inevitable food fight between the two feisty women.

Mel shrugged, "just your standard muscle and bone structure. Really it wasn't that much different from a normal dog in terms of general body structure, y'know, apart from the wings. Now they were interesting!" her eyes lit up as she continued to explain, unable to keep the eager tone from her voice. "They grew out of the top of the ribcage. The bone they were made out of was much denser than the rest of their skeletoral structure. My guess is that the wings take a lot of battering due to their size and it's their primary mode of transport. So they've grown to be very hard and very difficult to break or get damaged. The skin which covers the outside is like extremely thick leather. In fact it's over an inch thick, very hard to slice through without the right tool and it won't bleed until it's wound is more than an inch deep. They were very protective of their wings it seems."

"So the rest of the body was just... normal? Or as normal as you can get?" Ianto asked, curious in spite of his brain telling him that no matter how long he was with Torchwood, he still didn't really want to know the intricate ins and outs of an alien's guts.

"Yeah," Mel replied with a shrug, "I don't get it either. Maybe they used their wings as a sort of weapon as well? They so tough, they might be strong enough to kill someone with a good blow. Maybe they don't need a well armoured body."

"Interesting," Ianto commented, sipping his beer, unable to stop thinking about how heavy the body of the creature had felt when it landed on top of him. It was a good job it was shot when it was it seems.

"And this it the weird part," Mel continued.

"If this is the weird part, what on Earth was all that you just told us?" Jamie said, shaking her head. Six months with Torchwood and she was still slightly freaked out by all that they saw. Mel had seemed to just step right into the middle of it all and thrive. She wondered what went on inside that girl's mind sometimes.

"It had this tiny little button shaped object embedded in its neck," Mel continued, by passing Jamie's comment. "It was stuck in pretty deep but I managed to pull it out and when I stuck it under the microscope I could see a miniature flashing red light. Not much bigger than a full stop."

Ianto lowered his glass from his lips where he'd been about to take a sip and looked at Mel with renewed interest. Listening to the details of the dissections, whilst an odd combination of interesting and disgusting, were not that different from what he had heard before. But it was certainly new for a creature to come with its very own bit of alien tech. He studied Mel as she looked around the group, pausing in her story to let this interested bit of information sink in. She had settled in incredibly quickly which he found a touch odd but then again Jack trusted Martha Jones completely for reasons he had never explained. But Jack's trust was enough. So Ianto trusted her too. He wondered what Mel's story was, if there was a reason for her unshaken approach to all things Torchwood or if she was just incredibly open and easy going. He lifted his glass and took that sip.

"It's a transmitter." Mel said.

Ianto choked.

"What?" He gasped as Andy thumped his back a little too hard. Ianto gave him a weak smile as he coughed and shook his head when Andy raised his hand again.

"It's a transmitter," Mel repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Transmitting what?" Ianto managed to say without coughing up flecks of beer.

"Um..."

"What did you do with it?" Ianto pressed, pushing his glass to one side so he could lean on the table.

"Left it in the autopsy room. It's in a test tube with a top on it. Why?" Mel looked anxious and bit her lip.

Ianto took a breath and closed his eyes. He didn't want to shout at her. "How do you know it's a transmitter?" He asked calmly.

Mel's eyes shifted to Jamie for silent support before answering, "I ran a scanner over it. It's sending out radio waves."

"We need to get back to the Hu... I mean the Office," Ianto inwardly winced at what he almost said. He stood up.

"What's wrong?" Jamie asked, downing the rest of her drink before grabbing her coat.

"What if it's transmitting a signal that's being tracked?" Ianto said, darkly, leading the way out of the pub. "We could be drawing something directly to us."

Andy was the last the leave the pub. As he stepped out into the night air, he took a moment to look up at the sky and silently curse whoever lived in the heavens. Because they were doing a bang up job of fucking up every moment of happiness Torchwood experienced. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and followed his friends into the streets of Cardiff.