They keep killing them and yet Torchwood lives!
Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't kill them, obviously. Because (as Buffy would say) it's wrong. Sob!
.4. Angels and Weevils
A black SUV turned on a long driveway and came to a sudden halt, shingle crunching under its massive tyres. Rain drops on its windscreen sparkled in rays of setting sun, breaking through a rift between a hilltop and a ridge of storm clouds. A creature, standing a few steps away from the vehicle's bonnet, tilted its head, as if listening to something. Its dark, sunken eyes stared at the SUV with ghastly pungency. Its lips moved slightly upwards, baring fangs of a predator.
"Come to daddy, love," Jack said quietly, letting go of the steering wheel and reaching for the anti-weevil spray.
Gwen shrugged, wrenched her eyes away from the creature and glanced at Harkness with deepest dismay. "Disgusting."
"No more than the others," Jack snorted.
"Not the Weevil. What you've just said. That was disgusting. Where did it come from? Come to daddy?"
Jack bridled up. "Are we going to discuss my punch-lines now?"
"Punch-lines?" Gwen moaned.
"Jests. Witty remarks. Caustic comments."
Ianto leaned forward from the back seat of the SUV. "They're my job, anyway," he noted. "It went left."
"What?"
"The Weevil. Left. In between a witty remark and a caustic comment."
Gwen rolled her eyes.
"Do we know what's there?" Jack asked, pretending to be calm.
"Mickey coordinates," Ianto answered. "So – no."
"When did he lose us?"
"About fifteen minutes ago, when we turned right at the lights."
"Can somebody remind me why do we keep him?"
There was a momentary silence.
"Riiiight," Gwen said finally. "Are we going?"
"You're staying in the car."
"You're not going to tell me where to go and where to stay, Jack!"
"So maybe I'll call Rhys and get his opinion?"
"Rhys won't be telling me what to do either!"
"Considering the fact that he's a father to your unborn child, he should have his say, don't you think?"
"Do I, as a mother to my unborn child, have my say about anything at all?"
"No."
"No, is it?"
"Do we still want to catch that Weevil?" Ianto asked.
"Yes!" Gwen and Jack yelled at him, swivelling in their seats.
The woman shook back her mane of thick, dark hair, opened the door and lightly jumped down onto the gravel.
"Gwen!" There was a warning in Jack's voice.
She unzipped her short jacket and reached to a holster underneath.
"Gwen!" Jack repeated, the warning in his voice even more urgent. "I'm not joking!"
"That's the problem," she said, producing a gun.
"Real problems start when he tries to joke," Ianto corrected, getting out of the SUV as well.
"Et tu, Brute?" Jack could only follow them, the anti-weevil spray in one hand and the revolver in the other. "I remember how it used to be," he growled. "Nobody questioned me; you'd go, where I wanted you to go. And now everybody wants to be a boss. I have to deal with a police-woman, constantly pissed off because of her morning sickness; a hysterical daddy-to-be; a bloody loudmouth in a suit; a doctor too cute to be yelled at; and a council estate boy. I'm starting to feel out of place."
"I've got a bottle of excellent whiskey stashed in the office," said Ianto, without looking back at him.
"Tonight." Jack responded instantly.
"It's a date, then," Ianto confirmed.
Gwen rolled her eyes again, a little smile in the corners of her mouth. Gravel crunched under her trainers as she ran left, through a narrow clearing in between two rows of wild bushes. She shoved tangled twigs aside and found herself in a real junkyard, which, in some distant past, must have been a large garden. Beyond a line of trees, bushes, cars' skeletons and dead bodies of fridges, chairs and sofas, there was a ruined house. It was spreading its wings against gloomy sky, threatening with darkness living in its broken windows. Gwen didn't even falter. She hasn't been afraid of such places for quite a while now. Working for Torchwood meant that sooner or later you landed in that kind of a desolate, weird house. Hearing a monster breathe behind you.
Jack pushed his way through the tangle, wrenching his coat from the grip of huckleberry bushes. He gave Gwen an irritated look, but didn't say a word. He just moved the barrel of his revolver: Go right, I'll take the left wing. Ianto took the middle; a brand new and never-used-before matt-black Glock in his hand. They started approaching the house quickly but stealthily, finding cover behind all the rubbish scattered around.
"Jack!" Gwen halted suddenly, moving her index finger to the gun's safety catch. "Have you seen that?"
"I've seen that," Ianto gasped. "Damn, Jack, this building is moving!"
"There," Gwen's eyes kept jerking from one bleak window to another. "And there. And there. How many of them are in there? Jack?"
"Too many," he answered; his voice flat with tension.
"Just once I've seen so many Weevils in one spot," Ianto mumbled. "Just once. When..."
"Yeah, we can remember, thanks, Ianto," Gwen hissed.
Jack inhaled sharply through his clenched teeth.
"What do we do?" Ianto asked.
"I'll take three hundred on the right and you'll take seven hundred and fifty on the left." Gwen growled.
"Funny how quickly you've counted them," Ianto countered immediately.
Jack turned to them, fury on his face. They stepped back instinctively. They haven't seen him so angry for quite a long time now.
"It's not funny," he said quietly. "It's really not funny."
"No. Well, no, it isn't. No, you're right, it's not," Gwen and Ianto murmured sheepishly. It was Jack Harkness after all, their undying boss, the man, they knew so little about. And he could be scary.
"The SUV," Jack said. "Now."
They pushed their way through the thicket back to the gravelled driveway. Trying to be as quiet as possible. Next to the SUV Gwen wiped the sweat off her brow and leaned against the vehicle's bonnet, not quite certain if her legs would bear her.
"What now?"
"Now we need an army." Jack pushed his revolver into a leather holster. "Put me through to the UNIT."
Ianto was already in the car, his fingers flitting over the laptop's keyboard.
"What are they doing there?" Gwen whispered. "What d'ya think? Are they up to something?"
"Or guarding something," Harkness snapped. "Or they just squat there. Or they're planning an invasion. How, the hell, shall I know?"
"Jack!" Ianto leaned out of the SUV, two fingers on a miniature earphone inside his ear. "Jack!"
Harkness waved his hand at him, trying to quiet him down, but as he looked at Ianto's face, his anger subsided immediately, giving way to fear.
"Jack, it's the Hub!" Ianto shouted. "I can only hear... Somebody's screaming... Jack!"
Gwen wrenched the car's door open and pulled her own screen, connecting to the Torchwood's base. Jack jumped behind the wheel.
"What's going on there?"
"Somebody's shooting," Gwen stuttered. "No... They're explosions... Oh, my God, Jack... I can't get through to them!"
"Martha? Mickey?" Jack was pressing his own earphone into his ear, trying to make something out in the cacophony coming from the Hub. "What's going on? Martha? Martha Jones, what's your status? Martha? Martha?!"
"Just drive!" Gwen jumped into the passenger's seat. Her face was ghastly pale under the tangle of her dark hair.
Harkness grabbed the steering wheel and the gear lever. The SUV's engine roared. Fountains of gravel shot in front of its bonnet, as tyres spun in reverse gear. The back of the vehicle crashed into a high embankment, wheels turned, the engine roared again, and the SUV shot forward like a black predator beast. Gwen felt the acceleration pressing her into her seat. At the back of the vehicle Ianto was struggling with his safety belt.
The computer on Gwen's lap coughed up and for a second a picture broke through the white noise on its screen. The woman uttered a loud scream and covered her mouth with her hand. She looked at Jack with a corner of her eye.
"What?!" he yelled.
"Mickey..." she whispered. "Oh, Jack, it's Mickey..."
"What?!" he repeated, his fingers closed so tightly on the steering wheel, his knuckles turned white. "What've you seen?! What?!"
"He..." Gwen couldn't utter her worst fears. What she saw, just for a split second, could well have been just a figment of her imagination, just a fear inducted illusion. "Mickey..."
"For fuck's sake, Gwen, say it, what's wrong with Mickey?!" Jack dropped all manners.
"Something killed him," Gwen whispered, her lips trembling.
"Something killed..." Ianto, at the back of the SUV, tried to jump up, but he slumped back in his seat, held back by the inerta-reel safety belt.
"I don't know, I don't know!" shouted Gwen, now crying openly. She hit her hand against the useless screen, and then she started pummelling it with both her fists, as if crushing it could help. The SUV was speeding along narrow, suburban streets, striking out sparks on speed bumps. It made a sharp turn, taking along a yellow, plastic pylon separating the lanes.
"I don't know what it was, I don't know, I couldn't see, I don't know!"
"Gwen," Jack said, trying to remain calm. "Gwen... Gwen!"
She let the hair fall across her face, hiding her tears and her fear. When she brushed it away with her hand, in an angry gesture, her face resembled a mask. She looked at Jack with huge, wild eyes of a hounded animal.
"Gwen?" he repeated.
"It was dark," she said. "There were sparks. An electric arch. There... there was something... An alien creature... It looked as if it was drawing energy straight from the Rift Manipulator. And then it turned it towards Mickey... It burnt him... Oh, my God... It burnt Mickey..."
The SUV jumped red lights, cut across the sidewalk, scattering people getting out of a pub. The vehicle's wheels fell from the curb with a thud, as it returned on the road, its back swinging in a controlled skid.
"Ianto...?" said Jack from behind the wheel.
"If you keep up the pace we'll be there in half an hour," Ianto answered.
Harkness stepped heavily on the gas pedal.
"The creature?" he asked dryly, pretending to be concentrated solely on driving. "How did it look like, Gwen?"
Gwen put both hands against the dashboard. She was looking straight ahead, with a scowl, and with growing determination.
"Gwen?" Jack repeated.
She opened her mouth, hesitated and then spoke quietly:
"Like an angel."
To be continued...
