A/N. Thank you for all your reviews. :) There is a little fluffiness at the start of this chapter to make up for the lack of it in the last one. Enjoy.

Chapter 39.

After only a few hours of sleep, the team were back in the Hub. Jamie was autopsying the dead weevil, Gwen and Molly were looking for any evidence of last nights events on the camera footage they had got from the park authorities. Ianto was in the archives researching weevil behaviour to see if there was anything he hadn't come across before, even though he highly doubted that. Mid afternoon he was rooting through one of the many file cabinets, when he became aware that he was no longer alone.

'I know you're there Jack.' he said smiling as he turned around to see Jack leaning on the doorway into the room he was in.

'I was just admiring the view.' answered Jack as he walked over to Ianto.

'Yeah, I bet. Is there something I can help you with?'

'There is actually. I was just thinking that we missed a very important tradition last night.'

Ianto looked at him quizzically, 'What was that?'

'A kiss at midnight to celebrate the New Year.'

'Shame we missed out on that.'

'We could make up for it.'

'I didn't think you were big on 21st century traditions.' Ianto bantered back.

'I like some of them.' said Jack, closing the gap between himself and Ianto. He pressed his lips against Ianto's in a soft kiss, which Ianto immediately deepened. After a while Jack moved away from Ianto's lips and started to kiss along his jaw line and down his neck.

'Jack, now is really not the time or the place.' Ianto managed to say, even though he moved his head back giving Jack better access to his neck. 'The others are still here, they might find us.'

'Wouldn't be the first time.' said Jack, his breath warm against Ianto's skin.

They were interrupted though when Gwen's voice sounded over their comms. 'Jack, where are you?'

Jack moved away from Ianto slightly and sighed. 'What is it Gwen?' he asked, ignoring her actual question. By doing this though, Gwen realised exactly where he was.

'You're in the Archives with Ianto aren't you? I'm glad I didn't decide to come down and find you. Anyway, we have some information on the weevil attacks.'

'Ok, boardroom, ten minutes.' said Jack, before switching his comms off. Turning to Ianto he said, 'We will continue this later.'

'I'll hold you to that.' said Ianto, 'I'd better go and make some drinks.' He turned and started walking out of the archives, Jack not that far behind him.

X

Ten minutes later and they were all gathered around the table in the boardroom, drinks in front of them.

'So,' started Jack. 'What have you got?'

'Well, Molly and I went through all the footage we could find, but there's nothing useful. The cameras don't show us where they came from exactly, they are only caught on camera by the woods. Thankfully though you can't make them out properly, so anyone who might have seen the footage will just think it was a group of violent people.' Gwen took a sip of her coffee before she continued. 'We managed to get a hold of the dock footage too, but that was useless, the cameras were at completely the wrong angle and didn't see anything.'

'Ok, I'm not sure how this is helpful.' said Jack.

'It's not really, Jamie had the interesting stuff,' replied Gwen.

Jack turned to Jamie, 'So the autopsy on that weevil gave you something.'

'You could say that,' answered Jamie. 'It is definitely a weevil, but it's not quite the same as the ones we usually come across.' Jamie looked around the room to see confused faces, so he continued. 'There are subtle differences in its genetic makeup. It's only something you notice with close study. There are slight differences in it's DNA, making it stronger, faster and more resistant to the weevil spray that we use.'

'I'm sorry, but I'm confused,' said Molly. 'How can it's DNA be different?'

'It's either mutated, or someone or something has been experimenting on them to change it.'

'Why?' asked Gwen.

'You're guess is as good as mine on that, but you said that last night they retreated as though they were called away. Maybe someone is using them to do their dirty work. It would be impossible to train a weevil though, without doing something to it first.'

'It's not that virus again, is it?' asked Ianto.

'No, it's not, that was the first thing I checked. I need to tranquilise the weevil we brought back alive to see if that gives us anything. The one that was shot didn't leave when the others did, and there has to be a reason for that.'

'This is getting weirder by the minute,' said Molly quietly.

'It wouldn't be Torchwood if it didn't,' replied Ianto.

'Right, so let me get this straight, something out there is doing something to the weevils, so that they can use it for their own purpose. A purpose we know nothing about, which basically means we are not much better off than we were this morning.' stated Jack.

'Pretty much. Again this is only a guess, but I would think that whatever is doing this has a really good knowledge of weevils and science.'

The ringing of a mobile phone interrupted everyone's thoughts. Molly pulled her phone out of her trouser pocket guiltily. 'Sorry, thought it was on silent.' She stood up and pressed answer moving away from the table so the others could continue talking. 'Hi, yes it is…Well, I'm in a meeting at the moment can I call you back later, or first thing tomorrow morning…uh hu…Ok look I have to talk to Jamie before I can make that decision…Just hold it for now and I'll confirm with you as soon as possible… Thank you, goodbye.' Molly hung up and turned around to find that even though she had been talking quietly the others were looking at her. Gwen looked particularly interested as Molly sat back down.

'Was that about the discussion we were having last night?' asked Jamie.

'Yeah, I need to talk to you later.' answered Molly.

'Oh come on, that was wedding related wasn't it?' asked Gwen, her eyes shining with interest. 'You've set a date haven't you? You can't leave us in suspense.'

'Gwen, I'm not trying to be purposefully secretive, but I need to know certain things are going to pan out before I start sharing them.'

'I don't know how you do can keep it all in, I couldn't.'

'We noticed' Jack muttered under his breath, making Ianto chuckle, but Gwen didn't notice.

'To be honest, I wanted to just elope. Take a day off, go get married and not worry about the stress of planning everything.' said Molly.

This statement seemed to horrify Gwen. 'What!' she said loudly. 'You would have seriously just gone off and done it on your own, no one else around.'

'I thought it was romantic.' said Jamie, coming to Molly's rescue. 'But we realised that it might upset some people, so we are just going to do something small.'

'I'm not sure I could have done that.' said Gwen. 'Then again if Rhys and I had done that, it probably would have been less stressful than the day we had. The shape shifting alien was bad enough, but the squabbling between our families was just as bad.'

'Lucky that's one thing I don't have to worry about then isn't it.' said Molly quietly. 'I'm hungry, I'll go and pick up some food,' she said standing up out of her seat suddenly.

'You don't have to do that,' said Ianto. 'I was planning on going soon.'

'No it's fine, I need the air anyway,' and she turned and walked out of the boardroom without a backwards glance.

'That was strange.' said Gwen as she watched Molly's retreating back.

'Not really,' said Jamie, 'think about what you just said.'

Gwen looked up at him and realisation hit her. She had been going on about families fighting and of course Molly wouldn't have to worry about that, she had no family. 'I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. I didn't mean to upset her. I should go and talk to her.'

'It's ok, she'll be fine. It's just she makes out it's no big deal, but I can tell it hurts more than she'll ever say her family aren't here.' said Jamie.

'How about we get back to doing some work before Molly returns with the food.' said Jack trying to steer the conversation back on course, 'I mean we do have something important to try and resolve.'

X

Molly left the Hub and took the lift up to the exit that led to the tourist office. She walked out of the office door and started along the path, looking out over the Bay as she went. It was getting dark and there didn't seem to be anyone about. Molly wrapped her arms around herself as it was now that she realised that she had left in such a hurry, she hadn't picked up her jacket, which she regretted considering how cold the wind was. She hadn't meant to leave in a hurry, she wasn't really mad at Gwen for what she said, it was just occasionally it hit her that neither of her parents would see her getting married and that saddened her, she would even take family squabbles it if meant they would be there. As Molly made her way along the path, something up ahead caught her eye and she stopped. In the shadows a little way in front she saw something moving, it briefly turned in her direction and she caught a flash of yellow eyes. Molly put her hand over her gun and edged forward a little, it's probably just a cat, she thought to herself. As she relaxed her hand away from her gun, there was another movement up ahead and she saw coming towards her, two weevils. Molly turned and found that there was also one behind her. She very carefully took her gun out of her pocket, and with her other hand she pressed her comm and said, 'Guys, I think I have a problem.'