Chapter two
"OWEN! OWEN!" Jack yelled over the girls wailing, running for the med bay,"THIS GIRL NEEDS SEDATIVES!"
Owen looked up from his currant project in alarm. Seeing the state of the girl now pounding on Jack, he hurriedly pushed his project away and pulled out an extra table from seemingly nowhere. Within moments he had the sedatives syringe. Jack ran down the stairs and as gently as possible set the girl on the table.
The following minutes were a battle of flailing limbs and harsh screams of "GET AWAY!" and "We're not going to hurt you!" The needle eventually hit skin and the sedative was injected. It took a long minute for the girls failing to weaken and her eyes to slide shut in sleep. Both men fell away as the fight was ended. Owen now had a split lip and Jack could feel a bruise forming on his cheek. Both had had the wind knocked out of them.
"What in the hell was that?" Owen panted, bracing his arms against his knees. He glared sideways at Jack, who was resting against the wall.
"That was the girl that wouldn't leave the tourist office." Ianto answered from above them. Owen turned his glare towards their audience. Tosh scampered away with a worried look backward, and Gwen ignored everyone. She was worried about their impromptu guest.
Both men in the med bay gave long suffering sighs and straitened up. Jack looked over the girl's now calm form. The girl was a traveler. He could tell that by her clothing. Her hair may have once been cut in the stylish bob of her time frame, but there was hardly any telling now. There was something . . . off about her. He couldn't put his finger on what it was just yet. But there was definitely something off.
"From what I can tell she's not all human. Her heartbeat is too slow. One beat every two minutes." Owen informed them, tapping at his computer, "That's causing the temperature in her body to be so low. Besides that..." The medic trailed off, shrugging, "She's got all the normal human body parts. No extra limbs, organs or weird skin conditions besides pigment problems. Now would you all get out?"
During Owen's little speech, Gwen and Ianto had migrated down the stairs of the med bay. Ianto hovered close to where Jack was standing and Gwen was standing beside the table. She patted the girl's hair down gently and made a move to go. Ianto and Jack were already halfway up the stairs.
"Everyone to the conference room!" Jack called. Tosh jumped up, concern written all over her face, and Owen growled loudly from the med bay. Ianto walked close at his side.
"Do you think she's really human?" Ianto asked quietly. Jack shrugged.
"I can't tell beyond what information we have. There are tons of aliens with slow pulses, and there are plenty more with no pulses whatsoever. But generally they don't have the technology or brain power to turn themselves into humans." Jack whispered back, "And they definitely wouldn't have that accent if there are creatures who can shift. That's the kind of accent you have to grow up with."
Ianto looked at him skeptically, but nodded. The team spread out in the conference room, engrossed in their own thoughts. It was Gwen who broke the silence.
"What are we going to do?" She asked, looking expectantly at Jack. The immortal looked down at his shoes, arms crossed.
"I'm not sure. I can't tell if she fell out of her time, or if she fell from her planet." Jack shrugged, rubbing his face tiredly. He wondered in a detached part of his mind if he had an excuse to say 'I'm to old for this' yet.
"She acted like she had fallen out of her time. She went into that fit when she found that it was 2010." Gwen argued. Ianto nodded in agreement.
"I think that if we ask she would tell us. Beyond that fit, she wasn't hostile." Tosh suggested, still sending glances out towards the main hub.
"What are you looking back there for?" Owen demanded, looking irritated and not a little like he had been in a bar fight. A welt was beginning to form on the back of his head, and it was aching.
Tosh fiddled with the edge of her shirt and said, "I'm just worried. She's a little kid." Gwen patted her shoulder sympathetically.
"Where am I?" A scream roughened voice asked. All eyes snapped up to the doorway. The girl hovered at the thresh hold, looking scared and uncertain. Her small hands picked reflexively at her left arm, and her eyes flickered between all of the Torchwood team, "Who are you?"
Everybody looked expectantly at Jack, who answered, "This is Torchwood. My name is Captain Jack Harkness. This is my Team." He gestured to the rest of them.
The girl looked confused, "How did I get to Torchwood? Wasn't I in Whales before you sedated me?" She was ignoring Jack, and looking at Gwen. Gwen was the one who had introduced herself first. Gwen hadn't restrained her into a fake sleep.
"Torchwood is under Cardiff. We're underground." Gwen explained. The girl nodded, looking around, "What's your name?"
"I won't tell you mine if you don't tell me yours." The girl responded almost absently. Something had caught her eye and she was drifting away.
"My name is Toshiko. It's a pleasure to meet you, young lady." Tosh greeted quickly, not wanting to loose the girl's interest.
"My name is Ianto Jones. It's nice to meet you." Ianto followed.
"Owen." Was all the irritable doctor would say.
The pale girl now had her full attention on the team. "My name is Starling." She said sweetly, smiling with pearly but crooked teeth.