TW: Misuse of medication.

[Ok so here's the bit where I grovel and apologise. I know I said I'd put this up on Wednesday and it's now Friday but I've had a bad week to be honest. I have big exams to study for, I do this thing that my friends just accept when I don't talk for days and pretty much only write things down or use basic sign language to communicate (if I do at all) and my brain had to choose the week of the end of school where I have to do a lot of organising and settling of arguments.] Fun fact, I later discovered that this thing had a name and that name was depression. Wooo. On the plus side, I'm a lot happier now and no how to cope a lot better than I dead back then. Things do get better guys. [Then there's Christmas which my mother is all stressed about so I've been trying to help out and University replies which have got me stressed and to top it all of with a nice silver bow, I'm sick, again. Anyway, how have you been?]

Haven't slept in a week
My bed has become my coffin
Cannot breath, cannot speak
My head's like a bomb, still waiting.

The Rasmus- The One I Love

Sleeper

The TARDIS was almost silent. Winter opened her eyes and looked around at the coral shaped structure and sighed. Here she was again. She leant back against the console and furrowed her brow as her thoughts turned to her odd predicament. This was the fifth time she'd found herself standing in the main console room without moving from her real place back on earth. Or at least she guessed she wasn't moving, that's hopefully what this trip would show her.

'Right then,' she said. 'I guess I should find out what the hell I'm doing here this time.'

Suddenly the door flew open and she looked around to it. A red headed woman stood facing the outside world as she babbled.

'I don't need injections do I because my friend Vena went to Cambodia and Barr aim and she…' the woman trailed off. 'You're not saying much.'

'No, it's just.'

Winter grinned, that was the Doctor so this must be his new companion…well companion to be anyway. Jack had mentioned Martha was home now. He'd even considered hiring her but she'd talked him out of it. A new face randomly turning up was the last thing the team needed.

'It's a funny old life, in the TARDIS,' he sounded sad.

'You don't want me,' the woman replied.

'I'm not saying that,' he told her.

Winter approached the door and looked out at the Doctor, his hands full of luggage. She smiled.

'But you asked me,' the woman sounded really unhappy. If he didn't let her go Winter had a good mind to phone him up and give him an earful. 'Would you rather be on your own?'

'No. Actually no.' He put the luggage down. 'But, the last time. With Martha, like I said, it got complicated and that was all my fault.'

The smile on Winter's face faded. He missed her. Martha would like to hear that.

'I just want a mate.'

'You just want TO mate!' the woman yelped, her voice rising in volume.

'No I just want A mate,' the Doctor defended.

'You're not mating with me sunshine!'

The Doctor's eyes grew panicked, 'A mate! I want A mate!' he yelled.

'Well, just as well because I'm not having any of that nonsense I mean you're just a long streak of nothing, you know! Alien nothing.'

Winter burst out laughing at the disagreement and both the woman and the Doctor peaked around the door.

'And what the hell was that!'

The Doctor shook his head and squinted into the TARDIS straight at Winter who covered her mouth to prevent freaking them out any more.

'Okay,' the Doctor said, moving on.

'I can come?' the woman gasped.

'Yeah, course you can yeah.'

Winter didn't need to see the woman's face to know she was smiling and she grinned too when the Doctor did. She shut her eyes to blink but suddenly the noises faded and when she opened her eyes she was in her room in the hub. Pip pulling at her hair.

Sighing she pulled herself off the bed and approached the camera she had set up across the room to record her movements. She took it back to her bed and watched the recording. At first it was just three hours of sleeping but then suddenly she sat up, her eyes still closed. Her breathing had stopped totally.

'Right then,' her sleeping self said. 'I guess I should find out what the hell I'm doing here this time.' Her head snapped around to face the camera and Winter yelped, it was like watching a horror film. Especially when she had smiled and laughed. Then her eyes snapped open and she got up to retrieve the camera.

The video went blank and Winter lay back on the bed thinking. Did this count as something she should let the Doctor know or was it harmless for the time being. She didn't want to bother anyone, she was most likely just being daft. She only wished her stuttering would stay away like it did when she was in one of the dazes. It had gotten a lot better. It was easy to understand her now but still, she wanted her free speech back. When she could make a witty comment without ruining the whole joke by stuttering through it.

She put the disc in a case and put another in the recorder. Hoping that by compiling all of the evidence she could of the odd moments it would help her understand them, or maybe just make a good horror flick.

With her hair in a messy pony tail and her PJ bottoms laced tightly around her hips, she wandered out into the hub with Peregrine in her arms, to make a cup of tea. People would be in soon, people being Jack, Ianto and Tosh. Would she tell them? Probably not.

TTT

The car was totalled. Winter looked at the twisted metal as the ambulance crew and Owen studied the man who had fallen on top of it.

'Gwen, Owen go to the hospital see if he says anything. Interview the husband and wife while your there, Tosh, Nemo with me.'

She glanced up at the high building, holding the RAF cap on her head before following him up the stairs and into the bedroom.

'W..w…what is it with m…magnolia,' Winter commented as they entered. The whole room was one of those spotless modern ones with a small dresser near the window that had been smashed in. Tosh ran over to look at it.

'Personally I'm more of a tube line chic sort of man,' Jack told her.

She smiled and turned to the police officer in the room.

'What have we got then?' Jack asked.

The officer shrugged as if he hadn't a clue, 'Bit weird this one,' he replied. 'Might be one of yours nobody saw anything or heard anything, blah blah blah, the usual. Don't know why I bother asking anyone any more.'

'Thanks so much, if you could just wait out side.' Jack showed him graciously to the door but he wasn't quite finished yet.

Jack rolled his eyes at Winter.

'In my opinion, the husband did it. Looking for trouble, expecting to be burgled.'

'Really?' Jack replied a sarcastic look on his face.

'Yeah. No other reason for keeping sports equipment in the bedroom.'

'Unless t...t...hat was his th..thing,' Winter said.

Jack grinned at her. The police man furrowed his brow and seeing his chance Jack ushered him out the door.

'Making friends?' Tosh asked. Jack shook his head.

'Not really. What have you got?'

'Well no glass inside so it was defiantly broken out,' Tosh concluded.

Jack knelt down to look at another man, lying against the wall, a trail of blood leading up the paint where he fell and slid down. 'They said the stab wounds were made by a long thin blade,' he informed them.

'S….s….o not the bat then,' Winter pointed out.

Jack nodded, 'No other weapons in here so, how the hell did they manage it?'

'Husband was unconscious and the wife probably weighs less than I do, I can't see either of them doing this,' Toshiko told him.

'When you fear for your life you'll be surprised what you can do.' Jack seemed to be talking from past experience. He thought for a moment.

'W….w….well? Are w…we going to s…tand here like lemons or get back t…to the hub?' Winter asked.

Jack looked up at her, 'You okay, you seem agitated.'

She nodded, 'yeah, j…ust t…tired.'

'Didn't sleep well?'

She shook her head and he nodded.

'Well I think you're right, not much we can do here, you go down to the SUV and we'll get someone to bring this guy downstairs.'

She wandered down the stairs and hopped into the front passenger seat pulling the cap onto her lap and running a hand through her hair. Sometimes, just sometimes she blinked and she thought for a second she saw a flash of light, or heard an odd bleeping sound. Then she'd look or listen again…and it was gone. Every so often her vision would go completely and she'd think her eye's were shut but they stung like they were open. She shook her head and looked up at Jack who was having a phone conversation with someone. Probably Gwen or Owen. Whoever it didn't matter. What mattered was not seeming like she was going mad. Jack would only fuss and she didn't want to be left out of the investigation.

Jack started the car up and she jumped. She hadn't even heard him get in.

'Wow! Jittery!' Jack commented.

She punched his arm playfully, 'I was d…d…eep in thought.'

He acknowledged the comment and pulled the car back onto the roads, making they're way back to base. Suddenly his earpiece bleeped. 'What? What did he say?' Jack said to whoever was on the line. 'You're sure.' He frowned and nodded. 'Don't do anything we'll be there in a minute.' He span the car around and quickened their pace.

'W…w…what going on?'

'The second robber woke up. Apparently,' he glanced back at Tosh, 'the woman did it.'

TTT

All though the trip back Winter heard the same spiel coming from the woman in the boot. 'You can't do this!' and 'this is against my rights. Get me out of here!' rang out through the car. Owen kept rolling his eyes. So much so, that it was beginning to lose its effect. Gwen kept tapping her fingers against her knees, it was clear she wasn't particularly comfortable with tying the woman up, putting a bag over her head and chucking her in the boot. Winter had quite enjoyed it though.

Jack span into the garage and opened his door to find Ianto standing outside it. Winter got out and stood on the floor of the car seat so she could see him over the roof.

'I have the interrogation room all ready for you.' Ianto told him, ignoring the screams from the boot.

Jack nodded and motioned for Owen and Gwen to take the prisoner downstairs. Winter hopped down and slammed the door shut, waltzing into the main hub and climbing the nearest rope to the swings. She lay across the long one and sighed as she let her mind wander.

Suddenly her clothes felt…wrong. She felt hot and sweaty, but dry at the same time. Like a massive stage light was shining down above her. There was a smell like soot and ash and her throat was clogging up. Then without warning something hit her skin, something hot, burning almost. It was like fire….fire….fire!

She screamed and sat up like a shot, misjudging the swing and tipping it over. Her foot caught in the rope and she opened her eyes to see the ground spinning forty feet below and the RAF cap fluttering down towards the ground. People were shouting her names and she covered her ears. The rope slipped from round her foot and she fell.

TTT

The ground she thought she'd hit was soft, and warm. She opened her eyes to see Jack's concerned eyes as he carried her down from the lift. He put her on the sofa and suddenly she was surrounded by people. Owen was feeling her temperature and heart rate. Ianto sat on her left smoothing back her hair and mumbling. Jack sat on her right holding her hand, Toshiko stood a meter behind them biting her fingernail and Pip sat at her feet, his small hands clasping her jeans tightly.

'I'm f…fine,' she mumbled. 'What…t…t. happened?'

Jack frowned.

'Well first you lay up on the swing,' Owen told her pointing his thumb at it, 'and then your arm started twitching. Then you started thrashing and then your back arched up and you screamed and fell off the bloody thing scaring the pants off everyone in the room,' he accused. 'Looked like you were possessed.'

'What the hell happened?' Jack asked.

She shrugged, 'J…just a nightmare, like I said I did….d…n't sleep well last night.'

'You still having those nightmares?' she pondered the question.

Not those nightmares but still nightmares, if you could count the TARDIS visits as nightmares. That's what that odd dream had been. It had felt like a TARDIS visit. It was real, hot and terrifying but she knew Jack meant the old nightmares. Even so. She nodded. Owen seemed to give her the nod of approval and Ianto got up to get her some water. Jack wrapped an arm over her shoulder and looked over to Tosh.

'Anything on the body scans?' he asked. She went back over to her computer as he rubbed soothing circles into Winter's arm while Pip settled in her lap.

'Nothing out of the ordinary.'

'What about the light? Power surge?'

She shook her head and Ianto reappeared holding out a glass of Water. Winter took it gratefully trying to keep up with the conversation.

'Nothing from us, there was an electromagnetic build up around her but I can't see how she caused it.'

'The same thing happened in the hospital Jack,' Owen informed them. 'It can't be a coincidence.'

'It's her,' Jack agreed. 'I know it is. Okay, lets do some test's see who or what we're dealing with.'

Owen nodded and set off to bring the woman up. Winter sighed and put the glass on the table.

'How you feeling?' Jack asked.

'B...b...better' she replied.

'You could always go have a lie down,' he told her, 'in your bed,' he added after a moment's pause.

She shook her head, after that episode she really didn't want to sleep again.

'Okay well, will you just sit down for a while, somewhere stable?'

She nodded and stood up, picking the hat up from the floor and moving to the Med bay. It was cooler in there and somehow quieter. Pip clambered up onto her shoulder and then skittered out of the room when he saw the needles come out. She sighed and settled herself on the stairs, watching Owen as he busied around the room.

Eventually Beth, the woman from the flat, was brought in and Owen attempted to take some test. Winter watched in amusement as the needle kept snapping. She sniggered and Owen turned to glare at her.

'C…c….can't find a vein, Owen?' she teased.

He pulled a face and picked up a knife, 'Bare with me.'

They watched in amazement as it broke on her skin. And listened to Jack make his judgement.

'Okay, Beth you make light bulbs blow and we can't break your skin what planet are you from?'

Well that's one way of finding out. Beth of course denied everything and Jack wasn't a patient man. He grabbed her arm, much to Gwen's anger, and dragged her out of the room. Gwen found the nearest monitor and switched on the link of the cells footage. Suddenly a spark of inspiration hit Winter. She snuck around to her desk and began typing in some carefully remembered times and dates, she could download what she found to a disk and store it in her draw where she'd hidden the tape from this morning. If she hadn't videoed her strange trances over the past few weeks, the TORCHWOOD cameras probably had.

TTT

What with Ianto checking up on her every half hour and people walking back and forward around her, it took a few hours to get all of the traces of her trances from the Hub cameras and the SUV cameras. She'd edited them down to include a little space before and after and had copied last night's episode into sequence along with the swing incident. The DVD's had been safely taped to the top of her draw and she now sat on the sofa watching Ianto mess with Gwen as they set up the mind reading machine.

'That species has a particularly high blood pressure,' Jack defended.

'Oh yes, their head's must explode all the time.'

Winter smiled at the comment but his reference brought about memories of his own head, near exploding. She shuddered and Jack glanced her way. He signalled for Gwen to go and get the prisoner and ordered Ianto out of the chair when he pretended to by frying. He pulled a face like a child caught between guilt and laughter and came to sit by Winter, pulling out his trusty stop watch.

The probing was quick and eventful. The screaming became a little to much for Winter. She stood up and began pacing up towards the door and then back over. The lights went on the blink and then without warning Beth collapsed and they normalised. Winter watched the other Torchwood members look around in confusion.

Then things went weird. The sudden change in Beth's demeanour and the morphing of the skin on her arm came as a bit of a shock but Jack seemed to almost expect it. He smiled as Gwen stepped forward.

'Oh my God!' she breathed.

Jack pushed her backwards, 'I wouldn't get that close. Toshiko what happened?'

'It's a buried compartment, locked away. She couldn't have been aware of it.'

Owen's face was a picture, then again Ianto's was pretty good to. Winter wasn't so impressed, after getting no sleep and rushing around the city like a lunatic before almost falling to her death, nothing seemed impressive. Except maybe the thought of one of Ianto's coffees.

'Who are you?' Jack asked.

In a heavy accent Beth replied, 'Kyla Janice. puta gruss. iss neer fass du hab fass far knarl.'

'Where are you from?' Jack tried.

'Kyla Janice. puta gruss. iss neer fass du hab fass far knarl.' Jack sighed and asked a final question.

'How do you like my boots?'

'Kyla Janice. puta gruss. iss neer fass du hab fass far knarl.'

He marched over to Tosh's desk and pulled an instrument down.

'Jack what is it? What's she saying?'

'N…name, rank and serial n…number.' Winter replied.

Jack looked up at her, 'Right.'

'W..w…well no need t….to sound sup…prised. W...we all heard it.' she replied.

He studied her.

'What did she say?' he asked her.

'I t…t…told you.'

'No, literally. Tell me the exact words you heard.'

She shrugged as they all stared at her. 'K…k…kyla Janice. Infant…t…try. 09724718.'

Everyone's brow furrowed but his and Beth's.

'That's not what I heard,' Ianto commented.

For a moment she thought Jack would take it further but he just smirked a little and went back to scanning Beth's arm.

'Now we know who she is, and why she's here,' Jack told them all.

'We do?' Tosh asked, looking back to Jack.

Jack nodded and threw his device to Ianto. 'Switch off the probe,' he ordered.

As the machine powered down Beth's arm returned to normal and she woke up as if from a daze. 'Oh, you weren't lying that really hurt,' she moaned. 'Did you find anything?'

They all looked at each other. Not sure what to say. Gwen settled with a maybe and took her back down to the cell. Ianto and Winter began to clear up the machine and half way through packing it into a cupboard Ianto spoke.

'So you really heard that? Her name and all her details? In English?' Winter nodded. 'How?' she thought back.

'I t…t….think it might be s…something to do with a l...l...ittle accident w...with some alien t…tech.'

'Before you came back,' she nodded.

Jack had yet to really fill him in on what had happened when he disappeared and Winter still found it difficult putting together a coherent sentence so he was trying to work with any information he could get. He had just opened his mouth to ask another question when Jack popped his head around the door.

'Team meeting, now, board room. Come on,' he pulled Winter through the door. 'I know you're probably worried about the whole hearing English thing but you don't need to. When you travel in the TARDIS it sort of gets into you're head, changes alien languages to whatever language you speak. I guess I'm used to it or something because I didn't hear English but it'll probably wear off soon.' She tried to nod gratefully but it was hard to pull off. Now she understood why she could hear it but she had a horrible feeling it wouldn't wear off and it was all very well but after a few months Jack would be bound to notice if she was understanding odd languages. Suddenly pulling off being normal had become even harder.

She took a seat in the boardroom and settled down to watch the presentation. Not taking in a second and having to get Owen to fill her in when it was over.

TTT

Winter stared at the desk. Her eyes set on it as though waiting for it to spring to life. Every so often she glanced out of the door and then back to the desk. He was gone. He would be gone a few minutes more…why was she just standing here. She had broken into things before. Stolen things before. It must just be because it was Jack's.

With a final push she launched herself towards the desk and opened every draw, searching until she found the piece of paper she was searching for. Her heart leaped into her mouth as she heard Jack's voice in the Hub. She stuffed the paper in her bra and closed every draw, sitting down in his chair and spinning it too look like she had just been relaxing. He walked inside, did a double take, then smiled.

'You feeling better?'

Not really, she'd just stolen from him and was coving it with a friendly smile. Even so she nodded and got up to let him sit down.

'S…so what are we doing?' she asked him.

'We're going to freeze her. She's too dangerous to be left to gather information. We have to neutralise her and this is the only way we know how.'

She bit her lip and nodded, 'W…when?'

'Now. Gwen's gone to get her and Owen's setting up.'

'J...Jack!' she gasped, 'W…hat about her p…p…partner?' he sighed and leant on the table. 'Your n…n…ot serious?'

'What else can we do. Why prolong this. We retcon the guy tell him she died in a car accident. He get's a body to bury …'

'B… not hers,' she argued.

'But he won't know that!'

'That's n…n….not... the p…point.'

He looked at her angrily, 'What would you have me do? Kill her?'

'W…w…what's the d…difference?' she frowned and walked out of the room down to her bedroom. Pip joined her from across the hub where he had been perched on Ianto's shoulder and followed her down the corridors like a golden retriever. She let him in before entering the room herself and locked the door pulling the paper out of her bra and her phone from the draw.

Why was she doing this? Was it because she'd decided the trances were getting scary, or that they would be interesting to the Doctor. But he had a new companion, he didn't need to be fussing over her. She stared down at the number in her hand and typed it into the phone, her finger hanging over the 'call' button. To press or not to press?

Peregrine sat on the bed and used her arm to stand himself up on two legs while he looked at the phone. With one fail swoop he reached out and pressed ring. Her heart leapt into her throat but she held the phone up to her ear. It rang for a good three minutes but no one picked up. She flipped it shut. That settled it then. Besides. It wasn't too dangerous. She was tired from the long case yesterday and being hauled out early to visit the scene. That had lead to her falling asleep which in turn led to the trances. As for the swing incident, well, she should know better than to fall asleep on a swing.

At that moment she made a promise to herself. She would get some sleep and see how things went. If the trances stayed safe she would leave them, forget they happened as soon as they were gone but if they became more dangerous she would phone again. That would have to be the way forward. It was the best plan she had at the moment. But that left the problem of the dream last night. If it happened when she slept how was she supposed to get any sleep to counteract the problem.

Her eyes fell on the towel in the corner from her last shower and she thought about it. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Ianto kept it stocked with shampoo and paracetomal and most importantly, cold medicine but not just any cold medicine. The kind that knocked you for six. She rushed through to the bathroom and retrieved the bottle. Bringing it back to her room. Jack wouldn't approve. Then again, Jack wasn't suffering, she was.

Without another thought she took some and put the bottle in her draw before tucking herself into bed and falling into a dreamless (and tranceless) sleep.

TTT

When she woke up the whole hub was shaking. It stopped suddenly and she sat up. Her hair a mess and her eyes clogged with salty residue. Rubbing them carelessly she raced upstairs with no shoes on Pip only just holding onto her hair.

Owen and Tosh were by her computers and Ianto stood by the spiral stairs. She joined Owen and peered over Tosh's shoulder. 'W…What the hell's g...going on?'

'Petrol tanker,' Toshiko replied, but Winter had a feeling it wasn't an answer to her question. 'Looks like someone wanted to take out the M4 link road for some reason.'

Then she stopped. 'No, it's not the road, there's an underground fuel pipeline. Special supply for the military, they're using it in emergencies.'

'Not anymore,' Owen commented. 'Hold on, I've got a report coming through. Patrick Granger's been murdered.'

Winter stared back and fourth to the people in the hub. They all seemed to know what they were doing but she felt like a spare wheel again. Maybe it was just the fogginess from the sleep.

'Who?' Tosh asked.

'Leader of the council,' Owen informed her. 'Stabbed several times in the chest and once in the forehead, sound familiar?'

Pip appeared on Winter's shoulder again and handed her and earpiece, she stuffed it on just catching the last few seconds of Gwen's question.

'…want to kill him?'

'He's also the city co-ordinator,' Ianto spoke up, 'takes control of the city in case of major emergencies. Has all the security protocols.'

'Well, how do you know that?' Owen asked.

'I know everything,' Ianto replied sighing, 'and it says so at the bottom of the screen.'

'W…well this is d...d...defiantly an em...emergency,' Winter commented .

'They're putting all the pieces in place.' Jack told them.

They heard some of Gwen and Jack's conversation as they rushed around and Winter took over Ianto's screen so he could check the power. Suddenly the conversation through the earpieces stopped. Everyone checked their earpieces and Tosh began to fervently type.

'The networks are down.'

'W…what? All of th...them?' Winter asked.

She nodded, 'The entire system just went…kaput.'

'So? You're a tech geek can't you just hook something up?'

Tosh rounded on Owen, 'No Owen I can't just hook something up the entire telephone network is down!'

'What about mobile connection?' he asked.

'The entire telephone network is down,' she repeated slowly.

'Mobiles, landlines, tin cans with bit's of string. Everything, absolutely everything. No phone's, the phones are all broken,' Ianto told him, bringing his hand up to his face to illustrate. 'Hello? Is anyone there? No because the phones aren't working!'

Tosh nodded in agreement and Owen sighed, frustrated, 'What about we try…'

Tosh interrupted him, 'There is no way of getting in touch with Jack! No way.'

Just then an old radio at the side began fizzing and Jack's voice crackled through. Winter pounced on it and answered, 'J...Jack!'

'Listen,' he replied, 'there's a cell, and it's active. Four including Beth and two are dead. We're tracking the last guy now; if we can get to him before he does anything we can stop this.'

'W…what can we d…do?' she asked.

'Get Tosh, he's heading for an abandoned mine just outside the city, I need to know what's out there.'

Toshiko nodded, 'I'm on it.' She jumped over to the computer and Winter sat on the floor beneath the radio waiting for Jacks instructions. Tosh brought up a map of the man's movements and Owen and Ianto studied it as she tried to work out what he was heading for.

'Where the hell's he going? There's nothing there,' Owen growled.

'Nothing on the surface.' Tosh reminded him.

Winter bit the nail of her thumb, all she could hear from Jack's side was static. Tosh got down on her hands and knees and fiddled with the wires beneath her computer as Ianto raced upstairs and then back down with a file in his hands.

'This is as far back as our records go. There used to be a coal mine in the cliff, the army sealed it off in the 40's but it doesn't say why.'

Tosh got up and started tapping into the army files, God Winter wished she could do that. The fun she could have. Ianto turned and raised an eyebrow at her, glancing at the radio. She shook her head, no, no message yet. He nodded and turned back to Tosh. 'You know, it's almost obscene what you do to security systems.'

She smirked and then turned to look pointedly at Winter. She pressed the button on the radio and spoke through.

'Jack?'

'Yeah, I'm here. What is it?' he replied.

Tosh took a step forward and then called over, 'The mine shaft, the military are using it for storage. Nuclear warheads,' she told everyone, 'ten of them, nobody's supposed to know, not even us.'

Gwen's voice crackled through the radio, 'That's how this starts.'

'No heavy weapons,' Jack murmured in realisation.

'Exactly,' Gwen agreed, 'they don't need any they just use our own against us.'

'We left the key under the doormat, all you need is too walk in a take over,' Jack told someone, presumably Beth.

'Please tell me you can stop this.' Tosh asked.

Owen and Ianto looking gravely over her shoulder.

'Going as fast as we can, if we don't we won't feel a thing. We're all at the centre of the blast radius.'

'W…well th...th...ats c...comforting,' Winter remarked, her voice coated with sarcasm.

'Come on, have a little faith, with a dashing hero like me on the case, how can we fail.'

The radio was silent and Ianto looked at the computer seriously, 'He is dashing, you have to give him that.'

Winter smirked but it didn't make her feel much better. She was well read on the atrocities at Hiroshima and was sure she didn't want to go through anything those poor people had endured.

'And what if they can't stop it?' Owen asked. Always the one too make you see the bright side.

'They'll stop it,' Tosh assured them.

'Yeah, but if they can't?'

'Then,' Ianto told them, 'It's all over.'

Winter got up and made her way over to him, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze.

'Let's all have sex.' Owen said.

Winter and Ianto dropped their joined hands and Ianto rolled his eyes, 'And I thought the end of the world couldn't get any worse.'

Tosh turned back to her computer, it didn't look like she was doing anything, just running her fingers over the keys trying to think of some way to help. Owen crossed his arms and stood stock still staring at the screen. Ianto pulled her over to the arch and around the corner of the med bay walls. She looked at him questioningly and he just shook his head and pulled her into a hug. He was worried, obviously, so was she but the pills were still in her system and the gravity of the situation, although she understood it, just didn't seem to register with her nerves. He pulled back and looked down at her, an odd expression on his face.

'After Lisa died,' he told her, she looked up in confusion, 'we spent ages dancing around our feelings, and then you told me that I was supposed to be with someone else.'

She nodded carefully.

'And I listened and now I'm with Jack.'

Again she nodded wondering where this was going.

'But I didn't think that it would stop us being friends.'

She gave him a sharp frown.

'It h…hasn't.'

'Then why won't you talk to me?'

She opened her mouth to argue but he placed a hand over it. 'You haven't been sleeping well, you flinch when we go near you and I keep catching you looking at me like you didn't expect me to be there.' He sighed.

The radio suddenly burst into life with an excitable Jack yelling about the world being safe. Everyone visibly relaxed and Winter turned to smile at Ianto but he was gone. She frowned and watched the cog door role shut before making her way to Jack's office, sitting down in the chair, waiting.

TTT

Later that night. When Beth was dead and the team safely tucked in their beds. Jack slipped into Nemo's room. He watched her warily knowing that she was a light sleeper. Any noise could wake her. He seemed safe so he edged closer and knelt at her side. When he had first brought her into the world of Torchwood, he knew who she was. He'd recognised her sat outside on the marina wall one day. Nemo, thrown out to 1941. She'd been a lot younger and he'd invited her to come on a mission with him because he wanted to be sure it was her, to spend a little time getting to know her in her own time. She was so different, she acted so brash but really she knew nothing of the world.

Then, as Jack did, he took a leap of faith and, time-lines be damned, he invited her to come and work for him and she took to it like a duck to water, so much more open than the others who'd all had set world views before he came along.

It turned out Winter was more keen to learn than he'd thought. With her new status as a recognised citizen of Cardiff with an address and everything she marched straight off to the library and, when it all got a bit too much he would often find her in there reading up on the history of the town and the country and working on her language skills with the young librarian. The way she soaked in knowledge when she set her mind too it made her almost as valuable as her acrobatic skills. He didn't tell her enough how important she was to the team. Gwen may be the glue that stuck them together but the woman in front of him, and she most certainly was a woman, held him together and reminded him who he did this for. The people out there who were just as naïve as she had once been and would soon be growing up. Hopefully as beautifully as she had.

He smiled and got up turning to leave, as he past the side table his hand brushed against the glass on the top and it fell to the floor. Before he could catch it, it had smashed at his feet. He swore and turned to apologise for waking her but was surprised to see, she slept on. His brow furrowed and he re-approached her laying his fingers carefully on her wrist. Well she was alive. Then why hadn't she woken. He put it out of his mind as a tiring day and cleared up the glass before leaving her room. Tiring day or not he'd still keep an eye on her.

No Owen comment, sorry it just didn't feel right in this chapter. Anyway onto more important matters...

There a times when I read reviews and think… that's a great idea, I'd love to do it but it just doesn't fit in with the way this series is going. You lot are AMAZING! You pick up on things I've obviously missed and you come up with little moments that I wish I'd thought of first. But then I realised. This is fan-fic and we're all here because of a love for someone else's work but if we can sit at our computers, or in our beds, or in our classrooms, and change events, add our own characters and come up with ideas that, frankly, are sometimes genuinely as good as the program itself. Why can't we do fan-fic…of fan-fic.

So I'd like you to do something for me. Just give it a go. Take an idea…anything. Then take Jack, Owen, John, Ianto, Tosh, Pip, Winter, Gwen, Andy… all of them or just one of them. Write a piece. I don't care if it's only three lines or three pages. There are no rules. GO FOR IT! Just write your story, put it up on fanfic and tell me in a review that you did one.

[Zaziness: Oh it's freezing. Snow in most places, including Cardiff…no I don't check the news and weather for a city 3 hours away from me *shuffles feet*… Yeah I missed Owen's comments too. They can be really hard to think of sometimes so I'm always glad when a little Owen just pops into my head and says something witty. Ha! I loved jealous Jack and Ianto, it's their own fault. They want her they can bloody well show her that until then she's free to do anything she likes! Trust me she's going to have enough problems to deal with for the time being but I think the whole back-story thing is an excellent idea and I'll look into it. Yeah I know people miss Pip. Sometimes though I just feel he's difficult to fit into the story, there's only so much a monkey can do, even a highly intelligent one like Peregrine, however there is a large piece on him later in the series and I'll try and weave him in and out a little more.

Sonotalady: Ianto jealous was actually a very late modification. But I was looking back over the last series and realised, okay this is the girl that, if it wasn't for Jack, he would be all over, he'd be lost without her. In one episode they have a chat where Winter realises he isn't there for her to call on any more because he has to put his boyfriend and their plans first. So why shouldn't he get a moment where he realises that he can't have her there all the time because she's not his and she's free to like other people. Wow! That was a bit longer than I'd planned! As for the whole four way thing… trust me I thought of it. no it may not fit in the story but hell yes it would be awesome!]