[Sorry this is late. Having a bit of a time of it here. Both my Grandparents on one side are in hospital. It's my Granddad's birthday. I've just found out I go back to school tomorrow and not the day after like I thought. I have history coursework and an English essay to do. And to top it all off last night a wasp flew into my PJ trousers and when I sat down it stung me. Twice. As you can see I'm not doing great. However your reviews tend to cheer me up so I'll put this up and see what you make of it.]

If it's not real
You can't hold it in your hand
You can't feel it with your heart
And I won't believe it

Paramore - Brick by Boring Brick

Adam

'Well this is a dump,' Owen blurted out as he and Winter arrived at the house.

It was small, dirty and looked very unsafe. She shot him a smile, approached the door and rapped gently.

'We don't want any!' someone yelled inside.

Owen frowned and pushed Winter out of the way. 'Look if you don't open the door I'll break it down,' he yelled back.

Winter swatted his arm and pushed him away. 'Mrs Carter?' she called

'We're phoning the police!' the voice yelled.

Winter glared at Owen and turned back to the door. 'Mrs Carter, my name's Winter. We don't mean you any harm we just need to talk to you.'

A curtain twitched to the left and a shaky voice called back. 'We'll have you. But the rough one stays out!'

Winter grinned at Owen and he shook his head. 'Nah I don't think so,' he called back.

The door opened and an old woman with dirty grey hair and a long baggy dress, poked her nose around the door. 'This is our house,' she told him primly, 'and we'll have who we want in it.'

Owen rolled his eyes and pushed past. Winter halted the woman's protests with a quiet reassurance stepped over the threshold.

Inside it was worse. Litter covered the floor, paper, glass, food, cat droppings. The walls were the same dirty colour as Mrs Carter's hair and were scratched and stained. Winter wrinkled her nose as she stepped across the rubbish into the vile smell of mould, damp and urine. Owen was already in the main room. He stood arms crossed and breath held.

'What you want then?' the old woman asked. Shooing a cat off a seat and plonking herself down.

'We want the board,' Owen said bluntly. 'And if you don't give it too us we'll take it so don't give us the whole 'what board' shit.'

Winter trod on his foot and approached the old lady. 'We have reason to believe you found something. Something that we need.'

'Eh? And what's that then.' Mrs Carter scowled at her.

'It looks a bit like an ironing board, but it's grey and it has buttons along the sides.'

The woman's eyes narrowed. 'And why should we let you have it?'

'Cause if you don't we'll…'

'Owen!' Winter growled.

He shrugged and went to pick up an ornament on the side. There was a cry of shock as another cat, this one white as snow, leapt out of the cupboard to his left and slashed at his hand. The frightened cat jumped straight into to Winter's arms. She laughed as Owen cursed under his breath and she stroked the cat as it purred contentedly.

'She likes you,' the old woman told Winter. 'That's odd, that is. We don't normally like people.'

Winter smiled and knelt at the woman's height. 'Look, we really need it.' she said, seriously.

The old woman deliberated and nodded. 'Upstairs on the left.'

Winter smiled and Owen disappeared to find the board. Leaving the cat on the side table and stepping over at least four more on the way out, they left the building and both took a refreshing gulp of air.

'Animals should not be kept in those conditions.' Winter frowned and flipped open her mobile as she got into the passenger seat.

'What are you doing?' Owen asked, buckling up.

'Calling the R.S.P.C.A. If she cares for those animals at all she'll give them up until she can look after them properly.'

Owen rolled his eyes.

TTT

Owen walked in with the board under his arm but Winter stayed back, still on the phone. She thanked the nice man on the other side and hung up before putting the slim device on the shelf to charge and leaving the garage. Jack, Owen and Tosh were stood by the computers examining the board. She smiled and crept up behind them, slipping her head in between them all.

'What do you think then?' she asked, looking at the long grey object.

Jack spun around and pushed her back confusion in his eyes.

'What the hell.' Owen grabbed his gun from the side and trained it on Winter's chest. 'How did you get in here?'

She smiled, confused. 'The same way you did Owen, through the garage,' she told them.

Owen started. 'How the hell do you know my name?' he growled.

'How long have you been following him?' Tosh asked.

Winter laughed but it didn't reach her eyes. 'What's wrong with you guys?'

'Jack I've got the info on the Weevil vic…' A young man with blond hair and cold eyes walked into the room but started when he saw Winter.

'Who's this?' she asked looking the man up and down. She saw a hint of panic in his eyes but he put the file down and it was gone.

'I could say the same thing to you,' he told her approaching slowly.

'Adam, careful, she got through the security systems she's dangerous,' Jack warned.

'Jack, don't be ridiculous.' Winter watched the man warily as she tried to talk sense into her friend. Obviously this was just some stupid practical joke…the longer it went on though the less she believed that. "Adam" moved to stand facing her.

'So you know the rest of the team?'

She frowned and nodded.

'Well, you must know me? Remember.' He placed a hand on her shoulder and she cried out in pain. Suddenly her head was inflamed, her brain was burning with a bright yellow light. Adam flinched back and the feeling ended. She looked up and realised she had fallen to the floor.

'What are you?' Adam asked.

She shivered under his glare and forced herself to stand up to face him. 'No!' she yelled, 'what the hell are yo…' she trailed off when she realised Jack had pulled out his gun and it was trained on her head. 'Jack?' she whispered.

He glared at her and flicked the gun a little. 'Move!' he growled.

Her eyes widened and she began to move back slowly. He followed with the gun still clasped tightly in his hand. The cog door rolled open and she cried out in excitement.

'Ianto! Ianto what is going on?'

Ianto look shocked and warily glanced at Jack.

'Who's this?' he asked.

Winter's mouth dropped and she pulled in a shaky breath. This can't be a joke, Jack would never have stood there and watched her suffer like this for a joke, and he wouldn't have stood by while she was in pain. She let him lead her down to the cells and he pushed her inside before the door slid closed.

'I'll deal with you later,' he growled, pointing at her. She looked around herself and leant back against the wall. It was cold in here, wet, dirty. With a frightened sob she wrapped her arms around her body and tried desperately to keep herself together. Her friends might be in danger and now she was trapped in the cells with no way of helping them.

TTT

Meals came, via Ianto. He slipped a sandwich or a box of Chinese into her cell every day. Interestingly she realised he never gave her pizza with pineapple and the Chinese was never spicy. So whatever had hold of him hadn't wiped away all of his memories. One evening he even brought her a bottle of ginger beer.

'The water's contaminated,' he had told her sharply.

Every day Jack would pay a visit. He would sit down outside the cell and talk to her. Ask her who she was, where she was from. Every day he stormed out because she gave him the truth and he couldn't believe it. Janet opposite her growled at Jack whenever he walked through and Winter was starting to think it was some form of protective feeling because she often looked up to find the weevil with her hands against the cage looking, almost sadly, at her. The weevils dialect was too primitive for Winter to pick up on, almost animal like. She could only pick up the gentle chuffing of recognition or reassurance and, of course the growling of anger or fear.

The weevil to the right of Janet hid away at the back of its cage, angry and menacing as it scratched at the walls and threw itself towards the doors when anyone came too close. Winter often covered her head and tried to block it out .

A week later Jack entered the room and Janet growled as usual. 'Save it!' he growled back.

'She doesn't do it to annoy you, you know,' Winter told him from the corner of her cell. She was in a bad mood, as always.

'And I suppose you would know,' Jack asked.

'Yes, actually. She doesn't like you much but she doesn't want to annoy you. She's scared of you.'

Jack frowned. 'Tell you what, you tell me your real name and I'll believe you.'

Winter sighed and looked up at the ceiling, repeating by heart. 'Nemo, born 17th of December, previously known as Ethel Saunders, twenty two years o…'

'You can stop right there,' Jack shouted. 'You can sit there and lie to me for as long as you want but you won't get out'ta that cell until you give me something to go on.' he spun around to leave.

'Jack?' she called quietly.

He stopped suddenly and for just a second she thought she might have gotten through just a little bit.

'Jack?'

Winter started when she heard Gwen's voice. The two conversed and Winter waited to see if Gwen would recognise her but the look of disinterest on her face told her that Gwen was just like the others. She was stuck here. For now.

TTT

It was getting lighter in the cells. The lights had been dimmed over the night and Winter was uncurling from another night of restless sleep. The door to her cell clanged as it opened and she looked up to see Adam glaring at her. 'You,' he told her. 'You, are a trouble maker.'

She got up and glared back at him. 'I should say the same for you,' she replied. 'What have you done to them?'

He smirked. 'We all have to survive.' Taking a step forward he held out his hand. 'Why doesn't it work on you?' he asked her. 'What are you?'

She frowned.

'Human.'

'No, you're more than that. You're different to them.' His face suddenly twisted in anger. 'You're a loose end and you know what we do to them.' He grabbed her collar. 'We cut them off. Or in this case, up.'

They struggled but Adam managed to force her out of the cell and across the room into another cell. The door rolled shut and Winter banged on the Perspex. 'Let me out!'

He grinned and just walked away. She sighed and dropped her arms in defeat but paused when she heard a soft growling behind her. Slowly she turned on her heel to face the monster baring it's fangs at her in anger…and hunger.

TTT

She heard bangs and yelling from the cell bay next door. She hadn't moved though. Not once. The weevil had been staring for the past … how long had it been? She didn't want to stare back, it might see her as threatening but she didn't want to take her eyes off it either. It was the same with movement, there was no way she would make herself any more threatening than she already seemed but she had a feeling that if she made herself small he would just see her as food. So she went with in between both. She stared at his chest and kept perfectly still.

The pounding never stopped but the yelling died down for a while the weevil turned away from her and hurled himself against the wall towards the banging on the other side. Winter used the time to shift her body into a more comfortable position and to glance around the cell. Nothing, there was absolutely nothing to fight back with. She growled in frustration but took a deep breath when the weevil turned and growled back. She flung herself on the floor just in time for it to hurl itself in her direction. The only way to go was towards the wall but when she got there she realised the weevil stood between her and the only possible escape route.

Flashbacks of the weevil wounds she had seen when Owen and her had gone undercover in the fighting ring invaded her mind. She didn't want to go like that. The Weevil edged closer again and she let out a strangled sob. The beast growled and bared its sharp teeth, willing her to make a move. Her body was frozen, there was no hope. No one to save her.

A warmth filled her and she tensed, determined. No, she wasn't going to go out like this . Her body made up its own mind and when the weevil charged she pushed against the wall and sent a kick right into its stomach. It howled in pain and she thrust herself up against the door again. With an animalistic cry she felt it bury claws into her back and she felt the sharp tearing as it dragged down. She shrieked in pain but managed to twist the creatures arm up behind its back.

With a burst on energy she jumped onto it and fit her arm around its neck in a figure of eight choke-hold. It bit down into her arm and she almost fainted from the pain but she managed to get it free and press against the weevil's neck and eventually she could feel it weakening.

She had no clue as to how long she'd be in this cell, so she kept her hold until she could no longer feel the blood pumping beneath its rubbery skin and it was still on the cage floor. Then she crawled to the back corner of the cell and collapsed against the wall trying desperately not to look at her arm.

TTT

Jack felt a little ill when he woke up. He could have sworn he had been in his office, but now he was lying by the cells, fully clothed with a thumping headache. He groaned and got to his feet, traipsing up to the main hub to find out what on earth was going on. Everyone was at the stations looking totally confused.

'Jack?'

He turned his attention to Gwen.

'What's happened? We've lost time. Days!'

'What do you mean?' he asked.

'The last few days, none of us can remember a thing,' Ianto told him.

'The system's blank, the CCTV's been wiped,' Tosh informed them all. 'What's been going on? What have we been doing?'

'I don't know,' he replied truthfully.

'Great, that's two days of my life that I'll never get back,' Owen commented.

Jack grabbed his coffee and took a sip noticing the flowers on the side. 'Look's like Toshiko got herself a secret admirer though.'

'Oh yeah?' Owen looked up at the flowers and Tosh grabbed the note from the bouquet.

'To Tosh, love and apologies, Owen.' She grinned. 'They're from you.'

Owen smiled cynically. 'In your dreams Tosh,' he replied.

Her face fell.

'I think someone's winding you up darling. No I don't do flowers.' He took the card from her and examined it, 'and I defiantly don't do apologies.'

Ianto looked up from his diary and looked thoughtfully at Jack. 'Any idea's where Winter is?'

Everyone looked up, clearly they hadn't thought of this either.

Jack glanced around at them, 'What? You haven't seen her?'

They all shook their heads.

'What about Pip?'

Confusion growing they all traipsed down to Winter's room and Jack opened the door. Immediately a bundle of fur leapt onto him and circled his head excitedly. When the Capuchin had calmed down they glanced into the room. Nothing.

'Peregrine.' Jack spoke and the monkey stopped moving and looked at him. 'Where's Nemo?'

He cocked his little head to the side and then sniffed slightly. With a light leap he landed on the floor and began strolling the corridors. They followed quietly so not to impede his hearing too much. Without waning he stopped and then tore off down to the cells.

They took the hairpin corner running and entered Janet's cell bay wearily. Janet was in her cell but she was howling. 'Is she…sad?' Gwen asked quietly.

Jack was about to answer when he heard quiet sobbing from the back of the room. He sped up, passing Janet's cell to the weevil next to her. He leapt to the controls and opened the door when he saw the dead weevil but stopped dead when he saw the girl curled into the corner. She had tear tracks down her face and there was blood on the floor. Without thinking he started forwards but she stopped him.

'No!'

He paused looking at her, wild eyed.

'Who am I?' she asked quietly.

He opened his mouth, reaching for his words in confusion. 'What?'

Her voice grew louder in her frustration. 'Who am I?'

Jack shook his head, bemused. 'Nemo. You're Nemo. You work here, at TORCHWOOD, with us.' He motioned to the team just outside the cell.

She let out a shaky sob and stumbled to her feet, leaning against the wall. Jack held out a hand to her, glancing down at the weevil in case it moved. She dragged herself over to him and took his hand with her less mangled arm. He pulled her out of the cell, turning her head away from the scene with one hand and then reaching over to close the cell door behind her.

When he turned back he wrapped an arm around her back and let her cry into his shoulder but when he looked up he was met with looks of horror. He pulled her closer and realised his hands felt sticky. Glancing down he saw the blood and the deep, bloody scrapes across her back.

'What the hell is going on?'

TTT

'That's the end of it really,' she concluded as Owen bandaged up her arm. 'I'm sorry I can't be more help but I wasn't up in the hub and I was kind of preoccupied with the weevil and everything.'

'I still can't believe you took it down all on your own,' Owen stated. 'You must have had help.'

'From who, Janet?' she snapped.

He shrugged.

'You're a doctor, Owen,' Jack told him. 'You know that adrenaline can make the body do amazing things when your life's in danger.'

Owen couldn't argue with this. Jack was stood behind the railings next to Tosh and Gwen. Ianto leant against the wall at the bottom and she rolled her head backwards. A few nights of sleeping in a hard cell hadn't done anything for her back and the pain killers were starting to kick in, making her eyes droop.

'Alright everyone let's get some sleep. I'll see you all tomorrow at ten.'

One by one they filed out until only Jack and Winter were left. He motioned for her to follow him and she slipped off the table up the stairs and into his office.

He appeared a few seconds later from the manhole with a large baggy t-shirt in his hand to switch for her bloody one and then he led her back to her room. Kicking their shoes off they lay on the bed watching Pip swing himself to sleep and he asked her a question.

'Was it bad?'

She looked up at him in confusion.

'When I didn't recognise you, what did I do?'

She frowned and turned her face into his chest.

'Tell me.'

'Not much,' she replied. After a stern look she sighed and continued. 'You questioned me, waved your gun about a bit, threatened me a bit, stuck me in a cell. End of story.'

'With a weevil?' he muttered angrily.

'No. That was him. I was in the cell opposite. I was fine. You got a bit frustrated but you never put me in danger.'

He leant his head back and pulled her into his arms. 'We've been doing this a lot lately,' he commented.

'Hmm?'

'This. Sleeping here. Anyone would think we were back to our old routine.'

She smiled sleepily.

'Were you angry with me?'

She groaned, not this again.

'No. not then, I mean … about Ianto. Do you hate me for having him?'

She froze in his grasp and either he didn't notice or he let it pass.

'I don't…hate you,' she said slowly.

'But.'

'I'll never stop loving him Jack, the same way I won't stop loving you but I think I made the right choice. You're good together. Who am I to stand in the way of that? Besides he's been much happier since he's been with you.'

He smiled. 'Do you think?'

'I know.'

TTT

Torchwood pretty much returned to normal after that. Winter sat on the sofa watching Ianto and Jack in the office talking. Maybe it was time to move on. To start looking for someone of her own and stop pining over people she couldn't have. Owen sat down next to her and followed her gaze with interest.

…

'You could always go join in.'

…

'1945': to be honest I've tried drawing her before but it tends to go a bit wrong. This was the best match I found in the short time I looked. Maybe if you skim through some of the other drawings on the website you might come across something you like

'Rachy Babes': That last bit with Ianto was possibly one of may faves too. I just loved the idea that her head wasn't filled with, I have to save them.' Or, 'I love you.' Or silly mushy stuff. It just shows how down to earth she can be. I can't imagine jumping in front of a bullet and thinking anything other than 'oh s**t.' to be honest. I'm glad you think the story is getting better, this is the stuff I did after my massive dose of writer's block so I was quite worried people would start thinking it was getting tedious. As for the Christmas special. I liked it but as good a writer as Moffat is I just think Doctor Who isn't as gritty and deep as he likes to write. I mean, he wants to split the next series into two halves and do a cliff-hanger half way through. I know they already have double episodes but I think leaving a massive gap is just annoying. This is, ultimately, a children's show, RTD was trying to get kids interested, sell it too a new generation. Moffat's treating it like an adults show. Plus he's bringing bloody River Song back and that woman really pisses me off. She was alright originally but as a novelty not as a recurring character (besides, I liked the fez.)

'Sonotalady': I really wish I did have it on youtube but unfortunately we were all so drunk no one thought of it. Ha Ha, love the one liner, I should have used that in the chapter. Why do I never think of these cheesy lines. I don't blame you for not watching COE I sometimes wish I hadn't so I could just keep Ianto alive for as long as possible