Archive of Our Own

‘I suppose we’ll have to think about moving, won’t we? I know we talked about it anyway but this moves things up a bit, doesn’t it? And with my promotion and your mega Torchwood salary, we could get a proper family house easy, no problem. Maybe even in one of the posh areas like Lisvane or Cyncoed, you know, one of those places where the estate agents are trying to sell you the school catchment area as much as the house – oh, or by the lake at Roath Park? That’d be lush for a kid, wouldn’t it?’

‘Rhys,’ Gwen says through gritted teeth. ‘I love you and these are all things we’re going to have to talk about, but let’s just make it through the next two minutes, yeah? It might all become suddenly irrelevant.’

Rhys wraps an arm around Gwen and leans forward with her, staring at the little white stick on the coffee table. Gwen has her elbows propped up on her knees, her hands holding her head up as she looks down at the piece of plastic that could be about to change their lives. Bright sunlight filters through the window and fills their living room with optimistic morning light.  

Rhys presses a kiss to Gwen’s temple.

‘It must be nearly three minutes now,’ he says.

Gwen takes a deep, shuddering breath.

‘Maybe I need to stop staring at it,’ she says. ‘You know, like how a watched kettle never boils.’

She can’t take her eyes away from the little grey screen though. They’d splashed out on one of the fancy digital pregnancy tests, wanting to be as sure as possible. This one will just read ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant’ and she’ll know exactly how she feels without having to check the instructions to see whether one or two lines is positive.

‘We will talk though, Gwen, won’t we?’ Rhys asks, head resting against hers. ‘I know it’s unexpected and all that and there’s going to be loads to do and think about with your job and the house thing and, like, buggies and – oh my god, names, I’ve never even thought about what names I like before or which ones are any good, I -,’

‘We’ll talk, Rhys, we’ll definitely do plenty of talking.’

She doesn’t mention that she’s already decided she’s definitely going to keep working, for as long as she can. She’ll do whatever Jack will let her do to support the team even if she can’t be in the field much longer. She’s already started compiling tasks she could do to still be useful, although several of them involve Ianto letting her get far more acquainted with the archives than he currently lets any of the team be.

‘Oh my god.’

Rhys’s hand squeezes Gwen’s shoulder tight as he speaks. Then he laughs and jumps to his feet, punching the air. His joy manages to break through the shock Gwen feels and she falls back against the sofa, giggling at him.

He picks up the pregnancy test and waggles it near her face.

‘Ew, Rhys, I peed on that a few minutes ago!’ she protests, though she can’t stop laughing.

‘I don’t care, I’m bloody framing the thing,’ he proclaims. ‘Pregnant, Gwen! We’re having a baby!’

He leans down and kisses her, long and hard. He pulls back and cups her face, brushing his thumbs across her cheeks. She feels so happy and safe – he’s so close to her that all he can see is his face, and that’s all she needs.

‘I love you,’ he says.

Gwen tilts her head so she can plant a kiss on Rhys’s palm.

‘I love you too.’

*~*TW*~*

‘Gwen Cooper,’ Owen calls up from the Med Bay as Gwen walks into the Hub thirty minutes later. He stomps up the steps and Gwen sees that today he is in full doctor mode, wearing blue scrubs and rubber gloves, a stethoscope slung around his neck.

‘Doctor Harper,’ Gwen says, dropping her bag down at her desk. ‘Where’s Jack?’

Gwen had resolved in the car on the way over to tell Jack about her pregnancy as soon as she could so they could start figuring out the details. Then she planned to have Owen check her over and confirm that she definitely was pregnant (she had taken a second test while Rhys thought she was in the shower, just to double-check, and it was another positive).

‘He took Tosh and Ianto out to see that our vampire friends are settling into their new lair,’ he says. ‘Which gives me time to give you your annual physical.’

Gwen frowns. ‘I’ve never had an annual physical since I started working here.’

Owen rubs the back of his head. ‘Yeah, we’re a bit overdue.’

‘You want to do it now then?’

‘Might as well. Come on.’

He trots back down into the tiled room and Gwen follows. She stops at the railings, looking down into the medical area. Owen has laid a disposable sheet out on the metal bed and has rolled the monitors over to it. He taps away on the keyboard, bringing up Gwen’s medical file.

‘Have the others had theirs yet?’

‘Nah, I’ll get them later.’

Gwen walks down into the Med Bay and shrugs off her jacket, leaving it hooked over the railing chains.

‘If you’d just like to take a seat please, madam,’ Owen says in a posher voice than normal, gesturing at the bed.

Gwen pushes herself up onto the bed.

‘What are you going to be checking for?’ she asks.

‘Standard baseline measures – heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, you know the drill,’ he’s busy at his screen again, not looking at Gwen.

‘Can you do ultrasounds?’

He stops typing and turns his chair slowly to face her.

‘Ultrasounds?’ he says.

‘Yeah. Well, I don’t even know if that’s what I need right now, only I’ve taken two pregnancy tests and they’ve both been positive so I guess the next step now is to have my doctor confirm it for me and check me over?’

The words tumble out of her quickly. She feels a bit awkward having this conversation with Owen. She knows he’s her doctor, and that he’s a very good one too, but he’s also a good friend and it feels strange asking him for this rather than just announcing the news.

Owen smiles.

‘Well, Mrs Cooper, as your doctor I’d first of all like to congratulate you on this – good? – news.’

‘Very good news,’ Gwen confirms. ‘Surprising and scary, but very, very good.’

‘So, first of all, there are some checks I can do to confirm that you definitely are pregnant but chances are the tests you took are a good sign. Then we can establish how far along you are. The first ultrasound isn’t usually until 12 weeks but with my upgraded Torchwood tech we could be listening in to a little heartbeat much sooner, as long as you’re far enough along for the heart to have developed.’

Gwen feels a bit light-headed. Pregnancy has seemed like such an abstract fact of life until right now, right when Owen had started talking about listening to a heart growing within her own body, just a bit below her own. She grips the edges of the bed and wrinkles up the disposable sheet.

‘Can Rhys be here?’ she asks. ‘If we’re listening to the heartbeat?’

‘If Jack’s alright with him being here. I won’t tell Jack, by the way, that’s up to you. If you start doing dangerous things though and he doesn’t know, I might have to say something though. For your own good and the baby’s.’

‘I’ll tell him today. I want it all figured out so I can still work and help the team. It’ll be a while until I start to show and need to slow down a bit, right?’

‘Let’s do the tests and see.’

*~*TW*~*

Once they return to the Hub, Jack calls Tosh into his office. He can see that Owen has a wheeled screen pulled shut across the entrance to the Med Bay and can hear he and Gwen talking softly, doing things as privately as they can in the echoing space. Ianto disappears off down towards his coffee machine to prepare the mid-morning caffeine boost and Jack senses now is the quiet moment he’s been waiting for.

He shucks off his coat as Tosh takes a seat at his desk, then he closes the door and tilts the blinds – not completely shut, but closed enough that the others know this is a private yet non-concerning conversation.

‘They seemed to be doing well enough,’ Tosh says as Jack takes his seat, referring to the house of vampires they’d just been to check in on.  It’s true that the remainders of David’s little sanguinite clan have come together and are living, uncomplaining, in an old Torchwood safe house but that doesn’t mean Jack can afford to take his eyes off them. They’ve had their first delivery of blood dropped off to them and they’ve been told they need to make it last.

‘I think their main problem now is regret,’ Jack says, ‘they can’t take back what they’ve done and return to the way their lives used to be.’

‘That’s got to be tough.’

Jack leans forwards and rests his elbows on the desk, watching Tosh closely for a moment. After nearly dying, she’s returned to the field with a grim determination, stacking up project on project to research in between Rift alerts. She was the first in this morning, even before Jack had climbed out of his bunker, hard at work on Jack didn’t even know what.

‘Would you?’ he asks.

‘Would I what, Jack?’ She sounds confused.

‘Return to the way things were?’

‘Before I joined Torchwood? I couldn’t, you know that. You’ve given me so much.’

Jack chuckles.

‘C’mon, Tosh, I’ve taken. You’ve given me – all of us – more than I can ever repay. Which is why,’ he opens his top drawer, reaches into it and pulls out a folded square of paper, small and a bit tattered, ‘I’m giving you this.’

The paper held between his index and middle fingers like a playing card, Jack offers it out to Tosh. Her eyebrows furrow as she reaches out to take it. He can’t help but grin as she opens and it gasps.

‘Jack!’

‘Your mom’s telephone number and address,’ he confirms. ‘I spoke to her last night, she’s doing well, she’s waiting to hear from you.’

‘But the five years-,’

‘I told UNIT about everything you’ve done. What’s four years compared to five, I said? They weren’t thrilled but I got the ok, you won’t have any trouble from them.’

That’s not the whole truth. Jack has been trying to wear UNIT down on this issue for the past few weeks and the answer had repeatedly been no until the day they got back from their trip into the countryside. He’s not sure what caused the General to change his mind and give the all-clear but he chose not to question it. What’s important to him now is that Tosh doesn’t owe him anything and is free to make her own choices about what she does with her life.

He's sure she won’t up and leave Torchwood but more than ever he feels the need to know she’s making a choice to be here now.

Tears line Tosh’s eyes as she looks down at the piece of paper, holding it by the tips of the fingers of both of her hands as if she’s afraid she can break it or rub the ink away.

‘You work too hard, Tosh, harder than any of us, even with all that happened a few months ago. Take a few days, go and see her.’

Tosh looks up, her eyes wide with surprise.

‘I couldn’t do that just now, there’s so much to do, I -,’

‘There’ll be time, the Rift isn’t going anywhere. Try and make something for yourself outside of this place.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Take Owen with you, if you want.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she says flatly, but then she’s smiling again, overflowing with happiness. She gets out of her chair and squeezes past the desk to hug Jack tight, the piece of paper still clutched in her hand.

‘Thank you,’ she says into his ear. Jack wraps an arm around her clumsily, restricted by the chair, but manages to draw her in close for a moment.

‘Make the most of it, Tosh,’ he says as she pulls back. ‘Check when the Rift is going to be quiet and take a few days. I’ve let all of you spend far too much time here which I don’t think makes me a very good boss. Maybe I should read one of those management books.’

This is something Jack has spent a lot of time dwelling on recently. Torchwood is a job that demands a lot, it consumes lives and spits out carcasses. He’s seen it happen far too much. With everything that has happened in the past year – Owen’s death and faulty resurrection, Gray, Tosh nearly bleeding out on the Hub floor – Jack knows he needs to do more for his team. He’s spent so long telling Gwen not to let things drift because she has so much to keep her tethered to real life outside this place, but now he needs to step up and tell the others to go out and experience it too. They need their own anchors, their own things to fight for.

‘What about you?’ she asks, returning to her seat. ‘You’re here more than any of us, Jack. You are Torchwood.’

‘I manage to make time for a few things, here and there,’ he says coyly just as Ianto knocks the door. ‘Come in!’

Ianto pokes his head around the doorway and Jack can already smell the gift he’s come bearing. ‘Coffee?’

Fresh mugs in hand, Jack quizzes Tosh on her long list of projects.

‘How’s the time lock coming?’

‘Done! I need to test it on a living specimen, check I’ve got a few calculations right, but yeah, I think I’ve got it.’

Jack smiles fondly and sips his coffee. Top physicists in some of the most renowned universities and research centres around the world couldn’t pull off what Tosh has apparently managed to do as a ‘fun side project’. She’d be wasted on them, he thinks.

‘You, Toshiko, are far too clever for your own good.’

‘I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.’

‘Let me know when you’re ready to test it then, I’d like to see it in action.’

‘It’ll be soon – which is great, it frees up my time to work on the Owen project. Well, with Owen on the project. The project that is Owen.’

‘Good work, Tosh. I’m here to help, whatever you need.’

He spots Tosh glancing down at the piece of paper, which hasn’t left her grip since he first gave it to her. He knew this bit of information needed something more than an email. Now Tosh has something physical, something that already makes her feel closer to her mother again.

‘Go on, Tosh, make the call. I’m clearly taking up too much of your time.’

He winks.

Tosh stands to leave but any thoughts she may have had of trying to call her mother now are disturbed by a holler from Owen, calling them all down to the Med Bay.

‘I think yelling “Come and see this” somewhat contravenes the idea of doctor-patient confidentiality,’ Ianto is saying to Owen as Jack and Tosh emerge from Jack’s office.

Owen is stood at the top of the Med Bay steps, framed by the rolling curtain like a magician about to pull off his most amazing trick yet. Jack can’t see Gwen but assumes she’s still down there.

‘I don’t think Gwen agreed to take part in a peep show,’ Jack warns, as Owen’s hands stray back to the curtains.

‘Hey, this was her idea,’ Owen says. ‘You ready, Gwen?’

‘Go on then,’ Gwen’s voice echoes up from the Med Bay.

Owen kicks the curtain pole and it rolls away on its rickety wheels. Down in the Med Bay, Jack can see Gwen lying on the bed, propped up on one elbow, her hand placed on a scanner just to the side of her. Projected onto the wall behind her is a revolving 3D image of a woman’s body, something red glowing in its stomach, blinking steadily.

Gwen smiles awkwardly from under her long lashes.

‘It just seemed easier to tell everyone all together,’ she says.

Jack looks past her to the rotating body on the wall. It seems to pulse in time with his own heartbeat. He’s seen that red dot before, not long after the piece of kit Owen’s using had fallen through the Rift in the late 60s. His feelings this time round are far less complicated than the last time he’d been subject to this reveal.

He beams.

‘Congratulations, Gwen.’

‘Is that what I think it is?’ Tosh asks. ‘You’re-,’

‘Well and truly up the duff,’ Owen answers, proud of his diagnosis. ‘Six weeks along by my best estimates. Confirmed by alien tech too, so my best estimates really are the best.’

Tosh and Ianto echo Jack’s words of congratulations, smiles all round.

After she thanks them, however, Gwen’s smile falters.

‘I don’t know what this means, Jack, for work. I want to keep working, of course, I -,’

‘We’ll figure it out,’ he says evenly. ‘There’ve been Torchwood babies before and there’ll be Torchwood babies again.’

As he says this, he knows he and Gwen are going to clash about it in the months to come – she wouldn’t be Gwen Cooper if she always agreed with and went along with everything Jack said, and he appreciates that. Not every time, and not always in the moments they’re yelling at each other, but it’s worth it. For now though, there’s no reason for her to take a step back but she’s going to be spending a lot more time in the Hub and the back of the SUV going forward. Jack knows she’s not going to like that.

‘Does that mean I have to baby proof this place?’ Ianto asks.

Jack rolls his eyes.

‘This place is perfectly fine for a baby.’

Even Owen looks horrified at this statement.

‘A weevil got free only last week,’ Gwen points out.

‘That was Owen’s fault, he didn’t lock the cell door properly,’ Jack says, waving a hand dismissively. ‘If he learns not to do that again, baby Cooper-Williams be just fine.’

‘Does Rhys know?’ Tosh asks Gwen, leaning on the railing. Gwen removes her hand from the scanner and the image on the wall disappears.

‘Yeah, I took a test this morning. He’s thrilled, he’s already talking about baby names and schools.’

‘Baby name tip,’ Jack says, ‘Jack is a very strong name that never goes out of style. Trust me, even in the future, there are still Jacks.’

Gwen hops down off the bed and pulls her mobile out of her back pocket.

‘Looks like Andy’s tried to call me three times, I better see what he wants.’

Jack nods. Gwen’s pet policeman may not fully understand what Torchwood does, but he usually did a decent enough job at coming to them for the right jobs. It was nice to know they had at least one friend in the force too. ‘Go see what he’s got for us.’

Owen claps his hands together and trots back down into the Med Bay.

‘Jones, you’re next,’ he says.

Ianto shuffles his feet and casts his eyes around the Hub. ‘Oh, actually I was just going to-,’

‘Nu-uh. Jack, tell him he’s overdue his physical.’

‘Do as the nice doctor says, Ianto. That’s an order,’ Jack says, watching Ianto squirm. He’s not fully sure what Ianto’s problem is, whether it’s a general dislike of medical check-ups or whether it’s more specifically related to Owen’s bedside manner.

‘Nice doctor is pushing it a bit,’ Ianto mumbles as he grabs the wheeled curtain and pulls them across the Med Bay entry-way behind him.

*~*TW*~*

‘Are they about done down there?’ Gwen asks Jack and Tosh when she gets off the phone with Andy. The pair are looking at something on Tosh’s computer.

Jack opens his mouth to reply but his response is interrupted by a yelped swear from Ianto, who they can then hear proceed to tell Owen that the idea is to ‘find a vein, not just stab me with a needle’. Unsurprisingly, Owen turns this back on Ianto and tells him he needs to sit still if he doesn’t want to get pricked again.

‘I think they might need a bit longer,’ Jack says. ‘What’s Andy got for us?’

Gwen fiddles with the phone in her hand, thinking over everything Andy has just told her.

‘Suicides off the cliffs at Penarth,’ she says.

Jack folds his arms across his chest. ‘Doesn’t sound like Torchwood.’

‘No, I wasn’t too sure either but it is odd, it’s not a known spot for jumpers. There have been five this week – three successful, and two that passers-by managed to stop.’

‘Some sort of cult, maybe?’ Tosh suggests.

She taps on her keyboard and brings up a satellite image of Cardiff, sliding it slightly west to see the coastal town of Penarth just next door.

‘Could be,’ Jack agrees.

‘Andy said something strange too, about one of the people who someone stopped from jumping. They’ve got him at Providence Park now. She says something was calling to her from the sea.’

‘Sounding a bit more Torchwood, but still not entirely outside the realm of human possibility.’

‘There was a Rift spike in that area two weeks ago,’ Tosh says, bringing the Rift readings up on screen and laying them over the satellite image. ‘Owen and Jack went to check it out but they didn’t find anything.’

‘Just residual Rift energy,’ Jack adds.

‘I’ve been monitoring the area since but I wouldn’t have thought to cross-correlate it with this sort of data. Knowing that people have been drawn to jumping from there since though…’

‘Definitely suspect,’ Jack agrees. ‘Okay, Gwen, give your police boy a pat on the head from us. Sounds like we need to take a trip over there again and we might need climbing gear.’

‘Actually, Jack, I was thinking of going over to Providence Park to speak to this woman who tried to jump?’

Jack nods.

‘Alright-,’

‘We got a live one?’ Owen interrupts, emerging from behind the rolling curtain.  He has a sulky Ianto at his side, his burgundy sleeve rolled up above a cotton ball plastered down in the crease of his elbow.

‘Snap,’ Gwen says, showing Ianto her matching cotton ball.

‘How’re my team doing?’ Jack asks. ‘Fighting fit?’

‘He,’ Owen says, pointing at Ianto, ‘needs more vitamins. I’ve given him a list. And Gwen,’ he now hands Gwen a slip of paper, ‘you have some supplements you should be taking for baby. Start taking the folic acid today, I’ve got some down there.’

‘Folic acid, got it,’ she says, taking the paper from Owen and giving it a quick scan. It’s easy enough to pretend right now that she’s just taking it for her own health and not for the benefit of the person growing inside her. A big part of her brain is still processing the whole pregnancy thing and she probably won’t fully believe it until it becomes an unavoidable bump attached to her wherever she goes. She gets the feeling her Nostravite pregnancy probably hasn’t really prepared her for the reality of gestating a human for nine months. Although she is already starting to crave pickles again…

‘What’s going on then?’ Ianto asks, coming over to study Tosh’s screen.

‘Something might be enticing people to jump to their deaths over in Penarth,’ Gwen quickly fills he and Owen in.

‘Really?’ Ianto says. ‘I saw that in the paper yesterday, thought it might be a cult.’

‘We’ve got a survivor, someone who was stopped from jumping, saying something was calling out to her from the sea.’

‘Cult with some fancy technology,’ Ianto suggests.

‘We’re going to head out to investigate. Owen, Tosh, with me to Penarth. Gwen, take Ianto and see what more this woman can tell us about what happened to her.’

They all nod their acknowledgement and split to their desks to grab what they need. As Gwen and Ianto are about to head out the door, Owen jogs over and hands Gwen a packet of chocolate Hobnobs.

‘As I’ve had blood out of both of you, you should keep your sugars up,’ he says. ‘Don’t eat them all though, they’re my secret stash.’

‘Uh, Owen, you can’t eat,’ Gwen reminds him.

‘I know, I know, I just like to know that they’re there.’

*~*TW*~*

Jack, Tosh and Owen had won the right to take the SUV as Jack said they needed room to take all of the climbing gear they might need to scale the cliffs in search of this mystery voice. As Ianto steers his Audi down the driveway of Providence Park, he once again wonders whether any of them know how to use the climbing gear, or even tie an appropriate knot.

He tries not to wince as he hears Gwen bite into another Hobnob as he knows she’s making crumbs that he’ll have to sort out later. Hobnobs can’t be eaten neatly.

‘I wanted to say thank you, Ianto,’ she says between bites. ‘For not telling anyone about the whole pregnancy thing.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘I guess you’re the sort of person people can trust with their secrets, huh?’

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘And you’d never spill them? Even if I gave you the rest of the biscuits?’

‘It’s not worth what Owen would do to me,’ he says.

The Victorian red brick of Providence Park appears on the horizon, just past the trees that had been hiding it from view. Ianto holds a hand up to thank a driver heading in the opposite direction who makes space to let them pass through.

‘I bet you know a few things about Jack,’ she says.

Ianto glances over at her. She’s looking out of the window up at the building coming into view, her voice quiet as if she’s voicing a thought she hadn’t really intended to.

Ianto tries not to dwell on all the things he doesn’t know about Jack. He does open up to Ianto occasionally, sometimes for fun and occasionally in more vulnerable moments when he’s been reminded of something from his past. Jack doesn’t tend to linger in these lapses for long and Ianto doesn’t push beyond some gently prying – he’s learnt the signs of Jack closing up.

If he were being entirely honest with himself, he’d admit that the only reason he doesn’t push Jack harder to learn more is that he’s scared of what he’ll find out.

Ianto reaches over and takes a biscuit from Gwen – if he’s going to have to clean up crumbs anyway he might as well enjoy making some himself.

‘Maybe,’ he says after chewing his first bite. ‘You know Jack though, Gwen, he can talk for hours and never say a thing.’

Gwen folds up the packet of biscuits and puts them in the glove box.

‘Rhys has a shocker of a time trying to keep anything from me,’ she says. ‘It’s not that I’m particularly great at sniffing his secrets out, he just can’t help but tell me everything. He usually gets shifty for a bit and then ends up blurting stuff out.’

Ianto laughs. He doesn’t know Rhys well but the image of him being unable to contain himself around Gwen makes sense.

‘What about you, Ianto?’ Gwen says. ‘Got anything you need to confess? I’ll do you a trade since you kept my secret.’

He parks the car under the shade of a tree. There aren’t too many others in the car park and he supposes they’re probably arriving outside of visiting hours.

There are at least a dozen things he could share with Gwen, off the top of his head. Some of them actual secrets, some of them just things about himself he wouldn’t care for Gwen or the others to know, Jack being the exception. He always tells Jack the truth when asked.

He blows air out through his lips, pondering.

‘I don’t like ice cream,’ he says after a beat. ‘It gives me a headache.’

Gwen punches him in the arm. ‘That’s not a secret!’

‘It is. I’ve eaten ice cream with you before when you really wanted to get some after the rugby. I just didn’t tell you I wasn’t enjoying it.’

Gwen draws a cross over her heart with her index finger. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

‘Thanks,’ he starts to undo his seatbelt. ‘If whatever it is we’re looking into now isn’t a cult, why do you think it is only some people can hear the voice?’

‘Maybe the alien is targeting certain people for some reason? Andy’s going to email the names and details of the other people who’ve jumped or were trying to jump. We can see if there’s a pattern if our woman here can’t shed any light.’

They get out of the car and walk through the doors of the building. Everything inside is white-washed and sterile, the sort of building that could drive you crazy if you weren’t already that way inclined. He wonders whether the lady he and Jack had visited when investigating the Night Travellers is still here. What would she think if he told her what had happened when they came out of the rain once again?

He leaves Gwen to do the negotiating at reception. She had called ahead from the car to tell them they were coming to speak to the victim but the staff hadn’t seemed best pleased about the idea.

Gwen comes back over and says, her voice low,

‘We’ve been allowed ten minutes. Room 105.’

Ianto has already scanned the signs indicating which rooms are where and leads the way, heading right out of the reception. Room 105 is on the ground floor, looking out onto the grounds. The residents of this wing are free to roam the building, enjoying the shared games room and canteen, but they need permission to go out into the gardens.

He knocks the door.

‘Miss Miller?’ Gwen says.

Ianto hears a scuffle on the other side and guesses that Miss Miller is checking them out through the peep hole of her door. He knows the door isn’t actually locked, for Miss Miller’s own safety, but barging through is a last resort.

The door opens. The woman on the other side isn’t much more than a girl, a few years younger than Ianto by the looks of it. She has long, pale blonde hair down to her waist and large blue eyes. She has her own clothes to wear, baggy and misshapen, rather than the Providence Park gown that he’s seen the people with more severe problems wearing.

She toys with a scrunchie wrapped around her wrist as she asks who they are.

‘Special investigations,’ Gwen says gently. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s okay?’

The girl eyes them both nervously.

‘About what happened?’ she says.

‘Only if you’re comfortable to.’

The girl considers this for a moment, before stepping aside to let them into the room. It’s sparsely furnished with a single bed, a few empty shelves, and an armchair angled towards a flat screen TV on the wall. The TV is on, showing a rerun of Friends. The canned laughter echoes through the tinny speakers as Gwen and Ianto enter the room.

‘Thank you,’ Gwen says. ‘I’m Gwen, this is my colleague Ianto.’

Ianto smiles and does a little wave, hoping to put her at ease.

‘Hi,’ the girls says, now rubbing at her arm. ‘I’m Justine. You can sit on the bed if you like, there isn’t really anywhere else.’

She mutes the TV then perches on the edge of the armchair, hands clasped together. Gwen leans against the bed and Ianto joins her, aware that if he stays standing he’ll be towering over the both in a way that would be unintentionally threatening. Today, they’re both good cop.

‘How’re you doing today?’ Gwen asks.

‘Sort of… fine?’ Justine replies. ‘I thought I was doing fine before, y’know, what happened. I thought the meds were working.’

‘Meds?’ Ianto asks.

‘For my depression. I got prescribed them a year ago and it was a bit wobbly at first, but I’ve been feeling pretty good mostly.’

‘But something changed?’ Gwen prompts.

‘I dunno, maybe. I don’t think I felt depressed though when I was out there, out on the edge. Not when I could hear the voice.’

Ianto shares a glance with Gwen.

‘The voice?’ she says.

‘That’s what they’ve got me in here for. It’s not because of the depression and it’s not because I looked like I was going to jump, it’s because I said the voice was making me do it. I swear, it must be real though, mustn’t it? It can’t be just in my head.’

‘What makes you say that?’

Justine gestures at the television screen. Ross and Rachel appear to be having one of their frequent misunderstandings, evident enough even without the sound on.

‘I’ve seen the news, I’m not the only one who’s been found out there. So, it has to be real, doesn’t it, if other people can hear it?’

‘Do you think there’s a reason only you and these other people have heard it?’ Ianto asks. ‘Did it say anything to you?’

Justine shakes her head. ‘It wasn’t using words, not ones I knew anyway. It was… sort of a song? And it just… it sounded really sad. Lonely. It wanted me to go to it and take the sadness away.’

She stands and goes to the window.

‘I was going to do it,’ she says quietly. ‘I was going to jump, just so I could stop the voice being so sad.’

‘Can you still hear it, Justine?’ says Gwen. ‘Can you still hear it now?’

Justine turns to face them.

‘Not anymore. When that man pulled me away from the edge of the cliff, I could hear it, so loudly, I tried to fight him off. And then…’

‘And then?’

‘The paramedics came. The further they drove me away from the cliffs, the quieter the singing got. I haven’t heard it since.’

Ianto picks up a faint note of longing in her voice as she says this, as if she wants to hear the voice and its song again, whatever the consequences. He thinks of the rest of the team heading out to Penarth now and hopes the voice doesn’t choose them for its next victim.

‘What were you doing before you heard the voice?’ he asks Justine.

She shrugs. ‘Just walking. My dad lives nearby.’

She drops back down into the armchair.

‘Can you help me get out of here? Is that what you’re here for?’

Gwen reaches out and puts a hand on her knee.

‘We’re here to try and understand what happened,’ she says. ‘And when we do, that might help you too. For now though… You might be safest here.’

‘What do you think the voice was?’

‘The rest of our team are looking into it. They’re in Penarth, right now.’

‘What will you do if you find what it’s coming from?’

Gwen turns to Ianto, who’s also struggling to come up with an answer that shields Justine from the truth of Torchwood.

‘We’ll know that when we find it.’

*~*TW*~*

Tosh lets the sea air wash over her as they walk along the Penarth headland. It’s different from the scent of the Bay, which is a freshwater basin with a hint of sea blowing in over the Barrage on some days. Right now they’re beside the Bristol Channel, with saltwater flowing in from the frigid Irish Sea. It’s a clear morning, Tosh can see past Flat Holm and Steep Holm right the way over to England and the tips of the Mendips.

It's refreshing after so long spent supporting the team from within the damp Hub to be out and about investigating again. Bonus points that today they’re working in the daylight and not the twilight hours that the alien underworld tends to favour.

She has her other, wonderful reason for being in such a good mood this morning too. Tucked away in her pocket, Jack’s note with her mother’s phone number and address scrawled out in his looped cursive. She keeps checking it’s still there.

She’s so excited to call her mother, to hear her voice again, to arrange to go and see her and hug her tight even though they’d never been big on hugging in her family before. She’s also worried about what to say. What has Jack told her? What does her mother think happened to her, what does she think Tosh has been doing?

Tosh thinks it will be easy enough to tell her that she’s been working on secret government work. Her mother grew up with her father’s Bletchley Park secrets, it won’t be so strange to her not to know the details.

She’ll definitely skip out the part where she nearly died. Her mother doesn’t need to know that.

‘You with us, Tosh?’ Jack’s voice cuts through her thoughts, clear that he must have already been talking and she’s missed it.

‘Oh, sorry – just, you know, thinking.’

Jack nods. ‘Right. Like I was saying though, this is the spot. Victim number one jumped from here, and the second jumper was seen further up the path here. Is your scanner picking anything up yet?’

He points out two spots off the path, a few metres apart. Tosh starts towards them with her scanner, flicking through a few settings to see if she can pick up any particular wavelength types or patterns. She pokes her head over the edge – the tide is in but there are clearly some jagged rocks lurking away under the foaming waves where they crash up against the cliff.

Owen joins her, getting even closer to the edge to look down.

‘That is not a nice way to go, poor sods,’ he says.

‘Gwen says the police are going to be setting up a watch team around the area later today, so they can stop anybody else who looks like they might jump,’ she tells him, still looking down into the eddies swirled up by the water. There’s something kind of mesmerising about the ebb and flow of it, the way the sea seems to take deep breaths and heave against the shore.

Owen steps back and puts his hand on Tosh’s shoulder, pulling her back with him.

‘Let’s get this sorted before they have to stop anyone else, yeah?’

Tosh checks through her scanner, then looks back up at Jack who’s stood up on the path, waiting. With the sun falling across him, he reminds her of the time she first laid eyes on him, the saviour framed by light in her cell door.

Perhaps she’s just feeling sentimental.

‘Anything?’ he asks again.

Tosh shakes her head with a frustrated sigh.

‘Nothing here,’ she says. ‘The residual Rift energy from the activity you and Owen came out to look at the other night has faded down to just about nothing and I’m not getting anything else.’

Owen’s back at the cliff edge again, leaning disconcertingly over.

‘Looks like there are a few caves down here,’ he says. ‘Hard to tell from this angle.’

‘Good job I brought the climbing gear then,’ Jack says as Owen walks back over to them.

‘Yeah, about that, Jack,’ Owen says. ‘Do you actually know how to use all that kit?’

Jack huffs. ‘I’ll have you know that I’m fully certified.’

‘By who?’

Jack draws his coat in closer around him. ‘Me.’

‘Ok, now I feel worse about the idea of having to scale the cliff.’

‘It’s alien rope,’ Tosh reassures him. ‘It’ll tie whatever knot you need if you tell it what you’re using it for and it won’t slip or break.’

‘I’ve tested it extensively,’ Jack smirks.

Tosh ignores him. ‘All you’ve got do is get your harness on right and you should be good to go.’

Owen looks furtively at Jack who’s still smirking, as if reminiscing.

‘Yeah, but now I’m quite sure I don’t want to touch that rope if he’s already been at it having sexcapades.’

Tosh puts a consolatory hand on Owen’s arm. ‘I wouldn’t either.’

She clips her scanner onto her belt loop and looks out to sea, the breeze blowing stray hairs over her face and tickling her nose.

‘I think we’ll have to wait,’ she says. ‘My guess is that whatever the voice is, it’s not calling right now and that’s why the scanner isn’t getting anything.’

‘There are worse places to wait. Also,’ Jack says, now pointing across the headland, down the hill towards the pier, ‘there’s a cute little fish and chip place just down there and I reckon it’s lunch time. Who’s doing the lunch run?’

Tosh taps the scanner at her hip.

‘I need to stay here in case it picks anything up.’

She drops herself down onto the bench on the opposite side of the path, getting ready to settle in for the afternoon.

Owen turns to Jack and holds out a fisted hand, resting on his other open palm. Jack quirks an eyebrow and matches his pose.

‘Ro sham bo, go,’ they say in unison, banging their fists down against their palms with the beat of each word.

With the final word, Owen opens his fist out into a flat hand whereas Jack keeps his fisted.

‘Best of three?’ he suggests.

‘No chance, Harkness. Off you go.’

His coat flapping about around his legs, Jack heads off. Owen drops down onto the bench beside Tosh.

‘He always picks rock,’ he says, tapping the side of his nose.

He stretches his arms up and lets one fall down against the back of the bench. If she wanted to, Tosh could lean back into him and his hand could drop down over her shoulder, drawing her into his chest.

Today though, she’s too distracted by other thoughts to be sucked into over-analysing what his comfortable position next to her could mean.

‘You alright, Tosh?’ he asks. ‘You seem… distracted.’

Tosh checks for the piece of paper in her pocket again. Still there. She looks up from staring out over the water to see Owen watching her, his head tilted.

Owen is the only one of the team that she has told about how she came to work for Torchwood. She broke down about it one night, back when it was just the three of them and Suzie, after a close call with a Hoix had left her bruised and making her way through too much wine, much too quickly. He’d been staying the night on her sofa to keep an eye on her and be there if she needed more painkillers, which he had advised her against combining with the wine but hadn’t stopped her from doing.

In exchange for her story, he’d told her his. About Katie and how he’d loved her, how they were going to get married in the church where her parents got married and then take a honeymoon to Greece, forgetting for a while the hospital they worked alongside each other at. How these plans and their whole future had been destroyed by the alien in her brain and the doctors who couldn’t help.

Tosh had been so shattered for him to learnt this. It sounded like Katie had been his world, had been what kept him grounded and without her he was in danger of drifting away.

Jack had saved him too. Owen had told her that he had thought for the longest time that surely there was more Jack could have done to save Katie but after he’d spent a while for Torchwood, saving people and losing others, seeing Jack make the tough decisions and occasionally making them himself, he’d realised the truth. There hadn’t been anything anyone could have done.

She pulls the piece of paper out of her pocket and holds it out for Owen to take.

‘Jack gave me that this morning,’ she says.

He opens it up and looks down at the information within, confused.

‘He’s setting you up on a date, is he?’

Tosh laughs and takes the paper back, looking down at it.

‘They’re my mother’s,’ she says. ‘Her address, her phone number.’

‘What, has it been five years already?’

She shakes her head. ‘Not quite. Jack managed to get an early release for me.’

‘Bet he ruffled some feather’s doing that.’

‘I’m sure Ianto’s had some fun phone calls trying to smooth everything over.’

Owen grins at her. ‘I’m made up for you, Tosh, I am. Have you called her? Are you going to go and see her?’

‘Not yet. I will. I don’t know what I’m going to say yet.’

‘It won’t matter. I’m sure she’ll be bloody chuffed to hear from you.’

‘Thanks, Owen.’

‘God, that’ll be weird. You, taking a day off to go and see your mum? The Hub will come crashing down around us.’

‘I might have to implement some additional security protocols before I go.’

‘You deserve it though, Tosh, you really do.’

‘We could all do with a holiday.’

‘Imagine Jack on the beach trying to get a tan with that bloody great coat of his.’

Tosh laughs at the image. She’s so close to doing what Jack suggested, asking if Owen wants to come with her to see her mother, and she can say ‘Look, mum, this is who I’ve got at my back, this is who saves me now’. But she doesn’t. The first time, after so many years, she needs it to just be her and her mother. Perhaps Owen will come one day.

Owen scuffs his feet at the ground.

‘It feels like everyone’s moving on with their lives. Gwen’s having a baby, growing an actual human inside her this time and not a toothy monster, you’re going to be off gallivanting, even Jack and Ianto schedule in nights off to go out on their dates… And then there’s me.’

Tosh places her hand on his thigh.

‘Owen,’ she says gently. He casts her eyes up at her.

‘Oh, don’t be sorry for me, Tosh. I’ve got a good few boxsets I can work my way through yet before the boredom and loneliness really kick in.’

‘We’re going to fix you,’ she says.

He covers her hand with his, cold and heavy.

‘What would I do without you, Tosh?’

She takes her hand back. She can’t let herself get sucked into this with him, not right now.

‘You’d have a lot more malware on your computer, that’s for sure.’

*~*TW*~*

Ten minutes later, Jack returns bearing polystyrene containers of chips and steaming battered fish.

‘You can’t eat all of that,’ Owen says, observing the stack of containers.

‘Ianto and Gwen are on their way,’ Jack replies. ‘They’ll be here soon, apparently they’ve got an interesting update.’

‘No vinegar,’ he says as he hands Tosh her tray. She can feel Owen staring at the food in her hand as she opens it up and takes in a good sniff of the hot and salty contents.

She spears a chip with the little wooden fork that was tucked inside the container and pops it in her mouth.

‘I can’t believe Gwen’s going to have a baby,’ she says.

‘She’s pretty surprised herself,’ Owen says. ‘Told me she’s been pretty good at taking her pill since a pregnancy scare back in college.’

‘Life finds a way,’ Jack says through a mouthful of hot potato.

‘Will she really be able to keep working, Jack?’ Tosh asks, sliding her fork through the fish to break it down into smaller chunks so it will cool.

Jack shoves more chips in his mouth before saying,

‘She can, to an extent. We have protocol for it, actually. Last updated in the seventies because Torchwood babies aren’t that common, but yeah, we can figure it out.’ He swallows. ‘She’s definitely not going to like some of the guidance in the book.’

As if summoned by their mention of her name, Tosh spots Gwen and Ianto walking up the path to meet them.

‘Bagsy not babysitting,’ Owen mutters to Tosh just before the pair enter earshot.

Gwen and Ianto thank Jack for their lunch as he hands them their chips. The first thing Gwen does is shred open two packs of ketchup and coat her chips with it, something Tosh can’t abide. She likes her chips to stay crisp.

‘Uh, why have I got mushy peas?’ Ianto asks, sounding disgusted as he pokes at the gelatinous green helping lumped at one end of his container.

‘Owen says you need more vitamins,’ Jack says.

‘I prefer the solid kind, just for future reference,’ Ianto clarifies. ‘Honestly, why would anyone want to eat anything that’s called mushy?’

Gwen takes the spare space on the bench next to Tosh, leaving Jack and Ianto standing. She places her portion of chips down on her lap and gets her PDA out.

‘Andy sent me the names of all the victims so far,’ she says, bringing up a list on screen. ‘I’ve been through all their details and there’s nothing immediately obvious in common – mix of genders, ages, ethnicities. Their medical history is a different story though. They’ve all been prescribed the same anti-depressant in the last year.’

‘Citalopram,’ Ianto adds.

‘And this fits with the victim you spoke to?’ Jack asks.

‘Yep,’ says Gwen. ‘She said she’s been taking her meds and she’d generally been feeling a lot better recently. And then the other day, she hears this voice.’

‘And, what?’ Owen asks. ‘It told her to jump?’

‘It didn’t use words, apparently. She said it was song, that it sounded sad and lonely, and she was drawn to it, to try and help it,’ Ianto answers.

‘Depression and anti-depressants mess with your brain chemistry,’ Owen says. ‘Could explain why only these people heard this voice, it’s tuned in to their specific chemistry somehow.’

‘Sounds like what we’re dealing with here might not be aggressive,’ Tosh speculates, brushing her hair out of her face. The breeze has picked up. ‘Unless it’s sort of a siren song situation, luring people in.’

‘But didn’t the sirens pretend to be sexy, rather than sad?’ Owen says.

‘One of the theories these days is that what sailors took to be mermaids were actually dugongs,’ Ianto says with a delicate bite of a chip off the end of his wooden fork.

‘What the hell is a dugong?’ Gwen asks.

‘Kind of like a manatee.’

‘I don’t care why whatever it is is doing it,’ Jack says, ‘but it has to stop.’

‘What do we do now then?’ Gwen asks.

‘We’re going to have to rope up and see if we can find this creature.’

*~*TW*~*

Owen still doesn’t entirely trust Jack’s alien rope and his exuberance as he abseils down the cliff face isn’t exactly comforting. He tries not to look down as he keeps his hands firmly on the rope in front of him, bunny-hopping off the rockface to give himself a gentle downward trajectory. Even when he’s not looking down at the razor-sharp promontories at the base of the cliff, he still can’t stop thinking about what the outcome for him would be if he fell. Would he be a sentient bag of shattered bones, able to drag himself around but never heal?

He shudders, and it’s nothing to do with the wind that he only knows is there because it’s blowing him off course. The rope has held him so far and the harness seems secure.

‘To my left,’ Ianto’s voice appears in his ear, coming through the bluetooth as Owen can hardly hear him over the crash of the sea down below. ‘Looks like some sort of cave.’

Ianto is further down the cliff than Owen. Owen eases back to look over his shoulder at where Ianto is pointing, neither hand gripping his anchoring rope, his faith entirely in the harness and the word of Jack Harkness.

‘I see it,’ Jack says from Owen’s right, level with him, also looking down at Ianto. ‘Let’s go take a look.’

Owen calculates that he’s going to have to take himself lower than the level of the cave to give himself enough movement in the rope to traverse sideways over to the cave. Jack is already zipping past him to get this done.

‘Come on, Owen,’ he shouts, able to make himself heard over the waves, ‘I can’t go left until you do.’

Cursing Jack and his shoes, which he now realises have fuck-all grip, Owen continues to make his way down the cliff. He can’t see how anyone can enjoy doing something like this just for larks.

It’s not that he’s scared of heights, he’s perfectly fine with being up high and taking in a view. But this? This is like agreeing to slowly fall to your death (or, life as a skin suit of broken bones, if you’re Owen and have his luck).

Somehow, trying to swing his momentum sideways and make it to the entrance of the cliff feels even more treacherous than the journey downwards. Jack nearly crashing into him doesn’t help.

Owen’s legs are wobbly as he lands in the cave and takes a few extra steps in for safety. Ianto is already there and out of his harness, hooking it up to a spike of stone that juts up out of the cave floor.

‘Why couldn’t one of the girls have come down here instead of me?’ Owen asks as he tugs the buckles on his own harness to untighten it.

‘Because Tosh is monitoring for the wavelength and Gwen’s on crowd control if anything kicks off,’ Jack explains, landing behind him. He’s actually taken his coat off for this particular mission.

‘I could do either of those things.’

‘And it’s good for you to do things outside of your comfort zone.’

Owen fumbles at his back to find the torch that he’d hooked onto his belt loop. He flicks it on.

‘This place actually looks pretty deep,’ he says, walking further in. The cave is just about high enough for Jack to stand up to his full height, but following his torchlight, Owen can see it narrows as it goes further back into the cliff.

‘Something new is showing up on the scanners,’ Tosh’s voice is in his ear now. ‘Can you hear anything?’

The three of them come to a standstill and look around.

‘Nothing,’ Jack whispers, ‘but maybe it hears us. Come on.’

He crouches down to avoid banging his head as he follows the cave deeper.

They’re only a few metres further in before Owen too has to duck. The walls are coming in tight to their sides now too, claustrophobically so, and Owen’s beginning to think that they won’t make it much further in when suddenly the cave opens outwards again, widening and growing taller.

And there, lit up by their torches, is a pink blob. It’s about the size of a large dog but seems to be collapsing in on itself, coated in strings of what looks to be a silvery mucus. It’s not a pretty sight, which only makes Owen feel all the more sorry for it.

It closes its five beady black eyes against the sudden onslaught of their torch light.

‘I know what this is!’ Jack gasps.

‘Giant, mutant blobfish?’ Ianto suggests.

‘A gelifisk,’ Jack says. ‘We used to get them sometimes, washed up on the shore when I was a kid. People would be drawn out to save them by their singing if they got stuck. I never saw one myself but I heard about them.’

‘It’s not dangerous then?’ Owen asks.

‘It can’t hurt you, not directly,’ Jack says. ‘Singing is its only weapon, a way it can manipulate people and predators to help it.’

Owen gets closer to the gelifisk. He kneels down beside it and reaches a hand out towards it. It doesn’t seem able to move properly to escape, but it shrinks in on itself, a clear indication that it doesn’t want to be touched.

Three of its eyes open up again and Owen looks into them. The despair he sees in their black depths is universal.

Thinking of the space whale he’d had to euthanise, Owen gets to his feet.

‘Can we save it?’ he says. ‘Would it be happy if we just pushed it back into the sea?’

Back above ground, Gwen perks up from her seat in the SUV. She’s been keeping an eye on the surrounding areas, checking for anyone being drawn in by whatever it is that’s calling out to them.

‘What’re the scanners saying now, Tosh?’ she asks.

‘I’m getting a new wavelength. And whatever it is, it seems to be getting louder,’ Tosh replies. She looks up from the laptop balanced on her knees. ‘Why?’

Gwen points down the road. Three people are staggering down it, just in the middle of the road. A car honks at them and swerves to avoid hitting them, shouting ‘wankers!’ out of the window as it does so.

They don’t flinch, and although Gwen can only just about see the whites of their eyes, they don’t blink either.

‘Time for some crowd control.’

She jumps out of the SUV, Tosh at her side. As she heads towards the group of zombified people, she taps the Bluetooth in her ear.

‘Jack, we’ve got problems up here.’

‘Just stop anyone jumping, Gwen,’ Jack replies.

He kneels beside the gelifisk and runs a gentle hand over it.

‘We can’t just put it in the sea here, there are too many boats. If it gets hurt or stranded again, its singing could hurt more people.’

‘What about a nice, remote Scottish loch?’ Ianto suggests.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Archie’s been saying they need a new legend up there since Nessie died.’

‘Wait, Nessie was real?’ Owen asks, feeling the conversation is getting out of hand, which happens sometimes when he’s left alone with Jack and Ianto. It turns out there’s more about Torchwood Two he didn’t know than he realised.

‘Plesiosaur,’ Ianto says. ‘What do you think, Jack?’

Jack pats the gelifisk again and gets to his feet.

‘If it’s happy and safe, it shouldn’t be a problem to anyone. Judging by the size of this one it’s only got a few years left anyway.’

‘Yeah, but how are you going to get it out of this cave and all the way up to Scotland?’ Owen asks, stating, as he sees it, the huge, obvious flaw in their plan.

‘We’re going to need a boat,’ says Jack.

*~*TW*~*

After winching the three men back up the cliff face, Tosh leaves with them in the SUV to race back to the Hub, grab whatever they need for the rescue mission, and get aboard the boat that a connection of Jack’s has made available. Gwen suspects the boat and its captain are what conveys Jack out to Flat Holm with Rift victims but she could just as easily imagine that Jack happens to have a few friends around the Bay who he’s helped out and owe him a favour.

Luckily, just as the rest of the team were leaving, Andy and his police colleagues arrived to help Gwen with the crowd control. It didn’t take them long to erect a safety fence a few metres back from the cliff face, stretching the length of the foot path and out around the headland.

The three people that she and Tosh had seen making their way to the cliff edge seemed to snap out of their trance as Jack put in the call for Tosh to winch them back up. Jack suspected that their presence had disturbed the gelifisk and caused it to cry out, summoning more people from nearby.

It must have stopped singing for now as no one else has appeared since those people left. Gwen had managed to fob those confused individuals off with a story about a local crime gang releasing a gaseous hallucinogen that only affected some people and they’d left, embarrassed but unhurt. Gwen had taken their names and phone numbers, just in case.

Andy approaches and hands Gwen a polystyrene cup of tea. She takes a big sip and appreciates that Andy remembers she likes her tea sugary when they’re on the job, the perfect pick-me-up.

‘That’s the stuff,’ she says, taking another sip, ignoring how hot it is. The sun has started to set and the balmy day is turning into a cool evening so the heat is welcome.

‘I take it that you’re still hanging around here because something’s about to go terribly wrong,’ Andy says, sipping at his own tea. He’s fully zipped up in high vis, cap tacked under his arm.

‘We don’t only show up when something’s about to go wrong,’ Gwen objects.

‘True. Sometimes you show up after that.’

Gwen would shove him if he wasn’t right. There’s only so much the five of them can do, after all.

‘We suspect there are going to be a few more people heading this way soon and I’m here to help you stop them,’ she explains.

‘Oh, aye,’ Andy says, taking another glug of tea. ‘You’ve found what’s drawing people out here then?’

He watches her over the top of his cup, blowing at the steam, patiently waiting for an answer. Gwen is trying to narrow down how much she can tell him. After his help with the weevils running rampant in the city, she thinks she can be more honest with him and he’ll believe her without being totally sarcastic.

‘There’s something down in the cliff face, way back in a cave. Every now and again, it’s calling out, and certain people are drawn to it.’

‘Alien, is it?’

He drops the word in casually, but it’s the first time Gwen’s ever heard him reference the idea of non-terrestrial life in her work so specifically.

‘Someone’s been doing some Googling,’ she says.

He shrugs. ‘There are plenty of stories out there about you lot. Not as covert as you might think.’

Gwen’s well aware of what the Internet has to say about the Torchwood team and what they do. Some of them are onto something and others are clearly speculative, putting together a jigsaw like they’ve got a few pieces but no idea what’s on the picture on the box. She and Ianto spent a gleeful afternoon once seeding false stories on local blogs and news articles, trying to obscure the truth further.

The alien bit though has become a lot harder to hide with everything that’s happened in Cardiff and the rest of the world in the last few years. Some days, she can’t believe she was ever so blind to it before Torchwood.

‘And the big toothy monsters you dealt with a few months ago?’

‘Clearly not escaped experiments from an animal testing lab. Give me some credit, Gwen, please.’

‘Alright, fine. You’ve done your detective work. We think it could be an alien down there.’

‘And it wants people to jump?’

‘Apparently not. Justine Miller, that girl you told me about earlier. We went to see her and she say whatever it is is calling out for help. The people who hear it walk to it and…’

‘Bugger. You’re going to stop it then?’

‘That’s the plan.’

Gwen scans the horizon, following the safety fence along the cliff. There are only a few officers positioned at it, spread along the metal rows and so far they’ve mostly dealt with nosey dog walkers asking about what’s going on.

‘How many are on the team here?’ she asks.

‘Six, including me. We can call for back-up if needed but we were lucky to get this many. Short-staffed, y’know.’

Gwen crosses the path and walks up to the safety fence, wrapping her hands through the cold chain links and shaking it. It’s weighted down with concrete feet and doesn’t budge with just her weight behind it, but she wonders how it would manage if more people started to show up and tussle with it.

‘If this can stop the hordes when the Bluebirds play Swansea, I think it’ll hold,’ Andy says. ‘How many people are you expecting to show up?’

‘Depends how long it takes them to get here,’ she says.

Jack had said he expected the gelifisk to sing louder and transmit further when they tried to move it as it would become distressed, no matter how gentle they were. Tosh had run a count on all of the medical records in Penarth and Cardiff and found out how many people were on citalopram – it was more than Gwen had suspected. Certainly more than would be reasonable for just her and six police offers to hold back if they arrived en masse and were determined to get through to the creature.

The fence is going to have to do.

Out on the Channel, Gwen spots the yellow glow of a boat making its way through the dusk towards them, the light dipping in and out as the boat rolls with the waves.

She activates the Bluetooth in her ear.

‘Is that you lot down there?’

Out on the water, Tosh tightens her grip on the side of the boat at Gwen’s words. She’s never been very good with boats and the choppy waves of the Channel coupled with a strong headwind and the choking scent of boat fuel definitely aren’t helping. She tries to focus on the horizon ahead of her and takes another deep breath as Jack answers Gwen.

‘Hello up there!’ he says, waving with his whole arm. He seems perfectly comfortable on the boat, swanning about the deck and prepping all their equipment. Owen’s coping fine too, if a bit unbalanced, though Tosh suspects Ianto is pretending to feel less queasy than he actually is. He certainly looks peaky.

‘Start pulling in to starboard, Dai,’ Jack shouts from the prow of the boat to Dai, the captain.

He’s a grizzled old man with a stubbly beard and well-weathered face, a look that matches his grizzled old boat. The paint on the stern is peeling and the buoys dangling alongside it are green with mildew. It’s a simple craft, with a wide, open deck and a small driver’s cabin, complete with a range of dials that don’t work. When Jack had said he had a hook up with a boat, Tosh had expected something a bit more high-tech. Maybe even alien.

In the cabin, Dai cranks a lever and spins the small wheel, and the boat – the Vainglorious – starts to turn right and take them in towards the cliffs.

Ianto comes over and hands Tosh a black fabric bag.

‘You alright?’ he asks.

‘I’ll manage. You?’

‘I expect the mushy peas will look the same coming up as they did going in.’

She chuckles, though the image makes her feel even more nauseated.

She opens the bag and looks into it, seeing a mass of sturdy strapping and buckles.

‘What’s this?’ she asks.

‘That’s what’s going to get us up into the cave. Much more Batman than this boat.’

He opens his own bag up and pulls the new harness out, shaking it to untangle it. He gets into it, stepping first into two loops that he pulls up his legs. Then, he straightens what’s left and pulls a strap up his back, finding two more loops to slide his arms through. He takes another length out of the bag and clips it to the back strap, clicking it into place on his waist with a round metal clasp.

‘These were designed by Torchwood One using alien tech, I was surprised we had any here,’ he says, adjusting his many buckles. ‘Do you need a hand with yours?’

‘I can get it on but you’re going to have to show me what to do with it next.’

They’re bobbing in close to the cliffs now, closer to some huge splinters of rock than Tosh likes the look of. Dai is smoking a cigarette as he watches the anchor drop, the rusty chain unfurling through the winch at the back of the boat.

Tosh fumbles with her buckles as she puts her harness on. It’s getting harder to see now in the increasing darkness and the only light on the boat is in the cabin, a dim bulb that flickers.

‘I feel ridiculous,’ Owen bemoans as he stomps across the boat, already kitted out in his many straps.

‘You’ll feel less ridiculous when this thing has you flying through the air in a minute,’ Jack says. ‘Trust me, you’ll want to do it all over again.’

Tosh assesses the final clasp as she clips it together at her front. It’s thick and heavier than she had realised as she watched Ianto put his on. She flips the front panel on it down and sees three buttons – a red one labelled ‘RELEASE’, a green one labelled ‘TRAVEL’ and a silver one labelled ‘RETURN’.

‘What do we do with it?’ she asks.

Jack turns to the three of them.

‘Has everyone got what they need?’

They nod – Ianto and Owen are both carrying nets and rods to support the weight of anything that goes within them. Tosh has only her scanner to monitor what happens as they close in on and move the gelifisk.

‘Then I’ll show you,’ says Jack.

He opens the panel on his harness and presses the red release button. The clasp makes a pneumatic noise and what can only be described as a grappling hook unfolds from within it, complete with thick metal cabling.

He steps to the prow of the boat and holds his arm out. Standing side-on, he points his arm out towards the cave, about fifteen metres above them, and says,

‘Then press, travel.’

He pushes his finger down on the green button as he says this and is suddenly whipped out of sight, lifted off the deck of the boar and flying through the air. He lands smoothly in the cave opening and waves down at them.

‘Easy!’ he shouts.

‘What he didn’t mention,’ Ianto says from Tosh’s left, ‘is that the device contains a low level psychic field and as long as you focus on where you want to go, it can take you there. Where you point it is really only a small factor.’

Tosh is suddenly much more intrigued by the device and hopes Ianto will let her take one apart later so she can learn from it – and probably even improve it. Comfort for petite women was clearly not in the design brief when this was made.

Ianto walks to the prow and mirrors Jack’s stance, grappling hook in hand. In a millisecond, he’s gone too.

Owen bows to Tosh.

‘Ladies first.’

Tosh pads up the boat, careful not slip on the damp surface. She presses the release button and the grappling hook falls out and unfolds in her hand, revealing three hooked prongs. She copies what she had seen Jack and Ianto do, looking along the reach of her arm to see the cave up above her.

She looks down at the panel again to ensure she’s about to press the right button next. Just before she does so, Owen gives her a thumbs up.

Then she hits the ‘travel’ button, the grappling hook whips out of her hand and she’s flying, travelling after it, launching through the air like a bullet. Her heart soars with her and she feels a startled laugh burst out of her just as she stumbles into the cave, where Jack and Ianto both work to stop her stumbling as she’s returned to her feet at great speed.

‘Wow,’ she breathes.

Jack squeezes her shoulder and waggles his eyebrows. ‘I know, right?’

Owen comes flying in, not managing to come to a stop as gracefully as Tosh had done despite Ianto’s best efforts to slow him down on entry.

‘Ok, you were right, Harkness, I do want to do that again,’ he admits.

Tosh hears her scanner beep in her pocket and pulls it out to check it.

‘I think the gelifisk knows we’re coming,’ she says. ‘It’s singing again.’

Above ground, Gwen watches as one of the police officers Andy has brought with him straightens suddenly and turns his back on his post. He tries to walk through the fence but it doesn’t budge. Unblinking, he keeps his legs moving, walking and bumping into it as if he doesn’t realise there’s an obstacle in his path preventing him from going any further.

Gwen runs over to him, Andy not far behind. She goes to grab the officer’s arm but Andy grabs hers instead.

‘What if it’s like with sleepwalkers?’ he said. ‘You’re not supposed to wake them up.’

‘I’m not sure that’s actually true, Andy,’ she says, brushing his hand off her arm. ‘What’s this guy’s name?’

‘Andrews, Peter Andrews.’

‘Peter?’ Gwen says, reaching out to the man again. She waves a hand in front of his eyes. ‘Peter, can you hear me?’

Nothing. Peter keeps his feet moving, knocking into the fence. She looks up to the top of the fence where she can see it sway slightly with each knock it takes.

‘Let’s hope the others get this sorted before too many more show up.’

Tosh’s heart sinks when she sees the gelifisk all alone at the back of the tunnel. She can’t hear its singing but she doesn’t need to to understand how lonely and afraid it must feel.

Owen gently moves her to one side so he can pass her and get closer.

The gelifisk’s eyes blink in rapid succession, taking it in turns, as he gets nearer to it.

‘It’s okay, it’ll be alright,’ he says, voice low and reassuring as he approaches, one hand held out in a calming gesture as if trying to still a cowering dog.

The gelifisk rocks its round body from side-to-side, trying to get the momentum to roll away from Owen but it can’t seem to get up the strength. There’s really nowhere for it to go.

Owen lands his hand on it, just above its string of dark eyes. The rocking intensifies.

‘Can it make actual noise that we could all hear?’ Tosh turns to Jack.

‘I never heard that they could,’ he replies. ‘Not that humanoid species could hear, at least.’

‘I think it must be screaming right now.’

Jack wraps an arm around her as they watch Owen work.

‘We’re going to save this one, Tosh,’ he says.

As more and more unblinking people arrive at the fence, moving faster now, some sprinting in, Gwen starts to think that they’re going to be overpowered. They’re one man down and it looks like six police officers and herself was never going to be enough.

‘How much longer do you think you’ll be?’ she asks the rest of the team over the comms.

‘Owen’s just sedating it now,’ Jack replies. ‘Everything alright up there?’

‘We’ve got about a dozen here already and I can see more incoming. Could the song start to be heard by more people with different brain chemistry as the gelifisk gets more distressed?’

‘The scanner is starting to pick up something more,’ Tosh says. ‘We won’t be long now.’

‘Thanks, Tosh.’

She presses her ear to silence the comms unit again. Now all she can hear is the sound of quick footsteps, the rattle of the fence and something just scratching away in the back of her mind, like a song she can’t quite remember.

‘The sedatives don’t seem to be working!’ Owen yells as he throws another emptied syringe down on the ground, reaching into his bag for more. ‘I’ve put enough in here to take down two elephants and it’s getting us nowhere!’

The gelifisk rocks more violently, wiggling hard, five eyes now shut hard.

‘We’re going to have to do this the hard way,’ Jack says. ‘Ianto, have you got the nets? Ianto?’

Ianto is pressed up against the cave wall, the nets clutched in his hands.

‘I can hear it,’ he says, voice hoarse. ‘It’s started, in my head, it’s singing.’

Tosh can hear it now too. There aren’t any words in the song, nothing she can pick out as words anyway, but she doesn’t need to know the lyrics to feel it deep within her, gut-wrenching and scared.

She tries to sing over it in her mind, to remember the words to something more upbeat, to try and cancel it out.

But she can’t. There is only the song now. And she must get to the singer, she must go and help it.

‘Toshiko!’ Jack shouts. She hears it, a dim echo somewhere far away. Not important.

She shoves past him to get closer to the gelifisk, to put her hands on it, to wrap herself around it and soothe it. At the edge of her vision, she’s aware of Ianto walking with her, getting closer to the creature.

‘What do we do, Jack?’ Owen’s voice is just there, on the periphery, a different distress call.

She kneels down beside the gelifisk. Puts an arm around it and presses her cheek up against its skin. It may have looked slimy but it’s cool and smooth, not sticky. Her hand brushes against Ianto’s on the back of the alien as he too is crouched down beside it.

The song in her head changes.

‘They’re helping it,’ says Jack. ‘It called out for help, to not be alone, and now it isn’t.’

The song is warm in Tosh’s mind, a cosy blanket. She smiles and squeezes the gelifisk tighter.

Jack squats down beside her, gently reaching out a hand, just the tips of his fingers falling at her shoulder blade.

‘Can you hear me, Tosh?’

His voice is clearer now than it had been, it floats in melodiously with the song. He’s safe and warm too, his voice becomes one with the song. Safe.

‘Mmm, yes,’ she whispers.

‘Ianto?’

‘Yes, Jack.’

‘The gelifisk feels safe now, doesn’t it? You’ve helped it feel safe.’

‘Not lonely anymore,’ Tosh says.

‘We need to move it, okay? Can you both help it stay calm as we move it?’

Tosh and Ianto nod, both getting slowly to their feet, still keeping one hand each on the gelifisk’s back. The song echoes through her mind, more distant now, but still there, still connected and not all alone in the dark.

Gwen comes to with a jerk. Her fingers are wrapped through the cold metal chains of the safety fence and she’s not sure how she got there. There had been a voice and it needed her.

She’s not alone here. She’s bumping shoulders with Andy, who seems equally confused, as does the rest of the crowd she’s at the front of.

She looks down and jumps back suddenly, crashing into the gathering behind her.

‘Get back!’ she shouts.

The feet of the safety fence are balanced precariously on the cliff edge, dirt and stones rolling out from beneath them, cascading down into the roiling depths below. The bottom of her stomach drops out thinking about how close they had come.

‘It’s alright, everyone, it’s alright,’ Andy is calling over the crowd. ‘Calmly step back please!’

Gwen looks into the scared faces around her, the fear etched into the brows and downturned lips of everyone within the crowd.

‘How did I get here?’ she hears someone say. ‘What’s going on?’

She casts a backwards look over her shoulder again. It’s hard to tell in the darkness that has fallen, but it looks as if there are several figures back on the deck of the boat below once again.

‘Stand back everyone,’ she shouts, brain catching up with what’s just happened, her police instincts kicking back into gear. ‘You’re all safe now, you’re going to be fine.’

Down on the boat, Tosh bends down to look at the gelifisk floating away in the tank they’d brought with them. She can’t hear it singing anymore but the flips and turns it makes in the water seem joyous.

She presses her palm against the glass and the gelifisk nudges up against it and rotates. The boat is chugging through the water back towards Cardiff Bay but she doesn’t feel sick this time. She assume this must be the residual effect of the gelifisk’s happy song – if she tries, she can still hear something at the edge of her mind.

‘How come you couldn’t hear it?’ she asks Jack, stood just behind her. ‘Owen, I get, but you…’

‘I heard something, just here,’ he taps on his forehead, ‘but I was able to drown it out. Basic psychic training.’

Tosh stands.

‘Maybe we should all have some of that,’ she suggests.

‘Twenty-first century humans. Hardly any of you have got that little bit of alien DNA needed to develop psychic senses.’

Comments like this would have thrown Tosh once, not knowing how seriously to take her boss. Now she knows there’s truth to the things he says. He’s not human in the same way that she is – and not being able to die is only part of it.

‘I’ve had too many aliens get in my head. This one I don’t mind so much but it’d be nice to have more control over who’s allowed in.’

‘Add it to your list of projects,’ Jack smiles, ‘I’m sure you can figure something out. You’ll have us all in funny helmets to block everything out.’

Tosh laughs. ‘Yeah, then we’ll properly be the tin hat brigade. Even fewer people will take us seriously.’

She dangles her fingers in the top of the tank, brushing against the gelifisk’s back. Despite her line of work, she’s rarely had such close contact with an alien before. Even less so the kind of contact she’s having now, the kind where nothing is trying to kill or maim her.

It’s a pleasant change.

‘Did you call your mom yet?’ he asks.

She shakes her head.

‘Haven’t had the chance with the day that we’ve had. Her number is on my desk back at the hub.’

‘You’ve got good news to tell her then. Today, you saved someone. And not for the first time.’

Tosh looks into the tank, at the gelifisk rotating slowly with slow, calm blinks. It looks more solid now it’s in water, as if being in its natural habitat gave its muscles something to do and its body is in its true form once again.

Looking away from the tank, up the deck to the prow of the boat, her eyes land on Owen. He’s perched on the edge of the boat, apparently unbothered by the speed and the tilt of the thing as it cuts through the water. Hands in his jacket pockets, he looks not out at the water, but up into the sky, up at the stars that are much clearer out here away from the lights of the city. He spots her looking and waves. She waves back.

‘And not for the last time either,’ she says.