Title: Evolution (17/20)

Author: Emma

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Rhys Williams, others

Rating: Starts PG, but hey, it’s got Jack and Ianto in it!

Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?

Summary: Rhys Williams has his own monsters to fight…

Author’s Note: This story takes place in a totally different AU from Homecoming. In this one, Gwen and Owen died at the end of TW2.

           By the time I got back everyone was eating breakfast. The only empty seat was between Martha and Ianto; both of them had their laptops out and were working as they ate. Ianto looked blandly at me and offered me a plate of scones. Martha, on the other hand, kept her eyes focused on the screen, but she was fairly vibrating. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain myself. I needed to tell her how stupid I had been, except that, well, maybe I had the right to be angry.

Not at her, but at Torchwood, or at least at Jack. Across the table John Hart was sitting between Mike and Euan. He looked back at me and there wasn’t a single expression on his face; neither amusement or shame, not a smirk or an apology. There was something, though, that reminded me of Jack, and because he had the information Torchwood needed, Jack had brought him back into my life. Surely I had the right to be angry at Jack Harkness?

            Duw. I couldn’t even make sense to myself. Best to concentrate on other matters until I could.

            “Jack,” I said tentatively, “I’ve been wondering… The weevil I saw. After everything that’s happened, it can’t be a coincidence that it showed up here the same night Rosie did, can it? It couldn’t have been hunger that drove it. I mean, I don’t think it touched anything. The horses were in a right tizzy but that was mostly because of the smell.”

            “We’ve been working on that,” he said. “We also need to know how Rosie got here and what Ollie was doing with her. Mike?”

            The boy shook his head. “I don’t know.  There’s something in here,” he tapped his head forcefully, “but I can’t get it out!”

            “Don’t force it, Mike,” Martha said. “Memories surface in their own time.”

            “I don’t think we have much of that,” he muttered.

            “Martha’s right. Let it go for now.” Jack beat a rapid tattoo on the table, then took a deep breath. “Thomas, Euan, you need to make a decision. If you get more involved in this, you’re enlisting in a war that has a good chance of getting you killed. If you walk away, you can live the rest of your life in blissful ignorance.”

            I sat there, mouth hanging open. Things really had changed if Jack offered options these days.

            Euan was shaking his head fiercely. Thomas looked at me. “Rhys?”

            I suppressed the urge to tell him to run as fast as he could. “I’m not the one to ask, Thomas. Gwen lasted all of two years, but she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. What we… they… do is important, but it is deadly.”

            “When they called me from London they said you were an anti-terrorist organization, but you’re not, are you?”

            Jack poured himself more coffee.  “It depends on how you define terrorist.”

            Euan grinned. “Let’s define them as coming from another planet.”

            “Then we are definitely an anti-terrorist organization.”

            “Stop taking the piss, Captain Harkness,” Thomas snapped. “What the hell does Torchwood do?”

            “We catch aliens.”

            “Aliens? In Wales?”

            I couldn’t stop myself from howling with laughter. Everyone turned to stare and that only made it worse. I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks and I was gasping for air, and I still couldn’t stop. I was shaking myself to pieces. When I felt Martha’s hand rubbing my back, I hid my face against her throat, inhaling the now familiar scent of spicy roses.

            “Rhys,” Thomas sounded a little scared. “Are you all right, mate?”

            I took a deep breath and tried to sound a little less like a madman. “Yeah. Sorry, Thomas. It’s just that that’s exactly what I said to Gwen when she told me. Aliens? In Cardiff?”

            “He is serious?”

            “Like a heart attack. That’s what they do, Thomas. They face off with some of the biggest monsters the Universe can throw at us. Most of the time they win.”

            “All right.” He turned to Jack. “I’m in, Captain. Whoever is doing this had the cheek to come into my house and kill one of my own. I will not tolerate that.”

            “Jack.” Ianto cut in, stopping Jack’s explanations before they began. “I have Andy.”

            “On speaker. Hey, Andy. Tell me we got something.”

            “We got something. Alan Sullivan, senior researcher at the fertility clinic, is an old Torchwood One employee. We spoke to several of the medical people who survived Canary Wharf. They hate his bollocks. The kindest epithets they used were secretive, paranoid, and arrogant. Unfortunately, they don’t know anything about his research. He reported directly to Yvonne Hartman. Doctor Edward Richardson, he says hello, by the way, is willing to swear Sullivan removed research files and samples from the biogenetics labs. He saw Sullivan running away, arms full of boxes, right during the battle. Refused to aid the wounded.”

            “Why the hell didn’t he tell UNIT?”

            “He says he did, but he never heard from the investigators. I looked into it. People were trying to secure stuff all throughout that day, so the investigators assumed Sullivan was doing the same.”

“Time we paid a visit to doctor Sullivan.”

            “There’s more. That research you’ve had our resident geek genius do on weevil travel patterns has turned up something interesting. Picture coming through.”

            Ianto turned the laptop so we could all see it. The screen showed a CCTV shot of the back of a derelict building. A single bulb lit one corner. Near it, in shadows, but clear enough that we could see their faces, were a man and a weevil. I had never seen the man before, but I certainly could recognize the weevil.

            “That’s the weevil I saw in the woods, Jack.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Yes. Unless that pattern of freckles or whatever on the cheek is common to all weevils.”

            “Nope. Freckle pattern is individual, almost as good as fingerprints.”

            “Ashadjalle.” Mike was leaning forward until he was nearly crouching on top of the table. “Her name is Ashadjalle, and she is my friend.”