Title: Bred in the Bone (16/20)

Author: Emma

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Andy Davidson, Toshiko Sato, 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: Andy Davidson must embrace his inheritance in order to protect Jack and Ianto’s daughter Gwen

Author's Note: This is an AU where Gwen and Owen were killed by Gray. So if you want to know why Martha is married to Rhys and Jack and Ianto have a CP and two adopted daughters, you may want to read Evolution first

Author’s Note: The title is shamelessly stolen from Robertson Davies’s magnificent novel. It’s also an old saying: what’s bred in the bone will out in the flesh

 Part One is here; Part Two is here; Part Three is here; Part Four is here; Part Five is here; Part Six is here; Interlude is here; Part Seven is here; Part Eight is here; Part Nine is here; Part Ten is here; Part Eleven is here; Part Twelve is here; Part Thirteen is here; Part Fourteen is here; Interlude Two is here; Part Fifteen is here

            “Suzie?”

 

            In other circumstances I would have enjoyed Jack’s befuddlement, except that I felt essentially the same way. Suzie Costello’s body had been cremated and the ashes buried at St Winefride’s, the Torchwood cemetery at Gwaelod-y-Garth. Of that, there was no doubt; Ianto and Jack had done the job themselves.  So even if Suzie’s spirit were willing, the flesh was most certainly absent. On the other hand, she had earned her reputation for planning ahead, so it was possible she had left Jack another little present. The first one had driven a man to become a serial killer. Sweet girl, our Suzie.

 

            “I see the logic of it,” Ianto said. “At the end, Suzie was… powered by hate. But how? And why now?”

 

            “Let me add another one. Who? Something Suzie did before she killed herself triggered these events more than ten years later. She couldn’t have planned it in detail. I’m certain she didn’t know about my people; we’ve kept a pretty close eye on Torchwood from the day it set up housekeeping. So who’s doing her work for her?”

 

            “Susan Creevey,” Tosh answered, waving a bunch of printouts as she charged toward us. “She was one of the founding members of Pilgrim. UNIT administrative boffin, fast-tracked to the top of the heap, until something happened. Discharged with full pension and benefits, but there’s nothing in her records to indicate why. And I’ve dug as far down as it goes.”

 

            “Do we know at least when the something happened?”

 

            “There’s no actual last-day-at-work date on file. She started collecting her pension, let me see…” she looked up at us, wide-eyed, “two weeks after we dealt with the Archangel mess.”

 

            “That’s not a coincidence,” I said. “What kind of administration did she do?”

 

            “Logistics, specializing in troop support. She was in charge of the Wales division.”  She flipped through the papers in her hand. “She was coordinating officer during the operations at the mine, Jack.”

 

            “So she knew what was happening as soon as it did,” Ianto said. “Could something there have triggered her?”

 

            “We need more information,” Jack said. “There’s always something someone did not write down. I’ll get on the phone. I think Albert will be more than willing to give us a hand.”

 

            He bounded off to his office, followed by Ianto at a more sedate pace. Colonel Albert Alastair Gordon, nephew of Jack’s old friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and a sort of godson to Jack, was the UNIT commanding officer for Wales. The man had a reputation for being the sort who grabbed on to something and worried it to death if need be. I was sure Jack would get his information.

 

            Tosh plopped down on the chair next to mine. “Now what?”

 

            “Now we make sure the other pilgrims are not involved in any way. Just in case. I’ll take the others.”

 

            We worked side by side, tracking down all the poor souls who had needed some sort of reassurance that there was a greater meaning to their lives and had ended up wandering close to that great black hole that was Suzie Costello. We couldn’t find anything that suggested any of them was involved. Most continued on their daily pace, still searching for that elusive something they needed; a couple had left the country, one to Australia and one to Spain. One had become, of all things, a military chaplain. After a couple of hours of work, the only question remaining was Susan Creevey.

 

            “All right,” Tosh said. “It’s her or we are being led down another blind alley. Now what?”

 

            “Now we find out everything about Susan Creevey, from the cradle.”

 

            Tosh grinned maniacally and assaulted her laptop with a series of commands. I left her at it and walked to the kitchenette to make some tea. Rhys and Euan were out to Tremorfa to see the local coppers about some artifact they had found. I looked in on Martha, who was elbow-deep into the medical database.

 

            “Hey, Muse. What are you looking at?”

 

            She made a rude sound. “Do you know I found a fresh bouquet of rosemary this morning on my desk? This one had the most beautiful dark-red carnations in it. I looked them up. He wrote about them in The Winter’s Tale: The year growing ancient, not yet on summer’s death nor on the birth of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o’ the season are our carnations… Am I going to keep getting presents like this?”

 

            “I should think so. The Small Ones have long memories and they loved Will Shakespeare with a passion. So, what are you looking at?”

 

            “Suzie’s medical records. Right after her first death, Owen ran a complete set of scans. There’s a large lesion in her brain. No medical reason for it. His report says it was from using the risen mitten but I’ve compared her scans to Gwen’s and hers show a similar lesion, but very small and in a totally different place. So I’m thinking, if the lession is due to using the mitten, maybe Suzie found another use for the thing?”

 

            “Where was the lesion?”

 

            “On the thalamus. It’s the part of the brain that collects all sensory input and sends it on to the cortex, but lately there’s been research that shows it’s a lot more than that.”

 

            “It is,” I told her. “If you checked out mine, without the glamour this time, you’d find that it’s very different from yours. We perceive certain things you don’t. Or most of you don’t, although some of you have the ability. Ianto’s is probably different, but much less than mine. In a medical scan it would appear as a harmless abnormality. My people believe it’s where Talent resides.”

 

            “You mean what we would call psychic ability?”

 

            “I suppose, though that is highly imprecise…”

 

            We were interrupted by a shout from Toshiko. Martha and I both rushed back to the main floor. Tosh stopped our questions with a raised hand.

 

            “Listen to this. It’s a psychologist’s report on an incident with Susan Creevey when she was eleven years old: The child’s delusions center on the belief that she could speak to fairies. This in itself is not unusual in lonely children, especially those who have been wrenched from their familiar environments. What is unusual about Susan is that she believes the fairies refused to take her with them, and she has developed a hatred of anything which depicts them. Destroying the images was her idea of revenge.”

 

            “Well, that fits. Whoever Bound the tywyl to iron didn’t like them very much.”

 

            “There are ways to Bind tywyl?”

 

            “Yes, but they are fairly difficult and very, very dangerous. And you need to have some native Talent. Otherwise…” I shivered slightly. “The tywyl can be very inventive.”

 

            “Do you think Susan Creevey would have enough Talent to do it?”

 

            “Don’t know, but I would love to get a look at her thalamus.”

 

            “You might be able to,” Jack said from the top of the stairs. “They’re sending over all the paperwork on Susan Creevey. Emphasis on paper. There were some things that UNIT didn’t feel needed to be where any talented hacker would get at them. Should be here tonight.”

 

            “In the meantime…”

 

            The Cog door alarm blared as it rolled open to admit a troop of Small Ones. They were chivying Rhys and Euan along. They were both bleeding, but even from here I could tell it wasn’t dangerous.

 

            “Oi, mate!” Rhys shouted. “Could you tell your friends here that we’re ok?”

 

            “Well, technically, they’re Ianto’s friends. Winter colors. What happened?”

 

            “We were almost back here when this big wind came up. Rattled us around inside the SUV like peas in a can, and then we were in a ditch. Then suddenly, the little ones were there, and the wind was gone and next thing I knew we were right in front of the cog door. Hell of a rush, that trip.”

 

            “So,” Ianto said severely from his place behind Jack. “Did anyone think of the SUV?”