Title: Everything Changes, Part One

Author: Emma

Characters: Canonical Torchwood Three members… sort of.

Rating: Some chapters definitely not safe for work.

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: Constable Gwen Cooper is drawn into the dark world of the Queen’s Magicians.

Author’s Note: I have been bitten by a radioactive plot bunny that threatened to disintegrate my cells if I didn’t do this. No. I don’t know if I will do all the episodes, though it would be fun. We’ll see.

Author's Note: This is a retelling of the Torchwood episodes in a world in which there are no aliens and magic and the supernatural are very real. For all of you history nerds, the Synod of Whitby went the other way and the majority of the northern English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish are Celtic Christians.

Author’s Note: I like to thank RTD for the inspiration (/snark)

           Constable Gwen Cooper hated night duty, especially in nights like this one, when the hard rain found all kinds of ways to defeat the police-issue waterproof and its ineffectual little hat. She had given up on dry an hour before and was down to hoping her shoes were salvageable. As she shivered she sent up a prayer to the Great Mother that she wouldn’t disgrace herself by sneezing; she knew of one Pagan inspector in Holyhead who had been dismissed for contaminating the scene because he had coughed at the wrong time.

            It wasn’t a secret that many senior officers were unhappy with the Royal Council’s decision to promote the advancement of non-Christians in all branches of service. It was rumoured that the Glamorgan District Commissioner, a conservative Roman Catholic, had been threatened with disgrace over his reluctance to obey orders, and even now his protégés in the Subdistrict offices liked to prove their loyalty by finding excuses to dismiss Pagans.

            She tried to ignore the itching in her nose by concentrating on the crime scene. According to Kyle, the forensics team’s recording clerk, the man lying on his back in the mud, eyes open and vacant, had been stabbed in the back with a long, thin blade with a serrated edge. The body had been discovered by the night concierge of the Hilton Cardiff Bay, who had snuck out to meet his girl and had been decent enough to call the police before bolting back to his desk. A search of the immediate area had yielded nothing of interest. The Detective-Inspector in charge had taken one look and stalked back to his car, swearing under his breath. Now they were all standing around, waiting for the Mother knows what and getting soaked to the bone.

            “Not much longer, Gwen.” Senior Constable Andy Davidson offered her a cup of coffee. “They’ll be here soon.”

            She smiled at him thankfully. Andy Davidson was the youngest Senior Constable in the Glamorgan Police. He was also the local lay chaplain, and a walking example of the kind of Christian her mam called the real goods. Or course, he was a Celt, not a Roman Catholic, which in Gwen’s mind made all the difference.

            “What are we waiting for, Andy?”

            “Torchwood.”

            Gwen managed to control her shudder. Everyone knew about Torchwood, but very few people ever encountered them in the flesh. The Queen’s Magicians, her mam called them, etching in the air the sign against the Evil Eye. It had been created by Queen Victoria after she was nearly attacked by a werewolf. Its mandate was to protect the Empire from all supernatural threats, but many believed they also had a secret purpose directly connected to the Royal Bloodline. 

            Gwen had never understood why Cardiff rated a Torchwood office. Like most old cities, Cardiff was haunted – she had good reason to know – but there had never been any major demonic outbreaks like the Canary Wharf incident in London. It seemed a lot like swatting a fly with a bomb.

            “Here they are,” Andy muttered.

            The big, powerful SUV stopped right at the police tape and four people got out. Gwen’s eyes were drawn to the tall, dark-haired man in the flamboyant World War Two coat. He moved like someone accustomed to power. There was a touch of the incubus about him in the way he attracted people’s eyes, but she noticed that men as well as women turned to look. Then he looked straight at her, and, for a moment, the blue, blue eyes held her like an insect trapped in amber.   

            She told herself it was simply that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

            Moving in a phalanx behind  him were a tiny oriental woman in the sort of clothes Gwen would have given her eyeteeth for, a small man that reminded her of the fox spirits in her mam-gu’s fairy tales,  and a woman with the drawn face and blazing eyes of a fanatic. They all dressed in plain, unrelieved black. Something about the group made her uneasy, and she drew back into the shadows beyond the ring of spotlights trained on the body.

            “Constable Davidson.” The man’s voice, perfectly modulated, matched his appearance. “Please have your people leave the crime scene. Torchwood is taking over.”

            “Yes, Captain Harkness.”

            Gwen wondered if anyone else could hear the affection in the exchange. She did notice that the Captain’s hand rested briefly on Andy’s wrist before he moved to follow his crew. It made her even more curious than she already was.

            She started back with the others, but dropped behind as they passed the parking garage behind the hotel. The second stairwell door she tried was open and she slid inside, closing it carefully so as not to make a sound. She ran up the stairs to the third floor – high enough not to be detected, but low enough that she could see what was going on. The whole place was deserted and dark. Even someone looking up would find it difficult to see her. She ran to the wall directly above the crime scene and looked down.

            Captain Harkness stood by, patiently waiting until his people finished their work. The Asian woman was moving around in a slow circle while doing something in her PDA. She was obviously the team technologist. The fox man was examining the body using some kind of scanner she had never seen. But it was the second woman that caught Gwen’s attention.

            She was kneeling by the corpse’s head. From this angle Gwen had a clear view of the brooch pinned to the lapel of her coat: an eye, its pupil made from jet, its iris from palest amethyst, and its sclera from translucent quartz, mounted on three gold rods forming a triangle. Gwen touched her own, hanging from a long chain and hidden between her breasts. The woman was a Bishop-certified medium.

            Gwen watched as the woman reached into a bag and took out a leather glove with a wide embroidered cuff. She pulled it on and flexed her fingers.

            “Come on, come on,” the fox man said. “Let’s get this done. I’m freezing my arse out here.”

            “It’s not that simple. Owen,” the woman snapped. “It has to grant me access. I can’t make it do anything… oh, oh, oh, oh!”

            Gwen watched in horror as the woman’s hand moved as if pulled by invisible strings. It waved about for a bit, clearly looking for something.

            “Suzie, concentrate!” Captain Harkness said, kneeling on the other side of the body. “Owen, measure everything. Tosh, record this. We’ll need to look at it later.”

            The medium – Suzie – placed her left hand on her pin and closed her eyes. Gwen could see the strain on her face as she fought to bring her gloved hand underneath the corpse’s head, cradling it in her palm. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then the dead man blinked and its mouth opened in a wail of panic.

            “What’s wrong, what’s happened?”

            Captain Harkness took the man’s hand in his. “Listen. Listen to me. What’s your name?”

            “John… John Tucker.”

            “Listen, John, you’ve had an accident. Did you see anything?”

            “An accident? Why am I not in a hospital, then? “ He looked around. “Oh, God, I’m dead, aren’t I? And you’re making me into a zombie. Oh God, please forgive my trespasses…”

            “John! John! Listen. We’re not making you into anything, ok? We need to know what happened.”

            “I’m not dead. I don’t want to be dead. Oh, God, I was just going home.”

            “Fifty seconds,” Suzie said.

            “John! We need to know what happened. Did you see who stabbed you?”

            “No… There was something… behind me. I couldn’t see anything.”

            “Forty seconds.”

            “What happens now?” The man gripped Captain Harkness’s hand. “What happens to me now?”

            “Twenty seconds.”

            “Now you go home, John Tucker.”

            Captain Harkness waited until the man’s eyes closed before releasing his hand. Sighing, he stood up.

            “Well, that went well,” Owen said acidly. “Next time we can maybe do it properly.”

            “I don’t think there’s any proper way to do this, Owen.” Captain Harkness tilted his head and looked straight up into Gwen’s eyes. “What do you think?”