Title: Adaptation, a Torchwood/NCIS Crossover (13/?)

Author: Emma

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Tim McGee, LJ Gibbs, Ducky Mallard, others

Rating: Starts PG, but hey, it’s got Jack and Ianto in it (not to mention Tim & Jethro!)

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: Tim McGee’s worlds collide as Torchwood is drawn into an NCIS case

Author's Note: This is part of an AU where Gwen and Owen were killed by Gray. So if you want to know why Martha is married to Rhys, why Jack and Ianto have a CP, two sons and two adopted daughters, and why Andy and Ianto are Kings of an alien race that settled on Earth millennia ago, you may want to read Evolution and Bred in the Bone first

Author's Note: I'm sorry this has taken so long. Real Life can be a real female dog in heat.

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

Roberta Lehman sniffed delicately at the mutilated hand in front of her. “Definitely not one of ours. He smells much warmer. And...” she sniffed again. “He was in tainted salt water very recently.”

“What do you mean?” Ducky bent closer and took a deep whiff. “Yes. Metal.”

She nodded. “Processed metal, not ore.”

“You can tell the difference?”

“Yes. The same way I can tell that you drink a small amount of alcohol on a daily basis, or that he,” she pointed at Jack, “is not quite human.”

I felt Gibbs's eyes burning holes in the back of my head. I wondered wearily how he would twist this bit of information around so he could blame me for it.

We had brought Roberta back to the office and taken her downstairs to the medical lab. She had identified our sailor as Jonas Hartley, a fourth generation Silurian whose family had settled in Virginia in the eighteen nineties. Ducky had shown her the other body, and while her first reaction had been one of utter disgust, she had agreed to assist him.

“Anything else, Ms. Lehman?” Ducky said.

“Please call me Roberta, Doctor Mallard,” she smiled absently as she continued her examination. “When people call me by my last name, I tend to look around for my grandmother.”

“Very well. Roberta. Anything else?”

“I think so. See this here?” She pointed to a thin flap of skin behind the rectangular pieces of cartilage she had definitely identified as the Silurian version of ears. “These are auxiliary gills. This Silurian lived a considerable portion of his life in deep water. My people chose not to carry those into our new bodies.”

“Do you know of any groups who still do? Live in underwater caves, I mean?”

“Perhaps in Europe? There was a large sept in the general area of Sicily, and another one off the coast of Chile. But that was centuries ago. We chose to change and integrate. I doubt they would even consider us Silurians any more.”

“Can I ask a question, too?” Jimmy Palmer said diffidently.

I had to hide a grin. Whenever Doctor Donald Mallard was around, Doctor James Palmer, M.D., PhD, holder of several honorary titles for his investigations into forensic anatomy, reverted to Jimmy Palmer, newbie assistant. At Roberta's smile and nod, he went on. “If I understand what you told us correctly, your sept took time to perfect your form. You were probably worked on from the moment of conception, right?”

“From the moment the shell was formed,” she agreed.

“But this one couldn't have. He or she was made to look like a friend of ours. That would imply a different kind of genetic manipulation.”

Ducky glowed with the satisfaction of a teacher whose student graduates summa cum laude. Roberta looked at Jimmy, then turned back to the body on the slab. Her voice was low and ashamed. “We have heard stories of experiments. My own great-grandmother told my father stories about a sept which was stricken from all records for such horrible practices that even their name was tainted. They were cursed and their lives and records destroyed.”

I traded a look with Jack. He nodded slightly. The cursed sept had been the ones who had bred humans.

Gibbs was leaning against Jimmy's desk, arms crossed , watching the goings on. “Roberta, could you identify the metal?”

“I believe so.” She wrinkled her nose. “It's a very distinctive smell.”

“All right. We'll set you up with Abby. But before we do, I need you to go look at some pictures with Tim. Let's see if you can identify the sailors who brought the artifacts to the gallery.”

She smiled at him. “I can do better than that.”

She closed her eyes and inclined her head. This time I was ready for what I would see. The images flickered slightly but then solidified, showing two men in civilian clothes. The first one was young and rather athletic, with black hair and green eyes. The other was a middle-aged man whose posture screamed bureucrat. They were both readily recognizable.

“That's Petty Officer Wolff,” I said.

“And that,” Jack said, and his voice was colder than the human hell was supposed to be, “is your Commander Zigler. I think we should go back and shake some answers loose, don't you, Director?”

Gibbs's gave him a dirty look. “I don't know how you run Torchwood, Captain, but here I have this little problem called evidence. A hologram projected by a genetically altered alien... I can't even start to count in how many ways we could get laughed out of court.”

“I'll get my team on both of them. GeeGee had a good search started on Wolff. We'll do the same to Zigler. We'll have something by tomorrow morning.”

“That will work. And once I have the money trail, Captain, we will go shake some answers loose.”

“Good. So we're through for today, then?”

“Not me, unfortunately,” I said. “GeeGee and Ellen are following up with the Virginia police about Mrs. Wolff's death. Quint and I are going to pull a very long night. Don't expect me for dinner.”

I left the room before anyone had a chance to object. After my conversation with Gibbs in the car, I had no intention of spending any more time with him than was necessary. Letting go was best one in one single gesture; dragging it out only contributed to the pain and it tended to turn one into a melodramatic ass. The job was as good an excuse as any.

Quint was still in the computer lab. He was wearing his headphones but I could hear the 1812 Overture blasting away directly into his eardrums. The look on his face as of one having an almost mystical experience as his hands flew over the keyboard. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped.

“Damnit, boss, don't do that!” He yanked off the headphones. “I don't know how the heck you can sneak up on me like that.”

“The Pacific Fleet could sneak up on you, Quint. How's the Wolff search coming?”

“Talked to GeeGee earlier and in light of the accident we decided to expand the search. Already found lots of stuff, though it boils down to Private Wolff should have kept it in his pants. If he had, we would have had to spend three times as much effort, and might have missed some things. That boy had talent.”

“All right. What else are you doing? You looked like you were about to burst into hymns.”

“I'm interfacing with Mainframe.” At my puzzled look, he waved at the large screen. “The Torchwood computer. Damn, boss, if we could get our hands on one of those babies we could own the Eastern Seaboard in two years.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, she's one of a kind, and I barely understand the research she and Abby and Toshiko set up, so I'm reduced to being her hands at his end. No worries. I'm learning. What are you doing here?”

“We had a tip Zigler was involved in the smuggling.”

He whistled long and loud. “And we need to find the evidence so we can pull him in?”

“You think they'll let us arrest the Commander of Navy Yard Security without it?”

He grinned maniacally at me. “You take that one and I'll set up another one over here. Let's go hunting, boss.”