Title: Adaptation, a Torchwood/NCIS Crossover (18/?)

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

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; Part Thirteen is here; Part Fourteen is here; Part Fifteen is here; Part Sixteen is here; Part Seventeen is here


Jethro pointed at the open bulkhead door at the end of the corridor and waggled his hand at me. I shook my head. There weren't any Silurians hiding in the warren of rooms beyond. In fact, I couldn't Sense anyone at all in the place other than ourselves.

Getting into Drydock Number One had been easy, maybe too easy. The perimeter fence's only lock had taken me less than a minute to open. Beyond that, piles of construction supplies and equipment hid nothing more dangerous than a few hungry mice. The locks on the building itself were a little more complicated, but not enough to slow us down.

It was a two-pronged assault. Jethro and I and a squad of marines used the improvised helipad the construction company had set up right outside the gates. Jack, Ianto, Roberta and a few of her relatives were coming by boat, right under the nose of the Navy patrols. Jack and Jethro had nearly come to blows over the inclusion of the Silurians until Ianto had stepped in and asked Jethro very, very reasonably if he was willing to risk his men being taken over by Silurian mind control. Jethro had backed off but the relations between the Head of Torchwood and the Director of NCIS remained a little frosty.

Jethro signaled to the marines and they spread out, sweeping the rooms for hostiles. The all clear was given fairly quickly, but I wasn’t convinced. There was something about the whole set up that raised my hackles. I spun around slowly, staring at the walls.

“Are you all right?” Gibbs whispered.

“Not really. Something is not right here. Hold on a minute.”

I closed my eyes and sent my Senses ranging, as my father had taught me, looking for the King's enemies. This was a basic function of our duty and I had learned to Search before I learned to walk.

It didn't take long to find. On Search, steel shows up as dull silver with a bitter tang in the back of the throat. One side of the corridor was pure metal, but the other side had a human-sized brown stain in one corner. I Pushed against it, and heard one of the Marines swear as a door appeared where a metal plate had been a few minutes before.

“That's an useful trick,” Jethro drawled. “Anything else?”

I sent my Sight through the door. “They're inside. Come on!”

We ran in ahead of the Marines, who were not happy to have two civilians take the lead in an operation. I had never met a Marine who didn't think of the rest of the world as civilians to be protected, even a highly decorated retired Marine like Gibbs.

The room was small and windowless, but there was enough light to see the two bodies thrown carelessly into a bunk on the far side. The smell of human blood flooded my wide-open Senses and I shut them down enough to keep it from overpowering my perception. But I could still feel two hearts beating, very faintly, but still beating.

“They're alive,” I said to Jethro. “But just hanging on.”

Jethro stared down at the bodies for a minute before crouching by the bed. Ziva was lying with her face buried in Tony’s chest, and his arms were wrapped around her tightly. He brushed her hair gently off her cheek.

“We need to get them to a hospital right now.”

“Sir!” The captain in charge of the Marine squad saluted. “We have a medivac standing by. They can be here in ten minutes.”

“They might not have that much,” I said, probing for life signs. “Jethro, do you have that coin Jack gave you?”

He gave me an uncomprehending look, but rooted around in his pants pocket and handed it over. I turned to the Captain.

“Captain, please ask your men to wait outside.” I waited until they had left, then continued. “What you are about to see is so classified that even considering the possibility of talking about it would qualify as treason. Do we understand each other?”

At his nod, I held out the coin and squeezed it tightly. There was a rush of displaced air and Marigold popped into the room. Under other circumstances I would have been amused by the Captain’s startled little squeak.

“Marigold, our friends need medical care….”

She nodded. “Your Healer has made arrangements. We shall take them where he lives.”

Jethro stood up. “They need a hospital!”

She gave him a hard look, but then relented. “Your friends are almost gone, my Lord. We can help, but your human hospitals are full of cold iron and our magicks are lessened.”

I stepped closer. “Jethro?”

He shrugged. “They’re your people. If you trust them, so do I.”

I nodded at her. “Go ahead, Marigold.”

“By your leave, Arweinyd’rhyfel.”

She sang a long phrase in the language of the bachgen’in. A few seconds later several Small Ones wearing the colors of Winter appeared in the room. They pulled the bunk away from the wall without any difficulty, then stood around it, blocking our view. There was a sound like a vast choir humming deep in its massed throats; the Captain rubbed his temples and even Jethro seemed to twitch a little. As the sound reached its highest peak, they all disappeared.

“Were they…” The captain kept looking at us then at the spot where the bachgen’in had been. “The Aes Sidhe?”

“Nope,” Jethro pointed at me. “He’s Aes Sidhe. They’re the Little People.”

I glared at Jethro, but dropped my Glamour for a minute. The captain’s eyes grew even wider, then he threw his head back and laughed.

“And I can’t even tell my ma.”

“Captain O’Shea, you can’t even tell yourself where you could be overheard. Nach dtuigeann tú?”

“Tuigim, mo prionsa.” He laughed again. “What next?”

“Now we go find the ones who did this to our people,” Jethro said. “Can you sense anything, Tim?”

It didn’t take me long. Destroying the first illusion seemed to have ended their ability to block my Sensing. Whoever they were.

“Two levels down, closer to the water.” I sent directions to Ianto and got back a quick thanks, “I’ve told the others.”

“Good. Come on.”

We ran down the stairs, making no effort to conceal ourselves. There’s a very precise psychic noise generated by the dissolution of a Glamour of the kind used to hide that room. Whoever had cast it had known the moment I broke through.

As we reached the lowest level we met Jack and Ianto and their group. Roberta seemed to be leading; she was tight-lipped, and a small vein on the side of her neck throbbed visibly. She pointed towards a narrow corridor. Jack made a hand signal, and the other Silurians mingled with the marines. At a second signal, they all faced the corridor and started projecting. It was completely noiseless to human ears, but I could Sense wave upon wave of energy slamming against the walls of the corridor. It was totally unlike what I could do, but in its own way just as powerful.

Slowly, the walls began dissolving, revealing a large room. Several stations were arranged in a semi-circle around a larger central one. Against the wall, several human-sized capsules fitted with what seemed like oxygen tanks and connected by fiber optic cable to one of the stations hummed quietly.

Before anyone could stop her, Roberta gave a small bleat of distress and started forward. Jethro lunged for her, but he was too late. As she entered the room, a Silurian rose from behind one of the stations, pointing a large switch-studded cylinder at her. Jack moved faster than I had ever seen anyone move, even a Tylwyth Teg, pushing her out of the way. The light beam from the cylinder struck him full in the chest, and he collapsed.