Pack Of Lies [1/2]

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Title: Pack Of Lies
Rating: Teen [language and sexual situations]
Characters: Rhys, Gwen, PC Andy, Lois Habiba, Agent Johnson, George Sands, John Mitchell
Advisories: contains dark themes including: masturbation, domestic violence, reference to suicide, unfortunate implications, unreliable narrator, Unexpected Naked Rhys, theoretical bestiality, and gratuitous abuse of furries
Disclaimer: you can bet I'm not owning up to anything at this point
Note: Written for tardis_bigbang 2010; betaed by tearoseandhoney and huskyfriends, with special thanks to the lj comms little_details and dw_britglish for technical assistance

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Summary: Rhys Williams is helping his wife to rebuild a working line of defence in the wake of the visit of the 456. But when PC Andy Davidson tangles himself up in a very spooky do, Torchwood's fragile reconciliation with the government may not be all that's in jeopardy.


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It wasn't weevils. Rhys could have done with something almost that normal right round now; a weevil he'd know where to start with, aye, some idea of proper Torchwood-tested tactics in place (as if there was much they'd be able to do even so but give it a good reason not to come back up top) -- even the guess that a bloody human weapon would be able to scratch the target, really. Give him a weevil any night, not something like this unfamiliar prick-eared creature strolling along the tarmacked jogging-path through a city park like it had as much right and more to be there than even Cardiff's sewer-dwelling nuisances dared --

Yellow eyes looked down from a long-jawed face at the plump morsel that had appeared in its path with only the most casual regard for Rhys's drawn gun, a pelt of shaggy fur striking the odd fair glint in the moonlight as it drew in deep breaths of chill night air. Rhys tried to steady his wavering aim at the beast, telling himself Gwen's hand would be shaking in the face of that carnivore's smile as well -- prepared to die for his planet he might be, just the bit where it wasn't the laverbread this tourist might be thinking to sample as a native dish had him a touch nervous, aye? "Oi, not a bloody plate of rarebit, you can just stop picturing me covered in cheese, yeah?"

He could have sworn that it grinned at him. Do I have a go shooting you then, would Gwen say that's bad alien relations even if he's resisting arrest? Bugger it, sodding thing looked hungry --

Alerted perhaps by the shift in his weight as he steadied himself for the shot, the creature lunged forward to sink those wicked teeth into the nearest conveniently-sticking-out bit of him: Rhys's gun-hand. His pistol clattered uselessly to the pavement. Desperately Rhys pummelled at the hairy muzzle with his left hand until the jaws slackened their hold enough to pull free, a snatched visual check that no fingers had got left behind all he had the moment for as the beast drew back and snarled deep in its throat. Going to bloody smart when I get the chance to think about it. If --

Those frightful yellow eyes shifted to look at something over Rhys's shoulder. Please be Gwen. Please be Gwen. (He could even do with seeing Johnson right about here, let her never give him the end of needing a rescue on her night off if it meant living to be wound up about being rescued --) Or, well, do I want her to watch me get eaten in front of her then -- Carefully Rhys turned his head far enough to see --

Right. Bugger. Second one, smaller (the female? oh, erm, obviously no), short dark fur on this where his mate Ginger needed a bit of a trim, and baring the same snarl of glistening canines as it sized up the threat from Rhys. Which was currently, well, not much of one. How much did they understand? Slowly, Rhys crouched towards the fallen gun, shifting his gaze between the baleful yellow stares. Where was Gwen in all of this, why was it the monsters got the bloody backup --

The one who'd already had a taste of him tensed, predator preparing to spring. Rhys scooped the gun off the ground with his off-hand and pulled at the trigger blindly, only hoping the barrel was clear of his own feet. Both creatures startled wildly at the bang like scolded dogs. A second hasty shot spooked them enough to bolt, scampering gracelessly for the cover of the trees. Rhys took something closer to a proper aim and fired after them, rewarded this time with a disturbingly human scream.

But they were away, off back to some comfortable lair to recuperate and lick their wounds, and he'd be half the morning stuck at his grotty desk with paperwork to explain how he'd lost the one that would turn up next week raiding the bins along Caroline Street, no doubt. Now his wife turned up, jogging towards the sound of gunfire with her own drawn, though she made to holster it as no target presented itself. "Oi, did you lose it?"

"Ran into the trees. Where were you?"

"Round the other side down the bridle path, I couldn't see where it'd gone up this way. Oh, and you're hurt, ah, sweetheart, I'm sorry --"

Rhys shook out his wrist, making sure that he still had a right hand, and let her take it up for a look, nerves flaring awake into bright stabs of fire under her delicate touch as the surge of adrenaline that had carried him this far flowed away all in a go. "Were two of them, second one helped the first get away. Think I clipped him though."

"That's all we need, something that's smart enough to hunt in packs." Gwen turned his hand over to probe gently at the bloodied palm now, checking was it through-and-through or just the nearly -- "Come on, A&E, I'm driving."

One side benefit of working for Torchwood, even in its reduced circumstances, was that one generally got mangled in ways such that the gatekeepers of care took one look and had you up on a treatment table right smart. "My fault really, should have known better than to keep trying to take his stick away," Rhys explained the injury to a largely indifferent medic, trying to put on a look to say this sort of thing was bound to happen sooner or later, that dog's had it in for me for years.

"We'll have to report the dog to the police," the young doctor said, doing her best to look as if she was sorry but it really wasn't her decision. Rhys couldn't help wincing at the light pressure as she finished up cleaning out the punctures and started mummifying his hand in layers of gauze. "It might have a history of violence."

Gwen snapped her mobile shut on what had been a cleverly coded conversation with Lois back at the office, where it went fine meant it didn't exactly go as planned but we're alive, back in a bit meant we need to find a bloody medic for the team already, and did you remember to give the baby her bottle meant did you remember to give the baby her bottle. "Right, thanks, sorry, I'll see he remembers about changing the bandages... Get you a cuppa?"

The doctor's look of habitual hard-done-by-ness softened a bit. "That'd be lovely, thanks."

Gwen ducked out a moment to fetch one from somewhere and then stood watching as the doctor took an absentminded sip. "Right, that's that, then, that sheet has some instructions for after-care, and basically try not to go about harassing strange animals, yes?" (Hah, strange animals, if she knew the half of how strange --) "Someone will want to see you again in... a bit, anyway, check on your way out what's available." The doctor made a vague gesture towards the exit and picked up a clipboard to stare at it with an abstracted frown as she took another sip of her tea.

Gwen let her pasted-on professional smile fall away as they stepped out of the treatment area and heaved a deep sigh. "Sorted, then, let's get back and pick up the baby, Lois will be wanting her bed as much as we are by now."

The penny dropped as Rhys heard what sounded like a clipboard falling to the floor behind them. "Hang about, you didn't retcon the doctor just there?"

"It wasn't much," Gwen protested. "Won't even put her out, she'll just be a bit fuzzy on reporting it in about the dog. Last thing we need is coppers coming round to ask Mrs Evans about her bloody dachshund." She started rummaging through her bag for the car key, heels tapping on tile as she strode purposefully away from the scene under discussion. "Having to cut what's left of the pills in half now as it is, unless we can work out how Jack was having it made we're just going to have to stop doing stupid things. As if we could. Speaking of pills?" Rhys handed her the list of medications they'd need to pick up from the chemist. "Hm, well, I suppose anything compatible enough with our biology to infect you with something, it'd be compatible enough our antibiotics and all would do for it."

Rhys flexed his right hand, testing the range of motion that the gauze and the dulled ache of the wounds allowed him. "'S a comfort, least I won't have to be quarantined for space-rabies." Again.

"We really need to find a bloody medic, yeah. Oh, and it's gone morning," Gwen observed as they came into an area with windows out to the car-park. "This is so unfair on Lois, we're going to have to find a proper nanny."

"Who works our hours but us, love?" And not enough of us as it was -- if she'd only hire on more agents he could stay home like they'd been planning, even one Torchwood appropriation was generous enough to keep a family and it would save them the aggro of --

"She's Heddlu, that's a service-dog," someone was arguing at the Casualty entrance. Rhys turned towards the voice, thinking he knew it: tall bloke, stumbling between two helpers as a porter tried to urge him away from the black dog in the doorway --

Beside him Gwen gasped. "-- Andy?"

Andy Davidson was in a right state, holding a tea-towel to his shoulder under a bloodied dressing-gown that wasn't quite on him, as if whatever the matter was it had caught him out completely undressed. He made the oddest face at Gwen, almost as if for once he was anything but happy to see her, murmuring something that sounded like bollocks as one of his mates got him down into the chair a second porter was wielding at them. "What's all this?" Gwen demanded in her best copper voice. "And who the hell are you?" she added as both of the blokes who had brought Andy in jumped.

The porter had already whisked his new patient away down the corridor. The two men exchanged a look, and then the one with the ears to rival Andy's offered nervously, "Erm, George, we, we live across the road?"

"They're not dating," the other put in with a look of mischievous piety.

"Mitchell!"

Gwen gave them both an irritated look. "Right, never mind, I can see this is to me --" She stamped off in the direction that the porter had taken Andy, back towards the section of A&E where Rhys had just been treated. Rhys gave Andy's mates a shrug and went after her. "-- Andy Davidson, yes, he's an old friend of mine?" Gwen was enquiring brightly at the station by the time Rhys had caught her up. "About so high, sort of ginger, dressing-gown --"

"Oh, the GSW?" The sister looked down at her tablet. "They've taken him to radiology to see where the bullet's gone."

"Bullet? ...Andy? What in the --"

"Someone broke into his kitchen," George said from behind Rhys, making him jump. "We, erm, Mitchell has a car, it seemed better not to wait about for 999?" The man did look as if he'd thrown on the first clothes to come to hand when he'd heard a commotion, bedroom slippers that didn't match and too-long trackpants spotted with psychedelic bleach-marks. Pale blue eyes blinked nervously at Rhys from behind rimless spectacles. "I'm not sure of the entire story, he was lucid enough to say that much but he's just been shot." George still had the tea-towel. He ran his free hand through short dark hair, eyebrows drawing together in an anxious frown. "And he'll be off his head worrying about Sadie now as well --"

"Sorry, Sadie?" Rhys had thought Andy lived alone, well, he hadn't known about this George bloke either come to that, but the name conjured up thoughts of an elderly aunt needed close minding, be just like the copper to be --

"His partner. The dog?" George elaborated when Rhys continued to stare blankly at him.

"Ah, right?" Gwen had said something about Andy putting in to transfer to the canine division, Rhys had had a time of not making the obvious jokes about the new partner being a bitch in front of her. "Sadie, didn't know her, erm, good name, bit old-fashioned though?"

"Mitchell came up with that for him. 'Sexy Sadie'. Mitchell's a bit... out of his time, sometimes, yeah."

"At least it's not Glenn Miller," Gwen said absently. "Who would have a bloody gun and why would they want to break in on Andy? He doesn't even have a good telly."

"Don't know that we'd find out, even if there's a bullet to recover from the wound they could only match it if they get the weapon," George said, looking as if he hadn't much confidence in seeing any useful outcome. "There's a database that has some test-firings on file, but it would have to be a gun that they'd already -- But that's all coals-to-Newcastle for you coppers, I suppose," he trailed off under the look that Gwen was giving him.

Rhys was more surprised that he knew that much of Andy's old mates' business, actually. "No, no," Gwen said, giving herself a tiny shake, "it's, erm... You were reminding me of someone I used to work with. Always seemed to know everything about everything. Can't believe it's been more than a year," she added, more to herself than to them.

She was going to be asking if George had any computer experience on his CV in a moment. Or introducing him to Lois for a date. The sister had gone back to shuffling through the papers around her station, clearly hoping that they'd get the hint and shove off somewhere away from her to wait. Suddenly her head snapped back up: "I'm sorry but you can't have that dog in here --"

Rhys turned to see the other bloke from the entrance leading in Sadie. "Having her in here a minute or two won't hurt anything," Mitchell said, an Irish accent pocketing some of the H's before they could make it into his words. "She just needs to see her partner's all right. Once she's happy you haven't done anything with him I can run her home, and the neighbours won't be ringing about her howling all night and trying to get out to go look for him."

"You let dogs in the hospital if they're working, yeah?" Gwen offered as the sister still looked sceptical. "Guide dogs, explosives dogs --"

"The therapy-dogs that visited at St Jude's," George put in with a hopeful look to Mitchell, who nodded agreement.

"And she's a potential witness," Rhys added on a sudden inspiration. "Officer comes to talk to him might need to have a word with her as well, aye?"

The sister's resolve was clearly wavering. "Well, if she's quiet."

Sadie gave them all a look of wide-eyed innocence that she had to have picked up from her human partner and settled herself down primly at Mitchell's feet. The sister shook her head and took herself off about her business, leaving them to stare at one another in the awkward diffidence of acquaintances-once-removed who weren't sure how to bring up asking how it was they knew their mutual mate under these circumstances. George was worrying at the bloodied tea-towel, rusty-stained terry puppies wriggling in and out beneath his fingers. He perked up as one of the other nurses approached them with, "You're all waiting on Andy Davidson, yes? He's not badly hurt, the doctors will be wanting to keep him under observation for a bit and of course we all have to wait about for the police to take information, but might not even be in overnight. See him now if you like?"

They'd found a securable room to put Andy in, whether to keep him safe from the assailant or under suspicion of something himself Rhys couldn't make out. He could see Gwen giving herself an absent pat as if to confirm to her subconscious that her own weapon was properly lockered in the boot. (As was his, all checked in and accounted for under the computer latch that logged automatically to Torchwood's records. Bloody nanny state.) The patient was sitting up in bed and alert, one arm in a sling and a bruise coming up across his cheek where he must have struck it going down from the force of the shot. He pulled a face at Gwen's entrance but brightened immediately he saw the dog; "How did you get Sadie in?"

He'd directed the question to his new mates, but naturally it was Gwen stepped in to answer: "Rhys told them she was a witness."

"That's mental even for Torchwood," Andy said, but gave Rhys's wife an appreciative look as the dog laid her chin on the edge of the bed. He patted Sadie's head with his good hand, IV tubing dangling. "Sssh, chwaer-fach. Why were you here, Gwen?"

"Neighbour's dog bit Rhys," Gwen said smoothly, with that little grin that was meant to reassure when the world seemed to be going to shit. Rhys held out his bandaged hand before Andy could give that grin too close a look. "You'd have had better manners than that, yeah, Sadie?" Sadie ignored her, gazing rapturously up at her partner. Well, at least someone was happy now. "Andy, what happened?"

Andy shrugged, or tried to, screwing up his bruised face in a wince as the injured shoulder shifted. "Home invasion. Dunno if it was personal, didn't get a look at them."

"Can't have been after you specifically, love, you haven't an enemy in the world," Gwen said. "Or at least I know where Rhys was all night."

"Oi!"

"Seem to be down a pint," Andy went on, waving the hand connected to the saline drip. "Lucky though, said a bit one way or the other and I'd have been in it for arteries and all. Could have gone straight through but the collarbone stopped it, had to dig it out before they could strap me up here."

George pricked up his ears at this. "So they've recovered something for ballistics tests?"

"They've rung the police, it has to be reported," Andy said, giving his mates a look. "Dunno how you lot get away with running about all guns blazing," he added with a sour face to Gwen.

"Dispensation from the Crown," Gwen said, a scowl settling onto her face that had to be for the thought of how hard she'd needed to fight her own government to get them to trust her again at the work she'd already been doing for them. Then again, it could just as easily have been wistful consideration of how relatively simple the pursuit of some stupid muppet with an illegal terrestrial lead-projectile weapon would seem if only the ordinary authorities could be let to know it. "No different from an Armed Response unit really, we're probably having to fill out more paperwork for it."

Rhys had seen that look on Andy's face before, it was the one that came right before he got stroppy about how the surrounded by armed bastards approach was no way to conduct a modern policing operation and Gwen was supposed to know it. "Paperwork's not going to help when someone gets hurt," the constable said. "And you with a little baby --"

George turned his head sharply towards the window, as if someone had called his name. Bloody jumpy, this bloke was. Well, not unreasonable if he lived across the road from goings-on like this. He returned his attention to the rest of them with a look of puzzled guilt as someone rapped at the door.

In stepped a policewoman in sergeant's shoulder-numbers, her face twisting in disapproval to see the crowd round the patient's bed. The nurses were going to be getting some stern words about letting people trample in and out of the middle of an investigation in their muddy boots talking to witnesses, if Rhys didn't miss his guess. Nodding acquaintance of Andy's, apparently: "Constable Davidson... Special Officer Sadie. And the rest of you are...?"

Oh, that was just an invitation to Take Charge, Rhys almost pitied this copper now. "Gwen Cooper, director of Torchwood? And this is my husband Rhys. Andy was my partner when I was with the Heddlu, we're still mates."

The moment she'd said Torchwood the sergeant's eyes had narrowed, perhaps recalling the organisation's arrogance towards the properly constituted authorities in days of old. "What about you, then, are you with her as well?" she demanded of George with a scowl.

"No, what, I've never seen her before in my life, Andy and I... we're... erm..." George was going bright red under the sergeant's steady stare. "Yes, all right, we're in a... relationship, we were in bed at his, he went downstairs to see what a noise was and it was over before I'd found some trousers. Which are... his trousers," he added, plucking at them as if he'd only just noticed. "Is that enough, or do I have to air my entire personal life and his for the benefit of the South Wales police?"

The copper had also gone a bit pink at this declaration. "I think that was more information than she was asking for, George," Mitchell said.

Gwen was gaping at the look of anything-but-denial on the alleged relationshipee's face. Rhys would never have thought it either, from all her indulgent accounts of the way Andy trailed after her like an awestruck puppy, but if Constable Unlucky-With-Birds had decided to give it up and play for the other side it wasn't really any of his business, was it. "I'm sorry, but I'll need you out so I can take his statement," the sergeant finally recovered herself enough to say.

"We'll look after Sadie," Mitchell said, as George leant in to murmur some private leavetaking to his... partner... that ended with a curious little brushing of noses instead of a kiss. "-- Okay, I've actually heard you shagging each other and I wasn't convinced by that."

"Piss off, Mitchell." But Andy was smiling as he said it, nervous little not all of my mates here knew about that but I suppose now there's bugger-all -- erm, sod -- erm, not much to be done look of someone who might not be as done wrestling with it as they'd thought. George had gone red again. Relationship, in-bloody-deed. "Oi, parents, best to little Jenny from her Uncle Andy, aye?"

Gwen gave her old partner a warmer grin this time. Andy had taken to the baby instantly the first time they'd been introduced, perhaps seeing in her some vindication for nearly giving up his career to fight for the children with them. Well, who knew really, maybe he'd been thinking... None of your business, Rhys Williams, yeah. Even if now you think you know why he was asking about Ianto. "We'll bring her round to visit if you're in a while, otherwise catch you at home, yeah? You're going to be off with that for a bit."

"Month at least, they said," Andy confirmed with another glance over at his departing mates. "Going to be a bloody nuisance."

The sergeant was glaring at Gwen now, tapping a pen against her evidence notebook. Rhys took his wife by the arm to show that they had the hint and tugged her out into the corridor. Where Mitchell was comforting George, who was shaking his head and murmuring disbelief that he'd just outed himself. "I can't even, this is always going to happen --"

"He'll be all right, look, Annie can keep him --"

Mitchell fell silent as he saw them, dark human eyes tracking their passage as keenly as the dog's. Out came Gwen's copper's best smile again. "Oi, you two, give us a ring if you need a hand with Andy, yeah? Seen him with a bloody man-flu, be a right terror now he's really hurt."

Mitchell and George gave each other a wary look, but nodded grudging assent. "We'll see he lets you know when he's done here," Mitchell said, as George went into his wallet for a card that said George Sands, private language tutor over a number on Andy's street. Rhys wondered what sort of money was in that. His own cards still had Harwood's on, Gwen had firmly vetoed the idea of running up a lot that went anywhere near suggesting he so much as knew where Torchwood's offices were even in jest. (Let him carry a few with just the public contact-number, though, said it looked less suspicious when half of Cardiff could lay hands on that as it was. Lois answered it as a complaints line.)

Gwen flashed the pair one last grin and turned on her heel, marching smartly for the doors. Rhys spared a thought to marvel that half of Torchwood was actually walking back out of a hospital without a stop down to the mortuary to play little dude inside the big dude's head worked in somewhere so long as they were there. (Just as well, never came off as well without the suit really.) She slackened her pace after the first few strides, though, muttering to herself. "Leave it to Andy to get himself shot in his own house and he's not even on duty." His wife had well slipped into copper mode, Rhys could see the gears whizzing away behind green eyes: "Couldn't be a domestic? -- No, that George looks as if he'd wee himself if you handed him a water-pistol."

Rhys had thought that of the two Mitchell might seem a bit of a rough character, but George was the one he'd have fingered if something was doing, actually. Then again, that might just be him projecting ill-will onto the nearest Sais. Poor bloke was probably just mental with worry over his... bloke.

Lois was yawning and distinctly unchuffed with her employers by the time they'd swung round to the office to reclaim the baby. Rhys didn't blame her for that face, poor woman had another hour's paperwork to sort about the night's futile chase yet, whilst Gwen could claim a boss's privilege and go straight to fall across a bed. Well, as straight as could be when it involved putting the baby down properly first; her to the kitchen to make up a bottle, as Rhys set Jenny into the cot and went back down to collapse on the settee in front of the telly, fumbling at the remote with his left hand. Bloody awkward this. Least he could move it round, though, poor sod Andy had his whole arm buggered up on him and the left his good hand at that. Not a laugh being shot, Rhys could have told him that if Gwen'd let him, and to break the bone as well -- reminded him of how rubbish it had been the summer he was ten and broke his own collarbone the first day of hols, well, had it broken for him, Banana-Boat had been a git back then and he was still a git. Harder on a grown man, even so, month not properly able to -- but maybe this George would be helping with that, aye?

Oh, lord, he'd just gone there, hadn't he.

Word of Andy's break-in had made it onto the breakfast shows. The editors hadn't anything better than the photo from his warrant-card, all eyes and earnest scowl that only made him look even younger. Rhys was a bit surprised that the swarm of reporters hadn't managed to bother an interview out of George yet. Aye, well, sensible to be camera-shy, even if it was his... whatever. Maybe especially then, depending if their Mums knew. He'd met Andy's Mum once, wouldn't be at all surprised if Constable Davidson was just as happy if Detective Inspector Davidson didn't know every minute of her son's business. Bad enough all of Britain had to see that picture of him.

Gwen sloped in from the kitchen, holding Jenny's bottle. "How's the hand?"

"Itches." Rhys poked at the gauze, wondering if it would be best to change it now or wait till he'd had a bit of a lie-down first. Like to end up rebandaging the wrong sodding hand, done-in as he was.

Instead of proceeding up to the nursery Gwen flopped down beside him, staring foggily at the babbling heads on the telly. "Andy's gay," she said as if this had only just sunk in.

Rhys took the bottle from her hand. "Go to bed, love, I'll get it. Maybe he won't be gay in the morning," he prompted when she didn't move, and this startled her into a weary little snort of laughter.

"Bloody night of it, yeah." Gwen hauled herself off the settee and shuffled for the stairs, pausing at the first step to shake her head. "Oh, my god, Andy. Suppose he'll be all right, but... Just as well I never did set him up with Lois."

"Never have worked, she'd have colour-coded his pants." Gwen gave him a thin smile and plodded up to bed. Rhys lingered a few minutes longer, flipping past Andy's warrant-card photo a time or three more, then switched off the telly and went up to the nursery with the bottle.

There was a woman in a grey jumper leaning over Jenny's cot, dark curls bouncing as she made funny faces to the baby within. Rhys nearly lost his left-handed grip on the bottle. "Oi! Who the hell are you and how did you get into my house?"

The woman whirled around at his shout, brown eyes comically wide. "You can see me?"

"Course I can see you, why would --"

"But this is... this... Shit."

And just like that she... wasn't there, anymore, Rhys left gaping stupidly at a line of pink wallpaper ducks. Hallucinations, right, wasn't that on the list about the drugs? Or maybe he was thinking of Torchwood's regulations about working hours, as in the part where one was technically supposed to go down for a certain number of hours out of every forty-eight lest the mind begin making up aliens to shoot at. Just now he couldn't recall what precisely that number had been, which was probably a good sign that he was well past it. Rhys scooped Jenny out of her cot and sat in the rocker to give her the bottle, needing suddenly that small touch of the rituals the rest of the world would consider normal to offset a mad night's dragging long past dawn. Be next for the medical leave, he would, clapped-out body or clapped-out brain whichever.

Not that Torchwood could have spared him even if he'd been as bad off as Andy, though, and a mere wrapped-up hand barely worth taking the late morning but for the warnings on the drugs labels about how soon after not to drive; Rhys soon found himself being set right back to what passed for the minor tasks on the organisation's rota, anything that didn't involve manual dexterity or the ability to punch something threatening in the face if need be. This was surprisingly little if you discounted the filing. After several near-disasters with rogue office supplies he managed to convince Gwen that his talents were better spent in putting to use his background in transport routing by going round to look into the patterns behind a rash of OAPs ringing the police to complain of a bear loose on their street.

Considering this was Cardiff, this sort of thing was more common than you'd think. Might not even be the rift, city got the odd pony wandering into a Tesco's now and again. Or could be a bloody bear, all they knew. Although bears, as a rule, tended not to bark. Or howl. Rhys's bet in the office pool was that it was a Great Dane, although Gwen had plumped for the old-standby of 'weevil' and Johnson seemed convinced that they'd uncovered a terrorist cell. Given her CV, that probably wasn't surprising.

Lois said it was a wookiee. Right about now, as Rhys dodged his fifty-seventh cup of oversweetened tea and made a diplomatic escape, he would have been just as happy to see Chewbacca turn up in someone's garden just to have a better accounting of his afternoon than met some nice old ladies, ate biscuits, admired several manky cats without justification. There were moments when special-ops could be far, far more boring than driving a lorry. He paused just out of hallooing range to sort through the notes he'd been relaying back to the office with his phone, trying to see if switching round the coloured spots on their map according to who'd said barking and who'd reported smelt of fresh blood made any new connections suddenly leap out to his eye.

And who but PC Davidson should come strolling out of a pedestrian shortcut through the middle of the long row of terraces, Sadie's lead in his good hand. Well, medical leave or not she'd still need to make her rounds, Rhys supposed. Andy's slung arm was tucked up inside an oversized Cardiff Blues hoodie, the empty sleeve pinned up like some veteran of a bygone war. "Oi, Rhys, come round to look in on your famous mate, then?"

"Yeah, you've been all over the bloody telly, you posh sod. But, erm, no, I was just about checking on one of our drivers who's been out, sort of thing." They'd been maintaining the fiction that he'd be going back to Harwood's to their friends, 'cos it wasn't as if anyone who knew Rhys would credit anything remotely resembling the real story. "Small world though, innit?"

"You're just round the back of mine from here. See the crime-scene tape caught in the trees," Andy added bitterly, nodding towards the straggling flags of yellow tangled in the skeletal branches clawing their way over a garden wall. "At least the sodding reporters have cleared off and I can get out to my bins."

Rhys gave a considering look to that high wall, lichen-spotted stone giving way to a plain wooden gate halfway along and all of it right above his head. A tall man like Andy might have been able to get enough of a handhold on the tree to pull himself over and slip into the gardens beyond, but even for him it'd be a stretch, and Rhys would have needed a bit of something to stand on to get up that high. Not much for anyone getting in round this way, no, unless someone had been careless about locking the gate, of course. Quiet enough area, and who'd break in on the Heddlu? (If they'd known he was, at that, and it not just some yob looking to nick something from an unlatched house --) "Aye, erm, your police mates found anything yet?"

A one-shouldered shrug that already looked well-practised. "No, but they're worried it might be someone going after coppers, so they're throwing themselves into it proper. Feels a bit, dunno, don't like being so much trouble. They've already been back round to get shirty at George for doing my washing-up after he thought they'd finished."

Rhys found himself picturing a copper having to write down into an evidence notebook partner that spontaneously does his washing-up. More bloody suspicious than the bullet-wound, that. Sadie was sniffing curiously at Rhys's shoe. "Oi, don't even think about it." He started to reach down for a pat, then caught himself at the sight of his bandaged hand: "-- She on leave too then?"

"Learnt your lesson about teasing strange dogs, have you?" Andy managed a small smile. "Being walked in a civilian capacity, yeah, go on."

Rhys gave in to the impulse to tousle the black ears. "Hullo, Sadie." The dog grinned at him, pink tongue lolling. "Pretty girl. What is she, lab mix?"

"Near as they could make out." Bit of a short answer, that? Rhys would have thought him a man to bang on about his dog the way some blokes'd talk your ear off about their kids. But Andy seemed to be working something else out in his head. "A dog, bit you."

"Yeah?"

"What sort of a dog?"

The alien sort that runs on two legs, Rhys didn't say. Best not to encourage Andy to go looking, hard enough seeing he stayed out of trouble even when he had the use of both arms. "Dunno, just a dog dog? Weren't your Sadie, if you were thinking I was --"

"No, no, Sadie's a copper, she wouldn't bite anyone who didn't deserve it. Was here all that night, anyway. I... Rhys, I need to talk to you about something."

"Not about you being gay is it?" The copper's usual look of blank gormlessness deepened, if that were possible. "Mean, I'm all right with that, Gwen reckons you were just trying to work out who you --"

"What? I'm not gay!"

Rhys couldn't stop himself smiling, rude as that felt; "Your boyfriend know that?"

"Will you shut it? I need to --"

They were apparently right on the direct path to the spot everyone on these streets liked to walk their dogs, here came a woman with a ball of fur on a bright pink lead; Andy's attention snapped down to Sadie as the puppy yipped and trotted up to say hello. Sadie eyed the puffy intruder quizzically, perhaps wondering if it was meant to be a dog under all the hair. "She's well-behaved," the woman remarked as her puppy tried to climb up Sadie's back.

"Police training, she's my partner in the Heddlu." Sadie made a curious little noise, as if to correct Andy on who was looking after whom in this relationship. And oh, that was a bit useless of him there, trying to point a disapproving finger at the dog with the hand had her own lead wrapped round; "Don't start -- don't -- shut it --"

They were going to be down on the pavement biting at each other's muzzles in a moment, Rhys thought, wondering why the image seemed so vivid. "Always get a partner who likes to give you the grief, eh?"

"I don't tell her how to do her job." The dog -- coughed? "All right, that once, but you were --"

Rhys sniggered. "Like a ruddy stand-up act, the two of you. Should chuck it and go into dog-whispering."

The puppy tried once more to get Sadie's attention with a clumsy shove. All of a sudden it spooked at a low rumbling growl and shied away, its owner scrambling at the straining lead. Rhys realised as she dragged her puppy away that it wasn't Sadie who'd made that peculiar noise; "You just have to speak their language," Andy said, a light sparking gold from his eyes for an instant as he turned to watch them pass. "Look, I have to, erm, we really need to talk --"

Rhys glanced down at his watch. "Sorry, mate, said I'd meet Gwen to pick up the baby twenty minutes ago, she'll be going spare by now. Give us a ring, we'll grab a pint next time I can get away from the job and nappy duty?"

"Not too long though, aye?" Andy said, with a twitch of his sling. "Mean, dunno when they're going to want me back on..."

He could see a pepperpot lurking in her doorway a few houses down, waiting for the opportunity to drag her handsome young neighbour in for the cuppa Rhys had just fled from himself. Good luck with that, mate. "Aye, well, yeah, got to run anyway, try not to get burgled at gunpoint again, yeah? Anything happens to me and Gwen Jenny'd need her Uncle Andy. Not that, mean, we're not going skydiving, yeah, just... the roads, you know?"

Andy nodded, as if this rambling dash into cloud-cuckoo-parent-land had either made perfect sense or so little that it was safely shrugged away. "Hope they get any of it sorted soon. Copper's worst nightmare, someone waving a gun at you."

Suppose it would be, at that. Rhys wondered if he should be worried how normal the insane demands of Torchwood had come to seem to him, anymore, all the guns and the hours and the expectation that at any moment something far worse than some chav with a knife might jump out at him from the --

He paused, considering the car-keys in his hand as a thought struck him: the keys in his bandaged hand. Would he have described his furry mates in the park as bears? Hadn't heard anything of them since that night, Torchwood had been assuming they'd taken the point and cleared off for wilder spaces, but maybe they'd been denning in the city for a bit before coming to Gwen's notice.

Rhys cast about for pawprints or something, some evidence of whatever it might be that alien bears did to mark out their territory (scratching on trees maybe, thought he'd seen something like that on a nature programme once), but nothing stood out to his uneducated eye as unusual against this urban landscape, save perhaps that it smelt a bit of wee in some way that his mind was wanting to associate more with horses than humans, too musky and wild for a pavement in the city. Maybe alien bears left each other messages on every fencepost just the way a dog would. Come round later with Mrs Evans's dachshund maybe, see if the little bastard had any advice to offer about running down a trail?

Couldn't be anything too odd occurring round here, though, else Andy'd have been ringing it in to Gwen himself, he could barely let them alone for mere spooky lights at highway accidents as it was. Probably just somebody's lost sheepdog getting talked up over the back fences. Or, this was Cardiff, somebody's lost sheep. Down the street the copper was being inveigled into losing the rest of the afternoon to a particularly aggressive OAP with the offer of a biscuit for Sadie thrown in. Rhys hurried for his car before he could get sucked back into the vortex of well-meaning neighbourliness.

Gwen was home already when he got in, sat in front of the telly in her dressing-gown with Jenny in her lap as if they'd just been about a feed. Rhys dipped down to nuzzle at her neck. "Smell nice, you do. New perfume?"

Gwen's brow wrinkled. "Not got any on, I just came out the shower."

"Must be you, then." Rhys kissed her ear and straightened back up, turning for the kitchen. "Spag bol all right for tonight, love? I'm knackered."

Knackered they both were, truly, straight into bed as soon as the baby could be dealt with and out as solidly as a nursery-monitor and a rift-monitor would allow till Rhys groped the alarm off far too early of a still-dark winter morning. Gwen hadn't even stirred, sawing wood down the bottom of a well too deep for anything but her Jenny's cry to rouse her. Rhys lifted a newly-unbandaged hand to give her a little shake, then let it fall; no, let her sleep a bit longer whilst she could. Seven month old baby, neither one of them should have to be working all hours like this on top of that.

But when there was no one else to do the job... Rhys kissed his wife lightly on the forehead and braced himself to the dull commute over to the dreary business park in an inconvenient end of town where Torchwood had been reduced to renting offices after the loss of the magnificent base beneath the Plass. Gwen made jokes that a proper converted warehouse would only have tempted them to take up welding their alien scrap into artistically distressed lawn-sculptures, but Rhys could tell that she hated settling for what the government had been willing to appropriate the funds for. Just like she hated having to drive their rubbish little Astra instead of some tarted-up Batmobile like the one that had gone missing when... like the one that had gone missing.

Well, spilt milk, aye? They were alive, they had each other and the baby, and a lot of Mums and Dads could say the same thanks to his Gwen, so who was Rhys to go moaning over the specifics just 'cos it didn't line up to something he'd barely known about anyway. He rang the bell and waited for the early shift to let him in, shifting nervously in front of the camera. Can't have Rhys having his own keys, oh, no, not safe if someone finds them on him and works out where they're to --

Rhys startled at a shadow at that receptionist's desk that they were too short-handed to man most hours. Shadow in a suit and tie -- Rhys turned to face it full on, but there was no one there, there never was, just his own reflection in a window beyond. His own guilt putting faces to his regrets, aye, remembering how it had once been. Come in through the front way a time or two near the end, that pompous secret door at the back of Ianto's "tourist office" led down into damp corridors and creaking service-lifts till you came to the great rolling cog with all of its noise and lights announcing you; nothing near that flash here, just an ordinary fire-door with its ordinary blue roundels warning keep shut, half a warning to close it behind and half a metaphor that you'd be best off getting shut of what was beyond it altogether.

Although, to the eye it might have been any other office in any other building much like this anywhere in Britain, unassuming nest of generic cubicles in the main space giving little hint what was in some of the plastic storage-tubs stacked casually about here and there. Rhys sat down at his paper-choked workstation and paused for a moment to stretch his right hand over the keyboard: mending but stiff, a bone-deep ache that he suspected would persist long after the garish arc of scabs had faded. With a sigh he settled in with the usual mountain of paperwork on what the rift had dragged in lately and what they meant to do about it. Which was often nothing, since there was so often little that they could do. They hadn't any nick to shut belligerent victims in, or much left in the way of fancy James Bond gadgets to ease over the spots where plain out-of-the-box Earth technology was lacking, and forget trying to predict the next visitation on the laptops Her Majesty had been willing to put out the dosh for. What they had, mostly, was their own brains and their networks of contacts, and he still wasn't convinced that Johnson took any of this seriously enough to have shared everything that she could have been contributing to the effort. Probably find out years from now that she could have got them a student-discount on better computers, or something.

The hell of it was, Rhys kept circling back to as he sorted through the endless churn of folders, that they needed more help so badly Gwen had been at the verge of extending an offer to Andy, since they knew he was a hard worker, cared about the people details that Johnson was so crap at, and wasn't nearly as big a nutter as the last three possibles had turned out to be. And thinking too that to bring him into the fold for some proper training might be safer than letting him wander about getting into trouble all on his own, yeah... Suppose now that'd be on hold till he was well enough to come sniffing round begging for it again.

Maybe someone was taking out the competition.

Or just as like Johnson had decided to pre-empt the possibility of having to work with Andy and put out a hit on him, as long as Rhys was spinning fairy-stories. He'd been thinking it was the sort of poisonous mistrust between them that would have led to comedic shagging once they'd been forced together on the job, if this had been crap telly, but that was probably unlikely now for some other reasons as well as that it was completely mental. Would have been fun to watch though.

He looked over to Lois's station as the bell for the reception rang, wondering if someone had already rung for take-away this early. Fisheyed on the grainy vid of the CCTV was what looked quite a lot like a copper, scowling round as if he suspected the visible security camera of being a front for some reality-telly gag. Lois went out to fetch him in whilst Gwen motioned the rest of them to give a hasty look to whether the scattered debris of a Torchwood workday could pass for ordinary business rubbish on this short notice. Rhys saw Johnson tipping something shiny into the bin under her workstation just as the door from reception swung open again.

They'd rated an Inspector this time, sombre in full uniform; the man fetched up against the edge of Lois's station and waited to see which of them would rise to greet him, though he had to know where he'd walked into. Seeing how seriously we're taking you, eh, mate? Well, Rhys couldn't blame him for that, drove him spare to be passed off on under-staff himself. As it was, Gwen saved him the embarrassment; "Good morning, Inspector, what can Torchwood do for the Heddlu today?"

Do to, more like, by the copper's persisting look of distrust, but he was as much the professional. "Sorry to trouble you, Director Cooper, but it seems NABIS has flagged a firearm registered to Torchwood in a recent incident."

Rhys couldn't help glancing at Johnson. But the woman looked as baffled as any of them, eyebrows rising higher and higher as Gwen flipped through the clipboard of papers the officer had handed over for inspection. "Sorry, you're telling me that the bullet the doctors took out of Andy Davidson came from Torchwood's P99?" Gwen finally said.

"I told you submitting all of our weapons for testing was a mistake," Johnson murmured.

"Well, excuse me for not being Jack enough to negotiate our relicencing without it," Gwen snapped back, and ran a shaking hand through her hair. "Right, sorry, this isn't helping anything. Lois, which guns did we log out to who on the calls that night, were we even using the P99?"

Lois was already tapping away at her keyboard to sift through the appropriate records, excruciatingly detailed paperwork for every last sneeze and fart they made one of Her Majesty's conditions for Torchwood's continuing existence in the absence of Jack Harkness's reality-distorting charisma. "Morning of the twenty-second, that was..." She looked up, eyes wide: "Rhys had the Walther."

It took him a moment to register her words. "But I didn't bloody shoot Andy Davidson! Couldn't have done, you were with me all night, Gwen, when would I have had a moment free to go break into his ruddy kitchen?"

The copper was giving him a sceptical look, as if pieces were falling into an order that Rhys would end up having to dispute from the opposite side of a small grilled window. "And can anyone besides your wife corroborate your movements on the date in question?"

Lois and Johnson exchanged looks. "I signed them out at half three to investigate a disturbance, the nature of which I'm afraid would be above the Heddlu De Cymru's level of security clearance," Lois said. "If you want more precise details regarding the operation you would have to apply through MI5."

Which he would, or Rhys wasn't any judge of a man's face at all. Lois went to show the inspector out as Gwen sank into the nearest chair. "Bloody hell."

"It would be Davidson," Johnson said.

"He does have a talent for wrong places and times, yeah." Gwen sighed and spun round to face her crew just as Rhys managed to paste on a look of denial that he might have been thinking that as well. "Well, we know Rhys can't have shot Andy, I was with him every moment from the time we walked out of here until we came back to sign out. And I'm positive he fired all of the rounds we accounted for on that operation at the aliens. Which were obviously not Andy."

"Unless he's a shapechanger of some sort." Johnson (Rhys never had discovered if the woman actually had a given name) looked entirely too intrigued by this notion, tiny smile turning up the corner of her lips. "Perhaps a... werewolf, or something -- Habiba, could you start looking into what would be involved in having some silver bullets manufactured?"

"Oi, come on, Andy isn't any more a werewolf than I am," Rhys protested.

Johnson lifted an eyebrow. "And see what we have on transmission of lycanthropy as well. After all," she continued as Rhys spluttered, "You were injured by a direct biological contact with the offender in that encounter. Maybe you're infected."

"I would say that this sort of thing never happened when Jack was here, but that would be a lie," Gwen said wearily when he looked to her for support. "No, Johnson, Andy's not a werewolf. We were partners, I think I'd have noticed if he was always asking for the full moons off."

"It was full on the twenty-first," Lois said, ducking her head with a murmured apology when Rhys glared at her.

"Will you listen to yourselves? There can't be any such bloody thing as werewolves, yeah? Or Andy ruddy Davidson being one? Make more sense to say he's one of those nutters likes to dress up as Scooby-Doo to have sex in the park and he was meeting them in the bushes when the bullet hit him! And before you say it those weren't any comedy teeth, either. Rather been bit by a bloody weevil."

Johnson was giving him a right proper look now, that hint of a suggestion that they all knew how far out of his depth Rhys was at this and it was only because he was married to the boss that no one dared say it aloud. "He baulks at the notion of werewolves but aliens he's perfectly all right with?"

"Seen aliens, haven't I. But I never saw one could be one of my wife's old mates one minute and a man in a gorilla suit the next, aye? How could a man you've known for six years suddenly change his bloody shape, for christ's sake?"

"The alien at our wedding did," Gwen reminded him, a thoughtful frown appearing upon her brow. "But you're right that that was something different, that was something looking like our friends, not our friends turning into something themselves." She heaved a sigh. "This was so much simpler when Jack was here..."

For once Rhys was inclined to agree with her. Johnson had gone rummaging through her bin to retrieve what turned out to be the device they'd found last week that appeared to be the alien equivalent of a cheap iPod. (Although he had his own private theories about the 'vibrate' setting.) "I do seem to recall that Harkness's idea of 'simpler' was what got the lot of you in dutch with the Crown in the first place," she said.

"Least it was never that someone could have got along in the police being a werewolf," Rhys said stubbornly. "Bloody Andy we're talking about, he'd have been first in the queue to tell us about it, yeah?"

"I suppose we are discussing the man who rang us in all seriousness to report that a seven-year-old schoolchild thought they'd seen a vermicious knid pretending to be a bit of equipment in the play-area," Johnson acknowledged, looking a bit deflated.

"Andy means well," Gwen said. "Honestly, I don't know why you always have to suspect him of doing it to wind us up."

Johnson's eyes narrowed at her superior officer. "I question his motivations because he's demonstrated a willingness to act against his government," she said, and then after a moment, greatly subdued, "Even if he was right to do it."

It was the closest thing to an admission of the possibility of human fallibility on her own side that Rhys had ever heard from her. (And anyway Andy weren't the only one with cousins that rang him up claiming to have been abducted by aliens, Rhys had one in Gloucestershire kept sending him blurry cameraphone snaps from his honeymoon on Venus.) With a deep sigh Gwen turned to lose herself deep in the bowels of Lois's filing system, pulling up the records regarding their weapons and recent operations and medical histories and for all Rhys knew Andy's last part in the policeman's chorus, trying to make sense of the ridiculous data. The rest of that day and then the next went by in a sort of tense haze, waiting for the other shoe to drop about it.

But this was Torchwood, always something new catching on fire to distract you. By the afternoon that a copper had turned up with the appropriate paperwork to have a rummage through some of their less critical files as her mate took them one by one off to the bench in the ladies' loo to take down statements, it was almost a surprise again, far more to worry over keeping the pair of them away from the pile of rift-borne rubbish that they'd been sorting through when the bell went. The coppers had finally cleared off with some puzzled looks about Lois's impeccably kept data, which showed beyond a doubt that Torchwood's P99 had been where they'd said it was all night, which was to say nowhere near being free to wander about taking shots at coppers in their houses, and never even seemed to notice the two-headed goat.

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