10

A/N: This is my first ever fan-fic, so please review. Any tips for improvement will be greatly appreciated. Also, since I don't know a lot about Wales (what, with being Australian, and all), please point out anything I may get wrong (some Welsh words to scatter about in dialogue would be nice too). Please tell me what you think of my OC, Alex (I don't want the only character I own to be hated by everyone). And suggestions for side-stories would be greatly appreciated.

No flames please...I don't know what they are exactly, but they sound terrible.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Torchwood. If I did, it would have a better timeslot. (Midnight on Wednesdays? DAMN CHANNEL TEN!) Except, if I owned Torchwood, it would suck, and then get bumped back to that timeslot anyway...

WARNINGS: Violence, swearing, etc. Male/male flirting (and maybe more wink) so, if you don't like that, why watch Torchwood in the first place?

HEADCASE

ONE: IT HAD TO HAPPEN

Ianto was in the middle of preparing his trademark coffee when he heard raised voices in a heated argument drifting up from the medical bay. Gwen's Welsh lilt rose above them all. Usually, she interrupted in an attempt to get the others to calm down, but this time, she merely added fuel to the fire.

"I said, I bloody said. Didn't I say 'what if someone falls in?' My exact words. And what did you say?" Her voice held a withering, accusatory tone.

"This is the first time it's ever happened!" Jack retorted.

"Shut the fuck up!" Owen snapped "I'm tryin' to work here!"

Driven by curiosity, Ianto, made his way to the balcony that overlooked the medical table. Peering down, he saw the others clustered around a misshapen lump that rested on it. As he got closer, the lump somehow became a young man, somewhere in the age bracket of sixteen and eighteen, in a baggy, navy-blue jacket. Long, dirty-blond hair framed his face, spilling over his eyes. Artfully faded jeans clung to slim hips. Owen, who had been prodding the unconscious figure, trying to detect broken bones, now removed the jacket in order to check the breathing and heartbeat. Underneath the jacket, the boy was wearing a tie-dyed shirt, hot pink and lime green in colour, stretching across a firm torso, reminding Ianto of a candy wrapper.

"Who's he?" Ianto asked, coming down the stairs to get a closer look. Everyone except Owen, who continued working, turned to him, suddenly realizing he was watching.

"No idea." Jack replied hesitantly. "He, uh, fell down the…elevator shaft." Toshiko giggled; Gwen muttered something that sounded like 'told you so' under her breath. Owen stepped back from the still form.

"Well, he's alive, apparently, and nothing's broken, so let's take him back and dump him on the pavement before he wakes up."

Just as Owen said this, the boy let out a low moan, and a hand moved to rub gingerly at the back of his head, before flinching away with a painful wince. Slowly, the boy pushed himself into a sitting position, legs dangling over the edge of the table, groaning as he did so. Eyes still clenched shut, a not-quite-deep-enough voice issued forth from the boy's mouth.

"Ugh, what hit me?" He asked, though it seemed to be addressed to the universe in general, rather than anyone specific. His accent was not British, Welsh, nor American.

"The floor," Toshiko answered almost automatically "quite hard, too."

"Oh."

The boy's hands rose to clutch at his temples, face screwed up in concentration, as if he could will the pain to go away. After a moment of tense silence, the boy's eyelids flickered open revealing eyes clouded in pain. The black pupils were ringed with a bright, glowing green, like twin fiery emeralds. His gaze swept the room; not resting on any one spot, but focusing intently at each brief stop, as if he were memorizing every detail, etching it permanently into his mind. Jack cleared his throat pointedly, bringing himself to the young man's attention. For a moment, the fire in the eyes flared up, dying away in the same instant. The boy's lips suddenly parted in a wide smile, as if there were no greater joy than the prospect of making a new acquaintance.

"Hi, I'm Alex." He extended a hand of welcome in Jack's direction. Jack made no effort to shake it. After an awkward moment, the boy withdrew it, looking a little crestfallen. His eyes roved around again, lingering on the tangle of steel girders that extended high above them, all the way to the roof. He turned back to Jack, having already marked him as the leader.

"So, where am I?"

"You're in Torchwood." Jack's voice was devoid of emotion, and he had made no attempt to chat the boy up, despite his manifold attractions.

"Torchwood." The boy, Alex, mused "Is that a bookstore?" Alex seemed undaunted by Jack's less than civil behaviour, for all he knew, Jack was always this rude. The group was taken aback by Alex's odd question.

"Why did you say bookstore?" Jack asked, curiosity getting the better of him. Of all the things Torchwood had been mistaken for in the past, bookstore was a first. The boy swung his legs back and forth, and fidgeted nervously.

"Well, back where I come from, there was a small bookstore named 'Gaslight'. I just figured it was like, you know, a trend…or something."

"We're a secret organization." Jack said, now clearly struggling to keep the amusement out of his voice.

"If you're so secret, how come I've never heard of you?" Alex demanded, crossing his arms.

"Huh?" The group muttered as a collective, obviously confounded by the boy's backwards logic.

"Because it's a secret?" Owen finally replied, unable to keep a questioning tone out of his voice, as if unsure of the answer himself.

"So? A secret organization's no good unless everyone knows about it. Everyone's heard of the Freemasons and the Illuminati and so on."

"We're one of those organizations that are actually a secret." Gwen explained. Alex nodded thoughtfully, accepting this without argument. Jack, who had been resting his chin on his hand and studying Alex closely, spoke again.

"Where exactly do you come from, Alex?"

"Exactly? No idea." Alex responded cheerfully "But I was born somewhere in Canberra."

"Where's that?" Toshiko asked.

"It's the capital city of Australia." Alex seemed upset by their ignorance.

"I thought it was Sydney." Owen said, looking confused.

"Yes, I hear that a lot," Alex drawled sarcastically "odd really, considering almost everyone in Australia knows all sorts of things about Great Britain, like where London is, who the Queen is, and Princess Di, Harold Saxon, David Beckham, the Spice Girls, and Keira Knightly. Bet you don't even know the name of our prime minister, or that Kylie Minogue was Australian, and so are the 'Rogue Traders'."

"The what?" Ianto asked.

"Some band," Alex shrugged "I hear they're pretty popular here though." His eyes settled on Ianto, as if noticing him for the first time. He leaned forward, scanning Ianto from head to toe. "Oh my," a coy smile played on his lips "and who are you?"

"My name is Ianto Jones."

"Ianto," Alex practically purred, eyes lidded. He rolled the syllables on his tongue, as if savouring them "I-i-i-a-a-a-n-n-t-o-o-o. I like it. What do you do here Ianto?"

"I make coffee."

"Do you always wear suits?" Alex asked, reaching forward to toy with the knot of Ianto's silk tie, loosening it slightly.

"Whenever I'm here, yes." Ianto replied, nervously, a blush rising in his cheeks. Alex leaned even closer, till their mouths almost met. His eyes seemed to once more be alight with a flickering, dancing flame; holding Ianto's gaze, hypnotizing him. A harsh screech rent the air, and Alex looked towards the ceiling, breaking the trance.

"Was that a-?"

"Yup." Jack replied, knowing what Alex was going to ask "Ianto, why don't you get our friend here a glass of water and some 'aspirin'?"

"Yes, please," Alex said, not noticing the emphasis Jack had placed on the last word, and having no inkling of what it might mean. "My head still feels like it was smashed in. How did I get here again?"

"You fell down a hole in the sidewalk." Owen replied as Ianto hurried to fetch the water and 'aspirin'.

"How did I manage that exactly?" Alex queried "I may be clumsy, but I'm not blind…I can tell the difference between ground and thin air, for example."

"The hole is more or less invisible." Toshiko added.

"Invisible." Alex echoed, as if repeating the word would make it more believable.

"Invisible."

"Well that's a bit daft, isn't it?" Alex pointed out "I mean if it's invisible, any idiot can just fall in!"

"Thank you!" Gwen cried, flinging her arms in the air, relieved that someone else saw things from her point of view.

"What do you need an invisible hole for anyway?"

"For our invisible elevator." Jack replied.

"Okay- sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"I'm Jack, this is Gwen, Owen and Toshiko." Jack pointed to each of them in turn, and they waved.

"Okay then, Jack, what do you do that you need an invisible elevator?"

"We hunt alien life forms and salvage their technology." Jack replied, cutting straight to the point. Owen rolled his eyes and wandered over to the alcove where they kept the arcade games, seeing no reason to hang around.

"What like the 'Men in Black'?" Alex snorted.

"Not…exactly…"

"Who do you give this technology to?" Alex asked, not even stopping to debate the existence of aliens "It has to go somewhere."

"We keep most of it locked up, if it's too dangerous. Some of it we give to the government, who uses it to advance mankind's own technological development."

"You 'give' it to them? They can't just take it from you?"

"Nope, we're separate from the government, outside the police, beyond the United Nation…what is so funny?"

As soon as Jack had started, Alex had been biting his lip to keep from laughing, but towards the end, he had failed, and was now doubled over, clutching his stomach, and wiping away tears of mirth.

"Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to upset you, it's just-" Alex dissolved into another fit of giggles before continuing "I bet you say that to everyone who comes through here." Alex fell silent once more. Gwen and Toshiko had stayed quiet, but were struggling to keep it up.

"As I was saying-" Jack continued.

"Probably practices in the mirror." Alex muttered under his breath, just loud enough for the two women to hear. They promptly fell upon each other, laughing. At this point, Ianto returned with two pills and the glass of water. He handed them both to Alex, who took them gratefully.

"I put a sedative in there," Ianto nodded towards the water glass "to help you get some rest."

"That was…thoughtful of you," Alex raised a quizzical eyebrow, but swallowed the pills, along with a mouthful of water. He lifted the glass to his lips and downed the remaining water in one gulp.

"Feel better?" Gwen asked, rubbing Alex's back in a motherly fashion.

"Yeah, thanks." Alex yawned and stretched "that sedative really works, huh? I reckon I'll just-" Alex fell back down on the surgical table, mouth partly open, face obscured by the golden curtain of his fringe. His chest rising and falling rhythmically.

"Okay," Jack ordered "Tosh, run a back-ground check on this guy, see if you can find where he's staying right now. Ianto, Gwen, get him down to a cell in case he wakes up before we find it."

"A cell?" Gwen asked, surprised "He's just a boy, Jack!"

"He's doesn't even flirt as much as you do." Ianto added. "How can he possibly be dangerous?"

"I'm taking no chances." Jack's tone dissuaded further objections. Wordlessly, Ianto and Gwen carried the boy down to the cells.

TBC

A/N: FYI, Alex is seventeen, which, in Australia is old enough for him to have sex with a woman, but NOT with another man (which makes no sense whatsoever, considering they don't even have pregnancy to worry about. If anything it should be the other way around.) If the laws in Wales are different, someone please tell me (It probably won't affect anything, but it would be nice to know.)