Time to start on another story. This is set early in the second season, not that it matters much.

Weevil Hunt

The alert went off just as the team was starting to think of going home. It had been a slow day and it seemed just their luck that they had spent all day at their desks on routine tasks only for the Weevils to come out to play now.

"Owen, Ianto with me," said Jack, striding out of his office. He was threading his Webley holster through his belt loops. "Tosh, track it down and guide us in. Gwen, you're backup if we need it."

Jack went back to his office to get his greatcoat and found Ianto had got there before him. He smiled and shrugged into it, noticing the way the Welshman brushed the shoulders of the coat to make sure it was settled correctly. The three men ran from the Hub and made for the SUV. They had been doing most of the operations for the past week as Jack was reluctant to put Gwen back in the field until he was sure she had recovered after falling and hitting her head the week before. It had been a crazy time. They had been inundated with stuff falling through the Rift and stretched thin which had resulted in Gwen's injury. She was doing well but had only been back at work two days. Jack would rather be safe than sorry.

They were in the SUV, Owen in the front passenger seat while Ianto was in the back booting up the computers to track the alert. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, Jack smiled as he remembered the evening before when he and Ianto had gone on a date. Relations between them had been sticky since Jack had returned from his time with The Doctor but now they were getting back to where they had been. No, thought Jack, they're getting better, because now I appreciate Ianto. The young man was also impressing Jack with the expertise with which he undertook missions like this one; he was proving to be a reliable and trusted field agent. He kept a cool head and followed orders, which is more than could be said for Owen even after three years!

"Turn right here, sir. It's about fifty metres on the left." Ianto had been liaising with Toshiko and now relayed her instructions.

Peering ahead, Owen looked out on an empty and abandoned street of houses. The estate had been earmarked for redevelopment but the property company had gone bust just as work was about to start. The houses had been empty for nearly two years and the vandals and drug dealers had moved in. The Council had still not decided what to do with the place.

"Fuck, they could be anywhere in there." He turned to look back to Ianto. "Got a closer fix yet?"

"Yes, I think so. It's number 48."

Jack let the vehicle creep forward and then stopped it. "This is where we get out, gentlemen."

They exited the vehicle and Ianto handed out Weevil spray, hoods and manacles which the others stuffed in any available pocket. Ianto put his tidily in this suit pockets and then took a few paces towards the house checking his handheld PDA as he walked.

"Looks like they're on the ground floor," he reported as the signal got clearer.

"Any idea how many?" asked Jack, unholstering his gun.

"Not totally sure. More than one but not more that four."

"So, two or three then?" Owen said sarcastically.

Jack ignored him. "Okay. Owen you take the back, I'll go in the front. Ianto hang back until we find them then come in whichever way is quickest."

Owen sprinted off and Jack loped away to the front door. The windows and door had been boarded up but these had been broken as people had forced a way in for their own nefarious purposes. Jack eased the door back, wincing at the noise as it scraped against the concrete floor. He peered in and then reached for his torch. He took a couple of wary paces and turned on the torch. The three Weevils sprang on him from the gloom of the passageway leading to the back kitchen and with an involuntary cry, Jack was engulfed. He got his Webley up but only managed a single shot before his throat was ripped out and he died.

Owen and Ianto heard Jack's cry and then the shot and hastened to his side too late to prevent him dying but in time to divert attention away from his dead body which would otherwise have been eaten. Two Weevils were still standing, the other having been killed by Jack's lucky shot. Owen yelled to attract the attention of the one nearest him and Ianto did the same a split second later. It didn't work quite as planned as both the Weevils went after Ianto. He saw them coming and fired off one shot which missed before turning round and running out of the house. Owen vaulted over Jack and followed them. In the open road there was more room to manoeuvre and more light. Ianto was battling the larger of the Weevils hand to hand so Owen concentrated on the other which was circling behind the Welshman. Taking careful aim, Owen took a shot and was pleased when the Weevil leapt back, the bullet lodged in its shoulder. The doctor ran forward and sprayed it quickly, pulling the hood over its head once it was down and then injecting a sedative. One down, one to go.

He turned back to the fight and saw it wasn't a fight any longer. Ianto was down, lying on the floor with arms raised over his head trying to protect his face and neck. Owen didn't go for a wounding shot this time, he shot the Weevil through the back of the head from close range and it went down on top of Ianto with a thud. The doctor rolled the Weevil off his prone colleague.

"Ianto, talk to me. You all right?" he asked.

"Leg," breathed Ianto, his voice full of pain.

"Let's have a look."

Owen knelt down and saw that the leg, Ianto's left, had been raked by the Weevil's claws leaving deep and ragged cuts from hip to below the knee. The blood was flowing freely. Working fast, Owen ripped off his belt and wrapped it round the top of Ianto's leg in a tourniquet. That should stop or at least slow the blood loss.

"Ianto, you've lost a lot of blood. I'm going to have to get you to hospital. You hear me."

"Ummm." Ianto was losing touch with consciousness and his eyes closed.

Owen slapped his face, not hard but enough to make him open his eyes. "Keep your eyes open, Ianto, no sleeping on the job." Opening the comms, Owen reported in. "Tosh, Jack's dead and Ianto's hurt. There's two dead Weevils and one which has been wounded and sedated. I've got to get Ianto to hospital now and I'm taking the SUV. You and Gwen get over here and sort out the mess." Owen was pulling Ianto back to the vehicle.

"We're on it," said Gwen. "How bad's Ianto?"

"He'll live." Owen pushed the man onto the back seat where he lay on his back. "Badly gashed leg and he's lost a lot of blood." He was at the driver's door now and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the keys in the ignition. It was standing policy to remove them but Jack always ignored policy, especially any he'd written himself. Starting the engine, he drove off to the nearest A&E unit.

-ooOoo-

The van was old and rickety, bought by Torchwood more than twenty years earlier, but it was large and had a tail lift which is what Toshiko and Gwen needed to get themselves, plus Jack once he'd revived, and the Weevils back to the Hub. Once at the scene, the two women worked methodically. They gave the sedated Weevil another shot and put it in restraints before transferring it to the back of the van. The two Weevil corpses followed and both women were breathing heavily from having to drag the bodies from the house onto the tail lift. Gwen locked the back door of the van and returned to the house where Toshiko had gone back to Jack.

"Is he awake yet?" asked Gwen, coming up to join them.

"No. It's been ages, he should have come round by now." Toshiko was anxious, about Jack and Ianto.

"Well we can't hang about here. Let's get him back to the van."

Gwen took his shoulders and Toshiko his legs and they managed to lift Jack a few centimetres off the ground and walk with him a couple of metres before having to put him down again.

"He weighs more than a Weevil!" complained Gwen, straightening up. They tried again and got him out of the front door before having to put him down on the pavement outside.

"Come on, Jack, wake up," urged Toshiko. She was squatting down against the front wall of the house, taking deep breaths. "Will we be able to get him in the cab?" It looked high to her and she couldn't see any way from them to get him through the door.

"He'll have to go in the back."

"With the Weevils!"

Gwen shrugged. "No other option, unless he wakes up. Let's get him a bit nearer."

Struggling to get a decent hold, they hefted Jack up again and waddled across to the van. They made better going out of the confines of the house and made it to the side of the van before having to put him down again. At this point, he gave a gasp and came back to life. He looked around him wildly and Toshiko, who was nearest, grabbed one of his hands that was stretching out blindly.

"It's okay, Jack, it's okay."

"Great timing, Jack," commented Gwen sourly. "We heft you all the way back here and then you wake up." She was standing with hands on hips watching him. She hadn't seen him come back to life very often and it still unnerved her but she wasn't going to say so.

"What's going on?" Jack's mind was whirling. He remembered entering the house and the Weevils coming at him. But what were Tosh and Gwen doing here? Where were Owen and Ianto? "Where are the others?" He was sitting up now, rubbing at his neck where the repaired skin was itching.

"Ianto was injured, Owen took him to hospital." Toshiko said this quietly, surprised Owen had not been on the comms to give them an update. She had not liked to contact him in case he was driving or working on Ianto with the hospital staff.

"Injured? It must have been bad. What's the update?" Jack struggled to his feet, grateful for Toshiko's helping hand.

"He's not been in touch," admitted Gwen. "He said it was a gashed leg, nothing life threatening."

"Damn." Jack fiddled with his earpiece comms. "Owen, what the hell's going on?"

-ooOoo-

At the hospital, Owen had barged in issuing orders and waving his Torchwood credentials. He loved the immediate attention he got as a result, milking it for all it was worth. Ianto was quickly assessed and treatment started before he was wheeled off to the operating theatre to repair the deep muscle damage. Owen was going to wait when the surgeon, by now an old friend, asked him to assist as the theatre staff were stretched thin by a flu outbreak. Scrubbing up, Owen was in theatre before he remembered the team and by then it was too late. When the damage to Ianto's leg was repaired and the surgeon about to close, Owen excused himself, discarded his scrubs and dressed, inserting his comms. That was when Jack's call reached him.

"Jack. Back with us then?"

"Damned right I am. How's Ianto?"

"They're just closing him up. Procedure went fine. There's some nerve damage but nothing too serious."

"Procedure!" Jack sounded angry, concerned and peeved all at the same time. "Where are you?"

"St Mary's. Look, I'm sorry I didn't call in but I was in the theatre helping out." Owen was starting to feel guilty for being out of touch so long but it was not as if he had been doing nothing, like lying around dead. "Ianto'll be fine."

"He'd better be. We're on our way."

Sighing, Owen wandered back to Reception, chatted with a couple of tasty nurses and finally got a can of drink from the vending machine. Spotting the SUV still skewed across the car park where he had left it, he went out and parked it straight. When he got out again he heard a labouring engine and saw the old van coming up the hill. He assumed, correctly, it was Jack at the wheel pushing the vehicle too hard in his rush to get here. The van stopped outside the hospital entrance and Jack fell out of the driver's door, coat billowing behind him.

"Oy," shouted Owen, coming up from the car park, "where's the bleeding fire?"

Jack whirled round and faced Owen, close enough to lick him if he had so chosen, which he most certainly didn't. "Where's Ianto?"

"He'll be in recovery. Come on, I'll show you." He looked up at the cab of the van where Gwen had slipped into the driver's seat. "Get the Weevils all right?"

"In the back. Ianto really going to be okay?" she asked. Toshiko was leaning across her wanting to hear the answer too.

Owen marvelled again at how quickly the teaboy had become an integral member of the team. The doctor would have laid odds against it after his rampaging cyber girlfriend had nearly killed them all yet now they were all concerned for his welfare. "He'll be fine."

"Come on, Owen. Gwen, take the van back to base." Jack, impatient to be off, was already moving towards the Reception.

Owen shrugged in the women's direction and followed his boss, directing him to the Operating Suite. The procedure was now complete and Ianto was indeed in Recovery. The man was lying on a trolley with tubes and monitors attached to him but it was clear he was breathing for himself. Owen spotted his surgeon friend and spoke to him briefly while Jack went to stand looking down at his injured colleague and lover. It would be a cruel trick of fate if, just as they were finding one another again, they were torn apart. Jack traced a finger down Ianto's bare arm and then held his hand loosely.

"Jack, this is Bob Chivers who operated on Ianto."

"How is he?" asked Jack, wondering how many times he had asked that question in the past half an hour. It felt like hundreds but that was probably because he was running the question over and over in his head.

"His vitals are strong and he came through the operation well. There was some muscle damage to his left leg which we have repaired. Luckily the wound was not deep enough to affect the bone. He'll need a course of physiotherapy but he's young, fit and healthy and I see no reason why he won't make a full recovery." Bob Chivers was used to dealing with relatives and couched his words with just the right amount of confidence and omitted medical jargon. "Owen did well to get him here so quickly and to keep the wound clean though we gave him a full spectrum antibiotic too." He was gazing at Jack's shirt which was blood stained. "Umm, are you all right?

"Fine," puzzled by the question and intent on Ianto.

"It's not his blood," added Owen, knowing it had to be explained or Bob would get suspicious.

"Oh. All right then. If you'll excuse me I have other patients to see."

"Thank you." Jack managed as the surgeon walked away.

"What do you want do, Jack?" asked Owen. "Someone ought to be back at the Hub helping with those Weevils."

"Yeah, I'll go." Jack reluctantly let go of Ianto's hand. "You stay here with him and call me if there's any change. I'll be back when I can."

"No problem. I'll see about getting him a private room." The two men walked out together, Jack looking back over his shoulder at his injured lover just once.