Hello, everybody! ^-^

This story was completed on December 2014, but the more time passes, the more unsatisfied I feel by what I've written. So I've decided to undertake the monumental task of rewriting this story to bring it to my current writing style (and clean up some canon) and overall improve on it! No one warned me that I would end up writing all chapters from scratch, but still.

Happy reading, everybody!

The headlights of the car bathed the small alleyway in light as it pulled up across the playground. Despite the late hour of the night, Arthur Clarke wasn't surprised to see three figures standing between the two buildings as if they were always meant to be there, their faces hidden in the shadows the brims of their fedoras cast. He would have been more surprised if the famously punctual Mrs. Herley had left him waiting, or made anything less than a respectable entrance.

His fingers curled around the pouch he was holding and he took a deep breath. Even though these were his colleagues, his partners, people he had worked with in this line of work, he still had reservations with working with them at this very moment, especially in dodgy locations like these. He had conditioned himself to stop thinking of how every mission could go sideways if they were caught by the authorities or how it would slander the institute's name if they were ever found out, because there was one simple truth.

Torchwood didn't care. It was under the protection of the crown.

But everything was different now that Torchwood was turning against itself.

Clarke took one final deep breath to steel himself before stepping out of the shotgun seat of the car, his men following close behind.

The chill of the night didn't seem to bother the three figures standing at the centre of the alley, their shadows haunting on the brick walls, taller than their casters and no less imposing. The three people, two men and one woman, were bundled in thick black coats, hands stuck in their pockets, and their presence seemed to fill the narrow space. He was surprised to find himself shivering for more reasons than one.

The woman acknowledged him with a nod. "Mr. Clarke. I believe you have something for me."

Clarke studied her for a few brief moments before snapping his fingers. His men immediately moved to the back of the car and opened the boot, and a few seconds later a black sack was thrown on the concrete in front of Mrs. Herley. He wasn't quite unaffected by the sly smile that stretched her lips when it started thrashing.

"How fresh?"

"Our detectors picked up its signal right outside Dublin," he replied, walking around his still open car door. "Get this: it was posing as a kid. We made the catch four days ago."

The implication that they had been driving with a living creature in the boot for almost four days didn't seem to faze her. She squatted down next to the thrashing bag and grabbed the top eagerly, untying it and pulling it away from the person inside.

If it could be called a person.

It was humanoid, for sure, shorter than a five-year-old, but the similarities with humans ended there. Its skin was leathery, pinkish brown, and its abnormally large head had three tentacle-like features extending from the back, as long as Clarke's arm. Its big, round eyes were staring up in terror at the intrigued face of Mrs. Herley.

"We don't know what it is," Clarke said. "We haven't had access to the records for a while now, so we're stumped."

The woman in front of him smirked. In the beam of the headlights, her bushy red hair looked like pure fire. "That won't be a problem. My associate will clear this up."

At the mention of the "associate", the man looked between Mrs. Herley's companions curiously. Was the person he had been looking forward to seeing already here? "I hope so. His capabilities are widely praised. I have high expectations."

Mrs. Herley raised an eyebrow as she finally looked away from the alien in front of her to look at him. She lifted herself to her full height. "So V's accomplishments have reached the ears of the Northern Ireland team?"

"They certainly have. Did you think that such vast knowledge could be kept secret?"

"I wouldn't call it knowledge, exactly. Though I take offence in the gender."

Mr. Clarke looked up in alarm at the source of the new voice. To his puzzlement, there was no one else in the alleyway except for the people he had already seen. "Who said that?" he asked no one in particular, and the smirk his business partner was sporting unnerved him even more. "Who was that?"

"Mr. Clarke, let me introduce you to my associate," Mrs. Herley said, taking a few steps back.

Out of the shadows to his left melted a slender figure in a long coat and a fedora, much like the rest of the company, and his eyes widened.

"Your associate is... a girl?"

Her long raven hair fell in waves down her back, swaying in the winter breeze, and her lips shone red even before she stepped properly in the light. Her heels clicked against the concrete floor as she walked closer to them, the barest hint of blue fabric picking out of the hem of her coat with every step she took, and he was surprised she had chosen to wear a dress in this weather. He couldn't place exactly how, but she felt like part of Mrs. Herley's team, and yet a separate entity altogether, something that didn't quite belong. What he could place more precisely, however, was that under all the confidence in her stride, the woman that was coming towards him was painfully young.

"Yes, I am a girl," she told him airily in the same deep voice that had spoken before, coming to a stop before him. "And you are Arthur Clarke, if I am not mistaken. Which I usually am not."

Clarke took a step back. "How did you-"

"It doesn't matter how, Mr. Clarke, but who did you expect to meet tonight? A UNIT goon with excellent knowledge of alien species?"

To be honest, he hadn't known what to expect. When all the rumours about the incredible member of the London team who could identify any alien the moment they lay eyes on them had started piling up, he had thought it best to take them with a grain of salt. Ever since the battle of Canary Wharf and the open manhunt for their unit, it was the only way to keep his people safe. But now, seeing the truth behind the rumours, he didn't quite know how to accept that one of the most knowledgeable people on alien life he had ever heard of was, in fact, barely an adult.

"Thank you for the dramatic entrance, V," Mrs. Herley cut through his thoughts. She motioned with her hand towards the alien still sitting on the ground. "So what do you think of this?"

The girl, V, looked down at the alien with furrowed brows. In the shadow of her hat, her eyes looked almost black. "I'm getting Graske," she said after a moment.

Her boss made a beckoning motion with her hand at him, and Clarke came out of his spell long enough to give her the pouch he was carrying. "This is what we really want your expertise on," she offered it to V. "It was the only thing it was found with."

Clarke raised an eyebrow. "Surely she cannot be able to tell-"

But she had already reached into the small bag and now let the contents rest in her palm. It was a black and silver device, the size of a regular cell phone. She ran the fingers of her free hand over the smooth surface. "Short range teleport device, but I can't tell if it still works."

His brow shot to his hairline. "How did you do that?"

"Oh, my associate always does that," Mrs. Herley waved him off, "and don't worry, V, that's a concern for another department." And before anyone could even blink, she had taken a gun from under her coat and had shot once at the Graske's head.

The only one to flinch even the slightest bit was the girl.

Mrs. Herley huffed and placed her gun back in its holster at her side with a smile. "Now that this is settled, we have more urgent business to attend to."

Nodding once, he motioned to his people to bring out the rest of the boot's contents, keeping an eye on the girl before him. If it was anyone else, he would have thought that she was looking at his men working, but having caught her little reaction, it was very clear to him that she was trying to focus on anything else but the body before them. Hadn't she dealt with this before? She had worked with this team before, long enough for Mrs. Herley to trust her; surely she knew how they operated. Seeing her boss deal with an alien shouldn't have been such a surprise.

Someone placed a huge duffel bag on the car and opened it to reveal its contents: several guns and dozens of spare clips for various makes of pistols, all well paid for, if he could say so himself. "I tracked down Bernie and got a good deal for these," he explained as Herley's men came closer and started sorting through the bag, cross-referencing what they removed with a list and filling a bag of their own. "They've been breathing down his neck ever since the incident – said he'll go into hiding for the time being."

It was the first time he had seen the redhead's face contort in alarm, but she quickly schooled her expression into something that passed for impassiveness. "That's gonna complicate things. All our suppliers cut ties months ago, it's lucky we managed to reserve our supplies this long."

"Yeah, and with Cardiff snooping in, it's tough to look for new ones and stay under the radar at the same time. What are we gonna do?"

Mrs. Herley sighed. "Regroup," she said decisively. "Get everyone together and meet at the Westminster base, we'll decide how to proceed there."

"Understood. Should I tell Livi to bring the living package there?"

"Living package?"

Clarke almost regretted speaking. He thought that his friend had told her. He never liked being the carrier of second-hand news when it came to his leader. "Livi tracked down some rumours of suspicious activity in Wales and made a capture. Unidentified as of yet. I'm sorry, I thought Livi had informed you-"

"How long have you known?"

He would sooner jump off a bridge than get on Mrs. Herley's bad side, and judging by her clenched jaw, he wasn't in the best of positions. So he did what any good friend did to protect his friend and himself: he lied. "He made the catch last night and called me this morning. It hasn't been that long. I really thought he had contacted you first."

Mrs. Herley seemed to consider his thinly veiled lie before fixing him with a stare so firm he thought she would drill holes in his skull. "Technology?"

"None so far, but he was hoping to get somewhere later. Maybe he wanted to find any devices they might have brought with them before contacting you."

The woman stared at him, then looked at her female associate, who was peering into the bag of weapons with an unreadable expression on her face. "I'll contact him later, I have to think about it first."

He hoped he could get to him before that.

Mrs. Herley reached into the bag and checked some clips before she offered two to V. "For you."

The girl cast a glance at the clips, but made no move to take them. "But my pistol is full, I've never used it."

"It's wise to have some spares in any case."

Despite the assurances, the girl still looked at the clips as if they would bite her if she came any closer. Slowly, she took them out of her boss's hand and stuffed them gingerly into her coat pocket, which seemed to satisfy her enough.

"Have you ever fired a gun, V?" Clarke couldn't help but ask.

The girl stiffened at the question. Her eyes fleetingly seemed to travel to the body still unattended on the concrete. "I haven't found myself in a situation where I would have to ever since I got mine. When I find it necessary to use it, I'll use it," she assured him; though her brief look at her boss made him feel like she was trying to convince both him and her.

When the new ammunition had been sorted, everyone packed up to leave, but Mrs. Herley held him by the arm before he could enter the car. "Mr. Clarke, I would like to be kept in the loop about any rumours you might hear about my associate. And please make sure they are kept to a minimum from now on."

"Why?"

She gave him the sweetest -and most fake- smile. "We wouldn't want to overwhelm her and get her to meet the whole team now, would we?"

There was something in her eyes that told another story: that his team leader didn't want anyone touching her toys, especially if they were particularly gifted. But he wouldn't say so to her face. "No, we wouldn't."

"Excellent! Till the next time, Mr. Clarke." And with that, Mrs. Herley patted his arm and walked off, but not before turning around briefly again: "Be a dear and do something with the body, please!"

Mr. Clarke looked down at the Graske's lifeless body lying in front of him, still half into the sack the woman hadn't bothered to remove all the way. His eyes lifted to look at V, who had remained behind and was now looking at the alien herself again. When she raised her gaze to him, she squared her shoulders and gave him a nod before following behind her boss.

He didn't know what to make of this girl yet. It was extremely foolish to bring an outsider into this world, even if they were extremely useful, and especially if they weren't ready to face the realities of this line of work. It would be merciful to just put a bullet in her head and put both her and the rest of the team at ease.

But that was a train of thought he would never reveal to his team leader.

~\8/~

V's feet ached as she rounded the corner to the small restaurant, her small duffel bag bouncing against her thigh as she walked. Her heels were tucked safely inside, but their lasting effect on her feet was still prominent even now when she was wearing her sneakers. She stuffed her compact mirror back in her jean pocket, satisfied that she had gotten all the dark lipstick off, and paused to take a calming breath right before she stepped in view of the large windows of the restaurant she now called home.

The restaurant was small, but that only helped to make it feel cosy. The walls were painted a soft orange, giving it an earthly glow, especially at night when the sconces on the walls cast a warm light upon the patrons. The place even had a bar running along the left wall and a small stage at the front for the various nights when someone would decide to put up a show at the restaurant. It was a family business, passed down from one generation to the next ever since the turn of the previous century, withstanding hardships and changing tastes, and the current owners were proud to carry on the family tradition.

Albeit with a lot of bickering.

Her nose filled with the smell of freshly cooked carbonara sauce when she stepped through the door of the now-empty restaurant, a peculiar smell for such an hour of the night. Her stomach didn't protest, however, and she let her sense of smell guide her through the maze of tables (almost all of them had upturned chairs on them) to the bar, where one lone figure stood over a medium-sized pot with a fork in her hand. V recognised the long auburn hair of one of the owners immediately: Anita had her chin in her hand, elbow on the counter, and was contemplating the contents of the pot like they held the world's best kept secret.

"What gives?" V asked with a nod to the pot as she left her duffel bag and coat on a bar stool.

Anita tossed her fork in the pot. It made the barest clank as it hit the sides of it, and the woman fixed her with a stare that could make V wilt on the spot. "Late night pasta order," she said oh-so-sweetly, the sarcasm practically drowning the younger girl. "Last customer for the night."

She didn't need to say more for V to understand. "Owen Willis?"

"Owen Willis!" Anita cheered with no fire whatsoever. She reached under the bar and produced another fork to offer to her. "I hope you're up for pasta for breakfast."

"You know I always am," V replied and didn't say another word as she dug into the pasta with rigor. The first mouthful felt like heaven.

"How was your boyfriend?" Anita asked as she picked up her own fork.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

"How was your girlfriend?"

"I don't have a – you'd think that someone would get tired of asking the same question after a couple of years!"

"Stop trying to remove that lipstick so badly and then I'll stop asking."

Her compact was out before Anita had even finished her sentence. Really, the darkness of London was not the best light to remove someone's makeup by. V sent her friend a death glare, but Anita didn't comment. "It's not romantic. At least I've said that enough times."

The older woman shrugged. "Fine, whatever you like. Whoever you go out to meet, though, is always welcome here. Making out in dark corners past midnight in London is never safe."

V groaned through a mouthful of bacon and Anita laughed.

"Are you gonna sit there all night and leave me to clean up by myself?" a male voice shouted from the back and then the tall figure of Roger came shuffling in the main room, carrying a broom and a bucket of water with a mop in his hands.

"Shut up, eat," was Anita's brief but comprehensive answer and she held out a fork to her big brother.

"And let the imaginary cleaners take care of this? That needs to happen now."

"Why did you send everyone home if you wanted to do a spring clean in the middle of January, then?" his sister retorted. "Not to mention in the middle of the night."

"Gosh, you two, relax!" V piped in. She pointed with her fork to the fuming Roger. "I heard pasta carbonara is the best peace offering, come and see if it's true."

Roger measured them with his gaze before sighing and hopping on the bar stool next to V's, grabbing the last fork from his sister. "This should be in the freezer for tomorrow."

"Over my dead body," V deadpanned.

"I didn't do the full measurements; I only made them for one person. Why keep so little for tomorrow?" Anita said, stabbing a few pieces of mushroom from the bottom of the pot.

That seemed to put an end to the conversation, and silence descended until the pot of pasta was completely empty. After such a hefty meal at 02:30 in the morning, even Roger had to agree that it wasn't possible for them to do a full clean-up tonight, so he just swept the floors and left the rest for the morning. Anita took care of any remaining dishes in the kitchen and V wiped down the bar and put away any bottles of liquor they had misplaced. It was a simple routine they had fallen into, one they had figured out over the years after the siblings had allowed her to stay with and work for them. It hadn't been an easy start, but they had worked out most of their problems, and the Blackwood siblings had learned not to ask a lot of questions. And V had never shared more than what she should.

Sometimes it weighed on her, not being able to share all aspects of her life with them. Sometimes just the voice of the one person who knew everything speaking to her over the phone wasn't enough to keep her up. But the siblings respected her boundaries, and V couldn't risk exposing them to the cancer that was her second life. So she could only soldier on, and hope that what she had now would be enough to keep her going until all this was over. Or until she put a stop to it.

After they had tidied up to the best of their abilities for tomorrow, Roger placed a hand on her arm. "You coming up?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. Got to make a phone call first."

Roger didn't seem pleased, but there was a teasing glint in his eye. "I'm gonna take all those phone calls off your check."

"It's to my sick mother in the country, Roger," she said with a pout, her voice feigning sadness. "Have you no heart?"

The man chuckled and patted her on the back. "Your puppy eyes stink."

"I beg to differ," V called to his retreating back. He just shot a wave over his shoulder as he exited the restaurant and headed to the right of the door, where the entrance to the upstairs apartment was.

The moment he had disappeared from her line of vision, V couldn't find it in her to put on a show anymore: she placed her hands on the counter under the bar and let out a deep breath she hadn't realised she had been so desperate to release. In the empty restaurant, with nothing to occupy her thoughts, it was harder to keep the image of the Graske tensing the moment the bullet found its home out of the forefront of her mind. Her eyes travelled to the last occupied bar stool, where the duffel bag with her "work" clothes and her coat lay, and she thought of the unloaded gun in the pocket and the three full clips next to it.

Another one, she thought to herself. Another one to put on your list.

As much as her mind wanted to pull her under all her persistent self-loathing, she had to remind herself that this wasn't entirely about herself. She had an obligation to fulfil, and the longer she put it off the worst it would be. So V stood up straight and walked to the back, where a small desk was set up for making reservations. She picked up the phone and put in the number she had memorised by heart the moment it was given to her, her only saving grace in her predicament. She never made the mistake of calling from the apartment: it was easier for them to believe she called from a random restaurant than discover a residential number. Maybe that would throw them off should they decide to check her friend's records.

It took a while for someone to pick up, and she wasn't surprised to hear the voice on the other line a bit groggy. "Hello?"

"Sorry, did I wake you? It's V."

"Yeah, I know it's you. Sorry, I must have dozed off."

"It's my fault, I should have called sooner."

"This wasn't a social call, I should have been awake to take it."

"We're going to argue about who was more wrong right now? Seriously?" V cut in, rubbing at her forehead.

The woman on the other line didn't speak right away. "You're right, you're right, of course. Go on, then, give me a status report."

Her eyes fluttered shut briefly to collect herself. "They were meeting with members of the team that came from Dublin. It seems they are trying to find a supplier now that Torchwood One went down. They restocked on guns and ammunition today, too many makes for the thing to keep track of, but not enough for the people remaining. They had to split it between themselves and Mrs. Herley, and she has more people to share them with herself. I think they are running out of time."

"That's what we've been waiting for," the woman said, a smile in her voice.

"And there's more." Despite what she had witnessed yet again today, she couldn't help but feel a little excited about the implications of what she had learned. "Mrs. Herley ordered for all of them to regroup at the Westminster base."

There was a pause on the other side. "The base."

"Yes, the base."

"Did she extend the invitation to you, too?"

"She might not have a choice but to do so. The man she was meeting with, Arthur Clarke, said that another team had made a capture, unidentified, and asked her if they should bring them to the base for interrogation. Maybe she'll bring me in to help with identification."

"Let's hope she does. This might be the only chance for UNIT to corner them."

Even the thought of those people behind bars, were they could no longer reach her, made V's heart flatter. "I'll try and make a list of all the weapons they brought today, just for a little extra help. You never know."

"That's a good idea. Did anything else happen today?"

At that, V froze. In her mind, the Graske slumped back on the ground, and was dumped unceremoniously in a garbage can in some shady neighbourhood, over and over again. Suddenly it wasn't so easy to shake it off.

"V? What's wrong?"

The calm voice of the woman pierced the fog and V shook her head to clear her thoughts. One of her hands found its way on the thick chain around her neck and she played with it, anchoring herself to reality. "Clarke had captured an alien, a Graske, and... and they brought it with them because they had heard of what I can do. It had a teleportation device with it, short range. I told them I didn't know if it was still working, I figured they don't exactly have the resources to find out right now."

Neither of them spoke. The silence wasn't helping her. "What happened to the Graske?" asked the woman, and by her tone V knew that she already knew the answer.

"Dead," V finally responded, and her shoulders collapsed. "Shot in the head."

"Are you okay?"

She gave a mirthless laugh. "What do you think?"

She hadn't meant to sound so bitter, but after so many times of not being able to save even one single life, despite the bargain she had made with the most prestigious military organisation dealing with aliens, it wasn't exactly somethin she could control.

"Come down to the house this weekend."

"I can't."

"The hell you can't. It will do you some good."

"We're so close to the end, I can't mess it up."

"This isn't about messing up, this is about your well being. And I haven't seen you in so long."

"No, I can't risk them finding you or UNIT finding me," she said firmly. "I'm in too deep and I can't make mistakes now. I have to wait for Herley to tell me where the base is, this isn't a time for deviations, you know that."

She must have heard the finality in her voice, for the woman on the other line sighed. "Fine. I won't force you to do anything. Just promise me you'll be careful."

To be careful. She had known by now not to ask V to be safe or to stay out of trouble, or even to be all right. These were things she couldn't promise. They were out of her control. To be careful, though, that was another story. "I promise. Give my regards to the Brigadier."

"Will do. Goodnight, V."

She held the phone close to her ear even after the line had gone dead. She hadn't realised that the voice of the woman offered her such warmth, or that she had needed that familiarity so much tonight. Oh, what she would give to have another cup of tea with her again in the garden, or to just listen to her voice as she described her day.

But this wasn't a time for distractions. She had to remain focused.

She had to get out.