(no subject)
Title: Sudden Parenthood
Rating: PG-13
Characters/pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen, OC (Aled)
Warnings: M/M, very dark in places, gruesome descriptions of wounds etc. Will be VERY VERY sad at end.
Spoilers: All of S1&2, plus 'Lost Souls' radio play. Dr Who s4 finale.
Summary: After an orphanage is attacked and all but one kid survives - the kid who lost his family to the Night Travellers - Jack and Ianto feel they owe something to him and, with some persuasion from Gwen, become adoptive parents.
Disclaimer: Well, maybe in a parallel universe... but nope, not here, don't own Torchwood, and can't really claim Aled...
AN: I'm new here on LJ, but I've been reading a lot of fics, so please be nice and leave a comment... they are much appreciated and I'll try to reply to any that I might be lucky enough to get.
"Jack!" Ianto called, from Toshiko's workstation in the main Hub.)
"Yeah?" Jack stuck his head out of his office door.
"Can you come down here for a moment?"
Jack clattered down the steps and peered over his shoulder. "What is it?"
Ianto was frowning at the monitor. "Says here that there's some activity over at an orphanage in Grangetown."
"Big?"
Ianto tapped a couple of keys. "Big enough," he replied grimly. "Something's come through."
Fifteen minutes later, the SUV was screeching to a halt outside a school-like building.
Jack, Ianto and Gwen leapt out, Ianto checking his PDA.
"Looks like just one alien - doesn't say what..." Ianto read out. "Second floor."
Jack nodded and tried the front door. "Locked."
"Not surprising," Gwen pointed out. "It is nearly ten at night."
Jack pressed the doorbell and looked in through the glass, shading his eyes with one hand.
"No-one's coming," he said finally, stepping back.
Ianto started to say something. "There's-"
Too late. Jack had already kicked in the glass.
Ianto raised his eyebrows as Jack climbed through, careful not to cut himself on the shards of glass still stuck in the frame. "I was about to tell you about the side-door," he commented, tipping his head to the smaller door ajar, down the alley. "Might have been easier."
Jack shrugged. "Not as dramatic, though."
Ianto rolled his eyes.
Gwen stifled a scream as they opened the door to one of the dormitories on the second floor.
The beds were stained dark with blood, corpses mangled beneath the slashed sheets.
The carpet squelched wetly under Jack's boots as he took a cautious step inside. He looked down. The naturally green carpet was a red-brown with the blood.
Ianto gave a soft whistle, eyes sad. "What sort of creature murders children?"
Jack looked at him. "One that's far from home and scared."
"That still doesn't justify this!" Gwen argued, gesturing at the room. She had tears in her soft doe-eyes.
Ianto's eyes, too, were wet with tears. "They're all dead," he said softly, staring at the nearest bed.
"There's no way any of them could have survived that," Jack said, gentled than normal. He touched the Welshman on the shoulder. "We need to go and find what did this."
The next room was little better. Or the next.
But in the fourth room, the last one, they burst through the door to be confronted by the alien, roughly the same size and shape as a grizzly bear, but with green and blue mottled fur. Its paws and muzzle were blood-covered and strips of flesh were caught in its claws.
It snarled savagely as they aimed their guns at it. Its eyes were rolled back into its head in terror, and the large ears flattened, cat-like, against its skull.
"Sorry mate," Jack whispered, then opened fire. The bear made an odd 'guh' sound as the bullet hit it smack in the forehead and it toppled to the carpet.
Gwen let out a little sob as she lowered her gun, lips pressed tight together in an effort not to burst into tears.
Ianto gave a shuddering sigh and looked at the body in the centre of the room. He nearly didn't spy the young boy curled into a ball beneath the farthest bed, the one under the window. "Jack - over there." He nodded to the bed. "There's a survivor."