I wake up to the loud blare of my phone's ringtone. Blearily, I scramble round for it, catch my pocketwatch, try to open it without thinking, remember that it never works, drop it and pick up my phone to press receive call and put it to my ear.
"Hello?"
"Evelina, we need you at the Hub right now; all orders are about the crash."
I blink, trying to focus. "What crash? Jack, you said it was my day off."
"Oh, for fuck's sake, don't you wake up for the morning news? The Big Ben crash, literally ten minutes ago. Turn on the telly, then get your ass up and into the Hub. Now!"
Jack hangs up, leaving me half asleep and confused. I groan, lamenting my loss of my only day off in months, and roll off of the sofa.
Flicking the kettle switch on and leaning over the kitchen counter, the telly shows BBC One, where a reporter is quickly firing off theories about something.
I'm initially confused about the theories, until they show earlier footage from the time Jack specified, and at that I straighten up and gasp.
Because it looks like aliens have just crashed a spaceship into the Big Ben in London, England, and the officials have started salvaging it from the Thames.
And no matter which way you look at it, that ain't good.
Forgetting all about the tea, I fly into my room to wake Owen up.
"Come on!" I grumble as I thump his side, and he moans in diluted pain and turns over in the bed.
"Stop it; my head hurts."
"No bloody wonder, after you came back at 3am with your fourth bottle of JD, you alcoholic," I protest, still hitting him.
"Piss off, Evelina! What do you want?"
"Watch the fucking telly, Owen! Aliens! In London!" I shout at him, and through his hungover state he wrenches his eyes open and stares at me quizzically. It's funny, actually - he looks softer and kinda cute when he's half asleep.
"Aliens?"
I nod. "Crashed into the Big Ben. Come; watch the TV. And get dressed - Jack wants us at the Hub!"
"Oh, for God's sake," he grumbles, but shoos me away to get dressed, so I go back to the TV.
The presenter talks about an alien body being moved to a place called Albion Hospital and of all the different experts of the world travelling to meet inside of 10 Downing Street to discuss the issue of aliens coming to Earth for 'the first time.'
It takes me a while to realise that 10 Downing Street is where the Prime Minister lives and where most of the political events are held, but when I do, I phone Jack.
"Jack! If they're holding a conference about the alien, shouldn't one of us be there?"
"One of the scientists in Torchwood One in London is in the thick of the conference; they said they're gonna let us know after the meeting, as they didn't want any communications devices in the room. As for the alien, all the doctors there are booked up with their own cases, so they want Owen to inspect it."
"Uh, they want Owen?" I repeat as I walk toward my room, open the door, and notice my coworker gone back to sleep on the floor halfway through putting his button-down shirt on.
"Yeah - why, can't he do it? Is he sick?"
"Uh - yeah, yeah he's sick," I bluff, biting my lip in hopes he'll fall for it. Surprisingly, Captain Jack Harkness, omniscient mysterious being as he is, does indeed fall for it, and simply huffs and tells me he'll order them to helicopter Toshiko to inspect the body instead as she's already at the Hub.
I flip my phone shut and sigh. Then I look into my room, where Owen is breathing heavily on the floor.
I'm so gonna kill him for this.
~∆~
I hurry through the giant cog door of the Hub and am immediately met with Suzie clutching my arm tightly and tugging me to her desk.
"Uh, and good morning to you too," I complain, but she hushes me sharply and makes me watch the screen that shows BBC One. On it, the presenter is explaining how nobody has heard from the Prime Minister since this all started, and starts listing off the experts and leaders coming to 10 Downing Street.
I frown. "Why is the leader for sugar there?"
"How would we know?" Suzie asks, genuine confusion in her voice for one of the first times in her life. "The government doesn't tell us anything; the only reason we're going to know a little about what's going on inside Number 10 is they asked us specifically to come."
My eyebrows draw closer together. Isn't it weird that the government wants us now, even though they've always kept us out of the loop, even when aliens have come before? What's changed now?
"-okay, that's good, now please can you stay in the hospital overnight, check on its vitals, see if anything changes - we need someone in the loop; God knows how long it'll be til Torchwood One reaches us." Jack's orders cut off with a flip of his phone, and the metal grates of the floor signal his arrival to the desk.
"Have you found out anything else, Suzie? And thanks for finally joining us, Evelina, brilliant work."
"Hey, it was my day off!" I protest.
Jack shakes his head. "I'm afraid there isn't gonna be any days off currently - we need all hands on deck right now, as everyone's gone quiet after a few hours. Toshiko has examined the body, but because she's not fully trained she can't fully explain it and is waiting for another expert to help. She tried to uncover more about the disappearance of the Prime Minister, but she got nowhere with the officials - typical. So, since we don't know what's gonna happen next, we're all three gonna stay here overnight."
At the word 'overnight,' I roll my eyes and seethe inside. Because that means that hungover dick in my flat has more days off to party about the aliens landing.
I'm gonna tear that boy a new one.
~∆~
By the time Tosh calls, I'm blinking so much to stay awake that my friend's voice on my comm startles me wide awake.
"Is anyone there? I've got huge news about the alien!"
I take a deep breath to cover my yawn, and press the device on my ear. "Yeah, Tosh, I'm here. What is it?"
"The alien and the crash weren't real!"
"What?"
"After it escaped from the freezer, this man and a bunch of soldiers came through the doors, and the man tried to calm the 'alien' down, but a soldier shot it dead.
So the man, he called himself the Doctor, he helped me examine the body and concluded that it was just an ordinary pig, from Earth."
"How could it be from Earth? Did he say anything else?"
"No, he disappeared after that - haven't seen or heard from absolutely anyone since. I'm not really sure what to do now, Eve."
I press off of the comm, unsure of what to say, what to do.
"Jack, where are you?!"
He doesn't respond, the only movement being from Suzie who fell asleep, so I dash to his office and find him passed out on his desk.
I roll my eyes. Tells us he never sleeps, huh? I can safely add hypocrite to the list of adjectives I call my boss.
I sneak round the desk, lean in close to his ear, and shout, "WAKE UP!"
"What the fuck?" he says grouchily, and I launch into my report:
"Tosh just called - the alien isn't really an alien, it's a pig that some other aliens launched into the Thames."
Jack rubs his face to wake himself up. "But then, why? And who told her?"
"This guy who just ran in apparently - the Doctor, she said he called himself."
If Jack wasn't awake before, he definitely is now.
He jumps up and shoots into the Hub where my screens are still on. One of them is a live feed coming straight from inside Number 10: masses of people from UNIT as well as other experts are pouring through the doors, like the light of the new day pouring in through the windows.
"Where is he?" Jack asks blearily, his eyes frantic. I step back a little - I've never seen my boss so desperate.
"Where's who? The bloke with Tosh? He disappeared, apparently."
"What?!" he shouts in genuine shock, and he begins to type on every keyboard on my desk.
"Yeah," I say, concerned. "He hasn't been heard from since then - and nobody's said who he is."
"I know who he is, and I need to find out where he is now!"
His wide eyes won't stop flicking from screen to screen as they go across channels that even I can't hack into.
"Jack, if he disappeared that quickly, whomever he is, he must be gone by now," I counter, but he doesn't even register me; just keeps murmuring to himself about this Doctor bloke. He won't stop. Who is this man he wants to find so dearly?
"Evelina!" Suzie appears next to me and points to another screen I've hacked into, the radio signal throughout 10 Downing Street.
"-the Prime Minister is an alien in disguise-"
"You what?" I say to myself, but Jack hushes me sharply and makes us all listen. All that follows is orders to kill the Doctor bloke, and although Jack says nothing else, we can assume that the Northern man about to be chased and shot is none else but the Doctor.
Suzie and I look at each other nervously, and for once we're on the same page.
Jack shouldn't be a part of this investigation.
The door opens loudly, and in comes Tosh, after over 12 hours in London. I run to hug her, relieved, but she stops me.
"Look at the telly, Eve," she says shakily, and we all exchange looks before we look at the monitor tuned into BBC One.
Onscreen, the acting Prime Minister, who apparently is an alien in disguise, is telling everyone with a solemn face that we are at war.
"War?" I repeat in shock.
Nobody replies to me. Everyone's in shock too.
It appears that for once, Torchwood can't do anything.
I run interference on my computer and start to flick through radio channels using technology that can eavesdrop on any frequency, I hear a word I've never heard before, Slitheen, and go back to the channel to hear more.
On that radio channel, a few people are discussing the situation and how to end it, the disappearing man with the Northern accent heading the chat.
"Jack!" I say, and my boss stares at the monitor.
The Doctor speaks firmly and directly, pulling no punches, only pausing when he realises that the missile someone is going to send to Downing Street to kill the aliens ordering global attacks, might mean the end for everyone speaking on the radio.
A classic London accent tells him to do it, but he starts talking in a softer tone, clearly caring deeply for this girl.
"I could save the world but lose you."
His sentence hits me the hardest that anything in these past two days has. It resonates in the part of myself that I don't even know. Saving the world, but losing the one that matters most. It feels so familiar.
Nevertheless, the American broadcast on another screen tells us that American reps have given the alien government the codes for missiles that are turned against Earth, so the bumbling guy speaking on the other end of the phone selects a missile from the Royal Navy.
And then... they all fire it.
On another screen, a radar shows the missile hurtling towards Number 10, flying over fields and cities. None of us know what to do or say, so we just watch the missile strike the house, Jack sealing in a breath.
Only when we hear on another screen that some humans have survived the strike, does he release the breath and look the most relieved I've ever seen a person.
I watch him, and then ask, "The Doctor is the one who got you into Torchwood, isn't he?"
The Captain stares at me as if that's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard, then without a word turns and walks to his office.
Toshiko, Suzie and I look at each other.
I need to know who this man is - and at this point, I don't know which man I'm referring to.