Title: Hate Time
By: Craig
Pairing: Jack/Ianto & OMC/OMC
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG
Note: Torchwood S4 AU
Disclaimer: Torchwood and Dr Who belong to the BBC and Torchwood was created by Russell T Davies. This is nonprofit fanfic.
Summary: Who is killing alien/human asylum seekers in Cardiff?

***

"No matter how many times I do this, I still can't get used to it..." Martha Jones commented, as she uncovered the face of the young woman in the morgue.

"She's a child,' Lois exclaimed angrily, as Cam turned away, tears in his eyes, "who the hell does that to an innocent girl?!"

Jack squeezed Cam's hand: "Easy, buddy. I know what this must feel like for you..."

"She must have been terrified," Ianto commented, as he extracted the blood sample and Martha completed her scan. She shook her head and turned to the others:

"The flag on this file was right. We have clear signs of xenohuman genetic interface, prior ectogenetic gestation and trace drugs related to that process. She's from uptime, originally..."

"In other words, this was a hate crime." Cam said, his voice low and menacing.

"And I'm afraid that's not all. Our compilation database has flagged at least fifteen additional cases of fatality or severe injury involving UNIT-registered xenoasylum and xenorefugee offspring. Not only this poor young lady, but also in Vienna, Amsterdam, Oslo, Naples, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg, Islamabad, Jakarta, Mumbai, Shanghai, San Francisco, Washington, Lima, Bogota and Auckland. This is global in scale. Not only from the Cardiff rift..." Ianto finished.

Lois came to a decision: "Ianto, with me. Cam, Jack and Martha, you're the best prospects to tackle anyone who's engaged in xenophobic homicide. We get the bastards who did this. We make them pay. But within the law. No vigilante tactics. No matter how tempting..."

Cam was glowering out the window as the Torchwood Range Rover swept through the streets of Cardiff. For once, the normal levity and banter was silenced. Jack was worried. It was obvious that Cam was reliving the pain of his personal past, when he'd lost his own thirteen year old daughter and husband uptime to the anti-telepath genocide carried out by the Normality First regime in the early 22nd Century.

He worried about what this night would bring. And part of him didn't relish holding Cam in, even if he were the most obvious one to do so, given their shared but divergent metahumanity...

***

"Hey, you!" Jack called to a sullen, scowling adolescent Blowfish in a hoodie, smoking what seemed to be a corrosive yellow cigarette.

"Bugger off, Torchwood..." scowled the teenager.

"Hey, you're a Velayrai kid, yeah?" Cam asked.

"What's it to you?"

Cam flashed a coral bracelet at the alien youth and he seemed to be particularly interested at it: "kewl."

"So has there been much talk in the Vel community about this bigoted shithead who's been attacking half-xeno kids?"

"You're street, bro. Whatcha doin' with the Coat 'ere?"

"You like the bling, yeah? It's yours if you provide us with the info..."

"We don't do humans. But the Bristol Vel community clinic? It treated a half-xeno Makh'aeli kid. She was cut up pretty bad, from what I heard. One other thing. Hooper mean anything to you?"

Cam threw him the coral: "Cheers"

"Wicked, bro..."

"What's a 'Hooper?'" asked Martha.

"Trouble. They shouldn't be here..." Jack said levelly.

***

"Trouble, everyone," Lois commented from the Hub," there are reports of an incident in Croydon."

"Sarah Jane?" Jack asked.

"Looks like it. Her 'Mr Smith' AI reported a heavy duty assault. She's holding them off, but I intercepted a UNIT narrowcast to their home. Problem is, they're fully occupied with outbreaks elsewhere."

"Figures," Martha nodded,"they must be after Luke, her son."

At that point, Rex screeched up:

"Right, move over. Yez need someone in HET and other anomalous combat."

"Oh no. Stop him, someone! He drives like a maniac" Martha moaned.

"Insofar as me Aunt Sarah's concerned, hell yeah..."

It took several traffic violations and about an hour to get to Croydon, as the Range Rover snapped through a police restricted area tape and the scenes of carnage were obvious. Sarah Jane was lying, dazed, in her front garden. From elsewhere, there was the sound of gunfire. Cam was first out of the car and ran toward the destination, his face contorted in anger. Thus it was that several Human Purity assailants were stunned by incapacitator backfire. As Cam stalked toward one, intent on mindprobing him, he failed to see a single gunman, levelling a weapon at him...

***

As Cam closed on the figure, he was unaware of the other intruder behind him, until there was a highpitched screech and scream. He turned to see an ashen faced teenager holding what looked like a sonic screwdriver:

"Luke? Luke Smith? Cam. Cameron Grant, from Torchwood. It's okay. I think you caught the last of those bastards."

"I...I didn't mean to...he...he was going to kill you..."

"I know you didn't. It's never very easy to take a sentient life. As a mutual friend often says, no-one else dies today..." There was a glint of moisture in his eyes as Jack and Martha helped Sarah Jane toward her errant son:

"He'll be okay, Ms Smith. He's been through a lot, though. Lost innocence always does that."

Impulsively, Sarah Jane hugged Cam: "Thank you, Cam. I know what that must have cost you. Your daughter and husband would be so proud of you, carrying on after that loss."

"I promised the Doctor I'd take care of you."

"Yes, but who takes care of you?"

"That'd be me, Aunt Sarah."

"Goodness. Is that young Rex? I used to change your nappies when you were a baby back at UNIT, and now look at you. All grown and with a man of your own."

"It's good to see you again, Sarah."

"Give my love to Mickey the next time you see him, Martha."

Jack turned and faced the others: "According to Ianto, the temporal anomalies have abruptly ceased. Whatever caused this orgy of senseless violence has been and gone."

"That can't be all that there is to this. What, we don't even get a cause? A responsible party?" Martha exclaimed.

"There's something else. It's starting to look like this was a diversion. The Ministry of Paranormal and Hostile Extraterrestrial Affairs came under attack just a few minutes again. And get this- there are no recorded time fluxes in the area."

"Who the hell could do all this?" Cam mused.

In a darkened room, a sinister young man templed his hands and smiled to himself, as a glowing, elaborate tracery of light and sound emerged from his head...

THE END

***