After Midnight We're All the Same (open)

A stitch in her side slowed Lynne practically to a halt and she doubled over in the street, groaning in pain. She was far too out of shape for these kinds of activities; what was she thinking?! "Oh, don't mind me..." she mumbled when the other two didn't stop. She put her hands on her knees and panted. Where had the other woman gone...?

Lynne stood up again and looked over her shoulder to see her approaching. "Hey, I'm sorry," she panted. "For...leaving you alone in the dark back there. Just as bad as letting her run off into it up there, I guess. And, I forgot your name..." she admitted again sheepishly as she tried to stretch out the stitch. "Fuck, I'm too out of shape for this..." she muttered.

Jared raced out into an open area between two buildings, before slowing down and turning about to get his bearings. It had sure sounded like the shout came from this way.

Then he spotted a guy. he didn't look quite as big as the thing everyone said they were chasing, but he blended into the shadows with his dark jacket and hair.

"Hey, mate. You okay? We heard a shout," he called out from some distance away.

Ianto was trying to get back to where he'd left Owen, but seeing as every street looked the same, and the GPS wasn't working, he was finding it difficult. He did, however, see a bunch of people running towards where he thought Owen might be.

"Civillians, Owen, they're heading your way, probably. No sign of the weevil here." He said through the bluetooth, wishing he was home drinking tea and watching Paul O'grady.

Owen saw a man running towards him and heard Ianto over his earpiece. Still holding his shoulder, he looked towards the man, "Yeah, mate, I'm fine. Listen, you should probably head back home or wherever, it's a bit dangerous out here," he grimaced in pain.

On finding that Jared had already reached the man, Rachel stopped and looked around, trying to discern if her quarry was anywhere to be found, and-- there, a glimpse of movement in distant shadow, to her right.

"Sorry," she muttered, not loud enough to be heard anyway, and took off in that direction. Not far now, and as she ran she fumbled to get her digital camera out of its case.

Angelina stopped next to Lynne, who was, apparently, in pain.

"And, I forgot your name..."

"It's Angelina." She answered, looking at Lynne, scared. "Are you alright?" She looked ahead at where the others had run off to and sighed.

"Yeah, mate, I'm fine. Listen, you should probably head back home or wherever, it's a bit dangerous out here."

"Yeah we've noticed that." The man seemed less than fine from the way he was acting, but at the mention of "we" Jared looked about to find Rachel and she was gone. The clack of her heeled boots alerted him to her general direction ad he took off again.

"Sorry!" he called back to the injured man. "You should get to a hospital, alright!"

"Angelina, right, yeah," Lynne said. "Yeah, I'm good, just a stitch in my side," she replied. "Come on, I think somebody's hurt up there. We should help. Or at least get up there and call for help," she added holding up her mobile to show Angelina before starting off again, beckoning for Angelina to follow.

"Hey Jared!" she shouted. "Are they okay? Are they hurt? ...and where'd Rachel go?!"

Jared was already up and running again, though. "Dammit. C'mon," she said to Angelina before taking off running again toward the other person in the street. Couldn't have been hurt too badly if Jared was taking off without yelling for some sort of help, but, it was better to be safe than sorry and maybe the person needed an ambulance, even if he or she was standing...

"Fuck," Owen said breathlessly. "Ianto, I think the Weevil's back this way," he said quietly into the bluetooth, so the other man didn't hear him. He tried running to catch up with the man, but stumbled a bit, so he slowed his pace down. Bastard had gotten him good.

The figure looked male as Lynne started to close the gap between them. "Hey, mister, you okay?" she shouted as she made her way nearer. "Should I call an ambulance or---" she stopped dead in her tracks. "Owen?!"

Owen looked up, still bleeding, still in pain. "Lynne?" he said, stumbling forward, clutching his shoulder. "Fuck!" he shouted in pain.

Lynne noticed the way Owen was holding his shoulder and she winced for him as he shouted. "Let me see..." she said gently, taking his hand in her own to lift it away from the wound. "What happened...?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

Owen didn't want to show her his wound, he didn't want her to see that this mysterious job he had put him in such danger. "That... Thing those idiots are chasing attacked me!" he shouted angrily, in pain. He looked at Lynne and calmed down a bit, resting his head against her, panting in pain. "Help me up, please?" he said, almost begging.

"Of course!" she breathed, stroking his hair and helping him up, her brow knitted with worry. "Just let me see it, Owen. I have a fairly basic knowledge of first aid. I'm not, you know, a doctor or anything," she added, the last bit teasingly in hopes of distracting him from the pain. "What are you doing out here, anyway?" she asked. "I thought you had to work..."

It was dark, this far from the streetlights and this close to the warehouses. The dim beams of a few more distant lights only slightly penetrated the shadows, just enough to make more of them. It would have been scary, but Rachel was too determined to be afraid. Too determined to be worried.

It was good to have courage, even if it did lead to more foolhardy behavior.

Where the shadows pooled at their darkest, she saw just the barest stirring of movement, and skidded to a stop several feet away. She wasn't fool enough to get too close, but she clicked on her digital camera, squinting at the LCD display in the dark before raising it to snap several pictures of whatever it was in the darkness, the flash illuminating the creature.

Weevil. But she didn't know the name for it.

Lynne insisted on looking at his wounds. "There's a... thing wandering the streets of Cardiff," he said, not noticing her joke, "It looked interesting, you know, for science," he hissed in pain. "Where did they go?" he added, looking for the group she was with before, "And what were you guys doing out here?"

"God, what is it with you Welsh people running toward danger on account of curiosity?" Lynne muttered as she finally managed to pry Owen's hand out of the way. "Jesus!" she gasped. "Owen, you're gonna need stitches..." She stepped away from him and zipped up her jacket before manuevering herself out of her tanktop and pulling it out through the jacket sleeve, pressing it up against Owen's wound. "And I imagine he went after her because she's nuts and she wants to take pictures of the fucking thing," she said. "I was trying to get into my flat and I thought I saw something, so I turned around and then they all just sort of...showed up, I guess you could say..."

Jared pulled up, panting for breath behind Rachel as she snapped several photos of the... whatever it was. In the light of the flash, he could see the creature more clearly and he thought he recognised it from something he'd seen or heard about in UNIT, but he didn't have a name for it.

The ugly brown thing snarled, bearing its very large teeth, before sliding further into the shadow of the building. It was clearly feeling hunted and trapped and the last thing Jared wanted to do was provoke it further.

"Hey, Rachel. I think we should back away slowly now. That thing doesn't look friendly." Jared placed a calm hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to back up with him.

Owen leaned against Lynne, holding her tank top against him. Had he been in any other condition, he would have found the move very sexy, but as it stood, he was in too much pain to notice much right now. "I don't... I don't feel so good." he said, falling to the pavement.

Rachel took a moment to take a few more shots - just to be sure she would get something through the flash that was recognizable when she looked at it later.

"Hey, Rachel. I think we should back away slowly now. That thing doesn't look friendly."

She blinked, looking at Jared when he put a hand on her shoulder, and finally nodded. "Right, okay. Think I'm done." She smiled thinly, switching off the camera and shoving it back into it's case round her neck, closing that up carefully.

"Owen!" Lynne gasped, dropping down to her knees beside him. "Owen, hey...look I'm right here. I'm gonna call for an ambulance, all right? Just stay with me," she said as calmly as her wavering voice could manage. Don't you fucking leave me... she thought fearfully as she stroked his cheek with one hand and flipped her phone open with the other. "I don't suppose you have 911 here in Cardiff?" she asked. "Do I dial the operator? I don't know what to do..." she said, beginning to panic.

Jared began backing away slowly. He didn't want to turn his back on the...thing, alien, whatever it was. But it seemed like the more they backed away, the more the thing began to growl in a menacing way...like it knew it had the upper hand.

"Shit!" he whispered. Obviously, this was one of those situations where one needed to show no fear in order to remain safe. Perhaps he should have taken Rachel's lead on this one.

The thing's growl sent a chill up Rachel's spine, but she tried not to let it register. If it registered, she would have to be afraid, and she wasn't going to be afraid of this. Even if it did sound like a rabid dog or something. Damn.

"Right, not gonna hurt you," she muttered, vaguely in the direction of the thing. "Just let us go." As if that would help. But she was backing away and it hadn't come any closer.

Owen managed to put his hand up enough to take Lynne's phone from her. He dialed the appropriate number slowly, taking deep, pained breaths as he did so. He tried to comfort her, but there was nothing he could do. He had lost a lot of blood and was only losing more.

Lynne took her phone back and lifted it to her ear, holding it in place with her shoulder as she applied more pressure on Owen's wound. "Owen, please stay with me..." she whispered, chin quivering and eyes welling with tears as she finally took in just how weak he was and the fact that her shirt was already completely caked in his blood. "Come on, please..." she pleaded.

Finally, after a few seconds that seemed like hours, someone on the other line picked up asking if there was an emergency. "Yes! I need an ambulance, like, yesterday," she exclaimed as calmly as she could. She gave the intersection and tried her best to explain what had happened. "He's lost a lot of blood and it's not letting up; please hurry..." she breathed into the phone.

"Owen, look at me. They're coming okay? Hang in there," she told him, taking one of his hands in hers and giving it a squeeze.