Title: Duck and cover Jack turned around and grinned at his passengers in the SUV as he pulled back the handbrake and slipped on a pair of sunglasses. 'Beautiful day for a walk in the park, don't you think?'

Owen fished his own sunglasses out from where he'd tucked them into the top of his jacket. 'Yeah, perfect weather to be out and enjoying it. Pity we've got to work, isn't it?'

Jack didn't let Owen's defeatist attitude dampen his smile. 'Try and do both. Nobody said they had to be mutually exclusive.'

Suzie snorted. 'You forget that Owen is a man and that multi-tasking is beyond him.'

Jack raised an eyebrow at her, pulling down his shades. 'What does that make me?'

She repressed a grin. 'No comment.'

Jack gave a dramatic sigh. 'The things I have to do to hold this team together.' He tapped his earpiece. 'Tosh? Next time I'm taking you with me and leaving Larry and Curly back at the hub.'

'I'll hold you to that,' she replied.

'Any idea what came through, yet?'

There was a subtle tapping of keys and a pregnant pause as she analysed what the screens in front of her were telling her. 'It's small...'

'Great,' Owen muttered.

'But,' she carried on, 'it has a very distinct signature. I've seen this kind of thing before somewhere. Just give me a minute.' There was more clacking of keys.

Jack opened the car door and got out, looking around even as he waited for Tosh to come back to them. It was his standard routine, checking out the scene around them, looking for anything out of place, or anyone who might interfere with what they'd come here for. Not that people always knew they were interfering. Mostly it was by accident, wrong time wrong place kind of thing. And sometimes they just spotted something out of place and picked it up, not because it was theirs, but just because few people could resist walking past something that didn't immediately look like rubbish. There was an element of the kleptomaniac in everyone it turned out. Maybe it was worth something to someone, or maybe they just wanted to hand it in as lost property, or maybe they just used the old adage of "finder's keeper's". Whatever that case, it was problematic in their line of work. That was why you couldn't delay on any alert that came through. Even if it didn't look dangerous, you couldn't just have folks collecting alien stuff like seashells at the beach. That was his job. He had so many proverbial seashells he was beginning wonder what the hell he was going to do with them all. Ianto only seemed to be making the problem worse by accurately documenting the enormity of his problem. Still, at least someone was finally documenting it. Jack sure as hell didn't want to be the one to do it.

Considering the near perfect weather, Jack was surprised that there weren't more people about. Didn't people hang out in parks anymore? Where were all the dog walkers and the kite flyers and the retirees who liked nothing more than to just sit on a park bench for hours on end, watching the rest of society going by on their own business? He sighed. These primitive twenty-first century humans didn't know how lucky they were with their green spaces and barely polluted air. Whole planets had been invaded for less, in his experience.

'Tosh?' Jack said, remembering that she hadn't yet responded and was probably neck deep in historical rift records. It was all too easy to get sucked into that kind of thing and forget why you started looking in there in the first place.

'Yep, got it,' she said. 'I knew I'd seen one of these before.' Jack beamed on the inside, swelling with pride at his technical genius. If anyone could crack a puzzle, it was Tosh.

'One of what before, Tosh?' Suzie said, restraining her own impatience to get on with the task.

'It's like a tracker device, highly encrypted and hard to lock on to if you don't have the code for it, but I've managed to break through the encryption layers on this one.'

'I know the kind you mean, Tosh,' Jack said. 'Small enough to embed into a pieve of jewelry, a watch, a ring, a cufflink. Handy in the espionage game.'

'Sounds right up your alley, Jack,' Suzie said smirking at him.

He let a little smile creep across his lips. 'I've had occasion to use them,' he replied, without giving too much away. He'd worked with agents back in his Time Agency days who couldn't be trusted as far as you could kick them. Stroking their egos and spoiling them with little gifts was one way to ingratiate yourself. Popping a little high tech tracker in their personal effects just made sure they couldn't run too far on you when it all went south. And it often went south. He'd had one or two passed off to him as well and had been wary ever since of any gift that looked expensive or was easy to keep on your person. He'd lost track of the number of finely engraved pen sets he'd ditched on account of his suspicious nature. In all likelihood they'd been nothing more than pens, used to curry favour with him, but it never hurt to be too careful.

Tosh's voice brought him back to the present. 'I'm sending you the specific signature for this one so you can hopefully locate it. It should still be pinging.'

'Thanks, Tosh,' Jack said, flipping open his wrist strap and already seeing the data downloading from Tosh's systems. Piece of cake, he thought, turning his head in the general direction the signal was coming from. 'Over there,' he pointed, down towards the river that snaked along the edge of the parkland. 'It's not moving so eyes sharp, people.' The grass could be hiding it from view, or someone could have stomped it into the dirt, but with Tosh's data at least they'd be able to pinpoint within a few feet of it

Jack strode across the grass, wending his way through the trees and the dappled light they allowed through their leafy boughs. A squirrel raced up one of them as he must have startled it, no doubt searching for that elusive nut it had buried months ago. A fine day for taking a nap under one of these fine trees, if only for that fact that he had work to do, and napping was not setting a good example for his team. Once upon a time that had been a perk of working for himself and going it alone.

He moved closer to where the signal was originating from, hearing Suzie and Owen trailing behind him. The trees thinned out a little closer to the river and the grassy banks began to slope down towards the water. A large family of ducks were playing at the waters edge, some diving under the surface for food whilst others meandered along the banks. They weren't the slightest bit perturbed at Jack's sudden presence on their patch. At least someone was out enjoying the weather.

He studied his wrist strap again. 'Somewhere round about here,' he said, circling his arm around a space a half dozen yards either side of him, before lowering himself to his haunches to get a closer look.

'Shoo!' Suzie said, ineffectually trying to mow a path through the birds as she scanned the ground.

'You're too far away, Owen,' Jack called out, seeing him pointlessly searching around the base of a few bushes several yards away from the target area. 'Over here.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Owen grumbled, slowly making his way closer. There was a hesitancy in him which Jack couldn't put a finger on. He was occasionally lazy, stubborn often, but what was this? Reluctance? And why? There didn't seem to be any good reason for it.

'Wait, what's that over there?' Suzie asked, pointing away from where she and Jack had been searching the dense grass. 'I swear I caught a glint of something. Just out of the corner of my eye.'

Jack lifted his sunglasses, moving his head every so slowly to try and catch the same angle. Yes, something was glinting in the sunlight, just a tiny spec when he was in the exact right spot. Ducks were ambling in between, blocking his view but there was definitely something there. They were pecking for food in the grass and Jack dreaded what might happen next.

'Owen, scare them off,' he ordered, since Owen was closest to the spot.

'What?'

'The ducks. Move them on before one one them decides to snaffle it.' He caught Owen's line of sight and could tell he'd clocked the sparkling item. Owen took two steps toward it before two ducks went chasing after each other, running right across his path. He froze, caught in some kind of fearful indecision.

'Owen!' Jack caught sight of a duck pecking right around the spot he'd seen the glint of gold. He scrambled to his feet rushing towards it but it was too late. The duck picked something up from the grass and lifted its head up to swallow it whole. It scattered as Jack flew towards it, trundling a few feet further away as it moved to digest its prize.

'Bollocks,' Owen swore.

Jack grabbed Owen by the arm, keeping one eye on the duck. For now, his irritation at Owen overrode that of the small bird. At least Owen was cognizant of, and could take ownership of his own decisions. 'Why didn't you stop it?'

'I....'

'Never mind,' Jack said, watching the duck about to waddle off and join its friends. If it did, Jack wasn't sure he was going to be able to tell one brown speckled duck from another. He moved carefully behind it, trying not to scare it off. Brazen as it had been earlier, it would bolt if it thought Jack was actually after it. And good luck if it boiled down to them having to gather up every last one of them to find the one that had swallowed their alien object. As much luck as herding cats and likely to end in just as many tears. On the upside, at least Tosh would be able to track it wherever it wandered. Still, better not to have to resort to desperate measures.

Jack moved gingerly from one foot to the other, trying not to get distracted by the other ducks as they milled around the thief in question. He was almost on top of it when slender arms came out of nowhere and snatched it out from under him. There was a flurry of feathers and quacks of indignation as the ducks all around his feet scattered in every which direction.

'Gotcha!' Suzie cried, having grabbed a hold of it, wrapping a spare hand around its legs so that flap as it might, it couldn't get away.

'Nice work, Suzie Costello,' Jack said, praising her nimble reflexes. Whilst he'd been relatively sure he could have caught it, it didn't wound his pride in the least that someone else had beaten him to it. 'Been duck catching before, have you?'

She gave the same kind of non-committal shrug she often did when Jack gave her credit unexpectedly. She liked kudos for things she took it upon herself to do, and often expected thanks or gratitude, but the off the cuff stuff she seemed less inclined to crow about. It was just one of those curious things about Suzie that he'd never quite puzzled out. 'My childhood wasn't a complete waste,' she replied, tucking the bird under her arm so it would struggle less. 'Fat lot of good you were, though,' she said, directing the comments at Owen who was still standing there stupidly.

'What's wrong with you?' Jack asked, annoyed at Owen's inaction.

Owen squirmed under Jack's inscrutable gaze. 'I... Well, it's just they're...'

'Don't tell me you're afraid of a few little ducks!' Suzie cried.

'There was loads of them!'

'And collectively they must have weighed, oh, about ten pounds? Terrifying!'

Owen shrugged indignantly. 'I had a bad childhood experience with a duck if you must know.'

Jack burst out laughing. He could just imagine a miniature Owen being terrified as he ran across the grass, wailing for his mother after a couple of ducks ganged up on him looking for Owen to throw them a few handfuls of bread. Or maybe it was the bread that had caused the kerfuffle. A snapping beak could probably startle a small child. An army of snapping beaks, well... He supposed any kid might not see the funny side, though most got over it by the time they reached Owen's age.

Owen went red in the face. Whether it was anger or embarrassment it was hard to tell. 'Stop laughing!' How'd you like it? Didn't see anyone laughing when you had that spider up in the top corner of you office. Wouldn't go in there until someone had thrown a shoe at it and trampled it to death.'

'Hey, arachniphobia is a thing.' Spiders were at least a completely rational fear for a fully grown adult to have. And to his credit he thought he'd been quite calm about it. Thankfully he hadn't screamed when it made a sudden move down the wall towards him. That was the properly scary part about them. It wasn't the eight legs or the hairy back - Jack had some very pleasurable memories that involved one of both of those. It was the way they moved that creeped him out, still as a statue one moment, scurrying the next. Who wouldn't be creeped out by that? Jack tapped his comms unit. 'Ianto? You there?'

'Yes, sir?' came the polite reply from their general support officer.

'What's the medical term for someone with a fear of ducks?'

'D-u-c-k-s?' Ianto spelled out.

'Yeah, unless there's another spelling for it I'm not aware of.'

'No. Just checking you hadn't said a different word and that I'd misheard you. Ornithophobia, although that's not very specific. That covers a fear of birds in general, unless of course you consider anatidaephobia.'

'Anatdiea-what?'

'It's from the Far Side comic by Gary Larson, who defined it as: "The fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you." Apparently that's worse, and not a little unsettling actually, thinking that a duck has enough sentience to be watching you for any reason at all.'

'Huh,' Jack said. 'Never had you down as a comic reader.'

'It's right next to the crossword in the paper, sir. Oh, and it's phallophobia.'

'What is?'

'The fear of... um... that other thing. Please don't ask me how I know that.' Jack could practically hear Ianto blushing on the other end of the line. It was borderline adorable.

Jack chuckled. 'Well, that's is one phobia we don't need to worry about. Thank you as always for your insightful knowledge. Tell Tosh we'll back back at the hub soon.' He flicked off his earpiece and looked at Owen, raising his eyebrows and waiting for the contrite apology which would never come.

Suzie held the duck between both hands and suddenly lunged it at Owen. He flinched and threw his hands up to protect himself. 'Quack, quack, quack!' she teased. It was spiteful but Jack let her get away with it. It was pretty funny seeing Owen flinch like that. They'd ragged on him pretty badly about the spider incident so he supposed it was his turn in the driver's seat to get one back.

'Piss off!' Owen grumbled, clearly embarrassed. 'How'd you like it?'

'At least I don't have a completely irrational fear of ducks.'

'No, just an irrational fear of committed relationships.'

Jack laughed. 'Oh, snap!'

'So, what now?' Suzie asked. 'I mean, fun as it is torturing Owen.'

'Well, only one thing for it, really,' Jack said, puffing out a breath. 'Daffy here is going to be coming home with us until we can get that alien tracker out of him.'

'Her,' Suzie corrected.

'Whatever. I think Owen should have the honors since it was his fault she swallowed the damn thing in the first place.'

'So long as someone else kills it so I can cut it out.' He looked queasy even at the thought of conducting a post mortem extraction on a duck.

Jack frowned at him. 'Who said anything about killing it?'

'How else are you gonna get it out? Got some alien device that does surgery without cutting someone open?'

Jack shook his head. 'Did you actually get a medical degree or did you pull yours out of a weetie box? What goes in must come out, even I know that much. All our lovely little friend here needs is someone to keep her company and stocked in breadcrumbs and laxatives.' Killing was always a last resort, and innocent animals were definitely not on Jack's list of victims. A few labs rats going off to that big cheese wheel in the sky for the sake of medical research he could live with. Everything else had a right to live. With the exception of spiders. And cats. Cats just made him sneeze like crazy. He wouldn't kill one, but he'd give it a swift kick if it thought it was going to hang around and take up residence in the hub.

Suzie smirked wickedly. She was going to pay out on Owen for weeks. 'It'll be good for you to face your fears, Owen. Who knows? The next alien that comes through the rift could be a giant duck creature hell bent on taking over the planet. The least you can do is make friends with the nice friendly little ducks from Earth.'

He scowled at it as Suzie held it closer to him and it quacked at him. 'You'd be better deep fried with char siu sauce,' Owen grumbled.