Duplication was a combination of three separate ideas that came together. I started with the two end sequences where Jack is angry with the team for interfering in his private life. Those two bookends sat in the drabbles folder for a week while I thought of a plotline to actually go into the middle that could actually link to it rather than being mere bookends with no connection to the rest of the story.

I had been playing with the idea of Beth being attacked by a clone of one of the team and had narrowed it down to Owen. I also had the idea of a girl under Torchwood protection. Neither of these added up to a full story on their own, so I decided they could fit into the one.

When it came to it, the three story ideas fitted together quite nicely. Owen being scanned by the aliens led to the duplication, which gave the aliens the way into Torchwood. and the attack on Beth. The fact that the team were up late and Jack wanted to see Garrett meant that the hub was empty for once. And of course the point of the break in was to get information about the girl. What seemed like three separate ideas slotted together.

The end section was changed quite a bit. Initially Jack was still going to be very angry with everyone. But Jack isn't really a man who bears grudges in that way, I don't think. I was also going to have the team reading a bit more detail about Garrett’s work. There was a complicated bit about him transferring to MI5 from MI6, after a really bad situation in Afghanistan that left him wounded and traumatised, while his wife decided enough was enough and left him. Hence his desire for a quiet life. But I decided to cut most of it. In the earlier story, "And Then There Were None", one of the weak points dramatically is a huge chunk of exposition by the aliens where Gwen more or less just stands there listening when she could have been running as fast as she could. This time I decided to strip the backstory bare. The team know Garrett’s story now. The reader doesn’t need to know. At least not until it becomes relevant to the main plot.

How far Jack's relationship with Garrett  might go is still an open question. I really haven't decided yet.