Jack stared at the cup of coffee steaming on his desk. He was quite certain that it had not been there 2 seconds before, when he had turned away to look for a stray piece of paperwork that had fallen to the floor.
Thinking of it, he was also not sure how that had happened either. Jack picked up the cup, sniffed the brew, took a sip and almost moaned with pleasure. This was the best cup of coffee he had ever tasted, and it was impossible that it was there. Jack thought for a second and started pulling up CCTV. He watched as a piece of paper seemed to pull itself out of the pile he still had to do and float to the floor. When he turned to retrieve it the coffee appeared on his desk. He froze the image, staring at the faint suggestion of a hand on the cup.
Ianto Jones moved down into the archives and stood next to the artifact that had so very completely ruined his life, waiting as alarms shrieked through the HUB. Maybe this group could figure it out. Torchwood one certainly hadn't, but this crew had a different approach.
He sighed and started cleaning up the desk he had found in the first section of the archives. He hoped he could set up some kind of trade, maybe a work for please fucking help me deal. First he had to persuade them to listen to him.
He sat on the formerly dusty chair, and started clearing the desk: Might as well do something useful while he waited.
The alien tec looked like a 4" iridescent cube, predominately golden with swirls of color; it looked like a square soap bubble, fragile, like it would collapse any second. Like you could breathe on it and it would pop.. Appearances were deceiving, yeah? Torchwood one had tried every form of destruction known to them, and some stuff they weren't sure of. The tec had ignored of it, unfazed, and Ianto had still been attached to it, sometimes visible sometimes not, but apparently just as indestructible as his new home.
Home was 'inside' the cube and looked like a very nice furnished apartment. He had found through experimentation he could change it to suit his mood, cook. brew coffee even watch the telly if he wanted to, but could not move more than a half mile from its present location before fading out and returning to his' flat'. He could not move the cube, but other objects, no problem. So Yvonne Hartman, director of torchwood one had ended up using the dammed thing as a paper weight and Ianto as an unpaid archivist. Not like he had anything else to do.
Canary Warf had happened and the cube was swept up along with every other artifact found in the ruins and shipped to torchwood 3.
Tosh, bless her, had seen the cube and placed it on the desk in archives to weigh down some papers, so at least it wasn't left to molder in some box. Ianto was grateful for that, would have made things a bit more difficult and he wanted to be as obvious as possible.
He carefully centered the letter he had written to explain his proposal on the desk, and, as the whole team crashed through the archive door, vanished.
"Project Paperweight?!" Jack stared at the innocuous piece of paper like it had suddenly sprouted legs.
The letter was simple, Just a Please help me, and a series of passwords, ending with that title.
Jack knew that artifact, the few (thankfully!)Times he had been in Hartman's office it had been sitting on her desk. He remembered admiring it, briefly and then dismissing it as he tried to warn the Director of Torchwood one how dangerous her research projects were. Not that she listened, just looked at him and dismissed him back to Cardiff, not bothering to hide her disdain.
He sighed and called Tosh. "I need you to find this" He tapped the paper "all possible information everything you can find. Then look for stuff you didn't find. I need it now."
The 'paper weight' ended up on Jack's desk.
Tosh settled back at her station and in a half hour with the help of Hartman's private codes and passwords had downloaded every file on the project. She started to flip through some of the files, and found a list of different kinds of bombs, and weapons both terran and alien. She would have set it aside but a hand slipped over her shoulder and pointed at the list.
"This is important "said a voice she did not recognize. Tosh jumped clear out of her chair and stumbled back, away from the man she had seen briefly down in the archives; she may have also screamed. Jack vaulted from his office, moving so fast that he did not seem to touch the stairs. One leap placed him between Tosh and the intruder.
"Who are you?" He yelled
Standing before him, was a young handsome man, tall, wearing the plain dark suit every Torchwood one employee had started wearing a few months before Yvonne's megalomania had destroyed her.
The young man looked startled, possibly at the speed of the captain's response. "Please help me" he said and looked like he was about to say more, but vanished again just before Jack could grab him.
Jack sat at his desk and stared at the cube. It sat on his desk and looked pretty.
Jack sighed" ok so what are we supposed to do with you?"
"Help me" said the young man, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Jack looked at the young man
"Help you what? Help you how? Who the hell are you?" he said carefully settling back into his chair and keeping his hands on the desk, trying to look as non-threatening as possible.
"Jones, Ianto Jones, sir I worked for TTorchwood as an ar.. " and vanished again.
Jack stared at the space Ianto had been in, and then turned toward the door "Tosh!"
"Yes Jack?
We have a name, look up Ianto Jones in Torchwood ones data base!"
"on it Jack"
He had turned around to look out his door as he shouted and when he turned around there was a cup of coffee steaming on his desk.
"Brilliant" he said quietly and looked at the cube that was glowing softly on his desk "This conversation is going to get rather long if you keep vanishing." he said.
Flashback: Ianto
He and Lisa had been part of Torchwood ones search and recovery 'if it's alien it's ours!' Team.
They had been out on another mission recovery on another ship that had crashed, looking for tec, weapons, anything.
They had gotten careless.
The ship was trashed, they had found useless bits and scraps of this and that, dutifully packaged up and sent off to base, then with time to spare had found a room mostly undamaged with just the cube in it.
It had been plain, black, slightly slick looking, totally innocuous, just another scrap to package up and ship out.
Ianto had been talking to base, distracted by Lisa who was at that moment sweeping the room scanning for energy signatures. He had taken one glove off to dial base. Lisa had picked up the cube, smiled mischievously and tossed it to Ianto.
Her hand was gloved.
Ianto was distracted by the phone call and caught it with his ungloved hand. It was as simple and stupid as that, Ianto was trapped. He remembered feeling odd, had enough time to start to look frightened and vanished.
The cube fell to the floor, cushioned by Iantos clothes. Ianto woke up in a large, very clean and mostly empty room. He was lying on the floor of the room, his clothes were gone and he was quite alone. His meltdown happened the same time that Lisa's did but he survived his, he had no choice.
Present day, Jack, Tosh Owen
They were in the conference room the cube glowing in the middle of the table, surrounded by papers, pizza and coffee mugs.
"Strontium 90?" Jack would have yelled the words but somehow the sheer horror of what had been done almost robbed him of speech.
"They threw him into a room full of Strontium 90?"
"wouldn't have needed to have very much." Tosh said.
"Dropped a bunker buster on him and the cube "Owen said "shot, stabbed, poisoned.." Owen sounded as sick as Jack felt" Jesus Jack … "
"One of their own people" Tosh was shaking she abruptly pushed the sheet of facts Ianto had said was important away with a sick shudder.
Jack finished the chant "And every time, he vanished, and every time there was a space of 48 hours and he was back and unharmed"
"48 hours 1 minute and 27 seconds" said Ianto as he suddenly appeared in the door way. He raised his hands in a gesture of peace and waited for the team to collect their wits and holster their weapons.
"Please stay in your chairs, if the cube ahh thinks I am being attacked it will pull me away again"
He was nervous and just as clearly controlling it. The team stared at Ianto and then every head swiveled around to look at Jack, all at the same time. Right
"Fine "he said "first is that why you keep vanishing? The cube thinks you are being threatened and pulls you away?"
Ianto nodded
"okay everyone think peaceful thoughts and don't move"
The team looked at Jack again. Yeah ok "better yet, Ianto move away from the door and let everyone leave, we should talk"
Ianto carefully moved into the room,around the conference table as far away from the team as he could.
The team quietly got up and moved out the door.
There was a scramble for monitors.
Jack sat very still trying with somewhat limited success to look harmless.
Ianto sat down very carefully perched on the corner of a chair quite ready to bolt if needed.
He had gotten very good at bolting his former 'employers' had seen to that.
Jack waited. Ianto cleared his throat and said "thank you sir."
Jack said "you are welcome, how did you get stuck in that cube?"
"Sheer and utter stupidity sir." And Ianto told Jack the story of his last day as a Torchwood operative.
He started going a bit transparent towards the end and Jack very carefully did not make any comments, he just listened.
Then he stood up, very slowly
"Ianto I would like to help you and I will have Tosh and Owen research this cube as much as possible.
"Thank you sir" Ianto was visibly shaking.
"in return you can clear up the archives and keep the place running, at least until we can figure out how to get you out of that" and jack pointed at the artifact "paperweight.. Who named it that any way?'
"That would be Director Hartman sir"
"We really need a better name for it "Jack mused.
Ianto stood up "I will think on it Sir" and vanished.
.