It was a quiet day at the hub and Owen Harper was bored.
Nothing had come through the rift in the last week, his paper-work was up to date and the suspicious lack of Weevils suggested some sort of Weevil bank-holiday – or perhaps they were throwing another birthday party.
It would be years before he could remember the image of about twelve weevils; complete with party hats, party poppers and chocolate cake in the middle of a Cardiff car-park without laughing.
Not that he cared where the Weevils were as long as they weren't doing anything that was going to result in half of Cardiff being Retconned.
He was tempted to try and beat Tosh's new record time on Tetris, but since her new record was now down to 37 seconds, he figured this wasn't going to happen any time soon.
Owen looked around the hub. Jack was in his office, pacing while talking to somebody on the phone. He figured it was probably UNIT or the Ministry of Defence. Jack never did like those people.
Well he certainly wasn't going anywhere near that office. Last time Jack had gotten into a fight with UNIT he had tried to cancel Christmas.
Nope, he was staying away from Jack until Ianto had been in with a cup of coffee, and he did whatever it was he did that made Jack wear that stupid dopey grin of his – Owen wasn't sure he wanted to know what he did. It was something he tried not to think about.
Tosh was completely engrossed in her latest computer programme, something to do with enhancing the security after a couple of aliens, being kept in the vaults had managed to escape last week. He wasn't sure – he had a tendency to drift off when Tosh started on her techno-babble.
It was much easier to think about that new barmaid at The Red Lion, the one that looked like a Page 3 model. Or there was that new presenter on BBC News, the little red-head…
Owen allowed his attention to wander. However after about ten minutes he was woken from his fantasies by Gwen's mobile going off.
Tosh hadn't noticed. Frankly, he didn't think Tosh would notice if Jack came running through the hub stark-naked.
Although seeing as Jack had done that the last time the team had gotten drunk, during a "team bonding" session, perhaps it wouldn't be that shocking…Perhaps he should give those tap-dancing leprechauns another ring, see if they could break her out of her trance.
Gwen had settled down comfortably behind her desk ready for a long chat with her wedding planner. Jack was still on the phone in his office. He was running his fingers through his hair looking even more exasperated than before.
He'd rather take meat off a starving Weevil than go into that office.
That only left one person to provide him with some entertainment – Ianto. Owen could always rely on Ianto to entertain him.
Or at least give him somebody to bitch to.
The only question was how?
He could mess with the filing system again; then and try and guess what shade of red Ianto would go before he started shouting obscenities at him.
At least Owen assumed it was obscenities. He didn't speak Welsh, but the hand gestures and the murderous look in his eyes was so transparent even Myfanwy knew what it meant.
On the other hand perhaps rifling through the filing system wasn't such a good idea. Jack had promised Ianto that Janet could have ten minutes alone with the next person caught messing around in the archives – and that he would delete all of that person's porn that shouldn't be on his work station in the first place.
The very obvious look left Owen in no doubt that Jack knew who had been in the archives.
Somehow being Janet's plaything wasn't really appealing to him all that much.
He could always change the coffee machine settings again.
But the last time he had done that Jack had made him read bedtime stories to the weevils for a week. A murderous Tosh had threatened to beat him to death with the machine and an even more murderous Gwen had threatened to cut off some of his more masculine parts with his own scalpel.
Ianto then refused to give him anything but decaf for an entire month.
He didn't know which had been worse.
Owen pondered some more before finally reaching a decision. It was time he confronted Ianto with that CCTV footage of him making out with Jack in the Tourist Office, when he was supposed to be researching why all the Weevils, had decided that the pitch inside the Millennium Stadium was a good place to practice their martial arts training.
Besides, he'd been wanting to ask Ianto if he knew where that hockey stick, Gwen had found in the boardroom had come from.
From the CCTV footage Tosh had deduced that it had been put there sometime during the last CCTV network update but neither he, Gwen or Tosh had been in The Hub at the time.
Chances were either Jack or Ianto would know how it got there – not that either of them seemed particularly interested in Hockey. Weird.
Owen swivelled around on his chair, glancing around The Hub.
Gwen was Googling wedding bouquets while chatting animatedly with her wedding planner in Welsh. Tosh was still engrossed in her programme.
The last time Tosh had been this focussed she didn't leave her computer for three days. Jack had to order her to go home, eat and not come back into work until she had slept for at least seven solid hours – or he was telling Ianto who taught Owen how to upload the CCTV footage onto Youtube.
Jack was now violently stabbing something with his pen, the other hand still clutching the phone. Owen was willing to bet that Jack was taking his annoyance out on that book of "21st Century Government Officials" he had given him a couple of Christmas' ago.
He knew it would come in handy.
The last time he had seen Ianto he had been heading for the archives with a small music box. Unfortunately when played the music lulled people into a deep sleep – and seemed to be some sort of an aphrodisiac for Weevils.
That was one memory Owen wouldn't mind having retconned.
Deciding than interrogating Ianto was infinitely more fun than just sitting there, Owen jumped out of his chair.
He checked once again that Jack was still in his office. He had no intention of repeating the occurrences of his last trip into the archives; finding Jack and Ianto getting very close and personal up against one of the filing cabinets was not what he expected to find, when his need for caffeine had driven him to track Ianto down.
He wasn't losing more money to Tosh and her female intuition!
Knowing that Jack was up in his office, probably picturing violent ways to kill the person on the other end of the phone, did not do much for his confidence. The man had a nasty habit of sneaking up on you when you least expected it.
A packet of digestives should give him enough courage to enter the archives.
Owen headed into the kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards where he knew Ianto usually kept the biscuits.
The cupboard was surprisingly devoid of sugary snacks. There was a packet of tea-bags that looked like they'd been there for years, a box of bran flakes and a packet of cup-a-soup.
Ianto never let the cupboards get this empty. He must have hidden them again after Owens last all-nighter. It wasn't his fault that he sometimes got cravings for biscuits at four in the morning!
He sighed and turned around to lean against the bench. Gwen usually had chocolate bars in her locker, he would go get one and replace it later.
Humming under his breath "Fame! I'm gonna live forever…" and cursing the stupid welsh radio station Gwen insisted on listening to, he headed into towards the teams lockers and was faced with a situation he had never witnessed before.
Ianto's locker was open.
Ianto kept his locker in pristine condition and nobody, not even Jack, had been into it except Ianto. Owen could testify that you couldn't break into it without the code.
Something green and furry-looking was jammed in the bottom of the door. Owen approached the locker and pulled the object out.
He stared at the object in disbelief. A smile started to slowly spread across his face.
Today was about to get a lot more interesting.