Deeta - Happy Birthday

Metering it Out

Jack

"Jack!" Ianto rapped on the shower door.

"Wha?" the plastic screen doors parted and Jack stuck his head outside, shampoo lather dripping down his neck, into his ears, into his eyes. He didn't look amused at the interruption.

"You know," said Ianto simply, meaningfully, before turning on his heel to climb the bunker ladder and return to the Hub.

Jack growled in annoyance and returned to his shower.

Tosh

"Tosh!" called Ianto, trying to catch her attention. "I know you love Myfanwy, we all do, but she simply doesn't need that much. She just wastes it. She slops it everywhere. She goes out at night anyhow and dunks herself in the Bay."

"Sorry, Ianto, I forgot." replied Tosh.

Owen

"Owen!" Ianto tried unsuccessfully not to make the doctor jump. Owen was clearly concentrating deeply on the alien autopsy. "Do you have to do that so often? Surely your hands don't get so mucky. You do wear gloves, after all."

Owen shot him a "get out of here while you still can" look, and Ianto did. Swiftly.

Gwen

"Gwen," Ianto wondered how to phrase this delicately. "Could you perhaps not go so often? Or at least use the short flush button."

The Deputation

"Board room, now, Harkness!" said Owen, up close and very personal. Jack couldn't find it in him to describe the situation as 'homo-erotic'. Threatening seemed to suit it better. "You have to do something about your Teaboy. This is beyond a joke. We have all had enough."

Ianto

Twenty minutes later, Jack wandered, with studied casualness, into the tourist office.

"Ianto?" he asked "Got a minute?"

Ianto looked up from behind the counter, where he was pouring over a printed sheet obviously taken from the day's post. It was filled with numbers.

"What?" he snapped, testily.

Jack recognized the symptoms. "Here, sit down. Have a drink, you are getting dehydrated again. That's the third time this week someone has had to remind you to drink something."

"We can't afford it." he said, suddenly assailed by a feeling of dizzy faintness.

Jack eased him into the chair and placed a firm hand on his neck, pushing his head down between his knees. Once the moment had passed, he helped him up and held a glass of water to Ianto's lips.

"Sip gently," he cautioned. "Now, would you like to tell me what's going on? Why have you suddenly turned into the Water Police?"

"I didn't want to worry you," said Ianto "but a couple of weeks ago the Welsh Water Authority decided that they were going to put the tourist office on a water meter as it would be more economical - seeing as how it is registered as a business with only one employee. They said that there was obviously a substantial saving to be made as currently we were paying a flat rate bill of over five thousand pounds per year and really a few hundred was more appropriate."

"Sounds very public spirited of them," offered Jack approvingly. "And so where's the problem?"

"Well, " continued Ianto. "All of the utilities – water, electricity, gas, and so forth – that we use in the Hub are paid for from the Tourist Office's bank account."

"And?"

"If we are paying for exactly the water we use, it is abundantly clear from the monthly summary that we are not a one person operation."

"But," countered Jack, "all it damned well does in Wales is rain! How much can water possibly cost? There are ten year old kids living in the Valleys who haven't even realised you can take a cagoule off yet!"

"True," said Ianto, nodding seriously. He'd been one of them. "But what with all your showers, Gwen's excessive use of the loo, Tosh's insistence on Myfanwy having a birth bath, and Owen washing his hands at the drop of a hat, we use enough water to float a battleship in Newport dry dock! The Water Board is going to start investigating us soon, you mark my words."

"Ah," said Jack, understanding beginning to dawn. "I suppose we do actually use quite a lot of water, one way and another."

"They'll think we've got leaky pipes or something and want to come digging us up… We won't be a very secret organization when they discover the Hub!" Ianto looked disconsolate. "And I really don't know what to do." He put the water bill aside, took a sip of his water, and reached for the next envelope. Jack sat down to ponder the issue whilst Ianto finished opening the day's post.

"Oh fuck!" he said, which surprised Jack because Ianto was not usually given to swearing.

"What's the matter?" asked Jack anxiously.

"The electricity board wants to get on the band wagon. They want to install a 'pay as you go' meter."

"And how much electricity do we use?" asked Jack, a frown of worry etched on his forehead. He started to think aloud. "There's the coffee machine, all the computers, the lift, the Rift manipulator, and I bet the place costs a fortune to heat."

Ianto nodded, "Yup."

Jack reached into his pocket and dumped the contents on the counter. "Here, help yourself."

"To what?" asked Ianto, poking through a handful of loose change, a handkerchief, three second class stamps and what looked suspiciously like the remains of a sherbet fountain that had melded together with a toffee wrapper to form a sticky mess. He raised a quizzical eyebrow in Jack's direction then looked pointedly at Jack's waistline. Jack chose to ignore him.

"You are going to be grateful for that, because," said Jack, "if they put us on an electricity meter, you are sure going to need all the 50p pieces we can muster to feed the meter. "

End

With apologies to RG, whose joke I nicked but without it I wouldn't have come up with this for Deeta's birthday present!