Gwen stepped gingerly round another stack of candles, placed perfectly to tempt the unwary. It was difficult picking her way round the furniture displays of IKEA in the darkness of a midnight alien hunt, especially as she was balancing her larger than average handgun, the portable rift detector and a flash light while searching for who knows what.
"Ianto, have you managed to find the lights yet Love?" she whispered into thin air knowing her comms unit was picking up everything.
"Leave them till we know what we're dealing with" replied Jack in her ear. Gwen huffed a little
"We don't even know what 'it' is, we could miss it in the dark." You could almost hear the pout in her voice.
She swept the flashlight round again, seeing Jacks torch reflecting back over one of the stud walls, must be in the fabric section she thought, then wondered how many Sunday afternoons she had wasted in here to be able to pinpoint departments. It was times like this she missed having the extra pair of eyes back in the Hub, directing the action rather than juggling equipment. She dropped her torch and swore.
"Language, potty mouth." Came Jacks voice in her ear, "There are innocent young ears around."
"I hope you don't mean me, not after last night anyway." Muttered Ianto.
"TMI Boys" said Gwen regaining the torch from under a bed. "Got a fix." She said triumphantly. "North west corner, not moving."
Gwen could hear Jacks boots picking up the pace but she was closer.
"Careful we don't know what we are dealing with." Warned Jack
Gwen thought it was a superfluous comment, when did they ever know what they were dealing with? She rounded the corner of one of the kitchen installations just as the overhead lighting came on.
"I think we're safe." She muttered
"What makes you say that?" asked Ianto, she could hear him walking up the metal stairs smartly, the sound of his leather shoes ringing up through the empty stair well. Jack skidded to a halt behind her, his Webley still raised high.
"It could be due to the fact it's a five foot teddy bear." She said flicking off the torch and taking a far less confrontational stance. "Or it could be that it's eating the plastic display fruit, honestly I don't think we have the sharpest tool in the box."
"What do you want?" asked Jack with a snarl, the cuddly looking bear took another bite from the hollow plastic apple and chucked the remains into the display bin. It looked up from it's cute furry toes and fixed Jack with a beady purple eye and smiled. Gwen gasped, far from cute it pulled a green tongue down across a set of razor sharp pins and belched.
"Grizzly" intoned Ianto in his blandest voice. "Your nursery must have been interesting."
"Well?" Asked Jack impatiently.
"Nice welcome for a fellow time agent." The voice sounded stilted as it tapped on a wrist strap that was bigger than Jacks.
"Left long time ago, I hear I'm not the only one."
"Wouldn't know, I don't get the gossip, I'm only here to invoke protocol one." The tone had smoothed out thanks to it's button pressing.
"Told you I'm not on the payroll."
"Whatever, your choice." Gwen looked at Ianto, but he looked just as blank. "Unless you act you probably won't exist tomorrow."
It smiled again and lifted it's wrist.
"Stop, I need more information." Shouted Jack
It shrugged "Your problem." And disappeared in a flash of energy.
Jack turned to the rest of his team, Ianto was leaning on the countertop.
"So" Gwen drew out the vowel sound and rocked back, arms crossed and foot tapping. When there was no reply she kept going. "Going to let us in on your secret code?"
Jack stood speechless for a second and then sat back on a chrome breakfast stool.
"Can't trace it." Said Ianto looking up from his PDA, "Jack, what's wrong?"
Jack just sat breathing heavily.
"Protocol One?" There was another raised eyebrow from Gwen and Ianto put a controlling hand on her shoulder. "Was he ordering Chinese or is it the end of the world, again?"
Silence.
"What was that?" Asked Gwen still trying to get a response, Jack was so quiet they were both worried.
He took a deep breath, "That was a gatekeeper".
Ianto started updating the species database but Jack waved his hand
"No it's a time agency thing, when you mess with time you have to have some sort of checks and balances, the butterfly effect you know beating wings and storms." He gathered himself together and brought his head back up, "The agency stationed agents through time that just blend in with the background, a signal gets sent every few minutes and if it has a significantly different history to the one stored and sent with the agent you know something has changed, it's their job to stop that change before it happens and restore future history."
They stared at Jack,
"How could that blend in?" asked Gwen
Jack just raised an eyebrow, "Didn't say he was from this solar system." Gwen mentally kicked herself, just when she thought she had this whole alien thing sorted she went a made a tit of herself with a question like that.
"So what do you need to do then?" asked Ianto patiently.
"Donno, I've got to work it out myself the gatekeeper can't tell you what the future might hold."
"But you work for Torchwood now." Said Gwen, Jack just tapped his wrist strap,
"Still gives out a signal."
"Right then." Ianto suddenly became very business like "What are we looking for." He wanted this over and done with so he could get back to his warm and comfortable bed and pretend like he had a normal job.
"Could be anything, I mean what if an agent had stopped Lee Harvey Oswold, what if they hadn't stopped Chernobyl when they did?" He looked up again sharply, his team had the good sense to ignore his historical faux pas.
"What did he mean you won't exist?" asked Ianto quietly
"Change history and I might never be born, which will change the present, which will change the future, which will further change the present."
They stood quietly digesting the ramifications in the fake kitchen, Gwen tapping her foot distractedly till she got a look off Ianto.
"So, what are we going to do?" asked Gwen
Jack shrugged, how did you quantify the unquantifiable?
"We can't just do nothing." She said in exasperation, two years at Torchwood and she still couldn't comprehend not everything could be fixed.
"What do you want me to do? It could be anything, we'll only find out after it happens."
Silence descended again, punctuated by a frantic tapping on Iantos screen,
"I think I might have a solution," he looked Jack directly in the eye "But you're not going to like it."
"Shoot Ianto, got nothing to loose here."
Ianto decided to go for the business like approach, "As you know Tosh built the rift predictor around algorithms that look at the most likely outcomes from present events and then compare them with past events to predict the when the rift will open, however she never managed to predict where it would open with much accuracy." They both nodded wondering where he was going, "Well just before she…" he paused – he didn't need to finish the sentence, "well, she thought she knew how to fix that."
Jack tapped on the counter, "We might not have much time here."
"She'd written a patch but she needed one last piece of data for the formula, but she was too scared to ask. If had that I could plug it in and we could test her theory."
"Used the Rift like some sort of barometer for changing temporal energy?" Gwen sounded like she knew what she was talking about, guess they'd all grown up since Grey, even Rhys could now be relied on to not step directly into the path of a marauding Weevil.
Ianto was nodding, Jack had stood up, trying to regain some control over the situation. "What do you need, answer to the theory of time dilation, the final equation on frame dragging?" the comments went rushing over both Gwen and Iantos heads, the Theory of Relativity wasn't a fourth grade subject until the 34th century.
"No something much more simple, I need a fixed point in the future, I need your date and place of birth."
Jack fixed him with a stare that would melt marble.
"Not happening."
And he stalked off towards the exit, turning round after about ten paces when he worked out he was going in the wrong direction. The remainder of Torchwood wisely let him lead the way.