Author's Note: I'm taking a lot of liberties with this one, and I do hope that you'll forgive me for any glaring historical inaccuracies. I did as much research as I possibly could – I can't tell you how many pictures of castles I've looked at for the last few days – but that can't really make up for my never having been inside of a Welsh castle. The closest I've been to being inside of a castle is Cinderella's in Disney World. I do not come from a cultured place. Why then, you ask, did I set this in a castle?

Well. I like castles. And it's Wales.


Owen shoved a box of equipment into Ianto's arms. "I feel like a tourist."

"Technically, you are." Ianto shuffled the box into a better grip. "Would you like a brochure?"

"Oi! I've lived here long enough to be tired of bloody castles."

Gwen laughed, reaching into the back of the SUV for the final box. "I'm sure Ianto could give you a guided tour, if you like."

Owen hefted a case of electronics. "Blah blah blah, people with swords, blah blah blah, the ancient Welsh language, blah blah blah, and here it still stands. That cover it?"

"You must have been a joy in school," Ianto drawled, and started down the path toward the tourist information center.

Gwen caught up with him. "It is a bit spooky, though, at night. It's no wonder they've been having ghost sightings."

"Total rubbish," Owen griped behind them. "Jack didn't have to drag us out here to play Ghost Hunters. We could have monitored the rift activity from Cardiff."

Gwen looked back at him. "He probably wanted to get us out of the hub for a while. Fresh air, all that."

"Yes, because that always goes so well."

They'd reached the entrance; Ianto held the door open for them. Jack and Tosh were bent over Tosh's computer equipment, deeply concentrated. At the sound of the door closing, Jack glanced up, then straightened.

"O-kay!" he said, putting his hands on his hips like the most cliché of superheroes. "A castle with reports of hauntings and rift activity. Tosh says she's never seen this kind of thing before, so it's bound to be interesting. Owen, you and I will take the upper parts of the castle. Gwen and Ianto, you take the lower parts. Tosh'll stay here in the office and monitor for us." He looked back at her. "Make sure you warn us if there's anything coming up."

Tosh nodded.

Jack turned to back to them with a big smile on his face. "All right. Move out!"

He swept out of the room. Owen looked at Gwen and Ianto. They had identical smirking expressions.

"'Move out', he says. That coat is going to his head." Owen shook his head, following Jack out of the door.

Gwen turned to Ianto, offering her arm. "Are you going to keep me safe from the ghosts, Mr. Jones?"

Ianto took her arm and led her out of the door with a wave to Tosh. "I think that you can more than handle yourself against things that don't exist, PC Cooper."

"Ahh, not a believer, then. All of the things you've seen in this job, and you don't believe in ghosts?"

Ianto looked at her, then clicked his torch on and shined it on the dirt path in front of them. "You've seen as much as I have. Hasn't a lot of what's happened to us led you to think that there's really nothing after we die? We've heard it enough times. 'There's nothing, it's darkness.'" He guided her around a stone in the middle of the path. "People might believe that they've seen things like ghosts, or they could be caused by some psychological or neurological event that we don't understand yet. But as for spirits, the dead walking around – I can't really believe that. When you die, that's it."

Gwen glanced at him, his very serious face, then pointed up the path at the shapes of Owen and Jack approaching the castle entrance. "There's proof against your theory. Jack's died probably more times that he can count. And Owen – well, he's still wandering around, breathing or not."

Ianto shook his head. "It isn't the same. You know what I'm talking about. The people we've brought back with the glove – gloves. Even Owen said it. There's nothing."

"You really know how to make a girl feel safe on a cold night in a crumbling castle, Ianto."

Ianto gave her a sheepish grin. "Sorry. These places put me in a mood. Too much history."

"I thought you liked history. The Electro and all that." Gwen clicked her torch on. They'd reached the entrance of the castle. She could faintly hear Jack and Owen heading higher. She swept the light over the old walls.

"Too much violent history, then." He followed her inside. "What exactly are we looking for?"

"Not sure." She walked carefully, slowly bringing the torchlight from one side to the other. "Tosh is supposed to tell us if there's any activity coming. Other than that, I guess we just keep our eyes open for people with swords through their stomachs."

"Cheerful."

"Torchwood for you."

They fell silent, moving along the dark, close passages of the castle. Ianto could feel the age of the place, like a weight pressing down on them.

"Jack looked excited," Gwen said, and Ianto could hear her smile as she walked in front of him.

"Jack's sense of nostalgia is very complicated." Ianto shone his torch down a deserted hall to his left. "A man from the future who can talk about 'the good old days' when spelling wasn't standardized and carriages weren't quaint. I think he just likes to see things he didn't help make."

"You never know," Gwen said, turning through a small entryway into another clausterphobic hall. "You could find his initials carved somewhere."

"'CJH wuz here'," Ianto said grimly, and Gwen laughed.

Ianto's comm beeped, and Jack's voice rang in his ear. "How are you guys doing down there?"

Gwen tapped hers. "Fine so far. Nothing to report."

"Lots of stone," Ianto added.

"In a castle? Never!" Owen's voice, sounding somehow more gruff through electronics.

"Is sarcasm difficult for the dead?"

"Would you like to find out?"

"Boys, play nice!" Jack's voice. Ianto heard Gwen stifling a giggle up ahead. He smiled a little.

"Gwen, Ianto, I want you to start heading down to the lower levels. That's where most of the activity has been reported. But be careful. This place might be a little unstable."

Gwen turned to look at Ianto with her eyebrows raised, the silent question, 'Are you ready?' Ianto nodded his reply and followed her down a sloping hall.

It was immediately darker at the end.

Ianto felt Gwen shiver beside him. "Well, this got old fast."

He hummed his agreement, lifting his torch and pointing it in either direction. The place suddenly reminded him of a labyrinth.

He whispered, "'So Daedalus made the endless pathways of the maze, and was scarcely able to recover the entrance himself. The building was as deceptive as that.'"

Gwen looked at him. "What's that?"

"Ovid's Metamorphoses." He stepped forward, into the dark. "Daedalus built the maze that the Minotaur was kept in. Half bull, half man."

"Remind me never to take you to a museum." Gwen kept close to him, her eyes a little too wide. "You'll start quoting the Bible and Shakespeare and we'll never get out of there."

He grabbed her hand. It trembled slightly. "We're fine," he said, quietly. "No such things as ghosts."

He heard Gwen's breath catch.

She whispered, "What do you call that, then?"

He turned, following the beam of her torchlight.

At the end of the hall, there was a man. Blood dripped from some unseen wound and down his forehead, into his eyes, which were open wide, but did not reflect the light. The light passed through him and against the wall behind him. He stood with his hands at his sides, his mouth opening and closing like he was trying to speak.

Ianto stepped forward. "Are you all right?"

The man stretched out a hand, like someone drowning, reaching toward them in desperation. Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he disappeared.

Gwen's hand was clamped so tightly onto Ianto's that he was afraid she would break it. He didn't much mind, at the moment. He tapped his comm quickly. "Jack, we've just seen something."

"What was it?"

"A man in period costume. Bleeding from a head wound, standing at the end of a hall. I'm not sure if he could see us or not. He didn't answer me when I spoke to him and he disappeared after a few seconds."

"Okay, well. Now we know that they weren't kidding. Toshiko, was there any rift activity near Gwen and Ianto just now?"

Ianto heard Tosh answer, "Just a minute-" then the sound of typing. Finally, "No. Nothing at all in the entire area."

"So the sightings aren't caused by the rift." Jack hummed thoughtfully, a chin-stroking type of sound that Ianto knew was for their benefit, and he heard Gwen laugh beside him in spite of herself.

"What could be causing them, then?" Ianto asked, sweeping the torchlight in both directions, in front of them and behind.

"We'll find out, I guess. You all right to keep going?"

Ianto looked at Gwen, his turn now to give her the raised eyebrows. She nodded.

"We're fine. We'll keep you posted."

"That's what I like to hear." Jack tapped off.

Ianto squeezed Gwen's hand and let go. "You didn't scream," he observed.

"I don't scream. I'm not five." She pushed on ahead of him and Ianto grinned after her. Not one to long appear the damsel, Gwen Cooper.

She stopped at the end of the hall and shined her torch left, then right. She looked back at him. "Do you think we should split up?"

He laughed. "Is that how we draw out the ghosts? Horror movie tropes?"

"I'm glad you take your job so seriously, Ianto." Gwen stepped into the intersection. "I'll go right. You go left. When you get to the end, let me know what direction you're going." She started off.

"Keep your comm open!" he called after her.

She raised her hand in response.

He turned and started off into the dark. It really was like a labyrinth. He could almost hear the pounding hoofbeats of the Minotaur, somewhere out in the endless passageways. This was what he had always imagined it would be like; surrounded by stone, in the dark, feeling isolated and underground. He shivered and swung the torch from side to side, trying to shake off the grim metaphor.

Distantly, there was a low rumble.

He tapped his comm. "Gwen, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Is there a storm outside?"

"I don't think so. It looked clear when we were walking up."

"I thought I just heard a -" He was cut off by another rumble, louder this time.

"What was that?" Gwen, sounding surprised.

"Tosh? What's going on out there?"

Tosh's voice, confused: "Nothing. I'm not picking anything up at a-"

The ground fell out from under Ianto's feet. There was a huge sound, like a tree cracking and falling, and Ianto was thrown against jagged piles of stone, digging into his back. He heard something falling to the ground close by, but could see nothing – everything was dark – he didn't know where he was, and the ground was shaking around him, rising up and down like waves, battering him with rocks and dirt.

Then, it stopped. Everything became calm.

In his ear, he could hear Gwen shouting, "Ianto! Ianto, are you all right? Ianto!"

Then he passed out.

A/N 2: I did not intend for this to be a two-parter - it was supposed to be a long short story. But the writing is going slowly, and I want to keep up my pace of one story/chapter per day. The second part, which is hopefully the final part, will be uploaded the second it is finished and edited. Sorry about the inconvenience - I really don't want to ALWAYS end on cliffhangers. It just kind of happens that way.