Everyone Makes Mistakes
Toshiko had been looking at her computer screen for quite a long time. Ianto realized this when he replaced the untouched cup of coffee by her elbow with a hot, fresh brew. He put the old cup carefully on the tray and peered over her shoulder to try to find out what had held her attention so raptly for long enough to allow her coffee to go cold.
"Rift kicking off?" he asked, concern deep in his voice.
She shook her head, negative.
He looked more closely and realized that she was watching a moving blip on a map of Cardiff. Ianto recognized it as the tracking device from the SUV.
"What's the matter?" asked Ianto, anxiously. "Is anything wrong? Jack's out in the SUV, isn't he?"
"Watch." said Tosh.
"What for?" asked Ianto with curiosity.
"Sshh, just watch. You'll see." she said mysteriously.
Ianto put the tray down on Tosh's workstation, pulled up a chair and they sat together looking intently at the screen. Sure enough, suddenly, inexplicably, the SUV made a abrupt U-turn and drove back down the road it had just driven up.
"Where's he go…."
"Keep watching." cautioned Tosh.
Ianto shut up and watched as the SUV made a second U-Turn and headed back up the same road again. Then, with no warning, it veered off down a tiny side street to the left.
"How long has he been driving like this?" asked Ianto, worry resonating in his voice.
"Nearly half an hour." she replied. "Pretty much since you made the last coffee, actually."
Ianto realized two things simultaneously. The first was it was unlike Jack to seem so out of control, and the second was that they were all drinking far too much coffee if it was only half an hour since his last coffee round. Pushing these thoughts aside, he asked thoughtfully "Where did you say the weevil was sighted?"
"Splott" said Tosh. "By the railway."
"But Jack's nowhere near Splott!" exclaimed Ianto.
"Not any more, he isn't. He's in Tremorfa." agreed Tosh. "He was in Splott earlier, though. He drove straight there. Parked up in Railway Street, by the train line. The SUV was stationary for half an hour and then it started off again. I figured he'd got the weevil and was on his way home. But he didn't head back to the Bay, he started going north east."
"Perhaps he lost the weevil?" suggested Ianto. "Maybe it escaped and he's followed it to Tremorfa."
"Not likely." said Tosh. "The weevils don't move that fast."
Ianto dismissed the idea that the weevil had taken the train at Railway Street the instant the image of a weevil waiting patiently on the platform popped unbidden into his head. After all, where would it get the cash for the ticket?
"Oi !" came a shout from the autopsy bay. Dr Owen Harper's head appeared above the flooring level in order to give Ianto a withering look, which was completely wasted as Ianto had his back to Owen. "Where's my coffee, Teaboy?"
"Up here on my tray." said Ianto, pointedly. "And considering your polite request, if you want it, you can damn well come up here and fetch it yourself."
Owen sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He hauled himself up the stairs into the main part of the Hub. Only then did he notice the other two staring intently at the screen.
"What's going on?" he asked, wondering what he'd been missing. He looked at the screen. "Hey, didn't Jack take the SUV to…..?"
Before he could finish, the others chorused with him "Splott."
"So, what the hell's he doing in Tremorfa?"
"Quick! Look at that!" exclaimed Ianto to no one in particular. "He's gone into the Tesco's carpark on Alexandra Gate. He never goes shopping. I don't think he even knows what supermarkets are for!" Ianto swiftly tapped the comms device in his ear. "Jack? Jack?" he called insistently.
"What?" snapped Jack, uncharacteristically tersely.
Ianto, Tosh and Owen exchanged glances.
"While you are at Tesco, could you pick up some more coffee please, we're running low and it would save me having……."
Ianto was rewarded with what sounded like a swear word and then a 'click' as Jack summarily disconnected the call.
The three were silent for a moment.
"Do you suppose he was on his way back and the weevil escaped?" Owen offered helpfully, as much to break the silence as anything.
"And then it headed for Tesco in Tremorfa in broad daylight?" said Ianto, incredulously. "Why would a weevil do that? Pop in for a pound of mince and some Jammie Dodgers? Not likely, it is, considering it didn't even have enough cash with it for a train ticket?" He stopped, realizing that the others were looking at him as if he'd gone mad. He shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't, would it? Stands to reason." He folded his arms across his chest defensively, unconsiously mimicing a favourite stance of Jack's. He returned his gaze to the screen, signaling that the subject of weevils on trains was closed.
"It was just a thought." Owen raised his eyebrows and mouthed the word "Train?" over the top of Ianto's bowed head at Tosh, who shrugged and pantomimed back "Don't ask me!" He decided to let it go, though he couldn't help stealing the occasional sideways glance at Ianto, wondering if the stress of the job was beginning to take its toll. He fingered the syringe of sedative he kept in his lab coat pocket at all times. It always paid to be prepared in case something you were in the middle of autopsying woke up unexpectedly.
"And anyhow," Tosh put paid to the weevil escape theory once and for all. "That Tesco isn't on the way back to the Hub."
They fell silent again, each trying to make sense of what was going on.
"Look!" shouted Tosh, standing up to point excitedly at her screen, obscuring the view the others had been enjoying. "The SUV is moving again. It's leaving the car park, it's going round the roundabout and he's turned off…… and he's... er…"
"Where?" chorused Ianto and Owen together, trying to see round her.
"Back into Tesco's carpark." said Tosh, sitting down heavily.
Ianto brightened at the prospect. "Perhaps he's had a change of heart and is going to pick up the coffee after all." He tapped the comms device again. "Jack? The blend you like is in a red pack. It's usually on one of the lower shelves but if there's none on display, you need to ask for it… Find Emrys, he knows the hot drinks section."
Very clearly, Jack annunciated with venom, "Sod off, Ianto." and disconnected again.
"Nice try." said Owen "But it really doesn't look like he's going to buy any coffee." Owen took a deliberately noisy slurp from his cup.
"Very astute," said Ianto, scathingly, glaring at him and wondering whether to jostle his arm and make him spill his coffee. He was hurt that Jack had spoken to him like that, especially in front of the others. Something was very wrong.
"OK, so we know what he isn't doing, which isn't getting coffee, but that leaves quite a wide choice of what he might actually be up to." Tosh's comment brought the men back to focus on the question of the moment, although Ianto got sidetracked trying to figure out if Tosh had really used a double negative. Or maybe a triple negative.
"Look," said Owen, "he's off again. And – yes, whoo-hoo! He's made it out of the car park."
"Bonus." Ianto forced the word out with little enthusiasm, knowing that now, for sure, he'd have to go shopping later. Friday afternoons in Tesco were not his favourite. He was still upset after last week when he'd opened the boot to put in the shopping and discovered a Weevil body that Owen had failed to remove. That had caused raised eyebrows from the pensioner parked next to him. "Halloween," he'd stammered. "Just been to pick up my fancy dress. A party. My boss's idea – an aliens and superheroes party." He winced and shook his head at the memory. Especially the part where he'd gestured to the Weevil and said, truthfully "He's the alien."
Ianto desperately wished Jack that would let him do an internet shop and have it delivered, but no matter which way you looked at it, a little tourist office would not need that many supplies. An internet shop could cause undue attention. Owen was still trying to live down having pizzas delivered in the name of Torchwood and Ianto didn't fancy the same fate over coffee and toilet rolls. Though, thought Ianto, they certainly did seem to get through more of both commodities than you'd expect five healthy people to need. And biros. You could never find a working biro when you needed one. He secretly suspected that Gwen might be taking supplies home with her. Though he wasn't sure why. Perhaps Torchwood was supplying Harwoods Haulage. That would certainly explain the toilet paper consumption, come to think of it. And the staples, biros and post-it notes.
"Where's he heading now?" asked Owen, rousing Ianto from his shopping-induced reverie. Owen's knowledge of Welsh geography was not as good as those of his Welsh-native team mates.
"Difficult to say, really," said Ianto, "But if he keeps going in that direction, he'll end up on the M4 and be over the second Severn crossing in about half an hour, depending on the traffic. It can be quite good approaching the new bridge at this time of day. But then, it's Friday, so it might be a bit heavier and could take longer. But he'll be at the Almondsbury Interchange before you can say 'what idiot planner designed this junction?"
"It's not as bad as those roundabouts in Swindon," countered Owen, the memory of his own experience of the Magic Roundabout still vivid, nearly three years later. "I'm still sure they built that fucking roundabout from blueprints the architects had accidentally all put their coffe cups on. And the builder thought the stain rings from the bottom of the cups were mini roundabouts."
"True" said Ianto. "God, we'd better hope he doesn't get that far. If Tesco's roundabout was anything to judge by, he'll be driving in ever decreasing circles around Swindon all week. He could end up like the Oozulum bird and disappear up his own arse."
Owen couldn't suppress a smile. "Thought that was your position!"
Ianto smiled too. "No, he stops when he runs out of petrol."
"Boys!" exclaimed Tosh, trying to reign in their flights of fantasy.
Owen came back to the reality in hand. "You do know, don't you" he observed slowly and thoughtfully, "as he never has any money with him, he'll be able to get out of Wales OK, But he won't be able to get back in. He'll have to drive up to Gloucester to get back in for free. Bloody toll bridges. Jack will never have enough money in his pocket to get back in over the bridge. I 've never understood how it makes sense to charge to come into Wales but it's free to leave. I should've thought most people would've paid more to get out." Owen observed, not ducking quickly enough before Ianto hit him. He watched the blip head off towards Saint Mellons. A sudden thought hit him. "Tooooosh?" he said, drawing the vowel out in a thoughtful manner.
"Mmmm?" she replied, preoccupied watching the rather erratic progress of the SUV, which was still driving a few hundred yards, turning around, driving off in a different direction – often back the way it had just come – before continuing in fundamentally the same direction – towards England.
"The SUV isn't amphibious, is it?" he asked.
"No, no it's not." Tosh reassured the doctor, seeing where Owen's thoughts were leading. She, too, could imagine the horrible vision of cashless Jack driving the SUV optimistically into the Bristol Channel and sinking it like a stone.
"Tosh?" said Ianto, in a similar tone of voice.
"Mmmmm?" she replied again, tilting her head to one side and pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, idly watching as the SUV appeared to be driving the wrong way down a one way street with at least two wheels on the pavement.
"Does Jack know it's not amphibious?" he asked.
The three looked at each other, horrorstruck, and as one, each tapped their comms devices.
In the SUV, Jack was suddenly assailed by three voices shrieking at him simultaneously. He couldn't make out any individual sentences, but it seemed to revolve around him not driving into either the Bristol Channel or the Severn Estuary. This he found somewhat surprising, as the thought of doing either had not crossed his mind in the slightest. Ever.
He could hear the concern in their voices, and even if he didn't understand it, he realized that he had to swallow his increasing frustration with his own rapidly worsening situation, try to ignore the weevil in the back and behave like a leader.
"It's OK guys, I promise I won't. Is everything alright back there? You sound rather freaked out over something? Has something happened I should know about? What's the matter? Rift problems?"
"You're the matter!" squeaked Ianto, heatedly. "Where are you? What the hell are you doing? Where are you going? Why are you driving like that? Are you OK?"
"I'm fine." said Jack calmly, feeling anything but calm. He was alone, in the SUV, with a rapidly awakening weevil, and no idea where he was, but in possession of a huge helping of male pride. "Just taking care of business. Work to do." He said, hoping to disguise the fact that he was hopelessly lost.
"Are you sure?" asked Ianto. "I'm glad there's nothing wrong, Jackie."
On hearing this, Tosh and Owen both looked enquiringly at Ianto, Owen's look managing to convey disgust and distaste simultaneously. Ianto held his index finger to his mouth and glared them into silence. They did his bidding and kept quiet.
"No, all is well Ianto." replied Jack. "Gotta concentrate on driving now." And he cut the link abruptly. Again.
Ianto sighed.
"What the hell was that about?" asked Owen, incredulously. "I'm glad there's nothing wrong, Jackie?" he mimicked. "Jackie? Since when did anyone, even you, call Captain Jack Harkness 'Jackie'?"
Ianto smiled. "It's a little code we worked out a while ago, just in case. If I say 'Jackie' then Jack knows I'm worried that something has happened to him but for some reason he can't say anything. And if I'm right, he'll answer calling me 'Yannie.' But he didn't, so whatever is happening, at least he hasn't been kidnapped and forced to drive like this."
"So you mean he's driving like this voluntarily?" Tosh's voice shot up an octave and she raised a truly astonished eyebrow in disbelief.
Owen considered this. "To tell the truth – Yannie – I think we might be better off if Jackie had been forced into this. Because otherwise I can only think that we've got a sick Jack roaming around Wales. Who knows what he might get up to. Oh, good morning Gwen." Owen noticed Gwen finally emerging through the cog-wheel door. "Better late than never."
"Good morning to you too, Owen." She replied breezily. "Did I miss anything?"
"Well," said Tosh, "Yes, actually."
The team filled her in on what had been going on. By the time they'd finished, she was bemused, the others were thirsty, and the SUV had made two more high-speed laps of the Newport ring road.
Gwen looked at the screen in disbelief. "Jack's in Newport? Whatever is he doing there?"
"No one knows." replied Ianto quietly. "I don't think he does either, to tell the truth." The others could sense his worry.
Gwen looked thoughtful. "I think I know what's happening."
"Do you think Jack's got some alien tech on board?" asked Owen.
"No" said Gwen, "But I bet Jack thinks he has." She was smiling. She tapped her comm device. "Jack?" she said. "Jack – are you lost?"
---
There was a long moment's silence from the SUV. It was clear that the driver either didn't quite know how to answer the question or simply didn't want to. From where the rest of the team sat, the answer clearly seemed either a 'yes' or a 'no'.
Jack realized that if he said 'no', then he required some fairly convincing explanation about how a weevil hunting expedition in Splott had ended up on the Newport ring road, though mercifully falling short of the M4 motorway. So far. And he couldn't think of anything quickly enough. Heaven knows he'd been trying, especially on his third lap of the ring road.
Jack decided to come clean. "Yes." he said softly.
"Pardon?" said Owen, gleefully, clearly surprised at Jack's admission. Ianto thumped him to shut him up, but not before Jack had manfully put more volume into his answer. "I said 'yes', I am lost. And I'm big enough to admit it."
"Yes," said Owen quietly, so Jack couldn't hear. "But you weren't big enough to ask for directions."
"I heard that," Jack snapped back.
Owen looked at his three colleagues, who were all smiling but trying not to laugh out loud. There was something ironic about Captain Jack, intergalactic time agent, who'd been to the end of the universe and back, getting lost coming out of Splott and ending up in Newport.
Ianto got hold of himself, and tried to keep his voice from cracking. "Sir, why don't you switch on the SUV's navigation system? Press the button marked "Take me Home". That's preprogrammed with the parking garage address here. Just do as the voice tells you and you'll be OK." He looked at the others; they were still all trying very hard to suppress giggles.
Their comms crackled into life. For the first time that morning, Jack instigated contact.
"What… the Hell..do you suppose….. I've. Been. Using. All. Morning?" The voice was quiet, calm, measured and the words obviously uttered through clenched teeth. Very clenched teeth. Ianto surmised that actually every muscle of Jack's body was probably clenched to the point of cramp, judging by the tension in his voice. He dismissed some unbidden thoughts before a cold shower became necessary. "You surely don't think that because it's such a nice day I decided to take the weevil out for a drive, do you? Bring it the scenic way home? Have a picnic? Buy it an ice-cream? Give us both a bit of a treat?" Jack did sarcasm very well when he put his mind to it.
Tosh took control of the situation. "Jack. Just do exactly what I say. Ignore the NaviCom."
"Strikes me that's exactly what he's been doing all bloody morning," said Owen, none too quietly this time.
A small, explosive, noise from inside the SUV made him double check the sedative syringe in his pocket.
For once, Tosh ignored Owen. "Jack, take the second exit off the roundabout and follow the road for ten miles. I'll bring you iback n. Just do as I say."
"Thank you, Tosh." said the captain, very politely. "That's the first sensible thing I've heard all day. When I get back to the Hub, please ask Ianto to be waiting with a cup of strong coffee. Owen can meet me in the car park and take the weevil down to the cells. And then I want to see you all in my office. Immediately."
They exchanged glances. "Sounds like we're in trouble." said Gwen, though she wasn't at all sure why Jack's inability to follow the directions given by the SatNav could be anything to do with them. No one else had a problem with it.
-----
The SUV finally pulled back into the parking garage. Owen met Jack before he'd even switched the engine off and grabbed the weevil from the boot. "Hurry back" cautioned Jack, sweetly, clearly reading Owen's mind. "Don't spend too long settling that one in the cells. I want you all in my office in five." The sweetness left his voice as if it had never been there and he growled out the last sentence with the emphasis clearly on the word all.
Jack strode through the Hub, greatcoat tails flying out behind him. He burst through the door to his office and stopped dead. "Ianto!" He yelled, clearly expecting the young Welshman to be ready, in the office, with the coffee. "Ianto? Where are you?"
Eventually Ianto appeared and handed Jack his favourite blue and white striped mug. "Here you go sir, just as you like it. And I've put a wee dram of something soothing in it. Help calm your nerves, settle you down a bit."
"I do not need settling. I am perfectly calm." Jack's raised voice told the others this wasn't quite the truth. He took a gulp of coffee. It would need more than a triple shot Scotch in his coffee to bring Jack back to his normal equilibrium.
Owen arrived hurriedly, having secured the weevil safely in the cell next to Janet in record time. He'd taken the hint that hiding out in the cells wasn't going to work. He took off his lab coat, hung it on the coat stand just inside the door of Jack's office, and then sat down on the couch. He was about to make himself comfortable for what was inevitably going to be an interesting half hour, but thought better of putting his feet up on the coffee table. It was bad enough having Jack mad at him for something he hadn't done, let alone also having Ianto mad at him for something he had.
Jack took a deep breath. "I can see that you all want to know what happened out there this morning. And that's what I want to get to the bottom of too. It's too dangerous to risk something like this on a field mission again. Now, I'm going to tell you all about it and anyone can feel free to interrupt me at any moment if they think they have anything to contribute." He looked each of the team in the eye, but lingered on both Gwen and Ianto. "Anyone, anything. At any time." he stressed, before continuing.
"I got to Splott and caught the weevil. But as I drove back out of that evil weevil warren, workmen were digging up the road. That's probably what disturbed the weevil and drove it to the surface in the first place. I had to find an alternative route. There was no diversion signposted, so I turned on the satellite navigation system." He paused. No one spoke.
"Anyone, anytime." He repeated, ominously. "It came on in 'night mode'. Do any of you know how difficult it is to see the night screen on the SatNav in the middle of the one sunny day Cardiff has had this year? No? No, I didn't think so. There I am, trying to drive and look at the nightscreen which is virtually invisible during the day. I press the "Take me Home" spot on the screen that's programmed with the Hub address. And sure enough the journey map appears faintly. But I can hardly see it because it is in night mode, isn't it, and the sun is beaming straight in on it. But the turns are there. Just. Those little pictures showing the arrow and the distance remaining to the turn. All there. But guess what?" he paused again. "No one? Still no one? Well, all the distances were showing in meters and kilometers. Not yards and miles, oh no. No, they've all suddenly turned mysteriously metric."
Owen tried unsuccessfully to suppress a grin as realization dawned. "And you couldn't judge when to turn, could you Jack? You kept turning too early. Because there are fewer meters in a kilometer than yards in a mile. You were confused. You couldn't judge your distances."
Jack glared at him. "Exactly!" he bit out. "And then sometimes I'd think I knew where I was, and try in that direction, but then when I realized I didn't, I had to go back to trying to follow the SatNav. Have any of you any idea how difficult it is to have to keep making U-turns in the middle of the Cardiff one-way system in a night-time metric rush hour?" asked Jack, indignantly.
They all shook their heads, not daring to meet his eyes in case they laughed.
"But there's more. Isn't there, Ianto? Or is there something you want to tell me, Gwen?"
Ianto looked at his fingernails intently. Gwen watched Ianto looking at his fingernails.
"How tall are you?" asked Jack.
"Pardon?" said Ianto, taken aback by this non-sequitur.
"What?" said Gwen, equally surprised.
"I said, 'how tall are you'?"
By this point, Owen was thinking of moving closer to his lab coat for the sedative syringe. Something truly must have happened to Jack while he was on his own out in the field. None of this made any sense. Whilst Jack seemed in control – mostly -, and calm – mostly, it wasn't adding up. Owen stood up nonchalantly and attempted to sidle nonchalantly across towards his lab coat hanging up by the door.
"SIDDOWN!" snapped Jack.
Owen's bottom hit the couch so quickly that Gwen, at the other end of it, bounced. Twice.
"How tall are you Gwen?"
Gwen exchanged a bemused glance with Owen. "Around five feet six inches, Jack, why?"
"Ianto?" Jack's gaze settled on the archivist, his clear blue eyes piercing like daggers of ice.
"I'm one hundred and eighty two centimeters, sir."
"Ah" said Jack, dangerously softly, "Gwen, you are totally exonerated. You clearly still think in feet and inches. There's no way on earth you would have switched the directions to metric."
"Ianto." said Jack, looking at the Welshman from beneath hooded eyes but Owen broke in before the captain got any further. Owen was suddenly curiously protective of his colleagues.
"Jack, I don't understand. Why are you singling out Gwen and Ianto? Why not ask Tosh or me how tall we are too? Heaven knows, I'm more likely to have transgressed in most things than your Teaboy! I did all my medical training using the metric system. And we all use the SUV."
As Tosh nodded in agreement with Owen, Jack spotted Ianto creeping towards the door. Tosh continued where Owen had stopped: "I can imagine that, with a weevil on board and in traffic, you might not have wanted to stop and reprogram the night mode, or the measurement system." She nearly mentioned the opportunity that the Tesco car park would have safely offered – twice – for fiddling with the Sat Nav, but decided against it, as Jack's eyes were glowing dangerously by now and it was clear that Volcano Day had arrived. She settled for saying "But why didn't you simply follow the spoken directions?"
"Because," said Jack slowly, vehemently, venomously, his eyes following Ianto's every move. "Whoever switched the SUV's navigation system into Metric Night Mode also switched all the instructions into Welsh. Into bloody, unintelligible, Welsh. IANTO! Come back here! Now!"
"Another soothing cup of coffee, sir?" asked Ianto, hastening out of the door, dipping his hand quickly into Owen's lab coat pocket on the way and expertly palming the syringe of sedative.