Just a little bit of pointless fluff, which has been floating around my head for a while now. The idea got stuck in my head after watching Doctor Who (Army of Ghosts and Doomsday), and the man with the sphere says all Torchwood One staff have basic psychic training. An innocent idea kind of mutated into some random fluffiness which demanded to be relieved from the confines of my over-crowded brain.

Disclaimer – If I owned the BBC, CoE would never have made it onto TV. It was just one huge piece of fail (in my opinion, that is)...

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All Torchwood One staff had basic psychic training. No-one had really ever understood why, but it was insisted upon. There had been rumours about mind-control, but Ms. Hartman soon put a stop to those. Anna from Finance had heard from Michelle in PR who had gone for a drink with this bloke from one of the departments no-one was supposed to know about, that it was because the famous 'Doctor' could read minds, and the training stopped him doing it. She didn't believe it though.

As far as anyone knew, no one had ever used their "psychic training", although it was tested every few months, just to make sure it was working.

Some of the staff could do it more naturally than others, especially if they had a high empathy level. They could sense other people's moods, and could read really basic thoughts. But only if they person they were concentrating on was shouting it in their heads. Not very useful in day-to-day situations.

Ianto had picked it up more easily and more strongly than the others. He could occasionally hear someone's thoughts without them having to mentally shout it. Lisa had asked him out through thinking it really loudly. She didn't have to shout it though, Ianto had been concentrating on her; trying to work out whether she'd reject him if he asked her out, and it had help make her thoughts clearer to him, but only slightly.

Since moving back to Cardiff, the psychic training had worn off almost completely. Ianto never tried to read people's minds anymore, it was too messy. But he could still read people's moods, he'd been fairly good at that before the training anyway.

He could tell when to stay away from Owen (although he tried to do that anyway), when to leave Tosh to carry on with the translation she'd been working on for the last 16 hours, when it was safe to talk to Gwen without the conversation turning to the wedding. He could tell when Jack needed to hold him close so he knew he wasn't alone.

None of them knew he could do it, or at least Ianto didn't think they did.

He did realise, however, that Jack knew some of the things that happened at Torchwood One, and the training was probably one of them. And one day, Jack proved him right.

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Nothing much was happening in the Hub. Gwen was sat trying to beat her own solitaire high-score. Owen was dissecting a 1 legged alien they had caught the other day. Tosh and Ianto were sat on the old sofa, discussing something technical that nobody else really understood, or cared about for that matter.

Tosh was talking so quickly Ianto had trouble keeping up, he understood most of it, but she kept using terms or referring to things he had never heard of. Ianto let her talk anyway; he knew it was making her happy.

She was on a particularly technological ramble when Ianto heard Jack call him. He looked up to answer him – but Jack wasn't there.

"So you can hear me then? That's interesting." Ianto looked up again but no-one was there, he was just starting to think he had gone mad when the Welshman saw Jack leaning against his office door grinning.

Tosh had noticed Ianto's lack of contribution to the current conversation, and followed his line of sight to find his distraction. When she saw Jack she sighed, "You better go and see what he wants." Ianto conceded and walked towards Jack.

"Can you hear me?" Jack was mentally shouting, a grin still plastered across his face,

"Yes! Stop bloody shouting!" Ianto said, rubbing his temples. Gwen and Tosh looked at him, confusion and worry clouding their faces. Ianto just shook is head in a dismissive manner.

"I'm sorry." Jack said out loud, although he didn't look sorry at all. "Just seeing whether the rumours were true."

Ianto was now sat on the chair behind Jack's desk, while Jack perched on the edge of the desk itself. "What rumours?"

"That they gave psychic training at Torchwood One."

Ianto raised an eyebrow, "You already knew that was true though."

"I did." Jack agreed, "But your file," he gestured to the open folder on the desk, "says you were the most natural. And that you could read minds. Sort of."

"Sort of. Lots of us could read minds; I could just do it more easily. The thoughts have to be directly aimed at me, and have to be clear. If the person is thinking about other things at the same time, it won't work. The thoughts have to be quite loud too, although you don't have to scream them." He looked at Jack pointedly, rubbing his temples again to emphasise the point. "To be honest, I didn't think I could still do it. It's supposed to kind of wear off if you don't use it."

Jack looked thoughtful for a second. "I wonder if we should start doing it. An extra advantage so to speak. You could teach us." He thought back to Tosh and her mind reading pendant, "Maybe not though."

"It's not very useful. If something is about to attack us, it's hardly going to think about its plan very loudly so we can hear it." Jack nodded, and they sat quietly for a minute. Assuming the conversation was over Ianto got up to leave and find Tosh again. Jack walked over to the door, and once again leant against the doorframe, watching Ianto and Tosh pick up their conversation from where they left off.

Being careful not to shout too loudly, Jack directed another thought at Ianto.

"I love you."

Oh, Jack could think of lots of uses for mind reading... who said psychic training was pointless?

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