Knock! Knock!

Who's there?

Oliver

Oliver who?

Oliver lone and I'm frightened of monsters!

Ianto and Owen stumbled through the cog door, wincing at the noise of the alarms. Owen was propping up Ianto, who limped along with only one mud bespattered shoe on. Both were dripping wet, dirt running down their faces, mingling with the blood from sore looking grazes.

Jack came out of the greenhouse, and stared disbelievingly from his position above them. Owen glanced up, shaking his head as Jack started to speak.

Owen deposited Ianto on the sofa. Ianto leant back and took a deep breath, wincing as he rubbed his wet cheeks. Owen stumbled over to the kitchen, took two bottles of water out of the fridge and went back to slump down next to Ianto on the sofa. Ianto gratefully took the water, wincing again as he pulled the cap off with his teeth.

They eventually took notice of Jack, who had come to stand in front of them, arms folded across his chest, looking far from amused.

"One of you going to tell me what happened?"

Owen shook his head. Jack realised he was embarrassed. Ianto looked away, suddenly finding Tosh's workstation immensely interesting.

"Have you two been drinking?"

Two pairs of eyes looked up at him, managing to combine both hurt and innocence. This looked somewhat more believable on Ianto than it did on Owen.

"I send you to check the monitoring equipment on top of the millennium stadium, you come back looking like you've gone three rounds with Banana Boat on a Friday night and you say you're not drunk? No nasty interactions with aliens?"

Owen and Ianto shook their heads. "It was worse Jack! Terrible." Ianto's voice was hoarse and low.

"Hoix? Nostrovite?"

"Worse!"

"Should I call in Gwen and Toshiko?" Jack was sounding alarmed now.

Owen looked at Ianto and spoke for the first time. "Worse, in that it was possibly the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to us."

"Embarrassing?" Jack was now amused, "OK, spill. Can I get it on CCTV?"

Ianto groaned, "Probably, in fact it might even make the news. Probably some paparazzi has already sold the pictures!"

"Is one of you going to actually tell me what went on?"

"Hannah Montana," Said Owen

"Who or what is Hannah Montana?"

"Teen pop star, has a show at the Millennium Stadium tonight"

"You found out she was an alien and took her down right?"

"Nope" said Ianto

"You saved her from a weevil?"

"Not even close."

Jack gave them a look.

Owen sighed. "We accidentally got in between her and her fans. They didn't appreciate it. Thousands of screaming girls. Not to mention the glare of the pink glitter."

"Then there were the parents," remarked Ianto

"Parents?" said Jack

"Some of them thought we were perverts and took exception to us"

Jack tried hard not to laugh, he really did. He really, really did.

An hour later, Owen had stormed off home, still not talking to Jack. Jack's apology had been somewhat marred by the laughter that kept escaping as he spoke. Ianto had disappeared first to the showers and then the archives.

He reappeared now, in the doorway to Jack's office, coat over his arm.

"I'll be off then, Jack"

Jack looked up. Ianto looked a bit vulnerable, the grazes on his cheeks still looked raw, a small smear of antiseptic cream by one eye showed how upset he still was. Happy Ianto would never have left that. "You OK?"

Ianto shrugged.

"Do you want me to come home with you?"

Ianto looked all around the office, anywhere but at Jack. Finally he looked somewhere around the region of Jack's nose and nodded once.

Jack stood up, grabbed his coat and swept Ianto out and up to the outside world.

Ianto would never admit it to Jack, but all he saw when he closed his eyes were screaming prepubescent fangirls coming for him. He would rather face down a pack of Weevils than go through that again.

Thanks for all the story allerts. Reviews are loved and always answered. The last sentence and this bit got left off for some reason when I first posted. Prompts being accepted for this series, either monster /alien based or really bad cracker jokes.