Author's Note: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in posting. I have no real excuse... I just forgot *sad face* Thanks as always for your lovely supportive comments :) Enjoy! Kal x

Soulmates

Chapter Ten

"What did you see?" Ianto whispered as Jack ushered him backwards into the safety of the foliage.

"We're roughly two years out," whispered Jack, "in the past. The day Gwen showed up with pizza, before we ever recruited her. I can see her standing down there, holding the boxes. But I can also see myself walking around and you working, ignoring her. Tosh, Owen and Susie are there too. This isn't good."

"Maybe they can help us?" Questioned Ianto, still keeping his voice low as Jack was.

"No! We can't cross our own timeline. We can't meet ourselves or else we'll mess up the future. The future we come from and belong to. We have to find another way back," the frustration showed in Jack's voice.

"Can't you just try the...the... thing again?" Ianto waved his arms to indicate Jack's vortex manipulator.

"No, it'll only take us back to that planet again."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Jack sat on the floor, cross legged so he could use his thighs as a prop for his elbows, which in turn allowed him to use his hands to prop his chin up. He stared at the base of the plants in the hothouse. He was trying to remember that day, trying to remember if he came up to the hothouse at any point. Because if he did, he and Ianto were going to have to find somewhere else to hide. No-one else ever came up here. Well, except Ianto and even he wouldn't come for a while yet. Jack couldn't help but smile at that thought.

"What are we going to do then?" Ianto's voice broke through his thoughts.

"We're going to have to wait until everyone goes home," Jack replied thoughtfully, "maybe we can use the rift manipulator to help get us back to the right time. But we'd have to be very careful not to leave traces and I'm not sure how we could do that... the computer would log any activity and I don't want our past selves to check up on it."

"We could set a timer on the computer to erase all traces of the past however many hours it takes us to getting everything set up," Ianto replied almost casually, as if he wasn't really thinking about it.

"Ianto, you're brilliant!" Jack turned round and kissed the startled Welshman without warning, "I knew there was a reason I hired you beyond your coffee making skills."

"Thank you... I think," Ianto looked bemused and pleased.

"We'll wait until everyone's left. I don't think it was too much later than this so once the Hub is empty, we'll start. Although if you could cross your fingers now, that would be a plus."

"Crossing our fingers when we travelled back from Camgol didn't help," Ianto pointed out, dryly. Jack smacked his knee playfully. He had been worried when he'd realised they'd landed in the past, but now Ianto had offered the perfect solution his mood had lightened, "what shall we do until then?" Ianto continued.

"Now there's a question," Jack's eyes seemed to glow in the dim room as he turned to face Ianto and a smile crept onto his face.

* * * * *

"Ianto," whispered Toshiko Sato after Jack and the policewoman had vanished from the Hub, "come here."

Ianto Jones walked over to where the petite Japanese woman was sitting.

"What is it?" He said, smiling at her.

"Look at this," she said, still in a whisper, confusing Ianto. She pointed to the screen in front of her, "there's a spike. Only very small but it's there. Happened maybe a couple of minutes ago."

"I fail to understand the problem," Ianto said, confused.

"It happened inside the Hub," Tosh said, "I would've said something before Jack left but I wasn't sure how important it was as it's only small and I didn't want the policewoman to hear anything she shouldn't."

"I'm sure Jack will retcon her anyway," Ianto muttered, "can you tell whereabouts in the Hub the spike was?"

"No, but I didn't hear anything, did you?" Tosh turned up her pretty face to look at him, concern lacing her features.

"No... I didn't," Ianto mused, "let me have a look around. Don't mention anything to the others in case it really is nothing. There's little point in raising an alarm if there isn't one to raise."

"Be careful," Toshiko warned, turning back to her screen to take a look through the security camera images around the Hub.

Ianto climbed to the balcony overlooking the central station of the base. He scanned the area around the computers and saw nothing out of place. Owen and Susie hadn't reacted to anything, busy discussing Gwen Cooper's nosy nature so if anything had happened it was clearly out of sight. He leaned on the railings and frowned, wondering where to start. The Hub was a big place to search for something which would be very small. He decided to stop by Jack's office whilst he was there and see if there was any rift detection software lying about. It would make his task easier if nothing else.

In the office, Ianto shook his head at the untidy nature of Jack's desk. He wondered how Jack ever found anything. Picking a pile of papers he began to sort through everything and struck lucky at the other end of the desk. Shifting a box, something fell to the floor and landed with a thud by his foot. He picked up the small device, checked it would do what he wanted and left the office. Ianto turned it on and it instantly began to make a steady beeping noise, a noise which got quicker when he turned to face in one particular direction. Following the beeping, Ianto began to investigate what had called the rift spike.

* * * * *

Jack and Ianto fell apart from their slightly-more-than-make-out session when they heard footsteps starting to approach their hideout. Jack pressed Ianto further back into the mass of plants until both of them struck the back wall. They were completely concealed by the foliage and Jack prayed to whichever deity decided to listen to a mistake in time that they wouldn't be discovered.

Ianto felt his heart speed up in his chest, partly from fear of being discovered and partly from the rush of adrenaline from what Jack's tongue had been doing to the soft spot under his ear seconds earlier. The footsteps stopped outside the door to the hothouse and he closed his eyes.