Disclaimer: Torchwood is owned by the BBC and this story is just for fun.
Author's notes: A huge thanks for everyone who reviewed the previous chapter! I'm glad you liked Rosie so much. I must admit, she is my favourite OC of all times. It was initially my intention that she appear only in the one chapter, but she had other ideas and refuses to stay in the side lines. So in time she will come back. I'm hoping to post at least one more chapter before Christmas, although I will be pretty busy next weekend. No Christmas story from me this year, just House of Leaves.
The next chapter will be called Distractions.
14 Foundations
By the time Jack parked the SUV in the underground garage, the rest of the team were waiting next to a stack of crates. Tosh was practically jumping on the spot and she yanked the driver's door open as soon as the car had stopped moving.
"I was beginning to think that you had to re-build the roads or invent the combustion engine before you could return to the Hub! What took you so long?"
"I place any and all blame fully on Rosie," Jack replied as he got out of the car. Owen had already opened the back so they could load the car.
"Who's Rosie?" Gwen asked as she picked up a crate and slid it into the SUV.
"That would be Mrs Gilbert, the delightful lady we have just visited," Ianto explained. "She was rather chatty and there was plenty to tell."
"Plus she makes a mean lemon drizzle cake." Jack's smile was wistful.
"I'm not sure I can really comment on that, since you scoffed down most of it in one bite," Ianto remarked in a dry tone.
"I did no such thing." Jack pouted. "I just had a couple more pieces than you, but there was plenty left."
"By plenty of cake," Ianto turned to the others, quirking an eyebrow, "he means one slice each."
Jack attempted to defend himself, "but you...you don't like cake."
"I don't like cake?" Ianto's other eyebrow joined its companion near his hair line.
"Err, no?" Jack ventured, already knowing that he was destined to lose the argument.
Ianto let out an exasperated snort as he loaded more crates into the car. Neither he nor Jack appeared to notice that the others were no longer helping. Instead, they stood back and enjoyed the show.
"This makes up for having to wait forever for them to return, doesn't it?" Owen whispered to Tosh as Jack stammered an unconvincing apology to Ianto.
"Many times over," she replied in a hushed tone. "I just wish I had some popcorn."
"I wish I had thought to record this on my phone," Owen said with regret.
"Doh." Tosh rolled her eyes. "CCTV, remember?"
"You really are a genius, Tosh," Owen exclaimed. "It's one for the archives even if I have to catalogue it myself."
Owen's words carried further than he had intended and caused Ianto to stop mid argument. Both he and Jack flushed, suddenly aware of their audience. At the sight of their embarrassment, Tosh, Owen and Gwen began sniggering.
"Time to go, Sir?" Ianto asked, stiff and formal
"God yes." Jack pushed the last crate into the car, before slamming the boot shut.
Unable to resist the temptation, Owen remarked with false innocence, "I didn't realise the two of you had gotten married without telling us."
"Don't be ridiculous, Owen, of course we aren't married," Jack snapped and then realised what he had said. Upon seeing the tilt of Ianto's head, he added in a sheepish tone, "That would be illegal."
"Are you sure?" Owen checked, the corner of his mouth twitching in barely contained mirth. "Because you sure argue like a married couple."
"Just get in the damn car," Jack growled and stalked to the driver's door, to the sound of chortles of laughter. Ianto returned to the passenger seat, while Owen and the still giggling Tosh and Gwen piled in at the back.
Ignoring the continued sounds of mirth coming from the back seat, as soon as the SUV was moving, Ianto pulled out his PDA and began tapping away. Jack noticed and it piqued his curiosity.
"What are you doing?" he asked, keeping his voice low enough that the others could not overhear them.
"Wiping the garage CCTV," replied Ianto, a little distracted by his task.
"Tosh knows how to recover it." Jack glanced at the grinning woman via the rear view mirror.
"Not the way I'm doing it," Ianto muttered. After a moment, he added, "I'm also ordering two lemon drizzle cakes from the local bakery."
Jack frowned in confusion. "Why two?"
"One for you and one for the rest of us." Ianto shot a quick grin in his direction. "That way the four of us have a fighting chance of actually getting some of the cake."
"You're not mad about the earlier?" checked Jack, a tad surprised.
"No." Ianto chuckled. "In fact, I found your enthusiasm very amusing."
"Phew, that's a relief." The expression on Jack's face reflected his words.
Ianto glanced at him and it was his turn to look surprised. "You really thought I'd be mad about you hogging the cake? Surely you know me better than that?"
"Not as well as I'd like to," Jack replied in a soft voice and the surprise on Ianto's face gave away to affection. Ianto's hand twitched in Jack's direction, but conscious of the others in the car, he resisted the temptation to touch Jack.
After offering Ianto a warm smile, Jack addressed the people on the back seat, "So, did you get anywhere further regarding the House of Leaves or the aliens this morning?"
"The supercomputer is still mapping the genome," Owen reported.
"I spoke to Andy this morning, but he had no news for us," Gwen said. "I mean, how hard can it possibly be to find four aliens with blue hair and bright white spacesuits?"
"Harder than we expected, it would appear," Ianto commented.
"We'll get there." Jack tried to sound optimistic. "After all, the aliens can hardly remain undetected forever."
"We hope so, anyway." Gwen's pessimism was in perfect contrast with Jack's optimism.
"I found out something interesting," Tosh jumped in, before the atmosphere in the car got any gloomier. "About the House of Leaves," she clarified after a moment's pause. "Although having said that, did you know that no gazelles are currently farmed in the UK, but that someone is trying to set up a crocodile farm?"
"I've always wanted to try crocodile," Owen commented.
"There's a Thai restaurant near the Plass that serves a superb crocodile stir fry."
"Really?" Owen glanced at Tosh past Gwen. "I'm definitely giving that a try."
Tosh pulled out her PDA. "I'll email you the address."
"Cheers, Tosh."
"Anyway," interrupted Jack with a hint of impatience. "Tosh, what have you discovered?"
"Oh, right." She finished sending the email and turned her attention to Jack. "I went through all the data from the sensors at the house, and I'm pleased to report that the portal didn't open again during the night. Which we all knew anyway, since we weren't woken up by the Rift alarms. However, about three am, there was a Rift spike in the loft and a new leaf appeared out of nowhere. The same happened at other times during the early hours of the morning."
"Hang on, that doesn't make any sense." Jack frowned. "I thought the leaves appearing were directly connected to whatever it was the aliens were doing with the codices?"
"That's right, they are." Tosh nodded. "But it seems that wasn't the whole story, as the readings everywhere else in the house were normal around the time the leaves appeared."
"So what on earth is going on in that house," Jack demanded.
"That's what we've been trying to figure out today," Gwen replied.
"Is it possible that the explanation is in fact a very simple one?" Ianto joined in, looking thoughtful.
Jack regarded the man next to him for a moment, before fixing his eyes back on the road. "Explain, please."
"Well, we know it's a Rift in time as well as space, so could it be a case of a temporal distortion?"
A look of understanding appeared on Tosh's face. "Oh, you mean the leaf appearing is still a direct consequence of something happening in the loft, but there's a time lag between the two events?"
"Yes, exactly."
"Wait, how come is it that the aliens up in the loft and the leaves appearing were in perfect sync, but now we're saying that there's a time lag?" Owen queried, seeing a flaw in Ianto's explanation.
"Good point, Owen." Ianto acknowledged. "I really can't say, except that the Rift is unpredictable and more than a little random."
"A temporal distortion is an interesting theory, but how do we prove it?" Jack questioned both Ianto and Tosh.
"We can't, I don't think," Ianto admitted. "We have no way of knowing how long the lag is and which element of the equation is lagging behind; the original event or the leaf."
"I thought you might say that," said Jack, disappointed.
"Sorry."
Leaning forward in her seat, Gwen spoke up. "So, you said Rosie had plenty to tell. What did you find out?"
Jack flicked his eyes towards Ianto. "Would you like to do the honours?"
"With pleasure, Sir." Ianto twisted around in his seat so he could see the others while he brought them up to date on the events of the morning.
They all sat a little straighter as the SUV turned to Springwood Lane. At the far end of the road, the afternoon sun was bathing the House of Leaves with a warm glow. As they got closer, they saw that the garden appeared to be buzzing with life; birds were flocking around the trees, butterflies and bees were flying from flower to flower and the past summer's squirrel litters were playing high up on the branches of the maples and oaks. The car had barely stopped moving when Ianto got out. He paused next to it, closing his eyes and angling his face towards the sun. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could feel the call of the house and the leaves. Instinct made him reach out with his mind and the intriguing melody grew stronger.
His thoughts were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. The contact started him and he opened his eyes to find Jack standing in front of him.
"Careful there," Jack said and gave Ianto's shoulder a squeeze.
"I was being careful," he assured Jack with a small smile. "I just felt like greeting the house."
Jack returned the smile, but it appeared forced. "I don't want you to get lost in this house."
"I wasn't in any danger of getting lost." Ianto sensed that something was not quite right.
"Ianto, you've been standing there, not moving, for the past ten minutes," Jack explained, concern colouring his voice. "You didn't seem to hear any of our voices until I touched you."
"What?" Ianto looked around and found that the others were standing on the front porch and watching him with concern. Their equipment was stacked next to them. "But I thought I had just closed my eyes…" he trailed off. "Okay, I can see how this house is more hazardous than I thought. I promise I won't reach out to it again without telling you first."
"Thank you, Ianto." Jack gave his shoulder a final squeeze. "Ready?"
"Yes."
Ianto followed Jack to the others and offered them a quick smile to allay their concerns. Tosh handed him one of the calibrated scanners.
"We each have a scanner with slightly different settings," she explained, "as I don't yet know which will yield the best – or indeed any – results. I suspect I'll end up doing a fair bit of calibration here, not least because I will have to change the other three scanners to match the settings that work best."
"How would you like us to proceed?" Ianto switched on his scanner.
"Each scanner has two different settings. The first examines the leaves themselves to determine what they actually are, since our normal scanners claim that they are ordinary leaves and none of us believe that to be true. The other function measure the connection between the house and the individual leaves. I'm hoping that it will help determine why the leaves disappear when they are taken away from the house."
Making sure the others were still following her explanation, Tosh continued, "Let's start inside the house. Once we've determined which settings will yield us the most data, I will also want to do some experimenting in the garden."
"Good." Jack got out the keys to unlock the house. "Owen, you and I will do a quick sweep of the house to check that nothing has been disturbed, while the others can get to work."
Owen nodded his agreement and together they entered the house ahead of the others. Tosh, Ianto and Gwen moved all the equipment cases inside and through to the spacious lounge. Tosh removed the dust sheet off a small table and set her laptop on it. She created a new database for their experiments and then announced, "Okay let's give these scanners a go."
They each picked up a leaf and passed the scanner over it.
"I've got nothing on setting one, it still shows up as a normal leaf," Gwen reported straight away. "On the second setting, the readings look pretty interesting."
"Hmm, the first setting on scanner is not quite right, as it's showing the leaf as not existing at all," Tosh noted with a hint of irritation. "And the second type is giving me readings much like I saw before. Clearly this scanner is a bust."
Ianto spoke without looking up. "I may have something, although the scanner will need further calibration. But the leaf appears unstable, morphing in and out of its shape." He glanced at Tosh. "Can you work your magic?"
"Let me see." Tosh took the scanner Ianto offered her and began tweaking the settings. He watched the deft movement of her hands over her shoulder, keeping a close eye on the kind of adjustments she was making.
After a brief moment, she tested the scanner on the leaf Ianto was holding. They both watched the results appearing on the screen with interest.
"Well, the scanner no longer claims the leaf is just a normal leaf," Tosh remarked with a frown, "but I'm not sure what the pulses running through it are."
Ianto stared at the display for a moment, deep in thought. "How about…" he trailed off and ran his fingers over the leaf in his hand. It felt like an ordinary leaf. "I mean, think about the aliens. They each had a codex, filled with some kind of writing. Could we try running a language algorithm as part of the scan?"
"Good idea, Ianto." Tosh brightened, just as Owen and Jack walked through the door. A quick nod from Jack confirmed that the house was secure.
Offering the two men a vague smile, Tosh connected Ianto's scanner to her laptop to speed up the calibration process. Jack raised a questioning eyebrow and Ianto shifted closer.
"Tosh is onto something," he offered by a way of explanation.
"Nope, you're onto something," she countered without looking up, her tone distracted as she focused on her laptop.
"Is that so?" asked Jack, curiosity plain on his face.
"Hard to say at this stage, Sir," Ianto deflected with a smile. "We should wait and see if it works first."
"Can I see the leaf?" requested Tosh. "I want to keep the scanner connected to the laptop for now, as that way the language algorithm will run quicker."
"Of course." Ianto approached her and she scanned the leaf for the third time. Both stared at the screen in tense silence. The picture of the leaf on it blinked a few times and with a ripple words appeared, superimposed over the yellowed and mottle surface.
"It worked!" Tosh gasped. She then peered at the screen more closely and frowned. "But wait, what does it say?"
Ianto also squinted at the words for a moment before shrugging. "I have no idea." He glanced behind him. "Jack?"
Jack stepped forward and leant in to look at the screen, laying a hand both on Tosh's and Ianto's shoulder. He stared at the text for a long while and then his expression brightened. "Oh, I do know that language!"
"What is it?" asked Gwen.
"When is it?" added Owen.
"It's a human trading language used in the forty-third century. It's written here in part phonetically, as there are a few additional letters in the alphabet by that time. This language programme can't quite cope with that, which is understandable. If I recall correctly, the extra letters bear some resemblance to the extended alphabet used in Scandinavian countries. The phonetic nature of some of the words confused me initially, but I should remember enough of it to figure out what it says…" he trailed off and resumed staring at the screen, his lips moving as he tasted each word.
Ianto and Tosh shared a look and both resisted the temptation to shift impatiently as they waited.
Gwen had just opened her mouth to ask Jack how he was doing with the translation, when he spoke, "Right. It start's with a 'Dear Toya'. Toya was a common name at the time, I believe. It then goes on to say, 'I would have traded these past decades for one last orange,' no, not orange, 'one last day by your side, one last night holding you close and one last kiss from you'. That's it."
"It's a message!" Gwen exclaimed.
"It sounded a lot like a goodbye to me," Ianto mused in a low voice.
Gwen nodded at him. "A message left for a dead lover in the forty-third century ended up here. But how?"
"Rift in time and space, remember?" Owen pointed out.
"Yes, yes, I get that." Gwen waved a hand in his direction. "What I mean is, how would a message, or a goodbye as Ianto suggested, make its way back in time to this day on planet Earth? Why here? Why now? And how did the message take the form of a leaf that requires a great deal of technology to decipher? Why not just write it on a piece of paper?"
Ianto placed the leaf next to the scanner on the table and walked away from the conversation. He chose one of the nearby windows and rested his hands against the windowsill, staring out into the garden. The others exchanged a puzzled look at this and when Ianto did nothing further, Jack walked up to him.
"Ianto?" he asked, resting his hand against the small of Ianto's back. The others saw Ianto lean into the touch, so distracted by something that some of his usual reserve was forgotten.
"Defixiones," Ianto murmured.
"Defixiones?" Jack queried, casting a look at the others, who all shrugged in response.
"Gwen's words reminded me of something, but the details are a little hazy," Ianto spoke at the window.
"Why don't you tell us anyway?" suggested Jack, his thumb rubbing circles over Ianto's spine.
"Fine." Ianto turned to face the others, but he did so without breaking the contact with Jack. "Defixiones is the Latin term for curses and spells scratched onto thin sheets of lead, rolled up and then deposited in a meaningful location. Many were specific curses for specific people, but they could also be love spells or even spells to help the dead in some fashion. What they were is not really important, but what I do find meaningful is that they were often left at sacred sites. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the largest collection of defixiones found in Britain came for Aquae Sulis, that's modern day Bath by the way, from the temple of Sulis."
"What's Roman temples got to do with our mystery leaves?" Owen asked, not understanding the meaning of the impromptu history lesson.
"It's not the temples as such," Ianto explained, trying hard to form his elusive theory into words that made sense, "but rather the concept of depositing them at a sacred site. And they were written on lead sheets, which was an element known for its durability already then. They were made to last." He twisted his head to look at Jack. "Rosie said the leaves are indestructible. What if the leaves are defixiones? What if this house is a sacred site, where people's messages will endure through time?"
They all stared at Ianto in stunned silence, attempting to process his words.
"So, you're saying this place is a temple?" Owen was the first to find his voice again.
"Should we take our shoes off, or something?" Gwen added.
"I wouldn't go so far as claim this house was a temple, no." Ianto shook his head. "But I do wonder whether it is a place where memories – messages of all sorts – last beyond normal lifetime, beyond paper and lead and stone tablets." He thought back to the CCTV footage and added in a soft tone, "Longer than even a metal codex."
Again the others stared at him until he began to feel uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny.
"I could of course be completely wrong." He chuckled, the lightness a little forced. "For all I know, the House of Leaves may just be a giant cosmic noticeboard. Maybe the next leaf advertises second hand Chula warships."
"Only one way to find out," noted Tosh and picked up a handful of leaves from the floor.
The whole team gathered around the laptop to watch the screen as she ran the scanner over the first leaf. A ripple of astonishment passed through them as words appearing on the screen were English.
'Exactly a week ago, just after sunrise, my wife gave birth to a baby girl. I have never known such love as when I held her in my arms. Today, as I lower her tiny coffin into the ground, I can barely breathe from the grief.'
"Oh," Gwen gasped, tears in her eyes.
Tosh shivered despite the afternoon sun shining through dirty windows and ran the scanner over another leaf.
'Today, my beloved Joel, I bind my life to yours. Hand in hand, perfectly in step forever more, we shall make it through our shared life. I will be by your side, always.'
Tosh tried a third leaf.
'Today was perfect. If I died tonight, I would do so without a single regret.'
"Looks like you were right, Ianto," Jack remarked as Tosh set the scanner down.
Ianto shifted his weight from foot to foot, but said nothing.
"This house must be truly special in some fashion," Tosh said and twisted around so she was facing the others, "and I don't just mean the portal in the loft or these psychic leaves. Think about the CCTV footage, think how the aliens acted. They treated this place with respect, like it deserved to be revered. To me that implies that the house has meaning."
Jack nodded. "Tosh is right. The travellers came through the portal for a reason, they came to complete a task involving those leaves. And it must be a great meaning indeed for them to risk travelling through time and space for it."
Ianto turned on the spot, taking in the leaves scattered across the floor and piled in the corners. "We're going to have to go through all of them, aren't we?"
Jack nodded again, but it was Tosh who spoke, "I'll device a database programme that incorporates the language archives we have in the supercomputer back at the Hub and a GPS function, so that we know exactly where each leaf in the house was found. Perhaps we'll be able to find connected leaves near each other."
"Your idea about GPS will work up to a point," Ianto commented, "but Rosie said that people have moved the leaves from the rest of the house into the loft room over the years. That will have removed most of the leaves in this house from their original context."
"Good point," conceded Tosh. "The GPS will have limited usefulness."
Jack smiled at her. "I agree with the rest of it, though. If we get a central database and connect all the calibrated scanners to it, the work should go much quicker."
"It will still take us days if not weeks to catalogue this all," Ianto remarked with a clear note of relish. "And we'll have to be pretty methodical about it, since I imagine that once we're finished with the project, all the leaves will be moved up into the loft room."
Jack's expression grew distant as he considered Ianto's words. Whatever his thoughts were, he kept them private. "Let's tackle one step at a time and deal with cataloguing the leaves first. We'll have to cordon off sections of each room so we can be absolutely clear where each leaf was resting." He glanced around the room. "Although having said that, we've already disturbed a great many of them."
"Then I suppose the first thing we ought to do is make sure we minimise the disturbance going forward," Owen suggested.
"Agreed. But before we get carried away with that, we still have some more investigating to do." Jack indicated himself and Owen with his scanner. "Two more scanners to test. And did you have any luck with the other setting you were using?"
"Not so far," Tosh replied with a hint of frustration, "but we've only tested two of the scanners, mine and Gwen's." She turned to Ianto. "Care to see if your yields a result?"
"Certainly." He ran the scanner over a leaf and then shook his head. "No, nothing."
Tosh huffed. "Damn. Okay, Jack, you and Owen are up."
Each man took one of the leaves Tosh had already de-coded and scanned it. Jack frowned at the result on the small screen. "I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for, but I don't think this is it."
"Let me see." Tosh turned Jack's hand so she too was able to read the screen. "Wow, that looks weird, but I don't think it gets us any closer to understanding what the connection between the house and the leaves is."
"Shame." Jack put his scanner away.
"I may have something." Owen had mimicked Jack's actions, squinting at the resulting figures. He offered the scanner to Tosh.
She pushed her glasses higher on her nose as she took the offered machine. "I can see what you mean." After a few tweaks , she tested it again, both on the same leaf and on another one. The smile she offered the others held a great deal of relief.
"I think this is it," she declared. "We got it."
"You got it," Owen corrected her. "The rest of us wouldn't have a bloody clue how to go about calibrating scanners."
Jack grinned at the faint blush creeping across Tosh's features. "So what's the verdict?"
"The leaves appear to send regular pulses and these are at the same frequency as I came across when I was last there. In essence, I suspect these pulses are some sort of connection between the leaves and the house. If the connection is disrupted, say by a leaf being removed from the vicinity of the house, the frequency changes and that triggers a defensive reaction. I don't yet know whether it's the house itself or the Rift within it that actually protects the leaves, but I intend to find out. Perhaps now we've found the right way to monitor the frequency, it will be easier to ascertain."
Ianto smiled, feeling his spirits lift at Tosh's enthusiasm. "I'd also like to do some scans on the leaves outside. The trees don't feel quite normal."
"And I brought my field lab with me, so I can do some testing on the leaves. If I can't bring the leaves to the Hub, I can at least bring the Hub to the leaves." Owen grinned. "Time to find out if Rosie is right about the leaves being indestructible."
"It sounds as though we a have a lot to get through" said Jack. "I think it's best if we split up for this. Tosh, Gwen, you do the further testing on removing the leaves from the house. Owen, I reckon the table in the kitchen is large enough for you spread out all your kit, so why don't you convert the kitchen into a temporary lab for yourself."
"Will do," replied Owen.
"Good. In the meanwhile, Ianto and I will perform some scans on the trees outside. Perhaps we can figure out the whole house now we're on a roll."
"Optimism, Jack?" Gwen teased him with a grin.
"It's a new thing I'm trying out," he shot back with a wink and they all laughed.
"Will I need a laptop outside?" Ianto asked Tosh.
She tilted her head as she considered the question. "You shouldn't do. The scanners connect to our network via a satellite link, so all the data will be automatically uploaded to our servers. The only time you might want a laptop is if the leaves outside also contain messages and you want to decipher them straight away. If that's the case, come and grab this laptop from here."
"Fine."
With Ianto's help, Tosh spent the next ten minutes calibrating all the scanners. Then after a nod from Jack, they all dispersed to begin their tasks. Jack and Ianto exited via the backdoor, and once more Ianto paused to let the serenity of the garden was over him. Jack opened his mouth to repeat his warning, but Ianto silenced him with a smile.
"I said I'd be careful, Jack."
"I know you did, but you can't blame me for worrying, can you?"
"I suppose not." The warmth of Ianto's smile conveyed that Jack's concern was understood and appreciated.
They made their way to the side of the house, where several large oak and maple trees were growing in a tight cluster. Ianto ran his fingers over the uneven bark of the nearest maple tree; his actions speaking volumes of the affection he already felt for the house and the garden. Jack hung back, content to let Ianto have a moment with the trees. Tosh and Gwen were working on the other side of the house, which gave them relative privacy on their side. He loved seeing Ianto unguarded and moments like this were rare outside Ianto's flat or his bunker after hours. So he watched and smiled, his stance relaxing without him noticing.
Sensing Jack's eyes on him, Ianto turned to smile at him and for a moment he looked his age; happy and unburned by past shadows. Maintaining the contact with the tree, he reached out for Jack with his free hand. Jack accepted the invitation, stepping forward and entwining their fingers.
"Thank you, Jack," Ianto whispered, tugging him closer.
"What for?" asked Jack, matching Ianto's soft tone.
Ianto opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. In the end, he simply shrugged.
Jack brought their foreheads together, looking deep into Ianto's eyes. "For you, always."
Ianto's smile changed to one that Jack was beginning to recognise as one of private affection reserved for him alone. A feeling of warmth enveloped him as he enjoyed the moment of quiet closeness.
Unknown to them both, Gwen had returned to the lounge to pick up some spare cables and by chance happened to glance out of the window. The two men standing so close, hand in hand, froze her on the spot. She took her time to examine the scene before her, willing herself to see what was really there, rather than what she wanted to see. When she finally turned away, her expression was a mixture of disappointment and understanding.
A mourning dove landing on a branch nearby in a rustle of feathers broke the spell of the moment. Ianto took a step back, not quite ready to let go of Jack's hand.
"I suppose we ought to investigate some leaves," he remarked with a hint of regret.
"As much as I would enjoy staying like this all day, you're right, as usual," Jack agreed. He let his thumb caress Ianto's knuckles before releasing his fingers. "If you take the maple trees, I'll take the oaks."
"Sounds like a plan."
They worked in silence for a moment, both scanned a sample of leaves off the ground and on the trees. Jack then returned to Ianto's side.
"What have you got?"
"No messages on any of the leaves I've scanned," Ianto reported, "but they're not real leaves either, or not fully anyway. They retain the appearance of leaves when scanned, but there is a faint resonance within them. The frequency matches the leaves inside the house but it's weaker and the pulses are slower."
"Same here. The leaves growing on the trees are for all intents and purposes real leaves and yet they are clearly connected to the house."
"I wonder," Ianto began, the hint of hesitation in his voice indicating that he was speculating out loud, "the house must get its raw materials for the message leaves from somewhere. By using the leaves in the garden, it has a steady supply right on its doorstep, quite literally."
"The way you phrased that, you make it sound like the house is sentient."
"Isn't it?" Ianto quirked an eyebrow. ""I'm not trying to anthropomorphise the house, but I would certainly argue that it is sentient on some level. How else would you explain the psychic presence that keeps drawing me in?"
"I don't know." Jack rubbed the back of his neck. "Perhaps it's an alien house?"
"Perhaps, or it might be completely human. In some ways, I'd actually prefer that."
"How come?"
"To demonstrate to all of us that not everything extraordinary has to be alien; that there are still human mysteries left for us to solve."
"You certainly remain a mystery I want to solve." Jack chuckled, brushing his fingers along Ianto's jaw and relishing the slight scratch of the stubble against his finger pads. "And I love trying to solve it."
Ianto's smile widened as he regarded Jack with clear fondness. Some time ago, such statements would have made Ianto mildly uncomfortable, but now he accepted it for what it was; a genuine statement with no underlying agenda or implied meaning. It was yet another indication of the bond growing stronger between them and it was one they both enjoyed developing at a gradual, unhurried pace.
After a moment of comfortable silence, Ianto said, "We should test a sample of the trees in the other areas of the garden and then go see how the others are getting on."
"Agreed." Jack glanced towards the house. "Although Owen must be doing pretty well, since we've heard no explosions and I can't see any smoke coming out of the house."
"I'm not entirely sure Owen would regard that as a success. I have a sneaking suspicion that his inner child rather enjoys blowing things up."
"I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it turned out that you were right, but I'd much rather he blew up stuff in his own house."
"He might be more inclined to do so, if you hadn't banned him from taking work home."
"That's true, but how would we explain it to the neighbours if a sentient carnivorous plant took control of the building?"
"I suppose it would be rather suspicious if his neighbours began suffering short term memory loss on a weekly basis," Ianto conceded with a small smile.
As they spoke, they walked further away from the house to scan the leaves of other trees.
Jack nodded. "My thoughts exactly."
"In which case I'm afraid Owen is restricted to creating explosions and destroying stuff in your house." He paused for a moment. "Or the Queen's house, as technically the Hub is her property."
"I'd like to think I've earned it due to my long and faithful service at Torchwood," Jack noted with a grin.
"Faithful service indeed, it's not as though you ever abandoned your post as our leader to follow Torchwood's number one enemy to the end of the universe," Ianto teased him, his gentle tone and eyes dancing with laughter taking away any sting from his words.
"Harsh, Mr Jones," Jack protested with mock anger, even as he turned to take a reading from a tall oak tree in front of him. "It's mean of you to bring that up."
"And you walked right into it," Ianto argued with a grin. "Besides, had the roles been reversed, I doubt you would have held back."
Jack laughed. "Fair point, both of them." He frowned at the readings on his scanner. "The resonance within the leaves is getting weaker; it's barely detectable now."
"I noticed the same thing." Ianto took a reading from a blackberry bush. "Also, it only appears to be present in the leaves from the trees. This is just a normal blackberry bush."
"I suppose we have to draw a line somewhere and psychic grass would be a step too far." Jack chuckled to himself and then voiced the thought that had amused him so, "Imagine the kind of high you could get from smoking psychic weed."
"I don't think I even want to go there." Ianto shuddered. "And knowing you, you'd be first in line to try it, while I'd be left to pick up the pieces."
Jack attempted to look innocent. "I have no idea what you're implying."
Ianto said nothing and just gave Jack a pointed look.
"You know me too well," Jack complained as he admitted defeat.
"Working on it," Ianto said softly.
Their meandering path had led them to the edge of the property and even the trees registered as normal. They turned to look around the garden along its boundary, dodging the pond in the process. In the distance, they saw Gwen walking around the house.
"It seems that whatever has altered the leaves in this garden has a very limited range. I'd estimate it at about twenty yards from the house."
"I'm glad," Jack admitted. "I was worried we might have an entire neighbourhood full of psychic leaves on our hands."
"Yeah, that would have been one hell of a problem to sort out. Although I must admit, from what Rosie was saying, I did rather assume that whatever is going on here was confined to this plot of land alone."
Jack nodded. "I did too, but it's good to have confirmation."
"Indeed."
Just as they rounded the corner, they come across the unexpected sight of Gwen bursting out of the front door and running full pelt towards the car. She got two thirds of the way there, before coming to an abrupt halt. Turning back to the house, she yelled, "Nope, it's still happening!"
"Bugger," muttered Tosh as she too walked out. "So speed is clearly not a factor in the whole process."
"And look, I still have the string." Gwen showed Tosh a piece of black string with a knot in it.
"Just as I thought."
"Want to catch us up, ladies?" Jack asked as he and Ianto walked closer.
Tosh smiled at them. "Let me do one more test, please."
Gwen and Tosh returned to the house for a minute or so, and then Gwen strode out. Now that she was no longer running, they could see she was holding a leaf in her left hand. She got to the same spot as previously and all three of them watched as the leaf disappeared from her hand. Gwen returned to Jack and Ianto, rubbing a smudge of something red on her left palm as she did so.
"I think Tosh and I are done," she said and motioned that they should go back inside.
"We are indeed," Tosh called out, having heard Gwen's words.
"In that case, we should go see if there's anything left of my kitchen," Jack said and paused. "Or of Owen," he added with a wink.
"The house at least is still standing," Tosh remarked, indicating that she too was aware of Owen's occasional penchant for experimentation.
"It's a start," Ianto agreed with a wry grin.
As they approached the door leading to the kitchen, they noted a smell of chemicals and burnt materials, which grew stronger with every step. The amusement in Jack's eyes gave way to concern when they heard string of curses being muttered by Owen. Raising his hand to keep the others back, Jack walked to the door and eased it open enough to peek through. What he saw must have allayed his fears, because he pushed the door open and walked in. The others followed with interest.
Inside, the dust sheet that had once protected the large, solid oak table had been dumped in the corner in a heap. Seeing this elicited a huff of disapproval from Ianto, but it was ignored. Owen had utilised the whole table for his equipment. On one end was a small microscope, connected to a laptop. Next to it sat a tray of scalpels and syringes. In the middle was a small safety chamber, with its closed ventilation system, which was surrounded by bottles of chemicals. On the far end sat a Benson burner on another tray and on the floor next to the table were a full welder's kit and a metal canister. What little space remained on the table was taken up by leaves.
"These damn things are driving me mad," Owen exclaimed as the others walked in.
"Why is that?" Jack asked, his lips twitching when behind him Ianto murmured something about Owen already being mad.
"It's like bloody Beth again," Owen complained. "Nothing seems to hurt these things!" To emphasise his words, he held up a handful of perfect leaves.
"Nothing at all?" Jack's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Nope. I've burnt them, drowned them in acids – both Earth made and alien – that made my eyes water even with the safety chamber, dumped them in liquid nitrogen and tried to cut them." Owen picked up a scalpel with a broken blade. "Look! No leaf should ever do this to a scalpel."
Tossing the blade back on the tray, Owen stalked around the table, his movements screaming of frustration. "And of course I can't make any kind of attempt at a chemical or DNA analysis, because I can't extract a sample or do anything with it!"
"Did you discover anything with the microscope?" Tosh ventured to ask, hesitant on the face of Owen's irritation.
"Yes, they look like normal bloody leaves."
"I think we urgently need to find something for Owen to blow up," Ianto said to Jack in a low voice.
Jack's only response was a wan smile. "Did you see if you might get somewhere with an EMP, like you did with Beth?"
Owen threw him a filthy look. "No, it never occurred to me. Of course I bloody did."
"I second you on getting Owen something to destroy asap," Gwen whispered to Ianto.
"Umm," Tosh began to speak and then stopped. Owen fixed her with a fierce look and she seemed to shrink from the force of it. "Umm… I'm assuming you scanned the leaves before you began your attempts to destroy them?"
With a disgusted snort, Owen threw his hands in the air. "Does everyone here think I'm an idiot?" Without waiting for a response, he whirled around to point at Ianto. "And that was a rhetorical question, Teaboy!"
Ianto spread his arm in an attempt to placate Owen and said nothing.
"Okay, deep breaths, Owen," Jack said in his most calming tone.
Owen walked to the far end of the kitchen and braced his hands on the sides of the wide sink. He leant forward to stare out of the window, doing as Jack had told. Silence reigned in the room, until some five minutes later he returned to the others, looking much calmer.
"Okay, frustration over," he said and offered the others an embarrassed smile. "Sorry about the outburst. I hope you guys have better news than I did?"
Jack quickly outlined what he and Ianto had found and the conclusions they had drawn. The others listened with interest and agreed with their reasoning.
Once he had finished talking, Jack raised a questioning eyebrow at Tosh.
"Well, Gwen and I went to do some testing outside with our properly calibrated scanners. We found that the frequency of the pulses the leaves emit increased the further they were from the house, until they began manifesting physically in the form of vibrations. At the moment the pulses became continuous, the leaf disappeared."
Tosh paced further into the room, giving the table and its dangerous contents a wide berth. "That was really just confirming what we already knew and speculated. We then began testing for two specific questions: What happens to the leaves once they disappear and do they always vanish at the same spot?"
"To answer the first question, I took a leaf from a spot that was easy to remember and scanned its contents. Gwen then walked out with it until it had vanished. I went back to the house to see if it came back to the same spot and it did. We did the same experiment again, only this time I stayed inside to keep an eye on the spot. Lo and behold, the very same leaf floated down a few moments later, having appeared out of nowhere in mid air."
"When you say out of nowhere, what exactly do you mean?" Jack queried.
"I thought you might ask that so I filmed the whole thing when we repeated the process for the third time. Come and see."
Tosh connected her camera to Owen's laptop and called up the video file. They all gathered close as she pressed play. The video showed the empty hall. With a colourful ripple reality was altered and the leaf shimmered into existence and floated down to settle on the floor once more. Anticipating Jack's next request, Tosh reduced the playback speed by half, so they could see the event better.
Having watched the video for the third time, Jack shook his head. "That to me answers the question of whether the Rift has any part in this. The colours and the shimmer is exactly what happens when the Rift opens."
"That's what I thought as well," Tosh agreed. "So what I did was to check the sensors in the house. You're right, there was a small Rift spike in the hall when the leaf disappeared. So whatever causes the leaves to remain within the house looks to be powered by the Rift."
"Interesting that it only happens outside," mused Ianto. When the others turned to look at him in confusion, he elaborated, "What I mean is that it's possible to move the leaves around inside the house without them returning to their original places. That must be the case, otherwise we wouldn't have a loft room full of leaves and they would be more evenly distributed across the whole house."
"Oh yes, you must be right, Ianto," Gwen agreed. "I hadn't thought of it that way."
Ianto acknowledged Gwen's words with a small nod. Glancing at Tosh, he said, "Go on, keep going."
"The next phase involved a lot of walking for Gwen." Tosh smiled at the other woman.
"Yup, I've got blisters," Gwen confirmed with a laugh and the others joined in.
"Serves you right for wearing those shoes." Jack pointed at her stylish, yet impractical shoes. "Haven't you learnt anything in your time at Torchwood?"
His wink told Gwen that there was no malice in his words and so she laughed again. "I've learnt plenty, thanks very much, Jack. Just not quite enough to give up these shoes!"
They all laughed at that and the men rolled their eyes in perfect sync. Gwen flashed Tosh an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I'm distracting you from your report."
"No worries. As I was saying, next we explored the distance at which the leaves returned to the house. We also wondered whether the leaves disappearing was tied to the front door. It took a while, but Gwen walked a set distance from the front door in different directions, including around the house. It turns out that there's a perimeter surrounding the house. Within it, you can take the leaves anywhere you like, for as long as you like, and nothing happens. The moment you step outside that twenty-yard perimeter, the leaf vanishes."
"Twenty yards from the house," Jack repeated, his expression thoughtful. "That's roughly the distance within which the leaves appear to have a connection to the house. Outside it, they really are just normal leaves."
"It stands to reason to think that the same perimeter around the house might influence more than one thing," Owen said.
"True." Jack nodded. "Do we have a feel for whether twenty yards in these circumstances is a long or a short distance?"
"Bearing in mind the relative weakness of the Rift readings we've recorded so far, I'd say it's pretty far," Tosh replied. She ran her fingers along the edge of the table as she walked past it. "The notable exception is, of course, the portal opening. That required quite a lot of Rift energy."
"Do you think the Rift here works like a giant battery?" Owen asked. When the others gave him a blank look, he tried to find a better way of explaining himself. "What I mean is that I wonder if the Rift functioning within the house has a set amount of energy, or charge if you wish to call it that. Opening a portal expends a lot of it and once that charge has run out, the portal closes. And the length of the time the portal can stay open depends on other demands on the Rift energy, such as the leaves appearing with a temporal distortion, which I imagine varies quite a bit. So once the energy has run out, the battery in my metaphor will need to be recharged."
"And the aliens might have got stuck because they didn't know about the limited energy reserves to keep the portal open," Gwen speculated.
"It's an interesting thought," Jack said. "We would need a lot of data to prove or disprove it, though."
"So why was Gwen running out the house like there was a pack of wild dogs chasing her?" Ianto queried.
"Oh, that." Tosh grinned. "We were trying to ascertain whether speed was a factor in the perimeter. So would Gwen be able to take the leaf beyond the twenty yard mark if she ran?"
"And?" Owen prompted her.
Gwen huffed. "Nope, the leaf still disappeared at the same spot as before."
Tosh shrugged. "To be fair, I expected that to be the case. Nevertheless, it was useful to know for sure. And while we were testing speed, I also did a quick experiment with the leaf's disappearing ability. I thought it might offer me some insight into the art of teleportation."
"Oh, there's plenty I could tell you about teleportation," Jack said and then frowned. "Although I'm fairly sure I'm not allowed to do so. Best not to annoy the Doctor any more than necessary."
"Sometimes you're no fun, Jack," complained Tosh, disappointment evident on her face.
"Sorry, I have to be the voice of reason some times." He cast a look in Ianto's direction, who rolled his eyes in response.
"I guess I'll just have to figure it out myself," Tosh concluded, not appearing daunted by the prospect. "And I'm going to."
"So did the leaves help with that?" asked Owen, smiling at Tosh's determination.
"Unfortunately not. I wanted to see if they could take something small with them when they disappear, since we already knew that they don't transport the people holding onto them at the moment they return to the house. First we tried to tape a fifty pence coin to a leaf, but Gwen was left with a coin on her palm and no leaf. Next we tied a piece of string to the stem of the leaf, but again that stayed behind. Finally we just smudged a bit of red lipstick on it. Gwen ended up with lipstick on her hand, so that was a bust too."
"Still, don't be too disappointed, Tosh." Jack offered her a warm smile. "You discovered a great deal with your experimentation, despite not having figured out how teleportation works."
"I guess so." Tosh looked at the house around them. "I still have a feeling that there is so much more for us to learn from this house."
"I have no doubt you're correct," agreed Jack. "I fear when it comes to the secrets of this place, we've only just scratched the surface."
"What's next?" Gwen queried. "Are we going back to the Hub now?"
"Not yet." Jack shook his head. "There's one more thing I really wanted to look into today. Rosie mentioned that there was something different about the foundations of the house, although she didn't know whether it was to do with physical foundations or the way the house was designed. On the assumption that she meant the actual foundations, I do believe a trip to the cellar is in order."
"In that case, we might need these…" Owen trailed off and bent down to rummage around in one of the equipment crates he had left on the kitchen floor. He pulled out two small shovels and a trowel. "Foundations tend to be below the ground level, so we might need to do some digging."
"That will surely depend on whether we're talking about the foundations of the house or the cellar," Ianto remarked, even as he took one of the shovels from Owen.
"Still, I don't suppose these'll hinder us," Owen argued and Ianto merely shrugged in response.
"What was the floor in the cellar like?" Tosh directed her question at Ianto. "Will we be able to do any digging?"
"Not in the main utility room, which takes up most of the cellar." Ianto's words were slow as he tried to recall the details of the rooms. "The floor there is concrete, I think. But we might have more luck with the cold storage room, as I'm fairly certain the floor there is just compacted earth. Keeps things naturally cool, I believe."
"You sure know some weird shit, Teaboy," Owen remarked over his shoulder as they headed for the basement. "First Roman curse tablets and now you know about cool rooms as well."
Ianto had lingered in the kitchen long enough to pick up a flood light powered by a powerful battery pack and he brought up the rear on the way down. "The curse tablets are easily explained. The British Museum has an excellent collection of them and they caught my attention during a school trip to London. I spent well over an hour examining them, while the others were staring at the mummies in the Egyptian section. As for some of my other apparently random knowledge, well let's just say that it would have been remiss of me to get through school without accumulating a considerable number of seemingly unconnected and useless facts. You never know when they might come in handy."
"I'm guessing not when you were trying to pick up women."
"Not really been an issue recently," Ianto mused to himself, his words so soft that Owen wondered whether he might have imagined them.
Once in the cellar, they all switched on their flashlights to inspect the large space. Ceiling high shelves had been used to partition the utility room and provide storage space. Most of them still had things on, ranging from pots of paint and rolls of wall paper all the way to rusted gardening equipment and stacks of yellowed newspapers. Here and there, leaves were peeking from underneath the shelves and some had settled over a pile of cracked leather shoes.
As Ianto had recalled, the floor was made of concrete.
"Well, I think there's very little to be learned from the foundations from this room," Jack said with a hint of disappointment.
Ianto walked over to the door of the cold storage room and pulled it open. A wave of cool, musty air rolled out to greet him. "We may have more luck here," he called out to the others and stepped in.
Here too shelves had been built along the walls, but they held jars and pots, the contents of which no one dared to speculate. A few had a faded label that proclaimed that they contained strawberry jam from 1989.
"If I'm not mistaken, we're underneath the far side of the kitchen at the moment, in the north-western corner of the house," Jack said, squinting at his wrist strap, before pointing at the corner to their left. "That should be the best place for some digging."
Jack, Owen and Ianto worked together to detach the lowest two shelves to give them more space, while Tosh set up the flood light and Gwen provided additional light with the torches. Once the space had been cleared, Ianto took the trowel from Tosh and scraped away the top layer of soil. After a few moments of prodding, he stood up.
"As I thought, the floor appears to just be compact earth. We should be able to expose the foundations no problem." Ianto handed the trowel back to Tosh as he spoke and hefted the shovel in his hand. "Shall we?"
Together he and Owen began digging a hole in the corner, working at a right angle to one another to maximise the space. After a while, Ianto took a break to remove his suit jacket and his tie, which he draped over Tosh's arm with care. As they worked, Ianto thought that the call of the house was growing stronger in his mind and his expression morphed into a puzzled frown. Jack noticed this, but before he had a chance to ask Ianto what was wrong, Tosh gasped.
"Look!"
They all followed her pointing finger to the hole that had emerged in the corner of the house. In the powerful beam of the flood light, they saw that Owen's shovel had just revealed a change in the colouring of the foundation stone. Whereas the others above and below the ground level had been local grey stone, they could now see the very top of a deep black stone, with veins of green running through it. In the glare of the torches the green glittered, but the black of the stone seemed to absorb all the light directed at it.
"Ianto, I'm not sure that's a good…" Tosh trailed off, for it was too late for her warning.
Having dropped his shovel, as if in some kind of trance, Ianto crouched down to rest his fingers against the black stone. The moment they did so, he gasped and jolted backwards, the whispers of the house having become a roar in his mind. Jack leapt forward and caught him before he fell on the floor.
"I got you," he whispered, but Ianto's eyes were wide and he was shaking his head from side to side, as if to dislodge something. With a sense of dread, Jack lowered his own psychic barriers to reach out for Ianto.
Ianto was desperately trying to back away from the storm of noise raging in his mind, when he felt something soft brush against the edge of his consciousness. It felt familiar and by instinct he reached towards it. He felt it slide across his mind, the gesture more intimate than he had expected, and it brought blessed silence in its wake. The noise morphed into voices, speaking in so many different languages he could not make out any words. The more the psychic presence circled his consciousness, the more the storm receded, until only calm serenity remained. Only then did he feel it retreat.
He opened his eyes to find Jack doing the same at the same moment. Blinking in confusion, he realised he was in Jack's arms on the floor of the cold storage room.
"Hey, welcome back," Jack spoke softly and his smile was full of relief. "You promised to be careful, remember?"
"I'm sorry," he apologised, feeling confused as he stared up into Jack's piercing eyes. "What happened?"
"You touched something you shouldn't have done," Jack explained and then shifted to help Ianto up onto his feet. He kept his arm around Ianto's waist to support him once they were both upright again. "None of you should touch that stone, but Ianto the least of all."
"Why not?" Gwen looked confused.
"Ianto has had the most psychic training, which in some respects also makes him more vulnerable to psychic attacks. This house has been drawing him in from the start and I think now we know why."
"But hang on, I thought psychic training meant that you could defend yourself against psychic attacks?" Gwen continued her questioning.
"In some respects it does. But it also means that he's more aware of things happening on a psychic level around him. And that in turn makes him reach out, opening his mind in the process. Besides, the psychic training the researchers received at Torchwood One would have been focused towards detecting psychic presences, not on how to defend oneself against them." Jack turned to Ianto. "I think we ought to work on your ability to shield yourself and protect your mind."
"I do believe that would be helpful, Sir," Ianto acknowledged with a grateful smile. They stared at one another for a brief moment, before Jack let his grip on Ianto's hip first loosen and then slip off. The shared hint of regret indicated that both missed the contact once it had been lost.
Turning to the others, Jack forced his focus away from Ianto. "So, what the hell are the foundations of this house made of?"
"Let me have a look," Tosh said and pulled out her scanner. Before she got too close to the hole, Jack's hand on her arm stopped her.
"Don't touch the stone with your bare hands." Jack looked at both Owen and Gwen. "The same goes for you two. It may not call to you the same way it calls to Ianto, and indeed me, although my defences are better, but I still think it'll be dangerous."
"I only want to scan the stone, I won't touch it," promised Tosh and Jack let her go.
She crouched on the edge of the hole, braced her left hand against the earthen floor and reached down to run a scanner of the exposed stone. She pulled back to view the results, and with a frown performed a second scan.
"Well, it's definitely not from Earth," she reported, "I've never seen anything quite like it. It's dense, very dense, and I don't suppose it comes as a surprise that it vibrates at the same frequency as the leaves do."
"So is this what keeps the leaves in the house?" Owen asked, using the edge of the shovel to clear away loose soil by the stone.
"At this point, it's my best guess," Tosh replied. "It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if we find that there is a layer of this stone circling the foundations of the entire house."
"But how on earth did it get here? And why are the foundations built from it, or on it?" It was Gwen's turn to ask questions.
"The Finn who built the house must have incorporated existing stones into his plans, or he fashioned the foundations out of this stone on purpose," Jack speculated.
Gwen was not entirely happy with the explanation. "But how could a Finnish architect know what the stone would do and how could he even work with such stone if we can't even touch it?"
"Excellent questions, but I'm afraid none of us have the answers. And the Finn himself will be long dead by now, so I don't think we can ask him either," Jack said. "Hopefully we'll be able to figure out answers to some of those questions in due course."
Ianto moved forward to crouch on the edge of the hole, looking thoughtful. He stared at the stone for a long time, until Jack rested a hand on his shoulder. He glanced over his shoulder at Jack, his jaw coming to rest on Jack's fingers in the process.
"I'm not lost, or in danger of getting lost," he assured Jack. "Just thinking…"
When Ianto trailed off, Jack gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Care to elaborate?"
"This place, even when I touched the stone I didn't feel anything malevolent or threatening. I was overwhelmed, no doubt about that, but I don't think the house meant me any harm. And that has been a consistent theme with this place, hasn't it? The house is supposedly haunted, and yet the people who live here deny the rumours and lead happy, peaceful lives. The house protects the leaves, which contain many important memories, and yet, we know that there is a part of the Rift within these walls. So my question is this, how is it that nothing dangerous has come through this Rift, no Weevils have wreaked havoc in the house? Why is it that this place appears to suffer none of the ill effects the other places surrounding the Rift do?"
The others stared at him in silence. When it was clear no one else was going to speak up, Jack asked, "Do you have a theory?"
Ianto nodded. "I do. I wonder if the answer isn't the same one in every case. The house protects the leaves. Does the house also protect itself, the leaves and the inhabitants from the Rift? Is it these very foundation stones that have kept the Rift in this house safe and undetected for nearly seventy years now?"
With a final look at the unusual stone, Ianto stood up and turned so he was facing Jack. "And the only reason we've found this Rift now is one Alexander Hills."