Chapter Fourteen

"Food," came the rather desperate mumble from Ianto. All of the Welshman's usual decorum and appearance of modesty was lost as he spotted an apple cart and pushed Gwen aside to get to it. He grabbed a large golden globe in each hand, taking bites from each in turn.

"You plan to pay for that, aye?" The cart's owner leaned across, a grizzled large man with an unusually large nose dressed like one of the extras in Robin Hood.

Ianto looked up, chewing, then back down at the loosening and now askew denim jacket tied around his waist. "F'got m'wallet." He crunched another mouthful from the apple in his right hand.

"I've got it, mate." Owen stepped up next to the admin, pulling his wallet out of his pocket, then hesitating. "I don't think they take bank cards here."

The proprietor nested an impossibly large fist into his other impossibly large hand with a grinding motion, his lips pulling back into a sneer that revealed thick yellow teeth and protruding canines. "Well apples cost copper, mate."

"Copper?" Owen put his wallet back and dug through his front pockets. "How much?"

"Six for a ha'penny, penny for a baker's dozen."

Owen smirked, holding up a two-pence coin. "Then you owe us change. And four more apples."

"Thanks, Owen," offered Ianto between bites as he was dragged by his elbow back to the others. "I owe you."

"Yeah, think I can let it pass. I make, what, three times what you do?" The doctor let go of the admin, doling out the other apples to the rest of the group. "It ain't Wheatabix and Hershey's syrup, but it'll do for a start."

"Ew, Owen, you turn me off my appetite completely with that." Gwen munched into her apple anyway.

"It's not that bad, actually. Pretty good for hangover food." Logan looked around the 'city' again, his supersenses not particularly needed to pick up the smell of horses, cattle, pigs, and chickens, along with their respective leavings. Mingling behind it was the smell of bread, raw meat, and produce, and under that, a permeating reek of unwashed mankind. "This place isn't too modernized, is it."

"Comparable to fifth, maybe sixth century." Ianto tossed the scraps of cores behind him on the muddy patch of road. "You can tell by the way the stones are laid up in the walls there. That and the manner of dress. I'd say it's market day considering the number of farm animals being brought in. Honestly, if it weren't for the city here, I'd say this was Glastonbury."

"And he's back, ladies and gentlemen," Owen smirked. "Whoever thought the city would stink worse than the countryside?"

"How do you know all this, Ianto?" Gwen tucked her hair behind her ear. "We don't have GPS, or at least I don't see where you're hiding it."

Ianto looked a bit shocked. "I'm Welsh. King Arthur? Round Table? You know, Merlyn?" He held his hand up to indicate the height of the Doctor. "I was a bit mad on the stories when I was growing up. Dad and I used to take holidays in some of the historical sites."

"That's why you were so much a fanboy when you got to go in his TARDIS." Warren offered a sleepy smile.

"Well, once I knew he wasn't taking Jack away this time."

"So we're in Arthurian England? What's this, the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages?" Gwen took another bite of apple.

"Remind me not to take you on my team for history quiz," commented Ianto. "Saoren said we were in Avalon, right? That's where Arthur is buried. See that hill over there? It's a little higher than Glastonbury Tor is, but accounting for erosion and time, it's got the same shape and features."

"Does it have a hotel?" mumbled Warren, leaning against the wall of the market. "I've got to rest if my wings are going to heal."

"If we can find the abbey, they won't ask for money." Ianto started down the street, getting a few glances from passersby as he tightened his makeshift sarong. "I'm not familiar with the name Maehewyn in Glastonbury's history, though."

"That's because we're in Otherworld." Warren dragged himself after. "Brian lived here for a while. Sort of ran things. It's like a rotation duty for Captain Britains."

"You mean John's gonna take a turn as King of Muckland?" Owen scoffed. "Not sure who I feel more sorry for, them or him."

"We must have fallen through one of the Twelve Roads. Maehewyn might be a local name related to Melwas," mused Ianto. "That would explain the similarity to Glastonbury."

"Pertinent details, kid," growled Logan. "Give us the bullet points that would help us out, not a lesson in linguistics."

"Right, sorry. Helpful bits. Let's see. Glastonbury Tor is believed to be something of a hub for the ley lines. Those are mystical lines of energy drawn between key megaliths and monuments in ancient Britain and Europe. Places where you find abbeys and monastery ruins in our time. It's speculated that the pathways between Avalon's dimension and our world ran along the strongest ley lines. The Twelve Roads."

"Then all we have to do is find one of the roads and we can get everyone home?" Gwen smiled. "Brilliant!"

"Not exactly," cautioned the young Welshman. "The road guardians rebelled according to the legends. They wanted to cause chaos between the worlds and isolate Merlyn so he wouldn't help our world's people any more, so they mixed up the roads. Anyone traveling those roads wouldn't get back home. They'd be scattered to the winds."

"Putting that in Rift terms, I'd say these roads were actually stable portals." Logan's eyes kept up a continual sweep of the townsfolk, but they weren't drawing too much attention in spite of being out of costume for the local fashion. "So the rogue guardians set the exit point to random, and anyone tripping the Rift from this side was screwed."

Ianto nodded. "That sounds like it would fit. In order to make it safely home, you had to have a sacred key. Speculation is they're any of a number of magical artifacts."

"Like Brian's Amulet of Right." Warren looked over to Logan. "He said it was a key to Otherworld once."

"Nice, but we don't have Brian or his amulet." Logan looked back to Ianto. "So what else can you tell us about Glastonbury Tor?"

"Um, it's the supposed entry to the land of fairies."

"No," protested Gwen. "We're not dealing with that lot again."

"I'm with Gwen on that one." Owen shuddered. "Nasty little buggers."

Ianto half-smiled. "I wasn't in the field for that investigation, so I'll trust your word. It's where Arthur was supposedly buried. And gateway to the Underworld. Oh, and where Joseph of Arimathea hid the Holy Grail."

"You really take this visitBritain cover story bullshit seriously, don't you, brat," commented Owen drily. "You should open an info centre for this mudhole."

"Leave him alone, Owen," snapped Gwen. "He's being helpful. Unlike somebody else, who's just being an ass."

"Oi! I bought his apples so his brain would work again!"

"That's no reason for you to call him names!"

"He likes it when I call him names! I was calling him a brat well before you joined on!"

"You two mind keeping your unresolved sexual tension under wraps?" Logan glanced to the side, his voice dropping to just above a whisper. "We've picked up a tail."

John followed Jack into his office, closing the door behind him. "You know, the reason why I was a better con man than you is I did a better job lying."

Jack looked up at him darkly, sitting down at his desk. "Don't start, John."

"You're trying to hide something about the Rift tripper, and you're not doing it too well, mate." John leaned on the edge of the desk, fixing his eyes on Jack. "If it wasn't one of us, who was it? You been in touch with what's left of the Agency?"

"No." Jack rolled his eyes. "What does it matter? Nothing happened."

"C'mon, Jack, you know you were never able to keep something from me if I wanted to find it out. I'll just keep at it until I wear you down."

"It was Kyhl, all right?!" Jack glowered up at John. "It had absolutely nothing to do with you and I don't know what he came for and he's gone!"

"The Director of the Time Agency, our boss, the man who recruited both of us and vanished right before everything went to hell, and the sweetest shag I ever had in my life, was tripping into our vault?"

Jack growled, standing and leaning across the desk to grab John's collar. "He never loved you! You meant nothing to him!"

"Aren't we jealous?" John smirked. The smirk slowly faded as his eyes dropped to the desk with Ianto's abandoned belongings on it, the silver-plated stopwatch sitting on top of the pile. "Oh.. bloody.. hell." He pushed Jack's hand away with a light flick. "Ianto Jones.. is Kyhl Davies." He looked back to Jack. "Why didn't I recognize him? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I had my memory wiped, remember? Things that happened before I left the Agency are a little fuzzy sometimes. I only put it together myself a few days ago."

"Doesn't explain why I didn't recognize him, though." John picked up the stopwatch. "Unless it has something to do with this."

"His stopwatch?" Jack raised a brow. "What would it have to do with anything?"

"Not an ordinary stopwatch, mate. It's a Rift artifact. I borrowed it from him once. Why do you think I slept with him in the first place?"

Jack fixed his eyes on the stopwatch. "What does it do?"

"Not really sure. He caught me before I could use it. All he told me is it came from Gallifrey originally and he got it from his first love."

"I think I gave it to him." Jack frowned, trying to think. "About a year ago. He likes timing things, and it gave him something to do, so I gave it to him when we were using the Risen Mitten."

"Where'd you get it?"

Jack shook his head. "I can't really remember. I think I found it in on the floor at Torchwood One."

"You've lived so long you're senile."

"I had a two thousand year sabbatical, give me a break!" Jack focused on the watch. "And I think I know why it might be hard to remember." He broke into a grin. "The Doctor uses the same kind of technology for the TARDIS. It creates a kind of barrier that makes you tend to ignore it, put it out of your mind."

John's eyes widened. "Bloody sneak. He always had his stopwatch with him, so once he wasn't there, we'd have a bit of amnesia."

Jack eyed his ex-partner, then reached up and grabbed the watch, putting it in his pocket. "Perfect tool for a thief or a con man. I think I'd be more trustworthy with it than you."

John crossed his arms with a sly grin. "Makes you wonder if our eye candy Kyhl was really the choir boy he came off as, doesn't it?"

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it again, his brow furrowed. "Come to think of it, he had the qualifications. You don't think he might have been even better at it than us, do you?"

"Never trust the quiet ones, Jack."

:I'd love it if you took a second to share your thoughts and suggestions with me. I live for reviews! I'm getting rather discouraged that, in spite of the positive support from those who review, and the growing number who have the story on alert, I'm getting response from only a small percentage of the readers. At well over 3,000 hits so far, I've got a less than 1 review rate per hit. So...

PLEASE REVIEW SO I DON'T DROP THE STORY FOR LACK OF FEEDBACK! YES, I'M HOLDING THE STORY RANSOM OUT OF DESPERATION!

And while you're at it, let me know if you think I should add a story about Kyhl and John or maybe a stopwatch story to Archives of the Time Agency. Ta!: