Owen's eye cracked open after a couple minutes, giving Ianto time to fall back into a meditation. He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Jack and tilted his head towards the younger man, just to be sure. He did not need for Ianto to find out they weren't meditating. Again.

Jack nodded, and Owen let out a small sound of relief.

"Jack? I know he's scary when he's mad, hell I've been shot by the man, and he can guilt trip with the best of them, but are we sure we should be letting this happen? What if we can't wake him up again?"

Jack sighed. "I know. I feel the same way. But it seems like he really wants this. He's working so hard to help us with our senses, to find new ways to test us, and yes I fully admit, keeping me entertained."

Owen gave a quiet snort of amusement.

Jack shrugged. "He's rearranged his life to be with us constantly, he puts up with our stalking him with relatively little complaint, He even gave in and stayed so we could have sex. This is the least we can do for him. At least we're here to make sure he's okay."

Owen crossed his arms. "This would be so much if either of us actually like mediation. We'd be happily off in la la land like Ianto, and not sitting here worrying over the fact that he might be in a coma." Owen spun the amethyst idly on the floor.

"You want to try it again?" Jack asked.

"We're watching him, remember?"

"Technically it's my turn to watch. You mediate today, I'll meditate tomorrow. If we have to do this, we might as well try to make an effort to do it right."

Owen had the feeling Jack was only being so insistent because it wasn't his turn.

He sighed again, desperately wanting to say, 'no we don't need to make an effort, because this is stupid, dangerous and pointless!' but instead shifted his position, closed his eyes, and tried to remember what Tosh had been saying yesterday.

He fidgeted for a minute, twisting the crystal in his hand. Suppressing a growl of frustration, he tried harder, and suddenly the world started to slide out from under him.

Owen's eyes snapped open. Instead of sitting on a floor in the hub, he found him self standing in a dense forest. He frowned and turned around, trying to figure out what happened. "Maybe Gwen touched an alien device?" he asked out loud, his voice echoing oddly in the quiet wood. "Bloody hell, even I don't buy that one. Where the fuck am I?"

He heard a noise and spun, spotting a small muscled animal, eyeballing him, clearly looking unimpressed. The creature gave a dissatisfied grumble, and took off into the woods.

"Oi! Come back here, you!" Before Owen knew what he was doing he was racing though the woods after the animal. For such a small thing it was moving fast.

This was insanity. One minute he's sitting in the conference room making a half-arsed attempt to meditate, and then suddenly he was running though the woods after some creepy little animal. Why the hell was he even chasing this thing? He shook his head and tried to run faster, faintly concerned that he didn't feel the stitch in his side that usually showed up when he was forced to chase aliens.

He could feel the wind blowing past him, he could smell plants, animals, dirt, and so many other scents, amazed he wasn't zoning or falling over in a sensory spike. He could hear something running after him but didn't want to look for fear he'd trip and smash in his skull. Hopefully whatever it was wouldn't kill him.

Owen focused for a moment and his vision zoomed in closer on the animal in front of him, and he quickly started cataloging it. It was small, about 80 centimeters, looked like maybe some kind of bear that had been shrunk in the dryer. Long dark brown fur with a couple light stripes over its small heavily muscled body. Fast as anything.

He stumbled to a stop as the creature entered a clearing, slowing and stopping, turning to stare at the man who had intruded into his woods. Owen added vicious teeth to the description.

The noise that had stayed behind him constantly through the run gained on them, and Owen let out a startled yell as something bowled into him, sending him flying. He stared at the spinning treetops for a minute before he got his breath out, and turned to look at his attacker. It was a huge shaggy black dog, looking nearly as bewildered as Owen felt.

The little creature he had been chasing in the first place had sidled closer, standing under the dog and peering through the larger creature's front legs at Owen.

If Owen had been the type to anthromorphise he would have labeled the look 'morbid curiosity'

He sighed, and let his head bang back down against the soft earth.

"What the fuck is going on?"

---

Jack sat quietly, watching Owen and Ianto. Both looked completely relaxed, breathing and heartbeats far lower then normal, oddly synched. He let his mind drift, still keeping an ear on both men.

He knew this was hard on them. Owen hated his senses. He just wanted to learn to control them, so he could forget them and pretend this whole annoying metaphysical thing never happened. Every day Owen's first order of business was to look through the files they were starting to accumulate on the artifact that started the whole thing. They were finding new information slowly if steadily, but nothing that was going to help them reverse what it had done.

Ianto was being quietly driven insane by both of the sentinels, and their constant nearness. Jack knew it, he just couldn't seem to stop him self. Some part of him kept demanding he stay near Ianto; make sure he was safe and protected and happy. He'd blame it totally on the sentinel thing, if only for the fact he'd felt that way before. He always cared about Ianto. He always wanted Ianto safe. It was why he'd always tried to keep him out of the field, keep him in the hub safe from harm. Only now it seemed his every feeling for Ianto was ramped up to 11.

It seemed to be much of the same for Owen. Jack had never asked much about what had gone on between the two men while he was gone, mostly because neither seemed that willing to talk about it. He knew that they had some sort of relationship, and now Owen was being just as possessive of Ianto as Jack himself, if not more so.

The door cracked open and Tosh stuck her head inside. "Is everything okay?" she asked quietly. Gwen peeked in over her shoulder.

"Yeah. They're meditating. I'm making sure neither one dies."

"Owen's meditating?" Tosh asked as she and Gwen came the rest of the way in. "I don't believe it."

"Believe it. His heart rate and breathing are as low as Ianto's, but he's not zoned." He pointed to the purple stone in Owen's hand. "Maybe switching stones helped.

Gwen frowned. "Is that the amethyst? There supposed to be more powerful."

Jack raised an eyebrow, and Gwen shrugged. "I researched them months ago. One of Rhys' friends swore by them."

She turned her attention to Owen. "Wow. I...well I never thought he would actually manage it. I was just amazed he wasn't disrupting anyone else, so far." Gwen admitted, looking at the still doctor.

"I know I had trouble believing it my self, but I guess he decided to actually try, and then his heart rate just dropped and he was out."

Tosh gave a small grin. "I think I feel proud. Our bitchy little doctor's growing up." She sat down next to Jack. "How are you holding up?"

"Okay. Owen and I talked. We decided to trade off days of babysitting." Jack backpedaled as Tosh leveled narrowed eyes at him. "I mean observing. In case something happens. Tomorrow I get to attempt to meditate." He gave them a small motion with his head. "Feel free to join them, since you got interrupted before."

Tosh looked over at Gwen who nodded and dropped down to a sitting position next to Owen.

Jack watched as both woman closed their eyes and went though the relaxing routine, taking longer to relax, and going nowhere near as deep, as Ianto and Owen had.

It was rather relaxing, Jack had to admit, sitting here and listening to the slow heartbeats and the quiet breathing of his teammates. He wondered if that was considered an invasion of privacy, or if any of them would be too creeped out by the fact.

He continued to watch his team, a small smile on his face, as time passed. Finally he stirred and looked at his cuff, surprised that twenty minutes had passed. They would need to be woken up soon.

Jack sat up straight as both Owen and Ianto's heart rates spiked. At the same moment their eyes flew open.

Owen gasped, nearly falling over and looked around wildly. "What the fucking hell was that?"

Ianto's reaction was slightly less dramatic. He just blinked, once, and then turned to Owen, sounding concerned.

"Owen? Are you okay?" he asked, running a hand lightly up Owen's arm.

Tosh and Gwen's eyes had snapped open at Owen's alarmed yelp, and they, along with Jack crowded around Owen, trying to look like they were doing anything but. Ianto made an annoyed sound as they got too close.

"I- uh I don't know. There was a forest." Owen shook his head. "And I was chasing this...thing. Some kind of small furry animal. Maybe a bear? I don't know but for some reason I was running after it. And this fucking huge dog tried to run me over..."

Ianto stared at Owen wide-eyed. "Uh. Small furry animal. Dog?"

Tosh gave Ianto a look; her own eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Yeah. It was small, about 80 centimeters, dark fur."

"A wolverine." Ianto muttered.

"What?"

"Uh...I was something similar yesterday, and looked it up online. It was a wolverine. North American actually. Vicious nasty little creatures."

"Well why the fuck are we seeing wolverines while we're meditating?"

"I don't know."

"What did the dog look like?" Tosh asked.

Jack looked over at her, not surprised that she was being the reasonable, calm one. It was usually Ianto's job, but he seemed… well the best phrase he could think of was "weirded out."

"Like I said. Fucking huge. Black, shaggy."

"About yea high?" Ianto asked, holding his hand up as high as he could while remaining seated.

Owen stared at him.

Ianto dropped his hand, and rubbed his neck. "Yeah. Saw that one too."

Owen growled and pushed him self off the floor. "We've meditated, we're done for the day, and I'm going to try to get some actual work done now. No more freaky shit."

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"No more "Sentinel" and "Guide", " Owen actually made finger quotes, "freaky shit. I am not dealing with this right now."

Ianto shook him self and pushed off the floor as well, and Jack could hear the quiet intake of breath as Ianto steadied himself. "He's right, I have a lot to do, and I should be getting to it."

Both men left quickly, heading in separate directions.

Jack spun his chair back around to look at the two women still kneeling on the floor. They looked as lost as he felt. He turned around again, watching Owen at his desk, muttering to himself and banging the keyboards harder than necessary.

Ianto was at the coffee machine, talking quietly about perhaps going down to the archives for a short nap, pitched so that Jack would hear if he was eavesdropping.

In all, Jack supposed, the meditation session could have gone better.