Three minutes or so latter across town, Rex had reached the last floor of his apparent complex. A few seconds later, he heard two other people rushing down the stairs behind him. He turned around and was surprised to find it was Neal and Violet. "Hey," He said to the pair.
"Hey," Neal replied,
"Hey, Rex," Violet said.
"Jack call you in too?" Rex said, starting to walk again.
"Yeah," Neal said, joining him.
"But he was a little sketchy on the details," Violet said, walking by Neal, but the comment was directed at Rex, "What exactly did he tell you?"
"Just Gwen found some boy that it looks like cam through the Riff," Rex said.
"And Jack didn't notice any Riff activity?"" Neal asked.
Rex and Violet, who were on either side of him at that point, turned to look at him.
"Well, come on, you guys both had to notice he practically lives at the Hub," Neal said.
"More than practically, he does live there," Violet informed the two men.
Rex chuckled. "Good one, Vi."
"I'm serious," Violet insisted, "He really does."
Both men turned to look at her. "How do you know that?" Neal asked.
"Remember how your first night in town your stitches were infected and I had go back to Hub to get medicine?" Violet recalled.
"Yeah," Neal replied.
"Well, Jack caught me there," Violet said, "After a little of back and forth I asked him what he was doing there and he said he lived there."
"And you're sure he wasn't kidding?" Rex asked.
"I asked him that," Violet said, "Well, not exactly those words, but you get the point, and he said he really did, said someone had to watch the Riff."
"Well, how do you like that?" Rex said, "In that case, you're right, how did he miss this?"
"Let's found out." Neal said.
The trio arrived at the store at the same time Martha did. Jack and Gwen was already there waiting for the rest of them. Martha recapped what they were thinking, "So, what's going on?"
"I think Gwen would do a better job of explaining it then me," Jack then turned to his second in command in said, "Gwen?"
"Well, I was in the grocery store," Gwen began, pointing in the direction of the store behind them, "And I see this-kid, really he was still a kid, couldn't have been more than sixteen years old, and he looked really freaked out and he was wearing clothing from the 15th century , or somewhere around that time, and then I see him slip and apple in his pocket so I decide to go confront him, but when I did he was so freaked out I just skipped to asking about where he came from, and..." Her voice trailed off.
"And what?" Rex asked.
"And he asked if I was an angel." Gwen said at last, "I tried to tell him I wasn't but before I could get it out he starts groveling at my feet talking about a horrible mistake saying he wasn't guilty of witchcraft. To make a long story short he thinks he's in Hell. Before I can explain things to him a bloody alarm starts going off and scares him away and I lost him in the street."
"So now," Jack began, "We have to find this poor kid."
"Ah, question," Neal said, rising his hand.
"Yes, Neal," Jack indulged him.
"When we find this kid, what are we gonna do with him?" Neal asked, "If he really was accused of some sort of witchcraft if we send home we'd be sending him to his death."
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Jack said, "Right he's running around, scared out of his mind, in place he believes to be Perdition. We can't exactly leave him out there, can we?"
No one said anything. They knew Jack had a point.
"Now," Jack said, "Rex, I'll need you to go back to the Hub, look all the CCTV footage you can find."
Rex turned around wordless and walked away.
"Gwen's already took the liberty of telling her friend Andy to call if he's brought in by police, or hears anything about someone who looks like him," Jack said, "The rest, or us, well, the best thing I can think for us to do is to look around the city for him." He looked at Neal and asked, "Neal, you think we could get a sketch to show people?"
"I'll need a few minutes with Gwen, but I can do it," Neal responded, then walked over to Gwen.
"No, his eyes were wider," Gwen told Neal, looking at the drawing. They had been sitting on bench inside the store for several minutes, Gwen describing Ior to Neal and Neal changing the drawing to fit the description better.
Neal corrected the eyes so that they were wider. "How's that?" He said, handing her the picture.
"Yeah," Gwen said, "That's the boy."
They both looked at the picture. The boy in the picture was nearly emaciated, filthy and like Gwen had said, frightened.
"What do you think that poor boy has been through?" Gwen asked, more thinking aloud than anything else.
"Who knows," Neal said, "That time period is called the Dark Ages for a reason. Ior's probably done a lot more than shoplifting an apple to survive."
Gwen set back a moment, contemplating the situation. Then an odd thought cross her mind. "Neal?" She asked, turning her head to look at him.
Neal turned his head to look at her, anticipating whatever she was about to say.
"Have you ever stolen food?" Gwen asked.
Neal looked surprised a moment, then said, "No, I've never been that desperate."
"Has Violet?" Gwen asked, "Do you know?"
"Not that's she ever told me," Neal said, "She was pretty good at finding it in other ways. There might have been some poaching, though. But really, even if she had, it wouldn't be my place to tell."
"You're right," Gwen said, "Sorry."
"Oy!" A familiar Welsh-accented voice called out from behind them, "Since when is this the protocol for an emergency situation?"
They both turned around and saw a man with a circular face, and dark brown hair staring at them.
"Rhys," Gwen said, getting up, "What are you doing here?"
"You're looking for one random boy in a city of millions," Rhys explained, "I thought you could use the help."
"Yeah," Neal said, getting up as well, "We could. Hi."
"Hi, Neal," Rhys replied, then he turned back to Gwen.
"We were just making a sketch of Ior," Gwen said, holding out the drawing to Rhys.
"Ior?" Rhys said, taking the sketch from her.
"That's what he told me his name was." Gwen replied.
Just then Jack walked in. "You guys done yet?" He asked, "We kind of need to get moving, needle in a hay stack situation here."
"Come on," Rhys said, "Let's get this started then, my angel."
"Very funny," Gwen said, walking beside her husband.
Saying that the search for Ior was like a needle in a haystack was an insult to both needles and haystacks. Haystacks do not rudely bump past you and ignore you, and needles don't move around so if someone has seen them they're already gone. After two and a half hours fruitless searching the team was getting rather discouraged, but Gwen refused to give up on her lost boy. Then at last there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Jack got a call from Rex. "Jack," he said, "I think we found our boy."
"Where?" Jack asked.
"There's this noodle place, about six blocks away from the store where Gwen found him," Rex elucidated, "It looks like he just curled behind a trash can in the alleyway."
"Thanks," Jack said, then hung up. Jack quickly caught up to Gwen who was a few feet away showing the picture to a woman in business suit. "I found him," He said.
Gwen paused a moment then said to the woman, "Thank you for your time, miss."
As they walked off, Gwen asked, "Where?"
"The alley of a noodle place about six blocks from here," Jack answered.
After gathering the rest of the team, they quickly made their way to aforementioned ally. As they walked into it, Gwen called out, "Ior, it's alright, we're not going to hurt you, just come out. We can actually help you make sense of what's going on."
"Rex said he was behind a garbage bin," Violet said, walking toward a bin pressed against the wall. Sure, enough, there was a thin boy in dirty ragged 15th-Century clothes, with long red hair cowering behind it. He looked up at Violet, eyes wide, with fear, and back even more into a corner. "P-Please.." He shuttered.
"It's alright," Violet said, "No one's gonna hurt you. In fact, your angel's here." Violet looked up to Gwen and gestured for her to come over. Violet scooted over and stood up as Gwen walked over to Ior's hiding place.
Just as Gwen had done before, she held out a hand to help the boy up, but this time he just sat in his crouched position, looking up at her. "It's okay," Gwen urged, "Like my friend said, no one is gonna hurt you,"
"I've died and gone to Hell," Ior said at last, casting his eyes down.
"This isn't Hell," Violet said, "It's Cardiff, though I can see how you could make that mistake."
"Hey!" Gwen responded turning to look at her.
"Well," You know what I mean," Violet said, quickly.
Gwen did. Being in the 15th century one moment then finding one's self in a sprawling city with building touching the sky, vehicles buzzing past, a uncountable number of people pushing past, it could seem like the afterlife. And possibly Hell. So she turned back and to Ior, knelt down so that they were face to face and she said, "Look, like I said earlier, I'm not an angel, but-"
"Then you're a demon, " Ior said, backing up even further.
"No," Gwen said, "I'm as human as you all. Look, it's freezing, so why don't you come with me, and we can discuss this inside where it's warm, okay?"
Ior examined Gwen for a minute, and the crawled towards her. Gwen stood up to give him space to move and he stood up. He walked out from behind the trash bin and saw the four other people standing there. Thinking she must have been trying to trick him, so they could drag him off and torment him, Ior ran for it again. But this time Jack got and front of him and grabbed a hold of him. "Ior, it's all right!" Jack said as he thought to get hold on the struggling young man, "We're not gonna hurt you. Martha, there's a sleep patch in my pocket, get it!"
Wordlessly Martha walked over to Jack , rumbled through his side pants pocket, and pulled out a clear patch with a green crescent moon and the word SLEEP written on in all caps. "Sorry about this," Martha said, putting the patch on the struggling boy's neck. Within seconds he was lying limp in Jack's arms, unconscious. "Come on," Jack said, "Let's go."