Chapter Twenty Eight
'Did you do it?' Jack asked.
'I hope so,' Gwen said. 'I'm so cold,' she said shivering.
'It's a side effect of using the temporal projection.'
'I'll get you a hot drink,' Stuart said heading off.
'So if it worked where is she?' Jack asked.
'Maybe she didn't believe me,' Gwen said still shaking.
'I did believe you,' I said and they turned around in shock to see at me.
'Debbie you're back,' Jack said smiling. 'Hold on, can you see Gwen?'
'Yes,'
'And Stuart over there?'
'Yes, oh he's pretty cute.'
'Come here a minutes,' Jack said and he called up the CCTV of above. There were people everywhere.
'Well I think you're fixed. Where's the necklace?'
'Here,' I said handing it over. 'Shame I liked it, it was unusual.'
'Where did you get it?'
'A friend gave it to me for my birthday. She knew I lost my last one in the car crash,'
'What car crash?' Gwen asked.
'I was in an accident a few weeks back. The paramedics said I'd been extremely lucky they didn't know how I managed to only get a couple of bruises when they thought I'd be toast.'
'You were very lucky. We'll see if we can find out why this necklace made you do a disappearing act.'
Ianto sat in his flat staring blankly into space. He was unshaven and he had joggers and a hoodie on. The others wouldn't have recognised him if he'd have passed them in the street. He'd phoned in sick something he'd never do unless he was unable to get out of bed from crippling illness. But he really couldn't face it. He wondered what the point was anyway. No one would miss him. Stuart had quite happily taken over any jobs he did. People didn't notice him much anyway, he was just like part of the furniture. Then there was Jack, he couldn't really blame him. It had been his choice to end things. He thought it would stop him getting hurt when Jack moved on. It didn't, seeing him with someone else cut like a knife through his heart. So edged out at work, which he put his life and soul into and the man he loved with someone else. What was the point of breathing? Would they even miss him anyway? Probably not.
Toshiko looked at her phone. She hadn't heard from Owen for a while. Usually his texts came fairly constantly. Maybe he was on a job she thought. Couldn't stop saving the city to text her. She sent him another message, which she hoped didn't sound needy. Maybe Jack had found out about them. Had he forbidden him to contact her? Or even worse had he retconned Owen?
Owen's phone went off again and he gave it a dirty look.
'You should talk to her, it might be a miss understanding,' Gwen said gently.
'You saw it. Did it look like a miss understanding to you?'
'Well no,'
'I'm not being made a fool of,' he said turning his phone off and tossing it into his bag.
There was a knock at the door. The sound in the silence made Ianto jump. Whoever it was he wasn't going to opening it. They were probably selling something anyway. They knocked again. Ianto sat on the floor behind the sofa and peered carefully around it at the silhouette at the door.
'Ianto it's Jack, are you ok?' he shouted through the letter box. 'We're worried about you,' he didn't believe him.
Ianto thought about letting him in and then the image of him and Stuart rose in his mind and he decided not too. What difference would it make letting him in. He'd just try and sweet talk him. So Ianto ignored him, even though he stayed for another ten minutes. Eventually Jack gave up.
'Did you see him?' Gwen asked.
'No he wouldn't let me in,'
'Maybe he was asleep in bed,'
'He wasn't. This really isn't like him.'
'Maybe give it another go later.'
'You're right. Anyway on Debbie's necklace?'
'Not really, the translator is still working on it, I think it's a really unusual language. I did find out something interesting though. You know Debbie said she'd had a near miss in an accident?'
'Yeah hardly a scratch on her,'
'Well I've found several other people that had near misses in various different situations.'
'Have they gone missing?'
'No they killed themselves.'
'That's strange. Maybe it's survivors guilt if other people died and they didn't.'
'I thought maybe that was it. But no this is way beyond average and it seems to have gone up in the past couple of weeks. There is definitely something strange happening.
