MacGyvering
It was raining. A light drizzle that frizzed her hair and Gwen grabbed Rhys' arm to get further under the cover of his umbrella.
"Can't you two wait until you get home?" said Jack, sauntering along beside the couple, hands in the pockets of his greatcoat and oblivious of the rain. Beside him, Ianto was hunched into his mac, head down with water dripping off his hair and down his collar.
Gwen refused to rise to the bait and squeezed her husband's arm when she felt him about to reply. It had been a rare evening off for the four of them and she was not going to spoil it now. Two paces later she felt an oncoming rush of air, smelt manure and looked up in time to see the horse.
"Rhys!" She pulled him backwards and they ended up on the ground. Ignoring her wet backside, she looked down the road but the horse and carriage were gone. "Where'd it go?"
"What're you doing, love? Did you trip?" Rhys helped her up before wiping at his wet jeans.
"There was a horse and … a carriage-thing."
"Hansom cab, late nineteenth century," murmured Jack, concentrating on his vortex manipulator. "Uh-oh."
"What is it, Jack?" Ianto was looking up and down the street for any other apparitions.
"Temporal incursion. Get the scanner."
Ianto caught the SUV keys and jogged to where it was parked, ten metres up the road. He'd unlocked the rear door when the car vanished and the night suddenly got darker. Twirling round he couldn't see Jack or the others. He couldn't see anything he recognised. The road had changed, cobbles reflected in the light of the few streetlamps, and the buildings were grimy and austere, like stern faces frowning at him. A horse and rider appeared and went past him, one or two people walked past on the other side of the road. Ianto stared at them.
"Jack, Ianto just disappeared," said Gwen, walking towards the SUV.
"Get back!" She was grabbed round the waist and returned to Rhys' side before Jack released her. "It could move at any time but we seem to be safe here." He went back to his vortex manipulator then looked around. "Looks like it starts at the back of the SUV but I can't tell how stable it is."
"Then let's find out." She reached for Rhys' umbrella, an old-fashioned one with a spike on the end. With this furled and held out in front of her she edged forward, rewarded when the air around the tip shimmered just where Ianto had been. "Got an edge." She carried on and soon had mapped out a circle of approximately twenty metres diameter around them. "It's not very big. Why's this happening, Jack?"
"Don't know. A weakness in the space-time continuum maybe."
"Are you saying that it's a different time over there?" asked Rhys. "It looks the same." He couldn't see any changes – the vehicles and shops were as always – but there had been a funny light when Gwen had gone round with the umbrella.
"Sometimes time gets mixed up. Like a piece of string that gets a knot in it," explained Jack. He had found a set of small screwdrivers and probes which Rhys was holding while Jack used one and then another to make adjustments to his vortex manipulator. "We're in a kink which, currently, is our time. Move out of here and you pass through into the other time. And it's a one-way door. Gwen, catch. Mark it out on the ground." He nodded in the direction of the circle.
She caught the can of spray paint. "You were carrying this?"
"Always prepared, that's me."
Shaking her head, she marked out the limit of the incursion. She was almost done when she felt another rush of air and flung herself backwards into the safe zone as two ghostly shapes of men walked past just on the other side and disappeared. Catching her breath, she finished marking out the circle and returned to Jack and Rhys. Jack was working on his comms earpiece, poking at the delicate innards with a thin probe.
"What are you trying to do?" she asked.
"Contacting Ianto."
"But he's on the other side of … that!" exclaimed Rhys. "He's in another time."
"And your point is?" Jack raised an eyebrow, replacing the probe in the case Rhys still held. Without waiting for an answer, Jack activated the comms. "Ianto, can you hear me?"
"Jack?" There was no mistaking the mingled stress and relief in Ianto's voice. "Where are you?"
"2008. When are you and what's your situation?"
"Not sure and grim."
"Come on, Ianto, don't give up on us yet. Think I'm going to leave you there?"
"No, 'cos not." He sighed, not at all sure really, and pulled himself together. "I'm in a street, cobbles on the ground. Rain. People."
"What are the people wearing?"
"Clothes."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Not a nudist colony then. I'd be jealous if it was."
Ianto chuckled; Jack was still his normal self and that was always reassuring. "Old fashioned clothes. The women are in long dresses and bonnets, the men in big coats with top hats."
"Oh I loved those. Had a silk topper, wore it to opening night at the New Theatre back in '06."
"Not the time, Jack," cut in Gwen. "We have to get Ianto back and close this … thing."
"Right. Stay put, Ianto, we'll come up with something."
"You'd better. I don't want to be here forever." He was very afraid that he might be stuck in this time and somehow have to make a life here, on his own.
"Hey, I always have a plan. You ever known me not to have a plan?" He sounded disgusted at the lack of faith. "Gotta concentrate now so no more talking."
With the comms link closed, Gwen looked at Jack expectantly. "So, what's the plan?"
"Search me."
"But you just told Ianto you had one!" protested Rhys still trying to get his head around different times meeting, disappearing into them and yet being able to talk across them.
"No point in upsetting him." Jack turned and surveyed the street, the circle on the ground which marked the limit of their movement and patted down his pockets. "Okay," he said after a minute or two, "not much to work with but I've had less. Gwen, I'll need your comms and mobile." She handed them over without a word. "You two get the cover off this street light." He handed her a chisel and large, heavy screwdriver.
"And you complain about what women carry in their handbags."
"But this is useful," he retorted with a grin.
Gwen went to the nearby street lamp, the only one inside the circle, shadowed by Rhys. They struggled but eventually managed to pry off the cover and reveal the lamp's control panel. Jack gestured them to one side and knelt in front of it, the eviscerated mobile phone in his hand, and started pulling wires from the lamp and attaching them to the phone.
"This is just like MacGyver, remember him, Gwen?" said Rhys looking on in admiration as Jack busied himself.
"Huh!" Gwen was not going to let on that she was impressed too. "You'd better not have lost all my numbers," Gwen complained when she saw the state of her mobile. "Took me ages to load them all."
"Don't worry, took out the SIM card." He stopped what he was doing and dug in a pocket before handing it over. "We're in luck, this controls all the lights on this side of the street."
"That's good how?"
"It'll make a bigger dampening field."
"Oh." Gwen had no idea what he was talking about, had never understood the technical side of Torchwood. "Can't you close this incursion with one of those keys like you gave Tommy?"
"Could do. If you happen to have one on you." He looked up at her enquiringly then went back to work. "Thought not."
"You're the one with the bottomless pockets."
"All out of portable Rift manipulators today." He activated his comms. "Ianto, you still there?"
"Yeah, I'm here." He had retreated to a flight of steps leading down to a basement of a large house and was huddled in a dark corner trying to avoid the passers-by. His clothes marked him out as different and he'd already got a few strange looks. "How's your plan coming along?"
"Getting there. Have you got street lighting there?"
"Uh huh."
"I need to know how many there are on the same side of the street looking left from where you entered."
"Hang on." Ianto stood up and peered down the street. He had moved a hundred metres or so to his hiding place, a spot etched in his memory. "Five."
"Good. Now listen carefully, Ianto. In a few minutes, I need you standing exactly where you were when time changed round you. Face the way you were facing then, towards the SUV. When the streetlights flicker, take one pace backwards. Don't turn round, walk backwards. Got that?"
"Yeah."
Jack lowered his voice and turned away so the others couldn't hear him. "Ianto, this is going to work but, just in case, I'm living at 56 Jubilee Terrace in Tiger Bay. You understand?"
"I understand." If the worse happened he would not be alone because Jack was already in this time. He would look after him – once Ianto had persuaded him of the truth of what had happened.
"Good." Jack turned back to Gwen. "Take this," he handed her her adapted comms, "and stand over there." He pointed to the other side of the circle. "When I give the word, activate it. Rhys, you hold this," he passed over the cannibalised mobile still attached to the streetlight, "and press this button when I say. You both have to act together to get time straight again."
"What are you going to do?"
"Get Ianto."
Gwen moved into position and Jack stood just inside the circle marked on the ground a metre or so from the back of the SUV. He could feel the temporal eddies flowing in front of his face. "Ianto, get into position."
"I'm ready." Ianto took a shuddering breath and stood as near as he could to where he had been. He waited, tense and nervous and when, a moment or two later, the lights flickered he stepped backwards and shrieked as hands grabbed his shoulders yanking him almost off his feet.
"It's only me," came Jack's familiar voice in his ear, wrapping warm arms round the Welshman. "You're back in the twenty first century."
Ianto sagged into the familiar hold, relief washing over him. "Thank you, Jack."
"Oh, Ianto, it's good to see you!"
Jack released Ianto into Gwen's hug and went to where Rhys was still holding the mobile. He quickly scanned the area then grinned. "I'll take that, Rhys. Good work."
"Is it back to normal?" Rhys was looking round him suspiciously. Nothing appeared to have changed but Ianto was back.
"Yeah, all thanks to you." Jack pulled the mobile free of the connection to the streetlight and stuffed it into a pocket
"Really? I did it?" He sounded so proud Jack laughed out loud which drew the others to their side.
Five minutes later, having assured herself Ianto was all right, Gwen took Rhys' hand and they walked off towards their car only hesitating slightly as they walked outside the circle marked on the ground. Ianto looked around him, particularly up at the upper storeys of the buildings that lined the street.
"It was the same place. The houses … were these houses. But it looked so very different."
"Come on, let's get back to the Hub." Jack held out his hand and Ianto took it, holding on tightly. He did not intend to let go for a long time.
