18

Owen was excited, slightly amazed and definitely impressed as he took a moment to stand outside in the dim light to stare at the common variety double door garage, then step inside to find the huge aircraft carrier's tarmac waiting for him.

"Question" he finally said and everyone turned to look at him. He frowned as he asked "How is the light getting through? I can see it, feel the breeze standing here."

"It's all an optical illusion" John patently tried to explain for the umpteenth time to the man "like a fat person wearing those stripes to look thinner."

"Dude, these are some fucking powerful stripes" Owen laughed.

"Right… so… it's only outside of her that is changed, like… the first layer on the onion is painted green instead of brown. Same onion inside. Nothing changes, smoke and mirrors little man" John tried as he clapped Owen's shoulder.

"Nah, not doing it for me" Owen huffed.

"OK… look at it this way. See that man over there? In the three piece suit?" Jack pointed at a rare sight of a suited and booted Ianto Jones in all his glory. Dressed to please Jack today as they were going to do some work to get the sanctuary ready for the ship to move to and he knew Jack hated that idea.

"Yeah."

"So, that looks like just a man. Just another Welsh bastard. Right?" Jack asked. Owen nodded so Jack continued "Would you guess, just looking at him that he is actually physically older than the years he has been here, has witnessed the end of the world more than once and saved her … he has fallen from a cloud and lost his wings on the way down, tumbling into my arms. He has fought a dragon only to become one. OK... I know. Stop pulling that face. OK. seriously. He has more knowledge in that brain of his than most search engines. He can fight like a demon, dance like the devil and in a pinch, I have seen him MacGyver together a bomb from stuff under a kitchen sink. Just a regular guy?"

"OK. When you put it like that… the blurb on a video game is not always accurate" Owen agreed "Some are shite and others have hidden levels."

"Oh god. All I had to do was use a game analogy?" Jack sighed "you're weird."

"Says a ma nwho just waxed lyrical about angels, demons and dragons" Owen snorted.

"I can't help it. Ianto invokes the madness in me" Jack shrugged back and both men started to laugh softly as Ianto looked over at them with a frown of annoyance. "Ooops. Might get a detention after school if we don't behave."

Cue more giggling as Ianto tuned them out, his list in his head growing as he thought of more things he wanted done before the kids were released to the enclosures.

.

.

Martha and Lawrence were there at the sanctuary as the Away Vessels sat in the car park. young Mickey getting left behind with the kids along with a very annoyed Kenneth.

"But with us gone, who else can we trust to protect the vessel and all the souls within?" John had asked with a sneer like the kids were idiots.

OK, so they accepted that. John tried not to roll his eyes as he wandered off, finding himself doing that a lot more lately.

Ianto rubs off on ya after a while.

Hard not to love him.

.

.

Owen was still amused by Lawrence's amazement as he stood watching Ianto work, the back hoe now aside for the bulldozer to work and Ianto calmly took the machine through the gates to the different enclosures with remains of animals in them like a pro. Some were just skeletons and skin, other were a mess as clearly smaller animals had feasted. Although it was just a bone yard in most cases, Owen was determined to clean it all up. Fair enough, kids need not know the suffering that took place here when those concerned were long pat caring either way what humans thought about it.

It was late afternoon and they were all dirty, tired and saddened by their work. Everyone gathered in the souvenir shop to talk over their final jobs.

"Since someone came here to care for the animals as long as they could, someone that did open gates to release a lot of them we can assume this is why the café's cold storage room was mostly cleaned out." Jack was explaining to everyone "What was left long since spoiled and we just need to move that out to the dumping hole and then we can cover it all over and be done."

"There is still some food though, which is nice" someone called out and then another voice chimed in.

"And there are the sheep to feed, and the deer. I see they are doing well with their huge enclosures." Andy said calmly making everyone slowly turn to look at him.

"Come again?" Ianto asked.

"Behind the viewing platform thing, with the sheds underneath. There is a huge enclosure that is for what I can only assume is the meat they fed the big cats. Sheep, deer and some cows. A running creek for water… pretty self sufficient. I think they probably need worming or whatever farmers do but… there's about twenty sheep, a little herd of ten or so deer and five cows. Lots of grass though" Andy hooked a thumb in that direction "I've walked the place and it looks like the rabbet enclosure was broken into by something so they are not there anymore but that's it. I think those sheds under the visitor's viewing platform had winter feed for the livestock and a door left open so… the remains of packets and stuff in there, a couple of silage bales towards the back that reek. We need to pull those out to get rid of. Then once we can make hay we can replenish."

"Andy…. You blinder." Ianto said with delight, glad all three Away Vessels had been used to ensure many hands.

Trust Andy to wander into a boon.