Yet another huge thank you to my reviewers: WickedWitchoftheSE, milady dragon, Ravenja70, L.A.H.H., tempestuous-rayne, Jooles 34, jimmy-barnes-13, Lilith Skywalker, (x2), xxkiirousagixx, cjh4ever, Dowisetrepla, XbrokenXstarsX, gernumblies and Homicide-Inside.
This chapter is possibly even crazier than the last one. You have been warned.
Chapter 5
Judging on how angry Gwen still was the next morning Ianto privately thought that it had been a very good thing that they had all left before she reappeared, otherwise the game might have lived up to its name.
The atmosphere it the Hub could have been cut with a blunt spoon. Gwen was furiously refusing to speak to or even make eye-contact with any of them, Jack and Ianto were watching each other like hawks, and now that yesterday's fun was over Owen had remembered exactly how much he hated Ianto at the moment. Oh, and Myfanwy had taken such a great liking to Ianto's nest-makeover that Tosh's jacket and several of Jack's shirts, now torn beyond repair, were once again lining her bed. Tosh and Jack were understandably not happy about this.
All in all, Ianto thought, it had not been a particularly successful team-building game.
"Ok." Owen murmured as he leaned over Tosh's shoulder. They were practically the only two still on speaking terms. "Who do you think will win? Jack or Ianto? I'm betting on Jack."
Tosh thought for a moment. "Ianto."
"Jack's better at the game."
"I think Ianto's a match for him though. After all, he did beat you."
Owen scowled. "All the same, I bet you a tenner Jack gets him first."
"Deal."
Jack, who found his own handwriting perfectly legible, had already thought up several plans for getting Ianto to accept a calculator off him. All he really had to do was distract the younger man momentarily, and Jack was an expert at that. But for that he'd really have to wait until the others had gone home, which meant that he'd have to spend all day avoiding Ianto. Unless of course they spent the day outside the Hub…
The Rift alert went off on cue, for once displaying a marvellous grasp of timing.
The team perked up at once. It had been days since they'd last had to do anything but paperwork, and sniping at your workmates wasn't nearly so exciting as alien-catching.
"I've got reports coming in from Tesco's of a swarm of some sort of lizardy things." Tosh read out off the screens. "And they've just had a major rift surge in the area."
"Lizardy things." Owen repeated sardonically. "Really, Tosh."
"That's what it says in the message."
"But at Tesco's?"
"Tesco's on a Saturday morning?" Jack shook his head. "Not good."
"We'd better be going then." Ianto suggested. "We don't want to arrive too late or we'll never be able to buy coffee there again."
Five minutes later and the SUV was on the road.
"Ianto, give me directions when we get nearer. Owen, get some sedatives ready. Reptile sedatives. Tosh, check the CCTV footage to see if you can work out what those things are. And Gwen, ring the police to tell them we've got it under control, even though we haven't yet." Jack paused in his instructions to swerve round a corner. "And when we get there I need all of you to communicate properly with each other, no matter what the other person might have done to you in the past few days."
There were various 'humph' noises from the other passengers at these words, mostly from Gwen and Owen. Tosh cut through them;
"They're purple and orange and about three feet long."
"Shouldn't be too hard to spot then." Ianto remarked dryly.
Jack just swore under his breath and pressed down on the accelerator.
"I'm guessing that's not good news." Tosh said brightly.
"They're mildly poisonous and they explode when they get angry. Or if they eat too much. Or if they just can't think of anything better to do."
"Brilliant."
"Why does nothing nice ever come through the Rift?" Owen whined as the SUV continued to hurtle down the road. "Nothing ever comes through and says 'Nice city. Sorry about that scene at the airport. Here, we brought you some chocolates to make up for causing such a fuss.'"
There was a long silence from the rest of the team until Owen was forced to answer his own question:
"Bloody Torchwood."
Ianto had never seen Tesco's so empty on a Saturday morning. He'd never seen it infested with giant multi-coloured lizards either. Just as he was deciding that the hordes of Saturday-morning shoppers weren't so bad after all a deafening bang resounded around the building and everyone jumped.
"What was that?" Gwen gasped.
"The bakery section." Ianto replied miserably, and then, as the sound of another explosion quickly followed; "And that's the tinned food aisle."
Jack simultaneously registered three things. One, there were obviously far more aliens than they realised if things were blowing up that quickly, two, Gwen was speaking again, and three, Ianto was doing the shopping far too often if he knew the layout of the supermarket this well. Not that the last was a problem – the lizards seemed to be rearranging the shelves for him.
"Ok Team, we're going to-"
"Split up?" Tosh suggested.
"- split up and make our way to the back of the store. Tosh and Ianto with me, Gwen with Owen. Keep your comms open and try and tranquilise them if you can. But whatever you do don't scare them."
"Let me guess," said Owen sardonically as he twirled a syringe in his hand. "They explode."
Jack nodded and Owen sighed.
"Don't feed them, don't scare them, don't irritate them, don't bore them… what are we supposed to do with them?" Owen moaned as the pair made their way cautiously up one of the aisles.
"Shoot them?" Gwen suggested tersely. She was tired and annoyed and her arm ached like hell every time she tried to move it.
"Good suggestion, but I think that might come under the category of 'don't
annoy them'"
"Just shut up." The shelves around them shook with the force of another blast.
Owen grinned as he skirted round a pile of condensed milk tins scattered on the floor. "Don't scare her, don't annoy her, don't talk to her or Gwen Cooper will explode." He dodged away from the expected blow, but instead Gwen grabbed him fiercely.
"Don't move you idiot!"
Something that looked suspiciously like a large purple-spotted lizard was moving past the end of the aisle just ten metres away, its back turned to them. Owen crouched down, the sedative ready in his hand, and started to inch his way towards it when suddenly he knocked a tin with his elbow. The creature turned towards them looking surprised.
"Run!" shouted Owen, abandoning his original plan as the lizard started to make its way towards them, surprisingly fast. As he grabbed Gwen's arm and sprinted back down the aisle he shot at it over his shoulder.
BANG!
"Owen? Gwen?" Jack tapped into his comms as the largest explosion yet rocked the building.
"We're ok." Gwen's voice came shakily over the comms.
"What happened?"
"One saw us so Owen shot at it and it exploded. I think it was next to the flour."
Jack swore under his breath, looking up and down the alcohol aisle they were in. He hadn't considered that problem.
"Half this stuff is flammable." said Ianto in a horrified whisper, having just had exactly the same thought. "The drinks, the flour…"
"Cooking oil." Tosh added. "And cleaning supplies."
Ianto closed his eyes and tried to imagine a drunk rampaging alien lizard, or one on a sugar high, or one that had just eaten its way through a ton of dangerous chemicals. It wasn't a pretty thought.
"I don't suppose we could poison them somehow?" he suggested tentatively. "Or would that make them explode too?"
"We could put sedatives in the food!" Tosh exclaimed excitedly.
"That's an excellent idea, Miss Sato." Jack replied sarcastically. "And of course you know exactly what their favourite meal is, so we won't have to add drugs to every bit of food in the shop?"
"Jack?" It was Gwen again. "We've found where they're all gathering - there's a whole horde of them in the sweets section. What should we do?"
"Well, first off don't shoot them." Jack heard Owen's snort over the comms. "And then just wait for us. Toshiko's got a plan."
Tosh blushed slightly and ducked her head to hide her grin. "So it's a plan now, is it?"
Ianto interrupted before Jack could respond. "So the plan is to walk right up to them, drug the food in front of them, walk away again and wait for them to fall over?"
Jack sighed and switched on the comms again.
"Did anyone bring any chocolate?"
No-one had, or at least if they did they weren't admitting it, so Ianto was forced to improvise with a chocolate cake.
"What a waste." Jack said mournfully as he watched the delicious-looking piece of confectionary being laced with sedative.
"You can test it for us if you like sir."
Jack declined the offer.
"Hurry up, Harkness. These beasties won't be staying here forever you know."
"Calm down Owen, we're on our way."
At the other end of the store Owen and Gwen were watching as the 'bloody-ugly lizard things', as Owen called them, ate their way through an unhealthy amount of sweets. Every so often one exploded. Occasionally the explosion of one would start a chain reaction and cause its neighbour to join in, but otherwise they seemed completely oblivious to the fact that their companions kept disappearing with a bang.
"It better be a bloody good plan." Remarked Owen distastefully as yet another of the lizards splattered itself across the floor, this time rather too close for comfort.
It was a good plan, or at least Jack thought so. Certainly, in his opinion, it got ten out of ten for style and eleven out of ten for craziness. And he'd never realised just how fun pushing trolleys around could be.
Tosh and Ianto went running panting after Jack as he raced across the store pushing a shopping trolley piled high with cakes, careening round corners and slaloming round abandoned bags and trolleys. This, Ianto reminded himself, was why he normally did the shopping.
Ahead of Ianto Jack braked the trolley sharply and turned up an aisle. Ianto arrived just in time to see him push the trolley full force towards the group of feeding lizards. It toppled onto its side just as it reached them, spilling cake everywhere, but its momentum continued to carry it across the floor, smashing into the row of shelves behind.
Behind the boxes they were spying between Owen and Gwen had just enough time to realise exactly what the others' 'brilliant plan' was before the whole section of shelving came toppling down on top of them.
Jack grinned happily as he watched the last lizard drop comatose to the floor - it seemed cake was preferable even to chocolate.
"That worked better than I expected." Tosh commented as she checked on one of the aliens. "What do we do with them now?"
"I'll think of something." Jack knew he'd come up with something. He always did. And hadn't he just saved Tesco's with a trolley-load of cakes?
Ianto sighed slightly, knowing that in all likelihood the problem would get passed down to him.
"Where are the others?" Tosh asked. They looked around for a few seconds before Ianto supplied the answer.
"I think they're under the shelves."
Jack conceded that his young archivist was once again right as they pulled fruit boxes off the swearing Owen. None of them could help but laugh as he emerged covered in squished strawberries.
"Yeah, funny isn't it? What about all the 'are you ok?' shit?"
"Are you ok?" Tosh asked dutifully though her giggles.
"Yes." Admitted Owen reluctantly, not mentioning his pride.
"He has to be with swearing like that." Jack commented as he pulled Gwen out from under the remains of the shelving.
"You are such a bloody fool! What kind of crazy idea…"
"Gwen's fine too then." Said Ianto evenly. She ignored him as she lifted her hand to brush the dust out of her hair, before wincing in pain and quickly swapping hands.
"Gwen? Are you ok?" Jack hurried over looking worried. Injuring a team member hadn't been part of the plan.
Gwen looked up at him, eyes blazing. "My arm," she said shortly, "kills."
Owen started to step forward, but Gwen interrupted. "Do you know why my arm kills?" Jack didn't dare answer so she continued. "It kills because yesterday someone forced me to keep it in exactly the same position for nearly seven hours. And now I can't even move it."
Jack had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.
Several hours later Jack finally re-entered the Hub. He had told his Team to all go home and take the rest of the day off, saying that he would tidy up. He'd regretted it later of course, when he realised just how much destruction the lizards and Torchwood had managed to cause between them. So he was unquestioningly grateful when Ianto appeared before he'd even stepped off the lift, offering him a mug of hot, steaming, mouth-wateringly-scented coffee.
"I thought I told you to go home."
"I did, but then I came back. I thought you might be wanting this."
Jack took the coffee in his hands and inhaled deeply. "Ianto Jones, you are a mind-reader." He flashed the Welshman a quick grin before lifting the coffee to his lips and taking a large gulp. His expression changed instantly.
"Eeurggh! What's in this?"
"Sun-cream, sir." replied Ianto, his face perfectly expressionless.
Finis
I know I let Ianto win, but he was always going to. Your opinions had no impact at all.
Note on Gwen's arm: I wrote this just after my cervical cancer jab. Enough said.
Note on Tesco's: I know that this is a slightly unrealistic view and that anyone could find a dozen holes in the plot, but please allow me some poetic license. Also, I haven't been to Cardiff recently and I'm only assuming that they do have a Tesco's. Of course I've probably got the layout completely wrong but again I appeal to poetic license and the fact that this is in a different universe. Last but not least I don't have enough free cash or time to pop down to Cardiff merely to research the supermarkets, although I was tempted to test the trolley stunt at my local one.