Hi hope the Holidays treated you all well! chapter three is here . I am officially asking for some kind soul to brit-pick for me. I have done as well as I can with an English slang dictionary but It still doesn't sound right. I will thank you and make much of you in my notes and be forever grateful(insert puppy dog eyes here). As always thanks for the kind reviews you guys are fabulous:)
Ianto was quivering all right. Jack watched with fascination, he had never seen anyone actually vibrating with disgust before.
Ianto surveyed the tourist office for a long 5 minutes, and then turned to look at Jack.
"YOU expect me to work in this ARMPIT?" he growled. The Welsh accent Jack was so fond of was not sounding so musical now.
Jack looked around, "It's a bit dusty I guess."
Ianto stared at Jack long enough for Jack to notice how very blue his eyes got when he was mad.
Iantos left hand reached out and gingerly picked up a brochure from the desk, using his fore-finger and thumb.
Dust fell off the paper, gently floating to the floor. The look on Iantos face was priceless, but Jack didn't dare smile right then.
"You are joking," Ianto snarled, "And if you think I am going to clean this up you are mad! Get a haz-mat team in here to clear it all out. I will order new brochures. By the time they arrive, YOU will have this cleared and refurnished. If you want me to work up here, it WILL look like a real office, not a RUBBISH BIN!" Ianto vanished down to the Archives.
Jack stared at the brochure on the floor and ran his fingers through his hair.
"Wow."
It took Jack a week to clean out the office.
Owen and Tosh became oddly hard to find and Susie was suddenly very busy, so Jack ended up removing the alien bric-à-brac that had accumilated in there himself. It took him two days and he almost clogged the shower in his room after each day. The dust in that office was truly amazing. On day three, Jack decided that enough was enough and threw money at the problem. He ordered the old furniture thrown out, then had the place fumigated, steam cleaned and painted.
The next time Ianto walked into the room he looked around and actually smiled.
"I can work with this," he said.
Mermaid Quay tourist office was quickly refurnished, spotless and opened for business within the week for three hours a day, Thursday through Sunday. For the first week a member of the team was always hanging around in the office. The second week Ianto told them to go do something useful, elsewhere.
The first few days, opening the shades and unlocking the door was enough to cause him to stress himself into a 'fit of the ghosties' as Owen called it.
Rather predictably this made Ianto angry and anger turned to determination.
Ianto started pushing his boundaries the first day,and kept pushing.
Then one glorious spring day Jack invited him outside. Ianto turned his face to the sun and stood in the door for a half hour before he couldn't stand it any longer and moved back inside, but after that every day he managed to stay outside a bit longer.
One quiet Sunday morning Ianto walked to the little coffee shop across the street, picked up breakfast for the crew, and brought it back to the hub. He was shaking and fading around the edges by the time he got back, but he had done it. Jack, surprised and pleased, folded Ianto into a full on Jack style bear hug. Ianto stiffened and vanished, only to appear a few seconds later and return the hug with interest. Tosh and Owen watched with approval as a very happy Jack and a slightly transparent Ianto shared their first kiss.
"Two invasions" Jack said "In a week, with a side of hoix in the chip shop and weevils for desert."
He slumped in his chair, nursing a glass of water and rubbing his eyes.
Susie offered him a chocolate biscuit. "the rift seems to have quieted down for now, Jack."
Jack turned to Tosh. "What have you found out about the cube?"
Tosh put her tea-cup down "not much at all Jack.
"Give us what you've got" Jack said
"okay," Tosh said. "So far the likeliest explanation i have is, it's a time locked, dimensional construct, set to trap one entity. According to what Ianto told us he triggered it with an unshielded touch, and once he was caught it didn't allow any other objects inside."
Jack nodded.
"The scientists studying the..." Tosh grimaced, "'paperweight' conducted every kind of scan they had. They found that the only thing it emits is a pretty golden light and Ianto."
"It doesn't make any sodding sense!" Owen snarled. "It's too posh for just randomly grabbing some bloke and keeping him prisoner!"
"Ianto tells us it is somewhat responsive to thought. It has something like an operating system, even if Ianto hasn't seen it. The cube heals him, teleports him away from danger and keeps him within a half kilometer radius of the cube." Tosh said thoughtfully.
Jack nodded. He was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. He didn't want to think about the enormous amounts of time and labor needed to build a small private universe with a stable 'door'. Just the energy needed to set that up: and Ianto was trapped in there … Jacks head was really starting to hurt.
Owen tossed him a packet of pain pills.
"The only thing I can think of that would cause anyone to go to those kinds of lengths is desperation bordering on the insane," Tosh said.
"Or they could have been just bat shit crazy." Owen snarked.
Jack rested his aching head on his hands. "So the working theory is, it's an impossibly expensive, incredibly elaborate trap slash prison cell?"
Tosh nodded.
"Next question is what or who was it supposed to trap?" Owen said, "Not the tea boy that's for sure."
"Well it could be," Tosh said thoughtfully
'What?" Jack sat up in his chair.
Tosh blushed, "Jack we just don't know exactly what its supposed to contain. I can theorize that it was for something big, powerful and dangerous. I can guess that it's an escape pod or a fancy tent, but every test I run is inconclusive. Its frustrating!"
"Yeah you're right," Jack said tiredly. "We really don't know."
Tosh looked sympathetically at Jack then "But you know what?"
"What?"
"I won't quit until I find out."