Jack watched as Ianto followed Owen out the hub door, alien backpack floating behind. He stared as the Abap (short for alien backpack, Suzie's idea and it stuck) changed from a deep-sea green to a blue and darker blue... Pinstripe? Jack caught the slight hint of a smirk as Ianto glanced across the hub at him and was gone.

Iantos first assignment out of the hub was the quarterly 'space junket' as Owen called it .

"It just happened" Owen said " Torchwood three's been buying up alien artifacts for more than a century."

Jack added, "Some enterprising shopkeeper noticed that there was a market for the odd in Cardiff, and space junk started appearing in second-hand shops."

"I have the list" Owen said . "All we do is go in, scan it , buy it, bag and tag and move on."Ianto nodded, it sounded like a good arrangement, a win for both parties

Owen and Ianto made the rounds, first stop, A Stitch in Time to pick up a working combination alarm clock and sonic insect repellent (circa 3050)from one of the Texas outlier colonies, mostly harmless except the repellent tended to throw people across the room.

Billis never dealt with the Torchwood pick-ups, he had his clerk do that, he had no need to interact with the fools just yet.

Ianto felt like someone was staring at him, but couldn't see anyone.

Bills stared at Ianto and the expression on his face would have registered surprise if he had been able to show a human emotion. "No need to interact at all no indeed not yet" he whispered quietly. Most unsettling, what WAS that?

Owen watched Ianto twitch and briskly moved the process along, the shop made him jumpy too.

"Place is bloody creepy" he said to Ianto, "think it's the clocks all ticking away."

"Its like something was watching us." Ianto said, glancing warily back at the shop.

"Yeah well the old geezer that owns the place has two-way mirrors installed. He watches everybody, only comes out if the clerk can't handle a transaction."

"I see." Ianto said, mentally adding Billis to his list of people to look into.

Owen checked the list and said "next stop is a place called Out of Time Liquidators; bloke said he had a glob of goo hiding in his sub-basement, Jack wanted us to have a look."

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meanwhile, back at the hub

Tosh was floating on a cloud of exotic baryons. Quarks and gluons swirled gently past and through her, humming a song that she could not hear but could feel. She watched drowsily as the tiny particles that made up all matter on earth danced around her fingers, swirling sensuality in the air, golden with swirls of color, like the rainbow on a soap-bubble….. she woke up with her head pillowed on her arms, seated at her workstation.

Susie and Jack were standing near her, Susie carrying a blanket and pillow, Jack gently shaking her to wake her up.

"Tosh" Jack said "come on, you need some horizontal down time." Tosh still half asleep, allowed her two colleagues to settle her on the couch.

"mmm okay" she muttered as she fell back asleep.

The two looked at her, then at each other.

"She's been awake for almost 48 hours." Susie said "not making too much sense now."

"Whoa." Jack said "she's on to something, last time I saw her do this…" Susie winced. "She pulled us all back from hell."

"Damn near killed her self-doing it," Jack said. "Not going to happen again."

"What was she looking at?' Susie asked.

Jack moved to look at the monitor. "Pictures of the damned cube, every one we have."

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The Two Torchwood operatives, during the 'space junket'

Ianto was NOT laughing. The smarmy git was elaborately, annoyingly not laughing.

The glob of goo had a friend.

Owen had been scanning the gold metallic blob and had –gotten careless-

Ianto had not. Owen ducked and rolled as a shout of "look out!" was followed by a ' buzzzap!' sound as Ianto stun gunned the second blob that fell from the rafters straight for Owens back.

Owen had dropped and rolled but not in time to avoid the slimy goop that fell on his head. A quick scan had confirmed the nasty stuff was harmless, but well, damn it.

Owen stared at his new blue hands and arms. a look in the full length bathroom mirror had confirmed the same bright color, everywhere. He looked like a fucking blueberry.

"Fucking Torchwood' he snarled. The words just didn't seem to express how utterly the world had fucked him over this time. Jack was going to laugh his arse off. They bagged the surviving blob and the remains, and then moved on to the next store.

Jack was distracted by something on Tosh's monitor and had left it to a "that's a good color for you." Tosh was asleep. Owen thankfully headed for the showers.

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Jack was holding a small glittering pendant in his hand.

"What is it?' Ianto asked suspiciously.

We acquired this little beauty a few years ago." Jack said "it concentrates memories, really helps with remembering details."

Ianto rolled his eyes at Jack "this penchant you have for shiny gadgets.." he started. Jack stopped him with a gesture.

"I tried it out myself." he said "it works, just as advertised, gave me a bit of a headache is all, wore off after a few … '

Iantos hand flew up and Jack stopped talking.

Ianto said "You are rambling, what happened?"

"Nothing bad, but the memory was very real, like I was living it, and exact to the last detail, taste, touch, smell, sound "(Jack was momentarily lost in an excellent memory oooh yess and drifted off for a second until Ianto cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the gadget) ..."Everything, and it records everything so you can replay it frame by frame."

Really it was like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland except the eyes seemed to get bluer as the rest of Ianto faded.

"What memory, exactly do you want me to relive, Jack?' Cheshire!Ianto whispered.