Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay. Still trying to get my life together.
Thanks for the reviews! I'm shameless when it comes to praise. I love every word, even the prepositions. Hope you keep enjoying the story!
Owen dropped into an empty chair across from Jack. Ianto set mugs of coffee in front of Owen, Gwen and Jack before settling down in his own chair. Gwen gave a grin to Ianto before sipping appreciatively from her cup.
"So?" Jack looked inquiringly at Owen, waiting for his diagnosis.
"So, I've run every test I could think of. I even made up a few new scans, but all I've gotten so far is that Dani has an addiction to shrimp chips."
"What?" Jack shook his head.
"Just from the levels of Selenium, and Choline in her system, I'd say she has at least a bag a day of Shrimp Chips."
"What are shrimp chips?" Gwen glanced from Jack to Owen, waiting for an explanation
"Exactly what they sound like. It's shrimp cut up and dried as snack food. Don't ask me where the Cat found them in Cardiff, I have no idea." Owen smirked at Jack's incredulous face.
"I don't think she likes the name Cat, Owen. Maybe you should give her a break." Gwen remarked.
"Yeah, like I stopped as soon as I found out that Ianto didn't like the name Teaboy." Owen snapped. Ianto rolled his eyes, and took a sip of his coffee.
"So, is there anything in these—shrimp chips?—that could neutralize the retcon." Jack brought the conversation back to the topic
"Jack we live by the ocean. Shrimp is pretty common here." Owen stared at his boss derisively.
"So, why has she managed to throw off the retcon three times!" Jack growled.
Gwen responded. "I think it's a combination of things: she's very observant and persistent, we haven't been as careful in our cover ups as we should be, and we've had some atrocious luck." She turned a persuasive look to her team mates. "Think about it, that's how I overcame the retcon."
"Three times?! She's managed to regain her memories three times. There's no way!" Jack scanned the faces of his team, looking for the practical joke.
"Except each time she's run across a specific, vivid image that's triggered her memory." Gwen commented. "Mafanwy, the Pyrofile, and…what did she see the last time?" Owen turned to Ianto.
Ianto shrugged mimicking casual, "I don't think she mentioned it, but she'd seen me in the tourist office. Maybe that was enough." There was no way he was going to mention the extra meetings, or the objects he'd used to trigger her memory. The others seemed to accept his excuse, although Jack was giving him a strange look.
"Where is the tourist anyway?" Jack looked at his team.
"Oh, I've got her disinfecting the autopsy bay. Tosh is keeping an eye on her while she's working. Turn on the monitors, if your really worried about her." Owen leaned back casually, smiling.
Jack got up to flip on the internal cameras. The young woman was swabbing the floor with an ancient mop.
"Why isn't she using the radio-disinfection ray?" Ianto asked curiously, "It works better than whatever she's got in that bucket."
"I didn't want her to finish the job while we were talking, so I didn't tell her about it." Owen smirked. Jack watched the image of the girl manhandling the mop into a bucket of foamy water. "Well, at least she's making herself useful." Jack straightened up and turned back to the team.
"Alright, Owen I want to keep working on the tourist problem." Owen look said plainly that he thought it was a waste of time. "I know you think it's just luck, but I can't accept that the girl has that much good luck."
"How about WE have that much bad luck." Owen muttered under his breath. He pushed himself up out of his chair, and left the room. Jack growled and marched off to his office and the rest of the team left the conference room, and headed back to their projects.
Dani poured the disinfectant onto the metal table and wiped it down. Owen leaned against the counter and pretended to catalogue the supplies that he'd catalogued the day before.
"So, you're not going to tell me what happened last night?" Owen tried to sound casual with curiosity eating him alive.
"Ask Jack." Dani smiled maliciously. "I'm sure he won't mind telling you."
"Thanks, I like my head." Owen paused for a second, "you know, you keep encouraging me to do things that will get me killed. Very odd behaviour for someone who claims to like me."
"Sorry, it's the devil in me, but of course you're too smart to listen. Besides, you think I don't know how much trouble I'd be in if I talked?"
"Oh, come on. What could you possibly have seen? Or heard? Was it something you heard? Was it juicy?"
Suddenly Dani smiled. "Only that Jack is extremely protective…and likes to be tied up."
"Oh! Oh god! You couldn't keep that to yourself!" Owen shuddered. "I do not need to hear about the amorous adventures of my boss, and the tea-boy." He headed for the stairs.
"But they were so cute together! It's like no one else is even in the room!" Dani raised her voice to follow Owen up the stairs. "And Ianto's got amazing breath control!!"
Owen nearly covered his ears as he fled the room. "I'm going for a long lunch. I need to find something to scrap these images out of my head!" Dani simply smiled and went back to her cleaning.
"What did you tell Owen?" Ianto was leaning against the wall, watching Dani.
"What?" Dani smiled. She had moved on to the counters.
"What did you tell Owen that chased him out of the autopsy bay?" Ianto moved into the room. "Did you tell him about this morning?" a note of warning crept into his voice.
Dani's smile turned into a grin. "I simply told him about yours and Jack's intimate relationship."
"You don't know anything about our intimate relationship." Ianto looked suspicious."
"I told Owen all about your breath control, and focus, oh and that Jack likes to be tied up." Dani tilted her head as she gave Ianto a bright eyed stare, "was I wrong?"
Ianto laughed. "It's probably the only thing you could say that would get him off your back." He smiled, "Thank you for not letting anything slip. I'm not sure Jack would forgive you if the team found out you'd caught him sleeping and sewn him to the carpet"
"It's not anything that Owen needs to know about. I shouldn't have done it in the first place." Dani looked a little chagrined. "I wouldn't have been surprised if Jack had tried to beat me to death with his own hands."
"I did see his hand edging toward his gun. Don't worry, he'll get over it, eventually,"
"What was the whole sleeping on the floor thing about anyway?" Dani asked, "What was he expecting me to do?"
"I don't know." Ianto sighed.
"Jealousy?" Dani asked hesitantly.
"No." Ianto rejected that out of hand, "he's made it pretty clear that I'm not his first choice. I'm not even his first choice on the team. That would be Gwen."
"Which proves that he's a fool, after all. Too bad." Dani grimaced, then shrugged. "You're sure?" Ianto nodded, "Why do you stay with him?"
"It's complicated, and not something I want to talk about." Ianto felt a sudden crash of depression
Dani was quiet for a moment. She slapped the cloth onto the counter, and swiped a hand across her forehead.
"So, with all the super space age technology around here, you don't have anything that cleans better than bleach?"
"I'm surprised Owen didn't get you the radio-disinfection ray." Ianto pulled out a small hand held device, and began sweeping it across the surfaces in the autopsy bay.
"I did ask. I believe he muttered something about 'it' being above my security clearance. I think he just wanted more time to grill me about last night." Dani grinned again. She dragged the bucket of water over, and emptied it into a nearby drain. She put the bucket and mop away, and turned to Ianto.
"Now what?"
"How about checking out your living quarters?" Ianto smiled.