Okay so it's another sort of nowhere chapter (I think I'm beginning to worry about the ending-mainly how I'm going to end it.) I have no idea if any of this would actually happen, but here it is.
"Okay, where is she?" Jack was on his latest "Dani check." Every few hours, he'd leave his office, come out into the Hub, find Dani, and then go back to work. It was getting to the point that the team were making bets on the time between Dani checks.
Owen looked up, "She's helping Tosh defrag the hard drive on the back up computer system; no wait, she's cleaning and sterilizing my autopsy tools; no, no Ianto has asked her to relabel the files in the archive."
"Actually that's a good job for her; some of those labels are really starting to fade out." Ianto commented.
"I'll ask again, where is she?" Jack spoke with infinite patience. "And why isn't she being watched?"
Without missing a beat in her typing, Tosh turned one of the screens on her desktop for Jack to see. Dani was centered in the screen, curled up in a comfortable overstuffed chair, a sheaf of papers in one hand, and a red marker in the other.
Jack growled, "alright, one more time, Where—Is—She?"
"D level, room 4. We've turned those storage rooms into a set of guest rooms." In case this happens again hung unspoken in the air between the teammates. "You'll need this," Ianto handed Jack a key.
Jack growled something his team couldn't hear, and strode across the Hub and disappeared down the stairs.
Dani looked up as Jack knocked, then unlocked and entered the room. She smiled, and put the papers down.
"Hi Jack. Another check already? I lost track of time."
Jack was ignoring her, staring at the tastefully appointed room she inhabited. The grungy, dark store room had been transformed into an elegant sitting room. The walls on either side of the doors gave access to several adjoining rooms, presumably similarly transformed. Jack began examining the room. A sofa and several overstuffed chairs had been arranged into conversation groups around a geometrically patterned carpet. A mural of a Japanese maple tree swept up one wall, and provided a focal point.
"I really need to give Ianto a raise." Jack muttered under his breath.
"Actually, I think you'll find that this is Tosh's room. Though, Ianto still deserves a raise for putting this all together." Dani watched the man prowling the room with some amusement.
Jack turned to her, "excuse me."
"I'm pretty sure Tosh designed this room." Dani continued to smile, "note the Asian influence." She pointed at a beautiful vase sitting on a shelf by the door.
"So you're saying Tosh is a interior designer in her spare time?" Jack asked.
"Just looking at the rooms down here, I'd say that your team decided to find out who had the biggest interior decorator chops. Three of the four doors off this room are bedrooms."
Jack shook his head. "Really?"
"Try the first door on the left. I'm pretty sure it's Owen's"
Jack opened the door to a white walled room. A queen-sized bed with blue linens and a blue patterned duvet, was centered on a wall with matching and night tables on either side. A flat screen TV was the only decoration in the room.
"It's not too bad. A little sparse, but not bad."
"Are you kidding? A hotel room would be better. I have a very clear picture of how this room was decorated. Owen walked into…well at home it would be the Bay or some other department store, and up to the first pretty female sales clerk he could find. He then spent the next several hours buying everything she told him to, because he was trying to impress her, and sent it all back here for someone else to put into this room. He was just lucky she had relatively decent taste. Apparently, they both forgot that people need places for their clothes."
Jack laughed. He could see Owen doing exactly that.
"You want to see Ianto's room?" Dani grinned from the doorway. Jack's eyebrows raised. He crossed to the door directly across.
"Wow, this is not Ianto's room. I'd bet my life…"
"I'm guessing that too. Personally, I'm going with Gwen." If the young woman noticed the strange look of Jack's face, she had decided to ignore it. The room was a bright cheerful yellow, and crowded with a queen sized bed, and a matching bedroom set, with dresser, and two night tables. Another table and a pair of chairs were squashed into a corner. The walls were covered with shelves of books and knick-knacks and pictures of sunflowers.
"It's a little too aggressively…happy, for me. I feel like I'm being convinced of something very important." Dani commented, as Jack picked up a China dog from a shelf.
"It is a little relentless isn't it?" Jack smiled at the similarities between the room and his team member.
"Okay, so Ianto's, or the one I think is Ianto's, is the other door on this wall"
She led the way to the last door, and with a flourish swung the door open for Jack to enter.
The room was a soothing sage green, and featured an antique bed, and matching furniture. An antique lamp sat on the night table beside the bed, a wardrobe was tucked into a corner, a set of bookshelves, with a selection of books, sat within reach on the other side of the bed. A print of a rocky landscape filled the wall over the bed and a small caricature drawing of a king graced the opposing wall. Jack took a second look, suddenly realized it was a map of Wales made to look like a king. He smiled at the whimsy Ianto rarely displayed to others.
"I'd sleep here, except I think that's how they're deciding who wins, and I don't want to give them the satisfaction." Dani grinned.
"So, what are doing?" Jack asked amused.
"Well, I came to the conclusion that Tosh got the sitting room because she didn't want to compete, so I've been sleeping in there." Dani replied, grinning. "Besides, I think I would have liked her bedroom if she'd done one." Her smile became softer.
"What about the lock on the door?" Jack asked.
"You don't trust me, and I can't spend all day, everyday with one of your team. They have plenty to do without babysitting your problem child. This seemed like a good compromise. They have cameras in most of the rooms, so they can keep an eye on me. I get the illusion of privacy. It works all around."
"What I don't get is why you're so accommodating. Doesn't all of this bother you?" Jack stared at the young woman.
"Of course it does. I'm used to going where I want and doing what I want, but if I started causing problems then you have more excuses to kill me, and less excuses for letting me go. By the way, my family is going to start worrying if I can't phone them soon." Dani looked at him, and half smiled.
"We've checked you out of your hotel and left a lead saying that you were travelling up the coast, and won't be reachable for a week or two. We couldn't do anything for your family, but if they do check on you, then that's what they'll get." Jack replied.
"Except my parents will never believe that I would pack up and head up the coast without telling them ahead of time. So, they're going to come here, poke around and yell until they get answers they're satisfied with." Dani continued. "You don't think I was born this stubborn, do you?" She paused, then seemed to make up her mind about something. "If you have to, you can listen in to my conversation with my mother and father." She growled. Jack was interested at the first sign of annoyance the young woman had shown since she'd gotten involved with Torchwood.
"What, we can kidnap you, imprison you for days, video tape every moment of your life here, but you get annoyed with us listening to your phone calls. It's good to know you've a line somewhere." Jack leaned against the wall and smirked at the girl.
"I don't want you anywhere near my family!" Dani replied heatedly. She took a deep breath, and consciously let the tension leave her. Jack's eyebrows had risen to his hair line with surprise.
"I know that this group of people are your family, and you're trying to protect them. I'm trying to prove to you that I'm no threat. They are safe. You need to do the same thing for me. I need to know that you're not going to go find my family, and put them in danger because of me." She looked at Jack, "I will promise to never speak of Torchwood as long as you give me the same promise to leave my family alone."
"Like I'd travel to a deep freeze just to kidnap a family with a name that's probably as common a mud. Never happen." Jack scoffed. He didn't know why, but he felt the need to calm the young woman's fear. The girl smiled. She walked over and kissed Jack on the cheek.
"Thank you."