Author's Notes: It's one in the morning. Again. I don't know why this keeps happening and I'm always dead tired when I write these.

Anyway, I hope you like it. Several more fillers until the next Big Thing, so you'll have to put up with the prompts until then.

Day Nineteen: Spooning

Water was dripping onto their heads and Jack could feel it creeping down his neck and making him even colder than he already was since he was pressed against the stone wall.

"Update from hell, day three." Ianto's voice echoed in the corridor outside even though he was in the corner of the same cell that Jack was inhabiting. "The grass is not greener on the other side."

Jack closed his eyes and tried to count to ten. Even when they'd still been in Torchwood, he'd been the only one who didn't get agitated by Ianto's jokes at the most inappropriate times, but he was pushing his luck today. Well, not strictly today – they had been here for three days.

"You know, if it weren't for your James Bond complex, we wouldn't be here right now," Jack said abruptly. "I told you that this was a bad idea! Cardiff in the 19th century? Why would you want anything like that? Why would you decide that it's the perfect place for undercover missions and Monte Carlo style stuff? It smells, it's dirty and nothing ever happens."

"We got captured. Something happened. It's not my fault that your Vortex Manipulator broke. Again."

Jack sighed. "About time we accepted it. We can't travel on our own, so unless you want to grow your own TARDIS, we'll have to keep closer to the Doctor, whether we like his choice of destinations or not."

Ianto apparently wanted to say something about that but just then, the door of the basement opened and footsteps could be heard - brisk and confident as they approached their cell.

"Still quiet, I see," Alice Guppy smiled, looking down at them. "Hopefully not for long. I've brought you food. Not poisoned," she added when all she got in response were two matching glares. "We wouldn't want to starve you."

Only silence answered yet again and Jack couldn't help but think that they were probably a rather sorry sight right now. Their clothes were soaking wet and when he looked at Ianto, what he saw suddenly reminded him of his lover the day they'd found Lisa in the basement – broken, angry and with several bloody scratches on his face, absolutely unrecognisable from the man they had known until then. Yes, there had been several major changes since that moment and yet the point of view he had now – sitting on the stone bench inside the cell of the Torchwood basement – was slightly disorienting.

They'd got caught when they had tried teleporting with Jack's Vortex Manipulator – which they'd been working on before that – and had unfortunately ended up in front of Alice and Emily just as they had left the Torchwood base. Needless to say, things had went downhill since then and, considering that this was several years before they actually met Jack, they only had yet to become worse.

Alice slid in the tray of food – two soups and two glasses of water – into the cell and then left with the unsaid promise to come back later. Ianto sighed mournfully.

"I thought I might like her, you know," he said and Jack's head snapped up.

"Sorry?"

"Alice. From what I've read about her, I thought she was somewhat like me. And the worst thing?" He looked up to face the Captain. "I was right."

Jack shook his head. "You're nothing like her."

"She's keeping aliens in a cell. Aliens whose language she doesn't understand – or so she thinks, since we won't speak in front of her – and also aliens who had done her no personal harm, and she's keeping them – us – here and will probably later come back with even more questions and also some torture devices. What I've seen of her until now was cruel jokes on our behalf and her snogging Emily up against the next cell's door. How is she any different?"

"You're always doing what's right," Jack shot back immediately and then almost regretted it, because Ianto's shoulders fell even more.

"I'm doing what I think is right. And the same goes to her."

"Is this going anywhere?" Jack asked suspiciously. Ianto wasn't one to talk much and when he did, there was surely something else – something just beneath the surface – that actually bothered him. More often than not, Jack managed to find what it was, but it usually took some time to catch up.

"Not really," Ianto sighed, then laughed quietly. "It's a pity that Americans don't understand irony, you know. I was just thinking– Can you hear that?"

Jack was ready to scold him for changing the topic – and for still considering him American, but there was indeed something happening around them. Ianto stood up and looked around himself, then smiled.

"He's coming to take us," he said as a wind that hadn't been there a moment ago appeared and then stopped again. "But he can't park in the cell; it's too small."

Jack followed Ianto's example and pressed himself against the door, a grin slowly curling his lips when he saw the TARDIS materialising.

"The TARDIS in Torchwood Three," Ianto whispered with something between pride and gloating – he was probably glad to have his Torchwood branch have the TARDIS at least once and still felt he had every right to run away right under their noses. "Ha!"

The Doctor came out and unlocked the door as fast as he could, the sonic screwdriver still beeping away as he hurriedly muttered that he'd never let them out alone again.

o.O.o

Hours later, when they had showered and changed into dry clothes, Jack and Ianto were back in their room and Jack could feel his lover's cold body pressing against his back under the covers that kept him at least somewhat warm.

"Jack?" The hesitant voice behind him drew his attention just as he started falling asleep; the accent thicker with the tiredness Ianto was experiencing as well.

"Mm?"

"Still mad at me?"

Without turning around, Jack smiled. "You know what? Not really. I wouldn't have you any other way."

"'M glad to hear it."

"Still mad that I prefer us stuck with the Doctor?"

He felt Ianto shake his head as he buried his nose in the Captain's hair. "Nah. You're right; we're better this way. And I wouldn't change it for the world."

Jack laughed softly at the echo of his own words from so long ago. Ianto had always had an exceptional memory and he could restore just about anything he'd ever seen or heard.

"No," he agreed. "Not for the world."