A/N: Howdy! Right, I am so sorry for the slight delay in updating this one, as some of you who follow me on tumblr/I was talking to last night know the issue was entirely down to the site and not me... but I still think I should apologise because it's only polite! So here you are, it's up now, hopefully none of you are too cross! Oh and to add to my list of apologies... it has been pointed out to me by LilyandJames767 (thank you by the way!) that I have made a rather large plot error... you'll probably figure it out for yourself, but let's just say that Owen isn't acting as dead as he should be in this one... Currently working out what to do to rectify it... Hannah xxx
Oh dear, oh dear oh dear indeed. I knew that there were many very good reasons as to why I have always chosen not to get drunk in front of other people, especially work colleagues, in the past. In the past three or four years I think I might only have been drunk on two occasions, 1) on my 21st birthday, but surely that's practically mandatory? And 2) on that terrible evening when Jack left… and I got in a complete state and… well I'm trying to pretty much pretend that that particular incident never happened and am praying that Toshiko is still doing the same. But last night at Gwen's wedding, I really don't know what happened; we all had a major clean-up operation to take care of after we'd waved the happy, newlywed couple off on their honey moon, and we had finally made it back to the hub, Owen found that scotch that we never got to drink the other evening… And well, it was still early and after drinking said intoxicating liquid we all thought it was an absolutely fabulous idea to head off to a night club.
Yes, a night club of all places. Quite possibly my idea of hell and certainly one of my most feared environments (beaten only by prison perhaps) and yet after a little alcohol it suddenly sounded like Owen had proposed the plan of the century. To his credit he did tell me as we approached the entrance of the Bad Wolf club – that name still seems oddly familiar – that perhaps I wouldn't enjoy myself too much, but he quickly followed it with "because this sure as hell isn't a gay bar teaboy". Even slightly tipsy from the scotch I managed to find the sense to be annoyed at that.
I didn't remember much else about the evening when I woke up this morning, surprised to find that I had been asleep in Jack's bed at the hub with, not the man in question at my side, but rather between Toshiko and Owen, with Jack nowhere in sight. I glanced at my watch and cursed as I saw the time: 9.20 am. I'd over slept, we all had. Quickly and carefully, so as not to wake the still sleeping Tosh and Owen, I got out of bed simultaneously horrified to find that I was still wearing my shirt, tie and suit trousers from the day before which were now very crumpled, but pleased that I was still wearing clothes of some sort. If I hadn't have been it might have been rather more awkward than things already have been this morning.
Somewhere between hurriedly heading off to Jack's on suite to dress into one of the suits I kept here in the hub, and actually reaching my destination a thought suddenly struck me, we were in the hub, surely if we had overslept this much then Jack would have woken us all up? Fear flooded through me as I played out possible scenarios in my mind, each more eccentric than the last… That Jack had died after we left the night club or whilst we were there and we in our reckless state had just left him… or that he had left again… or that actually we were in some strange place which was not in fact the hub but a trap… As I said, more and more ridiculous.
I was, however, drawn out of these bizarre considerations by Jack's gentle humming of Glen Miller from up in the main floor of the hub, so I climbed up the steps leading to his office and then back down to where he was attempting to fix hi own coffee.
"Here, let me do that" I offered, still a little confused by this morning's whole set-up and by my lack of memories for the night before.
He turned and smiled, "Oh you're up! I thought you'd all be completely out of it until at least 11.00… How are you feeling?" His grin widened.
"Fine, honestly… just a little confused about what happened yesterday… and how exactly did we all end up in the same bed…?"
He laughed at that, "Don't worry, nothing strange happened, for the most part anyway" His eyes glittered wickedly.
"Oh lord…" I blushed a little.
"You really are a rather adorable drunk" He smiled sweetly, moving closer to meet me now and brush a hand lightly against my pink cheek.
"I have no idea why that doesn't sound reassuring…" I rolled my eyes sarcastically.
"Ah you should do though. You were funny, I mean even funnier than you normally are, and your dancing in that club…" He winked.
"I danced?" I asked incredulously; slow dancing with him at a wedding reception was one thing, raving in a night club was another matter entirely.
"Indeed you did, and you were far better at it then I might have guessed, where have you been hiding that talent?"
I frowned. "I can dance?"
"Indeed you can" He grinned. "Perhaps we shall have to get you drunk more often"
"I'm not sure about that, especially seeing as I can't remember a bloody thing! Did anything else happen, anything even more embarrassing than the dancing?" I questioned, blushing a little in my pre-empted embarrassment at his response.
"Trust me, the dancing wasn't embarrassing… but no, nothing else, at least nothing I would consider embarrassing"
Oh god, I rolled my eyes again, that sentence could mean anything. I raised an eyebrow in question.
"Well, there was moment when Owen asked… but trust me, it was funny!"
"What?" I asked nervously.
"Well, he was completely gone – you know what he's like, a complete light-weight – so anyway he asked me what the most outrageous thing we had ever… done… was, because he said he couldn't imagine anyone as 'proper' as you to you know…. said, 'well you'll have to ask him'…" Jack paused for breath, and suspense I suspect.
I was bright fuchsia already, and really wishing I hadn't woken up yet, or that I had simply not been so inquisitive because chances were that Owen wouldn't have remembered anything this morning anyway and the occurrence could have been put aside.
"So he did ask you, and you even in your slightly drunken state would only answer sarcastically. After you continued to deflect his questions he eventually commented outright something along the lines of 'I bet you're into whipped cream and all of that you two' and" Jack started laughing a little then recomposed. "Then you replied with 'don't be absurd! I hate whipped cream! But cake is good" He was wetting himself by the end.
However I felt like so much blood had rushed up to my cheeks that I was surely about to faint. "Let's just pray that he doesn't remember!" I exclaimed, pulling away from Jack's embrace, suddenly feeing very self-conscious.
"Oh Ianto, its cute when you're all shy and uncomfortable, but really it's not that bad is it?"
"Hmm" I replied, really not convinced. "Right so, embarrassing details out of the way, the only thing left to cover is how on earth we all ended up back here tucked up in your bed!"
Jack laughed, "That one is really quite simple. Seeing as you three charming friends of mine are not blessed with a body which can repair itself and therefore avoid staying drunk for a long time, were under no circumstances to go home alone. Owen looked as though he was about to pass out, Tosh lives to far away to walk and was clearly unable to drive and you, well I just kept you because you're pretty" He winked. "I let you all sleep in late because I thought you might be feeling rough… clearly you're secretly superman as well as Michael Jackson on the dance floor"
"Oh ha-ha. Should we wake them? I could take over making your coffee and do a couple for them too?"
"Hmm… do you really want to be the one to rouse a hung-over Owen?"
"Maybe not" I laughed
"Precisely, but if you wouldn't mind making my coffee, you do it so much better than I do" He pleaded, pouting and bringing his hands together in a praying position.
"Oh the things I do for you" I mock grumbled, but set to work making him an industrial strength cup of the brew as he chuckled away.
Right, ok, so… I have just had one of the most surreal experiences of my life, bar waking up this morning of course, on a quick trip to Sainsbury's for a pint of milk, some chocolate biscuits and cheerios! I noticed whilst making Jack's coffee that we only had about a quarter of a pint left, and upon further inspection determined that it was well past it's best. Now, both Jack and I take our coffees black and strong, but Owen likes his cappuccinos and even Toshiko likes a little milk, so I thought I'd nip out and get some fresh ready for when they woke… and then Jack requested biscuits and I thought that some cereal might be a good idea too, seeing as none of us had eaten anything yet, so I resolved to head out to the shops straight away.
I took the tourist office route out as per usual, but the second I closed the door behind me I was pounced on by a lady who I assumed, at the time, was simply an enthusiastic tourist. She was dressed smart casually in a pair of boot cut jeans, a shirt and a blazer; a look which suited and flattered her as a slightly older woman who was still attractive and in good shape. She was carrying a briefcase and appeared to have a Dictaphone in her pocket, perhaps a journalist rather than a tourist I began to muse as she started to speak.
"Ah, hello! I'm Sarah-Jane Smith" She extended her hand towards me and I shook it politely. I was wondering if you might be able to help me, I'm actually looking for Torchwood. I asked a couple of locals and they pointed me in this direction, but I really don't know what I'm looking for… I don't suppose you have any idea at all?" She asked.
I was really quite taken aback; I mean I understand that we are possibly Cardiff's worst kept secret, and certainly one of the most conspicuous "secret" organisations in Britain (I mean, no one ever asks where the UNIT bas is). But I'd only ever heard people discussing us, well complaining about us, in passing… never anyone actively wanting to come and find us, not a relatively normal looking person like this anyone.
Recovering from my shock in a matter of seconds I decided to go with the best cover up I could think of, blend in with the opinions of the rest of Cardiff. "Oh not that bloody Torchwood again! They just flit around in that SUV, but I bet they don't even do anything, no one's ever seen where they work or what they do, just some weird alien nonsense" I hoped my lie was convincing.
"Yes, I've been getting that impression from a lot of people around here… I guess I'll just have to go and have a hunt because I really wanted to interview them about this sighting… oh but never mind you don't want to hear about that! Well, thanks you for your help anyway!" She smiled, patting my arm, and left heading off in the opposite direction to the water tower thank god, she seemed persistent and may have discovered our invisible lift if she had waited long enough.
After that, I too quickly headed off and bough our necessities from the shop and returned to the hub through the tourist office, only after scanning the perimeter for signs of this Sarah-Jane Smith.
"I'm back" I called out as I entered the hub.
"And about bloody time too!" Owen chided, though a thick, groggy voice, sounding rough as hell.
I couldn't help but chuckle. "Would you like your coffee now?" I asked, knowing the answer.
"Uuurgh what do you think smart arse!" He replied testily. I chuckled again.
"Where's Tosh? Is she still sleeping?"
"Nah, rift alarm went off whilst you were out and her and Jack went off to investigate"
"I see, do you know when they'll be back?"
"Well no, but Jack just contacted me and asked for us to fill up the large tank in cell 14 with salt water and then to go down to Southerndown beach to meet them once you were back and bring a net with us. But I am not going anywhere until I have had some caffeine!"
"Ok, what's with the tank and the net?"
"No idea, but I'm guessing that they've found a really big arse alien fish… oh and one more thing before you go back to making my coffee… why were Tosh and I in the same bed together this morning?"
Thank god he seemed to have no memory of the night before either. "I honestly don't know Owen" I lied, smiling sweetly and annoying him to no end.
A good half an hour later, once Owen had had his caffeine fix, and I had eaten a bowl of cheerios and the tank had had time to fill, we set off in my Audi – Tosh and Jack already having claimed the SUV and Owen being in an unfit state to drive his car – to Southerndown to find out what this mysterious 'big arse alien fish' really was; which of course was anything but what Owen suggested. Today was one of those rare and wonderful occasions when we had discovered something beautiful and unthreatening and magnificent that had come through to our world from the rift. The alien fish was in fact a mermaid, or at least what we would call a mermaid, Jack did tell us the proper name for their otherworldly species, but mermaid just sounds so much more magical. Our mermaid had long flowing blonde almost white hair, pale and almost translucent shimmering skin and an extravagant turquoise tail covered in thousands of miniature scales which created the image of glitter sprinkled across the lower half of her body; she was the perfect fairy tale image of the being.
She, well I am assuming that it was a she as were unable to communicate with her (although Tosh is currently working on a language conversion programme), but it would be very hard to believe that a creature that gorgeous and glittering and perfect could have been male; well a creature other than Jack of course. She was lucky to have crash landed in our ocean as she arrived through the rift crack, it could have been unfortunate if she had landed in Bute park for example, and been stranded without water for a prolonged period of time. As it was, we were a little concerned at how she would manage on the journey back to the hub, as Jack had performed a full body scan revealing that whilst the species could breathe, it was easier to take in oxygen in the presence of water.
We helped her out of the water and into our net, which can't have been a very dignified way for her to travel but it couldn't be helped, and a little part of me expected her aquamarine tail to vanish into legs as she was brought out of contact with the water, but that's purely from me having seen 'Splash' a few too many times…
As we drove slowly away from the sandy beach with our new mythical being somewhat uncomfortably loaded into the boot, I was almost slightly too in awe of the whole situation to notice the familiar figure of a woman watching us as we drove away. It was her again, that Sarah-Jane Smith the journalist, and she had clearly followed us and was clearly far more intelligent that I had given her credit for earlier. I rapidly began regretting lying to her earlier; boy was I going to feel like the prize idiot if I encountered her face to face again.
Jack noticed her stood there observing us too and spoke up whilst driving us away. "What's her?"
"Maybe she's our new stalker?" Toshiko suggested jokily.
"Oh ha-ha, but seriously she's definitely watching us, what if she saw everything? Perhaps we should try and administer some retcon to her just to be on the safe side… but of course we don't know who she is…" Jack contemplated out loud.
"Actually, Tosh has a point… I ran into her earlier outside the tourist office and she was asking around about Torchwood" I said.
"Oh really? What did you tell her?" he asked.
"I just said some nonsense about what a bloody nuisance Torchwood is and how I had no idea where the base was, hoping to sound like just another irate member of the Cardiff public. But now she's seen me, well all of us, any way!"
"Ah well, you tried. What was she after anyway?" Toshiko asked.
"Believe it or not, she wanted an interview"
"Oooh we have a fan club!" Jack grinned.
"Yippee" Owen rolled his eyes sarcastically.
"Actually, I think she might have been a journalist…" I chipped in.
"A journalist eh?" Jack asked, suddenly quite interested now, "Did she give you a name?"
"Yes, a Miss Smith, a Miss Sarah-Jane Smith."
"Sarah-Jane! I don't believe it!" Jack exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across his face as we pulled into a usual parking spot and began to vacate the SUV. "Well I never" He continued, grin spreading even wider.
"Do you have to know absolutely everyone? I swear you've slept with half the population of Britain!" Owen moaned.
"Oh you're just jealous" He winked at Owen and threw an apologetic look over to me quickly before continuing. "I'm just a people person, but I haven't slept with Sarah-Jane Smith! If I had I know of one person who would murder me for sure!"
We paused our conversation in order to lift our new companion, who seemed a little paler than before and looked in desperate need of water, out of her confines in our boot and surreptitiously into the hub. We may not have been able to understand her oceanic, sing-song like words but there was no mistaking the sigh of relief and gratitude she made as we set her free – sort of – into the tank. All four of us just stood there, transfixed by the graceful swish of her tail through the water as she swam; Tosh was the one to eventually break our intense silence.
"So how do you know her then?" She questioned.
"Let's just say that she's a friend of a friend." He winked.
"Oh come on, you have to give us more than that…" Owen complained, a little too loudly for his post knees up headache it seemed, as he drew his hand up immediately after speaking to clutch his forehead. If I'm not mistaken, I could have sworn that I heard our mermaid laugh at that.
"She was a companion of the Doctor's, a long while ago now, but she used to travel around the galaxies with him in his TARDIS like I did for a short while. I've never met her personally, but the Doctor would tell us stories about her on our travels, and I've noticed over the last few years that she seems to be gaining quite the reputation for herself in terms of alien investigation and generally nosying around any suspicious circumstances – riling UNIT's cage to no end I must say!" He laughed. "She shouldn't be of any harm to us, though we probably don't want her getting any closer than she has been… she's not terribly keen on guns."
"that could be a problem then…"I joked, patting the pocket where I kept the gun, which I too hated, for effect.
It's almost two o'clock now, and Tosh has got the language programme up and running at last; without being able to communicate with the mermaid (who we can now confirm is most definitely a she) we were fairly limited as to what we could do. Owen spent the morning analysing water content samples and blood tests to try and find out more about what she might eat and what living conditions were needed etc. whilst Jack and I went through the archives finding anything useful and putting it to one side; it was strange to have someone else down in the archives helping me and quite distracting when that someone is Jack.
As soon as the programme was up and running, we managed to find out properly all the information that we needed to know; he name was Persephone and she had come from a long way away, both in time and distance respectively, from the Aqua Marinas Peninsula in the Galaxy of Lake Shadow. Not surprisingly she, and others of her species, live upon a combination of fish and various sea plants and need no other living requirements save for a salt water environment at tropical temperatures.
We asked her about whether or not she thought that she would be able to be introduced into one of Earth's tropical oceans, as we have no way of predicting the negative spikes in the rift so it would be completely pot luck as to where she ended up if we sent her back through the rift. But she said that she had transportation to take her back home, but it had been lost in the ocean. She had a crown, or tiara of sorts, which was actually a device similar to Jack's vortex manipulator and the key to returning her to her home planet. The only issue is it's made from sea-shells and it's lost at the bottom of the sea, I have no idea how Jack intends on us finding it down there, or if her even thinks we'll be able to. But he has promised her that it will be tomorrow's priority.
Oh and I've noticed on the CCTV that Miss Sarah-Jane is pacing around outside the Millennium centre with a puzzled look on her face, I think we may have to keep an eye on her!