A/N: Hello! Bit of a fluffy fillery one tonight as I am far too tired and lacking in creativity due to revision that this is all I can do right now... but my exams are over soon which means I will be going back to posting pretty much every day (Sunday-Thursday) so yay! If people want me too that is of coure... :) Good luck to anyone else with exams over the next few weeks! Hannah xxx
Jack was already awake when I myself woke up this morning. It's not really an unusual thing to happen, what with his non-existent – or practically non-existent – sleeping arrangements, but usually I wake up to be greeted with the site of him staring at me from the other side of the pillows, having been watching me lie there for goodness knows how long. Or to see him eagerly awaiting, sat hanging off the edge of the bed, for me to wake up in order for him to show me something of very pressing 'importance'… or for other things… and occasionally he might resort to tickling me awake because apparently 6.00 am isn't early enough. True, sometimes, he might not be in the bedroom, be it at my apartment or in the hub, but he's always near enough by to wake me up with one of his fabulous renditions of many a good ballad. But today he seemed to be nowhere, the other half of the bed was cool to the touch, I could hear no signing emulating around the hub, but his coat was still draped over the back of the chair where he'd left it last night – still here then.
I stretched out widely in the empty feeling bed and checked my watch: 5.40 am, I'd woken up before my alarm; brilliant. Usually if that happens it's a rare treat, you feel like you've gained an extra twenty minutes of time that can be spent just lying there in bed, not moving other than to breathe… but when that bed is cold and empty, twenty more minutes in there feels a lot less attractive then when it is filled with the company of another body. I suppose I have no right to expect Jack to be there when I wake up, he just always is and it's something I had become accustomed to. After eventually deciding that I was being ridiculous, lying there expectantly waiting for him to walk back into the room I made to get out of bed, sitting up a little more rapidly then I probably should have done. I rubbed my eyes and resolved to just get up and get dressed and washed and shaved as normal; well almost as normal, without the added annoyance of someone following you around whilst you make every other move; I suppose I'd even got used to that as well.
Without the distractions I was ready in record time so I decided to go up to the main floor of the hub and make myself a coffee – in others words see if Jack was about anywhere upstairs. At first glance the hub was empty with no sign of Jack milling about and certainly no sign of Owen or Tosh anywhere, it was far too early for them, so I sighed to myself and resigned to making just the one cup of coffee and continuing to puzzle out where Jack had got to. I knew it must have been something reasonably important; after all he wouldn't even answer his phone call from UNIT the other evening because his favourite episode of Friends was on again, even though he'd seen the episode about fifty times! That could of course be more to do with the fact that Jack hates taking calls from UNIT, rather than the fact that he simply couldn't bear to miss friends… but still, to just take off in the middle of the night, must have been of some importance at least! Perhaps a negative rift spike I thought – but then surely he would have just woken me, and surely he would have remembered his coat?
And then, right on cue as always, he waltzed into the hub coming up from the cells, barely looking where he was going and almost walking into Tosh's desk, so distracted by the documents in his hands that he didn't even notice me stood there. I was about to call out to him, see if he wanted me to make him a cup (to which I already knew the answer) or even just to say good morning, but then I noticed something. He might not have been wearing his coat, but he was wearing something else that caught my attention: my shirt! My pink shirt, my second favourite. He wasn't even properly within my line of vision yet and I could tell it was mine a) because Jack does blue shirts and usually blue shirts only, perhaps the occasional grey or a green, but that was a rarity, pink was entirely out of the question. And b) because I kept that shirt in my section of his chest of drawers here in the hub and had noticed that it had disappeared yesterday. Yes, without even getting a proper look I could tell that it was my shirt – why he was wearing my shirt however, I had absolutely no idea!
Taking one last glance at the paperwork in his hand he looked up to me and his brown knitted into a frown as soon as he registered properly what he was seeing.
"Oh. You're up. I was hoping that you'd still be in bed so I could come and tickle you awake… haven't done that in a while!" He pouted slightly as I rolled my eyes.
"What were you doing up so early anyway?" I asked, fighting the burning desire to just come out and ask him why he was wearing my shirt.
He groaned… "Bloody UNIT. I couldn't sleep – as per – but more than that, I was feeling restless and I didn't want to wake you by continuously tossing and turning, so I came down to get a glass of water and to check my emails quickly, of course I had about fifty from Brigadier Masterson and even a couple from Lieutenant General Stark complaining that I had rejected their call the other day…because apparently they had a very pressing issue. Of course once I'd read all of them, it was simply some bloody paper work to do with that Arachnagon infestation we co-dealt with a month ago. I didn't fancy going back to bed with this hanging over me, so I went down to try and find the paperwork which took a little longer than I thought, because instead of it being where you had neatly filed it away, silly old me had left it lying around down in the cells!" He ranted, fairly breathless by the end. "So yeah, that's about it. I am so definitely not picking up next time and never again am I going to bother reading their emails, if it's really important they'll just have to contact us through this" He grinned and slapped his writs strap
"How on Earth are they going to be able to do that?" I asked, I'd always though his wrist strap was near enough broken, only good for rift updates and for controlling the electronics in the hub… and the occasional holographic message from ex-time agents… not a device that could actually be used for proper communication.
"Oh old Starky knows how, he just knows that he's dead if he uses it in non-world-ending-emergencies!"
Secretly I felt a little miffed; I don't know how to contact him through that! But of course I didn't voice this, I didn't want to look like a completely clingy and obsessive fool… and besides, at least I know that if I try and call hi he answers within two rings "And what exactly qualifies as a world ending emergency?" I asked instead.
"Oh you know… Stone Angels running riots in haunted houses, a Weevil elected as prime Minister, the world's run out of Ianto Jones's magnificent coffee…" He winked.
I took the hint, irked one eyebrow up and said: "Please?"
He grinned. "Please. Pretty please with sugar on top."
I rolled my eyes and began fixing him a cup. "Oh and by the way." I started, not able to resist questioning him any longer as I had been trying to puzzle it out myself and had been getting nowhere. "Why exactly are you wearing my shirt?"
He gave me a mock quizzical look in return, tainted by the hint of a smirk. "Oh, this is your shirt?"
"Yes Jack, you know very well it's my shirt."
"Sorry, must have made a mistake" He shrugged, trying to hide a smile as he walked back up to his office without another word.
He made no signs of removing the article either. He must have known it was my shirt, he hasn't got any pink shirts of his own and it's sure as hell not going to be Owen's shirt lying around in the hub! Oh well I'm sure I'll get it out of him eventually, for now I'll just have to let him carry on wearing it and begrudge him the fact that it probably looks better on him then it does on me.
Hmm… I'd like to get it out of him sooner rather than later it's prompting me to act uncharacteristically childishly, my actions though ended up being entirely superfluous as Jack actually found what I did amusing! Uuurgh, anyway, Toshiko and Owen arrived at the hub a little while after I'd spoken to Jack – who I hadn't seen to talk to since – both of them arriving near enough at the same time for once was a rarity! The first thing they noticed was that shirt; even they knew it wasn't his! So how on Earth he is sticking to his story that he didn't know that it was mine is beyond me.
"Jack! You're wearing pink!" Owen half questioned, half stated.
"And?" Jack shrugged.
"You… are wearing a pink shirt" He repeated
"Isn't that Ianto's shirt?" Toshiko piped up.
I rolled my eyes from where I was sat at my desk, attempting to type.
"Not sure" Jack shrugged.
"Yes, yes it is." Owen finished. "Isn't it the one that you spilt tomato sauce down a few weeks ago?" It was quite surprising to find that Owen keeps such a close record of my clothing, not that I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what garments each member of our team has in their wardrobes and which ones were there favourites… I just didn't expect Owen to pay such close attention to detail as well. "Oh god, this isn't one of your two's little 'games' is it" He asked miming the commas and giving me cause to blush at my station, no longer able to focus on my work.
No it bloody well isn't one of our 'games' I thought to myself… and cursed Jack mentally for not being able to keep any secrets.
I probably made his suspicions worse just now when I nipped out to get a pint of milk wearing Jack's coat – he didn't half give me a set of raised eyebrows! Owen I mean, not Jack. Jack didn't seem too fussed in all honesty, in fact he seemed mildly amused that I was playing him at his own game, taking the approach that 'if you can't beat them, you may as well join them' when in actual fact I just hoped it would annoy him into explaining. I've kept it on now for the last half hour since I've been back, hoping that he's just pretending not to be bothered, after all I know how protective he is of this coat, but he hasn't cracked yet. I might have to keep it on all day at this rate.
This grand coat plan of mine really isn't going very well; not only is it actually quite restrictive and stiflingly hot (I really don't know how Jack does this everyday) it is now completely caked in mud and goodness knows what else… and to top it all off, Jack is still wearing my shirt (which is also coated in mud – I shall explain shortly) so nothing has even been accomplished by any of this!
We were having a bit of a slow morning, so I decided to start intercepting some of the police calls to see if there was anything suspicious going on in the local area that we could go and attend to; but there wasn't, so I widened the range of the receptor by thirty miles or so and finally got a hit. The signal on the call was a little weak (which was the main source behind all of our non-clothing based troubles today) but I could just about make out most of it.
... strange disappearance out in the fields… yes… two black and … white… no sign of foul play as yet, but the… have only been missing for twenty four hours but they're… so people will start looking for them! Should we send more people out? Over…
Was what I managed to make out, and it sounded promising at the time. And then I realised where the call was coming in from – the Brecon Beacons – and my heart froze for just a minute. My immediate thought was that it was happening again, that we had missed one of those inhuman creatures that I daren't call people. But I put this thought firmly to the back of my mind; it didn't have to be cannibals, it could just be some good old fashioned power craving aliens who were beginning to start abducting us earthlings, and besides if it had have turned out to be… the other thing… we were all better prepared now, and I myself certainly had become much better at handling weaponry (even though I don't always like doing so). So I took a large breath and went to go and tell the others, none of us had been back there since and whilst it had been a good while since that awful day, it hadn't been forgotten. Perhaps it was time for us to face our fears?
All three of them shared a look which encompassed that same sense of trepidation and fear that I had felt myself when discovering the information, but their looks changed simultaneously into ones of sudden determination and willingness to challenge our phobias. So we set off without further word, loaded up the SUV with a ridiculously law breaking amount of armoury and began the moderately lengthy journey there.
The hour it took us to drive there was a suitably awkward one, and not just because Jack was driving at a speed which had us all gripping our seats and shaved twenty minutes off our journey time. Because we were all avoiding the elephant in the room, we didn't want to think about it being another bout of attacks and killings from those cannibalistic psychopaths, didn't want to remember what happened last time we had to face such monsters and how we only very narrowly escaped. Owen didn't even complain about being dragged off to the 'sodding countryside' where there's 'bloody grass and crap' which really is simply a measure of all of our resolves at this point.
When we eventually arrived none of us were sure where to start. I hadn't been able to gain an exact location on where the disappearances were taking place from what I had intercepted and, what with being in the middle of nowhere, it was impossible to try and pick up a decent signal without proper, licensed police radios which we definitely didn't possess. We didn't even know what exactly we were looking for, only that people had been missing for just over a day, and the circumstances looked suspicious. Tosh ran a scan for alien tech, half hoping that we would actually find some big terrifying people-kidnapping alien out here rather than our worst nightmares. It too picked up nothing, so we had absolutely nothing to go on.
"Well this is bloody brilliant!" Owen cried out. "We come all the way to the bloody countryside, far too soon after the last time for my liking, and we don't have a clue what we're trying to find or where to look" He sighed.
I glanced down at my watch. "I think that's actually a new record Owen! You managed to go twenty four minutes without a single complaint, and that's without including the journey here. Well done!" I congratulated, only half sarcastically, Tosh and Jack laughed in response.
"Well of course you'd be timing me teaboy" He grinned and we all laughed together now, temporarily forgetting what we had come here to do.
Suddenly there was a loud rustling noise, like the sound of someone walking over dry leaves and we all turned around together as one body, remembering why we were here. There was nothing in sight. We turned back to each other and communicated our confusion and panic silently through the most delicate shrugs of our shoulders and facial expressions, none of us daring to move more than absolutely necessary. The rustling noise sounded again, louder this time, it (they?) was getting closer. Again we all turned around simultaneously and were surprised to be greeted with the site of Andy Davidson, Gwen's friend from the police, and he had his notebook out at the ready and was pacing about with a confused expression on his face.
He suddenly noticed the four of us stood there, probably looking quite shocked and out of place, or at least that's how we looked if his eyebrow's reactions are anything to go by… "You're Torchwood aren't you? The ones that Gwen works with?" He asked.
"Yes, that's us, guilty as charged" Jack grinned to which Andy rolled his eyes… I couldn't help but laugh a little at that.
"What you doing all the way out here then?"
Jack, uncertain of exactly how much he knew about our organisation played it 'cool' explained that we had been 'tipped off' – no need to get into the hows and the wherefores – about some strange disappearances out in the Beacons.
Andy just chuckled to himself "And they sent special opps up to sort that out. Bloody hell you must be having a slow day!" He exclaimed.
"What do you mean?" Jack asked in confusion.
"Well, they don't normally send you lot out to look for a bunch of missing cows do they? "He laughed further.
"I'm sorry what!" Owen exclaimed. "We came all the way out here, here where there is grass and mud and god knows what else, for a bunch of cows." He continued.
"Didn't you know what you were looking for?" And asked incredulously.
"Not exactly no." Jack said, shooting me a look. I held my hands up, pleading innocently. I may have found the message but they had all agreed that it needed to be checked out.
"Last night two of Farmer Proctor's prize winning Friesian black and white cattle went missing from his farm just outside of the Beacons. We've been looking all day trying to find them!"
Suddenly the disjointed message with its broken up signal now made perfect sense:
... strange disappearance out in the fields Farmer Proctor has just called back to say that yes they're still missing: two black and white cows no sign of foul play as yet, but the cows have only been missing for twenty four hours but they're prize winning so people will start looking for them! Should we send more people out? Over…
Or something to that effect I imagine.
PC Davidson left still chuckling away to himself and still searching for these bloody cows! After he was gone everyone turned to face me now as I shifted nervously on the spot, praying that instead of being angry with me that they would see the funny side to all of this or at least be too relieved that we aren't about to face flesh eating monsters for the second time in far too short a space of times. Luckily the three of them quickly broke into laughter and I joined them.
"Well we might as well head back home then" Jack concluded.
"Yeah, back to technology and cleanliness!" Owen pronounced, wiping his shoe avidly on the grass, attempting to rid it of whatever had become stuck to it…it was probably best not to ask.
"Technology… yes. But cleanliness Owen, really? In your autopsy bay?" Jack counter argued with a grin.
"Oi Harkness! You've got something on your back" Owen called back from behind him, a mischievous tone in his voice.
"And what would that be Owen?" Jack asked, not even bothering to turn around.
"This!" Owen cried as he scooped up a large handful of mud and threw it straight towards him, hitting him square on in the shoulders. Owen had just got mud on the back of my shirt, on the back of my second favourite pink shirt that Jack had decided to borrow today for some unknown reason, there was now mud. This was war.
"Oi Owen!" I called out to him, gathering up a large handful of mud myself and aiming well.
"Oh you are so going to wish you hadn't done that teaboy" He replied with a twinkle in his eye and before I knew what was happening I was a victim too.
"My coat Jack cried out!"
And suddenly the three of us were engaged in a very serious mud fight. Toshiko just stood there laughing her head off and I don't blame her really, three grown men acting in such a way, I would have laughed. I feel a little ashamed if I'm honest, not to mention cross about my shirt… it should come out though, if I can get tomato sauce out, I can get anything out.
We've been back at the hub for half an hour now and I'm finally ready to admit defeat, to give in and go and demand an explanation from Jack as to why he took my shirt and to give him his mud caked coat back!
Well that wasn't quite what I was expecting, then again with Jack things never are…
"You can have this back now" I said, walking into his office removing his coat as I did, I couldn't quite contain the smile that was creeping onto my mouth as I unbuttoned the muddy article and recollected our ridiculous behaviour, a smile which he reflected.
"Thank you" He said, quite simply and definitely as if he had nothing else to add… I really was just going to have to ask him completely outright.
"Look, Jack can you just tell me for goodness sake! I don't mind that you borrowed it, I don't even mind – too much – that it's now covered in mud, I just can't figure out why you borrowed my shirt!"
He smirked "Why do you think?" He asked me.
"Please?" I half begged.
"Well" He began, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively in a way that is so uniquely Jack. "I was rather hoping you'd get irritated and rip it off me… when I came to tickle you awake this morning which of course never happened because someone likes to be early for everything including his alarm clock…" He finished, giving me a rather patronising hair ruffle from which I wriggled away.
"You are a funny one" I sighed, smiling a little though. It was just about an understandable explanation, when put into the context of 'Jack' that is.
"You can talk! You took my coat!"
I rolled my eyes. "That, was because I was trying to irritate you into giving me my shirt back or at the very least telling me why you were wearing it… a plan which failed miserably – why didn't you ask for it back?"
"I thought you looked good in it" He grinned as I dug my elbow into his arm.