DESERT ISLAND/BLANKET FIC! Rough draft, part one
I don't normally post rough drafts (mostly because I don't normally do rough drafts) but the blanket fic is coming along nicely, and it's soon approaching the point where I'll have to split it up to post it anyway. Also, so many hopeful people have friended me in the past week or so, and I want to keep you entertained. Mostly, I feel guilty that I'm working so much on fic but you don't get to see most of it; the Toshanto AU is so complicated I don't want to post it until it's fully written (and even then I'll have to sic Chaos on it for beta-ing), I haven't written more of PP!I (pity!) so blanket fic it is. ^^
Working Title: blanketfic.doc
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Toshiko (no pairings yet)
Rating: PG at the moment (R for the 's' word)
Word Count: 4,560
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Summary: Jack, Ianto, and Tosh are taken through the Rift to an alien planet. Not as lame as summary makes it sound.
blanketfic.doc
The planet smells like chicken. Not delicious chicken; no rosemary or lemon herb, no tender chargrilled strips or lightly breaded legs. The planet smells raw, like the juice that puddles pinkly in the corners of the styrofoam or oozes from the creases of Saran wrap.
"I wish I had a nuclear scanner, or the ultrasound standby. We don't even have our bluetooths," Tosh is saying. "I wish I had on trousers. No, I want shoes." Her shirt is long enough to preserve her modesty, but Tosh didn't live through the 1960s like Jack did. She has different ideas of acceptable skirt-length.
"Dream big," says Jack. "Go ahead and wish you had both."
"This isn't funny, Jack!" Toshiko's echo skids along the bristle grass. The grass is stiff, dark brown, and curling onto itself beneath their weight. It reminds Jack of an unwelcoming welcome mat.
"I know," says Jack. He sighs and stares around the very big, very empty plain they've found themselves in. "Is everyone ok? Any wounds, nausea, stuff like that?"
Ianto looks down at the backs of his hands like that's the only place he could be hurt-the rest of him is so bundled in wool and cotton blends it's plausible-but Tosh shakes her head, holding her arms tightly around her waist. "All the evidence we have on the health effects of Rift travel-all the evidence-comes from long term medical observation of the Weevils. There's no way to tell by eye what kind of damage we've incurred. Do you remember the necrosis break-out?" she says. "We didn't notice what was going on until months after-"
"Hang on," says Jack, bracing his hands on her shoulders. "We need to do an attitude check, first thing. Ianto, you come over here, too." He holds out an arm and Ianto walks expectantly into the pow-wow, keeping one eye on the sharp-edged horizon. Jack curls Tosh and Ianto firmly under his arms like a (handsome, brawny) mother duck. "Alright troops," he says. "This is a bad situation, I know. But we're not going to do any doomsaying, or make wild guesses as to how screwed we are. We're going to be optimistic, because we are very lucky people. Look around you!" He gestures to the wild expanse of absolutely nothing and the faintly turquoise sun swaying heavily above the rim of it. "This planet has acceptable gravity, there's oxygen to breathe, there's a star providing warmth and light-what more could you hope for?"
"Food and water," says Ianto. "And any sign of sentient life."
Jack glares at him. "Ok, that optimism thing? So far you're not very good at it."
Ianto looks at Tosh. "We bent the hinges on the door to your flat," he says. "I don't think the landlord will cover that."
"Better," says Jack. "Still focusing on the negative, but at least you're assuming we're going to get back. Good job, Ianto."
Tosh sighs. "I'd much rather have bent hinges than be transported to a strange planet all by myself. Jack, what exactly happened with the Rift, anyway? And why did it happen in my bedroom?"
Jack shrugs, arms still clasped around his people. "As near as I could tell from the Rift predictor program, it was a normal spike. Our communicators got hit with a wave of interference, including my wrist strap. It's still snowed out but should fix itself in a few hours," he added, peering at the control display from where his wrist is resting on Ianto's shoulder. "But that kind of thing has happened before. This all seems normal. The fact that it was in your flat is just bad luck."
"You told us we had good luck," Ianto says with his eyebrows scrunched together.
"Are you going to sass me like this the whole time?" Jack asks.
"I'm stuck on an alien planet with little hope of survival," says Ianto. "I get my kicks where I can."
"Little hope of-" Jack's tone turns hard. "I will get you guys back home. Just trust me."
Tosh and Ianto look at him.
"At least pretend to trust me?" Jack wheedles.
"Of course," says Ianto solemnly.
Tosh nods, her mouth turned too far down to be really convincing.
"Right," says Jack, and releases them both to rub his hands together in a business-like way. "Situational assessment. What do we have that might help?"
"Clothing," says Ianto. "Not quite enough to go around, but it'll do in a pinch."
"I've got a gold ring with a topaz setting," says Tosh, holding up her hand. "And brass earrings-oh." She presses her fingertips to the empty piercing of her left ear and looks around. "I was putting the second one in when you two burst through the door. I must have dropped it there; I'm sure I wouldn't have held onto it while we were-" she doesn't sound sure at all, and prods worriedly at the bristle grass with her foot. "It doesn't matter," she says.
"Did you like that pair?" Ianto asks.
Tosh looks deeply conflicted-her too-thin eyebrows curl sharply in the middle-then tries to shrug it off. "They're cheap things," she says. "My mother got them on clearance for my sixteenth birthday."
"I'll search for it," Ianto says, and drops to the ground immediately. Tosh hops back in a flutter-her shirt is in the asymmetrical style, with long hems on the sides where they do no good at all-but Jack stays firmly planted, enjoying the press of Ianto's shoulder against his knee until his legs are pushed out of the way.
"Your turn," Tosh says to Jack, still pulling at her left earlobe.
Jack turns out his pockets, displaying his possessions in turn with showmanlike flair. "I have... my gun, the keys to the SUV, a cell phone that is, unsurprisingly, out of range-"
"Here's mine, too," says Ianto, passing it up. "And I've got my gun as well."
"No extra ammo, I'm guessing," Jack says, then digs through his clothes again. "Three packs of chewing gum in spearmint, mango-tangerine and classic bubble flavours, a twelve-pack of lubricated condoms, a ticket stub from 1953-"
"1953?" Tosh asks.
"1953 was a good year for movies," Jack grins.
"It was not," says Ianto.
"Excuse me-"
Ianto interrupts Jack, sitting back on his heels. "1952 was a good year for movies, including Singin' in the Rain and High Noon, but 1953 was rubbish."
"Fine," said Jack. "1953 was a good year for me making out in movie theatres. Better?"
"Is there anything helpful in your pockets?" Tosh asks pointedly.
"That would be the rub, wouldn't it?" says Jack. He digs deeper, unbuttons pockets hidden in the lining, fills Tosh's hands with nostalgic ephemera and broken bits of things. Tosh gives him back the lint, the faded scraps of letterhead, reciepts for ice cream cones and a single cuff-link, monogrammed with "I.J."
"These can stay together," she says, hooking her earring-Ianto couldn't find the other-around the cufflink's middle bar. Ianto takes them both with a smile. His fingers are almost hot to touch, and speckled violet from the soil underneath the grass.
"Jack's responsible for me losing the other cufflink, just like your earring," says Ianto.
"Maybe he's doing it on purpose," Tosh whispers.
Ianto leans in conspiratorially. "Next thing you know, Owen will be complaining that he can only find half of his favorite biro."
"I'm right next to you," Jack says disgruntledly, his hands still outstretched and filled with clutter.
Tosh and Ianto stow the sentimental things away in Jack's enormous pockets, leaving on his palms the things with names longer than four syllables (although at least two of those names are variations on "thingamabobber," and another three Jack made up names for on the spot.)
"Yes," says Tosh, staring at the twisted bits of slag and broken mechanisms. "Yes, I can do something with this." She glances up. "Jack?"
He grins at her. "Yes ma'am?"
"Is your wrist-strap working again?"
His eyebrows shoot up. He carefully spills all the trinkets into Ianto's waiting hands (Ianto has pulled out his hankerchief, ready to tie their desultory equipment into a tidy bundle) and pushes up the sleeve of his coat. "Still very limited functionality, but I've got some information coming through," Jack says excitedly. "Hey, Ianto."
"Jack," says Ianto, concentrating on the handkerchief.
Jack grins until Ianto looks up at him, suspicious. "You wanna see your signs of life?"
___
They're walking vaguely towards magnetic north, seeking out the dim-lit blips on Jack's wrist-strap. Tiny localized points of heat, bio-electricity, and movement.
"Yes," says Ianto, "but do they enjoy reality TV?"
"Now is not the time for Earthling prejudice," Jack says. The most important thing about alien lifeforms at the moment is that they must eat some kind of food, drink water, and can hopefully be convinced to share it.
"Sentience is as sentience does," Ianto mutters.
The wind is soft and temperate (Tosh swears that sometimes, it's blowing up), but still smells like raw chicken with a bit of rotting bark mixed in. It makes them feel like they are in a broken meat locker, like all the chill has left just recently and now the smell can only thicken. "Congeal" is the word Ianto uses, before the other two pull faces and beg him to never describe the air again.
The bristle grass scrapes at Tosh's soles. She tries to walk in Ianto's black silk socks until the way the threads snag and pull make her feel slightly sick, like her skin is sliding off. "I need to build up some callouses anyway," she says as she hands the balled-up socks, now scraggled brown with grass, back to Ianto. "At least I'm not wearing heels."
"That's the spirit," Jack says, and adjusts their course a quarter degree.
___
The sun is bruising purple at the edges and wavers on the horizon like a too-ripe peach in a bowl of water. It's far bigger than they're used to, and they are starting to suspect the gravity is stronger here.
"By the way," Jack says conversationally, rolling his shoulders in a familiar ache beneath his coat. "Peter Pan came out in 1953."
"So did How to Marry a Millionaire and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," says Ianto.
"Ooh, good point," says Jack.
Tosh looks sideways at both of them, chewing on her gum ration (one stick of mango-tangerine; it almost swamps the smell.)
"But you didn't think of Marilyn Monroe," says Ianto. "Your first thought was Peter Pan."
"Tinkerbell is pretty hot," says Jack.
Ianto slants a smile at him. "Perhaps you should look her up, then," he says.
"Don't have to," Jack says triumphantly. "She's animated. I'll just take a few drawing classes, and then I can put her in any position I want."
"That's disgusting," says Ianto.
Jack chuckles and they crunch onwards. After a long moment of silence, Toshiko mutters, "She is hot, though."
Ianto is too far away to hear her, and doesn't understand why Jack is laughing.
___
The sun rolls across the horizon for over an hour before finally dipping down. There are no moons, no haze of dust to refract the light. They have just gotten used to the clotted blue of the sunset glow when it disappears completely and drops them into pitch-black. The stars are nothing more than pale suggestions winking red.
Jack reaches out his hands to either side; Ianto is close to him already and moves closer when Jack's fingers bump against his elbow and slide, exploringly, up to his shoulder. Tosh is harder to find, and makes first contact with Jack ear-to-thumbnail.
"Ouch!"
"Sorry," mutters Jack, and his hand wavers down to curl around the side of Toshiko's neck. It's all bare skin, and Jack can feel her startle. "We should probably sit down before someone breaks an ankle," Jack says, and they all settle awkwardly. Ianto accidentally kicks Jack in the knee; Tosh leans too far backwards and Jack looses touch with her, is terrified for a moment that she's vanished. He snatches her back.
"Jack!" she cries breathlessly, falling into his side. "What was that for?"
"I-" Jack doesn't answer for a moment, feeling his face go hot. He crosses his legs Indian style. "I didn't know where you were."
"What happened?" Ianto says mildly. His elbow is hooked over Jack's thigh, closer to the crotch than he probably realizes.
"New rule," says Jack, simultaneously startled and pleased by the force of his voice in the black. "During the night, keep in constant physical contact with the other two."
"Oh god," mutters Tosh, shifting herself in the crook of Jack's arm. "I hope neither of you get sweaty."
"That wouldn't be such a bad thing, wouldn't?" Jack says, although his leer is pointless in the dark. He's sure they can hear it in the tone of his voice, though, if Toshiko's quiet snort is anything to go by.
"I wouldn't worry about sweat," says Ianto. "It's going to get cold, soon. And I'm hungry."
Jack folds his legs more comfortably and says, "Next time, I'm booking a four star hotel."
____
They keep thinking their eyes will adjust to the dark, but it never happens. The smell goes in phases; Ianto's sense of it sharpens and he feels choked by the oily feel of it, but after an hour or so the subtleties float through. The grass smells, predictably, like straw-but clean straw, without the typical (for Earth, anyway) acridity of dust. He mentions this to the others.
"Usually, when there's straw around," he says, "the dust is largely composed of horse shit."
"I'd like to see your data on that," Tosh says, and Ianto can tells it's her talking (aside from the fact that, well, it sounds like her) because there's a sudden waft of mango-tangerine and aspartame.
"My conclusions are drawn primarily from anecdotal evidence," he says smoothly.
"Well," Tosh says primly. "In my experience-this is largely anecdotal, you understand-such conclusions are largely composed of horse shit."
Jack's sudden laugh makes them startle. "Sorry," he says, patting Tosh's ankle (she's ended up leaning on his back, legs curved around his hip) and squeezing Ianto's waist. Ianto slid further down when Tosh shifted, his arm tucked snugly into Jack's lap. His head balances on Jack's thigh, and his hair sometimes tickles Toshiko's knee.
"I think I'm smelling the soil, too," says Ianto, and pitches forward to sniff at the ground. "A hint of stewed beets, I should think."
Jack pulls in a deep breath through his nose, feeling Tosh tense slightly to keep herself from sliding down his shoulder. "More like parqhuits," he says.
There's a short silence.
"What are parqhuits?" Tosh asks.
"Oh," says Jack. "I forgot you don't have them on Earth. They're a root vegetable sort of like-well, beets, actually."
"So I'm right," says Ianto.
"There's a subtle difference," Jack argues. "If you'd ever smelled parqhuits, you'd know what I mean."
"Pardon my ignorance, then," Ianto says snidely.
Jack snorts and twitches his fingers into Ianto's ribcage to make him squirm. Ianto retaliates by biting Jack's knee-cap bluntly through the fabric of his trousers.
"You two are up to something," Tosh says sternly. "I can feel it."
"Nonsense," says Ianto with a smile in his voice.
____
Ianto is right; it gets colder. Tosh doesn't say anything, but Jack notices her shivering. It's a delicate operation to get his coat off without the letting go of either of them, but Tosh and Ianto are good at problem solving. They're less skilled at describing their solutions without visual aid, but eventually their bodies coalesce into a cozy heiroglyph beneath the spread-out coat: Tosh in the middle, legs drawn up and hooked over Jack's to protect her from the bristle grass. Jack's arm is pillow for them both, and Ianto octopuses like they need restraint, like the planet will stop spinning suddenly and fling them off. Someone's palm is soft on someone's hip. Ianto's breathing onto Tosh's hair and Jack feels like he's made of string: a hundred strands clumped loosely.
"I'm hungry," Ianto murmurs.
"Don't have any gum," Tosh mumbles gloomily. "That only makes it worse."
Their voices drift up on an exponential scale of weakness and Jack bends his body around the two of them. That's all he can do: he can give them his body and his coat. That is enough most times, but wait, his coat's got great big pockets, and if he slides a hand in there (the pocket feels like the smooth skin of an apple) he can pull out a honeyed ham and a pot of bubbling stew. Jellied candies are spilling out in gold and blue, some scarlet, the most tasty ones are green, he says. Oh is that so, says Ianto, and Tosh is peeling strips of cheese from her computer screen.
Something shoves against his belly.
"Can't breathe," Tosh gasps, and bats at the heavy edge of the coat-cum-blanket. She erupts from the middle of them (Ianto's grunt implies she's stepped on him) and stumbles clear, shirt swishing fuschia-wine against the grass and startling, greenish sky. Her legs are curved and kicky things, and Jack just looks for a moment. A vein is skating down the pale-soft back of her knee.
Jack blinks. "It's morning," he croaks.
Ianto squints puffy-eyed into the light then rolls back over, taking the entire coat with him. It swaths around his head and chest but leaves his ankles bare, the victims of drooping socks and rucked-up trouser hems. He draws them up into the warmth.
"Rise and shine," Jack says, jostling the lump where he thinks Ianto's shoulder must be. As he moves, his shirt and trousers twist around thickly; he feels muggy, and there's sweat inside his collar.
"That only felt like a few hours," Tosh says, walking in a lopsided circle around them, stretching her arms and yanking down the hem of her shirt.
"Probably was," says Jack. He glances at his wrist-strap just out of habit, and realizes some of the function buttons are healthy blue instead of darkened like they were before. "How about we check that using some hard data instead of anecdotal evidence?"
Tosh looks up from wiping a sweat-stuck bit of grass from her ankle. "Hard data?" she says, in the same longing way that she might also, at this point, say, "cheese toastie?"
Jack clambers to his feet and toggles the holographic projector on his wrist strap. Tosh's eyes go wide in the curious, drinking-in expression that Jack calls (in the part of his mind that still, after all these decades, gets the connotations of English words mixed up) "absorbant." It's denotatively correct, albeit in a figurative fashion: she's absorbing everything. The undignified associations are just a bad coincidence; Jack can't be expected to keep track of bog roll commercials.
"So that's the planet we're standing on?" Tosh says, pointing at the projection. The spherical morass of blue light spins casually in mid-air. "There's no axial tilt," she points out. "Is that just how it's being displayed?"
"This shows planets relative to the star or stars they orbit," Jack says. "So you're right, there's no axial tilt-or a negligibly small one, anyway. Guess we don't have to worry about winter setting in, huh?" Jack grins, looking worried anyway. "How much do you know about planetary geology?" he asks.
Tosh shakes her head. "Not much, just a few briefers on it in university, and whatever I need to brush up on for GPS and weather work. The axial tilt of the Earth is what causes the seasons, right? And the varying length of daylight?"
Jack nods."It also helps to even out the temperature of a planet, so you don't end up with a scorching equator and completely frozen poles. But obviously we found someplace nice in the middle, so it works out well for us that it's not going to change any time soon. Ianto!"
Jack's coat rolls over.
"Iaaaaaanto," Jack calls. He turns back to Tosh. "It's gonna be a lot harder than usual to get him up. Usually I can just wave some food under his nose. Did you know that he really likes English muffins? I always point out to him that, historically, he's obligated to hate all things English, but he just glares and tells me to pass the jam. IANTO!"
Tosh smiles at him for that, but is focusing mostly on the hologram and the tidy square of squiggly writing beneath it that she can't decipher. "Do you know how big the planet is? We could find out how far it is to reach those lifeforms," she says.
The wriststrap had still been squirrelly the day before; it could tell them what direction the lifeforms were in, but any calculation of distance came up with variables. Jack said the positioning mechanism used relative distance based on the shape of the terrain-useful if one were, say, on an asteroid or a disc-shaped satellite or if there was a mountain in the way-but the sensors that could do long-distance terrain scanning were blanked out, and no matter how many times Jack yelled, "It's flat, you stupid thing! Flat!" it wouldn't give an estimate.
Ianto had helpfully pointed out that planets were not, strictly speaking, flat at all, which was apparently what the wrist strap had been trying to say all along. "Flat" was a constant in an equation with a big variable: the rate of curvature.
Jack protested sulkily that it was very, very rare that the rate of curvature was unknown (one is generally aware of the size of the planet they are standing on), so he couldn't really be blamed for not picking up on that, but it remained that no-one was getting a gold star for that debacle. Except maybe Tosh, who at least hadn't pissed anyone off.
Jack is stroking the edge of the control panel of his wriststrap, apparently best friends with it again. The squiggly writing scrolls disturbingly in an invisible mid-air frame. "Smaller than Earth by about 35%," he says. "But it's much denser, and we're not as far from the center of attraction, so the gravity comes out nearly identical. Which we knew already," he adds. He glances over at his coat-a study in stubborn stillness-and pokes something determinedly on his wriststrap. "Be right back," he says, then strides away.
The hologram stays in place. Toshiko figures it has a way of grounding itself despite Jack's relative position; otherwise it'd be shaky whenever he moved or took a breath. She steps closer and peers at the vague shapes scattering the sphere, wondering if they are tectonic plates or if they are the continents and oceans overlaying them. Possibly both. The sphere slows down then stops spinning when she's within a few inches. Lucky, that-it was about to give her a headache.
Beyond the hologram, veiled somewhat by its thin blue lines, Jack is crouching next to his coat and prodding it. Tosh uses her finger to follow the edge of a tectonic plate (she guesses that's what it is) and suddenly the wire-frame ball flushes into a finely gradiated elevation map.
"Ooh," she says. Jack glances up and grins. "Definitely the edge of a tectonic plate," Tosh mumbles triumphantly. "There's the resulting mountain range from where they clashed together at some point." She follows the slope of it, knuckle carefully not brushing the hologram, into a deep depression. There's no way to tell if it's an ocean or a desert basin, so she nudges at it. No water or indication of it appears, but when she pulls her hand back the entire model shrinks and becomes fuzzy, the gradiant blue overlaid with wisps of pink.
Something about that doesn't sit well with Tosh.
"Jack?" she calls. She steps back to peer around the hologram (it went rather opaque with the elevation gradients) to see Ianto sitting up, one palm rubbing half-heartedly at his face. Jack, one hand on Ianto's shoulder, looks to Tosh. "Come tell me what I'm seeing here," she says.
"Pink is for atmosphere," Jack says as he comes striding over.
"Is it supposed to be flying out into space like that?" Tosh says.
"What?" says Jack. "No! A proper atmosphere thins out evenly, it's like a shell surrounding the-" He stops short, staring at the hologram and the very un-shell-like tendrils of pink flaring out from it. "There's something wrong," he says. "This planet has plenty of gravity to keep gases close to the surface. So why would it be escaping?"
"The only reason I can think of is heat," says Toshiko. Jack gives her a questioning look and she continues, "Gas molecules travel faster when they're heated up, and gain enough velocity to escape the gravity."
Jack glances at the sun-it's cool and not much bright, but still so very big-and fiddles with his wriststrap. More squiggly letters flash up. His eyes widen. "The oceans evaporated," he says softly.
Ianto has shuffled up behind Jack, squinting at the hologram. "That looks like a beach ball covered in shag carpet," he pronounces groggily.
"That's the planet we're on," says Jack. "Except there's a problem."
"What problem," Ianto says, suddenly awake and serious.
"It's insanely hot, and there's no atmosphere," Jack says.
"But-" Ianto blinks and glances around, just to check his facts before speaking. "It's temperate," he says. "And we're breathing air."
"Aren't you glad you got up this morning?" Jack says with a weak smile. He leans back to look around the hologram at Tosh, who is staring intently. The space between her eyebrows is fiercely crinkled. "Figured it out, yet, Toshiko?" he asks eagerly.
Tosh tilts her head to the side for one moment more. "The... poles," she says slowly.
Jack grins broadly, proud as punch. "That's it," he says.
"We're at the pole," says Tosh again. "This is the coldest part of the planet."
Jack shrugs. "Just about, I'm guessing. The scanner kept telling me to follow magnetic north to find those lifeforms-I wonder how close we are to it already?"
"Close enough to walk to, I hope," Ianto says. "I don't think we can go another day without food or water."
"I don't know about that," Jack says, his grin still wide, but crumbling at the edges. "The days are a lot shorter here." He points to a line of text-Toshiko guesses that Ianto can't read it any better than she can- then does something that makes his wriststrap whistle. The hologram, aka the shag-covered beach ball, disappears and Jack studies his control screen. "Now that we know how big this planet is, and thus the rate of curvature, we should be able to re-lock on those unknown critters in order calculate a route and distance." The wriststrap blurbles. "Fantastic," Jack smiles.
"Well?" says Tosh. "Are they nearby?"
Jack points dramatically. "That direction, only 18 klicks. But we'd better hurry," he adds. "The sun'll set in five hours."
"The sun just came up," Ianto grumbles, but steps swiftly when Jack grabs his hand and starts the march.
Tosh falls into step beside them, and after a few moments Ianto turns to her. "Tosh," he whispers.
"What?" she murmurs back, although there's not much point. Jack is all of two feet away.
Ianto grins at her. "I'm on an alien planet," he says. "A planet. That's alien."
Tosh's pulse leaps. Her lips curl up despite herself and she almost laughs, looking shifty-eyed to either side. She leans in and whispers, "Me, too."
Working Title: blanketfic.doc
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Toshiko (no pairings yet)
Rating: PG at the moment (R for the 's' word)
Word Count: 4,560
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Summary: Jack, Ianto, and Tosh are taken through the Rift to an alien planet. Not as lame as summary makes it sound.
blanketfic.doc
The planet smells like chicken. Not delicious chicken; no rosemary or lemon herb, no tender chargrilled strips or lightly breaded legs. The planet smells raw, like the juice that puddles pinkly in the corners of the styrofoam or oozes from the creases of Saran wrap.
"I wish I had a nuclear scanner, or the ultrasound standby. We don't even have our bluetooths," Tosh is saying. "I wish I had on trousers. No, I want shoes." Her shirt is long enough to preserve her modesty, but Tosh didn't live through the 1960s like Jack did. She has different ideas of acceptable skirt-length.
"Dream big," says Jack. "Go ahead and wish you had both."
"This isn't funny, Jack!" Toshiko's echo skids along the bristle grass. The grass is stiff, dark brown, and curling onto itself beneath their weight. It reminds Jack of an unwelcoming welcome mat.
"I know," says Jack. He sighs and stares around the very big, very empty plain they've found themselves in. "Is everyone ok? Any wounds, nausea, stuff like that?"
Ianto looks down at the backs of his hands like that's the only place he could be hurt-the rest of him is so bundled in wool and cotton blends it's plausible-but Tosh shakes her head, holding her arms tightly around her waist. "All the evidence we have on the health effects of Rift travel-all the evidence-comes from long term medical observation of the Weevils. There's no way to tell by eye what kind of damage we've incurred. Do you remember the necrosis break-out?" she says. "We didn't notice what was going on until months after-"
"Hang on," says Jack, bracing his hands on her shoulders. "We need to do an attitude check, first thing. Ianto, you come over here, too." He holds out an arm and Ianto walks expectantly into the pow-wow, keeping one eye on the sharp-edged horizon. Jack curls Tosh and Ianto firmly under his arms like a (handsome, brawny) mother duck. "Alright troops," he says. "This is a bad situation, I know. But we're not going to do any doomsaying, or make wild guesses as to how screwed we are. We're going to be optimistic, because we are very lucky people. Look around you!" He gestures to the wild expanse of absolutely nothing and the faintly turquoise sun swaying heavily above the rim of it. "This planet has acceptable gravity, there's oxygen to breathe, there's a star providing warmth and light-what more could you hope for?"
"Food and water," says Ianto. "And any sign of sentient life."
Jack glares at him. "Ok, that optimism thing? So far you're not very good at it."
Ianto looks at Tosh. "We bent the hinges on the door to your flat," he says. "I don't think the landlord will cover that."
"Better," says Jack. "Still focusing on the negative, but at least you're assuming we're going to get back. Good job, Ianto."
Tosh sighs. "I'd much rather have bent hinges than be transported to a strange planet all by myself. Jack, what exactly happened with the Rift, anyway? And why did it happen in my bedroom?"
Jack shrugs, arms still clasped around his people. "As near as I could tell from the Rift predictor program, it was a normal spike. Our communicators got hit with a wave of interference, including my wrist strap. It's still snowed out but should fix itself in a few hours," he added, peering at the control display from where his wrist is resting on Ianto's shoulder. "But that kind of thing has happened before. This all seems normal. The fact that it was in your flat is just bad luck."
"You told us we had good luck," Ianto says with his eyebrows scrunched together.
"Are you going to sass me like this the whole time?" Jack asks.
"I'm stuck on an alien planet with little hope of survival," says Ianto. "I get my kicks where I can."
"Little hope of-" Jack's tone turns hard. "I will get you guys back home. Just trust me."
Tosh and Ianto look at him.
"At least pretend to trust me?" Jack wheedles.
"Of course," says Ianto solemnly.
Tosh nods, her mouth turned too far down to be really convincing.
"Right," says Jack, and releases them both to rub his hands together in a business-like way. "Situational assessment. What do we have that might help?"
"Clothing," says Ianto. "Not quite enough to go around, but it'll do in a pinch."
"I've got a gold ring with a topaz setting," says Tosh, holding up her hand. "And brass earrings-oh." She presses her fingertips to the empty piercing of her left ear and looks around. "I was putting the second one in when you two burst through the door. I must have dropped it there; I'm sure I wouldn't have held onto it while we were-" she doesn't sound sure at all, and prods worriedly at the bristle grass with her foot. "It doesn't matter," she says.
"Did you like that pair?" Ianto asks.
Tosh looks deeply conflicted-her too-thin eyebrows curl sharply in the middle-then tries to shrug it off. "They're cheap things," she says. "My mother got them on clearance for my sixteenth birthday."
"I'll search for it," Ianto says, and drops to the ground immediately. Tosh hops back in a flutter-her shirt is in the asymmetrical style, with long hems on the sides where they do no good at all-but Jack stays firmly planted, enjoying the press of Ianto's shoulder against his knee until his legs are pushed out of the way.
"Your turn," Tosh says to Jack, still pulling at her left earlobe.
Jack turns out his pockets, displaying his possessions in turn with showmanlike flair. "I have... my gun, the keys to the SUV, a cell phone that is, unsurprisingly, out of range-"
"Here's mine, too," says Ianto, passing it up. "And I've got my gun as well."
"No extra ammo, I'm guessing," Jack says, then digs through his clothes again. "Three packs of chewing gum in spearmint, mango-tangerine and classic bubble flavours, a twelve-pack of lubricated condoms, a ticket stub from 1953-"
"1953?" Tosh asks.
"1953 was a good year for movies," Jack grins.
"It was not," says Ianto.
"Excuse me-"
Ianto interrupts Jack, sitting back on his heels. "1952 was a good year for movies, including Singin' in the Rain and High Noon, but 1953 was rubbish."
"Fine," said Jack. "1953 was a good year for me making out in movie theatres. Better?"
"Is there anything helpful in your pockets?" Tosh asks pointedly.
"That would be the rub, wouldn't it?" says Jack. He digs deeper, unbuttons pockets hidden in the lining, fills Tosh's hands with nostalgic ephemera and broken bits of things. Tosh gives him back the lint, the faded scraps of letterhead, reciepts for ice cream cones and a single cuff-link, monogrammed with "I.J."
"These can stay together," she says, hooking her earring-Ianto couldn't find the other-around the cufflink's middle bar. Ianto takes them both with a smile. His fingers are almost hot to touch, and speckled violet from the soil underneath the grass.
"Jack's responsible for me losing the other cufflink, just like your earring," says Ianto.
"Maybe he's doing it on purpose," Tosh whispers.
Ianto leans in conspiratorially. "Next thing you know, Owen will be complaining that he can only find half of his favorite biro."
"I'm right next to you," Jack says disgruntledly, his hands still outstretched and filled with clutter.
Tosh and Ianto stow the sentimental things away in Jack's enormous pockets, leaving on his palms the things with names longer than four syllables (although at least two of those names are variations on "thingamabobber," and another three Jack made up names for on the spot.)
"Yes," says Tosh, staring at the twisted bits of slag and broken mechanisms. "Yes, I can do something with this." She glances up. "Jack?"
He grins at her. "Yes ma'am?"
"Is your wrist-strap working again?"
His eyebrows shoot up. He carefully spills all the trinkets into Ianto's waiting hands (Ianto has pulled out his hankerchief, ready to tie their desultory equipment into a tidy bundle) and pushes up the sleeve of his coat. "Still very limited functionality, but I've got some information coming through," Jack says excitedly. "Hey, Ianto."
"Jack," says Ianto, concentrating on the handkerchief.
Jack grins until Ianto looks up at him, suspicious. "You wanna see your signs of life?"
___
They're walking vaguely towards magnetic north, seeking out the dim-lit blips on Jack's wrist-strap. Tiny localized points of heat, bio-electricity, and movement.
"Yes," says Ianto, "but do they enjoy reality TV?"
"Now is not the time for Earthling prejudice," Jack says. The most important thing about alien lifeforms at the moment is that they must eat some kind of food, drink water, and can hopefully be convinced to share it.
"Sentience is as sentience does," Ianto mutters.
The wind is soft and temperate (Tosh swears that sometimes, it's blowing up), but still smells like raw chicken with a bit of rotting bark mixed in. It makes them feel like they are in a broken meat locker, like all the chill has left just recently and now the smell can only thicken. "Congeal" is the word Ianto uses, before the other two pull faces and beg him to never describe the air again.
The bristle grass scrapes at Tosh's soles. She tries to walk in Ianto's black silk socks until the way the threads snag and pull make her feel slightly sick, like her skin is sliding off. "I need to build up some callouses anyway," she says as she hands the balled-up socks, now scraggled brown with grass, back to Ianto. "At least I'm not wearing heels."
"That's the spirit," Jack says, and adjusts their course a quarter degree.
___
The sun is bruising purple at the edges and wavers on the horizon like a too-ripe peach in a bowl of water. It's far bigger than they're used to, and they are starting to suspect the gravity is stronger here.
"By the way," Jack says conversationally, rolling his shoulders in a familiar ache beneath his coat. "Peter Pan came out in 1953."
"So did How to Marry a Millionaire and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," says Ianto.
"Ooh, good point," says Jack.
Tosh looks sideways at both of them, chewing on her gum ration (one stick of mango-tangerine; it almost swamps the smell.)
"But you didn't think of Marilyn Monroe," says Ianto. "Your first thought was Peter Pan."
"Tinkerbell is pretty hot," says Jack.
Ianto slants a smile at him. "Perhaps you should look her up, then," he says.
"Don't have to," Jack says triumphantly. "She's animated. I'll just take a few drawing classes, and then I can put her in any position I want."
"That's disgusting," says Ianto.
Jack chuckles and they crunch onwards. After a long moment of silence, Toshiko mutters, "She is hot, though."
Ianto is too far away to hear her, and doesn't understand why Jack is laughing.
___
The sun rolls across the horizon for over an hour before finally dipping down. There are no moons, no haze of dust to refract the light. They have just gotten used to the clotted blue of the sunset glow when it disappears completely and drops them into pitch-black. The stars are nothing more than pale suggestions winking red.
Jack reaches out his hands to either side; Ianto is close to him already and moves closer when Jack's fingers bump against his elbow and slide, exploringly, up to his shoulder. Tosh is harder to find, and makes first contact with Jack ear-to-thumbnail.
"Ouch!"
"Sorry," mutters Jack, and his hand wavers down to curl around the side of Toshiko's neck. It's all bare skin, and Jack can feel her startle. "We should probably sit down before someone breaks an ankle," Jack says, and they all settle awkwardly. Ianto accidentally kicks Jack in the knee; Tosh leans too far backwards and Jack looses touch with her, is terrified for a moment that she's vanished. He snatches her back.
"Jack!" she cries breathlessly, falling into his side. "What was that for?"
"I-" Jack doesn't answer for a moment, feeling his face go hot. He crosses his legs Indian style. "I didn't know where you were."
"What happened?" Ianto says mildly. His elbow is hooked over Jack's thigh, closer to the crotch than he probably realizes.
"New rule," says Jack, simultaneously startled and pleased by the force of his voice in the black. "During the night, keep in constant physical contact with the other two."
"Oh god," mutters Tosh, shifting herself in the crook of Jack's arm. "I hope neither of you get sweaty."
"That wouldn't be such a bad thing, wouldn't?" Jack says, although his leer is pointless in the dark. He's sure they can hear it in the tone of his voice, though, if Toshiko's quiet snort is anything to go by.
"I wouldn't worry about sweat," says Ianto. "It's going to get cold, soon. And I'm hungry."
Jack folds his legs more comfortably and says, "Next time, I'm booking a four star hotel."
____
They keep thinking their eyes will adjust to the dark, but it never happens. The smell goes in phases; Ianto's sense of it sharpens and he feels choked by the oily feel of it, but after an hour or so the subtleties float through. The grass smells, predictably, like straw-but clean straw, without the typical (for Earth, anyway) acridity of dust. He mentions this to the others.
"Usually, when there's straw around," he says, "the dust is largely composed of horse shit."
"I'd like to see your data on that," Tosh says, and Ianto can tells it's her talking (aside from the fact that, well, it sounds like her) because there's a sudden waft of mango-tangerine and aspartame.
"My conclusions are drawn primarily from anecdotal evidence," he says smoothly.
"Well," Tosh says primly. "In my experience-this is largely anecdotal, you understand-such conclusions are largely composed of horse shit."
Jack's sudden laugh makes them startle. "Sorry," he says, patting Tosh's ankle (she's ended up leaning on his back, legs curved around his hip) and squeezing Ianto's waist. Ianto slid further down when Tosh shifted, his arm tucked snugly into Jack's lap. His head balances on Jack's thigh, and his hair sometimes tickles Toshiko's knee.
"I think I'm smelling the soil, too," says Ianto, and pitches forward to sniff at the ground. "A hint of stewed beets, I should think."
Jack pulls in a deep breath through his nose, feeling Tosh tense slightly to keep herself from sliding down his shoulder. "More like parqhuits," he says.
There's a short silence.
"What are parqhuits?" Tosh asks.
"Oh," says Jack. "I forgot you don't have them on Earth. They're a root vegetable sort of like-well, beets, actually."
"So I'm right," says Ianto.
"There's a subtle difference," Jack argues. "If you'd ever smelled parqhuits, you'd know what I mean."
"Pardon my ignorance, then," Ianto says snidely.
Jack snorts and twitches his fingers into Ianto's ribcage to make him squirm. Ianto retaliates by biting Jack's knee-cap bluntly through the fabric of his trousers.
"You two are up to something," Tosh says sternly. "I can feel it."
"Nonsense," says Ianto with a smile in his voice.
____
Ianto is right; it gets colder. Tosh doesn't say anything, but Jack notices her shivering. It's a delicate operation to get his coat off without the letting go of either of them, but Tosh and Ianto are good at problem solving. They're less skilled at describing their solutions without visual aid, but eventually their bodies coalesce into a cozy heiroglyph beneath the spread-out coat: Tosh in the middle, legs drawn up and hooked over Jack's to protect her from the bristle grass. Jack's arm is pillow for them both, and Ianto octopuses like they need restraint, like the planet will stop spinning suddenly and fling them off. Someone's palm is soft on someone's hip. Ianto's breathing onto Tosh's hair and Jack feels like he's made of string: a hundred strands clumped loosely.
"I'm hungry," Ianto murmurs.
"Don't have any gum," Tosh mumbles gloomily. "That only makes it worse."
Their voices drift up on an exponential scale of weakness and Jack bends his body around the two of them. That's all he can do: he can give them his body and his coat. That is enough most times, but wait, his coat's got great big pockets, and if he slides a hand in there (the pocket feels like the smooth skin of an apple) he can pull out a honeyed ham and a pot of bubbling stew. Jellied candies are spilling out in gold and blue, some scarlet, the most tasty ones are green, he says. Oh is that so, says Ianto, and Tosh is peeling strips of cheese from her computer screen.
Something shoves against his belly.
"Can't breathe," Tosh gasps, and bats at the heavy edge of the coat-cum-blanket. She erupts from the middle of them (Ianto's grunt implies she's stepped on him) and stumbles clear, shirt swishing fuschia-wine against the grass and startling, greenish sky. Her legs are curved and kicky things, and Jack just looks for a moment. A vein is skating down the pale-soft back of her knee.
Jack blinks. "It's morning," he croaks.
Ianto squints puffy-eyed into the light then rolls back over, taking the entire coat with him. It swaths around his head and chest but leaves his ankles bare, the victims of drooping socks and rucked-up trouser hems. He draws them up into the warmth.
"Rise and shine," Jack says, jostling the lump where he thinks Ianto's shoulder must be. As he moves, his shirt and trousers twist around thickly; he feels muggy, and there's sweat inside his collar.
"That only felt like a few hours," Tosh says, walking in a lopsided circle around them, stretching her arms and yanking down the hem of her shirt.
"Probably was," says Jack. He glances at his wrist-strap just out of habit, and realizes some of the function buttons are healthy blue instead of darkened like they were before. "How about we check that using some hard data instead of anecdotal evidence?"
Tosh looks up from wiping a sweat-stuck bit of grass from her ankle. "Hard data?" she says, in the same longing way that she might also, at this point, say, "cheese toastie?"
Jack clambers to his feet and toggles the holographic projector on his wrist strap. Tosh's eyes go wide in the curious, drinking-in expression that Jack calls (in the part of his mind that still, after all these decades, gets the connotations of English words mixed up) "absorbant." It's denotatively correct, albeit in a figurative fashion: she's absorbing everything. The undignified associations are just a bad coincidence; Jack can't be expected to keep track of bog roll commercials.
"So that's the planet we're standing on?" Tosh says, pointing at the projection. The spherical morass of blue light spins casually in mid-air. "There's no axial tilt," she points out. "Is that just how it's being displayed?"
"This shows planets relative to the star or stars they orbit," Jack says. "So you're right, there's no axial tilt-or a negligibly small one, anyway. Guess we don't have to worry about winter setting in, huh?" Jack grins, looking worried anyway. "How much do you know about planetary geology?" he asks.
Tosh shakes her head. "Not much, just a few briefers on it in university, and whatever I need to brush up on for GPS and weather work. The axial tilt of the Earth is what causes the seasons, right? And the varying length of daylight?"
Jack nods."It also helps to even out the temperature of a planet, so you don't end up with a scorching equator and completely frozen poles. But obviously we found someplace nice in the middle, so it works out well for us that it's not going to change any time soon. Ianto!"
Jack's coat rolls over.
"Iaaaaaanto," Jack calls. He turns back to Tosh. "It's gonna be a lot harder than usual to get him up. Usually I can just wave some food under his nose. Did you know that he really likes English muffins? I always point out to him that, historically, he's obligated to hate all things English, but he just glares and tells me to pass the jam. IANTO!"
Tosh smiles at him for that, but is focusing mostly on the hologram and the tidy square of squiggly writing beneath it that she can't decipher. "Do you know how big the planet is? We could find out how far it is to reach those lifeforms," she says.
The wriststrap had still been squirrelly the day before; it could tell them what direction the lifeforms were in, but any calculation of distance came up with variables. Jack said the positioning mechanism used relative distance based on the shape of the terrain-useful if one were, say, on an asteroid or a disc-shaped satellite or if there was a mountain in the way-but the sensors that could do long-distance terrain scanning were blanked out, and no matter how many times Jack yelled, "It's flat, you stupid thing! Flat!" it wouldn't give an estimate.
Ianto had helpfully pointed out that planets were not, strictly speaking, flat at all, which was apparently what the wrist strap had been trying to say all along. "Flat" was a constant in an equation with a big variable: the rate of curvature.
Jack protested sulkily that it was very, very rare that the rate of curvature was unknown (one is generally aware of the size of the planet they are standing on), so he couldn't really be blamed for not picking up on that, but it remained that no-one was getting a gold star for that debacle. Except maybe Tosh, who at least hadn't pissed anyone off.
Jack is stroking the edge of the control panel of his wriststrap, apparently best friends with it again. The squiggly writing scrolls disturbingly in an invisible mid-air frame. "Smaller than Earth by about 35%," he says. "But it's much denser, and we're not as far from the center of attraction, so the gravity comes out nearly identical. Which we knew already," he adds. He glances over at his coat-a study in stubborn stillness-and pokes something determinedly on his wriststrap. "Be right back," he says, then strides away.
The hologram stays in place. Toshiko figures it has a way of grounding itself despite Jack's relative position; otherwise it'd be shaky whenever he moved or took a breath. She steps closer and peers at the vague shapes scattering the sphere, wondering if they are tectonic plates or if they are the continents and oceans overlaying them. Possibly both. The sphere slows down then stops spinning when she's within a few inches. Lucky, that-it was about to give her a headache.
Beyond the hologram, veiled somewhat by its thin blue lines, Jack is crouching next to his coat and prodding it. Tosh uses her finger to follow the edge of a tectonic plate (she guesses that's what it is) and suddenly the wire-frame ball flushes into a finely gradiated elevation map.
"Ooh," she says. Jack glances up and grins. "Definitely the edge of a tectonic plate," Tosh mumbles triumphantly. "There's the resulting mountain range from where they clashed together at some point." She follows the slope of it, knuckle carefully not brushing the hologram, into a deep depression. There's no way to tell if it's an ocean or a desert basin, so she nudges at it. No water or indication of it appears, but when she pulls her hand back the entire model shrinks and becomes fuzzy, the gradiant blue overlaid with wisps of pink.
Something about that doesn't sit well with Tosh.
"Jack?" she calls. She steps back to peer around the hologram (it went rather opaque with the elevation gradients) to see Ianto sitting up, one palm rubbing half-heartedly at his face. Jack, one hand on Ianto's shoulder, looks to Tosh. "Come tell me what I'm seeing here," she says.
"Pink is for atmosphere," Jack says as he comes striding over.
"Is it supposed to be flying out into space like that?" Tosh says.
"What?" says Jack. "No! A proper atmosphere thins out evenly, it's like a shell surrounding the-" He stops short, staring at the hologram and the very un-shell-like tendrils of pink flaring out from it. "There's something wrong," he says. "This planet has plenty of gravity to keep gases close to the surface. So why would it be escaping?"
"The only reason I can think of is heat," says Toshiko. Jack gives her a questioning look and she continues, "Gas molecules travel faster when they're heated up, and gain enough velocity to escape the gravity."
Jack glances at the sun-it's cool and not much bright, but still so very big-and fiddles with his wriststrap. More squiggly letters flash up. His eyes widen. "The oceans evaporated," he says softly.
Ianto has shuffled up behind Jack, squinting at the hologram. "That looks like a beach ball covered in shag carpet," he pronounces groggily.
"That's the planet we're on," says Jack. "Except there's a problem."
"What problem," Ianto says, suddenly awake and serious.
"It's insanely hot, and there's no atmosphere," Jack says.
"But-" Ianto blinks and glances around, just to check his facts before speaking. "It's temperate," he says. "And we're breathing air."
"Aren't you glad you got up this morning?" Jack says with a weak smile. He leans back to look around the hologram at Tosh, who is staring intently. The space between her eyebrows is fiercely crinkled. "Figured it out, yet, Toshiko?" he asks eagerly.
Tosh tilts her head to the side for one moment more. "The... poles," she says slowly.
Jack grins broadly, proud as punch. "That's it," he says.
"We're at the pole," says Tosh again. "This is the coldest part of the planet."
Jack shrugs. "Just about, I'm guessing. The scanner kept telling me to follow magnetic north to find those lifeforms-I wonder how close we are to it already?"
"Close enough to walk to, I hope," Ianto says. "I don't think we can go another day without food or water."
"I don't know about that," Jack says, his grin still wide, but crumbling at the edges. "The days are a lot shorter here." He points to a line of text-Toshiko guesses that Ianto can't read it any better than she can- then does something that makes his wriststrap whistle. The hologram, aka the shag-covered beach ball, disappears and Jack studies his control screen. "Now that we know how big this planet is, and thus the rate of curvature, we should be able to re-lock on those unknown critters in order calculate a route and distance." The wriststrap blurbles. "Fantastic," Jack smiles.
"Well?" says Tosh. "Are they nearby?"
Jack points dramatically. "That direction, only 18 klicks. But we'd better hurry," he adds. "The sun'll set in five hours."
"The sun just came up," Ianto grumbles, but steps swiftly when Jack grabs his hand and starts the march.
Tosh falls into step beside them, and after a few moments Ianto turns to her. "Tosh," he whispers.
"What?" she murmurs back, although there's not much point. Jack is all of two feet away.
Ianto grins at her. "I'm on an alien planet," he says. "A planet. That's alien."
Tosh's pulse leaps. Her lips curl up despite herself and she almost laughs, looking shifty-eyed to either side. She leans in and whispers, "Me, too."