Fic: Missing
Title: Missing
Author: Corona
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: In no way mine or anything to do with me. I own nothing.
Summary: Jack seems to have gone missing.
AN: Written for emony2 's birthday, postponed while exciting holidays were taken.
It's not, at first impressions, an especially interesting Wednesday morning. Ianto gets to the hub first, puts coffee on and tidies up files and equipment left out from the night before. He also collects the letters and equations that have made their way onto and across the hub floor before they're trodden on any further.
After that he wipes up the coffee rings...and a few remaining splashes of alien blood from the day before. It's purple this time and appears to have solidified overnight.
Tosh arrives not long after him, barely through the door before she's fiddling with technology, glasses perched in her hair, frown of concentrated genius on her face. She accepts her coffee with a distracted smile and hands off what Ianto assumes is notes on the pieces of equipment she's currently looking at. But knowing Tosh it could just as easily be random equations for cold fusion or a design for a cat shaving machine.
Like all highly intelligent people Tosh is easily distracted.
Owen comes in next, complaining loudly and looking for all the world like an angry pencil once he takes his coat off. He brings in a waft of cold air and accepts his coffee with a scowl, already rambling about how exactly the world has already managed to displeases him today and clearly having forgotten where he put his jacket last night.
Ianto lays it over his arm while he's still opening cupboards searching for it, then gives Ianto a look that suggests he thinks he stole it in the first place.
Gwen appears five minutes late, looking windswept and smiling rather more than usual. She smiles at all of them and accepts her coffee with a thank you and a compliment and drinks half of it before she's even gotten her coat off.
"Where's Jack?" She asks when her coat decides it's going to stay on the back of the chair.
"I haven't seen him yet," Ianto tells her. "He usually leaves a note if he's going to be gone longer than a couple of hours so he should be back soon."
"That's strange isn't it?" She frowns at him over her mug.
"Not really, he mans the place from midnight til six on his own as you know and he doesn't always call us, not if he thinks it's unnecessary."
Gwen makes a noise, pulls out her chair and sits down, runs a hand over her face.
It's only then that Ianto goes through the handful of paper that had managed to flutter to the floor. Most of them are equations, there are a few leaflets and a user manual.
But the last piece of paper stops him in his tracks.
It's written in small wobbly letters...
Dear Team,
Have been accidentally miniaturised while defending hub from space pirates, please watch where you step, and fetch the transmogrification console from the basement,
lots of love,
Jack
"I think you all need to see this," Ianto says simply, and he has an audience in less than a minute.
There are a variety of noises, the most worrying of which come from Tosh...who's looking at the floor.
"I didn't look," she whispers carefully. "I just walked in."
"So did I." Owen seems afraid to move.
"Oh my god," Gwen stretches an arm out to lean on the desk and then immediately thinks better of it, eyes the space she was about to put her hand down on worriedly.
If Ianto's going to be honest he's a little afraid to move as well...which is insane because he's been walking round the hub for an hour now, if he was going to tread on Jack he would have done it already.
"Space pirates?" Gwen's now holding the note, frowning at it. "Miniaturised?" Ianto wonders if she's going to go for 'best of three' but she seems to have finished.
"I wasn't looking, why would I look." Tosh is peering at the floor. "How small do you think he is, I mean you can only go so small before cell function just isn't viable, before you become..." she straggles for a word. "Nano-biology?"
"I think we should all calm down." Gwen says carefully. "If one of us accidentally has trodden on Jack it probably wouldn't kill him anyway...well not permanently. We could apologise later. Now someone is going to have to move to go and get the..." she flounders.
"Transmogrification console," Ianto adds helpfully and she nods repetitively.
"Tosh you've probably got the smallest feet-"
"She'd never lift it," Owen says tartly. "The thing weighs a ton."
Everyone looks at Owen...long enough that his scowl dissolves into a sigh.
"Alright fine."
They all watch him carefully walk his way across the hub, feet slow, uncertain, and barely raised more than an inch off the ground at any one time, arms held away from any of the consoles or work areas. If they weren't all so tense it would be the most ridiculous thing Ianto had ever seen in his entire life.
When he disappears down the stairs they all exhale, and it's such a ridiculous synchronised sound that Gwen and Tosh laugh nervously.
Ten minutes later he replays his careful walk, only this time with more grunting...and shuffling. Ianto had forgotten how big the damn thing was.
Owen sets it on the table, steps back, then looks unsure about whether he should have stepped back without looking and...seems for all the world to briefly fall into some sort of paradox of indecision.
Finally he manages to get back to where the others are all waiting...hopefully.
Twenty minutes later they're all...shifting in the quiet.
Ten minutes after that Tosh frowns and says "Do you think we should have put it on the floor."
Owen steps forward, picks up the box lowers in, stops..."It would be really fucked up it I put this down on him you know."
"Don't say things like that." Gwen says tartly and Ianto can't help but agree with the sentiment.
"Well what am I supposed to do?"
"If you give him time to get out of the way..." Tosh says uncertainly
"Well how long's that? I can't hold this thing forever?" Owen snaps.
"Relative size he should be able to sprint out of the way at least within a minute," she says slowly. "If he's any smaller than that then he's small enough for physics to no longer apply so I think debating about it will probably be pointless-"
"A minute," Owen interrupts. "Alright, we'll count off a minute..."
Which they all duly do.
Owen puts the console down with an great thump, and they all wince.
"Will you all stop that, jesus."
He shuffles back to where they're standing...they all wait expectantly.
There's a rather unexciting 'ping' and Jack appears as if from nowhere. He's covered in fluff and dust...hair a mess and face smeared with lots of unidentifiable floor grime.
He's also clearly not happy.
"It took me half an hour to climb up on the damn table," he tells them, then flicks a hand through his hair until he doesn't look like he's been living in a cushion all night.
"And you all have to be the densest employees ever." Jack points to where there are scorch marks on the wall, then points again to where there's smear of green blood across the side of a door, and then points again to where an alien gun lays smashed to pieces underneath Tosh's desk.
"It's nice to know the earth's in good hands if I'm incapacitated, or temporarily dead."
A bit of fluff drifts down out of Jack's hair, swirls floorwards on an air current.
Tosh giggles, then slaps both hands over her mouth.
Jack rolls his eyes, frown sliding into a smirk almost instantly.
"And when I get back from my shower I expect coffee, breakfast and a variety of beautiful and grovelling apologies...are we clear?"
"Yes Jack," was the general chorus, admittedly some more enthusiastic than others.
"Good," he stomps off towards the basement muttering something about mountaineering.
Author: Corona
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: In no way mine or anything to do with me. I own nothing.
Summary: Jack seems to have gone missing.
AN: Written for emony2 's birthday, postponed while exciting holidays were taken.
It's not, at first impressions, an especially interesting Wednesday morning. Ianto gets to the hub first, puts coffee on and tidies up files and equipment left out from the night before. He also collects the letters and equations that have made their way onto and across the hub floor before they're trodden on any further.
After that he wipes up the coffee rings...and a few remaining splashes of alien blood from the day before. It's purple this time and appears to have solidified overnight.
Tosh arrives not long after him, barely through the door before she's fiddling with technology, glasses perched in her hair, frown of concentrated genius on her face. She accepts her coffee with a distracted smile and hands off what Ianto assumes is notes on the pieces of equipment she's currently looking at. But knowing Tosh it could just as easily be random equations for cold fusion or a design for a cat shaving machine.
Like all highly intelligent people Tosh is easily distracted.
Owen comes in next, complaining loudly and looking for all the world like an angry pencil once he takes his coat off. He brings in a waft of cold air and accepts his coffee with a scowl, already rambling about how exactly the world has already managed to displeases him today and clearly having forgotten where he put his jacket last night.
Ianto lays it over his arm while he's still opening cupboards searching for it, then gives Ianto a look that suggests he thinks he stole it in the first place.
Gwen appears five minutes late, looking windswept and smiling rather more than usual. She smiles at all of them and accepts her coffee with a thank you and a compliment and drinks half of it before she's even gotten her coat off.
"Where's Jack?" She asks when her coat decides it's going to stay on the back of the chair.
"I haven't seen him yet," Ianto tells her. "He usually leaves a note if he's going to be gone longer than a couple of hours so he should be back soon."
"That's strange isn't it?" She frowns at him over her mug.
"Not really, he mans the place from midnight til six on his own as you know and he doesn't always call us, not if he thinks it's unnecessary."
Gwen makes a noise, pulls out her chair and sits down, runs a hand over her face.
It's only then that Ianto goes through the handful of paper that had managed to flutter to the floor. Most of them are equations, there are a few leaflets and a user manual.
But the last piece of paper stops him in his tracks.
It's written in small wobbly letters...
Dear Team,
Have been accidentally miniaturised while defending hub from space pirates, please watch where you step, and fetch the transmogrification console from the basement,
lots of love,
Jack
"I think you all need to see this," Ianto says simply, and he has an audience in less than a minute.
There are a variety of noises, the most worrying of which come from Tosh...who's looking at the floor.
"I didn't look," she whispers carefully. "I just walked in."
"So did I." Owen seems afraid to move.
"Oh my god," Gwen stretches an arm out to lean on the desk and then immediately thinks better of it, eyes the space she was about to put her hand down on worriedly.
If Ianto's going to be honest he's a little afraid to move as well...which is insane because he's been walking round the hub for an hour now, if he was going to tread on Jack he would have done it already.
"Space pirates?" Gwen's now holding the note, frowning at it. "Miniaturised?" Ianto wonders if she's going to go for 'best of three' but she seems to have finished.
"I wasn't looking, why would I look." Tosh is peering at the floor. "How small do you think he is, I mean you can only go so small before cell function just isn't viable, before you become..." she straggles for a word. "Nano-biology?"
"I think we should all calm down." Gwen says carefully. "If one of us accidentally has trodden on Jack it probably wouldn't kill him anyway...well not permanently. We could apologise later. Now someone is going to have to move to go and get the..." she flounders.
"Transmogrification console," Ianto adds helpfully and she nods repetitively.
"Tosh you've probably got the smallest feet-"
"She'd never lift it," Owen says tartly. "The thing weighs a ton."
Everyone looks at Owen...long enough that his scowl dissolves into a sigh.
"Alright fine."
They all watch him carefully walk his way across the hub, feet slow, uncertain, and barely raised more than an inch off the ground at any one time, arms held away from any of the consoles or work areas. If they weren't all so tense it would be the most ridiculous thing Ianto had ever seen in his entire life.
When he disappears down the stairs they all exhale, and it's such a ridiculous synchronised sound that Gwen and Tosh laugh nervously.
Ten minutes later he replays his careful walk, only this time with more grunting...and shuffling. Ianto had forgotten how big the damn thing was.
Owen sets it on the table, steps back, then looks unsure about whether he should have stepped back without looking and...seems for all the world to briefly fall into some sort of paradox of indecision.
Finally he manages to get back to where the others are all waiting...hopefully.
Twenty minutes later they're all...shifting in the quiet.
Ten minutes after that Tosh frowns and says "Do you think we should have put it on the floor."
Owen steps forward, picks up the box lowers in, stops..."It would be really fucked up it I put this down on him you know."
"Don't say things like that." Gwen says tartly and Ianto can't help but agree with the sentiment.
"Well what am I supposed to do?"
"If you give him time to get out of the way..." Tosh says uncertainly
"Well how long's that? I can't hold this thing forever?" Owen snaps.
"Relative size he should be able to sprint out of the way at least within a minute," she says slowly. "If he's any smaller than that then he's small enough for physics to no longer apply so I think debating about it will probably be pointless-"
"A minute," Owen interrupts. "Alright, we'll count off a minute..."
Which they all duly do.
Owen puts the console down with an great thump, and they all wince.
"Will you all stop that, jesus."
He shuffles back to where they're standing...they all wait expectantly.
There's a rather unexciting 'ping' and Jack appears as if from nowhere. He's covered in fluff and dust...hair a mess and face smeared with lots of unidentifiable floor grime.
He's also clearly not happy.
"It took me half an hour to climb up on the damn table," he tells them, then flicks a hand through his hair until he doesn't look like he's been living in a cushion all night.
"And you all have to be the densest employees ever." Jack points to where there are scorch marks on the wall, then points again to where there's smear of green blood across the side of a door, and then points again to where an alien gun lays smashed to pieces underneath Tosh's desk.
"It's nice to know the earth's in good hands if I'm incapacitated, or temporarily dead."
A bit of fluff drifts down out of Jack's hair, swirls floorwards on an air current.
Tosh giggles, then slaps both hands over her mouth.
Jack rolls his eyes, frown sliding into a smirk almost instantly.
"And when I get back from my shower I expect coffee, breakfast and a variety of beautiful and grovelling apologies...are we clear?"
"Yes Jack," was the general chorus, admittedly some more enthusiastic than others.
"Good," he stomps off towards the basement muttering something about mountaineering.