Chapter Text
Ianto lifted two shopping bags up onto the kitchenette counter. He and Mel had spent the morning cleaning out anything expired, or empty. They’d also taken three plastic boxes containing what were leftovers, at some point in time, to the incinerator in case whatever was inside had gained sentience. They’d also replaced some of the oldest tableware and limited cookware. It had almost started to look liveable.
“You’d think with Jack living here he wouldn’t let the fridge get that bad.” Melody mused as she placed down a bag of her own.
Ianto raised an eyebrow. “When did you find out?”
“It isn’t difficult to work out. I mean all his stuff is here and there’s no address on any of his paperwork. Even if he was a complete workaholic and just slept here some of the time he’d still have a secondary address.”
“And it took me six months to work out the same thing.” He muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. Anyway, Jack has a lot of things that you’ll eventually find out about him.”
“Couldn’t he just tell me?”
“I’ve been asking that for a long time. Apparently no.”
“I suppose that’s one way to keep an air of mystery.”
“He has his reasons. Try not to take it personally.”
She finished unpacking the shopping bag she’d brought in. “I’m not. Until a few months ago I thought he might be a figment of my imagination, so he’s more than welcome to have his own secrets.”
“I’m sure he appreciates it.” He smiled. “By the way, how’s the move going?”
“Pretty much done. It’s not like I have much to move.”
“Isn’t anything in your old flat yours?”
“Not much. I’ve got my clothes, my guitar, a few personal items and my mattress. I didn’t have the money for furniture before. I’m getting everything delivered next week. My nights will involve a date with miss flatpack and miss alan key.”
“Ahh, I’ve met them before. Everything looks great on paper but they’re a lot of hard work.”
“I can’t do any worse than my last few dates. At least they probably won’t kill anyone.”
“Probably.”
“Probably.” She chuckled and turned to grab the last bag that had been left in the car. “Be right back.” On her way out she dodged Jack who’d been looking for his partner. He smiled as she swiftly apologised and trotted off.
“I told you I didn’t need this much stored here.” The captain said, more amused than annoyed.
Ianto continued putting everything away. “You can’t live on takeaway food.”
“One, I don’t, and two, when was the last meal you had that wasn’t brought in a plastic tub?”
“That’s not the point. We both need to eat better… Has Tosh found what’s wrong with the doors yet?”
“She’s working on it. It’s something to do with a bug in the security system from three updates ago. She’s so annoyed.”
“I would be too.”
“I’m sure she’ll work it out.”
“Of course she will. She’s Tosh. Was there anything you needed sir?”
“I need you to find a few old files that weren’t digitised. I tried to find them myself but I know you hate it when I touch your filing system.”
“No, I don’t hate you touching my filing system, I hate it when you pull out all the files and leave them for me to put back.”
“I don’t know where to put them like you do.”
“Jack… They’re alphabetised.”
He was going to reply when he heard Owen cry out from down in the medical bay. He sprinted over to see the previously thought dead creature they’d had on ice for two days with its tentacles wrapped around Owens left arm. Jack fired into what he guessed was the things head and it fell limp while the injured doctor pulled off the fleshy bindings that were stinging him like a jellyfish. Now free he could deal with the sting, thanking whatever force that had a hand in the universes inner workings that they had a wide range antitoxin that could stop the sharp, stinging, pain that was shooting through the limb.
“Fuck!” He hissed, having to scrub away the leftover residue from his reddened arm. “The bloody thing was dead!”
Jack was keeping one eye on the alien, seeing that the main trunk of its body was split wide open and half of its organs were already outside of its body. “Are you going to be ok?”
“Yea, yea, I’m just pissed off. There was no way that was just an automatic reaction. It reached up my damn sleeve.”
“I don’t think it’ll be getting up again.”
Gwen had met Melody in the garage and they had just reached the main area of the hub, shopping in hand, as the lights went out.
“No no no no no!” Tosh exclaimed, glancing from screen to screen at her workstation.
Gwen dared to ask the obvious question. “What’s going on?”
“I fixed the security bug but… No. Come on, don’t do this.”
“But?”
She typed furiously, looking more and more frazzled, “but it created a conflict that’s sent the security system into a scan quarantine lock scan feedback loop. Because I rewrote the code that contained the bug it thinks of itself as a virus but it can’t just quarantine itself. I need to shut everything down and roll it back.”
“Doesn’t that mean-”
“We’re in lockdown, yes.”
“For how long?” Jack asked from the medical bay doorway.
“If we’re lucky, five hours.”
“And if we’re not?”
“Up to twenty four.”
Owen marched over to his desk, dressing his arm. “Lucky I don’t have to go to the hospital then.”
“Um…” Melody nudged Gwen in the arm and spoke softly. “What’s going on?”
Gwen glanced around. “We might be stuck in here tonight.”
“Oh… Ok.”
“Don’t worry, it’s happened before. It won’t be that bad. And this time we won’t have to stay up in shifts because an angry alien is stalking around the place.”
“That happened?”
“Twice.”
Ianto wandered past as if what was going on wasn’t a big deal. “I wish she was joking.”
“See?”
“Sorry. I was writing the new coding and I jumped which ran it before it was ready and… Now we’re stuck.” Tosh sighed deeply and flopped into her chair as the monitors around the hub blinked off then began the rollback process.
Jack lent against the pillar nearby. “It’s fine.”
“I can probably use my laptop to isolate the main doors locking mechanism but that’ll leave it set open for a few days while I wire everything back up correctly.”
“Tosh. Relax. It’s fine.”
“Well, if we’re stuck here.” Owen said, not sounding as annoyed as everyone expected. “I’m going to go and put away that jellyfish bastard before it starts to smell. Anyone fancy holding a torch? The emergency lighting’s crap.”
As working had been rendered pretty much impossible, Ianto had busied himself finding the camp beds and bedding they had in storage. He’d taken what he could find to a side room that was large enough for everyone to be comfortable but still held in the heat. Some parts of the hub got very cold overnight, even with the heating as high as it would go. It was one of the downsides to being underground. Great mid summer, but not so much at the height of a particularly cold winter. He’d hung a lantern up on one of the old brackets so he could at least see. The only problem left was that they were short two beds. He suspected a couple had been either damaged or lost during a particularly traumatic outing. He supposed Jack would stay in his bunker and Ianto had a habit of sleeping there too so it shouldn’t be a problem.
“I feel like a teenager all over again.” Gwen smiled from the doorway. “Haven’t got any cheap vodka hidden under the pillows have you?”
“Sadly, no. We’re facing this sober unless Jack decides to find the key to his drinks cabinet.”
“Shame. Dinner’s nearly ready.”
“I’ll be right up. Is everyone behaving?”
She gave a non committal “ehh.”
“Let me guess, Jack’s bored.”
“And driving Melody up the wall. She’s set aside a wooden spoon specifically to smack his hand every time he tries to steal a cookie.”
“She’s baking?”
“She got bored waiting for the water to boil so she found something to do. It smells amazing up there.”
“And Jack was complaining about me going shopping.”
“I’m sure you’ll never let him forget that.”
“Not for a minute.”
“Soooo…”
He turned to face her, seeing how uncomfortable she seemed. “What?”
“You know Melody pretty well, right?”
“I think so, why?”
“Do you think she has… I don’t know… Feelings for me?”
“Yes.”
“What? That was quick.”
“Gwen, she blushes when you so much as walk into a room. It’s a bit obvious.”
“Why hasn’t anyone said anything then?”
“Because it’s not up to us to say anything. Is it a problem?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know.”
“She’s not a lovestruck teenager. You’re taken and she’s ok with that. Is it going to be an issue? If it is you might want to go and talk to her now.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not a big deal.”
“Gwen… Let her down gently. Please?”
Jack looked rather content, finishing off what was left of his cookie, still amused that Mel had thwarted his attempts to steal one earlier. He was one of the few people that could sneak up on her without her hearing their thoughts before they even got close. That didn’t mean she couldn’t see him trying to creep past her. Tosh had started to feel a little better, knowing that there were worse things that could have happened as this could be easily fixed. He looked over at Mel, who’d seemed on edge since the lockdown began, and suspected that was why she’d volunteered to cook. Just for something to do to keep her mind off whatever was bothering her.
“So, Melody, didn’t you say you’d run into aliens before?”
Mel nodded. “Oh yea. Loads. Most were just passing by. There was one when I was about twelve. I was at my nans and my sisters had locked me out of the house again. I was sitting in the garden, sun going down, and this being hops over the fence. It looked like a seven foot tall scaled kangaroo with red eyes. It froze when it saw me. So there we are, just uncomfortably looking at each other in the dark, and it asked me why I was there. All I could say was oh I kind of live here.”
A round of snickering drifted through the group.
“It just nodded and hopped off again. I didn’t know social awkwardness was universal until then.”
“Why didn’t you ever ask for help?” Jack asked.
She shrugged. “I never felt like I needed to. Anyway, the last thing I needed was another agency snooping around. UNIT aren’t exactly subtle when they drive past you in their big trucks.”
“I wish I’d known. They were specifically told to leave you alone.”
“They were scared. That’s all. Anyway,” she said as she stood, “I have washing up to do.” She took all the plates and cups before heading off to clean them.
Gwen lent forward on the table. “As long as we’re chatting, when and how did this happen?” She pointed between Owen and Tosh.
Toshiko blushed. “Oh.. Well, it just… Did I suppose. There wasn’t one serious moment.”
“Translation, none of your business.” Owen interjected, not quite being able to hide the smile on his face.
After a pleasant evening the team got ready to get some sleep. Owen and Tosh decided to cuddle up together which had ended any bed space issues. Gwen curled up, happily saying goodnight to Rhys over the phone that illuminated her face in the dimly lit room. Ianto had his head rested on Jacks lap, listening sleepily to him nattering on about some story or another. As much as the welshman was listening the information was slipping away in his half conscious haze. Even Jack decided that sleeping might be a nice idea being as everyone else was, whether he needed to or not.
At around two in the morning Gwen awoke with a gut feeling that something was off. She unlocked her phone so she could just see in the darkness. Jack and Ianto were curled up together, fast asleep. Tosh and Owen were still cuddled down asleep. Melody was missing. Gwen rubbed her eyes and plodded to the bathroom, wishing it was closer. She’d expected to run into her workmate on the way but the woman was nowhere to be seen. She decided that her friend couldn’t have gotten too far as they were locked in after all. She ascended the steps to the main area of the hub, spotting a soft glow in the darkness.