m_findlow

Title: It's a girl
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,455 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 65 - Girl at beattheblackdog
Summary: Torchwood is about to inherit a brand new pet

Owen was annoyed by the early morning call to come into the hub. He was even more annoyed to find that he was the only one who’d been called in, Suzie and Tosh noticeably absent.

‘Though you’d ruin my morning, did you?’ he asked, making sure he sounded extra grumpy for Jack’s benefit.

‘I bring you a present, and this is how you thank me?’ Jack replied, pretending to be wounded by the comment.

‘That remains to be seen,’ Owen muttered. ‘Alright, so where is this present? It had better be capable of being poured into a glass. He leaned over the railing and peered down into the autopsy bay, seeing nothing at all out of place. So where is it?’

‘Wasn’t quite the right shape to take down there. Come on,’ Jack said, leading him downstairs.

Owen felt no small amount of trepidation in being lead down into the depths of the hub. He’d done his share of treating injured aliens, weevils and other undesirables in the cells, too dangerous to be let loose in the main hub, but Jack continued to walk him past the cells and further down, until finally the came to one of the larger storage areas several levels below. Most of them were disused, but not this one anymore.

Inside, Owen saw a man standing there, and nearby, a large pile on the floor. It looked like it might be a pile of hessian sacks or something like it.

‘How’s our patient?’ Jack said, startling the man out of his reverie.

‘Breathing’, he replied. ‘Beyond that I’m afraid out beyond the reaches of my expertise in these matters, sir.’

Jack chuckled. ‘You’ll get used to that feeling around here.’

‘Who the hell’s this?’ Owen asked.

‘Owen, meet Ianto Jones. He’s going to be working with us.’

‘Is he just?’ Owen replied, looking the young man up and down. Dressed in his suit, he looked about 22, if that. Typical Jack. Couldn’t resist something half his own age. How long was this going to last he wondered. He didn’t usually bring his conquests home, for which Owen was eternally grateful.

‘Okay, Owen,’ Jack said. ‘Time to get to work,’ he added, pointing to the lump in the middle of the room that was apparently his patient.

Owen stepped up to the creature. As he got close enough, the lump began to have shape and the more he looked, the more he found himself in disbelief. Aliens were one this, but this?

‘That’s not what I think it is, is it?’

‘If you mean, is it a dinosaur, then yes, it is,’ Jack replied, looking pleased, and flashing a smile at Ianto.

‘How does a dinosaur fall through the rift?’

‘Well, given the species, it probably flew rather than fell. It wasn’t injured when we found it.’

‘We?’ Owen said, giving the young man another sidewards glance? ‘You out on a date or something?’

Ianto flushed bright red at the suggestion but kept silent. Jack just laughed.

‘Wish that we were, Owen. Ianto has to take the credit for finding this one.'

‘And he just happened to know you were the right person to call to sort it out?’

Jack frowned for a moment. He didn’t want to admit to Owen that Ianto was ex-Torchwood One. He didn’t quite know how he felt about it himself for the moment, and the rest of the team would treat him with suspicion if they knew. There was probably a right time to tell the rest of them, just not right now.

‘He found me,’ Jack replied, and left it at that. Owen could tell that there was more to this story, but he wasn’t going to find out right now. Perhaps he was more than just a pretty face, but then again, perhaps not. Owen was going to keep his eye on this one.

‘Well, Owen, you best get to it. We’ve sedated it, but I’m no expert either. It could wake up in five minutes of five hours. I’d prefer we’ve done our due diligence before trying to find a more suitable home for it.’

‘Home?’ Owen sputtered. ‘We’re not keeping it, are we?’

Jack watched as Ianto tentatively put a hand out and stroked the pterodactyl’s wing. True, it hadn’t been all that thrilled to see them, but even so, it was a fascinating thing to have, and Ianto seemed to have taken an interest in it. Maybe Torchwood needed a cool pet. Plus, it would give him something to look after. Jack had shot his mouth off last night and offered him a job, but he still had no idea what to do with the quiet young man.

‘What do you think, Ianto? Do we keep it?’

He looked up and bore an inscrutable expression. ‘Do you have any way of sending it home?’

Jack pulled a face. ‘Not exactly. Well, not easily anyway.’ He felt like this was his moment to impress a Torchwood Londoner and he’d failed miserably. ‘It’s a work in progress,’ he clarified.

‘Well, I don’t think there’s any zoo going to be prepared to take it.’

‘That’s true,’ Jack agreed. ‘Okay, why don’t I take you upstairs and we can google whatever we can about what to feed them. Owen can stay down here and give it the once over.’

‘Oi, what happens if it decides to wake up on me? You’ve not going to leave me down here alone, are you?’

Jack looked at Ianto and he returned to look, nodding. Yup, chocolate wasn’t going to cut it. When had they started communicating without words, he wondered.

‘We’ll bring back some extra sedative,’ Jack promised.

Owen was left to inspect the creature in peace, having been assured that the obscenely large needle they’d given him would do the trick if it decided to wake up and go all angry birds on him. He’d have felt better armed with a gun, but Jack was against doing any more harm than was necessary.

'It’s lost on a world that’s not its own. How would you feel if someone decided to shoot you?'

He began his examination in much the same way as any other, checking for physical injuries, noting down vital signs, obtaining blood and tissue samples, and then taking measurements. It was strangely smaller than he expected a flying dinosaur to be, still bigger than him, and a good five or six yard wingspan, but curled up as it was, it just looked a bit helpless and pathetic. He only hoped that when it did wake up, that it would err on the side of docile. Wishful thinking, no doubt.

The two men returned an hour later, Ianto towing behind Jack like a good little minion.

‘So, what’ve we learned?’ Jack asked.

‘It’s a girl,’ Owen declared.

‘Are you sure?’ Jack asked.

‘No, I’m not actually. I’ve got a medical degree. Unfortunately prehistoric anatomy wasn’t on the syllabus at the time so this is my best guess. How you expect me to be an expert is beyond me.’

‘Fine. What else?’

Owen scratched the back of his head. ‘Seems to be in okay physical shape. No injuries that I can tell, but still waiting on the bloodwork to come back. If it’s come from prehistoric past, it could be carrying any number of communicable diseases. I’d recommend quarantining it until we’re sure.’

‘Good,’ Jack said. ‘And when do we expect it – her - to wake up?’

‘Anytime in the next hour would be my guess.’

Jack put his hands on his hips and considered the creature. ‘Okay, well we discovered some things,’

‘Nothing,’ Ianto interjected, before realising he’d spoken, casting his eyes down at the floor.

‘Not much,’ Jack corrected. ‘Turns out they’re thoroughly understudied creatures. We know they eat fish and probably soft fruits, but that’s about it.’

‘And now you expect me to fill in all the blanks,’ Owen muttered.

‘Not at all,’ Jack replied. ‘Mr Jones, how would you like your first official duty to be looking after, er, I suppose we should give it a name.’

‘Myfanwy,’ he blurted out.

‘Bless you,’ Jack said.

‘Come again?’ Owen said, realising Ianto hadn’t sneezed, but had in fact said something.

‘Myfanwy. It’s Welsh,’ Ianto replied.

‘Course it is,’ Owen said, rolling his eyes. He sometimes wondered why he’d agreed to move to this backwater little country. The road signs did his head in; more L’s than he’d ever seen in his life and not a vowel in sight.

‘Ma-fon-weh,’ Jack tried it out, his accent making Ianto cringe. Owen sniggered.

‘Myfanwy,’ Ianto repeated.

‘Mu-von-wee,’ Jack tried again.

‘Close enough,’ Ianto muttered, rolling his own eyes.

Jack grinned. ‘Welcome to Torchwood Three, Mr Jones.’