Torchwood Advent Challenge - 1st December

[m_findlow]

Title: Spare change
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,036 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for prompt "Coinage"
Summary: There's a small matter to be dealt with before they can get on with Torchwood business

As they stepped out of the SUV, Ianto inspected the sign.

'It's paid parking,' he announced.

'So?' Owen huffed, already pulling open the back of the boot and hauling out his metal equipment case. 'We're Torchwood.'

'Exactly,' Jack agreed, helping Owen with his load. 'Since when do we pay for parking?'

'Only all the time,' Ianto replied, rolling his eyes. Sometimes he wondered if they'd notice him if he stripped naked in the street and started up Morris dancing.

'Says the man who parked on double yellow lines last week,' Jack teased.

Ianto put his hands on his hips and frowned, disliking the memory of having flaunted local road laws. 'That was an emergency. Cardiff has a bad history of mayors being killed off. I didn't fancy us having to explain to the Home Office that we'd lost another one on account of restricted parking facilities.'

'Well, so is this,' Jack replied, shoving a case into his arms.

'Hardly,' he said, gripping the case, before Jack strode off, trying to look important. 'I believe they used the words "it went kaboom and splattered everywhere".'

'Yeah, well, we've still gotta go in there and clean it up,' Owen moaned. 'That's bad enough without having to worry about trivial crap like parking,' he added, trudging after Jack.

'But,'

'Ianto, go pay for the damn ticket if you're so worried about it,' Jack said.

'I would have,' he snapped, 'but it's coin payment only.'

'So?'

'All I've got is my credit card and a twenty pound note.'

Jack paused. 'I though all those machines took cards these days?'

'In Cardiff they do, but this is just a small valleys town.' Once upon a time when he was a kid, he'd loved being able to slot the coins in, turning the crank each time, letting the coin go in. Now it was a bloody nuisance.

Jack tugged out his wallet, pulling it open and inspecting the contents. 'Sorry, but I'm outta coins.' They both turned to look at Owen.

'Hey, don't look at me. I offload coins soon as I get them. Can't stand them. Wallet weighs a bloody tonne as it is with all those fake ID cards.'

'So, what are we suppose to do now?' Ianto asked.

'Our job?' Owen suggested, carrying off in the direction of the small church that had reported theincident. Jack shrugged his shoulders at Ianto and followed after Owen.

Ianto stood there feeling flustered. He couldn't just leave without paying. Any money they'd get booked, and then he'd have to be the one to sort it out. The local authorities in Cardiff might forgive them, but he knew just how officious local towns people got when you flaunted their laws. He had enough to do in his day without having this extra fuss.

He looked around, hoping to find a solution, or perhaps a section of the main street devoid of clearly marked parking restrictions. It was a small town though, with only a post office, a cafe which was closed, it being after 2pm, and the small church. He looked down at the twenty pound note in his wallet and walked over the road to the post office.

The post office was empty except for one woman in her sixties, siting behind the small counter sipping tea.

'Help you ,love?' she asked.

'Could I buy a stamp?'

'Pack of ten or twenty?' she said, reaching for the small box.

'Just one stamp,' he replied. 'I want to send a postcard home,' he lied.

She narrowed her eyes at him. He figured if it hadn't been for his Welsh accent, she might have told him where he could take his one stamp.

'Right,' she said forcing her voice level. 'That'll be twenty P. You be needing a postcard to go with that? That's another seventy-five P.'

'Oh, um, yes,' he said.

He handed over the note, much to her displeasure. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Still, it's better than credit, right?'

'I haven't got any fives or tens,' she said. 'You'll have to take it all in coin.' They way she said it, Ianto could tell that she was enjoying her little bit of revenge on him for only buying one stamp.

'That's fine,' he said, trying not to sound too happy about it. Give the poor woman her due, the thought, gratefully taking the huge handful of coins.  

'Post it for you, if you like,' the woman said. 'Pen's over there,' she said, pointing to a small counter.

Shoving the coins into his pocket, hoping the weight of them didn't pull down too heavily, he took the card over to the counter. He scratched out a message, certain that the woman behind the counter would read every word before it left the post office, and addressed it to himself.

As he stepped back out onto the street, he slipped the coins into the parking meter one by one, until he'd loaded up three pound fifty. That would give them the rest of the day. The balance of funds he dumped in the glove box, rueing the day he'd taken out their stash of parking meter change. He'd been so excited that all of Cardiff's meters were being upgraded. About time, he'd thought, thinking how much easier it would be. And no need for writing it all down. Everything would be neatly listed on his bank statement. Should've known the Valleys would be his undoing.

When he finally slipped inside the small church, Owen and Jack were already underway, scraping the green bits of alien off the walls and the pews, dumping them in large canisters.

'Took your bloody time,' Owen groaned, throwing him a pair of gloves. 'If you'd been here, we might have been halfway done by now, instead of fussing over some bloody parking ticket.'

'Did you sort it out?' Jack asked. He couldn't imagine Ianto giving up on anything.

'Yup. Just had to figure out how to make a twenty pound note fit into a parking meter.'

'Not that I care,' Owen said, 'but how do you do that?'

'Sent a note from my past self to my future self.'

Owen paused, trying to understand what that meant, before giving up.

Comments

[jo02]

Hahaha - anything that ends with Owen's confusion is worth the effort.

[bk_forever]

Bravo Ianto, you shut Owen up AND made sure you won't get a parking ticket, as well as ensuring there's cash for meters in the car.