Torchwood: Fanfic: Down the rabbit hole

[m_findlow]

Title: Down the rabbit hole
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Gwen, Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,591 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, falling into an abandoned animal trap" at fic_promptly
Summary: With the job done, Gwen and Ianto though the trip back would be the easy part.

'It's freezing out here!' Gwen complained, sticking her mittened hands firmly under the armpits of her parka.

'And it's only the start of autumn,' Ianto agreed, tucking his chin deeper into the collar of his coat. Should have brought a scarf, he thought. There was only one thing worse that having to traipse around in the cold, and that was traipsing around in the cold and the dark. And where was Jack? Tucked up nice and warm in their bed, recovering from a bad case of flu. Ianto had laughed at how he could get the flu at the end of summer, but judging by how cold it was right now, there was probably little surprise, given his propensity to stand out on rooftops at night.

At least they'd managed to find what the rift had left them with relative ease. The small silver globe, about the size of a fist, was nothing more than a fancy alarm clock, and tucked easily into his coat pocket for the return trip back to the car. It just left no room in his pocket for his hand. Within a few minutes of scouring the scrubby grasses and maze of trees, they'd spotted it, its silvery surface reflecting back in their torchlight.

'Kind of far out for the rift to be dropping things,' Gwen said. 'This is probably one of the farthest alerts we've had.'

Ianto had to agree, though the rift was getting more unstable and unpredictable of late, widening its reach across the city and the lower parts of the Welsh valleys. Once it started dumping stuff in Newport, they were going to need another office. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck on the parking lot that was the M4 umpteen days a week.

The rift had brought them out to the farming property on the very outskirts of suburbia. Their travels had lead them well away from the cultivated pastures and into scrubby forest that hugged the northern end of the property. Anything could have been hiding out here and no one would even know. It was either bad farming land, or the owners had simply run out of money to clear the remaining land, letting it go to pot.

'Are you sure this was the way we came?' Gwen asked him, feeling slightly lost. 'I don't remember these trees.'

'How can you tell?' It was so dark they'd nearly walked right into half of them on their way here. Even their torches were doing precious little to carve them a path through the darkness. He pulled out his phone and toggled the GPS. 'We're still headed in approximately the right direction. It might not be the most direct way back, but I don't think the trees are going to give us a say in the matter.'

'Well, I hope Jack appreciates this,' Gwen replied. 'Rhys will be off to work before I get home. That's three days in a row we haven't seen each other.'

'Tell me about it,' Ianto replied. 'I've been avoiding the bedroom so as not to catch Jack's germs, going in there only to drop off food and wash clothes and bedsheets, but one more night slash day of sleeping on our sofa, lovely as it is, and I might just lose it.'

'We should have a second house,' Gwen suggested. 'One that just had bedrooms, so that Torchwood agents can get some sleeeeeee!' Her sentence ended on a wail and Ianto felt her hand grab for the arm of his coat before it slipped out of her grip altogether.

'Gwen!' Ianto flickered his torch around, trying to see where she was, but it was like she'd disappeared.

'Ianto!'

Nope, not disappeared, he thought, he could still hear her. He looked around his feet harder before finally spotting the broken branches and leaves just a yard to his left.

'Gwen!' he called out again.

'Don't come any closer, Ianto,' she yelled. 'There's a hole.'

He halted immediately, making sure to move very slowly and cautiously. Yes, there, just when he shone the torch at the right angle, he could make out the hole Gwen had fallen into, well camouflaged by bracken.

'Are you okay?'

'I think so.'

Ianto knelt down next to the hole, careful not to dislodge any more of what was covering the hole, but trying to establish where the edge was all the same. 'I think it's an animal trap,' he said.

'An animal trap? What kind of animals?'

'Foxes, badgers probably most likely. How deep is it, do you think?'

Gwen tried to look around as best she could using Ianto's limited torchlight. She'd dropped her own torch in the fall. Whether it was in the hole with her, or somewhere else she couldn't say. Judging from the proximity of Ianto's light, the hole couldn't have been more than seven feet, and quite narrow.

'I think I can get out,' she said, testing the side of the hole with the toe of her sneaker to see if she could dig it into the muddy side. It wasn't a great foothold, but it was better than nothing. 'Give us a hand, yeah?'

Ianto carefully knelt down near the edge, testing it with his weight before leaning over, reaching in with one hand, using the other to get purchase on solid ground. Gwen grabbed the proffered hand with both of hers and began trying to clamber her way out.

'God it stinks down here!' she said.

'Probably smells quite appealing to a badger. Lucky you didn't break anything,' Ianto replied, trying to pull her up at the same time. It took a bit of struggling, but eventually they managed to get her out

'God, it really does stink,' Ianto said, getting a whiff of Gwen as she half crawled out over the top of him, covering them both in foul smelling mud and other things he didn't want to think about.

'Thanks,' Gwen replied. 'Wasn't how I planned my evening.'

'Nor mine. I thought we were getting lucky finding that device as quickly as we did. Should've known something else would go wrong.'

'Wouldn't be Torchwood if it didn't,' Gwen replied, giving a mirth-filled chuckle, though she supposed they should still count themselves lucky. At least they hadn't both fallen in the trap. It might have taken ages for anyone to find them out here, even with GPS tracking. Jack would have been useless to them traipsing around when he should have been bedridden. In all likelihood he wouldn't have even had the strength to help pull them out.

'Sure you're okay?' Ianto asked.

'Yeah, just annoyed I didn't see it.'

'They did a good job of hiding it,' Ianto agreed. 'I'd say it's been abandoned judging by how much the leaves around here seem to have completely covered up any trace of it.'

Gwen tried to brush the worst of the bracken off her clothes. 'Why the hell have this out in the middle of nowhere, anyway?'

'Probably the farmer who owns the property,' Ianto said. 'Deterring wild animals from interfering with his sheep. Only I don't think he meant to capture trespassers as well.'

'Well, in any case, let's just get out of here and go home.'

'No argument from me,' Ianto said. 'Though I think at least we ought to be less hasty, just in case there's any other traps around here. Next time we might not be so lucky. If the farmer put holes, he might also have clamp traps, and those will do a lot more damage if we step in one.'

Gingerly they made their way back to the car, managing to avoid any more holes, or any other obstacles, and by the time they had made it back it was already starting to get light. All they had to hope was that they weren't spotted by the farmer in question, trekking across his property. If he'd laid traps for the local wildlife, he probably had a gun for trespassers.

When Ianto finally trudged into the house, cold and stiff, the first thing he did was to check on Jack. He should be awake by now and was probably looking for his next meal. This being sick business was a good lark in Ianto's opinion; no work, a lie in every morning, and all your meals provided. Maybe he should get sick and try it out.

'Hey,' Jack greeted him as he entered the room, still looking tired and pale. 'Did you find anything interesting?'

Ianto retrieved the item from his pocket and handed it to Jack. It would provide about three seconds of amusement, since they already had a dozen of them in the archives and two in their house already. A third was going to be little use, though maybe they could re-gift it to Rhys for Christmas or something.

Jack gave it the requisite ten seconds attention then handed it back, tucking his arm back under the covers where it was warm as Ianto tidied them from where they'd become tangled during his sleep. 'What took you guys so long? And why do you smell?' Jack said, pinching his face as Ianto leant across him to plump the spare pillow.

'The rift took us down a rabbit hole. Or something like that,' Ianto replied. 'And now I'm off for a shower and some sleep.'

'But it's breakfast time.'

'And breakfast will still be there after I'm showered. You've got the flu. I don't think you'll die of starvation in the mean time.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

Just goes to show the things Torchwood agents go in search of aren't the only hazards they might face. Poor Jack, flu is bad enough but now Ianto's all stinky!

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Yep. You just never know what's lurking out there waiting to ensnare you. Hopefully Jack will be back on his feet soon so Ianto can catch up on some sleep.