Fffc Bingo Card - Camp woes

[m_findlow]

Title: Camp woes 
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Gwen, Owen 
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none 
Author notes: Written for Bingo Card Prompt 25 - Trace at fffc
Summary: All the maps in the world can't help Jack navigate all his current problems. 

As Gwen and Owen finally disappeared from Jack's view off into the distance, hurtling off as quick as they could on the premise of gathering firewood, Jack gave his map an empathic shake. Earlier he'd only been half heartedly looking at it, too distracted by watching his team setting up their camp on this piece of relatively flat countryside. 

It was a strange mix of personalities to take out on a camping trip. None of them screamed outdoors type, yet for the most part they'd taken it in their stride. Only Owen was vocal in his displeasure at having to stick it out in the wilderness. 

‘It's just for one night, Owen. Get over it,’ Jack had told him, as he was more hindrance than help in getting the tents unpacked from the SUV and pitched against a breeze that had whipped up suddenly, hampering their efforts. A superstitious person might read into that as a sign that they weren't welcome here, but Jack wasn't superstitious. So they might have to put up with a bit of wind and rain, big deal. With three tents they'd have to share, so there was always someone he could hope to cuddle up to, just so long as it wasn't Owen "Grizzle Guts" Harper. Woe unto the person who had to share with him. Perhaps he should have a tent all his own. Maybe tonight he'd finally get to find out if Ianto Jones was a boxers or a briefs man. 

From his spot crouched in the driver's seat of the SUV, he'd been just moments away from calling out to tease first Owen, then Ianto, but it was Gwen's voice that broke out across the camp, instigating banter amongst the ranks. 

Well, hadn't that just worked out a peach? Despite his attempts to lighten the conversation and drive it in a completely different direction, it had failed, and now Gwen was the one hightailing it out of there before things could get worse. 

Jack flapped out his maps again, trying to get the folds to behave as he looked anywhere but at the two people still huddled over their paltry campfire. There really wasn't enough room here to lay them out and study them properly, but he felt safe within the confines of the SUV, where the only things that could attack him were the baleful, or perhaps hurtful, stares from Ianto. 

He shook his head and refocused again on the map, reaching behind him to extract a pen from the storage compartment. He uncapped it with his teeth and began trying to place marks on it to match up the missing persons reports. It soon resembled a really bad venn diagram, only with almost no intersecting quadrants. There had to be some connection between all these people that he wasn't seeing. People didn't just disappear without a trace. Not this far from Cardiff normally. He knew full well that the rift was capable of stealing things away, but he'd done his research before coming out here. No negative rift activity that matched any of the reported times and locations for the seventeen people that had gone missing around these parts. 

The wind gusted again and caught the underside of his map, pulling it up even as Jack hastily pressed it back down onto his lap. 

‘Anything?’ Tosh asked. 

He flattened it back down, bringing the campsite back within his field of vision. ‘Did we cross referenced the missing persons reports against any local weather anomalies?’ He knew it was a long shot, but worth asking. 

Tosh shook her head. ‘I can take a look now if you like. Anything specific you want me to be looking out for?’ 

‘No. Just testing out hypotheses.’ 

She stood up and dusted off her clothes, before working her way around to the back of the SUV to get her laptop and a portable charger. 

Jack's gaze fell on the last remaining teammate. ‘Ianto, think you could get us some coffee going?’ Jack could sense he felt like a third wheel out here, unused to being out with the rest of them on an investigation, but Jack hadn't wanted him left on his own in Cardiff. Maybe they would only be here one night, or maybe it would be a couple of days. Either way, Jack had felt better having him close by. And giving him something familiar to do should help. 

Ianto's expression was inscrutable. Jack couldn't tell if he was still upset with him. ‘Just don't expect a crema,’ he replied, moving around the camp to fetch a kettle and their store of food supplies. ‘Remind me to buy new maps for the glove box when we get back,’ he added, obviously having taken umbrage at Jack's annotations. 

Jack huffed out a breath. So much for team bonding. Today was going from bad to worse. He was about to go back to pondering his maps when he spotted Gwen and Owen pacing briskly back towards camp, both of them empty-handed. So much for them going to collect firewood. Not like the place would have been lacking in decent kindling if they'd been trying. 

‘You two would make terrible boy scouts!’ he yelled out, desperate for someone to take the bait and parry insults with him. 

Gwen's face was pale. ‘We found a body. Or at least, what's left of one.’

Ah, so people weren't going missing without a trace after all. They just weren't anywhere someone was likely to find them. ‘I take it back,’ he said. ‘You both get your missing people badges.’ Where there was one body, chances were there were more close by. 

‘Tosh, Ianto, get your gear,’ he commanded, sliding out of the driver's seat, feeling a renewed energy in his legs. The campfire was doused, their backpacks unloaded and everything else left where it was. With luck maybe they could have things wrapped up before nightfall. He wasn't superstitious, but this place was beginning to give him the creeps.