Title: A wrong turn
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 3,019 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 427 - Map
Summary: Ianto and Sian’s camping trip ends up with them both far from where they should be.



'We're lost, aren't we Dad?' Sian looked up at her father with an expression that was difficult to lie to.

'I… We're…' Ianto couldn't say yes, but neither could he say no. He didn't know what they were. 'We're just going to climb that ridge over there and see if we can get our bearings back,' he said, pointing at the steep incline perhaps a mile away. If nothing else, by the time they reached the top they were going to need a good rest. It felt like as good a place as any to pause and regroup.

They were both breathing hard by the time they reached the top. Despite both being fit the Ridge had proved steeper and more treacherous places than it had from a distance. They could have turned back, but it would have only meant attempting to climb some other elevated spot which could be just as bad, or littered with cracks in which they might slip and fall. The whole place was full of caves and no one knew just where all the tunnels and fissures led.

Sian broke out muesli bars and bottles of water as soon as they reached the nearly treeless top. They each carried more than they'd need for a day's walk, which was lucky since it didn't look like they were going to make it back to camp before nightfall. Not unless camp magically appeared on the other side of the ridge, far from where it should be.

The ground was slightly damp so he shucked his parka and laid it in the ground for them to sit on. It also gave him a dry spot to spread out the map and consult it again.

The ridge was high, but not so high that it gave a view off into the distance. All it did was give them the vista to the next mountainous ridge, which surrounded them on all sides, stuck somewhere in the middle of undulating terrain. The map, topographical as it was, didn't help much. Every hill and mountain looked much the same as the next. Five hundred and twenty square miles of mountains, rivers and caves and they could be anywhere.

He took a swig of water and a bite of muesli bar before studying the map once more and then checking against his compass. By rights, they should have hit the river by now, leading them back in the general direction of the camp-site. They'd travelled in a roughly south-easterly direction for what felt like hours. There was simply no way they couldn't have crossed the river by now. He tugged his phone from his pocket and cringed as it still showed no signal. No signal and therefore no GPS location. Should've brought a sat phone, he thought begrudgingly. He paused his own self piteous wallowing and looked at his daughter as she pulled her knees to her chin, chewing with intent. 'How are you doing?'

'I'm okay,' she replied, small clumps of her hair coming loose from her ponytail, pulled back behind her ears with long fingers. She had Jack's fairer brown hair with highlights that would have shone golden had there been any sun. She also had his chin and cheekbones, which gave her a permanently fixed expression of hardy defiance. Nothing and no one messed with Sian Harkness-Jones and got away with it. 'What about you?'

'Still trying to figure out where we took a wrong turn,' he said. Geocaching with his daughter had sounded like a great idea at the time; just the two of them, without Jack and their other children. Some much needed father daughter bonding time. Not to mention it was an opportunity to prove to his team that he wasn't the indoorsy hermit they all wrongly assumed him to be. He liked the outdoors. It was just that his job running a global network of Torchwood outposts kept him mostly indoors and tied to his desk.

Their first night camping had been brilliant. They'd sat up half the night stargazing and identifying all of the various constellations and star systems where life existed in one form or another. Sian was fascinated by the stars and her fathers did nothing to dissuade her from her passion for space, even if they both knew it would probably make for some difficult conversations when she was old enough to want to go out there and see some of it for herself. For now, thirteen was far too young to worry about those things.

After a few hours sleep, they both woke early, neither tired from a long night of studying the sky and broke from camp on their long trek through the Brecon Beacons, following the route set for them with just a compass, map and their own endurance. They located several sites in the first few hours, pawing through the strange little boxes filled with oddments left by fellow travellers, putting their names in the tiny logbooks to prove they'd been there and carrying on.

Then things had started not going to plan. They'd somehow missed one of the locations set on their map and then spent ages wandering around where the next cache was supposed to be hidden, finding nothing but hard rock and a few wispy grasses bending in the wind. They pressed on, certain that they'd find the next one and when that didn't materialise, Ianto started to have his doubts they were on the right trail at all. There was a forested patch where there should have been a valley and since then, nothing had been where it should be.

Ianto gave the compass a hard shake then turned it twice before holding it out in front of him. Without erring, the compass righted itself and pointed straight and true in the same direction as before. It wasn't broken or confused. Only its owner seemed confused.

He heaved out a sigh. 'I don't know, Sian,' he said, poking at the map, trailing a finger from where they'd started to where they should be. 'We should have found the river and camp by now.' The national park was less than twenty miles from north to south. Heading the way they were was destined to land them at its borders, near a town or a road. Maybe they simply hadn't walked nearly as far as it felt like they had. Ianto was good for another ten miles, but he wasn't sure he could push a thirteen year old girl that hard, not even one with the genes of an immortal father and an equally immortal, determined Welshman.

Sian took the map and scowled at it, as if that would force it to yield its secrets. 'We followed it exactly,' she said, a burning anger underscoring her words, evoking some of that Jack Harkness stubbornness. 'Someone must have stolen the caches.'

Ianto didn't think so but he didn't disagree openly with her. The light was beginning to fade and there was no likelihood of finding camp before night fell altogether, leaving them stumbling around in the dark, and prey to any nocturnal wildlife. They needed to find a place to make camp, such as it was, and high atop a windswept ridge was not the place for it. They'd freeze out here in the open. He folded up the map and slipped back inside his backpack. 'We'll have to find a sheltered spot and wait until morning to strike out again.'

'But Dad…'

'I don't know what else you want us to do, sweetheart.' He didn't like it any more than she did, knowing their tents, sleeping bags and most of their other gear was sitting at a camp-site somewhere. They had a bit of food and water, first aid kit, Swiss army knife and an emergency foil blanket – as much as one expected they might need on a single day of trekking. He tried hard not to think of the instant macaroni and cheese and sachets of hot chocolate packed in with their camp stove and kettle. There'd be no hot food for either of them tonight. And it was still three more days before they were due home making the most of the school holidays. Mind you, if they made it back to camp tomorrow, there was every chance they'd go home early, or at least put themselves up in a nice hotel as compensation for their shortened camping trip.

He pulled her to her feet and retrieved his parka, warm from where they'd been sitting on it, before sliding his arms back into the sleeves. 'There's a patch of trees down there in that valley,' he said, indicating the small outcrop. 'That's not too far away and should hopefully give us enough cover for the night.' He'd slept rough before and in worse places. It would just be for a few hours until it was light enough to carry on walking, giving their legs a much needed break in between.

Sian huffed but she didn't argue with him. It was seemingly no one's fault that they were lost so she could hardly be angry with him. And he was her dad, her protector, and the person she looked up to. Nothing bad would happen to them whilst he was around.

They made it safely back down the ridge and hiked the last half a mile towards the edge of the trees. Without going too deep inside, Ianto chose a sturdy poking tree that looked like a decent windbreak, with the added bonus of climbable limbs just in case they should encounter something that didn't take kindly to them being there. They sat under the tree for a while and just chatted about nothing much at all, studied their map for the hundredth time, still puzzling over why and how they'd become so far off their predetermined route, and when it became too dark to see the contour lines anymore, they zipped their parkas up to the neck and huddled close.

The foil blanket wasn't much. It was thin and crinkled noisily with every tiny movement they made, but it was designed to keep in body heat, which was all they had. He might have attempted to light a fire but most of the kindling was damp and there was no telling if a fire might attract the wrong kind of company. 'We'll have better luck tomorrow,' he promised, as Sian snuggled her head in against his chest.

Ianto struggled to find sleep. Considering some of the places he'd had to kip in his life, dropping off without any trouble, it was frustrating. Perhaps he was too alert for any danger that might lurk in the darkness, or just too annoyed with himself that they'd gotten lost in the first place.

Sian eventually fell asleep against him, curled tightly around him as he hugged her and their blanket to his body. She snuffled in her sleep, a cross between a snore and a sniff. The persistent rhythm of them must have eventually lulled him to sleep because when he woke, dawn was just breaking and his neck was stiff and sore from being twisted awkwardly to one side. He let Sian sleep until it was a bit lighter, before shaking her awake. She stirred with all the reluctance of any teenager. They each ate two more muesli bars and some water, each forced to also use nature's toilet after a night out in the cold. They'd planned on roughing it during their camping trip, just not quite to this extent.

'We stick to our original plan,' Ianto announced, as if expecting protest. 'There are half a dozen major towns south of here. We're bound to hit a road or a farmhouse on the way.' Somewhere they might find another living would who could offer them a lift back to the camp-site or at least a working telephone to get them some alternative transport. There were no more cannibals in the area to be concerned with. They'd been flushed out of these parts nearly twenty years ago.

Their plan was easier to execute in theory than it was in practice. Though Ianto kept the compass in front of him, pointing south east, he expected they'd find a natural valley through which they could have an easy trek back towards civilisation. Instead the land went up hill and down dale in complete contrast to the terrain their map said would lie in a consistent south-easterly direction.

'This doesn't feel right,' Sian said, voicing the conclusion Ianto was slowly forced to accept beside his better judgement. 'It feels like we should be going that way,' she added, pointing along the lie of the land as it ripped into a mile wide gulch.

Should they break their well-considered strategy now to go with a gut feeling? This wasn't their first hike. Normally they followed the path of least resistance because it was the well-established waking trail. Geocaching had been a new adventure for them, breaking from well-worn trails to test their map reading and navigational skills. Now though, they'd given up on finding any more well hidden treasure chests full of buttons and coins. They just wanted to get out of here. And the topography on their map had indeed implied that a course like that would see them out of the mountains.

'I think you're right,' he said. He pocketed the compass and readjusted his backpack. 'We'll follow this valley for an hour and see how we go.' God knew they had to hit something soon; Merthyr or Abergavenny or the English border. Anything.

Half an hour came and went and then there was a strange sound. Not a bird or a fox, surely. They paused and listened for it again.

'Dad, is that…?'

'Ianto!' came the distant call. Unless there was a bird that had learned English and in an American accent, it sounded like help had found them.

'Over here!' Ianto called back.

Jack crested the hill and jogged down to meet them. Their one man rescue party. Sian cried out 'Dad!' and ran to him before being enveloped in a bear hug. It was hard not to feel a pang of jealousy at the sudden hero worship. Jack hadn't been the one who'd kept them warm up against an uncomfortable tree trunk all night.

Jack eventually let go of his daughter, absently rubbing a dirty mark from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. 'Thank the Gods we found you.'

There was no bear hug for his husband, only a look of relief. 'We weren't aware anyone knew we were lost. Did someone from the camp-site report us missing?'

'No. But we started getting weird geomagnetic readings all across South Wales. People's cars started going all over the place because their GPS systems were going haywire. At first we assumed it was just a solar flare, messing with the earth's magnetic fields but once we realised it was only our little corner of the world…'

'So, what was it?'

Jack shrugged. 'No idea. Something that was forcing itself through the rift, hanging over the southern end of the country, but now it's gone. Like it was never there. There's a team back at the hub analysing what they can in case it happens again, but for now the boffins are putting money on it being a potential solar flare from another part of the universe that just happened to erupt right where a rift opening also happened to collide. Ridiculously improbable but the data is pretty scarce since it scrambled most of the equipment capable of registering it.'

'It was messing with magnetic fields, you say?' Jack nodded. 'Small wonder we got lost. If the compass was giving us bogus information…' They must have been wandering around in circles.

'Which it would have been,' Jack agreed. 'As soon as I realised, we came to pick you up only to find you had already left camp. We tried everything to pinpoint your location but with GPS and satellites all redundant… We had to find you the old fashioned way. We started out at first light, knowing you'd have almost no supplies with you or any shelter.'

'We?' Ianto looked up and two more familiar faces stood atop the hill, working their way down towards the trio. Two more of his dedicated Torchwood team, having split up to widen the search. 'More coincidence than good planning,' Ianto replied, knowing that any manhunt in a place as big as this was down to luck.

'We only just got satellite tracking back up and running an hour ago. Your phone pinged straight away and we made a beeline.'

'In theory we might have eventually found our way back,' Ianto said, though knowing it wouldn't have been without another night in the elements, blisters and no more food.

'Still, I bet you're glad to see us.'

'Always. Now, how far is it back to the SUV because my feet are killing me.'

'Mine too,' Sian added.

'Not more than half an hour, I promise,' Jack replied. 'I'll even carry you if you want.'

'You couldn't carry Dad,' Sian argued.

He chuckled. 'Wanna bet?'

'God, I could murder an egg and black pudding fry up,' Ianto remarked.

'Me too,' Sian agreed. 'With extra chips. And sauce.'

Jack shook his head at the two weary hikers., even though they both knew he'd never pass up an opportunity for food. 'I think I saw a little pub back a few miles on my way here. I mean, we could stop for breakfast but I've left your brother and sister in charge back home. If Cardiff gets invaded by aliens…'

'Yeah, yeah, you'll blame us for the world ending,' Sian replied, about as blasé as the daughter of two Torchwood agents could be.

Ianto shoved his backpack at Jack to carry the rest of the way. They wouldn't be needing a nap and compass now. Hopefully. 'If the world ends, we'll blame it squarely on the black pudding.'

Jack took the backpack with a grin. 'I always did think it looked dodgy.'