“Where is it?” Gwen mumbled.

Handing out the mid-afternoon coffees, Ianto paused to look at his colleague, who was rooting around amongst the files and other detritus on her workstation, obviously searching for something.

He raised an eyebrow. “Where is what?”

Straightening up, Gwen thrust a hand through her hair, not for the first time if the state of it was any indication. “My bloody engagement ring!”

“Aren’t you wearing it?” From where he was standing, Ianto couldn’t see Gwen’s left hand.

“Would I be searching for it if I was?” Gwen glared at him and went back to searching her desk, opening the drawers and rummaging through them. It wasn’t exactly a systematic search. “I took it off while I was helping Owen dissect that slimy thing, didn’t want to get it dirty, and I swear I left it right here on my desk, but now it’s gone!” She lowered her voice, muttering something under her breath, then… “If I can’t find it, Rhys will kill me!”

“Let me just finish handing out the coffees, then I’ll help you look,” Ianto offered.

“Yeah, thanks.” Gwen resumed her angry muttering.

As he headed up to Jack’s office with the final mug, Ianto couldn’t help comparing Gwen to Gollum, imagining her hissing about her Precious. He must have been smirking a bit when he handed Jack his coffee, because his lover grinned up at him.

“What’s funny?”

“What? Oh, nothing. Gwen’s misplaced her engagement ring, she’s searching around her desk, muttering and mumbling. Made me think of Gollum: ‘The Precious, where is it?’ You know, from the movies.”

Jack laughed. “My Precious, I needs it!” he whined in a pretty good imitation of the character.

Ianto snorted. “It’s not funny, not really; she’s frantic. Told her I’d help her look for it, so I’d better go and do that.” Turning on his heel, Ianto left the office and made his way back to Gwen, who was no longer searching. Instead, she was standing, hands on hips, glaring at Herman the dragon, sitting in his nest.

“What’s going on now?”

“My ring,” Gwen said, barely glancing Ianto’s way. “It’s not on my desk, so he must have taken it; you know what he’s like with shiny things.” Frowning at the dragon, she added, “I’m not angry, pet, just let me have my ring back and I’ll forget all about this.”

Herman just cocked his head to one side. “Rowr?”

“He doesn’t take things that don’t belong to him, not anymore,” Ianto pointed out. “He doesn’t need to now he’s got his own hoard.”

“I’m not saying he did it on purpose, and really, it’s our own fault for leaving sparkly things around for him to ‘find’, so I’m sure he just made a mistake, thought it was one of his treasures. All I want is for him to get off his nest for a minute so I can get my engagement ring back, but he won’t move!”

“What happened to innocent until proven guilty? You don’t know for sure that Herman has anything to do with your missing ring, and as I recall, he hasn’t moved from his nest since lunchtime. You still had your ring then.”

“But I’ve searched my desk, and it isn’t there!”

Ianto glanced at the mess on Gwen’s workstation, in as much disarray as it had been earlier, just with everything moved around. “Sit down, drink your coffee, and I’ll look. If your ring isn’t there, then I’ll ask Herman if he would mind me checking his hoard, but I really don’t think he would take it. You wear it all the time, Herman’s seen that, so he knows it’s yours.”

“Well, nobody else would take it!” Gwen protested, but she sat down and picked up her coffee while Ianto carefully and meticulously sorted through everything on her desk, leaving it looking much tidier and better organised. Then he went through each of the drawers, just in case the ring had fallen into one of them without Gwen noticing.

“Alright, it’s definitely not on, or in, your desk.”

“I already told you that.”

“It had to be re-checked, Gwen. It’s very easy to overlook something when you’re searching in a hurry.”

“It’s not easy to overlook a bloody great diamond ring! Rhys is going to be furious!”

Ianto crouched down, poking under and around Gwen’s desk. He even emptied her wastebin to make sure the ring hadn’t been accidentally thrown away.

“Now will you believe me? There’s nowhere else to look, so tell Jack’s dragon to give it back!”

Just then, Tosh appeared in the main Hub. “Gwen?”

“What?” Gwen snapped, stressed and irritated.

Tosh held something out. “You left your engagement ring on one of the sinks in the loos. You really ought to be more careful with it. What if it had fallen down the plughole?”

“Oh!” Gwen took the ring. “Thanks, Tosh. I must’ve taken it off to wash my hands before helping Owen.” She slipped the ring back on her finger with a sigh of relief.

“Well, now that’s sorted, I think you owe Herman an apology, don’t you?” Ianto smiled at Gwen.

“Yeah, suppose I do.” Gwen turned to Herman. “Sorry, pet.”

Herman snorted a wisp of smoke and settled more comfortably on his nest, not exactly accepting the apology, but willing to let it go.

“Perhaps you should try being a bit more careful with your ring in future,” Ianto chided gently. “Put it in a box in your desk drawer, or in your handbag, if you have to take it off for any reason. Something that precious doesn’t deserve to be treated so carelessly.”

Gwen nodded. “You’re right, I’ll be more careful in future.”


The End