Title: The winter blues
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,958 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 436 - Sunshine
Summary: Torchwood’s latest find is having a hard time acclimatising so one of the team takes drastic action.


Jack was mad. It didn’t take a computer genius, a doctor or a former police officer to figure that out. ‘Find him!’ He barked the order for the umpteenth time, referring to their missing general support officer.

‘We didn’t lose him,’ Owen replied, fed up with Jack’s foul mood since calling them all in at six am this morning to start the manhunt.

‘I didn’t lose him either,’ Jack replied, hearing the insinuation in Owen’s voice.

‘No? He was in bed with you, wasn’t he? If you know where something was, and now you don’t, that’s pretty much the definition of lost.’

Jack’s jaw clenched and he felt a little bit of the inside of his cheek get painfully caught between his teeth. It was fair to say that Ianto shared his bed, but that they didn’t necessarily always share it together. Jack had already been in a mood last night and opted to go brood on a rooftop for a few hours rather than spend then tucked up beside his Welshman. When he’d come back in the wee small hours, Ianto wasn’t there. He hadn’t gone home because Jack had watched him get changed and crawl into the bed, pleading Jack to do the same.

He’d searched the hub high and low but Ianto wasn’t there. He also wasn’t answering his phone and it was telling him that it was switched off or otherwise disconnected, which is what had prompted him to bring in the rest of the team to widen the search. Ianto Jones simply didn't go missing.

‘It’s gone,’ Gwen said, rushing into Jack's office and bursting his bubble of hope that she was rushing in to say he’d been found alive and well.

‘It?’ Jack said, trying not to sound angry. Since when was Ianto an “it”?

‘The plant,’ Gwen clarified. ‘It's not here either.’

Okay, well that was weird. The plant had been all anyone had been focused on for the past week. Since arriving through the rift, Jack had been excited and anxious. He’d immediately identified the rare alien plant species and then proceeded to explain how incredible its chemical compounds were, able to cure certain incurable diseases and to relieve the symptoms of others. Its medicinal properties couldn't be understated, and whilst the timeline of planet Earth wasn’t ready for the game-changing pharmacological breakthrough that it could provide, there was no reason why, in restricted conditions, it couldn't be used, if only to cure Torchwood’s own illnesses, should it come to that.

The trouble was that the plant had been flourishing before its arrival on Earth. In the days since, it had steadily declined, withering right in front of their eyes. No amount of water or heat or light was making any difference to its condition and Jack was growing ever more anxious that they were going to lose such a rare and useful plant. It needed better light conditions than the hub could offer, but no matter what kind of specialised grow lights they brought in, nothing was helping. It needed real, proper sunlight like the kind it was accustomed to in its remote part of the universe, but there seemed to be no way to simulate it. Cardiff’s gloomy, dark winter days were certainly not going to help the situation.

‘So, not only is Ianto missing, but we’ve got a rare plant gone as well? Jack said, repeating what he assumed Gwen was trying to tell him. That couldn’t be a coincidence. A plant had once before co-opted Ianto into sacrificing himself for it, but there was nothing to suggest a recurrence of that.

‘There’s no CCTV up in the hothouse,’ Gwen said, ‘and we all know why that is,’ she added, referring to the kinds of things he and Ianto got up to in there after hours on a regular basis, ‘but I’ve got just a few frames at the bottom of the stairs where he might be carrying it. It’s dark with only the overnight lighting on but that’s what it looks like.’

‘Okay, so we think Ianto left of his own free will.’ That was a relief. If someone had breached the hub's security and snatched him whilst Jack was out that would have been a serious concern.

‘I’ve got the lowjack on his car!’ Tosh called out. The pair of them quickly moved from Jack’s office to come hover over Tosh’s shoulder and hear what she’d found. ‘It drove out to a private airfield just outside of Merthyr and that’s where it's still parked. At or around the same time, his phone was switched off, but there’s nothing to indicate what happened after that. His passport wasn’t flagged, there’s no passenger flights at that airfield and no manifests logged.’

‘A dark flight?’ Jack asked.

‘Illegal, of course, but they happen all the time. A private airfield in the middle of the night would make it easy, and a smaller lighter aircraft could stay below commercial flight radar avoiding detection.’

‘Still doesn’t answer the question of who or why.’ Ianto didn’t know how to fly a plane so someone else had to be doing the flying, assuming he was on a flight at all.

‘Give me a second,’ Tosh said, clicking a few more keys. ‘Yes, here. It’s Ianto’s phone log, with one call made at 2.23am to… oh, well that is interesting.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Someone at UNIT.’

‘Why would Ianto do that?’ Gwen asked.

‘Sounds dodgy to me,’ Owen replied. ‘Who calls UNIT in the middle of the night then disappears to a private airfield and hops on a plane?’

Gwen gave Jack a worried glance. ‘Have we been double crossed?’

Jack shook his head. ‘No way.’ Not his Ianto. He wouldn't do that. It still left a lot of unanswered questions, but he had to assume that UNIT wouldn't do anything to harm him or jeopardise the relationship between Torchwood and UNIT. ‘If he’s on a plane, that would explain the phone being off. You set up a program to automatically dial every two minutes,’ Jack ordered. ‘As soon as it comes back online you let me know.’ Whatever was going on, he knew that Ianto would try and make contact if he could. He could handle himself, Jack had faith in that much at least. One way or another, they'd get in contact with him and then hopefully everything would become clearer.



The hours dragged on without any luck in finding out more about what had happened or where Ianto was. Jack put in a few phone calls to his own contacts at UNIT but they seemed to know as little as he did, or otherwise were just stonewalling him. UNIT had a habit of keeping things top secret; even Martha Jones said she'd do some digging for him but hadn’t come up with anything.

Eventually though, Jack’s mobile began to trill and his heart did a backflip in his chest when she saw the caller ID. ‘Ianto? Is that you? What are you? Are you okay?’

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, before Ianto’s dulcet tones responded. ‘Thirty seven messages, Jack? You didn't think just one or two was enough?’

‘Thirty seven?’ He was a little surprised by that. Had he panicked?

‘Yes. I counted them, then debated whether I should ever answer your calls ever again. I feel like I might be trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship and should consider getting out.’

Jack ignored the dry-witted attempt at humour. ‘I was worried about you.’

‘Oh? Wasn't obvious from the tone of your messages. Especially not the ones that said “call me this instant!”

Jack felt suitably chastised by the remark. He wasn’t sure he remembered leaving those more angry, bossy messages. ‘I'm sorry, okay? But you just leave without so much as a word. At least leave me a note.’

‘I did leave you a note. It's on your desk, tucked under your keyboard where I always leave important messages.’

Jack frowned and then shuffled through piles of papers that had been strewn in his haste to find his missing lover. There, tucked hidden under a pile of folders was Ianto’s note. It read “I’ve got a crazy idea/plan. No time to explain. I’ll call you as soon as I can. I.” ‘What crazy plan?’

‘You said the plant needs strong sunlight to survive and nothing we tried in terms of artificial light was working. I thought maybe we should try real sunshine, real vitamin D, but that means heading somewhere it’s always sunny. The plant was looking so sick I knew it couldn't wait until morning to test the theory so I put in a call to someone I know at UNIT so see if they had any charter we could use. We'd never have gotten a plant onto a commercial flight in any case. Just imagine the quarantine restrictions and border control measures. So, they told me there was a flight I could make only if I hurried. Totally off the books as a special operation of course, but they figured we would keep mum about it, especially since they'd be doing us a favour. They'd have to make an unscheduled stop in Cardiff and divert from their prearranged flight plan, but they'd do it, picking me up before continuing on to Guyana.’

Jack’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. ‘You're in Guyana?’

‘No, actually I'm in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Guyana didn't have very good hotel reviews so we made a secondary stop along the way.’

‘And?’ Jack wasn’t sure what else to say.

‘And, I've only been here less than an hour, but already our plant is looking much improved. Turns out real sunlight is just what it needed. And, after ten hours stuck in a small plane with no food service, the banana fritters and margaritas with a view of the ocean aren’t a bad consolation for me, either. Sure beats a miserable Cardiff winter, I can tell you.’

Jack's jaw clenched with envy. Ianto could have at least called him and they could have tagged along together! He was always moping that they never got holidays and that somewhere with a beach view would be nice. ‘You can't stay there plant-sitting forever,’ he said, reverting from lover to boss mode. ‘I don't think Torchwood is needed much in St Vincent's.’

‘I know. There's a charter flight in two days that will get us to Ecuador. UNIT has a research facility there, coincidentally dealing in rare plants. They've agreed to house our specimen there and share the results with us. That way, we know the plant will be somewhere it can thrive and we still reap the benefits.’

Jack couldn't quell his jealousy at picturing Ianto lounging by the water sipping cocktails and feasting on the local cuisine. ‘Is St Vincents really a suit and tie country?’

He could almost hear Ianto grinning on the other end of the line despite the jet lag. ‘They have shops here, you know, and though I've never considered myself a Hawaiian shirt and shorts man, there was a nice selection in red. I may have to do a little duty free whilst I'm waiting for my connecting flight. Plus, I don't want to stand out too much. It’s weird enough that I'm carrying a plant around with me without attracting any more attention.’

‘Just don't have too much fun in the sun,’ Jack warned him, ‘or else Torchwood might decide not to reimburse your travel expenses this month.’

‘Duly noted, sir. I’ll limit my enjoyment of the views and only eat and drink under sufferance. It's a terrible job but someone has to do it. For Queen and Country.’