m_findlow

Summary: Owen gets some unwanted assistance, which turns out to be less than helpful.

Owen knew he'd get a raised eyebrow when he turned up at the entrance to the archives. As expected, Ianto was there at his desk, acting as gatekeeper.

'Can I help you with something?'

'Nah,' Owen replied. 'Know what I'm after and where it lives.' Sort of, he mentally added. Close enough. 'Down that way and round and round a bit.'

'That sounds precise,' Ianto replied. 'Why don't I come with you?'

'No need,' Owen rushed to say.

'What's say I come anyway? In my experience things are rarely ever where they're supposed to be.'

Owen groaned. 'Fine, suit yourself,' he said, wandering off and leaving Ianto to follow in his wake.

Owen began navigating a path through the columns of shelves, darkness quickly growing the further they got from Ianto's brightly lit little abode. 'Don't you get miserable working down here?'

'Why would you say that?'

'Well, it's dark and lonely and there's nothing fun down here.'

'That depends on your definition of fun.'

'Yeah, well I suppose we know what you obviously consider fun,' Owen replied disparagingly. 'This place is for sad hermits who want to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist.'

Ianto was silent for a beat, letting Owen's comment hang in the air. 'Well, for a while that was exactly what I wanted, and I didn't see anyone arguing about it.'

Owen felt a pang of guilt. He'd let Ianto stew in his grief and temporary estrangement as he served out his self-imposed punishment for having kept secrets from them. Owen figured if he was in Ianto's shoes he'd feel pretty shitty about things as well. He'd want people to bugger off and leave him alone to wallow, so that's what he'd done. The doctor in him should've known that what Ianto really needed was empathy and for someone to be there to pull him back from the edge before he toppled all the way out over it.

He was about to make some joke about private time down here with Jack when something else caught his ear. 'What was that?'

'What was what?'

'That noise.'

Owen could sense Ianto rolling his eyes. 'This place always makes noises. It's like a creaking old house. Creaking old hub?' he said, trying the expression on for size.

'What I heard was not creaking. Doesn't it bother you that the archives make any noise at all?'

'I'm the only one down here. What's to be bothered about?'

Owen gave him a quizzical look. 'How about not being the only one down here?'

'I've been working down here for over a year. Nothing has ambushed me yet.'

'Yet, being the operative word.'

Ianto heaved a sigh. 'Fine. Which direction was it coming from?'

'Over there,' Owen said, pointing vaguely and no longer entirely certain.

Ianto pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and switched it on, leading them in the general direction of Owen's pointing. He paused regularly as the pair of them strained to hear the sound Owen had picked up on earlier, changing direction several times as they wove between rows of dusty shelves, crates and piles of canvas-covered unknowns, wending further and further into the darkness.

'What's down here, anyway?' Owen asked.

'I don't know. I haven't gotten this far into the archives.'

'What d'you mean you haven't gotten this far in?'

'It's huge in case you haven't noticed.'

They wandered for a while longer, but whatever Owen had heard had disappeared, slinking back off into the darkness, most likely. 'Waste of bloody time,' Owen muttered.

'We've accomplished something,' Ianto argued.

'What?'

'Proving you imagine big, scary things living down here when there aren't.'

'Yeah, well don't come crying to me when something eats you.' Owen squinted in the dark. 'Which way back?'

Ianto frowned at him. 'I thought you knew which way we came.'

'I thought you had a bloody photographic memory!'

'It's row upon row of shelves, Owen. They all look the bloody same! Did I mention how big this place is?'

'So, you're telling me we're lost?'

'Um… maybe?'

Owen huffed loudly, patting down his jeans and finding his phone missing, before remembering it was in his jacket, which was still upstairs. Well that's just great. 'Can you just call someone and get them to send the search party?'

'My phone is on my desk,' Ianto replied. 'I didn't think I'd need it. You did say you knew what you were looking for.'

'Well, I did. I just got distracted by that noise.'

'You don't suppose that was the point, do you?'

'What now you're all of a sudden convinced it really was something else down here?'

Owen heard Ianto growl. 'I'm just canvassing possibilities. I didn't say I agreed with you.'

'If we get eaten because you didn't think to leave a trail of breadcrumbs…' Owen warned.

'Ianto? Owen?' Tosh's voice rang out from somewhere in the distance and all around them.

'Tosh?' Owen replied out of habit, yelling back.

'I don't think she can hear us,' Ianto said.

'I've patched into an old PA system in the hub's archives so you'll be able to hear me even if I won't be able to hear you,' came Tosh's voice again. 'You've been gone for ages and Jack got worried when neither of you answered your phones. There's only two life signs showing up in the hub someplace they shouldn't be, so I'm assuming it's the two of you. Also, since you've been moving, we're assuming you're both alive and well, but probably hopelessly lost.'

'How could she bloody know all that?' Owen griped, the feeling of embarrassment overshadowing his relief that sometime knew they were down here and where exactly "here" was.

'We've got you locked onto the hub's schematics so if you follow my instructions we'll get you out of there in no time.'

'Thanks, Tosh,' Ianto said, even if she couldn't hear him.

'Don't think this gets you off the hook,' Owen said, still annoyed.

'Perish the thought.'