Out of Place Chapter 21

[galadriel1010]

John covered his eyes with his hand and flopped onto his back, growling up at the ceiling for want of something more… responsive to growl at. He thought about that fact for a couple of moments, then sat up and looked around the room blearily. It was reasonably neat, his weapons (lots of them) piled on the desk with Jasmine’s laptop, a pile of his clothes draped lazily across the chair and hers tucked away neatly in the drawers, but the room was noticeably devoid of any other intelligent life. She swung himself out of bed and panicked for a moment, before pulling himself together and stalking to the door. It turned out that he only had to poke his head out onto the landing to locate her.

“Jack Sodding Harkness!” What had he done this time? “And Ianto Gethin Jones you’re no better! Just stop it the pair of you.”

“Yes miss.” Jack’s tone was far too light when compared with hers, he was in for one hell of a bollocking.

“Right, that does it!”

“Ow! Jazz, Jasmine, ouch, stop with the… Oi!”

John chuckled and closed the door again, leaving them to deal with whatever Jack had done noisily and apparently violently. What he’d done this time, John had no idea, but it was more likely to be kitchen related than work related if she was yelling at Ianto as well. At least he had the sense to keep his mouth shut and let Jack take the brunt of her ire.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then slouched downstairs to join Ianto, Greg and Nick at the kitchen window, watching Jazz chase Jack around the garden with a bucket of water. Ianto passed him a mug of coffee and he smiled into it gratefully, “She’s cheery this morning.”

“Hmm, look up.” Ianto smirked, “I thought I’d let Jack take the blame for that.” ‘That’ was a pancake stuck to the ceiling. And another, and another. “We got a bit… giddy.”

“Really? I thought that was all the range in Wales.” He sipped his coffee and glanced up again, “The one closest to the light’s going to fall.”

“Yep, I’m hoping it gets one of the two of them.” He shrugged and gestured generally towards the other side of the kitchen, “There’s a couple in the oven for you if you’re interested.”

John got the pancakes out and grabbed the jar of chocolate sauce, spreading it thickly and adding marshmallows before folding the whole lot over in aluminium foil to shove back into the oven to melt thoroughly, “What’s the situation out there?”

“They’re both in the pool.”

“How?” He looked up without standing up; sadly the three men were still watching the events in the garden. Should he be disappointed that not one was checking out his arse?

“Jack grabbed her and jumped. They’ve both gone a bit see through.”

“White?”

“Only Jack.” Ianto’s smirk was in his voice, “Those jeans look really good on her when wet.”

“Eyes off my girlfriend.” He prodded the pancakes again for want of anything more productive to do

“Can’t help it, she’s got a good bum.”

“That she has. Good pair of…”

“Idiots!” Jasmine dripped her way across the kitchen and glared at Ianto and Jack, who had come to stand with him and was getting him thoroughly soaked by hugging him, “And as for you Ianto Jones, I know it was you…”

Ianto’s wish almost came true, in the form of a pancake dropping past Jasmine’s shoulder with a wet, almost disappointed ‘thwarp’. She looked down at it for a moment, then up at the other two and finally back at Ianto. Jack bit his lip and nudged his lover in the ribs, “I’d run if I were you.”

“Yep.” He hid behind Jack’s shoulder, squeezing his hand tightly, “She’s scaring me Jack.”

“What do you think I can do about it?” He laughed, “Come out you big baby.”

“I’m only hiding behind your shoulder.” Jack moved, “I’m only hiding behind my fingers.”

John pulled his pancakes out of the oven and dumped them on a plate, deciding that this was the moment to distract the slight blonde monster from terrorising their friends any further, “Good morning by the way.”

She glared balefully at Ianto for a moment longer, then swung round and bounced over to kiss John happily, “Good morning.”

“I’m all wet now.” He looked down, “And not in a good way, go drip over there.” She pouted but complied, “Did you sleep alright?”

Jazz shrugged and wrung her hair out over the sink, “A bit, I guess. I’ve been awake hours, done all the reports and stuff. You’re being very quiet boys.”

Greg looked up, startled from what was a very interesting introspection, “We, erm…”

Nick chuckled, “Didn’t have anything to add to the conversation. You working tonight Jazz?” They’d got used to living at night, so pancakes as the sun set and a full meal as it rose were pretty much common place now. The CSIs had maybe two hours before they needed to leave for work.

She had found a hairbrush and was attacking her hair with fervour, “Yeah, I am. I’m going to try to work something with Liberty Towers so I’m not at the Crime Lab, but sort of a roving agent until we know the situation here better. Then we can decide whether we need a permanent agent in the city or not. Probably wouldn’t take a bigger team than Cardiff’s got at the most, it’s not like you’ve got an active rift over here or anything like that.”

“So you’re leaving?”

“Can’t stay here forever, I’m needed back in London.” She growled at a particularly stubborn knot, “Did you really need to dunk me Jack? I mean, guh.”

He laughed, “Yeah, we’ve been here how long? And I hadn’t done it yet. It needed to be done.”

She wasn’t impressed, “Bugger off back to the land of the sheep. Weren’t you only supposed to be here a couple of days?”

“Yeah, but things conspired.”

“I’ve booked us on a flight back tomorrow morning.” Ianto interjected, “Probably before you get back from work. We need to get the Weevils back into as close to their natural territory as possible.”

“Okay.” She wandered across and hugged him, “I’ll miss you.”

“Yeah.” He hugged her back, “You’d better.”

“H’okay.” She leant her head on his shoulder and frowned in Nick’s general direction, “So I’ve done our report and the full incident report, I still need reports from the rest of you though. Then we need to go through the overall report on the Weevil transportation and finish off the fight club report. And I’ve got…” She grabbed Ianto’s wrist and checked his watch, “Ooo, lovely, I need to leave the house in one hour and thirty seven minutes. Approximately.”

Ianto pushed her away gently, “We’d better get on with it then, John with me?”

“Makes sense, you can do a joint report if that makes it easier. Jack, overall report?” She looked over her shoulder at the captain and he sighed, nodding grumpily, “Now I know what to do to get the files off you on time.”

“Sit on him.”

“Yep. No, sit on you!” She grinned up at Ianto, “I’ll go collect all the laptops I can find.”

Nick and Greg exchanged a glance, recognising that they weren’t needed at this point, and escaped into the garden, flopping down under the tree in the soft afternoon light, “You see all these sci-fi shows, read the books, watch the movies. You never expect there to be so much paperwork involved.”

Nick laughed, “That’s true enough. The Men in Black never seem to do paperwork, just wipe the evidence.”

“Hmm, listening to Jazz moan about them I think that’s pretty accurate.” Greg smirked, “I’m going to miss her.”

“Really?”

“No.” He sighed and sat up, tucking his knees up to his chest, “I’m hoping that everything will go back to normal, but it won’t, will it? Everyone knows now.”

“Do you wish they didn’t?” Nick sat up too and pulled Greg against him, relieved when the younger man sagged into his arms and rested his head against his shoulder

“I wish Ecklie didn’t know. I mean; I know we can do it, but I don’t want to work without you.”

“I know babe, but if that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll do.”

Greg appeared to consider this for a moment, just long enough to make Nick nervous again, then turned around, knelt up and kissed him slowly and thoroughly, leaving the older man in no doubt about his intentions.

Jazz flexed her shoulders and checked through the notes she’d made with Jack, scribbling down a reference number on one of the printouts and entering it on her system, “I think that’s about it.” She commented, sending the files back through to London to be dealt with. “Oh God, time to go I think. I’ll go get the guys and get off.”

He stood up too and shut his computer down, “I guess I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah.” She hesitated a moment, then threw her arms around his waist and tugged her head in against his chest, “I’ll be back before long. I hope so, anyway.”

“Hey, John’s staying, you won’t be on your own.” He stroked her hair and hugged her tightly, “Are you OK?”

“I will be.” She pasted on a smile and shrugged, “You’d better get back to Cardiff, you’ve got a civil partnership to organise. I’ll be over in time for that. In fact, I’ll aim to be there by the start of September, OK?”

“Sounds good, now go on, work calls.”

Catherine stopped halfway down the hall as she saw her friends approaching and smiled in greeting, “Hey guys, thanks for getting Nicky back to us Jasmine.”

She looked pained for a moment but covered it so quickly that Catherine thought she’d imagined it, “That’s what I’m here for.” They entered the break room together and sank down onto the chairs to wait for Grissom and their assignments. Jazz automatically flopped down almost on top of Nick and snuggled into him in such a way that he could only put his arms around her. She closed her eyes and smiled happily, “You’re mega comfy.”

“You’ll get me in trouble.” He grumbled good-naturedly, not letting her get back up

“He’s right.” Catherine watched them in bemusement, “I would have thought after last night…”

Nick shrugged and accepted a coffee from Greg, “We’re in the frying pan anyway, might as well make the most of it. Besides, Jazz isn’t going to be around for long.”

“You’re leaving?” Catherine asked in surprise, her own coffee forgotten.

Jazz sat up and moved over so that Greg could sit next to Nick and rested her elbows on her knees, “Yeah, I’m needed back at my base in London, and I need to help Jack and Ianto organise their civil partnership in Cardiff. This was only supposed to be a very temporary thing. It sort of… stretched. I’m aiming to be back in London at least temporarily by the start of September.”

“That’s not far off.”

“No, it’s gonna be a bitch to organise.” She sighed, “But I’ll manage it. Probably. I can’t believe they’ve only been out here two days. Feels like a lot longer.”

“Yeah.” She punched Greg playfully and he laughed, waving his coffee warningly, “We’ll miss you, you know.”

“Good thing too, otherwise I’d have to come back and haunt you. Which I suspect I’ll have to do anyway. Oh, hi Arch.”

“Hey guys, how’s it going?”

“Pretty good. How’s tonight looking?”

“Busy, Grissom’s on his way.” They groaned and he was about to head off, but stopped and looked directly at Greg and Nick, “And Ecklie wants to see you both.”

When he left, Greg took Nick’s hand and squeezed it, seeking reassurance as much as he gave it. Nick turned slightly and smiled at him, but they didn’t let go. Grissom, when he arrived, appeared for be completely oblivious to it. “Nick, you’ve got another house invasion, looks like being the same as the last few we’ve had. Catherine, we’ve got a multiple on the strip. Greg, take Jasmine out to a 419 on twenty third. Oh, and Ecklie…”

“We know. Should we do that before we go?” Nick stood up and straightened his shirt self-consciously

“Probably for the best.” Grissom agreed.

They exchanged nervous glances and Greg quirked a smile at Jazz, “Meet you by the car?”

“Sure thing.” She watched them go with concern and followed Catherine out to the locker room. They changed in silence, but Catherine stopped her from leaving with a hand on her arm

“Look after him, won’t you? Both of them I suppose. I have a feeling Nick’s going to hate being on his own on this one.”

She nodded sadly, “Stupid office dating rules, especially with hours like yours.”

“It’s to cover them for sexual harassment charges.”

Jazz snorted, “Ianto used to complain of sexual harassment at Torchwood. Unfortunately, the highest powers he could complain to were both trying to get into his pants. Me and Jack.” She added in response to Catherine’s concerned look, “And he never really complained, just wound Jack up with it. Good times. Half of Torchwood seem to have slept together, on the premises in fact.”

“It’s another world.”

“That it is.”

“Yeah, well, just look after him.”

She swept out and left Jazz smiling sadly at the floor, “I will.”