Title: One Of Those Days

Author: badly-knitted

Characters: Ianto, Jack, mentions Owen and Gwen

Rating: G

Spoilers: Nada.

Summary: Ianto's day starts off badly and goes downhill from there.

Word Count: 660

Written For: My own prompt 'Any, any, A bit of blue sky,' at fic_promptly.

Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.

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Guest 1: Just a little mark. Nosy doesn't have a big mouth and its teeth are blunt, so Ianto just got a nip.

Thank you!

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Guest 2: *grins* Thank you kindly!

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OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

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Ianto had just known it was going to be one of those days when he'd woken up at seven on a very dreary, overcast morning to find his alarm clock hadn't gone off and he'd overslept by a full hour. He could've sworn he'd set it the night before.

Rushing through his morning routine and skipping both breakfast and coffee in favour of grabbing something once he got to the Hub, he managed to make it to work only half an hour later than usual, where he was met by a very surprised Jack.

"Ianto, what are you doing here? I turned your alarm clock off this morning so you could have a lie in!"

"You did what? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did. I left a note on your coffee machine."

"Of course you did," Ianto sighed. "I was late so I didn't bother with coffee."

"Oh. Well, as long as you're here, I could really use a some of your industrial strength brew."

"So could I. Suppose I'd best make some." Ianto shambled away to prepare a badly needed dose of caffeine.

It was a day full of annoyances. Owen discovered that doing an autopsy on an alien covered in slime was extremely messy and went for a shower, leaving Ianto to clean up the mess. While he was busy with that, Gwen decided she desperately needed a file from the archives and helped herself, but not before pulling files from three different cabinets while trying to find the right one. Naturally, she left all the wrong ones out and it took Ianto nearly an hour to put everything back in its correct place.

Jack went out on a Rift retrieval alone and got killed, returning an hour later covered in blood, meaning yet more cleaning for poor Ianto. Not only that, but the explosion that killed Jack injured the Coat, which needed stitches and the removal of several bloodstains. After treatment, Ianto put it on a hanger so it could rest and recover. One good thing about the coat being in close contact with Jack so much of the time was that it seemed to have gained some of its owner's recuperative powers; it was completely healed in a couple of hours, just in time for Jack to need it again.

"Rift alert, Ianto! Grab your coat!"

Ianto abandoned the dishes he'd been washing, fetched his coat and followed Jack out to the SUV. Naturally, by the time they arrived at the site of the alert, it was raining. They spent the next half an hour getting steadily wetter as they searched among the bushes and junk of a stretch of wasteland on the distant outskirts of Cardiff, trying to find what had come through. Finally they discovered it in an abandoned bathtub half full of murky water. Ianto used tongs to fish out what looked like a futuristic gameboy, dropping in into the containment box Jack held out.

Trudging back to the SUV once more and waiting for Jack to unlock the passenger door, Ianto was uncomfortably aware that he had rainwater dripping from his hair down the back of his neck. It was no consolation at all that Jack was in a similarly sodden state.

They made the return trip in silence with the heater turned up full blast in an attempt to reduce their overall level of wetness, not that it helped much. But then suddenly, as they approached the Hub once more, the rain stopped and the clouds began to break up.

"Look, is that blue sky?" Jack sounded excited. "Haven't seen that in weeks." He pulled over and they watched, steaming gently in the warm interior of the SUV, as the bit of blue sky got bigger and bigger, and then the sun came out. "Well, would you look at that! Actual sunshine! Who says it always rains in Wales?"

Ianto smiled. "Looks like it's going to be a beautiful afternoon."

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The End