Part One: Ar Goll

Jack entered the room with the fish on coke holding a gun trained to his left which left him open for Jack to shoot him – no hassle. He looked around the room and saw the stunned doctor holding an injured woman while Gwen covered another resident and Toshiko stood with a scanner and a stunned expression. “Hi kids.” Jack greeted them.

“Did ya miss me?”

*^*

Once they were at the Hub – not having spoken a word to him on their way – Jack saw how organised they were, even if totally over worked. After Gwen had chewed him out for his disappearing act Jack asked where Ianto was. When he hadn’t seen him at the house with the Blowfish he had naturally assumed that Ianto had stayed behind at the Hub, but there was no trace of him. No smell of his beautiful coffee cups and no trace of his aftershave in the room. Owen’s desk was a pigsty and Gwen’s was only a little better. A waste paper basket was overflowing by the autopsy bay and even from there Jack could see a mountain of untouched paperwork sitting on his desk.

Gwen froze in her anger. Owen looked away and folded his hands defensively and Toshiko tried even harder than  normal to fade into the background. “He’s not here, Jack.” Owen said quietly.

“Is he on holiday? In Bangor visiting his grandmother? Did he go to U.N.I.T. headquarters on some official matter?”

“He’s… missing.”

Jack swallowed. His heart faltered. His insides turned to ice. In all the scenarios he had imagined during The-Year-That-Never-Happened this was not one of them. This was something far worse; worse than his nightmares that Ianto had moved, or dead. Because the dead could – he guessed – rest at peace, at least Jack thought if there was such a place as Heaven Ianto would surely get in when he passed away because he was just that good a person; always had good intentions and he cared so damn much… But if Ianto was missing, like kidnapped missing, then he could be being tortured or raped or starved. And Jack was just standing around letting it happen.

“De-briefing! Now!” Jack barked at them and stormed into the new de-briefing room. He didn’t have time to notice what had changed around the Hub. He would look around when he had Ianto here with him, safe.

“OK. Now explain to me how Ianto can be missing?” Jack said once everyone was settled around the table. There was a pause before anyone spoke, and then Toshiko’s quiet voice rang out.

“We were on a mission. Investigating reports of an unusual amount of wolf sightings in Wales. It’s true that throughout the UK wolves are being introduced but some callers insisted there were up to fifteen, which is an unusual number for a pack even ignoring the fact that there are maybe fifty wild wolves in the whole of Wales, and this was just outside the city.”

“Not what I’m asking.” Jack said, his voice dangerously low. Tosh looked pleadingly at Gwen who took over.

“We got separated, Jack. One minute he and Owen were on the radio with each other and the next all Owen can here is static. It was night, and in a dense forest that Ianto knew better than any of us which was why he was out there in the first place.” Gwen took a deep breath as Jack levelled a glare at her. She leaned forward on the balls of her hands and looked him dead in the eyes. “We did all we could Jack. This was no bodies fault.”

He took a sharp breath and looked away.

“Well,” Owen spoke up, “that’s not exactly true is it?” He said, his tone accusatory.

“Leave it Owen,” Gwen said softly, she obviously knew what he was talking about and the look Toshiko was casting him underneath her lashes showed she too knew.

“No; go on. Say what you have to.” Jack said.

“You won’t like it,” Owen warned him.

Jack gave him a smile that wasn’t a smile. “I never do,” he agreed.

“Fine. We’re all thinking it anyway. It’s not no bodies fault; it’s your fault. If you’d have been here then this wouldn’t have happened!” Owen finished.

Jack felt the accusation hit him like a blow to the heart. He had nothing to say in his defence. He had not prepared them for the day he would one day leave them, and that had been stupid of him. His stupidity may have cost Ianto his life, and that was something Jack could not forgive himself. Without another word to the team he turned around and went up to his office where he poured himself a neat scotch and started making phone calls and reviewing the file on the case that Ianto had gone missing.

He had to find Ianto – he just had to.

Part Two: ’R Cnudoedd

Wolves have been extinct in the British Isles since they were hunted down and all trace of them were killed. By the twenty-first century the only wolf that the English or, for example, the Welsh could see was the type bred in captivity. Which made it a hundred times more harder for Werewolves to hide themselves.

For the most part werewolves moved away from the UK, living in France or America or even Romania. But with the new initiative to bring back the wolves, a few packs were able to return home. Among them was the Hope Falls pack from America, with their Alffa Ciaran originally being a rich Welshman who had immigrated over three hundred years ago. And now he was bringing his pack home. Or at least that was the story that Ianto had heard. He was sure it was much more complex of that. For starters he had no idea how Ciaran had become a wolf – many wolves chose to keep it secret and rightly so, after all the stories were always bloody and unpleasant. God knows Ianto’s own story was. But he did understand pack rules. He understood instinct and scent and that the Alpha was the leader of the pack, not necessarily of day to day matters but it was Ciaran who evaluated new pack members (like Ianto) and who decided they should move, and who was the enemy and who was the friend. Betas were basically anyone else, including the Alpha’s mate Sera and the Second; Bear McDowell. Bear was his nickname, because even when he wasn’t a wolf he was a very big, hairy man and when he was a wolf he was huge. Larger than any natural wolf. And Ianto understood that he had a rather unusual place in the pack. Obviously he was the lowest, after all he was the youngest, but unlike almost every other wolf he wasn’t Submissive of Dominant – he was an Omega. Omega’s appeared to be Submissive but in a very subtle way they were actually quite Dominant. Not suited for the rough fights and mean politics that kept an Alpha in place and therefore unable to influence the Alpha of the pack – only really due to years of training on the Alpha’s part but Ianto didn’t know that –but otherwise Omega’s were considered dangerous because if a Dominant mated with them they could find themselves tamed. As a result Ianto found himself practically a pariah of the Pack. Which wasn’t awful… not after the way he saw some of the Submissive men and the females treated, and even the gay Dominants had a hard time. Mind you, that was the thing, walking around being able to smell fear and lust; it was dangerous. Really, an Alpha was in place to help control the wolves, not the humans.

XxX

AN// TRANSLATIONS; (using an online dictionary. Sorry if any of this is incorrect in any way, I do not speak Welsh).

Bleidd-ddyn = werewolf

’r cnudoedd = the pack (as in a pack of dogs which is as close to a pack of wolves as I could get).

Ar  Goll = missing

Alffa = Alpha (used as a way of addressing Ciaran)

PLEASE COMMENT; let me know what you think. Is this good enough to continue? It's kind of an experimental story for me. I'm actually tempted to change it to Owen/Ianto as I think it'll write better as O/I but I'm not sure now I have started it this way... help? Thanks for reading.