Thunder meets lightning

Word Count: 2.308

Summary: It was bound to happen ...

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Nick Cutter, Abby Maitland, Connor Temple, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper, Rex, Myfanwy

Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Abby/Connor (hinted)

Rating: PG
Spoiler: nothing in particular
Setting: Season 2 - after Adrift

Crossover: Primeval
Crossover-Setting: Season 2

Crossover-Spoilers: nothing in particular

Author's Note: Written for prompt #08 – Crossovers on redisourcolor. Using the sentence "Oh, great. Another one?" and the words peaches, green and instant. This was hard to write. There was so much I wanted to say but the story would have been too long.

Feedback: Can't breathe without it.

Disclaimer: I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-shows Torchwood and Primeval and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

XXX

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Ianto climbed the ladder to Myfanwy's nest and opened the hatch. The pteranodon raised her head from the straw making up her bed and looked at him curiously.

"Good morning, girl," Ianto said and smiled. She purred a greeting. Ianto pushed the button that would close the tunnel leading to the outside world. Myfanwy was allowed to stretch her wings outside at night. For that purpose, Jack had installed a small tunnel that led from her nest to a remote corner of the bay, using an old discharge air shaft. At night, no one could see the pteranodon coming out of the Hub and she could fly without anyone being the wiser. They had trained her to come back in the morning. She didn't go outside every night. Sometimes she preferred to hunt fish in the basin at the floor of the Hub or to distract Ianto and Jack while they were having sex by throwing things around and making a mess of Jack's office. Jack thought that she was doing it because she was jealous of the attention the captain got from Ianto. Ianto thought that she was doing it because he made the mistake of giving her a whole bar of chocolate after it happened the first time to keep her quiet so that he and Jack could finish without interruption. Now she seemed to think that she was getting a treat every time she made her humans curse and pick up tattered files.

"Did you have an interesting night?" Ianot asked.

Myfanwy twittered. Ianto frowned. The pteranodon never twittered.

The noise came again and Ianto realized that it hadn't been Myfanwy. He crawled further into the nest, taking care not to ruin his suit, and peaked around Myfanwy's massive body, trying to make out the source of the noise. His eyes widened incredulously. "Oh ..."

XXX

"Oh, great," Owen muttered. "Another one?"

They were all staring at the creature Ianto had sat down on the table in the boardroom. It had the size of a cat and looked like a big lizard with wings. Most of its body was green but some yellow and red spots were showing, too. The yellow eyes were looking around curiously, not intimidated by the humans staring at it. Tosh grinned. "It's so cute."

Gwen nodded and petted the small head. "Hello, you," she cooed.

The lizard with wings twittered at her.

"Aw, you're so precious."

Owen rolled his eyes. "Give women a baby of any kind and they're all over it."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "I don't think that it's a baby."

Owen looked at him. "Huh?"

Jack shrugged. "And it seems to be used to the presence of humans. Maybe it escaped from a private zoo."

"A private zoo?" Owen asked. "It's a dinosaur."

"Maybe Myfanwy was pregnant when she came here," Gwen said.

Ianto shook his head. "No … first of all pteranodon's aren't mammals. They're eggs involved in their reproduction. Secondly, it's not hers. It doesn't look like her at all."

The small dinosaur twittered and jumped into Tosh arms, snuggling into her chest.

"Oh, it's so sweet."

Gwen looked at Jack hopefully. "Can we keep it?"

Owen looked alarmed. "We can't keep everything that falls through the Rift. It's not a pet."

"But it's so cute."

"And that's your argument? That it's cute?" He sighed. "Women."

Ianto said, "It certainly has befriended Myfanwy. She must have brought it back here."

Jack rubbed his forehead. "We have to keep it here for the time being. We can't let it out without knowing where it came from."

"We have to give it a name," Tosh said.

Jack quirked a smile. "We have to find out if it is a he or a she first."

"How about Frodo?" Gwen asked.

"Now you're kidding," Owen said.

Tosh smiled."I kinda like it."

XXX

Ianto looked up when the door to the tourist information opened and two men and one woman entered. The woman was in her mid-twenties, wearing her light blonde hair short and had bright blue eyes in a pretty, delicate face. She was wearing a mini skirt over black, impossibly tight jeans and battered trainers. The blue jeans jacket she was wearing above a bright red shirt looked old and comfy.

The younger of the two men was her age, slender and a little awkward, hiding his shoulder-length brown hair under a black hat. He wore a dark jacket over a white shirt that hadn't seen an iron in a while. It was unbuttoned, showing the blue t-shirt he was wearing underneath. He was wearing woolen black gloves that were hiding his hands from the wrists to the base of his fingers. The fingers were naked. The light blue jeans and the trainers were the most normal about his appearance.

The other man was at least fifteen years older than his companions. Dirty blonde short hair matched his blue eyes. He was wearing a light green coat and a black shirt with dark blue jeans. He was the one who addressed Ianto. "Hello. We got lost."

The woman looked around curiously while the young man picked a catalogue from the shelves and leafed through it.

"Where do you want to go?" Ianto asked.

The fair-haired man smiled. "Not far. Is your office the end of the quay or is there any way that we could walk around it?"

"Why would you want to do that, sir?" Ianto smiled. The man shrugged. Ianto tensed. Something was off.

The woman shoved her hands in her jacket and the younger man put the catalogue back on the shelf, causing three other catalogues to lose their precarious hold and slip to the floor. "Oh, sorry." He bent down to pick them up. The older man sent him an irritated glance.

Ianto said, "Behind this office is nothing but the sea."

"Are you sure?" the man asked.

"Yes, sir," Ianto answered.

"Alright," the man said. "Thanks, though."

They left the office, the woman throwing Ianto a mistrustful glance over her shoulder.

XXX

"Ianto, c'mon now! We're gonna be late!" Jack called and Ianto hurried through the empty Hub to the lift, buttoning up his coat. He stepped onto the platform and Jack pulled him close to his side, slipping a hand down to rest on Ianto's behind. Ianto raised his eyebrows. Jack grinned. "Just don't want you to fall."

"Any excuse, Jack," Ianto smiled and the captain nodded. The lift started to ascend and when Ianto looked up, he could see the night sky through the small hole in the ceiling. He breathed in the scent of Jack's coat and closed his eyes. It had been so long since they had their last real date. Most of the time, they didn't make it out of the Hub because they were tired or had to watch the Rift. But it promised to be a quiet night so Jack had reserved a table, intending to woo Ianto into oblivion.

"How about a movie after dinner?" Jack asked.

Ianto nodded. "Sounds good."

Jack kissed his temple and tightened his grip around Ianto's waist. Myfanwy cried out and flew a wide circle around the Hub, missing Jack and Ianto just so with one of her wings. Frodo was behind her, happily twittering.

"Those two love each other," Jack said.

"Yes," Ianto grinned. Cool night air embraced them when the lift neared its destination. Ianto huddled against Jack's larger frame for warmth. The lift stopped on the almost deserted Plass. When Jack wanted to step down, Ianto grabbed his waist and stopped him. "Jack," he said and nodded at the couple sitting next to them at the foot of the water tower, oblivious to their presence thanks to the perception filter.

"Whoa!" Jack said. "Imagine them sitting a bit more to the right. They would have fallen down."

That wasn't Ianto's main concern. "They were in the tourist information today," he said. The woman was leaning against the young man, hiding her face in his shoulder. The man had one arm around her shoulders, looking like the luckiest man in the world one second and plain miserable the next.

The older man joined them, pocketing his mobile. "We have to get back."

The woman looked up at him and Ianto saw tears tracking down her face. "But we didn't find him yet. We can't just leave."

"Abby, I wish we could stay. But we've been searching for him for two days now. They need us back at the ARC."

The young man asked, "Surely we could stay until tomorrow? Look." He pulled a device out of his jacket and Ianto saw a red dot blinking in the middle of a small screen. "His chip's here somewhere. So is he."

"I wish there was something I could do, Connor, but we can't keep looking. Rex is gone. Whatever signal we're getting here, it can't be him. We've spent the whole day here."

Abby wiped tears from her eyes. "I'll stay," she said.

"That's out of the question," the older man said.

Abby got up. "We can't leave him behind," she answered angrily. "What if someone finds him? He could end up in a private collection or worse – on the news with everyone staring at him … or in a laboratory. He's … not from this time, Professor, you know that."

"Oh!" Ianto said.

Jack sighed. "Frodo."

Ianto looked up at Jack. "The girls will be heartbroken."

XXX

When they'd caught Frodo – or Rex as Abby had called him – they left the Hub through the tourist information. Ianto was carrying Rex in his arms and Jack was walking a few steps ahead of him, reaching the three visitors first. "Hello there," he said and they turned to look at him questioningly. Jack smiled and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. "Captain Jack Harkness." He turned to nod at Ianto. "This is Ianto Jones and we think ..."

"Rex!" Abby squealed and the small creature twittered happily, launching itself into Abby's arms. "Oh, where have you been?"

"... we found something that belongs to you," Jack finished his introduction.

The fair-haired man looked at Ianto in surprise. "The kid from the tourist information."

Ianto nodded.

"Hardly a kid," Jack answered with a laugh. "Believe me, I know." Then he got serious. "I think we have to talk."

XXX

Abby and Connor were sitting in one corner of the tourist information on the ground. Abby was cuddling Rex and feeding him peaches she'd brought with her while Connor was watching her with obvious unrequited adoration. Jack, Ianto and Nick Cutter were standing near them, talking. Ianto had made a cup of tea for their visitors who had spent the whole day out in the cold, looking for Rex. He'd escaped Abby's flat in London and got lost, winding up near Cardiff where he'd met Myfanwy. At least that's what they were assuming.

"So you call them anomalies?" Jack asked.

Nick nodded. "Yes, they're portals to the future and to the past, spitting out creatures from that time. But we can also walk through them and visit those eras."

Ianto looked at Jack. "Sounds suspiciously like ..."

"... the Rift," Jack nodded. "And you go through?"

Nick nodded. "And we can predict where the anomalies will appear."

"Wow!" Jack said. "That's impressive."

For an organization that was working without any knowledge about alien technology.

"What's it that you do?" Nick asked with a frown.

"Essentially the same, just without the traveling back and forth. What you're describing sounds like small Rift spikes. I bet that if we compare the times you experience an anomaly to the times of our major Rift spikes, they would match. Maybe you're experiencing some kind of echo – the thunder to our lightning. Smaller and not as dangerous."

"And how much lightning are we talking about?" Nick wanted to know.

Jack grinned. "The Rift's huge. We get all the problems while you're chasing after the small disturbances."

Connor raised his eyebrows. "You call huge dinosaurs small disturbances?" he asked incredulously.

Jack nodded. "You wouldn't believe what we're dealing with."

"Well," Nick said, "I'd say we better get going before our boss sends someone to get us." He looked uncomfortable for a moment then he asked, "What are we going to do about this?"

"This?" Jack asked.

"Well, Torchwood and the ARC."

"Honestly?" Jack answered. "I have no idea."

"I know the feeling," Nick smiled.

"For now let's just … forget about each other."

Nick nodded. "Yeah. Sounds good." He took the last sip of his tea and they said their goodbyes. "We know where to find you," Nick said. Jack nodded.

The door to the tourist information fell shut and Ianto sighed, collecting the three tea mugs. "So, want to tell me why we didn't retcon them?"

Jack shrugged. "They're a secret organization. We're a secret organization. I think they will keep their mouths shut. Besides ..." He looked at Ianto. "Those anomalies are interesting. Very interesting indeed. Instant travel to the past and the future without any kind of technology. And without the danger of Rift travel."

"You think we'll work with them in the near future?"

"Who knows?" Jack sighed.

END

08/10