A/N This is one story I had on Teaspoon. Some parts of it, when I have read over it, didn't seem entirely right so this is also a slight rewrite of the first draft that went up on . There are only slight changes to grammer and sentance structure, but I have added a few slight insights and rewrites for those of you who might know it on the other site.

Jack entered the hub via the lift. Which he always did when he wanted to sneak in. Although the hydraulics made noise the perception filter seemed to cover them somewhat. Unless they were expecting someone to enter or leave Jack knew he could reach the ground before they actually saw him. Most of the time it was fun for scaring people - mostly Owen - when they were pretending to work, rather than actually working.

As he descended, he watched Gwen, Owen and Toshiko hissing angrily at each other. Jack raised his eyebrows as the intense argument raged. Gwen's hair swirled around her shoulders as she glanced from one to the other and she gestured violently as she talked to Owen.

"How the hell are we going to tell him?"

"Tell me what?" Jack asked them in a loud voice when he was halfway down. The pterodactyl screeched at the sound of his voice as she flew over his head. She must have been roused by the row that was occurring. Jack waited for the lift to lock into place and he stepped off and walked round to the others where they stood by Toshiko's desk.

All three of his staff now had expressions that ranged from sheepish to chagrined. Owen and Gwen jostled each other a little, either in a hint to stay silent, or tell him, for a moment Jack wasn't sure.

Glancing at the desk he saw one of the devices that they had been checking out from the archive, trying to work out what it did. It sat there and for some reason Jack couldn't fathom looked very guilty. He looked at the three people, who had seen his gaze drift. They'd huddled a little closer together, all staring at him, looking quite guilty as well.

"What's going on? What do I need to be told?"

After a pause they all started talking at once, each sounding like they were accusing each other. Gwen and Owen looked ready to start a row; again.

"Shut up!" Jack yelled at them. All three of them lapsed into silence, staring at him and glaring at each other. "Where's Ianto? He'll give me a sensible answer."

He pushed past them and went towards his office shrugging his coat off as he did so.

"Ianto!" He bellowed his name and looked around and then turned back to the others. "Where's Ianto?"

Tension knotted in his stomach as the anxiety in their expressions increased. Jack glanced around again and then glared at them.

"Where is Ianto?"

Before any of them could answer there was a patter of feet. Jack turned back to his office and his eyes widened. Through the door came a little child. He wasn't quite sure how old but old enough that the little boy could run, but he wasn't entirely steady on his little legs. He ran towards Jack, thankfully not tripping up over the trailing hem of the adult's shirt he was wearing. Someone had rolled up the sleeves but the left cuff still trailed down over his hand.

In seconds he had reached Jack and clamped his arms around Jack's right leg just over his knee and the little boy buried his face into Jack's thigh. Jack was so stunned all he could do was stare down at the child's head, with mildly familiar hair. The pink shirt he was wearing also looked ominously familiar.

Jack looked at the top of the little boy's head for a few seconds longer, there was a sniff and the boy's right cheek rubbed against his leg. Jack tried to move with his human leg clamp but that just made the boy tighten his arms and hang on tighter. Jack gaped, his expression one of resigned shock.

"Ianto?"

The question was directed down to the top of the boy's head but then Jack looked up in the direction of his three other team members. Wide-eyed and a little subdued they all slowly nodded. Jack looked back down and sighed.

"Oh boy."

XxxxxxxxxxxxxX

"What happened?" he asked. They all started talking at the same time again. "Shut up!"

They all stopped again, he felt Ianto shudder and he started to whimper. Jack grimaced as he felt the hitch in his breath, that indicated Ianto's threatening tears.

"Not you. I'm not shouting at you," Jack said gently. The tone of the whimpering changed. He tried to move his leg a little but Ianto's grip stayed firm. Jack stood there for a moment not entirely certain of how to get a traumatised child - who earlier that day had been a very cute grown man - off his leg. His coat was draped over his left arm, but he thought he probably needed both hands to deal with Ianto. He held out his arm and coat to Toshiko. Without a word she moved forward and lifted his coat clear. Then she moved around him into his office to hang it up on the stand.

"Thanks," Jack called to her. Then he looked down at Ianto again. He had sensed the movement, shifting against Jack's leg but still having no intention of letting him go. Jack bent down and started to try and extract Ianto off his leg.

"Ianto, come on, let go a little."

He reached round to prise Ianto's hands apart. The grip loosened a little but as Jack let him go, to work out how to pick him up the arms clamped back around him. Jack sighed and started again. This time as he prised he kept his arms between Ianto's shoulders and his leg so he couldn't grip again. Ianto gave a little cry of panic one hand clenching and unclenching as he tried to grab him. Jack paused, but he didn't pull back.

"Do you want some help?" Gwen asked, moving a little closer.

"No, I don't think I want any help from the noisy, shouty people who probably scared him in the first place."

Jack kept his voice low, gentle, addressing his comment to Ianto in an almost baby-like tone. It seemed to work, Ianto stopped struggling to hold onto him. Jack wangled his hands down to Ianto's waist, swiftly grabbed him and lifted him. He rested Ianto on his right hip and supported him with his right arm. Ianto again reached to cling onto him. His right hand latched onto the front of Jack shirt, the left he got on Jack's shoulder. Jack felt Ianto's now tiny hand grip onto his braces, clinging hard. And he buried his face into Jack's shoulder. Jack ran his hand up and down Ianto's back a little unsure what else to do. Since it seemed enough for Ianto, who stopped whimpering in panic, Jack left it at that for the moment and turned to the sheepish looking trio watching the interaction.

"Okay, what the hell happened? What did that thing do?" he nodded at the machine on the desk.

"How did you know it was that?" Toshiko asked. "Do you know how it works?"

She moved towards it, almost touching it but Owen and Gwen started yelling again.

"No!"

"Don't do…"

"Lower your voices," Jack growled. Ianto fidgeted against him giving a little hiccupping sob. Jack rubbed his hand on Ianto's back again. "Not you, no one's cross at you."

Toshiko had paused and looked at Jack for instruction. Jack shook his head then nodded at the offending item.

"No, it just looked guilty of something."

"It's an inanimate object, how can it look guilty?" Owen snapped.

"Maybe it was reflecting you," Jack snapped back. Owen flinched. Jack ignored him and looked at Gwen. Out of the three of them, he'd get the best sense out of her. "So what happened?"

"We were just running scans on the thing, all the basics. Owen put it through the microtron."

"And I used the particle scanner on it," Toshiko added.

"And?" Jack asked.

"Nothing," Gwen said. "It was doing nothing. We were gonna give up and Ianto was collecting everything to take back down to the archive. He walked near it and all of a sudden it lit up, there was this beam of light. Ianto was caught in it, there was this flash and…"

Gwen waved a hand in the direction of little Ianto, now firmly attached to Jack.

"… that."

"Then when I tried to examine him, he threw a huge tantrum," Owen said. Jack gave him a very level glare, he had to communicate his anger visually since every time he raised his voice Ianto became upset. Jack figured the best thing to do was avoid that.

"He's just lost twenty odd years of his life, I think I'd be inclined to throw a tantrum if that happened to me."

"If that happened to you all you'd lose is a few of those grey hairs," Owen retorted. Jack blue eyes blazed, Owen looked a little rueful and Gwen stepped between them.

"He got upset and we weren't sure what to do with him. At the time it didn't seem like he recognised any of us. Owen wanted to see if he could reverse what had happened but we didn't get a chance and Ianto started running around the hub in a panic."

"He got even worse when we tried to stop him, but we didn't want him to hurt himself," Toshiko said. She sounded very upset herself. Jack hefted Ianto in his arms a little, cuddling him closer, Ianto clung on harder.

"There's no where safe in the hub for him, well maybe …" Owen started. Jack intercepted him.

"That nice bullet hole feature in your chest is going to have a few friends if any of your following sentences contain the word vault."

Owen stopped talking.

Gwen moved towards Jack, staying between him and Owen. "We wouldn't have let him do that anyway, but by then we'd managed to herd him into your office and he hid under the desk."

"Hardly surprising."

"It's not our fault Jack," Gwen said. "It's not mine, not Owen's, not Tosh's, not Ianto's, not yours. But whatever's happened we need to fix it."

Gwen as always seemed to manage to come in as the voice of reason. Still it was a little hard to be reasonable when people randomly started regressing to their childhood.

"Has that thing done anything else?" Jack asked.

"No, it appears to be inert now," Toshiko said, stepping back a little warily.

"Right, get it contained, get it sealed up in one of the boxes so whatever it emits can't touch the rest of us. We'll be no good to anyone if we all lose a few years."

Jack turned to go to his office.

"Jack?" Gwen stopped him, he turned back.

"Shouldn't Owen look at him? I know Ianto's upset but…"

"Later. First I'm going to talk to Ianto."

With that he strode to his office and shut the door. Gwen stared at it for a moment, watching as Jack put Ianto down on his chair and then very slowly tried to extract himself from Ianto's grip. Gwen released a breath and spun on her heel to address Owen and Toshiko.

"Let's go guys."

XxxxxxxxxxxxxX

On reaching his office Jack put Ianto down in his chair. As he tried to pull back Ianto clung to him. Again Jack had to take the time to carefully extract himself.

"It's okay Ianto, let go." The grip loosened but didn't entirely let go. "Come on, I just need to take a look at you."

Ianto eventually released him sitting back in the chair. Jack pulled back aware of an odd sharp smell in the room. He ignored it for the moment and looked at Ianto. His hair was ruffled, huge blue eyes stared at Jack, the rims red and his face blotchy and covered in dried tears.

"Ianto, do you remember what happened?" Jack asked him gently. Ianto blinked and then brought his hands up to his face hiding behind them. Jack took his wrists and pulled them away, Ianto's lower lip trembled and tears shone in his eyes.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Jack asked.

One tear rolled out of Ianto's left eye and he struggled against Jack's grip. Jack let his hands go and again Ianto covered his face. For a moment Jack just looked at him. Sat in his chair and swamped by the shirt that had fitted him perfectly not two hours ago he now looked incredibly tiny. Jack looked him up and down guessing him to be about three, or four perhaps. It was hard to tell. He was going to have to get Owen to try and work it out but that was a physical aspect, he needed a mental perspective.

He watched as Ianto lowered his hands. Jack for a second caught a glimpse of Ianto's blue eyes then he hid in his hands again. He knew he could have forced him to pay attention but Jack didn't want to upset him any further. The trouble was Jack didn't know how to deal with kids. He liked them, they always seemed rather sweet but his interaction with them had been very minimal. His time wasn't particularly leant towards it.

Now he couldn't really avoid it. He thought over what was the best way to tackle this and then tried again as Ianto peeked at him. Jack decided to start with Ianto's reaction to him.

"Do you know who I am?"

Ianto hid again and then splayed his fingers to look at Jack. He gave a little nod.

"What's my name? Tell me."

Ianto put his hands in his lap; he sucked his lower lip into his mouth briefly and then blinked and sniffed.

"Jack."

Jack smiled; Ianto gave a tremulous smile back.

"And do you know who you are? What's your name?"

"Ianto," he responded, hiccupping and reaching up a hand, still swamped in the shirt, to wipe his nose. Jack glanced out of his office into the main area. Gwen was at her work station, tapping away on her computer. Jack pointed at her.

"And the pretty lady there, do you know who she is?"

Ianto gave a little scowl but he nodded. "Gwen."

Jack moved onto Owen, who had just appeared out of the autopsy room. "And the grumpy man?"

Ianto gave a little giggle. "Owen."

"And the other pretty lady?"

"Toshiko," Ianto stumbled a little pronouncing her name, the last little bit almost came out as a second hiccup. Jack smiled again. Now he felt like he was getting somewhere. Ianto had some memory of the here and now. He hadn't regressed back to his childhood memories. As he looked around for a little more inspiration he caught a waft of the smell again but still it didn't bother him much.

"Okay, do you know where you are? What this building is?"

"Torchwood," Ianto answered immediately, having guessed what sort of game it was.

"And do you know what city you're in? Where Torchwood is?"

"Cardiff."

Jack was also starting to get hints of Ianto's accent. There was definite intelligence in him, but Jack didn't know if that was typical of Ianto, of the age he now was, or if something adult remained. Ianto had spoken very little about his background, just the odd snippet here and there. It was very much the same way Jack mentioned his past, just the odd snippet, an odd story that was relevant to the here and now of a situation.

"Okay, do you know where you live? Where your home is?"

Ianto frowned. His eyes roamed a little around the office and out into the main area of the hub as Jack spoke the second question. He didn't answer he just looked at Jack with wide eyes. Jack looked around again and suddenly identified the source of the smell.

There was a little puddle under his desk and he realised what the smell was; urine. The puddle had been partially mopped up by three sheets of paper that had been pulled out of his blotter. The absorbent paper had taken up some of the mess but not all of it. Looking at his desk Jack noticed the papers he had been working on were rumpled, as was the blotter paper that remained. Instinctively Ianto had tried to clear up the mess.

That alone gave Jack enough hints. Ianto's memory was in the here and now, but his mind was the mind of a child, so it probably wouldn't process very well. As he realised Jack had noticed the puddle he started to cry. Probably in what was, Jack thought, an expression of embarrassment.

"Oh, don't cry, it's all right," Jack said. He put out a hand to take hold of Ianto's nearest foot and he frowned in concern. He put both hands around it feeling the iciness of his skin. Jack rubbed his foot gently then checked the other one. It was just as icy. Jack increased his investigation, Ianto's tiny frame shook slightly as he quivered with cold. He was in fact wearing nothing more than a shirt while he had been tucked under Jack's desk for over an hour.

Ianto had sobbed for a minute but he stopped as Jack, having checked him over, went back to rubbing his feet to try and warm them a little.

"Are you cold?"

Looking miserable Ianto nodded. Jack gave a light flash of a smile that could have almost been a grimace. Glancing around he looked for something, he stood up considering a blanket from down in his room. Ianto gave another little sob as Jack moved away from him. Ianto's little hands reached up, grappling at the air to get Jack to come back.

"It's all right," Jack soothed him, and then he grinned. Going to the other side of the door he grabbed his coat from the stand where Toshiko had hung it. He draped it over his right arm and then going back to Ianto bent down and snaked his other arm around him. He lifted him off the chair and spread the coat out. Settling Ianto back down in it he started to wrap it around him, tucking his feet into it and securing it around his body. Using one sleeve, turning the cuff inside out, he gently dabbed at Ianto's face to mop up his tears.

"Don't start crying, you'll set me off," Jack said. "It's all right. A little mess doesn't matter."

Ianto sniffed but stopped crying. He jumped as there was a light tap at the door. Jack turned and Gwen put her head through the door, then pushed it a little further open and came into the room, shutting the door behind her.

"We've contained it, and so far no movement on it. Is he all right?"

"Yeah, upset, confused, but fine. When he's settled down at bit then Owen can give him a check up."

"He's looking now at…" Gwen paused, sniffed and then saw the mess on the floor. "Oh dear."

"It's fine, I'll clear it in a minute," Jack said.

"Do you want me to…?" Gwen offered. Jack looked to have his hands full. Ianto hunched down in the coat, which made him look even tinier. "I didn't realised he'd… is he around an age for potty training or is he past that?"

Jack shook his head, "doesn't matter. I would guess he didn't dare move and it was just too late when he realised he ought to. Plus I don't think he quite knew where to go. It's all right," he added to Ianto, tucking him in even further.

"I can clear it if…." Her hint was obvious. Ianto needed Jack's attention first.

"No, no I'll do it… actually there is something you can do."

"What?"

"He's cold. He's got nothing to wear. I'd like to assume we can have this fixed by the end of the day but in the meantime we might need to prepare for a few hours or so."

"Get him come clothes you mean?"

"He can't stay in that shirt and my coat. It is not warm enough in here for that and… depending on any review of that device and any stuff we can glean from the readings… I don't want him freezing to death in the meantime."

Gwen nodded, "I'll get some coffees and doughnuts and… something else for Ianto. I don't think coffee is a good idea."

"Good point, what is a good idea?" Jack asked. Hell, none of them were prepared for this, he thought. They were all about to get a crash course.

"Milk, warm milk, or juice… I'll look." She opened the door and then paused, stopping to turn back to Jack.

"I'll take Tosh with me; I think she's a bit upset, she feels a bit responsible. She was the one testing it before it… zapped."

"It's not her fault."

Gwen smiled. "Owen's looking at the recordings trying to see if the scans have picked up anything around that time, any sort of biological or chemical reading, anything he can find."

"Okay, we'll discuss it when we've got sorted."

Gwen nodded. She went out and shut the door behind her.

"Now," Jack said tucking in Ianto, again. "You stay there, I just need to go and get a bucket and a mop."

As he stood up Ianto cried out again, Jack had got two paces to the door. With a sigh he went back and crouched down.

"Stop that," he said firmly. "I'm only going to be a minute and then I'll be back. Here."

Ianto watched him with wide eyes as he opened a drawer and pulled out a small circular object. It was like a smooth flat stone, the top surface was covered with small circular depressions. Jack unwrapped Ianto enough so his hands were free and he gave him the flat object.

"Play with this."

Jack pressed several of the depressions and lights streamed up from the thing in different colours like a rippling rainbow. Ianto cooed in delight as he watched it, and it gently faded. Very carefully he took the thing off Jack and tried it himself. He sent up another ripple of slightly darker colours, reds and purples and there was a gentle humming sound. Ianto cooed again.

"That should keep you amused."

And with that Jack snuck out to raid Ianto's cleaning supplies. Ianto didn't notice he had gone, until he got back. At which point Ianto appeared to be completely assured of Jack's continuing presence.