1.

Ianto Jones knows that working for Torchwood means the impossible is always possible, strange and unusual is quite normal and common for them, and broken is often sublimely beautiful.

In other words, weird shit happens. It's Owen's favorite phrase, and Ianto once had it printed on a button with the Torchwood logo to add to the doctor's coat collection.

At first, those strange and unusual things only happened to the others, because he wasn't out in the field as much. Though he'd certainly had his own strange, unusual, and even impossible things to deal with back at the Hub, including a pet pteranodon. As he'd started to become more involved in the active side of cases—as opposed to cleaning them up and filing them in the archives—he'd learned firsthand how strange and unusual Torchwood could be.

He's seen fairies and dragons. He's watched a man grow tentacles. He's met time travelers, aliens, clones, and a ghost. He's become invisible, once gained the ability to speak in different languages, and set foot on an alien planet. Two of his coworkers have died and come back to life, one semi-permanently.

And of course there's his immortal boss and lover, who dies on a fairly regular basis and gasps back to life looking for something to eat and a quick shag, though never in any predictable order. Jack is the most unusual man Ianto has ever met, the epitome of the impossible becoming possible, as well as someone so broken he's beautiful.

Given Torchwood's consistently bad timing when it comes to major crises, it isn't that strange for Ianto to be running through an alley on the afternoon of Christmas Eve chasing down some sort of Rift flutter. At least, that's what Tosh is calling it, as it hasn't quite opened yet, but keeps teasing at it in a major way. She's fairly certain it will happen soon, only it keeps jumping around, sending him and Gwen running in separate directions in the hope that they won't miss it. Whatever it is.

It also isn't unusual for him to be the one to find it, as more often than not his luck ends up dumping him in the middle of a group of snarling Weevils, or throwing him into a tank full of alien jellyfish. Or he ends up getting caught, getting injured, or getting left behind, sometimes all at once. So running into the Rift flutter as he bursts around a corner isn't unusual at all; he's just thankful he doesn't tumble in.

The Rift flutter is beautiful, as so much of what they see tends to be, until it tries to bite your face off or fling you to another planet. A pinprick of rainbow colored light, it grows before him, expanding and undulating, throwing off sparkles and glitter like a disco ball in a drag bar. A vaguely humanoid form begins to appear, a shadow in the light, until with a loud bang and a burst of energy, the rainbow spits out something that rolls over the ground and lands lifelessly before him. Something wearing a grey RAF greatcoat complete with Group Captain stripes. Something with floppy brown hair. Something that flails back to life with a familiar gasp.

Ianto shouldn't be surprised to see Jack Harkness looking up him from the ground with a broad grin, but he is. Sometimes even Torchwood surprises Ianto Jones.

Author's Note:

A short introduction to a short story. The title is similar to 'Future Perfect', but the story is more like 'Five Days Forward' in tone. So if you like it, now you have two more you can check out! Thank you for reading. Look for updates every few days and enjoy!