Title - Can't You See Them?

Author - Ghostfish

Disclaimer - Don't be daft, you know very well I don't work for Mr. Davis. However, Sir, if you're reading, you know where I am if you want me.

'Can't you see them?'

Jack felt twin emotions of anger and sorrow at the softly spoken words from Ianto. Kneeling in front of the stricken Welshman, himself on his knees on the forest floor, Jack tried to catch his eyes, draw his attention away from whatever it was that he was staring at. Iantos' face was stained with tears that tracked down his cheeks, eyes wildly roving the clearing around them.

The rest of the Torchwood team held back beneath the rusty autumn trees that circled the clearing, letting Jack do what he did best by talking Ianto down. None of them knew what to do, what to say in the face of Iantos' complete belief in the ghosts before him. How do you convince someone that something they can see in plain sight isn't really there? They were used to dealing with what was real, what was tangible, things that had an effect on the general population. Dealing with a single mind so utterly convinced something impossible was true, that was new territory.

Ianto seemed distracted.

They all noticed it in their own way. Gwen noticed that her desk wasn't quite as tidy as it usually ended up when Ianto gave it the once-over each night. Tosh noticed Iantos' time logs for his working hours dipping, unusual as he was without fail first in, last out. Owen noticed the coffee becoming erratic in its delivery times. Jack noticed a complete lack of humor from his usually dry-witted employee, mild teasing dwindling from rare to non-existent.

None of this however was quite enough to make any of them consciously consider what was wrong. Everything that seemed 'off' about Ianto was so subtle that it flew under their collective radar, especially as every other hour it seemed they were being called out to deal with something. Rift-related or not, these things took priority over the slightly odd mood of their colleague, who, despite his unspoken distraction, was still as efficient and useful as ever. He continued to join them on missions, he continued to make their much-needed coffee (albeit at more irregular intervals) and he continued to keep the filing system in obsessive compulsive order.

Still, something was off. And it could only be so long before the precarious chemistry of the constantly overworked Hub team would start to be affected by it.