"Ianto? Can we talk? I made Jack swear not to listen.”

Ianto quickly closed out of the solitaire game he had been running as Tosh entered the tourist office. He'd taken refuge in the store front to escape from Owen and his clumsy attempts of covertly pointing scanners at him. Ianto still kept a close eye on his sentinels on the CCTV.

“I don’t think his hearing’s quite that sharp.” Ianto reassured with a smile, and Tosh took it as an invitation, hopping up lightly to sit on the desk.

"Do you have any idea what happened this morning?" Tosh dove right in. Ianto had always liked the woman’s directness.

Ianto shrugged. He really had no clue, and wasn’t quite sure why everyone was so upset. "I was meditating as usual, relaxing and then all of you were suddenly hovering over me, feeling worried."

"As usual? You've been meditating before this?"

Ianto blushed and looked sheepish. "I run the hub mainframe. I found Gwen's emails before she told Jack about them, and I’ve been trying some of the things for a few days now."

Tosh laughed and shook her head. "Oooh you sneaky little thing!”

Ianto pretended to be offended. “It’s my job to be five steps ahead of you lot.” He protested.

“So...you didn't notice anything different this time?"

"Well...I was in a forest. I was chasing this...dog again. A really large, beautiful dog though the woods. I- I don't know why, I just wanted to follow it. ...Talk to it. I know it sounds bizarre, it sounds bizarre to me and I'm saying it."

Tosh frowned. "Okay, yes that's...quite weird. That sounds nothing like the meditation I was leading."

Ianto shook his head and sighed. "I don't know. Honestly I wasn’t even listening to you. As soon as I closed my eyes I was back in the woods. That’s what I've been seeing everyday since I started meditating."

"How are you doing it?” Tosh leaned forward. “I mean Jack and Owen have all but glued a lo-jack to your back. They're constantly checking in on you, and monitoring you. How have you managed to hide away to meditate without them freaking out over your heart rate suddenly dropping?"

“Luckily Jack’s hearing is still spotty. I just told them the couch wasn’t the most restful thing to be sleeping on for the last week,
and I'm taking cat naps in the archives." Ianto looked vaguely guilty. "It seems to have worked so far."

"You really are sneaky." Tosh seemed more amused then anything, but she schooled her face into a serious expression. "Though you do realize you're an idiot right? We couldn't wake you up; you weren't reacting to our voices or touch. Owen was shaking you and nothing. You were gone.”

Ianto let his shields dip, feeling the worry that he had heard in Tosh’s voice. It sparked like tinfoil on his teeth. His shields shot
up again, and resisted the urge to make a face at the lingering discomfort.

“That's not safe to be playing with alone. What if an alien attacks while you're out and you get eaten? Do you really want to sentence Jack and Owen to death just because you wanted to hide out and meditate alone in the archives?"

Now Ianto looked very guilty. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just that this all is very stressful. Owen and Jack never leave me alone, they're always there, always watching me, listening to me, and pointing scanners at me. Or they need me to keep from zoning or having a sensory spike.”

He saw Tosh’s look of dismay. “And I don’t mind, honestly. I enjoy helping others. I enjoy taking care of those tw- of others.” He reassured. “But it never seems to stop, or let up for even a moment anymore. It's all just hard to handle and I was hoping Dr Sandburg was right about meditation helping.” Ianto turned, straightening an already neat pile of pamphlets.

Tosh put a hand on his arm. "Ianto I understand, but if you're always going that deep you really should have someone know. Some one to check in on you, or able to bring you out. It’s the same as Jack and Owen's zones. You need someone there to pull you back."

"They're not that bad anymore. They're getting really good. Owen especially. It's rather phenomenal how quickly he's learning to control his new senses. He can pick out scents easily, and read tiny writing across the hub, who knows how far he'll go. Jack is going a bit slower. He seems to prefer to just...enjoy his senses, rather then learn to control them, but he's doing good, when I can keep him thinking of it as a game."

"That's good to know, but we're not talking about them. We're talking about you meditating when you're alone and going far, far, far into your own mind. It's not safe Ianto."

Ianto felt his temper flare, and pulled it into check. “Nothing we do is safe Tosh. But it’s helping.”

Tosh opened her mouth, and closed it again. They sat in silence for a minute.

Ianto shook his head. "That's not the worst of it. Now that damn dog has started showing up even when I'm not meditating."

Tosh blinked at the curse coming from Ianto, along with the sudden veer in conversation. He was usually the last person to resort to swearing. "...Wait what? You're hallucinating? Ianto! We need to go tell Owen now!"

"No, no. Just...flashes. If I close my eyes too long, or when I’m tired. It's not like I see it constantly or anything just... glimpses sometimes."

"Ianto that is not normal!" Tosh protested.

"How is any of this normal? Owen can detect a tiny dab of oil on a card hidden in Jack's office, and find a months old tie I lost in there last year. Jack can hear things across the hub as clearly as if he were standing next to you. I'm some sort of empath, among other things. How is any of that, by any definition of the word, normal?"

Tosh blinked, "...point. But still...seeing a dog?"

"Well it's not like I'm seeing a tap dancing, singing frog..." At Tosh's look he chuckled. "Owen made me watch the cartoon..."

"I always knew he was the weird one. But back to you meditating and not telling any one.” Tosh refused to let the conversation get off course. “That can't keep happening. You need to tell someone. Jack and Owen are pretty much 'never happening again!' but I think if you bat your eyes at them they'll change their minds.”

Ianto snorted.

“Or they could at least sit with you. And if they refuse to help you, I will. But you can't keep doing it alone, if you're going to be that hard to wake up every time. If you don't care that much for your own health, at least think about your Sentinels. Without you they're doomed."

Ianto sighed and nodded. Tosh was a master at a finely tuned guilt trip. She was already smiling like she had won "Fine. I'll make sure one of you is with me next time. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic." Tosh told with a grin, hopping down and disappearing back through the secret door.

As if on cue, though Ianto was positive Jack couldn’t actually hear that well, the Bluetooth beeped in his ear, and Jack’s voice was there, rambling on about another alien run rampant in Cardiff.

Ianto glanced to the side and glared at the large black dog sitting patiently beside the beaded curtain, eyeballing him.

"Shoo! Go home!"

The dog disappeared, running though the wall.