Ianto growled under his breath as he felt the cool air against his back, discovering himself right on the edge of the bed where the duvet and blankets no longer covered him completely.

It was hard not to be annoyed at Jack when he insisted on taking up most of the bed. It was one thing when they used to share the cramped space under Jack's office in a cot that was barely wide enough for a single adult to occupy. Even then, Ianto forgave Jack for taking up more than his share. After all, it was his bed and Ianto was the one encroaching. But now that they were comfortably moved into Ianto's terrace house with its king size bed, there was really no excuse for it. Cuddling up close was one thing; being almost forced into the floor was something else entirely.

'Shove over,' Ianto grumbled in a practised, half asleep manner, using both legs to try and shift Jack's lower body whilst his upper body was being coaxed to roll over by Ianto's more persistent arms. The top half of Jack was surprisingly compliant. It was his bottom half that Ianto was struggling with.

'Stop shoving,' Jack mumbled into the pillow. 'It's Saturday. It's the only day we get to sleep in.'

'Well, we might be if you weren't hogging the bed.'

'I'm over my side,' Jack continued to argue sleepily.

'Tell that to your legs.' Ianto forced his eyes open to confirm the fact. 'Honestly, what else have you got down there?' he asked, seeing the lump in the bed. 'Is there a pillow down there as well?'

Jack groaned, pulling back the covers. 'Now I'm awake I'm going to need the loo. Thanks.'

Ianto harrumphed. 'You woke me first.'

Jack went to stand up and Ianto heard the thud as Jack went tumbling to the floor in a heap. 'Ow! What the hell?'

'Klutz,' Ianto replied unsympathetically, taking advantage of the unoccupied space in the bed to reclaim a good fifteen inches, and snuggling back down into his pillow.

'Er…'

'Er, what?'

'Might have tripped on account of a massive foot.'

Ianto cracked open his eye again, pausing to establish whether he'd heard what he'd heard, or if he'd been momentarily dreaming. 'Foot?'

'Yup. The right one. Impressive, if not for the fact that it's also really disturbing.'

Ianto reluctantly sat back up again. He hated it when Jack made no sense and he was still half asleep. 'What are you on about?'

'See for yourself,' Jack said, pulling his upper body up onto the bed and dragging his right leg along with it, plonking the engorged foot on top of the duvet. 'Just look at it. It's the size of a small dog. Or maybe a medium dog.'

'Bloody hell. How did that happen?'

'Oh yeah, I'm feeling fine by the way,' Jack said, frowning at his lack of sympathy.

'If you were in pain you'd have said so. I'm focusing on more important things, like how you could possibly go to bed totally normal and wake up looking like that.' He pointed at the freakish sight.

'I have no idea,' Jack replied, reaching down to massage the swollen limb.

'Well, we'd better call Owen and get him to come over and take a look. God knows you're not going to be able to get in the car with your foot all swollen up like that.'

'The car? I don't even think I'd make it down the stairs.'

Ianto sighed. So much for their peaceful Saturday off.



Owen was, of course, his usual pragmatic self, with a healthy dose of sarcasm and lack of empathy. 'I've heard of a club foot, but that's just ridiculous,' he said, taking one look at it and trying not to laugh. He poked and prodded at it, but it didn't seem to be causing any pain, and at least for the time being, hadn't migrated further up Jack's leg, or anywhere else.

'I'd say it's got to be environmental,' Owen finally said, perching on the edge of the bed and just staring helplessly at it. An allergic reaction to something, most likely. 'I've ruled out a blood clot, because, let's face it, nobody's foot swells up to twenty times its normal size like that without some alien intervention.' Owen turned to Ianto and smirked. 'Nothing else swollen up that size?'

'Har har. I think I'd have noticed that. And for the record, no, we don't have any foot fetish so you can rule that out as well.'

'So, that begs the question of what the pair of you were doing last night.' He fixed them both with a questioning glare.

Ianto shrugged, still still sitting there in bed in his pajamas and a half abandoned plate of toast he'd made whilst waiting for their medic to arrive, banning Jack from eating any of it before Owen had given them the all clear. 'Nothing. Just work. I mean, we were out and about, but it was just a normal night really. Caught a rogue weevil, put it back where it belongs…'

'There was that weird smell in the sewers,' Jack added.

Ianto scrunched up his nose, recalling the pungent aroma. 'It's the sewer. It always smells weird.'

Jack rolled his eyes. 'Weirder than normal.'

'Precisely why I didn't go down there with you. Enough of my clothes have a permanent stink to them as it is. I'm surprised Owen didn't pass out from the smell of your shoes at the front door. It'll certainly keep the Jehovah's Witnesses at bay for a while.'

'Not my fault they got wet.'

'It sort of is,' Ianto argued. 'You could have kept to the dry side of that sewer, but you just love stomping around, thinking it's all heroic looking.'

'So I stomped in a few puddles. Everyone does.'

'Correction. Everyone under the age of seven stomps in puddles.'

Owen cleared his throat, breaking up their argument. 'Any chance you stomped in something you shouldn't have? Could account for the odd smell and the sudden swollen foot problem. I'm going to want to take a look at your shoes.'

Ianto led Owen a ck down stairs and to the door, pointing at the pair of boots left just outside the door where they wouldn't stink up the house. 'I've got more industrial strength gloves in the kitchen if you need them. Might be better than those latex ones.'

'Good idea,' Owen said.

Ianto came back with gloves and a pair of kitchen tongs and they carried the foul smelling footwear into the laundry and dumped them in the sink before Owen went and retrieved his kit, swabbing the insides of them with long versions of cotton buds. He took the swabs and inserted them onto a small card before slipping it into his laptop and running diagnostics on them.

'Well, we were bang on the money,' he said, reading through the analysis results. 'There's enough noxious chemicals in this sample to give the EPA a field day. Some are alien in origin and some I can't even identify, so they're definitely alien. And it's way worse in the samples from Jack's right boot than his left.'

Frowned at the laptop screen, the results meaning very little to him. 'Okay, but can we fix it?'

Owen rubbed his chin as he consulted the readings. 'No way of knowing for certain, but it'd be pretty rare for something to have a permanent effect. If it hasn't resolved itself in a few days, then we should consider other options.'

'Not to mention probably sealing off that section of Cardiff's waste management systems before we end up with A and E overrun by people with freakish swollen body parts. That'd be all we need.'

Owen sighed. 'That's our weekend over then, huh?'

Iantk nodded in resigned agreement. 'You go organise the hazmat gear at the hub, I'll start doing the ring around to gather up the team. I'll meet you back at the hub.'

Owen passed him a blister pack of tablets. 'They're antihistamines. Might not do anything, but worth a try.'

'Thanks.'


Ianto carried them back upstairs with a glass of water and handed them to Jack, who now had his foot propped up on a pillow, emphasising its size even more. 'Well, the good news is Owen says we're not going to amputate just yet,' he told Jack, handing him the tablets and water.

'Lucky for me,' Jack replied. 'I always hate it when you have to lop bits off and wait for them to grow back.'

'Wel, it's lucky you never take your shoes off properly by undoing the laces and pulling them off, otherwise your hands might have met the same fate.'

Jack grinned. 'You know, I met this guy not so long ago who had the biggest hands I've ever seen.' He began trying to demonstrate just how big with his own hands. 'Huge.'

'Can we please try and stay on topic?'

Jack groaned at Ianto's lack of interest. 'Hey, you don't suppose it would have a similar effect on other body parts, do you? I mean, it'd all be experimental and purely for research purposes, of course.'

Ianto glared at him. 'Don't even go there.'