Beckoned by the alarm, the mechanical cog door revolved open and Gwen stepped back into the hub, followed by Tosh and Owen. They all breathed a sigh of relief, having finally escaped the downpour outside, and immediately began to strip off their clothes. The medic shred his rain-sodden jacket in a huff, cursing how the weather had calmed down as soon as they'd got inside as if the storm raging on would have made them feel any drier. Gwen and Tosh did away with their overcoats and desperately tried to pat their jeans dry.

"Raining?" came the voice of the archivist, arriving up the steps with towels draped over his forearms. They were a soft grey - to match the Torchwood aesthetic - and toasty warm as his Nana would say.

Owen glared him down. "No, Ianto, we went for a swim."

"Did the Rift bring us anything?" he replied, effortlessly bypassing his colleague's remark.

"Nothing we could find," Gwen admitted after rubbing the towel through her matted black hair, dreading the thought of brushing it through later that evening. Tosh nodded solemnly before handing the towel back to Ianto and mouthing her thanks.

"If it did bring us a gift," Owen noted. "It's probably been swept down the drain."

Gwen sighed. Weeks had passed since Jack had disappeared, leaving the four of them to hold the fort while he was off gallivanting with his doctor. Still high on the sense of relief they'd felt after their boss had come back to life, they'd all promised to carry on at Torchwood until he returned. If he returned. Either way, they refused to abandon their positions like Jack found it so easy to do. Yet only days had passed when they realised just how much their esteemed leader had kept them in the dark. First came the calls from U.N.I.T they couldn't answer then the alien artefacts they had no way of deciphering, finally it had dawned on them that they had no fucking clue what they were doing. In the end, random energy spikes from the Rift were all they had been able to deal with and even then, the Cardiff weather sometimes beat them to it.

Gwen felt out of her depth. Wet, and out of her depth. She wanted to know if the others felt the same but was too embarrassed to ask. Partly because she was meant to be their leader - a role she knew they resented her for and required of her in equal measure - but also because she knew they wouldn't admit defeat anyway. Jack had told her again and again she was their link to the outside world but now he wasn't there to remind her, it no longer felt like an advantage. It only made her feel less in tune with her colleagues' actual feelings. She wanted to help them, she just didn't know how.

It was then Gwen realised Ianto had been asking her a question.

"Huh?" she blurted out, her doe-like eyes widening as she caught a glimpse of his lips moving again.

"I said," he answered patiently. "Do we have a briefing tonight?"

"God, do you ever stop working?" Owen spat, a bead of rain still trailing his eyebrow. "It's nearly eleven o'clock!"

Ianto glanced back at him disdainfully. "I assume you want to write this off as another anomaly then? Interesting how regular these irregularities have become since we decided when to clock off."

"And you really think staying here all night is going to solve that?" the doctor countered, letting a thought simmer for a second before adding: "or are you just used to sleeping over?"

Gwen's eyes immediately darted back to Ianto - she wondered what response he would have to such an odd accusation. Did he really stay there all night, she thought as he remained suspiciously silent. His pale blue eyes started to quiver as if desperately flicking through a rolodex of witty comebacks and smartarse asides but coming up short. It was then Gwen noticed how much he had aged since she first met him up in the tourist office nearly a year ago. He'd been perfectly cast as the boyish receptionist, innocently inviting her down to the hub with a playful 'don't-keep-them-waiting'. Now the lightness of his face had given way to grief and trauma, his eyes hooded and dark, his lips curling cynically as he wrestled with his failure to respond.

"We won't have any more info about the spike until morning," Tosh finally affirmed, breaking the silence like a hunter mercifully snaps the neck of its prey. "But I can look first thing through any discrepancies and see if I've missed anything."

"Thank you," Gwen replied, touching Tosh on the shoulder, hoping she knew how deep her gratitude extended right at that moment.

Owen slapped his hands together. "Right then. Pub?"

Gwen held her breath. Just months ago, she had been sleeping with that man. The desire felt so alien to her now. For a moment, she was reminded of Tomas Davies - who spelt his name the Welsh way despite being from the Cotswolds - who had taken her virginity in the backseat of a Vauxhall Astra in the old Woolworths car park. It had taken her mere seconds after the act to realise she had wasted one of the most significant moments of her life on a guy who thought oral sex was a bit gay. Now, looking at Owen as he forced Tosh to hurry up and shut down her workstation, she knew she had risked a lifetime with Rhys for not much more.

As usual, Ianto had excused himself from the after-work drinks, mumbling something about the Rift. Gwen reiterated that Tosh was right - there was nothing to be done at this hour - but he seemed resoundingly unconvinced. She told him one final time to go home before chasing after Tosh and Owen.

The three of them headed over to The Yard - a pleasant enough gastro-pub which always managed to be understaffed no matter how many bartenders they had in that night. Tosh had been begging the team to try another spot since Jack left, tempting Owen with tales of expensive craft beers and appealing to Gwen with false pretences of wanting to see more of the local area. Gwen had always said yes, as far as she could remember, recalling a couple of pubs Rhys and his mates inhabited but Owen refused every time. He was a man put off by any inconvenience, including walking more than half a mile or accommodating someone's wishes when they were contradictory to his own - the sign of a true Londoner.

They nestled into a booth in the back corner of the pub, which was rowdier than usual due to the match at Arms Park. Luckily the noise was concentrated by the bar where rugby boys courted their admirers by flexing their muscles and downing jagerbombs. The Torchwood three nursed their beers quietly, well aware none of them was going to breach the scrum to get another round before closing time.

Gwen had been quietly considering Owen's remark while Tosh tried for the third night in a row to explain the process of making cashew milk. She ignored the medic's standard how-do-you-milk-a-nut joke and instead imagined Ianto cataloging endless amounts of space debris, making up silly names to amuse himself as he drowned in the deafening silence of the archives. She pondered where he could be sleeping; why she hadn't noticed before; if Owen was even being literal. As she scoured her memory for times when Ianto had been the last the leave, frustrated it hadn't even occurred to her, she decided she was just going to bloody well ask.

"What did you mean, back at the hub?" she said, butting into Owen's lame attempt at innuendo as Tosh described how she soaked the cashews overnight.

Owen shot Gwen an exasperated look, already exhausted at the line of questioning ahead of him.

"What did I mean when and what now?"

"When you said Ianto slept in the office," she prompted.

"Oh come on," he protested. "It was just a joke."

Tosh grimaced, though only briefly. "I didn't think it was very funny."

"Then you both need to lighten up! He's been shagging Jack for God's knows how long, he can at least-"

The sound of Gwen spluttering forced Owen to stop.

"You knew about them, right?" he inquired, squinting his eyes as if he could find the answer in the pores of her skin.

Gwen stayed quiet, aiming to appear unaffected until she'd worked out the right response. She quickly brought the pint to her lips again, hoping it would give her more time to juggle her feelings regarding this particular revelation and the realisation that everyone appeared to know except her. It was hard to keep track and the constant rush of alcohol wasn't really helping to be honest. Did she admit she knew nothing about it? She couldn't bare ignorance, especially her own, and she hated to live up to Owen's low opinion of her. But the fact that Ianto had been sleeping with Jack. No, having sex with Jack. Dating Jack? All of that would be assumed knowledge if she pretended to know about it, so she decided she should tell the truth - if only to ask more questions.

"I didn't actually," she replied, returning her nearly finished beer to the table. "And I'm not going to lie, I'm surprised."

Ianto had never been very forthcoming with her about anything. Considering they were the only Welsh members of the team, she had spoken to him very little about his personal life. She knew where he was from, where he'd been to school, if he knew her friend Zoe who lived in Radyr (he didn't) but that was about it. He definitely hadn't seemed the type to fall for Jack's charms. In fact, Gwen had always found his replies to their boss' more risqué comments as rather detached. Hadn't he shown utter disinterest in Jack's sexual orientation? Gwen was very confused.

"If it is true-"

"It is," interrupted Owen.

"Well, if it is-"

"I've seen them."

Gwen was getting frustrated now. Not only had this fact completely bypassed her but they had obviously been flaunting it around the hub when she wasn't there. In that second, she imagined them together. It had been the first time she had put the two men even in the same thought, other than the Cyberman fiasco. She pictured Jack with his hands pressed up against the long office windows, Ianto's uncertain face in between them, Jack's rose-coloured lips brushing against his ivory skin, a hand crawling through the younger man's charcoal hair. It felt wrong. Why Ianto? Her mouth felt dry suddenly. Why had Jack picked him?

Tosh's voice shattered the image: "I've not seen them," she told Gwen, generously. "Nothing more than a kiss, which is more like a greeting for Jack. Owen told me the rest."

"Okay, fine, good," Gwen answered, slightly flustered and not quite able to form a coherent sentence. Breathing slowly, she finally managed to get one out: "Is this not a bit of an issue?"

Owen and Tosh both shifted uncomfortably.

"How so?" the medic enquired, a smile tickling the corner of his mouth.

Gwen paused, knowing perfectly well what he was assuming. That exact same curl of the lip would creep up on her when Rhys repeatedly asked her how it could be that both of her aunt's sons were gay. Heat burned in her cheeks and she made note of how utterly condescending it was to find humour in the limits of someone's understanding. It was unhelpful and especially in this case, she thought, because this had nothing to do with them being men.

"I mean, he's the most junior member of the team. He's not exactly a confident, outgoing guy. I'd say he's rather vulnerable. He was devastated after everything that happened with Lisa. And what? We feel he should be jumping into bed with his boss?"

"Ianto's a grown man," Tosh reminded her.

"I know that," she said. "But I'm concerned about him falling in love with someone like Jack."

"Who said anything about love?" Tosh posed.

Gwen frowned. "So it's just sex?"

Tosh grinned, far too intelligent to fall for Gwen's trap. "Yes and no. By defining it as just sex, we're suggesting that 'just sex' is somehow bad. I've always said Jack has a different perspective about these things. I think it's really refreshing, actually. He doesn't see sex as some sordid activity! He gets that it's perfectly healthy and you can want to do it for countless reasons. Sex is not just about love or lust."

Gwen was not convinced. She wasn't a prude; she'd never been the type to believe happily married couples had a monopoly on meaningful sex - as far as she was concerned, two consenting adults could do whatever they please. Even so, she failed to see how Tosh thought Ianto and Jack sleeping together was appropriate. There must be times when sex wasn't the answer, she told herself. There had to be some boundaries. Yet she pined to see it how Jack saw it, or at least how Tosh thought he did. For one, she couldn't imagine Tosh being wrong about something, even though a thought nagged at her that Tosh probably wasn't talking about this from much experience. She pushed that particular consideration to the side as her colleague continued, obviously determined to defend their leader.

"Ianto might be fragile right now but that doesn't mean sex is counterproductive to his recovery. It can be a good coping mechanism, not to mention it makes you feel good. Being with someone with that much experience might make him feel safe. Jack could be helping him."

The doctor scoffed into his drink. "So you're saying Jack is shagging him better?"

Gwen almost laughed.

"No," Tosh replied, digging her elbow into Owen's ribcage. "But we shouldn't presume sex compromises anything. It's not a negative thing. I don't think they see it like that anyway."

Gwen scowled. "But Jack's still his boss. Even if it's just sex, you shouldn't be sleeping with someone who does your admin. It feels manipulative. How is Ianto supposed to say no?"

Tosh pursed her lips, like a teacher getting tired of an impertinent pupil. "Jack's not forcing him."

"I'm not saying he is," Gwen groaned, though not really considering if she had implied that or not.

"Yeah, the boy is pretty fucking keen," Owen interjected.

"And they both seem really happy when they're together," Tosh added quickly, recognising that Owen really wasn't helping her cause. "Ianto knows what he's doing."

Gwen sighed. "Okay but that doesn't make it right. Whether Ianto wants it or not, Jack shouldn't have pursued it. He still calls him sir! How is that right?"

Owen opened his mouth but clearly couldn't be arsed to make that comment - they had already thought of it anyway - so instead returned to his pint without saying a word.

"I'm not denying it's unorthodox," Tosh replied, picking her words carefully. "But I still don't think we should assume the worst. Yes, Jack is his superior but that might be what Ianto wants. The Ancient Greeks thought relationships like theirs were beneficial."

"But Ianto's not from Ancient Greece," Gwen cut in. "He's from Newport."

Owen finished the rest of his beer in one long gulp, slamming the glass down on the table with enough rigour to silence Tosh before she started rephrasing herself. "To be completely honest, it doesn't matter, because while I agree Jack probably sees their relationship as harmless shagging," he commented, quite efficiently misinterpreting Tosh's entire argument. "I'm not convinced the tea boy has the same idea."

"In what way?" the girls said in unison.

"Well for one thing, before the tosser managed to shoot me in the shoulder," he said, giving it a tap for dramatic effect. "He was blabbing on about how much he meant to Jack. He didn't take too kindly to the idea that Jack was keeping him around for a quick fuck either."

"You said that?" Tosh asked, horrified.

"I think I actually used the term 'part-time shag'," he replied, his shit-eating grin making it clear that he didn't think that - he knew damn well he had used that exact phrase.

"Oh, Owen, what a horrible thing to say."

"Untrue too," he gibed. "Full-time job, that is."

Tosh gave him a kick under the table. Gwen wished she was as lightweight as Tosh - she relished the idea of getting a free kick at Owen now and again.

"Well," Tosh muttered, glumly. "I guess that changes things."

"Proves my point as well," Gwen replied confidently but Owen evidently didn't agree.

"No, it means Ianto is imagining a relationship that's not there," he explained as if it was an irrefutable fact. "Jack's done nothing wrong. He's perfectly entitled to fuck whoever is up for it. Ianto is just naive to see it as anything more than that."

"But then Jack's in the wrong - he shouldn't have tried it on," Gwen started to say but Owen held up a hand in objection.

"This is not Jack's doing. If the man was really as promiscuous as he made out, his hole would be moonlighting as a Travelodge. It was definitely Ianto who initiated it. Christ, Gwen, you weren't here when the boy started working with us. He was flirting with Jack from the beginning - laughing along to his awful stories, going out every day to bring him his favourite lunch, writing these long-arse reports just to get into his office. He was relentless."

Tosh was nodding along to this. Gwen hadn't really considered Jack and Ianto's relationship before she arrived. She definitely didn't recognise Owen's description of her younger colleague. She'd never really considered him in that way, especially not with Jack. She saw them more as father and son. That thought made her feel queasy now.

"It was inevitable," Owen concluded. "Jack was hardly going to turn him down, was he? I mean, Ianto's a good looking guy and he's not completely useless. Especially once he got over his robo-girlfriend. He makes a fine cup of coffee and despite being utterly unqualified for this job, he's a quick learner. I imagine Jack think he's an excellent student."

"So you agree he's taking advantage?" Gwen pressed, as usual convinced everyone must secretly be on her side.

"No," he shot back. "Ianto's the one who's fooled himself into thinking they're a couple, I caught them rutting away in Jack's office-"

The girls winced.

"-and that is not the setting of choice for a serious relationship. The boy's delusional. He should be grateful that Jack enjoys his company so much, he keeps him all safe and sound in the hub."

"He came with us to Brecon Beacons," Tosh corrected him.

Owen snorted haughtily. "You mean when we all had to sleep in tents, Brokeback-Mountain-style? Oh, I wonder why he brought him then."

Tosh didn't answer - even though she knew Ianto had planned to share her tent, not Jack's, she doubted it was a point worth making, not when Owen was acting so childishly.

"It's not surprising Ianto is a bit more serious about their relationship," Tosh replied, clearly trying to mend her opinion of the whole situation without harming her view of either Ianto or Jack in the process. "He's not like Jack. He obviously gets attached to people. He can be quite intense."

"Really?" Owen replied, mockingly. "Mr I-kept-my-half-dead-girlfriend-in-the-basement might be a bit clingy?

"Exactly why it's wrong of Jack," Gwen cut in.

Tosh rolled her eyes. Gwen considered if she had ever seen her do that before.

"I'm being serious," she powered on. "I understand what you're saying, Tosh, I really do, but Jack shouldn't be putting Ianto in that situation."

"You mean position," Owen sneered as he shimmied out of the booth. He ventured towards the bar, finally seeing a break in the wave of rugby lads and realising this conversation was nowhere near finished.

"And I get what you're saying, Gwen. I wouldn't want Ianto to get hurt but I really think he's come out of his shell since they've got together," she said, making sure to give the final two words their own air-quotes. "That seems to me like evidence that Ianto is in total control of what he's doing."

"Let's say you're right and this is just about sex and that's fine and dandy. Office relationships are messy enough as it is."

"You can say that again," Tosh muttered under her breath.

Gwen ignored that comment for both of their sakes. "This is Torchwood. Jack is the one who gives him orders. He can Retcon him if he wants. He can kill him."

"That's going a bit far."

"Is it?" Gwen replied. It was, she realised immediately, but she felt slightly at a loss over what to say next. She was slightly embittered when her co-worker nodded, content to keep going with their little argument.

"Jack is Ianto's boss – neither of them is denying that," Tosh asserted. "But I just don't believe Ianto is a victim and Jack is some kind of predator."

"It's still an abuse of power," she droned.

"You girls are still missing the point," Owen declared, returning with three pints and positioning them in the middle of the table. He shifted back next to Tosh, already wagging his finger at Gwen. "If Ianto had his head on straight, Jack being his employer wouldn't be a problem. But you can see how it's all warped in his mind. He can't tell the difference between his boss and his fuck buddy. Getting Jack's coat before he swans out the door is one thing, fetishising it is another."

"Oh that's just a bit of harmless banter," Tosh replied, recalling the same overheard remark. She was being genuine - it was clearly a light-hearted quip between two men who seemed nothing but light-hearted quips some days - though she wasn't as sure of that as she'd been previously.

"Hardly! No wonder the boy's infatuated with him - he can't separate his sex life from his life-threatening job. Jack sleeps in the hub. He never switches off. We're on call all the bloody time. They always say don't shag your heroes and there's the sodding proof."

Gwen frowned. "Who says that?"

"I may have made that up," he conceded. "But my point still stands - don't put your life in the same hands that wank you off."

Gwen was getting tired of this - she wanted to discard her beer and go home. Maybe she was wrong, maybe they all were. Was it even fair to be debating Jack and Ianto like this, without their permission, as if they were an abstract riddle that needed to be solved? Mostly she wondered whether she was being too harsh on Jack - she trusted him immensely, more than anyone if truth be told, but couldn't ignore how reckless and insensitive he could be sometimes. After everything Ianto had been through, it seemed wrong to burden him with something he couldn't possibly have the strength to handle. It wasn't the same if it was her or Tosh or Owen. Surely. Was it? Maybe she hadn't been giving Ianto enough credit to navigate a relationship with a man so much more senior than him. Ianto had risked everything in order to save his girlfriend at an age when Gwen was still purposely ignoring phone calls from guys she couldn't be bothered to break up with. And so what if Ianto wanted more? Gwen wasn't absolved from asking too much of a relationship, but it hadn't made it any less valid, any less worth fighting for.

"I think whatever they've got going on," said Tosh. "It's none of our business."

Gwen nodded, her gratitude for Tosh seemingly growing exponentially every day. She'd dismissed her as a bit of a swot when she first met her - so absorbed in technical mumbo-jumbo that she couldn't possibly understand how real people worked. Gwen felt ashamed recalling that now. It was stupid of her to prescribe to such lazy stereotyping - especially as Rhys told her she said the same thing about the guys who worked in PC World.

"Well don't be surprised when it ends in disaster," Owen retorted smugly, because he knew no other way.

The three of them sat in contemplative silence for the next few minutes until the final globule of beer was finished and they made their way out of The Yard. Tosh and Owen waved their goodbyes and headed back towards the swanky apartments that adorned the bay. During Gwen's first week at Torchwood, Tosh had explained that her place was in the same direction as Owen's but the roll of Ianto's eyes had told her that wasn't really the case. If Owen had ever bothered to pay attention to Ianto, maybe he would've noticed and realised his colleague was clearly vying for intimacy. But he hadn't, and he didn't, and he would forever think Tosh lived just beyond his apartment block.

Gwen hadn't thought of going back to her flat quite yet; she knew what she wanted to do. She had already looked down at her feet on the Plass and decided it was worth checking Ianto wasn't still working beneath them, rattling around in the archives until it was too late to head home. She took the invisible lift route. It wasn't necessary but the two pints had made her sleepy. She thought of Rhys, who always took the elevator when he visited his parents' flat, even when it was just two flights of stairs. Fuck it, he would muse joyfully, why have the lift if you're not going to take it?

She agreed.

As she descended down into the hub, Gwen relished the bird's eye view of her weird and wonderful workplace. The cascade of blinking electronic lights in the darkness made it look like an orchestra of stars against a midnight sky. She savoured the impressive hum of the Rift pulsing through the room - it was almost musical when no one else was around to disturb it. Just before the slab of concrete came to a halt, she skipped off the platform, enjoying the thrill of the jump in her slightly tipsy state.

Ianto was nowhere to be seen. She wondered where to check first - the archives, the morgue, Jack's bunker - but before she could ponder any further, her colleague came round the corner, obviously looking to see who had taken the scenic route back into the hub. She observed the wave of disappointment crash over his face almost instantaneously. She couldn't blame him, she missed him too.

To her surprise, Ianto was dressed in his navy winter coat, his small black satchel hanging on his shoulder and one white headphone hanging from his left ear. He was clearly just about to leave.

"Gwen?" he said, scrambling to put his iPod Nano back into his bag. "Is there something wrong?"

She shook her head. "No, no. I just left my coat here," she replied, praying to a God she knew didn't exist that she had.

"Is it still raining?" he asked.

"No," Gwen replied, rationalising whether she really wanted to say what she was going to say next. "Ianto, are you alright?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"I know the past few weeks haven't been the best."

He offered her a small laugh, polite but hollow. "Understatement of the year."

"Kind of," she admitted, finding his unfaltering ability to be acerbic, even in the tensest of moments, really endearing. "But I think we're getting there."

"We can only hope."

He really wasn't a talker, she thought. Maybe Ianto was her blind spot, maybe she was his - both too absorbed in Jack's eyes to ever notice the other looking in the same direction. The idea of Jack being with him still bothered her. She knew part of it was jealousy - the alcoholic haze that usually clouded her judgment now only made it clearer, unceremoniously unveiling her romantic feelings for her boss when she wasn't paying attention. But it wasn't just that, it was something that Tosh had said back at the pub. Yes, Ianto was broken and sex was something he found solace in, made him feel steady enough to keep going. Perhaps Jack sought the same in Ianto - she didn't know – but their boss was gone now and Ianto needed something else. He was becoming a figment of a begotten era, a ghost haunting the archives. He needed to find his own way, without Jack.

"I'll see you first thing," she said, retrieving her still-damp coat from the ragged sofa. "Wear some more comfortable shoes tomorrow."

Ianto frowned at her. "Why?"

"I thought maybe you'd want to come out with us - you know, if there's any Rift activity."

"Oh", he replied. Gwen made sure to let the silence brew for a moment. If he really didn't want to leave the hub then she needed to give him the space to decline.

He said nothing.

"You're right," she told him. "We keep chasing after these energy spikes and finding nothing. You should come with us. We need you there - you know more about identifying alien artefacts than any of us. You know more about dealing with weevils too. We could do with another pair of hands."

"Are you not worried I'm not qualified to be running around after extra-terrestrials?" he answered, though Gwen could tell he was parroting other people's concerns, not testing his own.

"If a doctor and an engineer are able to do it, I'm pretty sure you can," she told him. "Our team is one short and you are more than capable of holding a gun. You shot Owen."

"I missed," he noted.

"Well maybe if you'd had some training, you wouldn't have," she said, giving him an honest smile. "You shouldn't be stuck here clearing up after us."

"It's my job."

"It's part of your job. You can do a lot more, I can tell," she replied. "Look, if you don't want to-"

"I do," came the reply, rushing out just in case she was truly backing out of her offer.

"To me, that's a good enough reason," she said. "Bring trainers. We can go over some of the basics tomorrow in the gun range then we'll go from there."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. Even in the darkness of the hub, his face seemed lighter.

"None of that," she teased, wrapping herself around his arm and pulling him closer. She let him walk her out of the hub via the tourist office, watching him patiently switch off all the lights and rearrange the travel guides on the counter before grabbing his keys.

"Do you actually get any visitors in here?" she asked, slightly ashamed she didn't know the answer.

"All the time. I had a couple from Liverpool and a French family in this morning. I think I managed to make out what they were saying."

"I didn't know you spoke French."

"I meant the Scousers," he replied, just seriously enough to keep Gwen on her toes. "But yes, I can speak French. Well, a bit. I can hold a conversation as long as it's about directions or hotel reservations or ordering croissants."

"See - you're a man of many talents."

"More than you'll ever know," he said, his eyebrow jauntily shooting upwards.

Gwen smirked, resuming her position on his arm. "I told you, none of that."

The two of them finally walked back to the Plass and said their goodnights. Ianto kissed her on the cheek, blushing sheepishly as he realised they'd not done that before. She slapped him on arm, letting him return to his car, watching him as he shuffled his tie loose on the way. She wondered if he knew they'd been talking about him, pontificating about his love life, putting his sexuality on trial. She hadn't even known a couple of hours ago it was up for debate.

As speckles of rain began to fall from the sky, she decided it was time to head home. As she powered down the streets of Cardiff, hoping Rhys had done what she told him every night not to do and leave the heating on, she thought of Ianto. The feeling couldn't escape her - the boy was eager, earnest, sensitive but also vulnerable. Not someone Jack should look for in a lover, a fuck-buddy, a whatever. But if it was what made Ianto happy then by God she was going to make sure Ianto wasn't picking up after his shit. He'd be out there with the rest of them, proving himself, saving lives - not making coffee.

No, he could still make the coffee, she amended, remembering the time she had buggered up their orders at Costa.

But sure as hell he wasn't going to be their tea boy. He was going to be their equal. He was going to be Torchwood.

When Jack returned - if he returned - Ianto would be ready.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading - all reviews are welcome and appreciated! I really hope no one assumes I'm against their relationship or relationships like theirs in general. I just think it's an interesting dynamic that doesn't really get explored or challenged in the show. I say in the show as 'Broken' is probably the only real dissection of their romance - I highly recommend it if you haven't listened to it already. Let me know if you see any typos.