As he pulled his car into the car park beneath his building, Ianto Jones noted the lack of lights in his flat with a sigh. Considering how pouty Jack had been when he cancelled their date, he shouldn't have been surprised. It's not like it was Ianto's fault that his brother-in-law hadn't bothered to tell him about the surprise party for Rhiannon's birthday until the night before. He couldn't even be irritated with Johnny for the lack of warning, not really. Not when his complaint about the timing had been met with the response it had. "If I'd given you more time, you'd have come up with an excuse not to come, and she'll be sad if there's a party and you're not there again." It was blunt, but not unfair. Ianto wasn't there very often.

But he couldn't take Jack. Ianto fully intended to introduce his lover to his sister, but he'd planned it for a more controlled setting, preferably one where it was just the three of them. Certainly not with half the neighborhood and most of Johnny's loud and boisterous family looking on. He'd had no choice but to cancel his plans with Jack. It's not like they didn't spend most of their time together anyway.

He shouldn't have been surprised when Jack got petulant about it. He'd even suppressed the flair of jealousy when Jack told him that he'd be spending time with someone else instead. But he had hoped that Jack's drink "with an old friend" would end early and Jack would swing by in hopes of still seeing Ianto tonight. Unable to talk about either his work or his lover, Ianto had found the party excruciating, though he'd stuck it out until ten for Rhiannon's sake. He could use some time with Jack to unwind.

Well, he'd just have to get to the Hub bright and early in the morning, bribe Jack with coffee. Gwen was rarely in before ten, so they could sneak in some time together without too much fear of discovery….though Gwen had been very careful about announcing her presence since the last time she'd walked in on them.

Ianto climbed the stairs to his fourth floor flat, keys in his hand. There were more people in the building lobby than usual, but then he was rarely home at this hour. Either the rift or Jack usually had him out later. His own floor was fairly quiet, thankfully. Ianto put his key into the lock just as the lift opened. He didn't pay much attention to the three men who came out of it until one of them bumped into him just as he got his door open. He was just enough off balance that a second shove knocked him to the ground.

He managed to twist in the air, landing on his shoulder rather than banging his head or breaking his wrists. His Torchwood-trained instincts kicked in, and he rolled to his left, cursing his decision to dress casually for the party. His button-down shirt couldn't conceal his shoulder holster the way his suit jackets did, so he was unarmed. The three bulky men followed him in, shutting the door behind them. Fuck.

Unarmed didn't mean defenseless, as the first goon discovered when Ianto swept his feet out from under him. The other two lunged for him, but Ianto rolled again, going the other way and regaining his feet before they repeated their attempt at grabbing him. "Not very good at this, are you?" he taunted, feinting to his left before darting right and sending one of the goons past him again. They were not, unfortunately, stupid enough to give him a straight shot at the door, but his gun was hanging in its holster on his coat rack, neatly hidden under his overcoat.

He was almost there when one of them got a hold on his right arm, using it as a lever to spin him into the wall. Ianto's head smacked painfully, but he still kicked out at his attacker, successfully hitting him in the knee. He fell to the ground, but failed to release his hold on Ianto's wrist, throwing him off balance and knocking his head into the wall a second time. The other two also gathered around. This was not going well.

Ianto used his free left hand to fumble for his mobile, unfortunately in his right jeans pocket. He lived less than two miles from the Hub—if Jack was there he could be at Ianto's flat in minutes. He should have thought of that first. He'd just gotten the device out of his pocket and was desperately trying to press the number 1 when one of the goons grabbed his shoulders and smacked him into the wall again. He lost his hold on the speed dial, and didn't have time to find it again before a second shake made him lose the mobile completely. It clattered to the floor.

The goon he'd kicked wasn't putting any weight on the knee, and the one he'd tripped seemed to be favoring a wrist. He kicked again, but the man holding him shifted, leaning his considerable weight against Ianto and moving one hand to his windpipe. Ianto went very still as it suddenly became hard to breathe.

"Guess we are good at this," snarled the man with the bad wrist. "Get the mobile. We'll need it," he added to the one with the bad knee. He produced a plastic baggie from his pocket and pulled an odd smelling cloth from it. Despite the lack of air, Ianto started to struggle again as the goon pressed the cloth to his face. Chloroform, his brain reported as everything went black.

TW TW TW TW

Jack Harkness was bored. He was still irritated at losing his original plans—which had involved some interesting uses for whipped cream—but over the course of the evening his annoyance had cooled. So Ianto wasn't ready to introduce Jack to his sister. It's not like Jack had taken Ianto to meet his daughter either—in fact, his lover still didn't even know Jack had a daughter. It was hypocritical of him to punish Ianto him for not including him with his family.

But Jack had spent the evening watching Rift monitors, since Alice had had other plans when he'd called her, and that meant Ianto had to suffer a little. He knew Ianto wouldn't be able to last at Rhiannon's for more than a few hours—he never did, even on Christmas—so he aimed to arrive promptly at midnight.

The flat's windows weren't lit, but Ianto's car was in its usual spot when Jack parked the SUV, so he assumed the younger man had simply gone to bed. He took the stairs to the fourth floor two at a time. He tried to be quiet as he slipped his key in the lock—it would be fun to just sneak into bed to wake him up—but his idle thoughts stopped cold when he got the door open.

"Ianto!" shouted Jack as he took in the signs of the struggle. He drew his Webley without thinking, checking each room, but only the living room seemed disturbed…and there was no sign of Ianto. Jack was dialing his lover's number even as he pulled the mobile from his pocket.

It was answered on the second ring. "Ianto! Where are you?" barked Jack.

"Good evening, Captain Harkness," said a cool female voice on the other end. "That was quite quick. I'm impressed."

"Who are you? Where's Ianto?"

"I'm afraid Mr. Jones is sleeping off the sedative we gave him. I hadn't expected you to miss him until morning, so I didn't think it would matter." Jack's blood ran cold.

"What do you want with Ianto?"

"Actually, Captain, the question should be what do we want from you, and what are we willing to do to your handsome young lover to ensure that we get it?"

"What do you want?" His hand tightened on the phone, knuckles turning white in the effort to keep his voice level.

"Here in Cardiff is a rift in space and time. I understand you have the ability to manipulate it. I want to do that."

"You realize that doing so could cause a lot of harm," began Jack, but the woman cut him off.

"That's my problem. Yours is that Mr. Jones will die if you don't give me what I want." Jack flinched. "You have twenty-four hours to deliver it before I start cutting into your boyfriend. I'll be sure to phone you when I do, so you can hear him scream."

"NO!" Jack burst out, his mind racing. "No, don't hurt him. I'll give you what you want." He didn't even notice that he was shaking. "I want to talk to Ianto."

"I told you Mr. Jones is asleep. But I'll be glad to let you speak with him when he does wake. I'll phone in a few hours. You can update me on your progress, and I'll let you speak to your young man." Before he could speak again, she was gone.

Jack stared at his phone. He couldn't give this woman what she wanted. Anyone willing to torture someone to death—and he had no doubt that was what she meant—was definitely too unstable to be given any access to the Rift. But the alternative…he couldn't lose Ianto. He needed Ianto.

Jack pulled his phone back out as he moved through the door, but before he could dial Gwen, he noticed the door of the flat next door cracked open. On the other side stood an older lady that he'd seen a few times before when he'd been going in or out. Ianto had mentioned her as well—he was in the habit of carrying her groceries.

"You're young Ianto's friend. Is he all right, then?" she asked.

"Actually, I'm trying to find that out myself," replied Jack, flashing his broad smile. "Have you seen him?"

"Heard quite a crashing in there about an hour ago," she said. "Then three strapping lads came out, one of them carrying your Ianto. He was out cold. I asked if they wanted me to ring for an ambulance, but they said no, they were taking him to the A&E. Probably nothing, they said, he'd just gotten a little pissed and hit his head. But I've never known the boy to drink that much. One of them was limping."

Jack suppressed his grin because he knew it would look odd, but he couldn't stop the surge of pride that came in knowing Ianto must have been the cause of the limp. "Could you tell me what they looked like?"

TW TW TW TW

Gwen Cooper took three tries to get her key into the lock on the tourist office. Rhys had started complaining as soon as the mobile began to ring, but he'd stopped when he saw how pale she'd gotten when she'd heard the news. Not Ianto too, she thought again as the lift took her down to the Hub. Owen and Tosh nearly broke us—losing Ianto would finish the job.

Jack was already in the Hub poking at the computers. "I've got a location on Ianto's phone," said Jack as she came in. He didn't look up. "Stupid of her to hold onto it."

"Do you think that's where he is?" asked Gwen cautiously, alarmed by the intensity in her friend's voice.

"Not sure. I identified the car they took him in. The computer's tracing it through CCTV."

"Are you all right, Jack?"

"Of course I'm all right," he snapped in response. "I don't have time not to be. See if you can help me with this."

"Of course." Gwen sat down at the station she still thought of as Tosh's and took a look at the trace. She'd been doing more of this lately, though Ianto was better at it—she swallowed hard. One of them had to stay steady, and judging from the manic energy and tightness around his eyes, Jack wasn't going to be up for that. Not that she could blame him—he looked much better than she had when Rhys was in trouble. And though neither of her stubborn colleagues would admit it, she knew their feelings for each other were as strong as hers for Rhys.

She enjoyed watching them, particularly Ianto, whose blue eyes often looked with longing even when the rest of his face was carefully set. Jack was harder to read—he rarely lost his jovial mask—but not today. Today his feelings were written all over his face. A shame Ianto's not able to see it, she thought as the trace finished up.

"Same location as the mobile," she reported to Jack. "Just north of the city."

"Too easy," muttered Jack, and Gwen nodded.

"If they know we can manipulate the Rift, they must know we can track them," she agreed. "So the question becomes, what do they really want?"

"I don't know," admitted Jack heavily. "We're going to have to go in there after him. Let's see what information we can access on the building and surrounding area."

"We'll get him back, Jack," said Gwen softly, laying a hand on his arm. He summoned his usual smile, but her heart broke to see that it didn't begin to lift the haunted look in his eyes.