Legends and Legacies

by donutsweeper

Jack receives a call that an old friend needs his help. Is her disappearance a result of something he did in the 1950's or is the legend of Lake Ronkonkoma to blame? Or perhaps something even more sinister? With Tosh and Ianto assisting him Jack attemp

It all started because Owen was bored and Tosh was ignoring his teasing in favor of decrypting a tablet from the archives. The rift had been amazingly quiet, the weevils were staying in the sewers and nothing alien had landed or exploded in weeks. Ianto was keeping himself busy organizing the archives. Tosh was attempting to get the new translation and decryption program up and running. Meanwhile, Gwen was cataloguing old police files and Jack was doing paperwork, or at least pretending to do paperwork, in his office. But Owen had nothing to do and no way of keeping busy.

So, in typical Owen fashion, he decided to take his boredom out on the nearest person. He snuck over to Tosh's workstation and tried to snag the tablet off her desk without her noticing. Unfortunately, he tripped on a leg of her chair and missed swiping the tablet, smashing his outstretched hand into the desk instead.

"Oh no you don't!" Tosh yelled, seemingly instantly realizing what Owen's intentions had been. She snatched the tablet before he could make a second grab for it. Seeing Ianto coming up from the archives she shouted, "Ianto, catch!" and tossed it to him.

As unflappable as always, Ianto managed a one-handed snag and smiled when he saw the desperate grab Owen had made at the object as it flew through the air.

"Ianto!" Owen bellowed. "Give it here!"

But, of course, Ianto was going to do no such thing. He teamed up with Tosh to keep the tablet away from Owen and their laughter got Gwen's attention and soon she, and then Jack, joined in as well. Eventually, somehow, their fun morphed into a game of pass the parcel cum piggy in the middle complete with a home base and complicated set of participation rules and out of bounds areas.

When the phone rang Jack tossed the tablet to Ianto, shouting "Keep this out of enemy hands!" as he ran to his office.

As soon as he picked up the phone someone said, "May I speak to Captain Jack Harkness?" The voice was American, and sounded very worried.

The tone of the caller's voice made the hairs on the back of Jack's neck stand up. Jack faked a English accent, attempting to delay the caller and solicit a modicum of information. "And whom shall I say is calling?"

"To be truthful, I'd rather not say, but the message is incredibly important," the man replied.

"Harkness speaking," Jack said, dropping the accent and changing his tactic. He just wanted to get whatever information the man was willing to provide. Anonymously delivered messages made him nervous. They never contained good news.

"Oh, good. Good. Well, then. I, err... I was told to call and deliver a message." He cleared his throat. "The message is the magnificent Miss Maggie needs her Uncle Jack. And that he should come to the lake house. That's it. I don't know, that is, I can't say anything else." With a click the man was gone and Jack was left standing there listening to the dial tone.

More than five minutes passed before Ianto realized Jack had finished his call but had not returned. And since Gwen and Owen had morphed the game into a much more touchy-feely version of piggy in the middle than anyone might have remembered from their youth, Ianto and Tosh took the opportunity to call a time-out to look for their Captain. They found him doing an impression of a statue. He was standing behind his desk, the phone still in his hand, just staring off into space.

"Jack?" Ianto called softly, trying to gain the other man's attention without startling him.

After a moment Jack blinked, then shook his head slightly. Seeing the concerned look Ianto was giving him, he plastered a smile on his face. "Yes? What, is the game over already?"

"Are you all right?" Ianto asked in a way that implied he already knew the answer, and that the answer was no, but he needed to ask anyway.

"Ummm. No. Not really." Jack ran his left hand through his hair and seemed about to sink into his thoughts again when Ianto reached out and touched his arm, surprising the older man to the point that he nearly fell over. Ianto gently pried the receiver out of Jack's right hand and hung it up.

"Jack," Tosh pleaded, "talk to us. Something is obviously wrong."

"Tosh?" Jack, seemed to finally realize she was there. "Tosh, could you trace the last incoming call? Who made it, where it was from, all that of that sort of stuff?"

"Certainly. Just give me a moment." She walked over to her computer and began typing. Ianto and Jack followed her, Ianto keeping his hand at Jack's elbow in a show of silent support.

"Let's see. Hmm, the call was very short, that might make things a little more difficult." Seeing the concern on Jack's face she amended, "But not impossible! It was an international call. From the United States, it looks like New York, but not New York City, area code 631. That's Suffolk County."

"Damn it, not again." Jack whispered, half to himself. "The lake house. How could I have been so stupid!"

"Sir?" Ianto asked.

Jack either ignored Ianto's query, or hadn't even heard it. "Did you get a number, Tosh?"

"No, not yet..." Her fingers flew over the keyboard, but then fell silent. She turned to face him. "Sorry Jack, it was made from a disposable cell phone." She squinted at the screen. "The phone's a dead end, it was bought earlier today, cash purchase. All I can tell you is the call originated from somewhere in Suffolk County, New York." She looked up at him and saw the disappointment in his eyes. "That's the eastern part of Long Island." She explained, trying to help.

"I know." He sat down heavily on the side of her desk. There was a moment of silence before he blurted out, "Maggie's not answering her phone."

"Maggie?" Ianto asked, seemingly unperturbed by the subject change. "The Magnificent Miss Maggie?" Jack nodded, but made no move to explain further. Tosh and Ianto looked at each other; they'd met Maggie when she visited Torchwood to give Jack some information she'd acquired on aliens that had landed in Wales. Apparently she and Jack were old friends. Old, old friends. She'd amazed the entire Torchwood team with her blithe acceptance of not only aliens, but Jack's apparent unaging immortality. "What can we do to help, Sir?"

Taking a deep breath, Jack closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. Then he stood up and turned to Tosh. "I need you to look into anything unusual that might have happened near or around Lake Ronkonkoma, the lake that is, not the town, in the past couple of months. It's in New York."

"Lake Ron..." Her forehead crumpled as she tried to get her tongue around the name.

"Ronkonkoma. Spelt like it sounds. Ron-kon-ko-ma. Focus on disappearances and drownings. Also find out what you can about the various governments that have any control over the lake, everything from the federal level on down: state, county, townships and any of the incorporated villages." He saw the blank look on her face. "It's a mess of governmental interference there. Errr." He rubbed his face with a hand. "Let me think. Three townships each have their own slice of the lake. Islip, Brookhaven and Smithtown but I can't remember if there are any incorporated villages bordering it. What I need you to do is to find out if anyone has filed plans to do any construction, road work, anything like that nearby."

"I'm on it." Armed with a task, Tosh turned back to her computer and went to work without another word.

"Where are Gwen and Owen?" Jack asked Ianto, having suddenly realized that the three of them were apparently alone in the Hub.

"Off getting take-away. Theoretically..."

"Oh." Jack looked at Ianto more carefully, his eyebrows raising as he caught the other man's blush. "Oooh..." he repeated, understanding the implication this time. "Well then, I guess they'll probably be gone for awhile, won't they?"

"Is there anything I can do in the meantime?" Ianto asked, prodding Jack gently. "To help Maggie?"

Jack had his head in his hands and for a minute it appeared he hadn't even heard Ianto. Then he took a deep breath and looked up. "Yeah, could you look into what sorts of transportation we could get our hands on? Either from storage or borrowing from UNIT, but anything capable of getting me to the US quickly?"

"Just you?" Ianto asked, unable to hide the shock in his voice. "Not the whole team?"

"It wouldn't be fair to ask anyone to go with me. This isn't official Torchwood business." Jack walked over to the couch and collapsed onto it. "I can't expect to snap my fingers in hopes that any of you to put your lives on hold and fly thousands of miles into what probably will wind up being a trap. Besides, we have a job to do here. The rift needs to be monitored. And there's the Weevils, the pterodactyl, I just can't..." His voice caught, in a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a sob.

"You don't have to ask," Tosh scolded, "all you have to do is say you'll let us come with you."

"And there really isn't that much to do here." Ianto said, matter–of-factly dismissing Jack's concerns, as he typed furiously. "Gwen and Owen can monitor the rift, it's been so quiet lately I doubt it'll give them many problems. As for the weevils and pterodactyl, it's high time Gwen was trained on the care and feeding of them anyway. Almost no one's been in the tourist office all week, so closing that won't be a problem. And according to this, UNIT has a shuttle to New York that leaves in an hour. Considering how many favors they owe us, I doubt it'll be a problem to get us three seats on it. So, while Tosh and I are busy packing a few day's necessities, why don't you put together a list of things you'll need from the archives?"

"What?"

"Ianto and I are going to go pack." Tosh copied Ianto's tone, one that did not give Jack the option of refusing their offer, "you work on the list of the tech and alien devices we should take with us. We'll rendezvous back here in twenty minutes." Then she typed for a few more minutes. "I've set up search parameters based on the information you gave me, by the time I get back it should have been able to complete it." With a quick smile to Ianto and Jack, she turned and made her way out of the Hub.

"Ianto," Jack began, "I can't ask -"

"You didn't," Ianto interrupted. "We offered. And we're not accepting no for an answer. Tosh and I are coming with you. So you better make up that list so we'll be prepared when we get there. I procured us three seats without a problem. We need to be there in," he checked his watch, "just under forty-five minutes. I have to pack some things. I'll be back as soon as I can."

And then Jack was alone in the Hub, with a slight disbelieving smile on his face. After a moment's pause he began searching through the archives to find what he needed.

That was how, not quite an hour later, Tosh, Ianto and Jack found themselves on UNIT's intercontinental shuttle to New York. All of their gear had been stored in the rear compartment except for Tosh's laptop and a small satchel Jack had insisted had to accompany them in the cramped cabin.

Jack glanced around; none of the other passengers were paying them any attention. Quietly he began, "Are you two sure..."

"Yes!" Tosh and Ianto replied, in unison, from either side of the Captain.

"But the Hub..."

"Will be fine with Owen and Gwen there." Ianto said, reaching over and placing a reassuring hand on Jack's arm. "Now, we have some time to kill before we hit New York, why don't you fill us in on what you think we need to know?"

"All right, other than the basics, where do you want me to start? The myth, the science or the history Mags and I have with it?"

"Whatever is easiest, Sir." Ianto replied, looking over at Tosh's grin. "Although, I suspect Tosh is most interested in the scientific aspects."

Seeing Tosh's slight nod Jack bent down to tug a file out of his bag. "Okay, science it is."

"Do either of you know what a kettle hole lake is?"

Ianto shook his head, but Tosh nodded, "A depression caused by a glacier that filled with water. There are several examples of that type of lake, especially in North America."

"That's right." Jack smiled at Tosh. "Theoretically, that's what Lake Ronkonkoma is, but it doesn't behave like a kettle hole lake should. It's unusually deep, more than double that of the average. No matter the season, the surface temperature is significantly colder than the water directly beneath it..."

"But that's not possible." Tosh interrupted.

"Sorry," Jack shrugged, "just reporting the facts here, not trying to explain them. There is also no correlation between the rise and fall of the lake and local rainfall totals. In fact, there have been many instances where the lake level rose during times of significant drought." Sensing another interruption from Tosh on the way he raised a finger to head her off. "Plenty of scientists have tried to figure why or how it happens, but no one has managed to explain it." Jack paused, and handed Tosh several papers. "Take a look at the documentation, not one piece of conclusive evidence to be had." He pulled out a long list of names and dates. "Here's another interesting little fact about the lake. According to all known records at least one person has drowned in it every year. And, even stranger, it's almost always a male, in fact in the past hundred years only a handful of the drowning victims were women."

"But, statistically speaking..." Tosh began.

"Close to half should be women, I know. But that's not the case and no one knows why." He passed the list of drowning victims to Ianto to peruse. "There are other anomalies as well, like an odd whirlpool that occasionally appears, or the fact sometimes the drowning victim's bodies don't surface for weeks or even months after they drowned..."

"I can see why myths sprang up about this lake." Tosh commented as she skimmed the scientific reports.

"Are the myths alien in origin?" Ianto asked.

"No, but they are quite a number of them. The various myths and stories about the lake go back before the European settlers arrived, and were first documented in the 1600's. I realize that's not terribly old by Old World standards, but for America? That's practically ancient."

"So the myths..."

"Ah, the myths... there quite a number, naturally, and all are slightly different, but the main theme is that a beautiful Indian princess..."

"Wait a second," Tosh interrupted, "an Indian princess? Were there such things?"

"Well, to be honest, probably not." Jack rubbed his cheek sheepishly. "But saying 'the daughter of someone who might or might not have been the chieftain of a tribe of Native Americans' just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?"

Ianto and Tosh laughed. "No, I guess it doesn't," Tosh admitted.

"Anyway, all the myths boil down to a tale of unrequited love. In some the princess's lover was a warrior of another tribe, in others a Dutch settler or what have you, but in all the stories the lovers were eventually discovered and forbidden to see each other again. Unable to face a life without her lover by her side the Princess Ronkonkoma either purposely drowned herself in the lake or killed herself in some other manner and her body was discovered in the lake."

"Is there any truth to any of these myths?" Ianto asked as he and Tosh switched papers.

"Probably not. Especially since no tribes actually lived near the lake; all the Native Americans on Long Island were coastal dwellers. But the lake did serve as a sacred meeting ground for many of the Island's tribes, so who really knows?" He smiled, shaking his head. "Anyway, according to these myths, the reason all those people have drowned is that the Princess, having been denied her true love, is stealing their spirits and forcing them to keep her company in the murky bottom of the lake that now bears her name."

"Well that certainly is a tragic tale." Tosh said, raising her voice so she could be heard over the engine noise. "If any of it is remotely true, of course. Now, why do I think there is more to this lake than some scientific anomalies and a sad story?"

Jack smiled. "Because you know me so well?"

"How did you get involved with this anyway, Jack? New York isn't really within Torchwood's jurisdiction. Shouldn't UNIT be the one dealing with this?" Ianto squirmed slightly in his seat under Jack's glare.

"UNIT hadn't been formed when Lake Ronkonkoma first appeared on Torchwood's radar. And, by the nature of how we got involved, Torchwood couldn't contact any official agency in the United States either. You see, an MI6 operative disappeared on Long Island after leaving behind a cryptic message about having vital information for Torchwood. We couldn't go up to our allies in the fight against big bad Communism and say 'Hey there guys, guess what? There's actually a bigger, badder threat out there than you ever imagined. We've know about it for ages, and never told you, but now we need your help because one of our guys has gone missing. He might have gotten lost on a fishing boat, he might have defected, or he might have been atomized by evil aliens. Care to lend a hand in tracking him down?' For some reason, the powers that be decided that might not be the best tactic. So they sent me.

"With my accent they figured I could blend right in, no one would suspect I wasn't just your average American Joe, enjoying his holiday on Long Island. I was told to ferret out whatever it was that Torchwood was supposed to be interested in and to find the missing operative, all without raising any suspicions or drawing any sort of attention to myself, the lake, Torchwood, or MI6. Piece of cake, right?"

"Oh, absolutely." Tosh laughed at the sarcasm.

"Is that how you met Miss Maggie?" Ianto asked.

"Very astute. Ten points for the Welshman. Let's see, we have, what? Another forty-five minutes before we arrive? Ready to hear a story of intrigue, aliens and a damsel in distress?"

"Now when most people vacation on Long Island they do it at the beach- there's over 200 miles of beachfront after all, between the ocean, the bay and the sound- but the missing operative had chosen a quaint little inn on Lake Ronkonkoma, which was smack dab in the center of the island. I was given what MI6 had been able to pull together about the lake, pretty much what I just explained to you two and what little they were willing to provide about the missing man's assignment. I also learned that the lake had been a tourist spot in the 20's and 30's, but its popularity had waned since then and it never recovered its luster after World War II. Which, as a result, made things easier for me. I was able to rent a room at the same inn the operative stayed in. A beautiful place, I remember it just like it was yesterday..."

---

The drive from the airport was not going well. They'd insisted he fly into LaGuardia and arranged a car for him, apparently thinking that driving onto the island would be the least suspicious way for him to arrive. But they hadn't warned him about the traffic. Construction for an expressway that would run the length of the island had begun, but the finished section didn't extend nearly as far into Suffolk County as he needed to go so he had to navigate from one congested road to another. His unerring sense of direction even failed him at one point; he had managed to get himself lost trying to take a shortcut, and learned that apparently some roads not only randomly changed names, but also shared the same name as other roads. Who would have guessed there was such a difference between Lake Shore Drive and Lake Shore Road?

The difficult drive only added to his general unease about the assignment. MI6 operatives simply weren't the type to simply wander off and then forget to check in. There was also the minor matter that, in general, they were an agency that wasn't used to sharing information, so while the materials they had given him had been adequate, it was unlikely that they had supplied everything they knew about the missing man's assignment or his recent actions. None of that boded well for his mission.

He took a deep breath, trying to settle himself. This wasn't the worst assignment he'd ever had, not by far. The Studebaker Starliner handled like a dream and was a beauty in itself; he couldn't help but notice the appreciable looks he received from other drivers. The weather on Long Island was beautiful, the smells of summer wafted in through the open windows. Best of all, it got him out of Britain for awhile. There was something nice about being on a different island now and again. And if it just happened that he found a reason to have to investigate something on the shore- maybe even out in the Hamptons, where all of elite of society had their summer homes- who would he be to argue? And, if somehow, being there was to become a necessary part of his mission, it wouldn't be his fault for taking in a party or two, would it?

First things first, though. In order to get a lay of the land, and maybe spot something out of place, he drove through the towns bordering the lake and mentally noted everything that might wind up being useful to him. It was always a good idea to know the location of all the governmental buildings like police and fire stations, the post office, library, town hall, etc. Equally important was discovering other useful places; he spotted a few local bars, two schools and a few diners, all places where gossip was usually prevalent. There was something soothing about the tree-lined streets and happy children playing in playgrounds. It all looked so normal, it was hard to fathom what MI6 could have thought was so important to require sending an operative to look into here.

He pulled up to the inn slowly, mentally reviewing his cover in preparation. It was a technique that lingered from his days running cons, when a firm grasp of the role he was playing meant the difference between life and death. Eyes closed, he inhaled slowly. He was Jack Harkness, a science teacher and wannabe writer from "upstate" New York who was interested in Lake Ronkonkoma from a geological standpoint, and he'd memorized enough scientific gobbledy-gook to bluff his way past anyone other than the sharpest of people. He patted his pocket; all the necessary identification papers were there, down to a convincing Korean War service record which could be produced if the need arose.

"You okay, mister?" A young voice interrupted his musings.

Startled, his eyes flew open and he spotted a young girl, maybe four or five, carefully appraising him. She had on a yellow sundress and white hat which barely covered a mop of brown curls and accentuated her big green eyes and the line of freckles on her button nose. "I'm fine, Ma'am, thank you. Just resting a bit before I grab my stuff and check in at this fine inn here. It was a long drive."

"I bet you got lost," she said, solemnly. "Everyone does. An' I'm not a ma'am, I'm a miss." Stepping back, she opened the car door and offered him her hand. "My name is Miss Maggie, and it is a pleasure to meet you, sir." There was a sing-song quality to her tone that suggested she was repeating the greeting word for word as it had been taught to her.

"Why, thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you too," he replied. Her little hand was dwarfed by his, but he gently shook it as seriously as he could manage. "My name is Jack Harkness. You can call me Jack." He reached around to grab his bags, looking back at Maggie in time to see her eyes widen in surprise.

"Oh no, that would be," she paused, trying to bring to mind the word she needed. Failing to do so, she smiled a slightly sheepish smile and said, "not right."

"Well, if you say so, my magnificent Miss Maggie, but I like all my friends to call me by my first name." She skipped beside him as he made his way up the front steps to the veranda. "Will you show me where I can put my bags and sign in?"

"Right this way," she pushed open the inn's heavy door. "Poppa? We have a guest. Poppa?" The lobby was empty. She led Jack up to the ornate desk that stood in the corner. "Wait here, I'll find-" Just then a tall man in a crisp suit poked his head out from behind a curtain that blocked off the back of building.

"Margaret, what are you-" he began to say before realizing she wasn't going to give him a chance to speak.

"Poppa, this is Mr. Harkness, but he wants people to call him Jack, even me, but I told him I wouldn't 'cause Missus Thompson says it's not right to call guests by their first name. But maybe I could anyway, if he told me to then it'd be not right for me not to, would it? He's going to be staying with us, isn't that wonderful? I found him outside, just sitting in his car. He said he was tired 'cause it was a long drive, but I bet he got lost. Now, what did Missus Thompson say about you giving directions? You gotta remember to give the guests directions when they call for their reservations, Poppa."

With a reproachful smile the man walked behind the desk, nervously running a hand through his short brown hair. "I do beg your pardon, Mr. Harkness, if that was the case."

"Oh, no, no, no." Jack waved off the other man's apology. "I was merely sightseeing. Your directions were flawless." Or, at least he assumed they would have been, if Jack had been the one to make the reservation and actually received the directions, instead of being presented with his travel information and accommodations as a fête accompli.

"Oh, good." The man looked terribly relieved. "My name is Richard Pembroke, I'm the caretaker here, and of course you've already met my daughter Margaret." Richard gave Maggie an exasperated look as she pulled herself up onto her tiptoes to peer over the desk at the register.

"You gonna put him in the Captain's Room, Poppa?" She looked back over her shoulder at Jack. "It has the best view. And it's the biggest and has all these old maps on the wall. Everyone always likes the Captain's Room. Even boring old Billingsworth- when he wasn't walking around the lake he spent all his time up there reading stuff and never wanted to come to the front room to have tea with me and the other guests. He said he didn't like tea. Who doesn't like tea? 'Specially when there's cookies and everything."

Jack's ears perked up at the mention of the missing MI6 operative. Little Miss Maggie apparently knew everything that went on around the Inn. "You know what, Maggie?" He smiled conspiratorially at her.

"What?" She paused in her attempts to climb up the desk, which, given the exasperated shoo-ing motion her father was making at her, was something she did quite often.

"I like tea." He didn't, not really, but he did like the beaming grin he got as a result of his statement.

"What about cookies?" she asked as he picked her up and set her on the desk, her feet dangling over the edge.

"It depends, are they chocolate cookies?" He shot back, tweaking her nose.

"Sometimes. Bessie'll make chocolate if you ask nice. But you gotta say please or it's date and nut cookies instead." Maggie huffed a little at the thought of date cookies, her freckled shoulders sagging slightly.

Jack leaned down and whispered into her ear. "I always remember to say please. And thank you." He looked up to address the caretaker. "I'm sorry, it's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Pembroke. I think I might be a little early, but do you have a room ready for me yet?"

"It's Richard, please. I'm afraid I haven't had a chance to prepare one. Do you have a preference? We have the Captain's Room and the Princess's Room available. The Captain's room is a bit bigger, but the Princess's room has a private bath."

Jack couldn't make it appear he was eager to get the room Billingsworth had stayed in, but considering how Maggie had responded earlier, he looked at her to make the decision for him. "Well, those are both compelling arguments. Maggie, which do you think I should choose?"

"That's easy, the Captain's Room." She stated firmly, just as he'd hoped.

"Then the Captain's Room it is, Richard, if that's all right." Looking down at Maggie he touched his fingers to his forehead in a mock salute, eliciting a little laugh from her. "My thanks to you, Miss Maggie."

"If you'll sign in here, sir?" Richard spun the register around and indicated the line that needed Jack's signature. "I'll need just a few minutes to spruce up the room." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "If you wouldn't mind waiting, that is, Mr. Harkness."

"No, no, not at all." Jack replied as he signed his name, trying his best to put the other man at ease. "I'm sure Maggie here would be more than willing to give me a tour of this beautiful inn while you're getting the room ready, won't she?"

"Sure!" She yelled, jumping off the desk. She landed on her feet with an "oof" but promptly fell over.

"Maggie!" Jack cried out worriedly, dropping to his knees next to her.

"She's fine," Richard sighed; there was a slight frustrated and bemused tone to his voice. "She does that all the time. Right, Mags?"

"Oh yeah, it's not that far down, and it's fun! I like climbing and jumping and running and stuff. Do you, Mr. Harkness?" She grabbed his hand and began leading him out of the room. "This is the way to the front room. It's where we have tea. Missus Thompson likes to have us to have a proper afternoon tea with crumbits but I like Bessie's cookies better. I don't like crumbits all that much. Do you, Mr. Harkness?"

Jack smiled at the sing-song tone Maggie took when mentioning the tea. It must have been word for word what Mrs. Thompson had said, but crumbits? "Crumpets?" Jack asked, trying to get a word in edgewise when she paused to take a breath.

She looked up at him. "Yeah, I guess. But cookies are better, even the date nut ones. We have tea here," she said, pointing at the ornately set table. "Iffen no guests come for tea, Bessie lets me have my own tea party with my friends." Dropping Jack's hand she ran over to the corner where three stuffed animals sat, carefully placed out of the way, and half-hidden by an ornate chair. "This is Princess Fluffy Bunnykins." She held up a large bunny rabbit and offered a floppy pink ear for Jack to shake, which he did. "This one's Sir Wobble Bobble." She spun around replacing the rabbit and picking up a clown for a quick hug before slipping him back in place and grabbing a teddy bear wearing a frilly pink tutu and a tiara. "And here's Madame Bearbear."

"Jack Harkness, at your service Ma'am." Jack said, giving the bear an elaborate bow, which caused Maggie to break into a fit of giggles.

"You're funny, Mr. Harkness."

"You know, you're not the first person to mention that to me. But, for the life of me, I can't figure out why that is." He stroked his chin slowly, pretending to be lost in thought.

"Mr. Harkness?" Richard tentatively called from the doorway. "Your room's ready now. I do apologize for the delay."

"Oh, not a problem." Jack tried to assuage the caretaker. "Maggie was just introducing me to her friends."

"Poppa!" Maggie was still giggling as she ran up to her father, dragging the bear behind her. "Mr. Harkness's silly! He bowed to Madame Bearbear!!"

Richard bent down to look Maggie in the eye. "Can you put your animals away now, Maggie? I have to show Mr. Harkness to his room. Why don't you go into the kitchen and see if Bessie has anything you could help her with, all right?" He watched her for a moment as she carefully placed her animals back in the corner before racing off towards the back of the Inn. With a sigh, a quick shake of the head, he turned back to Jack. "Let me show you the way, sir."

"Thanks, Richard, and please, do call me Jack." Jack said, falling in step behind the other man. "As I think I mentioned on the phone," or someone was supposed to have mentioned anyway, "I'm interested in learning more about this beautiful lake of yours; any ideas where I could start that?"

Richard led the way up the stairs and down the hall, pausing before a door labeled 'The Captain's Room,' and smiled, pausing with his hand on the knob. "Of course. I get asked that a few times a year. In fact, I still have all the papers out that I compiled for a recent guest. I'll give you a few minutes to freshen up and then bring them by for you." He pushed open the door and led Jack inside.

"I'd appreciate that. The recent guest wouldn't happen to have been Mr. Billingsworth, would it?"

The slightly startled look on Richard's face made Jack wince internally, especially when the other man began stuttering, "I, well, yes, but, I, how did you?"

"Maggie mentioned him." Jack shrugged and smiled his most disarming of smiles, trying to brush off the inquiry as a harmless comment.

"Oh, yes, that's right." Richard let out a nervous breath. "Yes, Mr. Billingsworth was terribly interested in the lake, he spent quite a lot of time examining it and talking to some of the local experts about it." He gestured to the bags that had been placed at the foot of the bed. "I brought your things up when I aired out the room. I'll be back in a few moments with those papers you asked for."

As soon as he was by himself Jack shut the door. He made quick work of searching the room. The cover story for Billingsworth leaving without officially checking out had been put in place almost immediately after MI6 discovered his disappearance. Less than six hours after they had lost contact with their operative they arranged for someone to call the inn pretending to be him and explain that he had gotten a telegram about an emergency back in England and hadn't had time to gather his things before leaving. As per his request, his belongings had been packed up by Richard and delivered to 'a friend' who was supposed to ship the items overseas. The 'friend' was actually another operative, who had reported that there had been absolutely nothing out of the ordinary within them, so Jack hoped to find something hidden within the room.

The first place Jack looked was the bed. Removing the sheet, he examined the mattress for tears, slits or holes, but didn't find any. There was also nothing hidden within the bedframe or behind the headboard. Next, he studied the hardwood floor, where there was one promising looking crack, but it didn't prove to be a hiding place for anything other than a handful of dust bunnies. The small closet was completely barren, the walls solid and impenetrable, and its single shelf empty except for a spare blanket.

The armoire should have made an excellent hiding place, but there was nothing taped to its back, or beneath any of its drawers and the fine dovetail construction implied there were no hidden compartments to be found. A slit sewn into the curtains was the next thing he checked for, but they were made of such a thin material it was obvious they hadn't been tampered with. That left the walls and what was hanging on them. Jack carefully lifted each of the ornate maps up to examine their backs. On the second to last map Jack spotted a slight bump, and he carefully worked it until a slim journal slipped out from between the map and its backing material.

---

"Now, I'd just managed to pocket the journal when Richard knocked on my door, bringing me the papers I'd asked for..." Jack was explaining when an announcement cut through the shuttle explaining the preparations needed for landing drowned him out. "Well," he said, once they could hear him again, "more on that later, I guess."

Long Island had changed a lot in fifty years. It was no longer a sleepy little hamlet for vacationing New Yorkers, but its own thriving suburbia; the UNIT shuttle was able to drop them off at Islip MacArthur Airport, located a mere five miles from the lake itself, a far cry from the hours of driving it would have taken to get there from New York City, even with the Long Island Expressway at their disposal.

Their bags were waiting for them on the tarmac when they deplaned. Ianto offered to throw them in the boot of the rented car he'd arranged for them, politely ignoring Jack's muttering about trunks versus boots, bloody Welshmen and American English. He did acknowledge Jack's gruff, "But I get those keys back, I'm driving!" with a slight shake of his head and a distracted wave as he walked away, bags in hand.

"Jack?" Tosh stepped closer and tentatively reached out to put a hand on his arm. "I know you're probably tired of me asking this, but are you going to be okay?"

Jack plastered a smile on his face, probably knowing it wouldn't fool her, but making the effort anyway. "With luck I will be. I just need to find Maggie, to make sure..." He trailed off and after a moment's silence gave a small shrug. "I'm here with all the information and technology I could get my hands on, and as prepped and prepared as I could ever hope to be. And I'm not alone." Rubbing the back of his neck he paused, then sighed, but his smile became deeper, truer. "You don't know how much it means to me that you and Ianto were willing to drop everything to come help me with this."

"It was our pleasure. We want to help you, and Maggie, any way we can."

Jack ducked his head, blushing slightly. "And I appreciate it, Toshiko, I really do." He offered her his arm, commenting, "Ianto is taking his time with that car. Why don't we see if we can track down our wayward Welshman?"

Getting to their destination should have been easy enough. A fast car, a direct route and less than five miles to drive? It should have been a piece of cake, whether or not Jack actually remembered how to drive in America. But it wasn't. Traffic was a nightmare. Stop and go, random construction that closed roads and forced detours, cars honking and cutting each other off haphazardly.

Jack was not taking the delay well. His grip on the steering wheel was so tight, his knuckles were white. Ianto and Tosh let Jack rail against the traffic and abuse the car horn because they knew it was a good distraction for him, and, as Tosh whispered to Ianto, "He fits right in! Everyone here drives like they are completely insane!"

It was only after fifteen minutes of nerve-wracking driving that Ianto took the opportunity to finally ask Jack, "Sir? What can you tell us about where we are going?"

"Oh, right. I didn't get to finish the story. We'll be staying at that inn I mentioned, the one where I met Maggie all those years ago. Well, it's not an inn anymore; Maggie inherited it a while back and converted it into a house. She always jokingly called it 'the lake house' because it made it sound like this remote and magical place and not like just any other house in the middle of the suburbs." Jack's voice became very tight. "That's where the man on the phone said I should go. All he said was that Maggie needed me- his exact words were that the magnificent Miss Maggie needed her Uncle Jack- and that I should come to the lake house." Jack paused as he leaned loudly on the horn when the car in front of them didn't respond to the green light fast enough. "I'm the only one who calls her that. And she's the only one who calls me that. She had to have asked for the message to be given to me, or else it wouldn't have been worded that way, would it? It had to have come from her, and come from her willingly, or the phrasing would have been different. And, if you think about it, if this were a trap she would have been the one to make the call, right?" His eyes sought out Ianto's in the rearview mirror, but he continued speaking before Ianto had a chance to interpret the look. "I know, I know, I'm grasping at straws here. Ha!" Flicking on the turn signal, he jerked the wheel suddenly. "Finally!"

Tosh shrieked as she nearly smashed into the side window. Meanwhile Ianto admonished Jack with a brief, "Sir!"

"It's the, um, the turn off for Lake Shore Drive, sorry." He grinned sheepishly, taking a hand off the wheel to gesture at the road sign. "It shouldn't be that much longer, no matter how bad the traffic is."

And he was right, only a few minutes later he pulled to the curb in front of a large house. "Welcome to the lake house boys and girls. Well, I suppose since there's only the two of you it would be boy and girl," he corrected himself as he stepped out of the car to open the door for Tosh, "but that doesn't sound as good, does it?"

Unlike those around it, this house had no grass-covered lawn, but instead flowerbed after flowerbed in assorted colors, sizes and shapes. A path of brick-red stepping stones led the way to the house itself, with its weathered clapboard siding and the slate grey shutters half hidden behind the sweeping veranda that Jack had spoken of earlier. Tosh grabbed Jack's arm tightly. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah, it is," Jack replied with a wistful tone to his voice. Gently extracting himself from Tosh's grasp he walked around the car and opened the trunk.

"Here, let me get them for you, Jack." Ianto slipped past Jack to get the bags.

"Thanks, Ianto." Jack rested his hand on the trunk of the car for a moment after Ianto removed their things before slamming it shut. "All right, let's go." He led the way up the path and pulled a large ring of keys from his pocket. Selecting a well-worn brass key he unlocked the door, pushing it open.

"You have a key to the lake house?" Ianto asked, waiting on the porch with Tosh.

"I have keys for a lot of places." Jack carefully wiped his boots on the welcome mat before he stepped inside. He raised his voice and called, "Maggie?" He paused, listening to his call echo throughout the house. Then he tried again, louder this time, "Mags? Are you here?" When there was no reply he waved Ianto and Tosh into the house. His voice dropped to just above a whisper. "There's no one here."

"We'll find her, Jack." Tosh said but her distraught tone gave her away.

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Jack snapped back at her. He crossed his arms and held himself tight, biting the inside of his lip. "Sorry, Tosh, I'm sorry. That was rude of me. I just, it's just..."

"You hoped that we'd get here and Maggie would greet us and then this would all just be some sort of prank or terrible misunderstanding. But she's not here and suddenly this all became real. You have nothing to apologize for." Tosh gave Jack a weak smile. "Maggie is gone, but we are going to do our best to find her. You know that."

"Why don't you show us around, Jack?" Ianto asked quietly.

"Good plan, give you two a lay of the land so to speak. Actually, why don't we put our stuff away first? There's no need to lug it around the whole house. Just leave the laptops and the bag with all my papers here." He pointed to a low wooden bench that ran along the wall. With a sweeping arm he gestured to the rest of the room, "This is the foyer. It used to be where the guests checked in. Maggie always loved the dark wood paneling; she said it was good at hiding secrets. I always thought it was more due to the fact that scratches didn't show up on it easily. She was a bit of a... rambunctious child after all." Tosh and Ianto followed him as he left the foyer and headed up the stairs.

"There are enough bedrooms for each of us to have our own." Jack explained. "Tosh, why don't you take this room." He cracked open the first door, "It's the old 'Princess's Room.' Maggie updated it to a guest bedroom a while back." The room wasn't that large, but had a lovely homey feel to it with beautiful handmade quilts hanging on the powder blue walls. Several small pewter animal figurines sat atop an old mahogany dresser. The room's motif was tied together by the bed, with it's mahogany frame and blue animal print quilt. "She went to about twenty different estate sales before she found the right quilts and animals for this room. Of course she was always looking for more than just decorations at those sales. According to her, they were the best place to find random bits of alien tech or space junk; the people selling them never had a clue to what they had." Seeing the look Tosh gave him, he quickly added, "That was before ebay though. Now it's much easier to just look there for random alien bits and bobbles, as you well know." Ianto put Tosh's bag down on the small chest at the foot of the bed.

"It's just lovely." Tosh said. "Maggie did a wonderful job with this room."

"Yeah, she did. She loved this house." He winced and shook his head sadly at his unconscious use of the past tense

"Jack." Ianto spoke up, reaching out to put a comforting hand on Jack's left arm for a moment. "It's too early to even begin to think like that."

Jack reached over, placed his right hand over Ianto's and closed his eyes before taking a deep breath. "Right. So, Ianto, ready to see your room?"

"Awaiting with bated breath, Sir." Ianto replied dryly.

Jack opened the door across the hall. It had the same dark paneling as the foyer, although most of the walls were covered with shelf after shelf of randomly placed items - items that were unusual - most didn't appear to be from this time or planet. "As I said, Maggie was a bit of a collector." Jack shrugged. "I always checked what she'd found; if anything was dangerous or extremely useful she'd usually more than happily pass it on to me for safekeeping." Jack took one of the large ribbon-bound books off the bottom shelf and passed it to Ianto. "She kept a list of everything she ever found: where she came across it, what condition it was in, if she or a colleague had noticed any alien activity in that area. She thought that maybe by keeping a catalogue she could help figure out patterns and help track down future alien artifacts. It worked, to some extent."

Having put his own bag down on the small bed, Ianto started eagerly thumbing through the book. "This is amazing, the amount of detail she put into this."

"I knew as a fellow archivist you'd appreciate it." Jack clapped Ianto on the back. "Now, who wants to see my room?" Continuing down the hall Jack paused in front of a door. It bore a worn plaque that declared that this was 'The Captain's Room.'

"Jack," Tosh asked, "is this the room you told us about? The one you stayed in back in the 1950's?"

"Yep," Jack declared, turning the knob. "It's my room now. Maggie keeps it just for me. She claims I'm her Captain, and she told me that this will be a place to call my own, so no matter when or where the job takes me I'll have somewhere to look back on and consider mine." The room appeared unchanged from the way Jack had described it; the old maps still adorned the walls and the thin rust-colored curtains hung, blocking the sun's glare from coming in the windows. Jack walked in and went straight to one of the maps, pulling it away from the wall carefully.

"Is that where you found Billingsworth's journal?"

"Why, yes it is. I guess that's ten more points to the Welshman. Tosh, you'd better be careful or Ianto here is going to have an insurmountable lead before too long!" Jack joked as he gently probed the backing. A folded up piece of paper fell out.

Jack quickly unfolded it and read it aloud: "Uncle Jack, I trust you'll know it when you find it. Love, the Magnificent Miss Maggie."

Tosh's brow furrowed. "I don't understand. Is it a message? A warning? A threat?"

"I don't know," Jack replied. "I just don't know." He refolded the note and slipped it into his pocket. "Let's head downstairs and combine all our information and see where it gets us."

Jack led the way back down the stairs and through the foyer. "I thought this room, the front room, would make a good base of operations for us. There is a wireless node for cable internet access there," he pointed to a space between the hutch and the floor. "And we could spread out our papers and maps here." Pausing for a moment, he placed both hands on the large oak table, stroking the lace table cloth fondly. His voice grew wistful. "It's the same table where Mags and I always had tea. She really grew quite fond of crumpets as she got older. Although Bessie's chocolate cookies would probably always be her favorite."

Tosh began setting up her laptop as Ianto began spreading out the various papers they had compiled. "All right," Jack said as he rubbed his hands together, "let's figure this all out."

"What do you want to focus on first?" Ianto asked, shooting a concerned look at Jack when the older man collapsed into one of the chair with a deep sigh.

"Let's look at any recent changes around here. What's different? Why now? Something must have happened to endanger Maggie. We need to figure out what it is." He looked at Tosh, expectantly. "What were you able to find in that search you'd set up back in the Hub?"

Tosh finished setting up her laptop and with a few clicks had brought up the information Jack had asked about. "Well, first of all, there has been quite a lot of construction going on near the lake. Apparently the road that goes around the lake on its north side has been having a lot of problems with flooding - to the point of being completely impassable and under several feet of water for weeks at a time. Nothing they have done has managed to fix the problem though; they just can't seem to keep it from flooding."

Jack raised a finger to cut her off. "Can you get a hold of the permits and construction plans that have been filed?"

"Already did." Tosh patted her laptop. "I figured they would come in handy." She skimmed through her notes for a moment. "I also discovered that over the past few years there has been an increase in the number of people who drowned in Lake Ronkonkoma - although it hasn't appeared to raise any concerns. In fact most news articles that mention it attributed these figures to the fact that two of the town beaches on the lake are now without lifeguards due to budget cuts. For some of the deaths autopsies had been performed - twice the victim was legally intoxicated and five times recreational drugs were presumed to have played a role - but there was never anything suspicious discovered that was found to have played a role in the death. No further investigation was warranted in any of the instances."

"Tosh?" Jack interrupted, "did you happen to get a look at any of those autopsy reports?"

"No, they were sealed." She eyed him carefully. "Do you need me to?"

"It might explain some things."

She shrugged. "All right, I'll see if I can hack into them for you then."

"What do you mean it might explain some things?" Ianto looked up from the papers he was laying out over the table. "What do you think we'll find?"

"I need to know if any of the autopsies or preliminary Medical Examiner's reports mention discovering any petechial hemorrhaging, especially around the eyes."

Tosh's forehead wrinkled. "Petechial hemorrhaging? But that makes no sense. Why would there be petechial hemorrhaging in a simple drowning case?"

"Who said this was a simple drowning case?" Jack replied, giving her an indulgent smile.

"Sorry." Ianto held his hand up, interrupting. "Sorry, but what is petechial hemorrhaging? And why would it not be normal to discover it in a drowning victim?"

"Basically it occurs when capillary blood vessels are broken. They appear as these tiny pinpoint red marks, sometimes so small you would need a magnifying glass to be able to see them. But it's usually a symptom of asphyxiation, Ianto." She shook her head slowly. "I don't think I've ever seen it equated with a typical accidental drowning."

Jack spoke up. "Well, not with the typical accidental drowning, no. However, the drownings in Lake Ronkonkoma have a tendency to be anything but typical."

Ianto gave up all pretense of organizing the papers. "What do you know that you haven't told us, Jack?"

"Quite a lot, I should think." Jack rifled through his bag, eventually pulling out a small, well-worn journal out of his bag. "But then again, I didn't get a chance to finish telling you about everything that happened here back in the 1950's, did I?"

"Is that Billingsworth's journal?" Tosh asked, her eyes lighting up with interest.

"Yes, it is. Ten points to the beautiful lady. You better keep an eye on her Ianto, she's catching up quickly," Jack joked. "As it happens, boring old Billingsworth had managed to figure quite a lot of things out before he disappeared." The journal's edges had darkened with age, but the crisp and clean writing on the pages inside was still completely legible. Jack thumbed though it, looking for a specific set of entries. "The man was diligent, I'll give him that. He personally read through all the paperwork on each and every drowning he was able to obtain the records for. And, just to let you know, he didn't happen to make note of how he managed to obtain said records. But the result was that for many of the drownings, but usually only three or four per year- and not even always that- he noticed that there were slight inconsistencies discovered on the body and mentioned in the records. It was never anything blatant, anything that might cause the police to open up an investigation, but there would be something that caused a notation to be put in the file or some comment by a witness that was mentioned in a newspaper article."

"That's an amazing amount of research to have done back before the internet was available." Tosh sounded slightly surprised.

"Believe it or not, Tosh, people were quite efficient at managing to compile information and do research before computers." Probably realizing what her comment had implied, Tosh started to apologize, but Jack waved her off with a laugh. "Anyway, Billingsworth copied down every note, comment and irregularity he discovered. For example: 'Coroner's report - Unusual hemorrhaging found under eyelids- male victim, July 1952.' 'Eyewitness (former navy corpsman) claimed seeing burst capillaries around the eyes. No official report made- male victim, September 1952.' And so on and so forth. He managed to track down irregularities in fifty-three of the drowning deaths that occurred in Lake Ronkonkoma between 1925 and 1952." Jack paused, to give credit where credit was due. "The man was a damn fine investigator. In three weeks he had managed to ferret out something that had been missed by everyone for decades, if not centuries."

"Aha!" Tosh called out. "I'm in." Her fingers flew over the keyboard. "You know, you'd think that government files would be a little more difficult to get into without proper clearance."

"Although," Ianto carefully brought up, "given the fact we're the ones hacking in, maybe that's not such a bad thing?"

"Or maybe Tosh is just that good." Jack suggested, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. "Can you find the reports filed on the drowning victims?"

"Yeah, but it might take awhile to wade through all this information. Especially if all I'm looking for is the possibility of a minor inconsistency with the drowning diagnosis being mentioned."

"Maybe Jack and I can help?" Ianto turned to Jack. "Do you know if Maggie has a printer so we could print out hard copies of all the reports? It'll be faster if the three of us are looking through all that than just Tosh."

"Good idea." Jack got up and walked over and opened a door that had been half-hidden by the curtains. "This used to be a storage room. Maggie had it retrofitted for the new millennium. She wanted something 'befitting the new technological age' that she found herself in." Like a magician performing on a stage he slowly opened the door. "She put in a ventilation system and had all the wiring updated." Red and green lights, some blinking and some not, were scattered throughout the room. Cables snaked down the back of the desks and shelving units, gathering together as they made their way to the powerstrips on the floor.

"Oh, wow!" Tosh's eyes grew wide as she took in the room's splendour. "She's got everything in here! That display is easily as good as the ones we have back in the Hub, but wait, that's a Linux box - oh, I see, that display is connected to this machine here- hey, this is the system you said was too expensive for us to get! I bet she's using the Linux box as a file server, and for firewall protection as well. Maggie must have spent a fortune on this equipment; there's a regular Windows machine for compatibility and a Mac for the graphics, sharing the same network so the data files are stored together. This is incredible!"

"So, can we use her equipment to print out the documents from your laptop, or not?" The information in those reports was all Jack cared about; unlike Tosh, the technology didn't interest him at all.

Tosh sighed, shooting Ianto a knowing look but then she nearly burst out laughing at Ianto's resulting eye roll. "Not a problem," she replied, once she got her breathing under control.

"Great. You get to work on that while I change." He tugged lightly on his braces. "I stick out like a sore thumb here and the last thing I want to do is to draw attention to us." However, Ianto hadn't moved from his position in the doorway, and was not giving Jack enough room to slip past him. "Ianto? Are you going to let me by?"

"I was just thinking, Sir."

"About?" Jack's tone was becoming slightly annoyed.

"Maybe there would be some key to Maggie's disappearance in her computer files? While you are changing Tosh and I could..."

"No," Jack interrupted. "It's not a bad idea, but I don't think you'll be able to find anything. Mags explained to me once that when one of her contacts set up this system it was done so that there would be no way of tracing her usage- all cookies, browsing history and whatnot, everything was erased and written over every night. Or something." He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I didn't really follow everything she told me, sorry."

Tosh shrugged. "That's okay, Jack. Maybe the coroner's reports will tell us something. I'll get this all printed out while you change. Ianto and I will start wading through the reports and you can help out once you get back."

Ianto moved slightly to let Jack get past, and yelped slightly when Jack swatted him on the bottom as he did so. "Jack!"

"You gave me no choice, Ianto." Jack tried to look innocent as he smiled mischievously and made for the stairs. "Back in five!"

"That didn't really hurt, did it?" Tosh asked, looking up from her keyboard for a moment.

"No, but it got him to smile, didn't it?"

"You are a sneaky, sneaky man, Ianto Jones."

"I try my best."

It really was only about five minutes later that Jack joined them. He had on the same shirt, but was now wearing a pair of tight blue jeans instead of his traditional trousers with braces. "No belt?" was Ianto's only comment upon seeing his boss's new attire.

"Didn't think it was necessary," Jack replied, "it's not like they were going to fall down without a belt."

"So, you're saying your trousers would? If you went without your braces, I mean." Ianto cocked an eyebrow. "Can we test that theory when we get home?"

"Ianto..." Jack waggled his finger at the younger man. "So," he asked Tosh, "where are we on the paperwork front?"

She gestured to the table and the stack of papers that covered it. "I got them all printed out, now we just need to wade through them."

"Okay, let's get cracking." Jack sat down, grabbing a report off the top of the pile.

For a few moments they all read in silence. However, Jack soon began to notice the looks that both Tosh and Ianto kept giving him.

"Yes?" He put the report he was skimming down on the table slowly. "Well? You obviously want to ask me something, what is it?"

Tosh and Ianto looked at each other for a moment. Then, Ianto tilted his head slightly, gesturing for Tosh to take the lead.

"It's just," she began, "you know so much about this case. You were here back in the 50's. You're having us look for petechial hemorrhaging so you must have learned what was going on - what made Lake Ronkonkoma so special, so unusual - back then. So, what happened? Why are people still dying? Why is Maggie missing? What did you do?"

"Or, conversely," Ianto interrupted, "what didn't you do? And, why?"

"Tell us, Jack. Please."

Jack stared at the paperwork, refusing to look either of them in the eye. He simply sat there, absentmindedly rubbing his hands along his thighs, his mouth clenched in a tight line with the silence hanging heavily in the air between them.

"It's not as simple as that," he began, hesitatingly. "You don't understand."

"So then explain it." Elbows on the table, Tosh leaned forward to rest her chin in her hands and tried to catch Jack's eye. "Please?"

"Sometimes, there are no easy explanations. You know that. And we have to choose between two rotten choices and just hope we choose the right one. We do what we can. Sometimes that's all we can do."

"Wait a minute, all that stuff you told us on the shuttle - the mysteries and scientific anomalies of Lake Ronkonkoma - you already knew the answers, didn't you?" Tosh's tone was nearly accusatory. "Why didn't you tell us the truth from the very beginning?"

Jack finally lifted his head, his face impassive as his gaze swept from Tosh to Ianto and back again. "Nothing I did invalidated what I told you. I thought you might appreciate the bigger picture before learning the specifics of the case." He raised a hand and pointed at Tosh. "I didn't ask for your help. I didn't drag you into this mess. In fact I tried to get you to stay home so don't you dare start giving me attitude and acting all affronted by what I've said or done!"

"Jack?" Ianto began, hesitatingly, trying to defuse the situation. "Why don't tell us what happened? What you did? The more we know the better chance we have of finding Maggie, and that's all that really matters here, right?"

Looking over and seeing Ianto's concern, Jack's shoulders sagged. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You're right. Sorry, Tosh, Ianto, I'm sorry. I've never been happy, or quite comfortable, with what I did here and now Maggie's wrapped up in it, or more wrapped up than usual, and I guess it all just..." He waved a hand dismissively. "I should have tried harder the first time around, somehow done more. There is a difference between containing a problem and solving it, I knew that, but I still left thinking I'd done enough."

"Maggie knows you would never endanger her on purpose. You would never do that to anyone." Ianto picked up the next coroner's report from the file, keeping his attention firmly on it before continuing. "Why don't you finish telling us what happened when you first came here?"

After a moment's pause, when Jack still hadn't begun telling his story, Tosh spoke up. "You found Billingsworth's journal, but then Richard came in with some papers. Were they helpful?"

"It made for an interesting read, but all in all it was more fanciful than factual." Jack sighed heavily. "Mostly it was flowery tales of the princess and her fate. There were two articles about some of the unusual aspects to the lake: a look into how it compared, or didn't as the case may be, to the typical kettle hole lake, and an account of its flooding during a three year drought. Basically, nothing helpful. Like this report. Nothing we can use." He put the papers face down on the table, grabbed a new one from the stack and began reading it.

"So you just packed up and went home?" Tosh kept her voice light.

"Hmmm? Wait, what?" Jack shook his head. "No, of course not. I had a job to do and I was going to do it."

"Did you ever find the missing MI6 agent?" Ianto asked when Jack didn't continue to explain.

"Yeah, but not before it was too late to help him."

"Oh?" Ianto pushed further. "What happened?"

"Remember how I said that sometimes it took days or weeks for drowning victims's bodies to surface?" They both nodded. "Well, I'd only been there three days when Billingsworth's body showed up."

Tosh didn't look surprised by Jack's revelation. "Let me guess, he had petechial hemorrhaging around his eyes?"

Jack smiled wryly. "Another ten points for the lovely lady, you're in trouble now, Ianto."

"What about MI6's cover story of Billingsworth returning home?"

"Well, thanks to some quick thinking by yours truly all of the contact information mysteriously disappeared from the register and the'friend' who had accepted Billingsworth's things in order to supposedly pass them on just happened to be on vacation himself when the police came to question him." Jack's grin faded, remembering. "The police were not happy. Poor Richard, he had to identify the body and then explain why the information was missing from the inn's records."

"Did he blame you?" Tosh asked.

"No, in fact he didn't even seem surprised when he realized that it was gone. It was almost as if he'd expected it, although, at the time, I couldn't figure out how or why."

"But you found out eventually?" Ianto kept his voice even.

"Yeah. The next day, when things had calmed down some, he actually came right out and told me!" Jack shook his head in disbelief. "He was planning on figuring out a way to delay the police until he could erase the necessary entry but was happy to learn he didn't have to when he realized I'd done it for him. He never said when he discovered Billingsworth's true identity, but he'd figured out enough to know that letting the police get their hands on that sort of information would not be a good idea." Jack slammed his hand down on the table. "I actually tried to continue the con, to hide the truth of who I was and why I was there, can you believe that? What was I thinking?"

"I assume things did not go well," Ianto said as he grabbed another report off the pile.

"You could say that. I suppose it was possible for it to go worse, but at the time it was hard to imagine how. We were in this room when he confronted me, at this very table in fact. I was sitting here," he pointed to his chair. "Richard there," he pointed across the table from him, directly between where Tosh and Ianto were currently sitting, and then smiled, "and Madame Bearbear was on the seat next to him. Maggie must have forgotten to put her away after tea. I guess I'd asked one too many questions about Billingsworth's death, or maybe about the lake, I don't know. But Richard asked why I was so interested. I countered with some line about being a science teacher and how I was always wanting to learn new things. That's when he confronted me. He was so steady, so sure... And I was way over my head. It went like this..."

---

"But, you are not just some garden variety science teacher, are you, Mr. Harkness?" Richard's voice was steady and firm as he eyed Jack carefully. "In fact, I'd be surprised if you were a teacher at all. You are far too knowledgeable for this interest in Lake Ronkonkoma to be simply a recreational pastime. This is no passing fancy; there is much more to it than that. You have this sense of urgency and need surrounding you that is so strong it's nearly palpable. And it highlights and is tied to the noticeable air of organization and military about you."

"I was a soldier." Jack began, cautiously. That was not a lie, not even remotely. He'd fought in many battles, even if the paperwork he could supply that showed his status as a Korean War veteran was completely forged. However, Richard didn't give him a chance to attempt to explain further.

"Oh, I believe that. And I'm sure you served your country quite well. I think you still do to this day, but I don't think it's in the way you're pretending. In fact, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that you're not from upstate New York. I don't think you're even from the United States. If I were a betting man, I'd say you were from England, where you serve your country by working for Torchwood."

Jack's surprise leaked into his voice as he tried to cut off Richard, "Mr. Pembroke, I'm sure that..."

"I have no doubt that you are sure of a lot of things, one of them being that you have greatly underestimated me. You were sure you could pass as an American. Well, as it so happens, my late wife was a linguist, and I learned quite a lot about speech patterns and accents from her. You did an excellent job of hiding your natural accent, don't get me wrong; I'm sure that most people wouldn't have questioned you being American at all, but I'm not most people." Richard paused, as if daring Jack to defend himself. "You were also sure that the simple fact that you consider Torchwood to be secret that no one knows about it. It never occurred to you that it might not be the case; that not only do people know about Torchwood, but they also know what you do and why and share many similar beliefs. There are many people who suspect that we might not be alone in this universe, Mr. Harkness. Did you really think that it was possible that only Torchwood would notice when there was a time shift or an alien visitation?" Richard shook his head in disbelief. "Not everything alien or unexplained happens in Britain. Some of it happens right here in America. I don't suppose you heard of the events in New York City some twenty-odd years ago? A little brouhaha involving the Empire State Building, a mysterious doctor, a race of manufactured pig slaves and tin aliens known as the Daleks?"

"Daleks?" Jack couldn't contain his shudder upon hearing that name.

"I see that you are familiar with them, then?"

"Yes," he replied in a voice much smaller than usual. "You could say that."

Richard gave him a deep look. "Then you can understand why others might consider them memorable as well. But, I take it you hadn't heard of the Daleks being in Manhattan?" He paused for a moment, pursing his lips before adding, "I suppose it must have been before your time, though, you could not have been much older than a child when it happened. Although I have to say I'm surprised; you've had the dubious honor of being one of the relatively few who've made their acquaintance and survived to tell the tale. We hadn't heard anything about their returning to Earth since then. I had so hoped we'd seen the last of them."

"Well I - wait a minute - we hadn't heard. You said we hadn't heard." Jack's forehead crinkled as he focused on that part of Richard's statement; he needed to think of the whom, not the what. "We who?"

"Professors, coroners, linguists, various governmental researchers, et cetera, et cetera. People who have come across pieces of alien technology or heard languages that couldn't be from Earth, or saw someone who looked human on the outside, but turned out to be anything but human underneath and then began to question what it all meant. Add in those of us out there who are just your average run-of-the-mill Joe but have come face to face with Daleks, pig slaves, spaceships and what-have-you and therefore believe that life out there has made its way here, and you've got a nice-sized group of people. Oh, we may not be as organized as the almighty Torchwood, or anywhere near as effective, but we've managed to throw together quite an efficient system for gathering and disseminating information. And we compare notes, try to learn, try to be prepared. The point is, Mr. Harkness, that there are people out there who are not as clueless as you think; we know about Torchwood, and we know all is not as it seems with Lake Ronkonkoma."

Jack tried to collect his thoughts, but was lost in swirls of EXTERMINATE and the fact that he hadn't noticed when his con fell apart and that somehow the Doctor had been nearby but he missed him and, damn it, the Daleks were supposed to be gone - or they are, but not here and now only there and then - but if they were on Earth in the 30's did that mean they still were eradicated on Platform One in 200,100? Or had that changed somehow? And maybe he didn't really expect to live his entire life without hearing EXTERMINATE again but it would have been nice. Because he paid a high enough price, or he'd thought it was enough of one anyway. But now Richard was here and claimed that the Daleks were back and that all sorts of people knew about them. And him. Somehow they'd figured out who he was; well, maybe not exactly who he was and at least probably not what he was since even Jack wasn't sure of that anymore, not since the Daleks. The Daleks.

Damn it.

Realizing the need to control his emotions, Jack clenched his fists, digging his fingers into his palms and focusing on the pain as the nails broke the skin. After taking a deep breath he asked, "Do you already know what Billingsworth found out before he died?"

If Richard had noticed Jack's momentary inattention he paid it no mind. "I can not be certain of what he discovered, no, but I do have a good idea what it may have been. A better question, is do you?"

"Yes," Jack replied succinctly; he was not about to explain any further.

"And I take it you are not willing to let me know what it was?"

"Have you given me a reason to trust you?"

Richard laughed. "No, I suppose not. Why don't you indulge me and let me make an educated guess. I assume that Mr. Billingsworth was able to pinpoint the unusual nature of certain of Lake Ronkonkoma's drowning deaths?"

"Among other things..." Jack conceded, carefully.

"Was he also aware of the strange energy readings that the lake occasionally gives out? I assume that's why the British government sent him here. I'm sure they were wondering if some sort of secret research lab was responsible. Most people who become aware of it choose to turn a blind eye when they get close to discovering the cause; Mr. Billingsworth was unusual in his ability to grasp that the explanation might be much more extraordinary and atypical than he might have expected. You were informed of the original purpose behind his mission here, were you not?"

Jack carefully schooled his features. "Of course." MI6 had alluded to the unexplained readings, but the information they'd provided about them could be described as hazy at best. And Billingsworth's journal hadn't specified why he connected the oddities of the lake to Torchwood, but it made sense that somehow the agent had learned what actually caused the energy spikes and wanted Torchwood's assistance in dealing with it. Aliens were not MI6's forte after all. "I assume, with your contacts and history with the lake, you have determined their cause?"

"Not entirely, no. But we have been able to discern their pattern." Richard stood up. "I see no reason to continue to work at cross purposes here. I have quite a bit of information regarding the lake's mysteries at my disposal and you have invaluable knowledge and experience with things alien and unusual. May I suggest we pool our resources, Mr. Harkness?"

Jack rubbed his cheek as he weighed his options; he did not usually include the locals in his alien hunting - in fact he tended to do whatever he could to avoid it - but considering the way this case was slipping away from him and spiraling out of control, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some local help, especially since Torchwood was an ocean away and would be unable to supply aid if the need were to arise. Jack nodded his assent. "All right. Cards on the table, for both of us."

Richard smiled, obviously quite content with how the conversation had wound up. "Let me get some tea, we're going to be here for awhile."

"Mr. Pembroke? Only two cups if you please," Jack suggested as Richard neared the door.

"Sorry?" Richard turned around, his confusion evident on his face.

"I just didn't think it was necessary for her to join us." Jack smiled as he gestured at the stuffed animal carefully propped up on one of the chairs.

"Oh!" Richard grinned and shook his head slightly. "No, I suppose there is no reason for Madame Bearbear to join us for our brainstorming session. One of these days Maggie will actually remember to put all her animals away without me asking her first and then reminding her every three minutes." And then he left, presumably to ask Bessie to prepare them some tea, although Jack would not have been surprised if a call to one of those mysterious contacts Richard had mentioned would be occurring while the tea was being made. Whether it would be to ask for advice on how to proceed or to get permission on how much information to share Jack couldn't say. He hadn't quite figured out how they were organized, or where exactly Richard fit in to all of it.

Jack steadied himself and took a deep breath. One thing at a time. Find out what Richard knew. Figure out what exactly was in the lake. Take care of it. Go home. He could let himself deal with his nightmares then, not before.

He began running through alien species in his head. While his memory was by no means photographic, he did have quite an extensive breadth of knowledge from which to draw from. They could be looking at something water-based, unless there was a ship hidden underwater somewhere, which, although unlikely, was possible considering the size and depth of the lake. The gravity of its home planet had to be similar to Earth or the creature couldn't have lasted as long as it did, if at all - that narrowed things down a lot. And he was pretty sure it had to be a creature, and not some random piece of technology, due to the selection of the victims. It had to have a long lifespan, though - Billingsworth's findings traced its presence back to at least 1925, and he only stopped there because the records before that were too unreliable to be able to ascertain anything useful from them. Legends about the lake went back for centuries.

He'd considered and rejected plenty of possibilities before Richard returned carrying the silver tea service and several folders on the ornate tea tray. "I wasn't sure if you were hungry, but I had Bessie put together a plate of crumpets just in case."

"Ah, crumbits, therefore guaranteeing Maggie won't be interested in sharing with us."

"Crumpets are certainly not her favorites," Richard conceded. Keeping his attention on filling Jack's cup he added, "it was the tea that gave you away you know." He looked up briefly before dropping his eyes down to the table again. "Not that the timing of your stay with us wasn't already suspicious, especially your interest in the lake, but I overheard you mention to Maggie about having a spot of tea. An unconscious linguistic tell, as my wife would have said, something you might want to be a bit more careful about in the future."

Jack nodded. "You're right. I got distracted and must not have been as careful as I should have. Thanks for the advice. And the tea," he added as Richard passed him a steaming mug. He reached into a pocket and pulled out Billingsworth's journal and placed it carefully on the table. "I suppose we should get down to work."

The next half hour was spent poring over the minutia collected by Richard, his contacts and Billingsworth. Jack's expertise came in quite handy as he was able to dismiss or discount many of the more fanciful explanations or theories that had been bandied about by Richard's contacts during the last several decades.

"Now this is interesting," Jack pointed to a small notation on a geological survey. "This geological study was done on the Wisconsin Episode glaciation to show how that glacial period affected the development of Canada, the Upper Midwest, and New England, and elsewhere. Boreholes were taken throughout the area that had been covered by the glacier. Trace amounts of Germanium were discovered in only one of the samples, the one from right here on Long Island. They assumed it was due to ground water contamination, but that's not the only explanation for it."

"And that suggests something to you?" Richard looked up hopefully.

"Indeed it does. It made me take a second look at these figures." Jack shuffled through the papers. "See this?" He slapped a sheet documenting the rise and fall of the lake and how it related to rainfall on the table. "No one's even been able to see a pattern here because they didn't know what they were looking for." Fumbling through the files, he grabbed another list of figures. "But if we take into account temperature fluctuations and remove the data from years with extremely low temperatures or significant periods where the lake remained frozen," he grabbed a pen and began crossing out the information from certain years. "And... voilà!"

Richard perused the data carefully for a few minutes. "I still don't see a pattern," he finally admitted.

Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Amateurs. "The rainfall does correspond to the rise and fall of the lake, but with a delay and only when you've discounted the years that were too cold. You know what this means, don't you?" He didn't bother to wait for a response, probably assuming the answer would be no. "We know what we're dealing with."

"We do?" The usually unflappable Richard sounded flabbergasted.

"Of course. I don't know why I didn't see it earlier." He thumbed through Billingsworth's journal until he found the entries the agent had made regarding the unusual discovery of petechial hemorrhaging around the eyes of some of the drowning victims and waved it in Richard's direction. "We have drowning victims that show symptoms of being suffocated. Cold temperatures that affect the alien activity in the lake. Residual leeching of Germanium into the surround area. We've got a Kthnara water dragon on our hands."

"A what?"

"A Kthnara water dragon. They're not really dragons, mind you, but their shape is similar and the name stuck. You know how that goes." Jack ignored the slight headshake Richard gave as a response.

"So, how do we kill this Kt'ara dragon thing?"

"Kthnara water dragon. We don't. It's not killing people out of malice; it's just trying to survive. Everything needs to eat to survive."

"But," Richard was looking decidedly uncomfortable, "people are dying."

"Yes they are. I'm not disputing that; however, we need to look at the bigger picture here."

"What kind of bigger picture could make murder acceptable?" Richard began to fiddle with the papers in front of him, randomly shuffling them in a fit of nervousness.

"People are killed by creatures in the wild all time. Tigers, sharks, bears, rhinos, piranhas, wolves, lions, all sorts of animals have been known to kill humans for various reasons. Sometimes it's to protect their young, other times it's because they are fighting for territory, or sometimes they are just hungry. And the human race goes on."

"But... I don't think this is the same thing."

"Why? Because there is only one dragon and since we know where to find it, then that would make slaughtering it all right?" Jack's frustration bled into his voice, his tone was cold and clipped.

"Using the word slaughter, it makes it sound..."

"Like unjustified murder, which is exactly how I meant for it to sound."

"But we can't just leave it in the lake. Any time it killed anyone, we would be partially to blame, because we could have stopped it, or warned people, or something, but instead stood by and did nothing!"

"Did I say we were going to do nothing?" Jack smiled. "Oh, no. I have a plan."

"Well if we're not going to kill Nessie, then..." Richard made a 'go on' motion with his hands.

"We're going to trap it." Suddenly Jack shook his head, his forehead wrinkling, "Wait a second, Nessie?"

"Nessie. Like the Loch Ness Monster? I assumed this kind of dragon creature was related to it in some way?"

"Oh!" Jack bit back a laugh. "Nessie? That little showoff? Oh, no. The Kthnara water dragon is a whole other kettle of fish, if you pardon the expression." Jack grabbed a piece of paper, flipped it over and began sketching on the blank side. "Okay, so it's actually not all that big. Its torso is a little longer than the average person's, but instead of legs there are these sort of... flippery things that look like this, and for arms it has wavy tentacle-like appendages - that's how they eat. They'll wrap one around the eyes of their prey and it basically, for all intents and purposes, suck the life out after converting it to a form of energy, which explains the petechial hemorrhaging and the strange energy readings that MI6 had picked up."

"It does?"

"Of course. The hemorrhaging is a result of how it absorbs its food, and the residual energy is released into the water for the dragon to feed on later. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here; before it can it eat it has to first immobilize the prey with its wings, and then..."

"Wait, wait, wait. Wings? It has wings?"

Jack looked up, surprised. "Well, yeah. What kind of dragon would it be if it didn't have wings?"

Richard smirked. "What sort of dragon indeed?" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You are a very interesting man, Mr. Harkness. I think it's going to be quite an adventure working with you."

Catching the other man's expression Jack waggled his eyebrows. "You have no idea. But I believe I asked you to call me Jack."

"You did, I am sorry. You must call me Richard then."

"Then, Richard it is." Jack gave a half-hearted salute with the pencil before tapping the sketch with it. "Now the key to trapping the dragon is temperature. Remember how the years that the lake froze for extended periods of time affected the ebb and flow of the lake? Temperature is key. With the right technology we can create a barrier, almost a cloak. If we do it right we'll be saving a lot of lives."

Richard just shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Okay, think of it this way," Jack reached over and refilled his teacup. "If I just let this tea sit here it would cool off quickly, right? The cup is thin, and there's nothing to prevent the steam from escaping from the top so its warmth dissipates quickly until the temperature in the tea matches that of the air. However, tea in the teapot stays warm longer, because the pot is heavy and provides insulation between the hot tea and colder air. We're going to set up a barrier to do something similar for the lake. It's the perfect solution. The dragon won't be able to breach it, so its only victims will be people who were drowning anyway. And, it'll create an," Jack paused, trying to find the right word, "insulation layer, I guess you could call it, so the residual energy byproduct from its feeding will remain in the lake, so they won't be able to be picked up by any nosey governmental testing stations.

Richard nodded. "All right, I see what you're saying, but... we're still going to let it eat people."

"It's a lake, Richard. People will drown in it, just like they would in any body of water. But now they'll get to be dragon food before being worm food." He smiled apologetically when Richard grimaced. "But look on the bright side, because the barrier will make its feedings more efficient, the dragon won't need to kill as often to survive, probably only once a year. Maybe even less than that."

"Um, Jack?" Richard started gathering the papers up as he spoke. "I'm thinking there might be a little something that you might be overlooking here."

Concentrating on slipping Billingsworth's journal into his pocket Jack distractedly replied, "no. At least, I don't think so."

"How on Earth are you going to build this barrier?"

"Oh don't worry, my friend. Earth has very little to do with what I'm planning." Jack patted Richard on the shoulder. "But we will need some supplies. Do you think you can put me in contact with some of your 'friends' so we can see what we might be able to get our hands on?" Jack couldn't help but smile mischievously as he drew quotes in the air around the word friend.

The next few days were a whirlwind of activity. Jack hadn't made much attempt to explain what he was constructing, merely asking for specific tools or equipment as the need arose. He commandeered the shed, barely leaving to eat or sleep.

"Mr. Harkness?" A small voice interrupted his tinkering one afternoon.

Jack looked up to see Maggie standing in the doorway, holding Princess Fluffy Bunnykins by one ear, looking down at her feet as she toed the dirt path. "Hey there, Maggie. Sorry I haven't had time to have tea with you and your friends lately."

"That's okay, Mister Harkness, I knows you're working really hard to try to save the 'nara dragon. Do you think I can see the dragon when you're all done making sure it won't hurt people anymore? I've always wanted to see a dragon, especially one that breathes fire. Does the 'nara dragon breathe fire? I guess it wouldn't though, would it? It being underwater and all. Water puts out fire, that's why you're supposed to throw the bucket on the stove if you set the toast on fire. Well, not the bucket, but the water in the bucket. Throwing the bucket probably wouldn't help put out the fire, would it? I never made anything go on fire, but Poppa did once and there was all this smoke and Bessie was so mad..."

"Maggie?" Jack interrupted her as gently as he could when she paused for a second to grab a breath.

"Yes, Mr. Harkness?"

"First of all," Jack began, wiping the toafaberry grease off his hands, "I thought I asked you to call me Jack."

"You did." Maggie avoided his eyes, still looking at the ground, as she solemnly nodded. "But Missus Thompson told me little girls do not call grown men by their first names. It's unseemly. So I guess I can't. I'm sorry." She hugged her rabbit tightly before looking up at him. "Sorry. You are my friend, even iffen you can't come to tea any more."

"Well, I'll talk to your father. If he was to say it was all right to call me Jack then Missus Thompson would have to agree, right?" He walked over and knelt down in front of her. "Now, Maggie, this is important. How did you find out about the Kthnara water dragon?"

Maggie buried her face in her stuffed animal, but didn't reply.

"Maggie, please tell me." Jack reached out and took her chin in his hand, lifting her face until they were eye to eye.

"Madame Bearbear told me?" For once, her voice was matching her stature and was very small.

"Or maybe you were going to come into the front room to put Madame Bearbear away and overheard us talking?"

"Maybe," she finally admitted.

Jack let go of her chin and kissed her on her nose. "I'm not upset at you, Maggie, don't worry about that. But you have to promise me you will not speak to anyone about what you overheard. No one. All the dragon wants is to be left alone to swim and sleep and play and eat. But if the wrong person found out they might want to capture it and take it away from its home, and we don't want that to happen, do we?"

"NO!" She shook her head so strongly curls flew in every direction.

"That's my girl." Jack laughed. "The dragon in Lake Ronkonkoma will be our little secret. Just you and me and your father, okay?" She nodded. "All right, now I'm almost done here and then there'll be nothing left to do but wait for nightfall so we can install it around the lake. Do you think you might be able to fit me into your busy schedule and sit down for a spot - I mean - some tea and cookies in, oh, about two hours?"

"Oh yes!" She squealed and threw herself into his arms for an enthusiastic hug. "Chocolate cookies?"

"Of course." Jack couldn't help but laugh as he hugged her back "Just remember to ask Bessie nicely."

"I will!" She tore away and took off down the path.

"And say please!" he shouted after her.

"I always do," she yelled back.

---

"She did remember to say please," Jack commented to Tosh and Ianto as he reached for the last coroner's report. "We had a lot of fun. Richard joined us, so the table was full between the three of us and Madame Bearbear, Princess Fluffy Bunnykins and Sir Wobble Bobble. I was really glad we found the time to do that, especially the way everything went so badly that night when I installed the barrier blanket."

"How badly?" Ianto asked.

Jack rubbed a hand along his cheek. "I hadn't quite calibrated it correctly. The entire lake froze over. In June. It didn't last very long, only a half an hour or so, but long enough to create a lot of chaos and confusion. And... well... then there was also the little issue of me dying of hypothermia. That was kind of hard to explain. Needless to say I had to leave in kind of a hurry as a result of that."

Tosh hid a snort behind her hand. "Hypothermia. In June. I can see how that might be a problem. Was your body found?"

"Some teenagers spotted my body when they were checking out the 'frozen phenomenon' as I think it came to be known. But there was so much going on that, other than a preliminary examination by the cops, nothing had formally been done with my body. No photos, sketches, nothing that could be used as evidence later. But, even though the police didn't get a good look, I needed to skedaddle in a hurry, especially since the kids were trying to sell their story to the papers."

Ianto flipped through the newspaper articles they'd printed out earlier. "I don't remember seeing anything about deaths by hypothermia during the summer, or the lake freezing over at an unusual time for that matter."

"Nope, and you won't. For a few reasons: First, people have an amazing ability to justify away anything that goes against their strict sense of how the world works. Second, there was a lack of empirical evidence: my body had disappeared, the lake's temperature was back to normal before too long, and, luckily, a lot of the witnesses were drunk. Third, one of Richard's contacts just happened to be the county's police commissioner, and that man did not want his department to look foolish by admitting to losing a corpse."

"Well, you were quite lucky with that." Tosh pointed out.

"But, what about Maggie and Richard? Did they know you died? Or didn't stay dead? You kept in contact with them, so they must have, but..." Ianto trailed off, uncertain how to word his question.

Jack shrugged. "Richard found out I died setting up the barrier almost immediately, but couldn't get to me before I was discovered. He assumed that it would be better if my corpse were to disappear- remember, he had figured out earlier that some of my paperwork was forged- so he realized that if anyone looked too deeply they could discover who I was, or wasn't as the case may be, and that would jeopardize the dragon and possibly even his entire contact network. He arranged for the cops closest to my body be distracted so he could sneak me away. I nearly gave him a heart attack when I woke up only a second after he had knelt down next to me."

Ianto winced, probably remembering his own experience of dealing with dead and then suddenly not so dead Jack. "Poor Richard. Although, given the alternative, he hopefully thought your resurrection wasn't such a bad thing."

"I was forced to do some quick explaining, let me tell you." Jack's laugher boomed through the room. "He was however, fairly open-minded about it, once he got over the initial shock, of course."

"Did Richard keep an eye on the lake for you?" Tosh stood up and stretched. "I assume you kept in touch, considering how close you are with Maggie and all."

Jack sighed, his laugh catching in his throat. "Maggie. Yeah, he kept an eye on the dragon and its feeding habits and I became a resource for him and his contacts, when something happened that might have been over their heads. Although after UNIT was formed Richard, and then later Maggie, turned to them instead; it was closer and they had inroads there as well. But the lake and its occupant remained our little secret, just the three of us; I couldn't be sure UNIT wouldn't try to study it, and we couldn't risk what might happen then. All right, enough reminiscing. What did these coroner's reports tell us?"

Tosh looked at Ianto, who motioned for her to begin. She picked up the pile of papers they'd set aside and fanned them out in front of her. "Well, we've gone through all the reports and it's obvious there is something wrong with your barrier trap thing. Petechial hemorrhaging was mentioned twice this month and once the month before. It was also noted in a death four months ago and again five months before that. The frequency with which it is killing is increasing dramatically."

"Wait a minute." Jack slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. "Five deaths in only nine months? There is no way a single adult Kthnara water dragon could be capable of eating that much."

"Maybe it's pregnant?" Ianto looked vaguely sheepish at his wild speculation.

"Well, if it was that'd be one for the record books considering it's male and all by itself in the lake.

"How do you know its sex?" Tosh peered at Jack over the rim of her glasses. "Did you check?"

"Ha, ha. Very funny. I don't need to. It only feeds off men ergo it is male."

"And how do we know it didn't find a mate?" Ianto proposed, trying to cling to his suggestion.

"I think we might have heard about a dragon flying about, don't you?" He paused as Ianto and Tosh shrugged, conceding to his point. "But that still brings us back to the question of why it would be feeding so much. And that death during the winter concerns me - it's next to impossible for Kthnara water dragons to feed during the winter, no matter how mild this year's winter was, the cold just makes it terribly difficult for them. Something else has to be going on here. It'll be dark soon; we can go and check on the barrier then. Although, if it's just a simple malfunction, that it doesn't explain the fact Mags is missing. Or that note she left me."

"Well," Ianto began hesitantly, "perhaps a break for supper before we tackle the water dragon?"

"Well, I wasn't going to recommend tackling anyone, not with this trick knee of mine, but getting something to eat sounds like a good idea to me. What about you, Tosh?"

"Absolutely, I'm starving."

"I could see what's in the kitchen," Ianto suggested. "Or maybe make a run to the local Tesco, or whatever it's called here."

"Oh no, no one goes in Maggie's kitchen but her, on pain of death, or at least a visit by the tickle monster. Besides, it's not like we're out in the middle of nowhere. There are a lot of great restaurants around here. There's an amazing Kosher deli nearby. I bet neither of you has ever had honest to goodness kashe varnishkas, have you? Or a hot pastrami sandwich, a nice knish on the side and all the sour pickles you can eat? Hey, you could even get knockwurst, and like Richard always said, you can't knock knockwurst."

"Oh Jack..." Ianto grimaced and shook his head.

"Come on, you haven't even heard my stuffed derma joke yet! It's a classic!"

"Maybe later?" Tosh said quickly, "Something for us to look forward to perhaps?"

"All right Mom, I'll be good," Jack said, rolling his eyes.

Ianto sighed in obvious relief.

Tosh stood up, walked around the table and cuffed Jack lightly on the back of the head as she made for the door. "Don't 'Mom' me, Mister!"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Jack jumped up and saluted. "Now, let's go eat."

"Ma'am is nearly as bad," she muttered to Ianto as Jack walked past her and led the way down the hall and outside.

Not quite two hours later dusk had begun to settle over Long Island, leaving just enough natural light that Jack could see without needing a flashlight, but still provide adequate cover for his actions. He kept in touch with Ianto and Tosh, who were still using the front room as their base of operations via telephone, not wanting to draw more attention to his barrier field device than necessary.

His initial tests showed that the field was malfunctioning; instead of creating a field to trap the energy in the water it was draining the energy out, but he had yet to find the cause. The main unit seemed to be working fine, so he was focusing his attention on the smaller components hidden around the lake. Everything had been checking out just fine until he approached the northernmost one.

Walking past the machine without pausing he called in. "Someone's been here," he said as soon as the call was picked up, "It's definitely been disturbed. I can't tell if there is any surveillance equipment set up to keep an eye on further tampering, so I'm not risking taking a better look at it now. I'm heading back to the lake house, I'll be there as soon as I can." He paused for a moment. "Anyone there?"

"We're here Jack," Ianto sounded tinny and a bit exasperated. "We just weren't sure if this was supposed to be a two-way conversation or not."

Jack laughed. "Well, it is. Do me a favor, run a search for anything related to energy spikes or electrocution or power surges, anything along those lines, all right?"

"We'll get started on that now."

"Thanks, Ianto," he said, clicking the phone off without giving Ianto a chance to say goodbye, smiling as he imagined the frustrated look Ianto would have as a result.

Fifteen minutes later Jack swept into the front room. "What have you found?"

Tosh shook her head. "Not much I'm afraid. There have been a number of storms that have knocked power out over the last year or so, but no unexplained power outages."

"None?"

Tosh shrugged. "Sorry, Jack. I even went through the cached pages for power outage reports on LIPA's, the local electrical company's, website. There was nothing unusual that I could find there at all. The outages in the towns around Lake Ronkonkoma seemed to correlate exactly with the outages in nearby towns. Although, I have to admit, some of the towns listed there have some very unusual names. Who thinks Hicksville would be a good name for their town? And others are nearly unpronounceable."

"Although, coming from Wales, I suppose we're not ones to talk about impossible to pronounce place names." Ianto pointed out.

"No, I suppose not," Tosh admitted, laughing.

"So, what's going on?"

"I'm not one hundred percent sure, but the shield's definitely been tampered with. From the readings I took it looks like instead of trapping the residual energy it's somehow draining it. That's why the dragon is feeding so often, the poor thing is starving because its food, the energy, is being bled away somehow."

"Are you sure it's deliberate?" Ianto asked. "Maybe it's simply malfunctioning?"

"No, someone's messed around with it. I didn't want to bring any attention to myself by taking a closer look, but it was obvious that someone had made some modifications to the device."

"Will you be able to figure out what the modifications are for if you get a better look?"

"Probably, Tosh. I have to admit though, this has me confused. It's been working for more than fifty years without a problem, without anyone seeming to be even aware of it. Why now? Did they know what they were doing? Are they trying to kill the dragon, or do they not even realize it's there? And what does all this have to do with Maggie's disappearance?" Jack slammed his fist into the table.

Ianto walked over to stand behind Jack and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "It hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet. We'll find her."

Jack looked up at Ianto, "We don't know that. We have no idea how long she was missing before that call was made. For all we know she's already dead." Ianto gripped Jack's shoulder tighter as Jack shook his head and sighed deeply.

"For all we know she's fine and vacationing in the Bahamas," Ianto countered. "Maggie in a bikini, I can see it now."

"Hey, that's the Magnificent Miss Maggie to you, buster." Jack swatted Ianto's hand off his shoulder. "Besides, isn't she a little too old for you?"

"Actually, I was thinking of trading you in for a younger model." Ianto joked, shooting Tosh a smirk over Jack's head.

"I'd like to see you try!" Jack elbowed Ianto lightly in the ribs.

"Now, now boys," Tosh chided, "can we get back to the matter at hand here? Jack, if the energy isn't being siphoned for power, what else could it be used for?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure. I guess it would depend how it was being done. The barrier is still functioning, to some extent at least, so a massive drain is unlikely. That probably would have shorted it out a while ago, or caused it to radically change the temperature of the lake. And there is no evidence of that happening recently, is there?" He paused long enough to see both Ianto and Tosh shake their heads. "Then it's more likely that we're talking about a steady drain of energy, but with only a little bit being taken at a time. Now, that could be used for a lot of things, and it could explain the tampering I saw. It's possible, just barely mind you, but it is possible for someone to have set up a way to drain and store the energy. They'd just have to come and collect it every so often."

"But, that's the how. It still doesn't tell us the why." Ianto pointed out as he sat back down.

Jack rubbed his cheek thoughtfully for a moment. "Okay, back into research mode for a moment. Tosh, did anything else unusual come up in your search around this area? Deaths, drugs, experiments, unexplained phenomena, magnetized items, swamp gas... I don't know, anything?"

"Drugs? Wait a minute, there was something..." Tosh's fingers flew over her keyboard. "The recreational drug that was attributed to the deaths in four of the cases we looked at earlier is something I'd never heard of. Apparently it's some kind of brand new designer drug that only hit the streets within the six months or so. Oh, this is interesting, its use has only been attributed to deaths here in Suffolk County. There aren't even any reported incidents of its use anywhere outside of the immediate area: Long Island, New York City, and a small section of Connecticut, all of which just happens to be within a 50 mile radius or hour's drive of Lake Ronkonkoma." Looking up at Jack, she smiled. "Well, now we have the why, don't we?"

Jack jumped up, swept around the table and took her head in his hands. "That we do." He kissed her on her forehead and then gathered her up for a hug. "Now all we need is the who!"

"Hey, now," Ianto called out. "Just what do you think you two are doing over there?"

"Um, nothing?" Jack released Tosh quickly and took a step back, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "See? I'm being the perfect gentleman here."

"That'll be the day," Ianto muttered under his breath.

"Hey," Jack warned, "I resemble that remark."

"No comment." Ianto held his arms up in mock surrender.

"Tosh, what can you find out about this mystery drug?" Jack asked. "Police reports, chemical make up, how it affects the body, who's using it - anything that will help us narrow down what's happening here." Seeing the confused look on Ianto's face, he explained further, "How we go from here depends on what sort of drug manufacturing is being done here. If there are massive changes made to the siphoned energy... like we find out it's in taken in pill form or something, then we'll know we're dealing with some kind of organized group with access to quite a lot of technology. But, if it's absorbed still in the energy form or suspended in a liquid then it's possible that we've only got a few people with minimal engineering and technological skills. Does that make sense?" Ianto nodded. "I have to tell you, I'm hoping for the latter here. I really hate dealing with drug cartels."

"Is it actually possible that this could be the handiwork of a major drug cartel?"

"It's unlikely," Jack admitted. "Considering the limited area of usage I'd assume that they haven't been able to figure out a way for keeping the drug stable. My guess would be that since all the deaths are right here, all the dosing has been done here; it's just the occasional person that is still under its influence who is discovered outside of the immediate area."

"There are a few newspaper articles about a new drug called 'blaze.' No one seems to know too much about it, but it seems to affect the body like a mega-dose of caffeine: all the energy you could want. Of course the side effect is that it causes heart failure in some people, although the coroner hasn't been able to determine if the deaths are due to the heart beating too fast and not being able to handle the strain or a shock to body's electrical system that resulted in arrhythmia."

"Is there anything that mentions how blaze is taken?"

"Sorry Jack, no there isn't. Although I see that minor burns were noted in the mouths of the victims."

"In the mouth? Excellent work, Tosh. This is good, this is very good. Do the police have any leads? Wait, is there any sign UNIT is involved?"

"UNIT isn't investigating anything suspicious in the immediate area." Ianto paused when both Jack and Tosh turned to look at him with surprise on their faces. "I, uh, checked back when we were at the Hub."

"Good thinking, Ianto," Jack said, giving Ianto a grateful smile.

"The police don't appear to have any leads to who is producing or distributing blaze. All I could find out was that all the drug users appear to be teenagers, mostly middle class without previous drug arrests or run-ins with the law." Tosh squinted at the computer screen for a moment. "The DEA hasn't really even looked into it yet, it's too new and too localized."

"Good," Jack smiled. "Less interference for us to have to deal with." He rubbed his hands together. "Okay, from the quick look I got I'd say that all someone did when they tampered with the barrier component was to jury-rig a storage device: something to collect the energy they were draining from the lake. Energy like that can't be stored indefinitely, it would have to be collected on a regular basis, so the first thing we need to do is to set up our own surveillance there, see if we can spot someone making a pick up."

"But, before you were worried that they would have surveillance..." Ianto began, hesitantly before drifting off.

"Well, that was when we could have been dealing with alien hunters or the mob or the Grand Fuzebarr of Burckladesh for all I knew."

"The what? The Grand Fuze-what?"

Jack dismissed Ianto's inquiry with a wave of his hand. "The Grand Fuzebarr of Burckladesh, but it doesn't matter. Now we know this isn't being done by anyone with that kind of organization or power, but if it makes you feel better we can be as stealthy and surreptitious as possible." Seeing the wide eyed stares from the others he muttered, "I can do stealth. Really I can."

"Of course you can." Ianto quickly offered. "Absolutely, Sir. Never doubted it for a moment."

"All right then, you can have the honor of accompanying me on the stake out."

"Dubious honor that it is." Ianto muttered under his breath.

"Excuse me?" Jack said, his eyebrows raised.

"Nothing. Just extolling the virtues of working with you."

"Of course you were." Jack caught the grin on Tosh's face and shook his finger at her. "Now, don't you start too. While Ianto and I are keeping an eye out I want you to try to pinpoint the locations of all the arrests, all the deaths, everything the police have. Maybe we can figure out a pattern and trace it back to the source that way."

"Not a problem." Tosh began typing.

Jack threw his arm around Ianto's shoulder and ushered him out of the door, calling back to Tosh, "We'll keep in touch with you via our phones."

"Jack, aren't we going to need supplies? Cameras, binoculars, that sort of stuff?" Ianto asked as he was led towards the rental car.

"It's all taken care of, Ianto." Jack pointed to a bag lying in between the front seats. "Although, no coffee unfortunately. Which is a shame; you can't have a proper stakeout without coffee, can you? Do you think we should stop and pick up some coffee?"

"I think it's possible, just possible mind you, that we'll be able to muddle through without it." Ianto slipped into the car and buckled up.

"Well, I suppose," Jack said getting into the car himself and sighing loudly, "but it's not going to be easy."

"Are we going to do our surveillance from the car?"

"Well, that was my plan, but if you'd rather be huddled under some bush?"

"Um, no. The car's fine."

Jack pulled up to the curb and cut the engine. "Here's good." He dug into the bag and pulled out two pair of goggles. "Twenty-third century night vision binoculars. Gee, I wonder how these wound up here?"

Ianto answered innocently, "I have no idea. They are supposed to be locked away safely in the archives."

Jack grinned and handed one to Ianto. "But, there's no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth, since they are here..."

"We may as well avail ourselves of them." He gestured with them towards the lake. "So, where's the device?"

Jack pointed. "At about eleven o'clock, just past that willow tree. It looks kind of like an overgrown cement piling."

"Ah, got it. Thanks." He unbuckled and settled against the door, trying to get more comfortable.

The next two hours passed uneventfully and Jack was about to suggest that Ianto head back to the lake house to get some rest when he spotted several people walking towards the lake. "Ianto!" His whisper was hoarse, "Look! There's Maggie!"

"Oh, thank God. She looks like she's all right." He focused the binoculars on the little group. "It's just a bunch of teenagers. I mean it's obvious they're holding her - see the way that big guy is grabbing her elbow? And the one behind her..." Ianto realized Jack had grabbed something out of the bag and was opening the car door. "Jack? What are you doing?"

"I'm going to go confront them," he said coldly, tucking a gun behind his back. "I didn't see any weapons, did you?"

"No," Ianto reached over to grab Jack's arm, but Jack pulled away and began walking towards the lake. "Jack, they're just kids!" Ianto jumped out of the car and jogged a bit to catch up. "We can't kill them!"

"Who said anything about killing them? We'll get Maggie, stun the idiots, retcon the hell out of them, fix the barrier and go then home. Maybe kick them once or twice, depending on what Maggie says they did to her."

"Jack!" Ianto hissed as Jack approached the group.

"Well, hello there!" Jack called out loudly. "What a lovely night for a walk, isn't it? I suppose it's a bit dark, but all the better for illegal activity, right?"

Three of the teens spun around guiltily. The fourth grabbed Maggie tighter and pulled her closer to him.

"Jack," Maggie sounded completely calm and unsurprised to discover him there. "I was wondering when you were going to show up. I was beginning to think you were never going to find my note."

"Sorry Mags, although you could have made it a little less vague. The call too, for that matter. I assume you arranged it? One of your father's friends?" Jack ignored the teenagers and continued to walk closer.

"Well, you always said some secrets couldn't be shared."

"Quite right, quite right. You remember Ianto, right?" He motioned in the general direction of Ianto, still a few paces behind him.

"Oh, yes, of course. Glad to see you again, Ianto."

"My pleasure, Maggie. Although the circumstances could have been better ones."

"Hey!" one of the teenagers shouted. "What the hell are you doing? We got a hostage here!"

Jack calmly reached behind his back and showed them the weapon he'd hidden earlier. "And I have a gun here. Your point is?"

"Oh, Jack. Always the show-off." Maggie shook her head. "Now boys, I've already explained I don't know how to rewire this device. And I know you've all seen first hand how dangerous it can be to huff, what did you call it? Blaze? Michael here told me about what happened to your friend. James, was it? Dead at only 16, all because he was trying to get high off something you just found and don't understand. Certainly you don't want to join him, do you?" She glared at each one of them in turn. "And more importantly, you certainly don't want your parents to find out what you've done. Can you imagine how disappointed they would be?" The one holding her, Michael, released her and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"My mom'd kill me, you can't tell her!"

"Now you didn't hurt me, for which I'm grateful, so I think if my friend is able to fix the damage you did to his machine we might be able to avoid involving your parents, won't we Jack?"

Jack grumbled in reply. "First let's see what damage they did here. Anyone have a torch?" Seeing the blank looks he corrected himself, "A flashlight?" Two flashlights were offered to him. Jack passed his gun over to Ianto. "Keep an eye on them," he ordered gruffly. "Come on, Mags, you're with me."

They walked down to the edge of the lake together, Maggie holding the flashlight and Jack with his arm wrapped tight around her waist. "You're sure you're all right?"

"Yes, Jack, I'm fine."

"They didn't hurt you."

"No, they're just a bunch of scared, stupid kids."

"You swear?"

"Special secret double pinkie swear, Jack. I am fine. I'm more worried about the dragon. I don't know how it's been affected by the tinkering they did."

"I don't know. I realize they didn't mean to, but the poor thing can't have fed properly in months." Jack motioned for her to hold the light steady on the device as he took a good look at it. "Okay, I'm going to have to turn it off so I can make some alterations before reversing the drain and reestablishing the barrier shield." He reached into his pocket to pull out some tools and began to work but was soon distracted by a rustling noise from behind them. "Oh, no," he cried out, "Ianto, stun those idiots. Now!"

"Jack, what?"

"Do it! Then hit the deck!" Jack yelled. He heard Ianto fire four times as he grabbed Maggie and pushed her down behind the tree.

"Jack? What's going on?"

"Maggie, remember how you told me you always wanted to see a dragon?" He raised his voice so he could be heard over splashing and slapping coming from the lake. "Well, here's your chance."

Half-covering Maggie with one hand to protect her, Jack grabbed his phone with the other. "Tosh?" he shouted as soon as the call was picked up, "Maggie's fine, but the dragon's escaping. Grab the blue bag from the bench in the hall. Ianto's coming to pick you up, but wait inside till you see him pull up. Do you hear me? Wait inside!"

"Jack, should I shoot it?" Ianto had his gun trained on the whirlpool forming in the middle of the lake.

"Don't bother, that gun doesn't have enough power to make a difference! Run for the car and get Tosh here, she has some supplies we'll need." He threw the rental car keys at Ianto, who managed to snag them one-handed before running for the car.

"But, why would it leave the lake?" Maggie sat up and tugged Jack closer to yell into his ear. "Poppa said it was in there for at least a hundred years before you trapped it there!"

"Several hundred actually," he yelled back, "but it's starving. It has no choice, it's has to find food."

"Can't you do anything?" The whirlpool turned into a funnel, and a shimmery silver shape could be seen in its center through the mist and waves.

"I'm going to try!" He gently pushed her back behind the tree. "Stay there and crouch down, be as small a target as you can."

"What are you going to do?" Her eyes grew wide as a long snout broke the surface.

Jack was elbow-deep in the machine. "There's a set of blueprints in the bag." He pulled out two wires and stripped them with a pocket knife. "It'll explain everything you three will need to know to fix the barrier." The dragon was almost entirely out of the water, its translucent silken wings beating in the air as it struggled to break free from the wind tunnel it had created.

"But, why will we... Oh Jack, you're sure there's no other way?"

He just grinned as a reply, threw her a sloppy salute and touched the wires together, causing a shower of colorful sparks in every direction. Maggie instinctively shielded her eyes but she heard a cry of pain followed by a tremendous splash. When she looked up she saw a flicker of something silver as Jack's body was pulled away from the shore into the murky depths of the lake.

She stood there, watching as the waves ceased, until the squeal of tires announced the arrival of Ianto and Tosh.

"Where's Jack?" Ianto gasped, nearly out of breath as he ran to her side.

"Did the dragon get out? Is Jack tracking it?" Tosh pulled out a scanner.

"No, no." Maggie pointed sadly to the lake. "It's back in the lake. Jack said we would have to recreate the barrier ourselves." She waved the smoke away from the component. "There's supposed to be some sort of drawing on how this works in your bag."

"Well why didn't Jack fix... oh." Ianto bit his lip. "Jack..." he gestured helplessly at the lake.

"Yes, Jack..." Maggie shrugged.

"Of course he did." Ianto sighed.

Tosh dug into the bag, flipping through the papers until she unfolded a set of blueprints. "Well, let's get to work."

"What about the young fools you stunned earlier?"

"Oh, they'll be out for at least another two hours," Ianto said. "We can retcon them after we finish here."

They worked quietly for a few minutes, rerouting wires and replacing cables.

"I finally got to see my Kthnara water dragon." Maggie spoke up suddenly, her voice soft, sad. "I've wanted to see it for more than fifty years, and I finally got my wish. It was so beautiful, and I was so scared. Jack didn't hesitate, he just..."

"Did what Jack always does, saved the day, no matter the cost." Ianto reached over and laid a hand on Maggie's arm, squeezing it lightly. "He'll be all right."

"Oh, I know that, young man, probably even better than you." She looked up at him, her eyes bright. "Still though, the things he does; the things we watch him do. It's the price we pay, having him in our lives. But it's worth it. Absolutely worth it." She took a deep breath. "Now what do you say we get this thing fixed? Then you can deal with those idiots while I make us some coffee while we wait for the dragon to release Jack. Or, this late at night maybe tea would be better? Jack always said I made the best tea and crumpets he'd ever had."

---

Author's Note: Maggie in this story first appeared in my story Unexpected Tourists, which can be found via my userpage. And, for those of you who are curious, while the legends described in this story about Lake Ronkonkoma are true, as far as I know there is no alien living in its depths.