It had been another extremely quiet day at Torchwood Cardiff and no one was complaining. The rift predictor had shown a near two week dry spell after the New Year followed by another week of nothing but small spikes. Miranda still shared the Hub with Jack and Ianto and, bored, she'd decided to give the two men some privacy, offering to run the Hub's errands for Ianto. The young Welshman had gleefully given her the list for Tesco and then had asked for a personal favor, handing her the keys to his flat. He'd asked her if she wouldn't mind bring back the post. She had smiled, saying it was no trouble. She'd grabbed her things and drove the short distance to the young man's abandoned flat.

She took Ianto's keys out of her pocket and opened the door. The air smelled flat and stale. Despite the fact it was late January, she opened the windows to let in some fresh air. It was clear the Welshman hadn't lived here for some time. Even though all she had to do was grab the pile of post, she'd decided to linger longer than necessary to give the two men time alone… and to snoop a little. She passed the time with cleaning. She ran his towels and sheets through the dryer to freshen them up. Ianto had stripped the bed bare at some point and she left it as she found it. She lightly cleaned the bathrooms and the kitchen finding the cupboards empty of any food. While she dusted the rest of the flat, she wondered why he still kept it. Rent so close to the bay wasn't exactly cheap.

When Miranda had returned to Torchwood as its medic nearly a year ago, she'd been surprised to learn that the two men were living together in the cramped bunker under Jack's office. The storage rooms turned flat in the Hub's north sub-basement where she lived had been vacant. This was her first time in Ianto's flat and now she found it even more puzzling that the two men hadn't chosen to live either here or the rooms she now occupied. Maybe it's time for me to move out.

After putting the large pile of post into a sack, she secured all the windows and left, moving on to the fairly deserted bank and equally deserted Tesco. Within a few hours, she was making her way back to the Hub, phoning ahead so Ianto would meet her in the tourist office to help her with the grocery sacks and also so she wouldn't find the two men in a compromising situation. Her and Gwen had walked in on the two of them so many times lately that both women were starting to doubt the coincidence. Some fetishes should be kept to yourself… Hoping she had given the two of them enough time and fair enough warning, she rounded the corner and started down the ramp towards the tourist office, digging through her purse for her keys.

"Doctor Evelyn Wei…" said a deep voice with the blunted vowels of Australia, "… or should I say Doctor Miranda Ryan…?"

Miranda looked up and her jaw dropped. "Fish…"

Standing with his hands in his pockets in a long woollen coat and scarf, was Doctor Joseph Fischer. Obviously, he looked older than when she'd last seen him fifteen years ago. He still wore his blonde hair quite long. It made him look younger than his thirty-eight years even thought she could see some grey starting. His hazel eyes, usually dancing with laughter, were narrow with anger.

"'It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one…'"* he quoted.

When she'd called her old friend a few months ago, she had never expected him to show up in Cardiff. When the Torchwood team had been stuck, she'd remembered Fish's unique skills as an engineer and chemist. She'd sent him a sample of an alien compound she'd been unable to isolate and identify. Within a matter of a few days, the genius chemist had managed to isolate the compound, cracking their case. Her mind was racing wildly, wondering what about the compound had led him here. Perhaps it was one of the impurities…? But she was wrong. It wasn't the compound that had led him to Torchwood's front door.

"I don't know who or what you are," he said, his accusation as cold as the afternoon air, "but you're looking damn good for forty five and I'd say you're looking a right sight better for a woman who's been dead for nine fucking years."

She glanced around nervously. So blustery and chilly was the afternoon, that the main Plass was fairly deserted but there was still the odd off-season tourist or local. Even though the ramp to the tourist office was below the main Plass, people still came down here. She finally produced her keys from her bag and moved passed him to unlock the door. Automatically and without thinking, she switched her accent from her usual Irish to the American one that Fish was used to. "Not out here, Fish."

When she opened the door, she saw Ianto waiting for her. She shot him a knowing look to let the Welshman know she wasn't alone and to stop him from speaking. He hurried back behind the counter and disappeared behind the beaded curtain. He narrowly missed being seen by Fish who was close on her heels. She lifted the grocery sacks up onto the counter and then turned to face him.

"So what the fuck is going on Evie? I ran into Dan Weiss a few years ago and he told me how sorry he was to hear you'd died and how he couldn't believe a surgeon wasn't wearing a fucking seat belt. Then to my surprise you call me up out of the blue, alive and well," he said, his voice rising.

When Jack had asked her to come work for Torchwood after Alex Hopkins, she knew she could possibly be in Cardiff for years. She'd been using the alias of Evelyn Wei for nearly two decades so she'd decided to retire the name as Torchwood's resources would allow her to more easily create and take on a new identity. She'd driven into a barrier at eighty kilometers an hour without wearing her seatbelt. Evelyn Wei had been pronounced dead at the scene. That had been two years after Fish had relocated from Boston to the UK. By then, the two friends had lost touch. Miranda had taken a chance when she'd contacted him. It was a gamble she'd lost.

He shouted at her, "I do some digging and Evelyn Wei willed her entire estate to some charity in Africa, not all that unusual, I figured, since you didn't have any family or even so much as a fucking cat…"

"Fish-"

"No!" he shouted.

She saw Ianto lean into the doorway, giving Fish a cautious look. She gave slight shake of her head to let him know she was fine and he disappeared again.

"I do more digging. The charity's bogus. It belongs to some dummy corporation based in South America! That corporation donates all of it to the research of a Doctor Miranda Ryan of Cardiff, Wales. This is the address for Doctor Miranda Ryan's medical license. It's a bloody tourist office!"

Fish leaned in, pointing his finger straight in her face. "I saw a string of names going all the way back to the late 1800's! Imagine my mother fucking surprise when I see an old photo from the 1973 Johns Hopkins medical school yearbook for Maya Xiao and it's your fucking twin! What the fuck are you?!"

"I'm sorry, Fish. I'm so sorry. Ifan!" she said as she grabbed his hand and twisted it behind his back. She pinned him to the counter as he struggled and cursed.

Ianto stepped out from behind the beaded curtain, stun gun in hand. He pushed it into the other man's shoulder and he went limp. Miranda lowered him gently to the floor.

"This isn't good, Mandy," he gestured at the unconscious man.

"Oh, you think?!" Miranda snapped at him.

"You have far too many aliases, I don't know how you keep it all straight," he said wincing at the sound of her voice in the unfamiliar accent. "And drop the American accent. It doesn't suit you."

"I don't age, Ifan. I have to move around a lot," she said, still using the American accent without realising. She stood up and put her hand to her forehead trying to think. "We have to retcon him."

"Oh, you think?" he threw her previous words back at her. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Losing their tempers wasn't going to help. "Mandy, you called him back in early November. Retcon isn't selective. It's almost February. We'll be taking three months from him."

"Do you see another option here? Because I don't. I work very hard to keep my identity changes a secret precisely so no one can do what Fish just did… piece together a pattern." She handed the grocery sacks to him. "Head downstairs, let Jack know what's going on and bring me the injectable retcon."

When Ianto returned, he had the syringe in hand and Jack behind him, looking annoyed. "Seriously, Will? You said no one could figure out that insane whatever it is you do when you change names."

"Sorry, Jack, not all of us can get away with keeping the same name for a whole fucking century," she said with an eye roll. She'd always wondered how Jack had avoided not having to shed names and move every few decades like she did. She waved down at Fish's unconscious form. "He found the tourist office because of me."

"And you want to retcon him?"

"You'd rather I take him downstairs to meet the pterodactyl?" she snapped.

"It might not be a bad-"

"Absolutely not Jack!" she said hotly as she brought the flat of her palm down on the counter. She could see the wheels in Jack's head turning. Yes, the research and hacking skills Fish had used to piece together the pattern of her aliases were impressive but Miranda was not going to let Torchwood seduce Joseph Fischer. The man was nearly forty. Torchwood was a job for the young. "Ifan, the retcon please."

Ianto stood, looking between his lover and his friend. While he knew the drug was necessary for their work, he disliked it and found its use distasteful. The Australian had stumbled upon Miranda's secret, not Torchwood's. This was a grey area and he looked to Jack for his orders. "Sir?"

His lover seemed caught in the same dilemma. "What if we just let him go?"

"Miranda Ryan would need to die. I'd need to stage a public death, switch identities and move out of the UK," she said simply. It was no exaggeration. They could let Fish walk away and believe whatever he wanted, but she could not remain in Cardiff on Torchwood's doorstep. She'd have to disappear.

"Fine. Retcon him," Jack snapped to her, immediately turning on his heel and stomping back down the staircase behind the beaded curtain.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Mandy," he said as he watched her inject the drug into Fish's scalp to hide the needle mark.