Fish, Chips, and Boredom

by Inexplicably Kyprioth

Jandy: My introduction to a pairing that instantly became part of my personal canon. I haven't actually looked at this in months, so if you'd like to go through and tell me I left remarks to myself in the middle, be my guest.

John stayed away from Torchwood - Cardiff - England - for a while after, not because he didn't want to see shadows of Owen and Tosh around, because pretty as they were he didn't care, but because he thought Jack probably needed some time to get over them. And because he didn't like seeing anyone, no matter how pretty they were, mess about with his Jack. And because Cardiff was just weird. So he went and toured the world, like he told Jack he would.

And after a while a day had passed, and the day turned into a week, which became plural, and the next thing he knew it had been, what, a month since he'd been gone? And a month was surely enough for anyone to get over someone dying, even someone they liked, and these were just Jack's employees, and so he turned around and went back. Took his time. Didn't want to seem eager or anything. Even if Jack was undoubtedly sick of Ianto by now, really, it had been months between his assassination attempts on the team, and John hadn't thought Eye Candy would last that long.

He wanted to get into the Hub early and put his feet on the desk and be waiting when Jack came in, but to his surprise, Jack was there when he got off the invisible lift, and worse, hardly looked up from whatever he was doing.

"Weapons." John obediently unloaded everything he had the last time. "And the ones you've picked up recently."

"You're making me feel downright unwanted." John pouted, since Jack still hadn't so much as looked at him. "Maybe I'll just leave now. It would serve you right."

"Done yet?" Jack asked. John pouted, and threw the ones he'd really been wanting Jack to hunt for to the ground. Jack rewarded him by at least turning around.

"Why do you get to work so early, anyway? You'd have to wake up at some horrendously ungodly hour. As I remember, you like to stay in bed for a while."

"And what brought you back so soon?" Jack retorted. "I thought you were going to go see what I liked about this world."

John waved a hand. "Been there, done that. Thought I'd come and see if anything interesting has happened since I was gone."

"You want to see the logs." Jack guessed. John raised an eyebrow. If he knew Jack, logs did not mean logs. "Or perhaps Ianto's diary would be a better summary."

"I doubt I'd find what I'm looking for there."

"You're not going to find it here, either." Jack told him. He sounded serious. This was not good.

"There has to be something here for me." John cajoled. "I'm bored. I've been all the way around the world, and it's boring. No wonder you settled in Cardiff, it's got a great big rift on top of it, at least you get some interesting stuff through here. And you have to stay here, don't you? Somebody broke your wrist strap. You have to like it here. Don't you."

"I wouldn't leave now even if it worked." Jack told him, which wasn't even an admission, even though he had admitted his strap was broken. "I've already had the travel-in-time-and-space temptation, John, from someone better at it than you. I've got everything I could ever want here." He looked pensive. "Everything I never knew I wanted. And you don't know, do you? You're still running around, dodging the law in every century you come through, thinking if you move enough, drink enough, kill enough it'll all go away. Or are you?"

"Are you all right, Jack?"

"You've been traveling all over the globe and you haven't got a criminal record a light-year wide following you." Jack grinned at him. "I see now. I suggest you go, though. The others don't much like your presence."

"You have the last word on the subject."

"I do, don't I? All right, then. By all means, stay in Cardiff if you're so inclined. A couple of rules: try to keep reasonably clean, and stay away from Torchwood. Got it?"

John considered. They were both rather vague rules, and he could see many loopholes in them without even trying. They wouldn't be confining at all, really, and if he wanted to play with Jack's people, he could just catch them after hours. Fine Eyes, for example, he could get her if he held that Rhys up, and it would be private and he'd hardly even have to try. "Sure."

"Bye-bye, then." Jack told him, poking buttons until the lift started going up.

"Hey! You've got my entire arsenal down there! Give it back!" John protested, seeing it drifting away.

"Maybe in a little bit." Jack watched him ascend, stuck on the sidewalk block by pure force of Jack Said So. "Oh, and John?" He asked, a little before the lift finished going up. "Ianto's not going anywhere."

John kicked the curb in frustration at that comment. Then he tried to make the lift go back down. Then he stalked off, with a practiced air of ignoring the looks his costume got him, and went to find trouble.

He ended up in a barroom brawl, and who would have guessed law enforcers were so picky these days? They objected. They tried to arrest him. He would have shot them up if he'd had his guns, and he still would have caused chaos and havoc, except that some of them were very pretty, police stations were full of toys and stuff he could work on getting a new arsenal with, and also, one of them asked very nicely. He looked vaguely familiar. He escorted John to his cell, and very politely locked him in it.

John considered the situation. It was very difficult to take it seriously, and yet they obviously did, and didn't think it some sort of kinky game at all. It was really confusing. He told the polite policeman good-bye, politely, because he wanted the man to leave just now even if he was sort of cute. Then he went and sat in the middle of the floor and looked at the camera.

"This is all your fault, you know." He told it. "I know you're watching, and I want you to know that if you don't show up in... ten minutes, that should be sufficient travel time, I'm going to be very, very sad." He said it practically, with no degree of upset whatsoever.

A little while later, a different police officer showed up. She was not as polite as the last one, and John rather thought he'd like to kill her. "Torchwood called." She told him, looking puzzled. "They said to tell you Jack says quite whining and grow up."

John looked at her scathingly. "He does, does he?"

"And he reminds you he told you to behave."

"Oh, he did not!" John objected petulantly. "He said nothing whatsoever about behaving."

"And they said to leave once you got whiney." She said, and did so. John sat nonplussed for a minute. That was it? They just sort of... left? And told him to quit whining! What right did they have to tell him to quit whining? Maybe he should just go back to Torchwood and kill them all.

The idea was strangely unappealing, completely outside of the fact that he'd promised Jack not to bother Torchwood. He could kill them when they weren't being Torchwood. He could kill everybody they liked. Make their lives miserable. It could be fun.

He didn't feel like it. It sounded boring. He'd almost rather sit in this cell for as long as they wanted him to than go and kill them all. Whoever the other two were now. Or one. Or maybe there weren't any new ones, Jack was just turning him down. It was an almost depressing thought.

He had just resolved himself to escape prison so he could go think out at the harbor or something when the polite PC was back. He sat back down. If he was sitting down, he wasn't doing anything.

"You're that John Gwen keeps going on about, then?" The PC asked. John blinked at him. Who was Gwen? "She says you're responsible for lots of things. Blowing up Cardiff a few months ago, the like." He looked curious, and not very afraid at all. "One man doing all that. You don't look like you would."

"Well, I don't have any reason to." John pointed out. "This Gwen. Is she..." He thought a moment. "Rather short, in need of braces, but nice eyes?"

"She said you'd answer to Vera."

"Oh, I know who you're talking about." John agreed. "I don't suppose she told you everything. Well, of course not. She's ignorant." He leaned closer. "It's Jack's fault. He keeps them all in the dark."

"That'd be the tall bloke in period military, always mucking about in our crime scenes?"

"That sounds like Jack." John agreed. "Always was one for mucking about. But then, who isn't? You get a taste for it. How'd you know all this, anyway?"

"I'm Gwen's old partner. Andrew Davidson. Andy. Don't suppose she mentioned me?" He asked hopefully.

"Not a word." Of course, John would have lied if she had.

"She got snotty when she joined Torchwood. They all do." He sighed.

"Tell me about it." John agreed. "I have known when there was no music for him but the drum and the fife; and now he had rather hear the tabor and the pipe."

Andy blinked. "Did you just quote Shakespeare? Only, I never thought - from what I heard - you didn't seem the type."

"Yeah, well, what do they know about me? Aside from Jack, and he doesn't care." John pouted. "Now he's got his coat, and his Torchwood, and his Eye Candy."

"Doesn't have time for the police anymore." Andy agreed.

"Something like that, yes."

"Something ought to be done." Andy decided. John raised his eyebrows.

"Do you have an idea? Exactly. There's nothing to be done. Some people get kicked out of other people's lives, and then there's nothing for it but to forget and move on, kick them as solidly out of our world as they kicked us out of theirs. If they don't get it now, they'll learn it later. That's what the universe is about: moving on. You get used to it, learn to leave before you can be left."

Andy looked at him in some degree of - probably surprise, consternation, and hopefully a bit of revelation that would help him get through the rest of his life. John stood up.

"I'll give you some homework, shall I?" He asked, and made use of his wrist strap.

Only then, once again, he didn't know what to do. He thought maybe he'd get a job. Those could be fun. Being a Time Agent had been fun, let him do whatever he want and collect interesting junk from whenever he wanted at the same time. Maybe he should do that now, collect the interesting junk, anyway. Truly interesting junk was not to be found in nearby shops, however. The good stuff never was; you couldn't get a Napoleonic jacket, a real jacket, in a shop, anymore than you could get the right sort of Korean sword. He wanted authentic stuff. Authentic, in John's book, meant it had killed somoene, in its time period, by someone native to that time period. Preferably someone who hadn't time traveled, but occasionally it was difficult to tell. John had had to go back three times to replace a hat he'd fancied at one point, before he decided he didn't even like the effect.

A lot of the time, you just killed somoene and voila! Free antiques. Other times, you had to get a job, however briefly. Sometimes it was easier than killing people, like when armies were recruiting, and giving away uniforms like candy at Christmastime. The difference here was that John wasn't in this century to get a specific item. He was here to... to...

Well, blending in couldn't hurt. Maybe he'd find out later what it was he had come for. If he planned to stick around, it would probably be better to keep the distinguishing, anachronous items to a minimum, in case his reputation preceded him and made life difficult. He needed clothes.

Jack had always been better at picking clothes than John. It wasn't fair.

At least he had a goal.

But when he came through an alley, because John had always had a fairly good sense of where things were, and this street happened to run into that alley which went to that street, he saw a couple of men and a dog. And they had tied tin cans to the dog's tail so that it rattled and scared him when he moved and tried to get away from them.

John had nothing against cruelty. He saw it every day, often instigated by himself, and he was often quite proud of his accomplishments. But that was among sentient creatures; that was aliens, and humans, and people who could build space ships, there was no possibly way they could not defend themselves. John was better at fighting, stronger and more skilled, so he could do whatever he wanted to them; it wasn't like they didn't stand a chance.

But dogs couldn't. Dogs couldn't talk, and they couldn't protest, and if they turned around and bit someone, they got locked up or killed for it, and besides they'd been brought up all their lives not to do so. All they ever wanted was to love someone, and get loved back, and play chase somewhere. Cats, too. Truth be told, John didn't much hate Weevils, either. Of course, he never let anyone know.

And besides, once humanity had gotten well and truly into space, they'd had abolition for just about everything. Slaves, factory workers, dogs, cats, and lice. They all had their rights and their laws and their people looking after them, and life ran tolerably smoothly, and John didn't have to interfere. Then.

Now, he knew how to take care of it, and quietly stabbed one of the men with a bit of debris he found in the alley, which was always near to hand if you knew where to look and/or pull, and turned the other one around and kissed him. That took care of them. It took a little while longer to get the dog to come to him, or at least let him come to it, and longer after that to untie the knots, since he didn't have anything to cut with, and then the dog just ran away, but it had had a harrowing experience, and he didn't blame it. He was proud of it for not biting him. He hid the paralyzed man so no one would find him and feed him an antidote.

And then he continued on a different path, thinking, and forgot about clothes or a job. Because the twenty-first century, sure, it had its rights programs, but they weren't terribly effective. And wouldn't everything go so much faster, so much smoother, if the whole abuse problem were just - eliminated? Everything could go easily, then. They just had to get rid of the people who were too far gone.

John was good at getting rid of people.

"That's you first murder in months!" The disapproving Jack in his head said, and John wanted to hit it for updating itself when he came into contact with New Jack. He had liked its being Old Jack.

"They deserved it." And the others would deserve it as well.

It wasn't difficult to tell who the murderer was. He obviously wasn't trying to hide it. Anyone who kills someone and then goes next door to get the blood washed off his Korean snakeskin sword is not trying to hide his identity, especially if he allowed himself to get arrested before and the entire local police station remembers him. Although Torchwood is mostly amazed at how well-behaved he was during that visit.

Gwen is very, very sorry she ever got mixed up in this business, and mostly trying to persuade Andy using any means possible that it's not worth it to go try to arrest John Hart. "It won't work. All you'll do is get yourself killed." She told him for the umpteenth time.

"He didn't seem the killing type to me." Andy told her, which earned him a rather astonished gape from everyone who knew what he was talking about. "He quoted Shakespeare."

"Andy, you're going to go arrest him for murder and you're saying he doesn't seem the killing type." Gwen clarified.

"Well, if you put it like that, it doesn't make any sense. I'm just saying I don't think he'd kill anyone he knows."

"He lived with Jack for five years and then pushed him off the top of a building with no second thought. And the next time they met, he shot him. This man has no compulsions about killing anyone, Andy. Stay away from him."

"Well, someone has to talk to him." Andy pointed out. "And I think I've got the best chance. I'm not going to let him kill all my coworkers when I could talk to him and survive. And anyway, he's mostly killing criminals. I've got a dossier on every man in this room." Gwen looked alarmed. "I was just quoting. Picked it up from him, actually."

"I think, the less you pick up from him, the better." Gwen pointed out. "The quoting is probably harmless enough. I don't trust it, though, not when he's doing it."

"Oh, come on, Gwen, what harm could Shakespeare do?"

"Emily Dickinson got us locked in our base." Gwen retorted. Andy grinned reminiscently. "Don't say anything." Gwen warned.

"You'd have no cause to be embarrassed if you'd stayed with the police." Andy pointed out. "Not that I mean you should have, of course. I mean, Torchwood! You got promoted to Torchwood! Special ops!"

"Yes, well. It's not all it's cracked up to be." Gwen told him. Andy thought she was lying through her teeth, and more reasonably, thought he had every reason to think so. "Really, Andy. Don't go near that man. It's too dangerous. He used to listen to Jack, at any rate, but we've already tried getting them talking, and it didn't work."

"I won't work him up." Andy promised. "In fact, I may not even stop him."

"You're going to just let him keep murdering people?" Gwen objected vehemently, and Andy wondered just what she thought not talking to him would do to stop things. She wasn't being reasonable. "What good is talking to him if you're not going to stop him?"

"I didn't say I'd tell him to go ahead and keep wantonly killing everyone he meets." Andy pointed out. "I said I might not stop him. Just redirect him a little, I meant. No reason he shouldn't hunt these people down, anyway. He's certainly more efficient than the rest of us. I don't think we've ever had so little trouble, once the pattern became clear."

"You're going to recruit John Hart." Gwen clarified incredulously.

"Of course not! I'm just going to talk to him. Don't know what I'll say. Have to see what he says." Andy felt this was entirely reasonable, and probably more reasonable than she deserved after she'd spent so long trying to talk him out of it and been quite rude at some points. "Look, Gwen. I promise I'll be careful, and run away if he makes any sudden moves. All right?"

"All right." Gwen relented, moving so that her hair flicked in that one way that said she really had given up. "Just be careful. I don't want you getting hurt."

"Not me." Andy agreed, and said good-bye. He watched Gwen leave, and finished his tea.

"Any luck?" Tosh asked over the comms a little while later.

"No." Gwen had to report. "Isn't there any chance we can go after him, give him some backup?" She asked helplessly.

"Not with the Rift spiking after the last Apocalypse."

"Excuse me." Andy called to the empty building, feeling a little nervous and thinking maybe he shouldn't have left his gun outside. It was a wonderful I-come-in-peace gesture, but it left him very open. "I'm looking for a Captain John Hart." That was not a question. It was a statement. There was no one hear to ask, so he wasn't asking. The only reason he might possibly ask in this situation was if he was scared, and he was not scared. "I was told I could find him here." That wasn't a question either.

He thought maybe he should get his back to a wall, but on the other hand, walls were very thin and flimsy things. And he wasn't going to turn in circles, because that would say he was scared. No. He refused. And he refused to peek around the corner before he went around it, either. Which went a lot better than the not-a-question bit. That, he thought now that it was over and he could go over it because he couldn't fix it anyway, had gone down like a lead balloon.

"Left." John's voice said helpfully, from quite nearby. Andy automatically turned with it, and there was John, lounging on a pile of rubble. "Good boy. If you're going to tell me off, you might as well do it face to face."

Andy stared at him for a while. The man must have changed clothes at some point since the last time they'd met. He had to wash them, didn't he? Or maybe he didn't. Maybe they just got dirtier and dirtier until they fused onto his skin and he had to get new ones. Or - maybe he just didn't wear anything at all when he was cleaning them.

"Cat got your tongue? I think you were about to start scolding." John prompted.

"What are you doing in an old warehouse?" Andy asked instead. John possibly blinked, but if he was as reptilian as Torchwood made him out to be, he probably wasn't capable of doing so.

"It was convenient." John settled on saying. "Abandoned. Also, I almost blew up all of Torchwood here one time. Do you know, they all survived it? I mean, Jack is obvious, he survives everything, but the worst injury they got was a dislocated shoulder. It was really quite disappointing."

"I heard about that." Andy looked around. "You cleaned it up a bit."

"A bit." John agreed. "Not too much. Piles of rubbish are useful. Also, the abandoned and derelict warehouse look is classic." He grinned. "Inasmuch as sewer chic is classic, anyway. I rather think I've got one up on them."

"On who? Torchwood? I suppose, who else would it be... they've decorated their base like a sewer?"

"Oh, don't tell me you've never been in it. Maybe I'll take you sometime." John considered. "It would have to be late at night. Or early morning. The sort of time when no one's really sure anymore. Otherwise, they'll be busy little bees down there. I don't know that Jack ever goes home. The rest of them would probably stay if he let them. Poor little Torchwood, the job that eats their lives, and they think the monsters come through the Rift."

"Well, depending on how you got here, it might vary." Andy pointed out.

"Death, Abbadon, little brothers, and I'm the worst thing the Rift ever produced."

"I don't think so." Andy suggested. John, who had been contemplating the idea of Torchwood regarding him as the worst thing they'd ever faced, suddenly turned and looked at him sharply. "I mean, I don't know what you're doing right now - well, obviously you're killing people - and of course I'm supposed to stop that - only I don't quite see how - anyway, I don't know why you're doing it. But I know that most of the people who've been showing up killed by a man in a bright red jacket have criminal records. Not all of them. But a lot."

"Do they." John did not sound like he was pretending not to have noticed. He sounded intrigued, but in a bored sort of fashion, sort of like one is intrigued by a spider building its web on the ceiling when one is lying in bed with nothing to do. Rather the way Andy suspected people in space ships would feel most of the time, since all they had to do was sit around and wait until the years passed and they got to their other solar system or wherever it was they were headed. He'd read things that said that took generations. A whole lifetime of waiting in a ship. They would definitely master the intriguedly bored emotion. Maybe that was where John had learned it. He almost asked, but didn't quite. It took him a moment to remember that John had said anything at all, and then to remember what it meant.

"Yes."

"It figures." Definitely the sort of voice that was, in its head, playing with its own fingers. Possibly playing cat's cradle. Or tying knots. Or possibly flicking a coin back and forth. Coin tricks. Card tricks. A voice bored enough to rpactice legerdemain.

"So what is the connection then?" Andy asked.

"Oh - they irritate me." The theoretical hand snapped closed on the theoretical coin. "They pick on helpless individuals."

This did not quite register for Andy. "Well - so do you. Right? I mean, blowing up a city, that's pretty much picking on helpless people. Killing someone from behind, that's picking on a helpless person, even if they could beat you if they had warning. Which I don't they could. Really, in your position, killing just about anybody is picking on a helpless individual."

"How flattering. But humans aren't helpless." Very clearly stated, as though teaching. "They all have the option, anyway. Even a doddering grandfather in a hospital bed could pull a trigger in this day and age, and he'd get away with it, too. Well, as long as he only shot the one person, and could still call it defense. Maybe even more than once. But what is war, then? Lots of helpless people slaughtering helpless people. They don't seem very helpless anymore. And those little world wars, you have had those, haven't you, and all the lovely delicate women staying at home while the men go off to war. They're killing people themselves, even if all they do is make the ammunition, tend the wounded, maintain the economy so everyone else can go off and shoot more people full of holes. Humans aren't helpless. I wonder how many people the average person kills through his labor in a year? In a liftetime? At least I don't pretend I'm doing otherwise."

"You're not trying to prevent it, either."

"Aren't I? If I shoot a murderer, how many lives have I saved? The same number as the lives I'd take by killing a doctor? Or by saving a patient myself? All those lovely little doctors, tending to life, letting it grow, so it can choke the life out of everything near it. Beautiful."

Andy wanted to ask him, again, if he believed this sort of thing. But he did. To some extent. And at the same time, to some extent he was lying. He had to be lying. No one could go through life thinking the way John professed to.

"Life is all about death."

"How you go to it." Andy agreed.

"Who you send to it." John argued.

"How you can think of yourself as you lie dying?" Andy suggested. "Whether you can imagine yourself a good person?"

"Anyone can pretend they're a good person. They can find one good thing they've done in a lifetime of evil, and hold it up, and say, I'm a good person. I know, I've done it, and personally I don't think it's worth it."

"You're very pessimistic."

"And you are very," John broke off. He looked confused for a moment. "Strange." He decided.

"I can agree with that. I come here to talk to you about murder and end up talking about paradigms. Maybe that's your fault."

"Oh, undoubtedly. I am very tired of being told Bad boy, go to your room. No killing people. Are you sure you want to get back on that tangent? I could kill you for it. I've killed people for less." John pointed out.

"I can imagine."

"And you still come to see me. Why? Honor?"

"You're evading the question." Andy pointed out. He was avoiding getting on a subject that would get him to kill Andy. Didn't he want to? "Just for a moment, then we can move on. Get the business over with first. I don't intend to ask you to stop your crusade, anyway." He expected John to interrupt, but the murderer just looked at him, invited him to finish his speech. "I mean, after all, they're all very bad people, and even if you're the worst of all of them... well, it's still useful. So I don't see why I should ask you to stop, it would be like asking a whole police station to shut down. But I can't just let you keep murdering them, because then you'll be one of them, and sooner or later we'll end up pointing a gun at each other - two guns, I mean, one each - and I don't want to shoot you, and, well, I don't want to get shot, so it seems the best idea is to avoid the situation entirely. Don't you think?"

"I don't quite think I follow you."

"It was probably the bit about pointing guns at each other. Well, forget that. I'm just saying, I don't want to be your enemy, that would be miserable. And probably, in this specific situation, it would get me killed, and I don't want to die. I don't know anyone who does, not really truly wants to die. And not know-know, I think I might know someone who knows someone and I've met that someone, but that's confusing anyway, so the point is, I don't want to die. And if you keep killing people chances are I will. So I thought maybe you could quit killing them, and just bring them by the police station, and we'll lock them up and put them on trial like we're supposed to, and everyone is happy. You get to deal with them for whatever reason it is that makes you want to... deal with them, and I don't have to hunt you down, and nobody's disappointed in you."

"That sounds like you're asking me to join the police."

"Not really." Andy said uncomfortably, because it did sound a lot like what he did, but that wasn't what he meant.

"Only not get paid for it." John suggested.

"Not really. Maybe, sort of, something to keep you busy while you settle down?" Andy suggested. "The occupation's not the point, the point is saving my skin! And it can't be terribly more difficult to drag them along a few blocks than to shove a knife a few inches."

"And everybody's happy."

"Exactly!"

"You want me to make everybody happy."

"Uh-huh." Andy agreed earnestly. John looked very bewildered.

"Well... I guess I could try it."

And Andy was very, very happy. Which was very strange. He was sort of bouncing around being cheerful. Like some sort of puppy. John wanted to sort of pat him on the head or something. But didn't really want to shoot him. Possibly because he was thinking of Andy as a puppy. He hurriedly got them back on the track of philosophy and metaphysics, because the situation made his head hurt.

Anyway, he had Andy's gun, so at least the encounter had gotten him better-armed.

"So," Gwen asked him, on behalf of Torchwood, which had taken him out, because he had dealt with John, and they felt a little guilty, because technically John was part of their domain, having come through the Rift, and they hadn't dealt with him. "How did it go?"

"It must have gone fairly well, you're still alive." Tosh interrupted encouragingly.

"Another drink?" Jack asked, since he believed that tongues were loosened by alcohol, especially if you weren't a Time Agent. And besides, he was hosting.

"I'm not done with the last one yet." Andy pointed out. This was undeniable. He hadn't started on it.

"But how did it go?" Owen asked impatiently.

"Well," Andy considered, "He stole my gun."

"Hm." Ianto agreed. "Where was he?"

"I tracked him down to this one warehouse on the edge of the city. Not quite country, but certainly not city-city. He said he'd try to blow you up there?"

"That warehouse."

"Yes. He'd cleaned it up a bit, and I think he must have done some repair work, because it looked like it had pretty much fallen down. But the walls were still standing, so it can't have been so bad."

"Is he living there?" Jack asked, disbelieving and possibly a little worried.

"I don't know, I only saw the audience room." Andy snapped. "Can I tell my story now?" Torchwood muttered assent. "So I got there, and it took me a while to find him, which I think must have been when he stole my gun, and then he must have found a faster route back to where he wanted to be, and when I came close he gave me direction so I'd get there. He said 'left'." Andy clarified. "And he sat sideways on a chair with arms. Sort of sprawled, really. It was an image, and I think he practices."

"Sounds accurate." Jack agreed.

"It was John, all right? Red jacket,"

"Napoleonic." Jack put in.

"Undershirt, that awful sword of his, big long boots and Wild West gun holsters. It was John. So I asked him why he was there of all places, and he said pretty much because he'd blown you up in it, and then we got to talking about interior decoration - that's not a non sequitur, we're still talking about the place, and he compared the architecture favorably to that of your base."

"Jerk." Owen muttered. "Sorry, go on."

"And then I brought up why I was there, and how most of the people he killed have criminal records, and he was... mildly surprised. He said they irritated him, and they were all bullies, so he killed them. And then we got to discussing the meaning of life. He's really very sad. He thinks no matter what you do, you just end up killing people, and I'm not going to say why, because even if I could remember it properly, it's quite a depressing little speech. So we talked about the meaning of life, and the meaning of death, and what makes a person a good person, and how people who are evil do it. It was quite interesting, he has a unique viewpoint."

"So you just talked about... the meaning of life the entire time you were there?" Gwen asked incredulously.

"Well, most of the time. After we'd worked things out, we got back to that subject, because it was interesting, and he wanted to, and he gets very upset being lectured all the time. You'd talked to him before, he said. So I figured I'd leave him on a good note. It was a nice conversation, anyway."

"You said after you'd worked things out. Just what did you work out?" Jack asked, leaning forward, since this was the relevant bit. He'd sat back and looked either interested in a rather reclined fashion, or else very, very bored.

"I got him to agree that instead of killing people, he'd bring them to the police station, since they're mostly criminals anyway."

"And he agreed?" Andy nodded happily. "You recruited John Hart to the police force?"

"That's precisely what he said I was doing, but I'm not!" Andy protested. "I just sort of thought it's a more reasonable way to deal with things, and less violent, better for all concerned, I mean, I don't end up dead so I'm all for it. And he can't be a police officer anyway, because he's not getting paid."

"He's agreed to do all the work and not get paid." Owen suggested.

"Well, he's not doing the paperwork." Andy pointed out. "And he might not continue to do it. Get bored or something. But I think it'll keep him entertained for a while, anyway."

"Can I come to work with you tomorrow, anyway?" Gwen asked.

"No." Andy told her firmly. "You'll scare him off. He'll think you're there to lecture or shoot him or something. At best he wouldn't trust me anymore. Besides," He added, "if you wanted to do police work, you shouldn't have joined Torchwood. You can't steal everything." He considered this for a thoughtful moment. "You wouldn't want to, anyway. The staplers are crap."

"Then you're on desk duty until he shows up." Jack informed him.

"Oh, of course. I've got paperwork to catch up on anyway." Andy pulled a face. "Good night gentlemen, ladies. I have to go now. Big day tomorrow. Even if it is paperwork day."

John, having already fully intimidated the line of people he'd caught kicking dogs, or a rough equivalent of that crime, so they'd move when he said, arrived in the police station and grabbed someone. To his delight, it was that terrible rude PC who'd brought Torchwood's message to him.

"I am looking for Andrew Davidson." He informed her. "I have someones for him."

"You're that bloke he's got bringing people in for him?"

"Something like that, yes." John replied, priding himself on his remarkable control of himself.

"Well, you don't have to bring them directly to Andy, I'm sure the rest of us can - " She continued, moving towards John's group of people. But then she stopped, because John's sword was directly in front of her, and he kept it sharp, and he did not seem the type to refrain from killing someone right off.

"That is your second warning." John informed her. "But I am in a good mood today, and even though you were very rude to me, I am not planning on killing you. Yet. Maybe for my birthday or something." He was sure he had her attention now, so he leaned closer. "I am bringing these to Andrew." He informed her. "Where is he?"

She pointed. John rewarded her by putting the sword away. They probably would have made a fuss about his coming armed into a police station, except that they had a pretty good idea by now that this was a Bad Plan. Possibly the only way they could render him vaguely harmless was by taking all his weapons away and his wrist strap, and even then, he was pretty dangerous, especially with paralyzing lip gloss. And you don't take perfectly harmless lip gloss away from a prisoner, not once you've tested it and it's come up clean. Along with all the other things John kept in his pockets, many of which actually were harmless beauty products.

"Andrew Davidson." He announced when he got to Andy's desk. "I have someones for you."

Andy looked up. He saw John first, and smiled a little encouragingly at him, and then he saw the someones John referred to, and he looked a little unnerved, possibly at the efficiency, and possibly at the quantity, either of people or potential paperwork it was hard to tell. Then he resolved, and smiled properly at John.

"There's rather a lot of them." He observed.

"I don't have to obey any rules." John pointed out, waiting.

"Thank you for them." Andy told him. "It was nice of you. Did you have any trouble with them?"

"No." John told him, this being the absolute last word on the subject, and left, hands in pockets and whistling.

There were a number of questions that could have been asked, like Aren't you going to arrest him? or How is it he can just walk right out of a police station? or What would keep them from just running off? (this being a rather stupid question since John had put Fear into them, and since they were surrounded by police officers) but Andy rather thought the most astute response was, I didn't count on this much paperwork. And that was kind of cute.

"So he just brought you people."

"Uh-huh."

"And left."

"Uh-huh."

"What about the ones who were innocent? There were innocent ones?"

"Oh, yes. He certainly doesn't pick them based on catching them at crimes. I just let them go, and told them we'd have to keep an eye on them since he apparently has an instinct for this sort of thing, but they'd probably better stay extra good just in case. And so they did. And I said I was sorry for the inconvenience, but that I still didn't trust them. Because I don't."

"Because John brought them in."

"Exactly. I trust... well, not him, obviously, it'd be stupid to trust him, so I guess I trust his judgment. Takes one to know one, I suppose?"

"I suppose."

After a while, John slowed down on how many people he brought in. It gave Andy time to catch up on other paperwork, and go on his own patrols, which by all accounts was more fun. And also, John wanted to be more selective, and not get any more of the ones who Andy didn't think were actually guilty of anything, although John was inclined to disagree. And also, if he brought only a couple a day, then if he brought more, Andy would have to be extra happy with him again.

He made exceptions on the Don't Bring In Those Andy Thinks Are Innocent rule for people who looked at Andy. Not because he wanted Andy all to himself, because that was not John thinking, but because it was fun terrorizing them. He wasn't going to be reformed.

"I caught this one outside a chocolate shop, and so I made him wait outside while I ate chocolate, because he was very bad. But I couldn't eat it all." John explained.

The man rubbed off on you. John had caught himself being very, very earnest one time. Only at Andy. But still, he made a mental note to check that sort of behavior. And no more chocolate. That was practically pathetic courter-type behavior.

But ice cream was okay, if you really were outside the shop at the time.

Note to self: Do not loiter outside an ice cream shop looking for villainous types.

Chocolate ice cream isn't pathetic courter-type behavior, it's just Andy's favorite.

Note to self: Showing up in Andy's patrol is stalker behavior.

"You know, John, bringing ice cream to all of your little criminal dump-off meetings might be taken as courting behavior." Jack suggested.

"It's not always ice cream."

"Even more so, then."

"What!"

"You'd be taking into account that maybe your sig-o doesn't want the same thing every single day. It would be observing reactions. It'd be worse than courting behavior, because it would be especially attuned to one person. It'd be monogamous. It'd be sweet."

"Shut up, Jack."

"You know, Andy, bringing ice cream to all of his little criminal dump-off meetings might be taken as courting behavior." Jack suggested.

"It could?"

"Yes. It could."

"John's gay?"

"Er. Something like that, yes." Not mentioning twenty-first century labels, that would probably get John mad at me, and I'm busy.

"And he likes me?"

"Well, he liked me, too. Not that I'm implying you're getting my rejects, mind. And I certainly didn't put him onto it. And he'd probably deny it if you mentioned it. But that doesn't mean it's not true. Er - how's the weather at the police station? The Hub's been getting damper than usual lately, but that could be the plumbing."

"Andrew. Have you still not seen Torchwood's top-secret base?" John asked disapprovingly.

"Um... no. They keep the door locked."

"Well, I'll have to show it to you, then. Are you free tonight?"

"Ye-es."

"You know, Andy," the policewoman John thought of as That Irritating and Rude Woman, "some people might see being taken out for dinner and a movie as a date."

"But he was showing me Torchwood."

"But he took you out for dinner and a movie."

"Did you know they have a pterodactyl? I want a pterodactyl, that was awesome! How come Torchwood gets all the cool stuff?"

"Because they're Torchwood. And special ops. And no, Andy, they're still not hiring."

"Why does he always call me Andrew?"

"Well, it is your name."

"He calls you Jack."

"Well, my name isn't Jacob. And I asked him to."

Note to self: Ask John to call me Andy. And possibly if John is short for anything, like Johnathan. And if it is, probably if I can call him John. Wait, isn't Ianto... never mind. About the Ianto bit, anyway.

Note to self: Fear is not a good reason not to ask John to call me Andy.

Note to self: If you really want to stop being called Andrew, ask the man!

Note to self: See, that wasn't so bad. He just said yes. I can do anything!

"So... is John short for anything?"

"No." John considered. He didn't think abrupt leavings were appropriate anymore. "I made it up." He was rather proud of that, actually. Out of thin air, and it was a perfectly reasonable name and one he was willing to go by.

"You made it up?"

"And Hart, too. What, you hadn't noticed? I suppose you didn't know Jack's name isn't Jack Harkness, either."

"No-o." Andy hesitated. "Is there any reason you made your names up?"

"Well, the Time Agency always said to use a false name so you don't end up getting named after yourself and creating a paradox or something. But nobody ever listens to them, rules are made to be broken. I made mine up because Jack was being irritating. Captain Jack Harkness. He probably picked it at first as a temporary alias. Or possibly to 'escape his dark past'." John was contemptuous. Then he grinned. "His bad, though. I heard he ran into his namesake."

"You've got good contacts."

"Who said anything about contacts? I am everywhere. Omnipresent, omnipotent, omnisexual, working on omniscient."

"And in a very good mood today."

"Yep. I'm going to go find you some more criminals. That'll make two batches in a day, huh? All for it!"

"If you keep at this, I'm going to have to get you a desk in here."

"Oh, good God, no, I'm not doing paperwork." John protested, horrified. "That's the whole point of not getting paid. That and doing whatever I want. Ta, Andy!"

"Bye, John."

"So what's your real name, then?" Andy asked, kicking his feet off the edge of the wall.

"If you knock yourself off into the ocean, I am going to laugh and not rescue you." John informed him.

"I won't fall." Andy assured him. "Are you going to tell me your real name or not?"

"Not."

"Why? I told you mine." He might well have been indignant, but he didn't feel like it. Then again, Andy rarely did. "Chips?" He asked, shifting the opening of the bag closer to John.

"Nah. But you don't have any reason to hide your real name, do you?"

"You're just saying that because you want me to think the moment someone says your real name an intergalactic army is going to land on our planet and take over so they can arrest you. I'm not having any of it."

"Well, not in this century, anyway. Possibly not in any century. Once the world goes interplanetary, it takes a lot more effort to become Most of anything. If I ever had the title, Gray took it away from me."

"That'd be Jack's brother, yeah?"

"The one in cryo."

"Scary devil. Glad he's not coming out."

"Oh, you never know, brotherly love and all that."

"Yeah. Chips?"

"Nah. They're probably drugged so I'll answer all your questions anyway."

"What questions?"

"My name, Jack's name, what it's like where we come from, Jack's tragic past, my probably tragic past, what I did to get close to being Most Wanted, what happened to Gray... sort of thing."

"But you don't want to tell me. So why would I ask?"

John looked at him. As far as he could tell, Andy was honestly confused. He couldn't see why anyone would ask when someone didn't want to tell. It was probably a good tactic, anyway. Wait until they did want to tell. Wouldn't work for John, of course, because for one he didn't have the patience, and for another, he wasn't that puppyishly cute. "You're serious, aren't you?" Andy nodded. "You are a very odd human."

"That's all right. It's not like I'm all alone. And besides, I'm good at football. My parents like me. My siblings like me. Rhys and Gwen like me. ...You like me."

"I do." John agreed placidly.

"Maybe there is something in these chips." Andy suggested, looking at him a little curiously, and not really very faintly. It was just the practical way John said it. Agreeing. Perfectly known fact. Perfectly reasonable world.

"I haven't had any."

"It's the aroma."

"Stench, more like."

"Are you dissing our chips!"

"Sure. Gonna make somethin' of it?" John dared.

"Maybe I will." Andy replied, posturing and trying not to laugh.

"Oooh... why are you picking a fight with the man with a sword and guns and we-don't-want-to-know-what-else stashed around his person? That the Man who Cannot Die is nervous of?"

"'Cause it's fun."

"Have you no survival instinct?"

"Sure. It's sitting next to me."

"How does that work?"

"You're not going to let anything happen to me." Andy stated. Practically. Perfectly known fact. Perfectly reasonable world. He didn't even have to convince himself, because it was true.

"Well... all right, then."

"Chips?"

"I said no! ...Why do you keep asking?" John asked. And he was even more curious now, because Andy had just proved that he didn't keep asking if you didn't want to tell.

"Because you keep refusing, and you really want them."

"Oh, fine then." Rustling as Jack put his hand in the bag. "Do you have to kick your feet?"

Andy looked at him in surprise. "I'm sitting on a wall. I suppose I could stop. Does it bother you?"

John considered. He wanted to say yes, just because he could, and Andy would have to stop kicking; it was power. John had always gone for power. But then... there was no reason to stop him, and it wasn't really very irritating, and it was a very, very Andy thing to do. "Not especially. Stop it anyway."

"All right." Andy stopped kicking. "My legs were getting tired anyway."

They watched Cardiff Bay for a while. It looked about like you could expect, John thought. Blue sky. White clouds. Birds. Very wet ocean. Sort of thing you saw on a postcard sometimes. He'd never much seen the point of sending postcards with landscapes on them, if you had to send a postcard at all. It was just weird. Look, there's even more planet out there than you ever imagined, can you believe it. More ground than ever before. His mother had liked postcards. He'd sent her some, and asked her why once. She said they were pretty. John didn't ask again.

"I love Cardiff." Andy ruminated. John grunted. It was a city. It was Welsh, he supposed. Chances were it was pretty. The architecture was certainly varied, for twenty-first-century architecture. Jack had made a point of emphasizing this by standing on top of every building he got near. "What, don't you?"

"It's a city." John pointed out.

"You like the country?"

"I'm not saying I prefer one or the other. It's just that it's a city, and I don't care if I'm in Cardiff, London, or Boeshane. It's a city. Cardiff is interesting I suppose... it has a Rift..."

"You can't distinguish between any of them."

"Oh, I can distinguish. I just don't care."

Andy looked at him pityingly, only it was really pity, not scorn of any sort. "You don't see anything and think this is home. Or this is pretty. Or I want to stay here. You look at postcards and just see... earth and sky."

"Precisely."

"Do you see people?"

"Of course I see people! I can tell when a person is pretty and when they're not. Thought I was a decent judge of character, too, until I met that awful brother of Jack's."

"Extenuating circumstances." Andy waved it off. "He's a relation of Jack's, so you thought he'd be similar, and I expect he wasn't in the most I-am-a-killer-robot position when you got there."

"Not exactly, no." John agreed, remembering. He wondered if it made him less human that he had no compulsion to try not to.

"Maybe you don't have a terrestrial home." Andy suggested. "Maybe you find your home in the people around you. Family."

John thought of all the people he'd killed, even those he was close to, and said, "I hope not."

"I would not want to be you." Andy commented. "But you know what? I would never give up knowing you. I would never want to forget you. Even if you are the worst person I've ever met."

Maybe it was sad that he could say that and be completely serious. "You're just saying that because everyone knows better than to look up, see a man in a red coat with a sword, and try to chase him off the walls by now. Because they know better than to call me on doing anything I want to. And I take you along."

"No. I'm saying that because I like you. I like knowing you. I like being with you. I like seeing you show up in the office with a group of shamefaced criminals behind you, looking like you think you are the cleverest thing in the world. You got that same look when you made me try green tea ice cream and I liked it." He observed. "I like making you eat chips. I like debating philosophy with you."

"You could do that with mostly anyone." John observed.

"But they wouldn't make the same points you do."

"I'm a practical genius. I know how life works, and I'm trying, anyway, to knock some sense into you. You have all the survival instincts of a lemming. And not the slightest clue how the world works."

"I wouldn't survive a moment in your world." Andy agreed. "But I don't live in your world. I live in the solid, carbon, straightforward police world. I've not even got rank, I do what I'm told where I'm told when I'm told. And you know, you're top class in the underworld of I don't know how many centuries, but me? I'm a good police officer. I'm a brilliant police officer."

"'I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, but I am proud of what I am.'" John quoted. He had a tendency to do that. Not like clockwork, not a quote for everything you said, but if you got in a decent-length conversation with him, you learned Shakespeare, and Cicero... and Wilkie Collins, and everything that could possibly be quoted from the Marvel universe. Universes. "'And what is that?' 'I... am a librarian.'"

"Who's that?"

"Oh, I don't know. Some movie, not far off from this time, actually. American, maybe? Undead. Mummies. Egypt. Watched it 'cause it ripped off my mum's favorite series and she would keep going on about them, thought it might be a decent substitute. Still didn't know what she was talking about. That might have been a good thing."

"You don't much talk about your mum." Andy observed.

"She's dead."

"Oh."

"I didn't kill her."

"That's good. Matricide is generally frowned upon. I don't know that it's ever been accepted in polite society. While homicide, as you keep pointing out, is. Note wars."

"Accidental matricide?" John suggested.

"Still not looked upon in a favourable light. Unless, possibly, you are a Bennett. And I swear I only read them because my sister made me!" Andy defended.

"What? Jane Austen? The woman was a genius. What are you protesting?"

"Well..."

"Oh, it's another one of your stupid twenty-first-century customs. I don't want to understand them. If a man likes clothes, he likes clothes. If he likes men, he likes men. If he likes both, what of it!"

"Yes, well, that is fifty-first century talk." Andy pointed out.

"Still rubbish theory."

"Maybe. But it's mine."

"Oh, God, don't tell me you subscribe to it."

"It's not like it's The Globe. No World's Fattest Cat showing up weekly in your mailbox. You just sort of grow up with it. It gets ingrained. Sort of like flirting with everything seems to come naturally to your century."

"Not naturally enough." John revealed gloomily.

"He turned you down again?"

"Didn't ask. Caught him snogging again, though. What's this about World's Fattest Cat?"

"Oh, I don't know. They love that cat. I think it died a few weeks ago, and then recently gave birth to World's Fattest Kittens or something, but then they found out it was male, so they gave it a sex change,"

"Don't see why,"

"And now it's World's Fattest Undead Cat Mother. Or possibly Parental Unit. World's Fattest Undead Feline Parental Unit."

"Too many adjectives."

"Yes. May I have the chips back?"

"They're all gone. Oops."

"No, don't throw that, that's littering - oh, bother."

"Do I have to arrest me for that?"

"No one arrests you."

"They know better." John considered. "You could arrest me, if you like. Don't know that it would take. Y'know, the first time, you actually did, and I thought it was a joke. Couldn't believe people actually dressed up and put handcuffs on people for real and seriously."

"What do they do in your time, then?"

"Long-distance stun guns and void prisons. If you're lucky, and get caught on the right planet. For the right crime. Do not get on the bad side of the Raxicoricofallipatorians. For murder, anyway. They're good on thieving. And it's only vinegar, but they're learning to adjust the acidity for alien prisoners. It used to be such a nice planet, too… Get caught for murder, and they give you hair treatment. A bit difficult to stop getting said hair treatment, but that's what accomplices are for."

"I think you're trying to impress me."

"What would I want to do that for?"

"You did say you like me." (Andy has started kicking again at this point)

"Not like that!" John protested. "I'm still pining after Jack."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes."

"You don't act like it. Well, maybe you're not coming on to me, that's all right, but you're not chasing Jack, either." Must have been the first person in ages who left him before he could leave them, too. Andy thought. John was quiet, so he was, too, sitting on a wall and kicking his feet, watching the waves in the harbor. It was beautiful, sun and sky, surf and spray and seagulls. It was Cardiff. It was home. "John?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"I think you ought to know. I'm a swan."

"You are decidedly less feathery than a swan. And taller, and not as good at swimming. Not to mention the whole flying business." John informed him.

"Not like that. Swans mate for life."

"Oh, dear."

"Shut up and listen a moment." Andy ordered amiably. "I'm a swan. Once I commit, I'm committed, and no matter what happens, I'm sticking to that. I don't do moving on. And I know you're all about moving on, and chances are I'll wake up some time and you'll be nowhere to be found, but that's okay. That's you. I'm just warning you, there's only one shot for me, so you can decide if you really want to go for it."

John was silent for a moment. "You're kicking your legs again." He said.

"Oh, yeah. You haven't killed me for it yet. Still want me to quit?"

"Oh, do as you please. I'm going walking." John stood up and left, walking easily along the top of the wall. It wasn't hard, it being a rather wide wall.

"Fine, I'll go get more chips." Andy told him, standing up himself. "See you tomorrow, John."

"See you tomorrow. Andy." John called, but didn't look back. Andy shrugged and, because he was a police officer and a good citizen of Cardiff, dropped off the wall to walk on the sidewalk.

Andy went to the tourist office of Torchwood the next morning, since it was Saturday, and waited around a little before Ianto emerged.

"Good morning, Andy. Are you looking for Gwen?"

"Looking for you, actually." Andy told him. "Have you got a moment?"

Ianto considered. Gwen and Tosh, Weevil hunting and shopping. Owen, autopsy duty. Jack, gone off with John. "Maybe half an hour."

"That ought to be enough. I want to talk about Jack. If you don't mind."

"Depends on the questions you're thinking of asking." Ianto hunted around and found them both chairs, with some difficulty.

"Nothing personal, I assure you. Just… what do you do with him?"

"Excuse me?"

Andy sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, which he didn't usually do, and which he decided wasn't really something he wanted to do much in future. How to put this? Well… "I'm in love with him, and he's the worst person I've ever met."

Strangely, this did not make Ianto jealous. It confused him for a moment, but this was Andy, so it had to be just… a confusing statement. Which made perfect sense to Andy, because he had the context of all his other thoughts, running quite perpendicular to the railroad tracks of the conversation. "You're talking about John."

"Of course. Who else?"

"Well, we were talking about Jack."

"Oops. Sorry." Andy flushed, running the actual spoken conversation back through his head. "I certainly didn't mean that! He's – well, he's not John. Nothing wrong with the man on his own, I suppose, not that I know him well at all. And I like John. Which, believe me, is downright disturbing."

"You already admitted he's the worst person you've ever met." Ianto agreed. "And I'm sure you know he's about the worst person most people in the galaxy have ever met."

"And he's not going to change, not fully, not soon or ever. He's gotten a lot calmer, though. But he's still John. His theories of romance go all the way to abandoning whoever it was the morning after. I know, he's debated it with me."

"So you're asking me what to do about it. What to do when you're in love with a con man from three thousand years in the future." Ianto felt unprepared to offer any advice in the matter. After all, Jack had not been much of a con man by the time Ianto was even born, had had several other mostly non-abortive Sig-Os between Ianto and, well, John, and Jack had been the one to propose the whole thing. Still, he had to admit, he was probably the closest person there was to someone who could understand the arrangement. "You know, Jack is the one who came after me. Not vice versa."

"It's confusing." Andy said of his own situation.

"So – do you think you have a chance at any rate?"

"You're not going to say just try to get over him without actually getting in to him in the first place?" Andy asked.

"It's kind of pointless. That's not going to happen." Ianto informed him. "I think you're at the point where, if he rejects you, you're going to spend the rest of your life moping and regretting it, probably blaming yourself for the whole thing, and spending all your time at the police station. Unless, of course, you change jobs and move away where he can't find you. So, do you think you have a chance?"

This was not a reassuring speech. Andy considered John. "He hasn't killed me, and there have been several points – lots of them, really – when he would have killed me if I were anyone else. And he's talked about things without even thinking of killing me, and I think he would have if I were somebody else. He's had debates without proving his point at gun point."

Ianto waited. This was all well and good, but he was waiting for Andy to notice the rather obvious signs.

"Also, Siani thinks he's been taking me on dates." Andy informed him.

"That's a good sign." Ianto agreed, trying desperately to make Andy see just how obvious this was. "What makes her think that?"

"Well, um, he took me to see Torchwood one time. You don't mind?" Andy asked nervously, beseechingly, with worried puppy eyes.

"No, no, not at all." Ianto assured him, wondering if John had seen this side of Andy. This could not be what John saw in Andy. Because serial killers just could not be looking for partners who were periodically disturbingly cute.

"Oh, good. Anyway, it was after shift, and I was hungry, so he took me to dinner, and then he wanted to wait until you guys were out so we wouldn't have anybody protesting majorly, so we went to a movie to pass the time. Which is dinner and a movie, see, but it wasn't just that, we were waiting for Torchwood to close! And then we got to Torchwood, and he found a way to climb up to Myfanwy's nest because she's beautiful. And he had chocolate to feed her with, but that's just because John likes animals. And he did steal the barbecue sauce so she'd recognize it as food, and that's stealing, which isn't romantic in the least."

"Well, it is John." Ianto pointed out. Andy nodded. "So he picked you up after work, and took you to dinner and a movie, and then you did the time-traveler equivalent of walking in the park and feeding the ducks."

"Myfanwy isn't a duck." Andy persisted; Ianto didn't blame him. It was just weird to consider the idea that John Hart was courting you. Even if you did like him and wish he were.

"It's still a good sign." Ianto assured him. "One of the first things I did when I met Jack was to hunt Myfanwy with him."

"It's a tell!" Andy brightened. "If a time-traveler takes you to see pterodactyls… that makes it a date! John took me on a date! And I do have a chance." He concluded. "Maybe even a good one."

"All right. So, he hasn't killed you, and he's taken you on a date. How about… has he brought you anything?" Ianto prodded. Andy grinned.

"Oh, yes. He brings me criminals every day, and often ice cream, and once chocolate. He pretends it's all his and he couldn't eat it all, though." Andy informed Ianto. "It's sweet. And cute. He gets this look. Like he's just done the cleverest thing in the world by bringing me my favorite food. Without my telling him what it is."

"So, why are you nervous?" Ianto asked.

"Because I just told him I'm a swan."

Ianto's face went slowly through a variety of shocked expressions. "Ah." He settled on.

"You want to go in there?" Jack asked nervously, pointing to about the sixth pub they'd walked past. Walked past. Without John even altering his course a little bit. Or slowing down.

"Not really."

There was something very, very odd about all this. Atypical behavior from John. It was dangerous. Something was going to die soon. Maybe that one policewoman John hated so much would show up and let him vent. No, that was a bad way to think.

The point being, John was walking fast. And Jack was having a difficult time keeping up, which wasn't fair, because John was two and a half inches shorter, and he'd teased him about this before, and made it so John had a hard time keeping up. So it wasn't fair in the first place, and all this history just made it scarier, because John wasn't teasing him about it.

He was not going to ask what was up, because dying felt like being dragged over broken glass, and John was probably more likely to kill him just because it wouldn't take.

"Andrew Davidson just… just accosted me."

Jack blinked. This was out of character for Andy, but why would John be upset about it? It was even less in character.

"Of course you know I've been doing sort of freelance police work. And I've been spending other time with him as well, because he's my contact, and the only one in that office I can stand."

Right, John. Just keep telling yourself that.

"And then he told me yesterday that he's a swan."

"What on any planet is that supposed to mean?" Jack inquired.

"That's what I said. And he got into biology." John seemed to find this safer than talking sense. Jack sighed and just waited for him to explain. And walked faster. "Apparently, swans mate for life."

Jack did not laugh. It took a little effort. Someone asking John to mate for life? Then he remembered it was Andy, and Andy was probably completely serious about the entire thing, which was a little scary. "So what's the problem? I've never known you to have trouble with this before. You just left if you weren't interested."

"But I don't want to go!" John objected, and winced at his own remark. "I may possibly be slightly interested in keeping him around for, oh, longer than usual. Maybe even more than a week."

"But certainly not for life." Jack agreed.

"Definitely."

"Absolutely not."

"Horrible idea."

"Absolutely intolerable." Jack continued, thinking of how he was absolutely going to stick around with Ianto for the rest of Ianto's life and probably some time after.

"But what do you do when you've got something that wants to stick around like that?" John asked. "And you don't want to chase it off. I might even want to see it every so often once I'm done with it." Jack looked at him inquiringly, because he couldn't raise one eyebrow. "Well, have you seen it recently? It just sort of looks at you sometimes. Like, um, like this." John tried it. Jack burst out laughing.

"That is not endearing, John. Especially not on you. You may have to practice a bit."

"Well. You'll have to check the CCTV. He does it often enough, it has to be there somewhere. So he looks, at you, and then maybe he'll say something stupid, but then a moment later he says something really, really – weird." John considered. "Good at debating, though. Almost backed me into a corner once. And he's learning to quote. But what do you do about that?"

Jack walked on for a moment, letting John think he was thinking about it. "I think," he said once he was sure John thought he had considered every angle of it, "that you'll have to convince him you're going to stick around, too."

"Mm-hm." John was listening. Attentively.

"Of course, since he knows you, he'll know you're not going to. Or at least he'd be sure you wouldn't say so. So you trick him."

"How?"

"You vow solchronterra."

"What!"

"I'm vowing lifetime with Ianto." Jack informed him casually. "I've got it all set up to propose it next week."

"But I don't intend to stick around. Certainly not my entire life!" John protested. "I don't get anything past then. I'm not immortal. I don't have time to spare."

"Well, I'd do it even if I didn't, but that's just me." Jack assured him. "I'm not saying vow lifetime. Pick a shorter time. Six months, or something. It'll be a stretch, but we managed for a twelvemonth."

"The worst twelve months of my life." John recalled.

"Yes, well. We weren't designed to stay in close contact. I'm just saying, that assures him you're sticking around for a while so he'll be happy, and yet you're not stuck forever, and can abandon him as soon as it's up. Everybody's happy."

John grimaced. "That's just what he said when he was trying to convince me not to kill people." But his pace was slowing down. Jack wasn't quite so desperate as he stretched himself to keep up.

"Well, don't take me up on it, then." Jack told him. "Easy enough. Just trot off, he'll be devastated, you'll move on and never see him again like you always do. I'm sure it's a six month period you couldn't do anything else with."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Me? Totally honest. You can get a lot done in six months. You could probably steal Buckingham Palace with that much time."

"Not worth the effort."

"Naw. But still – lots of things can be done in six months." Jack shrugged. "Or you could do them, anyway. I'm all tied down, anymore. Steady job, steady boyfriend, no time travel…"

"Ugh." John observed half-heartedly.

"Yep. So, solchronterra. Six months. You might even try twelve, if you're brave enough." Jack dared him.

"Oh, just because you're vowing for life, Jack's so special, he can spare eighty years for solchronterra."

"Oh, don't bellow it all over, it's a surprise!" Jack entreated him. "Hey, you could tell Davidson the same day, we could have a double party afterwards. If they accept." He suddenly looked very, very worried.

"Forget the double party. Two events are better than one." John informed him. "Not that I'm taking your suggestion, mind."

"Oh, no, not at all." Jack agreed, finding that he was going faster than John again. And it was John's fault; Jack was only walking normally, and John was practically ambling.

"I suppose I ought to offer you my congratulations."

"Nah, it could jinx it."

"Dead set on this, then?" John asked. "Tie yourself to one person for the rest of his life?"

"Dead set." Jack agreed.

"One person?"

"Ridiculous, isn't it?"

"Totally. Let's get something to drink." John suggested.

"Just over there." Jack pointed, and they turned. Totally normal behavior, now. Drinking. Walking normally. Possibly even depressed over losing Jack, although he doubted it. He felt a little blur of excitement. John, vowing solchronterra! Only for a year, but the way he was talking, it could be another year after that, maybe even another after that. John! Solchronterra! Everything was perfect.

Well, except for having Gray in cryo, anyway.

And he couldn't invite his mother to the celebration, she being three thousand years in the future.

But other than that, perfect.

The thing was, how did you propose solchronterra? You surely couldn't just walk up to him with the usual string of people and… say. Certainly not in the police station. It ought to be private, John was sure of that much. But how private? How special? Jack had it all worked out.

But it had to be an all-John thing, he wasn't going to take Jack's method. Inferior, and inappropriate.

He had asked Jack about it, back when they had vowed… although he didn't much like to remember that. It really hadn't worked. Absolute best day of his life was the day that pendant would come off. But that was Jack. Maybe that was an early sign of just how it wouldn't work… just casually suggest it, since we are stuck in this time loop anyway… and it all falls to pieces around you.

Rather odd, actually, that Jack hadn't denied that they'd spent the whole five years together when he'd said it in front of the man's boyfriend. And it was truth, too, John couldn't even possibly have denied it.

It must have been because they had vowed solchronterra. John supposed he could appreciate that. It would be a little weird to tell your boyfriend you'd once been vowed to a callous murderer.

But he had every intention of vowing. This week. In fact, he wanted to do it before Jack did. Definite time pressures, then.

And he didn't even have the pendants! Oh, dear, this was going to be catastrophic. And where, in twenty-first-century Cardiff, did you find a solchronterrist jeweler? Or even one who would suffice?

He called Jack on his wrist strap. Jack left a message shortly later saying he'd trade the name of a good jeweler for a favor – namely, John going to a later century to get the mechanical operators. And that was yet another thing John hadn't counted on.

Solchronterra was supposed to be simple. If you wanted pomp and circumstance, you could get married, or something some alien culture had brought. And yet you had to have the pendants, the mechanisms, the proposal planned out, and then you had to be ready to host the celebratory party if they accepted. He'd thought it was one of the easier alternatives. It had been, last time. 'Course, last time they couldn't have a party because all their friends and family weren't, as far as they knew, stuck in the time loop with them. It had been quite easy to just suggest trying it out for a while, as long as they were stuck and no one else ever had to know. And in that century, it was easy to get hold of solchronterra pendants.

"All right." John told himself, and called Jack back up. "I don't think that's a good deal on my part. You say two small words, and even if they're Welsh that's not much trouble, and I go forward several centuries? No. You'll have to do better than that. Meet me tomorrow, you can pick the time so your boyfriend doesn't get jealous, and help me plan it."

Jack didn't take long to answer. "Greedy, aren't we? But then, I don't have much choice, I can't travel anymore. Fine. I'll see you then. In fact, we might as well meet downtown, I can take you to the jeweler's in person, and you'd better accept that, John, because you have terrible taste."

John smirked. "I win." He told the empty warehouse.

John did not skip. John was not the skipping type. He was the type to stride murderously, so he did that, only he strode murderously happily. It took effort, and was hard to distinguish from outside his head, but he was very pleased with the effect anyway.

He had the pendant, and he had a plan now, too. (A/N: Jack and John shopping would be really sweet and very nice, but I don't have the fashion sense to do it) All he had to do was find Andy – or let Andy find him, which was possibly a better plan. Andy was good at finding him. Then again, Andy tended to just ask people, and they tended to notice where John went.

So he went to the plass, where Jack could watch, partly so Jack could see him being good, and partly to rub it in Jack's face that he could still time travel.

"Why the plass?" Andy asked when he did arrive, along with the promised bag of chips.

"Several reasons. Andy, may I take you somewhere?"

Andy looked at John, and suspected at least some of his very, very earnest expressions were catching. "All right." He agreed.

"All right. Set the chips down." John ordered. "No littering where we're going."

"Oh, you're one to talk." Andy teased, complying. John offered him his right hand, and when he took it, brought his left around to tap a single key on the wrist strap before looking up at Andy again. Andy didn't move. John punched the rest of the buttons, and hoped Andy wasn't the type who got Riftsick. He hadn't considered that before.

Rift travel didn't take long, though, and when they landed in the great grassy park that was Wales, Andy seemed perfectly fine, and looked around with interest. John followed his gaze over… trees, grass, bushes, a few flowers.

"Where are we?" He asked.

"Cardiff, in the year 0." John told him. He'd thought of taking him to the year the fort was established, or maybe when Cardiff was a budding town, but he decided against any time that Jack was buried underground.

"Not – New Cardiff, on terraformed Mars or something? Year 0 of post-settlement?" Andy inquired.

"No. Cardiff, Earth, anno domine 0."

"There's nothing here."

"Cardiff isn't even built on for another eighty years." John watched him carefully for signs of wanting to return. "We're standing on the plass more than two thousand years from your present, five thousand from mine. Would you like to go hiking?"

"Sure."

"All right." John started off in a direction he'd planned by visiting the area a year in its future, planning the route and yet staying where they could not run into him. He didn't let go of Andy's hand, and his arm never even stretched its full length. "It's a bit more overgrown than I expected. I must have gotten here in earlier spring or something, next year."

"Or there might have been a fire." Andy suggested.

"Not in Wales. Certainly not where we're going."

It wasn't a very long walk, which was good, because Andy was too busy looking around, trying to see everything, to talk, which was sort of making John feel uncomfortable, but at the same time it showed this was definitely a successful outing.

"Nothing much changes." Andy observed after a while.

"Excuse me? We're in the middle of Cardiff, skyscrapers in your time, and there are only trees and shrubbery here." John pointed out.

"But it's the same sort of trees. All the same foliage, and I bet the Rift Torchwood keeps going on about is still here."

"Some things never change." John suggested.

"I like it. I don't think I could cope with too much change." Andy decided. "I'm too Welsh."

"What sort of change? Change in time, change in place, change in planet?"

Andy considered. "I wouldn't mind traveling my time on my planet, provided it weren't for very long and I could get back to Cardiff sooner or later. I think it's the same deal with time. I'd do touristy things, go and see Cleopatra or something, but not very far and not for very long. And I don't ever want to leave Earth." He looked apologetically at John. "I'm just not adventurous. You are, but I get all the excitement I could want being a police officer."

"That's an adventure." John pointed out. "Most jobs don't involve breaking up bar fights, which is an increasingly dangerous occupation as you switch planets, I can tell you that."

"Gwen got concussed. I guess any job where someone can try to concuss you is adventurous." Andy agreed doubtfully. "But then there's serial concussing types…"

"Serial concussing?"

"Well, maybe not."

"All right. Close your eyes." John told him. When Andy did so, he put one hand over them to make sure the other man wouldn't peek, and then carefully guided the two of them out to his final stop. "Okay. Open." And then he waited. "It is pretty, isnt it?" He asked doubtfully.

"It's gorgeous." Water tended to factor into gorgeous, in waves and trickles and cascading falls. This was a sort of burbling fall over rock long smoothed by the stream, with ferns and little sparks of color in the greenery that followed its course, all soft plants, optimistic ones that grew thick and yielding underfoot, with none of the cynicism that caused others to grow thorns or poison. It was cool, shaded by trees, and quiet. It was the prettiest place in the area, and a year later, a storm would alter the path of the stream before it reached this point, incidentally causing three shrubs to become extinct; no one would ever know, not even the two who walked there now.

John smiled happily. Andy liked it. He stood and watched for a while, before John interrupted him. "Sit down. Take your shoes off." He said, but it was a suggestion, not even so much as a request. He did the same himself, which took a little longer because he had worn hiking boots and Andy had sneakers more easily removed. Then John led the way across the very squishy plants to stand in the water where it dropped off the slick rock into a slow, thoughtful flow over silt. It was cold, and would have been more refreshing if it had taken a longer walk to get there, but it was still a fine feeling to have the water flow softly around their ankles as the silt slowly gathered or fell away beneath their toes in an attempt to cover them completely.

"It's beautiful." Andy repeated happily, standing in the water and looking happily up at the pattern of leaves above them.

John smiled. This was it, then. "Andrew," he began, and Andy drew his gaze down to watch John carefully, wary of the Andrew, "would you bond in solchronterra with me, for the period of a twelvemonth?"

Andy looked interested, and then briefly very happy, and then confused and a little disappointed in the brief time it took John to ask him. "What's solchronterra?"

John paused. This had not figured into his plans. He had not imagined someone could not know what solchronterra was. In the twenty-first century, he thought perhaps they wouldn't have the same ritual phrases as his time did, but not even having solchronterra? It was even a human tradition! He had thought it had started when humans learned to walk, if he had thought of it at all, and if aliens picked it up and spread it across the universe, well, humans had always had it. Always.

"Solchronterra…" He began doubtfully, "is like a vow. It is a vow. It's swearing fidelity, sexual and emotional, to one person. For… well, for as long as you vow it."

"So it's like marriage, then." Andy surmised.

"No!" John was shocked. "Marriage isn't the same thing at all. Anyone can get married, for any reason whatsoever, and they can call it off whenever they want. Marriage is temporary, marriage is for state. You can use it politically, or for business partnerships, for legal matters, anything, you can get divorced, it doesn't even designate a time, you could get divorced whenever you like. You do it whenever you like for whatever reasons and however long, nobody cares, you might even hate the person you get married to. Solchronterra is... love only."

"You can't call it off ever, is the difference?" Andy asked, figuring that the way he thought of things, John was proposing marriage even if he wouldn't say so.

"Because you've already designated when it will end." John agreed, letting the other points slide for the moment. He'd fill in the missing pieces later. After all, if this was all Andy was quibbling about, chances were he was planning to accept, which made John a lot happier. "It's a lot simpler, too. No pomp and ceremony, you just vow. You agree to it, and then you say your vow – I guess I'll go first, if you agree, so you know what to say – and then you exchange pendants and you're done. Unless, of course, you choose to celebrate with friends."

"Exchange pendants?"

"I've got them. You have to have them when you ask, no matter how unlikely, in case you're accepted." John assured him. "They're time-locked and everything. Well, you wouldn't know, I guess… really good solchronterra pendants get time locked, so they won't come undone until the end of the period, and they often get engineered so they release endorphins when they come near the linked pendant. Make you happy when you get near the other person – not so much that it would control you, but a little."

"Magic necklaces." Andy muttered.

"Science." John corrected him.

"'S magic to me. You want to try that proposing thing again, then?" Andy suggested, which was a promise of acceptance if John had ever heard one. Andy figured he'd find out the other details on solchronterra later; he knew John wouldn't have him vow something that could be used against him, not Andy. "Now I know what's going on?"

"All right. Are you sure your feet aren't getting cold?"

"I'd get out of the water if they were. It's not icy, it's just cool. Pleasant. You picked a great spot."

John suppressed a smug smile. "Andrew, would you bond in solchronterra with me, for the period of a twelvemonth?"

Andy beamed at him, a fully human smile that said he was very, very happy. "I would love to."

"All right. This is it." John took a breath. "Andrew Davidson, for the next twelvemonth, I vow to keep solchronterra with you, to be faithful to you and you alone, for love's sake."

"John Hart, for the next twelvemonth, I vow to keep solchronterra with you, to be faithful to you and you alone, for love's sake." Andy parroted, with full understanding and agreement.

Solchronterra wasn't a complicated vow; it was all about trusting your partner to understand everything that you personally implied.

The invitations, when they were completed, were more like letters, explaining as they did what solchronterra was, how it differed from marriage, that yes Andy was vowing solchronterra with a boy and if they had objections he was very sorry and he didn't want to hear them, and finally a section more or less labeled 'Just Who Is This John Anyway?'.

That had been the most difficult part, because Andy suspected it would ruin all their credulity to say John was an intergalactic time-traveling con man. They settled on 'from an island very small and far away' but that he was an immigrant who wanted to keep up his parents' country's traditions for marriage, and Andy had met him at work.

"I suppose planets could be considered islands." John agreed dubiously, reading over Andy's shoulder as Andy tried to think how to explain why John seemed so English if he were foreign.

"Do you come from another planet?" Andy asked.

"I don't know." John told him simply. "In my time, everyone gets told they grew up on the one and only home planet Earth. If you ask, you're told it's safer that way."

"Huh." Andy said absently, trying 'It's a very English place anyay, and he's spent a bunch of time here so he's practically Welsh. He's really great, and I wish you could have met him earlier, but since you didn't, I just look forward very, very much to your meeting him now.'

"How many of them are you inviting?" John asked.

"My parents and my sister, my cousins, aunts and uncles, and any children they may have produced. Plus Siani, Dafyd, and Cadoc from work. Don't look like that!" Andy protested. "You set it for six days from now, Cadoc's already said he can't come, and probably none of my extended family will, either. That makes five, same as Torchwood. And it would be rude not to at least invite them."

"Hm." John was unconvinced. "And who do I have to worry about."

"Well, I think your guests have forgiven you, so we'll skip them. If you don't kill Siani, you'll probably only have to worry about impressing my sister and my dad. But Eleni will like you." Andy said confidently, plowing seemingly obliviously through the awkward territory. "She'll probably scold me for stealing such a great guy, once she knows you. And Dad just wants to make sure you're serious and won't leave me broken-hearted."

"You have said it's only for a year and I likely will disappear at the end of it?"

Andy shuffled through the papers. "Yep. Back… here, when I was explaining solchronterra. 'Like an engagement you aren't expected to get married at the end of, and John says he'll probably leave at the end.'" He quoted, ripping the second half of the sentence off ruthlessly. It made John happy.

"And he'll be okay with that?"

"Yep! Once I've explained everything properly." Andy assured him. "Should I send a copy to Torchwood?"

"Oh – probably. You want me to take it to them?"

"Nah, post works just fine."

Torchwood thought the letter was hilarious.

"But totally sweet." Gwen gave her token defense of her old police partner. "John says, John thinks, but Johns everywhere." She looked back at the letter. "When did we start getting post at Torchwood?"

"We have a post box." Ianto told her. "Under the name Torchwood. Jack gave it to me. When I joined! He said a woman named Harriet started it. It does make things easier, although if you're going to check it, I recommend just trashing anything with a handwritten address. It's all complaints, and we don't care."

"You don't even have to mention the proper address. Mail something under 'Torchwood, Cardiff, Wales' and it'll get there." Owen contributed. "Look at this – 'John comes from an island somewhere in the Pacific' – or was it the Atlantic, can't keep these oceans straight…"

"Are we going?" Tosh asked Jack.

"If Daleks and Cybermen team up to destroy the human race, we're still going to John and Andy's –"

"Totally-not-a-wedding party."

"So." John was cornered by a not-very-large but very present older version of Andy. After several similar encounters, he wanted to run away, since Andy had removed the fight option several hours earlier by – looking at him. Asking nicely. And then, by the thousand planets, he'd straightened John's tie. John was going to be good.

"Yes?" He asked politely.

"Your letter said this is only for a year."

"Twelve months." John agreed, since if you interrupted someone regularly it was much harder for them to verbally chain you up and beat you.

"And at the end of that…?" Older-Andy, who was probably Andy's father, grilled him like a teacher who knew he was going to fail the spelling test.

"Oh, I don't know." John shrugged the question off. "It's a wide world. Places to go, people to meet. Some of them are very pretty."

"So you have no intention of entering into a long-term relationship with my son? Even after he's told you you're the only one he'll ever love."

"That's his problem. He knows my intentions, and still says he's a swan and I'm his mater. Swans are very nice birds, I suppose. Have I shown you our solchronterra pendants yet?" John was very proud of the pendants. [description]

"You've probably shown everyone in the room more than once." Andy said, materializing to rescue John from the advances of the parent of a threatened child. "Go show Jack again, he thinks it's cute."

"Which is very strange." John commented, leaning down [*] to kiss Andy's forehead. "If one of us is – if anyone here is 'cute' – it's you. And you are very cute."

Andy gave his father a 'you-see?' look. "I don't know, I rather sympathize with Jack. The man has good taste." He teased.

"And he can keep his good taste to himself and Ianto." John told Andy. "Or I will – "

"Go show Jack." Andy ordered quickly, shoving him gently in that direction. "And while you're at it, could you please get me a strawberry?" He added, turning puppy eyes on John which were not nearly so effective for being intentional, so John decided Andy was getting rid of him and went to go speak with Jack until Andy left his father's company, and not bring him a strawberry.

"The thing about John is…" Andy began once he was gone, then stopped. "Well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, and even if you did, Jack Harkness from Torchwood – have you met him yet? – he'd have to make sure you forgot and I didn't tell you again. Sorry. But what it amounts to is, for reasons of his own, John is never going to admit, even to himself, that he's turning into a swan himself." Andy smiled. "Just you watch. This time next year, you'll get a notice saying we're renewing solchronterra, only for one more year. Twelvemonth, I mean."

"Are you sure?" The older man asked.

"Dad. When I am right about people, I'm right about them. Besides – Eleni likes him." Andy pointed out.

"You must get it from your mother." His father agreed dubiously. "But I'm watching him, just so you know."

"I'll keep that in mind if you'll keep what I told you in mind. Now let's go find him." Andy suggested. "I was serious about that strawberry."

"Andy said to show you my pendant again." John informed Jack.

"Mine's prettier." Jack responded automatically.

"Mine's more romantic."

"Mushy, you mean. John's gone all mushy." Jack taunted him.

"Have not. The next person I kill is going to be Siani." John informed him. "Probably as a present to Andy. Or I'll borrow paper from the pest control people and send him a notice of death."

Jack contrived to look impressed. "She's not that bad."

"She is." John muttered darkly. "Nothing to recommend her, not even her eyes, and eyes are easy. Giraffes have nice eyes."

"Better hurry up then." Jack told him. John looked at him inquiringly. "Before someone observes that if Andy invited her to his solchronterra party, she probably is a very good friend of his. Good enough he won't want her to die." Jack clarified.

John grew very, very alarmed. His face, supposed to be a mask, followed his reaction, lagging about a second behind. "Maybe he just wants her dead? He knows I don't like her, he knows what happens to people I don't like, and so he forces us into proximity and it's practically an accident – and a warning to the rest of the family." It all made sense now, and John reached contemplatively for one of the weapons that was, for the occasion, not there.

"Except," Jack intervened, "that I can't remember a single instance in which someone died at a solchronterra party. Not one." He finished, leaning forward to emphasize the point.

"Oh." John was crestfallen. "Not even a little murder?"

"No."

"That implodes." John said with feeling. [Maybe, but only if John brings up the planned travel later, and I still haven't gotten in a description of the pendants, which was the point of this scene and the last; footnote? Sorry, sis… trying… anyway, a post travel-plans comment, either Jack to Ianto or vice versa: He's taking him on a totally-not-a-honeymoon through time. Was it Ianto who said, earlier, 'totally-not-a-wedding party'?]

The invitations, in the end, were terse:

You are invited to Jonathan Hart and Andrew Davidson's 9th 10th Solchronterra Renewal Party

PS – Mum, bring chocolate. John says he's got it covered, but you know the alien synthetics are crap.

"It's only for a year, you know." John cautioned Andy as he addressed the envelopes and licked them closed. "Don't get too attached."

"I'll try." Andy agreed solemnly. You could offer John chips, and he'd really want them, but he'd just say no, so you had to ask him again, until he said yes. And then he'll say he only wants one, but really he wants all of them, and that's how he'll eat them – one chip at a time, until they're all gone.