Part II-

The ambulance has just left, and Jones is cleaning up the blowfish's body while Gwen administers retcon to the rest of the family in the back room.

"This is ridiculous," Jones says bad-temperedly, zipping up the body bag deftly. "This must be the most amateur operation in the history of Torchwood, ever. I can't believe you let it not only get away but also break into a house and take a family hostage. At least Harkness could drive."

"Bite me, Jones," Owen says irritably, picking up the other side of the body bag as they carry it to the SUV. "You really think you can do better?"

"I know I can do better," Jones says arrogantly and Toshiko Sato rolls her eyes at Owen's furious look. Sometimes she thinks Jones says things like that on purpose just to get Owen to blow his lid.

"Can you get the bleach while you're out there?" she calls, eyeing the bloodstain on the cream colored carpet distastefully.

"Who do you think I am? Your maid?

"I think you'd look fetching in a maid's outfit," Tosh shouts, grinning at Owen's yelp of disgust.

"Owen's wearing a maid outfit now?" a familiar voice comes from behind her. "I have been gone a long time."

She whirls around and he hasn't changed a lick, smiling handsomely down at her, just as if he had never gone.

"Jack!" Gwen cries, gaping at him from the the other side of the room, frozen in the door-frame.

Tosh just mouths wordlessly and she hears Owen curse from outside and he and Jones, rush in, Jones with his gun at the ready.

"Jack?" Owen stares, momentarily surprised, before adapting his usual annoyed expression. "Where the bloody hell have you been?"

"You miss me?" he asks cheerfully, and Tosh rather wants to slap him.

Four months. Four bloody months and he dares-

"Apparently not," Jack says, frowning at Jones' gun, which is pointed directly at his forehead. "You mind putting that down?"

"How do we know it's you?" Jones asks coolly, not relaxing for an instant.

Jack raises an eyebrow, "You wanna shoot me and find out?"

Jones scowls at this, but holsters his gun and Jack gives him a strange assessing look before turning towards the rest of them, smiling in a maddeningly aggravating way.

Owen asks Jack no less than forty-five questions on the way back to the Hub, all of which Jack deflects with a charming smile and a bit of flirtation. Tosh would be impressed if she weren't restraining herself from screaming at him. Gwen looks like she's in the same boat as well as Jones, through probably without the impressed part.

Jack seems surprised that Gwen has taken over as leader, more surprised by the fact that Jones actually listens to her by the way he keeps staring at him. It's a valid concern. When it became apparent that Jack wouldn't be back for a while (or ever) she, Owen, and Gwen had all worried at one point or another if Jones would just go back to his old, merciless ways and even if they themselves would be in danger. But Jones didn't blink an eye when Gwen starting giving orders, seemingly completely uninterested in being in charge. He was as cold and rude as ever, as well as randomly sarcastic, which always caught them off-guard, but he'd been loyal and a good worker, which was probably all they could expect from him.

Everything is awkward, and they all pretend to be extremely busy so they don't have to look at Jack, except for Jones who makes it even more awkward by making morbid jokes about alien blowfish sushi on his way to the morgue.

Jack stares at him on his way out in a way that might be considered sexual if Tosh didn't know any better, "What's up with him?" he asks, actually sounding curious.

This is apparently enough for Gwen, who takes the opportunity to shove him against the wall next to the door.

"You left us, Jack!" she accuses.

Jack sighs, "I know," he says simply. "I'm sorry."

He doesn't look it though, Tosh cannot help thinking.

"We knew nothing, Jack!" Gwen persists, furious still.

"Where were you?" Tosh asks, which to her is the most important question.

"I found my doctor," Jack says, smiling a bit.

"The Doctor or your doctor?" Owen asks. "Or are they the same person?"

"Same person," Jack clarifies with a nod.

"Your doctor is the same Doctor that was at the Battle of Canary Wharf?" Gwen asks, looking alarmed.

"Yup."

"Did he fix you then?" Owen asks impatiently.

This is the wrong question and some part of Jack seems to break before he's quickly laughing it off.

Then, just as they are getting real, hard answers, the Rift Alarm goes off.

"Bollocks," Tosh mutters under her breath. "Rift activity!"

"Jones!" Gwen shouts, leaning over the railing to yell into the basement. "Rift Activity!"

"No time for sushi then," he says in mock-disappointment when he climbs back up a few seconds later, only a little out of breath, "Did I miss anything important?"

"Er," Jack says, strangely awkward. "I'm back?"

Jones looks at him disdainfully. "So I see," he says. "Mind telling us when you pop off again because this lot was useless for days after you left, and I'd rather like a warning so I know not to bother coming in to work."

"Oi!" Owen says angrily. "If you're quite finished, we have work to do."

Strangely enough, Jack looks insulted too, and Tosh would think about that more but then they're too busy for her to analyze it any further.

They find a dead body at on the street covered with fragments of rift energy, and it turns out the killer is an acquaintance of Jack's. He ditches them (sound familiar?) and they're forced to chase after him in a taxi only to find him in a trashed bar having a drink.

"You've got a team! How sweet! Oh, pretty little friends! No blonde, though. You need a blonde," the killer, a short man with brown hair, says inanely.

"God, he's worse than Jack," Owen mutters from the opposite end of the room.

"Oh, do you have a team name?" the man continues, gleefully sarcastic. "I love team names, go on!"

"Torchwood," Jack says defiantly, apparently not on good as terms with the killer as she originally thought.

"Oh. Not Excalibur?" the man mocks. "Blizzard? Bikini Cops? No? Torchwood. Oh, dear."

"Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato," Jack starts, in the sort of voice that means he's trying to be professional and impressive, "Owen Harper, and Jones, meet..."

"Captain John Hart," he says in a tone that makes Tosh very much doubt it is his real name.

"We go back," Jack explains shortly.

"Excuse me," Hart says, displaying the first emotion besides scornful amusement. "We more than go back. We were partners."

"Yes, that's lovely," Jones says sarcastically. "You the one that shoved that bloke off the roof?"

"And if I was?" Hart asks challengingly.

"Then I'd say it was in my job description to kill you," Jones replies, and Hart raises his arm to point his gun right back at Jones so fast she barely sees it move.

"Woah, hey, hey, hey," Jack says, placing himself between the two men bracingly, his back to Hart. "Jones, put the gun down."

"Why?" Jones grits out. "He's a threat."

"I said," Jack commands. "Put. The gun. Down."

"Having leadership problems?" Hart mocks.

"Shut up, if you don't want to die," Jack tells him.

"Oh, please," Hart sighs, but doesn't take his eyes off Jones. "Sure, he's all ponced up like pro, but how old are you pretty-boy? Sixteen? Gorgeous, though," he continues appreciatively. "I see why you keep him 'round."

Jones looks disgusted.

"Jones," Jack says warningly.

"Section four, Subsection b, Roman numeral one," Jones raps off, "That's the part of the Torchwood Foundation Charter that necessitates the elimination of temporal threats."

"Pretty and smart," Hart says with a leer. "Next you'll be telling me he's viking in the sack. I don't suppose we can put this standoff on hold and go somewhere private, what do you say?"

"I would rather be eaten by a Hoix."

"Ah, well, had to try," Hart smirks. "Though if you kill me, you do realize you'll never find out where those radiation cluster bombs are."

"Radiation cluster?" Owen questions. "I don't like the sound of that."

Hart smiles, "Three canisters, contents beyond toxic, swallowed up in a riftstorm."

"And ended up here," she deduces, starting to feel cold.

"Why do you care?" Jack asks, reaching out to slowly push Jones' gun arm down.

"Dying woman's wish," Hart explains. "Promised her I'd go after them and all. Honor of my mother."

Jack doesn't look convinced.

"Do you think we're stupid?" Jones snarls, gun arm actively being held down by Jack now. "'Radiation cluster bombs?" Don't make me laugh."

"Can you really afford not to be sure?" Hart asks, and Jones scowls, but relents.

Later, of course, it turns out that Jones was right all along and that Hart's a traitorous bastard who she can't believe she ever thought was cute, even for a second. Tosh reminds herself to listen to Jones more often as she presses her sweater to the bullet whole in his hip.

"I-fuck-fucking knew I should've killed him!" Jones rages incoherently, shaking violently with pain.

Her vision comes in spots before her eyes in the dim light, and she blinks several times before speaking.

"Don't worry," she tries to say soothingly. "Jack'll stop him."

Jones lets out an unconvinced snort, "Y-yeah, if he's not too busy thinking with his c-cock!"

"Tosh! Jones!" Owen's voice comes through the darkness and Tosh could cry with relief.

"Over here!" she screams. "Hurry, he's lost a lot of blood!"

Owen patches Jones up as best as he can and they find Gwen just barely in time to give her the antidote to the poison Hart forced on her.

They return to the Hub to confront him, and then everything goes more to hell than it already has. Gwen almost gets blown to pieces chained to John Hart, they get "temporally displaced" to the beginning of the night, and Tosh really didn't need to know that thing about the poodle. Jones tolerates Jack and Hart's weird flirting, probably mostly because he's in so much pain, but he balks when Jack decides to let him go.

"We are not letting him go," he hisses, gun raising again.

Hart lets out an exaggerated sigh, "Oh, Jonesy, Jonesy, Jonesy. You're pretty, but you really do have a one-track mind. Learn to, I dunno, multitask, or it gets rather boring after a while."

"Shut up!" Jones snarls, clearly not amused, though after being shot, Tosh imagines few things are.

"Jones, leave it," Jack says seriously.

"Oh, so it's perfectly fine that he just threw some random man off a building for no discernible reason? Or killed that woman?" Jones says furiously, gun trained on Hart carefully even though he's balanced precariously on one leg.

She has to admit he has a point.

"I just want him out of here," Jack says wearily. "Just be done with it."

"So he can go and kill someone else in another timezone? Become someone else's problem?" Jones persists.

"Can't help but what I am," Hart smiles nastily

Jack gives him a wary side glance, "You're really not helping your case here," he says casually.

"Right, like you'd really kill me," Hart scoffs confidently. "That might be who you used to be, Captain Jack Harkness or whatever you're calling yourself now, but it's certainly not you now. Besides, Eye Candy," he says turning to Jones. "Time Agents don't go down as easy as you think."

"Wanna bet?" Jones replies, "I've killed a Time Agent before, seemed as easy as anyone else."

Hart goes stiff. "Who?" he demands, serious all of the sudden.

"Don't know, don't care," Jones says, looking rather ruthless.

"Why did you kill him?" Jack asks suddenly.

"Because he was kidnapping children, molesting them, and then dropping them off at random points in the past," Jones growls. "For fun. Charming people you associate yourself with, Harkness."

"Ooh, sounds like ol' Welen," Hart says nostalgically, not bothered in the least. "Creepy as fuck, he was. Always wondered what happened to him."

Tosh turns to look at Jack, who is looking horrified. Apparently, he didn't know who this man was, or what he was doing. Unless it's an act...She feels sick and confused, unsure of whose side to take. Owen is glaring at Hart with undisguised disgust and on the other hand, Gwen is looking fearfully between Jack and Jones.

"So, you've decided you're going to kill me then," Hart says, sauntering towards Jones. "Why haven't you pulled the trigger, yet, then?"

Jones' face is angry, but he doesn't reply, frozen in motion.

"You're all talk," Hart says leaning in, his cheek against the barrel of Jones' firearm. "Though I do love it, brilliant vowels you got there. But you'll still have to work with these people tomorrow and if you shoot me without their approval, Jack over here will probably make things difficult for you, am I right?"

Jones makes a disgusted noise that is neither an affirmative or negative response.

"Or maybe," Hart continues, voice low and interested. "You're getting off on thi-"

A shot rings out and Jones screams with pain as Hart grabbed his bullet wound to screw up his aim. Jones topples over, but Hart catches him, looking extremely pleased.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" he says predatorily, shamelessly groping him. "It's not everyday I have gorgeous young things falling into my arms."

He presses his fingers into Jones' wound again and Jones gives a shout of pain.

"Get off him!" Jack snaps, punching Hart squarely in the jaw and pulling Jones away from him.

Jones falls to his knees with a whimper and Hart laughs.

"So naïve," he murmurs. "I can see the appeal."

Jack gives him a disgusted look and grabs for his Webley.

"Alright, alright," Hart says defensively, pressing a button on his wrist strap. "I'm going, I'm going."

He walks backwards into the Rift. "Oh! By the way...I meant to tell you," he adds to Jack. "I found Gray."

Jack looks stunned and suddenly there are two shots in succession. Next to Jack, still on his knees with blood dripping down his trousers, Jones has pushed himself into a upright position, his firearm pointed directly at the Rift.

Tosh whirls back to the Rift to see if they hit Hart, but he's faded away almost completely and then he's gone.

"What the hell was that?" Jack asks him, livid, grabbing his shoulder and forcing Jones to look at him.

"A temporal threat," Jones gasps in pain.

"You could've killed him," Jack says furiously. "He might be dead! I fucking told you not to-"

Jones' eyes roll back up into his head and Jack grabs him before his head hits the pavement.

"Great," Jack says furiously. "Owen!"

"Jack," Gwen murmurs when they've all piled themselves into the SUV later on, Jones still unconscious and cushioned between her and Tosh in the middle seat, "Who's Gray?"


They can't go back to the Hub and risk running into themselves, so Owen ends up having to "borrow" some more pain killers from the local hospital so Jones doesn't have an aneurysm trying to pretend he's not in pain when he wakes up.

Despite the complete disaster the night turned out to be, Jack Harkness finds himself in a shockingly good mood. He's back in Cardiff, none of them have tried to kill him yet, and while it'll probably take a while for them to fully trust him again, he's confident he'll get there eventually. As long as he doesn't think too hard about Gray, everything will be fine.

Owen's flat is the closest and they're all too fagged out to do anything but crash there for a while.

"Who's for takeout?" Jack asks cheerfully after they dump a still unconscious Jones on Owen's leather sofa.

"Please," Gwen moans. "Anything, I'm bloody starving."

"You're paying, then," Owen replies, glaring at Jones, and picking up trash as he speaks.

"Your flat's really dirty, Owen," Tosh observes. "How do you live like this?"

"You could always leave," Owen says coldly. "There're chairs in the kitchen," he tells the rest of them "unless you want to stand around here and watch Jones ruin my sofa."

They migrate to Owen's sad excuse for a kitchen, and Jack steals his phone to ring for Thai.

"So," Gwen says a little while later after swallowing a mouthful of noodles, and Owen has entered the room, apparently having given up on making his flat acceptable. "You gonna tell us where you were?"

"End of the universe," Jack replies, surprised at how easily it comes. Of course, it's not the whole truth, but it'll have to do for now. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to tell anyone what really happened. He could barely talk to Martha and the Doctor about it. They were there, yes, but they can't possibly understand what he went through, not really.

Tosh, Owen, and Gwen stare at him.

"R-Really?" Tosh asks timidly, "The end of the universe?"

"The universe has an end?" Gwen wants to know.

"Billions and billions of years from now," Jack says, leaning against Owen's kitchen counter next to the fridge, holding his box of takeaway more tightly than is probably necessary.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Gwen demands suddenly. "We didn't know anything! Couldn't you have just- I don't know-left us a note?"

"No time," he says, wishing more than anything to get off this subject, but knowing that they'll just keep asking questions if he doesn't answer them, "There was only a small window that I could leave in. I barely had enough time to grab my things."

"But it was all for nothing, though?" Owen asks insensitively, "Your doctor, you said he didn't fix you."

That hurts, Jack has to admit, but he knows it's not Owen's intention. He plasters a smile onto his face and shakes his head.

"Apparently so," he murmurs, trying to ignore that aching in his chest as he remembers the words: Jack, you're wrong.

"What planet were you on?" Tosh asks curiously. "I mean, Earth would be long gone by then, so...Or were you in a space shi-?"

"Jack, think I can call Rhys now?" Gwen asks suddenly, unsubtly trying to divert to conversation away from his travels. She must have realized how uncomfortable their questions are making him and he gives her a small, grateful smile. Still, it's strange to be on the end of her highly vaunted compassion. He isn't sure he likes it.

Still, he's saved from making the obligatory rude remark about Rhys (God, he can't believe she's actually marrying him!) by Jones falling off the sofa in the other room with an embarrassing yelp.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" he swears loudly, continuing with a long line of curses that Jack doesn't even know the meaning of, a feat in itself considering he's been living in Cardiff for over a hundred years.

They rush into the sitting room and Jones gives another surprised shout, his firearm trained on them expertly with one hand, the other clutching his injured hip.

"Good God, Jones," Owen says bad-temperedly, raising his hand. "Paranoid much?"

"Didn't we take away his gun?" Gwen mutters. "How many guns do you have on you anyway?"

"Three," Jones answers automatically. "Where the fuck am I?"

"My place," Owen snarls, prematurely defensive. "We have to avoid ourselves for the rest of the night, so we came here."

"Great," Jones grumbles, lowering his gun and glancing around the flat scornfully. "Just when I thought this night couldn't get any worse."

"You don't have to stay," Owen says, hackles rising. "If you don't like my decorating skills, piss off!"

"Owen," Jack says warningly, grabbing his shoulder.

"Surprisingly, I wasn't talking about your complete inability to clean up after yourself," Jones replies, voice full of contempt. "Rather the fact that I've been shot and now find myself on your floor with no trousers."

"Don't flatter yourself, you arrogant son of a bitch," Owen hisses, and Jack has to try very hard not to laugh.

"What time is it?" Jones asks rudely, using Owen's coffee table to slowly pull himself back onto the sofa, grabbing his trousers and pulling them on as he goes.

He's biting his lip in pain, sweating, cursing under his breath, vest undone, revealing his skintight under armor beneath and Jack can see every contour of his chest muscles. He wonders how it'd feel to run his hands his over pecs, all the way down to his briefs and-

He ruthlessly cuts off that train of thought before he gets too carried away. It's Jones, for God's sake!

"Quarter to four," Gwen answers. "What time do you reckon we disappeared at?"

"There were people out walking, so at least six," Tosh answers helpfully. "Better make it at least seven before Jack can go back to the Hub."

"Well, the rest of you can clear out though," Owen says nastily. "As long as you go right home you won't run into yourselves."

"You don't have to be so rude about it, Owen," Gwen says coldly.

"What, you got your food, haven't you," he replies. "Now, I'm knackered from being menaced by one of Jack's exes and running all around Cardiff, trying to save your life. And, as was so eloquently put, Jones was just on my floor with no trousers, meaning I'll probably have to move to get rid myself of the memories."

Jones makes an amused sound, proving he is the twisted son of a bitch Jack has always privately thought he was.

Not to be outdone, Gwen sarcastically retorts to Owen's reasoning from kicking them all out, but Jack tunes her out, watching Jones instead as he shifts cumbersomely on the sofa, clearly uncomfortable being in a room with so many large windows. Just like any good soldier.

For probably the hundredth time since Jack got back, he mulls over that kiss, wondering why on Earth Jones did that. He sees practically nothing of him in this Jones, who is as cruel and professional as ever, but it's given him a reason to give him a second glance, wondering about his motives, his dark humor, and why he never realized what a spectacular arse Jones has. He realizes now that he really doesn't know who Jones is, besides the information in his file, and he wants to know more, whatever the cost.

He watches Jones watch Gwen and Owen's exchange with vague amusement and then turns to Owen's med kit sitting on the coffee table. Casually, Jones reaches out and picks up one of the syringes Owen stole from the hospital, eying it matter-of-factly. Then, without warning, he pushes down the waist of his trousers and jabs the syringe into his hip in a way that Jack finds ridiculously hot.

"Oi!" Owen protests, distracted from his conversation with Gwen. "What the hell do you think you're playing at! You can't just stick that in there! What if you hit an artery!"

He pushes past Tosh and leans over the sofa to examine Jones' injury.

"Oh, get off," Jones says, batting his hands away. "I know what I'm doing. I have been shot in the hip before, you know," he pauses for a second, looking contemplative, "Other hip, though."

"How many times have you been shot?" Tosh asks, and Jones frowns, counting in his head.

"This makes number nine," he says decisively, and the rest of Jack's team gape at him.

"Why the hell aren't you dead?" Owen asks bluntly.

"I became a field agent to get myself killed," Jack hears Jones murmur in the back of his mind.

Jones smiles coldly.

"I'm lucky," he says simply.

A couple days later, Jack stumbles onto the strange scene of Owen on Tosh's computer.

"Tosh is going to kill you if you accidentally download another virus onto her computer," Jack says dryly.

Owen looks up, scowling, "I make one mistake two years ago..." he says rolling his eyes. "Anyway, I'm not on the internet, I was just looking at Jones' medical records from Torchwood One."

"Oh?" Jack says interestedly, coming over to look at the screen over Owen's shoulder.

"Looks like he was telling the truth," Owen says sourly. "He's really been shot nine times in the last five years. And considering this is the first time he's been shot here and he's been in Cardiff a little more than two..."

"Christ, what did he do in London?" Jack exclaims.

"Unfortunately those records were destroyed in the Battle," Owen says, tapping his pen against the desk irritatingly. "But he's going to have major issues later in life. Look, shot in the thigh in March of '04, even with surgery that's guaranteed arthritis. Shot twice in the back two months later, nearly bleed out and one of the bullets hit his right kidney." Owen brings up a colorful picture that looks like a CAT scan, but ultimately means nothing to Jack. "Completely fucked up now. Stabbed in the chest and his left lung collapsed. Broke his right arm in four places in January of '05. Shot again in the chest almost five months later, didn't hit anything vital though," Owen throws up his hands, "It just goes on and on!"

"He is really, really lucky, he's not dead," Jack says, almost in wonder.

"Pity," Owen grouses, and Jack gives him a sharp look. "What, he's a prick!"

"You should know better than to joke about that, given what we deal with everyday," Jack says coldly.

Owen rolls his eyes and continues pissing around with Jones' file. Jack leaves him to it, a cold, uncomfortable feeling in his chest that wasn't there when he first walked into the room.

"Whoa..." Owen suddenly says, and despite himself, Jack turns back to look at the monitor again. "Jones' got a bit of a criminal record. Buried pretty deep in here, London wiped it after they hired him, but..."

"Shoplifting, shoplifting, more shoplifting," Jacks reads, eyes fixed to the screen.

"Intent to break and enter, whatever that means," Owen continues. "Mostly petty stuf-Oh, Hel-lo, assault charge."

"Where?" Jack demands, a slower reader than Owen (in English, anyway,) and the doctor clicks on it to see the details.

"Instigated a physical altercation with a Luke Brace in '97, fuck, how old was he? Fifteen? Never did any time though."

"Find out about him," Jack demands, the words Actually, I picked this up years ago, in my lawbreaking youth, of course ringing in his ears.

"Who? Brace?" Owen asks, "Why do you want to know?"

"What's going on?" Gwen asks, and she and Tosh walks up the stairs to Tosh's work station.

"What are you doing on my computer?" Tosh asks warily.

"Looking up Jones' criminal record," Owen says, rolling his eyes at Tosh's reaction. "Wanna see?"

Both women lean over to look at the screen.

"Turns out he got arrested for thrashing some bloke when he was a teenager," Owen says, with a small amount of amusement.

"Look up the guy he beat up," Jack orders.

"Wait," Gwen protests. "I'm still reading the-"

"Just do it," Jack demands roughly, and Owen grumbles, but complies.

"Born August 17th , 1970 in Canton, divorced in '94 and-" Owen pauses. "Bloody hell, he's got a criminal record too, identity theft, petty larceny, grand theft auto, assault, sexual assault, domestic abuse," Owen's face twists in disgust. "He's doing time in Swansea for the last three."

He lets go of the mouse and looks up at Jack. "Well, at least he went after someone who deserved it."

"Where is Jones anyway?" Tosh asks worriedly, looking behind them as if she expects him to pop up out of nowhere.

"Downstairs in the archives," Gwen replies, looking down at the monitor worriedly.

"Well, better close the window before he comes back up," Jack warns and leaves them all to marvel over Jones' murky past, uncomfortable feeling in his chest still very much present.

"You've gotten better at that," Jones tells him a couple weeks later as he exits the interview room after interrogating Beth Halloran, leaning casually on the railing. "'Just us and this room for as long as it takes?' It's a good line."

Jack scowls at him. He doesn't need to be told he's good at interrogating prisoners by Jones.

"I have been doing this awhile," he replies darkly.

"Been doing it badly," Jones says, looking at him suspiciously. "Always too much anger. What, did you pick up some tricks on that little sojourn of yours?"

Jack feels all the color drain out of his face, registering Jones' searching gaze, and feeling the sudden urge to be sick. That and shove Jones over the railing.

"Why?" he bites out, desperate to shift the conversation away from himself, "Is that what you would have said?"

Jones gives a cold laugh. "I think I've got better lines than that," he says, pushing himself off the railing.

"Mind you," he says, turning back right on the threshold of his office, giving Jack an unsettling once over. "If you're going to pretend that everything's normal, you should really stop being so obvious."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jack says angrily, careful to keep his voice low so Tosh and Owen won't hear. "What do you think you know?"

"You were tortured," Jones says casually, in the same tone of voice he would use to tell a stranger that their shoelaces are untied. "A lot."

Jack opens and closes his mouth wordlessly, wanting to deny it, wanting to say something cruel that will put Jones in his place, but draws a blank. And before Jack can think of a suitable reply, Jones is already halfway down the hallway.

Jack watches him go with fury. He almost forgot how much he hated Jones. Stupid, annoyingly perceptive Jones with his guns and his scars and Jack would like nothing more than to shove him down the stairs. Kick him down into his room, handcuff him to the headboard, rip off that stupid vest and under armour shirt and get his hands and mouth all over his scarred torso. Lave his tongue all over those bullet scars, bite his nipples just to be irritating, get him swearing, sweating, and moaning, and then he'd fuck him until Jones begged for release. Jack can see him in his mind's eye already, his head titled back, eyes closed, gorgeous mouth whimpering and gasping, jerking against the cuffs, helpless and pleadi-

"Jack?" Tosh asks, she and Owen giving him strange looks from their work on the other side of his office.

"What?" he says, startled, "Oh, right. Anything on the body scan?"

Later, as usual, everything falls apart. Beth turns out to be and alien infiltrator sent to spy on Earth, eventually activate, and take over the planet. They barely manage to stop the impending invasion (quite dashingly, if he does say so himself) and return to the Hub.

"Everything fine here?" Jack asks, Gwen helping Beth slowly up the stairs.

Owen and Tosh both look a little shaken from what they've found out. Jones just looks irritated. (Surprise, surprise.)

"Yeah, we're fine, Jack," Owen says, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

"You might be fine," Jones says darkly. "I've been scarred for life, I have."

They all give him a strange look.

"You might have been out saving the world from alien invasion," Jones explains, completely serious. "But we," he gestures between him and Tosh, "were just propositioned by Harper here. I doubt the nightmares will ever cease."

"Oh, fuck you, Jones," Owen scowls at him, while Jack tries hard not to laugh. "End of the world, I thought."

"And when I said the end of the world couldn't get any worse, I meant that literally," Jones retorts.

Jones and Owen are still exchanging insults while Tosh works on the cryogenics program and when Beth shoves Gwen out into the Hub, alien blade at her throat.

They plead with her, try to get her to see reason, but Beth has made up her mind and they have no choice but to shoot her. Three shots ring out and Beth will not move again.

"She wanted you to shoot her!" Gwen says furiously next to her body, almost in tears. "She used her last shred of humanity to do this."

"We couldn't take that chance," Owen murmurs. "She must have known that."

"She did," Jack confirms, looking regretfully down at Beth's body. "She just wanted to make it eas-"

He stops, counts the bullet holes again, and turns around, very slowly, to where Jones is standing all the way at the back. He is gun is not even out and he is very, very pale, eyes fixed on Beth.

Jacks files this away in the back of his mind as another thing about Jones that does not make sense.

He tries to ignore Jones, to think about him no more than he did before The Year That Never Was, but it turns out to be nearly impossible. It's ridiculous, pining over a man that doesn't even exist and probably never will. It took an apocalypse for Jones to act like a human being and Jack's not going to let another one of those happen, not on his watch.

But it doesn't...it just doesn't make any sense. He finds it utterly impossible to reconcile the cruel man who's worked under him for two and a half years, the man who murdered his lover in cold-blood, with the Jones who gave his life to free him and kissed him in a way that still haunts Jack's dreams. Sometimes he wonders if he hallucinated the entire encounter, but even his imagination isn't creative enough to come up with a scenario like that. He knows people can change, he himself is a perfect example, but...but...he just wishes Jones would change already, even though he knows it's probably never going to happen.

He sees no indication that Jones plans on changing his ways, or even that he regrets any of his actions, but some part of him, an incredibly irrational part that believes just as strongly as Gwen does in the good of humanity, keeps watching him, just in case.


"Right, everyone here?" Owen Harper asks, looking around the Hub. "Where's Jones?"

"Writing up the paperwork on the space whale in the archives," Gwen says, looking at Owen curiously. "I can pop down and get him if you-"

"No, him not being here is sort of the point," Owen says decisively. "Look," he continues, turning towards Jack. "Jones needs to go."

"What?" Tosh says, looking a little worried. Owen resists the urge to roll her eyes. Just because he saved her life that one time last year doesn't mean she has to act all defensive.

"It's not like there's anything keeping him here," he explains. "London is gone and they were the only reason he came here anyway. It's not like any of us wanted him here in the first place."

"True," Jack says, but Owen gets the feeling that somehow Jack isn't as amenable to his idea as he thought he'd be.

"And he shot those two blokes at the warehouse too," Owen adds. "He's dangerous, Jack. We've been busy since London fell, but now we need to get rid of him. We can hire someone else if you're worried about shortages."

"He didn't kill them," Tosh protests. "Look, I know he's not very...well, nice, but what're you going to do? Retcon the last five and a half years of his life?"

"If I have to," Owen says determinedly. "Gwen? Jack?"

Gwen bites her lip nervously. "I agree with you, Owen, I really do," she says slowly. "He's an awful person who probably should be locked up, but..."

Owen's heart falls, "But?"

"We need him, Owen," she says apologetically. "We would be dead two times over without him, especially in those four months when Jack..."

She trails off, giving Jack a dirty look. She and Jack haven't been on good terms since he tried to get her to retcon her moronic fiancé.

"And you?" he says, turning to Jack. "You agree with her too?"

Jack frowns. "I don't see that we have much of a choice," he says, careful for reasons Owen can't quite make out. "Gwen's right."

Owen curses, but before he can tell them that they're all idiots, the Rift alarm goes off.

"Jones!" Gwen shouts, running to the railing.

"Coming!" he answers and then they're off.

"Where're we going, Toshiko?" Jack asks, tapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel in annoyance at a stoplight.

"Western Cardiff, a bit beyond city limits," she says distractedly, eyes fixed on her scanner. "Cromwell Estate, it looks like."

"Oh, that's a pretty bad area, innit?" Gwen asks. "We always heard a lot of robberies being reported."

"Speaking of, reports of police on the scene," Tosh says. "There's been a murder apparently."

"Do you really have to be going this slow?" Jones asks abruptly from the back. "We have the lights for a reason, you know."

"Stuff it, Jones," Owen says, still annoyed that he's going to be working with Jones a lot longer than he expected.

It takes them about half an hour with traffic to get to Cromwell Estate and by the time they do, police cars are everywhere and and they have to park the SUV further away from the scene than Owen would like.

"Oh, it doesn't look so bad, does it?" Gwen mutters to Tosh as they walk past a long line of identical townhouses, pulling out their gear as they go.

"Excuse me," Jack says rudely, coming up to the constables who have cordoned off the middle of the street where the body lies and are actively guarding the scene from several score of curious onlookers. "I'm going to need you and the forensics in there all to move back. We're Torchwood."

He flashes his ID, but the constable looks nonplussed, "Who? What the hell is Torchwood?"

"Listen, mate," Gwen says kindly, elbowing Jack out of the way. "We're special ops. We need to look at the body."

"Oh, please, 'ow old do you think I am?" the constable says scornfully. "I've never heard of Torchwood before. And you lot, you're not even in uniform-"

"What's going on here?" another constable asks, coming up behind the first fellow.

"These lot say they're some special ops outfit-was what it-"

"Torchwood," Jack supplies irritatedly.

"Yeah, and I said-"

"Idiot!" the older constable hisses, pushing his companion out of the way and pulling up the yellow CAUTION tape. "Sorry about Hier here, sir, he's new, right this way."

"What the-" the younger constable says, looking bewildered as they pass him.

Beside Owen, Gwen smiles a little wistfully.

"That used to be me," she says as they approach the body. "I remember being so angry that you just shoved your way through us like-bleeding hell, what happened to him?"

The body, an older man, probably in his 60s or 70s, has had his entire torso ripped open, organs pushed aside and his clothes utterly soaked in his own blood.

"Oh, god," Tosh says, horrified, looking like she's going to throw up. Gwen looks the same and even Jack has a peculiar green expression on his face. Jones does not look at all fazed. One day Owen will get over the shock.

"If you're going to be sick, please wait until after we get it back to the Hub," Owen says snidely. "It'll be pretty embarrassing otherwise."

"It can't be human," Gwen says, gagging a bit.

"Yeah, remember the last time you said that? We got cannibals."

"Right," Jack orders. "Owen give the body a quick look, but we're going to have to take it back to the Hub, and soon. Tosh, see if you can find anything on your scanner and then help Owen wrap it up. Jones, back the SUV up here so we can lift the body into back and Gwen, ask what the PCs found and see if any of the locals know anything."

Gwen darts off, pleased to be away from the body and goes to talk to the coppers who have been standing by watching them mutinously. She immediately starts asking them if they know the man's name, like that matters.

Owen rolls his eyes and looks down to examine the body more carefully.

"He hasn't been dead long," he catalogues aloud. "No surprise as he was killed in the middle of the bloody street. Half an hour? That coincides with the Rift. Thing must've had considerable strength to rip through muscle and bone, in one go, it looks like. Didn't look like it took anything, though."

He prods around inside the dead guy's chest and abdomen a bit, smirking at Tosh's sharp inhale.

"As far as I can tell, nothing's missing or been damaged on the inside. Anything on your end?"

Tosh shakes her head, "No alien residue or anything out of the ordinary detected," she says shakily. "But it just could mean we might not have seen it before or it's hiding. Didn't work on Beth."

"Right," he says, dusting off his hands and moving to stand. "Jones has brought the SUV around, let's get it into a body bag."

Gwen returns as they're lifting it into the back, looking disgruntled.

"They wouldn't tell me anything," she says crossly.

"Of course, they wouldn't," Owen says, rolling his eyes. "It's an estate, Gwen, they probably think you're trying to arrest them all."

Jones gives him a sour look, but then they're suddenly interrupted by a heavyset man wearing a rugby shirt.

"Oi," he shouts at Jones, having pushed himself all the way to tape. "Aren't you Johnny Davies' brother-in-law?"

"Yup," Jones replies, looking uncomfortable as they all turn to stare at him. "Sorry, I don't recall..."

"Simon Ashton," the man replies, looking a little insulted. "Ianto, was it?"

"Right," Jones says, striding forward and blocking the man from their view sightly, and Owen is confused for a second until he remembers that Ianto is Jones' first name.

"Cor, I didn't know you were a copper," the man continues, looking up and down at Jones' clothes in awe.

"Security actually," Jones mutters, turning his head and giving it slight jerk in their direction, clearly stating Move along, now, please.

"You get your own piece and everything?" Ashton continues as they finish putting the body in the SUV.

To Owen's surprise, Jones continues the conversation quite cordially, cleverly avoiding questions about his job and the crime scene, and instead inquires casually about the victim.

"Sorry, got to run," Jones says once he's gotten enough information.

"Say hello to your sister for me," Ashton replies, but watches Jones suspiciously as he gets into the SUV, and they drive away.

"Name is Cecil Adams, lived just down the road. His wife died in '02 and he's been living alone since then," Jones says stiffly. "He took walks every afternoon, one of which he was probably on when the Rift opened." He pauses for a few seconds. "I didn't know the Rift spread out this far."

Jones doesn't know something? And he actually admits it? Impossible! Owen thinks sarcastically.

"It only happens this far out once every couple decades," Jack explains. "At least in my experience. But it's been opened twice in the past few months, so who knows?"

He eyes Jones strangely through the rear-view mirror for a few seconds, as if he's about to say something else, before turning his focus back on the road.

None of them question Jones about the Ashton fellow, and he doesn't offer up anything himself. Owen admits that he's vaguely curious, because really, out of all the random people Jones could know, but not nearly enough to bother asking about it.

They get the body on the autopsy table, and Gwen, Tosh, and Jack soon vacate the premises, leaving Jones to lean over the railing above the medical bay and watch him creepily.

"Do you mind?" he says loudly.

"Can't perform under pressure?" Jones deadpans.

"Bugger off," Owen mutters.

"Looks deliberate," Jones says, ignoring his oh-so-polite request.

"How do you mean?" Owen asks before he can stop himself.

"Clean cut, all in a straight line."

"I don't see the point, though," Owen says, making a slide of some skin cells right on the edge of the intact skin, just in case there's some residue that Tosh's scanner missed. "Why cut open the entire body and not take anything?"

"If it came through the Rift, it might not have encountered humans before," Jones says reasonably. "Maybe it was confused. Or curious."

"Or maybe it's just an evil, murdering, alien," Owen scowls, increasing the magnification on his microscope. "Woah, here we are then!"

"What is it?" Jones says quickly.

"Residue on the wound. Definitely not of earthly origin." He pulls off his gloves distractedly. "Nothing I've ever seen before though. Better run it through the computer just to make sure."

"Wouldn't Sato's scanner have picked it up, then?"

Owen pauses midway up the stairs. "Oh. Yes. Dammit."

He glares at Jones just because and then jumps back down to the floor. "Right. More poking around, I suppose."

"Right up your alley then."

"You're more sarcastic than usual today," Owen observes irritatedly. "Did someone get up on the wrong side of the bed?" he continues mockingly.

Jones gives him a disdainful look, not even bothering to reply in a way that Owen recognizes as one of the reasons he will hate his guts forever.

"Owen!" Jack shouts a few breakthrough-less hours later. "Leave it. We've done all we can here."

"Fine, fine," he says wearily, too frustrated with his failure to identify the alien residue to argue. "Drinks?"

"The Terra Nova this time. We'll leave you behind if you don't hurry up!" Gwen yells from the other side of the Hub.

"Jones, you too," Jack says impatiently and for one horrible second Owen thinks he's inviting him out as well. "Go home and do whatever you do for fun."

Jones looks annoyed, aptly conveying his disapproval at leaving the Hub empty, or perhaps at the way Owen has just haphazardly covered the body with a plastic sheet, or, as is more likely, both. But he's been in Cardiff long enough to be used to it all, and so he doesn't protest.

"Come on now, you first," Gwen jokes to Jones who's still on the main floor grabbing his bag. "Can't have you skulking around here unsupervised, God knows what you'll try to organize next."

There's a flapping noise from the opposite end of the room and Jones freezes halfway down the stairs, hand going for one of his firearms.

"What was that?" he asks warily.

"Uh, the pterodactyl?" Jack says impatiently. "We have really got to come up with a name for it, don't we?"

"You really are that paranoid, aren't you?" Owen sighs, shaking his head. "You really need to lighte-"

The, without warning, the bio-hazard alarm goes off.

"Oh, not again!" Gwen moans, rolling her eyes, making for the stairs to check the machine.

"I thought you fixed the bloody thing so it wouldn't go off whenever we brought anything alien back," Owen shouts, turning towards Tosh. "Doesn't even work properly, stupid thing. That body's been sitting on the table for..." he trails off, realizing the implications of this, but before he can come to any conclusions, Jones is shoving Gwen out of the gate and into him and Jack. They all tumble into the (secret) passage with a flurry of angry shouts and by the time he gets to his feet, the cog door is rolling shut, deadlocking into place.

The Hub has gone into lockdown.

"Jones!" Jack roars, pounding at the door, "Open this up right now!"

"And risk infecting the rest of you lot?" Jones says over his comm, "No thanks."

Owen sees Jones approaches the tiny window in the cog door.

Jack smashes his shoulder against the solid steel ineffectually, growling.

"Sorry, sir," he says over the comm, lips curving into a smile that just seems plain wrong on Jones' face.

His body stiffens then and he brings his left hand up in a formal salute, eyes locked with Jack's.

"Jones!" Jack shouts as he turns and disappears from Owen's view. "Don't you dare, Jones! Come back here right this instant or I swear I'll sack you!"

"What do we do?" Gwen asks frantically, turning towards Tosh. "Can you-Can you open it up?"

There is a series of three gunshots and they all freeze.

"What's going on in there?" Tosh cries, pushing him and Gwen aside to stand at the window with Jack.

"I can't see anything!" Jack snarls, slamming his fist against the door and then wincing. "JONES!"

"Tosh!" Gwen yells.

"I can't do anything!" she grits out between clenched teeth. "Everything's inside! I can't open it from the outside."

"Isn't there a backdoor of some kind?" Gwen asks. "Some program in place for scenarios like this?"

"It's never exactly been a problem before," Owen snarls, pacing back and forth down the small hallway. "Great, we've been locked in our base and now we're locked out, what'll happen next?"

"Open. This. Door. Now!" Jack shouts furiously, apparently not taking being locked out of the Hub well. "Dammit, he's taken off his earpiece!"

There's a loud crash from the inside and Jack swears in three different languages, and then some Owen doesn't even recognize.

"What about the lift?" Gwen suggests desperately. "Could we- I don't know-get in through there somehow?"

"It's the same width as this door," Tosh replies, standing on her toes trying to see through the window, "The entire Torchwood Three is surrounded by three feet of solid steel."

Another crash, louder than the last one.

"Jones! Son of a bitch!" Jack bellows, and suddenly it comes to Owen that if he finally gets Jones out of his hair because the man locked himself in the Hub after shoving Gwen out of danger's way and dies, he's going to be really, really angry.

There are two more gunshots and then everything is quiet.

"Shit," Tosh is whispering under her breath, she and Jack practically plastered to the door. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Then, as suddenly as it closed, the cog door rolls open and Jack and Tosh have to jump back to avoid being dragged along and crushed.

"Jones!" Jack shouts, barreling through the gate without a second's thought. He runs up the stairs, taking them two at a time, Owen right at his heels.

Jones is hunched over Tosh's workstation, hand still on the button that reversed the lockdown, bleeding profusely all over her chair.

"Over...there," he says very slowly, pointing shakily. "Was inside the body. Must've hid. It had some sort of chameleon abil-"

He crumples forwards and Jack grabs him before he hits the desk and eases him onto his back slowly, hands cradling Jones' head.

"Fuck, Jones, stay with me," Jack murmurs. "Okay, stay with me. Owen!"

There are three huge slashes in his vest and under armour, blood oozing out of them and Jones is deathly pale.

Owen runs to get his med kit, nearly tripping over the body of the dead alien Tosh and Gwen are gaping at. It's sort of bird-shaped, with scythe like blades for wings, almost transparent in death, but Owen can't focus on that now. He rushes down the stairs to the medical bay where Adams' body has fallen off the autopsy table to the floor to get his kit. The entire bay has been trashed and he can't find it at first, but eventually he locates it and scrambles back up the stairs to the main room.

Jones inhales sharply when Owen peals away the shreds of his vest and shirt to dabs the slashes beneath, hands scrambling on the chain-link floor. Jack grabs his right hand, bending his arm at the elbow and squeezes it tightly.

"You ever do that again," Jack growls, Jones' head, neck, and upper back basically in his lap now. "I'm really going to fire you."

"R-Right," Jones gasps as Owen puts pressure on the largest slash, unwinding a roll of gauze with one hand.

He inhales sharply with every breath, grimacing silently in pain, like Gwen had on that table kitchen table in the countryside, gripping Jack's hand back tightly.

Owen gets out a syringe and Jones gives a pained groan and his body jerks as Owen injects him with it.

He's not sure how long they sit there, slowly stitching up Jones' wounds while he shakes silently in pain, biting his lip, but eventually Jones passes out, head lolling back onto Jack's thigh.

"We cleaned up the mess," Gwen tells Jack presently, she and Tosh coming up the stairs to stare at Jones. "The alien's on the autopsy table with the body."

"What about the bio-hazard alarm?" Jack asks, not looking up at them. "Are we in any danger of infection?"

"It's always a possibility," Tosh says, "But it's like Owen said, it doesn't work on alien substances properly. We'll have to do some tests on the alien in any case."

Owen stands up after finishing pressing bandages over the stitches, flexing his muscles to get rid of the soreness.

He's always known that Jones was young and he's seen him unconscious before, but somehow, looking down at him, shirtless, hand still grasping Jack's, he looks ridiculously childlike. Gwen seems to be of the same mind.

"Christ, what age is he again?" she asks incredulously.

"Twenty-nine?" Jack guesses, looking up at them for the first time. "Twenty-eight?"

"Try twenty-four," Tosh says dryly and Gwen looks shocked, undoubtedly remembering what she was doing when she was twenty-four.

"He needs rest, proper rest," Owen says professionally, not really wanting to discuss the strange turn of fate that had Jones become a seasoned killer before he was even done with clinical training at the teaching hospital, "But I don't suggest moving him far. You got a bed downstairs, right, Jack?"

"Yeah," Jack says distractedly, helping Owen lift Jones, "It's over this way."

They dump Jones downstairs onto Jack's camp bed (camp in both meanings of the word, because honestly, did the man really need scarlet sheets?) and he groans a couple curse words under his breath, sweat running down his brow, but ultimately does not wake.

"Just need the handcuffs, then," Jack mutters under his breath.

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that," Owen replies, a bit too busy checking to see if any of the stitches tore.

"It's nothing," Jack says and then they climb back up to the Hub.

"Don't really feel like drinks now, I suppose," Tosh says as soon as they get back.

"I'm knackered," Gwen says, certainly sounding like it. "I think I'll just go home."

"I'm with you as soon as I stick the bodies in the freezer," Owen says. "Just in case there are any more surprises."

Jack nods and after fifteen minutes they all walk out to drive home, still slightly shaken.


Ianto Jones is not pleased. He has looked on every CCTV camera both inside and outside of the Hub, but he still cannot find out what happened. Two days of his life are gone. Two days of all their lives. Ianto might not have even noticed, but when he woke up with ripped stitches and strange bruises he does not remember getting, he started to panic.

Retcon is gone from supplies and all the cameras have been wiped, so it seems like an inside job, but why would they take retcon on purpose? What horrible thing could have happened that he would willingly forget?

Ianto does not forget, he remembers, he always remembers. Even the most awful, degrading experiences of his life, he always remembers. It is painful, so, so painful, all the time, but it is better than forgetting who he really is and living a lie.

The others don't seem as worried about it as he does. Initially, they all searched the Hub for clues once they realized what had happened, but after it became apparent that nothing was stolen or broken, they quickly lost interest. Jack aside, sometime Ianto wonders why they're still even alive, they're so careless.

Unfortunately, halfway through his investigation Jack notices his ripped stitches and makes a big fuss, ordering him home for a couple days to rest after Owen patches him up again. Ianto unwillingly complies, spends those few days cleaning his already pristine flat out of sheer boredom, and immediately runs into an unknown woman the second he comes back into work.

"Who the hell are you?" he bites out, gun at the ready, shocked by the audacity of the formally dressed woman, as if she expected to just blend in.

"That's my question!" she says, raising her hands, but otherwise not looking particularly scared.

"Jones!" Jack says loudly, coming down the stairs from his office and they both look at him. "Not you," he tells the woman before turning towards him with a cold look, "Put the gun down, she's UNIT."

Ianto holsters his gun, still not completely reassured. He's clashed with UNIT before, finding them arrogant and overly confident about their importance in the alien research field. Torchwood One was ruthless and needlessly aggressive, but at least they mostly knew what they were talking about.

"This is Martha Jones, she's a Medical Officer helping us with case involving pharmaceutical company using alie-what are you doing back here?"

Ianto gives him a sharp look. "You said to take off a few days. I took off a few days."

"Oh," Jack says, confused and a little distracted.

Of course he forgot, Ianto thinks and tries not to feel insulted. Whatever. It doesn't matter.

"A pharmaceutical company using alien what?" he asks curiously, eager to move on.

"It's this company called Pharm," the woman, Martha, explains. She seems strangely unruffled by the fact that he was just pointing a gun at her, "They're doing human experiments using this alien larva that incubates in human bodies."

She smiles at him, and it throws him off for a second. It had been so, so long since someone smiled at him.

"What's your first name?" she asks, friendlily extending her hand. "It's a bit weird calling you Jones, you know."

"Ianto," he replies, shaking her hand firmly.

"Pleased to meet you," she says, smiling, and strangely enough, he thinks she means it.

He almost regrets it when he goes into the Archives to clean up the total mess the rest of them have made of the place and comes out to feel her horrified stare on him.

Martha ends up going into the Pharm undercover as a clinical volunteer, a ruse which lasts about a couple hours until she gets herself caught. Jack is frantic with worry, making Ianto wonder if Martha is another one in his long line of lovers, and then berates himself for the feeling of vague jealously.

They catch Billy Davis, but he turns out to be useless after Owen blows him up with his so-called singularity scalpel. Tosh, however, finds ways of working around the minor complication of well, him being dead and Ianto quite enjoys the insulted look on her face when he tells her she's warped on the inside.

They rescue Martha, shut down the testing facility and are just about to leave when Aaron Copley decides to have his revenge, best served steaming.

"I know you don't want to shoot," Owen says carefully, but he's wrong, it's a lie. Ianto would've shot him the second he pointed a gun at them, should've shot him, but Jack would've murdered him. It's too late now, Ianto can see it on Copley's face. Unlike the others, Ianto has had a lot of experience facing down people with guns, and he knows when they will shoot and when they will not. Copley is going to shoot, any second now, so Ianto does what he has to, what makes sense, what he took this bloody job for it the first place and very, very gracefully, slides just slightly in front of Owen.

Then, like time has slowed, he hears the shot and then there's pain in his chest, he can actually feel his ribs breaking, and he nearly falls backward with the force of the bullet. He should've fallen, but Ianto Jones has been shot before-this is lucky number ten-so he manages to smirk spitefully at Copley and raise his gun halfway before he drops to his knees, the world spinning lazily around him.

Then time is back to normal again, he hears shouting, another shot, and Martha and Owen's indistinct shapes are hovering over him worriedly. But more than anything else, he feels the pain, and so when the darkness comes, he welcomes it.


Rhiannon Davies eyes the red sauce stained t-shirt mournfully, throwing down the bleach soaked rag in defeat. David's favorite shirt or not, it was going in the bin.

There is a crash from upstairs, and she groans, coming out of the laundry room wearily.

"Oi, you lot!" she yells up the stairs. "I told you before and I'm not telling you again, if you want to mess about, go outside!"

"But it's raining outside, Mum!"

"Then stop mucking about!" she snaps bad-temperedly.

"Mum!" David wails, "Mica stole my truck!"

"Did not!"

"Mica, give it back or I swear to God I won't let you watch telly for at least a fortnight!"

There's no response, so she goes back into the laundry room to wash out the rag.

"Mum," David cries again.

"Mica!" she roars, not moving this time.

"No, Mum, phone for you!"

"I told you not to pick up the phone!" she groans. "Tell them to call me back."

"But, Mum, the lady said it's about Uncle Ianto!"

She drops the rag into the sink, leaving the tap on as she hurries up the stairs.

"Give it here," she demands, grabbing the phone from David who's standing at the top of the small landing, pressing it to her ear with shaking hands.

"Rhiannon Davies speaking," she says, enunciating her words clearly.

"This is Meredith Yorath from Llandough Hospital in Cardiff," an unfamiliar woman says in a posh sort of voice. "You're listed as Ianto Jones' next of kin, is that cor-"

"Is he dead?" Rhiannon interrupts, pressing her hand against the door frame that separates the landing from the sitting room to prop herself up.

There is a pause. "What?" the woman says, sounding confused.

"My brother," she grits out, her entire body shaking even as she tries to control herself, aware that both David and Mica are watching her. "Ianto Jones. Is he dead?"

"Oh," she says insensitively. "No, but he's been injured. Accident, it says,"

Rhiannon gives a gasp of relief and sags against the door frame. Ianto isn't dead. Her brother is not dead.

"Er, sorry," the woman says, probably realizing her mistake and sounding a lot less posh. "It's my first day."

"That's alright," she says distractedly and takes another deep breath, straightening. "How bad is it?" she asks, steeling herself for the worst.

"Er, it doesn't say," the woman says awkwardly. "Sorry, I have this form, yeah? And it looks like it was only half-finished. I think you're supposed to come here in person to talk to a doctor."

"On my way," Rhiannon says, running to hang up the phone and next door to ask Gladys if she can watch David and Mica.

She and Ianto hadn't always been as close as they are now. Rhiannon was nearly twelve years old when Ianto was born and as she moved out of the house when she was sixteen to work as a waitress in town, she missed most of his formative years. Then Mum died when she was eighteen and Rhiannon stopped coming home at all. She didn't want to deal with the memories of poor Mum and her awkward teenage years, and she was so busy in Cardiff with her job and all her new friends anyway.

Rhiannon's had a lot of regrets, but there is nothing in the world she regrets more than the subsequent two year absence in her younger brother's life, and it will continue to haunt her for the rest of her days.

Right before her twenty-first birthday, Dad rang her up and begged her to come and help around the house. She hadn't wanted to come, she had a steady boyfriend and everything was setting into place, but he pleaded, telling her how Ianto was a terror and he didn't know what to do with him, so eventually she relented, promising to come and spend a few afternoons a week at home.

There were plenty of warning signs before that Rhiannon beat herself up over later for not noticing, but it wasn't until she came home for the first time in two years that she realized how bad things had become. Her dad, who had always been a bit strict, but had made jokes at the dinner table and teased her boyfriends when she brought them home had been transformed into a cold, harsh man who went out of his way to be cruel to both her and Ianto.

And Ianto. Poor, Ianto who has been such a sweet, smiling baby, has become a horribly shy, introverted, awkward child who, as far as she could tell, had no friends at school and was terrified of their father.

Even years later, Ianto refuses to tell her what happened in those two years between Mum's death and her return home, and he tells her nearly everything. She suspects it's because he doesn't want her to feel guilty.

Rhiannon did what she could, but she was young and lived too far away to be there all the time. She tried to stop her father's cruel words, but, as far as she could tell, to no avail. She was too poor to support Ianto on her own and all she knew about Child Services was from the foster home horror stories on the telly, so all she could do was try and be there for Ianto when things got to be too much.

But it wasn't enough. Ianto remained distant and reclusive into his teenage years and started getting involved in petty crime like shoplifting and, by the way he picked her lock for her when she got locked out of her flat one time, probably burglary. She had to bail him out four times over a period of five years and there was nothing she could do about it. Ianto wouldn't listen to her and she couldn't tell Dad, because Rhiannon knew he'd just beat the hell out of him.

The constant stress and worry started to affect her in ways she never expected; she stopped exercising, gained a lot of weight, withdrew into herself, and started dating Luke Brace.

He didn't even like her and she didn't like him, but she told no one, said nothing, tried to go on with life like everything was normal, but she was horrible liar, and when Ianto saw the bruises, he went ballistic. At fourteen, he went after her twenty-seven year old boyfriend who was twice his size with his bare hands.

Rhiannon still has nightmares about it sometimes, about the awful fight that took place even though she tried to stop it, about the coppers breaking down her door, how they dragged her little brother away. Ianto was arrested for assault, but Luke didn't press charges. He did a bunk instead, and Ianto helped her burn all his stuff.

Things got a little better after that and then she met Johnny Davies, so funny and loyal and gentle and good, and when he asked her to marry her on New Year's Eve, 1998, she asked him to get Ianto's approval instead of her father's.

Ianto and Johnny didn't really understand each other, but they're friendly and Ianto approves of him, and that's really all she can ask for.

To her surprise, Ianto stayed in school and passed his A-levels with decent marks. His grades were average at best, but he managed to get into Cardiff University on a partial scholarship. He loved it there, loved the freedom from their father even though he had to work several part-time jobs to make ends meet. She and Johnny tried to help out, but by that time David had just been born and money was tight.

Then Dad died of a heart attack halfway through his first year, and everything seemed to go downhill from there. Ianto's grades suffered from his long working hours and he lost his scholarship, forcing him to drop out. He looked at other universities and colleges, but in the end he had to support himself somehow, and he got a job in London through a referral from a sympathetic professor.

Rhiannon was sad to see him go, but he was excited to get out of Cardiff and Wales, and it was the first time she had seen him happy since he found out he wouldn't be able to continue with university, so she wished him well.

His job in London was strange, he told her, something to do with the government and he'd had to sign the Official Secrets Act when he was hired, so he couldn't tell her everything. But he seemed to like being a "Junior Researcher" whatever that was and for the first time in his life he'd made friends and then he was seriously dating a woman named Lisa who was all he could talk about.

Rhiannon was surprised when Ianto brought her home because she'd met Ianto's university girlfriend the year before and Lisa Hallet was nothing like her (which was probably the best considering how that relationship ended.) She was a little surprised to find that Lisa was black, too, but she supposed things were a bit different in London and it wasn't like Lisa wasn't a nice person. She was beautiful and smart and maybe a bit posh, but Ianto adored her and she adored him back, so how could Rhiannon complain?

But then Lisa died and Ianto heart-brokenly told her everything; the truth about his job, about Torchwood and aliens, and she didn't believe him until he showed her proof, though even now Rhiannon sometimes wonders.

He was promoted then, became a field agent, doing dangerous things, hurting people and getting hurt, and it was like she was twenty-five all over again, a spectator to Ianto's life without the power to effect any real change. He didn't even come to Mica's christening.

Slowly, her younger brother became a hardened killer, cold and dangerous and broken and sad. There were no friends in his life anymore, only colleagues, no girlfriends, no nothing and Rhiannon couldn't do a thing.

Two years later, he was transferred to Torchwood's branch in Cardiff, something she didn't even know existed, and he told her about the Rift in the middle which spits out flotsam and jetsam and is monitored by the Cardiff branch.

Rhiannon didn't go into town for three months after that, even though Ianto assured her it was safe.

He was not happy to be transferred to Cardiff because apparently he was supposed be a spy as well as a field agent, as Torchwood Three's known for it's unorthodox "dangerous" methods. Ianto found them incompetent and idiotic at first, but eventually they grew on him.

From what he's told her, they all hate him. He doesn't mind. Making it even worse that she's pretty sure he fancies his boss. His very male boss. He hasn't said anything about it, but Rhiannon knows him well enough that she's confident she's right just from the way he talks about that Jack Harkness. It all comes completely out of the blue, and it's weird for a bit, but then Mica becomes friends with a girl with two mothers and they're alright, so Rhiannon tries to be more open-minded.

Time passes by quickly, she doesn't talk to him for months at a time, but it's alright because then one night he'll invite her over drinks tell her all the crazy things about his job and his colleagues, some of which she still doesn't believe. (A sex monster? Really?)

Just the other day she was thinking that it seems like he's doing better in Cardiff. There are no new injuries for almost three years, and he's not happy, but at least he's close to home.

But then, of course, fate intervenes and now she's rushing into the entrance of Llandough Hospital.


"They've stabilized him," Martha says wearily, sitting down beside Owen. "You alright?" she asks him.

"I'm shorter than Jones," Owen says suddenly, the first words that he's said in hours, hunched over in the hospital waiting room chair.

Gwen Cooper raises her head slowly to look at him, "What?" she asks, shaking her head twice to wake herself up.

"I'm shorter than Jones," Owen repeats slowly. "That bullet...that bullet would've hit my heart."

There is a long, long pause. Gwen takes a shaky breath.

"Maybe," she starts slowly, careful not to sound insensitive. "Maybe we should go home now. There's nothing we can do and he's going to live, so..."

She's exhausted from disposing of Copley's body, and Jones just saved Owen's life, which makes no sense at all, and all she wants to do now is curl up in bed with Rhys and let the day melt away.

"Right," Jack says, finally taking charge. "Go home, everyone. We'll be back tomorrow."

They all look at each other, even Martha, as if to ask Why? But no one dares say it out loud.

"Because I'm going to kill him," Jack snarls, answering their silent question and strides over towards the exit, coat swaying dramatically behind him.

Gwen, glances at Owen, Tosh, and Martha, and collectively they all stand and quietly follow him out of the hospital.

It sounds horrible, but the fact of the matter is it's simply not practical to go all the way back to the hospital when Jones isn't even awake. It's not that it's just Jones either. If it were her, Gwen would expect Rhys to wait by her bedside, but certainly not the rest of the Torchwood team. They really had more important things to be doing, monitoring the Rift or catching Weevils. It's not a thought that she would have had a year ago, but she's a little less naïve now. She knows more about the world now than when she was a low level PC.

But Jack is in charge, so at eleven in the morning Torchwood and Martha Jones arrives back at Llandough.

Gwen didn't know what she was expecting, maybe Jack pacing around the room angrily and muttering expletives before they finally left (Jones hadn't woken up yet and their boss clearly hadn't thought this all the way through,) but she certainly wasn't expecting someone else in the hospital room when Jack barged through.

She's an unassuming, short woman, around the age that Jack appears to be, wearing a thick purple sweater and holding a stack of tabloids in her lap. She's sitting in a chair next to the bed, where Jones lies, still unconscious and deathly pale. She looks up when they enter, eyes flickering over them quickly, spending just tad longer on Jack, most likely because of the coat, but ultimately turns back to her tabloids without comment.

"Uh...excuse me," Jack starts, looking bemused. "This area's restricted."

"Next of kin," the woman replies without even a glance in their direction.

"Sorry?"

"I'm his sister," she says sharply, still refusing to look at him.

Jack turns to glare at Owen, who, as she guesses, was probably supposed to tell the hospital not to contact Jones' next of kin.

'Sorry' Owen mouths and shrugs his shoulders in a not particularly apologetic manner.

"Hi," Martha says kindly, stepping neatly in front of Jack. "Sorry, we work with your bro-"

"I don't care," the woman says coldly.

There is a very long silence, only broken by the woman turning a colorful page.

"And your name would be?" Jack asks, crossing his arms over his chest, clearly unamused at the woman's rudeness.

"Rhiannon Davies," she replies, folding down one of the tabloid page corners. "Ianto Jones' older sister."

She says it like a P.O.W says their name, rank, and serial number. Sharp, cold, and with thinly veiled contempt. She is, shockingly, similar to Jones.

"You're not supposed to be here," Jack continues in the same disapproving tone.

"You're not supposed to be 'ere either," she retorts, finally bringing her head up to look at him. "It's family only, last I checked."

Jack opens his mouth to say something he'll probably regret later, but before he manages to get the words out Davies cell phone rings.

She fumbles for it in her bag, almost comically, pulling out a bottle of colorful vitamins, a bunch of coupons paper-clipped together, pads, mace, and lipstick before she finds it.

"Hello...Mica! Did Mrs. Evans say you could use her phone?" she asks crossly, and God, she has children, Gwen thinks in horror. What kind of mother could she possibly be if she's anything like Jones?

"Look, love, your Uncle Ianto's been in a bit of an accident...yes, again," she says, a softness settling over her face that makes Gwen rethink the previous assessment. "Just tell your Dad not to worry, I'll be home in a couple hours. And tell David to behave or I'll take his computer off him. You be good to Mrs. Evans, yeah? Alright, I'll see you soon, sweetheart."

She puts her phone and all the other things back in her bag, and then her eyes flicker down to look at Jones, a strange regretful look in her eye that Gwen wonders later if she hallucinated because then it's gone so quickly, replaced by a familiar blank look.

"You should go talk to his doctor," she says suddenly, eyes still on Jones, "He was asking earlier about some great big bloody gashes in his chest."

"Right," Owen says awkwardly, "Those are...old. Were healing up before-"

Jack clears his throat, and Owen trails off. The woman's lips curve into a smile, but she does not look particularly amused.

They wait while Owen and Martha go to talk to the doctor, Gwen drumming her fingers idly against her thighs, Tosh throwing wary glances at Davies, and Jack tapping one shoe impatiently against the tiled floor and glaring at Jones. Davies does not move except once every few minutes to turn the page, possessing the same uncanny ability as Jones to remain absolutely still for long periods of time.

She's completely unnerving in a way that Jones is not. Because Jones has his vest and his guns and his scars, but this woman seems to be completely ordinary. Gwen wouldn't give her a second glance on the street.

Finally, Martha and Owen return, Owen giving his everything is in order nod and they turn to go.

"You still haven't asked is who we are or what happened," Jack says suddenly, pausing in the doorway.

The woman glances up at him, contempt plain on her face.

"It's not like you'd tell me the truth, innit?"

Jack, and they exit the room, Gwen glancing over her shoulder as she goes to see that Jones' sister has gone back to her tabloids.

They do a quick search on her once they get back to the Hub, but come up with basically nothing.

"Born Rhiannon Jones in 1972, never finished school, worked a couple of jobs in Cardiff," Tosh reads out from her computer, "involved in a minor domestic problem the police were contacted for in '97, but no criminal record. Married to John Davies in '99, first child, David, born in 2000, second child, Mica, born in '03. Has lived on the Cromwell Estate since 2001."

Tosh shrugs her shoulders and looks up at them. "There's a bit of credit card debt problems, but nothing out of the ordinary."

"Do you think she knows?" Gwen asks worriedly. "About Torchwood and us, I mean?"

"There's no way Jones would ever tell her," Owen says confidently. "He's too much with the rules."

"Jack?" Gwen asks.

"...omestic problem in '97," he's muttering under his breath. "That must be-What?"

"Do you think Davies knows about Torchwood?" she repeats.

"Oh? No, probably not," he says, waving a hand flippantly. "She probably suspects that Jones works for some classified government program, but it's doubtful she knows about aliens. And even if she does, we can hardly retcon someone for suspicions. We'd have to retcon the entire police service."

Gwen nods, but still feels uneasy.

Two days later, they receive a call that Jones has woken up and Gwen goes with Jack back to the hospital, mostly to stop him from strangling Jones. Martha has gone back to UNIT and though both Owen and Tosh want to come too, Jack orders them to stay put.

Unfortunately, Davies is in the room when they arrive, and so they hover awkwardly outside, unwillingly eavesdropping on their conversation.

"...so he's got a huge bloody bite mark on his arm and he's terrified of going to school now, so I told the school and they said they'd take care of it, but they still haven't," Davies is saying, sounding agitated.

"Do I need to shoot someone?" Jones deadpans, sounding a bit hoarse.

She laughs, "No, no, I might ask you to bail me out once I punch his bloody mother, though."

Jones lets out a laugh. It sounds genuine and thus very strange.

"You punched his mother?"

"No, but I'm going to if her brat keeps bothering 'im. He's got enough trouble with school as it is."

There's a lull in the conversation, and Gwen glances at Jack, wordlessly trying to tell him to knock.

"Ianto...?" Davies says hesitantly.

"I know you're out there," Jones says sharply, all traces of amusement gone. "Come on in then."

Jack pushes the door open bad-temperedly, and Gwen follows, ducking her head in embarrassment as she enters the room.

Jones' sister is in the same seat she was last time, but pulled up closer to the bed and she looks pretty startled by their presence. Jones is sitting up in the hospital bed, and Gwen's not a doctor, but she doubts very much that's something he should be doing. He does not look pleased, his jaw set tightly, and body gone very stiff, even apparent under the loose hospital gown, sunlight streaming in from the windows illuminating a rectangular patch on his shoulder.

"Can we speak in private?" Jack asks coldly, glowering at Jones like he's trying to set him on fire with his mind.

Davies glances worriedly between the two men, and Jones' scowl deepens, but he gives his sister a sharp nod. Slowly she stands, and carefully circumvents her and Jack, as if she expects them to lash out at her, exiting the room slowly with a short backwards glance at her brother.

The door shuts behind her and Jack clenches his fists, striding forward to stand at the foot of Jones' bed.

"You..." Jack hisses, shoulders shaking. "You-I could kill you."

"What the hell for?" Jones blurts out, taken aback, clearly not expecting this sort of reaction.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" Jack shouts, the sound seeming to echo around the room, and Gwen winces.

"What's wrong with you?" he retorts, eyes almost comically wide.

"You fucking stepped in front of a bullet!" Jack rages. "I can't believe you just-"

"Just what? Just what?" Jones snarls, looking almost as feral as Jack now. "I was under the impression that I saved Harper's life!"

Jack lunges forward, grabbing hold of the metal railing at the foot of the bed, causing the blue clipboard attached to clatter to the floor, "That is not the point! You..." He grinds his teeth together furiously. "First with that idiotic stunt you pulled at the Hub and now this? I am getting so sick of your suicidal bullshit!"

"Suici-How do you figure-" Jones stutters, going very white.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" Jack continues and Gwen frowns, confused.

What is Jack talking about? Why does he think Jones...Does he really think Jones is suicidal? Jones had stepped in front of the shot that was meant for Owen, but he wasn't trying to...he couldn't be...was he?

"Actually, I have absolutely no idea what you're on about," Jones says frostily, fists clenching into the bedclothes.

"Please," Jack hisses, letting go of the railing and making a violent downward sweep of his arm. "Like this was an accident."

"What exactly do you think you're insinuating?"

"I'm not insinuating anything!" Jack says with a whoop of laughter. "I'm accusing you, here and now, of trying to get yourself fucking killed!"

"Jack," Gwen says reasonably. "I don't think-"

"Stay out of this!" Jack says harshly, his eyes not leaving Jones' for even a second.

Gwen straightens, blinking rapidly at the shock of his bitter dismissal.

"Now, wait just a minute-" she starts angrily, drawing herself up.

"I said, stay out of this," Jack repeats, whirling towards her. "Wait outside, Gwen."

"Wha-" she gapes, cheeks heating up in embarrassment.

"Wait outside. I don't need a babysitter," Jack says, brutally staring her down.

"I beg to differ," Jones cuts in furiously.

"You don't get a bloody say. You just tried to off yourself!"

"Says who? You think it makes it true just because the great Captain Jack fucking Harkness says so?"

"I know you," Jack growls, and Gwen suddenly realizes that in her year and a half of working at Torchwood, she has never seen him so angry. "I know you."

"You don't even know my first name," Jones seethes. "You don't know a bloody thing about me. And don't you dare patronize me, sir, because you don't have a fucking clue."

Gwen swallows, glancing between the two of them, but it's like she's not even there. She wants to help, wants to stop Jack's unwarranted anger, Jones saved Owen's life, after all, but she keeps hearing Jack's cold, cruel words in her head, like on a loop.

Hurt, she turns away, blinking her eyes furiously and exits the room, leaning against the wall outside the door as Jack starts to shout about how Jones almost died.

Suddenly, just as she is going over the words that she is going to scream at Jack later, she realizes that Rhiannon Davies is sitting on the other side of the door.

Gwen turns towards her in horror, realizing that she has heard/is hearing every single word of Jack and Jones' argument, and sees that she's crying.

"Hey," Gwen says gently, crouching down in front of her, compassion overriding any resentment she had over Davies' earlier rudeness. "Hey, look, it's okay, Jack's just a bit..."

She bites her lip, searching for a proper word. She gives up after a few moments.

"If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure he isn't right," she says instead. "Your brother's not the type to, you know."

Rhiannon nods, taking a shaky breath and wiping tears of her cheeks, "Yes," she says, voice surprisingly steady. "I know."

She doesn't sound particularly comforted.

"He saved one of our friend's lives-one of Jack and mine," she says encouragingly. "Bullet would've hit him in the heart, but he-" Quite suddenly, Gwen realizes her mistake. "I mean, well, when I said bullet, I meant-"

Rhiannon raises an eyebrow at her and Gwen relents. "Oh, alright, strictly speaking, I'm not allowed to...well...don't tell anyone, yeah?"

"Yeah," Rhiannon says softly. "Mum's the word and all."

"Mmm," Gwen nods, and then winces as Jack starts on about the alien that slashed up Jones' chest, "Look, sorry, but he's in a state and, well, this stuff is sort of classified, so I'm going to have to- I mean, why don't we go to the lounge and get a nice cup of tea, yeah?"

"Alright, then," Rhiannon says and stands up. "You don't have to come with. Should stay here, probably."

"Are you sure...?"

"Positive," she smiles sweetly at her and Gwen marvels at the contrast between her demeanor now and when they first met. "Thank you."

"N-no problem," Gwen calls as the women starts to walk away. "Just don't," she adds, feeling something extra is needed. "Just don't worry. Jack knows a lot of things, but he doesn't know everything. You know Jones'll be fine, right?"

The woman turns around slowly, one hand clutching her purse to look at Gwen in a way she can't exactly decipher.

"What I know," she says calmly, "is that my brother will not live to see thirty."

"What?" Gwen stares, shocked at her morbidity.

"And you..." Rhiannon continues sadly, "'ow old are you?"

"Tw-Twenty nine," Gwen replies, puzzled.

"Then you most likely won't either," she finishes sorrowfully. "Pity."

She leaves Gwen staring after her then, unaware of even Jack and Jones' shouts next door until a nurse comes to ask them to be quiet.


"Jack said what?" Owen Harper gapes and Gwen gives him a warning look, bringing her finger up to her lips to shush him. "Why?"

"I have no clue," Gwen whispers, so softly that he and Tosh have to lean in to hear. "The second the sister left he just started screaming at him. He just blew his bleeding lid. I haven't...I don't think I've ever seen him that angry, not for that long anyway."

"But why would he think Jones was trying to commit suicide?" Owen frowns, adjusting his glasses. "I mean, there's a lot easier ways to commit suicide than just trying to get yourself shot. He can eat a gun whenever he wants!"

"Look, don't ask me," Gwen says, holding up her hands defensively. "And for Christ's sake, don't ask Jack. He nearly bit my head off twice, once in the room and the second time in the SUV on the way back," she continues bitterly, "I don't know why he's so adamant about it, and at this point, frankly, I don't care."

"But Jones was okay, right?" Tosh pipes up, looking concerned. "I mean, how was he?"

"He certainly held his own against Jack," Gwen says harshly. "And I can't believe I'm saying this, but good for him."

"What are you talking about?" Jack's voice comes floating down from his office peevishly.

"Weevil mating habits!" Gwen shouts up rudely and then stomps off downstairs into the archives.

Jack exits his office, arms crossed over his chest bad-temperedly. He quirks an eyebrow down at him and Tosh, wordlessly saying Well, do you agree with her?

Owen is a bit angry that he almost died and all Jack can do is shout at the man who saved his life, but with Jack's cold stare fixed on him, he decides not to get in between Jack, Gwen, and Jones' feud.

"Well, I'm off," he says, breaking the staring contest with Jack before it can even begin.

"It's not even six o'clock," Jack protests. "You should be working on cataloging those bugs! And the alien bird...thing."

"I've already put all the information into the computer," Owen says, grabbing his jacket and bag from his desk. "It's processing. It'll take awhile."

"And you?" Jack whirls towards Tosh, who has started to pack up her things.

"My code's compiling," she says quickly, which is basically her way of saying I don't want to do any work at the moment and because Jack doesn't understand contemporary technology, he falls for it every time.

"Fine," Jack grumbles. "See you tomorrow."

"Later," Owen replies, and he and Tosh exit the Hub as fast as humanely possible without arising suspicion.

Jones is a wanker, a complete bastard with absolutely no morals or social skills, but the man did just save Owen's life, so he turns to Tosh and asks, "Hospital?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth," she replies.

They take his car because Tosh doesn't have one, and they get to the hospital in about fifteen minutes because Tosh insists on getting flowers. Jones' sister is still in the room when they come in, showing Jones something on her cell phone (doesn't the woman have a job?) but she stiffens and leans back into her seat when she spots them.

Jones immediately scowls and crosses his arms in a way shockingly reminiscent of Jack back at the Hub.

"Hi," he says pointedly, as if expecting a confrontation. "Are you going to yell at me for half and hour and suggest I need psychiatric help too?"

"You needing psychiatric help is hardly anything new," Owen retorts, completely forgetting to be nice. " And I'd rather you not compare me with Jack, who, as you've probably noticed, is even more off his rocker than usual."

Jones blinks, "Yes, there might've been a couple clues," he says sarcastically, glancing over him and Tosh in a strangely careful manner.

"Anyway," Owen says with difficulty, remembering the reason he came here. "You sort of, well, you saved my life."

There. Said it.

Owen sticks his hands in his jacket pockets uncomfortably, "So, er, thanks for that, I guess."

"You haven't exactly been doing much with it," Jones says patronizingly, looking at Tosh and then back to him for no apparent reason. "But you're welcome, I suppose."

"Fuck you," Owen tells him casually, because sometimes he is such a smug bastard. "Heal up and get out of here, because Jack's coffee is shit."

"He touched the coffee machine?" Jones asks lowly, looking genuinely horrified and next to him his sister's shoulders shake in her effort not to laugh.

"You're doing alright, though? Tosh asks, smiling beautifully.

"Besides the awful food and Harkness screaming at m-" he pauses, staring at Tosh as if he's just noticed she's there.

"You've brought flowers," he finishes stupidly.

"Oh," Tosh says, looking down at the bouquet as if she forgot she was holding it, "Yeah, here."

She awkwardly hands the purple flowers to Jones' sister (what was her name again?) while both siblings stare at her as if they've never seen anything like her before.

"They-They're chrysanthemums," Tosh explains nervously, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Japanese tradition, they symbolize longevity and health- at least that's what my mum says."

"Thank you," Jones' sister murmurs, looking touched.

"A-Anyway, get better soon!" Tosh stutters, crossing her hands neatly in front of her purple skirt. "When do you think you'll be released?"

"Doctor said three weeks, so about a week and a half," Jones replies, still looking strangely at her.

"So he doesn't listen to any doctors, does he?" Owen says wearily to Jones' sister. "Thought it was just me."

"No, you're one of many," Jones' sister says, giving her brother a cross look. "You daft sod," she mutters under her breath.

Jones merely rolls his eyes at her in reply.

"No one brought flowers," Tosh murmurs while he drives her home a couple minutes later. "Not even his sister. I wonder why?"

"Who knows?" Owen responds, "She was a bit rum, too, wasn't she? Must run in the family."

Tosh lets out a little laugh, "Maybe."

"Here you are then," Owen says, bringing the car slowly to a stop in front of her complex.

"Thanks for the ride," she says, getting out of the car. She pauses halfway and ducks her head down a bit. "And, you know, not dying."

She shuts the door quickly, and he watches her go curiously.

He's had a few days to think about what had happened if Jones hadn't stepped in front of him and it was all rather terrifying. Owen has been a doctor long enough to understand death, really understand it, instead of going into shock over his close call. He knows how close he got to, well, rotting in a hole six feet under. Jones had saved his life, and Owen knew what that really meant.

"You haven't exactly been doing much with it," Jones' words echo in his head.

Suddenly, without any thought put behind it, Owen rolls down his window.

"Oi, Tosh, c'mere!" he shouts and she turns back hesitantly.

Owen gets out of the car, leaning forward against the door and running his hands through his hair as she approaches, strangely nervous.

"About that date we talked about earlier," he says slowly. "Wanna do that now?"

"Oh," she says, surprised. As if she thought he wasn't serious. "It...It's Thursday night at eight. I don't think we'll get seats."

He frowns, opening his mouth to say that they wouldn't have that much trouble at the Terra Nova, but stops himself at the last second. No. He's going to do this properly.

"Right," he says instead.

"Maybe," Tosh starts hesitantly, holding her arms tightly around herself against the cold. "Maybe on Saturday. Barring the Rift."

"If the world ends on Saturday, I'm holding you accountable," he tells her, grinning despite himself. "Right then. Saturday."

She nods, turning a bit red. "Okay...Um, I'll see you tomorrow then."

"'Night!" he shouts at her back and drives back to his flat, satisfied with the day's events.

A/N: Part II: In which I am really mean to Ianto. Many thanks to everyone who reviewed and my betas! I hope you liked this latest installment and please tell me what you think!