Author's Note: ODG this was supposed to be a one shot but it ate me :(


Rose bounced through the cog door and stopped short, looking around in surprise and excitement, tinged with sadness. "Five desks." She muttered, more to herself than to them, "There's five desks."

"Yeah." She jumped when Jack laid a hand on her shoulder, "We do that every day."

"Tosh and Owen." She realised, "How long?"

"A few months." Jack sighed, "This June, it's October now, October the 6th actually."

"So you've been engaged…" she frowned slightly, "Just short of three months, yeah?" Her eyes opened wide in shock, "Oh my God, it's the wedding in… 19 days!"

When they smiled at each other she took that as a yes and hurtled forwards to hug them tightly and enthusiastically. "That is so cool, oh my God, am I going to get to go to your wedding?"

Jack frowned slightly and reluctantly and brushed a loose strand of hair off her face, "Well, we'll see. If you came through the rift it might take you back before then, but even if you're still here…"

"It could create a paradox." She agreed, her face falling, but she didn't pull away from where she was now firmly ensconced in the circle formed by his arms, "I'm not in any of the photos."

Ianto tugged on her messy ponytail and headed up to make coffee with a rueful smile, "We'll see what the Doctor says."

"If he comes…" his lover muttered sadly

Rose grinned and squeezed him, "He'll come. Trust me on this one. Make sure you've got plenty of bananas." Ducking out of his arms she grabbed her bag from where she'd dropped it and set up on Ianto's desk, "Borrowing your desk Tad!" she called, grinning at his distant reply, "Erm… you'll have changed all the passwords and access codes."

"Yeah." Jack pulled up the rift monitor program on what had been Tosh's machine and studied the readouts carefully, "Let's have a look then… See there, not a rift spike, just a time slip, like last Christmas." He smiled up at Ianto as he accepted a coffee from him, "You remember?"

"How could I forget, sir?" he asked, professionalism back in place now that Jack had assumed the father role; they were both quite excited and secretly thrilled about the idea of having a child, especially when Rose was so clearly part of both of them. Neither wanted to let her go, even if they would get her back with time, "So what can we do?"

"Nothing." Jack stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, leaning on the back of the chair as Rose watched him with her chin in her hand, "We can't control the rift, there is no way I'm going to risk trusting it to get you home. All we can do is wait for the Doctor to turn up and hope he'll take you. I'm sorry, but we can't mess with the timelines."

Both men were clearly hurt by the idea, so she gave them a reassuring smile, "Hey, I'm 19, I came through from 2029, you'll see me again before very long. And whatever you do, don't feed me broccoli."

"Why? Are you allergic to it?" Ianto asked, pulling Jack away from the chair so that he could wrap his arms around him from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder

"No." she shuddered and suppressed a smile at the familiarity of seeing her parents like that, they hadn't changed that much over the years, still dotty about each other, "I just hate the stuff. With a passion."

They laughed. "OK, well you'll be here for a few days at least, we'll have to tell Gwen." Jack mused quietly

"Maybe not the bit about 'she's our daughter' though, Gwen would get far too excited and try to beat us to it." Ianto chuckled, "We can tell her that you've come through the rift, and that we're hoping that Doctor will come for the wedding to take you back. Until then…"

"You've got a fourth team member." Rose grinned, "Fully trained and conversant in three alien languages."

"Erm, you make five actually." Ianto pointed out, "Jay's around."

"Of course!" Rose grinned and clapped her hands in excitement, "Cooool. Oh God, she's going to realise immediately who I am, she knows you too well."

"She's travelled in time, she understands timelines and stuff." Ianto ran his hand through his hair as Jack pulled away to study the rift monitor again and kicked his lover gently, "Practicalities Jack." When the immortal muttered something unintelligible he rolled his eyes and gestured to the lift, "It's just a word to you isn't it? OK, we'd best get you some clothes first, if you're going to be here for a while. We'll see you back at the house Jack, don't be too late, OK?"

They wandered arm in arm through crowds of shoppers in the late afternoon and made straight for the main shopping street, where Rose bought the essentials for a couple of weeks with Torchwood; fitted T-shirts and dark skinny fit jeans. Her boots were tough Doc Martins and her leather jacket was battered, clear signs of someone working for the alien hunting organisation, "Do we really let you work for Torchwood?" Ianto asked sadly, well aware of the dangers his daughter faced

"Not often, just when you need someone to cover or the world's ended. Dad always said he'd rather see me face the end of the world with a gun in my hands than unarmed, you and the Doc resisted, that's why I'm going to uni." She took her jacket from him and pulled it on again, picking up the bags casually and linking her arm with his again to leave the shop, "Dad's right though, Cardiff's a dangerous place, I'm better off able to defend myself; and other people."

"Yeah." He didn't look happy about it though

"Do you ever regret it, joining Torchwood? Do you ever wish you'd never known about any of this?"

"How could I regret it? I would never have known Jack, I'd never be looking at a future raising our child into a beautiful, confident and charismatic young woman and I would never have seen all the wonders this universe has to offer."

He smiled down at her but she looked concerned, "Tad… Try the truth this time?"

He shrugged and looked down at his feet, concentrating on where he was going, "Sometimes. Especially recently, what with losing Tosh and Owen… Sometimes I wish I could live a normal life and deny the existence of anything that doesn't come from Earth."

"You wouldn't know Dad though." She whispered

"No, and that's what keeps me here, keeps me fighting even when it gets too much. And now I've got something to fight for, a real future. I sometimes wonder if I'll live until the end of the week. At least now I know I'll live long enough to get Jack up the duff." He sighed, "Don't tell Jack, please. Not now or in the future. It would break his heart if he thought, if he thought I'd ever been unhappy enough to give him up."

"You'll spend the rest of your life trying to convince him he's good enough for you, you know. Well the next twenty years at least. He'll always think you deserve better."

He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her gently, "Well you can tell future him from me that he's wrong."

"I will do, if you'll do one thing for me."

"What's that?" He thought he probably already knew

"Tell him yourself, tonight and every night. Tell him how much he means. Because you always have, for as long as I can remember. It's one thing that's guaranteed to make him smile."

Ianto chuckled, but felt tears pricking his eyes, "Have you any idea how soppy that is?"

"Yeah." She shuddered, "Revolting, I know, let's go for pizza, please?"