Thanks again for the lovely reviews, and of course my endless appreciation for my wonderfully charming and extremely talented beta riftintime.


Chapter 3

Ianto stood motionless, watching the blood pour from the gaping wound in Jack's head. Jack took one final, ragged breath, made a gurgling noise, then lay still. Dead… again, Ianto thought, staring at his lifeless body. He's dead again… Ianto felt the panic rising, and the urge to laugh hysterically threatened to break free. One sharp bark of wild laughter escaped from his throat before he regained control.

His eyes roamed around the Plass, the lateness of the hour fortunately rendering it devoid of pedestrians. His gaze landed once more on Suzie. I've killed a Torchwood operative, he thought desperately. Former Torchwood operative, and actually it was Jack who shot her, he corrected himself, but still… she was my responsibility. It's my fault… again.

"Ianto!" Jack's voice recalled him to the present. "We need to get her off the street."

Ianto turned around. Jack was rising slowly to his feet. There was blood spattered down his greatcoat, and his hair was matted with gore. Ianto swallowed hard against the rising bile in his throat. "Ianto!" Jack called again.

Recalled to his duty, Ianto jumped into action. He and Jack lifted Suzie's body, and he helped Jack sling her over his shoulder in a fireman's hold. Jack flipped open his wrist strap and hit several buttons. The water cascading down the tower increased in speed, overflowing onto the surrounding pavement.

Ianto jumped out of the way and snatched up his briefcase as the flood of water washed away the bloodstains on the ground. "I didn't know you could control the water pressure," he exclaimed in surprise.

"I met one of the city planners in a bar… long story," Jack replied smugly.

Ianto rolled his eyes, immediately sorry that in his perturbation, the words had escaped his lips. After several moments, Jack hit another button on his wrist strap, and the water flow eased back to its normal rate. The two men stepped onto the invisible lift, Suzie's dead body still hanging over Jack's shoulder. It was a mark of Ianto's extreme agitation that he didn't spare a thought for the water streaming around his expensive, leather shoes.

A single drop of blood dripped from the hole in Suzie's forehead, and Ianto recoiled in horror. He shuffled so far away from her body that he almost lost his balance and fell over the edge, as the lift descended into the Hub. Jack reached out his spare hand and grabbed his arm, steadying him. Once Ianto had regained his equilibrium, he wrenched his arm out of Jack's grasp with a terse, "Thanks."

When the lift had fully descended into the bowels of the Hub, he and Jack placed Suzie's body on the lift in the medical bay and sent it down to the morgue. "I can take it from here, Jack," Ianto said, suddenly wanting desperately to be away from the other man. He wasn't certain how much longer he could maintain his mask of composure.

"You sure?" Jack asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes… Thanks for…er…" He was loath to admit aloud that Jack had saved his life. "Thanks for your help out there," he finally settled on, waving a hand in the general direction of the surface. "By the way," he asked as an afterthought. "How did you know?"

"I've been following her," Jack replied seriously. "I had a bad feeling."

"Oh," Ianto replied with a frown, feeling immensely guilty that it was Jack who'd had the foresight to keep an eye on Suzie and not him. It was Jack who realized that she was killing those people in order to use the glove in the first place… I should have been the one who noticed, not Jack. I'm the leader of Torchwood!

Jack eyed the other man curiously. Is this a chink I see in Ianto's usually impenetrable armor? he wondered. Perhaps he's human after all…

Suddenly afraid his legs would no longer support his weight, Ianto slumped down in a nearby chair. "I'm complete rubbish at this," he said aloud, before he had time to stop the words from coming out of his mouth. "They should have asked you to lead Torchwood Three, not me."

"Who says they didn't?" Jack retorted.

Ianto looked up at him sharply. "They asked you to take over?" His eyes were wide with surprise.

"I told them to go to hell," Jack said easily.

Ianto sighed heavily and rubbed at the stabbing pain in his temples. Feeling a pang of sympathy for the other man, Jack pulled up a chair and sat across from Ianto. "Commanding a team is a thankless job. If things go well, you're merely doing your duty. If things go badly, it's all your fault."

"Tell me about it," Ianto said with a groan. His hands dropped into his lap, and he eyed Jack suspiciously. "Why are you being nice to me? We hate each other."

Jack shrugged. "It's the first time I've ever seen you act like a human being. Most of the time, you're a stuck-up little prig."

"And you're a vulgar, arrogant wanker," Ianto spat, his rising indignation pushing aside all thoughts of self-reproach.

To his astonishment, Jack grinned. "That's more like it," he said, rising to his feet. "I'll leave you to it then. I'm sure you want me out of your Hub, and I need a shower."

With a dramatic swirl of coattails, Jack sauntered up the stairs of the sunken medical bay. Moments later, Ianto heard the cogwheel door roll open and closed.

Ianto stared at the seat that Jack had recently abandoned with a perplexed frown. That's a different side to Jack… one I've never seen before. I've always thought of him as a thoroughly shallow bastard. He shrugged. It was probably just a fluke. I'm sure he'll be back to his usual obnoxious self tomorrow…

As the brief flair of anger from Jack's insults faded, Ianto began to berate himself all over again. He had made a terrible mistake when he'd lead his team against the Slitheen infiltrators at Torchwood London, and it had cost Lisa her life. He would carry the guilt and heartache from that fatal lapse in judgment to his grave.

He'd been humiliated when he'd been assigned to Torchwood Cardiff and had been fully aware of the whispered comments and censorious glances from his colleagues. However, he'd tried to take on his new position with dignity and grace. Yet it seemed he was blundering all over again. He'd already gone through several Torchwood operatives, having to Retcon them in order to erase their memories when they failed to live up to expectations. Suzie was the first person under his command that had died because of Torchwood. Death by Torchwood, he thought ruefully. It happens so often…

With a final exhausted sigh, Ianto rose to his feet and made his way down to the morgue to attend to Suzie's body.

Jack examined the ground near the water tower. When he'd satisfied himself that all traces of the earlier carnage had been washed away, he strode purposely across the Plass. He paused before stepping into the street, looking back at the tall, mirrored, silver sculpture, wondering briefly if Ianto was going to manage on his own. Then deciding he didn't care one way or the other, he turned his back on the Memorial and headed for his flat.

It was crawling into the wee hours of the morning by the time Ianto finished putting Suzie to rest in the Hub morgue and typing up his report. After several exhausted yawns, he decided to forgo the drive home and sleep in the Hub. There were crude living quarters in a bunker below his office, obviously used by decades of previous Torchwood leaders for catching a few hours sleep during long investigations. Ianto suspected that some of his predecessors had even lived in the Hub. Ianto, however, refused to stoop to that level of commitment, although on rare occasions, he would stay the night, when going home seemed a futile endeavor. Thus, he had prepared the room with new sheets for the small bed, toiletries in the bathroom, and spare clothing in the wardrobe.

Ianto was half asleep when he descended the ladder through a hatch in the office into the sleeping quarters. Moving mechanically, he removed his suit, shirt, and tie, hanging them carefully in the wardrobe, and climbed into bed in his underwear. He thought he'd be asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, however, he tossed and turned for over an hour, thinking about Suzie, about Lisa, about Torchwood London, and about his sad, pathetic life, before he finally dozed off.

Jack stood on the rooftop of Stadium House, one of the tallest buildings in Cardiff, his toes hanging precariously over the edge, and his greatcoat whipping around his body. He cast his eyes over the twinkling night lights of the city, thinking about how tired he was of this time period on planet Earth, how he longed to travel the stars again, how he yearned for the Doctor to come back so he could learn the truth about his immortality, and how much he hated the life he'd been forced to make for himself in Cardiff, while he waited interminably for something to happen. He used to be a Time Agent in the fifty-first century and the darling of the Boeshane Peninsula, the remote human colony where he'd grown up. Now he was trapped on a primitive planet with unsophisticated and insipid life forms, waiting for over a century for the renegade Time Lord to return. He wondered when his life had become so sad and pathetic.

Dr. Owen Harper woke with a pounding head in the bed of yet another nameless woman. His body stank of alcohol and sweat, and his mouth felt like he'd been chewing on cotton wool. As silently and carefully as his hangover would allow, he climbed over the sleeping woman, collected his clothing, dressed, and left her flat. The cool, early morning air felt good on his face as his eyes adjusted to the dim, grey light and his brain began to recognize his surroundings. He wasn't far form his own flat, and deciding a walk would do him good, he began ambling home. As he walked, he reflected on his miserable state of affairs, his loneliness and apathy towards life after his fiancé Katie had died from an alien parasite, his despondency towards his job, and his generally sad, pathetic life.

Toshiko Sato slept soundly in her bed, after preparing a simple meal for herself, wrestling with a broken computer from the Torchwood Hub, and taking a long, leisurely bath. She wasn't unhappy, and she certainly preferred working for Torchwood over being kept in a UNIT prison, but still, there was something missing from her life. Nothing moved her anymore. Nothing excited her, besides the brief thrill of cracking a particularly difficult computer code or discovering the workings of a new piece of alien technology. She was lonely, but she didn't think that would ever change. She had resigned herself long ago to being alone, and though she felt her life to be a bit sad and pathetic, she had tried to make peace with it.

Gwen lay awake in bed next to her boyfriend of three years, Rhys Williams, a truck driver at Harwood's Haulage. She kept glancing over at the sleeping man, desperate to wake him and tell him all about Torchwood and the extraordinary things she'd seen, but knowing she was sworn to secrecy. She finally rose and made herself a cup of tea, thinking about her new job, her new teammates, her new boss, and the mysterious freelance agent, Jack Harkness. She was completely enamored with Jack, a bit in awe of Ianto, and had no idea what to make of Toshiko or Owen. But she decided that she was thrilled with her newfound understanding of the universe, and she determined to get to know her teammates better. She thought her life just couldn't get any more exciting.

Meanwhile, at Torchwood London, Cybermen had infiltrated the building and were beginning the conversion process on all its personnel.