"Coffee, Jack?" Gwen offered.

"Sure," he said, mostly out of politeness, as he followed her into the cheerful, brightly lit kitchen.

She poured them each a cup and sat down at the table. Jack sat too, somewhat reluctantly, knowing by the look in Gwen's eye that she meant to have a Serious Talk rather than a simple friendly chat.

"We thought you were gone forever," she said after a moment. "I thought you were gone forever."

"Yeah, well," Jack hesitated, unsure of how to respond. "Surprise!"

"This isn't a joke, Jack," Gwen scolded him as only she could. "It's not a bloody game. I thought I'd never see you again. I was devastated for months. Can you understand that?"

Jack sipped his coffee and found it surprisingly good. Not the best he'd ever had, but that was to be expected. After all, he had tasted coffee from across the universe and only ever met one person who could brew a perfect cup.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I think I understand."

"Oh God, Jack, I'm sorry," Gwen said quickly, realizing how insensitive she must have seemed to his staggering losses. "I didn't mean…" She paused, choosing her next words carefully. "I realize you've lost many more people than I have. And I know the pain must be almost unbearable, because I've felt it too. I have."

"Gwen—" Jack interjected, intending to offer some words of comfort, but she cut him off.

"But I was finally starting to heal, Jack. After months, after years, I was finally getting to the point where I didn't feel that horrible, gnawing pain in my stomach every minute of every day, the terrible ache that came from knowing I would never see you or Ianto or Tosh or Owen, any of you, ever again. And I was finally staring to hope that someday I might be able to live with that," Gwen's voice started to waver as tears pooled at the corners of her eyes, but she quickly regained her composure. "But now you're back, and you'd better have a bloody good reason."

"I came back for the same reason I always come back," Jack told her. "To save the world. That, and I was thinking about going camping."

The joke was a risk after Gwen had just told him off for making light of the situation, but this time it paid off and cut through the tension like a laser scalpel. They both laughed, standing up to share a tight hug that was interrupted by an overt cough from the kitchen doorway.

"Sorry to interrupt," Rhys said, in a way that made it obvious just how not sorry he was, "but—"

"There's an alien in the park!" Tosh burst out excitedly.

"Right," Rhys confirmed, looking down at his tiny daughter in amusement. "I don't suppose you lot would want to…"

But Jack was out the front door before Rhys could finish his sentence, with Gwen following closely behind. Rhys sighed and picked up Tosh. "Well," he muttered, half to his daughter, half to himself, "I don't suppose we'll ever see her again, will we?"

Jack let Gwen lead the way to the park, although he was fairly certain he could have found it by following the sound of screaming children.

"What are we going to do once we get there?" Gwen asked breathlessly as they sprinted the two blocks to the park. "We haven't got any idea what we're dealing with here."

"Relax," Jack replied as calmly as a sprinting person could. "It's probably just a Weevil or something—" he stopped mid-sentence as the park and the alien came into view—"small."

The creature they were faced with was anything but small, a hulking monster that seemed to be made of solid black volcanic rock, with a flame-like tongue and two glowing embers for eyes. It didn't seem to move with any clear sense of purpose, but lashed its tongue out in random directions, scorching grass and trees and leaving playground equipment white-hot. The one small mercy for Jack and Gwen was that the park seemed to have cleared of children and their parents, so there was no immediate danger.

"Have you seen anything like this before, Jack?" Gwen asked.

"No," he admitted, "but I've heard of it."

"Really?"

Jack nodded. "And so have you."

Gwen's brow furrowed as she racked her brain for memories of giant flame-shooting beasts, but she came up with nothing. "Sorry, don't think so."

"Sure you have," Jack insisted. "It's a Balrog."

It took Gwen a moment to recognize the name, but the moment she did, her eyes widened in shock. "You're joking."

"What, you thought Tolkien just made it all up?"

"Alright, fine then. But how are we going to get rid of it, seeing as how I left my wizard's staff at home?"

Jack's expression brightened. "Do you have one? Because that would really be—"

"Jack, please," Gwen interrupted impatiently.

"Kidding," he assured her.

"Well, how are you planning on dealing with this, then?" Gwen demanded, her tone balancing the fine line between frustration and terror.

"Easy," he replied, calm as ever. "Just add water."

There was a maintenance shed on the far side of the park, with a garden hose hanging in a coil on the side. Jack didn't even have to tell Gwen the plan, he simply looked at the shed, then at her, then at the Balrog, and she knew exactly what to do.

Jack recklessly rushed out toward the creature, which was in the process of melting down a merry-go-round, and whistled to get its attention. "Hey baby," he shouted once it turned to look for the source of the high-pitched noise, "are you doing anything later tonight? Because you are smokin' hot."

He fired his pistol at the Balrog's chest. Not surprisingly, it inflicted no damage, but it did produce the desired effect of making the beast extremely angry. The ground shook as the creature lumbered toward Jack, flames lapping at his coattails as he ran toward the shed and toward Gwen, who had been surreptitiously making her way over to the hose all along.

"Let 'er rip!" Jack shouted to her as soon as the creature came within range of the hose's spray nozzle. Gwen squeezed the handle and a moment later… nothing.

"Shit!" she exclaimed, squeezing the handle frantically as the Balrog remained hot on Jack's tail.

"Turn on the water!" he shouted frantically, diving between the creature's legs to avoid its flaming tongue.

"Right. Sorry!" Gwen found the valve where it protruded from the shed and hurriedly opened it, then retrained the nozzle on the Balrog and squeezed the handle again.

This time, a powerful stream of water emerged and hit the creature with full force. At first the water vaporized instantly when it hit the scorching hot beast, surrounding it with a large cloud of steam, but soon the Balrog began to weaken and at last it fell forward, hitting the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

"Is that it, then?" Gwen asked, ceasing fire.

"Yep. Just a pile of rubble," Jack said. "I guess you could say he's all washed up."

Gwen let out a short laugh at the bad joke as the pair assessed the results of their efforts, which really did amount to little more than a rather large pile of black stones next to the maintenance shed.

"Not a bad spot for a rock garden," Jack decided. He turned to leave, and Gwen followed suit. "Now, let's go home."

Author's Note: So hopefully this gave you guys a little more to chew on... If you liked it, let me know. If you didn't, let me know. If you were ambivalent about it, well, don't let me know, and then I'll stop writing it. Thanks!