Jack drove to Ianto's flat and pulled up as close as he could to the main entrance before he put the SUV in park. Getting out of the driver's side, he moved around the vehicle and opened the door, pulling Ianto out. He was a dead weight and Jack lifted him into a fireman's carry to get him up the stairs to his floor. Jack fished around in his coat pocket and found his copy of the key. He had to shift around awkwardly to fit the key in the door and as he did so, he noticed the slightly opened door of the woman across the hall who was peering out nervously at him.

'Too many double martinis at lunch,' Jack told her with a grin. 'Poor sod can't hold his liquor.' She gasped at being addressed so forwardly and slammed her door shut. Jack could hear multiple chains and locks being pulled systematically and grinned to himself. Though how Ianto was going to react to that one when he found out was anyone's guess. Jack just hoped he wasn't there when the woman confronted the younger man.

Once he got the door opened, he entered the small vestibule and kicked the door closed behind him. He made his way through the arched doorway into the living room and passed through it to the bedroom. Sunlight streamed through the gauzy material of the curtains, illuminating the room. Ianto in his usual neat way had straightened up that morning, making the bed and tidying things before going to work. Jack listed to one side as he pulled the duvet cover off the bed before carefully depositing Ianto onto the mattress. Ianto slumped over, unconscious. Jack sighed. He moved over to an old hardwood chair and removed his greatcoat, draping it over the chair before turning back to look at Ianto. He was going to be out for a while, if past experience was anything to go by, Jack mused.

Jack tugged Ianto's shoes off and dropped them to the floor. Moving up to the head of the bed, he undid Ianto's belt and pulled it out from underneath him, dropping that as well. Opening his trousers, he carefully tugged them off the other man, avoiding the dried stains from the museum. He winced as he examined the ruined material. He did owe him a new suit. Jack smiled. He'd make it up to him, and they might even have a little fun with it. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he loosened the younger man's tie before pulling it off and draping it over the top of the valet stand. He then undid the buttons on his shirt until the front was undone and he could lift Ianto up into a sitting position and pull it off by the sleeves before laying him back down again.

Leaving Ianto in his underwear, Jack pulled the duvet up around him. He pulled up each eyelid to see if there was any damage from Ianto's bump on the head. He got a normal pupil reaction and sighed with relief. Ianto was going to be out for some time, though. Time enough for him to go to Hub and get some work done before he needed to come back and check on him again. Jack went to the bathroom with the discarded trousers, removed Ianto's wallet from the pocket and at least made an attempt to let the ruined fabric soak in the sink in case Ianto thought it was salvageable. Running the water, he added some soap and pushed the bundle under the sudsy water until the sink was full. He then switched to cold water, got a glass and filled it up. Grabbing that and a bottle of Paracetamol, he set them on the nightstand next to the bed in case Ianto woke up before he returned. Stroking the hair back from Ianto's face, he leaned down and kissed his forehead. Hopefully he'd be back before Ianto woke.

He picked up his coat and headed out of the flat, making sure he had the key in his pocket before leaving. It wouldn't do to have to bang on the door to get back in, he mused. Ianto's neighbor would probably call the police or something. Chuckling softly, he closed the door behind him and used the key to secure the lock. Glancing at the door opposite, he saw that it was still tightly shut. Time to go. He quickly walked down the stairs and out the door, ignoring the twitch of curtains as unseen eyes followed his movements outside the building. He got back into the SUV and sped off, heading in the direction of the Hub.

#

When Jack came through the cog wheel door entrance, he found Gwen staring at her computer display.

'Hey, I thought I told you to head home,' he admonished as he walked down the stairs and over to where she sat. He stopped and looked over her shoulder.

'I wanted to take a look at these photos and see what the police database had,' she said, engrossed in what she was reading. 'How's Ianto?'

'Down for the count,' Jack said as he stood behind her and crossed his arms. 'What did you find?' Several photos were open in one display, showing the museum room from various angles as well as some overhead shots of the body. The document that Gwen was reading was an old newspaper clipping. Leaning closer, he could see that it dated back to the last investigation. He smiled. Trust Gwen to want to know what happened before. He had wondered how long it would take her to start asking questions.

'They should update their database if you found that in there,' he murmured, lips close to her ear. She twitched in reaction as she felt his breath tickle her neck.

'Do you honestly think I wouldn't go into our own archives as well?' She turned her head so that she was looking at Jack. He was so close to her that she could see the variations in the irises of his eyes. 'I haven't gotten the story of what happened before yet, but I will.'

'I don't doubt it,' he said, stepping back as she started to lean towards him and turning to head to his office. 'Don't stay here too late. I don't want an irate husband berating me for not letting you get home at a decent hour.'

'Rhys wouldn't do that,' she exclaimed. She did check her watch to see what the time was. Still early enough that she would get some more work done before heading home. She went back to the article she was reading, but didn't find much useful information. Gwen did a global search on the Torchwood database on human sacrifice and got thousands of hits with documents going back to the last century that had been scanned into the system.

She nibbled the edge of a fingernail as she tried to remember the name Ianto had called the group. Ado? She frowned as she sounded the word out in her mind. No. She closed her eyes and thought back to the museum and Ianto's explanation. Andoia or was it Adoliat? She thought that was it. She typed the name in the Torchwood search engine along with several possible alternative spellings and got a much smaller list. Good. She started going through the files one by one until she got to Owen's autopsy report. It bore the title Slag on the Slab. She sighed. Typical Owen. She double clicked the document and it opened up several folders on her desktop. Opening the first, she was happy to see that it was the written report and not the morgue photographs. She started to reading, eager to find out what had happened before.

Upstairs in his office Jack was making notes. He recorded everything that had happened at the museum, and pulled up his private records to compare them with the last encounter with the Adoliat yr Arglwydes. A glance at the CCTV showed that Gwen was still ferreting for information. He'd tell her soon enough, but he was kind of curious to see what she found out on her own. Often she came at things from a different angle and gave them a new perspective on a problem. He didn't want to taint her efforts by telling her anything that would steer her into a particular conclusion. Briefly he wished he could have a cup of coffee, but without Ianto to work his magic on the machine he was going to have to settle for the local coffee shop or water. He sighed. Neither sounded appealing, so he just put his head down and kept on working.

Several hours later Gwen sat back and sighed. While she had certainly found a lot of information in the database, it had been scattered throughout several reports. She had found herself taking notes just to keep the timeline straight. She had even read Jack's entry which was less than edifying. She was tired, and if she stayed any later Rhys would be going spare. Shutting off the display she got up and stretched. The images from the afternoon still swirled about in her head and she shook it as she made her way to Jack's office to tell him she was finally headed home. This was definitely something she didn't want to bring home with her, and she had learned to compartmentalise what happened at work so she could separate it from her home life. Most of the time, anyway. She got to the doorway and saw him writing furiously. 'Jack?'

'Mmmm?' He responded absently, not looking up. 'You still here? How many times do I have to tell you to go home?'

'I'm going. I just wanted to let you know that I was heading out,' she said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the keys to Ianto's car. Resting them on the corner of Jack's desk, she hesitated. 'We'll talk tomorrow, yeah?' He finally looked up from the paper.

'Yeah, of course. See you tomorrow,' he said, smiling. She nodded and headed towards the door but stopped before she went through.

'Jack?' She asked, her body half turned towards the man seated at the massive desk. 'Who was it last time?'

'Who was what?' He asked, putting down his pen and looking at her.

'Who was it who did that ceremony the last time? Ianto mentioned some stuff that made me think that this had happened before. I need to know what happened,' Gwen said. Jack had to suppress a smile. From his internal clock she had lasted longer than he thought she would have before asking her questions.

'You're right,' Jack said, sitting back and stretching. 'It did happen before. It was shortly before you came to work for us, actually. And yes, we had to perform something similar to what you saw this afternoon. It was Suzie who did it the last time.'

'And who was her anchor?' Gwen asked, curious. 'I assume that she needed one as well.' Jack nodded. 'Who on the team was it, then?'

'Owen,' Jack said. Gwen looked confused. Owen didn't seem like the most sympathetic person for the job. 'Think of what happened as a form of magic. It certainly goes back to ancient elements that still respond to the words today.'

'But magic doesn't exist, does it?' Gwen asked. She thought back to other things she had witnessed in her time at Torchwood. There would have been a time that she wouldn't have thought that faeries or ancient gods that killed with their shadows were real, either. She knew the answer to her question before Jack replied to her.

'Who is to say what magic is?' Jack asked. 'Heinlein said that one man's magic is another's engineering. I've certainly seen enough evidence of that over the years. But there's something about this place that lends itself to the myths and legends that came down through the centuries. Like there's something about Wales that the veil between reality and magic is that much thinner than it is in the rest of the world. I don't know, maybe it's the rift and it allows those things that have been lost to the past elsewhere to stay here, still responsive to those who know how to call it.' Jack paused as he thought for a moment, his eyes looking distant. 'It's hard to quantify.'

'Like the faeries?' Gwen asked. She thought back to that time when they had invaded her life and shuddered.

'Could be. I never really thought of them in that light before,' Jack said thoughtfully. 'A lot of it is definitely in the corner of the eye sort of realm. But much of this other stuff would lie quiescent other than for the fact that someone is coming in and disturbing it.'

'And why are they doing it?' she asked, mystified. She tried to think of why someone would want to do something like what she had witnessed back at the museum and came up with a blank. It defied logic. Jack shrugged.

'Who knows? Power, usually. They may be people unhappy with the world today and are looking for a return to the ancient times when life was simple. Who knows? We never got to talk to them the last time, so we don't know.' Jack leaned back in his chair and it creaked under his weight. 'I hope we get some answers this time.' Gwen looked pensive as she considered his words.

'Why Owen?' She asked. The question seemed to come from out of the blue, except Jack was now used to her circling back through the conversation and asking follow up questions which didn't seem to make sense. It was the way Gwen's mind worked.

'Because they had been lovers,' Jack said. Gwen's eyes opened wide as she considered his comment. 'The person who acts as the anchor is the link to the here and now. What you saw today was something that occurred outside of time as we know it. Once the circle is closed, it is possible for that person to become dislodged from the present and potentially become lost. The anchor acts as a lifeline back for that person, and is outside the circle to hold them to their reality. That connection from being intimate is a line between two people, broken only when the love for one another is gone. Even if you stop being together, that link will always be there, short of it turning into total hatred or something that psychically disrupts that connection. If I had a way to show it to you, you would see that line between you and Rhys.'

'And between yourself and Ianto,' she said, understanding what happened. Jack nodded. 'During whatever it was that was happening, you had such a look of concentration on your face. Could you feel what was going on?'

'I don't know if I can honestly say what I felt,' Jack said, pausing for a moment to consider the feeling from earlier in the day. If he was being candid with himself he was a little disturbed by what had happened and what it could mean for him in the future. 'I felt that Ianto was under a lot of duress,' Jack said. 'What I was trying to do was to project myself towards him, offering him my strength for him to lean on. I felt something, so I guess it worked.' He shrugged and scratched his head. 'Ianto can probably tell us more about what he felt once he wakes up.'

'I'll have to ask him,' Gwen said. Jack nodded. He could see that she had gotten more information than she had bargained for and really needed to think about it for a bit before asking more questions. And he had no doubt that she would have more questions during this investigation. 'I should be off. Rhys will be wondering.'

'Yeah, he will be. Goodnight, Gwen,' Jack said, a slight smile tracing his lips.

'Goodnight, Jack,' Gwen said and finally left the Hub.