Author's Note: I'm really sorry for the long delay, but this is your first update from Down Under. I moved to Australia under a fortnight ago, and I'm still finding my feet here.

This chapter is another of those where I lost my way, and it's taken forever, but the story needed to fit into the arc, so I hope you like it.

Ianto laughed and rolled Ally's chair away from Lizzy's desk, towards her own. She drummed on the desk and pulled her screen around to check the time, whilst he approached behind her. He hid a smile as she whined, sing-song, "Ianto, seeing as it's Christmas and you love us..."

Lizzy span around, running over her foot and clasping her hands together. "Please, Ianto, sir, we promise we'll be good and... and cover you for two extra nights. Or I'll bring steak and kidney pie... by which I mean ally will bring steak and kidney pie..." Ally rolled her eyes. "And we'll throw in cake... or chocolate mousse, or..."

"Fine," he threw up his hands and turned on his heel so that he didn't have to hide the grin any more. "Go home, eat chocolate and drink sherry, avoid the carol singers; leave me and Jack to cover the long, cold night on our own."

They were both halfway ready to go, and grabbed him to kiss his cheeks in synchrony. "Thank you! We'll see you in the morning," Lizzy squealed into his ear.

Ally nodded and tossed Lizzy her coat. "I'll bring breakfast. Don't keep him going all night, Ianto, he's not as young as you are."

"Hey!" Jack protested from the office doorway, already looking more relaxed with his braces hanging down at his waist. "I'm permanently thirty five, and my stamina is just fine."

"We know," they said in unison with almost matching eye-rolls. Ally patted Ianto's cheek and turned on her heel. "Play nicely, Merry Christmas both."

"Merry Christmas," Ianto called after them.

He and Jack stayed where they were, not looking at each other, until the cog door rolled shut behind the girls. Jack was the first to move, his footsteps slow and steady coming up behind Ianto. "They're going to get /very/ drunk, aren't they?"

"Yep," Ianto turned on his heel and put his hands in his pockets determinedly. "No rest for the wicked, though. We have to work."

Jack nodded and held his hand out. "We'll get a lot more done without them here. Noisy things, girls."

Placing his hand in Jack's, Ianto laughed and let himself be pulled in against Jack's chest. "You know, this feels more like dancing than working."

"You could be right," Jack hummed and made no move to release him. "Although I would have said... cuddling."

Ianto stilled and then shook his head. "No, dancing. Not cuddling, definitely not cuddling." When Jack sighed, Ianto slipped his arms around him more and rested his head against Jack's neck. "This is cuddling."

"I like cuddling," Jack decided after tightening his arms around Ianto. "And I like the suit. I told you they were warm."

"I know, I know," Ianto sighed and shook his head. "You're just shaping me into the image of your lost love, I know it."

"You could never be him. You yell at me too much," Jack teased. "But there is a certain physical resemblance, which led me to believe that your arse would look phenomenal in those trousers."

"Hmm, you scare me sometimes," Ianto confided.

"And yet you're still 'cuddling'," Jack pointed out. "Or am I just a good type of scary?"

Ianto shook his head and pulled away. "Back to work, and we might just get it all finished in time to have an early night."

Jack checked his watch and flopped into his chair, pushing it back half a foot. "You think we can get it all done in under five hours?"

"Oh come on, we have six before we can call it a normal night," ianto collected together the reports he needed and settled at his own desk. "I mean, when was the last time we got to bed at two?"

"Good point," Jack sighed. "Merry Christmas, Jack and Ianto, you shall go to bed at two in the morning!"

"Aim for one and I'll tie you to the damn thing until two," Ianto promised, prompting Jack to drop his pen.

"Thanks for that image, Yan..."

"Ianto," he corrected.

"Sorry, Ianto. You can punish me for it later," he offered. "And now, before we forget about it, should we do some work?"

They settled down to working their way through the piles of paperwork that no number of late nights ever seemed to get through. Incoming reports from UNIT and other Torchwood branches landed on Ianto's desk, where he responded to it if he needed to and filed it away in their own records. Jack got to send them in the other direction, half a dozen copies of each individual report to half a dozen different archives, plus summary reports to everyone who demanded them. End of year was a bitch.

Ianto was deep in the annual financial report when the phone rang, and his vaguely waving hand knocked against it and missed before Jack got it at his own desk, leaving him to concentrate on the intricacies of hiding what needed to be hidden in the construction budgets. Jack's voice rolled over him, quiet and serious, and Ianto let it drift into the very depths of his subconscious – it was being dealt with, it wasn't his problem until Jack made it so, did he really need to hide the invisible lift's work, or could it stand as was?

Something made him pause, though, and he hesitated with his fingers resting lightly on the keys as if to hold them still. The noise came again and Ianto turned slowly to look at Jack, whose hitching breath had disturbed the calm surrounding them. His back was ramrod straight and his head was tilted to the side, away from the door that led into the main Hub and from Ianto. Another hitch in his breathing – the only breaths he was getting, Ianto realised now that he could see him – shifted his shoulders again, and Jack set them more firmly than ever, as if aware that Ianto was watching.

Ianto turned his chair around fully and stood up, taking the two steps to stand behind Jack, and rested his hands on Jack's shoulders, fingers curling towards his collarbone and the pads pressing gently into his skin, twitching in a minute massage. "Bad news?"

Jack nodded and tilted his head against Ianto's wrist. "That was UNIT, calling from the Tower. Christmas..."

"Christmas in London," Ianto finished for him when he trailed off. His fingers started moving more determinedly and he added a stroke with the heels of his hands. "What is it this year?"

"There's been an explosion..." Ianto waited for him and shifted his fingers to lace them with Jack's, which he'd reached up to brush against Ianto's hand. "They think that Lucy Saxon's been killed."

"Lucy... The Master's wife?" He turned Jack slightly, flattening his further hand against Jack's shoulder and squeezing his fingers with the other. "What about him?"

"Someone was seen running from the building, superhuman speed," Jack scrubbed his free hand over his face and took a deep breath, which allowed him to regain some of his control. "They've got footage, they're going to send it over to me now."

"They think it's him, then?" Ianto eased closer and pulled Jack's head against his stomach, drifting fingertips through his hair. "This is not how I intended to spend Christmas with you. What do we do now?"

Jack turned his head against Ianto's stomach and shuddered. "We need to warn the team. He'll come for me; he'll come here to... to reclaim me."

"I won't let him," Ianto promised with his eyes half-closed, fingers running gently through Jack's hair and over his forehead and temples. "We'll bring the team here and put the Hub into lockdown, then he can't hurt them, and we can..." he trailed off and rubbed his thumb over Jack's cheek. "We'll sort it, okay, Jack?"

"I know we will," Jack smiled and turned his head to kiss the tips of his fingers as they ghosted across his cheek again. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't..." he gave a growl of frustration and pulled away, shifting papers and files out of his way. "It was nearly two thousand years ago, I should have got over it by now."

"Hey," he recaptured Jack's shoulders and squeezed. "It's a perfectly reasonable response. You check the video and call the team, I'll get the bunk room set up, okay?"

"Yeah," he sighed and tilted his head up. "I feel bad about calling them back in... at least they probably won't be in bed yet, though."

Ianto checked the time and nodded, it was still only eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve. He bent over Jack and kissed him upside down, then pulled back and headed for the door. "We're a family anyway. And it's better to be safe."

"Yeah, you're right," he managed a smile and an eye-roll. "As usual."

xxxxx

The bed dropped into place with a clang and Ianto brushed the rust off his hands; his back ached as he straightened up, complaining about the awkward position he'd held to drag the beds out from their stack against the wall. He'd got five out in the small space, two opposite three, and unlocked the cupboard with the pillows and sleeping bags in it for the team to get at when they needed to. They could arrange themselves as they wanted to, and he and Jack would stay in their room together.

Upstairs, the door alarms went for the second time since he'd come down here, so he headed back up to the main Hub to find out who had arrived. John was, as he'd expected, the first one to have arrived, and was sitting at his desk with his feet up on it, watching proceedings from over the pack of cards he was shuffling. Lizzy, Ally and Tom were shedding coats and scarves together, crowded around the coat stand in worriedly sullen silence. Ianto nodded to them and smiled tightly. "Coffee?"

"Thanks, Ianto," Ally sighed and did her best to return his smile. "Unless you have hot chocolate?"

"I'll put a big pot on, shall I?" He didn't wait for a response, just headed up to the kitchen area where he found Jack pulling cupboards open busily. "You were lying in wait," he accused when Jack fell still at his entrance.

"Not lying in wait, exactly," Jack corrected, straightening up to face him. "More like hiding."

Ianto sighed and slid his arm around Jack's waist, guiding him in and holding him in place with his other hand curled around the back of his neck. "He won't hurt you, not this time. I won't let him," he promised.

Jack clung on, as if reluctant to allow himself to, but needing it nonetheless. "It's not me I'm worried about," he said quietly, resting his head against Ianto's. "What can he do to me? It doesn't matter..."

"It does matter," Ianto stopped him, holding him in place. "Just because your body doesn't scar, because you bounce back like the eternal Weeble... Jack, would you say that it doesn't matter if I get hurt?" he pulled back to look at Jack and cupped his face in both hands. "Because it doesn't, does it?"

"Of course it matters," Jack took his hands and brought them between their chests, squeezing gently and holding them against his heart. "It... okay, point taken."

Ianto laughed and retrieved one hand to stroke Jack's cheek. "There we go. Now, I've promised hot chocolate for the troops. Do you want to hide up here and cook?"

"Yeah, I do," he sighed and leaned in to nuzzle Ianto's cheek again. "I wanted Christmas with just us."

"Sorry, madman called," Ianto released him and went to the counter to focus on the hot chocolate. "It'll be okay... one way or another."

xxxxx

Jack and Ianto stayed up overnight, needing less sleep than the others, to monitor the situation and keep watch. There was no fresh news by the time morning and breakfast time came, just a stream of reports from UNIT of fruitless searches and dead ends. Jack scrubbed at his eyes and got up to stand behind Ianto and comb fingers through his hair, scratching gently at his scalp with blunt fingernails. "Hey, anything come to you?"

"Nothing," Ianto leaned back into his hands and let his eyes flutter shut. "He's gone to ground somewhere, but he's UNIT's problem."

"He's ours too, as long as he's loose." Jack pointed out. "He's dangerous."

"I'll protect you," Ianto smiled and reached back to bring Jack's hands around in front of them. "We'll keep each other safe, won't we?"

"Yes," Jack kissed him upside down and seemed to relax slightly. "Merry Christmas, Ianto."

"Merry Christmas," Ianto agreed.

Xxxxx

John smirked at their expressions of disgust and held his hands up. "Hey, you have to learn to be flexible. Honestly – once you've done tentacles, you can't go back."

Ianto scrunched his nose up and shook his head. "Well, but... yuck."

"What, you're telling me you've never had your tongue up... Jackie boy, has he?"

"He has," Jack rested his hands on Ianto's shoulders and ignored Lizzy, Dan and Tom's expressions of amused disgust. "I've been kicked out of the kitchen."

"Poor diddums," Ianto grunted, brushing Jack's hands off his shoulders and gesturing to a seat on the sofa, next to Lizzy. "Were you doing it wrong?"

"Ally seemed to think so," he shook his head and settled down. "After all, she has lived though far more Christmases than I have, of course."

Lizzy curled into his side and tucked his arm into place around her. "You'll learn."

"Learn..."

"Like a mother hen with her chicks, Ally is with her kitchen," Lizzy snorted. "Mind you, she can cook and I can't, so I don't often complain."

"Sensible," Jack wrapped his arms tighter around Lizzy and looked questioningly at Ianto, who just shook his head. "Anyway, she says that dinner will be ready for us soon."

"Christmas dinner in the Hub," he smiled ruefully. "I am sorry about this, guys."

Dan sighed and shook his head. "If there's a homicidal maniac on the loose, probably after us, I'd rather be in here that with out there."

"With?" Tom asked, curiously.

"I didn't say 'with'," he insisted.

"Yes you did, you said 'with'," Tom narrowed his eyes. "Have you got a girlfriend you've not told us about?"

"No."

"Boyfriend then?"

"As if," he responded, shocked, then caught Jack and Ianto's expressions. "Sorry, guys. You know I didn't..."

"I've heard worse," Jack shrugged, avoiding everyone's gaze.

The silence dragged out, until Dan felt compelled to fill in the hole he'd dug. "She's called Emma, and I was supposed to meet her parents. So I'm dead whether he gets me or not."

"Meeting the parents? How sweet," John fanned the cards between his hands with a soft flapping rustle, ignoring Jack's twitch, although Lizzy looked up at him sharply. "Is she pretty, this Emma?"

"I think she is," Dan shrugged. "She also makes me the only one with an SO outside work, can I apply for extra time off on those grounds?"

"No," Jack told him mildly. "But I might let you stay longer each night so that you can get that report finished and not have to worry about it whilst you're at home."

"Nice of you," he huffed, and the others laughed.

Ally came out of the kitchen, carrying a tureen of soup carefully. "Can the chef join in on this joke? And it's chicken and bacon soup."

"Thank you, Ally," Ianto stood up to take it off her and set it on the table, on a mat. "Is there anything else you want me to get for you?"

"Erm... yeah, the bread's on the side, if that's alright?" He smiled and went to get it whilst she collected a stack of bowls from the cabinet at the side of the room and set about serving the soup. "So what's funny?"

"Dan volunteering for more hours," Jack got up to help her hold the tureen steady. "Ow, that's hot."

"It's got soup in it, genius," Dan sneered. "It's supposed to be hot."

John smirked and sat back so that Ally could put a bowl in front of him. "He's doing well with the intelligence at his disposal, Danny Boy, give him some credit."

Dan and Jack both opened their mouths and closed them again, whilst Ally smacked the back of John's hand with a spoon. "Behave."

"If I'd known you were into that, sweetheart, I'd had offered long ago. Maybe not at the dinner table... ow," he rubbed his forehead and glared between her and the spoon. "You are vicious with that thing, you need to learn to be a more forgiving mistress."

"No, dear," she went back to serving the soup with a dark smile. "You're just a lousy sub."

"I'll show you how good I can be, later?" he purred at her.

"I think that ranks as the worst Christmas present I've ever had," she shook her head and passed a bowl over to a sniggering Tom. "And that includes the snails."

"Snails..." Lizzy blinked at her best friend. "Your family really are odd."

"Wow, you noticed," Ally commented dryly. "Soup, dear."

"Thanks," Lizzy took the bowl from her and sniffed it. "Smells good."

"What else did you expect?" Ally smiled at her and dished out the last bowl of soup to Jack. "There we go. I hope it's alright."

"I'm sure it will be," Ianto smiled at her and reached for a piece of bread, sitting down. "For what we are about to receive..."

"May Ally make us truly grateful," Jack finished.

Xxxxx

They settled down after the soup whilst Ally finished the main course, flopped contentedly around the living area of the Hub. Lizzy had curled up with her head in Jack's lap, letting him play with her hair, whilst Jack leaned back against Ianto. John and Tom had their feet up on the coffee table from where they were sitting on the opposite sofa, and Dan was upside down in an armchair with his legs dangling over the back of the chair. They were enjoying the quiet and the chance to relax, having decided without needing to discuss it that, although they were in work, they weren't going to lift a finger.

And then it all went to Hell.

John was the first to react, and dragged Jack out from between Ianto and Lizzy, who were... He shuddered watching them and tightened his grip on Jack as he struggled to get back to Ianto. "Jack, stop! Don't make me..."

"I have to... we have to do something," Jack insisted.

"Right, so let's get out of here and figure out what!" John growled and dragged Jack backwards with him as the shaking figures changed. "Go!"

They stumbled into the archives and John slammed his hand down onto the control panel to trigger a full lockdown, trapping them in the archives and their team outside. He ignored Jack for the moment, letting the other man stress himself out quietly, as long as he left John to get on with the actual work of getting into the computer system and finding out what the hell was going on. The upgrade of the CCTV system was, in John's opnion, one of the advantages of the Hub having been destroyed – of course, they could have taken the opportunity to make it safer, more defensible, and easier to live in, but that would have been too sensible for Cooper... sorry, mustn't accuse the hormones. She had, at least, replaced the neolithic black and white security cameras that had covered most of the Hub with a full coverage of full colour, night vision capable nanocameras, which no one on the current team, with the possible exception of Ianto, if he was anything like the other Ianto, knew the locations of. As a result, he was able to watch the team in full colour wrongness. "Jack, you ought to have a look at this," he gestured Jack over without looking up. "Is this the guy?"

Jack's breath hitched and he turned away from the smirking face staring straight into the camera. "That's... Him."

"Wearing Ianto's suit."

"Yeah, I'd noticed," Jack scrubbed his hands over his face, and John tactfully declined to offer him a tissue for the moment. "Shit."

"As succinct, sensible assessments of the situation go, we could do with a better one."

Jack's hands clenched into fists on the edge of John's vision. "Check outside."

"What?"

"Check outside, the Plass. See if it's just the team, or everyone else." Jack ordered sharply.

John nodded and clenched his jaw, skipping through the cameras until he found the Plass. "More of him. Lots more of him. And more arriving."

"What are they doing?"

"Just... gathering. Watching and waiting. I wonder what they're waiting for?" he glanced at Jack and was gratified to see his knuckles whiten.

"Shut up," Jack snapped. "He's... he's coming for me. I have to... I can't..."

John's gun clicked loudly, even over Jack's heavy breathing. "If you don't calm down, I will shoot you for some peace and quiet, okay?" Jack paled, but he nodded. "Good boy. Sit in the corner and be quiet."

Jack did as told and watched him obediently, all the fight gone out of him. John watched him for a moment and turned his attention back to the footage. "Deity, he did a number on you, didn't he?" he couldn't help himself, he was impressed. "If he snapped his fingers, you'd go running, wouldn't you?"

"John..."

"You would, quicker than you would even for Ianto. You were his pet, weren't you?" Jack winced away from him and he smirked. "Okay, good to know. They're waiting for us."

"Waiting for what?" Jack asked him dully.

"Waiting to be able to get in. They don't have a fingerprint to get through the lockdown," he grinned over at Jack. "We're locked in, and they're locked out. At least until one of them changes back. Is there another way in?"

Jack blinked and surfaced enough to answer. "Yes. Through the Bay... the boat house."

"Could they get in?"

"If they have a boat. We... we can lock that down as well." Jack suggested.

John nodded. "Go and do that, then come back. Okay?"

Jack nodded and pushed himself up and out of the corner, then padded stiffly down the corridor. John heaved a sigh and dropped into the chair to get at the computer systems. Someone was using one of the computers in the main Hub to bypass the lockdown and get in at them. "Oh Jackie, you do like to collect enemies. Or exes... both, in most cases. You'd better keep Ianto sweet – he'd be nasty if you jilted him. Not that you would, can't take your eyes off him. I'd have killed to have you look at me like that," he paused and diverted the power from the main computer system to the lighting in the archives, shutting down the computers. "I did kill to have you look at me like that, not that it worked. Bastard."

A power drain appeared to the boathouse and another 'sector locked' light flashed on. John smirked to himself and found the cameras in the Hub again, then leaned back with his hands behind his head to watch the team milling around. Heavy footsteps sounded up the corridor, and he looked over his shoulder at Jack. "I've closed it. We're sealed in."

"And I've taken the power from their computers, so they can't get in. Now, I think you should tell me about him," John raised at eyebrow when Jack's jaw clenched. "Don't be shy. They have your team, they have Ianto," Jack twitched. "And we're the only ones he's not got. We should pool our resources and, to be honest, I don't have any."

Jack pulled the other chair out of the corner and settled down, resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. "He's the Master, a Timelord. He took over the world, destroyed it for a year, but then the year didn't happen and he died. Properly, refused to regenerate."

"You didn't do it properly."

"It wasn't me," Jack glared at him heavily. "I didn't do it, I didn't want the Doctor to reject me again."

"Ah. Did it work?"

Jack just shook his head and rubbed at his face again. "What does He want? Why does He want me?"

"What were you to him?" John asked clinically.

"His..." Jack swallowed. "Punchbag and test subject for torture experiments."

John fought down envy and lust, and dragged back out the clinical analysis. "So does he want that back, or is it just because you escaped? Or... are you to be the bait in his trap?"

"He wouldn't expect the Doctor to come for me," Jack said quietly.

"Why not?"

"Because he never did," he sat up and sighed. "It doesn't matter, anyway. He's out there, we're in here; we just have to wait Him out."

"Will you stop capitalising?" John snapped. "I can hear it, and it's getting on my nerves."

"I'm sorry, the year of conditioning worked," Jack responded curtly. "I'm doing well to call... him Him, not Master."

"I thought that was his name?" Jack glared at him and John nodded. "Got you. So... what now?"

"We wait for the Doctor to stop him," Jack rested a knuckle against his lip.

"I thought you said he wouldn't." John looked back at the screen, at Master-Ianto smirking at him.

"I said he wouldn't for me," Jack pointed out. "For Him, he would."

John nodded slowly. "You are messed up."

"Yeah."

xxxxx

John was sitting in front of the screen again, watching the Masters' continued attempts to get to them through the lockdown, and Jack was filing reports, displacement activity to stop him thinking. "Why do you think we're safe?" John asked, as Master-Dan failed, again, to run the computers off the Rift Manipulator.

"What?"

"Why are we the ones who are still us, when everyone else is him? I mean, if he wants you then it makes sense, but me as well?"

"We're not fully human," Jack pointed out heavily. "It must be a genetic manipulation that we've avoided because of whatever tiny percentage non-human we have."

"Speak for yourself, I'm twelve and a half percent," John sniffed. "At least."

"Good for you," Jack flipped a file shut. "I guess he would have just taken me over and walked me to him, then turned me back when he had me. Or not. Oh God..."

"What?"

"What if they know? What if they're in there and conscious?"

"Stop it," John shook his head. "No point thinking like that. Not whilst they're trying to kill us. You're lucky I dragged you away."

"I know. Thank you." When John looked up, Jack's eyes were sad and serious, and so lost. It wasn't a good look on him.

He nodded and looked back at the screen again. It was easy to zone out watching them, and he let Jack file himself into oblivion in the background. When the figures in the Hub stopped, though, he sat upright. "Jackie, come have a look at this."

"What is it?"

John skipped to the Plass, which was now full of people, all shaking violently. "Something's happening to them."

Jack's fingers tightened painfully on his shoulder, knuckles absolutely white. "Reverse the lockdown."

"Not until I know what's going on."

"We have to do something!"

John dragged Jack's hand off his shoulder and snarled at him. "Do what, exactly? Walk into the lions' den and get ourselves killed? Sorry if I'm not as eager to throw my life away as you are, Jack, but I only have one."

He winced when Jack turned their grips and dug his thumb into John's wrist. "Let. Me. Out."

"Sit down," John told him, icy calm. "Sit down in your corner, or I'll make you." He twitched his gun out of his pocket again and Jack's eyes flickered to it. "You don't stay dead, I do. I will kill you to keep me alive."

"I know you will," Jack released his hand and stepped back. "You always would have done."

"Not always," John kept his gun to hand, though, and watched the screen. "Do you realise how hard it is to love you?"

"Yes. That's why Ianto..."

"Can't?" Jack nodded. "Oh you stupid... They're back!"

"I... what?"

"They've changed back," John told him. "Go, head for the Hub. I'll unlock us and join you." Jack didn't need telling twice.

Xxxxx

Ally picked herself up off the floor and felt large, warm hands on her shoulders, helping her to find her balance. "Jack?" she asked muzzily, leaning into him. "What the hell happened?"

"I'll explain later, come on," he guided her over to the chair, where Lizzy was cradling her head in her hands with a blanket around her shoulders. "Sit down whilst I help the others."

She nodded and let him wrap a blanket around her, then watched as he went to offer a hand to Tom, who was sitting up in the entrance to Jack's office. Lizzy leaned into her shoulder and she wrapped an arm around her. "Any idea what happened?"

Lizzy shrugged. "Mind control, of some sort, I guess. Does your head feel like it's full of coral?"

She contemplated the rough, light feeling in her head and nodded. "Exactly like it's full of coral, yes. Permission to steal that?"

"Granted. Hey Tom."

He'd made it to the sofa under his own steam, followed closely by Dan, and nodded to her gingerly. "My head feels like..."

"Coral," they said in unison, and nodded at each other. Ally added, "We discussed it. Trust the writers."

"When you put it like that... no," he looked around the room. "Where's the Welshman?"

"I'm looking at him," Lizzy blinked slowly, and Tom snorted.

"Ianto's in their office, still," Ally waved and flopped her arm over her face. "John's got him."

"Damn... I was going to go and steal their booze," Dan grunted. He lifted his head and yelled, "John! Bring the whiskey with you?"

Jack passed them, heading for his and Ianto's office, and nodded at them. Ad he disappeared from view behind the blinds, John emerged with a bottle of whiskey and one of vodka. "Didn't think I'd go for their decanters, but we can replace this for them tomorrow."

Dan reached out for it. "How's Ianto looking?"

"Groggy, like all of you," John took a swig from the vodka and passed it on into Ally's hand. "Jack'll take care of him, and I get to babysit all of you."

"How nice for us..." Dan took a deep swig of the whiskey and grimaced. "Can we swap?"

"Jack would castrate me, not going to happen," John shook his head. "Anyway, I think it's safe to go home and leave them to coddle each other."

"What makes you think that? The..." Dan pointed at his head and wiggled his fingers. "Coral?"

"Coral?"

"The girls, don't ask," Dan shook his head.

"Okay, well... yes," John nodded and reached for the vodka again. "He got you, not us... he's gone again. Jack will be up in his office trying to find out how. I'll go see if you can go home."

They nodded and he got up to walk carefully to the office. Inside, Ianto was in his chair with his head back and his eyes closed, and Jack was at the computer. He looked up guiltily when John knocked on the door and nodded. "I'm just finding out what's going on, I'll be out in a minute."

"Don't worry about it," John reassured him. "They have booze, they're happy. Is it safe, now?"

"I have no idea," Jack shook his head and sighed. "I... I think so, though. Stay a bit longer?"

John hesitated, but Jack's eyes showed the terror he was fighting. "Okay, need me to do anything?"

"Yeah, actually. Can you get onto UNIT for me? I'm trying to get hold of the Doctor and," he waved a hand at the screen. "Video footage."

"I'll do that, yeah. No luck yet?"

"Nothing yet. Or too much more like. I'll let you know when I find anything," Jack smiled at him and he left them to it.