Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing. RTD and the BBC own Torchwood, Wales owns Cardiff (or is it the Queen? I really should be up on that - maybe it's Prince Charles? He is the Prince of Wales, right?), and Happy-rea owns Lucy and the Lucyverse, and is so kind to let her come out and play with me.

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Ianto waited outside his flat while Lucy ran back in to grab something. It had become a habit to walk to the Hub together at least once a week instead of taking the car - neither of them even remembered who had suggested it, but with the flat so close, it really did make a bit of sense.

Lucy pulled the door to and bounced over to Ianto. Malteasers. Of course, that's what she'd gone back for. Chocolate. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she grinned.

"I'm gonna do it today!" she announced with a grin, as she popped one of the malt balls into her mouth.

He sighed and shook his head. Sometimes he regretted the part of the morning routine where he fixed her a mug of coffee first thing in the morning, but if he didn't, he'd practically have to carry her into work every morning - and neither of them wanted that.

She looked at him expectantly. Some mornings he would really prefer to just let it go, but…

He sighed.

"All right. What is it that you are 'gonna do'?"

"I'm gonna get Jack to tell me what I need to do to get to be weapons specialist! Remember, you promised to say something to him too, right, about how much help it'll be, to have someone know everything about that stuff in the archives?"

"Yes. I remember. Is it really necessary to be so hyper about it? This early?"

"Oh, come on Yan! Promise you'll talk to him this morning, it'll mean I get even more play time in the shooting range. Who wouldn't get excited about that!"

"That depends. Other than you? Is Jack supervising? And does the person getting play time appreciate his "hands on" approach?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Ok, fine. Maybe the rest of them don't like my toys."

Toys. Only Lucy would think that the heavy artillery hiding out in the basement of the Hub was a 'toy'. Still, at least she did play with them safely. Which was probably more than could be said for her box of sweets.

He reached over and lifted it from her hands.

"You should probably wait to talk to Jack until this bout of hysterics has passed."

She grabbed for the box, but he held it up over his head, just out of her reach.

"Yan! I need my chocolate! Give it back!"

"I don't think you do, Lucy."

He caught one of the sweets that rolled out of the box with his free hand,and popped it into his mouth.

"Ianto! Give! People are staring."

"At six in the morning? I don't see anyone."

She kept jumping up, slapping at his wrists while he tried not to laugh. Laughter meant distraction, and there was no doubt that Lucy could take advantage of any moment of weakness - especially when she was already hyper.

"Oh! Prosthetics!"

"What?"

"Something you can look up. For Lisa."

"Lucy, can you try to pull those thoughts together into something resembling coherence?"

He lowered his hands in confusion. Lucy took one last jump, and snatched the malteasers from his hands.

"Haha!"

"Ok, you win. You have your sweet. Now - what do you mean, prosthetics?"

"I just mean, someone who specializes in advanced robotic prosthetic limbs might have the best experience to figure out how to help her. There's bunch of different companies that work on developing stuff that interfaces directly with the human nervous system."

She stopped and fished into her bag and pulled out a rumpled half-sheet of paper and thrust it at him.

He took it with a raised eyebrow

"And what is this?"

"It's a list. For you to check out. You know I can't do advanced hacking without the cheat sheet."

He checked to make sure he could actually decipher her scrawl (the legibility depended on quite a few factors) before pocketing the paper.

"Thank you. I'll take a look when I have a chance."

"And you'll talk to Jack for me today?"

She popped another of the malted balls into her mouth and looked up at him with puppy dog eyes.

Ianto sighed.

"All right. I'll do my best."

He did try, but the day refused to cooperate with him. Every time he tried to talk with Jack, something happened. The Rift spit out some space junk (at least they hoped it was just space junk) in Radyr. A weevil decided to attack someone's dog in Victoria Park. Then there was a Hoix at the Cardiff Golf Club.

While the whole team spent the day running around (except Lucy, who was trying to catch up on the rest of paperwork she'd inherited as the "new girl" - a title he knew she really wanted to lose, hence his promise to help her move up to weapon's specialist… if Jack would ever have a minute for him to help make her case), and Ianto stayed at the Hub coordinating, there was no time for a quiet discussion of how valuable it would be to actually have someone who could have a pretty good idea if the thing some alien that came through the Rift had pointed at them was a weapon, or a salt-shaker, and if it was a weapon, what it could do.

Or something - he still hadn't quite decided what the best arguments that would convince Jack to give Lucy a shot would actually be. But he did promise, and Ianto Jones always keeps his promises.

It was nearer to suppertime than lunch when he finally had a moment. Jack was in his office, the rest of the team working on… whatever it was they worked on - they didn't really feel the need to keep him informed, he was just the tea-boy, and there had actually been time to brew a fresh pot of his best coffee.

He saved Jack's coffee for last, and let himself into Jack's office - where Jack was on the phone.

"Could I have a brief word, sir?"

Jack met his eyes, nodded, but held up a finger to say "I'll be just a minute."

"Ok, so hold on, let me get this straight. You're saying that UNIT doesn't have anyone who knows how to put someone off without sending them to pester someone else?"

Jack picked up his coffee and took a long, deep drink. He looked gratefully at Ianto.

"You couldn't have just told him we incinerated all the remains? Because that is exactly what we did, you couldn't tell him that?"

He rolled his eyes and waved one hand in the air, in a "yadda, yadda, yadda" gesture.

Ianto tried not to smirk. Jack hated dealing with UNIT, but as head of the only real remaining branch of Torchwood, it was a big part of his job, and he couldn't just blow them off as he obviously would prefer to do.

"All right, fine. When he calls, I'll talk to him. Thanks for the head's up. I've got to go. Yeah, you too. Talk to you later. Goodbye."

Jack hung up the phone, braced his arm on the desk and rested his head in his hand, then he sighed and ran his hand through his hair as he looked up at Ianto.

"Tell me something, Ianto."

"Sir?"

"Why is it that UNIT, who actually exist publically and work with the government and the public, who's whole purpose is to be the FACE of alien affairs in Britain… why can't they brush off their own conspiracy theorists and alien opportunists without fobbing them off on us? I mean, we are SUPPOSED to be so secret that Harriet Jones was the first Prime Minister to even know about us. And she didn't even know about us, just about London."

"I… really couldn't tell you, Sir."

"Well, anyway - So, Ianto, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Well, sir" he began.

Only to be interrupted. Again.

Suzie, calling from her workstation.

"The police have found another body!"

Jack was on his feet and heading for the door of his office, before Ianto had even realized what exactly was being said.

"Well, as I was going to say…" he muttered under his breath, as Jack strode out into the common area.

"Ok Team, let's go!"

Ianto followed him out of his office, handing Jack the mug he had left on the desk. Jack threw back the last of the coffee, and looked over to where Lucy had sat all day, doggedly working her way through files and forms and miscellaneous other papers.

"Lucy, you finish that paperwork?"

"Yeah."

She grabbed the jacket off the back of her chair. Ianto tried to catch her eye, to let her know he still hadn't had the chance to soften Jack up on her ideas, but her eyes were already on the door - obviously thrilled to maybe finally be allowed out in the field with the rest of the team.

"Good, you can come with us."

He was glad she was excited - and it was obvious she was going try again to take this opportunity to make her case for the position she wanted. He wished he could have smoothed the way a little, but he wished her well. Hopefully it would go well even without his help.

Jack turned to Ianto.

"We'll be back in an hour or so, can you get the stuff I need for my UNIT call ready? And make sure the police know we're on the way, I don't want to have to explain things again."

"No problem, sir. UNIT files and coffee will be waiting for you when you get back. I'll call the police as soon as you leave."

"You're brilliant"

If only you knew, Jack. If only you gave a flying fuck about me besides coffee and paperwork.

"Just doing my job, sir."

They were gone, without another word.

As Ianto headed to the phones, he couldn't help but smirk. Jack had just gotten off the phone with UNIT, and clearly still had another call to go. It was nice when someone besides Ianto had to hate the part of the job they were dealing with. He rang the number for police headquarters.

"Yes, this is Torchwood. We know you've had another murder. You're going to need to pull your men back from the crime scene, we need access. Yes, thank you."

Ianto hung up the phone, and got to work pulling the files Jack needed. And maybe a few extra that he didn't need. It wouldn't do to have this call be less thorough than UNIT deserved, now would it?