It was late. Ianto was tired. However, he refused to go to sleep. He had left Rose at Torchwood with her promise that she would go get some rest, but with no intention of getting any rest himself. He could be a bit of a perfectionist if he wanted, and right now happened to be one of those times.

He just couldn't figure out what it was that had been flowing from the crack the day he and Rose had collected the data. He had tested for the most common forms of energy, but nothing had come up. Right now, he was simply sifting through every test in the book, trying to find some sort of match.

Statistically speaking, he'd have to find something eventually. He just hoped that it wasn't too late.

Ianto was interrupted by Lisa coming into the dining room where he had all of the equipment set up on the table. She made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat and came up behind him, gently rubbing his shoulders.

"You're going to work yourself sick," she warned.

He shook his head determinedly, "I don't have a choice. I need to figure this out- it could be very important."

"More important than your very, lonely, wife?" Lisa asked cheekily. Ianto couldn't help but grin to himself. It was moments like these that made him wonder how how he had managed to get so lucky.

"Never," he said truthfully, "But Rose may be in some serious trouble."

Lis raised an eyebrow and stepped back from him, removing her hands from his shoulders. Ianto worried that she was angry from whatever reason, but he was quickly proven wrong when she pulled up a chair next to him and sat down.

"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" Lisa asked seriously.

Ianto couldn't help but be incredible proud of her in that moment. They hadn't known Rose for very long, but in the short time they had, the had grown to care about her immensely. At first, for Ianto, it was simple gratitude for the way she treated him at work. As a muggle, it wasn't often that his knowledge was respected (and he had worked hard to acquire that knowledge!). Soon, though, they had grown to become friends. They had similar senses of humor and world views and just got on well. He had eventually learned about her past in the parallel world and with the Doctor. That had only made him (and Lisa, by extension) more determined to be there for her.

Ianto wasn't sure why he was so surprised that Lisa wanted to help Rose. He shouldn't have been. The two of them loved spending time together and were like sisters, at times.

Lisa said, gently, "Tell me what's going on."

So Ianto did. He started out by explaining the strange origins of the crack. Then he went on to explain Rose's odd fascination with it, her fainting, the gold light... He handed his wife the paper with the data they had collected written on it.

She read through it as he explained, "It's some sort of energy, but I don't know which kind it is. I mean, this entire thing should be impossible. The crack definitely leads to the Void, but that's nothing in its purest form. I just don't understand..."

Ianto rubbed furiously at his face with his hands, as though that would help an answer magically appear in front of them. He let his head fall to the table, honestly exhausted. Lisa hummed to herself, reading over the data, trying to help.

"So you don't know which sort of energy it is yet?" Lisa clarified.

"No," Ianto said, clearly frustrated. "I've run it through the database and compared it to the most common forms of energy that Torchwood comes across, but that all came back negative. I could- I mean, theoretically, I could just compare it to the entire database, but that could take days, even weeks."

"And you might not have that sort of time," Lisa mused. After a moment's pause, she said, "You think this energy is related to Rose, though?"

"Yes," he said cautiously. "Why?"

"Well, why not start then by comparing this energy to some of her DNA or whatever it is you do in those labs at Torchwood," Lisa said. "Just to be sure."

"That's actually brilliant," Ianto said, "But there's only one problem."

"Oh?" Lisa asked. "What's that, then?"

"I don't have any of Rose's DNA," Ianto said simply. Lisa smirked at him and Ianto couldn't help but grin to himself. "What's that look for?"

She giggled knowingly as she stood up and headed down the hall. He couldn't help but be a bit disappointed at that. It had been nice to have her keep him company, although she must've been tired (it was getting late) and Ianto Jr. probably needed his rest...

Lisa startled him by entering the dining room again and holding something out to him. He took it, confused. It was a pink hairbrush.

"What's this?" he asked.

Lisa said, "It belongs to Rose. She left it here a few weeks ago when she stayed the night and I forgot to return it. Surely you'll be able to retrieve some DNA off of that."

"It's moments like these that make me realize just how lucky I am," Ianto said.

Lisa laughed at that. "I must've married the only man in the world that thinks finding retrievable DNA is sexy. Never mind the fact that I'm carrying his child. Imagine what she-"

"He," Ianto corrected.

"-she will be like when she grows up. Perish the thought."

"He," Ianto said firmly, "Will be as brilliant as his father was and when he marries the love of his life and she helps him find retrievable DNA, he'll make sure to reward her almost as well as his father rewarded his mother."

Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Is that a promise?"

"Oh, yes," Ianto agreed, before pausing to look down at all the papers on the table and the newfound hairbrush. "Only-"

"It'll have to wait until you're done," Lisa finished. "I understand."

She kissed him on the cheek and bid him goodnight as she left the room. He watched her go with a smile on his face and mentally cursed Rose for being so much trouble. Then he picked up the hairbrush. As usual, his wife was right. He shouldn't have any problems getting some of Rose's DNA off of it. It took him a few false starts, but eventually he managed to find hair with afollicle.

He sat back and watched the computer work its magic- figuratively speaking. He huffed and hoped that, wherever she was, Rose was grateful for everything he was doing for her. He could be in bed right now-

Sleeping-

Or something else-

It was a loud beeping from his computer that startled him. He jerked up and looked at the time on the computer. He had fallen asleep for almost three hours. No wonder the computer was beeping...

He pulled the results open and skimmed them as quickly as he could, his eyebrows migrating further and further up towards his hairline.

By the time Ianto had finished reading the results, he had only one clear thought: Fred would like to know about this.

The next morning, however, when Ianto got to work, he realized that this may be a bit harder to accomplish than he had originally thought.

Torchwood was in an uproar. Ianto didn't think he'd ever seen so many employees running around so madly. The one upside to the entire thing was that it seemed Rose had finally listened to him and actually taken her day off.

It was a shame she wasn't here, though, in a way, since she would've loved the trouble. Under normal circumstances, chaos like this would be bad enough (if not amusing), but Ianto needed get somebody's attention soon so he could tell them what he had found last night!.

And what he found had shocked him: aside from the fact that Torchwood equipment had detected minute changes in Rose's

DNA, they had found traces of the same energy in her cells as the energy emanating from the crack in the wall.

That had, of course, sparked another round of tests, but after an exhaustive night of digging, he had come up with nothing, so he decided that it was time to talk to Fred about what he had found. He might get in trouble for keeping it all a secret for so long, but as Rose's "uncle" and head of Torchwood, he had a right to know if something was wrong with Rose.

Of course, that was if he could get a meeting with Fred. He had come to work only to find that everything had gone pear-shaped. It was more hectic than the day Saxon had arrived for a surprise inspection.

When Ianto managed to reach Fred's office (and what a pain that had been, since all the lifts had been jammed with people), he was stopped by the secretary.

Ianto had had run-ins with her before. Her name was Ms. Andrea Dietz and she was almost as prejudiced against muggles as Healer Norton. She was incredibly small, but rather rotund (to put it politely) and had a tendency to wear this bright blue eyeshadow with red lipstick, a combination that Rose loved to complain about.

To be honest, Ianto was a bit afraid of her. Her desk was littered with photographs of this vicious -looking pomeranian (well, Ianto thought it looked vicious, but Rose thought it looked rather adorable). Ianto had never believed in the theory that dogs looked like their owners until he had met Ms. Dietz- with her blonde hair sticking almost straight up in frizzy curls, she looked startlingly like her dog.

It was because of her that Ianto tended to do most of his business with Fred over the phone, but today, the office was unavoidable.

"You can't go in there," she informed him as primly as she could.

"Why not?" Ianto asked incredulously. He had clearance to go anywhere in the building, after all, and he had been to Fred's office plenty of times to inform on Rose and deliver documents and the like.

"That's classified," she told him smugly, before going back to her computer, smacking her gum quite loudly. Ianto scowled. Wizard bigotry got on his nerves sometimes. If it wasn't for people like Rose, he probably would've quit a long time ago.

"I have urgent information for him," Ianto said as calmly as he could. Ms. Dietz still didn't look too inclined to let him in.

"Give the papers to me," she ordered. "I'll deliver them to Mr. Weasley later."

Ianto frowned and looked down at the stack of papers he had in his hand, then back up at her. He couldn't help but say, "I can't, sorry. It's classified."

She colored a bit, although out of anger or embarrassment, Ianto wasn't sure. Instead of asking her about that, he asked, "Why can't I see Fr- Mr. Weasley again? You've seen me go in and out of his office loads of times. He's explicitly told you that I'm to be let in- unless he's got somebody in there with him. He hasn't, has he?"

"No. He's not even in his office" Ms. Dietz said impatiently. Seeing Ianto's befuddled expression (Fred was almost always in his office first thing in the morning), she huffed. "Haven't you noticed that Torchwood is in a bit of a flurry today?"

"No, it escaped me entirely," Ianto said as drily as he could manage. Ms. Dietz didn't seem to notice.

"Typical muggle," she scolded. "Not seeing what's right under your nose."

Ianto muttered threats quietly under his breath, but again, Ms. Dietz didn't seem to notice. He was grateful for that, too, since some of the things he was considering were physically impossible, and he had a feeling that she wouldn't react well to them.

"Enlighten me," Ianto said aloud. Ms. Dietz looked all too pleased for once. She had a reputation for being a bit of a gossip, so Ianto wasn't surprised when she even leaned forward and beckoned him to come in closer. Ianto really didn't want to get any closer to her than he had to, but he inclined his head towards her out of politeness.

"New cracks have started to show up," she whispered, before leaning back into her chair and continuing typing on the computer.

Ianto just blinked a bit, very lost. New cracks? Cracks like the in The Wall? New cracks where? Did she honestly think that that was enough information?

"Care to elaborate?" he asked.

She turned away from her computer and raised an eyebrow conspiratorially. "You know the crack in The Wall, yes?"

Ianto nodded slowly, thinking of the new information he had on it. Whether or not that information actually turned out to be useful was another matter entirely, but he felt that it wasn't necessary to mention any of that to Ms. Dietz. If he did, it'd be all over Torchwood by the end of the day, and he didn't need wizards like Scorpius Malfoy giving him a hard time.

"Apparently," Ms. Dietz said, "Similar cracks have been showing up all over the place- Wales, Scotland, the United States... even Norway."

"Norway?" Ianto asked absently, his mind already moving in several different directions, the first one being that now he desperately needed to get to Fred. "And- Mr. Weasley is where, again?"

"He's meeting with heads of the military and UNIT and other people in the conference room," Ms. Dietz said, waving her hand flippantly, not finding it particularly exciting. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she realized what she had told him.

"Now, hang on!" Ms. Dietz called out, but Ianto was already well on his way to the conference room. He didn't care who was there. Fred was going to hear what he had to say one way or another.

Of course, by the time Ianto reached the conference room, is confidence had depleted a bit. These were, after all, some of the most powerful men and women in the world. And, much to Ianto's despair, all wizards. Fred may be more than willing to hear him out most of the time, but that was generally in private and not in front of respected colleagues and the like.

Taking a deep breath and trying to find confidence in the fact that he had a very valid point to make, Ianto opened the doors to the conference room, not even bothering to knock. The silence as he stood there in the doorway was deafening, and Ianto could feel a dozen pairs of eyes on him.

There were about ten wizards (that Ianto had never seen before in his life) seated around the massive table in the center of the conference room, in addition to Fred and several other higher-ups from Torchwood- and Scorpius Malfoy.

Ianto resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

None of them looked too pleased to see him. As a matter of fact, they all looked very frazzled, no doubt stressed about what was going in.

Fred, in particularly, looked ready to throw him out a window.

Still, Ianto stood his ground. He cleared his throat, desperate to break the uncomfortable silence, and said, "I, ah, have some information that I think you may all find interesting."

"That's very good, Mr. Jones," Fred said tersely. "If you'd like to wait for me in my office, I'd be more than happy to discuss it later. However, we happen to be in the middle of a crisis, if you haven't noticed."

"I know," Ianto said as cooly as he could manage. "New cracks have begun to show up-"

"More than that," one man interrupted, wearing a thick beard and a thicker American accent. "They're identical to each other in size and shape, and all formed at the same time. Some of them are in walls, some on rock formations, some of them in the air, even, but all have been found in areas where there is a known weakness in the walls between dimensions."

"Right, yes," Ianto stuttered, "Thank-you for the summary. However, I believe what I have is relevant to the situation. You see, I've been running some tests on the original crack we have here at Torchwood One-"

"There's a crack here at Torchwood One?" another voice cried, this time coming from a rather skinny woman.

"I was- I was just about to get to that," Fred said, scowling in Ianto's direction. He grinned sheepishly.

His grin was ripped off his face as Scorpius butted in by saying, "Who authorized you to run those tests anyway? We can't just have muggles running around using delicate equipment like that."

Ianto stuttered uselessly in the face of disapproving looks, finally blurting out the only thing he could think to say. "There seems to be some sort of energy emanating from the crack we have in The Wall."

The murmuring that followed this surprising declaration made Ianto feel slightly better about the entire situation.

Fred, looking less irked with him, asked, "What sort of energy?"

"I have no idea," Ianto admitted. "I've run every test I could think of. Everything has come up negative. Whatever this energy source is, it seems to be unknown."

There was more muttering as officials turned to each other and debated what could be happening. Ianto chose this moment to move in closer to Fred.

"There's something else," he whispered quietly, so he wouldn't be overheard by the others. Fred nodded to have Ianto continue. Ianto explained, "The energy seems to be connected to Rose, somehow- I found traces of it in her DNA and it's just all very strange."

Ianto had been doing his best to be quiet, but it didn't seem as though he had been quiet enough. The American from earlier demanded, "Rose? Who's Rose?"

Fred and Ianto exchanged looks, neither willing to oust their friend, but Scorpius had no such scruples. He said, rather suspiciously, "Rose Tyler. She's one of the workers here at Torchwood. She heads her own team. Are you- Are you saying that she's involved in this?"

The American spoke. "I heard them talking. This energy stuff is apparently coming from her."

"No, no, no," Ianto corrected immediately. "It's not originating from her. It's originating from the crack. There does, however, seem to be some sort of connection- although it's all very uncertain- hardly conclusive-"

"If this girl has something to do with this mess," another woman piped up, "We need to get her in here!"

"It's her day off," Ianto protested weakly, but it seemed as though chaos had again descended on Torchwood and Ianto found himself eternally grateful that Rose wasn't here for this.

Despite his attempts, Ianto went unheard over the clamor, the reigning opinion seeming to be that they needed to find Rose and bring her to Torchwood. Judging by Fred's expression, it seemed as though the two were in agreement: if Rose came back to Torchwood anytime soon, things would not end well for her.

Ianto had no idea where Rose was right now or what she was up to (and she was almost always up to something), but he hoped that for once in her life she just stayed put and didn't go wandering off.

Ianto couldn't help but snort to himself.

As though that was ever going to happen.

AN: Here's the next chapter! I really hope you enjoy it! I like writing from Ianto's point of view... it gives me a bit of a break from writing Rose all the time.

As for the next chapter? Well, you'll get Donna and Rose and Saxon, and maybe even a glimpse of the Doctor. Finally :P

In the meantime, keep up the feedback! Reviews are love. Just sayin'.

tinyrose65