"We should have had holidays," Jack said as Ianto continued along the M4 toward Reading.

Part of Ianto wanted to ask Jack to stop, get his head back in the game, and quit mourning before anybody even died. But Ianto realized Jack was entitled to feel the anticipated loss and he was glad he could be there for at least some of what Jack would go through.

"What, those… um, three dinners we had without weevil interference weren't holidays to you?"

"Yeah, they were," Jack laughed without much humour in it. "I wish we'd gotten away from it once in a while, though. I was never especially bothered about that kind of thing before, but you and me should have."

"You and I," Ianto said, unable to help it.

"I am so gonna miss that."

"You think people could tell? When we were out together…."

"Hot guy in a smart suit at a romantic table for two with a 51st century, two-time Rear-of-the-Year winner? Yeah, might have been obvious. Are you ok with that?"

Ianto was quiet for a moment. "I'm more than ok with it. I'm glad of it. Maybe even a bit proud."

"You should be proud, of so much. You know what I'm going to miss the most?"

"My tie around your wrists?"

Jack took a sharp breath. "Ok, close second. Very close."

Ianto gave a shy smile that was no longer accompanied by the level blush it once was. "Alright, then, what?"

"Your laugh. The spontaneous one that would come on you so quick you didn't have a chance to stifle it. The one you'd get from watching utterly stupid television too late at night."

Ianto rolled his eyes, but knew Jack meant it. "You know what I missed when you were gone?"

"What?" Jack asked, hoping the answer wasn't something that would rip his heart out a little more.

"When you'd sing to me after I'd had a nightmare. You've a beautiful voice, and I bet not many people know that."

"You're right, not many. Thank you."

Ianto reached over for Jack's hand, careful not to take his eyes from the road. He was planning to die with his boots (well, oxfords) on – not behind the wheel.

"What's the plan, Captain?" Ianto asked.

"I never have a plan," Jack huffed. "Just charge in, guns blazin'. Always worked before."

"You're planning to shoot Greene and his advisors? Oh, yeah, that's definitely how I'm dying."

"Actually, I was planning to go in coat billowing with the PM. Guns blazin' is for the alien."

"Alright, Ianto… where's Jack?"

Ianto wanted to roll his eyes at how suspicious Gwen sounded. "On his way to London."

"What for? I thought you were going with him. Is there some reason you needed Jack gone? Is this to do with why you were out of range yesterday?"

Now Ianto did roll his eyes and sigh. "Yes, actually. I'm taking over the Hub and giving it over to Torchwood's top enemy, the Doctor. See? He's already at Jack's desk. That's his spaceship parked down there. And now if we're done mucking about… you really do need to know what's going on."

Ianto sat down to hopefully put Gwen a bit more at ease. By the look on her face, though she sat as well, it didn't look like it helped.

"Jack is on his way to London… with me. Right now. They should be across into England by now."

"Then who the hell are you?"

"I'm me. I'm Ianto… and this is where it gets a bit complicated. I think the Doctor might explain this better. Or he'll explain and I'll translate, more like."

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," said the smiling man with a bow-tie in the doorway.

"Doctor? Doctor what?"

The Doctor looked a bit thrown for a half-moment.

"It's just 'The Doctor,' apparently," Ianto said. "Like Prince, or Cher."

"Oh, right, you're straight as a pig's tail," Gwen muttered.

Ianto barely held back a glare.

"Anyway… as I was saying, Doctor. And you're Ms. Cooper… or Mrs. Williams, I suppose. Is that hyphenated? What was I meant to be explaining again?"

"Why there's another of me currently heading for London," Ianto prompted.

"Oh, right, yes. Well, I don't really see what's so complicated about it. It's a simple upload and copy mechanism. Perfectly simple. Only, best not to do it much because, well… timelines, wibbly-wobbly… that sort of thing, of course. Is that last cup of coffee going spare, Mr. Jones?" the Doctor said hopefully.

"Help yourself," Ianto said. "It might help if I start at the beginning," he said to Gwen. "While you and Jack were out yesterday, he popped in here to get me to go with him and help Jack. Something goes wrong in the rather near future and Jack, in that timeline, ends up imprisoned and sentenced to a lifetime of torture."

"But we can't -"

"Of course we can't. But what went wrong, for Jack, was me not making it out of there. He gave up. Well, as I was learning about this and finding out how I was to die… it kind of created a fixed point."

"Fixed point? What's a fixed point?"

"A fixed point is a fact, Ms… um, Mrs…. Yes," the Doctor chimed in. "Fixed point. Can't be changed. Not ever. Even if you try to change it, the universe, essentially, issues a correction and the fixed point event occurs anyway. So, Mr. Jones, for example, would meet an untimely end even where he kept away from London. Something would occur. Jack, himself, is a fixed point, a fact within the universe. He is. Always. It's sort of the opposite of Mr. Jones' problem. Mr. Jones must die and so will. Jack must never not be… and so isn't. And if you do somehow fundamentally alter a fixed point… it can essentially unravel the fabric of space and time and that's the whole point of having Time Lords. Or, I suppose, Time Lord. It's my job, most days… some days. Never know when weekends are though. Wibbly-wobbly."

"This is all a bit depressing, if informative. I had really hoped not to lose any more colleagues in the near future. Are you sure we should be listening to him, Ianto? He sounds like a madman."

"Oh, he is a madman, that's definite."

"And I still don't understand how there are two of you. Did that hitchhiker thing give off some kind of psychotropic stuff and make me hallucinate all this? Is Rhys going to find me on the sofa gibbering all this nonsense?"

"Hitchhikers don't have any known psychotropic properties, so… that wouldn't cause gibbering. There are two of me because the Doctor basically uploaded me into the TARDIS – don't ask how that works – and made a copy. Perfect copy. Everything the same: DNA, experiences, thoughts, the whole lot. I stayed back in the TARDIS with future-Jack and doppel-Ianto explained this stuff to now-Jack and is going to London with him… where he'll die. But I'll be fine. So, the universe gets its 'fixed' death out of me… but Jack gets me back. And the only problem is that he can't know until it's already happened."

Gwen wrapped her hands a little tighter around her mug. "So… you found a way to safely rewrite history… or the future, for someone you love."

Ianto gave a small smile and nodded.

"That makes it all worth it. All the hitchhikers and weevils and pyscho-ex-boyfriends… that you were able to use this to make something right. And since you're getting a second chance, are you finally gonna tell him? You've no idea what it does to him, wondering. He's always saying to me, 'I can't tell him how I feel because this stuff is still too new for him.' Which I think is an absolute load of bollocks, but he's petrified he'll scare you off -"

"I know. And I have told him. Well, other-me has, but same thing. And I'll tell him again as soon as he's back, and every day for the rest of my life."

"But in the meantime, he still has to lose you."

"Yeah. Temporarily."

"And what do we do until then? Just sit here like a couple of idle dossers?"

"Of course not. Support and back-up, as usual. Only thing is, I can't do any of the communicating from here and you can't give even the slightest hint that there's anyone here but yourself. Right?"

"Alright. Where do we start?"

"I'd say we ought to get on to Martha first thing, but she's on honeymoon and I don't much like the chance of Oduya listening to us lot of sheepshaggers. We might have had a better time with Mace, but he's been banished to Canada, so I think we're stuck starting with Whitehall. Specifically John Frobisher. I'll get you the contact information and you see if you can reach his office. Tell him it's about the children. Did you see any of that coming in, incidentally?"

"All stopped dead? Yep, I did. So that is something to do with it?"

"Everything to do with it." Ianto took a deep breath. "You're gonna need a brief on this too, but we can't use any of the information from this point forward in the timeline. We need to keep it all in line. Doctor? Anything from the Shadow Proclamation yet?"

"No. I'm going to keep trying, though."

"Right. Do that. And thanks for tidying Jack's desk. Haven't had time myself with all this." Ianto shared a glance with Gwen. "You know, we've got a couple openings, Doctor."

"Thank you, but no. I'm not nearly that reliable," the Doctor said before going back down to the TARDIS. He wasn't sure who he was more daunted by the prospect of working with, Mr. Jones or Ms. Cooper. Jack was clearly a much braver man than he ever received credit for being.

"Doctor?" Ianto called after him. "Will there be any indication…? Jack avoiding… that outcome?"

"I believe so."

"Would you, sort of… let me know? I'd like to…."

"Of course," the Doctor smiled sadly, stepping into the box and closing the door behind him.