The drive to Cardiff was tense and silent. James watched Martha carefully out of the corner of his eye, taking in her tense posture and bleak expression. She broke every speeding law he knew, but he said nothing.

He wasn't sure what there was for Martha in Cardiff – she was friends with Jack and with Rose, but certainly not enough to warrant her current behaviour…

Thinking of Rose made his heart pound heavily in his chest and his breath catch in his lungs. He still hadn't heard from her since before the evacuation of Cardiff, though he'd been clutching his mobile phone so tightly he'd feel any movement whatsoever. He'd wondered, on more than one occasion, if this was Rose's subtle way of telling him she wasn't interested in seeing him again.

But then, why would she spend the afternoon with him? Why would she continue to seek him out at his work?

And where on earth was Martha taking him?

Lost in his own thoughts, it caught him by surprise when Martha pulled to a stop in front of what looked like a run-down tourism office. He shot her a confused look, but she was already leaving the car, leaving him no option but to follow. He scrambled out of his seat and followed her as she determinedly marched to an old-looking door and swung it open. James jogged to catch up with her, grabbing the edge of the door before it latched shut.

He found himself in a small, old looking tourism office, furnished with a desk littered with papers, pamphlets and an outdated computer. The wooden walls seemed aged and made the room feel even smaller. The only tidy part of the room was the bulletin board, on which the papers were meticulously lined up, made easy to read at a glance.

A young man came out from under a doorway hidden by hanging beads, marked Staff Only. He was dressed smartly in a fitted suit, a cuppa in his hands. When he saw Martha, he quickly placed the mug on the desk and came around it to wrap her up in a hug.

"Ianto," Martha greeted as she returned the embrace.

Ah, so this was Jack's mystery man.

"Martha," Ianto pulled away and nodded at her, a tense expression on his face that mirrored Martha's. "You made good time."

Martha scoffed drily, her lips tugging into a bitter smile. "I'm lucky I didn't get pulled over. How is he?"

Ianto placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "He's fine. A little worse for wear, and you can imagine that the boss tore him a new one for being reckless, but he's fine, awake. We told him you were coming."

Martha snorted. "She's one to talk. Reckless."

Ianto laughed quietly and turned to James, shooting a questioning look at Martha. "Who's this, then?"

"Oh, sorry," Martha pulled away. "Ianto Jones, this is James McCrimmon. James, Ianto."

Ianto's eyes lit with interest and he offered James a calloused hand. The handshake was brief and Ianto turned his attention back to Martha. "You shouldn't have brought him, Martha," he scolded.

"Please," Martha scoffed, "he's been Jack's flatmate for years. He should already know all of this. I don't know how Jack's managed to keep it a secret for so long." What on earth were they talking about?

"The boss won't be happy."

Jack often called Rose 'boss'. Were they talking about her? Why wouldn't she be happy to see him?

"She can suck it up," Martha sniffed. "We all know she's serious about him. Besides, he won't tell." Was she talking about Rose? Rose was serious about him? "She could use some support anyway. Don't suppose she's called her parents."

Ianto smiled slightly and shook his head. "She says she 'doesn't want to bring Jackie's wrath upon us'. Her words exactly."

Martha snorted again. "Sounds like her. Can't blame her, though. Jackie can be a bit much."

"A bit," Ianto scoffed.

"Sorry to interrupt," James jumped in, not sorry in the slightest. "But what's going on here?"

Martha looked to Ianto, who nodded at her before moving back behind the desk and pressing a hidden blue button. "I'll bring some tea down later," he told them.

James watched in disbelief a section of the wall hissed and mechanically opened, revealing a long hallway of cement flooring and drab, grey brick walls. It was roomier than he expected, with arched supports every few meters. He was thankful for the fluorescent lights hung on the walls at regular intervals, because the cavernous hallway was dark, with no windows to offer any light. Martha led him briskly through the corridor, obviously not wasting any time. A door slid opened and Martha stepped confidently into the room, James a few seconds behind. He didn't have time to ask where they were going before the door slid shut and a twisting sensation in his stomach told him they were moving downwards.

It was only a few seconds later that the elevator stopped and the door hissed open once more. Martha and James found themselves faced with a large wall, a massive gear-like door in front of them. It slowly rolled out of the way to reveal a large room.

Martha, once again, moved with complete ease, James a few steps behind, looking around in wonder. Directly in front of him, on a sort of large platform, there were several computers, all in what looked to be separate work stations. As soon as Martha led him forward a few feet, the gear rolled back into place and a metal gate swung shut, securing tightly into place.

"Martha," James said nervously, "what is this?"

Stairs to her left lead to a sort of deck-like-platform, though he couldn't see what might be up there. There was another work station to his right, though this one looked more like that of a mechanic, with metal tools and heavy gloves rather than high-tech computers that made the one in the tourist office look ancient.

All in all, the room was…dreary. It looked every bit the hidden, underground hub.

"Martha," James snapped, starting to get impatient and distinctly uncomfortable. "Martha, what is this place?"

Martha came to a stop and turned to face him. "This is Torchwood, James," she said quietly.

"Torchwood?" James repeated, looking around in wonder. "Torchwood is in London."

She shook her head. "Torchwood One operates out of London. This is Torchwood Three. Cardiff. Welcome." She turned back around and marched determinedly through the room, heading over to a sectioned off portion of the room. He followed her to a sterile, hospital-like portion of the room, where Mickey Smith was sitting on what looked like an operating table, having a massive cut in his arm stitched up by a man in a doctor's lab coat. He was covered in cuts and bruises.

"Mickey!" Martha yelled, jogging over to him.

"Hey, babe," Mickey smiled at her, an exhausted look on his face. Martha made her way to his side and kissed his temple.

"Blimey, you took a beating," Martha worried, looking him up and down, assessing the damage.

"Don't you start," Mickey smiled tiredly, "the boss already ripped into me."

"I bet she did! Where is she anyway?"

"James!"

James whirled around, coming face-to-face with a confused-looking Jack. "What are you doing here?" Jack asked, clapping James's shoulder with a strange look on his face.

"Martha brought me," James said, feeling just as confused as his flatmate.

"Did she?" Jack shot Martha a glare.

"Come off it, Jack," Martha retorted, glaring at Jack in return. "He's been one of us long enough. He deserves to know."

"Know what?" James snapped angrily, tired of feeling left out. "What the hell is going on?"

Jack sighed, shaking his head. "Jesus, Martha, you could have called. Given us some warning," he growled, annoyed. Martha just shook her head, not leaving Mickey's side for an instant. Jack wrapped his arm around James's elbow and tugged him away, leading him into a small office, tucked behind the work stations he'd seen upon entering.

"Tell me what's going on, Jack," James demanded, his heart pounding in his chest. "What the hell is this? What happened to Mickey? Where's Rose?"

Jack help up his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, James," he said quietly, though he kept his head held high. "I didn't want you to find out this way."

"Find out what?"

"This is Torchwood," Jack gestured around him. "Well, Torchwood Three. Bit too much like a hole in the ground, if you ask me. My office in London is much nicer." He moved around the small desk that occupied the center of the room and sat down in the office chair, leaning back. "This is Gwen's office. She runs this base. Director Tyler oversees all the branches, so she answers to him."

"Rose?" James croaked.

Jack shook his head. "Pete, her father." He gave James a moment to absorb that information. "Torchwood's prime directive is to defend earth against extraterrestrial threats, or what a lot of people would call supernatural. That includes everything from research to actual, physical defense, which is what we've been up to lately."

James blinked. "The…genetic experiments…a genetic experiment gone wrong…?"

Again, Jack shook his head. "That's what we said, because it would be impractical to retcon the entire population of Cardiff, but that's not what happened." He met James's gaze squarely. "They were aliens."

James stopped short and regarded Jack with raised eyebrows before he let out a laugh. "Right," he chuckled. "You spent the past three days fighting off an alien invasion."

Jack shrugged. "I don't think I'd call it an invasion," he answered, pointedly ignoring James's sarcasm. "But fighting aliens, yeah."

James stopped laughing and frowned at Jack, understanding dawning on him. "You're serious," he said slowly. "You're telling me you, Rose, and Mickey have spent the last few days fighting off a horde of aliens."

Jack jerked his head in a quick nod. "Yeah."

"And you're serious."

"Yeah."

"Blimey."

Jack laughed. "Yeah," he said again.

James shook his head, confused, and then looked around the hub again, noticing the distinctive lack of a certain blonde woman. "Where's Rose?"

Jack sighed and ran his hands over his face. "Sleeping, finally," he answered. "God, that woman. I don't know how you put up with her," he grinned over at James. "She insists on being in the thick of the fighting, refuses medical care –"

"Medical care? James interrupted, his heart squeezing at the thought of seeing her beat up, like Mickey had been.

Jack grimaced. "Yeah. She took the worst of it. She would have been worse off if it weren't for Mickey, but she still wasn't too happy with him. She worries."

"She worries?" James snapped. "I was worried sick! Why didn't you call me? I must have texted you a thousand times!"

Jack took a deep breath and shook his head. "I'm sorry, James, but you don't actually have clearance to know all this," he admitted. "Martha shouldn't have brought you." He saw James open his mouth to interrupt again and held up his hand, "it's fine. You're here now, nothing to be done about it. I doubt Rose will let us retcon you." He winked.

James sighed. "What does Rose have to do with all this, anyway?" He asked Jack. His friend must have heard the pleading note in James's tone.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, James. I really am, but I won't tell you Rose's story. That's hers to tell. I can tell you that when I joined Torchwood, four years ago, Rose already held a senior rank."

"She was your training officer," James remembered.

Jack nodded. "That's right."

James sat heavily in one of the chairs that faced the desk. "Blimey," he muttered.

"Yeah," Jack chuckled.

"I thought Mickey was a mechanic," James admitted.

Jack shrugged. "He was before he joined up. Now he tells people that because he can pass off as a mechanic – he's got the skills and the knowledge – and because staff are still top secret. Which is why I couldn't tell you anything."

"So these aliens," James said tentatively, and Jack raised his eyebrows, encouraging him to continue, "what were they."

Jack smiled briefly before his expression became grim. "They're called Weevils. Or, rather, we call them that. They're not exactly sentient, so they can't tell us if they actually have a name. They're creatures of the rift."

"The rift?" James interjected, putting his disbelief aside so that he could listen to what Jack had to say.

Jack nodded and rolled his chair over to his computer, working away quickly on the keyboard for a few minutes before gesturing to James to join him. Jack stood up from his seat and moved around the desk, standing behind Jack and peering over his shoulder at the image Jack had put on the monitor. "Is that a map of Cardiff?" he asked, frowning at the image. He recognized Cardiff on the map, but the colouring was off, centered around a long, white line that cut its way across the map, bleeding into the rest of the map. It didn't seem to show topography or anything else he recognized.

"Yeah," Jack lifted a finger and traced the white line. "This is the rift. It's a tear in time and space. It gives off energy signals that we can track but not use."

James frowned. "What do you mean, we can't use?"

Jack pressed his lips together as he thought of a way to explain that would make sense. "We just don't have anyway of using it," he reworded. "It'd be like trying to use diesel in a petrol engine. The rift itself is like an earthquake fault, but between dimensions."

"Okay," James returned to his seat, feeling a heading coming on. "So what does this rift have to do with anything?"

Jack leaned back in his seat. "Torchwood Three's main job is to monitor the rift. They keep tabs on how much energy it's outputting as well as collect and track anything that comes through."

"Comes through?"

"Yeah," Jack interlaced his fingers. "It connects dimensions. Sometimes things fall through."

"Like the Weevils." Jack had called them rift creatures, James remembered.

Jack grinned and nodded. "You're quick. Like the Weevils. Usually, we track the weevils and then send them into the sewers. We've got a couple hundred living down there. Their digestive system is evolved enough that they can eat pretty much anything. Sometimes we have one or two come up to the surface, and they start attacking people. They're strong and fast, so humans tend to be easy prey." He let out a deep breath.

"So what happened?" James asked.

"The rift activity was off the charts," Jack explained. The other night, when I came into Torchwood to check up on things, Gwen called. She was worried about the rift activity – we'd never seen it that active. The original plan was to keep monitoring it and to watch for excess Weevil activity. We anticipated a few more coming through, so all Torchwood stations were put on alert."

"But that's not what happened," James guessed.

"Nope. A few hours later they were coming through the rift by the dozens. All Torchwood agents were called to Cardiff, and the city was evacuated until we could get the situation under control. I called Rose, she called Mickey. Most of the other operatives have gone home, but Mickey and Rose both needed some stitching up, so we got placed here. Mickey was allowed to call Martha because they're married, so she already knows all this."

James was silent for a few moments, trying to keep his breathing in check and his heart from pounding too fast.

I work for a private security company, Rose had told him.

She hadn't been lying, he supposed. What she did certainly did count as security, and he couldn't be surprised she hadn't said I fight aliens.

"Where is Rose?" He finally asked.

Jack stood from his seat and open twisted open a manhole that James had not noticed before, wrenching it up and open with considerable force. When James peered into the hole, he blinked in surprise. Down the narrow ladder was a small room, furnished with what looked like a small wardrobe and a single bed, upon which Rose Tyler was tangled in the blankets, fast asleep. James looked up at Jack, "can I…"

Jack gestured for him to go ahead, and James carefully descended into the manhole as quietly as he could so he wouldn't wake Rose. He heard the cover close above him, and the room suddenly became quite dark.

The sound must have awoken Rose, because she shuffled on the bed and her eyes blinked open slowly. She reached for her mobile and turned on the torch, jumping and yelping when she saw James's silhouette.

"Sorry! Sorry! It's me," James said quietly in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Rose blinked in surprise. "James?" She whispered, her voice hoarse. "What are you doing here?"

"Martha brought me," James told her, stepping forward and crouching by the head of her cot so he could meet her eyes. In the dim light from her mobile he could see the many bandages that undoubtedly covered stitches along the side of her face and a few on her neck that made him wince uncomfortably. He didn't want to think about anything attacking Rose's throat. He didn't want to think about anything attacking Rose at all. "Are you…" He trailed off, unsure how to ask what he wanted to know.

She sighed heavily. "I'll be alright, James," she promised. "Just took a bit of a beating."

"I can see that," James spoke around the lump in his throat. He gently reached forward and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, noticing how Rose leaned into his touch slightly. He heard her shuffle in the darkness and felt her fingers wrap around his wrist, pulling him onto the small cot. He settled carefully, not wanting to jostle her, and she settled against him, resting her head on his shoulder. He loosely wrapped his arms around her. "I was so worried, Rose," he told her, his voice coming out a strangled whisper.

Her hands formed loose fists in his shirt. "I'm so sorry, James," she murmured back. "I never wanted to you have to see this."

James closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. As frustrated and confused as he was – with Jack, with Rose, with Mickey, even with Martha – for now, he would focus on the fact that his Rose was safe in his arms, like she should be. He would deal with everything else later, when she was in better health. "Go to sleep, Rose."

Her grip on him tightened. "Stay with me?"

"I promise."

Not a whole lotta Rose here, but some much needed Jack/James time. Also, Mickey!