Many thanks to my FANTASTIC beta, Storms-Are-My-Nature, for reading this through and being wonderfully nit-picky. It's thanks to her that an extra couple of hundred words went into this chapter.

I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts, though, so please review! And don't forget to check out the fourteenfandom community on livejournal!

"You didn't need to act quite so jealous," Jack said angrily when they were alone in his office once more, having left Greg to investigate the medical bay.

Ianto crossed his arms. "What were you expecting me to do, Jack? Just sit there while—" He rolled his eyes. "You know what? Forget it. Obviously, I should have just nodded along and let a complete stranger bite your mouth off." He gave Jack a pointed look.

Jack just shrugged. "All I'm saying is that you might be a little more sensitive. He's seventy years from his original timeline, having been kidnapped and held hostage God only knows where, and I'm the only person that he remembers, okay?"

"Looked like he remembered you pretty well, too," Ianto commented. He was sitting atop Jack's desk by this point, as he often did. The difference was that this time, Jack wasn't seated in his chair, leaning on the desk with either his elbows or his boots (and Ianto really did try his best to stop him doing that); instead, he was pacing the room, keeping more distant than usual.

"Okay, seriously, Ianto. It's been seventy years for us, but as far as he's concerned, he was able to kiss me like that just yesterday. Let him adjust gradually, at least."

Ianto heaved a sigh. "Fine. And in the meantime, I'm supposed to just let it slide? What about when he starts asking for more than just a kiss?"

"He won't," Jack assured him. "It was the forties, Ianto, right in the middle of the war. People weren't so open about it."

Ianto matched the angry tone that remained in Jack's voice. "Don't try telling me nothing happened, Jack."

"I don't deny it," Jack said, more willingly than Ianto would have liked. "But back in the forties, you took what you got because you never talked about those sorts of things."

"Must have suited you to a tee."

Jack glared at him. "What I'm saying is that he won't bring it up. It's a taboo subject for him. Back in the forties, everybody spoke in these wonderful metaphors – it was like the word 'sex' didn't exist." There was a reminiscent tone to his voice that might have made Ianto more jealous if he hadn't understood that Jack's longing was for the era rather than for Greg. It was strange that a time gone by could suit a man from the future so perfectly, but Ianto wasn't going to complain. Not while the Captain continued to look so dashing in period military. "Instead, it was your 'last night before the trenches'. Usually. Even when you weren't serving on the front line, you just didn't talk about it. Closest I ever got from Greg was a shy 'Do you want to?'" Jack had stopped pacing by this point and was stood against one of the glass walls, facing Ianto. "So, no. He won't be expecting anything."

After a moment of silence, Ianto inched himself back from the desk and onto the floor, so that he and Jack were stood opposite each other. "So you're just going to act as though nothing's happened and hope that he takes the hint?"

"I won't act like nothing's happened. I'll just make it clear enough what's happening now."

"So one day you're together and the next you're not. In his timeline."

Jack frowned. "Okay, you're gonna have to be a bit clearer, Ianto, because I'm not sure what it is you want me to do."

Ianto paused and turned away. "Let me talk to him."

"Before, you were making death threats, and now you want to talk to him?" Jack raised an eyebrow.

Ianto shrugged as he walked out of the door. It was just one of those things that Jack was incapable of understanding – Ianto sometimes wondered if he'd had to exchange his human insight for that immortality of his. Or maybe he just hadn't wanted to point out how alike Greg and Ianto were, in the hope that Ianto hadn't noticed. He had.

Greg looked up as he entered the medical bay, and Ianto could tell from the flicker of his eyes that he'd been expecting, or at least hoping, that it would be Jack. Ianto almost felt compelled to apologise.

"Bit different," Greg said suddenly, gesturing around.

Ianto looked at him in surprise. He had no idea what the medical bay had been like in 1941, of course, but he was willing to bet it hadn't looked like this. All of Owen's personal things had been removed, of course – boxed up, as was the Torchwood way – but there was still a lingering presence in the room, from the cupboard with the broken handle (he'd hidden the porn magazines well, but Jack had found them in the end) to the permanent mug stain on the autopsy table.

Ianto supposed that each medic, in their own way, had left an imprint on the place. He'd always wondered who it had been that had gotten the paper aeroplane wedged between the light and the ceiling – not that it mattered now. The entire ceiling had been blown off and replaced. Ianto wondered how many others had had their imprints, their vague memories, wiped from the surface of the Torchwood Hub, either by the blast or simply through time.

He wondered if Greg's own imprints were still there. Perhaps not – seventy years was a long time, and the medical bay was now covered with x-ray machines and similar modern technology. Ianto noted with surprise that Greg hadn't pointed this out. Possibly he thought they were alien devices.

"It's been seventy years. Things change." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ianto realised that he'd said the wrong thing.

Emotion crossed Greg's face for a brief moment, then he smiled, much to Ianto's surprise. "Don't worry, I won't try to pretend everything's like it was before. Not with regards to Jack, anyway." He looked away shyly. "I'm sorry about before. Heat of the moment."

Ianto looked at him strangely. "You don't need to apologise. I don't know that I'd have done any differently in your position." It was a lie; he knew he wouldn't have done any differently.

He watched with some curiosity as Greg shifted one of the scalpels on the tray slightly out of position. "Too neat for you?"

Greg looked up. "Just a little," he admitted. "It doesn't seem real." Ianto wasn't sure whether he was referring to coming back, or to the state of the medical bay. "Like it hasn't been lived in."

"You have Anna to blame for that, I'm afraid. Stickler for detail."

"I thought it seemed empty around here with just the two of you. How many are there on the team these days?" Greg looked expectantly at him.

"Depends on how you count it. Jack's the head honcho, as you might've guessed. His second-in-command is Gwen, but she's off on maternity leave. So we've got a temporary replacement, as well as a couple of new recruits." Ianto attempted a smile. "Spent the past few months just trying to whip them into shape."

Greg suddenly looked uncomfortable. Ianto realised that he must have guessed that they'd recently lost half of their team. He quickly changed the subject. "So what was your Torchwood like? Back in 1941?"

"Bitch of a boss, for starters."

Ianto was thrown off guard by this sudden admission, almost as though Greg were confiding in him. He also hadn't expected language like that – between what Jack had said and his historical knowledge of the forties, he'd expected Greg to be reserved, modest. "Really? Worse than Jack?" He grinned.

Greg nodded furiously. "Bloody slave-driver. The rest of the team weren't bad – Rhydian was a smart-aleck, and Llinos could've done with a bit more of a conscience, but we got along well enough."

"But it was Jack that kept you there," Ianto said, reading between the lines.

"Him, and knowing that the alternative was a bullet through my head."

"Didn't they have Retcon back then?" Ianto looked appalled.

Greg shrugged. "They had Retcon, and they had mounds of alien technology lying around. But at the end of the day, a bullet was quicker. Our boss, Tilda—" Ianto's eyes widened as he recognised the name as belonging to the headless woman in the morgue. "She didn't like Jack. So when he suggested something, she did the opposite, just to infuriate him. Which usually involved a few more corpses than might be considered strictly necessary." He grimaced. "And she knew that I was involved with Jack, so I'd have gone the same way."

Ianto blanched. He'd worked for Torchwood One, and in London they'd had a similar policy of destroying any alien threat, however slight. But they'd never have turned it on one of their employees. He'd always thought that Torchwood Three had been a bit softer. "I didn't realise Jack had changed so much around here."

That made Greg grin, for some reason. "He always swore he'd never work full-time for Torchwood." He raised a coy eyebrow at Ianto. "Wonder what made him change his mind."

It took Ianto a second to realise what Greg was implying. "God, no! No," he repeated, hesitating a little. "I've only been working here for three years. Jack's been leader for nine, and working full-time for goodness knows how long before then. Nothing to do with me." He held up his hands in mock surrender.

"I'm sure he would have stayed for you, though. If he was still just a freelancer."

Ianto narrowed his eyes in suspicion at Greg. The compliment had come from nowhere, and that made him wary. "What makes you say that?"

Greg shrugged. "He just seems…attached to you."

It was then that Ianto understood the compliment as an acknowledgement that he was closer to Jack than Greg had been, and Greg wanted – needed? – to believe that whoever had taken his place was worth an incredible amount to Jack. He needed to know that he hadn't just been replaced by the next man that came along. Ianto also recognised the neediness to please those around him from his own early days at Torchwood, saw how Greg was standing an inch from the stairwell but not leaning on it. As though he didn't want to touch, didn't feel like he belonged in this strange new Hub.

Ianto felt a strange urge grip him, and took the young man's wrist in his hand. "Come on. Let me show you Cardiff."