Gwen lingered in the doorway of the bedsit she and Rhys were currently renting in the outskirts of Cardiff. The room was tiny, with paper-thin walls. They'd only arrived two days ago, after receiving the official paperwork that signified the end of Torchwood. When it came through, Gwen had been suddenly filled with the desperate urge to get out, to find somewhere safe where nobody knew them.

They'd come across the bedsit through Andy. One of his mates had wanted to move in with her girlfriend before the lease was up (and no wonder, Gwen thought, having seen dated décor with everything a muddy shade of brown) and Gwen had been happy to pay the outstanding rent in cash if it meant they could move somewhere without leaving a paper trail. It wasn't far enough away, in Gwen's opinion, but it would suit their needs for now until they came up with a better plan.

It was still a dismal place to live.

In some ways, she was pleased they hadn't already fled the city. The thirty-something mile drive had taken long enough, even if she had broken all the speed limits to get to the place where the unusually named pub 'The House of the Dead' had once stood as soon as possible. The tiny room they currently rented also meant that Jack and Ianto couldn't be left alone. She still didn't trust Jack right now, who was clearly not in his right mind, and whatever Ianto was… she didn't want to think about it. No, she couldn't trust either of them.

That didn't mean she was going to hand them over to UNIT, though. Not that she wasn't grateful for all that the team at UNIT Base Five had done for her, but if the 456 incident had taught her anything, it was that she couldn't trust anybody. UNIT might have the manpower, and without them, she would never have managed to safely store everything salvaged from the Hub, but over the last four months, she had slowly had to give away more and more to them until there was barely anything left of Torchwood. But now Jack was back with something that looked like Ianto. And Gwen Cooper was not giving them up too.

So, with Torchwood gone, there was nothing else she could do but take them home. She'd left Bethan her contact details, hoping never to hear from her again, and bundled her men into her car. Jack and Ianto had been wrapped up together in the back seat once more just as they had during their last reunion, although this time Gwen was driving with Rhys sat beside her. She'd angled the rear-view mirror so she could keep an eye on them both. Despite his almost anal following of the Highway Code, for once Rhys hadn't commented. Neither did Jack or Ianto, but Ianto had met her eyes in the mirror and the corner of his lips had twitched upwards. The ride back had been silent and for once in her life, Gwen hadn't known what to say.

It had been Rhys who'd asked if they were hungry. They'd pulled up at a Chinese takeaway on the outskirts of Cardiff and shuffled inside. It had been deserted. Jack and Ianto had stood silently to the side watching the fish tank. Well, Ianto had been staring at the fish, Jack had been staring at him. Gwen found herself rattling off their usual order to the bored-looking man behind the counter even though she wasn't hungry. Jack said he wasn't hungry either nor was Rhys after his night out, but it had been too much effort to try and order something different.

But by the time she found a parking space two roads over from the bedsit, Ianto had eaten all of his meal and most of Jack's. He had said he was a bit hungry. She supposed that had been Ianto's polite way of saying he was bloody starving. It had been so surreal seeing him in the back seat of her car, napkin tucked in his shirt, trying to eat his Chinese with as little mess as possible. When she looked up to the mirror, she caught the occasional glimpse of Ianto offering a bite to Jack. She'd felt guilty for a moment for intruding on such a private moment before remembering that Ianto was dead. Whatever it was sitting snuggled up to Jack in the back seat of her car was a bloody good copy of her best friend, but it wasn't him.

Rhys had taken over once they'd got out of the car, talking about the neighbourhood and the local gang of kids who hung out with their BMX's by the One Stop. He made a joke about the lack of Weevils and Ianto did that loud forced laugh of his and Jack had managed a strained smile. His eyes were still red although he'd long stopped crying.

Now though, Jack and Ianto were sat side by side on the battered brown sofa, dinner eaten, and the leftovers put in the fridge. Rhys was perched on the end of the bed. The bedsit was cramped at the best of times, but it certainly wasn't suited to having four fully grown adults squashed into one room. No wonder they were banning them.

Rhys, bless his heart, was still trying his best to make things seem normal. Perhaps it was the lingering tipsiness from his night out or he was just resigned to the way of Torchwood. He was rambling on about the latest tournament in the Six Nations Championship, but neither Jack nor Ianto were paying him much attention. Ianto was wrapped up in Rhys's dark blue dressing gown that he'd borrowed along with a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms and a rugby shirt. The look was completed with the duvet off the bed, also brown, spread across the two men's laps. Jack had refused clothes from Rhys, despite the offer, but had conceded to changing into Gwen's too small pink fluffy dressing gown after Ianto had told him off for wandering around in his underwear. Jack's wet clothes had been hung over the radiator and his greatcoat was hanging over the open wardrobe door to drip dry onto the black bin bag Rhys had spread out underneath it.

Gwen yawned and rubbed at her eyes, willing herself to stay awake, and came and sat at the end of the bed. She couldn't wait for the day when she stopped constantly thinking about when the last time was that she went to the loo. Rhys stopped talking as soon as she came in, turning to smile at her then wrapping his arm around her when she sat down.

"All right?" he asked her delicately.

She just nodded in return. She lent her head against Rhys's shoulder. The adrenalin that had kept her going for the last few hours was fading now. God knows how she used to survive the late nights at Torchwood. She was out of practice.

"So…?" Rhys said.

She gave a one-sided shrug at his unasked question. For once, he hadn't been demanding answers. Perhaps he knew that Gwen didn't have the answers either. She didn't know if Ianto was dangerous. She didn't know if Jack was dangerous. She didn't know what Ianto was. She didn't know why Jack and Ianto had been at that car park in the middle of nowhere. Jack had called and she'd come running once more. And, for once, she was too tired to start demanding answers herself.

"I don't know. Martha and Mickey reckon they should get here before seven tomorrow, but until then…" she trailed off with a yawn.

"You should get some sleep," he told her.

"No, no. I'm fine."

"You should listen to your husband," Ianto said quietly. "You look shattered."

"Aren't you just full of compliments tonight?" she said with a laugh.

Ianto blushed. God, it was so easy just to forget, to pretend everything was fine. Gwen's overly loud laughter cracked, and in an instant, it changed to body shaking sobs. Rhys gathered her up in his arms and cradled her to his chest, softly stroking her back as she tried to remember how to breathe. Everything hurt. It was too much.

When the wave started to recede, she became aware of someone else pressed up against her back. Another arm embraced her from the side whilst another hand rested soothingly on her thigh. She turned her face from where it had been buried in Rhys's chest and saw Ianto crouched down by the bed, smiling sadly up at her. He patted her leg as she sniffed. His other hand rested on her lap where it was still tightly grasped by Jack. Looking over her shoulder she came face to face with him and he pressed a kiss on her forehead.

Ianto stood up, still tethered to Jack by their entwined hands, and stretched over to reach the bedside table to snatch the box of tissues there. He offered them to her. She gave a murmured 'thanks', taking a few to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. Ianto then wiggled the box in front of Jack, and she snorted. Jack promptly elbowed her in the side then tugged Ianto down to sit next to them on the bed.

"So, what do we do now then?" Rhys asked after a long moment of silence, taking the tissues Gwen was currently shredding.

"I don't know," Gwen admitted. She turned to Jack who turned to Ianto.

He shrugged. "I don't exactly think there's a protocol for this sort of thing. Well, there is but…"

"You should get some sleep, Gwen," Jack said.

"But what-"

Jack cut her off before she could argue. "You need your sleep. And so does Ianto."

"Actually, I'm not that-" Ianto sighed when Jack glared at him, then yawned although he tried to smother it. "Okay. But we're taking the sofa."

"Good."

"But first, I think you need to answer some questions," Rhys said. His voice was low and firm and demanded no arguments.

Jack swallowed and looked away. Gwen never thought she'd see the day when her husband would scare Captain Jack Harkness.

Everything was wrong.

"Not tonight," he said in a choked voice.

"Yes, tonight. We deserve some answers. You've been gone for six sodding months without a trace, leaving Gwen, my pregnant wife, to pick up the pieces you left behind. For the illustrious leader of Torchwood, you don't seem to have a problem fucking off and leaving Cardiff behind again. And if that wasn't enough you suddenly turn up late at night, demanding that Gwen drop everything and come running again."

"Rhys!" she hissed.

"No Gwen, he needs to hear it! I get it, you were grieving, we all were. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to lose Gwen like that, let alone what happened to your grandson. But then you go and turned up with the man whose funeral I attended! You're trouble Jack, and so's Torchwood. I know- I know it's not your fault. God knows Gwen still can find enough trouble by herself. It's just the way it is. And for the most part, Jack, you've saved us ordinary folk so many times. But the life you lead isn't safe. And I may be pretty naïve about all this wacky space stuff, but you can't just bring someone back from the dead with no consequences. So, this is it: I won't have you endangering our baby. And you need to understand that, Jack Harkness. I won't have you coming back into our lives if, for even a second, it'll put Gwen or our baby in danger."

"I understand. I'd never do anything to put you or Gwen or your child in danger. I know I didn't do so well last time, but you're right. I shouldn't be here-"

"Not so fast, Harkness," Gwen snapped. "You're not getting off that easily."

"No, he's right, I shouldn't-"

"Oh, sit down and shut up, will you! We're not chucking you out on the street," she said, utterly exasperated. "But you can't expect to just waltz back into our lives without an explanation as if the last six months hasn't happened."

Jack nodded, face slightly paler and lips pressed tightly together. "I'm sorry."

"Good start," she said with a nod. "Where've you been."

He shrugged. "Here and there."

"Not good enough."

Jack looked at Ianto, but he just raised an eyebrow at him. He sighed. "I stayed in the UK for the first couple of months following information trails. London, Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh, came back to Cardiff when I had to. Then I went over America. Stayed about a month before I left for Russia. Spent some time in Asia, stopped in India for a week. Eventually, I crossed back over to Europe. Two weeks ago, I caught the ferry from Calais to Dover, then the train to London. I got the train to Abergavenny from Paddington this morning."

Rhys gave a low whistle. "Jack Harkness's world tour."

"Did it work?" Gwen asked softly then gave a broken laugh. "Course it did, you've got Ianto back."

In Jack's original letter, the one where he told her he wasn't coming back, he'd said that he just couldn't stay. The memories were too loud, the people he loved haunting him at every turn. She understood that. After Tosh and Owen had died, she'd constantly seen them in the Hub. Tosh and Owen's desks were still, well, Tosh and Owen's. It hadn't mattered that Gwen had relocated permanently to Owen's old desk up by Jack's office rather than staying at the smaller work area over by the door that had once been Suzie's. She'd occasionally used his desk anyway when Owen had been alive, for the first and second time. Owen had another terminal down in the Medical Bay that he used for all his autopsies, but now it was clear of all his clutter. 'Only to be replaced by hers', Ianto would say with a fake sigh, but even he couldn't disagree that the desk was much cleaner. Ianto too had moved most of his stuff over from the desk up in the Tourist Information office and the terminal down in the archives to Tosh's old desk. But they'd always been Tosh and Owen's desks. It seemed to Gwen that they were merely borrowing them as if Tosh and Owen had only popped out for a minute and would return any second now. The Hub was full of their memories that haunted her wherever she went.

Gwen had originally dealt with their ghosts with drink. A lot of drink. It hadn't been pretty. She'd run off too, an all-inclusive holiday with Rhys the first chance she got. Jack had gone and done something completely crazy too, but she'd never been too sure that Ianto's various texts and phone calls weren't something her drunken brain had concocted to deal with her grief.

Months later, Martha would say grief was steeped into the bay itself.

She hadn't been wrong.

Ianto, on the other hand, had ploughed through everything, working himself to the bone to try and hold everything together whilst Torchwood crumbled around them. They'd worked it all out eventually, but it had been rough.

And then Jack was drowning in grief all over again. Haunted by the ghosts of Steven and Ianto and Owen and Tosh and Suzie and however many others he held himself accountable for their deaths. He had needed to run, to escape the grief. Gwen had accepted this, as much as she'd hated it, she believed it.

Even in her dreams, she'd never imagined Jack was lying to her. She'd never thought that Jack would have been searching for a way to bring Ianto back. Not even in the darkest pits of grief. Not after what happened to Owen. Not after what he'd promised them.

But he had.