Author's Note: Dedicated, once again, to Harriet, who has pestered me for this update, to the extent of calling me whilst I was in the middle of a field in Oxfordshire to ask why I wasn't online any why she hadn't had Tybalt. The answer? I was in a field, in Oxfordshire. If you want to know more, find me, I can talk for England about folk festivals.

Also a big shoutout to the Folk Against Fascism movement. Just because.

Jacqui zipped up her suit bag and carried it down to the hall to hang it over her holdall, checking her list twice over to make sure that she had everything. Her aunt's grandfather clock chimed at the bottom of the stairs, whilst in the living room the carriage clock tinkled sweetly. She straightened the pastoral scene on the wall and checked her reflection in the mirror opposite it, tugging on her fringe and wiping away a smudge of lipstick from when she'd bitten her lip. Minutes later, she was opening the door to Martin, who looked her over and picked up her holdall without asking. "I don't want to worry you, Jacs, but you've got legs."

She scowled and tugged at her skirt, picking up the suit bag and following Martin out to the car. "I checked the weather forecast and considered a skirt more appropriate than trousers. The summer has finally arrived."

"And we get to spend it in Cardiff, aren't we lucky?" he snorted. "Anyway, you should be careful with legs like those in Cardiff; they do say that Harkness will shag anything gorgeous."

She flushed at the compliment but smirked patronisingly. "You've got more to worry about from that quarter than I have, Martin."

"Oh yeah?"

She resisted the urge to thump him, but only because he was driving. "You know I didn't mean it like that..."

"Of course not, God forbid that Jacqueline Block should ever compliment anyone," he teased.

Jacqui scowled. "My name is Jacqui, it is not and nor has it ever been Jacqueline," she shook her head when he laughed. "Anyway, I don't think either of us is at risk from Harkness."

"The Bossman?" he asked.

She smiled. "Oh yeah. We heard stories at UNIT, you know, the sort of stories that Ianto would be mortified if he knew I knew..."

"Like about the..." he looked down at his lap and back up at her. "Under the table?"

"Whilst in a conference call..."

"With the head of UNIT and the MOD," he settled back in his seat with a grin. "No way! I always thought that that was just scuttlebutt. You're telling me it's true?"

She blushed and shrugged. "Well, I heard it from my section's archivist, who heard it from Brigadier Bond's secretary, who saw him after the call," she smiled, which made her nose twitch. "Apparently it was the first time Danny had seen Bondy properly flustered."

"Bondy?" he laughed.

"Yeah, Bendy Bondy," she hid a giggle behind her hand. "His party trick was bending spoons, so Bendy Bondy. He once got uproariously drunk at the UNIT Ball, kissed Amelia Lethbridge-Stewart and tried to impress her by bending spoons for her; this was years back, you understand, when he was just a private."

"And was she suitably impressed?"

"Impressed enough to marry him," she smiled sadly and leaned her head against the headrest. "She's the Brig's youngest daughter; he wanted to keep her away from UNIT, even went as far as forbidding their courtship, but the story goes that Bondy broke her out of the Lethbridge-Stewart estate, drove the pair of them up to Gretna Green on the back of his motorbike, only to find the Brig there waiting to give her away," she laughed. "She was a brilliant codebreaker, worked for the MOD breaking Russian codes during the later years of the Cold War, then transferred to UNIT and developed the section."

"What happened?" he asked.

She shrugged and smiled tightly at him. "She died, they both did, last year. Climbing accident," she laughed humourlessly. "Funny, really. They worked their whole lives in high danger situations, defending the Earth, then picked the wrong approach in the wrong weather and they're just gone."

He nodded. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"

She nodded her agreement and groaned, shifting around in the seat. "Sorry, Martin, I've turned the subject all morbid, haven't I? Let's go back to gossiping about Ianto."

"Why do you still call him Ianto?"

"Because it confuses him," she chuckled. "Bless, we're old enough to be his parents."

Martin smiled fondly and nodded. "Lally's the only one of us who's younger than him, isn't she?"

"You'd never know it though," she sighed sadly. "He's too old for his years," she blushed again and looked away. "Cute though."

He stared at her and back to the road. "Should I be jealous?" he asked bemusedly.

"What?" she stared at him, then collapsed back into her seat laughing. "Oh God, Martin, I'm old enough to be his mother."

"So I have nothing to worry about?"

Jacqui frowned. "Would you be jealous?"

"Damn straight I would."

"Oh," she flushed again and opened the window slightly. "You took your time admitting it."

"Yeah, well, you know the dangers of scuttlebutt."

"Martin, we already ARE scuttlebutt," she pointed out. "So, yes?"

"Yes," he smiled brilliantly and she laughed nervously, fondly. "Just so you know, I'm not going to rush things. Just, you know, dinner and a movie? Something like that?"

"Dinner and a movie sounds lovely," she smiled softly. "I hear the morris dancing film has got national release."

"And Cardiff has a fantastic Turkish restaurant, right by the base."

"It's a date," she smiled, then checked herself. "Erm, I mean, if..."

"Yeah, Jacs, it's a date."

Martin shaded his eyes with one hand and put his sunglasses on with the other. He grinned at Jacqui and checked his watch. "He's late."

She had opened her mouth to reply when a voice from behind them had them both spinning round. "A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. He arrives precisely when he means to; in my case, quarter of an hour ago," he gave them that small, smug smile and titled his head towards the shining water sculpture behind them. "Perception filter. Coming?"

They exchanged a glance and let him stand them where he wanted them. "This is the invisible lift, although that's a misnomer. We're not invisible, exactly, but there's a perception filter on this exact spot. I think Jack knows why, but he prefers the mystery of 'invisible lift'."

"But if it's a lift..." Jacqui began, then yelped slightly and grabbed onto Martin's arm as the lift thunked and moved. "That's not very nice, Ianto."

Ianto kept smirking with his hands in his pockets as they descended. The Cardiff team were looking up at them with expressions ranging from Gwen's open smile to Owen's bored hostility. "Welcome to Torchwood Cardiff," they reached the bottom and stepped off, Martin offering Jacqui a hand to step down. "Jacqui Block and Martin Stranger, meet Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato and Captain Jack Harkness."

"Welcome to Cardiff," Jack grinned, leaning over the railings with his foot up on one rail. "Boardroom, everyone. Ianto, coffee?"

"Yes sir," Jacqui stared at him, but he just gestured for her to follow Martin and Gwen up to the boardroom. Jack held the door open for them to enter and Gwen gestured to two seats on the far side of the table, leaving one space between the top chair and Martin. The other two, Tosh and Owen, joined Gwen sitting opposite them, whilst Jack leaned on the back of the chair at the head of the table, which presumably meant that Ianto would take the empty seat across from Gwen, between Martin and Jack.

Gwen, either the appointed spokesperson or just the office gossip, beamed at them. "Good trip over?"

"Very good, thanks," Martin replied. "Quite surprising too, I didn't know you'd even heard of sunshine on this side of the border."

Jack chuckled, whilst Owen leant across the table to shake Martin's hand. "Well played, don't do it too often, or the coffee quality suffers."

"Oh! But Welsh baiting is so much fun!" Jacqui teased Gwen lightly, feeling relief when the other woman laughed along. "It's sometimes the only source of amusement in our office."

"Only when Lally's out though," Martin added. "When she's in with us we play Mornington Crescent."

"Oh God," Owen groaned. "You lot are a right barrel of laughs, aren't you? Don't tell me, you play The Game too?"

They glared at him and Gwen thumped his arm. "I'd gone a week!" she protested.

Jack moved suddenly from his position to open the door for Ianto with the coffees. They shared a long, deep look as Ianto handed Jack's mug over, until Owen groaned, "Hello, still in the room here, Flopsy and Mopsy!" and Jack stepped aside to let Ianto deliver the rest of the mugs.

Jacqui giggled at the candour of Owen's comments, somehow alien after the codes and subtlety of Downing Street, but Ianto and Jack seemed mostly unphased by it, exchanging smiles as they sat down. "So," Ianto started. "I will state, again, at this point that Jack is in charge of your stay here, not me. I'm just here to observe and to teach you the archiving system here."

"Shagging the boss," Owen coughed.

Ianto ignored him, mostly. "Owen is our... the doctor here and performs the autopsies, as well as playing the part of class clown. Toshiko is the resident computer genius – Martin's your student, Tush, look after him. Gwen is Police Liaison and currently in charge of the archives, please take them off her as soon as you can."

"Hey!" she rolled a napkin into a ball and threw it at him, laughing when he caught it easily.

"And Jack is the voice of command," he finished, smiling around at Jack again. "He sometimes has good ideas, so it's best to listen to him. Jacqui is a cryptographer, formerly of UNIT's Section 16, Jack."

"Ah, yes, I heard good things about you from Amy – sorry, Captain Bond – I hope you'll be able to work your magic on a few documents we've got here."

"I hope that's not a euphemism, Captain," she retorted, then blushed bright pink.

He laughed loudly and slapped the table. "Oh you'll fit right in."

"Oh, and call him Jack," Gwen advised her. "Otherwise it goes to his head."

Owen added, "Unless you're Ianto, in which case it goes somewhere else."

Ianto rolled his eyes. "And, moving swiftly on, Martin is out resident code monkey."

"Software support and development," Martin explained before Ianto could. "I'm working mainly on the security at the moment, but I have some ideas for decoding software which could speed file decryption and textual erm... decryption," he grinned sheepishly. "Lost control of that sentence somewhere. Anyway, I started out at the MOD as a coder."

"Me too," Tosh told him.

"I thought I recognised the name," he frowned at her across the table, but it was a friendly frown. "You were in... Smirt's department?"

"Yes, nothing important really, basic software patches."

"You would have gone far," he told her honestly. "But I guess Torchwood explains the sudden disappearance. Shame, we could have done with your talents a couple of years ago."

"Yeah, well, I need them," Jack told him.

Martin held his hands up and nodded briefly at Jack, before returning his attention to Tosh. "Not trying to poach you, I promise. Just expressing my appreciation for your talents. I've seen some of the work you've done at Torchwood over the last few years, it's incredible. Your firewall is nearly inpenetrable."

"Nearly?" she asked, hiding a blush.

"Yeah, well," he leaned back and smirked. "I'm brilliant too."

"That sounds like a challenge," the rest of the team watched the interchange like a tennis match. "I've seen your firewalls, they leave a lot to be desired."

"Yeah, I was always better at breaking that building," he admitted. "Mother says I've always had a destructive streak."

Jack laughed and stood up. "Right, well you two can go and introduce Martin to the Mainframe after we've shown Jacqui and Martin to their quarters. I'm afraid you're guinea pigs, guys, but we'll see what you think. Oh," he paused by the door. "Did Ianto tell you to bring dark chocolate?" they nodded. "Did you?"

"He sometimes has good ideas, it's wise to listen to him," Martin told him with a straight face.

Jack laughed. "Then let's introduce you to Myfanwy first."

That evening, Tosh, Gwen and Owen had gone home for the night and Jack and Ianto had gone out, leaving Jacqui and Martin to make themselves at home. Martin knocked on Jacqui's door, next door to his own, and leaned on the doorframe until she opened it. She'd put on dark jeans and a warm cream jumper against the cool of the Hub, but her feet were bare on the carpet. "Nice rooms, aren't they?" he commented. "I like what they've done."

"Yeah," she smiled up at him, now considerably shorter without her heels on. Jack thought that the rooms had been either private medical rooms or individual accommodation for overnighters and visitors in the past, possibly both, but for the last couple of decades they had been storerooms. Still, the plaster had been fine, and had just needed touching up slightly in places for them to be able to paint the rooms in warm colours, put a bookcase, a chest of drawers, a desk, a bedside table and a double bed in each room and hide the medical equipment in what had been the connecting bathroom. "You unpacked then?"

"Oh, yeah," he dragged himself away from looking round her room and smiled down at her again. "I wondered if you fancied going out to get some dinner, maybe?"

Jacqui's stomach rumbled loudly and she laughed, "I think that's a yes. Although, I understand there's a Harry Ramsden's up on the Quay; we could get fish and chips and explore our home for a month."

They did that, chatting lightly as they left through the TI office and wandered up around the corner. Walking down the Plass some time later, they saw Jack gesticulating with a chip and getting distracted when Ianto grabbed hold of his hand and bit the top off the chip. They looked away when Jack pulled him in and changed their direction, leaving the two of them in relative privacy to enjoy the mild evening. Martin stopped to look at the statue of Scott and Jacqui leant on the rails, looking out across the Bay. He joined her and stole one of her chips, having finished his own. "This is going to be a mad month, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah."