Jack nudged Ianto and pointed at the Doctor with the end of his pen, then went back to taking notes on Archie's report. It required serious effort to decipher his thick Highland brogue, and the Doctor appeared to have lost interest, as he was constructing an elaborate origami structure out of napkins. Ianto snorted and ducked his head again, scribbling reference numbers and relevant dates from the report into the margin of the fact sheet they'd been presented with. Jack's margins were filled with key words and phrases, notes to remind himself of cases to read up on and a couple of artefacts he wanted to borrow for analysis - he'd have to collar Archie tonight and email his request straight away to get in before UNIT did on at least one of them. Maybe he could owe Archie a favour?

When Archie - finally - drew his talk to a close, Jack clarified two points and ascertained that Archie would not be letting the artefact Jack was particularly interested in out of Scotland. He was pondering a solution when Ianto jumped in and offered a research team from London to assist with the analysis and distribute the results among the agencies. Murmurs arose from the UNIT rows of the lecture theatre, but Archie agreed quickly, and even invited UNIT and Torchwood to send a representative as well. Jack tapped Ianto's wrist and scribbled at the top of his own sheet, 'Tosh?'

Ianto nodded and reached across to circle her name, then they both looked around the room to see if there were any more questions. There weren't, so Amanda called a break before Jack's talk, giving Jack room to breathe and find the Doctor. "Are you going to stay for this?" He asked, wrapping his fingers around the Doctor's shoulder.

"Of course I am," the Doctor waved a biscuit at him. "Only reason I'm still here!"

"Yeah, well we'd like you to stay until Thursday as well, if possible," he looked over at Ianto and gave him a nod. "You'll want to contribute, I suspect. And then you might as well stay until the ball on Friday night."

"Is this your Torchwood London proposals, Jack?"

He looked disapproving, and Jack's defensiveness of Ianto rose again. "It's Ianto's proposal. Torchwood is changing, Doctor. You have the chance to make sure we're going in the right direction; if you don't take it, you don't get to complain."

The Doctor raised his hands, complete with biscuits, and nodded. "I'll stick around. I trust you two anyway, you're both too busy drooling over each other to have time to destroy the world," Jack choked and the Doctor ignored him. "I'm looking forwards to this anyway. Time's nearly up, are you ready?"

Jack sighed and nodded. "Nearly. I'll check in with Ianto first," he bounded up the stairs to where Ianto had sat back down again and bent to speak in his ear, "He'll stay. My turn now."

"Break a leg," Ianto smiled and turned to brush their lips together. "You'll be fine."

"Of course I will," he grinned. "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, savvy?"

Ianto laughed and pushed him away, so he jogged down the steps to join Amanda at the front. She greeted him with a smile and stepped up close to him to clip the radio mic on. "I know that you'll need his, you move around too much, Captain."

"Sorry," he grinned up at her. "You could always tie me down."

"Less of that," she chided. "I don't want to get in trouble with Ianto."

"We could ask him to join in?"

Amanda rolled her eyes and stepped back. "It would serve you right if I'd turned the mic on already, although I get the feeling you wouldn't mind."

"Probably not," he agreed. "Ready?"

"I think everyone's back," she looked up and scanned the tiered seating, then checked her watch. "Yeah, time to get started. You have one hour."

He gave her a blinding grin and wandered to the front of the room with his hands in his pockets whilst she settled behind her desk again and the rest of the room settled down. Once he had everyone's attention, he searched for Ianto, nodded and started, "Well, it's been a year at Torchwood Cardiff. We've had Weevil fight clubs, time travelling guests, the Rift was opened, I went missing for a month - thanks for that Doctor - a steady increase in the number of Weevils arriving and of Blowfish settling in Cardiff, and we now have an undead member of staff. I think the only adjective that actually does it justice is 'interesting'," he mused to a smattering of laughter. "But we've also had two engagements - three if you count the fact that two of us got engaged to each other - a 10% increase in legal resident aliens in Cardiff and huge leaps forwards in positive relations between Torchwood and alien races and cultures. As always, life in Cardiff has been a case of taking the good with the bad, we were saddened to lose Ianto to London - some of us more than others, I admit - and I'm delighted by the prospect of welcoming him back as my employee and my husband," he beamed up at Ianto as the audience applauded politely. "I think that the best place to start is this time last year and work through chronologically, which requires us to start with the increase in Weevil activity which we observed around this time."

He paused for breath and to look up at Ianto again, then launched into his report. True to expectations he paced and gesticulated, using the projector to bring up case photos and, in big white letters on a black background, the case reference for each case he referred to. This left him free to add colour and humour to his stories, inviting his audience into the lives of the Torchwood team and leering at one and all, particularly Ianto. They responded to him eagerly after a day full of dry UNIT reports, and then a morning of reports from non-native speakers and Archie from far flung Torchwood branches – Jack knew that his speeches were considered highlights of the conferences because his enthusiastic and cheerful approach to their work was such a change from the staid analysis of statistics and SWOT reports. When he reached May – Ianto's departure, just a month after the Doctor had returned him to them – he found himself understanding what had happened so much more clearly than he had at the time, but he left out the details, just explaining Ianto's job offer in London and his acceptance of it. To hide his true feelings and revelations, he buried them in flirting and playing the lover abandoned for higher things – the delegates laughed and cooed in sympathy, Ianto blew him a kiss and Jack brushed past the issue with a heartfelt "thank God it didn't last".

The Summer whizzed past with a huge number of visitors to Cardiff, both human and alien, most of them with nothing more than ice cream and beaches on their minds, but there were some with more malevolent goals. And, of course, there was Jack and Ianto's role in the abduction of the Prime Minister's plane.

Autumn came with an increase in Weevil numbers – drawn out by the cooler weather and driven out by heavy rain – and the first trainees from the London office arriving for fieldwork assessments in a field office. It was Jacqui and Martin's last week there this week – Ianto would take them back with him to London on Monday morning, something like that. He gave a brief assessment of what was required of a Torchwood field agent and moved on to Ianto's injury, then headed on through the worsening weather and increased Weevil activity to Owen's death and resurrection a week before. This he dealt with in greater detail, laying his choices and actions and their repercussions out clearly for everyone to see. There were mutterings around the room and he held his hand up to stave them off for the moment, looking up to the Doctor to see his reaction. The Doctor was studying him over the rims of his glasses, and gave him a cool nod. Immediately, Jack felt his breathing ease, and he slipped away from the subject by explaining their most recent visitor and then moving onto the statistics for the year in brief, the Rift activity, people taken and returned, alien visitors by Rift and by other means, newly registered residents, the few residents' deaths they'd had and the injury statistics.

There was a pause as he finished whilst Amanda checked the time, then she looked up to him and smiled. "You're well in time Jack, alright to take questions?"

"Fire away," he smiled and turned his palms towards the audience. "Any questions?"

Amanda scanned the audience and made a note. "UNIT, Colby."

The agent stood up and held his hand against his chest – old injury or self-conscious defensive pose? Jack wondered. "Captain Harkness, it could be observed that the rate of injury is high at Torchwood Cardiff..."

Jack nods and raises an eyebrow, waiting for a question. "It could, do go on?"

"Well... would it be wise to increase the staffing levels to reduce injury levels?"

He shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned at a point on the floor in front of him. "The Torchwood team as it stands is neither the largest nor the smallest it has ever been. It is simply the most stable. I told Ianto when he approached me for a job that there was no place for him in Torchwood, and he proved me wrong, but it isn't a case of finding the right person for the job – in Cardiff we need to find people to fit Torchwood, and they don't come along every day. I'm not above poaching from UNIT – or, for that matter, stealing them from UNIT cells if I need to – and when I find someone who will fit the team I will offer them a position. But it's rare to find someone who could work with us. So, yes, we could do with more people, but it's a careful balance and any new team member could disrupt it."

He paused to see if 'UNIT, Colby' had any more questions, but he shook his head, so Jack looked back to Amanda. She scanned the audience again and nodded. "Liberty Towers, Hart."

A busty brunette who was clearly desk rather than field stood and straightened her jacket. "What is the Torchwood policy on repatriation of aliens? You seem to have a very high number of resident aliens in Cardiff, cleared by the Downing Street office, I presume..."

"That's correct. Of course, Cardiff is a very small office, and we have no way to repatriate aliens unless they have the means themselves – we can offer them technical assistance with their transport, but nothing more. Our policy is to rehabilitate humanoid aliens in the city's alien community and keep a register of their homeworlds so that we can arrange lifts for them with passing aliens – I believe Liberty Towers have a copy of our register of aliens requesting transportation and should be checking it with any ship which comes into Earth's air space. Any aliens who cannot pass for human, there is a large enough community in Cardiff that some can hide there, or they go to one of the UNIT rehabilitation centres."

"And is that all aliens?" she asked.

"As much as possible, but there are, of course, some species who cannot be detained without too great a risk to my team, and the Weevil population are too out of control and resist rehabilitation too strongly, so there are some times when the only option is..."

"Extermination?"

He shuddered and nodded. "Not the word I would have used, but yes."

She looked over at Amanda and sat down. "Thank you, Captain."

Amanda turned back to her notes. "UNIT, Wade."

"Captain, how does your relationship with Mr Jones impact on work at Torchwood?"

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and shrugged. "It doesn't, apart from occasionally making him run away to London. We're professionals, we've both been working at Torchwood a long time," he pulled a wry smile and there was a smattering of laughter. "Understatement of the century there, trust me, I've been there and heard them. But yeah, it's not the first relationship within Torchwood for either of us," he wished he could say it would be their last. Who knew, maybe it would for both of them, maybe some miracle would happen and he wouldn't have to live with losing Ianto again. "We deal with it."

When he looked up, Ianto was smiling, and he knew that he'd given the right answer for one person at least. Wade didn't look all that reassured, but he'd answered her question and Amanda was moving on. "Erm..." it was unusual for her to be caught off balance like that, and Jack looked around. "Doctor?"

Jack's gaze snapped up to the Doctor, who stood slowly, sliding his glasses into his breast pocket, and leaned forwards with his knuckled resting on the desk in front of him. "Jack..."

"Doctor."

"How long have you been with Torchwood now?" the Doctor was considering him seriously.

Jack sighed and thought back. "Since 1899," there were muffled gasps and he smiled wryly. "So... one hundred and eight years, one hundred and nine in June."

"Do you not think you're getting stuck in your ways, maybe it's time for a change?"

He laughs dryly and shakes his head. "Not as long as I think it's worth fighting for. They day I don't know why I get up in the mornings, that's when I know it's time to pass the baton on, Doctor."

He got applause for that as well, having summed up how a lot of people in the room felt about the work they did. As far as Jack was concerned, if you got out of bed not knowing why, or were doing it for power, you were in the wrong job. Amanda looked up at the Doctor and moved on to the next question when he indicated that he'd done. Jack answered questions on every aspect of life at Torchwood, it seemed. He was just waiting for someone to ask him what the most commonly eaten take-away food at Torchwood was – for which he really would have to ask Ianto – when Amanda called a halt to the proceedings for lunch and asked that anyone with any more questions direct them to Jack by email with a slightly apologetic smile in his direction. "Don't expect me to reply to them this weekend," he called out as people started to stand and gather their things together. A few had laptops and mobiles out to send their emails now. "I'll get on them when I get back to Cardiff on Monday though."

Ianto passed him a bottle of water when he got back to their seats, having fought against the tide of people heading off for lunch and having to stop to chat with people about it. The Doctor was making his way across to them, and Jack gave him a smile to indicate that he'd noticed. "Thanks Ianto; God, I hate cross examination. I expected all of them to say 'no more questions, your honour'," Ianto laughed and Jack wrapped his arm around his waist, putting on the sternest face he could manage. "I mean it, they were out for my blood!"

"I'm sure they were," Ianto smirked and escaped his arm to carry on gathering their things together. "You did well, I don't remember work at Torchwood being that interesting."

"Well you weren't there for a lot of it," he pointed out quietly.

"I'm not the only one who can be accused of that, Jack."

He sighed and sagged back against the seat. "I'm sorry, I wasn't accusing. Just... Can we go for lunch?" he turned away and Ianto let him go. Jack looked up and greeted the Doctor. "Hey, lunch time?"

"Excellent plan," he agreed cheerfully. "I smell salmon."

"So it'll be chicken then," Jack smiles and lets the Doctor past. "Coming, Ianto?"

"Yeah," Ianto pushed himself away from where he'd been leaning on the seat back and reached out for Jack's hand to squeeze his fingers. "I'm sorry," he said when Jack tilted his head. "Just so much has happened in the last year. It feels like..."

"You need a holiday?" Jack guessed.

"Well, that too," Ianto huffed. He looked over Jack's shoulder to the Doctor. "Give us five minutes, plase?"

"Sure," he nodded and gestured over his shoulder. "I'll just be... yeah."

Ianto smiled and looked back at Jack who had jutted his chin slightly. "Are we going too fast for you?" he asked, carefully confident.

The confidence was a bluff, and it showed in the instant tight grip around Ianto's shoulders when Ianto crowded into Jack's space and rested his head on his shoulder. He snaked his fingers through Jack's belt loops and exhaled steadily as Jack's hands swept down his back and rested on his waist. "I just," he sighed and tipped his head against Jack's cheek. "I sometimes feel like... like we're being pushed," he turned his head so that his chin rested on Jack's shoulder and slid his arms further around his waist. "Like we're rushing things because we don't have time to take them slowly, not just because we want to."

"Do you want to... to slow down?" Jack asks him, his breath is as unsteady on the back of Ianto's neck as his voice is.

Ianto shakes his head and squeezes Jack that little bit tighter. "All you've done is wait for me. I just don't... I feel like everything we do is driven by the fact of my death. And I don't want to die," his voice breaks and he buries his face in Jack's shoulder. "I don't want to leave you behind, but it's mostly selfish. I'm just... it's taken me so long to find out that I actually had a reason to live myself, not just for other people, and I don't want to let go of it."

"We could leave Torchwood," Jack suggests. "Anything we owed to Torchwood, we must have paid off by now."

He laughs again and pulls back to look in Jack's eyes and check that he means it, brushing his fringe out of the way with two fingers. "Yeah, maybe," he agrees and runs his hands down Jack's arms to take his hands. "June," he smiles when Jack looks puzzled. "I want to get married in June. That gives us time to plan and organise the handover, and I can set it as a target date on Thursday."

Jack brings their hands up between them and turns his hands so that the ring he bought for Ianto – with just a tiny flat set diamond, nothing flashy or dangerous for running around, definitely simple enough to work to work every day (Ianto would know, he does) – is facing straight up. "Is that a date?" he asks, some of his cockiness kicking in again. "I thought I had some sort of monopoly on active decisions in this relationship."

Ianto raises an eyebrow. "In case you hadn't noticed, whenever you make one I make you wait for an answer long enough that it seems like my idea. Now come on," he steps back and his heels bump against the step, then he turns Jack around and pushes him forwards. "Don't fall downstairs, but I don't want to give this lecture on an empty stomach. And if we don't hurry up and collect him, the Doctor will find something to break."

"He's not that bad," Jack protested, only sounding half convinced himself. "Besides, there's plenty of UNIT types to keep him out of trouble."

"You know you're the only one he listens to," Ianto sighs and pulls the door open. "Hello Doctor, I see you found a friend."

The Doctor looked up from where he was sitting on the floor, long legs stretched out across the corridor, and waved at Ianto. "Yep. Don't normally like cats, but he's polite. Got that sorted then?"

"He would be polite," Jack bent to pick Tybalt up and propped him against his shoulder. "He's Ianto's cat."

"Our cat," Ianto corrected, scratching the back of Tybalt's neck. "Shall we go for lunch?"

"Oh, you did get it sorted then," the Doctor beamed and bounced along the corridor with them. "Definitely salmon for lunch."

"We know," Ianto took Tybalt off Jack as he tried to escape over his shoulder and cradled him like a baby, which Tybalt hated but it stopped him escaping. "Unlike you, we arrived in time and in the right manner to get all the details of the week. Have you got a schedule?"

"What? Oh, no," he grinned. "I have a minder instead. She's called Delilah."

"Where is your minder, then?"

"Having a lie down," they reached the dining room and he looked around. "Oh, no, she's over there. She said she had a headache during the last session and she'd meet me at lunch. I'd better go let her know that she's found me."

Ianto put Tybalt down and let him escape again to find dinner – or look as adorable as possible at as many people as possible for salmon – and found their seats again. The first course was coming around and they appeared to be just in time for it. "Remind me to look up what poor Delilah did wrong," Ianto said. "And I need to watch and see how she copes with him."

"You thinking of employing her?"

"Yeah, considering it," he agreed. "Anyone who annoys UNIT enough to be put on babysitting the Doctor duty, but not enough to be retconned back to infancy..."

"It's quite an achievement," Jack leaned back to let a waitress set their plates down and picked up his spork. "Oo, melon balls."

"No, Jack," Ianto smirked down at his melon and sporked the first ball. "Leave the innuendo in the bedroom."

"Let's leave your endo in the bedroom."

"That's..." he sighed and fed Jack the melon to shut him up. "I am not going there."

"That's what she said!" Jack laughed as soon as he'd swallowed. "If you don't want me to make innuendo, you shouldn't feed me your balls."

Across the table from them, Stuart – who had managed to avoid acknowledging Jack's presence by some mutual silent agreement – choked and reached for his glass. "Do you have to do that whilst we're eating?"

Jack looked as angelic and pure as he could and Ianto raised an eyebrow. Everyone searched for an escape route from the conversation and seemed to decide that it lay in resuming eating in silence. Their plates were cleared and the silence would a little tighter until the main course was delivered, steaming fillets of salmon with potatoes cooked in milk and butter. Conversation gradually resumed, but Ianto felt himself slipping out of it as the time to give his own speech drew closer.

By the time he'd eaten half of the meal, his stomach was churning and every mouthful was a challenge. Jack reached over to squeeze his hand and he found that he couldn't even give him a proper smile in response, so he nodded instead and pushed away from the table to escape. Behind him, Jack made their apologies and came to follow him out into the foyer where only a solitary, bored UNIT guard watched them with a veiled curiosity. Ianto rested his knuckles on the registration desk and dropped his head forwards, and he sighed when Jack's hands landed on his shoulders. "Sorry, it all got a bit close in there."

"And you hate public speaking," Jack's voice was close behind him, promising the kiss that found its way between the neck of his shirt and his hair. "It'll all be over soon."

"Yeah," he turned around and sat on the edge of the desk. Jack followed and sat next to him, just waiting. "It's like I'm caught between the two. I'm telling of work that isn't mine, and I don't belong with it. But I don't really belong..."

"You do belong at Torchwood," Jack told him quietly. "I think you always have."

"Yeah... could we really walk away?" he looked away down the hall. "Torchwood's all we have."

"We have each other – that has to count for something," Ianto inclined his head in silent agreement and Jack sighed, tipping his head back to look up the stairwell to the heavy oak beams in the ceiling three floors up. "And we won't know until we try, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Ianto nodded and turned to look at Jack, smile curling his lips as he studied the familiar profile. His neck was curved back, showing off the nearly faded mark that Ianto had left on him at the start of the weekend, and his dark blue shirt was pulled tight across his broad chest by the way his hands were bracing him on the desk. Stunning, and something primal and possessive inside Ianto growled at the thought of anyone else touching his man. Jack's smile broadened and he tipped his head minutely so that his eyes could flick to Ianto. "Enjoying the view?"

He smiled too and copied Jack's pose, leaning back on the desk and staring up the stairwell. "I don't do it often enough," he admitted eventually. "Just looking. At the world... at you," and he turned to look at Jack again and found that they were doing the same thing, heads tilted to meet each other's gaze. "You're a gorgeous man," Jack grinned and Ianto laughed. "And you'd be better if you didn't know it! Incorrigible, hopeless..." he growled. "You drive me mad."

"In a good way?"

"Yeah, a good way," he agreed and leaned into Jack slightly. "I'm a lucky man."

"We both are," Jack tipped his head back again, and Ianto realised that he was looking up towards the sky, not just up. "We survived Torchwood and found something worth surviving for."

The first delegates to finish dinner emerged from the dining hall and Tybalt shot out of the open door, coming straight to Ianto to wind himself around his legs. He laughed and bent to pick him up, trailing his hand along his tail and urging him to curl against his shoulder. "Reckon I could give my speech with Tybalt draped around my neck?"

Jack laughed and stroked his hand down Tybalt's back before bringing it down to curl around the back of Ianto's neck, just barely touching him. "Calm now?"

"Yeah," he leaned his head on Jack's hand and sighed. "I'll just pretend I'm just giving it to you, and end up being dreadfully crude."

"You're never crude," Jack pushed away and drew his hand back. "Just, occasionally, less subtle than you could be."

"Says you," he huffed and followed Jack in. "Erm... what should I do with the cat?"

"I'll take him," Jack held his hands out. "And I'll sit on the front row stroking him like Doctor Evil and make you laugh."

"Oh yeah, that'll help," he handed Tybalt over still, and went to get his notes instead. "I'll end up asking everyone if they expect me to talk, and they'll stare at me with this look of 'well, yes, actually'."

Jack snorted and settled into his seat on the front row. "And I will heckle you with a cry of 'no, Jones, Ianto Jones, I expect you to marry me!' And everyone will give us that look of 'oh dear, they're at it again'. Again."

"We will have silent conversations with an entire room," he grinned and came to lean over Jack, resting his hands on the seat arms and trapping him in between them. "Now, you're not going to be a pest and distract me, are you?"

"No," he smiled and craned up to meet Ianto's lips and whispered against them, "I promise."

"Good," with one last stroke down from the top of Tybalt's head to the tip of his tail, he wandered off to set up the presentation. "Good venue for it."

"It is," Jack agreed behind him. "Have you never been to one of these before?"

"No, I wasn't even considered for it in London, too many of us. And last year we were too busy. You just came, did your talk and went."

"Came and went," Jack grins.

Ianto smiles softly and connects his memory stick up. "Not your style at all."

"You miss out on people that way."

"Captain Jack Harkness in a nutshell," Ianto called over his shoulder. "If you have to go somewhere, make the most of it."

"Sounds about right," Jack sighed out, barely audible, but there's the hint of a smile in his voice. "I told Owen that I forget to look, to touch."

Ianto looks over at him and realises that they're having another 'moment'. They've had far too many of those today, so he makes a conscious decision to make the most of the wine at dinner to avoid another. For the moment, he turns back to his presentation and flicks through the slides absently. "I think you see everyone but yourself."

"Oo, that's deep..."

"And that's what she said!" they swung around to see Delilah standing in the doorway. "Erm... sorry. I mean, I've found them, Doctor."

Jack's eyes creased with laughter and he beckoned her into the room. "At ease, soldier," she shuffled out of the doorway and the Doctor sauntered in behind her, then insinuated himself into Ianto's space at the computer without saying anything. "What did you do to get landed with him?" Jack pointed at the Doctor, who raised an affronted eyebrow.

Delilah shifted from foot to foot and stared at a seat somewhere behind Jack's head. "It's something to do with my habit of jumping into conversations between the heads of powerful organisations with the words 'that's what she said', sir," she dropped her gaze to the floor. "I apologise, it won't happen again."

"Damned shame!" that got her attention and Jack laughed. "Clearly my reputation has diminished somewhat if you think you won't get away with that in front of me."

"Well, it'll have recovered by the end of this week," Ianto commented in a loud aside to the Doctor.

Jack pointed at Ianto. "See what I mean? Relax, around us at least. Torchwood will take care of you."

"Thank you, sir," she smiled slightly.

"Where are you stationed?" Ianto turned the computer screen off and came around to sit next to Jack. "UK base, correct?"

She nodded. "Cambridge, sir. Graduated from university there in June, went straight into UNIT training."

"And already on Doctor duty?" Jack looked impressed. "You're really not a UNIT girl, are you?"

Jutting her chin, she straightened up and met his gaze at last. "I do my best, sir. And my best is good."

"I bet it is," he stands up and hands Tybalt to Ianto – an action which breaks the moment slightly – then stalks towards her. "But your best could be brilliant if there weren't all those regulations, the uniformity and conformity that UNIT demands."

"What are you suggesting, sir?"

"Can you follow orders?" he asked, crowding her even further.

She stood her ground. "Yes, sir. I can."

"And can you defy them?"

"Some would say that I show a proficiency for it," she met his gaze squarely. "And yes, I can tell when to obey, and when to dissent."

He smirked. "You just lost the Game."

Ianto cursed behind him and Delilah looked confused for a moment, then raised one eyebrow. "Screw you."

"Pardon?"

"Screw you, sir."

"You'll do," he turned back to Ianto and sat down. "Now, where were we?"

"I don't honestly think we could pick up where we left off," Ianto gives him the cat back and stands up. "People will start turning up any minute."

Delilah splutters and her eyes go a little wide, then she colours. "Don't mind me," the blush clashes with her beret, and Ianto agrees that if she can blush like that she really needs to get out of UNIT uniform and, preferably, into some more corrupting company.

The door opens and she snaps to attention, melting back against the wall as Mace and Adooya step into the room. Jack stands and greets them with his easy grace and cheer – and with a cat under his arm – and Ianto steps into the background, puttering with the Doctor and greeting fresh arrivals with a warm distance. Jack deals with them, chatting lightly as they pass him to their seats. It takes about ten minutes before Amanda reappears and ascertains that everyone she expects to be here is here, and the room is – to Ianto – terrifyingly full. Apart from Ianto's speech, there is one report to come from the Liberty Towers offices in Alaska and one from their head office in Nevada, and one from the Men in Black. Ianto sighs and smiles tightly at James Kingdom, Liberty Towers' director, as he slides past the Men in Black's representative. One national organisation and UNIT works well, they rub along together in a weird way, but two national organisations in one country was always a recipe for disaster. The fact that the Men in Black are more government backed but famously incompetent is a sore point with organisations across the world.

Amanda taps him on the shoulder and attaches his radio mic, then goes back to her desk and turns the system on. "If you could take your seats please, Mr Jones is going to kick the session off for us," she watched them and then nodded at him. "Thank you, Mr Jones from Downing Street, London."

He looked to Jack first and fought back a laugh at the way Tybalt was sprawled across his lap, then managed to look up at the audience. "A brief introduction, for those of you who don't know me, I've been with Torchwood since July two thousand and three when I joined the London branch as an archivist assistant, I was one of the very few survivors of the battle of Canary Wharf and am the last of those survivors still working in inter-planetary defence. I moved to Cardiff after the battle in May two thousand and six and to the Downing Street office two years later, where I am the Prime Minister's advisor and one of his defence team. I was appointed to the position in London after the election and change of government, and, hopefully, it will be a twelve month posting and then I can return to Cardiff, Torchwood and my upcoming marriage," he took a deep breath. "As you can probably imagine, the biggest issue we have to cover here is the election of the Master – under the alias Harold Saxon – to the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland," he checked Jack, then turned his attention back to his audience at large. "It is too late for blame and accusations. All we can do is show our gratitude to the people who got us through this catastrophe, to Jack, to Martha Jones and, of course, to the Doctor. Once again, sir, you saved us when we needed you. Thank you," he looked up at the Doctor now and acknowledged his slight nod with a smile of his own whilst applause swept through the room. He gave a wry smile and looked back to Jack again. "And I thank you for returning Jack to me, eventually."

"Some of us aren't so convinced, though," Archie called down from the top row.

"And that's why I'm marrying him, not you," Ianto slid his hands into his trouser pockets and smiled, then grew serious again. "Clearly, mistakes were made to let him get that far. There was a lack of communication between agencies, a lack of screening of candidates and a total blindness to a relatively simple mind control technique. The last time a plot like that was so successful, we got stuck with Big Brother; the consequences won't always be as devastating as allowing the Master to be elected as the leader of a country, but we must still be prepared."

He found his way to the podium and analysed in detail the weaknesses that had been identified and the changes made. It's logical and sensible, a progression of cause to effect, and he relaxes into what he's saying with growing confidence. Jack's smile is proud, but distant. He's heard it all before, of course; the changes they made had effected Jack in more than one way due to his status as a resident alien and the one who had to implement the new rules about registration in Wales now Ianto wasn't there. The UK based delegates all knew about it, but the foreign organisations were paying gratifyingly close attention to what Ianto was saying – wise men learning from someone else's mistakes, he thought.

By the time he'd got that finished, he only had fifteen minutes left to round off the year. The salient points were Henry Jackson's attempt on his own life and the disappearing flight to America when he and Gordon got kidnapped. He really hoped that he didn't come across as being as incompetent as he felt recounting it all. Amanda smiles at him as he draws to a stop and looks up at the audience. "Questions, please? Doctor."

He stood slowly and leaned forwards to scrutinise Ianto. "How many people have been charged with crimes regarding the year that reversed?"

There was a murmur around the hall and Ianto flicked his gaze over to Jack, who had fallen very still. "None, with the exception of Lucy Saxon, who was committed to a mental institution."

"No one was considered complicit?"

He nodded. "The issue was brought before a tribunal, and everyone was cleared."

"So how did Mr Jackson come to be fired from his post in Downing Street?" someone called from the back.

Ianto straightened his shoulders. "Because I refused to work with a man who would carry out the actions he did, whilst others refused even under mind control. The fact that he decided to kill me in retaliation indicates that I was right about his character, wouldn't you say?"

She doesn't respond to that, and Amanda clears her throat loudly before selecting the next question. "Liberty Towers, Knox," she calls.

"What is the Prime Minister's stance on aliens?"

Ianto dragged his gaze away from Jack to smile up at her wryly. "He'd rather they didn't kidnap him. Other than that, as long as they fill in the correct paperwork, they're just someone else's problem."

There's a laugh that relieves the tension, and the questions get easier to deal with. The time flies away and when they take a break for John Brier to set up for Liberty Towers' first presentation, Ianto practically throws himself into the seat next to Jack and takes his hand, leaning in close to make it look like they're in deep, important discussion and so hopefully won't be disturbed. What he actually says is, "I hate public speaking."

Jack smiles and turns his face towards him even more. "I know, you did well though. Didn't let her put you off."

"Well, no. She never met him," he flexes his fingers in Jack's grip and leans even more into him. "That was the easy one though, the one with very little to be opposed to."

"It'll be fine, I promise," Jack tells him firmly, then looks around behind them. "I feel like we should be on the back row, not the front."

Ianto smirks and pulls his hand back. "Yeah, but then I'd never get any notes made. And one of us needs to."

"Hey, I have a good memory."

"No you don't," he sighs and gets his file out again. "Bet you a tenner he goes over time."

"I'll take that, Amanda won't let him," people started returning t their seats and Amanda's stern gaze swept over them all, so Jack settled back into his seat. "Game on."

The big clock downstairs strikes midnight whilst Jack is finishing off in the bathroom, and the last echoes of the twelfth stroke have died away by the time he slips back into bed behind Ianto. Ianto who is warm and soft and pliable when Jack presses himself against his back and curls his arm over his chest to hold him close, even though Jack can tell that he must be cold pressed up against Ianto like that – especially his feet, his feet are freezing. But Ianto doesn't say anything, just wriggles back that little big further and grunts, "Mind the cat," as if the cat would let Jack forget that he's sleeping on the end of the bed right where Jack wants to put his feet. He settled for tangling them with Ianto's instead for warmth and safety from cat claws, and pillows his head on his arm with his nose tucked into the back of Ianto's neck.

"Long day," he murmurs quietly, and Ianto nods in front of him so that his hair brushes Jack's face. "'Night, darling."

Ianto snorts and sighs. "'Night, sweetheart."