Author's Note: First JAM update from Australia. Been here a fortnight, settling in, all that jazz. The huge delay is a result of the move - it was a little bit more complicated then moving to York, it turns out. So, anyway, I'm settled in Australia, settled into university and, I hope, able to update a bit more regularly now.

Thank you so much if you're still reading this despite the fairly ridiculous rambling turns it's taken, and the truly absurd delays in posting. I love you all. (Especially you)

Ianto staggered into the bathroom and leaned heavily on the sink, peering into his own bloodshot eyes. Being away from Jack was definitely not good for him – it gave him hangovers. He brushed his teeth first, to get rid of the feeling of dead dog in his mouth, then tried to drown himself in the shower, with the water just too warm to send him back to sleep, but not so warm as to force him out too soon. The water massaged over his skin and ran down, dripping onto his legs and feet, and Ianto made a mental note to book himself in for a massage or a trip home before they flew to China at the weekend – Jack might not have been a trained masseur, but his hands were... Ianto's back twinged and he shook his head. Definitely seeing a professional. He'd arrange it at lunch.

The second alarm went off in his bedroom just as the water started running clear of shampoo suds, and he turned off the shower and stepped out reluctantly, hissing as his feet hit cold tiles instead of the bathmat because he'd forgotten to put it down. He grabbed it quickly and shivered, burying his toes in it and wrapping the warm towel around himself, glad for small mercies in winter; putting the heating on meant having warm towels. After drying himself thoroughly, he pulled his dressing gown on and padded back to his room to shut the alarm up and get dressed.

An hour after his alarm woke him up, he was leaving his flat with a bacon sandwich in one hand and his briefcase in the other, juggling them to lock his door. Someone lifted the briefcase from his hand, and he smiled gratefully at Nem as he finally managed to turn the key. "Thanks, Nem. How's life treating you?"

"Could be worse," she handed his briefcase back cheerfully. "Where's Tyb?"

He blinked and pressed the button for the lift. "Are you going down?" She nodded. "He's with Jack."

"Jack?" she frowned in thought. "Oh, is he the fiancé?"

"He is," Ianto agreed, sighing.

"Oh, what's up honey?" she poked his arm. "Do you miss him?"

"I do," he moved his arm away from her poking. "I'm not going to get to see him this weekend."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm in China."

She stuck her lower lip out for him and nodded. "You saw him last weekend, didn't you? And before that you had a whole week together?"

"We did," in spite of himself, he smiled.

"And you're seeing him the weekend after, for that wedding..." she paused. "It's not your wedding, is it?"

"No, ours is in June," he reassured her. "And you'll get an invitation, if either of us ever finds the time to send them out."

"Do it on Facebook," she waved a hand. "Then you'll get everyone."

"Nem..." he smiled at her and swallowed his mouthful of bacon sandwich properly. "Everyone at our wedding is going to have to be vetted by security." Her eyes went wide. "It'll be more exclusive than Elton John's."

"Didn't Jordan go to his?" her eyes narrowed.

He considered this as the lift doors opened on the ground floor. "Whatever gives you the idea that I'd know?"

"Fair point, gotta run," she waved at him and darted out of the foyer. "Might see you tonight."

He settled at his desk and wrapped his hands around a hot mug of coffee, letting it warm his fingers through again, then set it down and settled to preparing for the day. The first thing he did was check his emails, opening the one from Jack first.

Hi, Ianto,

We've had a Hell of a night here, and we're just turning in now. It's 5, in case the email's still playing up. I'm going to stay up until the others get in this afternoon, then crash out – I'm ready to drop. Any chance of seeing you before you go to China?

Love Jack

Worried, he sent a reply, but had to put it out of his mind. His email filter had sorted it nearly into the correct folders but, of course, not quite. It did make it easier to sort them, though, and he printed out the pile of requests he'd had overnight and organised them in order of urgency and then distributed them, in the main office, over his team's desks. Back in his own office, his diary was filling up with meetings, so he hastily arranged one with Gordon in the only remaining slot they both had free that week and returned to the main office at nine o'clock to wait for the team to arrive.

They filtered in within ten minutes of each other, Jacqui and Martin together as usual, and Ally last, and Ally leaned against Tiff's desk whilst the others stretched out and flicked through the new piles of work and discarded scarves and gloves reluctantly. "Okay," Ianto said at last, hands buried in his pockets. "It's not that cold in here, and I've turned the heating up. Get those request filled by eleven and any you need to send out sent by noon. I want the files Ally and I need collected by the time we go home tonight so that we have two days to go over them. You can go back to your projects tomorrow. Any questions?"

"Will you do a pot of coffee before you leave?" Tiff asked.

He laughed and nodded. "If you need anything for the next hour or so, Ally will deal with it," she grinned. "I've got a meeting with General Anderson any minute now... could you go down and collect him, Als?"

"Right away," she tucked her notebook away into her bag and headed for the door.

"Coffee will be on your desk, I'll be in the meeting room," he called after her.

"Thanks, darling!"

He'd just got himself settled in the meeting room when the door opened and Ally stepped in, followed by a tall, heavily built man who wouldn't have looked out of place on the rugby pitch. "Colonel Anderson to see you, sir," Ally told him demurely.

Ianto stood and came around the desk, offering his hand. "Thank you, Ally. Colonel, good to meet you."

"And to meet you, Mr Jones. I've heard good things about you from Captain Harkness," the colonel's grip was firm and his gaze assessing.

Ianto laughed and offered him a seat. "Some would accuse Captain Harkness of bias, sir."

"Yes, well... keep him in line and none of us will complain. It's Dave, by the way," he offered.

"Ianto," Ianto told him. "Now, what can I help you with on this early, cold, wet November morning?"

"Man power, and the prospect of giving them guns at Christmas," he smiled at Ianto's look of understanding. "I believe that you have proposed a coalition to defend the capital this year."

"I did indeed," he agreed. "I wanted to offer our assistance as operations control personnel, as a move towards improved relations between our organisations – and, of course, to give an impression of holding our end up."

"Under what terms?"

Ianto smiled apologetically. "My team have limited experience of active crisis duty, and the only one of us who is actually cleared for level one field work won't be here over Christmas."

"That would be you?"

"Correct, I'm going home to spend Christmas in Cardiff. It would be beneficial for all of us, I feel, if my team – with Miss Craig as their leader – could provide support over the Christmas period."

"A sort of work experience?" Dave asked with a laugh.

"Pretty much," he agreed. "Analyn is cleared for level three fieldwork, and starts training for level one in the New Year in Cardiff, it would help all of us if she could join with one of your patrols."

Dave nodded. "Well, I'd be happy to take her on board. Your team is, let's be frank about this, too small to be much use beyond keeping the wheels turning between organisations at the moment. If I'm being truly honest, I think that that is the best purpose it can serve, until you're up to strength and can protect the capital alone. There's a place for Torchwood on a regional level that UNIT can't cover."

"I agree. Cardiff has shown how it can operate well on a small scale, whilst Glasgow shows how it can get too small and London..."

"London was too big. The centre of operations for Torchwood needs to be a team like the one you have now, not a research facility that size. If we pool our resources on a level like this, we can work up to a truly united defence and research, maybe with Torchwood doing small scale globally..." he trailed off and smiled in a self-deprecating manner. "Sorry, I'm more operations than field, myself. I think they're trying to fast track me by giving me the South of England so that they can shunt me straight up to UK operations director and get me away from the pointy end as fast as possible."

Ianto opened his hands as if to say, 'same boat', but said, "I think discussions like that will come in the future, but not yet. Once UNIT is a little less... wary, of Torchwood regaining strength."

"And more ready to admit that it is not and never has been God," Dave shook his head. "We'll see how things settle after the shake-up."

"I understand that there's talk of Alan being transferred to Canada," Ianto commented.

"That's the scuttlebutt," Dave agreed. "Of course, I'd never lend any credence to scuttlebutt..."

"Of course not," Ianto smirked back, then planted his hands flat on the desk. "Right, we'd better formalise some sort of agreement, I think. I can't give you long, I'm afraid..."

"Say no more, we'll hash out a general idea and then return with more concrete proposals at a later date?"

"Just what I was going to suggest. Would you like a coffee before we start?"

Half an hour later, Ally showed Dave out and Ianto skipped through his received emails. When he read Jack's, "Calling me will help. All my love." he typed out a fast replyand reached for the phone, willing Jack to pick up.

He did so on the fifth ring, just when Ianto was about to give up. "Jack Harkness speaking." To Ianto's experienced ears, he sounded exhausted, and he told him so. Jack chuckled. "Yeah, that about covers it. I'll be... email as well?"

"I wanted to be thorough," Ianto confessed softly, then sat up straighter and frowned at the screen. "And don't argue with me – I can hear you thinking about it, but I am coming over."

Jack sighed, with a hint of a laugh. "Thank you. I really need you."

"I'll be there," he promised. "And I've just been cleared for Christmas."

"You always know the things to say to cheer me up," Jack told him. "Thank you."

Ianto was moved by the genuine gratitude in Jack's voice; so much so that he nearly promised him forever. He bit it back, though, and smiled sadly. "As long as I can, you know that."

"I'm getting the idea," Jack joked, only slightly raggedly. "But I should let you get on with whatever important things you have to do today."

Ianto sighed and was forced to concede the point. "You should, but you don't have to."

"Yeah, I do. That's the whole point, isn't it?" he asked.

"It is, I suppose," Ianto clamped the phone to his ear and got up to make himself a coffee. "Some days I fantasise about leaving it all behind, settling down somewhere quiet and out of the way, adopting kids, teaching them to ride bikes and swim and..." he trailed off with another sigh. "We couldn't do it, could we?"

"We'd make great dads," Jack argued. "But, yeah, you're right."

"Too much conscience. It's not the thrill I'd miss, just... knowing that someone else was out there putting their life on the line whilst I sat at home safe," he emptied the last of the water from the milk bottle he kept in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet into the coffee machine and put it on top, instead, to remind himself to fill it. Or, more likely, for Ally to stop and refill. "That's really why you never left isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," Jack admitted. "I can throw my life away as many times as it takes to keep you crazy people alive."

He flicked the machine on and rested his forehead against the shelf he'd put there just for that purpose. "When it gets too much, watching me risk it, just tell me. I will stop."

"Thank you," Jack's hard swallow was audible even down the phone. He sniffed, as well, and then forced his tone brighter. "Can I hear coffee?"

"You can, sir," Ianto smiled down into the bubbling pot. "Would you like me to fax you some?"

"You're a tease, Ianto Jones. I love it... love you."

"I know you do, Jack. I love you too." Ianto told him softly.

"I'm going to let you go. What time do you think you'll get here tonight?"

"Around seven." He found his mug and poured the coffee into it. "Maybe a bit after. I'll pick up Chinese on my way in, if you like?"

"That sounds good. I'll... yeah. See you later. And thank you."

Ianto settled down behind his desk again, coffee on one hand and eyes on the report that Martin had sent through to him whilst he was on the phone to Jack. It was one of about a dozen he needed to read before he went to China, and he had a lunch meeting with Gordon and a couple of important London people to talk some more about Christmas defence... he thought that the mayor was coming – that idiot from off the telly – and the head of the police, and someone from the army... all of them so that he could tell them 'it's fine. In fact it's so fine, I'm going to be in Cardiff'. At least the food would be good, and he would remember to eat it.

He tracked back up the report when he realised that he'd lost the thread of what it was explaining, then gave up when he realised that he'd never had any idea what it was explaining anyway. The detailed technical explanations of the alien-developed fuel source that China wanted to start using – the main reason for the trip over there, whatever the media believed about international trade sanctions on Zimbabwe or whatever it was this week – were so far beyond him that he couldn't have seen meaning with a telescope. Tosh, on the other hand...

Finishing his coffee, he put the mug down to have both hands free, and wrote Tosh a begging email, asking her to please for the love of coffee would she explain what the Hell this was about, preferably in words that he didn't have to look up in a dictionary, because on Sunday he was going to be shown around the research facility and on Monday he was going to have to tell them why they couldn't do it, and he couldn't do that if he didn't know what they were doing.

Oh, and could she look after Jack for him and make sure he went home when there was enough of the team in to cope without him.

Once that was sent, waiting in Tosh's inbox for her when she got in – sorry, Tosh, he thought at her, I'll make it up to you. - he settled down with the next report, forcing himself to focus and take in more than one word in five.

Xxxxx

Lunch went surprisingly well. The blonde idiot off the telly, "Oh, um, call me Doris... um, I mean Boris," was cheerful and friendly, and very much in the Albion school of thought when it came to knowing about aliens – he didn't, and he didn't want to. The police chief was a little more complicated, but was appeased and useful when Ianto managed to persuade him that the police would be best on standby in case an emergency evacuation was required, which dragged the army commander, whose name was Commander Graham and who would almost definitely have ended up going home with them if Jack had been there as well, in to provide shelter on the edge of the city.

Gordon was, of course, the perfect host; he guided the subject smoothly towards agreement and away from argument, using food and drink as his weapons as mediator in the war of words that was fought over the main course, and then regaled them with tales of drunken exploits at Cambridge over dessert, which Doris tried to outdo with stories from Oxford, and between them they left Ianto fairly certain that he'd cracked a rib laughing.

He stayed behind, with Gordon and Doris, after the other two men left, and settled into one of the huge, squishy armchairs in Gordon's study. "Well, thank you for a thoroughly pleasant lunch, Gordon."

"It's my pleasure, my dear boy. And I was glad to note that you got some agreements out of it, and out of this morning." Gordon smiled at him approvingly. "You get far more done by being agreeable than most of your predecessors achieved by being obnoxious."

"Even when their achievements are looked at in, erm, cumulatively," Boris agreed. "I say, if you ever get bored of aliens, old chap, you're worth your weight in gold."

"So I've been told," Ianto inclined his head in thanks. "But I think Jack would object if I came back to London again."

"Ah, Jack?"

"The boyfriend," Gordon explained, before Ianto could. "The enigmatic, mysterious, handsome, captivating and irritating head of Torchwood Cardiff, who Ianto is leaving me for."

"I'm sorry, Gordon," Ianto rested his hand on Gordon's arm and added theatrically, "it just wasn't meant to be between us."

"Woe is me," Gordon intoned in return, almost solemn but for the giggles that were winning the battle.

"Don't worry, though," Ianto bit back a smirk, just about. "There's always Anthony."

Gordon's mouth opened and closed a couple of times whilst his eyes completed the goldfish image, and then he collapsed back into his chair and shook with silent laughter. Ianto shook his head and grinned wickedly, and Doris looked adorably bemused. "I say, I don't..."

"Sorry, Doris, inside joke," Ianto waved it away with one hand, whilst drying tears of mirth with the other. "We... erm... Oh Gods."

He collapsed laughing again, clutching his ribs, just as Gordon surfaced enough to explain, "We have a wavelength on which no one else has ever operated. Quite possibly with good reason."

"Gentlemen," Ianto levered himself upright and gave them a small bow before offering his hand to Doris. "Boris, it was a pleasure and an honour to meet you, but I really must get back to work. Gordon."

"Good to meet you, Ianto."

"Take care, and look after Jack tonight," Gordon raised his eyebrows innocently.

Ianto paused in walking away. "How do you always know?"

"Trick of the trade, my dear, I couldn't possibly tell you."

He was still chuckling when he let himself back into his office, where Ally had finally returned with a pile of papers. "You found them all, then?"

"Yep, right where you said they'd be. Have I told you lately that I love you?" she asked him seriously, bare feet on the desk to give her something to rest the current file on.

"I don't think you have, but you might want to bring it up with Jack before you attempt it," he hung his jacket up on the coat hanger and undid his cuffs to roll his sleeves up. "I'm going to Cardiff to see him overnight."

"I know, Gordon told me," she informed him distractedly. "The man knows more than..."

"Is strictly reassuring?" Ianto finished, amused. "I know, but we love him anyway."

"Hmm, it's no wonder you get on so well," she mused.

"We're the only ones capable of world domination and have, as a result of our genius, worked out that it's far, far too much hassle," he smirked.

"Shut up and read your paperwork."

"Yes, mistress."

xxxxx

Ianto wasn't surprised to see Jack waiting for him by the entrance to the station when he got to Cardiff, despite telling him twice that he'd see him at home. Rather than ponder it, and the perplexing complications of their relationship, he pulled Jack into an embrace and let him cling, combing fingers through his hair. "Oh baby," he sighed, "I wish I could take you away from all of this..."

"You called me baby," Jack told him, amused, just about lifting his head. "Am I that bad?"

"You look awful, sorry."

"Don't be. Just, take me home?" he asked, still holding on.

Ianto kissed his temple and pulled them apart. "Come on, then. We'll pick take away up on the way, and eat it in bed, okay?"

Jack kissed him. "That sounds good to me."