29.04.2009 – 01:15

The brief window of peace was never going to last that long. Although down in the darkness there was no way to measure the flow of time, they could all feel it pressing in on them and chivvying them along, a million and one tasks needing doing before they could hope to rest. Ianto sent Christina off to get a few hours of sleep or as close to it as she could manage, but Tosh was too essential and Jack wasn't going anywhere, so the rest of them trudged back up to the main Hub to resume work.

It was busier than he'd ever seen it, thronging with UNIT personnel in a way that made his skin crawl. They all deferred to Torchwood immediately, for which he was deeply grateful, and Chrissie appeared at his side almost by magic to give him a report on the situation. "Streets are safe again, sir, and the hospitals are back up and running. General Mgambo and Dr Stewart are requesting a conference call as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Chrissie." He looked around the room and realised that somehow he'd ended up in charge again. Jack looked a million miles away, Owen avoided responsibility like the plague, and Tosh was too tired to do more than return to her systems. There was no one arguing with him over it, and he realised that he was tripping over Gwen's absence again. "Do we have any updates on John Hart?"

"No sign of him, but photos have been circulated. We've warned everyone not to approach him, or even acknowledge him. It seemed safest."

"Good call." He dropped his voice to keep Jack from overhearing. "And Gwen's body..."

She nodded. "In the mortuary awaiting post mortem. The other body, we've done preliminary scans on it and the medical teams have asked if they can perform the post mortem. If not, to get your results."

Ianto looked over at Jack and nodded. "Yes, you can do it. I don't think any of us here could be impartial enough. He's definitely dead, though?"

"Definitely dead. We've checked several times and locked him in, just in case." She scratched at her collarbone with a frown. "Welcome to UNIT, I suppose."

"Tell me about it. Can you arrange that conference call for me? I'll take it as soon as they're ready." He waited for her to indicate her agreement, then picked his way between the detritus to Tosh's work station, where Jack was already peering over her shoulder. "Tosh, how is everything looking?"

She sighed heavily. Her hair was loose and hung limply around her face, which was marred with bruises and soot from the explosions. Ianto remembered with a jolt that it was only that morning that the team had nearly died in the explosion at the old factory. It felt like days ago instead of just too many hours. He rested his hand on her shoulder and rubbed it reassuringly, mentally promising her a sleep as soon as he could arrange it for her. "The systems are largely repairing themselves, but it'll take time to isolate and remove everything that Hart and Gray did. I've cut us off from every other system as a precaution, but that means we'll be slower to respond and I don't know if there's any malicious code already got out into the network. I've sent samples of the code to UNIT and Liberty Towers for them to examine, just in case." She pulled her glasses off and looked up at him. "I did find this, though. It's some sort of psychic network that the Mainframe was communicating with. It seems to have... protected her, almost. Like it helped her to fight the intrusions, or someone on the other end of the network did. Maybe there's another one of her out there."

"That's... new." Ianto leaned over to look at the code, but whilst he could find his way around Tosh's with relative ease the new network she'd found was completely alien to him - and, knowing Torchwood, to Earth. "Could it be Mr Smith? Sarah Jane's computer?"

"It... could," she conceded. "I'll give him a call in the morning."

"If it isn't him, he might know of other computers it could be."

She nodded and turned back to her computer, but hesitated and looked back up at them both. "You don't think... it couldn't be the TARDIS, could it?"

Jack snorted. "No. The Doctor isn't that subtle. If he was involved, we'd know about it. No, he just..." He trailed off and turned away from them. "We're on our own this time."

"Do what you can, Tosh," Ianto said quietly, "and hand over when you can. There's only so much we can do with coffee and determination. Don't push yourself too hard."

"Sir!" Chrissie called out to him from across the room before Tosh could reply, so he gave her a 'here we go' sort of look and left her to it. The UNIT troops in the Hub were doing bits and pieces of everything. Some of them were setting up a catering position in an empty corner, more were sorting equipment into what was broken and what just needed putting back where it came from, and yet more were sweeping the floor and clearing paths through the mess, whilst most of them clustered around laptops and one of the big glass walls - one of the few let undamaged by Gray and Hart's attacks on the place - sketching out patrol patterns and sweep plans. Ianto didn't really know how to feel about it at first, but eventually settled for vindicated and aggrieved. Torchwood 3 had been pleading for years for more resources to deal with the regular and devastating attacks on the city. It shouldn't have taken this long for someone like him to come along and actually do something about it. If Yvonne Hartman had listened to Jack...

He pushed it to the back of his mind as he reached Chrissie and gave her the closest thing to a smile he could manage. "Are they ready for me?"

"Ready as they'll ever be, sir." She gestured to the laptop she'd set up in one of the side offices, the one that Gwen had occasionally used as her centre of operations when she got a bee in her bonnet and stepped back out of his way. "General Mgambo is chairing, sir, and Colonel Mace is joining from the resource centre."

"Thank you." Although he was very aware that he looked like he'd had a very long and bloody day, there was little he could do about it now so he just smoothed down his tie and rounded the table to sit down at the desk. The screen was split into four, and all the other participants were ready for him. He didn't know all of them, unfortunately. General Mgambo and Colonel Mace were familiar to him, of course, but there was a handsome woman he vaguely recognised as being from one of the European branches and an older archivist from Liberty Towers that he'd exchanged emails with on no more than a handful of occasions. It was going to be one of those on-the-hoof meetings, then. He realised too late that he hadn't picked up a coffee.

"Ianto, good to see you safe and sound," Mace told him. "I'm sorry to hear of your team member."

"Thank you. Are all of your team safe?"

"Minor injuries at worst. A couple got into a scuffle with one of those Weevils but they put it down fairly quickly. Do the team there really deal with those on a daily basis?"

He shrugged. "Weekly rather than daily, but fairly often, yes."

"Christ, man. You definitely need more funding down here." Mace leaned in and stabbed his finger at the screen. "You've done a good job to get it this far from the skeleton team it used to be, but it's not going to be good enough in the long run. You need a UNIT presence here last week, and..."

"I agree." That seemed to take the wind out of Mace's sails somewhat and gave Ianto room to breathe. "Isn't that what I proposed and got approved at the conference?"

The American archivist smiled at him like he'd done a particularly clever trick. "He's right. Your proposals are good, Director Jones, they're just a bit late."

Considering that he'd just been wrestling with that exact thought himself, he could hardly be angry that she'd brought it up. Instead he channelled his righteous indignation and complete exhaustion into a new idea, one that had been lurking around the edges of his mind for some time just waiting for the opportunity to show itself. "I absolutely agree. This is a change that should have been brought in at the turn of the millennium if not before. Captain Harkness has been warning us for many years, but the whole extra-terrestrial intelligence community has largely ignored their most valuable asset. That's why, as Director of Torchwood and official advisor to the UK government, I'm going to advise the Prime Minister to acknowledge the true facts of this attack, in order to create a new era of honesty, understanding and preparedness."

You could have heard a pin drop after that announcement. Mace gaped at him, Mgambo face-palmed better than Ianto had ever seen, and only the European head whose name he still couldn't place looked remotely pleased with this turn of events. The American - Serena Kjirkstad, that was it - was delightfully flustered. "Director Jones," she protested, reminding everyone that he really did have superiority, "are you out of your damned mind? Straight after an attack like this?"

"Do you have a batter suggestion? Should we perhaps wait for one of those quiet days that never come, or slip it out over Christmas when no one is watching?" Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd clearly been thinking about this for a long time, and all the ideas and irritations came flowing out now he'd opened the dam. "No, it has to be today, and do you know why? Because I don't want to turn on the news tomorrow morning and see another racist attack that I could have prevented if I'd just been honest. In today's climate, people will absolutely blame anyone who looks different from them. When we cover up what's happened to keep people safe, we do the exact opposite. We blame anyone but ourselves, when an honest approach and better preparation could have saved many lives."

He let the silence drag out for that to sink in, and eventually it was the UNIT Brigadier who spoke up first. "You raise a good point, Director," she said, in a softly spoken French accent. "Brigadier Bernard, Director Jones." Brigadier Perdita Bernard, based at the European headquarters in Bern. "It is something we have considered ourselves, quietly, but I admit that I did not expect to hear it spoken out loud so soon. It has become... a habit, to keep our secrets, has it not? And in recent years, especially, that has meant turning a blind eye to the costs of our secrecy."

Ianto nodded. "The twenty first century is when everything changes, as a wise man has been trying to tell us for many years. By acknowledging the threat we face openly, we also open our doors to the opportunities. One day, the human race will spread across the stars. One day, we're going to have to open that door ourselves."

Brigadier Bernard settled back in her seat, with a look in her eye that Ianto took to mean that several pieces she'd set in motion over the years were about to come into play. "It will certainly change things. For a start, our ignorance is the only thing holding us back from being classified as a grade 3 civilisation under the Shadow Proclamation. We would gain significant new rights around our defence, but also open up new trading opportunities."

"Yes, well, maybe we should get our own house in order before we start selling the Amazon rainforest to the highest bidder off the planet as well as on it," Mace muttered.

"It is something to consider," she agreed. "But if we don't act soon, we won't have a choice in the matter."

Ianto's memory helpfully supplied several occasions when aliens had come to earth with similar ideas in mind. "We have already come too close to that on too many occasions. Without the Doctor, there would be no Earth left. Even Torchwood and UNIT did, if you'll pardon the phrase, fuck all in the face of the threat from the Slitheen back in 2006. We only know there was a threat at all from the testimony of Harriet Jones."

Brigadier Bernard's face clouded over. "That is a day we must all remember. We lost far too many people, good people, that day. And you are right. If the existence of aliens hadn't been such a secret, it would have been impossible for them to get a foothold like that."

General Mgambo, who had kept quiet through the debate, sighed heavily and sat back in his chair. "It sounds like we are decided, then. Brigadier, if you are in favour..."

"I am, entirely."

"Then there is no higher authority who could object. I think I speak for us all when I say that I'd like to see the draft of the script before it goes to the press."

"Of course." Ianto inclined his head in agreement, already ready to draft it as soon as he got his hands on pen and paper. "The Prime Minister is expected to arrive in Cardiff in..." he checked his watch and realised how late it had got. "In about ten hours, at nine am. I may suggest that he delay that, considering the inevitable traffic congestion. I'll have the script drafted and circulated by one am, and arrange a press conference for noon. I realise it's not what we'd want, but in the circumstances I believe that time is of the essence and we must move as quickly as we can to curb rumour and set minds at ease."

"I agree." Brigadier Bernard shuffled papers on her desk and gave him a tight, tired smile. "I'll get it approved from our end, and I look forwards to seeing your draft, Director Jones."

One by one they rang off the call, and Ianto dragged himself out of his chair and back into the melee. Tomorrow, everything was going to change, and they had to be ready.

# # #

29.04.2009 – 04:15

Ianto eased his tie open as he pushed the door open and stepped out onto the boardwalk. In the distance, beyond the Norwegian Church, the horizon was tinted with grey instead of inky blackness, and the weaker stars were starting to lose the battle with twilight. A breeze coming in up the Bristol Channel brought with it the scent of salt water and mud, but he thought, or imagined, that he could smell acrid smoke drifting down from the city centre. He took a deep breath and finally let his shoulders sag.

"Hey." Jack had followed him out and stood by the door with his hands in his pockets, chin tipped up defensively. He'd borrowed a hoodie from Ianto's drawer, because his coat was beyond repair even by Ianto's skill and stained with Jack's blood and worse, and looked like a different person. Smaller, vulnerable. "You going home?"

He turned to look at him. The tight lines of exhaustion around his eyes mirrored how Ianto felt. It ran bone deep, an ache he couldn't remember not feeling. "Yes." He turned to look over towards the apartment. "I need to be… out of there for a bit. Might sleep for about 20 hours. Coming?"

"There's too much to do. The city is only just getting back on its feet, UNIT…"

"It's all being done." He cut him off and shook his head. "They don't need us. You've trained them well, and so have I. They can handle it a lot better than we can right now. Come home with me."

"Ianto." Jack shook his head and walked past him to the railings above the water. He stared out across it in silence for a long time. "I don't know what happens now," he admitted in the end. "I don't know if I can keep going after that. After what happened…"

He tried to ignore the sudden surge of dread, but when it piled on top of the exhaustion and the grief it was almost more than he could handle. "We'll get through it, like we always have," he promised, or begged. "One step at a time, we'll make it. Just... come home for a bit."

It took a while, but eventually Jack nodded. They drifted up the boardwalk in the pre-dawn silence, curious crowds of revellers long since shuttled off to homes or refuge centres by the police and UNIT, and round the short walk to their apartment. Jack seemed to trail along in Ianto's wake, hands in his pockets and eyes a million miles or years away. Up the boardwalk, past the darkened shops and bars, along the path past the back of the museum, and then turn left. He let them in and they climbed the stairs, shoes ringing on concrete, to the top floor. Tybalt greeted them with noisy meows, rubbing against them both and running over to his food bowl pointedly. Ianto swept him up and buried his face in his fur, despite his noisy and wriggly protestations, and made it up to him by filling his bowl up. Jack had drifted to the window with the compact, cautious movements of someone who is in a space not their own, not those of a man returning to his sanctuary. He stood at the window, arms now folded across his chest, and watched the sun rise over the water.

"What happened to you?" Ianto asked him softly. He claimed it as a victory that Jack didn't flinch from the question, even if he just didn't react at all. "When you went after Hart... I thought I'd lost you."

It was easier to admit that here, in the quiet of their shared home with Jack back and safe even if nothing was right and the ground was shifting under his feet. The rational part of his brain knew that Jack would survive anything. The romantic part of his brain believed, above everything, that Jack would come back to him no matter what. But the rest of him, every cell, had been terrified. As the hours had dragged on with no word from Jack and no sign of him, death toll mounting and the situation spiralling out of control, Jack was the only thing he'd really cared about. He didn't like what that said about him.

"I don't want to talk about it," Jack said at last. He did, at least, turn around to face Ianto. "It's over, and I'm back. That's all that matters."

He nodded jerkily and looked down at Tybalt. "Yeah, you're right. Just... I'm here for you. You know that."

"I'm sorry."

"Fuck, Jack... don't be sorry. Just..." He ran a hand through his hair. "Just... I don't know. Let's just get some sleep. Maybe things will feel better then." They could hope. It was all they could do.

# # #

29.04.2009 - 09:00

"Ianto! We've just had confirmation from National Grid that the last street has been connected up. Power has been restored to the whole of Cardiff." Christina passed him a printed report with a weary smile as soon as he walked in the door. "Mobile phone networks are still patchy, but he only took out two transmitters so that should be restored by nightfall, and the TV networks are reconnected. The only thing that's still down is the phone and internet in some areas. That might take a few days to restore, especially where it was underground."

"Thanks, Christina." He downed the dregs of his coffee and abandoned his mug on the edge of a desk so he could sort through the paperwork. Behind him, Jack drifted to one of the terminals to check something, he didn't know what. They'd lain in silence for a few hours, neither of them sleeping, and then dragged themselves out of bed and back into the thick of it when the phone started ringing. Tesco was closed, but someone had taken over the kitchen area in the Hub and filled it with bacon sandwiches and muffins. When he found out who, he was going to kiss them. "How are things looking at the hospitals?"

"All back online 100%. Patients are being brought in from the field hospital as we speak. UNIT medics are providing additional support to the local staff, and they've opened the roads to allow medical professionals in as volunteers." She folded her arms and propped her hip on a desk. "From first explosion to full recovery in under 24 hours. That's pretty good going."

Helen strode into the room with her walkie talkie in hand. "Sir, the Prime Minister has just passed through the inner cordon. Shall we direct him to you?"

He nodded. "Straight in here, thanks Helen."

She looked him up and down as she handed him her tablet. "John Hart has absconded, but there's a warrant out for his arrest. He won't get far on-world, but we're not expecting him to have stuck around. We'll need to be prepared for his return."

"He tried to help me," Jack said. "Gray... forced him to cooperate." He swallowed hard and his eyes shone with tears again. "He made sure I could be found."

Ally shook her head. "He also killed quite a lot of people. An eyewitness reported him pushing a man off a building just because he could."

Jack looked up again and his eyes met Ianto's for a second before he dragged them away again. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I agree with you that he probably won't come back. Earth in the 21st century doesn't have much to offer. Now he has his freedom back, he'll use it."

"That's what I said." Ianto watched Jack move around the table, crumpling the printout between his hands as the silence stretched. "UNIT are going to continue support for as long as we need it," he said at last. "Helen here is our liaison."

"Is she now?" Jack grinned at her, a brittle mask that was as honest as a snake, and held his hand out. "Welcome to the team."

"Jack..."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm just saying hello. Honestly, you're starting to sound like the Doctor."

"Speaking of which," Ianto snapped, harsher than he would have liked. "No sign of him. Apparently this didn't feature on his radar. I'm going to go and review the reports. If the Prime Minister arrives, come and get me."

"Where will you be?" Ally asked.

He glanced at the office and couldn't stop himself cringing away. "I'll be in the archival office," he said quickly. "I have something I need to... look up."

No one challenged him on it, not that he gave them much of a chance as he hurried away into the passages that twisted and twined away from the Hub. The electronic buzzing and the bustle of the Hub faded away, replaced by echoing, metallic drips and the occasional thump and groan from the ancient heating systems, which did little to lift the chill that seemed to emanate from the stark white walls. The archival office, which had once been his domain, was now messier. Two chairs sat at the desk, one piled high with files and the other kicked out at an angle. He busied himself for a few minutes with slotting the paperwork into the correct cabinets, ready for transfer to the main archives, and noted with irritation that that hadn't been done since Ally left. The seething resentment that Jack had sparked in the Hub surged up and latched onto the petty grievances of the archives that he had thought long behind him, and he slammed the drawer shut so hard it bounced back, adding to his general state of pissed off. Just to make everything worse, he caught his finger on the edge of the drawer, and a sharp corner ripped an inch long cut down the length of his ring finger, pushing his engagement ring up so that the cut ran right underneath where it sat. He wrenched the ring off and slammed it down on the top of the cabinet, cursing without restraint.

The echoes faded away, leaving just the sound of his harsh breathing in the confined space. He glared down at the cut and touched it gently, then kept pressing even as he hissed with pain. Blood smeared across his thumb and onto his cuffs, so he hurried back to the desk and rummaged through the drawers for the first aid kit and patched it up as well as he could one-handed. He let his eyes fall closed. Immediately, he was assaulted with images, Gwen's throat gaping open on Jack's office floor, human meat hanging in fridges and a cleaver pressed to his throat, metal embedded in Lisa's skin and slick with her blood. He gagged, and when he vomited up bile he was reminded how long it had been since he'd eaten. The cold struck against the tears that streamed down his cheeks and highlighted the angry heat. He pressed his face into his hands, sank to the floor and, unheeding of the cold stone and the grit pressing into his knees, shook.