29.04.2009 - 15:00

There was, it turned out, a lot more involved in dealing with the press honestly than there was in cooking up cover stories. Ianto had given a couple of brief sentences before whisking Gordon off to his next appointment around the city, and he'd been fielding phone calls from the back seat all day. He'd barely had a chance to speak to the teams around the city working on the recovery work, although he'd seen UNIT dotted around the place assisting with securing sites and sweeping for leftover explosives or tampering. Jack was a constant presence in his thoughts, but they hadn't spoken since they left the flat that morning. The distance gnawed at him, growing worse as the day went on. The weather was even warmer than the day before, a balmy late spring merging into a hot early summer, and away from the river or the parks it was distinctly uncomfortable in his suit. He hadn't really noticed the year whizzing by - all his focus had been on the wedding, which seemed simultaneously so far away and so soon that time lost all meaning. He realised with a jolt that they were less than two months out from it, and just starting the long process of recovering from yet another brutal attack. If Jack needed more hope than Ianto could give him...

He was spared from the sudden spiral into worrying about their relationship, whatever it was after whatever Jack went through, by the driver pulling up to the curb and leaping out to open the door. Ianto climbed out first, one hand close to his gun and his eyes sweeping every rooftop and every face in the crowd. There was still no sign of John Hart. Jack didn't think he'd hang around in Cardiff, but the risk was always there. If he had it in for Torchwood, Ianto was a potential target just as much as Gordon was.

Alexandra Gardens, in the middle of Cardiff's civic centre, had been the focus of shared mourning and reflection for nearly eighty years, since the Welsh National War Memorial was unveiled there. A sea of flowers had already started flowing across the grass between the trees, skirting the edge of the memorials like people were unsure of just how to deal with this latest horror. There was a large pile of them outside the police station, where four senior officers had died together, and another outside the hospital. Dozens of people had died across the city in explosions, car crashes, Weevil attacks and when their life support systems gave out. The road and railway bridges across the Taff had been so badly damaged it would take weeks to repair them and restore transport links. And to add insult to injury, Hart had destroyed the city's crematorium, ensuring that the process of grieving would be dragged out even longer. Ianto almost admired the precision brutality of the attack. Like assassinating someone with Semtex.

His eyes flickered over the crowds, on alert for anything even slightly out of place. Gordon was in amongst a crowd of bereaved relatives, bringing his solidly reassuring presence and a sense of gravitas to the situation. People didn't exactly feel better for having him there, but they felt that someone was doing something. Whatever it was, something was being done or would be done, and that was what mattered. Torchwood was the name on everyone's lips, and there were more than a few curious, suspicious or downright fearful looks in his direction. The existence of both Torchwood and aliens had been greeted with a predictable lack of surprise in Cardiff, although the story was still rumbling on around the world hours later and would likely continue to do so for months. His phone had only stopped ringing when he turned it off and removed the battery.

Kathy Swanson stepped up beside him. Her uniform, with its new pip indicating her overnight promotion to Chief Inspector, was crisp and sharp with a brittleness like her manner. She inclined her head ever so slightly when he glanced at her, and they went back to watching the crowds together. "I thought I'd seen everything," she said quietly. "I should have known better, shouldn't I?" Ianto said nothing, so eventually she sighed heavily and said, "Did all of your lot make it?"

"Gwen didn't," he told her, realising belatedly that it was a bit blunt. "We were lucky, and ready."

"Not that lucky." She caught Gordon's eye and stepped forwards. "Duty calls." Before she left, she turned back to face him. "Your lot did well. Shouldn't have had to, but you did."

That about summed up the day, really. Movies always made victory seem so much more... victorious. They skipped out the blood and the fire and grieving and went straight to the hero being crowned king or riding off into the sunset. Ianto could do with a sunset. Instead he had to grind through street cleaning rotas, demolition squads, press packs and catering. The boring bits that any good author would skip.

Their next stop was the hospital, where surgeons and nurses smiled through their exhaustion, and patients laid up in bed told the Prime Minister of their ordeals. One of them, a lady in her eighties, in excruciating detail. He gave Ianto a slightly strained look and then moved on, poise and grace and gravitas. Ianto gave the coffee machine on the corridor a longing look and trailed along behind him.

Back in the car for a crawl through the traffic to the first of the two bridges that had been taken out. Workmen were already swarming over the ege of the bridge, scaffolding rising up from the depths of the river and crawling over the hanging tarmac. They were given hard hats and pointed down a marked path that had been designated as the safe route to the edge. The sounds of the crowd receded as they reached what had been the middle of the bridge. "We were lucky," he murmured as they got closer. "I think he wanted the drama of explosions in the night. Earlier in the day, it would have been far worse. It's a good job he left it so late in the spring, I suppose."

"Ianto, are you aware you just said that out loud?"

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yes, and in hindsight..." He shrugged. "It's still true. Perhaps he was impatient. Odd character trait for a time traveller, I suppose."

"Yes, I suppose it is, rather."

The thought percolated whilst they were swept up again in a tidal wave of high viz jackets and clipboards, efficiency and strong mugs of tea. By the time they were done the cameras were back and Gordon stopped again to talk to the gathering crowd and make promises of reconstruction and recovery. Ianto hovered at a safe distance behind him where the secrets he carried couldn't be overheard.

They were piled back into the car and swept away down towards the Bay. Ianto didn't even realise he'd drifted off until a sharp kick to his shin brought him back to the present, and he fought back the sheepish chagrin. Gordon just gave him a knowing look. "We're nearly done," he promised. "I'll get the car to drop me back at the hotel, and then you can go and get Jack and bring him round. We'll eat in the restaurant."

"You don't have to do that..."

"No, but I want to. I'm going back to London as soon as I've eaten, and I need Ally to come with me so bring her along too." He looked down at his phone with a frown. "I need to update COBRA, and I intend to tell them that my best man is in charge of the recovery effort. There won't be many opportunities to rest for quite some time, so be sure you make the most of this one."

He nodded and turned his gaze back to the street drifting past them. "I remember Canary Wharf," he said abruptly. "We all knew about the Daleks and the Cybermen, but never thought we'd have to deal with them ourselves. Afterwards, keeping up the pretence and letting the rest of the world forget, it was easier." He wasn't making much sense even to himself. "You tell the world a lie and you start to believe it yourself. It's easier when you won't have to deal with it again, when you have to shove it away and pretend it's just a bad dream. I guess I got too good at believing my own press."

"If you say so."

They arrived at the hotel down on the Bay, and piled out of the car. Ianto fastened his suit jacket again, painfully aware of the gun at his hip and John Hart's disappearance, and gestured back towards the Hub with a jerk of his head. "I'll go and brief Jack and Analyn, and meet you back here at five o'clock." Then Gordon could be back in the car and on the way to London, and Jack and Ianto safely back in the Hub, before the live broadcasts for the evening news could start. Another factor to consider in his plans.

# # #

30.04.2009 - 10:00

They gathered in the Hub around the computer monitors, surrounded by the reassuring beeping and whirring of a lot of systems doing their job once more. Tosh sat at her computer, fingers rattling over the keyboard whilst they waited for Jack to join them and screens flashing up maps and graphs and strings of half-written code as she flicked through them. Once Jack drifted out of his office, she span around in her seat and pulled her glasses off. "Rift Monitor is reporting hot spots all over the city, Jack, but nothing major. We'd normally expect to see spikes of activity after time travel like this, but for some reason we've just not got it this time."

Jack just nodded, but Ianto frowned. "Could it be the way he was using it? The Doctor tends to cause chaos, but maybe a vortex manipulator is small enough not to do too much damage."

"I don't think so. The TARDIS must travel in a different way, because we can't track every visit like we can every use of a Vortex Manipulator." She pointed out a few of the spikes with the leg of her glasses. "See these? These are all the jumps he did between us entering the warehouse at nine thirty in the morning and the explosions across the city at ten that night. If we'd had access to our systems we would have been able to track his progress very easily, which is why the Rift Monitor was the first thing he took out. Honestly, I think that most of the explosives were planted whilst we were running to the roofs."

"Right under our noses," Owen said. "You know, I think he gets off on it."

Christina nodded. "I bet he does. I would. Which begs the question... where is he now?" She reached across Tosh and ran her finger along the steady line of 24 hours with no major Rift activity, certainly no one jumping in or out using it. "Tosh, how many spikes are there?"

"Over twenty through the day. Twenty seven, I think, although I've not had time to isolate them all and link them categorically to either Hart or Gray." She glanced up at Jack with a curious expression, like she knew she was on the verge of understanding something but didn't know what. "Do you think Gray was setting everything up whilst John kept us distracted?"

Jack didn't look inclined to answer, but Christina didn't give him the chance anyway. She leaned in and dragged her finger back along the line. "Are you sure it's an odd number, Tosh?"

"I told you, I'm not certain on any of them," she said, a touch crossly, "but yes, all the indicators so far point to there being twenty seven distinct rift events associated with the attacks."

The penny finally dropped for Ianto. "Which means that John Hart never returned, unless one of them was already here yesterday morning. Each time they came and left is a pair of spikes. If they both needed to travel to Cardiff yesterday to start the process, we should then have a pair for each time they came and went, plus one spare for when Gray arrived and didn't leave. If we have an odd number..."

"Of course it must mean John never came back." Owen glanced over at the morgue drawer where Gwen was waiting for someone to take her away. "Good riddance, I say. If he does, I'll shoot him first and ask questions later."

"He won't come back," Jack said. He stared at a fixed point on the desk rather than look at anyone. "If it wasn't for Gray, he wouldn't have come back here at all. Gray was controlling him, watching his every move."

"I still want to shoot the fucker," Owen grumbled.

Ianto saw Jack flinch and decided to steer the subject to safer waters, hard as those were to find. "Do you think there's going to be any activity we need to be aware of? What are he predictions for tonight?"

"Totally useless," Tosh admitted. "That level of manipulation of the Rift is completely unprecedented. I can keep monitoring the usual hotspots, but there's no way to know how it will react."

Christina shrugged. "As long as it doesn't just unzip itself down the middle of the city, we'll be fine."

"I'm going to keep UNIT on hand for another 24 hours," Ianto said, because it was becoming increasingly clear that Jack wasn't able to take the lead on this one. "If we're still clear after that, we'll be able to take it from there. Christina, you've got the recovery operations under your wing, how are they going?"

"All the exclusion zones have been lifted, so everyone who can be is allowed back in their homes today." She drummed her nails on the desk as she thought, a sharp, rhythmic rattle adding to the background murmur. "The UNIT support in the hospitals meant that waiting times never got worse than a normal Friday night at most of them, but they're back down to usual now. Supermarkets are all restocked, power is reconnected throughout the city, and Glamorgan have decided to go ahead with the university match starting on Friday with a minute's silence at the start. The only big problems remaining are the crematorium and the railway."

"What's the latest on those?"

Owen stuck his hand up. "The damaged crematorium is going to be out of use for months, so they reckon the waiting list for services is going to be over six weeks. The cathedral is hosting a multi-faith service of remembrance for everyone who died on Sunday, though, and the council's voting today on a memorial to be put in Alexandra Gardens. Train lines are fucked, they reckon the bridge should be rebuilt in time for Christmas."

"How are we this bad at it?" Ianto ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "Rail replacement buses?"

"From Newport."

"As if things weren't bad enough, we're making people go to Newport? Is there anyone we can lean on to try and get it built faster?" He rolled his eyes. "Let's call the Doctor and see if he can fetch Isambard Kingdom Brunel over. He owes us a favour."

"Yeah, speaking of, where is he?" Owen looked over at Jack. "Isn't this the point where he usually swoops in and saves the day?"

The atmosphere became charged suddenly, and Jack shrank back from his gaze. "It's... not that simple," he said at last.

"Maybe the disturbance meant he couldn't land the TARDIS," Tosh suggested quietly. "We don't really know how the TARDIS works..."

"Yeah, well we could have done with him. I hate to sound like a Welshman, but he would have turned up if it were London, wouldn't he?"

Ianto wanted Tosh to 'accidentally' run Owen's foot over with her chair, but it wouldn't hurt him and would do permanent damage. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let's not think about the Doctor, okay? I feel like saying his name summons trouble..."

"That's not fair," Christina said. "You don't really know him, you just know the stories. If he could help, he would have been here."

Irritation surged in him. "I just know the stories? I was one of the survivors of Canary Wharf, no thanks to him. He didn't give a shit about most of us. He didn't even look for survivors, just left us all to die because we were Torchwood." He took a deep breath and reminded himself of all the reasons this never got brought up, especially around Jack. Christina clearly didn't know any of that, though, and she didn't look ready to back down. "We've coped for over a hundred years without him, we'll cope with this. Unless his sonic screwdriver has a bridge building setting, I don't see how he could help matters." Before she could chirp up again he looked down at Tosh. "Tosh, you and Christina get off and get some sleep. We've got UNIT on hand until tomorrow at least, so if the world starts ending we'll give you some warning. Short of that, though, I don't want to see you until tomorrow. Understood?"

"Thanks, Ianto." She put her glasses away and got up, whilst Christina glowered at him. "Shall I go round to yours on my way, feed Tybalt and reassure him we've not forgotten him?"

"If you can, yes please. Spare room's made up if you want it."

Jack gave them all a nod and disappeared back into his office, and Christina turned away to grab her things with a huff. He and Owen caught each other's eyes and, for once, came to an agreement. "I'm going down to the Archives to... sort out that office," he said, fishing for something to do that wasn't in the Hub under Jack's watchful but silent eye.

# # #

30.04.2009 - 16:30

Ianto pushed another drawer closed and made a note in his folder. The desk in his archival office was nearly clear at last, paperwork filed away ready for removal to the archives and system records updated. The smell of dust and paper filled the air, a comforting change from the usual damp and metalling tang of the main Hub. It was cowardice, in a way, but everyone was recovering in their own way. It just so happened that his way of recovering was by restoring order to a small corner of the Hub. Alone.

He rubbed at tired eyes. When he checked the clock, he found it much earlier than he'd expected. Too early yet to try and coax Jack out of the Hub and back to their silent apartment, certainly. The last few days were taking their toll, and he'd felt more exhausted when they arrived that morning than he had when they left the night before. He pressed his back against the filing cabinet and felt the pop and crack of his spine finally straightening up from a day bent over drawers and desks. It had given him the opportunity to catch up on what he'd missed as well, fill in the gaps in his knowledge. His phone buzzed with a message, probably Jack asking where he was. He ignored it the first time, but the second came along too quickly. Of course, there was no emergency when he found it. Just Jack, worrying again. He texted back a quick "I'm down in the Archival office. Need anything?" and knew that Jack wouldn't follow him, even if he wanted to. There was something about that darkened doorway that he couldn't cross any more. Perhaps it reminded him of being locked up in the morgue. Perhaps that was why he'd agreed to release Gwen's body for cremation.

Curiosity had been niggling at him since he'd brought Jack up out of the lower levels. There was something Jack wasn't saying, and Ianto hated himself for needing to find it. They might never know what Hart and Grey had done to Jack when he was missing, with time very much on their side. When they lay there every night, Ianto couldn't help remembering the silent nights after Jack came back from his time with the Doctor, the silent understanding in the spaces between them that Ianto knew what Jack had suffered and, though he couldn't possibly understand, he didn't need Jack to put it into words. Maybe if he could find something, he'd know better how to help him.

He settled down at the computer again and logged into the archival records, with a surreptitious glance over his shoulder that he scolded himself for. The records were complete for the Cardiff archives all the way back to the establishment of the branch. He'd spent a quiet afternoon reading the architect's reports on the potential locations for the Hub, back when they were planning the new one, and wanted to kick the man for passing over the far more convenient location up the river. It meant that he knew, roughly, what he was looking for. He typed in the number of the morgue drawer Jack had been sealed in and found the last entry before his own brief summary of Gray's entombment. Jack's was just as brief – White male, approximately thirty years of age, found at Pontcanna Fields. That and a date which, thanks to Ally's meticulous archiving, was tagged. Clicking on it led to all the other records and finds logged that day.

Ianto scrolled through them with a roiling maelstrom of emotions. First there was confusion, then suspicion, then a hefty dose of denial, and finally gnawing horror as the pieces dropped into place. He rested his head in his hands and took deep breaths, which didn't help.

"Buried at a considerable depth."

"Clothes and effects severely degraded."

"Individual began to dig..."

He pushed away from the desk and paced the three steps to the far wall, then punched it. It was a good, clean punch and hurt like fire, but it made him feel better for half a second.

No wonder Jack was struggling. No wonder he didn't want to come down into the darkness.

# # #

30.04.2009 - 18:00

Ianto looked at the clock once more and grabbed his phone off the edge of the desk, then hurried back up through the tunnels into the Hub. For some reason he'd expecting things to be different, for the world to have been changed by his revelation, but it was just him that had changed. The team gave him curious, startled looks as he burst into the room, but went back to what they were doing. Only Jack watched him, like he had been doing for the last few days. Over the CCTV or in person, he was always there. Ianto had understood the impulse – he was torn between never letting Jack out of his sight again and running screaming for the hills – but now he wondered. There were too many thoughts and fears running through his mind, treacherous whispers he wanted to rip out and stamp on but couldn't. He took a steadying breath and climbed the couple of steps up to Jack's office, then knocked on the glass and did his best to smile. "Mind if I come in?"

"Do I ever?" Jack abandoned his post, where he'd been leaning against the glass and watching his team work, and retreated to the battered sofa in the corner. He didn't look up when Ianto poured them each a drink, just accepted the glass and hung his head. "You found the records, didn't you?"

"Yeah." He looked down into the glass, torn between the sofa with Jack or the edge of the desk. In the end he sank down into his usual place on the sofa, one knee pressing against Jack's and a space between them for the secrets. "Fuck, Jack... I'm sorry. I should have been here..."

"You'd be dead." Jack tossed back the whisky and set the glass aside. "He protected you, you know that? If Grey had known about you..." He rested his head in his hands. "I don't want to know what he would have done. I've had too long to think about that, I just want to... To stop."

Ianto reached out and rested a hand on Jack's knee. "I'm here," he promised, "it's over. He can't hurt either of us any more." 'Probably', added one of the little voices he couldn't shut up. Fucking time travellers. "Come on. Let's get out of here for a bit."

Jack was quick to agree, and soon they were in the lift up to the TI office and the boardwalk. Up there, it was hard to tell anything had happened at all. The Bay area had been left unaffected, Hart or Grey having little respect for the devolved Welsh Assembly, apparently. Seagulls wheeled overhead and dived down on people for their ice creams, a speedboat hit the edge of the speed restriction zone out in the Bay and took off with a roar, somewhere a child laughed and shouted at her dog to get down. The wind tugged at their hair and clothes, the cool of spring cutting through the warm summer sun. He remembered returning to Canary Wharf in the days after the battle, and hating the business men and women in their dark suits hurrying across the squares with their heads down, ignoring what had happened so their lives could go on where so many hadn't. Maybe if the signs of life he'd had to deal with back then had been a little girl and her Pomeranian instead, he would have handled it better.

Jack's hand slipped into his suddenly, and clung on like he'd never let go. Just for a moment Ianto's world tilted on its axis, and then the squeezed back and it righted itself. They held on tightly, staring out at the water, and then Ianto tugged on Jack's hand and set off walking towards home.

Tybalt was pleased to see them, even more so when Jack broke away to feed him and fuss him whilst Ianto made the coffee. Soon the three of them were settled on the sofa, with coffees in hand and Tybalt sprawled across Jack's lap, purring up a storm as Jack buried his fingers in his fur. Silence and understanding stretched between them again, pieces falling into place better than words could, whilst they sipped at their coffees.

Eventually the silence ran out, and Ianto set his mug aside. He turned in his seat, tucked one leg underneath him, and reached over to rub behind Tybalt's ears. "Will you talk to someone?" he asked. "We all need help to deal with this, you more than any of us."

Jack sighed, but he nodded. "I'll try. That's all I can promise." His fingers twitched. "Are you... Can we leave the curtains open at night? Just for a while."

"For as long as you need. Do you want to move into the new office?" Jack gave him a jerky nod and a guilty look. "Alright. We can go over there tomorrow morning and find out what we need, then the others can bring it over in the afternoon."

"And today?"

He shook his head. "We have time."

Jack rubbed at his face, wiping away tears. "Ianto..." He stumbled and Ianto waited patiently for him to catch himself. "You have to know... I don't remember everything. And I don't know whether what I do remember is real, or what I needed to be true."

Fear clutched at Ianto again. "That's okay," he said, even though there was a good chance it really wasn't. "We'll just take it a step at a time. And you're doing fine so far. Tybalt approves, at least." They both laughed, which disturbed Tybalt so he chirruped and rubbed his head against Jack's hand, demanding more fussing. Ianto watched them and forced himself to face the yawning truth. "If... if you don't want to... be with me..."

"I do." Jack cut him off before he could face the rest of his sentence. "When I was... there. You were what kept me fighting. The thought of coming back to you. Again," he added, with a hint of frustration and a lot of despair. "I just don't want to do that to you again. I nearly destroyed us once already."

"Yeah, well, I've grown up since then," Ianto assured him with more confidence than he felt, "and hired several therapists."

Jack chuckled, and his knee shifted to press against Ianto's again. It wasn't exactly ripping each other's clothes off and falling on each other in desperate passion, but it was close enough.