The new Hub smelled of fresh plaster and paint above anything else. It was vast, with far more space than they could hope to fill any time soon, but compared to the sprawling tunnels and passages of the subterranean Victorian infrastructure it sparkled with promise. Nothing was damp, nothing was falling off the wall, none of the paint was peeling. Ianto set a pile of pizza boxes down on one of the few clear desks and stepped back out of Tosh's way as she hurried past with another crate of cables. "Tosh, sit down for five minutes and eat some pizza."

"I'll be with you in a minute," she called out as she disappeared off down the corridor. "I just need to get the spacial field quantom capacitor hooked up to the monitoring systems again before the next surge forecast."

He had no idea what any of that meant and asking her to explain would only delay her further, so he waved her off and started setting out the boxes as well as he could. Every desk was covered with paperwork, computer parts, field kits, weapons and everything else that had been deemed essential for the first move into the new building. Ianto wouldn't agree with all of it - he didn't think that Owen's PlayStation was truly essential, and they hadn't managed to get the coffee machine moved across yet. Still, it was a good start, and around the edges of the room the new office was starting to take shape.

Jack put down the monitor he was setting up and ambled over to join Ianto on the sofa, grabbing a whole box of pizza on his way through. Unlike the battered old couch in the old Hub, which Ianto was fairly certain was older than him and only slightly more comfortable than sitting on the floor, the new one was big enough for him to lie down on (he'd insisted on that) and like sitting on a cloud. He sank into it and closed his eyes, a rare smile playing on his lips before he shoved half a slice of pizza in his mouth. When Ianto rested a hand on his knee he dropped his free hand onto it and laced their fingers together again, and he didn't even object when Ianto reached over and grabbed a slice for himself. "Look at you. Give you twelve months in charge and you turn the whole world on its head."

"Didn't even take me twelve months," he pointed out. Tosh returned at last, leaving Owen to his own devices, and joined Christina at one of the tables. Ianto watched her whilst he finished off his second slice. "Things were going to change anyway," he mused. "When Torchwood was established, and Liberty Towers and UNIT and all the rest, secrecy was easy. These days it's impossible, and that was only going to get harder. I remember my early days, skimming message boards for new users and keeping tabs on the ones who got closest to the truth. You'd have no hope now. Cardiff was trending on Twitter worldwide. Who knows what's just around the corner to make it even harder for us?"

Jack sighed and nodded. "You're right. When I first arrived on Earth, my first visit, it was like being blindfolded. Pretty soon, I think, everyone is going to be connected. You'll be able to turn your lights on from your phone."

"That doesn't surprise me," he admitted with a laugh. "I hope there will be more useful uses of technology."

"For them, or for you?" He pointed a finger out the window. "Pretty soon, I reckon, every person out there will have a phone with a camera on it, and be able to upload video onto the internet as they record it. We'll be the last ones to hear about an invasion."

"Oh Jesus. I can't wait." He watched Jack's laugh and squeezed his knee gently. "We'll cope, somehow."

"I guess we're going to have to."

# # #

The peace following the storm was never going to last long. When the first Rift alert sounded, just when they were all starting to think about going home, Ianto was almost relieved to have it finally happen. The shoe had dropped, and they could start working with it. Whilst Owen grumbled and Tosh started pulling up the monitoring systems with her usual efficiency, Ianto turned to ask Gwen to go to the armoury with him and stopped.

It hung in the air between them all, the breath suddenly sucked out of the room as they all realised what he'd done. Even after he pulled himself together and took Christina with him, checking over the guns mechanically and awaiting guidance from Tosh about what they would face and what they would need, that moment was still there. Jack's face fell and stayed there, tight lines back around his eyes and mouth, and a tight set to his jaw. He checked his Webley over and came to stand behind Tosh, one hand resting protectively on her shoulder. "Toshiko, any idea what we're dealing with?"

"It's only a small spike," she told him hesitantly. "Only about ten minutes from here. There's no CCTV coverage in the area, but I can monitor the surrounding ones on the go..."

"Stay here and keep an eye on them. Christina and I will handle it." His tone brooked no argument, so she geared up in baffled silence and followed him out of the door, leaving behind Owen's glare and Tosh's startled stare, both aimed at Ianto in Jack's absence.

He sank onto the sofa and rested his head in his hands. "Tosh, keep an eye on them for me?" It was just like before, Jack's moods changing in an instant. He swallowed back nausea and lifted his head. "They'll be fine."

"What just happened?"

"He's not as attached to Christina as he is to the rest of us," Ianto explained, before Owen could work himself up into a fury. "He's not ready to risk anything happening to us yet."

Owen deflated quickly, but still stomped off to stand behind Tosh. "Are you sure that's all it is, mate?"

"Who can tell, with Jack?" He'd locked down the records of his discovery, hiding what had happened to him like he'd hidden the witness statements from the Vanquish and the criminal records of the survivors who had been complicit in the Master's reign of terror. His own secrets were big enough, but there were times when Jack's seemed insurmountable. Owen gave him a look that said in very large letters that he didn't believe him, but they just added it to the pile of little lies that made their lives bearable.

# # #

As Tosh had predicted, Christina checked in only a few minutes after they left – a delay just long enough to let the resentment really build to a head – to let them know that she and Jack had reached the spike location. There had still been no movement on any of the nearby CCTV cameras, so they approached the site carefully.

"Still no movement," she told them over the comms. "The location of the spike is a recently cleared unit, by the looks of it. There's brick rubble, but no large structural remains."

"There was a lock-up on the site," Tosh told her, fingers flying over the keyboard as she searched the history of the area. "It's seen some activity in the past – the lock-up was built there after the Blitz, which destroyed a funeral director's house. Reports of ghost sightings on the site for hundreds of years, and then two of the occupants died in a house fire there during the Victorian era just after a spree of ghost sightings being reported across the city. There was some speculation that the Doctor was involved with that, but it was before Torchwood was founded so our records are very patchy."

She paused and Ianto pulled up the more recent records. "Six months ago the lock-up was raided by the police and several cannabis plants were seized. The lock-up was subsequently deemed unsafe due to the adaptations done to increase the power supply and it was demolished last month. It's been bought by a development company to build a new apartment block. We could do with knowing if it's going to be a hot spot."

"I think we've found the source of the spike," Christina cut in. "A metallic object, about the size of an egg box..."

"What size egg box?"

She sighed. "Half a dozen large hen eggs. Free range, at a guess. Does that matter?" Of course, she didn't give them the chance to answer. "I'm getting no radiation readings, low levels of artron energy from the trip through the Rift, and a heat signature of about 50 degrees Celsius. Also, it's glowing sort of... bluey purple?" She paused. "Jack just picked it up, so I hope it's not deadly."

"It isn't," he told them brusquely. "It's just a radiator."

Tosh scowled at the screen. "What do you mean, it's a radiator?"

"I mean, it's a device for heating a room. If it drops below 20 degrees it starts an exothermic reaction, and if it gets to above 60 it stops. Self-regulating heating block for use in confined spaces, anywhere you don't want combustion. Not for human use, obviously, because it gets too hot for skin contact."

Ianto sighed. "So why did you pick it up?"

Jack ignored him. "We'll be back soon. I'll just drop this off in the Archives on the way."

"Fine." Realisation dawned on him quickly, though, and he reactivated his comms. "Actually, bring it back here. I... want Tosh to get a look at it first, to decide the storage protocol."

He gave her a thumb's up when she looked around at him and, although she looked confused, she went with it. "Ianto's right, we should start as we mean to go on. Besides, presumably it will run out eventually. If I can study it for a couple of days, I should be able to predict how long it will last."

"Alright then. Ianto..." Jack's voice softened, and Ianto realised that he'd switched to a private channel. "Thank you."

He smiled to himself and nodded. "See you soon, sir."

Tosh gave him another look, this one softer around the edges and more curious than confused. "Is he alright, Ianto?"

"Are any of us?" he asked, trying to deflect the question. It was easier in the new Hub, he had to admit. Gwen's ghost didn't haunt it in the same way, although they'd all brought her with them. Ianto had been at Torchwood long enough that he had ghosts in every corner, so he couldn't imagine what it was like for Jack. He hadn't been able to return to Canary Wharf during his months in London, but Jack didn't get the choice. He had suffered and lost and died down in the darkness so many times over the years, cruelty inflicted by so many hands. And then... yes.

Thankfully his evasive answer was good enough for Tosh, who clearly wasn't alright herself, and she turned back to her computer to log the pickup details in the event report, ready for Jack to sign it off and send it off for filing. Torchwood finally dragging itself from the nineteenth century into the twenty first. He loved Jack, he really did, but change was hard to come by when you didn't change yourself.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Christina strode in with Jack close behind her and set the crate with the heater in it on one of the cleared desks. Tosh immediately pushed away from her desk and came to join Christina in poking and prodding at it, leaving Jack free to trail after Ianto to the kettle. He rested one hand on the small of Ianto's back and leaned in close. "We need to go and get your coffee machine, don't we? You know, you're still the only one who can work it."

He smiled over his shoulder at Jack. "I guard my secrets fiercely," he teased. "We'll collect it on the next trip. Until then, we'll just have to make do."

Jack grunted and slid his hand around to Ianto's hip. "Yeah, well... I don't want to have to train anyone else on how to use that thing for a long time. So you can tell Gordon, he's not allowed to have you back. Not ever."

"I'm not going anywhere." He turned around between Jack and the counter and studied him, taking in the set to his mouth, the tightness around his eyes, the tilt to his chin. "I might need to go back for a couple of meetings, and that trip to America. But I'll be back before you know it."

"Hardly." He dropped his hand from Ianto's hip, but didn't step back out of his personal space. "You know I can't function without your coffee."

Something stuck in his throat, and he smiled back as well as he could. "Well, I'd better not be gone too long, then."

"Oi! God, I thought we'd got past this." Owen stomped in with his usual storm cloud trailing behind him. "Anything interesting out there?"

Ianto sighed and turned back to making the coffees. They'd get there, bit by bit, if they were given the time.

# # #

They left Tosh and Owen keeping watch over the city and walked home around the Bay, heading into Mermaid Quay to pick up dinner ingredients on their way. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, the few warm days giving way to a familiar drizzle and leaden skies with a stiff wind keeping all but the hardiest tourists off the boardwalk for long. The restaurants were packed with people, though, and Ianto realised with a jolt that it was a Friday night. He'd got used to the rhythms of Whitehall life, but back in Cardiff there was no such thing. If they'd stayed down in the old Hub, he wouldn't even have had a day and night cycle to keep him on track. Really, was it any wonder Torchwood agents ended up so... strange?

Harder to realise, though, was the way that people were just getting on with their lives. That was the point, of course. The recovery was well under way, power and communications restored, and people's lives had to go on. If they didn't, the bastards won. And now the Bay was busier than ever, because people were avoiding the centre of town, just for a little while, until they felt safe again. They passed a hen do outside one of the sushi bars, a birthday party at the diner, a business drinks night out that looked like it had hit 'messy' not long after five and kept going since then. Ordinary people in ordinary places celebrating that they were all still there to do it. And more than a few of them glanced in Jack and Ianto's direction and nudged the person next to them. Bits of recognition and bits of concern. Like seeing the police out on patrol - you didn't know whether it was just a routine thing, or whether something had gone down.

Ianto reached out for Jack's hand and laced their fingers together, determined to force normality onto the situation as hard as he could. The woman behind the till in Tesco recognised them and was pleased to see them safe and sound, then recognised him for a second time and her happy smile slipped slightly. One of their neighbours, smoking outside on his balcony because his girlfriend had just had a baby and banned his cigarettes from the apartment, gave them a nod of greeting but gave them a distinctly curious look. When he'd made the call and decided they were going to go public, the one thing he hadn't considered was himself as a person. The others he'd considered, kept them away from the cameras on purpose.

He wasn't sure what that said about him, really.

Jack locked the door behind them and his keys jangled in the bowl on the little table next between the door and the fridge. When Ianto turned to fetch the butter he found Jack staring at the phone handset. He hadn't even remembered they had one, but someone else knew it. Judging by the look on Jack's face, it wasn't a wrong number.

He rested a hand on Jack's shoulder gently and rubbed his thumb back and forth until Jack relaxed. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly. "Who is it?"

"It's... Alice." Jack looked back at him and gestured with the phone. "I have to..."

"Of course." His own gaze flicked back to the handset. "Is she... does she live in Cardiff?"

"No, no. Bristol. They're..." He swallowed hard. "I won't be long."

Ianto smiled at him and slid his fingers up to Jack's cheek. "As long as you need. Dinner will wait."

He was surprised when Jack just drifted over to the sofa and plonked himself down to ring her back. Tybalt wasn't going to wait for dinner, so Ianto crouched down to feed him and then hovered awkwardly around the kitchen and eventually started preparing dinner. Alice seemed to have picked up quickly, and Jack's shoulders had slumped with the sudden release of tension. Ianto poured him a glass of wine to give himself something to do and took it over.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jack lied. "So's Ianto... Oh, yeah, that's him. Yeah, he is cute. Definitely the brains of the operation, too." He covered the mouthpiece with one hand and smiled up at Ianto. "They're fine," he assured him. "Saw it on the news."

Ianto chuckled. "Tell her I said hi."

"Ianto says hello," Jack passed on. He bit his lower lip nervously, waiting for her response, and then chuckled. Some weight that had laid on him so heavily and so constantly that even Ianto had never noticed it had been lifted, even if only for a while. "Yeah, I know I'm lucky. You should meet him. I'd... I'd like it if you met him."

It wasn't something that had ever crossed his mind, becoming a step-parent. First he'd been too young, then there had been Lisa, and after Lisa there had only been Jack. And of course with Jack, it meant becoming a step-father to someone older than he was, maybe even people who had died before he was born, so even once he found out about Alice he didn't think about it. It was easier when she wanted nothing to do with him, but the look of relief on Jack's face was more than worth it.

He left them to it and returned to the kitchen, where Tybalt insisted on helping him cook dinner by jumping up on the counter and flicking his tail in Ianto's face. Soon he had the pasta cooking, sauce simmering, and Tybalt tucked up against his shoulder purring like a lawnmower and very happily accepting scritches behind his ears. Jack hung up after an awkward set of goodbyes and dropped the phone onto the sofa next to him, then rubbed at his eyes with the pads of his fingers.

"You know, I'd forgotten we even had a landline," Ianto said, to fill the silence. "Very retro."

"Just wait for brain implants. You think being always connected is bad enough with mobiles, there's definitely no pretending you're out with a chip." Confusion flickered across his face briefly and he stared down at the handset. "I... can't remember when those come in."

His face fell, so Ianto hurried over to sit next to him and take his hand. "It's okay," he said, hoping that it was. He really didn't know how to deal with any of this, so he changed the subject. "How are Alice and Steven?"

"They're fine. Alice didn't even know anything had happened until she got to work on Wednesday morning." He chuckled. "She doesn't usually watch the news. Apparently a lot of the teachers like you. Well, like a man who looks good in a waistcoat."

"She told them I'm spoken for?"

"Yeah." He looked down at their hands. "By her brother." Before Ianto could say anything, Jack had got to his feet and made for the kitchen to poke at the pasta. Ianto let him go, and drained both glasses of wine before he got up himself.