Chapter Three

"Coffee?" Ianto asked as soon as they reached the main part of the Hub. He walked toward the coffee machine without waiting for an answer. Along with a dozen different emotions, Jack couldn't help but feel amused; Ianto was clearly more nervous than usual.

"I'm fine," Jack called. Ianto turned around, hands on his hips.

"Oh," he said, as if the idea of anyone not wanting coffee was confusing. "Well, I need it."

"Sure you don't need something stronger?" Jack asked lightly.

"That would be brilliant," Ianto said, then shook his head. "But I still have more jumps to make. Should probably keep my head on straight or I might end up stuck in a chimney somewhere." He turned without waiting for Jack's response.

"Right," Jack murmured. "More jumps." Ianto's shoulders tensed, but he did not turn around. He made two cups of coffee while they stood in silence, handing it to Jack with a rueful smile.

"You might want it too," he said. Jack nodded as he sipped at the warm drink.

"That bad, huh?" he asked.

"I hope not," Ianto replied.

"Let's sit," Jack said. "Could be a while."

"I've got more jumps—" Ianto protested.

"You've got a vortex manipulator," Jack said. He walked over to the sofa and sat down. "Sort of makes time less of an issue, so let's start with that. Are you a Time Agent? From the future?"

"No!" Ianto exclaimed, looking shocked at the idea. "I am exactly who I said I am. Ianto Jones, born 1983. I happen to have another job on the side, and it certainly does not involve working for some sketchy time agency." Ianto sat down next to him, as if he'd had to work himself up to it, and set down his mug only to fiddle with his hands. "It's complicated."

"Always is around here," Jack said with false cheer. "So this second job—Torchwood not pay enough?"

"It's not like that," Ianto started, but Jack cut him off.

"Then tell me what it is. Why you're wearing a working vortex manipulator, something I know won't be invented for thousands of years. Why there are dozens of people time jumping in and out of a cave in the Hub. Why you've been so distracted, why you're obviously so tired." He paused. "And why you didn't tell me."

Ianto laughed nervously and picked up his mug again, as if it might shield him from whatever might happen as he tried to answer Jack's questions. "I already answered that last. We're not allowed to tell anyone. Ever. I signed a binding contract, even more strict than Torchwood. I'm sorry, but it's not my secret to share, it's much bigger than me."

"Okay," Jack replied, still not quite understanding, but he kept his own secrets so he couldn't condemn Ianto for his. "But I literally walked right into it, so I deserve an explanation now."

"Yes, you do," Ianto said with a sigh. "Only I don't even know where to start." He took a deep breath. "Okay, not long after I started working at Torchwood One, I was approached by the man you met downstairs, Nicolas Garras. He had a job opening and wanted to recruit me for his team. I'd only been at Torchwood for a few months and couldn't see why he'd want me to join any kind of team—I was new, inexperienced, a bit of a mess at times. Definitely had my share of misadventures."

"At Torchwood One?" Jack asked. Ianto rarely talked about his time in London, and now Jack was regretting not asking about it. He'd frequently suspected that Ianto did far more there than he'd let on—his skill set was too strong and varied for a junior researcher—but Jack had certainly not expected something this big.

"You have no idea," Ianto murmured. "But that's not the point. He explained what it was he did, and although I was skeptical, I agreed. I half thought it was a hazing prank, but when Nicolas returned three months later for my training, I found it was real. And it was amazing."

Jack was silent, waiting for Ianto to get to the point.

"Nicolas runs the Northern Division of the Children's Christmas Campaign. We spend all of December jumping through time and space to deliver gifts to every child in our assigned branch." Ianto smiled. "Which, for me, is all of Wales."

Jack stared at him, struck speechless. Ianto's smile faltered. His eyebrows pulled together and he frowned. "I know it sounds incredible, but I'm not making it up. We have a team that keeps tabs on the children, tracking locations and assigning gifts. Then there's another team that does the shopping—what an awful job that must be—and a team that wraps and labels. Finally, there's the tech team that sets up the jump schedule and locations for the delivery teams. I'm part of the delivery team."

"You're a delivery boy?" Jack asked without thinking. Ianto's eyes flashed and he sat up straighter, setting down his mug harder than he intended. He looked about ready to shake his finger in Jack's face, but clasped his hands tightly instead.

"I'm in charge of package delivery for almost 600,000 children in Wales," he said, his voice tight. "I have a team of two dozen jumpers who spend a month in real time plus a month in virtual time ensuring prompt delivery on Christmas Eve. Most of it is automated now, but technology can't replace human beings everywhere, so we jump to the delivery point in time, drop off the gift, and return for our next load."

Jack continued to stare at him, shaking the disbelief from his shoulders to speak. "That's impossible. The logistics of something that massive would never work."

"It's a bureaucracy on an unprecedented scale," Ianto agreed. "Sometimes I don't know how we do it. As a branch manager, I've seen some of the inside operations, and it's staggering. And how Nicolas coordinates it all is beyond me." He shook his head. "He's amazing, Jack. He spends the entire year doing this, getting ready for one night. He takes a week off and is right back at it, going on four decades now."

"So, he's Father Christmas?" Jack asked. "The old man downstairs in red robes? Santa Claus?"

"If you want to think of him that way," Ianto replied with a shrug and a smile. "To me, he's a very strict boss. He has a heart of gold, though.

"What's he doing here in the Hub?" Jack asked.

"You were lucky enough to find him on a supervisory visit," Ianto admitted ruefully. "He wanted to see how the Hub was working out."

"Ah, the Hub." Jack tried not to get irritated. "So how is it that the Hub is your headquarters? Or has it always been down there and we've simply not seen it for a hundred years?"

"No, we moved here about mid-year," Ianto admitted. "It was my idea. After I joined Torchwood Three and started learning more about the Rift, I thought it might help us to harness its power, get things done quicker. And it has," he added. "I tried a few jumps from here last here. It's perfectly safe, but it adds a power boost to the tech, that's all."

"Right." Jack stood up and started pacing, unable to keep his incredulity bottled up any longer. "Do you hear what you're saying? What you're asking me to believe? It's impossible!"

"I know it sounds impossible," Ianto agreed. "But it's happening, right now. You saw it. I'm not lying."

"You work for Santa Claus."

"I continue the work of Nicholas of Myra," Ianto told him. "He was a time traveler who began the tradition of leaving surprise gifts in the village where he lived. He saw what an impact it had and continued year after year. He recruited an assistant and they spread out through surrounding towns and villages. From that one village it grew, handed down generation after generation to a new Nicholas."

"No," Jack insisted. "The original St. Nicholas was not a Time Agent, that's ridiculous."

"I didn't say he was a Time Agent," Ianto replied. "He was a time traveler. He traveled to the 4th century, where he settled in Turkey and became the man known as Saint Nicholas. He enjoyed helping people and presenting gifts so much that he ensured the tradition continued after his death."

"But the logistics of it!" Jack exclaimed, still unable to wrap his mind around it the scale of operations. "The sheer number of people involved must be overwhelming!"

"There are thousands of people employed around the globe," Ianto agreed. "Maybe even tens of thousands. We're grouped into a Northern Division and a Southern Division, with regional managers on each continent and branch managers for each country."

"And you run the Wales branch?" Jack asked.

"How do you think it was so easy for me to manage the Hub so quickly?" Ianto asked. "I spent two years as a general jumper before the old manager retired and Nicolas appointed me to take over."

Jack thought about it. Some of it made sense, like Ianto's ability to coordinate and organize. Other things were too impossible to imagine. Hundreds of thousands of children across Wales, receiving gifts from some time-traveling group of benevolent elves hiding in his Hub?

"Where does the money come from?" Jack demanded.

"Future investments," Ianto replied with a shrug.

"And the tech? If Saint Nicholas started all this, he had one vortex manipulator. But it would take thousands to do what you're proposing. Where did they come from?"

"Also the future," Ianto said. "Look, I don't know how everything works. Sometimes I don't even understand how I'm not creating some sort of paradox every time I jump! We have a dozen people on manipulator duty who handle the timing and coordinates. But I know it's real. Every year on December 1st we receive our assignments and our wrist strap. And then on December 26th we turn them in and get our paycheck. Which is actually quite small," he added. "We don't do this for the money."

"Why do you do it then?" Jack asked. "And how is it no one knows about this?"

"We do it so that every year, every child on earth receives a gift. It may be the only gift they receive all year. No one knows because we're good at it. It's something small, but something special, maybe something they need, slipped under a tree or left somewhere inconspicuous. People wonder, but that's part of it, isn't it? The wonder." He smiled at his wordplay, but Jack wasn't amused anymore. He was growing more and more agitated.

"Every child? Across the world?" Ianto nodded. "What if they don't celebrate Christmas? There are billions of people who don't believe in Jesus Christ, in Santa Claus. What about all those children?"

"They receive something as well," Ianto replied easily. "We leave something for everyone, no matter their beliefs. Food, clothing, something they need, something they want. We may not leave it for them on Christmas Day—there are many other celebrations surrounding the winter solstice, after all—but they will receive something, everywhere."

Jack walked back to the sofa, where Ianto was still sitting, looking nervous about Jack's reaction. As well he should. Jack sat down and let his elbows fall to his knees as he blew out a long breath.

"I don't know if I can believe you," he started. "I know I saw something down there, but what you're telling me…Santa Claus? Ianto, please tell me this is all a bizarre dream. Or a joke. Or a test of some sort."

Ianto looked as if someone had slapped him across the face. He stood up, looking down on Jack with a hurt look on his face. "I wouldn't make this up, Jack. I wouldn't lie to you. This is the most amazing thing in the world happening right now, and I can't keep trying to convince you. I have more deliveries to make. We can talk later."

He turned around to leave, only to find Nicolas standing nearby, gazing around the Hub in curiosity. Jack jumped to his feet, his instinct to pull his weapon, but he stopped himself this time. Deep down, he knew Nicolas wasn't a threat. That didn't mean he liked having the man in his top secret underground base.

"Interesting place," Nicolas commented. "Quite…spacious."

"I'm sorry," Ianto said, hurrying toward him. "I was just on my way back—"

"Hmm." Nicolas nodded at him, then looked back at Jack. "And how did it go? Not well, I gather."

"He doesn't believe me," Ianto murmured, and it practically broke Jack's heart to hear the disappointment in Ianto's voice.

"I'm not surprised," Nicolas replied. "This is quite beyond what even someone like him has encountered."

"Someone like me?" Jack asked, joining them by the water tower and the pool. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're a Time Agent," Nicolas replied. "You've seen and done much. You're from a time where science and technology has cast faith aside. And you're much older than you look," he added, his eyes twinkling. "Age sometimes has a way of bestowing more skepticism than belief."

"I want to believe," Jack replied. "But it's too much."

"It's also quite real," Nicolas replied. "Would you like to see?"

"What?" asked Ianto.

"How?" asked Jack.

Nicolas checked his wrist strap before looking up with a smile. "Why don't we all accompany Ianto on his next jump?"

Author's Note:

The tech division is good, and the wrist straps are configured to cancel any effects of crossing one's timeline, thus enabling the jumpers to jump to times where they already exist. Though I've thought through a lot of this operation, there are probably many things I did not consider. I'm kind of with Jack, that in reality, it would be virtually impossible. On the other hand, I believe in future technology and a little bit of Christmas magic. Thank you for reading! Happy holidays, may they be filled with wonder!