Ianto's Jack-related existential crisis notwithstanding, he has a job to do, and as a bonus, he's hoping it will distract him from his memories. The footage the other team recovered shows Cybermen coming out of St Paul's Cathedral, and there's a good chance that there are some leftover parts and conversion equipment under there. He'll scout, estimate what's there, figure out safety protocols, and get his retrieval crew in. He writes up a mission plan and submits it for approval.

While he waits- and he has no doubt his excursion will be green-lighted; Director Nguyen knows that when Ianto Jones gets his focus on a thing it's best to just let him run- Ianto watches and re-watches the footage. In addition to the older gentleman, who Ianto's sure he's seen somewhere before, the images show a pretty young lady and a woman of a certain age. The Doctor, his companion, and the Master, who apparently came up female this regeneration. Ianto grins, imagining Jack's reaction to a female Time Lord before remembering that this is the Master- the only being in all of time and space in whom Jack Harkness has absolutely no sexual interest. It's quite an accomplishment, in a way.

It will be easy enough for Ianto to get to St. Paul's Cathedral. Easy enough to get under it to where the Cyber army was built up. There's an entire city under the city, not just utilities and deep tunnels for the Tube, but catacombs for churches that haven't existed for centuries, basements for building that have been built over, bomb shelters forgotten. Torchwood Four is under the city too, right below King's College. It makes sense- nearly every Cyber incursion has started from London, but the undercity was largely safe from them until now. Ianto appreciates the irony: years of searching, and Torchwood Four was under Hartman's nose the whole time, just four miles from Canary Wharf. The vast underground warren makes getting around the city easy, once you know the layout, and Ianto does. It's much more complex than the Hub, and larger by a factor of 100, but he can picture the map in his mind in three dimensions and always knows where he is, just as he had in Cardiff. He'll just go do the preliminary recon, then call the others in when he knows what equipment they'll need to bring.

St. Paul's Cathedral is on the Underground, and so is King's College. All Ianto has to do is access the nearby Temple station via one of the ventilation shafts, climb into the control room of a train from the unseen side, change trains as necessary, exit the same way. It's actually quicker (and less expensive) than going up to the surface and taking a more conventional route. The St. Paul's station and the cathedral are on the same water line, so he travels through that tunnel into the utilities control room, and from there to the abandoned ossuary of Old St. Paul's that has a duct to the unused storage corridors. Only they're not unused, and it's not at all what the maps say should be there.

Where there should be dark hallways and mildewed corners, there are glass cells and harsh fluorescent lighting as far as the eye can see. No, not cells- tanks. Like an aquarium, but with chairs. Thousands of tanks, empty except for one, which is filled with fluid and contains a seated skeleton. Ianto knows this must have something to do with the Cyber invasion, but he can't imagine what. Presumably, all the other tanks were emptied, and their contents were… something. Ianto will leave figuring that out to Dr. James in Biotech; there're no visible cyber implants, nothing for Ianto's department at all. He wonders why this tank didn't empty. Perhaps the power was faulty, perhaps the drain pipe simply didn't drain. Whatever it was, someone will need to bail the liquid and take the skeleton back to Torchwood. He notes location and dimensions and moves on. So far, he's doing just fine. There's nothing here that triggers his anxiety.

In another hallway he finds what he's looking for: a conversion laboratory. Equipment is broken, pieces are scattered, and the computer terminals appear to be destroyed. Ianto spares the hope that the files are stored off-site; they'd be invaluable. Nonetheless, it's the most complete setup they've seen since Canary Wharf, which had been non-typical. He walks around, mentally cataloguing what may be the most significant find they've ever had. Schematics. Restraints. A conversion table.

Ianto, having held it together up to this point with his usual professional detachment, reels. It's not the same as the one he found Lisa in; it's a twin unit with one platform for the Cyber exoskeleton and one for the soon-to-be-converted. Still, it's close enough to make Ianto's head spin, and it all comes back suddenly. Fire. Blood. Screams. Lisa begging him to save her while the gunshots of UNIT's clean up team echo through the halls. The taste of smoke and the fear of discovery. Ianto stumbles. He needs to sit down. Collapsing onto a convenient and incongruous armchair, he puts his head down on the nearby table, taking gasping breaths to stave off his panic attack.

He had them even before dying, but now, knowing there's Cyber tech in his brain, they've become more frequent, though he usually manages to avoid them when anyone is looking. With his head tucked, Ianto pictures something pleasant. As much as he hates it, this always involves Jack; today it's the morning after the first night Ianto stayed with Jack in the Hub, grateful that he was always the first in, and hoping that no one noticed that he was wearing yesterday's clothes, his ears pink every time he thought about it. Jack looked at him differently from that morning on. It was no longer just shagging, it was something, even if they never clarified exactly what. Picturing Jack's smile and slow wink when Gwen commented on Ianto's 'new hairstyle' , Ianto is able to block out everything else.

Once able to concentrate, Ianto notices something interesting about the table. There is shattered glass strewn across its surface, but in the middle of it, indeed perched precariously on one of the shards, is a delicate teacup and saucer. Ianto frowns. Someone must have been here since the invasion. Someone who drinks tea from antique Wedgwood jasperware amid chaos and destruction. His mind shifts to the woman from the CCTV footage, the one who planned this Cyber invasion.

Missy. The Master. She must have escaped the showdown with the Doctor, the one that sent most of the living-dead Cybermen into the sky to disperse the pollen cloud. Torchwood has very little intel on the event; there was no CCTV in the area, UNIT's files are locked tight, and Torchwood Four doesn't have anyone near Toshiko Sato's skill level, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Doctor was somehow involved in saving Earth (again), and that Missy must have been there when it happened. Ianto knows from Jack that there is a twisted push-and-pull between the Master and the Doctor. Time Lords change faces and personalities when they regenerate, but not their basic nature and motivations; the Master had been obsessed with the Doctor, and now Missy must be. The Master had been mentally unbalanced. Ruthless. Cruel. Brilliant. And if Missy is still on Earth, which the teacup suggests she is, they are all in terrible danger.

As concerned as Ianto is, he wants nothing to do with Missy. Someone will have to tip off UNIT somehow, and they'll get the Doctor involved however they do. Possibly through Martha Jones. He doesn't even know if she's still with them, or even still alive; he hasn't contacted anyone from his former life. Not even his sister. As much as they tentatively reconnected during the crisis with the 456, there is simply no way for him to explain why he isn't dead. Staying with Torchwood Four means he'll never be legally alive again, hence all the underground sneaking; being caught on CCTV and identified could be disastrous for Torchwood Four, and they have no intention of being the worst kept secret that bad been Torchwood Cardiff. So Ianto stays away, not even checking up on them after he assured that his estate went to his sister as planned; he can't visit, and seeing people from his old life would only be a painful reminder of everything he's lost. Martha Jones, with her associated memories of Owen and the Doctor and red UNIT caps, is explicitly off-limits in Ianto's mind.

So rather than follow Missy, which would be absolutely mental with no backup, he focuses on the Cybermen. Of the many brilliant things that Toshiko Sato taught Ianto, one of the most useful is Always follow the infrastructure. Roadways, computer hacks, utilities, org charts- A will always connect to B if you trace it far enough. It's that lesson he uses to figure out the next step. The amount of power needed to run those tanks is enormous, and the drained fluid had to go somewhere; the location of the connection to municipal power and sewer lines lead him directly to the source: the old Battersea Power Station, shut down in 1983. Except that somehow it's producing electricity again. Without coal.


Another trip through the undercity brings him to his destination. The above-ground part of the power station may be iconic, but it's just the smallest fraction of the operation. Most of it is underground. While travelling, Ianto brought up the blueprints on his PDA so he wouldn't get lost, and now he's navigating it as if he's worked here for years, which is good, because if he gets lost it might take him days to find his way out.

The interior is in poor repair. In the years since its decommissioning, neglect has taken over, and the once-beautiful art deco flourishes are dingy and tarnished. The on-site offices where never properly cleared. Ianto's fingers are itching to go through the dusty stacks of paper undisturbed on the desks. Curious, he slides open a drawer, pleased to find all the files neatly labeled, the papers tidy. They may have left things unfinished, but they managed their paperwork with admirable efficiency. The work areas are better, no tools left behind. The door hinges all squeak, the overhead lights flicker.

There's no evidence of Cybermen, but the power must be going somewhere, so he keeps looking. What he finds in the transformer room is nothing he could have imagined.

Coral. A huge piece of coral suspended and pulsing with light. He's seen this before, too. Not the glowing or the floating, but this particular coral is very like the much smaller piece Jack always kept on his desk. He smiles fondly, surprised to feel a return of affection. Looking around, he sees no one. Amusement. Not his own. Welcome. From the coral? Is it sentient? He never felt anything from the piece on Jack's desk, but then, that piece never did anything but look pretty. Preening. Yes, it's definitely the coral and she's pleased to see him. She? Ianto doesn't know why, but he can't help but think of her that way. He wonders if she knows anything about the Cybermen.

Torchwood One tested every employee for psychic talent and trained those who had the gift. Ianto had enough to register on the scale, but his low-level empathy was deemed not useful enough to Torchwood to warrant more than a few courses. He digs in his memory for everything he learned, closing his eyes and going through the beginning exercises.

It always starts with clearing his mind. Like an empty room or a blank page, they told him, but Ianto has never managed that- there's just too much happening in his head. Instead, he pictures himself as a stone in a stream, unmoved as everything flows around him. Then he reaches his mind outward, feeling the currents and eddies. He's still a stone, still keeps his boundaries and edges, but he's aware. There's another stone in the stream- he likes to keep with the metaphor he's created- so he tentatively reaches out.

He can feel her, and she knows him. She's the same coral he once swept from the desktop to the floor in his hurry to get Jack undressed and spread across it. He shapes an apology in his thoughts and receives amusement. She wasn't harmed, and she's always enjoyed others' happiness. Ianto can't help the heat that rushes to his face; happiness was not exactly what he felt when he had Jack spread out over the desk during working hours. Best that she couldn't tell the difference. Now she's amused by his embarrassment. There are no words, no images, just impressions. Ianto is curious. The coral is glad to have his company. She's lonely, and he sympathizes. She's frightened. Aching. Ianto would ask why if he could, but there's no way, he can only fill his mind with support and the promise to help. The light intensifies; she expands, her edges stretched to bursting. She's in agony. He's pulled in, losing himself, the stone pulled from the riverbed and tumbled with the current. He's ageless, time flows around him but he can't touch it as he knows he should. He's growing too fast, force-fed. He's being used. He doesn't want it, isn't ready, but can't do anything about it. He's helpless, he's angry, he refuses to give in to the hate he feels creeping across his skin. He cradles hope close. He has forever. This will end. He feels the past and the future, all of it, all at once.

Overwhelmed, the connection is broken. Ianto crumples to the floor.

AN: I always thank Gmariam, and she continues to be essential to my process, as well as an awesome friend. Go read her stuff.