Ianto took the lift up to the first floor gallery, he was shaking with rage and an over whelming sense of betrayal. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he scolded himself internally, I let myself hope that this time I'd found someone, that after all this time it was gonna happen for me. I should have known that love at first sight was a pile of shit. He glanced over the balcony rail, he could see Jack still sitting where he had left him, his head buried in his hands and Tosh's hand hovering above his back as if she wanted to comfort him but was unsure how to.

Suddenly Jack sat up and spoke urgently to Tosh who walked with misleading casualness to the store window as Jack pulled his PDA from his pocket and stared at it with a look of intense concentration on his handsome face. Ianto's scowl slipped as he considered, not for the first time, how very gorgeous his new friend was. Hmm still thinking of him as my friend thought Ianto, maybe I was too hard on him, I did hear him say to Tosh that he was only asking because he didn't want to say anything crass to upset me and if I was that annoyed with him why didn't I stop the conversation before I did, instead of just sitting there eavesdropping. Maybe I wanted Tosh to tell him what had happened so that I didn't have to. As he watched, however, Jack jumped to his feet, grabbed his coat from the coat stand and left the shop at a run, closely pursued by Tosh. Ianto was conscious of a feeling of disappointment blossoming in his chest like a concrete chrysanthemum, it made breathing hard. Looks like they have got what they were waiting for, he thought , case must be close to being over so it's pointless beating myself up over this. I'll probably never see Jack again.

The screaming alarm on the cog wheel door woke Owen from his slumbers. With a muffled oath he staggered to his feet, rubbing at the crick in his neck and looked around in confusion. He automatically checked Tosh's workstation expecting to see Gwen sulking there as she had been when he dozed off but instead Tosh was there her face serious and drawn and her fingers tapping furiously at the keyboard as she swore softly in Japanese under her breath. Owen quailed, if Tosh was cursing in Japanese things were very, very not good

He approached with caution, 'Tosh? What's going on?'

'Ofufakku!'

'Tosh?'

'OFUFAKKU!'

If Tosh was telling him to fuck off, even if it was in Japanese, then clearly he was not going to get any sort of sensible response from his tech genius colleague. Owen turned away to hunt for Jack who had barrelled through the Hub at the speed of light shouting for Gwen every step of the way. Raised voices were now detectable from inside Jack's office and Owen moved to stand silently outside of the door as he listened, shamelessly.

Gwen had been dozing happily on Jack's bed, hand still inside her knickers stroking herself from time to time enjoying the sparks of pain/pleasure she was coaxing from her almost spent body. She was fantasising about laying Jack's arms, his would be the hand lazily drawing out her pleasure whilst she would hold his softening cock in her hand and listened to him murmuring how much he loved her into her hair. She felt relaxed and happy, drifting in her fantasy world.

So it was, therefore, a complete shock to find herself yanked unceremoniously from Jack's bed by an extremely irate Captain, hustled up the ladder and dumped on the floor of Jack's office. Gwen blinked muzzily up at Jack through tangled hair and made ineffectual efforts to pull her jeans up. Jack slapped her hands away,

'Stop it, you slut' he snarled before raising his voice and yelling, 'Owen, Tosh in here now!'

As the other member of his team ran into the office, Jack pushed at Gwen with his foot, keeping her down on the floor.

'Tosh?' he said, 'anything?'

Tosh shook her head, 'No, Jack I'm sorry. The program worked perfectly, it picked up the signal but it wasn't triangulated in time so we don't have the information we hoped.'

Jack nudged Gwen with his boot once more, none too gently 'Want to explain why that is, Cooper?' he enquired icily.

Gwen made an effort to sit up, 'Jack, I...'

'You had one job,' said Jack, 'one job that would have saved lives and gone a little way to redeeming your pitiful behaviour in the field, one job that may have offset those dead aliens that you murdered.'

'Jack' Owen and Tosh protested in unison.

'She deserted her post, again,' Jack's voice began to raise as he gave the true force of his anger full sway, 'she jeopardised innocents lives again, she sabotaged our mission, again, because she took some time off to go down to my quarters and fucking play with herself!'

Gwen had managed to pull up her jeans and scramble to her feet. 'Oh please,' she snapped. 'like you have never had a quick blow job when interviewing witnesses and you...' she turned and pointed dramatically at Owen, 'you are constantly out on the pull for a meaningless shag.'

Owen went red and opened his mouth to respond but Jack got in first, 'I have never endangered a single sentient being in pursuit of my own selfish pleasures and Owen is never anything but professional when he is at work.'

Owen grinned, 'thanks, boss'

Jack didn't even spare him a glance, 'don't get cocky, I'm exaggerating to make a point here.'

'Oh'

Gwen threw a triumphant look at Owen but her smug demeanour slipped when Jack grasped her arm and began to march her towards the medical bay. 'Owen, with me' he growled, 'and get it ready.'

'You sure, Jack?' Owen sounded a bit worried

Hell, yeah. Should have done it after her last fuck up' Gwen began to struggle and Jack tightened his grip making her yelp; 'keep still' he snarled, 'Owen and I have been working on this iteration of Retcon for a while now, we started round about the time I began to realise what a liability you were and that sooner or later we would end up in this situation.'

Owen appeared holding a fearsome looking syringe, 'this will hurt less if you cooperate' he told Gwen who began to babble a confused litany of apology and justification whilst struggling to free herself. Jack pulled her close and held her close against his chest whilst forcing her arm away to give Owen access to a vein.

'I'm sorry,' panted Jack, 'I'm not usually a petty man but I helped Owen to develop this just for you. It's Retcon plus. It won't just wipe your memories of Torchwood; it will wipe everything you are. Memory, language, thought, voluntary actions...'

'Bowel and bladder control' added Owen gleefully

'er yeah, sorry about that' said Jack, not sounding sorry at all, ' certainly your ability to eat and drink will depend on the kindness of your carers, I'm not 100% positive that it won't affect involuntary systems won't be affected – breathing might become a problem too.'

Owen removed the needle from Gwen's arm and taped a small piece of gauze over the injection site, 'done' he said with satisfaction, 'now what, Jack?'

Jack released his hold on Gwen who, shocked, merely stood staring at the two men. 'Take her upstairs and dump her on the plas. I really don't give a shit what happens to her after that.'

For a nano-second Owen looked as if he was about to protest, but then he gave a small shrug and led Gwen away.

Jack turned back to the central area of the hub to see Tosh standing in the entrance of the med unit holding out a cup of coffee to him. 'Jack? Are you alright?'

Together they walked over to the sofa and sat down. Jack sipped his coffee and gave a heavy sigh, 'I'm OK thanks Tosh, just annoyed with myself for giving her so many chances. The pain, the suffering of the sex slave in that hellish place is all down to me now. We have to re-think this, I need you here in the Hub to monitor the trace programme and I'll carry on at Celtic Mythos. Much as I hate the idea I guess we are gonna have to ask UNIT to stand by, in case we need their help but I really want to close this down myself. I owe it to those victims.'

'OK' Tosh nodded and laid a gentle hand on Jack's arm, 'but I was really thinking more about the situation with Ianto. I have never seen him so angry, Jack; have you any idea about how to fix this?' Jack shook his head, sadly and Tosh rested her head on his shoulder. 'If we are going to catch these guys, you are going to have to go back to work at the shop with Ianto refusing to speak to you and continuing to push you away – can you do that?'

Jack rubbed his face is if he was washing without water, 'I don't have much of a choice do I?'