It was an ordinary day in Cardiff. People basked in the unexpected good weather so early in April. The sun shone down on the new Millennium Centre, the bronze panelling scattering beams across the pavement in front of it. Some teenage girls lounged around the water fountain, freckled limbs extended to try and catch as much of a tan as possible before they had to head home for dinner. Office workers took lazy extended lunches, reluctant to return to their dark dingy overheated offices. A group of tourists of various nationalities traipsed towards the waterfront, their tour guide, explaining in perky tones the history of that area of Cardiff.

Through the disorganised melee, strode a man. In a dated, yet strangely flattering blue wool overcoat, the tall man cut an odd figure amongst the scantily clad teenagers, and with his sense of purpose, he formed a stark contrast with the ambling city workers. Perhaps the strangest thing about him though, was the way no one seemed to notice him. He moved with deliberation, not once checking his stride or looking from left to right. And yet, when he stepped onto an innocuous looking paving stone and vanished from sight, no one so much as did a double take, least of all the pretty blonde girl sitting within inches of where he'd past. It was like the man was invisible.

If Captain Jack Harkness needed proof that he was corporeal, he didn't immediately get it as he touched down in the Hub. Hidden far below the lively Cardiff waterfront, Torchwood 3 was still surprisingly hot, without the joy of sunlight. Even the constantly running water down the fountain didn't help to lift the heavy air in the underground base, which had subdued the usually boisterous Torchwood team no end.

"What's happened to the air-con?" Jack announced his presence loudly, removing his overcoat and draping it carefully, almost lovingly over the nearest chair. "Hasn't Ianto fixed it yet?"

"He's working on it as we speak," Gwen Cooper, the newest Torchwood recruit, answered him, as she returned to her desk. "And you can forget leaving that lying around here, you're worse than Rhys sometimes," she added in reference to her boyfriend, picking the overcoat back up and half-throwing it at him. "Where've you been away?"

"Miss me?" Jack gave her a heart-breaking grin, which Gwen returned with a weak withering look, giving way to a hastily suppressed smile.

"No, we just wondered where you'd gone. You turned your phone off."

"First rule of Torchwood, never turn your phone off," Dr Owen Harper chipped in, sauntering over.

"First rule of Torchwood, what Jack says goes," Jack corrected him smoothly, rolling his shirt sleeves up. "I thought you guys would be able to handle anything that cropped up. I've only been gone half an hour, even you lot couldn't start World War Four in that time."

"World War Three."

Jack glanced at Gwen.

"You mean World War Three," she repeated.

He shrugged. "You'd be surprised. Now, what have I missed?"

"Well…" Owen paused for dramatic effect before continuing. "Ianto's been almost as AWOL as you for the past twenty-five minutes, supposedly fixing the air-con, but almost certainly re-catalouging something - do you think he'd like a stamp album for his birthday? - , meanwhile, I just beat Tosh's top score on Minesweeper-"

"Only the intermediate level!" Toshiko Sato, the pretty Chinese computer specialist interjected. "And on your seventy-first attempt."

"- Gwen has been avoiding her paperwork by hanging round my desk and offering sexual favours-"

"In your dreams!" Gwen scoffed, though Jack noticed with a small smile that she immediately made to straighten some of the scattered papers on her desk. Owen was at least half right then.

"- And we're all rather hot," Owen concluded.

"Wonderful. All running like a well-oiled ship should then." Jack produced a plastic bag out of one his coat pockets. Gwen sometimes wondered if that coat was like Mary Poppins's bag, bigger on the inside; there was no other explanation for how he managed to cram so much into those pockets without creating awkward lumps and bumps where there shouldn't be. He dumped it on her desk. "There you go then, don't say I never bring you anything."

Owen pounced on it in a flash. "Ice lollies!" he exclaimed excitedly like a child. He ripped the wrapping off of one and licked it, sighing contentedly.

"God, you're easily pleased," Gwen remarked, taking one for herself, and handing one over to Toshiko.

"Luckily for you, darling." Owen gave her a salacious wink.

Gwen shuddered.

"See, doing their job already," Jack said glibly, as he sucked on one thoughtfully. "So nothing happened while I was gone? Nothing?"

"Oh, Ianto took a phone call for you," Toshiko remembered now, through a mouthful of ice. "He made a note of it and left it with Gwen."

"Oh right yeah." Gwen spluttered half-frozen ice lolly as she began dislodging all her recently re-piled paper. "It's here somewhere, I'm sure, just give me a second."

Jack regarded her fondly for a few seconds, as she scattered important documents all over the place, dripping raspberry flavoured ice all over the place. Gwen was so good at so many things, she'd been invaluable since she'd joined Torchwood, and furthermore, Jack didn't know what he'd do without her gap-toothed smile in his life anymore. Organisation wasn't exactly her strong point though, for all she complained about the sometimes slobbish behaviour of Rhys.

Jack turned his mobile earpiece back on. "Ianto, where are you?"

It crackled into life, and the fifth member of the Torchwood team's rolling Welsh vowels responded. "Oh, you're back, sir."

"I am, and the Hub is still quite steamy." Jack was unable to resist a grin and a teasing remark. "Of course, we could all just treat it as a sauna. Marvellous way to relax and lose weight."

"Huh, speak for yourself!" Gwen grunted, already nibbling on a biscuit having demolished her ice lolly.

"Any chance of the air-con any time today, Ianto?"

"I'm still working on it, sir. There seems to be something stuck in one of the vents, I need to take a closer look."

"Could you not just hit it really hard?" Owen suggested, absent-mindedly taking one of Gwen's biscuits and earning himself a slap on the wrist. "Ow!"

"I prefer to do things the old-fashioned way," Ianto replied, his flat tone not giving away whether he was joking or not. "Oh, Jack, has Gwen passed on the message?"

"Gwen has… otherwise misfiled the message," Jack informed him. "That's why I called you actually. Who was it?" He hoped it wasn't a double-glazing salesman again. That would make three in the last week.

"A woman, London accent. She sounded a bit upset."

"Doesn't exactly narrow it down, Ianto," Jack pointed out.

"She said her name was Jackie Tyler."

Jack shook his head, though somewhere in his head the name did ring a bell. "Nope, not getting anything. Owen, have you been giving out this number to women again so someone else can let them down for you?"

"I only did that once!" Owen protested.

"Twice and counting." Toshiko took a biscuit too.

"Oh, what, you don't hit her!" Owen exclaimed.

"That's because I like Tosh." Gwen gave him an innocent smile, before picking up yet another biscuit.

"She said she'd never met you, but that you used to know her daughter," Ianto continued relating the phone message, either oblivious to the bickering in the main room of the Hub, or so used to it by now that he was able to ignore it. "Rose Tyler?"

Jack froze, his ice lolly halfway to his mouth. Gwen felt it was fair to use the old cliché that the colour literally drained from his face and he went as white as a sheet. Owen took the opportunity whilst Gwen was distracted to acquire another biscuit.

"She said if you could call her back, ASAP, she'd be very grateful." Ianto paraphrased. In fact, Jackie Tyler hadn't been anywhere near as pleasant as that, only narrowly avoiding using several expletives, but that wasn't an essential part of the message. Ianto Jones prided himself on his efficiency as general support around the Hub, and relating phone messages was just one more way to prove his worth.

Jack finally answered, the confidence and light-heartedness gone from his voice. "Did she say what it was about?"

"She wouldn't tell me, said it had to be you."

Jack swallowed hard. "What's the number?"

"I left it on Gwen's desk."

"Like I said, Gwen has misfiled the message." Jack gritted his teeth. There was no real point getting angry with Gwen; she couldn't have known he'd need it. On the other hand, her scattiness was starting to wear a bit thin; once an endearing and so very human trait, he was starting to wish she'd learn just a few organisational skills. "Any chance you can remember it, Ianto?"

There was a long pause as Ianto had a quick think. "It was a London number," he said, as helpfully as he could.

Jack sighed. "Yeah, okay, don't worry about it, Ianto, thanks." He ended the call and took a moment to gather his thoughts. Then he looked at the three members of his team in front of him. Gwen sat in her chair, swinging to and fro like a bored child, but her dark eyes fixed on him the whole time. They were all looking at him actually, even Owen.

"So?" Owen asked him now. "Who is this bird?"

The growl that came from Jack's throat wasn't entirely deliberate, but it felt necessary once it was out.

"Have you got nothing better to do than eavesdrop on other people's conversations?" Jack glared at them suddenly, much to their surprise. "You've all got work to be getting on with, so get on with it."

They scattered, and he noticed Gwen's shoulders shake a little. God, sometimes he hated having to be the big bad boss. He didn't believe in that divide and rule nonsense in cheap paperback copies of "how to be a successful people manager". Jack preferred to work as a team, each person bringing their strengths to the table and working it all out together. Ultimately though, someone had to be in charge to direct them when their concentration wandered. Paperwork wasn't the most exciting part of the job, but it had to be done. And Jack needed some time alone to psych himself up for this phone call.

Jack replaced the receiver and sat back in his chair. From his glass-walled office high up in the Torchwood Hub, he was able to see down across all the work stations. He could see where Toshiko was diligently getting on with her paperwork, all stacked in neat rows. He could imagine the perfect columns of figures on immaculate paper, not even slightly creased at the edges. Toshiko liked a sense of order, that was how her mind worked.

He could see where Owen was half-heartedly scrawling odd words down on a sheet of paper, pausing between almost every word to shoot a barbed remark across to Gwen or Tosh, whichever he was trying to wind up now. Typically a doctor, Owen's handwriting was almost indecipherable and Jack wondered not for the first time why he bothered trying to make Owen do the paperwork. Jack threw it straight into a filing cabinet, not even trying to make sense of the loops and swirls that Dr Harper claimed constituted writing. It was all for the records of course, but Jack pitied anyone who would ever have to trawl through those autopsy reports.

And he could also see Gwen, writing slowly and deliberately, the very tip of her tongue no doubt poking out of her mouth in concentration. She was managing to ignore many of Owen's comments, only shooting him the occasional glower. Much as Jack loved watching Gwen, watching all of them in fact, he was never that keen on how she looked when she was doing paperwork; the spark of energy that had first attracted him to her never burned so dimly than when she was sitting at her desk, toiling away at these records.

There was a splutter which echoed around the Hub and then, finally, a blast of cold air gushed through the various vents in the building.

"About bloody time!" Owen exclaimed.

Jack watched as, minutes later, Ianto appeared from one of the tunnels which led down to the basement. They all burst into spontaneous applause, to which the Welshman took a few awkward bows. There they all were, his little team. Such a motley crew really, but over the last few months, since Gwen had been around, they'd become a tight-knit group, a community. A family.

The phone call had been brief. Jackie had answered after only one ring, as though she'd been sitting by the phone all day just waiting for the call back. She'd related what had happened, how Rose and the Doctor had gone missing, she didn't know where or how, but they had. No, they hadn't taken the TARDIS, it was still sitting outside where it had stood for the past three months, ever since they'd come back from wherever they'd been the last time, how was she expected to remember that? She hadn't wanted to call him, but Rose had insisted in a letter she'd left behind. No, she hadn't known she was going anywhere, she'd given it to her ages ago, just in case. The main point was that Jack had to come to London, now, today.

And collect Rose and the Doctor's daughter.

Even now, almost ten minutes after he'd put the receiver down, Jack still wasn't sure he'd heard her quite right. Their daughter. It seemed like some sort of sick joke, but the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced it wasn't. It was true. No one could make it up, it just was beyond the realm of the imagination. It wasn't supposed to happen, that much Jack knew. And he couldn't believe it of the Doctor somehow, that he and Rose… Well, he knew they were close, inseparable almost, but even so… Jack was liberal minded, sometimes to the point of excess, but really? He couldn't believe that big-eared, stupid-grinned man would ever have achieved good enough people skills to have achieved anything like that.

Then he remembered. All those records in the Torchwood archives, the written accounts and photographs and sketches and transcribed tapes. They'd all spoken of a man who called himself the Doctor, a man with dark brown hair and wild eyes. A skinny man, one who talked at a rate of knots, an attractive man. The photos confirmed the written evidence. He wasn't the man Jack had kissed goodbye to up on the Gamestation. But he was the Doctor. And Jack suspected that in this body, the last Time Lord just might have a better chance with Rose.

They had a daughter. Jackie hadn't said much, hadn't said how old she was or what her name was. All he knew was that she existed, and that he had to go and get her, to take her away and protect her from… what? Jackie didn't know that either. The Doctor and Rose had disappeared, vanished into thin air without even the TARDIS's help. Leaving their daughter behind for Jack to take care of.

"Everything alright?" Ianto stepped into the office cautiously, eyeing up Jack, trying to gauge his mood. "Did you get through to Jackie Tyler?"

It took a second for Jack's mouth to engage. "Yes, thanks Ianto, all sorted."

Ianto nodded, his face in its typical grave expression. "Nothing bad?"

Jack didn't answer his question. Instead he stood up and began rolling down his shirt sleeves. "Well done on the air-con, by the way. Not quite a personal best, but pretty quick work all the same."

"Thank you." Ianto nodded. "Was that orange puddle on Gwen's desk meant for me?"

Jack remembered the forgotten ice lolly. "Oh yeah, sorry, Ianto, I completely forgot about it."

"Doesn't matter, sir. I'll make a cup of tea."

Jack smiled. "You British and your tea. It's eighty-five degrees outside!"

"Nothing quite like a cup of tea to cool you down," Ianto insisted. "Would you like one, sir?"

Jack looked out of his office into the Hub. "No, thanks, Ianto, I'm just on my way out actually."

"Oh?"

Jack considered telling Ianto all. He could even ask him to come along for the journey. Cardiff to London was a long way, even with Jack driving, and whilst Captain Jack Harkness was a brave, some even said stupid, man, he wasn't completely foolhardy; the way he was feeling right now, he wasn't sure he'd be able to drive. Ianto would be good company, only speaking when spoken to, perfectly at ease with utter silence. He didn't have all together bad taste in music either, which would make the journey a whole lot more bearable.

But as Jack looked down at the rest of his team, no longer lying across their desks in a state of exhaustion, though still not entirely keen on the task at hand, he knew that there was only one person he would even think of asking to come along with him.

Gwen had managed to lose herself enough in her paperwork to block out at least some of what was going on around. Thankfully, that included Owen's not-so-subtle innuendos. She still had expenses forms to fill in, detailing petrol costs for her own car and various things she'd bought as part of ongoing investigations. Those forms were so dull and ordinary it was like being back in the police force again, only if she was, she wouldn't have half the hassle she had these days. She looked back on her old job with a mixture of scorn and fondness. When she saw her old colleagues at the site of yet another mysterious death, she couldn't help feeling pity for them; they had no idea what lay beyond that police tape, no idea what was just out of their sight. She couldn't imagine being that ignorant anymore. No, it wasn't ignorance, she always corrected herself. It was innocence. Yet at the same time, she half-envied their simple little lives. One of her old colleagues, Jimmy Mitchell, had got married recently. Gwen had been invited, but had had to cancel at the last minute because of some alien encounter or other. It all seemed so easy for them; Gwen rarely managed a simple romantic quiet night in with Rhys these days without her phone bleeping insistently and her having to leave and meet the others in a disused warehouse in the dodgy end of town.

The write ups of various interviews she'd conducted were more interesting. At least they were real, full of human emotions and life, instead of the neat but ultimately meaningless rows of figures. They transported her back to that precise moment when she'd held a tearful mother's hand and had to tell her gently that Richard wasn't coming home tonight, or any night. That Richard had been hit by a car, that he'd died on impact, he hadn't felt anything. Mostly lies, but they meant something, they saved the woman from things she couldn't understand.

So caught up in her work was she, that when a large heavy hand placed itself on her shoulder, she jumped. When she came to and realised whose hand it was, she shifted uneasily under it. Her white t-shirt was soaked through with sweat; not the most attractive side of her.

Jack was a weird one, she decided not for the first time. Since hearing that girl's name, Rose something, he'd turned unexpectedly frosty, the only thing in the whole of the Hub to dip below freezing for days. He'd disappeared up to his office and had been all but invisible for the last half an hour. Now he'd reappeared with no warning, his touch gentle but a heaviness in his shoulders and a determination in his eye. This was no apology for the way he'd snapped earlier.

"Gwen, I'm going out, fancy coming." He spoke lightly, but it wasn't an offer, it was an order.

Gwen stood up. "Instead of paperwork? What do you think?"

"Hey!" Owen yelled from his desk. "How come she gets to escape?"

Jack was already striding towards the paving slab, the shortcut to the street above. "Owen, you're in charge."

"Where are we going?" Gwen slipped her phone into her jeans pocket and picked her jacket up.

Jack didn't reply. That was so like him, he was always so enigmatic. It irritated Gwen beyond belief; whilst Owen more often than not drove her mad with his stream of consciousness style of talking, at least there was no guess work needed with him. With Jack, there were a thousand things she didn't understand about him, and the list was growing every day. They ranged in importance: for instance, she often wondered why he insisted on wearing long sleeved shirts and yet spent half his life rolling the sleeves up, showing off his strong forearms. Not that she was really complaining about that, she was just curious. Number one on her list though was a pretty major one: who was he? She'd heard all the team's theories, their ideas and fantastical thoughts. But none quite seemed adequate enough to match up to the man beside her now, close enough that she could feel his breath ruffling her hair as they ascended through the thick air of the Hub and came out at street level. It was still enough of a novelty for Gwen to experience the sensation of being invisible. Jack had explained about the strange properties of that particular spot around the base of the fountain; how something had once been there which had the ability to make people not see it, and something of its power had been left behind when it left. It sounded like any number of myths and legends Gwen had heard since she'd joined Torchwood, but there had been something in Jack's voice when he told her that made her think it was more than just a story to him: it was personal.

Now as he led the way across the road to where one of Torchwood's SUVs was parked, Gwen had to walk briskly to keep up.

"Here." Jack suddenly tossed the keys to her. "You drive."

Gwen looked from the keys to him. "Me? Seriously? Even after last time?"

Jack pulled a face. "I assume you've learnt the difference between reverse and first gear since then?"

Gwen blushed, remembering the horrifying crunch as she'd hit the wall. "I think so."

"Good. No problem then. I don't feel like driving today."

"You still haven't told me where we're going," Gwen reminded him, but Jack had already swung himself into the passenger seat.

Gwen got into the car. It was a bit of a treat to be allowed to drive; usually Jack had to wrestled to the floor to get him to prise his grip off the keys. Gwen didn't really mind, it was Owen who was most bothered. Even so, she wasn't going to miss this opportunity. She adjusted the mirrors, aware that Jack was sitting impatiently beside her, silently urging her to get going. She wouldn't be rushed though. Finally she turned to look at him.

"So?"

"London."

Gwen felt her mouth drop open. "London?"

"Yeah. Big city, about one hundred and fifty miles away, The Clash wrote a song about it." Jack began tapping out the bass line to London Calling.

"Yes, Jack, I know where London is!" Gwen said, still not quite believing what she was hearing.

"No problem then, is there?" Jack gave her a deadpan look.

Gwen didn't reply immediately, as she wrestled with the steering wheel to try and get the SUV out of the tight parking space Owen had wedged it into. He'd been showing off, as usual, and it took Gwen three attempts of jerky backwards and forwards movements to get it out onto the road. She glanced at the clock. It had just gone three o'clock. With a good run along the M4, something she knew was incredibly unlikely, they could just be in London at just after six. The more likely outcome would be they'd still be stuck in traffic in this blistering heat until about seven, and then she'd have to navigate through London, and then face the trek home. Assuming they were even coming back tonight.

"I was supposed to be going out for a meal with Rhys and his parents tonight," she said as she joined a steady flow of traffic across Cardiff and out the other side. In the stifling weather, windows were wound down, sun roofs were open, and the heavy thud of drum and bass music reverberated through the streets.

Jack didn't reply. He stared out the window, earning himself a half-shy, half-come-hither smile from a twenty-something blonde on the pavement. Stopping at some traffic lights, Gwen looked across at him. He barely even noticed the pedestrian's existence.

"Where in London? Why?" Gwen demanded more answers as she pulled off again. "Don't they have their own Torchwood? I thought Ianto came from there originally?"

Jack shifted in his seat. They had their own Torchwood alright, Torchwood One, an office-based, paper-pushing institution with a vast collection of alien artefacts, but no experience of aliens themselves. They were like the guards tourists flocked to see outside Buckingham Palace; clean and civilised and well-dressed, but ultimately having to defer to Jack's team, the real army, for any real help. Ianto had been transferred after a row with his then-girlfriend; Torchwood One didn't like to deal with tricky human emotions like that.

"Jack?" Gwen prompted him, as they passed the Cardiff Llanedeyrn Travelodge. He'd been silent for the past three or so miles.

"Yeah, they do," he replied finally.

"Then why are we going?"

Jack flipped the air vents in the car, sending half-cold air scattering in various directions.

"It's not a Torchwood thing." Gwen raised her eyebrows, and Jack cleared his throat. "It's a personal thing."

Next time: Daughter of Time

"None of this is messing around, Gwen," he said softly. "This, this whole life, everything, everybody. None of it's a game. None of it's a trial run. This is it, Gwen, this is all you get. One chance." He gazed out the window, his blue eyes softening as he stared at the service station, still busy with people at this time of night. "All those people out there… they have no idea. They just go on their way, driving their cars, eating their burgers, buying their sweets. They've got no idea that it could all just end, just like that."

So... thoughts would be much appreciated, and any questions you might have.