Next part! I like this part, this part is 'fun' - I enjoyed writing it the most I think!

Disclaimer: I sadly don't own the situation or any of the characters, they belong to Russel T. Davies and the BBC


The Year That Never Was - Part 2

It was almost four months later when Ianto and Gwen found themselves in a line up outside Millennium Stadium.

To anyone who'd known them before the election, this line up would be full of almost completely unknown faces. As soon as they'd slipped back into Cardiff two months earlier, hiding out in an empty flat, the real transformation had begun. Together, they'd changed their appearances until they looked like different people, they looked like they were Lilith Greene and Andrew Hall.

Gwen no longer had a gap between her teeth, she'd gone to a dentist practicing in the back streets and had a plate made to fill it, so it was only temporary. She'd also dyed her hair with highlights, so it was a good two shades lighter, though not unsightly, and parted it further over, cutting several inches off, making a startling difference. The final thing she did was buy new makeup, colours and styles she would never normally have gone for, but Lilith would have.

Ianto looked stranger still. When they'd gotten back, he'd shaved his hair off, almost completely, and allowed stubble to grow. By the time they were called on, it was a definite beard and moustache and he couldn't help thinking, as he looked in the mirror, that Jack would mock him like nothing else for it.

The final development of his persona was to wear coloured contact lenses, making his eyes a murky green colour, hidden behind a pair of thick framed glasses, similar to ones he'd seen on photos of the Doctor from Torchwood One.

The only thing left was for them to get new wardrobes. Gwen hid away her fashionable jeans and her leather jacket and pulled out a selection of smart suits and blouses, perfect for her role as the receptionist for a high class lawyer's firm. Ianto went the opposite direction, hiding away his suits and ties and pulling on battered t-shirts and mechanic's overalls, folded down and wrapped around his waist so they would pass as trousers instead. He did, however, keep the necklace he'd had since college, unable to put it away indefinitely.

Over all, the receptionist and mechanic from Bute Town were just what Harold Saxon was looking for – eye candy for his daily massages and dumb, controllable men for his engine room.

--

"Oh, I like these two, they're nice." Saxon said over the intercom sounding from the soldier's ear. Gwen and Ianto currently had a camera pointing in their faces and both were shuffling on their feet, trying to squirm like the rest of the line up, despite the fact that they very much wanted to be there.

No one knew what happened to people who were rejected - Ianto just prayed that Gwen got out of there. She knew, deep down, that she was there to keep him in line, to make sure he didn't think with his heart too much and get himself killed. If she died because of him, he wouldn't have been able to live with himself.

"Yes, I like them. Bring them up!" Saxon called happily, two more guards grabbing them by the arms and hauling them over to the military helicopter that sat in the middle of the plass. Ianto stumbled several times in his act and almost went sprawling. As he did so, he managed to lift the guard's security card, quickly stuffing it inside his overalls, in a pocket he'd sewn in to be concealed. It already contained several spare pairs of contact lenses. The security pass was just a backup plan, should things go south.

He caught Gwen's eye and winked briefly before they were shoved into the back and the door slammed closed. They were joined by eight more people before the guards piled in and they took off. They couldn't hear what was happening below over the sound of the propeller, but Ianto caught a glimpse of a swarm of Toclafane descending.

--

The Master entered the boardroom and surveyed his new staff members, glancing at their attire and tutting. He pulled Gwen forwards and glanced her over, taking in the neat suit and the carefully styled hair.

"What's your name?" He asked her casually

"Lilith, sir. Lilith Greene." She put on a timid exterior and exaggerated her accent ever so slightly, rolling her words that little bit more that she usually did.

"Lilith… what a beautiful name! You, my dear, should be in something more suited for such a wonderful title. Oh, Lucy!" He called, looking upwards and throwing his hand out to the door which opened, a blond woman dressed in an emerald green ball gown appearing. "There you are, my sweet. Would you be able to find Lilith something a little more comfortable to wear?"

"Certainly, darling." She said with a false smile, allowing him to kiss her on the cheek as she walked over and gently guided Gwen away from her husband. The weariness and insecurity was already plaguing her eyes.

Saxon watched them go with a sigh of appreciation and headed back to his new recruits. He rubbed his chin briefly before pointing to three more of them - the three remaining women.

"You three, report to the kitchens, you'll get uniforms there." He gestured to the guards, who herded the women from the room and towards their fate. There were the six men remaining now. He paced in front of them and stopped to look at each one carefully.

"Now… I'm looking for someone to keep the machinery going down with my little friend. He does so like to damage it when he can." The Master chewed his lip as he stopped next to the man beside Ianto. He frowned and shook his head before moving on to stand in front of Ianto. "You're already dressed for the job! What do you do?"

"I'm a mechanic, sir." Ianto said humbling, looking down at his feet and doing his best to look intimidated.

"Excellent! So you already know about machinery." Ianto nodded timidly and the Master grinned, slapping him on the back and gesturing for another guard to show him the way. "Name?"

"Andrew Hall, sir." Ianto replied easily. It wasn't too hard to imagine he was someone else, seeing as he looked so different now.

"It shouldn't take you too long to work out how everything works." He smiled once more at Ianto and just as he was about to be lead from the room, he called out once more, Ianto turning to look at him in concern. "Oh, and Andrew? Watch yourself around him, he tends to get a little… antsy."

Oh you have no idea… he said inwardly. Ianto nodded, suppressing the roll of the eyes and smirked so desperately wanted to let loose. Instead, he bowed his head and let the guard lead him through the ship.

--

"They're collecting new staffers today…" Tish whispered as she fed Jack another spoonful of his lunch of vegetable soup. Jack swallowed carefully and nodded.

"I hope there's some cute ones." He grinned and winked at her, but she didn't smile back. "What's wrong?"

"He's… He's getting them from Cardiff." Jack watched as the tears threatened to fall from her eyes. He'd told her all about his team and their home underneath Cardiff's Roald Dahl plass. "He's searching the Welsh this time."

"A little slice of home." He said with a false grin, covering the anxiety he suddenly felt up extremely well. He'd had to watch one of the lines ups in London. Saxon chose a handful, then let the Toclafane have their way with the rest. Tish gave him a watery smile and continued feeding him his soup, allowing him to continue chattering about whatever came to mind.

They drew the process out for as long as possible, for both of them to spend as much time as possible in the company of someone else. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were moments of normality in a crazy and messed up world. Most of the time, Jack though it was Tish who kept him sane in there. It was Tish who reminded him that there was still a human race out there, who willed him to remember his team - to remember Ianto.

There was a clang at the door and Tish leapt away from him in alarm, almost spilling the end of his meal. When they saw that it was just a guard and a mechanic, she relaxed a little more and went back to feeding Jack his cold soup.

"You work here." The guard said gruffly to the new comer. "He breaks something? You fix it. The Master kills him? You clean it up. He makes any sort of mess? You sort it out."

The man nodded mutely and continued looking at the floor, so that Tish and Jack couldn't see him, his face obscured by the shadows and the odd coloured lights by the door. All they could see was a head of extremely short cropped hair

"You sleep in the store room just down the corridor from this door." He pointed back through the doorway and the man leaned round to look at the small room with another nod. "Got that?"

"I think so." He said gingerly, his voice a thick welsh accent, thicker than any Jack was immediately used to. His heart twisted at the familiar roll to the words and he suddenly ached for Ianto and Gwen to be arguing in their native tongue again.

"Good. Your tools are all in that cupboard in the corner." The guard slammed the door shut and Jack jerked his eyes up before grinning at the man, who was pushing a pair of glasses up his nose, glancing around the room. He walked slowly over to the cupboard and opened the door, finding several large toolboxes inside. He let out a low whistle and Jack chuckled darkly from where he was chained up.

"You know, they'll need a good cleaning every few days. The blood does horrible damage if you don't." The man ignored him. The tools doubled as torture weapons when Saxon got bored of guns or knives – even pens once. He watched carefully as the man walked across the room, sticking to the shadows, towards a console that was looking distinctly battered. "That hasn't worked for weeks… I managed to get hold of a pipe and busted it up."

Jack and Tish watched the young man kneel down silently and pull open the panel, laying the sheet on the floor as he pulled out the mass of wires, sitting with his back to them as he worked his way through the circuit boards.

"Are the welsh naturally that shy? Or is it just you?" Tish said wryly, forcing him to take another mouthful of the soup.

"Oh, Tish, don't be ridiculous! How could it ever be me?" He grinned roguishly and winked before letting her spoon more slop into his mouth. "But then again, I haven't met many reserved Welshmen… most of them are rugby loving hooligans who drink themselves stupid after a game. Especially mechanics!"

Jack laughed and Tish rolled her eyes, shaking her head in mock disapproval. Jack was the only thing left that made her smile. She would always be grateful for his company, no matter how this whole, terrible affair with Saxon ended.

"Who said I don't like rugby?" Came a quiet, indignant voice from the corner, sounding more than a little annoyed. Jack raised an eyebrow to Tish and turned his attention back to the mechanic.

"I don't know why you bother with that, it doesn't work properly anymore." Jack said again, trying to rile the man up enough to get more information out of him. "I can only think of two humans in the entire world who could get that fixed without a full lab of computer hardware and specially made tools, let alone enough light to be able to see what they're doing."

"What makes you think I can't do it? Because I'm a mechanic from Cardiff?" The man now sounded a little amused, his heavy accent making the emotion more exaggerated. Jack smirked. He was beginning to like this man, even if he was a little too skinny and his hair was much too short. His sense of humour contained all the tell-tale signs of great intelligence.

"No, because one of those two is a woman and the other is on another continent," Jack looked away, his voice dropping down a notch as the pain blossomed in his chest at the memory of Ianto. "Probably up a mountain if he has any sense."

The man didn't answer, only sat there and continued his work as Tish finished feeding Jack his lunch. When she eventually finished the can, she shot Jack a look and silently wished him luck with the newcomer, reluctant to leave him alone with a stranger. Jack just nodded and smiled, murmuring for her to go.

After another moment she nodded and headed out of the door, closing it quietly behind her. Jack could still hear the frightened footsteps as she hurried away. His fists clenched as he cursed Saxon once more for inflicting such a terrifying world on someone so young.

"How long does it take to eat on a can of soup?" The man asked sarcastically, breaking the silence. Jack glared at him.

"How long does it take to fix a busted up computer?" Jack countered bitterly. The man chuckled softly and for a moment, Jack thought he recognised the sound. Then he shook his head. It must've just been wishful thinking.

The silence stretched out again as the man worked, tapping away at the built in keypad a few times before he let out a relieved 'finally!' and tapped something else into the keyboard on the top of the console. The machine hummed into life and the screen came up, showing the CCTV feed for the room, centred on Jack.

"What the…?" Jack whispered, frowning at the screen. That wasn't today, that was an old feed, a loop of several days cut together and stuck on random. He flicked his gaze to the back of the man in shock before he looked at the screen. "How the hell did you do that?"

The man didn't reply, he just walked around behind him and started to examine the cuffs and the wall brackets, walking around Jack checking from all angles. As he passed in front of him, Jack's memory was jolted once more by the sight of the necklace around the man's neck. It was familiar to him, but as he'd said; it was impossible for that man to be here.

"What're you doing?" Jack asked accusingly, not liking the fact that this man reminded him so badly of Ianto.

"I'm working out how far you can move, for future reference." He said shortly. "But I don't think Mr. Saxon realises how weak this metal is and how easy those cuffs are to get out of… especially for someone like you."

Jack frowned at the man in confusion and swallowed hard. He didn't want some dogsbody running off and telling the Master his discovery. It was something that he, the Jones family and the Doctor were trying to work into a plan. It wouldn't work if the Master was aware of it.

"How could you possibly know that?" Jack growled. The man turned round slowly from where he'd stopped a few feet away and removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose before looking at Jack with a crooked smile, his posture straightening up into a much more familiar stance.

"Because I know everything, sir." He said quietly, in his normal voice, watching Jack in amusement as his mouth dropped open and he starred at him in disbelief. Tears started to fall unchecked over his cheeks and Ianto's expression softened as he moved over to Jack, who was still staring at him.

"Please don't cry, Jack." He whispered gently as he brushed the tears from Jack's face with his thumbs, running his fingers over his familiar features and staring into those bright blue eyes for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

"But… Ianto, you…" He trailed away, closing his eyes and leaning into Ianto's hand in an attempt to understand, breathing deeply and taking in the feel of Ianto's skin on his. After a moment he opened his eyes again and all disbelief was gone. He was sure he wasn't hallucinating now. "You have a beard."

Ianto thought for a moment, nodded and smiled once more. Jack laughed in delight - his smile hadn't changed at all over the past months, despite the horrors inflicted on him.

"But more to the point, I know from experience that you can be surprisingly agile when tied up." Ianto wiggled his eyebrows and nodded sagely at Jack before slotting his glasses back on.

"You're supposed to be somewhere in Europe." Jack growled, suddenly angry once more. Ianto raised his eyebrows sceptically and fetched one of the smaller toolboxes, starting work on one of the larger pieces of machinery that was broken. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?"

"Working." Ianto said flatly. "Lets just say, we were in Europe, but then we met a friend of yours and I saw a certain accessory that you're currently missing. She told us about the search for Welsh staffers and the two of us came back. The other two went with your friend. It's not in us to withdraw. We were tired of doing nothing. Anything is better than nothing."

"But if you die-" Jack countered in his defence, Ianto cutting him off before he could get any further.

"Then I'll have died doing my job, doing what's right." Ianto finished stubbornly, closing the conversation. Jack knew better than to object. "And for the record, I don't have a beard, Andrew Hall does."

Jack nodded calmly and Ianto got up, returning to him and kissing him slowly for a few, blissful moments before sighing reluctantly and returning to the CCTV feed, setting it back to normal. He couldn't use it for too long at a time, or someone might get suspicious that he wasn't in the room. He looked at Jack, who watched him with a contented smile and managed to smile back before heading back to work.