I knew I should have put a note in about this at the beginning and now I've confused everybody… Owen's dead is the sense that he's been shot and come back to life again (major spoiler there – sorry guys!). Ianto was just being mean to him. Jack, Gwen, Ianto and Owen are all still in the game – Tosh is out. Sorry for any confusion.

Somebody also recommended that I put in a summary of who's trying to do what. It's a brilliant idea and one I should have thought of earlier, so here goes;

Jack: Gwen, at her desk with 'Pride and Prejudice'

Owen: Jack, on the lift with sun-cream

Gwen: Ianto, in the alien flora room (or whatever it's called) with an 'acatulater'

Ianto: Owen, in the pterodactyl nest with 'an item of personal clothing'

I hope that clears things up a bit!

Thank you to everyone on the reviews list! That's Ravenja70, TheWeddingFairy, darkdranzer, deeta, Lilith Skywalker, xxkiirousagixx, cjh4ever, Dowisetrepla, tempestuous-rayne, L.A.H.H., Homicide-Inside and WickedWitchoftheSE. Thank you so much – you really cheer me up.

Chapter 3

No-one else died that day, though there were some mysterious disappearances. Ianto was just coming up from checking the cells when he was met by Gwen, who was just on her way out.

"Ianto, have you seen my coat? I swear I left it around here somewhere…"

"Not recently." It wasn't really lying – he'd buried her coat in Myfanwy's nest quite early in the morning. "Do you need it immediately?"

"Oh, no, not really. It's just it's quite chilly outside… oh well, I'm sure we've all faced worse!" She grinned at him. "If you find it though…"

"I'll keep an eye out for it." Ianto promised. He felt slightly guilty about leaving her to face the Welsh weather but he was stuck with it now.

"Thanks!" she replied over her shoulder as she walked through the cog door. It was earlier than she'd normally have left but she was sick of keeping an eye out for Jack every moment of the day. It was blindingly obvious that she was his target; otherwise why would he try a trick as stupid as that so early in the morning and why would he spend all day watching her? Added to that the fact that she hadn't made any progress with her own task… Yes, Gwen Cooper was going home.

Ianto watched her leave and turned back to tidying the Hub.

An hour later he had to repeat the performance with Tosh, whose scarf was currently decorating the pterodactyl nest alongside Gwen's coat.

"Didn't Gwen say she'd lost something too?" Jack asked as he watched Ianto see Tosh off.

"Yes. Her scarf. I'm keeping a lookout sir."

"Good." Jack replied, smiling slightly. He had a feeling Ianto's deadpan look was hiding something and wondered who was in for it.

When Owen left he showed no sign that he'd heard the earlier conversations. The doctor was far more preoccupied with the same problem that had troubled Tosh – how to get the Captain, the invisible lift and some sun-cream together at the same time. He hadn't got very far yet, but he knew he had all night to sit and think about it.

Before he himself left Ianto made one more trip up to Myfanwy's nest, this time with Owen's doctor's coat in tow. "There'll be chocolate for you tomorrow." he told the bemused pterodactyl quietly. Myfanwy just looked at him and wondered why he was putting such strange-smelling things in her nest. They were lovely and soft and comfy though, so she wasn't complaining.

Left alone in the Hub Jack spent most of the night thinking up multiple ways of disguising a copy of 'Pride and Prejudice'. He wasn't even sure why he'd chosen to put precisely that title on the list in the first place, though what really mattered now was the book's size, rather than its title. He'd tried to hand Gwen the book twice now - the second time hidden in a stack of papers - and she hadn't fallen for either.

Jack was quite impressed – his team was obviously better than he thought. Ianto was scheming away nicely and Owen had been looking incredibly happy and smug earlier, so Jack suspected that he'd made the first kill. That meant Tosh was now out of the game, though he hadn't been able to tell just from the look on her face. So now there were four… But the game still had a long way to run yet.

Ianto was there before anyone else the next morning, though that wasn't unusual in itself. What was unusual was the amount of time he spent checking up on Torchwood's resident pterodactyl and casually patting his pockets. He spent the time waiting for the others to arrive carefully going over every detail of his plans, trying to think of every eventuality. This was the only chance he'd get at Owen and he had to make it work.

Gwen was in next, hoping to try a new angle in her search before Jack noticed she was there. She had just finished lugging a pile of relevant-looking folders up from the archives and sat down with them at her desk when she looked up to find that Jack was there waiting for her. It was then that she admitted to herself that trying to avoid the Torchwood leader was a tactic that was doomed to fail. He seemed to have an instinctive sense for where everyone was and always seemed to know when someone had just come in. And, she added to herself, the flashing door alarms probably didn't help.

Owen had spent all night filling his waste-paper basket with torn-up plans and was therefore not in a particularly good mood when he entered. The sound of Jack failing with his own target yet again heartened him slightly.

"If you want me to check through the file, put it on the table."

"I'm not contagious. You don't need to treat me like I've got hermingion sproits."

"Her-thingy what?"

"Here."

"I'm not taking it!"

Owen paused on the way to his desk, sensing a prime opportunity to cheer himself up. "Gwen, will you pop into the medical bay later?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I think it's time we did a psychological check-up. You're exhibiting all the symptoms of severe paranoia."

"I work in a secret organisation fighting aliens with a dead person and you're trying to tell me that I'm paranoid?"

"It's a serious condition, Gwen." Owen intoned in his best doctor's voice. "Tell, me have you had any hallucinations recently? Seen anything odd or unusual?"

"You mean other than a zombie, a man who can't die and a load of bloody aliens trying to – get that file away from me, Jack Harkness!"

Owen grinned to himself and headed over to the autopsy bay. He always thought clearer whilst dissecting something, and since he had killed Tosh there it was definitely a safe zone… where was his coat?

"Oi, Ianto!"

"Yes?" the other man asked, seemingly having appeared out of nowhere just behind Owen.

Owen pretended he wasn't fazed. "Where's my doctors coat?"

Ianto shrugged. "I haven't seen it. Where did you leave it?"

"Did you find mine then?" Gwen asked, having finally escaped from her desk.

"Err, no. Nor Tosh's scarf."

"Tosh lost something too?"

Jack strode up to join the group. "Sounds like we've got a plague of missing clothes. Although I'm not really sure…"

Ianto cut him off quickly before he could say anything else, on the basis that whatever did spring from his mouth next probably wouldn't be good. "I'll find them, sir. I've already had a good look round whilst I was cleaning up, but I haven't seen anything yet."

"Perhaps they've fallen through the Rift." Tosh joked as she joined them.

Owen muttered something to the extent that they better not have done before beginning to search.

"I've had it since medical school." Owen was complaining to Tosh half an hour later. "And it had all my badges on. I've spent years collecting those."

"Well why don't you look for it then?" Asked Tosh exasperatedly, trying to concentrate on her computer screen.

"But I've looked everywhere…"

"Just go do some work instead then."

"But I can't…"

"Then go talk to Ianto about it." Tosh cut in shortly. "And maybe when you've found your coat you can put a tracker on it so we don't have to go through all this next time." She stood up and picked up her laptop. "I've just got to go speak to Jack about something, ok?"

Ianto smiled as he watched her leave the main Hub. He'd thought getting everyone else out of his way would have been his main problem, but Gwen was hiding in the archives and Jack seemed to be sulking in his office, which meant that the floor was clear for Ianto's grand plan.

"Ianto…" Owen began.

"I'll look for it later, ok?" said Ianto, rolling his eyes. "But I must feed Myfanwy first."

"Why can't you just give her all the corpses?" Owen complained. Ianto threw him a look of disgust.

Ianto patted his coat pocket to make sure the chocolate was still there as he climbed up to the nest. As she watched him arrive Myfanwy gave him a disapproving glare and a screech that meant 'Why haven't you fed me yet today?'

"I've got chocolate for you." Ianto whispered. "Lovely dark chocolate. Your favourite." The pterodactyl looked up in interest as Ianto slid the corner of a bar out of his pocket. He turned for a moment and shouted down to the pacing doctor. "Hey, Owen! I've found your… Arrgh! Owen!"

Ianto had forgotten just how strong the pterodactyl could be – so strong he was nearly knocked out of the nest as she lunged at his pockets. He fell to the floor of the nest as her beak ripped none too gently at his jacket. "Owen!"

"I'm coming!" The doctor shouted back, climbing up as fast as he could with a syringe of sedative in his hand. Above him he could just catch sight of a pair of wings flapping furiously and hear the pterodactyl screeching.

This was a bad idea. Ianto thought as he closed his eyes so as not to see the dinosaur currently attacking his coat. I hope it works. He heard Owen shout "I've got it!" above the ripping noises, and then most of a sedated pterodactyl landed on him.

"Oof!"

"Sorry." Owen called, heaving Myfanwy off him. Ianto would have to remind him of that later; he could count the number of times Owen had ever said 'sorry' to him on the fingers of one hand.

"Bloody hell." Owen commented as he looked round the nest. "Looks like she's got quite a wardrobe up here. Women, eh? She probably went for your coat."

"So you think we've got a psychotic clothing-addicted pterodactyl loose in the Hub?" Ianto asked as he sat up gingerly.

Owen shrugged. "I'll have a look at her later. How are you?"

"Fine, apart from the jacket." Ianto looked down at it sadly. "It doesn't look like she damaged yours though." He added as he pulled Owen's coat out from underneath himself.

Ianto held his breath as Owen scrutinised the coat carefully, then the doctor reached out and took it off him. As Owen continued to check his precious coat, Ianto extracted the chocolate from his pockets with some difficulty. He broke a piece off and offered it to his saviour.

"Chocolate?"

"No thanks." Owen replied caustically. "I don't eat, remember? What have you got chocolate for anyway? Are you trying to kill me with it?" He laughed sarcastically and pulled his coat on.

Ianto watched, his face expressionless. "Why should I kill you when you're already dead?"

Owen looked at him nonplussed for a second, then looked down at the chocolate, then at the prostrate pterodactyl, then at his own lab coat and then finally back to Ianto again.

"You bastard."