Author's Note: I am so sorry this chapter has taken so long to appear. I'm a very bad person. :(

As Jack lowered the phone from his ear, Ianto nudged him in the back. "What's happening?"

Jack sniffed, turning round. "Martha's coming up. She's coming from London though, so she'll be awhile. She didn't have the Doctor's number."

"So what are we doing?" the Brigadier asked.

"I don't know." Jack bit his lip, willing his brain into action. What would the Doctor do in a situation like this?

Before he could say anything more though, the Brigadier spoke up again. "Right! I'll get UNIT to mobilise. If there's a threat out there, we'll be ready for it."

Jack nodded, not really listening as Toshiko showed the Brigadier to a computer with a direct link to UNIT HQ. Ianto stepped up next to him. "What you thinking, Jack?"

Jack answered because it seemed natural. He was just thankful everyone was talking to him again. "Something's very wrong. The Master goes off with the Doctor, and suddenly this Collector guy pops up. Too much of a coincidence." He shook his head, looking worried.

Ianto raised his eyebrows. "If you want advice from me, I'm afraid you're going to have to tell me who the hell you're talking about."

Jack glanced at him briefly. He'd been around people who knew exactly who he was for too long to just slip back into the secrecy thing. He bit his lip. "Yan?"

"Mmm?"

An internal battle was being fought inside Jack. On one hand, Ianto deserved to know the truth, and Jack would get some much needed advice. On the other, he wasn't sure he was quite ready to tell Ianto who he was, and he certainly wasn't comfortable with everyone knowing.

Jack looked up to see Ianto turning away. He didn't expect anything, Jack realised. Dithering, on the edge of making up his mind, Jack reached out, snagging Ianto's arm. "Hey."

"What?" Ianto turned back.

Jack took a deep breath, checking no one else was around. Tosh was still showing the Brigadier how to work her computer, and Owen had retreated to his med bay, to do who knows what. "When I was gone..." He saw Ianto's eyes widen slightly, surprised that he was revealing something about himself. "I was with a man called the Doctor. You'll have seen references to him in the files."

"Nothing substantial," Ianto commented.

"I removed anything important... It was why this organisation was originally set up, you know: To protect Earth from the Doctor."

Ianto narrowed his eyes. "Is he a threat?"

Jack thought carefully before answering. "He would never directly hurt us. But indirectly, yes, very much so."

"Then why haven't you killed him?" Ianto asked.

Jack scoffed, shaking his head. "You could never understand him. Hell, I don't understand him. He fits the "weird alien" category almost too well."

Ianto was looking worried. "So who's the Master? And the Collector?"

Jack suddenly stopped, an idea popping into his. "A bit weird," he thought out loud. "Doctor... Master... Collector..."

"Yeah, so?" Ianto asked. "They all have a really poor taste in names."

Leaning against the desk, Jack looked at Ianto, obviously thinking. "How much have you found in the archives?"

For a moment Ianto felt like saying "enough", just to annoy him. Looking at the serious expression on Jack's face though, he decided against it. "The Doctor's an alien, thought to be able to change his appearance at will. He's been recorded in and out of history, appearing at times where there have been great disasters. No one seems to know whether he caused them or not, because he's always disappeared shortly afterwards." He was about to add that the Doctor had once worked for UNIT, but clamped his mouth shut, knowing that Jack would ask where he'd found that out.

"Hmm." Jack was frowning.

"What?"

"Do you know the name 'Master'?"

Ianto narrowed his eyes slightly. The Brigadier had told him and Owen the name, but he didn't know any more than that. He decided on telling the truth, as Jack would unavoidably find out if he wasn't. "Yes."

Jack hummed for a moment. "Tell Tosh to keep looking for Harold Saxon, 'kay?" He moved away from the desk.

"Where are you going?" Ianto called after him.

Just as if Jack had never been gone, Ianto got no answer.

Rhys tugged at the handcuffs that were clamped around his wrists, looking across the floor of the ship-like thing he had been pushed into. Gwen was lying on a bench across a narrow section of walkway, still unconscious. The man who had taken them was sitting in what looked like a pilot's seat, on the other side of a metal grill to the right of Rhys. He didn't look like a terrorist, for that was what Rhys assumed he must be. He was dressed in a grey suit, sporting a red tie, and was tapping away at the controls. He looked like a bank manager; someone who thinks in numbers all the time.

The floor beneath Rhys's feet stopped moving suddenly, and he heard a dull thud. Glancing up, he watched as their captor moved out of the pilot's chair. The way he moved seemed stiff to Rhys, unnatural, like the man wasn't in full control of his body.

"Get up." The words were clipped out sharply, accompanied by a hand, hauling Rhys to his feet. The man's other hand snaked towards Gwen, roughly shaking her shoulder.

"Leave my girlfriend alone, you bastard!" Rhys twisted out of the man's grip, throwing a shoulder into his chest. It was a rugby tackle, and should have sent the man to the ground. Instead, all it did was set Rhys's shoulder on fire. He stumbled backwards, barely righting himself before he fell.

Looking up, his eyes met those of the grey-suited man. They were cold, almost lifeless, and seemed to be staring right through him. Rhys swallowed.

The man nodded shortly and spoke. "You are of no value to me. You will not be paramount to her..." he signalled Gwen. "...cooperation. Neither will you have any effect on what the Captain does. You are disposable."

The last thing Rhys saw before he lost himself to fear was a gun, rising slowly up from the grey-suited man's side.