"I'm not getting much from this, although we could compare it with some of the other debris samples and cross-reference it with the trajectories. If we find some kind of pattern perhaps..." Owen paused and glared at Jack. "I'm sorry, Am I boring you?"

"What?" Jack blinked. "No, it's a good idea."

"What's a good idea?" Owen said.

"What you said," Jack replied frowning at him. Owen paused and stopped scraping samples and glared at Jack.

"Tell me what I was saying."

Jack scowled back, and then unconsciously looked at his watch again.

"Do you want me to call Rhys?" Gwen said with a heavy sigh.

Jack stopped looking at his watch and put his hands in his pockets to try and stop himself doing it again. "No, it's fine."

"It won't take a minute, I can just check that they're all right."

"No!" Jack said a little more insistently.

All three of them looked at him sharply. Jack realised by making such a fuss he was making it all the worse. He couldn't help it. Leaving Ianto was fine he was old enough to cope, and it wasn't that Jack didn't trust Rhys. There were just other things that were worrying Jack. Like was Ianto worried about him. Was he assuming that something would happen to him again, as it had done with the Laxus Mandrake.

"I'm sure they're fine, what I want to do is get back and start working out those calculations."

Nobody looked convinced by that excuse. Gwen moved a little away and took her phone out.

"Gwen!" Jack shouted. "Just leave it."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head in a resigned gesture but she put the phone back in her pocket. They had wasted two hours when they arrived battling through the military, police and a few hundred tourists. And quite frankly, Jack thought, they had better things to do than this. Although Jack had to agree with Owen's, 'I remember that time one of these landed and Gwen let out a sex obsessed alien, we'd better check it' comment. Gwen had looked less than pleased by his observation but she didn't attempt to strangle him so Jack took that as a good sign.

Several soldiers were now guarding the area, waiting for Torchwood to declare it safe. Then Jack didn't care what they did with a huge lump of rock. There was nothing particularly dangerous lurking within it as far as they could tell and that was fine as far as Jack was concerned. What he was concerned about was Ianto.

"Jack?"

He jumped. Without him realising it Gwen had snuck up on him. She put a gentle hand on his arm.

"If he was worried Rhys would phone me anyway. I told him to. It's his first babysitting job."

Jack had to smile at that. He had a rather interesting thought that Ianto would run rings around him. Even as an infant he was clever enough, and had a few tricks up his sleeve.

"Trust me, if the slightest thing worries him he'll ring. We should be back in a couple of hours anyway, after we've finished, Owen thinks it's safe enough so I can go and start organising the military."

"Great," Jack smiled at her. Gwen grinned back, a little cheekily.

"I just hope it doesn't make him broody."

"More than it's made you," Owen said, without looking up from what he was doing. "Here, Tosh look at this."

Tosh moved over to him, Gwen looked down. "Trust me, it would be a very bad combination, since I doubt Torchwood does maternity leave."

"Yes, we do," Jack said.

Gwen's eyes widened. Owen and Tosh stopped staring at the meteor and both of them looked up at Gwen and Jack.

"Do we?" Gwen asked. Jack raised his eyebrows.

"We used to be a multi-national, rather dictatorship-like institute, with a very large sky-scraper and a lot of employees, many of whom capable of getting pregnant. Torchwood has a maternity policy; I'll just adapt it like I have all the others, to fit our situation."

"How?" Gwen asked.

Jack's blue eyes unfocussed slightly, as he did what was presumably a quick calculation.

"Reduce your field status and raise your admin status. I'd switch Tosh's field status back up and she's have to take a backseat to you on the running of missions, but then that would keep you in the hub then and therefore safe. Ianto's still in training on the field status but he'll soon be past that security level.

"I'd have to get Ianto to… well… when we fix him… to get the maternity information out for you, if you want."

Gwen gaped at him, feeling a little awful. She was supposed to be having this discussion with Rhys first. But then again, maybe not, she was now free to have the talk with him. Now she had spoken to the others. She just hoped no one let it slip to Rhys.

"Ianto's in training?" Owen said with undisguised amusement.

"Yes, officially since I came back. I planned to do it anyway but events…" Jack paused and shrugged as all three people gave him a suspicious glare. He still hadn't fully explained his disappearance.

"Anyway, what did you think all the weevil hunting sessions were for?"

All three of them smirked. Jack rolled his eyes.

"Oh please."

"We just figured you were making up for lost time," Gwen said. Jack looked at her, raised his eyebrows slightly.

"I was, you took him out on field missions untrained. Although I'm quite willing to admit it is rather fun."

"He's perfectly capable of handling it," Gwen said. "Besides I was never in training."

"Yes you were, technically, but most of the training was on the job," Jack said.

"So you're seriously saying that you're following Torchwood's old procedures and not telling us?" Owen said.

"Adapting them where necessary, and you never asked, nor have any of you sneaked a look at your personnel files. Well, except Ianto."

"What's his security status now?" Owen asked with a smirk.

Jack's face flitted with anger. "We've already lost a day, but by this time tomorrow he is going to be back to normal."

Owen grimaced. "We could have done without this."

"Yes," Jack said starting to pace. Gwen looked around.

"I'll go and sort everything out…" she backed up and walked away.

Elation and dread combated for supremacy within her. She wasn't sure which one was likely to win. Elation, knowing she could have the talk with Rhys and dread because she could have the talk with Rhys. It would put something in motion that for the moment was halted. If it started then she could possibly end up powerless to stop it.

While she worked she didn't try to quell the battle, she just ignored it. But by the end of the following day, thanks to Ianto, elation would win.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Gwen eventually called Rhys when they returned. Rhys and Ianto were sat in a small café eating sandwiches. Cheese and tomato for Ianto and the same for Rhys with a thick dollop of pickle. Before he started eating, Ianto lifted the bread and carefully extracted a tomato slice, eating it separately.

"If you wanted it like that, why didn't you just say?"

Licking excess margarine off his fingers Ianto giggled. He bit into the sandwich so for a moment only his nose, eyes and highly ruffled hair were visible. His eyes glittered with amusement.

"You're three and a half, what am I even thinking?"

Ianto rooted out a second bit of tomato and did exactly the same thing. Rhys watched him and shook his head. Ianto had been running around for almost two and a half hours and had an extremely rumpled air to him. At three o'clock Amiee and her grandmother had left and then Ianto seemed to lose interest in the games. Several other children in the group had drifted off so Ianto had come to sit down and drink the rest of his juice.

It was at that point that Rhys had started to feel a little hungry and it occurred to him that Ianto had not eaten any lunch. Gwen had told him that he had eaten a big breakfast, or more technically brunch. But he didn't know when they were going to be back.

"Do you want to get something to eat?"

Noisily sucking up the last little bit of drink Ianto had nodded.

"Cheese sandwich?"

Ianto wrinkled his nose, and then nodded again. He stopped making noise as soon as he sucked all the air out of the carton making the cardboard crinkle up. Rhys took it off him and put it in the bin.

They were just finishing off the sandwiches and Ianto was again noisily drinking through a straw. Ianto seemed to like the sounds he was making. When people located the sound they smiled indulgently and Ianto smiled back at them. Rhys started to wonder if Ianto was somewhere in there, enjoying every moment of this. The only way they would ever find out was when they turned him back. It was probably the one and only time he could get a first person opinion on his babysitting skills. He wondered if Ianto would talk to him about it, when he was back to normal.

It was then, just perfectly, the phone rang. Rhys answered it in second.

"Hello love, how's it going?"

"Where are you?"

Rhys tensed at the terse tone of voice, "we're just finishing having a sandwich. I took him out for a run around the park."

"Oh," Gwen paused. Her voice was a little more normal as she started talking again. "Sorry, erm… we're back, I'm at the flat with Jack, I just… we just wondered where you were."

Jack had in fact been going spare. He stopped pacing when Gwen had started talking to Rhys but he was currently glaring at her, obviously wanting an answer.

"Sorry, I didn't leave a note, I expected you to call really. We've just finished so we can head back. No, you don't need to do that, we're only ten minutes away and Ianto appears to be in possession of inexhaustible energy."

Rhys winked at him and Ianto giggled.

"Okay, won't be long. See you in a bit." Rhys hung up and shook his head. "Jack's waiting to pick you up, I'd better get you back."

Ianto's already bright face brightened further. All that remained of his sandwich were a few mouthfuls, mainly crust. He slid off the chair and ran round to Rhys pulling his arm.

"Jack!" Ianto said insistently. "I want to go see Jack!"

"All right, let's pay first and then we can go."

Ianto kept tugging until Rhys was up. Then he took his hand and dragged him to the counter to pay, before they set off back to the flat.

Jack relaxed as he heard Rhys' key in the lock. Gwen was making coffee, trying to calm him down. Jack sat up as there were sounds of a scuffle in the hallway. As he was shutting the door Rhys had spun and grabbed Ianto by the collar before he could run into the flat.

"No! Before you go tearing round the place you can take off your boots and coat."

Rhys' voice was followed by Ianto squealing then erupting into high pitched giggling. Gwen who was bringing the coffee tray round put it on the dining room table, frowned at Jack, who sat on the sofa trying not to leap up and find out what was going on. Gwen moved to the right a little and gave a snort of laughter. Rhys was crouched on the floor and Ianto had somehow ended up flat on his back, with his legs in the air, waving them around as Rhys removed his shoes. Ianto continued to giggle as Rhys did so.

As soon as the second shoe came off Rhys righted Ianto, sitting him up. His feet hit the carpeted floor with a thump. A second later Ianto crawled forward, ran down the hallway, down the steps into the sitting room.

"Jack!" he yelled excitedly as he saw Jack on the sofa.

"Hi," Jack smiled in relief and held out his arms as Ianto hurtled to him and clambered up into Jack's lap, reaching up so he could put his arms around his neck and hug him.

Gwen went across the room to kiss Rhys hello. And she received similar treatment.

"You survived then?" she said.

"Yep, with the kind help of an eight-time grandmother with baby wipes and juice."

Gwen frowned in confusion but didn't get much of a chance to ask. Jack had put Ianto down, sitting him on his lap. He frowned and took Ianto's wrists so he could look at the palms of his hands.

"What happened to his hands?"

Rhys grimaced. "He fell, well… was more sort of pushed. He's hurt his right knee, but I think it's only a bruise. He was running around afterwards without any hassle."

Jack didn't comment, he frowned, his blue eyes furious. He pulled up the material of Ianto's jeans. A bruise was starting to form, a dark lump just on his knee. Jack looked up at glared at Rhys.

"I thought you were supposed to be watching him, not chatting up old ladies."

Rhys glared back. "I was watching him. He was playing on the adventure playground and another kid pushed him so he fell off. He cried for like a minute then went running off again, perfectly fine."

"Did you clean it? He could get an infection, or it could be…"

"It's a bruise, Jack. Kids actually get them all the time."

Jack's head came up sharply. "He's not a kid!"

"He is at the moment," Rhys said. His tone very carefully modulated. "And I'm not the one scaring him."

Jack looked down. Ianto had gone very still in his lap, staring up at him with wide, frightened eyes, worried that somehow he had done something wrong. As he met Jack's gaze tears rushed into them and Ianto's lower lip wobbled. Jack cuddled him closer and kissed the top of his head.

"Oh, don't do that. It's all right."

Ianto hiccupped but as Jack looked down at him again, that seemed to be all that was going to happen.

"Was somebody mean to you?"

Ianto nodded, "they pushed me."

"Rhys wasn't mean though?" Jack asked. Ianto shook his head.

"I got ice cream, a big one!"

"Great, so he's going to be totally hyperactive."

Rhys snorted with laughter. "He's spent nigh on three hours tearing around like a complete maniac. He could have eaten four ice creams and none of them would have touched the sides. It was exhausting watching him."

"Did you have an ice cream as well?" Gwen asked accusingly.

"Yep, and I've found someone who's messier than me."

"He's three and a half years old, he's got an excuse," Jack said.

"You said he wasn't a kid not five minutes ago, make up your mind."

"I'm still trying to," Jack said. Gwen moved back to start pouring the coffee's. It was bizarre, she normally didn't make it so formally, or at least she hadn't until she had started drinking Ianto's coffee at work.

"Do you want juice Ianto?" Rhys asked casually. Gwen turned to look at him in surprise.

"Yes please," Ianto said.

"Okay. I'll get it," Rhys said to Gwen. Ianto watched him go and scrambled up on Jack so he could watch him. He put his feet on Jack's thighs and leant against him over his shoulder. As he did so one of Ianto's feet slipped heavily into Jack's groin. By reflex Jack grabbed him around the waist and lifted him. Ianto yelped then giggled again, unaware of what he had actually done.

"When you're back to normal you'll be sorry you did that!" Jack said, his voice slightly thick with pain. Gwen smirked and put a coffee on the table in front of Jack. Jack sat Ianto down on the sofa next to him and Ianto leant against him. Jack put one arm around his shoulders and reached for his coffee. Rhys leant over the sofa and offered Ianto his juice in the plastic cup that Jack had packed in the bag. Rhys waited until Ianto had a sure grip of it and then let go. Ianto started to drink, gulping loudly.

"Is he always this noisy when he's grown up?" Rhys asked.

"No? Why?"

"Just wondered," Rhys asked. He moved to the side of the sofa where Gwen sat and perched on the arm and took his coffee off her. "Thanks."

For a moment the only sound was Ianto slurping. Then he squeaked as he dribbled. Juice ran down his chin and he tried to lick at it. Rhys rolled his eyes and went into the kitchen pulling off a wedge of kitchen roll. Gwen reached to take the cup off Ianto and Rhys leaned over, mopping up Ianto's face and chest.

"You're definitely muckier than me," Rhys announced as he dabbed at Ianto's top.

In more ways than one usually, Jack thought to himself. Ianto however just looked up at Rhys with a bright smile, sitting still and letting him tidy him up. They had only been together for a few hours as carer and small child but Rhys seemed to be coping really well. Jack noticed Gwen watching them very intently. He was quite glad the issue of maternity leave had come up, if that was what Gwen and Rhys were thinking about, they deserved to know they could do it.

"So what's this about you chatting up old ladies?" Gwen asked. Rhys grinned.

"She seduced me with her baby wipes. And I wasn't the only one, someone got himself a girlfriend." He rubbed Ianto's nose with the damp kitchen towel. Ianto giggled.

"Really?" Gwen asked. Rhys laughed.

"When he was playing on the adventure playground he teamed up with my old lady's granddaughter. Very gentlemanly he was, helped her over the rope bridge and everything."

"Oh yeah?" Jack asked he put his coffee down and one hand snaked out to grab Ianto's feet. He yelped as Jack started to tickle him and he struggled away from him across the sofa. Rhys took the juice cup out of Gwen's hand as Ianto clambered over to her. He was squeaking and giggling and he hefted himself into her lap, dropped his head against her shoulder as he panted for breath. She automatically put his arms around him.

Jack paused, it was the first time that Ianto had made a voluntary gesture towards her. Toshiko he didn't mind in the slightest and even Owen he accepted. With Gwen however, Ianto's mind moved into more complicated territory. In a way she confused him, the grown-up him; her reactions, anger, compassion, initiative, determination, things which often contradicted within her. Jack remembered Ianto saying once that he still never knew quite what to expect from her, never more so during the time that Jack was absent.

Gwen had taken over, despite Owen being official Second-in-Command. He was the only person Jack could give the job to, because Gwen was so new. But she had taken over, she had led. Ianto was the only one who hadn't really accepted it, but as the only way he could cope, he had pretended it was fine. Like everything else that had screwed up in his life was fine, that he could cope with it.

In a way Ianto loved Gwen as much as he loved the rest of the team but deep down there was a deeply sown seed of hatred that, like bindweed in a neglected garden, could only be controlled, not removed.

Still now, Gwen put her arms around Ianto, cuddling him, putting her face down into his hair, taking in his scent, the sudden babyishness of him, the fresh air and the innocence. For a moment Jack saw the sudden longing in her eyes. As much as she fought against the idea of children; logically she didn't think it was safe considering her circumstances. She wanted them, she wanted to have children with Rhys. As much as she loved Jack, she loved Rhys and in the end, he could truly provide what she wanted.

"So what's this girl's name then?" Jack asked, still trying to get at Ianto's feet. Ianto squealed again and pulled his legs up, tucking his knees close to his chest and resting his feet on Gwen's thigh.

"Amiee," Rhys said. "She was very cute. She was!" Rhys added as Gwen looked up at him.

"So what would you like a girl or a boy?"

Rhys looked stunned by the question. Gwen looked equally stunned that she had asked it. Jack grimaced.

"On that note I think we will take our leave." He stood up. Ianto wriggled away from Gwen to clamber over to him and Jack picked him up. "I want to start the calibrations for the reversal process."

"Are you staying at the hub again?" Gwen asked. "That's hardly comfortable."

"If you want to work, Ianto could stay here," Rhys offered. "Or both of you, if we set up the camp bed and…"

"No, no, it's fine," Jack said picking Ianto up. "I'll go to the hub and get everything we need. Ianto's house keys are there, I'll take him home, better fixtures there. We'll be fine." He cuddled Ianto close and backed up a little.

"Thanks for the coffee, and thanks for minding him."

"Not a problem," Rhys said with a shrug. "I enjoyed it."

"Come on you, time we were off, where are your shoes?"

"On the mat," Rhys said helpfully. Jack paused.

"Has he been to the toilet recently?"

"Twice, once in the park toilets and in the cafe. It was fine," Rhys added, seeing the look on Jack's face. Ianto had managed most of it himself, there had just been a little bit of tiding Ianto up and helping him wash his hands. Rhys had felt a little strange, but he had managed it fine, he thought.

Jack nodded, looking at Ianto, who looked back. "Do you need to go again?"

Ianto shook his head. Jack made for the door.

Rhys followed Jack and Jack put Ianto down and lifted one of his feet to put him into his shoe. Ianto looked thoroughly unimpressed with the whole process.

"Jack, really not doing that right."

Rhys grabbed Ianto around the waist and tipped him onto his back again. Ianto squealed in delight. Rhys looked up at Jack and took the boots out of his hands.

"Honestly, if you're going to do it, do it properly."

Jack grinned, Ianto giggled, Rhys laced up boots and Gwen in the background looked amused and scared all in the same expression. Jack, who was facing her, watched the expressions move over her face.

Elation had gained a hefty amount of ground.