7.

Ianto woke with a raging headache and to the sound of Owen and Jack arguing. Jack sounded aggressive, Owen defensive. "Listen, I've run every test I could think of but he's fine. There's nothing more I can do."

"I just want you to be very sure because Peralta was alone with him for over three hours and anything could have happened in that time."

Ianto opened his eyes and blinked a few times to clear his blurry vision of the main Hub and the two men standing just outside the med bay. He was covered with a blanket and felt comfortably warm, but a bit sore.

Owen scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous, Jack. I'm the doctor. I say he's fine. That means he is." With that, he turned towards the med bay. "I have a robot autopsy to do now, if you don't mind."

Jack stayed behind, hands on his hips and fuming silently, if the expression darkening his handsome face was anything to go by. Ianto cleared his throat. "Jack?"

He saw Jack paste on a smile before he fully turned his head in Ianto's direction and sat on the low coffee table next to the couch. "Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Woozy," Ianto answered. "Sore."

"Peralta said you fell down the stairs."

"I must have. The last thing I know is that I was standing on the stairs."

"Do you remember when?"

Ianto frowned and tried to think back. "Well, I … I didn't check the clock but I think the last time we spoke was around 5am so I guess I fell around half five."

"We came back at six. You were unconscious for quite some time."

"I remember waking up." Ianto frowned, trying to concentrate. "But everything's so blurry, I don't remember much of what happened. But Peralta was there." He looked at Jack earnestly. "You think he did something to me?"

"There's no indication he did," Jack answered, "but I don't trust him. Why did you fall?"

"Don't remember. I felt dizzy and I must have slipped. Those steps are always damp and slippery. Almost broke my neck more than once." Ianto thought back, but then he shook his head. "Sorry, I really can't remember."

"It's okay," Jack answered and patted his thigh. "I'm just glad you're alright."

xxx

Gwen sat on the steps leading down into the well of the med bay and supported her chin on one hand. Owen was carefully prying open the head of the robot.

Tosh sat down next to Gwen with her laptop and sighed. "Long day," she said, tiredly brushing her dark hair out of her face.

"Yeah," Gwen replied and rubbed her sore eyes. She checked her watch. Just after seven. It was morning and she'd been at work for just about twenty-four hours if one didn't count the few hours she'd been at home. She made a mental note to call Rhys later and apologize. Sometimes it felt as if that was all she was doing lately. He seemed to understand a lot better since he'd helped them out with the space whale, though.

Owen gave a small sound of triumph when he managed to dislodge the upper part of the head. It clattered to the floor. Owen fiddled around in the inside of the skull and then presented a chip that looked like a SIM card for a mobile. He handed it to Tosh with a flourish and she connected it to the laptop resting on her thighs. "Hopefully, this will help us."

"Do you think whoever did this has got another one of those things?"

Owen returned to the robot to check out the inner part of the skull curiously. "Well, could be."

Normally, Gwen would be right there with him, looking at the being with wonder. It was the first artificial intelligence she ever had encountered. But she was too tired to bother. "And someone uses them to kill and scavenge technology from the future?" She shuddered. "Why the message to us?"

"To get back at us for something," Owen answered, distracted by his work.

"For what? Torchwood – this is your fault," she repeated the message. "What's our fault?"

Her question remained unanswered. Tosh was focused on the laptop and Owen on the robot. It was quiet until Jack and Ianto entered. Ianto was carrying a tray. He still looked a bit pale in Gwen's opinion, but seemed fine otherwise.

Jack had his arms crossed over his broad chest, his face grim. "Let's start," he said, breaking his determined stance to take a mug off the tray. Ianto walked down the steps to Gwen and Tosh, offering them their mugs and taking the last for himself before putting the tray down and leaning back against the wall with one hand in his trouser pocket. Jack let the silence settle before he started. "We are in big trouble. To bring everyone up to speed," he looked at Ianto, "this thing is a Golem. I know it from various centuries. They appear out of nowhere, travelling through the Rift, and scavenge technology, killing everyone who dares to try and stop them. Everyone in the future knows them. The name is visible on the back of their neck and they have serial numbers, so there have to be several of them. We don't know how many."

Gwen frowned. "Does the name mean anything special? It could give us a hint."

Ianto answered, "It's a mythological being."

Jack said, "It's a long story but in a nutshell: a Golem is a being made of dirt that can be controlled by humans."

Gwen nodded. "That's what robots are."

"Exactly," Jack answered. "Now, Ianto did some digging and found out that UNIT has files about these creatures. Files, they received from Torchwood One. Of course, Ianto's request that they send them over was denied. Top Secret. That's what we've got Tosh for, though. So Tosh did some digging as well. Turns out, there was a project Torchwood and UNIT worked together on. Its name was Horizon and its purpose was to create the perfect soldier."

Owen looked up from his work and Gwen's eyes widened. "Are you saying ..."

"That Torchwood One and UNT built that thing on the table?" Jack asked. "Yes, they did. Project Horizon was dropped after three years in 1963. Apparently there was some kind of nasty accident and the head scientist died. Now, Doctor Gerald Shaw was very popular back then and it took a lot of lying and covering up to hide the real reason for his passing. All the other scientists and officers working for the project were … not happy about having to give up. They thought they were about to change the world with their invention."

Gwen snorted. "Yeah, better wars for everyone."

Ianto sipped his coffee. "A lot of angry people who lost their pet project. That can smart … even decades later maybe?"

"Maybe," Jack said.

"Well," Owen deduced. "One of them decided to get these things out of the basement. Let's find them and talk to them."

Tosh sighed. "A problem: what Jack just told you was all I could get. The files are very encrypted, very hush-hush. I can't get any names."

Jack said, "We can assume that there's a lot more and since UNIT bothered to hide it well enough that not even Tosh can break through to take a look ..."

Gwen nodded. "Gotta be huge."

Tosh looked up from her laptop and towards the Golem. "This chip doesn't give any hint. The Golem was instructed to go through the Rift on a scavenger hunt and then back. It was supposed to walk to certain coordinates. I already checked the CCTV and the van was there, but it left when the Golem didn't turn up. That's all I have."

"Okay, it was out to scavenge something," Gwen said. "It obviously didn't."

Owen replied, "No. Nothing."

Ianto tilted his head thoughtfully. "Maybe there wasn't anything to take. I assume that the Golem was sent to a random point in the future. Maybe it landed somewhere where no civilization was."

Jack nodded. "Could be."

Gwen frowned. "So it decided to come back empty-handed. How does a robot decide that?"

Tosh answered, "It's equipped with sensors. It picks up all kinds of energy signals and evaluates them."

Ianto took another sip of his coffee and calmly asked, "The question is: what do we do now?"

Everybody looked at him, but none of them had an answer.

xxx

Ianto couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. His head was throbbing with a headache but that wasn't all. He rubbed his belly, feeling like there was an itch deep within him that he just couldn't reach. He was on edge, he realized. The potential loss of what he had with Jack and this new case that left them all facing one brick wall after another …

Owen was busy dissecting the rest of the robot when Ianto arrived in the med bay to look for trash. Since Owen was dead, this part in his daily routine was pretty much pointless – no empty wrappers for various candy bars anymore, no empty pizza boxes or mouldy Chinese take-away tucked away in various nooks and crannies, no empty mugs or cans … but it was Ianto's routine and sometimes Gwen or Tosh would leave something down here, so he still checked. But everything was tidy today and Owen worked with a focused frown, not even looking up to acknowledge him. Ianto turned away to return to the main Hub. Something clattered behind him – maybe Owen dropping a screwdriver on the tray – and Ianto didn't quite know what happened but something red flashed before his eyes and he reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall. Owen started to hum softly, like he sometimes did when he worked, but his voice barely reached Ianto, as if he was wrapped in mist. He closed his eyes against the blinding flashing light … and then it was suddenly over and he felt fine.

"Ianto?"

He startled and turned around to Owen who was looking at him with a frown. "You kind of froze up there. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Ianto answered hurriedly, blinking to get lost of the last ghosts of the light. "Just wondering what tune you were humming."

"I didn't hum," Owen replied.

"Maybe you didn't notice," Ianto said with a smile.

"I would have noticed." He turned back to the robot.

Ianto nodded slowly to himself. "Right."

xxx

Jack made sure that Peralta left. He stood with him on the curb and watched him get into a taxi. Peralta smiled at him through the car window and that smile chilled Jack to the bone.

Peralta's words in the Hub haunted Jack. "You will regret this. Very soon."

Once the car had pulled away and was on its way to the train station, Jack finally relaxed.

He couldn't get rid of the memory of that smile, though, while he headed back down to the Hub. With the microchip giving them no new information and Owen not finding anything else useful in the robot, the case was pretty much dead in the water. Jack hated when that happened but he also knew that he had to let it slide and let his team get some rest. Sometimes that was all there was left to do.

He nodded at Gwen, Tosh and Owen as they passed him by in the tourist office on their way home and headed down and through the cogwheel door into the main Hub, where Ianto was busy straightening everything before he, too, could leave. He seemed pale in the harsh lights of the Hub and he kept rubbing his eyes.

"You look beat," Jack said. He stepped closer to Ianto and – despite everything – put an arm around his shoulder to lead him to his office. "Sleep here tonight."

Ianto seemed to hesitate for a moment but then he put his head on Jack's shoulder and obeyed. While Jack opened the hatch that led down to his bedroom, Ianto suddenly said, "I don't want this to end."

Jack froze and then answered carefully, "It didn't."

"Really? To me, it feels like it did."

"Ianto," Jack sighed. He straightened and put his hands on his hips, taking in Ianto's defensive stance – the crossed arms and ducked head.

Ianto looked up at him and his eyes were bright in the low light reigning in Jack's office – bright with tears. "I'm sorry for pushing you. I promised I wouldn't." He licked his lips. "I just don't know if I can handle you grieving for me when I'm still right here."

There was nothing Jack would have rather done than take Ianto to bed right now. He was tired and he could see that Ianto was walking the brink of exhaustion and this really wasn't the time to have this conversation. But he knew, too, that Ianto wouldn't stop worrying about this until they talked about it. He would probably stay up all night. So Jack gave in. "It's not just about the knowledge that you could die tomorrow. It's also about moving in itself. I'm not good at that whole living together thing. I screw it up. Every single time. Just ask my exes." He tried a grin to lighten the situation but Ianto didn't take the bait. So he turned serious again. "I'm going to lose you. I don't want it to happen because of some stupid fight over whose turn it is to do the laundry."

Ianto shook his head and brushed a hand through his short hair in agitation. "You would never lose me because of that but you're losing me by pushing me away. You're careful, I get that, but you can't be careful with love. It just doesn't work."

Jack closed his eyes. It was the first time the word 'love' had entered any of their conversations about their relationship and it was the wrong time. Jack wasn't sure how he felt about Ianto. There were too many things in the way, too many insecurities for him to really let himself feel something that deep. He was working constantly on chipping away on the wall he'd built around his feelings, but it was hard and it took time. "Ianto-"

"I love you," Ianto said softly. Jack didn't have to open his eyes to know that the tears had spilled over by now. Ianto released a breath. "But I don't see this working out. Not as long as you're scared of me."

Jack nodded, understanding. He cleared his throat and opened his eyes, blinking away the blurry vision of his office. "Are you still sleeping here tonight?" he asked. "Or should I take you home?"

"No need to take me home," Ianto answered. "I'll be okay." He smiled hesitantly, turned and walked away.

Jack sank against his desk. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, me, too."

xxx

A red, flashing light, humming, cold, the white tiles of the med bay above him and warm hands on his skin …

"Ianto! Ianto!"

He gasped and sat up at his desk down in the archives. Embarrassed, he looked around for whoever had found him sleeping on the job, but there was no one there.

Then he heard Owen's voice again, getting more impatient by the minute. "Ianto!"

His hand flew up to his earpiece and he answered, "Owen?"

"Finally. Jack called you up here ten minutes ago. We're just waiting for you. It's important, so move your arse."

"Sorry. Be right there." Ianto got up and ran shaky hands through his hair, trying to neaten it. He straightened his shirt and tie and put on his suit jacket, trying to ignore the lingering snatches of the nightmare that had plagued him. Never before had he fallen asleep during work. But after the sleepless night he'd had, it was no wonder it had happened. He was exhausted and he'd started out tired.

When he arrived in the boardroom, everyone was already gathered around the table.

"Finally," Owen said. Ianto ignored him. He just sat down at the table and looked at Tosh expectantly.

She nodded at him. "So I checked the chip again," she explained, "and discovered a sub-program."

Jack frowned. "I don't like the sound of that."

"It's basically a log, a routine that runs on automatic. Like communication between machines. The moment we destroyed the robot, it sent a message to others like it, telling them that it's down."

Gwen blinked. "Others like it? Maybe we can find them … can you trace the signal?"

"No, it's totally scrambled. I have no idea where they are. I just know how many there are."

Jack sat up straighter and folded his hands on the table. "How many?" His voice was serious and deep. He was worried. And Ianto was, too.

Tosh swallowed. "Thousands. Somewhere out there is a guy who may have thousands of these things under his control. He's angry at Torchwood and he doesn't hesitate to kill innocents to get our attention. And we have no idea where he is or when he'll strike next."

Owen raised his eyebrows. "Oh, yes, we're screwed."