2.

It was around the middle of the trip to London that Jack and Gwen ran out of topics to talk about. Which wasn't really a problem for Jack but Gwen didn't take it too well. He saw the signs of impending boredom: deep sighs, vacant stares out the passenger window at the landscape flying by, low humming along to the music on the radio and the jiggling of her leg.

And then, she gave in. "So, you and Ianto really split up?"

"Do you think we pretended to just so that you lot had something to gossip about?" he asked, maybe a bit more snappish than he should be. But the first few weeks of meaningful glances in his and Ianto's direction as soon as the lack of flirting was noticed and the whispered conversations that always seemed to come to an abrupt halt when they entered a room had taken their toll. Jack should just shrug her question off, confirm what she thought and get on with life, like he usually did, but somehow, it wasn't that easy.

"No need to bite my head off," Gwen said and looked out the window again. "I just thought you might want to talk about it. You know, an outside view can help sometimes."

"I don't need an outside view."

Gwen sighed and stared out the window. She stayed quiet for the next few minutes. Her words, though, had brought Jack's self-doubts back to life and they demanded to be heard. All the things Ianto had said – the things Jack had dismissed as being quaint and so 21st century – were running through his head again, asking him questions. There was no way he could answer them all by himself and maybe, just maybe, it really would help him to get some closure. He needed to if he wanted his friendship with Ianto back. And who knew … maybe Ianto was already getting advice from Tosh. Why should Jack in turn not ask his friend what she thought? He tightened his grip around the steering wheel. "Do you think we were standing still?"

She seemed to think about that for a moment. "I think it was normal for him to want more out of your relationship." How she'd learned the reason for the break-up, Jack would probably never know. He was just pleased that it meant that he didn't have to explain what had happened.

"Do you know how many relationships I've seen break apart because of Torchwood? I stopped counting sometime in the 1920s. And I've lost some pretty great relationships because of this job myself."

"So you just stopped trying?" Gwen asked. "That's not like you."

"What we had was comfortable. Warm. I enjoyed it big time. And whatever you might think, I respected him: I didn't sleep with other people, I toned down the flirting, even though he never asked me to do that. We went out on dates. I don't get why he wasn't happy."

"He was," Gwen replied. "He was happy and that was why it was only the logical next step for him to ask you to move in. Because he wanted more time with you, away from work." He gave her a sharp glance and she had the decency to blush. "Tosh and Ianto talked and Tosh … told me about the moving in part. She wanted to hear your side of the story … she thought you would have talked to me about it."

Jack pressed his lips together and accelerated a bit, then he took a deep breath and calmed down. "I don't ..." Jack closed his eyes for a second, then he focussed on the street again. "I didn't want him to fall in love with me. I didn't want to fall in love with him. Because it ends. It always does. He would have either died or grown to hate me."

"So what you wanted was a glorified fuck buddy?" Gwen asked, her eyebrows knitted together disapprovingly. "Seriously, Jack … I don't think he was the one with the problem."

xxx

Despite Ianto's vehement refusal to acknowledge Owen's words, Owen assumed that Ianto knew he was right. Owen guessed that he was scared – because Ianto only reluctantly allowed him to take blood for more tests and he flat out refused to put his hand on the body scanner in the med bay – and he could relate. He would be scared, too. Normally, Owen did check-ups on the team every month. He hadn't found anything wrong with Ianto at the last one, just about a month ago. But now, everything was different. "Blood tests confirm it," Owen said, breaking the silence that had reigned in the med bay since he'd drawn Ianto's blood half an hour ago. Tosh was sitting next to Ianto on the examination table, her hair put up into an untidy knot. Ianto was as stone-faced as usual in a crisis but Owen had known him long enough to see the tense lines around his eyes and lips. Oh, yes, he knew.

Even though he said, "No, I'm not pregnant."

Owen had had enough of Ianto telling him that. He grabbed his hand and slapped it on the flat glass surface of the body scanner, waiting for it to kick in. Ianto didn't fight him. He just stared at the scanner passing its light over his palm. Ianto's full-body scan was displayed overly large on the white tiled wall. Owen manipulated the scanner to play sound and the rapid heartbeat of the baby filled the room. "There you go," Owen said. "Pregnant. Eleventh to twelfth week." He saw shock setting in. Ianto's eyes became suspiciously bright with tears, but he swallowed them down and closed his eyes, ducking his head. He pulled his hand away from the scanner and the image and sound vanished. Tosh reached out and gently interlaced the fingers of one hand with Ianto's. Owen sighed deeply. "Right. I've got to call Jack."

"No," Ianto said firmly, "don't tell him."

"He wanted me to call him as soon as I knew what was wrong with you."

"Then tell him it's exhaustion or … you're the doctor, make something up. Don't tell him the truth."

Tosh said gently, "But Jack's going to notice as soon as you start to show."

Silence stretched while Ianto just stared at the floor.

Owen narrowed his eyes. "Except …," he muttered. "Except you want me to get rid of it."

Ianto asked softly, "How long would it take?"

Owen crossed his arms. "I can't do it today. I'd have to prepare myself and we can't be sure when Jack's going to be back. I can, however, advise medical leave for you, get you into a hospital – a friend of mine is the manager of one and he owes me a favour: nobody would ask what we need the OR for. And I don't need assistants – I could use the laser scalpel: no blood flow, fast in, fast out, no scar. You'd be sore for a few days, but … it would work. Give me a couple of days to practice with the scalpel and to analyse your scans and to get everything set up."

Tosh frowned, her dark eyes gazing at Ianto. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

Ianto wiped a hand down his face – it was trembling.

"He might not have much say in the matter," Owen answered. "However this happened, his body's not ready for a pregnancy. I don't think he can carry a child to term."

"Maybe not to term then," Tosh said, frowning at him. "Just long enough to let it live."

"I don't know if that's possible."

"UNIT's done some research. Torchwood One as well. Get Martha in, all the files UNIT has. Just don't say it's impossible without having seen all there is about it."

"I don't need to. He said he doesn't want it. That settles it for me."

Ianto snapped, "Shut up! Both of you." He looked a bit startled over his unusual outbreak, but caught himself quickly. He took a deep breath. "I haven't decided yet." Another deep breath and he grimaced, becoming a bit pale.

Worried, Owen took his wrist, feeling Ianto's pulse quicken. "Ianto?"

"Hurts," he muttered. His hands went to his belly and then he screamed.

xxx

Ianto groaned, clenching his finger in the material of his shirt as if that could stop the final waves of pain shooting through his belly, while Owen helped him to lie down on the examination table. Tosh was standing next to him, brushing a hand through his hair soothingly. "It's getting better, though, isn't it?"

"Yes. Slowly," Ianto answered. He closed his eyes and let out a relieved sigh. He made an effort to relax his whole body and took a few deep breaths.

When he opened his eyes again, Owen was passing the Bekaran scanner over him. "Must be the baby. It's already putting a strain on your insides and you haven't even passed the first trimester, yet." He looked at Ianto, his dark eyes earnest and worried. "You have to abort the pregnancy, Ianto."

Tosh said, "Owen, leave him alone."

Ianto didn't pay them any mind. The only thing he could think about was Jack's reaction. They were slowly getting back to just being comfortable around each other again. This would destroy their efforts completely. "Jack will freak."

Owen snorted. "Forget about Jack for a minute. This is not about him in the least, except when the baby's his, but I don't think it is. How can it be?" His brow furrowed. "Even though … you're about three months along which is approximately the time you split up … did you use condoms?"

Ianto's eyes widened. "Are you serious? I can't get pregnant by not wearing condoms, Owen!" He sounded slightly hysterical and tried to calm down. "And yes, we did."

"Good boy," Owen muttered, already distracted by his scanner again.

"This is a nightmare." Ianto rubbed his belly. It didn't feel any different. But his increase in food-intake and his constant exhaustion made more sense now. He wasn't sure if he should be happy it wasn't some kind of alien disease.

"You clearly have to calm down a bit," Owen said. "Think things through. Decide what you're going to do about it."

Ianto closed his eyes again. "I don't know."

xxx

General Leslie led the way through the corridors of the UNIT UK headquarters in London. Gwen looked around the beige, bleak corridors of the building that was located in London. On the outside, it seemed low-key enough: a simple red brick-building with security guards protecting the entrance hall. Great Marlborough Street was located just off Regent Street and very busy. Gwen doubted that anybody knew what the UNIT emblem even meant, but, as Jack always said, humans from the 21st century tended to ignore things they couldn't understand or believe.

Todd Leslie himself was a man in his early 50s, broad-chested and proudly displaying several medals on his green uniform. The red beret sat on short, brown hair peppered with grey strands and the grey eyes were sharp and attentive. He moved with self-confidence and precision. "All the other victims have already been transported to their families, but our newest victim's still here. She was found early this morning."

Jack asked, "Where?"

"Her flat. Her son found her when he came to visit with his kids. We have no idea who or what could have done this. The only thing we know ..." Leslie opened the door to his office and ushered them inside. "... is that the killings are brutal. Their skulls were literally crushed."

He sat down behind his big, wooden desk and offered them two chairs positioned opposite. The room was just as bleak as the corridor. Aside from the tidy desk and the chairs, only a file cabinet and a bookshelf adorned the walls.

Gwen and Jack settled into the uncomfortable chairs. Jack leaned forwards to support his elbows on his knees and steeple his fingers under his chin. "It's time we compared notes. Clearly, my team has made some significant progress that UNIT hasn't made yet."

Leslie fixed Jack with a surprised stare. "Care to explain?"

"It's a Golem."

Leslie seemed to mull that over a moment, then his eyes widened and he hastily used his keyboard to pull something up on his computer flatscreen. "Project Horizon? Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. You know about it?"

"Know about it?" Leslie asked. "It all went down while I was still a child, but it's still talked about around here." He looked at the information displayed on his screen and frowned. "How do you know about it? It was strictly top secret, just between UNIT and Torchwood One. You have no right to access the files."

"We know more than you think," Jack answered. Gwen watched his face harden. "We need full access to your files on it."

Leslie wore an expression that told Gwen that he wasn't happy about the demand. "I'll see what I can do." He pushed the keyboard away and leaned back in his chair. "Do you have any theories?"

"We don't know who could be behind this but somebody has to be responsible. Golems are artificial intelligences but they need to be pointed in a direction to start acting," Jack answered. "Somebody's clearly using them to kill."

Gwen added, "It's revenge."

Leslie nodded. "We figured as much. But for what?"

"Could have something to do with Horizon."

Jack winced. "Or not. What we know for a fact, though, is that whoever did this has access to all Golems. There are about a thousand out there somewhere, hidden away."

Leslie blanched. "Tell me you're not serious."

"Why? What's the problem?"

"Only four Golems were built while the project was running."

Silence crashed into the office.

"Four?" Jack echoed finally.

"Yes, they were reported missing after the battle of Canary Wharf but-"

"You knew?" Jack asked in a dangerously low voice.

"During the fall of Torchwood One," Leslie answered, tearing his eyes away from Jack's murderous gaze, "the Golems were stored in a Torchwood One warehouse. We found the alarm systems deactivated and the Golems gone as well as the transmitter that's used to give them orders. We assume that they were activated and transported away. We all know that you can hire people to transport and get them to ask no questions about the cargo. We've been looking for them ever since."

"And you never mentioned it to us?" Jack exploded.

Just as loudly, Leslie answered, "That project was top secret. You shouldn't even know about it, Captain."

"You know that I'm not from around here. I saw these things with my own eyes in various centuries – in the future. They were scavenging for technology and vanished through the Rift. So whoever uses them now, he knows how to manipulate the Rift and he sends them through to steal from the future. And it's your fault!"

All of a sudden, Leslie seemed calm. "Not exactly."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Horizon – I can't tell you a lot about it without getting clearance from my superiors, but I can tell you this: the project started out as a possibility to invent the perfect soldier, but things happened and the goal changed. It became all about stealing technology from the future. Whoever has the Golems now wasn't the first one to send them through the Rift … UNIT and Torchwood One did."

xxx

The water in the bay was troubled today and dark clouds were forming in the sky. Ianto thought it was fitting. He pulled his coat tighter around himself and leaned on the banister separating him from the sea. He stared down into the murky water, wishing for Owen to tell him that it all had been a huge mistake or, at the very least, just a stupid joke. But he knew it wasn't. Owen sometimes went too far with his jokes, but never this far. He was pregnant. It could be Jack's baby or maybe not. It could be an alien baby of some kind. Ianto was afraid to find out. He was afraid of Jack's reaction. He didn't even know why. Jack would look at it calmly, would tell him what they could do and help him make a decision. It wasn't a big deal. Except if it was Jack's baby – no matter how it could have happened … then things would get complicated.

Tosh appeared next to him and took his arm, leaning against his side. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," he answered.

xxx

On their way back to Cardiff, Jack was driving aggressively which told Gwen a lot about his current mood. She could understand his annoyance. After two hours of having to wait, Leslie had told them that they wouldn't get access to the necessary files. At least not today. Jack had answered with some very unpleasant curses and accusations that made Gwen wish she was as good at appeasing UNIT as Ianto was and had then stormed off. He'd been broody and snappy ever since and he didn't seem likely to lighten up in the near future. "UNIT's going to keep blocking us."

"You don't know that," Gwen replied. "Leslie said that he just needs to work around some red tape and then we can have access to their files."

"Well, they won't get access to ours until we do, that I can tell you," Jack grumbled.

"I can't believe the both of you. There's someone out there killing people and you just care about your power plays?"

"No, I care about these people, Gwen, but I also care about Torchwood. UNIT sees us as some kind of little brother who has to do what they say or else and that won't do anymore. Besides, I don't trust them." He narrowed his eyes. "They're keeping something from us. I know it. Something doesn't add up in all of this. I just don't know what, yet."