10.
Ianto found a comfortable position on the hard chair and looked at John, who was digging into the pizza. John smiled at him. "You didn't stay because you like me."
"No," Ianto replied, "but next to Jack, you are the only person available to me who knows about male pregnancy."
"That I do," John said. "But why don't you just ask your precious boyfriend about it?"
"Because he isn't my boyfriend anymore." Ianto held John's eyes when he looked up in surprise.
John put down the slice of pizza he'd been devouring and stepped closer to the glass. "Does that mean he's actually available again?"
Ianto pulled a face. "Must be good news for you." During his last visit, John had joked and teased but Ianto had seen beneath his casual mask and found somebody still deeply attached to Jack. He wondered if he would end up the same way: always looking for a sign that Jack still wanted him and always failing. One more reason to leave.
John chose to ignore Ianto's last comment, since he just said, "I'm surprised, though. The two of you seemed to work." He narrowed his eyes. "Did he leave you because of the pregnancy?"
"No," Ianto answered, "before we found out about that. And it was more of a … consensual break-up." He shook his head and smiled bitterly. "Why am I even telling you this?"
"Because we're members of the same club now", John answered.
Ianto snorted. "Unlikely." John stared at him until Ianto ducked his head. John's gaze was unsettling and made him nervous. He seemed to be looking for something. But what it was, Ianto wasn't quite sure. "Just tell me everything you know."
"Are you sure ready for this?" John asked. "Male pregnancies are hard. You shouldn't go through it alone."
"I don't have a choice," Ianto replied. "I want this baby."
John smiled, then he cleared his throat. "What you need now is a lot of sleep, quiet and food." He winked. "Pregnant men tend to eat more than pregnant women."
"I've already noticed," Ianto answered. He rubbed his belly.
John's grin turned crooked. "Don't worry, Eye Candy, you're still gorgeous."
Ianto looked up at him with a small smile and then asked the question that had been running around his mind since John had left them the last time. "Who's Gray?"
xxx
Jack and Gwen returned to the Hub exhausted and without new information. Jack sent Owen out to get dinner for everyone and hurried down into the vaults. He hadn't been able to focus on the files anymore after Owen's call and the mention of Sophia's name. He hadn't heard anything about her for over a hundred years, ever since he'd left the Time Agency. Sophia had been Jack's partner before John came along and she'd preferred to work with another colleague – Rick Carson – who she'd fallen in love with. She'd been good, very good, one of the best Time Agents there was.
And then, she and Rick had worked near the Rift on Taonas 5 and she'd been taken away by it. Just like that, she was gone and no one had ever heard of her again.
Then, one day, their wrist straps, programmed to pick up activity from hers, had sounded the alarm. They'd tracked the signal to Earth, 1961, but all they'd found had been an empty field and tyre tracks. They'd tried to locate her wrist strap but it had been switched off. The same thing had happened several times and then … silence. Rick had run himself ragged trying to find her and then thrown himself into work, climbing the ranks faster than anyone else. The Time Agency had been Jack's – and all their – lives, but it had been Rick's destiny. Jack didn't know if Rick had been involved in the decision to take two years of Jack's memory, but he'd left the Time Agency either way, unable to trust them anymore. He still didn't know what had happened in these two years.
Jack opened the door to the level on which John was imprisoned, just to hear John say, "... has been looking for Gray for a long time. Completely broke him."
And just like that, Jack saw red. He slammed the door, seeing Ianto startle violently. With big strides, he was beside him in a manner of seconds. "My office, now," he said, his eyes fixed on John who was looking at him with something akin to fear, saying, "Listen, Jack, I didn't-"
"Shut up!" he snapped and looked down at Ianto who was staring at him with confusion. "My office … now."
Ianto didn't protest, apparently seeing that Jack was livid. "Right," he muttered and got up.
Jack waited until he was out of the door before he kicked the chair aside and whirled around to John. "I trusted you!"
John raised his hands. "Jack-"
"I confided in you! And you've got nothing better to do than to gossip about it?"
"I wasn't gossiping!" John yelled.
"Sounded like it!"
"I didn't tell him anything! The only thing I said was that Gray was very important to you, that you've been looking for him for a long time and that you couldn't find him. I told him to ask you about it himself." He hit his palms against the plexiglass. "Damn it, Jack, we agreed! We promised each other. Do you think I'd break that promise?"
With a push of a button on his wrist strap, Jack opened the door. He wrapped his fingers into John's jacket and slammed him against the wall. "You said you found him?"
John stared at him, his fingers curling around Jack's braces. "I lied."
Jack slammed him against the wall again. "That is a lie. I can always tell when you lie."
"Not always."
"Right now, I can."
John released a defeated breath. "I lost him. He … ran away."
Jack shook his head. "I don't believe you."
"You better," John answered calmly. "It's the truth. I would have been back sooner – with him – if I could have been. I'm trying to find him, though. Got people looking for him, a trace … I'm sorry."
Jack took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Whatever." He let go of John and took a step back, still keeping a cautious eye on him. He shook his head. "How did you get into my base?"
"Right, forgot to mention it before I left ..." John grinned. "I took a retina scan from the pretty brunette. Gwen. Used it to open the garage door."
Jack frowned. "Great. Now we have to change that lock." He sighed deeply. "So … what about Sophia?"
"Didn't you notice?" John asked in confusion. "Her vortex manipulator was active again."
Jack stared at him in disbelief. "But it's been years."
"I know. We followed the trace-"
"We?"
"Rick, Kenya, Lance and I."
"The old clique," Jack said.
"Except for you," John replied somberly, "and Sophia."
Jack didn't react to that. Of course he regretted losing some of his friendships when he left the agency but he didn't regret resigning. "My vortex manipulator was damaged a long time ago," he explained. "I lost Sophia's data. Can't trace her anymore. You're the only one who still shows up."
"Well, we traced her back here to Cardiff, 21st century. But, just as back then, we couldn't find her. Her manipulator was deactivated again to avoid being found."
"Alright," Jack said. "What has that got to do with me?"
"The only thing near the point of origin was your car."
Jack frowned. "The Torchwood SUV?"
"On a parking lot for a store called IKEA."
Jack's eyes widened. "Impossible."
"No, I saw it with my own eyes. Of course, I didn't tip the others off-"
"No, I mean … I might actually know what happened to Sophia." With that Jack turned away, closed the cell and ran up towards the main Hub.
The last thing he heard from John was him calling, "Hey! The least you could do is let me out!"
Then the heavy door to the cells slammed shut. Jack sprinted down the corridor and up the steps, piecing the new information together with what they already knew. The Golems were sent to the future to scavenge technology, sent with a device they hadn't been able to identify because UNIT was making a secret out of it. It had to be Sophia's vortex manipulator.
He stormed into the main Hub, causing his team to turn to him in surprise. He zeroed in on Tosh. "Forget about hacking into the Horizon files. Sophia Foster will be your priority for now. I want every file her name gets mentioned in."
"If she was part of Horizon, I won't be able to find her."
"You will," Jack answered, "because she wasn't part of Horizon, she was a prisoner. Maybe UNIT, but I think it was Torchwood, so look through our database as well."
Gwen frowned. "Who was she?"
"A Time Agent," Jack answered. "A female Time Agent. And Horizon might have used her vortex manipulator to send the Golems through time."