A/N: Ok, as I'm very careless with my betas, I have lost them all, so no still not beta-ed. I've been tired while finishing it, and tried to give it a basic once over edit, but please feel free to point out anything blaringly obvious that you find and think needs fixing.

It was supposed to be the last chapter but it was running out on me and it was becoming too long, so I had to split it in two. Next chapter will be the last, and that's a promise.

Steve walks warily down the street,
with the brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet,
machine guns ready to go
Are you ready, Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone

Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

Ianto had thought he was too late when he jumped in front of Rhiannon, but he managed to make it just before the Santa's weapon went off. He could see the flash of the ray and hear the loud bang. If he was feeling fanciful he could imagine that he could hear Jack's voice calling desperately his name. He wasn't someone to indulge too much into fanciful, romantic dreams, however, so he was sure that Jack had shouted something, probably his name, with a warning rather than desperation.

Ianto closed his eyes against the brightness of the weapon's blaze and expected to feel something when all ended. At least he hoped that he would feel something, he really didn't want to just fade away, not even noticing that he had died.

A deep breath.

Then another.

A few seconds passed. Nothing! Then he heard the shattering of splintered wood and something sharp glazing his cheek painfully. He could hear the rapid fire from the pair of guns from the others. Two from the Torchwood team, it was synchronised, like some kind of deadly well-rehearsed melody. Then everything fell so quiet, it was unreal.

A heartbeat!

People around him started shouting and Rhiannon was shaking him trying to get him out of what she had probably thought of as a shock.

He opened his eyes.

Gwen had thrown the biggest chunk that was left of the table when the first ray of the gun had shattered it and the wood had taken the burn of what Ianto was sure was heading his way. A piece of it had broken off and glazed Ianto's cheek, but compared to what could have happened the sting of the wound of his cheek was only a little inconvenience.

"What the hell is that?" Rhiannon shouted next to him, breaking his shock. In what felt like hours, but it was only mere seconds, until he could react, Jack and Gwen had recovered from their surprise and had taken down the drone Santas. He was still standing there, shaken and enduring his sister giving him the third degree about lying for the content on his work, and bringing guns in her house, while everything whent still and quiet.

"Is Mica ok?" Ianto heard Rhiannon and Johnny ask at the same time, but before he could react, he was swept in a crashing hug by Jack.

"For a moment there, I thought that was it. I thought, I'd lost you," Jack said and kissed him. It wasn't a romantic, beautiful kiss where everything else stops. It wasn't the kind of a kiss that inspires nice romantic music, or rose petals to fall around. This kiss happened only in the movies and fairy tales. No, the kiss was wet, messy and sloppy, but Ianto didn't really mind. Not until he realised where they were standing.

Ianto felt himself being pulled out of Jack's arms and a moment after that Rhiannon had slapped the Captain.

"Oi, that's my brother you are snoggin', mate," she said angrily with hands planted on her hips. It remained Ianto of himself when he was arguing with Jack.

It probably did remain Jack of the same because his only reaction was to grin at Rhiannon and then promptly snog her too. This time it was Johnny who pulled Jack away from his sister and punched him squarely in the jaw.

"An' that's my wife you are snoggin'" Johnny muttered. Ianto was grateful for the small miracle that Jack didn't take up on snogging Johnny as well. However bad the shooting and destruction of his sister's house were, Ianto was sure that the horror of seeing Jack snogging Johnny would have been the one thing to break him.

The little respite they had amid the chaos that had descended around them was cut off by his aunt Aldyth and Grandma Brenda's shouting one over the other.

"Who is this, man?"

"What happened?"

Now, when Ianto was finally pulled out of his shock and thoughts he notices what was really going on around him. Rhiannon's house looked as if it was in the middle of a war zone with its furniture upturned, shattered glass and wood pieces scattered around the dining room, but the worst of all was the panicked shouting of his relatives and the crying and screaming of children. David seemed to have lost all his bravado after the reality of the gun shots and other weapons, but still looked as if he was holding much better than some of the adults around, certainly better than Grandma Brenda. David was looking around himself with wide open eyes and awed disbelieve, although quite a lot scared, still he didn't make a sound. Maybe too scared to even move? Rhiannon was crying silently in relieve, hugging Mica to herself and hoarding Johnny and David out of the room.

Baby Nick was screaming his lungs out in Andy's arms, Andy was grinning from ear to ear nodding and most likely contemplating the merits, pro and against saying, "aliens, I knew it!" to Miranda. Possibly the only thing stopping him from doing so was his wife's absence from the room.

"What we need is a nice cup of tea to calm us down," aunt Aldyth said suddenly over the others' cries.

"A cup of tea... The world is going to shit and you want a cup of tea?" Johnny sounded annoyed with the woman.

"Ah, you people…" Jack said grinning at her with enthusiasm. "Aren't you afraid? It's aliens…" He lifted a questioning eyebrow.

"Of course I am scared, Captain," Aldyth answered while taking a cup and proceeding to make herself some tea. "But I am also British! If I have to go down, I will do it with grace! There is no style in running around screaming. Then again what do you Americans know about style and grace?"

Ianto frowned at her but didn't try to stand up for his captain, not that he was an American anyway, besides if he felt offended, Ianto was sure that Jack could take care of himself. He helped Aldyth make the tea and distribute it around while Gwen tried to calm down the guests in the house, and Jack was visibly plotting defensive strategies.

"We still need to move. As I said these robots were only the pilot fish before the big, bad guys come," Jack said looking around the room for clues of what to use to secure the room. It the end they had camped in the kitchen, no need to get upstairs; there was no guarantee that it would be any safer than either room on the ground floor.

"So we are to expect the sharks now?" Gwen knew there was no need to ask, but she did anyway just to clarify.

"Or dinosaurs," Ianto suggested with a shrug.

"Not helping Ianto," Rhiannon grumbled.

"Both could be right," Jack answered not bothered to reassure or calm down the rest of the residents in the house. He was now completely occupied with the defences and his team, and so disregarded all other mundane concerns of the civilians around him. "The problem here is what is coming?"

He turned around and looked pointedly at Gwen who was sitting next to Brenda, holding her hand and trying to reassure her that everything will be alright, thus leaving her PDA on the kitchen counter unattended.

"Anything on the Rift readings?" Jack asked her pointedly. She looked sheepish for a moment and then picked the PDA up checking it out.

"Nothing new on the Rift detector," Gwen said. "Whatever it was either came earlier with another rift activity or just landed here. So, either way it's been around for a few days at least because there's nothing on the proximity alarm as well, not for today."

"So it's been here, but we didn't see it," Jack said to himself. "Ianto, get a lap top, this house is bound to have one, and ring it up to the mainframe. See if you can pull up the last few rift activities and proximity alarms. Any sight there was more than one energy signature that we missed, dig deep as you can."

Ianto nodded and carefully went around the ground floor of the house in search of a lap top. The one he found wasn't ideal, it was a bit old, a bit beaten up-and was that sticky toffee fingers on the keyboard- but it was a working computer and was going to do the job. He kept it firmly clasped to his chest and carefully picked his way over broken and upturned furniture. Now that everyone was in the kitchen and the dining room was quiet it looked even more eerily like a war zone, or a zombie apocalypse. Amongst the upturned furniture, pieces of broken wood and glass, Ianto could see the remands of Santa robots looking like grotesque dead soldiers. Shuddering, Ianto turned around and tried to keep his mind on the fact that they were just robots, and everyone that mattered was still alive and physically at least unharmed. He stumbled over something large and solid on his way, a glass rolled over producing a loud noise in the quiet room. Ianto froze in his steps for a moment holding his breath. He did not dare to even exhale as if expecting something to jump out and attack him from the shadows of the ruined room.

Nothing happened, which encouraged Ianto to breathe deeply and start to move again. He made it back to the kitchen where he put the laptop down on the counter and immediately started to connect it to the Hub's mainframe.

"What kind of a civil servants do what you lot are doing right now?" Rhiannon asked. She sounded scared but tried to cover it by showing an annoyed front.

"I could tell you, but I have to kill you after that," Jack said grinning.

Rhiannon gaped at him shocked, and then turned on Ianto.

"He's joking, right?" she asked.

Ianto just nodded distractedly not averting his attention from his task on the computer long enough to answer his sister. It wasn't too hard to get the lap top connected to the Hub, in fact knowing the right passwords and using the right pathways through satellites he could connect to it from everywhere. Of course there were obstacles, Tosh wouldn't allow just anyone to access the information without a firewall, but as long as he knew exactly what he was doing he could get the connection from virtually anywhere on virtually any computer. The computer hissed, crackled, and then a few sparks flew out of it and stung Ianto's hand. He yelped in surprised shock and recoiled from the laptop, sucking on his fingers and glaring at it as if it had verbally offended him. The screen become blank and then the lap top switched off as if plugged out.

"What, happened?" Jack asked watching the computer screen with annoyance. "Can you still get anything out of it?"

"Oi, this thing just nearly electrocuted my brother, and you are more concerned if he can get you what you want," Rhiannon shouted angrily at him. "Do you care so much for everyone under your command?"

"The world could be in danger, and he is alive," Jack stated without bothering to answer more clearly.

Ianto approached the lap top cautiously as if expecting it to bite him the moment he got up close, but it stayed dead. He poked it carefully, but nothing happened, sighing he turned to Jack and Gwen.

"It's dead, caput, burnt out," he announced.

Jack looked back at Rhiannon.

"Do you have any other computers?"

"What so you can destroy another one and risk killing my brother?" she asked.

"For the record, your brother was the one who destroyed your lap top not me."

Rhiannon sighed, "Up in David's room."

"Where is Miranda?" asked Andy as if just now getting out of his stupor and not even noticing the topic of the conversation.

Aldyth looked around confused; Ianto and Jack just shrugged keeping their eyes on Ianto's PDA.

"Oh, no, she is all alone out there, with an alien we are still to find out," Gwen said, just at the moment in which Miranda came back in the kitchen.

She looked around the room noticing the worried faces of her relatives and one of Ianto's colleagues and took Nick from Andy's arms.

"I'm sorry I needed the loo," she said.

Everything was so mad around her Miranda thought, it was surreal. She had never, ever imagined that the world would go to shit in front of her eyes. And even then, if she ever thought that something disastrous would happen, she had always imagined it to be a natural disaster, as draught, great flooding or something like this. Even in her wildest dreams Miranda had never imagined it would be aliens. Or that her husband would be almost trilled to meet one, or that her cousin will be one of the men in black spooky people. It never occurred to her that her life could be anything but completely ordinary. She just knew that she shouldn't have come back to Wales. She had a good excuse now with Nick just being born at that. But as her uncle Huw liked to say when he lost at his horse bets, 'no need to cry over spilled milk', only it was easier said than done when you are confronted with robots shooting Star Wars like weapons and objects flying around.

Still despite all the hell around her she needed the toiled. So while everyone else was panicking and retreating towards the kitchen, she pushed baby Nick in her husband's arms and darted upstairs to the toilet. She hoped that she would make it before whatever this captain guy was expecting to come and destroy Earth. Dying in the toilet didn't sound all that dignified, although, Elvis had…And now she was just giving it to the panic and becoming very silly.

She did make it back out of the toilet and almost to the door of Mica's room when something ambushed her. It stank of something rank and she was almost glad that she couldn't see the face. If the smell was that awful, she didn't want to see the looks. She'd never seen an alien, if that was an alien, but she didn't really want to see one either. Miranda preferred to stay oblivious. She wanted to scream, tried it even, but before she could make a sound other than whimper, she was gagged, tied up and then thrown unceremoniously back into the bathroom.

"You needed the toilet?" asked Jack incredulously. "We are on the hunt of, and hide out from, an unknown and possibly very dangerous alien. And you needed the toilet?"

Miranda didn't seem too bothered by having being addresses by the Captain who was clearly trying to look intimidating. She only shrugged and passes him without a second glance. Reaching her husband she sat near him and took a sip from the mug near him didn't pick up the baby however. It was a bit strange but with all the stress of the day no one paid her any heed. The baby started squirming in Andy's arms and soon become more agitated and whimpering.

Andy looked from the distraught baby in his arms to his shocked and unresponsive wife. Usually she would be picking up and shushing the baby right after the first whimper had left Nikki's lips. And gods help everyone that might have caused his distress or was in her way when she tried to comfort him. Right now, however, she was looking at their son as if he was some ugly slimy creature.

"I think he is hungry love," Andy said trying to get his wife interested into her baby. "When was the last time you fed him? Before dinner?"

Miranda looked at him blankly, as if she didn't know what she was supposed to do with a baby. Her movements were stiff and slow, as if she was unused to move in this strength of gravity, or as if she was in severe shock. Andy had heard of mothers rejecting their babies in the first months after birth, but Miranda had never, until now, shown any sights of anything like this happening. On the contrary, she was very loving, and at times overly protective mother. He held baby Nick to her, but Miranda just recoiled away.

"What is that thing?" she asked him. It shocked him. He knew she was in shock but this was beyond anything he could have expected. No shock could amount to reaction like this, no shock could excuse a mother ignoring, rejecting or not recognising her hungry and crying baby.

"What do you mean love?" Andy asked.

"It means she isn't who you think she is."

It was the brash American captain who had answered him instead of his wife. Andy didn't even know who this man is, and usually wouldn't even trust someone like this, but after all that was happening, he looked like the man who knew what to do when everyone else was panicking. So naturally they followed him, and Andy followed everyone else. Like nice little pack of sheep.

"What do you mean not my wife?" he asked anyway, just in case. "That's my wife, I know her."

"And I'm telling you. This isn't your life," the captain insisted.

"And I should listen to you why?" Andy asked, "Because you are some all-important, government idiot?"

"Nope, you should listen to him because he says so." Ianto said. When everyone turned to look at him, he just shrugged before adding, "He is never going to explain even to us."

So what? They were expecting him to just hand his wife over to the man and not ask questions? Andy looked at him frowning, he was a simple man, give him a wife, a kid and a pizza in front of the TV, and he was settled and happy. And right now this cocky stranger was threatening his wife, he might have been enthusiastic to learn about aliens, but he didn't like it mixed up with his family. Right now that man was waving a gun at his wife's head.

"Back off," Andy stepped between Miranda and the gun. "We are not your enemy here, what is going to happen if we all start waving guns at each other?"

"She is not your wife!" Jack growled at him. "This thing is a shape shifter."

"You have no prove," Andy shouted at Jack, then turned to Ianto in desperation. "Ianto, she is your cousin, a family…You can't just let him threat her, he has no prove, just some insane ideas."

Ianto looked at Andy with condolences apparent on his face, he looked that he didn't want to be the one telling Andy the very, very bad news but had no choice. Andy backed away a little but still stood between Miranda and Jack Harkness, he wasn't going to get his word on face value, just because Harkness claimed to know about all this stuff and Ianto appeared to work for him.

"I'm sorry Andy, but Jack is right. She isn't Miranda." Ianto lifted his hand to stop another protest from Andy. "You saw how Miranda reacted when I made Nick cry. Do you really think that in whatever shock she is she will be that indifferent to him?"

Andy opened his mouth wanting to agree with Ianto, but closed it again without making a sound. If he agrees it would mean that his wife was somewhere in danger, or even death and he wouldn't just accept that and move on.

"So that's it? We agree that my wife is dead and something has her body, and let this big flashing hero shoot her?" Andy spat. "Well I will not! She has a family, her baby needs her! So you just get that thing out of her and bring my wife back!"

Andy made a few steps towards pass Ianto and towards Jack and Miranda, no the alien…yeah, whatever they say he wasn't giving up on his wife. And Ianto be damned, he never liked anyone in the family too much anyway. When was the last time Ianto had visited any of them if it wasn't Christmas?

"I'm really sorry but it doesn't work like this," Jack said. Andy had to give it to the guy, he wasn't a coward, and he had the nerve to look Andy square in the eyes while telling him that he was going to shoot his wife. "This isn't your wife's body, it's a shape shifter."

"For all we know, Miranda is already dead," Ianto supplied in support of his boss.

Andy turned back to Ianto sharply and pointed angrily at him.

"Don't you dare, don't you dare… Ianto Jones. You don't get to decide her fate!"

Gwen had abandoned the PDA and approached Andy placing a sympathetic hand on his back. She always preferred the human contact before the cold devices anyway, and it wasn't like the PDA was shedding any more light into the situation. Ianto could take it and work with it later. She rubbed Andy's back and whispered some soft nonsense assurances. When he finally registered her there he let himself fall into a nearby chair.

"It's ok," Gwen said softly. "Let Jack do his job. Just because this thing is impersonating Miranda, it doesn't mean that she is dead. You will be surprised how many species need the real person to be alive in order to keep the appearance intact. "

"Really?" Andy asked hopefully.

"Really," Gwen smiled. "I'm sure we will find her soon enough. I promise you, I will not give up until I find her alive and well."

"You can't really promise something like this," Andy protested. "What if you don't?"

"Yes, I can! And I will!"

He nodded exhausted, just glad that someone felt confident and was ready to take care of him in all this madness.

"Now, I'm sure your wife will be ready for any situation when you are travelling and will have more options to feed the baby than her breast," Gwen prompted Andy to turn his attention back to Nick and his cries of hunger. "What about bottled milk? Did she keep in bottles some of her breast milk?"

Andy looked at Gwen stunned and then suddenly started into a motion prompted by having a new purpose. He went to the fridge and took out a baby bottle with milk.

"She always pumps some for the road because she hates breastfeeding on the go," Andy said and held the bottle triumphantly. He picked up Nick and set on feeding him.

"See? Here you go then, Nick's all sorted," Gwen smiled softly.

From that moment things happened very fast and most people in the room couldn't really be sure which event preceded the other; they could have very well been happening at the same time. Still the human brain had to process them as a sequence. Gwen was still smiling at Andy and playing with Nick's fingers when the shape shifter abandoned the image of Miranda and turned into its natural form. Ianto tied to step between it and Gwen, but it was faster and took Gwen by her neck, squeezing the air out of her throat. Jack almost squeezed the trigger, but refrained himself because he couldn't get a clear shot. He was in danger of hitting either Gwen or Ianto. The rest of the room's occupants, the ones who weren't experienced in aliens and life or death situations started to scream in panic. Andy shouted for Gwen, Rhiannon- Ianto's name, and the rest just for the sake of it.

"Let go of her! Don't you dare to hurt her!" Ianto's deep voice was heard above everyone else. His face a mask of fury and his eyes locked into Gwen's with the silent promise that he will do anything to get her out of it alive. "What do you want?"

Gwen was trying to say something but could only make spluttering noises and fight for breath, trying to talk was not beneficial so she had to give up on it and to try to get as much oxygen into her deprived lungs as she could through the squeezed windpipe in her neck. She could feel her head becoming fuzzy and her thoughts muddled. She spluttered again and chocked in vain trying to gulp an inexistent breath. Gwen face was starting to become blue and a few blood vessels in her eyes had popped colouring the white parts in red. Ianto brushed his hands through his hair in desperation and looked from Gwen in the shape shifter's grip to Jack. His eyes were pleading with Jack to do something before Gwen had suffocated. He hated it when they had to kill a living creature, but right now he couldn't care less for the shape shifter. He wished he had his weapon with him, because if Jack didn't shoot soon he would.

The creature didn't answer Ianto's question, no one knew if it was because it couldn't talk, because it didn't speak English, or just because it didn't want to answer. It didn't release Gwen from its grip. There was a shot and the shape shifter fell down dragging Gwen with it. No one seemed able to react in any way, not even to panic after the shock of the gunshot. But it looked that everyone was already too numb by the continuous shocks of destruction, gunshots, running and aliens. Everyone looked at Jack's direction staring at his still smocking gun with wide open eyes.

"Gwen, you alright?" Jack asked.

Gwen coughed, moaned and tried to get up weakly but her limbs seemed to have gone very heavy and sluggish. Ianto lifted the ugly creature off her and helped her up pulling her in his arms. He held her there secure until she could breathe almost normally again and steady herself on her feet. He knew that Gwen hated to appear as the damsel in distress, so the moment she seemed to regain some of her strength, Ianto released her.

"She seems ok." He helped her to reach the kitchen counter and prepared her tea to help her throat recover from the damage. He was sure that she would be feeling it all sore and achy.

"So that's it then?" Rhiannon asked finally voicing everyone's thoughts. "All sorted? A bit easy isn't it? I though they will want some world domination or somethin'"

"Yeah, that's exactly it," Jack told her very serious. "It was too easy, I'm afraid this shape shifter was only a decoy."

"What so that wasn't the worse?"

"Nope," Ianto interjected in the conversation. "Because that would've been too easy."