"Never seen them before in my life," Jack concluded in a final tone, shrugging his heavy shoulders in boredom at the rest of the team, who were all crowded around him and staring at him expectantly. He was much too hung-over to really commit himself to the task they'd set him. So the Hub had received an external transmission of a frantically-recorded video clip by Torchwood technology - why did that mean that Jack had to try and identify the two people on the screen? In his throbbing head, an angry tiger roared, demanding sleep and silence.

"You sure?" Erin prodded.

Jack sighed resolutely. Why were they so insistent with this? "Yes I'm sure… I don't know them. We should still try and help though." Jack hoped, dimly, that they would pick up on his loose use of the word 'we'.

The couple on the screen looked as if they could do with a helping hand, though Jack wasn't sure if their current situation was the sort of thing Torchwood should be dealing with. Sure, they were in trouble. Sure, they had called out for help. But where were the aliens and the guns and the sparkling pieces of technology? The young couple were suspended in a metal canister in the bay which was gradually filling with water - Jack marvelled at the courage they must have summoned to actually send a message through. But that was the odd thing… how on earth (or in Jack's experience maybe not earth…) had they managed to patch the video through to Torchwood? And how had they known Jack's name?

"But they knew your name?" Bethan frowned, utterly perplexed at how anyone, much less someone who was drowning, had managed to get into Torchwood's mainframe, past her precious, formidable blockade of hardware.

"I know… weird huh?" Jack's voice perked up as he realised that, if he could distract them with the call for help on the screen, perhaps he could catch up on his sleep. "I get around a lot though," his grin beamed at them, and Bethan rolled her eyes, typing rapidly on the computer keyboard. She brought the short message up again, this time with the audio to maximum:

"Jack!" The two voices bellowed in fright, "Jack - where are you? Jack, we're trapped!" At this point the voices split as both of them began to shout different variations of cries for help. The audio streams became gargled as their heads slipped below the water and their sobbing became more and more frantic, until Bethan hissed in distaste and closed the video.

"Weird…" Jack mused, "did you get their names?"

"No," Robert was quick to answer, and even quicker to disguise his outburst under his grim mask of humour, "I think they were a little busy to leave their names and numbers."

"They're Welsh though…" Jack brainstormed, crossing the room to a large board covered with various newspaper clippings. He extracted a dry wipe marker from the box and wrote in the centre of the board 'Drowning Couple'. "Are they a couple, do we think?"

"The guy looks a little bit pretty for her," Gavin scowled, "but are we really going to take on this case?" His voice sounded tired and strained, though a little impatient.

"Do you suggest we leave them? They might not be aliens but they're still in trouble."

"Yeah but…" Robert flung his arms in the air in an elaborated shrug, "why don't we leave it to the police?"

"Y'know, if I didn't know you so well Robert, I'd think you were trying to avoid work," Jack said with a sly smile as he added 'Welsh' to the brainstorm. "Anything else we know about them?"

"They know Torchwood," Erin supplied.

"And Jack," Bethan took her seat beside Gavin at the table.

Gavin sighed dramatically, "they're stuck in the Bay."

"You lot are hopeless," Jack laughed mockingly, "what happen to 'I only take on the best'? Right - what do we know about the two poor souls submerged in water?"

"They wouldn't say no to a few towels?" Robert crowed.

Jack flung the box of board pens at him. "If you aren't gonna take this seriously, I might as well do it on my own. So… The girl seems to be in charge, she was shouting the most. Pretty little thing - it's a shame really - if she wasn't drowning and I wasn't stuck here with you… And the guy interests me, there's just something about him… Another shame - if he wasn't drowning and I wasn't stuck here with you…" He chuckled at the others, who rolled their eyes characteristically.

"D'you think they're married?" Bethan tipped her head on one side, looking intently at the frozen image on the screen of the two sufferers clutching at each other in desperation.

"I dunno," Robert said scathingly, "why don't you add it to the list of questions we'd like to ask them?"

"All right!" Erin snapped, "there's no need to go off on her like that!"

"People, people!" Jack interrupted, glaring at them in turn, "how about we get back to work? Bethan, play the audio again, this time filter out any background noise - get rid of the sounds of the water."

She played the modified sound clip again, and Jack's brow furrowed in concentration as he listened.

"There!" His eyes widened theatrically and he clutched Gavin's shoulder with the shock of realisation, "play that bit again!"

Sure enough, he heard it again, just as clearly as the first time. While the unfortunate woman was gurgling out her deafening cry for Jack's assistance, her possible-husband sank below the water level and clutched at her for help, shouting her name as he did so:

"Gwen!"

"Gwen…" Jack repeated dumbly, feeling as if he had missed something. His brain jolted uncomfortably, as if struggling to remember something important and yet unable to.

"Gwen?" Erin repeated acidly, wrinkling her nose, "she's Welsh then…"

"We knew that already."

Jack shushed Robert's remark sharply as that name swung back and forth in his head, like a never-ending pendulum. It felt heavy and potent, as if it should mean something incredibly important that he couldn't grasp…

"Jack?" Erin said softly from beside: he hadn't even noticed her get out of her chair. She touched his arm gently and he flinched at her hands, as if she were a dangerous stranger… "Jack? Does that name mean something to you?"

Did it? He wasn't sure… Perhaps, a long time ago, so distant that he could hardly remember, he had known someone by that name? But then again…

He wrote the four letters slowly in red ink, considering them. It was like trying to recall the memory of a childhood friend, someone whom he had forgotten long ago…

"No." He flashed them all his lopsided grin and clapped his hands together loudly, "but let's get on with some work, shall we team?"

Across the Bay, suspended in 18 cubic metres of water, Gwen Cooper was contemplating what would kill her first: the water or the rage at the Clan of masquerading aliens. She silently hoped she could survive the water long enough to kill at least one of those impostors… Now she was treading water with her arm around Ianto's unconscious body, making mental note after mental note to personally kill Jack Harkness at least a hundred times for what he was putting them through.

With an ominous glugging sound the water level rose again and she clutched the side of the canister with her free hand to remain above water. The painful knot in her stomach tightened when she realised that there was only one foot of space above them, one foot of air, one more foot until…