Disclaimer: I own nothing - RTD and the BBC own the Torchwood playground, and happy-rea is kind enough to allow me to have Lucy join me as I play in it.

By the time Ianto made it up to the main level of the Hub, the rest of the team were gone. He started to head toward the lift that led to the tourist office, but stopped to see if the monitors showed what the team would be dealing with - what support they'd expect from him when they came back.

On Tosh's screen he could see the CCTV footage of the plass - more specifically, of the waterfall, and the stone that doubled as Jack's personal favorite invisible lift. There was a figure, apparently human, lying half on and half off the lift. As Ianto watched, the rest of the team came into frame. They were walking "in formation" - side by side as if they were carrying a banner in a parade. Ianto thought it was bloody pretentious - but knowing Jack, that was probably the point. Impress the shit out of people so no one noticed that the great Torchwood 3 - outside the government, beyond the U.N. - was just a handful of field operatives led by… but no, thinking like that might lead to speaking like that, and with Lisa, he just couldn't risk it.

When Jack and the rest gathered in a circle around the crumpled figure (it had been too much to hope they'd be gone for a good long time - no, they'd barely even stepped out the front door), Ianto decided he'd better see what was going on. He dialed the CCTV footage back, watching as the collapsed figure was dragged up in a strange reversal of a slump, then disappeared. He played it forwards again. Almost as soon as the person had finished materializing (directly on top of the lift), it collapsed to the ground - apparently in a dead faint.

He reset the footage to the live feed - and watched as the figure sat up suddenly, reaching up and sweeping the hoodie from off her head. It was a young woman - surely no older than Ianto himself, with long dark hair pulled back into a plait. She looked around at the faces gathered around her - and Ianto could sworn that what he saw on her face was… recognition. Recognition and delight.

Ianto swept out past the cog doorway and into the lift, which led to the tourist office - which he was SUPPOSED to be manning. Hopefully the others would assume he had been in the other room when they had made their way out through the office, not wasting time when there was rift activity to investigate - but it would be the height of foolishness to assume they wouldn't notice if he weren't there on their return. At least, that was what he told himself as he hurried up the stone corridor. What he told himself all the way until he opened the office door and stepped out onto the plass himself. Perhaps he was, in fact, a little more than curious about their latest visitor.

As he made his way along, he heard what could only be the girl - an English voice, rather nice actually.

"...specials and a bunch of classics. Torchwood 1-3."

Ianto raised an eyebrow - this girl knew of Torchwood? That was unusual. As he came within view, he noticed her holding a notebook and a pen out towards Tosh. Meanwhile, Jack was rummaging through a bag that was shaped like a funny black pepperpot… wait, he recognized that from the archives. That was a dalek!

Ianto froze.

SHIT! Why the HELL did that girl have a bag that resembled… And why wasn't Jack reacting? Ianto was scared enough of them - he hadn't actually seen any of them at Canary Wharf, being a little too busy trying to save Lisa from the wreckage - but if the cybermen were afraid of them, they must be bad. He'd found out everything he could about them, after he'd joined Torchwood 3, and what he knew what terrifying! But Jack? Jack had walked in on Ianto's research one day, and the look in his eyes when he'd seen what was on the screen - though he hadn't said anything, Ianto was certain that the Captain knew more than anyone just how terrifying these creatures must be. So why the hell didn't he react to this girl's bag? Unless what was inside was even worse?

And yet the girl didn't seem hostile - just confused. Cautiously, Ianto started toward the team again. He saw her pull back her notebook - apparently she wasn't going to get whatever she wanted from Tosh after all - and looked back at Jack.

"Listen, if you don't want to give me an autograph, that's fine, but can I ask one question?"

An autograph? Now he really wished there were a microphone at the waterfall, so he could have figured out what was going on earlier, he was obviously missing something here.

Jack shrugged. "Go for it."

"Why are you filming with Suzie? Are you doing a prequel?"

Her voice got more animated by the second as she continued.

"Because I personally would love to know more of Suzie's role in Torchwood. Plus you get to see more of the others, we all missed them. Especially Ianto, it would mean that Ianto was alive."

Ianto froze once more. She couldn't see him - there was no way she could see him; not when all he could see of her was her long dark hair framed by that soft hoodie. So why did she know his name? Why would she be so happy that seeing Suzie might mean that he, Ianto, was alive?

He tried desperately to think of anything they'd encountered before, anything he might have filed into the archives, that could possibly explain how a stranger could possibly have come through the rift already knowing, not only of Jack - that could easily be explained, Jack would shag anyone he thought pretty enough - not even only of Torchwood (maybe she was connected with Torchwood Four, or maybe something had come through in Scotland and Archie had been experimenting…), but Suzie and… and himself.

She turned to look at each person in turn - he blankly registered that Jack had probably said something to her - and then she turned around, and looked directly at Ianto. Directly at him. And for a shortest hair of a moment, he thought he saw her freeze, thought he saw her eyes light up, before she turned back to Jack.

"You are fucking kidding me! This is one of those hidden camera things to see what people will believe?"

Jack's gaze resting on the newcomer was as intense as Ianto had ever seen it.

"Suzie, take her inside" he ordered, not breaking eye contact "She knows too much, and I want to know where those DVDs came from."

DVDs? Oh, that must have been what Jack had been looking at in her bag. They must be really unusual if the Captain hadn't even noticed the image of his worst nightmare (though Ianto had once joked that he wasn't sure what could possibly be so terrifying about a pepperpot whose primary weapons were a blaster that looked like an egg beater (and couldn't even be aimed without turning the entire creature), and a toilet plunger. Jack hadn't even cracked a smile, simply said that he hoped none of them ever found out)

The girl had said something else, something about buying the DVDs at a shop, when she stopped again, and once more looked around at all their faces.

"You're not joking, are you? Doctor Owen Harper? Toshiko Sato? Suzie Costello? Ianto Jones?"

Once again, it almost seemed to Ianto that she had to tear her gaze from him to look back at Jack.

"Captain Jack Harkness, the Face of Boe?"

Ianto could see that Jack was stunned into silence - whatever the "face of Boe" was, it apparently meant something significant to the Captain.

While Jack stood stunned, the girl suddenly grabbed the DVDs out of his hand - though he still held the bag in his other one.

"You can't see these!"

She looked around at the entire team, panic in her face - more panic than he'd seen before, though he hadn't been up on the plass for everything. But then she paused for a second, considering.

"Well, Jack can see series one and two, bits of - but no way can you see any more than that!"

"Says who?"

Jack had recovered enough to question everything - what was new?

"Who do you think?"

The girl raised an eyebrow at Jack - if Ianto didn't know better, he'd swear that she knew Jack well and shared a secret with him.

Suzie broke in - apparently tired of being completely ignored. Ianto supposed that was something that could happen if you weren't used to it.

"Why can't we see them?"

The girl seemed to surrender herself to a fit of hysterics.

"Spoilers!"

She didn't seem to be able to stop giggling. To be honest, this was the reaction that made the most sense to Ianto - he'd never understood how people could go through sudden, unexpected life changes and take it coolly - or even more incomprehensibly, get a rush from the strangeness and the danger.

Jack seemed to be staring past her, completely unaware of her hysterics.

"How do you know those names? No one here knows that name!"

The girl took one more deep breath, and looked around the team one more time.

"This really is real, isn't it? Fucking rift."

Suddenly she turned almost completely white, and collapsed to the ground.

"SHIT!" Owen blurted out.

The doctor jumped into action as she collapsed, but not in time to keep her from landing once again on the pavement.

Jack visibly came to a decision.

"We need to continue this story inside. Get her into the Hub and into one of the cells. Keep the stuff in her bag but don't look at it."

Owen bent over the girl, and easily lifted her up into a fireman's carry.

He looked worried.

"She's too light, Jack."

Jack just nodded toward the tourist office, and Owen led the way, carrying her into the Hub while the rest of the team followed behind - no longer, Ianto noticed, in that annoying "formation"