Over the past couple of days, rift activity has picked up from its lull and we've been out on call more than we were in the whole of the last two weeks! In just 48 hours we've seen: a werewolf (and it was an actual werewolf not just a police 'werewolf' aka Weevil), some sort amphibian from Raxacoricofallapatorius and an Ood – non red-eye luckily. Hearing Jack trying to pronounce the name 'Raxacoricofallapatorius' was rather hilarious indeed; he is really quite adorable when he's all flustered and angry with himself.

Tosh and I were partnered up to watch the rift last night which was fun as usual; it seems like ages since I've worked with Tosh. Whilst Jack was… away… we all stuck together for the most part and since he's been back I've been paired with Owen a lot, Jack reckons I'm a good influence on him. To be honest I think it's more likely that Owen's a bad influence on me; Gwen commented that I've been getting ever so sarcastic recently…

Anyway, we decided not to bother leaving the hub - if this pattern of high level rift activity continued tonight then we would only be returning swiftly anyway. So we ordered in a pizza to the hub, and decided to have a good catch up for as long as the rift would allow us.

The Captain refused to join us for dinner which didn't surprise me as he's been ignoring me since our date 3 days ago or is claiming to be ignoring me anyway. His provocative emails and constant stares could suggest otherwise, but he is ultimately trying to drive me back into his arms or something like that… typical Jack. I think it was his refusal to join us that sparked the topic for tonight's conversation; I should have guessed it was coming from the scowl Tosh gave him behind his back.

She's worried about me; she thinks that Jack is 'using me again'. She thinks that he shouldn't just be able to swan back in after months of being away and expect things to go back to the way they were. She also thinks that 'no matter how much I like him'; love him I corrected mentally, that I shouldn't agree to it all because I'll only end up getting hurt, again.

I didn't really know what to reply with. After he came back, Jack and I have been acting as if nothing has changed whilst at work. I'm not sure how serious he was about me being the only person he's been with since we met, but I know that I will be the only one from now on at the very least. I know that he meant what he said to me about needing me and that's enough, that's all I wanted – to know that I was appreciated as more than a 'part time shag', that I was more than second choice. There's never been a part of me that needed him to declare his undying love for me in front of the whole hub, or even to announce that we were… well whatever we were. So I've been more than happy to carry on as normal at work, if nothing else it's professional to do so. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to tell Tosh any of this though; if I started explaining, I may end up telling her everything he told me that night and I have a distinct feeling that it was for my ears only.

"Tosh, I know you're just trying to look out for me and I really do appreciate it…" I began, and I really do appreciate it, she's such a good friend. "But you don't need to worry, I'm not sure how to prove it to you but I know that he's not going to hurt me again, and I know how guilty he feels for what he did. Things between us aren't the same as before, it's more… oh I don't know what it is but its better. Besides we haven't… even… since he's been back and … well that's why he's ignoring me, because he's trying to… not because he's taking me for granted or anything." I suddenly felt very awkward discussing that sort of thing with Tosh, she may be pretty much my best friend, but I just can't help feeling shy about such things.

She sighed slightly in response "I'm sure you're right about it, I just worry about you. I think I jumped to conclusions a bit, and with him ignoring you these past few days… I'm sorry, I shouldn't have thought that you would be foolish enough to do that to yourself again, I know you're better than that"

Still not completely certain that she trusted my judgement, or believed what she said to me. I didn't press her on it, I understand that she's just worried about me; after all I don't suppose she fancies a repeat of that regretted, drunken night. Not that I had much time to dwell on any of this of course as, with perfect timing as ever, the alert sounded.

"Looks like it's rift off time" I said. I am never saying that again, but at least it coaxed a laugh out of Tosh.

We hurriedly began tracking down the signal, isolating it to the bay. At least it wasn't too far for us to go, and at this time of night on a cold October day (it was getting on for 10.00pm now) the bay should be free of people.

We arrived at the bay; only minutes later to find the portal like ring of blue light that always accompanied a breach in the rift. There was no sign of a Weevil, or Ood, or anything worse than that; even when Tosh ran a scan for alien life forms and technology nothing showed up. We concluded that whatever was on the other side of the crack in the rift, so we waited.

It must have been nearly half an hour that we were stood there; Tosh with her hand gun drawn and ready, I with my stun gun poised mid-air, both of us holding our breath. But the portal started to close, with no signs of an extra-terrestrial emerging. Tosh extended the scan to cover the whole of the city – but still it didn't pick anything up. There's no way anything could have got out and escaped the city in the time that we've been on guard here. As far as I was aware, we've never had an occasion when there's been a rift alert like this and nothing has come through. In theory we should have been relieved that we hadn't needed to wrestle an angry Weevil to the ground tonight, but we were both too concerned that something strange was going on.

"What on Earth was that all about?" I mused, not that I imagine Tosh would have known much more than I did, but I thought I might as well check.

"I really don't know… this is so weird, there's never been a time when nothing's come through before." Confirming what I'd thought.

"Maybe we should go back to the hub, we should probably tell Jack… and it's getting cold"

"Yea, that's probab… is that…?" She stopped, mid-sentence

"Tosh?"

"Sorry, I just noticed underneath where the rift opened – is that dust of some sort? Maybe a residue of some kind? I'd better get a sample." She said. I offered her my, clean, handkerchief to collect some of it in. No doubt she'll want to start running an NMR on it the second we get back in, but I imagine Jack will want us to 'go home, it's late'.

We turned and started walking back to the tourist information centre entrance; Tosh looked distracted and at first I thought she was just processing everything, trying to figure out what might have happened and mentally listing as many methods she could think of for testing this substance and scanning the surrounding area. But then she paused, blinked quite exaggeratedly, shook her head and carried on walking. When she paused for a second time I knew that something was bothering her.

"Everything alright Tosh?" I asked, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

"Yea… I just saw, I thought I saw… oh it's nothing" She said, smiling, but still looking distracted.

We were almost at the entrance now when she looked to the street above, inquisitively.

"Has that statue always been there?" She asked.

"What statue?" I couldn't see anything.

"Oh, sorry I thought there was… I must just be tired" She concluded.

I think I'm going to have to keep an eye on her, I'm sure she's fine but, even when tired, Tosh isn't usually this distracted.

After telling Jack about the rift activity that in fact wasn't very active at all, he pulled that face- the one where he frowns ever so slightly, almost unnoticeably, for a brief moment only to replace it with a grin that always seems slightly false. He said there was nothing to worry about, that we should go home because it's late (no surprise there) and he'd keep an eye out for anything unusual that happened before we were back in the morning.

"Do you know what, this is reminding me a little of what happened in the Himalayas, the whole false alarm thing all over again..." Tosh started.

"Himalayas?" Jack questioned, I had forgotten that none of us had really mentioned what we did whilst he was away.

"We went out to Tibet to take care of a situation that turned out to be nothing, a completely wasted journey." I replied

Jack laughed lightly to himself then, but it was tainted with sadness.

"He said he'd send you there." He said to himself quietly.

"Who?" Tosh questioned

"It doesn't matter, he's gone now and there's no way that he could be behind any of this. While I was away…" He said staring straight at me "he wanted you away from Cardiff, as far away from the hub as possible so that there was no way I could get a hold of you. He said he'd sent you off on a wild goose chase to the Himalayas…"

Tosh looked utterly bemused, and I only had a slightly better clue as to what he was talking about, but neither of us questioned him. Instead Tosh happily agreed to head off home, saying she was shattered. Initially, I tried to protest, offered to stay and help but he whispered, loudly, that in the near future my suit would be coming off and I would be climbing into a bed, and that he really wasn't fussed whether it was mine or his. Naturally I felt my cheeks turning pink so took that as my cue to leave, praying that Tosh hadn't heard.

How is it possible that your night can go from completely inactive with the vague possibility of some sleep… to the frantic nightmare of an evening that we have just been through? I can't believe how calmly and rationally Tosh has taken it all; I imagine I would have been shocked into hysteria if I had been in her shoes. Perhaps that's just how she is when she goes into shock, I don't think I've ever seen Tosh not level headed and sensible.

She was almost eerily composed when she rang my mobile at 2.30 am this morning and said: "Ianto call Jack and the others and get here as soon as possible" and hung up. I didn't even have a chance to ask her if she was alright, her voice would suggest that she was just about, but the nature of her call made me doubt this.

I did what she asked and we arrived together at her flat in less than half an hour. We entered to see her clutching her phone rigidly in one hand and staring, very purposefully, at what appeared to be a garden statue.

"It's an angel" Jack said, astonished.

A weeping Angel, he said that they're harmless as long as you keep looking at them, but the second you take your eyes off them, the second you blink they can move as fast as lightening to strike at you – to send you back in time.

Tosh thought that this must have been what came through the rift, that it was what she saw as we were leaving the bay. She reckoned it must have followed her back to her apartment. She said she saw something flash past her in the hallway I blinked and it was gone. When she entered her living room it was there.

"I had no idea what it was but as soon as I turned away, just for a second it had moved. I've been stood here staring at it since I rang you". She said to me.

"What do we do to get rid of it? We can't just stay here staring at it for ever." Gwen said.

The Captain said that the only way to kill and Angel is to trap it, forever lock it in its stone state, unable to move. It was currently shielding its eyes but he reckoned that we could snare it fairly easily by surrounding it with mirrors and somehow getting it to uncover its eyes. That in itself seemed hard enough, but first of all we had to get it back to the hub, so we could place it in one of our securest cells.

After much thought and discussion on the matter, all of us staring unblinkingly at the stone creature, Gwen suddenly had a stroke of genius. Rhys had just started working for Harwood's, a delivery lorry service and they currently had one of the smaller vans parked at their house. She took the SUV and was there and back in 15 minutes – she must have broken the speed limit, I know for a fact it takes at least 10 minutes just to get to her house from here!

Loading it into the van was more than a little difficult, it vaguely reminded me of trying to get Lisa into the back of the lorry when we moved over from London, but I didn't let that distract me as we all needed to concentrate on not taking our eyes off the statue as we transported it delicately. Unfortunately Tosh didn't live on the ground floor and tackling the stairs with a heavy statue in tow was quite a challenge, we had to go painfully slowly as any sudden movement could have made us blink.

I, along with Owen and Tosh, drew the short straw and had to ride in the back of the van keeping an eye on the angel. I'm glad now that I remembered to replace the batteries in our torches last week. I tried asking Tosh if she was ok on the ride back to the hub (which seemed to take forever) but I don't think she even heard me. She was concentrating far too hard on not taking her eyes away.

The three of us took the statue down on the lift with us, it was a bit of a tight squeeze but it was easier and quicker than going through the tourist information centre and down the labyrinth of corridors. After getting the statue out of Tosh's flat, bringing it down to the securest vault on the lower level seemed like child's play.

Owen and Jack went rushed off, frantically trying to find as many mirrors as possible in the hub which must have been easier than one might expect as they returned much quicker than I thought they would do. The three of us hadn't let the statue move whilst they'd been away. Owen and Jack circled what must have been about a dozen mirrors around the statue whilst we continued to hold it still with our eyes.

Then Jack said that we all needed to trust him that he wanted us to shut our eyes, just for a second, to allow it to move. I was happy to do what he wanted, I trusted him, we all did. Of course we all knew there was going to be a risk when we did it that it could take one of us and send us back to the past, or maybe more than one. But that's what Torchwood is – taking risks. And this was a smaller one to take than risking the population of Cardiff by allowing this being to escape. So, simultaneously we shut our eyes.

And it worked. We opened our eyes a half second after shutting them to see it posed as the vision of horror. I think that sight will stay with me in my dreams for a long time. Its arms were outstretched, fingers curled around like claws, sharp teeth bared, but its eyes were the worst part. They were wide open and haunted with a hungry look. But thankfully it wasn't looking at any of us and it would never look at anyone again besides itself. We had trapped it in our cell looking at itself and its reflections forever. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief accompanied by manic blinking.

Jack insisted that Tosh should have tomorrow morning off, after all she had been the one whose home it had entered. After much deliberation she eventually agreed. Gwen offered to escort her home back home with the borrowed van and promised that she would make sure she was definitely ok before she left her on her own. Tosh still hadn't said much, but I think she'll be fine, she's very strong.

I'm currently sat at my desk and have just finished writing up the report on this evening's incident, I didn't see much point in heading home as it's nearly 5.00 am now and I doubt I would sleep much between now and my alarm going off at six. Even if I did sleep I would probably only keep seeing that set of menacing stone eyes repeatedly whilst I dreamt and I didn't particularly want that right now.

Owen's just drifted past my desk; I assumed he left 10 minutes ago with Gwen and Tosh but apparently not. He came up to me and surprised me quite a bit by saying:

"Ianto, could you please do something about Jack. He's been driving me and everyone else mad with the way he's been acting, all irritated and twitchy. Now, obviously not going by personal experience, I'd say that he is sexually frustrated beyond belief and I know he was a bit of a wanker with the way he just left you but I think you've punished him enough now don't you" He finished with a wicked grin at my bemused expression, and left without giving me the chance to reply.

Not that I could reply as I was, quite frankly, shocked by the blunt way he had just phrased what he said. Truth be told I wasn't punishing him, or at least I thought I wasn't. I hadn't noticed him being irritable these last few days, but then again I haven't seen much of him due to his 'ignoring' me. I looked up to his office and could just about make out the shadow of a man through the open door, sat at his desk with his head in his hands. Perhaps now is a good time to reply to his email...?