The rift obviously feels like we have been neglecting it; over the last 24 hours we have recovered 6 Weevils, returned a rather impatient (but thankfully unthreatening) Sontarin back through the rift, and taken in another Ood. I was paired up with Owen and we've barely stopped all day meaning that, that luckily for me, Jack has had no time to bring up the contents of my diary. Unfortunately, though it has meant that I've hardly seen him today. It sounds silly, but I sort of miss him on days where I don't get to see a great deal of him; even when our only exchanges might be the doling out of orders, or deliverance of coffee, or a passing flirt… it's a whole lot better than nothing.

Everything eventually slowed down by about 1.00 am this morning, be which point we were all exhausted. Jack insisted that everyone was to go home to bed, and not return until the earliest of 9.30 tomorrow.

"And that means you too Ianto" He added, looking directly at me wearing a slightly strained expression for some unknown reason. He hadn't insisted that I go home to get some rest since our first 'date'; we'd spent pretty much every night together at mine or his, even if it literally just meant sleeping in the same bed, no matter how tired either of us had been. I'd managed to catch him sleeping once or twice, and I know that it's incredibly difficult for him to switch off enough so that sleep can be possible, so I'd hoped that being with me made him feel relaxed and at ease. But tonight he didn't seem to need me. Had I done something wrong? Maybe he hadn't been too busy to converse with me today, perhaps he had been ignoring me all along… had he found something offensive in my diary?

"Is anything the matter Jack, I haven't done something to upset you have I?" I asked smiling convincingly (I hoped), and trying not to sound too curious or anxious.

"No." He said, a little too quickly, a little too firmly. "No" He repeated, softer this time. "You could never do anything wrong..." He trailed off into deep thought. He pulled me into an affectionate hug, kissed my forehead lightly, then pulled away to just stare intensely at me for a minute or two.

He snapped back a second later and composed himself to say: "I just think that, yet again, you've been working too many long and strenuous shifts, you need your sleep a lot more than I do" He winked, trying to win back some normality. "And, well, I'm sorry to say that I haven't done his week's laundry yet and you have no clean pyjamas left… and I just don't think I could allow an evening with a naked Welshman beside me to be wasted upon sleep" He grinned, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. It might have been reassuring that nothing was wrong, if he hadn't have been laying it all on so thickly.

"Yes, that might have been a problem…" I replied, forcing a small smile in return. "Very well then, I'll see you in the morning." I finished, going in for a short and sweet, yet affectionate, goodnight kiss; but he turned it into a long passionate few minutes of lips locked together, tongues entwining. It was a kiss that captured the thought 'if the world ends tomorrow – this is what you'll remember'. It might have worried me more if my head didn't feel lightened from my breathlessness.

Despite Jack not wanting us in until later this morning, I was still up at 5.30 as per usual, I don't like to break from routine and besides it wasn't as if I could have had a great deal more sleep anyway. I had tossed and turned all of last night, recently I've been sleeping better than I ever have done before but yesterday evening I just couldn't quite settle. It must have been to do with the severe lack of Jack, I've grown accustomed to turning over in my sleep to find a warm body beside mine, and to hear his gentle snoring (on occasions where he actually does sleep – he always snores!). And, since he promised that he would never, ever leave like that again, my mind has been put at ease; I no longer have troubling concerns keeping me awake at night. Of course, now I have the issue of what on earth I have done to cause his detachment to prevent me from a goodnight's rest.

We all pretty much arrived at the hub together this morning, I might have risked arriving half an hour before Jack's instructions so we could have some time alone, but today I thought it would just be best to do as I was asked. Despite arriving a good few hours later than usual, we all settled into work as if we had arrived at the normal time, which will probably mess us up for the rest of the day. After all, taking everyone their early morning coffee at 9.40 instead of around 7.00 means that mid-morning coffee will be delayed, as will lunch… and then dinner… we could practically end up nocturnal by the end of the day. I took Jack's coffee in, hoping that yesterday had just been an off day for him, and that we could have a nice chat. But, of course, he was on the phone. Bloody UNIT. I doubt I'll see him much again today, whether or not he is avoiding me will be irrelevant with the volume of rift activity predicted.

Today turned out to be just as hectic as yesterday was - in fact more so; well at least more demanding and much, much more and frightening and strange and so purely surreal. It's been one of those days where all you need at the end of it is a large glass of something a lot stronger than industrial strength coffee, and pen and paper to frantically scribble down events and thoughts and feelings to try and make sense of it all. So, with a glass of scotch in one hand and a parker in the other, this is what I shall do.

The rift alert went off at around 10.30 this morning and after analysing the prediction data, Tosh realised that for the first time ever it was going to occur inside the hub itself. Jack announced that he'd not witnessed any rift activity actually in the vicinity of Torchwood during his whole time here. That prompted me to go and investigate a little in the archives, and sure enough I discovered that never since Torchwood was founded had something like this happened. Considering the amount of aliens, both threatening and non-threatening, that Torchwood have dealt with entering through the rift over the years, it's strange to think that this is the first time it's ever directly hit the hub. Does this mean the problems with the rift are getting stronger?

Anyway, we were all on guard, and slightly excited, for what was about to happen. We waited. The blue ring of light appeared. And not a single alien appeared. Immediately we began to panic, last time this happened a Weeping Angel had entered our world through the rift and Tosh had been followed back to her flat and effectively held hostage. We couldn't see anything, but nobody dared to blink anyway, just to stay on the safe side.

A couple of minutes later, the security alarms sounded, signalling a breech in the hub. Something unwanted had definitely arrived in that short opening of the rift – but what? Before we had time to scan the hub for heat signals, or even grab for our guns for protection, the room filled with a thick, foggy, lilac gas and we were out like lights.

Next thing I knew, I had woken up in a corridor of an unknown building. It was long and white and was sparsely furnished – there were no pictures on the walls, no plants or ornaments, and only one door right at the end of a very long stretch of grey carpet. Quite frankly, at the time it felt like I could have been anywhere, most likely in some sort of corporate office block; but it was nowhere I immediately recognised, and most certainly not the hub where I had fallen unconscious in.

I got up from the floor, the blood rushing to my pounding head. I felt slightly groggy and delirious, but not enough so to forget that I was no longer with the rest of the team. I had not a clue what had happened to them all, for all I knew they were back at the hub wondering where I was, or were equally lost in some strange environment, or maybe everyone was fine and this was all an elaborate dream.

Of course, it wasn't a dream, with Torchwood it's silly to assume that something a little surreal and out of the ordinary might be a fantasy of sorts. Never the less I decided to pinch myself, just to make sure. It hurt.

I decided that whatever was going on, the door at the end of the corridor seemed to the only possible way of getting out of here, so I headed over to it despite being quite sure in the knowledge that this was probably a trap. '101' the door had written on it. Brilliant, just brilliant, I thought. I was about to enter room 101, and whatever I was about to encounter I could guarantee it wouldn't be good.

I held my breath and closed my eyes as I turned the handle and entered the room which was filled with darkness. After standing there for may have been two seconds, or minutes, or hours, it hit me. Suddenly It was as if I was no longer stood inside a room, in fact that there was no physical room at all, like I wasn't physically here anymore, like I was now some sort of omniscient presence ghosting back through the most painful memories of my past. Or rather the nightmares of my present. The things I saw, and heard and felt… I was back at Torchwood One, and we were under attack again. I saw my colleagues and friends dying, I saw fire and guns and heard screaming and cries. I saw Lisa, her body mangled and half converted. But I was also exposed to things I hadn't seen, the things I had imagined in my sleep about what might have gone on in that day. Images of my colleagues strapped to conversion tables being tortured and changed into monsters. I wanted it to stop, needed it to, it just all felt so real. The screaming penetrated my mind so deeply, that it genuinely felt like it was all happening right here this second, that those people were dying here in front of me helplessly cry out and there was nothing that I could do.

For a brief second it stopped, leaving me gasping for breath, feeling nauseous and drained, before it started again. I was transported back to the day that everybody found out about Lisa. I saw her in storming around the hub, determined to kill. I reheard my words, pleading her to stop. I felt her throw me across the room all over again. For the second, painful time, I watched them pummel her with bullets and kill her. The sound of the guns firing echoed and echoed, I never thought it was going to end. It got to the point where it felt as if the bullets were being fired at me, that I was the one being killed. I wished that I would die right then.

Then, all of a sudden, I caught a glimpse of the memory of what had happened after that night. About how Jack had forgiven me, and comforted me, and told me that things would get better. A memory which whoever had been behind this horrible, horrific vision, didn't want me to hold as I was pulled back into the world of violence and death and hopelessness once again.

But it had been enough. That one small fraction of a memory of Jack had been enough to remind me that this, although seemed to be happening right now and was absolutely petrifying, wasn't real. It was all just a messed up, surreal hallucination brought on by goodness knows what that had entered the rift and knocked us out. Seeing that glimpse of Jack, made me strong enough to remember this, gave me the hope that I would be ok, and the will to find a way out of this awful situation. I forced myself to block out the noise and the gut wrenching feelings as my nightmares continued to flash around me, instead filling my head with images and memories of Torchwood and Jack.

I held onto those thoughts and before I knew what was happening, everything faded back to black and I was back in the hub once again, sweat gleaming across my brow and panting for breath. Everyone else was back too, all equally shocked and breathless. They'd clearly just experienced a similar fate.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Owen shouted, at no one in particular.

A good while later after a strong drink, several scans of the hub to make sure that there was absolutely nothing other than the five of us plus our resident inmates within the hub, and then a great deal of research and analysis; we were able to answer that question. It had been a Phantasm of the Planet Midnight. It's a gaseous creature which feeds and grows on the fear and weaknesses in others, it locates its victims rendering them unconscious and thrusting them into a bizarre, dreamlike state. It surrounds its prey with intensified versions of their worst possible memories, their most feared nightmares and their inner doubts until the point of death. The only way to beat such a creature is to find something to focus on, a memory or thought which reminds you that none of what's happening is real, and gives you strength to carry on.

I guess it should have known better than to mess with five of the most determined individuals in Britain then! You can see why it came after us though, we've all been through so much suffering and seen so much evil, it could have fed forever upon our nightmarish pasts.

It was only five o'clock, but everybody went home to, try, and sleep off everything that had happened today. None of them had wanted to hang around to discuss what they had been through, it had been painful enough to live through the worst moments of your life once never mind twice – nobody could stomach a third time. I don't blame them for that, to an extent I shared their opinion, but part of me did want to talk about it with Jack, he always managed to make me feel better after things like this.

I was tempted just to leave as well, if Jack had been acting off with me previously, he was behaving twice as strangely now. But I stuck around in case we did get the chance to talk.

He came down from his office about an hour later and seemed genuinely surprised to see me for a second, then a worried look crossed his eyes before he plastered on a somewhat false smile.

"Hey" He began simply, but slightly awkwardly, not quite making eye contact.

"Hey" I replied softly.

"You ok?"

"Sort of"

"You need to talk about it"

I nodded and told him everything.

After purging my soul to him, he surprised me by drawing me into a warming embrace. The gesture itself was far from an unusual one, but I had still been under the impression that something between us wasn't quite right.

"Oh Ianto…" He whispered into my ear gently. "You shouldn't have had to live through that again"

"It doesn't matter, it wasn't real anyway, I'm fine" I replied, lying somewhat.

"It does matter" he said, still holding me.

I withdrew to look him in the eyes. "What did you see?" I barely whispered. By the way that he tensed up as I asked, I was certain that he wasn't going to tell me, but he did.

"I saw…" He paused to sigh and scrunch his eyes up tightly with pain before composing himself and beginning again. "I saw all of the things I have done to hurt you, the times where I have been selfish and caused you pain in the process, all the times I have let you down, how much I hurt you by just running of without a care in the world…" He trailed off, for the first time since I have met him he looked close to tears.

"Jack, I love you. None of that is important." I said, very determinedly, hoping to reassure him.

"But why?" He almost spat back. "Why do you feel that way when I have behaved so inconsiderately and done you so much harm?"

"Because I have forgiven you, and always will. It's all in the past; whatever might have happened is forgotten, and irrelevant to how I feel now."

"I almost can't bear to hear you say that. You're too… nice… I don't know anyone else in the world that's as tolerant and beautiful and kind as you and it makes me feel so guilty for mistreating you and knowing I caused you so much pain. And this hasn't just come from what happened today, when I found your diary… some of the things I read, the way I made you feel… I"

The penny dropped. It was because of my blessed diary, he wasn't avoiding me because I had done something wrong after all, but because of what I had written about him leaving… I wasn't really sure what to say, did I apologise? Did I shower him with praises to make up for what he'd read?

"And so I suppose you just ignored the bits where I said embarrassingly wonderful and complementary things about you did you?" I decided to attack it with humour… or rather sarcasm.

"Well no… but it still doesn't change how…" I cut him off.

"I might not change how I felt at the time, but didn't those things prove to you that I am nowhere near cross or upset with you for what's happened. Truly none of it matter now, now that I have you back and you've promised that you are here to stay, and things are normal – ish again" I finished, pulling him into a passionate kiss just to make sure the message was understood.

"But if I ever find that you've been reading my diary again then you might find yourself in trouble." I mock chastised, smiling.

"Ah, well there's a promise I just can't make… after all what man can resist reading about how gorgeous they are?" He winked, still not one hundred percent relaxed but certainly looking like a large weight had been removed from his shoulders.

"Oh and one more thing" I added, suddenly feeling a little shy about what I was going to say. "Don't send me home to 'sleep' unless you plan on coming with me." I felt a hint of a blush gracing my cheeks.

"Why, did ya miss me? He grinned.

"Maybe…" The blush deepened.

He just beamed in response and led me by the hand up to his office, then down to the bunker below.