Well, I guess that means Jack has figured out what to do about Owen; Dr Harper has now been relieved from his position for the time being – until he can be confirmed fit for duty by Martha. It sounds silly really, but it all seems a lot more serious than his 'suspension' over the past two days, it seems much close to a redundancy. The fact that he will only be allowed back to work if and when he meets Jack's requirements… suggests that there is an element of doubt as to whether he will be coming back at all.

Jack had been acting a bit out of sorts all morning; I could tell something must have been playing on his mind and what else would it have been other than Owen? We had spent the night together at the hub rather than my apartment and, in that scenario, the time up until the others arrived would usually be spent getting ready together, eating breakfast and chatting whilst going over some light admin from the day before. But today he had rushed getting ready, said he had no time for breakfast, and then quickly left the hub in an urgent manner and without explanation. I more than anyone know that Jack can behave a little… strangely… from time to time, but this was downright odd. He didn't return again until nearly nine, by which time the others were all in so there was no opportunity for us to talk in private about it.

About half an hour later he called me up to his office, and announced his decision. I wasn't quite sure how to respond. On the one hand, there was a great chance that Owen would pass all of the medical tests with flying colours and be back to resume normal working duty with us in not time. On the other hand, he might not pass the examination, and so be destined not to return. I can't bear the thought of not working alongside Owen anymore, not matter how sarcastic and irritable he can be sometimes. Honestly, I thought Jack was making the wrong choice, setting out such definite terms as these, but I was in no right mind to question him.

He called Owen up moments later, barely giving me time to get my own head around the news before he announced it to the man in question. Automatically, I assumed that he would want to talk to Owen in private, but as I began to make for the door he shook his head, so I stayed put as whilst Owen entered. In the brief moment I had to contemplate things, I had anticipated that the ordeal would be a challenging one, filled with raw emotion. But it wasn't, at least not to begin with.

At first Owen seemed to be taking it all rather well considering, I guess he was focusing more on the positive hand – seeing I as just a continuation of his suspension, but when Jack mentioned the word replace… that set him off. I saw Owen's wince as Jack told him Martha Jones would replace him as Torchwood's medic for the time being, at least until he was declared properly fit for active duty. And then he went for it, opening up into an angry burst of a reaction. I could see where he was coming from, after all no one wants to think that someone else could easily fill their role Owen couldn't be replaced. But it was a little odd, seeing as he had been allowing Martha to cover his responsibilities for the past few days with no bother, or so it seemed, perhaps he had always been uncomfortable about it and we just didn't notice, or he kept it all well hidden? But more than anything, I was confused by the fact that Jack had chosen to use such a blunt and careless word, it was so unlike him.

Reluctantly I asked him for his security pass and his gun, swallowing back the lump in my throat as I forced the whispers of words out.

Desperately he asked:

"What am I supposed to do in the mean time?"

What was he supposed to do? He can't eat, he can't sleep, he can't drink (not even alcohol), he can't do anything that involves too much physical activity as he is in such a fragile, non-repairable state.

"We always need someone to make coffee" Jack retorted back, taking it a step to far. I felt my lips mouthing 'Oh no' almost in sync with Owen's reply.

At the time I hadn't thought Jack had been serious, after all, if Owen was no longer only suspended and I interpreted it as a poorly timed sarcastic joke, but sure enough Jack just requested that I give him a lesson in working the coffee machine. This will not end well for anyone, not for Jack or me… or anyone who drinks Owen's attempts at an Americano.

Well, I guess his sarcasm was pretty much to be expected – that was standard with Owen as it was, and when placed in a 'role-reversal' situation like this, he was always going to get start making satirical comments.

"Come on the teas boy let's get this blood over with" He groaned.

I lead him over and showed him how to make an espresso, starting with the basics first. I still can't believe I was stupid enough to say: "I though you always liked the coffee" when he complained about us no just using instant. Talk about putting your foot in it, because of course, he'll never drink the coffee that he makes. To make up for my slip up, I didn't even get angry when he smashed all of the china in a fit of rage.

"I bet your loving this aren't you, it's like you've finally won." He said to me.

I have to admit that hurt a little, of course I wasn't 'loving this'. I loved Owen, and didn't want to see him as distressed as he was now, I didn't want him to feel as worthless as the look on his face showed he felt, I wanted to make him feel better. Surely he realised that I had never wanted to compete with him? I began answering back to his insults because once we got to know each other, I thought it had become a sort of private joke between the two of us, a casual bit of banter – had he taken it to heart?

"I didn't realise we were in competition" I replied, trying to keep my voice expressionless.

"Oh come on" He spat back. "Even Tosh had more of a life than you used to, and now you're always out on missions, your shagging Jack and I'm stuck here making the coffee"

He had just insulted both Tosh and I simultaneously in that sentence, his words were filled with venom and with every statement it was like a knife being twisted into my stomach. But once again, I kept my voice cool in my reply, I didn't know how I would act if my emotions took over right now; I would either get angry with him or reveal how upsetting I found what he was saying. Neither would be good, I didn't want to get angry with him when he was going through so much nor did I want to even claim that I was upset in front of him as he had so much more of a right to be upset than I did.

"It's not like that, me and Jack… "I said, picking up on about the only thing from his speech that I felt I had a just cause to comment on. And after all, we weren't just 'shagging' anymore, whatever it might look like to the others, I knew it came off as more than that – Owen was being deliberately spiteful.

"Yeah you and Jack, Gwen's getting married, Martha's got her bloke – God even Tosh had Tommy. This is really shit."

"We've all gone through shit; I've seen you dissect alien corpses, I've seen you save so many lives. Are you really going to let this beat you?" I said back to him, desperate to do something that would give him a sense of hope again, a sense of purpose. I needed him to beat this because I needed Owen, we all need Owen. I left him without giving him a chance to reply, before I went back to my filing and he went to his the first round of Dr Jones's tests.

It was strange sitting down in that meeting and having someone else bring me coffee, it felt wrong… and it tasted very wrong. I may have to have a word with Jack and see if I can gain back that old responsibility of mine, and find something else for Owen to do if he should wish…

In the meeting Tosh revealed her findings that there have been energy spikes coming from Henry John Parker's house. Although an alien fanatic, he hasn't been a threat up until now, but his background story is more than a little odd, he hasn't left the house since his wife died and nobody has seen him since 1986 besides us in during the few dealings we've had with him. When Owen said that there wasn't much to be scared of, I couldn't resist having a little joke with him, and after all it's what I would have done if he was 'alive'. So I brought up Tin Tin, I still don't see how someone could be so afraid of a cartoon character. I always loved Tin Tin but I don't think I can ever look at him in the same way after what Owen said about him and poor Snowy…

Anyway; we decided we should still investigate, threat or no threat, so Gwen set about delegating tasks - I'm currently working on building up an inventory of everything he's purchased in the last 10 years. I was a little surprised that Jack didn't throw back a jokey comment about how he was the one to dish out the orders, as he usually did when Gwen tried to take over, but I guess he has other things on his mind right now.

I just overheard a rather funny little conversation between Owen and Martha; I came in on Owen saying: "Has he met Jack yet, they always get jealous when they meet Jack". I laughed to myself, I can see why they would, but there's no need for her fiancée or anyone else to worry, he's mine – I hope.

Shortly after this Owen, bored and fed up, resided to going home as he just felt useless here. I'm not sure it's right that we should be leaving him alone right now, but he maybe he needs space. I think Tosh is going to go and have a check up on him in a bit and try to get him to talk a little; she's probably the best person to go.

Or maybe not… we've just seen him running down to the small pier at the bay and throwing himself into the water, Jack went to go and fetch him, he was in there for over thirty minutes in the end. Somehow I don't think that Jack was the right person to speak to him right now either. Not that I'm saying my efforts earlier were any better than either of theirs, more that right now, I think it's impossible to say anything to Owen that will result in a positive outcome.

We reconvened in another meeting, trying to establish how everyone was getting on with the Parker case amongst all of these issues with Owen. So far I'd managed to find that he had purchased a Dogon eye, a pair of Myakian wings, some meteorites, An Arcateenian translation of James Herbert's The Fog… Nothing particularly harmful, the sort of things an alien obsessive may purchase in the hope that they would bring them closer to contact, but in reality they are more what Jack would label 'space junk'. He did however make a few purchases that struck my attention, they were alien no doubt, but they were things that we hadn't come across before and I had my suspicions that one of these articles might be causing the energy spikes that were rapidly increasing in size.

It was decided that we needed to try and get in to Parker's house, to find out exactly what was going on. There was one major issue we had needed to overcome though; the place was flooded with heat sensors.

Owen volunteered for the task; I guess it made sense after all he has no body heat, I handed him back his gun and security pass after gaining a look of approval from Jack. It would have been preferable to be handing him back these items on a, shall we say, safer note. After all, if Owen was caught during the mission, or if he hurt himself then who knows what would happen. I suppose that's what it will always be like now that he's back (I think for good) working in one of the most dangerous jobs in Britain, I guess we'll have to get used to that prospect.

Jack and Martha have just driven with him to Parker's house; he dressed in a hoody and jeans so as to 'act the part' as he said, he seemed to be enjoying getting back into the action just a little bit. Before he left I went through a detailed blue-print of the house with him, to make sure that he knew his way around before entering I order to avoid any unwanted walking into objects. He thanked me afterwards, hugged me in a 'laddish' back slapping fashion and actually apologised for what he had said earlier. I told him not to worry about, it was forgotten.

Gwen distracted one of the security guards with a fake phone call, whilst Owen endeavoured to break in, but the other one (the 'big' one) still found him as he was trying to switch off the power to the alarm systems. So Owen just whipped out his gun to wield off the guard, then with a Tin Tin t-shirt wrapped around his hands pulled out the electrical cabling from the panel.

He ran into another security guard on the stairs up to Henry Parker's room but he was easily deterred.

"I'm wrong. I'm broken. I'm Dr Owen Harper, and I'm having one hell of a day" – I couldn't help feeling immensely proud as he said those lines.

He went in to Henry's room to find him in his bed, happily having watched Owen assault half or more of his security guards and invade his home. He guessed that he was from Torchwood straight away and I couldn't help laughing when he said that they should have 'sent that Japanese girl instead, I like her' and then proceeded to direct Tosh with a 'you've got very lovely legs. You should show them off more.' Tosh was grinning too bless her.

Henry had had three heart attacks and a failed bypass, but he said he was still alive because of this thing he was keeping there in bed with him. The pulse, he called it. But after Owen scanned the article in question he found that there was no way that it could be keeping him alive as the energy it was emitting wasn't going in to Henry, it was just building up inside that device waiting to explode.

The pulse was more a symbol of hope to Mr Parker than anything else that was what was keeping him hanging on. But as Owen pointed out to him, why was he so desperate to hang on? He was shut away, alone in his room and severely dependent upon medical equipment and the help of others, was this so really worth carrying on for? As soon as he realised that this was no real sort of a life; that was it. His body stopped resisting what had been imminent and he passed away.

We still had the issue of the 'pulse' to deal with, we didn't know exactly what was going to happen but it's energy readings were completely off the scale and it seemed like some sort of explosion was about to occur. Owen was determined to try and absorb the impact, to try and save everyone at the cost of his (sort of) life. None of us were happy about it, and hearing him speak across the comms like that, saying his goodbyes with such affection, especially when he came to Tosh… it was all I could do to keep myself from crying. We all sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the monitor waiting for the device to explode and the energy readings to drop dead. But it didn't and they didn't.

Before we knew it all three of them Martha Jack and Owen, came rising back in the SUV to the bay. It was a message from somewhere in space, a reply to NASA's original messages sent out in the 70s. It was a beacon of hope and goodness within this brutal world of ours. Owen was back with us for good, and order had been restored to Torchwood – well as much order as is ever within our crazy little organisation. Martha Jones is leaving our company, I am sad to see her go, but I'm also glad to see Owen back as our medic. And, after all, she is welcome back anytime she likes, I'm sure it won't be the last we see of her. It's funny; I was both surprised and completely unsurprised by the way she parted things with Jack. It seemed like such an un-Martha thing to do, to just kiss him, but I don't blame her for wanting to see what it was like.

I'm just settling down for the evening to begin writing up the reports from today's events, after all it's only 9.00 pm and whilst Jack would probably contest to it, I can easily get it finished off before tomorrow. I'm hoping that now things with Owen are sort of back to normal, that everything else will go back to normal and I can once again have full reign of the coffee machine as I have just tried to make a cup, only to find that Owen has jammed one of the buttons… typical. Anyway better get started on the paperwork.

"Hey stranger" Jack said, smiling sweetly as he entered the main floor of the hub. Stranger was an appropriate sentiment, I'd hardly seen him today, or yesterday, and he'd been tired last night so we'd gone to bed early… I was glad that we had the rest of this evening together.

"What are you doing" He said, sighing slightly, as he pointed towards my pile of nearly completed paperwork.

"Thought I might as well finish this off before tomorrow morning" I replied.

"Oh Ianto Jones… What am I going to do with you?" He asked rhetorically, with a gleam in his eyes that suggested he already knew the answer to that one, I felt my cheeks flush accordingly.

I allowed myself a minute to recover before I began to speak: "Well, umm, Jack there was something I wanted to talk to ask you about…"

He cut me off. "If it was about that kiss with Martha earlier, don't be mad, she started it, I mean I'm not going to lie and say I didn't enjoy it… but it was just a kiss between friends, it was nothing I promise."

I laughed a little at that. "Actually, I was just wondering what the rift looked like for Friday…I was thinking that we could… maybe take an extended lunch hour and go shopping for Gwen's rehearsal dinner… I still haven't found anything to wear… And then I thought maybe we could grab something to eat." I proposed nervously.

"That sounds perfect." He grinned, much to my relief. "Things seem clear rift wise" He said checking out the compute briefly "So it's a date" He winked.

"Splendid" I replied, grinning back, then began to start on finishing that paperwork.

"Ianto" He began, seeming slightly nervous now himself, if that were truly possible. "I… I just wanted to say that… seeing things with Owen and all, how difficult it's been for him, for all of us. Seeing how much pain… and… Well, what I'm trying to say is be careful Ianto. I love Owen like a brother, and he's a dear friend, but if something happened to you… then I really don't know what I would do. I care about you Ianto. A lot." He finished, keeping a firm, affectionate sort of eye contact the whole way through his speech. I could only smile and nod in response, whilst contemplating what he had just said.

In my head I rather liked to think that he said I love, rather than I care about. I'm almost certain that's what he meant too, I knew I would never hear those exact words from Jack as it was just too hard for him to admit that when he knew that he couldn't ever have a relationship with a future as he has always said. But who cares about the future, we have to live in the now, Owen's proven that much. And I know that deep down Jack must agree on that or else we wouldn't be here, there wouldn't be a 'we' at all. It's probably ridiculous and naïve of me to entertain the thought that the might Captain Harkness was in love with me, but at times like these, and sometimes in the way he looks at me or kisses me or does something completely sweet and unexpected… I am sure that love is behind it.

"Oh and Jones" He began, normal confidence and charisma restored. "Absolutely loving the red tie by the way" He winked.

"Thank you, I was hoping you'd notice".