"Morning!"

"Good morning. Still chucking it down out there? Coffee's just on, will only be a minute."

"Yes, it is, and you are a star, Ianto."

"Do my best, that's all, Tosh."

"How long have you been in, anyway?" Toshiko asked, hanging up her raincoat and putting her brolly in the stand before heading over to her workstation.

"Not long, just about 27 minutes."

"You really should have gone into IT, you know that? Anybody else would have rounded it off to 'half an hour'."

Ianto smirked. "Maybe, but I like 'data' I can actually touch. Something about the all-electronic kind I can't bring myself to trust. It seems sort of… flighty. Server goes down at the wrong time – gone, all gone."

Toshiko regarded her colleague with trepidation. "I take it back about you being a star," she muttered.

"Yeah, yeah. As the resident Cheery Voice of Doom, I've heard it all. You'll change your mind after the first sip, they always do," he said, handing Toshiko her preferred mug with the amethyst brocade stamped pattern.

Tosh's expression changed just from the smell of the coffee. "You're right, as usual."

Ianto just smiled and took his own mug to his workstation. "Had a good weekend, then?"

"I suppose. Except that Owen rang me at 10 in the morning yesterday."

Except that? Ianto wondered. He knew all about Tosh's crush on the biological anthropologist who'd left the medical profession because dealing with living people was not his strong suit. Ianto would have thought that a weekend call have been a good thing.

Ianto realized his curiousity must have been apparent because Tosh elaborated, "His laptop had a virus and he couldn't get into it. He asked me to go round to his to fix it, like I'm personally on-call at all times. I somehow managed to refrain from pointing out to him that the majority of viruses come from downloading porn."

Ianto hated to think how awful that had to feel, and wished not for the first time that someone would have a word with Dr. Harper about his obliviousness to their data administrator's feelings. "You'd think an ex-medic would know to use protection," Ianto joked, hoping to take Tosh's mind off it.

Tosh raised a lukewarm smile and shifted to log on to her computer. "Oh well," she sighed. "What about you, then? What sort of fun did you get up to?"

Certain people around their workplace frequently found it a source of amusement that 'even' Tosh had more of a life than archivist Ianto Jones. Tosh and Ianto had banded together in defense of their preference for the quiet weekend of reading, watching films, and visiting museums other than their own. They were more likely to discuss literature than gossip about that weekend's conquests.

So, Ianto had decided not to mention the week before that a really gorgeous guy had messaged him on one of those 'we swear it's not like Grindr' apps and asked for a date. He wondered now if talking about it with Tosh would just be like rubbing it in after what she said about Owen. He decided that if the two of them were going to be the mature ones around the place, there was no point in overthinking the honest answer to her question.

"I… had a date, actually," he said, turning fully round in his desk chair to face Tosh.

Tosh stopped mid-sip and set her mug down. "Really? Wow. Sorry… I didn't mean that to sound 'shocked', just…. Well, how did it go?"

Ianto could tell she was surprised, but frankly so was he, still. "It went well. Really well, in fact."

Tosh grinned. That statement needed no interpreting. "Good for you! Is there going to be a second date? Or is that a bit personal? Sorry."

"It's alright. There is. We're supposed to go out again Friday."

"That's great, Ianto. Where'd you go, then, this weekend? And don't spare details, please. I've got to live vicariously through somebody."

"Well, I don't know if you want it to be through me. He is very handsome, though. We just went to a little wine bar thing across the road from his flat. Which was quite practical and convenient."

"I bet," Tosh laughed.

"Anyway, it was nice. We're planning to meet at the same place Friday. I'm not entirely sure if we'll ever actually go anyplace else. Not that I mind."

"And what's he like, besides very handsome?"

"He's… interesting. Very intelligent, but also seems rather devil-may-care, you know? I'd almost call him rakish, but he was way too sweet to be that. Everything about him was sort of a contradiction. He's got all the latest tech stuff – you'd get along in that, by the way, he does some kind of tech consulting and must make a bloody mint doing it – but he's also got a real passion for old stuff like early aeroplanes and pocket watches and Cole Porter."

"He sounds lovely. Good luck with him. You deserve it, Ianto."

Ianto shrugged. "Here's hoping, anyway. I get the feeling his work keeps him on the go a bit, so we'll see. I mean, he had to rush off first thing the next morning, and I really had my doubts for a bit, but he was really considerate, too. Then he didn't ring me until later that night, and said his mobile had been pulverized – which is a real shame because I think it must have been a sneak release of the new Galaxy or something. Well, I don't know, it's too early for anything yet, I know. I just hope he isn't sneaking around on a wife and three kids or something. There wasn't anything personal at his flat at all. And he's American, so, who knows kind of life he's got over there."

Tosh smiled unexpectedly. "You're overthinking it, Ianto," she said gently.

Ianto sighed. "Yeah, I know I am. I just figure if I consider all the negative possibilities now, I'll be less disappointed when it turns out I was right – as usual."

"Well, then may you be wrong, for once."

"Thanks, Tosh."

"Any -"

Tosh's words were cut off by the front door banging shut. "Bloody hell! I am drenched to the bone! Can you believe Rhys left for work this morning without even offering to drive me, in this weather?!" moaned Gwen Cooper, Social Anthropologist, making directly for her desk and tossing her wet jacket under it with her tote bag.

Ianto and Tosh exchanged a look that only the two of them could translate as, "We may have issues with our love lives, but at least neither of us is Rhys Williams!"