Sitting at her desk Gwen considered the information she had available to her. She had Ianto's Torchwood file, so it should have been an easy matter to find out his entire background, but she couldn't. Which told her he'd done something to hide it. Which also meant they were all in danger because of his secrets. He could be hiding aliens in the basement and because Jack trusted him, they'd never know. Secrets could get people killed and she was one of those people. Maybe it was time to talk to Andy, her former partner. He'd always had a soft spot for her. Of course, none of this would have been an issue if Ianto hadn't seduced Jack. He was probably blackmailing him for sexual favours so she'd have to watch her back. That was probably why she couldn't pick any thing up from him, he was so busy hiding his secret there was nothing left for her to read.

Jack checked the time and grinned before calling out to everyone. 'Alright kids, go home and I'll see you all tomorrow.' If he made a few phone calls he could probably book a table for him and Ianto. He'd show him he knew he was worth more than twenty minutes.

Gwen picked her bag and jacket up and headed for the Prince's Arms, it was the local pub of choice for the Cardiff police and the most likely place to find Officer Andy Davidson once he knocked off work. She didn't expect to find Mary falling into step beside her. She stopped and turned to the blonde.

'I should give them the necklace.'

Mary laughed. 'Like you'd ever give something up that can level the playing field between man and gods.' She shook her head. 'People like you crave the advantage something like that pendent can give. The ability to learn secrets and read hidden thoughts and desires. You wont give that up.'

'Then I should bring you into the Hub, what are you?'

'You do not want me to answer that, not here and not in public.' Looking around at the people hurrying past them.

'Maybe you should come with me.' An idea beginning to form, of how Jack might reward her for bringing the alien in. He'd see she was someone of worth if she did.

'I don't think so, I go in there and I never come out.'

'Yes you will, but I need answers.'

'No, I've been locked in a cage before, I'll not do it again. Your Torchwood doesn't have the best record of dealing well with any one they think is an alien.'

'It's the only way to reveal their secrets, you have to understand, you help me with this and I'll get you home. Please, come with me.'

Mary smiled at the desperation in the woman's voice. 'Maybe I will.' Turning she headed for the tourist office letting Gwen trail after her. Finding Gwen out drinking instead of a heart broken Toshiko was working out faster than she thought it all would. As annoying as she found the woman she was predictable and useful.

Tosh looked up from her computer and frowned. 'Jack, Ianto?'

Both men looked over her shoulder but Jack spoke first.

'So much for going home, Tosh, you and Owen and Jimmy if he's still here need to leave or head up to the gantry. Now.'

Checking she had her gun she nodded. Moving quickly she called out to the two men and began climbing the metal stairs where she ducked out of sight.

Ianto gave Jack a half smile. 'Should I put the kettle on Sir.'

Jack snorted. 'I hardly think our guest will be staying long enough for a cuppa.'

He straightened his tie. 'Just being polite, like any good butler.'

'If you were a good butler my newspaper would be ironed and you'd have answered the door.'

'I'm not that sort of butler.'

Jack laughed as he headed to the table where the transporter sat.

Mary walked into the Hub, her fingertips trailing over the edge of a desk as she began speaking softly. 'In Xanadu, did Kubla Kahn. A stately pleasure dome decree.'

Gwen looked around and didn't see anyone. 'No one seems to be here.'

'Oh Gwennie, I don't care about the others, even though they are here. I just want my ride home.' She laughed at the look on the woman's face. 'They aren't hiding so they can jump out and yell surprise.'

She walked around Gwen, her fingertips moving to the pendent. 'Can't you hear their thoughts? Can't you hear what they think of you.' Her hand moving to rest over the woman's heart as she leaned in. 'They think you're stupid, bringing me in here and not telling them. Not telling your Jack I'd been asking questions.' She turned to Jack who was now leaning on the gantry railing. 'Have you got my transporter?'

'Maybe.' He began walking down the steps holding the bulky artefact they'd been calling a stapler. 'Is this what you were looking for?'

She smiled. 'I felt it as soon as the air touched it, buried for so long. I just want to go home.'

Jack shrugged. 'Home. Funny story there, I worked with a chap once, named Vincent. I had this whole story about how he started acting weird until he went on holiday and came back as Vanessa, fabulous legs. But Ianto was right about one detail.' He looked at Gwen. 'You never acted any differently. Kind of ruined my whole story.'

She snorted. 'That's what he does isn't it, ruins everything.'

Forgotten Mary laughed. 'So much jealousy, so much hate in your heart.'

The smile made Gwen pause.

'A heart filled with hate can have quite a bitter taste to it. Just another reason why I had been so looking forward to meeting sweet, sweet Toshiko and not you.' She shrugged. 'A snack is a snack all the same and I've a long journey a head of me.'

At the sound of footsteps on the metal floor above them Mary spun around and held a knife to Gwen's throat. Owen stepped out of the shadows, his face grey.

'Oh my god, it was a human fist, that's what made the hole in their chests.'

Mary shrugged. 'This form, as marvellous as it is, as soft and desirable, it still has needs.'

Owen's voice was soft, only Tosh and Jimmy could hear him.

'After I qualified, my first year, she came into the emergency room, her chest, ripped open.'

Mary reached her free hand around and pushed Gwen's mouth closed. 'You humans and your archaic way of communicating. It's disgusting and rather gross to look at. Your goldfish impression isn't helping my dear.'

Shaking Gwen tried to face Mary. 'Why me?'

'Like I said, not my first choice.' She barked a sharp laugh. 'You must be used to that by now.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'How many promotions were you passed over, at the station. How many times did Jack choose the butler over you, even the Doctor over there found himself wondering how sweet, dear Toshiko would preform in his bed in place of you.'

She leaned in, brushing her lips over Gwen's neck. 'Even I wondered that and it's not your neck being kissed once the others go home. Not your secrets being kept.'

Gwen bristled. 'I know secrets.'

Mary shook her head. 'Maybe one or two.' She looked around and smiled at Ianto. 'But you sure as hell don't know his.'

'What secrets could he have. He's nobody.'

'Oh he's so much more than that.' Mary tilted her head to one side while studying him. 'In fact, I'm not even sure what he is but he's far from nobody.' Her hand moved down Gwen's body and rested on her hip. 'No wonder you failed to find him out, you couldn't even find what school he went to. Some police woman you are. Jack knows.'

Ianto weighed his options and considered everything he knew about this woman slash alien and the transporter. Given it had been buried close to 197 years the blonde had aged remarkably well and hadn't previously been so concerned about going home. Owen's research and her thinly veiled comments also suggested she maintained her form wholly or in part by consuming human hearts. The position of the knife at Gwen's throat also made it unlikely anyone could move faster than the amount of time it would take for Gwen to die or at least get stabbed. Something he considered meant they would never hear the end of it if that did happen and she survived. But they couldn't given in too easily either and just hand the blonde the transporter or they'd never hear the end of that either. Which left him one option no matter how much he wanted to avoid it.

He stepped forward and smiled at her. 'You seem to have us at several disadvantages, we don't even know your name.'

'You can call me Mary, that was this bodies name.' She shrugged. 'It serves me well, Ianto Jones. But I've answered your question. What are you?'

He had faced down death eaters as a spotty school boy and flown test brooms one summer for the firebolt broom company. Hell, he shared Jack's bed, he could do this. 'You want to know my secret, to know what I am do you?'

'Yes, do tell.' Mary taunted. 'She's certainly dying to know.' Her smile faded as the knife in her hand vanished and Ianto appeared next to her and pulled Gwen out of her arms.

'I'm a wizard.'

'And you'd lock me up?'

Ianto shrugged. 'It's one option, perhaps you should explain why we shouldn't.'

Mary looked at him, not quite sure if he was playing with her or not. 'I want to go home, I'm a political prisoner exiled here.'

Jack cut her off. 'I'm sure some of that is sort of the truth and it might have worked on any one else.' He moved closer with the transporter device. 'But this is a two person transporter.' He frowned. 'Are you a person, never mind. What happened to your guard? Mary.'

'I killed him.'

That seemed to break Gwen fro her stupor. 'Were you going to kill me?'

Mary sighed softly. 'Of course I planned to kill you. Do you have any idea how annoying you are? Having to constantly stroke your ego was exhausting.'

'You were going to kill me?'

'And eat your heart, yes. Can we move on to the my going home part now.'

Jack shrugged and tossed the transporter to her. 'Are you sure you want to go home?'

'Of course I do, I wasn't finished with what I started. Two hundred years stuck on this backwater nothing little planet. Forgotten like Philoctetes. I've had more than long enough to plan my revenge, its time.'

'You didn't plan for everything.'

'Meaning?'

Jack smiled. 'I took the liberty of arming that and I changed the coordinates.'

Mary frowned. 'What?'

They all watched as she winked out in a flash of light. Tosh the first to speak.

'Where did you send her?'

'The sun. But don't worry, it's night time.'

Gwen stormed towards him. 'You killed her.'

'Yes.'

Jack's reply brooked no further comment but this was Gwen Cooper and she looked like thunder.

'How could you do that.'

'I'm assuming you mean morally, not literally how was I able to reprogramme the device which is kind of an insult really.'

'Yes.'

He shrugged. 'Why is it important.'

'I have to know.'

'No. Actually you don't.'

Ianto watched Owen and Tosh exchange a look and suspected his thoughts where similar. Jack was forgetting the tenacious nature of the woman.

Stepping forward Owen decided to intervene. 'She was going to plunge her hand into your chest you stupid bint, rip your heart out and eat it. What is there to know.' He shook his head. 'Or did you miss that.'

'Fine.' Gwen touched the necklace Mary had given her and smiled to herself. With the necklace she could continue to read the others. She wasn't happy but this wasn't over, nor was she giving up such an advantage. She would have answers to her questions.

Ianto moved towards Jack, the men exchanging a look before Jack turned to Gwen.

'The necklace, she gave it to you.'

Gwen shrugged. 'It's nothing special.'

'I'm not so sure about that.'

She smiled the same smile that had always worked on her father and Rhys, even dropping her voice to a more sultry tone. 'Jack. It's just a charm, nothing more so no harm in keeping it. I'm more worried about Ianto being a magician.'

Jack scoffed. 'Magicians are hacks apparently. Hand it over.'

'He can't actually be a wizard then, there's no such thing.'

Ianto rolled his eyes. 'Why is it so hard to believe when we chase aliens for a living.' Watching the show down between Jack and Gwen. The others weren't asking stupid question although he suspected Tosh and Owen would have a few for later.

'Gwen, I will ask you one more time. Give me that alien artefact.'

'It was given to me, it's mine.' She clutched it tightly.

'I'll make that a direct order. Hand it over.'

Gwen narrowed her eyes and focused on Jack as she held the pendent but got nothing from the man. Looking up at Owen she blanched at the volume of his thoughts and such thoughts. She trembled, catching a desk to stop herself falling. 'It's mine I don't care what any of you think.' They were trying to steal something that finally gave her an edge. Suddenly everything went quiet.

Looking over she saw Ianto hand the necklace to Jack and screamed.

'Give it to me. How dare you take what is mine.' She started moving towards the be-suited demon intent on sabotaging her dreams and stealing her future. He'd taken her job as Jack's second in command, her place in the man's bed and now he wanted her necklace.

'You take everything that is mine and I wont stand for it. I am Gwen Cooper. I should be Jack's second and I want my necklace back.' She pulled her gun and pointed it at Ianto, trying to pull the trigger she found herself frozen in place for a moment before tipping back, falling to the floor.

Owen moved across the Hub and checked her pulse. 'Well the crazy bitch is still breathing. Neat trick by the way, tea boy.'

'Owen.' Jack warned.

He held his hands up. 'You wont freeze me will you Ianto?'

The Welsh wizard shrugged. 'You aren't trying to kill me.'

Jimmy leaned over the railing of the gantry and frowned. 'You don't have your wand out. Can you do that with out it? I mean, you must be able to, you just did. But at the house you all had them out.' He watched as Owen looked up at him. 'What?'

Ianto chuckled softly. 'I don't need to have my wand out, no although I don't have quite the same control as when I do.' He shrugged as he pulled his wand out.

Jack shook his head. 'I can never find where he keeps that and I've looked.'

Ianto ignored him. 'Most witches and wizards need their wand to focus their magic but some of us don't.' He stopped himself from going into a full History of Magic lecture otherwise he'd be there long after the body bind charm on Gwen wore off and she tried to shoot him again. 'I'll explain more later if anyone is interested.'

Jimmy shrugged. 'I'm good.'

Tosh shook her head. 'I'm not.'

'Perhaps later, over a takeaway?' Ianto asked her. 'Everyone else would be welcome of course.'

'I'm sure Barnabus would love having extras to cook for.' Jack suggested. 'It might help answer some of the questions.' He moved towards Gwen.

'That may be a good idea, since the cat is out of the bag.' He watched as Jack moved to pick Gwen up. 'Perhaps if you would let me, this is why I pulled my wand out after all.' His wand pointing at her she rose from the ground. 'Where should I put her?'

'I think a night in the cells should do for now.' Jack removed the gun from her hands.

Owen pulled a phone out of her pocket, shrugging at the look on Tosh's face. 'We don't know who she'd try to call, and she did pull a gun on tea boy.'