A/N: Ianto's turn. We're approaching 100th review, yey, and 500th page, so it's a biggie for me. Thnx for reading, reviewing, and hopefully enjoying.

Spoilers: Sleeper

Beta-ed: TattoedLibrarian

Ianto felt like running. He felt trapped inside of the Hub. That never happened to him before. The morning began with grumpiness, he tried to fight it, but it was in vain.

When he arrived and talked to Jack he decided to go easy on him, keep it light, and not insist on confrontation and talking. So he kept a light banter poking Jack, but after he didn't respond with anything but seriousness, that mood disappeared and was replaced by defiance. It was childish but he didn't want to let him pass just like that.

Ianto couldn't believe when Owen and Jack decided to drag out that device for extracting memories. He would never do that. Not only did he have to scrub alien insides from the walls and the stench lasted for days, but it was such an ugly way to die. Even that talkative, jumpy, aggressive alien didn't deserve that. Ianto rolled out the chair. Tosh mentioned they decided not to use it. Jack dismissed her with simple denial about it being just a mind probe. Ianto couldn't just let it pass.

"Remember what happened the last time when we used it?" He addressed Jack directly.

"That was different, that alien had extremely high blood pressure" Jack answered raising his voice agitated by Ianto to that point.

"Oh right" Ianto dismissed few answers one of which was to just yell at him "their heads must explode all the time." He said flatly and Gwen almost choked. Jack reassured her and she rushed off to get the woman and that rose in Ianto an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu. Lisa wouldn't have been treated differently.

Ianto sat in that chair to see how it felt.

"Stop at first sign of trouble" Tosh said pretending that they could control it.

"Or the first sign of exploding" said Ianto remembering how last time everything went to shit in just a few seconds, there were no chance to react in time.

The chair felt like an electric chair so he acted like it. Once again Jack warned him off and he got up to get some water. Before the other alien exploded, his perspiration increased; maybe water would make it easier on Beth.

Beth sat in the chair and Ianto took a place behind her to be at minimum risk of being caught in the explosion. The last time he hadn't so careful, his favourite suit was ruined. Gwen stood in perfect position to be splattered all over.

"You're bedside manners are rubbish" Beth said to Jack and Ianto had to admire her perseverance, to joke while in a position like that.

"You should see his manners in bed" Gwen blurted out and Ianto got worried for a second. "He's atrocious, apparently, or so I've heard." She tried to find her way out of that one and Jack just watched her drowning in awkwardness, and Ianto had such a good follow up to that thought.

"Well they are. I remember that one time..." Ianto started.

Jack cut him off clearing his throat and he stopped. Of course he wouldn't let Ianto talk. It was innocent really, what Ianto was about to say. He meant to say about the Chinese food Jack ate in bed and the stained sheets, he wouldn't have mention that he ate it too, or that the stains weren't from the food. But apparently Jack didn't trust him enough to let him finish.

Beth's head didn't explode and it turned out that Jack had made a good decision. Her hand turned out to be an alien transmitter, and she was a sleeper agent. After that things went to shit fast and Jack was off on the field with an incoming alien invasion on his hands. Of course there were nothing for Ianto to do, or anywhere he could run to, so he got back to fixing the Rift manipulator. His hands were working but it wasn't enough, his mind became more and more agitated as the silent minutes went by.

Owen's arguing with Tosh snapped him out of it. The little doctor was so irritating, he just couldn't stand helplessness.

"I can't hook something up" Tosh was losing her patience. "The entire telephone network is down." She spelled it out for him but Ianto could see that Owen was not hearing her so he stepped in just to shut him up.

"Mobiles, land lines, little tin cans with bits of strings, everything, absolutely everything. No phones, phones are all broken. Hello is anyone there" he even mimed for him. "No, because phone's not working."

But Owen kept going.

"There's no way of getting in touch with Jack, no way." Tosh got in his face and just at that moment Jack's voice echoed throughout the Hub. Of course he managed to produce a solution that would keep him on his feet and running, no helplessness for him.

Ianto felt huge relief from hearing his voice, but he was still irritated by his lithe tone.

"Come on" he said cheerful over the radio trying to stop the questions "with a dashing hero like me, how could we fail?" Ianto could picture him as he was saying that with a smile.

"He is dashing" Ianto said seriously "you have to give him that." No amount of anger could erase that.

Now there were no chance for even doing something with his hands when there was a connection with him and his voice spilled out offering reassurance and signs that he was still out there. That's why Ianto stood there feeling anxiety rising in his chest as they approached the nuclear base.

Apparently Owen hadn't felt any better.

"Let's all have sex" he said and Ianto looked up in desperation because his mind created that image instantly.

"And I thought the end of the world couldn't get any worse" he said out loud knowing that when his mind created an image it could never be erased. The image that Owen put there wasn't pleasant one.