Ianto tapped his earpiece.  "The pings are under a minute apart now.  Should we get out and run?"

"We can't leave the SUV behind."  Jack didn't turn his head as he dodged through traffic.  "We may need the on-board diagnostics.  Mickey, how close are we?"

"Nearly there.  It's the next turning on the right -- no, left, left, left!"

"MICKEY!"

"All right, all right, ease up, can't you?"

"Jack!"

"Shit."  Jack corrected mid-swerve in order to avoid a couple of kids on bicycles; a fair amount of on-board equipment rattled about as the SUV negotiated the pavement and then carried on while its suspension was still rocking.

"It's, erm," Mickey said after a moment, "the second on the right after the cross street."

Jack pulled over, grim-faced, and parked the SUV.  "Thanks, Mickey," Ianto said.  "We'll call."  He got out and followed Jack up the path, standing behind his left shoulder as he knocked, taking a step back and out of the way when there was no answer after several moments.

"Don't seem to be in much of a hurry, do they?"  Jack drew his weapon, but before he could even shift his weight, much less kick the door in, the door was answered by a small middle-aged woman, with a mug of tea in her hand, whom Ianto knew they'd seen before.  Jack recognised her as well.  "What are you doing here?"

"I live here."  Sarah Jane Smith pushed his gun out of her face.  "What the hell are you doing here?"

"We had an alert of Rift activity at this address," Ianto said.

She turned to look at him, then blinked a couple of times, rubbed her eyes, and took a step closer.  "Ianto Jones," she said.  "I thought it might be you, but a teleconference when the world's about to end didn't seem the time to visit memory lane."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Of course, it has been quite a long while.  You may not remember the old UNIT gang --"

It was Ianto's turn to blink.  "Aunt Sarah?"

Sarah Jane smiled up at him.  "That's right!  But here you are with Torchwood --"

"Hold it," Jack said, making a time-out sign with his gun and his left hand before shoving the gun back in its holster.  He raised his eyebrows at them both.  "'Aunt Sarah?'"

Sarah Jane Smith narrowed her eyes at Jack.  "I knew Ianto's mother when he was just a boy," she said.  "Now what's this about getting alerts from my address?"



Jack pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.  Normally he liked that head-spinning sensation; but Sarah Jane had brought them in and given them tea and chatted with Ianto about his family -- and he didn’t know how it was that he’d never known Ianto was a UNIT brat, or rather that he’d never known that there were UNIT brats and Ianto was one, but even if he had known this, he didn’t think there was anything in any world that could have prepared him to hear Ianto Jones referring to Sir Alistair goddamn Lethbridge Stewart as "Uncle Brig" -- and been just as sweet as candy until the moment she'd told them she didn't have any help to give an organisation that spied on her and tried to interfere with her work.  That was the kind of head-spinning he didn't care for.  "Look, we're not spying on you.  We just keep an eye out in case anyone needs a hand."

"For instance," Ianto prompted.

"For instance," Jack agreed, "there are vortisaurs, who knows how many of them, somewhere nearby."  He pointed to the device Ianto still carried.  "Turning up on our monitors, so obviously you haven't taken care of them on your own."

"There are no vortisaurs here, Harkness," Sarah Jane said, arms folded.  "I'd say you're welcome to search the house, but you wouldn't need to if there were vortisaurs in it, would you."

Jack looked at Ianto and then at the weird-shit detector.  "That's a fair point," he mused.  Why had their instruments brought them here, when there were so obviously no vortisaurs in the place?  "Let me see that."  He zoomed in on the display -- there was no question they were in the right place according to the directions on the screen, and equally no question that the vortisaurs were close by but not here.  He tapped his earpiece.  "Mickey, the address you've guided us to is Sarah Jane Smith's place, and we don't have the vortisaurs."

"So what am I meant to do about that?"

"Mickey," Jack warned. 

"Yeah, yeah, you're lost and it's the computer's fault, I know.  Let me run it through the GPS again."  Mickey was silent for a moment; then, "I get the same result, Jack.  You're in the right spot."

"Look, the population in this house right now is the three of us and no aliens, all right?"

"Erm," Sarah Jane said.

Jack and Ianto both looked at her.  "Hang on, Mickey," Jack said, and tapped his earpiece off.

"Is it possible that your machine is picking up my son?" Sarah Jane said.  "You remember I said it was a long story -- he's actually not quite human.  He was created in an alien experiment.  So it could be that if your monitor is set to --"

"Is he here right now?" Ianto asked.

Sarah Jane shook her head.  "He's on a weekend trip with a school group --"

"Then that's not it," Jack interrupted.  "Mickey, any luck?"

"Luck doing what?  You're exactly where you're meant to be, Jack," Mickey's voice came back.  "There's Rift activity ongoing about ten metres from where you're standing."

"If there were Rift activity, there’d be --"

"Rift activity?" Sarah Jane broke in.  "Of course if you look for Rift activity, you'll find me.  There's a portal upstairs."  She seized the weird-shit detector.  "Yes, you see, naturally it's brought you here.  You need to be searching for aliens -- not alien artefacts, as I said, or you'll get my whole house again and probably one or two of the neighbours --" She started tapping at the monitor.  "Can he hear me?"

"Damn it!"  It had made perfect sense at the time -- aliens fall through the Rift, so aliens in places other than Cardiff must come in through tiny tears, so find the tear and you'll find the door the aliens came through.  How was Jack supposed to anticipate the thousand ways London could find to misbehave?  London wasn't his department.

"Mickey," Ianto said, quietly taking over while Jack joined Sarah Jane poking at the weird-shit detector, "can you send us a GPS route to vortisaurs specifically instead of the Rift activity.  Fast as you can, please."

But as soon as he'd spoken, before Mickey could answer, the front door banged open and a teenaged girl ran in, out of breath.  "Sarah Jane!  You've got to come help -- monster -- things!  With wings, and claws, and -- like pterodactyls!"

"Where?" Jack asked.

"How big?" said Ianto.

The girl looked at them, still gasping for air; Sarah Jane had gone to her and taken her by the shoulders.  "How many monsters?"

"Three or four?  Maybe more.  Moving so fast."  She looked back at Jack and Ianto.  "At the station.  Trapped in the tunnel.  They're big."

"Is your father at home?"  The girl shook her head.  "Damn."  Sarah Jane grabbed her handbag and hastily checked its contents.  "Right then, come on, it looks like we're all in this together."

"Hang on ... ?"

"Mickey, we've got it, thanks."

"Who's --"

"Maria Jackson, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones," Sarah Jane said, nodding to each in turn.  "We'll take your SUV -- my car is much too small for the four of us, and anyway I think you've parked me in."



The argument over including Maria cost them only a few minutes.  Jack sputtered; Sarah Jane insisted that Maria was as valuable a member of her team as Ianto was of his; Jack declared that this was no place for a kid; Sarah Jane pointed out that she'd been in much thornier situations when she was not much older than Maria -- when she was between Maria's age and Ianto's, in fact, speaking of which --

"Fine, fine."  Jack tried to glare at Maria, but didn't do very well.  "Up you get."  And Maria practically bounced up into the back seat of the SUV, and was leaving her father a phone message saying where she'd be by the time Jack tossed Ianto the keys.

"So when did Torchwood change its policy?" Sarah Jane asked.

Jack stared out the window.  "Nineteen ninety-nine," he said.  "In Cardiff, at least."

"Indeed?  And in London?"

Jack looked over his shoulder at her.  "After Canary Wharf," he said, and Ianto hoped Sarah Jane understood from his tone that it wasn't something they should discuss.

She was silent for a moment.  "Did he know?" she asked.  "That Cardiff was safe all that time, I mean."

Jack looked out the window again.  "We were there together a few years ago, but it was before I'd ever heard of Torchwood."  He made a frustrated hand-wave.  "Time travel is complicated."

"Yes, it is."

Ianto fancied he could hear Sarah Jane smile slightly.  He hated the Doctor quite a lot just then, he realised, and couldn't work out why, which he found frustrating.  He steered nimbly through a neighbourhood.

"This is it up here."

"What will we need -- vinegar?  Aluminium?  A burnt stick?"

Ianto parked the SUV approximately parallel to the kerb.  "Probably just a net and some red meat," he said, as they all jumped out and ran for the station.

There were five vortisaurs in the tunnel, and however they'd got down there, they couldn't work out how to get out again.  Three of them were furious and two scared, if Ianto was reading them right; in about an hour and a half they managed to catch the frightened ones and tranquilise two of the angry ones, and only suffer some bruises and a couple of wrenched joints.

The last vortisaur was the biggest and the meanest, and the felling of its compatriots had it in an hysterical panic as well.  "At what point do we give up and try something else?" Sarah Jane called.

"We'll run out of tranquiliser darts soon," Ianto agreed.

"What else can we try?" Maria asked.

"This'll work.  It's just a matter of MARIA, GET DOWN!" Jack shouted.

Maria screamed and ducked away from the swooping vortisaur, just as Jack dived in front of her, yelling and waving his arms.  The vortisaur screeched and hissed and snapped.  Ianto and Sarah Jane shot tranq darts into its neck and underbelly, and it shrieked and flailed and came down with a thud.

Ianto paused and caught his breath long enough for Jack and Maria to fail to get up and dust themselves off.  He and Sarah Jane exchanged a swift glance and then rushed to where the vortisaur had landed.  "Quickly," he said, as they struggled to shift the creature.

"Give me a rope."  Sarah Jane lashed up the vortisaur's beak, and they worked together to heave its body away from their teammates and bind its legs.

"Right," Ianto said, and they turned back to the others.

Jack was dead, of course.  Ianto felt for a pulse, but hadn't really expected to find one.  He rolled Jack onto his back so he'd be breathing air instead of dirt when he gasped back to life; took a moment to smooth Jack's hair off his forehead; and when he looked up, didn't see the surprise he'd expected from Sarah Jane.

"Is he dead?" she asked.

Ianto nodded.  "Only a bit.  He'll be all right."

"I've heard that about him.  Right, then -- help me over here."

She was cradling Maria's head in one hand and had some kind of device in the other.  "What can I --"  The anomalous event monitor interrupted him with a squawk.  "Oh, hell."

"She seems to be breathing, but I can't feel a pulse."

"No, I shouldn't think so."  He clicked his stopwatch and made a mental note to add about a minute and a half.  "What's that?"

"Sonic lipstick.  Doesn't seem to be doing any good.  Does that thing show you what --"

"Vortex," Ianto said, scanning Maria again with the monitor on a more conventional setting, looking for broken bones or haemorrhages and finding none, which at least kept things relatively uncomplicated.  If they really moved, they could get back to Sarah Jane's house in less than ten minutes.  It would take more than two hours to get her to the Hub, which would be -- he did some quick maths in his head -- very bad indeed.  "Have you got a neutron wrangler?"

"Yes."

"Excellent.  Can't wait for Jack, then.  We'd better hurry."  Leaving the monitor for Jack, Ianto picked Maria up and tried to lay her head against his shoulder rather than let it hang backwards.  She was quite limp, but her eyelids were fluttering.  "Let's go."

"Right behind you."

They hurried up the tunnel and back to the platform, but before they could even get to the emergency stairs a man came running at them.  Mickey would have hacked into the police department's computers and had the place closed off ages ago.  This guy must have fought past the protective barrier.  "My God," he said, "what the hell --"

"She's fine, Alan," Sarah Jane said, stepping in front of Ianto.

"FINE?!"

"Ianto, this is Alan Jackson," Sarah Jane continued doggedly.  "Maria's father."  Ah.  Or Sarah Jane must have told him how to get through to restricted areas, if she was in the habit of trespassing all over London with his daughter.  "Alan, Ianto Jones, a colleague of mine from Cardiff."  Ianto waved one hand and gave his best all-of-us-going-mad-together smile.

"What have you got her into?!  Give her to me --"

"Ah, well, actually, Mr Jackson, best not," Ianto said.

"She's fine," Sarah Jane said again, "really, we promise she's fine --"

"Slight run-in with a vortisaur, but it's not serious.  She'll be right as rain once we've reversed the polarity."

"Safest if you let us handle it.  Won't take a minute."

They had managed, in keeping Maria away from Alan, to describe a half-circle, but of course if Ianto made a break for it Alan would catch him before he was halfway up the stairs.  This interview had already set them back forty-five seconds and counting, which would be closer to an hour at the other end.  He shifted Maria in his arms.  "Actually," he said, "could you keep an eye on Jack for us?"

"Jack?"

"He's just a little way down the tunnel," Sarah Jane said, "and we've abandoned him, I'm afraid, so if you could look after him and give him a lift back to mine when he's ready, there's a love."

"Cheers," Ianto said over his shoulder as he headed up the stairs.  "See you in a bit."



Dying wasn't so bad, but coming back to life again was never going to be Jack's favorite thing.  The first breath was like a lungful of the coldest air of the winter, and depending how long he'd been under, it could be whole minutes for the pins and needles to work out of his arms and legs.  This time, he apparently hadn't been dead very long, because only the ends of his fingers were tingling when he sat up and banged his head against something that swore and then screamed and then backed away quickly.

Jack touched his forehead gingerly.  That was going to leave a bruise.  "Who are you?"

The guy who had been checking his pulse was now clinging to a support beam against the tunnel wall, staring at him with a kind of wild-eyed panic.  "You were dead!"

And he never got tired of this.  "Yeah.  Just for a minute, though.  Where's Ianto?"

"You were quite definitely dead.  You had no heartbeat."

"Or Sarah Jane?"

"And then you opened your eyes and sat up and breathed --"

"I remember that bit, thanks."  Jack slowly got to his feet.  Crap -- Ianto had dropped the weird-shit detector.  What had he and Sarah Jane and the kid got themselves into?

"Stay away from me!"  The guy held out a hand to fend him off, and took another couple of steps away.

Jack sighed.  "Look, if you were really afraid of me you'd have actually left the tunnel by now," he said.  "So can we skip through the freaking out, if you don't mind, because I was with three other people and now I'm alone, which probably means someone needs rescuing, and I could use your help."  And he picked up the weird-shit detector and felt in his pockets for his earpiece and other electronic accessories, keeping one eye on the stranger to see how he'd take it.

The guy stared at him and didn't move for another couple of minutes.  Jack could almost see the struggle in his mind.  Hundred and seventy years, not counting the two thousand spent underground, you get used to it.  Usually it ended okay, which Jack counted as anything from horrified fascination right through religious devotion.  Maybe one out of every ten times the witness beat the crap out of him, as if killing him again or killing him harder would make it stick.  (Didn't look like that was this guy's plan, but Jack laid the odds in case he was wrong:  he guessed the guy was in his late thirties and gave him a couple of inches, but he gave himself about twenty pounds, and he decided he could take him in a fight if he had to.)  The worst was when people were actually repulsed; there was no way to win that one.  As long as they weren't running away, Jack figured he was ahead, and the longer they didn't run away, the less likely it was they eventually would.

"So, erm," the guy said cautiously.  "What sort of ... I mean, how can I help?"  Jack smiled to himself:  got him.  "Oh -- Sarah Jane Smith, is it?"

"No."  Jack winked and extended his hand.  "Captain Jack Harkness.  Pleased to meet you."

The guy blushed a bit, but raised an eyebrow as he shook Jack's hand.  "Alan Jackson," he said, "and I believe you asked for Sarah Jane Smith a few minutes ago -- she's my neighbour, and she's got my daughter, and I'm to bring you back and we'll swap, I suppose."

"They've gone home?  Excellent.  Was Ianto with them?"  Alan blinked.  Ooh, brown eyes.  "Tallish.  Skinny.  Pretty mouth.  Welsh."

"Right.  Yes.  Welsh.  Yes, he was."

"Good --" Jack grinned -- "no need to rescue anyone, then, and we can get right to work with this lot."  He turned to the vortisaurs the others had thoughtfully left trussed and netted.

"No, but, my daughter," Alan said.  "She wasn't moving --"

"She was hurt?"

"They said she'd be all right, but they had to reverse ... something.  She was hit by -- is that a --"

"Vortisaur," Jack nodded.  "It's a creature that feeds on time.  That's what killed me.  I was trying to protect her.  But listen, if Ianto and Sarah Jane said she'd be all right, then she will, and we have got to get these guys back where they belong."

"I --"

"Alan."  Jack clapped one hand on Alan's shoulder and the other on the back of his neck and gave him his best expression of earnest reassurance.  "I promise you that Maria will be fine.  All you could do for her right now would be sit there next to her and wait for her to catch up out of the vortex.  But if we don't get these vortisaurs out of here and back into the vortex, they could get free and cause more chaos and knock people in there hard enough they can't get out."  Alan looked unhappily up the tunnel toward the station.  "You'll keep her safer in the long run if you help me now."  Alan set his jaw and nodded.  "Good man.  Now let's get to work."

It didn't take long for the weird-shit detector to reveal that the vortisaurs couldn't be sent back the way they had come; the portal they had come through was closed, and the only way to get them back to the vortex was -- Jack laughed out loud.

"What's so funny?"

"Looks like you'll get your wish sooner than we thought."  Alan looked startled when Jack glanced back at him.  "We're taking the vortisaurs home to Sarah Jane."

Fifteen minutes later, they'd managed to haul one tranquilised vortisaur to the station and were getting set to swing it up onto the platform.  "You don't have some ... button you can press ... to make these ... bastards ... weightless or something?" Alan asked through clenched teeth.

"Hey, buddy, gravity's gravity.  Ready?  On three."

"Three."  They heaved the vortisaur over the platform edge.

"That's one."  Jack took a few seconds to catch his breath.  "Four more.  Let's go."

"We're going to take all five at once?"

"Not that this isn't fun, but we can spend more time together when we're through here if that's really what you're anxious about."

Alan smiled and ducked his head.  "Yeah -- no, I meant, all we've got is my car.  I don't know how we're going to move one of these things, never mind all five."

"Fair point, but I think we're both right.  What do you say to a compromise?"

They did drag all five vortisaurs up to the platform rather than leaving them in the tunnel.  Another forty minutes after that and they had the first one up to street level, and Jack hung his TARDIS key from its claw before they lashed it as securely as they could to the roof of Alan's car.  "I wouldn't rate that for more than about fifteen miles an hour," he said, and Alan nodded nervously and didn't go above ten the whole way back, so the five-minute trip took more like half an hour.  Jack leaned back against the headrest and tried to calculate whether the whole job would be done before dark, or even before tomorrow.

"How much time left?"

Ianto spared a glance at the stopwatch.  "We're over fifteen minutes.  If we don't get that thing started soon --"

"Then we will.  Explain it to me later.  What do we need?"

"Make sure all the leads are connected."  He set Maria carefully on the sofa and tucked a pillow behind her head.  "That bit goes under her tongue, give it here --" Sarah Jane handed him the extension, and he prised Maria's jaw open and slid the flange behind her bottom teeth -- "and, wait, before we press the button, we just need to make sure she's not touching anything else made of metal."

"All right --"

"Ring.  Watch.  Earrings."  They removed these carefully, and Ianto cleared his throat.  "She may have a belt buckle, or other, you know ... hardware -- perhaps you'd better ..."  Sarah Jane smirked and nodded for him to look away.  "And, er, if there's rivets reinforcing her jeans, be sure to tuck her shirt in so they're not next the skin."

"All set," Sarah Jane said after only a moment.

"Right --" Ianto hit the button on the neutron wrangler and clicked off his stopwatch.  "Seventeen minutes twenty," he said, sinking to the floor, closing his eyes, all his adrenaline spent.

Sarah Jane sat down next to him.  "And what does that mean?"

Ianto leaned his head back against the arm of the sofa.  "About five hours."

"Five hours of what?"

"Of nothing."  He rolled his head to one side to look at her.  "Until she wakes up.  She's in the vortex."

"And it'll take her five hours to get out?"

"Because it was a little less than seventeen and a half minutes before we reversed the polarity.  It's why we had to hurry.  Increases exponentially."  He shivered and stretched his shoulder muscles.  "Sometimes people call us with patients who have been in a coma for a couple of days -- that's fifteen years before they come to."

Sarah Jane was quiet for a moment, then fixed Ianto in a keen gaze he remembered well from his childhood.  "But at that rate," she said, "less than a week in would mean a hundred years out.  Even if you do reverse your polarity, a person would still be trapped in there forever."  Ianto nodded.  Sarah Jane looked back across the room, pensive again.  "It's a good thing you and Jack were keeping an eye on London, then," she said.

"We do have our moments."  His attention started to wander, as it always did when he thought of Jack and moments --

"Yes, well."  Sarah Jane patted his knee, then used it to push herself to her feet.  "Five hours is a long time to be sitting on the floor, young man.  Up you get."  She offered him a hand, and he chuckled as he allowed her to help him up.  "Cup of tea?"

They finished a pot of tea, and began another, talking about Ianto's brother and sisters and what they'd been up to since the last time Sarah Jane had seen his mother, which turned out to have been close to twenty years ago.  "I'm sure she'll be pleased to know you're well," he said.

"Yes, do remember me to her, please."  Sarah Jane cocked her head.  "She does know where you work," she asked.

"Of course she does.  We don't talk about it much, but she does."

"And you and Jack ..."  She did a euphemistic waggle of her eyebrows.

Ianto sputtered over his tea, but didn't blush.  "Well," he said after a second, "I suppose it would be obvious now, even if it hadn't been before."

"Oh, darling, it was obvious when you arrived.  Your mother would have seen it."  He winced.  "But then, I suppose anyone who spends more than an hour --"  There was a banging rattle from the next room; it made them both jump, but the neutron wrangler continued to tick away quietly.  The noise came again, from outside.  Sarah Jane got up and peered out between the curtains, then turned back to Ianto with one eyebrow raised.  "And the devil appears," she said.



Sarah Jane wouldn't let them bring the vortisaur inside; she wouldn't even let them inside without it.  "That filthy thing is not coming through this door," she said, "and neither are the pair of you, covered in muck."  She looked up at them challengingly, just as if they weren't both much bigger and couldn't sweep her aside if they wanted.

"We can't leave it out here," Jack pointed out.  "That Rift portal --"

"Forget the dragon and the portal," Alan interrupted.  "Where is she?"  He tried to step around Sarah Jane.  Sarah Jane held up a hand to stop him, but didn't actually touch him; halfway down the hallway, Ianto took a step closer and then ranged himself between the door and where Jack could see Maria on the sofa with a stick in her mouth.

Jack laid a hand on Alan's shoulder.  "Easy," he murmured.  "See, you can see her from here."

"Get off -- Maria!"  Alan pushed past Sarah Jane and hurried toward his daughter.

"Alan --"

"Careful --"

"Mr Jackson, you really mustn't touch her," Ianto said, and he was clearly preparing to tackle him to the floor when Jack caught up with Alan and pulled him away bodily.

Turned out Jack had been right:  Alan was taller, but he himself was stronger, and it wasn't hard to hold him in place while he struggled.  "Alan, look," he said, "remember what we talked about before.  They're taking -- hey -- they're taking good care of her, and we have a job to do."  He looked at Ianto for confirmation.  "She'll be fine --" Ianto nodded -- "but there's nothing you can do here for another ..."

"Close to three hours," Ianto said.

"For another three hours," Jack repeated.  Some of the fight was going out of Alan.  "There's four more vortisaurs back at the station.  Okay?"  Alan didn't look away from Maria, but he gave up and hung unprotesting against Jack's grip.  "So you and I are going to save the world, all right?"

"Fine."  Alan shook Jack off and stalked out of the house.

Jack flashed a smile at Sarah Jane.  "We'll take the SUV, bring them back two at a time.  But they really do have to go through your portal, Sarah --"

"Even if I were willing to drag them through my house, Jack, they wouldn't fit through the door."

"We've got hardware in the SUV," Ianto chimed in.  "And tarpaulins.  Leave all that here, and I'll rig a pulley or something and hoist the vortisaurs up on the outside."

"You got it."  Jack reached for Ianto, but Ianto caught his wrist gingerly and held his hand away.  He leaned in and kissed Jack carefully without otherwise coming any closer.

"You've got a change of clothes in the SUV as well," Ianto reminded him, and Jack grinned.



Ianto put together a lift-and-pulley system by which he could haul a vortisaur by himself up to Sarah Jane's attic.  He did need her help to get the creature into the tarpaulin sling, and to steady the whole contraption while he pulled the rope from upstairs; it also took both of them to get the vortisaur out of the sling and through the portal.  The whole project was messy and exhausting, and Ianto was slightly dispirited to discover when they returned downstairs that Jack and Alan had been and left two more vortisaurs and gone, presumably, to fetch the remaining two.  He sighed and waited for Sarah Jane to check in on Maria, and then they got started on the next vortisaur.

When they'd finished with the second and dragged themselves downstairs to deal with the third, Jack and Alan were back with the SUV and offloading the fourth and fifth.  "That's all of them," Jack said, and he looked -- and, frankly, smelled -- worse than Ianto had ever seen, barring one or two special disasters.  He and Alan both badly needed a thorough wash and clean clothes, needed these more urgently than Ianto and Sarah Jane needed help with the vortisaurs.

"Right," Alan said, stretching his arms out until his shoulders popped, "I'm off home for a shower and a change so I don't revolt my daughter straight back into a coma when she comes round."

"I'll come with you."  Jack turned to Ianto and Sarah Jane.  "You'll be all right without us over here?"

"We'll be fine," Sarah Jane grunted from where she was readying the sling.

Ianto raised one eyebrow.  It wasn't that Jack was ever anything like discreet, but this would mark a new high level of brazenness, beyond all previously recorded limits; it was far more likely that Jack was going over the road for exactly the purpose he named, to have a shower and change his clothes.  He apparently hadn't yet thought of going to bed with Alan, except in the way he thought of going to bed with everyone he met, idly, speculatively.  But he would think of it -- and Alan, if Ianto was reading him right, may or may not have thought of it but almost certainly wouldn't say no.  And Jack still, after several lifetimes, hadn't learned how to shag whomever he pleased without caring too much about all of them.  So Jack would come back shattered -- maybe not badly, but enough that Ianto would have to take care of him until he pulled himself together.

Jack was still looking at him with a sort of mildly expectant look in his eyes, which were strangely bright in the griminess of his face.  "Yes, we've got this sorted," Ianto said.  "See you in a bit."

Jack winked and tossed something to him and followed Alan.  Ianto caught the projectile:  the anomalous event monitor.  He felt his nostrils flare, then turned back to the work.  Two vortisaurs down -- or, rather, up -- three to go.



Alan insisted that Jack have the shower before him, and after the day he'd had, Jack's aches were so bone-deep he didn't even fight it.  The guy deserved to win an argument, after all; let him win on the duties of a host.  Serve him right if Jack used up all his hot water.  Which he didn't -- though he stood under the spray until his muscles didn't hurt, then scrubbed until his skin did, then spent a couple of minutes taking deep breaths of the steam before shutting it off.  His concession to his own role of guest was to wrap his towel around his waist before opening the bathroom door.

Alan wasn't there.  Wasn't upstairs at all, in fact, but it only took a little investigation to find him in the kitchen, propped against the counter with his arms folded and his eyes closed, next to the kettle where he'd evidently dozed off waiting for it to boil.  Jack leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and looked at him.  You'd never know he'd spent the evening struggling to deport a posse of aliens.  ... All right, you'd have to know he'd spent the evening doing something unusual, because that was a quantity of mud and sweat and unnamed alien slime you didn't pick up by normal means.  But still.  And you'd sure never know he was terrified for his recovering daughter.  He was resting so peacefully, Jack had half a mind not to disturb him -- but he started to list to starboard, and Jack hurried to grab him by the elbow before he hurt himself.

"What!  I -- oh."  He stood up quickly, nearly overbalanced the other way, caught himself with one arm braced on the counter and the other hand grabbing at Jack, blinked twice, reached up to rub at his eyes, and stopped just in time when he remembered how dirty his hand was.  Jack turned him by the shoulders and propelled him out of the kitchen with a chuckle, listening to make sure he heard the water running so he'd know Alan hadn't fallen asleep again on the stairs.

With Alan safely occupied for at least the next quarter of an hour, Jack had a thorough look around the ground floor of the house to try and determine how much retcon he'd need.  The books on the shelf didn't suggest that Alan or Maria had any more interest in science fiction or military history than in any other area, so he could probably get by without bumping the dose up to conspiracy-theorist levels.  But who knew how long they'd been mixed up in Sarah Jane's vigilante alien combat ... damn her for dragging civilians into it, anyway.

Jack's druthers would have been to zap Alan back into last week, but of course he couldn't do that quite yet.  He couldn't have the guy forgetting the whole episode before Maria woke up; but, come to that, odds were good Sarah Jane would (to put it mildly) object strongly to dropping retcon on Maria at all, and without giving it to her there'd be no point in giving it to him.  Jack scowled at a framed photograph of Maria and Alan and a woman he assumed was Maria's mother -- Sarah Jane hadn't asked about her, and Maria hadn't called her from the SUV, and she'd no doubt have been home by now if she lived here, now that he thought about it, so either she'd split or she was dead.  He concluded that the only way to handle this thing pharmaceutically would be to slip some retcon to Sarah Jane as well, which would be even more useless, as he'd have to make her forget pretty much the last thirty years.  He gave up on the question, reminding himself again that London wasn't his department, and went upstairs to get dressed.

Jack had just reached the top of the stairs when Alan emerged from the bathroom, tying his bathrobe.  "Back among the living?" he said cheerfully.

"Jesus Christ!"  Alan jumped a foot in the air and recoiled visibly.

"You know, in the time I've known you, you've screamed and run away from me twice.  A guy could start to get a complex."

"Sorry."  Alan pushed himself away from the wall.  "Sorry.  You startled me just then -- I'd forgotten you were here."

"I'm not usually that easily forgotten."  Jack gave him a smile and a wink.

"I'd actually convinced myself I'd imagined the whole thing."  Alan's voice wobbled a bit; uh-oh.  "I've never had hallucinations or anything, but it'd be easier to believe I'd got hit on the head or drunk too much --"  See, here was the freakout he hadn't had earlier.  Dammit.  Jack always forgot how far people could go under pressure, but now, Alan had settled down and got his bearings.  "-- or mixed medications or something," Alan was still saying, pacing now, "or whatever, been very very confused, easier to believe that than to believe there were dinosaurs in the Tube and my daughter's in a coma but she's fine and a dead man came back to life and then came round to mine for a quick shower."  He stopped and looked at Jack, his eyes wide and alarmed.  "You were dead," he said.

"Yes, I was," Jack said.

Alan took a cautious step towards him, looking down the length of his body and back up to his face again before his worried eyes met Jack's.  "And you came back to life."

Something in Jack's mind whirred and clicked, and he understood that Alan wasn't just freaking out about the dead man reviving before his eyes and the transdimensional aliens in the train tunnel and his daughter lying unconscious across the street.  He was apparently also struggling with his attraction to Jack, which Jack hadn't expected; he'd thought Alan was just being a little coy, but in fact it seemed he'd actually never done this before and was several miles past nervous as hell.  That changed the landscape.  Jack realized he'd have to move twice as carefully as he'd been doing.  "Yes," he said quietly, "I did."

"And my daughter's in a coma."  Another step.

Jack shifted his weight to his back foot, splitting the difference between stepping away and holding his ground, concentrating on being as non-threatening as possible.  "She really will be fine," he promised.

"And there were dinosaurs in the Tube that we brought back to my neighbour's house."

"Vortisaurs."

"Shut up!  Shut up about vortisaurs and Rifts!"  Alan shoved him twice, knocking him into the wall, before Jack was able to catch him by the forearms.  "I know she gets up to some weird stuff over there --"  He shook free of Jack's grip.  Jack held up his hands.  "But I'm having a hell of a time dealing with all this."

Alan looked him in the eye again.  He was terrified, that was obvious, but it was a kind of terrified Jack had seen before, the kind where oh god oh god oh god oh god was tempered with just a tiny glimmer of please oh please oh please.  You had to nurse that kind of glimmer to life very, very gently.  If you fanned it with any kind of even slight enthusiasm the guy would panic and back off.  Jack didn't move; he just tilted his chin in the very slightest nod.  "Okay."

He could just about see Alan's pulse quicken.  Definitely his pupils dilated as he took Jack's wrists and lowered his hands from their position of (well, for the moment) surrender, and he swallowed twice when he reached out, scared to death, and laid his fingertips on Jack's chest just below his left collarbone.

This was one of Jack's favorite things, the moment of discovery, watching someone take the first steps into a strange new world.  It wasn't something a person got to see very often; some people did have more opportunities than others, and Jack felt his hundred and seventy-odd years gave him some justification, but of course you didn't get that moment with every partner, and you got it only once even with the ones you did.  But when you did, it was wonderful.

Alan was staring at his fingers, cool where they rested on Jack's chest.  Jack glanced down; he could feel the pressure, firmer and then softer as he breathed.  Alan's thumb twitched, but other than that he didn't seem to have summoned the nerve yet to stroke Jack's skin.  Jack took a short step toward Alan, bringing his chest up against Alan's palm.  Alan started slightly, but didn't back away; Jack ducked his head to get into Alan's line of sight, drawing his gaze away from his hand.  "Okay?" he asked.  Alan nodded.  Jack covered Alan's hand with his own, crowding a little closer yet as Alan gasped.  "Alan," he murmured.

"Jack," Alan whispered.

Jack beamed.  "I like how it sounds when you say it."

Alan blinked at him twice and took a deep breath, and he was kissing Jack before Jack had finished hoping he would kiss him soon.

Jack closed his eyes immediately and parted his lips a moment later.  His fingers curled around Alan's hand and squeezed; with his other hand, he found Alan's elbow, and then his shoulder after a second, and he grabbed the yoke of Alan's bathrobe and held on.  Alan breathed through his nose and opened his mouth, and Jack had an idea he could taste adrenaline on his tongue.

Alan made a soft, low sound when Jack licked inside his mouth.  Jack tightened his grip and redoubled the kiss, pressing closer so their bodies trapped their hands on his chest between them.  He wanted to taste Alan's jaw, his throat, but he couldn't bring himself yet to leave his mouth, and at the moment he wasn't sure Alan would even let him.  Soon, though, Alan was trying to speak and kiss at the same time.  Jack made it easier for him by kissing his cheekbone en route to a spot behind his ear that might, if Jack was lucky, make him groan again in a second.

It did.  "Jack, I -- ohh -- I can't," Alan said, and one thing you learn in a hundred and seventy years is how to stop on a dime.

Jack dragged his mouth away from Alan's neck, pulled away far enough to lean his forehead against Alan's.  "All right," he began.

"I -- there's nothing to hold onto," Alan said, and his fingers curled into Jack's chest, but couldn't get a grip.  His other hand hovered in the general area of Jack's right arm, grasping for a sleeve that wasn't there.  "I don't know how to do this."

Jack grinned.  "You have a kid, my friend.  You do know how to do this."  He bent his head and kissed Alan's mouth again to stop him blushing.  "Put your hands where you want, and don't worry about it."

Alan gave a determined nod and slid his hand from Jack's chest down to his ribs, allowing the other to land on the back of Jack's neck.  In a second, Jack thought, Alan would wind his arms around him, and that was going to blow his mind.  Jack pulled Alan close and took control of the kiss, held his head in place and opened his mouth wide, and he felt Alan's arms go around his shoulders and his waist; a second later, he could feel Alan assimilating the latest difference between this and what he'd been used to; and a second after that, he felt Alan hold him tighter, and now Jack himself was groaning.

Jack shut his eyes and curled his toes into the carpet.  Alan's fingers dug into his back.  He felt Alan try to slip one leg between his, and after a quick involuntary jerk of his hips, drew back until he could see the new startled look in Alan's eyes.  "Hang on," he gasped, "I think that's my cue --"  Alan rocked his hips, the way Jack had done, and made a noise Jack really, really wanted to keep hearing.  "Oh, yeah.  That's -- I know it's your house, but listen, we're not going to do this out here on the landing."

It seemed to take Alan a moment to remember how to understand and produce words.  "Right.  Right.  Okay."  He blinked a couple more times, then looked over his shoulder toward what was presumably his bedroom door.

"Alan."  Jack smoothed his thumb back and forth along Alan's neck under the corner of his jaw.

Alan looked back at him.  "Yeah."

Jack kept stroking with his thumb, smiled, and said nothing.  Alan took his other hand and led him by it, walking backwards, and the smile he gave Jack in return may have been a tiny bit uncertain, but was mostly brilliant, brilliant, and once the door was closed behind them Jack pulled Alan back into his arms.  This was going to be great.



The tea had long since gone cold, and Ianto put on a new kettle and kept staring at it long after it had boiled.

Sarah Jane came into the kitchen.  "Maria should be coming round in the next few minutes," she said, after a long moment.

Ianto blinked and looked over at her.  "Right."  He switched the kettle on again.  "Good.  We'll need to get some food in her."

"I'm sure there'll be dinner at home when she --"

"It, ah."  Ianto gave a weak smile.  "It may not be a good idea to be sending her back home just yet."

"Ah."  Sarah Jane cocked her head.  "Do you think? --"  Ianto raised an eyebrow.  "No, I expect you're right."  The kettle boiled; Ianto nodded to acknowledge the concession as he filled the pot.  "Well.  I hope he knows what he's doing."

Ianto glanced over his shoulder.  "He who?"

She blinked at him.  "I meant Alan.  Do you think there's a chance Jack doesn't know what he's doing?"

Ianto snorted.  If you looked at it one way, of course Jack knew exactly what he was doing.  He'd been at it longer than anyone else on the planet had even been alive; he was the world's leading expert in what he was doing.  But Sarah Jane wasn't talking about mechanics, was she.  "In a way, yes."  He handed her yet another cup of tea and nodded toward the front room.

She looked at the tea, looked up at Ianto, set the tea down, opened cabinets until she found where she'd put a bottle of whiskey, added a splash to each of their cups, and then nodded toward the front room.  Ianto nodded again and followed her.  "Now then," she said when they'd sat down.  "Jack Harkness, out of his depth.  Do tell."

Ianto had a sudden, vivid stab of memory:  the Hub, Gwen's first day, Tosh and Owen already gossiping about Jack.  He hadn't wanted to talk about it then, either, but he had to admit this was different.  It seemed that as Sarah Jane wasn't a member of the Torchwood team, she didn't look up to Jack at all -- so she wasn't likely to leap to his defence if Ianto said something critical.

Ianto sighed and scratched his eyebrow.  "Jack ... has a tendency to get attached," he said.

"Well, from what I understand, one would have," Sarah Jane nodded.

"Yes -- and he did have when I first knew him, and I wasn't surprised," Ianto agreed.  "Torchwood can do that to you."  Sarah Jane narrowed her eyes, but before she could interrupt, he went on.  "And so can outliving everyone you ever knew or loved, yes, once we knew that about him it made even more sense."  He swirled his mug to stir his tea, looked up at her sideways, and smiled ruefully.  "But then there was Harold Saxon."

Sarah Jane actually recoiled.  "You're never going to tell me that Jack had an affair with Harold Saxon."

Ianto shook his head.  "Worse."  And he told her how the Prime Minister had really been the Master, and about his plan to take over the universe.  He told her how Saxon had manufactured first contact with an alien species that had turned out to be the bastardisation of the future of humanity.  He told her how Jack had been imprisoned with Martha Jones's family ("Martha Jones?  From UNIT?" Sarah Jane asked, surprised) and her beloved Doctor (Sarah Jane's jaw simply dropped at that) while the Master brought the future-human aliens back through the Rift and enslaved the Earth.  He told her how they had suffered: the family pressed into servitude and humiliated; the Doctor wasted and locked in a cage; Jack chained up and killed a thousand different ways, most of them as slowly and painfully as Saxon and his pretty wife and their minions could conceive.  He told her how this had lasted a full year, and then Martha had saved the world, and the Doctor had reversed time for the whole planet, and Jack had chosen not to travel with him but had come back to his people in Cardiff instead, because they needed him, and he needed them more than ever.

He told her all of this just as Jack had told it to him, and then waited a moment before he looked over at the horror in her eyes.  She had curled in on herself, as if making herself smaller could keep her safer from what she was hearing, and covered her mouth with one hand.  "I," she said between her fingers.  "I don't remember any of that."

"No, nor do I.  It never happened."  Ianto looked at the front window, and he couldn't decide whether or not he wished he could see the house opposite.  "But it happened to him."

Sarah Jane was quiet for what felt like a long time.  Finally she leaned across to Ianto and poured more whiskey into his empty mug.  He turned sharply to look at her.  She shrugged one shoulder and sat back in her own seat.

"So," Ianto went on, as though there hadn't been a pause of whole minutes in their conversation, "Jack often gets unreasonably attached to people.  I mean, I suppose we all do, don't we, or we'd be in different work -- but he gets that way about individuals, you see.  And," Ianto said, rubbing wearily at his forehead, "I wish he wouldn't."  He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling.  "It won't end the way he wants it to, and he knows that, and he goes charging in all the same, and who do you think will get the job of clearing up afterward."

The neutron wrangler went ping, and Maria drew a deep breath and her eyes flew open.  Ianto hurried to her side before she could pull the flange out of her mouth.  "Wait just a second," he said, laying one finger on her lip next to where the instrument rested.  He toggled the anomalous event monitor and did a quick scan.  "Lovely," he said.  "Everything's normal, it looks like you're back with us, and we can switch this off."  He disconnected the neutron wrangler.

"Welcome back," Sarah Jane crooned.  Maria sat up, flexing her jaw and trying to lick her lips with a dry tongue.  "Here, love, have a bit of my tea -- wait, no, that's a bit strong.  I'll just fetch you a fresh cup."  She set her whiskey-laced mug out of Maria's reach and dashed into the kitchen.

Maria rubbed her eyes, felt cautiously at a spot on her head and one on her shoulder where she had presumably hit the vortisaur or the ground or both, then rubbed the back of her neck and looked sideways up at Ianto.  "Jack?" she rasped.

Ianto smiled and hung a blanket around her shoulders.  "Never better.  He saved your life, Jack did, but he couldn't spare you a quick trip through the vortex."  Maria blinked at him.  "Yeah, you'll feel as though that vortisaur was just bearing down on you a minute ago.  It's nearer five and a half hours; you've been in a sort of stasis."

Maria thought about this for a moment while she drew the blanket around her tighter and kept trying to swallow some moisture into her mouth.  Sarah Jane reappeared with a cup of plain milky tea, which Maria sipped gratefully.  When she spoke, her voice was still quite hoarse.  "Does my dad know I'm here?" she asked.

Ianto raised an eyebrow and nodded sideways.  "At the moment?" he said.

"Yes," Sarah Jane said firmly.  "Yes, he does."



Jack's head was spinning, and it was in the good way this time.

Alan had done things to Jack that must have driven his wife crazy when he'd done them to her, if she'd had an ounce of sense in her head, and he'd learned awfully fast to copy the things Jack was doing to him.  His remaining inhibitions had disappeared relatively quickly once they were in the bedroom, once they'd thrown off the towel and the bathrobe, and they'd spent a while trading who was on top until the sheets and the blankets were so badly tangled around their knees that they couldn't twist their legs together.  Jack had freed them and slid his leg between Alan's; and Alan had moaned and bucked up against him, and guided his hands and even whimpered, and finally Jack had whispered that he'd really like to fuck him if Alan was sure that was what he wanted.  Between the words and Jack's breath on his neck and what Jack was doing with his hand, Alan's breath had hitched twice and he'd said "Ohh -- yes please --", and Jack had propped himself up on one arm so he could see Alan's face when he came.  And then he did fuck him, slowly, carefully, watching for any sign of pain or fear but seeing only wonder.  Eventually, Alan reached up and touched his cheek; and then his throat; and then his chest again, just as he had done at first; and Jack came so suddenly and so hard that he was panting into Alan's shoulder by the time he realized he'd collapsed into his arms.

Jack shifted, courteously, so Alan could move his legs, and drew himself a bit higher on the pillow so they could see each other face to face instead of chin to forehead.  Alan's hair wasn't long enough to have flopped down over his forehead, but Jack smoothed his fingers back over Alan's brow just the same.  Alan turned his face toward Jack's hand for a second, then opened his eyes and looked at him, Jack was surprised to see, shyly.

"That was nothing like what I ever thought it would be," he said.

Jack grinned, but quickly sobered; all he could think was I hear that a lot, which seemed the wrong thing to say just now.  He let his hand drift down, and traced Alan's lips with his fingers.  "It never is," he murmured.

Alan's eyes crossed briefly as he tried to look down at Jack's fingers; he drew away gently and locked his hand to Jack's, palm to palm.  "Jack," he said.

Jack met his eyes.  "I really do like how it sounds when you say it," he said with a smile.

Alan's thumb was moving slowly back and forth on the heel of Jack's hand.  "What are you thinking about?"

Jack looked at him for a long minute and thought about how to answer that.  "Cardiff," he said finally.



Sarah Jane wanted to speak carefully and evade the subject so that Maria wouldn't work out what was going on.  Ianto didn't see the point of that; his position was that if they were going to talk about it -- although he didn't have much more to say about it than he had said already:  Jack was going to come back with his heart a little bit broken but pretending it wasn't, and Ianto wished he wouldn't set himself up for that kind of thing; not, when he thought about it, because he resented putting Jack back together again, but because it wrung at him to see Jack suffer -- but if they were going to talk about it at all, they might as well not pretend they weren't.  Which was how he came to be refilling his mug with whiskey when Maria said "So ... your boyfriend is shagging my dad?"

"Maria," Sarah Jane said reproachfully.

Ianto didn't even turn his head, just reached out to hand her the bottle.

"Ianto," Sarah Jane said reproachfully.

Ianto did look over at Maria as she took the bottle from him, though, to see how she was handling the news.  She'd cocked her head and knit her brow and was evidently considering the matter thoughtfully, which -- after a glance exchanged with Sarah Jane -- Ianto knew neither of them had expected.  "That all right?" Ianto asked cautiously.

"Well ... I reckon that explains ... quite a lot, actually," Maria mused.  Then, still holding the bottle by the neck, she fixed her gaze on Ianto.  "But it's all right with you," she asked, although it didn't sound like a question at all.

Ianto sipped his whiskey to hide his smile.  "Always room for one more," he murmured into the mug.

"You know, now that you mention it," Sarah Jane said, sitting next to Maria and taking the bottle from her, "I don't know that I've seen your father with a woman since -- well, since I've known you."

Maria shook her head.  "Hasn't been out with anyone since the divorce.  No matter how many single mums I introduce him to."  She turned back to Ianto and raised one eyebrow.

Ianto had got no further than raising one eyebrow back at her when, as Sarah Jane would have said, the devil appeared.  There was a knock at the door, and Alan came in calling a neighbourly hello-anyone-at-home.  Maria gave a little wave, and almost immediately, Alan was across the room and on his knees in front of the sofa, pulling her into his arms, blankets and all, and mumbling "thank God, thank God" into her hair.  Jack hovered in the doorway, looking at them for a moment and then turning his eyes to Ianto -- so Ianto raised the eyebrow at him instead.  Jack did that smile of his that was somehow part smug and part sheepish and part rakish and part sad, and came over to perch on the arm of Ianto's chair.

"Dad," Maria said, patting his back.  "I'm all right, really.  ...  Dad?"  She looked up at Ianto and Jack, tried to look at Sarah Jane but Alan's head was in the way.  She squirmed a bit, hands on his shoulders -- "Dad." -- and pushed herself out of his embrace.  "Honestly, I'm fine."

"Of course you are," Alan said.  He felt her forehead, pushed her hair back behind her ear.  "Let your old dad worry a bit, will you?"

Maria rolled her eyes.  "It was nothing," she insisted.  "I mean, for me it was nothing.  I left that message on your mobile about two hours ago, only apparently it's been much longer than that."  She glanced up again, then tilted her head mischievously.  "Hasn't it," she added, and punched his arm. 

The back of Alan's neck went bright red.  Ianto and Sarah Jane's gazes collided as they tried to avert their eyes from Alan and Maria.  It wouldn't help at all to laugh; Ianto bit his lip and looked at his knees until he could look up again without chuckling.

Alan had hung his head, avoiding the twinkling eyes of his daughter, probably trying to work out which of the other adults to glare at.  Ianto could almost see him considering each of them and realising he had no one to blame, if there was blame to be had, but himself.  Ianto might have felt sorry for him, but Maria must have been fifteen years old; if this was the first time Alan realised she could draw a conclusion, it really was his own fault.  Ianto sat back and felt Jack's hand, on the back of the chair, almost brushing his shoulder.  Sarah Jane was sitting quite still, hands in her lap, eyes wide with the effort it was taking her not to burst out laughing.  Ianto covered his mouth with one hand and grinned.

Alan finally cleared his throat.  "Maria," he began.

"Oh, Dad, don't be so stupid."  She rolled her eyes again and pulled him up to sit next to her.  "I'm really pleased for you.  Really," she said, beaming at him just like a teenager.  She looked over at Jack and back at her father.  "Really," she said again.

"Maria," Alan said, a little more firmly, possibly a little desperately. 

"What?"  She glanced at Jack again.  "I would."

"No, you would not," said Sarah Jane, and Ianto, and Alan, very firmly indeed.  Sarah Jane handed Alan the whiskey; he looked at her like an angel of mercy and drank straight from the bottle.  Ianto looked over his shoulder at Jack and elbowed his knee.

"Quite right," Jack said.  "No deal, kid."  Maria giggled; Jack must have winked at her.

"Anyway."  Sarah Jane rose, a motion to adjourn.  Ianto, Jack, and Alan got to their feet as well, and Maria a moment later, steadying herself on her father's arm before he draped it around her shoulders.

"Yeah," Jack said, coming up to stand by Ianto's side.  "Guess we'd better hit the road."  He looked at Alan for a long moment, then turned to Sarah Jane and, before Ianto could hurry him out the door, said "But I don't know if I like that you're fighting all the aliens in London by yourself."  Ianto sighed and slipped his hand in his pocket, reaching for his stopwatch.

Sarah Jane held up a pre-emptive hand.  "I'm not going to be Torchwood London.  I know it's different now, but --"

"No, but we can work together more than we have been, right?"  Ianto looked at him, curious.  Jack wasn't trying to talk Sarah Jane into bringing her team under the Torchwood umbrella, which was odd; normally he'd have insisted that they join, and if they wouldn't, he'd have retconned the lot of them.  Instead, he was gesturing with his hands, building something in the air, eagerly showing her something invisible.  "If we send you a weird-shit detector, will you use it, and call us if you need our help?"

Sarah Jane scratched her head as she thought about this.  "In return for which you'll call me before you come storming in, if you pick something up and you're not sure I've got it managed?"

Jack laid his hand on his heart.  "London is all yours," he said.

Sarah Jane thought for another moment.  "Could I rename the device?" she asked.  "My team are still at school, you know."

Jack's hand-wave this time was dismissive.  "Sure, sure, call it whatever you like."

"I keep suggesting Spectre Detector," Ianto said, though he should have known everyone would look at him like he was off his head.

"All right," Sarah Jane said, amused.  "That sounds like an arrangement I can live with."  She shook Jack's hand and turned to Ianto.  Jack stepped away to say good night to Alan and Maria; Ianto kept one eye on him while Sarah Jane spoke.  "I'm glad to meet you again after so long, Ianto," she said.  "And look how well you've turned out."  She beamed up at him, fussing unnecessarily with his collar.

Ianto smiled and submitted to the treatment.  "It was lovely to see you, Aunt Sarah," he said.  "Even given the circumstances."

"And I hope we'll keep in touch even if I don't need you to come help us with the aliens."

"Right."  He bent to allow her to kiss his cheek.  "And you," he said, turning to Maria, "well done helping us sort out those vortisaurs."  He held up a hand.

"I wasn't any help at all."  Maria made a face, but clapped her hand onto his anyway.

"Rubbish.  We couldn't have got them without you."

"What'd I tell you," Jack said, arms folded, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Alan.

"But watch that vortex lag," Ianto told her.  "Course I'm sure your dad won't let you out of his sight for a couple of days."  He straightened up and grinned at Alan.

Alan cleared his throat.  "Yes, thank you for looking after her," he said.  "I'm sorry I got in your way."

Ianto raised an eyebrow and shook Alan's hand.  "Glad to help," he said.  "Give us a ring if you're ever in Cardiff."  Alan's face flushed -- again -- but he looked at the floor, not at Jack.  Not surprised by the invitation, then.  Good for Jack.  "Nice to have met you."  He turned to where Jack had been standing.

But Jack had circled round to Sarah Jane and begun another round of cheek-kissing goodbyes.  "So we'll hear from you soon," he was saying.

"Not too soon, I hope," Sarah Jane replied.

"Jack," Ianto said.  Jack looked over at him.  "It's a long drive."

"Right."  Jack nodded.  "Take care of yourself," he said to Maria, hugging her carefully in deference to the bruised shoulder.  "Put some ice on that."

"It's fine."

"Ice," Jack said, as if he could be Captain at everyone he met.

"Jack."

"Right behind you."  He laid a hand on Alan's jaw and looked at him for a moment, kissed him quickly on the lips, and patted his cheek before turning to Ianto.  "Let's go."

Ianto tapped his earpiece when Jack finally pulled the SUV out into the main road.  "Mickey, we're headed back."

"Hiya, Ianto," said Gwen's voice.  "Mickey's gone for the evening, but hold up a sec, it looks like there might be something strange happening in Oxford.  Do you think you ought to go look into it?"

Ianto looked at Jack; Jack looked at him for a moment but quickly turned his eyes back to the road.  "Gwen," Ianto said, not looking away from Jack, "how strange is that something?"

"Hard to say.  Could just be students, couldn't it."

"Yes, it could."

Jack grinned over at Ianto and tapped his own earpiece.  "We'll see about Oxford in the morning, Gwen.  Tonight we're coming home."

---

Comments always welcome!