you can get into Tretarri and locate anything Rifty?’
‘I walked in easily enough,’ Ianto stated. ‘But not for long enough to notice anything. Although…’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing I can put my finger on. But Jack… I think Jack saw something when I went in. But he never said what.’
Owen shrugged. ‘Is the plan to get this wrapped up before Jack comes back?’
Gwen nodded. ‘So, Ianto?’
‘Few days left I reckon, if I understand the files. It seems to take him never less than four days in total to recover.’
‘Hey kids,’ said a voice behind them. ‘What’s going on?’
The others looked at Jack framed in the doorway, grinning and clearly full of fitness and health. And, as one, they turned and stared at Ianto. They were not pleased.
An hour later, they were still in the Boardroom, with the addition of coffees all around.
‘I have noticed,’ Owen said quietly, ‘that when it’s just us, no coffee.’
‘Jack arrives,’ agreed Toshiko, ‘and oh, look, the coffee gets made.’
‘Delivered,’ Gwen added, ‘by hand.’
Ianto just shrugged. ‘I like Jack. The rest of you? I can take you or leave you.’
And he grinned wolfishly at them.
Toshiko suddenly remembered the teasing a couple of days before. She looked at her coffee in alarm. ‘Ianto, you didn’t…?’
‘Didn’t what?’
‘Nothing.’
Ianto smiled inwardly. Gotcha. Paranoid about coffee.
With Jack now at the head of the table, Gwen brought him up to speed.
‘Really guys,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to do this.’ He placed his PDA on the table and slid it over to Toshiko. ‘Although, by all means sift through this. It’s what I recorded at the site.’
Toshiko scooped the PDA up. ‘Jack, I think we all want to sort this. Not just for you but we’re all scared Ianto will poison us if we don’t.’
‘Slowly,’ added Owen.
‘In the coffee,’ Gwen clarified at Jack’s quizzical frown. ‘Teamwork,’ she finished.
Jack shot a look to Ianto, who just smiled back, stretched his arms, then rested his head on his hands.
‘OK,’ said Jack. ‘Sometimes the humour still passes me by.’
‘Who’s joking?’ muttered Ianto. He smiled around the table, then stood up and started clearing the coffee mugs away. ‘Collecting evidence,’ he whispered to Owen as he passed behind him.
Jack looked at Gwen. ‘I want Owen to run tests on me, get to the bottom of my problem. Then Tosh should go look at the site and-’
Gwen held up a hand. ‘Got it covered, Jack. All sorted. Teams briefed and ready to go.’
Owen and Toshiko wandered out. Ianto made to follow them, but hung back just long enough to hear Jack and Gwen.
‘You enjoy taking charge, don’t you?’ said Jack, not unkindly.
Gwen just said what they all thought. ‘You left us once Jack. God knows you could do it again. Now this – someone has to be ready to step up and get the job done when you’re somewhere else. Still your team, Jack, but never underestimate us. Let the bad guys do that.’
As she left the room, Jack looked at Ianto. ‘I never underestimate anyone on this team. Do they really think that I do?’
Ianto gave a shrug. He hated this conversation. Permutations of it had arisen a few times recently. ‘Couldn’t say, Jack,’ he just said. ‘But I don’t think it’s a reflection on you, just something you’ve instilled in them. Not a bad thing.’
Jack stared at him a moment longer. ‘Been a long time since I wasn’t the last voice on things around here. Takes some getting used to.’
Ianto slammed the tray of coffee cups down, making Jack jump.
‘Damn it, Jack – it’s not like that. They’d follow you into fire if you told them to. But you’re not the most predictable man in the world. If they are going to die for you, for Torchwood, give them enough credit to make their own decisions about where, when and why they’re doing it.’
Ianto took a deep breath, picked the tray up again and looked Jack straight in the eye. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so.’
SEVEN
Toshiko stood at the corner of Bute Terrace, her PDA discreetly hidden under a newspaper she had bought.
She had no idea what the paper was, or what any of the headlines were. Whatever the news was today, she had most likely heard about it ten hours previously, as the Torchwood computers sifted every line of communication across the globe, flagging up anything interesting. Exactly who decided what was interesting, Toshiko had never quite understood – although she and Jack had modified the Hub’s computer systems together over the years, neither of them was entirely sure where it had come from in the first place, whether it was set up in Cardiff or had been something imported from London or somewhere else. Jack remembered, he told her, that one day when he’d visited the place it wasn’t there, the next it was. But this was at a point when he wasn’t regularly working for the Institute, so it could’ve been added at any time between those points. As systems went, it was probably the best in the world.
Jack had told her once that UNIT had enquired if they could borrow her to upgrade their systems, but he’d fobbed them off. She knew that Jack Harkness wanted Toshiko Sato’s expertise for himself. And she was more than content with that. She and UNIT weren’t exactly… mates.
So here she was, trying to take better readings than the ones Jack had got from the streets, since she was able to venture inside. Which was intriguing in itself.
She and Owen had spent most of the previous night in the Hub, thrashing Jack’s problem through. She enjoyed spending time with Owen on problems. They worked well together, nights in front of computer screens, or alien artefacts, munching on sandwiches – they occasionally used to have hot food until Toshiko one day managed to… Well, now she just referred to it as ‘the toaster incident’. A phrase which always seemed to amuse Owen far more than it ought to.
Of course, there were times when it was difficult. Times when she wanted to just lean across the desk, times she wanted to tell him that she-
Anyway, that was irrelevant. Not conducive to a good working relationship. People at work shouldn’t-
Mind you, there was definitely something between Jack and Ianto. And that was a work situation. And-
But no. No, not Owen. He’d never understand. They’d talked once about how, in their line of work, it’d be really difficult to find someone who could ever really understand them, and Owen had said that girls like that were so rare they were extinct.
Toshiko had wanted to grab him and scream and yell at him and point out ‘I’m right here, you stupid-’
Even if she had, Owen still wouldn’t have got it. He’d have made a joke about it, deflected it with his unique brand of humour. Because God forbid that Dr Owen Harper should ever realise that what he was looking for was right under his bloody nose if only he wasn’t so damn arrogant and convinced he was right, and if he’d just kiss her and hold her and look into her eyes and-
Jesus!
The horn was incredibly loud, and Toshiko felt her heart actually jump as it thundered in her ears. Still surprised, she turned round and realised she was in the path of a huge Council truck that was coming to begin the gentrification of Tretarri.
A man in a hard hat and suit walked over.
