Ianto looked at Owen sheepishly. ‘I didn’t think anyone was in this early. I thought I’d better wake you before…’ He trailed off and looked over his shoulder. From elsewhere, in the R&R area, came the distinctive sound of Jack whooping with delight to the sound-effect noises of a handgun.

‘Yeah, right. Sorry,’ Owen muttered.

Ianto gave him his serious look. ‘You don’t want to get addicted to this, do you?’

‘Don’t you start,’ mumbled Owen. ‘You’re as bad as Tosh. No, I was… um… testing some new software for her.’

‘I understand,’ Ianto nodded solemnly. ‘Are those breasts part of the test, then?’

Owen looked down at his hands. Instead of seeing the blue data gloves, he could see Glendower Broadsword’s deerskin gloves. Second Reality had logged him out, but Toshiko’s 3-D rendering software and projectors were still active. And so Owen still sported a magnificent pair of tits. Ianto’s smile looked like it might split his face in half.

‘All right, yeah,’ Owen warned. Ianto had obviously rumbled that he’d not been working hard all night. Perhaps he could brazen his way out of this. ‘So what? I met someone online who was interested in cybersex.’

Ianto’s smile evaporated in an instant, and a fleeting look of panic flashed over his features. This was a more extreme reaction than Owen had anticipated, but it was pleasing nonetheless to wipe that smirk off his face.

Ianto Jones took his coffee black, and seriously.

When Torchwood One had been destroyed in the Battle of Canary Wharf, Ianto had been one of the few survivors, and he had returned to Wales looking for a job with the Cardiff operation. Jack had never had much time for Torchwood One, he didn’t like the way they did things and thought their disastrous handling of the Dalek-Cyberman situation had proved him right. So he was never going to have much interest in Ianto Jones, despite the cut of his suit, never mind how cute he might have been. But Ianto was determined, and he campaigned hard, though to Jack it felt like he’d got himself a stalker. And Ianto was ready to do anything to get himself a place in the Hub. He was an intelligent man with Honours in English Literature and History – but he’d just make the coffee and run the hoover around if that was what it took to get back into Torchwood.

So, in the end, Jack had given him a break as the tea boy and the guy who rang for the pizzas. He had earned his stripes since then and no one really thought of him as the office boy any more. He was a lot more than that, especially to Jack. But no one else could make coffee like Ianto. And, truth was, Ianto liked to make coffee. There was more to it than pouring hot water over ground beans.

The philosopher Sir James Mackintosh had said that the powers of a man’s mind were proportionate to the quantity of coffee he drank, and Voltaire had knocked back fifty cups of it a day, so Ianto reckoned there had to be something in it. And saving Cardiff from the kinds of things that came through the Rift called for quick, inspired thinking, so Ianto took it upon himself to make sure the coffee was good.

Ianto Jones, saving the world with a dark roast.

Something moved in the doorway to the firing range and Jack snatched the Webley up in one smooth, reflexive motion, his finger tightening on the trigger as he stared down the hexagonal barrel at the intruder.

‘Hold it right there,’ said Jack, his voice steely.

Ianto slowly raised his hands. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he said. ‘I’ll come quietly. Or loudly. Whichever you prefer.’

One of the first times they had used the alien Resurrection Glove to bring a dead man back to life for just a minute or two had been on a murder victim in a rain-lashed Cardiff back alley. And Jack had used those precious, stolen moments of life to ask the man what was it like? What was there? What was waiting in the darkness?

The answer, of course, was: you really, really don’t want to know.

And, gradually, Jack had come to realise that he genuinely didn’t want to know. Because whatever waited there, in that undiscovered country, should remain undiscovered. It was dark and endless and utterly unforgiving. And it scared him – because although he may never encounter it, he knew the people he loved more than anything else would. They always did.

Ianto would die. He would slip out of Jack’s arms forever one day – into the cold, black embrace of death, never to return.

And Gwen. When Jack closed his eyes he could picture her lying on a mortuary slab, white as plaster. Those big, beautiful eyes would never open again, never see him, never understand him.

Ianto appeared quietly at his side with a cup of coffee. Jack hadn’t even smelled it coming.

‘I’ve put the Blowfish back in his cell,’ Ianto said. ‘He’ll probably come round in a few minutes.’

‘Thanks.’ Jack looked at Ianto. ‘You look beat. Get some rest.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Don’t argue,’ Jack smiled. ‘I’m in charge. Get some rest and that’s an order.’

‘Aye aye, Captain.’ Ianto turned to leave again, paused, looked back. ‘I am all right, you know.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

But he wasn’t. Ianto looked pale and tired and there was still that sheen of sweat on his forehead. At other times Jack would have been mildly excited by that, but something was worrying him now. Ianto never sweated. At least, not without permission.

Long before it was revealed that you were genetically “enhanced,” I recognized in you an intelligence, a capacity for understanding that I found lacking in other humans. As much as the subject irritates you, you have not been so much genetically enhanced as “arranged.”

The people who did this to you had specific reasons, which you have long since outgrown. And having assimilated these changes you’ve accommodated yourself to this “arrangement” according to the demands of your life. For me, this means that in a sense you are more Cardassian than human. Which is why I am able to share this document with you … and why I sat down to lunch with you in the first place.

Before you cringe with horror at the thought of being a Cardassian, let me give you an example. Human memory is selective and linear. Simply put, a human remembers the best of times in progressive order, beginning with earliest childhood. The rosy memories are only challenged by nightmares.

A Cardassian remembers everything on every level all the time. For us, past and present are not neatly separated. We live with everything in the moment—including the nightmares. And so do you.

To a human this would be chaotic, unbearable. For us it’s just the way it is.

Gwen thought for a moment. She wasn’t used to seeing Jack distraught. He was trying his best to hide it in that slightly cocky, slightly old-fashioned way of his, but she still felt her heart aching for him. Immortality had its price. ‘Maybe,’ she said carefully, ‘you just need a break.’

‘There aren’t any holidays in this job. You know that.’

‘Everyone needs some downtime.’

‘The Rift never takes a break. Right now it’s busier than ever. And, yes, we’ve got the Undertaker’s Gift to deal with on top of that – maybe. We can’t afford to stop. I can’t afford to stop.’

‘We managed without you for a while before.’

‘That was different. And there were more of you then.’ Jack turned and let his gaze rest on the back of Ianto’s head as he worked at his station. ‘I just can’t bear the thought of losing you. Either of you.’

Jack noted the data scrolling across his computer and the pages and pages of information about the deranged women spread out across the table. He sighed, lamenting how much he missed his team, missed Owen and Tosh, missed the Hub and its battery of computers.

The kettle whistled on the counter behind him. He didn’t move, letting it build up its steam, missing Ianto most of all.

There was a pause, then Gwen suddenly spoke seriously. ‘Ianto, have you spoken to Jack? What’s with these days off? He’s not crashed out here, as far as I can tell.’

Ianto instinctively looked towards Jack’s office, where Jack spent his nights down in a small bunker. Where, frankly, there wasn’t room for two, whatever Jack said.

‘Hasn’t he? Oh. Well, I imagine he’s found a hotel or something.’

‘We wondered,’ Toshiko threw in, ‘if he was at your place?’

‘No,’ said Ianto, a fraction too quickly. ‘No, why would he be at mine? What’s at mine that Jack would want? I mean he could be anywhere, why my place?’

‘Blimey,’ said Owen from behind and above. ‘Someone’s a bit jumpy about jolly Jack Aitch tonight.’