‘I’m so hungry,’ Ianto’s voice shivered. ‘But maybe I’ll freeze to death first.’

‘Oh yeah. Tosh wants to analyse your invisible clothes,’ agreed Owen. He indicated the empty slab to Jack. ‘He had to take them off anyway, ’cause they were covered in tiger shit.’

‘Wait a minute…’ Jack cocked a saucy eyebrow. ‘Am I hearing this correctly? Ianto is sitting there… naked?’

‘Like, but unlike, one of my recurring nightmares,’ said Ianto’s voice in a plaintive tone.

Jack stared at the ceiling and laughed aloud. ‘Oh, that is such an unfair advantage in naked hide-and-seek…’ He trailed off as he realised Owen and Toshiko were both looking at him. ‘What?’

Owen shook his head sorrowfully. ‘So don’t want to know,’ he told Jack.

Ianto parked the unmarked white van as close to the police tent as possible, grabbed a toolbox off the passenger seat and a white cotton face-mask from the glovebox. He hopped out of the van, only too aware that every net curtain within spitting distance was twitching as the locals ignored their usual afternoon telly for a slice of voyeurism closer to home. It must be like having Jeremy Kyle on all day. ‘My boy in pavement scandal – lie detector special.’ God, but he hated the suburbs…

He ducked down and entered the police tent.

'Hello, campers,’ he said, putting down his toolbox. He cracked it open and pulled out a medium-sized chrome flask. 'Who’s for coffee, then?’

'You read my mind,’ Jack smiled and gave Ianto a wink.

'If the first thing that pops into your head when you see me is “hope that sexy devil put the kettle on before he left”, then I can honestly say I don’t know you half as well as I thought.’

'OK, it was the second thing that popped into my head.’

Ianto toyed with the change in his pocket as he watched the others leave, trying his best to ignore the silence descending on the Hub. He wished he was with them, not because he wanted to bang all their heads together and remind them how lucky they all were to have each other – although he did really want to do that – but because there were just too many personal ghosts in the quiet spaces around him. His eyes snagged on Jack’s office door. That space especially.

His shoulders slumped slightly and he felt the ache inside, right in the pit of his stomach, that left him feeling slightly sick. It was there most days, and always when he was in the Hub. This was Jack’s place, and it was empty without him, they all knew that. Ianto could still hear the echo of his laugh and the feel of those hands on his skin. They’d tentatively been starting something that had the potential to be something great when Jack had gone, Ianto was sure of it. And it may have been Gwen who’d sat by Jack Harkness’s side until he woke up, but it had been Ianto who had torn the place apart hunting for him after he’d gone.

Even when he’d realised that the hand in the jar had vanished, it had taken some time to convince him that Jack Harkness had gone on some kind of adventure without them – without him – and without even saying goodbye.

He stared at the office door and wished he could see the dark shape of the familiar greatcoat hanging on the other side. His heart ached. Jack Harkness. Where the bloody hell was he, and when was he coming back?

‘I think there was a storm over Cardiff, but I think the electrical part of it came in from the Rift, and the two mixed as they met. Maybe that storm was also the arrival of something alien.’

Jack frowned over at Gwen. 'Didn’t we check the storm’s readings at the time?’

'Don’t look at me.’ Gwen shook her dark hair. 'I was at home tucked up in bed with Rhys and we were whipping up our own electrical storm, thank you.’

Jack turned his attention to him, and Ianto felt his face burn as he stumbled over his words. 'We were here, but we were… busy.’

Jack suddenly grinned. 'Oh yeah, so we were.’

From the corner of his eye, Ianto could see Gwen looking from one man to the other, and he concentrated on sipping his coffee. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know about him and Jack, but it still felt strange whenever there was any open reference to it.

Gwen giggled, breaking the awkward moment. 'It seems like we all had our eyes off the ball, then.’

Jack flashed his best boyish smile. 'Or on it, depending on your perspective.’

Gwen felt a little flutter of excitement in her stomach, the same world-changing thrill she always felt when in the presence of something alien to Earth. No matter what the danger, the buzz was always there.

There had been times when she had enjoyed the kick that danger brought: the sheer, unadulterated joy of facing death or injury and surviving it. That sensation could become addictive. She had never seen herself as a thrill-seeker, but she could understand the attraction. Facing down death, beating it, was better than sex. Not that she would ever tell Rhys that, but it did go some way to explain why Captain Jack Harkness was so incredibly hot.

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.’