Ianto blinked in surprise. A hand was beckoning him, waggling its fingers. He worked out a fraction of a second later that it wasn’t an alien claw, it was Jack’s arm, the shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, waving him into the room. ‘Excellent timing,’ said Jack. There was no sound of tiredness in his voice, but he stretched both arms wide, shrugged his shoulders, as though starting to get the stiffness out. Even from the doorway, Ianto heard him breathe in deeply through his nose. ‘That’s a new blend, isn’t it? What magic have you worked with those beans, Ianto?’ Another deep inhalation. ‘Same old aftershave, though.’
‘Good morning.’ Ianto moved forward into the office, his eyes growing accustomed to the lamp light. He didn’t ask whether Jack had slept well. Jack frequently stayed overnight here in his office, and although there was a bed in the room, Ianto had never once found him asleep. Come to think of it, he’d never seen Jack dozing off in meetings either, or exhausted at the end of a long day.
Jack moved the formaldehyde jar into a deep desk drawer, scooped up a pile of papers from the desk, and locked those in the drawer with it. This made space for the coffee tray, which held a cafetière and two cups, plus a notebook with phone messages annotated neatly in Ianto’s meticulous handwriting.
Ianto pressed the cafetière to pour one cup, ‘I thought you’d like to try the kopi luwak today,’ Ianto told him.
Jack sat up straight in his chair. ‘You’re kidding me! The stuff made from beans eaten by a civet and then pooped out?’
Ianto poured him a cup. ‘Yes…’
‘The stuff the Indonesians go wild for? The stuff that costs, like, a hundred pounds a kilo?’ Jack sniffed his cup suspiciously. His lips hovered, uncertain, at the rim. ‘You didn’t get this from Waitrose. Boy, I never thought I’d be quaffing cat-shit coffee.’
‘I meant “yes, I am kidding you”.’
Jack clucked in disapproval, but he was smiling.
Ianto smiled back. ‘They said they were fresh out of cat-shit coffee this week. Something to do with their trucks can’t through in this weather. So it’s the usual.’ He leaned over the desk to pick the notepad off the tray.
Jack leaned back in the chair to appraise him. ‘Such a pert ass, Ianto. Were you ever an Italian waiter?’
‘I’m more of a French Press man myself.’ He handed Jack the phone messages. ‘That question may constitute work-based sexual harassment.’
‘Only if you ask me real nice.’ Jack waggled the notebook. ‘What is this?’
‘Bit short on detail. Said they had a problem, and would you please call him back at Blaidd Drwg.’
‘What sort of problem?’
Ianto shook his head. ‘Didn’t want to give me any more details. He sounded a bit upset, but was still apologetic about calling. Bit strange, really.’
Jack drained his coffee. He jumped up from his chair, loped across the room and hit the main lights. Ianto blinked away the painful contrast as they flickered on overhead. Jack dragged a conference phone onto one table, and threw the notebook and then the phone handset at Ianto. ‘Dial’em in while I get changed. No, no,’ he said as Ianto gestured that he could step outside, ‘I’m not real shy.’ From a nearby cupboard he pulled out one of half a dozen identical blue shirts, split the cellophane with his thumbnail, and discarded the packaging in the bin with the old shirt.
Ianto finished dialling. The phone’s ringtone hummed briefly around the office, and then a voice: ‘Hello? Jonathan Meadows.’
‘Direct line?’ Jack said quietly to Ianto as he buttoned his shirt. ‘No secretarial shelter. Must be important.’ He yelled into the air in the direction of the phone: ‘Jonathan! It seems like we were talking only yesterday. So, early shift for you?’
‘Under the circumstances…’ Even in those brief words, it was clear that Meadows was trying to hold back some rebuke. The quality of the sound was good enough for Ianto to hear the scientist take a calming breath. ‘Mr Harkness, we’re most grateful…’
‘Captain Harkness,’ he interrupted. ‘But call me Jack.’
Another calming breath. ‘Captain Harkness. We are, of course, most grateful that you’ve returned those four fuel packs.’
‘All part of the service, Jonathan. If we can’t help our Blaidd Drwg colleagues recover their carelessly mislaid nuclear equipment, then what are we in business for?’ Jack grinned hugely at Ianto.
Meadows persevered. ‘Most grateful, yes. And we… well, we know that you Torchwood people like to lay claim to things you come across.’
‘Let me assure you, Jonathan, we have no use for nuclear fuel. Everything here works off triple-A batteries, believe me.’
‘Then what have you done with the other ones?’ asked Meadow plaintively.
Jack looked at Ianto.
Ianto looked at the notebook as though the original message might contain a clue. It didn’t.
‘The other what?’ asked Jack.
‘The other two nuclear fuel packs,’ Meadows replied in an exasperated tone. There was a long pause. ‘You do realise, don’t you, that Wildman took six of them?’
The thunder disturbed Gwen during the night, its rumbling a constant presence for most of the early hours. At first she did that childhood thing of counting between the flash and the boom, but it was quickly obvious that the lightning strikes were already very close. The susurration of rain on the roof wasn’t soothing her to sleep as it had when she was a child. In the end she got out of bed and went to the bathroom, and then for a glass of water. Rhys had snored through the whole night’s storm, of course, oblivious to its noise and her wakefulness. She found him sprawled across three-quarters of the bed by the time she got back.
The half-light of early morning was breaking through their bedroom curtain. She was starting to think she’d finally get some proper sleep when the phone rang and shattered that hope.
Rhys mumbled from underneath his pillow, and reached out blindly for the bedside phone. He misjudged the distance, and the phone clattered to the carpet in a jangling mess of coiled wire. He emerged from under the sheets, grumbling, scowling through his tangle of bed hair. ‘Gwen, that’s your mobile. Get your mobile.’ He slumped back onto his pillow.
Gwen found her phone by their chest of drawers. It was plugged into the wall socket, recharging but still switched on. The display told her who was calling: ‘Torchwood’.
‘Ianto?’ Gwen said. ‘Hi. Oh God, look at the time. Yeah, sorry. What is it?’
‘Problem,’ Ianto told her. ‘You’re needed back here now.’
‘On my way.’ Gwen flipped the phone shut. She turned around, and Rhys was already sat up in bed, glowering myopically at her.
‘I thought you had this morning off,’ he told her. ‘I thought we both had this morning off. I promised you breakfast. Mushrooms. Sausages. I was in the mood for eggy bread.’
‘What an incentive. But honestly, I have to go in.’ She pulled her nightie over her head, and started rummaging around for knickers. ‘And don’t give me that look. We haven’t got time.’