"Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning."
-Wilfred Owen

The note stuck to the monitor in the Tourist Office said in small, serious letters, "I'll be gone until noon. –CJH" Pink Post-It, blue writing, and Ianto plucked it off and cleaned the adhesive smudge from the glass. He didn't think about it.

He wasn't thinking about it when Gwen called from a police liaison in Swansea, sent straight from bed to the field. He held the phone away from his ear and eventually set it down and walked away from it to feed Myfanwy, letting Gwen's ranting ring out into the Hub from the corner of Jack's desk.

Ianto continued not to think about it when he caught the sweep of Jack's coat on one of the CCTV feeds. He kept it firmly out of his mind as he watched Jack's progress over the Plass, his approach a head-down-hands-in-pockets affair that Ianto couldn't think about.

Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it-

Where were you?

Ianto knew he couldn't ask. The small, serious letters; the police liaison; the pensive walk. These were all signals. Don't ask. Don't even think about it, because you can't ask. Gwen was sent away because she couldn't help but pry. If she never set foot in the Hub that day, then she would never know that Jack had been gone. Jack knew that Ianto could contain that curiosity; he trusted Ianto to be able to let it go. And Ianto could do that.

But it was in no way an easy thing to do.

The door alarms went and the cog wheel rolled back, revealing Jack, his face arranged to betray nothing, which in turn betrayed a lot of things. Ianto turned his eyes back to the monitor in front of him as Jack approached. The stairs normally taken in bounds were taken in steps entirely separate from each other. Ianto felt the brush of Jack's sleeve on his shoulder as Jack rested his hand there, peering at the screen. "What are you working on?" His voice was off. Ianto couldn't tell if there was truly something different, or if it was his imagination trying to find some clue.

"Satellite footage of a Brakeni spacecraft caught by the US military." He spoke easily, not turning from the screen. "Just cleaning up a bit." He deleted it. Poof. Never existed in the first place. "They should think about improving their security."

"Let them keep it the way it is, if it makes our lives easier." Jack started for his office, shrugging out of his coat.

"I'm sure China feels the same way." Ianto didn't turn, but caught the amused pause of Jack's arms on the way to the coat tree reflected in the monitor. Then they continued, hanging up the coat and disappearing as Jack stepped over to his desk.

"Gwen back yet?" Under Jack's voice Ianto could hear the shuffle of papers, and knew that Jack was carefully piling the files that Ianto had set on his desk that morning on top of the files he had placed there the morning previous, all of them doomed to be dutifully ignored until there was a bout of shouting done.

"Not yet. Would you like me to get ahold of her?"

"Don't worry about it. She'll be back eventually."

Ianto stood and moved into Jack's office, leaning against the doorframe. "She wasn't particularly pleased with the task. Or the timing."

Jack glanced up, brow quirked. "Would you rather I sent you?"

"Not at all. I quite enjoy sleeping, when I'm able. I just don't enjoy receiving irate phone calls periodically throughout the day."

"Well, she should have been investigating, not calling you." Jack picked up a file from the stack and began to read it. Ah. Entering uncomfortable territory. Jack would never willingly look at paper with the Torchwood logo on it.

"Moreover, she should have been calling you, not me. I had nothing to do with sending her to Swansea. But your phone was off." Toeing the line. Jack said nothing, but looked up. And this was where Ianto could have done it. Crossed the line from Trusted Employee to Overcurious Lover. He met Jack's eyes.

We are playing this game, you and I.

"Coffee?"

Jack nodded. "Thanks."

Ianto started away, and heard Jack place the paper back on its stack.

- - -

She was going to kill him. She was lucky, in that she could say that sort of thing and actually carry it out. She was going to kill him, and then maybe kill him again for good measure. Jack bloody Harkness and his bloody UNIT liaison in Swansea. Cutlery! Alien cutlery, and she'd gone all the way out to the middle of nowhere, to some bastard UNIT tent in the rain next to a hole in the ground just to be safe.

When she was stumbling around at five in the morning trying to find clothes with Jack on the phone in her ear, she thought that it would at least be a life threatening situation, but no. Alien cutlery. Martian knives and forks. She stalked across the Plass, empty handed, because UNIT had taken the artefacts with them. They hadn't even wanted a liaison. They'd been surprised she was even there.

Jack had better have balloons and a cake waiting for her. And she'd probably still kill him.

There was a shout, and she turned, her arms dropping, her hand falling to her holster, an automatic response. A group of people was forming about twenty metres to her right, in a tight circle around – something. She couldn't make it out through the forest of bodies. But there, through legs, she could see – a flail of limbs, arms clad in business-suit-black. The flash of a red tie. Had someone collapsed? A seizure? She drew closer – but then from nearby there was the wail of a siren that made everyone jump, and an ambulance pulled up beside the knot of people. They all stepped back as two men dressed in green came around the sides of the vehicle, and Gwen stopped approaching. Nothing she could do. She watched the paramedics kneel in the circle of bodies, obscuring her view of the patient. Reluctantly, she turned and made once more for the Tourist Office.

It was strange. No one left when the paramedics arrived. They were still there, staring.

It wasn't until she was in the Hub that she remembered she was angry. "Jack Harkness, I will bloody kill you!"

"Won't be that effective."

She could see him from the bottom of the stairs, sitting at his desk. "Alien cutlery, Jack! And UNIT boys giving me the eye the whole time."

"No surprise there." He looked up with a grin that didn't meet his eyes, and Gwen paused in the doorway.

"Are you all right, Jack?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Fine. Why?"

She frowned, but was interrupted by Ianto suddenly saying from behind her, "Coffee, Gwen?"

She jumped about three feet and spun to look at him. "Give me a heart attack, Ianto."

"Gladly." He offered her a mug and she took it with a playful slap to his shoulder. He set Jack's mug on his desk, then took the remaining one and moved to lean with his back against the wall, letting the serving tray dangle from his fingers and swing lightly against his shin.

"So, what have I missed?" She looked between them and raised the mug to her lips – her expression turning to an almost obscene relief at the wash of caffeine.

"Nothing much," Jack said, leaning back in his chair. "No rift activity, anyway."

Gwen hummed her approval, then remembered. "Outside," she said, looking back out of the office door, "I just saw something strange. Someone collapsed on the Plass."

Ianto raised a brow. "Overexcited tourist?"

"Yes, because the water tower is such a thrilling sight."

Jack grinned. "Ianto has a point, though. Not everything is caused by aliens."

Gwen sighed. "More often than not."

Jack shrugged. "If you want to investigate it, then by all means. Looks like a slow day."

There were three short raps and they both looked to see Ianto with his knuckles against the frame of the office windows. Knock on wood.

- - -

Ianto picked up Gwen's mug as he was passing, then paused to look over her shoulder. "How's it coming?"

Gwen frowned at the screen before her. "The CCTV is unclear and there's no word from NHS about a patient who collapsed on the Plass."

Ianto shrugged. "It must have been nothing, then."

"Maybe." She spun in her chair to look at him. "So, what's wrong with Jack?"

Ianto's stomach lurched in surprise. "Pardon?"

"You heard me," she said, her voice low, glancing briefly at the doorway to Jack's office. "He's a bit – off, don't you think?"

Ianto forced his eyebrows down, forced a confused frown onto his lips. "I don't know what you're talking about. He's been fine all day."

She met his eyes and he didn't waver, as tempting as it was to do so. Any little signal, and Gwen would pounce, badgering Jack until he either left or came out with it. Then Ianto would know, too. It would be nice to have Gwen do the dirty work. But then, the game.

She sighed, giving up. "All right. Maybe it's just a mood. Are you restricting access or something?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "If I were, you would be hearing more about it."

"I'm all ears."

Ianto shook his head and moved on.

Gwen called to his retreating back, "You're no fun!"

- - -

A point in favor of superstition; there was no rift activity all day.

Jack sent them home at the normal-person hour of six o'clock, just as the sun was starting to descend. Ianto couldn't remember the last time he had left the Hub for the evening when the sun was still visible. He declined Gwen's offer of a ride home and walked instead, enjoying the brief and deceptive feeling of being just another office bloke going home for the night to watch Wife Swap and fall asleep on the couch. It was the little pleasures.

As he approached his building from the opposite side of the street, Ianto could see the silent flashing lights of a parked ambulance, the back doors left open. As he crossed over and passed by it, he peered into the back. No one there. The radio in the front chattered idly away to itself.

The lift hummed him up to his floor, and he let himself into his flat with a relieved sigh, prepared already to put the day behind him. He turned the television on as he passed it by and the evening news mumbled beneath the faucet as he went about mechanically making coffee.

Jack had remained slightly "off" all day. Quiet. And, as a result, the Hub itself had been quiet, all of them working separately in near silence. It was almost like – well. It was almost like when Tosh and Owen had just died. That silence, pervading the Hub, which Ianto had only been able to escape by losing himself in the archives, away from Gwen's occasional catches of breath and Jack's oppressed and guilty gaze, roaming from Gwen to Ianto and back again.

Ianto knew, though no one said it, that it would have been better if it were him, rather than Owen or Tosh. One of them, at least, would be better than neither of them surviving. But Owen was king of the weevils. And Tosh. Tosh was just in the wrong place. But they'd saved the city as their dying act, and maybe that was worth the sacrifice. The butler survived over the tech and the medic, and Cardiff didn't succumb to nuclear meltdown.

This was not a direction that Ianto wanted his thoughts to head in. He started the coffee and moved into the living room, loosening his tie and shrugging out of his jacket. On the television, a medical symbol floated beside the head of the anchorman, who was speaking with a serious expression. Ianto draped his jacket over the back of the couch and headed for the bathroom. He turned on the taps in the shower, then paused.

He'd heard something.

He turned off the water and stood up straight, listening. The sound of the television. That was all.

No – the sound of someone in the hallway. A neighbor? He stepped back into the living room. There was a shuffling beyond the door to the flat. Then a loud bang on the wall. Ianto jumped, then gripped the back of the couch, staring. "Is there anyone there?" More shuffling. A sound, like someone dragging their hand across the wood of the door. Then another bang, an impact in the middle of the door, and Ianto jumped again. "Hold on, I'm coming!"

But he wasn't. He didn't move. He stood absolutely still, staring at the door. There was something wrong. There was something off about this. He tried to tell himself that it was someone fucking with him, or a drunk neighbor, or something else entirely innocent, but he knew, he knew it wasn't. It was silent for a moment.

Then.

"Mummy?"

And Ianto's heart stopped.

This was not a voice that should be saying that word. This was not a voice that should be coming through his door. This was hardly a voice at all, but something almost solidly malevolent.

"Mummy? Are you there, mummy?"

Low and high at once, like three voices in one; man, child, demon. Quiet but screaming all the same.

What the hell was it?

Ianto slowly let go of the back of the couch. Color rushed back into his knuckles, and the deep indents in the upholstery began to fill in. He took a breath that hitched in the middle and scanned the room. His gun was on the table beside the door. The first step toward it seemed impossibly loud, even on the carpet, but there was no noise from outside. Another step, his arms held out as though to balance himself, and he could feel the quivering of the muscles in his legs, in his stomach, entirely unpleasant. More steps, taken slow, all the while staring at the door, ears straining for more noises. Nothing. He reached the table and slowly, silently picked up the gun, checked that it was loaded, held it down and pointed away. Then he looked at the door. He pressed his eye to the peephole.

And recoiled back with a shout, almost falling.

It was pressed against the door with its face – face? – up to the peephole; dead plastic-glass gaze, metal-rimmed eyes and grated mouth. A gas mask. Fused to its skin, lines of bubbled, burnt flesh melted against the black latex. The door started to shake back and forth in the jamb as the thing threw itself against the wood, screaming, "Mummy! Mummy!"

The tip of Ianto's gun shook as he pointed it at the door, taking breaths that caught and almost choked him. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and dialed without looking, then pressed it to his ear, eyes still wide and watching down the gun sight at the door. It rang once. Twice. Picked up. "Jack!"

Nothing.

No. Breathing.

"Jack, answer me! There's something outside of my flat, it's trying to get in – it looks like someone wearing a gas mask, it keeps-" The door stopped slamming against its hinges. Ianto held his breath.

"Mummy?" Through the phone. In his ear. Quiet.

And the lights cut out.

He shouted a curse, suddenly blind, and fell over something trying to get to a torch in his kitchen. The pounding against the door was back (couldn't anyone outside hear it? His neighbors?), and Ianto could hear it starting to give. He scrambled to his feet and felt along the floor to figure out where he was. Table leg. Back of the couch.

The door crashed open.

Ianto froze. It was silent. No light fell in from the hallway; all of the power in the building gone, then. And then he could hear it moving. Slow, unsteady footsteps. Breathing through the respirator, loud and raucous like someone drowning.

The door. He could leave through the door, if he could get past the – whatever it was, the thing whispering 'mummy' as it shuffled across the floor. He stole himself to run.

And a different voice from the hallway shouted, "Mummy?"

More of them.

Panic gripped him and he forced himself to stay still, silent, his hands balled into painful fists and his heart beating hard and loud against his ribs. Had to escape, had to run, but how?

The window. Ianto looked up to see the dark outline of the thing as it made its way closer, the under-breath mumble of 'mummy, mummy, mummy' drawing nearer. It was slow. It wouldn't catch him. He gripped the back of the couch, pulled himself to his feet and threw himself across the room, to the window, ignored the cuts to his hands as he shoved them through the blinds to unlock it and yanked it upwards. It came up three inches. He pulled again, harder; another three inches, and he heard the thing turning toward him ("Mummy, where are you going?") and he shoved it up higher, putting all of his strength into one drastic, desperate heave, and it opened enough to let him through.

He scrambled over the sill, his feet hitting the metal fire escape, and turned back to close the window – but the thing was there, one hand (slashed open across the back) reaching out for him, and Ianto could see it perfectly now in the light from the street below; gas mask fitted below dark hair, eyes unseen through the glass but giving the impression of being wide, frightened, desperate, mouth seeming drawn in a constant distraught "o", as though profoundly horrified. Ianto ducked away from the hand and gripped the rail of the fire escape. He gave himself only another second to take in the creature before he was running – down the unsteady metal steps with the uneven clatter of the creature following him; three levels of stairs, and then the final bit, the ladder –

Broken. Stuck, with a ten foot drop from the bottom of the fire escape.

Ianto looked back to see the creature reach the final landing and slip slightly on the metal. It turned to face him. They squared off, Ianto one level below it, watching it bob slightly, as though unable to balance itself. It said low, sad, desperate, "Mummy, please." It took one step down.

Ianto looked over the edge of the fire escape. He looked back at the creature. He pushed himself over.

He hit the asphalt with his shoulder and cried out in pain, but was up in a moment, spinning around to see if the thing would follow him. It didn't. It stared down at him from the final level of the fire escape.

Ianto gripped his shoulder, turned away and ran, his footsteps echoing off of the brick buildings on either side, his breath whistling in his throat.