I liked this as a Series 1 story, and it's reworked for this AU and does move a few things on in the meantime.

As Jack drove he listened with half an ear to Owen droning on, complaining about the trip into the countryside. It wasn't like Jack had deliberately planned it; there was just something to investigate. Besides, if it came to nothing they had all had a bit of time together.

It gave Jack a few days to think about them all, as they were now. Things had changed. Ianto's almost permanent move had done something towards that. But Jack had other feelings about it. As if something still wasn't right.

Someone, or something, was out there, trying to put a jigsaw in place just by forcing the pieces together, whether they fit or not. The rift reacted at odd times. Technology couldn't tell him but Jack knew that the reaction related to the odd taste in the air. It came from the rift but he could feel it anywhere. He dreaded what would happen when the universe put itself right but at the same time he knew it would bring his greatest desire.

However, for now, he was stuck listening to Owen rant about how awful the countryside was. Suzie had stopped listening. She had activated the computer behind the driver's seat and she was busy working, her fingers tapping against the keyboard. Now and again she commented to Toshiko sat next to her.

Toshiko sat in the middle of the backseat, looking around, trying to listen to Suzie and also Owen, trying to find some kind of common ground with him. Jack wished that would happen but Owen was better off with Suzie as a bed partner. But where did that leave Tosh. Stuck in the middle as usual, quite fitting she was sat there now.

Jack let his gaze, as he flicked a look over his shoulder, stray to Ianto. Since they had left Cardiff he hadn't commented on anything. All he had done was look out of the window, his eyes scanning the passing scenery. He seemed happy and settled enough.

Ianto had returned to Cardiff and three times in the last three months had dutifully gone to London to deliver a report. One that he and Ianto had worked out carefully each time. London probably guessed by now that Jack was feeding the information but unless they removed Ianto, or sent someone along with him, they were forced to carry on the game.

It suited Jack. If they knew what he was doing it was far less stressful for him.

And Ianto's assimilation into the team had been easy. Owen was much the same but still displayed a level of sympathy. He could do that well enough; Jack knew what Owen had gone through. Owen would probably never talk to anyone about it but he knew how to handle someone in a similar situation.

Toshiko was naturally nice. She couldn't help that. So she was nice to Ianto. Sympathetic and kind and she also felt wary of demanding anything of him, even though it was turning out to be part of his job. She was always ever so polite about it, apologising when she asked for anything.

Suzie dismissed Ianto utterly. She didn't even seem to register his presence other than to now and again demand coffee.

Out of all of them Jack thought that Ianto found Suzie the easiest to handle. And that was because she hardly looked at him. Her mind was on the glove, although Ianto knew nothing about that. The last thing Jack wanted was Ianto knowing about a power to bring someone back, however brief that might be. And Suzie still didn't trust Ianto. Although she dismissed him, she watched him ever so carefully.

No, that didn't matter, Jack thought. Ianto could cope with it. It was probably the way that Torchwood 1 employee's got treated. The more he watched it, the more that Jack thought that was the case. Which was why, two days ago, he had phone Yvonne Hartman and told her that Ianto couldn't come on his designated days. Instead he would be helping them on an investigation. He would come in two weeks time.

As he talked he realised what had happened. Between him and Yvonne, Ianto had been wrangled over like a child in a custody battle. It was almost silly the way they were both behaving. But neither of them could seem to help it. Jack wanted to keep Ianto and Yvonne didn't like him being there. Ianto gave them nothing much in return.

Jack let him live in his house. Ianto had tided up a bit but showed no sign of making it a permanent fixture. He was as good as his word. All he wanted to do was think. Flowers were placed weekly at Lisa's place in the morgue and that was the extent of the investigation. Jack always found an excuse to not look. The police had also hit a dead end, despite the two similar attacks prior to Lisa, there had been nothing since.

"I'm hungry!" Owen snapped.

"That looks like a burger place there," Ianto said.

"Who'd put a burger place there?" Owen snapped.

"Someone that expected you," Ianto said pleasantly carrying on the banter. Jack as he turned his full attention back to the road, rather than driving automatically, not really paying attention, and realised that there was in fact a small caravan placed up on the crest of the hill, offering food.

It seemed a logical place to stop, so he could run through exactly what they were investigating.

Jack bizarrely found himself enjoying the afternoon. Helping Ianto and Toshiko put the tents up. He hadn't actually planned to get involved but somehow it had worked out that way. Suzie had placed herself in a position where she was helping but hardly doing any menial work. Instead she was checking the equipment, organising the supplies.

Owen, well, Owen ended up sulking. Camping was definitely not his thing. He had sulked and whined all morning and now in the afternoon he had annoyed everyone. Especially Tosh.

It had only been meant as a joke, a silly pun but Owen's reply was so bad even Suzie seemed annoyed by it. It was Ianto, however, who had stepped to the rescue and had ended up distracting Tosh while they hammered in the tent pegs. Something that seemed to require an overly vigorous amount of hammering and a good deal of giggling, and what looked like flirting.

Jack could hardly be called someone who got jealous easily but watching them together tightened something in Jack's body. He knew Ianto was slowly putting himself back together, picking up the pieces of his badly fractured heart but Jack was panicked by the idea that somewhere along the line Ianto would move on, away from him.

That was all the point of Ianto's thinking time, in Cardiff, wasn't it? his mind asked him. Jack had just hoped, he kept hoping, the longer Ianto stayed, that he would choose to stay in Cardiff. Hadn't he already chosen, in a way? It was where he had wanted to come after all the disaster had happened.

All that had run through Jack's mind, so he'd been coerced by his own paranoia into helping put up the tents.

"Go on then Tosh," Ianto said with a grin. She had set up the peg to hammer in holding the mallet deftly in her right hand. Rolling her eyes she thought, putting an awful lot of over-acting into it.

"My ex-boyfriend," she said, and then proceeded to give the tent peg several good wallops.

"That's the fourth time you've hammered your ex-boyfriend," Ianto said.

"If we did that with all my ex-boyfriends, we'd have a line of tents to Cardiff and back again," Jack said, tightening the ropes as the wind pulled the tent a little. Ianto turned his head and looked at Jack, in an amused and slightly cynical way.

"Why the fuck do we have to camp anyway?" Owen bellowed kicking at the tent as he passed it.

"People are going missing around here, do you really want to be in a place run by strangers," Jack said again.

"I hate this!" Owen added.

"No other race in the universe goes camping, celebrate your own uniqueness!" Jack said. "Give me that!" he added to Tosh as they reached the next peg. "It's my go."

"Is that Owen then?" Ianto asked.

"No, an ex-boyfriend, Owen reminds me of him a little. There was this one time…"

And Jack was off. The tents got put up in record time despite Ianto and Toshiko being unable to do much they were laughing so hard. Owen guessing that somehow he was part of the ridicule stormed off to get some firewood. Suzie, after a moment, said she'd go with him.

Jack and Ianto both watched Toshiko's face drop slightly.

So Jack started again. This time the response was less enthusiastic but he did his best. If nothing else it was nice to see Ianto hysterical with laughter, forgetting even for that short time what disasters had brought him here.

Jack's grin and banter faded as Suzie called him on the com. Jack listened for a moment and then looked around.

"Tosh?" he inclined his head and she got the hint immediately. Ianto looked up, pausing from hammering in the penultimate tent peg. Jack's mind idled for a moment before it made its decision. Whatever Suzie and Owen had found it sounded like Ianto shouldn't see it. Certainly not after being so traumatized by the sight of his girlfriend's body at a crime scene.

"Ianto, stay here."

In response Ianto nodded. The flush on his face faded as he suddenly realised the serious turn the afternoon had taken. He glanced back at what he was doing and then looked back up. Jack managed a reassuring smile and he patted Ianto's shoulder. Ianto smiled fleetingly in response, then he watched with a growing sense of apprehension as Jack and Tosh headed off, pausing to grab some equipment out of the back of the SUV before they disappeared off into the woods.

And Jack felt very right in his decision as he watched Owen carefully examine the corpse. What was left of it anyway. It was nothing more than a carcass, riddled with maggots. All the banter of the day was gone, and their irritations and hurt forgotten. This was business.

"Is there any chance of knowing what killed him?" Jack asked. They should have brought a body bag as well. One of them would have to walk back for it. The most convenient, practical, thing would have been to radio Ianto but Jack wasn't about to have him walking in on this.

"Do the weevils come out this far?" Toshiko asked. Suzie shook her head.

"It's not a weevil, they don't take off that much flesh. They kill almost for the fun of it, like a fox taking off a chicken's head."

"Lovely description," Owen muttered still grovelling on the floor by the corpse, trying to find something, anything to give him a hint.

"But accurate," Jack said. "No weevil finishes off its food like this."

"I can't think of anything that we've encountered that does," Suzie said. She looked up at Jack. "Ianto's been in the archives; maybe he's come across something that could be similar."

Jack tensed slightly. Again someone would have to ask Ianto, without him seeing it. Before Jack could answer however there was the roar of an engine. He turned his head, sensing the direction immediately.

"That's the SUV!" Suzie announced, for once startled. She shared a look with Jack. Both of them moved at the same time, running off back to the camp. Toshiko followed along in their wake.

They ran to the campsite just in time to see the SUV drive over one of the tents and then off out of the campsite. Jack gritted his teeth as he gave a futile chase, watching the SUV crest a hill and then disappear. It reached the road and then screeched away, he had no chance of stopping it.

His lungs were burning as he gasped for breath watching with a level of despair as the black vehicle disappeared from view.

"Great," Suzie announced in irritation. "Who left the keys in it?"

"Well," Toshiko thought about it. "I don't know, but it didn't matter because…"

The next word in her sentence was stolen by Jack, who bellowed at the top of his voice. "Ianto!"

"Was here," Toshiko finished the sentence a little warily looking around and waiting for a reply to Jack's holler.

Jack wasn't surprised when there was no response. All they got in return was silence.

"Did anyone see anything?" Owen asked as he eventually caught up. He panted, a little out of breath.

"That body in the woods had to be a diversion. Someone's driven off with the SUV, all our equipment…" Suzie snapped.

"And Ianto!" Jack said in a voice that reminded them which thing was most important. His stomach churned with a cold sensation of dread. Whatever was out there, whatever they were investigating, it now had Ianto.

XxxxxxxxxxX

Ianto kept his breathing steady as the SUV again hit bumpy ground. If he wasn't pretending to be unconscious he'd be inclined to start criticising the driving, God alone knew what they were doing to the vehicle's suspension. He tried not to make too much noise as he bounced around in the boot and slowly he tried to make some sense of what just happened, ten... fifteen… twenty minutes ago. He'd lost track of time.

Jack and the others had left. Ianto guessed it wasn't pretty and Jack hadn't wanted him to see it. Ianto wasn't going to argue with that. Instead he had concentrated on putting the last tent peg in and securing the rope. And as he had been concentrating on that, he had felt a sharp pull from the other end of the tent when another hard gust of wind caught it.

Turning round he had seen the end rope flying in the wind, having come loose from the peg. At least at the time that was what he had thought had happened. Now he knew otherwise. It had to be his kidnappers had pulled it free, to draw him to that end. Because that's what he had immediately done. Without thinking there was a danger.

With a sigh of irritation he had gone back and was concentrating on tying the rope back when there had been the sound of swift footsteps. Ianto hadn't looked up until the last minute. Again in sheer innocence he just assumed it was one of the others coming back for something.

It wasn't until the shadow passed over him that he looked up. Just in time to see a figure closing in, with just one step to go, their arm raised and already on the downswing. It was so swift Ianto couldn't do anything. He recoiled back slightly but the blow still caught him on the side of the head, directly on his temple. He had fallen to the side automatically, the momentum of the blow taking him down.

That was when some level of cunning and instinct had taken over. His immediate reaction was a desire to struggle up and fight. But he realised in that split second as he hit the ground that would result in another blow. So he had stayed down, remaining limp on the floor, giving the impression he was unconscious, or at least so severely stunned that he wasn't about to get up again.

In the blur as he had fallen, he had spotted another figure behind him. That quick glance was what told him that staying down was a better idea. He didn't know what they were planning but he was better off conscious. It was easier to plan, to think and escape when you were conscious.

To that end, he had remained limp when a cloth bag had been pulled over his head and the two figures had lifted him, rather roughly manhandling him towards the SUV. He could have tried to call out, but he wasn't sure how far away Jack was, or if he would hear. The wind could carry his voice towards or away. And in the time it would take Jack to reach him… well… anything could happen.

As they reached the vehicle he had been roughly bundled into the boot and a second later his arms were pulled behind his back and locked with what he thought was handcuffs. It reminded him painfully of the altercation in the morgue, when the Torchwood soldiers had restrained him.

That made him wonder. Did they find the handcuffs in the SUV, or were they already carrying them? One meant it must have been a lucky find, he was certain he would have noticed someone rummaging around the back of the SUV, and Jack was bound to have something like that, he needed them for the weevils they caught if nothing else. The other theory meant they had come prepared.

Inhaling deeply Ianto was certain the bag was theirs. It smelt rotten, a rough material, like Hessian. He wasn't quite sure of the scent, several of them seemed to have combined on the cloth, but there was an underlying metallic tang. That one made him shiver. He was quite certain it was blood.

Then he wondered why had they handcuffed him anyway? Unless of course his act wasn't as convincing as he thought, or they were travelling far enough that they didn't want to risk him coming to. Either way, for the moment he was helpless, throwing a hissy fit now would serve no purpose other than to put them on alert.

He winced as they hit another bump. His shoulders jarred painfully, the handcuffs were certainly not helping there. He tried to wedge himself to minimise the movement but still keep himself relaxed at the same time. They were driving the thing fast, probably trying to get to the location they were aiming for. Cross-country without a doubt for the most part, Ianto realised. He just hoped Jack was able to follow him. Ianto got the feeling that was the only way he was getting out of this.

Again he was thrown around as the SUV came to a sudden grinding halt. The brakes protested a little and something gave an ominous clunk underneath the vehicle. Ianto didn't like the sound of that. But still the state of the SUV was the least of his worries. As they stopped he shifted slightly, relaxing his body to try and look unconscious still.

The doors of the SUV opened and then slammed, rocking the vehicle. Then the back door opened. Ianto was grabbed by the back of his jacket and pulled out with one hard, swift tug. Staying limp he landed in a heap on the floor. By gritting his teeth he stopped himself from making any sound. The handy thing about the bag over his head was he didn't need to worry about hiding how much he was concentrating on keeping his body limp, and allegedly unconscious.

For a moment he stayed on the floor, keeping still and just waiting. He now had no idea where he was, or what had taken him. All he had seen was a vague impression of a person in ragged, dirty clothes and he was quite sure something had been covering its face. It could be an alien he supposed, a human shaped alien. There had been a few of them that he knew of so it wasn't much of a conclusion. There was a loud slam as the door of the SUV slammed shut over his head and he couldn't help but flinch as the vehicle roared away from him. He had been lying inches away from the back wheels, if the thing had rolled slightly it wouldn't have been pretty. That gave him a good idea of how much they were going to worry about him.

He felt someone grab him by the upper arm, his left and they pulled hard.

"Come on lad!" a voice growled at him. They were aliens that spoke English, with a trace of an accent. That was kind of making him lean towards a he had been kidnapped by humans conclusion. And he also realised that his unconscious act wasn't completely working, and at the rough pulling his shoulder was starting to throb in a way that told him he either got up or had his arm dislocated. Common sense made him work the first one.

He showed willing but still spent a bit of time trying to find his feet, trying to indicate that he was still a little disoriented. The show wasn't really that hard. His head ached a little and the journey had been less than comfortable. In a few seconds he was on his feet, wavering a little and feeling a bit sick.

The feeling increased as he was pulled roughly. He almost fell over his own feet, but the hard grip kept him upright, and there was a light chuckle as he stumbled. Another hand grabbed him tightly on the back of his neck forcing his head down. The grip did nothing to improve the sickness. He was dragged along, stumbling on some loose stones. The grip increased to keep him upright and moving as he was marched along,

As the touch of the wind abruptly stopped and the air changed he realised he had been taken from outside to somewhere indoors. He was pulled through and his foot caught and kicked a chair, as least he thought it was a chair, the sound of the wood scraping across the floor. A second later as he stumbled again he was pushed forward, the hands released him and he sprawled face down on the floor.

He gave a gasp as the air shot out from his lungs and winded he struggled for breath for a moment. It wasn't helped by the scent from the bag catching at the back of his throat, suddenly and painfully. As he hitched for breath he realised the smell had intensified feeling almost solid within the confines of the bag.

For a moment the only sound he could really hear was his own frantic breaths but as he concentrated he could hear a low murmur behind him. With sheer will power and effort he forced his breathing to steady down, which helped control the hammering of his heart.

"What about the boy?" a female voice asked.

"Still looking, he can't have gone far."

"And the others, with him?" she asked.

"They should follow along. They must be police or something; they had guns in the back of that machine."

Ianto listened carefully. Not daring to move for a minute.

"We'll have to be careful."

"I'll call Huw, he can take care of them. They won't be far behind, since we have this one." Ianto felt his backside rather rudely prodded by a foot.

"What about him," the woman asked. "Is he injured?"

"Bang on the head."

Ianto tensed as he was pulled again, rolled over and then sat up against something. The stench was stronger there. Ianto gave several frantic breaths and then winced as the bag was pulled off his head.

The lights blinded him for a moment, after so long in the dark, and then he looked up at the man smiling down at him. He was dressed roughly; two days of growth on his face and greasy hair, darkened by sweat. The man stood up and looked down at him with a grin. Ianto winced as a hand grabbed his hair and wrenched his head sideways.

He stopped fighting the grip as he stared in shock. He hardly registered the woman moving nearer, checking the light bruise and lump on his head. Instead he stared with wide eyes at the carcasses hanging up. He knew enough to know they were no animal. They looked human shaped.

"He seems in a good state," she commented. Ianto jumped as he realised how close she was and he struggled away but that only took him closer to the hanging bodies.

"Oh God…" he stammered. "Are they…? They look like…?"

All he got in return was a delighted grin from the man and the woman gently starting stroking his head, making soothing noises. Ianto sat in the middle, the scent still clawing at the back of his throat, while his body demanded air and he gasped as the cloying stench crawled around him.

In the end his body couldn't take it. He gave a strangled cough and the bile surged up his throat. With an instinct that could probably have been born from experience the woman moved back, knowing what was happening before into Ianto did.

He turned his head to the side retching heavily and moments later as black dots started to dance in front of his eyes he knew the unconsciousness he had been feigning was, gladly, about to become a reality.