1

Toshiko Sato, a real estate broker, vaults down the sidewalk, she's got a hell of a stride. Jack Harness, fortyish, struggles to keep up with her, she's petite, wafer-thin, pale as a ghost. Ianto, a precocious twenty-fiveish piece of eye-candy, strides to keep up, dribbling a basketball as he goes. The kid's athletic, much younger than Jack, and he looks to more like a child than a lover.

Toshiko reads from a sheet she carries in her bouncing hands, noting who is wearing the pants and holding the wallet in the relationship.

"Seventeen feet wide, fifty five feet deep, forty-two hundred square feet, four floors with a rentable basement apartment, so five altogether, courtyard in back" Toshiko is reading off the piece of paper as she scuttles along.

"Could you slow down a little?" Jack asks as he looks around, finding Ianto looking intently at a bush then scooping out the ball, "Or we could wait for the car..."

"No cars. Feet are faster." Toshiko barks as she pushes them along.

"How many more do we have after this?" Ianto whines, pouting at Jack like a spoilt brat.

"None, there's nothing else, you know how tight the market is." Toshiko answers.

"This is it? I told you on the phone, I have to be moved in under two weeks." Jack says with annoyance, then swings to address his lover, "Ianto, please don't bounce that here. "

"Daddy, it's the sidewalk." Ianto harrumphs, confirming her suspicions and she nods silently.

"Oh, that miserable little prick is already leaving." She mutters as she starts to trot faster, leaving the two men to follow.

They approach a row of brownstones, narrow four story townhouses, nice looking buildings, a hundred years old or more.

Owen, a sour-looking man, has just locked the front door of number 26 and is coming down the steps. He sees them coming. "One day you will learn to respect other people's time, Toshiko, one day you – "

"Owen, I am so sorry, you were a saint to wait for us!" Toshiko gushes and he frowns as he unlocks the door again.

Owen throws open the front door, revealing the airy foyer of the townhouse. The place is completely empty. He talks fast, races through the tour. The three of them come in, Ianto still bouncing his basketball.

"This is the middle of the house, the entry floor, living room over there. The kitchen floors below us and there are two bedroom floors above." Owen is talking in a monotone showing his complete boredom.

The front door closes behind them, with a slam so authoritative it seems to say no one's ever getting out.

Jack tries to get his lover's attention, to tell him to stop bouncing the ball in the house.

"It's an enormous amount of space for the money and I'll be perfectly honest, the family is in no hurry whatsoever." Owen appears not to have noticed the impulsive man.

Jack whispers Ianto's name, but Ianto still ignores him, goes on bouncing the ball.

"I don't have to tell you there is an acute shortage of living space in London right now and this is a highly unique property." Owen stops talking and now frowns at Ianto.

"No ball, kid." Toshiko barks.

Ianto immediately stops bouncing. He wanders into the living room, peers through the big French doors, which look out over the courtyard area. There's another row of brownstones on the next block, and all the patios back up to one another. It looks tranquil out there, oasis in the city.

Ianto leans up against the door, sighs, his breath fogs the window. There is a profound melancholy about him.

Jack watches him, tries to catch eyes with him in the reflection.

Can't.

Owen flings open the door of an old-fashioned cage-style elevator. "Working elevator. Mr. Pearlstine, the previous owner, was disabled the last ten years of his life. Highly unusual, the elevator, you will not find this in ninety percent of brownstones."

"Will they take asking price? I need a two week escrow and I'm already approved for the full amount to be drawn from my trust fund." Jack says as he watches Ianto.

Toshiko turns, gives Jack an "are you insane?" look.

"What say we see the house before we dicker, hmm?" Owen asks, starting up the stairs "I have to warn you, this is exactly the response we expected to get. It's a very emotional property.

As he disappears upstairs, Toshiko turns to Jack, lowers her voice. "Who taught you to negotiate?"

"It's not like Saks', Daddy, you don't have to pay the price on the tag." Ianto snorts as he wafts past.

He gets in the elevator and shakes the door shut with a bang. That boy's got an attitude. Jack takes a deep breath, turns to Toshiko. She brushes her hair behind an ear, her thin hand is shaking.

"I'm sorry. Apartments, and... money, and... this is more my husband's area." Jack huffs, then winces as he digs in his pockets for a prescription pill bottle and some water. "Was. His area. I'm not very good at... "

Toshiko watches as he swallows a pill, waiting for Jack to finish the sentence. "Not very good at what?"

"Things," Jack huffs, "and if I was smarter I might have remembered his ability to get 'things' he wants and I wouldn't now be trying to appease my lovely Welshman who walked in on us. If I don't do something spectacular fast, it's going to get ugly between us. Uglier. "

Toshiko just looks at him, no idea what to say. These two are from different worlds.

"It would be so lovely if I could show the property before I leave!" Owen roars from an upper level and they both start, then move to the stairs.

Owen, Toshiko, and Jack poke their heads in a series of rooms, one after the other, the tour flying by quickly. First, an upstairs bedroom. Nice, roomy, looks out on the courtyard.

"Top floor. Two bedrooms, one bathroom." Owen waves a hand distractedly as Ianto wafts past again.

Another floor, another empty room. The trio passes through.

"Third floor, spare bedroom, den, what have you. Mr. Pearlstine used it as an office." Owen is definitely getting annoyed now, as Ianto wafts past again, openly brushing against him.

"He's talking about Bernard Pearlstine." Toshiko whispers.

Jack shrugs, "who's that?"

"The hotel guy? It's been in the papers lately. His kids are all suing each other over his estate. He was a total recluse, paranoid, rich as hell, he was worth thirty million or something, now it turns out they can't find half of it." She looks furtive "Somebody took something didn't belong to them!"

"I hardly see how family gossip is germane to showing the property." Owen sniffs.

"Stop calling it the property, you sound ridiculous." Toshiko snaps back.

From the hallway, there is a raunching metallic grinding sound, the elevator, and the happy laughter of the young man as he puts it through its paces. Owen winces, speaks as if his mouth hurts when he moves it. "Could he please stop that?"

"KID! NO ELEVATOR!" Toshiko roars and Ianto's grunt is heard.

She looks at Jack and winks.

"And we emerge in the master bedroom." Owen announced as he checks his watch.

Ianto looks around, studying the dimensions of the room. He looks at the far wall, the one that borders the house next door. He looks at the wall that corners it, opposite the window wall. She takes two steps back from it.

"Something's weird." Ianto mutters.

"What?" Toshiko asks with annoyance.

"I don't know, doesn't that corner seem funny to you?" Hhe points to the far end of the wall, near the entrance to the closet. There is a mirrored door that leads to the closet and a mirror on the wall alongside it. "If you look closely, you'll see that the mirrors are raked slightly toward one another, which creates an optical illusion in which the corner of the room appears much closer to the door than it is."

"I was waiting to see if you'd notice!" Owen says with surprise "No one from our office had the slightest idea."

He pushes on the top of the mirror on the wall. It makes a faint vlick, then glides open a few inches off the wall.

He pulls it toward him, opens it all the way, a hundred eighty degrees, and it fastens magnetically to the back of the closed door. There is smooth wall behind it, but if you look closely, there is a faint vertical crack in the wall.

Jack looks at him - what in the world? Even pushes again, twice this time, first at the top, then at the bottom, and the smooth wall clicks ajar.

He pulls it wide open.

Jack and Toshiko step forward, fascinated.

The three of them stand in the open doorway, silhouetted by the sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows behind them.

"It's called a panic room." Owen says for inside the room and he hits a switch and a row of bulbs flick on overhead.

"A what?" Jack gapes.

"A safe room. An inner sanctum. A castle keep, in medieval times." Ianto rolls his eyes as he leans in, "I would call it a hub. Like a centre of operations."

He turned to Jack and cants his head.

"Cool"

Jacks' sold.

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"Oh, I've seen these..." Toshiko says.

"It's quite in vogue in high end construction right now. One really can't be too careful about home invasion." Owen puffs.

The other two walk inside, but Jack lingers near the door, looking around, studying the neatly arrayed survival supplies - water, food packs, batteries, flashlights, tools, rope, clothes, blankets - you get the idea.

"Hey, this is perfect for you..." Toshiko gushes. "Absolutely! Your alarm goes off, or you hear glass break, or for whatever reason you think someone's broken into your home in the middle of the night. What are you going to do? Call the police and wait until they get here on Tuesday? Traipse downstairs in your sexy little boxer shorts and check it out? I think not!"

"Reinforced steel core walls. Buried phone line, completely separate, not connected to the house's main line and never exposed throughout the house's infrastructure or outside the house - you can call the police; nobody can cut you off. Your own ventilation system, complete with oxygen scrubber, so you've got plenty of fresh air for as long as you like. And a bank of video monitors –" Owen drones as he hits a switch next to a dozen tiny video monitors, revealing a dozen different views of the house. "- covering almost every corner of the house."

Jack nods, starting to sweat. "Makes me nervous."

"Why?" Toshiko asks.

"Ever read any Poe?"

"I don't think so, but I love her album." Toshiko tries and Jack sighs.

" Edgar Allen." Jack says slowly.

The furniture guy?"

"What's to keep them from prying open the door?" Ianto asks suddenly.

Owen reaches past Jack and pushes a red button on the wall behind him. With a sudden bang of steel, a heavy metal door leaps out of a slot in the wall and slams shut, like a submarine hatch.

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A series of metal latches click into place inside it, from top to bottom, securing it into place.

"Steel, four inches thick." Owen says proudn;t pating the door.

Jack takes a step back. They're now enclosed in the room.

"Everything's spring-loaded, even if the power's out it's fully functional." Owen goes on.

"Open it." Jack demands as he watches Ianto and starts to pale.

"Old Bernie didn't miss a trick with this room, did he?" Toshiko says to Owen.

"Open the door." Jack repeats as he takes a step towards Ianto, who steps back and Jack starts to look spooked.

"And with kids like he's got, no wonder he wanted a place to hide." Toshiko snorts.

"That's highly inappropriate." Oeen grins.

"I said open the door." Jack says loudly as Owen hits a green button and the door groans slowly open, recoiling its massive spring.

"My room." Ianto huffs, "Definitely my room."

Jack stands just outside the door to the panic room, regaining his composure. Not crazy about tight spaces. Which we already knew. The added pain that Ianto was still wanting separate rooms for now.

"That door is a safety hazard." Toshiko points out.

"Not at all." Owen sighs. He points. There's a tiny red beam that shines across the doorway, one at shoulder height. "Infrared. Like the beam in an elevator doorway. Won't let the door close if something's blocking it."

"And one at shin height." Even bends down, blocks the one at shin height with his hand. "Watch"

He reaches up, to push the close button, but with one hand anchored at the floor, he can't quite reach it.

"Push that button for me, will you?" he asks Toshiko.

"Don't!" Jack gasps as Toshiko pushes the close button, nothing happens. Owen pulls his hand put of the beam, takes a step back.

Toshiko pushes the button again.

WHANG!

The metal door rockets shut, the metallic slang reverberating in the room. Almost immediately, the fake piece of wall swings shut, of its own accord, followed a moment later by the mirror, which detaches itself from the back of the closet door and moves silently back into place, closing over the hidden door, making the corner of the room look like a corner again.

As the mirrored door closes, it shows Jack his own reflection. He looks at himself, still rattled. He wipes a trickle of sweat from the side of his face.

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The same house, two weeks later. The entry floor is piled high with moving boxes. Ianto and Jack lie sprawled out in the middle of the black and white tile, arms and legs splayed wide, exhausted.

They stare up at the ceiling, beat.

"Too many stairs." Ianto sighs.

"Got us in here, didn't I?" Jack answers.

"Shoulda got an apartment." Ianto snorts.

"Well, I know that now." Jack huffs with amusement as his lover's strange mood.

Jack raises his hand to his face; he's got the cell phone in his palm. "Battery's dead."

Jack picks up the wall phone in the kitchen, gets a dial tone. "The phone works. Hey, I hooked up the phone."

"The crowd goes wild." Ianto sighs.

"478..." Jakc says out loud.

"0150." Iano finishes.

Jack finishes dialing. It rings, someone answers. "Perry's Pizza, please hold."

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Night has fallen. Jack and Ianto sit at a small table in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by packing boxes. They eat pizza. They chew, silently. Ianto drinks a diet Dr. Pepper. Jack finishes a glass of wine.

Jack's eyes are moist.

Ianto notices.

He notices him noticing, shrugs. "I'm human, what do you want me to do, hide it?"

Ianto looks away, goes back to chewing. After a moment "You fucked him."

"Don't." Jack whispers.

"Or was it the other way round, I was so upset I never noticed who was on top" Ianto snarled, "Well? Is it only me who lays back like a good little bitch?"

Jack looks at him, not sure how to confront the open defiance.

Ianto stares at him for a moment, then goes back to eating.

Jack picks up the bottle of wine.

Ianto's eyes flick over and watch as wine pours into his glass.

Ianto's bedroom is full of unpacked boxes, but his bed has been set up and Ianto is in it, hair wet, pajamas on.

In the master bathroom, Jack soaks in a bath. He is exhausted. He reaches for his wine glass, finishes the last of it.

He stretches for the bottle, which is on the floor next to him. He refills the glass.

Again.