Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen, Archie, Lois, Johnson, Rupesh, OCs
Spoilers: through COE (characters only)
Warning: character death
Beta: fide_et_spe picked and poked, and everything that's still in error is all mine
Author Note: This is a standalone story in an alternate third season where Lois, Johnson, and Dr. Patanjali have come to work for Torchwood; this story focuses primarily on Jack and Ianto.

The calls for general Torchwood business were routed to the phone in the Tourist Office whenever Lois went up there for her daily tasks. Previously, calls had always gone to Jack's desk, leading to dust-ups with Downing Street, Whitehall, UNIT HQ, and even the CIA once. Having Ianto take the incoming calls only delayed the inevitable; while he could deal politely with the more mundane issues without incurring anyone's wrath, he couldn't be everywhere at once, and sure enough, as soon as Jack took the phone, the shouting would begin again. Lois had been trained to be courteous and resourceful, and also to lie through her teeth that Captain Harkness was sadly unavailable at the time, but perhaps Agent Cooper or Agent Jones could return the call shortly.

If Jack had noticed the rest were quietly working around him, he hadn't said and they weren't going to bring it up if he didn't. There was no line on the daily agendas that read: "L. Habiba, answer the phone and try not to bring down the wrath of the rest of the world on our heads," but there might as well have been.

So it was that Lois came down to the Hub amid the noises of the cogwheel door with a soft frown and a sad step as she went to Gwen's station. "We just received a call from Laura McKinnon." Gwen stared at her blankly until Lois said, "Archie's daughter."

Gwen hid her shiver. They all passed around the duty of dealing with Archie. "Why did she call us?"

"He's dead."

Jack pulled up Archie's official record, scanning it briefly. Funny thing about personnel files, he'd noticed. They included hard facts like dates of hire, next of kin, commendations and warnings, but failed to mention important details like "Slightly too fond of fishing" and "Going deaf in one ear, probably can't hear if a lake monster is approaching on that side while he's baiting a hook."

He had to admit, it was how Archie had wanted to go.

Laura had been helping out at Torchwood House, more as a favour to her father than anything. Torchwood's strict recruiting policies were neatly circumvented by enlisting an unpaid volunteer, off the books and off Torchwood London's radar. Jack had privately investigated her (something that had involved two amazing dates in 2002 before Archie threatened to see how many of Jack's body parts could regenerate) and found her up to the task of helping out her increasingly dotty old man.

"I'm sorry," he said, when he finally got through to her phone.

"Thanks," she replied with a sigh that said she'd heard those words a lot in the past day already. "The service is tomorrow. I'd appreciate it if you lot didn't show up."

"We can stay away." There hadn't been much of a body left, and the rest was scheduled to be cremated. Jack had no interest in fighting Laura for custody of the remains.

"When will you be sending someone to take over?"

"Take over?"

"I don't work for Torchwood. I was just helping Dad out. I've got my own life to think about."

"I can make you a really nice job offer, make it official." He hadn't thought about a replacement. He still didn't want to think about it. Change, in Jack's experience, sucked.

"Not interested. I have a funeral to arrange. Let me know when someone is on the way so I can hand over the keys." She rang off.

Jack set the phone down and rubbed his face. With the new doctor they'd brought on last week, the team was up to seven, a wealth of employees compared to the days when it had just been Jack and Toshiko working around the clock. His initial reaction that they couldn't spare anyone wasn't true.

He went back to the employee files. He had access to the full database, morbid as it was. Setting aside the seven of them, and one man in London, the survivors list from Torchwood London had shrunk to only fifteen former employees. Jack had met with the highest-ranking member of the London staff, white-faced and shaken amid the destruction, stammering that she'd been away that terrible day in order to attend a funeral. She signed what needed signing for Jack and for UNIT, and then she'd walked away, one of the few to do so unscathed. A pair of the survivors went to work for UNIT, one came home to Cardiff, and the rest had taken the generous severance payout, the free sessions of therapy, and the handshake, and were no longer working for Torchwood.

Jack was by far the senior-most member of the Institute, so much so that he practically didn't count. Archie had been the second most senior member until his run-in with Nessie's little sister.

Jack tapped the keyboard unhappily.

Gwen had been tracking an unusual case for the last few weeks, which resulted in their thwarting an attempted takeover of the Assembly by a small group of Slitheen just in the nick of time. The full team was needed, even their poor new doctor who'd never seen a live alien up close before, and who ended up with vinegar-scented green goo all over him. Ianto had had the presence of mind to get back when the impending explosion came, but no-one had warned Rupesh, and while the rest found it funny, with even Johnson cracking a smile, Ianto knew he'd still end up having to deal with the cleaning.

Fortunately, Jack explained that this wasn't the first time they'd had this issue, and the surviving members of the Assembly were more relieved than traumatised. Not a perfect day, not with the sad, deflated bodysuits of three previously upstanding Welsh civil servants, but not on the whole a failure, Ianto thought. He tied the last black bin bag full of evidence to toss in the incinerator in the morning.

He jogged back up to the main level to see the rest clearing out for the evening.

"Good night, pet," Gwen said, her mobile already out to tell Rhys she was on her way home.

"Good night." He waited until they were gone and then went to Jack's office. "Did you have any thoughts about dinner?"

"How bad is it that I've been craving fish and chips for hours?"

Ianto immediately thought of the wretched smell from the Slitheen carcasses and made a face at the thought of more vinegar. "Bad."

"Then you decide."

"Thai?"

"Perfect." Jack gestured. "Have a seat."

Ianto took the chair on the other side of Jack's desk. If Jack wanted to get the last of the paperwork done on today's case, Ianto could easily help so they could be finished and out of here faster. But the paper in front of Jack's hand, which he pushed over to Ianto, had nothing to do with the Slitheen. "What's this?"

"You're being promoted."

Ianto picked up the paper with a frown. "Why?"

"To begin with, you're now the second most senior member of Torchwood. You took a demotion when you joined Torchwood Three, and all the paperwork still says General Support. But you've been acting as a full field agent for months, and you've trained Lois on all your previous duties, even though you're still performing some of them."

"She does loathe mucking out the aerie."

Jack smiled, but it was odd and distant. "She does. But she is trained on everything, right?"

Ianto nodded.

"So we're agreed, you haven't been office staff in a while. Your job title will change, and once the paperwork goes through, you'll get a pay rise. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Ianto said, feeling there was something more expected. Jack didn't seem pleased. It couldn't be a budget concern. Jack never worried about that, reckoning that as long as he shouted long enough at someone, he'd get what he needed regardless.

"Now as it happens, there's an opportunity for you to advance higher. We need a new Director at Torchwood Glasgow. The position doesn't currently come with a staff, but it used to, and I could pull some strings. The primary function is to maintain the old Archive at Torchwood House, with only nominal field work required, mostly watching the lochs for trouble and standard investigations of anything odd. There's no Rift, the aliens seem to prefer London at Christmas, and I even hear the werewolves have been quiet for years."

Ianto sat there, disbelieving his ears. "You want me to go to Glasgow?"

Jack shrugged. "It'd be a good career move for you."

"Would it?" he asked in a small voice.

"You'd be in charge. You wouldn't have to answer to anyone except the Crown, and occasionally me, though you know how often I ever asked Archie for anything." Never, as far as Ianto knew. "You could recruit and train people to do things your way."

"I don't want to be a manager."

"That's fine. You don't have to bring on anyone if you'd rather do things yourself. Archie's daughter helped him out when he got older, but he did the job alone for years. Laura will catch you up on things."

Jack was talking like Ianto had already accepted the position. With an effort, he stopped his heart racing and his breath from catching. "I haven't said yes."

Jack shrugged again, and it was that nonchalance that hurt the most. "You have time to think about it. The site can sit empty for a week or two." He stood up and clicked off his desk lamp. "You said Thai?"

Ianto blinked, wondering what on Earth Jack meant, when the previous part of the conversation came back to him. "Yes."

"Let's go."

Ianto stayed quiet on the ride to the restaurant, and let Jack fill in most of the conversation there, stories about Archie from the old days, even a few about Archie's daughter. Ianto listened as attentively as he could with his mind elsewhere, and he contributed comments when Jack would expect them. When they went home, Ianto made an excuse about fatigue, offered a quick kiss, and left Jack watching old films. He woke briefly when Jack slid into bed hours later, and settled back to sleep being held.

Sometimes when they woke together, Ianto cracked jokes about how his boss would complain if he came in late, but as his alarm went off too early, he found that he didn't have the heart.

Gwen breezed in to work right on time, which was to say just as the coffee was ready. She hadn't been aware of timing her own schedule around when Lois came in, but she hadn't intentionally done the same around Ianto's unpredictable work hours (based, back on the old days, on whether or not he'd stayed over at the Hub) and as long as the caffeine came, she didn't care. She thanked Lois for her mug - Gwen always tried to remember to thank her and appreciate her, remembering how badly Ianto's early days had gone - and started sifting through the overnights. Perry was already at his station, taking the early lull to work on something.

Gwen smiled at him then noticed the circles under his eyes. "Are you all right? You look tired."

"I was up late," he said, covering a yawn and taking a large slug of coffee. "I was reading Dr. Sato's notes on the Rift manipulator. It's fascinating."

She hid the little twinge. She missed Tosh, even if the pain went away a little bit more each day. "You don't always have to take work home with you, you know."

"There's just so much to learn." He was keen, that one, trying to catch up to technology he had hardly any inkling about, but making strides. Gwen thought Perry ought to study basic computing and engineering courses at the university, but Jack said it would just hold him back from training directly with Torchwood's unorthodox equipment and methods.

"You know," she started, but never finished. The cog door opened, and Jack and Ianto came in together. Usually they were the first to arrive, and even now, Gwen's eyes flicked to Jack's office, where she'd assumed they'd been.

"Good morning," Jack said in his too-loud-for-this-hour tone. Ianto said nothing, but offered a quick nod and a half-smile before plucking his mug from the tray Lois held. With a wave, he went towards the Archives as Jack said, "Meeting in half an hour."

Johnson and Rupesh arrived a few minutes later, making beelines for the coffee, and Perry had already gone back to work. Gwen was distracted by the overnight reports: one Weevil sighting, two robberies that looked like they could be trouble but also could be honestly gang-related and not their problem, a few homicides they'd watch. She drank her coffee and made notes, waking up and planning her day.

When the meeting time arrived, Lois had round two of the coffees and a quick agenda set out in the boardroom for everyone. Gwen took her seat and glanced over the agenda, just follow-ups from yesterday's encounter, sparse and simple.

Jack came in and stood at the front, opened his mouth to speak, and then frowned as he obviously counted noses and came up one short. He touched his ear.

"Ianto, planning on joining us?"

The comm spoke in Gwen's ear as well: "Busy down here. Is it urgent?"

"Morning meeting. We try to do these every day?" Jack was using his Patient Boss voice.

"I read the agenda. Contact me if you need something." And there was a distinct sound of the comm being turned off at the other end.

Jack was an expert at not looking surprised, so he picked up his agenda and glanced over it without expression. "Okay, everyone who bothered showing up, this is our plan for the day."

He went through the final roundup of the Slitheen incident, giving Gwen a verbal pat for putting it all together in time, told them what projects had the highest priority, listened to today's Rift predictions, and dismissed them. Gwen didn't linger, but did manage to be the last one out of the room other than Jack, who'd sat down in his chair and was rereading the paper on the table intently.

Ianto stayed in the Archives until lunch, when Lois set up soup and sandwiches in the boardroom. He seemed normal enough, though as soon as she noticed he was paying no attention at all to Jack, Gwen felt a prickle on the back of her neck. The last time the two of them had quarrelled, this was how it started. As soon as he was finished eating, he excused himself, but Gwen stopped him with a friendly touch to his arm.

"You should get some fresh air, go outside."

"It's cold outside." Early December had come with a frost.

"Still. Stay up here. I worry about you when you're down there too long. Some weird alien tech might go off and we'd never know."

"I'll be fine," he said with a false smile. "You'll hardly notice I'm gone." And with that, he went back to the basement.

Jack ignored the whole exchange, instead telling a funny story while dropping crumbs everywhere. This only solidified Gwen's suspicions. It would probably be unhelpful to grab each of them by the earlobe and tell them to stop acting like children, but she was sorely tempted.

Half an hour later, with the team back at work and Jack in his office, she knocked once and let herself inside.

"I didn't say 'Come in,'" Jack said.

"You would have eventually. I saved you time."

"What's on your mind?"

Gwen paced in front of his desk. "I was considering being subtle so you could talk on your own, but I decided against it."

"That's good. You're not as gifted at subtle as you think you are." He was definitely in a mood.

"I'm just going to ask you, what did you do and when are you going to apologise for it?"

"Excuse me?"

"Ianto's sulking, and you're ignoring each other. You only do that when the two of you are quarrelling, and when you're quarrelling, it's usually your fault." She stopped in front of his desk and folded her arms, waiting for his response.

"I gave him a promotion last night because he's long overdue for being named a full agent. If this is how people react when I promote them, I can make sure there aren't any more ever, and trust me, when I say 'ever' … "

"Was that all?"

His eyes dropped and came back. "I offered him the chance for another promotion if he wanted it."

The only positions above Ianto on the organisation chart were her own and Jack's. "What was that, then?"

"Archie's job. Ianto's qualified, he's got seniority over you, and he even likes the archiving. We need to find someone to take over the Glasgow site, he's the best fit, and now that Lois is trained, we can spare him."

She blinked, trying to wrap her head around Jack's words. Gwen knew a rehearsed spiel when she heard one. "You're sending Ianto to Scotland?" She stopped herself before saying, "And you told him he was expendable?" because surely Jack wasn't that stupid.

"I'm not sending him anywhere. I asked if he wanted to go. He hasn't given me an answer yet."

"And you," Gwen said delicately, because as much as she loved him, Jack was often not entirely up on human interactions, "you think he's considering it?"

"Speaking as his boss, I hope so. It's a great opportunity." His fingers went to the papers on his desk, stroking them absently, shuffling them. Gwen had never played poker with him, not least because she intended to keep her knickers, but it was nice to know that if she ever did, Jack had tells after all.

"Did he know you were speaking as his boss?"

"We were here in my office. Seems pretty self-explanatory to me." Gwen had come upon Jack's office at bad moments far too many times to believe him. "If he says no, I'm asking you next. Do you want to take over the Glasgow office?"

She hadn't expected the question to hurt, but his casual tone stung, and that after she'd come to terms with her own decisions about her life and Jack's place in it. "No."

"Fine. How hard was that?"

He really didn't understand, she realised. "Jack, are you speaking as my boss now?"

He looked around. "Sure."

"All right. Because speaking as your friend, if Rhys said out of the blue one day I ought to move to Scotland because it'd be a good career move while he stayed here in Cardiff, and told me I was surplus to needs, I'd punch him. There are lines you just don't cross."

Jack opened his mouth to say something, and then paused, and then said, "Dammit."

She wanted to stay and tell Jack about how the rest of the human race had trouble compartmentalising the way he did, about why there were typically rules about fraternisation between employees and managers, about how hard it was to watch her two dearest friends get caught in the blurry lines they'd drawn. But that was Jack's trouble to deal with, and she wasn't the one he needed to talk to now.

"You know where to find him. Fix it," she said instead, and let herself out.

Ianto was debating with himself about a new filing system. There was something to be said for alphabetising everything, obviously, in ease of use and passing along the duty to someone whose only trait in common with him was a basic grasp of the English language. Lately, though, he'd been considering a numerical system, categorised somewhat like the Dewey decimal system, like with like. It would only take him six or seven years to reorder everything with the new plan, but he was sure once it was instituted, it could save them a few minutes per week at least.

No-one did busy work like Ianto when he didn't want to deal with something.

"Hi."

He turned around from his work. Ignoring Jack outright would be rude. "Hello."

"You're pissed off at me again."

"It's the 'again' that gives me pause. I should know better by now."

"You know when I was talking about the Glasgow job, I was wearing my boss hat, right? The decisions I make as your leader aren't the same ones I'd make if I wasn't."

Ianto recalled a gun pointed at his face, the click of the empty chamber, Jack shouting at him to go after the man who'd almost killed him. His Captain would send him to his death if necessary. Later that night, he'd awakened to the short gasps of his lover caught in a nightmare, and he'd held Jack's shaking form as Jack had whispered, "I dreamed he killed you." He recalled, too, the day after the Daleks had stolen the Earth, when Jack had run off to help the Doctor bring the planet back and then had come home again. On the record, Jack had commended the two of them for their work, but when he thought they weren't watching, his face crumpled into a sick expression at the hulking shell of the dead Dalek. Ianto hadn't let Jack out of his sight for days, but looking back, Jack had done the same thing.

This situation really was shit sometimes.

Jack said, "One of the management tapes I listened to once said I'm supposed to think about the careers of my employees, to encourage their growth and advancement."

"You listened to a management tape?"

"The title was a lot more exciting than the lesson."

Ianto put his last file away, and then sat down. There was a small desk in here, dusty but useful as a work table when he was digging through boxes, but with only one chair. He let Jack lean against the wall. "I know you need to do what's best for the team."

"Yeah. And what's best for the team isn't always going to be what's best for you. I try not to play favourites where you're concerned."

"I understand." Jack didn't bother to make the same rule about Gwen, but if it came down to a choice between being treated specially by him or being with him, Ianto was happier this way.

"So we need new rules."

Ianto looked up at him strangely, and then remembered. "The rules were stupid."

"But helpful. First new rule: when we're at work, I am your supervisor first. Anything I say or do here, it's coming from the head of the Institute and the man who signs your paycheques."

"I already knew that."

"I don't think you do."

Ianto scowled and went to protest, but Jack raised his hand.

"And that's my fault. I'm not good at marking lines between things. We used to have this vague agreement that anything after regular work hours wasn't Torchwood, remember?"

Ianto nodded slowly. The vague agreement had led to an enormous amount of sex. "We didn't keep to it, though."

"Not as well as we could have." Ianto wondered if Jack recalled the slow afternoons down here while the rest worked in the main part of the Hub, the two of them sucking and fucking away the idle time. Jack said, "That's got to stop now. No fooling around in the Hub."

"Fine." He turned to a file on his desk, not really looking at it but not wanting to look at Jack, either.

"'Fine,' fine, or 'fine,' you're still angry."

"I'm not angry. It's fine. When we're at work, you're my boss."

"Yep, and if you pull the insubordination routine again while we're at work, I can assure you that your boss will nail you to the wall, and not in the fun way. When we're not at work, you can feel free to yell at me for doing stupid things, and you can complain about your idiot manager all you like. And then I can take off my boss hat, and be myself, and I'll whinge about my day, too. All right?"

He closed his eyes. "We are never not at work."

"Sure we are. We go home, we go out."

"We are on call twenty-four hours a day, every day. You and I take the most off-hours alerts. And I'm fine with that," he added, seeing the rising annoyance on Jack's face. "But it means that one minute, you're my boss, and the next, you're … you. I can't always keep up." He felt his voice rising, and forced himself to calm.

"Okay." Jack lounged against the wall, eyes dropping to the surface of the desk as if weighing it up as a seat. They'd shagged on it more than once, but that was why there was a problem now. "Modify the rule. When we're at the Hub or in the field on a mission, we're at work."

"You live at the Hub. We still sleep at the Hub."

"When we work late, sometimes."

Rarely, true, but Ianto was in the mood to argue, and a minor point was still a point. "It's listed as your official residence."

Jack didn't reply. Ianto hated when he did that. If Jack didn't want to talk about difficult subjects, he set them aside or pushed them away, leaving Ianto to guess what he meant. It was tiring.

Ianto broke first. "All right. The flat is neutral ground."

"Exactly. If I'm on my mobile to Whitehall when we're there, you can still feel free to tell me to go to hell. Same if we're out somewhere that isn't related to work."

"Fine. It's a good rule."

"Good. Are we done here?"

"I think that's the conclusion we came to, yes." He bit out the words.

"Why are you still angry at me?"

"I am not angry at you!" He realised, too late, that he was shouting.

The echoed shout, words indistinct, floated into the main part of the Hub.

Johnson's head snapped up and she stood. "That was Jones. We should … "

"Sit down," Gwen said. "Let them be." She returned to her work, noticing the look of disgust on Johnson's face as her brain caught up and she assumed, incorrectly, what the pair were up to in the Archives.

Gwen hadn't been present for a proper row between her friends. She hoped it did them both some good.

"I hate it when you do this," Jack said. "You pretend you're fine, you say you're fine, and you're still sulking like a spoiled child."

"Thank you for your professional opinion of my mental state, sir."

"And then you shut down and hide behind our roles. Very mature." Two age shots in as many statements. Ianto resisted the urge to punch him. A cheap blow of his own would have to do.

"We are at work. We just established our roles while we're at work, or did you forget already?" Ianto tried to feel good about the wince that crossed Jack's face - Jack was still sensitive about the memory issues even if he tried not to show it - but instead it was just hollow. The problem with being so close to Jack was knowing exactly how to hurt him, but hurting each other never got them anywhere.

Jack said, "If you're mad about Glasgow, say so."

"Will Glasgow be neutral ground?"

Jack flinched again. "It can be. So you're going."

"You're my employer. If you order me to go to Glasgow, I will."

"I didn't order you. I suggested a career opportunity. Speaking as your boss … "

"Stop being my boss right now! Please." He hoped he didn't sound as desperate as he felt.

Jack watched him, his face drawn up in confusion, and then relaxing. "Ten minute moratorium before the new rule goes into effect. Agreed?" Ianto nodded.

He took a breath.

"Speaking as your boyfriend, I don't want you to leave." He broke off, and he made eye contact. "I really don't want you to leave. But I also don't want you in danger. Glasgow is safer than Cardiff. No matter what you decide, I'm screwed. If you stay, I'll always be in a position where I have to give you orders that could get you killed, and if you go, it'll break my heart." He looked around them suddenly, as if startled by a noise, but there was nothing but the concrete and the distant drip of water. "Is that what you wanted to hear?" he asked in a low mutter.

"A bit more grovelling wouldn't have been out of order."

"Ianto … "

"Of course that's what I wanted to hear! I wish you'd said so yesterday."

"Like you said, we were at work."

"We were at your desk, where we've had sex more times than I can count, discussing dinner plans. We were only a few steps away from your bedroom." And he supposed, this was why they needed the new rule. They both forgot, too often.

Jack asked, "Are you taking the job?"

He ought to ask who wanted to know, since the moratorium had a few minutes left to go, but his answer wouldn't change. "No."

"Fine. Gwen doesn't want it, either, and I can't send the others. Ask Lois to start the process for recruiting someone new to take over the site, and give her a hand if she needs anything."

The new rule was in place. Jack was in charge. "Yes, sir," he said. "We'll get that started this afternoon."

"Thanks." Jack walked towards the stairs. "Ianto?"

"Hm?"

"I'm glad you're staying."

Ianto let out a breath, and watched him go, wondering who'd said it.

Gwen saw Jack come up from the Archives and gave him a piercing look, which he picked up on quickly.

"Fixed."

"Thank you. Is he going?"

"No."

"Good. Jack?"

He sighed. "Yeah, Gwen?"

She glanced around, but the others weren't within earshot. "It would help if the rest of us knew where the lines are."

He nodded, and he went to his office.

Agenda, 3 December 2009:

- Rift activity overnight, Bute Park, to be investigated this AM
- Reminder to coordinate schedules around January training session with UNIT
- Updates on personal projects
- Updates on training new personnel
- Reminder that any holiday leave must be approved in advance
- Open discussion on recruiting new director for Glasgow site
- Congratulations to Agent I. Jones on recent promotion to full field agent
- Note that Agent L. Habiba is now in charge of all general support duties, with the exceptions of the Archives and Myfanwy's nest, and all support requests should be directed to her
- Note that Capt. J. Harkness has filed a change of address form, effective immediately

The End

A/N: My three favorite words are "I liked this." The next story in this series is "The Private Report of Lois Habiba."