Almost Perfect

CAPTAIN JACK IS
BARGAINING
‘What is this?’ Jack asked Brendan.
Brendan, pottering past with a piece of toast, paused and ruffled his hair. ‘It’s got many names. Call it our Belief System. It’s a way of bonding all our true believers together, giving us the power we need to do all our good deeds.’
‘It’s obscene,’ growled Jack.
Brendan offered him a bite of toast. Jack shook his head. ‘You’re only saying that cos you’re on the inside looking out. I think it’s all rather beautiful. It’s kind of like the tar baby. And it’s only a temporary solution until we can find that machine.’
‘It’s not working. Let me out of this – I can help you,’ said Jack.
‘Pleading?’ Brendan squatted down, meeting Jack’s eyes. ‘It’s rather beneath you, Captain.’
‘Not if it saves lives,’ said Jack.
Brendan rolled his eyes. ‘You are so noble, I could eat you up. Sure you don’t want some toast?’
‘What would be the point?’ sighed Jack. ‘How long are you going to keep me here?’
Brendan shrugged. ‘Dunno. In a few hours we might let you all out for a bit and play with you. Depends how up for it Jon is. Then we’ll pop you all back in. Cos I’ve got yoga, and I can’t leave you all alone with Jon. He might go mad.’
‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
‘Truthfully, until we get the device back. The problem is, our need for power’s growing at a rate… oh, I dunno. It’s a bit worrying. Frankly, I think we’ll be running out of boys soon. Which isn’t a great state of affairs really, is it? We might have to reach out wider and wider. You know, Aberdare.’
‘Can’t you see how stupid this is?’ gasped Jack.
‘Totally,’ admitted Brendan. ‘But it’s what we’ve got to do to stay alive, to carry on searching, to find that bloody thing. Trust me, Jack, I’m a god. It’s what we’ve got to do to stay alive. When we get our power back, we’ll make everything right again.’
Jon walked into the room, towelling himself after a shower. ‘You all right babe?’ he asked Brendan.
‘Yeah,’ said Brendan.
Jon flicked Jack playfully with the towel. ‘Are you talking to the furniture again?’
‘Stop this!’ said Jack.
Jon arched an eyebrow. ‘You don’t look happy Jacky,’ he said, squeezing Jack’s cheek. Jack growled at him. Jon laughed and dropped the towel over Jack’s head, leaving him fuming.
‘Come on Bren, let’s get some clothes on and go and see how things are downstairs.’ They walked away, laughing, and all Jack could see was cotton.




RUDYARD IS SADLY ALL
MOUTH
Gwen slid the window up, and the two of them slipped into a dark, quiet corridor.
‘It’s bloody great to be out of that rain,’ shivered Ianto. ‘I really miss jeans.’
‘Well,’ hissed Gwen, ‘why don’t you wear some?’
‘Oh, it just hasn’t felt right, really,’ said Ianto. ‘You know, I just don’t think I’ve got the figure for them. I worry they’ll make my bum look fat and squidgy.’
‘Oh, bollocks,’ hissed Gwen. ‘You’ve got a lovely pair of child-bearing hips on you.’
‘Have I?’ Ianto looked genuinely pleased. ‘Oh, that’s nice.’
‘Now, shut up, princess, and let’s get on with it.’
The two of them started down the corridor, the flashlight gently glinting around them.
It all looked very dark, and the thump-thump of the club became overwhelming.
‘Considering everything I’ve heard about gay grooming, it really reeks of BO in here,’ said Ianto.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Gwen. ‘Smells like a teenager’s bedroom.’
Ianto pulled the pheromone sniffer out of his pocket and waved it around. ‘Well, bloody hell,’ he breathed. ‘Jack’s off the scale.’
Gwen cast her torch around the corridor. ‘I’m not sure I like this,’ she said.
They both heard the voice calling for help. It was a quiet voice, almost a whisper. Both jumped.
‘Jeez!’ wailed Gwen. ‘I’m switching on the bloody light.’ She fumbled her hand along the wall. ‘Blimey, they’ve papered it with that velvet stuff they use at Indian restaurants,’ she said, her hands brushing along the warm, slightly damp surface. ‘It’s like moss.’ Her fingertips brushed up against what felt like a socket, and she reached out for the switch, but instead she felt something move and her hand went into the wall, into something warm and wet and— it licked her.
She screamed and screamed and screamed, feeling it bite down.
Ianto ran up to her, his flashlight showing her hand embedded in a mouth in the wall.
Both shrieked.
‘Do something!’ wailed Gwen, helplessly.
‘I don’t want to touch it!’ yelled Ianto.
‘You’re bloody squeamish when it suits you! It’s biting me!’ shouted Gwen.
‘But it’s a … mouth… in a wall! It’s wrong!’
‘I don’t care, it bloody hurts!’ Gwen was starting to cry. Ianto tried pulling her by the arm, but Gwen just shrieked more. Ianto let go and stood back, hands on hips, trying to work out what to do, trying to block Gwen’s shouts.
He noticed something – something oddly wrong. And then he saw the light switch, and flicked it.
Pause.
Gwen and Ianto were in a corridor of flesh – the walls were a kind of thick, coarse meat, breathing and rippling. Lumps and occasional limbs protruded at various points, fleshy trails hanging down from the ceiling, twitching slightly. Apart from the mouth that was eating Gwen’s hand, there was the back of a head further down the corridor, and an ear.
‘Can you switch the light back off?’ hissed Gwen.
‘No,’ replied Ianto. ‘This is just so horrible.’
‘It’s still eating my sodding hand!’ wailed Gwen.
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Ianto. He grabbed a biro from his handbag and jabbed it into the mouth. ‘Gag reflex,’ he explained as Gwen pulled her hand out, gasping with the pain. ‘I don’t suppose you brought some Dettol?’ she asked.
Ianto was just staring at the mouth, which was mouthing ‘Help me’ over and over again.
Gwen shook him. ‘Come on.’
She dragged him down the corridor, both of them recoiling from the carpet, which appeared to be made up of matted human hair, streaking in colours and patterns and whorls and lumps through to a door.
The door, embedded as it was in meat, appeared to be a normal little Victorian-effect door, with a shiny gold handle. She pushed it open and, without thinking, flicked a switch on the right.
This room was worse. She stepped into it.
Ianto followed her, and breathed out raggedly. ‘A Living Room. Oh my god.’
It had once been a quite nicely decorated, minimalist room – all white paint and polished floorboards. But it was now covered with lumpen flesh, twisting and veined across the walls, occasionally bursting out in cancerous bulges, or half-recognisable shapes. The whole room flowed across and hung away from a big bed, the covers turned down, the pillows scattered randomly about.
Tufts of hair poked up through gaps in the floorboards.
‘I am going to be sick,’ announced Gwen, starting to look round for somewhere to hurl.
‘Gwen?’
She recognised Jack’s voice and spun. She and Ianto ran towards a shape, roughly the size of a grand piano and covered with a dust sheet.
Ianto pulled away the sheet, and they both gasped.
‘Ladies!’ beamed Jack. He was, to their horror, entwined, impossibly entwined, in a heap of about sixteen naked men, enmeshed in the floorboards and protruding into the wall. When Hieronymus Bosch sat down to paint Hell, he’d left out the bit where they played Twister.
‘Jack…!’ began Ianto. He tasted vomit, swallowed, and went silent.
Gwen’s reaction was different.
‘Captain Jack Harkness!’ she barked. ‘When will you learn that you can’t solve a problem by shagging it?’
‘Hey!’ said Jack, managing a shrug. ‘It’s a one-size-fits-all solution.’ His expression shifted under Ianto’s basilisk glare. ‘Ianto! This isn’t what it looks like. Have you met my friends Eric, Adam and Tristan, wasn’t it?’
‘Hi,’ said some voices.
‘Nice to meet you, I’m sure,’ said Ianto crisply. ‘Do I actually ask for an explanation or just take pictures for the album?’
Jack clucked, disapprovingly. ‘This genuinely isn’t an orgy. We’re simply fuelling a vastly complicated energy exchange through the violent excitation of our biomass.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Gwen. ‘That would be the obvious explanation.’
‘Seriously,’ said Jack. ‘It’s an attempt to power that alien device. But it’s not working well.’
‘Evidently,’ Ianto looked like he was chewing bees.
Jack sighed. ‘This is serious. You need to do something. We’re approaching critical mass.’
‘Riiiight.’ Gwen giggled. ‘Oh, Jack, what a mess.’
‘I tried to stop it. I failed,’ Jack told them. ‘It’s got out of hand. I don’t think they know what to do. Have you got—’ And then: ‘They’re coming!’
The room’s fleshy walls bulged, parted and extruded, swelling and tearing as the Perfection strode through.
They were both looking their best, gloriously naked. The entire meat of the room just shuddered.
Brendan nodded at them, crossed to the kitchenette and lit a cigarette from a packet on the table.
Jon walked over to Gwen and Ianto. ‘How did you get in?’ he demanded.
‘Fire escape,’ said Gwen.
‘Ah,’ said Jon. ‘It’s just that we’ve got psychic shielding up.’
‘Is that so?’ said Gwen. ‘Only we’re Torchwood.’
‘Jack’s friends.’ Jon smiled at Jack. ‘Well, it’s sweet that you tried a rescue, but it’s not going too well. And I don’t believe that you got through our shields without help.’ He turned to look at Ianto. ‘And you – you’ve been touched by the machine. You’re wearing Christine.’ He ran a finger across Ianto’s hair, and Ianto tried not to flinch. ‘She suits you. Lovely work. It’s not lost its touch. Where is it?’
Ianto had recognised their voices. These were the balls of fire. Those cruel, sing-song voices. They’d torn apart that boat in their fury, they’d wrecked lives looking for that machine, and they’d thrown up this unholy horror around them, all to show off their dreadful power. And now one of them was staring him in the eye and smiling slowly.
Bren looked up, tapping ash out. ‘Have you brought us back the machine?’
‘Would it actually help?’ asked Ianto.
‘It’d stop all this,’ Brendan waved his cigarette around the room.
‘Really? Could it make all these people better?’
‘Oh probably. It can do all that, and make us gods again, and give you back Captain Jack. Lovely.’ Brendan considered. ‘And maybe that’s the right thing. Or maybe this is our wake-up call.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jon.
‘Why should the party stop? With the machine, we could expand again.’ Brendan had stood up, spreading out his hands. ‘Gods need room to breathe.’ He started to glow.
‘I think you should stop,’ said Ianto, very quietly.
‘What?’
‘Just once, wouldn’t it be nice to just go back to how things were? Everything’s changed. But what about a bit more of the same?’
‘I agree with the skirt,’ shouted out Jack. ‘I think you’re both in danger of doing something very, very stupid.’
Jon shot him a glance. ‘Looking like that, you manage that sentence?’
‘I am not without a sense of irony,’ muttered Jack.
Brendan advanced towards Ianto. ‘Give us back the machine.’
‘No,’ said Ianto. ‘I don’t think it’s safe in your hands any more.’
‘Really?’
‘No.’
Jon reached out a hand and, barely moving, he gently picked up Gwen and threw her screaming into the wall. She stuck fast, half in, half out, her hair sucked and pulled back. She screamed and struggled and only succeeded in vanishing further in.
Jack screamed back at Gwen. Ianto ran from the room.
Behind him he could hear the Perfection laughing.





IANTO JONES COULD TEACH
YOU, BUT HE’D HAVE TO
CHARGE
Ianto sat on the fire escape, sobbing to get his breath back. He opened up his handbag, and took out the bag with the alien device inside.
‘Oh, you,’ he thought. ‘You’ve caused so much trouble. What the hell do I do now?’
He opened the bag, and tipped the device into his hand.
Captain Jack Harkness, at your service! Boomed a very familiar voice in his head.
‘Why are you doing that?’
I’m the voice of who you most admire, Ianto Jones. Great shoes, by the way.
‘Thanks. But I wish you wouldn’t do him.’
Oh, come on, Ianto. It’s just a bit of fun. Puts you at ease, doesn’t it? Admit it. Just a little?
‘It’s comforting, yes. But it’s not right. You shouldn’t sound like him. Not when I’m trying to work out what to… do…’
It’s really easy.
‘Is it? Can you make everything right? Can you? Jack and that room and me?’
Yes. Trust me, Ianto.
‘I’m not sure I can. I’ve seen what those creatures did looking for you.’
But Ianto – all the people I’ve helped. I helped so many on that boat.
‘But so many people died. And look at me.’
I can fix you. And Jack. I can fix him too.
‘NO!’
You love him. He doesn’t love you. You saw him in there. But I can change all that, Ianto Jones.
‘How can I trust you? Those creatures in there. They relied on you, and you—’
That’s different. They were boring.
‘What?’
I got bored. I always did. A few thousand years of perfection, and I’d make them move on. You know how it is. You cure war, famine, plague and pestilence and then… you know… it’s the small stuff. I’m better off moving on. Like that Littlest Hobo doggy. Who doesn’t love a dog?
‘Again, what?’
I got bored. I made them come here. I thought it’d be a change. And I just wanted to move among you. When Ross and Christine stole me, I went willingly. And the Rift’s made me so powerful. It’s been brilliant. Mending lives – you people are so broken. I’ve lived on worlds where people had far less, led simpler lives and were so much happier. But look at you – you’ve got warm, dry homes, food, shops with Lego. And you’re all miserable. I don’t want to go back.
‘I’m not sure you’ve got a choice,’ said Ianto.
The machine sighed.
‘Can you do what I want you to?’
Yes. There was a petulant note.
‘It’s asking a lot.’
Trust me, it’ll be pretty spectacular. It’ll be like the Bonfire Night and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one.
‘I love a show, me.’
Ianto climbed back inside, and strode down that horrifying corridor to the door. He could sense the entire house breathing around him.
It’s not too late, you know. Would Jack do this? Ask yourself that.
‘I don’t care about that.’ He shook his head. ‘I am Ianto Jones and this is how I roll.’
He straightened his skirt, reached for his gun and kicked open the door.




IANTO IS CIVILISATION.
END OF.
‘Oh come off it,’ snapped Brendan, clearly unimpressed by the gun. ‘You barge back in here in your little black dress and expect us to be amazed.’
‘Yes,’ said Ianto.
‘Do you know what we can do?’ sneered Jon, stretching out an arm.
Ianto suddenly smelt burning hair and shuddered.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And I don’t care. I would like you to stop all this. And I would like Jack back.’
An outraged shriek.
‘Oh, and Gwen too, please.’
Brendan laughed. ‘We’re too late for this. Jon, honey, we’re getting old when we’re being menaced by a little girl with a gun. Just give us the machine, dear.’
‘We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,’ said Ianto, quietly.
‘Given the look of you, easy.’
‘Seriously. Last chance. Dismantle this room.’
Jon shook his head, almost sadly. ‘We can’t. It’s the machine – it’s taking so much power. We have to feed it.’
‘And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?’ said Ianto. ‘All those years, all those believers – it’s all just fuel for that machine. You’ve become enslaved by it.’
‘Yes,’ said Brendan quietly. ‘I suppose we have.’
Jack started to laugh. ‘You told me you were gods. Well, now we know what gods worship.’
‘Yes,’ snapped Jon. ‘Perfection. And we had it when we had the device. Now look at it – we simply did this to try and make everything right. We were acting in the best interests.’
‘Even gods lie to themselves,’ said Jack sourly.
Ianto spoke quietly. ‘I’ve talked to the machine.’
Brendan marched towards him.
‘You’ve got it? You’ve got it on you? You silly bitch. You’re not leaving the room with it.’ He raised a glowing hand to strike Ianto.
Ianto fired and Brendan fell back, whimpering.
Ianto turned to Jon. ‘I’m sorry. Would you also like to come and have a go? Are you feeling lucky? I am. I have your god on my side.’
He held up the device in its shiny plastic bag.
‘Don’t!’ shouted out both Jack and Brendan.
‘Ianto!’ continued Jack. ‘Don’t touch it – it knows you’re shutting down its power source. It will do anything it can to make you obey it. I don’t care what it’s offered you – it’s lying, trying to get its way.’
‘He’s right!’ barked Jon. ‘It’s the Lord of Lies. Why didn’t we see it?’
‘Because you were too busy looking in the mirror,’ snapped Jack.
‘Please,’ said Brendan. ‘Give us back the machine. Let us reset it. We can put everything right.’
Ianto shook his head. ‘Nope, sorry. Made a deal. It told me how much power it needed. And that it had to come from somewhere. And I’m looking at you.’
Brendan went to stand by Jon’s side. ‘You are kidding me.’
‘It giveth, and now, it tells me, it’s ready to taketh away.’
‘Wait!’ snapped Brendan.
‘Sorry,’ said Ianto, and pushed the button.
And the world went white and changed a little.





EMMA WEBSTER IS STARTING
AFRESH
‘Would you like something to drink?’
Emma snapped to and flashed the waiter an apologetic look. She’d been daydreaming again, or something. The last few days were a bit of a blur. Like she’d just been asleep or taken something. Or something. She couldn’t quite…
‘Sparkling water, please.’
There. The waiter was gone. She had a couple more minutes to… it was like a memory that itched and itched and itched, but she just couldn’t find it to scratch it. Wonder what it is. Wonder. She traced her hands over the tablecloth, watching the pattern.
Oddly, she couldn’t even remember how she’d got to the restaurant, or why she was here. Maybe she’d just been born, just now, right here, and this was it. The first day of the rest of her life.
Only, she could clearly remember something really funny happening at work. She could remember Kate coming in, looking all fat, with her breast implants leaking during the management meeting. She’d cried and Emma had handed her a tissue. That had been funny. But she couldn’t remember anything else about work. Perhaps she should get a different job. Yeah. Something fun.
Talking of fun, she was in a restaurant, she must be hungry. Mind you, better watch the figure. Only, actually, looking pretty damn good, Miss Webster. I think starter and a pudding. She looked at the menu. Good, she appeared to be in a fish restaurant. She ran her fingers down the starters and lingered over the squid. Something tickled her leg. She looked down, and there was a cat, making its slow way round the tables, greeting the diners. She stroked it, and it nuzzled her back, giving her a look. She laughed and, as she laughed, she caught sight of the man standing by her table. Woah. Epic boy totty.
‘Hi, is it Emma?’ he said.
She stood up without falling over and said, ‘Yes’.
But she wasn’t quite sure in what order. Hum. He had a really great face. You know, the kind of face that, if it didn’t belong to someone actually famous in Heat, definitely belonged to their boyfriend. It was a face that said confident, fun, shopping in New York, snowboarding and beach huts. He also looked pretty good in a suit. Really, just standing there staring now. Say something.
‘And you are?’ That was lame.
He gave her a bit of an embarrassed grin. ‘I’m Patrick. Patrick Matthews.’ Suddenly he scratched the back of his head and frowned. ‘Sorry, like you care, too much detail. Just Patrick.’ He deepened the frown. ‘Never Pat.’
‘Never,’ she vowed. ‘And?’
He looked a bit blank. ‘I’m, uh, well… My friend Ianto, she set this up. I’m your blind date.’
‘You are?’ What? ‘I mean, you are?’
He looked around, sheepish and slightly angry. ‘Er, yeah. Complex story. Why, is something wrong?’
Emma giggled and suddenly felt really, really good. ‘No, absolutely nothing. Sit down, and let’s order a bottle of wine.’
He relaxed and suddenly looked even prettier. ‘This is nice. Really nice.’
‘Yes, yes it is.’ Emma got distracted by the menu again. And a sudden thought. Who the hell is Ianto? And since when was that a girl’s name?
He peeped over her menu, grinning at her. ‘Red or white? Or shall we just get a bottle of pink fizz?’
‘Oh,’ she said, truly happy. ‘That’ll be perfect.’
At a table in the corner, Gwen relaxed and turned to Rhys. ‘I think they’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘You remember the drill?’
Rhys nodded solemnly. ‘At the first sign of him turning into a skeleton, I’m to let you know.’
Gwen smiled approvingly. ‘Good boy. Now what happened to my bread roll?’
Rhys brushed some crumbs off his jacket and shrugged. ‘I thought you were leaving it. Sorry.’
Gwen decided she didn’t actually care. It was a nice, warm night, and it looked like she was going to get through an entire meal out with Rhys without explosions, deaths or Weevils. She even risked slipping off her heels and letting her feet breathe. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘This place isn’t actually that bad.’
‘No,’ agreed Rhys, polishing off the last of her roll.
And across town, Tombola’s was as empty as usual. Until, suddenly, twelve customers materialised out of thin air. And they were all as mad as hell.





MADONNA IS A GAY ICON
FOR BEGINNERS
Jack looked round the nightclub, a little sadly.
For a Saturday night, it was early, but still rather quiet. The bar staff sulked in a corner, polishing some glasses, texting, and generally ignoring him.
He turned to Ianto. ‘It’s a bit sad, in a way, you know.’
Ianto nodded gently. He had been working through a clipboard, ticking things off happily. He was now watching a Welsh digital channel on the flat-screen. ‘It’s true what they say, you know. You can never have enough about hill farming.’
Jack finally got served, and he carried their drinks over to a table that was sticky with spilt pints.
Ianto sipped his wine and grimaced. ‘This is vile.’ He ticked a box on the clipboard.
‘I did warn you to stick to spirits,’ said Jack. ‘The worst they can do is water them down.’ He sighed again, looking round the room. ‘Could you not have left it a little fabulous?’
Ianto shook his head. ‘Sorry. No. Look, it was a fairly major operation getting the machine to untangle all those body parts and make everyone normal. Even so, there’s some poor kid in Barry who’s missing a finger.’
Jack shrugged. ‘Not our worst day. Memories?’
Ianto nodded happily. ‘Completely wiped. Never had less trouble getting people to take Retcon. I just told them all it was E.’
‘You are going to hell, Ianto Jones.’
‘Yes, Jack. But I’ll still make a very pretty corpse.’
‘That you will. Although there’s some stubble showing.’
Ianto nodded, beaming. ‘Oh yes. Last night as a woman according to the machine. Yay.’
They clinked their glasses.
‘Gwen’s already arranged to pop round tomorrow and steal all my clothes.’
‘Good old Gwen.’
‘So what about them?’ Ianto gestured to a couple sitting quietly in a corner.
They were old, almost impossibly so, shrivelled in their clothes, which hung raggedly off them, far too young and fashionable for them. Each was clutching a glass of water and looking at nothing in particular. One had the wispy remains of fine blond hair. The other sported a random thatch of dark hair. You could somehow tell they’d once been devastatingly attractive.
Jack raised his glass to them, and they looked away.
‘Sad,’ he sighed. ‘Not everyone gets a happy ending.’
‘So is that it for the Perfection?’
‘Pretty much. Completely disconnected from whatever powers they had, pumped full of Retcon. Seemed the kindest thing, really. I mean, would you want to remember? So they’re now just mutton dressed as chicken.’
Ianto sighed quietly. ‘They were gods once. They shaped worlds, ruled empires… and now they’re just growing old, trapped in Cardiff.’
‘As I said,’ said Jack, sipping his drink, ‘not everyone gets a happy ending.’
They left the club when the Karaoke started. As they headed for the door, a drag queen tottered onto the stage and began a Cher medley. A lesbian couple joined in, brokenly. And a strange little man in a cap shuffled onto the dance floor and, entirely for his own happiness, began to do the Running Man dance.
‘All’s right with the world,’ sighed Jack as he sailed through the door.
Jack and Ianto stood on Charles Street, watching the evening go by.
A hen party staggered past, their progress impeded by the number of limbs that were in plaster. A voice screamed, ‘Come on, Kerry, you dozy tart. Zambuca’s not going to be 2 for 1 forever you know…’
Ianto watched them go, smiling broadly. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go down the Bay. I’ve got a promise to keep.’
And so they walked, in silence, until they came to a bridge overlooking a large amount of sea.
Ianto handed a small, glowing bag to Jack. ‘Can you do this?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure I trust myself. If I touch it again, I might ask it to do something.’
‘And you’re sure this is what it wants?’ asked Jack.
‘Yes. Just some peace. It’s bored too, I think.’
‘OK then,’ said Jack. And he reached into the bag and pulled out the machine, which glowed happily in his hand. For an instant, it seemed like Jack was listening to a voice.
‘Is it offering you anything?’ asked Ianto, anxiously.
‘Nope,’ said Jack. ‘Already perfect.’ And he tossed it casually into the Bay.
It skimmed expertly across the waves, and then quietly vanished from sight.
‘Bon voyage,’ said Jack.
And the two of them stood there for a while, just watching the water.
‘So,’ said Ianto finally, turning to Jack.
‘Yup,’ said Jack.
Ianto leaned in, quietly. ‘I’m only a woman for one more night, you know.’
Jack grinned broadly. ‘Then let’s make the most of it…’