It’s midnight and the streets of Cardiff are all but deserted, except for an elderly lady, standing alone at a crossing and waiting patiently for the lights to change. A fast sports car speeds up to the crossing and comes to a halt. The driver is an alien Blowfish, an ugly creature with fins on its head, but wearing a smart suit. He stares at the woman for a moment, then he politely waves her across the road. She gets to the other side, then the lights change and the car speeds off into the distance. Moments later, the Torchwood SUV pulls up alongside the old woman and Gwen politely asks her if she’s seen a Blowfish driving a sports car. The woman points up the road and the SUV races off in pursuit, leaving the woman behind to complain about “bloody Torchwood“.
Inside the SUV, Tosh completes her survey and although they have no record of the species they’re hunting, the DNA analysis says it’s some sort of land fish. Gwen continues an ongoing argument with Owen about the speed of his driving and the danger it poses to children, but Owen believes any kids out at this time of night have got it coming to them. They’re not sure what they’re going to do even if they catch the creature, especially as Jack is still missing and isn’t around to advise them any more. Gwen spots the Blowfish up ahead and a car chase begins through the streets. Gwen takes the wheel while Owen leans out of the window and takes pot shots at the sports car. Eventually he hits one of the tyres and the car screeches to a halt further up the road.
By the time the Torchwood gang catch up with it, the car is empty. They hear shots coming from a nearby house and they race inside. They find a man lying on the floor, clutching an open wound to his stomach, a hysterical woman - and the Blowfish holding a gun to the head of a young girl. Owen begins treating the man and Gwen looks after the woman. Tosh detects massive levels of adrenaline racing through the Blowfish, mixed with about three grams of cocaine. The Blowfish looks at his opponents and mocks them. He knows their ‘teacher’ has gone and left the kids all alone and they‘re trying so hard to be grown up - Owen, the doctor with his hands full of blood; Gwen, the carer with her oh-so-beating heart; Tosh, the technician with her cold devices; and finally Ianto, the office boy promoted beyond his measure. All of them pretending to be brave, but all lost without their master. Ianto points his gun towards the creature, but it challenges him to take his best shot. What if he accidentally kills the girl being held hostage? What if the Blowfish kills her first? Ianto nervously starts to squeeze the trigger - and then the Blowfish’s head explodes as a bullet rips through his skull. As the creature falls dead to the ground, the gang turn to look at the person who fired the shot. Standing in the doorway, Captain Jack smiles and asks if they missed him.
Back at the Hub, Jack watches with a smile as Gwen supervises the rest of the group. Tosh checks the Rift activity monitor, but it doesn’t look like the Blowfish came through recently. The stolen sports car has been impounded and Ianto says he’ll return it to its owner in the morning. Owen has checked the creature’s bio-profile but there’s no indication that he was carrying any form of contamination. Gwen asks Tosh to update their species records and tells Ianto to take the body to the morgue. Jack is impressed at how well they all seem to be doing without him, but Gwen is still angry that he left them in the dark, worried about what had happened to him. He tells them he found the doctor he was looking for, but when Owen asks if he fixed him, Jack says there’s nothing to fix and you don’t mess with this level of perfection. Ianto asks if he’s going back to his doctor, but Jack says he came back for them. An alarm on the monitor alerts them to new Rift activity and the group splits up to attend to their assigned duties. No one notices that a device in the pocket of the dead Blowfish has started to flash…
On top of a multi-storey car park in the centre of Cardiff, a huge split opens up in the air and a figure emerges. The man appears to be about the same age as Jack and he too wears an old-fashioned military jacket, albeit one that reflects the Napoleonic era. As he looks around, he hears a voice calling out and he crosses over to where two men are struggling by a car. One man is holding a large knife to the throat of the other and when they see the new arrival approaching, the attacker warns the new arrival away with a threat to cut the man’s neck. The strange man clearly doesn’t care and casually asks which artery the attacker is planning to sever. He realises the attacker is bluffing, so he grabs him by the neck and physically lifts him off the ground and drags him over the edge of the parapet. He holds the attacker for a few seconds, then lets him go and watches as his body drops hundreds of feet to ground level. Satisfied that the attacker is dead, the man warns the victim to forget he was ever here, then he casually walks off looking for somewhere to quench his thirst.
Sometime later, the man arrives at a crowded bar and uses a strange device attached to his wrist to switch off the music playing in the background. Then he moves through the bar, pointing to individual people and choosing which of them he’ll allow to stay and which of them must leave. As he tries to get a drink from the bar, two large doormen arrive and try to calm the situation down. They invite the man to take his problems outside, but the man responds by drawing two powerful looking weapons from his holster. Immediately there’s chaos as everyone starts screaming and racing for the nearest exit.
The police have cordoned off the area around the car park where the dead man is still lying in a pool of blood on the street. Tosh examines the body and detects fragments of Rift energy around the neck, arm and shoulders, which leads Jack to conclude that he was grabbed and pushed by someone, probably humanoid. They have a killer on the loose but there’s nothing to suggest any alien technology is involved. Jack suggests they return to the Hub to piece together what they have - and he’s disappointed when no one raises any objections. He was hoping for a little power struggle, to be resolved by some naked wrestling. Gwen thanks her former colleague PC Andy for his co-operation, but when he asks if this is another one of her “spooky do’s”, she tells him it’s too early to say.
Jack is leading the group back to the SUV when his wrist-strap containing the Time Manipulator bleeps. He confirms Ianto’s suspicion that this has never happened before, then he activates a control and a full-life size hologram of the man from the Rift appears in front of them. The man complains that he’s got through to Jack’s answering machine and wonders what he could be doing that’s more important than him. He guesses that by now Jack will have already traced the energy shifts and found the dead body and he apologises for the mess. He suggests drinks and tells Jack to retro-log the transmission co-ordinates to find him. The hologram disappears and Jack tells the group to stay where they are and not to follow him. He jumps into the SUV and races off, leaving the others behind, protesting. Owen is furious that Jack has started to cut them out of everything, so soon after returning. Fortunately Tosh says she can track him with her device, so Ianto hails down a passing taxi.
Jack tracks the co-ordinates to a place balled ‘Bar Reunion’. He finds the main door open, but there are no punters queuing to enter. Inside, the man from the Rift is sitting alone at the bar with a row of drinks in front of him. He hears approaching footsteps and prepares himself for Jack’s arrival. As the doors leading to the bar burst open, Jack enters confidently and the man slowly stands to face him, unclips his holster and stands ready for action. Then, in unison, the two men stride towards each other down the entire length of the bar. They pause for a moment as they meet, then they launch into a passionate kiss which lasts for several seconds, before the man from the Rift pushes Jack back and then punches him straight in the face. Jack returns the punch and within moments, the two men are engaged in a full-on fight, encompassing the entire bar and resulting in much smashed furniture and broken glasses.
In the taxi, Tosh is receiving reports of a bar disturbance at the same co-ordinates at the SUV. Gwen asks her to tell the police not to get involved as they will be dealing with it. The group try to work out who the man in the hologram is. It’s obvious Jack recognised him, but they don’t know why Jack wouldn’t let them go with him. Gwen says this is typical of him, shutting them out. He’s supposed to be their boss, but they don’t even know his real name or what time he comes from. However, Ianto points out that it is more fun when he’s around though, and everyone readily agrees.
The fight in the bar comes to a sudden end after Jack and the other man throw themselves through a plate glass window and then leap to their feet and draw their weapons. For a moment the two men face off, with their guns pointed directly at each other. The man from the Rift points out that Jack has put on some weight, but Jack counters this by suggesting his opponent is losing his hair. Jack reveals that he’s now known as Captain Jack Harkness and the other man gives his name as Captain John Hart. They taunt each other for a few more moments before resigning themselves to the fact that they’d prefer to have a drink. Exhausted, they cross to the bar and help themselves. Jack asks John how he’s been and he explains that he’s recently come out of rehab for drink, drugs, sex and murder, although he thinks the latter was unnecessary as it was only the odd kill anyway. He swears he’s kicked all his habits and is now living like a priest. Jack is shocked when John tells him the Time Agency has shut down and there are only seven of them left now. John moves in for another kiss, but is infuriated when Jack tells him he doesn’t want him in his territory. John pulls out his guns again and then unexpectedly opens fire on the main doors at each end of the bar. He orders the intruders to come out into the open, then Gwen and Ianto appear at one end and Owen and Tosh at the other. For a moment there’s an uneasy standoff until Jack assures everyone that he’s OK. John is delighted to see that Jack now has his very own team, especially as they’re so pretty, even though there are no blondes among them. Jack introduces him to Torchwood and John says he loves team names, but he’s surprised he didn’t chose something like Excalibur, Blizzard or even Bikini Cops. Jack tells his colleagues that he and John go back, but John stresses they were more like partners - in every sense of the word. Jack insists it was just for two weeks, but John points out that the two weeks was spent trapped in a time loop so they were together for five years. John says it was like being in a marriage, but Jack insists it was John that was the ‘wife’.
Jack asks John what he’s doing here and John produces his own Time Manipulator strap (which Jack insists is smaller than his) and reveals that they were both once Time Agents. He’s surprised to discover that Jack has never told his colleagues about his past. John explains that he was working with a beautiful, clever, sexy woman, but they both got shot. As she was dying, the woman told him about some radiation cluster bombs she’d been working on. There are three canisters with extremely toxic contents, but they were swallowed up by a Rift Storm and ended up here due to the city being built on a rift in space and time. If left alone, the radiation will break down the canisters and infect everyone on the planet, so they need to be tracked and neutralised. Jack wonders what John is getting out of this and his friend assures him he’s just granting a dying woman’s wish. The only problem is he doesn’t know where they are, so he’s hoping their local knowledge will help. Tosh says that once they get back to the Hub she can run a city-wide scan on radiation surges and cross-reference it with Rift activity during that time span. John is impressed by her brains and beauty and is sure that together, this should be an easy job. Jack agrees to help, on condition that once the job is finished, John leaves right away. John is looking forward to seeing their house.
Later, John stands with Jack outside the Wales Millennium Centre. John thinks they couldn’t get any more pretentious than living inside a sculpture. Jack instructs him to stand on the stone at the foot of the Centre, explaining that this is the entrance for tourists. The lift begins to descend and John gets to see inside the Hub for the first time and notes that Jack‘s taste for interior design hasn‘t got any better. When they reach the bottom, Jack refuses to let John go any further until he hands over all his weapons. John makes a half-hearted attempt to offer his two holstered guns and his sword, but the group quickly establish that he also has a hidden pistol strapped to each leg, a laser knife beneath his left elbow, several small explosive charges and numerous other small arms.
Alone, Gwen tells Jack that John is obviously a compulsive liar and wonders why they’ve let him in the building. Jack points out that there’s the tiniest chance he might be breaking the habit of a lifetime and telling the truth, which means this city is in danger. Gwen asks him about the Time Agency, but he tells her that was all in the past. She’s hurt that he keeps shutting her out, but he says it’s only the here and now that’s important. The work they do here and the person he is now is what he’s proud of. She demands to know why he deserted them and asks where he went, but he tells her he’s died so many times and been dragged back to life that it’s like being hauled over broken glass. He tells her he’s seen the end of the world, but after it was all over he knew that he belonged here. What kept him fighting was the thought of coming home to her. He holds her hand - and then spots that she’s now wearing an engagement ring. She tells him that while he was away, Rhys asked her to marry him and she accepted. He even went down on one knee, but then he had a twinge in his back and had to lie on the settee. Jack congratulates her and kisses her, but there’s an uncomfortable pause for a moment and then he suggests they get back to work.
In the Hub boardroom, Tosh shows the others a scanner image where she’s detected a minor surge in Rift activity across three locations seven hours ago. John suggests splitting into pairs so there are two people looking for each canister, but Jack interrupts and reminds him who’s in charge. Gwen sides with John and allocates the North co-ordinates to Tosh and Owen, the West to Ianto and Jack, while she and John go to the location indicated near the docks. John is delighted and when Jack intervenes again, Gwen stops him and it’s clear she has no intention of letting him boss her around any more. John reminds everyone not to open the canisters and then the group splits up for their assignments. Jack speaks to Gwen alone and asks her what she’s playing at and she tells him she’s flirting with John in order to get him talking. If she can get him to drop his guard, she can find out what he’s really up to. Jack warns her how dangerous this is and would prefer her to leave it to him, but she reminds him she led the team while he was away. She thinks John knows Jack too well and will never tell him the truth, so Jack leaves her with three rules: one - don’t believe anything John says; two - always keep him in front of her; and three - under no circumstances let him kiss her. From outside the boardroom, John calls out and asks whether Jack’s got to the no-kissing rule yet, claiming that he only ever says that because he wants him all to himself. Gwen collects John and, ordering him to walk in front of her, they prepare to leave the Hub.
In the dockyards, Gwen and John are searching fruitlessly through a maze of huge storage containers. One by one, John hauls open a set of metal doors and Gwen shines the torch inside to look for the canisters. They’re sure they’re in the right place, but containers get shifted all the time and John is worried it’s going to take them days to find what they’re looking for. Gwen casually starts asking John about the dying woman and although he seems uncomfortable, he tells her they were in love. Gwen apologises and asks if they caught the man who shot her, but John asks if they can talk about something else. As John opens another set of doors, Gwen’s mobile phone rings. It’s Rhys calling from home with good news - he’s got the job that he’d applied for as manager of Harwood. Gwen is delighted, but John starts to misbehave, calling out Gwen’s name and acting as if they‘re in bed together. Rhys asks what’s going on and Gwen tells him it’s just an idiot she works with playing games. She tells him it looks like this job is going to last all night so she suggests he doesn’t wait up for her. They exchange their vows of love and by the time Gwen hangs up the phone she realises John has disappeared and she’s completely alone. She searches for him through the warren of corridors formed by the storage containers, but the he suddenly appears behind her and she nearly shoots him out of shock. She reminds him to keep in front of her and he mocks her for being so untrusting, suggesting it‘s just because she doesn‘t trust Jack either. He tells her Jack used to be a con man, but when she asks him to elaborate, he simply advises her not to rely on him too much as there‘s a lot about him she doesn‘t know. They move on to the next container and when John pulls open the doors, Gwen sees a small metal canister located at the back. She keenly races over to it and picks it up, but John runs over to her, pulls her to one side and then kisses her firmly. When she pushes him away, he tells her he was just celebrating and complains that the 21st century is so frigid. But Gwen is already finding it difficult to remain standing. She collapses to the floor, struggling for breath. John tells her not to bother trying to get up as he kissed her with paralysing lip-gloss, a trick that Jack once taught. The only problem is that if she’s not found within two hours, her major organs will go into shutdown. He takes her mobile phone and the radioactive canister, then pushes her brutally down on the floor before leaving. As he stands at the doors, he tells Gwen that Jack will never stay with her as he shared something special with him. Then he locks the doors behind her, sealing her inside, before throwing her mobile phone far into the distance.
Elsewhere, Owen and Tosh are searching a warehouse, but the floor space is huge and the lighting doesn’t work, so they don’t expect to find anything in such a large area. Owen is beginning to think they’re wasting their time and Tosh agrees, imagining that he’d probably rather be out on the pull at this time of night. He tells her it’s been a case of diminishing returns recently and he feels like it’s a part of his life that’s over now. He’s done all that and he’s looking for a proper woman now, someone he has something in common with. He asks her if she has anyone on the horizon, but she agrees that it’s difficult to find the right person, what with all the things they see. Incredibly, Owen finds the canister they’re looking for, but just as he’s about to collect it, John emerges from the shadows and congratulates them. As Tosh asks where Gwen is, John strides towards her and knocks her to the ground. He orders Owen to throw his gun to the floor or else he’ll shoot Tosh. Owen agrees, but when he tries to contact Jack discreetly, John tells him he muted their coms system before they left the Hub. He orders the two of them to hand over their mobile phones and Owen warns John that if he touches Tosh again, he’ll kill him. John takes this as a challenge and finds a cricket bat among the stored items. He considers for a moment whether to use his gun or the bat, but when Owen suggests he stop toying with him and get on with it, John points his gun at Owen and shoots him at close range.
Jack and Ianto arrive at an office block and start looking around a huge open plan office. Jack says he finds offices exotic and they always make him feel excited, what with office romances and photocopying your butt. He tries to tempt Ianto into joining him, but Ianto wants to concentrate on the job in hand. The Rift registered as being active about 200 feet above ground, which means the canister should either be on this floor or on the roof. Jack becomes serious for a moment and asks Ianto how he is, but Ianto simply tells him he’s better now that Jack’s back. Jack is bothered by the distance between them. He admits that he’d been thinking about Ianto while he was away and now that he’s back he was hoping they could have dinner together or watch a movie. Ianto asks Jack whether he‘s asking him out on a date and Jack asks him whether he’d be interested. Ianto agrees, so long as it’s not in an office as he thinks some fetishes should be kept private. It looks like they’re going to have to search every drawer, bin and plant pot and to stop Jack getting over excited, Ianto suggests Jack go up to the roof while he continues the search on this floor. As Jack goes to leave, Ianto asks him why they’re helping John, and Jack says he’s a reminder of his past and he wants him gone. He asks Ianto to confirm that he’s agreed to their date and Ianto says yes.
After Jack has left, Ianto continues his search until he’s interrupted by the sound of a lift arriving. He draws his weapon and cautiously goes out into the corridor to investigate. There’s no one around, but the doors to the third lift are open, confirming that it did stop on this floor. Ianto nervously looks inside - and then John appears behind him and puts a gun to the back of his head. He disarms Ianto and orders him into the lift. He tells Ianto that his friends are dying right now and he barely has time to save them. He advises Ianto to go down to the street and run, warning him that if he tries to return to the office, he’ll shoot him on sight. Ianto demands to know why he’s doing this and John tells him that people are just an accident of chemicals and evolution. The jokes and the sex are just to cover up the fact that nothing really means anything, and the only consolation is money! John presses the button for the ground floor, and moments later Ianto races to the SUV and speeds off to save his friends…
On the rooftop, Jack finds the third canister, conveniently located on the edge of the balcony. As he bends over to pick it up, John comments that from this angle he’s still looking good, even after winning Rear of the Year in 1594. Jack’s mobile rings and John tells him it’s Ianto, calling to warn him. He tells Jack that his friends are all pretty, but stupid, and comments that he used to have better taste. Jack laughs at him and says it must be embarrassing that he needed their help to find them, but John says he was happy to let Jack’s dolly birds do all the leg work and all he wants is for Jack to come to his senses and join him back in the old routine. He can’t understand why Jack wants to stay tied to one planet when there are thousands of worlds to explore. He believes they should be up there in the stars, claiming them for their own, just like before. He tries to tempt Jack back by talking about all the mischief they could achieve, but Jack refuses to be drawn in. He tells John to move on. He’s created a new life for himself, but John is still churning out the same old tunes and they don’t play as well as they used to now that he’s starting to look a little older. John orders Jack to hand over the canister, but Jack “accidentally” throws it off the balcony to the street hundreds of feet below. In frustration, John pushes Jack off the edge too and watches as he falls to his death below.
Ianto speeds along the motorway in the SUV, desperately trying to contact his friends. He calls Gwen’s mobile, but it’s lying unattended in the middle of the dockyard. Inside the storage container, Gwen can hear it ringing, but is unable to respond. In the warehouse, Tosh is doing her best to help Owen who has been shot in the side. She wonders why John didn’t simply kill them, but Owen says he already had what he wanted and he’s underestimated them. Ianto pulls up outside and uses a crowbar to smash his way into the warehouse. Tosh hears him and calls for help, but she’s alarmed when he tells her he hasn’t heard from Gwen…
John leaves the office block and stops momentarily to pick up the radiation canister and to look at Jack’s crumpled and shattered body, sprawled across the seat where it landed. He admits to his dead friend that the rehab didn’t really work. He steals the Time Manipulator strap from Jack’s wrist, then touches his friend’s face gently, before heading back to the Hub with his stolen front door key.
Ianto, Tosh and the injured Owen have arrived at the dockyard, but they realise there are too many storage containers for them to search for Gwen. Tosh orders everyone to keep looking, while Owen calls for more painkillers. Ianto decides to try Gwen’s phone again and when they hear it ringing in the distance, they all race off to find it. Alone inside one of the containers, Gwen can hear it too. The group find the phone on the ground and call out Gwen’s name. They suspect she must have dropped it, but Tosh realises it may just be another of John’s tricks. Instead, she uses her device to link up to the network and triangulate the location where Gwen last used the phone. She gets the answer and they follow the co-ordinates to another section of the dockyard, where they start opening the doors to every container in the area. It’s not long before they find Gwen and rush over to examine her. Owen realises she’s still breathing and there are no discernible injuries, so he arranges for a swab to be taken of her saliva and they begin analysing it on Tosh’s device. Within seconds they discover that Gwen has been poisoned, so they break open the anti-toxin kit…
The next morning, John is at work alone in the Hub autopsy room. He opens up each of the canisters and removes strangely shaped pieces of metal which he then arranges into a triangular shape. He crosses to the body of the Blowfish on the table and criticises him for stealing the sports car and getting himself noticed. He searches the body and finds the device that’s been bleeping away for the last few hours. It’s a small pyramid which evidently slots inside the triangle. He stops suddenly when he hears the sound of guns being cocked and turns to see Ianto, Gwen, Owen and Tosh all standing near the entrance and pointing their weapons directly at him. Gwen tells him it doesn’t matter whether he beats, shoots, threatens or even poisons them, they’ll keep coming back, stronger every time. John delights in telling them their boss is splayed out on the pavement outside - but then to his horror, Jack calmly walks into the room, clearly in the best of health. John is visibly both shocked and impressed. Jack tells his disbelieving friend that he can’t die ever, no matter how many times someone tries to kill him. John asks him what it feels like to drag himself back to life every time and wonders why he’d want to keep returning to this godforsaken place, but Jack tells him this planet contains all the beauty he can never see. The group orders John to come clean about the canisters and he tells them the women he told them about had obtained an Arcadian diamond, the rarest gem in the Damacene Cluster, but just as he managed to get his hands on it, the woman generated her own personal Rift Storm. The woman was certainly dying, but only because he shot her. He thought his luck had changed when he found out it had ended up here. He offers the group a 50/50 split of the profits, which he thinks is a good deal.
While the others watch, Jack places the pyramid on the desk in his office and orders John to open it. He places the metal triangle around the pyramid and tells them this should give them the location of the diamond. The pyramid becomes activate and shows them a hologram of the woman John murdered. The hologram congratulates him on travelling several galaxies to get here, but then she tells him there is no diamond and it was all a ruse. Suddenly the pyramid itself opens up and a strange alien device emerges, lifts up into the air and flies straight towards John. A series of sharp metal grips embed themselves into John’s chest and he cries out in agony. The hologram woman tells him it’s an explosive device designed to latch onto the DNA of whoever killed her. It will detonate in ten minutes and it can’t be removed without exploding. The woman says goodbye to her lover and says she’ll see him in Hell, then the hologram disappears. John turns to the group and desperately yells at them to get the device off him, but Ianto calmly gets out his stopwatch and begins a countdown. Gwen realises there might be a problem and asks how big the explosion is going to be and Jack predicts that with that technology and the size of the device, it’s going to be big! Owen suggests they really ought to get John out of here. John begs Jack to help him and when Jack asks why, John punches him in the face and then grabs Gwen.
Holding her in front of him for protection, he drags Gwen out of the office and into the main Hub area. Then, before anyone can stop him, he produces a set of handcuffs and attaches himself to her. He tells her the cuffs are made of deadlock sealed hypersteel, which is quite impermeable. There’s no way to undo them unless you have a key - which he then promptly puts inside his mouth before swallowing. He turns to the group and tells them they’d better find a solution pretty quickly or Gwen will be blown up alongside him. Owen asks whether killing John would stop the DNA trigger, but Jack doesn’t think so. Gwen asks Tosh whether she’s perfected the Rift predictor programme yet and gets her to check whether there’s anything coming up in the next few minutes. Jack refuses to accept Gwen’s solution and when John demands to know what she’s talking about, she tells him that if they’re both inside the Rift when the device explodes the city will be safe. At first he thinks she’s bluffing, but the look on her face shows him she isn’t. Tosh reports that the crack in the Rift is still active at the car park where John first arrived, so Gwen grabs hold of John and starts dragging him outside, with Tosh and Ianto following behind. Owen takes Jack to the autopsy area where he starts collecting together samples from their blood bank. They select samples donated by each of the team, then start mixing them together. When they’ve finished, they prepare a syringe…
Gwen drives the SUV in the direction of the car park, with John still handcuffed to her in the front passenger seat. In the back, Ianto reports they have just over five minutes left while Tosh reveals that she’s been unable to identify the frequency the device on John’s chest is using, so there’s no way of jamming it. Gwen is angry that Jack isn’t with them and John reminds her that he always said Jack was unreliable. As they race through the streets, John admires many of the people they pass and he starts to realise what it is Jack likes about this place. At one stage he even drools over a gorgeous poodle.
Eventually the SUV arrives on the top floor of the car park where John first arrived and the vehicle screeches to a halt. As Gwen drags John physically through the door, Ianto reports that they only have 51 seconds left. The Rift starts to activate again and a huge split opens up in the air. John can’t really believe that Gwen is willing to sacrifice herself, but she tells him they have to go. She turns to Ianto and Tosh and is about to give them a final message for Jack when another vehicle races onto the roof and Jack and Owen leap out. There are now only 20 seconds left and Jack races over to them with the syringe raised in his hand. He leaps onto Gwen and John and the three of them fall to the ground, then he plunges the syringe directly into John’s heart. His job done, he releases them, but nothing seems to be happening. The countdown reaches 15 and Owen explains that they were trying to confuse the DNA device. Gwen realises they have no time left, so she drags John to his feet and tells Jack she has to go. But as the countdown reaches 5, the alien device releases its grip on John and drops off. Jack quickly picks it up and hurls it directly into the Rift. The countdown reaches zero and everyone throws themselves to the floor.
A huge bubble of time bursts out from the Rift and as Jack and the others pick themselves up, they realise it’s suddenly become night again. Jack concludes that the Rift has reverted back to the moment when John first came through, which means everything has jumped back to the beginning of the night. Unfortunately that means they’ve got to spend the whole of the next day avoiding themselves! Gwen asks her friends what was in the syringe and Owen tells her it was DNA samples from the whole Torchwood group, fused together and then injected into John’s heart. It temporarily corrupted his DNA coding and confused the alien device. John is concerned that this now means there’s a bit of all of them inside him. Gwen thanks Owen, then Jack turns to John and orders him to leave. First they have to find a way to remove the handcuffs - and John surprises everyone by producing the key from inside his mouth. He had it all along, but Gwen was his passport to survival. He tells her there are no hard feelings (at least, not in THAT sense) and she responds by giving him a terrific right upper cut which knocks him to the ground. Jack laughs and then collects the stolen Time Manipulator strap from John. John offers himself as a new team member, but Jack refuses and tells him to go now while he can still harness the residual Rift energy. Before he leaves, John gives Jack one final kiss on the lips, then he turns towards the Rift. He activates his own Time Manipulator, then gives Jack one last message that he ‘forgot‘ to give him earlier - that he’s found Grey. Jack has a momentary flashback of two holding hands that get pulled apart, then John disappears leaving Jack completely stunned and in shock. Gwen asks Jack who Grey is, but he tells her it’s nothing and suggests they get back to work.