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Of all the things to set off a mauve Rift alert, a battered Nokia was not high on anyone's list.
"I don't understand it," Tosh marveled. "It's picking up a signal that shouldn't exist, and the wiring—I've never seen anything like it before!"
"It's a superphone," Jack said. Just saying the word brought back memories of Rose, and the Doctor, which hurt more than he'd thought it would. "Makes calls anywhere in the universe, to anyone in the universe. Might even cross time if you tried."
Owen whistled. "UNIT'd kill to get their hands on this."
"Which is why we won't let them." Jack tossed the mobile to Ianto, who caught it one-handed. "Archives, as secure as you can make it."
Ianto nodded and turned away, but not before Jack saw the glimmer of curiosity in his eyes.
* *
"Ianto!"
Jack rounded the corner just in time to see Ianto hastily trying to hide the superphone behind him.
Jack sighed. "You do realize one wrong word on that thing could destroy the entire planet?"
"Yes." Ianto crossed his arms defiantly. "I just—had to settle something, that's all. No harm done. We're still here, aren't we?"
Jack hesitated, then merely held out his hand. "Fine. But I'm going to lock it up this time. And no, you will not have the access codes."
As Ianto handed over the superphone (he had enough grace to look ashamed, or was that disappointed?), Jack couldn't help but wonder whom Ianto had chosen to call.
* *
He was surprised (to say the least) when his wriststrap announced an incoming mobile phone call. That technology had become obsolete almost half a millennium earlier.
Nonetheless, he answered it. Not like the half-deserted bar he was visiting was offering better entertainment.
The speaker crackled. "Hello," a male voice said in accented Old English, a language even the oldest colonists hardly used anymore. "Is this Captain Jack Harkness?"
He frowned. He'd abandoned that name years ago after the mess on Priori Five and hadn't used it since. "Who's asking?" he said, prepared to cut the connection.
"Ianto Jones." There was a long blank silence between them. "Name ring a bell?"
"Can't say it does." He tapped his fingers restlessly. "Look, I'd love to keep talking but if that's all—"
"Of course. Sorry for taking your time." The man on the other side paused. "Have a good life, Jack."
The words struck him as half-familiar, and he stopped just before closing the channel. The faintest echo of a memory resurfaced, from a life he'd nearly forgotten, of waking up to the rich smell of coffee after nights spent with only one man. It was hard to put a name to the face after so many centuries; but he did remember watching the man die, and he remembered the same man's last words— "Wait! Ianto!"
But it was too late; the connection was already dead. Ianto had been gone for a thousand years, and Jack had indeed forgotten him.