Torchwood fic: Out of Seven Billion Lights (This is a Love Song) Pt 3
Title: Out of Seven Billion Lights (This is a Love Song) Part Three
Words: ~11,500 total
Warnings: Rated 16 for language and violence. Spoilers for Torchwood S1 and S2, and Doctor Who S3. A little hint of the novel The Story of Martha by Dan Abnett too.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC et al. No copyright infringement intended.
Characters: Jack, Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Ianto, Martha, the Master. Canon pairings.
Notes: My version of what might have happened to the Torchwood team during the Year That Never Was. Also my first ever TW fic. Slightly AU, because Martha will remember.
2 weeks later
Jack returned to life with a rattling gasp. He spat blood from his mouth.
The Master leaned against the wall opposite him.
"Another one bites the dust," he said softly, lingering over the words.
Jack winced as the wound in his chest began to close. He tried to look like he was ignoring the Master, not fixated by dread of what he would say next.
"Which one do you think? Fifty-fifty chance of getting it right, good odds. Come on! The boy or the girl? Take a guess."
Jack forced a laugh.
"For a psychopathic despot preparing to take over the universe, you seem to have a lot of time on your hands. Or is it just my alluring company?"
The Master clasped his hands behind his back and hopped away from the wall.
"There's always time for a little entertainment. I think...the boy. No, wait, the girl. Oh, play along!"
Jack knew the Master was studying him as he teased him, looking for a reaction, wanting Jack to hope it was one of them rather than the other, wanting him to feel guilty for that. He kept a fake half-smile firmly in place.
Cheated of his fun, the Master pouted.
"I can see the suspense is killing you. Fine. Toshiko Sato is the latest corpse."
He leaned in, looking to see if Jack's response was relief or pain.
*
One day earlier
Tosh shoved her glasses back up her nose. The cave created by the forgotten section of railway was uncomfortably hot and humid. She had stripped to her t-shirt and she was still sweating. Her fingers raced across the keyboard. She knew there might not be much time left.
The conversation with Martha Jones replayed again in her mind. It hadn't taken the woman long to convince her of her identity, but Tosh had refused to be swayed from her plan so easily.
"I know Jack can't die," Martha had said. She'd been sitting where Tosh was now, and Tosh, having finally lowered her gun, had sat on the stairs. "But he's not the only one on board. My family is up there--my parents and my sister. The Doctor is up there."
It had been the way she said his name, more than the stories she had told Tosh.
"My plan seems to have a better guarantee of success than yours," Tosh had said. Martha had shook her head, and the certainty shining through her weariness had silenced Tosh.
"You don't know the Doctor."
"But Jack does? That's who he's been waiting for?"
"Yeah...and that should tell you what he's like. Jack waited a hundred years for him, and I'm pretty sure he'd have waited a hundred more. Trust me. He can save us."
Tosh understood now how this woman had single-handedly converted half the planet to a new faith. But she wasn't ready to give up fighting. She knew Ianto felt the same way.
She might have days. She might have hours. The resistance in this area had been broken by a savage raid, and she wasn't sure what that meant for her. It had been days since her last contact with them, since the last food drop. All she could do now was keep working.
*
"Her allies gave her up in return for transportation to the Russian shipyards instead of execution. They told my men how to get past her defenses. She didn't have any warning."
Jack said nothing. Toshiko would never have shared all of her secrets with anyone.
*
Smoke and torch beams turned her little cave into a twisted vision of a night club. Tosh emptied her clip into the first men to come down the stairs. One went down, wounded, not dead. The other caught the bullets on his body armour. He staggered, but kept coming.
She jumped down onto the rails, gagging as the smoke embraced her. She reloaded, then popped up above the edge of the drop to the tracks and fired again. It was hard to see where they were with her eyes streaming, and she shot wildly, hitting her monitors and the walls more than the soldiers. She knew they were getting closer. Between the gunshots she heard their boots and the rasp of their breathing. They didn't return fire. They wanted her alive.
She ducked back down. Sweat trickled into her eyes. She knocked her glasses off impatiently. They weren't helping, anyway. Another reload, but this time she waited. The smoke was getting thicker and she fought not to cough.
They were above her head. She felt them there, looming, advancing, a dark, scalp-prickling weight. Her time was up.
Whimpering, shivering, Tosh bent forward into a foetal position. She raised her gun.
*
"We assume she had heard something about Dr Harper's fate. My men didn't get to her in time." The Master clicked his tongue. "All those brains of hers...no use to anyone splattered across a railway track."
Jack's heart was pounding. He struggled with the acid rising in his chest, but it wasn't just horror. He knew Tosh. He knew what she was capable of. He knew this didn't tally.
Then the Master dashed his hopes.
"She'd left us a nasty little computer virus that almost did some damage when my people started dissecting her equipment. But they took care of it before any harm was done. It was a damp squib...like her whole life. You see, it turned out she hadn't succeeded in what she was doing. She ran out of time. Poor, misguided girl."
The Master sighed with exaggerated sympathy. Then he bent forward and whispered in Jack's ear, "Just one left, now."
*
Three weeks later
Jack swung gently back and forth on his chains. He'd kept his brightest smile on for both the Master and Tish, although she'd watched him anxiously while she fed him his supper.
He ached for news of Martha, and more about the Doctor than Tish could bring him. But their plan was taking shape. It gave him something stronger than steel links to carry his weight. He needed that right now.
They haunted him, as did the one who still lived. Jack didn't dare think his name, let alone remember the sensation of his mouth on Jack's, or the scent of his hair...
He shook his head, shook the temptation away. The only thing he could allow himself to dwell on now was the Doctor. He wrapped himself around his faith. The paradox could be undone. There was a countdown. There was an end in sight. The Doctor would fix everything, somehow. That was what he did. He would make it all better...
Jack had become an expert at waiting. He could do it a while longer.
*
Grass rippled on the hill and daisies bobbed in time. It had rained earlier, but the clouds were swirling away to the south, leaving a fresh blue sky. Out here, on a day like this, you could almost believe that the world hadn't changed. Until you turned the wrong way and saw the jutting shipyards on the horizon, manufacturing war.
He stood alone on an outcrop of rock, his coat snapping in the wind. One of his gloved hands hovered near his gun holster, but he stood straight and still, staring at the horizon as if he intended to remain just like that all day.
One instant he was alone. The next she was there.
The woman lifted a key on a cord from around her neck and walked up to him.
"Ianto Jones?"
"Martha Jones," he replied, with a faint twitch of a smile.
"Toshiko Sato told me where you would be."
"And she told me about you."
They strolled to the bottom of the hill, like two friends out for a walk on an ordinary Sunday, in an ordinary world. They found a drier patch of grass and settled there. All they needed was a blanket and a picnic basket to complete the picture. At least he had a box, an old silver flight case. He passed it to her and she nodded her thanks.
"How much farther do you have to go?" Ianto said, resting his arms on his knees.
"Oh...too far," Martha smiled, but it was sad and strained. "It'll be a while yet before I get home."
"We're both a long way from it."
"But your journey will be over before mine."
He nodded, bowing his head as he picked at the grass with his fingers.
"This...Doctor of yours," he said carefully. "He sounds pretty special."
"He is." Life suffused her, brightening her face. "You have no idea."
"I've heard the stories."
"They're true. If anyone can save us, he can."
Ianto knew enough about the road this woman had walked and what still waited for her that he was willing to be impressed by anyone she placed faith in.
"So...Jack's known him a while, then?"
He tried to keep his voice neutral, but Martha looked at him sidelong.
"Yeah, I think so. He met the Doctor in his previous life. He waited for him to come back--"
"A century, I know."
"He needed answers."
"Answers?" Ianto finally lifted his head to frown at her. "About what?"
"His immortality. Why he is the way he is. Why the Doctor abandoned him." She gave a little shrug. "I don't know all the details."
"Oh." Ianto blinked, his understanding of Jack shifting yet again. He wondered if the man would ever stop surprising him.
Martha watched him.
"You and Jack," she said suddenly, then broke off with an apologetic smile. "Sorry. Sorry, it's none of my business."
"Yes," he said. "And yes. But it's fine."
They stared at the surging clouds for a bit, both of them thinking about what else the sky held.
"Is he alright?" Ianto said abruptly. "Do you know?"
Martha sighed. "I'm sorry, I don't. I don't know if anyone's alright. All I can tell you is that he's alive, that even if no-one else lives through this, he will. Other than that, I just don't know."
"Your family--"
"I just have to keep going." She pulled her shoulders back and forced briskness into her voice. "I have a deadline. I just keep walking."
Tentatively, Ianto reached over and gripped her arm. After a moment, she placed her hand on his.
"I wish--" His control broke and he gasped and shuddered before he could go on. "I wish I'd gotten around to telling him that I--"
He couldn't finish.
"I know," Martha said, in a tone that made him believe she really, really did.
New clouds swarmed into the blue gap in the sky. The grass shivered and flattened before the wind. They didn't say any more while they walked back up to the top of the hill.
"Ianto Jones," she said again, with so much compassion and sadness.
"Martha Jones," he said. "Good luck."
"And to you."
They hugged. Ianto tried to lend strength to her, to this woman who carried the future of the whole planet on her narrow shoulders, but he felt like it went more the other way. His eyes were wet and his throat thick when they parted.
She smiled at him one last time.
She slipped the key around her neck again, and he was alone.
*
One week later
The Master walked in, that smile on his face.
Jack squeezed his eyes tight shut.
*
Six hours earlier
The wind tried to drag him off the tower, but Ianto had been holding on by his fingernails for almost a year and he wasn't about to stop now. He reached up, his shoulders straining, and caught hold of the next bar.
He'd made his last supply drop that morning. This branch of the resistance would have to get their guns and ammo from someone else from now on..
The pack banged against his spine. He hoisted himself up higher. The cold cut into him and he was just grateful the rain had held off. He couldn't have made this climb if it was wet.
He remembered the last time he had seen Tosh. She'd given him the fake gun for Martha, the transmitter for himself, and a kiss goodbye. They'd both been shivering.
They'd promised Martha, but they'd promised each other, too. Their original plan was still sound enough to cling to. Yes, destroying the Valiant and the Archangel Network wouldn't just free the people of Earth from the Master's control, it would bring the Toclafane's bloody vengeance down on all the survivors. It would kill Martha's family and probably her Doctor too, and yes, the Master might--what had she called it?--regenerate, but right now all Ianto could think about was nine months of death and enslavement and brutality, the threat of the Master taking them to war with the universe, his duty as a Torchwood operative...
Except that those were lies. All he could really think about was his sister. His niece and nephew. He would never know what they'd been doing when they died, there would never be graves for him to visit. And brave, sweet Gwen and Tosh and Owen, his people. And Jack.
Let the Toclafane come. He didn't care about much of anything anymore but his dream of the Master in flames.
Far below him, alarms started to yelp. Took them long enough. Ianto calmly hauled himself up one more bar and clamped his legs and one arm around the skeleton of the tower while he reached for his pack.
One-handed, he snapped the transmitter into place. Resistance communications might be blocked, but up here with the angels a piggyback ride meant there were no closed doors, digitally speaking.
He shinned down the tower, reckless now. He might beat the soldiers to the gate, he might not. Cold metal snapped at his palms and he reflected that it didn't really matter if he fell but, on balance, he'd prefer to get to see the Master burn.
From this height, the soldiers looked like little black specks of type unwinding on a page.
Ianto jumped the last few feet. The old wound in his leg protested as he landed and then pushed himself to run. He felt light-headed, not quite real. He folded his hand around his gun and thought of Tosh. Six rounds, only five he could afford to fire. He couldn't ruin the plan or put Martha at risk.
Machine guns clattered. He felt a bullet punch into his back and he almost laughed even as he stumbled. Stupid. He'd forgotten that they were still too far away to see his face. They didn't know he was meant to be taken alive. Ah, well. It saved him the unpleasantness of doing it himself.
His body gave way under further impacts and he was thrown forward into the high voltage fence.
Up to you now, Jack, he thought, just before the current switched him off.
*
His minions scurried up to him, bringing him their achievements like puppies carrying sticks. The Master waved his hand to indicate the first one could speak.
"We intercepted the signal the Torchwood agent piggybacked on the Archangel network. We've decoded it, and it's addressed to Martha Jones, care of any rebel who receives it. It's a reply to her request for a weapon of theirs. It describes a gun that Torchwood developed to..." The young man cleared his throat. "Uh--to kill Time Lords."
The Master stopped his chair mid-swivel.
"What?"
The young man backed up a step. "But--but she doesn't have it yet. The message was just letting her know that it's out there..."
The Master scowled at his steepled fingers for a minute while the minion sweated. Then his face cleared and his perennial smile returned.
"A thing easier said than done."
He twitched his hand again and the minion started to retreat. The Master spun his chair round once more. Then he called, "Oh, but do tell my soldiers that if they don't bring me the child Martha Jones soon, I'll have to start executing them for gross incompetence. I'm really a very patient man, you know, but not quite a saint."
The minion looked back at his toothy smile and swallowed.
"Yes, my Lord and Master."
*
Two months earlier
In the clammy heat of the underground railway, Ianto and Tosh sat side by side on the steps. They were both far from the neat professionals they had started out as. Ianto could barely remember what it felt like to wear a suit and tie. They looked just like the rest of humanity: part refugee, part soldier, everything soft stripped from them.
"They'll think it's a message. It'll help Martha, build a foundation for her bluff. But, in decoding it, they'll allow it to seek out my virus in their systems. Find the traces it's left, find it in quarantine. And that's all we need. The message and the virus are just carriers. Individually they mean nothing. But the code that they hide, when combined..."
"Only if Martha's plan doesn't work, though?"
Tosh pushed her hair behind her ears, an old familiar gesture that somehow looked wrong after all this change. "Yes. I've programmed it very carefully. The code remains dormant and undetectable. At the right time, it activates and gives an enormous boost to the signal strength of the Archangel network, helping this...Doctor...do whatever it is he's going to do. But there's more code. If her plan fails or if faith isn't enough..."
She made it sound like a dirty word. Ianto wasn't going to argue with her, not now.
"There's a Plan B," he finished. "Torchwood style."
*
Jack remembered first times and last ones.
Sitting opposite the dead-eyed girl in a prison room stinking of raw concrete and despair and her unwashed skin, he had despised the waste and the stupidity of it. How could the rest of the world not see what a prize she was? And he'd felt something...a thrill of promise, a sense that now he was building a Torchwood that would work. That would be his. He had coveted her, but he had never imagined, then, the woman who would run to embrace him, who would hold his hand while he cried for the man whose name he had stolen but couldn't save from the grip of history. He'd had no idea how much he was gaining.
Looking up to see a young policewoman, too curious for her own good, he'd felt the same buzz. He'd known, as their eyes locked. He'd waited to see if he was right; then he'd delighted in watching to see what she would do next, which way she would jump. It had been an assessment, a test, a game. Now he wished he hadn't played it with her. He didn't deserve the things she had given him--her passion, her strength, her faith. He could lean on her when there was no-one else. Waking from death with the imprint of her kiss on his lips, he had wondered when she'd become necessary.
The certainty had been slower to arrive with Owen. Watching that poor girl to make sure of what was destroying her, her fiance had come to his attention only gradually. By the time they met over her corpse, though, Jack had known. What he hadn't expected was the emotion, how much he had felt for the man. It had almost made him change his mind and reach for the Retcon instead. After all that, how could he have forgotten how fragile Owen was? Just because he'd started to cope, Jack had assumed he'd healed. And of course he'd broken in the end, because the cracks had just been glued together and would always be weak. It only took a little pressure...Holding Owen, rocking him, kissing his hair, trying to convey to him that he was forgiven and safe and loved, Jack had thought to himself, someone needs to save this man. And realised that someone was probably him.
He'd tried to resist Ianto, he really had, but his self-discipline wasn't quite up to that level of doggedness and desperation, certainly not when it came so beautifully packaged. He'd let himself be manipulated, become dependent, and in the end he couldn't even resist forgiveness, because everything Ianto was came out of love. It had been a surprise to find his match in him. Bittersweet Ianto, who he wished he'd met decades earlier. He'd been unable to make any promises to him with the Doctor's return, Jack's entire reason for remaining on his feet and breathing for a century, finally approaching. Any day he could be gone, maybe for good, and he shouldn't have kissed Ianto like that, the last time. He was afraid he'd let some of the feelings he'd been denying seep through and that wasn't fair on either of them.
Owen had just rediscovered his will to live; Gwen, her certainty in herself. Ianto and Tosh had only just begun to taste freedom from the pasts that had kept them bound. And now it was over.
He owed them all so much.
He didn't know why the Master persisted in torturing him. Jack would never break for him, and was far better at torturing himself.
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