More letters.
Headmaster Snape,
I apologize for being gone so long but I’m alive and I’m safe.
I’m sorry but I won’t be able to return to my teaching duties for the time being. I can’t, not right now. I need a long sabbatical to deal with some things. I’m so sorry. If anyone wishes to contact me, I’ve included PINpoint coordinates.
I have a request. It is a big one and most likely very presumptuous of me. I have enclosed a letter for Commander Horatio Hornblower. I’ve lost contact with him and I don’t know where he is. It’s important that he gets it. If you can deliver his letter to him I will be very grateful. Please.
Kate Cordello.
Horatio,
I am safe. The baby is safe. I am in the care of a doctor who specializes in my kind.
As I write this, I am sitting by the ocean and looking out at the North Sea. It is beautiful in a harsh sort of way. I am able to get some sense of peace from my surroundings but I don’t think it will last long. If I’m still enough I can block certain thoughts but inevitably, they do return.
For me, it has been over sixteen months since I’ve seen you last. During the last of those long months I feared that I would never see you again. I was able to take some comfort in knowing that you were safe. I’m glad that you didn’t have to go through what everyone else did.
After you left, four months passed in Cardiff. I tried to PINpoint out multiple times but I couldn’t. It just wouldn’t work. I didn’t know why but I carried on. There was Ears to worry about and my daughter. I had to soldier on for their sakes.
Ears disappeared before Thanksgiving. I don’t know how that happened. He went out, like he did every morning, to collect a paper but he didn’t return immediately. I thought that perhaps he had gotten distracted and that he eventually would return. He did not.
I didn’t get a chance to look for him. That same day Ianto Jones showed up on my doorstep. He took me away from the house to keep the baby and me safe. It wasn’t my decision to leave but I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I don’t know if I’m greatful to that now or not. In a way, it would have been so much easier if I had been left alone.
You see, an man had taken over as Prime Minister, The Master. At that time no one knew that he was evil or what his true intentions were. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with him. I would have voted for him if I had been able. Whenever Harold Saxon spoke, he just sounded good. He had the world hypnotized.
Ianto took me to Torchwood’s installation in London. Shortly after my arrival, there was an incident. An alien species were going to make first contact, The Toclafane. They said they were good. They said they just wanted to be friends. It was all a lie. The Master used this to take over the world. He seized control and he televised it all. The world got to watch him kill Jack and torture the Doctor before he sent those things to annhilate ten percent of the Earth’s population.
It just got worse from there.
There was a resistance movement. Ianto and his organization tried to fight back, they really did. I was optimistic at first, as were a lot of people, about being able to do some good. The beginning was dark and serious but I had some sense of hope. We were scrappers. We would make it through.
We didn’t. Everything just kept getting worse and worse. Japan was destroyed. The world was transformed into fusion mills, radiation pits and factories. The Master’s rule was brutal. Resistance was met with death. There was no mercy.
In the midst of it all, I gave birth. I named my daughter Megan Elizabeth Harkness but I only called her Ix. Jack had suggested that name so seriously and I feel like a fool for having such a negative reaction to it. At the time I couldn’t imagine calling her anything else. She had his eyes.
Ix was never healthy though. Nothing I did was enough and I tried everything. Perhaps it was circumstances and the surroundings that she was born into. I don’t know. There were some days when she couldn’t find comfort in anything. Ix liked Ianto. He was able to get her to sleep when I couldn’t.
Perhaps if she would’ve been healthy, she would have survived. I’m not sure. You see, The Master found out about Torchwood. He sent a plague to us as punishment. It was awful. I didn’t get sick. I did all that I could to help those that had fallen ill. For a while I thought Ix would be okay. She didn’t come down with the fever immediately and I thought that perhaps she had gotten my healing factor. In the end, she contracted the illness. She was barely five months old when she died.
When the plague left Torchwood, more than ninety percent of its members were dead. Everyone then left and spread out like the wind. We had a mission. For six long and lonely months, I wandered the Earth. I didn’t have much hope left. Most had been crushed when Ix died. I was numb to it all but there was still a small shard left. It wasn’t that I would be able to escape. I no longer cared about that. My single hope was that by spreading a story, a simple one word command, The Master would be defeated. I think it was the only thing that kept me going.
It worked. The Master was defeated and everything went back. The last twelve months reversed themselves except for my memories. I remembered it all and I think I went a little mad when I realized that I was pregnant once more.
I don’t blame Jack. It’s not his fault, nor is it anyone’s fault.
As much as I love Jack and as much as I love you Horatio, I can’t come back. I have to stay away for a while, maybe a long while. I want you both and at the same time I don’t. I need too much. I don’t know if you can understand this. I don’t much understand it myself but I do know one thing, I am not well. I am not going to be good for anyone. I don’t even know if I’ll be enough for my daughter and that thought alone terrifies me.
I've written you all this in hopes that you can understand why I’m doing this. I thought it would be a little cathartic for me, to write everything down, but it hasn't been.
I hope that you don’t feel as though I am abandoning you. Please.
Kate.
I apologize for being gone so long but I’m alive and I’m safe.
I’m sorry but I won’t be able to return to my teaching duties for the time being. I can’t, not right now. I need a long sabbatical to deal with some things. I’m so sorry. If anyone wishes to contact me, I’ve included PINpoint coordinates.
I have a request. It is a big one and most likely very presumptuous of me. I have enclosed a letter for Commander Horatio Hornblower. I’ve lost contact with him and I don’t know where he is. It’s important that he gets it. If you can deliver his letter to him I will be very grateful. Please.
Kate Cordello.
Horatio,
I am safe. The baby is safe. I am in the care of a doctor who specializes in my kind.
As I write this, I am sitting by the ocean and looking out at the North Sea. It is beautiful in a harsh sort of way. I am able to get some sense of peace from my surroundings but I don’t think it will last long. If I’m still enough I can block certain thoughts but inevitably, they do return.
For me, it has been over sixteen months since I’ve seen you last. During the last of those long months I feared that I would never see you again. I was able to take some comfort in knowing that you were safe. I’m glad that you didn’t have to go through what everyone else did.
After you left, four months passed in Cardiff. I tried to PINpoint out multiple times but I couldn’t. It just wouldn’t work. I didn’t know why but I carried on. There was Ears to worry about and my daughter. I had to soldier on for their sakes.
Ears disappeared before Thanksgiving. I don’t know how that happened. He went out, like he did every morning, to collect a paper but he didn’t return immediately. I thought that perhaps he had gotten distracted and that he eventually would return. He did not.
I didn’t get a chance to look for him. That same day Ianto Jones showed up on my doorstep. He took me away from the house to keep the baby and me safe. It wasn’t my decision to leave but I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I don’t know if I’m greatful to that now or not. In a way, it would have been so much easier if I had been left alone.
You see, an man had taken over as Prime Minister, The Master. At that time no one knew that he was evil or what his true intentions were. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with him. I would have voted for him if I had been able. Whenever Harold Saxon spoke, he just sounded good. He had the world hypnotized.
Ianto took me to Torchwood’s installation in London. Shortly after my arrival, there was an incident. An alien species were going to make first contact, The Toclafane. They said they were good. They said they just wanted to be friends. It was all a lie. The Master used this to take over the world. He seized control and he televised it all. The world got to watch him kill Jack and torture the Doctor before he sent those things to annhilate ten percent of the Earth’s population.
It just got worse from there.
There was a resistance movement. Ianto and his organization tried to fight back, they really did. I was optimistic at first, as were a lot of people, about being able to do some good. The beginning was dark and serious but I had some sense of hope. We were scrappers. We would make it through.
We didn’t. Everything just kept getting worse and worse. Japan was destroyed. The world was transformed into fusion mills, radiation pits and factories. The Master’s rule was brutal. Resistance was met with death. There was no mercy.
In the midst of it all, I gave birth. I named my daughter Megan Elizabeth Harkness but I only called her Ix. Jack had suggested that name so seriously and I feel like a fool for having such a negative reaction to it. At the time I couldn’t imagine calling her anything else. She had his eyes.
Ix was never healthy though. Nothing I did was enough and I tried everything. Perhaps it was circumstances and the surroundings that she was born into. I don’t know. There were some days when she couldn’t find comfort in anything. Ix liked Ianto. He was able to get her to sleep when I couldn’t.
Perhaps if she would’ve been healthy, she would have survived. I’m not sure. You see, The Master found out about Torchwood. He sent a plague to us as punishment. It was awful. I didn’t get sick. I did all that I could to help those that had fallen ill. For a while I thought Ix would be okay. She didn’t come down with the fever immediately and I thought that perhaps she had gotten my healing factor. In the end, she contracted the illness. She was barely five months old when she died.
When the plague left Torchwood, more than ninety percent of its members were dead. Everyone then left and spread out like the wind. We had a mission. For six long and lonely months, I wandered the Earth. I didn’t have much hope left. Most had been crushed when Ix died. I was numb to it all but there was still a small shard left. It wasn’t that I would be able to escape. I no longer cared about that. My single hope was that by spreading a story, a simple one word command, The Master would be defeated. I think it was the only thing that kept me going.
It worked. The Master was defeated and everything went back. The last twelve months reversed themselves except for my memories. I remembered it all and I think I went a little mad when I realized that I was pregnant once more.
I don’t blame Jack. It’s not his fault, nor is it anyone’s fault.
As much as I love Jack and as much as I love you Horatio, I can’t come back. I have to stay away for a while, maybe a long while. I want you both and at the same time I don’t. I need too much. I don’t know if you can understand this. I don’t much understand it myself but I do know one thing, I am not well. I am not going to be good for anyone. I don’t even know if I’ll be enough for my daughter and that thought alone terrifies me.
I've written you all this in hopes that you can understand why I’m doing this. I thought it would be a little cathartic for me, to write everything down, but it hasn't been.
I hope that you don’t feel as though I am abandoning you. Please.
Kate.