Into Gethsemane (9/11)
Title: Into Gethsemane (9/11)
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Lois, Johnson, Rupesh, Martha, Mickey, Tish, Rhys, John, Alice, Steven, OCs, many cameos
Pairings: mostly canon
Rating: R
Warnings: AUTHOR CHOOSES NOT TO WARN (but will answer PMs for any content questions)
Spoilers: up through COE
Words: 60,000 (4,300 this part)
Betas: eldarwannabe and fide_et_spe both performed major heavy lifting on this story, and have my deepest thanks for their efforts
Summary: A secret movement within the government successfully placed Lois Habiba as a spy inside Torchwood, and the trap is ready to be sprung. Meanwhile, Jack has received worrisome news, leading Gwen and Ianto from one danger into another. Loves, loyalties, and everyone's lives are on the line as the force behind the conspiracy finally comes to light.
A/N: Final fic in a fake third series where Lois, Johnson, and Rupesh have joined the team. Can be read as a stand-alone but will make more sense in context of the other stories.
Master Post
Chapter Eight
***
Chapter 9
***
The bracelet, Jack's mind told him sensibly. Lois had brought the ghost bracelet, a bit of alien jewellery which had caused them all to hallucinate loved ones until they'd found the source. She must have activated the clasp to distract the guards and if Jack merely ignored Ianto's faked voice, pushed through, he could take advantage when they began grasping with their own shadows.
The first soldier turned, and Gwen kicked him in the arm, dislodging his grip on his gun, which Lois grabbed and trained on him. Jack's hands reached behind him and grabbed the guard, flinging him over his head. When he thudded to the floor, John Hart of all people stepped on his throat, drew a gun of his own on the man, and grinned like the Devil himself.
The fight was finished in less than ten seconds.
Jack blinked. He turned slowly, allowing himself one good look, one more moment. There was no time left, not to say what mattered, so he stared, trying to remember every detail. "Lois, turn off the bracelet."
"I didn't bring it."
Ianto lowered the gun he carried. "Is everyone all right?" An answering groan came from the man under John's boot, but Gwen kicked him and he shut up.
Jack tried speaking, but for the first time ever, he couldn't. He blinked again. Ianto came over, placing a hand on his head as if checking for damage. "Jack, are you okay? Do you have a concussion?"
The hand felt real. His face, with a day's growth of beard, looked very real. Jack grabbed him by the collar and pulled their mouths together.
Definitely real.
"Hi," said Jack.
"Hi."
"You're not dead."
"No."
"John?"
"Yeah."
Jack spared a moment to look over his shoulder to John. "I owe you one."
"You owe me several."
Gwen cleared her throat. "As much as I want to do hugs all around, we have to deal with Gloucester first."
"Right," said Jack, taking Ianto's hand. "We have to get to the Hub, and we have to stop him from bringing the Master back. John, can you deal with these two?" Thinking for another moment, he added, "Don't kill them, just lock them up."
"Whatever."
"Come on." Jack led them back towards their destination, now armed with the rifles from the guards. If Lois had been correct, they wouldn't help much, but he felt better with a weapon. He kept hold of Ianto's hand.
Lois said, "Alice Carter and her son vanished from custody. Was that you?"
Ianto said, "We had to get them out of play before they were used against Jack. They're safe at the Glasgow site. Frank too."
"You did all that?"
"Oh. Well." Ianto looked at Jack. "You've been so busy with work lately. Your ex and I buried the hatchet, and took the children for a bit of a holiday in the country. I hoped you wouldn't mind." John rolled his eyes.
Ianto had nearly died, and his first thought had been to protect Jack's family.
Jack squeezed, almost hard enough to bruise, almost hard enough to break bone. He wanted to tell Ianto how much he loved him, but the words wouldn't come.
Ianto squeezed back. "I know."
"Good."
***
The labyrinthine corridors of the lower levels had confused her during the short time Martha had worked here. Some parts of the Archives had been carved into the bedrock, other areas were retro-industrial standard, and none of it came with signs. Many areas even lacked electric lights. She and Tish made one wrong turn, ending up in a level filled with junk that looked like spare parts for automobiles long sent to the scrapyard, old skeletons of dead cars.
They doubled back, Martha remembering the trick Ianto had taught her of counting the odds until the turn. They ended up at the firing range. "Do you know how to use one of these?" Martha asked, gathering pistols.
"I'm sure I can figure it out."
"In that case, no. I've had training. It's more than just point and squeeze." She settled on a Glock. The Hub was only a short flight of stairs from here. "You ought to stay down here. I'll come for you when we've settled this."
Tish shook her head. "This is my fight, too. Besides, Mum and Dad would skin me alive if I let you go after the Weasel alone." She smiled, but Martha wasn't fooled. She set down the Glock and took Tish's hand.
"It may be your fight, but it's not your job. You got caught up in everything because of me." And I got caught up because of him, she thought, and we only found the Master because of Jack. But Martha hated assigning blame because that cycle never ended.
An alarm went off. Tish jumped, and Martha grinned. "That's our cue. Mickey and Johnson are causing a commotion at the front door."
The stairs winded her as much as the long walk had. Tish followed at her heels, her own stiff anger propping her up despite her anxiety. Martha could picture Tom at her side now, knew for a fact he could lead a revolution, but Tish was the one with her, and that's what mattered.
They came up at the mouth of one corridor. Across the way, she saw Jack and Gwen. Then she blinked, trying to clear her eyes, but when she looked again, Ianto still stood there with them. Lois was nowhere to be seen. Jack noticed her absence at the same time Martha did, glancing behind himself and then quiet clearly mouthing a bad word. Perhaps she'd fled. Perhaps she'd turned on them yet again.
Tish held up her hand, attracting Gwen's attention. Gwen nodded to them.
The cog wheel door rolled open. Mickey and Johnson burst in. Jack tipped his head to Martha; they began walking forward at the same time. The three groups converged around the Rift manipulator with a remarkable cacophony of cocked weapons.
"That doesn't belong to you," Jack said.
The man who stood at the console wasn't familiar to Martha at all. She'd never seen him on any of the Master's broadcasts, never gone to a refugee camp in the midst of one of his inspections. Gloucester was very plain, perhaps five cm taller than she was, thinning brown hair going to a dull, mousy grey, a forgettable face. He didn't look like the casual torturer of millions that Tish had described to her over a bottle of cheap wine one night when neither could sleep.
When he turned his head to Jack, he could have been the man behind the counter at the grocer's, could have been someone sitting next to her on the train. But his eyes gave the game away. "I'm so glad you could join us, Captain. I believe the Master only managed to complete a quarter of the list of ways to die he had envisioned for testing on you."
Gloucester turned his attention to Martha and Tish. As those pale eyes touched her, Martha felt unclean. "And you've brought Doctor Jones to me. How kind. Where is Mrs. Saxon? On such an auspicious day, we should have everyone together."
"You won't find her," Martha said.
"Won't I? Do you honestly believe anywhere on this world will be safe from my Master's reach?" A faint, odd smile played on his face as his eyes went to her belly. "He told me once how deeply he regretted that he could not make his wife catch with a child. How happy he'll be when I give her back, and present him with the perfect infant to adopt and raise."
Johnson fired.
The bullet hit the forcefield and ricocheted off towards Jack's group. Everyone ducked.
"Put that away!" Tish said, and Mickey's hand dropped on the gun.
Gwen said, "It's a forcefield."
"We're taking it down," said Jack.
"That won't matter," said Gloucester with every evidence of delight. He pressed a sequence of keys on his console, a beatific expression on his face. The Rift manipulator began to hum loudly, the mechanism coming to life. "A brilliant woman," Gloucester mumbled. "Such a waste."
A small light appeared in front of the Rift manipulator, luminously blue and growing. Ianto was already at one of the workstations, opening up a speaker. Jack opened one of his own and yelled: "Perry! We need that shut down now!"
"I think I have it! Step back!"
The shimmer around Gloucester and the Rift manipulator glowed a bright amber and then faded. The blue light continued to glow, and the manipulator went faster.
The guns came up again. Gloucester fell to his knees, hands raised above his head, still smiling. Martha came up, holding her weapon steady on him. Jack flew to the controls. "He's locked them."
"Pull the power cables?" said Gwen, coming up beside him.
"It's hardwired into its backup source." He slammed his hand on the speaker on this station. "Perry?"
"I can't reach the other box."
Ianto's speaker crackled to life. Alice's voice said, "Go ahead."
"Alice, are you in the control room?"
"Yes."
"Lock onto the Hub's coordinates."
"With what?" Jack asked.
"Remember the giant laser Torchwood London used on the Sycorax? It's in storage at the Glasgow site. I powered it up and gave Alice the firing codes."
"You did what?"
"Alice," Ianto said into the speaker, "wait for our signal. We may need you."
"That was designed to hit objects outside of Earth."
Ianto didn't look at him. "We have satellites in orbit to bounce the beam anywhere we aim on the planet or off. It will obliterate everything at this location." Except Jack, he didn't need to say.
The light grew stronger. Martha watched Tish join Mickey and Johnson. "Give me your gun," Tish said, voice tight. "When he appears, I'll do it."
Gloucester said, "You think he will be so easy to kill this time? He will be a god." Martha fought the urge to smack him with the butt of her Glock.
She heard the clatter of short heels. Lois emerged from the tunnel mouth closest to the armoury, something in her arms. She stopped, glanced around, saw Gloucester in Martha's custody, and went straight to Jack, offering the parcel she carried.
He looked down as she handed it over. Her eyes were scared. His were tired.
"This is a bad idea," he said.
"Do you have another?"
"Right," he said, glancing at the far speaker where his daughter waited for orders to blow the entire facility sky-high. "When all else fails, use grenades. Everybody get behind something!" Martha jerked Gloucester to his feet. Gwen and Ianto grabbed each arm to drag him away behind a table.
Jack touched the near speaker one more time. "Perry, last chance. Any joy?"
"No. Sorry."
The blue light was nearly human-sized. Martha swore she heard a laugh from an impossible distance.
Jack pulled the pin, shoved the (probably alien) explosive into the guts of the Rift manipulator, and dodged behind a desk. Martha covered her head.
The echoing BANG blew the air from her ears, and sent shrapnel whizzing by. The second she felt able, she poked her head over the side of the table. Blue light still glowed and fizzled. She saw the others watching, worry on the faces of those who had no memories of that year, deep-seated horror on those who did.
Ianto's hand touched the far speaker's toggle.
The light winked out.
"I found another stooge and popped him in the cells," said a voice Martha didn't know, a lazy drawl attached to a man in a red jacket, who had come out of the passageway to the cells. "Oh, and I found this one waking up." He bumped a very sleepy Rupesh ahead of him with a vicious-looking little gun. "Says he knows you, I could shoot him now if you'd like."
He looked at the mess. "Did I miss something?"
***
The Rift manipulator's twisted and shattered form covered the floor, melted pieces cooling and settling with a soft 'plink.'
Gwen turned to Jack. "How bad is this?"
"No power-mad megalomaniac aliens regenerating and seizing control of the Earth." He was still shaking, Ianto could see, but now was not the time to sit Jack down with a shot of whisky and a listening ear. Not yet. "It's not good."
Martha asked, "Are we sure it's sealed?"
"Sealed enough. He's not coming back, not through here." He bent down to the heart of the machine. "Problem is, Cult Guy here has been revving everything up. We built this thing to help stabilise the worst of the Rift fluctuations, but he's been ramping the energy passing through here to build power. With the manipulator trashed," he picked up and discarded a bent piece of metal, "I can't say what is going to come through. Or fall in."
Alice said from her speaker, "What's going on?"
Ianto told her, "Crisis averted. Power down. We'll contact you later." Then he turned off the communicator. Alice had the laser, and the cache of more conventional weapons kept on the grounds. Ianto could go back to worrying about the problems here.
Perry joined them from his work in the lower level, but came up short as he saw the destruction. His eyes went wide. "Oh my God."
Ianto turned to Hart, pointed to Gloucester, and said, "Keep an eye on him." He went to the nearest station. The monitor programmes had backups off-site, and detectors all around the city. He called up what information he could.
"Jack?"
Jack and Gwen approached, Martha behind them. Already the detectors were picking up waves radiating out from their location, like small pebbles thrown into a still pond. Even as they watched, the waves grew. The unseen hand would be splashing in rocks next, and then boulders.
"He'll tear this city to the ground," said Gloucester, glee in his voice. "His boot tread will shake the world."
"He's not coming," said Jack. But the last time they'd messed with the Rift manipulator, something else had crawled out of the ground, something huge and dark and hungry, and hundreds of people had died.
Picking up on the thread of thought, Gwen said, "Abaddon's dead. You said Saxon's not able to regenerate now. What's coming?"
"I don't want to know. We have to calm the Rift down." Jack's face went pale in the light from the monitor, as the first shockwaves rattled the Hub.
If it was bad here, it'd be worse up top. Ianto stood. "I'll contact the Assembly to put out the emergency alert.
Gwen said, "I'll call the police to let them know what's happening. We can coordinate."
"Wait." Jack's voice trembled. He took another look at the broken machine. "Gwen, I need you to close the Rift."
"The manipulator's broken. Do you have a backup?"
"Yeah. I do." He took her hand, weirdly intimate in the shaking room. A sigh escaped him, like the surrendering of a long-held moment. "Do you know why I stayed in Cardiff all this time?"
Gwen said, "You were waiting for the Doctor. You said he refuels here."
"He does." Jack took another long look at the mess. "And when he did, we ended up shot into the future, and the Master came back because of it, so this is all my fault, and I can't even start saying I'm sorry."
"It wasn't just you," Martha said.
"The Doctor comes here because of what the Rift is, what it does. The Cardiff Rift is special."
Hart made a choking noise. "Hold on. Rift. Cardiff. This is that Cardiff?"
Jack scowled. "How could you not have noticed? You came in through the Rift."
"Please, three hundred cities are named Cardiff, with little space-time irregularities. What's another backwater?"
"Yeah, the others are all named after this one. You never paid attention in class."
"'That Cardiff'?" Gwen said, interrupting their bickering as another tremor shook the base.
He turned her hand so he was holding it between both of his. "Cardiff is well-known, because of the Rift, and ... " He took another breath, made a little laugh. "I'm really not supposed to tell you. This is one of the points where human evolution gets a boost. The radiation from the Rift affects the people who live here. The Rift has been here for ages, extending from the past into the future. It changes people, especially those who work directly with it.
"When I recruited you, it wasn't just because you were nice. I wanted you where I could watch you. You survived an encounter with a cold-blooded serial killer who couldn't make herself shoot you. You walked past a Weevil who killed a man in front of you, but who never attacked you. I can name half a dozen times you ought to have died, Gwen Cooper. The laws of probability don't apply to you, and never have. You've been using the Rift's power, without meaning to, for years."
She broke away from his hold. "That's ridiculous."
"It's not. You always get what you want. Things conspire to give you what you ask for, to keep you alive. Think back!"
Martha was drawing away now, looking between them. Ianto couldn't move.
"I was never going to tell you. The big change doesn't happen for another fifty years. But you've got so much potential. I've been trying to shape it. You need to use your gift now."
Tears formed in her eyes. A hundred off-hand comments, that Gwen was special somehow. Hearing Jack finally say it out loud, she knew.
He guided her into a chair. "Think about the Rift. Think about calm things, like blue skies, the birds over the Bay, the smell of baking bread." His voice went low. "Tell the Rift you want it to sleep."
Her eyes closed, then snapped open again. "I can't. Jack, I can't control the Rift."
"You can. Remember the witches? Estelle's friends." If Gwen didn't, Ianto did. Jack had waxed poetic once about the power and potential of some of the old Cardiff witches. "I told you it wasn't magic. It's a science you people haven't figured out yet." Jack said without turning, "Perry, get me the leads."
Perry looked up. He hadn't been watching them at all, his gaze focused on the mess. "What?"
"The leads to the Rift manipulator. We can do this. I've seen it done."
Hart said, "So have I. Do it wrong and you know it'll fry her brain." He smiled flatly.
Gwen pushed her way out of the chair. "I'm not a Rift manipulator. This isn't going to work."
"There was that kid you found," said Johnson. "That little girl. The Rift doesn't spit out people still healthy."
"Sometimes it does," said Gwen, her eyes getting bigger as Perry brought over the wires. They dragged like snakes behind him. The shaking became constant. "This is mad."
"It's not mad," Jack said, rigging something Ianto couldn't see. "It's the next step in human evolution. It happens here."
"You two are evolved humans," Rupesh said.
"Not like this," said Hart. "We kept evolving." He turned his head. "It's a good racket you set up here. Find one of the brain cases, bind her to you with loyalty, make her work for you. Wish I'd thought of it."
Gwen looked to Ianto for support, but he had none for her. This was the end of a day that had started yesterday morning and had taken over a century. Right now, he'd believe Jack if Jack said Gwen was a hamster. He shook his head and began checking on the structural soundness of the Hub. Jack could convince Gwen her brain was hyper-evolved, and Ianto could worry if the ceiling would collapse on them.
"It's going to be fine," Jack said, coaxing her back to the chair. "You can do this. You have more potential than anyone I've ever met." Delicately, as if she was his own child, he affixed the two leads to her hands. "Martha, can you please keep an eye on her?"
"Yeah." She knelt down beside Gwen.
"I don't think this will work," said Gwen to Martha.
"I once saw a giant head in a jar power an entire city. It might work."
Jack and Perry were at the ruins of the manipulator, rewiring the system in a manner Ianto didn't recognise. Jack spoke quietly, pointing, and looking every so often to Hart for a confirmation. Perry nodded in the absent fashion he had when his brain raced. Whatever Jack was describing, he understood, and his fingers flew over the broken machine. The resonator was shot, every capacitor had blown, but from his perch on the catwalk, Ianto could see the harmonic modulator was only charred, not destroyed. It was to this the other ends of the leads were being affixed as Gwen shut her eyes and breathed deeply.
No-one had suggested getting Rhys, and Ianto was miserably certain why. He'd put a stop to this, prioritising her safety. She could die. Hart seemed sure she would.
The Hub rocked with a sudden lurch. Ianto grabbed onto the scaffolding, which broke as he held it.
"It's getting worse," Gloucester said, and Hart cuffed him with his arm. But he started playing with his own VM, and could flee at a moment's notice.
A little scream broke in Gwen's throat. "I can't. I can see how it works, God, but I can't move it!"
"Try harder!" The steel-hard words didn't sound like Jack, they were cold and frightening. But the city itself needed Gwen now.
"It's not me. I can't do this."
"It is you," said Jack, striding back to her. "It's in your veins. Remember? You said your family had a history of ESP. That's how I know the bloodlines to watch. They have the Second Sight. People used to call it the Devil working in them."
Johnson said, "Now they call it schizophrenia."
Jack said, "Gwen, you can do this. I've always known you were special. The few who have the potential, I can spot them a mile away. They defy the laws of probability, they get what they need when they need it most." He smiled distantly, remembering a conversation on the TARDIS as he said, "They come from old Cardiff families."
Lois hadn't said anything since the explosion, too drawn inside herself. But now her head came up from where she'd rested it on her knees, and she fixed Ianto with a long stare.
"How old?"
Jack followed her eyes, and turned away. "No."
But Ianto remembered. Mam and her voices. The screams surrounding him yet somehow he'd come away from the carnage of his friends and colleagues with barely a scratch. Desperate to attract Jack's attention, and a living, breathing dinosaur came through the Rift right where and when he could use it.
"Jack?"
"No," Jack said, more loudly this time, and he turned his attention back to Gwen. Her eyes were closed, and she was shaking in counterpoint to the rest of the room. "Gwen, I need you to focus."
Jack did thorough background checks, or tried. He knew what to look for, how many times someone could walk out alive from events that had killed too many others. Jack had denied Gwen access to Torchwood Three until she stood her ground against Suzie, had denied Ianto until the Rift spat out something he couldn't ignore. He knew. Just like with Gwen, he'd always known. Bind them to you, Hart said, and Jack had, had bound them both with loyalty and more. Two experiments ran side-by-side: one control, encouraged to keep growing naturally in her own habitat as much as she could to reach her full potential, and one intentionally broken into pieces and rebuilt to mirror Jack's desires. Unconscious aspirations and idle wishes drove the force beneath their feet, and all Jack had to do was aim the paired set of weapons at his whim.
"Bastard."
He walked down the stairway. Why wouldn't he? Ianto was as incapable of walking away from Jack's needs as he was of changing the colour of his own eyes, and Gwen was the same. Jack had bound her to himself by the simple trick of pushing her away, making her think it was her idea to flutter closer each time. He'd bound Ianto with every trick he could muster. Jack had pushed him in subtler ways, telling Ianto he'd be safer, better off, happier, and every time he did, Ianto had lashed himself tighter to him in defiance.
"Go check on the cells," said Jack. "See if Janet's okay." Ianto approached the chair. Jack shoved him. "Get the hell out of here."
Hart said it would fry her brain. Ianto could see the tears brimming the edges of Gwen's eyes again. He knelt in front of her chair, placing his hands over where the leads touched her skin.
It burned, she was burning and he was burning, and he couldn't see anything, then Gwen was there with him, and she was pushing against a giant boulder. The boulder about to land in the pond, he thought, and she agreed. Here he could see her as she was, a bright and powerful flame, and he'd never known. She pushed and she nearly could, someday she would, but she couldn't move it away to safety herself. He was merely a spark and couldn't move it either, but had they shoulders they could press them against the rock that wasn't there. This was what they wanted more than anything, wanted to stop the earthquakes, stop the Rift. Fire burned through every limb. Gwen shrieked inside his head as they pushed together and begged the Rift for silence.
Blue skies and baking bread and the cries of birds over the Bay, and all the good things they'd ever wanted. Cool water to douse the flames, and an end to the giant splash.
The rock rolled away.
***
Chapter Ten
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Lois, Johnson, Rupesh, Martha, Mickey, Tish, Rhys, John, Alice, Steven, OCs, many cameos
Pairings: mostly canon
Rating: R
Warnings: AUTHOR CHOOSES NOT TO WARN (but will answer PMs for any content questions)
Spoilers: up through COE
Words: 60,000 (4,300 this part)
Betas: eldarwannabe and fide_et_spe both performed major heavy lifting on this story, and have my deepest thanks for their efforts
Summary: A secret movement within the government successfully placed Lois Habiba as a spy inside Torchwood, and the trap is ready to be sprung. Meanwhile, Jack has received worrisome news, leading Gwen and Ianto from one danger into another. Loves, loyalties, and everyone's lives are on the line as the force behind the conspiracy finally comes to light.
A/N: Final fic in a fake third series where Lois, Johnson, and Rupesh have joined the team. Can be read as a stand-alone but will make more sense in context of the other stories.
Master Post
Chapter Eight
***
Chapter 9
***
The bracelet, Jack's mind told him sensibly. Lois had brought the ghost bracelet, a bit of alien jewellery which had caused them all to hallucinate loved ones until they'd found the source. She must have activated the clasp to distract the guards and if Jack merely ignored Ianto's faked voice, pushed through, he could take advantage when they began grasping with their own shadows.
The first soldier turned, and Gwen kicked him in the arm, dislodging his grip on his gun, which Lois grabbed and trained on him. Jack's hands reached behind him and grabbed the guard, flinging him over his head. When he thudded to the floor, John Hart of all people stepped on his throat, drew a gun of his own on the man, and grinned like the Devil himself.
The fight was finished in less than ten seconds.
Jack blinked. He turned slowly, allowing himself one good look, one more moment. There was no time left, not to say what mattered, so he stared, trying to remember every detail. "Lois, turn off the bracelet."
"I didn't bring it."
Ianto lowered the gun he carried. "Is everyone all right?" An answering groan came from the man under John's boot, but Gwen kicked him and he shut up.
Jack tried speaking, but for the first time ever, he couldn't. He blinked again. Ianto came over, placing a hand on his head as if checking for damage. "Jack, are you okay? Do you have a concussion?"
The hand felt real. His face, with a day's growth of beard, looked very real. Jack grabbed him by the collar and pulled their mouths together.
Definitely real.
"Hi," said Jack.
"Hi."
"You're not dead."
"No."
"John?"
"Yeah."
Jack spared a moment to look over his shoulder to John. "I owe you one."
"You owe me several."
Gwen cleared her throat. "As much as I want to do hugs all around, we have to deal with Gloucester first."
"Right," said Jack, taking Ianto's hand. "We have to get to the Hub, and we have to stop him from bringing the Master back. John, can you deal with these two?" Thinking for another moment, he added, "Don't kill them, just lock them up."
"Whatever."
"Come on." Jack led them back towards their destination, now armed with the rifles from the guards. If Lois had been correct, they wouldn't help much, but he felt better with a weapon. He kept hold of Ianto's hand.
Lois said, "Alice Carter and her son vanished from custody. Was that you?"
Ianto said, "We had to get them out of play before they were used against Jack. They're safe at the Glasgow site. Frank too."
"You did all that?"
"Oh. Well." Ianto looked at Jack. "You've been so busy with work lately. Your ex and I buried the hatchet, and took the children for a bit of a holiday in the country. I hoped you wouldn't mind." John rolled his eyes.
Ianto had nearly died, and his first thought had been to protect Jack's family.
Jack squeezed, almost hard enough to bruise, almost hard enough to break bone. He wanted to tell Ianto how much he loved him, but the words wouldn't come.
Ianto squeezed back. "I know."
"Good."
***
The labyrinthine corridors of the lower levels had confused her during the short time Martha had worked here. Some parts of the Archives had been carved into the bedrock, other areas were retro-industrial standard, and none of it came with signs. Many areas even lacked electric lights. She and Tish made one wrong turn, ending up in a level filled with junk that looked like spare parts for automobiles long sent to the scrapyard, old skeletons of dead cars.
They doubled back, Martha remembering the trick Ianto had taught her of counting the odds until the turn. They ended up at the firing range. "Do you know how to use one of these?" Martha asked, gathering pistols.
"I'm sure I can figure it out."
"In that case, no. I've had training. It's more than just point and squeeze." She settled on a Glock. The Hub was only a short flight of stairs from here. "You ought to stay down here. I'll come for you when we've settled this."
Tish shook her head. "This is my fight, too. Besides, Mum and Dad would skin me alive if I let you go after the Weasel alone." She smiled, but Martha wasn't fooled. She set down the Glock and took Tish's hand.
"It may be your fight, but it's not your job. You got caught up in everything because of me." And I got caught up because of him, she thought, and we only found the Master because of Jack. But Martha hated assigning blame because that cycle never ended.
An alarm went off. Tish jumped, and Martha grinned. "That's our cue. Mickey and Johnson are causing a commotion at the front door."
The stairs winded her as much as the long walk had. Tish followed at her heels, her own stiff anger propping her up despite her anxiety. Martha could picture Tom at her side now, knew for a fact he could lead a revolution, but Tish was the one with her, and that's what mattered.
They came up at the mouth of one corridor. Across the way, she saw Jack and Gwen. Then she blinked, trying to clear her eyes, but when she looked again, Ianto still stood there with them. Lois was nowhere to be seen. Jack noticed her absence at the same time Martha did, glancing behind himself and then quiet clearly mouthing a bad word. Perhaps she'd fled. Perhaps she'd turned on them yet again.
Tish held up her hand, attracting Gwen's attention. Gwen nodded to them.
The cog wheel door rolled open. Mickey and Johnson burst in. Jack tipped his head to Martha; they began walking forward at the same time. The three groups converged around the Rift manipulator with a remarkable cacophony of cocked weapons.
"That doesn't belong to you," Jack said.
The man who stood at the console wasn't familiar to Martha at all. She'd never seen him on any of the Master's broadcasts, never gone to a refugee camp in the midst of one of his inspections. Gloucester was very plain, perhaps five cm taller than she was, thinning brown hair going to a dull, mousy grey, a forgettable face. He didn't look like the casual torturer of millions that Tish had described to her over a bottle of cheap wine one night when neither could sleep.
When he turned his head to Jack, he could have been the man behind the counter at the grocer's, could have been someone sitting next to her on the train. But his eyes gave the game away. "I'm so glad you could join us, Captain. I believe the Master only managed to complete a quarter of the list of ways to die he had envisioned for testing on you."
Gloucester turned his attention to Martha and Tish. As those pale eyes touched her, Martha felt unclean. "And you've brought Doctor Jones to me. How kind. Where is Mrs. Saxon? On such an auspicious day, we should have everyone together."
"You won't find her," Martha said.
"Won't I? Do you honestly believe anywhere on this world will be safe from my Master's reach?" A faint, odd smile played on his face as his eyes went to her belly. "He told me once how deeply he regretted that he could not make his wife catch with a child. How happy he'll be when I give her back, and present him with the perfect infant to adopt and raise."
Johnson fired.
The bullet hit the forcefield and ricocheted off towards Jack's group. Everyone ducked.
"Put that away!" Tish said, and Mickey's hand dropped on the gun.
Gwen said, "It's a forcefield."
"We're taking it down," said Jack.
"That won't matter," said Gloucester with every evidence of delight. He pressed a sequence of keys on his console, a beatific expression on his face. The Rift manipulator began to hum loudly, the mechanism coming to life. "A brilliant woman," Gloucester mumbled. "Such a waste."
A small light appeared in front of the Rift manipulator, luminously blue and growing. Ianto was already at one of the workstations, opening up a speaker. Jack opened one of his own and yelled: "Perry! We need that shut down now!"
"I think I have it! Step back!"
The shimmer around Gloucester and the Rift manipulator glowed a bright amber and then faded. The blue light continued to glow, and the manipulator went faster.
The guns came up again. Gloucester fell to his knees, hands raised above his head, still smiling. Martha came up, holding her weapon steady on him. Jack flew to the controls. "He's locked them."
"Pull the power cables?" said Gwen, coming up beside him.
"It's hardwired into its backup source." He slammed his hand on the speaker on this station. "Perry?"
"I can't reach the other box."
Ianto's speaker crackled to life. Alice's voice said, "Go ahead."
"Alice, are you in the control room?"
"Yes."
"Lock onto the Hub's coordinates."
"With what?" Jack asked.
"Remember the giant laser Torchwood London used on the Sycorax? It's in storage at the Glasgow site. I powered it up and gave Alice the firing codes."
"You did what?"
"Alice," Ianto said into the speaker, "wait for our signal. We may need you."
"That was designed to hit objects outside of Earth."
Ianto didn't look at him. "We have satellites in orbit to bounce the beam anywhere we aim on the planet or off. It will obliterate everything at this location." Except Jack, he didn't need to say.
The light grew stronger. Martha watched Tish join Mickey and Johnson. "Give me your gun," Tish said, voice tight. "When he appears, I'll do it."
Gloucester said, "You think he will be so easy to kill this time? He will be a god." Martha fought the urge to smack him with the butt of her Glock.
She heard the clatter of short heels. Lois emerged from the tunnel mouth closest to the armoury, something in her arms. She stopped, glanced around, saw Gloucester in Martha's custody, and went straight to Jack, offering the parcel she carried.
He looked down as she handed it over. Her eyes were scared. His were tired.
"This is a bad idea," he said.
"Do you have another?"
"Right," he said, glancing at the far speaker where his daughter waited for orders to blow the entire facility sky-high. "When all else fails, use grenades. Everybody get behind something!" Martha jerked Gloucester to his feet. Gwen and Ianto grabbed each arm to drag him away behind a table.
Jack touched the near speaker one more time. "Perry, last chance. Any joy?"
"No. Sorry."
The blue light was nearly human-sized. Martha swore she heard a laugh from an impossible distance.
Jack pulled the pin, shoved the (probably alien) explosive into the guts of the Rift manipulator, and dodged behind a desk. Martha covered her head.
The echoing BANG blew the air from her ears, and sent shrapnel whizzing by. The second she felt able, she poked her head over the side of the table. Blue light still glowed and fizzled. She saw the others watching, worry on the faces of those who had no memories of that year, deep-seated horror on those who did.
Ianto's hand touched the far speaker's toggle.
The light winked out.
"I found another stooge and popped him in the cells," said a voice Martha didn't know, a lazy drawl attached to a man in a red jacket, who had come out of the passageway to the cells. "Oh, and I found this one waking up." He bumped a very sleepy Rupesh ahead of him with a vicious-looking little gun. "Says he knows you, I could shoot him now if you'd like."
He looked at the mess. "Did I miss something?"
***
The Rift manipulator's twisted and shattered form covered the floor, melted pieces cooling and settling with a soft 'plink.'
Gwen turned to Jack. "How bad is this?"
"No power-mad megalomaniac aliens regenerating and seizing control of the Earth." He was still shaking, Ianto could see, but now was not the time to sit Jack down with a shot of whisky and a listening ear. Not yet. "It's not good."
Martha asked, "Are we sure it's sealed?"
"Sealed enough. He's not coming back, not through here." He bent down to the heart of the machine. "Problem is, Cult Guy here has been revving everything up. We built this thing to help stabilise the worst of the Rift fluctuations, but he's been ramping the energy passing through here to build power. With the manipulator trashed," he picked up and discarded a bent piece of metal, "I can't say what is going to come through. Or fall in."
Alice said from her speaker, "What's going on?"
Ianto told her, "Crisis averted. Power down. We'll contact you later." Then he turned off the communicator. Alice had the laser, and the cache of more conventional weapons kept on the grounds. Ianto could go back to worrying about the problems here.
Perry joined them from his work in the lower level, but came up short as he saw the destruction. His eyes went wide. "Oh my God."
Ianto turned to Hart, pointed to Gloucester, and said, "Keep an eye on him." He went to the nearest station. The monitor programmes had backups off-site, and detectors all around the city. He called up what information he could.
"Jack?"
Jack and Gwen approached, Martha behind them. Already the detectors were picking up waves radiating out from their location, like small pebbles thrown into a still pond. Even as they watched, the waves grew. The unseen hand would be splashing in rocks next, and then boulders.
"He'll tear this city to the ground," said Gloucester, glee in his voice. "His boot tread will shake the world."
"He's not coming," said Jack. But the last time they'd messed with the Rift manipulator, something else had crawled out of the ground, something huge and dark and hungry, and hundreds of people had died.
Picking up on the thread of thought, Gwen said, "Abaddon's dead. You said Saxon's not able to regenerate now. What's coming?"
"I don't want to know. We have to calm the Rift down." Jack's face went pale in the light from the monitor, as the first shockwaves rattled the Hub.
If it was bad here, it'd be worse up top. Ianto stood. "I'll contact the Assembly to put out the emergency alert.
Gwen said, "I'll call the police to let them know what's happening. We can coordinate."
"Wait." Jack's voice trembled. He took another look at the broken machine. "Gwen, I need you to close the Rift."
"The manipulator's broken. Do you have a backup?"
"Yeah. I do." He took her hand, weirdly intimate in the shaking room. A sigh escaped him, like the surrendering of a long-held moment. "Do you know why I stayed in Cardiff all this time?"
Gwen said, "You were waiting for the Doctor. You said he refuels here."
"He does." Jack took another long look at the mess. "And when he did, we ended up shot into the future, and the Master came back because of it, so this is all my fault, and I can't even start saying I'm sorry."
"It wasn't just you," Martha said.
"The Doctor comes here because of what the Rift is, what it does. The Cardiff Rift is special."
Hart made a choking noise. "Hold on. Rift. Cardiff. This is that Cardiff?"
Jack scowled. "How could you not have noticed? You came in through the Rift."
"Please, three hundred cities are named Cardiff, with little space-time irregularities. What's another backwater?"
"Yeah, the others are all named after this one. You never paid attention in class."
"'That Cardiff'?" Gwen said, interrupting their bickering as another tremor shook the base.
He turned her hand so he was holding it between both of his. "Cardiff is well-known, because of the Rift, and ... " He took another breath, made a little laugh. "I'm really not supposed to tell you. This is one of the points where human evolution gets a boost. The radiation from the Rift affects the people who live here. The Rift has been here for ages, extending from the past into the future. It changes people, especially those who work directly with it.
"When I recruited you, it wasn't just because you were nice. I wanted you where I could watch you. You survived an encounter with a cold-blooded serial killer who couldn't make herself shoot you. You walked past a Weevil who killed a man in front of you, but who never attacked you. I can name half a dozen times you ought to have died, Gwen Cooper. The laws of probability don't apply to you, and never have. You've been using the Rift's power, without meaning to, for years."
She broke away from his hold. "That's ridiculous."
"It's not. You always get what you want. Things conspire to give you what you ask for, to keep you alive. Think back!"
Martha was drawing away now, looking between them. Ianto couldn't move.
"I was never going to tell you. The big change doesn't happen for another fifty years. But you've got so much potential. I've been trying to shape it. You need to use your gift now."
Tears formed in her eyes. A hundred off-hand comments, that Gwen was special somehow. Hearing Jack finally say it out loud, she knew.
He guided her into a chair. "Think about the Rift. Think about calm things, like blue skies, the birds over the Bay, the smell of baking bread." His voice went low. "Tell the Rift you want it to sleep."
Her eyes closed, then snapped open again. "I can't. Jack, I can't control the Rift."
"You can. Remember the witches? Estelle's friends." If Gwen didn't, Ianto did. Jack had waxed poetic once about the power and potential of some of the old Cardiff witches. "I told you it wasn't magic. It's a science you people haven't figured out yet." Jack said without turning, "Perry, get me the leads."
Perry looked up. He hadn't been watching them at all, his gaze focused on the mess. "What?"
"The leads to the Rift manipulator. We can do this. I've seen it done."
Hart said, "So have I. Do it wrong and you know it'll fry her brain." He smiled flatly.
Gwen pushed her way out of the chair. "I'm not a Rift manipulator. This isn't going to work."
"There was that kid you found," said Johnson. "That little girl. The Rift doesn't spit out people still healthy."
"Sometimes it does," said Gwen, her eyes getting bigger as Perry brought over the wires. They dragged like snakes behind him. The shaking became constant. "This is mad."
"It's not mad," Jack said, rigging something Ianto couldn't see. "It's the next step in human evolution. It happens here."
"You two are evolved humans," Rupesh said.
"Not like this," said Hart. "We kept evolving." He turned his head. "It's a good racket you set up here. Find one of the brain cases, bind her to you with loyalty, make her work for you. Wish I'd thought of it."
Gwen looked to Ianto for support, but he had none for her. This was the end of a day that had started yesterday morning and had taken over a century. Right now, he'd believe Jack if Jack said Gwen was a hamster. He shook his head and began checking on the structural soundness of the Hub. Jack could convince Gwen her brain was hyper-evolved, and Ianto could worry if the ceiling would collapse on them.
"It's going to be fine," Jack said, coaxing her back to the chair. "You can do this. You have more potential than anyone I've ever met." Delicately, as if she was his own child, he affixed the two leads to her hands. "Martha, can you please keep an eye on her?"
"Yeah." She knelt down beside Gwen.
"I don't think this will work," said Gwen to Martha.
"I once saw a giant head in a jar power an entire city. It might work."
Jack and Perry were at the ruins of the manipulator, rewiring the system in a manner Ianto didn't recognise. Jack spoke quietly, pointing, and looking every so often to Hart for a confirmation. Perry nodded in the absent fashion he had when his brain raced. Whatever Jack was describing, he understood, and his fingers flew over the broken machine. The resonator was shot, every capacitor had blown, but from his perch on the catwalk, Ianto could see the harmonic modulator was only charred, not destroyed. It was to this the other ends of the leads were being affixed as Gwen shut her eyes and breathed deeply.
No-one had suggested getting Rhys, and Ianto was miserably certain why. He'd put a stop to this, prioritising her safety. She could die. Hart seemed sure she would.
The Hub rocked with a sudden lurch. Ianto grabbed onto the scaffolding, which broke as he held it.
"It's getting worse," Gloucester said, and Hart cuffed him with his arm. But he started playing with his own VM, and could flee at a moment's notice.
A little scream broke in Gwen's throat. "I can't. I can see how it works, God, but I can't move it!"
"Try harder!" The steel-hard words didn't sound like Jack, they were cold and frightening. But the city itself needed Gwen now.
"It's not me. I can't do this."
"It is you," said Jack, striding back to her. "It's in your veins. Remember? You said your family had a history of ESP. That's how I know the bloodlines to watch. They have the Second Sight. People used to call it the Devil working in them."
Johnson said, "Now they call it schizophrenia."
Jack said, "Gwen, you can do this. I've always known you were special. The few who have the potential, I can spot them a mile away. They defy the laws of probability, they get what they need when they need it most." He smiled distantly, remembering a conversation on the TARDIS as he said, "They come from old Cardiff families."
Lois hadn't said anything since the explosion, too drawn inside herself. But now her head came up from where she'd rested it on her knees, and she fixed Ianto with a long stare.
"How old?"
Jack followed her eyes, and turned away. "No."
But Ianto remembered. Mam and her voices. The screams surrounding him yet somehow he'd come away from the carnage of his friends and colleagues with barely a scratch. Desperate to attract Jack's attention, and a living, breathing dinosaur came through the Rift right where and when he could use it.
"Jack?"
"No," Jack said, more loudly this time, and he turned his attention back to Gwen. Her eyes were closed, and she was shaking in counterpoint to the rest of the room. "Gwen, I need you to focus."
Jack did thorough background checks, or tried. He knew what to look for, how many times someone could walk out alive from events that had killed too many others. Jack had denied Gwen access to Torchwood Three until she stood her ground against Suzie, had denied Ianto until the Rift spat out something he couldn't ignore. He knew. Just like with Gwen, he'd always known. Bind them to you, Hart said, and Jack had, had bound them both with loyalty and more. Two experiments ran side-by-side: one control, encouraged to keep growing naturally in her own habitat as much as she could to reach her full potential, and one intentionally broken into pieces and rebuilt to mirror Jack's desires. Unconscious aspirations and idle wishes drove the force beneath their feet, and all Jack had to do was aim the paired set of weapons at his whim.
"Bastard."
He walked down the stairway. Why wouldn't he? Ianto was as incapable of walking away from Jack's needs as he was of changing the colour of his own eyes, and Gwen was the same. Jack had bound her to himself by the simple trick of pushing her away, making her think it was her idea to flutter closer each time. He'd bound Ianto with every trick he could muster. Jack had pushed him in subtler ways, telling Ianto he'd be safer, better off, happier, and every time he did, Ianto had lashed himself tighter to him in defiance.
"Go check on the cells," said Jack. "See if Janet's okay." Ianto approached the chair. Jack shoved him. "Get the hell out of here."
Hart said it would fry her brain. Ianto could see the tears brimming the edges of Gwen's eyes again. He knelt in front of her chair, placing his hands over where the leads touched her skin.
It burned, she was burning and he was burning, and he couldn't see anything, then Gwen was there with him, and she was pushing against a giant boulder. The boulder about to land in the pond, he thought, and she agreed. Here he could see her as she was, a bright and powerful flame, and he'd never known. She pushed and she nearly could, someday she would, but she couldn't move it away to safety herself. He was merely a spark and couldn't move it either, but had they shoulders they could press them against the rock that wasn't there. This was what they wanted more than anything, wanted to stop the earthquakes, stop the Rift. Fire burned through every limb. Gwen shrieked inside his head as they pushed together and begged the Rift for silence.
Blue skies and baking bread and the cries of birds over the Bay, and all the good things they'd ever wanted. Cool water to douse the flames, and an end to the giant splash.
The rock rolled away.
***
Chapter Ten