Sparkling Cosmos {A Torchwood Story Two} [COMPLETED]

3. Oh Boy

How do you know if it's broken if you've never opened it?

Lying in bed next to Owen, who is unfairly asleep and has his hands round my waist like usual, I twist my pocketwatch in my hands.
I've never properly noticed it until a few days ago; it's just this thing that I've always had, and has always been broken.

How do you know it's broken if you've never opened it?

Looking at it closely, it's such a dainty thing. Cast in bronze, it has a kind of shine to it despite it being so old - it's got all these curving lines across one face, all circles and crosses. It's remarkable, to say the least. I've never seen another pocketwatch like it.
I wonder what it's like inside?

Suddenly the anticipation is burning me up. Literally - I feel like I did when that woman spontaneously combusted while I was in the neighbourhood and had to answer the call.
Why am I getting so worked up about a pocketwatch? It's nothing special inside, surely - just a small clock face that stopped working since before I can remember.

Just open it... open it...

So I open it - and my world is filled with light.

Blinding golden light, pouring straight into my face and being absorbed. It feels like the energy is rewiring my entire being in the most unimaginable pain ever, even worse than in the ring.
I faintly hear Owen falling out of bed and gasping, but his calls to me are overpowered by the energy lifting me into the air and wrapping round me, spilling into and out of me, until all I can feel and know is this new life.

Or, shall I say... my old life.

Everything clicks into place, and suddenly everything in my life and the world makes sense. I know who the Doctor is, I've met the Cybermen and Daleks before, and I remember more of my past than I ever have.

The energy all puddled in me, I drop heavily back onto the bed, although I barely feel it. I hear my phone ring, and before Owen snatches it up I flip it open and put it to my ear.

"I've recruited Ianto Jones," Jack says on the other end.

All I can say in reply is: "I am a Time Lord."