Burning Cosmos {A Torchwood Story Three} [COMPLETED]

1. That Little Bastard

The team and I sit huddled around a small bonfire we've made ourselves out of scraps of anything we could find lying around. Owen and I huddle together, too distracted by current events to figure out what the hell we are; Toshiko pokes the fire, sighing over another piece of technology lost in undercover transit; Gwen pulls a threadbare blanket tighter around her bony shoulders, thinking of Rhys back in Cardiff, letting kids hide in their flat til the search is over.

Ianto isn't here. He died quite early on into the year.

It's been just over 365 days since the end of the world began. I remember it like it was yesterday: the five of us had just arrived in India, me still frantically trying to find out where Jack is; as I'm the Time Lord of the group, everyone unanimously put me in charge, and we began to search for these 'aliens' an unknown person from 'Torchwood India' had called us about.

Yeah, it's kinda safe to say now that there was no Torchwood India.

We were eating ham egg and chips at a small cafe when someone turned on the telly for the new Prime Minister's address. I remember not caring about the new leader of our government, too wrapped up in the ebbing pain of the Rift and the fury over our leader's whereabouts. Why should I bother learning about a white guy to boot?
I looked up to the small box television placed high above in the white-walled corner, and I gasped. Because I recognised that voice. That laugh. It had been plaguing me for months, how could I not?

Harold Saxon had just killed the President of the United States. And he's a Time Lord.
And basically since then it's been the apocalypse.

Ianto was the first to go, as we couldn't hide in time for those things that the Master calls the Toclafane to not decimate him. His blood appears on my hands sometimes, no matter how many times I wash them in the dank river near our hiding spot. I was the only one who didn't cry for him - I've had to be strong, keep everyone together, not lose my head. I'm the Captain now.

And now we're waiting, huddled over the remains of a campfire, waiting for that special time when the world-famous traveller Martha Jones told us to say the magic word.
Of course, that word was Doctor.

She told us that she was the Doctor's companion, that she had travelled with him before he was captured by the Master... along with Jack.

Fucking Jack. Martha said he had clung onto the TARDIS as it hurtled through the Time Vortex - so that explains my vision from when he disappeared - and they ended up in the same timeline as the Master while he was hiding, dormant, inside an insignificant stopwatch like I did. I didn't bother to tell Martha about me being another Time Lord; right now they're not doing so hot, as the only two I know of are either decaying or dictating. No, if the Doctor wants to find me, he will. I'm certain of it.

And then the clock strikes and everyone stands up and looks to the sky and it's time. We all link hands, the team, and repeat the name over and over, Doctor, until our chant is linked with others all round Earth. The word forms an invisible breath we hold delicately, an energy which binds us together and makes us stronger.
I can feel the word rising up, up, up to the home in the sky where the Master lies, along with his captives. Somewhere there is my Jack, and somewhere there is my Doctor.

I open my eyes and jump up and down in joy. We did it, I can feel the Doctor returning to himself! Ensconced in a blue whirlwind, his bones grow and his skin tightens, until he hovers above us all like a god.
Owen is the second to open his eyes, squinting them at me in a smile - before everything starts to shake.

Screams of fear echo throughout the yards of the random Welsh field we managed to escape to, and all of us look to one another in panic. The Doctor is rejuvenated, the Paradox Machine I know of is being destroyed, so...
My eyes widen in realization. I drop myself onto the dry grass and shout at everyone to do the same.
"Just hold onto the earth! Do as I say, now!"

Everyone falls down and our small fire blows out as the entire world is shaken side to side, spun back around until we have been faded back into the cafe from a year ago, fully rebuilt and in its original form, the TV still playing the seconds after the President's death.
Time travel. The Paradox Machine put everything back together.

My eyes won't stop crossing, my brain still spinning. I look out of the window. No 'Toclafane,' or as I know them from slicing one in half in thin air, humans from the future encased in hard metal. Only gasps of shock and a cut screen, blue static running up and down with an insistent droning hum.
I breathe a sigh of relief. We're safe.

Ianto looks at me with startled eyes, and I'm so happy to see him again that I almost leap over the table and clutch him in my arms. "Did you just see that?" he asks me, panicked, pointing at the telly. The Prime Minister just shot the President!"
"No, he ordered those Toclafane things to kill him," Tosh corrects in shock, her clothes now comfortingly in one piece and snug on her body. Oh, how I've missed not seeing her covered in blood and dirt!
Owen and Gwen don't say anything, just sit staring at the box up above. Wait. Does nobody else remember this last year?

I look around and, sure enough, everyone is talking about the news from just now, not anything about the statues, the nuclear warheads - nothing. We time travelled and mind wiped at the same time. Apart from me, apparently. Once again, being a Time Lord has its downfalls.

Nevertheless, I try to remind them, hoping I'm not alone: "Am I the only one of us who remembers almost dying in Germany?"
Everyone turns theirs heads and stares at me with blank faces, and I add, "Anybody even remember last week?"
"Yeah," Tosh pipes up uncertainly, looking at me as if I'd gone mad, "Jack left and we got a call asking us to go to the mountains. Don't you remember?"

Damn it.

~∆~

We grab a flight from India to Bristol airport, then get the train to Cardiff. None of us are used to public transport after going everywhere in the SUV, so we grumble for hours and tell stories to each other to pass the time. It's really hard not to tell them anything about this past year, especially sitting next to Ianto. I can't stop eyeing him from my peripheral, double- and triple-checking he's still here. A whole year since I've seen his polite smile or heard his comforting Welsh brogue, yet whenever he catches me staring he raises his eyebrow in concern.

When we eventually get into Cardiff, I send everyone home because there isn't anything to do - if last year's events were erased everywhere, everything is back to normal, and we have no work. And I'm completely fine with that.
"Ugh, I'm gonna die if I don't get a coffee soon," I moan to Owen as we walk through the bay. He looks to me, eyebrows drawn low.
"You had one only a few hours ago. Jesus, Evy, you're an addict!"
He laughs and I have to laugh with him, unless it'll look like I'm crazy. This is really difficult to do.

Ooh. Wait. I pat my pockets and come up empty. "I think I left my keys in the Hub; you go ahead and I'll catch up with you."
He shrugs and nods and continues walking past the Millennium Centre, whilst I head back to work. It really is a nice day: the sun is shining, the wind is comfortingly harsh, nobody is dead.

And then I see him.

Jogging away from two people I can't distinguish towards the tower, his coat flapping in the bitter British breeze. Smiling his goddamn stupid grin.
I stop dead, and feel a rush of immense anger. And no freakin wonder why! Everyone else here may have forgotten about this past year, but I haven't. And I'll bet my coat Captain Jack Harkness hasn't either.

The man's got a lot of explaining to do.